#^d 2024-04-08 #^h Speaking of Which
I don't have much time to work with this week. Writing this on Friday, I expect that the links below will be spotty. I also doubt that I'll have many records in the next Music Week, although that can run if I have any at all.
My company left Saturday morning, headed to Arkansas for a better view of the eclipse on Monday, so I finally got a bit of time to work on this. I collected a few links to get going, then spent most of Sunday writing my "one point here" introduction, and adding a few more links. I got a little over half way through my usual source tabs before I had to call it a day. On Monday, I tried to pick up where I had left off -- not going back to the tabs I had hit on Sunday, but picking up the occasional Monday post as I went along. Wound up with a pretty full post, dated Monday. I marked this paragraph as an add, because it's a revision to my original intro.
This should go up before I go to bed Monday night. Music Week will follow later Tuesday. Very little in it from before Saturday, but I've found a few interesting records while working on this.
But I do want to make one point here, which is something I've been thinking about for a while now.
I've come to conclude that many of us made a fundamental error in the immediate aftermath of October 7 in blaming Hamas (or more generally, Palestinians) for the outbreak of violence. Even those of us who immediately feared that Israel would strike back with a massive escalation somehow felt like we had to credit Hamas with agency and moral responsibility -- if not for the retaliation, at least for their own acts. But what choice did they have? What else could they have done?
But there is an alternate view, which is that violent resistance is an inevitable consequence of systematic marginalization, where nonviolent remedies are excluded, and order is violently enforced. How can we expect anyone to suffer oppression without fighting back? So why don't we recognize blowback as intrinsic to the context, and therefore effectively the responsibility of the oppressor? I don't doubt that Israelis were terrified on October 7. They were, after all, looking at a mirror of their own violence.
It's pretty obvious why Israel's leaders wanted to genocide. The Zionist movement was born in a world that was racist, nationalist, and imperialist -- traits that Zionists embraced, hoping to forge them into a defensive shield, which worked just as well as a cudgel to impose their will on others. What distinguishes them from Nazis is that they're less driven to enslave or exterminate enemy races, but that mostly means they see no use for others. In theory, they'd be satisfied just to drive the others out -- as they did with the Nakba -- but in practice their horizons expand as the settlements grow.
The question isn't: why genocide? That's been baked in from the beginning. The question is why they didn't do it before, and why they think they can get away with it now. The "why not" is bound to be speculative, and I don't want to delve very deep here, but I can imagine trying to sort it out on two axes, one for the people, the other for the cutting-edge political leaders. For the people, the scale runs from respect for one's humanity, and dehumanizing others. Most Israelis used to take pride in their high morality, but war and militarism broke that down (with ultra-orthodoxy and capitalism also taking a toll). As for the leaders, the scale is based on power: the desire to push the envelope of possibility, balanced off by the need to maintain good will with allies.
Ben Gurion was a master at both: a guy who took as much as he could (even overreaching in 1956 and having to retreat), and was always plotting ahead to take even more (as his followers did in 1967, meeting less resistance from Johnson). Begin pushed even further, although he too had to retreat from Lebanon under Carter before he found a more compliant Reagan. Netanyahu is another one who constantly tested the limits of American allowance, only to find that Trump and Biden were pushovers, offering no resistance at all. Genocide only became possible as Palestinians came to be viewed by most Israelis as subhuman, while Netanyahu found his power to be unlimited by American sensitivity.
So, while Israel has always been at risk of turning genocidal, what's really changed is America, turning from the "good neighbor" FDR promised to Eisenhower's "leader of the free world" to Reagan's capitalist scam artists to Bush's "global war on terror" to the Trump-Biden cha-cha. I chalk this up to several things. The drift to the right made Americans meaner and politicians more cynical and corrupt. The neocons came to dominate foreign policy, with their cult for power that could be rapidly and arbitrarily deployed anywhere -- as Israel did in their small region, Bush would around the globe. The counter-intifada in Israel and the US wars on terror drove both countries further into the grip of dehumanizing militarism, opening up an opportunity for Netanyahu to forge a right-wing alliance with America, while AIPAC held Democrats like Obama and Biden in check. Trump automatically rubber-stamped anything Netanyahu wanted, and Biden had no will power to do anything but.
By the time October 7 came around, Americans couldn't so much as articulate a national interest in peace and social justice. But there was also one specific thing that kept Americans from seeing genocide as such: we had totally bought into the idea that Hamas, as exemplary terrorists, were intrinsically evil, could never be negotiated with, and therefore all you could do to stop them is to kill as many as you can. It wasn't a novel idea. America has a sordid history of assassination plots until the mid-1970s, when the Church Committee exposed that history and forced reforms. But Israel's own assassination programs expanded continuously from the 1980s on, and American neocons envied Israel's prowess. Under Bush, "high value targets" became currency, and Obama not only followed suit, he upped the game -- most notably bagging Osama Bin Laden.
There's a Todd Snider line: "In America, we like our bad guys dead." That's an understatement. Dead has become the only way we can imagine their stories ending. We long ago gave up on the notion that enemies can be rehabilitated. In large part, this reflects a loss of faith in justice, replaced by sheer power, the belief that we are right because we have the might to force them to tow the line. That was the attitude that Europe took to the South in the 19th century. That was the attitude Germany and Japan made World War with.
That attitude was discredited -- Germany and Japan were allowed to recover as free and peaceful nations; Africa and Asia decolonized; the capitalist world integrated, first with a stable divide from the communists, then by further engagement. There were problems. The US was magnanimous to defeated Germany and Japan, but in turning against the Soviet Union, and in assuming security responsibility for the former European colonies, and in maintaining capitalist hegemony over them, Americans lost their faith in democracy and justice, and embraced power for its own sake. And when that failed, they turned vindictive toward Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and elsewhere.
The Israelis were adept students of power. They learned directly from the British colonial system, with its divide-and-conquer politics, and its use of collective punishment. They worked with the British to defeat the Palestinian revolt of 1937-39, and against the British in 1947-48. They drew lessons from the Nazis. They learned to play games with the world powers, especially with the US. Trita Parsi's book, Treacherous Alliance, is a case study of how they played Iran off for leverage elsewhere, especially with the US. The neocons, with their Israel envy, were especially easy to play.
So when October 7 happened, all the necessary prejudices and reflexive operators were aligned. Hamas were the perfect villains: they had their roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, which qualified them as Islamists, close enough to the Salafis and Deobandis who Americans had branded as terrorists even before 9/11; they had become rivals with the secular PLO within the Occupied Territories, especially after Israel facilitated Arafat's return under the Oslo Accords -- a rivalry which led them to become more militant against Israel, which Israel intensified by assassinating their leaders; when they finally did decide to run for elections, they won but the results were disallowed, leading to them seizing power in Gaza, which Israel then blockaded, "put on a diet," and "mowed the grass" in a series of punishing sieges and incursions; along the way, Hamas managed to get a small amount of aid from Iran, so found themselves branded as an Iranian proxy, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen -- Israel knew that any hint of Iranian influence would drive the Americans crazy.
Not only was Hamas the perfect enemy, Israel and the United States had come to believe that terrorists were irrational and fanatical, that they could never be negotiated with, and that the only way to deal with them was by systematically killing off their cadres and especially their leaders until they were reduced to utter insignificance. The phrase Israelis used was that their goal was to make Palestinians realize that they were "an utterly defeated people." When I first heard that phrase, a picture came to mind, of the last days of the American Indian campaigns, when the last Sioux and Apache surrendered to be kept as helpless dependents on wasteland reservations.
On its founding, Israel kept a British legal system that was designed to subjugate native populations, to surveil them, and to arbitrarily arrest and punish anyone they suspected of disloyalty. They discriminated legally against natives, limiting their economic prospects, curtailing their freedom, and punishing them harshly, including collective punishments -- a system which instilled fear of each against the other, where every disobedient act became an excuse for harsher and more sweeping mistreatment.
After Hamas took control of Gaza, those punishments were often delivered by aircraft, wielding 2,000-pound bombs that could flatten whole buildings. Hamas responded with small, imprecise rockets, of no military significance but symbolic of defiance, a way of saying we can still reach beyond your walls. Israel always responded with more shelling and bombing, a dynamic that repeatedly escalated until the horror started to turn world opinion against Israel. Having made their point, Israel could then ease off, until the next opportunity or provocation sent them on the warpath again.
The October 7 "attack" -- at the time, I characterized it, quite accurately I still think, as a jail break followed by a brief crime spree. In short order, Israel killed most of the "attackers," and resealed the border. The scale, in terms of the numbers of Israelis killed or captured was much larger than anything Palestinians had previously managed, and the speed was even more striking, but the overall effect was mostly symbolic, and the threat of more violence coming from Gaza dissipated almost immediately. Israel had no real need to counterattack. They could have easily negotiated a prisoner swap -- Israel had many times more Palestinians in jail than Hamas took as hostages, and had almost unlimited power to add to their numbers. But Israel's leaders didn't want peace. They wanted to reduce Palestinians to "an utterly defeated people." And since there was no way to do that other than to kill most of them and drive the rest into exile -- basically a rerun of the Nakba, only more intense, because having learned that lesson, Palestinians would cling even more tenaciously to their homeland.
That's why the immediate reaction of Israel's leaders was to declare their intent to commit genocide. The problem with that idea was that since the Holocaust, any degree of genocide had become universally abhorrent. To proceed, Israel had to keep the war going, and to keep it going, they had to keep their ideal enemy alive, long enough to do major devastation, making Gaza unlivable for anywhere near the 2.3 million people who managed to live through decades of hardships there, with starvation playing a major role in decimating the population.
In order to commit genocide, Israel had to supplement its killing machinery with a major propaganda offensive, because they remembered that what finally stopped their major wars of 1948-49, 1956, 1967, and 1973, and their periodic assaults on Lebanon and Gaza, was public opinion, especially in America. But Netanyahu knew how to push America's buttons. He declared that the only thing Israel could do to protect itself -- the one thing Israel had to do in order to keep this mini-Holocaust from ever happening again -- was to literally kill everyone in Hamas.
And Americans fell for that line, completely. They believed that Hamas were intractably evil terrorists, and they knew that terrorists cannot be appeased or even negotiated with. And they trusted that Israelis knew what they were doing and how best to do it, so all they really had to do was to provide support and diplomatic cover, giving Israel the time and tools to do the job as best they saw fit. And sure, there would be some collateral damage, because Hamas uses civilians as human shields -- it never really occurring to Americans that those super-smart, super-moral Israelis can't actually tell the difference between Hamas and civilians even if they wanted to, which most certainly they do not. And if anything does look bad, Israel can always come up with a cover story good enough for Americans to believe. After all, Americans have a lot of practice believing their own atrocity cover up stories.
The hostage situation turned out to be really useful for keeping the spectre of Hamas alive. There is no real way for Americans to evaluate how much armed defense Hamas is still capable of in Gaza -- their capability to attack beyond the walls was depleted instantly as they shot their wad on October 7 -- so the only reliable "proof of existence" of Hamas is when their allies show up for meetings in Qatar and Cairo. And there's no chance of agreement, as the only terms Israel is offering is give up all the hostages, surrender, and die. But by showing up, they affirm that Hamas still exists, and by refusing to surrender, they remind the Americans that the only way this can end is by killing them all.
And while that charade is going on, Israel continues to kill indiscriminately, to destroy everything, to starve, to render Gaza unlivable. And they will continue to do so, until enough of us recognize their real plan is genocide, and we shame them into stopping. We are making progress in that direction, as we can see as Biden starts to waver in his less and less enthusiastic support, but we still have a long ways to go.
The key to making more progress will be to break down several of the myths Israel has spun. In particular, we have to abandon the belief that we can solve all our problems by killing everyone who disagrees with us. Second, we need to understand that killing or otherwise harming people only causes further resentment and resistance. People drunk on power tend to ignore this, but it's really not a difficult or novel idea: as Rabbi Hillel put it, "That which is hateful unto you, do not do to your neighbor."
Moreover, we need to understand that negotiated agreement between responsible parties is much preferable to the diktat of a single party, no matter how powerful that party is. It's not clear to me that Israel needs to negotiate an agreement with Hamas, because it's not clear to me that Hamas is the real and trusted agent of the people of Palestine or Gaza, but some group needs to emerge as the responsible party, and the more solid their footing, the better partner they can be.
Israel, like the British before them, has always insisted on picking its favored Palestinian representatives, while making them look foolish, corrupt, and/or ineffective. Arafat may only have been the latter, but by not allowing him to accomplish anything, Israel opened up the void that Hamas tried to fill. But Hamas has only had the power it was able to seize by force, and even then was severely limited by what Israel would allow, in a perverse symbiotic relationship that we could spend a lot of time on -- Israel has often found Hamas to be very useful, so their current view that Hamas has to be exterminated seems more like a line to be fed to the Americans, who tend to take good vs. evil ever so literally.
Initial count: 217 links, 12,552 words.
Israel:
Mondoweiss: Probably the best of the day-by-day reports, but once again they took the weekend off. Too bad Israel didn't.
[04-01] Day 178: Israel withdraws from al-Shifa Hospital, leaving evidence of a massacre in its wake: "Dozens of bodies are still being recovered from the rubble of a destroyed and burnt al-Shifa Hospital, following a two-week Israeli raid and siege on the hospital." After missing over the weekend, this invaluable series returns.
[04-02] Day 179: Israel kills 7 international aid workers in central Gaza, passes law banning Al Jazeera: "The World Central Kitchen called the attack that killed seven of its aid workers 'unforgivable' as Israeli forces killed 71 people across the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the Israeli government voted to approve a bill banning Al Jazeera."
[04-03] Day 180: Israel calls killing of WCK workers 'mistake,' UN reports at least 195 aid workers killed since October 7: "Israeli media says the World Central Kitchen aid team was intentionally targeted with three missiles, as an UN expert says the strike shows Israel aims to force aid organizations out of Gaza."
[04-04] Day 181: Child deaths in Gaza on the rise, hostage negotiations 'stuck': "WHO chief Ghebreyesus said he was 'appalled' at the destruction of al-Shifa Hospital. Meanwhile, pressure on Netanyahu increases domestically to strike a hostage deal with Hamas as the UN Human Rights Council considers an arms embargo against Israel."
[04-05] Day 182: Israel says it will 'temporarily' allow aid into Gaza: "Following international outcry at the targeting of World Central Kitchen aid workers, Israel said that it would 'temporarily' allow aid into Gaza. Meanwhile, Israeli forces raided the al-Aqsa Mosque compound and killed a Palestinian man in Tulkarem."
Al Jazeera:
[04-06] List of key events, day 183.
[04-07] List of key events, day 184.
[04-04] Israel's Gantz challenges Netanyahu with call for election amid Gaza war. It's been suggested that this is a response to American criticism of Netanyahu, but he's only asking for an election in September, so there isn't much urgency behind his demand.
Simon Speakman Cordall: [04-07] Israel may have started a forever war in Gaza.
Andrew Mitrovica: [04-07] Israel's message: 'Don't feed the Palestinians': "The killing of the seven aid workers in Gaza is a direct consequence of Israel's brutal 'rules of engagement.'"
Yuval Abraham: [04-03] 'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing spree in Gaza: "The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties."
Linah Alsaafin: [04-03] Israel's brutality is increasing -- and so is its denialism: "The atrocities at Al-Shifa Hospital are clear, but Israeli politicians say not a single civilian was killed. It's just one of several outlandish claims Israel has made recently."
Eric Alterman: [04-02] Banning Al Jazeera moves Israel one step closer to dictatorship.
Tareq Baconi: [04-01] The two-state solution is an unjust, impossible fantasy. This is accurate as far as it goes:
Repeating the two-state solution mantra has allowed policymakers to avoid confronting the reality that partition is unattainable in the case of Israel and Palestine, and illegitimate as an arrangement originally imposed on Palestinians without their consent in 1947. And fundamentally, the concept of the two-state solution has evolved to become a central pillar of sustaining Palestinian subjugation and Israeli impunity. The idea of two states as a pathway to justice has in and of itself normalized the daily violence meted out against Palestinians by Israel's regime of apartheid.
The key thing you need to understand here is that Israel has never offered the only thing that makes two states possible, which is complete independence. Given this, we should admit that Israel has never made an honest two-state offer. Moreover, Israel has always managed to scuttle third-party two-state solutions, and that's happened often enough that no one should credit them as serious possibilities.
Also:
A single state from the river to the sea might appear unrealistic or fantastical or a recipe for further bloodshed. But it is the only state that exists in the real world -- not in the fantasies of policymakers. The question, then, is: How can it be transformed into one that is just?
Back in 1947, when the UK gave up on its mandate in Palestine, the logical solution would have been to allow a democratic government to be formed, with constitutional safeguards to protect minorities. Whether such a state would be fair and just is a counterfactual we can only speculate on. The population at the time was divided about 2-to-1 Muslims over Jews, with a small Christian minority. The Jews wanted to rule, and being outnumbered lobbied for partition, so they could establish a state and military, for defense and expansion if the opportunity arose. Muslims and Christians were disorganized -- deliberately by the British, especially while suppressing the 1937-39 revolt -- so it's unclear what they wanted (anything from liberal social democracy to theocracy was possible, but Jews had reason to be wary, given that the revolt was largely triggered by opposition to their immigration, and that nominal leader -- initially appointed by the British -- Hajj Amin al-Husseini had taken refuge in Nazi Germany after the revolt failed).
British colonial rule was built on divide-and-conquer politics, reinforced by savage collective punishment, and that fed into a fondness for partition strategies, which had already proven to be disastrous in Ireland and in India. Britain also retained a large degree of control in the nominally independent Arab monarchies of Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq, which in theory attacked Israel on its declaration of independence in 1948, but actually moved to deny Palestinians sovereignty in their allotted partition (reduced in size by Israeli military gains, and increased in population by fleeing refugees).
Even if one doubts that a Palestinian majority in 1947 would have established a fair and just single state, especially one that would have allowed for further Jewish immigration from a still-ravaged Europe, why not pursue such a solution now? The Israeli position is that such an idea is a "non-starter," as it would mark the end of the Zionist dream of a safe haven for Jews from everywhere. The assumption seems to be that if power ever shifted from Jews to Arabs -- which is neither inevitable nor impossible given current demographics and trends -- that the Arabs would treat the Jews as badly as the Jews have treated the Arabs since 1948. I doubt that would happen, but to allay such fears, there are ways to design safeguards while still allowing a vast expansion of personal freedom for Palestinians. The biggest problem is that Israelis, especially those in the settler movement, are accustomed to living with state support for their hatred and violence, and they will resist any change.
Hence, it is imperative to convince Israelis that profound change is the only way to recover their bearings as respectable people. That task is at least as difficult as convincing George Wallace's Alabama to accept civil rights, and as difficult as convincing Oklahoma to stop stealing Indian lands. Neither of those cases worked out as well as one hoped, but at least we realized that continued unfair and unjust treatment would only perpetuate hostilities that would ultimately hurt everyone.
Ramzy Baroud: [04-08] Irremediable defeat: On Israel's other unwinnable war: "Historically, wars unite Israelis. Not anymore."
The problems continue to pile up, and Netanyahu, the master politician of former times, is now only hanging by the thread of keeping the war going for as long as possible to defer his mounting crises for as long as possible.
Yet, an indefinite war is not an option, either. The Israeli economy, according to recent data by the country's Central Bureau of Statistics, has shrunk by over 20 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023. It is likely to continue its free fall in the coming period.
Moreover, the army is struggling, fighting an unwinnable war without realistic goals. The only major source for new recruits can be obtained from ultra-Orthodox Jews, who have been spared the battlefield to study in yeshivas, instead.
70 percent of all Israelis, including many in Netanyahu's own party, want the Haredi to join the army. On March 28, the Supreme Court ordered a suspension of state subsidies allocated to these ultra-Orthodox communities.
If that is to happen, the crisis will deepen on multiple fronts. If the Haredi lose their privileges, Netanyahu's government is likely to collapse; if they maintain them, the other government, the post Oct-7 war council, is likely to collapse as well.
In 1967, Israel conquered the near world -- larger professional armies with tanks and aircraft -- in six days. Now, with at least ten times the firepower, they've spent six months demolishing housing and hospitals, just to root out a few thousand Hamas lightly-armed "militants," and have little to show for it but shame and disgrace.
Nora Berman: [03-29] 'The most moral army in the world' is posing with Palestinian women's underwear in Gaza.
Connor Echols: [04-02] US, Israeli attacks on UNRWA push agency toward collapse.
Or Kashti: [03-24] Oct. 7 Hamas attack is tearing apart Israeli human rights group B'Tselem: B'Tselem is a very important Israeli non-profit which has done vital work in documenting the atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestinians since its founding in 1989. They were quick to call for a ceasefire after Oct. 7, but this was complicated by internal divisions over how much blame to direct at Hamas, and whether to echo propaganda points which were used to justify Israel's genocidal counter-attack. I'm having trouble following this piece, but noted that the divide led to the resignation of Eyal Hareuveni, who I know mostly as a jazz critic. This also led me to:
Joshua Keating:
[04-05] How the war in Gaza has gone differently than expected -- and how it hasn't.
[04-03] Israel just raised the risk of a regional war: "And US troops may suffer the consequences."
Takeshi Kumon: [03-20] Israeli startups hope to export battle-tested AI military tech: I got this link from a Naomi Klein tweet, who added: "not mere disaster capitalism -- genocide capitalism."
Gideon Levy: [04-07] In six months in Gaza, Israel's worst-ever war achieved nothing but death and destruction.
Alice Markham-Cantor: [04-02] 'The drones are shooting at anything that moves' in Gaza; "Facing famine, civilians search desperately for food under the threat of Israeli bombs."
Jack Mirkinson: [04-04] The ghoulish ostentatiousness of Israel's latest war crimes: "It's as if Israel is flaunting its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians."
The past few days of Israel's war on Gaza have been hard to bear. In quick succession, the world watched Israel withdraw from the Al-Shifa hospital complex, revealing stomach-churning scenes of death and destruction; bomb Iran's embassy in Syria, which could escalate the conflict across the Middle East; and kill seven humanitarian aid workers with World Central Kitchen (WCK) in what even some US officials said appeared to be intentional air strikes. . . .
The assault on Gaza has been horrific from the start. But it is hard to shake the feeling that the near-total leeway Israel has been granted by the United States and its allies has gone to its head. Bulldozing bodies in plain sight. Bombing diplomatic facilities. Targeting aid workers from the most Washington-friendly relief organization. There is a ghoulish, ostentatious quality to these actions. It's as if Israel is showing off, flaunting its ability to cross every known line of international humanitarian law and get away with it.
James North:
Rick Perlstein: [02-21] The neglected history of the state of Israel: "The Revisionist faction of Zionism that ended up triumphing adhered to literal fascist doctrines and traditions."
Mitchell Plitnick: [04-05] Netanyahu's endgame and the Israeli far-right's regional ambitions: "The events of recent days suggest we may be seeing the Israeli endgame take shape. Netanyahu's far right government's goals are not limited to Gaza: it wants to take over all of Palestine and start a war with Hezbollah and Iran as well." I wouldn't call this an "endgame," as I doubt that the far-right wants the games to end. They thrive on violence and hatred, and want to keep it going.
Will Porter: [04-08] Israel lets AI decide who dies in Gaza.
Vijay Prashad: [04-05] How Israel weaponizes water: "Even before Israel's most recent attack on Gaza, 97 percent of the water in the sole coastal aquifer of Gaza was already unsafe for human consumption."
Dave Reed: [04-05] Engineering social collapse in Palestine: "Despite its claim that the goal of the war in Gaza is the elimination of Hamas, Israel's actions reveal its true intention: the collapse of Palestinian society."
Mouin Rabbani: All shook up: Regional dynamics of the Gaza War: This is a chapter from the first significant book to come out about the Gaza war since October 7, Deluge: Gaza and Israel From Crisis to Cataclysm, edited by Jamie Stern-Weiner (OR Books).
Richard Silverstein:
[04-03] Hostage talks break down: Israel rejects Hamas demand for return to northern Gaza: "US fails to break deadlock, Israel refuses to compromise."
[04-03] How Israel's war on Gaza could determine the US elections.
[04-04] Iraqi militia drone strikes Israeli navy base, Israel destroys Iranian counsulate in Syria: "Damascus strike kills senior IRG commander and several subordinates."
[04-05] Biden reads Netanyahu riot act: Demands immediate ceasefire.
[04-05] IDF sacks, reprimands senior officers after "investigation" of humanitarian aid attack: "World Central Kitchen inquiry offers token attempt at damage control."
Norman Solomon: [04-03] When an escalation in war isn't newsworthy to the New York Times: "Why is the Times ignoring the latest huge transfer of 2,000-pound bombs from the US to Israel?"
Jeffrey St Clair: [04-05] Incident on the Al-Rashid Coastal Road: "In the anodyne language of military slaughter, it's called a 'triple tap' -- three successive strikes to make sure you've eliminated your target -- the target in this case being the occupants of three vehicles of the World Central Kitchen."
Noga Tarnopolsky: [04-07] Israelis are hostages of Netanyahu: "With the prime minister still refusing to resign, every day feels like October 7."
Amanda Taub: [04-02] Israel bombed an Iranian embassy complex. Is that allowed? Well, when you ask the New York Times, you're liable to get: "Israel can likely argue that its actions did not violate international law's protections for diplomatic missions, experts say."
Ishaan Tharoor:
Peter Wade: [04-07] José Andrés: Israel is conducting a 'war against humanity itself': "'The [World Central Kitchen] convoy was deliberately attacked, it was obvious . . . This was targeted,' the humanitarian chef said of the killing of seven aid workers in Gaza."
Brett Wilkins:
[04-02] 'A declaration of war' against Iran: "Seven people including Iranian diplomats and a Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps senior commander were killed in Israel's airstrike Monday on Tehran's consulate in Damascus."
[04-04] Biden's push for $18 billion in warplane sale to Israel.
[04-05] Israeli doctor blows whistle on war crimes: A report from "inside a notorious detention center where hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are temporarily held is sounding the alarm about torture and horrific conditions."
Robert Wright: [04-05] How the US media encourages Bibi's dangerous brinksmanship.
Oren Ziv: [04-05] Israeli teen jailed for refusing draft: 'I'm willing to pay a price for my principles': Ben Arad.
Israel vs. world opinion:
Mohammad Jehad Ahmad: [04-04] Zionists have tried to silence me through doxing and intimidation. "A Palestinian teacher describes being targeted by Zionist groups with doxing and public harassment. He urges the New York City Chancellor of Education to take action before it turns violent."
José Andrés: [04-03] Let people eat.
Michael Arria:
[04-04] Biden calls for 'immediate ceasefire' during phone call with Netanyahu.
[04-05] Israeli capitulation exposes the lie behind Biden's Gaza policy: "For months the Biden administration has insisted there's little it can do to impact Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza. The events of the last 24 hours have shown that this is a lie."
Samer Badawi: [04-02] Even without a UN veto, Gaza remains hostage to American power: "The downplaying of the Security Council's ceasefire resolution shows why the world can no longer look to Washington as the arbiter of a rules-based order."
Mayar Darawsha: [04-03] Judge Aharon Barak is repeating Israeli propaganda at the ICJ: Israel was able to appoint Barak as an "ad-hoc judge" on the ICJ, but he's "less like a judge and more like a mouthpiece for official Israeli propaganda."
Lawrence Davidson: [04-04] Sick cultures: When belief systems turn pathological: Comparative examples, from the US and Israel.
David French: [04-07] Israel is making the same mistake America made in Iraq: Americans may be impressed by this argument, but Israelis won't be:
Think of those words: "renewed insurgency." That means Israel was doing exactly what we did for much of the Iraq war -- fighting again over ground we had presumably already seized. And the sad reality of those terrible battles reminded me of a seemingly counterintuitive truth: In the fight against terrorists, providing humanitarian aid isn't just a moral imperative; it's a military necessity.
The terrible civilian toll and looming famine in Gaza are a human tragedy that should grieve us all; they are also directly relevant to the outcome of the war. A modern army like Israel's can absolutely defeat Hamas in a direct confrontation, regardless of whether it provides aid to civilians. But as we've learned in our own wars abroad, it cannot preserve its victory unless it meets Gazans' most basic needs.
Israel has an answer to complaints like this: you don't have to win hearts & minds if you simply kill everyone. The Americans never considered that option in Iraq. Bush even fantasized that he was liberating people, and that they'd respond by thanking him. Netanyahu doesn't imagine that for a moment. He knows deep in his bones that Palestinians will never forgive him. He knows they'll remember him as long as Israelis remember Masada. So what if every martyr he kills produces another one. That's just more Palestinians he needs to kill. As long as the net kill ratio is positive, he's good.
Kelly Garrity: [04-08] Elizabeth Warren says she believes Israel's war in Gaza will legally be considered genocide.
Melvin Goodman: [04-05] Meet the newest apologist for Israel: Rear Admiral John Kirby: Spokesman for Biden's National Security Council.
Mel Gurtov: [04-06] US complicity in Israel genocide takes another step.
David Hearst: [04 -07] For the defenders of Israel's war on Gaza, the game is up: "Staunch allies calling themselves friends of Israel are beginning to realise they are also friends of the murderers of western aid workers, friends of genocide and friends of fascism."
Chris Hedges: [04-02] A genocide foretold: "The genocide in Gaza is the final stage of a process begun by Israel decades ago."
Hebh Jamal: [04-07] Germany is becoming a police state when it comes to Palestine activism.
Jonathan Ofir: [04-06] We Israelis are the biggest Holocaust deniers: "The Jewish state learned that it can commit its own Holocaust in Gaza and deny that it exists."
Ilan Pappé: [02-01] It is dark before the dawn, but Israeli settler colonialism is at an end: A talk given to Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) on their annual Genocide Memorial Day, by one of the premier historians of Israel/Palestine. Also from the same issue:
Richard Haley: [02-01] How to make a genocide and how to resist it: Notes "three pillars of Israel's genocide": "the imputation of anti-semitism to critics of Israel, the invention of an Israeli right to self-defence that goes beyond its rights under the UN Charter, and the criminalisation of armed Palestinian resistance."
Ramón Grosfoguel: [02-01] Gaza: The Warsaw Ghetto of the 21st century.
Sandew Hira: [02-01] The rise of the extreme right in the 20th and 21st century.
James Ray: [04-07] No, Senator Schumer, Netanyahu isn't the problem: "The problem isn't just with Benjamin Netanyahu. It is with Zionist settler colonialism." But it's been Netanyahu's meal ticket all along, so he's an obvious symbol.
Alex Skopic: [04-04] Israel's propaganda machine is filling the internet with misinformation: "A sophisticated network of websites is spreading pro-Israel posts and suppressing content that 'harms Israel's image.'"
Bret Stephens: [03-12] Israel has no choice but to fight on: He's totally in the bag for Netanyahu, so much so he thinks he can set up a mock argument and expound on his position as brilliantly as Socrates. You'll be hard-pressed to find a premise that makes sense, but his deductions are even more far-fetched. "So what do you suggest the Biden administration do? Help Israel win the war decisively so that Israelis and Palestinians can someday win the peace." It's hard to stop quoting this nonsense. Every line makes my blood boil, less from disbelief that anyone could be this cruel and stupid than from amazement that anyone could be so oblivious in their arrogance.
Enzo Traverso: [04-06] The Gaza massacre is undermining the culture of democracy.
Kathleen Wallace: [04-05] The death of plausible deniability: An ethnic cleansing in real time.
Philip Weiss: [04-07] Weekly Briefing; The sudden urgency of isolating a pariah state. Many good points here, including his rejection of "three lies the establishment is now telling about Palestine to justify not isolating Israel:
America's increasingly desperate and pathetic empire:
Edward Hunt: [04-08] An illegal war with Houthis isn't stopping the Red Sea crisis: "US attacks in Yemen are dangerous and unnecessary. Any real solution starts in Gaza."
William Leogrande: [04-02] Watching US Cuba policy in the theater of the absurd.
Christopher Mott: [04-08] Bibi's push for a long war undermines Israel's best friend -- America.
Vincent Ortiz: [04-06] US sanctions on Iran are devastating and ineffective. Not the words I would use, for while partly true they misread the political dynamics on both sides. US sanctions actually reinforce the most regressive factions in Iran. If the idea was to weaken them and to encourage more accommodating factions, sure, they're ineffective. But if the idea is to promote hostility that would bind neighbors, like Saudi Arabia and Israel, more closely to the US and its arms industries, then they're working splendidly. How "devastating" the sanctions are to ordinary Iranians is less clear. They can be, especially for small countries that depend on imports (like Gaza), but large, self-contained economies (like Russia and Iran) can hobble along indefinitely, while credibly blaming the US (as opposed to their own incompetence) for shortages.
Trita Parsi: [04-08] Iran says it won't strike Israel if US gets Gaza ceasefire.
Paul R Pillar: [04-05] Is Israel's plan to draw the US into a war with Iran?
Nick Turse:
Adam Weinstein/Trita Parsi: [04-04] Biden's inaction on Gaza puts US troops at risk.
Election notes: There were presidential primaries on April 2, all won as expected by Biden and Trump: Connecticut: Trump 77.9%, Biden 84.9%; New York: Trump 82.1%, Biden 91.5%; Rhode Island: Trump 84.5%, Biden 82.6%; Wisconsin: Trump 79.2%, Biden 88.6%; also Delaware has no vote totals, but gave all delegates to Trump and Biden. The next primary will be in Pennsylvania on April 23.
David Dayen: [03-25] The machine crumbles: "Andy Kim has not only pulled off a major upset. He may have transformed the political culture of an entire state." New Jersey.
Ryan Lizza: [04-06] Abortion might be a winning issue -- even in Florida.
Jessica Piper: [04-08] Super PACs keep testing the limits of campaign finance law.
Marilyn W Thompson: [04-04] Congressional maps challenged as discriminatory will remain in place for 2024 elections.
Bret Wilkins: [04-05] Dark money-backed No Labels drops third-party presidential bid despite raising millions: "One observer quipped that No Labels was calling it quits "to spend more time with their lobbyists."
Trump, and other Republicans:
Jonathan Allen/Matt Dixon/Garrett Haake: [04-07] Trump tells billionaires he'll keep their taxes low at $50 million fundraising gala.
Isaac Arnsdorf: [04-04] How Steve Bannon guided the MAGA movement's rebound from Jan. 6. Excerpt from the book, Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement's Ground War to End Democracy. Another review:
Jacob Heilbrunn: [04-07] How Trump survived January 6.
Zack Beauchamp: [04-06] The right-wing scammers who paved the way for Trump: "A new book shows how conservative grift started long before branded bibles and $400 sneakers." Interview with Joe Conason, whose book (not identified in the article, not out until July 9) is The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism. Needless to say, any book that starts with Joe McCarthy and leads to Donald Trump has a lot of Roy Cohn in the middle.
Luke Broadwater/Alan Feuer: [04-04] GOP Congressman's wild claim: RBI entrapped Jan. 6 rioters: Clay Higgins (R-LA).
Mark A Caputo: [04-02] Trump won't commit on Florida abortion vote: "Sunshine state voters will decide whether abortion belongs in the state constitution. But one Florida Man won't weigh in on the 'A-word.'"
Jonathan Chait: [04-04] Trump indifferent to Palestinian death, but moved by images of building damage: "Another deranged interview."
Kyle Chayka: [04-03] Trump's social-media Potemkin village: "After an IPO last week, Truth Social is confronting the gaping incongruity between its valuation and the paltry reality of its product."
Ryan Cooper:
[04-01] Will voters hear about Donald Trump's deranged health care agenda? "A second Trump term means tens of millions of people losing insurance and chaos in hospitals."
[04-04] The pious one, Donald Trump: "The least likely embodiment of Christian virtues in American life is practically runnintg as an evangelical minister." I find it interesting when people who don't particularly believe in Christianity come around to defend the decency of the religion's fundamental tenets from the embarrassing depredations of the loudest Christians:
Indeed, in one of my favorite verses, Jesus says not only do you go to Hell if you do not care for the hungry or sick, welcome the stranger, and visit people in prison. He further says that if you do those things for "the least of these brothers and sisters of mine" you are doing them to Jesus Himself. It's a profoundly egalitarian sentiment -- not only does God instruct Christians to help the worst-off in society, He identifies Himself with the worst-off.
After all, this was Nietzsche's whole problem with Christianity. In his view, it replaced the aristocratic "master morality" celebrating power and domination with an egalitarian "slave morality" in which it is wrong to oppress the weak.
David Corn:
Igor Derysh:
[04-02] Expert flags details on "king of subprime car loans" who helped Trump post bond: "Don Hankey is believed to be a shareholder in bank that gave Trump $225 million in loans."
[04-04] Gagged Trump "playing with fire" in Truth Social posts targeting judge's daughter: Or so say "legal scholars."
Chauncey DeVega: [04-02] "Perfectly predictable": Dr John Gartner on why "a malignant narcissist like Trump" sells Bibles: Gartner says, "It fits perfectly into both his personality disorder's hypomanic grandiosity and its paranoid sense of grievance." Gartner is one of several interviewed for this review of Trump/Republicans' efforts to politicize Easter.
Maureen Dowd:
[04-06] Donald Trump's insatiable bloodlust.
Abdallah Fayyad: [04-04] Trump has set up a perfect avenue for potential corruption: "With Truth Social going public, big investors could easily buy influence in a second Trump term."
Susan B Glasser: [04-04] Donald Trump's amnesia advantage: "The 2024 race comes down to just how much America has lost its collective mind about its disastrous former President." I don't quite buy this argument. No doubt, the people who expected Trump to be awful saw plenty to confirm their fears. But, at least in the short term, how many of the people who basically supported Trump were really disappointed? The economy was increasingly inequal, but pretty solid until the pandemic hit, and the Democrats bailed him out then, shoring up businesses and protecting workers. But if you survived Covid -- and those who didn't aren't in the equation any more -- you came out of it about as well as you went in. Trump didn't just into new wars, and he significantly withdrew from Afghanistan (while leaving Biden to be blamed for the defeat he negotiated). Pollution and climate are issues with longer-term impact, so unless you were aware at the time, you're probably unaware still. Unless you pay close attention, for most people there's little practical difference regardless of who's president, so it makes sense that lots of people will base their vote on charisma, style, and affinity -- with Trump, qualities you either love or hate.
Jeet Heer: [04-08] His billionaire buddies' bribery bails out Trump, again and again: "The problem isn't that the former president is broke but that he's for sale."
Brian Karem: [04-04] Trump's revenge against Julian Assange broke the media: "How Trump's petty vindictiveness makes the media worse." I don't doubt that the prosecution of Assange was meant to scare media outlets away from exposing secrets, or that Trump is vindictive -- Obama started on Assange, but Mike Pompeo was always his most rabid inquisitor, and Pompeo's influence grew under Trump -- but the media broke on several fracture lines, and the one Trump was most directly responsible for was in capturing media attention for his outrageous showboating, while decrying as "fake news" anything that displeased him, and thereby making news out of "fake news."
Robert Kuttner: [04-02] How Republicans screw workers: "Efforts by Obama and Biden to enforce labor laws have been systematically undermined by right-wing courts and legislators. This should be a prime election theme."
Amanda Marcotte:
[04-02] Fake right-wing panic about "trans" Easter is part of Trump's push for Christian nationalism: "Phony claims that Democrats 'mock your faith' are a cynical excuse to strip Americans of religious freedom."
[04-05] MAGA leaders are conditioning Republicans to back birth control bans: "Charlie Kirk says the pill causes 'angry, bitter young ladies' who vote for Democrats to get 'free stuff.'"
Kelly McClure:
[04-03] Trump in legal battle with Trump Media co-founders over back-and-forth regarding company shares.
[04-05] Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks earthquake and eclipse are a warning from God.
[04-07] Trump positions himself as a "modern day Nelson Mandela" in Truth Social rant: Doesn't he have to spend a couple decades in jail before he can compare himself? And doesn't he have to have done so for some kind of principle beyond his pathetic self?
Dana Milbank: [04-05] Trump swindles his followers again.
Anna North: [04-08] Trump may sound moderate on abortion. The groups setting his agenda definitely aren't.
Heather Digby Parton: [04-05] Marjorie Taylor Greene is out for Republican blood: "House Speaker Mike Johnson may have to be saved by Democrats after MTG is done with him."
Ben Protess/Matthew Haag: [04-04] New York Attorney General questions Trump's $175 million bond deal: "Letitia James said in court papers that the California company providing the guarantee was not qualified to do such deals in New York."
Rebecca Solnit: [04-02] The Republican party has become a full-fledged anti-sex movement.
Michael Tomasky: [04-01] The Trump double standard: He's the least persecuted pol in America: "Anyone else who did all the Things Trump has done, or stands accused of having done[*], the wheels of justice, legal and political, would have moved more swiftly." [*] Why this disclaimer? "Innocent until proven guilty" is a legal principle we should respect, but what he actually did is a matter of well-established historical record. There is uncertainty about when and how he will be punished (if at all), but at least regarding what he's been charged with, the facts are pretty clear.
Fareed Zakaria: [04-05] How Trump fills a void in an increasingly secular America.
I've been reading Tricia Romano's oral history of The Village Voice, The Freaks Came Out to Write, and ran into a section on Wayne Barrett, who started reporting on Trump in the 1970s, and published the first serious book on Trump in 1992. The discussion there is worth quoting at some length (pp. 522-524):
TOM ROBBINS: Wayne appreciated the fact that Trump could be a serious player, given his willingness to play the race card, which was clear from his debut speech that he was gonna go after illegal immigrants and Mexicans. As long as you're going to outwardly play the race card in the Republican primary, you can actually command a lot. And Wayne understood that. He was surprised as the rest of us the way that Trump just mowed down the rest of the opposition and that nobody could stand up to him.
WILLIAM BASTONE: He knew that Trump was appealing to something that was going to have traction with people and that wasn't just a passing thing. I said, "Wayne, don't you think people see through this and they understand that he's really just a con man and a huckster and a racist?" The stuff goes back, at that point, almost thirty years with his father and avoiding renting apartments to Black families in Brooklyn.
And he was like, "No, that's gonna be a plus for him, for the people that he's going to end up attracting." I was like, "You're crazy, Wayne. You're crazy."
There was talk that he may have used racially charged or racist remarks when he was doing The Apprentice. And I said, "So Wayne, if it ever came out that Trump used those words or used the N-word?" And Wayne said, "That would be good for him." He was totally right. And then nine months later, he's talking about shooting people on Fifth Avenue. Trump understood that "there's really nothing I can do [wrong] because these people hate the people I hate, and we're all gonna be together."
TOM ROBBINS: When I was at the Observer, I had a column in there called Wise Guys. And at that point, Trump was talking about running for president. This was 1987, that was thirty years before he actually ran, almost. He was focused on this from the very beginning. And none of us took him seriously. . . .
As someone who worked with the tabloid press for a long time, the people who invented Trump were all those tabloid gossip reporters who dined out from all of his items over the years and who reported them right up until the time he ran for president. This is one of the great unrecognized crimes of the press. We in the tabloid press created Trump; it wasn't Wayne. Wayne was going after him.
JONATHAN Z. LARSEN: This is the media's Frankenstein's monster. Trump would call, using a fake name, saying, "I'm the PR guy for Donald Trump. I really shouldn't be telling you this, but he's about to get divorced, and he's got three women he's looking at. There's Marla Maples. There's so-and-so." Very often the people that he was speaking to recognized his voice. They loved it. It was free copy.
Barrett really did have some incredibly good information on Trump, how he built Trump Tower. The head of the concrete union was mobbed up. There was this crazy woman who bought the apartment just underneath Donald Trump's because she was sleeping with the concrete guy, and she wanted to install a pool. It's astonishing, the stuff he got. It's a national treasure now that we have Wayne Barrett's reporting. As soon as Trump became president, everybody was picking through all of Wayne's files.
The ellipsis covers a section on Barrett's Trump book, and stopped before a section on Barrett's horror watching the 2016 returns. By then Barrett was terminably ill, and he died just before Trump's inauguration. I remember reading about Trump in the Voice back in the 1970s, so I was aware of him as a major scumbag, but I took no special interest in him otherwise. Anything I did notice simply added to my initial impression.
Biden and/or the Democrats:
Aaron Blake: [04-05] Gaza increasingly threatens Democrats' Trump-era unity.
Ben Burgis: [04-04] Democratic voters are furious about US support of Israel.
Rachel M Cohen: [04-01] You can't afford to buy a house. Biden knows that.
Page S Gardner/Stanley B Greenberg: [03-15] They don't want Trump OR Biden. Here's how they still can elect Biden. "Our new survey of these voters shows the president can still win their support."
Robert Kuttner: [04-04] Liberals need to be radicals: "The agenda for Biden's next term must go deeper to restore the American dream." The substance here is fine, but why resort to clichés? The "American dream" was never more than a dream. One can argue that we should dream again, and work to realize those dreams for everyone. Back in the 1960s, the first real political book I bought was an anthology called The New Radicals, edited by Paul Jacobs and Saul Landau, and I immediately saw the appeal of the word "radical" for those who seek deep roots of social problems, but nowadays the word is mostly used as a synonym for "extremist." But perhaps more importantly, I've cooled on the desirability for deep solutions (revolutions) and come to appreciate more superficial reforms. I would refashioned the title to say that "liberals need to be leftists," because the liberal dream of freedom can only be universalized through solidarity with others, and is of little value if limited to self-isolating individuals.
Tim Miller: [04-05] Joe Biden is not a "genocidal maniac": "And it's not just wrong but reckless and irresponsible to say he is." I agree with the title, but I disagree with the subhed. Genocide wasn't his idea, nor is it something he craves maniacally. But he is complicit in genocide, and not just passively so. He has said things that have encouraged Israel, and he has done things that have materially supported genocide. He has shielded them in the UN, with "allies," and in the media. I've thought a lot about morality lately, and I've come to think that it (and therefore immorality) can only be considered among people who have the freedom to decide on their own what to say and do. Many people are severely limited in their autonomy, but as president of the United States, Biden does have a lot of leeway, and should be judged accordingly.
I realize that one might argue that morality is subordinate to politics -- that sometimes actual political considerations convince one to do things that normally regard as immoral (like going to war against Nazi Germany, or nuking Hiroshima) -- but the fundamentals remain the same: is the politician free to choose? One might argue that Biden's initial blind support for Israel was purely reflexive -- lessons he had learned over fifty years in AIPAC-dominated Washington, a reflex shared by nearly every other politician so conditioned -- but even so, as president Biden had access to information and a lot of leeway to act, and therefore should be held responsible for his political, as well as moral, decisions.
Miller goes on to upbraid people for saying "Genocide Joe." He makes fair points, but hey, given the conditions, that's going to happen. Most of us have very little power to influence someone like Biden -- compared to big-time donors, colleagues, and pundits, all of whom are still pretty limited -- so trying to shame him with a colorful nickname is one of the few things one can try. In a similar vein, we used to taunt: "Hey, hey, LBJ; how many kids did you kill today?" And sure, LBJ was more directly responsible for the slaughter in Vietnam than Biden is in Gaza, but both earned the blame. Biden, at least, still has a chance to change course. If he fails, he, and he alone, sealed his fate.
Elena Schneider/Jeff Coltin: [03-29] Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted Biden's glitzy New York fundraiser: "The event padded Biden's cash advantage, but laid bare one of his biggest weaknesses." The Biden campaign's response seems to be to try to exclude potential protesters:
Lisa Lerer/Reid J Epstein/Katie Glueck: [04-07] How Gaza protesters are challenging Democratic leaders: "From President Biden to the mayors of small cities, Democrats have been trailed by demonstrators who are complicating the party's ability to campaign in an election year." By the way, better term here than in the Politico piece: you don't have to be "pro-Palestinian" to be appalled by genocide. You can even be consciously pro-Israel, someone who cares so much for Israel that your most fervent desire is to spare them the shame of the path Netanyahu et al. have set out on.
Washington Monthly: [04-07] Trump vs. Biden: Who got more done? The print edition has a series of "accomplishment index" articles comparing the records of the two presidents. You can probably guess the results, especially if you don't count corruption and vandalism, the main drivers of the Trump administration, as accomplishments:
Paul Glastris: Introduction: Who got more done?.
Bill Scher: Legislation.
Jacob Heilbrunn: Foreign policy: This is by far the most problematic area, because while Trump did real damage -- especially by wrecking openings Obama (Kerry?) had negotiated to Iran and Cuba -- Biden overshot what were supposed to be corrections "strengthening the international liberal order" but turned into provoking a war with Russia over Ukraine and not deterring Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Caroline Fredrickson: Courts.
Garphill Julien: Trade.
Rob Wolfe: Regulation.
Brigid Schulte: Work & family.
Will Norris: Antitrust?
Marc Novicoff: Immigration?
Legal matters and other crimes:
Rachel M Cohen: [04-02] The astonishing radicalism of Florida's new ban on abortion.
Mike Lofgren: [04-06] Merrick Garland, Donald Trump and the fall of France: "Garland's plodding, cautious investigation undermined itself from the start -- and played into Trump's hands."
Ian Millhiser: [04-03] Why Republican federal judges are fighting among themselves: "Simmering tensions between traditionalist Republican judges and MAGA judges are starting to boil over."
Climate and environment:
Judson Jones: [04-04] 'Alarming' ocean temperatures suggest this hurricane season will be a daunting one.
Soumya Karlamangla: [04-03] How California's fire season might shape up this year.
Economic matters:
Nora de la Cour: [04-06] Blaming low wages on bad schooling is a neoliberal myth.
Paul Krugman: [04-04] Why some billionaires will back Trump.
Karina Montoya: [04-05] The exploitative origins of Amazon: "Since the very beginning, the internet giant has grown by stealing ideas, squelching competition, and cheating on its taxes."
Helen Santoro: [04-05] Generic drugmakers want to keep medicine prices high.
Ukraine War:
Blaise Malley: [04-05] Diplomacy Watch: Ukrainian officers confront grim realities.
Isaac Arnsdorf/Josh Dawsey/Michael Birnbaum: [04-07] Inside Donald Trump's secret, long-shot plan to end the war in Ukraine: "Foreign policy experts and some Republicans warned that pressuring Ukraine to cede land would reward Putin." And that's worse than continuing indefinitely a war with no chance of significant change? A war with enormous, mounting costs? A war where any breakthrough on either side threatens catastrophic escalation? I hate saying this, but this makes Trump sound like he has potential as a serious, sober statesman. His affinity for Putin may even make him a more credible negotiator.
Dave DeCamp: [04-07] Ukrainian drone hits Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Isabelle Khurshudyan: [04-06] With no way out of a worsening war, Zelensky's options look bad or worse.
Denis Leven: [04-09] Russia's migrants and ethnic minorities shiver at new Putin terror crackdown.
Ray McGovern: [02-19] Throwing good money after bad in Ukraine.
Brad Pierce: [03-13] The CIA admits its long-time presence in Ukraine. This dates back to the 2014 Maidan Revolution, which triggered the secession movements in Crimea and Donbas, bringing Russia into conflict with Ukraine.
Around the world:
Francesca de Benedetti: [04-07] Europe's mood of war is whitewashing the far right.
Ellen Ioanes: [04-04] Good news: Democracy won in Senegal. Here's why it matters.
Widlore Mérancourt/Amanda Coletta: [04-05] When Haiti's gangs shop for guns, the United States is their store.
Mark Lewis Taylor: [04-07] How Israel facilitated the Guatemalan genocide: This is an old story, going back to the 1980s, when Israel was especially eager to curry favor with the US by doing its dirty work (cf. "Iran-Contra"). Israel has since become a one-stop shopping center for authoritarian regimes eager to surveil and police their own people. Azerbaijan got Israel's help for their recent expulsion of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Haris Zargar: [04-04] India elections: Vying for a third term, Modi is intensifying voter polarisation.
The bridge:
William Neff/Aaron Steckelberg/Justin Jouvenal/Leslie Shapiro: [04-05] Inside the massive three-step cleanup of Baltimore's Key Bridge.
Beyoncé: Cowboy Carter: I played the album (twice), and will present my thoughts in the next Music Week. I figured I was pretty much done with it before I started collecting these, but thought it might be interesting to note them:
Tressie McMillan Cottom: [04-04] Beyoncé asks, and answers, a crucial question in her latest album.
Constance Grady: [04-07] The Western visuals of Beyoncé Cowboy Carter, decoded.
Garrison Hayes: [03-29] Beyoncé just covered the Beatles in the most authentic way: By honoring black history.
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd: [04-01] Cowboy Carter: Review, 8.4.
Doreen St Félix: [04-01] Beyoncé won't burn down the barn with "Cowboy Carter".
Hannah Goldfield: [04-08] In the kitchen with the grand dame of Jewish cooking: Gnoshing with Joan Nathan.
Luke Goldstein: [04-02] The in-flight magazine for corporate jets: "The Economist has channeled the concerns of elites for decades. It sees the Biden administration as a threat."
Stephen Holmes: [04-04] Radical mismatch: A review of Samuel Moyn: Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times.
David Cay Johnston: [04-05] Antitax nation: Review of Michael J Graetz: The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America, explaining "how clever marketing duped America into shoveling more tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations."
Sarah Jones:
[04-05] The biggest abortion vote since Dobbs: "Florida could undo bans signed by Ron DeSantis and become a safe haven for millions."
Natalie Korach/Ross A Lincoln: [04-05] Meta blocks Kansas Reflector and MSNBC columnist over op-ed criticizing Facebook: "The company says Friday afternoon that the blocks, which falsely labeled the links as spam, were due to 'a security error.'" A Wichita columnist also wrote on this:
Dion Lefler: [04-05] Sorry, but I don't buy Facebook's explanation for deleting the Kansas Reflector.
Orlando Mayorquin/Amanda Holpuch: [04-07] Southwest plane makes emergency landing after Boeing engine cover falls off. And just when I thought I'd get through a week with no Boeing stories. Then I noticed I had two more waiting:
Frances Madeson: [03-23] Washington University students vote to divest from Boeing amid Gaza genocide. Includes a reference to "the school's storied past of war resistance."
Jeff Wise: [04-02] The Boeing nosedive; "A once-venerable company turned its soul over to shareholders and courted disaster."
Rick Perlstein: [04-03] Joe Lieberman not only backed Bush's war; he also helped make Bush president: "A remembrance of this most feckless of Democrats."
Nathan J Robinson: And other recent pieces from his zine, Current Affairs:
[03-28] My date with destiny: "Reviewing major issues in the Israel-Palestine conflict." Starts with an anecdote about a "massive argument -- with a popular streamer named Destiny," then gets down to business with extensively documented sections on the following:
I'm getting to this piece very late in my cycle -- well after writing my introductory screed and several other lengthy comments -- otherwise I'd feature it up top, at least as one of the best historical background pieces I've seen recently. Along the way, he mentions the following:
[2023-10-16] The current Israel-Palestine crisis was entirely avoidable: Interview with Jerome Slater, author of Mythologies Without End: The US, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1917-2020, conducted right after the October 7 revolt.
[04-02] What Trump understand about war: "Donald Trump's militarism is even worse than Biden's. But he's keeping relatively quiet on Israel-Palestine, probably because he knows the public doesn't like war." This is fundamentally right, but I'm finding a lot of details to quibble with. [Something to do later.] But the point I'd most want to stress is that while Trump sounds more militarist -- he gropes the flag, wanted to stage Moscow-style tank-and-missile parades, wants to be seen as a tough guy -- his political skill is to identify "messes," blame them on Democrats, and claim that nothing like that would dare happen under his watch (because, you know, he's such a tough guy). And wars are always messes, so they're easy targets for Trump.
[04-08] Why we need limits on extreme wealth: Interview with Ingrid Robeyns, author of Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth.
[2023-06-14] We must banish 'bootstraps' mythology from American life: Interview with Alissa Quart, around the time her book Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves From the American Dream came out in hardcover, but note that it's coming out in paperback on April 9.
Rob Larson: [01-30] Let's test the 'intelligence' of tech billionaires.
Alberto C Medina: [04-05] The case for Puerto Rican independence.
Lily Sanchez: [03-20] Against incrementalism.
Alex Skopic: [03-25] Ye and the problem of fascist art: "The rapper's embrace of Nazi ideology is strange and awful, but it can teach us a lot about how far-right politics spread."
K Wilson: [04-05] Why the right constantly panics over societal 'decadence': From Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West through a number of recent references, including Nick Fuentes and Jordan Peterson (and Alexander Dugin, who fears a similar decline, but in his case, caused by the West).
Jeffrey St Clair: [04-04] The day John Sinclair died: "The poet, musician, writer, pot liberator, raconteur, Tigers fan, jazzbo, political radical, producer of MC5, founder of the White Panthers and occasional CounterPunch, John Sinclair died this week at 82."
Michael Stavola: [04-03] Wichitan involved in deadly swatting arrested after reportedly doing donuts in Old Town: This story, where Wichita Police murdered Andrew Finch, keeps getting sicker. The trigger man not only got off, he's since been promoted, even after the city agreed to pay $5 million to the victim's family, while they managed to pin blame on three other pranksters. There's plenty of blame to go around. Not even mentioned here is the gun lobby and their Republican stooges who did so much to create an atmosphere where dozens of trigger-happy cops are dispatched to deal with an anonymous complaint, totally convinced that everyone they encounter is at likely to be armed and shoot as they are.
Carl Wilson: [03-25] Sweeping up kernels from Pop Con 2024. Includes links to key presentations by Robert Christgau, Michaelangelo Matos, Glenn McDonald, De Angela L Duff, Alfred Soto, and Ned Raggett.
I scribbled this down from a Nathan J Robinson tweet: "very interesting discussion of how, during World War I, attrocities attributed to German soldiers were used to whip people into a frenzy and create an image of a monstrous, inhuman enemy -- atrocities that later turned out to be dubious/exaggerated, well after the fighting stopped." That was followed by a scan from an unidentified book:
. . . stated that the Germans had systematically murdered, outraged, and violated innocent men, women, and children in Belgium. "Murder, lust, and pillage," the report said, "prevailed over many parts of Belgium on a scale unparalleled in any war between civilised nations during the last three centuries." The report gave titillating details of how German officers and men had publicly raped twenty Belgian girls in the market place at Liège, how eight German soldiers had bayoneted a two-year-old child, and how another had sliced off a peasant girl's breasts in Malilnes. Bryce's signature added considerable weight to the report, and it was not until after the war that several unsatisfactory aspects of the Bryce committee's activities emerged. The committee had not personally interviewed a single witness. The report was based on 1,200 depositions, mostly from Belgian refugees, taken by twenty-two barristers in Britain. None of the witnesses were placed on oath, their names were omitted (to prevent reprisals against their relatives), and hearsay evidence was accepted at full value. Most disturbing of all was the fact that, although the depositions should have been filed at the Home Office, they had mysteriously disappeared, and no trace of them has been found to this day. Finally, a Belgian commission of enquiry in 1922, when passions had cooled, failed markedly to corroborate a single major allegation in the Bryce report. By then, of course, the report had served its purpose. Its success in arousing hatred and condemnation of Germany makes it one of the most successful propaganda pieces of the war.