TOWARD A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN RIGHTS LAW

Eric A. Posner, The Twilight of Human Rights Law (Inalienable Rights Series) (Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2014) ("With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the human rights treaties were not so much an act of idealism as an act of hubris, with more than a passing resemblance to the civilizing efforts undertaken by governments and missionary groups in the nineteenth century, which did little good for native populations while entangling European powers in the affairs of countries they did not understand. A more humble approach is overdue." Id. at 148. "The Nazis' rejection of liberal democratic rights for German citizens was tied to their aggressive posture toward foreign countries, above all the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles--which meant the repudiation of reparations, the elimination of restrictions on the size of the army, and the recovery of German lands taken at the end of World war I. Hitler believed tat all German-speaking populations should be united in a single state, and that German should colonize lands in eastern Europe and enslave their inhabitants. The Nazi Party employed paramilitaries, espoused military values, and attempted to unify Germans by demonizing foreign (as well as domestic) enemies. Thus, the Nazi government's military aggression against foreign countries starting in 1939 seemed to follow logically from its abrogation of civil and political rights starting in 1933. One interpretation of all this is that if Germany had somehow been forced to respect the rights of its own citizens, the Nazis would never have gained power and turned Germany against its neighbors." Id. at 124. Posner goes on to note that the causal connections are "obscure." Still, it provided food for thought, particularly in light of America's own internal debate about the civil and political rights of Muslims (both immigrants and native-born), immigrants generally, African-Americans and other peoples of color in its increasingly militarized police state. If we don't or can't respect the civil and political rights of our own citizens, what standing do we have in the world to cast the first stone at others?).

SHIRLEY JACKSON

Ruth Franklin, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (New York & London: Liveright, 2016).

Miles Hyman, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation (New York: Hill & Wang, 2016).

Shirley Jackson, Life Among the Savages (New York: Penguin Books, 1997).

Shirley Jackson, Raising Demons (New York: Penguin Books, 2015).

Joyce Carol Oates, "Shirley Jackson in Love and Death," New York Review of Books, October 27, 2016).

OUR FRIENDS HELP DEFINE WHO WE ARE.

Alexander Nehamas, On Friendship (New York: Basic Books, 2016) ("Each one of our friendships--some more, some less--contributes an element of individuality to our character. Each one leads us in particular direction that no other can duplicate. That, of course, may result in a shattered self moving in different directions without rhyme or reason, unity, or coherent. But such shattered self is what we are all faced with at first--and accidental self, made of of haphazard elements, picked up at different times, in different contexts, from different people, from various books, pictures, and music, from diverse social, political, and cultural environments. Individuality requires the organization of these elements into a whole within which they are no longer haphazard--a coherent whole to which each makes a distinct contribution. But coherence is not enough. The whole these elements compose must also be distinctive. It must have a style that express one's distinctive character." Id. at 221-222.).

WHEN YOU REALLY THINK ABOUT IT . . .

A FREE PRESS IS THE COUNTRY'S FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE AGAINST WOULD BE DICTATORS AND AUTOCRATS.

ZYGMUNT BAUMAN ON LIQUID LOVE

Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds (New York: Polity Press, 2003).

ZYGMUNT DAUMAN ON LIQUID SURVEILLANCE

Zygmunt Bauman & David Lyon, Liquid Surveillance: A Conversation (New York: Polity Press, 2013).

APARTHEID AS PERFECT RACISM AND POLICE STATE

Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2016) ("Apartheid was perfect racism. . . ."  "As the British Empire fell, the Afrikaner rose up to claim South Africa as his rightful inheritance. To maintain power in the face of the country's rising and restless black majority, the government realized they needed a newer and more robust set of tools. They set up a formal commission to go out and study institutionalized racism all over the world. They went to Australia. They went to the Netherlands. They went to America. They saw what worked, what didn't. Then they came back and published a report, and the government used that knowledge to build the most advanced system of racial oppression know to man." "Apartheid was a police state, a system of surveillance and laws designed to keep black people under total control. A full compendium of those laws would run more that three thousand pages and weigh approximately ten pounds, but the general thrust of it should be easy enough for any American to understand. In America you had the forced removal of the native onto reservations coupled with slavery followed by segregation. Imagine all three of those things happening to the same group of people at the same time. That was apartheid." Id. at 19-20.).