#^d 2024-08-26
#^h Speaking of Which
File opened Wednesday, August 21, 10:10 pm, night three of the
Democratic National Convention, which as usual I didn't watch a
minute of (although I may have overheard bits my wife watched, but
she didn't watch much, either). I did watch the replays on Steven
Colbert Live, except for Monday, when the delays wiped out the DVR.
As the
section below shows, I collected a fair
representation of writing, which for my purposes more than suffices.
I did overhear a bit of RFK Jr.'s end-of-campaign speech on Friday,
but didn't stick around for the punch line, so I was a bit taken aback
to read later that he had endorsed Trump. I had read rumors to that
effect earlier, but what I heard of the speech didn't inexorably lead
to that conclusion. Before the speech, I had collected two links to
speculative Ed Kilgore pieces, which are retained
below, along with various post-speech takes.
I speculated
last week that the DNC would be a splendid time for Biden to
deliver on his mini-ceasefire hostage deal, but Netanyahu -- ever
the GOP partisan -- managed to scotch even a proposal that was so
tantamount to surrender that Hamas could still be blamed. In the
end, the DNC's herculean efforts at damage control sufficed: the
street protests happened, but got scant notice; the "uncommitted"
delegates pressed, but were brushed aside; several "progressives"
trusted enough to speak (notably Bernie Sanders) showed that the
party welcomes their concerns within its unity of good feelings;
and the keynoters reminded us that Israel lobby still commands
the Party's deepest loyalty, while reserving the right to tailor
the propaganda line to a constituency increasingly uncomfortable
with the news.
That there was little meaningful dissent was a tribute to two
things: the extent to which the menace of Donald Trump has united
all Democrats, and the new sense of excitement that Kamala Harris
has brought in erasing the doldrums of the Biden candidacy, as
the keywords moved from good vibes to outright joy. Even the
inertia-bound polls have started to move. One thing the DNC was
not was democratic, but we've been spoon-fed bitter gruel for
decades now, compared to which this exercise in elitocracy felt
positively nourishing. While the Party elites haven't actually
ceded any power, for the first time in ages -- we can now admit
Obama's "yes we can" as a cynical advertising campaign -- they
have let up on their prime directive of "managing expectations,"
and have (at least briefly) allowed democrats to consider the
possibility that their hopes and desires might finally matter.
I don't doubt that post-November they'll struggle to push the
genie of democracy back into the bottle. The Harris cabinet will
be recruited from the usual suspects -- although they will have
to pass a gauntlet of lingering "we won't go back" sentiments.
(It is worth noting that some of the worst lingering tastes of
the Obama administration, like Larry Summers, didn't get invited
back -- even Rahm Emmanuel had to settle for an ambassadorship.)
Moreover, Harris is likely to know that Democrats can't survive
on spoils and cronyism alone. Democrats are increasingly demanding
tangible results. And while the influence of money makes that hard,
and often steers change in peculiar directions, that understanding
isn't going to go away easily.
I got to Sunday evening with about 180 links and 9200 words,
with maybe 80% of my usual sources checked. I wrote the above
introduction when I got up Monday, and should wrap this up not
too late evening, assuming I can avoid backtracking and breaking
news.
PS: Gave up working on this after midnight, and decided to go
ahead and post. Good chance for some Tuesday updates, but not
much (I hope). I need to move on to Music Week, and some other
long-delayed work.
Top story threads:
Israel:
Mondoweiss:
Ramzy Baroud: [08-23]
Prolonging genocide as a smokescreen: on Israel's other war in the
West Bank.
Dave DeCamp: [08-26]
Ben Gvir says he wants to build a synagogue at al-Aqsa
Mosque.
Haaretz:
Jewish terror has exploded, and nothing is standing in its way.
It may bring Israel down.
Tareq S Hajjaj: [08-22]
Israeli army invades 'most crowded displacement camp in history,'
bombs Palestinians in shelters: "Over the past week, the Israeli
army has ordered a million civilians to evacuate central Gaza, and
has bombed two schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza City mere
minutes after issuing warnings."
Ephrat Livni: [08-15]
New Israeli settlement in West Bank would encroach on World Heritage
Site: "An advocacy group, Peace Now, said that Israel was
accelerating new claims over West Bank land in a bid to prevent
the establishment of a Palestinian state."
Qassam Muaddi/Faris Giacaman: [08-23]
Understanding Netanyahu's endgame in the war on Gaza: "The real
reason Netanyahu refuses to end the genocidal war on Gaza is because
his short-term political interests have perfectly lined up with
Zionism's long-term goal -- the ethnic cleansing of Palestine."
For decades, Netanyahu has believed that a major war could provide
Israel with the cover to conduct the mass expulsion of Palestinians,
not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank and within Israel's 1948
borders. He was quoted as
explaining this precise idea in 1977 by the British historian Max
Hastings. At the beginning of the current war, Netanyahu actively
attempted to push Palestinians out of Gaza before being confronted by
Egypt's refusal to play along. Meanwhile, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, along
with the settlement movement, have been ramping up settlement expansion
and supporting settler violence in the West Bank, ethnically cleansing
at least 20 Bedouin communities under the cover of war. . . .
Netanyahu hopes to accomplish this by dragging the U.S. into a war
with Iran, ensuring Israel's position as the sole regional power in
the Middle East. This is a scenario he has been advocating for decades,
including before a congressional committee in 2002, where he also
urged the U.S. to invade Iraq. . . .
Netanyahu has been getting everything he needs from the U.S. at
every step of the way, allowing him to pursue his dangerous endgame
with barely any reproach. He is hoping that his gamble will pay off
by providing a final solution to the "Gaza question," thus emerging
as a Zionist national hero. But even as this presents the opportunity
of snatching a historic achievement for the Zionist project, it also
opens up the possibility that Israel will suffer a historic setback
that could usher in a new era of resistance for the indigenous
peoples of the region.
Meron Rapoport: [08-23]
Israeli society's dehumanization of Palestinians is now absolute:
"In the past, Israel's moral debate about its military actions may
have been narrow and hypocritical, but at least it existed. Not this
time."
The Israeli killing machine does not know how to stop, wrote +972
and Local Call's Orly Noy on
Facebook after the bombing of Al-Taba'een school, because it
operates by inertia and tautology. "It is acting out of inertia
because stopping it will force Israel to internalize what it has
caused, what atrocity on a historical scale is registered in its
name . . . And that's where the tautological logic comes in: As
long as we kill, it's obvious that they still deserve to die."
Just like the commander of the 200th Squadron said a few days
later.
Nevertheless, within the Green Line there is still a civil
society and a liberal camp that holds considerable power, as seen
at the weekly demonstrations against the government. The question
is what will happen if a ceasefire is reached and the Israeli
"extermination machine" is forced to stop. Will parts of Israeli
society realize that the unbridled violence Israel has unleashed
since October 7, and the forces of dehumanization that drive it,
threatens the very existence of the state?
"Silence is wretched," wrote Ze'ev Jabotinsky in the poem that
became the anthem of the Revisionist Zionist movement Beitar, the
forefather of Likud. The fact that Netanyahu and his partners want
the noise of constant war is clear. The question is why the liberal
camp is keeping quiet.
Tamer Nafar: [08-22]
Israelis are fearing the storm. Palestinian citizens fear the calm
that follows. "After the genocide ends, Palestinians in Israel
will have to live beside those who spent the past year cheering and
participating in Gaza's slaughter."
Ramona Wadi: [08-17]
Israel's creation and exploitation of Palestinian human shields.
Brett Wilkins: [08-23]
Slamming Israeli media lies, freed hostage says IDF strike -- not
Hamas -- wounded her: Noa Argamni.
Oren Ziv: [08-19]
Israeli condemnations ring hollow after settler program in Jit:
"Palestinians describe the latest in a surge of settler rampages
in the West Bank, and demand justice for Rashid Sidda as his
murderers roam free."
America's Israel (and Israel's America):
Sunjeev Bery:
The US-led ceasefire talks are just buying more time for Israel's
genocide.
Motasem A Dalloul:
[08-17]
The US is not a credible ceasefire mediator, but a genocide partner:
True enough, but you only need a credible mediator if you need to
negotiate something between two sides. For a ceasefire, all you need
is for Israel to cease firing. (Granted, it would be more effective
if Israel also withdrew its troops from Gaza, thus securing them and
making them less inviting targets.) The US may have no credibility
with Palestinians, but could put some ceasefire pressure on Israel,
which would help blunt the chare of "genocide partner" -- something
not even Biden wants to be known for. But one way the US has fallen
in to that trap is in describing the negotiations as being mostly
about hostage release. The only sense in which Hamas continues to
exist is in their control of hostages (or at least their ability to
negotiate on behalf of whoever actually holds the hostages). Once
the hostages are free, Hamas vanishes, and Israel loses their main
rationale for continuing the genocide.
[08-21]
The untold terms of the new American ceasefire proposal.
Joan E Greve/Chris McGreal/Will Craft: [08-16]
Five things we learned from our reporting on the US's pro-Israel
lobby.
- Aipac is spending more as public opinion on Israel shifts
- Pro-Israel groups spent big to pick off vulnerable incumbents
- Pro-Israel groups stayed out of races they deemed unwinnable
- The pro-Israel lobby's messaging didn't focus on the war in Gaza
- Battle-tested progressives performed better
Ellen Ioanes: [08-21]
The US says an Israel-Hamas ceasefire is close. What's really
happening? "A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas seems as
far off as ever."
Jake Johnson: [08-25]
Israel launches massive attack on Lebanon, heightening fears of
all-out war. This is all Israel's doing, but expansion of war
into Lebanon and beyond is something Israel does mostly to keep
Americans thinking they need to help "defending" Israel, when all
they're doing is stoking further aggression.
Branko Marcetic: [08-24]
The war on war at the DNC, RNC confabs: "The delegates and
attendees we spoke with often diverged with the party message
on stage, and that means something."
Qassam Muaddi: [08-21]
Netanyanhu's latest strategy to avoid a ceasefire, explained:
"Hamas isn't blocking a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel is. Netanyahu has
systematically sabotaged negotiations at every turn, and his current
demands for military control over Gaza ensure they will fail."
Stephen Semler: [08-26]
Gaza breakdown: 20 times Israel used US arms in likely war crimes:
"The following cases represent a small fraction of potential human
rights violations committed with American planes, shells, and
bombs."
Amir Tibon: [08-11]
Netanyahu or the hostages? It's time for US Jews to choose:
"Everyone who cares about Israel and the hostages will have to decide
if they stand with the families of those held by Hamas, or with the
failed politicians who, we should never forget, were in power when
this atrocity took place."
Israel vs. world opinion:
Democratic National Convention:
The DNC was held in Chicago last week, Monday through Thursday,
four tightly-scripted nights of prime-time infotainment. Given its
prominence, this week we'll move the Democrats ahead of similar
sections on Republicans, and push "Election notes" even further
down. Also, some pieces specifically on Harris or Walz have been
relegated to their sections.
Intelligencer Staff:
Kate Aronoff:
The Democrats are running scared from the most important fights:
"At its convention this week, the party largely avoided two crises
that are the cause of mass suffering: climate change and Israel's war
in Gaza."
Ben Burgis: [08-23]
Shawn Fain has been a light in the darkness: "UAW president
Shawn Fain's speech was the best part of the DNC. It featured a
direct focus on workers otherwise absent from party rhetoric,
and sidestepped the culture wars to identify the 'one true enemy'
of corporate power."
Jonathan Chait:
[08-22]
Kamala Harris gave the best acceptance speech I've ever seen:
"A perfectly targeted message." Evidently the target was Chait.
How useful that was remains to be seen. But given how many things
Chait misunderstands, it's possible to satisfy him and still make
sense to other people. Just to pick out one bit:
Harris labeled her economic goal "an opportunity economy where
everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed." The
notion of opportunity, with its implication that people
should control their own economic destiny, has long been a
conservative one. Harris stole it.
The magic word here isn't "opportunity" but "everyone." The
only opportunity conservatives offer is to fail, which matters
to them because their beloved hierarchy is built on the backs
of failures -- usually because the system is so rigged in the
first place. Offering opportunity to everyone is a classically
liberal idea, but actually achieving it is only something the
left would dare attempt. How far Harris will go not just to
permit opportunity but to nurture and sustain it remains to be
seen. But that she offered the word "everyone" suggests that
she will not be satisfied with the conservative game of failing
all but the master class.
[08-23]
Kamala Harris understood the assignment: "The convention shows
how to re-create the Obama formula." Given that "the Obama formula"
lost Congress, weakening the Democratic Party so severely that they
wound up surrendering the presidency to Trump, that doesn't seem like
much of a goal, much less an accomplishment. But the "assignment" was
always a figment of Chait's imagination, his commitment to hopeless
mediocrity and inaction shared by virtually nobody else. Still, I
suppose it's good that he was willing to settle for whatever she
offered him. But I suppose it wasn't a surprise, given how little
he wants or expects:
There is little point in selling the public on new liberal programs
that a Republican-led Senate would ignore. . . .
Harris's choice was to focus relentlessly on targeting the voters
she needs to win 270 electoral votes, at the expense of fan service
for progressives. . . . Alienating the left is not the point of
these moves. It is simply the inevitable by-product. If you are
targeting your message to the beliefs of the median voter, you are
necessarily going to leave voters at the 99th percentile of the
right-to-left spectrum feeling cold. The bitter complaints from
the right that she is a fraud, and from the left that she is a
sellout, are indications that Harris has calibrated her campaign
perfectly.
But why does that perfect balance between charges of fraud and
sellout sound so familiar? Like Hillary Clinton in 2016?
Jessica Corbett: [08-23]
Working-class journalist's speech hailed as 'most radical' in DNC
history: "John Russell urged Democrats to serve working Americans
'looking for a political home, after years of both parties putting
profit above people.'"
David Dayen:
[08-23]
Kamala Harris's DNC promises depend on filibuster reform: More
basically, they depend on Democrats retaining control of the Senate,
where they have an exceptionally difficult break this year, and on
winning the House. They will need to be able to pass laws, over and
against formidable lobbies, including laws that fight back against
adverse court rulings, which are nearly certain to follow. Given
the situation in the courts, it is unlikely that much can be done
simply by executive order.
[08-22]
Will the Senate take off the handcuffs?: "The Harris-Walz ticket
and every Democrat are promising big things. But the filibuster makes
that agenda impossible. Will they finally remove that barrier?"
Possibly the same article as the one I cited before I noticed this
source.
[08-27]
A convention that placed image over detail: "What happens when
the images break down?"
Liza Featherstone: [08-23]
The 2024 Democratic Convention: More 1964 than 1968: "The media
was obsessed with comparing this year's DNC to Chicago 1968. But given
the party's rejection of the Uncommitted movement, Atlantic City 1964,
when Democrats refused to seat Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party, is more apt."
Luke Goldstein: [08-21]
The convention nobody gets to see: "Many of the corporate-sponsored
events, and even some that aren't, are locked down to the press."
Stanley B Greenberg: [08-23]
The success of messaging at the DNC: "Democrats are hitting all
the notes that have eluded them."
DD Guttenplan: [08-27]
In "we're not going back!" Dems find an antidote to the politics of
nostalgia: "Underneath the cliché that 'we're all in this together'
lie harder truths that will need to be faced if Harris and Walz want
to rally the nation for real change."
Patrick Iber:
[08-26]
The unity convention: "The DNC showed a party that has successfully
metabolized movement energy and insurgent campaigns while distancing
from demands deemed harmful to its electoral prospects." This
convention report was preceded by:
[07-18]
A popular front, if you can keep it: "Biden claims he is remaining
in the race because the threat of Trump is too great. That's the exact
reason he should consider retiring."
[07-24]
Kamala can win: "Hope will be an essential resource for her
campaign. At her first raly, she succeeded in providing it."
Jake Johnson:
Susan Meiselas: [08-23]
Images from inside (and outside) the DNC.
Heather Digby Parton: [08-23]
The DNC did not unify Democrats. Donald Trump did that long
before.
Bill Scher:
Grace Segers: [08-22]
The DNC was a party. Now for the morning after. "It was a week of
raucous enthusiasm and ear-bursting decibels. But the convention wasn't
perfect. And the hard work of winning the election lies in wait."
Alex Shephard: [08-22]
At the DNC, the Democrats are finally fighting: "With Kamala
Harris at the top of the ticket, Democrats have rediscovered their
partisan edge."
Jeffrey St Clair: [08-23]
As I lay coughing: Watching the DNC with Covid and Faulkner.
Matthew Stevenson: [08-23]
The Obamas sing songs of themselves.
Vox: I made fun of their soft lifestyle features
last week, but this week they turned their whole crew loose at
the DNC, for a smorgasbord of articles
collected here, including:
Jada Yuan: [08-21]
How DJ Cassidy turned the DNC roll call into a party for the ages.
Amy Zimet: [08-23]
Isn't it moronic: America is ready for a better story. The
DNC in memes, the title referring to a piece of Trumpist fodder
warning that a Harris future would be "like being in a jail full
of black inmates."
Israel, Gaza, and Genocide: Two stories
here: the anti-genocide demonstrations organized around the convention,
and the near-total blackout of any discussion of the issues inside the
convention. I'm roping these stories off into their own sub-section:
on the one hand, I believe that it is important to make people aware
of the importance of the issue, and to impress on them the importance
of changing US policy to weigh against the Israeli practice of war,
genocide, and apartheid. On the other hand, I'm not terribly bothered
that Democrats have chosen to compartmentalize this issue, to keep it
from the rest of an agenda which offers much to be desired, above and
beyond defense against far more ominous Republican prospects. And while
I'm unhappy that their leaders have failed to act in any substantial
way to restrain Israel, or even to dissociate themselves from support
of genocide, I take some heart in the ambivalence and ambiguity they
have sometimes shown, understanding as I do that peace is only possible
when Israelis decide to become peaceful, and that behind-the-scenes
diplomacy may be more effective in that regard than open-air protest.
The latter, of course, is still critically necessary, to help nudge
Israel's "friends" into such diplomacy, and should be supplemented
with tangible pressure in the form of the BDS movement.
Michael Arria:
James Carden: [08-23]
Kamala & Gaza: All words and no deeds make a divided party.
This includes Harris's "full (brief) remarks on the issue," which I
might as well also quote here:
With respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working
around the clock, because now is the time to get a hostage deal and
a ceasefire deal done. And let me be clear: I will always stand up
for Israel's right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel
has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must
never again face the war that a terrorist organization called Hamas
caused on October 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the
massacre of young people at a music festival.
At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months
is devastating so many innocent lives lost, desperate, hungry people
fleeing for safety, over and over again, the scale of suffering is
heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war,
such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering
in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to
dignity, security, freedom and self determination.
This is carefully written to show solidarity with Israel without
explicitly endorsing Israel's amply demonstrated aims and tactics,
while holding out a bare minimum of hope for peace and justice (but,
like, no pressure on Israel). The first obvious point is the omission
of any recognition of the context of the Oct. 7 outbreak. In terms
Harris might relate to, Hamas "didn't just fall out of a coconut
tree." Hamas was first founded as a charitable foundation in 1987,
but it was preceded by 20 years of Israeli military occupation, 20
more years of Egyptian proxy rule as a refuge for Palestinians who
were uprooted in Israel's 1947-49 "war for independence," and for
30 more years by the UK, whose Lord Balfour declared arbitrarily
that Palestine should be a "homeland for the Jewish people." Over
that entire period, basic political, economic, and human rights
in Gaza (and all over Palestine) have been systematically denied,
so the "suffering" finally admitted isn't something new after Oct.
7 but the result of longstanding Israeli policy.
A second obvious thing is that the ritual endorsement of
"Israel's right to defend itself" has become a sick joke. I'm
not sure that anyone has, or should have, such a right, but in
Israel's case it has been applied so frivolously, to justify so
much excessive and unnecessary force applied so widely, that it
should be discounted altogether. I've come to see "self-defense"
not as a right but as a common human reaction which may be taken
into consideration as a mitigating factor. Once Hamas started
fighting outside of Gaza, on "Israeli soil," few people would
object to Israeli forces fighting back, even indiscriminately,
until Hamas forces were repulsed. That, quite plausibly, could
have been called self-defense. I could imagine better ways to
respond, but at least that's within the meaning of the term.
However, Israel didn't stop at the walls of Gaza. They went on
to inflict enormous damage on all of Gaza, killing at least
40,000 Palestinians, rendering well over a million homeless,
destroying resources necessary for human sustenance, adding to
the incalculable psychic harm that they have been cultivating
for many decades. While one might argue that some of the damage
might deter future attacks, it is at least as plausible that it
will inspire future attacks. We shouldn't even entertain such
arguments. What Israel has done in the name of "self-defense"
is monstrous and shameful. Even observers with deep affection
for Israel, like Harris and Biden, should be able to see that.
If they don't, we should seriously question their cognitive
skills, their empathy, and their ability to reason.
A third obvious thing is her choice to put "a hostage deal"
ahead of a cease fire. It shows first that Biden and her value
Israeli lives much more than they do Palestinian lives, which
is unbecoming (for democrats, who profess to believe in equal
rights and respect for all) but hardly surprising (for Democrats).
(By the way, note that Netanyahu seems to value Israeli lives --
that of the hostages, anyway -- less than he does Palestinians
in prison or dead.) More importantly, Israel doesn't need to
negotiate a ceasefire deal. They can simply declare one --
perhaps with some proviso about how much return fire they will
unleash each time Palestinians fire back. For that matter, they
could have accepted Hamas's offer of a truce ("hudna") long
before, and prevented the Oct. 7 attacks altogether. That they
didn't shows that their interest all along was the devastation
of Palestinian society and economy, which has nothing to do
with self-defense.
Fourth point is "working around the clock" is belied, perhaps
not by the clock but by the evidence that nothing they've tried
has worked. The obvious reason is that as long as they're giving
Israel "blank check" support, Netanyahu has no reason to back away
from his maximal war program. While I don't think Washington should
go around ordering other countries how to do their business, there
are times when one must express disapproval and withdraw favor,
and this is one.
Juan Cole: [08-23]
What you didn't hear at DNC: Israeli expulsion decrees disrupt last
Gaza aid hub, jeopardizing aid workers, thousands of civilians.
Julia Conley: [08-19]
Thousands kick off DNC with protest in Chicago over Gaza.
Rob Eshman: [08-23]
Kamala Harris did the impossible, and said exactly the right thing
about Israel and Gaza: "The Democratic candidate finally spoke
about her position on Israel's war against Hamas -- and revealed
her pragmatism." I voiced my disagreements with her speech above,
but here let me note that I'm a bit touched that someone bought
it, hook, line and sinker. I thought I recognized the author, so
I searched and found I had cited him once before (back on
June 2, in similar -- and thus far in vain -- praise for
Democratic sagacity):
David Freedlander: [08-22]
The convention that wasn't torn apart over Gaza: "Democrats
packed a pro-Israel party, while the Palestinian side didn't even
get a speaking slot."
Emma Janssen: [08-23]
Uncommitted delegates denied a DNC speaker: "A sit-in outside
the convention in protest and support from numerous elected officials
did not succeed."
Adam Johnson:
[08-17]
4 talking points used to smear DNC protesters -- and why they're
bogus: I think the fourth point here is basically true: "Harris
can't support the activists' demands even if she wanted to. She's
the vice president and must maintain President Biden's policies."
I'm not sure what precedents there are for vice presidents breaking
radically with presidents -- at least since early days when the VP
could be a president's worst enemy (e.g., John Calhoun, twice) but
it's generally bad form for any candidate to undermine an active
president's foreign policy options (although Nixon and Reagan did
it surrepetitiously). But also, if Harris wants to do something,
wouldn't she have a better chance of working her plans through the
Biden administration, rather than breaking with it?
[08-23]
Celebrating at the DNC in a time of genocide.
Akela Lacy/Ali Gharib:
Kamala Harris mentioned Palestinian suffering -- in the passive
voice.
Joshua Leifer: [08-20]
'The Uncommitted movement did a service to the Democratic Party':
"As the Democrats' convention begins, political strategist Waleed
Shahid discusses the possibilities for shifting the party on
Israel-Palestine."
Natasha Lennard: [08-20]
Democratic Party united under banner of silence on Gaza genocide:
"Progressives and moderates came together to support Kamala Harris by
largely ignoring the most pressing moral issue of our time."
Branko Marcetic: [08-22]
Palestinians received both harassment and support at the DNC.
Mitchell Plitnick: [08-23]
Message from the DNC: The Democrats do not care about Palestinians:
"The Democratic National Convention did not go well for supporters of
Palestinian rights where Democrats were largely successful in burying
their deep complicity in the Gaza genocide."
Hafiz Rashid:
The black mark on the Democrats' big party: "Palestinian-Americans
and their allies were left alienated by a convention that went out of
its way to give them a slap in the face."
April Rubin: [08-22]
Democrats refused to give Palestinian Americans DNC speaking slot.
Norman Solomon: [08-20]
What got lost in the DNC's love fest for a lame duck.
Harris:
Frank Bruni: [08-22]
Kamala Harris just showed she knows how to win.
John Cassidy: [08-26]
Kamala Harris and the new Democratic economic paradigm: "At their
Convention in Chicago last week, the Democrats looked like a party
that is unusually united in its goals."
Jonathan Chait: [08-16]
Kamala Harris's economic plan: good politics, meh policy:
"It's hard to tell people they're wrong about inflation."
Although Chait tries hard, mostly by bringing his own wrong-headed
ideas about inflation.
Maureen Dowd: [08-23]
Kamala came to slay.
Richard Fausset, et al.: [08-23]
What voters outside the Democratic bubble thought of Harris's
speech: Most interesting thing here is the lengths they (five
authors here) have to go to find "out-of-bubble" voters, and how
disconnected they are from anything resembling reality.
Katie Glueck: [08-24]
Why Harris's barrier-breaking bid feels nothing like Hillary
Clinton's. Maybe having multiple checklist identity groups
seems like too much bother, but more likely she just seems like
a real person, not some kind of idealized pathbreaking icon --
not that Clinton was all that ideal.
Fred Kaplan: [08-23]
Trump should be very nervous about this part of Kamala Harris'
DNC speech: "She's uniquely prepared to step up to the job of
commander in chief." I don't know whether Trump is smart enough to
grasp any of this, but it's making me nervous:
Its emergence Thursday night was so striking that Wall Street
Journal columnist (and former GOP speechwriter) Peggy Noonan
[link below] complained that the Dems "stole traditional
Republican themes (faith, patriotism) and claimed them as their
own." Noonan misstates what's been happening in the era of Donald
Trump. The fact is, the Republicans have abandoned those themes,
and the Democrats -- who never rejected them -- are picking them
up, with intensity, as part of a broad rescue mission. Democracy,
freedom, equality, and community -- concepts so deeply embedded
in American politics that their validity has long gone unquestioned --
are "on the ballot" in this election. The same is true of national
security, and so the DNC's strategists elevated it too from a common
cliché to a cherished value and vital interest under threat from the
cult of personality surrounding Trump.
Some quoted parts of the speech I find bone-chilling, like:
- "As commander in chief, I will ensure America has the strongest,
most lethal fighting force in the world."
- "I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to
defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed
terrorists. I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim
Jong-un, who are rooting for Trump . . . They know Trump won't
hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat
himself."
- "I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself,
and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself . . .
At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months
is devastating."
- "I helped mobilize a global response -- over 50 countries --
to defend [Ukraine] against Putin's aggression."
That gives her a score of about 85 on a scale of American cliché
jingoism, but the admission on Gaza suggests that she can recognize
facts and limits, so she might be willing to adjust to deal with
them. I can't swear that she's free of the gratuitous hawkishness
that Hillary Clinton overcompensated in. It may even be possible
that she needs this armada of clichés to maintain her credibility
when/if she does think better of some doomed trajectory that the
rest of the blob is senselessly stuck on.
As I must have made clear by now, I think that Biden's foreign
policy has been a colossal mistake on nearly every front, and a
disaster on many, with more potential disasters lined up as far
as one can see. The whole paradigm needs a serious rethink, which
is hard to see happening because everyone in a position to be
consulted is there precisely because they've committed to the
old, increasingly dysfunctional paradigm -- one that's been
locked in by business and political interest groups (notably
including Israel) that profit from the status quo, and profit
even more when disaster strikes.
I can see two ways to change. One is simply to back away from
the strategies that have been failing and causing trouble -- let's
call this (a). This approach will be ridiculed as "isolationism,"
but it could just as well be dressed up as Roosevelt's "good
neighbor policy" -- just hold off the guns and judgment. The idea
here is that if America gives up its global hegemon ambitions,
other countries will follow suit, dramatically reducing the
present tendencies for conflict. Conventional blob theorists
hate this idea, and argue that any US retreat will result in
a vacuum where "our enemies" will rush in to expand their
hegemony.
The (b) alternative to this is for the US to use its current
dominant position as bargaining chips to negotiate military draw
downs elsewhere and development of international organization
to provide order and cooperation in place of power projection.
Given a choice between politicians advocating (a) or (b),
I'd go with (a), because it's simpler and clearer, both easier
to state and to implement. The problem with (b) is that it
involves misdirection and bluffing, and so is corrosive of
trust. But (b) could be the better solution, if you have the
patience and skill to see it through. Still, you don't have to
do either/or. You can carve out sensible steps from column (a)
and from column (b).
I have little faith that someone as tightly integrated into
the blobthink world as Harris seems to be will do either, but
she might be just what's needed for (b). There is at least one
historical example of a politician who was enough of an insider
to gain power, but who then used that power to change direction
radically. This was Mikhail Gorbachev. You can debate about how
successful he was, and much more. And for sure, there's little
reason to think Harris would (or could) pull a similar switch.
But there is some similarity in the problems, and in the sclerotic
thinking that made both cases seem so intractable.
In any case, Harris is doing what she needs to do: she is
reassuring the "deep state" powers that she can be trusted as
one of them. Beyond that, all she has to do is show voters that
she's smarter and more sensible than Trump. That's really not
very hard to do. Hoping for more in the short period left before
the election is rather foolish. She shouldn't risk stirring up
potential opponents. Nor does she really need, say, a groundswell
of pro-Palestinian support. All she has to do into November is
stay better than Trump. Later on, of course, the situation will
change. As president, she'll have to face and fix real problems,
and not just the polling ones that have bedeviled others.
Peggy Noonan: [08-23]
Kamala Harris gets off to a strong start: "Her DNC speech was
fine, but the race remains a toss-up. It's all going to come down
to policy." I originally had the Noonan link in situ above, but
brought it down here to share the title and subhed, which are
pretty funny.
Zack Beauchamp: [08-23]
The moment when Kamala Harris's speech came alive: "The Democratic
nominee got foreign policy -- and especially Israel-Palestine --
right." I found this after the Kaplan piece, which it largely
recapitulates, so I dropped it in here. I've also talked about
her Israel/Gaza take already (see
James Carden).
Errol Louis: [08-24]
Kamala Harris and the new politics of joy.
Carlos Lozada: [08-22]
The shifting convictions of Kamala Harris. A former book review
editor, goes back to her previous books: Smart on Crime: A Career
Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us Safer (2009), and The Truths We
Hold: An American Journey (2019), both written in times when her
political horizons were expanding.
Jim Newell: [08-23]
Kamala Harris showcased a quality at the DNC that Donald Trump
never has.
Andrew Prokop: [08-23]
Kamala Harris just revealed her formula for taking down Trump:
"She cited three familiar issues -- but with new twists."
Greg Sargent: [08-23]
Kamala's harsh takedown of Trump points the way to a post-MAGA
America: "In her speech, the vice president made real overtures
to non-Democrats. But she also insisted that we must reject MAGA
Republicanism whole cloth." I don't particularly like this way of
framing her pitch. As with most political ideas -- "MAGA" is short
for Trumpism, hinting at something that might survive the demise
of its author -- it contains a large amount of aspiration. You can
pick and choose which bits of aspiration you want to discredit and
which can be co-opted. Harris's "many olive branches to right-leaning
independents and Republican voters" shows that she understands this,
not that she's demanding "whole cloth" conversion. But easier than
fighting the ideas of MAGA is driving a wedge between them and the
vehicle, Trump. The clever way to do this is to adopts some ideals,
and turn them back on a very deficient Trump. Of course, that can
be tricky, especially as many of us would be happier to see the
whole edifice demolished.
In a remarkable turn, Harris appears prepared to run precisely the
aggressive, inspired campaign that combatting the rising forces of
domestic authoritarianism requires. Her vision hints at a post-MAGA
future that is fully faithful to liberal ideals -- freedom, autonomy,
open societies, free and fair elections -- while also addressing
dissatisfactions with American life, from economic precarity to
feelings of physical insecurity, that are leading many into the
temptations of illiberalism. Getting to that future, Harris and
Walz appear to be saying, will require fully consigning MAGA to
the dustheap of history where it belongs.
But is this really what they're saying. While Harris/Walz may
reflect liberal ideals -- and that seems to be why the idealist
idiots (like Chait) are going gaga over the DNC -- they're pushing
much more tangible programs, which aim to achieve levels of economic
support and social cohesion that Republicans can't deliver, or even
fake believing in. Also by Sargent (podcasts):
Peter Slevin: [08-23]
Kamala Harris's "freedom" campaign: "Democrats' years-long efforts
to reclaim the word are cresting in this year's Presidential race."
Michael Tomasky: [08-23]
The female Obama? No. Kamala Harris is more than that. "Harris's
speech united her party -- an incredible task if you consider where
we were a month ago."
Nick Turse:
What Kamala Harris meant by "most lethal fighting force" in her DNC
speech.
Vox:
Vox's guide to Kamala Harris's 2024 policies.
Walz:
Biden:
Andrew Marantz: [08-23]
Why was it so hard for the Democrats to replace Biden? "After
the President's debate with Trump, Democratic politicians felt
paralyzed. At the DNC, they felt giddy relief. How did they do
it?"
N+1 Editors:
Hollow Man: Biden, the Democrats, and Gaza. Title explained here:
In their recent book The Hollow Parties, Daniel Schlozman and
Sam Rosenfeld describe the Republicans and Democrats as lacking in
the internal organization that could, respectively, moderate extremist
tendencies and mitigate elite capture. The two parties, they write,
are "hard shells, marked with the scars of interparty electoral
conflict, [which] cover disordered cores, devoid of concerted action
and positive loyalties. . . . For all their array of activities,
[they] demonstrate fundamental incapacities in organizing democracy."
What we had in Biden was a hollow President, a figurehead with
fundamental incapacity issues and little substance inside the shell.
At best, Biden's hollowness contrasted powerfully with the great-man
theory of the presidency embodied by Trump, and his reactivity made
space for a resurgent electoral left. At worst, these qualities
devolved into impotence, and Biden was revealed as a leader who
simply couldn't lead.
Although much of the article focuses on Biden's relationship
with Israel ("the intensity of Biden's passion for Israel has
been the great constant of his career -- perhaps the only one")
the review of the administration's whole history is insightful
and nuanced, with references to Franklin Foer's insider book,
The Last Politician, that may make me reconsider shelving
the book unread.
Charles Lane: [08-22]
Biden's embarrassed silence on Afghanistan: Complaint is about
his DNC speech, which the author feels should have touted withdrawal
as a positive accomplishment. Indeed, it's something three previous
presidents failed monumentally at. He deserves credit for recognizing
that the decades-long had failed and needed to end. However, he ended
it badly, not that Trump left him with many options, in large part
because he never moved beyond the magical thinking that trapped the
US in Afghanistan in the first place. One result was the PR fiasco,
which marked the point where his approval ratings dipped under 50%,
something he never overcame. So it's easy to see why he skipped over
it.
However, his failures with Afghanistan haven't ended there. He's
fallen into the familiar American "sore loser" pattern, adopted first
by Eisenhower in 1953 when he signed an armistice with North Korea
but refused to call it peace, leaving a legacy of distrust and petty
hostilities that continue to this day (a grudge held and fed for 71
years), as US sanctions have largely hobbled North Korea's development.
(South Korea GDP per capita in 2022 was $32422, which is 22 times
that of North Korea's $1430.) The US harbors grudges everywhere it
has faced rejection and has left disappointed: Vietnam, Cuba, Iran,
Iraq, Venezuela, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Russia, and now Afghanistan.
This usually takes the form of sanctions, which impose hardships on
the people while more often than not solidifying the control of
those countries' rulers. This proves two things: that regardless
of wartime propaganda, the US never cared about the people, and
that what it did care about was projecting its power (although
with repeated failures, these days that might be more accurately
defined as protecting its arms cartel -- the definition of "ally"
these days is anyone who buys guns from the US, Israel and/or
NATO, while "enemy" is anyone who shops elsewhere). Ironically,
nothing signifies weakness like shunning countries that would
gladly trade with us if we allowed them (e.g., Iran).
The deal that turned Afghanistan over to the Taliban was
negotiated by, or more accurately for, Trump, with zero concern
for Afghans who had welcomed US occupation, let alone for any
other Afghans, or really for anyone else. Trump's only concern
was to postpone the retreat until after the 2024 election, and
to minimize US casualties in the meantime. He made no effort
to reconcile the Taliban with other parties, to protect civil
rights of Afghans after the Taliban enters the government, to
ensure that people who might want to emigrate would be free
to do so, or to allow for postwar cooperation. In failing to
even raise those issues, he signalled to the Afghans that they
should come to their own accord with the Taliban, which they
did in arranging their instant surrender.
When Biden took over, he had little leverage left, but he
also didn't use what he had, which was the promise of future
cooperation to aid the Afghan people. Instead, he subscribed
to the fantasy that the US-affiliated Afghans would fight on
even without US aid, and delayed departure until the Taliban
had completed their arrangements for assuming power, turning
the actual departure into the chaos broadcast far and wide.
Since then, all Biden has done has been to add Afghanistan to
America's "shit list" of countries we sanction and shun.
Once again, all we've shown to the world is our own hubris
and pettiness. The Biden administration has made some serious
effort to rethink domestic policy, moving it away from the
high ideology of neoliberalism toward something where results
matter, and have even come up with some results that do matter,
but they've done the opposite in foreign policy, overcorrecting
from the cynicism and corruption of "America First" (which was
never more than "Trump First", as Trump's "America" seems to
exclude everyone but his family and retainers) by reclaiming
high moral ground, both to sanctify our own acts and opinions,
and to castigate those who aren't sufficiently deferential to
us. Unless you're an arms manufacturer or an oil company, the
Biden foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster.
And other Democrats:
Trump:
Jared Abbott: [08-24]
Why do so many workers love Trump? "Racism and xenophobia are
a part of why so many ordinary workers were won over to Donald
Trump, but that's far from the whole story. A careful study breaks
down how Trump spoke to economic grievances and personal experiences."
This piece deserves some careful review, although my first reaction
is to ask for numbers ("so many"?), and my second is to wonder
whether the elixir is still working: it was much easier to paint
the Clintons and Obama as self-centered elitists than it is to
apply the same slurs against Biden and Harris, especially as the
latter actually have made some tangible gains for labor -- all of
which have been opposed by Trump and the Republicans.
Kevin Breuninger: [08-27]
Trump taps RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard for presidential transition
team: Sounds like something, but probably isn't.
Maureed Dowd: [08-24]
Daffy Don, turning pea green with envy.
David A Graham:
[08-19]
The fakest populism you ever saw: "The Trumpian GOP is in a battle
over which wealthy faction will win, not a class war."
But too much discussion of Vance's selection has accepted the supposed
worker-friendly orientation of the Ohio senator and the Trump-era
Republican Party, taking their bashing of elites at face value. What
is actually happening within the GOP right now is a battle among
different factions of the extremely wealthy over who will benefit
most if Donald Trump returns to power. Workers are a distant afterthought.
[08-27]
Jack Smith isn't backing down: "After a Supreme Court ruling
challenged his case, the special counsel filed a fresh indictment
of Donald Trump."
Elie Honig: [08-26]
How Donald Trump may dodge sentencing before the election -- or
forever: "This is where politics collide with the criminal-justice
process."
Clarence Lusane: [08-22]
Facing a smart, confident younger black woman Trump is running
scared: "Donald Trump confronts Kamala in his usual fashion:
Trump's never-ending malevolent war against black women."
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [08-21]
Trump really doesn't want to talk about Israel: "In his billed
national security speech, the former president stayed far away from
Gaza and the Middle East tinder box." Here's what he had to say
("in full") about Israel:
We made peace in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords. And more,
more, more, we did things like nobody ever heard of and we brought
our troops, mostly back home . . . My attitude kept us out of wars.
I stopped wars with phone calls. Russia should have never happened.
With Ukraine would have never happened if I were president it would
have never happened. Nope, there was no talk of that, it would have
never, ever happened. With Putin, would have never happened. And
Israel October 7 would have never happened. Iran would have never
done that. They had very little money at that point. Now they're
rich as hell, but Biden allowed that to happen.
Vox:
Vox's guide to Donald Trump's 2024 policies: I've probably cited
some of these before, but here they're wrapped up with a bow:
Peter Wehner:
Trump's evangelical supporters just lost their best excuse:
"The pro-life justification for supporting the former president
has now collapsed." The author's a well-known anti-Trump
evangelical, so I get that he's trying to square some circle,
but the notion that there's some reasoning behind evangelical
support for Trump is hard to credit.
Justin Zorn: [08-23]
Bros beware: Trump has a plan to shrink your testicles: "The
former president's crude appeals to masculinity culture clash with
his lax approach toward PFAS and pesticides, which have been linked
to lowered testosterone and sperm count."
James D Zirin: [08-27]
Trump sues the Justice Department for $100 million.
Vance:
And other Republicans:
Stephanie Armour/McKenzie Beard: [08-22]
Project 2025 would recast HHS as the federal Department of Life.
Nina Burleigh: [08-20]
The con at the core of the Republican Party: "The conservative
movement's total abandonment of even the appearance of principles
has been decades in the making." Review of Joe Conason's new book,
The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked
American Conservatism. Conason "devotes the first third
of the book to some of the right-wing scammers 'corroded to the
core' like [Roy] Cohn," only one degree of separation from Trump:
A crucial representative of this attitude, according to Conason,
was Roy Cohn, the red-baiting Joe McCarthy aide, New York power
broker, and Mafia lawyer whose "philosophy of impunity" was so
successful that it shaped right-wing politics for decades to come.
His most apt pupil was Donald Trump, whom he represented in his
later years. Cohn taught the younger Donald that "it was not only
possible but admirable to lie, cheat, swindle, fabricate, then
deny, deny, deny -- and get away with everything," Conason writes.
As a lawyer, Cohn's motto was: Better to know the judge than to
know the law. As a businessman, it was: Better to stiff creditors
than pay bills; and always worthwhile to lie, bribe, steal, and
swindle while never apologizing.
The editors offered links to two older pieces relevant here:
Eli Clifton: [08-22]
Ex-Rep. Gallagher [R-WS] psyched to 'leverage my network' for
Palantir: "The China hawk will be cashing in on public
service to work for a major defense contractor."
Juleanna Glover: [08-26]
Republican donors: do you know where your money goes? At some
point, wouldn't you expect that even rich people, even those most
flattered by solicitations catering to their prejudices, would
tire of getting hounded and scammed by this corrupt system. This
is worth quoting at some length:
Anyone who has spent time reviewing Donald Trump's campaign spending
reports would quickly conclude they're a governance nightmare. There
is so little disclosure about what happened to the billions raised
in 2020 and 2024 that donors (and maybe even the former president
himself) can't possibly know how it was spent.
Federal Election Commission campaign disclosure reports from 2020
show that much of the money donated to the Trump campaign went into
a legal and financial black hole reportedly controlled by Trump
family members and close associates. This year's campaign disclosures
are shaping up to be the same. Donors big and small give their
hard-earned dollars to candidates with the expectation they will
be spent on direct efforts to win votes. They deserve better.
During the 2020 election, almost $516 million of the over $780
million spent by the Trump campaign was directed to American Made
Media Consultants, a Delaware-based private company created in 2018
that masked the identities of who ultimately received donor dollars,
according to a complaint filed with the F.E.C. by the nonpartisan
Campaign Legal Center. How A.M.M.C. spent the money was a mystery
even to Mr. Trump's campaign team, according to news reports shortly
after the election. . . .
A.M.M.C.'s first president was reported to be Lara Trump, the
wife of Mr. Trump's son Eric. The New York Times reported that
A.M.M.C. had a treasurer who was also the chief financial officer
of Mr. Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump's
son-in-law, signed off on the plan to set up A.M.M.C., and one of
Eric Trump's deputies from the Trump Organization was involved in
running it.
Ms. Trump is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee,
which, soon after her arrival, announced it would link up with the
Trump campaign for joint fund-raising. The joint entity prioritizes
a PAC that pays Mr. Trump's legal fees over the R.N.C., The Associated
Press has reported, making assurances from Mr. Trump's campaign
co-manager that R.N.C. funds wouldn't be used to pay Mr. Trump's
legal bills seem more hollow.
One thing I'm curious about is why someone supposedly as rich as
Trump would get so invested in what are effectively petty cons --
I'm not denying that the money at stake in his media company, these
campaigns, and his son-in-law's hedge fund doesn't add up to serious,
but how are things like selling bibles and NFTs worth the trouble?
Speaking of campaign finance, I clicked on this "related" article:
Richard W Painter: [2016-02-03]
The conservative case for campaign-finance reform: Old article,
clicked on because I can imagine
there being such a case, one that would appeal to people who think
they are conservatives, and who think conservatism is an honest and
thoughtful philosophy that should appeal to enough people to win
fair elections. I even think that the most likely way we could get
serious campaign finance reform would be if some Republican takes
this sort of argument and uses it to guilt-trip Democrats and a
few more Republicans to support it.
As you may recall, Obama's fervor for campaign finance reform
faded after he saw how much more money he could raise in 2008 than
McCain -- a feat he repeated in 2012 against the more moneyed Romney.
However, even when Republicans started losing their cash advantage --
cultivated with such slavish devotion to business interests -- they
cling to unlimited spending, because they love the graft, but also
they've seen opportunities to paint Democrats as hypocrites and
scoundrels for cutting into their share. But mostly, no matter
how much they like to quote Burke (and in this case, Goldwater
and McCain), their staunchest belief is in inequality, which
these days is denominated in dollars.
Patrick Healy: [08-26]
Harris has the momentum. But Trump has the edge on what matters
most. Author is Deputy Opinion Editor at the New York Times,
the infamous "fake news" outlet that seems most desperate right
now to bolster Trump's candidacy, or at least revitalizing the
horse race. Still, not much here to actually define "what matters
most. Consider:
Defining the race: Harris wants to make the race about the future,
freedom and unity; Trump wants to make the race about the past, his
presidency and threats to the country.
Does he really think that Harris would be troubled having to talk
about "the past, [Trump's] presidency, and threats to the country" --
you know, like more of what Trump did during his presidency? Having
so flailed himself, Healy turned to:
Rich Lowry: [08-26]
Trump can win on character: I clicked on this because I like a
good joke as much as anyone, but does Lowry (or Healy?) understand
how funny the very idea is? He may be right that "presidential races
are won and lost on character as much as the issues," though not
that "often the issues are proxies for character" -- more often
"character" is used as a mask for poor issues (and is most effective
when it also masks poor character -- cf. Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes,
Clinton, and Trump, all of whom were packaged to hide reality).
Still:
Mr. Trump's campaign has been shrewd to begin to hold smaller,
thematic-focused events rather than just set him loose at rallies,
where there is the most opportunity for self-sabotaging riffs.
By what possible definition is this proof of his superior
character?Thomas B Edsall: [08-21]
Trump isn't finished: The publisher's title fits this here, but
the substance should stand nicely on its own. Edsall mostly quotes
various eminences on the severe threat a second Trump term would
present to Amermica and what we still think of as democracy:
- Sean Wilentz: "Trump, who does not speak in metaphors, had made
it plain: 'If I don't get elected, it's going to be a blood bath.'"
- Laurence Tribe
- Julie Wronski
- Bruce Cain: "Trump is more erratic, impulsive, and self-interested
than your average candidate and is much bolder than most in testing
the boundaries of what he can get away with."
- Timothy Snyder
- Charles Stewart
- Julian Zelizer
- Jacob Hacker
- Frances Lee
- Eric Shickler
- Robert Y Shapiro
- Gary Jacobson: "[The biggest difference] will be the absence of
officials in the administration with the stature, experience, and
integrity to resist Trump's worst instincts in such matters."
Patrick Healy: [08-23]
Joy is not a strategy.
Nicholas Kristof: [08-24]
Republicans are right: one party is 'anti-family and anti-kid'.
Election notes:
Legal matters and other crimes:
Edward Carver: [08-21]
Trump-appointed judge strikes down FTC ban on noncompete agreements:
"Thirty million workers who were trapped by these agreements will now
stay trapped thanks to this ruling."
Timothy Noah: [08-23]
Killing noncompete clauses is all about freedom: "Why Harris and
Walz should talk up an imperiled FTC regulation." This is an issue
I feel very strongly about, both in principle and because I had my
own extremely unpleasant (and probably quite damaging) experience
with one. The FTC ruling is one of the best things Biden has done.
It is very important to defend it, even to overturning the courts.
Julia Conley: [08-23]
DOJ files rent-fixing lawsuit against corporate landlords' go-to
software firm: "Executives at the property management software
company RealPage claimed they had the 'greater good' in mind when
they offered corporate landlords a price-fixing algorithm service."
Hila Keren: [08-26]
The courts are already starting to implement Project 2025, without
Trump.
Ruth Marcus: [08-22]
Justice Gorsuch's book of fish tales: "A n ew book by the Supreme
Court conservative begs the question: does having all the facts matter?"
The book, co-credited with ("former law clerk") Janie Nitze, is
Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law. The premise,
that "some law is essential to our lives and our freedoms," but
also that "too much law can place those very same freedoms at risk
and even undermine respect for law itself," seems inarguable. But
where does he go from there? Of the cases cited here, I'm at least
sympathetic to that of Aaron Swartz: it seems to me that a key part
of theft is depriving the owner of access, which copying doesn't
do. Rather, the legal creation of "intellectual property" is a
prime example of the "too much law" that Gorsuch decries.
Ian Millhiser:
Climate and environment:
Richard Heinberg: [08-25]
7 steps to what a real renewable energy transition looks like:
"Historically, an overhaul for humanity's energy system would take
hundreds or many thousands of years. The rapid shift to cleaner,
more sustainable sources of power generations will easily be the
most ambitious enterprise our species has ever undertaken." Glad
to see this, as I've read several of Heinberg's books, although
none since 2009's Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy
Crisis, preceded by 2007's Peak Everything: Waking Up to
the Century of Declines. That was back in the
Oil Drum era
(see
Wikipedia"),
when
Hubbert's peak seemed to be kicking in, before secondary
extraction techniques like fracking became cost-effective
enough to allow oil and gas production to increase from
previously depleted or marginal fields. I read quite a bit on
this and related subjects back then. I was especially taken by
a chart from one of his books (float right; top: "world oil
production from 1600 to 2200, history and projection"; bottom:
"world population from 1600 to 2200, history and projection,
assuming impacts from depletion"), although I could think of
plenty of reasons why the post-peak decline would not be as
sharp or perilous (including enhanced secondary recovery.
I don't have time now, but could probably write quite a bit
about this piece. For now, I'll note that I basically agree
with his first two section heads: "Why this is (so far) not a
real transition" and "The core of the transition is using less
energy." His concrete proposals are more troubling, especially
those that overreach politically (like rationing and "triage").
"Aim for population decline" seems both politically perilous
and unnecessary, given that current projections are that world
population will stabilize within 30-60 years. We have major
challenges accommodating the population we have (or will have),
but reducing the number of people doesn't make the task easier --
and given most ways population has been reduced in the past, may
make matters much worse.
Benji Jones: [08-22]
This chart of ocean heat is terrifying: "The Gulf's looming
hurricane problem, explained in a simple graph."
Economic matters:
Dean Baker: Everything he
publishes is worth reading. Catching up with recent examples:
[08-13]
Is 'drill everywhere" good news for the oil industry? "If a
large increase in US production does send oil prices sharply lower,
the oil industry is not likely to be very happy."
[08-14]
Why does a good inflation report require NPR to feature two people
who are struggling?
[08-17]
Vice-President Harris proposes to increase the deficit by 0.5 percent
of GDP over the next decade: "In an effort to promote hysteria,
the media the media have jumped on the proposals laid out by [Harris],
telling their audience that they will increase the deficit by $1.7
trillion over the next decade." Or, as Baker explains:
However, the key point here is that almost no one knows how much
money $1.7 trillion is over the next decade. When the media present
this figure, they are essentially telling their audience nothing.
It would take all of ten seconds to write this number in a way
that would be meaningful to most people. GDP is projected to be
$352 trillion over the next decade, so this sum will be a bit less
than 0.5 percent of projected GDP. The country is projected to spend
$84.9 trillion over this period, so Harris' proposals would increase
total spending by roughly 2.0 percent.
If the point is to inform their audience, it is hard to understand
why the media would not take the few seconds needed to put large
budget numbers in context. On the other hand, if the point is to
promote fears of exploding deficits, they are going a good route.
By the way:
[08-19]
The WaPo's Republican columnists just make it up: "No one
expects serious economic analysis from the Washington Post's
conservative columnists and Mark Thiessen
doesn't let us down."
[08-20]
Prices are still high, and other absurd things pushed by the media:
"Unfortunately, the media are dominated by unserious reporters who
ask unserious questions which gives us an absurd national debate
about bringing about the impossible."
[08-21]
Mixed story: what the revision to the jobs data means.
[08-26]
Yet another in the economy is bad under Biden series.
[08-26]
E.J. Dionne, WaPo's liberal columnist, pushes right-wing propaganda:
Baker starts by noting:
It is totally understandable that the right wants people to believe
that "markets alone" were responsible for the massive upward
redistribution of income of the last half century. But it happens
to be total crap.
He then explains why it's "total crap," starting with monopoly
rents from rigged markets (citing, as he often does, his free book,
Rigged). He then concludes:
The market is just a tool, like the wheel. It makes as much sense
to rant against the free market as to complain about the wheel.
Unfortunately, the right has managed to get the bulk of the left
in this country screaming at the wheel. As long as that remains
the case, it will be difficult to make much progress in reducing
inequality.
Gordon Katic: [08-20]
The insidious elitist upshot of behavioral economics: "Behavioral
economics dangerously denigrates the rationality of ordinary people."
Paul Krugman: More political than economical, but always
an economist.
Andrea Mazzarino: [08-20]
Deep corporate America: "The corporate greed threatening out
stability."
Ukraine War and Russia:
America's empire and the world:
Afyare A Elmi/Yusuf Hassan: [08-26]
The coming war nobody is talking about: Ethiopia has been
land-locked since Eritrea broke away as an independent country,
and their prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, doesn't like it. Part of
the problem here is that Somalia is effectively divided, with
its northern (formerly British) wedge broken free of its nominal
central government in Mogadishu.
Joshua Keating: [08-19]
Armed conflict is stressing the bones of the global economy:
"From shipping lanes to airspace to undersea cables, globalization
is under physical attack."
Sarang Shidore: [08-21]
Dangerous China-Philippine clashes could be expanding: "Serious
incidents in the South China Sea are spreading well beyond the
Second Thomas Shoal, pulling the US in deeper."
Aaron Sobczak: [08-21]
Fewer Americans willing to fight and die for other countries:
Probably fewer for their own, too, as various forces -- capitalism
is a pretty major one -- lead people to focus on individual interests,
downplay their group affiliations, and suspect states of being subject
to corrupt influences. As lives grow longer and richer, it's getting
harder to justify sacrificing one for war, especially as the
cost-benefit analysis of war only grows grimmer. Even if the
democratic left manages to stem the trend toward hyper-individualism
by restoring a sense of public interest, it won't make war more
attractive.
I've been thinking about this a bit while watching pre-modern war
culture dramas, like Shōgun and House of the Dragon.
The fealty warriors repeated express toward their "lords" is all but
unthinkable today, when everyone thinks they're self-interested. But
if the alternatives are primitive atomism (individuals, small packs,
or clans) and organized bandits. The latter, through cooperation, can
be so much more efficient that the rest have no alternative but to
organize their own collective defenses. There's more to this, of
course, like the argument that the Axial Age religions were efforts
to moderate the period's massive increase in warfare.
Military-Industrial Complex:
Other stories:
Current Affairs:
[07-14]
Jeffrey Sachs on why US foreign policy is dangerously misguided:
"How US presidents from Clinton to Trump to Biden squandered chances
to establish a lasting peace in the post-Cold War era."
[08-14]
Why you will never retire: "Economist Teresa Ghilarducci on why
some 90-year-old Americans are pushing shopping carts in the heat
trying to make ends meet." She has a book,
Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New
Economy. "She shows how the pension system disappeared,
why Social Security isn't enough, and explains how even the
concept of retirement is beginning to disappear, with
many arguing that work is good for you, people should do it for
longer." As always, much depends on what kind of work you do.
I've been effectively retired for 20+ years now, but what that
means is that I've been able to afford to do things I want to
do, free of having to spend a big chunk of my life toiling for
nothing better than making someone else money. I've been very
fortunate in that regard. A more generous retirement system
would help more people do socially worthwhile work like I do,
even if it doesn't contribute to the great GDP fetish. It would
also help people avoid doing useless and/or senseless work, of
which there is way too much required these days, just because
someone has figured out how to turn a profit from it.
[08-22]
The extreme danger of dehumanizing rhetoric: "David Livingstone
Smith, one of the world's leading scholars of dehumanization, explains
what it is, why we're so prone of it, and how to resist it." Author
of books like:
Nathan J Robinson:
[08-05]
How empires think: "The imperial mentality sanctions some of the
worst imaginable crimes in the name of progress, enlightenment, and
civilization."
[08-07]
An encouraging sign: "Choosing Tim Walz as a vice presidential
nominee shows Kamala Harris has good political instincts. But what
matters is policy, and we should demand real commitments."
[08-12]
Politics should not be parasocial: "These are not our dads or
aunts. We are electing a head of state who will wield immense power
and control a massive nuclear arsenal. 'Policy' is not peripheral
or dispensable, it's the only thing that really matters." Critique
of an Atlantic article on Kamala Harris -- Tom Nichols: [08-19]
Policy isn't going to win this election: "The Harris campaign
seems to have grasped an important reality" -- which may in turn
have led to the Giridharadas kerfuffle below (I'm reaching them
in opposite order, and the point doesn't seem worth fact checking).
I lean toward Robinson here, but that's largely because I think
writers who focus on political policy should take care to get the
policy right, regardless of the politics. (If you get the policy
right, you can conceivably steer the politics toward it; but if
you take the politics as a given, you're very unlikely to get to
the right policy.)
Nichols says that it's a myth that Americans care about policy. But
perhaps the opposite is true. I think the very reason that so many
Americans are disillusioned with politics is that they don't see
how it affects them. If you went around this country and you asked
everyone you saw how much attention to politics they pay, and why
they don't pay more attention, I guarantee you you'll get many
variations on an answer roughly like: None of these politicians
ever actually do anything for us, they just care about themselves,
they don't care about us, look at my community, what have the
politicians ever done for us?
I've only read the first two paragraphs of the Nichols piece
(paywalls, you know). He may well have a point -- it's a truism
among political consultants that voters rarely go deep into policy
details, and often respond to non-policy signals, voting with an
emotional hunch over reasoned analysis. Still, no matter how much
politicians and journalists try to dodge them, policy positions
do matter, and in a broad sense are likely to be decisive.
[08-15]
Panic about immigrants is based on feeling and emotion: "Christopher
Rufo visited Britain and saw non-white people, leading him to conclude
that civilization is being hollowed out."
[08-25]
On the role of emotion in politics: "A response to MSNBC's Anand
Giridharadas, who thinks I am not fun. . . . His reply was quite
personal, and he even placed a picture of me next to a picture of
Lil Jon to illustrate how much less fun I seem." Seems like an
unnecessary response to a charge that has no reason for being,
but as a writer who can only imagine how his readers misinterpret
him, I concede a bit of interest in such things.
Alex Skopic:
K Wilson: [04-01]
Why the right constantly panics over societal 'decadence': "No,
'Western society' has not fallen from some mythic elevated past. But
such right-wing views are appealing, and the left needs an answer
to them if we want to avoid being pushed back into traditional
hierarchies."
Arwa Mahdawi: [08-22]
Stop using the term 'centrist'. If doesn't mean what you think it
does: "If you simplify your English, you are freed from the
worst follies of orthodoxy, wrote Orwell. That applies today more
than ever." My eyes glaze over when I see Orwell, so I can't tell
you what that's about. And while there's plenty to say about the
dysfunctionality of "centrism" -- it mostly seems to mean that
you would like to see some nicer things happening, but aren't
willing to do anything to make it happen that might offend the
rich -- the actual examples given here are mostly from Israel.
A couple are grimly (or sickeningly) amusing:
This narrative is so entrenched that people don't believe
their eyes when it comes to Palestinians. Last October, the actor
Jamie Lee Curtis posted a photo on Instagram showing terrified-looking
children peering up at the sky. She captioned the post "terror from
the skies" with an Israel flag emoji. When it was pointed out that
the kids were Palestinian, she deleted the post. Her eyes may have
told her that those innocent children were terrified; the narrative,
however, was more complicated.
Around the same time, Justin Bieber posted a photo of bombed houses
with the caption "praying for Israel." When it was pointed out the
picture was of Gaza, he deleted it and apparently stopped praying.
Timothy Noah: [2022-02-10]
Washington is not a swamp: "Ignore the lazy conventional wisdom.
The nation's capital is the most public-spirited city in the country.
By far." Not sure why this piece popped up suddenly, but it remains
relevant, especially with the pending Trump/Project 2025 plan to purge
the civil service and replace them with political hacks. This reminds
me that one of the best political books to appear during the Trump
years was
Michael Lewis: The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy, about
"a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance
and greed." Still, whenever I heard the phrase "drain the swamp,"
I automatically assumed that the subject was lobbying corruption,
which is rife in Washington, even though Trump using it as such
was certainly hypocritical -- I always assumed that, like Tom
DeLay's K Street Project, his real aim was to take the racket
over, to skim his vig. That he meant it as code for the civil
service was unthinkable, yet that's clearly what he means.
Maya Wei-Haas: [08-26]
Dismantling the ship that drilled for the ocean's deepest secrets:
"The JOIDES Resolution, which for decades was key to advancing the
understanding of the Earth and its innards, concluded what could be
its final scientific expedition."
Obituaries
Common Dreams: [08-21]
The best Bill Pascrell takedowns of 'lowlife' Trump and his 'soulless
goons': "The feisty Democratic congressman from New Jersey died
August 21."
Trip Gabriel: [08-14]
Betty A Prashker, 99, who pushed boundaries in book publishing,
dies: "A top editor and executive at two publishing houses, she
was an advocate for women in publishing, and for equal pay in an
industry that had long been male-dominated." Two of the books noted
here are
Kate Millett: Sexual Politgics: A Surprising Examination of
Society's Most Arbitrary Folly (1970), and
Susan Faludi: Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American
Women (1991).
Anita Gates: [08-14]
Gena Rowlands, actress who brought raw drama to her roles, dies
at 94.
Penelope Green: [08-25]
Hettie Jones, poet and author who nurtured the beats, dies at 90:
"She and her husband, LeRoi Jones, published works by their literary
friends. After he left her and became Amiri Baraka, she found her
own voice."
Clay Risen: [08-25]
Russell Malone, acclaimed jazz guitarist, dies at 60. Obit
credits him with leading ten albums -- Triple Play (2010)
is one I liked -- but he also has a lot of
side-credits, some quite impressive.
Jon Schwarz: [08-25]
Phil Donahue, The New York Times, and the Iraq War: "More than 20
years later, the Times continues to diss anyone who got it right on
the war after they got it so wrong." The quote from
NYT's obituary doesn't strike me as all that inflammatory, but
it obviously hit a still-sensitive nerve, and Donahue should be
remembered for political insight and bravery in an industry that
sadly deficient.
Remy Tumin: [08-26]
Alabama high school football player dies after sustaining head
injury: Caden Tellier.
Alex Williams/Alexandra E Petri: [08-15]
Greg Kihn, 75, dies; scored hits with 'Jeopardy' and 'The Breakup
Song'.
Books
Nick Cleveland-Stout: [08-19]
'Poison' Ivy Lee, America's first foreign lobbying tycoon:
"A new book reckons with the legacy of the man who helped burnish
the reputations of Soviets, Nazis and other US adversaries."
The book is
Casey Michel: Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and
Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World.
Aaron Gell: [08-19]
The unsavory confessions of a PR guru: "A flack's new memoir
touts his work for dictators and tycoons. But that's only part of
today's misinformation industry." Review of
Phil Elwood: All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators,
Tycoons, and Politicians, and
Renée DiResta: Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into
Reality.
Benjamin Kunkel: [08-26]
Your life and mine: "The intractable puzzle of growth." Review of
Daniel Susskind: Growth: A History and a Reckoning, and
Kohei Saitō: Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, although
other books are mentioned, including: Kenneth Pomeranz: The Great
Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy;
Matthias Schmelzer: The Hegemony of Growth; Robert Collins:
More: The Poliltics of Economic Growth in Postwar America;
Herman Daly: Steady-State Economics; Kate Raworth: Doughnut
Economics; as well as references to Braudel, Polanyi, Kuznets,
Gorz, and Adorno. A quote from the latter is especially striking:
Perhaps the true society will grow tired of development and, out
of freedom, leave possibilities unused, instead of storming under
a confused compulsion toward the conquest of strange stars. A
mankind which no longer knows want will begin to have an inkling
of the delusory, futile nature of all the arrangements hitherto
made in order to escape want, which used wealth to reproduce want
on a larger scale.
Samuel Moyn: [08-27]
Zig and zag: "The surprising origins and politics of equality."
A review of three books:
Paul Sagar: Basic Equality;
Darrin McMahon: Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea; and
David Lay Williams: The Greatest of All Plagues.
Music (and other arts?)
Chatter
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