Every system of mass transportation I use—trains, buses, airlines—gives a discount to active service military personnel. Some go beyond this, giving them special lounges and priority in boarding. Isn’t this a form of complicity, however ostensibly minor, in the wars they fight? And hasn’t the time come to put an end to it?
Continue readingCategory Archives: activism
Question Time for Nassau Hall
Question submitted for the September 28, 2026 meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community:
On November 11, 2024, I asked this body whether, given evidence of the University’s complicity in grave wrongdoing via its investments, it would in principle disclose the nature of those investments. I was told both orally and in print that it would not. The University now has a campaign in which it asks alumni like me to “Stand Up” for Princeton. This strikes me as an illegitimate request. It’s one thing to make a request for support in a context of reciprocity: you disclose; we decide. What Princeton is asking is that we stand up for it while it conceals what it stands for. How can that be justified? Indeed, how can it be differentiated from an outright scam?
The CPUC meets Monday, September 28 at 4:30 pm in the All Purpose Room of Frist Hall at Princeton University.
(I unfortunately missed this meeting again, stuck at work, and will have to ask the question at the CPUC’s next meeting on November 9th.)
Nassau Hall during Gaza Solidarity Encampment, April 29, 2024
Justin Goldsman Has Got to Go
How is that after Justin Goldsman was fired by Gary Schaer in 2025 precisely over the comments to which I’ve recently drawn attention, West Orange is now in the position of wondering whether he should be elected to Town Council? What exactly is there to wonder about?
I don’t think of Gary Schaer as someone who has sky-high principles on this issue. How can it be that Gary Schaer saw fit to fire Goldsman, but the electorate has re-opened the issue and furrowed its collective brow over the same painfully-litigated issues? I guess Justin Goldsman wasn’t good enough to stay on Schaer’s staff, but is good enough for consideration for West Orange Council. In some ways, that fits. At some level, the Council deserves him. The problem is, we don’t.
Continue readingTime to Cancel Justin Goldsman
And Some Advice for the West Orange Election
My friend Matt Dragon has an excellent, timely piece on his blog about Justin Goldsman, a candidate for Town Council in West Orange and Favorite Son in local West Orange politics. Wherever Justin goes, adulation follows: he walks into every Council meeting to broad smiles and big hugs and “great to see you’s,” everybody’s little hometown hero. The scandal here is an open secret in West Orange, something that almost everyone, and surely everyone within the Council, knows. Justin has a decades-long history of plain, open, unapologetic social media bigotry, from the n-word to casual Islamophobia, to “I am going to kill this girl or castrate myself, whichever gets her off my dick sooner.” But work through it yourself via the bolded link above, if you have the patience. It’s an eye-opener, even if it’s all par for the course in West Orange.
They Have Some Planes
“We have some planes…”
–Muhammad Atta, 9/11 hijacker
The great horror of 9/11 was supposed to be that Al Qaeda hijacked a bunch of American planes and used the civilians on them as mere cannon fodder for their military ends. The great redemption was supposed to be United Flight 93, which flew out of Newark, bound for San Francisco, but crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers stormed the cockpit and brought it down.
The horror hasn’t really ended. It’s just been concealed. United Flight 90 is the standard United flight to Tel Aviv out of Newark that I’ve taken for a decade, starting from the same place as Flight 93, but flying in the reverse direction. It turns out that everyone on it is, and has for some time been, a human shield for Israel. Our lives–and the honest truth–mean so little to our ruling class that they’ll sacrifice both to Israel without a thought.
Continue readingEvent: “On Direct Action”
I’ll be moderating this event, which takes place Saturday, September 19, 1-3 pm in Princeton. It’s a conversation with four of the ten activists who helped shut down Port Elizabeth, New Jersey this past May 22 to stop the shipment through the port of weapons to Israel.
Scan the QR code on the flyer to register. Confirmed attendees will receive the location of the venue, which by request of the venue is only to be divulged to confirmed attendees. You can also use this link.
Livin’ La Vida Loca
A lachrymose plea for sympathy from a popular MAGA influencer who’s sometimes quoted at me online. He recently moved to Shelby County, Tennessee from Alabama.
West Orange: ICE-Free at Last
As I’ve mentioned here a few times, I split my time between Princeton and West Orange, New Jersey. So I pay attention to local politics in both places, and engage in activism in both.
Since the fall of 2025, I’ve written seven or eight posts here describing the effort to persuade West Orange’s municipal government to take a stand in favor of migrant rights and against ICE. In 2025, the effort focused on getting West Orange Council to pass a resolution in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act. In 2026, it’s focused on getting the Council to pass what’s commonly called ICE-Free legislation.
Continue readingHome Is Where the Bombs Are
For decades now, we’ve been force-fed the dogma that American higher-education is the epitome of “woke”–a fully-owned subsidiary of “the Left.” I spent three years working for the National Association of Scholars, an outfit dedicated to manufacturing and marketing propaganda of this kind. I spent twenty-six years in higher education, teaching at a dozen institutions on two continents. I happen to live in a college town, Princeton, have lived here for fifteen years, am walking distance from Princeton University, and spend time on campus just about every day. I happen to work near another college town, New Brunswick, home to Rutgers University, and spend time on campus there about once a week. And I have friends and colleagues in higher education across the United States and Canada. So I’m no stranger to higher education or to controversies about it.
Continue readingThe Neo-Nazis and the Permit Raj
Princeton Patch has now confirmed that a white supremacist rally did in fact take place in Princeton this past Saturday afternoon, August 29th. Don’t miss the neo-Nazi video embedded in the article, “Youth in Revolt.” Apparently, the spirit of Leni Riefenstahl never quite died.
Unfortunately, the rally is (like so many things) increasingly being seen as a law enforcement matter, and the police, fixated by definition on matters of law enforcement, are now pursuing the thought that the people participating in the rally lacked a permit to march down the street or through Monument Park, and should have had one. Law enforcement’s idea of a solution to the rise of neo-Nazism in Princeton is to set up a Permit Raj: demand that activists get permits to exercise the privilege of assembling, marching, chanting, or holding signs. And make sure to demote those activities to the status of privileges in the process.
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