A Moment of Darkness for Our Collective Dignity

This evening I find myself annoyed by a Berkeley-like phenomenon that extended the world over. Purportedly, over a billion people took place in “Earth Hour” this evening, dimming their lights as part of “a global event designed to highlight the threat from climate change” (see here). World-famous landmarks and ordinary homes alike reduced their artificial luminescence in an apparently united “up yours” to global warming.

Now, I happen to believe that climate change is a serious issue: that even though I think Al Gore’s sheep-like followers – who really have transformed greenness into nothing less than a cult – have exaggerated humankind’s malicious, apocalyptic contribution to the situation, I believe that the world’s getting warmer (and yes, it has been) is a genuine problem. My problem lies with this self-satisfied “display of solidarity” against our inanimate foe, the greenhouse gases. The demonstrators as a whole have the right idea, but as usual, they think that by inconveniencing themselves ever-so-slightly for a brief period, that they’ve done their part to solve the issue.

In the end, one desk lamp isn’t melting the polar ice caps; neither, for that matter, are a billion. The problem is 4-person families that own 3 cars and drive them to work, 15 blocks from their homes, because they don’t want to walk, bike, or (heaven forfend) take the bus. The problem is idiots that own and use private jets because they don’t find flying first class sufficiently dignified. The problem is jackasses that buy pickup trucks when they work at Kinko’s/FedEx. So when people around the world turn off some of the lights in their homes for an hour and then look down on someone else for not doing the same, they’re not really as close to being a part of the solution as they probably assume.

I don’t mean to disparage the sentiment, and I’m sure there were millions upon millions of well-meaning people who took part in the gesture because it was just that – an excellent gesture. And yet, I bet “Earth Hour” was a big hit in Berkeley, where it would give so many smug morons yet another unearned chance to feel proud of themselves. I’m very glad I wasn’t there. The complacent attitude that would lead these people to go to the limited trouble of flipping a few switches is the same that has seen so many people complain about the Piedmont Penetrator’s existence, while not actually doing anything to help local women by seeing to his capture and extended imprisonment.

Maybe it’s just hot air causing global warming, after all.

Back... and to the Left.

I once took a walk along the pier at the Berkeley Marina. The sea was choppy, the clouds lying ominously above me, and out along the horizon, the vague silhouette of a freighter could be seen against the crimson flare of the setting sun. Amidst it all, there was a seagull sitting on the right hand railing of the dock, eyeing me suspiciously. As I approached, he took off and flew further down the same railing, towards the heart of the bay. We exchanged this little back-and-forth the whole way down: every time I moved too close for comfort, he would fly further down the dock. We got near the end – by which time, mind you, I felt really bad for pushing the little idiot as far as he’d gone – and he ran out of dock to which he could flee. Not wanting to force him to think of an alternate course of action, I turned around and walked home.

I couldn’t help but think back on this when it was revealed in the Daily Cal last week (see the article here) that Senator John Moghtader, after much deliberation with his lawyer, was prepared to release a video taken on the balcony at Eshleman Hall on November 13 – one which purportedly negates the testimonies presented by first-hand “witnesses” Husam Zakharia and Dina Omar, among others. I liken those who falsified the evidence to the seagull, and myself (arrogantly enough) to the truth: you can try to run away from it, but if all works as it should, sooner or later, you’ll run out of dock.

The long-term repercussions of this new development are difficult to make out, particularly as very few have had access to the video itself. Still, its very existence certainly raises concerns about the recall, which was primarily based on the assumption that Moghtader had engaged in conduct unbefitting his role as an ASUC Senator by joining in the fight, as outlined in Dina Omar’s editorial. In recent days, the argument has been made that the results of the recall are not invalidated by the new tape, since Moghtader acted against student interest by withholding said evidence from the voting body. I, however, would answer that it would not have made any difference: if the actions of the District Attorney of Alameda County weren’t sufficient to convince students to vote on the recall, the outcome would seem to have been predetermined.

Don’t be fooled: this video is not important because it can undo the results of an unjust election. It presumably won’t do that, and even if it does, it’s pretty meaningless, because (a) the term is largely expired, (b) this year’s Senate can’t get anything done, and (c) the ASUC Senate is a worthless organization to begin with, as I’ve been writing all year. No, the video is important only because it will, based on what’s been revealed so far, prove that the dubious claims presented since November were, indeed, wholly falsified.

Ideally, it would be nice to see those whose dishonest claims saw the election presented to the disinterested populace in the first place face some personal repercussions, though presumably such will not be the case. Realistically, there are two things that should come out of this affair. First, it should lead to a serious reconsideration of the recall procedure on all fronts. The administration should recognize that the cost of a recall election is virtually unjustifiable, and that it needs to pressure the ASUC to amend its constitution accordingly. Student government should recognize that the proceedings have been far more divisive than the events that triggered them in the first place, and that the process was both far too easy to begin (those shady 1000 online signatures) and far too easy to finish (with just less than 2700 people deciding to remove the 7th highest vote getter). Finally, the students themselves should recognize that it’s apparently easy to waste a boatload of money to divest yourself of political enemies provided one is willing to intentionally distort the truth. Assuming another recall takes place before too long – which I’ve got to say, given how easy it is, it clearly ought to – students would be well-served to bear in mind the likelihood that testimony they’re presented with from anyone with something to gain from lying cannot necessarily be trusted.

Second, and even more important, students should recognize that the repercussions of this extend far beyond those who provided the fraudulent testimonies: those implicated in the email leak were as responsible for the spread of any lies as the students who provided them. I by no means intend to imply that the CalSERVE party is inherently ideologically opposed to Moghtader and all he stands for, but I posit that it can’t be a coincidence that the emails were all written by members of that group. It should also be noted that in the email written by CalSERVE Senator Kifah Shah, she did not express hope that Student Action Senators could be convinced of the legitimacy of their claims, but rather merely that they would “think of [Moghtader] as dispensible.” For a party that prides itself on “transparency,” CalSERVE’s practice feels uncomfortably more like a return to the rampant corruption of the United States’ Harding days. What’s emerged since November has been a political slate that has worked as a unit to overturn the democratic process they so insist they love in a transparent (oh, the devastating irony) attempt to remove the fly from their proverbial ointment. I refuse to waste money on a recall to remove the guilty parties from office. However, I sincerely hope that this political impropriety has not been lost on voters, and that when the April elections come up, they give a good, long thought as to whose interests CalSERVE really promises to defend – and to how much value transparency really has when you’re frightened by what you see inside.

I saw that same seagull again the last time I walked to the pier; once more, he took off down the dock. Remember, some people never learn.

Speed Kills

This is one I was going to let go, because I was willing to categorize it as a brainless mistake by an often well-meaning institution that a number of my friends actually care about. However, an email I got yesterday attempting to downplay and defend said mistake made me realize, upon reflection, that it was even worse than I’d thought.

In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, Berkeley Hillel ran a “speed friending” event (think speed dating, but with less appeal to college students), and put out ads featuring the image seen right. Now, it’s easy enough to see how this could have been intended to mean something other than “we’re scared of traditional Judaism as an institution,” even if it doesn’t. And so, even as the barbs were flying around here, in the form of machine gun exchanges over Facebook and the Jerusalem Post’s website, I refused to join in, for the reasons listed above.

The email I received was penned by a guy I respect, and yet the sentiment scared me. He called it “an example of a collegiate attempt at humor that fell flat, and exploded it into something it wasn't, suggesting it was an attack on Orthodoxy.” He went on to say that the outrage this piece of work prompted was just an attempt by people who don’t like “Hillel's big tent approach to Israel issues and attitudes” to discredit the institution any way they know how.

It rather sickens me that people are trying to play something like this off as some local political spat. Even assuming the best, is it any more comforting to think that it didn’t occur to the author that this could be offensive than it is to think that they were straight-up admitting they were scared of observant Judaism? This could only happen for one reason: whoever wrote this for Hillel didn’t have any Orthodox people to pop up in their mind and make them think twice. Speaking as someone who doesn’t give a crap about Hillel’s “big tent,” I can say that since my arrival in 2006, Hillel has steadily pushed observant Jews out – myself included. Not by putting on speed friending events to celebrate holidays named after saints, either: by refusing to take the minor steps to move their kitchen past dubious kashrut; by doing nothing for Passover, the hardest of Jewish holidays for college students to observe; by serving gummy snacks with gelatin in them on Purim; by sticking the Orthodox minyan in a side room because the yoga minyan needed the space more. The list goes on.

This ad was not wrong because it was a poorly-executed attempt at a joke that shouldn’t have been considered funny to start with; it was wrong because it’s representative of a situation that has progressed to the point where it doesn’t occur to anyone that there are Orthodox Jewish students even tangentially tied to Hillel who might take offense. And to reiterate, regardless of intent, this ad was EXTREMELY offensive, as are all attempts to justify it with anything other than “it won’t happen again.”

Here’s a picture of what I left Hillel for: Doesn’t scare me. And I’ve never looked back.

And They Still Had to Cheat?

A Daily Cal reporter asked me on February 23 whether my like-minded voters and I were surprised by the low turnout projected for the recall election; as I recall, my reaction was, “I wouldn’t say we’re surprised, but we’re definitely disappointed.” This sentiment pretty neatly sums up my feelings in light of the news that Senator John Moghtader has successfully been recalled. My lack of surprise results from the knowledge – advertised here for weeks – that this election was nothing more than a vendetta campaign launched by personal political enemies of Senator Moghtader’s, and one which meant little-to-nothing to most students on campus. The disappointment, in large part, results from the self-importance and laziness of Berkeley students – the former of which led waves of kids to express their outrage at the egregious waste of their money, and the latter of which made the same juveniles unwilling to go three feet out of their way to express this outrage in any effective manner.

Thursday morning, a story broke in the Daily Cal (see here) reporting a leak that revealed emails sent by ASUC President Roxanne Winston and Senator Kifah Shah, advocating the recall of Senator Moghtader. (The reason this is newsworthy is that ASUC Senate officials are forbidden to use their positions of – for lack of a more befitting word – “power” to pull sway as far elections are concerned.) Further implicated were External Affairs Vice President Dionne Jirachaikitti and Senator Mary June Flores: the former had an offending email sent through her listserv (though she, in proper Nixonian fashion, denies any knowledge of said email’s existence), while the latter publicly demonstrated her colors by pushing for the election to take place during finals last semester.

Senator Shah’s email – an odd, haphazardly worded little ditty that displays an alarming disregard for the sanctity of the English language – concerned the mobilization of Senators from the opposing party (Student Action, the proverbial Aaron Burr to CalSERVE’s Alexander Hamilton) in garnering support for Senator Moghtader’s removal from office. She claims that the email was sent out in a purely private capacity, with no intent to abuse her position as a Senator to assist in the takedown of the president of Tikvah: Students for Israel; despite her well-publicized status within the ranks of Students for Justice in Palestine, I am, of course, inclined to believe her wholeheartedly.

President Winston’s email was addressed to senators and an SJP official, intended to put them in contact with one another and express her intent to “lend [her] support as best [she could]” in the recall campaign. She, too, has recently claimed that her email was sent out in a purely private capacity, with no intent to abuse her position as President of the ASUC to assist the takedown of a Senator she’d presumably long wished had never been elected. Her email, though, ended in an electronic signature that identified her as the President of the ASUC.

I smell a rat... and this time, it isn’t just that standard Berkeley odor.

Though I can’t say I know her personally, from my position Roxanne Winston reminds me a good deal of Star Wars crimelord Jabba the Hutt – not because of her Rubenesque proportions, but because of her position as the self-serving, short-sighted, and woefully incompetent figurehead of a bloated organization that holds little realistic claim to power and seemingly never gets anything done, yet nonetheless is somehow capable of dragging untold sums of cash out of an unwilling populace. I believe the fact that this ASUC Senate has developed a distinct reputation – mind you, among the pantheon of incapacity that precedes it in the annals of ASUC history – as one that can’t get anything done must lie, in large part, at her feet. In this particular instance, I can’t tell if she’s lying because she’s been caught, or if she was just too damn lazy to erase the letterhead at the bottom of her email – and frankly, I don’t know which would be worse. It would seem we’re either dealing with a woman who illegally abused her position and then lied about it to her constituency (again, rather Nixonian), or else one whose unwillingness to make the slightest effort even when it’s most called for is exacerbating the chronic Senatorial stagnation! Call it one simple man’s opinion, but abuse of power and incompetence sound more like legitimate reasons to begin an obscenely expensive recall than anything I’ve heard or read since this hullabaloo started.

I’m at this stage disappointed that the recall went through for four basic reasons: (a) I believe it was an overblown vendetta, parlayed into a simple miscarriage of justice; (b) I believe the 3717 votes cast in the recall election should not constitute a sufficient percentage of the 24,636 undergraduates enrolled at Berkeley to overturn the purportedly democratic election that saw Senator Moghtader receive more votes than all but 6 other candidates last year; (c) at the risk of beating this dead horse officially beyond recognizability, I believe that the recall of a Senator from a meaningless Senate with 2 months left in his term was categorically NOT worth the astonishing expenditure; and (d) finally, I fear that the outcome, combined with my readily apparent stance on the election itself, will mislead readers into believing that my disgust with the would-be politicians outed in Zach E.J. Williams’ article stems only from resentfulness. To be candid: the very “behavior unbefitting an official of the ASUC” that those behind the recall were (evidently successfully) attempting to convince voters that Senator Moghtader was guilty of has here been ably displayed by both Senator Shah and President Winston, to say nothing of Jirachaikitti or Flores.

For me there is no way around the conclusion that a concerted effort must now be made to ensure that the responsible parties do not find their way back into the ASUC. If some putrid cocktail of fate, lies, corruption, and laziness has seen to it that the Berkeley student body was not able to make use of the recall election to declare that it’ll have no part in yet more unrepentant squandering of public funds, then the regularly scheduled election will have to do so in its stead.

It’s funny that the most important thing I get out of studying history is something they don’t try particularly hard to impress on us in classes at Berkeley: that the only thing worse than electing conniving, manipulative politicians is electing them twice.