More stuff is coming out about the least vetted House leader in history. Turns out he wanted to criminalize being gay, and his wife runs a counseling center that “puts gay, bisexual and transgender people in the same category as people who have sex with animals or family members.” (She’s since taken down her website.) So, cool. This is the dude that gets to decide which bills come to the floor. His very first idea was to separate aid to Israel from all foreign aid (such as Ukraine) and use a “pay-for” strategy to take money from somewhere else in the budget. His brilliant idea? Take the money allocated to strengthening IRS enforcement over tax cheats and billionaires and send that money to Israel. This is the kind of bullshit we have to look forward to.
Speaking of white evangelical douchebags, Mike Pence dropped out of the presidential race. It’s a bit of a misnomer, considering no one really thought he was running. Human Q-tip and walking melatonin gummy Pence had about $1 million left in his campaign coffers. Bruh. Doug Burgum has twice that amount on hand and outraised Pence four-to-one. Doug Burgum.
Good news, fellas. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is back on the market after it was revealed that her longtime companion was soliciting threesomes and foursomes from his co-workers. One might even feel bad for Meloni if she wasn’t an alt-right nationalist who credits Mussolini as her hero.
With respect to our series on Palestine and the ongoing carnage in Gaza, this week is our first official installment of what will be three total episodes (excluding the introduction last week). I’m starting off with “the Jewish Question,” the rather inelegant way that Jewish persecution has been referred to since the Russian pogroms in the 1880s. The next installment will cover "the Palestinian Cause.” Each of the first two episodes cover the period from the pogroms through 1948, a pivotal date in the history of Palestine that Israelis refer to as the liberation, and Palestines call the Nakba.
The final episode will cover the political and wartime conflicts that follow the declaration of statehood for Israel through the current crisis, and will conclude with thoughts from a democratic socialist perspective. Please note that the first two episodes in particular will cover the history of the region in a clinical and dispassionate manner. But this approach is not intended to downplay what we’re witnessing in Gaza. This is a tragedy that challenges our collective humanity. Our role is to do what we do best: explain how we arrived at this juncture through scholarship and objectivity.
There’s Trump, and then there’s everyone else. On the other side of the aisle, Biden raised a healthy $44 million, RFK, Jr. is at $15 million and Marianne Williamson is around $2.5 million, though Williamson has depleted nearly all of it and has nothing on hand. But there sure is a lot to go around on the Republican side. I’m actually pretty shocked at Ramasmarmy’s fundraising prowess. But I’m positively blown away by Doug Burgum. I mean, what the actual fuck? And Perry Johnson?? The wild part is that this is with a year to go. Billions, literally billions, will wind up being spent by the time this is over.
Headlines
Poisonous Peacekeeping in Haiti
Pooja Bhatia has long chronicled crises and upheaval in Haiti. Often, the United States is central to some horrific event, but in this case the UN was the culprit. Though it acknowledged the cholera epidemic that ravaged the island nation beginning in 2010 stemmed from unsanitary conditions among UN peacekeeping forces, it took measures to downplay and even hide the extent of it in what can only be viewed as a legal CYA maneuver.
From the article:
“But the true story of cholera’s origin in Haiti was not just a case of bad luck, any more than lead in the drinking water of Flint, Michigan, was a matter of bad luck. As for a causal link to the earthquake—that was obscure at best, on the same notional scale as a butterfly causing a hurricane. The facts are simple, but it took years of struggle to bring them to light and force the most powerful institutions in the world to concede them: cholera was introduced to Haiti by the UN peacekeeping force MINUSTAH.”
Governors of southern border states have made their point loud and clear. The endless flow of migrants from the border being directed to urban centers in the north has led to a crisis in our cities. We get it. There’s another takeaway that is important to understand that relates to the refugee crises in other parts of the world. In the United States, we take these crises for granted and make stupid suggestions. Here’s one I hear far too often: “Why can’t Jordan or Egypt just take in the Palestinians?” Set aside the fact that the Palestinians shouldn’t have to leave their homeland en masse through ethnic cleansing. Consider the perspective of neighboring countries. If we can’t find housing for 30,000 students in New York City can you imagine what it would be like to try and absorb 5 million refugees all at once?
From the article:
“Since last summer alone, more than 30,000 new students in temporary housing have enrolled in city schools, including some 12,000 in the last five months who were not reflected in the data. The statistics—which include children in shelters, hotels, relatives’ homes and other transient places—illuminate the challenges for Mayor Eric Adams’s administration in handling the rise in homeless students. They are uniquely vulnerable, dropping out at steep rates and often missing school. New York City’s homeless student population is now larger than the entire traditional public school system of Philadelphia.”
Pakistan issued an ultimatum to more than a million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan: Go home. The deadline was November 1, which has caused a bottleneck at several crossing points as refugees scramble to gather their families and belongings. Yet another humanitarian crisis awaits, and tensions are already running high in the region. Did you see this in your newsfeed? Yeah, me neither.
From the article:
“A process to arrest the foreigners…for deportation has started by November 1,” it said in a statement, adding that voluntary return would still be encouraged. Of the more than four million Afghans living in Pakistan, the government estimates 1.7 million are undocumented. Since taking power, the Taliban government has urged Afghans to return home, but has also condemned Pakistan’s actions, saying nationals are being punished for tensions between Islamabad and Kabul."
“This week’s episode features a discussion of (1) the crisis of today’s real left; (2) the need to acknowledge, build upon, but also go well beyond the successful socialisms of the 19th and 20th centuries; (3) the macro focus on the state and the omission of a microfocus on the workplace; and (4) democratizing workplaces as ‘what is to be done.’”
“Winner of the 2018 Paul M. Sweezy--Paul A. Baran Memorial Award for original work regarding the political economy of imperialism, Value Chains examines the exploitation of labor in the Global South. Focusing on the issue of labor within global value chains, this book offers a deft empirical analysis of unit labor costs that is closely related to Marx's own theory of exploitation.”
“In about a month, we have been hit by five hurricanes, Hillarie, Luisa, Max, Norma and Otis. Acapulco is seven hundred miles southeast of La Paz. The devastation there is beyond anything I can imagine, more like Gaza without the bombs. My heart is broken just thinking about it. The climate deniers are full of shit. I have nothing else to add that you haven’t already seen on TV, only that the neoliberals, neocolonizers, will use this to their advantage. Thousands of our soldiers and national guardsmen are working there, but it isn’t enough. Nothing can be enough.”
This Week on the Pod
Palestine: Part One.
Every story has a beginning. Every conflict has its roots. For some, the Israel/Palestine conflict is rooted in scripture and written in blood. Others claim it boils down to a deadly dispute over real estate. There’s a reason why “peace in the Middle East” feels out of reach and why so many have thrown their hands up. It’s complicated. But it’s not impossible to understand. We begin our journey in earnest by tackling the so-called “Jewish Question” and uncovering the roots and motives of the Zionist movement.
Here’s a snippet from the pod:
“Newly formed Lebanon would go to France. The British would take control of Iran and Iraq. Syria, Jordan and parts of Iraq would fall under French supervision, and trade routes would be established between the newly formed Arab states to favor their new imperial rulers. Historical ties to Christianity and Islam, and now the influx of Jewish settlers into Palestine, made Jerusalem and the surrounding area a little murkier—and so the Allies simply punted on the Palestine issue and instead opted to consider it an administrative territory with multiple stakeholders, but no one firmly in charge. What could possibly go wrong?”