Quite a bit below. I figure this as a transitional week, mostly cleaning up old stuff (like EOY lists), as I get ready to buckle down and do some serious writing next week. So it helps to do a quick refresher about what's happening these days.
Although pretty much everything you need to know about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine is touched on below, you'll be hard pressed to find much of this elsewhere. The lack of urgency is very hard to square with reports of what's actually happening.
One thing I will note here is that I made a rare tweet plugging someone else's article (Joshua Frank's "Making Gaza Unlivable," my first link under "Israel" this week). I found it very disappointing that a week later the total number of views is a mere 91. (My followers currently number 627. The number of views for my latest Music Week tweet was only 142, which is less than half of what I used to get 4-6 months ago, so one thing being measured here is how many people no longer bother with X.)
Still, it is an important piece, making a point (one I tried to make last week, with fewer concrete details but more historical context) that really must be understood.
Israel:
Joshua Frank: [01-11] Making Gaza unlivable: "Or how to create an unlivable hellscape on one strip of land." Further evidence for the point I tried to make last week: Israel's essential allies, the US and Egypt, might never agree to the expulsion of two million Palestinians from Gaza, but by rendering Gaza uninhabitable, they may have no alternative. From its conception, Israel has always been a struggle to establish "facts on the ground." And, indeed, Israel's "facts" have repeatedly forced others to reluctantly cede ground. Frank provides more detail here on how Israel is undermining Gaza: flooding tunnels with salt water, leaking sewage, carpet bombing, destruction of housing and infrastructure. Moreover, similar efforts have long been used in the West Bank, where Israel's settlements are designed to monopolize scarce water resources.
Mondoweiss:
[01-09] Day 95: Fighting continues to expand into Lebanon as Israel assassinates senior Hezbollah commander.
[01-10] Day 96: Israel to face genocide charges at ICJ, battles rage on in northern Gaza.
[01-11] Day 97: Israeli bombardment continues in Gaza even as South Africa presents arguments to the ICJ.
[01-12] Day 98: Israel claims 'self defense' at ICJ, as U.S. and U.K. launch air strikes on Yemen.
Spencer Ackerman: [01-08] Israel is not promising to "scale back" its war: "As the US secretary of state shuttles to stop the war from expanding, the Israeli defense minister vows "months" more war on Gaza and suggests taking the fight to Iran."
Mohammed al-Hajjar: [01-14] In Gaza, you don't only see death. You smell it. You breathe it.
The Cradle News Desk: [01-11] Israeli army ordered mass Hannibal Directive on 7 October: "An investigation from Israel's leading newspaper indicates Israel deliberately killed many of its own civilians and soldiers during Hamas' Operation Al-Aqsa Flood to prevent them from being taken captive back to Gaza." Related to this:
Jonathan Cook: [12-20] Why is the media ignoring evidence of Israel's own actions on 7 October?
Emma Graham-Harrison/Quique Kierszenbaum: [01-13] 'It is a time of witch hunts in Israel': teacher held in solitary confinement for posting concern about Gaza deaths.
David Hearst: [01-12] War on Gaza: 100 days on, a regional catastrophe looms.
Taher Labadi: [01-13] How Israel dominates the Palestinian economy. Useful background piece, going back to the founding of the Histadrut in 1920, with its aim to exclude Jewish dependence on Palestinian labor.
Nina Lakhani:
Noah Lanard: [11-03] The dangerous history behind Netanyahu's Amalek rhetoric: "His recent biblical reference has long been used by the Israeli far right to justify killing Palestinians." This piece is a couple months old, but that's only served to further validate the point.
Mahmoud Mushtaha: [01-11] 'It's like living in a mortuary, waiting for someone to bury you': "With Israel isolating the northern Strip, displaced Palestinians in Gaza City are grappling with the immediate perils of starvation and disease."
Mat Nashed/Simon Speakman Cordall: [01-14] Israel's 100 days of relentless war on Gaza.
Peter Oborne/Angelo Calianno: [01-13] With all eyes on Gaza, Israeli settlers are waging a second Nakba in the West Bank.
Jonathan Ofir: [01-09] Don't believe Haaretz and the NYT. Israeli society fully supports the Gaza genocide. "Let's be clear: 83% of the Israeli population is not an extremist fringe. The vast majority of Israelis support the genocide -- they just call it other things, like self-defense. Did we already forget Ben-Barak's party ally Meirav Ben-Ari's claim that 'the children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves' from mid-October? Have we failed to notice that only 1.8% of Israeli Jews think that Israel is using too much firepower in Gaza?"
Anat Plocker: [01-08] How Israel's special antisemitism envoy is getting antisemitism totally (and dangerously) wrong: "In equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, Noa Tishby relies on the same conspiratorial tropes that fed Jew-hatred through the centuries."
Mushon Zer-Aviv: [01-11] Israel commits suicide of biblical proportions, and America is there to assist: "How can those claiming to 'stand with Israel' stand by and even actively support Netanyahu's atrocious government?"
Some documents:
International Jewish Collective for Justice in Palestine: [01-14] Israel's war on Gaza and our Jewish communal institutions.
National Alumni for Justice in Palestine: [01-09] The key to protecting students? Divest from genocide and uphold free speech.
UAW Labor for Palestine: [01-08] Calling for a ceasefire while making the bombs: an open letter to the UAW.
The genocide trial:
Julian Borger: [01-11] ICJ case against Israel could finally empower the genocide convention.
Jonathan Cook: [01-12] The West will stand in the dock alongside Israel at the genocide court.
Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh: [01-13] On the urgent need for provisional measures to protect Palestinians in Gaza: A presentation to the International Court of Justice.
Michelle Goldberg: [01-05] America must face up to Israel's extremism.
Ellen Ioanes/Nicole Narea: [01-12] South Africa's genocide case against Israel, explained.
Hebh Jamal: [01-11] South Africa honored the Palestinian plight, and the world was forced to listen.
Tony Karon: [01-11] South Africa's ICJ case against Israel is a call to break free from the imperial West.
David Kattenburg:
Joseph Massad: [01-11] How Israel's war on Gaza exposed Zionism as a genocidal cult.
Mitchell Plitnick: [01-10] South Africa's ICJ case could be a game changer.
Gareth Porter: [01-12] South Africa's proof of Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Megan K Stack: [01-12] Don't turn away from the charges of genocide against Israel.
Elsewhere, the world reacts to the genocide, while the US, UK, and Israel spread the war:
Danica Kirka/Fatima Hussein/Menelaos Hadjicostis: [01-13] Global day of protests draws thousands to D.C., other cities in pro-Palestinian marches.
Nadia B Ahmad: [01-11] White House strategy to counter Islamophobia means nothing while funding the slaughter of Muslims abroad.
Michael Arria: [01-11] The Shift: ADL's new report on antisemitism can't be taken seriously.
Dave DeCamp: [01-11] Iran seizes tanker in retaliation for the US stealing its oil.
Mahmood Delkhasteh: [01-12] How the mindset in Germany that led to the Holocaust now enables Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Melvin Goodman: [01-12] The United States and the Middle East: Hoist on its own petard.
Sara Haghdoosti: [01-14] Forgetting the lessons of the war on terror in Gaza.
Marjorie Ingall: [01-09] Want to understand American views on Israel? Take a look at this 1958 novel. "Leon Uris's bestselling epic Exodus -- and its hit movie adaptation starring Paul Newman -- influenced generations of Americans, from the suburbs to the State Department."
Ellen Ioanes:
Joshua Keating: [01-12] How a Yemeni rebel group is creating chaos in the global economy.
Daniel Larison: [01-10] How did Blinken avoid the 'atrocity famine' in Gaza? "After his trip the Secretary of State said a lot about humanitarian need, but nothing about Israel weaponizing food."
Branko Marcetic: [01-13] US airstrikes in Yemen are risking regional war: I have to disagree with the headline here: the airstrikes are regional war. The risk is simply that it will spread and get even worse. The great fear (or great hope, if you're Netanyahu), of course, is that the US will directly attack Iran, but that is orders of magnitude beyond stupid. To have a point, you'd have to have a plan for regime change in Iran, which means you'd have to invade a nation of 89 million people, spread out over 636,400 square miles (about 4 times the size of Iraq). Even if the US could muster a sufficient invasion force, where would they invade from? The only allies the US has in the region are across the Persian Gulf, but they literally live in glass houses. Do they really want to expose themselves to counterattack? Forgoing invasion, the US could do some damage with long-range missiles, but unless you broke out the nuclear arsenal, it wouldn't amount to much, and would invite retaliation -- Iran has a lot of intermediate-range missiles that could hit US and Israeli targets in the region. And while they don't have nuclear bombs, they could lash a barrel of HE uranium to the top of a missile and plop it into Tel Aviv (and for good measure, Riyadh), which would produce a comparable panic.
Harold Meyerson: [01-09] Bombed back into the stone age: "An American general's prescription for how we should have fought in Vietnam has been realized in Israel's war on Gaza."
Paul R Pillar: [01-12] US strikes on Yemen won't solve anything
Jennifer Rubin: [01-14] How Israel and the Palestinians go from war to peace: Sometimes, despite low expectations, you're really taken aback at how ignorant American pundits can be. "Make no mistake, however: Unless and until Hamas is eliminated as a military force in Gaza, none of this is possible. Rid Gaza of the cancer of a genocidal terrorist group and maybe, just maybe, the two sides can begin traverse the ocean of agony, pain and suffering that threatens to drown them both." Admittedly, one small edit would make a world of difference: just change "Hamas" to "Israel," and now you're really talking "genocidal terrorist group," so you might even be able to get by with just one "maybe." But eliminating Israel isn't really an option, now is it? But if Israel simply withdrew, you wouldn't have to reconcile two sides, and Palestinians wouldn't need (much less want) Hamas for defense. War over, so recovery can begin. Gaza would still need extraordinary recovery help, and part of the price of that could be the voluntary disbandment of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and any other militias in the territory. They'd just be a distraction, anyway. But pundits like Rubin can't begin to imagine this, because they can't allow themselves to recognize that Israel is the only force here with both the means and the will -- that latter consolidated and consecrated through 140 years of Zionist settlement -- to commit genocide. The Palestinians' fault in all this is their failure to figure out a way to blunt the savage force of their colonizers: violence didn't work (unlike Algeria), nonviolence didn't work (unlike South Africa), total surrender didn't work (unlike in America), appeals to international law and conscience didn't work, and the endless retreat/recycle only seems to have made Israelis more insatiable, more aggressive, and even more vindictive.
David E Sanger/Julian E Barnes/Vivian Yee/Alissa J Rubin: [01-14] U.S. and Iran battle through proxies, warily avoiding each other: "Iran wants to flex its muscles without directly taking on the U.S. or Israel, but that cautious strategy is subject to miscalculation on all sides." Or maybe this whole view is a miscalculation of US security elites, cynically stoked by Israelis who see that having a common enemy helps keep the US in line? I think it's at least as likely that Iran, having been shunned and isolated by America and its allies ever since 1979, is so desperate for friends abroad that they've wound up associating with this weird grab bag of dissidents from the US-Israeli-Saudi triad, which they have little-to-no control over. If the US actually had its own independent foreign policy, free to pursue its own interests -- which really should just be peace, stability, and cooperation, permitting sustainable economic growth for all -- the smart move would be to split Iran off from its "proxies" by allowing them to join in and share that growth.
Norman Solomon: [01-12] With attack on Yemen, the U.S. is shameless: "We make the rules, we break the rules".
Robert Wright: [01-12] Biden takes the bait in Yemen.
Philip Weiss:
Trump, and other Republicans:
Victoria Bekiempis: [01-14] Trump returns to court for new E Jean Carroll trial -- and it could prove costly.
Ryan Cooper: [01-10] Trump's lawyers invite Biden to assassinate him: "And it'll be find, so long as Biden doesn't get impeached, they implied.
David Corn: [01-11] Trump II: How bad it could be: "No need to speculate. Just listen to what he's saying."
Margaret Hartmann:
[01-08] 8 awful things Trump said in Iowa, ranked: All this from quotes:
[01-12] Rand Paul dramatically endorses 'not Nikki Haley' for president: As a peacenik, he's not as consistent or as reliable as you'd like -- or even as his father -- but he's done the least he could do in calling out Haley as a flaming threat to world peace and our own security (although in his website, he still manages to make it more about himself).
Brian Karem: [01-11] The GOP sends in the cowards: "It will be a cold day in Iowa that will test the courage of the American democracy and the cowardice of its politicians." The Iowa caucuses (Republican, anyway) will be held on Monday, and indeed it will be very cold.
Erin Keane: [01-14] "Abbott's inhumanity has no limit": Dems blame Texas governor for migrant children drowning deaths.
Kabir Khanna: [01-14] Most Republicans agree with "poisoning the blood" language.
Ed Kilgore:
[01-10] Does it matter who won the DeSantis-Haley Iowa debate? He didn't call it, but noted, "this was not, however, one of her better debate performances."
[01-11] Christie drops out after blasting Nikki Haley on a hot mic.
Paul Krugman:
[01-04] Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and politically obtuse plutocrats.
[01-11] Trump dreams of economic disaster. "Trump's evident panic over recent good economic news deepens what is, for me, the biggest conundrum of American politics: Why have so many people joined -- and stayed in -- a personality cult built around a man who poses an existential threat to our nation's democracy and is also personally a complete blowhard?" The best answer I can offer is that they know better than to take anything Trump says at face value, but they love the fact that Trump is free to say such things, and that it drives the people Krugman used to make fun of as "serious people" to fits -- not least because they suspect those serious types to be up to no good.
Michael Kruse: [01-12] 'This to him is the grand finale': Donald Trump's 50-year mission to discredit the justice system: "The former president is in unparalleled legal peril, but he has mastered the ability to grind down the legal system to his advantage. It's already changing our democracy." Long article, some of which desives from Jim Zirin's book, Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits. Trump's ability to flip the scales of justice, or simply mock them, is not just a threat to democracy, but in many ways is already his legacy, as millions of Americans have already learned to see justice as a myth, when all that really matters is power.
Trump and his allies say he is the victim of the weaponization of the justice system, but the reality is exactly the opposite. For literally more than 50 years, according to thousands of pages of court records and hundreds of interviews with lawyers and legal experts, people who have worked for Trump, against Trump or both, and many of the myriad litigants who've been caught in the crossfire, Trump has taught himself how to use and abuse the legal system for his own advantage and aims. Many might view the legal system as a place to try to avoid, or as perhaps a necessary evil, or maybe even as a noble arbiter of equality and fairness. Not Trump. He spent most of his adult life molding it into an arena in which he could stake claims and hunt leverage. It has not been for him a place of last resort so much as a place of constant quarrel. Conflict in courts is not for him the cost of doing business -- it is how he does business.
Dan Mangan: [01-12] Trump ordered to pay New York Times, three reporters nearly $400,000 in legal costs over dismissed lawsuit.
Branko Marcetic: [01-14] The long, disastrous career of Nikki Haley. Mostly focuses on her cozy relationship with corporate graft.
Calder McHugh: [12-19] 'Trump knows what he's doing': The creator of Godwin's law says the Hitler comparison is apt.
Julianne McShane: [01-12] Abbott: Texas would shoot migrants, but Biden "would charge us with murder". Well, it would be murder. The DOJ shouldn't need any political direction to prosecute that. If I'm not mistaken, the state of Texas has laws against murder also, but prosecution down there seems to be optional (or so Abbott believes).
Tori Otten: Kansas legislators to Kansas voters: You spoke loud and clear, and we don't care: "Kansas Republicans are bringing back their scheme to overturn voters on abortion."
Heather Digby Parton: [01-12] Johnson left blindsided by MAGA rebels: Or, "Marjorie Taylor Greene] is leading a MAGA rebellion against Mike Johnson."
Gabriella Ferrigine: [01-10] "Suicide for the GOP": Republicans freak out after "f**king idiots" push to oust House speaker again.
Andrew Prokop:
[01-10] Is Nikki Haley for real?
[01-10] 3 winners and 2 losers from the fifth Republican debate: In Iowa last week, just Ron DeSantis (loser) and Nikki Haley (winner). Other loser: "the viewers." Other winners? "Gimmicky website references harking back to the dot-com era"; also Donald Trump, of course.
Andrew Rice: [01-12] The fraud that made President Trump: "He and Letitia James agree, in a way, the case against him can't be separated from politics."
Amy Davidson Sorkin: [01-10] Trump's bizarre immunity claims should serve as a warning.
Emily Stewart: [01-11] Trump says a lot of stuff about the economy. What would he actually do?
Matt Stieb: [01-10] Lauren Boebert didn't punch her ex-husband after all. Original title was "Lauren Boebert allegedly punched her ex-husband in the face." It's not often you can sympathize with Boebert, but this immediately struck me as one time. He was subsequently arrested.
Zeynep Tufekci: [01-14] A strongman president? These voters crave it. Link to this piece teased: "Why some voters see Trump as really honest about the world."
Biden and/or the Democrats:
Jeff Cohen/Norman Solomon: [01-12] Magical thinking about Biden 2024 paves the way for another Trump presidency.
Lisa Friedman: [01-13] John Kerry bows out as U.S. climate envoy: "is expected to work on President Biden's re-election campaign to stress the administration's climate achievements." The ones he was supposed to spearhead? You mean, the ones no one has noticed yet?
Christian Paz: [01-12] What Democrats' panic over young voters misses: "Young voters aren't just dissatisfied with Joe Biden -- they're switching to supporting Donald Trump." Or so some polls say sometimes.
Paul Rosenberg: [01-14] Reactionary centrism: The toxic force that could elect Trump -- and kill off democracy: Pictured are Joe Lieberman and Joe Manchin, whose anti-left politics dovetails neatly with their corrupt service of corporate wealth. Cites a book by Matt Grossman and David Hopkins, Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats (2016), which Rosenberg reviewed here.
Legal matters and other crimes:
Rachel M Cohen: [01-12] The Supreme Court will decide what cities can do about tent encampments: "An Oregon case will clarify whether officials can jail or fine homeless people for sleeping outside."
Elie Honig: [01-12] The Supreme Court's silver-bullet solution to the 14th Amendment problem.
Ian Millhiser:
Climate and environment:
Umair Irfan: [01-12] 2023 was the hottest year on record. It also pushed the world over a dangerous line: "A new analysis shows 2023 exceeded 1.5C of warming on average for the first time, a key limit in the Paris Climate Agreement."
Doug Weir: [01-09] The climate costs of war and militaries can no longer be ignored: "More than 5% of global emissions are linked to conflict or militaries but countries continue to hide the true scale."
Economic matters:
Dan Baker:
[01-11] Neo-liberalism is not dead, it never lived: "In reality, the neo-liberals were simply trying to structure the market in ways that redistributed income upward, while claiming that it was all the invisible hand of the market." This reiterates the point of another piece a week prior:
[01-04] The really big lie: No one supported a free market policy on trade.
Eric Levitz: [01-09] Are $18 Big Macs the price of falling inequality? Huh? The example here has more to do with predatory pricing permitted by having an exclusive location.
John Quiggin: [01-09] Australia's cost-of-living crisis isn't about the price of groceries. It's about wealth distribution.
Ukraine War:
Blaise Malley: [01-12] Diplomacy Watch: Italy calls for diplomatic effort to end Ukraine war.
George Beebe/Anatol Lieven: [01-11] Russia's upper hand puts US-Ukraine at a crossroads.
Douglas Busvine: [01-11] Russia finds way around sanctions on battlefield tech.
Dave DeCamp: [01-11] Pentagon did not properly track over $1 billion in weapons shipped to Ukraine.
Thomas Geoghegan: [01-09] Why does Ukraine aid drive the Trump right nuts? "It's not just because the 45th president has a crush on Putin and hates Zelensky." It's because "the war it really wants to fight is at home -- on our form of government itself." One of my favorite political thinkers, but I don't buy this, on several levels. I didn't object to sending arms to Ukraine to help fend off Russian invasion, although I never bought the notion that either they or we were fighting Russia to defend democracy. Russia and Ukraine were both corrupt oligarchies with thin democratic veneer and diverging economic interests. It was credible that the ethnic Russian minority in Ukraine reacted to the 2014 elections by attempting to realign with Russia. The crisis this caused should have been negotiated away, but festered as a civil war for six years before Russia grew desperate enough to invade. Putin deserves most of the blame for this, but Russia had been pressured by NATO expansion, economic sanctions, and sharply increased military support after Biden replaced Trump. The result was a huge boost for the US arms industry -- not just directly in supplies for Ukraine but in increased sales in other NATO countries, Taiwan, and South Korea -- but at enormous costs to the Ukrainian people. The Trumpists care hardly for any of that (and, sure, democracy is one of many things they have no concern for). They simply hate Biden. They associate him with Ukraine, and more than anything else want to see him fail. Much of this is stupid domestic politics -- the Ukraine-Biden axis starts with Trump's scheme to implicate Hunter Biden, while the Democrats' fixation on Trump-Putin starts with the 2016 election interference. What neither side seems to understand is that war only destroys and degenerates. Ukraine shows us that deterrence is as likely to provoke war as to prevent one, and that sanctions mostly just harden resistance.
Joshua Yaffa: [01-08] What could tip the balance in the war in Ukraine? "In 2024, the most decisive fight may also be the least visible: Russia and Ukraine will spend the next twelve months in a race to reconstitute and resupply their forces."
Around the world:
Joseph Bouchard: [01-11] Why today's gang violence in Ecuador shouldn't shock you.
Zack Beauchamp: [01-10] How a horny beer calendar sparked a conservative civil war: "It's called 'Calendargate,' and it's raising the question of what -- and whom -- the right-wing war on 'wokeness" is really for."
Luke Goldstein: [01-09] Boeing 737 MAX incident a by-product of its financial mindset: "The door plug that ripped off an Alaska Airlines plane only exists because of cost-cutting production techniques to facilitate cramming more passengers into the cabin."
Katya Schwenk/Freddy Brewster/Lucy Dean Stockton: [01-11] Before the Boeing disaster, the company lobbied lawmakers to deregulate airplane safety.
Lucy Dean Stockton/Helen Santoro/Freddy Brewster: [01-13] Boeing's profit seeking puts passengers in danger.
Li Zhou: [01-12] The shocking Boeing 737 incident, briefly explained.
Katya Schwenk: [01-12] Nikki Haley helped Boeing hide its political spending. Somehow I missed the news that Haley joined Boeing's board between her UN ambassadorship and her presidential campaign. For a bit more on this, see:
By the way, this is old (2011), but never more relevant: Thomas Geoghegan: Boeing's threat to American enterprise:
Here is yet another American firm seeking to ruin its reputation for quality. Why? To save $14 an hour!. Seriously: Is that going to help sell the Dreamliner? . . .
At this moment especially, deep in debt, we cannot afford to let another company like Boeing self-destruct. Boeing is not a product of the free market -- it's an extension of the U.S. government. Over the years, our taxpayers have paid to create a Boeing work force with exceptionally high skills. That work force is not just an asset for Boeing -- it's an asset for the country. Why should the country let Boeing take it apart? . . .
Most depressing of all, Boeing's move would send a market signal to those considering a career in engineering or high-skilled manufacturing. It is a message that corporate America has delivered over and over: Don't go to engineering school, don't bother with fancy apprenticeships, don't invest in skills. No rational person wants to take on college or even community college debt to come out and work on the Dreamliner -- which should be the country's finest product -- for a miserable $14 an hour. If a single story in the news can sum up the reasons for America's global decline, it's the decision to build a Dreamliner that will gut the American dream.
Sarah Jones: [01-11] Death panels for women: The abortion ban in Texas. Related:
Stephania Taladrid: [01-08] Did an abortion ban cost a young Texas woman her life?
Dylan Matthews: [01-11] Do we really live in an "age of inequality"?
Harold Meyerson: [01-08] Why and where the working class turned right: "A new book documents the lost (and pro-Democratic) world of Pennsylvania steelworkers and how it became Republican." The book is Rust Belt Union Blues, by Theda Skocpol and Lainey Newman.
Nicole Narea: [01-11] How Iowa accidentally became the start of the presidential rat race: "The history of the Iowa caucuses (and their downfall?), briefly explained."
John Nichols: [12-12] Local news has been destroyed. Here's how we can revive it.
Rick Perlstein: [01-10] First they came for Harvard: "The right's long and all-too-unanswered war on liberal institutions claims a big one."
Lily Sánchez: [01-14] On MLK Day, always remember the radical King.
Michael Schaffer: [12-22] Liberal elites are scared of their employees. Conservative elites are scared of their audience. "It's hard to tell who's more screwed by the new politics of fear."
Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins: [01-10] Wendy Brown: A conversation on our "nihilistic" age: Interview with the author of Nihilistic Times: Thinking With Max Weber. Sample (and yes, this is about Trump):
All of these elements -- instrumentalized values, narcissism, a pure will to power uninflected by purpose beyond the self, the irrelevance of truth and facticity, quotidian lying and criminality -- are expressions of nihilistic times. In this condition, values are still hanging around -- they're still in the air, as it were -- but have lost their depth, seriousness, and ability to guide action or create a world in their image. They are reduced to instruments of power, branding, reputation repair, narcissistic and other emotional gratifications -- what we today call "virtue signaling."
This also raises another feature of nihilism, namely the refusal to submit emotionality to reason and a more general condition of disinhibition. . . . So once values become lightweight, as they do in nihilistic times, so does conscience and its restricting force. Conscience no longer inhibits action or speech -- anything goes. Relatedly, hypocrisy is no longer a serious vice, even for public figures.
Finally, nihilism generates boundary breakdowns and hyper-politicizes everything. Today, churches, schools, and private lives are all politicized. What you consume, what you eat, who you stream or follow, how you dress -- all are politically inflected, but in silly rather than substantive ways. "Cancel culture" -- again, on all sides of the political spectrum -- is part of this, as an utterance, a purchase, an appearance, becomes a political event and responding to it a political act! This is politics individualized and trivialized.
Brown traces nihilism back to 19th century existentialists like Nietzsche, which in turn leads her to focus on Weber. Despite an early interest in existentialism, I've never really thought of this being an "age of nihilism." But I have lately referred to Republicans as nihilists. It's hard to discern any consistent core beliefs, but more importantly they seem to have no concern for consequences of their acts and preferred policies. As for nacissism, sure, there's Trump (and a few more billionaires jump to mind). Whether this amounts to "an age" depends on how widely people support (or at least condone) such behavior. The 2024 elections will offer a referendum, and not just on democracy.
Emily Withnall: [01-13] For some young people, a college degree is not worth the debt. I can relate, as someone who forfeited the chance for a degree for economic considerations, but also with a sense of regret. "Economic considerations" are the result of policy decisions, which ultimately are bad both for the people impacted and for the country as a whole.
Li Zhou: [01-08] The Epstein "list," explained.