Iran Turns To Germany? Joy Reid - MSNBS"s Realtor. Hate The One's Who Discomfort You With Reality. What To Do About China?

“I did my best.” “Sorry…I screwed up. Next time, I’ll triple-check.” “I feel [fill in the blank].” These are some of the excuses Adam Carolla, host of The Adam Carolla Show, has heard from his young employees recently. In the 2018 PragerU Commencement address, Carolla calls this “The Language of Losers” and explains why it should be avoided at all costs. He also warns graduates not to take the freedom they enjoy for granted. In fact, he tells them, we need more freedom, not less. Funny and profound as only Carolla can be, this is the graduation speech students need to hear.

AND:


https://www.prageru.com/videos/can-climate-models-predict-climate-change  

And Lastly:

Encouragement from a dear friend and fellow memo reader: "Excellent, you should do more of these "from my perspective" total overviews, at least one or two a month. B---"
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I also am aware that frequently I post and/o send things that are not factual and I even have my own suspicions but I don't charge for these memos so you get what you pay for - caveat emptor

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IMPORTANT:

I repeat what I recently posted.  My memo list is quite long and probably goes to your trash box.  If you delete before reading  it will remove you from my memo mailings and it is a real "pain" to reinstate you. So please, if you wish to remain on my memo list, do not delete your trash box without first reading my memo.  Thanks, 

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Iran turns to Germany. (See 1 below.)

And:

MSNBC"s Joy Reid can't abide the fact that Israel exists. (See 1a below.)

Finally:

Bibi will talk straight in upcoming trip.  Will his words fall on deaf ears? The problem with straight talk is that it makes those who are immune to reality uncomfortable.  It makes them squirm. It takes them out of their comfort zone of living in denial. This is why world leaders do not like those who ask them to open their eyes.

 Furthermore, regardless of the perceived right to defend oneself when attacked the world prefers the victim, the under dog.  I guess: "but for the sake of God go I" is a strong motivator and serves to blur our vision.

Fake news morphs into believable fact when repeated enough.
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Let's hear it for Stanford.  Avowedly one of America's great institutional universities. We are allowing America to be destroyed from within. Fifth Columns are holding up the hallowed education halls.(See 2 below.)

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My memo, in which I featured comments about Jim and Linda Gidden's and his a retirement, was opened by more memo readers than any in the past.

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It would appear Trump's initial posture is to be optimistic, even come across as gullible, and then he proceeds from there as events and relationships develop. Therefore, in trying to discern him, it might be wiser to stand back and let the flow of events evolve.

His compulsive, often knee jerk, tweeting also frequently does not  serve his cause.

I am convinced, China is the emerging power the world has not faced if only because of the potential threat from their awesome size. 

I believe Trump is aware of this reality but am not sure he/we have a handle on what to do because we cannot contain them alone, Americans are averse to confrontation post Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq and our debt constraints. Furthermore, most of our allies are feckless and, sadly,  NATO has evolved into is a paper pussy cat. 

In our desire to become a more empathetic nation, one more sensitive to the frailties, cultural, ethnic and physical circumstances of others, we have gone overboard in other ways. Our nation's immune system has been weakened and we are now vulnerable to the many irrational and extreme protest viruses.  What happened at Starbucks recently is the most recent example of an overkill reaction.

Anyone can now trample on reality and we have no citizen anti-dote to resist and fight off the causes from the demands from radical extreme -right and left.

America seems to be destroying itself from within in its desire to become softer and more tolerant .(See 3 below.)

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Dick

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1) Intel report: Iran seeks weapons of mass destruction technology in Germany

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL

“Iran continued to undertake efforts to obtain goods and know-how to be used for the development of weapons of mass destruction and to optimize corresponding missile delivery systems."

The intelligence agency of the German state of Baden-Württemberg has revealed in an eye-popping report that Iran’s regime sought during 2017 to obtain technology and scientific knowledge to produce weapons of mass destruction and advance its missile program.

“Iran continued to undertake, as did Pakistan and Syria, efforts to obtain goods and know-how to be used for the development of weapons of mass destruction and to optimize corresponding missile-delivery systems,” said the intelligence document reviewed by The Jerusalem Post.

Since the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was reached between the world powers and the Islamic Republic in July 2015, Iran’s regime attempted to covertly secure advanced technology for its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs, according to German intelligence reports examined by the Post.

The Post’s review of additional intelligence reports released in April and May from the German states of Saxony-Anhalt, Bavaria and Lower Saxony detailed in similar terms, as the Baden-Württemberg intelligence report, Iran’s illegal procurement conduct across Germany.

The German counter-espionage officials in Baden-Württemberg wrote the report prior to US President Donald Trump’s May 8 decision to pull the plug on US participation in the JCPOA.

According to the intelligence report, “Iran has continued unchanged the pursuit of its ambitious program to acquire technology for its rocket and missile-delivery program.” Iran’s reported test of the mid-range Chorramschahr rocket in September was cited in the document.

Iran’s regime seeks German software, sophisticated vacuum and control-engineering technologies, measurement devices and advanced electrical equipment for its rocket program, said the report. Germany is Iran’s most important European trade partner and has been the European country most willing to resist US policy to wind down trade with Iran. The US labels Iran’s regime a leading state-sponsor of terrorism.

German exports to Iran rose to 3.5 billion euros in 2017 from 2.6 billion euros in 2016.

Germany conducts dual-use deals with the Islamic Republic, in which merchandise can be used for military and civilian purposes. The Post reported in February that Iranian businessmen purchased industrial material from the Krempel company in Baden-Württemberg that was later found in chemical rockets used to gas Syrian civilians in January and February. A total of 24 Syrians were severely injured in those poison gas attacks.

Germany’s Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control told the Post that the Krempel material was not a dual-use item, and declined to stop trade between Krempel and the Islamic Republic.

The intelligence report in Baden-Württemberg said Tehran’s “current worsening relations with the US, as well as Western governments’ critical views toward Iran’s atomic program, may lead to an increase of Iranian espionage activities.” Iran continues to spy on Iranian dissidents in Germany who oppose the radical clerical leadership in Tehran.

The Baden-Württemberg intelligence agency – the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution – monitors threats to Germany’s democratic, constitutional order and is the rough equivalent of Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), operating at the state level. The counter-intelligence officials wrote that Iran’s illicit activities in the federal republic are situated in the classic sectors for espionage: politics, the economy, science, military and the armaments industry. “The observation and combating of proliferation efforts of... Iran was also an important task of counter-intelligence in the report year [2017 in Baden-Württemberg],” said the report.

The Baden-Württemberg intelligence officials said they had gathered “intensive intelligence on activities of Iran’s spy agencies.” The 345-page report devotes lengthy sections to Iran’s sponsorship of the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, and to Tehran’s espionage agencies and state agencies of repression: the Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Revolutionary Guards Intelligence. Iran’s main proxy, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, has 950 members operating in Germany

1a) MSNBC host: Ahmadinejad was right, Israel shouldn't exist

'God isn't a realtor'. Joy Reid slammed establishment of Israel, said Iran's Ahmadinejad was right in denunciations of Jewish state.

A MSNBC host who sparked controversy earlier this year after blog posts she wrote more than a decade ago were unearthed came under renewed criticism over the weekend after it was revealed that she had expressed support for statements by an Iranian leader denouncing the establishment of the State of Israel.

Joy-Ann Reid, host MSNBC’s AM Joy program, first came under scrutiny in November 2017, after it was revealed that blog posts she had written almost a decade before had accused then-Florida Governor Charlie Crist of being a homosexual.

Earlier this year, other controversial articles posted to Reid’s blog came to light, including one which photo-shopped Arizona Senator John McCain into an image of the 2007 Virginia Tech campus shooting. The post was titled “Bagdad John strikes again”.

In other posts, Reid endorsed conspiracy theories regarding the 2001 9/11 terror attacks, including a movie which suggested the attacks were in fact part of a conspiracy by the US government.

Reid initially denied writing the controversial posts, suggesting that her blog may have been hacked. Reid later admitted, however, that experts hired to investigate the posts were unable to find any evidence that the blog had been hacked, and that the posts had been written by anyone other than herself.

In another post uncovered recently, Reid wrote in December 2005 that then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was right in his claim that the State of Israel should not exist.

The blog post cited comments Ahmadinejad made to the AFP in December 2005:

“You believe the Jews were oppressed, why should the Palestinian Muslims have to pay the price? You oppressed them, so give a part of Europe to the Zionist regime so they can establish any government they want. We would support it.

“So, Germany and Austria, come and give one, two or any number of your provinces to the Zionist regime so they can create a country there ... and the problem will be solved at its root.

“Why do they insist on imposing themselves on other powers and creating a tumor so there is always tension and conflict? Is it not true that European countries insist that they committed a Jewish genocide? They say that Hitler burned millions of Jews in furnaces ... and exiled them.

“Then because the Jews have been oppressed during the Second World War, therefore they [the Europeans] have to support the occupying regime of Quds [Jerusalem]. We do not accept this.”

In response to the Iranian leader’s comments, Reid wrote that she agreed with Ahmadinejad.

“I hate to admit that Mr. Ahmadinejad has a point.”

Reid then accused Israel of adhering to a rigid ethnic “caste” system, incorrectly claiming that most Israeli citizens are descended from German nationals.

“It was the German government of the 1930s and the Vichy French who perpetrated and abetted the Holocaust (and a plurality of Israelis are former German nationals, plus lower castes consisting of Eastern Europeans, Russians, Sephardic Jews from the Mediterranean and at the bottom of the social pyramid, Falasha Africans),” Reid wrote.

“It does seem a tad cheeky of the British to have unilaterally awarded the victims land belonging to living Palestinians as restitution. After all, God is not a real estate broker. He can’t just give you land 1,000 years ago that you can come back and claim today.”

In 2006, Reid penned another article in which she accused pro-Israel American Jews of “dual loyalties” and claimed that “neoconservatives” were “hard core American Likudniks”.

“There seems to be a double standard when it comes to a certain other flag often rallied ’round by Americans,” Reid wrote in the piece, entitled “The Flag Bearers”.

“I think that the fact that the waving of the Israeli flag isn’t criticized doesn’t mean people aren’t unhappy about Israeli flag wavers’ possible ‘dual loyalties.’ I think that concern is out there, particularly when it comes to hard core American likudniks like the neoconservatives.”

“It’s just that there is a tremendous taboo in the United States about saying anything even remotely negative about Israel, or about implying ‘dual loyalty’ when it comes to a Jewish American. It simply isn’t done, because it would expose the speaker to charges of anti-Semitism (Pat Buchanan can tell you all about that, given his periodic criticism of the Israelis).”

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2) The Campus Intersectionality Craze | commentary

By elliot kaufman

By my second week at Stanford, I knew only three things: I was unable to drink alcohol responsibly, I didn’t really like my new friends, and supporting Israel was going to be a drag. I couldn’t escape the posters screaming about Israeli settler colonialism and human-rights abuses. They were plastered on the backs of the bathroom stall doors, right at eye level for the seated occupant. Even in the safest of spaces, there was nowhere else to look.

The posters had five bullet points. The first squarely connected Israel to American police violence. “Israel trains U.S. police how to deal with black people the way its occupation forces deal with Palestinians,” it read. The second bullet point explained that Israeli airstrikes deliberately target Palestinian women and children. The third accused Israel of systematically sterilizing African immigrants to reduce its black population. The fourth laid out religious discrimination against gays in Israel. The fifth linked the technology behind the Israeli “apartheid fence” to U.S. efforts to “hunt down undocumented migrants.”

The posters were the work of Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine, a rainbow coalition of 19 student organizations, including the Black Student Union, MEChA (a large, radical Latino student group), the NAACP, Stanford Students for Queer Liberation, Stanford American Indian Association, the First Generation and/or Low-Income Partnership, and so on. Their opposition was the Coalition for Peace. This was an odd kind of coalition, consisting of only one group: The Jewish Student Association.

Fellow students explained the disparity as the natural result of the sympathy from the marginalized for the marginalized. No doubt that is partly true. But what I saw that year, in 2014, was a well-oiled machine whose leaders were able to whip their constituent groups into action and frame the issue as the weak versus the strong, the weak versus the Jews. Defection from the anti-Israel cause meant not only abandoning one’s group and facing real personal costs, but also becoming a servant to power. I had just been introduced to intersectionality and witnessed its grip on the American campus.

Intersectionality theory was formalized in an academic paper. The critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw wrote in 1989 that a rigid separation of racism and sexism blinded American antidiscrimination law to the experiences of black women who had faced something more than the sum of each bigotry. Yet treating intersectionality as an argument gives it too little, and at the same time too much, credit. Intersectionality needs to be understood first as a model of political organizing, second as a conspiracy, and only third as a theory.

Intersectionality is used to tear down an older model of political organizing, what Crenshaw calls the “trickle-down approach to social justice.” The trickle-down model rallied around feminism, promising that its achievements would eventually empower black women. It rallied around opposition to exploitation, assuming its victories would eventually reach poor people of color. The left that Crenshaw helped build considers these promises hopelessly broken. Fighting prejudices separately misses the true “intersectional experience.” That is, the racism and sexism that afflict black women are suffered as a unified experience. In this crucial but ineffable sense, racism and sexism can be said to merge into one.

As the International Socialist Review helpfully notes, this insight “has enormous significance at the very practical level of movement building.” Since “oppressions work together in producing injustice,” according to the summary of black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins, intersectionality has the effect of making solidarity a prerequisite of consciousness. In other words, one cannot be a full participant in the effort to secure social justice if one is a mere feminist or anti-racist. In fact, the anti-racist who fails to consider the special suffering of people of color who are gay or Palestinian is hardly an anti-racist at all. He must champion every left-wing cause as they all overlap. Different types of bigotry combine to threaten vulnerable people at their junctions.

Groups that can consistently mobilize their members to rally and vote do not just win but dominate campus politics, imposing their will on the ambivalent majority, most of whom will adopt whatever political view is least costly in their social circles. Though the situation is not uniform across the country, on elite campuses, the only group able to achieve this level of mobilization is the intersectional coalition of minority groups.

Jewish students, however, contest the intersectional coalition’s exercise of power. Sensing that their interests are threatened, the students adopt a defensive posture, parrying unprovoked attacks against Israel. Often, they seek to debate the enemy they do not want into deescalating hostilities. This is unlikely to succeed.

Intersectionality begins with identity über alles. Of course, a member of a marginalized group does not need to be told that she shares interests, histories, and experiences with her fellow group members. But intersectionality tells her anyway, stressing the integrity and community of the group and subgroup again and again. Already swimming with the current, its practitioners use ethnic and racial student groups, community centers, courses, majors, events, freshmen orientations, mentorship programs, and even themed dormitories to sort incoming freshmen into their identity group. These students, many of whom feel quite vulnerable, as they are 18 years old and away from their families and friends, are grateful for soft social landing spots with peers from similar backgrounds.

Strict sorting positions each group as a cog in a political machine. Shaped into cohesive units, identity groups can be organized and led credibly from above by one of their own. On a campus where identity groupings have become primary elements in the overall social network, opposing the group position is then framed as siding with the same force of injustice that is the group’s enemy. For this reason, defection becomes nearly unthinkable, no matter how unrelated the issue seems (black queers for Palestine?). In this way, racial and ethnic leaders are able to deliver votes and numbers to the coalition.

In my freshman year, the intersectional anti-Israel activists had plenty of ideas. The Native Americans, for example, cast Zionism as a continuation of the settler colonialism that had ravaged their community. We countered that Jews were indigenous to the land, but it didn’t matter. This was not a debate. It was simple coalition politics.

The Native American student group, along with those of the black, Latino, Muslim, and Asian communities, is part of the Students of Color Coalition (SOCC). This is Stanford’s dominant political machine. Every year, SOCC endorses a dozen candidates for student council and, in exchange, requires them to campaign as a slate. The effect is to stop candidates from building independent political profiles, making them entirely dependent on the larger machine. It’s worth it for both sides: Every year since 2009, SOCC candidates have won a majority of the student council, and often a supermajority. Even in 2015, when it was dogged by allegations of anti-Semitism that were published in the New York Times, SOCC still won nine of 15 possible council races. Year after year, its member groups out-organize the opposition and corral the votes of their racial and ethnic compatriots and their left-wing supporters in sufficient numbers to overwhelm an apathetic student body. These wins translate into more diversity administrators, sexual-assault trainings, money for community centers, and calls for a diverse faculty.

Remarkably, in 2014, the student council fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority it needed to pass a resolution calling for divestment from Israel. Two student-council members, one leftist Latina and one leftist Jew, had abstained and voted against the resolution, respectively. In short order, the activist communities of which they were part made clear that the offending members had only one path to avoid social ostracism. A week later, a re-vote was called, and before anyone knew what was happening, both students switched their votes. Defection from the intersectional coalition was too costly for them to bear.

Intersectionality does not by itself explain the campus left’s hatred for Israel. Decades ago, long before today’s intersectional coalitions existed, Soviet and Arab anti-Zionist propaganda were popular on the left. There are, however, two facts worth noting about today’s groups. First, they almost always include the Muslim Students’ Association and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), both of which push the coalition to undertake anti-Israel action. SJP is also an extremely well-organized national group that can make the rest of the coalition’s job easy by supplying its prepackaged divestment campaign.

Second, the coalition defines itself as the collection of marginalized groups. This leaves only two options for nonmember groups, such as whites and Jews: They become either part of the power structure or allies of the marginalized. The former is assumed because all whites benefit from skin-color privilege, but the latter can be earned.

As Mia McKenzie, the writer behind the popular website Black Girl Dangerous, explains, the key to being an ally is to “shut up and listen.” Articles about how to be an ally invariably begin here. They may say all the right things, but white allies still, quite literally, lack skin in the game. They remain privileged, able to defect to the power structure at any time, and their nonwhite partners know it.

This lingering suspicion requires white allies to humble themselves publicly and repeatedly before people of color. Accordingly, they confess their privilege, how they benefit from it, and how it is so baked into American society that they are irredeemably tainted and poisoned by it, despite their best efforts. The ally must show he subordinates his identity and interests and must pledge loyalty to the movement, its identities, and its interests. In the end, the intersectional movement has little to tell these students other than to confess their sins. But for the guilt-drenched modern conscience, that is more than enough. White students line up for these coveted roles, eager to profess their disgust with their identity.

Jewish students have it tougher. To subordinate themselves, it is not enough to condemn whiteness. They must also take on the “mainstream Jewish community” and Israel itself. What other way can a Jew demonstrate her allegiance? If she refuses to forsake Israel, then she is just another hypocritical white liberal, happy to tout social justice until it threatens her own privilege. In this way, many otherwise progressive Jews reveal themselves to be bad allies. By putting Israel before the coalition, they appear to put themselves before the coalition, clinging to their place in the power structure.

The intersectional movement can interpret this Jewish intransigence in the way that it understands all opposition: as backlash from the power structure. Who else would oppose the oppressed but the oppressors? So when Jewish students organize against the intersectional coalition, they confirm that they do not fit in among the marginalized, an impression aided by their observable or presumed whiteness and wealth.

Treating opposition as aggression from the power structure is a means of manufacturing concern for those who are opposed. Surely universities should not allow vulnerable minorities to be targeted and attacked—which is how the coalition understands the power structure’s political mobilization aimed against it. This framing then justifies everything from classroom callouts to speech codes to shouting down speakers, behavior that has escalated on the left and collapsed on the right since 2013. The campus left claims to be exercising its right to self-defense, responding to your aggression.

If the marginalized are conceived as basically united, the temptation is strong to see the marginalizers as similarly united. Patricia Hill Collins writes, “Regardless of the particular intersections involved, structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal domains of power reappear across quite different forms of oppression.” What the marginalized are really fighting, in this view, is power, and power is fairly homogenous, even when it goes under different names. The oppressors of the Palestinians and the oppressors of black Americans, therefore, can be joined in the same system of power relations.

This theory can be vulgarized quite readily into a conspiracy. One need only conceive the power structure as a unit, undertaking coordinated action. It then appears to have many tentacles striking all over the world, to be exceedingly powerful and organized. But it’s also secretive and denies it has any diabolical plans. In other words, it starts to resemble the House of Rothschild, Henry Ford’s International Jew, or the Elders of Zion of the anti-Semitic imagination.

It is sadly axiomatic that those who perceive evil as residing in a single matrix or enemy will eventually blunder into anti-Semitism. At least some will eventually conflate that enemy with the Jews and that matrix with their supposed lackeys. This is how remarkably diverse conspiracy theories converge. And this convergence is always to the detriment of the Jews, who become synonymous with a power elite.

The intersectional coalition is vulnerable to this sort of conspiracy theorizing for three reasons. The first is tactical. To engage their diverse coalition, intersectional movements must exaggerate the unity and malevolence of its enemies. The unity helps show anti-sexual-assault activists, for example, that Israeli “apartheid” should be their issue, too, because of how it props up the same system of domination that inflicts violence on Palestinian and other women. The result is a picture of a uniquely wicked Jewish state lurking behind the world’s evils.

Second, on campus after campus, the intersectional coalition’s main opposition is composed of Jewish students. And when Jews are already the proximate tactical enemy, and the movement already sees itself as engaged in an epic struggle against the powerful, it is all too easy to conflate the Jews not only with Israel but also with the entire power structure, and blame them for all sorts of other things. Just ask the Palestinians.

Third, there is the uncomfortable fact that anti-Semitism in America is more common among racial minorities than among whites. The Anti-Defamation League’s most recent data on anti-Semitic attitudes confirm the longstanding trend. Twenty-three percent of African Americans were found to hold anti-Semitic attitudes, compared with only 14 percent of the general population and 10 percent of whites. U.S.-born Hispanics clock in at 19 percent, but the number for foreign-born Hispanics, not an insignificant group in America, is 31 percent. Even worse, the ADL Global 100 found that 34 percent of Muslim Americans hold anti-Semitic views.

All these challenges mean that intersectional movements should be extra vigilant in detecting the development of anti-Semitic conspiracy theory within their ranks. Unfortunately, intersectionality is endemically blind to anti-Semitism.

Consider Gabriel Knight, a Palestinian-American former member of Stanford’s student council. In 2016, he publicly defended talk of “Jews controlling the media, economy, government, and other societal institutions” as mere “questioning [of] potential power dynamics.” It is notable that, despite intense pressure, Stanford’s Students of Color Coalition refused to rescind its endorsement of Knight for reelection, even after other organizations had done so, and even after Knight pulled out of the election. Since Knight technically remained on the ballot, the powerful endorsement brought him close to winning.

Strict classification by identity makes Knight and other people of color members of the in-group, the coalition of the marginalized, while the Jews calling for him to step down are considered members of the out-group, the coalition of the dominant. This completely reverses the polarity of the situation. Knight becomes the plucky underdog, daring to punch up and challenge the power, which immediately reacts by destroying him. By default, punching up appears to be resistance to domination; punching down is seen as dangerous oppression and bigotry. Actions by Jews, who are considered to have power, can be interpreted as threatening, but most actions against them cannot. Consequently, the modern anti-Semite’s punching up at the powerful Jews, whether those in Israel, America, or Germany, is not seen as punching at all.

Comments by Tamika Mallory, co-founder of the Women’s March and a defender of Louis Farrakhan, are illustrative of the intersectional blind spot. Mallory castigated Starbucks for hiring the ADL to conduct anti-bias training for its employees, since “the ADL is CONSTANTLY attacking black and brown people.” This is how she sees it: the ADL—white, Jewish, respectable—versus poor Louis Farrakhan—black, Muslim, marginalized. Recognizing anti-Semitism from below requires using a lens that the intersectional movement simply lacks.

As I walk on Stanford’s campus today, three years after the intersectional divestment campaign of my freshman year, I pass SJP’s mock “apartheid wall.” Placed right in the center of our main plaza, it too cannot be missed.

On one side of the wall, in large letters, someone has written, “Respeta mi EXISTENCIA o espera mi RESISTENCIA.” The Black Power fist has been drawn directly below it. Something else is written next to it in Arabic. Farther over, “Corea for Justice in Palestine” has been plastered across a drawing of the map of both Koreas. Next is the slogan “From Palestine to Mexico, Those Walls Got To Go,” with both nations’ flags appended to the side. Below reads “APIs [Asian and Pacific Islanders] against APARTHEID” and “BORDERS—what’s up with that?” Back on the left, somebody wrote “End Gun Violence,” “Equality,” and “Black Lives Matter.”

As a piece of propaganda, this is pitiable stuff. “Equality” is generic and lame; “End Gun Violence” seems totally unrelated; the Mexican connection is laid on way too thick; and why exactly is Korea spelled in English with a “C”? The whole thing is a hodgepodge, the result of too many artists with too many markers.

But on closer inspection, there was just the right number of markers at work: one for every group. MEChA, the Latino student group, wrote the Spanish and drew the Mexican flag. The Black Student Union drew the fist. The Muslim Students’ Association contributed the Arabic. Even the Asian American Student Association got in on the action. Each identity group had added its own inward-directed slogan, signalling to its members that they were being implicated in the fight. Forget theory. It is on this basis—I’ll rally my people if you’ll rally yours—that the intersectional machine cooperates and wins.

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3) China’s Military Escalation

Mattis and Congress push back against Beijing’s South China Sea deployments.

By The Editorial Board

While President Trump focuses on trade and North Korea, China is aggressively building military outposts beyond its borders in the South China Sea. Beijing wants to push Washington out of the Indo-Pacific, and the Trump Administration and Congress may finally be developing a serious strategy to respond.

Trillions of dollars of trade annually float through the Indo-Pacific, which stretches from East Africa through East Asia. In recent years China has built military bases on artificial islands hundreds of miles from its shores, ignoring international law and a 2016 ruling by a United Nations tribunal.

The buildup has accelerated in recent weeks, as China has deployed antiship missiles, surface-to-air missiles and electronic jammers on the Spratly islands and even nuclear-capable bombers on nearby Woody Island. This violates an explicit promise that Chinese President Xi Jinping made to Barack Obama in 2015 that “China does not intend to pursue militarization” on the Spratlys.

The next step could be deployed forces. At that point “China will be able to extend its influence thousands of miles to the south and project power deep into Oceania,” Admiral Philip Davidson, who leads the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in April.

In the face of China’s buildup, the U.S. has shown uneven commitment. Mr. Obama limited freedom-of-navigation patrols to avoid a confrontation and never committed the resources to make his “pivot to Asia” a reality. China saw Mr. Obama’s hesitation and kept advancing. The growing concern is that China will begin to dictate the terms of navigation to the world and coerce weaker neighboring countries to agree to its foreign policy and trading goals.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis lately has been putting this concern front and center. He recently rescinded an invitation to the Chinese navy to participate in the multinational Rimpac exercises off Hawaii this summer. And at the annual Shangri-La security dialogue in Singapore this weekend, Mr. Mattis said that “the placement of these weapons systems is tied directly to military use for the purposes of intimidation and coercion.”

He pointed to the Rimpac cancellation as a “small consequence” of this behavior and said there could be “larger consequences,” albeit unspecified, in the future.

One such consequence could be more frequent and regular freedom-of-navigation operations inside the 12-mile territorial waters claimed by China. Joint operations with allies would have an even greater deterrent effect, and the U.S. should encourage others to join. Beijing will try to punish any country that sails with the U.S., but that will underscore the coercive nature of its plans.

Believe it or not, Congress is also trying to help with the bipartisan Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA). The Senate bill affirms core American alliances with Australia, Japan and South Korea, while calling for deeper military and economic ties with India and Taiwan. It notably encourages regular weapons sales to Taipei.

The bill authorizes $1.5 billion a year over five years to fund regular military exercises and improve defenses throughout the region. It also funds the fight against Southeast Asian terror groups, including Islamic State. This will help, but more will be needed. This year’s $61 billion military spending increase was more backfill than buildup, and China recently boosted its defense budget 8.1%.

ARIA also tries to address Mr. Trump’s major strategic blunder of withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which didn’t include China. The Senate bill grants the President power to negotiate new bilateral and multilateral trade deals.

It also calls for the export of liquefied natural gas to the Indo-Pacific and authorizes the U.S. Trade Representative to negotiate a deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). If the U.S. had a trade rep who believed in trade, this could strengthen the U.S. relationship with Vietnam and the Philippines—countries at odds with China over its territorial claims and militarism.

The bill is backed by Republicans Cory Gardner and Marco Rubio and Democrats Ben Cardin and Ed Markey, which is a wide ideological net. China’s rise, and Mr. Xi’s determination to make China the dominant power in the Indo-Pacific, is a generational challenge that will require an enduring, bipartisan strategy and commitment. A firmer stand to deter Chinese military expansionism is an essential start.

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