Second Statement to the Union County Board

Posted on by under activism

Second Statement to the Union County Board of Commissioners
Administration Building
Elizabethtown Plaza
Elizabeth, New Jersey
July 24, 2025

The last time I was here, I said that the Board had handed the jail off to ICE. That may have sounded misleading or uninformed. Resolutions 290 and 291 aren’t an unrestricted auction to the highest bidder, you might say. They’re a solicitation of interest in a sale relative to a set of constraints. The constraints restrict the potential bidders so as to exclude immigration detention. What more could you ask? Continue reading →

The Final Solution Is Here

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

I am, as I write this, sitting in a quiet air-conditioned room in a comfortable, modern library. The window to my right looks out on a bright, sunlit plaza. The plaza hosts a series of high end restaurants, each of which is set up for outdoor dining, with umbrellas to ward off the sun and heaters to keep out the chill. There are maybe a couple of dozen people out there enjoying the warmth of the evening. In observing this scene, a non sequitur of a thought occurs to me. Five thousand seven hundred miles away, a genocide is taking place. People are being starved, shot, and bombed to death with obscene abandon. The contrast is so stark as to be surreal. And yet it’s real. Continue reading →

Ozzy, RIP

Posted on by under Art/Literature, Memorials and Obituaries

I just read that Ozzy Osbourne died at the age of 76. It seems a little absurd to go on about the death of an aged metal singer at a time like this, but almost any man’s death diminishes me, Ozzy’s included. So forgive me.

Ozzy was a mediocre singer, and the less said about his public persona, the better. But he was blessed to work with some great musicians, and together they wrote some immortal songs. Black Sabbath deserves a place in heaven for “War Pigs” all by itself, but “I Don’t Know,” “Over the Mountain,” “Flying High Again,” and “I Don’t Wanna Stop,” all make worthy contributions to the aesthetic education of man, and are all candidates for the musical equivalent of eternal life. Continue reading →

Loyalty and Academic Freedom

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

The case of Jonathan A. C. Brown
A friend is circulating an Open Letter to Interim President Robert Groves of Georgetown University in defense of Professor Jonathan A.C. Brown, the Alwaleed bin Talal chair of Islamic Civilisation in the School of Foreign Service. Apparently, during the recent US-Israel-Iran war, Brown made this comment on X:

“I’m not an expert, but I assume Iran could still get a bomb easily. I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops,” Brown wrote on X.

Brown has tenure and a chaired professorship at Georgetown, but apparently the comment was regarded as frightening enough to call for his suspension. The President forced Brown to delete the tweet, and he’s now been suspended. He’s also been removed as chair of his department, which I believe was intended as punishment. Continue reading →

Stirring the POT (3)

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

Genocide and the Academic Chairs of Virtue

I had meant “Stirring the POT” to be a monthly series, but my last one was back in March and it’s now July, so I guess the “monthly” promise was destined to be broken.

I wrote my last installment just after the talk I gave on institutional neutrality at APPE, and a couple of months before the one I was then scheduled to give at the Heterodox Academy conference in June. The Heterodox Academy talk ended up being significantly different from the APPE version or the version I put on the blog back in March. At any rate, the third version was the charm. The talk was well attended and went very well. There were a few skeptical or critical questions during the Q&A which I expected, but there was also some significant agreement, which came as a surprise. I’ll save all the squabbling for a separate post. Continue reading →

Capitalism Is Working

Posted on by under slices of life

My Uber driver this morning was a 78-year-old Baptist preacher. We spent the ride comparing near-death car wreck experiences, led there by a conversation about Smokey Robinson.

My story involved a flood, his a fire. Mine took place after a day of revenue cycle management, his after a bout of drinking. My wreck put me in a hotel for the night, his in the hospital. My wreck ultimately led to a life on mass transit, his to a life with Jesus Christ.

Continue reading →

Death to the IDF

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Fatwas, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

On this day, 249 years ago, Americans declared war on Britain, or at least on the British Army. To declare war on an army is to wish death upon it, and to act on that wish.

About a week ago, punk rocker Bob Vylan led a chant at Glastonbury Festival in Britain, wishing death on the Israeli military: “Death to the IDF.” I agree with him. The IDF should be defeated, destroyed, and if necessary, annihilated. It’s an army of aggression, conquest, occupation, torture, and genocide. It has no right to exist, and no right of self-defense. If any organization on the planet deserves death, it’s the IDF. Continue reading →

Activism, Trespass, Violence

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

A little over a month ago, I wrote a post here called “Against Trespass,” intended mostly for campus activists for Palestine. It’s tempting, I argued, to want to engage in forms of direct action that involve trespass, and morally speaking–abstracting entirely from considerations of cost or consequence–it can be justified to do so. But once we re-introduce matters of cost and consequence into the equation, as we have to, trespass strikes me now as mostly pointless and self-defeating. For one thing, more often than not, it puts the activists who engage in it out of commission. For another, it doesn’t effectively do what most needs doing: generate widespread public support for Palestine. So on the whole, it can’t accomplish the good that activists want or need. It’s more likely to subvert it.  Continue reading →

Fundraiser for Detained Activist

Posted on by under activism, General announcements

(I’m happy to report that in less than a week, we’ve collected more than $10K, exceeding our initial goal.)

A migrant defense group I work with, Resistencia en Acción, is organizing a fundraiser via GoFundMe for one of our members who’s been detained by ICE.

We write to you with heavy hearts and a deep sense of urgency.

One of the worker leaders of the Day Laborer Committee in Princeton at Resistencia en Accion NJ has been detained by ICE and is currently being transferred to an immigration detention center here in New Jersey. He has been organizing alongside fellow day laborers at his corner and leading with courage, and showing up for our community in every moment of need.

Please consider making a donation. There’s more information at the GoFundMe link above. Continue reading →