Reading

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 20 2024

by Tony Wikrent

Strategic Political Economy

MASTER PLAN, Ep 10: The Master Planners’ Heist Of The Century

[The Lever, October 15, 2024]

By 2010, the master planners had firmly gained the upper hand. Their victory in Citizens United allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, giving business interests unprecedented power in politics. But the master planners’ onslaught wasn’t quite over. In this episode, we show how they embarked on a bold heist to crack the vault protecting democracy itself. It’s the heist story of the century, in three acts.

The political and military leader of Hamas is dead. Some cheer. Some weep. History will judge the living and the dead. I wish Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar had appeared before an international tribunal of judges for their role in October 7th, rather than being murdered by the Israelis. All who committed crimes in the Continue reading »

“Do you agree that Israel has the right to defend itself?” This question, so often and repeatedly put by journalists, is irritatingly banal. Invariably, it’s pitched as a kind of provocation, as if to infer that the person being quizzed has never considered the matter, or worse, is a closet antisemitic. The seemingly obvious answer Continue reading »

The Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) has just published “The Most Moral Army”-  an excoriating review of Israel’s continuous reliance on deceitful medical imagery to disinfect its horrific abuse of power in Gaza. Continue reading »

While most of us are fixated on why the King needs to travel to this country with his own supply of fresh blood or how many pomps his ceremonies will need, there are more serious issues raised by the visit to Australia of Charles Mountbatten Windsor, who by birthright holds central powers in Australia’s constitution. Continue reading »

“Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny” (Charles Reade, 1814-84) ‘Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast’ is an aphorism often wrongly attributed to management guru Peter Drucker. It was more likely first coined by Apple founder Steve Jobs, or Continue reading »

It’s ranking season again, and universities are once more fixated on their positions in global league tables. These rankings, such as those from Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings, often shape decisions for students and funders alike. While an institution’s rise in the rankings can be celebrated as a success, a drop can Continue reading »

There is no doubt that the war in Gaza has placed Australia’s multiculturalism and social cohesion under strain. Continue reading »

“… the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down”, as Lord Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General, is said to have put it. The end of WWII was an uneasy time for East-West relations. Grateful as they were for Stalin’s help, the U.S. and its allies remained wary, as Churchill's 1946 “iron Continue reading »

While the world looks on with trepidation at regional wars in Israel and Ukraine, a far more dangerous global crisis is quietly building at the other end of Eurasia, along an island chain that has served as the front line for America’s national defence for endless decades. Just as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revitalised Continue reading »

A free preview of Anthony Barnett's new monthly column exclusive to the Byline Times print edition

Have we ever had to think about genitalia in political discourse more than we have since Donald Trump came on the scene? Actually, did we ever have to think about it in politics before? We’ve heard about his own dick size constantly, starting when he talked about it in a presidential primary debate all the way back in 2015. We heard him say that he liked to grab women by the pussy and dozsens of women have testified to the fact that he did that routinely. He’s been found liable of doing even worse to e.jean carroll. Stormy Daniels also testified about the size and shape of his penis. Just this week, as his closing argument apparently, Trump can’t stop talking about genitals. He complained about Harvbey Weinsten being “schlonged” and then dropped this insane comments: He also said he could hit a golf ball farther than Palmer which I guess means his dick is actually bigger? This story seems to be getting a lot of traction in the media today which I guess is good? I just don’t know anymore. I’m feeling so cynical about the half of the American people who are going to vote for this cretin that I wonder if this will actually help him.

The post The Hare and the Tortoise appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.

To follow up on Tom’s post below, Democracy is great and all but … damn: “Trump is obviously insane, and then Harris, I don’t think she has a plan,” said Clayton Ewing, a 63-year-old retiree from Shelby Township, Mich. who has voted for Trump in prior elections. Ewing said he may wait until he gets to the polls to make a final decision. Regina Gallacher, a 58-year-old physical therapist from Rochester Hills, Mich., said she is looking for a third party candidate because Trump “really scares me” but and she doesn’t “get warm fuzzies” when she hears Harris talk and found her replacement of President Biden on the ballot “very slimy.” Her husband, a union Democrat, is voting for Trump for the first time but they don’t talk about it at home because Gallacher, who grows repulsed when Trump appears on television, would rather avoid a heated conversation with her husband, who is unlikely to change his mind. If she has to choose between the two, it will be Harris, she said. But she is unsure. “We’ll get through it” if Trump wins, she said.

The post Us appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.

And because she asked Don’t hold me to these back-of-the-napkin figures, but an out-of-state friend asked this morning if Hurricane Helene was impacting voter turnout here in Asheville. Here’s how I replied (edited to add post-coffee clarity): Current statewide registration: Ds: 31%, Rs: 30%, UNAffiliated (registered independents): 38% Despite the lines we saw on Th and Fr (my tweet has almost 10 million views), turnout is down about a third from 2020. The hurricane took out 4 of our planned 14 early voting sites and shortened daily voting hours to 9-5 in this county. We’ve got new voting machines adding to slowing the process. Can’t speak to other WNC counties.  But despite that depressed vote and a strong first-day vote by Republicans here, we seem back to our normal pattern of Ds outvoting Rs in Buncombe County by over 2:1.

How climate chaos could take down the economy, and more from The Lever this week.

What Michael Sokolove found in a tiny Pennsylvania town Comprehending what’s become of a large faction of Americans and a majority of the Republican Party will be the object of study for historians and psychologists for decades. Reporting from Riegelsville, Pa., a hamlet of 800 that voted in 2020 for Donald Trump by a mere two votes, Michael Sokolove found not one of the 60 Republican and Democrat voters he spoke with is changing sides this election. Just why will be the subject of doctoral dissertations (gift link): Most of the Harris supporters I spoke to in Riegelsville cited the vice president’s personal qualities — what they perceived as positivity and decency — along with a desire for a president who might somehow calm our rancorous political climate. Most of the Trump supporters were unconcerned with matters of character. If they ever had a hope that a U.S. president would be someone they admired, a person who might represent the best of us — a war hero, say, like Dwight Eisenhower; a straight arrow like Jimmy Carter; or a trailblazer like Barack Obama — they had abandoned it. Many said that was an outdated or even naïve notion.

As we wait for Doctor Who Season 2 on Disney+ and the BBC, Anita Dobson teased some big reveals about Mrs. Flood at Cardiff Comic Con.

From building futuristic cities to rounding up unhoused and undocumented people, the plans send a message about who does and doesn’t belong in Trump’s America.

The post Trump’s Housing Platform Is as Absurd as It Is Cruel — and That’s the Point appeared first on The Intercept.

With the Israeli military standing by or, increasingly, joining settler attacks, Bedouin communities are especially vulnerable.

The post Israeli Military Joins In on Settlers’ War to Displace Palestinian Bedouins appeared first on The Intercept.

. Är på besök i Stockholm några dagar. Och precis som Kent återvänder en ‘kyrkogårdsromantiker’ som yours truly självklart till Lewerentz och Asplunds arkitektoniska mästerverk — Skogskyrkogården.

At the Château of Azay-le-Rideau in the Loire.

We’re in another round of concern about the “death of the book”, and, in particular, the claimed inability or unwillingness of young people to read full-length books. I’m not going to push too far on the argument that this complaint is ancient, but I can’t resist mentioning the response of my younger brother, who, when […]