#^d 2023-10-08 #^h 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: [10-05] How Biden ended up building part of Trump's border wall.
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:

Ian Millhiser:
- [10-02] The Supreme Court's new term will be dominated by dangerous and incoherent lawsuits.
- [10-02] Two right-wing judges seem to be trying to rig a US House race.
- [10-03] The Supreme Court's uncharacteristic moment of sanity: "Justices considering a case against the CFPB seem unlikely to trigger a second Great Depression."
- [10-04] The Supreme Court argues about how to make a terrible civil rights case go away.
- [10-05] The high stakes in a new Supreme Court showdown over gerrymandering.
Sara Morrison: [10-04] The government's case to break up Amazon, explained. Author also wrote (with AW Ohlheiser): [10-04] 9 questions about the government's effort to break up Amazon.
Arn Pearson/David Armiak: [10-04] After 50 years, this right-wing law factory is crazier than ever: "The American Legislative Exchange Council is where corporations and far-right groups go to buy government policy."
Vishal Shankar: [10-02] Clarence Thomas has yet another huge conflict of interest: "The Revolving Door Project research reveals that right-wing elites in the Horatio Alger Association stand to benefit from a lawsuit attempting to destroy the CFPB. The group has close ties to Clarence Thomas."

Climate and environment:

Benji Jones: [10-08] It's clearer than ever that we're pushing the Amazon rainforest to its dreaded demise.
Rebecca Leber: [10-05] The propane industry's weird obsession with school buses, explained. We are pushing toward electric school buses, but they require a lot of power, are expensive up front, and have range limits that are sometimes too short. Hence the sales push for propane, which burns cleaner than diesel, but is still fossil fuel, exhausting carbon dioxide.

Economic matters:

Eric Levitz: [10-04] Are rising bond yields and deficits a national crisis?

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.)
Siobh�n 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:
- Trinidad Deiros Bronte: [10-03] Saudi Arabia punishes critical tweets with the death penalty or 45 years in prison.
- Mitchell Plitnick: [10-06] Biden's increasing pressure for a Saudi-Israeli deal: "As with past Abraham Accord agreements, it is simply a way to sell a massive military upgrade as a 'peace deal.'"
- Sarah Leah Whitson: [10-02] Five years after Khashoggi's murder, MBS is laughing.
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.

Top story threads:

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