#Eric Levitz

[calicojack1718]

Election 2024: The Motivations of the Press and Democrats Behind the Biden So Old Drama

The Biden so old thing seems like its never going away and is in danger of becoming the James Comey moment of the election. Why won't the press and Democrats drop it when it can only help Trump, literally, destroy the world?

SUMMARY: The Biden so Old election controversy features intriguing motivations of the participants in this unprecedented political situation. Unpacking the motivations behind this clash and the media drama that ensued, this post offers a comprehensive analysis of the reason the FOR PROFIT political media have been writing multiple daily stories about it, and the Democrats who feel compelled to…

[onlylonelylatino]

Earth II Speedy by Eric Shanower

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eric Levitz at Vox:

When Vice President Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz as her running mate, many pundits lamented her decision. In their view, the Democratic nominee should have chosen a vice presidential candidate who could mitigate her liabilities, and balance out her party’s ticket — such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

After all, Harris had been a liberal senator from one of America’s most left-wing states and then had run an exceedingly progressive primary campaign in 2020. To win over swing-state undecideds, she needed to demonstrate her independence from her party’s most radical elements. And selecting the popular governor of a purple state — who had defied the Democratic activist base on education policy and Israel’s war in Gaza— would do just that. Walz, in this account, was just another liberal darling: As Minnesota governor, he had enacted a litany of progressive policies, including restoring the voting rights of ex-felons and creating a refuge program for trans people denied gender-affirming care in other states. Picking Walz might thrill the subset of Americans who would vote for Harris even if she burned an American flag on live TV and lit a blunt with its flames. But it would do nothing to reassure those who heard two words they did not like in the phrase, “California liberal.”

But there is more than one way to balance a ticket. Or so Harris’s team believes, if the third night of the Democratic National Convention is any guide. On Wednesday night, Democrats used Walz’s nomination to associate their party with rural American culture and small-c conservative moral sentiments, while remaining true to a broadly progressive agenda. Walz may not be especially distinct from Harris ideologically. But he is quite different demographically and symbolically. Harris is the half-Jamaican, half-Indian daughter of immigrant college professors who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Walz was born into a family whose roots in the United States went back to the 1800s, and raised in a Nebraska town of 400, where ethnic diversity largely consisted of several different flavors of Midwestern white (Walz himself is of German, Irish, Swedish, and Luxembourgish descent). Harris is an effortlessly cool veteran of red carpets. Walz is a dad joke that has attained corporal form.

In her person and biography, Harris represents the America that has benefited unequivocally from the transformations of the past half-century — the cosmopolitan, multicultural nation that has greeted the advance of racial and gender equality with relief, and the knowledge economy that’s taken to globalization with relish. Walz, by contrast, was shaped by the America that feels more at home in the world of yesterday, at least as it is nostalgically misremembered — a world where moral intuitions felt more stable, rural economies seemed more healthy, and the American elite looked more familiar; the America that put Donald Trump in the Oval Office, in other words. Or at least, the Harris campaign has chosen to associate Walz with all of that America’s iconography, attempting to make it feel as included in the Democratic coalition as possible — without actually ceding much ground to conservative policy preferences. The introduction to Walz’s speech Wednesday night looked like it could have been scripted by a chatbot asked to generate the antithesis of a “San Francisco liberal.” A video montage celebrated Walz’s diligent work on his family farm growing up, his service in the US military, skills as a marksman, and — above all — success as a football coach. Democrats leaned especially hard on that last, most American item on Walz’s resume. Just before the party’s vice presidential nominee took the mic, a group of his former players decked out in their gridiron garments marched on stage to a fight song (not to be confused with “Fight Song”).

[...] There is some basis for believing that Democrats might be able to win over a small but significant fraction of Republican-leaning independents by wrapping center-left policies in conservative packaging. Some political scientists have found that when moderate and conservative voters are presented with a progressive, Democratic economic policy idea — that is justified on the grounds that it will help uphold “the values and traditions that were handed down to us: hard work, loyalty to our country and the freedom to forge your own path” — some do respond favorably (as do liberal voters, who take no offense at such abstract, traditionalist pieties). Whether Walz tying himself to rural American symbology — or Harris tying herself to “Coach Walz” — will be enough to blunt Trump’s attacks on the Democratic nominee’s supposed “communism” remains to be seen. But the Democratic ticket is at least trying to make right-leaning Midwesterners feel like they belong (even if they do not think like Democrats do).

Tim Walz’s DNC speech last night reflects a broader trend of Democrats reclaiming freedom and patriotism while also selling its liberal agenda. #DNC2024 #HarrisWalz2024

See Also:

HuffPost: With Kamala Harris, It’s Cool For Liberals To Be Patriotic Again

[mudwerks]

(via The Right Has Already Turned on Their Appalachian Folk Hero)

oh gee - he said something about “supporting diversity” and the fawning right-wing turned sharply against him apparently...

Here’s the best summary of the lyrics I’ve seen:

Eric Levitz argued for New York Magazine that the song represents “an incoherent form of populism that directs class resentment at targets that do not threaten the fundamental interests of rich men.”

Here’s apiece of his brilliance:

Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat/ And the obese milkin’ welfare

[eggi1972]

[Kino] Perfect Addiction startet am 16 Februar 2023

München, 30. November 2022 – Showdown am Valentinstag: Über 85 Mio. Leser*innen zählt PERFECT ADDICTION bereits auf Wattpad, jetzt kommt die Dreiecksgeschichte von Autorin Claudia Tan („Perfect“-Series) am 16. Februar 2023 endlich auf die große Leinwand. Erfolgsregisseurin Castille Landon (AFTER LOVE, AFTER FOREVER) macht den Ring frei für den wohl heißesten Rachefeldzug des Jahres im gnadenlosen Untergrund der MMA-Fightclubs. Mit PERFECT ADDICTION bringt Constantin Film eine Eigenproduktion in die Kinos. Unter der Regie von Castille Landon, die bereits mit Teil 3 und 4 der „After“-Reihe (AFTER LOVE, AFTER FOREVER) Publikumserfolge im Kino feierte, spielen die Nachwuchsstars Kiana Madeira (AFTER LOVE, AFTER FOREVER), Ross Butler (TOTE MÄDCHEN LÜGEN NICHT) und Matthew Noszka (STAR). In weiteren Rollen sind Bree Winslow (EUPHORIA), Nicholas Duvernay (PURPLE HEARTS) und Manu Bennett (SPARTACUS) zu sehen. Inhalt: Von einem Moment auf den anderen bricht für die UFC-Trainerin Sienna Lane (Kiana Madeira) die Welt zusammen: Als sie ihre große Liebe Jax (Matthew Noszka) ausgerechnet mit ihrer jüngeren Schwester beim Fremdgehen erwischt, steht sie vor dem Nichts: keine Bleibe, kein Geld, keine Familie. Was bleibt, ist bodenlose Enttäuschung und riesengroße Wut. Und bald schon ein Plan, wie sie sich an Jax rächen kann. Nur Sienna hat er es zu verdanken, dass er zum Champion in Mixed Martial Arts werden konnte: Es gibt keine bessere Trainerin! Nun will sie Jax‘ größten Rivalen, Kayden Williams (Ross Butler), mit allen Mitteln auf den finalen Kampf vorbereiten, um es Jax dort heimzuzahlen, wo es ihm am meisten weh tut: im Ring. Doch als sich Sienna und Kayden nicht nur beim Training näherkommen, wird der Weg zum Meistertitel immer komplizierter. PERFECT ADDICTION ist eine Produktion von Constantin Film (Executive Producer: Martin Moszkowicz und Richard Wright, Produzent: Robert Kulzer) und JB Pictures (Produzent: Jeremy Bolt) in Zusammenarbeit mit Wattpad WEBTOON Studios (Produzent*innen: Aron Levitz, Eric Lehrmann, Lindsey Ramey) und in Co-Produktion mit Spark Productions. Regie führte Castille Landon nach dem Drehbuch von Stephanie Sanditz. Die Kamera führte Maciej Sobieraj. Der Film basiert auf dem zweiten Teil der Roman-Reihe von Claudia Tan, zuerst erschienen bei Wattpad. KINOSTART: 16. Februar 2023 im Verleih der Constantin Film Darsteller*innen: Kiana Madeira, Ross Butler, Matthew Noszka, Bree Winslow, NicholasDuvernay, Manu Bennett u.v.m. Executive Producers: Martin Moszkowicz, Richard Wright, Eric Lehrmann, Lindsey Ramey Produzenten: Jeremy Bolt, Robert Kulzer, Aron Levitz Drehbuch: Stephanie Sanditz Regie: Castille Landon Lesen Sie den ganzen Artikel

[brzaski]

[id: a screenshot of a title of an article written by Eric Levitz saying "The 4-Day Week Is for White-collar Workers". /end id]

this article said everything out loud that I feel and stuff down when my salaried 9-5 friends talk about 4-day weeks or how universal remote work has changed their lives

[chubbycaucasianchristiancloseted]

O yeah Media Manufactured!

O yeah Media Manufactured! The day after this article was written, 183 people would lose their lives, Including 13 Americans. Did the intelligencer apologize for this article? Did Eric Levitz admit he was 100% wrong? Any idea how many are still left behind?

The Biden Administration told us that the Afghan Government would not fall, however the author plays it up as inevitable and America people should have known better? Remember kids we should always look for the bright spots; always be optimists when it comes to Democrat policies, give them the benefit of the doubt but remember Republicans are bad and pick apart every word they say.

Eric Levitz you seem to be ok with people “presenting editorial judgments as factual ones” when it comes to Trump. You even admit you did the same thing with Bush but it was ok because you could have made reasoned arguments supporting your biases? “Journalism” has been dead for years. Here is my “reasonable argument”, we needed to get out of Afghanistan but leaving hundreds behind, after promising them safety, and the Kabul terrorist attack, due to our troops withdrawing, is not a success.

Direct Quotes:

America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan has yet to cost our nation a single casualty. Evacuations of U.S. citizens and allies from Kabul’s airport are proceeding at a faster pace than the White House had promised, or than its critics had deemed possible.

On the streets of Kabul, “order and quiet” have replaced “rising crime and violence.” Meanwhile, the Taliban is negotiating with former Afghan president Hamid Karzai over the establishment of “an inclusive government acceptable to all Afghans.”

It could have done (and should now do) more to facilitate the mass resettlement of Afghan refugees. But as far as conclusions to multi-decade wars go, America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan is thus far proceeding with relatively little chaos and tragedy.

It has long been apparent that America’s exit from Afghanistan would be tantamount to the Taliban’s victory. U.S. intelligence officials may have been excessively optimistic about the Afghan government’s staying power, but even they thought the government in Kabul would collapse within two years of America’s retreat. Simply put, there is no proud way to lose a war to a cult of heroin-dealing child rapists (especially when your side in that war featured no small number of men who fit a similar description).

Before its collapse, the Afghan government had pressured the United States to limit its evacuation efforts, so as to avoid broadcasting the message that America deemed a Taliban victory inevitable.

Mainstream coverage of Kabul’s fall and its aftermath has been anything but circumspect. Attempts to weigh the benefits of America’s withdrawal against its costs have been rare; attempts to judge Biden’s execution of that withdrawal against rigorous counterfactuals have been rarer still.

This is the sort of commentary one expects from jingoists on right-wing radio, not high-ranking reporters at major networks.

At the same time, CNN’s chief foreign correspondent Clarissa Ward saw fit to present her own pessimistic hunches

The point is merely that he is presenting editorial judgments as factual ones.

Those views may bespeak the biases of a millennial progressive whose formative years were spent gawking at George W. Bush’s war crimes and reading Noam Chomsky’s lectures. I cannot always prevent my ideological commitments from blinkering my vision. But I can be transparent about those commitments, and test my biased intuitions against the rigors of reasoned argument.

One can critically report on concrete failings in the Biden administration’s withdrawal plans. But one cannot presume Biden’s responsibility for every negative consequence that follows from ending a misbegotten war and deserve the title journalist.

[bllsbailey]

Democrats Now Faced With Selling the One Person They Couldn’t Wait to Get Rid Of

Allies of President Joe Biden didn’t want Kamala Harris as vice president in 2020. Democrat donors, party insiders, and the media were calling for her removal from the ticket when Biden’s 2024 campaign began.

Just last month a prominent progressive lawmaker admitted that “a lot of” Harris’s Democrat colleagues were openly calling for her removal.

It was so bad that the outcry for Kamala to be removed from the campaign was far more prevalent than those demanding the removal of Biden himself, despite the fact that he had clear cognitive and motor issues.

Think about that for a minute – The President of the United States was a clear and present danger to the nation due to his mental deficiencies … and they still thought Harris was the bigger problem.

Fast forward to this past Thursday, when the Democratic National Convention (DNC) installed Comrade Kamala in one of the most stunning political coups against democracy this nation has ever seen.

As with any successful hostile government takeover, the people must be inundated with propaganda to convince them that the coup was good and just. The DNC and their puppets in the media lathered on that propaganda in spades.

As is often the case for Democrats, reality paints a different picture. Harris remains a deeply flawed candidate that people in her own party couldn’t wait to get rid of from the onset.

In the summer of 2020, over a dozen close allies to then-candidate Biden were involved in a shadow campaign meant to keep Harris from being added to the ticket. The concern was that she was “too ambitious” and “solely focused on becoming president herself.”

Former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), a member of Biden’s vice-presidential search committee at the time and former Chair of the DNC, had expressed deep concerns about Harris and even lobbied against her becoming the nominee for vice president.

Many of those initial concerns dissipated after the election. Harris was put on the back burner almost immediately, being named to the fictitious role of ‘border czar,’ where she was completely forgotten due to her inaction on the matter.

And besides, she had fulfilled her sole purpose for the Biden campaign – being black and a woman – and was no longer a vital cog to the administration.

Much of the disdain for Harris again resurfaced as speculation that Biden would run for reelection mounted. Her disappearing act on the border and any matter of substance became an issue.

The New York Times in February of 2023 ran a story about how several of Biden’s supporters were worried Harris “will be a political liability for the ticket,” in part because of her woefully lacking list of accomplishments.

“I can’t think of one thing she’s done except stay out of the way and stand beside [Biden] at certain ceremonies,” said John Morgan, a prominent Democrat fundraiser.

That same column shockingly revealed that dozens (plural) of Democrats had confessed that Kamala was not “a future leader of the party, much less the country.”

In fact, the Times sought out quotes from sources supportive of Harris as vice president and found that even “they had lost hope in her.”

That is a left-wing rag seeking out left-wing sources, and they still struggled to find anybody willing to say something positive about Kamala.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a month later, refused to endorse Harris as Biden’s running mate, even as she was enthusiastically behind Biden.

“Multiple Democratic leaders” cited by CNN said that support for Kamala was so tepid that they worried voters “might turn away from the ticket entirely.”

It wasn’t long before left-leaning columnists were chiming in and strongly pushing for Biden to dump his running mate.

New York Magazine outlet The Intelligencer’s features writer, Eric Levitz wrote a column titled, "The Case for Biden to Drop Kamala Harris,” in which he pointed out that Democrats had rallied behind Biden almost exclusively because they viewed Harris as so much worse.

Levitz cited horrible poll numbers early on in the new campaign in which just 41% of Democrats -Democrats! - said Harris made them think better of the administration, and only 30% said that they felt ‘enthusiastic’ about her being Biden’s running mate."

Citing similar poll numbers, journalist and podcaster Josh Barro said Harris should not be the veep candidate because she is not “someone who is credible as the future leader of the Democratic Party.”

Again, Democrats don’t view her as a leader of the party, but they want American voters to view her as a leader of the country.

More recently, a scant six months ago, Douglas MacKinnon, a former White House and Pentagon official, revealed that he had spoken to “multiple high-level Democrats” and found “not one of them wants Harris on the ticket.”

The Washington Post followed up with an op-ed in March saying, “for the country’s sake, Vice President Harris should step aside” because she had become a “burden” to the ticket.

Now she’s at the top of the ticket.

Nothing, though, demonstrates just how quickly Democrats flipped the switch with their views on Harris than comments made by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC).

In an Instagram Live post on July 19th, AOC (D-NY) revealed that members of her own party were speaking openly about removing both Biden and Harris.

“If you think there is a consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave that they will support Vice President Kamala Harris, you would be mistaken," she said.

 “I'm in these rooms, I see what they say... a lot of them are not just interested in removing the president, they are interested in removing the whole ticket,” added AOC.

Two days later, Biden officially dropped out of the race, and the rewrite of Harris as a bumbling liability to a historic political force of nature began.

Her own party couldn’t wait to get her off the ticket from very early on.

They then spent the entire 2024 campaign lambasting her as the bigger liability to the ticket, and by extension the country, even as Biden tripped his way across the country, slurred his words in wildly incoherent speeches, and wandered aimlessly across countless stages.

Kamala was viewed as a worse option than that guy.

Now they place her on a pedestal and demand you pay homage with your vote.

[interwebsfamous]

A Two-State Solution

Inspired by Eric Levitz's excellent discussion of how a viable two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine problem, I'd like to suggest the following as a terms of a workable deal at the end of hostilities.

Citizenship

Palestinian citizenship shall be automatically granted by the Palestinian government to any person born in or permanently residing in the British Mandate of Palestine or the lands controlled by Israel after September 29, 1923, or any person directly descended from such a person so long as that person is not an Israeli citizen.

Israeli citizenship shall be granted by the Israeli government to any person is classified as Jewish under the the Law on the Right to Return and born in or permanently residing in the British Mandate of Palestine or the lands controlled by Israel on or after September 29, 1923 or who requests to permanently reside in Israel or any person directly descended from such a person.

Due Process of Law

Neither government shall deprive any person under its control of life, liberty, or property without the due process of law.

Neither government shall take private property for public use without just compensation.

Neither government shall deprive any citizen of the other of a fundamental right provided to its own citizens.

Residency. Any Palestinian or Israeli citizen may live in any lands controlled by Israel or Palestine, unless the government of which the person is not a citizen has imposed such a restriction after duly convicting that person in a court of law for a crime of actual or attempted violence.

Voting Rights

Any adult person over the age of seventeen (17) with Israeli citizenship shall be guaranteed the right to vote for the Israeli government on the principle of one person, one vote.

Any adult person over the age of seventeen (17) with Palestinian citizenship shall be guaranteed the right to vote for the Palestinian government on the principle of one person, one vote.

Territory

Each government shall permit the other to purchase property and operate services in the lands either controls for the purpose of providing any services required or permitted under this agreement or similar services to those which that government provides to its own citizens.

The Territories of Gaza and the West Bank shall be those territories currently within the borders of Israel controlled by Egypt or Jordan on January 31, 1967.

The Territory of Palestine shall be the Territories of Gaza and West Bank and Palestinian government property within the Territory of Israel as permitted by this treaty, but not including Israeli government property within the Territory of Palestine as permitted by this treaty.

The Territory of Israel shall be the territories controlled by the Israeli government before this treaty was ratified, except the Territories of Gaza and West Bank and Israeli government property within the Territory of Palestine as permitted by this treaty, but not including Palestinian government property within the Territory of Israel.

Courts

Rights of an Israeli Citizen

If an Israeli citizen is charged with any violation of law by the Palestinian government or sued by a citizen of Palestine or any entity properly organized under Palestinian law, the Israeli citizen may request trial in an Israeli court following Palestinian rules of procedure with a judge appointed by the Palestinian government and any jury permitted by such laws to be made up of Israeli citizens.

If an Israeli citizen is harmed by a crime committed by a Palestinian as defined by Palestinian law, the Israeli government may appoint a prosecutor to prosecute that crime in Palestinian courts.

Rights of a Palestinian Citizen

If a Palestinian citizen is charged with any violation of law by the Israeli government or sued by a citizen of Israel or any entity properly organized under Israeli law, the Palestinian citizen may request trial in a Palestinian court following Israeli rules of procedure with a judge appointed by the Israeli government and any jury permitted by such laws to be made up of Palestinian citizens.

If a Palestinian citizen is harmed by a crime committed by an Israeli as defined by Israeli law, the Palestinian government may appoint a prosecutor to prosecute that crime in Israeli courts.

Prisoner Exchange. On a rolling basis, the Palestinian and Israeli government shall provide for the exchange of prisoners that both governments agree qualify for clemency and no longer pose a threat to public safety.

Border Enforcement

Borders shall be established between the Territories of Palestine and Israel that shall be guarded on each side solely by the police forces of each country.

 Active-duty military personnel may not perform law enforcement duties along such borders.

No individual may cross the border without submitting to inspection by either government.

No individual may cross the border with any goods that either government prohibits being carried across the border.

Weapons Inspection

The Palestinian and Israeli governments shall disclose to the other the locations of all military facilities and shall permit the inspection of those facilities by the United Nations on annual basis.

All inspectors appointed by the United Nations will be permitted to travel freely through the lands controlled by each government and shall be given access to any facilities functionally controlled by either government upon request.

Taxes

Each government has the exclusive right to collect payroll and income taxes from its own citizens within the Territory either control.

Otherwise, each government has the exclusive right to tax transactions and property within its own Territory.

Each government will establish taxation sufficient to meet its obligations under this agreement.

Healthcare and Education

Each government shall provide free childcare for all of its citizens under the age of five(5); free, compulsory education to all of its citizens above the ages of four (4) and below the age of eighteen (18); free higher education to all citizens over the age of seventeen (17) who are interested in and capable of completing it; and access to affordable health care to all its citizens.

Environment and Safety

Each government will regulate and tax activities in the Territory it controls to reasonably prevent any known risks to human and environmental health and safety.

Each government will provide fire prevention and emergency medical services for all persons and property in the Territory it controls.

Employment Regulations

Each government will require employers under their jurisdiction including themselves to provide workplaces to their employees that are free from unreasonable dangers.

Each government will provide its own citizens with workers' compensation insurance for any injuries sustained in the workplace and may charge employers in the Territory it controls compulsory premiums reasonably calculated to compensate for such harms and prevent any such injuries.

[tomorrowusa]

« Either one upholds the equal worth of all human lives, opposes war crimes, and despises far-right ethno-nationalist political projects or one doesn't. What's more, cheering (or publicly announcing your refusal to condemn) the murder of children isn’t just morally grotesque but also politically self-defeating.

[ … ]

What we actually witnessed was not "the Palestinians" mounting a violent struggle for justice but a far-right theocratic organization committing mass murder in the name of blood-and-soil nationalism. Hamas’s project is antithetical to the left’s foundational values of secularism, universalism, and egalitarianism. And it is also completely at odds with the progressive vision for Palestinian liberation.

[ … ]

If we posit that some ethnic groups have a unique claim to specific stretches of land, and that they also have the right to commit war crimes so as to secure this heritage, then we will do the Israeli far-right’s ideological work for it. When supposed leftists embrace calls for the expulsion of all Jewish "settlers" from "the river to the sea," they pit one group’s account of why its historical victimization gives it carte blanche to commit ethnic cleansing against another group's account of the same. In a contest between competing visions of ethno-nationalist domination, the Palestinians cannot win. Their primary strength is the moral force of egalitarian universalism; in other words, of the idea that all people are entitled to security, self-government, and equality under the law. »

— Eric Levitz at New York Magazine on how people on the left lose political credibility and the moral high ground by acting as cheerleaders for terrorists.

A relatively long excerpt from a long article.

People who brandish swastikas are Nazis – not progressives.

The bothsiderism about last weekend's murder spree outside Gaza reminds me of Trump's "very fine people on both sides" quip about the Charlottesville Nazi march in 2017.

Hamas is an ethno-fascist group of religious extremists who use the population of Gaza as human shields. There are no elections in Gaza and little freedom to speak of. It's no wonder why fascists like Putin and Iran like Hamas so much.

It is easily possible to show support for the Palestinian people without associating yourself with terrorists committing mass murder.

Yes, You Can Be Pro-Palestine and Anti-Hamas

[calicojack1718]

Unskewing the Polls: Decoding the Deceptive Polling Numbers of Election 2024

All of the polls seem to have Trump leading Biden both nationally and in swing states. How can that be? Does no one remember the debacle of the Trump years? Can their be some systematic error in the polling? Can science explain it? Yes, it can.

SUMMARY: Election 2024 presidential polling has Trump beating Biden nationwide and in swing states. Let’s take a closer look at that polling data and use social trust to decipher some of the more confounding results. Then, we’ll use protests and past voting behavior to predict who will turn out in 2024. The roll of cognitive dissonance and irrevocable actions will be used to analyze who is…

[angrybell]

Hen Mazzig recently made the statement that there is a new form of conspiracy theory, on or with Holocaust denial. That’s the people who deny that Hamas butchered, mutilated, and raped their way through Southern Israel. Eric Levitz is one r of those deniers. He teeeted,

Can anyone come up with another way that a baby loses their head?

I don’t care that this miserable excuse for a human apologized. Apologies from people like him are meaningless. His actions are what matters. He has been happy to be a go along to get along Jew, helping to keep the progressive lies going so he keeps his standing in the progressive ranks.

Don’t believe me?

Even though it was clear by 10/19, that the Al Ahli hospital incident was a fraud, he was still writing in New York Magazine that

He was still leaving open the possibility that PIJ wasn’t responsible and that it was Isrsel which was at fault!

But that’s not enough for this kapo. Nope. He has to go on and repeat the lies of Hamas. He writes,

He portrays what Israel is doing as indiscriminate attacks on civilians, relying upon Hamas and the UN, neither of which have had any problem lying about the facts in the past when it comes to Israel.

But let’s look at the history of Levin. He is a dyed-in-the-wool shill for the progressive cause. When Congresswoman Tlaib pulled out of a visit to Israel because the Israeli government, rightly, wanted to limit the harm she could do, Levin championed her. Portraying her visit as one where she would be open minded and concerned with facts.

Then he called out the media in 2021 for their bias. Why? Because it was hurting President Biden. Can’t have the party criticized, people might realize that they’re the problem!

To his credit, he did call out how progressives shouldn’t be supporting Hamas. However, being the kapo that he is, Levin can’t resist characterizing Israel as “neocolonial”. In the end he argues not simply that celebrating Hamas’ atrocities are immoral, but that it hurts the struggle against Israel.

By the end of the article, he abandons the initial thesis and turns this editorial into a. Screed about Israel, but not the Arabs, must be held to their promises. He only sees the celebration of Hamas as distracting from what he believes should be happening : the vilification of Israel and the continued hagiographiction of the “Palestinian” people.

So when he apologies for his horrific statement, essentially calling into question whether atrocities happened simply because he was not there to witness the beheading in real time, it’s a sham. Levitz wants to aid the terrorists in a way he thinks is better.

Levitz is every bit the ally of the antisemites, just as the kapos were every bit the accomplices of the Nazis. He just dresses it up differently. He’d rather be a good progressive than a good Jew, and definitely more than he wants to be a mensch.

Don’t accept his apology. His actions show it’s just words to mollify the crowd because he has no interest in changing.

[uboat53]

"New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz recently argued that Trump’s undeniable authoritarian tendencies have put the mainstream press in a difficult position: Either it describes him accurately, and sounds like a “partisan rag,” or else it deceptively treats Trump and the Republican party he controls as essentially normal. Too often, he writes, they make the latter choice — acting like “an amnesiac, or an abusive household committed to keeping up appearances, losing itself in the old routines, in an effortful approximation of normality until it almost forgets what it doesn’t want to know.”"

Source

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eric Levitz at Vox:

As of this writing, Israel’s war in Gaza has claimed the lives of more than 34,000 Palestinians, including 14,680 women, children, and elderly people, according to the United Nations. But that is just the tally of the identifiable dead. It does not include those rendered invisible or unrecognizable by rubble and fire.  And that death toll could surge in the coming days and weeks. Roughly 80 percent of Gazans have been displaced from their homes, there are acute shortages of food and medical supplies, and thousands of small children are suffering from malnutrition.

Meanwhile, 121 Israeli hostages remain unaccounted for following their kidnapping by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups on October 7. We do not know how many are already dead or what cruelties beset those still alive. We do know that Hamas fighters have subjected some of their captives to rape, according to the United Nations.  On Friday, Joe Biden unveiled a plan to end these nightmares: The president has presented a roadmap to a permanent ceasefire. Broken down into three phases, the plan ostensibly aims to secure an immediate and durable end to hostilities, which would secure the release of all Israeli hostages; a surge of humanitarian relief into Gaza; the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from that territory; and international funding for Gaza’s reconstruction.  Plenty of ceasefire proposals have been floated before, but two things distinguished Friday’s: According to Biden, it was the Israeli government’s own plan, and it did not explicitly call for the total destruction of Hamas as a military and governing power.

Israel’s commitment to complete victory over Hamas has been one major obstacle to peace. To this point, Hamas has proven resilient enough to withstand Israel’s onslaught and tolerant enough of Gazans’ suffering to insist on retaining power, no matter the human cost. Hamas has evinced some interest in trading hostages for Palestinian prisoners, but it has shown none in total surrender. If Israel no longer demanded the latter, then peace might be at hand. In the days since Biden’s announcement, the Israeli government has distanced itself from the ceasefire proposal and reaffirmed its commitment to Hamas’s destruction. “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement Saturday. This response is unsurprising. Many Israeli voters find the idea of Hamas’s ongoing military presence in Gaza to be an intolerable security risk, and this is especially true on the nation’s right. Were Netanyahu to accept the agreement, his governing coalition would likely dissolve. 

Achieving peace in Gaza will therefore require a counterforce to Israel’s domestic political pressures. In recent weeks, the Biden administration threatened to freeze arms transfers to Israel if it conducted an assault on Rafah without a plan for protecting civilians in that city, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians had taken refuge. Israel proceeded to launch an airstrike that killed 45 Palestinian civilians in the city’s safe zone. If the White House wishes to turn its blueprint for peace into a reality, it may need to enforce its own red line. Such a measure would attract considerable opposition. Israel hawks in the United States insist that the Jewish state’s struggle against Hamas is existential and cannot end without that organization’s destruction. From this perspective, the death toll in Gaza is a tragic but unavoidable cost of a necessary war.  World War II analogies figure prominently in this line of argument. Last week, in a column titled, “Do we still understand how wars are won?” the New York Times’s Bret Stephens accused Israel’s critics of historical amnesia.

[...]

Today, Stephens writes, Israel finds itself waging such an existential war: Hamas has called for wiping the country off the map, and the Jewish state cannot know security until it destroys its enemy’s “capability and will to wage war,” a task that entails tragedies like the one that claimed 45 civilian lives in Rafah in late May. Rather than threatening to withhold arms transfers to force Israel into appeasing Hamas, Stephens argues, the United States must “understand that [Israel has] no choice to fight except in the way we once did — back when we knew what it takes to win.” But this line of reasoning is morally and intellectually bankrupt. That we are more horrified by the mass killing of civilians today than we were in 1945 is a mark of progress, not amnesia. And in any case, Israel’s war with Hamas is not remotely analogous to the Allied cause. 

By the time the United States and Great Britain began bombing Dresden and Tokyo, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were already in the process of mass murdering tens of millions of people. Hamas may have genocidal intentions, but it does not have genocidal capacities. Waging total war on Gaza is not necessary for averting the imminent slaughter of Israeli civilians; to the contrary, doing so risks the lives of the few Israelis whom Hamas is currently in a position to destroy.  Further, the Axis powers genuinely threatened the existence of neighboring states. Hamas is incapable of defending its airspace, let alone conquering Israel. The Israeli government is right to insist that Hamas must not be allowed to launch another October 7, but that attack was only possible due to easily avoidable failures of intelligence and border defense.  More fundamentally, Israel’s ends cannot justify its means in Gaza when those ends are themselves unjust. The Netanyahu government is not fighting to liberate Gazans from despotism and establish the foundations for a two-state solution. To the contrary, it is committed to Palestinian statelessness and dispossession.

The people of Gaza deserve better than Hamas, but the Israeli government has neither the capacity nor the will to give Gazans what they deserve. The best it can do for the moment is stop killing them. 

[...]

But this is not the question that Israel faces today. Hamas may have genocidal aspirations. But as of now, it has scant capacity to kill Israelis outside of Gaza. And bombarding that territory’s cities has made the safe return of Israeli hostages less likely, not more so, a point that has not been lost on many of the captives’ families. In reality, Israel does not need to level Gaza in order to ensure its own existence. To prevent October 7, all the Netanyahu government needed to do was take its intelligence seriously and fortify its borders. Israeli intelligence obtained Hamas’s battle plan for October 7 more than a year in advance. Last July, an Israeli intelligence analyst warned her supervisors that Hamas had conducted a training exercise that appeared to match the intercepted battle plan. But a colonel dismissed these concerns, according to emails obtained by the New York Times. As Israeli officials conceded to the Times,“Had the military taken these warnings seriously and redirected significant reinforcements to the south, where Hamas attacked, Israel could have blunted the attacks or possibly even prevented them.”

Instead, Israel persisted in leaving the border fence with Gaza thinly defended, so as to devote more IDF troops to the protection of illegal settlements in the West Bank. The fact that Hamas’s rockets rarely succeed in killing Israelis tells us nothing about the organization’s moral character. But it does tell us something about the scale of the threat that it poses to Israel. Hamas is not a burgeoning imperial power. And it has no serious prospect of becoming one. Israel’s capacity to restrict the flow of arms and goods into Gaza places tight constraints on Hamas’s capacity to amass economic and military power. 

Israel’s obsession over wanting total destruction of Hamas is hindering efforts to end the carnage in Gaza.

[jgmail]

Trayectorias de «decrecimiento»

Por Richard Seymour

Fuentes: El salto 

Debido a la vaguedad de sus predicados, los decrecentistas entienden el crecimiento de forma totalmente errónea y proponen planes que empeorarían la calidad de vida a cambio de conseguir reducciones de las emisiones muy modestas.

I. En su forma más dura, la crítica del decrecimiento sostiene que es una ideología utópica de clase media (Matt Huber) basada en predicados vagos (por ejemplo: “rendimiento material”, un término que según Kenta Tsuda no ofrece ningún criterio para distinguir entre “una pila de cenizas de carbón con infusión de mercurio y una masa equivalente de restos de comida en un cubo de compostaje”), con una crítica moralista de la industrialización, consumo y crecimiento, sin un plan desarrollado para la estabilización climática (Robert Pollin), sin un plan claro para su institucionalización, y ninguna manera plausible de superar la oposición capitalista concentrada a la vez que pone a las masas de su parte (Eric Levitz). Además, debido a la vaguedad de sus predicados, los decrecentistas entienden el crecimiento de forma totalmente errónea, y proponen planes que empeorarían la calidad de vida a cambio de conseguir reducciones de las emisiones muy modestas.

La mayoría de las veces es muy complicado encontrar respuestas convincentes a las preguntas del “cómo” en la literatura decrecentista

II. Demos a esta crítica todo lo que se merece. Incluso alguien afín al decrecimiento como Geoff Mann admite que la literatura decrecentista no es particularmente clara sobre cuál es su programa político, cómo se supone que funcionará, qué mecanismos asegurarán la cooperación internacional, qué principios guiarían a un gobierno que intente frenar formas de crecimiento dañinas y quién, si no las élites, llevaría realmente a cabo el declive controlado de las grandes economías capitalistas.

La mayoría de las veces es muy complicado encontrar respuestas convincentes a las preguntas del “cómo” en la literatura decrecentista. Tres ejemplos recientes y destacados en la izquierda a favor del decrecimiento apuntan a un estado final deseable, una suerte de “modo de producción socialista”. “Menos es más” de Hickel y “El futuro es el decrecimiento” de Schmelzer y otros perfilan algunos deseos. Hickel habla de acabar con la obsolescencia programada, abolir la publicidad, eliminar el desperdicio de alimentos y reducir paulatinamente el número de industrias ecológicamente destructivas. Schmelzer y otros abogan por reducir la semana laboral, ofrecer servicios básicos universales y democratizar el control del “metabolismo social”.

Estos deseos no son, en ningún caso, mucho más concretos que un eslogan de agitación: ninguno es equivalente a una política pública

Estos deseos no son, en ningún caso, mucho más concretos que un eslogan de agitación: ninguno es equivalente a una política pública. En cuanto a la forma de llegar a estos deseos, solo Schmelzer y otros proponen una estrategia política. Siguiendo los pasos de E. O. Wright, proponen una combinación de estrategias “intersticiales” como la expansión del ecosistema de cooperativas, “reformas no-reformistas” como reducir la semana laboral y expandir los servicios básicos universales, y estrategias rupturistas como la insurrección de masas. Pero esto sigue siendo una estrategia de brocha gorda. Y ninguno de estos programas, como ya había anticipado Pollin, contiene una propuesta elaborada para la estabilización climática basada en las políticas del decrecimiento.

En comparación, la agenda de estabilización climática del Green New Deal es bastante concreta. Tiene mecanismos políticos específicos, prioriza el “desacoplamiento absoluto” del crecimiento de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero en pocas décadas mediante la inversión de billones (con b) en energías renovables. Ofrece un coste medible. Pollin sostiene que costaría entre el 1,5% y 2% del PIB anual. Puede convertirse en una política institucional de los sistemas políticos tal y como existen, fundamentalmente los Estados-nación y sus instituciones representativas. Puede ser electoralmente viable, ya que promete una mejora de la calidad de vida en vez de su deterioro: la enorme demanda de mano de obra necesaria para la transición energética crearía muchos más empleos que los que se perderían cerrando las industrias del carbón y el petróleo. Y, según señala Pollin, esto reduciría las emisiones de forma mucho más notable que una reducción del crecimiento. Basta con observar las comparativamente modestas reducciones de emisiones durante el primer año de la pandemia, a pesar de la reducción drástica en la actividad laboral, el transporte y la cantidad de mercancías consumidas.

III. Sin embargo, es difícil tomarse en serio muchas de las objeciones al decrecimiento. Pollin tiene razón al decir que encoger la economía mundial, por sí mismo, tendría un efecto menor que la transición a las energías limpias. Pero los decrecentistas no se oponen a las energías limpias, simplemente argumentan que no son suficientes. Tsuda tiene razón al decir que la literatura decrecentista carece de una visión coherente de las necesidades humanas. Pero los partidarios del crecimiento tampoco han resuelto ese problema. O bien dejan la solución en manos del mercado, con todos sus nefastos efectos ecológicos, o bien están en el mismo barco que los decrecentistas. Levitz tiene razón al decir que un movimiento transnacional para reducir la calidad de vida occidental es improbable. Pero la esencia del decrecentismo es desacoplar la calidad de vida del crecimiento: por eso el énfasis en trabajar menos, en los servicios básicos universales, en la economía de los cuidados, etcétera.

Incluso con una transición a energías limpias, es improbable que éstas pudiesen suplir un 100% de nuestras necesidades, por no hablar de las necesidades de la economía del futuro

En cualquier caso, como sostiene Geoff Mann, “según cualquier estándar razonable de argumentación, la carga de la prueba no recae en los decrecentistas, sino en aquellos que se aferran al crecimiento”. De los nueve límites del sistema terrestre identificados por Johan Rockström y Mattias Klum, el crecimiento perpetuo ya nos ha llevado más allá de sus umbrales en los casos de la extinción masiva y la contaminación por fósforo/nitrógeno. En el caso del cambio climático y la deforestación, mientras tanto, nos estamos acercando a ese umbral.

El “desacoplamiento absoluto” del crecimiento del PIB de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero es teóricamente posible, y estabilizaría un aspecto de la crisis ecológica. Pero, a pesar de lo que dice Pollin, todavía no se ha demostrado ni remotamente que sea plausible. A día de hoy no hay alternativa al transporte marítimo y aéreo basado en combustibles fósiles, esencial para el funcionamiento de la economía global; no hay forma de producir carne en masa sin ganadería; no hay alternativas serias y escalables al uso de cemento y acero en la construcción, ambos responsables de parte de las emisiones mundiales. E incluso con una transición a energías limpias, es improbable que éstas pudiesen suplir un 100% de nuestras necesidades, por no hablar de las necesidades de la economía del futuro en un planeta con una población mundial en aumento.

IV. En cualquier caso, ¿por qué querríamos desacoplar únicamente crecimiento y emisiones? Las energías limpias no van a solucionar los problemas de la deforestación y la extinción masiva. Estos son problemas causados por las exigencias de los rendimientos materiales del sistema. El “desacoplamiento absoluto” del crecimiento del PIB de esos rendimientos materiales es una imposibilidad física, ya que cada nueva mercancía requiere el uso de algunos materiales y de algo de energía. Incluso el mínimo exigible, el desacoplamiento del crecimiento perpetuo del PIB de los rendimientos materiales más dañinos a nivel ecológico, parece improbable.

Corresponde a los defensores del crecimiento, incluso un crecimiento no-capitalista, sea como fuere éste, el demostrar su viabilidad práctica

Pensemos en ello. El crecimiento del PIB está causado por la acumulación competitiva de capital, que carece de cualquier criterio interno de salud ecológica. El capital se aumenta a sí mismo produciendo mercancías al menor coste posible para venderlas al mayor precio de mercado, eludiendo cualquier esfuerzo regulador que trate de imponerle criterios ecológicos. En la actualidad no existe una oferta ilimitada de energía disponible, e incluso las energías de bajas emisiones tienen costes ecológicos. Tampoco hay una oferta ilimitada de sustitutos ecológicos de materiales como el cemento y el acero.No parece que esto sea posible. Corresponde a los defensores del crecimiento, incluso un crecimiento no-capitalista, sea como fuere éste, el demostrar su viabilidad práctica. ¡Sorpresa! El decrecimiento carece de un plan plausible, pero lo mismo le ocurre al “crecimiento verde” de cualquier tipo. Quizás sea porque, como defiende Vaclav Smil, el crecimiento sostenible es una contradicción de términos. En un sistema terrestre sujeto a límites, todos los patrones de crecimiento llegan a su fin. Los patrones de crecimiento que hemos experimentado durante los últimos doscientos años, y que nos hemos acostumbrado a considerar normales, son históricamente aberrantes.

Cortarle la cabeza al rey (decapitación) no garantiza una república. Derrotar al colonialismo (descolonización) no garantiza la libertad.

V. El decrecimiento es un neologismo torpe para un problema real.

Pero la afición por el prefijo “de-” en la izquierda, en palabras como decrecimiento o decolonial, por ejemplo, quizás diga mucho sobre este momento político. El prefijo “de-” significa “fuera” o “procedencia”. Significa que debemos eliminar algo: en este caso, algo problemático como el legado duradero del colonialismo, a la presión temeraria sobre los biosistemas terrestres. Estos términos sugieren que estamos en un momento de crítica, negación, deconstrucción, no de reconstrucción.

Cortarle la cabeza al rey (decapitación) no garantiza una república. Derrotar al colonialismo (descolonización) no garantiza la libertad. Hemos aprendido esto en la práctica, penosamente. Estamos en una fase histórica en la que empezamos a ponernos de acuerdo sobre cuál es el problema, o algunos de los problemas, sin estar de acuerdo en qué debe venir a continuación. De ahí la fértil y frenética experimentación abierta de la literatura decolonial, incluso de sus variantes abiertamente ecosocialistas. De ahí la ausencia de un programa.

Las preguntas de los críticos del decrecimiento siguen siendo válidas. ¿Cuál es exactamente el programa? ¿Cómo se supone que funciona? ¿Quién llevará a cabo el declive controlado de las grandes economías y se asegurará de que esto no perjudique a la clase trabajadora? ¿Qué acuerdos internacionales serán necesarios y quién se encargará de imponerlos? ¿Qué mecanismos existirán para la redistribución global? ¿Cómo regularán o cerrarán los gobiernos algunas empresas para prevenir el crecimiento dañino? ¿Estará de acuerdo con todo esto una mayoría electoral? ¿Por qué deberían estarlo? Ese poco crecimiento adicional puede significar un año más de vida saludable, un hijo más que criar, una habitación extra en tu casa. ¿Y por qué, sobre todo, deberíamos llamarlo decrecimiento? ¿Quién se sentirá interpelado por ese término, además de los especialistas?

Traducido por Contra el diluvio, un grupo de estudio, reflexión y acción sobre el cambio climático y sus efectos en la mayoría.

Fuente: https://www.elsaltodiario.com/decrecimiento/rychard-seimour-trayectorias-decrecimiento

[jadagul]

Conveniently, I saw statistics on this earlier this morning, and bookmarked them but wasn't sure I wanted to necromance this thread. Decision made!

Eric Levitz at Vox has a piece about this today. On the specific issue: wages are about a third of the cost of a fast-food restaurant, so a 3% rise in wages should increase costs (and thus prices) about 1%. (Obviously dynamics can be more complicated but that seems like a roughly correct guide.)

Since the beginning of the pandemic, fast food wages have gone up a bit less than 30%, so you'd expect fast food prices to go up between 9 and 10% just from that alone.

Fast food prices are up a bit more than 20% since the beginning of the pandemic. So wage increases should directly account for a little less than half of that increase.

On the broader issue, he writes that between 2020 and 2022, low-end real incomes increased by almost 6%, while top-end real incomes actually fell by about 5%.

Random video game discord I'm in is all collectively bitching about how much more expensive fast food has gotten over the past couple of years.

And I kind of want to point out that that's what happens when wages for entry-level jobs go up. But I also really don't want to start that shit in a random video games discord.