A proposal to help the Syrian refugees stay within Sunni Arab countries

The New Neo Posted on by

Well worth reading, and containing some surprising and little-known facts:

Yet most of the Syrian refugees have been taken in not by Western countries but by Syria’s neighboring states: Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, whose capacity has been overwhelmed. Lebanon, with a population of around four million and a territory smaller than Maryland, is hosting over a million Syrian refugees. Young people are overrepresented in the refugee population, so that more than half of the school-aged children in Lebanon are now Syrian.

It is estimated that an extraordinary number of people have left Syria, or have been driven from their neighborhoods within Syria (this is from a year ago):

Already, more than 10 million Syrians ”” nearly half of the country’s population ”” are estimated to live as refugees, either living as internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Syria or having fled to Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan.

If you’re confused by the difference between the terms “displaced persons” (familiar from WWII) and “refugees,” you’re not alone. A great many of the Syrians we call refugees don’t actually fit the definition of “refugee” in the legal sense:

“A [refugee is a] person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…

That fits the Christian Syrians but I don’t see how it fits the Sunni Syrians. They appear to me to be displaced persons, both internal and international. However, if this is true, it doesn’t seem to matter much to those in charge right now.

More about displaced persons of the internal variety:

A forced migrant who left his or her home because of political persecution or violence, but did not cross an international border, is commonly considered to be the less well-defined category of internally displaced person (IDP), and is subject to more tenuous international protection…A migrant who fled because of economic hardship is an economic migrant.

Back to the plan in the original article:

Some 83 percent of Jordan’s refugees live in cities””around 170,000 in Amman alone. Their situation is clearly unsustainable: without access to international or state assistance, children grow up without education and families deplete their savings. The fate of the refugees who stay in the camps is similarly unfortunate: there, displaced Syrians languish under extreme dependency…

To avoid such outcomes, donor states and international organizations such as the UN have urged the governments of Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey to permanently integrate Syrian refugees into their societies. But leaders in those countries are deeply resistant to that idea, because they perceive refugees as a threat to domestic employment and a drain on stretched budgets. Nor are Syrian refugees easily incorporated into the fragile ethnic and sectarian balances that are crucial for maintaining stability in all three countries.

Take a moment to think about it. Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, majority Muslim countries which are ethnically and culturally similar (quite a bit less so for Turkey, but still a lot more similar than Western Europe or the US) are keeping the refugees in camps because they are afraid of the consequences of integrating them into their countries. And yet we are not supposed to feel a similar reluctance? What’s more, my guess is that the given reasons for those countries’ refusal is not the entire story; they may be all too aware of the possibilities for disruption and even terrorism in their own countries.

To continue:

An effective refugee policy should improve the lives of the refugees in the short term and the prospects of the region in the long term, and it should also serve the economic and security interests of the host states.

Jordan offers one place to begin. There, a reconsidered refugee policy would integrate displaced Syrians into specially created economic zones, offering Syrian refugees employment and autonomy, incubating businesses in preparation for the eventual end of the civil war in Syria, and aiding Jordan’s aspirations for industrial development. Such an approach would align the interests of a host state with the needs of refugees and might prove broadly applicable to refugee crises elsewhere.

There’s much more. I have no idea whether this would work, but it seems a lot better than what we’re doing now—which means it’s probably never going to happen.

Cruz’s Iowa star rises…

The New Neo Posted on by

…as Carson’s sinks—a bit, anyway:

Mr. Cruz, the Republican Texas senator, was the choice of 23 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers in the new poll, from Quinnipiac University, following Mr. Trump at 25 percent and ahead of Mr. Carson at 18 percent. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was in fourth with 13 percent.

I expect a lot of up and down to continue in the Republican field. Notice this, too: “The margin of error was plus or minus four percentage points.” That means the the three leaders in Iowa are pretty much neck and neck and neck.

The Times ascribes Cruz’s rise to his hardline on terrorism in the wake of the Paris attacks. I suppose that might be true—even if it is in the Times. But I think it’s also the case that the concerted campaign to discredit Carson has drawn blood, and evangelicals who have growing doubts about Carson would be likely to veer to Cruz.

Turkey shoots down Russian military aircraft near Syria

The New Neo Posted on by

This story is still breaking, and it’s hard to sort out all the facts. But one fact that seems clear is that it has great potential to lead to a serious conflagration:

Turkish warplanes have shot down a Russian military aircraft on the border with Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Su-24 was hit by air-to-air missiles fired by Turkish F-16s while it was flying over Syrian territory.

But Turkish military officials said the plane was engaged after being warned that it was violating Turkish airspace.

Mr Putin described the incident as a “stab in the back” committed by “accomplices of terrorists”.

The crew ejected before the jet crashed in Latakia province, but Syrian rebels said at least one was dead.

It reminds me of those logic riddles where you have to figure out which of several groups is telling the truth: who is trustworthy, who is not? Sometimes the answer is: no one is trustworthy.

Turkey is a NATO country, and NATO is meeting. Where? In otherwise locked-down Brussels, of course.

Since the area over Syria is a war zone, there’s been more violence reported:

General staff spokesman Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi, added that rebels in Syria fired on a Russian helicopter that was searching for the two pilots of the Su-24.

The shooting killed one crew member on the Mi-8 helicopter and forced it to land in neutral territory, he says.

Russia and Turkey are arguing over where the first plane was when shot down. Turkey says over Turkey, while Russia says over Syria. Putin said:

“Our pilots and our plane did not in any way threaten Turkey. It is quite clear,” he added.

“They were carrying out an operation against [Islamic State militants] in the mountains of northern Latakia, where militants who originate from Russian territory are concentrated. So they were carrying the key task of preventative attacks against those who could return to Russia at any time.”

I assume we’ll learn more as time goes on.

Brussels still on lockdown

The New Neo Posted on by

See this.

The Paris attacks did not accomplish all the terrorists’ goals. They had big plans for mass murder at the stadium, and perhaps even the assassination of the president of France. In that, the day resembled 9/11, where one of the hijacked airplanes was taken down by its passengers before it reached its likely Washington DC destination.

Despite that, both operations were a big success in terms of numbers of people killed (France being a smaller country than the US, the numbers killed there were even bigger than they might initially seem), shock and fear throughout the Western world, and jubilation among Muslim jihadis and their sympathizers. The more long-term repercussions from 9/11—the War on Terror, plus the Afghanistan and the Iraq wars—have been difficult for the terrorists, but thanks to the West’s decline and the influence of the left (two linked phenomena), jihadis have overcome that and strengthened their forces and influence lately.

So not only were the terrorist attacks in Paris wildly successful in those ways, but the continuing post-attack disruption of Brussels, one of the major capitals of the Western world, must be an extra source of tremendous jihadi joy. Brussels is not just a big European city, and home to many Muslim immigrants and their offspring, it is also a center for numerous international organizations of the Western world and what passes for international governing bodies. This list tells you some of them: NATO, for example, also Eurocontrol and many UN agencies. It is also the de facto capital of the EU, being the official seat of “the European Commission, Council of the European Union, and European Council, as well as a seat (officially the second seat but de facto the most important one) of the European Parliament” (more here).

The fact that a city of this magnitude and importance on a world scale can be so easily hog-tied is disturbing. I don’t have a solution—it’s not that I think it should be business as usual there right now. My solution would have been the obvious one of not letting the situation get to this point; for example, better police work and less denial, and a different immigration policy, to begin with. Now a city like Brussels is playing catch-up, and that’s a lot more difficult, particularly since its city government is particularly Balkanized and inefficient.

Obama, knave

The New Neo Posted on by

More evidence emerges that Obama knew what he was doing when he armed proto-ISIS groups in Syria, and did it anyway. In addition, the administration pressured intelligence to downplay the ISIS threat.

In a sane world, with a sane 2-party system, this would lead to impeachment at the very least.

In this world, probably a big yawn—except for us, the hysterical crazies who care about these sorts of things.

New Canadian government tells the people “take your refugee medicine, like good little boys and girls”

The New Neo Posted on by

Canada joins the liberal leaders of the US and much of Europe and plans to go ahead with the admission of many thousands of Syrian refugees:

Canada plans to fly in 900 Syrian refugees a day as of next month, according to media reports, as the defense minister said showing compassion for these people sends a message to Islamic State extremists.

Canadian officials said details of a plan to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees by year’s end would be announced Tuesday.

The Canadian media reports come amid fears that IS jihadists could slip into the country posing as refugees, in the wake of last week’s attacks in Paris that killed at least 130 people.

The bill is projected to be 1.2 billion Canadian dollars.

Canada has come up with a stupendous rationale for what they’re doing. The liberal Canadian Minister of Defence (who is a Sikh, by the way, with what appears to be a pretty strong resume) has made some statements that are similar to the reasoning of liberals in this country as well:

This crisis is not just about a humanitarian project,” he said in his opening remarks to military commanders and defense ministers from around the world.

“This also sends a great message to ISIS that you might create this environment for us, but we will not let you take advantage of this,” he said, using an alternate acronym for the IS group.

“By doing our part for this, we are actually hitting ISIS in a different way as well.”

I am certain the men of ISIS are quaking with fear and anxiety over this turn of events.

Oh, and the people of Canada? What do they think?:

The Ipsos poll, conducted exclusively for Global News, found that 60 per cent of Canadians disagree with Justin Trudeau’s election promise to relocate 25,000 people displaced largely due to the conflict in Syria.

Opposition is highest in Alberta with 70 per cent and lowest in Ontario with 56 per cent.

The major concern among those who oppose the Liberal’s refugee plan is security and the fear that appropriate security checks will be limited in order to hit Trudeau’s timeline.

The poll found 67 per cent of Canadians believe terrorists pretending to be refugees could enter our borders.

And those who don’t believe it could happen are mindboggingly stupid or perhaps stupendously trusting of the government and its competence and efficiency. In the US, when asked the same question about whether terrorists pretending to be refugees could enter the US, 81% agreed.

The liberal governments of both countries, however, could not care less.

No doubt Canada’s young and telegenic speechmaker Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is bringing his formidable experience as teacher and youth advocate to bear on this and other pressing issues.

[NOTE: I don’t know where to put this factoid, but I find it truly amazing that Richard Nixon seems to have correctly predicted Justin Trudeau’s future when he (Trudeau, not Nixon) was only a few months old:

…[Justin Trudeau, soon of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau] spent his early years at 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister’s residence in Ottawa. In fact, only months after his birth, American president Richard Nixon predicted his political future during a Canadian state dinner with Trudeau’s father. Nixon said, according to BBC news, “I’d like to toast to the future prime minister of Canada: To Justin Pierre Trudeau.”]

Cultural appropriation; cultural literacy

The New Neo Posted on by

Oh, it’s so hard to keep the dictates of diversity straight! A person can be trying to do the right thing, and yet fail.

For example, yoga:

Student leaders have pulled the mat out from 60 University of Ottawa students, ending a free on-campus yoga class over fears the teachings could be seen as a form of “cultural appropriation.”

And then there are minority students (or the new catchword, “marginalized” students) who feel traumatized by being forced to listen to the bleatings of a white culture and tradition that disempowers them. One of them is Nissy Aya, a panelist participating in a “teach-in and speak-out” called “Race, Ethnicity and University Life”:

“I was accepted as the class of 2014,” Nissy Aya, CC ’16, said. “I will not receive a degree until 2016, if that is any marker of how hard it has been for me to get through this institution.”…

In addition to a lack of substantive support beyond “quick fixes” from the administration, Aya said that the the Core Curriculum further silences students of color by requiring students to read texts that ignore the existence of marginalized people and their histories.

“It’s traumatizing to sit in Core classes,” Aya said. “We are looking at history through the lens of these powerful, white men. I have no power or agency as a black woman, so where do I fit in?”

A significant portion of Aya’s generation seems to be moving in the direction of supporting the practice of limiting speech that offends minorities: they support such efforts 40% to 58%, which while not a majority is still a much greater incidence of those wanting to limit such speech that any previous generation has demonstrated:

We asked whether people believe that citizens should be able to make public statements that are offensive to minority groups, or whether the government should be able to prevent people from saying these things. Four-in-ten Millennials say the government should be able to prevent people publicly making statements that are offensive to minority groups, while 58% said such speech is OK.

Even though a larger share of Millennials favor allowing offensive speech against minorities, the 40% who oppose it is striking given that only around a quarter of Gen Xers (27%) and Boomers (24%) and roughly one-in-ten Silents (12%) say the government should be able to prevent such speech.

I wonder how the polls would have gone if they had asked whether citizens should be able to make public statements that are offensive to majority groups; I doubt the response would have been anywhere near as high. My guess is that it’s only certain designated minority groups who have the right to be offended. My next question would be: what about when whites become a minority group, which is supposedly due to happen in a few years? Will they then be able to achieve minority group status (a different thing from merely being in the minority)? I think I know the answer: of course not.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading a book by E. D. Hirsch entitled Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Written in 1987 (the same year as Allan Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind), it warns that, in the name of multiculturalism, American education had already failed to teach students the heritage and culture basic to Western civilization and being Americans. Here, Hirsch is quoting a passage written by Benjamin J. Stein, who describes his experience with teenage students in a series of Los Angeles focus groups that he ran in the high schools there. It’s from an essay entitled “The Cheerful Ignorance of the Young in LA” that appeared in the WaPo in 1983 [emphasis mine]:

I have no yet found one single student in Los Angeles, in either college or high school, who could tell me the years when World War II was fought [same for WWI and the Civil War]…

A few have known how many senators California has, but none have known how many Nevada or Oregon has…

Only two could even approximately identify Thomas Jefferson…None could name even one of the first ten amendments to the Constitution or connect them to the Bill of Rights…

On and on it went. On and on it goes…The kids I saw (and there may be lots of others who are different) are not mentally prepared to continue the society because they basically do not understand the society well enough to value it.

Let me repeat: that was written in 1983. The rot was already well established. By my calculations, these high school students are the parents of today’s students, or in some cases even the grandparents of today’s younger students. Not only are way too many of today’s students not getting a basic grounding in these things from their schools, but they’re probably not getting it from way too many of their parents, either. No wonder so many of them are willing to throw away freedom of speech in the name of protecting minorities’ feelings—they don’t een know what freedom of speech is or what it means, or why we have it in the first place.

Is the biggest news today really…

The New Neo Posted on by

…whether Trump was right about thousands of Muslims in Jersey City on TV celebrating 9/11?

One would think so.

I beg to differ. Why? Doesn’t the veracity of a candidate matter?

I think anyone who is paying attention to Trump already knows he exaggerates. Most people favoring him (and let me repeat that I am not one of them) support him because they believe he is strong on immigration and says the otherwise-unspeakable, and they don’t care if he plays fast and loose with a few facts along the way.

I also think anyone who has paid attention to 9/11 knows there are probably some Muslims in this country who celebrated 9/11, and knows there were indeed thousands and even millions who openly celebrated 9/11 round the world. That latter group are the ones we saw on TV. Anyone who is paying attention knows that the MSM and its fact-checkers also routinely distort what Trump and the other Republican candidates or Republicans in general say, and ignore exculpatory evidence about them. And anyone who is paying attention knows that the Republican nominee’s likely opponent, Hillary Clinton, is pretty good at exaggerating and lying herself.

Trump versus Hillary is one of my worst nightmares, although by no means the worst. But this particular statement of Trump’s really doesn’t change a thing for me, and I doubt it does for his opponents or even his supporters. Does it?

Brussels: raids net 16 suspects

The New Neo Posted on by

A total of 22 raids were carried out on Sunday across Brussels and Charleroi, Belgian prosecutor Eric van der Sypt told a news conference.

Police fired two shots at a car during an operation in Molenbeek, injuring one suspect who was later arrested…

Brussels has been on lockdown all weekend amid a manhunt for Abdeslam, who is suspected of being among the assailants who killed 130 people in Paris on Friday.

Mr Michel told reporters that authorities feared “an attack similar to the one in Paris, with several individuals who could also possibly launch several attacks at the same time in multiple locations”.

These raids are probably happening now because they’re based on intelligence gleaned from the Paris attacks, either directly from accomplices who were captured, or from their (or the dead terrorists’) cell phones or computers or acquaintances.

But why did it take until after the Paris attacks to do something about a situation in Brussels that has been allowed to fester and grow for many years, until it reached such a critical and destructive mass?

It appears that Abdeslam has eluded capture, although it’s impossible to know whether all the information—or even most of the information—we’re getting right now is accurate. Meanwhile, the city remains in lockdown.

Yes, the holidays are coming, and that means…Amazon!

The New Neo Posted on by

[BUMPED UP]

It’s that time. Again.

It’s almost Thanksgiving. And that means that Christmas, Chanukah, and whatever other holiday might suit your diverse fancies are all coming up sooner than you think.

So I’m encouraging you to feel their hot panting breaths on your neck, and to solve all your gift-giving dilemmas by turning to that online colossus, Amazon.

And if you use those widgets on my right sidebar to click through for all your Amazon purchases (now and at any other time of year) you will also be giving a small but still not insignificant gift to neo-neocon (it adds up, folks), and all without spending any extra money yourself. What could be more wonderful?

I thank you all in advance. And I’ll be bumping this up and/or re-posting it every now and then until Christmas.

[NOTE: In case you have ad blocker or something of that sort, and the Amazon widgets don’t show up on your computer, go here. You can also click on any Amazon book link within a post and anything you order during that click-through gets credited to me. I believe it’s true even for things you put in your cart but don’t order till a bit later, although there’s a time limit on how long they can be there and still get credited when ordered (I’m not sure what that limit is, though, so best to order sooner rather than later).]

Losing your turns

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I thought you might enjoy a recycling of this old post, as a palate cleanser.]

What’s a pirouette? Here’s the Wikipedia definition—and, as a former dancer, I can attest to its correctness:

One of the most famous ballet movements; this is where the dancer spins around on demi-pointe or pointe on one leg. The other leg can be in various different positions; the standard one being retiré. Others include the leg in attitude, and grand battement level, second position. They can also finish in arabesque or attitude positions. A pirouette can be en dehors – turning outwards, starting with both legs in plie, or en dedans – turning inwards.

The definition may seem Greek to you (actually, of course, French) but to me the terms are as familiar as English. The terminology of ballet, repeated to me from the age of four till my late thirties, when I quit dancing, gets drummed into the brain until it becomes reflexive.

The diagram, for instance, shows an en dehors turn, since the dancer is spinning in the opposite direction from the leg supporting her weight, and her other leg is held in the postion known as passe.

But I’m not here to teach you dance–fortunately for both of us, since that would be quite a trick, online. I want to talk about the psychological phenomenon every dancer knows about, which is known as “losing your turns.”

All of dance is hard for the dancer, although it’s incredibly satisfying and rewarding, a completely absorbing meshing of the physical, musical, artistic, and spiritual. But turns are notoriously hard for most people.

Certain people are different, however; they’re that rare phenomenon known as “natural turners.” Some strange trick of brain and inner ear, some unusual sense of centered balance, allows them to turn easily almost from the moment the step is first introduced to them. Natural turners almost never lose their turns; but the rest of us not only have to struggle to learn to turn, but are acutely aware that the knack can be lost.

Every person has a preferred side to which turning is easier, almost always the right. There have been only a few famous dancers who are/were “left-turners” (the extraordinary Fernando Bujones and the elegant Anthony Dowell come to mind), so most ballet choreography features turns to the right. The favored side for turning has no relation to handedness, by the way; it’s an entirely separate issue (I’m left-handed and a right turner, for example).

So the way the brain is structured is definitely part of what makes turns easy or hard. Turns are also especially challenging because, more than any other part of ballet, they require strength and relaxation in almost equal measure. Tension is a great turn-killer, especially tension of the head and neck, which have to work together to move fluidly in the manner known as “spotting” in order to avoid getting too dizzy (spotting involves keeping the eyes on a single “spot” until the last moment of the turn, and then whipping the head around quickly to come back and focus on that object again).

The best comparison I can think of is to baseball: the batter’s swing and the pitcher’s curve ball. Both are notorious for disappearing for unknown reasons, sometimes for a long time (sometimes ending a career, actually), and then mysteriously reappearing. When a batter loses his swing, he works with a coach, trying to locate the problem, fine-tuning things till it returns.

Likewise with dancers. You can see them practicing their turns after class, over and over and over, looking in the ever-present mirror to see if they can detect that elusive flaw that’s spoiling their turns. Because when turns go, it’s not a pretty sight. Balance is a thing that’s either on or off; a person who could once do four flawless revolutions from a single push-off preparation will now have trouble getting around twice—perhaps even hopping to complete the revolutions or, (for a female) falling off pointe, which can involve an ignominious and dangerous pratfall.

Virtually all dancers know that losing one’s turns is a possibility every time they take the preparation for a turn (usually a momentary pause in fourth or fifth position with the knee bend known as a demi-plie, eyes fixed on something ahead for the “spotting,” arms poised to whip and then close in for a bit of added impetus [see instructions]) . It’s a leap—well, not exactly a leap—of faith, a push into the unknown. Will the turn hold? The dancer has to have the confidence that it will, and relax into it, bringing together all his/her technique and knowledge without really thinking about it. It’s part of the dancer’s body memory, and trust has to enter into it.

Strangely enough, writing a blog has some aspects of this process, too. No, it doesn’t have that element of physical release–au contraire, it’s physically quite static. But every day, or even several times a day, the blogger faces that blank screen and has to take a little preparation and push off, assuming the turn (of phrase) will come. It’s different from other types of writing, because there’s so little time to prepare, and even less time to polish. One must produce at a fairly fast clip, digesting the news and what’s being said on other blogs (sometimes swallowing whole without chewing enough) and then saying one’s piece.

I’m not complaining; it’s a self-imposed labor of love. Sometimes I face that blank screen with eager anticipation—I’ve got an idea, the words flow, and the thing practically writes itself. A quadruple turn, as it were. Other times I cast about for something to say, or I have an idea but my thoughts are hard to sort out, or I realize that to do justice to the topic I’d really have to write a small book. Sometimes the product is only so-so; sometimes I’m just hopping around and fall off pointe. But the next day I usually return to take my place again, make my preparation, and try to relax into the turn with confidence. And, if it doesn’t turn out quite right, I try again the next day.

Fast and furious:

Or slow and controlled:

Dartmouth, University of Kansas: campus anti-hate-speech movement turns ever more hateful

The New Neo Posted on by

It occurs to me that the Cultural Revolution in American universities is entering a new phase. Previously, the demands were for the resignation of administrators and professors who were insufficiently self-flagellating and compliant. Now the focus has turned to getting rid of fellow students who are not enthusiastic enough or ethnic enough or supportive enough or apologetic enough to please the protesters drunk on their own power.

At the Dartmouth library about 150 people (some students, some perhaps outside activists?) are reported to have gone through the building cursing, shoving, and shouting racial epithets at white students who were studying there.

If you wonder what I mean by “cursing” and “racial epithets,” here’s a sample:

“F*** you, you filthy white f***s!”

“F*** you and your comfort!”

Not all the protesters were participating in the worst behavior. But the students among them who did should, of course, be expelled and charged with assault in cases where it got physical. Any bets on whether that will happen? According to reports here and here, nothing is likely to be done.

Is it not ironic and ominous that at Mizzou all it took for the protests to start that resulted in the administrator resignations were a couple of allegations of the use of the n-word (one completely undocumented and involving people who may not have been students, the other more credible but involving a drunk), whereas at Dartmouth there were many students committing documented offenses (cellphone videos) involving racist speech and some reported physical assaults, and yet it appears nothing will be done to punish the perpetrators?

Meanwhile, at the University of Kansas, protestors are demanding that three white student body leaders resign for not “standing in solidarity with their black peers.” I guess they didn’t sing the Internationale loudly enough.

The three tried to correct that error:

The three leaders released a statement Saturday, according to AP, saying they planned to go on serving and support minority groups. “Black lives matter. Black lives matter at the University of Kansas,” the three leaders reportedly wrote.

We’ll see if that placates the mob.

By the way, when this sort of thing began at Mizzou, I referenced Allan Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind. One of the things the movement did at Cornell when Bloom was there (an event he describes at length in his book) was to turn against and threaten a black student who didn’t get with the protest program. The story bears repeating [emphasis mine]:

In the following excerpt Bloom is describing an incident that occurred when he was a faculty member at Cornell during the late 60s, when black militants with guns occupied a campus building and made demands. Bloom had gone to the university provost to speak up for a black student of his (unnamed in the book, but actually Alan Keyes””who happens, in a strange twist of fate, to have been the person Barack Obama soundly defeated in his 2004 US Senate race, when Keyes was put on the Republican ballot as a hasty substitute for Jack Ryan). Keyes had earlier been threatened by a black professor at Cornell for refusing to take part in a demonstration. Here’s what Bloom says transpired:

The provost was a former natural scientist, and he greeted me with a mournful countenance. He, of course, fully sympathized with the young man’s [Keyes’] plight. However, things were bad, and there was nothing he could do to stop such behavior in the black student association”¦He added that no university in the country could expel radical black students, or dismiss the faculty members who incited them, presumably because the students at large would not permit it.

”¦The provost had a mixture of cowardice and moralism not uncommon at the time. He did not want trouble…At the same time the provost thought he was engaged in a great moral work, righting the historic injustice done to blacks. He could justify to himself the humiliation he was undergoing as a necessary sacrifice. The case of this particular black student clearly bothered him. But he was both more frightened of the violence-threatening extremists and also more admiring of them. Obvious questions were no longer obvious. Why could not a black student be expelled as a white student would be if he failed his courses or disobeyed the rules that make university community possible? Why could the president not call the police if order was threatened? Any man of weight would have fired the professor who threatened the life of the student. The issue was not complicated. Only the casuistry of weakness and ideology made it so”¦No one who knew or cared about what a university is would have acquiesced in this travesty. It was no surprise that a few weeks later””immediately after the faculty had voted overwhelmingly under the gun to capitulate to outrageous demands that it had a few days earlier rejected””the leading members of the administration and many well-known faculty members rushed over to congratulate the gathered students and tried to win their approval. I saw exposed before all the world what had long been known, and it was at last possible without impropriety to tell these pseudo-universitarians precisely what one thought of them.

Well, at least this time the protesters don’t have guns. Yet.

[NOTE: Victor Davis Hanson weighs in.]