The Carlson-Huckabee Interview (1)

Posted on by under Palestine

There are many things to be said about Tucker Carlson’s remarkable interview with Mike Huckabee, too many to say all at once. So I’m going to take my time to say them, and say them in bite-sized portions.

There’s a distinction in ancient Greek philosophy that’s useful here, between virtue and skill. A virtue is a specifically moral disposition to thought and action, like honesty or justice. A skill is a pragmatically useful but morally neutral sort of know-how, like knowing how to play the guitar or ride a bike or swim. The possession of a skill is not the possession of virtue, and virtues in turn aren’t reducible to the possession of a skill or sets of skills. They’re just categorially different things. That said, both virtues and skills are objects of praise, just not the same kind of praise. They’re both achievements, just achievements of different kinds. Continue reading →

Iran and the Perpetuity of Empire

Posted on by under Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement

The Intercept reports that Trump is menacing Iran with a massive armada capable of prolonged war. The Times of Israel is talking about a “countdown” to war. The Washington Post reports that satellite imagery shows a rapid increase of US military planes near Iran. Responsible Statecraft’s lead story concerns the inadequacy of airpower to achieve Trump’s stated goals in Iran: ground troops would be required. The Guardian’s top five stories concern the imminence of a US attack on Iran, same with Reuters. The Financial Times has a top story on the imminent Iran war as a crisis of Trump’s own making. Continue reading →

When Self-Defense Is “Terror”

Posted on by under Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement

A recent article in The New York Times by its so-called “national security correspondent” is an indication of how incompetent mainstream journalists are, and how unreflectively eager they are to do the bidding of the national security establishment they supposedly cover. The article is “Iran Could Direct Proxies to Attack U.S. Targets Abroad, Officials Warn,” by Eric Schmitt. Nothing in it is newsworthy or news. All of the work in it is done by its brainless and tendentious reliance on the term “terrorism.” Continue reading →

Jesse Jackson, RIP

Posted on by under activism, Memorials and Obituaries

I missed the opportunity to say something about the passing of Jesse Jackson, who died last week at the age of 84. Jackson was a childhood hero of mine, and my point of entry into politics. I was fifteen when he gave his famous speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, was electrified by it, and went on to become a card-carrying member of the Rainbow Coalition. Continue reading →

War Is Peace

Posted on by under Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement

We’re reportedly about to go to war with Iran. I just checked a minute ago: The lead story at The New York Times is the Supreme Court’s tariff decision; likewise The Washington Post and MS NOW. At CNN, the lead story is Trump’s trade war. At Fox, it’s a toss up between the trade war and a debit card scandal in California. And so on. Literally business as usual. The pattern is clear enough: as we prepare for war, the thing to do is to turn inward and turn away from it in a spirit of make-believe. Tariffs matter more than war. Trump matters more than war. Debit cards matter more than war. At this point, anything matters more than war. War is imminent, hence unreal. 

War, in short, has become normalized in the familiar imperial way, by equating peace with perpetual warfare confined to the periphery of empire, and to the peripheries of consciousness. It’s out there, hence not here, hence nowhere.  Continue reading →

From Diversity to Neutrality: Rebutting the “Key Move”

Posted on by under activism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

This is the précis of a paper I’ll be giving at the virtual/online component of the 2026 conference of the Association of Practical and Professional Ethics. The conference takes place April 10; the paper is called, “From Diversity to Neutrality: Rebutting the ‘Key Move’ of the Kalven Committee Report.” Last year I gave a different paper at the on-ground version of the conference, discussing institutional neutrality’s failure to deal with complicity in injustice. 

Institutional neutrality is the doctrine that institutions like universities should refrain from taking public positions on matters of public controversy. The locus classicus of the doctrine is the so-called Kalven Committee Report (KCR) issued at the University of Chicago in 1967. According to the KCR, the core mission of the ideal university is the “discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge” in the service of teaching and research. This mission, we’re told, requires the maximization of intellectual diversity, which in turn requires or entails institutional neutrality. I call this “the key move” of the KCR’s argument. Continue reading →

Have a Jihadi Ramadan

Posted on by under Fatwas

Today is the first fast of Ramadan, so I thought I’d dig up this perverse piece I wrote on Ramadan three years ago and put it back into circulation (opens in a new window). I have yet to post any of the Ramadan material I promised in that post three years ago, but as Scripture says, “the patient will be given their reward without measure” (Qur’an 39:10). As is typical of God’s promises, the expected pay-off here ranges between infinity and 0, which is about what you can expect of my promises as well. Continue reading →

Jim Crow for the 21st Century

Posted on by under activism

The Politics of Affordable Housing in New Jersey

As you read the feel-good love-fest linked to this post (whose warm fuzzies I don’t begrudge anyone, least of all myself), bear in mind that over the last few weeks, twenty people have died of exposure in New York City, and twenty in New Jersey. Though it’s difficult to count, there are by some estimates 13,748 people experiencing homelessness in New Jersey right now, an increase of some 57% since 2022. The homeless have become a recognizable presence not just in larger cities, like New Brunswick, where they’re mostly taken for granted, but in affluent towns like Princeton, where many ride mass transit all day to keep out of the cold. 

Continue reading →

Light in Dark Times

Posted on by under activism

A Conversation about Homelessness

Hi Kayleigh,

For years now, I’ve been writing you these complaining emails about NJ Transit’s closing the shelters at both Princeton and Princeton Junction train stations, mostly to lock out the homeless. I happened to be in the Princeton shelter the other day, chatting with a homeless person who was taking shelter in it from the cold. We got to talking about the train shelters themselves, and it became evident through what she said that during operating hours at least, she relies on the shelters for shelter. I mentioned to her my passing impression that the shelters were more consistently open nowadays than they had been in the past, not just on a daily basis, but on an hourly one–meaning that they’re not just open every day, but open early and close late. She agreed, and pointed out with some satisfaction that the one at Princeton Junction is now heated.  Continue reading →

ICE Out of West Orange

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Linked to this post is the text of a letter I sent to the West Orange Town Council on February 12th. Aside from the letter’s face-value message, it illustrates two things: (1) how out of touch the Council is on relevant developments in the state legislature; (2) how ill-conceived is its belief that immigration enforcement is outside of the scope of municipal politics or Council jurisdiction. 

Even as West Orange residents have been abducted by ICE off the streets of West Orange and other nearby localities,* much of its Council seems hypnotized by Trumpian propaganda: it can’t act to protect residents, it tells us, because it owes a duty of unquestioning allegiance to the federal government; apparently, if the feds want something, the Township’s only duty is to close its eyes, gag its attorney, and hand over what’s demanded. Continue reading →