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1/ What is to be done? This is my thread on how to think about the commission, in light of the prior two threads on its chair Mary Ann Glendon and its membership list.
2/ Here’s the first thread: .
3/ Here’s the second: .
4/ This commission is not that important, for it has little power. And I have no clue what it is going to do — the tea leaves of membership provide little to go on, but not enough.
5/ The temptation, obviously, is going to be to assert how far off the grid these folks are from a mainstream consensus internationally around human rights. “Human rights” are the ultimate norms to twist and violate.
6/ And it is, indeed, ridiculous that Pompeo claimed yesterday that this was a bi- or suprapartisan enterprise or involved mainstream experts. Neither is remotely true.
7/ But not only does the commission present little immediate danger, however illustrative it is of alt- and religious right convergence, but these people won an election (consistently, as always, with the best US traditions of minority rule).
8/ Asserting how far off from established consensus these folks are plays into their own claims to authoritative lock on what human rights really are. Such claims, from them or others, inadvertently prove that human rights are and will always be up for grabs.
9/ As I said yesterday, the commission is a missed opportunity to insist that human rights need to be made more democratic, less about legitimating endless war, and more relevant to US domestic politics, esp. by connecting the economic plight of the stagnating with the worst off.
10/ In short, the mini-event of Pompeo’s commission is one more opportunity not merely to push back against our enemies, but also to reconsider our own morality and politics when an expert consensus has reached limits.
11/ In any case, the only answer to the politics of human rights in America or elsewhere is a better politics.
