Reflections on the (Possible) Revolution...

With apologies to Edmond Burke....

I've just returned from the wedding of the son of close friends, and the break gave me a chance to mull over the things that I've been grappling with (on and off posting) today. So, here is more food for thought...

It occurred to me that Barnea's and Yatom's intemperate, vicious and paranoid comments might actually signal something positive. Let me explain. A few months ago, a neighbor of mine who is very well-read (as opposed to most Israeli journalists and self-appointed pundits) told me that he had recently re-read Arthur Schlesinger's, The Age of Jackson. In the work (which is somewhat passe) Schlesinger notes that John Marshall created the doctrine of judicial review (Marbury vs. Madison) as an attempt to make the Supreme Court the bastion of power for the declining Virginia elite, which created the United States (with a lot of help from New England-JRW) but which had long ago lost the White House and the Congress to the western rabble. My neighbor suggested, that Aharon Barak, who is an avowed admirer of Chief Justice Marshall, may well be trying the same tactic with his judicial activism. Certainly, when you look at the religious reverence with which the court is held on the secular Left, and the fairly homogenous composition of the court, the observation seems apt.

So, it might be that the hysterical peronouncements of Yatom, Barnea and other Leftist avatars may well be the swan song of the Ashkenazi secular elite, facing the advent of multi-cuturalism in the form of Sephardim, Religious Jews and Russians. [This was one of the points made by Amnon Lord in the article I cited below.]