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Saturday, December 30, 2023

Several things have nudged me toward shifting my usual posting schedule this week. The first is that I usually do Music Week on Monday, but I also like to finish the last Music Week of the calendar year on the 31st, which this year is Sunday. Delaying last Monday's post seemed like too much, but moving this week's up one day makes enough sense. But then, I normally do Speaking of Which on Sunday. I could post both on the same day, but I like separate days, which suggests moving this one up a day, too. Besides, my big job this weekend is to get the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll ready to go up next week, so it would be nice to get this out of the way.

Besides, not much happens on holiday weekends, although there seems to be no letting up in the unfolding genocide in Gaza. At least Congress and the Supreme Court are safely home with their families (or sugar daddies). Meanwhile, the usual media sources are chock full of lookbacks at 2023, projections for 2024, and occasional (but rare) cross-checking. I can't ever recall feeling less enthusiasm for such fare. Very few made my first pass here.

Of course, if I notice anything that should be added to this week's list, I can always add it later, flagged with the bit of red right border. [PS: Some were added when I posted Music Week, and some more on Jan. 1 -- mostly ones I had open but hadn't gotten to in the rush to post. Also some more on Jan. 4, although the articles themselves are still in bounds.]

Paywalls are the bane of my existence, but this one strikes me as especially pernicious: all of a sudden, I can't read a single article on AlterNet without paying them money? I rarely cite them, unless I'm looking to reinforce a political point I've already made. Paywalls make sense for media that caters to specialized business interests, but are suicidal as political outreach.

Top story threads:

Israel: The genocide, and there's really no other word for it, continues, with the Biden administration, to its eternal shame, deeply complicit.

• Mondoweiss:

  • [12-25] Day 80: Israel kills at least 100 Palestinians in Christmas Eve attacks.

  • [12-26] Day 81: WHO says Gaza's health system is being 'decimated' by Israeli bombardment.

  • [12-27] Day 82: Israel accused of harvesting organs from dead Gazans.

  • [12-28] Day 83: Israel attacks 10 Palestinian cities in largest West Bank invasion since October 7.

  • [12-29] Day 84: Gaza at 'catastrophic threshold' of famine, West Bank marks 'deadliest year on record' for Palestinian children.

  • [12-30] Day 85: South Africa files case against Israel at the ICJ for genocide.

  • [12-31] Day 86: Israel falls in 'serious strartegic trap' in Gaza as Netanyahu vows to fight 'for months'.

• Randa Abdel-Fattah: [12-27] On Zionist feelings.

• Fatima AbdulKarim: [12-28] Palestinian Christians in Gaza fear being 'swept under the rubble or into the desert'.

• Kyle Anzalone:

  • [12-28] Israel requesting Apache attack helicopters from US. "More," as they've been using them all along.

  • [12-29] Over 1,000 children in Gaza have had one or both legs amputated since Oct 7.

• Ramzy Baroud: [12-29] 'We will come to you in a roaring flood': The Untold story of the October 7 attacks.

• Daniel Beaumont: [12-29] Dead end: Israel gets lost in Gaza.

• Emanuel Fabirn: [12-31] IDF expects fighting to go on all year, is adjusting battle methods for sustained war. Does slowing genocide down a bit make it any less so?

• William Booth/Itay Stern: [12-31] How the costs of Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza are mounting.

• Noam Gidron: [12-29] Israel's horrible year started long before October 7.

• Adam Goodman/Ronen Bergman/Mark Mazzetti/Natan Odenheimer/Alexander Cardia/Ainara Tiefenthäler/Sheera Frenkel: [12-30] Where was the Israeli military? On October 7.

• Isabella Hammad/Sahar Huneidi: [12-21] The uses and abuses of language in Israel's war on Palestinians.

• Rohini Hensman: [12-30] South Africa is right to invoke the genocide convention against Israel's war on Gaza.

• Hebh Jamal: [12-27] Pro-Palestinian speech is now effectively banned in German universities.

• Gideon Levy: [12-28] There's no way to 'explain' the degree of death and destruction in Gaza.

• Joseph Massad: [12-26] Israel's mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza began seven decades ago: "a long and brutal history that goes back to 1951."

• MEE: [12-31] Netanyahu says Israel must control Egypt-Gaza border zone. In this, he is exactly wrong: Israel can exercise no control over any Gaza border except its own. The border is just one of many ways in which Israel's psychology of power has turned toxic. The only way Israel can save itself is by making a clean break with Gaza. Israeli abuse of border control has done much to create this crisis: also see [11/27] Who controls the Egypt-Gaza Rafah crossing?

• Emile Nakhleh: [12-18] Where did Hamas come from and what does it want?

• Mitchell Plitnick: [12-28] Israel announces its Gaza endgame: Ethnic cleansing as 'humanitarianism'.

• Mouin Rabbani: [12-28] The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip.

• Hafiz Rashid: [12-28] Benjamin Netanyahu is the war criminal of the year: "Experts aren't mincing words about the Israeli leader's brutal and disproportionate response to the October 7 Hamas attacks."

• David Rothkopf: [12-31] Are there no red lines to U.S. support for Israel? "October 7 was a heinous crime. But how many Gazans must die, how many Israeli ministers must promote ethnic cleansing, how many failures must Netanyahu deny -- for the U.S. to reconsider its immoral, unconditional support for the depraved war being waged by Israel's government?" The rest is beyond the paywall, but Rothkopf previously wrote: [12-21] Biden administration's relationship with Netanyahu government has turned toxic.

• Sara Roy: [12-19] The long war on Gaza: "Over fifty-six years, Israel has transformed Gaza from a functional economy to a dysfunctional one, from a productive society to an impoverished one."

• Michael Schwalbe: [12-29] The moral injuries of witnessing genocide.

• Richard Silverstein:

  • [12-27] The Gaza crucifixion.

  • [12-29] Gaza and the threat of regional war.

• Noga Tarnopolsky: [12-28] What Israel lost before October 7: "The worst year in the country's history began with Netanyahu's return to power."

• Simon Tisdall: [12-29] Amid fears of escalation in the Israel-Gaza conflict, consider this: war without end suits Netanyahu.

• Philip Weiss: [12-26] The Jewish establishment's blindness to Palestinian slaughter also hurts U.S. Jews.

• Afnan Abu Yahia/Lila Hassan: [12-29] The impossibility of reporting the story of Gaza.

• Alya Zoabi: [12-26] Attacks on Palestinian lawyers emphasize Israel's authoritarian nature.

Israel and America: And Iran, which Israel doesn't care that much about, but finds useful to goad America into reckless conflict.

• James Bamford: [12-22] Who is funding Canary Mission? Inside the doxxing operation targeting anti-Zionist students and professors.

• John Hudson/Mikhail Klimentov: [12-30] U.S. approves $147.5 million sale of artillery ammunition and gear to Israel.

• James North: [12-30] Israel is provoking the U.S. in to a conflict with Iran -- but the media ignores the danger.

• Trita Parsi: [12-26] Did Israel kill Iranian commander to provoke a wider war? "Assassination of Razi Mousavi preceded US airstrikes in Iraq early Tuesday."

• Bernie Steinberg: [12-27] For the safety of Jews and Palestinians, stop weaponizing antisemitism.

• Paul Woodward: [12-31] Biden continues supporting Israel's 'Genghis Khan model of warfare'. Based on an AP article: The Biden administration once again bypasses Congerss on an emergency weapons sale to Israel.

Trump, and other Republicans: With Maine joining Colorado in banning Trump from Republican primary ballots -- see Maine declares Trump ineligible under disqualification clause -- that story is going to take a while to play out, though I haven't seen anyone yet who thinks the Supreme Court will let the bans stand. The lawyers will deal with that in due course. Meanwhile:

• Jack Healy/Anna Betts/Mike Baker/Jill Cowan: [12-30] Would keeping Trump off the ballot hurt or help democracy?

• Stephen Prager: [12-28] The courts can't save us from Trump: "It's the latest example of Democrats being politically clueless."

• Steve M: [12-30] Maybe we should have tried ballot removal three years ago: Second thoughts after his earlier [12-27] How we'll get a second Trump term: by trying to pursue justice.

Other stories on Trump and/or other Republicans:

• Ed Kilgore: [12-30] The real reason MAGA-World is trying to rehabilitate Nixon.

• Josh Kovensky: [12-26] Dictator on day one: The executive orders that Trump would issue from the start: "Ending birthright citizenship and politicizing the civil service rank high among Trump's planned first acts in office."

• Amanda Marcotte: [12-29] GOP's biggest losers of 2023: George "it's a witch hunt" Santos. Actually, for a nobody two years ago, he seems to have done pretty well for himself -- even though he only came in fourth in this series, behind Kevin McCarthy, Moms for Liberty, and Lauren Boebert. PS: Last in this five-part series [12-30]: Donald "smells like a butt" Trump and his fellow insurrectionists.

• Heather Digby Parton: [12-29] Nikki Haley deserves no grace for Civil War gaffe. Refers to her hesitancy to identify slavery as the "cause" of the Civil War. Her actual answer was far worse:

  I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was gonna run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn't do. . . . Government doesn't need to tell you how to live your life. They don't need to tell you what you can and can't do. They don't need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom. We need to have capitalism, we need to have economic freedom, we need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties, so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way.

  Clearly, no Republican actually believes this crap, because they're always trying to use government to force people to "behave themselves" (i.e., to conform to their political dictates). Freedom, for them, is reserved for the capitalists Haley says we "need." Most of us recognize slavery as the total abnegation of freedom, but Haley identifies with capitalists completely, understanding that their freedom is paid for by exploiting others. Perhaps "slavery" is too abstract to be the one-word cause of the Civil War. A more precise answer is "slaveholders." They are the ones who seceded to protect their "peculiar institution" with laws and arms they safely controlled. And when they lost, the first thing Americans did was to abolish slavery. After all, if freedom can't be enjoyed by everyone, it's really just a euphemism for tyranny. But, they stopped short of abolishing other forms of capitalism, allowing tyranny to return, dressed up as "freedom" for the rich.

  Also on the Haley "gaffe":

  • Chris Lehman: [12-29] Nikki Haley needs a history lesson.

  • Steve M: [12-29] Haley's real problem isn't giving the wrong answer.

  • Timothy Noah: Nikki Haley somehow made her Civil War gaffe even worse.

  • Tori Otten: Nikki Haley ends her week of saying stupid things with a gift to Trump.

  I should also note that when I first saw the top headline here, I blanked out "Civil" and just registered "war gaffe." Haley's been making them all along. Kinsley's famous definition is: "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth -- some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say." Of course, it needn't be true. It's just something that the politician thinks but should know better than say in public. Haley's worst gaffe in recent weeks was when she urged Israel to "finish it" in Gaza.

• Maeve Reston/Hannah Knowles/Meryl Kornfield: [12-30] Led by Trump, GOP candidates take polarizing stances on race and history: It's not like Haley is the only one saying stupid things. It's more like a contest, a race to the bottom, which is ground Trump has clearly staked out.

• Peter M Shane: [12-26] Trump's laughable claim of immunity.

• Reis Thebault: [12-31] DeSantis, Haley pledge to pardon Trump if convicted: Angling for leadership of the pro-crime party. Aside for all you pundits arguing that Christie should drop out so the "anti-Trump" GOP can unite behind Haley, please start eating your hats now.

• Li Zhou: [12-27] House Republicans' humiliating year, explained.

Climate and environment:

• Chico Harlan: [12-31] The climate future arrived in 2023. It left scars across the planet. This, of course, is the biggest story of 2023.

• Umair Irfan: [12-27] How 7 scientists feel after the hottest year on record.

Ukraine War:

• Connor Echols: [12-29] Diplomacy Watch: Ukraine peace talks could be on the horizon.

• Constant Méheut/Ivan Nechepurenko: [12-30] Ukrainian missile attack on a Russian city kills at least 20, officials say.

• Missy Ryan: [11-27] With funds running out, U.S. sends more weapons to Ukraine.

• Anton Troianovski/Yuliya Parshina-Kottas/Oleg Matsnev/Alina Lobzina/Valerie Hopkins/Aaron Krolik: [12-29] How the Russian government silences wartime dissent.

Other stories:

Ben Armbruster: [12-29] Mainstream media wasn't good for US foreign policy in 2023: "Major themes this year focused on feeding the Ukraine war, hyping the China threat, and avoiding context in Israel-Palestine." Some more general pieces relating to America's incoherent inability to understand the world needs and how to interact with others:

• Daniel Larison: [12-26] Biden's 2023 foreign policy was a bust: "Between Ukraine, Gaza, and the loss of US global authority, he won't be able to boast much ahead of the election."

• Blaise Malley: [12-27] Congress and the 4 faces of China baiting bills in 2023.

• John Mueller: [12-30] Remember when Japan was going to take over the world? Not 1941, when they tried, but the 1980s, when the Japanese economy was booming (and soon to go bust), when we were deluged with books like The Coming War With Japan. These days China is being touted as the same sort of threat.

Dean Baker:

• [12-22] This economy has landed, we are at the Fed's target.

• [12-24] The problem for musicians and writers is the internet, not monopolistic corporations.

• [12-29] Government-granted patent monopolies are not the free market.

Dan Diamond: [12-28] America has a life expectancy crisis. But it's not a political priority.

Connor Echols: [12-29] The 7 best foreign policy books of 2023: Worth listing:

• Henry Farrell/Abraham Newman: Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy
• Steven Simon: Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East
• Keyu Jin: The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism
• Paul Kennedy: Victory at Sea: Naval Power and the Transformation of the Global Order in World War II
• Nathan Thrall: A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
• Thomas Graham: Getting Russia Right
• Paul R. Pillar: Beyond the Water's Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts U.S. Foreign Policy

Greg Grandin: [12-27] Arno Mayer has died. He leaves us an unorthodox Marxism. I noted his death last week, complained about the lack of obituaries much less of appreciation, but predicted they would come. This is a very useful review of one great historian by another.

Eric Levitz: [12-29] Are America's cities overpoliced? Podcast debate between Alex Vitale (author of the 2017 book The End of Policing, cited by many who argue to "defund the police," and Adaner Usmani, a Harvard sociology professor who "argues that America is suffering from a crisis of mass incarceration but not one of overpolicing." Levitz's concept is to set up debates on issues that divide folks on the left, but I suspect that there's pretty common agreement here on the core fact, which is that a lot of police work is being done very badly (see St Clair, below, for hundreds of examples).

Raina Lipsitz: [10-13] Why haven't the protest movements of our times succeeded? Review of Vincent Bevins' book: If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution.

Eric Lipton: [12-30] New spin on a revolving door: Pentagon officials turned venture capitalists: "Retired officers and departing defense officials are flocking to investment firms that are pushing the government to provide more money to defense-technology startups."

Andrew Prokop: [12-26] The weird, true story of the most successful third-party presidential candidate in the past century: "Why did Ross Perot do so well in 1992? And could something like that happen again in 2024?"

Nathan J Robinson:

• [12-20] The journalist who most understands George Santos explains how he made it to Congress: Interview with Mark Chiusano, who has a book, The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos.

• [12-27] Why do we have any poverty when it's such a solvable problem? Interview with Matthew Desmond, author of Poverty, by America.

• [09-28] The history of Arab-Jews can change our understanding of the world: Interview with Avi Shlaim, one of the major "revisionist" historians to emerge in Israel in the 1990s (e.g., The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World), most recently author of Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew.

Areeba Shah: [12-30] The worst right-wing influencers of 2023: Pictured and profiled: Nick Fuentes, Alex Jones, Andrew Tate.

Jeffrey St Clair: [12-29] From taser face to the goon squad: The year in police crime. A staple of his most-weekly "Roaming Charges" reports, still the sheer length of this post is striking.

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