#^d 2024-03-03 #^h Speaking of Which
I started this early, on Wednesday, maybe even Tuesday, as I couldn't bring myself to work on anything else. There's a rhythm here: I have twenty-some tabs open to my usual sources, and just cycle through them, picking out stories, noting them, sometimes adding a comment, some potentially long. By Friday night, I had so much, I thought of posting early: leaving the date set for Sunday, when I could do a bit of update.
I didn't get the early post done. Sunday, my wife invited some friends over to watch a movie. I volunteered to make dinner, and that (plus the movie) killed the rest of the day. Nothing fancy: I keep all the fixings for pad thai on hand, so I can knock off a pretty decent one-dish meal in little more than an hour. And I had been thinking about making hot and sour soup since noticing a long-neglected package of dried lily buds, so I made that too. First actual cooking I had done in at least a month, so that felt nice and productive.
This, of course, feels totally scattered. I'm unsure of the groupings, and it's hard for me to keep track of the redundancies and contradictions. And once again, I didn't manage to finish my rounds. Perhaps I'll add a bit more after initially posting it late Sunday night. But at the moment, I'm exhausted.
My wife mentioned an article to me that I should have tracked down earlier, but can only mention here: Pankaj Mishra: [03-07] The Shoah after Gaza. Mishra grew up in a "family of upper-caste Hindu nationalists in India," deeply sympathetic to Israel, so his piece offers a slightly distant parallel to what many of us who started sympathetic only to become dismayed and ultimately appalled by what Israel has turned into. Beyond that, the piece is valuable as a history of how the Nazi Judeocide -- to borrow Arno Mayer's more plainly factual term in lieu of Holocaust or Shoah -- has been forged into a cudgel for beating down anyone who so much as questions let alone challenges the supremacy of Israeli power.
There is also a YouTube video of Mishra's piece.
On Facebook, I ran across this quote attributed to Carolina Landsmann in Haaretz:
We (Israelis) continue to approach the world from the position of victim, ignoring the 30,000 dead in Gaza, including 12,000 children, assuming that the world is still captive to its historic guilt toward Israel without understanding that this is over. The era of the Holocaust has ended. The Palestinians are now the wretched of the earth.
It's impossible to go back to the pre-Oct 7 world. To the blame economy between the Jews and the world, which gave the former moral immunity. Enough; it's over. Every era draws to a close. The time has come to grow up.
There was a time, and not that long ago, when I still thought that the experience of victimhood would still temper the exercise of Israeli power: sure, Israel was systematically oppressive, and Israeli society was riddled with the ethnocentrism we Americans understand as racism, but surely they still had enough of a grip on their humanity to stop short of genocide. That's all changed now, and it's coming as quite a shock -- no doubt to many Israelis as they look at their neighbors, but even more so to Americans (not just Jews but also many liberals who have long counted on Jews as allies).
It's hard to know what to do these days, beyond the call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, and the constant need to remind anyone who's still echoing the Israeli hasbara that it's genocide, and by not opposing it, they're complicit. It may be unfair to go so far as to make placards about "Genocide Joe" -- he's just in thrall, having fully adapted to the peculiar gravity of the Israel lobby when he arrived in Washington fifty years ago -- as there is still a difference (maybe not practical, but certainly in spirit) between him and the people in Israel (and some Republicans in Congress) who really are committed to genocide. But in times like this, nice sentiments don't count for much.
Another important piece I noticed but skipped over on Sunday: Aaron Gell: [03-03] Has Zionism lost the argument? "American Jews' long-standing consensus about Israel has fractured. There may be no going back." There is a lot to unpack here. It's worth your time to read the interview with Ruth Wisse, with her absolutist defense of Israel, then the digression where the author considers the charge that Jews who doubt Israel are becoming non-Jews, ending in a reference to the Mishnah, specifically "by far the hardest to answer: If I am only for myself, who am I? Many Zionists long justified their project as providing a haven from anti-semitism, but their exclusive focus on their own issues, turning into indifference or worse towards everyone else, has finally turned Israel into the world's leading generator of anti-semitism.
Wisse insists that "the creation of the state changes the entire picture, because now to be anti-Zionist is a genocidal concept. If you're an anti-Zionist, you're against the existence of Israel . . . the realized homeland of nine million people." But later on, Gell notes: "I've spoken to dozens of anti-Zionists over the past few months, and not a single one thought Israel should cease to exist." They have various ideas of how this could be done, in part because they've seen it work here:
American Jews are justifiably proud to live in a successful multiethnic democracy, imperfect though it is. As citizens of a nation in which Jews are a distinct minority, we owe our well-being, our prosperity, and, yes, perhaps our existence to the tolerance, openness, and egalitarianism of our system of government and our neighbors. No wonder we shudder at Israel's chauvinism, its exclusionary nationalism, its oppression. It's all too obvious how we'd fare if the United States followed Israel's lead in reserving power for an ethnic or religious majority. Seen in this light, what's surprising isn't that some American Jews are anti-Zionists; it's that many more aren't.
I've been reading Shlomo Avineri's 1981 book (paperback updated with a new preface and epilogue 2017), The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State, which offers a highly sympathetic survey of most of the reasons people have come up with to justify and promote Zionism. I'm still in the last profile chapter, on David Ben Gurion, before the initial epilogue, "Zionism as a Permanent Revolution." Immediately previous were chapters on Jabotinsky (who built a cult of power based on fascist models and used it to flip the script on race, promoting Jews as the superior one) and Rabbi Kook (who reformulated Zionism as God's will).
Ben Gurion's major contribution was the doctrine of "Hebrew labor," where Jews would fill all economic niches in the economy, leaving native Palestinians excluded and powerless. This was a significant change from the usual practice of settler colonialism, which everywhere else depended on impoverished locals for labor. Ben Gurion's union bound Jews into a coherent, self-contained, mutual help society, including its own militia, well before it was possible to call itself a state. But in doing so, he excluded the Palestinians, and plotted their expulsion -- his endorsement of the 1937 Peel Commission plan, his campaign for the UN partition plan, and finally his "War of Independence," remembered by Palestinians as the Nakba.
Ben Gurion was an enormously talented political figure, and his establishment of Israel through the 1950 armistices, the citizenship act, and the law of return, was a remarkable achievement against very stiff odds. He might have gotten away with it, but he couldn't leave well enough alone. He always wanted more, and he cultivated that trait in his followers. And while he feared the 1967 war, his followers launched it anyway, and in the end -- even as his fears had proven well founded -- he delighted in it. Like Mao, he so loved his revolution he kept revitalizing it, oblivious to the tragedy it caused. I expect the book, with its "permanent revolution" epilogues, will end on that note.
There is a lot of wishful thinking in the early parts of Avineri's book -- most obviously, Herzl's fairy-tale liberalism, but also the socialism of Syrkin and Borochov, which could have been developed further in later years, but it's appropriate to end as it does, with the real Israeli state. Great as he was, Ben Gurion made mistakes, and in the end the most fateful was allowing Jabotinsky and Kook, or more precisely their followers, into the inner sanctumm, from which they eventually prevailed in shaping Israel into the genocidal juggernaut it has become. The path from Jabotinsky to Netanyahu is remarkably short, passing straight through the former's secretary, the same as the latter's father. The other intermediaries were Ben Gurion's rivals of 1948, Begin and Shamir, who became favored tools in driving the Palestinians into exile, and future prime ministers.
Less obvious was Ben Gurion's decision to invite the Kookists into government, but what politician doesn't want to be reassured that God is on his side? Rabbi Kook was succeeded by his son, Zvi Yehuda Kook, whose Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) was the driving force behind the West Bank settlements, leading directly to Smotrich and Ben Gvir. The first casualty in Ben Gurion's schemes was the socialism that unified the Yishuv in the first place. That was what gave Israel its foundational sense of justice, a reputation that is now nothing but ruins.
Initial count: 174 links, 8,842 words. Updated count [03-05]: 193 links, 10,883 words.
Israel:
Mondoweiss:
[02-26] Day 143: Gaza famine is 'man-made,' says UNRWA Chief: "UNRWA says that the famine in northern Gaza can be avoided if more food convoys are allowed in, but Israel continues to hold up over 2000 aid trucks. Meanwhile, Netanyahu reaffirms plans to invade Rafah, where 1.5 million Gazans have sought shelter."
[02-27] Day 144: Israel and Hamas contradict Biden claim that Gaza ceasefire is close: "A proposed ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas is reported to include a temporary 40-day truce, the release of 40 Israeli captives in return for 400 Palestinian prisoners, and the entry of humanitarian aid and mobile shelters into Gaza."
[02-28] Day 145: Hamas warns Israel and US of 'political machinations' amid ceasefire talks: "UN humanitarian officials say that thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are 'just a step away from famine' by May. Russia calls on UNSC members to refrain from endorsing Washington's resolution on Gaza, denouncing it as 'a license to kill' for Israel."
[02-29] Day 146: Israeli forces massacre civilians waiting for humanitarian aid: "Israeli tanks and warplanes reportedly targeted civilians waiting for aid, killing at least 77 and wounding hundreds. Meanwhile, international aid groups say airdrops of aid are so "negligible" that they "perpetuate the overall blockade strategy."
[03-01] Day 147: No ceasefire in sight despite international condemnation of Israel's 'flour massacre': "US blocks a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its massacre against Palestinians attempting to receive humanitarian aid in Gaza, saying that the incident "still needs to be investigated."
[03-02] Day 148: UN reports at least 14 cases of Israel firing on Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza: "UN calls for an investigation following Thursday's "flour massacre" where Israel killed at least 115 Palestinians waiting for aid and injured more than 760. The need for aid is becoming even more dire as starvation worsens in northern Gaza."
[03-03] Day 149: Palestinian children die of malnutrition as Israel blocks aid into Gaza: "US airdrops of food and aid in Gaza have been described as "performative BS" that "fools no one." Meanwhile, Hamas's delegation has arrived in Cairo for ceasefire talks as Ramadan is due to start next Sunday."
James Bamford: [02-26] Israel's far right finally gets the war it has always wanted: "Billed as a response to the October 7 Hamas attack, the conflict in Gaza has increasingly become a war to eliminate all Palestinians -- a longtime goal of Israel's homegrown fascists."
Mariam Barghouti: [02-27] In Jenin, brazen Israeli raids fuel fiercer Palestinian resistance: "Incessant Israeli incursions into Jenin refugee camp since October 7 have killed nearly 100 Palestinians, including many civilians. But as repression surges, the children of the Second Intifada are taking up arms." Which is, of course, a self-perpetuating process, where Palestinians are torn between the urgent need to defend themselves and their inability to muster the arms to do so. So the main effect is, as Israeli leaders seem to wish, to intensify the Israeli drive to genocide.
Nina Berman: [02-29] Violating intimacies: "Israeli soldiers have photographed themselves posing with the lingerie of Palestinian women they have displaced or killed in Gaza. They join a long line of conquest images, from Abu Ghraib images to the spectacles of Jim Crow-era lynchings." But we've been seeing pictures like this, or more commonly just gratuitous vandalism, for decades now -- from what used to be advertised as "the most moral army in the world."
Sarah Dadouch: [02-29] As besieged Gaza grows desperate, donors drop aid from the sky.
Elias Feroz: [02-26] Thirty years after Baruch Goldstein's massacre, his followers are now carrying out a genocide: "His legacy of bloodshed continues in Gaza and the West Bank as his followers are now in power."
Shatha Hanaysha: [02-28] Israeli forces kill 3 Palestinians, including Tubas Brigade leader in northern West Bank.
Ellen Ioanes:
[02-27] Why the Palestinian Authority's government dissolved: "Its prime minister [Mohammed Shtayyeh] resigned, but it doesn't change much."
[02-29] More than 100 Palestinians were killed trying to get aid: "The competing narratives about a deadly aid distribution in Gaza, explained."
Gideon Levy: [03-03] Gaza's night of death and hunger.
Niha Masih/Annabelle Timsit: [03-03] US plans more airdrops into Gaza amid hope for Ramadan cease-fire: This has got to be the least cost-effective means of delivering aid humanly possible. That the US cannot trust Israel to safely deliver aid via trucks speaks volumes about how little faith America has in its so-called closest ally.
Chris Floyd tweeted (?): "OK, why don't you set up a depot on the beach, supply it via the US Navy, and deliver the aid throughout Gaza with military trucks under escort? That would be pulling out all the stops. Otherwise, you're just putting on a PR show with pitiful dribs and drabs." I don't take this as a serious proposal. It's more of a thought experiment. If the US did this, would Israel be deterred from attacking relief distribution? And, to defend its deterrent threat, would US troops be allowed to return Israeli fire?
The same question applies to airdrops, which thus far Israel has not attempted to shoot down. But the airdrops are so inefficient they'll do little to blunt Israel's starvation weapon. Ships and trucks could make a real as well as a symbolic difference. Still, if Biden had the guts to send the Navy in, why wouldn't he do the right thing and start by insisting on an Israeli ceasefire? The only way relief is going to work is if it won't be attacked by Israel. Until the bombing stops, nothing good, or even decent, can happen.
Mahmoud Mushtaha: [02-29] These words are penned in hunger from northern Gaza. I have little energy to go on: "From the daily indignity of searching for food to the extreme dangers of doing journalistic work, life in this dark corner of the earth has become impossible."
Marcy Newman: [03-02] How Israeli universities are an arm of settler colonialism: Review of Maya Wind: Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom.
Dean Obeidallah: [02-27] "Nothing has compared to what we're seeing": Hala Gorani on the toll of covering Gaza war: Interview with the NBC News journalist and author of But You Don't Look Arab: And Other Tales of Unbelonging.
Yumna Patel: [02-27] New reports confirm months of Israeli torture, abuse, and sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners.
Jeremy Scahill/Ryan Grim/Daniel Boguslaw: [02-28] "Between the hammer and the anvil": "The story behind the New York Times October 7 exposé." This was the story by Anat Schwartz that charged Hamas fighters with rape during their short-lived jailbreak. This article was a big deal in the first week of the war, when writers who meant well were so quick to condemn Hamas when they should have been more alert to Israel's initial moves toward genocide. (In particular, I remember a piece by Eric Levitz finding the charges credible because "soldiers of all armies rape" -- an insight he didn't follow up on when Israel started sending their soldiers into Gaza.) For another piece on this:
Ishaan Tharoor: [03-01] Gaza's spiraling, unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.
Philip Weiss:
[02-25] Weekly Briefing: Biden is 'pristine' on Israel, says megadonor Haim Saban: "We've reached the point where Everything that Joe Biden and his associates are saying about the Gaza war is a lie. Because they must deny a truth that is causing worldwide outrage against Israel." And sooner or later against the United States, and pretty much all of its bipartisan political establishment.
[02-28] PBS and NPR leave out key facts in their Israel stories: "Pundits and reporters in the mainstream media have a double standard when it comes to Israel and all but lie about apartheid, Jewish nationalism, and the role of the Israel lobby."
Oren Ziv:
[02-26] 'People say I'm naive, antisemitic, a traitor': Israeli teen jailed for draft refusal: "Conscientious objector Sofia Orr explains why she never wavered in her decision despite the crackdown in Israel against opponents of the war."
[03-01] Israeli settlers cross into Gaza, build 'symbolic' outpost: "Dozens of settlers and right-wing activists stormed Erez Crossing, building two wooden structures while soldiers and police stood aside." This is a very disturbing development, but follows Israel's now common police practice of permitting and even encouraging encroachments and mob violence against Palestinians. Still, one would expect that in a war zone, the IDF would insist on imposing discipline on its own troops. In 1948, Ben Gurion deemed this so important that he ordered the IDF to turn on the previously independent right-wing EZL/LEHI militias, forcing them to submit to state control. Netanyahu, on the other hand, seems to see right-wing mobs as helping drive his relentless drive to extremism, which is clearly the point here.
By the way: Killing of aid seekers part of a 'decades-long pattern' of Israeli violence: Per Human Rights Watch.
Israel vs. world (including American) opinion: This week we lead off with a singular act of self-sacrifice, by an American, an active duty serviceman, Aaron Bushnell, in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington. I feel like I should add an opinion, but I don't really have one. My inclination is to view him as just another casualty of the more general madness, so not a hero or martyr or even a fool, but I'm also not so callous as to look the other way -- especially when so many people do have things to say.
Britt Munro: [02-29] In our thousands, in our millions: On Aaron Bushnell's final act: "What Aaron Bushnell did was an act of fierce, principled love in a situation of extreme desperation. It unflinchingly declared that even in the heart of the empire the lies of Zionism no longer hold."
Spencer Ackerman: [02-26] 'This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal': "US Airman Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire rather than 'be complicit in genocide.' His last words were a challenge we must find the courage to heed."
Kate Aronoff: Bushnell's self-immolation is a horrifying symptom of our political dysfunction.
Michael Arria: [02-29] The Shift: "The answer is, you're doing it. Right now." "The image of Aaron Bushnell will stick with many people for the rest of their lives. His act will be remembered along many others who made an ultimate sacrifice against injustice. Just don't expect US politicians or media to remember him that way."
Emily Davies/Peter Hermann/Dan Lamothe: [02-27] Airman who set self on fire grew up on religious compound, had anarchist past.
Masha Gessen: [02-28] Aaron Bushnell's act of political despair.
Keira Havens: [02-27] In his right mind: "The meaning of Aaron Bushnell's sacrifice."
Caitlin Johnstone: [02-26] Aaron Bushnell burned himself alive to make you turn your eyes to Gaza.
Lyle Jeremy Rubin: [02-28] Taking Aaron Bushnell at his word (and deed).
Philip Weiss: [03-03] Weekly Briefing: Aaron Bushnell calls US progressives to their greatest traditions.
Other stories:
Spencer Ackerman: [03-28] The anti-Palestinian origins of the War on Terror: Interview with Darryl Li, who wrote the report Anti-Palestinian at the core: The origins and growing dangers of US anti-terrorism law.
Ammiel Alcalay: [02-28] War on Gaza: How the US is buying time for Israel's genocide: "As the US ambassador to the UN recently made clear in a rare moment of honesty, Washington is fully committed to facilitating Israel's destruction of the Palestinians."
Kyle Anzalone: [03-01] US vetoes UN resolution condemning Israel for flour massacre.
Muhannad Ayyash: [02-26] Boycotting Israel could stop the genocide: At this point, this is probably just wishful thinking: "the world must ensure Tel Aviv's legal, economic and political isolation." The nice thing about BDS was that it provided a forum for grass-roots organizing against the apartheid regime in Israel: something that individuals could start and grow, and eventually recruit more powerful organizations, while ultimately appealing to the better consciences within Israel itself. That it worked with South Africa was encouraging.
But it was always going to be a much more difficult reach in Israel -- I could insert a half-dozen reasons here -- and it never came close to gathering the collective moral, let alone financial, force it had with South Africa. Now, about all you can say for it is that it allowed people of good will to express their disapproval without promoting even more violence. I would even agree that it's still worth doing -- Israel deserves to be shamed and shunned for what it's doing, now more than ever. And, as we witness what Israel is doing, many more people, indeed whole nations, may join us.
But will boycotting stop the genocide now? Maybe if the US and NATO banded together and put some serious teeth in their threats, some Israelis might reconsider. But sanctions usually just push countries deeper into corners, from which they're more likely to strike back than to fold. I'm not about to blame BDS for Israel's rampant right-wing -- their racism dates back further than any outsider noticed -- but they would claim their ascent as the way of fighting back against foreign moralizers. Even if we could count on eventually forcing some kind of reconciliation, the people in power in Israel right now are more likely to double down on genocide. It's not like anyone in the Nazi hierarchy saw the writing on the wall after Stalingrad and decided they should call the Judeocide off, lest they eventually put on trial. They simply sped up the extermination, figuring it would be their enduring contribution to Aryan civilization.
Jo-Ann Mort: [02-28] BDS is counter-productive. We need to crack down on Israeli settlements instead: "A future peace depends on drawing a line between Israel proper and the illegal settlements in Palestinian territory." This article is so silly I only linked to it after the Ayyash piece above. It does provide some explanation why BDS failed, but it doesn't come close to offering an alternative. Israel has been continuously blurring and outright erasing the Green Line ever since 1967. (It started with he demolition of the neighborhood next to the Al-Aqsa Mosque's western wall, just days after the 7-day war ended.) There is no way to force Israel to do much of anything, but few things are harder to imagine them acceding to is a return to what from 1950-67 were often decried as "Auschwitz borders."
Phyllis Bennis:
Amena ElAshkar: [02-28] Gaza ceasefire: Talk of an imminent deal is psychological warfare. I haven't bothered linking to numerous articles about an imminent ceasefire deal because, quite frankly, possible deals have never been more than temporarily expedient propaganda, mostly meant to humor the hostage relatives and the Americans. If Israel wanted peace, they could ceasefire unilaterally, and having satisfied themselves that they had inflicted sufficient damage to restore their Iron Wall deterrence, leave the rubble to others to deal with. The hostages would cease to be a bargaining chip, except inasmuch as not freeing them would keep much needed international aid away. So why is Netanyahu negotiating with Hamas? Mostly to squirrel the deal, while he continues implementing his plan to totally depopulate/destroy Gaza.
Paul Elle: [02-26] The Vatican and the war in Gaza: "A rhetorical dispute the Church and the Israeli government shows the limits -- and the possibilities -- of the Pope's role in times of conflict." On the other hand, if you look at the Pope's recent comments on "gender theory," you'll realize that he has very little to offer humanity, and that a Church that follows him could be very ominous. (For example, see [03-02] Pope says gender theory is 'ugly ideology' that threatens humanity.) Sometimes I'm tempted to take heart in that the Catholic Church is one of the few extant organizations to predate, and therefore remain somewhat free of, capitalism. But in it the spirit of Inquisition runs even deeper.
Madeline Hall: [02-28] Israeli genocide is a bad investment: For one thing, Norway has divested its holdings of Israeli bonds.
James North:
[02-25] Extraordinary charges of bias emerge against NYTimes reporter Anat Schwartz: "New doubts are emerging about the Ne York Times's coverage of sexual violence in the October 7 attack."
[03-03] Here are the latest examples of the astonishing dishonest 'NYTimes' coverage of Israel's war on Gaza.
Peter Oborne: [02-27] These ruthless, bigoted Tories would have Enoch Powell smiling from his grave: "The recent spate of vile anti-Muslim rhetoric from the Tories shows they have decided that stoking hatred against minorities is their only way to avoid electoral annihilation." Also in UK:
Jonathan Cook: [03-01] First it was Corbyn. Now the while British public is being smeared over Gaza.
MEE staff: [03-01] George Galloway strikes blow 'for Gaza' in Rochdale by-election. Galloway ran as an independent, after having been expelled by the Labour Party over his opposition to British wars in the Middle East. For some background, see:
Imran Mulla: [01-31] 'Labour is 30,000 dead Gazans too late': Muslim campaign aims to disrupt UK politics.
Charles P Pierce: [02-29] The US has enabled Netanyahu long enough: "Two democracies, hijacked for alibis."
Vijay Prashad: [02-14] There is no place for the Palestinians of Gaza to go.
Barnett R Rubin: [03-02] Redemption through genocide: "The ICJ ruled that Israel's Gaza campaign poses a plausible and urgent threat of genocide. Future historians of Jewish messianism may recount how in 2024 "redemption through sin" became "redemption through genocide," with unconditional US support."
Sarang Shidore/Dan M Ford: [02-29] At the Hague, US more isolated than ever on Israel-Palestine.
Adam Taylor: [02-29] Democrats grew more divided on Israeli-Palestinian conflict, poll shows. Interesting that the Democratic split has always favored "take neither side," from a peak of 82% down to 74% before Gaza blew up -- the 12% drop since looks to be evenly split. Republicans, on the other hand, never had any sympathy for Palestinians, and became more pro-Israeli since (56% would "take Israel's side," vs. 19% for Democrats).
Philip Weiss: [02-28] PBS and NPR leave out key facts in their Israel stories: "Pundits and reporters in the mainstream media have a double standard when it comes to Israel and all but lie about apartheid, Jewish nationalism, and the role of the Israel lobby."
America's empire of bases and proxy conflicts, increasingly stressed by Israel's multifront war games:
Juan Cole: [03-03] How Washington's anti-Iranian campaign failed, big time.
Dave DeCamp: [02-29] US officials expect Israel to launch ground invasion of Lebanon: "Administration officials tell CNN they expect a ground incursion in late spring or early summer." The logic here is pretty ridiculous, and if it's believed in Washington, you have to wonder about them, too. Israel had a lot of fun bombing Lebanon in 2006, but their ground incursion was a pure disaster. There's no possible upside to trying it again. The argument that Netanyahu will, for political expediency, enlarge the war in order to keep it going "after Gaza," overlooks their obvious desire to "finish the job" by doing the same to Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank.
Sasha Filippova/Kristina Fried/Brian Concannon: [03-01] From coup to chaos: 20 years after the US ousted Haiti's president.
Jim Lobe: [03-01] Neocon Iraq war architects want a redo in Gaza: "Post-conflict plan would put Western mercenaries and Israel military into the mix, with handpicked countries in charge of a governing 'Trust.'" Pic is of Elliott Abrams, who was the one in charge of US Israel policy under Bush, and who pushed Sharon's unilateral withdrawal of settlements from Gaza, so that Gaza could be blockaded and bombed more effectively. That directly led to Hamas seizing power in Gaza, so one could argue that Abrams already had his "redo in Gaza."
The Michigan primaries: Of minor interest to both party frontrunners, so let's get them out of the way first. Trump won the Republican primary with 68.1% of the votes, vs. 26.6% for Nikki Haley, splitting the delegates 12-4 (39 more delegates will be decided later). Biden won the Democratic primary with 81.1% of the vote, vs. 13.2% for an uncommitted slate, which was promoted by Arab-Americans and others as a protest vote against Biden's support for Israel's genocide in Gaza. Marianne Williamson got 3%, and Dean Phillips 2.7%. Everyone's trying to spin the results as much as possible, but I doubt they mean much.
Michael Arria: [02-28] More than 100,000 people vote 'uncommitted' in Michigan primary over Biden Gaza policy.
John Cassidy: [02-28] Michigan's "uncommitted" Democrats send a message to Biden: "The President won the Democratic primary easily, with more than eighty per cent of the vote, but more than a hundred thousand protest voters have made the war in Gaza an issue in his campaign."
Kyla Guilfoil: [02-28] Marianne Williamson unsuspends her presidential campaign after placing 3rd in Michigan.
Frank Bruni: [02-29] Nikki Haley is actually winning. That's fantasy, but she is still enjoying being in the news. [PS: And she did finally win something: [03-03] Nikki Haley wins DC primary, her first victory in GOP nominating race: She led Trump 62.8% to 33.3%, or 19-0 in delegates. Still, isn't a total turnout of 2,030 votes a bit light?]
Next up is "Super Tuesday," so here's a bit of preview:
Kaleigh Rogers: [02-29] 12 Super Tuesday primaries to watch in Texas and North Carolina.
Geoffrey Skelley: [03-01] 12 Super Tuesday primaries to watch in California and Alabama. The big one here is the California Senate primary, where Adam Schiff is hoping to wind up running against Republican Steve Garvey instead of more progressive Democrat Katie Porter.
Mitra Jalali/Aisha Chughtai: [03-04] Here's what the Vote Uncommitted campaign is really about: It's happening in Minnesota, too.
Trump, and other Republicans:
David Brooks: [02-29] The GOP returns to its bad old self: He means the "America First" party of the 1930s: nativist, isolationist, recoiling in dread of the New Deal, and willing to suffer repeated defeats rather than offer anything constructive. He contrasts that to the bullish, globalist part of Eisenhower and Reagan (and the Bushes?), which Trump has totally eclipsed, and is likely to remain in place even when Trump is gone.
Russ Choma: [03-03] A large percentage of Republican primary voters can't stomach Trump. Nowhere near large enough to prevent him from running away with the nomination, but the question is whether they are numerous (and resolute) enough to sink him against Biden. "The AP report did find, however, that just because those voters said they didn't want to vote for Trump -- ever -- it didn't mean they were Biden voters." Haley is not a tenable candidate because she can't even crack a 50% approval rate within the Party.
Rachel M Cohen: [03-03] The anti-abortion playbook for restricting birth control: "Contraception, like IVF, poses problems for those claiming personhood begins at conception." Filed under Republicans, because they own the anti-abortion movement now, and are stuck with it.
Ryan Cooper: [02-29] Mitch McConnell, Senate arsonist.
Thomas B Edsall: [[01-17] The deification of Donald Trump poses some interesting questions: First exhibit is a video titled "God Made Trump."
Susan B Glasser: [02-22] The crazy collapse of the House GOP's impeachment case against Biden: "'A Big Russian Intelligence Op' flops on Capitol Hill."
Karen Greenberg: [02-29] Trump's justice: "Justice delayed is democracy denied." Four sections on Trump, followed by one on Guantánamo.
Margaret Hartmann:
[02-29] Old-man Trump yells at Biden over Melania Late Night joke.
[03-01] Trump complains migrants use languages 'nobody speaks'.
[03-01] Trump's most unhinged plans for his second term: Updated, a neverending project. To recap: Give the president unchecked power over federal agencies; Restore the president's authority to bypass Congress; Appoint a special prosecutor to 'go after' Biden; Use the Justice Department to get revenge on all of his enemies; Expand presidential immunity; Purge the civil service; Install thousands of loyalists throughout the federal government; Fill his cabinet with people like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon; Round up, detain, and deport millions of undocumented immigrants; Deploy US troops for 'war' on the southern border; End birthright citizenship; Construct 'freedom cities'; Put flying cars in Americans' driveways.
Alexander Hinton: [02-26] I went to CPAC as an anthropologist to understand MAGA -- what I saw was "shocking".
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling:
Sarah Jones: [02-29] Republicans can't be trusted to protect IVF.
Pema Levy: [03-01] How Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" debacle previewed the abortion agenda of today's GOP.
Chris Lewis: [02-29] Ken Cuccinelli and the persuasive, pervasive politics of cruelty.
Jason Linkins: A year of Republicans lying about abortion.
Sarah Longwell: What 17 of Trump's 'best people' said about him: Quotes from his cabinet members and other high officials in his administration.
Carlos Lozada: [02-29] What I learned when I read 887 pages of plans for Trump's second term. Lozada was last seen bragging about "reading books so you don't have to," and he proves that in spades here. No doubt his outline only scratches the surface, still I'm left wondering less what they want to do than what kind of damaged psychology drives one to imagine wanting to do such things.
Michael Podhorzer: [02-20] It was never a civil war: "The threat posed by Trump and the MAGA movement, like the Confederate States, is not 'conservative' or even 'extremist' but criminally anti-democratic."
Tom Schaller/Paul Waldman: [02-28] How to end Republican exploitation of rural America: "The authors of the upcoming book White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy explain how rural voters can build a national political movement and improve their local economies." Inadvertent humor here when the authors explain that rural voters don't need to switch to Democrats so much as they should find "better Republicans." By the way, this also just appeared:
Paul Krugman: [02-26] The mystery of white rural rage: Reviews the same book. I think a big part of the problem is that Democrats simply don't try to organize in impoverished rural areas, partly because they don't expect to win in the short term, and largely because they'd rather put their efforts toward upscale suburban districts. One reason is that readily organized constituencies like unions are scarce in rural America. But well before they consider organizing voters, they search for donors, and that's where the suburbs seem like much riper targets. A good example of this was in 2017, when Trump appointments opened up House districts in Kansas and Georgia. Democrats puts tons of money into the latter (where they lost), and virtually nothing into Kansas (where they also lost, but with a terrific candidate managing to carry Wichita, but losing bad in the adjacent rural areas). On some level, most Democrats actually understand that they have much to offer impoverished rural areas, but they do so as outsiders, more focused on their donors and their issues, and unwilling to put the work in to building a representative local party.
Tatyana Tandanpolie: [02-28] New book details how "incensed" Trump and Melania clashed in the White House.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: [02-27] If Trump wins, he'll be a vessel for the most regressive figures in US politics.
Andra Watkins: [03-01] Project 2025 is more than a playbook for Trumpism, it's the Christian Nationalist manifesto: "The right intends to force every American to live their definition of a good life through government edict."
Li Zhou: [02-29] Trump's immigration policies are his old ones -- but worse: Some section heads: Mass deportations; Raids; Detention camps; Suspending refugee resettlement; Ending Temporary Protected Status programs; Making seeking asylum harder; Ending DACA; Reviving family separation hasn't been ruled out; Attacks on birthright citizenship.
Mitch McConnell, 82, announced he will step down as Republican Leader in the Senate in November. This led to some, uh, appreciation?
Ryan Cooper: [02-29] Mitch McConnell, Senate arsonist.
Jack Hunter: [02-29] Sorry AP: Mitch McConnell is no Ronald Reagan: "The paper deploys the usual neoconservative trope that their foreign policies are the same. They are not." Still, I hate it when critics think they're being so clever in claiming that old Republicans were so sensible compared to the new ones. Reagan's "willingness to talk to America's enemies" didn't extend much beyond Russia, and that only after the door had been opened by Gorbachev. He left nothing but disasters all over Latin America and the Middle East through Iran and Afghanistan.
Ed Kilgore: [02-29] Mitch McConnell's power trip finally comes to an end.
Ian Millhiser: [02-29] How Mitch McConnell broke Congress.
John Nichols: [02-29] Good riddance to Mitch McConnell, an enemy of democracy: Sorry to have to break this to you, but he isn't going anywhere. He'll serve out the rest of his six-year term. He's not giving up his leadership post out of a sudden attack of conscience. He's doing it so some other Republican can take over, and possibly do even worse things than he would have done. By holding out until November, he's giving Trump the prerogative of hand-picking his successor -- assuming Trump wins, of course.
David A Graham: Mitch McConnell surrenders to Trump: That's more like it, but at least he's given himself some time. If Trump wins in November, there'll be no fighting him. And if Trump loses, why should he want to be the one stuck cleaning up the mess?
Andrew Prokop: [02-28] How Mitch McConnell lost by winning.
Jane Mayer: [2020-04-12] How Mitch McConnell became Trump's enabler-in-chief: Sometimes an old piece is the best reminder. Had McConnell a bit more foresight and backbone, he could have swung enough Republican votes to convict Trump over Jan. 6, and followed that with a resolution declaring Trump ineligible to run again, according to the 14th Amendment -- such a resolution was discussed at the time, and would undoubtedly be upheld. Sure, it would have been unpopular among Republicans at the time, but popular will has almost never entered into McConnell's political calculus.
Biden and/or the Democrats:
Zack Beauchamp: [02-27] Biden has been bad for Palestinians. Trump would be worse. "On Israel, the two are not the same." Probably true, but this really isn't much comfort. Biden is effectively an Israeli puppet, with no independent will, or even willingness to caution Netanyahu in public, and as such has had no effect on moderating Israel's vendetta -- and may reasonably be charged with not just supporting but accelerating it. For instance, Biden did not have to send aircraft carriers into the region, threatening Iran and provoking Yemen and Lebanon. Nor did he have to accelerate arms deliveries when a ceasefire was obviously called for. As for Trump, sure, he doesn't even know the meaning of "caution." He is largely responsible for Netanyahu believing that he can get away with anything.
Dave DeCamp: [03-03] Poll: Majority of Democrats want a presidential candidate who opposes military aid to Israel: With Marianne Williamson unsuspending her campaign, there actually is one, but will anyone find out?
Isaac Chotiner: [02-28] Does the Biden administration want a long-lasting ceasefire in Gaza? Interview with John Kirby, Biden's National Security Council spokesman, explaining that Biden only wants whatever Netanyahu tells him to want. It's like a form of hypnosis, where Hamas is the shiny object that so captures America's gaze that it will support Israel doing anything to it wants as long as it's saying it's meant to eliminate Hamas. Sure, Biden understands that Palestinians are suffering, and he implores Netanyahu to make them suffer less, but he can't question his orders.
The key to this is that he buys the line that Hamas is a cancer that can be excised from the Palestinian body politic, allowing Israel to regain its security. I hesitate to call that the Israeli line: sure, they developed it with their targeted assassinations (they go back at least as far as Abu Jihad in 1988), but Israelis never claimed one strike would suffice -- they tended to use metaphors like "mowing the grass"). It was only the Americans, with their romantic conceits about their own goodness and the innate innocence of ignorant savages, that turned this systematic slaughter into magical thinking. Israelis don't think like that. They understand that Hamas (or some other form of militant backlash) is the inevitable result of their harsh occupation. And, their consciences hardened by constant struggle (including their carefully cultivated memory of the Holocaust), they're willing to live with that brutality.
If they can't distinguish Hamas from the mass of people they've emerged from, they see no reason to discipline their killing. They figure if they destroy enough, the problem will subside. Even if it inevitably erupts again, that's later, and they'll remain eternally vigilant. There are no solutions, because they don't want to accept the only possible one, which is peaceful coexistence. But silly Americans, they need to be told stories, and it's amazing what they'll swallow.
Mitchell Plitnick: [03-01] Biden memos show Palestine advocacy is working: "Two recent presidential orders show the Biden administration is feeling the heat from months of protests against his support for Israel's genocide in Gaza."
Alexander Ward: [03-01] 'We look 100 percent weak': US airdrops in Gaza expose limit to Biden's Israel policy.
Fareed Zakaria: [03-01] Biden needs to tell Israel some difficult truths. Only he can do it.
Erica L Green: [03-03] Kamala Harris calls for an 'immediate cease-fire' in Gaza: Promising title, but fine print reveals it's only the "six-week cease-fire proposal currently on the table," and that she's calling on Hamas, not Israel, the ones who are actually doing all of the firing, and who have already broken off talks on that particular proposal. A cease fire, especially where the war is so one-sided, doesn't need to be negotiated: just do it (perhaps daring the other side to violate it, but the longer it lasts, the better). Sure, prisoner exchanges have to be negotiated, but not cease-fire, which is just common sense.
Frank Bruni: [03-03] How Democrats can win anywhere and everywhere.
Michelle Goldberg: [03-01] The Democrat showing Biden how it's done: Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan. This follows on recent columns by Goldberg:
[02-23] Biden is in danger of losing Michigan and, with it, the whole election.
[02-12] Biden's age is a campaign problem, not a governing one.
[02-06] In Poland, I saw what a second Trump term could do to America.
[01-19] Trump just keeps doing appalling things, and the ranks of the disengaged are growing.
Ezra Klein: [02-16] Democrats have a better option than Biden: Starts by heaping considerable praise on Biden and his accomplishments of the last three-plus years, then lowers the boom and insists that he should step aside, not so much because one reasonably doubts that he can do the job for more years, but that he's no longer competent as a candidate. (Never mind that Trump is far from competent, in any sense of the term. He's a Republican, and one of our many double standards, we don't expect competency from Republicans, or for that matter caring, or even much coherence.) He goes into how conventions work, and offers a bunch of plausible candidates. It's a long and thorough piece, and makes the case as credibly as I've seen (albeit much less critically of Biden than I might do myself).
Klein's columns are styled as "The Ezra Klein Show," which are usually just interviews, but this one is monologue, with multiple references to other conversations. He's had a few other interviews recently with political operatives, a couple adding to his insight into Democratic prospects, plus a couple more I'll include here. (Also see the pieces I listed under Ukraine.)
[01-25] 'The strongest Democratic Party that any of us have ever seen': Interview with Simon Rosenberg.
[02-01] 'Why haven't the Democrats completely cleaned the Republicans' clock?' Interview with Ruy Teixeira, co-author of Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes.
[01-16] A Republican pollster on Trump's undimmed appeal: Interview with Kristen Soltis Anderson, arguing that Republicans just want stability, and that's why they love Trump.
[2023-10-03] Your guide to the new right: Interview with Stephanie Slade.
Paul Musgrave: [03-03] An inside look at how Biden's team rebuilt foreign policy after Trump: Review of Alexander Ward: The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump.
Bill Scher: [02-29] "Nightmare in America": How Biden's ad team should attack Trump: "In 1984, Ronald Reagan's reelection campaign ran a series of ads that evoked how different life felt in America compared to under his opponent's administration four years prior. Today, Joe Biden should do the same." Sure, there's something to be said here, if you can figure out how to say it. But Trump's going to be pushing the opposite spin, in many cases on the same set of facts, all the while pointing out the extraordinary efforts his/your enemies took to hobnob his administration and persecute him since he was pushed out of office. He's just as likely to embrace the Left's notion of him as their worst nightmare. Note that page includes a link to a 2020 article, which also cites Reagan: Nancy LeTourneau: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
John E Schwarz: [03-01] Democratic presidents have better economic performances than Republican ones.
Legal matters and other crimes:
Gabriella Ferrigine: [02-28] Lauren Boebert's son arrested on 22 charges -- hours after she attacks "Biden Crime Family": "Boebert's 18-year-old son was charged with vehicle trespass and property theft."
Aziz Huq: [02-29] Why is Trump getting special treatment from the Supreme Court? "The justices are handling Trump's case far differently than most criminal defendants." Not just the Supreme Court. Has any criminal defendant ever been able to pick their preferred prosecutors and/or judges?
Jane Mayer: [02-29] The scandal of Clarence Thomas's new clerk: Crystal Clanton.
Megan Messerly: [02-29] A 'stunning' element of the Alabama IVF ruling. By the way, more IVF fallout:
Megan Messerly: [02-29] Alabama legislature votes to restore IVF access.
Alice Miranda Ollstein/Robert King: [02-28] Hyde-Smith blocks Senate vote on federal IVF protections.
Ian Millhiser:
[02-26] The Supreme Court appeared lost in a massive case about free speech online: "The justices look likely to reinstate Texas and Florida laws that seize control of much of the internet -- but not for long."
[02-28] How Amy Coney Barrett could save us from fully legal automatic weapons.
[02-28] The Supreme Court just handed Trump an astonishing victory: They agreed to hear oral arguments in late April on his case that ex-presidents cannot be prosecuted for anything they did as president. The case was decided against Trump by a federal appeals court. In reopening the case, the Supreme Court is adding significant delay to his trial on charges stemming from the January 6 coup attempt.
[03-02] The courts were never going to save America from Donald Trump. Most ominous section head here is: "It's not even clear that the Supreme Court is capable of standing up for the rule of law in the face of a sufficiently determined opposition." And this is not just the current right-wing court. Examples, few but he could have listed many, start with Dred Scott (1857).
[03-04] The Supreme Court just crushed any hope that Trump could be removed from the ballot: "This is the second major victory the Supreme Court handed Trump in less than one week." No surprise that the Colorado ruling that banned Trump from the primary ballot was overturned -- that could have happened unanimously -- but the right-wing faction went even further to show their fealty to Trump.
Peter M Shane: [02-27] This will be a big year for the Roberts Court's major questions doctrine.
Matt Stieb: [02-29] Did the Supreme Court fight over delaying Trump's trial? Interview with Steve Vladeck.
Climate and environment:
Umair Irfan: [02-29] Texas fires happen in the winter. Just never at this scale before. The Smokehouse Creek Fire "has engulfed more than 1.1 million acres and was 3 percent contained as of Thursday morning." "Encroaching flames forced the Pantex nuclear weapons manufacturing plant in Amarillo to shut down."
Benji Jones: [02-28] This chart of ocean temperatures should really scare you. The eastern Atlantic, off the coast of Africa -- also in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, which is to say in the areas where hurricanes form and intensify -- is already much warmer than in previous years (at least going back to 1981).
Ukraine War:
Connor Echols: [03-01] Diplomacy Watch: Russia could be invited to Ukraine-led peace talks. I don't really buy that "Ukraine's shift is a sign of just how dire the situation is becoming for its armed forces," but I do believe that Russia can more/less hold its position indefinitely, that it can continue to exact high (and eventually crippling) costs from Ukraine indefinitely, and that it can survive the sanctions regime (which the US is unlikely to loosen even in an armistice. All of this suggests to me that Zelensky needs to approach some realistic terms for ending the war, then sell them as hard to his "allies" as to Putin, and to the rest of the world.
Anatol Lieven/George Beebe: [02-28] Europeans' last ditch clutch at Ukrainian victory: "France's Macron raised the idea of Western troops entering the fray, others want to send longer range missiles."
Olena Melnyhk/Sera Koulabdara: [02-29] Ukraine's vaunted 'bread basket' soil is now toxic: "Two years of war has left roughly one-third of its territory polluted, with dire potential consequences for the world's food supply."
Will Porter: [02-28] Russia claims first Abrams tank kill in Ukraine.
Ted Snider: [03-01] How the West provoked an unprovoked war in Ukraine. The ironies in the title at least merit quotes around "unprovoked." The important part of the story is the relatively underreported period from March, 2021 when Biden added $125 million of "defensive lethal weapons" on top of $150 million previously allocated under Trump, up to the eve of the March 2022 invasion, when "Putin called Ukraine 'a knife to the throat of Russia' and worried that 'Ukraine will serve as an advanced bridgehead' for a pre-emptive US strike against Russia." It is unlikely the US would ever launch such a strike, but Ukraine had by then given up on the Minsk accords and was preparing to take back Donbas. Had they succeeded, Crimea would be next, and that (plus excessive confidence in his own military) was enough for Putin to launch his own pre-emptive attack.
Marcus Stanley: [02-28] Biden officials want Russian frozen assets to fund Ukraine war: "Not only will this prolong the conflict, but rock confidence in the Western-led world economic system."
Ishaan Tharoor: [02-28] Foreign troops in Ukraine? They're already there.
Ezra Klein:
[03-01] The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have changed. America's policy hasn't. Interview with Richard Haass. [Transcript to be added later.]
[2022-03-01] Can the West stop Russia by strangling its economy? Transcript of an interview with Adam Tooze, doesn't really answer the title question but does provide a pretty deep survey of Russia's economy at the start of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. One minor note: I think Tooze said "Kremlinologists" where you read "the criminologists of the modern day have five, six, seven, eight different groups now that they see operating around Putin."
PS: Unrelated to Russia, but for another Klein interview with Tooze, see: [2022-10-07] How the Fed is "shaking the entire system".Around the world:
Shaiq Hussain/Rick Noack: [03-03] Lawmakers pick Pakistani's leader, but Khan's shadow looms from prison: Shehbaz Sharif was re-elected, but lacks parliamentary majority support.
Ishaan Tharoor: [03-03] Iran stages a dismal election as Islamic regime circles the wagons.
Lori Aratani: [03-01] Boeing in talks to reacquire key 737 Max supplier Spirit AeroSystems: Boeing spun the company off in 2005, including the Wichita factory my father and brother worked at for decades.
Marina Bolotnikova/Kenny Torrella: [02-26] 9 charts that show US factory farming is even bigger than you realize: "Factory farms are now so big that we need a new word for them." Related here:
Current Affairs: [03-01] Why factory farming is a moral atrocity: Interview with Lewis Bollard, of Open Philanthropy.
Jack McCordick: The academics helping the meat industry avoid climate scrutiny.
Rosa Brooks: [02-20] One hundred years of dictatorship worship: A review of a new book by Jacob Heilbrunn: America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance With Foreign Dictators [note: cover has it "America First" in large white type, then overprints "Last" in blockier red].
Daniel Denvir: [02-28] The libertarians who dream of a world without democracy: Interview with Quinn Slobodian, who wrote the 2018 book Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, and most recently, Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy.
Adam Gopnik: [02-19] Did the year 2020 change us forever? "The COVID-19 pandemic affected us in millions of ways. But it evades the meanings we want it to bear." A review, which I haven't finished (and may never) of the emerging, evolving literature on 2020.
Sean Illing: [03-03] Are we in the middle of an extinction panic? "How doomsday proclamations about AI echo existential anxieties of the past." Interview with Tyler Austin Harper, who wrote about this in the New York Times: The 100-year extinction panic is back, right on schedule. I could write a lot more on this, especially if I referred back to the extinction controversies paleontologists have been debating all along, but suffice it to say:
The Times piece led to some others of interest here:
Thomas Homer-Dixon/Johan Rockström: [2022-11-13] What happens when a cascade of crises collide? Homer-Dixon is a "futurologist" I got interested in long ago, but haven't followed in quite some time. He reminds us how many changes produce positive feedback loops (at least temporarily), further destabilizing. In mathematics, a catastrophe is what happens when a function suddenly breaks or collapses. It's easy to come up with real world examples.
Jerome Roos: [04-16] We don't know what will happen next.
Ezra Klein: [2023-10-26] The chief ideologist of the Silicon Valley elite has some strange ideas: Marc Andreessen.
Chris Lehman: [03-01] Border hysteria is a bipartisan delusion: "Yesterday, both President Biden and Donald Trump visited Texas to promise harsher immigration policies."
Abdullah Fayyad: [03-01] America has a good model for how to handle immigration: America.
Andrea Mazzarino: [02-27] War's cost is unfathomable. I mentioned this in an update last week, but it's worth mentioning again. She starts by referring to "The October 7th America has forgotten," which was 2001, when the US first bombed Afghanistan, following the Al-Qaeda attacks of that September 11. In 2010, Mazzarino founded the Cost of War Project, which, as economists are wont to do, started adding up whatever they could of the quantifiable costs of America's Global War on Terror and its spawn. Still, their figures (at least $8 trillion and counting, and with debt compounding) miss much of the real human (and environmental) costs, especially those that are primarily psychic.
For instance, would we have the gun problem that we have had we not been continuously at war for over two decades? Would our politics have turned so desperately war-like? Certainly, there would have been much less pressure to immigrate, given that war is the leading producer of refugees. Without constant jostling for military leverage, might we not have made more progress in dealing with problems like climate change? The list only grows from there.
One constant theme of every Speaking of Which is the need to put aside the pursuit of power over and against others and find mutual grounds that will allow us to work together cooperatively to deal with pressing problems. There are lots of reasons why this is true, starting with the basic fact that we could not exist in such numbers if not for a level of technology that is complex beyond most of our understandings and fragile, especially vulnerable to the people who feel most unjustly treated. Our very lives depend on experts who can be trusted, and their ability to work free of sabotage. You can derive all the politics you need from this insight.
Michelle Orange: [03-01] How the Village Voice met its moment: A review of Tricia Romano's The Freaks Came Out to Write, a new "oral history" (i.e., history presented in interview quotes). I rushed out and bought a copy, and should probably write my own review, even if only because she left me out. More:
Peter Conrad: [02-27] The Freaks Came Out to Write review -- how the Village Voice changed American journalism.
Maureen Corrigan: [03-04] The oral history of the 'Village Voice' captures its creativity and rebelliousness.
Dwight Garner: [02-12] What was The Village Voice? Garner is also interviewed in Gilbert Cruz: [02-23] The rise and fall of the Village Voice.
Adriane Quinlan: [02-28] Meet the New York 'freaks' who reshaped modern journalism.
Charles Cross: [02-26] Tricia Romano chats Village Voice ahead of Town Hall event.
Tricia Romano: [03-02] 'There's some music coming out of the Bronx called rap,' how the Village Voice championed hip-hop and changed criticism: An excerpt.
Rick Perlstein: [02-28] Kissinger revisited: "The former secretary of state is responsible for virtually every American geopolitical disaster of the past half-century."
Deanne Stillman: [02-21] Mothers, sons, and guns: Author wrote a book about Lee Harvey Oswald and his mother, recounted here, in light of high school shooter Ethan Crumbley and his mother, Jennifer Crumbley, who was convicted for her role leading up to the shootings.
David Zipper: [03-01] Driving at ridiculous speeds should be physically impossible: As someone who grew up with a great love of auto racing, I'd argue that driving at ridiculous speeds has always been physically impossible, even as limits have expanded with better technology. Of course, "ridiculous" can mean many different things, but I'd say that's a reason not to try to legislate it. I've long thought that the 55 mph speed limit was the biggest political blunder the Democrats made, at least in my lifetime. (Aside from Vietnam.) Not only did it impose on personal freedom -- in a way that, say, European levels of gasoline taxes wouldn't have done -- but it induced some kind of brain rot in American auto engineering, from which Detroit may never have recovered. (I can't really say. After several bad experiences, I stopped buying their wares.)
Ironically, this political push for mandating "speed limiters" (even more euphemistically, "Intelligent Speed Assistance") on new cars is coming from tech businesses, who see surveillance of driving as a growth area for revenue. This fits in with much broader plans to increase surveillance -- mostly government, but it doesn't end there -- over every aspect of our lives. Supposedly, this will save lives, although the relationship between speeding and auto carnage has never been straightforward, and much more plausible arguments (e.g., on guns) go nowhere. My great fear here is that Democrats will rally to this as a public health and safety measure, inviting a backlash we can ill afford (as with the 55 mph speed limit, which helped elect Reagan).