Speaking of * [20 - 29]Monday, November 6, 2023
Speaking of Which
Again, I swore off working on this during the week, which turned
out to pose more than a few problems. Finally opened the file up on
Saturday evening. I figured I'd just collect links, and not bother
with any serious writing. The supply of inputs seemed endless, and
it got late Sunday before I considered tidying up and posting. But
I couldn't, due to a computer problem which took several hours to
diagnose and about a minute to fix once I recognized it (DHCP tripped
me up). By then it was too late, so my posts are shifted back a day
once more.
Starting up today, I didn't go back to website I had previously
visited, but I did have a few more to look up. I also remembered
the Gabriel Winant piece at the bottom, so I dug it up, and wasted
a couple hours thinking about those quotes, before I scrapped what
little I had written.
Top story threads:
Israel: With more patience, these could have been grouped
into a half-dozen (maybe 8-10) subcategories, of which genocide
(both actual and imagined) looms large, with significant growth
in cease-fire advocacy and repression of anyone favoring cease-fire.
The short category is actual military news: Israel has conducted
ground operations in northern Gaza for a week, but what they've
achieved (or for that matter attempted) isn't at all clear, while
Palestinian casualties are continuing to increase, but I haven't
made much sense out of the numbers.
It does appear that I underestimated the ability of Hamas to
continue fighting after their initial suicidal attack was beaten
back. Not by a lot, mind you, but they've continued to shoot
occasional rockets (nothing you could describe as a "flood,"
and Israel regularly boasts of shooting 80-90% of them down, so
the effect is likely near-zero), and they're offering some degree
of ground resistance. Still, a unilateral Israeli cease-fire would
almost certainly halt the war, the killing, the destruction. Given
that continued punishment just generates future violence, Israel's
unwillingness to call a halt to this genocide -- and that's still
the operative term, even if Netanyahu hasn't convened his Wannsee
Conference yet -- signals only the intent to fight to some kind of
Endlösung ("final solution"). I might be tempted to ditch the Nazi
references, but they are ones that Israelis understand clearly --
and, one hopes, uncomfortably.
Some of the more purely partisan digs wound up in the sections
on Republicans and Democrats. Given that the entire American political
establishment is totally in thrall to Israel and their right-wing
donor cabal, there's little (if any) substance in these pieces,
just a lot of chattering nonsense.
Yuval Abraham: [10-30]
Expel all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli gov't ministry.
Ray Acheson: [10-17]
We must end violence to end violence.
Paula Andres: [11-04]
Israel bombs ambulance convoy near Gaza's largest hospital.
Jeremy Appel: [11-03]
Israel rabbi describes settler rampages across West Bank.
Michael Arria: [11-05]
The largest Palestine protest in US history shut down the streets of
DC: "An estimated 300,000 demonstrators in the largest Palestine
protest in United States history, calling for a ceasefire and an end
to the genocide in Gaza." Also note:
James Bamford: [11-02]
Why Israel slept: I don't care much for the metaphor here. There
will be recriminations for Israel's security lapses on Oct. 7, because
it's easy to pick on exposed flaws, but Israel's containment of Gaza
has been vigilant and remarkably effective for many years, and their
response to the breach was swift and decisive, and the damage, while
far above what they were accustomed to, was really fairly minor. They
could just as well be congratulating themselves, but would rather
channel the outrage into a far greater assault. But this article is
actually about something else: "Netanyahu's war inside the United
States." More specifically, "Netanyahu's move to counter the protesters
with lots of money to buy political power in Washington to create laws
making it a crime to boycott Israel." It may seem paradoxical that as
Israel has been steadily losing public support in America and Europe,
they've been able to lock political elites into even more subservient
roles. Bamford takes the obvious tack here: follow the money.
Ramzy Baroud: [11-03]
'Turning Gaza into ashes': Israeli hasbara vs the world.
Nicolas Camut: [11-05]
Israel minister suspended after calling nuking Gaza an option:
"Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu's statements 'are not based in
reality,' Prime Minister Netanyahu says."
Christian Caryl/Damir Marusic: [11-02]
Should Israel agree to a ceasefire? Commentators weigh in.
Starts with Yossi Beilin, who was the only successful negotiator in
the Oslo Peace Process, disappoints with "a humanitarian pause, but
no more." He never negotiated with Hamas, and never will, which may
be why the deals he came "so close to" never materialized. If you
refuse to negotiate with your fiercest enemies, you'll never settle
anything.
James Jeffrey says no, insisting that Israel is fighting an
"existential war" with Hamas, placing it "within a larger struggle
involving its enemy Iran instigating conflicts in Lebanon, Syria
and Yemen as well as Gaza -- a world war scenario he sees as like
Pearl Harbor.
Yaakov Katz insists "a cease-fire would be a victory for Hamas."
That's hard to see, even if the ceasefire took place immediately
after Israel repelled the attacks and resealed the breach: Hamas
depleted most of their missile supply, and lost 1,000 or more of
their best fighters (about 2.5% of the highest estimate I've seen
of their force), in a surprise attack that will be many times harder
to repeat in the future. And that was before Israel killed another
10,000 Palestinians in fit of collective punishment, suggesting
their real intent is genocide.
Lawrence Freedman and Matt Duss have more doubts about what Israel
can do, and more worries for Israel's reputation, and a better grasp
of the larger picture. Palestinians Ahmed Alnaouq and Laila El-Haddad
are the only ones who actually sense the human dimensions of the
slaughter.
Isaac Chotiner: [11-01]
The Gaza-ification of the West Bank: Interview with Hagai El-Ad,
of B'Tselem.
Fabiola Cineas: [10-31]
"History repeating itself": How the Israel-Hamas war is fueling hate
against Muslims and Jews: "There's a surge in reports of assaults,
vandalism, harassment, and intimidation." Two points that should be
stressed more: one is that Zionism has always been predicated on, and
fed by, antisemitism, and as such, Israel has often worked to incite
antisemitism to motivate Jews to immigrate (the pre-Israel Zionist
International negotiated with antisemites, especially in England, to
sponsor "a Jewish homeland," and with Nazi Germany to relieve them
of their Jews; after independence, Mossad ran various operations in
Arab countries to panic Jews into emigrating); in constantly blaming
any and all criticism of Israel on antisemitism, Israel is taunting
its critics into false generalizations. Author has a section called
"Antisemitism was already on the rise." This combines two different
things: the classic European prejudice (whether Christian or racist),
which became more public with Trump's election; and naive reaction
against Israel's inhumanity to Arabs (Jewish and/or leftist critics
of Israel are usually careful not to generalize Israelis or Zionists
with non-Israeli Jews). Neither is excusable. But it's much easier
to educate the naifs than to deprogram the Nazis. Also note that
most classic antisemites are enthusiastic supporters of Israel.
Steve Coll: [10-30]
The plight of the hostages and the rapidly escalating crisis in
Gaza: "Never before has Israel sought to rescue so many hostages
from a territory where it is also waging an unbridled aerial war."
Hostage negotiations are always fraught with overtones, but a big
factor here is that Israel's leaders are much more into the air
(and now ground) war, which they control, than the hostages, which
require some measure of empathy, tact and compromise (characteristics
they pride themselves in not showing, especially when geared up for
war). A hostage family member asks: "Why this offensive? There is
no rush. Hamas wasn't going anywhere." But any pause to the war
risks derailing it, letting the fever cool, and the madness be
reflected upon. They can't quite admit it, but Israel's leaders
would be happier if Hamas just killed all the hostages. That they
could spin into more war.
Jonathan Cook: [11-03]
Mounting evidence suggests Israel may be ready to 'cleanse' Gaza.
The "Greater Gaza" plan has been kicking around for a while, at least
since 2014, and the "Jordan is Palestine" idea goes way back.
Ryan Cooper: [11-03]
A one-state solution could work in Israel: "But the end of South
African apartheid demonstrates it would take an Israeli commitment to
peace that is nowhere in evidence." Could work, sure, but any chance
is long off, and receding as the right-wing has become more obviously
genocidal. One problem is numbers: shedding Gaza would help there, a
single-state for the rest is probably where you'd wind up, but it is
a long ways toward equal rights. The bigger problem is that Israel is
not just a garden-variety white (racist) settler state. It has a lot
of trauma-and-hubris-induced psychological baggage that will take ages
to overcome.
Alex De Waal: [11-03]
How the Israel-Hamas war is destabilizing the Horn of Africa.
Rajaa Elidrissi: [11-01]
The Gaza Strip blockade, explained.
Richard Falk: [11-03]
Israel-Palestine war: Israel's endgame is much more sinister than
restoring 'security'.
Lynn Feinerman: [11-03]
The left as Israel's sacrificial lamb: "One of the tragic ironies
of this is the vast majority of the casualties were kibbutzim and the
people at this outdoor concert. And people who live in kibbutzim and
people who go to raves tend to be the more left-wing, secular Israelis
who oppose Netanyahu." But the dead are now martyrs for the far right,
which isn't just ironic. Socialism built Israel into a strong, cohesive
community, but the doctrine of "Hebrew Labor" was the rotten kernel at
their heart, which grew the apartheid war-state of today.
Gabriella Ferrigine: [11-01]
Graham declares "no limit" of Palestinian deaths would make him question
Israel.
Laura Flanders: [10-30]
"Why I resigned from the State Department": Interview with Josh
Paul, who had worked in the section that oversees transfers of military
equipment and support.
[I cited another interview with Paul last week, from Politico. The
title bears repeating:
'There are options for Israel that do not involve killing thousands
of civilians'.
Robert Givens: [11-02]
Block to block in Gaza: What will an Israeli invasion look like?
Michelle Goldberg: [11-04]
When it comes to Israel, who decides what you can and can't say?
Jonathan Guyer: [11-04]
Will an Israel-Hamas ceasefire happen? The reasons and roadblocks,
explained.
Benjamin Hart: [11-04]
Egypt's puzzling role in the Israel-Hamas war: "The country that
used to control the Gaza Strip is helping Palestinians -- but only
up to a point." Interview with Steven Cook, a Foreign Policy
columnist.
Amira Hass: [11-01]
Amid the mourning, Israel's settlement enterprise celebrates a great
victory: "The soldiers are accompanying the settlers on their
raids -- or even finishing the job for them."
Michael Horton: [10-30]
Houthi missile launches at Israel risk reigniting war in Yemen.
Scott Horton/Connor Freeman: [10-31]
Netanyahu's support for Hamas has backfired: Nah! He's got Hamas
right where he wants them. If your goal is to destroy every last vestige
of Palestine, the first thing you have to do is to make Palestinians
unsympathetic. Israel never feared Palestinian violence, because that
they could meet in kind, plus an order of magnitude. Israel's great
fear was (and is) Palestinian civility.
Ellen Ioanes: [11-04]
Iran could determine how far the Israel-Hamas war spreads.
I rather doubt this. Since the revolution in 1979, Iran has attempted
to increase its political influence among Shiite factions in Arab
countries, with some success in Lebanon and Yemen, but not in Saudi
Arabia or the Persian Gulf states, nor in Iraq until the US busted
the country in 2003. But at least up to 1990, Iran maintained a cozy
relationship with Israel, having never shown any particular interest
in Palestinian groups (which were either too secular, or in Hamas,
too Sunni). It was Israel that pivoted to being anti-Iran, most
likely playing on American prejudices going back to the hostage
crisis. Since then, Iran has been a convenient whipping boy for
Israel, but despite all the nuclear talk, they never have been a
serious threat to each other. As for Hezbollah, Iran does support
them, but there's no reason to think Iran calls the shots. Even
if they did, attacking Israel makes little sense. The upshot of
the 2006 war was that Israel can do serious air damage to Lebanon,
well beyond Hezbollah's stronghold in the south, but Hezbollah can
still fend off a ground invasion. And Israel has better things to
do than that. Of course, if such a war was a serious consideration,
the simplest solution would be for the US to normalize relations
with Iran. But who in Washington can get Israel's permission to
do that? Also on Hezbollah:
Nicole Narea: [11-03]
Hezbollah's role in the Israel-Hamas war, explained. Key point
is that while Hezbollah was formed to fight Israel's occupation of
southern Lebanon (1982-2000), it has since become a mainstream
political party, with a stake in the government of Lebanon. While
part of their credibility is their ability to defend against Israel,
it would be silly to risk that by having to fight again. The option
of moving into mainstream politics has made Hezbollah less of a
terror threat. Hamas was denied that option: when they ran for
office, and won, they were denied recognition, so in Gaza they
fought back and took control, only to be blockaded. The result is
that the only way Hamas could act was by force, hence the military
wing took charge. And Israel did that deliberately, because they
don't fear Hamas militarily, but they do fear Hamas politically.
They want Palestinian "leaders" who will do their bidding, who
will keep their charges in line, and line their own pockets, and
let Israel do whatever Israelis want to do.
Ali Rizk: [10-31]
Why Hezbollah doesn't want a full-scale war. Yet.
Ellen Ioanes: [11-05]
Israel hits civilian infrastructure as ceasefire calls grow.
Arnold Isaacs: [11-02]
War in a post-fact world. Or: "War, crimes, truth, and denial:
unthinkable thoughts and false memories."
David D Kirkpatrick/Adam Rasgon: [10-30]
The Hamas propaganda war: "Across the Arab world, the group is
successfully selling its narrative of resistance." Hard for me to
gauge, as Hamas has no respect or legitimacy here -- even though a
narrative of devout patriots fighting back against overwhelmingly
powerful alien oppressors would strike chords many Americans would
sympathize with. (One might think of Red Dawn, or maybe just
Star Wars.) But elsewhere, the story is bound to resonate,
especially among people (and not just Arabs or Muslims) who have
directly felt the heavy hand of imperialism. Even if Israel is
amazingly successful in their campaign to obliterate Gaza, the
most likely future scenario is a return to 1970s-style terrorist
disruption (the desperation of a not-quite "utterly defeated
people" and a few others who romanticize their struggle).
Keren Landman: [11-01]
The death toll from Gaza, explained: Not very well, I'm afraid. The
link to Btselem's database says "Data updated until October 5."
The number of Palestinians killed is similar to the number killed
since Oct. 7. The number of Israelis killed is rather less than the
1,400 on or shortly after Oct. 7. I still haven't been able to find
a day-by-day accounting --
Wikipedia offers some totals to whenever the file was updated,
and some detail, especially on foreign nationals on the Israeli
side. Given that fighting outside Gaza ended by the second day --
Israel claimed to have killed all of the Palestinian attackers
(counting over 1,000), and the breach was resealed -- virtually
all subsequent deaths have been due to Israeli bombardment of
Gaza.
Chris Lehman: [11-02]
American evangelicals await the final battle in Gaza.
Louisa Loveluck/Susannah George/Michael Birnbaum: [11-05]
As Gaza death toll soars, secrecy shrouds Israel's targeting process.
Branko Marcetic: [11-03]
A tidal wave of state and private repression is targeting pro-Palestinian
voices. Probably enough on this for a whole section, but a cluster of
pieces landed here together:
Aaron Maté: [11-02]
In Gaza, Biden is an equal partner in Israel's mass murder.
Harold Meyerson: [11-02]
The co-dependency of Bibi and Hamas: Some false equivalency here,
followed by a plea for ye olde two-state solution that is certain to
fall on deaf ears. Sure, Netanyahu and Hamas are ideal enemies for each
other, especially relative to other factions in their constituencies.
But there is a big difference: Israel is winning, at least within the
narrow confines of war, while Hamas is losing -- and Israel hopes,
bad enough to sink all Palestinians.
Fintan O'Toole: [10-31]
No endgame in Gaza: "After weeks of bombardment and thousands of
deaths, what are Netanyahu's political and ethical limits?" I'll be
surprised if Netanyahu has any.
Paul R Pillar: [11-01]
With world's focus on Gaza, West Bank conflict brews: "Settlers
there appear freer than ever to commit violence against Palestinians,
risking a new intifada -- which was already a possibility before Hamas's
Oct. 7 attack."
Nathan J Robinson: [11-03]
What every American should know about Gaza: "We are complicit in
the bombing of Palestinian civilians and have an obligation to pressure
our government to push for a cease-fire."
Natasha Roth-Rowland: [10-28]
When 'never again' becomes a war cry: "In an Israeli war that
has been retrofitted onto a Holocaust template, it is obscene that
a plea to stop further killing is now read as moral failure."
Sigal Samuel: [11-01]
Israel's crackdown on dissent will only hurt it: "Silencing
criticism makes it harder for Israel's leaders to think clearly."
Note that most of the examples of repression are in America.
"America would have benefited from listening to dissenters after
9/11; instead, it silenced them."
Dahlia Scheindlin: [11-03]
Here's the least bad option for Gaza after the war ends:
"Reoccupation by Israel? Putting the Palestinian Authority in charge?
A Kosovo-style international intervention would be less bad than both
of those." This is similar to the scheme I wrote up
last week,
except mine offered a cleaner break from Israel -- which would, I think,
be better both for Gaza and for Israel, whereas Kosovo is still saddled
with Serbia's claim on the territory. (The same problem of competing
claims affects other de facto breakaway territories, especially in the
former Soviet Union.) The UN has (well, most plausibly) the legitimacy
and the skills to organize an interim government in Gaza, assuming no
significant party opposes them. Israel would initially have to agree
to this, and honor that (although I allowed them to retaliate for any
post-truce strikes, since they think they're entitled to do that anyway;
my guess is that if Israel is out of the picture, that scenario ends).
Then the "militants" in Gaza would have to agree to let the UN come in
and take over. I expect they would do that because: (a) doing so would
allow aid to flow in; (b) they couldn't be prosecuted for anything they
did before the truce; and (c) the intent would be for the UN-established
government to hold and honor democratic elections in short order. There
are more possible angles to this, but one advantage Gaza has over Kosovo
is that there is no internal ethnic or religious conflict to settle.
So, once Israel is willing to relinquish its claims and interests --
and let's face it, Israel has no good ideas of its own here -- this
sort of thing might not be so hard to do.
Tali Shapiro/Jonathan Ofir: [11-05]
Israeli doctors urge the bombing of Gaza hostpirals.
Richard Silverstein:
Oliver Stuenkel: []
The West can't defend international law while also supporting genocide:
I wasn't aware that the US took any interest in international law any
more.
Liz Theoharis: [11-05]
A cycle of escalating violence.
Nahal Toosi: [11-04]
The U N is in disarray over the Israel-Hamas war.
Zeynep Tufecki: [10-31]
Past lies about war in the Middle East are getting in the way of the
truth today. Colin Powell is the poster boy here. Old news but
worth repeating:
But if the U.S. response after Sept. 11 is a model, it is as a model
of what not to do.
After the attacks, the United States received deep global sympathy.
Many Muslims around the world were furious about this blemish upon
Islam, even if they opposed U.S. policies: Citizens held vigils,
politicians condemned the attacks and clerics repudiated them in
mosque sermons. (The idea that Muslims widely celebrated the attacks
has been repeatedly shown to be false or traces back to a few instances
of dubious clarity.)
But, instead of mobilizing that widespread global sympathy to try
to isolate the extremists, the United States chose to wage a reckless
and destructive war in Iraq, driven by an impulsive desire for vengeance
and justified by falsehoods about weapons of mass destruction.
Edward Wong/Patrick Kingsley: [11-05]
U.S. officials fear American guns ordered by Israel could fuel West
Bank violence.
Oren Ziv: [10-31]
Risking arrest and assault, Israelis begin protesting Gaza war.
Mairav Zonszwin: [11-01]
Israel and Palestine's existential war: Given that "genocide" is
so actively bandied about, the existential risks for Palestinians are
obvious. For Israel, the threat is harder to gauge. Israel could have
done essentially nothing after the first day's repairs, and would still
be as secure as ever behind their "iron walls." What Hamas hurt was
their ego, their sense of power. But since they can kill and destroy
with impunity, that's reason enough for them. Nothing existential to
it, unless you think maybe they have a soul to lose?
Trump, and other Republicans:
Lauren Aratani: [11-04]
Trump family on trial: five takeaways from a week in the New York
fraud case.
Isaac Arnsdorf/Josh Dawsey/Devlin Barrett: [11-05]
Trump and allies plot revenge, Justice Department control in a second
term: "Advisers have also discussed deploying the military to quell
potential unrest on Inauguration Day."
Dan Froomkin: [10-26]
As Republicans embrace theocratic authoritarianism, the political
media is tongue-tied.
Greg Grandin: [11-01]
The Republicans who want to invade Mexico.
Sarah Jones: [11-02]
Republicans for war crimes.
Cameron Joseph: [11-03]
Is Tommy Tuberville the most ignorant man in DC?
Also:
Daniel Larison: [10-31]
Ron DeSantis's foreign policy speech was a real dud: "He wants to
invoke a weariness of war and anti-neocon sentiment, but ends up
promoting the policies of both." This sounds like garden-variety
Republican gibberish: Democrats weak and feckless, me tough, China
bad, but will cower when faced with real American resolve, and even
more ridiculous "defense" spending.
Michael E Mann: [11-05]
Trump 2.0: The climate cannot survive another Trump term.
Heather Digby Parton:
Robert Reich: [10-27]
No Labels is a front group for Donald Trump: I rarely bother with
Reich, but this title hit my extremely literal brain head on. Suppose
that's exactly what it is: a backup plan to put Trump on the ballot if
he doesn't get the Republican nomination. How else can Trump manage to
get on enough state ballots late in the cycle? The result would be a
bloodbath split with the official Republican nominee, much like 1912
between Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft, but Trump would see that
as a totally justifiable price if the Republicans betrayed him, and
could use it as a threat to keep it from happening.
Joseph Solis-Mullen: [10-23]
Republican solutions would destabilize Central America, not fix
it.
Adriene Mahsa Varkiani: [11-03]
House Republicans introduce bill to expel Palestinians from the
country.
Li Zhou: [11-02]
The House Israel aid bill is a reminder that Trump-aligned Republicans
are now in charge: "Now they've passed an aid package tailored to
their goals." For more on those goals, and more on their author:
Biden and/or the Democrats:
Nick French: [09-01]
If Democrats want to win elections, they should bring back the Covid
welfare state: "By many measures, Bidenomics is working great --
but most Americans are still down on the economy. That's in large
part because the U.S. government let its temporarily generous social
safety net unravel."
Melvin Goodman: [11-03]
Biden endorses the "indispensable nation" notion: Sorry, couldn't
help but edit that title a bit (for clarity, you understand). Biden's
words were: "American leadership is what holds the world together.
American alliances are what keep us, America, safe." Then he worked
in "beacon to the world" and explicitly cited "my friend Madeleine
Albright."
David Klion:
Robert Kuttner: [11-01]
Biden's Nakba: "The catastrophic effects of the president's
indulgence of Netanyahu." This seems like a fair description of
Netanyahu's proposition (and its odds):
Netanyahu's notion that first Hamas can be destroyed at acceptable
cost, and then someone else can be found to govern Gaza, and then
some kind of regional settlement can be achieved is lunacy. This
has become Biden's war. Now it has to be Biden's peace, starting
with much tougher constraints on Israel.
Ahmed Moor: [11-01]
I can no longer justify voting for Joe Biden in 2024.
Holly Otterbein: [11-05]
Dem fears mount amid Biden's polling slump and Israel backlash:
I tried to ignore the chatter about Sunday's
New York Times/Sienna College Poll (which they've since played
up with
updates and analysis, with more by
Nate Cohn), but I figured I could (and should) kick him again
over Israel. Also, while it's easy enough to explain this poll away,
some skeptics are using it to question the wisdom of "staying the
course" (e.g.,
Now do you believe me?).
Pamela Paul: [11-02]
The Democrats are their own worst enemies: Lots of ways one can
play that title -- I'm tempted to quote a country song, "if you don't
stand for something, you'll fall for anything at all" -- but I don't
have time to sink here. Suffice it to note that this is a review of
the new John B Judis/Ruy Teixeira book, Where Have All the Democrats
Gone? You probably don't remember their 2002 book, The Emerging
Democratic Majority, which Paul initially remembers as "hugely
influential" then dismisses as "failed prophecy."
Legal matters and other crimes:
Ukraine War:
Other stories:
Dean Baker:
David Dayen: [10-18]
The NIH's 'how to become a billionaire' program: "An obscure company
affiliated with a former NIH employee is offered an exclusive license
for a government-funded cancer drug."
Ethan Iverson: [10-30]
Louis Armstrong's last word.
Paul Krugman: [10-31]
The military-industrial-complex: He has a chart arguing that as
a share of GDP, military spending is down since Eisenhower's speech,
a long-term trend with bumps for Vietnam, Reagan, and Iraq, as well
as blips when spending held steady while the economy crashed (2008,
2020). For a counterpoint, see William Hartung: [11-03]
What Paul Krugman gets wrong about the military industrial complex.
It seems to me that Eisenhower's concern wasn't the money per se, but
the evolution of arms industries from mere suppliers to a political
force that would make wars more (not less) likely.
Damon Linker: [11-04]
Get to know the influential conservative intellectuals who help explain
GOP extremism: Well, you don't really want to know them, but let's
drop a few names you can try to avoid:
Costin Alamariu ("Bronze Age Pervert"),
Michael Anton (The Flight 93 Election; The Stakes),
Patrick Deneen (Why Liberalism Failed; Regime Change),
Rod Dreher (Crunchy Cons; Live Not by Lies),
John Eastman (indicted Trump lawyer),
Stephen Wolfe (The Case for Christian Nationalism),
Curtis Yarvin ("Dark Enlightenment").
Also mentioned in passing:
Tyler Cowen,
Richard Hanania,
Sean Hannity,
Thomas Klingenstein (Claremont funder),
Matthew Peterson,
Christopher Rufo,
Tucker Carlson.
Patrick Ruffini: [11-04]
The emerging working-class Republican majority: "The coalition
that elected Donald Trump in 2016 was no one-off." No point filing
this in the top section on Republicans because no real Republicans
were involved in the spinning of this fantasy -- adapted from the
author's new book, Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial
Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP. Interesting that he takes
Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? as a pivot,
arguing that twenty years later "the villain of the story has
switched sides." But his evidence is thin, and doesn't remotely
approach policy: what's changed since Kansas is that the
gullible GOP base are demanding more blood in their red meat --
the diet of bigotry and fear-mongering the Party tempts them
with -- but on a practical level, Republicans are still every
bit as dedicated to serving oligarchy by rendering government
incompetent and corrupt. It's worth noting that in his later
books, Frank turned on Democratic supplicants to the rich --
especially in 2016's Listen, Liberal!, which was harsh
on the Clintons (but also Obama, Cuomo, Deval Patrick, etc.) --
but many (most?) Democrats shifted their policy priorities to
actually help and expand the middle class. Sure, Trump railed
against the corrosive jobs effect of trade deals, but Biden
came up with policies to build jobs, and to give workers the
leverage to get better pay. Trump talked infrastructure, but
Biden is building it. There is still much more to be done,
not least because Republicans -- no matter how populist they
claim to be -- are obstacles wherever they have any leverage.
The Republicans' only response is to ramp up the demagoguery
and bullshit.
Jeffrey St Clair: [11-03]
Roaming Charges: Shrinkwrapped, how sham psychology fueled the Texas
death machine.
Hadas Thier: [11-04]
Sam Bankman-Fried was guilty, and not even Michael Lewis could save
him. As someone who regards all of crypto as criminal conspiracy,
I was a bit surprised at how quickly and definitively this trial
turned, but here it is.
Also:
Sean Wilentz: [10-23]
The revolution within the American Revolution: "Supported and largely
led by slaveholders, the American Revolution was also, paradoxically, a
profound antislavery event."
Gabriel Winant: [10-13]
On mourning and statehood: A response to Joshua Leifer: "How to
grieve, what meaning to give those tears, is cruelly a political
question whether we like it or not." Leifer's original piece was
Toward a humane left, and he later wrote
A reply to Gabriel Winant. I'm not here to argue with Leifer
(nor with Eric Levitz, whose similar position elicited much more
of my thinking in recent weeks), other than to note again that
morality is a luxury most enjoyed from a distance, and can easily
be used as a cudgel against people who circumstance has deprived
of such options. But sure, no complaints here about making the
left even more humane (and not just the left, needless to say).
But I do want to quote some things Winant said, because I've had
similar thoughts but haven't quite found the words:
One way of understanding Israel that I think should not be controversial
is to say that it is a machine for the conversion of grief into power.
The Zionist dream, born initially from the flames of pogroms and the
romantic nationalist aspirations so common to the nineteenth century,
became real in the ashes of the Shoah, under the sign "never again."
Commemoration of horrific violence done to Jews, as we all know, is
central to what Israel means and the legitimacy that the state holds --
the sword and shield in the hands of the Jewish people against
reoccurrence. Anyone who has spent time in synagogues anywhere in
the world, much less been in Israel for Yom HaShoah or visited Yad
Vashem, can recognize this tight linkage between mourning and
statehood.
This, on reflection, is a hideous fact. For what it means is that
it is not possible to publicly grieve an Israeli Jewish life lost to
violence without tithing ideologically to the IDF -- whether you like
it or not. . . . The state will do -- already is doing -- what it does
with Jewish grief: transmute it into violence. For the perpetrator,
the immediate psychic satisfactions of this maneuver are easy enough
to understand, although the long-term costs prove somewhat more
complex.
It is this context -- the already-political grief at the core of
the Zionist adventure -- that makes so many on the left so reticent
to perform a public shedding of tears over Hamas's victims. They are,
we might darkly say, "pre-grieved": that is, an apparatus is already
in place to take their deaths and give them not just any meaning,
but specifically the meaning that they find in the bombs falling
on Gaza. . . . Its power, in turn, is such that the most ringing
dissents calling instead for peace and humane mourning for all --
like Eric Levitz's and Joshua Leifer's -- nevertheless resonate only
as whimpers of sentiment. Whatever the noble and admirable content
of such humane efforts, their form is already molded. They are
participating, presumably without intent, in a new Red Scare being
prepared not against stray callous advocates of Hamas, but against all
who defend the right of Palestinians to live, and to live as equals.
Also:
The Israeli government doesn't care if you, a principled person,
perform your equal grief for all victims: it will gobble up your
grief for Jews and use it to make more victims of Palestinians,
while your balancing grief for Palestinians will be washed away
in the resulting din of violence and repression. The impulse,
repeatedly called "humane" over the past week, to find peace by
acknowledging equally the losses on all sides rests on a fantasy
that mourning can be depoliticized. If only it were so -- but this
would be the end of Zionism, after all. More tragically, the
sentiment of those who want peace and justice for all and express
this by chastising those in the West whom they see to be reacting
with insufficient grief and excessive politics have only given
amplification to the propaganda machine that is now openly calling
for the blood of the innocent and the silence of doubters.
No time for me to start unpacking this, let alone building on
it, but much more could be said.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, October 30, 2023
Speaking of Which
Postscript Introduction
Note: It got too late Sunday night before I completed my rounds,
much less checked spelling and formatting and did the other bits of
housekeeping I need to do before posting, so let this sit overnight.
I changed the date to Monday, but didn't make another round. I did
add the bits from Twitter, and one more link on the UAW strike,
since that not only really matters but wraps up the trifecta.
Music Week will be delayed until Tuesday. The extra day has so
far been good for two more A- records (surprises at that).
By the way, if anyone wants to try reformulating the introduction
plan into an op-ed or a more serious proposal, please go ahead and
do so (no citation required, but if you want to talk about it, feel
free to reach out). I have no standing in mainstream media (or for
that matter in solidly left-wing and/or antiwar media), and I have
no appetite for throwing myself at their feet.
And yes, I understand why the plan as sketched out will be hard
for lots of well-meaning folks to swallow. I'm sorry that in politics
people hardly ever pay for their crimes. I was 18 when Richard Nixon
was elected president, and no one in my lifetime ever deserved to pay
more. (Well, maybe Winston Churchill, but he died when I was 14, or
Joseph Stalin, who died when I was 2.) But that almost never happens,
and even when some measure of justice is meted out, it's never enough.
Nixon was granted a pardon, and retired not even to obscurity, but at
least out of harm's way.
The proposed scheme simply splits off one part of the conflict
and arranges it so the sides stop hurting each other. It's urgent
to do so because it's turned into a self-destruction pact, as sore
to Israel as it is fatal to Gaza. It leaves the rest of the conflict
in place, in hopes that Israel will, in good time, recognize that
they cannot forever deny Palestinians their dignity. I'm not very
optimistic that they will come to their senses, but the odds are
better than now, in the fevered heat of war.
The key points here are these: you cannot force Israel to do
anything they're unwilling to do; you have to give Israel an option
that they can choose that doesn't require that they change their
fundamental political beliefs; you cannot appeal to the conscience
of Israel's leaders, because they don't have a functioning one;
you don't have to solve any problem but the immediate one in Gaza;
you don't have to deal with Palestine's leaders, because none of
them are legitimate; you do have to provide a path where the people
of Gaza can live normal lives, in peace and dignity, where they
have no practical need to lash out at Israel or anyone else. It is
in the interest of the whole world to end this conflict, so it is
worthwhile to put some effort into making it work. But for now the
only piece you have to solve is Gaza, because that's the one that's
spun out of control.
First Introduction
From early grade school, my favorite subject was "social studies,"
with geography and history key dimensions. But I also had aptitude
for science, at least until an especially boorish teacher turned me
off completely. I dropped out of high school, but not finding myself
with any other competency, I tested my way into college, where my
main studies were in sociology and philosophy. I turned my back on
academic studies, but never stopped adding to my store of knowledge --
if anything, I redoubled my efforts after 2000.
When microcomputers started appearing around 1979, I bought one,
and taught myself to program. Then I discovered that my real skill
was engineering -- the practical application of my mindset.
Politics turned out to be mostly rhetoric: people were measure
by how good they sounded, not by anything they actually did. Sure,
social scientists measured things, but mostly their own prejudiced
assumptions. But engineers didn't waste their time railing about
the injustices of gravity and entropy. Engineers fixed things. And
better than that, engineers designed and built things to not break --
or, at least, to serve a useful life before they wore out.
So, when I encounter a political problem, I tend to think about
it as an engineer would (or should), in terms of function and the
forces working against it. I can't be value-neutral in this, nor can
anyone, though I'm better at most at recognizing my own prejudices,
and at suspending judgment on those of others. A big part of my kit
is what Robert Wright calls "cognitive empathy": the ability to
imagine someone else's view. This is a skill that is sorely needed,
and way too often lacking, in diplomats. (You're most likely to
find it in sales, where one is measured on deals made, rather than
on political rhetoric that precludes agreement.)
So when I encounter a political problem, my instinct is to come
up with a solution: an approach that will reduce the conflict in a
way that will lead to prolonged stability. It's always tempting to
come up with a universal solution based on first principles, but
history offers few examples of conflicted sides finding such common
ground. That means for most acute conflicts we have to come up with
short-range, partial fixes.
Over the last twenty years, I've come up with a lot of partial
and a few comprehensive solutions to the Israel/Palestine conflict.
They've never been taken seriously, by either side, or even by
potentially influential third parties. The basic reason is that
politically powerful Israelis are unwilling to grant concessions
to Palestinians, even a small territory they have no settlement
interest in (Gaza), basic human rights, and/or any real measure
of economic freedom. There are various reasons and/or excuses for
this, but the most important one is that no outside nation nor
any possible internal force (nonviolent or not) has anything
close to enough power to persuade Israel to change course. So
the first rule is you have to give Israel something they would
prefer to the course they have charted, which is to lay waste
to Gaza, making it uninhabitable to the people who manage to
survive their assault.
The first lesson Israeli leaders should draw from their war
is that while it's easy to kill enough Palestinians to make you
look monstrous, it's really hard to kill enough to make any real
demographic difference. As long as Palestinians survive and hang
onto what's left of their land, they remain to challenge and defy
Israeli colonialism, sacrificing their bodies and appealing to
international conscience. And while people of good will, many
sympathetic to the Palestinian plight, were quick to condemn the
violent outbreak, its main effect was to shock Israel into showing
their true colors: that domination is based on overwhelming power,
and the willingness to use it savagely when provoked.
Hence, Israel's response to the uprising -- the deadliest single
day in Israel's history -- was first to threaten the total demolition
of Gaza and the deaths of everyone who lived there (offering a mass
exodus through Egypt as the only path to safety), then a systematic
military campaign, starting with massive bombardment and leading to
a ground invasion. With over two million people in Gaza, that could
amount to the largest genocide since WWII. Israel's one-sided war
on Gaza has slogged on for three weeks, with some of the heaviest
bombing in recent history, destroying infrastructure, driving more
than a million people from their homes, and theatening starvation.
The longer this continues, the more world opinion will shift against
Israel's brutality, until what little good will remains dissipates
in disgust.
At some point, Israeli leaders are bound to realize three things:
that continuing the killing hurts them more than it helps; that large
numbers of Palestinians will stay in Gaza no matter what; and that as
long as there are Palestinians in Gaza, the land is of no practical
use to Israel. The only viable solution to this is for Israel to cut
Gaza loose. The simplest way to do this is to return the mandate to
the UN. This doesn't require any negotiations with Palestinians, so
it doesn't resolve any issues with Palestinians within Israel, the
occupied territories, or refugees elsewhere. Israel simply sets its
conditions for the transfer. If the UN accepts, Israel withdraws its
troops, and ceases all engagement with Gaza. Given the humanitarian
catastrophe unfolding, the UN will have little choice, but everyone
would be best served with some minimal understandings. I think the
following would be reasonable:
Israel removes any ground forces it has in Gaza, and seals
the border. Israel unilaterally ceases fire, except in retaliation
for attacks (e.g., rockets) from Gaza. Israel reserves the right to
retaliate for each attack, one munition (shell, bomb, rocket, etc.,
but probably larger) for each munition used against Israel, but only
within 24 hours of the incident.
Israel is responsible for its land border with Gaza. Israel
retains the right to continue patrolling the airspace and sea front
until other arrangements are negotiated with the UN and/or future
Gaza government. If Israel abuses these rights, there should be
some court or referee to nonviolently resolve these disputes (but
it's pretty unlikely Israel will agree to that).
The UN will organize a provisional, representative government
in Gaza, and will eventually organize elections (e.g., within one
year of handover). The UN may dictate a constitution and a basic legal
framework, which may be democratically amended or rewritten after a
fixed period of time (e.g., 5 years). The UN will organize donors to
provide aid in reconstruction, and may attach conditions to its aid
(e.g., a court to police against corruption). The UN will issue passports
to residents/citizens of Gaza, allowing them to leave if they wish, and
to return at any future point they may desire.
Israel and Gaza will be granted amnesty against possible charges
under international law up to the date of ceasefire and transfer, and
not limited to interactions between Israel and Gaza. All individuals
within Gaza will also receive amnesty for their role in the revolt or
other incidents that occurred up to the date of transfer. All political
organizations in Gaza will be banned, and their property will be
expropriated. New organizations may be formed from scratch, but
none may reused the names of banned parties. Past membership in a
banned political party will not be penalized.
UNHCR-registered refugees in Gaza will enjoy full rights as
citizens of Gaza, and will no longer be considered refugees from
Israel. This doesn't affect the rights of refugees resident elsewhere.
As a condition of its independence, Gaza may not call itself Palestine,
and may not make any claims to land and/or people not presently contained
in Gaza.
Other items not specified are subject to negotiation, which I
imagine will be easier once the break is made, peace is established,
and some degree of normalcy returns. Two things I haven't stressed
are the desire to disarm Gaza, and the question of inspecting imports
to keep weapons from entering Gaza. These things should be implemented
voluntarily by Gaza itself. More weapons invites retaliation, which
is inevitably collective punishment. As long as Israel retains that
right, weapons shouldn't matter to them.
Another thing I didn't bother with is the hostage situation. I
assume that the hostages will be released, even without negotiation,
before amnesty kicks in. Of course, if Hamas is as bloodthirsty as
Israel wants you to believe, they could also be executed before
amnesty, in which case maybe some negotiation and exchange should
take place first. I didn't want to make it more complicated than
it had to be. As for the hostages Israel has taken prisoner, that
call is up to Israel. Some sort of mass release, especially of
prisoners who could be repatriated to Gaza, would be a welcome
gesture, but need not be immediate: I hardly think Gaza really
needs an influx of radicalized militants, which is the main produce
of Israeli jails.
Israel gets several major wins here: they gain viable long-term
security from threats emanating from Gaza; they give up responsibility
for the welfare of Gaza, which they've shown no serious interest in or
aptitude for; they get an internationally-recognized clean slate,
immediately after committing an especially egregious crime against
humanity (they're still liable for future acts against Palestinians,
but they get a chance to reset that relationship); they break the
link between Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and they tilt
the demographic balance in the area Israel controls back to a strong
Jewish majority; they get a partial solution to the refugee; and
they will have already shown the world how hard they strike back,
without having to go complete "final solution."
But the biggest concession to Israel is that they get to control
the timing, simply because no one can let alone will move to stop
them. They can bomb until they run out, which isn't very likely
given that the US is already resupplying them. They can kill, maim,
destroy, until they run out of targets or simply wear themselves
out. Or until they develop a conscience and/or a sense of shame
over how world opinion and history will view them. Or until their
friends take pity and urge restraint. Or until they start losing
more soldiers than they're willing to risk -- the least likely of
all, given that nobody is rushing to resupply Gaza with the arms
they desperately need to defend themselves (as the US and Europe
did for Ukraine).
The point -- probably but not certainly short of extermination --
is that eventually Israel will tire of the killing, but still need
to dispose of the rubble and the corpses. That's when this framework
comes into play. Sooner would be better for everyone, but later is
the dominant mindset in Israel today, and one that is unfortunately
reinforced by America.
What Israel gives up is an endless series of wars and other
depredations which make them look like arrogant warmongers, and make
them seem malign to most of the people in most of the countries in
the world. (Even in the US, even with virtually every politician of
both parties in their pockets, their reputation is currently in
free fall.)
Few Palestinian politicians will welcome this proposal, especially
as it isn't even up to them. It's hard to argue that they've served
their people well over the years, even if one recognizes that they've
been dealt an especially weak hand in face of Israeli ruthlessness.
But for the people of Gaza, this offers survival, freedom, and a
measure of dignity. And for the world, and especially for the UN,
this offers a chance to actually fix something that got broke on
the UN's watch 75 years ago and has been an open sore ever since.
But sure, this leaves many more problems to be worked on. There
are border issues with Lebanon and Syria. There is apartheid, loss
of rights, harassment, even pogroms within Israel -- all of which
offer reasons to continue BDS campaigns. At some point, Israel could
decide to cut off more land to reduce its Palestinian population, but
they could also reduce tensions by moving toward equal rights, secure
in the expectation of a strong Jewish majority. That might spell the
end of the extreme right-wing parties, at least the leverage they've
recently held over Netanyahu, and for that matter the end of Netanyahu,
who's done nothing but drive Israel over the brink.
Meanwhile, all we can really do is to campaign for an immediate
ceasefire, both to arrest the genocidal destruction of Gaza and to
salvage Israelis from the ultimate shame of their political revenge.
The time for both-sidesing this is past. There is little point in
even mentioning Hamas any more. This isn't a war. This is a cold,
calculate massacre. History will not be kind to the people who laid
the foundations of this conflict, and will judge even more harshly
those who are carrying it to its ultimate ends.
I'll end this intro with something I wrote back on
October 9, a mere two days into this "war" (which I initially
described as a "prison break and crime spree," before moving on
to a comparison to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1944 -- it's not
exactly ironic how often Palestinian suffering echoes calamities
in Jewish history):
Anyone who condemns Hamas for the violence without also condemning
Israel for its violence, and indeed for the violence and injustice
it has inflicted on Palestinians for many decades now, is not only
an enemy of peace and social justice, but under the circumstances
is promoting genocide.
Bold in the original, and still valid here. And three weeks later,
you know who you are.
Top story threads:
Israel: See introduction above. Just scattered links below,
one that caught my interest and/or pissed me off. For more newsy
stuff, see the "live updates" from
Vox;
Guardian;
Washington Post. There are also "daily reports" at
Mondoweiss.
Ellen Ioanes/Jonathan Guyer/Zack Beauchamp: [10-28]
Israeli troops are in Gaza: 7 big questions about the war, answered.
This is a fairly generic intro. I don't put much stock into arguments
that the reason Hamas attacked when they did had much to do with topical
or even strategic concerns like the Saudi Arabia alliance or the latest
Al-Aqsa Mosque outrages. Rather, as Israel keeps lurching to the right,
and as America becomes more servile to the Israeli right, the sense of
desperation has increased. In such times, violence at least seems like
the one free thing one can do, a way to spread the pain and get the
world's attention. I've often pointed out that the attraction of rockets
is that the walls can't stop them. They're the one way people in Gaza
have of making their presence felt to their tormentors, of reminding
the world of their suffering. Of course, every time they do that,
Israel strikes back, massively, reminding the world that their hold
over Gaza is based on murderous force -- that that's the kind of
people Palestinians are struggling to free themselves from. It
doesn't work, in America at least, because we're so conditioned
to love Israel and hate its enemies.
Rania Abouzeid: [10-21]
The simmering Lebanese front in Israel's war.
Paula Aceves: [10-27]
The corporate and cultural fallout from the Israel-Hamas war.
I don't have time to sift through this long list just to feel
outraged, but will remind you that the first casualties of every
war are anyone who doubts the necessity of the war and the virtues
of the warriors (the ones who presume to represent you; the others,
of course, are evil inhuman ogres, and anyone who can't see that
is a naïve simp or far worse). I'll also note that one of the fired
was pursed for sharing a link to an Onion title, "Dying Gazans
Criticized For Not Using Last Words To Condemn Hamas." I missed
that piece, but did take note of two other Onion headlines:
U.S. warns a Gaza ceasefire would only benefit humanity; and
Biden Expresses Doubts That Enough Palestinians Have Died.
Michael Arria: [10-28]
We are witnessing the largest U.S. anti-war protests in 20 years.
Not just the US: See Philip Weiss: [10-29]
The world is seeing, and rising.
Ronen Bergman/Mark Mazzetti/Maria Abi-Habib: [10-29]
How years of Israeli failures on Hamas led to a devastating attack:
"Israeli officials completely underestimated the magnitude of the Oct.
7 attacks by Hamas, shattering the country's once invincible sense of
security."
Paola Caridi: [10-26]
Does the US really know the Arab world at all? You would think
that for all those years of risking American lives, they would have
developed some expertise, but both the political and military career
paths mostly favored the advancement of facilitators of established
prejudice, and certainly not critics, or even people with cognitive
empathy. Author has a recent book: Hamas: From Resistance to
Regime. I have zero confidence that anyone else I've read in
recent months has any real insight into Hamas.
Isaac Chotiner: [10-25]
Is this the end of the Netanyahu era? Interview with Netanyahu
biographer Anshel Pfeffer, a columnist at Haaretz.
Jessica Corbet: [10-29]
30 Israeli groups urge global community to help stop surging West Bank
settler violence: "Unfortunately, the Israeli government is supportive
of these attacks and does nothing to stop the violence."
Connor Echols:
Richard Falk: [10-24]
The West's refusal to call for a ceasefire is a green light to Israel's
ethnic cleansing.
Thomas Friedman: [10-29]
The Israeli officials I speak with tell me they know two things for
sure. Friedman's such a reliable mouthpiece for those "Israeli
officials" that he's rarely worth reading, but his counsel today,
that sometimes it's better to do nothing when provoked, is sound,
and compared to the hysteria of most of his cohort, refreshing. An
earlier version of this op-ed took the last line as a title: "Please,
Israel, don't get lost in those tunnels." That sums up his concern:
he couldn't care less what happens to Palestinians, but he realizes
that what Netanyahu's gang is doing is ultimately very bad for the
Israeli people he so treasures.
Neta Golan: [10-28]
Israeli attacks on Gaza's healthcare sector are a form of genocide.
Melvin Goodman:
Israeli state terrorism over the years.
Ryan Grim:
The lights are off. Here's what we know about life and death inside
Gaza: Interview with Maram Al-Dada. Also:
Inside a Gaza village: "All of us will die, but we don't know when".
Jonathan Guyer: [10-27]
The Biden administration needs to update its old thinking on
Israel-Palestine: "A viral essay by Biden's foreign policy adviser
shows why Israel is more of a liability to the US than anyone's ready
to admit." The official is national security adviser Jake Sullivan,
and the piece is classic self-delusion, something shockingly common
among Washington think-tankers, with their blind faith in throwing
their power around, with little care for whoever gets hurt in the
process. Guyer contrasts Sullivan's piece(s) with a recent one by
Obama advisor:
Ben Rhodes: [10-18]
Gaza: The cost of escalation. Behind a paywall, so let's at least
quote a bit:
The immediate comparisons to the September 11 attacks felt apt to me
not only because of the shock of violence on such a scale but also
because of the emotional response that followed. . . .
But imagine if you were told on September 12, 2001, about the
unintended consequences of our fearful and vengeful reaction. That we
would launch an illogical war in Iraq that would kill hundreds of
thousands of people, fuel sectarian hatred in the Middle East, empower
Iran, and discredit American leadership and democracy itself. That we
would find ourselves facing an ever-shifting threat from new
iterations of al-Qaeda and from groups, like ISIS, that on September
11 did not yet exist. That we would squander our moment of global
predominance fighting a war on terror rather than focusing on the
climate's tipping point, a revanchist Russia under Vladimir Putin, or
the destabilizing effects of rampant inequality and unregulated
technologies. That our commitment to global norms and international
law would be cast aside in ways that would be expropriated by all
manner of autocrats who claimed that they, too, were fighting
terror. That a war in Afghanistan, which seemed so justified at the
outset, would end in the chaotic evacuation of desperate Afghans,
including women and girls who believed the story we told them about
securing their future.
This accounting does not begin to encompass the effects of
America's renewed militarized nationalism, jingoism, and xenophobia on
our own society after September 11, which ultimately turned
inward. While it is far from the only factor, the US response to
September 11 bears a large share of the blame for the dismal and
divisive state of our politics, and the collapse of Americans'
confidence in our own institutions and one another. If someone painted
that picture for you on September 12, wouldn't you have thought twice
about what we were about to do?
I can't look up exactly what I was thinking on 9/11/2001 because
I was in Brooklyn, away from the computer where I had started keeping
my pre-blog online notebook, but my memory is pretty clear. I knew in
an instant that the crashed planes were blowback from past imperial
misadventures, that the political caste in Washington would take them
not as tragic crimes but as an insult to American hyperpowerdom, that
their arrogance would strike back arrogantly, that the consequences
would be impossible to predict, but would certainly create more enemies
than they could possibly vanquish. I probably could have figured out
that the war madness would poison our domestic politics, much as the
Cold War played such a large role in crippling our labor unions. Even
before 9/11, Netanyahu and Barak and Sharon had conspired to wreck the
Oslo Accords and trigger an Intifada they would use to permanently
disable the Palestinian Authority, figuring they'd rather fight with
Hamas than negotiate with Arafat.
Benjamin Hart: [10-26]
Why Ehud Barak thinks Israel must invade Gaza: He's a big part of
the problem in Israel over the last 30 years, even as he's tried to
position himself as the smarter/tougher alternative to Netanyahu.
I mean, he is, but not much, especially not much of an alternative,
but he is much clearer and much less of a liar, so you can learn
things listening to him.
David Hearst: [10-23]
Israel-Palestine war: Starmer's Gaza betrayal shows he is failing as
a leader: UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, who saved the party
for neoliberalism by ousting actual leftist Jeremy Corbyn, and who is
likely to become Prime Minister next time voters get a chance to choose
one. "This is the first time Britain has been complicit in a direct
Israeli military action since the Suez Crisis in 1956."
Ellen Ioanes: [10-24]
Israelis feel abandoned by Netanyahu after October 7.
Jake Johnson: [10-26]
Eight progressives vote against House Israel Resolution that ignores
Palestinian suffering. This was the first act of the House after
electing Mike Johnson speaker. The vote was 412-10, with one Republican
and one non-CPC Democrat dissenting, six Democrats registering as
"present." The Senate passed a similar resolution unanimously --
despite
More than 300 former Sanders staffers urge him to lead cease-fire resolution
in Senate.
Jimmy Johnson: [10-28]
Genocide has been catching up to Israelis ever since Zionism's
inception. "Israelis now perpetrate small-scale pogroms like
the one Issacharoff reported on such a regular basis that they
are barely considered newsworthy."
Fred Kaplan: [10-24]
How George W. Bush helped Hamas come to power. The history is
basically accurate, but I have a different take on it. Israel never
wanted a "partner for peace," so they never wanted a Palestinian
leadership that enjoyed strong popular support. In Arafat, and later
in Abbas, they thought they had a pawn they could manipulate, but
they never wanted either to be popular, so they never really offered
them much, ultimately sabotaging their authority and sending the
Palestinians searching for an alternative who would stand up for
them. That could have been Hamas, but Israel sabotaged them too --
with America's support, as it was easy to convince Bush that Hamas
were hopeless terrorists. So the title rings true, but what really
happened was that in denying Fatah any chance to serve Palestinians,
they created a vacuum that Hamas tried to fill, then kept them from
any effective power, driving them back to terrorism.
Isabel Kershner: [10-29]
Netanyahu finds himself at war in Gaza and at home: "Israel's
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, apologized for accusing military
and security officials of lapses that led to the Hamas massacre but
declined to accept responsibility himself."
Whizzy Kim: [10-28]
The boycott movement against Israel, explained: It's often said
that nobody gives up power without a fight, but it's hard to fight
injustice without complicating it. Hence the search for nonviolent
resistance and pressure, which have had modest successes, especially
in countries where public opinion holds some sway, both locally and
among higher powers. BDS played a large role in convincing South
Africa to abolish apartheid, so it seemed like an ideal strategy
for pressuring Israel into ending its own system of apartheid. We're
still in the stage where Israel is pulling out all the stops to keep
people in America and Europe from even discussing the prospect. Gag
laws, of course, have been tried before, most notoriously in the US
to prevent abolitionists from petitioning Congress about slavery.
We should understand that had BDS been more successful, Israel may
not have blundered its way into the present war.
Menachem Klein: [10-26]
Israel's war cabinet has learned nothing from its failures:
"The leaders who oversaw Israel's Gaza policy for 15 years are
incapable of abandoning the erroneous ideas that collapsed on
Oct. 7."
Will Leitch: [10-27]
Banning Palestinian flags is just the beginning.
Eric Levitz: [10-27]
The suppression of Israel's critics bolsters the case for free speech:
Someone get this guy a thesaurus. Bolster: "support or strengthen; prop
up." I think I get what he's saying, but I can't figure out a way to
rephrase his title. The weak link is "the case," as no way suppression
of anything "bolsters free speech." "The case" turns a real argument
about who's allowed to say what into an abstract right, where liberals
have to defend the rights of assholes to spew hate and lies in order
to justify their own right to say something sensible and helpful.
Richard Luscombe: [10-27]
Ron DeSantis's claim he sent military equipment to Israel unravels.
Well, it's the thought that counts. On the other hand, Edward Helmore:
[10-29]
Ron DeSantis defends call to ban pro-Palestinian groups from Florida
colleges is totally on-brand.
Ian S Lustick: [10-13]
Vengeance is not a policy: "Emotionally driven reactions from
Washington won't prevent future violence. Dismantling the Gaza
prison could."
Eldar Mamedov: [10-25]
EU's vaunted unity is disintegrating over Gaza crisis.
Neil MacFarquhar: [10-23]
Developing world sees double standard in West's actions in Gaza and
Ukraine.
Ruth Margalit: [10-19]
The devastation of Be'eri: "In one day, Hamas militants massacred,
tortured, and abducted residents of a kibbutz, leaving their homes
charred and their community in ruins." This doesn't excuse that, or
is excused by any of the chain of outrages that came before, as far
back as
Deir Yassin (1948) or
Qibya (1953) or, in Gaza itself, in
Khan Yunis and
Rafah (1956). But one shouldn't look away, because, regardless
of the perpetrators and victims, this is what it looks like.
Stephen Mihm: [10-26]
Many evangelicals see Israel-Hamas war as part of a prophecy:
If you weren't brought up on "Revelations," this seems like lunacy,
but if you were, you have damn little incentive to try to allay the
threat of war in the region.
Mahmoud Mushtaha: [10-24]
If we survive the bombs, what will remain of our lives?
Nicole Narea: [10-28]
Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, explained:
"Why would Hezbollah enter the fight against Israel?" People forget
that in 2006 Israel was attacking Gaza before Hezbollah started firing
rockets into North Israel, triggering the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War.
They succeeded in relieving Gaza, but Israel did an enormous amount
of bombing damage to Lebanon, then attempted a ground incursion to
rout out Hezbollah, and got beat back pretty bad. Since then, they've
had occasional skirmishes, especially over the disputed Bekaa Farms,
but neither side has wanted to reopen a full-scale war. Israel has,
however, bombed Hezbollah and/or Iranian troops in Syria quite a
few times, without reprisals from Lebanon or Iran, so there's an
itch they'd like to scratch.
AW Ohlheiser: [10-29]
Why some Palestinians believe social media companies are suppressing
their posts. I don't know much about this, but I do know that my
wife was threatened with a Facebook ban and responded by "algospeak"
(not her term). Hard for me to tell, as I rarely post anything but
links to my pieces, and occasional
pictures of
food, but I've seen little evidence that my pieces are even read,
much less by people who hate them and try to ban me. But algorithms?
That's possible.
Wendy Pearlman: [10-30]
Collective punishment in Gaza will not bring Israel security:
"Scholarship suggests the overwhelming violence unleashed on the strip
is not just a violation of international law -- it is militarily
ineffective."
Vijay Prashad: [10-26]
The everyday violence of life in occupied Palestine. Prashad also
wrote, with Zoe Alexandra: [10-27]
When the journalists are gone, the stories will disappear.
Adam Rasgon/David D Kirkpatrick: [10-20]
Another hospital in Gaza is bleeding: Speaking with Dr Omar Al-Najjar:
"Gaza is the place we were born and raised. However much they try to
frighten and scare us, I agree with my family that I can't ever leave
Gaza."
David Remnick: [10-28]
In the cities of killing: Long report on the ground, with history,
but Not as much "what comes after" as advertised.
Richard E Rubenstein: [10-27]
Conflict resultion and the war in Gaza: Beyond the "bad actor"
perspective.
Sigal Samuel: [10-27]
Palestinians fear they're being displaced permanently. Here's why
that's logical. He doesn't mention the Peel Commission (1937),
but they recommended partition of Palestine with forced transfer,
a policy which David Ben-Gurion applauded -- publicly for the first
time, although his adoption of the "Hebrew labor" doctrine made it
clear that an emerging Israel would do everything it could to drive
Palestinians away. That's what they did on a massive scale in 1948-50,
but after that it got more difficult. Ben-Gurion advised against war
in 1967 because he recognized that Palestinians wouldn't flee any
more: they would stay in place, and Israel would be stuck with them,
sinking the Jewish majority he had engineered by 1950. But the dream
and desire to expel was always there, with the settler movement on
the front lines, becoming ever more aggressive as they increased
political leverage.
Benzion Sanders: [10-28]
I fought for the I.D.F. in Gaza. It made me fight for peace.
"When my Israeli infantry unit arrived at the first village in Gaza,
in July 2014, we cleared houses by sending grenades through windows,
blowing doors open and firing bullets into rooms to avoid ambush and
booby traps." And: "All our casualties and the suffering brought on
Palestinians in Gaza accomplished nothing since our leaders refused
to work on creating a political reality in which more violence would
not be inevitable." Also see: Ariel Bernstein: [09-29]
I fought house to house in Gaza . . . I know force alone won't bring
peace.
Jon Schwarz:
Hamas attack provides "rare opportunity" to cleanse Gaza, Israeli think
tank says.
Adam Shatz: [11-02]
Vengeful pathologies. This well-crafted essay stops short of
considering the pros and cons of genocide, which would push the
conflict into uncharted territory, but draws on the long history
of colonial conflict as well as recent Israel/Palestine, where
"its political class lacks the imagination and creativity -- not
to mention the sense of justice, of other people's dignity --
required to pursue a lasting agreement." A couple quotes:
One is reminded of Frantz Fanon's observation that 'the colonised person
is a persecuted person who constantly dreams of becoming the persecutor.'
On 7 October, this dream was realised for those who crossed over into
southern Israel: finally, the Israelis would feel the helplessness and
terror they had known all their lives. The spectacle of Palestinian
jubilation -- and the later denials that the killing of civilians had
occurred -- was troubling but hardly surprising. In colonial wars, Fanon
writes, 'good is quite simply what hurts them most.'
What hurt the Israelis nearly as much as the attack itself was the
fact that no one had seen it coming.
Shatz notes that "many analogies have been proposed for Al-Aqsa
Flood," then argues for the 1955 Philippeville uprising where:
Peasants armed with grenades, knives, clubs, axes and pitchforks killed --
and in many cases disembowelled -- 123 people, mostly Europeans but also
a number of Muslims. To the French, the violence seemed unprovoked, but
the perpetrators believed they were avenging the killing of tens of
thousands of Muslims by the French army, assisted by settler militias,
after the independence riots of 1945. In response to Philippeville,
France's liberal governor-general, Jacques Soustelle, whom the European
community considered an untrustworthy 'Arab lover', carried out a campaign
of repression in which more than ten thousand Algerians were killed. By
over-reacting, Soustelle fell into the FLN's trap: the army's brutality
drove Algerians into the arms of the rebels, just as Israel's ferocious
response is likely to strengthen Hamas at least temporarily, even among
Palestinians in Gaza who resent its authoritarian rule.
Already, the 10/7 attacks, unprecedented in scale as they were, have
been dwarfed by Israel's overreaction. And while demographics and modern
war technology won't allow a repeat of Algeria, Israel still has a lot
to lose in its quest for vengeance.
Raja Shehadeh: [10-26]
The uprooting of life in Gaza and the West Bank: A friendly reminder
that "Palestinians are determined not to be displace."
Kevin Sieff/Noga Tarnopolsky/Miriam Berger/William Booth/David
Ovalle: [10-24]
In Israel, Macron proposes using anti-ISIS coalition against
Hamas. It's really mind-boggling that the leader of a country
which made such a complete and utter disaster of its colonialist
adventure in Algeria could want to come back for more. But even
if this isn't just some deep-seated muscle memory from the golden
age of European imperialism, even if it's just sheer opportunism
on Macron's part, how smart is it to want to be remembered for
aiding and abetting genocide? Lots of western politicians have
embarrassed themselves fawning over Israel lately, but this
takes the cake.
Richard Silverstein:
Norman Solomon: [10-30]
Biden is a genocide denier and the 'enabler in chief' for Israel's
ongoing war crimes. It kind of looks like that, doesn't it?
Ishaan Tharoor:
[10-29]
Israel's Gaza offensive stirs a wave of global protest: This is
the only really heartening thing to come out of this month. For many
years, Palestinians have been divided between factions (like Hamas)
set on fighting for their rights, and others appealing to nonviolent
change: to decent public opinion, international law, and the subtle
pressure of BDS. Israel has done everything possible to fight both,
especially by turning them against each other, and they've done a
pretty good job of locking up political elites in the US and Europe
with their campaign against "terrorism." But large numbers of people,
even in media markets saturated with Israeli talking points, still
see through that. And once their eyes open up, further genocide will
only further estrange Israel from what we'd like to think of as the
civilized world.
[10-25]
Israel says Hamas 'is ISIS.' But it's not.
[10-27]
The brutal logic of tying colorful pieces of string around children's
wrists in Gaza.
Nick Turse: [10-24]
Secret U.S. war in Lebanon is tinder for escalation of Israel-Gaza
conflict: "Billions in security aid to Lebanon, along with
off-the-books commandos, could embroil the U.S. in a regional
conflagration."
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [10-27]
'Tit-for-tat' after US retaliates against Iranian targets: "F-16s
struck what Pentagon said were IRGC-backed militias on Friday."
Bret Wilkins: [10-25]
40 faith leaders lead Gaza pray-in at House Minority Leader Jeffries'
DC office. I'd nominate this for Seth Meyers' "The Kind of Stories
We Need Now" segment. Wilkins also wrote:
Li Zhou: [10-25]
What unites the global protests for Palestinian rights: Given
the near unanimity of the US political caste in its fealty to Israel
(e.g., the Senate voted 97-0 to denounce a ceasefire), you may be
surprised by how many people all around the world demonstrating for
Palestinian rights, the most basic of which is not to be slaughtered
by Israeli bombers and left to starve in the rubble. The messages
and emphases vary, but the most basic one in the US, where Jewish
Voice for Peace and If Not Now have been especially active, is to
call for an immediate ceasefire.
Also on X (Twitter):
Peter Beinart: [Response to Yair Wallach: Last night, settlers
invaded the village of Susya (South Hebron hills) and ordered its
residents to leave within 24 hours -- otherwise they would all be
killed.] All year we've been screaming that this would happen. No
establishment American Jewish leader said a word. As far as I know,
they still haven't. [Link to Beinart's article: [04-13]
Could Israel carry out another Nakba? "Expulsionist sentiment
is common in Israeli society and politics. To ignore the warning
sign is to abdicate responsibility."]
Ryan Grim: Holy shit -- it looks like the Western media mistranslated
a doctor's guess that there were more than 500 killed or wounded by the
hospital bombing, and just went with killed.
Then the press found that fewer than 500 were killed and the president
of the United States told the world the numbers from the health ministry
can't be trusted.
Astounding combination of arrogance and ignorance all in the service
of unchecked slaughter.
[Continuing in comment] The error flowed, I think, from the Western
media's lack of interest in Palestinians as people. If one dies, we put
them in a spreadsheet, because we know on some level it's bad when
civilians are killed.
But if one is only wounded -- a leg blown off, a concussion, what
have you -- that's not interesting to us, and you very rarely see stats
for killed and wounded in the Western press -- only killed. Or "died,"
usually.
But people in Gaza, such as this doctor in question, do care about
the wounded as well as the killed. So he mentioned both, and we simply
didn't hear him, because it doesn't matter to us if a Palestinian
civilian is only hurt but not killed in a bombing.
Katie Halper: Jews pretending to be "afraid" of "antisemitic"
protests: They're protests against Israeli genocide. It's you genocidal
fascists who put us Jews in danger by conflating Jewishness &
zionism & perpetuating the antisemitic myth that all Jews support
Israel. You don't speak for us.
Tony Karon: Some mealy-mouthed efforts by the Biden Administration
to distance itself from Israel's war crimes in Gaza do nothing to alter
its culpability. The only credible way to prevent further mass slaughter
of civilians is to force a cease-fire. [Link to:
US says Israel must distinguish between Hamas targets and civilians.
Israel will just say Hamas is using "human shields," as if that's all
the excuse they need. They don't distinguish between targets and
civilians because they don't make the distinction.]
Tony Karon: Contra to @JoeBiden's ham-handed efforts to equate
Hamas with Russia, it is Israel that is following Putin's playbook.
In the second Chechnya war, he supervised Russian forces flattening
Grozny, and killing 18,000 people in the first weeks of his assault.
Tony Karon: Colonialism is deeply embedded in the BBC's DNA, which
is why every report on horrors being inflicted by Israel's 'pacification'
violence must be qualified by the colonizer's own spin. Clearly, @BBC
bosses believe the Israeli version. They would, though, wouldn't they?
[Robert Wright commented: Or it could be that, like many people, whoever
wrote this doesn't know the difference between "refute" and "rebut".]
Karon continued: Not really, because it's a pattern -- literally every
report on the horrors unfolding in Gaza on their web site is accompanied
by a disclaimer worthy of Walter Isaacson's 2001 instruction to his CNN
staff to downplay and spin civilian casualties in Afghanistan.
Arsen Ostrovsky: [Over aerial video of a massive protest in London]
This isn't a pro-Palestinian rally in London now, it's a pro-Hamas
rally.
Churchill is probably rolling in his grave.
Jon "Pumpkinhead" Schwarz commented: Churchill probably would be
upset about these demonstrations, given that he referred to Palestinians
as animals ("the dog in the manger") who had no right to be upset by
being replaced by "a higher grade race"
Nathan J Robinson: This is an important point. If the British had
responded to IRA attacks on civilians by launching relentless air strikes
on Irish civilian neighborhoods, it would have appeared obviously
psychopathic and deranged. Yet in Gaza this is considered a reasonable
response to terror.
David Sheen: Israeli TV running a counter of fatalities in Gaza --
most of whom are civilians and many of whom are children --under the
heading "terrorists we eliminated". And for those too lazy to drive to
Sderot to watch the genocide, they've got you covered with a livestream
of the bombing.
Tikun Olam commented: Language betrays the immorality and
genocide. Here are a few other statistics: 8,000 Gaza dead -- 3,000
children. 45% of homes destroyed. 1.5-million refugees. 10 of 35
hospitals shut down due to lack of supplies & power.
Rabbi Alissa Wise: This is Netanyahu telling the world he plans
genocide. So even if 8000 dead and cutting off connection to the
rest of the world and access to food & water didnt convince
you, now you know. ACT NOW! [Refers to Netanyahu quote, video
included: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our
Holy Bible"]
Elsewhere, Barnett R. Rubin explains Netanyahu's bible quote:
For those unfamiliar with the reference, here it is: I Samuel 15: 3-4:
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and
spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox
and sheep, camel and ass.
Tony Karon adds: Here, @POTUS, is your deranged partner in war
crime pledging to commit Biblically-inspired genocide. That Palestinian
death toll you don't want to hear about? Is that because you know you
could have prevented it?
Trump, and other Republicans: Big news this week, aside from
Trumps trials and fulminations, was the election of Mike Johnson (R-LA)
as Speaker of the House. So he's getting some press, raising the
question of why anyone who thought Jim Jordan was too toxic could
imagine that he'd be any more tolerable.
Kyle Anzalone: [10-27]
New House Speaker: Russia, China, and Iran are the new axis of evil.
Also: "Hamas and Hezbollah are proxies of Iran, and they're tied in now
with Russia and China." I guess that's good news for people worried
about keeping the government funded, as you can't fight WWIII during
a government shutdown.
David Badash: [10-30
Why did Mike Johnson scrub 69 podcasts from his website?
Devlin Barrett/Perry Stein: [10-29]
The Trump trials: Cannon fodder: "Welcome back to The Trump Trials,
our weekly effort to keep readers up to date on the many criminal --
and civil -- cases the 45th president is fighting in federal and
state courts."
Noah Berlatsky: [10-30]
The Christofascism of Mike Johnson: "The new House speaker is an
opposition researcher's goldmine."
Andrea Bernstein/Andy Kroll: [10-27]
Trump's court whisperer had a state judicial strategy. Its full extent
only became clear years later. Leonard Leo.
Gabrielle Bluestone: [10-27]
Michael Cohen waited five years for this: He didn't just wait. He
did time in jail for Trump. Admittedly, not very hard time, but enough
to know that people should pay for their crimes.
Jonathan Chait: [10-26]
Republican 'moderates' caved. Wow, that never happens. "Except
always.
Chas Danner: [10-28]
Mike Pence acknowledges reality: He "suspended" his presidential
campaign, after widespread reports of bankruptcy.
Norman Eisen/Amy Lee Copeland: [10-29]
Jenna Ellis could become a star witness against Trump. She became
the third of Trump's lawyers, after Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell,
to plead guilty to racketeering charges in Georgia.
Katelyn Fossett: [10-27]
'He seems to be saying his commitment is to minority rule':
Interview with Kristin Kobes Du Mez on "the Christian nationalist
ideas that shaped House Speaker Mike Johnson."
Rebecca Gordon: [10-24]
Trump's Schedule F (for "failed state"): "Republican contradictions:
Are they fascists or nihilists -- or both?"
Margaret Hartmann: [10-27]
15 not-fun facts about Speaker Mike Johnson. For a more comprehensive
accounting, see Anna Canizales/Michael Kruse: [10-26]
55 things you need to know about Mike Johnson.
Ben Jacobs: [10-29]
"Lord of the Flies": The House's chaotic next era, explained:
"New House Speaker Mike Johnson faces a long to-do list and a caucus
with short patience for compromise."
Sarah Jones: [10-28]
Mike Johnson's old-time religion.
Ed Kilgore:
Paul Krugman: [10-26]
The GOP goes full-on extremist: Meet Mike Johnson.
Meredith McGraw/Alex Isenstadt: [10-24]
'I killed him': How Trump torpedoes Tom Emmer's speaker bid.
Nia Prater: [10-25]
Trump takes the stand, gets fined again.
Andrew Prokop:
David Rothkopf: [10-26]
Here's why Mike Johnson is more dangerous than Donald Trump.
Greg Sargent: [10-27]
Mike Johnson's conspiracy theories about 'illegals' mark a new GOP
low.
Laura Vozzella: [10-29]
Youngkin 'purge' removed nearly 3,400 legal Virginia voters from
rolls.
Biden and/or the Democrats:
David French: [10-29]
Joe Biden knows what he's doing: Biden's "support among Democrats
has slipped 11 points in the past month to 75 percent, the lowest
of his presidency." Much of that has to do with his handling of Israel's
war against Gaza, where in public he's offered total support for Israeli
aggression, regardless of any reservations he may have communicated in
private. It's possible that he may eventually moderate Israel's lust for
vengeance, but it seems very unlikely to me that he "knows what he is
doing." That's because so very few Americans have any sort of objective
understanding of Israel, or for that matter of American power when it
is threatened or humbled. If you want examples, just look at the fine
print in French's piece, especially when he argues against a
ceasefire.
Ed Kilgore: [10-27]
Biden's age is primary challenger Dean Phillips's only issue.
The Congressman (D-MN) decides to take a flyer, not over a political
disupte but doubts of Biden's "electability" (which isn't exactly
age, but close to it). Cites a profile by Tim Alberta in
The Atlantic, "timed to appear the day of his announcement."
Jennifer Rubin: [10-29]
Labor wins bolster Biden's strategy. For example, breakthroughs
in the auto workers strikes (although I'd give the UAW most of the
credit):
Jeanne Whalen/Lauren Kaori Gurley:
Legal matters and other crimes:
Climate and environment:
Umair Irfan/Benji Jones: [10-26]
How Hurricane Otis defied forecasts and exploded into a deadly storm
overnight. The Pacific hurricane intensified extraordinarily fast
to reach category 5, before hitting Acapulco.
Christopher Ketcham: [10-29]
When idiot savants do climate economics: "How an elite clique of
math-addled economists hijacked climate policy." Starts with William
Nordhaus.
Elizabeth Kolbert: [10-26]
Hurricane Otis and the world we live in now.
Ian Livingston: [10-24]
Earth's climate shatters heat records. These 5 charts show how.
Kasha Patel: [09-25]
Antarctica just hit a record low in sea ice -- by a lot.
Matt Stieb: [10-26]
Scenes of the destruction in Acapulco after Hurricane Otis.
Ukraine War:
Around the world:
Lautaro Grinspan: [10-23]
How young Argentines might put a far-right libertarian into power:
Javier Milei, who if elected would probably become the very worst
national president in the world today. He was the surprise leader
in the primary round, but fell to second place in last Sunday's
first-round election. (It's kind of a screwy system.)
Other stories:
Kelly Denton-Borhaug: [10-29]
The dehumanization of war (please don't kill the children):
Always two titles at this site, so I figured use both, for this
"meditation for Veterans Day," which I could have filed under
Israel or Ukraine or possibly elsewhere, but thought I'd let it
stand alone. Starts in Hiroshima, 1945 with what Stalin would
have called a "statistic," then focuses in on a 10-year-old
girl, whose mother was reduced to "an unrecognizable block of
ash," with only a single gold tooth to identify her. The author
has a book about American soldiers but the theme is universal:
And Then Your Soul Is Gone: Moral Injury and U.S.
War-Culture.
Lloyd Green: [10-29]
Romney: A Reckoning review: must-read on Mitt and the rise of Trump:
"McKay Coppins and his subject do not hold back in a biography with
much to say about the collapse of Republican values."
Also on the Romney book:
John Herrman: [10-27]
What happens when ads generate themselves? I wish this was the
most important article of the week. This is a subject I could really
drill down hard on, not least because I think advertising is one of
the most intrinsically evil artifacts of our world. And because
"artificial intelligence" is a pretty sick oxymoron.
Bruce E Levine: [10-27]
Why failed psychiatry lives on: Seems like someone I would have
gained much from reading fifty years ago (although R.D. Laing, Thomas
Szasz, Paul Goodman, and Neil Postman worked for me).
Sophie Lloyd: [10-28]
Disney's 8 biggest mistakes in company's history: I wouldn't
normally bother with a piece like this, but as mistakes go, these
are pretty gross. I mean, after their treatment of slavery and
Indians, and their mistreatment of lemmings, number eight was an
omnibus "A long history of sexism."
James C Nelson: [10-27]
Just another day in NRA paradise: I suppose I have to note that
another crazy person with an assault rifle killed 18 and injured 13
more in Lewiston, Maine, last week. This article is as good a marker
as any. You know the drill. If you want an update: Kelly McClure:
[10-27]
Suspect in Maine mass shootings found dead.
Will Oremus/Elizabeth Dwoskin/Sarah Ellison/Jeremy B Merrill:
[10-27]
A year later, Musk's X is tilting right. And sinking.
Nathan J Robinson: I could have split these up all over
today's post, but want to point out the common source of so much
insight:
[10-27]
They're all "extremists": "The Republican Party has long been pushing
us toward an apocalyptic dystopian future. The differences between
individual Republicans are far less important than their similarities."
My only question is why the quotes? "Extremists" is plainly descriptive,
and hardly controversial.
[10-26]
How the occupation of Palestine shapes everyday life -- and what happens
now: Interview with Nathan Thrall, former director of the Arab-Israeli
Project at the International Crisis Group, and author of The Only
Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine,
and most recently A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a
Jerusalem Tragedy. Thrall lives in Jerusalem, but has recently
been trying to promote his book in the UK, noting:
I have never seen this degree of intolerance for any sort of nuance in
the discussion of Israel-Palestine, for any discussion of root causes,
even just expression of sympathy for Palestinians living under
occupation. We've seen events canceled in the UK and the US, hotels
refusing to host long planned Palestinian conferences. A concert in
London was shut down, and my own book event was shut down in London by
the UK police. And of course, what made headlines was the prize in
Germany that was going to be given to a Palestinian author. And you
saw that the UK Home Secretary had said -- the police, of course, are not
going to follow through on this -- but she recommended to the police to
arrest anyone, or to consider arresting anyone, with a Palestinian
flag. We saw in France that they were banning Palestinian protests.
It's really a very difficult moment to speak with any kind of
intelligence or nuance about this issue.
I've occasionally noted instances of repression emanating from
political and cultural elites in the US and Europe, clearly aimed
at shutting down any discussion, much less protest, against all
the violence in and around Gaza, but I haven't seriously tracked
it, because this assault on free speech and democracy seems like
the less urgent tragedy. But it's happening. And it reminds me
of 9/11: not the shocking initial event, but the chilling efforts
to keep anyone but the warmongers from speaking, allowing them
the illusion of cheering applause as they went ahead with their
ill-considered and ultimately self-destructive program.
[10-25]
"Libs of Tiktok" is Orwell's "two minutes hate": "The right-wing
social media account is viciopus and dehumanizing. Its revolting
toxicity shows us why empathy and solidarity are so important."
[10-23]
The wisdom of Edward Said has never been more relevant. Article
includes extensive quotes.
Jeffrey St Clair: [10-27]
Roaming Charges: That oceanic feeling. Lead section on climate
change (remember that?) and environment. I didn't realize that small
planes still burn leaded gasoline. Then the dirt on Mike Johnson. Then
a much longer list of criminal injustices. Plus other things, like a
Nikki Haley quote ("I'm tired of talking about a Department of Defense.
I want a Department of Offense.")
Evaggelos Vallianatos: [10-27]
Slauighter of the American buffalo: Article occasioned by the
Ken
Burns documentary, which may be an eye-opener if you don't
know the story, and adds details if you do. It is a classic case
of how insatiable world markets suck the life out of nature, and
how the infinite appetites of financiers, who've reduced everything
to the question of how much more money their money can make.
Richard D Wolff: [10-27]
Why capitalism cannot finally repress socialism. This assumes
that some measure of sanity must prevail. And yes, I know that's
a tautology, as socialism is the sanity that keeps capitalism from
tearing itself apart and dissolving into chaos.
Nothing from The New Republic this week, as they decided
I'm "out of free articles," even though I'm pretty sure we have a
valid subscription. Not much there that isn't elsewhere, although
I clicked on close to ten articles that looked interesting, before
giving up, including one called
Kyrsten Sinema's Delusional Exit Interview. AlterNet has a
similar article: Carl Gibson: [10-30]
'I don't care': Kyrsten Sinema plans to cash in on Senate infamy if
she loses reelection in 2024.
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Monday, October 23, 2023
Speaking of Which
After a grueling Speaking of Which
last week (9497 words, 125 links), I resolved this week not
start my article search until Sunday: partly because many of the
week's stories are quickly evolving, but mostly because I said
pretty much what I wanted to say last week (and much of it the
week before). But the way this column comes together is a
lot like surfing: you look around, notice an interesting wave,
and try to ride it. The process is very reactive, each little
bit giving you a glimpse of some still unparsed whole, further
obscured by a sort which obliterates order.
What I want to do this week is to start by making a few
points that I think need to be highlighted, as plainly and
clearly as possible.
On October 7, Palestinians in Gaza launched a surprise attack
on parts of Israel adjacent to the walls surrounding Gaza. The
attackers fired about 5,000 rockets over the walls, and about
2,500 fighters infiltrated Israel, attacking military bases,
villages, and kibbutzim. On the first day, they killed some 1,200
Israelis, and took some 200 back to Gaza as hostages. Within the
next day or two, Israel killed or repelled the infiltrators, and
took control back of the checkpoints and wall breaches. From that
point, the Palestinian offensive was over.
If you can overlook 75 years since Israel started pushing
Palestinian refugees into Gaza, the slaughter on the way to Suez
in 1956, the reprisal raids up to 1967, the military rule from
1967 up until the deputization of the PLO under the Oslo Accords,
and the blockade and periodic "mowing the grass" since 2006; if
you can put all of that out of mind, as well as the recent rash
of settler pogroms in the West Bank, and the encroachment on the
Al-Aqsa mosque, and the disinterest of other Arab leaders as they
negotiate alliances with Israel and the US, then sure, the attack
was unprovoked, savage, and shocking. But given how systematically
Gaza has been isolated, impoverished, and tortured, and given that
the evident trend was only getting worse, is it really a surprise
that people treated so badly might choose to fight back, even to
risk death (which given the how much more power Israel wields was
pretty certain)?
The rest of the war -- two weeks so far -- is purely Israel's
choice, whether for revenge or for spite, or perhaps, as numerous
Israelis have urged, a step toward a "final solution." Israel
blames the attacks on Hamas, and has vowed to kill them all
(supposedly 40,000, out of a population of 2.1 million), but
doesn't discriminate very well. They've already killed four
times as many Palestinians as they've lost. And they seem
intent on striking the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria as well.
They've vowed to enter Gaza with massive force, to root out
and end all resistance. They certainly have the firepower to
kill tens and hundreds of thousands. The only question is
whether conscience or shame will stop them. It certainly
doesn't seem like the United States will dare second guess
them.
It's been clear from day one how this will play out. The
people who run Israel, from David Ben-Gurion down to the
present day, are very smart and very capable. They could
have settled this conflict at any step -- certainly any point
since 1980, and possibly quite earlier -- but they didn't,
because they kept getting away with it, while cultivating
the hope for ever greater spoils. But the more they kill,
the more they destroy, the more miserable they make the lives
of those subject to their whim, the more humanity they lose.
America prides itself on being Israel's dearest friend, but
what kind of person lets a friend embarrass himself like
this? This may once again be a case where no nation stands
up against genocide, but it is not one that will easily be
forgotten.
"What kind of friend" may be rhetorical, but it's time to
take a much harder look at what the US does for and to its
allies. The US habitually drags its friends into wars: as
with the "coalitions of the willing" in Afghanistan and Iraq,
the various lesser "war on terror" projects, and the hopeless
war in Ukraine. The US collects tribute in the form of arms
purchases. And the US choices of allies (like Israel and Saudi
Arabia) and enemies (like Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea,
or more seriously Russia and China) taint every ally, as the
US has become the world's most recalcitrant rogue state.
It's tempting to blame America's foolhardy foreign policy
on the vast power of the military-industrial complex, but what's
locked it into place isn't just revolving door corruption, but
also the persistence of several really bad ideas, like the
notion of "peace through strength," the cult of deterrence, and
the great sanctions game. We need a fundamental rethink on security
and foreign policy. We need in particular to realize that Israel
is not a model we want to follow, but a dead end disaster we need
to pull back from. And hopefully convince them to pull back too.
The next section is my "thesis-oriented" original introduction.
(I only got down to 13 before scratching it as the lead and writing
the newer one above, but will try to knock out the rest before I
post on Monday.) Finally, there is another note on foreign policy
at the end of the post, which I jotted down back on Saturday. This
week's links came out of a very quick scan of sources.
Actually, when I started writing an introduction on Sunday,
I intended a numbered list, with about a dozen items on it. What
follows is as far as I got, before turning to the shorter statement
above.
The most basic political division is between Left and Right.
The Right believes that human beings sort into hierarchies, where
order is ultimately maintained through the threat of force. The
Left believes that people are fundamentally equal, and can enter
into a political compact for the mutual benefit of all. The Right
looks back on a long history of tribal warfare and plunder, which
they hold to be the natural order, but really just comes down to
their privileges. On the other hand, the Left appeals to those
denied respect and privilege, looking forward to our most generous
hopes and aspirations.
As human society and technology become more complex, as
population grows and interacts faster, as people become more
conscious of how the world works, traditional hierarchies falter
and frustrate. This leads to conflict. Ruling elites never give
up power without pressure. Their first instinct when challenged
is repression. Even if successful at first, the pressure builds
up, and can eventually explode in revolution. The alternative
is reform: diluting elite power to better serve more people,
channeling conflict into cooperation. Conflict destroys, but
consent builds.
The modern world is the result of forces of change (mostly
driven by science, technology, commerce, and culture), as modulated
by bouts of revolution and reform. It is reasonable to view change
as an inevitable force. Rigid regimes fight back with repression,
risking violent revolution. More flexible regimes accommodate change
through reform. Europe was regularly rocked by revolutions from 1789
through 1920, but reform gained ground from the 1830s (in England)
on, and has become the rule, especially after 1945. One might also
note that counterrevolutions occasionally occurred, but tended to
blow up disastrously (most notoriously in Germany, 1933-45).
Violence has been a common human trait as far back as anyone
can remember. It's been used to dominate, to control, to loot and
plunder, both by and against elites. Many of these uses have come
to be disparaged, yet in one form or another they persist: I've
seen a tally of some 250 wars since the "big one" ended in 1945.
Even today, most of us accept the concept that one is entitled to
fight back when attacked. The Left was defined in the French
Revolution, and most Leftists at least sympathized with the
Russians in 1917, and even the Vietnamese in the 1950-70s, but
lately the Left in America have become so reform-minded that
they are quick to condemn any violence, even in circumstances
that have totally closed any hope for peaceful reform. In my
opinion, true pacifists are not wrong, but they are out of
touch with the human condition (e.g., as in Gaza).
As Bertolt Brecht put it, "food first, morals later."
Brecht understood that thinking about morality is a luxury
that can only be indulged after more basic needs. (Another
famous line: "what keeps mankind alive? bestial acts.") Yet
when people broke out of their cage in Gaza and immediately
killed and maimed people on the other side of the walls, we
were immediately lectured by well-meaning Leftists that in
order to "talk morally" about the event, we first had to
condemn the killers, lest any later explanation of why they
killed should sound like an excuse, and thereby expose the
morality of the Left to shaming.
Morality is a personal belief system that guides one's
behavior in normal circumstances. That's probably true for all
people, but it particularly matters to Leftists, because our
politics is largely dictated by our moral concerns, and that's
something we're rather proud of. But it shouldn't be an excuse
for arrogance. Morality isn't a license which allows you to
condemn people you don't understand, especially when the big
thing you don't understand is what other options that person
has. Morality may seem absolute, but it's application is always
contingent on what options are actually available, and what
their consequences may be. On the other hand, where you can
reasonably discern other, more moral, options, you might be
able to criticize: while, say, Hamas or IDF soldiers may have
very limited options, a Prime Minister has options enough to
deserve more scrutiny.
While morality may guide your political choices, available
options are often limited, unclear, compromised, highly contingent --
hence the cliché of always having to vote for "the lesser evil."
Many political decisions are made on what amounts to blind trust.
The key point to understand about Israel is that it is the
result of a settler colonial project, where a foreign imperialist
power sponsored and installed an alien population, effectively
stripping a native population of most of its rights. There are
several dozen similar examples, mostly in the Americas, installed
by European empires from 1500 into the mid-1900s. The primary
determinant of success was demographic. Settler states remained
in charge where immigrants were a clear majority (e.g., Canada,
Australia, US), but not where they never came close to majority
status (South Africa and Algeria were the most hotly contested.
Israel is unusual in several respects: although Zionists began
moving to Palestine in the 1880s, the big influx only happened
after Britain took over in 1920, reaching about 30% in 1948.
Between the partition (expanded during the 1948-50 war), the
forced removal of 700,000 Palestinians, and immigration from
Europe and Arab lands, Israel's settler population grew to 70%
before the 1967 war, when Israel seized more lands with much
more Palestinians. Since then, the demographic split is about
50-50, although most Palestinians have no political rights or
representation. Israel has managed to retain control through
a really extraordinary "matrix of control" (Jeff Halper's
term), that is unique in history.
Israel shares many characteristics with other settler
colonies (especially formerly British ones). First is a strong
degree of segregation of the settlers from the natives, and
the economic marginalization of the latter. Israel preserved
the British colonial legal system, with military control, for
Palestinians, while evolving its own system for registered Jews.
Laws regarding the sale of land and the permitting of buildings
were skewed to siphon off resources. (The US had similar laws,
but by 1900 the Native American population had dwindled to the
point there was little left to steal, and the reservations,
while impoverished, were left as retreats.)
There are many unusual things about Israel, but the most
important one is that Israel synthesized a new culture, with its
own language and an extensive mythology, based on its status as
a settlement (before Israel, it was simply the Yishuv). Before
aliyah, Jews spoke local languages (like Arabic and German), or
creoles (like Ladino and Yiddish). In Israel, they spoke Hebrew.
They embellished the long history of Jewish suffering into their
own cosmic mantra. They farmed. They fought. They refashioned
orthodox Judaism into one that celebrated Israel. And they
trained new generations to maintain the settler ethic. The
result is a psyche that cannot ease up and do what every other
successful settler nation has done: let its native population
adjust to a normal life.
European settler colonialism reached a sort of peak
shortly after 1900, but the two world wars it inspired broke
the bank. Britain cut India and Palestine loose in 1947-48,
having come up with half-assed partition plans that led to
multiple wars. Most of Africa was independent by 1960. France
lost Vietnam in 1954, and Algeria in 1962. Nearly every colony
had an independence movement. Palestine was, if anything, ahead
of the curve, with a major revolt in 1936-39. Today, one is
tempted to fault the Palestinians for not seeking some sort
of accommodation with the Israelis, but they had reasons to
expect more -- probably up to the 1973 war, after which Egypt
abandoned them. It is hard for us today to imagine what it
felt like to be under a colonialist thumb, but Palestinians
knew that all too well.
Israelis have a word, "hasbara," which translates to
"explaining," but is really more like spin. Zionists have
been working their spin on Americans since well before 1947,
and they are very good at it. Any time Israel comes up, you
can count on constant monitoring of news and opinion sources,
with vigorous lobbying to get us to say what they want, in
the terms they want us to be using. They've turned the word
"terrorist" into a conditioned reflex to kill. The Palestinians
they kill are all, if not "terrorists," at least "miltants."
We all know that Israel is the "only democracy in the Middle
East," even though half the people aren't allowed to vote.
The propaganda machine got cranked up to max the moment the
Gaza breakout attacks started, and within minutes everyone
in America -- at least in upper punditland -- were singing
the same hymns. They've created a linguistic cage that is
making it difficult to think at all clearly. Long experience
makes one wonder: is it really Hamas that attacked Israel,
or is Hamas just the target we've been trained to hate? Why
is it the "Israel-Hamas War" when Israel is the only one with
an army and air force? And when the real target that Israel
is pounding isn't Hamas, which is basically invisible, but
all of Gaza? After key Israelis threatened to kill literally
everyone in Gaza, why aren't we talking about genocide,
instead of just some "humanitarian crisis"?
Everyone in Israel has an ID card. That ID card specifies
your rights, whether you can vote, which courts will try cases
you are involved in, where you can go, much more. In America, we
have a word for this kind of systematic discrimination based on
birth: racism. It's no longer embedded in law, but it is deeply
embedded in culture, and it pops up pretty often if you're at
all sensitive to it. Racism may not be the right word for what's
not just practiced in Israel but enshrined in law, but it's a
term that Americans recognize the implications and consequences
of.
Nationalism was a 19th century European invention, which
sought a conservative sense of popular cohesion, at a time when
capitalism was going global, intellectuals turned cosmopolitan,
and ordinary people were promised a stake in public life. It
worked by turning people against other groups, who could be
imperial overlords or local minorities (like Jews). Zionism
was an attempt to posit a Jewish nationalism, but given the
diaspora first had to settle on a land. The Zionists went
hat-in-hand to various imperial capitols. The British saw an
opportunity, took Palestine from the Ottomans, and the rest
is history -- including the rise of a Palestinian nationalism
to struggle against the British and the Israelis. Nationalism,
even more than the Holocaust, is what binds Israel to Nazi
Germany, and what threatens Israel's future. In particular,
it's estranging Israel from the cosmopolitan Jewish diaspora.
Israel is the most deeply and intensively militaristic
nation in the world, possibly in world history. Nearly everyone
gets drafted and trained (except Palestinians and ultra-orthodox
Jews, although more of the latter are joining). Reserves extend
well into middle age, and there are numerous other police and
spy agencies. Military leaders move on to dominate the political
and business castes. The arms industry is huge, and subsidized
not just by the state but by billions of dollars of US aid each
year. Treaties with neighbors like Egypt and Jordan have never
produced peace dividends. Rather, Israel has always moved on to
taunting other "enemies" (Lebanon, Iraq, Iran), plus they've
always had the Palestinians to keep down. It's a lot of work
keeping enemies riled up at you, but they've developed a taste
for it, and can't imagine giving it up.
Virtually everyone in the American defense sector is in
bed with Israel, but none more so than the neoconservatives,
who so admire Israel's unilateral projection of power, their
refusal to negotiate, and their willingness to violate norms
against assassinations and such that they advocate America
adopting the same policies on a global scale. These are the
people whose 1990s Project for a New American Century started
the campaign to invade Iraq, but they also conspired to bring
Likud to power to demolish the Oslo Accords and fire up the
2000 Intifada. The GW Bush administration was run by those
same people. While their policies were disastrous, they still
exercise enormous influence in Washington. Israel's bad ideas
are at least limited by its small size and parochial interests.
But American neoconservatives have bigger game in mind, like
Russia and China.
Americans have always been sympathetic to Israel, though
the reasoning involved varies: Christian fundamentalists see a
fulfillment of biblical prophecies; many Americans see a kindred
settler spirit; neo-imperialists see an ally against Arab ills
(nationalism, socialism, Islamism); liberals see an outpost of
Western democratic (and capitalist) values (although earlier on
leftists were enamored of Israeli socialism); anti-semites see
a distant place to put unwanted Jews, and Jews see a thriving
refuge for their co-religionists; and military-industrialists
see a booming market and a stimulator of other markets. But
the political calculations have changed since the 1990s: the
Republicans aligned not just with Israel but with the Israeli
right; and while many Democrats have become wary of the racism,
repression, and belligerence of Israel, very few politicians
have been willing to risk punishment by the Israel lobby and
their donors. The result is that the US no longer attempts to
sanitize or rationalize Israeli positions. Trump and Biden
simply jump when commanded, as if America has no interests
other than to serve at Israel's feet. This, in turn, has only
emboldened the Israeli right to turn ever more viciously on
Palestinians.
Approximately half of the people subject to Israeli law
and enforcement cannot vote in Israel. About 20% of the remainder
are nominally Israeli citizens, but are subject to many forms of
discrimination. The remainder are Jews from various backgrounds,
some intensely religious, some not at all, but almost all unite
on their shared fear and loathing of Palestinians. The old divide
between right and left has largely disappeared as the welfare
state has been trimmed back to a tolerable minimum, leaving as
the only real issue the contest of which party appears to be
the most barbaric toward the Palestinians. This has allowed the
ascendancy of a series of far-right demagogues, which Netanyahu
has been agreeable to work with, and has even tried to outflank.
Aside from the rump group in the Knesset, which has always
remained utterly powerless, there has never been a viable forum
for Palestinians to air out their political differences. The PLO
was a coalition of groups in exile that never had roots in the
Occupied Territories. The Oslo Accords ratified their election
as the Palestinian Authority, but when Hamas attempted to enter
the political process and challenged Fatah, their wins were thrown
out, and no further elections were allowed. (Israel, and America,
couldn't abide democratic elections where the wrong people won.
Remember the elections promised for 1956 in Vietnam? Eisenhower
canceled them for fear of losing to the Communists, leaving them
no choice but to fight.) Hamas wound up seizing
power in Gaza, which Israel responded to with blockade and bombs.
Israel branded Hamas as terrorists, giving them carte blanche to
kill whenever it suited them. Fatah, circumscribed in ever tighter
circles in the West Bank, remains ineffective, with a stench of
corruption. This suits Israelis, who love complaining about having
no partner for peace.
Israel's far-right turn is built on ethnocentrism, racism,
and a strong belief that might makes right. This has largely been
led by the settler movement, which kicked off immediately after the
1967 war, and was dedicated to establishing "facts on the ground"
that would make it politically impossible for future Israeli leaders
to negotiate any "land for peace" deal (like the one with Egypt,
which did result in the evacuation of two Israeli settlements; the
2006 removal of Israeli settlements from Gaza was deliberately not
negotiated to avoid such appearance). The pace of settlement building
in the West Bank accelerated significantly after Oslo, and did much
to sabotage peace prospects. Although all Israeli governments from
1967 on have supported the settler movement, the latest government
has raised its support to a new level, encouraging settlers to
attack Palestinians and drive them from the fields they have been
working. This seemed to be a calibrated first step toward forcing
Palestinians into exile, although it was still small and tentative --
unlike the post-attack demands that all Gazans move south and flee
Gaza into Egypt, or face death as Israel invades. That is exactly
the form that genocide would take.
The October 6 attacks were immediately met with a deafening
roar of condemnation, at least in America and probably in Europe,
even by people who have long been very critical of Israel's brutal
occupation and long history of duplicity and propaganda. That's
fine on a personal level, but what Israeli leaders were looking
for, and what they heard, was assent to respond with violence in
even greater orders of magnitude. When one said "terrorism," they
heard "kill them all." When one said "this is Israel's 9/11," they
heard "it's time for all-out war." And when Israelis threatened
genocidal revenge, and got little or no pushback from their old
allies, the die was cast. They would bomb and kill until even
they couldn't stand it anymore. And it would happen not because
of what Hamas did, but because they had started down this road
a century ago. (There's a book called Jerusalem 1913 which
offers one credible landmark date.) Because no one ever took the
threat seriously enough to stop them. Because they pulled the
occasional punch and laughed it off. Because we fellow settler
colonists secretly admired them.
It's tempting to think that world opinion, not least the rich
Americans who bestow so much generosity on Israel, could talk
Israel down from this precipice of genocide. In that light,
Biden's public embrace and endorsement seems not just foolish
but cowardly. I won't argue that it's not. But I'm reminded of
something that David Ben-Gurion liked to say: "it only matters
what the Jews do." And here, unencumbered by public opinion
and other people's morality, they will surely do what they've
always wanted to do, and reveal themselves as they truly are.
Or at least some of them will: the ones naively given so much
deadly power.
[PS: Ben-Gurion said a lot of ridiculous bullshit, so scouring
Google for an exact quote is hard and painful. Closest I came to
this one was "it does not matter what the goyim say, but what the
Jews do." But my memory is more to my point.]
Two more personal items for possible future reference:
Laura is
unhappy with Bernie, as "he can't even call on Israel to stop the
bombing!" I think this has something to do with
Senate unanimously adopts resolution stating support for Israel.
Not only did Sanders vote for the resolution, he didn't call for a
ceasefire in a statement he issued calling for food to be allowed
in.
I dug up the link to Laura's "one and only"
2010 poem, which she wrote for a local "poetry slam" event, but
continues to be relevant, urgent even.
Calling for a ceasefire should be one of the easiest and sanest
things any politician can do. That politicians are reluctant to do
so suggests that someone is snapping the whip hard behind them.
For instance, I just saw this
tweet:
A senior adviser to [UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer was asked
how many Gazans have to die before Labour will call for a ceasefire.
The reply came: "As many as it takes . . ."
Top story threads:
Israel:
Nicole Narea: [10-19]
A timelilne of Israel and Palestine's complicated history.
A lot of useful information here, though there are things I'd stress
a bit differently.
Sam Adler-Bell: [10-21]
War of the statements: "The unusual way Americans have processed
the Israel-Hamas War."
Zack Beauchamp: [10-20]
What Israel should do now: "Israel's current approach is clearly
wrong. Here's a better way to fight Hamas -- and win."
George Beebe/Anatol Lieven: [10-19]
How China and Russia can help us avoid escalation in the Middle
East: This is a bit fanciful, starting with the assumption that
the US wants to "avoid escalation in the Middle East." The underlying
point -- that Russia and China could help in cooling down hot spots --
would make more sense if the US wasn't so intent on heating them up.
Ghousoon Bisharat/Oren Ziv/Baker Zoubi: [10-17]
Israel cracks down on internal critics of Gaza war: "Palestinians,
as well as some left-wing Jews, are being suspended from studies, fired
from jobs, or arested at night -- all because of social media posts."
Data for Progress: [10-20]
Voters agree the US should call for a ceasefire and de-escalation of
violence in Gaza to prevent civilian deaths: 66% of all likely
voters agree (more or less), including 80% of Democrats, but evidently
not Joe Biden.
Mohammed El-Kurd: [10-20]
Western journalists have Palestinian blood on their hands.
Jarod Facundo: [10-17]
Progressive American Jewish groups lead cease-fire rally near
White House: "The protesters urged the Biden administration
to prevent 'a chain of reactions that would be catastrophic for
a lot of people.'"
Basil Farraj: [10-21]
Israel steps up its war against Palestinian prisoners: "Israel has
almost doubled the Palestinian prison population since October 7."
Gershom Gorenberg: [10-20]
How West Bank settlements led to the conflict in Gaza: "Having
to defend them clearly imperils Israeli security."
Chris Hedges: [10-22]
Let them eat cement: "Israel is not only decimating Gaza with
airstrikes but employing the oldest and cruelest weapon of war --
starvation."
Ellen Ioanes: [10-21]
Israelis feel abandoned by Netanyahu after October 7: "A recent
poll shows high support for a group invasion in Gaza but dismal
numbers of the prime minister."
Colby Itkowitz: [10-11]
Democratic divisions over Israel resurface after 'cease-fire'
comments: "Democrats harshly rebuked several left-leaning
lawmakers who have called for a 'cease-fire' as Israel-Gaza
war escalates."
Sarah Jones: [10-19]
The Palestinian blood on America's hands. Quotes Biden as saying:
"The Israelis are gonna do everything in their power to avoid the
killing of innocent civilians." Everything? All they would have to
do is stop the bombing. Are they stopping the bombing? Biden's
credulity here is mind-boggling. Especially coming right after
Biden saying: "Israel is going after a group of people who have
engaged in barbarism that is as consequential as the Holocaust."
About 1,300 Israelis have been killed in this event. That's awful,
but not even a rounding error compared to the Holocaust. Worse
than the Holocaust? That's not exactly going to encourage Israel
"to avoid the killing of innocent civilians."
Robert Kuttner: [10-13]
Israel's dwindling moral high ground: Imagine an alternate
world where Israel stopped at repairing the breach in the wall,
and didn't go on to bomb Gaza and threaten genocide. A little
restraint would have argued for their innocence, putting a little
distance between the Hamas attack from the 75 years of Israeli
attacks that preceded it, and making it much easier to negotiate
a way out of this disaster. But Netanyahu just had to show Gaza
(and the world) how tough and intemperate Israel could be, as
if anyone needed reminding. Similarly, the world would have
remained very sympathetic to the US after 9/11, instead of
being forced to recognize GW Bush as the sniveling warmonger
he really was.
Eric Lipton: [10-17]
Middle East war adds to surge in international arms sales.
Branko Marcetic: [10-20]
Forget 'peace,' did Abraham Accords set stage for Israel-Gaza
conflict?
John Nichols: [10-21]
Blessed be the peacemakers, unless they raise their voices in
Washington.
Peter Oborne/Jamie Stern-Weiner: [10-17]
Why settlers want war in the West Bank.
Christian Paz: [10-20]
What do leftist critics of Israel do now?
Mitchell Plitnick: [10-20]
Biden's Mideast policy implodes.
Nathan J Robinson: [10-20]
The current Israel-Palestine crisis was entire avoidable: Interview
with Jerome Slater, author of Mythologies Without End: The US, Israel,
and the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1917-2020.
Raz Segal: [10-13]
A textbook case of genocide: "Israel has been explicit about
what it's carrying out in Gaza. Why isn't the world listening?"
Omar Shakir/Yasmine Ahmed/Akshaya Kumar: [10-20]
We are seeing urgent signs of more mutual mass atrocities to come in
Israel and Gaza.
Jonah Shepp: [10-22]
Don't blame Gazans for Hamas: "The terrorist group has never
been very popular among the people it rules." At this point, I'm
not sure what Hamas really is or isn't, other than a figment of
Israel's propaganda ministry. But when Israel says they're taking
out Hamas, they're really just aiming to punish Palestinians,
because, like they learned from the British, they've always been
about collective punishment.
Richard Silverstein:
Noga Tarnopolsky: [10-21]
How Biden bigfooted Bibi: "The American president has captured
Israeli hearts. Can he rein in the Israeli government?" Is he even
trying?
Nahal Toosi: [10-20]
'There are options for Israel that do not involve killing thousands
of civilians': "A now-former US official explains why he resigned
rather than pave the way for more arms transfers to Israel as it
battles Hamas." Josh Paul was the one who resigned.
Jeff Wise: [10-19]
How long can Gaza survive without water?
Trump, and other Republicans:
Legal matters and other crimes:
Ukraine War:
Other stories:
Brian Merchant: [10-20]
On social media, the 'fog of war' is a feature, not a bug. "Even
if that haze has occasionally been punctured for the greater good,
as when it's been used for citizen journalism and dissident organizing
against oppressive regimes, social media's incentive structure chiefly
benefits the powerful and the unscrupulous; it rewards propagandists
and opportunists, hucksters and clout-chasers."
David Pogue: [10-19]
My quest to downsize without throwing anything away: "A big old
house full of belongings -- could I find them all a new life?"
Vincent Schiraldi: [10-16]
Probation and parole do not make us safer. It's time to rethink
them. Some troubling examples and statistics. Author also has
a new book: Mass Supervision: Probation, Parole, and the Illusion
of Safety and Freedom.
Jeffrey St Clair: [10-20]
Born under punches: Counterpunch 30th anniversary.
We went to the Global Learning Center's annual banquet on Saturday,
where we were lectured by Bob Flax, past executive director of
Citizens for Global Solutions,
on the need for effective world government. I was pretty much aligned
with their thinking 25 years ago, when I started thinking about some
kind of major political book. I circulated a draft of about 50 pages
to some friends, and every time I mentioned anything in that direction,
I got savage comments from one reader. The gist of her comments was:
no fucking way anything like that's going to fly. I had to admit she
was right, which killed that book idea -- though after 2001 events
suggested more urgent political book tasks.
Clearly, the idea of a benign global authority which can lawfully
arbitrate disputes between nations has considerable appeal. Flax
started his presentation by pointing out how the superior government
of the US Constitution resolved disputes and standardized practices,
at least compared to the previous Articles of Confederation. On the
other, every government presents an opportunity for hostile takeover
by special interests -- or for that matter, for its own bureaucratic
interests. There are, of course, reasonable designs that could limit
such downsides, but they will be resisted, and it doesn't take much
to kill a process that requires consensus.
Consequently, I've found my thinking heading toward opposite lines.
Instead of dreaming of an unattainable world order, why not embrace
the fact that nations exist in a state of anarchy? It's been quite
some time since I looked into the literature, but I recall that a
fair amount of thought has been put into functioning of anarchist
communities. The key point is that since no individual can exercise
any real power over anyone else, the only way things get done -- at
least beyond what one can do individually -- is through cooperative
consensus-building.
The smartest political book to appear in the last 20-30 years is
Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World -- maybe smarter
than Schell realized, as he doesn't spend nearly enough time on the
insight of his title. Yet, at least since 2000, efforts to conquer
and occupy other parts of the world have nearly all been doomed to
failure: the US in Afghanistan and Iraq (and Somalia and Libya and
Syria); Saudi Arabia in Yemen; Russia in Ukraine; Israel in Gaza.
None of these were what you'd call underdogs, yet they ultimately
couldn't overcome the resistance of the people they meant to subdue.
(China may prove an exception in Sinkiang, where they have huge
advantages, but probably not in Taiwan, where they don't.)
Unable to conquer, the only recourse is to deal with the other
nation as an equal, to show respect and to search out areas that
may be mutually beneficial. American reliance on power projection
and deterrence seems to be habitually baked in, which is strange,
given that it has almost never worked. On the other hand, what has
worked -- at least for US business elites (benefits for American
workers are less plentiful) -- has been generous bilateral and
multilateral engagement with "allies."
Of course, I didn't bring this up in the long Q&A period
that followed. A who guy spends all his life working on a nice
dream shouldn't have it trampled on just because I'm a skeptic,
but also I doubt I could have expressed such a profound difference
of opinion in a forum that was predisposed to the speaker. But had
I spoken up, most likely I would have held myself to a smaller,
tangential question: is anyone in his
circles seriously talking about a right to exile? Sure, they
are big on the ICC, which they see as necessary to enforce
international laws against war crimes and human rights abuses.
The ICC rarely works, as it depends on being able to get their
hands on suspects. (I think it would work better as a reference
court, where it could validate facts and charges, in absentia
if necessary, but not punish individuals.)
A "right to exile" offers people convicted in one country the
chance to go into exile elsewhere, if some other country decides
the charges are political in nature or simply unjust. This is
both a benefit to the individual freed and to the country, which
no longer has to deal with a troublesome person. This is also
likely to reduce the level of international hostility that is
tied to the perception of people being treated unfairly. And it
should reduce the incentive that countries have for prosecuting
their own citizens. It could also reduce the need to determine
whether immigrants need to be protected as refugees.
I've never seen anyone argue for such a right, but it seems to
me that it would make the world a slightly better place. (When I
looked up "right to exile," most references concern whether a
state has a right to exile (or banish) its citizens -- something
that is widely frowned upon. I could see combining both meanings,
provided there is a willing recipient country, and the person is
agreeable to the transfer.
I have a few dozen off-the-cuff ideas worth pitching, some
simple and practical, others more utopian (for now, anyway). Paul
Goodman wrote a book called Utopian Essays & Practical
Proposals. That strikes me as a super subtitle, to say the
least. His 1949 proposal for a car-free Manhattan still strikes
me as a pretty good one.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, October 15, 2023
Speaking of Which
Note: I ran out of time Sunday evening, so I posted what
I had, hoping to fill it out with my usual sources and clean it up
and repost Monday. I've added a few things (none new articles --
the Kaplan and Silverstein sections are largest, and a couple links
to MEE), but my eyes are glazing over, and I need to take a break
and move on to other things. So I've done very little rewriting,
and no reorganizing. Sorry about that. Consider this final for the
week. I believe that there are enough ideas and words here for a
coherent essay, but despair of getting them structured right.
I started writing an introduction on Friday night, and spent all of
Saturday laboring over it, only to find it impossible to say everything
I wanted to say in the limited time I had. What I wrote wasn't worthless,
so when I hacked it out, I moved it to the end of this post. It is,
however, incomplete, and not as convincingly fleshed out as I would
like. I did manage to write up a fantasy sketch on how what they're
calling the "Israel-Hamas War" might come to a soft landing, given
a considerable (and unexpected) change of heart in Jerusalem and
Washington (and probably Cairo).
That's followed by one paragraph
on why that's unlikely, which I might have followed up with three or
four more on the genocidal psychology Israelis have cultivated for
over a century. (It predates the Holocaust, which itself was the
ultimate example of nationalist, colonial, and imperialist plots
against whole peoples. I could give you a long list, probably
starting with the extermination of the Arawak in Hispaniola, but
one vivid example from American memory if the Trail of Tears. By
the way, the deeply cultivated memory of the Holocaust in Israel
probably acts more to inhibit its repeat than to inspire it, which
is one reason why it's so difficult to write up analogies between
Nazis and Israelis -- not because they boggle the imagination but
because they're often so easy: you won't find a closer historical
antecedent to the eruption from Gaza that started this episode
than the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.)
My wife also recommended this piece, dated [2018-08-14], so old as
news goes, but had the movement it covers been more successful, we
might be having less news this week: Nathan Thrall:
BDS: How a controversial non-violent movement has transformed the
Israeli-Palestinian debate. I've said a lot of negative things
lately about sanctions, especially as a much-overused tool of American
foreign policy, but in all things you need to consider the circumstances
and the alternatives. One key case where a BDS campaign was successful
in affecting much-needed change was South Africa. As with Israel, the
established Apartheid regime was so entrenched and so powerful it was
hard to imagine them getting overthrown, and impossible to think that
a foreign power might persuade them. Yet economic pressure, along with
an appeal to conscience, finally did the trick.
Perhaps the single best book I've read on Israel is Richard Ben
Cramer's How Israel Lost: The Four Questions (2004). He starts
with an old Jewish parable which I'd have to look up to get right,
but it basically says never give in to pressure now when you can put
it off until later. Israeli leaders (even Netanyahu) have always been
smart and flexible. They've repeatedly conceded points, but almost
never have they followed up on those concessions. They begged for
the UN partition resolution in 1947, then ignored its borders. They
agreed to cease fires, only to reload and resume the attack. They
signed armistices in 1949-50, promising to turn them into peace
treaties, but never did. When Eisenhower insisted they halt the
1956 war, they did, but dragged their feet for six months on the
necessary withdrawal. They agreed to UN resolutions after the 1967
and 1973 wars, then made a mockery of them, annexing Jerusalem and
the Golan Heights. They invaded Lebanon in 1978, and when Carter
insisted that they withdraw, they did . . . until they invaded
again in 1982, which Reagan let them get away with. The signed
the Oslo Accords, then dragged their feet, taking advantage of a
loophole allowing "natural growth" of settlements. Even Netanyahu
signed the Wye River Accord, then did nothing to implement it.
The list goes on and on and on, but they got away with it, because
in the end no one (well, other than Eisenhower) held them to their
word. Give them an inch, they'll take a couple feet, then pretend
you didn't understand, and talk about what great allies we are.
That all fits the parable in the book.
The other point of the book is that Jewish Israel is actually
divided into several distinct camps that basically don't like each
other. But the conflict, having a common enemy, holds them together,
so much so that they fear dissolution and despair if they should
ever lose that common bond. And that conflict, not just the local
one with Palestinians but the global, existential one between Jew
and Gentile, is baked into every nook and cranny of their culture,
their very being, the space they inhabit. The Holocaust Museum has
halls full of nightmares, but you exit onto a hilltop overlooking
Jerusalem, and that's Israel's deliverance, or at least that's the
lesson. Cramer's book is 20 years old now, so he's not totally up
to date. He hadn't yet seen how tightly wound that psyche would
become, how viciously it would explode. Max Blumenthal's 2013 book,
Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, was one of the
first to really expose that, though books on the settler movement
offered glimpse of that earlier (e.g., Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar:
Lords of the Land: The War for Israel's Settlements in the Occupied
Territories, from 2007).
Back around 2005, someone wrote to me and asked whether I thought
Israel would commit genocide. I don't have the letter any more, but
my answer was basically no. While there were forces, from deep within
the racist, colonialist soul of Zionism, that could drive them in that
direction, there were also other forces that would inhibit them, and
save them from going off the deep end. I'm still not sure they will
go through with it, but they're talking the talk, and walking the
walk. And the time has come to talk them off the ledge.
Top story threads:
Israel/Gaza: I just grabbed a lot of articles below. I'm
less interested in detailing the atrocities than I am with the broader
thinking about the war and its future consequences. There's way too
much here to fully digest, but I think the outlines and imperatives
are clear. The outline: that despite the initial shock, the only story
now is Israel's (and the world's) response. The imperative: to talk
Israel down from committing genocide.
As usual, there is a lot of good reporting at
Middle East Eye,
MondoWeiss,
+972 Magazine,
Tikkun Olam.
[PS: As I was trying to wrap this up, there is this report:
Egypt-Gaza crossing set to open for aid, says Blinken; 24 hours' more
fuel at Gaza hospitals, says UN.}
Vox: [10-13]
7 big questions about the Israel-Hamas war, answered: I could quibble
on various points, but this is a reasonable starting point, especially
if you don't have a lot of specialist knowledge. The questions:
- Where does the conflict currently stand?
- What do I need to understand about Gaza and Israel's relationship
to understand today?
- But why did Hamas launch such a huge attack now?
- How did this become an outright war, worse than we've seen in
decades?
- What will declared war mean?
- How is the US responding?
- What does this mean for the region -- and the world?
Yuval Abraham: [10-13]
Settlers take advantage of Gaza war to launch West Bank pogroms.
Jonathan Alter: [10-11]
Will Netanyahu survive the fallout? He didn't deserve to survive
the last twenty years, or for that matter his brief term as Prime
Minister back in the 1990s, so clearly his brand of oily but
intransigent malevolence appeals to many Israelis. Whether they
can also stomach the incompetence is an open question. I'm not
surprised that Scher has no real insight into this. His turf
is as a centrist Democrat, which leads to one of the stupidest
lines I've read this week: "The war gives [Biden] a chance to
address the nation about the need to protect both Ukraine and
Israel from aggression -- to lump Vladimir Putin in with Hamas
by explaining that both of them hate freedom and kill children."
The wars are similar only in the sense that the US is backing
the side that wants the land but not the people, who don't want
our side (dare I say it, that want to be free of our side?). But
Ukraine, at least, is fighting a well-armed foreign adversary,
and they genuinely need our help. Israel doesn't need our help,
except to restrain them from doing unimaginably horrible things.
Sending them more arms won't do that.
Bernard Avishai: [10-15]
l
Can White House diplomacy prevent escalation in Gaza and beyond?
They're not off to a good start. It's hard to impart wisdom when you
got your head stuck up Netanyahu's ass . . . especially if you didn't
have any wisdom in the first place. But at some point, Israel is going
to become an embarrassment, even for someone as shameless as Biden.
Ramzy Baroud:
Zack Beauchamp: [10-11]
How to think morally about the Israel-Hamas war: I hate to say this,
but this feels like a guide to becoming pompous and irrelevant. Sure,
it's easy to sit far removed from the fracas and condemn this or that,
and there may be some intellectual satisfaction in that exercise. But
that's a luxury, not just because you're safe, but because you get to
judge a hypothetical rendition of events, filtered through the language
and cognitive constructs you are comfortable with. Consider this:
We can and should extend sympathy to Israeli victims, but we should not
let that shade into justification for retaliatory atrocities. We should
condemn Hamas terrorism, but we should also condemn Israeli abuses
against Gazans.
Why the qualifier "Israeli victims" but no qualifier for "retaliatory
atrocities"? It's unclear whether he means "victims who are Israeli" or
"victims of Israelis." And why distinguish "retaliatory" from any other
kind of atrocities? Then note the word choices in the last line: why is
it "Hamas terrorism" but "Israeli abuses"? "Abuse" is far from the most
precise description of dropping bombs from F-15s. But "terrorism" --
which Beauchamp uses repeatedly -- bothers me more, as it's been used
for decades now as code for evil souls who can only be stopped with
killing. The only thing Israelis (and Americans) hear after "Hamas
terrorism" is "we support you in killing them." So if that's not our
intent, we should find better ways of talking about this.
Peter Beinart: [10-14]
There is a Jewish hope for Palestinian liberation. It must survive.
Marin Cogan: [10-13]
There's no Jewish American consensus about the conflict in Israel
and Gaza: "Attitudes toward Israel were already changing. The
unfolding violence is making it even more complicated."
Roy Cohen: [10-15]
Families of Israelis abducted to Gaza decry government's
'abandonment'.
Jonathan Cook: [10-08]
The West's hypocrisy towards Gaza breakout is stomach-turning:
Written early, but revised three days ago.
Ryan Costello: [10-12]
'Freezing' Iran's humanitarian fund is self defeating: Not
sure whether Biden did this due to Israeli orders or simple panic
over Republican talking points, but neither is a good look --
especially as all it proves is that America is an unreliable
diplomatic negotiator, likely to double cross you at the first
opportunity.
Jamil Dakwar: [10-13]
Neither Palestinians nor Israelis will be safe unless all are
safe.
Badia Dwaik: [10-15]
Israel is besieging the West Bank as it decimates Gaza: "While
the world's eyes are on Israel's genocidal war in Gaza, Israel has
also put the entire West Bank on lockdown. We are living under
siege."
Elizabeth Dwoskin: [10-14]
A flood of misinformation shapes views of Israel-Gaza conflict:
"The barrage of false images, memes, videos and posts -- mostly
generated from within the region itself -- is making it difficult
to assess what is real."
Stefanie Fox: [10-13]
Jewish grief must not be used as a weapon of war: "we cannot sit
back while Israel uses our trauma as a reason to destroy Gaza."
Masha Gessen: [10-13]
The tangled grief of Israel's anti-occupation activists. As
one put it: "We've warned for a long time. But, when it actually
happens, it's the most devastating thing." In my experience, we
actually pull our punches, out of an overabundance of caution,
or simply the dread that if our worst imagined scenarios came
true, our thinking of them may have contributed, or more likely
simply be blamed. I'm reminded of Nicholson Baker's Human
Smoke: while the pacifists were brushed aside (or in many
cases incarcerated) once the US entered WWII, during the 1930s
they were often the only ones who anticipated the horrors to
come, and who tried to raise the alert.
Omar Ghraieb: [10-12]
As darkness descends on Gaza, I yearn for the world to see us,
too.
Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt: [10-13]
This is genocide: All out to end the war on Gaza.
Neve Gordon: [10-13]
Can Netanyahu survive Hamas's attack on Israel? Unlike Jonathan
Alter (above), someone who actually knows something about Israeli
politics.
Nicholas Grossman: [10-11]
Trump's overrated peace plan helped enable the horrors in Israel and
Gaza: Well, it was Kushner's plan, and the real goal was to get
billions of Arab dollars for his investment fund, among other grafts.
But Trump's concessions to Israel certainly added to their hubris.
Jonathan Guyer: [10-14]
How the Arab world sees the Israel-Palestine conflict:
"Demonstrations of solidarity with Palestinians have broken out
across the Arab world this week." This will only increase as the
extreme cruelty of Israel's siege continues, and the failure of
America and Europe to restrain Israel becomes more obvious. Guyer
refers back to his article: [02-06]
The US's empty commitment to a two-state solution.
Tareq S Hajjaj: [10-15]
This could be my last report from Gaza: "Keep my stories alive, so
that you keep me alive."
Benjamin Hart: [10-13]
What Israel didn't understand about Hamas: Interview with Michael
Milshtein, a former Israeli intelligence officer, an associate of
Benny Gantz. I don't have any real insight into Hamas, but I don't
buy this take, let alone the blanket demonization that goes with
the drive to exterminate everyone associated with them. Early on
Hamas was basically a charitable community organization, and later
they transformed into a political party to challenge Fatah. Like
Fatah, they spun off an armed wing, a rival to Islamic Jihad, and
possibly others, but they seemed to have always had a function in
civil society. Israel has always done much to control the public
perception of Palestinian groups. Early on Israel seemed to boost
Hamas as a lever against the PLO. During the second intifada, there
was a period when every time Hamas would attack, Israel retaliated
by shelling Arafat's headquarters -- hard to paint that as deterrence
against Hamas. While I don't doubt that Hamas-affiliated groups led
this attack, the idea of calling this the Israel-Hamas War seems to
involve some sleight of hand. Especially as Israel has no ability
and probably no incentive to distinguish between Hamas and any other
Palestinians. The real war here is between Israel and the people of
Gaza, and by "war" I mean massacre. Hamas is mostly just a brand
that Israel uses for people they want to kill.
Hanine Hassan: [10-12]
Israel-Palestine war: Mass slaughter in Gaza lays bare the depth of
western racism.
Maha Hilal: [10-15]
Israel's war isn't against Hamas -- it's on the Palestinian people.
Ellen Ioanes:
[10-15]
Gaza's spiraling humanitarian crisis, explained: "Israel's
evacuation order is creating chaos in Gaza. A ground invasion will
be worse." Consider this: "Though Israeli military policy is to use
disproportionate force in Gaza as a deterrent strategy, that has so
far failed to enact durable security, limit Hamas's ability to strike
Israel, or allow space in Israeli politics for any sort of political
negotiation that could lead to a more peaceful future."
[10-14]
How does Iran fit into the war between Israel and Hamas?
Donald Johnson: [10-15]
How would the 'NY Times' know if Israel valued human life? They
say it over and over again, "but a reexamination of Times coverage
of Israel's 2018 massacre of peaceful protesters in Gaza shows that
the Times itself does not uphold such values."
Fred Kaplan:
[10-10]
The U.S. and Israel are walking a tightrope, and the stakes are
high.
[10-11]
Netanyahu is sharing power with one of his most popular political
opponents. It could keep a broader war at bay.
[10-16]
What is Israel's strategy now? I can't really navigate my brain
through these labrythine articles, but the way I read the situation
is that in public Netanyahu wants to come off as maximally hard
(which is to say genocidal) and Biden wants to come off as totally
loyal (which is, well, stupid). On the other hand, they both have
underlings (at least now that Benny Glantz is in Israel's coalition)
who share their basic worldviews but understand that implementing
them isn't so simple, and carries some serious risks. That opens
up a lot of hypothetical angles that are really just speculation
until they aren't. For instance, "If Qatar can get Hamas to release
all the hostages today, it is possible that Israel would agree to
call off the invasion." Really? That would be sensible, but would
be a major shift in strategy, for all concerned. There are lots of
details here if you're into that sort of thing. But no answers.
Rashid Khalidi: [10-15]
The U.S. should think twice about Israel's plans for Gaza.
Eric Levitz:
[10-11]
A left that refuses to condemn mass murder is doomed: This came
early enough in the cycle that he's focusing on anyone on the left
who failed to immediately join the pro-Israeli chorus in condemning
the first (and really only) wave of Hamas attacks, lecturing us that
"it is therefore imperative for progressives to disavow all apologia
for Hamas's atrocities and for the broader public to understand that
the left's analysis of the conflict's origins, and its prescriptions
for its resolution, are wholly extricable from the blood lust of a
loud minority of pseudo-radicals." This is one of several articles
noted here (like Beauchamp above, and Wright below) to harp on proper
etiquette in responding to outbreaks of violence. He offers several
examples that fell short of his standards, then inflates them to
"it is not hyperbole to say that many left-wing supporters of
Palestine celebrated Hamas's atrocities." Many? How sure are you
that "supporters of Palestine" are left-wingers? Personally, I'm
enough of a pacifist that I don't have a problem with condemning
all acts of violence, but most people have more complex feelings
about violence. For instance, we routinely applaud when somebody
smites down the bad guy in a movie. (As Todd Snider put it, "in
America we like our bad guys dead!") And what difference does me
or you condemning someone make anyway? Sure, when people like
Netanyahu, Biden, or whoever runs whatever faction of Hamas can
make their condemnations felt, as can the soldiers who follow
them, but you and me? We're mostly just expressing our moral
sense, a luxury we enjoy because we aren't connected to the
people we presume to judge. And, let's face it, we're doing it
hastily on the basis of very little, and probably very faulty,
information. I mean, I get where Levitz is coming from, because
as a leftist, my politics reflects, and is an expression of, my
moral sense, and I want them to be consistent and universal. But
I also find it hard to condemn someone for trying to break out of
jail and stand up to a power that had for all his life punished
him and everyone he grew up with, even if that person wound up
harming someone else. Sure, that's not something I would do, but
I'm not in Gaza, and I've never had to live that life. I truly
don't know what I'd do in his shoes. But what I am certain of is
that in standing up to Israel, he was bound to die, and that,
regardless of whether he killed or not, his defiance would be
taken by Israelis as justification to punish more people in
Gaza, more severely than ever before. As a leftist, I could go
on and condemn Israel for their retaliation, as I had condemned
them for their past transgressions (not that it did or will do
any good). However, I can see one argument for not condemning
the Palestinian kid who breaks out of jail and goes on a rampage:
I'm not adding my voice to the clamor urging Israel to multiply
his violence many times over.
I could have phrased this many different ways. I could have
brought up examples, like a slave revolt, or a kidnapping, where
one would have been less likely to instinctively blame a person
for fighting back. I don't, for instance, blame Ukrainians for
fighting back against Russian invasion. It's human nature to
resist attack and oppression. (And if you think this case is
one where Hamas is invading Israel, you need to reconsider your
facts.) But sure, if you want reassurance that I'm not in favor
of Hamas any or all Israelis, I will give you that, but I'll try
to phrase it in a way that doesn't support Israel's many crimes.
One last point here: this article basically does the leg work,
complete with quotes usable out of context, for someone else's
anti-left tirade. Levitz may not be wrong in what he says, but
he's giving us a lecture most of us don't need, and he's giving
ammunition to our enemies, in many cases the same people who are
clamoring for genocide against Gaza.
[10-13]
The US is giving Israel permission for war crimes.
[10-13]
No, America's declining power didn't cause Hamas's attacks.
Evidently, some pundits who think America should throw its weight
around more (huh?) have come up with this line -- names dropped
her include David Leonhardt, Noah Smith, and Ross Douthat.
Gideon Levy:
[10-14]
The world cannot stand by and watch this slaughter.
Nicole Narea: [10-13]
How the US became Israel's closest ally: Whole books have been written
on this, dating back to Kathleen Christison's Perceptions of Palestine:
Their Influence on US Middle East Policy (1999), with John B Judis:
Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli
Conflict (2014) focusing on Israel's creation. But while American
sympathies with Israel grew mostly through Democratic presidents from
Truman through Clinton, they shifted when GW Bush's neocons explicitly
aligned with the Israeli right to destroy the Oslo framework and use
Israel as a free agent in striking out at supposed enemies like Iran.
Obama struggled to return to a Clinton-level of fawning embrace, but
by then the "facts on the ground" and the hardening of Israel's right
had made that impossible, so he ultimately gave up. (Josh Ruebner's
Shattered Hopes: Obama's Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian
Peace covers this, as does Trita Parsi's A Single Roll of the
Dice: Obama's Diplomacy With Iran.) Trump, on the other hand,
sided whole hog with Israel, and Biden has made no effort to reverse
Trump's surrender (unlike in Europe and the Far East, where his
reassertion of American leadership has already produced one war and
made another more likely). While the bond has been real and deep,
this has never struck me as a true alliance. Israel does what they
want, and America helps clean up the mess. As Moshe Dayan put it:
"America gives us arms, money, and advice. We accept the arms. We
accept the money. We ignore the advice."
John Nichols: [10-14]
Israelis are rejecting Netanyahu. So why is Biden giving him a blank
check?
AW Ohlheiser: [10-12]
Don't believe everything you see and hear about Israel and Palestine:
"Misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war is easy to find online. Here's
how to avoid spreading it." Fairly generic reminder about how social
media is regularly used to spread propaganda and other mischief. The
problem it doesn't go into is how readily mainstream media falls for
carefully tailored propaganda lines.
Kenn Orphan: [10-13]
Israel and the Gaza prison break.
Eve Ottenberg: [10-13]
Euphemisms for war are deadly: "How we talk about war matters."
Refers to David Vine's
Words About War guide.
Actually, I think these could use some more work. No doubt we should
avoid "terrorists" -- it's not just a loaded word, by now it's become
a conditioned reflex to kill -- but I'm not sure "militants" is a
better alternative. That word is almost exclusively used these days
as a synonym for "dead Palestinian male." I also want to note that
while "ethnic cleansing" has come to the process of driving a group
out of a land (as, for instance, is now happening in Nagorno-Karabakh,
or happened in the 1830s with the Trail of Tears), the phrase was
originally just a euphemism for mass killing (specifically, what the
Serbs did at Srebrenica in 1995), a cutesy way of saying genocide.
George Packer:
Israel must not react stupidly: I didn't read this, due to the
paywall, but I did manage a laugh. I counsel people against saying
"never forget," but I guess I haven't. I then took a look at some
of Atlantic's other links, reminding myself why I don't pay them
money (besides that I'm cheap, I mean), and found:
Conor Friedersdorf: "Students for Pogroms in Israel";
Helen Lewis: "The Progressives Who Flunked the Hamas Test"; and
Bruce Hoffman: "Understanding Hamas's Genocidal ideology." They're
all on board, though one article could go either way:
Hussein Ibish:
Israel is walking into a trap: "Storming into Gaza will fulfill
Hamas's wish." The author is a resident scholar at an Arab think tank
in Washington, and every reference to Hamas in what I can see links
them to "their Iranian backers." The trap I see is that Israel will
lose what little's left of their souls. He probably seems martyrdom
of Hamas as feeding into Iran's bid for leadership of the Muslim
world. I doubt that's even a fantasy in Tehran -- although the Saudis
are still reeling from a nod in that direction back in 1979, when
Ayatollah Khomeini was in the first throes of revolution, so it
could well be on Ibish's agenda.
Trita Parsi: [10-15]
Biden refuses to talk 'ceasefire' though it could prevent a regional
war: "It's strategic malpractice for the White House to give
Israel carte blanche when he knows it could drag the US into a wider
conflict." This isn't my big worry right now. Although Israel has
shelled Lebanon and
bombed Syria in recent days, their demonization of Iran has
always been more about manipulating Washington than confronting
a serious enemy. The real risk, short-term, is genocide in Gaza,
and as that is unveiled -- and there's little chance that this
one won't be televised -- the bad feelings that will be generated
could come back to attack Israel and its allies (and the US is
much more exposed than Israel is) in all sorts of unpredictable
ways. And as long as the US and Israel remain committed to policies
of massive reprisals, the real damage kicked off by provocations
will mostly be self-inflicted. Why haven't they learned this much
by now?
Matthew Petti: [10-13]
Why does Egypt fear evacuating Gaza?: As noted here, Azerbaijan
recently solved its Armenian enclave problem by setting up a
"humanitarian corridor," driving residents of Nagorno-Karabakh
to escape to safety in Armenia. Israelis -- and it sounds like
the US is going along with this -- have called for something like
that to depopulate Gaza through Egypt, which doesn't like the
idea, and has so far
Moved to prevent exodus of Palestinians from besieged Gaza.
An influx of two million Palestinians would cause significant
stress to Egypt's fragile not-really-democracy, especially given
that many would align with the banned Islamic Brotherhood, and
many understand that Egypt's cozy collaboration with Israel and
the US has kept Gaza isolated and precarious. As Israel's plan
seems to be to kill everyone in Gaza who can't get out, exile
doesn't sound like the worst possible outcome. On the other hand,
if Israel gets away with the depopulation of Gaza, they're sure
to try the same thing in the West Bank. One can even argue that
with the government supporting settler pogroms, they've already
started. The Nazis had a term for this: Judenrein. I wouldn't be
surprised if there is an analogous Hebrew term, translating to
"Arab-free."
Mitchell Plitnick: [10-08]
Hamas offensive the result of Washington's hostility to Palestinian
rights.
Vijay Prashad: [10-13]
The savagery of the war against the Palestinian people.
Meron Rapoport: [10-11]
The end of the Netanyahu doctrine: "Did his plan to preserve Hamas
in Gaza as a tool for keeping the strip separate from the West Bank
and the Palestinian Authority weak finally backfire?"
Nathan J Robinson: [10-14]
You can't selectively pay attention to certain atrocities and ignore
all others: "How is it possible to be outraged by Hamas killings
of Israeli children, but ignore or rationalize the killing of Gazan
children?"
Kenneth Roth: [10-11]
The attack on Israel has been called a '9/11 moment'. Therein lies a
cautionary tale.
David Rothkopf: [10-15]
The war's just started, but Benjamin Netanyahu has already lost:
"No matter what happens following Israel's siege of Gaza, the Israeli
prime minister's political ambitions are likely damaged beyond
repair."
Richard Silverstein:
David Sirota:
[10-12]
The fog of war in Israel and Palestine: "As the long-running
quagmire erupts into more bloodshed and destruction, we need to
stop dehumanizing the conflict and acknowledge both sides' pain
and suffering." Benny Morris captured this sentiment in his title,
Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict,
1881-1999. However, beyond suffering, we also need to check
who has the power and agency to actively reduce the pain and harm.
[10-14]
The war on Gaza is the result of decades of extreme Israeli policy:
Interview with Matt Duss and Daniel Bessner.
Norman Solomon: [10-11]
'Israel's 9/11' is a slogan to rationalize open-ended killing of
Palestinian civilians. It's also a phrase meant to appeal to
Americans, and solicit their support for indiscriminate slaughter.
Jeffrey St Clair: [10-13]
Roaming Charges: Gaza without mercy: "You won't have to interrogate
them afterward. They are explicit about the war crimes they're planning
to commit." Sample quotes (read it all):
When you declare total war against Gaza, which has been under perpetual
siege since 1967 after being seized by Israel during the Six Day War,
what is it you're going to war against? There are no airbases, no army
bases, no tank battalions, no air defense systems, no naval ports, no
oil refineries, no rail system, no troop barracks, no armored personnel
carriers, no howitzers, no satellite systems, no attack helicopters, no
fighter jets, no anti-tank batteries, no submarines, no command-and-control
centers. Just people, most of them women and kids. It's why the entire
population must be dehumanized, turned into "human animals" whose lives
don't matter.
The reaction in the US to Hamas's attacks was more hysterical, the
calls for ultra-violence more grotesque, and the lack of dissent more
uniform, than in Israel itself (which is saying something because
Netanyahu blustered this week that "Every member of Hamas is a dead
man").
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is considered one of the most
reasonable of the current crop of Republicans. "Finish them." Genocide
is now her campaign theme.
Lindsey Graham has reverted back to John "Bomb-Bomb-Bomb Iran"
mode: "We are in a religious war, and I am with Israel . . . Level
the place."
The obvious parallel to Gaza is the Tet Offensive, which was a defeat
for the Vietnamese, but it was the defeat that won the war, exposing the
vincibility of the US military machine. It also triggered something deep
in the psyche of the American occupiers, who responded with attacks of
pointless savagery. The massacres and gang rapes at My Lai were a direct
response to Tet. Netanyahu has vowed that Israel's response will be equally
sadistic, which is, of course, a sign of its own weakness -- moral and
military -- and a harbinger of its ruin.
The column eventually moves on to his usual wide range of issues,
plus some books and music at the end.
Bret Stephens: [10-15]
Hamas bears the blame for every death in this war: I've mostly
picked sensible, judicious opinion pieces, because they're the ones
that deserve reading and distribution. But this one, obviously, is
included just to show you how horrifically wrong an American pundit
can be. The clear implication is that Israel's political leaders
have no free will, no brains, no morals, no capacity for managing
their own behavior. Sure, to some extent, that does seem to be the
case, but to what extent won't be determined until Israel stops
running up Hamas's tab. And here I was, foolishly thinking that
not just people but nations should be responsible for whatever
they do. [PS: Well, I also gotta admit some of this is pretty
funny. E.g., the paragraph that begins with "But Hamas spends
fortunes building a war machine whose only purpose is to strike
Israel." Or: "Hamas launched an attack with a wantonness like
what the Nazis showed at Babyn Yar." Nazi Germany attacked Russia
with 134 divisions, about three million men, but at least Hamas
matched their "wantonness"?]
Matt Stieb: [10-13]
The violence is spreading outside Gaza: The West Bank, obviously,
where Ben-Gvir is distributing another 10,000 rifles to settlers, and
the border with Lebanon, as Israeli rhetoric threatens to morph into
open season on Palestinians, some of whom could be inspired to fight
back. Not included here is another piece of spillover violence:
Hannah Allam: [10-16]
U.S.-born Palestinian boy stabbed to death in hate crime: six-year-old
Wadea Alfayoumi, in Illinois.
Noga Tarnopolsky:
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [10-10]
In blistering remarks, Biden commits aid, intel, and military assets
to Israel.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos/Blaise Malley: [10-12]
Presidential hopefuls outdo each other on Hamas, Israel war:
"Candidates across the spectrum urge overwhelming force and blast
Biden's weakness." Republican candidates, that is, although Biden's
own statement came off as the strongest, because he didn't detract
from his message by talking nonsense about anyone else, even Iran.
The article credits Vivek Ramaswamy with "restraint," because he
stopped short of committing the US to war against Iran. Marianne
Williamson waffled a bit, while assuring us she hated Hamas. Cornel
West had a more coherent critique of US/Israel, but he too took
pains to condemn Hamas, giving you an idea of how deep the party
line has sunk in. RFK Jr strayed from his fellow Republicans in
applauding Biden's statement, but more verbosely. I don't mind if
he describes the Hamas attack as "ignominious" and "barbaric," but
"unprovoked"?
Gidi Weitz:
Netanyahu bolstered Hamas in order to thwart the creation of a
Palestinian state.
Robert Wright: [10-13]
Israel, Hamas, and Biden's failed foreign policy: After linking
to this piece, I started to write the original intro (now at the end
of the post), so I lost the thread here. I will say that the idea
that Hamas attacked to keep Saudi Arabia from joining the Abraham
cartel is a lot like saying an estranged friend killed himself to
spoil your birthday party. Sure, he spoiled your day, but how could
you think that's really the point? The real reasons are probably as
simple as: Hamas has been trying to figure how to make enough of an
explosion to remind the world that Palestinians are suffering but
can still hit back and make Israelis feel some of the pain they've
long subjected to; and the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War
attack would heighten the element of surprise. The 1973 war was
rebuffed easily enough, but the shock caused Israelis to doubt their
security forces, and ultimately to negotiate peace with Egypt. But
I doubt Hamas was so optimistic: they know better than anyone how
determined Israel is to grind Palestine into oblivion. Second point,
I really object to Wright's "assume that Hamas isn't motivated by
actual concern for the Palestinian people." People who deliberately
start doomed revolts may be misguided or foolish, but the idea of
laying down your life to free your people goes way back, including
every revolutionary we still honor, even as martyrs. I don't doubt
that many Palestinians don't appreciate Hamas's efforts -- indeed,
that they actively curse them -- but you need to understand their
sacrifice, else you understand nothing.
Here are a couple statements from concerned groups:
Trump, and other Republicans:
Mariana Alfaro: [10-15]
Trump-backed candidate wins Louisiana governor's race: Jeff Landry,
no runoff necessary.
Lindsay M Chervinsky: [10-13]
Trump and the Republican war on the civil service: Trump's plan
to scuttle the civil service, return to the "spoils system," and
politicize every government job is easily on the top-ten list of
reasons he should never hold elected office. (It's mind-boggling
to contemplate listing the other nine, but this is a big one.)
David A Graham:
Trump's only real worldview is pettiness. This was triggered
by some offhand comments about Netanyahu. For more, see:
Bill Scher: [10-12]
Why is Trump trashing Netanyahu?
Margaret Hartmann: [10-12]
Trump manages to make Israel attack all about him.
Fred Kaplan: [10-12]
The more you think about this Trump speech, the worse it gets:
That's the title on the link. When you get to the page, the title
changes to "Trump somehow manages to make the Isreal-Hamas conflict
all about him." Of course, Trump is, was, and always has been unfit
to be president, but his tendency to go unscripted and blurt out
things that no sober politician would ever admit is one of his few
charms. While most of those things are incredibly stupid, or simply
inane, every now and then he has a moment when he exposes the
emperor's new clothes. My favorite was when he had the gall to
make fun of Obama ending every speech with "God bless America."
I suspect his irreverence for political pieties is a big part of
his popular appeal. He has nothing insightful to say about Israel,
Hamas, and/or Hezbullah, but that he isn't parroting the party
line is, well, refreshing isn't the right word, but good for a
laugh.
Stephen Prager: [10-11]
How the media turns extremists into "moderates": Case example,
Nikki Haley.
Andrew Prokop: [10-11]
Republicans have nominated Steve Scalise for speaker. Now comes the
hard part. Scalise defeated Jim Jordan 113-99, but as few as four
Jordan supporters can keep him from being elected Speaker. PS: [10-12]
Steve Scalise quits speaker race after humiliating 24 hours. Then: [10-13]
Now it's Jim Jordan's turn to struggle to become speaker.
More updates on the House:
Peter Wade: [10-15]
Lindsay Graham: Trump praising Hezbollah was a 'huge mistake': Oh
no, he's lost Lindsay again. What's the over-under on when they kiss
and make up?
Biden and/or the Democrats:
Legal matters and other crimes:
Climate and environment:
Economic matters:
Ukraine War:
Blaise Malley: [10-13]
Diplomacy Watch: Surprise, Putin and Zelensky don't agree on Gaza
war. Zelensky is absolutely supporting Israel, but his analogies
between Hamas and Russia are pretty tortuous, and before long he's
going to fret about Israel jumping ahead of him in the arms pipeline.
Putin, on the other hand, has resorted to saying things like: "I think
that many people will agree with me that this is a vivid example of
the failure of United States policy in the Middle East." Ok, nobody's
going to agree with him, but the rest of the line is hard to
argue against.
Connor Echols: [10-10]
GOP hawks slam Biden, say he has 'no strategy' for Ukraine: In
particular, they want to make sure that no one in the administration
is talking to Russia.
Other stories:
Kyle Chayka: [10-09]
Why the internet isn't fun anymore: "The social-media Web as we
knew it, a place where we consumed the posts of our fellow-humans
and posted in return, appears to be over." News to me, not that I'm
unaware of the decline of fun.
Jim Geraghty: [10-12]
Why RFK Jr.'s independent bid makes sense, even if he doesn't:
Having gotten no traction running in the Democratic primary, with
most of his support coming from Republicans just looking to muddy
the waters, this move keeps him in the game, but it also changes
the game. The real curse of the third-party candidate is that you
have to spend so much time defending against charges of being some
kind of spoiler you never get to talk about your platform, or why
the two parties accorded a chance are wrong.
Oshan Jarow: [10-13]
Basic income is less radical than you think.
Sara Morrison: [10-11]
We're in a new Gilded Age. What did we learn from the last one?
Interview with Tom Wheeler, whose forthcoming book is Techlash:
Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age?
David Owen: [08-14]
What happens to all the stuff we return?
Greg Sargent: [10-12]
The GOP's 'southern strategy' mastermind just died. Here's his
legacy. Kevin Phillips, dead at 82, wrote a book in 1969 called
The Emerging Republican Majority, landing him a job in the
Nixon White House. His painstaking research on voting trends not
only validated the "southern strategy" -- Barry Goldwater and Strom
Thurmond worked that hard in 1964 -- but showed Democrats losing
their commanding position among Catholics and other ethnic groups
(e.g., Spiro Agnew) in the north, especially as they moved to the
suburbs or the "sun belt." In the late 1960s, I did roughly the
same work, plotting election results from World Almanacs on county
maps, so when I read Phillips book, I recognized many of the same
patterns -- the main difference being that I had near-zero sense of
ethnic identity, but also I was less pleased with his conclusions,
and therefore more resistant. Sargent collected comments from several
figures, none striking me as quite correct.
For example, Michael Barone points out that Eisenhower has already
won 49-50 percent of the popular vote in the South, then claims that
southern whites "turned away from national Democrats not so much
because of civil rights but because of [McGovern's] dovishness."
But Eisenhower's southern support was all in the peripheral states,
where Republicans at least had a party structure. The deep south
(South Carolina-to-Louisiana) flipped for Goldwater because the
local Democrats did, as they did for Wallace in 1968). But by 1972,
when Nixon swept the region, he was ducking his association with
war, but dog-whistling race like crazy.
The Nixon strategy was more sophisticated than just playing up
civil rights backlash. It was deeply rooted in his psyche as an
all-American petit bourgeois everyman -- Gary Wills' Nixon
Agonistes is probably still the most exacting psychological
profile -- but he was smart, cunning, and ruthless. Phillips' job
was to feed him data, but it's use was pure Nixon. (Pat Buchanan,
who worked closely with Phillips, helped convert that data into
the sort of bile Nixon could spew.) Nixon's use of Phillips is a
big part of the reason Republicans are so artful at gerrymandering
and other dark arts.
Not mentioned here are Phillips' other books. He started moving
away from the Republican monster he had helped create, perhaps as
early as 1982's Post-Conservative America, certainly by
1993's Boiling Point: Democrats, Republicans, and the Decline
of Middle Class Prosperity. I didn't start paying much attention
until his scathing 2004 book on the Bush family: American Dynasty:
Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of
Bush. He followed that up with American Theocracy: The Peril
and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the
21st Century, which argued that financialization begot disaster
in three world-empires (Netherlands, Britain, and most assuredly
America next). That was 2006, so he was well prepared for 2008's
Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global
Crisis of American Capitalism.
In a piece I cite below, Robert Wright starts by noting, in
italics for emphasis:
This piece rests on my belief that the following two ideas are
logically compatible: (1) Hamas is morally and legally responsible for
the atrocities it committed against Israeli civilians; and (2) The US
is responsible for policy mistakes that, over the years, have made
violent attacks by Palestinian groups, including this attack, more
likely. I've noticed, in the context of the Ukraine War, that some
people find this approach to allocating responsibility not just wrong
but outrageous and offensive. So I'm adding this preface as a kind of
trigger warning.
The first point is the sort of boilerplate lawyers write, in this
case to anticipate the moral judgments insisted on in Zack Beauchamp's
essay (also cited below), so the author can move on to something more
interesting than virtue signaling. I went ahead and quoted the rest
of the note because he points out that critics of twenty-some years
of American foreign policy toward Russia had to first condemn Putin's
February 2022 invasion of Ukraine before we -- I did this, as did
Wright, and even Noam Chomsky -- before we could get around to the
background that one must understand in order to make any sense out
of what Putin did (and again, we all had to reiterate that Putin
was still in the wrong). Still, every time we did that, we helped
validate the people who provoked as well as fought back against
Russian aggression, freely ignoring any concerns or fears we had,
or doubts about their motives.
I could go on about Ukraine -- I have in the past, and no doubt
will again in the future -- but the point I want to make is: I'm
not sure that we need to repeat this exercise here. Sure, if you
could isolate select events in the initial Hamas attack, like the
mass shooting at the concert, or the abduction of hostages, they
were things we were shocked and appalled by. But the Hamas attack
came up far short of a war. When Russia launched a war into Ukraine,
they came with thousands of heavily armed troops, tanks, artillery,
missiles, aircraft, a navy, backed by massive industry safely beyond
reach of retaliation, one that could sustain operations for years
with little fear of crippling losses.
What Hamas did was more like a jail break followed by a brief
crime spree. They shot their wad all at once: a few thousand of
their primitive rockets; 2,500 or so fighters infiltrated a few
miles of Israeli territory, killing over 1,000 Israelis and taking
200+ captive. But that's basically it, and all it could ever be.
Israel regrouped, killed or drove back all the fighters, patched
the breaches in its defense. Hamas appears to have had no external
coordination or support, and has no capability to inflict further
significant damage on Israel. The attack was very dramatic, but
never had a chance of being anything but a suicide mission. The
only thing the attack could accomplish was to embarrass Israeli
politicians, who had assured Israelis that their "iron wall"
defense and the threat of massive, indiscriminate retaliation
would keep them safe and render the Palestinians powerless.
Unless, of course, Israelis responded in a way that exposed
themselves as cruel and murderous. Which it was almost certain
to do.
Even now, it isn't hard to think of a plausible path forward.
Israel reseals its border, but ceases fire, contingent on no
further fire from Gaza. (Similar cease fires have been negotiated
many times before.) Israel allows humanitarian relief supplies
to enter Gaza, under its inspection, and eventually via Egypt,
as well as neutral observers and facilitators. They negotiate
the release of hostages, with both sides committed to no more
hostilities. Some number of refugees will be allowed out, to
countries that agree to take them, with assurance that they
will be allowed back in when requested. A non-partisan civil
administration is constituted, in liaison with the UN, with a
world-funded reconstruction budget. An indemnity fund will be
set up and at least partly funded by Israel. Reparations will
be drawn from this fund for any later cross-border damage by
any source. Gun control will be implemented, and the region
effectively disarmed. Egypt, with UN supervision, will assume
internal security responsibility. Israel will renounce its
claims to Gaza, which may remain independent or join Egypt.
Other issues may be negotiated (e.g., water, air control).
Of course, this won't happen. Israel will insist on taking
its revenge, and will kill a truly scandalous number of Gazans,
further turning the area into a wasteland. Israel will probably
get the hostages killed, and insist on taking further revenge
for that. In short order, more people will die of starvation
and disease than they can kill directly. Basically, they will
kill and destroy until they tire and/or think better of it, then
look to stampede whoever's left out the gate to Egypt, or let the
American Navy organize a flotilla elsewhere -- like the service
the British provided in 1948 moving Jaffa to Beirut. People will
think up new euphemisms for this, but the root term is genocide.
I also wrote this fragment, which got moved around and is now
stranded:
Before we move on to Israel's response to the attack, we should
ask ourselves why frequent critics of Israel, like Beauchamp and
Wright, feel a need to condemn Hamas before they can point out that
Israel has done some bad things too. For most on the left, that
seems fair and consistent: we oppose inequity but also violence,
and imagine a possible a path toward much greater equality that
doesn't involve violence. That may make sense in a stable society
with laws and a responsible system of justice, which is our default
understanding of America (even though reality often disappoints).
But what if no paths are available? Does it even make sense
to make moral judgments over people who have no viable options to
achieve morally-justified ends? If you are at all familiar with the
history and politics of Israel/Palestine, I shouldn't have to run
through the many reasons why people in Gaza, especially Hamas, are
denied such options. Nor why hopes for change have been utterly
dashed by the trajectory of increasingly right-wing governments
and international indifference, especially how the US has given up
any pretense of being anything but an Israeli tool. Palestinians
have tried nonviolence (appealing to international law) and have
tried violence. Neither worked. As each fails, the other advances.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, October 8, 2023
Speaking of Which
I wrote the introduction below before Israel blew up. On Saturday,
I moved my irregular section on Israel up to the top of the "top story
threads" section, ahead of the breakout on the House Speaker -- lots
of links there, but the story is pretty pat. The Israel introduction
was written Saturday afternoon. I resolved to post this early Sunday,
as I have other things I need to do in the evening, so my coverage of
the rapidly unfolding Israel story is limited. Still, I think the
lessons are obvious, even if no one is writing about them. When I
see lines like "this is Israel's 9/11" I process that differently:
for America, 9/11 was a sad, sobering day, one that should have
led us to a profound reassessment of our national fetish of power;
instead, America's leaders took it as an unpardonable insult, and
plotted revenge in a foolish effort to make any further defiance
unthinkably costly. It didn't work, and in short order America had
done more damage to itself than Al Qaeda ever imagined.
The only nation in the world even more hung up on its ability
to project power and impose terror is Israel -- so much so that
America's neocons are frankly jealous that Israel feels so little
inhibition about flaunting its power. Today's formal declaration
of war was another kneejerk move. But until Israelis are willing
to consider that they may be substantially at fault for their
misfortunes, such kneejerk moves will continue, hurting Israel
as much as its supposed enemies.
Good chance Music Week won't appear until Tuesday, if then.
I ran across this paragraph on conservatism in Christopher Clark's
Revolutionary Spring (pp. 251-252), and thought that, despite
its unfortunate source, it has something to say to us:
In a sympathetic reflection on Metternich's political thought, Henry
Kissinger, an admirer, exposed what he called 'the conservative
dilemma'. Conservatism is the fruit of instability, Kissinger
observed, because in a society that was still cohesive 'it would occur
to no one to be a conservative'. It thus falls to the conservative to
defend, in times of change, what had once been taken for granted. And
-- here is the rub -- 'the act of defense introduces rigidity'. The
deeper the fissure becomes between the defenders of order and the
partisans of change, the greater becomes the 'temptation to dogmatism'
until, at some point, no further communication is possible between the
contenders, because they no longer speak the same language. 'Stability
and reform, liberty and authority, come to appear as antithetical, and
political contests turn doctrinal instead of empirical.
I draw several conclusions from this:
Reactionaries always emerge too late to halt, let alone reverse,
the change they object to. Change is rarely the result of deliberate
policy, which makes it hard to anticipate and understand. And change
creates winners as well as losers, and those winners have stakes to
defend against reactionary attack.
What finally motivates reactionaries is rarely the change itself,
but their delayed perception that the change poses a threat to their
own power, and this concern dominates their focus to the exclusion of
anything else. They become rigid, dogmatic, eventually turning their
ire on the very idea of flexibility, of reform.
Having started from a position of power, their instinct is to
use force, especially to repress anyone who threatens to undermine
their power, including those pleading for reasonable reforms. Reason
itself becomes their enemy.
While they may win political victories, their inability to
understand the sources and benefits of change, their unwillingness
to entertain reforms that benefit others, drives their agenda into
the realm of fantasy. They fail, they throw tantrums, they fail
even worse. Eventually, they're so discredited they disappear, at
least until the next generation of endangered elites repeats the
cycle.
Consider several major sources of change since 1750 or so:
Most profound has been the spread of ideas and reason, which has
only accelerated and intensified over time. One was the discovery
that we are all individuals, capable of reason and deliberate action,
and deserving of respect. Another is that we belong to communities.
Most relentlessly powerful has been the pursuit of profit: the
basic instinct that preceded but grew into capitalism.
The incremental development of science and technology, which has
been accelerated (and sometimes perverted) by capitalism.
The growth of mass culture (through print, radio, television,
internet), and its subsequent fragmentation.
The vast increase in human population, made possible by longer
lives and by the near-total domination of land (and significant
appropriation of water and air) on Earth, driven by the above.
Nobody anticipated these changes. Though reactionaries emerged at
every stage, they failed, and were forgotten, as generations came to
accept the changes behind them, often railing against changes to come.
It tells you something that conservatives claim to revere history, but
history just dismisses them as selfish, ignorant cranks.
Of course, there is no guarantee that today's reactionaries won't
win their political struggles. There may be historical examples where
conservatives won out, like the Dark Ages following the Roman Empire,
or the closing of China in the 15th Century. But human existence is
so precariously balanced on limits of available resources that the
threat they pose is huge indeed. Maybe not existential, but not the
past they imagine, nor the one they pray for.
Top story threads:
Israel: Last week I folded this section into "World." Friday
night I thought about doing that again, which a single link reviewing
the Nathan Thrall book wouldn't preclude. Then, as they say, "all hell
broke loose." When I got up around Noon Saturday, the Washington Post
headline was:
Netanyahu: 'We are at war' after Hamas attack. What he probably
meant is "thank God we can now kill them all with impunity, all the
while blaming our acts on them." The memory of occupiers is much
shorter and shallower than the memory of the occupied. The first
tweet I saw after this news was from a
derecka, who does remember:
Palestinians can't march, can't pray, can't call for boycotts, can't
leave, can't stay, can't publish reports, what's should people do?
land acknowledgments?
Here's another
tweet, from Tony Karon:
Is Netanyahu threatening genocide? "We will turn Gaza into a deserted
island. To the citizens of Gaza, I say. You must leave now." Everyone
knows the 2m Gazans can't leave because Israel has locked them in for
decades. So how will he make it a "deserted island"
Netanyahu is Prime Minister, comanding one of the world's largest
and most sophisticated war machines, so I don't think you can dismiss
such threats as idle huffing. Looking backward, Doug Henwood
tweeted:
Some perspective -- since September 2000:
Palestinians killed by Israeli forces: 10,500
Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians: 881
That's a 12/1 ratio.
I've written hundreds of thousands of words on Israel since 2001.
(You can find most of them in my
notebooks and also in the "Last Days"
series of
book drafts.) I've
read a lot. I've tried to be
reasonable. I've never described
myself as "pro-Palestinian" (or pro- any nation or ethnic group, not
even American). I suppose you could say I'm "anti-Israeli" in the sense
that I object to many policies Israel practices, also "anti-Zionist"
in the sense that I believe Zionism is a fundamentally flawed creed
and ideology. Still, I always felt that Jews had a right to settle in
what became Israel. I just objected to the terms they imposed on the
people who lived there before them, and continue to live there.
One piece I can point to is one I wrote on
November 17, 2012, which
is as good a place as any to start. In 2000, Ariel Sharon took over
as Prime Minister, demolished the Oslo Accords that promised some
sort of "two-state" division of Israel and Palestine, and provoked
the second Intifada (Palestinians called this the Al-Aqsa Intifada,
although I've always thought of it as the Shaul Mofaz Intifada, for
the Defense Minister whose heavy-handed repression of Palestinian
demonstrations kicked the whole thing off). By 2005, the Intifada
was defeated in what isn't but could be called the second Nakba (or
third, if you want to count the end of the 1937-39 revolt). Sharon
then pulled Israel's settlers from their hard-to-defend enclaves
in Gaza, sealed the territory off, and terrorized the inhabitants
with sonic boom overflights (which had to be stopped, as they also
bothered Israelis living near Gaza).
Hamas shifted gears, and ran in elections for the Palestinian
Authority. When they won, the old PA leadership, backed by Israel
and the US, rejected the results, and tried to seize power --
successfully in the West Bank, but they lost local control of Gaza
to Hamas. Ever since then, Israel has tried to managed Gaza as an
open-air jail, walled in, blockaded, and periodically strafed and
bombed. One such episode was the subject of my 2012 piece. There
have been others, every year or two -- so routine, Israelis refer
to them as "mowing the grass."
Once Sharon, Netanyahu, and the settlers made it impossible to
partition the West Bank -- something, quite frankly, Israel's Labor
leaders as far back as 1967 had never had any intention of allowing --
the most obvious solution in the world was for Israel to cut Gaza
free, allow it to be a normal, self-governing state, its security
guaranteed by Egypt and the West (not Israel), with its economy
generously subsidized by Arab states and the West. This didn't
happen because neither side wanted it: Palestinians still clung to
the dream of living free in their homeland (perhaps in emulation of
the Jews), so didn't want to admit defeat; and Israelis hated the
idea of allowing any kind of Palestinian state, and thought they
could continue to impose control indefinitely. Both sides were
being short-sighted and stupid, but one should place most of the
blame on Israel, as Israel had much more freedom to act sensibly.
But by all means, save some blame for the US, which from 2000 on
has increasingly surrendered its foreign policy to blindly support
Israel, no matter how racist and belligerent its politicians became.
I'll add a few more links, but don't expect much. It looks like
this will take weeks to play out, and while the lessons should be
obvious to any thinking being, Israel and America have dark blinders
to any suggestion that the world doesn't automatically bend to their
will.
Updates, by Sunday afternoon:
Israel formally declares war against Hamas as hundreds killed on both
sides;
U.S. to provide arms, shift naval group toward Mideast; death toll in
Israel, Gaza passes 1,100.
Zack Beauchamp: [10-07]
Why did Hamas invade Israel? "The assault on southern Israel exposed
the reality of the Palestinian conflict."
Jonathan Cook: [10-08]
The West's hypocrisy towards Gaza's breakout is stomach-turning.
Jonathan Guyer: [10-07]
This Gaza war didn't come out of nowhere: "Everyone forgot about the
Palestinians -- conditions have been set for two decades, and Biden's
focus on Israel-Saudi talks may have lit the match."
Maha Hussaini: [10-08]
Why Gaza's attack on Israel was no surprise.
Ellen Ioanes: [10-07]
Hamas has launched an unprecedented strike on Israel. Here's what you
need to know.
Lubna Masarwa: [10-07]
Israel 'can no longer control its own fate' after stunning Palestinian
attack: Interview with Meron Rapoport, arguing that "Israeli military
and intelligence is at a new low."
Haggai Matar: [10-07]
Gaza's shock attack has terrified Israelis. It should also unveil
the context: "The dread Israelis are feeling after today's
assault, myself included, has been the daily experience of millions
of Palestinians for far too long."
James North: [10-03]
Nathan Thrall has written a masterpiece about Israel's occupation:
"A Day in the Life of Abed Salama tells the story of Israel's
occupation of Palestine through one family's tragedy."
Paul Pillar: [10-07]
Why Hamas attacked and what happens next.
Richard Silverstein: [10-08]
Gaza invasion: Over 700 Israeli dead, 230 Palestinian dead as Israel
prepares massive assault.
Philip Weiss/Michael Arria: [10-07]
Democrats and liberal Zionists decry 'terrorists' and rally to 'stand
with Israel': Of course they did, but it's one thing to decry the
sudden outbreak of violence (the Bernie Sanders quote is an example;
he didn't even resort to the coded language of "terrorism"), quite
another to cheer Israel on in inflicting far greater violence on
Palestinians (even if not explicit, a "I stand with Israel" amounts
to the same thing). Morever, a little self-consciousness would help.
I don't disagree that "the targeting and kidnapping of civilians is
an inexcusable, outrageous war crime," but culpability isn't limited
to one side (even momentarily). Israel has thousands of Palestinians
in jail (with or without "due process," which in Israel is designed
to be discriminatory).
I especially hate the "Israel has the right
to self-defense" line people habitually parrot. Palestinians don't?
As a pacifist, I might argue not, but not in a way that would exempt
Israelis. When something like this happens, the first, and really
the only, matter is to stop it, then to learn, adjust, and make it
unthinkable in the future. I dare say that no one in the echelons
of Israeli government is thinking along those lines. Probably no one
in Hamas either, possibly because they've spent decades studying
power in Israel.
The shutdown and the speaker: A week ago, after acting like
a complete ass for months, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy
reversed course and offered a fairly clean continuing spending bill,
which instantly passed, cleared the Senate, and was signed by Biden.
A small number of Republicans (eight), led by Matt Gaetz (R-FL), felt
so betrayed by not shutting down the government that they forced a
vote to fire McCarthy, which succeeded.
Nicole Narea/Andrew Prokop: [10-04]
9 questions about Kevin McCarthy's downfall and House GOP chaos,
answered.
Matthew Cooper: [10-03]
The day after the McCarthy ouster: "After the shock wears off,
remember that this cannibalism started in the 1990s and won't go
away."
Hakeem Jeffries: [10-06]
A bipartisan coalition is the way forward for the House: This
won't happen, because the faction of Republicans who would even
consider it is even smaller than the Gaetz faction that just wanted
to trash the place. But unless something like this happens, the House
will continue to be a public embarrassment, at least until the 2024
elections, at which point it will either get better or even worse.
Ben Jacobs: [10-03]
Kevin McCarthy's historic humiliation.
Annie Karni: [10-04]
From a Capitol Hill basement, Bannon stokes the Republican Party
meltdown.
John Nichols: [10-05]
The "Trump for Speaker" campaign shipwrecks on the shoals of
stupidity: Turns out Republican actually had a rule against
an indicted felon becoming Speaker. So Trump resorted to the next
worse option, endorsing Jim Jordan. Nichols: [10-06]
Trump's pick for Speaker is a nightmare waiting to happen.
Timothy Noah: [10-05]
Who did in Kevin McCarthy? Maybe not Gaetz. Maybe not even Trump.
"James Carville thought the bond vigilantes controlled the world. He
just may have been right."
Nikki McCann Ramirez: [10-06]
Trump keys on Jim Jordan's wrestling history in speaker endorsement:
"omitting the scandal at the center of his coaching career."
Norman J Ornstein: [10-06]
How Kevin McCarthy planted the seeds of Kevin McCarthy's demise:
"Remember the 'young gun'? He doesn't want you to."
David Rothkopf: [10-06]
A broken Congress is what MAGA always wanted.
Leo Sands: [10-04]
Who voted Kevin McCarthy out? These 8 House Republicans.
Will Sommer: [10-06]
Fox News tries to referee House GOP chaos but cancels speaker 'debate':
Most likely Fox simply wanted to exploit the situation for profit, while
reminding everyone that they're the Mecca every Republican prostrates
and prays to (except, it would appear, Trump). On the other hand, even
the House demagogues realize that appealing to the public would only
further exacerbate their task of finding a leader no one hates enough
to kill over.
Michael Tomasky: [10-06]
Six reasons why liberals should salivate at a Speaker Jordan.
Trump:
Jim Geraghty: [10-04]
Populist passions, not Trump, rule the GOP. To the extent that
anyone can be said to rule the Republican Party, it's still the
billionaires who fund the party, and pull strings behind the scenes.
Aside from a few fixed ideas about taxes -- something other people
should pay -- they aren't completely aligned, as they have varying
business interests (some depend on government support, others loathe
government interference) and personalities (many are assholes, a
trait which great wealth promotes, but they are assholes in varied
ways). Trump is, at least nominally, one of the billionaires, but
he is a peculiar one: extremely, flagrantly outspoken, but not much
of a leader. That's largely because his thoughts are received from
elsewhere (mostly his Fox News gurus). For years, Republican thought
leaders cynically issued their dog whistles. Not Trump: he's just a
particularly loud dog.
I tend to resist any linkage between Trump and populism -- I still
respect and admire the original 1890s People's Party -- but sure, he
reflects his followers much more than they do him. The result is often
incoherent, which doesn't seem to bother either, especially as they're
defined much more by what they hate than what they want.
Tori Otten: [10-06]
Trump Organization exec admits he considered fraud part of the job:
"Jeff McConney is blowing the door wide open on exactly how the Trump
Organization operated."
Nia Prater: [10-03]
Trump hit with gag order after targeting judge's clerk.
Nikki McCann Ramirez: [10-05]
Trump blabbed about US nuclear capabilities to Australian billionaire:
who then "shared the potentially sensitive information with dozens of
other people."
Tatyana Tandanpolie: [10-06]
Trump abruptly drops Cohen lawsuit ahead of deposition: "Trump
sued former fixer Michael Cohen for $500 million -- then backed out
after repeatedly delaying deposition." Igor Derysh previously
wrote about this suit: [04-14]
Experts say Trump's lawsuit against Michael Cohen could badly
backfire. As Cohen put it: "I can't believe how stupid he was
to have actually filed it."
Emily Zemler: [10-05]
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson says Trump threw his food
'once or twice a week'.
DeSantis, and other Republicans:
Perry Bacon Jr: [10-04]
Republicans are in disarray. But they are still winning a lot on
policy. Way, way too much, considering that their policy choices
are almost all deadass wrong.
Paul Krugman: [10-05]
Will voters send in the clowns? A lot of things that show up in
polls make little sense, but few show this much cognitive dissonance:
"Yet Americans, by a wide margin, tell pollsters that Republicans
would be better than Democrats at running the economy." Krugman
spends a lot of time arguing that the economy isn't so bad, but
regardless of the current state, how can anyone see Republicans as
better?
Biden and/or the Democrats:
Kate Aronoff: [10-05]
Biden scraps environmental laws to build Trump's border wall.
Also:
Nicole Narea: [10-02]
Who is Laphonza Butler, California's new senator? I did a double
take on this line about the Democrats already campaigning for the
Feinstein seat: "All three have sizable war chests for the campaign,
with Schiff, Porter, and Lee having $29.8 million, $10.3 million,
and $1.4 million on hand." Sure, they're all "sizable," but sizes
are vastly different. They are currently polling at 20% (0.71 points
per million dollars), 17% (1.65 ppmd), and 7% (5.0 ppmd).
Stephen Prager: [10-03]
Voters have the right to be dissatisfied with 'Bidenomics': "The
president's defenders think voters are ungrateful for a good economy.
But people's economics experiences vary widely, and much of the
country has little to appreciate Biden for." Well, compared to what?
Not if you're comparing to Republicans. I'll grant that it can be
hard to gauge, including shifts from Obama that I believe are very
significant. But blaming Biden for canceling the Child Tax Credit
misses the key point that Democrats didn't have enough votes to
extend it. Same for the rest of the cutbacks from the Build Back
Better bill that Bernie Sanders presented -- some of which (the
parts that Joe Manchin accepted) was eventually passed. This piece
cites another by Stephen Semler: [08-15]
Bidenomics isn't working for working people. One thing that jumps
out here is the chart "The U.S. is Shrinking Its Social Safety Net,"
where everything listed (and since phased out) was part of the
remarkable pandemic lockdown relief act, which Trump got panicked
into signing, but which was almost all written and passed by Pelosi
and Schumer. To get it passed and signed, they had to sunset the
provisions. Democrats need to campaign on bringing them back, and
building on them.
Legal matters and other crimes:
Climate and environment:
Economic matters:
Ukraine War:
Connor Echols: [10-06]
Diplomacy Watch: Ukraine's arduous path to EU accession: "A
hopeful summit obscured the difficulties facing Kyiv as it pushes
to join the bloc."
George Beebe: [10-04]
Will Ukraine's effort go bankrupt gradually . . . then suddenly?
Dave DeCamp: [10-08]
Biden considering huge $100 billion Ukraine spending package:
If at first you don't succeed, go crazy! Good chance he'll be adding
military aid for Israel before this passes. After all, look how
successful the last 50 years of aid was.
David Ignatius: [10-05]
A hard choice lies ahead in Ukraine, but only Ukrainians can make it:
First I've heard of a McCain Institute, but if someone wanted a pro-war
counter to the Quincy Institute, that's a pretty obvious name. As for
the opinion piece, it is half-obvious, and half-ridiculous. The obvious
part is that Ukraine, as well as Russia, will have to freely agree to
any armistice. The ridiculous part is the idea that the US shouldn't
exert any effort to achieve peace. The "defer to Ukraine" mantra is a
blank check policy, promoted by people who want to see the war go on
indefinitely.
Jen Kirby: [10-03]
The West's united pro-Ukraine front is showing cracks. The
leading vote-getter in Slovakia has promised to end military aid
to Ukraine. Still, he's a long ways from being able to form a
government. Biden's latest request for Ukraine got dropped from
the bill the House finally passed to avoid (or forestall) a
government shutdown. On a straight vote, it would probably have
passed, but straight votes are hard to come by.
Jim Lobe: [10-06]
Iraq War boosters rally GOP hawks behind more Ukraine aid:
"Elliott Abrams' 'Vandenberg Coalition' also assails the Biden
administration for being soft on Russia." Wasn't Abrams the guy
who back in 2005 was whispering in Sharon's ear about how a
unilateral dismantling of Israeli settlements in Gaza with no
PA handover could be spun as a peace move but would actually
allow Israel to attack Gaza with impunity, any time they might
choose to? (Like in the lead up to elections, or in the interim
between Obama's election and when he took office, so he's have
to pledge allegiance to Israel before he could do anything
about it.)
Siobhán O'Grady/Anastacia Galouchka: [10-06]
Russian missile attack at Ukraine funeral overwhelmingly killed
civilians: Link caption was more to the point: "Overwhelming
grief in Ukrainian village hit by strike: 'There is no point in
living.'" But already you can see the effort to spin tragedy into
a propaganda coup.
Robert Wright: [10-06]
The real lesson of Ukraine for Taiwan: Attempting to control
a conflict through increased deterrence can easily backfire,
precipitating the event one supposedly meant to deter. When
Russia started threatening to invade Ukraine, Biden didn't
take a step back and say, whoa!, can't we talk about this?
No, his administration cranked up their sanctions threats, and
expedited their increasing armament of Ukraine. Putin looked at
the lay of the land and the timelines, and convinced himself that
his odds were better sooner than later. Nor is this the only case
where sanctions have backfired: the context for Japan's attack on
Pearl Harbor was America's embargo of steel and oil. World War I
started largely because Germany decided that war with Russia was
inevitable, and their chances of winning were better in 1914 than
they would be later. All these examples are bonkers, but that's
what happens when states put their faith in military power. China
has long claimed Taiwan (going back to the day when Taiwan still
claimed all of China), but Peking has been willing to play a long
game, for 75 years now. But the more America wants to close the
door on possible reunification, the more likely China is to panic
and strike first.
Around the world:
Masha Gessen: [09-29]
The violent end of Nagorno-Karabakh's fight for independence. I cited
this article last week, without comment. I then started thinking about
another article last week: Richard Silverstein: [09-29]
Azerbaijan: Israeli arms sales, greased palms, ethnic conflict.
And lo, I became suspicious whether Israel's siding with Azerbaijan
was not just to make money, but to promote a mass exodus ("ethnic
cleansing") of Armenians from newly occupied territory. Perhaps if
they could show other examples, they could justify disposing of
their Palestinian population the same way? If so, the uprising in
Gaza is likely to accelerate their schedule.
Jonathan Guyer: [10-02]
How MBS has won over Washington and the world: Five years after
journalist Jamal Khashoggi was "murdered, dismembered, and disappeared"
in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the Saudis are back in Washington's
good graces. Also on Saudi Arabia:
Ahmed Ibrahim: [10-03]
How Somalia never got back up after Black Hawk Down: "The Battle
of Mogadishu in October 1993 unleashed decades of American intervention
with very little to show for it."
Louisa Loveluck, et al: 10-05]
How government neglect, misguided policies doomed Libya to deadly
floods.
Other stories:
Kate Cohen: [10-03]
America doesn't need more God. It needs more atheists. Essay
adapted from the author's book: We of LIttle Faith: Why I Stopped
Pretending to Believe (and Maybe You Should Too).
Kevin T Dugan: [10-03]
The 3 most important things to know about Michael Lewis's SBF
book: The book is Going Infinite, which started out as
one of the writer's profiles of unorthodox finance guys, and has
wound up as some kind of "letter to the jury" on the occasion of
crypto conman Sam Bankman-Fried's fraud trial. Also on Lewis:
Karen J Greenberg: [10-05]
The last prisoners? With its prisoner population reduced to 30,
why can't America close Guantanamo?
Eric Levitz: [10-06]
Don't celebrate when people you disagree with get murdered.
"In view of many extremely online, spritually unswell conservatives,
[Ryan] Carson's brutal death was a form of karmic justice. . . . Days
earlier, the nihilist right greeted the murder of progressive
Philadelphia journalist Josh Kruger with the same grotesque glee."
Blaise Malley: [10-05]
The plan to avert a new Cold War: Review of Michael Doyle's
book, Cold Peace: Avoiding the New Cold War. "If all sides
continue to perceive actions by the other as hostile, then they
will constantly be at the precipice of a military confrontation."
Charles P Pierce: [10-05]
Guns are now the leading cause of accidental death among American
kids.
JJ Porter: [10-05]
Conservative postliberalism is a complete dead end: A review of
Patrick Deneen's Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future,
as if you needed (or wanted) one.
Emily Raboteau: [10-03]
The good life: "What can we learn from the history of utopianism?"
Review of Kristen R Ghodsee: Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of
Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life. Also see the
Current Affairs interview with Ghodsee: [10-04]
Why we need utopias.
Corey Robin: [10-04]
How do we survive the Constitution? Review of the new book,
Tyranny of the Minority by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt,
the comparative political scientists who previously wrote up many
examples of How Democracies Die. The authors are critical
of various quirks in the US Constitution that have skewed recent
elections toward Republicans, thus thwarting popular will and
endangering democracy in America. I haven't spent much time with
these books, or similar ones where the authors (like Yascha Mounk)
seem to cherish democracy more for aesthetic than practical reasons.
My own view is that the Constitution, even with its imperfections,
is flexible enough to work for most people, if we could just get
them to vote for popular interests. The main enemy of democracy
is money, abetted by the media that chases it. The solution is to
make people conscious, much less of how the Founding Fathers sold
us short than of the graft and confusion that sells us oligarchy.
By the way, Robin mentions a 2022 book: Joseph Fishkin/William
E Forbath: The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the
Economic Foundations of American Democracy. I haven't read this
particular book, but I have read several others along the same lines
(focused more on the authors and/or the text, whereas Fishkin &
Forbath follow how later progressives referred back to the Constitution):
Ganesh Sitaraman: The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why
Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic (2017); Erwin Chemerinsky:
We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the
Twenty-First Century (2018); Danielle Allen: Our Declaration:
A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality
(2015). I should also mention Eric Foner: The Second Founding: How
the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (2019).
Nathan J Robinson: [10-06]
How to spot corporate bullshit: "A new book shows that the same
talking points have been recycled for centuries, to oppose every
form of progressive change." Review of Corporate Bullsh*t,
by Nick Hanauer, Joan Walsh, and Donald Cohen, with plenty of
examples.
Missy Ryan: [10-04]
Over 80 percent of four-star retirees are employed in defense
industry: "Twenty-six of 32 four-star admirals and generals who
retired from June 2018 to July 2023." Based on the following report:
Washington Post Staff: [10-03]
The Post spent the past year examining US life expectancy. Here's
what we found:
- Chronic diseases are killing us
- Gaps between poor and wealthy communities are growing
- US life expectancy is falling behind global peers
- The seeds of this crisis are planted in childhood
- American politics are proving toxic
Related articles:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, October 1, 2023
Speaking of Which
Front page, top headline in Wichita Eagle on Saturday:
McCarthy's last-ditch plan to keep government open collapses.
The headline came from an
AP article, dropping the final "making a shutdown almost certain"
clause. This headline, says more about the media
mindset in America than it does about the politics it does such a poor
job of reporting on. McCarthy is not trying to avert a shutdown (at
least with this bill). Even if he somehow managed to pass it, there
was no chance of it passing the Senate without major revisions, which
his caucus would then reject. His core problem is that he insists on
passing an extreme partisan bill, but no bill is extreme enough for
the faction of Republicans dead set on shutting down the government,
and nothing he can do will appease them.
If he was at all serious about avoiding shutdown, he'd offer a
bill that would attract enough Democrat votes to make up for his
inevitable losses on the extreme right. That's what McConnell did
in the Senate, with a bill that passed 77-19. But House Republicans
follow what they call the Hastert Rule, which states that leaders
can only present bills approved by a majority of the caucus -- in
effect, that means the right-wing can hold bills hostage, even
mandatory spending bills, and looking for bipartisan support is
pointless. McCarthy had to compromise even further to gain enough
votes to be elected Speaker.
If the mainstream media refuses to provide even the barest of
meaningful context, this kabuki propaganda will just continue, to
the detriment of all.
[PS: On Saturday afternoon, after I wrote the above, McCarthy did
just that, passing a bill 335-91, with 90 Republicans and 1
Democrat opposed. The bill continues spending for 45 days, adds
disaster relief funds, extends federal flood insurance, and
reauthorizes FAA, but does not include the new Ukraine aid Biden
wanted.]
Top story threads:
The shutdown:
[PS: Congress finally passed a continuing spending resolution on
Saturday, after McCarthy's "last-ditch" bill failed to pass the
House. The intro below -- original title was "Drowning government
in the bathtub" -- was written before this bill passed, as
were the articles dated earlier. On the other hand, we're only
45 days away from the next big shutdown scare, which the same
bunch of clowns and creeps are almost certain again to push to
the brink.]
The Grover Nordquist quote
(from 2001) is: "I just want to shrink [government] down to the size
where we can drown it in the bathtub." Later he managed to get every
Republican in Congress to sign onto his "Taxpayer Protection Pledge,"
which would seem to commit them to the ultimate destruction of the
federal government. None of this slowed, let alone reversed the
growth of government -- it just ensured that the growth would be
funded mostly by deficits, which conveniently give Republicans
something else to whine about, even though they're mostly just
tax giveaways to the very rich. So whenever an opportunity arises
for Republicans to vent their hatred of the government and their
disgust over the people that government serves, they rise up and
break things. One of those opportunities is this week, when the
previous year's spending bills expire, without the House having
passed new ones for next year. Without new authorization, large
parts of government are supposed to shut down, giving Republicans
a brief opportunity to impress Grover Nordquist. Then, after a
few days or a couple weeks, they'll quietly pass a resolution to
allow their incompetence to escape notice for another year. You
see, most of what government actually does supports the very same
rich people who donate to Republican politicians. I could file
all of these stories under Republicans, since they are solely
responsible for this nonsense, but on this occasion, let's break
them out.
Post-deal:
Corbin Bolies: [10-01]
Rep. Matt Gaetz: I will force vote to can McCarthy 'this week'.
Sam Brodey: [10-01]
It's bad news that so many in the GOP are pissed about averting a
shutdown: On the other hand, every tantrum here should be recorded
and thrown back in their faces in 2024. It's bad news because these
idiots still have considerable power to wreak havoc. Vote them down
to a small minority and it will merely be sad and pathetic, which
is what they deserve.
David Rothkopf: [09-30]
All that drama and the House GOP's only win was for the Kremlin:
I'm sorry to have to say this, but Russiagate -- not the "collusion"
but the jingoistic Cold War revival -- isn't over yet. One thing that
the Republican right understands is that Russia's "expansionism" is
fundamentally limited by their sense of nationhood, and as such is
no real threat to their own "America First" nationalism. Democrats
don't understand this. They view Russia through two lenses: one is
as a rival to the US in a zero-sum game for world domination -- which
was a myth in the Cold War era, and pure projection now; the other
is that Putin has embraced a social conservatism and anti-democratic
repression to a degree that Republicans plainly aspire to, so they
are strongly disposed to treat both threats as linked. (Which, by
the way, is not total whimsy: Steve Bannon seems to have taken as
his life's work the formation of an International Brotherhood of
Fascists.) The problem with this is that it turns Democrats into
supporters of empire and war abroad, and those things not only
breed enemies, they undermine true democracy at home. Still, I'm
not unamused by Rothkopf taking a cheap shot in this particular
moment. I just worry about the mentality that makes one think
that's a real point.
Michael Scherer: [09-30]
Shutdown deal avoids political pain for Republican moderates:
For starters, this helps with definition: A "moderate" is a Republican
who worries more about losing to a Democrat than one who worries more
about being challenged by an even crazier Republican. Shutting down
the government is a play that appeals to the crazies, but has little
enthusiasm for most people, even ones who generally vote Republican.
The Republican also-rans second debate: Six of the first
debate's eight made their way to the Reagan Library in California,
again hosted by Fox. Bear in mind that any judgments about winners
and losers are relative.
Intelligencer Staff: [09-27]
Republican Debate: At least 33 things you missed. If you're up for
the gory details, here are the live updates. Notable quotes: "It's kind
of sexist, but mostly it's just gross, and it drives home one essential
fact about the people on tonight's stage. They are unrelatable freaks.
There is something deeply off-putting about each person on stage." Also:
"Ramaswamy: Thank you for speaking while I'm interrupting."
Mariana Alfaro: [09-27]
Republican presidential candidates blame UAW strike on Biden:
What? For giving workers hope they might gain back some ground after
forty years of Republican-backed union busting?
Zack Beauchamp: [09-27]
The Republican debate is fake: "With Trump dominating the GOP
primary, the debate is a cosplay of a competitive election -- and
a distraction from an ugly truth."
Aaron Blake: [09-27]
The winners and losers of the second Republican debate:
- Winner: Nikki Haley: The press hope for a rational Republican
is getting real desperate here. Aside from dunking on Ramaswamy,
the other claims for her are really spurious. How can anyone argue
that the UAW strike was the result of "the impact of inflation on
the workers"?
- Winner: Donald Trump: "Okay, maybe this one's unoriginal."
- Winner: Obamacare: Because Pence repeatedly avoided the question?
- Loser: GOP debates: QED, right?
- Loser: Ron DeSantis: "there was nothing that seemed likely to
arrest his backsliding."
- Loser: GOP moderation on immigration.
Jim Geraghty/Megan McArdle/Ramesh Ponnuru: [09-28]
'It sucks:' Conservatives discuss the GOP primary after the latest
debate. I didn't listen to the audio -- I'm listening to music
almost all the time; I can read at the same time, but I don't have
free time for podcasts -- so I'm not sure where Geraghty is going
with this, but the gist is that Trump sucks all the oxygen out of
the party, and nobody else has the guts to say that he's suffocating
the party just to stroke his own ego, because even if he somehow
manages to win, he doesn't know how to actually do anything, other
than keep sucking. (Pun? Sure.)
Eric Levitz: [09-28]
Who won (and lost) the second Republican debate:
- Winner: Vivek Ramaswamy: "came across as a slicks sociopath."
- Winner: Chris Christie: "we're gonna call you Donald DUCK."
- Losers: All of them: "In seriousness, there were no winners in
Simi Valley." He then runs the rest down one by one.
Harold Meyerson: [09-28]
Debate number two: Phonies and cacophonies.
Alexandra Petri: [09-28]
Here's what happened at the second Republican primary debate. Really.
Really? My favorite line here is one attributed to DeSantis: "If you
measure popularity in number of tears that a candidate has collected
from crocodiles and others, I am by far the most popular candidate."
Andrew Prokop: [09-27]
1 winner and 3 losers from Fox's dud of a second GOP debate:
- Loser: Vivek Ramaswamy: "At tonight's debate, Ramaswamy's schtick
sounded stale."
- Loser: The moderators: "Dana Perino, Stuart Varney, and Illa
Calderón seemed puzzlingly reluctant to have the candidates actually,
well, debate each other."
- Loser: Fox News: "Fox had to reduce its ad time slot prices by
hundreds of thousands of dollars for this debate, compared to the
first one, because interest was expected to be low."
- Winner: You know who: "Sorry, Chris Christie, calling him 'Donald
Duck' is cheesy and ineffective."
Let me conclude this section with a quote from Jeffrey St Clair
(see his "Roaming Charges" below for link) summing up the debate:
The Republican "debate" at the Reagan Library seemed like an exercise
in collective madness. And 24 hours and half a bottle of Jameson's
later, I still don't know what's crazier, Nikki Haley saying that
she'd solve the health care crisis by letting patients negotiate the
price of treatment with hospitals and doctors, Tim Scott's assertion
that LBJ's Great Society program was harder for black people to
survive than slavery or Ron DeSantis' pledge to use the Civil Rights
Act to target "left-wing" prosecutors: "I will use the Justice
Department to bring civil rights cases against all of those left-wing
Soros-funded prosecutors. We're not going to let them get away with it
anymore. We want to reverse this country's decline. We need to choose
law and order over rioting and disorder."
Trump: While it was unprecedented for a former president to
be indicted (for even one felony, much less 91), I think we now have
to admit that's merely a historical curiosity, like Dianne Feinstein
having been the first woman elected mayor of San Francisco. What is
truly unprecedented is that this guy, facing so many indictments under
four separate judges (plus more judges in prominent civil cases), is
still being allowed to campaign for president, to fly free around the
country, to give speeches where he threatens the lives of people he
thinks have crossed him, to appear on television shows where he can
influence potential jurors, and do this with complete impunity. While
everyone knows that defendants are to be considered innocent until a
jury finds them guilty, has anyone else under indictment ever been
given such lax treatment? Many of them spend long pre-trial periods
stuck in jail. (According to
this report, there are 427,000 people in local jails who haven't
been convicted.) Those who, like Trump, could manage bail, are subject
to other numerous other restrictions. Maybe one reason Trump seems
to regard himself as above the law is that the courts have allowed
him such privileges.
Mark Alfred/Justin Rohrlich: [09-29]
First plea deal in Georgia RICO case is not good news for Trump:
Scott Hall to plead guilty and testify about his crime, which is a
big part of the foundation for the RICO case. The plea agreement
calls for five years probation, $5,000 fine, 200 hours of community
service, and other restrictions.
Lauren Aratani: [10-01]
The art of the fraudulent deal? Trump Organization trial set to
begin. This is the New York civil case against his business.
I'm a little unclear on how this works, given that there is already
a "pre-trial judgment ruling that Trump and his co-defendants,
including sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, committed financial
fraud through faulty financial statements." Aratani previously
wrote [09-26]
Five key takeaways from Donald Trump's financial fraud case ruling,
which says that the "bench trial" will be shorter, because the facts
of fraud have already been established, so the focus will be on the
amount and nature of the punishment.
Victoria Bekiempis: [09-30]
Trump calls for store robbers to be shot in speech to California
Republicans.
Kyle Cheney: [09-29]
Trump's attack on Milley fuels special counsel's push for a gag
order.
Tim Dickinson: [09-29]
This 'violence-ready' militia is hiding in plain sight: "White
supremacist Active Clubs are growing exponentially -- 'they're who
the Proud Boys wanted to be,' one researcher says."
Gabriella Ferrigine: [09-25]
Donald Trump ramps up the GOP's attack on the military with call to
execute top US general: Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley. This
was followed up by Chauncey DeVega: [09-27]
The real reason why Donald Trump wants Gen. Milley to be killed.
Rep. Paul Gosar [R-AZ] also chimed in: Trudy Ring: [09-26]
Republican Rep. Paul Gosar calls for death to 'sodomy-promoting traitor'
Gen. Mark Milley.
Margaret Hartmann: [09-30]
Master dealmaker Melania Trump keeps renegotiating her prenup.
Sarah Jones: [09-27]
The media falls for Trump's labor lies.
Ed Kilgore: [09-28]
With Trump's 2024 rivals out, who's left on his veep list? This
is a stupid game, but I was tempted to look. For some reason, the
actual names bruited here are all women: Kristi Noem, Sarah Huckabee
Sanders, Kari Lake, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joni Ernst, Marsha
Blackburn, Elise Stefanik, Katie Britt. I wouldn't give any of
them as much as a 2% chance, although if Trump were a somewhat
more conventional politician, Ernst wouldn't be a silly choice --
she's won two terms in former-swing-state Iowa, and her sadistic
"make 'em squeal" motto should appeal to Trump, or at least his
fans. Beyond that, I have no idea. Maybe someone he can share
locker room banter with, like Michael Flynn or Ronnie Jackson?
In 2016 he picked Pence because he needed someone to reassure the
Republican regulars, and none of the candidates groveled more.
This time, he is the Republican base, and no one else matters,
so the last thing he'll want is some sniveling upstart who wants
to step into his shoes. And while he might be up for banging
anyone on Kilgore's list, he's never going to trust any of them.
Heather Digby Parton: [09-27]
Trump family fraud exposed -- but Ivanka dodges liability in N.Y. civil
case. DJTJ and Eric, on the other hand . . .
Christian Paz: [09-28]
Donald Trump isn't the union legend he's pretending to be.
Charles P Pierce: [09-27]
You've got to read this judge's ruling in Trump's New York fraud case.
Nia Prater: [09-27]
Trump might lose Trump Tower after scathing court ruling.
Alex N Press: [09-27]
Trump is speaking tonight in Michigan at a nonunion auto shop, as a
guest of its boss: This was the date of the "debate," after Biden
appeared on a UAW picket line.
Matt Stieb:
David Von Drehle: [09-27]
A judge calls out Trump's business lies. Voters can be just as
critical.
DeSantis, and other Republicans:
Jonathan Chait: [09-27]
DeSantis forced to say why he enjoys denying health insurance to poor
Floridians: Chait paraphrases: "Those people should work harder.
Indeed, to give them subsidized access to medical care will sap their
incentive. Poor people need motivation to work hard, and denying them
the ability to see a doctor and get medicine is part of that necessary
motivation." Conservatives believe that getting rich is a reward for
virtue, but they also seem to believe that if there are no consequences
for not getting rich, no one would bother putting the work in. (Even
though most of the people who actually are rich got that way not from
having worked hard, but from enjoying privileged access to capital.)
Ed Kilgore: [09-29]
Scott, Haley, and the Radicalization of the 'moderate' Republican:
It's ridiculous to call these people "moderate": they are the residue
left from the evolution of the South Carolina Republican Party from
Strom Thurmond through Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint. Their only
saving grace, which each of their predecessors had to some degree,
is that they aren't shamelessly stupid panderers. They have some
sense of how they look to others, and try to sound respectable.
But politically, there as far right as their predecessors (and
Haley is about as psychotically hawkish as Graham). Perhaps you
could give them some credit for moving beyond Thurmond on race,
but perhaps they were just cast to look like it?
Jasmine Liu: [09-26]
Everything you need to know about the right-wing war on books:
"Here's your guide to the heroes and villains -- plus a list of the
50 most banned books." Censorship chiefs: Ron DeSantis, Sarah Huckabee
Sanders, Greg Abbott, Moms for Liberty. Those have definitely gotten
more press than the Reading Rebels: Suzette Baker, Debbie Chavez,
Summer Boismier, and "Anonymous Utah parent." The books are mostly
off my radar, aside from two titles each for Toni Morrison and Ibram
X. Kendi.
Greg Sargent: [09-28]
New data on ultra-rich tax cheats wrecks the 'working-class GOP'
ruse.
Biden and/or the Democrats:
Legal and criminal matters:
Climate and environment:
Economic matters:
Ukraine War:
Around the world:
Dianne Feinstein: The Senator (D-CA) died Thursday, at 90,
after more than 30 years in the Senate. She had a mixed legacy, which
had soured lately as her absences kept Democrats from confirming many
Biden appointees.
Robert Menendez: Senator (D-NJ), was prosecuted for corruption
several years ago, beat the charges, managed to get himself reëlected,
and caught again.
- Aaron Blake: [09-26]
The GOP's defenses of Bob Menendez, and what they ignore. They
may not have gotten to where they automatically sympathize with all
criminals, but corrupt politicians are definitely their soft spot.
(Also tax cheats. Except for Hunter Biden, of course.)
- Bob Hennelly: [09-28]
Bob Menendez and the gold bars: A short history of New Jersey
corruption.
- Robert Kuttner: [09-27]
How to oust Menendez: The Agnew precedent: Good idea, but I don't
see this happening, mostly because nobody is that desperate to get
rid of Menendez: Garland probably likes the idea of being as tough on
a Democrat as on Trump, and Republicans would cry foul if Menendez got
off on a "sweetheart deal" while Trump still has to face trial. (Cf.
their reaction to the Hunter Biden plea deal, which was a much smaller
case than the ones against Menendez and Trump.)
Branko Marcetic: [09-27]
Bob Menendez isn't merely corrupt. He carried water for a brutal
dictator. Shouldn't that be plural? Menendez got caught taking
money from Egypt, but he's been a dependable supporter of other
nominal allies with troubled connections (Israel and Saudi Arabia
get mentions here, but not Latin America, where his antipathy to
anything leftist knows no bounds).
Timothy Noah: [09-29]
Why is the GOP suddenly defending Bob Menendez? "From Trump on
down, they're speaking out on behalf of a Democratic senator buffeted
by accusations of corruption --he's just one more Biden deep state
victim."
Henry Olsen: [09-27]
Bob Menendez is right not to step down: One of the conservative
hack pundits to rally behind Menendez, pleading "let the justice system
play out as it's supposed to," urging him to hang in there even past
conviction until all his appeals are exhausted, and assuring him that
"there's little proof that a senator's indictment affects voters'
decisions in other races." He offers the example of Virginia Gov.
Ralph Northam, who resisted pressure to resign after embarrassing
photos from a yearbook came to light, but Northam wasn't indicted,
and was barely distracted from doing his job. The charges against
Menendez are very serious, and derive directly from his abuse of
the power given him by his job. While the indictments may cramp
his ability to collect further bribes, his job is one where even
the appearance of corruption diminishes the office. It is this
very sense of taint that has led many Democrats to call for his
resignation. To see Republicans rally behind Menendez testifies
to how they've evolved to celebrate his kind of corruption.
Other stories:
David Atkins: [09-27]
America needs a true liberal media: "Our crisis of democracy is
exacerbated by conservative misinformation. Time for a balanced media
diet." Of course, he has a lot to complain about, but couldn't he put
it better? I shouldn't have to parse the difference between "liberal"
as an adjective and "liberal" (or "liberalism") as a noun, and explain
why a "liberal media" isn't just a propaganda outlet for liberalism
(as conservative media is for conservatism). If we had an honest media
dedicated to rooting out misinformation from any source, it would
easily find ten times as much emanating from right-wing interest
groups (which it would clearly label as such). Atkins cites several
examples of polls where scary large numbers of Americans believe
things that are plainly false. That such numbers persist goes a long
way toward indicting the media for failing to keep us informed.
On the other hand, another sense of "liberal" is that it provides
equal credence to all views, regardless of truth, merit or ulterior
motives. This was, for instance, the view Marcuse et al. put forth
in A Critique of Pure Tolerance (1965). In light of this,
one can be as critical as Atkins is of the present facts and draw
the opposite conclusion, that the problem we have today is that the
media, with its relentless balancing and its credulous repetition
of blatant falsehoods, is simply too liberal.
Zack Beauchamp: [09-24]
Is America uniquely vulnerable to tyranny? Review of a new book,
Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking
Point, by Steve Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, whose previous book,
the comparative study How Democracies Die, was taken as a
landmark among liberals who worry more about the formal political
institutions than about government reflecting the interests of
most people.
Nina Burleigh: [09-26]
Are we in the last days of Fox News? "Michael Wolff's new book
on the Murdochs is full of juicy details, but its predictions may
be off." The book is called The Fall: The End of Fox News.
Joshua Green: [08-27]
How social justice activists lost the plot: A review of Fredrik
DeBoer's new book, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement,
"an entreaty to white, college-educated progressives: Stop obsessing
over identity and language and start fighting for working people."
I took a brief look at this book when assembling my latest
Book Roundup and couldn't decide what to make of it: he's reputed
to be a leftist, but he spends most of his time attacking others on
the left side of "social justice" issues, possibly for not being
leftist enough (on economic issues? for leftists of some vintage
what else is there?). I'm not engaged enough to recognize much less
care about many of the complaints lodged against today's younger
generation on the left, but back in my day (c. 1970) I ran into
similar problems, where comfortably well-off young people got
worked up over other people's problems without having the grounding
of knowing their own problems. (I was a rare working class kid, and
pathological introvert, in an elite university, so I never had that
luxury.) I have no idea how well, or how badly, DeBoer navigates
problems with his fellow leftists. Green, however, ends with one
piece of reasonable advice: "If they'd focus on electing Democrats,
they'd finally be in a position to deliver for those groups, rather
than just bicker over whose turn it is to talk next." I would add
that while I don't think leftists should adopt bad positions just
to get around, the only policy improvements that are achievable
are ones that pass through the Democratic Party, so that's where
you need to do your practical work.
Anthony L Fisher: [09-30]
Why the 2020 social justice revolutions failed: Interview with
DeBoer on his book, steering the discussion toward the 2020 BLM
protests and the coincident looting ("riots"). Maybe DeBoer has
something specific to say about all that, but that wasn't obvious
to me from what I previously read. I wouldn't say that the protests
failed -- they moved several meters significantly, especially in
that the cop who killed George Floyd and the cops who aided and
abetted the murder have been convicted of serious crimes, which is
never expected when police kill civilians -- and I also wouldn't
say that where they failed, they did so due to the liberal elite
syndrome I take DeBoer to be critical of. What was possible from
those protests was limited by Trump, other right-wing political
figures, including police and vigilantes, responded so negatively,
often deliberately attempting to provoke riots (which, based on
much experience, they assumed would be blamed on the protesters).
Becca Rothfeld: [09-01]
Should progressives want the support of the ruling classes?
A critical review of DeBoer's book, mentioned in the Fisher interview
above, the author dismissed by DeBoer as "exactly the kind of person
that is being indicted in the book."
[PS: On closer examination, this strikes me as a pretty good review
of the book.]
Freddie deBoer: [0-25]
AOC is just a regular old Democrat now. I saw this at the time,
and didn't think it was worth reporting on, but since we're talking
about the author now, it shines as much light on him as on her. The
theme is not something I'd lose any sleep over.
Tyler Austin Harper: [09-28]
Ibram X. Kendi's fall is a cautionary tale -- so was his rise:
Flagged for possible future reference, as I'm not close enough to
this story to have an opinion. I will say that I fifty-plus years
ago I read two important historical works on racism in the early
1970s: Winthrop Jordan's White Over Black: American Attitudes
Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (1968), and David Brion Davis,
The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1966), which if
memory serves argued that racism wasn't Stamped From the
Beginning (the title of Kendi's big book) but was developed
over time, primarily to justify chattel slavery in the Americas,
and the profits derived therefrom. I read quite a bit more back
then, covering later history as well as contemporary books like
Soul on Ice and The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
But it had been quite a while when Kendi's book came out, so I
thought it might be useful to get a more contemporary reading
of Jordan's domain. But when I looked at the book, I decided I
didn't need or particularly want it. I had, by then, read lots
about Thomas Jefferson's racism (and for that matter, Lincoln's),
but didn't see much point in dwelling on it. But the big turn
off was the section on major aboltionist William Lloyd Garrison.
Looking at the Amazon preview now, my reaction may have been
hasty: surely the later chapters on W.E.B. DuBois and Angela
Davis weren't meant to be simple exposés of racist ideas like
chapters on Cotton Mather and Jefferson? But then, what were
they? Kendi followed up with an explicitly political book, and
evidently built a mini-empire on his reputation. That could
have been good, bad, irrelevant, or some combination thereof.
Sean Illing: [09-26]
Naomi Klein on her doppelganger (and yours): Another interview,
promoting her new book, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror
World.
Sarah Jones: [09-24]
The dark side of courtship: "Shannon Harris's relationship was
held up as a model for millions of Evangelicals. Now she's reclaiming
her story."
David Masciotra: [09-26]
What the Clinton haters on the left get wrong: "A new book epitomizes
the risible belief that the 42nd president betrayed liberals and the 1990s
were a right-wing hellscape." The book is A Fabulous Failure: The
Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism,
by Nelson Lichtenstein and Judith Stein. I note this in passing, and
also that the first publication to take such offense against such a
blight on Clinton's good name is the one where the term "neoliberalism"
was first coined. Somehow I doubt a book where the authors juxtaposed
"fabulous" and "failure" is simply "untruths they've written [to]
bolster the cynicism that undermines the trust vital to the survival
of the American experiment."
The first point anyone needs to understand
is that Clinton pioneered a new political path by trying not to fight
Reagan but to outflank him: to show leaders that Democrats in power
would be even better for business than Republicans. That Clinton won
gave his argument an air of gospel after a brutal decade, which only
deepened the more hysterically Republicans attacked him. However, his
two presidential wins were largely wiped out by losing Congress, and
with it the ability to legislate anything beyond his pro-business and
anti-crime initiatives.
On the other hand, his failures -- mistakes
and, especially, missed opportunities -- only grew. Listing them would
take a book (probably even longer than this one). Compounding Reagan's
turn toward increasing inequality is probably the top of the list. Or
failing to trim back America's imperial overreach to secure a truly
international peace -- today's conflicts with Russia and China, as
well as the long war against the Middle East, are easily traced back
to his failures. Or maybe we should wonder why Al Gore wasn't allowed
to work on climate change when it wasn't yet too late, but was tasked
instead with "reinventing government," which mostly meant making it
more profitable for lobbyists. Or maybe we should ask why he stripped
the Democratic Party down to a personal cult-of-personality, allowing
Republicans to repeatedly rebound from disaster every time they came
close to the lever of power?
Dylan Matthews: [09-26]
40 years ago today, one man saved us from world-ending nuclear war:
A Russian, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, who was monitoring Russia's ICBM
detection system, which had determined "with high probability" that
the US had launched five Minutemen missiles at the Soviet Union. It
hadn't, but two years of constant saber-rattling under Reagan, on top
of worsening US-Soviet relations under Jimmy Carter (or should I say
Zbigniew Brzezinski?), along with internal turmoil that might suggest
weakness, left top Soviet circles more in fear of an American attack
than ever before. David Hoffman wrote a book about this: The Dead
Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race & Its Dangerous
Legacy (2009).
Sara Morrison:
[09-28]
Net neutrality is back, but it's not what you think.
[09-26]
The government's case to break up Amazon, explained: "The Federal
Trade Commission, led by longtime Amazon critic Lina Khan, finally
makes its move." This particular case focuses on Amazon Marketplace --
the most obvious place to start, I agree. I could probably write a
lot on this, but some other time. There are a lot of things I like
about Amazon, but the potential for abuse is huge, and doesn't loom
purely in the future. I cited a David Dayen piece last week, and it
deserves to be mentioned again in light of this suit:
Jonah Raskin: [09-29]
"I am not now, nor have I ever been": Musings on communism and
anti-communism. I've known a few American communists, or at
least a few of their "red diaper baby" children. All good people,
as far as I can tell.
Heather Cox Richardson: [09-26]
The fight for our America: Excerpt, or maybe a précis, from her
forthcoming book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of
America. The setup: "There have always been two Americas. One
based in religious zeal, mythology, and inequality; and one grounded
in the rule of the people and the pursuit of equality. This next
election may determine which one prevails." My first cavil here
was over the word "prevails": recent elections (at least since 2000,
and arguably since 1968 -- the landslides of 1972 and 1984 now look
like flukes, as does the lesser margin of 2008) have turned out to
be pretty indecisive. There is little reason to think that 2024 will
turn out differently: a Trump-Biden rematch is unlikely to turn out
much differently than in 2020, but Republicans have structural
advantages in the Senate, the House, and the Electoral College
that could flip the popular vote -- further reinforcing the current
partisan divide over democracy itself.
Still, in searching for a better term than "prevails," I find
myself considering the more extreme "survives." While electoral
results have remained ambiguous, the stakes for (and fears of)
losing have only grown more urgent. Republicans have already used
their narrow margins to establish a Supreme Court supermajority,
which has already resulted in the loss of fundamental rights and
will continue to frustrate efforts of elected Democrats to address
important policy issues. Give them more power, and they'll continue
their efforts to fortify their power bases and impose their will
on a disempowered people.
Democrats are right to fear such authoritarianism, and are right
that the antidote is a renewed faith in democracy, but their defense
of democracy has been frustratingly difficult, because Democrats
rarely think of power in the broad sense that Republicans understand:
the power of business and money, of media, of social institutions
like churches, of culture (one area they have been least effective
at controlling, and therefore one they're most paranoid about, hence
their recent, seemingly desperate, stress on the "war against woke").
More often than not, Democrats have appealed to moneyed interests,
even to the point of sacrificing traditional allies like unions,
and this has tattered their reputation as champions of the people.
Richardson's "two Americas" may serve as generic shorthand for
the two highly polarized parties, but while identities align with
parties, the underlying philosophies are more or less present and
at tension in most people. By far the most important is the split
on equality: the right views the world as necessarily (or rightly)
inequal and hierarchical, where each person has a station, and
order is maintained by popular acceptance (and, often, by force);
the left views all people as fundamentally equal, at least in
rights, and ideally in opportunities. The left naturally leans
toward democracy, where government is constituted to act in the
popular interest. The right leans toward dictatorship (originally
of monarchs, although any strongman able to impose order to save
their hierarchy will do), and distrusts democracy, suspecting that
if given the chance, the majority would end the privileges of
those atop the hierarchy.
By the way, liberals are focused on the rights and ambitions
of individuals. Whether they lean right or left depends mostly on
the conservative hierarchy is in admitting talented upstarts --
for many would like to live like princes, but if they are locked
out, they're happy to tear the hierarchy down, and willing to
appeal to the masses for help in doing so. Liberals are disrupters,
which is why conservatives loathe them, but as long as they are
sufficiently corruptible, they can be co-opted. But until they get
bought off, they are likely to inspire more widespread ambitions --
which is why we still admire Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt (and
wanted to admire Obama).
It is important to remember that nearly everything we cherish
about our past was the work of liberals aspiring to the greater
(more universal) good. (Which is to say, of moves toward the left,
though often of people not strongly committed to the left.) Also
that every advance has been met with conservative reaction, which
was generally flexible enough to admit a select few in order to
cut short the hopes of the many. Richardson groups religious zeal
and mythology with the side of inequality. They are actually tools
of a hierarchy which, given America's founding as a liberal/mass
revolt against aristocracy, cannot be defended on its own terms.
Rather, the right, in order to maintain any plausibility at all,
has to spin a mythic past rooted in old fashioned religion and
pioneering entrepreneurial spirit -- the new hierarchy that rose
to replace the aristocracy dispatched by the Revolution.
Jeffrey St Clair: [09-29]
Roaming Charges: Our man in Jersey: Starts with Robert Menendez
as a Le Carré character, "New Jersey's own apex con man, whose personal
embellishments and political fictions have become so labryinthine
that now that he's been caught with gold bars in his closet, he
can't even get his own life story straight."
In other items, he notes that the US drug overdose rate, in the
fifty years since the War on Drugs was launched in 1973, has ("what
a smashing success it has been!") increased from 3.0 per 100,000 to
32.4.
Marcela Valdes: [10-01]
Why can't we stop unauthorized immigration? Because it works.
"Our broken immigration system is still the best option for many
migrants -- and U.S. employers."
Jason Wilson: [10-01]
'Red Caesarism' is rightwing code -- and some Republicans are
listening: This piece introduced me to a recent book by Kevin
Slack: War on the American Republic: How Liberalism Became
Despotism, which argues that America has been destroyed by
three waves of liberals: "Teddy Roosevelt's Anglo-Protestant
progressive social gospelers, who battled trusts and curbed
immigration; Franklin Roosevelt's and Lyndon Johnson's secular
liberals, who forged a government-business partnership and
promoted a civil rights agenda; and the 1960s radicals, who
protested corporate influence in the Great Society, liberal
hypocrisy on race and gender, and the war in Vietnam," and
who finally cemented their power with "the 'great awokening'
that began under Barack Obama." The result: "an incompetent
kleptocracy is draining the wealthiest and most powerful
people in history, thus eroding the foundations of its own
empire."
I don't know how I missed this tome in my list of paranoid
rants tacked onto the end of my
Book Roundup entry on Christopher Rufo, as it's basically
Rufo's thesis backed up with more historical special pleading.
I do wonder, though, how you could get from Grover Cleveland's
America to world-topping empire and wealth except through the
progressive machinations of the Roosevelts and their followers.
The Amazon page for
Slack's book doesn't mention "Red Caesarism," which seems to be
the idea that Trump should seize power next chance he gets, and
dispense with all the other trappings of democracy. At this point,
the article shifts to Michael Anton's The Stakes, about
which I previously wrote:
Michael Anton: The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return
(2020, Regnery): Publisher is all the signal you need, but here's some
background: Anton wrote a famous essay calling 2016 "The Flight 93
Election," because he figured it was better to storm the cockpit and
crash the plane than to let Hillary Clinton win. He explains "the
stakes" here: "The Democratic Party has become the party of 'identity
politics' -- and every one of those identities is defined against a
unifying national heritage of patriotism, pride in America's past, and
hope for a shared future. . . . Against them is a divided Republican
Party. Gravely misunderstanding the opposition, old-style Republicans
still seek bipartisanship and accommodation, wrongly assuming that
Democrats care about playing by the tiresome old rules laid down in
the Constitution and other fundamental charters of American liberty."
While I'm skeptical both of Trump's chances of winning in 2024,
and even more so of his ability to seize total personal control of
the government (as, sorry but there is no clearer example, Hitler
did upon being appointed chancellor in 1933). Still, it is pretty
clear that he would like to, and that he will go out of his way to
hire people who have ideas about how to go about it (some of whom
he'll have to spring from jail), but these will largely be the
same sorts that talked him into thinking Jan. 6 was a bully idea.
Zack Beauchamp
announced: "I'm really excited to announce that I have written my
first book!" The title is: The Reactionary Spirit: How America's
Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World. I'd be real
tempted to order a copy, but right now I'm bummed that there sems to
be another year until publication date (next year, maybe fall). I've
always imagined that if I could get my book written in the next 3-4
months, say, it could still appear several months before the 2024
election.
Beauchamp has been writing more/less philosophical pieces in
Vox for several years now. I've followed these with interest,
as they dovetail nicely with my own thinking. He described his
book in multiple tweets, collected and numbered here:
- Democracy as a system is based the idea that all people are
political equals. As such, it empowers people to challenge existing
social hierarchies through the political system -- which we saw, to
a globally unprecedented degree, in the second half of the 20th
century.
- This forces defenders of existing hierarchy to make a choice:
fight social change through the system, or turn against democracy
itself. The impulse to make the latter choice is what I call "the
reactionary spirit," and it is at the heart of today's global
democratic crisis.
- The reactionary spirit has threatened democracy since its
earliest modern stirrings. But today's reactionary politics is
different in a crucial respect: it pretends to be
democratic.
- In The Reactionary Spirit, I argue that this reflects
democracy's ideological triumphs. While reactionaries in the past
openly rallied for alternative systems, like monarchy or fascism,
today's reactionaries understand that democracy remains ideologically
dominant.
- This is a very longstanding pattern in one place -- the United
States, a country whose home-grown authoritarian tradition has
always claimed to be democratic. The 20th and 21st centuries,
I argue, have seen an Americanization of global reactionary politics
in this key respect.
- The Reactionary Spirit engages deeply with reactionary
political movements and thinkers, like John C. Calhoun and Carl
Schmitt. It focuses on four case studies to illustrate the nature
of our global crisis: the US, Hungary, Israel, and India.
- There's much more in the book, of course. I'll keep talking
about it till publication date -- looking to be late summer or
early fall 2024. The Reactionary Spirit synthesizes a decade
of thinking and reporting about democratic crisis. I am so excited
to share it with you.
I also see that a book is coming out in January, 2024, by Hunter
Walker and Luppe B. Luppen, titled The Truce: Progressives,
Centrists, and the Future of the Democratic Party (from
WW Norton). The key here isn't that the leftists became
reasonable -- we've long been eager to work on real even if
piecemeal solutions -- but that the centrists finally started
to realize that their approaches, which most often tried to
incorporate right-wing talking points while slightly toning
them down, weren't working, either for winning elections or
for making tangible improvements (which are always hard when
you're not winning elections).
As I was trying to wrap this up, I ran across this
Nate Silver tweet:
I am a statistician. I'm also a statistician with a good bullshit
detector.
There is little variation in age by state. And to the extent
there is, it doesn't argue in your favor. The four oldest states
are West Virginia (very red), Florida (pretty red), Maine (pretty
blue) and Vermont (very blue).
What are their COVID death rates (per 1M population) since
Feb. 1, 2021 (i.e. post-vaccine?):
- West Virginia: 3454
- Florida: 2992
- Maine: 1881
- Vermont: 1210
These states all have the ~same elderly population, and yet there
are huge variations in COVID death rates that line up 1:1 with partisan
differences in vaccine uptake.
In another
tweet, Silver noted:
Republicans have the same death rates as Democrats until the
introduction of vaccines, then they start dying at much higher
rates. That's a very useful first approximation.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, September 24, 2023
Speaking of Which
Got a late start, as I thought it was more important to get my
oft-delayed
Book
Roundup post out first. Still, I didn't have much trouble
finding pieces this week. Seems like there should be more here
on the UAW strike, but I didn't land on much that I hadn't
noted previously.
Top story threads:
Trump, DeSantis, and other Republicans: Trump did very
little of note last week, so it's time to merge him back into the
field.
Mariana Alfaro/Marisa Iati: [09-22]
As UAW strike expands, here's where the 2024 presidential candidates
stand. They all blame Biden. Everything's Biden's fault, all the
time, doesn't matter what. But also, Tim Scott wants to see all the
striking workers fired. He didn't explain how they're going to hire
replacement workers. Maybe by spending billions of dollars moving
their plants to South Carolina, like Boeing did?
Ryan Cooper: [09-19]
The GOP is the party of corrupt oligarchy: "In Texas, Attorney
General Ken Paxton escaped conviction after being impeached."
Gabriella Ferrigine: [09-19]
Giuliani says it's a "shame" he's being sued by ex-lawyer:
Robert Costello, whose firm claims they are still owed $1.35
million.
Kelly Garrity: [09-20]
DeSantis: Humans are 'safer than ever' from effects of climate
change: "The comments come less than a year after Hurricane
Ian left more than 100 people dead in Florida."
Joan E Greve: [09-21]
McCarthy says hard-right Republicans 'want to burn whole place down'.
For the first time ever, McCarthy couldn't even pass a Defense spending
bill.
Carl Hulse: [09-23]
The wrecking-ball caucus: How the far right brought Washington to its
knees: "Right-wing Republicans who represent a minority in their
party and in Congress have succeeded in sowing mass dysfunction,
spoiling for a shutdown, an impeachment and a House coup." But in
this they're just following the playbook of past Republican leaders
like Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney, pressing every available lever
for maximum impact.
Spencer Kimball: [09-22]
United Auto Workers files labor complaint against Sen. Tim Scott for
saying striking workers should be fired.
Jason Linkins: [09-22]
The looming government shutdown is not the fault of dysfunction:
"There's only one culprit for the chaos gripping Capitol Hill -- the
Republican Party." Advice to Democrats: "There's no need to get
involved. What Republicans are enduring can't be solved by rational
people appealing to better natures that don't exist."
Nicole Narea: [09-18]
How Florida became the center of the Republican universe: "Why
Florida went red -- and will probably stay that way." This is part
of a series of pieces Vox is running on
The United States of Florida.
Naomi Nix/Cat Zakrzewski/Joseph Menn: [09-23]
Misinformation research is buckling under GOP legal attacks:
"An escalating campaign, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other
Republicans, has cast a pall over programs that study political
disinformation and the quality of medical information online."
Norman J Ornstein/Donald F Retti: [09-22]
GOP prez wannabes' plans for government: dangerous -- and really
dumb: "Each wants to shrink government more than the last.
And none of them knows a lick about how the federal government
actually works."
Matthew Petti: [09-22]
Nikki Haley thinks China is coming for your brain.
Emily Tamkin: [09-22]
Why the GOP fell in love with Hungary: "The central European
country isn't exactly the right-wing paradise many Republicans
portrait it as." But it does provide practical examples in rigging
a political system for perpetual one-party rule.
Li Zhou: [09-21]
The Republican vs. Republican feud behind the government shutdown
fight, explained.
Biden and/or the Democrats: I was expecting more interest
in the Franklin Foer book, but the bottom two articles are about it
here. Biden's foreign policy issues are treated elsewhere, as is the
breaking Menendez scandal.
Kate Aronoff: [09-21]
Biden takes a tiny step toward a Roosevelt-style climate
revolution: He's creating a Civilian Climate Corps, almost a
homage to Roosevelt's CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). While the
new group may also plant some trees, I suspect it will wind up
mostly on the back side of climate change: not prevention, but
clean up.
Perry Bacon Jr: [09-19]
There's a simple answer to questions about Biden's age. Why don't
Democrats say it? "Yes, there's a chance Vice President Harris
becomes president -- and that would be fine."
Marin Cogan: [09-22]
Why Biden's latest gun violence initiative has activists
optimistic: By executive order, Biden is creating a new White
House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which won't do much, but
will surely talk about it more.
Oshan Jarow: [09-21]
We cut child poverty to historic lows, then let it rebound faster
than ever before: "The expanded child tax credit was a well-tested
solution to child poverty." Since it has expired, the case is clearer
than ever.
Robert Kuttner: [09-20]
Winning the ideas, losing the politics: "Progressives have won the
battle of ideas. And reality has been a useful ally. No serious person
any longer thinks that deregulation, privatization, globalization, and
tax-cutting serve economic growth or a defensible distribution of income
and wealth." Biden has "surprisingly and mercifully" broke with the
"self-annihilating consensus" of neoliberalism that gripped and hobbled
the Democratic Party from Carter through Obama. Meanwhile, "Republicans
have become the party of nihilism." So why do Republicans still win
elections? Whatever it is -- some mix of ignorance and spite -- is
what Democrats have to figure out a way to campaign against, before
the desruction gets even worse.
Kuttner recommends a piece by Caroline Fredrickson: [09-18]
What I most regret about my decades of legal activism: "By focusing
on civil liberties but ignoring economic issues, liberals like me got
defeated on both." She recalls the opposition to Reagan's nomination
of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Liberals objected to Bork's views
on race and abortion, but completely ignored his influential reframing
of antitrust law. (For my part, I always understood that Sherman was
written to protect businesses from monopolies. The idea that its intent
existed for consumer protection was as far from "originalism" as
possible.) She also points to Ted Kennedy's pivotal role providing
liberal blessing for right-wing business initiatives, and Democratic
Supreme Court appointments being "far more business-friendly than
Democratic appointees of any other Court era." It should give us
pause that ever since 1980, income and wealth inequality has grown
even more when Democrats were in the White House. Republicans sat
the table with tax cuts and deregulation, but also depressed wages
and the economy. Democrats grew the economy, giving that much more
to the rich. Biden shows signs of breaking with some, but not all,
of this.
Nathaniel Rakich: [09-20]
Democrats have been winning big in special elections: "That could
bode well for them in the 2024 elections."
Amy Davidson Sorkin: [09-10]
The challenges facing Joe Biden: "A new book praises the
President's handling of the midterms, but the midterms are
beginning to feel like a long time ago." The book, of course,
is Franklin Foer's The Last Politician.
David Weigel: [09-12]
In books, Biden is an energetic leader. Too bad nobody reads them.
This was occasioned by Franklin Foer's book because, what else is
available? (Actually, he mentions two more books -- the same two in
my latest Book Roundup.)
Legal matters and other crimes: The Supreme Court isn't
back in session yet, but cases are piling up.
Joshua Kaplan/Justin Elliott/Alex Mierjeski: [09-22]
Clarence Thomas secretly participated in Koch network donor
events. For more on this, see Dahlia Lithwick/Mark Joseph
Stern: [09-23]
Clarence Thomas' latest pay-to-play scandal finally connects all
the dots.
Robert Kuttner: [09-12]
The stealth attack on the power to tax: "The Supreme Court could
overturn a well-established form of federal taxation."
Ian Millhiser:
[09-18]
The Supreme Courrt's new term will be dominated by dangerous and
incoherent lawsuits.
[09-20]
The Supreme Court will decide if Alabama can openly defy its
decisions: "Alabama's racially gerrymandered maps are back
before the Supreme Court, this time with a dollop of massive
resistance."
[09-22]
The Supreme Court showdown over social media "censorship," explained:
"A rogue federal court effectively put the Republican Party in charge
of social media, and now the justices have to deal with this mess."
In two separate cases, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled that the Biden
administration cannot ask Facebook to remove content (e.g., that
promotes terrorism, or spreads lies about public health), and also
that the state of Texas can force Facebook (or any other social
media company) to post things that violate the company's standards.
"These two decisions obviously cannot be reconciled, unless you
believe that the First Amendment applies differently to Democrats
and Republicans."
[09-23]
A new Supreme Court case could trigger a second Great Depression:
"America's Trumpiest court handed down a shockingly dangerous decision.
The Supreme Court is likely, but not certain, to fix it." The Fifth
Circuit decided that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
shouldn't exist, due to a technicality that they're almost certainly
wrong about.
Climate and environment:
Avishay Artsy: [09-22]
A climate scientist on how to recognize the new climate change
denial: Interview with Michael [E.] Mann, who's written at
least four books on climate change, most recently Our Fragile
Moment: How Lessons From Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the
Climate Crisis.
Lenny Bernstein, et al: [09-23]
Ophelia causes widespread flooding as storm marches up East Coast,
and Matthew Cappucci: [09-21]
Warnings issued ahead of storm set to batter the Mid-Atlantic,
Northeast:
This has been a very weird
Atlantic hurricane season, with wind shear inhibiting the
development of storms, but with ocean waters so abnormally hot
that the few storms that manage to form intensify very rapidly
Idalia is the prime example: it only formed off the coast of
Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, but reached 130 mph winds before
crossing Florida. Ophelia formed north of the Bahamas, but had
70 mph winds when it hit North Carolina. Meanwhile, hurricanes
like Don, Margot, and Nigel turned north well before reaching
North America -- Lee came closer, landing in Nova Scotia.
Scott Dance: [09-23]
Why September's record-warm temperatuers have scientists so
worried.
Brady Dennis: [09-22]
A saltwater wedge climbing the Mississippi River threatens drinking
water. New Orleans' water supply is at risk. "The Corps has
secured barges to bring in water [approximately 15 million gallons
next week] to help treatment plants reduce salinity and ensure safe
drinking supplies."
Benji Jones: [09-21]
I visited a beautiful coral reef in 2022. What I saw there this
summer shocked me.
Rebecca Leber: [09-21]
What climate activists mean when they say "end fossil fuels".
Ian Livingston: [09-22]
Atmospheric river, early-season bomb cyclone to hit Pacific
Northwest.
Kasha Patel: [09-24]
Scientists found the most intense heat wave ever recorded -- in
Antarctica: In March 2022, temperatures spiked 70°F above
normal.
Veronica Penney/John Muyskens: [08-16]
Here's where water is running out in the world -- and why.
Economic matters, including labor: The UAW strike is
escalating. It looks like the
Writers Guild has a tentative deal, after a lengthy strike,
while the actors strike continues. Republicans blame all strikes on
Biden, probably for raising the hopes of workers that they might get
a fairer split of the record profits they never credit Biden for.
Dean Baker:
[09-22]
Do people really expect prices to fall back to pre-pandemic
levels? No, unless you're a Republican, then you'll run by
promising miracles after you win, then forget about them the
next day.
[09-18]
Quick thoughts on the UAW strike: "Low pay of autoworkers;
Higher productivity can mean less work, not fewer workers; CEO
pay is a rip-off; Auto industry profits provide some room for
higher pay; Inflated stock prices for Tesla and other Wall
Street favorites have a cost; It is not an issue of electric
vs. gas-powered cars; The UAW and Big Three are still a really
big deal."
David Dayen: [09-21]
Amazon's $185 billion pay-to-play system: "A new report shows that
Amazon now takes 45 percent of all third-party sales on its website,
part of the company's goal to become a monopoly gatekeeper for economic
transactions."
Paul Krugman:
[09-19]
Inflation is down, disinflation denial is soaring: So, is the
denial fueled by people who have a vested interest in blaming Biden
for inflation? The same people who always root for economic disaster
when a Democrat is president (and who often contribute to it)? You
know, Republicans?
[09-22]
Making manufacturing good again: "Industrial jobs aren't
automatically high-paying." They do tend to have relatively high
margins, but whether workers see any of that depends on leverage,
especially unions.
Harold Meyerson: [09-18]
UAW strikes built the American middle class.
Ukraine War: Since Russia invaded in February 2022, I've
always put Responsible Statecraft's "Diplomacy Watch" first in this
section, but there doesn't seem to be one this week. They've
redesigned the website to make it much harder to tell, especially
what's new and what isn't.
Israel:
Around the world:
Zack Beauchamp: [09-20]
The wild allegations about India killing a Canadian citizen,
explained: "The killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar
in Canada has exposed a big problem for US foreign policy." There's
a list here that limits foreign assassinations to "the world's most
brutal regimes -- places like China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia,"
conveniently ignoring the US and Israel.
Edward Hunt: [09-23]
US flouts international law with Pacific military claims.
Ellen Ioanes: [09-23]
The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, explained: This is one of
a half-dozen (or maybe more) cases where the 1991 dissolution of
the Soviet Union eventually resulted in border disputes: this one
between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the latter including a region that
is primarily Armenian. This developed almost immediately into a
war, which has fluctuated and festered ever since. Several others
revolted: in Georgia and Moldova, where Russia favored separatists,
while brutally suppressing Chechen separatists. Crimea and Donbas
in Ukraine also: they didn't detonate until the pro-west coup in
2014, but now are engulfed in what is effectively a world war.
It would have been sensible to recognize these flaws at the time,
and set up some processes for peaceful resolution, but the US has
embraced every opportunity to degrade Russian power, while Russia
has become increasingly belligerent as it's been backed into a
corner.
Daniel Larison: [09-22]
Rahm Emmanuel in Japan, goes rogue on China: When Biden appointed
him ambassador to Japan, I figured at least that would keep him from
doing the sort of damage he did in the Obama White House. And here he
is, trying to start WWIII. For more details, see [09-20]
White House told US ambassador to Japan to stop taunting China on
social media.
Bryan Walsh: [09-22]
Governments once imagined a future without extreme poverty. What
happened?
Other stories:
Merrill Goozner: [09-12]
As dementia cases soar, who will care for the caregivers?
Anita Jain: [09-15]
Should progressives see Sohrab Ahmari as friend or foe? He has
a book, Tyrany, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty --
and What to Do About It, which I wrote something about but didn't
make the cut in yesterday's
Book Roundup. He's right about some things, wrong about others,
a mix that gives him to obvious political leverage, so does it
matter? The key question is whether he decides to be friend or
foe, because if he aligns with the Democrats he can hope for a
seat at the table, and he'll find people who agree with him on
most of his issues (but probably not the same people all the time).
But Republicans are never going to support his economic critique,
not so much because they love capitalism (although about half of
them do) as because they believe in hierarchical order, and rich
capitalists are clustered at the top of that totem pole.
Peter Kafka: [09-21]
Why is Rupert Murdoch leaving his empire now? At 92, he's
turned control over to one of his sons, Lachlan Murdoch. More:
Michelle Goldberg: [09-21]
The ludicrous agony of Rupert Murdoch: Draws on Michael Wolff's
"amusingly vicious and very well-timed book," The Fall: The End
of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty.
In his tortured enabling of Trump, Murdoch seems the ultimate symbol
of a feckless and craven conservative establishment, overmatched by
the jingoist forces it encouraged and either capitulating to the
ex-president or shuffling pitifully off the public stage. "Murdoch
was as passionate in his Trump revulsion as any helpless liberal,"
writes Wolff. The difference is that Murdoch's helplessness was
a choice.
Few people bear more responsibility for Trump than Murdoch. Fox
News gave Trump a regular platform for his racist lies about Barack
Obama's birthplace. It immersed its audience in a febrile fantasy
world in which all mainstream sources of information are suspect,
a precondition for Trump's rise.
Alex Shephard: [09-21]
Rupert Murdoch made the world worse: And he got very rich
doing it.
Omid Memarian: [09-14]
Lawrence Wright on why domestic terrorism is America's 'present
enemy'. Interview with the author of The Looming Tower,
one of the first important books on Al Qaeda after 9/11.
Osita Nwanevu: [09-20]
The mass disappointment of a decade of mass protest: "The
demonstrations of the last decade were vast and explosive --
and surprisingly ineffective." Review of Vincent Bevins: If
We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution.
Mostly not about America, although I can't think of any protests
here that have been notably successful. But the author starts
with Tunisia and Arab Spring, where protests were often brutally
repressed, turning into civil wars and attracting other nations
for bad or worse. But despite many bad tastes, not all of them
have been failures. And even those that failed leave you with
the question: what else could one have tried?
Andrew Prokop: [09-22]
The indictment of Sen. Bob Menendez, explained: "He and his
wife were given gold bars, a car, and envelopes of cash, prosecutors
say." How long before he joins Republicans in complaining about how
the Justice Department has been politically weaponized? This isn't
his first run in with the law. While he managed to dodge jail last
time, and even got reëlected afterwards, Democrats should do whatever
they can to get rid of him, especially as doing so wouldn't cost them
a Senate seat. It would also get rid of the most dangerous foreign
policy hawk on their side of Congress.
Gabriela Riccardi: [09-21]
Luddites saw the problem of AI coming from two centuries away:
"A new book surfaces their forgotten story -- along with their
prescience in a new machine age." The book is Brian Merchant:
Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against
Big Tech. Ned Ludd's army has long been decried, becoming
synonymous with the futile, kneejerk rejection of progress, but
we shouldn't be so quick to insist that any new technology that
can be created must be used. Indeed, we've already decided not
to use a number of chemicals that have ill side effects, and
that list is bound to grow. Certain weapons, like poison gas and
biological agents, have been banned, and others like depleted
uranium should be. There is growing reluctance to nuclear power.
Biotech and AI raise deep concerns. Of course, it would be better
to settle these disputes rationally rather than through breaking
machines, but where no resolution seems possible -- the use of
fossil fuels is most likely -- sabotage is a possibility.
Rich Scheinin: [09-22]
How Sam Rivers and Studio Rivbea supercharged '70s jazz in New
York: "On the saxophonist's centennial, Jason Moran and other
artists celebrate his legacy." I'd put it more like: jazz (at
least the free kind) nearly was effectively on life support in
the 1970s. Rivers, both by example and patronage, revived it.
Of course, he wasn't alone. There was Europe, where the most
important labels of the 1980s were founded. But in New York,
it re-started in the lofts, especially chez Rivers.
Dylan Scott: [09-22]
Another Covid-19 winter is coming. Here's how to prepare.
Also:
Nick Shoulders: [09-24]
Country music doesn't deserve its conservative reputation:
"the genre isn't inherently right-wing -- it can also broadcast
the struggles and aspirations of the working class." Shoulders
is a singer-songwriter from Fayetteville, interviewed here by
Willie Jackson. I grew up with a lot of Porter Waggoner and
Hee Haw, but didn't take country music seriously until
I met George Lipsitz, who was a leftist who became a country
music fan through organizing. I didn't need much persuasion:
all you have to do is listen. Of course, that doesn't mean
there isn't a market for jingoism in country music: any time
someone cuts a right-wing fart, you can be sure it will go
viral. Shoulders, by the way, wrote an In These Times piece
in 2020:
Fake twang: How white conservatism stole country music.
I haven't heard his albums, but will check out All Bad,
at least, for next Music Week.
Jeffrey St Clair: [09-22]
Roaming Charges: Then they walked: Starts with more horror stories
of what cops do and get away with. One story from
Reuters "documented more than 1,000 deaths related to police
use of tasers." Much more, of course. There's a chart of new
Covid-19 hospitalizations by state. Number 1, by a large margin,
is Florida, followed by Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Louisiana.
There's a fact check on a David Brooks tweet, complaining that
a hamburger & fries meal at Newark Airport cost him $78:
"This is why Americans think the economy is terrible." Same
meal was found for $17, but that didn't factor in the bar tab.
If you can stand more: Timothy Bella: [09-23]
David Brooks and the $78 airport meal the internet is talking
about.
I didn't bother reading any of the Jann Wenner scandal last
week, but St Clair couldn't resist: "There's nothing more satisfying
than to watch a pompous bigot, who has paraded his misogyny and
racism for decades with a sense of royal impunity, suddenly implode
with his own hand on the detonator." He then excerpts the
interview, meant to promote The Masters: Conversations With
Bono, Dylan, Garcia, Jagger, Lennon, Springsteen, Townshend.
A couple days later, Wenner was kicked off his board seat at the
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and denounced by most of the staff
at Rolling Stone. Most likely he'll wind up as an example
in some future book about "cancel culture." Also on Wenner:
Jia Tolentino: [09-10]
Naomi Klein sees uncanny doubles in our politics: An interview
with the author of Doppelganger.
After the Brooks flare up above, someone recommended a 2004
article by Sasha Issenberg:
David Brooks: Boo-Boos in Paradise.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, September 17, 2023
Speaking of Which
Started this on Friday, not with much enthusiasm, so many of the
early links I collected are just that. The comment on Levitz under
"Legal matters" is probably where I got started, after which I found
the Current Affairs interview.
I've tried of late to articulate moderate positions that one
might build a viable political consensus around, but lately I'm
despairing, not so much of the popular political potential as
of the probability that nothing possible will come close to what
is actually needed.
Back when I was a teenage schizophrenic, I was able to pursue
the two paths -- on the one hand I poured over political stats
as nerdishly as Kevin Phillips, on the other I immersed myself
in utopian fantasy writing -- without ever trying to reconcile
them. As an old man, I find once boundless time closing in, and
shutting down.
Just a few years ago, I was thinking that the
worst failures in American politics were opportunity costs:
wasting time and resources that could be used on big problems
while doing stupid things instead (like $800B/year on useless
"defense" spending). But it's looking more and more like the
problem is one of cognitive dysfunction, where there is little
to no hope of convincing enough of a majority that problems
are problems, and that their fantasies aren't.
Top story threads:
Trump: He was having a slow week, until NBC offered
him a free infomercial (see Berman, below). He is now virtually
assured of the Republican nomination, but also of a margin of
free publicity even exceeding his bounty in 2016 and 2020.
Ari Berman: [09-17]
The mainstream media still hasn't learned anything about covering
Donald Trump: Trump appeared on NBC's Meet the Press
in what was billed as "his first broadcast network interview since
leaving office," with Kristen Welker, nd, well, you can guess the
rest. NBC did a "fact check" after the fact, without attempting to
challenge the myriad lies it went ahead and broadcast.
Frank Bruni: [09-11]
Trump is really old, too. I don't follow Bruni's columns, but
fyi, I found links to these more/less recent ones:
Margaret Hartmann:
Kelly McClure: [09-15]
Prosecutors seek limited gag order after Trump's election case
statements lead to harassment.
Benjamin Wallace-Wells: [09-16]
The futility of the Never Trump billionaires. Paul Woodward
titled his excerpt
People are drastically underestimating the prospect of a second
Trump presidency, which sounds like something very different.
The Never Trump billionaires, like Charles Koch, are trying to
deny Trump the Republican nomination, which is going to be tough,
partly because their libertarian economics has near-zero support
even in the Republican Party, and partly because Trump is really
good at appealing to the base's prejudices and vanities. But the
chances of Trump getting elected is distinctly less than his odds
of getting the nomination of a Party that works 24/7 to make most
Americans fear and despise them. For Trump to win, there has to
be a fairly major meltdown on the Democratic ticket, which with
Biden and Harris already slotted is something hard to rule out.
As for the Never Trumpers, don't expect them to help defeat
Trump if/when he's nominated. Koch will continue to bankroll
Republicans down ballot, and every Republican on the ballot
will dutifully support the ticket. Division with in the Party
is a chimera, because what binds the Party together, especially
the cruelty, the graft, and the contempt for democracy, is far
stronger than the quibbles of a few elites over Trump.
DeSantis, and other Republicans: The Florida governor
has done little to justify being singled out, but Steve M [09-17]
assures us:
Ron DeSantis is still first runner-up, based on a recent
straw poll. He also argues, "I'd like DeSantis to be the
nominee, because he appears to be a much weaker general election
candidate than Trump," and has some charts that seem to support
his case.
Olivia Alafriz: [09-16]
Texas Senate acquits AG Ken Paxton on all corruption charges:
His impeachment moved me to ask the question, "when was the last
time an office holder was deemed too corrupt for the Texas lege?"
Since I never got an answer, I don't know whether they lowered
the bar, or never had one in the first place. But this was the
only opportunity since Nixon for Republicans to discipline one
of their own, and they've failed spectacularly.
Jonathan Chait: [09-13]
Mitt Romney and the doomed nobility of Republican moderation:
"The party's last antiauthoritarian walks away." It's silly to
get all bleary-eyed here. He isn't that moderate, noble, and/or
antiauthoritarian. Chait quotes Geoffrey Kabaservice, totally
ignoring the face that Romney ran hard right from day one of his
2012 (or for that matter his 2008) campaign, going so far as to
pick Koch favorite Paul Ryan as his VP. And he's old enough to
make his age concerns credible. And he's rich enough he doesn't
need the usual post-Senate sinecure on K Street. That he also
took the opportunity to chide Biden and Trump is also typical
of his considerable self-esteem. But it also saves him the
trouble of having to run not on his name but on his record --
much as he did after one term as governor of Massachusetts.
Also on Romney:
Sarah Jones: [09-13]
The enemies of America's children. This could be more partisan,
not that Joe Manchin doesn't deserve to be called out, but he's
only effective as a right-wing jerk because he's backed up by a
solid block of 49-50 Republicans.
Relevant here:
Nikki McCann Ramirez: [09-14]
DeSantis lived large on undisclosed private flights and lavish
trips: What is it about Republican politicians that makes
them think that just because they cater to every whim of their
billionaire masters, they're entitled to live like them?
Bill Scher: [09-14]
A shutdown will be the GOP's fault, and everyone in Washington knows
it.
Matt Stieb: [09-15]
New, gentler Lauren Boebert booted from Beetlejuice
musical: Another reminder that the most clueless thing a
politician can say to a cop is: "do you know who I am?"
[PS: Later updated: "New, gentler Lauren Boebert apologizes for
Beetlejuice fracas."]
Tessa Stuart: [09-16]
The GOP is coming after your birth control (even if they won't
admit it).
Li Zhou: [09-13]
Republicans' unfounded impeachment inquiry of Biden, explained:
"House Speaker Kevin McCarthy backed an inquiry despite no evidence
of Biden's wrongdoing." More on impeachment:
Jonathan Chait: [09-13]
Republicans already told us impeachment is revenge for Trump:
"They did it to us!"
Peter Baker: [09-14]
White House strategy on impeachment: Fight politics with politics.
Steve M
comments: "Are House Republicans really trying to impeach President
Biden, or do they just want him under a cloud of suspicion?" The only
way impeachment succeeds is if the other party break ranks. For a brief
moment, Clinton seemed to consider the possibility of resigning, then
decided to rally his supporters, and came out ahead. (In American
Crime Story, Hillary was the one who straightened out his spine.)
That was never a possibility with Trump, but at least the Democrats
had pretty compelling stories to tell -- whether that did them any
good is an open question. Now, not only is there no chance that Biden
and the Democrats will break, the only story Republicans have is one
their sucker base is already convinced of. So "cloud of suspicion"
seems to be about all they can hope for.
Biden and/or the Democrats: Big week for Democratic Party
back-biting. I find this focus at the top of the ticket silly and
distracting. True, Trump decided that "America is Great Again" the
moment he took office, but Democrats surely know that inaugurating
Biden was just the first step, and that lots of big problems were
left over, things that couldn't be solved quickly, especially as
Republicans still held significant levers of power and press, and
were doing everything possible to cripple Democratic initiatives.
So why do Democrats have to run on defending their economy, their
immigration, their crime, their climate, etc.? They can point to
good things they've done, better things they've wanted to do, and
above all to the disastrous right shift in politics since 1980.
Is that so hard to understand?
Liza Featherstone: [09-15]
We need bigger feelings about Biden's biggest policies: "Anyone
who doesn't want Trump to serve another term must learn to love the
Inflation Reduction Act, and despise those who seek its destruction."
This sentiment runs against every instinct I have, as I've spent all
my life learning to deconstruct policies to find their intrinsic
flaws and their secret (or more often not-so-secret) beneficiaries.
IRA has a lot of tax credits and business subsidies for doing things
that are only marginally better than what would happen without them.
Even if I'm willing to acknowledge that's the way you have to operate
in Washington to get anything done, I hate being told I need to be
happy about it. But as a practical matter, none of these things --
and same is true of the two other big bills and dozens or hundreds
of smaller things, many executive orders -- would have been done
under any Republican administration, Trump or no Trump. And while
what Biden and the Democrats have accomplished is still far short
of what's needed, sure, they deserve some credit.
Eric Levitz: [09-13]
The case for Biden to drop Kamala Harris: "The 80-year-old
president probably shouldn't have an exceptionally unpopular
heir apparent." What's unclear here is why she's so unpopular.
The whole identity token thing may have helped her get picked,
works against her being taken seriously, but probably makes her
even harder than usual to dump. But before becoming Biden's VP
pick, she was a pretty skilled politician, so why not put her
out in public more, get her doing the "bully pulpit" thing
Biden's not much good at anyway, give her a chance?
Andrew Prokop: [09-12]
Why Biden isn't getting a credible primary challenger: "Many
Democrats fear a challenge would pave the way to Trump's victory."
Responds to a question raised by
Jonathan Chait with my default answer, and pointing to four
cases where incumbent presidents were challenged (Johnson in 1968,
Ford in 1976, Carter in 1980, and Bush in 1992) that resulted in
the other party winning. Chait, by the way, replies here: [09-15]
Challenging Biden is risky. So is nominating him. Steve M
comments here: [09-15]
Do we really want to endure the 2028 Democratic primary campaign
in 2024? Evidently, there's also a David Ignatius piece, but
wrong about pretty much everything, so I haven't bothered.
Katie Rogers: [09-11]
'It is evening, isn't it?' An 80-year-old President's whirlwind
trip: Raises the question, will the New York Times ever again
publish an article on Biden that doesn't mention his age? I don't
know whether his trip to India and Vietnam was worthwhile, either
for diplomatic or political reasons. I am not a fan of his efforts
to reinvigorate American leadership after the chaotic nonsense of
the Trump years: somehow, I rather doubt that "America's back" is
the message the world has been clamoring for.
I was taken aback by Heather Cox Richardson's
tweet on this article (my comment
here), but her write up on
September 11, 2023 is exceptionally clear and straightforward,
much better reporting than the NY Times seems capable of.
Legal matters and other crimes:
Josh Gerstein/Rebecca Kern: [09-14]
Alito pauses order banning Biden officials from contacting tech
platforms. The case has to do with whether the government
can complain to social media companies about their dissemination
of false information about the pandemic. One cherry-picked judge
thinks doing so violated the free speech rights of the liars
whose posts were challenged, so he issued a sweeping ban against
the government. (That's what Alito paused, probably because the
case is so shoddy he knows it won't stand.)
For a laugh, see Jason Willick: [09-15]
Worried about Trump? You should welcome these rulings against
Biden. This is bullshit for two reasons. One is that rulings
like this are deeply partisan, so there's no reason to expect
that a restriction on a Democratically-run government would also
be applied to a Republican-run one. And secondly, Republicans
(especially Trump) would be promoting falsehoods, not trying to
correct them. We already saw a perfect example of this in Trump's
efforts to gag government officials to keep them from so much as
mentioning climate change.
Eric Levitz: [09-12]
Prisons and policing need to be radically reformed, not abolished.
This is not a subject I want to dive into, especially as I pretty
much agree with all nine of the issues he talks about (6 where
abolitionists are right, 3 where they are wrong). One more point
I want to emphasize: we use an adversarial system of prosecutors
and defenders, each side strongly motivated to win, regardless
of the truth. More often than not, what is decisive is the
relative power of the adversaries (which is to say, the state
beats individuals, but also the rich beat the poor, which gives
rich defendants better chances than poor defendants). Some of
this is so deeply embedded it's hard to imagine changing it,
but we need a system that seeks the truth, and to understand
it in its complexity (or simple messiness).
Levitz properly
questions the desire for retribution driving long sentences,
but I also have to question the belief that long sentences
and harsh punishments (which is part of the reason why jails
are so cruel) deter others from committing crimes. Sure, they
do, except when they don't (e.g., mass murder as a recipe for
suicide by cop), but the higher the stakes, the less motive
people have to admit the truth. Also, as in foreign policy,
an emphasis on deterrence tends to make one too arrogant to
seek mutually-beneficial alternatives. A lot of crimes are
driven by conditions that can be avoided or treated.
Finally, we need to recognize that excessive punishment is
(or should be) itself criminal, that it turns us into the people
we initially abhor, a point rarely lost on the punished. And one
which only makes the punishers more callous. The big problem
with capital punishment isn't that it's cruel or that it's so
hard to apply it uniformly or that some people don't deserve
it. The problem is that such deliberate killing is murder, and
as done by the state is even colder and more deliberate than
the murders being avenged.
Ian Millhiser:
Andrew Prokop: [09-14]
The indictment of Hunter Biden isn't really about gun charges:
"Prosecutors are moving aggressively because the plea deal fell
apart. But why did it fall apart?"
Also:
By the way, no one's answered what seems to me the obvious
question: has anyone else ever been prosecuted for these "crimes"
before (standalone, as opposed to being extra charges tacked onto
something else)? Also, doesn't the Fifth Amendment provide some
degree of protection even if you don't explicitly invoke it?
Li Zhou: [09-15]
The fate of hundreds of thousands of immigrants is caught in an
endless court fight: "The high stakes of the latest DACA
decision, explained."
Current Affairs: [09-15]
Exposing the many layers of injustice in the US criminal punishment
system: Interview with Stephen B Bright and James Kwak, authors of
The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of
Inequality in the Criminal Courts. Particularly check out the
section on privatized probation companies, which have come about due
to the belief that "the private sector can do things better than the
government," and that "there is a lot of legal corruption at all levels
of government."
Climate and environment:
Scott Dance: [09-15]
Odds that 2023 will be Earth's hottest year have doubled, NOAA
reports.
Nadeen Ebrahim/Laura Paddison: [09-15]
Aging dams and missed warnings: A lethal mix of factors caused Africa's
deadliest flood disaster: The weather is known as
Storm Daniel, "the deadliest and costliest Mediterranean tropical-like
cyclone ever recorded, which affected Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey as
well as Libya, where heavy rains (more than 16 inches in Al-Bayda)
caused two dams to fail, resulting in flooding that killed over 11,000
people in Derna.
Also on Libya:
Rebecca Leber: [09-13]
Climate disasters will happen everywhere, anytime. I must
say, I wasn't expecting fires in Maui and Louisiana, or storm
flooding in Death Valley and Libya, just to pick several of
the more outlandish examples.
Kylie Mohr: [09-12]
Wildfires are coming . . . for New Jersey?
Paul Street: [09-15]
Too bourgeois: Jeff Goodell's The Heat Will Kill You First:
Book review, compliments Goodell's research and storytelling skills,
then unloads on him for not putting the blame squarely on capitalism,
and concluding with a list of books that make his very point.
A Camden Walker/Justine McDaniel/Matthew Cappucci:
09-16]
Lee makes landfall in Nova Scotia with sustained winds of 70 mph.
Down from Category 5, but still an extremely rare hurricane to hit
Canada, after doing damage to the coasts from Rhode Island to Maine.
The trajectory calls for it to pass over the Gulf of St. Lawrence
and northern Newfoundland.
The UAW strike:
Ukraine War: I find it curious that despite all the
"notable progress" the New York Times has claimed for Ukraine's
counteroffensive (most recently,
retaking the village of Andriivka), they haven't updated
their
maps page since June 9. Zelensky is coming to America next
next week, to speak at the UN and to meet Biden in Washington.
Israel: This is 30 years after the Oslo Accords, which
promised to implement a separate Palestinian state in (most of) the
Occupied Territories, after an interval of "confidence building"
which Israel repeatedly sabotaged, especially by continuing to
cater to the settler movement. The agreements put the Intifada
behind, while seeding the ground for the more violent second
Intifada in 2000, brutally suppressed by a Sharon government
which greatly expanded settlement activity. The PLO was partly
legitimized by Oslo, then reduced to acting as Israeli agents,
and finally discredited, but was kept in nominal power after
being voted out by Hamas, ending democracy in Palestine.
Middle East
Eye has a whole series of articles on this anniversary,
including Joseph Massad:
From Oslo to the end of Israeli settler-colonialism.
Iran: One step forward (prisoner swap), one step back (more
sanctions as the US tries to claim Iranian protests against police
brutality and repression of women -- issues the US is not exactly
a paragon of virtue on).
Around the world:
Other stories:
Ana Marie Cox: [09-14]
We are not just polarized. We are traumatized.
Constance Grady: [09-13]
The big Elon Musk biography asks all the wrong questions: "In
Walter Isaacson's buzzy new biography, Elon Musk emerges as a callous,
chaos-loving man without empathy." Proof positive that no one should
be as rich and powerful as he is, and not just because he is who he
is.
Sean Illing: [09-12]
Democracy is the antidote to capitalism: Interview with Astra
Taylor, who has a new book: The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together
as Things Fall Apart.
Noel King: [09-15]
5 new books (and one very old one) to read in order to understand
capitalism: A podcast discussion. The old one is The Wealth
of Nations, by Adam Smith, which is somewhat more nuanced and
sophisticated than is commonly remembered. (For one thing, the
"invisible hand" is basically a joke.) The new ones:
- Jennifer Burns: Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative
(Nov. 2023)
- David Gelles: The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch
Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America --
and How to Undo His Legacy (2022)
- Martin Wolf: The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (2023)
- Jason Hickel: Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the
World (2020)
I'm not sure what I'd recommend instead, but here are a
couple ideas: George P Brockway's
The End of Economic Man: Principles of Any Future Economics
is my bible on economics, so I'd gladly swap
it for Smith. Zachary D Carter's The Price of Peace: Money,
Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes is all you
need on Friedman, plus a lot more. There are lots of books on
recent economic plunder. I'm not sure which one(s) to recommend,
but Jeff Madrick's Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and
the Decline of America, 1970s to the Present is good on the
bankers, and the Jacob Hacker/Paul Pierson books, from The
Great Risk Shift to Let Them Eat Tweets, are good on
the politics (also Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew).
Hope Jahren's The Story of More is an elegant if somewhat
less political alternative to Hickel.
Dylan Matthews: [09-14]
Lead poisoning could be killing more people than HIV, malaria, and
car accidents combined.
Kim Messick: [09-09]
The American crack-up: Why liberalism drives some people crazy.
Andrew O'Hehir: [09-14]
Naomi Klein on her "Doppelganger" -- the "other Naomi" -- and
navigating the far-right mirror universe. Klein's new book
is Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World, which
starts by noting the tendency people have of confusing her with
Naomi Wolf, then goes beyond that to show how much propaganda
from the right picks up memes from the left and twists them for
the opposite effect.
Also:
Jacob Bacharach: [09-06]
Is Naomi Klein's Doppelganger weird enough? Criticism
that promises more than it delivers, perhaps tipped off by the
by far most unflattering pics of the Naomis I've seen.
Laura Wagner: [09-11]
In Naomi Klein's Doppelganger, Naomi Wolf is more than a
gimmick.
Adrienne Westenfeld: [09-12]
Naomi Klein's double trouble: An interview with the author.
Democracy Now: [09-14]
Naomi Klein on her new book Doppelganger & how conspiracy
culture benefits ruling elite: I watched this, which is a
good but not great interview, but the reason I looked it up was
a turn of phrase that struck me as peculiar. Klein notes that:
When I would confess to people I knew that I was working on this
book, sometimes I would get this strange reaction like, "Why would
you give her attention?" There was this sense that because she was
no longer visible in the pages of The New York Times or on
MSNBC or wherever, and because she had been deplatformed on social
media -- or on the social media that we're on -- that she just
didn't exist. And there was this assumption that "we," whoever we
are, are in control of the attention, and so if this bigot gets
turned off then there's no more attention.
Of course, the New York Times reference is the one that
sticks in my craw, because I've never viewed them as "we," or even
bothered to read the thing on my own dime (or whatever it costs
these days, which is surely lots more). Klein's point is that
there is a lucrative right-wing media universe that welcomes and
supports people who lose their perch among the moderate elites.
My complaint is that the Times excludes more viewpoints
from the left than it does from the right, and those from the
left are essential to understanding our world (whereas those
from the right are mostly promoting misunderstanding).
Jeffrey St Clair: [09-15]
Roaming Charges: Just write a check. First fourth of the column
is devoted to outrageous police behavior: example after example,
impossible to summarize more briefly. Then he moves on to the War
on Terror.
Scott Wilson: [09-15]
Outflanked by liberals, Oregon conservatives aim to become part of
Idaho. There are several such secessionist movements, including
rural parts of Washington and California, where the population is
so sparse their reactionary leanings have little effect at the state
level. I only mention this because Greg Magarian did, adding: "Huh --
living in a state where your political opponents get to impose their
values on you. I wonder what the &@%$# that's like." Magarian lives
in St. Louis, so he very well knows what that's like. One could
imagine St. Louisans opting to join Illinois. If that happened,
and especially if Kansas City also defected to Kansas (which is
closer to tipping Democratic than Missouri would be without its
two big cities, and would also save Kansas from trying to poach
their teams), the rest of Missouri might as well be part of Arkansas.
In states where Republicans hold power, they're constantly passing
state laws to disempower local governments that may elect Democrats.
Florida and Texas have gotten the most press on that front lately,
but they've done that all over the map, a bunch of times even here
in Kansas. I'm not aware of Democrats behaving like that.
I finished reading EJ Hobsbawm's brilliant and encyclopedic
The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848. Only disappointment
was that I expected more details on the 1848 revolutions, but
Hobsbawm just tiptoes up to the brink, satisfied as he is with
the "two revolutions" of his period (French and Industrial, or
British). I still have Christopher Clark's Revolutionary
Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849
on the proverbial bedstand, but I also have several more books
I'd like to get to. I need to make a decision tonight.
Books post is still in progress, with 23 (of a typical 40)
books in the draft main section, and 62 partials and 229 noted
books. Looking back at the
April 28, 2023 Book Roundup, I see that I was thinking
of cutting the chunk size down, perhaps to 20, to get shorter
and more posts, but also because the length of 40 has grown
significantly with supplemental lists. I need to think about
that. I certainly have much more research I can (and should)
do. The current
draft file runs 15,531
words, of which about 1/3 is in the finished section.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, September 10, 2023
Speaking of Which
I started to work on a books post this week, which caused some
confusion when I ran across reviews of books I had recently written
something about. I'm guessing I have about half of my usual batch,
so a post is possible later this week, but not guaranteed. I'm
still reading Eric Hobsbawm's brilliant The Age of Revolution:
1789-1848, which is absolutely jam-packed with insights --
probably why I drone on at such length below on liberalism and its
discontents. I got deep enough into it to order three books:
- Franklin Foer: The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's
White House and the Struggle for America's Future (2023,
Penguin Press)
- Cory Doctorow: The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means
of Computation (2023, Verso)
- Astra Taylor: The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as
Things Fall Apart (paperback, 2023, House of Anansi Press)
I didn't bother with any reviews of Foer this week (there are
several), although I mentioned the book
last
week. I figured I'd wait until I at least get a chance to
poke around a bit. I have a lot of questions about how Biden's
White House actually works. I'm not big on these insider books,
but usually the outside view suffices -- especially on someone
as transparent as Trump. Two I read on Obama that were useful
were:
- Ron Suskind: Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington,
and the Education of a President (2011, Harper).
- Reed Hundt: A Crisis Wasted: Barack Obama's Defining
Decisions (2019, Rosetta Books).
Suskind was a reporter who had written an important book on
the GW Bush administration (The One Percent Doctrine: Deep
Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11). Hundt
was a participant, but not an important nor a particularly
successful one, so he took his time before weighing in.
Top story threads:
Trump:
Holly Bailey: [09-08]
Georgia special grand jury recommended charging Lindsey Graham
in Trump case. We now know that the Grand Jury actually
recommended prosecution of 38 people, but the prosecutor
streamlined the case to just 19 defendants. It's easy to
imagine the case against Graham, who was especially aggressive
in trying to bully Georgia officials into throwing the election
to Trump. But it's also easy to see how prosecuting Graham, and
for that matter Georgia Senators (at the time) Loeffler and
Perdue, could distract from focusing on the ringleader.
Amy Gardner: [09-08]
Judge denies Mark Meadows's effort to move Georgia case to federal
court: This was the first, and probably the most credible, such
appeal, so it doesn't look good for the other defendants.
Alex Guillén: [09-07]
Trump's border wall caused 'significant' cultural, environmental
damage, watchdog finds. Rep. Raúl Grijalva put it more bluntly:
"This racist political stunt has been an ineffective waste of
billions of American taxpayers' dollars."
Nicole Narea: [09-06]
January 6 rioters are facing hundreds of years in prison combined.
What does it mean for Trump? Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio
was sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy, the longest
individual sentence yet. Jeffrey St Clair notes (link below) that
Tarrio was initially offered a plea deal of 9-11 years, in "a
textbook case of how prosecutors use plea deals to coerce guilty
pleas and punish those who insist on their constitutional right
to a trial." He lists four more Proud Boys who received sentences
approximately double of what they were offered to plea out.
Tori Otten: [09-07]
Guilty! Trumpiest Peter Navarro convicted of contempt of Congress.
Charles P Pierce: [09-08]
Get a load of the letter Fulton County DA Fani Willis sent Jim
Jordan: "I didn't think there were this many ways to tell
somebody to fck off."
Jack Shafer: [09-08]
Donald Trump destroyed horse race journalism: "At least for
now." I guess it's hard to enjoy a good horse race when something
more than your own bet depends on it. Like whether there'll ever
be another race. Especially when you have to spend so much time
scanning the grounds for snipers and ambulances, which are the
only things about this race you haven't seen before.
Li Zhou: [09-07]
Trump faces another big legal loss in the E. Jean Carroll case.
No More Mister Nice Blog: [09-08]
So why wasn't Trump impeached for emoluments?:
It's a shame, because much of America struggled to understand the
point of the first impeachment, whereas an emoluments impeachment
would have been extremely easy for ordinary citizens to grasp: If
you use your status as president to cash in, that's illegal.
Simple. Relatable. It's like stealing from the cash register. And
he was allowed to get away with it.
The question is probably rhetorical, but the obvious answer is
that there was a faction of Democrats who thought that national
security was the only unassailable moral high ground that exists,
therefore everyone would get behind it. In the end, it persuaded
no one who wasn't going to vote to impeach Trump for any of dozens
of things anyway. Ironically, the key witnesses against Trump at
the time have become the Washington's biggest Ukraine hawks, with
the same "security Democrats" cheering them the loudest. And still
Republicans are trying to get Hunter Biden prosecuted, so you
didn't even win the battle, much less the war.
DeSantis, and other Republicans:
Fabiola Cineas: [09-08]
Republicans in Alabama still want to dilute the Black vote:
"Here's why the state's congressional maps were just struck down --
again." Interview with Michael Li.
Prachi Gupta: [09-05]
Vivek Ramaswamy and the lie of the "model minority": "The
Asian American candidate is peddling a dangerous message."
Ben Jacobs: [09-07]
RFK Jr.'s Republican-friendly Democratic presidential campaign,
explained. One revealing stat here is that his approval rate
is 28% among Democrats, 55% among Republicans.
Sarah Jones: [09-08]
'Pro-Life' or 'Pro-Baby,' Republicans can't outrun abortion.
Robert Kuttner: [09-06]
US Steel and the Fake Populism of JD Vance: I don't doubt that
Kuttner is right, but when I read Vance's op-ed,
America cannot afford to auction off its industrial base, I
was surprised how persuasive he was. Not that I buy the "national
defense" crap, but there is something to be said for local rather
than foreign owners. Of course, my preferred local owners would
be the employees themselves, whose stake would indeed be local.
Nicole Narea: [09-05]
The impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton,
explained: Or how evil do you have to be to get your fellow
Republicans to turn against you?
Will Norris: [09-06]
DeSantis loves stepping on Florida municipalities, thwarting the
popular will.
Michael Tomasky: [09-08]
Jim Jordan and Wisconsin Republicans know the law -- they just don't
care: "Conservatism is no longer defined by resistance to liberal
progress -- it's all about destroying the pillars of our democracy."
Maegan Vazquez/Amy B Wang: [09-10]
GOP presidential hopefuls take renewed aim at efforts to combat
covid. It's probably unfair to say that they want you to die,
but it's not inaccurate to say they don't care. And they really
hate the idea that government might respond to a pandemic by
trying to keep you well.
Biden and/or the Democrats:
Peter Baker/Katie Rogers: [09-10]
Biden forges deeper ties with Vietnam as China's ambition mounts:
Further proof that the only thing that can get American foreign policy
past a grudge is to spite another supposed foe.
Jonathan Chait: [09-09]
Biden or Bust: Why isn't a mainstream Democrat challenging the
president? The simple answer is that no one wants to risk
losing, not so much to Biden as to a Republican who should be
unelectable but still scares pretty much everyone shitless.
The greater left of the party isn't that unhappy with Biden,
at least as long as they don't have to think much about foreign
policy (which, frankly, is pretty awful, but so were Obama and
Clinton). The neolibs aren't that unhappy either, and they're
the ones most likely to sandbag anyone to Biden's left. Second
answer is money. Nobody's got any (unless Bloomberg wants to
run again, and that would really be stupid). But if Biden did
drop out, ten names would pop up within a month.
Lisa Friedman: [09-06]
Biden administration to bar drilling on millions of acres in
Alaska: This reverses leases granted in the late days of
the Trump administration, but only after [04-23]
Many young voters bitter over Biden's support of Willow oil
drilling, also on Alaska's north slope.
Molly Jong-Fast: [09-05]
Can Joe Biden ride "boring" to reelection? "His administration is
getting a lot done for the American people, yet its accomplishments
don't get the same media attention as Trumpian chaos."
Andrew Prokop: [09-08]
Should we trust the polls showing Trump and Biden nearly tied?
You have much more serious things to worry about than polls, but
what I take from this is that Democrats haven't really figured out
how to talk about their political differences, and the mainstream
media isn't very adept at talking about politics at all. There are
obvious, and in some ways intractable, reasons for this. The idea
of merely reporting the news gives equal credence to both sides
regardless of truth, value, or intent. Republicans are masters at
blaming everything bad on Democrats, while crediting them nothing.
Democrats are reluctant to reciprocate, especially as we've been
conditioned to dismiss their infrequent counterattacks as shrill
and snotty. The double standards are maddening, but somehow we
have to figure out ways to get past that. The differences between
Trump and Biden, or between any generic Republican and Democrat
you might fancy, are huge and important. At some level you have
to believe that it's possible to explain that clearly. But until
then, you get stupid poll results.
Legal matters and other crimes:
Climate and environment:
Kate Aronoff: [09-08]
World's wealthiest countries gather to admit continued failure to
address climate change: The G20.
Umair Irfan: [09-09]
The Southern Hemisphere, where it's winter, has been really hot
too.
Rebecca Leber: [09-08]
The oil industry's cynical gamble on Arctic drilling: "Companies
like ConocoPhillips are banking on a future filled with oil."
Rebecca Leber/Umair Irfan: [09-09]
The world's brutal climate change report card, explained: In
subheds: Coil, oil, and natural gas need to go; Everyone is doing
something, but everyone needs to do more.
Ian Livingston/Jason Samenow: [09-08]
A first: Category 5 storm have formed in every ocean basin this
year. One of them,
Hurricane Lee, is still well out in the Atlantic, and expected
to turn north before it gets to Florida and the Carolinas, but
could affect New England or (more likely) the Canadian Maritimes
(Nova Scotia and the Gulf of St. Lawrence).
Aja Romano: [09-06]
The Burning Man flameout, explained: "Climate change -- and
schadenfreude -- finally caught up to the survivalist cosplayers."
Ukraine War:
Connor Echols: [09-08]
Diplomacy Watch: Inquiry finds 'no evidence' South Africa armed
Russia. No meaningful diplomacy to report. The website has
a new design, which I don't like, mostly because it makes it
much harder to find new pieces on the front page.
Ben Armbruster: [09-05]
Why blind optimism leads us astray on Ukraine: "The
pre-counteroffensive debate in the US was dominated by claims of
'victory' and 'success' despite available evidence predicting it
wouldn't meet key goals." This is similar to the Confidence Fairy,
where Obama and his people seemed to think that the key to recovery
from the 2008 meltdown was projecting confidence that the economy
was really just fine. The effect of such thinking on war strategy
is even worse: any doubt that war aims will succeed is scorned as
giving comfort to the enemy, so everyone parrots the official line.
The final withdrawal from Afghanistan was hampered by just this
kind of thinking. The article includes a wide sampling of such yes
men cheering each other on into thinking it would all work out.
I've tried to take a different position, which is that it doesn't
matter whether the counteroffensive gains ground or not. In either
case, the war only ends when Russia and the US -- with Ukraine's
agreement, to be sure, but let's not kid ourselves about who
Putin's real opponent is -- decide to negotiate something that
allows both sides to back down. And the key to that isn't who
controls how many acres, but when negotiators find common ground.
Until then, the only point to the war is to disillusion hawks on
both sides.
Ben Freeman: [06-01]
Defense contractor funded think tanks dominate Ukraine debate:
A lengthy report, finding that "media outlets have cited think
tanks with financial backing from the defense industry 85 percent
of the time."
Jen Kirby: [09-07]
Are the US and Ukraine at odds over the counteroffensive?
Daniel Larison: [09-07]
Hawks want Biden to take the fight with Russia global:
"Walter Russell Mead thinks the West can wear down Russia by
attacking it everywhere." The first question I have is: isn't
it global already, or is he really arguing for escalating with
military action? (Syria and Mali are mentioned.) The bigger
question is why do you want to fight Russia in the first
place? I can see defending Ukraine, but the hawks seem to
be starting from the assumption the US should wage war
against Russia, and Ukraine is just an excuse and tool for
that purpose.
Anatol Lieven: [09-06]
Afghanistan delusions blind US on Russia-Ukraine: "If
Washington forgets the war's lessons, its mistakes are likely
to be repeated."
Robert Wright: [09-08]
Logic behind Ukraine peace talks grows: This is a pretty good
summary of an argument that I think has been obvious if not from
day one, at least since Russia retreated from its initial thrust
at Kyiv: that neither side can win, nor can either side afford to
lose.
Common Dreams: [09-02]
US to begin sending controversial depleted uranium shells to
Ukraine: The shells are effective at piercing tank armor,
but they ultimately disintegrate, leaving toxic and radioactive
uranium in the air, water, and soil. They were used extensively
in Iraq, and the results have been tragic; e.g., Sydney Young:
[2021-09-22]
Depleted Uranium, Devastated Health: Military Operations and
Environmental Injustice in the Middle East; and Dahr
Jamail: [2013-03-15]
Iraq: War's legacy of cancer.
Israel:
Around the world:
Daniel Handel: [09-05]
We're finally figuring out if foreign aid is any better than handing
out cash: "The rise of cash benchmarking at USAID, explained."
Ellen Ioanes:
[09-10]
What we know about Morocco's deadly earthquake: "A massive quake
near Marrakesh on Friday night has killed more than 2,000."
[09-10]
What's behind Africa's recent coups: Gabon, Niger, Burkina
Faso, Mali. And not just recent: worldwide, "from 1950 through
January 2022, there had been 486 coup attempts, 242 of which
were successful." For Africa, the numbers were 214 and 106,
ahead of 146 and 70 for Latin America.
Nicole Narea: [09-07]
Latin American abortion rights activists just notched another win
in Mexico: "The Mexican Supreme Court decriminalized abortion
nationwide. It's a big deal for the whole region."
Haris Zargar: [09-04]
India: Why Modi is fueling anti-Muslim riots ahead of 2024
elections.
Other stories:
Dan Balz: [09-09]
What divides political parties? More than ever, it's race and
ethnicity. That's what a report from the American Political
Science Association (APSA) says. My first reaction was: that's
a shame. My second was the suspicion that they got that result
because that's all they could think of to measure. It's always
possible to think of other questions that could scatter the
results in various directions. And my third is that this is
mostly an indictment of the news media, which seems completely
incapable of explaining issues in ways that people can relate
to.
Zack Beauchamp:
[09-06]
Elon Musk's strange new feud with a Jewish anti-hate group,
explained: So Musk is suing the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) . . .
for defamation? He blames them for a 60% loss of advertising revenue,
which couldn't possibly have been caused by anything he did?
[09-10]
Chris Rufo's dangerous fictions: "The right's leading culture
warrior has invented a leftist takeover of America to justify his
very real power grabs." Rufo's book is America's Cultural
Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. Rufo
is the guy whose rant on Critical Race Theory launched recent
efforts by DeSantis and others to ban its teaching, even though
it never had been taught, and thereby censoring the very real
history of racial discrimination in America, lest white people
be made to feel bad about what their ancestors did. CRT was
developed by legal scholars to show that some laws which were
framed to appear race-neutral had racist intent. This refers
to the Critical Theory developed by mid-20th century Marxists
like Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, which was very useful
in detecting how capitalism and authoritarianism permeated and
refracted in popular culture.
I spent a lot of time studying Critical Theory when I was young.
(I recently cracked open my copy of Dialectic of Enlightenment
and was surprised to find about 80% of it was underlined.) It really
opens your eyes to, and goes a long way toward explaining, a lot of
the features of the modern world. But having learned much, I lost
interest, at least in repeating the same analyses ad nauseum. (To
take a classic example, I was blown away when I read How to Read
Donald Duck, but then it occurred to me that one could write
the same brilliant essay about Huckleberry Hound, Woody Woodpecker,
and literally every other cartoon or fictional character you ran
into.) But while Critical Theory appealed to people who wanted to
change the world, it was never a plan of action, much less the plot
to take over the world that Rufo claims to have uncovered.
Beauchamp does a nice job of showing up Rufo's paranoia:
Rufo cites, as evidence of the influence of "critical theory"
across America, diversity trainings at Lockheed Martin and Raytheon
that used the term "white privilege" and similar concepts in their
documents. This, he argues, is proof that "even federal defense
contractors have submitted to the new ideology."
But the notion that American arms manufacturers have been taken
over by radicals is ridiculous. Lockheed Martin builds weapons to
maintain the American war machine. It is not owned or controlled in
any way by sincere believers in the Third Worldist anti-imperialism
of the 1960s radicals; it is using the now-popular terms those
radicals once embraced to burnish its own image.
Rufo is getting the direction of influence backward. Radicals
are not taking over Lockheed Martin; Lockheed Martin is co-opting
radicalism.
So Rufo is not wrong that some radical ideas are penetrating
into the institutions of power, including corporations. Where he
is bonkers is in thinking that the ideas are power, plotted by
some malign adversary bent on total control, trying to force us
to think (gasp!) nice thoughts. What's scary is the mentality
that views any hint of civility or accommodation as a mortal
threat. Beauchamp continues, in terms that will probably drive
Rufo even crazier:
Historically, liberalism has proven quite capable of assimilating
leftist critiques into its own politics. In the 19th and 20th
centuries, liberal governments faced significant challenges from
socialists who argued that capitalism and private property led to
inequality and mass suffering. In response, liberals embraced the
welfare state and social democracy: progressive income taxation,
redistribution, antitrust regulations, and social services.
Reformist liberals worked to address the concerns raised by
socialists within the system. Their goal was to offer the
immiserated proletariat alternative hope for a better life
within the confines of the liberal democratic capitalist order --
simultaneously improving their lives and staving off revolution.
Meanwhile, conservatives like Rufo resisted every such reform,
often histrionically, even ones they eventually came to accept
as necessary.
Jonathan Chait: [09-07]
Samuel Moyn can't stop blaming Trumpism on liberals. I only
mention this because I recently spent a lot of time writing up a
book blurb on Moyn's Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War
Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times. I'll save the
details, but note that Chait is upset because his heroes and
his muddle-of-the-road philosophy were critiqued -- he says,
incoherently. What happened was that after 1945, the New Deal
coalition was deliberately split as most traditional liberals
(like Chait, but he came much later) turned against the left,
both abroad and at home, as part of a bipartisan Cold War
consensus. They were pretty successful for a while, and with
Lyndon Johnson even did some worthwhile things (civil rights
and Medicare were big ones), but they neglected the working
class base of the party, while throwing America into nasty
(and in the case of Vietnam, hopeless) wars. So instead of
building on the significant progress of the New Deal, the
Democratic Party fell apart, losing not just to Republicans
but to its own neoliberal aspirants. How that brought us to
Trump is a longer and messier story, but it certainly got us
Reagan, and the rot that followed.
PS: I wrote this paragraph before the one above on Beauchamp,
so there's a bit of disconnect. Beauchamp talks about "reformist
liberals," which diverge somewhat from Moyn's "cold war liberals."
Chait thinks of himself as one of the former, but shares the
latter's aversion to the left. Classical liberalism contained
the seeds for both: first by individualizing society, breaking
down the traditional hierarchy, then by declaring that every
individual should have the right to "life, liberty, and pursuit
of happiness." It turns out that in order for any substantial
number of people to enjoy liberty, they need to have support
of government. Some liberals understood, and others (including
Hayek and Friedman) simply didn't care. Cold War liberals
wound up on both sides, but even those who still supported
reforms undercut them by fighting the left as much or more
than the right.
Rachel M Cohen: [09-05]
Is public school as we know it ending? Interview with Cara
Fitzpatrick, who thinks so, as in her book title: The Death
of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education
in America.
Richard Drake: [09-08]
Gabriel Kolko on the foreign policy consequences of conservatism's
triumph: I occasionally still crack open Kolko's brilliant
books on US foreign policy (both subtitled The World and United
States Foreign Policy, The Politics of War: 1943-1945,
and The Limits of Power: 1945-1954), but it's been some time
since I thought of his earlier The Triumph of Conservatism: A
Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916 (1963). The
point there is that while the progressive movement sought to limit
the manifest evils of capitalism, the actual reforms left big
business and finance in pretty good shape -- as was evident in
the post-WWI period, all the way to the crash in 1929.
Drake goes into the later books, but this piece doesn't do
much to clarify how the "triumph of conservatism" in 1916 led
to the "politics of war" in 1943. In this, I must admit I'm a
little rusty on my William Appleman Williams, but "democracy"
in Wilson's "making the world safe" slogan could just as easily
been replaced with "capitalism." That was exactly what happened
in the later 1943-54 period, when Roosevelt did so much to
revive Wilson's reputation, while forever banishing opponents,
including remnants of the anti-imperialist movement from 1898,
to obscurity as "isolationists."
Kolko's formulation also does a neat job of solving the
debate about whether Wilson was a progressive or a conservative:
he was the former to the ends of the latter. Nowadays we dwell
more on Wilson's racism, which we associate with the right, but
in his day the two weren't strangers, even if what we still
admire about the progressive idea suggests they should have
known better.
Zeke Faux: [09-06]
That's what I call ponzinomics: "With Sam Brinkman-Fried, Gisele,
and a credulous Michael Lewis at the zenith of crypto hype." On first
glance, I thought this might be a review of Lewis's forthcoming book
on Bankman-Fried (coming Oct. 3: Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall
of a New Tycoon), but it's actually an excerpt from Faux's new
book, Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering
Fall, about a conference in 2022 where Lewis was talking about
Bankman-Fried "as if he were presenting a prize to his star pupil."
Constance Grady: [09-08]
The sincerity and rage of Olivia Rodrigo: One class of story
I invariably skip past is "most anticipated," especially with
albums, because interesting albums rarely get the advanced hype
to make such lists. (TV and movies fare a bit better, because
there are many fewer of them, at least that you'll ever hear
about.) But I gave this one a spin as soon as the banner popped
up on Spotify, and then I gave it a second. If you don't know,
she's a 20-year-old singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, whose
2021 debut Sour won me and practically everyone else over
immediately (RIAA has certified it 4x Platinum). Her new one,
Guts is her second, and I'll review it (sort of) next
Music Week.
For now I just want to note that she's getting newsworthy
press:
Adam Hochschild: [09-05]
The Senator who took on the CIA: Frank Church. Review of James
Risen/Thomas Risen: The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the
Mafia, and the Kennedys -- and One Senator's Fight to Save
Democracy.
Whizy Kim: [09-08]
The era of easy flying is over: "Lessons from a summer of
hellish flights." As far as I'm concerned, it's been over for
at least 20 years, about the time when it became obvious that
deregulation and predatory profit seeking were going to devour
the last shreds of decency in customer service.
Karen Landman: [09-07]
Covid is on the rise again, but it's different now: "Covid
transmission continues to ebb and flow -- but at least the latest
Pirola variant isn't too menacing."
Prabir Purkayastha: [09-08]
Is intellectual property turning into a knowledge monopoly?
The question almost answers itself, given that the current laws
defining intellectual property include grants of monopoly (with
minor exceptions, like mechanical royalties for broadcast use
of songs). The question of "knowledge" is a bit fuzzier, but
there is real desire to claim things like "know how" as property
(read the fine print on employee contracts). A patent can keep
others making the same discovery independently from their own
work, and the tendency to chain patents can keep competition
away almost indefinitely. Copyrights, as the word makes clear,
are more limited, but once you start talking derivative works,
the line gets harder to draw. Moreover, the smaller granularity
of fair use gets, the more likely accidental reuse becomes. How
serious this is depends a lot on how litigious "owners" are,
but in America, where so much seems to depend on wealth, we
are very litigious indeed. This piece is excerpted from the
author's book: Knowledge as Commons: Towards Inclusive
Science and Technology (LeftWord, 2023).
Ingríd Robeyns: [08-28]
Limitarianism: academic essays: Author has edited a book,
Having Too Much: Philosophical Essays on Limitarianism,
with various academic papers on the problem of having too much
stuff. Fortunately, they read their own book and decided to
make it available through
Open Book Publishers, so it doesn't add to your surplus of
stuff.
Dylan Scott: [08-07]
The NFL season opener is also the kickoff for the biggest gambling
season ever: "How America became a nation of gamblers -- and
what might happen next." Few things make me more pessimistic for
the future of the nation.
Norman Solomon: [09-07]
Venture militarism on autopilot, or "How 9/11 bred a 'War on
Terror' from Hell: America's response to 9/11 in the lens of
history." Seems like every week brings enough new stories about
America's bloated, wasteful, stupid, ineffective, but still
really dangerous war culture, even beyond the ones that fit
securely under "Ukraine" and "World." This gets to the big
picture, being adapted from the introduction to Solomon's new
book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll
of Its Military Machine. The focus here is less on what
war is and does than on how it is talked about, to make it
seem more valorous and/or less cruel than it is, or just as
often, how it's not talked about at all, allowing most of us
to go about our daily lives with no sense of what the US
government is actually doing, let alone why.
Melissa Garriga/Tim Biondo: [09-08]
The Pentagon is the elephant in the climate activist room:
"The US military is the world's largest institutional oil consumer.
It causes more greenhouse gas emissions than 140 nations combined
and accounts for about one-third of America's total fossil fuel
consumption."
Maha Hilal: [09-05]
22 years of drone warfare and no end in sight: "Biden's rules
on drone warfare mask continued violent islamophobia." Author
wrote the book Innocent Until Proven Muslim: Islamophobia, the
War on Terror, and the Muslim Experience Since 9/11, so that's
her focus, but one could write much more about the seductiveness
of drone warfare for the gamers who increasingly run the military,
with their huge budgets to waste while risking none of their own
lives.
Jeffrey St Clair: [09-08]
Roaming Charges: The pitch of frenzy. Lots here, as usual,
including some links I've cited elsewhere. One I'll mention here
is a tweet by anti-woke pundit Richard Hanania: "Jimmy Buffett
taught Americans to hate their jobs and live for nights and
weekends so they could stuff themselves with food and alcohol."
Actually, he picked that trope up from country music, where he
sold most of his records before being reclassified as Adult
Contemporary. The classic formula was to transpose Saturday
night and Sunday morning, but many singers never got to the
latter (or only did so in niche albums).
PS: I mentioned Biden's stop in Vietnam above, but hadn't
seen this article: Katie Rogers: [09-11]
'It is evening, isn't it?' An 80-year-old president's whirlwind
trip. Which focuses more on his age and foibles than on the
diplomatic mission, showing once again that the mainstream press
would rather focus on appearance than substance. Why does "the
rigors of globe-trotting statesmanship" even matter? I'd rather
prefer to have fewer photo-ops and more actual communication.
But the reason I bring this piece up isn't to rag on the sorely
atrophied art of journalism yet again. I found
this tweet by Heather Cox Richardson, which pointed me to the
article, even more disturbing:
Here's what I don't get: this administration's reworking of global
relationships is the biggest story in at least a generation in
foreign affairs -- probably more. Why on earth would you downplay
that major story to focus on Biden's well-earned weariness after
an epic all-nighter?
No doubt Biden has been very busy on that front, but it's hard
to tell what it all means, which makes it hard to agree that it's
big, harder still that it's good. GW Bush did at least as much
"reworking," but his assertion of imperial prerogatives wound up
undermining any possibility of international cooperation, and
more often than not backfired. Obama tried to unwind some of
Bush's overreach, and negotiated openings with Iran and Cuba,
but left the basic unilateral posture in place. Trump did more
in less time, but was too erratic, greedy, and confused to set
a clear direction.
Biden, on the other hand, is mostly intent
on patching up the mess Trump made, without addressing any of
the underlying problems. And because he's left the imperial
hubris unchecked, he's actually worsened relations with many
countries, of which Russia and China are the most dangerous.
On the other hand, even though Ukraine has brought us near a
precipice, he hasn't actually plunged into disaster yet, as
Bush did. It's still possible that, having reëngaged, he
could move toward a more cooperative relationship with an
increasingly multipolar world. But you can't call this a
"story" without some sense of how it ends, and that's far
from clear at the moment.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, September 3, 2023
Speaking of Which
I've been reading my old paperback copy of Eric Hobsbawm's
The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 (1962, my paperback is
a New American Library pocket edition I've had for 50+ years --
retail $1.25, so it's bound as densely as it was written. I've
always been reluctant to read old books, but this one may get
me to change my mind, or at least continue to his sequels. The
first chapter, in particular, describes the European world so
compactly yet completely that you approach the French Revolution
thinking you know all the background you need. The next three
chapters -- one on the industrial revolution in Britain, the
next on France, and a third on the Napoleonic wars -- are every
bit as compact and comprehensive.
Much of the book is quotable, but I was especially struck by
the line at the bottom of this paragraph, from Part II, where
he goes back and surveys how ownership and use of land changed
during those revolutions (p. 191, several previous lines added
for context):
For the poor peasant it seemed a distinctly hard bargain. Church
property might have been inefficient, but this very fact recommended
it to the peasants, for on it their custom tended to become
prescriptive right. The division and enclosure of common field,
pasture, and forest merely withdrew from the poor peasant or cottager
resources and reserves to which he felt he (or he as a part of the
community) had a right. The free land market meant that he probably
had to sell his land; the creation of a rural class of entrepreneurs,
that the most hard-hearted and hard-headed exploited him, instead or,
of in addition to, the old lords. Altogether the introduction of
liberalism on the land was like some sort of silent bombardment which
shattered the social structures he had always inhabited and left
nothing in its place but the rich: a solitude called freedom.
The significance and relevance here has to do with the phenomenon
where former peasants leaned to the right politically, taking more
comfort in the memory of feudal bonds to lord and church. Liberalism
here means proto-capitalism, or what CB MacPherson more descriptively
called "possessive individualism." The later Luddite revolt grew from
a similar impulse, as does Trumpism today. In all these cases, the
satisfaction of joining the right is purely emotional, as the right
is every bit as controlled by people who saw in capitalism a path to
ever greater exploitation.
The difference between conservatism and
liberalism today is that one offers a better afterlife for their
deference, and the other offers a rarely achieved hope for better
in this life. The difference between liberals and the left is that
one idealizes individuals each responsible only to themselves, and
the other emphasizes solidarity, arguing that our fates are shared,
and therefore our responsibility is to each other. Liberals like
to call Trumpists, and their antecedents back to the Dark Ages,
populists, because they look down on common people as ignorant and
prejudiced (or as one put it memorably, "deplorable"). Leftists
hate that designation, because they feel kinship with all people,
not just because that's how solidarity works, but because they
see many of those people being critical of capitalism, even when
they aren't very articulate about why.
Top story threads:
Trump:
Jeff Amy: [08-31]
Efforts to punish Fani Willis over Trump prosecution are 'political
theater,' Georgia Gov. Kemp says. It seems unlikely that the
Republican threats to remove Willis will go anywhere without
Kemp's support, but this whole episode only underscores the point
that the party that wants to use the justice system as a political
weapon is the Republican. Such politicization is a two-edged sword.
Sure, it can involve prosecuting your opponents, but it also means
protecting your partisans from paying for their crimes.
Trump's pardons were often for political allies, like Michael
Flynn, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D'Souza, and
seven former Republican congressmen, including Duke Cunningham.
Nor was Trump the first Republican to excuse and shelter their
own criminals. Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, but let the rest of the
Watergate criminals serve their sentences. GHW Bush pardoned the
Republican
Iran-Contra felons. GW Bush
commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence (later
Trump pardoned Libby). But that's just one aspect of how politics
determines Republican attitudes to law enforcement. Republicans have
pushed for draconian enforcement of borders, drugs, and "fraud" in
voting and welfare, but are extremely lax when it comes to antitrust
cases, environmental disasters, and tax evasion. They've created a
culture of corruption where they've lost all sense of right and
wrong.
Maggie Astor: [08-31]
Offering few details, Trump says he knows how Republicans should
approach abortion.
Andrew Jeong: [09-02]
Trump lawyers evoke 1931 trial of 'Scottsboro boys' in election
case. The reference is described by one law professor as
"unbelievably juvenile."
Nicole Narea: [08-31]
Trump could soon be in big legal trouble for inflating his net worth.
This is New York's civil case against his business, so no jail jeopardy,
but it cost him up to $250 million and result in him and his family
being banned from doing business in New York.
Heather Digby Parton: [08-30]
Republicans demand a ransom: Defund the prosecution of Donald Trump
or else: Or else they'll force a government shutdown.
Nia Prater: [08-31]
It turns out Trump probably didn't get $2.2 billion richer in 2014:
You mean, he lied?
Ben Protess/Jonah E Bromwich/William K Rashbaum: [08-30]
Trump, under oath, says he averted 'nuclear holocaust': I'll
leave this to Dean Baker, who tweeted: "It's pretty funny that Donald
Trump apparently thinks he prevented a nuclear holocaust and we're
supposed to worry that Joe Biden is senile."
Jennifer Rubin: [09-01]
What responsible media coverage in the Trump era would look like:
I.e., "if the media stopped normalizing the MAGA GOP."
Myah Ward: [09-03]
Meet the white Trump official behind the launch of Black Americans for
Immigration Reform.
DeSantis, and other Republicans:
Dan Balz: [09-02]
Is America ready for another impeachment? McCarthy thinks maybe so.
Hard part is figuring out what for.
[PS: Also see Peter Baker: [09-02]
Biden team isn't waiting for impeachment to go on the offensive.]
Michael Barajas: [09-01]
The "chief lawbreaking officer" of Texas finally faces trial:
"Ken Paxton evaded scandal -- criminal indictments, a staff revolt,
a whistleblower lawsuit -- for years. But his impeachment trial
starts in the Texas Senate on Tuesday." Which raises the question,
when was the last time an office holder was deemed too corrupt for
the Texas Lege? (As Molly Ivins liked to call it. She, of course,
would know.)
Emma Brown/Peter Jamison: [08-29]
The Christian home-schooler who made 'parental rights' a GOP rallying
cry: "On a private call with Christian millionaires, home-schooling
pioneer Michael Farris pushed for a strategy aimed at siphoning billions
of tax dollars from public schools." I have mixed feelings about this,
in large part because I have bitter memories of my own public schooling,
but also I think most parents are incompetent at teaching children (mine
sure were, even if they had the time, which they didn't), and also because
I really hate the idea that children "are given by God to the parents,"
who can tyrannize them at will -- I'd say there's much more need for a
children's bill of rights than one for parents. I also have this view,
based on personal experience, that while adults should be free to adopt
any religion they fancy, imposing one on children is cruel. More generally,
I think all this indoctrination focus (either for or against, and those
who claim to be against public school indoctrination are usually the
strongest advocates of imposing it themselves) simply misses the point,
which is that people will react or rebel as they see fit. One of the
few pieces that seems to understand this is Sarah Jones: [04-08]
Children are not property. I'm so impressed by that piece, I've
kept it open ever since it appeared.
Chauncey DeVega: [09-01]
From RICO charges to loyalty pledges: Trump's transformation of the
GOP into a crime mob is complete. The article quotes
Shawn Rosenberg saying something which is the core point of
chapter two of my political book (except that I drew the conclusion
from Richard Nixon):
Donald Trump and other Republican leaders have weaponized the idea
that the rule of law, democracy and democratic norms and institutions
do not matter, because all that matters is the end result. Winning at
any cost. You go for what you believe is right, and you get it in
whatever way you can.
DeVega also cites
a new poll from the Washington Post/FiveThirtyEight showing
"evidence of how a significant percentage of Republican voters
support candidates who break the law if it helps them to win
elections and get power."
Ed Kilgore:
[08-29]
Francis Suarez drops out. Will the other 2024 duds follow?
I don't see why they're calling him a "dud": he got his name in the
press when he became the last to announce, and he got his name in
again when he became the first to quit. That's two more times than
Perry Johnson.
[09-01]
If Mitch McConnell goes, the Senate could get very scary.
I don't see any reason to get sentimental over that old coot.
It's not like he hasn't done immense damage over his long term
as Senate party leader. Even if the leadership goes to someone
much worse (like Rick Scott), as opposed to just a little worse
(like John Thune/Cornyn/Barrasso), it's hard to run the Senate
as tightly as the House, especially when the margins are so
slim.
Lisa Mascaro: [08-29]
Conservative groups draw up plan to dismantle the US government and
replace it with Trump's vision.
Nicole Narea: [08-30]
A Florida hurricane and shooting are testing Ron DeSantis: I've
always thought that DeSantis's slogan
Make America Florida was a threat that would turn people away,
not something the rest of America would be attracted to. So this
week's brought more proof. On the other hand, faced with disaster,
even DeSantis recognizes he needs to tone it down a bit. One thing
you have to admit about Florida Republicans is that no matter how
much they complain about the federal government's spending, they
never take their hands back from a handout after a hurricane.
Andrew Prokop: [08-29]
The "I would simply . . ." candidate: Vivek Ramaswamy, who has
an easy answer for everything, because he doesn't understand much
of anything -- just how to con gullible people.
Greg Sargent: [08-30]
Nikki Haley's emotional plea about racist 'hate' takes a wrong
turn. "Why can't Haley just decry a horrifying white-supremacist
attack and leave it at that?" No, she also has to remind us not to
"fall into the narrative that this is a racist country." So when an
obvious racist kills someone, she feels the need to defend everyone
else -- really her fellow Republicans, who have so often exploited
racism for political gain, at least since 1964 -- from being tarred
as racists. Very few people actually believe that this has to be a
racist country, but most do get suspicious when you start denying
that it ever was: that's a lot of history to sweep under the rug,
all the way up to yesterday's newspaper.
Emily Stewart: [08-31]
The conservative boycott playbook is kind of working: "From Bud
Light to Target, right-wing anger at 'woke capitalism' is scaring
corporate America."
Kirk Swearingen: [08-20]
Guns, Republicans and "manliness": We all suffer from the right's
mental health crisis. Author also wrote: [09-03]
Can't we all get along? Actually, no -- not when the other side
behaves like that, rather belatedly in response to pretty dumb [08-02]
David Brooks column.
Li Zhou: [08-28]
White supremacy is at the heart of the Jacksonville shooting.
Biden and/or the Democrats:
EJ Antoni: [08-31]
Bidenomics robs from the poor, gives to donor class: This piece
of hackwork showed up in my local paper, along with Ryan Young: [09-01]
Don't let politicians take credit for economic recovery. Together
they give you a sense of how flailing and incoherent right-wing attacks
on Bidenomics have become: on the one hand, don't credit Biden for any
recovery, because that's just good old capitalism at work (an article
that none of them wrote when Trump or Reagan were president, but became
a staple during the much stronger recoveries under Clinton and Obama);
on the other blame everything bad on Biden, and imply that corruption
is the root of everything Democrats do (talk about projection). Antoni
is particularly ripe for his concern over "the radical disconnect
between Washington's ruling elites and working-class folks." It may
be true that much of the extra spending Biden accomplished -- the first
recovery act, the barely-bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the big
Inflation Recovery Act -- has passed through the hands of companies
that donated to Democrats (and usually Republicans, who get even more
of their money from rich donors), but most of that money has trickled
down, creating jobs that wouldn't have existed otherwise, and raising
wages in the process.
Both parties do most of their public spending
through companies, but Biden has done a much better job than previous
Democrats at seeing that spending benefit workers -- and indeed in
improving the leverage of workers throughout the labor market. Maybe
you can criticize him for not doing enough, but he clearly would have
done more if he had more Democrats in Congress (and better ones than
Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema). As for "robbing the poor," the only
evidence he has is inflation, which is simply the result of companies
actively taking advantage of supply shortages and growing demand --
lots of reasons for both, and I suppose you could blame Biden for
adding to the demand side, by giving jobs and raising wages. These
are, after all, complex issues, with many factors, but to the extent
you can isolate Biden's contribution, it clearly has helped large
segments of the economy.
[PS: Both links include author pics. I hate it when people make
assumptions about character based on looks, but I must admit I was
taken aback by this pair -- perhaps by how young they appear, and
how smiley when their messages are so disingenuous.]
Jessica Corbett: [08-30]
Biden admin proposes 'much-needed' overtime protections for 3.6
million workers.
Lee Harris: [08-07]
Biden Admin to restore labor rule gutted in 1980s.
Ben Jacobs: [09-01]
Sidelined and self-sabotaged: What The Last Politician says
about Kamala Harris. Franklin Foer's book, subtitled Inside Joe Biden's
White House and the Struggle for America's Future, is coming out
this week (Sept. 5). I've never been much of a Harris fan, but I've
also thought they should be using her more, and trying to build her
up, to make the 2024 campaign more of a team effort, reassuring voters
of continuity, should Biden's age get the better of him. Republicans
are going after her anyway, so why not lean into it and feature her
more?. For a bit more on the book, see this
Playbook column. There is also an excerpt on Afghanistan in
The Atlantic.
Harold Meyerson: [08-07]
Buybacks are down, production is up: "Bidenomics has begun to
de-financialize the economy."
Toluse Olorunnipa: [09-02]
Biden surveys Hurricane Idalia's damage in Florida, without DeSantis:
There is a photo of DeSantis (looking annoyed) with Biden after Hurricane
Ian a couple years ago. Such photo ops are normal, but Republicans often
take flak for mingling with the enemy, much as Trump did for posing with
Kim Jong Un. I wonder how much of this is because the White House Press
has nothing useful to do, but maybe if they were given fewer useless ops
they might think of something?
[PS: I see a
tweet with a New York Times: "Biden Won't Meet DeSantis in Florida
During Tour of Hurricane Damage"; but wasn't it DeSantis refusing to
meet Biden, not the other way? On the other hand, Rick Scott wasn't
afraid of having
his picture taken with Biden. DeSantis is such a wuss!]
Dylan Scott: [08-30]
Medicare's first-ever drug price negotiations, briefly explained:
Seems like a very modest first step, but looking at the list prices,
you can see how "serious money" adds up. (For you youngsters, back in
the 1970s, Sen. Everett Dirksen quipped: "a billion here, a billion
there, before long you're talking serious money"). After this ten,
another batch of fifteen are to follow. There is much more that should
be done. Such high prices are purely the result of government-granted
patent monopolies. The law could change the terms of patent use from
monopolies to some form of arbitration. Or (my preference) we could
end patents all together. And yes, I filed this under Biden/Democrats
because there is zero change of getting even this much relief when
Republicans are in power. Also see:
Legal matters: Ok, sometimes I mean illegal matters.
Obviously, Trump's crimes are filed elsewhere.
Adam Gabbatt: [08-30]
Kyle Rittenhouse sued by estate of man he killed at Kenosha anti-racism
protest: Also being sued, law enforcement departments: "They did
not disarm him. They did not limit his movement in any way. They did
not question him. They did not stop him from shooting individuals
after he started. They did not arrest him, detain him, or question
him even after he had killed two people." He is also facing two
other suits, by other people he shot (or their estates).
Caroline Kitchener: [09-01]
Highways are the next antiabortion target. One Texas town is resisting.
This sounds ridiculous, but it allows anyone to sue anyone they suspect
of "abortion trafficking," and is just a localization of a more general
trend of criminalizing assistance from friends and concerned citizens.
Conservatives think that such laws will only be used by their people
to harass others, but it's hard to imagine limits to such a potential
expanse of litigation.
Judd Legum: [08-31]
Top North Carolina judge faces potential sanctions for talking about
racial discrimination. Anita Earls, "the only Black woman on the
court, is under investigation by the state's Judicial Standards
Commission, a body largely comprised of conservative judges appointed
by North Carolina Chief Justice Paul Newby."
Amber Ferguson: [09-01]
Ohio police release video of officer fatally shooting pregnant
woman.
Alan Feuer/Zach Montague: [08-31]
Proud Boys lieutenant sentenced to 17 years in Jan. 6 sedition case:
Joseph Biggs. Prosecutors had asked for 33 years. Another Proud Boy
leader, Zachary Rehl, was sentenced to 15 years. Biggs' sentence was
the second-longest handed down, following the 18 years given to Oath
Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes.
Tom Jackman: [09-01]
Proud Boys leader gets 18 years, matching longest Jan. 6 punishment
to date: Ethan Nordean. Dominic Pezzola also received a 10-year
term..
Ian Millhiser: [08-29]
America's Trumpiest court just put itself in charge of nuclear
safety:
Judge James Ho strikes again. "Much of the Fifth Circuit appears
to be intentionally trying to sow chaos throughout the federal
government, without any regard to consequences."
Climate and Environment: Hard to find anything about it
in the US press, but they're having a rip-roaring typhoon season
in East Asia this year; e.g.:
Typhoon Saola makes landfall in China's coast after slamming Hong
Kong; and
As Typhoon Haikui barrels into Taiwan, thousands are evacuated.
These are big storms hitting heavily populated areas. Back in early
August, there was this: [08-02]
Heaviest rainfall in 140 years drenches Beijing while Typhoon
Khanun hits Japan's Okinawa. You may recall that in 2022 they
held the Winter Olympics in Beijing, so it's not exactly a place
you expect to be ravaged by tropical storms.
Jacob Bogage: [09-03]
Home insurers cut natural disasters from policies as climate risks
grow. So what happens when you can't buy (or can't afford)
insurance against actual risks? At some point, I predict that the
insurance industry will be taken over by the federal government,
because no one else can afford to underwrite it.
Matthew Cappucci: [09-01]
Idalia is gone, but peak hurricane season is looming. What's next?
There are four named storms in the middle of the Atlantic (Franklin,
Gert, Idalia, and José), where the only thing they're likely to hit
is Bermuda. Another one, Katia, is likely to appear this week, but
not much is expected of it. Beyond that, each tropical wave coming
off Africa could develop into something big.
Umair Irfan/Benji Jones: [08-30]
Why Hurricane Idalia is so dangerous, explained in 7 maps.
On the other hand: Dan Stillman: [08-31]
Hurricane Idalia wasn't as bad as feared. Here are 5 reasons.
Hit at low tide; weakened just before landfall; hit an area with
lower population; moved relatively fast; the forecast was extremely
accurate. The day difference is explains the tone shift. It's normal
to try to scare people before the fact, then to soothe them after.
Still, with sources like these, it's hard to calibrate the right
level of hysteria.
Taylor Lane: [09-03]
Monsoon rain leaves Las Vegas roads flooded.
Rebecca Leber: [08-31]
There's been a shift in how we think about climate change:
Interview with "environmental psychologist" Lorraine Whitmarsh.
My quotes, because it seems to me like less a subspecialty than
a subject of investigation, but in a world with a shortfall of
answers there's always a market for "experts" (again, my quotes).
Ian Livingston:
Sophia Tesfaye: [09-03]
Thousands trapped at Burning Man after historic flooding.
Li Zhou: [08-30]
How Louisiana -- one of the nation's wettest states -- caught on
fire.
Ukraine War: The New York Times insists
Ukraine's offensive makes progress. Elsewhere, we are warned:
Ukraine tells counteroffensive critics to 'shut up'. Meanwhile,
Sen. Richard Blumenthal says
US is getting its 'money's worth' in Ukraine because Americans aren't
dying, which suggests ulterior motives and double standards.
More stories follow, but plus ça change, etc. Even if the
counteroffensive breaks the Russian line,
doing things in the next month or two (before winter) they haven't
even hinted at in the last three months, Ukraine will remain far
short of their goal of expelling Russia from their pre-2014 borders,
and will have no real leverage to force Russia to capitulate to
their terms. And even if they could expel Russia, they'd still be
locked in a state of war until a truce was negotiated.
The only way out is to find a combination of tradeoffs
that is agreeable both to Russia and to Ukraine, and (not that they
have any business dictating terms to Ukraine) to Biden, who is
engaged in his own shadow war with Putin, and has possibly decisive
chips to play (sanctions, trade, security assurances).
Blaise Malley:
[09-01]
Diplomacy Watch: The search for an endgame in Ukraine.
[08-29]
Can sanctions help win peace? According to this report, not likely:
"Not only does economic warfare not work because it ends up hurting the
people it claims to help, but it can stand in the way of diplomacy."
I don't think that is quite right. Sanctions can, and should, be
considered a chit for negotiation, but that only works if one is
willing to relinquish them as part of an agreement. The problem is
when sanctions are seen as permanent, foreclosing negotiation. For
instance, sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq demanded regime
change, not something Hussein could reasonably negotiate. Under
such conditions, sanctions are acts of kabuki warfare, symbolic
yet reflecting hostility and a desire to harm -- a meaning that
targets cannot fail to detect, but which, due to the arbitrariness
and overreaching hubris of American foreign policy, especially the
belief that enemies can only respond to a show of force, makes it
nearly impossible to defuse. US sanctions against Russia started
way before Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and have only escalated
with each offense, paving the way to the present war, and possibly
to much worse.
The report is from International Crisis Group: [08-28]
Sanctions, Peacemaking and Reform: Recommendations for US Policymakers.
One key quote there is: "Sanctions can only help bring parties to the
table for peace talks, and provide leverage when they get there, if
negotiators can credibly promise meaningful and enduring sanctions
relief." Moreover:
The U.S. does not always make clear what parties can do that will
lead to sanctions relief. In some cases, Washington has not laid out
any such steps or it has outlined steps that are unrealistic. In
others, the U.S. was never willing to lift sanctions in the first
place. Elsewhere, Washington's communication on sanctions has been
vague, leaving targets in the dark about what might lead to reversal.
Targets can be unsure why they were sanctioned, as members of
Venezuela's electoral authority reported in 2020, or have learned
about the designations second- or thirdhand (a former Congolese
official found out about his listing from the newspaper and some
FARC members learned from listening to the radio). Some never see
the full evidence underpinning the designations -- even if they
lobby the Treasury Department. Without clarity on why they were
sanctioned and what they can do to be delisted, targets have
little incentive to make concessions in exchange for relief.
A big part of the problem is that the neocon view that talking
is a sign of weakness, and liberal-interventionist conviction that
America's unique moral legitimacy makes it a fair and necessary
judge of everyone else, has driven diplomacy from Washington,
leaving American foreign policy as little more than "irritable
mental gestures."
David Bromwich: [08-29]
Living on a war planet (and managing not to notice): Raises
the question (at least to me): if the war in Ukraine hadn't come
along, would America have invented it? ,Leaving aside the second
question (did it?), the withdrawal from Afghanistan left some
kind of void in the minds of that class of people whose sole
concern is America's military position in the world? Wars give
them meaning in life, and after twenty years of frustration in
Afghanistan and Iraq, Ukraine is some kind of dream: industry
is stoked delivering arms and explosives, while it's someone
else doing the fighting and bleeding, someone else having their
lives upended. The plotters in America haven't had so much fun
since Afghanistan in the 1980s -- another time when every dead
Russian was counted as a blow for freedom. But mostly it just
helped perpetuate the conflict, with no domestic political cost.
So of course they refuse to negotiate. Why spoil such a good thing?
After citing Roger Cohen's recent propaganda piece
(Putin's
Forever War), he notes that "Mikhail Gorbachev finally emerges
as the hero of this story," then adds:
Nowhere quoted, however, is the Gorbachev who, between 2004 and 2018,
contributed
eight op-eds to the New York Times, the sixth of which
focused on climate change and the eighth on the perilous renewal
of a nuclear arms race. Gorbachev was deeply troubled by George W.
Bush's decision to withdraw from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile
Treaty (which Putin
called a "mistake") and Donald Trump's similar decision to pull
out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Does anyone
doubt that Gorbachev would have been equally disturbed by the Biden
administration's
virtual severance of diplomatic relations with Russia?
Daniel Brumberg: [08-30]
The Russia-Ukraine Jeddah meeting reflects a changing global
order.
Stephen F Eisenman: [09-01]
Some people will hate me for writing this: End the war!
Sounds like some people already do. Every war starts with efforts
to suppress doubters and dissenters in one's own ranks, which no
one doubts happened in Russia this time, but has been relentless
here as well (albeit stopping short of arrests, unlike the World
Wars and, in some cases, Vietnam). Lately we've been warned that
casting doubt on the counteroffensive's prospects is catering to
Russia, and that even suggesting talks should begin before Ukraine
is ready implies we're eager to sell them out. My counter is that
the war will never end until negotiators on all sides decide to
end it, and that you'll never know whether that is even possible
until you've set up a forum for negotiation.
Ellen Francis: [09-02]
Nobel Prize foundation scraps plan to invite Russia, Belarus after
criticism: Ukraine may be having trouble with their counteroffensive,
but they're winning regularly at shaming international bodies into
petty slighting of Russia.
Keith Gessen: [08-29]
The case for negotiating with Russia: Draws on RAND analyst
Samuel Charap, co-author of the 2016 book, Everyone Loses: The
Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Russia.
Since then, everyone has continued to lose, the pace accelerating
with the February, 2023 invasion. I'd argue that all wars are, as
he puts it, "negative-sum games," but the case here is especially
easy.
But among "defense intellectuals," that's a minority view --
in my formulation, it would probably disqualify you permanently
from employment. Gessen quotes Eliot A. Cohen as saying:
Ukraine must not only achieve battlefield success in its upcoming
counteroffensives; it must secure more than orderly Russian
withdrawals following cease-fire negotiations. To be brutal
about it, we need to see masses of Russians fleeing, deserting,
shooting their officers, taken captive, or dead. The Russian
defeat must be an unmistakably big, bloody shambles.
The implicit assumption is that it's possible to inflict such
a defeat on Russia without further escalation or recourse: that
Putin (or some other Russian who might ascend to power) will take
such a catastrophic defeat gracefully, as opposed to, say, blowing
the world up. Note that if Putin is really as irreconcilable as
people like Cohen make him out to be, that's exactly what he would
do in that circumstance.
Joe Lauria: [08-29]
US victim of own propaganda in Ukraine War.
Anatol Lieven:
[08-30]
Few Russians wanted the war in Ukraine -- but they won't accept a Russian
defeat either. As bad as Putin has been -- for America, for Europe,
even (especially?) for Russia -- replacing him could get a lot worse.
The kind of embarrassing, punishing defeat that Cohen (above) demands
has been tried before, especially at Versailles after WWI, and tends
to backfire spectacularly.
[08-31]
Sarkozy vilified for speaking uncomfortable truths about Ukraine:
The quorted sections from Sarkozy's book seem pretty reasonable to me.
I've said all along that we should allow for internationally-supervised
referenda in the disputed territories. If Crimea, say, wants to be part
of Russia, it should be. Granted, it's harder to do now than it was
before the invasion, but it should be possible. I think that a similar
procedure should also be used to resolve disputes in Georgia, Serbia,
and elsewhere. If Scotland wishes to avail itself of a referendum, we
should allow it. It's easy enough to propose solutions on other issues
as well. But at some point Russia has to see NATO as a purely defensive
pact -- which NATO could help make more plausible with less war-gaming,
something that should be but doesn't have to be reciprocal -- and the
EU as simply an economic club, which Russia could conceivably join.
On the other hand, the US and allies need to see a path to dropping
the sanctions against Russia, and reintegrating Russia into the world
economy. Granted, there are problems with the way Russia runs itself,
but that's really their own business. One thing that would help would
be an international treaty providing a right to exile, so real or
potential political prisoners in any country could appeal to go to
some other country. It's hard to get a country like Russia to agree
to peaceful coexistence, but a necessary first step would be to tone
down the criticism, the meddling, the menace, and the isolation. In
the long run, none of us can afford this level of hostility.
Alice Speri: []
Prigozhin's legacy is the global rise of private armies for hire.
Israel:
Al Jazeera: [09-03]
Israel's Netanyahu calls for deportation of Etitrean refugee
'rioters'.
Jonathan Coulter: [09-03]
A seditious project: "Asa Winstanley's book shows how the Israel
lobby facilitated the influence of a foreign government's interests
in dictating who gets to lead the Labour Party, causing the downfall
of Jeremy Corbyn." The book is Weaponizing Anti-Semitism: How
the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn. Of course, the
Lobby is also active trying to purge any whiff of criticism from
the Democratic Party, but Corbyn was their biggest victim, all the
more critical as the Labour Party replaced him with the second
coming of Tony Blair ("Bush's poodle").
Nada Elia: [08-30]
Golda: A failed attempt to boost Israel's propaganda: There is
a new movie about the Israeli Prime Minister (1969-74), with Helen
Mirren in the title role. Looking at the film's plot on
Wikipedia, I see that it focuses on the 1973 war, when initial
setbacks led Meir to prepare to use nuclear weapons, and the immediate
aftermath, which led to recriminations over allowing those setbacks.
But it also notes: "Anwar Sadat, who like Golda Meir publicly speaks
English, agrees to establish diplomatic relations to Israel in
exchange for the return of the Sinai Peninsula." Sadat offered
that shortly after the war, but Meir didn't agree to any such deal.
That was Menachim Begin in 1979, under heavy pressure from Jimmy
Carter. By the way, one of the few stories I like about Meir is
how she casually referred to Begin, when he joined the war cabinet
in 1967, as "the fascist." (Begin doesn't appear in the film's cast,
although there are a bunch of generals, and Liev Schreiber playing
Henry Kissinger.)
Although the 1973 war occurred at the pinnacle of Meir's political
career, I doubt her leadership was any more decisive than Levi Eshkol's
was in 1967. In both wars, the key character was Moshe Dayan, and the
difference was that he was the aggressor in 1967, but in 1973 he had
to play defense, which wasn't as much fun, especially as it punctured
the air of invincibility he had built up through 1967. The key lesson
of 1973 is that if you refuse to negotiate with your enemies, as Meir
had done, they may eventually decide that their only option is war,
and at that point all sorts of bad things can happen. But to make
sense out of 1973, you need a lot more context than they're likely
to provide, especially given the usual propaganda mission.
I imagine that a more interesting film could be made about Meir
when she was younger, about how she became the only woman in the
Histadrut and Mapai inner circles, where she probably overcome the
default sexism by becoming the toughest character in the room --
not unlike Mirren's character in Prime Suspect. That would
have been a tougher movie to sell, especially without Mirren, and
it would be hard to present those times accurately, and easy to
wallow in post-facto mythmaking.
Having gone on at this length about Meir, I should close with a
quote of hers, which in my mind is possibly the most obnoxiously
self-flattering thing any political figure ever said:
When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the
Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive
them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when
the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.
But peace hasn't happened, and this attitude goes a long way to
explaining why. More on Golda:
Sonja Anderson: []
The real history behind the 'Golda' movie: A fairly detailed
biographic sketch of Meir's life, but very little to explain the
conflict leading to the 1973 war.
David Klion: [09-01]
The strange feminism of Golda. Regarding director Nattiv's
motives: "The answer seems to be that he is more interested in
rescuing the dignity of Israel's founding generation in the context
of its current political crisis." Still, that generation was at the
root and heart of Israel's later militarism and apartheid. To hold
them up as models barely rebukes Netanyahu and Ben Gvir for bad
manners.
Joseph Massad: [08-31]
Ben Gvir's racist comments are no different from those if Israel's
founders. Quotes from Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, Vladimir
Jabotinsky, David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, even the usually circumspect
Abba Eban.
Peter Shambrook: [08-25]
Policy of Deceit: Britain and Palestine, 1914-1939: An extract
from a new book of that title. One of the first books I read on the
subject was Tom Segev: One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs
Under the British Mandate, which I recommend, although there
is certainly more detail that can be added.
Richard Silverstein: [08-29]
Why the US must not add Israel to its visa waiver programme.
Around the world:
Sarah Dadouch: [08-23]
Saudi forces killed hundreds of Ethiopians at Yemen border, report
says.
Brian Finucane: [07-17]
Dangerous words: The risky rhetoric of US war on Mexican cartels:
"War talk will only serve to strain US-Mexico ties." This has mostly
come from Republicans, including Trump, DeSantis, and Lindsey Graham,
who want to outdo each other in declaring the cartels to be "foreign
terrorist organisations" and bombing them as indiscriminately like
the US bombs Somalia. More:
Ellen Ioanes: [08-27]
Zimbabwe's elections herald more of the same.
Jen Kirby: [08-29]
China's economy is slowing down. What gives? Interview with Stephen
Morgan. I'm not making much sense out of it. China's GDP growth forecast
for 2023 is 5 percent. That's less than the ten-percent growth of recent
years, but it's still double the worldwide growth rate. It's like he's
trying to measure China with rules they've never been held to.
Paul Krugman: [08-21]
How scary is China's crisis?; and [08-31]
Why is China in so much trouble? I've come to be pretty skeptical
of the China doomsayers, because, well, they've always been wrong. So
I take these pieces with the usual measure of salt, but at least there's
a plausible kernel of substance here: it seems that a big slice of the
wealth China has accumulated has been channeled into a huge real
estate bubble, which is a surefire recipe for panic and recession.
That happened here in 2008, and Washington went into a tizzy, trying
at least to save the banking class, while leaving the rest of us to
adjust on our own. So if China does reach its own "Minsky moment,"
as Krugman notes: "the next few years may be quite ugly." But does
it have to be? China managed its way through 2008 better than most,
and same for 2020, especially compared to the armchair quarterbacks
in the US financial press.
Krugman, by the way, also wrote: [08-28]
The paranoid style in American plutocrats, about the not-so-curious
vortex of "the three C's: climate denial, Covid vaccine denial, and
cryptocurrency cultism," especially common among tech moguls.
Branko Marcetic: [08-31]
The BRICS expansion isn't the end of the world order -- or the end of
the world.
Other stories:
Rachel DuRose: [08-30]
The US has new Covid-19 variants on the rise. Meet Eris and Fornax.
Bill Friskics-Warren: [09-02]
Jimmy Buffett, roguish bard of island escapism, is dead at 76:
I wasn't going to mention this here, but No More Mister Nice Blog
picked out a selection of rabid hate comments from Breitbart on
how awful his politics were (see
Jimmy Buffett, Stalinist Nazi). Warms my heart more than his
music ever did (and let's face it, I'd never turn down a "Cheeseburger
in Paradise," although I must admit I've never gone to one of his
restaurants for one). Few things drive right-wingers crazier than
finding out a rich guy identifies with Democrats. By the way, this
blog is almost always worth reading, but his piece
Public Options is especially striking, as one that gets personal --
unusual for an author whose last name is M.
Sean Illing: [08-30]
Is the populist right's future . . . democratic socialism?
Interview with Sohrab Ahmari, explaining "why precarity is breaking
our politics." You see some of this happening in multiparty systems
in Europe, where it's possible to combine safety net support with
conservative social concerns, resulting in a party that could ally
with either right or left, but at least this two-party system has
little choice to offer: you can get a better break on economics
with the Democrats, but you have to accept living in a diverse
and predominantly urban country; on the other hand, if you insist
on the old "family values," you can get some lip-service from
Republicans, but in the end their embrace of oligarchy will hurt
you. I think such people should be more approachable by Democrats,
but I'm even more certain that as long as they back Republicans,
they will be screwed.
Eric Levitz: [08-31]
Was American slavery uniquely evil? Not sure why this came up,
other than that some right-wingers are irate about the tendency to
view all (or at least many) things American as evil. As Levitz
points out, all slave systems shared many of the same evils. One
could argue that America was more exploitative because American
slaveholders were more deeply enmeshed in capitalism, but it's
hard to say that the French in Haiti and the British elsewhere
in the Caribbean were less greedy. You can argue that America was
more benign, because after the import of slaves ended, the numbers
increased substantially, while elsewhere, like in Brazil, imports
barely kept up with deaths. Plus there were many more slave revolts
in Brazil and the Caribbean than in the US -- but still enough in
the US to keep the masters nervous. As for reparations, which comes up
tangentially here, I don't see how you can fix the past. But it
would be possible to end poverty in the near future, and to make
sure everyone has the rights they need going forward. History
neither precludes nor promises that. It just gives you lots of
examples of what not to do again.
By the way, Levitz cites a piece he wrote in 2021 about Israel
and Palestinian rights:
Why is this geopolitical fight different from all other fights?
He offers three reasons, and admits one more ("Israel's role in the
Christian right's eschatology is also surely a factor"). He omits
one or two that have become even more salient since then: Israel
is an intensely militarist nation, which makes it a role model for
Americans (and some Europeans) who want an even larger and more
aggressive military front. Israel is also the most racially and
religiously stratified nation, with discriminatory laws, intense
domestic surveillance, and strong public support for establishment
religion, and some Americans would like to see some or all of that
here, as well. I only quibble on the count because the prejudices
seem to go hand-in-hand. On the other hand, many of the moderate
and left people who have begun to doubt the blind support given
Israel by nearly all politicians started with alarm at what
Israel's biggest right-wing boosters want to also do to America.
Amanda Moore: [08-22]
Undercover with the new alt-right: "For 11 months, I pretended to
be a far-right extremist. I discovered a radical youth movement trying
to infiltrate the Republican Party." But they're pretty obvious about
that.
Jason Resnikoff: [08-31]
How Bill Clinton became a neoliberal: Review of a book by Nelson
Lichtenstein and the late Judith Stein (who started work on the book
that Lichtenstein picked up): A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton
Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism. First
I have to question whether the notion that Clinton wasn't any kind
of neoliberal before he became president. The premise of the New
Democrat movement was the promise to be better for business than
the Republicans were, and Clinton's long tenure as governor of
Arkansas, as WalMart and Tyson grew from regional to national
businesses, suggests that he was good at it. Clinton certainly
wasted no time throwing labor under the bus to pass NAFTA.
Sam Roberts: [09-02]
Bill Richardson, champion of Americans held overseas, dies at 75:
Former governor of New Mexico, served 14 years in Congress, was
Secretary of Energy, held various diplomatic posts, including US
Ambassador to the United Nations, ran for president in 2008, and
engaged in more freelance diplomacy than anyone but Jimmy Carter.
Curiously, there is only one line here about North Korea ("he
went to North Korea to recover the remains of American soldiers
killed in the Korean War," as if he had nothing more to talk to
them about).
Nathan J Robinson:
[08-31]
"Conservatism" conserves nothing: "Whatever 'conservatism' is,
it does not involve the conservation of a stable climate, or the
polar ice caps, or the coral reefs, or the global food supply."
The rejoinder is that the nation and the world are too far gone
to be satisfied with just preserving the status quo, which is
why others are more likely to call them reactionaries: they see
change they don't like, and react fitfully, contemptuously, often
violently. But not all change bothers them: what they hate above
all is any challenge to the privileges of wealth, or any limit to
their ability to accumulate more. Given that one of the easiest
ways to get rich is to suck wealth from the earth, conservation
is not only not in their portfolio, it's something they dread --
etymology be damned.
[08-29]
As cruel as it's possible to be: This week's example is Fox
host Jesse Waters, who wants to make homeless people feel more
ashamed for their misfortune, and argues that "the deaths of
homeless people are a form of cosmic justice."
Kenny Torrella: [08-31]
The myths we tell ourselves about American farming. One I
should write more about, one of these days.
Bryan Walsh: [09-01]
What America can learn from baseball (yes, baseball): "Baseball
fixed itself by changing its rules. The country should pay attention."
I used to know a lot about baseball. I could recall back to the 1957
all-star game lineups. (You know, the one where the Reds stuffed the
ballot box so Gus Bell and Wally Post got more votes than Hank Aaron
and Willie Mays.) And I looked up the rest. I was part of a club a
friend started called Baseball Maniacs, out of which Don Malcolm
started publishing his Big Bad Baseball annuals. (Malcolm
was my co-founder on
Terminal Zone, and he published
my Hall of Fame study, I think in the
1998 Annual.) Then with the
1994 lockout, I lost all interest, and never returned, although
I'm slightly more aware this year than I have been since 1994.
The difference is getting the "electronic edition" of the local paper,
which is padded out with a ridiculously large sports section. While
I speed click through everything else, that got me to following
basketball more closely, so I wondered if I might pick up a bit of
baseball while waiting for the season to change. A little bit is
about right: I land on the standings page, so I know who's leading
and who's beat, and sometimes look at the stats, but that's about
all. I do know a bit about the rules changes, because I've read a
couple pieces on them.
Walsh's point is that when people get too
good at cornering the rules, it helps to change them up a bit. In
baseball, that mostly means shorter games (not that they've gotten
much shorter: Walsh says they've been dialed back to the 1980s,
but I remember games that barely exceeded two hours). Walsh has
plenty of other examples of "operating under a rule book that is
out of date," many involving the gridlock in Congress. But baseball
at least has incentive to change (although it took an insanely long
time for the NL to accept the DH, even though watching pitchers try
to hit was embarrassing even back in the 1950s).
Li Zhou: [08-31]
Marijuana could be classified as a lower-risk drug. Here's what that
means. Well, for starters it would reduce the quantity of complete
nonsense the government swears on, which might make them more credible
about drugs that pose real dangers beyond mere bad habits.
There's a
meme titled "When the actual dictionary completely nails it." The
text offers a dictionary definition:
trumpery, n.; pl. trumperies, [Fr.
tromperie, from tromper, to deceive, cheat.]
- deceit, fraud. [Obs.]
- anything calculated to deceive by false show; anything externally
splendid but intrinsically of little value; worthless finery.
- things worn out and of no value; useless matter; trifles; rubbish;
nonsense.
This idolatrous trumpery and superstition.
Trump's German family name used to be Drumpf. After a brief search,
I'm unclear as to exactly when, where, and why the name change occurred,
but it does seem like a deliberate choice, if not necessarily a fully
knowing one.
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