HISTORY Comments turned off

What is “The Right Way To Lead Life”? When a philosopher goes wrong, he can go really wrong By Roger Kimball

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/17/what-is-the-right-way-to-lead-life/

In a famous passage of Plato’s Republic, Socrates admonishes his young friend Glaucon (who, incidentally, was also Plato’s older brother) that what they are talking about “is no ordinary business, but the right way to lead one’s life.”

Talking about “the right way to lead life”—if not, alas, actually doing it—has always been philosophy’s trump card, its highest purpose, the reason, deep down, we put up with the philosopher’s woolliness, his maddening jargon, his intellectual arrogance. We suspect that he might just have something important to tell us about how to live—or how not to live—our lives.

We’re right about that. But it must also be said that when a philosopher goes wrong, he can go really wrong. Some of the loopiest things ever said about life, the universe, and everything have been said by philosophers.

It is not just intellectually that philosophers can go wrong. There is something about the grandness of the philosophical enterprise—laying down the law about what is and what isn’t wisdom—that gives a certain kind of philosopher a sweet tooth for political tyranny.

Plato himself famously flirted with Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse. And in our own time there is the example of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976).

There are two widely divergent opinions about Heidegger.

One camp holds that Heidegger was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, a philosophical giant whose inquiries into the nature of Being made him a worthy heir of Kant.

The other camp holds that Heidegger was one of the greatest philosophical charlatans of the 20th century, a man hopelessly addicted to mystification and obfuscating polysyllabic word-play.

I know it sounds paradoxical (not to say self-contradictory), but I believe that both camps have a point. I believe that Heidegger really was a deep thinker. I also think he was a deliberately mystifying one.

Someday I may come back to that controversy. But today, I want to concentrate on Heidegger’s performance as a public person, a philosopher in the glare of the public realm. Considered from this point of view, as a political figure, Heidegger does not merit very good grades.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Why Are Palestinians Fleeing the Gaza Strip? by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19976/palestinians-fleeing-gaza

These Palestinians are running away because they can no longer tolerate life under the Islamist movement of Hamas. They are not fleeing because of Israel.

“I know I’m risking my life, but I want to leave, dead or alive. At least I will find a dignified life abroad. People want to leave because of the oppression and injustice we see here [in the Gaza Strip].” — Sfouk AlSheik, twitter.com, September 10, 2023.

Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been controlled by the Iran-backed Hamas terror group, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood organization. Instead of working to improve the living conditions of the two million Palestinians living under its rule, Hamas has since invested millions of dollars in manufacturing weapons and building tunnels from which to attack Israel. Hamas had an opportunity to turn the Gaza Strip into the “Singapore of the Middle East,” but its desire to destroy Israel has brought only war and death to the Palestinians. To achieve its goal of murdering Jews and eliminating Israel, Hamas appears ready to sacrifice endless numbers of Palestinians.

Hamas evidently does not care if hundreds of Palestinians are killed and injured in wars instigated by its rocket attacks against Israel. Hamas does not even hesitate to use Palestinians as human shields during its wars with Israel. Members of the terror group have endangered the lives of thousands of their own innocent civilians by firing rockets from residential areas close to schools and hospitals.

“Despite their exposure to the risks of drowning, loss, and death, Palestinians fleeing the Gaza Strip see that Turkey and Europe are their hope and future.” — Mahmoud al-Raqab, Palestinian political analyst, knooznet.com, September 10, 2023.

Needless to say, Abbas, in his speech, completely ignored the plight of the young Palestinians fleeing the Gaza Strip. For Abbas, promoting hate against Israel and Jews is more important than addressing the economic and humanitarian crisis he helped create, through his sanctions in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas leaders, for their part, continue to pretend that in the Gaza Strip everything is fine. They are also continuing to incite Palestinians to carry out terror attacks against Israel. Notably, the Hamas leaders are making these statements from their five-star hotels and villas in Qatar and Lebanon.

The international community, meanwhile, continues to ignore the wretched conditions of the Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, choosing instead to lay all the blame on Israel.

As Palestinian leaders continue to suppress the people of the Gaza Strip, Israel has increased the number of work permits for Gazans. In July, at least 67,769 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip were allowed to cross the Israeli-controlled Erez border crossing — up to 90% of them for jobs that pay well in Israel. Six per cent of the exits were for patients needing medical treatment in Israel or the West Bank.

It seems that Israel is doing more to help the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip than the Palestinian Authority, Hamas or any Arab country. However, because this news does not fit the anti-Israel agenda of many newspapers and foreign journalists, it is highly unlikely to make it into the mainstream media in the West.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The University of Pennsylvania Has Become Comfortably Numb to Antisemitism By Zach Kessel

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-university-of-pennsylvania-has-become-comfortably-numb-to-antisemitism/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=more-in-tag&utm_term=first

The University of Pennsylvania plans to host the Palestine Writes Literature Festival on its campus later this month, but it appears the event’s focus will lean more toward the elimination of Israel than the promotion of Palestinian authors.

The festival’s website describes itself as being “dedicated to celebrating and promoting cultural productions of Palestinian writers and artists,” which seems innocent enough. There is, of course, nothing wrong with celebrating one’s culture and the artistic output thereof, but a closer look at the festival’s roster of guests will clue you in as to the true aims of its organizers.

The four most notable speakers at the conference are Australian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah, Rutgers University professor Noura Erakat, City University of New York professor Marc Lamont Hill, and former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters. Each one of those four, suffice to say, has a spotty record where the Jews are concerned.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Med Schools, Major Accrediting Body Cling to Diversity Efforts Despite Supreme Court Affirmative-Action Ruling By Ari Blaff

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/1539869/

Just weeks before the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admission policies in late June, an influential professional body known as the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) was busy reassuring its members that medical schools across the country would remain committed to diversity, regardless of the case’s outcome.

The organization’s president, Thomas Nasca, released a note to the “Medical Education Community,” explaining that existing ACGME requirements ensuring medical schools “engage in ongoing, mission-driven, systematic recruitment and retention of a diverse and inclusive workforce,” still stood. Nasca explained that “nothing in the ACGME’s standards is intended to require programs or institutions to violate the law.”

“While political and legal decisions may create uncertainty regarding the ‘how’ we accomplish our responsibility, there is no doubt about the ‘why,’” he signed off the June 13 public letter.

Exactly how ACGME can maintain its efforts to promote diversity without running afoul of the Supreme Court’s decision is unclear. Diversity efforts are now baked into all aspects of medical-school evaluation, according to a family-medicine professor at a prominent medical school who asked not to be identified for fear of professional reprisal.

“The new definition of what it means to be a family physician includes that they advocate for social justice.” Specifically, ACGME could ask prospective medical schools what “your program is doing to advance social justice.”

Do No Harm, a group of medical professionals seeking to remove “radical, divisive, and discriminatory” ideologies from health care, issued a report in August 2022 calling attention to the ways in which medical schools are trying to get around federal anti-discrimination law. One commonly used tactic involves application essays aimed at teasing out ideological commitments and possibly even the race of the applicant.

Duke University’s School of Medicine, ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, underscores to applicants the institution’s “commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion.” Application essays feature questions such as: “Describe your understanding of race and its relationship to inequities in health and health care.”

MEDIA Comments turned off

His Magazine Claimed Cancel Culture is Good, Then He Got Cancelled Canceling others is great… until you get canceled. by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/his-magazine-claimed-cancel-culture-is-good-then-he-got-cancelled/

The surviving Baby Boomer counterculture heroes are either keeping very quiet or having brief outbursts while noting that the country has gone insane… before issuing scripted apologies pleading for everyone to forgive them for noticing that the country has gone insane.

Now the time has come for Jan Wenner, the Rolling Stone co-founder that people last paid attention to in the 1980s back before the magazine had come to consist of 90% Trump rants and 10% interviews with elderly celebrity pals. And so matters would have remained if Wenner, his ego so bloated that he doesn’t seem to have noticed the cultural weather outside, decided to freely spout off.

In the interview, he spoke about his decision to not include interviews with women and black artists, and his remarks on the topic were widely criticized.

“The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them,” he said, adding “Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”

He continued, “Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.”

“For public relations sake, maybe I should have gone and found one black and one woman artist to include here that didn’t measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism,” he told the outlet. “Maybe I’m old-fashioned and I don’t give a (expletive) or whatever.”

It turns out that he does give an expletive after issuing an apology and being kicked off the board for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Earlier this year, Rolling Stone published an article titled, “Why Cancel Culture Is Good for Democracy”.

Does Wenner still agree? Does he agree that, “Those who fear cancel culture may claim they fear suppression of speech, but it’s accountability that they want to avoid”?

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Promoting Globalism Through Illegal Immigration Why the Vatican and America’s bishops support open borders. by Joseph Hippolito

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/promoting-globalism-through-illegal-immigration/

Months before officials in New York City allowed migrants to displace students in public schools, or officials in Chicago turned O’Hare International Airport into a refugee center, the former general counsel for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services made a frightening prediction about illegal immigration.

“This is going to be a catastrophe for our health-care system, our criminal justice system, our educational system,” Elizabeth Yore said in December. “We’re not going to recognize our society in two years. The crime and the chaos in the schools is going to be unimaginable. We are going to be paying for this for decades, generations.”

The fact that Yore, a conservative Catholic, made that criticism holds more than casual significance — especially since the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops effectively supports open borders.

As FrontPage Magazine twice reported, the USCCB uses taxpayer dollars to fund its human trafficking campaign, thereby enriching that body. But the payment it exacts for exploiting poor Latin American migrants exceeds the monetary.

The bishops use immigration as a weapon to implement Pope Francis’ globalist vision, which demands the eradication of national identity and legitimate national self-interest. That explains the bishops’ vehement opposition to President Donald Trump and their failure to forge a united front against Joe Biden, one of Francis’ favorites.

It also explains the bishops’ breathtaking silence on such crimes as child trafficking, sex trafficking and drug trafficking, and the prelates’ refusal to defend innocent Americans of all ethnicities against crimes perpetrated by illegal immigrants — including murder, as the “Angel Families” can attest.

Finally, it explains the bishops’ opposition to controlling illegal immigration through such means as “a tripling of Border Patrol agents, especially at ports of entry, and the use of sophisticated technology such as ground sensors, surveillance cameras, heat-detecting scopes, and reinforced fencing,” as a joint pastoral letter from American and Mexican bishops stated in 2003.

“That such measures might, in fact, deter or detect individuals trafficking children, the bishops ignored,” Marjorie Murphy Campbell, a Catholic lawyer, wrote for The Christian Review, a website founded by the former publisher of a conservative Catholic magazine, Crisis.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Democrats don’t seem eager to defend Harris ahead of 2024 by Haisten Willis,

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/democrats-not-eager-to-defend-harris

Questions are once again swirling around Vice President Kamala Harris.

This time, the story is about whether or not Harris is an asset to President Joe Biden and whether she’s the best choice to join his 2024 ticket.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spoke well of Harris during a recent CNN appearance but stopped short of endorsing her for ’24.

“[Biden] thinks so, and that’s what matters,” Pelosi said when asked by Anderson Cooper if Harris should be on the ticket.

Pelosi pointed to Harris’s campaign record as California’s attorney general in 2011, calling the vice president “very politically astute” for winning the election while only having 6% in the polls at one point.

But when asked again if she believed Harris was the best running mate for the president, Pelosi dodged giving an endorsement for the second time, saying the vice president generally doesn’t “do that much” but is “a source of strength, inspiration, intellectual resource, and the rest.”

While 54% of Democratic voters are satisfied with Harris as Biden’s running mate in 2024, fewer are enthusiastic, 30%, according to the latest CBS News-YouGov poll. Her approval ratings have consistently lagged Biden’s.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) followed up the next morning by discussing “the MAGA Right” when asked about Harris.

Jake Tapper then pressed again on Raskin’s opinion of Harris as Biden’s 2024 running mate.

“That’s President Biden’s choice. And I think she’s an excellent running mate for President Biden,” Raskin responded. “I don’t know what more needs to be said about that.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran blocks nuclear inspectors after U.S. unfreezes billions of dollars for Tehran Moves come as Biden, Iranian president head to U.N. General Assembly

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/sep/17/iran-blocks-nuclear-inspectors-after-us-unfreezes-/

Iran began barring U.N. inspectors from nuclear sites over the weekend, days after the Biden administration freed up $6 billion in frozen funds in pursuit of a prisoner swap.

The development, which comes as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi prepares for a visit to New York City to address the U.N. General Assembly, adds a fresh layer to rising tensions over Tehran‘s nuclear activities.

In a rare statement, U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said Saturday that Iranian officials had informed him they will no longer permit certain International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to conduct “essential verification work at the enrichment facilities in Iran which are under Agency safeguards

“Iran has effectively removed about one-third of the core group of the agency’s most experienced inspectors designated for Iran,” Mr. Grossi said.

The inspectors are in Iran to ensure compliance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Mr. Grossi acknowledged that under the NPT, Iran is permitted to veto individual inspectors it does not agree with. But the IAEA chief said Tehran‘s latest move is unwarranted.

“I strongly condemn this disproportionate and unprecedented unilateral measure which affects the normal planning and conduct of agency verification activities in Iran and openly contradicts the cooperation that should exist between the agency and Iran,” he said.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Liz Peek: Biden Backing UAW on Demands for Wages That Would Give Elon Musk and Xi Jinping the Last Laugh

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://www.nysun.com/article/biden-backing-uaw-on-demands-for-wages-that-would-give-elon-musk-and-xi-jinping-the-last-laugh

In Joe Biden’s 1950s world, unions are good and corporations bad. Hence his response to the UAW strike against the three legacy automakers. “Over the last — the past decade,” he said, “auto companies have seen record profits, including the last few years, because of the extraordinary skill and sacrifices of the UAW workers.”

Yet, the president said, “those record profits have not been shared fairly, in my view, with those workers.” He added, referring to current negotiations: “I believe they should go further to ensure record corporate profits mean record contracts for the UAW.” Nothing like putting the presidential thumb on the bully scale.

In Mr. Biden’s world, because the automakers have had a few good years, they should award unionized employees huge pay hikes. Never mind that if our economy slows and demand for cars slumps, the auto firms would be stuck with higher costs that would make them even less competitive with non-union companies like Tesla or BYD in Communist China. 

Nikki Haley says presidential candidates should have mental competency tests; business IQ tests might be more useful, starting with the “sacrifices” made by autoworkers that Mr. Biden hails. It is true that during the Great Recession UAW members accepted changes in contract terms that allowed the auto makers to stay in business.

Taxpayers, already being crushed by government levies, forked over $80 billion to bail out GM and Chrysler. Much of that was eventually paid back. The country was largely sympathetic; after all, it was banks that had caused the 2008 downturn, so why should Detroit’s Big Three and their employees suffer?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Turnabout: Reporter Ducks Questions from Congressman About Biden Scandals: Craig Bannister

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://mrctv.org/blog/craig-bannister/turnabout-reporter-ducks-questions-congressman-about-biden-scandals

The tables were turned Thursday, when a reporter ducked questions from a congressman.

Associated Press (AP) Reporter Farnoush Amiri tried to get House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to agree that Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry into Pres. Joe Biden without any evidence of an impeachable offense.

McCarthy responded like a contestant on “Jeopardy!” – by putting his answer in the form of questions.

But first, the congressman explained to AP’s Amiri that an impeachment inquiry is the not same as an impeachment – it’s just a fact-finding mission.

Rep. McCarthy then asked Amiri if she believed five items of evidence already obtained through sworn testimony:

Rep. McCarthy: “OK. Do you agree that, do you believe the president lied to the American public when he said he’d never talked to his son about business dealings? Yes or no?”

Rep. McCarthy: “Do you believe when they said the president went on conference calls? Do you believe that happened?”

Rep. McCarthy: “Do you believe the president went to Cafe Milano and had dinner with the clients of Hunter Biden, who believes he got those clients because he was selling the brand?”

Rep. McCarthy: “Do you believe Hunter Biden, when you saw the video of him driving the Porsche, that he got $143,000 to buy that Porsche the next day?