But if the people who “own” the state in question are an ethnic sub-group of the citizenry, even if the vast majority, it constitutes a serious problem indeed, and this is precisely the situation of Israel as the Jewish state. Far from being a natural expression of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, it is in fact a violation of the right to self-determination of its non-Jewish mainly Palestinian citizens. It is a violation of a people’s right to self-determination to exclude them — whether by virtue of their ethnic membership, or for any other reason — from full political participation in the state under whose sovereignty they fall. Of course Jews have a right to self-determination in this sense as well — this is what emancipation was all about. But so do non-Jewish peoples living in the same state.Any state that “belongs” to one ethnic group within it violates the core democratic principle of equality, and the self-determination rights of the non-members of that group.

I don’t understand how anyone can consider Israel a democratic country.

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Even for those thousands of young people who don’t get something out there, the process is still a noble one — the process of trying to say something, of working through craft issues and the worldview issues and the ego issues — all of this is character-building, and, God forbid, everything we do should have concrete career results. I’ve seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person.

This is so right to me. We all strive to be heard, and the process of getting to where we feel like we have something substantive to say is a hard one. But it’s one more people should tackle, more often, not less.

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President Obama asked me who I think is preventing democracy in the Middle East. I told him, “The husbands.” The husband does not want his wife to have equal rights. Without equal rights, it will be impossible to save Egypt, because if women are not educated, the children are not educated. People who cannot read and write can’t make a living. They are finished.

This is a must read interview. Mr. Peres has many interesting views.

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This year marks an increase in black turnout for the fourth consecutive presidential election…

So our turnout has been increasing since well before Barack ran for POTUS. Surprise, surprise.

Via T-NC, Alan Jacobs writing at The American Conservative:

…what troubles me most about this suggestion — and the general More Guns approach to social ills — is the absolute abandonment of civil society it represents. It gives up on the rule of law in favor of a Hobbesian “war of every man against every man” in which we no longer have genuine neighbors, only potential enemies. You may trust your neighbor for now — but you have high-powered recourse if he ever acts wrongly.

From a NYT report on guns & training by Alan Feur:

Some of Mr. Kelly’s troops disagree, going so far as to approach reporters with unsolicited views. One officer, who joined the force with a military background and spoke anonymously because he feared reprisals, said the problem was training. The department has “a factory line” approach to weapons training in which officers “get the basics — breathing, trigger control,” but not much else, he said. “It’s very brief, minimal.”

“Firearms training is important — it’s very important,” the officer concluded. “And it’s something that is not taken seriously.”

I wish I could say I was surprised by this, but the NYPD has participated in enough wild shootings over the years that I was already convinced that our cops get very little/and or very poor weapons training. This is basic shit folks.

My ex-girlfriend’s mother, a retired assistant principal in Detroit, once told me that school attendance would jump in the winter months; it was the only place the kids knew for sure that there would be food and heat.

Listen… go read that ish.

No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women… When black people are talked about the focus tends to be on black men; and when women are talked about the focus tends to be on white women.

I really don’t know if I agree with this statement, but it’s some serious food for thought.

Derek Thompson:

When President Obama says he’s going to raise the top marginal tax rate, the key words there are “top” and “marginal.” According to the president’s plan, every dollar under $250,000 of earned income will enjoy the same tax cut it has today. He’s only pledged to raise taxes on income above that level by about 5%. So, if you make $251,000 next year, your tax bill wouldn’t go up by $12,000. It would go up by $50. A steak dinner, not a small car.

Thompson’s post is titled, Rich People Who Don’t Understand Taxes Should Be Told So. I completely agree with that statement, but they should only be a starting point because of their outsized influence in our political system. We need as many people as possible to understand this. It’s mind-boggling the number of people who don’t understand or possible feign ignorance at our marginal income tax rate structure. Including many in the press. We got to do better.

…what are you there for? What’s the whole notion of a free press for if you’re not going to report without fear or favor and you’re not going to report what your reporters, after doing their due diligence, see as the truth?

“And if you don’t do that, then you can expect I think a growing drumbeat of criticism that you’re failing in your fundamental responsibility.

“Your job is to report the truth. And sometimes there are two sides to a story. Sometimes there are ten sides to a story. Sometimes there’s only one.

“Somebody has got to make an assessment of whether the two sides are being equally careless with their facts, or equally deliberate with their lies.”

I LOVE this quote. As Erika can attest to, this is a point I’ve made for a very long time. Forget balance, that’s a canard. Report the fucking truth, and report as much of it as you can find out. Don’t be a fucking stenographer. Don’t tell me 6 days in a row that a pol said X when he or she has said X for months. That’s not news. Find out why they keep repeating it. Find out if their record backs up what they’re espousing. Enlighten us, don’t infantilize us.

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