Loose Tabs (8:2)

Further notes on the news of August.

On August 27, I published another one of my Loose Tabs compilations, this one picking up from where my previous one, on August 1 left off. As I did last time, I figured a short guide here might be useful.

I'm going to minimize the number of links here, as they may score against the email. The post has a Table of Contents, which may help you find things, or just use your browser's "Find" widget.

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Not many New Stories this month. As Bush admin flack Andrew Card once said, "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." (That was in 2002, and the marketing campaign was for invading Iraq.) I note Trump's trade war with Canada, but only briefly. It certainly wasn't as well thought out as Bush's ambitions against Iraq. As I recall, this round of carping about Canada started when smoke from wildfires (most originating in Oregon) drifted into the US northeast. Tariffs have long been Trump's preferred dueling weapon. What turned this into a story was Canada fighting back. Paul Krugman has some reasons why Trump is bound to lose, but even he barely scratches the surface of Trump's real obstacle: the massive amount of business investment based on the assumption of free trade between the US and Canada. He faces the same problem going after Mexico, or practically anyone else (especially China).

The second entry under New Stories has been building up all year: the bipartisan backlash against data centers. This has been led on the left by people like Astra Taylor, but has gained considerable currency among Democratic candidates — not just leftists like Francesca Hong in Wisconsin but by moderates like Cindy Holscher here in Kansas. And it's also gotten some traction from the right. I started with a couple articles I filed under electoral politics, but when they piled up, I decided to give them their own category. Still, what I have is far short of what's happening. At some point I should write a more comprehensive piece on the issue, once I have a better handle on it.

One problem I'm having trouble coming to grips with that I don't have a good picture of why the AI companies need such a massive buildout, and indeed why the centers need to consume enough power to have a major environmental impact. For as long as I can remember, the energy consumption of computing power has declined steadily. I suspect that what's happening is that the companies are seeking "first mover advantage" by using brute force, instead of waiting for technological advances to deliver compute power more efficiently. This is alarming less because it's wasteful than because it suggests that what's at stake is huge, and ominous.

What we can be pretty sure of is that the big AI companies are riding on a huge bubble based on the assumption that whoever owns AI technology will effectively run the world, becoming able to extract monopoly rents from all other businesses and virtually every individual consumer. That's probably bullshit, but until the whole house of cards collapses, data centers have become a tangible token to fight over. And to the extent that the system of politics in America is biased against development — all that red tape and NIMBYism — the fight is fairly evenly matched. Indeed, the easiest solution in the world is simply to slow down development.

My position on AI (which is much more the real issue here than data centers) is that we should do just that. Where I'm further out of the mainstream is that I think the best way to slow down is to deflate the bubble and take most of the economic incentive out of developing AI. I'm saying "most" (not "all") because there are lots of prospects for AI that I would like to see. But like all software, it should be open source (and, especially important here, open data), so it necessarily operates on limited profit margins, independent of any centralized control. The scenario where all that tech can be owned by a few oligarchs is a bigger threat to democracy than Trump or Vance can imagine.

After my initial post, I've added a third New Story: Meta's $18 billion settlement of a lawsuit over teen addiction. I have very little to say about this so far, other than to note the enormous amount, significant both in that Meta has the money to pay it, and that they have even more they hope to protect from the scrutiny an open trial would produce. While I don't doubt that Meta (Facebook) has such a reckoning coming, I think the real problem goes much deeper, as does any sort of real solution.

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Moving on to Major Threads, which makes up the bulk of the post, the news is much more of the same. I tried to sum this up in my introduction to the Iran war section:

The war seems to have entered its absurdist, "waiting for Godot" phase. Trump started the war, based on Netanyahu's assurances and his own legendary "gut" instinct, that Iran had a glass jaw, and one punch would knock them out. He was wrong, as anyone who knew anything about Iran since 1979 could have told him, but evidently one of the qualifications when you only hire "the best people" is that they never talk back. Since then, neither Trump nor Iran particularly want to slug it out, but neither side will surrender, or settle for less, so we're stuck in this endless cycle where Trump makes insane threats, Iran calls his bluff, and the Gulf States quietly, behind the scenes, ease Trump down. Meanwhile, Netanyahu is happy as a clam, having secured cover for his slow-moving but systematic genocide.

While there's been very little movement in the Iran war, a lot has been going in and around Israel and its recently expanded occupied territories. While one might argue that the pace of genocide has slowed down since the "ceasefire" and hostage exchanges, the intent and goal remains clear: the effective elimination of Palestinians or other natives from whatever lands they feel entitled to. They've embraced the idea of perpetual war, so how quickly and completely they achieve their goals is secondary to their ability to fight on. That they continue to do, on all fronts: in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and (somewhat less formally) the West Bank. They've killed over 1,000 Palestinians since the "ceasefire." They're moving much faster in Lebanon, where most of the locals have fled their occupied zone, allowing them to burn and loot at will, destroying infrastructure at levels approaching what they did in Gaza. I've collected pieces for much of this, but the atrocities are too numerous to enumerate.

I haven't found much useful on Israel's October elections. Bush ran his 2004 campaign on a "stay the course" platform, and that's basically what Netanyahu is doing, although he's had to work harder to keep Trump engaged in his wars. As best I recall, Kerry's pitch was something along the lines of "no, let me stay the course!" It doesn't seem like the Israeli opposition has any better ideas, so he may get away with it. I find it hard to understand how any Israeli, regardless of how chauvinist one could be, can look at Netanyahu's performance and think nobody else could have done it better. In all this, Netanyahu's major asset is his orange sock puppet in the White House. I wonder if Israelis have any sense of how unpopular Trump has become? Probably not, given that Netanyahu has done more than anyone else to drag him down.

I wrote much more in the Israel and the World section, although I'm not sure I have much to offer there. I've been reading Yakov Rabkin and Benjamin Balthaser on Jewish anti-Zionism, which is interesting to me, although I'm not sure the details matters much. Two things I didn't get into: AIPAC's efforts to beat back Democrats who are critical of Israel; and whatever the Hasan Piker quote is that's being characterized as promoting antisemitism. The former interests me only in that I don't see how any Democrat can credibly advocate for peace and justice and still support subsidizing Israel's war machine. But I don't buy the notion that every primary is or should be viewed as a referendum on Israel and AIPAC — although AIPAC certainly presses the point.

As for antisemitism, it is Israel and their operatives here who are deliberately muddying the waters. They must understand that most decent people will oppose their apartheid and genocidal regime, and that they are deliberately exposing diaspora Jews to reaction by insisting that all Jews are party to their atrocities. If you are familiar with the history of Zionism, you may also recognize that they don't care if diaspora Jews are assaulted; that's all the more reason for them to make aliyah to Israel. Diaspora Jews are human shields for Israel's policies, especially where they can persuade western powers to defend Israel under the guise of combating antisemitism. However, virtually no one who is critical of Israel's wars, especially on the grounds of opposing racism and violence, and supporting equal rights for all, is likely to fall for their scheme. Perhaps that leaves a few traditional right-wing antisemites, but most of them admire Israel.

While I am naturally sympathetic to people who have been confused by propaganda, I'd rather not spend a lot of time on them. I realize that there are many Jews in America who identify with Israel, who feel some connection to the fears that are endemic there, and who have avoided having to reckon with the reality Israel has imposed on its others, and they may be discomfited by protesters, especially those who express solidarity with Palestinians. Such people may have their feelings hurt by having to face what Israel has done. But, at least in the US, they are extremely unlikely to face any violence, let alone the prospect of having their houses bulldozed, or bombed by F-15s. While I oppose any form of antisemitism, like any other form of bigotry, at some point we have to prioritize our outrages. What Israel is doing is far more malicious, and far more damaging, not just to its Palestinian targets, but to the Israelis, in whose name these atrocities are committed, and even to the soldiers and settlers who commit them. As far as I'm concerned, any American who claims to love Israel but does not oppose what Israel has become is careless and hypocritical. They should join us, not oppose us.

Moving on, I note that the Ukraine war has entered a phase similar to the "rocket war" phase in the Iraq-Iran War. With the battle lines stalemated, both sides are trying to commit mischievous violence across the battle lines. No good can come of this. Both sides will be tempted to escalate, while becoming more intransigent. That this is being done largely with drones may be significant. The US and Iran are also major players in drone warfare, and the same dynamic is likely to increase as long as the war is allowed to proceed. Further down, I cite a Rebecca Gordon piece about "it's time to rein in lethal AI drones." Israel is already using AI to pick out bombing targets. The risk here is accelerating as long as these wars are allowed to continue. Moreover, unlike the Cold War era when the US and USSR worked together to keep conflicts from spiraling out of control, today the US and Russia are in the thick of these wars, with no one else willing to limit them.

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These war issues take up the first third of this Loose Tabs. The next third is hogged by Trump. I don't have much more to add here, but I should point out that the Trump Administration section has two dozen scattered reports of malign malfeasance, where a more diligent reporter could probably have found two hundred. While Trump, with his "cult (or should I say sinkhole?) of personality," is patently ridiculous, his main function has been to rubber stamp, then distract from, his apparatchiki, who like termites are relentlessly attacking anything they find that seems solid in the government, while he and his family figure out how to pocket the vig from whatever work they still do.

The following sections deal with electoral politics and our two-party system. I don't offer any horse race analysis here, and barely mention recent primaries or polls. I did get a bit distracted by more philosophical issues. Carlyn Beccia's "Has America crossed the asshole threshold?" would be worth expanding on. I delved into the Jared Abbott/Joan Williams piece on "Donald Trump's coalition is coming apart," because I see disgruntled Trump voters as possible recruits, if you can treat them with a bit of respect (not as "baskets of deplorables"). But I don't think that pandering will work, either to get their votes or to keep them. They need to reprioritize their understanding of problems, and to become more tolerant of other people in the same boat as they are.

I also go into the "centrist" delusion, as I take apart a Bill Scher title: "Americans like moderate politicians and progressive policies, but not socialism." I don't think I've ever gone into this is great detail, even if it seems like I'm writing about it all the time. I've paid very little attention to the moderate vs. left scorecard so far. I assume that the better campaigner will in the Democratic nomination, and in the general election, that's who I want. The short-term goal, after all, is to win. And while there are plenty of Democrats I have little hope and/or respect for, I figure the worst of them are better than Republicans, if only for the better company they keep. But when I vote, I'll vote for whoever strikes me as the better candidate, not just to win but to serve in office. I don't see any value in trying to figure out who's more electable. I'll leave that to everyone else. But I do think one big problem Democrats have had over the last 30-40 years is that even when they get in power, they — and we're especially talking Clinton and Obama here — have a very poor track record of solving problems, or even appearing to try. And while they've won a few elections, and were clearly better than their opponents, their ineffectiveness has really hurt Democrats over the years. So I don't see much downside in giving someone on the left a chance to do better. And right now, a leftist like Sanders seems much more credible than a loser like Harris.

One thing about the "mid-terms" is that even if Democrats win big, Trump is still going to be president, the Supreme Court is still going to let him play dictator, and Congress is going to have very little effect. And, even when Trump is gone, big businesses are still going to have almost all of the money, and lobbyists will still outnumber Congress 10-to-1 (or is it 100-to-1?). And the media will still be owned by rich people seeking favors. So it really doesn't matter whether the Democrats in Congress are left or center or just plain donkeys. They need to resist, and they need to educate, and soon enough you'll figure out who's up to the job, and who isn't. My guess is that it will be the people with smarts and principles, and those people will be on the left.

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The final third is a little bit of everything. Jeffery St Clair's "Roaming Charges" pieces are massive collections of micro-posts, but within them he covers ICE and climate change issues better than anyone else. I've pulled out a few examples, but there are hundreds more. Eric Levitz's piece on estate taxes gets an "amen" from me. The Books section includes a number of links on Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick's Israel's Lobby, which I've bought but haven't gotten to yet. The Obits section includes Ward Churchill, Dave Marsh, and Dolly Parton (although not nearly as much as has since appeared — for some one famously apolitical, she ticks a lot of boxes on the left; by the way, the piece on Trump's eulogy is in the Trump section, where it belongs).

I've added a few more pieces to the posted file, marked with red change bars. Aside from the Meta lawsuit, these are pieces that relate closely to other matters already in the post. I've also opened a draft file for next time, seeding it with an essay on rent control that can certainly last. No schedule on when the next one might appear, but I've tended to run 3-4 weeks, with one slipping out a bit longer.