Right wing US Supreme Court Justices toss another bomb

Want to know why I call the five and maybe six (depending upon the day, Chief Justice Roberts) bomb throwers? First, read Mark Joseph Stern's summary of the two US Supreme Court opinions, one vitiating the Biden administration large business vaccine or weekly testing mandate, and one upholding the mandate for health care workers. Stern did the heavy lifting so I don't have to write too much.

After you read the decision, we should at least review the decision from Chief Justice John Marshall, in 1819, in McCulloch v. Maryland, where the US Supreme Court held the Constitution is a flexible document designed to meet contingencies we cannot imagine. The reason this is relevant is the Court majority voiding the mandate went beyond the plain language of the OSHA statute, which reasonably authorized the executive branch to enact the type of rule the Court threw out. As Stern says in his essay review of the decisions, the Court majority held the Constitution cannot be interpreted to allow for such a mandate without an express delegation of this precise type of situation. However, here is Marshall in McCulloch:

To have prescribed the means by which Government should, in all future time, execute its powers would have been to change entirely the character of the instrument and give it the properties of a legal code. It would have been an unwise attempt to provide by immutable rules for exigencies which, if foreseen at all, must have been seen dimly, and which can be best provided for as they occur. To have declared that the best means shall not be used, but those alone without which the power given would be nugatory, would have been to deprive the legislature of the capacity to avail itself of experience, to exercise its reason, and to accommodate its legislation to circumstances.

And here is Marshall again, in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), where the US Supreme Court expressly rejected a strict construction of the Constitution:

This instrument contains an enumeration of powers expressly granted by the people to their government. It has been said that these powers ought to be construed strictly. But why ought they to be so construed? Is there one sentence in the Constitution which gives countenance to this rule? In the last of the enumerated powers, that which grants expressly the means for carrying all others into execution, Congress is authorized "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper" for the purpose. But this limitation on the means which may be used is not extended to the powers which are conferred, nor is there one sentence in the Constitution which has been pointed out by the gentlemen of the bar or which we have been able to discern that prescribes this rule. We do not, therefore, think ourselves justified in adopting it. What do gentlemen mean by a "strict construction?" If they contend only against that enlarged construction, which would extend words beyond their natural and obvious import, we might question the application of the term, but should not controvert the principle. If they contend for that narrow construction which, in support or some theory not to be found in the Constitution, would deny to the government those powers which the words of the grant, as usually understood, import, and which are consistent with the general views and objects of the instrument; for that narrow construction which would cripple the government and render it unequal to the object for which it is declared to be instituted, and to which the powers given, as fairly understood, render it competent; then we cannot perceive the propriety of this strict construction, nor adopt it as the rule by which the Constitution is to be expounded. 

What do these decisions mean? The two decisions mean the US Constitution is a flexible document which may be broadly interpreted to meet exigencies which may arise. The right wing justices' conceit is they believe the US Constitution is far more limited and must be strictly construed. That is simply historically inaccurate. 

In this context, now read what Justice Gorsuch, in his concurring opinion voiding the mandate, says about McCulloch v. Maryland:

I start with this Court’s precedents. There is no question that state and local authorities possess considerable power to regulate public health. They enjoy the 'general power of governing,' including all sovereign powers envisioned by the Constitution and not specifically vested in the federal government. National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U. S. 519, 536 (2012) (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.); U. S. Const., Amdt. 10. And in fact, States have pursued a variety of measures in response to the current pandemic. E.g., Cal. Dept. of Public Health, All Facilities Let- ter 21–28.1 (Dec. 27, 2021); see also N. Y. Pub. Health Law Ann. § 2164 (West 2021).

The federal government’s powers, however, are not general but limited and divided. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 405 (1819). Not only must the federal government properly invoke a constitutionally enumerated source of authority to regulate in this area or any other. It must also act consistently with the Constitution’s separation of powers.

Catch that? McCulloch stands for limited and divided federal governmental power.  Huh? Yet, that is the only mention any justice, including Gorsuch, made regarding McCulloch v. Maryland. 

One may ask, is there a strategy this five to six justice majority is following in their voiding the Biden administration vaccine or weekly testing mandate for major corporations?  Yes. The strategy is to continue to question the legitimacy of what Gorsuch and others call "the administrative state." They consider the administrative state, where Congress delegates powers to the executive branch to promulgate rules and enforce regulations based upon statutory authority, unconstitutional. As I said in a post from September 5, 2018:

(Political science professor) Kate Elizabeth Brown has written a very dense, but brilliant book which provides in detail the way in which Alexander Hamilton, while running the Treasury Department, formulated what became known as administrative law from the start of the U.S. government following the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. She also finds early Supreme Court and other lower court case law in the 1790s proving, as a practical matter, even the earliest Congressional legislation on excise taxes and other related economic legislation needed interpretation, and the creation of regulatory rules, in the administration of those earliest laws. What also came across to me was Hamilton's sense of posterity, in making sure not only his view but competing views, were aired before courts and the administrative tribunals in port-master contexts, and in navigating the concurrent and overlapping jurisdiction of federal and state authority, both judicially as well as in executive authority. I was deeply fascinated by the manner in which Hamilton, oblivious to modern proprieties and ethics, simply contacted judges to discuss potential matters that may come before the courts, set up test cases, and the like, but did so in a way that was transparent (most of the time) to all parties who had an interest in the dispute. It is extraordinary reading, if again very dense, due to the technical nature of the topic. But in the end, there is a powerful public policy lesson Professor Brown provides, which is to answer definitely and fully, the charge that the Administrative State only began because of those Commie New Dealers packing the Courts with Frankfurter and Jackson types who undermined the "real" Constitution.

The next big swing at the administrative state may be an environmental law case.  See this New Yorker article about a major environmental case the Justices should have rejected as moot, but which the six person majority are excited to decide--and likely further limit Congress' delegation authority to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

As I sit here this morning, I believe we should add the current Supreme Court justice majority to the list of existential crises facing the United States of America. The bomb throwing justices aim to undermine the ability of the federal government to do well by its citizens, and to reject any expertise from the federal government agencies in matters of health, safety, the environment, and workplace regulation.  

And if anyone believes the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to economically regulate in these areas, here is James Madison, in Federalist Paper no. 10:

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government. (Emphasis added)

Oh well. It was a decent Republic while we had it, with apologies to Native Americans and African-Americans for starters. 

Robert Paper of U of Chicago study updated to now reviewing over 700 of the January 6, 2021 insurrectionists

Here is the latest from U of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape, and his study of the now over 700 people arrested for participating in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol. Here is an excerpt from an interview Pape did with Slate magazine this week, with the question from the Slate interviewer and Pape's answer:

Your initial study looked at about 200 people who had been arrested. Since then, that number has swelled to about 730. What has emerged as the profile of the average rioter, a year later? What are some of the stories you’ve uncovered, and what do they tell us about what led to this?

We’ve now studied nearly 700 who have been arrested, and we’ve brought the study up to date as of early December. What we see is, over half of those who have been arrested are business owners, CEOs from white-collar occupations, doctors, lawyers, and architects. If you look at extremist group membership, again, 13 percent of those nearly 700 arrested as of early December are members of militia groups like the Oath Keepers or extremist groups like the Proud Boys. As I said, this is very different than about half that we normally find.

If you look at their ages, two-thirds of those arrested for Jan. 6 are over the age of 34. They’re concentrated in their 40s and 50s. Normally for right-wing extremists, it’s two-thirds under the age of 34. Typically, only 10 percent have a college degree. Here, the Jan. 6 arrestees, 25 percent have a college degree, which is close to the national average of the U.S. electorate at 30 percent. About 15 percent of those on Jan. 6 had prior U.S. military service, but that compares with what we usually see in right-wing extremists at 40 percent. About 10 percent of the U.S. electorate has prior military service, so it’s a little higher than that, but much closer to the U.S. mainstream than to the usual right-wing extremists. What if we look at criminal history? Well, 30 percent of those arrested on Jan. 6 had prior criminal history, mostly for misdemeanors like marijuana charges, but with other right-wing extremists, it’s 64 percent have prior criminal history. The U.S. electorate overall has 20 percent with criminal history.

Here is Pape's initial article last year in The Atlantic. And here is an interview Pape did with CNN International later in May 202, when it was up to nearly 400 arrested. What is striking to me is how his initial hypothesis has held from the initial review of about 170 arrestees to now over 700 arrestees. 

A final note: Here is Tooning Out the News interviewing five people, of whom four hit the profile Pape identified as the type of people who ended up at the January 6th insurrection. I don't have any evidence the show's show runners followed Pape's studies to find these people. 

Blogger at PMC oriented blog, Lawyers, Guns & Money, says, defensively, "Don't Look Up" is actually a powerful film

While corporate media reviewers continue to trash Don't Look Up, saying, "Don't see this film!" (Nathan Robinson has a nice rundown of the corporate media trashings in his journal Current Affairs, though he remains on my shit list for his anti-labor position with respect to that journal he owns), we now have a review from Lawyers, Guns & Money blog, which I consider best of the Professional-Managerial Class (PMC) bloggers.

For the first 40% of the long review, Abigail Nussbaum (background here) has to shine up her PMC credentials, lest too many of her ultimately Team Democratic! (TM) audience would not read the piece she wrote at all. For the first 40% of her review, she wrote in a manner that would lead the LGM readers--and me, too--to believe she was going to trash the film. Early on, she trashed JoJo Rabbit, saying it was "a film that bravely satirizes that Nazis by… making the same jokes about them that people were making in 1942." Yet, her point at the end of her ultimately defensive review is that maybe satire doesn't work without direct action, as if that is some amazing insight. To which I say to Nussbaum, No shit, Sherlock. Nussbaum obviously herself missed the Tom Lehrer song from 1964, Folk Song Army, where Lehrer sings at one point, "though (Franco) had won all the battles, we had all the good songs!"* 

Nonetheless, Nussbaum made me feel much better about her comprehension abilities a bit later in her review, with her praise for Ianucci's brilliant The Death of the Stalin. It is only then Nussbaum is finally ready to admit to her largely anti-Bernie, pro-PMC Democratic LGM audience that Don't Look Up is actually a pretty powerful film.

Late in the piece, in an entire paragraph parenthesis (!)--which proves her overall defensiveness with the main LGM proprietors (excepting Erik Loomis)--Nussbaum noted how the Don't Look Up's narrative doesn't even bother with liberals or moderate Democratic Party officials or pundits. She astutely recognized McKay already knows how inept and feckless those particular officials and pundits are. Still, she had to be gentle in making that point, or else LGM proprietors, Scott Limieux and Paul Campos, would get upset, as they are prime interference runners for the Democratic Patty. Nussbaum knows, too, the LGM proprietors hate David Sirota, so she gently said in that parenthesis paragraph how there is a "prurient fascination" for the film because of Sirota's backing. I sense Nussbaum knew that, if she had revealed Sirota is the one who came up with the idea for the film with his friend, and fellow Bernie backer, Adam McKay, the LGM "base" would not see the film at all.  If my speculation is correct, great for Nussbaum!  She really knew her main audience. :)

For me, I am with Nathan Robinson that the corporate media reviews trashing the film are proving the main point the film makes regarding corporate owned media. Nussbaum sees this as well, as I read her overall review.

As I final note, I just wish some of the relatively few people who see the greatness in this film will go back and watch Anchorman 2, the McKay film with Will Farrell, as that film is a devastating take down of cable "news" in general. Most people, including those who should know better, missed that film completely. Corporate media reviewers consciously miss McKay's consistent combination of lowbrow/highbrow humor, and McKay did that as well in Talladega Nights, or the Legend of Ricky Bobby. That film has to be one of the most brilliant films regarding white southern American culture ever created, right up there with O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the most underrated film of the past half century, Life.

_________________________

*Those of us who love Phil Ochs have known that point since, well, 1970. The same for any of us who has ever heard a religious person (usually a white woman) tell us how much that religious person swoons over John Lennon's Imagine. To me, it is what Lehrer says in his intro to Folk Song Army, folk songs--and I would add satire--make those of us who already know feel good that someone with more power than we have is at least noticing, too. It is what I would tell people at the dawn of the 21st Century about why I revered Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. I would say, "Finally! Someone on television is saying what I think and believe!"

UPDATE: Jan 1, 2022. Here is Forbes' magazine (!) noting the dichotomy between sneering reviews in corporate owned media and climate oriented scientists who loved the film. It shows what I say, which, sadly, satire is often only appreciated by those who know already.  But, the sneering corporate media critics is important to note because they are trying to literally say, "Don't Look Up!" and don't want you to know how complicit they are.  I wrote an email last evening to the African-American woman (!) corporate media critic for The Daily Beast who tore into the film, used a right trope against McKay that was used against Al Gore at the time of An Inconvenient Truth (as in how much fossil fuels were spent in making the film?), and then ignorantly said at the end of her review, maybe McKay should make a film about media in "late-stage capitalism." Yeah, she used that phrase to show us her education and awareness of what happens around her, which she is now telling us to keep our ears and eyes closed to avoid facing reality. I emailed her to say he already did make that film, and it was called Anchorman 2. 

"Don't Look Up"--just watch it on Neflix or however you can.

The Wife and I just finished watching "Don't Look Up" on Netflix. The film is anti-corporate and anti-social media, anti-politics, anti-capitalist, and pro-science. It is a combination of "Network" (here and here), "Dr. Strangelove," "Knowing," and Anthony Burgess' under-appreciated novel, "The End of the World News."This film is a truly dark comedy, and I mean dark, but it is amazingly powerful. 

I am already seeing corporate media reviews that attack the film. I saw one in Salon magazine, as the guy reveals himself to be an idiot who unwittingly admits halfway through his review how much he hated director/writer Adam McKay's "The Big Short." That review only proves the film's point, which is corporate media executives pay stupid people to be stupid. 

Expect more attacks on this film.  It is that dangerous to powerful interests.  Hats off to Netflix for letting this through. Too bad our political-economic elites already know, from climate change to COVID, most people are inert, easily misled, and often what John Lennon said in "Working Class Hero" about most of us.  Just...peasants. 

Oh well. It was interesting while it lasted. :(

Vijay Prashad is one of the brightest and most insightful minds on the planet

Here are two lectures from Vijay Prashad.  The first is from 2019, where he spoke before a Workers Party in Ireland.  It is 22 minutes and one second long.  And it is outstanding in its insight, contextualization, and explanation for why political discourses are the way they are, not only where he lives and in Ireland, but in the United States.

The second is from a lecture he delivers in 2018, where he shows those of us who know world history how much Indian politics resembles other nations' politics, including, to some significant extent, our own. He then talks about the Communist Horizon, which is also a phrase Jodi Dean uses. For those who don't know Professor Dean, here she is (at around the 45 minute mark) on Katie Halper's show knocking down the Neo-liberal position that  normalizes Trump supporters as hopelessly fascist, and the anti-anti-Trump left that normalizes Neo-liberalism as no different than fascism. One is a handmaiden to the other, though they are definitely not the same, but both must be opposed with a robust visionary set of arguments.

Overall, though, Prashad is the brightest and most insightful mind on the Internet today. He is as great as Chomsky in Chomsky's hey-day, as great as Yanis Varoufakis, and possesses a worldview or paradigm changing perspective as Barbara Ehrenreich.  Prashad is simply compelling viewing and hearing.

Harbingers from German History and America Today: Part II of my commentary on Amos Elon's "The Pity of It All"

Before I get to discussing Amos Elon's The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch: 1743-1933, which I discussed last week, I must discuss Trump's latest comments about American Jews, which are a part of an anti-Semitic style that will have relevance to the phenomenon Elon is discussing in German politics and German history. 

What makes Trump's comments dangerous are more than the comments themselves, but how the comments expose how Zionist thinking can itself be anti-Semitic. Consider: Senator Schumer expressly and proudly says he is in the Senate primarily to support Israel (a shomer, or in English, guardian). However, people, particularly many American Jews, bristle if anyone (especially a non-Jew) says that means Schumer or other pro-Israel shills in Congress are as loyal if not more loyal to Israel than the US (The "dual loyalty" trope).  Now, here comes Trump, assuming US Jews have to be loyal to Israel--something I have heard nearly all my life--and then rips into the growing number of American Jews who are showing they are NOT "loyal" to Israel. And now, Trump's acknowledgement that Jews are NOT loyal to Israel, meaning they do NOT have "dual loyalty," is suddenly called anti-Semitic. 

Huh?

Yes, Trump is using anti-Semitic tropes in speaking of Jews as "the Jews" who run things in the US and who are supposed to be in lockstep to Israel because, "Well, they're Jews, ya know?"  I am paraphrasing here, and not quoting Trump, but that is the assumption behind his commentary. Trump knows Chuck Schumer and Trump knows how Jewish organizations behave regarding Israel. However, the reason Trump's statement is, in fact, an anti-Semitic trope is not for the reasons never quite explained in the media commentary. If anything, the media commentary assumes Trump is anti-Semitic more because of Trump's tone, his previous problematic anti-Mexican/anti-Muslim statements, and his statement regarding the Charlottesville, Virginia riot, where there was a major anti-Semitic chant during the event that led to a riot.

The real reason Trump's commentary is anti-Semitic is because Zionism itself contains anti-Semitic assumptions. Yes, you can read that again to ensure I am being clearly understood. 

Now, let's move forward. Zionism, as a political-nationalist creed, says anti-Semitism in Western society (Europe and the US) is immutable and we, as Jews, must support Israel no matter what. This, ironically, is akin to the way back-to-Africa African-Americans in the 1920s, and later the Black Muslims, ingest the deep racism of the US, agree that African-Americans can never belong as "Americans," and accept the terms of a racist debate. That is Zionism, too. This is why the Reform Judaism movement (which grew out of Germany, and was trying to show Jews were a religion, not an ethnicity) rejected Zionism so long in the early 20th Century. It is important to remember the Reform movement-denomination only embraced Zionism with the coming of what became known as the Holocaust, as Reform Jewish leaders in the US recognized Americans overall would never accept European Jewish refugees, and Palestine was the only refuge for Jews escaping the growing conflagration. The shift from anti- to pro-Zionism was therefore a historically-politically based shift. After WWII, and especially after the euphoric pride of finally having a "Jewish" State, arising from the ashes of the decimation of European Jewry, Israel became embedded within American Judaism. It is why nearly every synagogue or temple has, on its pulpit (which Jews call in Hebrew a bimah) an American flag and an Israeli flag. This historically based perspective helps explain why, today, so many older American Jews are so confused and angry when their grandchildren (or children) see what a mess Israel has become (and has been) as a nation which recreates settler-colonialism, including apartheid, and has become itself embedded within the American military-industrial complex.

Therefore, unless one acknowledges how Zionism accepts anti-Semitism as embedded within Western culture (Europe and North America), and how Jews must be loyal to Israel, one is confused about why Trump's statements are anti-Semitic.  For one may again ask, How can Trump saying American Jews are NOT loyal to Israel be anti-Semitic if the charge of "dual loyalty" is anti-Semitic? :) And again, to  reach the conclusion Trump is using anti-Semitic tropes, one also needs to acknowledge the way in which corporate media is itself complicit in this confusion--and then ask, Why is so much of corporate owned media complicit?  The reason is Israel is itself wrapped up in the US military-industrial complex and must be protected from criticism above all else. Why else do we see the majority of US States with anti-Israel boycott laws, which clearly run afoul of the First Amendment jurisprudence, yet still exist across much of the nation?

Yes, these are dangerous times for non-whites and Jews. 

This finally brings us to Amos Elon's deeply compelling and fascinating The Pity of it All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch: 1734-1933 (2002), which I posted at FB and blogged about last week. As I am completing the book, I am struck by how deftly Elon describes Germany's descent into Fascism and screaming Nazism, where 0.9% of the German public, German Jews, were made the scapegoat for the German Kaiser's spectacularly wrong decision to essentially start WWI, even though many Jews supported the fighting of that war, and fought in that war (proudly) for Germany.  What is extraordinary is how most of the German Jewish community ardently supported the war, while a relatively few percentage of Jews who opposed it became, in German mass media, the primary scapegoats--with the media largely refusing to acknowledge or highlight the major decisions made in the non-Jewish German political circles, economic elites, and military high commands. Elon is clear how the industrialists were afraid of socialism and communism coming, and gave tacit support to nationalist extremism, though not as consistently (but more than we like to think) the Nazis themselves. At page 372 of his book, and after describing the political murders and growth of extreme nationalist politics, Elon wrote: 

The political thugs, their intellectual counterparts, the feigned objectivity of the courts that tried them, the complicity of judges, police officers, and politicians--all these would later be recognized as harbingers.

Yes, that is sort of happening right here in the United States, with the way in which increasingly violent and delusional rhetoric from the right is being normalized, while what I called ten years or more ago, Weimar Democrats (corporate Democrats), continue with their fecklessness in not protecting Americans from the ravages perpetrated by international oriented capitalists (not capitalism, as that is merely an ism or itself a creed). 1920s Germans had a choice, which was to go more hard socialist or even communist, which would have greatly lessened the anti-Semitism so long integrated into German national development OR go to hard nationalism, fascism, and Nazism. We know where the elites took refuge, and 0.9% of the nation be damned. Trump is of that ilk of industrialists/financiers, and he knows how to use racist and anti-Semitic tropes to rile up his fans. 

So, yes, again, Trump is using anti-Semitic tropes, as he has done for years. However, until American Jews especially face the contradictions within Zionism, as a creed, and how Zionism functions in Israel and within US power corridors, there will be continued confusion that will eventually lead to a growing anti-Semitism in the US political discourse.  It is horrible enough that racism against African-Americans remains a staple of the US political discourse, with anti-Hispanic and anti-Asian racism not far behind. But, as we saw in Charlottesville in 2017, anti-Semitism is part of "the Great Replacement Theory."  

We have been warned. But, as usual with human beings, we won't see the danger until it is nearly fully upon us. But, sure. Keep thinking the way the Democratic Party leaders and politicians are running things is all we have, and all that can be done. Sorry, but that thinking is how we got here.

Critical Religion Theory in German History

A close friend from my oldest days sent me this book, The Pity of It All: A History of the Jews in Germany, 1743-1933, in paperback form as a Chanukkah gift. Amos Elon (1926-2009), a liberal Zionist for much of his life, who became disillusioned with the Zionist project for its becoming too nationalist and proving its colonialist roots, is the author. 

I am about 60% or so through the book. What has struck me is this book is an unusual history of Germany and Prussia, German unification, and the development of German nationalism through the early 20th Century through a lens that may be called "Critical Religion Theory." It is stunning to me how Elon wrote this history, which, whether intentionally or not, shows the centrality of Jew hatred which runs parallel through German and Prussian political history, the rise of German (and Prussian) unification, and German nationalism, as well as Germany's philosophical pluralism and development of German art, music, literature. If anyone wishes to see why it is so important to embrace the original--not propagandistic versions--of Critical Race Theory, this book will reveal the way in which such a framework, and I prefer Critical Race Framework, is so illuminating. 

The book also provides an illumination of how Jews in Germany were so wanting to be deemed "German" and how those who supported German unification, German political reforms, and German wars against France over Alsace-Lorraine, Bismarck even at his most autocratic, and later Germany in WWI, were of the view that holding tight to a unified Germany and German nationalism would allow the vast majority of Germans to finally see Jews as part of the ideal German cultural and political fabric. Elon is elegant in his description of these Jews, and how their hopes were so often dashed, even if there were moments of hope.

Where I have quibbled with Elon is his anti-Socialist bias and particularly the way he cites Marx's "Jewish Problem" essay from 1844. Elon never lets readers know Marx wrote the essay in response to a German philosopher and theologian, Bruno Bauer, who was truly anti-Jewish (the word anti-Semitic does not show up until 1879), saying Jews should not have political rights, and stay in their economic rights lane. Marx, admittedly using some anti-Jewish tropes about Jews' God being money, though in a Dave Chapelle-like way, that says, "Okay, you Jew haters, I'll accept that for a larger point..." responded by saying Jews deserved political rights and are ultimately no different as people than anyone else. He said, if Germany can move toward Socialism or Communism, it will become abundantly clear why this is the case. Yet, Elon only cites to Marx's tropes without any of the context he brings to his other capsule biographies of German/Prussian/Austrian born Jews. Elon treats Marx, whose family converted to Christianity, as just another self-hating Jew. Elon treats the other Socialists better than Marx, but still not with the same reverence he has for the German Jewish or converted Jewish liberals/capitalists. Had Marx supported Bismarck in the darkest days, Elon would have had a field day, but he tries to find subtlety for those who did. I am great with that subtlety, of course, but he could have been far more fair to Marx, and he was not. 

Nonetheless, this is an extraordinary book thus far (and I sneaked a read of the European historian par excellence Gordon Craig's very positive review of the book in the NYRB), and appears to promise more greatness as the book winds it way to 1933, which Elon fairly properly sees as the end of a relatively normal life for Jews in Germany for the next decade or two--and perhaps beyond, as I am not sure how secure Jews should feel in Germany in a rising tide of international fascism.  Again, though, this book is really Critical Religion Theory/Framework, and shows, again, its usefulness in illuminating various aspects of a society other frameworks may easily miss.

I should add, as a final note, how this book dovetails into a remarkable memoir by the former NPR and still SiriusXm classical music radio personality, Martin Goldsmith, about his classical musician parents coming of age in the time of German Nazi madness, and their dramatic escape from Germany to the United States in the last days before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December, 1941.  The book, The Inexhaustible Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany, is a remarkable read overall, which also proves Elon's point about how the German Jews, only 1% of the overall population were nevertheless overrepresented in the arts, and providing non-Jewish Germans with a way to see their best selves.  It is even more so than Jews in the entertainment industry of our our nation, and the way in which I shocked my students yesterday, as I rattled off so many Christmas songs which those of Jewish religious heritage wrote.  What Germany lost, as a people and nation, in the anti-Jewish madness exhibited over centuries, and definitely over the 1930s and 1940s, is remarkably tragic. That nearly 70% of German Jews escaped from Germany during the 1930s and dawn of the 1940s (many to the US, where FDR did work to manipulate European quotas for Jews, despite major hostility from Congress and his own State Department) is a story too many Jews, as well as others, have surpassed in the tarring of FDR, but that is another story.