Opened draft file on Thursday. First thing I thought I'd note was some weather stats here in Wichita, KS. High Wednesday was 89°F, which was 17° above "normal" but still 2° below the record high (from 1959; wild temperature swings from year to year are common here). Should be cooler on Thursday, but above average for the rest of the forecast.
Year-to-date precipitation is 5.48 in (well below 7.50 normal; average annual is 34.31, with May and June accounting for 10.10, so almost a third of that; last year was 3.29 at this point, finishing at 30.8). Year totals seem to vary widely: from 2010, the low was 25.0 (2012), the high 50.6 (2016), where the median is closer to 30 than to 35.
Growing degree days currently stands at 435, which is way up from "normal" of 190. That's a pretty good measure of how warm spring has been here. As I recall, last year was way up too, but the summer didn't get real hot until August. The global warming scenario predicts hotter and dryer. I figure every year we dodge that, we just got lucky. The more significant effect so far is that winters have gotten reliably milder (although we still seem to have at least one real cold snap), and that we're less likely to have tornados (which seem to have moved east and maybe south -- Oklahoma still gets quite a few).
I started to write up some thoughts about global warming, but got sidetracked on nuclear war: my initial stimulus was George Marshall's 2014 book, Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, but when I groped for a title, all I came up with was Herman Kahn's "Thinking About the Unthinkable," so I did. I got eight pretty decent paragraphs in, without finding a way to approach my point.
The next thing I thought I'd do was construct a list of the books I had read on climate change, going over how each contributed to the evolution of my thought. But that proved harder than expected, and worse still, I found my thinking changing yet again. So I took a break. I went out back and planted some pole beans. My parents were displaced farmers, so they always kept a garden, and I remember their Kentucky Wonders as much better than any grocery store green beans. So I've had the model idea forever, but never acted on it before. No real idea what I'm doing, but when it's 89° on May 1, I'm certainly not planting too early.
I should have felt like I accomplished something, but I came back in feeling tired, frustrated, and depressed. I decided to give up on the global warming piece, and spent most of the rest of the day with the jigsaw puzzle and TV. Hearing that Congress passed a law banning criticism of Israel as antisemitic added to my gloom, as I contemplated having to take my blog down, as I can't imagine anything as trivial as publishing my thoughts being worth going to jail over.
But for the moment, I guess I can still publish the one new thought I did have about global warming, or more specifically about how people think about global warming. I've always meant to have a section on it in the political book -- it would be one of 5-8 topics I would examine as real problems. I'm constantly juggling the list, but it usually starts with technological change, which is the principal driver of change independent of politics, then on to macroeconomics, inequality, market failures (health care, education, monopolies), externalities (waste byproducts, not just climate change), something about justice issues (fraud, crime, freedom), and war (of course).
The purpose of the book isn't to solve all the world's problems. It's simply to help people think about one very limited problem, which is how to vote in a system where Democrats alone are held responsible for policy failures, and therefore need to deliver positive results. (Republicans seem to be exempt because they believe that government can only increase harm, whereas Democrats claim that government can and should do things to help people. Earlier parts of the book should explain this and other asymmetries between the parties.)
Anyhow, my new insight, which Marshall's book provides considerable support for without fully arriving at, is that climate change is not just a "wicked issue" (Marshall's term) but one that is impossible to campaign on. That's largely because the "hair suit" solutions are so broadly unappealing, but also because they are so inadequate it's hard to see how they can make any real difference. Rather, what Democrats have to run on is realism, care, respect, and trust.
Which, as should be obvious by now, is the exact opposite of what Republicans think and say and do. Showing that Republicans are acting in bad faith should be easy. What's difficult is offering alternatives that are effective but that don't generate resistance that makes their advocacy counterproductive -- especially given that the people who know and care most about this issue are the ones most into moralizing and doomsaying, while other Democrats are so locked into being pro-business that they'll fall for any promising business plan.
Obviously, there is a lot more to say on this subject -- probably much more than I can squeeze into a single chapter, let alone hint at here.
PS: Well after I wrote the above, but before posting Sunday evening, I find this: 40 million at risk of severe storms, "intense" tornadoes possible Monday. The red bullseye is just southwest of here, which is the direction tornadoes almost invariably come from. I'm not much worried about a tornado right here, but it's pretty certain there will be some somewhere, and that we'll get hit by a storm front with some serious wind and hail.
I'm also seeing this in the latest news feed: Wide gaps put Israel-Hamas hostage deal talks at risk of collapse, which is no big surprise since Netanyahu is making a deal as difficult as possible. Little doubt that he still rues that Israel didn't kill all the hostages before Hamas could sweep them away, as they've never been the slightest concern for him, despite the agitation of the families and media.
I saw a meme that a Facebook friend posted: "If you object to occupying buildings as a form of protest, it's because you disagree with the substance of the protest." He added the comment: "No, you don't have some rock-solid principle that setting up tents on grass is unacceptably disruptive to academic life. You just want people to continue giving money to Israel." I added this comment:
Not necessarily, but it does suggest that you do not appreciate the urgency and enormity of the problem, or that university administrators, who have a small but real power to add their voices to the calls for ceasefire, have resisted or at least ignored all less-disruptive efforts to impress on them the importance of opposing genocide and apartheid. This has, in its current red-hot phase, been going on for six months, during which many of us have been protesting as gently and respectfully as possible, as the situation has only grown ever more dire.
I was surprised to see the following response from the "friend":
Wait, what? It sounds like we're on the same side of this one. My post just points out that people critiquing the protest methods don't actually care about that and just oppose the actual goals of the protests.
To which I, well, had to add:
Sounds like we do, which shouldn't have come as a surprise had you read any of the thousands of words I've written on this in every weekly Speaking of Which I've posted since Oct. 7, on top of much more volume going back to my first blogging in 2001. I've never thought of myself as an activist, but I took part in antiwar protests in the 1960s and later, and have long been sympathetic to the dissents and protests of people struggling against injustice, even ones that run astray of the law -- going back to the Boston Tea Party, and sometimes even sympathizing with activists whose tactics I can't quite approve of, like John Brown (a distant relative, I've heard). While it would be nice to think of law as a system to ensure justice, it has often been a tool for oppression. Israel, for instance, adopted the whole of British colonial law so they could continue to use it to control Palestinians, while cloaking themselves in its supposed legitimacy (something that few other former British colonies, including the US, recognized). Now their lobbyists and cronies, as well as our homegrown authoritarians, are demanding that Americans suppress dissent as Israel has done since the intifada (or really since the first collective punishment raids into Gaza and the West Bank in 1951). Hopefully, Americans will retain a sufficient sense of decency to resist those demands. A first step would be to accept that the protesters are right, then forgive them for being right first. I'm always amused by the designation of leftist Americans in the 1930s as "premature antifascists." We should celebrate them, as we now celebrate revolutionary patriots, abolitionists, and suffragists, for showing us the way.
In another Facebook post, I see the quote: "Professional, external actors are involved in these protests and demonstrations. These individuals are not university students, and they are working to escalate the situation." This is NYPD commissioner Edward Caban, and is accurate as long as we understand he is describing the police. The posts pairs this quote with one from Gov. Jim Rhodes in 1970: "These people move from one campus to the other, and terrorize a community. They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. These people causing the trouble are not all students of Kent State University." As I recall, the ones with guns, shooting people, were Ohio National Guard, sent into action by Gov. Rhodes.
More on Twitter:
Tony Karon: Israel's ban of Al Jazeera is 2nd time I've been part of a media organization banned by an apartheid regime. (1st was SA '88) I'm so proud of that! It's a sign of panic by those regimes at the their crimes being exposed, a whiff of the rot at the heart of their systems . . .
Jodi Jacobson: [Replying to a tweet that quotes Netanyahu: "if we
don't protect ourselves, no one will . . . we cannot trust the promises
of gentiles."] For the 1,000th time: Netanyahu Does. Not. Care. About.
The. Hostages.
He never did. They said so at the outset.
He wants to continue this genocide and continue the war because without
it, he will be out on his ass, and (hopefully) tried for war crimes.
Joshua Landis: Blinken and Romney explain that Congress's
banning of TikTok was spurred by the desire to protect #Israel
from the horrifying Gaza photos reaching America's youth that
has been "changing the narrative."
[Reply to a tweet with video and quote: "Why has the PR been so
awful? . . . typically the Israelis are good at PR -- what's
happened here, how have they and we been so ineffective at
communicating the realities and our POV? . . . some wonder why
there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially
TikTok."]
Nathan J Robinson: [Also reacting to the same Romney quote}: In this conversation, Romney also expresses puzzlement that people are directing calls for a cease-fire toward Israel rather than Hamas. He says people don't realize Hamas is rejecting deals. In fact, it's because people know full well that Israel refuses to agree to end the war.
There's an incredibly unpersuasive effort to portray Hamas as "rejecting a ceasefire." When you read the actual articles, inevitably they say Hamas is rejecting deals that wouldn't end the war, and Israel refuses to budge on its determination to continue the war and destroy Hamas
What Romney is really wondering, then, is how come Americans aren't stupid enough to swallow government propaganda. He thinks the public is supposed to believe whatever they're told to believe and is mystified that they are aware of reality.
Jarad Yates Sexton: [Reposted by Robinson, citing same
Romney/Blinken confab]: This is an absolutely incredible,
must-watch, all-timer of a clip.
The Secretary of State admits social media has made it almost
impossible to hide atrocities and a sitting senator agrees by
saying outloud that was a factor in leveraging the power of the
state against TikTok.
Yanis Varoufakis: Israel's banning of Al Jazeera is one aspect of its War On Truth. It aims at preventing Israelis from knowing that what goes on in Gaza, in their name, which is no self defence but an all out massacre. An industrial strength pogrom. Genocide. The West's determination to aid & abet Israel is a clear and present danger to freedoms and rights in our own communities. We need to rise up to defend them. In Israel, in our countries, everywhere!
[PS: Varoufakis also pinned this tweet promoting his recent book, Technofeudalism, with a 17:20 video.]
Initial count: 192 links, 11,072 words. Updated count [05-06]: 208 links, 12,085 words.
Israel: Before last October 7, a date hardly in need of identification here, I often had a section of links on Israel, usually after Ukraine/Russia and before the World catchall. Perhaps not every week, but most had several stories on Israel that seemed noteworthy, and the case is rather unique: intimately related to American foreign policy, but independent, and in many ways the dog wagging the American tail.
Oct. 7 pushed the section to the top of the list, where it has not only remained but metastasized. When South Africa filed its genocide charges, that produced a flurry of articles that needed their own section. It was clear by then that Israel is waging a worldwide propaganda war, mostly aimed at keeping the US in line, and that there was a major disconnect between what was happening in Gaza/Israel and what was being said in the UN, US, and Europe, so I started putting the latter stories into a section I called Israel vs. World Opinion (at first, it was probably just Genocide -- Robert Wright notes in a piece linked below that he is still reluctant to use the word, but I adopted it almost immediately, possibly because I had seriously considered the question twenty-or-so years ago, and while I had rejected it then, I had some idea of what changes might meet the definition).
I then added a section on America and the Middle East, which dealt with Israel's other "fronts" -- Iran and what were alleged to be Iranian proxies -- in what seemed to be an attempt to lure the US into broader military action in the Middle East, the ultimate goal of which might be a Persian Gulf war between the US and Iran, which would be great cover for Israel's primary objective, which is to kill or expel Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. (Israel's enmity with Iran has always had much more to do with manipulating American foreign policy than with their own direct concerns -- Trita Parsi's book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States explained this quite adequately in 2007. The only development since then is that the Saudis have joined the game of using America's Iran-phobia for leverage on America.) As threats there waxed and waned, I wound up renaming the section America's increasingly desperate and pathetic empire, adding more stories on military misdeeds from elsewhere that would previously have fallen under Ukraine or World.
Now campus demonstrations have their own section, a spin-off but more properly a subset of genocide/world opinion. Needless to say, it's hard for me to keep these bins straight, especially when we have writers dropping one piece here, another there. So expect pieces to be scattered, especially where I've tried to keep together multiple pieces by the same author.
Also note that TomDispatch just dusted off a piece from 2010: Noam Chomsky: Eyeless in Gaza.
Mondoweiss:
[04-25] Day 202: Gaza's Civil Defense finds hundreds of new bodies in mass graves at Nasser Hospital: "While Israel continues to attack all parts of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Civil Defense teams report finding more bodies buried in mass graves in areas where Israeli troops have withdrawn. The Civil Defense says that some may have been buried alive."
[04-29] Day 206: Blinken says Israel has no plan to ensure civilian safety in Rafah: "Palestinians brace for an invasion in Rafah as Hamas is expected to respond to a new ceasefire proposal. Meanwhile, Israel continues airstrikes on Gaza, and Gaza City's municipality says that half of its water wells have been destroyed."
[05-02] Day 209: Hamas yet to respond to latest Israeli proposal: "Blinken says Hamas 'must' respond to Israel's proposal as the U.S. begins building a sea pier. Meanwhile, the UN says that 5% of Gaza's population has been killed or wounded since the beginning of Israel's assault in October."
Netta Ahituv: [05-04] 'Suddenly I realize that I'm burning': Israelis who fought in Gaza share what they saw. In Haaretz, so paywalled. Sample quote:
Like the Middle Ages. "In the humanitarian corridor from the northern Gaza Strip to the south, what's known as the 'drain,' there was a line of thousands, like for an outdoor concert. They came on donkeys and carts. I remember one cart being pulled by a boy, with two adults lying in it. It felt like the Middle Ages. Destruction all around. The road itself was no longer asphalt, but sand and glass. Some of the kids were barefoot. They were all holding a white flag in one hand and pressing an ID card against their forehead with the other. I'm considered a humanist leftist, but until that moment I also wanted revenge. Now I'm looking at barefoot little girls running on glass that we had broken. I understand that the only difference between them and girls in Ramat Gan is that these were born here and those were born there.
Juan Cole:
Haidar Eid: [05-01] The genocide in Gaza will also be the end of Israel: "The more resistance that the colonized shows, the more brutal the colonizer becomes. Genocidal Israel is now walking in the footsteps of all other settler colonies on their deathbed." I doubt that, but Israel's reputation has already been seriously marred, and is unlikely to recover even if they make amends, which no one can force them to do.
Kareem Fahim/Sufian Taha: [05-04] Residents accuse Israeli forces of executions during West Bank raid: "Palestinian residents of the Nur Shams refugee camp said at least three people were summarily executed or used as human shields, claims Israel's military denies." The photos of Tulkarm here could just as well come from Gaza.
Rebecca Gordon: [04-30] Birding in Gaza: "Celebrating links across species, amid a nightmare of war."
Tareq S Hajjaj: [05-03] Palestinians in Gaza's displacement camps face rampant disease due to destroyed infrastructure: "Those who survived Israel's deadly bombardment now have to contend with the rising environmental disaster in Gaza's displacement camps, including insect infestations, dangerous amounts of garbage and human waste, and the spread of infectious disease." Quotes Dr. Rana Dawoud: "This is one of the occupation's war objectives. To make living impossible, and to make various causes of death of people in Gaza many and numerous."
Madeleine Hall: [04-29] Israel is waging a war on all Palestinians, not just Gazans.
Joshua Keating: [05-03] The longshot plan to end the war in Gaza and bring peace to the Middle East: "The US and Saudi Arabia say they're close to a historic mega-deal. There's just one problem." Israel (duh!), but somehow the author never gets around to that. Presumably Israel's concession would be to agree to the proverbial "two-state solution" that Washington has long embraced but never enough to bother Israel. That's been official Saudi policy since 2002, so the issue is how badly you can muck up the implementation and still satisfy Saudi Arabia, which we're assured don't really care about Palestinians anyway. Still, that leaves a lot of space between them and Israel, where the preferred solution is to kill as many as it takes to drive the rest of them into exile. That's already gone down bad enough to squirrel the deal on the couldn't get done before Oct. 7, when Israel moved from apartheid-state to genocide-state. Why Biden considers any version of this as desirable is impossible to figure -- does he really want to provide NATO-like security pledge to an only-marginally stable dictatorship with a history of starting foreign wars? and for that matter, does he really want to underwrite its nuclear program? -- but I guess the lure of arms sales is all it takes these days. Still, isn't it obvious that both Saudi Arabia and Israel are just gaming him? The smart move would be to make a peace deal with Iran, and cut them both down a peg or two -- after which they might both be more willing to back away from their very embarrassing imperial fantasies.
Meg Kelly/Hajar Harb/et al.: [04-16] Palestinian paramedics said Israel gave them safe passage to save a 6-year-old girl in Gaza. They were all killed.
Maya Krainc: [04-29] New Israeli military outposts risk even bigger crisis in Gaza: "As an invasion of Rafah looms, the IDF is tightening control over Palestinians and may be establishing a long term presence."
Arwa Mahdawi: [05-04] The adultification of children has consequences from Palestine to the US: "Hind Rajab was six years old when she was killed in Gaza. So why did a CNN host refer to her as 'a woman'?" And other notes from "The Week in Patriarchy."
Mohammed R Mhawish: We've shown Gaza's suffering for over 200 days. Don't look away now.
Qassam Muaddi: [04-29] Recent settler violence in the West Bank: "Recent settler attacks against the villages bordering the Jordan Valley between Nablus and Ramallah aren't random. They are part of a historic Israeli policy to annex the Jordan Valley and expel the Palestinian communities that live there."
Qassam Muaddi/Tareq S Hajjaj: [05-02] Gaza's collapsing health system is one of the goals of Israel's genocide: "Israel is deliberately destroying the entire health sector in Gaza as only 4 hospitals remain operational. 'If these hospitals stop working, they will turn into mass graves, like Nasser and al-Shifa,' Muhammad Zaqout, General Director of Hospitals in Gaza, told Mondoweiss."
Shahrazad Odeh: [04-30] The orchestrated persecution of Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian: "A Vicious campaign by Israeli academia, police, and media to silence the professor shows Palestinians they have no safe place in Zionist institutions."
Mitchell Plitnick: [05-05] Inside the Biden administration sham to convince the world Netanyahu wants a ceasefire: "Antony Blinken claims that Hamas is blocking a ceasefire in Gaza, but it is Israel which has vowed to invade Rafah regardless of an agreement and is absolutely unwilling to declare an end to its genocidal operation." Biden cannot stand to recognize Israel for what it is, because he cannot face what that admission would say about America. (Feel free to substitute Netanyahu there, but the drive to genocide is much deeper than one stubborn PM.)
Liam Stack/Aaron Boxerman/Amanda Taub/Ken Belson: [05-04] Parts of Gaza in 'full-blown famine,' UN aid official says.
Nilo Tabrizy/Imogen Piper/Miriam Berger: [05-03] Israel's offensive is destroying Gaza's ability to grow its own food. This is one part of a systematic effort to render Gaza uninhabitable, forcing those who are not killed directly to have to go into exile.
Yossi Verter: [05-05] Netanyahu hoped Hamas would reject the cease-fire offer. When it didn't, he turned to sabotage: "Israel's criminal defendant prime minister, more focused on saving his incompetent far-right government than saving the hostages who have spent seven months trapped in Gaza, is doing everything he can to torpedo Israel's last and best chance at bringing the hostages home."
Evan Hill/Imogen Piper/Meg Kelly/Jarret Ley: [2023-12-23] Israel has waged one of this century's most destructive wars in Gaza: "The damage in Gaza has outpaced other recent conflicts, evidence shows. Israel has dropped some of the largest bombs commonly used today near hospitals." I'm reminded of this piece from December, which could use an update as the situation on the ground has only gotten worse for Gazans.
[05-01] Will they crush the biggest student movement since Vietnam?
[04-25] We're fighting to stop a genocide. Slanders against our movement are a distraction.
[04-24] Why is this year different from all other years? They also linked to this:
Elliot Kukla: [04-22] Why I'll be observing Passover differently this year.
Anti-genocide demonstrations: in the US (and elsewhere), and how Israel's cronies and flaks are reacting:
Spencer Ackerman: [05-01] Warrantless spying on pro-Palestine protesters is easier than ever.
Michael Arria:
[05-01] NYPD clears Columbia student occupation, arrests hundreds across the city: "New York police arrested a total of 282 Palestine protesters across the city in what appeared to be a coordinated attack by the city government on student protest encampments."
[05-03] 'I was arrested for trespassing on my own campus': an Emory student on the school's Gaza protest.
Habib Badawi: [05-05] Student resistance to the Gaza genocide is spurring a crisis for Democrats and the progressive coalition: "The student protests erupting across American universities represent something far beyond a cyclical wave of campus activism. They reflect a profound political crisis that has laid bare the fractures within the Democratic Party." I think that's true, but also mostly irrelevant. Biden can safely ignore the protests. What he cannot do is to allow Israel to continue its current war path. Finding a way to do that without forcing some kind of rupture is very difficult, especially given how subservient Washington politics has become to Israel. But if he can end the war, the students will stop protesting, the divisions will scab over, and Trump will reunite the Democrats. And if he doesn't, well, isn't the worse thing that can happen the thing that's already happening?
Neil Bedi/Bora Erden/et al.: [05-03] How counterprotesters at UCLA provoked violence, unchecked for hours: "The New York Times used videos filmed by journalists, witnesses and protesters to analyze hours of clashes -- and a delayed police response -- at a pro-Palestinian encampment on Tuesday."
Helen Benedict: [05-02] The distortion of campus protests over Gaza: "How the right has weaponized antisemitism to distract from Israel's war."
Tim Dickinson: [04-30] College crackdown shines spotlight on violent cops -- yet again.
Thea Renda Abu El-Haj: [05-02] Pro-Palestinian student protesters are enacting the highest ideals of education.
Yves Engler: [05-01] Pro-Israel groups vs. student democracy at McGill: "Liberal MP Anthony Housefather is clamoring for the violent suppression of McGill students protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza. It is an odious escalation in the Israel lobby's bid to suppress democracy at the prestigious university."
Abdallah Fayyad: [05-03] The lessons from colleges that didn't call the police: "Deescalating conflict around protests was possible, but many colleges turned to law enforcement instead."
Michael Hudson: [04-30] "Have you no sense of decency?" McCarthyism returns to campus.
Ellen Ioanes/Nicole Narea: [04-30] What the backlash to student protests over Gaza is really about: "The Columbia protests and the debate over pro-Palestinian college students, explained." Originally published April 24, since updated.
Razia Iqbal: [05-04] I teach democracy at Princeton. Student protesters are getting an education like no other: "Students across the US are forging bonds in the face of brutal power structures."
Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA): [05-05] Open letter to university heads: Listen to your courageous students and divest from Israel.
Jake Johnson: [05-01] Pro-Israel mob attacks students in violent assault on encampment at UCLA: "Campus security stood aside as the mob unleashed bricks, fireworks and pepper spray."
Rashid Khalidi:
[05-03] Opposed to genocide in Gaza, this is the conscience of a nation speaking through your kids: Transcript of a speech delivered by the Columbia professor, and author of numerous books on Israel and/or Palestine.
[2023-10-31] "We are seeing a horrifying attempt to shut down speech around Palestine." An interview.
Patrick Mazza: [05-02] Vilification and violence hurled against Gaza protests shows they hit a nerve.
Lex McMenamin: [05-05] Campus protests: Police clashes at Columbia University and UCLA prove they don't belong there.
Naim Mousa: [04-30] Inside NYU's generation-defining protests for Palestine.
Cas Mudde: [04-30] Why are US campuses facing an orgy of state repression in the 'land of the free'?
Aryeh Neier: [05-03] The real "outside agitators" of these protests are members of Congress: "There's blame to go around here, but this started because a showboating GOP congresswoman lit the match that started this fire."
James North: [05-05] The mainstream media distorted our anti-Vietnam War protests 50 years ago. They're following the same strategy today.
Stop LAPD Spying Coalition's Youth Working Group: [04-30] Meet the 'homegrown violent extremism' researcher behind the crackdown on pro-Palestinian students at USC: "Erroll Southers is a top USC administrator facing demands to resign after canceling a valedictorian commencement speech and cracking down on protestors. He has also produced research labeling identifying with Palestinians as a sign of radicalization."
Anat Saragusti: [04-29] Israeli media's inevitable hysteria over US campus protests: "The media's unbending self-censorship in covering Gaza has made Israelis incapable of seeing foreign criticism as anything other than antisemitism."
Richard Silverstein: [04-29] "Campus panic" over Gaza protests obscures Israeli genocide: "Inflamed GOP-Israel lobby rhetoric induces 'moral panic,' which distracts from Israeli crimes."
Arjun Singh: [05-03] Big brother is watching the protesters, sponsored by corporate America: "The intelligence community is using consumer tracking tools to spy on student protesters and everyone else they deem a threat."
Astra Taylor/Leah Hunt-Hendrix: [05-04] We need "outside agitators": "The presence of community members and experienced activists in the protests is nothing to be ashamed of: we need outside agitators to build a better world." Also: "The phrase 'outside agitator' came into common usage as a way to smear the civil rights movement. but outsiders were crucial to the fight." Actually, it goes back to the labor movement: union organizers were invariably decried as "outside agitators." After all, who could imagine workers wanting to organize on their own? Everybody struggling needs help, and people who have worked through similar issues often have the experience and discipline to help most. We're much better off when a demonstration can be advised by people who understand what works and what doesn't. What "outside agitators" cannot provide is the inspiration and commitment that fueled the organization in the first place.
Let's also note that universities -- even snooty, elitist ones like Columbia -- are not isolated enclaves. They are in and involved with the community around them, a community that they provide social, cultural, and intellectual services to, and that community naturally looks to them. That makes them a natural locus not just for student and faculty but for community organizing. Also see:
Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins: [04-23] Talking "Solidarity" with Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix.
Philip Weiss:
[05-03] 'They've sparked resistance around the world' -- a Columbia '68er salutes the '24 uprising.
[05-05] Weekly Briefing: Imagine the Freedom Riders being accused of hating white people . . . Well, they were certainly accused of lots of similar things, even more so when parts of the civil rights movement started talking about Black Power. Still, it's a bit rich to argue that the opponents of genocide remind you of Nazis, especially when most of the bona fide fascists have rallied to Israel's side.
Michael D Yates: [05-03] Letters of protest: Colleges suppress dissent while closing their yes to genocide.
Israel vs. world opinion:
Rowaida Abdelaziz:
Ahmed Alqarout: [05-04] The land and sea blockade against Israel is working as Israel takes a strategic hit: "Netanyahu's plans to turn Israel into a regional transportation hub connecting Asia with Europe has just suffered a major setback."
Michael Arria: [05-02] The Shift: House passes bill that tags Israel criticism as antisemitic: "Amid violent police sweeps of student encampments, arrests, and suspensions of pro-Palestine activists comes the Antisemitism Awareness Act, a bill ostensibly about antisemitism but of course, it's actually about stifling criticism of Israel." It passed 320-91, with 70 Democrats and 21 Republicans opposed. The definition adopted comes from IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Association), and would be applied to "the enforcement of federal anti-discrimination laws in education programs." The article quotes the definition's author, Kenneth Stern, as explaining: "The definition was intended for data collectors writing reports about anti-Semitism in Europe. It was never supposed to curtail speech on campus."
Jonathan Chait: [05-02] The House antisemitism bill is bad for the Jews: "And free speech."
Ed Kilgore: [05-02] MTG and Gaetz manage to smear both Jews and fellow Christians.
Branko Marcetic: [05-03] Liberals must resist the new McCarthyism over Israel criticism.
Emily Tamkin: The Anti-Defamation League has abandoned some of the people it exists to protect: "For those with the wrong opinions, the group is now a threat to Jewish safety."
Michael Tomasky: [05-03] A Dem's principled opposition to a grandstanding GOP antisemitism bill: "Why Jerry Nadler and four other Jewish Democrats voted 'no'."
Brett Wilkins: [05-02] Jewish groups decry House passage of bill defining criticism of Israel as "antisemitism".
Robert Wright: [05-04] The new "pro-Israel" assault on free speech.
Zack Beauchamp: [05-02] Why America's Israel-Palestine debate is broken -- and how to fix it: "It's time to take back the Israel-Palestine debate from the radicals on both sides." What debate? Israel is spreading a lot of PR bullshit, but they're not debating anyone. They're acting. They're bombing. They're destroying housing, infrastructure, agriculture, everything that people need to survive in the modern world. They're preventing anyone else from offering help -- even food to allay the mass starvation they've caused. They never went to the UN, Congress, or public media and said, "This is what we think we should do. What do you think?" No. They just did it. Sure, they also sent out some PR flaks to dissemble and confuse the issue, exaggerating what they cold, making inflammatory shit up, and spreading aspersions about anyone with the temerity to object ("they're just antisemities, so what are you going to do to protect us from them?").
Beauchamp goes looking for "the reciprocal extremism on college campuses," and he claims to have found a few "far-left maximalists [who] have been able to praise or sanitize Hamas's actions on October 7 without meaningful pushback on their own side." (Links are in the article, although beware that the one to Judith Butler says no such thing, and that one could come up with hundreds of left or pro-Palestinian links condemning Hamas and the October 7 attacks but which, sure, fall short of endorsing genocide as justice). [PS: Also see Parul Sehgal: Who's afraid of Judith Butler?]
Beauchamp is right that "the conversation is broken," but that's simply because the Israel billionaire lobby has been so successful at shutting down any serious debate over Israel's discriminatory policies, their police state, their militarism, and now their genocide. If there was a healthy debate, demonstrations, much less tactics like the encampments, wouldn't be necessary. That students have moved to act like this shows two things: that the problem is so very real that reasonable people feel the need to take extraordinary measures, and that no other path has proven practical. Still, that the demonstrations so far have stayed well within the lines of our long and generally noble tradition of peaceful dissent rests on the hope that in the end Americans will side with justice. We should take comfort in that hope, and be careful not to dash it, for beyond that only lies despair and chaos.
Janelle Carlson: [05-02] This is why the students are protesting: Eyes on Israel's killing fields in Gaza.
Julia Conley: [05-06] Romney and Blinken admit Tiktok ban sought to censor Gaza news: "Biden's secretary of state said that content shared on the platform had 'a very challenging effect on the narrative.'" This is the story behind several of the tweets I added late, so I thought it should have an anchor here. Of course, the same could be said of any other social media company, but TikTok is uniquely susceptible to team Red Scare.
Kareem Fahim/Adela Suliman: [05-05] Israel shuts down Al Jazeera's operations, raids Jerusalem office: "Israel's Foreign Press Association called it a 'dark day for democracy'." This has been in the works since April 2. More reaction:
Al Jazeera: [05-06] Israel bans Al Jazeera: What does it mean and what happens next?
Hebh Jamal: [05-04] Reflections on the German state's silencing of the Berlin Palestine Congress.
Ben Metzner: [05-03] Can you be anti-Zionist but pro-Israel?: Interview with Shaul Magid, who "thinks it's possible to resist Zionism without rejecting the state. He calls this 'counter-Zionism.'" Magid is a Harvard professor of Jewish Studies, and author of a book The Necessity of Exile: Essays From a Distance.
Andy Lee Roth: [05-03] Pro-Israel legislators have concocted a dangerous ruse to shut down nonprofits: "Bipartisan legislation threatens the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that incur the disapproval of government officials."
Kenneth Roth: [04-29] What will happen if the ICC charges Netanyahu with war crimes?
Arundhati Roy: [03-07]
Arundhati Roy on Gaza:
Racism is of course the keystone of any act of genocide. The rhetoric of the highest officials of the Israeli state has, ever since Israel came into existence, dehumanised Palestinians and likened them to vermin and insects, just like the Nazis once dehumanised Jews. It is as though that evil serum never went away and is now only being recirculated. The "Never" has been excised from that powerful slogan "Never Again." And we are left only with "Again". . . .
President Joe Biden, head of state of the richest, most powerful country in the world, is helpless before Israel, even though Israel would not exist without US funding. It's as though the dependent has taken over the benefactor. The optics say so. Like a geriatric child, Joe Biden appears on camera licking an ice-cream cone and vaguely mumbling about a ceasefire, while Israeli government and military officials openly defy him and vow to finish what they have started.
Jeremy Scahill/Ryan Grim: New York Times brass moves to stanch leaks over Gaza coverage.
Kathleen Wallace: [05-03] It's more than just protests for Palestine, it is existential hope for the world.
America's increasingly desperate and pathetic empire:
Sam Biddle: Microsoft pitched OpenAI's Dall-E as battlefield tool for US military.
John Feffer: [05-03] Ukraine, Israel, and the incoherence of US foreign policy.
John Limbert: [05-02] Iran, US mutual delusions pave a path to war: "After the missile exchanges with Israel, Washington and Tehran need to talk."
Ishaan Tharoor:
[04-26] Israel could still force an exodus into Egypt: "A major Israeli move into Rafah would trigger the frantic flight of hundreds of thousands of Gazans."
[04-30] In a 'meat grinder' of a war, Russian and Ukrainian casualties rise: "Along various sections of the front line, Ukrainian authorities are weighing whether to sacrifice men or territory while Russia has also absorbed stunning manpower losses."
[05-01] The delusions behind Biden's plan for Middle East peace: "There's a yawning gap between President Biden's grand vision for the Middle East and the realities on the ground."
Nick Turse:
Election notes:
Maggie Haberman: [05-05] Candidates for federal office can raise unlimited funds for ballot measures: "A decision by the Federal Election Commission would allow the Biden and Trump campaigns to raise money for outside groups pushing ballot measures."
Walter Shapiro: [04-29] The 10 types of Dems who will decide the 2024 election: "America's big-tent party is finding different ways to cope with a tense election." I don't identify with any of these 10 types, but I have been known to quote Will Rogers.
Trump, and other Republicans:
Rachel M Cohen: [04-30] The astonishing radicalism of Florida's new ban on abortion: "A six-week ban takes effect this week, though voters could overturn it in November." Also:
Jeremy Childs: [05-02] Arizona has officially killed its 1864 abortion ban: That leaves the Republican's 2022 abortion law in place, which limits abortions after 15 weeks. Despite early reports of Republicans being upset with the State Supreme Court ruling that reinstated the 1864 law, only two in each house broke ranks to pass the repeal, which was signed by a Democratic governor.
Kevin T Dugan: [05-03] Who could have ever seen that Trump Media's auditor is a 'massive fraud'?
David A Graham:
Ed Kilgore: [05-02] Are Libertarians MAGA-adjacent now? Occasion of this is the announcement [05-01] Trump to address Libertarian Party convention. The Libertarian Party candidate drew 3% of the vote in 2016, dropping to 1% in 2020, so it's fair to wonder whether the Party has lost its mission -- not that they ever had one, as they always seemed willing to drop their presumed focus on personal liberty whenever opportunity knocked to help make the rich richer.
Joel Mathis: [05-03] If Trump wins and carries out mass deportations, Kansas' economy will take a big hit.
Dana Milbank: [05-03] To the Gaza protesters helping to elect Trump: Give it a rest: "You must have been doing for the past eight years what Trump has been doing in court the past three weeks: napping." Really? Nobody who care enough to protest against genocide committed by America's "closest ally" with American arms and diplomatic support is lifting a finger to help elect Trump. Most realize that Trump's toadying support for Netanyahu contributed to the problem, and that a return to power by Trump would make the situation even worse. But Biden has had six full months to rein Netanyahu in, or failing that to make it clear to everyone that America rejects genocide as a final solution to Israel's long-term inability to forge any sort of acceptable or workable relationship with its Palestinian subjects. I originally thought of filing this nonsense under Biden, but Milbank is so obsessed with Trump he scarcely even mentions Biden (I suppose one reference to "Genocide Joe" counts), where nearly every paragraph has damning details on Trump. I won't mind if he continues his line of inquiry all year long. But nothing Trump did or might do excuses what Biden is actually doing (and often not doing) right now.
Heather Digby Parton: [05-01] Trump's disturbing Time interview shows he has no idea abortion is a ticking time bomb for the GOP: "Donald Trump thinks he's brilliantly found a way to evade responsibility for the backlash to overturning Roe."
Nia Prater: [05-03] What happened in the Trump trial today: Hope Hicks cries: "A running recap of the news." Pretty much everything that happened over the whole trial-to-date is covered here. Anything else worth mentioning?
Griffin Eckstein: [05-03] Trump pays $9,000 gag order fine in two installments.
Margaret Hartmann: [05-02] Trump: I'm not sleeping, I'm just resting my 'beautiful blue eyes': I can recall sitting in boring meetings and closing my eyes as that would help me focus on hearing -- I just did that for 30+ seconds, with my hand over my face, to focus on a bit of music -- but that isn't an explanation Trump has come up with. Rather, he "often denies stories in a way that just provides more evidence that the underlying claim is true."
Elie Honig: [05-03] The secret tape that will roil the Trump trial.
Andrew Rice: [05-03] The gossip racketeers: "At the herat of the Trump trial is a sleazy caper gone wrong."
Jeremy Stahl:
Greg Sargent:
[05-01] Trump is now raging at his own lawyer -- and wrecking a big MAGA fantasy: "Over on Fox News, even Trump's naps are a power move. The reality is different -- and no one knows it more than Trump himself."
[05-04] Mike Johnson's ugly new lie about campus protest hands Dems a weapon: So Johnson wants the FBI to investigate whether George Soros is funding the demonstrators? Who's being antisemitic here?
Matt Stieb: [05-05] The time the Trump campaign blamed Microsoft for his antisemitic tweet: "The Star of David in front of a pile of money didn't mean what you thought it meant!"
Li Zhou: [04-30] The Kristi Noem puppy-killing scandal, explained: "Noem wanted to look decisive. That's not what happened." For more (in particular, The Guardian can't let this story go).
Maggie Astor: [05-05] Kristi Noem suggests Biden's dog should have been killed, too.
Emma Brockes: [05-02] Does shooting her puppy rule out Kristi Noem as Trump's running mate? Don't bet on it.
Ryan Busse: [05-01] Kristi Noem's dog-killing embodies the cruel phoneyness of today's Republicans.
Margaret Hartmann: [05-03] All the weird stories in Kristi Noem's new book.
Martin Pengelly: [03-14] Governor Kristi Noem sued over video promoting dentists who fixed her teeth.
Michael Sainato: [05-04] South Dakota governor Kristi Noem continues to be plagued by book controversies.
Asawin Suebsaeng/Andrew Perez: [05-03] Trump 'disgusted' by Kristi Noem's puppy execution story.
Biden and/or the Democrats:
David Dayen: [05-03] House leadership's undying support for Henry Cuellar now threatens Democratic majority: "The conservative Texas Democrat was just indicted on corruption charges."
Bob Dreyfuss: [05-03] Biden's failure to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal was an unforced error.
Kevin Drum: [05-04] Stop telling everyone life is horrible: He's got charts, and they're not wrong. Sorry I say somewhere else in this post that we're already in the "worst-case scenario." I was just thinking of one big thing. It's hard to balance everything at once.
Alex Shephard: [05-03] Biden's very Trumpian response to the peaceful student protests: "He's explicitly demonizing nonviolent demonstrators and implicitly supporting the disproportionate and violent police response."
Legal matters and other crimes:
Ian Millhiser: [05-03] The Supreme Court: The most powerful, least busy people in Washington: "The justices are quietly quitting their day jobs as judges, even as they become more and more political."
Climate and environment:
Stan Cox: [04-28] Eco-collapse hasn't happened yet, but you can see it coming: "Degrowth is the only sane survival plan." Author of a couple books: The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can (2020, pictured, foreword by Noam Chomsky), and The Path to a Livable Future: A New Politics to Fight Climate Change, Racism, and the Next Pandemic (2021). I'm sympathetic to degrowth arguments, but liberals/progressives have long taken as axiomatic that the only path to equality is through focusing on growth, so the mental shift required is massive. Still, as Cox points out, there is a lot of thinking on degrowth. I'll also add isn't necessarily a conscious decision: every disaster is a dose of degrowth, and there are going to be plenty of those. What we need is a cultural shift that looks to rebuild smarter (smaller, less wasteful, more robust). Growth has been the political tonic for quite a while now, it's always produced discontents, which we can and should learn from.
Jan Dutkiewicz: [05-02] How rioting farmers unraveled Europe's ambitious climate plan: "Road-clogging, manure-dumping farmers reveal the paradox at the heart of EU agriculture."
Umair Irfan: [05-01] How La Niña will shape heat and hurricanes this year: "The current El Niño is among the strongest humans have ever experienced," leading to its counterpart, which while generally less hot can generate even more Atlantic hurricanes. To recap, 2023 experienced record-high ocean temperatures, and an above-average number of hurricanes, but fewer impacts, as most of the storms steered well out into the Atlantic. The one storm that did rise up in the Gulf of Mexico was Idalia, which actually started in the Pacific, crossed Central America, reorganized, then developed rapidly into a Category 4 storm before landing north of Tampa. The oceans are even hotter this year.
Mike Soraghan: [05-05] 'Everything's on fire': Inside the nation's failure to safeguard toxic pipelines.
Economic matters:
John Cassidy: [04-25] Joseph Stiglitz and the meaning of freedom: "The famous liberal economist wants to take back the language of liberty from the right." And why not? The right doesn't want it anyway, except inasmuch as they understand freedom to be exclusive to the rich. Everyone else has to fall in step, forcefully if need be. Stiglitz has a new book The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society. Freedom for any appreciable number of people requires that most of what we believe to be free be unshackled from the privileges of wealth.
Paul Krugman:
[04-29] Trump is flirting with quack economics: "Beware strongmen who engage in magical thinking."
[04-30] Are bonds gonna party like it's 1999? "Reconsidering my views on interest rates."
[05-02] The peculiar persistence of Trump-stalgia: "Are you better off than you were four years ago? Yes."
Patrick Rucker/David Armstrong: [04-29] A doctor at Cigna said her bosses pressured her to review patients' cases too quickly. Cigna threatened to fire her "Cigna tracks every minute that its staff doctors spend deciding whether to pay for health care. Dr. Debby Day said her bosses cared more about being fast than being right: 'Deny, deny, deny. That's how you hit your numbers,' Day said."
Ukraine War:
Blaise Malley: [05-03] Diplomacy Watch: Ukraine losing ground as it awaits US aid.
Robyn Dixon/Natalia Abbakumova: [05-04] Confident of victory over Ukraine, Russia exhibits Western war trophies.
Robyn Dixon: [05-06] Under Putin, a militarized new Russia rises to challenge US and the West. This is exactly the response rational people would expect from the US trying to pressure Russia with NATO expansion, military aid to Ukraine, and an ever-increasing regime of sanctions. This is part of a Washington Post series: [05-06] We reported for months on changes sweeping Russia. Here's what we found. The Post is not wavering in its commitment to Wesern hegemony, especially in Ukraine, but at least they're reporting on how it's playing out.
Melvin Goodman: [05-03] Washington Post's David Ignatius declares victory in Ukraine . . . once again!
Around the world:
Michelle Alexander: [03-08] Only revolutionary love can save us now: "Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1967 speech condemning the Vietnam War offers a powerful moral compass as we face the challenges of out time."
Maria Farrell/Robin Berjon: [04-16] We need to rewild the internet: "The internet has become an extractive and fragile monoculture. But we can revitalize it using lessons learned by ecologists." Further discussion:
John Naughton: [05-04] The internet is in decline -- it needs rewilding: "The online world was meant to be an open system but has become dominated by huge corporations. If we are to revive it, that must end."
Steven Hahn: [05-04] The deep, tangled roots of American illiberalism: An introduction or synopsis of the author's new book, Illiberal America: A History. (I noted the book in my latest Book Roundup, and thought it important enough to order a copy, but haven't gotten to it yet.) Alfred Soto wrote about the book here and here (Soto also mentions Manisha Sinha: The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920, and Tom Schaller/Paul Waldman: Whire Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy). Also see:
Julian E Zelizer: [05-02] The illiberalism at America's core: "A new history argues that illiberalism is not a backlash but a central feature from the founding to today."
John Herrman: [05-05] Google is staring down its first serious threats in years: "The search giant now faces three simultaneous challenges: government regulators, real competition, and itself."
Sean Illing: [04-28] Everything's a cult now: Interview with Derek Thompson "on what the end of monoculture could mean for American democracy." This strikes me as a pretty lousy definition:
I think of a cult as a nascent movement outside the mainstream that often criticizes the mainstream and organizes itself around the idea that the mainstream is bad or broken in some way. So I suppose when I think about a cult, I'm not just thinking about a small movement with a lot of people who believe something fiercely. I'm also interested in the modern idea of cults being oriented against the mainstream. They form as a criticism of what the people in that cult understand to be the mainstream.
Given that "cult" starts as a term with implied approbation, this view amounts to nostalgia for conformism and deprecation of dissent, which was the dominant ("mainstream") view back during the 1950s, when most Americans were subject to a mass culture ("monoculture," like a single-crop farm field, as opposed to he diversity of nature). Thompson goes on to castigate cults as "extreme" and "radical" before he hits on a point that finally gets somewhere: they "tend to have really high social costs to belonging to them."
I'd try to define cults as more like: a distinct social group that follows a closed, self-referential system of thought, which may or may not be instantiated in a charismatic leader. One might differentiate between cults based on ideas or leaders, but they work much the same way -- cults based on leaders are easier, as they require less thinking, but even cults based on ideas are usually represented by proxy-leaders, like priests.
By my definition, most religions start out as cults, although over time they may turn into more tolerant communities. Marxism, on the other hand, is not a cult, because it offers a system of thought that is open, critical, and anti-authoritarian, although some ideas associated with it may be developed as cults (like "dictatorship of the proletariat"), and all leaders should be suspect (Lenin, Stalin, and Mao providing obvious examples). Nor is liberalism fertile ground for cults, nor should conservatism be, except for the latter's Führersprinzip complex.
Since the 1950s mass monoculture has fragmented into thousands of niche interests that may be as obscure as cults but are rarely as rigid and self-isolating, and even then are rarely threats to democracy. The latter should be recognized as such, and opposed on principles that directly address the threats. But as for the conformism nostalgia, I'd say "good riddance." One may still wish for the slightly more egalitarian and community-minded feelings of that era, but not at the price of such thought control.
Whizy Kim: [05-03] Boeing's problems were as bad as you thought: I've posted this before, but it's been updated to reflect the death of a second whistleblower.
Annika Merrilees/Jacob Barker: [05-05] Why Boeing had to buy back a Missouri supplier it sold off in 2001: So, Spirit wasn't the only deal where Boeing outsmarted themselves? "Meanwhile, President Joe Biden's administration is pushing an $18 billion deal with Israel for up to 50 F-15EX fighter jets, one of the largest arms deals with the country in years." (And guess who's paying Israel to pay Boeing to clean up one of their messes?)
Rick Perlstein: [05-01] A republic, if we can keep it.
Nathan J Robinson: Catching up with his articles and interviews, plus some extra from his Current Events:
[04-09] Gated knowledge is making research harder than it needs to be: "Tracking down facts requires navigating a labyrinth of paywalls and broken links." Tell me about it. Specific examples come from Robinson writing an afterword to a forthcoming Noam Chomsky book, The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World. He also cites an earlier article of his own: [2020-08-02] The truth is paywalled but the lies are free: "The political economy of bullshit." Actually, lots of lies are paywalled too. Few clichés are more readily disprove than "you get what you pay for."
[04-11] Can philosophy be justified in a time of crisis? "It is morally acceptable to be apolitical? Is there something wrong with the pursuit of 'knowledge for knowledge's sake'?" Talks about Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky, as distinguished academics who in their later years -- which given their longevity turned out to be most of their lives -- increasingly devoted themselves to antiwar work, and to Aaron Bushnell, who took the same question so seriously he didn't live long at all.
[04-16] What everyone should know about the 'security dilemma':
The security dilemma makes aspects of the Cold War look absurd and tragic in retrospect. From the historical record, we know that after World War II, the Soviet Union did not intend to attack the United States, and the United States did not intend to attack the Soviet Union. But both ended up pointing thousands of nuclear weapons at each other, on hair-trigger alert, and coming terrifyingly close to outright civilization-ending armageddon, because each perceived the other as a threat.
Some people still think that deterrence was what kept the Cold War cold, but it wasn't fear that prevented war. It was not wanting war in the first place, a default setting that was if anything sorely tried by threat and fear. If either country actually wants war, deterrence is more likely to provoke and enable.
[04-18] The victories of the 20th century feminist movement are under constant threat: Interview with Josie Cox, author of Women Money Power: The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality.
[04-19] Palestine protests are a test of whether this is a free country.
[04-23] You don't have to publish every point of view: "It's indefensible for the New York Times to publish an argument against women's basic human rights." Which is what they did when they published an op-ed by Mike Pence.
[04-26] We live in the age of "vulture capitalism": Interview with Grace Blakely, author of Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom. Evidently Boeing figures significantly in the book.
[05-02] The Nicholas Kristof theory of social change: "The New York Times columnist encourages protesters to stop atrocities by, uh, studying abroad." This is pretty scathing, admitting that Kristof seems to recognize that what's happening in Gaza is horrific, but with no clue of how it got this way or how to stop it. Robinson writes:
Actually, I'm giving him too much credit here by suggesting he actually has a theory of change. For the most part, he doesn't even offer a theory for how his proposed actions are supposed to make a difference in policy, even as he patronizingly chides protesters for their ineffectiveness. He doesn't even try to formulate a hypothetical link between studying abroad in the West Bank and the end of Israel's occupation, even as he says university divestment from Israel will do nothing. (He seems to demonstrate no appreciation of how a plan to try to isolate Israel economically resembles the strategy of boycotts and sanctions against South Africa, which was important in the struggle against that regime's apartheid. But divestment from Israel will only, he warns, "mean lower returns for endowments.") He pretends to offer them more pragmatic and effective avenues, while in fact offering them absolutely nothing of any use. (The words "pragmatism" and "realism" are often used in American politics to mean "changing nothing.")
Also worth reiterating this:
In fact, far from being un-pragmatic, the student Gaza protesters have a pretty good theory of power. If you can disrupt university activity, the university administration will have an interest in negotiating with you to get you to stop. (Brown University administrators did, although I suspect they actually got the protesters to accept a meaningless concession.) If you can trigger repressive responses that show the public clearly who the fascists are, you can arouse public sympathy for your cause. (The civil rights movement, by getting the Southern sheriffs to bring out hoses and dogs, exposed the hideous nature of the Jim Crow state and in doing so won public sympathy.) It's also the case that if protesters can make it politically difficult for Joe Biden to continue his pro-genocide policies without losing support in an election year, he may have to modify those policies. Politicians respond to pressure far more than appeals to principle. . . .
The protesters are doing a noble and moral thing by demonstrating solidarity with Gaza and putting themselves at risk. Because Israel is currently threatening to invade the Gazan city of Rafah, where well over a million Palestinians are sheltering, it's crucially important that protesters keep up the pressure on the U.S. government to stop Israel from carrying out its plans. Given the Palestinian lives at stake, I would argue that one of the most virtuous things anyone, especially in the United States, can do right now is engage in civil disobedience in support of the Gaza solidarity movement. And correspondingly, I would argue that one of the worst things one can do right now is to do what Nicholas Kristof is doing, which is to undermine that movement by lying about it and trying to convince people that the activists are foolish and misguided.
[05-03] The ban on "lab-grown" meat is both reprehensible and stupid: I must have skipped over previous reports on the bill that DeSantis signed in a fit of performative culture warring, and only mention it here thanks to Robinson, even though I dislike his article, disagree with his assertion that "factory farming is a moral atrocity," and generally deplore the politically moralized veganism he seems to subscribe to. (Should-be unnecessary disclaimer here: I don't care that he thinks that, but think it's bad politics to try to impose those ideas on others, even if just by shaming -- and I'm not totally against shaming, but would prefer to reserve it for cases that really matter, like people who support genocide.) But sure, the law is "both reprehensible and stupid." [PS: Steve M has a post on John Fetterman (D-PA) endorsing the DeSantis stunt. I've noticed, but paid little heed to, a lot of criticism directed at Fetterman recently. This also notes Tulsi Gabbard's new book. I'm not so bothered by her abandoning the Democratic Party, but getting her book published by Regnery crosses a red line. Steve M also has a post on Marco Rubio's VP prospects. I've always been very skeptical that Trump would pick a woman, as most of the media handicappers would have him do, nor do I see him opting for Tim Scott. I don't see Rubio either, but no need to go into that.]
Alex Skopic/Lily Sánchez/Nathan J Robinson: [04-24] The bourgeois morality of 'The Ethicist': "The New York Times advice column, where snitching liberal busybodies come to seek absolution, is more than a mere annoyance. In limiting our ethical considerations to tricky personal situations and dilemmas, it directs our thinking away from the larger structural injustices of our time." I'm sure there's a serious point in here somewhere, but it's pretty obvious how much fun the authors had making fun of everyone involved here.
Jeffrey St Clair: [05-03] Roaming Charges: Tin cops and Biden coming . . . "As America's liberal elites declare open warfare on their own kids, it's easy to see why they've shown no empathy at all for the murdered, maimed and orphaned children of Gaza. Back-of-the-head shots to 8-year-olds seem like a legitimate thing to protest in about the most vociferous way possible . . . But, as Dylan once sang, maybe I'm too sensitive or else I'm getting soft." I personally have a more nuanced view of Biden, but I'm not going to go crosswise and let myself get distracted when people who are basically right in their hearts let their rhetoric get a bit out of hand.
After citing Biden's tweet -- "Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It is against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations, none of this is a peaceful protest." -- he quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From a Birmingham Jail.":
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
I think it's safe to say that no protester wants to break the law, to be arrested, to go to jail, to sacrifice their lives for others. What protesters do want is to be heard, to have their points taken seriously, for the authorities to take corrective action. Protest implies faith and hope that the system may still reform and redeem itself. Otherwise, you're just risking martyrdom, and the chance that the system will turn even more vindictive (as Israel's has shown to a near-absolute degree). We all struggle with the variables in this equation, but the one we have least control over is what the powers choose to do. As such, whether protests are legal or deemed not, whether they turn destructive, whether they involve violence, is almost exclusively the choice of the governing party. And in that choice, they show us their true nature.
Some more samples:
Columbia University has an endowment of $13.6 billion and still charges students $60-70,000 a year to attend what has become an academic panopticon and debt trap, where every political statement is monitored, every threat to the ever-swelling endowment punished.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich: "We must obliterate Rafah, Deir al-Balah, and Nuseirat. The memory of the Amalekites must be erased. No partial destruction will suffice; only absolute and complete devastation." While chastizing college students for calling their campaign an "intifada," Biden is shipping Israel the weapons to carry out Smotrich's putsch into Rafah . . .
The pro-Israel fanatics who attacked UCLA students Tuesday night with clubs and bottle rockets, as campus security cowered inside a building like deputies of the Ulvade police force, shouted out it's time for a "Second Nakba!" Don't wait for Biden or CNN to condemn this eliminationist rhetoric and violence.
In the last 10 years, the number of people shot in road rage incidents quadrupled. Two of the three cities with the highest [number] of incidents are in Texas, Houston and San Antonio.
This week's books:
Michael Tatum: [05-04] Books read (and not read): Looks like more fiction this time.
David Zipper: [04-28] The reckless policies that helped fill our streets with ridiculously large cars: "Dangerous, polluting SUVs and pickups took over America. Lawmakers are partly to blame."
Li Zhou: [05-01] Marijuana could be classified as a lower-risk drug. Here's what that means.