Loose* [0 - 9]

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Loose Tabs

This is an occasional collection of newsworthy links and comments, much less systematic than what I attempted in my late Speaking of Which posts. The new name comes from my extensive use of browser tabs. When I get around to cleaning up, I often find tabs opened to old articles I might want to comment on and/or refer back to. So these posts are mostly housecleaning, but may also serve as a very limited but persistent record of what 20+ years ago I started calling "the end of the American empire" and nowadays feels more like "the end of civilization." I collect these bits in a draft file, and flush them out when periodically. My previous one appeared 15 days ago, on April 30.

I made a rather arbitrary decision after midnight Tuesday evening to post what I had at the moment. I'm pretty sure I have up to a dozen tabs still open, but I'm not expecting to have much free time Wednesday or Thursday, and didn't want to leave the thing hanging. If/when I do find time, I may add more here (if I think something fits), or save it for next time. One thing that kept me from closing was that I tried to answer a couple questions, and couldn't quite figure out the second (suppressed for now). Good chance I will focus on that next.

More 100 Days Pieces:

Norman Solomon: [04-30] The US left Vietnam 50 years ago today. The media hasn't learned its lesson: "The myth that news coverage turned Americans against the war persists. In fact, it was largely complicit in perpetuating the conflict." I'd go so far as to say that the value of a free press in a democracy is that it uncover the facts and framework so that we can properly evaluate and judge our politicians. American mass media has been pretty deficient on that score in general, but especially when it comes to matters of war. Solomon offers numerous examples of how easily the architects of the Vietnam War gamed the media. Sure, in the end, what we saw overwhelmed what we were told, to such an extent that many of us still distrust most public institutions: Trump's charges of "false news" work because that's been our experience forever.

American presidents have never come anywhere near offering an honest account of the Vietnam war. None could imagine engaging in the kind of candor that the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg bluntly provided when he said: "It wasn't that we were on the wrong side. We were the wrong side."

Two months after taking office in early 1977, President Jimmy Carter was dismissive when a reporter asked if he felt "any moral obligation to help rebuild" Vietnam. "Well, the destruction was mutual," he replied. "We went there to defend the freedom of the South Vietnamese. And I don't feel that we ought to apologize or to castigate ourselves or to assume the status of culpability."

A dozen years later, Ronald Reagan told a gathering at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington that the war had been a "noble cause" — "however imperfectly pursued, the cause of freedom."

While announcing formal diplomatic relations with Vietnam in July 1995, President Bill Clinton felt compelled to fabricate history. "Whatever we may think about the political decisions of the Vietnam era, the brave Americans who fought and died there had noble motives," he said. "They fought for the freedom and the independence of the Vietnamese people."

At the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington in May 2012, President Barack Obama spoke of "honoring our Vietnam veterans by never forgetting the lessons of that war" — which included "that when America sends our sons and daughters into harm's way, we will always give them a clear mission; we will always give them a sound strategy." But Obama was far along in replicating the tragic folly of the Vietnam war.

Yanis Varoufakis: [04-30] Trump and the Triumph of the Technolords: "Trump is a godsend for Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and the other technofeudal lords. Any short-run loss from his tariff delusions is a small price to pay for an agenda that would deregulate their AI-driven services, bolster crypto, and exempting their cloud rents from taxation."

Ed Kilgore: [05-01] Marco Rubio Might Have His Jobs, But He's No Henry Kissinger: Huh?

Chas Danner: [05-03] Trump Loses Another Election Abroad: "Australia's Labor Party looked doomed a few months ago. Now, thanks in part to Trump, it's expanding its majority." The thing I don't quite understand is why the center-left parties in Australia and Canada were considered sure losers before Trump showed them that yes, indeed, things could get much worse. Sure, this fits in with the line that Harris lost as part of a global reaction against incumbents (that also wiped out the Tories in the UK).

  • Yanis Varoufakis: [05-06] Why the centre will not hold: Voters want the system upended: Starts with the Canada and Australia elections, although one could also look at the UK, and France, where the runoff system effectively keeps Le Pen out of power. For the moment, Trump is scary enough to drive voters to alternatives, but what more are the centrists offering other than not being Trump? Not solutions, scarcely even acknowledgment of concerns, but more of the "business as usual" that is generating such widely felt problems. And because they're not solving problems, or visibly attempting, and because they're reluctant even to assign blame and identify enemies (especially the ones they cultivate as donors), they lose all credibility -- even their dire warnings about boogeymen slip by the wayside, until someone like Trump gains power and reminds us how much worse it can get. One big point here is that the wins in Canada and Australia were achieved not at the expense of the far right, but by panicking the left into joining the center, even though the center has nothing positive to offer.

  • Wolfgang Munchau: [05-05] The death of the centre-right: It failed to address an alienated electorate: This is more of a Europe thing, as our two-party system only allows for left-right branding, even when both are for all intents and purposes centered -- meaning under the thumb of the same donor class and its dominant ideology -- leaving their branding options mostly negative: the Democrats are a mixed bag of liberal, left and center who can only find unity as anti-right; the Republicans are more homogeneous, but still are better defined as anti-left than as conservative, libertarian, authoritarian, or anything else. I would add that those stances are more emotional than logical or practical, which allows the center to cater to or humor them without sacrificing power or policy. (Although I'd also point out that the left has a coherent critique and program, and that the right doesn't, which gives the right an advantage for campaigning but makes governance a disaster.) Multiparty systems in Europe allow for more personal profiles: far-right and far-left vs. center-right and center-left are not just points on a political scale but, given the dominance of emotion over logic in voting, are becoming distinct personality types. In this scheme, as the system fails and panic increases, the far-factions increase at the expense of the center. But as this happens, and especially as the far-right become more ominous to those with centrist leanings, the center-right becomes the empty quadrant: they pale in emotional satisfaction to the far-right, they aren't needed to defend against the far-left, and they cannot be trusted by even the center-left to keep the far-right down (as the center-left has habitually done to the real left).

Alexander Nazaryan: [05-04] Who's to Blame for the Catastrophe of COVID School Closures? "A new book tries to make sense of a slow-motion (and preventable) mistake that affected millions of children." The book is An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions, by David Zweig, who is interviewed here, and allowed to spout his opinions with no review. It isn't obvious to me that the closures were bad decisions, or that they had long term consequences, let alone catastrophic ones, but I also find it hard to credit strawman attacks on caricatures of a left that has never come close to exercising the sort of power they are blamed for. This ends with the interviewer asking "are you optimistic that officials will handle the next pandemic better when it comes to school closures?" To which Zweig answers: "I think a significant portion of the public just simply won't tolerate it the way they did last time." So next time will be worse, not just because we learned nothing but because the do-nothing agitators have only been further empowered.

Note that I'm not arguing that the closure policy was ideal or even right, and certainly not that we shouldn't review what happened and learn to do better. I'm not surprised that "remote learning" is less effective for many students, but surely it could be improved much over the current practice of just blasting students with data. Perhaps it requires more individual teacher attention, not less? Also, I admit that my views are rooted in my own ancient experience with a school system that taught me little and tortured me much. One thing I learned later is that at least some, perhaps many, students will learn on their own what they can't learn in school.[*] One thing I really hate is Zweig's attitude that every minute/day/month that a child is deprived of full bore, high-pressure education is a moment totally and irretrievably lost that will mar the person forever. I could point to the practice of tiger parenting here, but I see that more as an internalization of rat race capitalism, and its perverse reduction of human values.

[*] I am probably an outlier in terms of my ability to pick up expertise in purely academic subjects, which was possibly aided by my being freed from the school system at a tender age (15). But I've known others who loathed school and deliberately underachieved, but on their own went on to master not just the rote practice but the science and logic of the trades that interested and engaged them. I've learned as much from them as I've learned from anyone with a proper academic pedigree. Even so, I admit that there are things that I've been unable to learn on my own, where the discipline of coursework could have made the difference. In particular, I've long noted with regret my inability to advance in mathematics after my standard -- and frankly not very good[**] -- curriculum was broken. (I've compensated somewhat by reading books about mathematics, like Philip J Davis/Reuben Hersh: The Mathematical Experience and John Allen Paulos: Innumeracy, two general surveys I highly recommend, as well as more esoteric fare like Douglas R Hofstadter: Gödel, Escher, Bach, James Gleick: Chaos: Making a New Science, and Benoît Mandelbrot: The Fractal Geometry of Nature.

The exception (there always is one, isn't there?) was in 6th grade, when I had a very elderly -- and much despised by everyone else I knew -- math teacher who embraced the temporary vogue for New Math, and introduced me to sets and number theory -- concepts not only interesting in themselves but which provided nearly all of the math I eventually needed for a career in software engineering. It is worth quoting from the Wikipedia page here:

Parents and teachers who opposed the New Math in the U.S. complained that the new curriculum was too far outside of students' ordinary experience and was not worth taking time away from more traditional topics, such as arithmetic. The material also put new demands on teachers, many of whom were required to teach material they did not fully understand. Parents were concerned that they did not understand what their children were learning and could not help them with their studies.

But also note what they were opposed to (and eventually managed to shut down):

All of the New Math projects emphasized some form of discovery learning. Students worked in groups to invent theories about problems posed in the textbooks. Materials for teachers described the classroom as "noisy." Part of the job of the teacher was to move from table to table assessing the theory that each group of students had developed and "torpedo" wrong theories by providing counterexamples. For that style of teaching to be tolerable for students, they had to experience the teacher as a colleague rather than as an adversary or as someone concerned mainly with grading. New Math workshops for teachers, therefore, spent as much effort on the pedagogy as on the mathematics.

In other words, New Math might encourage students to learn on their own and to think for themselves. When I moved on to 7th grade, it was back to the rote learning of Old Math, where I learned little of note but the A grades were easy, and I lost interest -- especially after my 9th grade science teacher was so horrible I not only ditched that as a career inclination but never took another science course (and as such had diminished use for more math).

Kenneth Rogoff: [05-06] Trump's Misguided Plan to Weaken the Dollar: "The so-called Mar-a-Lago Accord, proposed by Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephen Miran, aims to reduce the United States' current-account deficit by weakening the dollar. But this plan is based on a deeply flawed understanding of the relationship between the dollar's global status and US deindustrialization." I've been asking this same question: if the goal is to square away America's current accounts deficit, wouldn't it be more straightforward to just weaken the dollar -- making US exports cheaper to others, which should result in us selling more, while making imports more expensive, some of which could easily be replaced with cheaper domestic supplies -- than to raise tariffs, which make trade less efficient while inviting retaliation? I've long assumed that the "strong dollar" was dictated by the political clout of finance, because the main effect of the trade deficits has been to feed money back into the finance system, making the bankers (if not necessarily other capitalists, like manufacturers) all the richer. Those in finance have little reason to reduce the trade deficit, because it's already working just fine for them. Rogoff offers a couple reasons why an attack on the dollar wouldn't help with the deficit, and concludes "the idea that tariffs can be a cure-all is dubious at best," but doesn't really answer my question. He is, by the way, a former chief economist from IMF, and co-wrote a famous book called This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, which I don't recall all that well reviewed. He has a new book more specifically on this subject: Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider's View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead.

  • Ezra Klein: [05-02] Trump vs. the Dollar: Interview with Kenneth Rogoff. An interview, which gets into more depth about "exorbitant privilege": where the idea came from (it was originally, as you might guess, a sneer, but has since been adopted as some kind of divine right), what benefits it bestows, and how insecure they may be. (What is lacking, I think, is details on exactly who benefits, and how much or little that may matter to the rest of us.) The bottom line is here:

    It has stabilized for the moment because Trump has retreated partly. But what I thought might have taken 10 or 15 years to happen took place within a week. And we're never going back.

    So our exorbitant privilege, our lower borrowings -- never going back to what it was. We may have lost a quarter percent, a half a percent, just permanently higher.

    We can have a recession to bring them down -- and we can get into that -- but I don't think that bell will ever get unrung.

    One especially interesting line is: "Americans know they've been good, but they don't know they've been lucky." That's pretty common among evidently successful people. Rogoff follows this observation with sports metaphors, so I'll drop in a couple more: "born on third base, but thinks he hit a triple." You might counter with Branch Rickey's "luck is the residue of design," but few other people ever cultivated luck as assiduously as Rickey. Donald Trump was born with so much luck he's spent a lifetime squandering it and still gets by on nothing but.

Adam Gurri: [05-07] Why We Need a Reconstruction of the Liberal Public Sphere: "How media systems work, how ours came to be, and where we go from here." Son of media guru Martin Gurri -- I have a copy of his 2018 book The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium, which seemed like it might offer some insight into the Trump-addled media circus, in spite of (or perhaps because) its author having wound up voting for Trump in 2024 (on extremely specious "free speech" grounds); I may have clicked here expecting Martin -- has "worked all over the adtech ecosystem," but also founded Liberal Currents ("an online magazine devoted to mere liberalism"). This is a long piece I've barely skimmed and can't especially recommend but the subject is important enough to bookmark it and return at some future point: Democrats desperately need to learn better ways of talking to and about other people, because recent approaches don't seem to be working at all. I don't know what the answer is, in part because it's hard to see how anything can effectively counter the forces that are fragmenting and denigrating consciousness with their relentless barrage of misinformation and misinterpretation. But I am pretty sure that nostalgia for "the Big Three" era isn't the answer, or even a part of it. That was, after all, the system that gave us the Red Scare, the Cold War, and especially Vietnam, and was still largely intact trumpeting Reagan's "morning in America," Bush's "new world order," and another Bush's "global war on terrorism."

  • Adam Gurri: [04-29] Unfit to Be the Ruler of a Free People: The Anti-American Presidency of Donald Trump: "The Trump administration is an affront to everything good that America has become and everything America has ever sought to be." This piece aligns the author with the liberal democrats who have always sought to see the sunny side of America idealism, and therefore regard Trump as an abomination, rather than as just an especially ripe and pungent instance of rot that's deeply embedded in American history. Choosing sides in this debate is a distracting parlor game, when it's much easier for both to agree that Trump and his legion are hideous and need to be stopped. Still, I will note that those who have tried to rescue patriotism and piety from the Republicans have had not only had very little success, they've become objects of ridicule for the very people they try to convert. (I was especially struck by how Trump made light of Obama's habitual "God bless America" speech ending, obviously a lie because they all agree he's a Muslim terrorist driven by his hatred and lust to destroy America. )

Gaby Dal Valle [05-07]: Grifters thrive under Trump's scam-friendly administration: "Gutted watchdog agencies and unprecedented 'influence peddling' means unrestrained fraud." This is the essential story of the Trump administration, the one you can be sure of adding new installments to each and every week. This is also Trump's main vulnerability, as his graft is only barely more popular among rank-and-file Republicans -- who are so easily motivated by the slightest stench of scandal on the Democratic side -- as with Democrats and independents.

Sarah Jones [05-07]: The Christians Who Believe Empathy Is a Sin: "When suffering is irrelevant, anything can be justified." I don't exactly understand why, other than because their politics depends on desensitizing to cruelty. Ends with: "The social contract is held together by empathy, which is why authoritarians fear and despise it so much. All they can offer is a net."

Orly Noy [05-07]: What a 'peace summit' reveals about the state of the Israeli left: "Well-meaning dialogue workshops, panels on distant political solutions, but no mention of genocide: these are privileged distractions we can no longer afford." I spent over a year, from Oct. 7, 2023 through Nov. 6, 2024, documenting and denouncing Israel's genocide -- a word that will suffice for what's happening, which admittedly is much more than that, but also no less -- but I've largely bypassed the subject since then. This does not represent a change in my views, or a lessening of concern, but simply a choice to focus my limited time and energy on matters that are less glaring and/or are open to possible solution. While I may have been overly optimistic that Harris, had she won and transitioned from campaign to governing (from sucking up to donors to actually having to grapple with real problems), would have compelled Israel to limit its goals, I was certainly correct that Trump would rubber-stamp whatever Israel's leadership wanted. Given that force is not a viable option -- no opposing force has the means, much less the desire, to go up against Israel (and the US) -- the Houthis and/or Hezbollah are at most minor irritants -- and that war wouldn't be a good idea anyway, and that US support can be counted on, the only way this ends is when Israel itself decides to stop it. Hence, our hopes are limited to efforts like this "peace summit," political efforts that gnaw away at blanket US/Europe support for Israel, and the resilience of the Palestinian people, who are paying the price for our confusion and indifference. As usual, if you want latest news, see this website, MondoWeiss, Middle East Eye, etc.

  • Basel Adra: [05-06] Palestinians awoke to bulldozers. Their village was destroyed by noon: Note that this was in the West Bank (not Gaza), the village Khilet al-Dabe.

  • Qassam Muaddi [05-09]: Exterminating Gaza was always Israel's plan, but now it's official.

  • Ofer Cassif: [05-09] Israel laid out its harrowing plan to take Palestinian territories in 2017. Now it is happening.

  • Faris Giacaman/Tareq S Hajjaj [05-06] Israel is creating a power vacuum in Gaza by backing armed looters -- and killing anyone who tries to stop them.

  • Mitchell Plitnick [05-02] Biden staffers admit what we all knew: White House lied about ceasefire efforts.

  • Dave Reed [05-10] Weekly Briefing: Israel plots ethnic cleansing under Trump's cover.

  • Thomas L Friedman [10-09] This Israeli Government Is Not Our Ally: No, he hasn't flipped. He still has "zero sympathy for Hamas" ("a sick organization"), and sure, it's taken him an awful long time to get to a point that should have been obvious even before the Oct. 7 uprising, but his extreme reluctance qualifies him as a bellweather. A tweet mentioning this piece starts, "when you've lost Thomas Friedman." If appeals for murdered children would have gotten to you, you'd already be clamoring for a cease fire, if not much more. Friedman only cares about something else: realpolitik. He recognizes that genocide is a bad look for Israel, and that it is bleeding support for the land and people he so cherishes, and under these circumstances, he sees that blanket US support only encourages politicos like Netanyahu to do worse things, to bleed more support.

    One way to look at this is: if you care for Palestinians, you've long recognized Israel as a force intent on your destruction, so your response is to two-fold: to elicit sympathy for your people, and to applaud their heroism and resilience in the face of occupation. You also have negligible political influence, especially where it matters most, in Israel and the US -- and especially to the extent that your aims can be viewed as a zero-sum game at Israel's expense. If your concerns are more general, if you oppose injustice and its enforcement in all forms, then you should be able to recognize Israel as a major offender, and seek remedies, starting with a ceasefire, that restore justice. You, too, have negligible political influence, at least in the US, as is evident by America's deep commitment to global power projection, and by America's generous support for regimes that have a history of abusing human rights. But at least your group is one that the real powers in pre-Trump America feel the need to pay lip service to. (Trump doesn't feel any such need, which makes him an object lesson on what happens when you don't at least pretend to have any scruples.)

    But there is a third group of people who have good reason to oppose Israel's genocide, and that's those who genuinely love their idealized notion of Israel, and wish nothing more nor less than to rescue their ideal from the racist/murderous reality that can no longer be ignored or excused. Their remedy of last resort is "tough love": Friedman's title cannot have been easy for someone who's spent 30+ years propagandizing Israel as America's greatest ally, but he at least recognizes the leverage point, and at long last sees no better option. This puts him midpoint on a scale that started with early "tough love" adopters like Peter Beinart and (somewhat later and more equivocally) Bernie Sanders, and will likely continue even beyond Friedman. When you still find Israel-lovers, work on them: ask how can they profess love of Israel and concern for the safety and well-being of Jews and still excuse what Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir have done? They have no answer, and need to see that. When they fall back on their hasbara, dispel it -- it's really quite easy, as at root its irreducible claim is that God's Chose People have a right to dominion over all others. (If you are one of them, you should recognize that the proposition is ridiculous. If you are not, you have no other recourse, as your side has been chosen for you.) And if they still refuse, they are lost -- as is any nation based on such obstinate self-regard. But we should be clear that anyone who still supports this Israeli government is no friend of the Israeli people and nation, or of Jews anywhere. It is they who are promoting anti-semitism.

  • Hanin Majadli: [04-09] This Intolerable Gap Between Jewish Memory and Palestinian Reality:

    I blame Israel's school system and the State of Israel for having introduced the Holocaust into my veins. . . . This intolerable gap between the memories of the Jewish people and the reality of the Palestinian people, between the insistent pledge of "Never Again" and what is happening now, in the present, is something that burns one's heart, something almost inconceivable. This is the gap between an Israeli society that opens its heart, at least ostensibly, to a painful historical memory while ignoring, sometimes brutally so, the pain that it itself is responsible for.

David Armstrong: [05-08] The Price of Remission: "When I was diagnosed with cancer, I set out to understand why a single pill of Revlimid cost the same as a new iPhone. I've covered high drug prices as a reporter for years. What I discovered shocked even me."

Jeffrey St Clair [05-09]: Roaming Charges: 100 Days of Turpitude: Starts with more on the new pope than I ever thought to ask. Although, for the record, see: Pope Leo XIV Calls for Peace in Gaza, End to Israeli Blockade on Aid. Of course, St Clair has much more than that.

Michael Tomasky [05-09]: You Won't Believe How Much Richer the Trumps Have Gotten This Year: Estimate is $3 billion in three months. A big chunk of that comes from crypto: whereas lesser crooks could be accused of "selling out," Trump gets to buy in, on terms that all but guarantee profits. And given his ability to direct public money to private ventures, his "investors" could be able to recoup plenty in his allotted four years. This flows into another [04-25] story specifically on crypto: "Trump Just Did the Most Corrupt Thing Any President Has Ever Done." That may seem like a big claim, but whoever's the runner up is nowhere close.

Nia Prater [05-09] A Few of the Many Lowlights of Jeanine Pirro, Trump's Newest U.S. Attorney. Trump nominated the Fox host after finding his original pick, Ed Martin, a counsel for January 6 rioters, "would be unable to survive Senate confirmation." It's hard to see how anyone who would object to Martin would be reconciled to Pirro (who "compared January 6 rioters to Revolutionary War soldiers").

Chas Danner [05-09] A Too-Deep Dive Into Trump's Doll Comments. For more on this:

Liza Featherstone [05-09] Kamala Harris 2028? Hard Pass. "Brat Summer is over and never coming back." She had a solid poll lead coming out of the convention. She had tons of money. Her opponent was a fraud and a nincompoop, and was promising to wreak mayhem on his supposed enemies. And to my mind, at least, she was likable as well as competent. (Maybe I was just a sucker for the cooking videos?) Sure, there were things about her campaign that bothered me, but the choice was so stark and her favor was so huge that I decided just to trust her. She had a theory about winning, and while I didn't particularly agree with it, it wasn't necessarily unworkable. So when she failed, it was just as easy to blame the voters as to blame her. (Pace Hillary Clinton, who did much more to deserve her loss.) But whatever the reason, she's just not substantial enough to keep running. (The only major party candidate to lose repeatedly was William Jennings Bryan, who you may or may not like but at least he stood for things. The only one to come back after a loss was Richard Nixon, and he was much worse than a serial loser. Third party candidates like Eugene Debs, Norman Thomas, and Ralph Nader at least had stands, but anyone can be a "lesser evil," which was ultimately the bottom line for Harris, as for Biden.)

Steve M [05-10] The Rise of Fascism and the Tabloidization of Government: All of his posts are worth reading, but I want to quote from this one:

The dumbing down of America, on this and many other subjects, is a consequence of the politicized tabloidization of the news by Fox and other outlets. Let's look at what news ought to be and what it is now, thanks to Rupert Murdoch and other weaponizers of tabloidization.

We know what the news should ideally be: stories that tell us what we need to know about significant events in our communities and in the world at large. Tabloidization changes this formula: Instead of telling us what we need to know to understand our world, tabloid news tells us whatever makes our pulse race, and presents it all in the most emotion-inducing way possible. An editor of The Sun in Britain said that the paper should "shock and amaze on every page."

The evil genius of Murdochism is that it's politicized tabloidization. Fox doesn't present the news. It presents news (and pseudo-news) stories crafted as narratives of good and evil, with evil always represented either by liberals or by groups associated with liberals (people of color, sexual minorities, college professors, and so on). The top stories are whichever stories are most successful at getting viewers' blood to boil. . . .

Fox was intended to mislead ordinary Americans about what's really important, but it wasn't intended to mislead the people who run our government. Now, however, our government is run by people who also have Fox brain. They don't think they need to focus on issues Fox ignores, and they don't think they need to understand anything at a deeper level than what you get from Fox content.

Also see:

  • Steve M: [05-07] Punishment Is All They Want. Starts with a tweet from Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) saying: "The first person to be sent to Alcatraz should be Anthony Fauci." I don't believe that Democrats should attempt to match the glee with which Republicans wish to consign their enemies to unspeakable hells, but Democrats do need to get much stronger at assigning blame for what ails Americans, and promising to fix those problems, especially by removing those responsible from power. Once removed from power, there is something to be said for forgiveness and forgetting, because falling into the sadistic vengeance trap is not just bad for the victims, but for those in power as well.

Ammar Ali Jan [05-10]: India and Pakistan Are on the Brink of Catastrophe: "Many Hindu nationalists termed the recent Pahalgam terror attack 'our October 7' and now call for Pakistan to be 'reduced to rubble.' Even under a tenuous cease-fire, nationalist saber-rattling is colliding with the collapse of international law." This is always the risk when you install a government whose primary identity is hatred of others. Of course, there are differences, which should be sobering: Pakistan has 240 million people, whereas Gaza only had 2 million. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, where Hamas had little more than sticks and stones. On the other hand, Israel has shown what unopposed power can do, and few nations have followed their exploits more enthusiastically than India has.

Joan C Williams [05-10]: The Left Has to Speak to Average American Values -- or Perish: Interview with the author of White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America (2019), has a new book out, Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back. Pull quote: "What working-class people know is that their parents' or grandparents' families looked quite different from theirs, and everything seemed to work then. Now nothing seems to work." I'm old enough to recognize what she's talking about from my own family and neighborhood, but I'm not feeling nostalgic about it; more like resentment, and relief that those times are behind us. I don't disagree that what we have now isn't working as well as it should be, but I prefer solutions based on what we've gained, not on what we've lost. Still, with the future unfathomable, people spend most of their time looking back, and that suggests some ways to talk about present wrongs. We do need help talking, because the standard Democratic Party spiel isn't cutting it. Speaking of which, which article led me to this:

  • Hillary Clinton [03-28] How Much Dumber Will This Get? Well, how much dumber are you going to make it? She starts: "It's not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it's the stupidity." Sounds like a distinction without much difference, but I'm always wary when someone like her calls others out for hypocrisy. We'll give her a pass on "stupidity," because she's much more useful as an example of how worthless, and sometimes dangerous, smarts alone can be. But Trump, sure, he's so stupid that even his denials ("stable genius," "person, woman, man, camera, TV") are ipso facto proof. His stupidity is so vast one really needs to be more specific. To wit, Hillary continues:

    We're all shocked -- shocked! -- that President Trump and his team don't actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What's much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That's dangerous. And it's just dumb.

    The rest of the op-ed is a long lecture excoriating Trump for sins against conventional (deep state? blob?) foreign policy -- "reckless with America's hard power," "shredding our soft power," "more focused on performative fights over wokeness than preparing for real fights with America's adversaries," "cozying up to dictators," "blowing up our alliances," "we also lose the qualities that have made America exceptional and indispensable" -- punctuated by bursts like "dumb" and "not smart." Even when she complains about "undermining the rule of law at home," "flagrant corruption," and "tanking our economy and blowing up our national debt," she's preoccupied with its foreign policy impact ("trashing our moral influence"). It has long occurred to me that her biggest mistake in 2016 was how much desire she had specifically for the role of Commander in Chief. Has any presidential candidate ever won, or even run, on a pro-war platform? Not even Trump has been that stupid.

    PS: My wife offered an answer to my rhetorical question: Kamila Harris. I get the point without quite sharing the feeling. Biden's wars, unlike Bush's, were things he stumbled into, out of bad luck, misplaced loyalties, and a deficit of understanding and will to do anything about them. Harris, following past vice-presidents, made no real effort to distinguish herself, and way too often parroted the deadly clichés of Washington defense-speak, which is pretty much what Clinton did, but with extra relish.

Dave DeCamp [05-12] US Replaces B-2 Bombers at Diego Garcia Base With B-52s: This caught my eye because my father helped build the first B-52s over 70 years ago, when I was a child. He continued to work on refitting and refurbishing the planes until he retired. As noted, the "main difference" between the bombers is that the B-2 has "stealth," but perhaps more important is that the B-52 can carry more bombs, and not the so-called "smart" ones: it is a tool for indiscriminate mass bombardment against an "enemy" that lacks modern anti-aircraft defense. "Between March 15 and May 6, the US launched over 1,000 strikes on Yemen."

Peter Linebaugh/Marcus Rediker [05-13]: A World Turned Upside Down: "Christopher Hill's history from below." Hill was one of the three great Marxist historians of British history, usually listed first ahead of Eric Hobsbawm and E.P. Thompson, either alphabetically or by period. This reviews a new biography, Christopher Hill: The Life of a Radical Historian, by Michael Braddick. I've been reading a lot of Hobsbawm recently, because his period is closer to mine, but early on I was much more into Hill, perhaps because his period in British history directly flows into American history.

Scattered tweets:

  • James Surowiecki: [04-30] Starts by quoting Attorney General Pamela Bondi:

    Today is Fentanyl Awareness Day. In President Trump's first 100 days we've seized over 22 million fentanyl laced pills, saving over 119 Million lives.

    So each and every fentanyl-laced pill would, if normally distributed, have killed six different people? How does that even work? Even if each and every dose was potentially fatal, how does it move from a dead body to another living body? Wouldn't the second, third, and later generation doses weaken or decay or diffuse? And when you're killing so many people wouldn't there be some reaction that limits the spread? As Surowiecki notes, she's counting "one third of all Americans," even before revising her figures to "258 million lives. That's 75% of all Americans."

  • Sara B: [04-30] Happy 80th anniversary of Hitler killing himself in his bunker to all who celebrate, which, as I now understand, is not everybody.

  • Meidas Michele: [05-04] Just an image, which reads:

    Trump officially entered the psychotic emperor phase. He's not coming back. The Pope image was it. That was the line. He crossed it and kept walking. This isn't trolling anymore. This is clinical delusion. The tariffs on movies. Reopening Alcatraz. These aren't policies. This is a man deep in a psychotic loop thinking revenge is leadership and trolling is governance. Every time he does something more insane, MAGA cheers louder. And every cheer convinces him he's still the chosen one. So he takes it further. No one's driving the bus anymore. They're just throwing gasoline and screaming kumbaya and Hallelujah.

  • Rick [05-06]: Just an image, which reads:

    If we deported MAGA men age 17 to 50 & replaced them with immigrants the violent crime rate would drop 70-80%, Crimes against women & children would be almost zero.

    I'm not sure what data supports this hypothesis, but it's been widely reported that immigrants are much less prone to violent crime than natives, and the male age demographic certainly is, so if you could do this, you probably would see some movement in that direction. Of course, you can't do this, and whatever benefit you might see in crime reduction would be trivial compared to the disruption and backlash such a policy would produce, but the meme has a certain didactic value, as long as you understand that it's really just a joke.

  • Mariah [05-07]: Another image:

    Anyone else notice how all of a sudden no one's eating our cats and dogs anymore? No one's performing sex change operations in schools or aborting babies after birth anymore. The price of eggs doesn't matter and a recession isn't a bad thing, it's just a necessary growing pain.

  • Alan MacLeod [05-13]

    Real democracy is pleasing opinion columnists at a newspaper owned by the world's richest man. For more on how Bezos destroyed the Washington Post, read my report into the outlet.

    This was an article from 2021, so he likely has more he can add. What he does offer is a reference to a 2024 piece by Ishaan Tharoor on El Salvador: The inescapable appeal of the world's 'coolest dictator', Nayib Bukele.

    MacLeod started his thread with praise for Claudia Sheinbaum as the "world's most popular leader" (80% approval rating). Later down my feed, I find a faux link to another Washington Post op-ed, by León Krauze [05-09] Mexico's democracy is fast eroding under Scheinbaum's rule. Somehow these same hackneyed charges get paraded out any time any nation puts someone more/less left into power -- a template that goes back to attacks on Franklin Roosevelt -- yet right-wingers are never held to the same standard.

Obituaries:

  • Trip Gabriel: [04-30] David Horowitz, Leftist Turned Trump Defender, Is Dead at 86: I remember him as an editor at Ramparts and the author of one of the first books highly critical of historical American foreign policy, The Free World Colossus (1965), which I probably still have upstairs. After he flipped to the right, he published tons of books, but as far as I could tell never made a lick of sense -- typical titles include: Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (2004); The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party (2017); Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America (2017)); Blitz: Trump Will Smash the Left and Win (2020); and I Can't Breathe: How a Racial Hoax is Killing America (2021).

This is old, but I'm reading Carlos Lozada's The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians, and the book is made up of previously published book reviews, so most of the chapers are readily available online. This one I especially recommend:

Carlos Lozada [2021-09-03] 9/11 was a test. The books of the last two decades show how America failed. On the day, I was well aware of the history of American interventions in the Middle East, including Sharon's counter-intifada that was already underway in Israel and PNAC's plots to project US power throughout the region (their alignment with Israel's far right amplified by post-Cold War delusions of America as the world's sole "hyperpower"). So I saw the attacks as further proof of US mistakes, but also as an opportunity to change course and get right with the world, because doubling down -- as Bush and his loyal opposition did with scarcely a moment's reflection -- would only bring further pain and suffering, and ultimately ruin for all. (As, well, it did.) Mine was a very isolated position at the time, so I'm gratified to see a reviewer like Lozada come around to it eventually.

The books reviewed here are [* ones I've read, 7 of 21; order is from the article illustrations]:

  • [*] Steve Coll: Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004)
  • [*] Lawrence Wright: The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (2006)
  • Peter Bergen: The Rise and Fall of Osama Bin Laden (2021): the latest of several books Bergen wrote on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, starting with Holy War, Inc. (2001)
  • Richard A Clarke: Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (2004)
  • Jim Dwyer/Kevin Flynn: 102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers (2005)
  • Garrett M Graff: The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 (2019)
  • Bob Woodward: Bush at War (2002)
  • [*] Jane Mayer: The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals (2008)
  • David Cole, ed: The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable (2009)
  • The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program (2014)
  • Robert Draper: To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq (2020)
  • [*] Anthony Shadid: Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War (2005)
  • [*] Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (2006)
  • [*] Dexter Filkins: The Forever War (2008)
  • Craig Whitlock: The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War (2021)
  • The US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (2007)
  • David Finkel: Thank You for Your Service (2013)
  • The Iraq Study Group Report (2006)
  • Spencer Ackerman: Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump (2021)
  • [*] Karen Greenberg: Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy From the War on Terror to Donald Trump (2021)
  • The 9/11 Commission Report (2004)

I skipped all of the official reports and document collections, and I tended to focus more on early books (when I felt more need for research) than on later ones (which seemed unlikely to add much to what I already knew). The recent books by Ackerman and Draper look likely to be valuable. I'm curious about the Graff book to see how it dovetails with my memory. Of course, I've read more in this area. Omitting the large number of books on Israel, as well as most of the more generic books on US politics, Islam, and oil, here's a rough list (whittled down from here, sorted by year published):

  • Ahmed Rashid: Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (2000): First book in English on the Taliban, predates 9/11 and the US invasion.
  • Tariq Ali: The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2002): NLR Marxist, understood everything instantly.
  • Max Boot: The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (2002): Not on 9/11 or aftermath, but very influential for those who wanted to justify military intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. For the rest of us, a comprehensive catalog of American military misadventurism (e.g., look up "butcher and bolt").
  • Dilip Hiro: Iraq: In the Eye of the Storm (2002)
  • Gilles Kepel: Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (2002): Published in France earlier, US edition includes a brief coda on 9/11. This is by far the best book on Jidadist thought all across the Muslim world, certainly to date, and probably still.
  • Lewis Lapham: Theater of War (2002, New Press)
  • Bernard Lewis: What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (2002): One of the "clash of civilizations" hawks' favorite intellectuals.
  • William Rivers Pitt/Scott Ritter: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know (2002)
  • Shibley Telhami: The Stakes: America and the Middle East: The Consequences of Power and the Choice of Peace (2002)
  • Tariq Ali: Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq (2003)
  • Joan Didion: Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 (2003)
  • Sheldon Rampton/John Stauber: Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq (2003)
  • Jonathan Schell: The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People (2003): More general book, but prophetic title.
  • James Carroll: Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War (2004): Also wrote an important historical book on the US military: House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power (2006)
  • Seymour Hersh: Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (2004)
  • Gilles Kepel: The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West (2004)
  • Mahmood Mamdani: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (2004)
  • James Mann: Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet (2004)
  • Michael Scheuer [Anonymous]: Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror (2004): CIA analyst.
  • Rory Stewart: The Places in Between (2004): Travel narrative across Afghanistan before US invasion.
  • Nicholas von Hoffman: Hoax: Why Americans Are Suckered by White House Lies (2004)
  • Andrew Bacevich: The New American Militarism: |How Americans Are Seduced by War (2005): The first of his many books on how Americans kicked "Vietnam syndrome" and learned to love war again.
  • Larry Beinhart: Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin (2005): One of the best books ever on lying in American politics.
  • Aaron Glantz: How America Lost Iraq (2005)
  • Michael Klare: Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum (2005)
  • George Packer: The Assassins Gate: America in Iraq (2005): Big Iraq war supporter changes his mind.
  • Scott Ritter: Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (2005)
  • Paul William Roberts: A War Against Truth: An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq (2005)
  • Evan Wright: Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War (2005): Embedded reporter on the road to Baghdad, basis for an HBO series.
  • Tariq Ali: Rough Music: Blair Bombs Baghdad London Terror (2006)
  • Ira Chernus: Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin (2006)
  • Noam Chomsky/Gilbert Achcar: Perilous Power: The Middle East and US Foreign Policy (2006)
  • Patrick Cockburn: The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq (2006)
  • Michael R Gordon/General Bernard E Trainor: Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (2006): The embedded view from command headquarters.
  • Frank Rich: The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 to Katrina (2006)
  • Louise Richardson: What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat (2006): Not just Jihadists.
  • Scott Ritter: Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change (2006)
  • Thomas E. Ricks: Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (2006)
  • Nir Rosen: In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq (2006): First report from an unimbedded reporter in Iraq.
  • Ali A Allawi: The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace (2007)
  • Susan Faludi: The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America (2007)
  • Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East (2007): Massive reporting from all over. Previously wrote the definitive book on Lebanon, Pity the Nation (1990).
  • Dahr Jamail: Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq (2007)
  • Lewis Lapham: Pretensions to Empire: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration (2007)
  • Trita Parsi: Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (2007): I've skipped over several other books on Iran, but this one has a lot of insight into how Israel uses Iran to manipulate the US (and why the US lets it).
  • William R Polk: Violent Politics: A History of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Guerrilla War, From the American Revolution to Iraq (2007)
  • Tariq Ali: The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power (2008)
  • Chris Hedges/Laila Al-Arian: Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians (2008)
  • Eugene Jarecki: The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men, and a Republic in Peril (2008)
  • Fred Kaplan: Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power (2008)
  • Ahmed Rashid: Descent Into Chaos: The US and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (2008)
  • Juan Cole: Engaging the Muslim World (2009)
  • Gregory Feifer: The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan (2009)
  • Karen Greenberg: The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days (2009)
  • Seth G Jones: In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan (2009)
  • Jon Krakauer: Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (2009)
  • Gretchen Peters: Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda (2009)
  • Thomas E Ricks: The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 (2009)
  • Tariq Ali: The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad (2010)
  • Andrew Bacevich: Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War (2010)
  • John W Dower: Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq (2010): Historian of Japan, wrote two major books, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (1986), and Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (2000).
  • Tom Engelhardt: The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's (2010)
  • Chalmers Johnson: Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope (2010): Former CIA analyst, final volume in a brilliant series of books that started with Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (2000), one of the first books sensitive to the amount of self-harm America's empire cost. I've read them all, including The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (2004) and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2007).
  • Geoffrey Wawro: Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East (2010)
  • Nir Rosen: Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World (2011)
  • Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan (2012)
  • Kurt Eichenwald: 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars (2012)
  • Michael Hastings: The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Story of America's War in Afghanistan (2012)
  • Rashid Khalidi: Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East (2013): Palestinian historian, so most of his books focus there (I have read several), but US ability to interact with the Arab world is sharply limited to Israel's demands, so you can't really separate the two interests.
  • Jeremy Scahill: Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield (2013)
  • James Risen: Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War (2014)
  • Andrew Bacevich: America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History (2016)
  • Rosa Brooks: How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales From the Pentagon (2016)
  • John W Dower: The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II (2017)
  • Steve Coll: Directorate S: The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan (2018)
  • Tom Engelhardt: A Nation Unmade by War (2018)
  • Matt Farwell/Michael Ames: American Cipher: Bowe Bergdahl and the US Tragedy in Afghanistan (2019)
  • Tariq Ali: The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan: A Chronicle Foretold (2022)

This is, by the way, an incomplete list of books I've read by several authors: Gilbert Achcar, Tariq Ali, Andrew Bacevich, Noam Chomsky, Juan Cole, Steve Coll, Chris Hedges, Dilip Hiro, Chalmers Johnson, Fred Kaplan, Jon Krakauer, Robert D Kaplan, Rashid Khalidi, Lewis Lapham, Jane Mayer. The above list seems to tail off after 2012, which is roughly when the Obama surge in Afghanistan burned out. (The Michael Hastings book was pivotal, in that it was shortly followed by the sacking of Gen. Stanley McChrystal and the shelving of his counterinsurgency strategy, which had no support from troops who had little desire either to fight and even less to aid Afghans.) I wound up paying no attention to the handful of books on ISIS, or on the drone wars that were surging elsewhere. Besides, there was much more to read about elsewhere, especially in US politics.

At some point, I should revisit this list and try to draw up a shorter, more useful annotation. That obviously looks like a lot of work right now, but Lozada's piece is a good framework to start. I don't think his methodology of focusing on commission reports, document caches, and reporters with direct access to their sources (like Woodward) is better than my approach of mostly working through critics I'm familiar with and inclined to agree with (like Ali, Bacevich, Chomsky, Engelhardt, Hedges, Johnson, and Lapham), but if my preferred critics are right, the more conventional sources should ultimately fit into their understanding -- as they do.

By the way, a couple more personal 9/11 book remembrances:

  • Bruce Bernard/Terrence McNamee: Century: One Hundred Years of Human Progress, Regression, Suffering and Hope (1999): Big pictorial history with over 1000 images chronologically from 1900 into 1999. I spent much of the day of 9/11 thumbing through this book, which helped me keep the day's events in context.
  • Barbara Crossette: The Great Hill Stations of Asia (1998): A few days after 9/11, I went to the bookstore in search of historical background. I found nothing that seemed directly appropriate, but wound up buying this book on British imperialism in India, which reminded me of Jan Myrdal's brilliant Angkor, which showed how European imperialists mentally translated their disabilities into badges of superiority.
  • Robert D Kaplan: The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War (2001): I also, in fairly short order, wound up reading most of Kaplan's travel/history books, including his most famous Balkan Ghosts (1993) and his valentine for the Afghan mujahideen, Soldiers of God (1990, reprinted 2001). His work helped me formulate a framework for understanding the region, although I tended to draw opposite conclusions from his, and I gave up on him as he became increasingly entangled in the US war machine.

Another old article link:

Alison L LaCroix: [2024-06-10] What the Founders Didn't Know -- But Their Children Did -- About the Constitution. This is a useful précis of her book, The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms, which covers legal arguments about federalism in the 1815-61 period. As noted, these debates have been resurfacing of late, especially around issues like abortion, gay marriage, and marijuana which states have often treated variously but which touch on constitutional rights that should be universally protected.

Current count: 73 links, 9574 words (11443 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Loose Tabs

This is an occasional collection of newsworthy links and comments, much less systematic than what I attempted in my late Speaking of Which posts. The new name comes from my extensive use of browser tabs. When I get around to cleaning up, I often find tabs opened to old articles I might want to comment on and/or refer back to. So these posts are mostly housecleaning, but may also serve as a very limited but persistent record of what 20+ years ago I started calling "the end of the American empire" and nowadays feels more like "the end of civilization." I collect these bits in a draft file, and flush them out when periodically. My previous one appeared 13 days ago, on April 17.

Index to major articles:

I picked up this quote from a fundraising appeal from The Intercept, and it seemed like a good opening quote:

Elon Musk spent nearly $300 million to install Donald Trump in the White House and then gleefully tore through virtually every part of the federal government that does anything to help everyday people.

And now that Tesla's net income has fallen by 71 percent, he thinks he can just waltz right back to the private sector, no questions asked?

This brings to mind the phrase Fuck You Money. I mean, if anyone has it, if such a thing exists, that would have to be the richest man on earth. Elon Musk certainly acts like he thinks he has it. He thinks he answers to no one, and that everyone else must bow before him. And sure, he does get away with it much of the time, but that's mostly deference given by people who his accept his worldview and values. This is especially amusing where it comes to Trump.

Back in 2015, Trump was the guy who thought he had "fuck you money." He was by far the richest guy running for president, which allowed him to boast that he was the only truly free candidate, the only one who could do what he wanted simply because he thought it would be the right thing to do, while every other candidate was beholden to other richer guys, who ultimately pulled their strings. Of course, the big problem with that theory was that he had no clue as to what the right thing to do was, and anyone who put trust in him on that score was soon proven to be a fool. But it also turned out that Trump wasn't rich (let alone principled) enough to stand up to richer folk -- especially as he sees the presidency mostly as something to be monetized. (Perhaps at first it was more about stroking his ego, but even a world class narcissist can grow weary of that.) In the end, Trump not only doesn't have "fuck you money," he's just another toady.

On the other hand, Musk is just one person in a world of billions, most way beyond his reach or influence -- which doesn't mean he's beyond the reach or effect of all of them. By making himself so conspicuous, he's also made himself a symbol of much of what's wrong with the world today, and as such, he's made himself a target.

Bill Barclay: [03/04] China's Dangerous Inflection Point: "Is China's growth model exhausted?" I was trying to look up the author here, as some friends have arranged for him to come to Wichita and speak on Trump and the financial system. Aside from him being involved in DSA, and writing a lot for Dollars & Sense, I had no idea what he thought or why. I still can't tell you much. He starts by positing two views of China, then lays out a lot of facts without tipping his hand for any sort of predictions. The best I can say is that makes him less wrong than virtually every other American to venture an opinion on China in the last 20-30 years.

The simple explanation for why American economists and pundits are so often wrong about China is that they assume that everything depends on sustained growth, and the only way to achieve that is the way we did it, through free markets and individualist greed -- which, sure, lead to increasing inequality, ecological and social waste, and periodic financial crises. But after the depredations of the colonial period, and the chaos of Mao's false starts, China has actually proven that enlightened state direction of the economy can outperform the west, both in terms of absolute growth and in qualitative improvements to the lives of its people. Liberalizing markets has been part of their tool kit, and inequality has been a side-effect they have tolerated, perhaps even indulged, but not to the point of surrendering power and purpose (as has happened in the US, Europe, and especially Russia). What central direction can do is perhaps best illustrated in the rapid shift from massive development of coal to solar power -- a shift we understood the need for fifty years ago but have only made fitful headway on due to the corrupt influence of money on politics.

So when Barclay argues that China needs to shift to an increase in consumer goods spending in order to sustain growth rates, he's assuming that American-like consumer spending would not just be a good thing but the only possible good thing. Still, I have to wonder whether even sympathetic observers aren't blinded by their biases. I don't see much real reporting on China, and I'm not privy to any internal discussions on long-term strategy, but several things suggest to me that they're not just following the standard model of nation building (like, say, Japan did from the 1860s through the disaster of WWII) but have reframed it to different ends (as one might expect of communists, had the Russians not spoiled that thought -- perhaps the different residual legacies of Tsarism and Confucianism have something to do with this?).

While I've seen reports of increasing inequality and a frayed safety net, some things make me doubt that the rich have anything similar to the degree of power they hold in the US, Europe, Russia, and their poorer dependencies. While China has allowed entrepreneurs to develop where they could, the state has followed a plan focusing mostly on infrastructural development, systematically spreading from the vital cities to the countryside. Barclay singles out their focus on housing, but doesn't explain whether they've followed the American model (which is to grow through larger and more expensive houses) or by focusing on more efficient urban living. Housing is only a growth market as long as you can keep people moving to bigger and better houses. But just moving people from country to city is a one-time proposition, which seems to be what China's planners have done.

Similarly, China's shift from intensive coal development to solar shows not only a willingness to think of long-term efficiencies, but that they're willing to move away from sunk costs -- which in our vaunted democracy are attached to powerful political interests, making it impossible for us to do anything as simple as passing a carbon tax.

Another example of how China has been able to avoid getting trapped by crass economic interests is the pandemic response. Looking back, it was inevitable that the small business class in America would mount a huge backlash against the inconveniences of pandemic response, but China was willing to take the economic hit to impose a much more restrictive regime, thus saving millions of lives (all the while being chided by American economists for stunting growth, although in the end they fared better than most, even by such narrow measures).

PS: I looked up Barclay because some friends had invited him to come to Wichita and speak on "the international financial system, the dollar, trade, crises and Trump's (on again/off again) tariffs." He did, and gave a pretty general explanation that mostly aligned with things I already knew, with occasional political asides that I largely agreed with. In particular, his explanation of why some tariffs might work while Trump's will only cause chaos and turbulence was pretty much what I've been saying for months -- although lately, as I noted last time on Levitz, I'm coming around to the view that tariffs are bad political tools, especially given that it's often possible to come up with better ones. I considered asking a question on this and/or a couple other points, but as usual wound up tongue-tied and silent. China never came up.

Eli Clifton: [03-18] The Israeli-American Trump mega-donor behind speech crackdowns: "Miriam Adelson is more than a funder of the Maccabee Task Force, she's also its president." Given that Adelson is the biggest funder of both Trump and Netanyahu, it's getting hard to tell which is the dog and which is the tail. That one person could have so much malign influence over two "democracies" is one of the greatest absurdities of our times. By the way:

By the way, I wrote this entry after writing the closely related entry on the Lambert tweet below, but before I wrote the intro bit on Musk above -- much of which could apply just as well to Adelson, who like Musk is much richer than Trump, but who is less inclined to make herself into the story -- although as one of the top sponsors of both Trump and Netanyahu, she has as much as anyone to answer for.

Jeff Faux: [03-24] Time for a Progressive Rethink: "Anger at the Democratic Party's inept leadership and subservience to Big Money has been rising since the election. But the left also must examine our own role in enabling Trump." No doubt, but it's hard to read pieces like this without eyes glazing over, especially with lines like "Ultimately the 'identity vs. class' debates are sterile. Both are needed to create a political majority." I'd put more focus on:

  1. Setting out clear values that most Americans agree with, especially where Republicans are ineffective and/or unwilling to help.
  2. Acknowledging what works, and why it works, and keeping that as a baseline for changing what doesn't work, or doesn't work well enough.
  3. Identifying incremental policy changes that move us measurably in the right direction.
  4. Reassuring people that they have no reason to fear us overstepping the mark, and that all policies are open to be reevaluated if they don't seem to be working, or if they're producing other problems. We want tangible, practical results; not ideology.
  5. Making it clear who opposes popular reforms, and why, and acting strongly to counter their influence. In politics you need to be clear about who your enemies are, and why they are wrong.

These are very general statements, but it should be easy to see how they apply to any given policy area. Take health care, for instance. You can probably fill that form out yourself, in actual terms, without recourse to slogans like ACA or MFA.

Chris Bertram: [03-29] Trump's war on immigrants is the cancellation of free society.

Avi Shlaim: [04-04] Israel's road to genocide: This is a chapter from Shlaim's new book, Genocide in Gaza: Israel's Long War on Palestine. I should note that I was alerted to this by Adam Tooze: [04-13] Chartbook 375 Swords of Iron - Avi Shlaim & Jamie Stern-Weiner on Israel's war on Gaza, which reproduces the chapter but not the endnotes. If you have any doubts that this is genocide, and intended as such, you really owe it to yourself to read this piece. It is crystal clear on this very point, and anyone who continues to excuse or rationalize the Israeli government's behavior on this point should be ashamed.

Sarah Jones: [04-17] Pronatalism Isn't a Solution, It's a Problem: "We don't need more Elon Musk babies. We need reproductive justice."

Ana Marie Cox: [04-17] How the Radical Right Captured the Culture: "Blame Hollywood's 'unwokening' and the extraordinary rise of right-wing podcasters on slop: intellectually bereft, emotionally sterile content that's shaped by data and optimized for clicks." Long article with a lot of references I don't really get, so this is hard to recognize, or even to relate to much of what passes for culture these days.

  • Kathy Waldman: [04-26] Trump Is the Emperor of A.I. Slop: "It makes sense that a man who yearns for a reality untroubled by other humans would be drawn to an art that is untouched by anything human." I'm not really sure what's going on here, but a second article on right-wing "slop" surely deserves to be noted. I'm not sure that after Trump it will ever be possible for anyone to believe anything ever again. I'm pretty sure this is a trend that predates Trump. It certainly predates A.I., which, like capitalism, is more of an accelerant than something genuinely novel.

Jeffrey St Clair: [04-18] Roaming Charges: Trump's Penal Colony. Another weekly installment in Trump's catalog of horrors. I get the temptation not just to look away but to warily regard Trump's gross attacks on allegedly illegal people as some kind of trap, meant to provoke the sort of hysterical reaction he can easily dismiss -- after all, to his base, who but the wildly caricatured "radical left" could possibly defend the miscreants he is "saving America" from? And aren't there many more facets of his agenda, especially economic matters, that Democrats could oppose while expecting more popular support? But as St Clair makes clear, what's at stake here isn't immigration policy. It's whether the legal system can limit presidential power, and whether that power can run roughshod over the fundamental civil and political rights of any and all people in or subject to the USA. Unfortunately, Trump's criminal abuses of power are hard to explain to most people, partly because when focused on arbitrary individuals we fail to see how that may affect us, and partly because generalities, like the threat to democracy, tend to sail over our heads. (It's not like previously existing democracy really gave us much power to begin with.) We need to find effective ways of talking about Trump's fundamentally criminal-minded abuse of power. But we also need to find some alternatives beyond the widely discredited status quo ante.

Joshua Frank: [04-18] They're Coming for Us: Media Censorship in the Age of Palestinian Genocide. Starts with an example from the hard sell of the Iraq War, but as I recall there was considerable debate and debunking at the time, even if major outlets like the New York Times were totally in league with the Bush regime. A more telling example was the near total stifling of any response short of all-out war in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. (One example was how Susan Sontag was pilloried for so much as questioning Bush's labeling of the hijackers as "cowards.") While most people recognize today that the Iraq War, like the McCarthy witch hunts and the WWII internment of Japanese-Americans, was a mistake, the far more consequential decision to answer small-scale terrorism with global war is still rarely examined. Moreover, 9/11 has left the government with some legal tools that Trump is already abusing, as in the charge that anyone critical of Israel is criminally liable for aiding and abetting terrorists (Hamas, a group that has often proved more useful to Israel than to the Palestinians). But it's not just Trump, and not just the government: Israel has been using its influence to stifle free speech about a list of issues running from BDS to genocide in a quest for thought control that Trump is only too happy to jump onto.

Rob Urie: [04-18] Social Democracy isn't Going to Save the West. I figured from the title this would be mostly about Europe, but the examples mostly come from the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party, which is to say the one that pines for bipartisan unity with like-minded Republicans, while making sure that nothing gets passed that doesn't benefit corporate sponsors. The chart on the increasing erosion of Medicare to privatized "Advantage" plans is especially sobering.

Matt Sledge: [04-19] The Galaxy Brains of the Trump White House Want to Use Tariffs to Buy Bitcoin. The graft behind crypto is too obvious to even give a second thought to, so why do we keep getting deluged with articles like this, on proposals that people with any sense whatsoever should have nipped in the bud?

Antonio Hitchens: [04-21] How Trump Worship Took Hold in Washington: "The President is at the center of a brazenly transactional ecosystem that rewards flattery and locksktep loyalty."

Anna Phillips: [04-21] Why Texas is seeing eye-popping insurance hikes: "Worsening storms fueled by climate change, coupled with inflation, are driving some of the highest home insurance costs in the country." I pretty easy prediction at this point is that the home insurance industry is going to go broke, losing enormous numbers of customers who can no longer afford insurance, and ultimately failing even those who can. The only politically acceptable solution is for the government to shore up the industry with reinsurance, which given the industry's profit needs will be very expensive and wasteful. But the right-wingers will scream bloody murder over socialism, and governments will be hard pressed to come up with the funds.

Natalie Allison: [04-21] The story behind JD Vance's unexpected visit with Pope Francis: "Vance and Francis had publicly disagreed in recent months on immigration policies and other aspects of church teaching." Still no details here on how Vance managed to kill the pope and win the debate. Perhaps Rick Wilson's book [Everything Trump Touches Dies] has some clues? [PS: Next day tweet: Dalai Lama Quietly Cancels Scheduled Meeting With JD Vance"] I've paid very little attention to the Pope's death, but some of the first reactions focused on his concern for Palestinians and his opposition to war in general and genocide especially.

Ryan Cooper: [04-21] Pete Hegseth May Be Too Incompetent Even for Trump: "Turns out Fox News loudmouths are bad at running the military." I'd expect them to be bad at running anything. As for the military, there are reasons to hope that Hegseth's vanity and incompetence won't have a lot of effect: the organization is very big and complex, so his ability to deal with things on a detailed level is slim; it has its own ingrained way of doing things -- a distinctive culture and worldview -- that makes it very resistant to change; it engages very little with the public, in large part because it doesn't do anything actually useful; and its mission or purpose is largely exempt from the Trumpist ideological crusade, so his people don't see a need to deliberately break things. While all government bureaucracies develop internal mores and logic that offers some resilience against incompetent management and perhaps even misguided policy dictates, few are well fortified as the military against the direct attacks Trump and Musk have launched elsewhere. More on Hegseth and the military:

Will Stone: [04-21] With CDC injury prevention team gutted, 'we will not know what is killing us'. With a bit of effort I could probably find dozens of similar stories. The following are short links easily found near this piece:

Some other typical Trump mishaps briefly noted:

Greg Grandin: [04-22] The Long History of Lawlessness in US Policy Toward Latin America: "By shipping immigrants to Nayib Bukele's megaprison in El Salvador, Trump is using a far-right ally for his own ends." After a brief intro on the outsourcing of terror prisons -- not prisons for terrorists, but institutions to terrorize prisoners -- this moves on the history, noting that "in Latin America, the line between fighting and facilitating fascism has been fungible."

Dave DeCamp: [04-24] US Military Bombed Boats Off the Coast of Somalia Using New Trump Authorities: Evidently, Trump has extended warmaking authority to military commanders outside officially designated combat zones (Iraq and Syria), so AFRICOM commanders no longer have to seek permission to bomb "suspects."

Anatol Lieven: [04-24] Ukraine and Europe can't afford to refuse Trump's peace plan: "It's actually common sense, including putting Crimea on the table." In olden days, I would automatically link to anything by Lieven, but I haven't been following Ukraine lately -- although it's certainly my impression that neither the facts nor my views have changed in quite some time. The war is bad for all concerned, and needs to be ended as soon as possible. The solution not only needs to preclude future war, but to leave the US, Europe, Ukraine, and Russia on terms friendly enough that they can cooperate with each other in the future. That means that no side should walk away thinking it has won or lost much of anything. The obvious face-saving solution would be for a cease fire that recognizes the current lines of control. I guess we can call that the "Trump plan" if that helps, but that much as been obvious for a couple years now. Not in the immediate plan but very desirable would be a series of plebiscites that could legitimize the current lines and turn them into actual borders. My pet scheme is to do this twice: once in about six months, and again in about five years. These should take place in all contested parts of Ukraine. (Kherson, for instance, is divided, but mostly controlled by Ukraine. The current division could be preserved, or one side could choose to switch to the other. Russia could also request votes in other Ukraine territories, like Odesa.) The second round would allow for second thoughts, especially if the occupying power did a lousy job of rebuilding war-torn areas. One can argue over details, but my guess is that the votes would go as expected (which would be consistent with pre-2014 voting in Ukraine). Both Russia and Ukraine should welcome immigrants from areas where their people lost. No need to impose any non-discrimination regime on either side (other than to allow exit), as the Minsk accords tried to protect Russians in Ukraine (a sore-point in Ukraine, which largely scuttled the deal, leading to the 2022 war). Russia and Ukraine need to emerge from the deal with normalized civil relations. Ukraine can join the EU if they (and the EU) want. I don't care whether they join NATO or not, but NATO should become less adversarial toward Russia, perhaps through negotiating arms reduction and economic cooperation deals. (My general attitude is "Fuck NATO": it shouldn't exist, but since it does, and since Russia took the bait and sees it as a threat, and has in turn, especially in attacking Ukraine, contributed to the mutual suspicion, the whole thing should be wound down carefully.) Sooner or later, US sanctions should also be wound down, and the US should ultimately get out of the business of sanctioning other countries.

Trump, of course, promised to end the war "in a day," which was never likely, not because someone sensible couldn't pull it off in quick order (not a day, given the paperwork, but a few weeks would have been realistic), but because Trump's an ill-mannered, arrogant nincompoop who neither understands anything nor cares about doing the right thing.

  • Anatol Lieven: [03-07] Fareed Zakaria, stuck somewhere in 1950 or 1995, is wrong again: "Transatlantic elites let political bias and their sclerotic world view prevent them from seeing the Ukraine War for what it really is." Starts by noting that "certain Trump statements have been utterly wrong, unnecessary, and counter-productive" (e.g., "threats to take Greenland and aggressive mockery of Canada and Mexico," "constant threats of tariff increases"). Zakaria appears here as one of those pundits who have vowed to fight for Ukraine as doggedly against Trump as they have against Putin.

Ha-Joon Chang: [04-24] There Should Be No Return to Free Trade: A Jacobin interview with the Korean economist, who was one of the first to understand that so-called Free Trade was something much different from the win-win proposition it was presented as (e.g., see Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade the the Secret History of Capitalism, from 2007, among his other books).

Annie Zaleski: [04-24] David Thomas, Pere Ubu's defiantly original leader, dies at 71. One of my all-time favorite groups, starting from their first album, The Modern Dance (1978), which was some kind of personal ideal: a combination of concepts, aesthetics, and sounds perfectly in tune with my thinking and aspirations at the time. Also in obituaries this week:

Sarah Jones: [04-24] 'Education's Version of Predatory Lending': "Vouchers don't help students. Their real purpose is more sinister, says a former supporter." Interview with Josh Cowen, author of The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers.

David Dayen: [04-24] The Permanent Tariff Damage: "Trump tries to walk back his tariffs after supply chain collapse and threats of empty store shelves. But reversing course entirely may not be possible."

  • David Dayen: [04-03] They're Not Tariffs, They're Sanctions: "Stop trying to place coherence on a policy that's really just a mob boss breaking legs and asking for protection money."

    The problem with this "logic" is that America is not indispensable and other countries have just as much ability to retaliate, forcing the whole world into recession and making it very clear who started it.

Christian Farias: [04-26] Judge Dugan's Arrest Has Nothing to Do With Public Safety: She was arrested for allegedly "obstructed the functions of ICE by concealing a person the agency wanted to arrest while that person, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was in Dugan's courtroom facing her in an unrelated matter." There is also an Updates file on this. Some more tidbits from the Trump Injustice Department:

Ross Barkan: [04-26] Trump's Most Unhinged Policy May Be Starving MAGA Arkansas of Disaster Relief: "Snuffing out FEMA is causing some collateral damage." Some jokes are funny in one context but not at all funny in another. Ronald Reagan's line about "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" was pretty funny when you didn't actually need the help, but it's actually a line that's been laughed at by no one ever in the wake of a natural disaster. Charity may help a bit, but it's mostly accompanied by opportunists and hustlers, and most of the money sticks to the fingers of whoever's handling it. And while the almighty market might eventually organize a somewhat optimal response, that's only in time frames where we all die. Disaster relief is one thing where we all automatically look to government for help. After a decade-plus as governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton knew that well enough that he made FEMA Director a Cabinet-level position. GW Bush then staffed it with shady cronies and their screw ups sunk his presidency even worse than Iraq. With its energy policies, Trump is guaranteeing that there will be ever more and worse natural disasters, and that a many Americans will blame him directly. Still, trashing FEMA shows a level of cluelessness that is mind-boggling. Remember how the winning campaign slogan of 2024 was "Trump will fix it!"? But since taking office, all he's done has been to break things further, perversely going out of the way to break the very organizations that had been set up to fix problems when they arise.

Matt Sledge: [04-26] Marco Rubio Silences Every Last Little Criticism of Israel at State Department: "he singled out a human rights office that he said had become a platform for 'left-wing activists' to pursue 'arms embargoes' on Israel: The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor."

AP: [04-27] White House journalists celebrate the First Amendment at the annual press dinner: I've always regarded this as a preposterously hideous event meant to glorify the absolutely lowest scum of the journalism profession: the people who do nothing with their lives other than wait hat-in-hand for the White House to spoon feed bits of self-important propaganda. The only saving grace was that sometimes stand-up comic might hit a funny bone, or some other nerve. But then the dinner would wind up with the sitting president trying his own hand at telling jokes on themselves. (The only line I remember was from GW Bush: "This is an impressive crowd: the have's and have-more's. Some people call you the elites. I call you my base.") As I recall, Trump broke tradition, and was a no-show. For some reason, the only president who had worked as a professional comic didn't have the confidence to risk appearing. Their initial idea this year was Amber Ruffin, but the timid Fourth Estate peremptorily cancelled her, yet still had the gall to pose their dinner as a celebration of free speech. And what better way to do this than by giving themselves awards for their courage? I wouldn't normally bother with this, but of all the stories they could have broke even from their rarefied perches, these are the ones they chose:

  1. Aldo Thompson of Axios won The Aldo Beckman Award for his coverage of the coverup of Biden's decline while in office.
  2. The Award for Excellence in Presidential Coverage Under Deadline Pressure (Print): Aamer Madhami and Zeke Miller of the AP, for reporting on the White House altering its transcript to erase Biden calling Trump supporters "garbage."
  3. The Award for Excellence in Presidential Coverage Under Deadline Pressure (Broadcast) Rachel Scott of ABC News, for her coverage of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
  4. The Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage by Visual Journalists: Doug Mills of the New York Times, for his photograph of Biden walking under a painting of Abraham Lincoln.
  5. The Katherine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability: Reuters, for its series on the production and smuggling of the deadly narcotic fentanyl.
  6. Collier Prize for State Government Accountability: AP for its series, "Prison to Plate: Profiting off America's Captive Workforce."
  7. Center for News Integrity Award: Anthony Zurcher of the BBC for his coverage of the fallout from Biden's handling of the Gaza War.

So, Gaza is bad, because it looks bad for Biden, but everything looks bad for Biden, and Trump was only newsworthy as a sympathetic victim. [PS: I looked at some of Zurcher's reporting, which was pretty anodyne. You get no sense of the pain and agony at the root of the story, because all anyone cares about is how it inconveniences the handful of political figures the reporter is assigned to cover.]

Nathan Tayhlor Pemberton: [04-28] Why the Right Fantasizes About Death and Destruction: "In Richard Seymour's Disaster Nationalism, he attempts to diagnose the apocalyptic nature of conservatism around the world." There is probably something here, although the tendency to psychologize issues is always suspicious. On the other hand, when he offers Israel as an example, it's easy enough to connect the dots (my emphasis added):

Israel's drift to the far right can be explained, he thinks, by its embrace of free-market neoliberal doctrine, which, beginning in the 1970s, effectively yanked off the restraints on Zionism's ethnonationalist urges. Hollowed-out unions, crippled welfare systems, and an ineffectual liberal opposition allowed a far-right ruling coalition to gain control of Israeli society without dissent. Yet, despite (or perhaps because of) this, crises abound there. Israel is among the most unequal societies in the Western world. A sense of hyper-victimization is rampant in the populace. The country's "liberal" democracy is a contradictory sham, no more than a two-tiered apartheid system permitting only second-class citizenship to Arabs. Worst yet, Zionism's promise to deliver an ethnically pure "homeland" to Jews is a delusional lie, in part because Palestinians continue to persist in both their opposition and their sheer existence. As a result, endless war is the only political program on offer. (It's the only thing capable of delivering "moral regeneration," as Seymour puts it.) For flailing states like Israel, disaster nationalism is a way in which to "metabolise" the dysfunction. This is the dreamwork that keeps afloat the fantasy of ever-growing economies, of safer borders, of purer societies, and of returning to the way that things once supposedly were. What is less clear, after the deaths of over 50,000 Palestinians and the near-total destruction of Gaza, is whether any number can quench these urges once the dreamwork is fully set in motion.

The American right has been building and peddling its own version of this dreamwork from Reagan through Trump, although come to think of it, the disorienting fantasies go back to the ridiculous Birchers and Randians in the 1950s, which led to the Goldwater campaign in 1964. The popular breakthroughs came with Nixon, who claimed support from a "silent majority," and Reagan, who promised deliverance from the unsettling troubles of the 1960s and 1970s. His "it's morning in America" offered us a tranquilizer to mask the pain he administered, as many Americans turned to comforting fantasies. Even when it wore off, Americans were left dazed and confused -- a condition only made worse when Democrats like Clinton and Obama tried to sell their own branded versions of American fantasyland rather than expose what the right was actually doing.

I never for a moment bought into Reagan's spiel: my stock line at the time was "the only boom industry in America is fraud." If you missed the moment, the book I recommend is Will Bunch: Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy, mostly because he sees right through Reagan and cuts him no slack -- unlike the more "nuanced" but still useful books by Rick Perlstein and Gary Wills (both did better with Nixon, especially the latter's Nixon Agonistes, as he was a much more complex, arguably even tragic but in no sense sympathetic, figure). I had so little respect for Reagan that I long resisted the idea that his election delineated an era in American history: even though my days as a starry-eyed American idealist ended quite definitively in the late 1960s, I couldn't fully accept that America was capable of making such a bad turn. I only let go of that naivete when I realized the extent to which Clinton and Obama saw themselves as perfecting an idealized Reaganite dream. Only just today, about 50 pages into Carlos Lozada's The Washington Book, did it occur to me that Obama's presidency was mostly an attempt to write a happy ending to the Reagan Revolution and rescue the American Dream. He, of course, failed, as the American people had watched the same movie but chose instead the Trump ending, where the bad guys triumph and burn the whole set down.

This might be a good point to mention:

  • Steve M: [04-29] Even When Republicans Were Voting for Mainstream Candidates, Trumpism Is What They Wanted: Skip the piece that sets this up, where "Jonathan Chait tries to imagine a normal Trump presidency," and go straight to the meat of the argument:

    In the pre-Trump years, even when Republican voters settled on Mitt Romney and John McCain as party standard-bearers, they craved more, perking up in 2008 only when the charismatic demagogue Sarah Palin joined the ticket and embracing would-be authoritarians Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in 2012 before Mitt Romney's money sank their campaigns. Trump is the kind of president they've always wanted, the fantasy avenger from the QAnon posts so many of them binge-consumed during the height of the COVID pandemic.

  • Steve M: [04-28] We Have to Save Ourselves From Trump, Because Ambitious Careerists Won't: "That's why the second-term Trump resistance came from the bottom up. The rest of us have less to lose." He's contrasting us to the media and political hacks (including businesses, nonprofit orgs, and law firms) who Trump is so focused on intimidating. But much of the "bottom up" resistance has everything to lose, with few if any options to just play along (like most of the careerists can, and many are doing).

  • Steve M: [04-27] You Know What Else People Discuss Around Their Kitchen Tables? Life-Threatening Illnesses. Of the "specific issues" mentioned below, the one with the most anti-Trump polling is "Reducing federal funding for medical research," with 21% support, 77% opposed.

    Trump's numbers are especially bad on specific issues . . . If establishment Democrats are worried about attacking Trump in his areas of strength, maybe they should stop worrying -- he no longer seems to have areas of strength. But if they want to be cautious, you'd imagine that they'd want to go for the areas where he's weakest. But that doesn't seem to be the case. The most timid Democrats are locked into a rigid formula. Talk about nothing, except the economy and Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security. Never veer from this path.

    My explanation for this is that all politicians have three jobs: talk to donors to raise money, which mostly involves promising to make them more money, and that they have to do almost continuously; talk to voters, but that only really matters in the run up to an election, and by then it's usually easier to slam their opponents than to promise anything substantial; and, once elected, address and solve real problems, but that's hard (especially after your commitments to donors and voters, and with every special interest represented by hordes of lobbyists) and failure is easy to explain and who really notices anyway? Republicans have it a bit simpler, because their donors and base want different things and the latter rarely realizes when they're in conflict. As for fixing things, no one expects much from Republicans other than lower taxes (and other favors to the rich).

    The economy is a safe topic for Democrats, because they can legitimately promise to make the rich richer, which is what donors want to hear. Medicare/medicaid is also safe, because it doesn't bother donors, and helps save capitalism from its more inhumane effects, thus forestalling the spectre of revolution. (Republicans disagree here, because they have so little respect for little folk they don't see any risk to their dominion.) Democrats also find it safe to talk in generalities -- like norms, due process, autocracy vs. democracy -- which, again, donors accept, while most people have trouble translating such abstractions to their everyday lives. That seems to be the point, as anything more explicit runs the risk of upsetting some donor or lobbyist.

    For Democrats, this fear of saying anything unsafe is drummed in from the start. It comes from the donors, and from the party consultants (who are basically conduits to donors), and it is reinforced by the media, ever vigilant for a gaffe or any form of hypocrisy, not least because they know the Republican attack machine is always ready to pounce. The most obvious example of donor bias right now concerns Israel. Well over half of Democratic voters are appalled by the genocide in Gaza and want to see the US pressing hard for a ceasefire [see: 7 in 10 Democrats Say US Should Restrict Aid to Israel], but fewer than 1-in-10 elected Democrats are willing to say so in public. One problem here is that playing it safe rarely helps Democrats, because Republicans are just as happy exploiting it as proof of corruption and hypocrisy. Democrats have no answer for that. On the other hand, Trump seems to be immune to such charges, because everyone acknowledges that he lies all the time, and lots of people see his corruption as cunning (or at least don't see that it hurts them).

    So, sure, Democrats need to learn to talk better to ordinary folk about everyday issues. It might help to spend less time courting donors and more time speaking (and listening) to the public. They need to get their emotional signals straight, which can include outrage when the occasion calls for it (which with Trump is pretty damn often). They've got a lot of work to do. We need at least to see them trying. As long as they are, we need to cut them some slack. Politics isn't easy. Otherwise, politicians could do it, and clearly they can't.

  • Steve M: [04-26] The GOP is a Niche Party. So much for the 18-29 Republican wave.

  • Steve M: [04-24] Trump's Approval Seemed to Have a High Floor, but Not Anymore. Interesting thing in the chart here is how support for Trump on inflation has fallen almost exactly in line with support for his tariffs. The argument that tariffs would cause higher prices seems to have stuck. (On the one hand, it's obvious; on the other, why did anyone think Trump would do anything to fight inflation other than start a recession?)

Branko Marcetic: [04-28] How Joe Biden Gave Us a Second Trump Term: A Current Affairs interview with just about the only writer who bothered in 2020 to publish a book on the Democratic Party presidential nominee, Yesterday's Man: The Case Against Joe Biden. More recently, Marcetic has written a two-part assessment of Biden's term [01-17]: At Home, Joe Biden Squandered Countless Opportunities, and On Foreign Policy, Biden Leaves a Global Trail of Destruction. I don't really feel like rehashing all this now, but it's here for future reference.

Herb Scribner/Praveena Somasundaram: [04-29] Trump administration fires Holocaust Museum board members picked by Biden: "The White House said it will replace former board members, including former second gentleman Doug Emhoff, 'with steadfast supporters of the State of Israel'." All part of their redefinition of "genocide" according not to what is done but to who does it, so they can convert the horror most people feel when faced with genocide to antisemitism that might convince diaspora Jews to move to their supposedly safe haven in Israel. Not that they had much to worry about with Biden appointees, but Trump likes this idea so much he wants to hog all the credit for promoting it. Recall that the US Holocaust Museum was created by Jimmy Carter as a sop to get Israel to sign the peace deal with Egypt. Of course, Americans were horrified by the Nazi Judeocide, but it also had the convenience of swearing eternal memory there while deliberately overlooking holocausts much closer to home.

Zack Beauchamp: [04-29] How Trump lost Canada: "Trump's '51st state' talk brought Canada's Liberals back from the dead -- and undermined a key American alliance."

Nick Turse: [04-30] The First Forever War: "The Vietnam War Is Still Killing People, 50 Years Later."

Scattered tweets:

  • Matt Huber [04-28]: responding to a Cory Booker tweet: "We must stand up and speak out, not because something is left or right, but if it is right or wrong."

    I really do blame Obama for convincing a generation of Democrats that you can will your way into power via platitudes.

  • Sam Hasselby [04-29]: responding to quotes from Mike Huckabee: "I believe Israel is a chosen place, for a chosen people, for a chosen purpose." "There is no explanation for the USA other than there was a God who intervened on behalf of the colonists." "Our alliance is so strong because it is not political, it is spiritual."

    There is vastly more anti-semitism in American evangelicalism than there is in the Ivy League, including Mike Muckabee the US Ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a real end-timer millenarian. He expects Jesus Christ to return in the Second Coming, in which all Jewish and Muslim . . . [his ellipses]

  • Caitlin Johnstone [04-28]:

    The word "antisemite" has become so meaningless that now whenever someone uses it you have to ask them "What kind? The Hitler-was-right kind or the stop-bombing-hospitals kind?"

  • Drop Site News [04-28]: Headline: "REPORT: Biden Official Admit They Never Pressured Israel for Ceasefire, as Israeli Leaders Boast of Playing Washington": Long multi-part tweet, and credible as far as it goes, but where's the actual report? I'm seeing lots of interesting stuff on their website, including The Ongoing Gaza Genocide and the State of "Ceasefire" Negotiations, and Netanyahu Promises the "Final Stage" of Gaza Genocide Will Lead to Implementation of "Trump's Plan", but nothing that matches this story. What I am seeing are multiple tweets attacking AOC, arguing that her "lying about Joe Biden working for a ceasefire will haunt her for the rest of her career."

One more tweet: [04-21] This started as a bullet item above, but turned into its own section:

Daniel Lambert: [Image from National Review reads: "Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap projected an antisemitic message onstage at Coachella this weekend. It read: 'Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. It is being enabled by the U.S. government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes. F*** Israel, Free Palestine.'" The two statements are unequivocally true, way beyond any conceivable doubt. The conclusion doesn't necessarily follow: it's not one that I personally endorse -- but it is not uncommon or unnatural that when two countries commit and rationalize genocide, that other people would denounce the aggressors -- most want them to be stopped, and many want to see them punished, both for their own crimes and as a warning to others -- and would find themselves in sympathy with the victims.

But the only conclusions that actually matter are the ones backed with power. Even prominent politicians who clearly oppose genocide have little if any effect as long as Netanyahu's administration has enjoyed blank check support from Biden and Trump, and both political establishments are isolated from public disapproval. The idea of treating any criticism of Israel as antisemitism is a cynical smoke screen to deny, and increasingly to banish, dissent from current political policy. If anything is antisemtic, it is the attempt to link all Jews everywhere to the genocidal policies of Netanyahu and his allies in Israel. While most people can see through this ploy, the net effect is surely to promote more antisemitism -- which for Zionists is actually a feature, as they depend on antisemitism to drive Jews from the diaspora to Israel. (Which fits in nicely with the desire of traditional antisemites on Europe and America.) The thing to understand here is that the people who are trying to define criticism of Israel (and American policy supporting Israel) are not just acting in bad faith, but are promoting widespread, indiscriminate anti-Jewish blowback.

As such, they are acting against the best interests of most Jews worldwide, and against however may Jews who disagree with Netanyahu and his mob within Israel. If your prime interest is solidarity with Palestinians, you're unlikely to care about this antisemitism line -- either you recognize it as rubbish, or perhaps you take the bait and start making your own generalizations about Jewish support for Israel. But if you actually care about Israel, even if you're very reluctant to acknowledge its long troubled history, you need to recognize that this ploy it first and foremost a scheme to keep you in line and under control. Netanyahu has build his whole career on making and keeping enemies. He knows how to use their hate for his own purposes. What he can't handle is his (well, Israel's) friends turning on him, because when they do, he's finished, and so is his genocidal war. This antisemitism ploy is a thin reed to hang his political future on, not least because it's patently ridiculous, but as long as Trump is cashing Adelson's checks, the fix seems to be in -- giving them the illusion of winning even while public opinion is heading steadily the other direction.

By the way, consider this piece:

  • Isaac Chotiner: [04-22] The Biden Official Who Doesn't Oppose Trump's Student Deportations: "Why the Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt blames universities for 'opening the door' to the Trump Administration's professed campaign to tackle antisemitism." Lipstadt is a good example of someone who has built her career on exaggerating the importance and prevalence of antisemitism in America, which makes her the perfect sucker for this line of attack. By the way, Nathan J Robinson tweeted about this article:

    Many liberals would happily get on board with huge parts of the authoritarian agenda if it was presented a little less crassly. That's why I think Trump is ultimately foolish and will fail. He doesn't understand that many liberal elites could very easily be allies of fascism.

    Harvard for instance didn't really want to fight Trump and would have struck a deal with him if he'd been just a little more delicate. These people are naturally capitulators to authoritarianism, not enemies of it. Trump is so stupid that he forces them to be his adversaries.

    Perhaps that is because Trump isn't self-conscious enough to see fascism as an ideological agenda. For him, it's just a bundle of his personality's irritable mental gestures. He doesn't care whether anyone else agrees with him, as long as they let him have his way. Of course, over time he is increasingly surrounded by followers who do believe in fascism-for-fascism's sake (Miller and Bannon from his first term, practically everyone this time).

PS: Kneecap published a statement, so let's file it here:

Since our statements at Coachella -- exposing the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people -- we have faced a coordinated smear campaign.

For over a year, we have used our shows to call out the British and Irish governments' complicity in war crimes.

The recent attacks against us, largely emanating from the US, are based on deliberate distortions and falsehoods. We are taking action against several of these malicious efforts.

Let us be absolutely clear.

The reason Kneecap is being targeted is simple -- we are telling the truth, and our audience is growing.

Those attacking us want to silence criticism of a mass slaughter. They weaponize false accusations of antisemitism to distract, confuse, and provide cover for genocide.

We do not give a f*ck what religion anyone practices. We know there are massive numbers of Jewish people outraged by this genocide just as we are. What we care about is that governments of the countries we perform in are enabling some of the most horrific crimes of our lifetimes -- and we will not stay silent.

No media spin will change this.

Our only concern is the Palestinian people -- the 20,000 murdered children and counting.

The young people at our gigs see through the lies.

They stand on the side of humanity and justice.

And that gives us great hope.

I'll note that while much of what they've said is indeed "absolutely clear," two lines are open to wide interpretation: "Fuck Israel" and "Free Palestine." I personally wouldn't read anything more than the minimum into such phrases. "Fuck Israel" goes beyond opposing genocide to expressing contempt for the rationalizations Israel's supporters offer for their racism and genocide. "Free Palestine" expresses the hope that Palestinians can live in peace and freedom in the lands they call home. I see no reason they can't enjoy that freedom in lands also inhabited by Israelis, but that seems to be up to the Israelis, whose desires to kill and expel Palestinians are no longer latent within Zionist ideology, but have been shamelessly exposed over the last 18 months. That anyone could interpret such coarse slogans as meaning that Palestinians seek to do unto all Israelis what some Israelis are currently doing pretty indiscriminately to all Palestinians in Gaza and many in the other Occupied Territories just shows how hegemonic Israel's paranoid propaganda has become.

The one quibble I have with Kneecap's statement is that I wouldn't stop at "20,000 murdered children" as I am every bit as offended by the countless murdered adults -- even the so-called "militants" (which Israel seems to blanket define as any male 15-60, a typically gross generalization; not would I exempt actual militants -- while I have no more sympathy for them than I have for Israel's, or anyone's, soldiers, I have no doubt but that they were driven to fight by Israeli injustice, and that nearly all of them would put down their arms if given the chance to live in a free and just society). In any case, the solution is never to kill your way to "victory." It is to establish a fair and equitable system of justice, while letting past fears and hates subside into history.

When I opened this file, I left myself an extra day to add a few new pieces. In particular, I was thinking that as Trump's regime passes its 100-day mark, we'd be deluged with summaries, and that would be a good way to close. Trump himself celebrated the milestone with a rally -- see Trump rallies supporters in Michigan to mark 100 days in office -- where he bragged: "We've just gotten started. You haven't seen anything yet."

By the way, the "100 days" benchmark was largely invented in response to the first 100 days of Franklin Roosevelt's first term, in 1933. For a good history, see Jonathan Alter: The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope. (There is a new piece by Alter below.) Roosevelt had won a landslide election in November, which also produced large Democratic majorities in Congress (also, many of the Republicans who survived, especially in the Senate, were on the progressive side of the GOP), but couldn't take office until March. During that period, Herbert Hoover not only remained as president, he doubled down on doing nothing to stop the depression. Roosevelt was Hoover's polar opposite: a politician with a strong belief that government could and should act dramatically to help people and improve the economy, but with few fixed ideas about what to do, a willingness to try things, and to make changes according to whatever worked best. The most immediate problem there was the banking system, which was nearing total collapse. His handling of the banking crisis was probably the single most brilliant exercise of presidential power ever. He did three things: he declared a "bank holiday," briefly closing the banks to halt the panic that was causing banks to fail due to runs on savings; he went on the radio, and patiently and expertly explained to people how banking works, and why they need to show some patience, so he could reopen the banks without triggering a panic; and he passed a major bill regulating the banking system (known as Carter-Glass, the law that Bill Clinton repealed, leading to the collapse of the financial system in 2008), which included Federal Deposit Insurance (a rare case where the very existence of insurance prevents it from ever having to pay out). That was just one of 15 bills, many major, that Roosevelt signed in his 100 days. He went on to do much more during his long presidency (including Social Security, and leading the fight in WWII), but those 100 days were especially remarkable: unprecedented, and a yardstick that no later president has some close to matching.

Trump, in contrast, has passed no significant legislation, nor has he made any remotely successful efforts to mold public opinion. What he has done has been to use (and abuse) his executive powers to an extraordinary, unprecedented degree, further exposing the long-time shift of power from Congress to the Executive Branch, and the inability of Congress and/or the Courts to function as any sort of limit on presidential power (largely due to Trump's absolute domination of the Republican Party, which enjoys narrow majorities in Congress and an effectively packed Court system).

Not a lot of really good summaries to date, but here are a few more pieces:

  • Aliya Uleuova/Will Craft/Andrew Witherspoon: [04-30] Trump 100 days: tariffs, egg prices, Ice arrests and approval ratings -- in charts.

  • Sasha Abramsky: [04-29] The First 100 Days of Self-Dealing Trump's Thugocracy.

  • Jonathan Alter: [04-29] Trump's First 100 Days: Roosevelt in Reverse: "FDR calmed and unified the country: Trump has terrified and further divided us."

  • Amnesty International: [04-30] President Trump's First 100 Days: Attacks on Human Rights, Cruelty and Chaos.

  • Jamelle Bouie: [04-30] The New Deal Is a Stinging Rebuke of Trump and Trumpism: The FDR standard, again, which should be measured by quality as well as quantity. Trump, with his 100 executive orders on day one, clearly has the quantity, but many of those are tied up in the courts, and most are subject to repeal as cavalierly as they were instituted. As for quality, one way to measure it this early in the game might be to compare polling, which is starkly down for Trump so far. We don't have comparable figures for Roosevelt, but it's a fairly safe guess that he was more popular after 100 days than when he started. Four years later he was reelected in the largest electoral landslide to that point. Also by Bouie:

    • Jamelle Bouie: [04-26] Trump Doesn't Want to Govern: "He wants to rule."

    • Jamelle Bouie: [04-23] One Way to Keep Trump's Authoritarian Fantasy From Becoming Our Reality: "Trump wants you to think resistance is futile. It is not." Also (omitting a parenthetical I don't think helps):

      Cooperation with a leader of this ilk is little more than appeasement. It is little more than a license for him to go faster and push further -- to sprint toward the consolidated authoritarian government of Trump's dreams. . . .

      The individuals and institutions inclined to work with Trump thought they would stabilize the political situation. Instead, the main effect of going along to get along was to do the opposite: to give the White House the space it needed to pursue its maximalist aims. . . .

      Trump wants us to be demoralized. He wants his despotic plans to be a fait accompli. They will be if no one stands in the way. But every time we -- and especially those with power and authority -- make ourselves into obstacles, we also make it a little less likely that the administration's authoritarian fantasy becomes our reality.

      I'll add that just as Trump's been using his first 100 days to see what he can get away with, the opposition is also testing what works, and adjusting as we go. Trump offended some very powerful interests with his tariff fiasco. He got an electoral rebuke in Wisconsin, and another one in Canada. The honeymoon with the press is starting to wear thin. No doubt he has already done a lot of damage, and will continue to do so, but the more he does the more he exposes his moral and political bankruptcy, and that can only draw more opposition.

  • Martina Burtscher: [04-30] How Trump 2.0 Overturned Years of Climate Progress in 100 Days.

  • John Cassidy: [04-28] From "America First" to "Sell America": "Donald Trump's first hundred days have been an unprecedented economic fiasco."

  • Thomas B Edsall: [04-22] Trump Is Insatiable. That's possibly the single most damning thing you can say about a political figure. You're admitting that you can't deal with him rationally. Sooner or late, the only recourse you're left with is to stop him. Needless to say, it doesn't take many paragraphs before the Hitler analogies start appearing. There may well be many differences between Trump and Hitler, but insatiability is the one big thing them have in common, and the one thing no one can afford to overlook. Also:

    • Thomas B Edsall: [04-29] How Does a Stymied Autocrat Deal With Defeat? My first reaction was that Hitler slunk into his bunker and killed himself (right after killing the newlywed Eva Braun), but Edsall doesn't go there. He solicits input from his usual circle of consultants, who offer bits of insight like "Trump is a coward who has convinced the world he is brave." That's one vote for retreat, but the only one.

  • Ed Kilgore: [09-29] Trump Wasted First 100 Days on Indulging His MAGA Base. "The 47th president could have build a successful administration from his 2024 victory." Not really. Not only was competence not in his nature, it would have been off-brand. Perhaps some other Republican would have used the office to exploit the Democrats' bipartisanship instincts, secure in the knowledge that the Republican attack machine would cut him some slack, but with Trump it was always going to be all about the graft. The only question would be how discrete it would be, or as it turns out, how obviously stupid and insanely chaotic? Which leads us to:

    • Errol Louis: [04-29] What Will It Take to Stop Politicians From Insider Trading? "From Donald Trump to MTG, corruption is taking on new heights." The answer is probably the end of capitalism and the containment of ego, neither of which seems thinkable let alone possible. Of course, voters could ultimately hold politicians responsible for serving in the public interest, but the entire system, including the media, is stacked against that.

  • Michael Kruse: [04-28] The Worst Hundred Days: This starts with notes on FDR's 100 days, LBJ's substantial but somewhat slower legislative accomplishments, and Eisenhower's rather different approach to his first 100 days, and finds Trump faring poorly by every measure.

  • Andrew Marantz: [04-28] Is It Happening Here? "Other countries have watched their democracies slip away gradually, without tanks in the streets. That may be where we're headed -- or where we already are." Longer and deeper than a mere "100 day" review, but that's what the Trump piece amounts to, against a backdrop of Orbán and How Democracies Die.

  • Schuyler Mitchell: [04-29] How Trump's 100 Days Built Off the Far Right Blueprint of Project 2025.

  • David Remnick: [04-27] One Hundred Days of Ineptitude: "Now we know that Donald Trump's first term, his initial attempt at authoritarian primacy, was amateur hour, a fitful rehearsal."

  • Silky Shah: [04-28] Trump's First 100 Days Show Immigrant Jails Are Authoritarian Testing Grounds.

  • Alex Shephard: [04-29] Think Trump's Unpopular Now? Just Wait.

  • Michael Tomasky: [04-28] In 100 Days, Trump Has Invented Something New: Clown-Show Fascism.

  • Nate Weisberg: [04-28] Donald Trump Is Following the Sam Brownback Playbook: "The former Kansas governor's radical economic agenda undermined the state's prosperity, decimated vital government services, tanked his popularity, and put a Democrat in power. Could the same fate await the current president?" I don't think this piece is very accurate in terms of what Brownback did and Trump is doing, nor in terms of prognosis: true that Kansas elected a Democratic governor after Brownback left to work in the Trump State Department, and true that he was pretty unpopular when he left, but Republicans retained control of the state legislature, often with "veto-proof" majorities.

  • Nathan J Robinson: [01-20] Do We Need a Second New Deal? This has nothing to do with the 100 days assessment, but it does give you a pretty good sense of how Roosevelt managed his first 100 days and the whole New Deal, so is worth a mention here.

Let's close with a quote from Carlos Lozada: The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians, p. 61, from 2015, when he read "The Collected Works of Donald Trump":

Instead, I found . . . well, is there a single word that combines revulsion, amusements, respect, and confusion? That is how it feels, sometimes by turns, often all at once, to binge on Trump's writings. Over the course of 2,212 pages, I encountered a world where bragging is breathing and insulting is talking, where repetition and contradiction come standard, where vengefulness and insecurity erupt at random.

Elsewhere, such qualities might get in the way of the story. With Trump they are the story. There is little else. He writes about his real estate dealings, his television show, his country, but after a while that all feels like an excuse. The one deal Trump has been pitching his entire career -- the one that culminates in his play for that most coveted piece of property, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- is himself.

I don't want to quibble, but I'm having trouble fitting "respect" into this puzzle. Everything else, sure, and you could skip 2,000 pages and still get there. There is much more quotable here, but it looks like you can find the original article here. For a more recent reading of Trump's oeuvre, see John Ganz: [04-07] Dog Eat Dog: "The books of Donald Trump." Most of us know orders of magnitude more about Trump now than we did ten years ago, but with little more than his ghost-written books, Lozada's picture is already as complete and astute as Ganz's. That suggests he's extraordinarily shallow and transparent to anyone who gives him the least bit of critical thought. Which leaves one wondering why millions of voters can't see through him? Or do they just not care?

Current count: 180 links, 11956 words (14518 total)

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Thursday, April 17, 2025

Loose Tabs

I wound up spending much of today processing and responding to the news that Francis Davis has died. Nate Chinen's piece, cited below, is beautifully written and covers much of what needs to be said. I will probably write more over the next couple weeks, but at the moment, I'm having trouble composing myself. I do much appreciate the notes I've seen so far, and will go back over them in due course. One side effect of this is that I took a good look at obituaries so far this year, and came up with the fairly long list below. The biggest surprise for me was another notable jazz critic, Larry Appelbaum, who has voted in every Jazz Critics Poll since its inception, so I counted him as another old and dear friend.

As these occasional posts are never really done, their timing is pretty arbitrary. But I figured I had enough saved up, and might as well call it a day. (Well, it slipped a day, so I wound up adding a few things, but nothing major.)

PS: I updated the section on Francis Davis below, as the New York Times proved better late than never. I've added a sidebar link to Loose Tabs, which should make it easier for me to start each one of these with some line like "it's been 11 days since my last confession." I have a draft file to collect items until next next time. While it will be updated whenever I bother to update the website, but there's no real reason to not to make the link public. (There is also one for books.) One piece I want to go ahead and share here is:

Select internal links:

Eric Levitz: [01-10] Have the past 10 years of Democratic politics been a disaster? "A conversation with Matthew Yglesias." I found this tab open from back in January, but never really got through it, and still haven't. At some point, I want to go back over all of Levitz's "Rebuild" pieces, as I think they're about half right, and the wrong half is probably the more interesting, at least to write about. Given the interviewee, this one is probably more than half wrong.

Yglesias is a very smart, very productive guy who has from the very beginning always been one step ahead of where internet punditry is going. I read all of his Vox stuff with great interest, most of what came before, but not a lot of what came after. He's always had a good feel for where the neoliberal money was going, and with his Substack newsletter, his Bloomberg columns, and his hyper-Friedmanesque One Billion Americans book, he's clearly arrived as an oracle for the cosmopolitan liberal set. Still, in glomming onto his own special donor class, he's kind of lost touch with everyone else. His prescription that what Democrats need is to give up on the left gestures of Hillary-Biden-Harris and return to solid Obama moderation is incredible on every front.

David Klion: [03-10] The Loyalist: "The cruel world according to Stephen Miller." Review of Jean Guerrero's book, Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda.

Jeremy R Hammond: [03-27] How Trump Greenlighted the Resumption of Israel's Gaza Genocide.

David A Graham: [04-01] The Top Goal of Project 2025 Is Still to Come: "The now-famous white paper has proved to be a good road map for what the administration has done so far, and what may yet be on the way." Note that Graham has a 160 pp. book on this coming out April 22: The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America.

Hamilton Nolan: [04-01] Divergence From the Interests of Capital: "Trump will ultimately make rich people poorer. Why?" This is a fairly quick overview, and he didn't even get to some big things, like climate change. Just who do you think owns all that beach front property that's going to get liquidated? Who needs to be able to afford disaster insurance? What about capital investments in in things like agriculture that will have to move as climates shift? And then, when it all goes to hell, whose heads will be on the line when the mob rises up? Since Clinton, Democrats have been telling their rich donors that they're better off with Democrats in power, and they have at least 30 years of data to prove their point. But are the rich listening? Some, but most still prefer the Republicans, because by degrading and humiliating the poor, they make the rich feel more important, more powerful, richer.

Batya Unger-Sargon: [04-02] I Used to Hate Trump. Now I'm a MAGA Lefty. "The president is giving the working class its best shot at the American Dream in 60 years. That's why I support him." That's all I could read before hitting the paywall -- looks like "TheFreePress" isn't free after all.Author "appears regularly on Fox News," and has published two books: Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy (2021), and Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women (2024), both on right-wing Encounter Books. For more of her spiel, look here. If you want to take this more seriously than it deserves:

Ben Ehrenreich: [04-03] You Don't Get Trump Without Gaza: "Fascism doesn't just appear. It must be invited in -- and the bipartisan repression of the anti-genocide movement did just that." This is a brilliant piece, setting up its main argument with a recap of Brecht's Arturi Ui, about the improbable rise of a Trump-like -- sure, he was thinking of Hitler, but he hadn't seen Trump yet -- to take over Chicago gangland's "Cauliflower Trust":

Rot, famously, starts at the top. Joe Biden, sleepy guardian of empire and whatever remained of the liberal world order, had stayed comatose on nearly every issue of import to his constituents. But the genocide seemed to bring him briefly and sporadically back to life. It was as if funding and propagandizing for Israel's slaughter were the only aspect of the job that still got his blood moving. He was, as Brecht wrote of Dogsborough, "Like an old family Bible nobody'd opened for ages--till one day some friends were flipping through it and found a dried-up cockroach between the pages." The rest of the political establishment, Democrats and Republicans both, didn't need to be told to follow Biden's lead. The very few exceptions -- we see you, Cori, Ilhan, Rashida -- were disciplined and marginalized.

In an extraordinary show of class unity for a nation supposedly irreparably divided on party lines, our homegrown Cauliflower Trust closed ranks. It was almost as if American upper management, regardless of religion or politics, instinctively understood that maintaining the right of an ethnocratic settler-colonial outpost to exterminate an unruly subject population was essential to its own survival. Or perhaps they were more cunning and saw a ready-made opportunity to take down the left.

The major newspapers, television networks, and virtually all the prestige magazines did their part, boosting the credibility of nearly every outrageous lie invented by Israeli military propagandists while smearing protesters as antisemites, Hamas stooges, and terrorist sympathizers. "It doesn't matter what professors or smart-alecks think," pronounced Brecht's Arturo Ui, "all that counts is how the little man sees his master." . . .

And here we are. The obscene weaponization of antisemitism helped bring actual Nazis to power.

Much more quotable here, including "The Atlantic, the thinking man's propaganda organ for the exterminatory wars of empire." I don't recall reading that particular Brecht play, but I've read many, and recognize the title. In my relative ignorance, I've been thinking of Trump more in terms of Ubu Roi, but farce, no matter how grotesque, can only last in an environment deprived of power.

Ofer Aderet: [04-04] Looking Back, Israeli Historian Tom Segev Thinks Zionism Was a Mistake: "For decades, historian Tom Segev has critically documented momentous events involving Jews, Israel and its neighbors. Recently, he has also looked back at his own life story. Now, at 80, he weighs in on the current state of the nation."

Yair Rosenberg: [04-04] Trump's Jewish Cover Story: "The Trump administration has not surgically targeted these failings at America's universities for rectification; it has exploited them to justify the institution's decimation." I have no doubt that most Jews in America -- perhaps even most of those who wholeheartedly defend Israel's decimation of Gaza -- feel uneasy about being used as the pretext for Trump's wholesale attack on freedom of speech at elite universities, but the author doesn't just say that, he repeats blatant slanders -- e.g., "those behind Columbia's encampment repeatedly cheered Hamas's murders of civilians" -- against students whose "crime" was nothing more or less than protesting against Netanyahu's continuing systematic crimes against humanity in Gaza, and the unconditional support Biden provided (a policy which Trump has continued, as he had promised to do).

Rob Lee: [04-06] We Still Live in Nixonland: An Interview with Rick Perlstein. Some interesting notes on his writing process, although it's hard to imagine the massive notes his actual books are reduced from. Still no date on the much-promised leap into the "last 25 years" (Bush II to Trump, skipping Reagan's presidency, Bush I, and the anti-Clinton insanity, which could easily fill several volumes).

Spencer Ackerman: [04-07] El Salvador and the Dark Lessons of Guantanamo: "CECOT, the Salvadoran slavery-prison now used for migrant renditions, reflects 2002-4-era Gitmo -- with some updates."

John Ganz: [04-07] Dog Eat Dog: "The books of Donald Trump." One of those "I read this shit so you don't have to," in case you ever felt the need. Also:

Andrew Cockburn: [04-07] The fix is in for new Air Force F-47 -- and so is the failure: "Just wait for the unstoppable lobby preventing any future effort to strangle this boondoggle in the cradle."

Paul Krugman:

  • [04-07] Political Styles of the Rich and Clueless: "There are none so blind as those that will not see." This is the first time I've read Krugman on Substack, and it's about par for his New York Times columns. Best line: "great power often enables great pettiness." Which itself is kind of petty given what Trump and Musk levels of power have been doing.

  • [04-10] Trump Is Stupid, Erratic and Weak.

  • [04-13] Will Malignant Stupidity Kill the World Economy? "Trump's tariffs are a disaster. His policy process is worse." This explains the formula used for calculating each nation's tariffs (aside from the 10% minimum, applied even to uninhabited islands where trade is already perfectly balanced at zero).

  • [04-16] Why Trump Will Lose His Trade War: "His people don't know what they're doing or what they want."

  • [04-17] Law Firms, Trade Wars and the Weaknesses of Monarchs: "Unrestrained presidential power will diminish America." I have no idea how these pro bono law services deals are going to work -- who is going to decide which cases they cover, and why -- but they are deeply disturbing. I don't even know what the threat was that compelled large, independent firms to cave in like they did. The gist seems to be that Trump is personally running an off-the-books slush fund, which the companies are feeding, either to gain favor or for fear of some kind of reprisal. I'm not aware of anything remotely like this ever being done before. Krugman cites two articles, which don't help much:

Richard Silverstein: [04-08] Why the world should boycott Trump's America. I understand the sentiment, but I'm not sure the logic works. Boycotts are more likely to cause self-harm than to intimidate their targets, especially ones that pile arrogance on top of a sense of victimhood. Israel is the prime example here, but the US shares both traits, plus two more novel factors: massive size, which would take an incredibly huge boycott to move, and heterogeneity (for lack of a better word), which makes it hard to focus pain on the people actually responsible for the offense. No nation is democratic enough that inflicting pain on its poor will have any real effect on its leaders. Boycotts and sanctions are more likely to rally support for the rulers, while marginalizing internal opposition, and squandering any influence and leverage you might actually have. The cases where such tactics have actually worked are few and far between. About the only thing that can be said for them is that they give one the satisfaction (or moral smugness) of doing something where there are no practical alternatives. On the other hand, if one actually does have leverage -- as, say, Japan does in hosting US bases, or the US does in supplying Israel arms -- wouldn't it be much better to use that leverage to mitigate bad behavior than to strike a mere public stance of moral merit?

Vanesse Ague: [04-09] Big Ears Festival 2025 Reminds Us to Open Ourselves to Wild and Wonderful Sounds.

TJ Dawe: [04-09] I Didn't Think Things Would Get This Chaotic When We Elected President Donkey Kong: I'm not sure whether the quality of thinking declined dramatically in 2024 or was never really there in the first place. It could just be that we were lulled into complacency, knowing that even "the most powerful person in the world" wouldn't possibly be allowed to disrupt, much less destroy, business as usual. After all, we had "checks and balances" -- not just a Constitution designed to obstruct change, but a system of campaign finance and lobbying to make sure no reform got too radical. After all, the system had proven robust enough to contain Trump in his first term. Why not let the people have some fun with the illusory power of their votes?

I'm not into politics. Never have been. That's why it was so refreshing to have a candidate who wasn't the same old same old, but a raging animated ape.

Donkey Kong might not be the most sophisticated public speaker, but it sure was entertaining to go to his rallies. None of the usual bunk about policy and budgets. Just two hours of roaring and chest-pounding. No one gets a crowd going like that monkey! Or donkey. Whatever he is.

But for all the talk from pundits about how we'd see a new side of Donkey Kong once he took office, well, not so much. Turns out we got exactly what we voted for.

Some of this I can explain through a model that I've long had about how the presidency operates. At first, the job seems overwhelming, so an incoming president is effectively a prisoner of his staff. Sure, they're supposed to be his staff, but they immediately become independent agents, able to limit and filter his choices, and each new person they get him to pick further limits his options. I could give you examples from any presidency since FDR (who, for reasons we don't need to go into here, was a rather different case from another era), but Trump I offers by far the most ludicrous examples, starting with Reince Priebus and the so-called "adults" -- at least they were able to derail some of Trump's more outrageous whims, like H-bombing hurricanes, or "solving" the pandemic by no longer counting deaths.

Still, over time, presidents reclaim the power of the office, which in principle they had all along. They tune out tasks they can delegate, and start to press for their own way on matters they care about. Even the most devious staff remind them they're in control, and they can replace anyone who doesn't suit them. Where most presidents start with administrations of old party regulars, they gradually wind up with personality cults. Clinton and Obama offer good examples of this -- which is probably why their personal successes correlate with partisan ruin -- but they at least valued competency. Trump demands even more sycophancy, but with him it's untethered to reality. Trump may be some kind of genius at political messaging -- at least in the Fox universe -- but that's all he knows and/or cares about.

This model usually works smoothly through a second term, but before that ends, the president has turned into a lame duck, and often not just metaphorically, dulling the ego inflation. Some presidents (like Wilson, Eisenhower, and less dramatically Reagan) are further slowed by health issues. But Trump, at least for the moment, is supercharged. His four years out of office have given him all the publicity he had as president but saddled him with none of the responsibility for the many things he would have screwed up. It also gave Republicans time to sort themselves out so Trump has been able to start his second term with a full slate of fanatic followers and enables. This is a combination we've never seen before, and hardly anyone is prepared for what's coming. Donkey Kong is a fanciful metaphor for what's happening. It only seems funny because we know it's not real. But it's hard to come up with anything more real that more accurately reflects the depth of thought that Trump is putting in, because nothing like this has ever worked before.

Melissa Gira Grant: [04-10] The sickening Reason Trump's Team Treats ICE Raids Like Reality TV: "This isn't only about entertainment for sadists. Kristi Noem's right-wing content creation allows the administration to terrorize more people than then can logistically deport." The one thing you can be sure of with Trump is that if he/they do something that looks bad, that's because they want it to look bad. Thinking through implications and consequences is way beyond them, but they live and breathe for gut reactions.

Timothy Noah: [04-10] The Sick Psychology Behind Trump's Tariff Chaos: "This isn't trade strategy. It's Munchausen syndrome by proxy." Clever, but groping for reasoning where little exists.

Eric Levitz: [04-10] The problem with the "progressive" case for tariffs: "Democrats shouldn't echo Trump's myths about trade." I've been somewhat inclined to humor Trump on the tariff question, not because I thought he had a clue what he was doing, or cared about anything more than throwing his presidential weight around, but because I've generally seen trade losses as bad for workers, and because I've never trusted the kneejerk free trade biases of economists. The one caution I always sounded was that tariffs only make sense if you have a national economic plan designed to take advantage of the specific tariffs. That sort of thing has been done most successfully in East Asia, but Americans tend to hate the idea of economic planning (except in the war industry), so there is little chance of doing that here. (Biden's use of tariffs to support clean energy development, semiconductors, etc., tried to do just that. How successfully, I don't know, but they were sane programs. Trump's is not.)

Nonetheless, Levitz has largely convinced me, first that tariffs are a bad tool, and second that they are bad politics. If I had to write a big piece, I'd probably explain it all differently, but our conclusions would converge. There are other tools which get you to the ends desired much more directly. As for the politics, it really doesn't pay to humor people like Trump. We went through a whole round of this in the 1980s and 1990s when conservatives were all hepped up on markets, and Democrats thought, hey, we can work with that. Indeed, they could -- markets tend to level out, making choices more competitive and efficient, so it was easy to come up with policies based on market mechanisms, like carbon credit trading, or the ACA.

Several problems there: one is that real businesses hate free markets, which is why they do everything possible to rig them, and dismantling their cheats is even harder once you agree to the market principle in the first place; second is that it shifts focus from deliberate public interest planning, where you can simply decide to do whatever it is you want to do, and the "invisible hand," which turns out to require a lot of greasing of palms; third is that when you implement market-based reforms, folks credit the market and not the reformers, so you don't build up any political capital for fixing problems. Obama got blamed for every little hiccup in ACA, most of which were the result of private companies gaming the system, and got none for delivering better health care while saving us billions of dollars, which the program actually did do.

One of the points I should have worked in above is that Trump's tariffs are not going to produce "good manufacturing jobs." Even if he does manage to generate more domestic manufacturing, it will only be in highly automated plants with minimally skilled workers, who will have little if any union leverage. And even that is only likely to happen after the companies have shaken down government at all levels for tax breaks and subsidies, along with the promise of continuing tariffs to keep their captive market from becoming uncompetitive.

I should also note that the main problem with the trade deals that Clinton and Obama negotiated had nothing to do with reducing tariffs. The real problem was that they were designed to facilitate capital outflows, so American finance capital (much of which, by the 1990s, was coming back from abroad) could globalize and protect their business interests from regulation by other countries, while ensuring that other countries would have to pay patent and copyright tribute to IP owners. The result was a vast expansion of inequality not just in the US but everywhere.

On the other hand, if what we wanted to do was to reduce inequality and improve standards of living everywhere, a good way to start would be by negotiating a very different kind of trade deal, as Stiglitz has pointed out in books like Globalization and Its Discontents (2002), Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development (2006), and Making Globalization Work (2006).

Sasha Abramsky: [04-11] America Is Now One Giant Milgram Experiment: Back in the 1960s, Stanley Milgram "sought to understand whether ordinary Americans could be convinced to inflict pain on strangers -- in the parameters of the experiment, escalating electric shocks -- simply because a person in authority ordered them to do so." He found that they could, would, and did, which is to say they'd be as willing to follow Nazi leaders as "the Good Germans" under Hitler. This is one more facet of why the Trump/Fascism analogies continue to haunt us. Sure, Hitler was sui generis, but the history of his and others' fascist regimes has many parallels with right-wing reactionaries here and now.

Liza Featherstone: [04-11] Why Billionaire Trumpers Love This Dire Wolf Rubbish: "No, dire wolves are not 'back.' But pretending they can be brought back is a good excuse to gut regulations that protect real endangered species."

  • DT Max: [04-07] The Dire Wolf Is Back: "Colossal, a genetics startup, has birthed three pups that contain ancient DNA retrieved from the remains of the animal's extinct ancestors. Is the wooly mammoth next?"

Cory Doctorow: [04-11] The IP Laws That Stop Disenshittification: I trust I'm not alone in not being able to parse that title. The main subject is anticircumvention laws, which are extensions to IP laws (patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc.) which prevent you not only from copying and/or reselling products, they also aim to keep you from figuring out how they work, especially so you can repair them. Personally, I'd go even further, and tear down the entire IP edifice. But laws that force you to serve the business interests of monopolists are especially vile, on the level of slavery.

Melody Schreiber: [04-11] Measles Is Spreading, and RFK Jr. Is Praising Quacks: "For every semi-endorsement of vaccines, the Health and Human Services secretary seems to add several more nonsensical statements to muddy the waters."

Alan MacLeod: [04-11] With Yemen Attack, US Continues Long History of Deliberately Bombing Hospitals. The history lesson goes back to "Clinton's war on hospitals," and on into Latin America. Other articles found in this vicinity, by MacLeod and others:

  • [02-18] USAID Falls, Exposing a Giant Network of US-Funded "Independent" Media. I'm reminded here that genocide historian Samantha Power was head of USAID under Biden, which raises questions about the corruption of power (to what extent did her political career move her from critic to enabler of genocide?). Turns out, I'm not the first to have wondered (and turns out, she did):

    • Jon Schwarz: [2023-12-15] Samantha Power Calls on Samantha Power to Resign Over Gaza: "If Power, the USAID administrator, would take her own genocide book seriously, she would step down over Israel's assault on Palestine." Power didn't resign, and remained head of USAID until Jan. 20, 2025, when Trump was inaugurated.

    • Christopher Mott: [2024-01-23] The Gaza war is the final nail in the coffin of R2P [Responsibility to Protect]: "The doctrine [advocated by Samantha Power] was always a la carte, evident in the silence of the most strident humanitarian interventionists today."

    • John Hudson: [2024-01-31] USAID's Samantha Power, genocide scholar, confronted by staff on Gaza: "A prominent advisor to President Biden, Power was challenged publicly over the administration's policy, with one employee saying it has 'left us unable to be moral leaders'."

    • Jonathan Guyer: [2024-10-04] The Price of Power: "America's chief humanitarian official rose to fame by speaking out against atrocities. Now she's trapped by one."

    • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [2024-12-19] 'Humanitarian superstar' Samantha Power admits Gaza is a loss.

    • Robbie Gramer/Eric Bazail-Eimil: [01-19] What Samantha Power Regrets and Her Advice to the Trump Administration: "Here's an exit interview with America's top aid official after confronting a turbulent series of humanitarian crises." There's much we can deride or even ridicule here, but two quotes jump out at me: "Well I'm looking forward to hearing who my successor will be." Of course, there is no successor, as the department has been demolished. Such naivete was endemic, even among establishment insiders whose very careers depended on recognizing what was happening. And on Israel: "US policy about events on the ground, the work has mattered and the work has made a difference. Has it made enough of a difference? Without that pushing, a horrific situation would have been even worse." This sounds like something one might say about Auschwitz, which by forcing people to work allowed some to survive, as opposed to Treblinka, which was a pure killing machine that nobody escaped. But rather than dwell on the fine line between what happened and how much worse it could have been without the humanitarian anguish of the Biden administration, the more important point is that by not ending the war well before the election, Biden has left it as unfinished business for Trump, who has zero humanitarian compassion, virtually assuring that the situation will become even more dire, and ultimately even more shameful for the Israelis responsible for it, and for the Americans who enabled it.

  • [02-28] Chainsaw Diplomacy: Javier Milei's Argentina Destruction Is Nightmarish Model for Musk, DOGE.

  • [03-25] Betar: The Far-Right Hate Group Helping Trump Deport Israel's Critics: I was surprised to find that Jabotinsky's fascist group from the 1930s still exists, although it's probably a revival, like the iterations of the Ku Klux Klan.

  • Chris Hedges: [04-14] Israel Is About to Empty Gaza.

  • Robert Inlakesh: [04-17] Before Trump Bombed Yemen, Biden Displaced Over Half a Million People -- and No One Said a Word.

Jeffrey St Clair: [04-11] Roaming Charges: Who Shot the Tariffs? Short answer to his question is: the bond market. Wasn't that the same excuse Clinton gave for his lurch to the right after winning in 1992? (Although he has a long quote showing that Clinton's "lurch" was lubricated by Wall Street money at least a year earlier.) One quote: "Trump's really emphasizing the poor in Standard and Poor's, as if he wants to make Poor the new Standard." Another: "Those MAGA people are going to be so broke after Trump's tariffs start to bite they'll have to rent the libs instead of owning them." Also:

Dean Baker: [04-13] The Trump Plan: Unchecked Power to Total Jerks: Of many posts worth reading this week, we'll start with the highest-level, most self-evident title. Also see, all by Baker:

George Monbiot: [04-13] Rightwing populists will keep winning until we grasp this truth about human nature: And which truth is that? He blames economic inequality, and I have no doubt that's the underappreciated problem, but what is the mechanism by which impoverished people gravitate toward demagogues who will only make them poorer and more miserable?

Garrett Graff: [04-15] Has America Reached the End of the Road? "Donald Trump has forced the one crisis that will tell us who we are." Author calls his blog Doomsday Scenario. (Graff's book Raven Rock was about Cold War plans to preserve essential elements of government in the event of nuclear war.) I'm afraid I'm a bit jaundiced regarding posts like this: I've been watching the train wreck of American democracy at least since the mid-1960s, so I tend to be a bit impatient with people who only think to scream right now. Many similar posts on the site, if you still need to catch up (and yes, it's serious this time, not that it ever wasn't). I was steered to this one by No More Mister Nice Blog, which continues as one of the best blogs anywhere:

Ed Kilgore:

  • [04-16] Team Trump's Addiction to Overkill: This one is fairly easy: they want to be seen as making emphatic moves, because they think their fan base wants to see bold commitment. They're less into actually breaking things that will come back to haunt them. The more they overreach, the more likely they will fail, but that not only shows how hard they're working, but how deviously hysterical, and how entrenched, their enemies are.

  • [04-15] Trump Sees Defying Courts on Deportations As Good Politics. Why let details like legalilty get in the way of a good PR stunt?

  • [04-14] MAGA's Class Warfare Against Knowledge Workers Is Personal: The picture identifies Trump and Musk as "the Marx and Engels of the MAGA revolution." Note that the class doing the warring is the one on top, pushing back and kicking down at the idea that their lessers should think it their job to think for themselves.

Nia Prater: [04-16] The Trump Administration Starts Targeting Democrats for Prosecution: First up, NY Attorney General Letitia James.

Nate Chinen: [04-16] Francis Davis, a figurehead of jazz criticism, has died. This is a very substantial review of the eminent jazz critic's life and work, published before I could even compose myself to post a brief notice on the Jazz Critics Poll website. I will try to write something more in due course, but start here.

A couple more obituaries for Davis:

As I collect more of these, I'll add them to the notice here. At some point, I'll add a few words of my own, and find them a more permanent home.

Obituaries: [04-16] Back when I was doing this weekly, I wound up having enough notable obituaries to have a regular section. Since I stopped -- not just writing but reading newspapers -- I've been blissfully ignorant of lots of things I had previously tracked (not least the NBA season; I only looked up who was playing in the Super Bowl the day before, when my wife anounced her intention to watch it). However, I did finally take a look at the New York Times Obituary page today. I only decided to collect a list here after I ran across a surprise name that I felt I had to mention (long-time jazz critic Larry Appelbaum; I started the search looking for Francis Davis, whose obituary wasn't available, but should be soon). So I've gone back and combed through the page to compile a select list (or two, or three). The first just picks out people I know about, but who (in general) weren't so famous that I knew they had died. The second are more people I wasn't aware of, but possibly should have been, so I can partially compensate by bringing them to your attention. Finally, the third is just a checklist of names I did recognize but didn't include in the first two.

Second list (names I wasn't aware of but who seemed especially noteworthy):

Finally, other names I recognize (no links, but easy enough to look up; * don't have NYT obituaries but noted in Wikipedia and/or Jazz Passings), grouped roughly by categories: Actors/Movies: Richard Chamberlain, Gene Hackman, Val Kilmer, David Lynch, Joan Plowright, Tony Roberts; Music: Eddie Adcock, Susan Alcorn, Roy Ayers, Dave Bargeron, Clem Burke, Jerry Butler, Marianne Faithfull, Roberta Flack, George Freeman*, Irv Gotti, Bunky Green*, Garth Hudson, David Johansen, Gwen McRae, Melba Montgomery, Sam Moore, Mike Ratledge*, Howard Riley*, Angie Stone, D'Wayne Wiggins, Brenton Wood*, Peter Yarrow, Jesse Colin Young; Politics: Richard L Armitage, David Boren, Kitty Dukakis, Raul M Grijalva, J Bennett Johnston, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Alan K Simpson; Sports: George Foreman, Lenny Randle, Boris Spassky, Jeff Torborg, Bob Uecker, Bob Veale, Fay Vincent, Gus Williams; Writers (Fiction): Barry Michael Cooper, Jennifer Johnston, Mario Vargas Llosa, Tom Robbins, Joseph Wambaugh; Writers (Non-Fiction): Edward Countryman, Jesse Kornbluth, David Schneiderman.

Saree Makdisi: [04-17] Trump's War on the Palestine Movement Is Something Entirely New: "Never before has a government repressed its citizens' free speech and academic freedom so brutally in order to protect an entirely different country." The "different country" bit might be right, but one could counter that under Miriam Adelson they're just separate fronts for the same trust. But everything else we've seen as bad or worse in the post-WWI and post-WWII red scares, including the use of deportation and travel bans. What is most useful here is the reminder that pro-Zionists have been compiling lists and pressing academic institutions to cancel critics of Israel for a long time now.

Current count: 134 links, 7428 words (9320 total)

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Sunday, April 6, 2025

Loose Tabs

Seems like a good day to print out my accumulated file of scraps and links, making use of the one-day window between yesterday's initial attempt at a catch up Book Roundup and tomorrow's regularly scheduled Music Week, before checking out for cataract surgery on Tuesday, and whatever disoriented recovery follows that.

I quit my long-running weekly Speaking of Which posts after the election, figuring I had shot my wad trying to exercise what little influence I might have had, and realizing I had little stomach for what was almost certainly to come. I've usually done a pretty good job of following the news, but I've never been a junkie. I learned early on that the sure sign of addiction was that withdrawal was painful. My wife and her father were news junkies. We took a long car trip to the Gaspé Peninsula once -- quite literally the ends of the earth -- and I noticed how twitchy they became as they were deprived of their news routines (so desperate they clamored even for bits of radio in French they hardly understood; I, of course, had my CD cases, so I usually resisted requests for radio). This became even more clear to me when I spent 4-6 weeks in fall 2008, in Detroit working on her father's house after he passed. I only noticed that the banking system had collapsed one day when I stopped to pick up some food, and glimpsed a bit of TV news where I noticed that the Dow Jones had dropped 5000 points from last I remembered. I had no clue, and that hadn't bothered me in the least.

So I figured I could handle a break, especially in the long stretch of lame duck time between election and inauguration, when speculation ran rampant, and everyone -- morose, paranoid losers as well as the insufferably glib winners -- would only double down on their previous expectations. I had made plenty of pre-election predictions, which would be proven or disproven soon enough. I made some minor adjustments in my final post, nothing where I could that the doom and gloom wasn't inevitable, but also remaining quite certain that the future would be plenty bad. As I was in no position to do anything -- and, let's face it, all my writing had only been preaching to the choir -- I saw nothing else to do.

And I've always been open to doubts, or perhaps just skeptical of certainty. So when, just before the election, my oldest and dearest comrade wrote -- "From what you wrote, I think the Republicans/Trump are not as evil as you think, and the Democrats are not as benign as you hope" -- I felt like I had to entertain the possibility. I knew full well that most of my past mistakes had been caused by an excess of hope -- in particular, that the far-from-extravagant hopes I once harbored for Clinton and Obama had been quickly and thoroughly dashed. (Curiosly, Biden entered with so little expectations that I found myself pleasantly surprised on occasion, until his war fumbling led him to ruin -- pretty much the same career arc as Lyndon Johnson, or for that matter Harry Truman.) Of course, I could have just as easily have favored the Republicans with hope. On some level even I find it hard to believe that they really want to destroy their own prosperity, or that their wealthy masters will allow them to sink so low.

I also understood a few basic truths that advised patience. One is that most people have to learn things the hard way, through the experience of disaster. This really bothers me, because as an engineer, my job (or really, my calling) is to prevent disasters from happening, but the temptation to say "I told you so" rarely if ever helps, so it's best to start over from scratch. (FDR's New Deal wasn't a masterplan he had before the Crash. His only firm idea after the Crash was that government should do something fast to help people. He found the New Deal by trial and error, but only because he was open to anything that might work, even ideas that others found suspiciously leftish.)

The second is that what people learn from disasters is very hard to predict, as the brain frantically attempts to find new order from the break and dislocation -- which even if generally predicted often differs critically in details. What people "learn" tends very often to be wrong, largely because the available ideas are most often part of the problem. To have any chance of learning the right lessons, one has to be able to respond to the immediate situation, as free as possible of preconceptions. (By "right" I mean with solutions that stand the test of time, not just ones that gain popular favor but lead to further disasters. Japan's embrace of pacifism after WWII was a good lesson learned. Germany's "stab-in-the-back" theory after WWI wasn't.)

The third is that every oppression or repression generates its own distinctive rebellion. Again, there's little value in trying to anticipate what form it will take, or how it will play out. Just be aware that it will happen, prepare to go with (or in some cases, against) the flow. (Nobody anticipated that the response to the Republican's catastrophic loss in 2008 would be the Tea Party -- even those who recognized that all the raw materials were ready to explode couldn't imagine rational beings doing so. This is a poor example in that the disaster felt by Republicans was nothing more than hallucination, whereas Trump is inflicting real pain which even rational people will be forced to respond to, but that only reiterates my point. And perhaps serves as a warning against paranoid overreaction: the Gaza uprising of Oct. 7, 2023, was a real event which caused real pain, but Israel's lurch into genocide, which had seemed inconceivable before despite being fully overdetermined, is another example.)

So I knew not only that the worse Trump became, the sooner and stronger an opposing force would emerge. And I also knew that to be effective, it would have to come from somewhere beyond the reach of my writing. I may have had some ideas of where, but I didn't know, and my not knowing didn't matter. The only thing I'm pretty sure of is that yesterday's Democratic Party leaders are toast. The entire substance of their 2024 campaign (and most of 2020 and 2016) was "we'll save you from Trump," and whatever else one might say about what they did or didn't do, their failure on their main promise is manifest. But I'm happy to let them sort that out, in their own good time. I'm nore concerned these days with understanding the conditions that put us into the pickle where we had to make such terrible choices. And putting the news aside, I'm free now to go back to my main interest in the late 1960s -- another time when partisan politics and punditry was a mire of greater and lesser evils, when the prevailing liberalism seemed bankrupt and defenseless against the resurgent right -- which is to think up utopian alternatives to the coming dark ages.

More about that in due course. But in everyday life, I do sometimes notice news -- these days mostly in the course of checking out my X and Bluesky feeds -- and sometimes notes. They go into a draft file, which holds pieces for eventual blog posts (like this one). I used to keep a couple dozen more/less reliable websites open, and cycle through them to collect links. I still have them open, but doubt I'll hit up half of them in the afternoon I'm allotting to this. So don't expect anything comprehensive. I'm not doing section heads, although I may sublist some pieces. Sort order is by date, first to last.

Mike Konczal: [02-02] Racing the Tariffs: How the Election Sparked a Surge in Auto and Durable Goods Spending in Q4 2024: "An extra 188,500 total cars sold anticipating Trump's tariffs?" I've been thinking about buying a new car for several years now, but simply haven't gotten my act together to go our shopping. Usually, waiting to spend money isn't a bad idea, but this (plus last week's tariff news) makes me wonder if I haven't missed a window. I still have trouble believing that the tariffs will stick: popular opinion may not matter for much in DC, but the companies most affected have their own resources there. By the way, Konczal also wrote this pretty technical but useful piece: [02-14] Rethinking the Biden Era Economic Debate.

Robert McCoy: [03-11] The Right Is Hell-Bent on Weaponizing Libel Law: "The 1964 Supreme Court decision affords the press strong protections against costly defamation lawsuits. That's why a dangerous new movement is trying to overturn it." The idea is to allow deep-pocketed people like Trump to sue anyone who says anything they dislike about them. Even if you can prove what you said is true, they can make your life miserable. This is presented as a review of David Enrich: Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.

Janet Hook: [03-18] Michael Lewis's Case for Government: Lewis's The Fifth Risk was one of the best books written after Trump won in 2016, not least because it was the least conventional. Rather than getting worked up over the threats Trump posed to Americans, he focused on the people who worked for the government, in the process showing what we had to lose by putting someone like Trump in charge. His The Premonition: A Pandemic Story took a similar tack, focusing on little people who anticipated and worked to solve big problems on our behalf. This reviews his new book Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service, a set of profiles of government workers mostly written by his friends.

Thomas Fazi: [03-24] Europe's Anti-Democratic Militarization: "Europe is being swept up in a war frenzy unseen since the 1930s. Earlier this month, the European Union unveiled a massive $870-billion rearmament plan, ReArm Europe." The proximate cause of this is Trump, whose election lends credence to doubts that the US will remain a reliable partner to defend Europe against Russia. These fears are rather ridiculous, as the US is almost solely responsible for turning Russia into a threat, but also because the reason the US became so anti-Russia was to promote arms sales in Eastern Europe (and anti-China to promote arms sales in East Asia, the main theater of Obama's "pivot to Asia"). There are many things one could write about this hideous turn -- Europe has been ill-served by its obeisance to America's increasingly incoherent imperial aims, so the smart thing there would be to become unaligned -- but one key point is that the center-left parties in Europe have given up any pretense of being anti-war, anti-militarist, and anti-imperial, so only the far right parties seem interested in peace. Even if they're only doing so because they see Putin as one of their own, many more people can see that interventionism, no matter how liberal, is tied to imperialism, and they are what's driving refugees to Europe. You shouldn't have to be a bigot to see that as a problem, or that more war only makes matters worse. Or that "defense" is more temptation and challenge than deterrence.

Jeet Heer: [03-25] Group Chat War Plans Provide a Window Into Trump's Mafia State: "American foreign policy is now all about incompetent shakedowns and cover-ups." On the Jeffrey Goldberg "bombshell", the events he reported on, and the subsequent brouhaha, which is increasingly known as the Signal Scandal (or Signalgate), more focused on the lapse of security protocol than on the bad decisions and tragic events those involved wanted to cover up. Jeer reduced this to five "lessons":

  1. Trump is running a mafia state.
  2. Pete Hegseth is a bald-faced liar -- and it doesn't matter.
  3. The war on Yemen made no sense and was conducted without consulting Congress or allies.
  4. The Trump administration really hates Europe -- but stil wants to fight wars on its behalf.
  5. The contradictions of America First are resolved by Mafia-style shakedowns.

Some more articles on this:

Darlene Superville: [03-27] Trump executive order on Smithsonian targets funding for programs with 'improper ideology': Oh great, not only are the federal employees who act as custodians of our national history subject to arbitrary dismissal and possibly rendering, now they have to spend every day of the next four years arguing with Trump's goons about political correctness!

Liza Featherstone: [03-28] Welcome to the Pro-Death Administration: "From climate change to nuclear weapons to lethal disease, the Trump administration seems to have decided that preventing mass death isn't really government's business anymore." Title was too easy, given the anti-abortion cult's "pro-life" conceit. Still, although there are certain kinds of death the Trump administration unabashedly favors -- capital punishment, bombing Yemen, providing blank check support for Israeli genocide -- the clear point of the article is the administration's extraordinary lack of concern for public health and any kind of human welfare. What's hard to say at this point is whether this frees them from any thought about the consequences of their actions, or their thoughtlessnes and recklessness is the foundation, and carelessness just helps them going.

Saqib Rahim: [03-28] Trump's pick for Israel Ambassador Leads Tours That Leave Out Palestinians -- and Promote End of Days Theology: Mike Huckabee, who started as a Baptist minister, became governor of Arkansas, ran for president, and shilled for Fox News, has finally found his calling: harkening the "end of days." Most critics of America's indulgence of Israeli policy find it hard to talk about Christian Zionist apocalypse mongering, probably because it just seems too insane to accept that anyone really believes it, but Huckabee makes the madness hard to ignore. That he's built a graft on his beliefs with his "Israel Experience" tours is news to me, but unsurprising, given the prevalence of conmen in the Trumpist right. On the other hand, "erasing Palestinians" is just par for the course. Huckabee's own contributions there have mostly been symbolic, which doesn't mean short of intent, but as US ambassador he'll be well on his way to an ICC genocide indictment. Too many more horror stories on Israel to track, but these stood out:

Jackson Hinkle: [03-31] tweet: Entire text reads: This is one of the most evil people in history." Followed by picture a smiling (and younger than expected) Barrack Obama. I don't know who this guy is, but he obviously doesn't know jack shit about history, even of the years since his subject became president.[*] But the bigger problem is what happens when you start calling people evil. It's not just that it throws you into all sorts of useless quantitative debates about lesser or greater evils, the whole concept is akin to giving yourself a lobotomy. You surrender your ability to understand other people, and fill that void with a command to act with enough force to get other people to start calling you evil. But to act with such force one needs power, so maybe what's evil isn't the person so much as the power?

[*] Hinkle appears to be a self-styled American Patriot (note flag emoji) with a militant dislike of Israel, succinctly summed up with a picture of him shaking hands with a Yemeni soldier (Google says Yahya Saree) under the title "American patriots stand with Yemen," along with meme posts like "Israel is a terrorist state" and "Make Tel Aviv Palestine again." So I suppose I should give him a small bit of credit for not inventing Obama's "evil" out of whole cloth (like Mike McCormick, whose latest book on Obama and Biden is called An Almost Insurmountable Evil), but all he does is take sides -- his feed also features pure boosterism for Putin and Gaddafi, as if he's trying to discredit himself -- with no substance whatsoever.

Rutger Bregman: [03-31] What I think a winning agenda for Democrats could look like: This was a tweet, so let's quote it all (changing handles for names, for clarity):

  1. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez/Bernie Sanders-style economic populism. Tax the rich, expand public services, balance the budget. Skip the ideological fluff: no anti-capitalism and degrowth blabla, just good old-fashioned social democracy.
  2. David Shor-style popularism: relentlessly double down on your most popular policies. Universal Pre-K, affordable child care, higher minimum wage, cheaper groceries, cheaper college, cheaper prescription drugs.
  3. Yascha Mounk/Matthew Yglesias-style cultural move to the center: moderate on immigration, tone down identity politics, admit men & women are different, stop the obsessive language policing, explicitly distance yourself from far left cultural warriors. Reclaim patriotism. Be smart on crime: no 'defund the police' but more cops and better cops who solve more crimes. Be the party of cleaner streets, fewer guns, and public order.
  4. Ezra Klein/Derek Thompson-style YIMBY/abundance agenda. Slash red tape, defy silly rules and procedures. Declare an emergency if necessary. Shovels in the ground, make a big show of building affordable housing and clean energy (livestreams etc.). Set targets and deadlines. Be the party of progress that (visibly!) builds.
  5. Build a big tent of progressives, moderates and independents. Unite in opposition to Trump. Attack him when he engages in economic arson (tariffs etc) and democratic arson (blatant disregard for due process, civil liberties etc.), and when it highlights your strengths: competence, solutions, basic human decency.

And most importantly of all:

Win elections. Then do the right thing. (In that order.)

In other words, everybody's right, let's try it all, only, you know, win this time. The thing is, this prescription is pretty much what Harris tried in 2024, and somehow she still lost. Her approximate grade card on these five points: 70/90/90/80/90 -- sure, she could have bashed the rich more, but they reacted as if she did, and Bregman pulls as many punches on this score as she did, so it's hard to see how they could have landed; and her "big tent" extended all the way to Dick Cheney -- the people who were excluded were the ones who had misgivings about genocide (although I suppose the Teamsters also have their own reason to beef).

The problem is that even when Democrats say the right things -- many advocating policies which on their own poll very favorably -- not enough people believe them to beat even the insane clowns Republicans often run these days. Their desperate need is to figure out how to talk to people beyond their own camp, not so much to explain their better policy positions as to dispel the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and establish their own credibility for honesty, probity, reason, respect, and public spirit.

Unfortunately, this isn't likely to happen through introspection. (I remember describing 9/11 as a "wake-up call" for Americans to re-examine their consciences and resolve to treat the world with more respect and care -- and, well, that sure didn't happen.) As Bregman's list of oracles shows, the standard response to a crisis of confidence -- which is the result of the Harris defeat, especially for anyone who believed she was saying and doing the right hings -- isn't self-reflection. It's a free-for-all where everyone competes with their own warmed-over pet prescriptions: the names in 1-4 have been kicking their policy ideas around for years, looking for any opportunity to promote them (although only Sanders and AOC have any actual political juice, which Bregman wants to tap into but not to risk offending his neoliberal allies; 5 is another reminder to water down any threat to change).

I should note Nathan J Robinson's response here:

I see "pretend foreign policy doesn't exist in order to avoid the awkward subject of whether or not Democrats support genocide" continues to be part of the plan.

If Democrats can't figure out that war is bad, not just morally but politically, they will lose, and deserve to lose, no matter how bad their enemies are, even on that same issue. (Sure, it's a double standard: as the responsible, sensible, human party, Democrats are expected to behave while Republicans are allowed to run crazy.) If Democrats can't figure that much out, how can they convince people that public services are better than private, that equal justice for all is better than rigging the courts, that protecting the environment matters, and much more?

By the way, I've read Bregman's book Utopia for Realists, and found it pretty weak on both fronts. (Original subtitle was The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-Hour Workweek, which was later changed to And How We Can Get There).

I also saw a tweet where Bregman is raving about the new book, Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. I wrote a bit about the book for an unpublished Book Roundup, which I might as well quote here (I'll probably rewrite it later; I haven't committed to reading it yet):

Ezra Klein/Derek Thompson: Abundance (2025, Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster): I've seen many references lately to "abundance liberalism," which this seems to be the bible to. It comes at a time when Democrats are shell-shocked by the loss to Trump -- especially those who are congenitally prejudiced against the left, and still hope to double down on the neoliberal gospel of growth. I sympathize somewhat with their "build" mantra, but isn't the problem somewhat deeper than just providing cutting through the permitting paperwork? While it's true that if you built more housing, you could bring prices down, but the neoliberal economy is driven by the search for higher profits, not lower prices. Democrats have been trained to think that the ony way they can get things done is through private corporations (e.g., you want more school loans, so hire banks to administer them; you want better health care for more people, pay off the insurance companies), which is not just wasteful, it invites further sabotage, and the result is you cannot deliver as promised. Similarly, Democrats have been trained to believe that growth is the magic elixir: make the rich richer, and everyone else will benefit. They're certainly good at the first part, but the second is harder to quantify. Perhaps there are some details here that are worth a read, but the opposite of austerity isn't abundance; it's enough, and that's not just a quantity but also a quality.

I should cast about for some reviews here (some also touch on Marc J Dunkelman: Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress -- and How to Bring It Back; other have pursued similar themes, especially Matthew Yglesias):

Jessica Piper/Elena Schneider: [04-02] Why Wisconsin's turnout suggests serious trouble for the GOP right now: 'Democrats keep overperforming in down-ballot elections, and the Wisconsin results suggest it's not just about turnout." I knew that night that Musk's attempt to buy a Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin had failed, but I hadn't looked at the numbers, which were pretty huge.

Ori Goldberg: [04-02] tweet:

Reminder:

  1. There is no "war" in Gaza. No one is fighting Israel.
  2. Israel is engaged in eradication. The only justification Israelis need is the totality of the eradication.
  3. Eradication is a crime in every shape or form. Those engaging in it and enabling it are criminals.

I'm also seeing tweets about and by Randy Fine, a Republican who won a House seat from Florida this week. About: "AIPAC's Randy Fine calls for 5 year prison sentences for distributing anti-Israel flyers, calling it a hate crime." By: "There is no suffering adequate for these animals. May the streets of Gaza overflow with blood." I can kind of understand, without in any way condoning or excusing, where Netanyahu and Ben Gvir are coming from, but I find this level of callousness from Americans unfathomable (and note that Lindsey Graham is one reason I'm using the plural).

Sean Padraig McCarthy: [04-02] tweet:

The Zionist project is so extreme, so violent, so beyond the pale of civilization that nothing progressive can coexist with it. It will drag all your pro-worker, pro-healthcare politics into the abyss. We need anti Zionist political leaders.

Matt Ford: [04-03] Take Trump's Third-Term Threats Seriously: Don't. It's hard to tell when he's gaslighting you, because lots of stuff he's serious about is every bit as insane as bullshit like this. The first thing here is timing: this doesn't matter until 2028, by which time he's either dead or so lame a duck that not even the Supreme Court will risk siding with him. But even acknowledging the threat just plays into his paranoid fantasies, a big part of what keeps him going.

Bret Heinz: [04-03] Rule by Contractor: "DOGE is not about waste and efficiency -- it's about privatization." I'm not sure I had a number before, but "Elon Musk spent more than $290 million on last year's elections." That's a lot of money, but it's tiny in comparison to this: "Overall, Musk's business ventures have benefited from more than $38 billion in government support."

Jeffrey St Clair: [04-04] Roaming Charges: Welcome to the Machine. Tariffs, layoffs, etc. I suppose we have to provide a sublist of tariff articles, so I might as well hang it here. Personally, I've never had strong feelings on tariffs or free trade. I have long been bothered by the size of the US trade imbalance, which went negative around 1970, about the time that Hibbert's Peak kicked in and the US started importing oil. I thought that was a huge mistake, that should have been corrected with substantially higher gas taxes (which in addition to throttling consumption and reducing the trade deficit would also have had the effect of blunting the 1970s price shocks). In retrospect, a tariff would have had a similar effect, and probably stimulated more domestic production, which would have had the unfortunate side effect of making oil tycoons -- by far the most reactionary assholes in America -- all that much richer. But tariffs aren't very good for equalizing trade deficits: by targeting certain products and certain nations, they can lead to trade wars, which hurt everyone. A better solution would be a universal tax on all imports, which is keyed to the trade balance. That clearly identifies trade balance as the problem, with a solution defined to match it, and disincentivizes retaliation. Perhaps even easier would be to simply devalue one's currency, which makes imports more expensive (without the clumsiness of a tax) and exports cheaper. But no one talks about these things, probably because few of the people involved seem to worry much about trade imbalances. They have their own reasons, and they don't want to talk about them either.

The classic rationale for tariffs is to protect infant industries from competition from cheaper imports. This makes sense only if you have a national economic plan, which the US has traditionally refused to do. (Biden has actually done things like this; e.g., to promote US manufacturing of batteries, but Trump has no clue here. Republican tariffs in the 19th century effectively did this, although they never called it this.)

Nor do I regard the issue as especially major. I think the people who have sounded the alarm over Trump's tariff plans have often exaggerated the danger. While the immediate effects, like the stock market tumble, seem to justify those fears, if he stays the course, businesses will adjust, and while the damage will still be real, it won't be catastrophic. But it seems unlikely that he will hold out. The reaction from abroad just goes to show how much American power has slipped over recent decades. When Biden was sucking up to Europe and the Far East, they were willing to humor him, because it cost them little, and the predicability was comforting. Trump offers no such comforts, and is so obnoxious any politician in the world can score points against him, or become vulnerable if they don't. While backing down will be embarrassing, not doing so will be perceived as far worse. I don't think he has the slightest clue what he is doing, and I suspect that the main reason he's doing it is because he sees it as a way to show off presidential power. That still plays to his fan base, but more than a few of them are going to get hurt, and he has no answer, let alone sympathy, for them.

A few more articles (hopefully not many, as this is already a dead horse):

David Dayen: [04-04] No Personnel Is Policy: "The Trump administration is accomplishing through layoffs what it couldn't accomplish through Congress."

There are certainly plenty of more normal ways Trump is changing the government, old standbys like hiring lobbyists to oversee the industries they once worked for. But just immobilizing government through staff cuts is somewhat new, at least at the level that Trump has employed it. Prosecutorial discretion is an established way to shift government priorities. But most of these agency depopulations make it impossible for the federal government to fulfill its statutory responsibilities, even though these agencies have been established and authorized and funded by Congress. When you make these offices nonfunctional, you're not taking care that the laws are faithfully executed.

More on Musk and DOGE:

Elie Honig: [04-04] Trump's war on big law. Not that I have any sympathy for the law firms Trump has tried to shake down -- least of all for the ones who so readily surrendered -- but this is one Trump story I had little if any reason to anticipate. Trump must be the most litigious person in world history -- James D Zirin even wrote a book about this, Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits. One good rule of thumb is that anyone involved, even inadvertently, in 1% of that many lawsuits is unfit for office.

Branko Marcetic: [04-04] Trump Promised Free Speech Defense and Delivered the Opposite. Hard to believe that anyone fell for that one.

Nina Quinn Eichacker: [04-05] The End of Exorbitant Privilege as We Know it: Some technical discussion of the pluses and minuses of seeking trade surpluses, noting that the advantages aren't large, and that for an economy as large as the US the costs of running persistent deficits aren't great -- barring some unforseen disaster, which leads to this:

But what the Trump administration seems to really be trying to do is demolish that exorbitant privilege, by torching any desire from countries around the world to purchase goods from the US, and to form economic alliances that insulate them from the chaos coming from inside the US government. People ask me all the time whether I think that there's a point at which the US could have too much debt, and I've always said that something really catastrophic would have to happen for the US to be deposed as the currency hegemon of the world. Now I think we're teetering on the brink, and I hate it.

The author also notes: "Will these tariffs lead to more manufacturing? They're a painful way to get ther, with a lot of degrowth along the way."

Adam Tooze: [04-07] Chartbook 369 Are we on the edge of a major financial crisis? Trump's Chart of Death and why bonds not equities are the big story. I can't say I'm following all of this, but I am familiar with the notion that equity and bond markets normally balance each other out, so the idea that both are way out of whack seems serious. And the odds for the "Trump is a genius" explanation are vanishingly small.

Current count: 69 links, 6281 words (7446 total)

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Thursday, March 20, 2025

Loose Tabs

I spent most of Monday and Tuesday working outside on my shed. I got the screening done on the door side, and got the ramp treated with linseed oil and firmly attached to the shed -- it had been loose all these years, slid out of place, and was rotting around the edges, so work I've long been meaning to do. I expected a cold front on Wednesday to disrupt my work. We got some rain when it came through, and a tiny bit of snow when it settled down towards freezing.

I was plenty sore from the work, and wanted no part of the cold, so I resolved to stay inside and fiddle with trivial computer tasks. I updated software, which involved rebooting and restarting Firefox. I found I had a bunch of extra tabs open to various articles that looked promising, so I thought, why not just plug them into one of my Daily Log notebook entries, so I can close them. Then it occurred to me that it would be a bit easier just to create a blog post for them. It wouldn't be part of a series, just a scattered one-shot, like my recent Hobsbawm posts. I didn't finish in one day, so took a second. So this is it.

Pieces are sorted by date, with some clusters underneath a lead article. The tabs were mostly opened based on links from X or Bluesky, or sometimes from mail. I've made very little effort to sort through my usual array of sources. I've rarely looked for further articles, and haven't singled out any topics I wanted to pick on. I don't have any real agenda here. I'm just seeing where the wind blows me.

Select internal links:

Ryan Cooper: [01-06] Bluesky Proves Stagnant Monopolies Are Strangling the Internet: I kept this open, and eventually followed its advice and signed up to Bluesky, although I have to admit I'm not hugely impressed by Cooper's case.

David Dayen: [01-17] The Essential Incoherence of the End of the Biden Presidency: "One reason the president goes out with low approval ratings is that his agenda was internally contradictory."

Stephen Semler: [01-24] How the most unpopular US president got reelected. Picky editor that I am, I would have changed that to "elected a second time." Let's start with a quote:

Winning wasn't Harris's primary concern; winning without the left and anti-war movement was. At first glance, this might not seem like a big deal -- the left's numbers aren't overwhelming, and the anti-war movement's numbers are depressingly underwhelming. However, this overlooks the widespread appeal of their core ideas, particularly among working-class voters.

And it's no wonder: working-class well-being is acutely compromised when an administration prioritizes warfare over promoting the general welfare. In contrast, those in the top income brackets are far more insulated from such trade-offs. If your goal is to win as many votes as possible, compromising on policy with leftists and peace activists is essential, even if you find them annoying.

If there was ever a time for a Democratic candidate to invite those groups to the table, it was 2024. But Harris shut them out, ignoring an abundance of polling and well-being data practically begging her not to. Her choice ultimately led millions of would-be Democratic voters to stay home on Election Day, sealing her fate and, by extension, the rest of ours.

Semler focuses more than I would on economic effects of war -- coming out of WWII, many Americans (especially Democrats) saw guns and butter not as exclusive but as linked, although the effect has steadily reduced over time, especially participation. On the other hand, the risks associated with foreign wars have grown, and support for politicians who have blundered into wars has dwindled. Even if Biden wasn't in his 80s, his inability (or unwillingness) to end wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine cast doubts on his competency.

Semler does make points about the end of pandemic relief measures as a contributor to widespread economic hardship. Democrats did a very poor messaging job around them: first in not taking adequate credit for the measures -- which Trump only agreed to because the stock market was tanking -- and in not blaming Republicans for loss. Granted, they were meant to be temporary, but most worked well enough they should have been refashioned into more permanent programs. Had Democrats campaigned on them in 2022, they might have gotten a more favorable Congress, and extended them further, leading to a better story for 2024. A better Congress (including ending the filibuster) could also have implemented measures for limiting price gouging and excessive interest rates -- failing to do so, which one could blame squarely on Republicans (and a couple lobbyist-owned "Democrats"), had a big impact on the 2024 election. Instead, Democrats campaigned on the status quo as their big accomplishment, instead of as a work in progress where the big obstacle is too many Republicans in power.

Semler's big thing is making charts ("visualizing politics through a class lens"). Some more recent posts:

Rhoda Feng: [01-28] Pulled in All Directions: Review of Chris Hayes: The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource. I don't watch his TV show, but I have read his two previous books -- Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy (2012) and A Colony in a Nation (2017) -- and in both cases was impressed by his ability to take big subjects and focus them into tight arguments. This could be another one, but the topic risks being too amorphous to focus on -- I'm reminded of James Gleick's Faster, another great idea that the author, coming off a series of brilliant books, couldn't quite handle. Unclear from the review how much he made out of it, but picking Apple as a villain was a start I can relate to.

Thomas Frank: [02-19] Why the Democrats Fear Populism: Interview by Nathan J Robinson, of the author of What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (2004), which taunted Republicans for never delivering on their promises (and inadvertently turned them into a more more dangerous party), and Listen, Liberal: What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? (2016), which chided Democrats for their own failures to deliver promised change (much less successfully), and which tried to remind Democrats that populism was originally a party of the left. Like Frank, I'm a history-minded Kansan, so I know the Populist Party, and have deep sympathies for them -- unlike your fancy elites (including Hofstadter), who tried to write the people off as bigots and fools.

Eric Levitz: [03-01] The twisted appeal of Trump's humiliation of Zelenskyy: "Why some conservatives took pride in a national disgrace." I don't think there is any issue where mainstream Democrats think they have a bigger popular advantage over Trump than Ukraine/Russia -- and are more wrong about it. Most Americans want to see the war end, either because they understand that war is bad for everyone or because they realize that a prolonged stalemate is all risk with no possible reward. But Ukraine has become an issue that the so-called Defense Democrats are very passionate about, and not just because many of them blame Putin for Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss. They had already pivoted against Putin from back when Clinton was Secretary of State, seeing the vilification of Putin as their meal ticket to another profitable Cold War, but with Putin's "election interference" and Trump's surprise win, they increasingly came to see Trump and Putin in each other's image. While Republicans had few problems with using Russia as a threat to sow fear and sell arms to Europe, they started to react when Democrats made Zelenskyy out to be their hero in impeaching Trump.

While Biden and Zelenskyy generally escaped blame for Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and Biden had little trouble getting Republican votes to funnel massive amounts of arms to Ukraine, Biden's nonchalance about ending the war eventually trademarked the Democrats as the war party, paving the way for Trump's 2024 comeback win. Although there was no reason to think that Trump would be anything but worse than Harris on Israel/Palestine -- anyone who voted against Harris on that count did so from sheer spite, in total disregard for what was well known by then about Trump and his backers -- it wasn't unreasonable to hope that Trump would be able to put the Russia/Ukraine war to rest. That he hasn't done so shows us that he's as deluded in his own way about the war as Biden is in his. But also that he'd rather play the conflict for his fans than to do anything serious about it.

By the way, I think Levitz's explanations for Trump's "twisted appeal" are off base. Trump's performance -- and let's face it, the whole thing was staged as such -- appealed to his base because they want to see Trump in full bully mode. That's big part of why they voted for him. And Trump knows that his berating of Zelenskyy will drive Democrats crazy, reinforcing their commitment as the war party. (Which, needless to add, has once again worked like a charm, as when Slotkin spent a big part of her Trump rebuttal speech on Ukraine when she could have attacked Trump on firmer grounds.) I really doubt that Trump cares one whit about Bannon's Putin-friendly International Brotherhood of Fascists. (Bannon may well make good money off his hustle, but the autocrats themselves are mostly content to rule their own roosts: after all, their real enemies are their own people.)

Needless to say, just because Levitz misunderstands Trump doesn't make Trump right. (The right doesn't love Putin or Modi or Millei, not like they love Trump; at most, they envy that they are able to do things to their enemies that Americans cannot. They probably don't love Netanyahu either, but the envy there is really severe.) As diplomacy, Trump's performance was a complete disaster. He could have worked Zelenskyy over in private, then took a deal to Putin that could have let everyone come off smelling, well, not great but a good deal less rotten. As it is, he's squandered a big part of his influence with Zelenskyy, while exposing himself to the argument -- which admittedly doesn't bother him, because it's central to his Trump Derangement Syndrome defense -- that he's in Putin's pocket. Not only has he blown his chance to act as the great mediator -- and probably pick up a Nobel Peace Prize, like Teddy Roosevelt did for brokering the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 -- he's given both Zelenskyy and Putin fresh angles to break up NATO, or at least to cut the US out of the equation. (Which would be a big deal, as the whole reason for NATO these days is to sell overpriced US arms to countries that don't need them. And arms sales was a major focus of Trump I, although Biden far exceeded him in that regard.)

Some more articles from Vox, which used to be my primary go-to source, but often these days I can't read at all:

  • Eric Levitz: [03-18] This is why Kamala Harris really lost: "TikTok is making young voters more Republican?" I read this in the newsletter, but can't read it as a link, so we'll skip it for now. The gist of it is that the higher the voter turnout, the more dumb, uninformed, and often just careless or even contemptible people vote, and the latter favor Trump by large margins. I noticed this some time ago, but now there is more data to back it up. I'll write more about this, and possibly much more of Levitz's "The Rebuild" newsletter series, which is an important subject, even if he often mangles it. PS: Levitz's main source is David Shor, interviewed by Ezra Klein here: [03-18] Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won. Also see [03-18] "Angry Moderate" Sounds Okay to Me. I don't want to get carried away with quoting, but here's a teaser: "How hard is it for moderate and progressive Democrats to find common ground when the Trump administration is doing things like this?" [Linked article title: Proposal would force millions to file Social Security claims in person]
  • Zack Beauchamp: [03-19] The Trump right's pro-Israel antisemitism: "The MAGA movement loves Israel -- but is increasingly hostile to Jews."
  • Eric Levitz: [03-20] The left's misguided critique of abundance liberalism: "Cutting red tape is a social justice issue."

Kenny Stancil: [03-05] The Case for a Shadow Cabinet: "High-energy progressives can provide a compelling daily account of everything going wrong and coordinate opposition to the Trump-Musk nightmare." I've mentioned this before -- I loved the idea first time I heard of it as regular practice in the UK -- and endorse it once again. One thing I would do is instead of staffing it with Congressional office holders, I'd set up non-profit foundation (which, sure, one would have to guard against donor capture) and hire experts and staff for each position. Democrats need a go-to person on each issue, all the more so as Trump "floods the zone" with his bullshit.

  • Kim Phillips-Fein: [2019-03] The Bitter Origins of the Fight Over Big Government: "What the battle between Herbert Hoover and FDR can teach us." Stancil offered this piece as an example of how a president-elect used that position against a lame duck.

  • An Impeachment Drive Would End in Failure. It Might Be Worthwhile Anyway. Argues "Yes, there should be a well-maintained web page listing all of Trump's impeachable offenses since January 20, and it should be the basis for a House effort to impeach Trump that, ideally, would be sponsored by every Democrat in the House." Actually, I don't care whether anyone in the House sponsors the articles, as past experience suggests not only that they have no chance of conviction but that they can be weaponized against Democrats. But it would be good to have a website with all the proper legalese and supporting documents that anyone can link to. You could set up a court with judges, moving cases through various stages with prosecutors and defenders filing briefs, as some cases are likely to be stronger than others. Of course, no need to limit it to Trump, although his entire administration reflects back on him.

Stephen Prager: [03-05] You Really Can Just Do Things: "When Republicans take power, they abuse it. When Democrats take power, they refuse it." I've probably see a hundred pieces urging Biden to use executive powers to just sign an order, which he failed to do out of some respect or fear for some "norm" somewhere. One thing we're likely to see more and more of is arguments that Democrats should be willing to do any arbitrary crap that Republicans try, but the brands are so asymmetric that it's not even clear that's a good idea, let alone that it would work. Much will now depend on whether the Republican-packed courts will side with Trump, especially on cases where there is no precedent that they should. Democrats don't have that margin for error. Even though Biden did less than many Democrats wanted, much of what he did do didn't get past the courts.

Scarlet: [03-06] Party of None: How Democrats Lost the Working Class: Part One: A Brief History of the Democratic Party; and [03-14] Part Two: The Well Funded Road to Hell.

Jeffrey St. Clair: [03-07] Roaming Charges: Political Personality Crisis in America: He's the one "pundit" I have been reading consistently during the long winter of discontent. Here he starts with a Max Horkheimer quote, after a title that recalls the late David Johansen.

John Ganz: [03-07] The Juggler: "Understanding Trump's Economic Moves." Title comes from a line from Marx, about Louis Napoleon III, also the subject of his "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce":

Driven by the contradictory demands of his situation, and being at the same time, like a juggler, under the necessity of keeping the public gaze on himself, as Napoleon's successor, by springing constant surprises -- that is to say, under the necessity of arranging a coup d'état in miniature every day -- Bonaparte throws the whole bourgeois economy into confusion . . . produces anarchy in the name of order, while at the same time stripping the entire state machinery of its halo, profaning it and making it at once loathsome and ridiculous.

Dean Baker: [03-14] Trump Tariffs and the Dollar as the World Reserve Currency. This is a bit wonkish, but good if you're interested. Also [03-20] The Masses Were Saying Things Were Good, Not the Democrats, a title which confused me, but the first paragraph got me interested (with the last line after the ellipsis):

The best way to get published in an elite media outlet is to say that the people were right in thinking things were bad in 2024, and the Democrats were wrong in trying to tell people things were good. Both parts of that line are wrong, but hey, when did outlets like the New York Times ever care about accuracy? . . .

It would be good if news outlets showed a little more skepticism towards people who claim to know about people's well-being, but have no data to support their claims.

PS: I should also have mentioned this article by Baker (either here, or elsewhere where I mention Ezra Klein's interview with Daniel Shor): [03-18] Ezra Klein, David Shor and Elite Excuses: The Hermetically Sealed TikTok Influencer. Klein claims that the New York Times bears no responsibility for Trump's win because most Times readers voted for Harris, so Trump must have won elsewhere. Baker disagrees, and points out numerous cases where the Times distorted Biden's record on Afghanistan and the economy, framing issues in ways that could extend way beyond their direct readership. While looking at Baker's articles, also note:

  1. [03-21] Patent Monopolies: The Biggest Tax No One Knows About "I have to give the right lots of credit here, they transfer more than $1 trillion a year, an amount close to half of after-tax corporate profits, from the rest of us to those in a position to benefit from govdernment-granted patent and copyright monopolies, and no one even talks about it."
  2. [03-21] Donald Trump Declares April 2 "Tax Day": Tariffs.

Kayla Gogarty: [03-14] The right dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports, comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces: "A new Media Matters analysis found 9 out of the top 10 online shows assessed are right-leaning." That supposedly was a big part of Trump's success, but Trump would be the natural beneficiary of rage-fueled pitches to folks with little grasp of issues and little concern for their effects on others. I've seen arguments that we need to create our own counterprogramming to fill this space without own bullshit. On the other hand, consider:

  • John Ross/Nathan J Robinson: [03-17] MeidasTouch Turns Democrats' Minds to Slop: I don't have time or interest in podcasts or videos (or whatever this is), but I did watch a couple episodes, and they don't seem nearly a dumbed down as what I've run across on the right[*]. (One was aimed at Fox, but mostly to quote Trump officials, so not exactly head-to-head comparisons.) One thing I don't doubt that that there's an untapped market for anti-Trump snark. What's questionable is whether it helps, or like most partisan programming, just fortifies the base.

    [*] Rereading this, I'm tempted to ask how could they be? If you know and care about the real world, as anyone on the left by definition does, you cannot help but be more coherent and accurate than the insane drivel that is routinely spouted by the right. The notion that there is any left media approach that "turns Democrats' minds to slop" assumes a false symmetry between left and right that anyone on the left should realize is not just wrong but fundamentally so. (Not to say that there are no Democrats with minds full of slop.)

John Ganz: [03-17] There Was Never Any "Fascism Debate". Maybe not a debate in the proper sense, but there certainly was a lot of blathering, with lots of people spouting their pet theories while talking past one another. Even this article, which is subtitled "They Refused to Engage," manages to slip past its supposed opponents without landing even glancing blows. I don't know why I keep being drawn into this question, but after kicking this article around, I finally broke down and ordered Did It Happen Here? Perspectives on Fascism and America, a 2024 book edited by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, even though it's missing as much as it includes. (I ordered the cheaper pre-election hardcover as it appeared to be identical to the post-election paperback, although the post-election case has gotten much more compelling.) So I'll probably write more about this in the future -- indeed, I probably already have elsewhere.

One side comment here for now: after Scott Lemieux mentioned "professional anti-anti-Trump pundits," I recalled Dan Nexon's comment here on "the anti-anti-Trump left," I started wondering what the hell (or more specifically, who) they were talking about. I don't have a good answer (although I made some notebook notes in researching). Provisional conclusion is that no such people exist, as least in significant quantity. It's possible that some confusion is caused by two other groups: right-wing trolls who react to criticism of Trump by belittling the critics (e.g., by diagnosing them with Trump Derangement Syndrome), possibly because they can't think of any credible defense of Trump; and those who are so focused on the evils of US foreign policy that they ignore or (naively, I suspect) defend Trump's schizophrenic posturing. The trolls may be "professional pundits" (in the sense of getting paid to spout nonsense), but they are not from the left. I have doubts about the others, too, but the solution is not to simply counterattack but to respond with clear thinking.

Of course, you don't have to be a leftist to oppose Trump. Pretty much everyone has plentiful reasons if only they can cut through the thicket of propaganda and bullshit to see them. We leftists are just much quicker to seeing Trump and his followers for the danger they present, because we sense immediately that they want to kill us, while non-leftists are often in denial until it's too late. There only was one Hitler in history, and he set an impossible standard for other would-be Führers to live up to, but once you allow that there can be a current generalization beyond the historical specifics of his club with Mussolini, you can start to discern the type, and to see analogies take shape, evolve, and permutate. And within that framework, you can anticipate actions, ask questions, consider how best to stop him (and realize how important it is to do so). Nobody is going to change their mind about Trump just because you -- or for that matter, John Kelly -- call him a name. But you might decide that he's crossed some line and become so dangerous that you need to overcome your reluctance to form a Common Front to stop him. And you might recall that even that sacrifice isn't guaranteed to work.

Part of the problem is that very little (if any) of what we grasp of current events can be perceived as such. It is filtered through our memory and far-from-perfect understanding of history. Here one big problem is that most people don't remember much, and much of what they've been told is wrong. Even the history of Nazi Germany, which is about as famous and notorious as anything 80-90 years old can be, is recalled by very few people, and most who have even an inkling do so through distorted clichés -- like the oft-repeated capitulation at Munich. But those of us who do know some history are likely to start wondering whether Jan. 6 wasn't Trump's Beer Hall Putsch -- an unlikely thought at the time, but where else have we seen the coddling of criminality by the courts, leading to installation in power arranged by rich elites and the abuse of that power not just to "violate norms" but to run roughshod over law and order? Maybe you can find some better-fitting obscurity, but no other analogy gets the blood pumping faster than fascism.

PS: I also ran across this (partly because Bessner seemed to be tagged as an anti-anti-Trump leftist):

  • Daniel Bessner/Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins: [2024-04-18] Liberals' Heated Fascism Rhetoric Sidesteps Self-Reflection.

    The fascism framework is inherently backward-facing, always either relying on historical comparisons to validate its analogy or fixating on a return to the alleged "norms" that existed before Trump's presidency. In other words, the single-minded identification of fascism prevents liberals from developing an attractive vision for the United States' future. Even if Biden defeats Trump in November, absent such a vision the Democratic Party will be stuck in the rut of cosplaying apocalyptic scenarios every time a Trump-esque candidate runs for office, with little extra energy to devote to hammering out a compelling political alternative.

  • Daniel Bessner: [02-20] Donald Trump Is Dismantling Liberal Internationalism: Bessner is interviewed by John-Baptiste Oduor, following Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference. It's hard for anyone who has long been critical of US foreign policy not to have mixed feelings about the "America First" retrenchment that Trump and Vance are presenting. America's ability to direct the world has long been diminishing, its good sense even faster, so some sort of retreat has long been in the cards, but Trump's preference for bluster and erratic bullying and his lack of skill let alone interest in diplomacy are likely to add danger to any change.

Connor Echols: [03-18] Oligarchy in overdrive: "Two months into his second Term, Trump is making mere plutocracy seem quaint." There's a chart here where 48% of "likely voters" say the US is moving toward oligarchy.

Matt K Lewis: [03-17] Democrats have four theories to beat Trump. Wish them luck: Actually, wish them better theories. I'm a sucker for clickbait like this because I've thought a lot about tactics over the past year, both upside and downside of November 5. And while I don't claim to have the answers, it's pretty clear to me that these aren't them:

  1. Cross your fingers and wait for Trump to self-destruct
  2. Work hard
  3. Stop being culturally out of touch
  4. Pray you can find a rock star

Eventually, rather than picking one, he throws his hands into the air and calls for a combination of all four. But read the fine print and watch them disintegrate: "This is the Tik Tok era, baby." "If they want to win, they need to talk like normal human beings again." "Politics is now show business, and Trump understands this. He's not a candidate -- he's a spectacle." Democrats need "someone like The Rock, Mark Cuban or Stephen A. Smith." (Link added for Smith, because I had to look him up, which in itself makes me doubt he's a "rock star.") And remind me again how effective Cuban was on the campaign trail with Harris?

Joel Swanson: [03-18] What Are We Allowed to Say? "How Trump's Department of Education has made it harder for me to teach Jewish Studies." The idea, of course, is to make it difficult to teach anything that goes against the Trump party line. The campaign against anything or anyone that remotely smacks of Woke or DEI is just the first front of attack, an easy way to show who's the boss now, without having to split many hairs. I didn't say "any" here, because as this article points out:

This directive, however, came with a large asterisk: We are still permitted to educate students about antisemitism. Antisemitism education, in other words, receives a special carve-out from broader anti-DEI policies. Jews get to be the special minority group receiving temporary protection from the government.

This is problematic for both obvious and subtler reasons. (Designating Jews as a privileged class sets them up for further backlash, as the author notes in his discussion of "the court Jew," although I can think of further examples; doing so to deflect criticism of genocide is disingenuous and even more likely to backfire.) Among other things, this article pointed me to several other pieces worth noting:

Kenny Stancil: [03-19] DOGE Is Going to Kill a Lot of Americans: I haven't been following news and/or opinion site for months now, but based on rare sampling it's possible that The American Prospect has been the most reliable source of solid news about the extraordinary damage the Trump administration is inflicting on the American people. Some headlines:

Robert Christgau: [03-19] Xgau Sez: March, 2025 (also here): I mention this for the lines: "I'm a patriotic democrat/Democrat. So is almost everyone I know except a few out-and-out leftists." I must be one of the latter, because I hardly qualify for the former -- I haven't made a show of being patriotic since Boy Scouts (although I did eventually concede to stretch my legs at ball games -- it's not like I need to make a point at every opportunity), and I only registered capital-D when I realized there was no alternative. Still, nice to be acknowledged and respected, even though I'm not sure I've ever swayed his position on an issue.

On the other hand, I haven't tried all that hard, because I don't think we're far apart in principle. When he describes Trump as a "vindictive, pathologically resentful, racist greedhead," he's not just accurate, but speaking from values we share. When he says "barely literate" and "evil" I understand but would have put it differently. There are plenty of literate fools, notably his VP. I make a distinction between ignorance (what one doesn't know) and stupidity (what one knows that is wrong), and Trump is off the charts in both dimensions. But what bothers me most is that Trump has somehow managed to turn his mental defects into some kind of superpower: not only does it do no good to expose his idiocy, it seems to make him stronger.

As for "evil," that's a word I'm very wary of: it's been used way too often not just to decry bad acts from bad intentions, but to imply that the only recourse is to kill the evil-doer. The characterization of Saddam Hussein, or Putin, or all Palestinians, as evil has often been an argument for war, and an excuse to avoid negotiation, because how can peace coexist with evil? While acts can be judged on their own merits, intentions are much harder to understand, and people who throw the word around rarely seem to make much effort. On the other hand, as a writer, I sometimes find myself looking for some succinct word to sum up bad acts committed for no good reason, and "evil" is pretty tempting. Is Trump evil? Well, he certainly does a lot of bad things for bad reasons, and the more power you give him, the worse he gets, so it's easy to see why people might think that.

The one thing I would caution on is against confusing the person with the power. When I was a tyke, I learned that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Maybe the problem with Trump isn't so much that he is evil as that his accession to power -- first his wealth, then his fame, then his votes, and now his cult of the Unitary Executive Theory -- has allowed his fairly common animal spirits to overflow and to instigate bad acts, unfettered by his dearth of heart, soul, and brains. While I don't believe that Evil exists as a force on its own, Trump is as worthy of the word as anyone. (The historical standard for Evil is probably Adolf Hitler, who as a person, disregarding historical details, differs from Trump mostly in having considerably more brains. Whether Trump turns out worse or not so bad is still undetermined, but the main variable is power.)

Unwinding from that aside, the "vindictive . . . evil" quote actually came in response to a different question, one where the reader concluded, "I'm truly concerned for your soul," after "And you have no idea how despicable and damaging your ideologies are or how deficient your understanding." I'm tempted to say zero -- this reads like a quantitative question -- but perhaps the more important point to make is that ideas and understanding are personal, so only affect oneself, and as such have negligible effect. Ideology is not something everyone has a personal edition of. An ideology is a set of beliefs that is presented to others. That, too, tends to have little if any impact, unless one's arguments are extremely persuasive -- which is almost always because they are already widely shared -- or because one has the power to impose ideology on others. The obvious example (and certainly uncontroversial) example here is Stalin, but as far as ideology goes, in America most power is soft, proportional to one's fame, money, and institutional clout. Judging from metrics like X followers, Christgau can reach about 10 times as many people as I can (8000 vs 600), but Christgau has a pretty small following, compared to other people on the left I follow, like Astra Taylor (35k), Robert Wright (49k), and Nathan J Robinson (125k). Someone who's actually famous, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has 12.7M followers, so 20 for every one who follows Robinson. And she trails way behind Musk (219M) and Trump (102M, plus more on his own network -- 10 million?), but at their level, the more important advantages are in money and clout (including lawyers and lobbyists on call, media contacts and influencers, direct and indirect hires, extending in Trump's case to the whole CIA).

The only thing the letter writer has to worry about Christgau (or for that matter, the whole left, from top to bottom) is that our "ideology" might make more sense to ordinary voters than the much more widely disseminated fulminations of the rich and powerful.

PS: Here's an extra paragraph I wrote earlier but decided I didn't need in place. An earlier draft was more nitpicky about Christgau's terms, which reminded me of a common complaint about leftists who obsess over language (often derided as "political correctness," "virtue signaling," and/or "cancel culture"): I don't think it helps to go around "correcting" the language of people who have basic good intentions. Doing so makes you look snide and morally supercilious, and risks adding you to the list of grievances of people who could, if you didn't make such a point of insulting them, become allies. The right-wing reaction to "political correctness," "woke," etc., is a cynical scheme to politically exploit the tendency of some people on the left to criticize others over language. But just as I don't feel like correcting those who should have spoken better, I also don't blame those who do insist on correcting for their excess principle-driven zeal. To pick one obvious example, while I personally try to speak very carefully about Israelis and Palestinians, I can't blame any Palestinian for overstepping my mark, because deep down the complaint they're trying to express is a valid one.

James K Galbraith: [03-19] Trump's Economics -- and America's Economy: "You can't make America great again by wrecking the government."

Jasmine Mooney: [03-19] I'm the Canadian who was detained by ICE for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped: "I was stuck in a freezing cell without explanation despite eventually having lawyers and media attention. Yet, compared with others, I was lucky." I have no idea how many stories like this are coming to light -- Mahmoud Khalil's is by far the most publicized one, probably because the Trump goons figure that targeting a Palestinian gives them the best possible spin on a policy they intend to target far more broadly, and indiscriminately. The Wikipedia page on Khalil notes: "Several journalists and human rights organizations have noted similarities between this law and McCarthyism." No doubt, but this is much more similar to the CIA "renditions" of suspected terrorists on foreign soil -- except that it's being done here in America to legal residents. McCarthyism, as far as I know, never involved kidnapping. It was a systematic program of slander, meant to bully people into "naming names," encouraging discrimination against those named, and thereby spreading the slander, aiming at isolating and marginalizing the entire political left, solidifying support for the anti-communist Cold War, and dividing and demoralizing the labor movement. The Trumpist campaign against DEI and other signs of "wokeness" has more in common with McCarthyism, at least as concerns its individual targets, although the political agenda is much the same. Related here:

Vijay Prashad: [03-20] Israel's Hellish Attack on the Palestinians on 18 March: Opening paragraph:

On 18 March 2025, Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire agreement and bombed several sites in Gaza. It is estimated that at least 400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, died by Israeli bombs. Journalists in Gaza report that of those dead, 174 are children. Once more, entire families have been wiped out. The head of the United Nations organisation for Palestine (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said that the Israelis have fuelled 'hell on earth'. Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnès Callamard described the situation as 'the hellish nightmare of intense bombardment'. The word 'hell' is on everyone's lips. It defines the situation in Gaza at present.

Within days of the Gaza uprising of Oct. 11, 2023, I concluded that Israel has crossed whatever line separates genocide from whatever it is you call the state of menace and siege that existed in Gaza from the 2006 withdrawal until then: "occupation" didn't seem right, with no ground presence, and no semblance of control, but the barriers Israel erected between Gaza and the world, along with the threat of instant death always present (and periodically illustrated, lest anyone doubt Israel's resolve). Baruch Kimmerling got the concept right in his 2003 book, Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians, but it takes some effort to realize just how thin the line is between stripping a people of all political rights and killing them. It now seems clear that as soon as Sharon sealed the border Gaza was fated to end this way. The only question was timing. When would some small group of Palestinians to flip their switch from patient cruelty to frenzied slaughter? Or when would the pervasive racism of Israelis finally erode their inhibitions against committing genocide? The Oct. 11 revolt was marginally larger and more invasive than previous acts of desperation, but that hardly explains the qualitative shift in Israel's behavior. Under Netanyahu, Israel was already aching to take it all, to finish Gaza off once and for all. They hardly debated at all.

Since the uprising I wrote about the genocide every week until I shut down Speaking of Which after the November election. (By the way, my original term was the more literal "prison break," but the desperation behind it reminded me more of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1944, when doomed Jews finally fought back against Nazis -- I won't even claim any irony to the sides, as that had flipped 20, 40, possibly 60 years ago.) Since then, I haven't even checked out my most reliable source, Mondoweiss. I knew what to expect, including that the nominal ceasefire of Biden's last days in office wouldn't last once Trump returned. In particular, I predicted that Trump would approve of the eventual forced transfer of the last Palestinians in Gaza to somewhere. (Ok, I wasn't thinking of Uganda, but sure, I get the joke, even if I don't laugh.) And yes, even on this, his absolute worst issue, I already miss Biden. So this article just explains one small bit. I don't feel any need to search out more, although I did have one open tab, so I might as well slot it here:

Current count: 95 links, 7389 words (8661 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Cut Gaza Loose

Up-to-date information on Israel's latest major siege of Gaza -- dubbed Operation Protective Edge, at least in English (the Hebrew is closer to Solid Rock) -- is scarce and hard to sort out, especially since Israel sent ground troops into Gaza. The latest totals I have are that since July 8 Israeli forces have killed 303 Palestinians, while 1 Israeli soldier and 1 Israeli civilian have died. (The latter, by the way, would easily have met Israel's criterion for declaring a Palestinian a "militant" in the propaganda battles over who killed whom. The former was killed by an Israeli tank shell, "friendly fire." It's worth recalling that a third of the Israeli soldiers killed in 2008's Operation Cast Lead were killed by fellow Israelis.) [A later report now says 341 Palestinians have been killed, with 40,000 people "internally displaced" -- i.e., bombed out of their homes.] One of the more pointed stories I've read recently was reported here by Richard Silverstein:

Two days ago an Israeli navy artillery "sharpshooter" picked out a choice target. Little boys playing soccer on the beach, where their father earned his living as a fisherman. The first shell only killed one of them. The boys, their legs not yet muscled to run fast enough, flew as fast as they could to the beachside tent where foreign reporters congregated. The second shell, finely calibrated to hit them as they fled, struck them and killed another three. Killing children: fine sport in the Israeli navy.

Stories like that are going to be harder to come by since NBC pulled its correspondent from Gaza (who broke that story), Ayman Mohyeldin. CNN also pulled one of its reporters, Diana Magnay, after she reported on how Israelis camp out on hills near the Gaza border to watch and cheer the bombardment. That kind of damage control helps Israel avoid embarrassment, but only temporarily. [The uproar over Mohyeldin has since convinced NBC to send him back to Gaza.]

Past Israeli incursions (2006, 2008, 2012 -- the frequency is reflected in that choice Israeli phrase, "mowing the lawn") have always been met with appeals and pressure for ceasefire, but the Obama administration has been shockingly cavalier about the slaughter and destruction this time. Part of this may be the full court press of the Israel lobby, not least that Obama has been serially beat up by Israel for nearly six years now, but part may also be due to Obama's desire to escalate US involvement in the wars in Iraq and Syria, plus all the reckless hawkishness on Ukraine, plus the 15 people just killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan. They say, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Evidently, Obama is way too busy making war to spare a few moments to plead for peace. And if the US doesn't step up to restrain Israel, who else can?

It's wholly predictable how Israel's current operation will end. Like all of its predecessors going back to 2006, it will end in a ceasefire with Hamas as firmly in charge of Gaza as ever, with Israel in possession of the keys to a ghetto containing 1.8 million trapped, terrorized people. Many buildings will be destroyed, including critical infrastructure -- electric power, sewage treatment, water treatment, hospitals, roads, food resources. A few hundred Palestinians will have been killed, and a few thousand injured -- some intended targets but most just unfortunately in the way, and some like the children on the beach just capriciously targeted by bored soldiers who know that no matter what they do they'll never be punished.

Israel will have destroyed a few tunnels, and the rocket stockpiles will have been more or less depleted -- not that they were ever a threat anyway. (Both sides seem to tacitly agree that the symbolism of Gazans defying Israel and shooting rockets over the walls matters much more than the scant damage they cause.) But in the end the cumulative weight of atrocities will embarrass Israel, as should the increasingly genocidal emotions the war is stirring up among Israelis. Israel is on the verge of losing whatever sympathy and support they had built up -- especially in Europe, but even in the US (with the exception of Congress) they are losing their grip. So they'll wind up about where they started. At least that's Israel's best-case scenario. They could hit some world opinion tipping point -- like they did with Turkey in 2008. Or they could give in to their hawks and crank the war machine up, moving from hundreds to thousands or tens or hundreds of thousands of Palestinian deaths. Or they could ignite a sympathetic intifada in the West Bank, which could link up with ISIS. You can't predict what will happen once you go to war.

One thing that's lost in all the chatter about rockets and atrocities is that there is a very simple solution to the Gaza problem (and hence to all those rockets and atrocities): just cut Gaza loose from Israel and let the people there fend for themselves. For many years, debate over how to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict has been divided between a "1-state solution" and a "2-state solution." In the latter there are separate Israeli and Palestinian states alongside each other, dividing up the land of the former British mandate of Palestine. Most scenarios call for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders, and a Palestinian state to be created in the remaining 22% of the land: the small Gaza Strip on the west and the larger West Bank (including East Jerusalem) in the east. Other variations are possible, including "mutual land swaps" (which the "Clinton parameters" and the "Geneva Accords" specified) or Israel just keeping more (the de facto result of Israel's "illegal settlements").

In the "1-state solution" Israel keeps all the land, but also has to grant full and equal rights to all the people living on that land. This has the great advantage of avoiding dismantling the settlements or transferring any additional people, but means that Israel, which prides itself as "the Jewish state," would wind up with a rather large percentage of non-Jews, perhaps even a majority. Most Israelis -- at least most Israeli politicians -- don't like either "solution": as Levi Eshkol described the conquests of the 1967 war, "we received a very nice dowry [the land], but we don't really like the bride [the people]." Since then, Israel has devised a sophisticated system for taking the land while excluding the people, denying the latter even basic human rights, corralling them into ever tighter ghettos, and hoping they'll just go away. The cost of this system is that the conflict grinds on forever: for Israel, this means paying for a huge military and police state, engaging in a propaganda war that eventually turns self-deluding, and suffering the corrosive morality of militarism and racism; for Palestinians it means living under a system of extreme regimentation and regulation, one that degrades their humanity and denies them opportunities all people expect as a human right.

Most Israelis, in short, want no solution. They accept their lot as a people that has been oppressed for millennia because they believe that their state (and only their state) can defend them, and must do so now and forever more. Anyone well acquainted with Jewish history can appreciate that position, but most of us recognizes that we are not doomed to endlessly replicate the past: that conflicts can be resolved fairly and equitably, and that when they are they disappear into the depths of the past. The prerequisite for any solution is to see it as possible. Unfortunately, that's been the undoing of both "1-state" and "2-state" solutions: many Israelis reject the former because they can't stand the idea of sharing their state with so many Palestinians, and they reject the latter because they feel that would mean the end of the Zionist project of reclaiming their "promised land."

For some time, Palestinians have indicated they would be happy with any solution. Political elites may tend toward "2-state" because that would carve out a state they could control, while the less ambitious may just welcome the opportunity to participate in Israel's prosperous economy without the present discrimination and conflict. But either way they have been at the mercy of Israel's rejection of any sort of solution, at best hoping that some higher power (like the US) will weigh in to support their aspirations. They problem there is that at the US becomes ever more inequitable internally, it becomes ever less sensitive to the human rights of people elsewhere, and that leads to this current hideous stalemate.

On the other hand, there is no reason for stalemate on Gaza. In 2005, Israel (under Ariel Sharon) withdrew from and dismantled every one of its settlements in the Gaza Strip, and since then there has been no effort on Israel's part to recolonize Gaza. It should be clear to everyone that Israel has no interest in Gaza -- at least, other than the "security threat" an independent Gaza might create. The West Bank and Jerusalem are complicated places where it is hard (if not impossible) to resolve the conflict, but Gaza is simple: Israel doesn't want it, and any interest Gazans have in uniting with a Palestinian state in the West Bank is something that can be dealt with if/when such a state is created. Why not solve the one piece that can be solved now, and cut Gaza free of Israel?

This seems to obvious to me that I'm astonished that no one is pushing the idea. The closest I've seen to a discussion along these lines is the Hamas ceasefire proposal, which promises a 10-year truce in exchange for the following ten provisions:

  1. Withdrawal of Israeli tanks from the Gaza border.
  2. Freeing all the prisoners that were arrested after the killing of the three youths.
  3. Lifting the siege and opening the border crossings to commerce and people.
  4. Establishing an international seaport and airport which would be under U.N. supervision.
  5. Increasing the permitted fishing zone to 10 kilometers.
  6. Internationalizing the Rafah Crossing and placing it under the supervision of the U.N. and some Arab nations.
  7. International forces on the borders.
  8. Easing conditions for permits to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque.
  9. Prohibition on Israeli interference in the reconciliation agreement.
  10. Reestablishing an industrial zone and improvements in further economic development in the Gaza Strip.

Most of these points are completely reasonable, things that Israel should agree to in any case. They highlight that the basic problem that Gaza has faced since 2005 has been the stranglehold that Israel (and to some extent Egypt) have had over Gaza, and how that's been used to keep Gaza from developing a normal economy and everyday life. In exchange for a more normal life, Hamas is offering a truce -- which is to say, no rockets or mortar shells launched over the wall, and no tunneling under the wall. The demands fall short of sovereignty for Gaza, but they do try to substitute UN for Israeli supervision, and as such they offer some hints as to where Hamas would be willing to limit Gazan sovereignty. One can easily build an independence proposal on top of this ceasefire proposal, and reasonably expect that it would be agreeable to Hamas, the current de facto governor of Gaza.

This is a quick first draft, but this is what I'm thinking of:

  1. This would have to be agreed to by Israel, Hamas, the US, the UN, and Egypt, with additional nations and organizations invited to sign on and participate. The problem here is that the US and Israel regard Hamas as a "terrorist organization," and use that as an excuse to avoid dealing with Gaza diplomatically. Instead, Israel insists on only engaging with Gaza militarily.

  2. The agreement on Gaza should not be regarded as resolving any other issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the status of refugees. The Gaza Strip will be referred to as West Palestine.

  3. The border between Israel and West Palestine will be based on the current wall between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Israel will retain ownership of the wall. West Palestine will exercise sovereignty over all the land on the Gaza side up to the base of the wall.

  4. The UN would assume responsibility for directing the transition of West Palestine to independence within three months of agreement. This includes framing of basic governance law -- a constitution which follows common democratic practices, civil law, protections for basic human rights, and special legal oversight at stated below -- followed by parliamentary and municipal elections. To the extent practicable, existing governmental organizations will continue, subject to UN supervision, during the transitional period. Once a new government is formed, the UN role will be reduced and phased out (except as below). Once formed, West Palestine will join the United Nations, and will be free to join any other international organizations it wishes, and to negotiate and sign international treaties. It will not be allowed to file claims against any other government for acts prior to agreement.

  5. The UN will charter a "development bank" which will manage contributions from donor nations to help rebuild West Palestine. The funds will also act as an insurance plan, with first claim on the funds to Israel to cover any damages caused by acts of terror originating in Gaza. (Conversely, any acts of terror originating in Israel will be judged and charged to Israel. The point here is that any lapses in the peace between Israel and West Palestine, either by government or by individuals, will be converted into cash awards and both governments will be incentivized to reduce any such claims.) The funds should be released at an economically responsible rate. The UN will maintain a special court to judge terrorism claims and to investigate and prosecute corruption.

  6. West Palestine will have no armed forces. Its defense will be ensured by international agreement. Imports will be subject to inspection by the UN (until all agree that this function can be turned over to the West Palestine government). Various armaments, including missiles, mortars, and artillery, will be prohibited. Any illegal armaments currently in the country can be turned over for cash rewards during the first year after agreement.

  7. All militias will be outlawed. All existing political parties will be disbanded (including Hamas and Fatah), and their old names will be disallowed, but political parties under new names can be formed. There will be a general amnesty for acts before agreement. Palestinian prisoners held by Israel will be repatriated to West Palestine, provided that's their request and the government of West Palestine agrees to take them.

  8. The government of West Palestine will have full responsibility for its air and sea space, the latter out to at least 10 kilometers from shore line. Projects will be established for developing airport and seaport facilities. West Palestine will be free to exchange goods with any nations it desires, subject to UN review on prohibited items. Israel and Egypt are encouraged to trade with West Palestine through their land ports.

  9. The UN may at its discretion install monitors on either side of the borders between West Palestine and Israel and/or Egypt. The monitors will have unimpeded access to report any suspected border violations, but will have no responsibility for actually patrolling the borders. The monitors will be withdrawn from a border when both countries (West Palestine and Israel or Egypt) agree.

  10. West Palestine will issue appropriate papers, including passports, for its residents. All residents as of the agreement will be citizens of West Palestine. West Palestinian citizenship will not affect refugee status, although we recommend that Israel and West Palestine join on a program to settle the refugee status of Palestinians displaced from Israel, and to replace current "refugee camps" with permanent housing.

I think this covers six or seven of Hamas' ten points. It allows Gaza to develop a normal economy and civil society. There should be no cases where Israelis continue to hold power over residents of Gaza. Israel's security concerns are satisfied in several ways: by limiting the military power of the West Palestinian state; by outlawing a wide range of military hardware; and by imposing a substantial cost to the state for any acts by Gaza residents which actually harm Israeli life and/or property. On the other hand, Israel is similarly penalized for any hostilities against Gazan life and/or property. If these schemes prove insufficient, it's always possible that Israel could withdraw from the treaty and declare war on West Palestine -- the agreement does not in any way limit Israel's warmaking capability, nor for that matter does it reduce whatever deterrence Israel enjoys from its overwhelming firepower advantage. I didn't include anything about Hamas' demand that Israel back its tanks away from the border because I thought that level of regulation unnecessary -- all that is really necessary is that Israel not fire tank shells, or any kind of ordnance, into Gaza. As long as they are not used, where Israel parks its tanks is of little practical concern.

The imposed constitution is something Gazans may not appreciate, but it greatly expedites the transition to self-rule, and it provides reassurance in many ways that the resulting government will remain democratic and will respect individual rights of all its citizens. The constitution should be broadly open to a mix of capitalist and socialist approaches, to be determined by the legislature. (I suspect this will actually prove to be a bigger sticking point with American ideologists than the lack of a sharia foundation will be with Muslims, although the latter will likely get more print.) The constitution should eventually be amendable, although perhaps not for 10-20 years (subject to UN approval) to give it a chance to work.

The matter of donor money is also critically important, both because it is urgently needed and because it provides an elegant insurance system to reinforce the peace. Personally, I think a lot of that should come from Israel, which I regard as solely responsible for the destruction and degradation of life in Gaza especially in the last decade (although really going back to 1948), but fat chance of that, so the world needs to step up. Eventually, of course, the money will run out and West Palestine will need to stand on its own economy. It is important, therefore, that the government build an efficient tax system. I haven't said anything about currency, figuring that's a detail other people are more competent in. The other especially important thing I've left out is water. I wanted to minimize the burdens imposed on Israel, but some fair allocation of the miniscule Gaza watershed is essential.

There will no doubt be other technical issues to work out. Some may be best worked out bilaterally between Israel and West Palestine. Questions like permits to pray at Al-Aqsa certainly fall in that category. While that may be something Gazans care deeply about, it doesn't strike me as a war-or-peace issue. To gain any agreement, the international community (not least the US) is going to have to put pressure on a very recalcitrant Israeli government, and that's easier to do if the demands are minimal and separable. Israel's security policy regarding Gaza is both malicious and demonstrably ineffective, so that has to change. But while it would be a nice thing to allow more personal travel between countries, that isn't a necessary condition for peace. The only necessary conditions for peace are to stop the bombing, the shooting, the blockade, and to allow all people on all sides to live a normal life. That's what this proposal does.

The decision to disband Hamas in Gaza is largely cosmetic: it will simply make everyone more comfortable to bury past terrorism with the agreement. It also allows Hamas to go on in the West Bank, doing whatever it is they are doing. I thought about adding more strictures separating West Palestine groups from any sort of work in the West Bank. The fact is that after agreement the conditions will be very different and incomparable. The question of refugees is one that may need more thought, as it is one thing that remains a common problem for a free Gaza and an occupied West Bank, but it is a thorny problem, here at least best swept under the rug.

One reason no one talks about a Gaza-only solution is that at least some people on both sides have been seduced by the notion that it is possible to come up with a "final status" resolution. Arguing against this is the fact that no one has come close, but also the more general point that nothing is ever really final. So I think one of the basic principles of resolving this conflict is that we should always do what we can when we can do it, then take stock and consider problems remain and what else can be done about them. I have no doubt that a Gaza-only solution will help move all sides closer to an eventual West Bank solution.

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