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UNFTR Weekly Roundup

Max Notes

One of the coolest things about hosting UNFTR is connecting with people that I’ve been reading, watching or listening to for years. I’ve had the opportunity to fanboy out over Francesca Fiorentini, Nathan Robinson, Rashid Khalidi and others to their faces! This week is no exception. I’ve been reading Ben for a long time in the Jacobin, watching his debates on YouTube and listening to him on The Majority Report and The Michael Brooks Show before that. None of this would be possible without the love and support of the Unf*ckers who turned this into a real thing. 

 

I hope this is the beginning of a long conversation with Ben because he’s a wealth of knowledge and has been in this game for a long, long time. The guy debated Milton Friedman’s son for crying out loud. Is he one of us or what? 

 

As I continue to build this network of progressive voices and bring them into our little universe, I’m aware that we will need to also reach out to good faith voices of dissent who can challenge our assumptions. The hard part, of course, will be the “good faith” part of the equation as there is no shortage of bad faith on the right. But this idea is a good jumping off point into an upcoming episode because there’s something going on in El Salvador that is challenging many of my personal beliefs that I’m confident most of you share. In light of our recent story on Strongmen and in the spirit of challenging beliefs, this story is pretty juicy. 

 

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele just won reelection with a staggering 85% of the vote total in what is considered a free and fair election. Just a few years ago, the nation was one of the most dangerous places in Latin America due to gang violence and economic instability. Then along came Bukele who styled himself as a turnaround artist and CEO. He made Bitcoin legal tender to the derision of the global financial markets. He embarked on visible and ambitious infrastructure projects that many considered to be all show and no substance. And he has the distinction of taking El Salvador to #1 in the rankings where mass incarceration per capita is concerned. And that’s where the story gets really uncomfortable. 

 

El Salvador is the safest it has been in recent memory and the population is responding favorably, if not exuberantly to this turn of events. Bukele suspended constitutional norms by declaring a state of emergency and has gone full dictator by disappearing tens of thousands of citizens suspected of gang involvement. 

 

The economy is growing. So is the value of Bitcoin. And so is Bukele’s popularity. The stylish tech bro CEO of El Salvador is thumbing his nose at convention in a decidedly despotic turn that has many observers shaking their heads and wondering what comes next.

 

Other things I’m obsessing over…

  • Just an assault by brown, er, red shirts in the streets of NY. No biggie.

  • I want the Squad to enter the race like the Hanson Brothers.

  • If a tree falls in the forest, will anyone know Marianne Williamson suspended her campaign?

  • 3 days until pitchers and catchers report #LGM.

-Max

 

Chart of the Week

Chart reflecting How would you reate the condition of the economy right now from Jan 15 - Feb 24. Currently 37% very bad, 26% fairly good, 24% fairly bad, 9% very good, 3% unsure.

Source: Civiqs

 

I can’t remember where I heard it so forgive me. But I heard a news commentator remark in passing that there has been a spike in economic optimism among Americans. If you look at the data, you can see an uptick with 9% of those polled who say the economy is “very good” and a decline in folks who believe it to be “very bad.” I suppose that’s what they’re referencing. But if you combine the “very bad” and “fairly bad” respondents, we’re still talking more than 60% of the country thinks the economy is some shade of bad. And that’s not good.

Headlines

We can’t keep beating our meat…prices.

99 forwarded this article with the following message: “PUT THIS IN THE NEWSLETTER.” When 99 puts something that way, you lead with it. No questions asked. But also, it’s a really important story. As we covered in our climate change episodes, particularly A (Mostly) Vegan World, reducing emissions from the protein industry is paramount to hitting global emissions targets. It simply cannot happen without curtailing the sheer amount of animal protein we produce. But as this article points out, that’s kind of hard to do when we keep incentivizing people to eat meat by subsidizing the meat industry.

 

From the article:

“The FAO called for countries like the United States to reduce meat consumption to combat global warming. Meanwhile, the U.S. Farm Bill spends billions to make high-emissions meat cheap for consumers and profitable for factory farms. The policy implications are clear: For the U.S. to live up to its climate commitments, it must stop subsidizing factory farming.”

 

The Hill: The United Nations wants the US to eat less meat — try telling that to Congress

 

The biggest threat to Israel: Bibi.

Western coverage of the genocide in Gaza is woefully misguided. And, as usual, the coverage is dissipating. Netanyahu recently announced that the IDF would be carrying out a ground assault in Rafah in Southern Gaza. This area is now the temporary home of more than half of the population in Gaza now that the north has been all but decimated. There is simply nowhere for Palestinians to go and he knows this. Despite calls from all over the world to halt the atrocity, Netanyahu appears determined to finish what he started when he first came to power.

 

From the article:

“In the West Bank, Netanyahu maintained security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, which became Israel’s de facto policing and social services subcontractor, and he encouraged Qatar to fund Gaza’s Hamas government. ‘Whoever opposes a Palestinian state must support delivery of funds to Gaza because maintaining separation between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state,’ Netanyahu told his party’s parliamentary caucus in 2019. It is a statement that has come back to haunt him.”

 

Foreign Affairs: Israel’s Self-Destruction: Netanyahu, the Palestinians, and the Price of Neglect

 

Hopefully the White House has a memory care unit.

The Special Counsel report on Biden’s handling of sensitive and classified information cleared the President of any wrongdoing. Sort of. Back in the day, there was an infamous gangster in New York named Vincent “The Chin” Gigante who wandered his neighborhood in a robe, slippers and sporting a scraggly beard. He was playing a long con to prove to the courts that he was mentally incapable of standing trial. Dubbed “The Oddfather” by the New York media, The Chin carried on the ruse for decades. The feds weren’t buying it and eventually his scheme came unraveled. That’s basically Biden in reverse. Walking around acting all normal when, in reality, he’s losing his marbles. His aides even refused an offer for a prime time interview before The Super Bowl because they’re so concerned about his ability to stay focused. It certainly doesn’t help that he keeps mentioning his relationship with dead world leaders. 

 

From the article:

“In the report, Mr. Hur said the memory of the then-80-year-old president was so hazy during five hours of interviews over two days that it would be difficult to convince jurors that Mr. Biden knew his handling of the documents was wrong. Mr. Hur predicted in the report that if the president were charged, his lawyers ‘would emphasize these limitations in his recall.’


“In part because of Mr. Biden’s memory, Mr. Hur declined to recommend charging the president for what the report described as willful retention of national security secrets, including some documents shared by the president that implicated ‘sensitive intelligence sources and methods.’”

 

New York Times: Special Counsel’s Report Puts Biden’s Age and Memory in the Spotlight

    This Week on the Pod

    Phone A Friend: Ben Burgis.

    Podcast art for Unf*cking The Republic alongside podcast art for Give Them An Argument with Ben Burgis.

    Today we get to all live tuition free inside the head of one of the most prominent intellectuals on the left, Ben Burgis. Ben is a Jacobin columnist, an adjunct philosophy professor at Rutgers University, and the host of the YouTube show and podcast Give Them An Argument. He’s also the author of several books including Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left, Canceling Comedians While the World Burns, and Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why it Matters. Ben joins Max in a wide ranging discussion from the presidential election and the fracture among liberals and leftists to socialist tendencies and worker cooperatives.

     

    Here’s a snippet from the pod:

    Ben: “The people who actually own the economically productive assets of society—with their economic power—they’re able to find ways to translate that to political power and take away those gains you’ve already won. And then there’s the normative issue, which is… fundamentally

    unreasonable that some people have to spend all day, you know, taking orders from people who aren’t democratically accountable to them because they don’t have money and other people can spend all day giving orders because they do. And long term, that’s not something we should just have to live with.”

    Access Episode Resources
    Watch The Video

    Progressive Corner

    Progressive Spotlight: Amy Goodman.

     

    The Democracy Now! co-founder is among the most consequential journalists of this era, having built a robust and independent digital outlet that airs dissident opinions and holds power to account.

     

    Progressive Organization of the Week: Friends of the Earth.

     

    In light of the article 99 shared from the Hill, this week we highlight Friends of the Earth and their petition to end the subsidization of factory farms.

     

    “Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.”

     

    SIGN THE PETITION: FOE’s petition to the USDA to stop supporting factory farming

    Resources

    Pod Love

    Our buddy @franifio spotted in the wild! Frantifa!

     

    “Dave Anthony picks a newspaper from a day in history and reads it to co-host Gareth Reynolds and this week, comedian and podcast host Francesca Fiorentini.”

     

    The Dollop: The Past Times with Francesca Fiorentini

     

    Book Love

    Love me some Hitchslaps. Let’s get this one out of the backorder on Bookshop and support Ben!

     

    “Burgis offers a fascinating and nuanced dive into the life, work, and political views of Christopher Hitchens. It's rare to come across a book that manages to combine an enjoyable and informative mix of history, philosophy, religion, and biography. Burgis accomplishes this difficult task well, and also helps the reader to interpret today's political climate.”

     

    Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters by Ben Burgis

     

    Unf*cker Comment of the Week

     

    Andrew S.:

    “You're already in a civil war. For decades, the people have been in a (mostly cold, viciously one sided) class-war with oligarchs and their puppets. The world needs the American people to win.”

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