Commenter Archive

Comments by Max Socol*

On “Sign Language

When I lived in Jerusalem with my girlfriend (now wife), out of ignorance we moved into a Haredi neighborhood. While our landlord was secular, all of our neighbors "took the black" so to speak.

For the first six months or so, we were basically shunned. Because this was a small neighborhood that did have some other secular families, we were never assaulted, as we might have been in Mea Shearim or other, exclusively-Haredi enclaves. But we were ignored and frowned at, particularly in the early going, when we would sit in the square with our laptops to mooch wifi while we tried to get our lives set up.

Anyway, the following year, my wife and some classmates made plans to visit an exclusively Haredi settlement, so she got dressed up in her "disguise:" long skirt, high boots, long sleeves, and a hat. This so as to be acceptable to the townsfolk.

Wouldn't you know it, as soon as she left our building she was greeted by every one of our neighbors. Big smiles, lots of "boker tovs" ("good morning") all around. It was like flipping a switch. And it flipped just as easily the other way...as soon as she went back to pants, they went back to frowns.

On “Today in League History…

he's tearing up the comments on that piece as well. how will he have time to sign on to congressional letters when he's busy smearing his short temper across the entire internet?

On “Gaming the Police

Mike's not a rule-of-law conservative, he's a rule-of-authority conservative, otherwise known as an authoritarian. It's pretty straightforward (though he'll do his best to muddle it so as to avoid the word.)

"

Are you really baffled? It's of a piece with the right's scorched earth approach to everything that strays outside the authoritarian worldview.

"

Awesome. You may be setting a longevity record for being the last guy left on the Internet still able to find a way to blame these kids for the actions of a vicious rent-a-cop.

Also, perhaps if you're opposed to one of the most fundamental rights guaranteed in our founding legal documents, you could stop describing yourself as 'rule-of-LAW' oriented? Bit misleading. Try 'rule-of-authority' oriented. If only there were a shorter term for that...

On “Mad Men Open Thread

yeah...prepare yourself for the minstrel show.

i'm a fan in general but i'm not sure how much michael ginsberg i'm gonna be able to take.

On “A Network of Support

Is it quibbling to take issue with the semantics of the shirt? I would have less of a problem with this if it said 'I operate a 4g hotspot.' 'I AM a 4g hotspot' seems a little too dehumanizing for a group of people whose main struggle consists in rehumanizing themselves in the eyes of others.

On “Open Thread (Feb. 28th 2012) Ron Swanson is the man edition

Deep thought for the day: contemporary culture encourages and rewards half-assery in most aspects of 'professional' life. Blogging is not only not a remedy to this phenomenon but may in fact be the vanguard of it.

On “Is “Israel First” The Worst?

On a related note, if you're looking to speak about a contentious issue in a way that reaches people who disagree with you, Freddie deBoer may not be your best jumping-off point.

"

Yep, this.

If you are a university professor, or a politics blogger, criticizing Israel harshly doesn't make you brave, it makes you part of the pack. Please, *please*, stop congratulating yourselves, it's wearying.

On “As Old As The World

I had an interesting conversation a few weeks ago with a number of students and faculty from a certain unnamed, modern Orthodox university in the US, who now live and work in satellite campus offices in Israel. One of the things they impressed upon me was that, if anything, the economic situation in Israel vis a vis the middle class is even *worse* than the tent protests had led me to believe. In real terms, there is no middle class in Israel, in the sense that no one outside of its small oligarchic families is able to even save money for the present, let alone plan for retirement, college, etc. When I lived there, I did so on fellowship money, so it was easy to forget about this dimension. But it's no exaggeration to say it is the only issue that matters in domestic Israeli politics at the moment.

It's hard for me to see that an end to secured loans that are only able to purchase certain kinds of high-tech US military equipment could meaningfully impact that dynamic, both because much of that technology is frivolous even for Israel (Iron Dome, anyone?), and because the domestic problems are so vast that even multiple billions of dollars in aid don't make a meaningful difference one way or the other. (See: Trachtenberg Report.) I could be wrong though, my grasp of Israeli budgeting isn't that strong.

Regardless, I'd like to stick with the bigger point, which is that smart guys like Andrew Sullivan could do a lot more good if they focused on workable solutions, even small ones, rather than indulging themselves in the martyrdom complex that is becoming de rigeur for "realists" who write about Israel.

On “Grasping at Belief : Week 1

I will. I think our experiences are going to look pretty different, if only because Jewish praxis on spiritual matters - at least within the strain I hail from - is pretty clear. One needn't believe at all while still successfully fulfilling the requirements of prayer and ritual. But I am happy to share the thoughts and feelings those practices produce, and depending on what "Old Testament" (as you heathens are wont to call it) passages you produce, I may be able to offer some commentary.

On “As Old As The World

Thanks, this sums up my feelings as well. Our only difference might be that I don't see these tropes, even collected together, moving the country in any meaningful way toward wider conspiracy theorizing about the nefarious Jews. Perhaps if some of the nastier ideas being put forward within intellectual circles manage to escape into the wider public...but I have not seen that happen.

What I find more frustrating is the negative impact this dynamic has on getting to a diplomatic resolution. Far too many smart people, in the US and Europe, are spending valuable time trying to unearth some vast (entirely nonexistent) Diaspora Jewish conspiracy to defend Israel at all costs - when they COULD be spending their time advancing the well-being of Israelis and Palestinians alike, and focusing on issues that can be resolved rather than meaningless detours like military aid or nuclear weapons.

The impulse among some American intellectuals to "punish" Israel for its bad behavior doesn't wear well on them...but more to the point, it's impotent. America's only possible role in the situation will be to help the parties negotiate diplomatically rather than militarily or paramilitarily. Everything else is window dressing. America will never have enough leverage to meaningfully punish either nation, just as American intellectuals will never obtain enough leverage domestically to shift the country's opinion away from our current state of "mindlessly pro-Israel."

On “Grasping at Belief : Week 1

I'm going through a similar experience myself at the moment, looking forward to reading these.

On “How to Lose the Sympathy of Reasonable People: A Short Primer

Somebody add this joker to the "You're Not Helping" Hall of Fame. Jesus. Every cop is a monster? Really, dude? You know what that makes you sound like? Kinda like...a fasc...

On “The Limits of Democracy and Populism

Of course there have, as there are in any large gatherings of people. Add to that the many of these camps have become de facto shelters for under-served homeless populations - including many with mental problems - and I'm not sure what's supposed to be so persuasive about this. Last I heard, people get into drunken fights at sports events. Have those also been discredited?

I note that you are avoiding answering whether or not this is about the protests or about you being in a foul or frustrated mood. I won't push you on it but it is coming through loud and clear to me, and I say that as someone who has read you for years now and wouldn't say it lightly.

"

I'm bewildered by these characterizations and even more so by the cavalier way you're deploying them. It seems like you're feeling personally frustrated and allowing that to bleed into your feelings about OWS. That doesn't seem like responsible writing to me.

I have been to my local occupation (one of the largest, and at this point last) multiple times each week since its inception. I have never witnessed any partying or any violence. Does that not count because 'perception' (read: YOUR perception) insists otherwise?

I'm not going to pretend that you have the same duties as a reporter, but you should know your own limits. If you're not willing to base these observations off of anything more than the media's current narrative, you should say so. And perhaps better yet you should reserve judgment. It's really dismaying to see you pop off in such a splenetic way.

"

That may be true, but it's a surprisingly lazy perspective coming from you, Erik. I thought the point of blogging independently was to cut through perception to the truth of the matter. If this is just another place to read about popular misconceptions I'm not sure what I'm doing here.

"

"Whatever legitimate gripe sparked the movement, the occupations began devolving into a frothy mixture of crime and partying within the last few weeks"

That's a pretty sweeping statement to make about 100+ cities. Care to back it up?

On “The Republican Debate

this is such horseshit. Williams' question was whether Perry ever was kept awake at night *wondering if he had put to death any innocents* out of the nearly 300 people executed in the state. The applause came during the question, not after any kind of distinction between the innocent and the guilty.

That applause was honestly disturbing. I could actually see it rattle Williams as well, and I sensed a note of distaste in his follow-up question.

On “Michael Lofgren, The GOP “Cult,” and the Same Old Same Old

so...what you're saying is, it's your word against his?

He's got 20+ years experience as a respected congressional staffer, and you've got what exactly?

and before you come crying with your 'appeal to authority fallacy,' let me just come right out and say that in this case - a discussion of the structural disasters facing the congress - it absolutely does matter that he has been inside it for decades, and you have not.

On “The Rise and Fall of the Republican Party

Late-night contribution: I've been mulling over this piece for a day or two now, as well as reactions to it (I found it through Fallows, as I suspect you did.) It mostly confirmed what I already felt was the case. But I'm quite alarmed by how many reactions are essentially throwing up their hands and saying 'there is no way out of this.'

I think especially of Fallows, who is usually so optimistic. What is this sense of malaise or deflation in the professional media sphere that seems to be rendering so many career political reporters and pundits paralyzed? I feel it too, when I speak to uninformed family or friends about legislative gridlock. I can almost feel their attention, or maybe their credulity, slipping away as I talk.

When I read political reporting in mainstream news, I get the distinct sensation that the reporter also feels this, and is trying to write accordingly. What can be done to wake Americans up and crack the cynicism?

On “Kevin Drum’s Jobs Plan

What do you make of the pundits claiming that "shovel-ready" projects aren't the low-hanging fruit they were under the New Deal? I've never understood this criticism. It seems very clear that there is a tremendous amount of infrastructural work to be done around the country.

I'm a fan of high-speed rail and I hope to see it in my lifetime, but to be perfectly honest I think low-level broadband might be the smarter investment. Faster return, easier to manage (I imagine), and I bet we would see a considerable benefit multiplier from bringing that many more people into our information economy. Not to mention the stimulus side-benefit of allowing people who are struggling to pay their cable bills to spend that money elsewhere and rely on free state wifi.

*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.

The commenter archive features may be temporarily disabled at times.