#^d 2024-02-04 #^h Speaking of Which
No introduction for now. I really need to be working on other things. This is driving me crazy. Right now, all I really want is to move it out of the way.
Initial count: 141 links, 4726 words. Revised: 146 links, 5723 words.
After posting, I ran into a couple items that merit additional comments, mostly because they exemplify the kind of shoddy thinking that promotes war (or vice versa).
Harlan Ullman: [01-31] We don't need a Tonkin Gulf Resolution for the Red Sea. Headline is ok, but the hawks don't need one because Biden is escalating the war on his own authority -- as presidents have tended to do ever since the "blank check" war authorization Johnson secured in 1964. But nearly everything else here is wrong-headed or at least seriously muddled. The bit that got to me was "Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, diabolically designed to elicit an Israeli overreaction." He seems to be saying that Israel had no agency in the matter. And now the Houthis, having "plagiarized Hamas' Oct. 7 attack," have tricked the US into bombing Yemen, risking escalation into a broader regional war -- for which, no doubt about this, Ullman will find sinister designs in Tehran.
Of course, there is a perverse kernel of truth to this: Israel and the U.S. are such dedicated believers in security through deterrence that they feel obliged to meet any challenges with overwhelming force, with scarcely a thought given to collateral victims, let alone to how the resulting atrocities damage their credibility and their own psyches. But given their massive investments in intelligence gathering, in war gaming, and in propagandizing, it's hard to accept that their warmaking is merely a conditioned reflex, something that a marginal ideologue with a martyr complex could simply trigger. (As Laura Tillem put it: "Bin Laden was a hypnotist who said look into my eyes, you will now pour all your resources down the drain.")
Rather, they must somehow believe that terror suffices to suppress the aspirations of the disempowered people who inconveniently occupy parts of the world they feel entitled to rule. Still, they feel the need to paint themselves as innocent victims -- a claim that is only plausible in the wake of a sudden outburst, which is why Netanyahu on 10/7, like Bush on 9/11, seized the opportunity to take the offensive and do horrible things long dreamed of but rarely disclosed.
By the way, Ullman lays claim to have been the guy who thought up the "shock and awe" strategy that promised to instantly win the war against Saddam Hussein. It didn't, perhaps because only the dead were truly shocked and awed. The rest simply learned that they could survive, and resolved to fight on. But imagine, instead, the kind of people who got excited by the Powerpoint presentation. Those were the people, from Bush to the Pentagon to their affiliated "think tanks," who, intent on proving their own superiority, brought death and havoc to 20 countries over 20 years. Most were genuinely envious of Israel, which they saw as the one government truly free to impose its superior power on its region and their unfortunate peoples. So now that Israel has finally moved from systematic discrimination reinforced withsporadic terrorism to actual genocide, they're giddy with excitement. Ullman advises them to "act boldly to cripple Houthi and Islamic militant capabilities," but he's also advising a measure of stealth, unlike the "real men go to Tehran" crowd.
The second piece I wanted to mention came from Democracy Today: [02-05] U.S. & Israel vs. Axis of Resistance: Biden Strikes New Targets in Middle East as Gaza War Continues. The transcript includes an interview with Narges Bajoghli, an "expert" who likes to throw about the term "Axis of Resistance." Evidently, this is enough of a thing that it has its own Wikipedia page (as does Iran-Israel proxy conflict, linked to under "Purposes for the Axis"). The term "Axis of Resistance" is internally incoherent and externally malicious. "Axis" implies organization and coordination of a power bloc, which hardly exists, and even where possible is informal. "Resistance" is something that arises locally, wherever power is imposed. Palestinians resist Israeli power, wherever it is felt, sometimes violently, mostly non-violently, but in Israeli-controlled territories to little or no effect. When Israel occupied Lebanon, resistance was generated there as well, most significantly coalescing into Hezbollah. Resisters may come to feel solidarity with others, and may even help each other out, but resistance itself is a limiting function of power. "Axis of Resistance" was nothing more than a rhetorical twist on Bush's "Axis of Evil." What makes the term dangerous is that it's being used to organize a coherent picture of an enemy that Israel can goad America into waging war against. (Israelis have no wish to be the "real men" invading Iran, but would be happy to cheer Americans on, especially as a hopeless war there would deflect qualms about genocide.)
Bajoghli isn't as fully aligned with the hawks as Ullman is, but inadvertently helps them by buying this significant propaganda line. A realistic analysis would see that there are obvious opportunities to breaking up this "axis": Iran wants to end its isolation, and be able to trade with Europe and America (as, it was starting to do before Trump broke the nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions); Assad would do virtually anything except surrender power for stability; Yemen and Lebanon have been wracked by civil wars for decades, mostly because local power is fragmented while foreign powers have been free to intervene. These and many other problems could be solved diplomatically, but what has to happen first is to turn the heat down, by demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and beyond, along with discipline against the pogroms in the West Bank. Israel needs to see that their dreams of a "final solution" to the Palestinians are futile: there is no alternative to living together, in peace, with some tangible sense of justice. Not everyone on every side is going to like that, but a democracy of all should be able to come to that conclusion.
Israel:
Mondoweiss:
[01-29] Day 115: Israel pushes Gazans further south; US threatens further regional violence.
[01-30] Day 116: Israeli forces carry out assassination raid inside Jenin hospital disguised as doctors.
[01-31] Day 117: Israel besieges Nasser hospital for tenth consecutive day.
[02-01] Day 118: Mass grave found of Palestinians tied up, killed 'execution-style'.
[02-02] Day 119: Israel vows to push forward into Rafah, leaving Palestinians with nowhere left to flee.
[02-03] Day 120: Gaza's economy in shambles amid fears of escalating regional tensions.
[02-04] Day 121: Israel kills more than 1,000 Palestinians since ICJ ruling; U.S. bombs Yemen.
Shatha Abdulsamad: [01-30] War on Gaza: Defunding UNRWA is a war against all Palestinians. The speed with which the US and other nations acted to defund UNRWA shows that they could have acted with similar resolve to withdraw funding for Israel's genocidal war. That they haven't done so shows that they hold separate and extremely unequal values on Israeli and Palestinian lives. More on UNRWA:
Shane Harris/John Hudson/Karen DeYoung/Souad Mekhennet: [01-31] Israeli intelligence prompted U.S. to quickly cut Gaza aid funding: Israel claims to have identified 12 UNRWA employees in Gaza (out of 13,000) with ties to the Oct. 7 attack, which was enough to move the US and other nations to act in a PR coup meant to counter the ICJ's "plausible genocide" findings, something the US et al. have done absolutely nothing to act on. Well, actually what they've done is worse than inaction, as hobbling the UN's aid organization directly adds to the genocidal effects of Israel's war. As Norman Finkelstein has pointed out, all Israel has actually alleged is that some Hamas militants also have day jobs. Still, makes me wonder how many UNRWA employees are also working for Mossad or Shin Bet.
AlJazeera: [02-01] What is UNRWA and why is it important for Palestinians?
Ellen Ioanes: [01-31] The allegations against the UN's Palestinian refugee relief agency, explained.
Hasan Basri Bulbul: [01-29] Defunding UNRWA: With this act, western powers are likely complicit in genocide.
Ryan Grim: Republicans move to one-up Biden and permanently defund UNRWA.
David Hearst: [02-01] Why is the West falling for Israel's play to destroy UNRWA?
Alex MacDonald: [01-29] Israel, UNRWA and the West: A history of claims and cuts.
MME: [01-31] Netanyahu says UNRWA mission 'must be terminated'.
Mitchell Plitnick: [02-03] U.S. admits it hasn't verified Israel's UNRWA claims, media ignores it.
Dylan Saba: [02-02] A new phase for Gaza: The war on humanitarian aid: "Why the attack on UNRWA looks a lot like collective punishment."
Alexei Sisulu Abrahams: [02-02] How the news cycle misses the predominant violence in Israel-Palestine.
Ruwaida Kamal Amer: [01-31] 'My children are crying from hunger. This is a war of starvation': "With insufficient aid and skyrocketing prices across Gaza, Palestinians in the overcrowded city of Rafah are struggling to feed their families."
Tareq S Hajjaj:
Shatha Hanaysha: [01-30] Executed in their sleep: How Israeli forces assassinated three Palestinians in a raid on a West Bank hospital.
Ibrahim Husseini: [02-03] Silwan faces escalating home demolitions in fight against messianic settlers. Title seems confused, in that the state is doing the demolitions, at the settlers' behest, so who's fighting them?
Samer Jaber: [01-28] The Palestinian Authority's role has become to delegitimize Palestinian resistance. Well, more than that: "It is now a direct collaborator amid the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza."
Shola Lawai: [02-03] How Israel's flooding of Gaza's tunnels will impact freshwater supply.
Eitay Mack: [01-31] How Israeli settler terrorism set the stage for genocide in Gaza.
Brad Pearce: [01-30] Western media's blackout of Israel's "Hannibal Directive".
Shahd Safi: [01-29] Egyptian officials are charging Palestinians a massive ransom to escape the Gaza genocide.
Margherita Stancati/Anat Peled: [01-29] Israel's far right plots a 'new Gaza' without Palestinians.
Oren Ziv: [01-30] Turning Zeitoun into Shivat Zion: Israeli summit envisions Gaza resettlement. Isaelis are holding something they call "Conference for Israel's Victory," replete with maps of how they plan to divvy up the spoils of a depopulated Gaza.
Israel vs. world opinion:
Khadija Quadri Al Jilani: [02-04] Following months of citywide protests, Chicago becomes largest U.S. city to call for Gaza ceasefire.
Lori Allen: [01-29] The Rorschach test of Palestine in international law.
Michael Arria: [02-01] The Shift: Pelosi says FBI should investigate Palestine protestors for links to Russia.
James Bamford: [01-31] The anti-defamation league: Israel's attack dog in the US.
Khalil Barhoum: [01-28] White guilt and Biden's support for the genocide in Gaza.
Amos Barshad: [02-01] Inside the Israel Lobby's new $90 million war chest: "Internal AIPAC materials reveal huge gifts from moguls -- and the strategies lobbyists used to score the cash."
Nick Burbank: [02-01] We deserve the truth about what happened on October 7: Well, sure, and Burbank has a website called Oct 7 Factcheck to try to cut through the Israeli avalanche of propaganda spun around that day, but the exact details of which horrifying acts were perpetrated by which fighters have since paled compared to the mass destruction and genocide Israel has unleashed on Gaza and elsewhere, which continues to mount. While there is still much happening that is poorly and only partly reported, there is more than enough evidence to see that Israel is overwhelmingly at fault, both for creating the conditions which led to armed resistance, and for exploiting the event to escalate their long project to reduce Palestinians to "an utterly defeated people."
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor: [01-29] Two days after ICJ ruling, Euro-Med Monitor says Israel has maintained its rate of killing in Gaza.
Sean Jacobs: [01-26] South Africa sees its moral conscience in a genocide case.
James North: [02-04] The 'Guardian' exposes how CNN slants the Gaza news. The piece cited here is:
Chris McGreal: [02-04] CNN staff say network's pro-Israel slant amounts to 'journalistic malpractice'.
Jonathan Ofir: [01-29] The ICJ just took the Holocaust monopoly away from Israel.
Philip Weiss:
America's expansion of Israel's world war:
Dan Lamothe/Alex Horton/Missy Ryan: [02-03] U.S., Britain launch new wave of military strikes in Yemen: "The operation follows a large-scale attack on Iranian forces and their affiliates in Iraq and Syria, retribution for the killing of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan."
Marco Carnelos: [01-30] War on Gaza: Why the US refuses to learn the lessons of history.
Andrew Cockburn: [01-30] Admiral Fabuloso thumps his tub. The tub-thumping admiral is James G Stavridis, outspoken but hardly alone among Washington's "bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" chorus.
Melvin Goodman: [02-02] Why are our regional experts expecting more war in every corner? Starts by quoting said experts on Korea, Taiwan, Russia/Ukraine, and everywhere ("The world war potential is really, really significant" -- Michael Mullen, former joint chiefs chairman, who since retiring has joined multiple corporate boards).
William Hartung: [01-31] Tone deaf? Admin brags about 55% hike in foreign arms sales.
Joshua Keating: [01-29] America no longer has a monopoly on deadly drones.
Ken Klippenstein: [2023-11-16] Pentagon won't say where it's sending U.S. troops -- to avoid embarrassing host nations: "Details about the rapid U.S. military buildup since the start of Israel's war on Gaza are largely unknown to the public and risk war with Iran, experts say." Some background, with Jordan the first-mentioned example.
Helen Lackner: [02-03] What Yemen's Houthis want.
Joshua Landis: [02-01] US troops should have left Syria and Iraq long ago.
Daniel Larison: [02-02] White House still denies Mideast turmoil linked to Gaza.
Oliver Milman: [02-03] US House to vote next week on standalone $17.6bn bill for aid to Israel: They should call it the Genocide Support Act.
Ben Quinn: [02-04] Russia, China and Iran could target UK via Irish 'backdoor,' thinktank warns: The paranoia lobby is hard at work in the UK, too, tapping old fears to shore up ever more ominous defense spending.
Richard Rubenstein: [02-02] The new bipolarity: Tom Friedman prophesies a new global conflict and mostly gets it wrong. You may recall how strange it was after Oct. 7 when the long-reigning world's worst pundit had a brief moment of clarity, and advised that Israel might be better off by not overreacting and plunging head-first into genocide -- as they in fact did. But within a month or so, his reprogramming kicked in, bringing him back to "a titanic geopolitical struggle between two opposing networks of nations and nonstate actors over whose values and interests will dominate our post-Cold War world." He dubs these networks the Includers (where Israel leads America, and America drags along Ukraine, Taiwan, and their few allies) vs. the Resisters (anyone who defies the dictates of the Includers). Still, he seems to still be missing a module, as he still views China and others who doubt the Includers' omniscience as merely neutral.
Ishaan Tharoor:
[01-31] Behind Biden's Middle East crises is the long tail of Trump's legacy: Trump, at Israel's behest, wrecked the nuclear arms agreement with Iran, provoked further hostilities by imposing new sanctions (which, conveniently enough, boosted the Saudi and Russian oil cartel -- as did sanctions that took Venezuelan oil off the world market) and escalating further by assassinating IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani. Beyond that, Trump "also encouraged the acceleration of Israel's far-right drift." And his substitute for the long-frustrated and half-hearted "peace process" was the so-called Abraham Accords, where Arab states were offered arms and business incentives for giving up their concerns for Palestinians, and giving Israel a free hand to do with them what they will. What's happened since October is almost purely the ultimate consequence of Trump's policy shifts in the region. On the other hand, this hardly excuses Biden, who hastily reversed Trump foreign policy elsewhere (especially re Ukraine and NATO), but did virtually nothing to reset or even review policy in the Middle East.
Nick Turse: [01-30] Remote warfare and expendable people: "Forever War means never having to say you're sorry."
Robert Wright: [02-02] The Iran retaliation calculus: The real calculation is that Biden and Netanyahu believe they have the power (and therefore the right) to punish Iran for what basically boils down to reckless gun-running -- which the US and Israel also does, much more broadly than Iran does -- and that they have so much more power that Iran won't dare retaliate. That's a very arrogant position to take, one that requires constant punitive reinforcement, especially as it mostly works to harden resistance.
Trump, and other Republicans:
Karla Adam: [02-01] U.K. High Court throws out Trump lawsuit over Steele dossier.
Isaac Arnsdorf/Lauren Kaori Gurley/Tyler Pager: [01-31] Trump outreach to Teamsters sparks tensions over his anti-union record.
Eleanor Clift: [02-03] There's barely any political daylight between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley.
Matt Ford: The Republicans are performing for an audience of one.
Sarah Jones: [01-30] Why is the right so weird about Taylor Swift? It's tempting to think that they've finally gone too far and picked an enemy much bigger than themselves, but their audience for this nonsense is pretty isolated, and most other people have learned to tune out their hysterical bloviations. More:
Lorraine Ali: [02-03] What's behind the right's attack on Swift-Kelce romance? Fear of a powerful woman.
Margaret Hartmann: [01-30] Trump is in a one-sided popularity contest with Taylor Swift.
Amanda Marcotte: [02-02] Taylor Swift, Stanley cups and a brewing backlash to MAGA's sexist snobbery.
Nikki McCann Ramirez: [01-29] Right-wingers say Super Bowl is rigged so Taylor Swift can endorse Biden.
Asawin Suebsaeng/Adam Rawnsley: [01-30] Trump allies pledge 'holy war' against Taylor Swift.
Li Zhou: [01-31] Why conservatives are melting down over Taylor Swift: "Swift represents a constituency they're losing big time: Young women."
Ankush Khardori: [02-01] Inside Trump's costly outburst: 'Like an 8-year-old having a temper tantrum': "Roberta Kaplan's strategy delivered E. Jean Carroll $83 million from Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors may want to take note."
Mattea Kramer/Sean Fogler: [02-01] When in doubt, strip search and restrain the unwell: "'Helping' people by shaming them -- and canceling their civil rights."
Paul Krugman: [01-29] MAGA is based on fear, not grounded in reality. He inadvertently reminds us that Nikki Haley is on the same page, when he quotes her as saying, "we've got an economy in shambles and inflation that's out of control." Krugman followed that column with what he intended as a "reality-based" corrective: [02-01] Our economy isn't 'Goldilocks.' It's better.
Chris Lehmann: [01-30] GOP border theatrics have escalated threats of civil war.
Patricia Lopez: [02-03] Some GOP governors would let kids go hungry to spite Biden.
Andrew Prokop: [02-01] The chances that Trump will be a convicted felon by Election Day have dropped: "It could still happen -- but the four prosecutions of Trump have been beset by delays and challenges."
Nikki McCann Ramirez:
[01-29] Trump trashes auto union leader after losing endorsement.
[01-30] Trump spent $50 million in donor money on legal bills last year: "The former president's PAC are operating as slush funds to help him fight off a mountain of civil and criminal cases."
Andrew Rice: [01-30] Trump's reckoning begins: "His major loss in the E. Jean Carroll case is nothing compared to what could be coming."
Matt Stieb: [02-03] Truth Social could still make Trump billions -- if he wins. On the other hand:
Drew Harwell: [02-03] The wild probe into investors of DWAC, Trump Media's proposed merger ally: "Three people were indicted, but the investigation continues."
Asawin Suebsaeng/Adam Rawnsley: [01-29] Trump's secret plan to expand presidential immunity to 'King George' levels.
Biden and/or the Democrats: I meant to note this, but wasn't sure which piece to link to. But, for the record: [02-04] Biden nets landslide victory in South Carolina Democratic primary, over 95% of votes. That compares to about 55% in New Hampshire, where his opponents actually campaigned, but he needed an unofficial write-in campaign.
Politico: [02-02] 30 things Joe Biden did as president you might have missed.
Perry Bacon Jr: [01-30] Biden shouldn't sound like a conservative on immigration policy.
Dylan Gyauch-Lewis: [02-02] Biden should begin the tax wars now: "He needs to highlight his positions against the Republicans'. And not give away too much in interim deals."
Ezra Klein: [02-01] The Democratic Party is having an 'identity crisis': "Biden's best argument is his record." Then: "Biden's worst argument is himself."
Ryan Lizza: [02-03] 'A strategic mistake on the part of my party': A top Dem speaks out on the border: Interview with Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX).
Murshed Zaheed: [01-31] Why are major progressive orgs silent on Biden's lurch toward war?
James Zogby: [01-31] Biden's erasure of Arabs is part of a painful history I know too well: "For decades, we have faced death threats, political exclusion, and discrimination for our pro-Arab and pro-Palestinian work."
Legal matters and other crimes:
Erwin Chemerinsky: [01-29] Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is defying a U.S. Supreme Court order. That's frightening.
Ian Millhiser: [02-02] The Supreme Court weighs whether to end affirmative action at West Point.
Jeffrey St Clair: [02-02] Execution as advertisement: Killing Kenneth Smith.
Climate and environment:
Stan Cox: [01-28] As climate chaos accelerates, governments avert their eyes: "The onrush of other crises is no excuse for ignoring climate change."
Jason Hickel: [11-15] What would it look like if we treated climate change as an actual emergency?
Umair Irfan: [01-30] The great American natural gas reckoning is upon us: "So, Biden paused LNG exports. Does this . . . fix climate change?"
Economic matters:
Oshan Jarow: [01-31] We can still make a good economy much better.
Ukraine War:
Blaise Malley: [02-01] Diplomacy Watch: NATO membership still on the table? "Meanwhile, EU approves $54 billion funding plan, with Senate possibly voting next week."
Steven Erlanger/David E Sanger: [02-03] Germany braces for decades of confrontation with Russia.
Masha Gessen: [01-29] Ukraine's democracy in darkness: "With elections postponed and no end to the war with Russia in sight, Volodymyr Zelensky and his political allies are becoming like the officials they once promised to root out: entrenched."
Jonathan Guyer: [02-02] How war has transformed Ukraine, and Zelensky: Review of two new books: Yaroslav Trofimov, Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence (Penguin); and Simon Shuster, The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky (William Morrow). Both appear to be very solidly in Zelensky's camp, with Trofimov faulting "America's cautiousness in getting Ukraine more powerful weapons as a 'self-imposed taboo' that has prolonged the war."
Andrew Higgins: [02-01] For Orban, Ukraine is a pawn in a longer game: "His real aim is to lead a populist and nativist rebellion against Europe's liberal elite, though that campaign is showing signs of faltering."
Lara Jakes/Christina Anderson: [01-29] For Europe and NATO, a Russian invasion is no longer unthinkable: "Amid crumbling U.S. support for Ukraine and Donald Trump's rising candidacy, European nations and NATO are making plans to take on Russia by themselves."
Harrison Stetler: [02-03] Two years into the Ukraine war, Europe has no strategy . . . but they are coughing up €50 billion to keep it going.
Ishaan Tharoor: [01-29] Ukraine's hopes for victory over Russia are slipping away.
Around the world:
Dylan Scott: [02-01] From Gaza to Sudan, conflict is driving a rise in hunger worldwide: "In the 21st century, famine isn't inevitable. It's a policy choice."
Emily Bazelon: [02-01] The road to 1948: A panel of six historians -- Nadim Bawaisa, Leena Dallasheh, Abigail Jacobson, Derek Penslar, Itamar Rabinovitch, and Salim Tamari -- offer insights into the 1920-48 period, when Palestine was a League of Nations mandate trusted to Britain, which had occupied it during WWI, displacing the Ottoman Empire. I'm most familiar with this period from Tom Segev's One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (2001), although I've read numerous other books on the period. There are things I'd quibble with here, but it's generally useful information.
Jules Boykoff/Dave Zirin: [01-29] Israel and Russia have no place in the 2024 Paris Olympics: I'm tempted to say the US should have no place either, but I'm not totally sure whether that should be due to US support for genocide in Gaza, for US agitation for war elsewhere, and/or simply for commercial crassness and nationalistic yahoo-ism. But note that South Africa was banned from 1968 until the end of the apartheid regime, and Israel has long crossed that line.
Mike Catalini: [01-31] Man accused of beheading his father in suburban Philadelphia home and posting gruesome video online: The father is Michael F. Mohn, a civil servant working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The son is Justin Mohn:
Mohn embraced violent anti-government rhetoric in writings he published online going back several years. In August 2020, Mohn published an online "pamphlet" in which he tried to make the case that people born in or after 1991 -- his birth year -- should carry out what he termed a "bloody revolution." He also complained at length about a lawsuit that he lost and encouraged assassinations of family members and public officials.
In the video posted after the killing, he described his father as a 20-year federal employee. He also espoused a variety of conspiracy theories and rants about the Biden administration, immigration and the border, fiscal policy, urban crime and the war in Ukraine.
Aside from the murder, sounds like a pretty solid Republican. The lawsuit he lost, by the way:
In 2018, Mohn sued Progressive Insurance, alleging he was discriminated against and later fired from a job at an agency in Colorado Springs because he was a man who was intelligent, overqualified and overeducated. A federal judge said Mohn provided no evidence to indicate he was discriminated against because he was a man -- in the length of his training or in being denied promotions to jobs. Progressive said it fired him because he kicked open a door. An appeals court upheld the finding that Mohn did not suffer employment discrimination.
Maybe we should start a regular feature on right-wing crime, and how Republicans have encouraged and/or rationalized it:
Jonathan Edwards: [01-30] Man sentenced to 18 years for bombing church that was hosting drag event.
Carl Gibson: [02-03] Gunman says Republican who lost election paid for drive-by shootings on Democrats' homes.
Fabiola Cineas: [02-01] Conservatives have long been at war with colleges: "A brief history of the right's long-running battle against higher education." Interview with Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, author of Resistance From the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America.
David Dayen: [01-29] America is not a democracy: "The movement to save democracy from threats is too quick to overlook the problems that have been present since the founding." On the other hand, focusing on structural faults that were build into the Constitution directs attention to issues that have no practicable solution, while ignoring what is by far the most pervasive affront to democracy, which is the influence of money, how the system caters to the rich while confusing issues for everyone else. The simplest test of whether government is democratic is whether it is reflective of and responsive to the needs of the vast majority of its citizens. America's is not.
Rebecca Jennings: [02-01] Everyone's a sellout now: "Everybody has to self-promote now. Nobody wants to." One result: "You're getting worse at [your art], but you're becoming a great marketer for a product which is less and less good."
Whizy Kim: [01-31] How Boeing put profits over planes: "The fall of Boeing has been decades in the making."
Dylan Matthews: [02-01] How Congress is planning to lift 400,000 kids out of poverty. The House passed a bill 357-70 which revives the child tax credit, which has the headline effect, but the bill also includes tax breaks for businesses, which is what it took to become "bipartisan."
China Miéville: [01-31] China Miéville on The Communist Manifesto's enduring power. Interview with the author of A Spectre Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto. I read the book recently, right after Christopher Clark's massive Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World: 1848-1849. It didn't add a lot of detail on the role of the proletariat in the 1848's revolutionary struggles, but it did remind me of the synthesis of clear thinking and human decency that informed the founding of the socialist movement.
Kevin Munger: [01-29] "The Algorithm" is the only critique of "The Algorithm" that "The Algorithm" can produce: A bookmark link, as this seems possibly interesting but requiring more attention than I can muster at the moment. It ties to Kyle Chayka's book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Chayka has a previous book (2020), The Longing for Less, where the subtitle has changed from Living With Minimalism to What's Missing From Minimalism in the recent paperback edition. Shorter is Munger's "The Algorithm" does not exist.
Brian Murphy: [01-31] Anthony Cordesman, security analyst who saw flaws in U.S. policy, dies at 84: "Dr. Cordesman saw the seeds of defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan planted by U.S. policymakers." Of course, I prefer critics who were more prescient earlier, but insiders -- "he described himself as a tepid supporter of the Iraq invasion" -- who are willing to harbor doubts are better than those with no doubts at all.
Timothy Noah: That judge is right. Elon Musk isn't worth what Tesla pays him. For more (and the actual numbers are jaw-dropping) on this:
Dean Baker: [02-01] Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package nixed as unfair to shareholders.
Christian Paz: [02-02] What we're getting wrong about 2024's "moderate" voters: "The voters who could decide 2024 are a complicated bunch." Paz tries to salvage the term "moderate" by splitting the domain -- by which, less prejudically, he means people with no fixed party affiliation -- into three groups: the "true moderates," the "disengaged," and the "weird." The prejudice is that any time you say "moderate," you're automatically contrasting against some hypothetical extreme that you can thereby reject. But while the people who use the term -- almost never the "moderates" themselves, who prefer to think of themselves as sober, sensible, respectful of all viewpoints, and desiring pragmatic, mutually satisfactory compromises -- like to think they complimenting the "moderates," they're implying that they don't truly believe in what they profess (otherwise, why are they so willing to compromise?).
Rick Perlstein: [01-31] A hole in the culture: "Why is there so little art depicting the moment we're in?"
Brian Resnick: [01-31] The sun's poles are about to flip. It's awesome -- and slightly terrifying.
Ingrid Robenys: A professor of political philosophy at Utrecht University, has a new book: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth, leading to:
[01-29] No more billionaires? We can be more ambitious than that. No one needs more than $20 million.
[01-21] Limitarianism: why we need to put a cap on the super-rich.
Tim Adams: [01-21] 'No one should have more than €10m': he author of Limitarianism on why the super-rich need to level down radically.
Nathan J Robinson: Including interviews at Current Affairs:
[01-19] A final conversation with Ed Broadbent on the continuing struggle for democratic socialism.
[02-01] Beware government bullshit: "Government spokespeople aren't always lying. Usually they are using as many meaningless words as possible to avoid having to answer a question directly."
[02-02] Astra Taylor on what "security" really means: An interview, relating to her book, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart.
[02-02] A response to Hughes: Further thoughts, replying to Coleman Hughes's response to Robinson's "highly critical review" of Hughes' book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America.