...

"White supremacists are angry; those who claim that title and those who do not but who act in the interests of white supremacy. Not only are they angry, but also “we” are told that their anger must be understood--that “we” must make room for it.
This “we” is across race, sex, class, gender, and geography.
This unmoral, unethical anger has the full support of the state. It is the only anger that the state recognizes; the only anger not criminalized or met with deadly brutal force. It is the anger of Ryan and Ammon Bundy and the understanding of the jury of their all-white peers that found them not guilty of the illegal occupation and armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. It is an unmoral anger that hits in the register and the grammar of violence, in the logics of law and order, in electoral victories and the grammar of reconciliation with kin by any means."

The New Inquiry: Lose Your Kin, November 16, 2016.

America's Dad

"Walz has been an outspoken supporter of abortion rights, one of Democrats’ top issues this election. And unlike President Biden, a Roman Catholic who previously said Roe vs. Wade went too far and often appears uncomfortable talking about the subject, Walz embraces abortion rights as a regular talking point.

In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Walz praised Harris for visiting a reproductive healthcare clinic and frequently using health terms like “uterus.”

“I think old white men need to learn how to talk about this a little more,” Walz said. “And I think the biggest thing is: Listen to women. Listen to what they’re saying. We’ve seen that when we listen to them, they’re speaking loudly on the issue and they’re speaking at the ballot box.”

Los Angeles Times: What’s up with ‘weird’? Tim Walz and his Midwestern plain talk, August 6, 2024

Having a VP candidate who openly speaks about abortion rights as healthcare and talks about making Minnesota a sanctuary state for trans people feels like a tidal change in US politics. Kamala Harris, who is still riding a wave of enthusiasm since the announcement, went for a pick popular with the left wing of the Democratic Party even where other candidates were lauded as perhaps bringing vital swing states with them in the election (especially Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who gave a speech at the rally). I hate to have hope and I'm particularly worried about what message the Democratic party would take away from a loss in this election if this generational change doesn't work out, but as so many commentators have mentioned, this momentum is a radical departure of what this race felt like a few weeks ago.

Links: 29/7/24

Politics:

 

What a two weeks of politics it has been! The failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the Republican convention in which Ohio Senator JD Vance was picked as Trump's running mate, Joe Biden dropping out and putting Kamala Harris' name forward, the torrent of donations following, Harris' campaign machinery jumping into gear straight away and attempting an entirely new strategy: calling the opposition "weird" (I think "Trump is old and quite weird?" from a campaign strategy publication will be remembered for a long time - if there ever has been a more Gen-Y question mark in history, I can't think of it), pivoting away from the "when they go low, we go high" (someone pointed out that it's just a version of respectability politics) years that never really worked out for the Democrats. The timing of Joe Biden's exit from the race meant that the Republicans practiced all the wrong talking points at their Convention: they're no longer running against a man who would have been in his mid-80s at the end of his second term. Trump, certain of his victory, picked a running mate (who started his political career as a never-Trumper but has come around to helping elect a man he once compared to Hitler) that probably won't help him much in the polls, and has become a meme within days of being elected, perhaps showcasing that this new political machine purpose built for Donald Trump has forgotten about the importance of vetting candidates. 

Around the big headlines, there's a few other things that are maybe relevant to record for posterity: right before Biden dropped out, creator of The West Wing and famed centrist Aaron Sorkin suggested in a much ridiculed NY Times op-ed that the Democrats should pick Mitt Romney, who lost to Barack Obama in the 2012 Presidential election. It's truly a radical suggestion that the "polarised political climate" of the US could be balanced out if the Democrats simply became the centre-right Republicans of the 2010s, the kind of national healing that only a man who is equally afraid of the progressive left (a progressive left that has consistently positioned itself as a voice of reason, pragmatic even) in the Democratic party as he is of a future Trump presidency could possibly suggest. Sorkin changed his tone quickly after the Biden announcement.

The Trump campaign also seems eager to distance itself from Project 2025, a detailled conservative platform document that outlines how government agencies should be reshaped to reflect a radical, right-wing agenda in the next few years - a document that contains a lot of horrifying prospects, including dismantling the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which provides data on how climate change is worsening. It also includes plan to further "restrict abortion and contraceptives, cut social security, outlaw pornography, end marriage equality" (obviously, a lot of these initiatives poll badly with the general population, hence the distancing). To clarify what is at stake in this election, Trump has been quoted as saying "Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine! You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians!" at a campaign rally recently. 

The next few weeks will bring insights into who Kamala Harris picks as a running mate: the Democratic National Convention starts on August 19. 

Pop Culture: 

I've caught up with the Dragon show, and it's quite nice to watch something again that is widely viewed, even though barely anything these days has the water-cooler quality of peak television (and the sad demise of television criticism due to what is happening to media has been a constant sadness in my life). I quite like it for the premise of being based on a book by George R.R. Martin that is written from the perspective of those who record history for posterity - what happens on the show compared to what happens in Fire and Blood almost feels like a comment on what gets left out in the kind of history written by victors, and only interested in great power politics. 

Last week, I had a chance to see the great Kim Gordon at Unsound, but the discovery of the festival was Norwegian saxophonist Bendik Giske.

“uncharted waters in the days ahead”

Joe Biden has withdrawn from his presidential re-election race and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of their party’s ticket, an extraordinary decision upending American politics that plunges the Democratic nomination into uncertainty just months before the November election against Donald Trump – a candidate Biden has warned is an existential threat to US democracy.
“While it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” Biden said in a letter announcing his decision.

 

The Guardian: Joe Biden withdraws from presidential race after weeks of pressure to quit, July 22, 2024

...

I've been having a difficult time thinking about US politics in the run-up to the election. Just one recurring thought: the greatest weakness of the debate is the idea that anti-fascism and literal Nazis are equidistant from the political centre (a true showcase of how far the Overton window has moved), and the imprecise nature of calling the political climate "polarised", when one side has moved so much further than the other to create a climate where political values become impossible to contain in the same polity. The last few days have also been a lesson in forcing readers and listeners to parse sentences - the idea that violent speech and action are equally present, are perpetrated by both sides, is laughable, and can easily be disproved, and any news outlet not stating this equivocally is seriously putting its ability to truthfully report and analyse reality in question - at a time where misinformation and conspiracy theories are already having such a choke-hold on narratives.

Links: 12/06/24

Politics: 

The UN has added Israel "to the global list of states and armed groups who have committed violations against children". 

A couple of days ago, Israeli special forces freed four hostages, and killed 274 Palestinians, mainly in devastating air raids to cover the retreat from the Nuseirat refugee camp, where many refugees live in tents. The UN Security council has adopted a US drafted resolution for a hostage-for-ceasefire proposal but both sides in the conflict have yet to agree to it. 

Adam Shatz, who has also just released a great biography of Frantz Fanon, wrote this in the LRB: 

"The military operation in Gaza has altered the shape, perhaps even the meaning, of the struggle over Palestine – it seems misleading, and even offensive, to refer to a ‘conflict’ between two peoples after one of them has slaughtered the other in such staggering numbers. The scale of the destruction is reflected in the terminology: ‘domicide’ for the destruction of housing stock; ‘scholasticide’ for the destruction of the education system, including its teachers (95 university professors have been killed); ‘ecocide’ for the ruination of Gaza’s agriculture and natural landscape. Sara Roy, a leading expert on Gaza who is herself the daughter of Holocaust survivors, describes this as a process of ‘econocide’, ‘the wholesale destruction of an economy and its constituent parts’ – the ‘logical extension’, she writes, of Israel’s deliberate ‘de-development’ of Gaza’s economy since 1967."

London Review of Books: Israel's Descent, June 2024

The US Presidential race is heading towards the first television debates between presumed candidate Trump and current President Biden at the end of June. Earlier this month, Donald Trump was found guilty of all 34 charges in the hush money trial (falsifying business records to cover up his affair with Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election). Sentencing is expected on July 11, with prison time unlikely for a first offender, and Trump is expected to appeal, but remains, for now, the first convicted felon to run for the US Presidency. 

To underline how unusual the Presidential race and the current political context in the US is, Rolling Stone has covered a secret recording created by filmmaker Lauren Windsor of remarks made by Supreme Court Justice Alito, who is also in the news currently for flying a flag associated with the Capitol riots on January 6 in front of two of his residences (a flag he claims his wife put up in reaction to a neighbourhood dispute). The Supreme Court is tasked with judging how the Justice Department has approached charging participants of the riots.

The justice’s unguarded comments highlight the degree to which Alito makes little effort to present himself as a neutral umpire calling judicial balls and strikes, but rather as a partisan member of a hard-right judicial faction that’s empowered to make life-altering decisions for every American.  

Rolling Stone: Justice Alito Caught on Tape Discussing How Battle for America ‘Can’t Be Compromised’, June 10, 2024

Pop Culture: 

Arcane, which finished its first season in 2021, has finally received a season two release date: November, and there's a trailer out. The stunning animation work was famously time-consuming, hence the long break in-between seasons, and the main voice actresses (Hailee Steinfeld, Katie Leung, Ella Purnell) have been very busy over the last years as well.

Links: 29/1/24

Politics: 

It feels like the Republican Primary at this stage is a foregone conclusion. After the Iowa caucus, in which Donald Trump managed to get ahead of Ron DeSantis by 30%, DeSantis (who has been creating a nightmare dystopia for trans people in Florida) suspended his campaign and endorsed the former President. Trump then went on to win the New Hampshire Primary, in spite of the fact that the electoral make-up of the state (independents being allowed to vote in Republican primaries, the educational make-up of the electorate) probably created more difficult conditions for him than most of the next contests will hold. Nikki Haley, the only remaining contender other than Trump, is projected to lose her home state of South Carolina, where she was governor for five years, a loss that will be the coffin nail in her campaign. It doesn't matter that Trump has just been ordered to pay $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll in a civil trial that found him liable for sexual abuse, or that so many more law suits are pending, or that Trump has been stripped from the Maine and Colorado primary ballot for his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The 2024 Presidential election will be a repeat of the 2020 one, and it will be an uphill battle for the Democrats, who are now also struggling with flagging support from Muslim Americans. 

 The findings of a recent study into abortion bans in the US are horrifying. 

Fourteen states have banned abortions at any gestational age since the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in 2022. Since the enactment of those abortion bans, an estimated 64,565 people became pregnant as a result of rape in those states.

ArsTechnica: Tens of thousands of pregnancies from rape occurring in abortion-ban states, January 27, 2024

South Africa has brought a case against Israel to the International Court of Justice. The actual ruling on the charges of genocide will take years, but the court has made an interim judgement. 

"In a historic interim judgment, the UN court in The Hague told Israel it must “take all measures within its power” to desist from killing Palestinians in contravention of the genocide convention, and to prevent and punish the incitement of genocide and facilitate the provision of “urgent basic services”. But the ruling stopped short of ordering a ceasefire to the war in Gaza."

The Guardian: ICJ ruling increases pressure on Israel to prevent civilian deaths in Gaza, January 27, 2024

Meanwhile, nine countries including Australia have suspended funds to the UNRWA, the primary humanitarian agency working in Gaza, due to charges against a small group of staff regarding the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, just as millions of Gazans are facing a famine. 

Pop Culture: 

I've been watching the fourth season of True Detective (I skipped the two previous seasons), which feels right in my wheelhouse: it is set in a remote Alaskan town during the polar night and follows the investigation of mysterious deaths in an Arctic research station. Jodie Foster and Kali Reis are starring as the investigating police officers in a show that feels deeply indebted to The Thing. I've been finding it especially enjoyable to watch the series unfold week-by-week instead of as a full-season drop (a trend I notice in general - I feel fatigued by the Netflix model of releasing whole seasons and would rather watch things more slowly, to have more time to think about what is happening and really dig into the narrative). 

Vulture has a detailed interview with Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein about all the songs on the new Sleater-Kinney album Little Rope. 

There's a bit of controversy surrounding the Academy Awards nominations (specifically for Barbie - the in-world irony of nominating Ryan Gosling, but not Margot Robbie or Greta Gerwig), but I'm happy that Sandra Hüller has gotten a nod for Anatomy of a Fall, with both Justine Triet's film and Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest being nominated for Best Film. 

And in sports, yesterday brought two very surprising upsets to the dominant Australian cricket squads: the South African women's team under Adelaide Strikers premiership winning opener Laura Woolvardt managed to defeat Australia for the first time ever in a Canberra T20 match, and the young West Indies test squad beat the Australian men's cricket team in a day-night game with only eight runs to spare in a stunning performance by quick Shamar Joseph, who managed to get seven wickets with an injured toe.