22 March 2025

It was a discouraging week and I haven’t had the will to make sense of it. But there are three issues that are of real concern.

First, there were no Republicans (as far as I could tell) who honored their oath to defend the Constitution. Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was cluttered with all sorts of questions: Has the US been invaded by a state? Were all those who were deported really members of a gang? And why do the Republicans simply say that Trump was elected to get rid of people despite the guarantees demanded by the Constitution? And did Trump really sign the proclamation? Or is he so senile that he cannot remember?

Second, the Netanyahu government is clearly conducting ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip. Why else would Israel continue aerial bombardments and deny the introduction of necessary food, water, and medicine? It has become clear that many Palestinians are refusing to leave the Strip despite the horrific conditions because they fear a second Nakba. So, Israel will simply continue to punish those who remain in hopes that Palestinian resolve can be crushed. Israel will claim that the surviving Palestinians in the Gaza are going to leave the Gaza “voluntarily”. As I have stated before, this is a war of conquest, not a war of self-defense.

Third, Trump has extorted Columbia University to submit to intolerable conditions, including placing one of its Departments into receivership. It’s not clear to me that the Columbia campus is a hotbed of antisemitism (Columbia continues to attract Jewish students who comprise 20% of the student body–the highest percentage in the Ivies) or that Trump understands what antisemitism is or that he even cares. The capitulation of the University to crime gang tactics is a horrible lesson for higher education in the US. And the effect on free speech is catastrophic. Roy Cohn is watching (from hell) his star pupil conduct a witch hunt of historic measure.

So, I retreat into music. I can think about these matters for a period of time, and then I simply have to turn it all off. I am more convinced than ever that Trump’s term in office will not extend to 4 years (at some point the Republican Party will have to realize that it is digging its own grave). But waiting for the corrupt house of cards collapse is draining. The first three songs are done by Playing for Change. I played one of these songs in my lecture on globalization when I taught World Politics. I explained that globalization had all sorts of problems, but also some extraordinary opportunities. To choreograph these songs in a manner that compressed time and space was an important insight. Until the very recent past, such an enterprise was impossible. But Playing for Change was able to take simple songs and to unite people from all over the world to send the same message, even though the instruments and the language were all different. More importantly, Playing for Change was able to prove that there are brilliant artists who work the streets every day, and that the glitter and rouge of pop culture is nothing more than a very unfortunate distraction from the real meaning of music.