Reading

Created
Tue, 10/10/2023 - 18:31
This Tuesday report will provide some insights into life for a westerner (me) who is working for several months at Kyoto University in Japan. When you live in a foreign country for an extended period you start to observe the seasonal patterns not just in the weather but in the social practices and customs. But…
Created
Tue, 10/10/2023 - 10:33
Thinking About A Hezbollah Intervention

So, let’s say Hezbollah intervenes, as they have said they will if there’s a ground incursion–and Netanyahu has announced it has started.

Remember that Hezbollah has thousands of missiles and that the Israeli “Iron Dome” couldn’t even keep up with Hamas’s attack.

Hezbollah didn’t have much of a missile force in 2006, and what they had were short range and inaccurate. Still, Israel was unable to find and destroy most of the launch sites and its ground incursion was defeated. Indeed Hezbollah was able to intercept Israeli comms while Israel could not intercept Hezbollah’s comms, since they were based on an underground private system.

Created
Tue, 10/10/2023 - 10:30
Bobby Junior shows how to destroy a legacy in one easy step This would be sad if it weren’t so dangerous: In a move that could alter the dynamics of the 2024 election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Monday that he would continue his presidential run as an independent candidate, ending his long-shot pursuit of the Democratic nomination against an incumbent president. “I am here to declare myself an independent candidate for president of the United States,” Mr. Kennedy told a crowd of supporters outside the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Since announcing his candidacy in April, Mr. Kennedy, 69, has been a sharp critic of Democratic leadership, which he has accused of “hijacking the party machinery” to stifle his challenge to President Biden. He has also said, in interviews and in public appearances, that the party has abandoned its principles and become corrupted. Running as an independent will entail an expensive, uphill battle to get on the ballot in all 50 states.
Created
Tue, 10/10/2023 - 10:10
Republicans’ temporary speaker, Patrick McHenry, received 90 percent of his campaign cash this year from lobbyists and industries he regulates — and only $856 from small donors.
Created
Tue, 10/10/2023 - 07:30
A sane, experienced hand is what the world needs, not a narcissistic imbecile Note the date of that Truth Social post. He wrote that today. That’s what he’s thinking about right now. We are in the midst of an international crisis and the putative nominee for the Republican nomination is whining about Forbes Magazine, Stormy Daniels and Rosie O’Donnell. That’s the man Republicans want to put back in charge of America’s nuclear arsenal (which he is blabbing about to his Mar-a-Lago customers.) ****** I highly recommend history professor (and OG blogger) Claire Potter’s newsletter Political Junkie and you should subscribe if you want to read some great political commentaryfrom her and any number of great writers and analysts who write for her. Today she is featuring a great piece about Joe Biden and the “age problem” by Peter Drier the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental College: Many voters, including Democrats, think that 80-year old President Joe Biden is too old to run for re-election.
Created
Tue, 10/10/2023 - 06:30
The editors of Israel’s top newpaper don’t mince words The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is theclear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. The primeminister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions, while embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians. Netanyahu will certainly try to evade his responsibility and cast the blame on the heads of the army, Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet security service who, like their predecessors on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, saw a low probability of war with their preparations for a Hamas attack proving flawed. They scorned the enemy and its offensive military capabilities.
Created
Tue, 10/10/2023 - 06:00

I

Growth proliferates — demanding

degrading, derailing, deficient

destroying, degenerating, detonating

demineralising

depressing.

Degrowth devolves — deconstructs

decentralises, deinstitutionalises, decolonises

dematerialises, demilitarises and

decommodifies.

Degrowth defuses

and designs.

Decide destination degrowth.

The post Degrowth in IV Movements appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

Created
Tue, 10/10/2023 - 05:00
I always find the Israel-Palestinian issue incredibly difficult to comprehend or write about in an intelligent way because I have deep, reflexive sympathy for both sides and yet so often abhor their behavior toward one another. This war is more complicated than any other war —religion, power imbalance, racism, territorial dispute, ancient historical animosity, oppression, colonialism all of it is present here. I’ve always thought it was the most difficult problem in the world and I have nothing enlightening to say about it. The best I can do right now is offer for you some of the best best that I’m reading around the web and to try to see where American politics are going and guage as best I can what our government and its allies are doing in reaction. Jill Filipovic in her newsletter today speaks for me. I’ve been struggling with what to write today, because the news out of Israel and Palestine is so overwhelming, and so awful, and every time I open my laptop it feels silly to try to write about anything else.
Created
Tue, 10/10/2023 - 04:59
The Hamas attack on Israel was part jailbreak (from Gaza, the world’s largest prison since the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto) but more than that it was a revolt of the hopeless by the hopeless for the hopeless. This war puts paid to Israeli-Saudi normalisation but that was never a real prospect. The Israeli ministry Continue reading »