I am reading in the New York Times that Alan Dershowitz is enjoying his pose as a martyr of civil liberties, which, of course, is a total lie. What he's being deprived of was the status of social celebrity that he used to take for granted among the elite of Martha's Vineyard, something which is not a "civil liberty" but a privilege granted to rich, largely white guys who taught the scions and servants of the rich at Harvard and who have whipped up a rather gaudy and flashy media career by being a lawyer to rich murderers and the like. Given my experience of the rich and famous, I'd rather have dinner with blue collar folk.
That a Harvard law prof, emeritus, could get away with equating his privilege with rights and even civil liberties is a symptom of how totally screwd-up the matter of civil liberties became under the regime of the civil liberties industry of the post-war period. That same civil liberties industry which has made such a total cock-up of the First Amendment and other issues to the benefit of fascists like Trump. That Alan Dershowitz, a celebrity of that civil liberties industry is getting his kicks lying on behalf of the most blatantly fascistic man in the presidency in our history on venues of that fascism, and then, when his former friends drop him turns himself into a martyr is all the proof of how basically hypocritical and stupid that whole line of crap has been.
What happened to the right of his former hosts to free association, which also includes the right to free disassociation? I'd have practiced my right of free association to have never invited him to dinner on the basis of him advocating torture, an advocate of war crimes and crimes against humanity on the part of Israel, though even before that I'd have done it on the basis of him being a total and complete jerk and a loudmouthed asshole and a liar.
Alan Dershowitz will present himself as a hero no matter what happens, it's what his personal PR largely consists of. The guy is a monumental egomaniac. As I said he's the Gilderoy Lockhart of Harvard Law, a dandy of the the superficial media, a fraud. But there's no reason for us to let up just because he's a jerk. What he thinks of himself isn't important, his discrediting is.
It's a Trumpian thing. Declare the facts you want, and who is going to challenge it? Will there be a comprehensive survey of the Vineyard to see who is shunning Gilderoy and who isn't? His assertion he is "winning the war of Martha's Vineyard" can't be proved or disproved. All that really matters is that he have the last word.
ReplyDeleteChildren on the playground are like that. Most if them grow up.
If I had the time and inclination I'd try to figure out how this farce is related by his pathological lying about people, telling lies that are easily proved to be lies and doing things that are at odds with his PR image as some big fat Free Speech, Free Press guy, such as his attempt to threaten the University of California to not publish Norman Finklestein's take down of Dershowitz's The Case For Israel. Dershowitz even tried to pressure Schwarzenegger, then the California governor into forcing the University to suppress it. To his credit Arnold told the Dersh to pound sand.
DeleteThe guy is and has been a liar, a phony and a hypocrite just about as long as I've ever heard of him. Now he's a total joke like the guy he's using for this leg of his PR campaign. Only the joke is dangerous.