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Monday, September 2, 2024

Music Week

September archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 42905 [42869] rated (+36), 30 [34] unrated (-4).

Yesterday's Speaking of Which slacked off a bit, only citing 141 links, less than half of the previous week's 290 (although the word count only dropped by 28%, as I got off on more tangents; also last week included an extra day plus extra adds, whereas this one appeared on schedule, and I haven't tallied up what little I've added since).

Music Week is also coming in a day short. Rating count got a boost as my dive into Houston Person's old records carried over from last week, and led me to a new one. Also the A-list bounced back after only one record each in three of the last four weeks (but 7 for the week of August 20. Three of those came from promos I had been sitting on until their late August release dates. (An extra day would have added Patricia Brennan's Breaking Stretch, but that's banked for next week.)

I'm still updating the 2024 Jazz list, which has already reached a ridiculous A-list length (70+3 new music, 16+1 old music). I haven't sorted out the Non-Jazz yet, but at this point it's unlikely that I have half as many albums in any subdivision. Four pop records I tried I played multiple times before leaving them in the B+ ranks: Sabrina Carpenter, Lainey Wilson, Buoys, Magdalena Bay. The latter's Mercurial World was one of my favorite records of 2021, but only hints at that level toward the end. Same fate seems likely for Beebadoobee's This Is How Tomorrow Moves next week, but there's a lot to like there.

I started to write up a "to do" list in my Aug. 30 notebook entry, and hope to get back to it soon. I did cross a couple items off today already: I updated and did the indexing for August Streamnotes. I was surprised to find I have more patience for that kind of work early in the day.

Joan Didion's Where I was From is the first (of three) books I picked up in the brick-and-mortar bookstore last week. I've never read her fiction, but have read two books of political reporting: Political Fictions (2002), and Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 (2003), by which time she was a recovering Republican. Less of a memoir than I expected, but interesting as history, even as drawn from novels. I have more typical political books "on the nightstand" (Zack Beauchamp, Danielle Allen, Henry Farrell/Abraham Newman), but figured I could use a break.

New records reviewed this week:

The Buoys: Lustre (2024, Sony): Australian indie rock band, Zoe Catterall the lead singer and only constant member since 2016. This seems to be their first album, following several EPs (as far back as 2017). On first play, they're about as good as a dozen similar bands going back at least to the Go-Gos in the early 1980s. B+(***) [sp]

Bex Burch: There Is Only Love and Fear (2023, International Anthem): Percussionist, from London, but ranges far and wide (Ghana and Berlin are mentioned), makes her own instruments, calls this first album "messy minimalism." It's messy, but that's where the charm emerges. A- [sp]

Gunhild Carling: Jazz Is My Lifestyle! (2024, Jazz Art): Jazz singer-songwriter from Sweden, started in her cornetist father's trad-oriented big band, also plays trombone, likes it bold and brassy. Group credit could be expanded "Big Band with Strings" (Prague Strings Chamber Orchestra). B+(***) [cd]

Sabrina Carpenter: Short n' Sweet (2024, Island): This month's pop sensation, started posting YouTube videos when she was 10, became a Disney teen actor, first album at 16, fourth at 25. Slick, or sleek, took me a while, and I'm still not there, not that I quarrel with "refreshingly light" or "cheeky, clever, and effortlessly executed." B+(***) [sp]

Bill Charlap Trio: And Then Again (2024, Blue Note): Mainstream pianist, albums started on Criss Cross in 1995, moved to Blue Note in 2000. Trio with Peter Washington (bass) and Kenny Washington (drums) formed in 1997, their boast as "one of the great working jazz groups of our day" well earned. Eight standards, with Barron, Monk, and Brubeck from the jazz side, the show tunes even more impeccable. B+(***) [sp]

Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Heal (2024, Top Dawg/Capitol): Rapper Jaylah Hickman, third mixtape, has a couple EPs. B+(**) [sp]

Girl in Red: I'm Doing It Again Baby! (2024, Columbia): Norwegian indie pop singer-songwriter Marie Ulven Ringheim, second album after a couple EPs, short at 27:51 (10 songs). B+(**) [sp]

The Haas Company [Featuring Frank Gambale]: Vol. 2: Celestial Latitude (2024, Psychiatric): Drummer Steve Haas, credits keyboardist Pete Drungle as the fusion group's musical director, with Gambale the featured guest guitarist (replacing Andy Timmons from Vol. 1, an improvement). B+(**) [cd]

Javon Jackson/Nikki Giovanni: Javon & Nikki Go to the Movies (2024, Solid Jackson/Palmetto): Tenor saxophonist, started with Art Blakey 1987-90, led his first album on Criss Cross in 1991, moved to Blue Note 1994-99, then to Palmetto through 2008. He's been much less prominent since then, mostly on his own label, but got some notice in 2022 for his album with the famed poet (22 years his senior). They return here with a mixed concept album. She's featured on three tracks, spread out to make room for the movie-themed standards sung superbly by Nicole Zuraitis, lavishly burnished with Jackson's saxophone. A- [cd]

Magdalena Bay: Imaginal Disk (2024, Mom + Pop): Synthpop duo, Mica Tenenbaum (vocals) and Matthew Lewin (arrangements), with lots of strings and brass. I thought their first album was terrific, but this one is less immediately appealing. B+(**) [sp]

Mavi: Shadowbox (2024, Mavi 4 Mayor Music): Rapper Omavi Ammu Minder, grew up in Charlotte, NC; third album since 2019. B+(**) [sp]

Nicole Mitchell and Ballaké Sissoko: Bamako Chicago Sound System (2017 [2024], FPE): The AACM flautist hosts the Malian kora player and his cohort, most notably Fassery Diabaté (balafon) and Fatim Kouyaté (vocals), for a session that's much more theirs than hers, even with backing from additional jazz musicians Jeff Parker (guitar), Joshua Abrams (bass), and JoVia Armstrong (percussion). This is pretty delightful. A- [sp]

Houston Person/Peter Beets: Live in Holland: Houston Person Meets Peter Beets Trio (2024, Maxanter): I get nervous when I see a live album without the recording date, especially when the star up around 89. His first notes here sound as strong as ever, but that was also true of his eature turn in Emmet Cohen's Master Legacy Series Volume 5, which I have reliably dated to 2023. Beets is a Dutch pianist I should probably learn more about: he has several albums on Criss Cross (Chopin Meets the Blues is one on a recurring theme), other albums back to 1997, ranging from Concertgebouw to an ICP quartet with Han Bennink, with an Oscar Peterson tribute along the way. Beets is in Peterson mode here. Norman Granz would love this. A- [sp]

Catherine Russell/Sean Mason: My Ideal (2023 [2024], Dot Time): Standards singer, eighth album since 2006, had a famous father but their lives only overlapped seven years, with a great distance between his early peak in the late 1920s and her late emergence (first album at 50). Backed with just piano here, a young pianist steeped in blues and stride, which makes her sound rather like Bessie Smith. (I'm assuming that the August 2003 recording date is a typo.) A- [cd]

Taliba Safiya: Black Magic (2024, self-released, EP): Singer-songwriter from Memphis, some rhythm, more blues, first release, seven songs, 19:17. B+(*) [sp]

Sault: Acts of Faith (2024, Forever Living Originals): British r&b group, members mysterious, eleventh album since 2019, one track of 32:09. Their best stuff reminds me of Chic. The rest reminds me they're not as good as Chic. B+(*) [yt]

Philip Weberndoerfer: Tides (2023 [2024], Shifting Paradigm): Guitarist from Germany, 26, based in New York, seems to be his first album, seven originals plus two covers, backed by bass and drums, with saxophonist Dayna Stephens joining on five tracks. Billed as "a sonic portrayal of the human condition," I found it reassuringly pleasant. B+(**) [cd]

Lainey Wilson: Whirlwind (2024, BBR): Country singer-songwriter, fifth album since 2014, sounds great at first, upbeat, one could even say rocks out. B+(***) [sp]

Miguel Zenón: Golden City (2023 [2024], Miel Music): Alto saxophonist, from Puerto Rico, has explored his roots music extensively, but is mostly a postbop guy, with an Ornette Coleman tribute on his résumé. Some Latin tinge here (but not much, or at least not the main point), in an expansive set of pieces commissioned by the Hewlett Foundation and SFJAZZ, themed for San Francisco, performed by an all-star nonet that hits all the bases. A- [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

None.

Old music:

Ashtyn Barbaree: Debut EP (2018, self-released, EP): Country/Americana Singer-songwriter from Fayetteville, plays ukulele and guitar, voice somewhat quirky, backed with guitar, piano, bass, and drums, for six songs, 19:31. Followed up with a 2022 album, and has a new one coming out late October. B+(*) [bc]

Ashtyn Barbaree: Better Luck Next Time (2022, self-released): First album (9 songs, 29:10), after an EP (2018) and a couple of singles. Nice enough, but little stands out. B+(*) [bc]

Houston Person: Broken Windows, Empty Hallways (1972 [2004], Prestige): The tenor saxophonist's tenth album on Prestige, a fairly large group arranged and conducted by Billy Ver Planck, with Cedar Walton on piano and Ernie Hayes on organ. Reissue adds a second album from the same sessions, originally released as Sweet Buns & Barbeque. Both feature recent rock tunes, the first starts with Randy Newman and moves on to "Mr. Bojangles" and "Imagine" before slipping in a Monk and an original; the second kicks off with a swell "A Song for You" and winds up funky. B+(***) [sp]

Houston Person: A Little Houston on the Side (1977-94 [1999], 32 Jazz): Compiled from the tenor saxophonist's Muse albums, not so much his as the occasions where he appeared on others' albums. Discogs has artist credits, and undated source albums (some from other 32 Jazz comps with their own lapses), so so this could really use better documentation. Two Etta Jones vocals, one from Charles Brown. He is solid as ever. B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: My Romance (1998, HighNote): Same quartet, but slower, as Person's evolving into one of the great ballad saxophonists. B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: Soft Lights (1999, HighNote): Grady Tate takes over on drums, and guitarist Russell Malone joins in -- adding another dimension, where more saxophone might have been better. B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: In a Sentimental Mood (2000, HighNote): Quartet with Stan Hope (piano), George Kaye (bass), and Chip White (drums), playing well-worn standards. B+(***) [sp]

Houston Person: Blue Velvet (2001, HighNote): Quartet with Richard Wyands (piano), Ray Drummond (bass), and Grady Tate (drums), for another luscious batch of standards. B+(***) [sp]

Houston Person With Ron Carter: Dialogues (2000 [2002], HighNote): Tenor sax and bass duo, a third album after two on Muse: Something in Common (1990), and Now's the Time (1993). B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: Sentimental Journey (2002, HighNote): Another very nice set of standards, a little more upbeat, backed by Richard Wyands (piano), Peter Washington (bass), and Grady Tate (drums), with guitarist Russell Malone in on four (of nine) tracks. B+(***) [sp]

Houston Person: Social Call (2003, HighNote): Another batch of standards, mostly drawing on jazz composers -- leads off with title piece by Gigi Gryce, followed by Tadd Dameron, Horace Silver, and Benny Carter, with Cedar Walton and "Daydream" coming later. Quintet with Stan Hope (piano), Paul Bollenbeck (guitgar), Per-Ola Gadd (bass), and Chip White (drums). He's been so consistently superb, and so casual about it, that it's picking any album as a breakthrough is arbitrary. But no ballad master has ever offered a better "Bewitched," and that's just one example. Bollenback is an especially nice fit. By the way, Person's next album, To Etta With Love, is even better. A- [sp]

Houston Person: The Melody Lingers On (2014, HighNote): I heard nearly all of his albums from 2004's To Etta With Love on in real time, but this one slipped by. Quintet with Lafayette Harris (piano), Steve Nelson (vibes), Ray Drummond (bass), and Lewis Nash (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Houston Person: Something Personal (2015, HighNote): Another easy one, with Nelson (vibes) again, John Di Martino (piano), James Chirillo (guitar 4/10 tracks), Drummond and Nash, the title song the only original. B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: Rain or Shine (2017, HighNote): Past 80, his duo album with Ron Carter, Chemistry, was one of my top albums in 2016. Here he augments his quartet -- Lafayette Harris (piano), Matthew Parish (bass), Vincent Ector (drums) -- with guitar (Rodney Jones on 8/9 cuts) and cornet (Warren Vache on 5). B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Ashtyn Barbaree: Sent Through the Ceiling (Artists 3 60) [10-25]
  • Anne Sajdera: It's Here (Bijuri) [09-20]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Speaking of Which

I opened this file about noon, Wednesday, August 28. First thing I did was to revise the template. Most obvious thing was to move the VP candidates (plus Biden) into the "and other D/R" sections. Also some minor rephrasing. The three Israel sections overlap some, but reflect different focuses: the first focuses on what Israel does directly, but also includes items on Israel's domestic politics; the second focuses on Israel's relationship to the US, and what American political elites think and do about Israel; the third focuses on the part of Israel's propaganda war directed at others, and their responses to the atrocities (the word "genocide" comes up here). Further subdivisions are possible, as is overlap, and sometimes I just try to keep articles by single authors together. I tend to put pieces on Israel's provocations with Lebanon, Iran, and their so-called proxies into the second section, as my view is that Israel's cultivation of regional enemies is mostly geared toward keeping the Americans looking at Iran and away from Gaza and the West Bank.

Ukraine and Russia still seems to need their own section, but the broader context is the notion of America as imperial hegemon, even if in fact it's defined more as an arms market where loyal customers are counted as allies, and anyone who goes DIY and/or shops on the black market is regarded as an enemy. For now, I'm putting pieces on the arms cartel in the World section, along with whatever scraps of world news that don't slot directly under Israel or Ukraine/Russia. In theory, I should be covering news that has nothing to do with America's imperial ego, but few such stories reach my attention. So, for now this remains a grab bag.

Three topical sections -- law, climate/environment, economy -- cover most of what crops up domestically (sometimes overflowing). "Other stories" is a catch all, from which I've broken out certain recurrent themes, which may on occasion be empty.

Sunday, early afternoon, eager to get to a delayed breakfast. With 82 links, 7415 words, this is way less than last week's 290 link, 15528 word monstrosity. And already I'm dead tired, disgusted, and just want to get it over with, so today's plan is to just go through the motions, and fuck it. In essence, I feel like I already know everything I need to know, at least about the 2024 elections, where we will try to fend off the grave peril of wrong-headed Republicans with the vague hopes of naďve and uncertain Democrats. At this point, further research and reporting is only likely to show that the Republicans are even worse than imagined, and also that the Democrats aren't quite as good as we hoped. Even that can be readily intuited from what we already know -- not to totally dismiss the "devil in the details," which I'm pretty sure will be quite appalling.

At this point, I'd much rather return to the woefully incomplete "to do" list I started in my August 30 notebook entry. At least there are some tasks on that list that I can reasonably expect to accomplish -- some within days, more in months, some that will (like so much else) inevitably slip through the cracks. Today's little bit of self-realization is that I'm basically an engineer: I deal with things by making plans to change them by practical measures in desirable directions.

Finally posted this after midnight. Link count way down this week, but word count not so much. Uncertain at this point how much (little) I managed to cover, but enough for now. Anything extra added on Monday will be flagged.

Monday evening: did add a few bits here and there, but nothing major.

Top story threads:

Israel:

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

  • Michael Arria: [08-29] 'I think we've reached a tipping point': James Zogby on Uncommitted and the DNC: "James Zogby speaks to Mondoweiss about the DNC's snub of the Uncommitted movement, and what it will take for Washington to shift on Palestine."

  • Michael Crowley/Eric Schmitt/Edward Wong: [08-29] Inside the frantic US efforts to contain a Mideast disaster: "A bigger disaster may have been avoided, even as the region continues to teeter on the brink of wider war."

  • Daniel DeCamp: [08-28] Biden was told Gaza pier would undermine efforts to get Israel to allow more aid into Gaza. Source here is:

  • Joe Gill: [08-23] Kamala Harris's speech killed any hope she would end the Gaza genocide. Only if you hoped that she would use the bully pulpit provided by her nomination to publicly oppose what Israel is doing. Regardless of her feelings, I don't see any political advantage in her breaking with Biden and/or Israel, while to do so could invite peril. She is, after all, running a popular front campaign against Donald Trump, who is clearly an even worse option if you style yourself as "pro-Palestinian," so her present course doesn't hurt her much there. On the other hand, she needs to hold onto "pro-Israel" donors, many with long ties to the Democratic Party but so singly focused on Israel that they could well defect to Trump.

    There is still some reason to hope that when she is free to make policy, and freed of the obligation to follow Biden, that she will do a better job of restraining Netanyahu than Biden has done. There is some evidence to support this hope -- she has been more disciplined than Biden in calling for ceasefire, and she has been more credible in recognizing the harm done to Palestinians -- as well as the reasoning revealed in the logic of her campaign. What's much harder to gauge is how much she could (and should) influence Israel policy as vice-president. I could only speculate on that, and I don't want to, other than to point out that only Israel (which right now, and for the foreseeable future, means Netanyahu) can stop the genocide, and really needs to change much more.

    Even as president, the only thing Harris could do would be to tip Netanyahu's cost-benefit analysis toward less egregious policies (which could still be pretty awful). Even if Harris were tempted to burn all of her good will with Israel and institute maximum-level sanctions, Israelis are at least as likely to respond by hunkering down like North Korea as by reforming like South Africa -- and with their arsenal and in confirmation of their paranoia, they could turn more militant than North Korea.

    I just got a refresher course on Bush's Iraq war propaganda from reading Lapham's Age of Folly, and could easily imagine recycling it to gin up a regime change operation in Israel, but nobody's going to do it: the architects of that folly were then-and-now staunch fans of Israel, while those who thought better (or who painfully learned their lesson) are likely to point out that a "splendid little war" against Israel can go wrong in many more ways than the Iraq one did -- for one thing, Israel actually has WMD; also, while that line about "Saddam gassing his own people" hit its target, hardly anyone thinks to think of Palestinians as Israel's "own people" -- the dehumanization is far too complete for that.

    Also on Harris and Israel (allowing me to compartmentalize and exclude these articles from her section):

    • While I was writing the [PS] on Risen, I sketched out some "unsolicited advice" I would give the Harris campaign, if I could possibly see any way to get the message through. (Down there, I talk a bit about why I've never been able to do anything like that, then went off on another tangent where I could have just offered a parade of failing examples.) Anyhow, makes more sense to move that comment up here (although by the time I post this it will probably be redundant to other comments in this section.

    Anyhow, my advice to the Harris campaign is this:

    When asked about Gaza, don't start with your rote mantra about "Israel's right to defend itself." Anyone who cares has already heard that a million times already and will instantly turn you off and never credit another word you way. What you have to start with is acknowledgement of the immense suffering the war has caused, to both sides if you really must (and you don't really have to get into numbers here), and insist that the war has to stop, as soon as possible. You can mention the hostages at this point, if you really must, but understand that the hostages were taken to negotiate a ceasefire, not for prisoner swaps. End the war, and the hostages (what few are left; like Trump, Netanyahu only admires those who didn't allow themselves to be captured) will be freed (while there will still be thousands of Palestinians in Israel's concentration camps; even if they have to replenish them, they're a renewable resource). And then, after stressing the importance of peace, and human rights, and dignity and security for all (sure, both-sides this, but make sure you don't slight the Palestinians), then segue to how you're working around the clock with Israel to make peace happen, on terms, of course, that fully take into account Israel's security and well-being (including, if you really must, its much-abused "right to self-defense").

    I'm not even asking her to say anything different from what she's already saying. Just put it in a different order, so it gets heard not just by pro-Israel donors but by genuinely concerned Americans (the donors are smart enough to wait to the end for their reassurance; they've been speaking in code for aeons now). Also, Harris has a bit of unique value-added here. I think most people realize that Israel is completely in charge of their war: they started it (long before Oct. 7, which was merely a hiccup they decided to magnify), and they alone can end it, which they will only when they decide they've had enough, that it serves no further purpose.

    For nearly everyone else, all you can do is speak up, bear witness, demonstrate, maybe vote (but almost never directly), all of which is ultimately directed at making Israeli leaders think better, whether through conscience or through self-interested cost-benefit analysis (which is what BDS aims at). We've spent a lot of energy trying to get Biden, Harris, other prominent Democrats to do what we've been doing, which is to speak out, but they are actually very different from us: they don't have to speak out, because they're close enough to speak to, if not the right people, at least to people closer to the right people, to make their appeals personal.

    Unfortunately, the few people in that position are severely compromised, but their loyalty should earned them the right to a hearing. And in some cases, they have some power to tip that cost-benefit analysis. Harris is already in that general orbit, which is part of the reason why she has to be discreet in public, in order to operate in private. We should respect that, but she should also give us some sign that we can trust her discretion. Reframing her answer does that, or at least helps. And electing her president will increase her leverage -- assuming she wants to use it.

    I think she can and will, but when she does, she will be subtle and disciplined about it. Netanyahu is a bully, someone who has taken great delight in humiliating American presidents (going back to his Wye River sleight-of-hand with Clinton, and his pre-emptive attack on Gaza between Obama's election and inauguration, but he found Trump such an easy mark that when Biden came along he found he could finally get away with being sadistic), but I'd venture a guess that she has some experience in handling his type. Still, there is no way she can simply dictate terms. The best she can do is to look for tolerable compromises, which she's more likely to find and sell by being sympathetic to Israel than by becoming a clear-headed critic of Zionist settler-colonialism.

    That won't necessarily, or even likely, lead to good solutions, but damn near anything would be better than blank-check support for genocide -- which is where we're at, and where we're stuck, until someone in a position to do something thinks better of it. (I've spent 20+ years racking my brain for solutions that would help a bit while still being acceptable to the racist-paranoid mindset of contemporary Zionism. My "pro-Palestinian" friends hate this line of thought, but I see no other as possible, at least within any reasonable time frame.)

    Unfortunately, I fear that no one in such a position -- and we can comfortably include Kamala Harris in that sharply circumscribed circle -- is able to think better of it. They wouldn't be allowed the chance if they could. So we have every reason to be profoundly pessimistic about Israel, about America's relationship with Israel, and about the possibility that Harris might finally change course. Still, I give her slightly better odds than Trump, and with no other alternatives this cycle, I'm inclined to cut her considerable slack. But we can't stop talking about the problem, and we do need to remain aware that she is still very much a part of it.

  • Daniel Levy: [08-27] The US diplomatic strategy on Israel and Gaza is not working: Well, it never has worked. It took Ben Gurion almost six months to realize Eisenhower was serious about Israel leaving Sinai in 1956, and that was pretty much the last time any American insisted on a point. Maybe Carter's opposition to Israel's first Lebanon war -- which Reagan allowed the rerun in 1982, much to everyone's eventual embarrassment. And sure, there was some mutual make-believe, like Israel accepting the UN "land for peace" resolutions, or the nods to a "two-state solution." But from Clinton on, no one took the charades seriously. Netanyahu not only stopped playing, he took advantage of American timidity to make himself look like he's the strong one. Meanwhile, the Americans look like weak fools with no principles or even interests, while being complicit in war crimes and crimes against human rights.

  • Branko Marcetic: [08-29] Biden may be the president who kills the two-state solution: "Israel is only doing this because it has learned that there is nothing it can ever do that would make Biden cut off the weapons and military support it needs to carry on its spree of violence."

  • Taha Ozhan: [08-27] Israel is rudderless, and Washington is going down with the ship.

  • Jeremy Scahill:

    • [09-01] How the US enabled Netanyahu to sabotage a Gaza ceasefire.

    • [08-30] Israel's violent invasion of West Bank parallels the early stages of war on Gaza: UN rapporteur on Palestine. One thing to note here (and I have no idea how credible this reporting is) is:

      On Thursday, Abdel Hakim Hanini, a senior Hamas official, suggested that the group was preparing to engage in suicide bombings inside Israel, a tactic that became common during the Second Intifada, which spanned 2000-2005, but had ended almost entirely after 2006 when Hamas and other groups announced an end to the practice.

      "The resistance in the West Bank has begun changing its tactics and returning to martyrdom operations to strike at the occupation within the occupied interior," Hamas said in a statement outlining Hanini's announcement. "The resistance's change in tactics is a result of the settlers and the occupation government crossing red lines in their crimes against the Palestinian people." Hanini also called on the security forces of the Palestinian Authority to participate in a popular uprising against Israeli occupation forces and settlers.

      This is exactly what Netanyahu's right-wing allies have been hoping (or should I say agitating?) for: a panic and pretense to extend Israeli military operations and significantly increase their destructive force. One might as well call this genocide -- Israel is less concerned with counting scalps than with reducing the infrastructure that makes life viable, so that ultimately whatever Palestinians are still alive will realize that their only hope is to emigrate, emptying the land for more settlers. It would be a sad mistake for any Palestinians to invite such a savage response, but it would also be a sign of hopelessness -- a desperate resolve, once cornered, to make their menacers pay as dear a price as possible. And make no mistake, while there is no doubt that Palestinians would suffer far worse, a surge of Palestinian violence would take a toll that ordinary Israelis aren't used to. During the second intifada, Israeli casualties rose to such an extent that Israel's kill ratio sunk to around 4-to-1, as opposed to typical ratios between 10-to-1 and 100-to-1. (For comparison, the kill ratio since and including Oct. 7 is at least 30-to-1, and probably double that, yet Israel's leaders are showing no signs that their blood lust is abating.)

  • Donald Shaw/David Moore: [08-27] AIPAC officially surpasses $100 million in spending on 2024 elections.

  • Yoana Tchoukleva: [08-31] An arms embargo on Israel is not a radical idea -- it's the law: "Halting military aid to Israel is the bare minimum the U.S. can do to stop the Gaza genocide. An arms embargo is not only supported by 80% of Democratic Party voters, it is demanded by international and U.S. law."

Israel vs. world opinion:

Election notes:

Trump:

  • Alex Abad-Santos: [08-29] Your guide to the Brittany Mahomes-Donald Trump drama, such as it is: "Why everyone suddenly cares about Brittany Mahomes' politics." Everyone?

  • Margaret Hartmann:

  • Sarah Jones:

    • [08-30] Misogyny is about power: A pretty generic title, but filed here because the first line is: "Donald Trump's supporters in search of apparel have no shortage of options." The generalization is also true, and one can go even wider and explore the intoxication of power and how seeking to solve problems through its application is not just bad philosophy but should more properly be regarded as a form of mental illness. But back to Trump:

      By attacking Harris's gender, Trump demonstrates his own masculinity and makes himself seem more and more like the strongman that he -- and his followers -- believes the U.S. needs. Trump was the vehicle for a vengeance fantasy in 2016, and that remains true in 2024. To followers, his pursuit of raw power is a means to bully liberals and the left into submission. . . . The sexual remarks that Trump reposted this month are a way for him and his followers to put the vice-president back in her place.

      As I've observed on many occasions, the essence of conservatism is the belief that has their proper place, and their faith in force to keep people there.

    • [08-28] The 'pro-life' policies hurting women: These specific examples mostly come from Arkansas, but they are part of a much wider trend. Filed here to keep the author's articles together, but also because Trump is the single person most responsible for allowing things like this to happen. Remember that in November. And don't believe anything he says to the contrary . . . or to be safe, anything he says at all.

  • Ed Kilgore:

  • Casey Michel: [09-01] Trump is making new, sketchy foreign business deals: "From Saudi Arabia to Serbia, despots are cozying up, likely in preparation for a second term." Every one of these deals is an advertisement for ending Trump's political career. If I was a TV exec, I'd hire Michael Moore to turn this story into a documentary. At this point it would be a rush job to beat the election, which would make it a public service as well as useful history. He could always redo it as a film later, especially with a happy ending: Trump loses, the business deals crash, he finally goes to jail. And if worse comes to worse, he could continue it as a series, because crooks like Trump don't just stop of their own accord. They have to be busted.

  • Ben Lefebvre: [08-30] 'Political poison': How Trump's tariffs could raise gasoline prices.

  • Chris Lehmann: [08-28] The Trump campaign is now running on pure contempt: "Both Trump and JD Vance are incapable of hiding their lack of basic humanity."

  • Shawn McCreesh: [09-01] Meandering? Off-script? Trump insists his 'weave' is oratorical genius. "Former President Donald J Trump's speeches often wander from topic to topic. He insists there is an art to stitching them all together."

  • Nicole Narea: [08-23] Does RFK Jr. dropping out of the presidential race help Trump? "The weirdest 2024 candidate endorsed Trump."

  • Nia Prater:

    • [08-27] RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard are joining the Trump transition team: I noted this story last week, dismissing it with "sounds like something, but probably isn't." Here I should note that while it probably isn't, it could actually be something. Kennedy and Gabbard have a lot of traits that discredit them as presidential candidates, but the one thing they do have is pretty consistent antiwar track records, which they are not just committed to, but are eager to use against Biden and Harris, who are not exactly invulnerable to such charges. Moreover, they can say that they left the Democratic Party because they opposed how hawkish the Party had become -- so hawkish that even Trump would be a safer and more sensible foreign policy option. It remains to be seen how credible they'll be, because, well, on most other issues they're nuts, but on this one, they could be more credible than Trump himself to people with real concerns. I've said all along that if Biden doesn't get his wars under control, he will lose in November. The switch to Harris gives Democrats a partial reprieve, but the one thing she is most seriously vulnerable on is the suspicion that Democrats are going to continue saddling us with senseless and hopeless foreign wars. Kennedy and Gabbard could be effective at driving that point home -- sure, not to rank-and-file Democrats, who are generally much more dovish than their leaders, and who are even more wary of Republicans on that count, but to the "undecideds," who know little, even of what little they know.

    • [08-29] What does Jack Smith's new indictment against Trump mean?

    • [08-30] Trump throws another Hail Mary on the hush-money case.

  • Andrew Prokop: [08-30] The Trump Arlington National Cemetery controversy, explained: "Shoving, insults, politicizing soldiers' gravesites." For more on this:

  • Nikki McCann Ramirez:

  • James Risen: Why the media won't report the truth about Trump: "The political press has doubled down on horse-race coverage of the election, overlooking the threat Trump poses to democracy." The mainstream press does a half-assed job of covering nearly everything and everyone, but they seem to be exceptionally inept when it comes to Donald Trump. I have a few theories about why, and I'd love to see an article that explored them, but this piece, with its historical review of election books from 1960 on, never gets to the point. One clue to the problem appears in the title: the idea that there is such a thing as "truth about Trump." Sure, it's a natural idea for the star writer for a publiciation that prides itself on muckracking. But is there any such thing?

    Sure, Trump has a history, so journalists can write about what he's said and done in the past, and how rarely one has anything to do with the other. Still, few journalists are up to the task of sorting fact from fraud from utter bullshit, which seems to exist in such profusion for no better reason than to camouflage underlying meaning -- if, indeed, there is any, for like Churchill's "armada of lies" you only have his word that there is some "precious truth" somewhere. The only sensible way to report on what Trump says would be to put the quotes into a table, each one followed by a note explaining the fallacy. (Feel free to apply the technique to other politicians.) The revelation about Trump is that there is nothing else leftover. Journalists stuck with following him around can file each day's article under the same headline: "Trump lies again." Or, if they want to mix it up a bit, "Trump is a pompous asshole (again)."

    Having disposed of the horse's orifices, journalists might consider doing some actual reporting. The first thing they need to work on is making the campaign more transparent: Who are the operatives? How does their polling direct messaging? What psychology does the messaging attempt to manipulate? Where is the money coming from? And what do donors expect for their money? Who's thinking about staffing? What are all those eager staff-in-waiting plotting to do? Again, it's fair to ask these same questions of Democrats, but you really need to start with Trump, because with him the real interests are buried so extra deep.

    One mistake many people make is to assume that presidents and administrations go hand-in-hand. While the president has to sign off on who does what, and can oversee an administration through cabinet meetings, directives, and the occasional staff shake up, harmony requires a degree of focus that Trump simply is incapable of. If Trump wins, he will quickly sign off on whatever slate of generic Republican functionaries and donors he's presented with, and they will go off and try to do whatever they've long wanted to do.[*] Sure, they may be a bit Trumpier this time than they were in 2016, but that's just fashion sense. All Republicans, including Trump, have been marching to the same ideological drumbeat for decades (as popularized by Fox News, and articulated by their "think tanks," in forms like "Project 2025").

    Trump is the Republicans' leader not because he leads (except in the fashion sense) but because he's the perfect diversion: he keeps the media focused on side-issues and trivia, all the while cultivating an air of deniability, as in how can you possibly believe he believes in anything? Given how many of his fans seem to be in on the joke, it's really quite amazing that so few journalists can figure it out. (Of course, they wouldn't last long if they did, nor would anyone who did and still had an ounce of self-respect stick around, so you might say that natural selection favors gullible journalists on the Trump beat.)

    The main reason for wanting Trump to lose is to avoid having to survive four more years of Republican administration, but Trump as president presents its own discomforts, chiefly in the form of embarrassment. As president, most of what he would do may be harmless -- he'll watch a lot of TV, tweet, golf, pose for pictures, talk nonsensically, waddle absent-mindedly, hold campaign rallies even after being term-limited, make occasional "perfect phone calls," and run his family grafts (or, like the government, allow them to be run in his name). Any president can stupefy, but no one else has ever come close to his level. If this were a purely aesthetic matter, I might not mind seeing the exalted office of the presidency reduced to buffoonery. But the office has too much power to entrust anyone like him, let alone to someone whose worst instincts are reinforced by the malevolence of his party.

    [*] Journalists would be well advised to dig up John Nichols' 2017 quickie, Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America. The book on Trump's initial cabinet picks was soon obsoleted as several subjects self-destructed almost instantly, but it's a useful empirical account of on how Trump picks "the best people" and why.

    [PS]: After writing the above, I got a spam pitch for donations from The Intercept, which I might as well quote at length:

    When Donald Trump announced his third campaign for the White House, leading voices in the journalism industry vowed that the press couldn't fail in its coverage of Trump again.

    This time, the media would aggressively investigate Trump while focusing coverage on the threat that he poses to democracy, we were told. The stakes for the nation in the election, not just the odds of who was likely to win the campaign, would be put front and center.

    But with 66 days until the election, it's clear that the major national news media hasn't changed a bit.

    Horse-race coverage is back in full force, with breathless reports on every trivial social media spat or tick in poll numbers running on an endless loop 24/7 -- while the threat Trump poses to democracy is now relegated to an afterthought.

    The Intercept rejects this failed approach to political journalism. Every day, we're reporting on what the candidates really stand for, how their policies will impact your life, and how billionaire campaign donors stand to benefit.

    Risen's article, which I had just found so wanting, was obviously their best idea on how to do this, so I thought, maybe, write them a letter? I did, following my quote with a few more thoughts:

    I realize that this, like most things, is easier to complain about than to fix. The subject is vast and deep, and perversely rooted in the minds of people who don't read and are immune to analysis. I could imagine this taking a whole book just to explain: perhaps a sequel to Manufacturing Consent as something like Manufacturing Faux Divisions in the Theater of the Absurd.

    Paradoxically, if one reported as I suggest on both Harris and Trump, it would probably be devastating for her while merely annoying to him, for much the same reason as focusing on corruption killed Hillary Clinton while letting Trump off the hook -- that we hold her to higher standards, because she presents as worthy of them, whereas he's just Trump.

    By the way, my theory there was that voters saw both candidates as really horrible choices, but also saw an opportunity to get rid of one of them, and seized on that opportunity to vote Hillary off the island. To some extent, that worked against Trump in 2020, but he had other things buoying him up, and he refused to take the hint. If I was a campaign strategist, I'd try to figure out how to raise consciousness of this election as the voters' opportunity to finally rid us of his oppressive presence.

    I doubt anything will come of this, because it never does. I've written a dozen or so unsolicited advice letters over the years, and never gotten any meaningful response. (Two letters I wrote early on did elicit responses that changed my life, but they were more in the form of dismissive harrangues: Eugene Genovese convinced me to give some serious study to Marxism, and Robert Christgau invited me to write for the Village Voice. Come to think of it, aggressive letters may work better for me. I once wrote a letter to Steve Ballmer, that got me a job interview at Microsoft in 1984. They ran me through an assembly-line gauntlet of middle managers from Xerox PARC who couldn't square the timid, uncredentialed programmer they saw with the prick who had written the letter, so they passed. Had they taken a chance, it would have changed my life, and possibly theirs. I quite possibly would have developed into a millionaire tech entrepreneur, instead of becoming a free software diehard who hates every fiber of their being.)

    Sorry for that diversion, but that was something I've long wanted to get off my chest. What I meant to write next was that I woke up this morning trying to figure out how to pass some unsolicited advice to the Harris campaign:

  • Matthew Stevenson: [08-30] Trump IPOs his presidency:

    Why does anyone think Donald Trump is actually running for president? Granted, he's the Republican nominee and is on the ballot in all fifty states, but the only election day that interests Trump is the one around September 20. On that day (or perhaps a few days later) the lockout period on his Trump Media shares (for which he paid nothing) expires and he will be free to dump his gifted 57.6% stake (114,750,000 shares) on scheming billionaires (for example, the Saudis, Vladimir Putin, a Mexican drug cartel, etc.) who might have an interest in the first $2.4 billion IPO (initial public offering) of a prospective American presidency.

    Trump isn't so much a candidate these days as a walking conflict-of-interest whose bumper stickers might well read: "Trump-Vance 2024: On Sale September 20."

Vance, and other Republicans:

  • Zack Beauchamp: [08-27] An inside look at how the far right is mainstreaming itself: "A radical troll got unmasked -- and then spilled the beans." On Jonathan Keeperman.

  • Michael C Bender: [08-31] JD Vance's combative style confounds Democrats but pleases Trump: "Over dozens of events and more than 70 interviews, Mr. Vance's performances as Donald Trump's attack dog have endeared him to his boss, even if America is broadly less enthusiastic." I noticed this because the headline elicited considerable ridicule on X. In particular, Andrew:

    We weren't confounded @nytimes. We're disgusted. We're mortified for our country that this weird misogynistic sociopath abomination could be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. And that you keep writing headlines line this while our democracy burns to the ground.

    Some more comments:

    • JFC another misleading headline from the rag @nytimes. At this point, MSM are committing election interference with their overt biased reporting. What happened to journalistic integrity. We are NOT confounded, not in the least.
    • JD Vance's Combative style? The man is a twerp. Nobody thinks he's even the least bit impressive. He is -10 unfavorable and Trump is crapping his diaper over it.
    • Every single Democrat I know is delighted that Vance is on the ticket. He's one of the least effective politicians in recent memory.

    Of course, the comment roll degenerates quickly once the right-wing bots get into action: "That's a lot of propaganda but you are the Communist Party. I never voted Republican but I'm not voting for the candidate of no choice backed by the war party." If this "I never voted Republican" line seems to come gratuitously out of the blue, Steve M wrote an eye-opening post on this phenomenon: [09-02] A charitable explanation for the latest New York Times reporting failure (a different one, but quel coďncidence), following up on [09-01] A failed attempt at humanizing Trump? It worked on your paper's reporter.

    One helpful commenter did point us to this:

    • Ben Smith: [05-05] Joe Kahn: 'The newsroom is not a safe space': An interview with the New York Times Executive Editor, who says:

      It's our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it's not the top one -- immigration happens to be the top [of polls], and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they're favorable to Trump and minimize them?

      The problem isn't that they're reporting on issues "favorable to Trump," but that they're accepting that slant as fact instead of exposing it as nonsense. They do that because they so readily accept Republican framings at face value, when most of them are not just partisan distortions but bald-faced lies. Of course, it's not just Republicans they favor. They'll carry water for any well-heeled lobby (Israel is a perennial favorite). Kahn goes on to brag that the Times offers "a much more favorable view of Biden's conduct over foreign policy at a difficult time than the polling shows the general public believes." Again, he's consciously catering to powerful interests, while slighting honest reporting that the public sorely needs.

  • Kevin T Dugan: [08-29] The right-wing crusade against DEI isn't actually working.

  • Gary Fineout/Kimberly Leonard: [08-30] Ron DeSantis is struggling to maintain power in Florida following presidential campaign flop.

  • Margaret Hartmann: [08-28] JD Vance blames staff for disastrous doughnut-shop visit:

    Last week, J.D. Vance took a break from saying weird things about childless people to visit a doughnut shop in Valdosta, Georgia. Presumably, the Trump campaign wanted to show off how well the VP nominee connects with regular people. Instead, it got a viral video that has been compared unfavorably to an infamously cringeworthy episode of The Office.

    This story also provides context for a New Yorker cartoon.

  • David Sirota: [08-29] Project 2025 started a half-century ago. A Trump win could solidify it forever. Minor point, but both sides are tempted to indulge in arguments of this form: that this election is some kind of tipping point wherre the wrong way will lead to permanent, irreversible horrors. While I can't categorically say that's impossible, it seems pretty unlikely. The biggest problem with Project 2025 is that it's mostly unworkable. Indeed, most conservative policies are bound to fail: some are just designed that way (presumably to make government look bad, or at least hapless), some attempt to do impossible things, and many create feedback loops (or blowback) that erode them from within. The last three Republican presidencies have ended with remarkably low approval ratings, and their rate of collapse has been accelerating (Reagan-Bush lasted 12 years, Bush-Cheney 8, Trump 4; by contast, Democratic presidencies have tended to end with a feeling of satisfaction, like a feeling that we've recovered enough we can afford to go out and do something stupid again).

    Of course, there is a difference between right and left here. Democrats' fear that incremental changes, while not so troubling to start with, could eventually turn catastrophic, as in the Republican packing of the Supreme Court. In another major example, it took 30+ years for the repeal of Taft-Hartley to be turned into a serious union-busting tool -- which radically undermined the Democratic Party's political base, leading politicians like Bill Clinton to turn for corporate support, and further alienate the party base. Project 2025 would like to do lots of things like that, but the one thing that looms largest there is the attack on the civil service system.

    On the other hand, right-wing paranoia is often just that. For example, Stephen Miller has a pinned tweet warning:

    If Democrats win they will:
    Eliminate the filibuster
    Pack SCOTUS
    Make DC a state
    Import a new electorate with full voting rights
    Declare dissent "hate speech," punishable with jail time
    Enforce a vast censorship & surveillance regime
    Make their power over you PERMANENT.

    The first three sound like pretty reasonable ideas, as they would expand democracy (well, restore is more like it, as they'd reverse currently undemocratic practices). The last four are not on any Democratic agenda, even as "blue sky" wish list items. (Ok, the one about "hate speech" is being done to criminalize dissent over Israel, but that's being driven by AIPAC, and mostly behind closed doors.) On the other hand, those four points do smell a lot like things Republicans would be keen on doing (they'd be deporting and stripping rights, but that's effectively the same).

    I had to go back and qualify my paranoia comment, because some of their fears are that Democratic programs might not just work but become so popular that they can't be repealed or rolled back: there are several big examples, like Social Security and Medicare, as well as numerous smaller ones.

  • Ramon Antonio Vargas: [08-31] Ex-beauty contestant condemns JD Vance for use of embarrassing video: "Viral video of Caitlin Upton from 2007, which led to her considering suicide, used by Vance to mock Kamala Harris."

  • Ryan Grim: [08-31] Project 2025 roots date back half a century: Interview with David Sirota on "how a memo from 1971 laid the groundwork for enshrining corporate corruption in American politics." I'll spare you the suspense and note that the "memo" was the famous Lewis Powell letter, which pretty much everyone who's tracked the history of right-wing think tanks, direct mail, and lobbying operations at least references and often starts with. Still fits the definition of "smoking gun." Interview also goes into Sirota's longer-term project, a series of podcasts called Master Plan: Legalizing Corruption.

Harris:

  • The CNN interview:

  • Perry Bacon Jr.:

  • Eric Levitz: [08-30] Kamala Harris's big housing plan has a big problem: "Affordable housing comes at a cost." I wouldn't be surprised to find one can poke holes in Harris's plan (which I haven't studied any further), but most of these points strike me as wrong-headed. I rented up to 1985, and have owned a series of houses since then. Still, I can't say much about them as investments -- my record has been pretty mixed. But what I can say is that owning made a big difference to me psychologically, because I really hated the power that landlords held over me as a tenant. On the other hand, owning gives me the freedom to build, to tailor, to make my home work for me. Levitz seems to be arguing that renting is more cost-effective, and in some ways it may be. And I'm sure there are other arguments at play here (e.g., renters are more mobile, which makes labor markets more efficient). But there's more to it.

    PS: Levitz tried to sum up his article in a pair of tweets:

    • Harris wants housing to be more affordable -- and a good vehicle for building wealth. Yet the cheaper housing becomes, the worse it will perform as an investment.

    • A frustratingly large number of people are reading this tweet and concluding, "He must be arguing that we should keep housing unaffordable to prop up home values; I should express outrage about that imaginary claim, instead of reading the piece" (which argues the exact opposite)

      On the merits, there is little question that liberals should prioritize making housing cheaper. There is nothing progressive about putting property owners' return-on-investment above less privileged Americans' access to shelter. Further, promoting homeownership as a wealth building strategy also fails many homeowners. Concentrating one's savings in a single asset is a perilous investment strategy, especially for America's least privileged groups.

    This dual nature is so locked into our thinking about housing it's hard to see anyone debunking it, least of all a politician. Still, why not start by treating this as two separate problems, which have been confounded in the interests of a special interest group (the real estate industry, which seeks to drive up prices, and finds it useful to disguise inflation as appreciation). I can think of a dozen programs that would help in one way or another, but they hinge on breaking the conceptual hold of this dual nature -- one so strong that even Levitz can't see his way out of. Of course, one could simply cut the Gordian knot and blame it all on capitalism, and you can certainly make that case, but that's too easy an answer, and too simple a solution.

  • John McWhorter: [08-29] 'Joy' is a euphemism for a word no one wants to say out loud: I clicked on the title for the most basic of reasons, which is to find out who is saying such a thing, and why? (Third edit, as my first was filled with expletives.) This isn't the first time I've done that and found this bloke dangling from the hook. His mission in life is to help conservative white folk feel better about their racism -- a task he has expanded beyond his columns to include books like Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. And there he's said the "word no one wants to say," but evidently it's ok for him to say (guess why?). He starts by asking us to compare Harris joy with a list of white alternatives he finds no joy in (from Gretchen Whitmer to Beto O'Rourke, how hard do you think he looked? did he even have any idea what to look for? or does he just assume the euphemism is commutative?). I mean, this is a guy who thought Woke Racism was clever, so does he really know what joy means? And why can't he imagine that joy is just a personality attribute that any individual can exhibiti and/or find? Why does everything have to trace back to race? Oh yeah, that's his business model.

  • Christian Paz: [08-28] How is Kamala Harris getting away with this? "The nominee is pivoting hard to the right on immigration, so why do progressives say they can live with it?" My answer is something along the lines of "a candidate's gotta do what she's gotta do." I'm in no position to second-guess, much less micromanage, her campaign. I wouldn't be allowed to anyway, and the noise I might create is just spurious. Sure, when she says or does something I really object to, I'll speak up (cf. the sections this and every week on Israel), but I don't see any point in getting hysterical about it. Candidates says lots of things during campaigns that never turn real.

    Besides, I really don't care about immigration per sé. It's not a left-right issue (unlike equality, freedom, justice, and peace). I have a problem with mistreating immigrants (which is something Republican do and want to do much more of). I have a problem with forcing people to emigrate (which is mostly done by war, by repression, by economic hardship, and increasingly by climate, which are all issues Republicans are on the wrong side of). I think that people should have a "right to exile," because everyone should have a right to live in a country that is safe and supportive -- as some countries demonstrably are not -- but that doesn't mean that other countries have an obligation to accept just anyone (I'm trusting that somewhere someone will be agreeable, without coercion). But I accept that there borders between countries, and that governments ("of, by and for the people" that live therein) should regulate them, subject to some fairly universal standards of decent conduct. I doubt that it's possible (never mind desirable) to make those borders totally impermeable, but I do believe that it's better to manage affairs legally than it is to drive them underground. (That the US has millions of "illegal immigrants" suggests that they didn't do a very good job of managing things legally.)

    I personally don't fear immigrants, and I don't have a lot of patience or understanding for people who do (who for the most part strike me as ignorant clods; although most that I know would make exceptions for the immigrants they actually know -- it's only the hypothetical others that provoke their kneejerk reactions). But I do fear the political issue, which dovetails so neatly with much more delirious and dangerous right-wing demagoguery, so I don't mind artful efforts to defuse the issue. I can't really tell whether Harris' pivot qualifies, not least because I'm not the audience she's pitching. I do know that it is very difficult to pass any new law on immigration, so her proposals are going to be kicked around many blocks before anything becomes real. As with everything else she proposes, we'll take it seriously when the time comes. Until then, the only thing that really matters is that she beats Trump.

    Since we're on immigration, here are some more pieces:

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

  • Daniel Han: [08-30] From 'a nobody' to the Senate: George Helmy is ready to replace Bob Menendez.

  • Umair Irfan: [08-26] Why Democrats aren't talking much about one of their biggest issues: "Climate change was a huge issue for Democrats in the the 2020 election. Voters care less now."

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [08-31] Why Democrats refused to allow a Palestinian speaker at the DNC: "The Democrats did not allow a Palestinian speaker at the DNC because they did not want to encourage any possible sympathy for the Palestinian people who are facing a genocide fully supported by the Biden-Harris administration." Sympathy would have been cheap, hardly a step above "thoughts and prayers." And while Israel has worked tirelessly at dehumanizing Palestinians, few Democrats actually buy their arguments. They mostly ignore them, because if they didn't, they'd have to confront the savage facts of Israel's caste system, which is at odds with their cherished "only democracy in the Middle East." I think the decision was the logical result of three precepts: They see the DNC, as both parties have for at least 30 years now, as an infomercial, and want to squeeze every last drop of value out of it, so they add speakers who enhance their brand, and reject any who might hurt them. (The rejection of the Teamsters leader, simply for having spoken at the RNC, was arguably worse than not slotting a token Palestinian.) They believed that even admitting concern, much less culpability, for anything bad on their watch would hurt them, and Gaza was a major sore point -- and frankly one that many of them could (and should) feel embarrassed over. And as the party of the left (if only because Republicans left them with no other choice), they were terrified of losing critical donors -- wealthy pro-Israel donors are most likely to break to Trump, whereas there was little risk in losing the anti-genocide masses to Trump. Also a fourth one: this year at least, the defense of democracy doesn't seem to allow much room for the practice of democracy, so the notion that everyone in the party should get a say just got squashed (without much complaint from the rank and file).

  • Lavanya Ramanathan/Christian Paz: [09-01] Democrats' vibes are excellent. Can they turn that into votes?

  • Bernie Sanders: [08-29] The 'far-left agenda' is exactly what most Americans want.

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Economists and the economy:

Ukraine and Russia:

The World and/or America's empire:

Other stories:

  • Henry Farrell: I had these tabs saved off last week, but didn't find them in time.

    • [08-12] Seeing like a Matt: "The intellectual blind spots of anti-anti-neoliberalism." Matt is Yglesias, who has a series of articles defending neoliberalism against its enemies, cited here: [07-11] What was neoliberalism?; and [07-23] Neoliberalism and its enemies.

    • [08-21] Illiberalism is not the cure for neoliberalism: "Democrats should be reading Danielle Allen, not Deneen." In addition to the Yglesias pieces, this cites James Pogue: [08-19] The Senator warning Democrats of a crisis unfolding beneath their noses, where the Senator is Chris Murphy [D-CT], which in turn refers back to Chris Murphy: [2022-10-25] The wreckage of neoliberalism, as well as where Patrick J Deneen enters the picture -- his books are Why Liberalism Failed (2018) and Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (2023).

      I don't have a good picture of what neoliberalism is: in economics it seems to be an attempt to dress up laissez-faire as something new (and therefore not yet discredited); in politics it wears two dresses, as sleight-of-hand magic for liberals and as unfettered plundering for conservatives; and in foreign policy (or "geopolitics"), it seems to be the good cop teamed with the neoconservative bad cop; and on the left/liberal side it is something self-evident to favor or oppose (the right/conservative side doesn't much care for the term, so the few people, like Yglesias, who advocate neoliberalism wind up trying to defend something significantly different from what most leftists attack as neoliberalism, a distinction blurred by how readily they lapse into cartoonish anti-leftism).

      Much of the piece is about Danielle Allen's book, Justice by Means of Democracy, which turns on points I don't quite grasp the subtlety of -- partly, no doubt, because I've never made much sense of Rawls, but also because I don't believe conservatives when they claim to discern some true "public interest" they've spend much of their lives destroying. On the other hand, I am inclined to lean into the notion that more democracy is the answer, especially if it results in better justice. I'm intrigued enough to order a copy. I also looked up the following:

  • Anna North: [08-29] Kids today: your guide to the confusing, exciting, and utterly new world of Gen Alpha.

  • Igor Shoikhedbrod: [08-31] Why socialists shouldn't reject liberalism: An interview with Matt McManus, the author of the forthcoming book The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism.

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [08-30] Roaming Charges: Genocide with a smile. Starts with Harris, but ranges widely, including:

    • "In CNN interview, Vice President Harris says she will appoint Republican to her cabinet": First I heard of this sounded less like a commitment than another cock-eyed suggestion by Bill Scher (Kamala Harris should pledge to appoint a Republican to her cabinet, followed by Which Republicans might serve in a Harris cabinet), but I figured that was just Scher being Scher. I think committing to a type is dumb, as well as self-crippling. (Remember how Clinton wanted a woman as Attorney General, then wound up with Janet Reno as his 3rd pick?) On the other hand, looks like there will be plenty of Republican applicants even without a commitment: see Alex Gangitano: More than 200 Bush, McCain, Romney aides endorse Harris.
    • Notes that among states ranked by life expectancy, Biden won all of the top 10, but Trump won 9 of the bottom 10.
    • "Democracy in the post-Citizens United era: A mere 50 'mega-donors' have pumped more than $1.5 billion into the election, so far."
    • "On Tuesday, southern Iran recorded a heat index of 82.2°C and a dew point of 36.1°C, provisionally the highest ever globally."
    • I'll register a strong dissent on St Clair's dis of Philip Larkin's jazz writing. I don't know much about Larkin's poetry (or whatever), but Larkin's All What Jazz: A Record Diary, 1961-1971 is a personal favorite.

Obituaries

Books

Music (and other arts?)

Chatter

  • Dean Baker: [09-01] [responding to josh ryan-collins: Part of the job of a progressive government is to shift the public narrative towards the idea that the state can improve people's lives. Pretending the govt budget is like a households', as in this economically illiterate video, reinforces the idea that it can't.]
    I would argue that it's even more important for a progressive government to explain to people that the government structures the market to determine winners and losers, with things like patent/copyright monopolies, rules of corporate governance, and trade deals.
    [Seems to me these points aren't exclusive, or even alternatives.]

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Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Music Week

August archive (final).

Music: Current count 42869 [42830] rated (+39), 34 [34] unrated (-0).

Once again, Speaking of Which took an extra day, and I'll probably spend more time today adding to it than I spend writing here. [PS: I did wind up adding another 63 links, 2607 words.] Good reason to get this organized early, which means collecting the reviews here, and also opening up a new draft file for September, as this is the last installment in the August archive. Meanwhile, I've been playing old Motown comps, and now some Sonny Boy Williamson -- things I can enjoy immensely without having to think (or write) about.

A-list shrunk back this week, with the Ottaviano coming early, and nothing else coming very close (although I may have cheated Houston Person, knowing that better albums were coming; maybe also Dyani, whose 1978 Song for Biko is a favorite). The old music offered welcome relief from the August doldrums. Phil Overeem mentioned Dyani, and I realized that my ex-LP Music for Xaba was missing from my database (memory pegged it at B+, and the YouTube recheck refined that). I noticed Person when I was looking at the late guitarist Russell Malone's discography. But before getting to the albums Malone played on, I thought I'd check out some of Person's early Prestige releases. We'll get to the later stuff, and maybe some of Malone's own work, next week.

I mostly followed up recent posts from Michael Tatum, Christian Iszchak, Chris Monsen, and Dan Weiss. It's worth noting that despite critical pans damn near everywhere else, Iszchak and Tatum A-listed the Eminem album, while Weiss liked it about as much as I did (from one quick and not very focused play, I must admit).

Some small progress on my house projects. After four failed attempts, I gave up and hired an electrician to install the back door light, so that's done. Key thing he did was to install a box to mount the light to, whereas the old one was hung on the vinyl siding cover. Still, the main trick was standing on a ladder while holding the dead weight of the new fixture and securing all of the wires. I'm supposed to be getting a quote on repairing the fallen plaster ceiling. So if it's reasonable, we can knock that off.

I did manage to do one small project on my own: shimming a counter top to keep water from pooling and dripping. Next project will be to try to weld a broken plastic garbage can lid. I bought a tool, but I've never tried using it. Also note that the electrician looked at the loose camera wire, and decided he couldn't fix it, so I'm on my own there.

Just one more chapter in the late Lewis H Lapham's Age of Folly: America Abandons Its Democracy. Takes me back to much history I lived through, starting in the late 1980s, but mostly focuses on 2001-05, during the early days of the war on the abstract noun. Sharp analysis, with many delicious turns of phrase. One could go back and mine the book for aphorisms. I should see if I can recover a few. One he uses several times is the strange belief that "money is good for the rich, but bad for the poor."

I stopped by Barnes & Noble last week, for the first time I've been in a bookstore since the pandemic, possibly some years longer. I picked out three books that I wouldn't have thought of to buy had I not seen them first, so they're likely to be next up. For most of my life, I headed to bookstores 3-4 times a week, so it took considerable business malpractice to end that habit. (Borders closing was a major blow, after which B&N seemed to morph into some kind of glorified toy store. I was even under the impression that B&N had stopped carrying magazines, but they still had a fairly substantial section.) Next up should be a return to the library. I need to figure out how to make use of local library resources to do anything along the lines of the research I need.

My future direction is very uncertain. But I've been getting some help recently on the Jazz Poll, which makes it more likely to continue.

New records reviewed this week:

Neil Adler: Emi's Song (2024, self-released): Pianist, also plays harmonica, and incorporated that into his website. Seems to be his first album, a quartet with bass, drums, and congas, on a wide range of covers along with three of his own. B+(**) [cd]

Erlend Albertsen Basspace: Name of the Wind (2024, Dugnad Rec): Norwegian bassist, second album as leader, group a quintet, mostly strings and keyboards, with Albertsen also playing some soprano sax, plus: Ellie Mäkelä (viola, Hardanger fiddle), Egil Kalman (modular synth, double bass), Simon Albertsen (drums, synth), and Hogne Kleiberg (piano, synth). B+(**) [sp]

Gonçalo Almeida: States of Restraint (2023 [2024], Clean Feed): Portuguese bassist, based in Rotterdam, prolific since 2014. With Susana Santos Silva (trumpet) and Gustavo Costa (percussion), for "a set of remarkable minimalist tone poems distinguished by their brooding crawl-time intensity and austere meditative aesthetics." B+(***) [sp]

Marc Ciprut: Moonshine (2024, White Label): Guitarist, from New York, plays fusion/funk, various lineups, mostly electric keyboards (or organ), electric bass, drums. B+(*) [cd]

Walter Crockett: Children So Long (2022, self-released): Folk singer-songwriter, from Massachusetts, seems to be his first (and only) album, although he looks like he's been around a long time, dropping hints like "drives through Michigan or Kansas in the '40s and '50s," "listening to Elvis in 1955," "Mom is 98 now," and he dates his songs back to 1976. B+(**) [sp]

Eminem: The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) (2024, Shady/Aftermath/Interscope): Twelfth studio album since 1996, namechecks the title character of his 1999 megahit, still sells enough he can laugh off the bad reviews (46/15 Metacritic, 50/15 AOTY, 4.8 at Pitchfork). I don't know what the beef is, and midway through I hadn't noticed much one way or the other, but "Houdini" is pretty damn catchy, and tuning in on words the next few songs was interesting enough, even though the only words I jotted down were "deep down I'm a dork." B+(**) [sp]

Signe Emmeluth: Banshee (2023 [2024], Motvind): Danish alto saxophonist, based in Oslo, debut album in 2018 launched her group, Emmeluth's Amoeba. B+(***) [sp]

Flukten: Flukten (2023 [2024], Odin): Norwegian quartet, second album, I have the filed under saxophonist Hanna Paulsberg but the writers this time are drummer Hans Hulbćkmo (6) and guitarist Marius Hirth Klovning (2); also with Bárđur Reinert Poulsen (bass). B+(***) [sp]

Sahra Halgan: Hiddo Dhawr (2024, La Région/Danaya Music): Singer from Somaliland, which is a "de facto independent state" broken away from Somalia in 1991 but still unrecognized by most other countries. Second album, combines Ethiopian and Arabic influences, with some of the flavor of the "Saharan rock" common in Niger and Mali. B+(***) [sp]

Eirik Hegdal Eklektisk Samband: Turnchest (2022 [2024], Particular): Billed as "a new Scandinavian Super band!" with the Team Hegdal saxophonist the "initiator," joined by Thea Grant (voice/electronics), Per Texas Johansson (tenor sax/flute/clarinets), Anja Lauvdal (piano/synth/pump organ), Ole Morten Vĺgan (bass), and Hans Hulbćkmo (drums/percussion/mouth harp). As is often the case, it's the vocals that turn me off, but while my usual complaint is arch or starchy, this time it's deliriously disruptive. B+(*) [sp]

Danny Jonokuchi Big Band: A Decade (2022 [2024], Bandstand Presents): Trumpet player, has at least one previous album (hype sheet says four, and mentions an ISJAC award), leads a conventional big band through one original and a batch of nicely done standards, ending with his vocal on a bonus take of "Skylark." B+(*) [cd]

I. Jordan: I Am Jordan (2024, Ninja Tune): British electronica producer/DJ, previously released an EP as India Jordan, seems this is first album. Opener is dead (or worse), but gets better after finding a beat. Much better. B+(*) [sp]

JPEGMafia: I Lay Down My Life for You (2024, AWAL): Rapper-producer Barrington Hendricks, half-dozen albums since 2016, last year's Danny Brown collaboration Scaring the Hoes got a lot of critical applause, but I never made any sense out of it. I can't say much about this one either, but with only three "feat." slots, it mostly dwells in dank and dark noise -- I've seen comps to Death Grips, which does even less for me (perhaps because of the occasional break one catches here). B+(*) [sp]

Move: Free Baile: Live in Shenzhen (2023 [2024], Clean Feed): Free jazz trio, Portuguese and/or Brazilian: Yedo Gibson (sax), Felipe Zenicola (bass), Joăo Valinho (drums). Second album, a rabble-rousing crowd-pleaser. B+(***) [sp]

Simon Nabatov Quartet Feat. Ralph Alessi: Lovely Music (2021 [2024], Clean Feed): Russian pianist, left at 20 in 1979, ostensibly for Israel but wound up in US, studying at Juilliard, becoming a US citizen in 1986, but he's lived in Germany since 1989, which is shortly after his discography kicks off (Discogs credits him with four 1988 albums). Quartet is rounded out with Sebastian Gille (sax), David Helm (bass), and Leif Berger (drums), so doesn't count the featured guest on trumpet. Rather grand and, sure, lovely. B+(***) [sp]

Navy Blue: Memoirs in Armour (2024, Freedom Sounds): Rapper Sage Elesser, albums since 2020 (after a string of EPs back to 2015). Underground, "conscious," flows about as well as ever, not much sticks though. B+(***) [sp]

Nils Řkland Band: Gjenskinn (2021-22 [2024], Hubro): From Norway, plays Hardnager fiddle, debut 1986, third group album since 2015, draws on folk and aims for ambient. B+(**) [sp]

Roberto Ottaviano/Danilo Gallo/Fernando Faraň: Lacy in the Sky With Diamonds (2023 [2024], Clean Feed): Italian soprano saxophonist, fairly long list of albums since 1985, here with bass and drums, playing seven Steve Lacy songs plus a few originals/improvs with a bit of "These Foolish Things." A- [sp]

Jerome Sabbagh: Heart (2022 [2024], Analog Tone Factory): French tenor saxophonist, postbop, dozen or so albums since 2004, trio with Joe Martin (bass) and Al Foster (drums), three originals and five standards (from Ellington to "Body and Soul"). B+(**) [cd] [08-30]

Spanish Harlem Orchestra: Swing Forever (2023-24 [2024], Ovation): Latin jazz 13-piece big band led by pianist Oscar Hernández, ninth studio album, with Doug Beavers co-producing, and guest vocalist Gilberto Santa Rosa. Seems like records like this always sound great to start, but tiring by the end. B+(**) [cd]

Aki Takase Japanic: Forte (2023 [2024], Budapest Music Center): Japanese pianist, long based in Berlin, Quintet with Daniel Erdmann (tenor/soprano sax), Carlos Bica (bass), Dag Magnus Narvesen (drums), and Vincent von Schlippenbach (turntable), with guest credits for Nils Wogram (trombone) and her husband, pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach. First track hints at things Japanese, but the rest careens wildly, which can provide a thrill, or not. B+(**) [sp]

Zach Top: Cold Beer & Country Music (2024, Leo33): Country singer-songwriter from Washington State, 25, first album, no hint that's not his original name, serves up a nice batch of country clichés -- title song is wedged between "[My Life] Sounds Like the Radio" and "Cowboys Like Me Do," along with "Dirt Turns to Gold," "The Kinda Woman I Like," "Bad Luck", "Ain't That a Heartbnerak," "I Never Lie," and "Things to Do" (that's not all, but you get the drift). B+(**) [sp]

Luis Vicente Trio: Come Down Here (2023 [2024], Clean Feed): Portuguese trumpet player, many albums since 2012, this a trio with bass (Gonçalo Almeida) and drums (Pedro Melo Alves). B+(**) [sp]

Jack White: No Name (2024, Third Man): Singer-songwriter, founder of White Stripes and other alt/indie groups, sixth studio album under his own name, such as it is. I've never liked his solo albums, aside from the first (and even then not much), but this "back to roots" effort is pretty crunchy. B+(**) [sp]

WHO Trio: Live at Jazz Festival Willisau 2023 First Visit (2023 [2024], Ezz-Thetics): Trio of Michel Wintsch (piano), Bänz Oester (bass), and Gerry Hemingway (drums/voice); have at least a half-dozen albums since 1999. Live improv based (loosely) on Ellington compositions. B+(***) [bc]

Wilco: Hot Sun Cool Shroud (2024, Nonesuch, EP): Six decent songs, isolated bits of showy guitar, 17:36. B+(*) [sp]

X: Smoke & Fiction (2024, Fat Possum): Postpunk band from Los Angles, debut 1980, John Doe and Exene Cervenka the singer-songwriters, with D.J. Bonebrake on drums and Billy Zoom on guitar (except for 1986-99, missing only one album, but it took them even longer, until 2020, to come up with another). This is supposed to be their last ever. I was never much of a fan, but don't have any complaints here. B+(*) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

None.

Old music:

Johnny Dyani With John Tchicai & Dudu Pukwana: Witchdoctor's Son (1978 [1987], SteepleChase): South African bassist (1945-86), one of the Blue Notes who went into exile in 1964, along with Pukwana (alto/tenor sax), joined here by the Afro-Danish alto/soprano saxophonist, and a global rhythm section of Alfredo Do Nascimento (guitar), Luez "Chuim" Carlos de Sequaira (drums), and Mohamed Al-Jabry (congas/percussion), with Dyani also on piano and vocals. Some two sax sections are quite wonderful. B+(***) [sp]

Johnny Dyani Quartet: Mbizo (1981 [1995], SteepleChase): Bassist-led quartet with two saxophonists -- Ed Epstein (alto/baritone) and Dudu Pukwana (alto/soprano) -- and drums (Churchill Jolobe). B+(***) [sp]

Johnny Dyani Quartet: Angolian Cry (1985 [1986], SteepleChase): Bassist-led quartet with John Tchicai (tenor sax/bass clarinet), Harry Beckett (trumpet/flugelhorn), and Billy Hart (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Johnny Dyani/Okay Temiz/Mongezi Feza: Music for Xaba (1972 [1973], Sonet): South African bassist, Turkish drummer, South African trumpet player, recorded in Stockholm, two pieces rooted in South Africa, two joint improvs. B+(***) [yt]

Johnny Dyani/Okay Temiz/Mongezi Feza: Music for Xaba Volume Two (1972 [1980], Sonet): Five more tracks from the same session, the opener by Feza, the rest by Dyani. B+(**) [yt]

Houston Person: Underground Soul! (1966, Prestige): Tenor saxophonist, b. 1934 in South Carolina, now regarded as one of the great mainstream tenors ever, started here at Prestige, where he also did a&r work for Prestige -- continuing with Muse from 1976-94, and HighNote after 1996. Soul jazz quartet with trombone (Mark Levine), organ (Charles Boston), and drums (Frank Jones). Gets off wrong-footed with a chintzy cover of "What the World Needs Now Is Love," but rights that with a couple of originals, which get the organ working, and show off some already impressive sax. B+(*) [yt]

Houston Person: Blue Odyssey (1968, Prestige): They cut 'em fast and loose at Prestige, so this was number four, but the earliest reissue I've found to stream, a sextet session that kicks off with two songs by pianist Cedar Walton, followed by four covers, most expressively on "Please Send Me Someone to Love." With Curtis Fuller (trombone), Pepper Adams (baritone sax), Bob Cranshaw (bass), and Frank Jones (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: Goodness! (1969, Prestige): Sixth prestige album, only horn in a sextet with organ (Sonny Phillips), guitar (Billy Butler), electric bass, drums, and congas. B+(***) [sp]>

Houston Person: Legends of Acid Jazz (1970-71 [1996], Prestige): A volume in a series that each collected two relatively obscure soul jazz albums onto a single CD, tied in to the then-current "acid jazz" genre, which sometimes sampled albums like those included. Person's entry combines the 1970 album Person to Person! (with Virgil Jones on trumpet, Grant Green on guitar, Sonny Phillips on organ/piano, plus electric bass, drums, congas) and 1971's Houston Express (two groups with Billy Butler on guitar, one with a lot of extra horns arranged by Horace Ott. B+(*) [sp]

Houston Person: Person-ified (1996 [1997], HighNote): The tenor saxophonist followed Joe Fields from Prestige to Muse to HighNote, where this rather mellow quartet was his first album -- a session with Teddy Edwards was recorded earlier in the month, but not released until later, and in any case gave Edwards first billing. This one is impeccably mainstream, with Richard Wyands (piano), Ray Drummond (bass), and Kenny Washington (drums), playing one Person piece and a batch of standards. B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Rahsaan Barber & Everyday Magic: Six Words (Jazz Music City) [09-06]
  • Anne Burnell & Mark Burnell: This Could Be the Start of Something Big (Spectrum Music) [10-01]
  • Gunhild Carling: Jazz Is My Lifestyle! (Jazz Art) [09-01]
  • The Kris Davis Trio: Run the Gauntlet (Pyroclastic) [09-27]
  • Chad McCullough: In These Hills, Beyond (Calligram) [09-06]
  • Jack Wood & Nichaud Fitzgibbon: Movie Magic: Great Songs From the Movies (Jazz Hang) [10-01]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, August 26, 2024

Speaking of Which

File opened Wednesday, August 21, 10:10 pm, night three of the Democratic National Convention, which as usual I didn't watch a minute of (although I may have overheard bits my wife watched, but she didn't watch much, either). I did watch the replays on Steven Colbert Live, except for Monday, when the delays wiped out the DVR. As the section below shows, I collected a fair representation of writing, which for my purposes more than suffices.

I did overhear a bit of RFK Jr.'s end-of-campaign speech on Friday, but didn't stick around for the punch line, so I was a bit taken aback to read later that he had endorsed Trump. I had read rumors to that effect earlier, but what I heard of the speech didn't inexorably lead to that conclusion. Before the speech, I had collected two links to speculative Ed Kilgore pieces, which are retained below, along with various post-speech takes.

I speculated last week that the DNC would be a splendid time for Biden to deliver on his mini-ceasefire hostage deal, but Netanyahu -- ever the GOP partisan -- managed to scotch even a proposal that was so tantamount to surrender that Hamas could still be blamed. In the end, the DNC's herculean efforts at damage control sufficed: the street protests happened, but got scant notice; the "uncommitted" delegates pressed, but were brushed aside; several "progressives" trusted enough to speak (notably Bernie Sanders) showed that the party welcomes their concerns within its unity of good feelings; and the keynoters reminded us that Israel lobby still commands the Party's deepest loyalty, while reserving the right to tailor the propaganda line to a constituency increasingly uncomfortable with the news.

That there was little meaningful dissent was a tribute to two things: the extent to which the menace of Donald Trump has united all Democrats, and the new sense of excitement that Kamala Harris has brought in erasing the doldrums of the Biden candidacy, as the keywords moved from good vibes to outright joy. Even the inertia-bound polls have started to move. One thing the DNC was not was democratic, but we've been spoon-fed bitter gruel for decades now, compared to which this exercise in elitocracy felt positively nourishing. While the Party elites haven't actually ceded any power, for the first time in ages -- we can now admit Obama's "yes we can" as a cynical advertising campaign -- they have let up on their prime directive of "managing expectations," and have (at least briefly) allowed democrats to consider the possibility that their hopes and desires might finally matter.

I don't doubt that post-November they'll struggle to push the genie of democracy back into the bottle. The Harris cabinet will be recruited from the usual suspects -- although they will have to pass a gauntlet of lingering "we won't go back" sentiments. (It is worth noting that some of the worst lingering tastes of the Obama administration, like Larry Summers, didn't get invited back -- even Rahm Emmanuel had to settle for an ambassadorship.) Moreover, Harris is likely to know that Democrats can't survive on spoils and cronyism alone. Democrats are increasingly demanding tangible results. And while the influence of money makes that hard, and often steers change in peculiar directions, that understanding isn't going to go away easily.

I got to Sunday evening with about 180 links and 9200 words, with maybe 80% of my usual sources checked. I wrote the above introduction when I got up Monday, and should wrap this up not too late evening, assuming I can avoid backtracking and breaking news.

PS: Gave up working on this after midnight, and decided to go ahead and post. Good chance for some Tuesday updates, but not much (I hope). I need to move on to Music Week, and some other long-delayed work.

Top story threads:

Israel:

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

Israel vs. world opinion:

Democratic National Convention:

The DNC was held in Chicago last week, Monday through Thursday, four tightly-scripted nights of prime-time infotainment. Given its prominence, this week we'll move the Democrats ahead of similar sections on Republicans, and push "Election notes" even further down. Also, some pieces specifically on Harris or Walz have been relegated to their sections.

  • Intelligencer Staff:

  • Kate Aronoff: The Democrats are running scared from the most important fights: "At its convention this week, the party largely avoided two crises that are the cause of mass suffering: climate change and Israel's war in Gaza."

  • Ben Burgis: [08-23] Shawn Fain has been a light in the darkness: "UAW president Shawn Fain's speech was the best part of the DNC. It featured a direct focus on workers otherwise absent from party rhetoric, and sidestepped the culture wars to identify the 'one true enemy' of corporate power."

  • Jonathan Chait:

    • [08-22] Kamala Harris gave the best acceptance speech I've ever seen: "A perfectly targeted message." Evidently the target was Chait. How useful that was remains to be seen. But given how many things Chait misunderstands, it's possible to satisfy him and still make sense to other people. Just to pick out one bit:

      Harris labeled her economic goal "an opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed." The notion of opportunity, with its implication that people should control their own economic destiny, has long been a conservative one. Harris stole it.

      The magic word here isn't "opportunity" but "everyone." The only opportunity conservatives offer is to fail, which matters to them because their beloved hierarchy is built on the backs of failures -- usually because the system is so rigged in the first place. Offering opportunity to everyone is a classically liberal idea, but actually achieving it is only something the left would dare attempt. How far Harris will go not just to permit opportunity but to nurture and sustain it remains to be seen. But that she offered the word "everyone" suggests that she will not be satisfied with the conservative game of failing all but the master class.

    • [08-23] Kamala Harris understood the assignment: "The convention shows how to re-create the Obama formula." Given that "the Obama formula" lost Congress, weakening the Democratic Party so severely that they wound up surrendering the presidency to Trump, that doesn't seem like much of a goal, much less an accomplishment. But the "assignment" was always a figment of Chait's imagination, his commitment to hopeless mediocrity and inaction shared by virtually nobody else. Still, I suppose it's good that he was willing to settle for whatever she offered him. But I suppose it wasn't a surprise, given how little he wants or expects:

      There is little point in selling the public on new liberal programs that a Republican-led Senate would ignore. . . . Harris's choice was to focus relentlessly on targeting the voters she needs to win 270 electoral votes, at the expense of fan service for progressives. . . . Alienating the left is not the point of these moves. It is simply the inevitable by-product. If you are targeting your message to the beliefs of the median voter, you are necessarily going to leave voters at the 99th percentile of the right-to-left spectrum feeling cold. The bitter complaints from the right that she is a fraud, and from the left that she is a sellout, are indications that Harris has calibrated her campaign perfectly.

    • But why does that perfect balance between charges of fraud and sellout sound so familiar? Like Hillary Clinton in 2016?

  • Jessica Corbett: [08-23] Working-class journalist's speech hailed as 'most radical' in DNC history: "John Russell urged Democrats to serve working Americans 'looking for a political home, after years of both parties putting profit above people.'"

  • David Dayen:

    • [08-23] Kamala Harris's DNC promises depend on filibuster reform: More basically, they depend on Democrats retaining control of the Senate, where they have an exceptionally difficult break this year, and on winning the House. They will need to be able to pass laws, over and against formidable lobbies, including laws that fight back against adverse court rulings, which are nearly certain to follow. Given the situation in the courts, it is unlikely that much can be done simply by executive order.

    • [08-22] Will the Senate take off the handcuffs?: "The Harris-Walz ticket and every Democrat are promising big things. But the filibuster makes that agenda impossible. Will they finally remove that barrier?" Possibly the same article as the one I cited before I noticed this source.

    • [08-27] A convention that placed image over detail: "What happens when the images break down?"

  • Liza Featherstone: [08-23] The 2024 Democratic Convention: More 1964 than 1968: "The media was obsessed with comparing this year's DNC to Chicago 1968. But given the party's rejection of the Uncommitted movement, Atlantic City 1964, when Democrats refused to seat Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, is more apt."

  • Luke Goldstein: [08-21] The convention nobody gets to see: "Many of the corporate-sponsored events, and even some that aren't, are locked down to the press."

  • Stanley B Greenberg: [08-23] The success of messaging at the DNC: "Democrats are hitting all the notes that have eluded them."

  • DD Guttenplan: [08-27] In "we're not going back!" Dems find an antidote to the politics of nostalgia: "Underneath the cliché that 'we're all in this together' lie harder truths that will need to be faced if Harris and Walz want to rally the nation for real change."

  • Patrick Iber:

    • [08-26] The unity convention: "The DNC showed a party that has successfully metabolized movement energy and insurgent campaigns while distancing from demands deemed harmful to its electoral prospects." This convention report was preceded by:

    • [07-18] A popular front, if you can keep it: "Biden claims he is remaining in the race because the threat of Trump is too great. That's the exact reason he should consider retiring."

    • [07-24] Kamala can win: "Hope will be an essential resource for her campaign. At her first raly, she succeeded in providing it."

  • Jake Johnson:

  • Susan Meiselas: [08-23] Images from inside (and outside) the DNC.

  • Heather Digby Parton: [08-23] The DNC did not unify Democrats. Donald Trump did that long before.

  • Bill Scher:

  • Grace Segers: [08-22] The DNC was a party. Now for the morning after. "It was a week of raucous enthusiasm and ear-bursting decibels. But the convention wasn't perfect. And the hard work of winning the election lies in wait."

  • Alex Shephard: [08-22] At the DNC, the Democrats are finally fighting: "With Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, Democrats have rediscovered their partisan edge."

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [08-23] As I lay coughing: Watching the DNC with Covid and Faulkner.

  • Matthew Stevenson: [08-23] The Obamas sing songs of themselves.

  • Vox: I made fun of their soft lifestyle features last week, but this week they turned their whole crew loose at the DNC, for a smorgasbord of articles collected here, including:

  • Jada Yuan: [08-21] How DJ Cassidy turned the DNC roll call into a party for the ages.

  • Amy Zimet: [08-23] Isn't it moronic: America is ready for a better story. The DNC in memes, the title referring to a piece of Trumpist fodder warning that a Harris future would be "like being in a jail full of black inmates."

  • Israel, Gaza, and Genocide: Two stories here: the anti-genocide demonstrations organized around the convention, and the near-total blackout of any discussion of the issues inside the convention. I'm roping these stories off into their own sub-section: on the one hand, I believe that it is important to make people aware of the importance of the issue, and to impress on them the importance of changing US policy to weigh against the Israeli practice of war, genocide, and apartheid. On the other hand, I'm not terribly bothered that Democrats have chosen to compartmentalize this issue, to keep it from the rest of an agenda which offers much to be desired, above and beyond defense against far more ominous Republican prospects. And while I'm unhappy that their leaders have failed to act in any substantial way to restrain Israel, or even to dissociate themselves from support of genocide, I take some heart in the ambivalence and ambiguity they have sometimes shown, understanding as I do that peace is only possible when Israelis decide to become peaceful, and that behind-the-scenes diplomacy may be more effective in that regard than open-air protest. The latter, of course, is still critically necessary, to help nudge Israel's "friends" into such diplomacy, and should be supplemented with tangible pressure in the form of the BDS movement.

    • Michael Arria:

    • James Carden: [08-23] Kamala & Gaza: All words and no deeds make a divided party. This includes Harris's "full (brief) remarks on the issue," which I might as well also quote here:

      With respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working around the clock, because now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done. And let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the war that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.

      At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating so many innocent lives lost, desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again, the scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self determination.

      This is carefully written to show solidarity with Israel without explicitly endorsing Israel's amply demonstrated aims and tactics, while holding out a bare minimum of hope for peace and justice (but, like, no pressure on Israel). The first obvious point is the omission of any recognition of the context of the Oct. 7 outbreak. In terms Harris might relate to, Hamas "didn't just fall out of a coconut tree." Hamas was first founded as a charitable foundation in 1987, but it was preceded by 20 years of Israeli military occupation, 20 more years of Egyptian proxy rule as a refuge for Palestinians who were uprooted in Israel's 1947-49 "war for independence," and for 30 more years by the UK, whose Lord Balfour declared arbitrarily that Palestine should be a "homeland for the Jewish people." Over that entire period, basic political, economic, and human rights in Gaza (and all over Palestine) have been systematically denied, so the "suffering" finally admitted isn't something new after Oct. 7 but the result of longstanding Israeli policy.

      A second obvious thing is that the ritual endorsement of "Israel's right to defend itself" has become a sick joke. I'm not sure that anyone has, or should have, such a right, but in Israel's case it has been applied so frivolously, to justify so much excessive and unnecessary force applied so widely, that it should be discounted altogether. I've come to see "self-defense" not as a right but as a common human reaction which may be taken into consideration as a mitigating factor. Once Hamas started fighting outside of Gaza, on "Israeli soil," few people would object to Israeli forces fighting back, even indiscriminately, until Hamas forces were repulsed. That, quite plausibly, could have been called self-defense. I could imagine better ways to respond, but at least that's within the meaning of the term. However, Israel didn't stop at the walls of Gaza. They went on to inflict enormous damage on all of Gaza, killing at least 40,000 Palestinians, rendering well over a million homeless, destroying resources necessary for human sustenance, adding to the incalculable psychic harm that they have been cultivating for many decades. While one might argue that some of the damage might deter future attacks, it is at least as plausible that it will inspire future attacks. We shouldn't even entertain such arguments. What Israel has done in the name of "self-defense" is monstrous and shameful. Even observers with deep affection for Israel, like Harris and Biden, should be able to see that. If they don't, we should seriously question their cognitive skills, their empathy, and their ability to reason.

      A third obvious thing is her choice to put "a hostage deal" ahead of a cease fire. It shows first that Biden and her value Israeli lives much more than they do Palestinian lives, which is unbecoming (for democrats, who profess to believe in equal rights and respect for all) but hardly surprising (for Democrats). (By the way, note that Netanyahu seems to value Israeli lives -- that of the hostages, anyway -- less than he does Palestinians in prison or dead.) More importantly, Israel doesn't need to negotiate a ceasefire deal. They can simply declare one -- perhaps with some proviso about how much return fire they will unleash each time Palestinians fire back. For that matter, they could have accepted Hamas's offer of a truce ("hudna") long before, and prevented the Oct. 7 attacks altogether. That they didn't shows that their interest all along was the devastation of Palestinian society and economy, which has nothing to do with self-defense.

      Fourth point is "working around the clock" is belied, perhaps not by the clock but by the evidence that nothing they've tried has worked. The obvious reason is that as long as they're giving Israel "blank check" support, Netanyahu has no reason to back away from his maximal war program. While I don't think Washington should go around ordering other countries how to do their business, there are times when one must express disapproval and withdraw favor, and this is one.

    • Juan Cole: [08-23] What you didn't hear at DNC: Israeli expulsion decrees disrupt last Gaza aid hub, jeopardizing aid workers, thousands of civilians.

    • Julia Conley: [08-19] Thousands kick off DNC with protest in Chicago over Gaza.

    • Rob Eshman: [08-23] Kamala Harris did the impossible, and said exactly the right thing about Israel and Gaza: "The Democratic candidate finally spoke about her position on Israel's war against Hamas -- and revealed her pragmatism." I voiced my disagreements with her speech above, but here let me note that I'm a bit touched that someone bought it, hook, line and sinker. I thought I recognized the author, so I searched and found I had cited him once before (back on June 2, in similar -- and thus far in vain -- praise for Democratic sagacity):

    • David Freedlander: [08-22] The convention that wasn't torn apart over Gaza: "Democrats packed a pro-Israel party, while the Palestinian side didn't even get a speaking slot."

    • Emma Janssen: [08-23] Uncommitted delegates denied a DNC speaker: "A sit-in outside the convention in protest and support from numerous elected officials did not succeed."

    • Adam Johnson:

      • [08-17] 4 talking points used to smear DNC protesters -- and why they're bogus: I think the fourth point here is basically true: "Harris can't support the activists' demands even if she wanted to. She's the vice president and must maintain President Biden's policies." I'm not sure what precedents there are for vice presidents breaking radically with presidents -- at least since early days when the VP could be a president's worst enemy (e.g., John Calhoun, twice) but it's generally bad form for any candidate to undermine an active president's foreign policy options (although Nixon and Reagan did it surrepetitiously). But also, if Harris wants to do something, wouldn't she have a better chance of working her plans through the Biden administration, rather than breaking with it?

      • [08-23] Celebrating at the DNC in a time of genocide.

    • Akela Lacy/Ali Gharib: Kamala Harris mentioned Palestinian suffering -- in the passive voice.

    • Joshua Leifer: [08-20] 'The Uncommitted movement did a service to the Democratic Party': "As the Democrats' convention begins, political strategist Waleed Shahid discusses the possibilities for shifting the party on Israel-Palestine."

    • Natasha Lennard: [08-20] Democratic Party united under banner of silence on Gaza genocide: "Progressives and moderates came together to support Kamala Harris by largely ignoring the most pressing moral issue of our time."

    • Branko Marcetic: [08-22] Palestinians received both harassment and support at the DNC.

    • Mitchell Plitnick: [08-23] Message from the DNC: The Democrats do not care about Palestinians: "The Democratic National Convention did not go well for supporters of Palestinian rights where Democrats were largely successful in burying their deep complicity in the Gaza genocide."

    • Hafiz Rashid: The black mark on the Democrats' big party: "Palestinian-Americans and their allies were left alienated by a convention that went out of its way to give them a slap in the face."

    • April Rubin: [08-22] Democrats refused to give Palestinian Americans DNC speaking slot.

    • Norman Solomon: [08-20] What got lost in the DNC's love fest for a lame duck.

Harris:

  • Frank Bruni: [08-22] Kamala Harris just showed she knows how to win.

  • John Cassidy: [08-26] Kamala Harris and the new Democratic economic paradigm: "At their Convention in Chicago last week, the Democrats looked like a party that is unusually united in its goals."

  • Jonathan Chait: [08-16] Kamala Harris's economic plan: good politics, meh policy: "It's hard to tell people they're wrong about inflation." Although Chait tries hard, mostly by bringing his own wrong-headed ideas about inflation.

  • Maureen Dowd: [08-23] Kamala came to slay.

  • Richard Fausset, et al.: [08-23] What voters outside the Democratic bubble thought of Harris's speech: Most interesting thing here is the lengths they (five authors here) have to go to find "out-of-bubble" voters, and how disconnected they are from anything resembling reality.

  • Katie Glueck: [08-24] Why Harris's barrier-breaking bid feels nothing like Hillary Clinton's. Maybe having multiple checklist identity groups seems like too much bother, but more likely she just seems like a real person, not some kind of idealized pathbreaking icon -- not that Clinton was all that ideal.

  • Fred Kaplan: [08-23] Trump should be very nervous about this part of Kamala Harris' DNC speech: "She's uniquely prepared to step up to the job of commander in chief." I don't know whether Trump is smart enough to grasp any of this, but it's making me nervous:

    Its emergence Thursday night was so striking that Wall Street Journal columnist (and former GOP speechwriter) Peggy Noonan [link below] complained that the Dems "stole traditional Republican themes (faith, patriotism) and claimed them as their own." Noonan misstates what's been happening in the era of Donald Trump. The fact is, the Republicans have abandoned those themes, and the Democrats -- who never rejected them -- are picking them up, with intensity, as part of a broad rescue mission. Democracy, freedom, equality, and community -- concepts so deeply embedded in American politics that their validity has long gone unquestioned -- are "on the ballot" in this election. The same is true of national security, and so the DNC's strategists elevated it too from a common cliché to a cherished value and vital interest under threat from the cult of personality surrounding Trump.

    Some quoted parts of the speech I find bone-chilling, like:

    • "As commander in chief, I will ensure America has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world."
    • "I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists. I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un, who are rooting for Trump . . . They know Trump won't hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself."
    • "I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself . . . At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating."
    • "I helped mobilize a global response -- over 50 countries -- to defend [Ukraine] against Putin's aggression."

    That gives her a score of about 85 on a scale of American cliché jingoism, but the admission on Gaza suggests that she can recognize facts and limits, so she might be willing to adjust to deal with them. I can't swear that she's free of the gratuitous hawkishness that Hillary Clinton overcompensated in. It may even be possible that she needs this armada of clichés to maintain her credibility when/if she does think better of some doomed trajectory that the rest of the blob is senselessly stuck on.

    As I must have made clear by now, I think that Biden's foreign policy has been a colossal mistake on nearly every front, and a disaster on many, with more potential disasters lined up as far as one can see. The whole paradigm needs a serious rethink, which is hard to see happening because everyone in a position to be consulted is there precisely because they've committed to the old, increasingly dysfunctional paradigm -- one that's been locked in by business and political interest groups (notably including Israel) that profit from the status quo, and profit even more when disaster strikes.

    I can see two ways to change. One is simply to back away from the strategies that have been failing and causing trouble -- let's call this (a). This approach will be ridiculed as "isolationism," but it could just as well be dressed up as Roosevelt's "good neighbor policy" -- just hold off the guns and judgment. The idea here is that if America gives up its global hegemon ambitions, other countries will follow suit, dramatically reducing the present tendencies for conflict. Conventional blob theorists hate this idea, and argue that any US retreat will result in a vacuum where "our enemies" will rush in to expand their hegemony.

    The (b) alternative to this is for the US to use its current dominant position as bargaining chips to negotiate military draw downs elsewhere and development of international organization to provide order and cooperation in place of power projection.

    Given a choice between politicians advocating (a) or (b), I'd go with (a), because it's simpler and clearer, both easier to state and to implement. The problem with (b) is that it involves misdirection and bluffing, and so is corrosive of trust. But (b) could be the better solution, if you have the patience and skill to see it through. Still, you don't have to do either/or. You can carve out sensible steps from column (a) and from column (b).

    I have little faith that someone as tightly integrated into the blobthink world as Harris seems to be will do either, but she might be just what's needed for (b). There is at least one historical example of a politician who was enough of an insider to gain power, but who then used that power to change direction radically. This was Mikhail Gorbachev. You can debate about how successful he was, and much more. And for sure, there's little reason to think Harris would (or could) pull a similar switch. But there is some similarity in the problems, and in the sclerotic thinking that made both cases seem so intractable.

    In any case, Harris is doing what she needs to do: she is reassuring the "deep state" powers that she can be trusted as one of them. Beyond that, all she has to do is show voters that she's smarter and more sensible than Trump. That's really not very hard to do. Hoping for more in the short period left before the election is rather foolish. She shouldn't risk stirring up potential opponents. Nor does she really need, say, a groundswell of pro-Palestinian support. All she has to do into November is stay better than Trump. Later on, of course, the situation will change. As president, she'll have to face and fix real problems, and not just the polling ones that have bedeviled others.

    • Peggy Noonan: [08-23] Kamala Harris gets off to a strong start: "Her DNC speech was fine, but the race remains a toss-up. It's all going to come down to policy." I originally had the Noonan link in situ above, but brought it down here to share the title and subhed, which are pretty funny.

    • Zack Beauchamp: [08-23] The moment when Kamala Harris's speech came alive: "The Democratic nominee got foreign policy -- and especially Israel-Palestine -- right." I found this after the Kaplan piece, which it largely recapitulates, so I dropped it in here. I've also talked about her Israel/Gaza take already (see James Carden).

  • Errol Louis: [08-24] Kamala Harris and the new politics of joy.

  • Carlos Lozada: [08-22] The shifting convictions of Kamala Harris. A former book review editor, goes back to her previous books: Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us Safer (2009), and The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (2019), both written in times when her political horizons were expanding.

  • Jim Newell: [08-23] Kamala Harris showcased a quality at the DNC that Donald Trump never has.

  • Andrew Prokop: [08-23] Kamala Harris just revealed her formula for taking down Trump: "She cited three familiar issues -- but with new twists."

  • Greg Sargent: [08-23] Kamala's harsh takedown of Trump points the way to a post-MAGA America: "In her speech, the vice president made real overtures to non-Democrats. But she also insisted that we must reject MAGA Republicanism whole cloth." I don't particularly like this way of framing her pitch. As with most political ideas -- "MAGA" is short for Trumpism, hinting at something that might survive the demise of its author -- it contains a large amount of aspiration. You can pick and choose which bits of aspiration you want to discredit and which can be co-opted. Harris's "many olive branches to right-leaning independents and Republican voters" shows that she understands this, not that she's demanding "whole cloth" conversion. But easier than fighting the ideas of MAGA is driving a wedge between them and the vehicle, Trump. The clever way to do this is to adopts some ideals, and turn them back on a very deficient Trump. Of course, that can be tricky, especially as many of us would be happier to see the whole edifice demolished.

    In a remarkable turn, Harris appears prepared to run precisely the aggressive, inspired campaign that combatting the rising forces of domestic authoritarianism requires. Her vision hints at a post-MAGA future that is fully faithful to liberal ideals -- freedom, autonomy, open societies, free and fair elections -- while also addressing dissatisfactions with American life, from economic precarity to feelings of physical insecurity, that are leading many into the temptations of illiberalism. Getting to that future, Harris and Walz appear to be saying, will require fully consigning MAGA to the dustheap of history where it belongs.

    But is this really what they're saying. While Harris/Walz may reflect liberal ideals -- and that seems to be why the idealist idiots (like Chait) are going gaga over the DNC -- they're pushing much more tangible programs, which aim to achieve levels of economic support and social cohesion that Republicans can't deliver, or even fake believing in. Also by Sargent (podcasts):

  • Peter Slevin: [08-23] Kamala Harris's "freedom" campaign: "Democrats' years-long efforts to reclaim the word are cresting in this year's Presidential race."

  • Michael Tomasky: [08-23] The female Obama? No. Kamala Harris is more than that. "Harris's speech united her party -- an incredible task if you consider where we were a month ago."

  • Nick Turse: What Kamala Harris meant by "most lethal fighting force" in her DNC speech.

  • Vox: Vox's guide to Kamala Harris's 2024 policies.

Walz:

Biden:

  • Andrew Marantz: [08-23] Why was it so hard for the Democrats to replace Biden? "After the President's debate with Trump, Democratic politicians felt paralyzed. At the DNC, they felt giddy relief. How did they do it?"

  • N+1 Editors: Hollow Man: Biden, the Democrats, and Gaza. Title explained here:

    In their recent book The Hollow Parties, Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld describe the Republicans and Democrats as lacking in the internal organization that could, respectively, moderate extremist tendencies and mitigate elite capture. The two parties, they write, are "hard shells, marked with the scars of interparty electoral conflict, [which] cover disordered cores, devoid of concerted action and positive loyalties. . . . For all their array of activities, [they] demonstrate fundamental incapacities in organizing democracy." What we had in Biden was a hollow President, a figurehead with fundamental incapacity issues and little substance inside the shell. At best, Biden's hollowness contrasted powerfully with the great-man theory of the presidency embodied by Trump, and his reactivity made space for a resurgent electoral left. At worst, these qualities devolved into impotence, and Biden was revealed as a leader who simply couldn't lead.

    Although much of the article focuses on Biden's relationship with Israel ("the intensity of Biden's passion for Israel has been the great constant of his career -- perhaps the only one") the review of the administration's whole history is insightful and nuanced, with references to Franklin Foer's insider book, The Last Politician, that may make me reconsider shelving the book unread.

  • Charles Lane: [08-22] Biden's embarrassed silence on Afghanistan: Complaint is about his DNC speech, which the author feels should have touted withdrawal as a positive accomplishment. Indeed, it's something three previous presidents failed monumentally at. He deserves credit for recognizing that the decades-long had failed and needed to end. However, he ended it badly, not that Trump left him with many options, in large part because he never moved beyond the magical thinking that trapped the US in Afghanistan in the first place. One result was the PR fiasco, which marked the point where his approval ratings dipped under 50%, something he never overcame. So it's easy to see why he skipped over it.

    However, his failures with Afghanistan haven't ended there. He's fallen into the familiar American "sore loser" pattern, adopted first by Eisenhower in 1953 when he signed an armistice with North Korea but refused to call it peace, leaving a legacy of distrust and petty hostilities that continue to this day (a grudge held and fed for 71 years), as US sanctions have largely hobbled North Korea's development. (South Korea GDP per capita in 2022 was $32422, which is 22 times that of North Korea's $1430.) The US harbors grudges everywhere it has faced rejection and has left disappointed: Vietnam, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Russia, and now Afghanistan. This usually takes the form of sanctions, which impose hardships on the people while more often than not solidifying the control of those countries' rulers. This proves two things: that regardless of wartime propaganda, the US never cared about the people, and that what it did care about was projecting its power (although with repeated failures, these days that might be more accurately defined as protecting its arms cartel -- the definition of "ally" these days is anyone who buys guns from the US, Israel and/or NATO, while "enemy" is anyone who shops elsewhere). Ironically, nothing signifies weakness like shunning countries that would gladly trade with us if we allowed them (e.g., Iran).

    The deal that turned Afghanistan over to the Taliban was negotiated by, or more accurately for, Trump, with zero concern for Afghans who had welcomed US occupation, let alone for any other Afghans, or really for anyone else. Trump's only concern was to postpone the retreat until after the 2024 election, and to minimize US casualties in the meantime. He made no effort to reconcile the Taliban with other parties, to protect civil rights of Afghans after the Taliban enters the government, to ensure that people who might want to emigrate would be free to do so, or to allow for postwar cooperation. In failing to even raise those issues, he signalled to the Afghans that they should come to their own accord with the Taliban, which they did in arranging their instant surrender.

    When Biden took over, he had little leverage left, but he also didn't use what he had, which was the promise of future cooperation to aid the Afghan people. Instead, he subscribed to the fantasy that the US-affiliated Afghans would fight on even without US aid, and delayed departure until the Taliban had completed their arrangements for assuming power, turning the actual departure into the chaos broadcast far and wide. Since then, all Biden has done has been to add Afghanistan to America's "shit list" of countries we sanction and shun.

    Once again, all we've shown to the world is our own hubris and pettiness. The Biden administration has made some serious effort to rethink domestic policy, moving it away from the high ideology of neoliberalism toward something where results matter, and have even come up with some results that do matter, but they've done the opposite in foreign policy, overcorrecting from the cynicism and corruption of "America First" (which was never more than "Trump First", as Trump's "America" seems to exclude everyone but his family and retainers) by reclaiming high moral ground, both to sanctify our own acts and opinions, and to castigate those who aren't sufficiently deferential to us. Unless you're an arms manufacturer or an oil company, the Biden foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster.

And other Democrats:

Trump:

Vance:

And other Republicans:

  • Stephanie Armour/McKenzie Beard: [08-22] Project 2025 would recast HHS as the federal Department of Life.

  • Nina Burleigh: [08-20] The con at the core of the Republican Party: "The conservative movement's total abandonment of even the appearance of principles has been decades in the making." Review of Joe Conason's new book, The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism. Conason "devotes the first third of the book to some of the right-wing scammers 'corroded to the core' like [Roy] Cohn," only one degree of separation from Trump:

    A crucial representative of this attitude, according to Conason, was Roy Cohn, the red-baiting Joe McCarthy aide, New York power broker, and Mafia lawyer whose "philosophy of impunity" was so successful that it shaped right-wing politics for decades to come. His most apt pupil was Donald Trump, whom he represented in his later years. Cohn taught the younger Donald that "it was not only possible but admirable to lie, cheat, swindle, fabricate, then deny, deny, deny -- and get away with everything," Conason writes. As a lawyer, Cohn's motto was: Better to know the judge than to know the law. As a businessman, it was: Better to stiff creditors than pay bills; and always worthwhile to lie, bribe, steal, and swindle while never apologizing.

    The editors offered links to two older pieces relevant here:

  • Eli Clifton: [08-22] Ex-Rep. Gallagher [R-WS] psyched to 'leverage my network' for Palantir: "The China hawk will be cashing in on public service to work for a major defense contractor."

  • Juleanna Glover: [08-26] Republican donors: do you know where your money goes? At some point, wouldn't you expect that even rich people, even those most flattered by solicitations catering to their prejudices, would tire of getting hounded and scammed by this corrupt system. This is worth quoting at some length:

    Anyone who has spent time reviewing Donald Trump's campaign spending reports would quickly conclude they're a governance nightmare. There is so little disclosure about what happened to the billions raised in 2020 and 2024 that donors (and maybe even the former president himself) can't possibly know how it was spent.

    Federal Election Commission campaign disclosure reports from 2020 show that much of the money donated to the Trump campaign went into a legal and financial black hole reportedly controlled by Trump family members and close associates. This year's campaign disclosures are shaping up to be the same. Donors big and small give their hard-earned dollars to candidates with the expectation they will be spent on direct efforts to win votes. They deserve better.

    During the 2020 election, almost $516 million of the over $780 million spent by the Trump campaign was directed to American Made Media Consultants, a Delaware-based private company created in 2018 that masked the identities of who ultimately received donor dollars, according to a complaint filed with the F.E.C. by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. How A.M.M.C. spent the money was a mystery even to Mr. Trump's campaign team, according to news reports shortly after the election. . . .

    A.M.M.C.'s first president was reported to be Lara Trump, the wife of Mr. Trump's son Eric. The New York Times reported that A.M.M.C. had a treasurer who was also the chief financial officer of Mr. Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump's son-in-law, signed off on the plan to set up A.M.M.C., and one of Eric Trump's deputies from the Trump Organization was involved in running it.

    Ms. Trump is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee, which, soon after her arrival, announced it would link up with the Trump campaign for joint fund-raising. The joint entity prioritizes a PAC that pays Mr. Trump's legal fees over the R.N.C., The Associated Press has reported, making assurances from Mr. Trump's campaign co-manager that R.N.C. funds wouldn't be used to pay Mr. Trump's legal bills seem more hollow.

    One thing I'm curious about is why someone supposedly as rich as Trump would get so invested in what are effectively petty cons -- I'm not denying that the money at stake in his media company, these campaigns, and his son-in-law's hedge fund doesn't add up to serious, but how are things like selling bibles and NFTs worth the trouble? Speaking of campaign finance, I clicked on this "related" article:

    • Richard W Painter: [2016-02-03] The conservative case for campaign-finance reform: Old article, clicked on because I can imagine there being such a case, one that would appeal to people who think they are conservatives, and who think conservatism is an honest and thoughtful philosophy that should appeal to enough people to win fair elections. I even think that the most likely way we could get serious campaign finance reform would be if some Republican takes this sort of argument and uses it to guilt-trip Democrats and a few more Republicans to support it.

      As you may recall, Obama's fervor for campaign finance reform faded after he saw how much more money he could raise in 2008 than McCain -- a feat he repeated in 2012 against the more moneyed Romney. However, even when Republicans started losing their cash advantage -- cultivated with such slavish devotion to business interests -- they cling to unlimited spending, because they love the graft, but also they've seen opportunities to paint Democrats as hypocrites and scoundrels for cutting into their share. But mostly, no matter how much they like to quote Burke (and in this case, Goldwater and McCain), their staunchest belief is in inequality, which these days is denominated in dollars.

  • Patrick Healy: [08-26] Harris has the momentum. But Trump has the edge on what matters most. Author is Deputy Opinion Editor at the New York Times, the infamous "fake news" outlet that seems most desperate right now to bolster Trump's candidacy, or at least revitalizing the horse race. Still, not much here to actually define "what matters most. Consider:

    Defining the race: Harris wants to make the race about the future, freedom and unity; Trump wants to make the race about the past, his presidency and threats to the country.

    Does he really think that Harris would be troubled having to talk about "the past, [Trump's] presidency, and threats to the country" -- you know, like more of what Trump did during his presidency? Having so flailed himself, Healy turned to:

    • Rich Lowry: [08-26] Trump can win on character: I clicked on this because I like a good joke as much as anyone, but does Lowry (or Healy?) understand how funny the very idea is? He may be right that "presidential races are won and lost on character as much as the issues," though not that "often the issues are proxies for character" -- more often "character" is used as a mask for poor issues (and is most effective when it also masks poor character -- cf. Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton, and Trump, all of whom were packaged to hide reality). Still:

      Mr. Trump's campaign has been shrewd to begin to hold smaller, thematic-focused events rather than just set him loose at rallies, where there is the most opportunity for self-sabotaging riffs.

      By what possible definition is this proof of his superior character?

    • Thomas B Edsall: [08-21] Trump isn't finished: The publisher's title fits this here, but the substance should stand nicely on its own. Edsall mostly quotes various eminences on the severe threat a second Trump term would present to Amermica and what we still think of as democracy:

      • Sean Wilentz: "Trump, who does not speak in metaphors, had made it plain: 'If I don't get elected, it's going to be a blood bath.'"
      • Laurence Tribe
      • Julie Wronski
      • Bruce Cain: "Trump is more erratic, impulsive, and self-interested than your average candidate and is much bolder than most in testing the boundaries of what he can get away with."
      • Timothy Snyder
      • Charles Stewart
      • Julian Zelizer
      • Jacob Hacker
      • Frances Lee
      • Eric Shickler
      • Robert Y Shapiro
      • Gary Jacobson: "[The biggest difference] will be the absence of officials in the administration with the stature, experience, and integrity to resist Trump's worst instincts in such matters."

    • Patrick Healy: [08-23] Joy is not a strategy.

  • Nicholas Kristof: [08-24] Republicans are right: one party is 'anti-family and anti-kid'.

Election notes:

Legal matters and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

  • Richard Heinberg: [08-25] 7 steps to what a real renewable energy transition looks like: "Historically, an overhaul for humanity's energy system would take hundreds or many thousands of years. The rapid shift to cleaner, more sustainable sources of power generations will easily be the most ambitious enterprise our species has ever undertaken." Glad to see this, as I've read several of Heinberg's books, although none since 2009's Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis, preceded by 2007's Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines. That was back in the Oil Drum era (see Wikipedia"), when Hubbert's peak seemed to be kicking in, before secondary extraction techniques like fracking became cost-effective enough to allow oil and gas production to increase from previously depleted or marginal fields. I read quite a bit on this and related subjects back then. I was especially taken by a chart from one of his books (float right; top: "world oil production from 1600 to 2200, history and projection"; bottom: "world population from 1600 to 2200, history and projection, assuming impacts from depletion"), although I could think of plenty of reasons why the post-peak decline would not be as sharp or perilous (including enhanced secondary recovery.

    I don't have time now, but could probably write quite a bit about this piece. For now, I'll note that I basically agree with his first two section heads: "Why this is (so far) not a real transition" and "The core of the transition is using less energy." His concrete proposals are more troubling, especially those that overreach politically (like rationing and "triage"). "Aim for population decline" seems both politically perilous and unnecessary, given that current projections are that world population will stabilize within 30-60 years. We have major challenges accommodating the population we have (or will have), but reducing the number of people doesn't make the task easier -- and given most ways population has been reduced in the past, may make matters much worse.

  • Benji Jones: [08-22] This chart of ocean heat is terrifying: "The Gulf's looming hurricane problem, explained in a simple graph."

Economic matters:

Ukraine War and Russia:

America's empire and the world:

  • Afyare A Elmi/Yusuf Hassan: [08-26] The coming war nobody is talking about: Ethiopia has been land-locked since Eritrea broke away as an independent country, and their prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, doesn't like it. Part of the problem here is that Somalia is effectively divided, with its northern (formerly British) wedge broken free of its nominal central government in Mogadishu.

  • Joshua Keating: [08-19] Armed conflict is stressing the bones of the global economy: "From shipping lanes to airspace to undersea cables, globalization is under physical attack."

  • Sarang Shidore: [08-21] Dangerous China-Philippine clashes could be expanding: "Serious incidents in the South China Sea are spreading well beyond the Second Thomas Shoal, pulling the US in deeper."

  • Aaron Sobczak: [08-21] Fewer Americans willing to fight and die for other countries: Probably fewer for their own, too, as various forces -- capitalism is a pretty major one -- lead people to focus on individual interests, downplay their group affiliations, and suspect states of being subject to corrupt influences. As lives grow longer and richer, it's getting harder to justify sacrificing one for war, especially as the cost-benefit analysis of war only grows grimmer. Even if the democratic left manages to stem the trend toward hyper-individualism by restoring a sense of public interest, it won't make war more attractive.

    I've been thinking about this a bit while watching pre-modern war culture dramas, like Shōgun and House of the Dragon. The fealty warriors repeated express toward their "lords" is all but unthinkable today, when everyone thinks they're self-interested. But if the alternatives are primitive atomism (individuals, small packs, or clans) and organized bandits. The latter, through cooperation, can be so much more efficient that the rest have no alternative but to organize their own collective defenses. There's more to this, of course, like the argument that the Axial Age religions were efforts to moderate the period's massive increase in warfare.

  • Military-Industrial Complex:

Other stories:

  • Current Affairs:

    • [07-14] Jeffrey Sachs on why US foreign policy is dangerously misguided: "How US presidents from Clinton to Trump to Biden squandered chances to establish a lasting peace in the post-Cold War era."

    • [08-14] Why you will never retire: "Economist Teresa Ghilarducci on why some 90-year-old Americans are pushing shopping carts in the heat trying to make ends meet." She has a book, Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy. "She shows how the pension system disappeared, why Social Security isn't enough, and explains how even the concept of retirement is beginning to disappear, with many arguing that work is good for you, people should do it for longer." As always, much depends on what kind of work you do. I've been effectively retired for 20+ years now, but what that means is that I've been able to afford to do things I want to do, free of having to spend a big chunk of my life toiling for nothing better than making someone else money. I've been very fortunate in that regard. A more generous retirement system would help more people do socially worthwhile work like I do, even if it doesn't contribute to the great GDP fetish. It would also help people avoid doing useless and/or senseless work, of which there is way too much required these days, just because someone has figured out how to turn a profit from it.

    • [08-22] The extreme danger of dehumanizing rhetoric: "David Livingstone Smith, one of the world's leading scholars of dehumanization, explains what it is, why we're so prone of it, and how to resist it." Author of books like:

    • Nathan J Robinson:

      • [08-05] How empires think: "The imperial mentality sanctions some of the worst imaginable crimes in the name of progress, enlightenment, and civilization."

      • [08-07] An encouraging sign: "Choosing Tim Walz as a vice presidential nominee shows Kamala Harris has good political instincts. But what matters is policy, and we should demand real commitments."

      • [08-12] Politics should not be parasocial: "These are not our dads or aunts. We are electing a head of state who will wield immense power and control a massive nuclear arsenal. 'Policy' is not peripheral or dispensable, it's the only thing that really matters." Critique of an Atlantic article on Kamala Harris -- Tom Nichols: [08-19] Policy isn't going to win this election: "The Harris campaign seems to have grasped an important reality" -- which may in turn have led to the Giridharadas kerfuffle below (I'm reaching them in opposite order, and the point doesn't seem worth fact checking). I lean toward Robinson here, but that's largely because I think writers who focus on political policy should take care to get the policy right, regardless of the politics. (If you get the policy right, you can conceivably steer the politics toward it; but if you take the politics as a given, you're very unlikely to get to the right policy.)

        Nichols says that it's a myth that Americans care about policy. But perhaps the opposite is true. I think the very reason that so many Americans are disillusioned with politics is that they don't see how it affects them. If you went around this country and you asked everyone you saw how much attention to politics they pay, and why they don't pay more attention, I guarantee you you'll get many variations on an answer roughly like: None of these politicians ever actually do anything for us, they just care about themselves, they don't care about us, look at my community, what have the politicians ever done for us?

        I've only read the first two paragraphs of the Nichols piece (paywalls, you know). He may well have a point -- it's a truism among political consultants that voters rarely go deep into policy details, and often respond to non-policy signals, voting with an emotional hunch over reasoned analysis. Still, no matter how much politicians and journalists try to dodge them, policy positions do matter, and in a broad sense are likely to be decisive.

      • [08-15] Panic about immigrants is based on feeling and emotion: "Christopher Rufo visited Britain and saw non-white people, leading him to conclude that civilization is being hollowed out."

      • [08-25] On the role of emotion in politics: "A response to MSNBC's Anand Giridharadas, who thinks I am not fun. . . . His reply was quite personal, and he even placed a picture of me next to a picture of Lil Jon to illustrate how much less fun I seem." Seems like an unnecessary response to a charge that has no reason for being, but as a writer who can only imagine how his readers misinterpret him, I concede a bit of interest in such things.

    • Alex Skopic:

    • K Wilson: [04-01] Why the right constantly panics over societal 'decadence': "No, 'Western society' has not fallen from some mythic elevated past. But such right-wing views are appealing, and the left needs an answer to them if we want to avoid being pushed back into traditional hierarchies."

  • Arwa Mahdawi: [08-22] Stop using the term 'centrist'. If doesn't mean what you think it does: "If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy, wrote Orwell. That applies today more than ever." My eyes glaze over when I see Orwell, so I can't tell you what that's about. And while there's plenty to say about the dysfunctionality of "centrism" -- it mostly seems to mean that you would like to see some nicer things happening, but aren't willing to do anything to make it happen that might offend the rich -- the actual examples given here are mostly from Israel. A couple are grimly (or sickeningly) amusing:

    This narrative is so entrenched that people don't believe their eyes when it comes to Palestinians. Last October, the actor Jamie Lee Curtis posted a photo on Instagram showing terrified-looking children peering up at the sky. She captioned the post "terror from the skies" with an Israel flag emoji. When it was pointed out that the kids were Palestinian, she deleted the post. Her eyes may have told her that those innocent children were terrified; the narrative, however, was more complicated.

    Around the same time, Justin Bieber posted a photo of bombed houses with the caption "praying for Israel." When it was pointed out the picture was of Gaza, he deleted it and apparently stopped praying.

  • Timothy Noah: [2022-02-10] Washington is not a swamp: "Ignore the lazy conventional wisdom. The nation's capital is the most public-spirited city in the country. By far." Not sure why this piece popped up suddenly, but it remains relevant, especially with the pending Trump/Project 2025 plan to purge the civil service and replace them with political hacks. This reminds me that one of the best political books to appear during the Trump years was Michael Lewis: The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy, about "a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance and greed." Still, whenever I heard the phrase "drain the swamp," I automatically assumed that the subject was lobbying corruption, which is rife in Washington, even though Trump using it as such was certainly hypocritical -- I always assumed that, like Tom DeLay's K Street Project, his real aim was to take the racket over, to skim his vig. That he meant it as code for the civil service was unthinkable, yet that's clearly what he means.

  • Maya Wei-Haas: [08-26] Dismantling the ship that drilled for the ocean's deepest secrets: "The JOIDES Resolution, which for decades was key to advancing the understanding of the Earth and its innards, concluded what could be its final scientific expedition."

Obituaries

Books

Music (and other arts?)

Chatter

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): music.

Original count: 224 links, 12870 words (16802 total)

Current count: 290 links, 15528 words (20514 total)

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Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Music Week

August archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 42869 [42830] rated (+39), 34 [34] unrated (-0).

Delayed a day, because that's how long the week's Speaking of Which took (219 links, 12161 words, before whatever I add today). Probably just as well, given that (as I noted yesterday) my week was light, which I can only partly blame on time out to cook a nice dinner on Saturday. I made no attempt to count calories, which ingredients suggest were astronomical, but can now report that my weight is down 0.2 lbs today, compared to a day or two before, so maybe I can afford to indulge on the rare occasions when I can line up some willing guests.

I've been bemoaning my inability (and sometimes incompetence) at getting routine maintenance tasks done around the house. One of those came crashing down after dinner on Saturday: a big chunk of plaster-on-lath ceiling in one of the upstairs bedrooms. I've been aware of a crack growing there at least since 2005, viewing it with increasing alarm over the past few months. I even started to plot out possible ways to fix it. After the first pieces broke away, I got up and tore out some extra, so now I have about a 4 sq. ft. patch of exposed lath. In some ways it's less troubling (certainly less ominous) now, especially as I can gauge the thickness of the plaster (about 3/8-inch, the state of the lath (ugly but dry), and how solid what's remaining is (looks like I'll wind up doubling the size of the patch, but nothing else is likely to fall down on its own). In the past, I would have figured out how to fix this, but we've started looking for help. Same for some other small projects.

Barely topped 30 albums below, but the A-list -- after only one album each of the last two weeks -- came roaring back. I'm also pretty caught up with the demo queue, although I still have a lot of albums in hand for September into mid-October. I spent some time re-checking older albums, so came up with a couple re-grades.

I guess I can finally mention now that Fifth Column Filmworks has a web page with a 4:52 trailer for a feature documentary about saxophonist Sam Rivers, based on the extraordinary 764-page book, The Sam Rivers Sessionography by Rick Lopez.

I considered using "we" in the opening line, because this film was originally my idea, but about all I did was to introduce Rick, an internet friend for over 20+ years, and Mike Hull, my nephew and the filmmaker who previously directed and produced Betrayal at Attica, dump some starter money into the project, and let them work it out.

New records reviewed this week:

Okaidja Afroso: Ŕbňr Édín (2024, Chechekule): Singer-songwriter and traditional dancer from Ghana, has a couple previous albums. B+(*) [sp]

John Alvey: Loft Glow (2022-23 [2024], Jazz Music City): Nashville-based drummer, first album, wrote first song, local-based band members added two more, plus some jazz covers (Benny Golson, Ron Carter, John Stubblefield), nice postbop group with a little swing. B+(**) [cd] [08-25]

Charlie Apicella & Iron City Meet the Griots Speak: Call to Action/Call to Prayer (2022 [2024], OA2): Guitarist, his Iron City group has mostly played funk-fusion since 2008, but his griots are from another musical planet, mostly veterans of the old NYC loft scene, like Daniel Carter, William Parker, and Juma Sultan. B+(**) [cd]

Art Baden: How Much of It Is Real (2023 [2024], Rainy Days): Tenor saxophonist, born in Russia, first album, also plays bass clarinet and flute, leads a quartet with Joe Locke (vibes/keyboards), Jay Anderson (bass), and Jeff "Tain" Watts (drums, recorded in his studio). B+(**) [cd]

George Dearborne: Lotta Honky Tonkin' Left in Me (2024, Wingate): Country singer, from Beaumont, Texas, started out as a drummer in the 1970s, started leading bands in the 1990s, released his first album in 2020. No original songs, but most are new to me (exceptions: Doug Sahm, Merle Haggard). B+(**) [sp]

Jeff Evans Porkestra: Willow Pillow (2024, self-released, EP): Evans is "a seasoned figure in Atlanta's roots and alt-country scene," seems to have had a previous group called Chickens and Pigs, calls this "a musical rewrite" of their 2021 album Guitars Food Music Beer Dog, which I can find no corroborating evidence for (although Spotify has three other Chickens and Pigs albums, none in Discogs). Six songs, 22:31. B+(***) [sp]

Claudia Gibson: The Fields of Chazy (2024, self-released): Austin-based folk singer-songwriter, second album, has some appealing songs. B+(**) [sp]

Russell Haight: Go Forth (2023 [2024], OA2): Saxophonist (tenor pictured), studied at Texas, was based in Austin until moving to Saratoga Springs and Skidmore college. Has a previous album, also a book on Odd-Meter Etudes for Saxophone. Quartet with Sean Giddings (piano), bass, and drums. Original pieces. Strong on upbeat pieces. B+(***) [cd]

Joel Harrison & Alternative Guitar Summit: The Middle of Everywhere: Guitar Solos Vol. I (2024, AGS): Harrison, a notable guitarist in his own right, is credited as producer here, with eleven other guitarists doing the heavy lifting. No recording dates given, but AGS has at least existed for 14 years, so they're probably working off some backlog. Only two names don't ring a bell for me, but check yourself: Fareed Haque, Nguyen Lę, Nels Cline, Liberty Ellman, Anupam Shobhakar, Camila Meza, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Anthony Pirog, Cecil Alexander, Miles Okazaki, Henry Kaiser. Not ambient exactly, but insider plays I suspect are more to impress each other than to excite fans. B+(*) [cd]

Hyeseon Hong Jazz Orchestra: Things Will Pass (2023 [2024], Pacific Coast Jazz): Korean composer and band leader, based in New York and/or Seoul, has a previous album from 2017, leads a conventional big band with saxophonist Rich Perry getting a "featured" credit. B+(**) [cd]

Ice Spice: Y2K! (2024, 10K/Capitol/Dolo): Rapper Isis Gaston, first studio album (10 songs, 23:17) after a well-received EP in 2023 (13:08, then 16:01, then finally in a 24:15 "deluxe edition," which is the one I liked). B+(***) [sp]

Eric Jacobson: Heading Home (2023 [2024], Origin): Trumpet player, based in Chicago, couple previous albums, this a postbop quintet with Geoff Bradfield (tenor sax), Bruce Barth (piano), bass, and drums. B+(*) [cd]

Boldy James/Conductor Williams: Across the Tracks (2024, self-released): Rapper James Clay Jones III, several albums per year since 2020, various producer/collaborators, this one is Denzel Williams, from Kansas City, coming off joints with Stik Figa and Conway the Machine. B+(**) [sp]

Kirk Knuffke: Super Blonde (2023 [2024], SteepleChase): Cornet player, albums since 2007 range from free to mainstream, often superb either way. This one is mostly standards, sharply etched, with a mainstream rhythm section of two bassists (Jay Anderson and Thommy Andersson) and drums (Adam Nussbaum). A- [sp]

David Liebman & the CNY Jazz Orchestra: If a White Horse From Jerusalem . . . (2022 [2024], CNY Jazz Arts Foundation): This should probably be filed under Bret Zvacek, who is music director of the Syracuse-based Central New York Jazz Orchestra -- spine credit is just CNY Jazz Orchestra -- a conventional big band -- but the featured soprano saxophonist gets top billing on the cover. Zvacek composed the title suite (4 parts, 25:27), with others arranging the rest of the program, including covers of "Somewhere" and "Where or When." B+(**) [cd]

Lux Quartet: Tomorrowland (2023 [2024], Enja/Yellowbird): Co-led by Myra Melford (piano) and Allison Miller (drums), with Dayna Stephens (tenor sax) and Scott Colley (bass). Relentlessly inventive postbop, the pianist can delight and dazzle, the sax more tentative but substantial,the rhythm always en garde. A- [cd]

Matt Mitchell: Zealous Angles (2024, Pi): Pianist, one of the best to have emerged in the last decade, presents a trio of Chris Tordini (bass) and Dan Weiss (drums), playing a batch of original pieces. B+(***) [cd]

ŘKSE: ŘKSE (2023 [2024], Backwoodz Studioz): Free jazz quartet with an electronic twist -- "sound chemist" Val Jeanty plays electronics, while bassist Petter Eldh also wields sampler and synths, along with saxophonist Mette Rasmussen and drummer Savannah Harris -- but four (of eight) pieces also feature guest rappers: Elucid, Billy Woods, Maassal, and Cavalier. Remarkable on all counts. A- [sp]

Jonathan Powell: Mambo Jazz Party (2022 [2024], Circle 9): Trumpet player, from Florida, based in New York, has played in Latin jazz bands, leading this one, a powerhouse outfit. B+(***) [cd]

Alvin Queen Trio: Feeling Good (2023 [2024], Stunt): Drummer, born in New York, credits start in 1970, picking up after he moved to Switzerland in 1979. Trio with Carlton Holmes (piano) and Danton Boller (bass), playing standards, and doubling down on Cedar Walton. B+(*) [sp]

Ayra Starr: The Year I Turned 21 (2024, Mavin Global Holdings): Pop singer-songwriter, born in Benin, grew up in Lagos, titles so far note her age -- debut was 19 & Dangerous. B+(**) [sp]

Linda Thompson: Proxy Music (2024, Storysound): Much beloved as the better half of a 1970s duo with then-husband Richard Thompson, spotty solo career since then with several decade-plus breaks, no longer sings but co-wrote a batch of songs, performed by various family and friends, with son Teddy Thompson most involved. B+(*) [sp]

Tinashe: Quantum Baby 2024, Nice Life): R&B singer-songwriter, born in Kentucky but grew up in California, last name Kachingwe, seventh album since 2014, single "Nasty" her biggest since 2014's "2 On." B+(**) [sp]

Piet Verbist: Flamenco Jazz Summit: El Mar Empieza Aquí (2023 [2024], Origin): Belgian bassist, has several albums, none particularly like this foray into Spanish flamenco, represented with bansuriney (Carmelo Muriel), guitar (Carlos Cortés), and drums (Juan Sainz), mixed with piano (Milan Verbist) and alto/soprano sax (Tom Van Dyck). B+(***) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

África Negra: Antologia Vol. 2 (1979-90 [2024], Bongo Joe): Band, established in the early 1970s by Horacio and Emidio Pontes, in the formerly Portuguese colony of Săo Tomé and Principé, islands in the Atlantic of the west coast of Africa, fitting midway between Nigerian highlife and Congolese soukous. A- [sp]

Phil Haynes' 4 Horns and What?: The Complete American Recordings (1989-95 [2024], Corner Store Jazz, 3CD): Drummer, mostly associated with the late trumpet player Paul Smoker (on all three sets here), also with Ellery Eskelin (tenor sax, on the first two sets) and Herb Robertson (on the last two, credited here with "multi-brass"). Other horns here include Andy Laster (alto/bari sax/clarinet/flute on all three sets), Joe Daley ("low brass" on the first), and John Tchicai (tenor sax on the third). It's a formula that generates a lot of excitement. A- [sp]

Old music:

Okaidja Afroso: Jaku Mumor (2022, Chechekule): From Ghana, earlier album has a nicer flow. B+(**) [sp]

Ellery Eskelin/Drew Gress/Phil Haynes/Paul Smoker: Joint Venture (1987, Enja): Free jazz group, artist names -- tenor sax, bass, drums, trumpet -- on cover but appears conceived as an eponymous group album, first of three albums through 1993, although their intertangled histories continued much longer. Starts with two covers, a slow "Day Dream" and a "Just in Time" which picks up momentum before getting into the originals. B+(***) [bc]

Rosie Tucker: Lowlight (2015, self-released, EP): Singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, first album if you count it -- nine songs, 23:26, as best I can figure was 17 at the time, very much on her own. Her latest album sent Christgau back to her 2019 "debut," which I will get to in due course, but this one is very impressive in its own right, with several songs I'm tempted to quote not just lines but verses from, including two where she advises guys to look for love elsewhere, with one turning to suicide instead. A- [sp]

Rosie Tucker: Never Not Never Not Never Not (2019, New Professor): With 11 songs, we'll call this a proper album, but still only runs 26:40, with only one song topping 3:04. She also has band backup here, but maybe the new songs needed that -- they're not as immediately striking, nor are they obviously not. B+(***) [sp]

Rosie Tucker: Sucker Supreme (2021, Epitaph): Fourteen songs, 35:43, semi-major label dropper her after one album, music continues to develop, lyrics get harder to follow, or maybe just more complex and elusive. This seems to be the consensus pick among her albums, but I don't quite get it. B+(***) [sp]

Grade (or other) changes:

Chappell Roan: The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (2023, Amusement/Island): I played this last year, wrote virtually nothing on it, so must not have been paying much attention, losing the single "Red Wine Supernova" after the later ballad fare, which on closer inspection turns out to be pretty good, too. [was: B+(**)] A- [sp]

Rosie Tucker: Utopia Now! (2024, Sentimental): I played this when it came out, and liked it but didn't get much. Christgau picked it, went into her back catalog, and was even more smitten by Sucker Supreme. Various others have seconded his approval. So I figured odds were good that I had been hasty, and her previously unreported Lowlight raised my expectations even higher. Working forward confirmed her smarts and added chops and (less often) hooks, but as her increasing chops brings extra clutter, I'm getting less and less satisfaction out of her records. When I played this last night, I wound up inclined to save myself the paperwork by leaving my original grade. Playing it again today, I'm finally hearing lots of interesting stuff, but I'm still not enjoying it enough -- perhaps her voice, the time shifts, other little things I don't have any idea how to characterize. But her rep is certainly earned. [was: B+(**)] B+(***)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Neil Adler: Emi's Song (self-released) [05-29]
  • David Bailis: Tree of Life (Create or Destroy) [10-11]
  • Marc Ciprut: Moonshine (White Label) [07-11]
  • Buck Curran: One Evening and Other Folks Songs (ESP-Disk): [0628]
  • Michael Dease: Found in Space: The Music of Gregg Hill (Origin) [09-20]
  • Dharma Down: Owl Dreams (Dharma Down) [10-11]
  • Javon Jackson/Nikki Giovanni: Javon & Nikki Go to the Movies (Solid Jackson/Palmetto) [08-23]
  • Allen Lowe & the Constant Sorrow Orchestra: Louis Armstrong's America Volume 1 (ESP-Disk, 2CD) [09-03]
  • Allen Lowe & the Constant Sorrow Orchestra: Louis Armstrong's America Volume 2 (ESP-Disk, 2CD) [09-03]
  • Matt Panayides Trio: With Eyes Closed (Pacific Coast Jazz) [09-20]
  • Jeff Rupert: It Gets Better (Rupe Media) [09-06]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, August 19, 2024

Speaking of Which

I started this in a timely manner, but had various distractions during the week, and skipped Saturday altogether as I decided to cook dinner for some guests. So I only made it about half way through my usual rounds on Sunday before I ran out. Picked it up Monday morning, and should get something out in the evening, hopefully not real late. That will push Music Week back another day, which will probably bring my slow week back over the 30 mark.

As I'm wrapping up, the Democratic National Convention has started. Nothing on it below. That's definitely one for next week. There is also a report of a ceasefire deal, which would be nice timing for the Convention, but may not yet be real: Netanyahu agrees to mediators' cease-fire proposal, Blinken says. More on that (if there is anything more) next week. I didn't quite get to everything I usually hit, but I figure I have quite enough for now. I may add some things on Tuesday while I work on Music Week. I've already held back two Jonathan Chait pieces, which may turn out to be especially irritating.

I added a fair amount of material on Tuesday, while working on the much more manageable Music Week. Hard to say when one of these things is done, except by opening its successor, which will happen shortly after posting Music Week.

This is just an aside, but as long as I've been doing this, my first stop for news has been Vox. However, a few months ago, they redesigned their website to make it much harder to find new articles -- the chronological roll has been replaced by clusters of pieces that are dominated by what I suppose they consider "human interest" stories. Today's (rarely with author names, never with dates/times):

Of those stories, I only clicked on the last, and that only because I had no idea who Blake Lively was. (Actor, It Ends With Us, "the second biggest movie in America," something else I had no inkling of. At the end of which was a pitch for money, informing me that I had read 80 articles in the last month.) Further down the page, more articles I skipped:

I can't say that I have zero interest in these pieces, but they don't look very promising for my purposes. (To be fair, I often click on their culture and tech pieces, without writing anything about them.) The bottom of the home page still has a listing of "more news," which is chronological and labeled and I'm still finding quite a lot down there. So I may not be complaining about their irrelevance so much as I'm disturbed by their apparent belief that the other stuff is what really matters. In addition to the pieces I've actually cited below, the roll includes a bunch of articles that are interesting but don't immediately fit in what I'm doing below (this is a judgment call being made late Sunday, as I'm rushing to wrap up, so don't want to open up any more cans of worms than I have to). So I thought I might just mention them here:

Back in what we might call my "middle years" (roughly 30-50, or 1980-2000) I focused much less on politics, and more on general social, cultural, scientific, and business issues like these. They remain interesting subjects, but seem to be getting pushed aside in favor of more conventionally political matters.

Top story threads:

Israel:

  • Mondoweiss:

  • Ghada Ageel: [08-15] Gaza's other death toll: "Israel has caused countless preventable deaths which are yet to be reflected in the official Gaza death toll."

  • Yousef Aljamal: The daily battles to survive the Gaza genocide: "Tents out of aid parachutes, waiting days for a tin of beans, re-digging graves to bury martyrs: here's what Palestinians have to overcome."

  • Haaretz: Don't buy the lie that Israeli settler violence is the exception. It's the rule.

  • Reem A Hamadaqa: [08-14] What it's like living in a tent in Gaza: "Gaza's landscape is dominated by tents that have become homes to the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians. But building a tent and living in one with your entire family isn't easy."

  • Tareq S Hajjaj:

    • [08-11] The Fajr massacre: Every 70 kg bag of human remains is considered a martyr: "The bodies of Palestinians killed in the latest Israeli massacre in Gaza were destroyed so far beyond recognition that doctors have only been able to give grieving families an anonymous bag of human remains to bury." I don't like the word "martyr," but one does need some term to honor those who died, not as willing sacrifices to a great cause, but as victims of victims of atrocities committed by people who have no honor and decency.

    • [08-15] Fighting the Israeli army in Gaza: Inside the battle for Shuja'iyya: "In a testimony obtained by Mondoweiss, a resident of Shuja'iyya recounts his motivations for wanting to join Hamas's al-Qassam Brigades to fight against the Israeli army."

  • Samah Jabr: [08-15] Sadism as a tool of war in Gaza.

  • Rifat Kassis: [08-18] Why the Israeli 'peace camp' disappeared: "It is primarily in the hands of Israelis to reject their settler colonial occupation, their apartheid laws, and their current government and nationalist parties. The alternative means the loss of their humanity."

  • Joseph Massad: [08-12] Why raping Palestinians is legitimate Israeli military practice: "Sadism has long characterized Zionist colonists' treatment of Palestinians, rooted in orientalist views that Arab only 'understand force' -- including sexual violence." This led me to a couple older pieces:

  • Qassam Muaddi:

  • Jonathan Ofir: [08-12] Israeli media's coverage of the rape of Palestinian detainees shows support for sexual violence in service of genocide: "Israeli media coverage of the rape of Palestinian detainees demonstrates the widespread acceptance within Israeli society of sexual violence as a weapon of genocide."

  • Noa Pinto: The taps have run dry in Jerusalem's largest Palestinian neighborhood: "Long neglected by the Jerusalem Municipality, Kufr 'Aqab residents now receive only a few hours of water a week."

  • Richard Silverstein: [08-14] As Israel wages genocide, its economy is buckling. US aid is vital to Israel not just to keep resupplying them with bombs but to keep the economy operating given how expensive their war is. (The same thing can also be said for Ukraine. In both cases, the US should have enough leverage to shut down the wars, if only the powers in Washington decide to do so.)

    Four hundred thousand Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers have served extended tours of duty in Gaza, the West Bank, and northern Israel. They have left families and jobs and, in many cases, lost their businesses. In addition, almost 250,000 Israelis have become refugees due to fighting with Hezbollah. This has had a massive impact on the Israeli economy. Economic growth and GDP have plummeted.

    Forty-six thousand businesses have failed since October 7. That number will increase to sixty thousand by the end of 2024. This has a ripple effect throughout the economy. Bankruptcies hit the bottom line of the lenders who extended credit to the failed businesses. Vendors and suppliers also take a hit, while the lives of many small business owners have been reduced to shambles. They have sunk into debt and often are forced to rely on handouts from friends, family, and charities:

    Many of those [IDF] fighters are close to a breaking point. Exhausted and in some cases demoralized, they are struggling to balance family and work with military service, while the economic toll from their absences mounts.

    The Israeli Population Authority reported that in the past year, 575,000 more Israelis left the country than returned to it. The immigration rate has halved since October 7.

    Activity in the construction sector, reliant on over two hundred thousand Palestinian workers who are now barred from entering Israel, has declined by 25 percent. This has led to the collapse of building contractors and developers.

    The Palestinian economy has been decimated and driven residents into penury. The desperation they face will lead inevitably to bitter resentment and future violence. Tourism, once a powerhouse of the economy, has dried up. The agriculture sector (20 percent decline) is based mainly in the north and the south, regions hard-hit by hostilities. Trade has plummeted drastically at Israel's southern port, Eilat, due to Houthi interruption of maritime traffic in the Red Sea. . . .

    The Bank of Israel announced that the 2024 growth rate would be -2 percent, unprecedented in an Israeli economy used to sustained growth. Fitch has just downgraded the country's credit rating, describing the economic outlook as "negative." The Bank of Israel has raised the interest rate to 4.5 percent. . . .

    Israel's buckling economy will increase social unrest. Massive increases in funding for the ultra-Orthodox and settlements will sow sectarian division between secular (40 percent of the population) and religious Israelis. Wars in Gaza and Lebanon will destabilize the region and increase the likelihood of future wars, which will require massive increases in military spending. The current economic strain will increase hostility, already at a fever pitch, toward Netanyahu and his government and lead to their likely downfall in 2026 elections.

  • Aaron Sobczak: [08-14] Israelis using Gaza civilians as human shields: "IDF soldiers give gruesome first hand accounts to Haaretz newspaper."

  • Jonah Valdez: Video of sexual abuse at Israeli prison is just latest evidence Sde Teiman is a torture site.

  • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [08-12] Nearly 2% of Gazans killed in last 10 months: "Harris laments bombing of shelters yet her administration just released $3.5B in more weapons to Israel."

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

Israel vs. world opinion:

  • Abdullah Al-Arian: [08-14] Why Arab regimes' betrayal of Palestine may come back to haunt them. Maybe, but the phrase "learned helplessness" -- which I've seen in various contexts of late -- comes to mind. They tried declaring their solidarity with Palestinians, and even went to war against Israel -- most notably in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, plus numerous skirmishes, with Iraq's Scud missile attacks in 1990 a "last hurrah" -- to no avail. They tried negotiating peace, which Israel only allowed on terms injurious to Palestinians. The Palestinians themselves passed through both phases, multiple times, getting screwed both ways. The "Abraham Accords" promised normalcy through commerce but just made Israel more arrogant, leaving Hamas so desperate they resorted to what was effectively a suicide bombing. No doubt most people in the Arab (and other Muslim) countries feel more solidarity than their leaders, which could make it a potent issue when and if the outs -- which is nearly everybody -- rise up against the ins, for whom this is but one of many discrediting issues.

    Israel doesn't care. What's the worst case scenario for them? Say, Saudi Arabia is overthrown by a novel Islamo-Fascist party -- the term has never been more than an idle slander before, but if you start from the Nazi notion of a Third Reich (this one would seek to revive the Abassid and Ottoman Empires, which can provide plenty of Islamic trappings to pave the way to war) -- which then moves on to form alliances with Egypt, Iran, and/or Turkey (each susceptible in their own ways to such thinking), Israel could simply respond by obliterating them all with nuclear weapons -- and could depend on the US as backup. Some Israelis may even relish the challenge, as cover for finishing off the Palestinians, and extending their settlements onto the East Bank.

    Needless to say, no actual Arab political leader is thinking even remotely along these lines. Even ISIS isn't ambitious enough to challenge Israel. The only way this situation can be resolved -- the only way Palestinians can finally catch a break -- is if/when Israel decides to change course. To paraphrase Golda Meir, "Peace will come when the Israelis will love their children more than they hate Palestinians." That's not happening soon, and there's not a damn thing Arabs, including Palestinians, can do about it. (Well, the BDS work is good; the UN, the ICJ; the protests in the US and Europe directed at curtailing support Israel still depends on for its warmaking. Threats and acts of violence against Israelis and/or their supporters abroad are more likely to do harm than good.) Related here:

  • Alain Alameddine/Nira Iny: [08-17] Germany was never denazified. That's why it's siding with Israel today. "The Allies failed to denazify Europe by failing to dismantle the political foundations their own nations shared with the Nazi regime. Europeans need not repeat that mistake." I don't buy this argument on any level. There was an explicit denazification program in the late 1940s. It was narrow and shallow, and abandoned shortly, as it turned out that the most anti-communist Germans the West needed after partition had Nazi backgrounds, and by then simple disavowal seemed like a satisfactory compromise.

    The real change of heart occurred in the 1960s, when a new generation came of age, and was eager to break with the past. That's when acknowledgment of the Holocaust started to appear in German literature, e.g., the plays of Rolf Hochhuth and Peter Weiss. That also happened after Israel tried Eichmann, and started lobbying Germany for reparations -- not just money, but recognition that Israel alone represented the survivors of the Holocaust. That was a good deal for Israel. What Germans got out of it is less tangible, but they could afford some charity to feel and look better, and having no Jewish population of their own, they could easily equate Jews with Israelis.

    That Israel would eventually manifest symptoms of Nazism was unforeseen, and may still be bewildering. As far as I can tell, no western state that supports Israel does so because they're in favor of the genocide. Most go to great lengths to deny that Israel is doing any such thing, and to insist that Israel is only defending itself, as is assumed to be their right. Where Germany is exceptional is in how dogmatically they equate antisemitism, which they are well trained to eschew, with any criticism of Israel. But that has more to do with the fact that they were once ruled by Nazis than that they still feel the urges that once drove them to genocide.

  • Omer Bartov: [08-14] As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel: "This summer, one of my lectures was protested by far-right students. Their rhetoric brought to mind some of the darkest moments of 20th-century history -- and overlapped with mainstream Israeli views to a shocking degree." Following is a long quote, but virtually all of it is needed to get a sense of how ordinary Israelis are considering events. This is preceded by a long section on Bartov's own experiences in the IDF and in studying Nazi Germany and how soldiers are trained to commit war crimes. That has much bearing on how IDF soldiers are fighting this war, but their popular support (or at least forbearance) is something different. Although Israel prides itself on being a democracy -- at least for some of the people, some of the time -- there has long been a divide between the political/military class, who are trained to lead and fight, and the elect citizenry, who are terrorized and ingrained with propaganda, so they will follow and fight (as ordered).

    Today, across vast swaths of the Israeli public, including those who oppose the government, two sentiments reign supreme.

    The first is a combination of rage and fear, a desire to re-establish security at any cost and a complete distrust of political solutions, negotiations and reconciliation. The military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that war was the extension of politics by other means, and warned that without a defined political objective it would lead to limitless destruction. The sentiment that now prevails in Israel similarly threatens to make war into its own end. In this view, politics is an obstacle to achieving goals rather than a means to limit destruction. This is a view that can only ultimately lead to self-annihilation.

    The second reigning sentiment -- or rather lack of sentiment -- is the flipside of the first. It is the utter inability of Israeli society today to feel any empathy for the population of Gaza. The majority, it seems, do not even want to know what is happening in Gaza, and this desire is reflected in TV coverage. Israeli television news these days usually begins with reports on the funerals of soldiers, invariably described as heroes, fallen in the fighting in Gaza, followed by estimates of how many Hamas fighters were "liquidated." References to Palestinian civilian deaths are rare and normally presented as part of enemy propaganda or as a cause for unwelcome international pressure. In the face of so much death, this deafening silence now seems like its own form of vengefulness.

    Of course, the Israeli public long ago became inured to the brutal occupation that has characterised the country for 57 out of the 76 years of its existence. But the scale of what is being perpetrated in Gaza right now by the IDF is as unprecedented as the complete indifference of most Israelis to what is being done in their name. In 1982, hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested against the massacre of the Palestinian population in the refugee camps Sabra and Shatila in western Beirut by Maronite Christian militias, facilitated by the IDF. Today, this kind of response is inconceivable. The way people's eyes glaze over whenever one mentions the suffering of Palestinian civilians, and the deaths of thousands of children and women and elderly people, is deeply unsettling.

    In theory, the political/military class serves at the sufferance of the voters, but for all intents and purposes, the voters only exist to ratify their leaders, who have been carefully selected through decades of conflict and combat. As Americans, we should know what that feels like, although we feel it less intensely: our businesses are booming, our wars are more distant and less intrusive, our homeland more secure, our history unclouded by Holocaust paranoia. Still, our information is manipulated, our options are selected and limited, and our attention diverted, so how responsible are we for our leaders, let alone for what they do once elected?

    By the way, I also ran across this article Bartov wrote early on: [2023-11-10] What I believe as a historian of genocide. His article starts: "Israeli military operations have created an untenable humanitarian crisis, which will only worsen over time." He then asks whether those military operations constitute genocide, and tries his best to answer "not yet."

  • Marco Carnelos: [08-19] European leaders are stoking the flames of a Middle East inferno: "Their wilful blindness to Israel's atrocities in Gaza, and their refusal to hold Netanyahu to account, could sharply escalate the conflict." The author has been following European leaders, to little avail:

  • Juan Cole: [08-16] Saudi Crown Prince fears assassination if he recognizes Israel without getting a Palestinian state. Draws on:

  • Hamid Dabashi: [08-18] Thanks to Gaza, European philosophy has been exposed as ethically bankrupt: "From Heidegger's Nazism to Habermas's Zionism, the suffering of the 'Other' is of little consequence." Just noted, not something I'm interested in digging into at the moment, but I will note that back in the 1970s, my interest in the Frankfurt School hit a brick wall when I attempted to read one of his major works (probably Knowledge and Human Interests) and failed to retain anything useful from it (not even rejection). While I know a bit more, and care a bit less, about Heidegger, that's a pretty narrow slice of European philosophy to attempt to generalize from. As for Habermas's cheerleading for Israel against Hamas, I noted that his principle statement -- a joint letter -- was from relatively early in the genocide (Nov. 13), so I wondered if he had since thought better. A quick search didn't reveal anything, but I will note this:

  • Chip Gibbons/Nathan Fuller: [08-16] More than 100 journalists come together with their fellow journalists in Palestine and against US complicity in their killing.

  • Miles Howe: [08-17] Revocation of the JNF's charitable status indicates massive shift in how Canada views the Israeli occupation: "The revocation of the Jewish National Fund's and Ne'eman Foundation's charitable status suggests a massive shift is underway in how Canada views the illicit funding of West Bank settlements following the ICJ's opinion on the Israeli occupation."

  • Sarah Jones: [08-19] Gaza is the defining moral issue of our time: Agreed that "what's happening in Gaza today is a moral outrage and an ongoing genocide, and our reaction to it will shape who we are as a nation." I'd add that that's been the case since around Oct. 10, around the time when Israel repulsed the last Hamas fighters and re-sealed the breached walls around Gaza. A unilateral Israeli ceasefire at that point would have ended the war, leaving Gaza badly damaged, but few would have faulted Israel for that. Continuing the bombing for a week or two more before a ceasefire would have made the point that Israelis are vindictive bastards, which should have been unnecessary, but given how much worse it could be, we would have sighed in relief. There's no excuse for what they've done ever since then, and even if they can't see that, there's no reason for the US, Europe, and everyone else to make excuses, let alone aid and abet, their genocide.

    On the other hand, one thing I had to come to grips with after Oct. 7 was that moral judgments are a luxury that presume a degree of free choice. I don't have time to go back through those issues -- you can check my old columns from Oct. 2023 on, which hold up pretty well (though may have been a bit too generous toward Israel). One thing I do want to emphasize here is that I think moral judgments are unnecessary and sometimes dangerous luxuries in politics. For most of us, moral judgments give us essential perspective on the world. But politicians have to operate in a different world, one where being "right" signifies very little, and what you can do is often quite constrained. I can comfortably say that Netanyahu is immoral for wanting to prosecute his war, and that Biden is immoral for not restraining him, but I understand that what Harris can actually do is very limited, and may not be helped by saying the right things (as Jones wants her to do -- that is the point of the article). I think that we should judge Biden harshly for what he has said, done, and not done, but I'm not yet prepared to say the same about Harris. Moreover, while I would like for her to take what I consider proper positions, I understand that as VP under Biden, and as the Democratic nominee for president, she is operating under constraints where saying the right things may not contribute to the right actions, and may even complicate them.

  • Ahmed Khan: [08-16] I left Biden's campaign over Gaza. Here's how Harris can earn my trust again.

  • Joseph Massad: [03-20] In the West, Israel never initiates violence, it only 'retaliates': "In the western narrative, it is the Palestinians who initiated violence by daring to resist racist and colonial Zionist violence, which is why their resistance can never be called 'retaliation.'" He notes that their choice of language is not new or peculiar to Israel: "The New York Times referred to the white Rhodesians' killing of 1,600 Africans in Zambian refugee camps in 1978 as 'retaliatory raids.'"

  • Craig Mokhiber: [08-12] The ICJ finds that BDS is not merely a right, but an obligation: "The ICJ's authoritative ruling on the Israeli occupation makes clear that boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli occupation, colonization, and apartheid are not only a moral imperative but also a legal obligation."

  • Jeff Wright: [08-11] In significant reversal, Church of England head says Israeli occupation must end following ICJ opinion: "'The [recent] Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice,' Archbishop Justin Welby writes, 'makes definitively clear that Israel's presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is unlawful and needs to end as rapidly as possible.'"

Election notes:

Trump:

  • Charles M Blow: [08-14] Another 'nasty' woman strikes fear in Trump: "But when Trump talks about women who in any way challenge his power, his rhetoric drips with sexism. In recent days, he has referred to Harris as 'incompetent,' 'nasty' and 'not smart.'"

  • Jamelle Bouie:

    • [08-13] What the Republican Party might look like if Trump loses.

    • [08-16] Trump has opened the pathway to reform: Not really, unless he thinks Trump is going to lose so badly that Democrats will be able to implement his major reforms -- he starts with "end the electoral college and move to a national popular vote," removing all the vote suppression and gerrymanders that have allowed Republicans to claim elections, and ending the filibuster, which allows a minority party to frustrate change. Oh yes, also "reform of the entire federal judiciary." Only when denied such cheats will Republicans be forced to become good citizens, and compete for real majority rule -- in which case, would they still be conservatives? And in any case, why credit Trump with "opening the pathway to reform" when all he did was to reduce the old elitism and crony corruption ad absurdum?

      Bouie is usually a pretty smart guy, so I really don't get what he's driving at here. He writes, "The United States will always have a conservative party," but why? Do we really need a party that is dedicated to plutocracy? To keeping most people poor, in debt, and powerless? To promoting racism and violence? To a police state that protects fraud and rackets? There will always be a place for what's called "conservative" personal values, but why should such values be incompatible with conscientious and respectful government, fair business, law and order, a sense of public interest, a generous safety net, and broad-based equality? Republicans have to cheat, because what they want is fundamentally unacceptable to a majority of the people. Democrats don't have to cheat. They just have to get out and run to honestly represent the people in their districts.

      If half of the Republicans in the Senate were to lose next time out, the Senate would not be suddenly flooded with socialists like Bernie Sanders and liberals like Elizabeth Warren. They'd wind up with a lot more people like John Tester and Joe Manchin, who would be nearly as conservative on personal principles as the Republicans they replaced, but at least believe in honest, functional government, like Democrats do, and may be a bit more tolerant of diversity, because they'll see more people as allies and less as threats to their delicately perched minoritarian rule.

      And if Democrats did succeed in representing everyone (without or even with the 1%), which is clearly the goal, what the hell do we need Republicans for anyway? They can go the way of the Know Nothings and the Mugwumps, for all I care.

      Oh, one more thing: anyone who wants to talk about reforming democratic institutions without starting at money should be hooted out of the room. The number one threat to democracy is money. And we know this because we've already seen it at work. And even though the Democratic Party still gives lip service to democracy, they've been afflicted as badly as the Republicans. The only difference is that the Republicans brag about the power of money in their party, while Democrats just whisper about it -- a hypocrisy that paradoxically makes them look even more corrupt, and makes ordinary people all the more upset at them.

  • Philip Bump:

  • Jonathan Chait:

  • Kevin T Dugan: [08-12] Traders are having a hard time staying bullish on Trump media.

  • Tom Engelhardt: [08-15] Why voting for Donald Trump is a suicidal act. His main thing has always been the folly of empire, but lately he keeps circling back to climate change, with increasingly dire consequences.

  • Michelle Goldberg: [08-16] Trump is no longer even pretending to champion the working class.

  • Margaret Hartmann:

  • Ellen Ioanes: [08-12] What we know about Trump's claim that Iran hacked his campaign.

  • Jeet Heer: [08-16] Donald Trump is already planting the seeds of the next insurrection: "Insecure and contemplating defeat, the former president returns to a familiar script." This, of course, speaks to his character and nature. No doubt he will whine and lie, threaten and cajole. He may animate some of his usual surrogates, assuming they're not yet in jail. But he's not going to have anywhere near the credibility and resources he had as sitting president. He might organize a rally, but they're not getting anywhere close to the Capitol. He might try the fake elector slate again, but with indictments still hanging over their heads in Arizona and Georgia, it's less likely to happen. And the immunity the Supreme Court seems to have granted him in 2020 won't be applicable this time. At some point, even his hand-picked Justices are going to throw him under the bus. And the military is not going to rise up like some Praetorian Guard declaring him Caesar. Of course, if the election hangs by a thread, it's going to be loudly contested through the courts, where he plausibly has chances slightly above 50-50. But if he loses by a clear margin (like 3%, with 30+ electoral votes) there's nothing much he can do about it. The question then will be whether he wants to martyr himself, or settle and plea bargain. No matter his distasteful he considers the latter, I doubt he has the constitution for the former.

  • Ed Kilgore: [08-15] Trump xenophobia reaches its apex in racist campaign post: "A post from Trump's campaign embraces the 'great replacement theory,' with Kamala Harris as the evil engineer of American carnage."

  • Whizy Kim: [08-13] Why Musk and Trump are on the same side: "The richest man in the world and the former president's glitchy, cringeworthy interview, explained."

  • Leon Krauze: [08-12] What deporting 15 million people would look like. Even here, Trump's mass deportation fantasy still looks like idle talk. When I hear things like this, I try to imagine what it would actually require. As near as I can figure, this is how it would have to work (in order to work, which is supposedly the goal, but not the most likely result):

    1. Due process would have to be short-circuited (to some extent it already is, but we're talking much more extremely). Normally, the courts would object, but Trump judges may not.
    2. You'd need a national identity system, so you can efficiently sort out people, to determine whether they stay or go. To enforce compliance, you may have to arrest massive numbers of people, just to get them into the system. Enforcement is likely to involve a lot of profiling.
    3. You'd need a massive expansion of enforcement and detention resources. How massive depends on effectively the first two points are implemented, but even if they're very efficient, you'll still need a lot.
    4. You'll need to greatly expand monitoring and surveillance, especially of businesses.
    5. You might consider expanding your network by offering bounties, which would provide incentives for all sorts of abuse, and probably produce some uncomfortable blowback.
    6. After all, the more you criminalize what many people accept as normal behavior, the less respect people have for law and justice, so you're likely to see a much broader increase in crime.
    7. One should also note that a government that is willing to do all these things to punish immigrants isn't likely to treat its own citizens much better. Immigrants aren't the only people Republicans despise and disrespect.

    While there are people who would applaud such a proposal, their numbers are small, and their influence is limited. Republicans talk a big game, but they're not very good at actually doing things -- nor, really, about thinking practically. The Iran nuclear deal is a fair example: the only way to insure compliance to negotiate a deal that would allow for inspections, but would also give Iran some incentive to comply, with little risk to their own security. No other way was possible, but Republicans (following Netanyahu's lead, as usual) preferred threats and projection of force. You know what happened after Trump ended the deal.

    Republicans would rather yell about something than deal with it. That's why Trump killed a border security bill that Republicans had threatened to shut down the government to demand, one that Biden was willing (and perhaps even eager) to accede to. He wants to run on the issue, and he wants to build monuments to his vanity like his border wall, and he has no qualms about inflicting cruelty on the immigrants, but he isn't serious about fixing the problem. His threats may be less transparently phony than Romney's solution of "self-deportion," but they're still just threats -- accented, true enough, with performative cruelty, because the Republican base eats that up. But does the base want identity cards and bounty hunters? And are the donors willing to sacrifice all that cheap labor? The notion that deposed union workers from the coal mines and factories are going to going to flock to Texas and California to pick lettuce and strawberries, or to west Kansas to slaughter beef, is fantasy. You're talking about deporting 5% of the people who live and work in the country. You think Washington's lobbyists are going to pay for that?

  • Chris Lehmann:

    • [08-13] The true source of Trump's delusions: the gospel of positive thinking: "Trump's obsession with crowd sizes is part of his lifelong quest to prevent reality from blocking his fath to success." Sure, there's something to this, but the seed planted by Norman Vincent Peale was relatively benign for most people, but with Trump was planted in the soil of class privilege and monstrous ego. Also, note that Trump knew Peale personally (much as he knew Roy Cohn), which helped to make his revelation seem like personal destiny. (The Bushes had a similar relationship to Billy Graham, who most of us only knew via TV.)

    • [08-14] The press has the Trump campaign e-mails. Why haven't we seen them? "The media went berserk over Hillary Clinton's leaked e-mails in 2016. But when Trump campaign messages leaked this year, standards changed."

  • Ruth Marcus: [08-14] Trump's no Nixon. He doesn't deserve a pardon. My first reaction was Nixon didn't deserve a pardon either, and then when I started weighing them against one another, I still believe that Nixon was much worse. Granted, his margin was largely on things (war crimes) he never would have been prosecuted for in the first place. The actual (or for Nixon potential) prosecutions are comparable in that they were not just crimes against democracy but against the Democratic Party, made even worse by the cover ups. And there, at least, Trump far exceeded Nixon, who at least had the decency to retreat into political irrelevancy -- and thereby proving that even the worst criminals can be rendered harmless by removing them from the conditions that made their crimes possible. That may be a useful guideline for dealing with Trump: take away his political ambitions, his soap boxes, nearly all of his money, and it may not matter whether he spends his remaining days in prison. On the other hand, if he doesn't, he will always be an example of the American justice system's favoritism. That he has gotten away with so much for so long means that those who fear for the integrity of the system have already lost.

  • Meridith McGraw/Adam Wren/Natalie Allison/Adam Cancryn: [06-22] Trump keeps flip-flopping his policy positions after meeting with rich people.

  • Edith Olmsted: [08-19] Trump's rare attempt to stay on message ends in disaster: "Donald Trump gave a low-energy speech that elicited few cheers from the audience."

  • Charles P Pierce:

  • Jessica Piper: [08-20] GOP megadonor drops another $50M into pro-Trump super PAC: "Timothy Mellon has now given $115 million this cycle to the group." Mellon has also given $25 million to a super PAC for Robert F Kennedy Jr., who now seems likely to drop out.

  • Nia Prater: [08-12] What we know about the Trump-campaign hack.

  • Brian Schwartz: [08-16] GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson plans to do whatever it takes to help Trump win with $100 million PAC: "The Adelsons donated nearly $90 million to a pro-Trump PAC in 2020. Miriam Adelson could be Trump's biggest financial booster by Election Day."

  • Dylan Scott: [08-14] Trump's campaign against public health is back on: "The former president says he'll block funding for US schools that require vaccines."

  • Matt Stieb: [08-12] Trump-Musk meeting begins with X meltdown.

  • Rodney Tiffen: [08-11] How Rupert Murdoch helped create a monster -- the era of Trumpism -- and then lost control of it.

  • Michael Tomasky: [08-16] Donald Trump has no idea what has hit him, and it's a joy to watch: "He's had yet another horrible week. The old tricks aren't working. Kamala Harris does not fear him. And it's showing in the numbers."

  • Li Zhou: [08-09] Trump's ever-shifting position on abortion, explained (as best as possible).

  • No More Mr Nice Blog: [] The other W word:

    I am all in on the One Weird Trick Democrats have found -- calling Republicans "weird." It works because the GOP ticket is, let's face it, a couple of fucking weirdos, but it goes way beyond them to encompass the party as a whole: their weird conspiracy theories, their weird obsession with children's genitalia, their weird and creepy compulsion to control women.

    But I'm wondering if there might also be gold in another, more Trump-specific line of attack. Because the thing is, Trump is just really, really whiny.

    Trump complains a lot. Like, all the fucking time. He complains morning, noon, and into the wee hours of the night. He complains about being held accountable for his numerous crimes, and he complains about anyone mentioning his convictions. He complains about the polls. He complains about the fact that things change in a campaign, then he turns around and complains about his own campaign's inability to force him to adjust to change. He complains about the microphone, his teleprompters, sound system, and imaginary supporters being denied entry at his rallies. And yesterday he complained about "audio issues" on the X call that, he claims, were responsible for his lisp. There's a case to be made that Trump is the whiniest whiner in the whole whiny history of whinerdom.

Vance:

And other Republicans:

Harris:

  • Perry Bacon Jr.: [08-13] It's not just vibes. Harris is polling really well. "Her better-than-expected numbers are creating optimism, but Trump can still win."

  • Robert L Borosage: [08-13] It's not about Harris "moving to the center": Responding to a spate of recent articles urging Harris to "move to the center" or reprimanding her for not doing so conspicuously enough. I wrote enough about Jonathan Chait last week, but Borosage adds this:

    New York magazine's Jonathan Chait, the relentless Javert on the hunt for any progressive stirring, argues that to make up for Walz, Harris needs to adopt positions "that will upset progressive activists" and "understand that the likelihood a given action or statement will create complaints on the left is a reason to do something, rather than a reason not to."

    Chait doesn't deign to reveal how Harris should rile her base. Instead, he invokes Trump as a model, arguing that the Donald's "softening" of the abortion plank at the Republican convention "was a smart move to reduce the party's exposure to unpopular positions" and didn't cause a fracturing of the party, despite grousing from anti-abortion zealots.

    Really? It takes a fervid imagination to believe that Trump's cynical repositioning on abortion makes a whit of difference to voters concerned about the reversal of Roe v. Wade. The only thing Trump gained was the admiration of pundits like Chait who consider such political posturing to be sophisticated.

    But when Trump waffles, his people know he's dissembling and don't care: they trust him to stay true, at least to their core emotional bonds. But who trusts a Democrat? They say one thing, do another, always looking for compromises to reconcile everyone and satisfy no one. The perception that HRC was crooked destroyed her. On the other hand, you could understanding that Trump was far more crooked, and take that as a badge of character. What Harris and Walz need to do is to show some character and commitment, and the worst way to do that is to reassure donors and pundits they're no threat.

    The real challenge for Harris is not how she insults the left but how she makes herself into a credible champion of the economic concerns of working people. . . . Harris can't and shouldn't compete with those moved by Christian nationalism or racial division, but she can and should seek to cut away at his support by making a more compelling argument on what produced the economic distress and growing despair among working people, the obscene inequality that eviscerated the middle class -- and what can be done about it. . . .

    Her stump speech highlights her commitment to "an economy that works for working people" with a practical agenda -- paid family and medical leave, affordable childcare, taking on Big Pharma to lower drug prices, making healthcare more affordable. Walz reinforces that message because he's actually passed such measures in Minnesota. And much of this agenda was passed by the Democratic House in Biden's first two years, only to be blocked in the Senate by Republican opposition. As to "moving to the center," these are all incredibly popular programs, supported by the vast majority of Americans. . . .

    For this to bite, Harris must become more populist, not less. She must be clear that she will raise taxes on the rich to pay for affordable childcare, that she will take on Big Pharma to lower drug prices, break up corporate monopolies to lower prices, take on Big Oil and invest in renewable energy, addressing the accelerating climate catastrophe and capturing what already are the growth industries of the next decades. Again, the contrast with Donald Trump's promising oil executives that he'll do their bidding if they'll ante up $1 billion for his campaign is telling.

    As best I recall, all Democrats move left as elections approach, then move back center after they win, as they face entrenched lobby powers. I have little doubt that Harris will follow this usual arc. But the answers to most pressing problems are to the left. If they want to be taken seriously, they need to look in that direction. Otherwise, if they follow centrist scolds like Chait, they're as much as admitting they're hopeless. Borosage also cites:

  • Gabriel Debenedetti: [08-16] Kamala is a (border) cop: "How the Harris campaign plans to deal with the most common Republican line of attack."

  • EJ Dionne Jr.: [08-11] Harris is beating Trump by transcending him: "The vice president and her running mate are achieving a radical shift in messaging."

  • Kevin T Duan: [08-17] Kamala Harris wants to build 3 million houses. Is that enough?

  • Abdallah Fayyad: [08-13] Trump and Harris agree on "no tax on tips." They're both wrong. "The policy looks less like a pro-worker tax credit and more like a big business tax cut." I accept that this was "Trump's idea" -- sure, he got it from Republican policy wonks, as did Ted Cruz, who has introduced legislation to that effect (see links below) -- but it's more interesting that Harris "stole the idea," rather than making any attempt to refute it. On its own, it isn't a very good policy idea, but by the time it turns into legislation, it will be a small part of something much worse (if Trump does it) or maybe not so bad (if Harris does it). It does make it much more possible to happen, because now it's a "bipartisan" idea, and who can object to that? Democrats like to present themselves as open to bipartisan ideas, even if they wind up rejecting most of what Republicans offer as such. (Actually, the only things Republicans offer as "bipartisan" are wedge issues designed to alienate Democratic voters from their donor-oriented leaders. NAFTA was a good example.) It also shows that the Harris campaign is flexible and quick to change direction when they see an opportunity. That's, well, not something Democrats are renowned for.

    My own reservations are largely because I really hate tipping and the whole gratuity-driven sector of the economy (which is part of the reason I've been so reluctant to put my cup out, despite all the poorly-compensated work I do for public consumption). I worry that exempting tips from taxation will just encourage more companies not just to offload their labor costs but to monetize their tip-making opportunities. I worry that exempting tips from taxation will result in more "gig workers," poorly regulated and often unprotected. On the other hand, I know that tips have never been properly accounted for, and that more stringent enforcement is likely to be onerous and unlikely to be cost-effective. A more honest economy would have less, not more, tipping. Fayyad also makes points about the nature and quality of working for tips, which I can well imagine is even worse than stated.

    A big part of the subtext is that Trump and the Republicans don't just want rich people to have to pay lower tax rates, they want to make it easier for them to cheat and pay even less (or nothing at all).

  • Nick Hanauer: [08-16] A very good sign: Kamala Harris is going right at corporate greed: "Greedy CEOs have milked the average American household for $12,000 since the pandemic. As a businessman, I can explain how they're doing it."

  • Ginny Hogan: [08-14] Can Harris and Walz meme their way to the White House? "The online jokes are not just about having fun. They represent a new found political energy within the Democratic Party."

  • Paul Krugman:

    • [08-15] Is it morning in Kamala Harris's America? That was supposed to be Reagan's winning formula, back in 1980, in a contest between optimism and "malaise." Clinton in 1992 and Obama in 2008 promised change, but couldn't (or wouldn't) deliver. Harris at least has the look of change, especially in contrast to Biden and Trump.

    • [08-12] Trump calls Harris a 'communist.' That shows how worried he is. Or how dumb he is? Or how old he is, given that he learned the charge from Roy Cohn, who was Joe McCarthy's lawyer (and McCarthy was a has-been when he died in 1957, when Trump was 10).

  • Josh Marshall: [08-12] Team Happy vs Team Mad: "Team Mad" hardly need any explanation: they're mad not just as hell but as hatters, but I haven't heard of any presidential-level politician described as "happy" since Al Smith. (Maybe Hubert Humphrey, but I was around in 1968 and I don't remember him as being very happy that year.) But evidently this was already a thing with Harris in 2020:

    As Marshall notes: "Happy isn't the only or most important part of a political campaign. Especially when there's quite a lot not to be happy about." On the other hand, when you're suddenly reprieved from impending doom, it's natural to feel down right euphoric. That will wear off soon enough, but not quite so quickly with a candidate who can smile and laugh as with one that can only snarl and scowl (and whine).

  • Farah Stockman: [08-12] Harris should take divisions over Gaza seriously.

  • Hunter Walker: [08-15] Bernie Sanders makes the progressive case for Kamala Harris.

Walz:

Biden:

  • Joshua A Cohen: [08-16] When will the Biden dead-enders admit they were wrong? "Hey, can we circle back to when many supposedly intelligent people were making one of the most obviously ridiculous political arguments of all time?" I don't doubt that there are past debates worth circling back to in order to see who was right and who was wrong -- the war resolutions in 2001 (Afghanistan) and 2002 (Iraq) are still instructive, and even the Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858) are worth remembering -- but this one was just a flash in the pan. But at this point, are there still any "dead-enders" left to extirpate? Why be sore winners? It's a nasty habit, like desecrating the corpses of the slain. But in this case it's also a silly one. The "dead-enders" weren't even that -- unlike, e.g., those few Hillary Clinton supporters who carried their grudges well into Obama's winning campaign. They were simply trying their stiff-upper-lip best to be loyal to the presumptive nominee, a guy the rest of us would very probably have voted for in November, no matter how ill-advised we thought his candidacy. If any of them have since failed to support Harris, I haven't noticed. The only laments I have noticed came from Trump himself.

  • David Dayen: [08-16] The inflation reduction act at two: "Challenges remain, but there's been a lot of progress on restoring an industrial base, creating union jobs, and transforming our energy economy."

  • Harold Meyerson: [08-12] There are some damned good reasons why Joe Biden moved to the left: "Biden's economic progressivism has been both historic and (had he only been able to explain it) good politics." One thing this reminds me of is that Franklin Roosevelt was really good at explaining things. His bank holiday "fireside chat" was possibly the most brilliant thing any American president ever did. My other key thought here is that Democrats are expected not just to complain but to solve problems, and for most problems, the answers are to the left. That's one reason Republicans are so bad at governing: they keep looking right, running away from answers. There is also a long section here on Jonathan Chait, but you know about him already.

  • Nicole Narea: [08-13] Biden wants to free you from all those subscriptions you meant to cancel but didn't: "It's the latest way Biden is trying to combat pesky 'junk fees' driving up prices."

And other Democrats:

  • Colbert I King: A rerun of Chicago '68? Only if Harris lets it happen. The violence of 1968 was almost exclusively due to Mayor Daley and his police, so that part is unlikely to repeat. The wars, or at least the president's culpability, are very different, and so is the impact of those wars on the protesters. While Humphrey was the probable nominee, he still had to secure his nomination from a relatively open and contested convention, whereas Harris has this one sewn up. And while Israel/Gaza is divisive among the Democratic rank-and-file, I don't know of a single left-leaning Democrat who isn't supporting Harris. She needs to walk a fine line, both here and all the way to November. If she's really lucky, the ceasefire and prisoner exchange will kick in the day before the convention. If not, that's one more grudge to bear against Netanyahu.

  • Ezra Klein: [08-18] Trump turned the Democratic Party into a pitiless machine. This could be a bit more succinct, but it frames the 2024 election well enough: on one side, you have a party of pragmatists who want to get good things done and will compromise to make that happen, and on the other side you have a self-aggrandizing nihilist criminal and his personal cult of dysfunctional maniacs, plus hangers-on who think they can wheedle some quick bucks.

    There is a contradiction at the heart of the Republican Party that does not exist at the heart of the Democratic Party. Democrats are united in their belief that the government can, and should, act on behalf of the public. To be on the party's far left is to believe the government should do much more. To be among its moderates is to believe it should do somewhat more. But all of the people elected as Democrats, from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Senator Joe Manchin, are there for the same reason: to use the power of the government to pursue their vision of the good. The divides are real and often bitter. But there is always room for negotiation because there is a fundamental commonality of purpose.

    The modern Republican Party, by contrast, is built upon a loathing of the government. Some of its members want to see the government shrunk and hamstrung. . . . The Trumpist faction is more focused on purging government institutions of the disloyal. . . . Either way, to become part of the government as it exists now -- to be engaged in the day-to-day process of governing -- is to open yourself to suspicion and potentially mark yourself for a later purge. . . . For the Republicans, if government is trying to do something, they want to try and stop it. Just reflexively. It is something that's bred into the Republican Party that makes it hard to maintain an organization that is supposed to be functioning in government.

    Democrats have their own ideological tensions. But Trump's victory turned Democrats into a ruthlessly pragmatic party. It was that pragmatism that led them to ultimately nominate Joe Biden in 2020. It was that same pragmatism that led them to abandon him in 2024.

  • Timothy Noah: [08-01] How the Democrats finally took on Big Pharma: "Millions of jobs? Rising wages? Those are great, but the unsung economic achievement has come in making health care much more affordable. The victories, starting with insulin prices, are remarkable.

Legal matters and other crimes:

  • John Herrman: [08-19] How do you break up a company like Google?

  • Elie Honig: [08-16] Jack Smith can still hurt Donald Trump: "It's time to start thinking about the potential uses of an evidentiary hearing."

  • Ian Millhiser:

    • [08-12] The First Amendment is in grave danger if Trump wins: "Three Supreme Court justices want to drastically roll back the First amendment. Trump could make it five."

    • [08-15] What can be done about this Supreme Court's very worst decisions? "It is important to hang onto grudges against the Supreme Court." He mentions five cases in particular. Back when Barrett was being confirmed, there was a lot of talk about reforming the Supreme Court. I felt then that such talk was premature: you didn't have the power to actually do anything about it, and you wouldn't get the support until you could point to actual examples where the Supreme Court is subverting democracy through arbitrary rulings. These five cases are the sort examples that help build the case. Now, you still have to build a sufficient political power base to implement radical change. Roosevelt couldn't do it even after his 1936 landslide. On the other hand, he didn't have to. The phrase I recall from my brilliant 8th grade US history class was "the switch in time that saved nine." After 1936, the Supreme Court stopped blocking New Deal programs for the sheer hell of it. And Roosevelt lasted long enough that he eventually nominated most of the Court, and for the first (and it now seems, sadly, the last) time in history the Court became a progressive force in American law. It is still possible that the middle-third of the Court (Roberts, Kavanaugh, Barrett) could try to bend a bit with the winds to save their jobs. If not, they'll just keep adding weight to the already strong case for overriding them.

    • [08-19] Republicans ask the Supreme Court to disenfranchise thousands of swing state voters.

  • Nicole Narea: [08-12] Violent crime is plummeting. Why? "Donald Trump says crime is out of control. The facts say otherwise."

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [08-16] Scam science and the death penalty: the case of Robert Roberson.

Climate and environment:

Economic matters:

Ukraine War and Russia:

America's empire and the world:

Other stories:

  • Chico Harlan/Michael Kranish/Isaac Stanley-Becker: [08-17] Jared Kushner wants to turn a wild stretch of Albania into a luxury resort: In terms of graft, Trump was just a distraction. This is the guy who really reaped dividends from his time in the White House.

    The former senior White House adviser [and Trump son-in-law] has accepted billions from the sovereign investment funds of countries that he dealt with as a government official, and is now investing in countries his father-in-law would deal with if reelected. Kushner makes an estimated $40 million in management fees, regardless of what happens to the investment, and stands to make much more if the deals are profitable, according to a recent letter from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon.

  • Daniel Judt: [08-13] To build working-class power, we need a workers' education movement: "A century ago, labor colleges transformed American unions. It's time to bring them back."

  • Max Moran/Henry Burke: [08-13] What we talk about when we talk about the revolving door: "Bringing tech and finance executives into government because they are 'the country's smartest and hardest-working people' is faintly ridiculous." Response to a Matthew Yglesias piece (link below) I saw because it was hugely ridiculous and meant to write about but didn't get around to. Maybe some day.

  • Gary Shteyngart: [04-04] Crying myself to sleep on the biggest cruise ship ever: "Seven agonizing night aboard the Icon of the Sea." Bottom banner says, "This article was a gift from an Atlantic subscriber." I thought I'd pass it along, leaving the full URL intact on the off chance that it might work for you. (I usually strip the extraneous "GET" attributes, a habit I initially got into to get rid of Facebook callbacks.) Long article, only lightly sampled, as I have zero interest in ever embarking on a cruise ship, no experiences to compare with, and a kneejerk reaction that people who do have too much money and are too self-indulgent -- even though I wouldn't oppose either trait on principle. Still, like indulging in arty porn, I have occasionally thought about reading David Foster Wallace's cruise ship voyage account in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Looks like you can still find a PDF of the original article here: Shipping Out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise.

Obituaries

  • Corey Robin: [08-15] Farewell to a working-class hero: "Pat Carta was part of a generation of workers and organizers whose immense knowledge about overcoming fear to build class consciousness and worker power will never be found in a book."

Books

Chatter

  • Tony Karon [08-19] [Responding to Bhaskar Sunkara: "I never want to hear the word 'vibes' again"] You're retiring from paying attention to US presidential politics? As Neal Postman warned all those years ago, a political system in which TV ads are the basic idiom is about nothing but "vibes"

I don't go looking for memes, but sometimes they find me:

  • link: Elon Musk is doing an incredible job of educating the public about how capitalists end up aligning with fascists to maintain their wealth and limit the power of the working classes.

  • link: In 2017 this guy paid $750 in taxes. In 2017, taxpayers paid $45 Million for this guy to go golfing.

  • link: Universal health care is such a complex beast that only 32 of the world's 33 developed nations have been able to make it work.

Local tags (these can be linked to directly):

Original count: 219 links, 12161 words (15834 total)

Current count: 255 links, 14286 words (18776 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, August 12, 2024

Music Week

August archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 42798 [42761] rated (+37), 34 [39] unrated (-5).

I went ahead and pushed Speaking of Which out late last night, on schedule for the first time in many weeks. I'm probably not done with it, but figured that at 270 links, 12539 words -- I do love that little counter I programmed in a week or two ago -- I figured I had enough to present. Anything additional I come up with today will be flagged by the red border bar. [PS: Not much. Today's been shot to shit.]

Writing this mid-afternoon Monday. I probably won't post until late, but I wanted to get it ready, so I don't slip up and delay it again. At this point, I'd much rather work more on Speaking of Which than on Music Week, not least because I find it easier and more relaxing to do, but also because I feel like I know what I understand what I'm reading there, and I'm able to write about it with some coherency.

Whereas with music I just drop a lot of names and dates, and arbitrary knee-jerk reactions, and have little if any inspiration to write actual criticism. That feeling is being reinforced today as I'm only fifth straight B+(*) or less album -- trying to whittle down the demo queue while unpacking this week's haul pushed it back up again, all the more aggravated because I can't see the small print I need to file it all properly. (Optometrist has been telling me for years that I need cataract surgery, but somehow I flunked the surgeon's exam a couple weeks ago, so have to wait until inevitably become even more debilitated.)

I suppose my self-doubts were pricked by the latest batch of Questions and Answers, only one of which is less than a year old. I thought the one on Michael Brecker was worth not just answering but putting a bit of time and thought into. That took some time getting to, and in the end turned out rather unsatisfactory, as I still can't point to any albums that justify his reputation. I started to explain more here, then decided to add that as a PS, and leave it there.

I don't have much to say about the music below. Again, only one A- record, which like Jay Skeese last week, sounded qualitatively superior from the beginning, although I don't see it coming close to the top of the annual list. Some leftover hip-hop and country from the previous week's searches, some jazz from poll ballots and the demo queue, and a lot of old stuff from the Q&A. Gabriel Sielawa was recommended by a reader in a Q I just decided to treat as a tip.

I have an essay in a new book, The Death Project: An Anthology for the Living, edited by Gretchen Cassel Eick and Cora Poage. The essay is called "Reading the Obits," which has been significantly revised from an old blog post. Very pleased to be part of this project.

New records reviewed this week:

Livio Almeida: The Brasilia Sessions (2024, Zoho): Tenor saxophonist from Brazil, based in New York, has mostly worked with Arturo O'Farrill, second album as leader (first on a real label), quartet with keys, bass, and drums. B+(**) [cd]

Robby Ameen: Live at the Poster Museum (2024, Origin): Drummer, from Connecticut, based in New York, early Latin influence with Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie Palmieri, and Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez. Sextet with two saxophonists (Bob Franceschini and Troy Roberts), trombone (Conrad Herwig), Fender Rhodes, and bass, playing "Oleo" and six originals. B+(**) [cd]

Olie Brice/Rachel Musson/Mark Sanders: Immense Blue (2022 [2024], West Hill): British bassist, many groups since 2011, trio here with tenor sax and drums. B+(**) [bc]

Bridgetown Sextet: Functionizin' (2023 [2024], Rivermont): Portland-based trad jazz group, "actually a septet" (see back cover photo), but I'm counting even more credits. Old songs, from Jelly Roll Morton through Fats Waller. B+(**) [sp]

Melissa Carper: Borned in Ya (2024, Mae Music): Country singer-songwriter, from Arkansas, plays banjo and upright bass, started in a family band. half-dozen albums since 2015, appeared recently in Wonder Women of Country, along with Brennen Leigh, who co-wrote several songs here. She also pulls out two unexpected covers -- "That's My Desire" and "Every Time We Said Goodbye," and namechecks Hank Williams, Leadbelly, and Hazel Dickens in the title song. A- [sp]

Morten Duun: Code Breaker (2024, Cmntx): Guitarist, from Denmark, aka Morten Duun Aarup, mostly a trio with trumpet (Brandon Choi) and drums (Wouter Kühne), plus piano on two tracks, interesting as far as it goes, but he adds voice on four tracks, which is where I lose interest. B+(*) [cd]

Orrin Evans and the Captain Black Big Band: Walk a Mile in My Shoe (2024, Imani): Pianist-led big band (less than conventional, at 11 pieces, but supplemented with guests -- among whom vocalist Lisa Fischer gets "very special" status) fifth group album since 2010. B+(*) [cdr]

The Sofia Goodman Group: Receptive (2023 [2024], Joyous): Drummer, based in Nashville, couple albums, eight-piece group playing her original pieces. Fairly slick postbop, nicely arranged. B+(*) [cd]

Richard Guba: Songs for Stuffed Animals (2024, self-released): "Veteran saxophonist, debut album": three original pieces, five jazz standards, nicely done, reminds me in spots of Horace Silver. B+(**) [cd]

Monika Herzig's Sheroes: All in Good Time (2023 [2024], Zoho): German pianist, also plays electric, moved to US 1988, studied at Indiana, albums from 2000, formed her Sheroes band in 2016, currently seven women, with Jamie Baum (flutes), Reut Regev (trombone), Camille Thurman (tenor sax), Leni Stern (guitar), Gina Schwarz (bass), and Rosa Avila (drums), playing originals by her and Schwarz, plus a Beyoncé cover. B+(**) [cd]

Ize Trio: The Global Suites (2024, self-released): "Multi-cultural" trio of Chase Morrin (piano, compositions), George Lernis (percussion), and Naseem Alatrash (percussion), jazz with Middle Eastern flavors, joined here by John Patitucci (bass, get a "featuring" on cover but plays on only 2 of 10 tracks) and by singers Farayi Malek (2 tracks) and Heiraza (5 tracks). [cd]

Karen Jonas: The Rise and Fall of American Kitsch (2024, self-released): Country singer-songwriter from Virginia, seventh album since 2014. B+(*) [sp]

Rosemary Loar: Vagabond Heart/Curaçăo Vagabundo (2024, Atlor Music): Singer and actress, mostly theatrical, Discogs credits her one previous album, from 2003, but website claims four, and hasn't been updated for this one yet. Title song, from Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa, is the only Brazilian venture, and the only other non-English title is from Sting. Other than that, three originals, and a bunch of show tunes. With pianist Frank Ponzio as music director/co-producer, bass-drums-percussion, and a bit of harmonica in lieu of horns. B+(***) [cd]

Mai-Liis: Kaleidoscope (2023-24 [2024], OA2): Canadian jazz singer-songwriter, has a previous album from 2021, backed by piano, guitar, bass, and drums, with guest spots for horns and vibes. B+(*) [cd]

Paula Maya: Rio De Janeiro (2024, Yellow House): Brazilian singer-songwriter, last name Niemeyer, plays piano, her six originals supplemented by a Jobim standard. B [cd]

Megan Moroney: Am I Okay? (2024, Columbia Nashville): Country singer-songwriter, second album, seems pretty good, quite consistent. B+(***) [sp]

Sam Newsome/Max Johnson: Tubes (2023 [2024], Unbroken Sounds): Saxophonist, started on tenor but has focused on soprano at least since 1998's The Tender Side of Sammy Straighthorn, and that's what he plays here, along with toys and treatments, accompanied by bass (often the most interesting thing here). B+(**) [sp]

Miles Okazaki: Miniature America (2022 [2024], Cygnus): Guitarist, eclectic mix of albums since 2022, gathers ten musicians here for "22 vignettes exploring the wonder of chance encounters and 'found' compositions." The musicians are all prominent names (not all-stars, but people you should know, like Patricia Brennen and Jacob Garchik). Unfortunately, three of them are vocalists, and while they (Ganavya, Jen Shyu, and Fay Victor) don't always rub me the wrong way, they do so way too often for me here. B [cd]

Michael Pagán: Paganova (2023 [2024], Capri): American pianist, based in Kansas City, debut album 1995, accent suggests Latin heritage, and there's much more than tinge here, driving the rhythms behind saxophonists Michael Herrera and David Chael. B+(***) [cd]

The Palomar Trio [Dan Levinson/Mark Shane/Kevin Dorn]: The Song in Our Soul (2023, Turtle Bay): Swing trio from New York, with tenor sax/clarinet, piano, and drums, playing old standards, including Jelly Roll Morton and Edmond Hall. B+(**) [sp]

Planet D Nonet: Echoes of Harlem: A Salute to Duke Ellington Vol. 2 (2024, Eastlawn): Detroit group, founded by James O'Donnell (trumpet) and RJ Spangler (percussion) back in 2010, when they were working with John Sinclair, and their repertoire extended from Bennie Moten to Sun Ra, only recently turning to Ellington. B+(***) [cd]

Real Bad Man & Lukah: Temple Needs Water. Village Needs Peace. (2024, Old Soul Music/Real Bad Man): Los Angeles-based producer Adam Weissman, has a dozen albums since 2020, mostly collaborations with underground rappers, this one from Memphis. B+(**) [sp]

Tarbaby: You Think This America (2022 [2024], Giant Step Arts): Pianist Orrin Evans, took this group name from his 2006 album, sixth group album since 2009, various horn players over the years but just the core trio here, with bass (Eric Revis) and drums (Nasheet Waits). Songs from each and nall, plus covers of Sam Rivers, Fats Waller, Oliver Lake, Andrew Hill, Paul Motion, and Bad Brains. B+(***) [bc]

Juanma Trujillo: Howl (2024, Endectomorph Music): Guitarist, from Venezuela, based in New York, fifth album since 2018, quartet with Kevin Sun (tenor sax), Andrew Schiller (bass), and Matt Honor (drums). Slippery enough, but tends to slip past me. B+(**) [cdr]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Phil Ranelin: The Found Tapes: Live in Los Angeles (1978-81 [2024], ORG Music): Trombonist, moved to Detroit in the 1960s, did some Motown session work, in 1971 co-founded the Tribe (an important if very underground group with Wendell Harrison and Marcus Belgrave), later moving to Los Angeles where Horace Tapscott had been at the center of a similar community-oriented free jazz movement, going on to found a new band, Build an Ark. Previously unreleased live tapes, more tribal vibes. B+(***) [sp]

Old music:

Joanne Brackeen [Featuring Michael Brecker]: Tring-a-Ling (1977 [1978], Choice): Pianist, born JoAnne Grogan in California, married saxophonist Charles Brackeen in the 1960s but started releasing her own records in 1975, and easily eclipsed him. Fourth album, "featuring Mike Brecker," the saxophonist in the Brecker Bros. (1975-81), who already had a ton of studio work on rock albums. Brackeen pushes him hard here, and he responds credibly. B+(**) [yt]

Michael Brecker: Don't Try This at Home (1988, Impulse!): Tenor saxophonist (1949-2007), his eponymous 1987 album wasn't technically his first but his run as a leader/star started there, with this as its sequel. Producer Don Grolnick took over piano on 2 tracks, and brought in big names -- Herbie Hancock, Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette, Mark O'Connor, Peter Erskine -- limiting Brecker's touring band to bit roles: Mike Stern (guitar, 6 tracks), Joey Calderazzo (piano, 2), Jeff Andrews (bass, 4), Adam Nussbaum (drums, 3). The result is pretty scattered, I'd say "not even fusion." Of course, if the saxophonist was as great as some critics claimed, it shouldn't matter (cf. Sonny Rollins). But he isn't, so it does. B- [sp]

Michael Brecker: Now You See It . . . (Now You Don't) (1990, GRP): Third album, three Brecker originals, two each by producer Don Grolnick and keyboardist Jim Beard, ends with a Bobby Troup blues, with a revolving cast of guitar-bass-drums-percussion. That backing is rather lacklustre, but the saxophone, as least on the slow ones, sounds pretty good. B [sp]

Michael Brecker: Tales From the Hudson (1996, Impulse!): With Grolnick gone, he's co-producing, lining up stars like Pat Metheny, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette, with pianist Calderazzo spelled on two tracks by McCoy Tyner. With less muddle in the middle, he finally juices up the saxophone. B+(*) [sp]

Michael Brecker: Time Is of the Essence (1998 [1999], Verve): Sixth album, George Whitty produced, group is reduced by a quartet, with Pat Metheny (guitar), Larry Goldings (organ), and any of three drummers (Elvin Jones, Jeff "Tain" Watts, Bill Stewart). I'm still not convinced he's a great saxophonist, but he can be a pretty good one, and Metheny can be a pretty good guitarist, too. B+(**) [sp]

Don Grolnick [Featuring Michael Brecker]: Hearts and Numbers (1985, Hip Pocket): Pianist (1947-96), played in fusion groups Dreams and Brecker Bros. before recording a pair of well-regarded albums on Blue Note (I'm thumbs up on Nighttown but not Weaver of Dreams). This was his first, playing as much synth as piano, and taking the closing title song solo. B [sp]

Herbie Hancock/Michael Brecker/Roy Hargrove: Directions in Music: Celebrating Miles Davis & John Coltrane: Live at Massey Hall (2001 [2002], Verve): Live set, piano, tenor sax, trumpet, backed by John Patitucci (bass) and Brian Blade (drums). Each brings an original in the style, they collaborate on one more, and cover the obvious bases, plus a version of "My Ship" that won a Grammy. B+(*) [sp]

Pat Metheny: 80/81 (1980 [1981], ECM): 2-LP set, recorded over four days in May, 1980, the guitarist is backed by an exceptional rhythm section (Charlie Haden and Jack DeJohnette), and joined by two tenor saxophonists, Dewey Redman and Michael Brecker (both on three tracks, one with Redman only, three with Brecker only. short final track with neither). B+(***) [sp]

Gabriel Sielawa: Terra (2022, Bangue): Brazilian, I think, sings and plays guitar, bass, cavaquinho; first (probably only) album, very little on the web, recommended by a virtual friend. B+(*) [sp]

Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn't Made for These Times (1995, MCA): Beach Boys genius-turned-madman, promised to be coming out of all that when he released a solo album in 1988 that wasn't either, and wasn't followed up either, at least until this short (29:27) collection of remakes from the madman period dropped seven years later (or the solo album). Some of these songs once seemed like mad genius, but here the singer sounds tired, as if nostalgia is all there is left. B- [sp]

Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks: Orange Crate Art (1995, Warner Bros.): Parks wrote all of the songs, so all Wilson had to do was sing. Parks wrote song cycles, long on concept with eclectic borrowings that should be interesting but, at least in my limited experience, aren't. B- [sp]

Brian Wilson: At My Piano (2021, Lakeshore): Solo, no vocals, songs you no doubt know, may not impress as jazz, but the melodies are lovely as ever, harmony too. B+(**) [sp]

Limited Sampling: Records I played parts of, but not enough to grade: -- means no interest, - not bad but not a prospect, + some chance, ++ likely prospect.

Keith Jarrett: The Sun Bear Concerts (1976 [1989], ECM, 6CD): I still don't feel up to taking on the entire 6+ hours, but a 41:14 excerpt on YouTube ("Sapporo, Pt. 1") is really quite good. Maybe, someday. ++ [yt]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Art Baden: How Much of It Is Real (Rainy Days) [08-16]
  • Geoff Bradfield: Colossal Abundance (Calligram) [09-06]
  • The Haas Company [Featuring Frank Gambale]: Vol. 2: Celestial Latitude (Psychiatric) [09-01]
  • Hot Club of San Francisco: Original Gadjo (Hot Club) [09-13]
  • Danny Jonokuchi Big Band: A Decade (Bandstand Presents) [08-23]
  • Doug MacDonald and the Coachella Valley Trio: Live at the Rancho Mirage Library (DMAC Music) [10-01]
  • Jonathan Powell: Mambo Jazz Party (Circle 9) [08-09]
  • Dafnis Prieto Sí o Sď Quartet: 3 Sides of the Coin (Dafnison Music) [09-27]
  • Catherine Russell/Sean Mason: My Ideal (Dot Time) [08-26]
  • Spanish Harlem Orchestra: Swing Forever (Ovation) [08-23]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Speaking of Which

Opened this file Tuesday afternoon, August 6, after posting Music Week. When I woke up early Tuesday, my wife informed me that Harris had picked Tim Walz as her running mate. I went back to sleep, and when I woke up again, the song in my head was "Happy Days Are Here Again." It's rare not to be disappointed by a Democrat politician. I still expect Harris to come up short, possibly often, but every time she doesn't is gratifying.

Opening the file so early added a "hot take" element, especially to the Walz coverage. It also meant that I had some opportunity to collect Chatter in real time, before it became impossibly lost in the daily avalanche. As of Friday, which is when I usually start, I had 107 links, 4538 words (not counting this paragraph).

Late Sunday it was up to 265, 12229. That's probably enough for now, as my eyes are glazing over, and my indifference is rising. I can always add the odd bit on Monday, while excusing another paltry Music Week -- but actually, I have some other work to get to on Monday, so I might not even do that.

I can point to a new batch of Questions and Answers -- the first I've done this year. All four are music-related, so I'll mention them again when Music Week comes out.

Top story threads:

Israel:

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

  • Michael Arria:

  • Giorgio Cafiero: [05-02] The US and Israeli role in Sudan's path to war: "Israel and the US's desire to consolidate Khartoum's position in the Abraham Accords has emboldened militaristic authoritarianism in Sudan."

  • Hamid Dabashi: [08-08] Just like her predecessors, Kamala Harris is fully on board with Israel's genocide: I don't have any inside info to dispute this, but I doubt that any US Democrat -- Republicans like Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham are another story, as is the somewhat less explicit Donald Trump -- articulates any desire for genocide no matter how reflexively their solidarity with Israel supports it. Their "two state" talk may just be blather, but the subtext is that they want some kind of accommodation for coexistence -- with few details and no pressure, of course. There is also good reason to expect that Democrats, given their domestic programs, will be more oriented toward negotiated peace -- although there are contraindications, like their fondness for military spending, and their relative hawkishness on Ukraine. But given the politics (by which I mean money) around Israel, someone in Harris's shoes would be best served by operating behind the scenes, preserving the public appearance of alignment until she can actually change things. I have no idea whether she's thinking she should change US direction on Israel, but until she can, I don't see much value in blaming her. But it's a fair question for the public, who have few other options, to pursue.

  • Ahmed Moor: [08-05] In Washington's streets, a new popular consensus on Palestine: "While Congress cheered Netanyahu, grassroots mobilizations of the Democratic base marked a sharp break from the party's support for Israel."

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [08-08] Promising signs that Palestine advocacy is building political power in Washington: "The Israel lobby built its strength on the fact that its opposition was politically weak. Kamala Harris's choice of Tim Walz over Josh Shapiro and the massive cost it took to defeat Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush show this is no longer the case."

  • Aaron Sobczak: [08-06] Poll: Most Americans don't want to send troops to defend Israel: "The lowest level of support in recent years -- from both political parties."

Israel vs. world opinion:

Election notes:

  • Cori Bush: D-MO, elected in a big upset in 2020, displacing a 10-term incumbent as a would-be Squad member. She called for a ceasefire in Gaza, and has voted against military aid to Israel, which made her a target in AIPAC's purge of Democratic Party dissidents. She lost the primary last week.

  • Thomas B Edsall: [08-07] Two opposing developments that changed American politics: "A pair of major developments in recent years -- the ascendance of Donald Trump and the emergence of Black Lives Matter protests -- have decisively altered the nation's two political parties." Trump, as party leader, has become the sharp focal point for all sorts of crazy thinking on the right (including things he doesn't seem to understand, but supports anyway, because he knows he's their leader). The left doesn't have a comparable leader figure, not that Bernie Sanders couldn't have filled that role had he prevailed, but it's fitting that the left has been driven from below, through protests.

    But BLM, important as it was, was just one of several upheavals, of which Occupy Wall Street was especially important for re-introducing class struggle (framed as the 99% vs. the 1%; while you may think it was just a phase, it specifically brought the student debt issue to the fore). Also mention the Keystone Pipeline protests, which won out. Also a tremendous uptick in labor organizing. And now we have the anti-genocide protests. Plus another constellation of issues, like abortion.

    It further occurs to me that this ground-level shift to the left by Democrats follows a similar, earlier change on the right, which was largely driven by right-wing media (especially if you recognize that the Tea Party was essentially astroturfed). Trump's emergence as party leader didn't depend on any new ideas. He simply recycled what Fox fed him, adding the conceit of his own personality cult. The delay is easy to understand. The right was funded by rich folk who wanted to protect their business empires from the scourge of public interest (also unions, of course), so they plotted to take over government, largely by making politicians beg for their money. The pressure on ordinary people to move left came not from secret interest groups but from fear of what the right was getting away with.

    Edsall does have some reason for focusing on BLM. He cites a 2018 article by Matt Grossman: People are changing their views on race and gender issues to match their party. As Democrats increasingly recognized the perils of the right, they came to feel solidarity with their fellow victims, to the point where, as Grossman puts it, "liberal-leaning voters moved away from [Trump's] views faster than conservatives moved toward them."

  • Michael Tesler: [08-08] Why immigration is a better issue for Trump than it was in 2020. As an issue, it's better because he's running against Biden's record, not on or against his own. And Republicans have had nearly four years to amplify it as a constant talking point. Also, to some extent, Democrats, including Biden, have run away from it, which neither makes them look smart nor strong.

  • Daniel I Weiner/Owen Bacskai: [08-09] Unregulated money continues to corrode US politics. Reforms are needed.

  • Sam Wolfson: [08-09] Brats, dads and bravado: this US election will be decided on vibes: "Personality is always central to elections. But this year, it's about who you think the candidates could be." I found this piece first, and thought it generic enough to slot here (under elections), but later found much more talking about "vibes" (our buzz word of the week), steering strongly toward Harris-Walz:

    • Fareed Zakaria: [08-10] Harris is winning the all-important battle -- of vibes.

    • Charles M Blow: [08-07] Harris, Walz and Democrats' joyful campaign: Democrats may have little to complain about the Biden administration, but the big promise to protect us from the depredations of Trump and the Republicans hasn't worked out so great. He mentions a bunch of examples, which seemed to be snowballing as Trump dominated the airwaves and inched up in the polls, while Biden appeared increasingly hapless.

      I underestimated how much soul damage Democratic voters had suffered over the past three and a half years -- not in the main because of the Biden administration, but because of the seemingly endless culture wars -- and how that damage had jelled into a form of electoral depression.

      Harris changed that almost instantly: "She isn't articulating policy positions that differ substantially from President Biden's. She is, however, allowing herself to be the vessel for pent-up liberal energy." I also like this bit:

      Last year, when Biden was gearing up to announce his re-election bid, Terrance Woodbury, a founding partner at the consultancy HIT Strategies, whose research includes surveying Black voter sentiment, told me something that has stuck with me: Young Black voters -- young Black men in particular -- are less responsive to political messages of fear and loss and more responsive to messages of gain and empowerment. . . .

      Republicans have slammed Harris as a D.E.I. candidate, tossing around the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion to insinuate that she didn't earn her place. But overwhelmingly, one of the reasons Democrats are excited about her is that she's highly qualified and also happens to be a woman of color. They recognize that she represents all that is good about D.E.I., that it isn't about the granting of privilege but the dismantling of it.

      Personally, I'm totally bored with all those checklist firsts. I'm not inclined to think of her in those terms at all. On the other hand, D.E.I. is an insult we can embrace as a principle, and run with.

    • Jennifer Rubin: [08-08] Walz brings the vibes, but that's not all: "On education and agriculture, this vice-presidential pick's experience runs deep."

    • David Sirota: [08-10] Harris-Walz's good vibes aren't enough: Sure, but why not enjoy them while you can? It's not like we've had enough good vibes in our lives to get used to them, let alone to overdose on them. Savor the feeling. Isn't this what democracy is supposed to feel like? Sure, after they win in November, we'll still have challenges and problems, to which they won't always have answers or be helpful, but work from that. At least you won't have to start out from Trump again. And if they lose, the only reason to think about that now is for motivation to keep it from happening. Afterwards, there will be plenty of time for lessons learned. But after the dread of Biden losing his place on the teleprompter or trying to negotiate a flight of stairs, we need good some vibes. Enjoy.

Trump:

  • Brooke Anderson: {08-01] How Trump hijacked the Republican Party.

  • Isaac Arnsdorf/Josh Dawsey/Hannah Knowles: [08-07] Trump took a private flight with Project 2025 leader in 2022: "Trump took the flight to speak at a Heritage Foundation conference, where he said, 'They're going to lay the ground work and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.'" Now Trump is trying to disclaim their plan.

  • Jamelle Bouie: [08-09] The real reason Trump and Vance hate being called 'weird'. Republicans are losing their grip on the Nixonian bequest of "the silent majority." They haven't been either for a long time now, but Democrats were too timid to point it out, until one did, and instantly it was obvious to all.

  • Frank Bruni: [08-08] Donald Trump, prince of self-pity.

  • Abbie Cheeseman: [08-11] Trump campaign hack could indicate wider election disruptions, experts warn.

  • David French: [08-11] To save conservatism from itself, I am voting for Harris: Filed here instead of under Harris, because this is really about Trump, not Harris. I agree with virtually nothing French writes here. I don't even fully buy this:

    The only real hope for restoring a conservatism that values integrity, demonstrates real compassion and defends our foundational constitutional principles isn't to try to make the best of Trump, a man who values only himself. If he wins again, it will validate his cruelty and his ideological transformation of the Republican Party.

    I believe that conservatism is so utterly corrupt and rotten, so selfish and cruel, it deserves Trump, and those are the reasons he's attracted to it -- although his vanity is probably a bigger one. I do suspect that many people who identify as conservative, possibly including French, are decent and honorable, at least in their personal lives, but they falter when they try to tell other people how to live, because they simply don't understand how the world works beyond their own perception and projection. If they could, they'd be welcomed by Democrats, who by and large are tolerant and respectful of all sorts. They might even help make us better people. But while French's vote is welcome, his reasoning is still selfishly parochial. He needs to work on that.

  • Maureen Dowd: [08-10] Trump, by the numbers: Anyone who can recall engaging with Trump 20+ years ago is bound to come up with unsettling images:

    From the first time I went on an exploratory political trip with Trump in 1999, he has measured his worth in numbers. His is not an examined life but a quantified life.

    When I asked him why he thought he could run for president, he cited his ratings on "Larry King Live." He was at his most animated reeling off his ratings, like Faye Dunaway in "Network," orgasmically reciting how well her shows were doing.

    He pronounced himself better than other candidates because of numbers: the number of men who desired his then-girlfriend, Melania Knauss; the number of zoning changes he had maneuvered to get; the number of stories he stacked on his building near the U.N.; the number of times he was mentioned in a Palm Beach newspaper.

    But the flash forward to today:

    He is clearly befuddled by someone with brown skin who has come not to hurt Americans, but to save them from Donald Trump; someone who is not scary, as he is, but joyful, not threatening but thrilling.

    And, in Trump's worst nightmare, this dark-skinned someone is attracting huge adoring, dancing, laughing crowds.

  • Michael Grasso: [08-09] Donald Trump and the '80s aesthetic: "The pro-Trump Zoomer sees the 2020s as a degenerate age and the '80s as a time when men were men. It's why their homemade videos are filled with VHS scan lines, old Gillette commercials, and Van Halen's 'Jump.'"

  • Malcolm Harris: Tech billionaires love Trump now -- because he's one of them.

  • Brian Karem: [08-08] Trump left spinning by Kamala Harris' surprise strength: "Trump's implosion is nearly complete."

  • Glenn Kessler: [08-06] Trump's fusillade of falsehoods on debt and taxes: Fact-checks a Trump interview by Maria Bartiromo.

  • Ed Kilgore: [08-08] Trump's 2024 election-denial playbook: "Trump and his allies are laying the groundwork to overturn a possible 2024 loss -- and they don't intend to repeat the mistakes they made last time." They're going to make new mistakes? Could one be conceding they have no faith they can win honestly?

  • Susan Milligan: [08-06] Trump's campaign is drowning in rage: "Faced with a surprisingly united Democratic Party, the Republican nominee is trotting out the same old strategy."

  • Danielle Paquette: [08-10] A pastor said his pro-Trump prophecies came from God. His brother called him a fake. "Jeremiah Johnson became a sensation when he embraced politics. His brother Josiah, also a preacher, couldn't shake his concerns."

  • Matthew Stevenson: [08-08] Trump's wolves on Wall Street: Inside the Truth Social numbers. This has a lot more detail on the business/financial side than I cared to follow, but here's one sample that caught my eye:

    Nor does the SEC seem particularly concerned that inside traders in Digital World shares might well have gotten their tips from a Russian banker who bailed out Trump's Truth Social in 2021 with a loan from his Caribbean porn bank.

  • James D Zirin: [08-07] Trump's slur of Harris -- 'Is she Indian or is she Black?' -- echoes a creepy episode from his past. As does nearly every Trump story, but the devil's in the details.

Vance:

  • Aaron Blake: [08-07] It's getting worse for JD Vance: "A half-dozen polls in recent weeks have shown his already-underwhelming image deteriorating. And they suggest his past comments about childless women aren't helping."

  • Ben Burgis: [08-08] JD Vance got his faux populism from internet weirdos.

  • Michelle Goldberg: [08-05] JD Vance just blurbed a book arguing that progressives are subhuman: The book is by Jack Posobiec ("far-right provocateur") and Joshua Lisec ("professional ghostwriter"):

    The word "fascist" gets thrown around a lot in politics, but it's hard to find a more apt one for Inhumans, which came out last month. . . .

    As they tell it, modern progressivism is just the latest incarnation of an ancient evil dating back to the late Roman Republic and continuing through the French Revolution and Communism to today. Often, they write, "great men of means" are required to crush this scourge. The contempt for democracy in Unhumans is not subtle. "Our study of history has brought us to this conclusion: Democracy has never worked to protect innocents from the unhumans," write Posobiec and Lisec.

  • Andy Kroll/Nick Surgey: [07-16] In private speech, JD Vance said the "Devil is real" and praised Alex Jones as a truth-teller: "Vance gave the speech to the secretive Teneo network."

  • Clay Risen: [08-10] What's so new about the 'new right'? "JD Vance and his allies represent a mind-set that dates back to the McCarthy era and the dawn of the Cold War."

  • Bill Scher: [08-08] When Vance told Appalachians to leave Appalachia: "A decade ago, Vance wrote that the Appalachian poor should abandon their 'destructive' communities and stop blaming others for their misery. Now, all he does is blame." Also:

  • Alex Shephard: [08-06] Donald Trump has no heir: "Yes, Trump is just popular enough to win again this year. But no one has emerged yet to take the MAGA crown whenever he relinquishes it." So this is really about how far Vance has slipped in two weeks, from back when practically everyone was writing about him as heir-apparent.

  • Farah Stockman: [07-28] Decoding JD Vance's brand of nationalism.

And other Republicans:

Harris:

  • David Badash: [08-09] Fox host furious Kamala Harris loves to cook: This is causing some cognitive dissonance for me: she loves to cook; her husband is a serious jazz fan. Politics aside, these are people I could actually imagine enjoying socializing with. As hobbies and interests go, these are things that show a zest for life, and a willingness to engage it intellectually as well physically.

  • Jonathan Chait:

    • [08-06] Kamala Harris and Tim Walz need to pivot the center right now: "Does Harris really understand the assignment?" That's a rather peculiar term to use here: Just who's doing the assigning here? Barring some hidden power, that may just be Chait. After all, his definition -- "the assignment, to be clear, is to win over voters who don't like Donald Trump but worry Harris is too liberal" -- sounds exactly like Chait, who represents an electoral bloc of himself and hardly anyone else. I mean, how many people who don't like Trump still make such fine-grained distinctions among shades of Democrats that they'll hold their votes in sway? I doubt even Chait is that fickle. So what's he doing here? Well, he seems to feel it's his job to stamp out any hope that the Democratic Party might be able to accomplish anything by getting elected. He does this by steering Democrats to the corrupt, do-nothing "center."

      I'm old enough to remember when Democrats ran scared of being called "red," but does running away from your principles and beliefs really win elections? And even when you do manage to win one, how much loyal support do you gain by never implementing any serious reforms? The track record for Chait-approved centrists really isn't all that impressive. On the other hand, Republicans have built up an enthusiastic base by fighting for the wrongs they believe in. Maybe Democrats should consider fighting for some rights. Sure, they may lose, but if they can't take a stand for something, they're lost anyway. And even when Republicans win and make our lives more miserable, they will at least have sown some seeds, like the idea that winning next time might make a difference.

      After all, what do we have to lose (but Jonathan Chait)? I doubt we're even going to lose him, as it's easier to stoke his conceited liberal virtue-signaling by taking pot shots at easy Republican targets. For example, he paired his left-bashing post with this:

      PS: Luke Savage tweet on Chait's article: "Jonathan Chait brings us his only idea for the 700th time."

    • [08-09] Yes, She Can: "Bidenism brought Kamala Harris and the Democrats to the brink of catastrophe. Obamaism can save them." What the fuck? Chait tried to sum this up in a tweet:

      There was a campaign to persuade Democrats that Obama failed. The campaign succeeded. But it was wrong. It is now up to Harris to recover. I think she can do it.

      Uh, Obama did just fine for himself: he got a second term, he got rich, he got into movies, and he's building a gargantuan monument to himself next to Lake Michigan. But he didn't do so well for his Party. He entered in 2009 with strong majorities in both wings of Congress, accomplished very little with all that potential power, lost Congress, lost the State Houses and the Courts, and after eight years surrendered the presidency to Donald Trump. He did some decent things, and avoided doing some of the far worse things Republicans wanted, but even in foreign policy, where he had a lot of autonomy, his record is checkered at best. He got out of Iraq, then got back in again. He dug in deeper in Afghanistan, then got stuck. He faced crises in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Gaza, and Ukraine, and bungled them all. He did make some progress with Iran and Cuba, but it was so tentative Trump easily wiped him out. He made toothless gestures on climate change. He was still pursuing trade deals to the end that even Hilary Clinton wouldn't touch. So I can see how Democrast could think he failed. I'm surprised that so many Democrats still revere him. I suspect that's just sentimental attachment to the hope they once associated with him. But that's just my reaction.

      Let's instead consider Zachary D Carter, who tweeted:

      Odd piece. Chait seems to be going after Biden's economic record, but then doesn't. Credits Biden for a strong labor market, real wage gains, pins only "small" responsibility for inflation on Biden. Defends Obama by saying he wanted to do the same things.

      The worst thing he has to say about the IRA and Biden's domestic manufacturing program is that Trump might unwind it because a lot of it still hasn't been spent.

      I think Chait is too charitable with Obama's economic legacy and overstates how progressive movement-oriented Biden has been on the economy. Brian Deese was great at the NEC, but he came from BlackRock. Hather Boushey has been great at CEA, was a 2016 Clinton campaign economist.

      Biden's big post-ARA spending -- an infrastructure deal, domestic microchip manufacturing and green energy/tech manufacturing -- were all done through negotiations with Joe Manchin and Republicans, not Bernie and AOC.

      I do think Biden represents a significant change from the Obama era, but it's one in which party moderates and some conservatives embraced new ideas, not one in which radicals infiltrated the administration and bent it to their will.

      Biden treated progressives like they were part of the coalition, he didn't let them run the show.

      This is a long piece, and it touches on a lot of things, viewed through his own peculiarly neoliberal prism. It's never quite clear whether he hates the left on principle, or he is simply convinced that Americans are so indelibly reactionary that leftist politics is unworkable and has to be banished. The most telling line here is: "It is not clear if Harris or her allies recognize the full scale of the political devastation she actually inherits." His evidence comes from Biden's dismal approval ratings (as low as 32%). While that sounds grim, it doesn't necessarily follow that his administration, let alone his still-unimplemented policy preferences, are so unpopular. It's quite plausible that his low polls were personal: that many people who wanted to support him had simply lost faith in his ability to lead and communicate effectively. The ease with which his vice president, with little or no political standing of her own, was able to take over the campaign and revive it suggests that Chait's "devastation" wasn't real.

      As Carter tries to point out, fear of a left takeover isn't real either. The idea that the American left are some kind of bolsheviks scheming to seize power so they can arbitrarily dictate wokeness and undermine public morals is way beyond ridiculous -- although, following the red scare playbook, it's not just a staple of the right but a projection of their own antidemocratic dreams and fears. The left still attracts idealists, but most are wary of power, and are willing to compromise for modest reforms. They do, however, insist on tangible results, whereas the Democrats Chait admires are all talk but action only when their corporate sponsors see an angle.

  • Rachel M Cohen: [08-06] Kamala Harris's recent embrace of rent control, explained.

  • David Dayen:

      [08-09] Why Tony West matters: "It's more than his moves from government to corporate America. It's what he did while in government." West is Harris's brother-in-law and is now a campaign adviser. He held a high post in the Obama DOJ, then left to become chief legal officer at Uber.

    • [08-07] The irrelevant permitting bill: "A bipartisan measure to accelerate clean energy and fossil fuel projects has no constituency in Congress right now."

  • EJ Dionne Jr.: [08-11] Harris is beating Trump by transcending him: "The vice president and her running mate are achieving a radical shift in messaging."

  • Moira Donegan: [08-06] Kamala Harris's VP pick may signal a shift away from pivoting to the center.

  • Benjamin Hart: [08-05] Can Kamala Harris win just enough of the working class? The author talks to Ruy Teixeira, "once known as a Democratic oracle, but these days he's more of an apostate," as his 2002 book The Emerging Democratic Majority fizzled, while his new 2023 book (both with John Judis) Where Have All the Democrats Gone? never ignited. (I have an unread copy of the latter, figuring it relevant for my political study, but I'm finding less and less reason to crack it open.) What I hate about this title, and the thinking that goes into it, is the notion that winning by a nose is all that is necessary -- winning by a landslide, even though the Republicans are essentially conceding the interests of an overwhelming majority of Americans, is too much work or something. This kind of thinking caters to donors, who like a divided government where nothing gets changed and everyone is preoccupied looking for bribes.

    By the way, it's the Republicans who like to think in "just enough" terms, because for their purposes any majority (or plurality, or in the right circumstances slight shortfall) works just fine. Where they draw the line is offering any concession beyond empty words.

  • Elie Honig: [08-09] Kamala Harris and those 'lock him up' chants:

    "The vice-president -- and former prosecutor -- has it exactly right so far."

    It's become a recurring scene at the political rallies of Vice-President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Harris refers to the ongoing criminal cases against her electoral opponent, Donald Trump. The crowd begins to chant, "Lock! Him! Up!" And Harris calmly but firmly shuts it down. "Well, hold on," the VP said earlier this week to her own crowd, "You Know what, the courts are going to handle that part of it. What we're gonna do is beat him in November."

  • Ben Jacobs: [08-06] Republican operatives are 'thrilled' Harris picked Walz: At least that's their inevitable spin, not that any other Democrat in play wouldn't have ticked off their same "too liberal" boxes. Would Shapiro have escaped their slander for a moment? But now that he's off the ticket, they're equally delighted to accuse the Palestinian-loving Democrats of antisemitism:

    • Ed Kilgore: [08-06] The GOP's dumbest attack on Walz pick: Democrats are antisemites: Or as Sen. Tom Cotton puts it, "the antisemitic, pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party."

    • Marc A Thiessen: [08-07] Walz is Harris's first unforced error -- and an opportunity for Trump: "By picking a fellow leftist, Harris has a running mate who appeals to her base but not swing voters." You knew he, like the other hack operatives Jacobs cites, was going to swing against Walz, and you probably suspected it would be the old "too liberal" ploy, since for them every Democrat is way too liberal. The question is why they think we're so skittish to care. One thing that I like about Walz is that he not only knows good things to say, he has a record of getting good things done. The "too liberal" charge works best when exposing the words as hollow, insincere gestures. Sure, that's not what they think they're saying, but it's what voters react to: the idea that liberals are phonies, while Republicans are authentic, if for no reason other than that they're seriously committed to the awful things they want to do.

  • Ezra Klein: [08-11] Biden made Trump bigger. Harris makes him smaller. I would've been happy spending the rest of the campaign focusing on how evil Trump and Vance are, but hey, how petty and how ridiculous they are could work, too. And creepy -- that's the nuance that "weird" was aiming for.

  • Nicole Narea: [08-07] Why Kamala Harris's fundraising spree might prove more valuable than Trump's.

  • Robert J Shapiro: [07-29] Data don't lie: Harris has the facts to refute Trump's lies about the economy: "Trump's claims that the economy was better under his presidency than the Biden-Harris administration don't add up." Nice to know, but I'm not sure how persuasive that will be. This risks being an argument defending the status quo, instead of making the more important argument that you'll be better off with Harris than with Trump. It's probably true that a second Trump term will be worse, given that his first term was so much worse than either Obama's before or Biden's after, but it's the future that matters. Republicans have been increasing inequality and precarity since 1980, and those results have accumulated, bringing us ever closer to a breaking point. We've seen the data on that, and it's very conclusive. But how many people understand it? And how many can explain it?

  • Benjamin Wallace-Wells: [08-08] How Kamala Harris became bigger than Donald Trump.

Walz:

Biden:

And other Democrats:

Legal matters and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Economic matters:

Ukraine War and Russia:

America's empire and the world:

Other stories:

Obituaries

Books

  • David Masciotra: [08-05] Joe Conason on how grifters, swindlers, and frauds hijacked conservatism: An interview with the veteran journalist, author of the 2003 book Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, and most recently The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism, who explains:

    Deception is central to the contemporary right for two reasons. One is that they've discovered, over a long period, that it is highly profitable to mobilize people's fears and resentments around mythical issues. You can pull in vast sums of money from the right-wing base. The second reason is that facts don't work for them. It is very hard, at this point, to make arguments on behalf of their positions that are fact-based. They push lies, conspiracy theories, fantastical inventions that support their ideological positions. To take one example, there is an idea that the minimum wage costs jobs. Not true. It's been debunked. No respectable economist believes it. Or if you cut taxes, you'll generate economic growth. Not true. It's been disproven over again. So, they rely on falsehoods.

    Also: "It would be good if Democrats paid attention to what I expose in The Longest Con. This is an argument that works because no one likes being ripped off."

  • Katha Pollitt: [08-06] What's left after wokeness? An interview with philosopher Susan Neiman, author of the 2023 book Left Is Not Woke, recently reprinted in paperback (with some changes, including note of Oct. 7). I've noted the book before, and am generally sympathetic to its argument, as I've long insisted that the criterion defining left and right is equality vs. hierarchy, and anything else is just a correlation or coincidence. Woke is probably a correlation, because it opposes one particular form of hierarchy -- how effectively I cannot say, but Neiman may have some views on that. I don't see much point in criticizing people who advocate for wokeness, because they're usually facing off against people who need to be opposed. (The opposite of "woke" seems to be "asshole.") But I do think it's worth defending the real left against anyone who would try to reduce us to simple anti-wokeism.

    This led me to an earlier interview and other bits (for more of which, see Neiman's website):

    • PS: In looking at her new introduction, I see that she defines left differently than I do: as belief in a bundle of social rights. I see equality as more fundamental, but for sure, social rights are an expression (aspirational, at least) of equality.

Music (and other arts?)

  • Corey Kilgannon: [08-11] A jazz DJ's lifetime of knowledge leaves Queens for a new Nashville home: "Phil Schaap's childhood home held what may be the largest collection of recorded jazz interviews, an archive that will now be housed at Vanderbilt University."

  • Tom Sietsema: Dining chat: Are restaurants as fraught as depicted in 'The Bear'? Spoiler alert, but answer is "dunno," followed by other questions he does know something about. I think we're 3-4 episodes into The Bear, and finding it pretty stressful and not very satisfying, but interesting enough we'll keep plugging away at it (unlike the similarly hyped Beef).

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [08-07] Sound Grammar: The best jazz records of the year so far: The author has made a regular practice of jotting down three records he's listening to each week, and I noticed that about a third of them were more than a little jazz. I had thought about inviting him last year, but I didn't get it done. I wasn't really looking for new critics to invite for the mid-year poll, but as I was reading one of his pieces, I decided to give him a shot. As you can see, he submitted a very credible list.

Chatter

  • Dean Baker: [08-05] [replying to: "Trump has now made 6 posts this morning gleefully celebrating the stock market being down today"] Come on, what else is Trump going to talk about, his plans for a nationwide abortion ban, huge tax increase on imports to offset the cost of tax cuts for the rich, sending food prices through the roof by deporting the farm labor workforce?

    I guess Trump could also [talk] about his plans for promoting the spread of measles and polio and make more threats against "crappy Jews."

  • geekysteven: [08-06] Harris choosing Tim Walz as her running mate sets a dangerous precedent that Democrats might do cool shit that voters love

  • Prem Thakker: [08-06] "You don't win elections to bank political capital -- you win elections to burn political capital and improve lives." - Minnesota Governor Tim Walz

  • Richard Yeselson: [08-06] [replying to "The Walz selection shows just how deep the Dems' antisemitism problem runs."] Dude: the senate majority leader is Jewish; the Secretary of State is Jewish; the Attorney General is Jewish; the leader of the leftist faction is Jewish; the "husband of the nominee" is Jewish. I'm Jewish/you're Jewish so I ask you because Jews disagree: wtf are u talking about?

  • Kate Willett: [08-07] Hot take but I don't think it's actually bad for socialists if Republicans spend months saying this is socialism. [followed by picture of Tim Walz being hugged by school kids]

  • Mehdi Hasan: [08-07] Whether you're pro Cori Bush or anti Cori Bush, pro Israel or anti Israel, how can any American who c ares about democracy be okay with a lobby group - in this case, AIPAC - spending $15m to defeat one member of Congress (Bowman) & now $8m to defeat another (Bush)?

  • Teddy Wilson: [08-08] I've reported on the conservative movement and right-wing politics for more than a decade, and I've never seen anything like the collective temper tantrum and epic meltdown that has occurred the past few weeks. There is a palpable amount of fear, loathing and desperation.

  • Thoton Akimoto: [08-08] BREAKING: U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel boycotts Nagasaki peace ceremony after mayor disinvites Israel.

  • Zachary D Carter: [08-12] Nobody wants to talk about Brian Deese in this little spat that Yglesias and Chait are picking because he came from BlackRock and did a great job by doing stuff that Chait and Yglesias don't like.

    The idea that Biden was some kind of left wing radical is preposterous on its face. There's no political or economic principle being raised here, just one subset of democrats expressing disdain for another.

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): music.

Original count: 270 links, 12539 words (17034 total)

Current count: 272 links, 12620 words (17145 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Music Week

August archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 42761 [42729] rated (+32), 39 [36] unrated (+3).

I don't have much to say here, and want to move on, so let's keep this brief. Big Speaking of Which yesterday. I want to go back and edit a bit, but I'm afraid if I do it will drag on indefinitely. But if I post this now, I can go back with any revisions later (possibly including revisions here). I can also open a file for next week, which already has important stuff to report and comment on.

Only thing to note here is that this week is mostly hip-hop, and mostly underground at that. I finally added HHGA's The Best Hip Hop Albums of 2024 to my Metacritic File, and listened to about half of the unheard albums on the list. I remembered that their The Best Hip Hop Albums of 2023 produced a bonanza of finds, and hoped that this mid-year list would be half as productive. It wasn't even close, with Jay Skeese the only A-, although most of the rest were worth hearing. Of 60 albums on their 2023 list, 14 made my A-list (5 previously known to me). So far this year, it's only 2 of the 32 I've heard (1 previously known: Heems; leaving 37 still unheard).

I can't totally discount the possibility that my bad moods took a toll. And sure, one play (which is all nearly all of these got) has its limits, especially given how slow I am with words. I'll also admit that I spent a lot of time last week playing oldies. Also, the week was at least a day short, so I was surprised to find the rated count (32) as high as it is. No idea what next week will bring, other than that it's going to be hot. And we're officially in a drought now.

Hopefully I'll get to some questions this week.

New records reviewed this week:

21 Savage: American Dream (2024, Slaughter Gang/Epic): Rapper Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, born in London but raised in Atlanta, third solo album since 2017, also has three collaborations, all charted top-five in US. B+(**) [sp]

Adeem the Artist: Anniversary (2024, Four Quarters): Country singer-songwriter, from North Carolina, several albums going back to 2011, but only came to my attention with Cast Iron Pansexual in 2021, followed by White Trash Revelry, both well off the beaten path, which wasn't their only appeal. B+(**) [sp]

Apathy: Connecticut Casual: Chapter 2 (2024, Dirty Version): Connecticut rapper Chad Bromley, member of the Demigodz and Army of the Pharoahs, his own albums start in 2004, called a 2014 album Connecticut Casual, with hard beats and heavy vibes. B+(**) [sp]

Arrested Development: Bullets in the Chamber (2024, Vagabond Productions): Hip-hop group from Atlanta, had a massive debut hit in 1992, broke up after their 1994 album, regrouped in 2000 and have released albums regularly ever since, to little notice (at least to no notice by me). B+(*) [sp]

Awon & Parental: Sublime (2024, HHV): Rapper Antwan Wiggins, grew up in Virginia Beach, dozen-plus albums since 2008, working with French producer Raphaël Besikian, who favors jazzy vibes and explains that "hip-hop is the pinnacle of diversity and inclusion" and "one of the greatest blessings I've had." Ends with an instrumental version of the album, which is pleasant but unnecessary. B+(***) [sp]

Beans: Zwaard (2024, Tygr Rawwk): Rapper Robert Edward Stewart II, started out in Antipop Consortium, joined here by Finnish producer Sasu Ripatti, better known as Vladislav Delay. B+(*) [sp]

Blu & Evidence: Los Angeles (2024, Bigger Picture Music/New World Color): Rapper Johnson Barnes III, from Los Angeles, debut 2003, prolific since 2007, working here with producer Michael Perretta, who started with Dilated Peoples in the late 1990s. B+(**) [sp]

Brother Ali & unJUST: Love & Science (2024, Travelers Media): Underground rapper since 2003, has a light touch. B+(*) [sp]

Cavalier: Different Type Time (2024, Backwoodz Studioz): Rapper, from Brooklyn but based in New Orleans, couple albums since 2014. B+(**) [sp]

Common & Pete Rock: The Auditorium Vol. I (2024, Loma Vista): Big-name rapper, debut 1992 as Common Sense, when his ambitions were more modest, has done quite a bit of acting since 2002, as well as producing a steady stream of quite respectable albums. Rock (Peter Phillips) produces, goes back as far, especially for his duo with CL Smooth. B+(***) [sp]

Flo Milli: Fine Ho, Stay (2024, RCA): Rapper Tamia Carter, from Alabama, second album or third mixtape -- the distinction eludes me, all with Ho in the title. B+(**) [sp]

Future & Metro Boomin: We Don't Trust You (2024, Epic/Freebandz/Republic Boominati Worldwide): Rapper Nayvadius Cash, from Atlanta, best-selling albums since 2012, working here with producer Leland Tyler Wayne, first of two collaborative albums this year, but they go back at least to 2013. Runs 17 tracks, 59:39, and they weren't done yet. B+(**) [sp]

Future & Metro Boomin: We Still Don't Trust You (2024, Epic/Freebandz/Republic/Boominati Worldwide, 2CD): So, less than a month later, they released another 25 tracks, 88:33, the last seven overflowing to a second CD. Strikes me as maybe a tad catchier, but not sure the difference is worth quantifying. B+(**) [sp]

Gangrene: Heads I Win, Tails You Lose (2024, ALC): Hip-hop duo, Alchemist and Oh No, fourth album since 2010. B+(**) [sp]

Fred Hersch: Silent, Listening (2023 [2024], ECM): Eminent pianist, more than 50 albums since 1984, mostly trios but I count 16 solo albums, including this one -- I'm not a big fan of solo piano, but 2015's Solo is an exception. This one, as the title implies, winds up a bit thin. B+(*) [sp]

The Hot Toddies Jazz Band: The Hot Toadies Jazz Band (2019-22 [2023], Prohibition Productions): New York-based trad jazz outfit, first album, considerable turnover between early and later sessions, the constants being Justin Poindexter (guitar/vocals), Gabe Terracciano (violin/vocals), and Patrick Soluri (drums), with featured singers Queen Esther (2019) and Hannah Gill (2022). B+(***) [bc]

Lupe Fiasco: Samurai (2024, 1st and 15th Too): Chicago rapper, 2006 debut was a breakout hit. Still has a pop touch. B+(**) [sp]

Roc Marciano: Marciology (2024, Marci Enterprises): Rapper Rakeem Myer, has a regular stream of albums since 2010, many plays on his alias, this being even more inscrutable than most. B+(*) [sp]

Masta Ace & Marco Polo: Richmond Hill (2024, Fat Beats): Rapper Duval Clear, from Brooklyn, started 1988 in Juice Crew, debut album 1990, more after 2000, teaming up with Canadian beatmaker/producer Marco Bruno in 2018. B+(**) [sp]

James McClaskey & the Rhythm Band: Later on Blues (2024, BigTone): From New Orleans, plays tenor guitar and sings, second album for band (has another supporting Annabelle Zakaluk), mostly blues, three originals, but also covers from Tiny Grimes (one Charlie Parker, another Art Tatum) and Coleman Hawkins. B+(**) [sp]

Midnight Sons: Money Has No Owners (2024, Chong Wizard): Philadelphia rapper Stephen Zales, aka Zilla Rocca, with Canadian DJ Chong Wizard, with most cuts featuring others (the ones I recognize are Blu, AJ Suede, and Alaska). Has a jazzy underground vibe. B+(**) [sp]

Moses Rockwell Featuring Plain Old Mike: Regular Henry Sessions (2024, Hipnott): Rapper from Rochester, has at least one previous album, don't know anything more about his partner here, but cover photos two bearded blokes, and Mike gets the producer credit, earning his "jazzy" cred. B+(***) [sp]

ShrapKnel: Nobody Planning to Leave (2024, Backwoodz Studioz): Hip-hop duo, Curly Castro and Mark Debuque, third album. Kind of patchy, sketchy too. B [sp]

Jae Skeese & Superior: Testament of the Times (2024, RRC Music/BarsOverBs): Rapper from Buffalo, fifth album since 2020, producer is Marcos Oviedo (German "with Spanish descents"), his first album 2009. Underground, smart, really nice flow. A- [sp]

Daniel Son & Futurewave: Bushman Bodega (2024, WavGodMusic): Toronto rapper Daniel Borley, Discogs credits him with 18 albums since 2017, 7 with producer Martin Budik (Futurewave). B+(*) [sp]

Kelsey Waldon: There's Always a Song (2024, Oh Boy): Deep country singer-songwriter from Kentucky, ninth album since 2010, fourth on John Prine's label. Always has that deep holler voice and vibe, but leans heavily on guests to stretch eight songs (including covers as well worn as "Hello Stranger," "Uncle Pen, and "Travelling the Highway Home") out to 27:45. B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Sonny Rollins: A Night at the Village Vanguard: The Complete Masters (1957 [2024], Blue Note Tone Poet, 2CD): Long regarded as a major item in the tenor saxophonist's oeuvre, but I've never been much of a fan. The original 1958 LP (6 tracks, 44:17; one afternoon track with Donald Bailey and Pete La Roca, the rest from the evening sets with Wilbur Ware and Elvin Jones) was expanded to two CDs in 1987, picking up tracks from 1975's 2-LP More From the Vanguard (which I once owned). I've certainly underrated those CDs (in my database at B- and B, with the 1999 2-CD reissue at B+, and now this one, conceived as a 3-LP set but also available as 2-CD (130:00), adding nothing new of consequence (possibly some extra patter). I might complain of too many drum solos, but they're not bad, and the saxophone is majestic. Still, I have enough experience with really great Rollins to find this a tad overrated. B+(***) [sp]

The Louis Stewart Trio: Louis the First (1975 [2024], Livia): Irish guitarist (1944-2016), seems to have been his first album (although he had previous side-credits, including Clark Terry, Benny Goodman, and Jesus Christ Superstar). Mostly trio, with Martin Walshe (bass) and John Wadham (drums), dropping down to solo or bass duo on occasion. B+(***) [bc]

Old music:

Pat Metheny: Bright Size Life (1975 [1976], ECM): First album for the now-famous guitarist, a trio with Jaco Pastorius (bass) and Bob Moses (drums). Before he found his fusion schtick, he had a lot going on. B+(**) [sp]

Jumaane Smith: I Only Have Eyes for You (2014, self-released): Trumpet player, also sings (but not much here), first album, side credits include Rashied Ali in 2005, also Alicia Keys and Michael Bublé, the latter opening with a guest vocal here. Some nice trumpet, but song selection is odd, and the string backdrops uninspired. B- [sp]

Jumaane Smith: When You're Smiling (2020, Zinn Music): Trumpet player, plays hot, sings with some enthusiasm, picks more upbeat songs this time. I'm not finding any credits. But he hasn't totally lost the strings. Or the milquetoast guest singers? B [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Patricia Brennan Septet: Breaking Stretch (Pyroclastic) [09-06]
  • Dylan Hicks & Small Screens: Modern Flora (Soft Launch) [09-06]
  • Dave Rempis/Jason Adasiewicz/Joshua Abrams/Tyler Damon: Propulsion (Aerophonic) [10-04]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, August 5, 2024

Speaking of Which

I started working on this back on Thursday, the day after I posted Music Week and minor updates to last week's massive Speaking of Which (final: 263 links, 11360 words). For a while, it looked like I might actually wrap this up on Sunday evening, but didn't make it. Probably just as well, although the imminent Harris VP pick may upset some apple carts. Even if it happens (Tuesday morning, I now hear), consider it unknown to this post.

PS: Harris picks Tim Walz as VP ahead of multistate tour. For now, the best link is Perry Bacon Jr.: [08-06] Tim Walz is a bold, smart choice for Harris's running mate.

Last week I stayed clear of Israel's latest round of "targeted assassinations," most significantly that of Hamas diplomat Ismail Haniyeh (conveniently in Tehran; I imagine Mossad is already shopping movie rights to that story). Last week's lead story title ended "as US officials say a ceasefire deal is close." No one's saying that this week, as Haniyeh was Hamas's lead negotiator in those talks, which Netanyahu had managed to sideline for weeks, and now simply blew up. Rather, I devoted a large chunk of last week's post to Netanyahu's speech to Congress. Some key article cited there:

While we're at it, let's also reiterate:

This reminds me of Andrew Gillum on DeSantis: "I'm not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist, I'm simply saying the racists believe he's a racist." (Gillum also noted: "he's got neo-Nazis helping him run the state.") I have at least one article below on how Trump is deciding that some Jews are "good" (love Israel, support Trump) and "bad" (oppose Trump, hate Israel), and can easily find more, e.g.:

For deeper background, see:

I also did a Google search on trump on war with iran, but it mostly revealed past deeds, not current words. E.g.:

McGeorge Bundy once explained that the difference between presidents Kennedy and Johnson was that Kennedy wanted to be seen as smart, but Johnson wanted to be seen as tough. You can use the relative importance of smart and tough as a scale for weighing most presidents. We like to think of Obama as being on the smart side, but he picked many moments to prove he could be tough (like his first order to kill Somali pirates, his numerous drone strikes, his raid on Osama Bin Laden; on the other hand, he caved in every time he ran afoul of Netanyahu, which wasn't so smart, and betrayed a deficit worse than toughness: of courage). But Trump's idea of smart doesn't extend much beyond cheating on his taxes and paying off a porn star. And while he brags about being "a very stable genius," the quality he most wants to project to the world is how very tough he is (e.g., his boasts that were he still president, Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine, and Hamas wouldn't have attacked Israel).

While there isn't a lot of reason to think that Trump, in his rare moments of sober reflection, wants to blunder into war, his self-image, inflated ego, his lack of analytic skills, and his incapacity for empathy all make him susceptible to the suggests of the "tough guys" he likes to surround himself with. So sure, it's quite possible that Ben-Gvir has the measure of his man. You certainly have to admit that his cunning has him playing Netanyahu like a fiddle, amplifying his power enormously.

We will, of course, continue to hold Biden and Harris responsible for own their contributions to Israel's genocide and warmongering, but we should always be clear that Trump's malice, which pervades every pore of his campaign, is much more dangerous than Biden's indifferent cowardice, despicable as it is. As for Harris, all I can hope for is that she keeps her head down until she's in a position to do something about it. Then, by all means, she must, and failure there will be catastrophic, but until she has that power, mere speculation is unlikely to be helpful. There will always be more to do later.

Top story threads:

Israel:

Israel's long-standing policy of assassinating political opponents was brought to the fore last week with the murder of Ismail Haniyeh (head of the Hamas political bureau, and chief negotiator in the "ceasefire" talks Biden has promoted and Netanyahu has sabotaged at every turn). This immediately followed Israel's major escalation of bombing in Lebanon, which included the killing of a prominent Hezbollah commander. The calculation here is pretty obvious, even though it is rarely commented on. Israel is not merely killing for the hell of it, they want to provoke reprisals, which they can use to justify further killing. They are gambling that their targets cannot hurt them, or if they do land a lucky punch -- as Hamas did on October 7 -- they can escalate to previously unimaginable levels of mass destruction.

But Israel has one weakness: it depends on American support, both to replenish its supply of munitions and to prop up an economy that has never (well, not since 1950) been so extensively mobilized for war for so long. Netanyahu knows that he cannot sustain his genocidal war without American support, so he and his allies are pulling out all the stops to keep unthinking, uncritical support flowing. You see this in the flood of propaganda, including Netanyahu's obscene speech before Congress. You see this in the astounding money that's going into purging independent thought in American politics. But the real linchpin would be if he could maneuver the US into joining the war. He achieved a partial success in getting the Houthis to fire on Red Sea shipping, with the result that the US and UK have joined Saudi Arabia in bombing Yemen. But the real prize would be getting the US to go to war against Iran. Or at least Lebanon.

It helps here to understand that Israel doesn't actually care about Iran. The essential background here was explained by Trita Parsi in his 2007 book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States. The key point here is that while the US soured on Iran with the 1980 hostage crisis, Israel remained close to Iran throughout the 1980s -- you might vaguely recall that Israel was the intermediary in the Iran-Contra scandal -- but only turned against Iran in the 1990s, after Saddam Hussein ceased to be a viable foreign threat. Israel switched to Iran because the Americans already hated Iran, which made them easy to play with a ridiculously inflated story of Iran's "nuclear program." Obama's negotiations with Iran were intended to allay Israel's fears, but Netanyahu rejected them because Israel never feared Iran: they only faked it to cater to American prejudices. When Trump killed the deal, he capitulated to Israel, allowing Netanyahu to dictate America's understanding of allies, enemies, and interests.

While Trump did this for the most craven of reasons, Biden followed blindly because his long experience with the Israel lobby had taught him that no alternative course was imaginable. Still, providing "arms, money, and [freely ignored] advice" was the easy part. Committing US troops to conventional war against an unconquerable nation like Iran would be a much more daunting order. Of course, Israel isn't insisting that the US actually invade Iran, like their fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq. They would be perfectly happy to see the US conduct an Israel-style assault, where massive bombing denies any responsibility for cleaning up the mess. Going back to WWII, the US is used to seeking definitive solutions that lead to peace, but Israel has always understood that each victory is just a prelude to the next war, which they must eternally prepare for. Peace for them is nothing but false hope and mass delusion, which is why their warrior caste breaks it at every opportunity.

Of course, America hasn't quite become a pawn in Israel's game. Biden has little appetite for war against Iran, or even against Lebanon -- although he also has little will to resist bombing Yemen and Syria, or to move aircraft carrier groups supposedly to deter attacks against Israel. Biden, in contrast to Trump, retains at least some sense of human decency, so he can't really endorse Israel's genocide, but he tries hard to not see it, either, so he readily parrots Israel's lies and clichés -- which so far is all that Netanyahu has needed.

But it would help to see the game he and his far-right allies are playing: they don't care about Iran, and they don't worry about foreign attack; they only care about the US and Europe as a meal ticket, and even there they don't care how unpopular they become, as long as those in power toe their line; what they do care about is grinding the Palestinians down to dust, to utter insignificance, not just in Gaza but everywhere they control; unlike some genociders, they are not obsessed with killing every last Palestinian, as they know that's not the only way to render them inconsequent, but they also have no qualms about killing indiscriminately, and see that as instrumental to their cause.

On some level, most Israelis must realize that they cannot keep killing and destroying indefinitely. True, no other army has the means and will power to stop them. And there's little chance that Israelis, who have grown up under a regime that has systematically inculcated the belief that Jews are eternal victims but in Israel have become invincible warriors, will develop a conscience and decide they've gone far enough (let alone too far). On the other hand, world opinion, even in the so-called western democracies that currently sustain Israel's military and economy, is turning against Israel's war, not just because most people find this killing and destruction abhorrent when done by anyone, but because we increasingly see it as rooted in inequality and hatred, in the fundamentally unjust belief that might makes right.

We see this most clearly in America, where our most reactionary political elements, including the neocons (who led us into the Israel-inspired Global War on Terror) and the Christian Zionists (with their dreams of Armageddon) are by far the most enthusiastic backers of Israeli genocide. Granted, there is still a significant rump faction of Democrats who are loyal to Israel, but their loyalty depends on misinformation and myths, not on a belief in violence. They do want to see a ceasefire and humanitarian relief, and generally accept that diversity, democracy, and equality are not just desirable but necessary. They just have trouble holding Israel to their otherwise general beliefs. But unlike the right-wingers, it should till be possible to reason with pro-Israel Democrats. One can make a strong case that Israel is harming itself by pursuing such extreme policies.

Note: The assassination of Hamas eminence Ismail Haniyeh has become a big enough story to warrant its own section, between this one (which is mostly limited to Israel's domestic politics and military operations) and the next one (which deals with US politics and support for Israel). As usual, there is another section following on Israeli propaganda and world opinion, especially around the genocide charge. The subdivisions are useful because there's so much material to cover, and it's nice to keep similar pieces together, but it's also difficult, in that many pieces lap over from one area to another. For instance, articles specifically on the US reaction to the Haniyeh assassination may be included in the US section. The assassinations and escalation in Lebanon hasn't yet mandated its own section, so pieces on that are mostly in the US section, as my view is that Israel's attacks on Lebanon (and Iran) are mostly attempts to lead US policy.

The Haniyeh assassination:

  • Fatima AbdulKarim/Mohammed R Mhawish: From Gaza to Ramallah, Haniyeh remembered as advocate of unity.

  • Nasim Ahmed: [08-01] Ismail Haniyeh: assassinated in Israel's war on peace and quest for endless occupation. Notes that "Western sources consistently portrayed Haniyeh as a moderate figure within Hamas."

    The political murder of Haniyeh fits a troubling pattern of Israeli behaviour. Political observers have long noted Israel's fear of what is often referred to as a Palestinian "peace offensive." Throughout its history as an occupation state, Israel has been accused of targeting moderate Palestinian leaders who show the potential for engaging in meaningful peace negotiations. This strategy, critics argue, is aimed at closing the door to peace and maintaining a state of perpetual conflict that serves Israel's long-term goal of establishing its illegal sovereignty over all of historic Palestine.

  • Ramzy Baroud: [07-31] It's both criminal and desperate; that's why Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh. He also notes: "Israel chose the time and place for Haniyeh's murder carefully." Israel has persistently attempted to link Hamas with Iran, which has never made a lot of sense, but the opportunity to kill him in Iran will leave an indelible impression, as well as serving as a major embarrassment to and provocation of Iran.

  • Juan Cole: [08-02] Turkey's Erdogan denounces killing of Haniyeh, blocks Israel at NATO, boycotts it, and threatens intervention.

  • David Hearst: Ismail Haniyeh killing: Netanyahu's only goal is to set the region on fire.

  • Fred Kaplan: [07-31] What Israel's killing of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders could mean for war in the region.

  • Qassam Muaddi: [07-31] Israel assassinates head of Hamas political bureau amid regional escalation: "Israel assassinated Hamas politburo head Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran after a series of mounting regional tensions that included unprecedented Israeli attacks on the 'Axis of Resistance,' including airstrikes on Beirut and Yemen."

  • Ashraf Nubani: [08-05] Killing Hamas leader: an act of Israeli desperation. I understand the impulse to write something defiant like this, but I don't sense the desperation. Israel saw an opportunity and, consistent with their principles, acted on it, with little regard for future consequences, because they really aren't worried about things like that.

  • Abdaljawad Omar: [07-31] The real reason Israel is assassinating Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, and why it won't stop the resistance: "Israel's assassination of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders doesn't aim to weaken the resistance. Its real motive is to restore the image of military and intelligence superiority in the eyes of the Israeli public." I think the author is overthinking this. Once Israel's leaders decided they could get away with killing everyone even remotely associated with Hamas, with no worries about killing other Palestinians, any opportunity to hit someone on their list was automatically greenlighted. The author desperately wants to think that the resistance is a factor Israel must reckon with, but Israelis don't care. If their attacks push more people to resist, they'll just kill more. Once the telos is genocide, resistance is just positive feedback.

  • Paul R Pillar: [08-01] Trigger happy Israel and its thirst for revenge: "The cross-border assassinations reflect a national rage playing out in Gaza's carnage -- and Netanyahu's desire to keep the war going forever."

  • Reuters: [07-31] Haniyeh was the pragmatic leader of Hamas.

  • Muhammad Sahimi: [07-31] Assassination of Hamas leader in Iran puts new president in a trap: "Depending on how Pezeshkian responds, it may force the US to get directly involved in defense of Israel." No mention that the trap was solely the work of Netanyahu until six paragraphs in:

    Dialogue between Iran and the United States is, however, the last thing that Israel, and particularly Benjamin Netanyahu, wants at this stage. If anything, Netanyahu would expand the war to Lebanon in hopes that Iran will react strongly and enter the war directly. Neither Hezbollah nor Iran wants a war with Israel at this stage, but no one should be under the illusion that if Israel begins a full-scale war with Lebanon and Hezbollah, Iran will sit it out.

  • Erika Solomon: [08-04] Hamas may emerge battered, but not beaten, from Israel's latest blows: "The assassination of two Hamas leaders may be a short-term setback, analysts say, not enough to prevent the group from emerging intact -- and possibly more radicalized." I have very little faith in articles like this, where reporters have very little access to primary sources, and everyone they do have access to has their own interests to promote. The line here, hardly surprising given where it's being published, is basically what Israel wants you to believe: that yes, we're inflicting serious short-term losses on Hamas, but no matter what we do, Palestinians will rebound to attack again, so Israel just has to keep fighting forever, beating them down (you know, "mowing the lawn"). Still, this argument depends on sleight of hand, confusing the idea of Hamas with its organization (which was never as monolithic as supposed), but also assuming that the dynamic remains extremely polarized (that Israel and Hamas can do nothing but fight until one or the other dies).

    I am reasonably certain that as long as Israel acts like Goliath, many Palestinians will want to resist, and will search for leverage they can use to assert their dignity and fight back. Hamas was one of many organizations that attempted to channel Palestinian desires for justice into effective political action. I think it's fair to say that it failed, repeatedly, but most definitively on or shortly after October 7, when in an act of desperation, the organization exploded like a suicide bomber. I suppose it's possible that there is still some sort of residual organization in Gaza, more likely as isolated cells than under any sort of unified command. Emigres like Haniyeh could continue to represent themselves as Hamas for diplomacy, but that just made them targets for Israel. No doubt there are others formerly associated with Hamas, some with their militia and many more mere civil employees of the Hamas-run de facto governance (now destroyed), and those people would continue to look for opportunities to resist, but they no longer constitute an effective force. Within a week or two, Israel could simply have declared victory over Hamas, and no one would have disputed them. That they didn't is because Hamas is their idea as much as it ever was a Palestinian idea. Hamas is Israel's ticket to genocide, so as long as they want to keep killing Palestinians -- and clearly they are nowhere near satiated yet -- they have to keep the idea of Hamas alive. Which is what they've done. And will continue to do, as long as you keep buying their hasbara.

  • Syeda Fizzah Shuja: [08-01] Haniyeh's assassination unleashes a new era of political violence.

  • Robert Wright: [08-02] The Haniyeh assassination will haunt Israel. Cites David Ignatius (below), quoting: "The Israelis are still stuck in a zero-sum game. But Israelis should ask themselves how well the hard-nosed, forever-war approach has worked in practice." They'd probably answer that they're still fighting, and killing more than they are losing, so it's working out just fine.

  • Middle East Monitor: [08-04] Massive rally in Istanbul to mourn Hamas leader Haniyeh, support Palestinians in Gaza.

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

Israel vs. world opinion:

  • Yousef Aljamal: [08-02] Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war. Where is the outrage? That's not the question I would ask. People who know about this are plenty outraged -- probably more than is good for their own health. The bigger problem is who doesn't know? And who doesn't care? The question of starvation was raised almost instantly, with the blockade of food imports and a bombing campaign directed at agricultural resources (especially greenhouses). Since then, we've seen some deaths reported, but it's not clear how they're being counted -- or if they're being counted. The broader issues of malnutriton are hard to quantify, let alone report.

  • Kribsoo Diallo: [08-03] African attitudes to, and solidarity with, Palestine: From the 1940s to Israel's genocide in Gaza: "Kribsoo Diallo reviews African perspectives on Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, the rise and fall of Zionist influence in Africa, and the state of African grassroots solidarity with Palestine."

  • Faris Giacaman: [07-30] Netanyahu's willing executioners: how ordinary Israelis became mass murderers: "After ten months of relentless genocidal war, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that both the Israeli state and society are partners in the genocide. The picture that emerges is a genocide from above and below." Obvious reference here to Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's 1996 book, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, which argued that the Nazi Judeocide was a reflection of widespread vitriolic anti-semitism among ordinary Germans, as opposed to the view that it was an aberration driven by fanatical Nazis, often operating in secret. I haven't read that book, but I've always been suspicious of its thesis, which just doesn't strike me as the way things work. Still, this seems like a fair question to ask of Israelis right now. I can't really tell: there is a lot of personal dislike of Netanyahu in Israel, but there doesn't seem to be much serious opposition to his war policy (which some would argue is a personal stay-out-of-jail strategy). While I recognize his war as flagrantly genocidal, Israeli propaganda takes great pains to deny and deflect, and therefore to shelter supporters from having to acknowledge the consequences of Israel's actions. If they knew better, would they care?

    But I will note that there are several reasons to think that Israelis are more popularly aligned with their government's genocidal policies than Germans were in the early 1940s: Israel is a much more open democracy, so those (except Palestinians) who oppose government policy can (generally) speak out and assemble to protest without fear of jail and torture; while the press in Israel has been fairly tightly controlled, there is still much more information available about the atrocities than was publically available in Germany; the Holocaust took place under cover of total war, toward the end of a long era of European imperialism, where racism was casually accepted and rarely challenged, whereas today most of us know better; in particular, we know much about the Nazi example, and about many other examples of systematically racist behavior, some also amounting to genocide. For an Israeli (and even more so if you're simply an ally of Israel) today, it's much harder to pretend you don't know what's going on, and/or that there's nothing you can do about it.

    By the way, some old pieces on Goldhagen's book:

  • Robert Kuttner: [08-02] Bibi's death wish:

    Is Netanyahu deliberately provoking a regional war that will be disastrous for Israel? Unless he is certifiably insane, his motive has to be to drag in the U.S., not as mediator but as more explicit military protector. And the strategy is working. . . .

    But Israel is certainly guilty of the most barbarous sort of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. And Israel's reckless killing of civilians in Gaza violates international law as well as human decency, whether or not it meets some legal test of genocide.

    If you need a primer on the daily humiliations inflicted on the Palestinian population, you owe it to yourself to read Nathan Thrall's book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. Israel's actions in the occupied West Bank meet any test of apartheid, and Israel is behaving precisely like a colonial power.

    In some respects, the South African apartheid regime was more benign. They didn't kill Nelson Mandela, and in the end they released him in full recognition that he would be the country's next president. If only F.W. de Klerk, the last president under apartheid, who recognized the inevitability of Mandela and the end of white rule, were a role model for Netanyahu.

    This example is a reminder that if you want peace, you need strong and credible leadership on the other side, to sell the deal to people who have little if any reason to trust you. Israel could have done that with Arafat in 1993, but instead they undercut and marginalized him, even bolstering Hamas to weaken Fatah. They could have done that with Hamas when it won elections in 2007, but they rejected the results. Israelis like to complain that they've never had a "partner for peace," but the more serious problem is that Palestinians have never been allowed to choose their own leaders. It was the British who selected Hajj Amin Ali Husseini and his successors. Israel arranged for Jordan to rule the West Bank from 1948 until they were ready to take it over in 1967, and even later made sure it was Jordan and not the Palestinians running the Waqf. Israel brought in Arafat rather than deal with the Intifada leaders.

  • Craig Murray: [08-02] The Israeli nihilist state: "The apartheid state appears to have no objective other than violence and an urge for desolation."

  • Joseph Massad: [07-29] Why the West created a new dictionary for Israel and Palestine: "Seeking ideological uniformity on the issue, western officials and their media accomplices have long recognised the centrality of language to their political indoctrination project."

  • Nylah Iqbal Muhammad: [08-03] Understanding the connections between the Congo and Palestine genocides: "Friends of the Congo Executive Director Maurice Carney and Professor Eman Abdelhadi discuss the intersections between the genocides in the Congo and Palestine."

  • Zainab Nasser: [08-04] Living remotely: a Palestinian expatriate's struggle from Gaza to Beirut: "The sun rises over Beirut and the city stirs to life. For many, it's a new day filled with promise and potential, maybe hope or pain. But for me, a Gaza-born expatriate who spent 25 years in Gaza, each dawn brings a blend of hope and dread."

  • Corey Robin: [08-03] Two paths for Jewish politics: "In America, Jews pioneered a way of life that didn't rely on the whims of the powerful. Now it's under threat." Starts with a personal story:

    Having never thought that it wasn't, I flashed a puzzled smile and recalled an observation of the German writer Ludwig Börne: "Some reproach me with being a Jew, others pardon me, still others praise me for it. But all are thinking about it."

    Thirty-one years later, everyone's thinking about the Jews. Poll after poll asks them if they feel safe. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris lob insults about who's the greater antisemite. Congressional Republicans, who have all of two Jews in their caucus, deliver lectures on Jewish history to university leaders. . . . But as I learned that summer in Tennessee, and as we're seeing today, concern can be as revealing as contempt. Often the two go hand in hand.

    Consider the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which the House of Representatives recently passed by a vote of 320-91. The act purports to be a response to rising antisemitism in the United States. Yet the murder of Jews, synagogue shootings, and cries of "Jews will not replace us" are clearly not what the bill is designed to address. Nearly half of Republicans believe in the "great replacement theory," after all, and their leader draws from the same well.

    The bill will instead outfit the federal government with a new definition of antisemitism that would shield Israel from criticism and turn campus activism on behalf of Palestinians into acts of illegal discrimination. (Seven of the definition's eleven examples of antisemitism involve opposition to the State of Israel.) Right-wingers who vocally oppose the bill -- Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Tucker Carlson, and Charlie Kirk -- have little problem with its Zionist agenda. They just worry that it will implicate those who believe the Jews are Christ killers.

  • Ilan Pappé: [08-01] To stop the century-long genocide in Palestine, uproot the source of all violence: Zionism. This led me to another historical piece worth perusing:

  • Rick Staggenborg: [07-31] Why do good people support genocide? "I met with a Zionist to discuss whether it was a 'plausible' case that Israel's tactics constituted genocide."

    At her request, I supplied links to the sources of my claims, including Israeli newspapers and mainstream press articles citing Israeli sources. She said little about the information I shared. Instead, she raised new arguments each time we met for why Israel had "no choice" but to continue its wholesale slaughter of the population of Gaza.

    I eventually realized that she was able to support the destruction of an entire people because she didn't want to confront the facts. I think she suspected that knowing the whole truth might undermine her deeply held beliefs about Israel and perhaps Zionism itself.

  • Kathleen Wallace: [08-02] How will our great grandchildren look back on this chapter? "What is going on in Palestine is, as they say, simply a laboratory for the rest of the world. To not take a stance on such horror is to sign your own death warrant." Not too far back, the author also wrote:

    • [06-07] Does America have narcissistic personality disorder? "As a way of feeling powerful, the worst narcissistic traits are often emulated, and I think this is what we are seeing in the MAGA movement." The author notes "nine basic criteria to diagnose the personality disorder," and finds the US "currently meets all of them."

      1. A grandiose sense of importance.
      2. A preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success and power.
      3. A belief that they are special in such a way that only other high-status peoples or institutions can understand them.
      4. A need for excessive admiration.
      5. A sense of entitlement.
      6. Interpersonally exploitative behavior.
      7. A lack of empathy.
      8. An envy of others or a belief that others are envious of him or her."
      9. Arrogant and haughty behaviors or attitudes.

    • 05-03] More than just protests for Palestine: existential hope for the world: "Americans have been told that Israel is their only true ally in that region of the world. But nobody wants to know how that situation came to be."

  • Robert Zaretsky: [08-05] Israel's use of torture is a travesty -- just like it was for the French in Algeria 70 years ago.

Election notes:

  • Karen Greenberg: [08-04] Will election 2024 traumatize us? Drawing on her experience with the Guantanamo prison program, the author asks the question, is our political system designed to resign us to a state of "learned helplessness," where we give up all hope?

    The goal was simple: to reduce that prisoner to a profound state of complete paralysis and disempowerment in which, having no hope of relief or escape, he would do whatever his captors wanted. Detainees would see that there was no way out but to answer their captors' questions, which, it turned out, often led them, in desperation and a state of learned helplessness, to confess to things they hadn't done, to confess to whatever their captors wanted to hear.

    Having studied and written about the nightmare of those prisoners and Guantánamo for so many years now, it's been supremely jarring to see the term "learned helplessness" re-emerge in connection to the current unnerving state of American politics and the 2024 presidential election. Yet, in many ways, it seems a strangely appropriate lens through which to view the world of Donald Trump and the rest of us. It was true, as many commented, that a sense of learned helplessness indisputably crept into the mindset of so many of us in this country -- at least prior to Joe Biden's decision not to pursue a second term as president.

    But with Biden's exit, the election feels far less gloomy right now. No matter how improbable election of Kamala Harris may have seemed before Biden dropped out, it now feels like we finally have a fighting chance, and with that comes a sense of euophria that has been sadly lacking from our lives since, well, practically forever.

  • Rebecca Jennings: [08-02] An influencer is running for Senate. Is she just the first of many? "Caroline Gleich's Utah Senate campaign is a sign of the blurring lines between digital creators and politicians." This doesn't strike me as so weird. She sounds like a good candidate.

  • Ed Kilgore: [07-31] What ever happened to RFK Jr.?

Trump:

Vance:

And other Republicans:

Harris:

Biden:

And other Democrats:

Legal matters and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Economic matters:

Ukraine War and Russia:

America's empire and the world:

Other stories:

Obituaries

Books

  • Usman Butt: [2023-07-09] Avi Shlaim's memoir Three Worlds: Mossad, Mizrahim, and the loss of Iraqi Jewry: "Avi Shlaim's memoir is an elucidating account of split worlds under duress. Deeply researched, Shlaim reveals the factors behind his leaving Iraq for Israel, and how the Israeli secret services stoked tensions to facilitate this exodus."

  • Louis Menand: [07-22] When yuppies ruled: "Defining a social type is a way of defining an era. What can the time of the young urban professionjal tell us about our own?" Refers to Tom McGrath: Triumph of the Yuppies: American the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation.

  • Jordan Michael Smith: [08-02] The foreign policy mistake the US keeps repeating in the Middle East: "In 2024, the US faces some of the same challenges in the region that it did in 1954." Review of Fawaz A Gerges: What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East, a title which alludes to Bernard Lewis's 2002 book, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response. I read the latter back when I was desperate to read anything on the Middle East, but it mostly just showed me how idiotic western orientalists can be. I haven't read any of Gerges's many books -- most appear to be primers on jihadism for his UK readers -- but he's been working long enough for the imperialist ardor to wear thin. So expect some insights, but also some aggravation. For instance, consider this pull quote:

    The real lesson of America's Cold War policies is that interfering in other countries should only be done when our most vital interests are at stake, we have competent leaders, and we can do more good than ill.

    On the surface, that seems sensible, but every clause melts into goop the moment you reflect on it. Rather than dissect it, let me suggest instead:

    1. Never interfere in other countries. If they are friendly, be friendly. If they are hostile, be wary. If they stink, take your business elsewhere. But don't think that you can or should change them. Ever.
    2. Only domestic interests are vital. Governments are responsible for taking care of their own people, within their own territory, and nothing more. Anyone who thinks "we" have an interest outside the country is wrong, and up to no good.
    3. It's ok to conduct international relations, as long as it's done in a fair and open manner, with mutual respect, not clouded by the projection of power or avarice.
    4. Competent leaders are good. I wish we had some. But no one can judge the competency or fitness of other people's leaders. So don't.
    5. It's impossible to calculate the balance of good and ill: the terms are poorly defined, hard to quantify, and especially hard to anticipate well into the future. The best one can do is to avoid ill at every opportunity. That should leave room for good.

    From WWII on, US interaction with the Middle East has produced one blunder after another, each couched in the notion that we have material interests in the region that need to be advanced or at least defended through alliances with groups that had their own independent and sometimes conflicting interests, and deveoped through ideologies that have only served to further muddy the picture, and to totally befuddle the minds in Washington who think they are in charge. It wasn't always like that. Pre-WWII US interaction was relatively benign: American missionaries established great universities in Beirut and Cairo, tactfully enough that they didn't get tagged as Crusaders; the US refused to join the Great War against the Ottoman Empire, and refused a mandate over post-war Turkey.

    Things started to change in the 1930s when American oil companies came to Saudi Arabia, but even there they made much more equitable arrangements with Aramco than the British did with their Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The Eisenhower policies Gerges is so critical of were still rooted in past good will, even as it was rapidly being squandered to backstop British imperialism and the global oil monopoly, and ultimately to gratify Israel's every whim. One can imagine ways to unwind some of the worst effects, but there's little chance of that happening until you first realize that the entire project was rotten from the start.

  • Alexander Sorondo: [07-31] The short shelf-life of the White House tell-all: "Fly-on-the-wall West Wing books age like milk. Why do journalists and publishers bother?" Maybe they like milk? So few books stand the tes to time, it's almost silly to think that they should. One may question the value of "insider" stories, as compared to broader-based studies and deeper histories, but there's no reason they can't contribute something.

    Franklin Foer's book on Biden, The Last Politician, gets a mention, especially because something very significant (October 7) happened just a month after it came out. I'll admit I bought a copy, then didn't read it in a timely fashion, and at this point probably never will. But when I bought it, I thought there was a deficit of information on how Biden was operating around lots of issues -- especially on the Afghanistan retreat, which I thought he got a bum rap for, but with Biden it's hard to tell what's art and what's just klutziness.

    While it's always possible to publish too soon, books do take long enough to write that authors can get beyond first impressions and instincts. I rather doubt that Thomas Ricks meant to call his Iraq War book Fiasco, but by the time he finished, the title was obvious. Similarly, I thought Rajiv Chandrasekaran's reporting from Iraq was really shallow, but by the time he turned it into a book (Imperial Life in the Emerald City) he had a real story. The author here seems to prefer memoirs over journalism, but his examples (Bill Barr, James Comey, Anthony Scaramucci) aren't very persuasive.

Music (and other arts?)

Chatter

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