StephenKMackSD's Blog

Newspaper Reader.

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Dec 16, 2024

Anna Nicolaou in New York, Christopher Grimes in Los Angeles and James Politi in Washington: 41 minutes ago

Disney’s $15mn defamation payout to Donald Trump has set a dangerous precedent for media freedom, said legal experts and news executives, as the incoming president threatens to “straighten out” the “corrupt” press.

Disney-owned ABC News last week agreed to pay Trump the huge sum to settle a defamation suit he brought in March after star anchor George Stephanopoulos said on-air that the former president had been found “liable for rape”.

A New York jury found Trump liable in a civil case for sexual abuse, but not rape. While Stephanopoulos in May said he would not be “cowed out of doing my job”, on Saturday he and ABC expressed their “regret” over his comment about Trump.

The network’s decision left some lawyers, journalists and media executives puzzled — and prompted fears that Trump, who has threatened libel lawsuits against news media for decades, could use presidential power to muzzle the press.

“I genuinely don’t know what ABC was thinking when they agreed to do this . . . Unless there is something we don’t know, it looks like it was a weak suit,” said Genevieve Lakier, a law professor at the University of Chicago. “For ABC to give in and settle so quickly, surely it will embolden similar suits. I am disturbed.”

ABC’s decision to settle was “dangerous” and would have a “chilling effect”, said Samantha Barbas, a University of Iowa law professor. “It will embolden Trump and his allies to keep bringing these libel suits. If they feel they can silence the press or control the press, intimidate it in any way, that’s going to be a real incentive for them to come forward with more claims.”

Trump on Monday said he would bring additional defamation lawsuits against media groups. “I think you have to do it because they’re very dishonest. We need a great media. We need a fair media,” he said. “We have to straighten out the press. Our press is very corrupt, almost as corrupt as our elections.”

The standard for proving defamation under US law is high. As a public figure, Trump would have to prove that Stephanopoulos’s comment was false and made with “reckless disregard” for the truth, according to legal scholars.

“The constitutional standard in these sorts of defamation cases is extraordinarily defendant-friendly — literally the strongest protection in the world — so ABC came into this suit with a boulder on the scale in its favour,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a University of Utah law professor.

Lawyers cautioned that there could be information that might have influenced ABC’s decision to settle that is not publicly known, making it impossible to determine the network’s motive.

But the agreement fuelled speculation that ABC settled with Trump to avoid further wrath from the incoming president. He has doubled down on his attacks on the media, threatening to revoke broadcast licences for news channels including ABC.

A Disney spokesperson referred questions about the settlement to ABC. ABC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Chief executives across corporate America are preparing for Trump 2.0, with big tech companies including Amazon and Meta recently donating millions of dollars to his inauguration fund.

Disney has a particularly thorny association to grapple with. Senior Disney executive Dana Walden, considered a potential successor to chief executive Bob Iger, is a longtime friend of Kamala Harris — a point Trump hammered this election year as he slammed ABC.

Iger, who has regularly donated to Democrats, drew attention for not making any political contributions this year, adding to a sense that media bosses are trying to avoid antagonising Trump.

As he criticised media groups on Monday, Trump suggested his lawsuits could even target The Des Moines Register, an Iowa newspaper, for publishing a poll showing he would lose a state he ended up winning comfortably.

Trump also noted plans for separate suits against CBS’s 60 Minutes programme, journalist Bob Woodward, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

In the 1980s, then a real estate developer, Trump sued the Chicago Tribune when its architecture writer described his proposed Manhattan skyscraper as an “ugly monstrosity”. That suit was dismissed. Trump has also lost defamation lawsuits against media groups including CNN and the NYT.

But dealing with these lawsuits is expensive and time-consuming for news organisations, which can also be legally obliged to make public their internal communications.

In the wake of the ABC settlement, some news organisations are questioning whether they have the means to defend themselves. One media attorney said he had received “a flurry of emails this morning asking if we have enough libel insurance”.

…

Trump’s case against ABC was also filed in Florida. One experienced media lawyer told the Financial Times that the network might have faced difficulty winning over a Florida jury, partly because of Stephanopoulos’s aggressive questioning of Nancy Mace, a member of the US Congress, during the broadcast.

“You are trying to shame me as a rape victim,” Mace said to Stephanopoulos in the interview. The combination of Disney executive Walden’s friendship with Harris and the tone of the interview meant they “had a real risk of losing the jury”, the lawyer said.

“Juries today are increasingly unhappy with the press, and would like to punish the press”, said Barbas at the University of Iowa. “We may be entering an era of libel warfare.”

https://www.ft.com/content/130ad58d-4b26-4a5d-86da-17a17de19709

Newspaper Reader.

Pollitical Observer. .

stephenkmacksd.com/

Dec 15, 2024

Editor: Anne Applebaum/Sikorski on Europe’s True Divide: a comment by Political Observer

Posted on February 7, 2015 by stephenkmacksd

Is the fact that Ms. Applebaum/Mrs. Sikorsky should issue such a ringing endorsement of the demonstrably failed successor to the Free Market Delusion, Austerity, be anything like a surprise?
A number of dissenting opinions on the notion of Austerity’s putative success:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/06/11/economic_austerity_how_it_failed_in_one_chart.html
http://www.salon.com/2015/02/06/joseph_stiglitz_austerity_failed_greece_partner/
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/greece-eurozone-austerity-reform-by-joseph-e–stiglitz-2015-02
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/jun/06/how-case-austerity-has-crumbled/
The alliance between the Neo-Cons and the Neo-Liberals is of long standing: Ms. Applebaum is a Neo-Con in all but name. But the fact that her badly cobbled together propaganda realizes itself in this argument : the social/political potency of the idea/practice of ‘national renewal’ as a particular historical/political aspiration across Europe ending in the alliance of Right and Left, as she narrates the story. Need we, as readers, look any further that the Coup Government of Ukraine as an object lesson of this narrative? Right Sector and Svoboda are active participants in that Coup Government. In view of this, should the Greek’s be offered the same tolerance/acceptance that Ms. Applebaum not only accepts but celebrates as worthy of our approbation and material aid in Ukraine?
Please don’t mention the collusion between the banks/investment houses and Greek Oligarchs to hide the reality of the actual condition of Greek indebtedness, it is antithetical to this writer’s ideologically charged essay. The Putin hysteria mongering, Russophobia is a function of The New Cold War rhetoric that the Neo-Cons/R2P zealots have adopted in anticipation of WWIII, and her marriage to Radosław Sikorski Polish politician and journalist.

Political Observer

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Editor: Episode MCIII of The American Political Melodrama: Anne Applebaum confronts the Trump victory, and the possible cessation of The New Cold War. Political Cynic comments

Posted on November 29, 2016 by stephenkmacksd

I missed my favorite Neo-Con/New Cold Warrior Anne Applebaum’s November 9,2016 Washington Post commentary on the Trump election. She blocked me from following her twitter account, but her columns are fair game. Here is a telling excerpt from that essay, that clearly demonstrates her status as New Cold Warrior.

A few weeks ago, I spoke at an event attended by commanders of land forces from all across Europe. To a man, they remained grimly committed to their job, which everyone in the room understood to be twofold: protect Europe from terrorism, and protect Europe from Russia. The meeting was led, as is natural in a NATO context, by American generals. Now we can no longer assume that American generals will always be leading such meetings. We also cannot assume that Russian military advances, or hybrid-warfare advances, into Ukraine or the Baltic states will be pushed back by an alliance of like-minded countries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/under-president-trump-america-may-no-longer-lead-the-free-world/2016/11/09/921bbbbe-a67b-11e6-ba59-a7d93165c6d4_story.html?utm_term=.3058552646a7

You could call her what she is, a NATO apologists: ‘…commanders of land forces from all across Europe.’ is indicative of her loyalty. Russian revanchism is met with Western Resolve in the New Cold Warrior mythology. Ms. Applebaum, just one among many Western ‘policy experts’, who have made war with Russia a cause célèbre. She and her allies, like the utterly notorious Nuland/Kagan duo, and fellow travelers the R2P zealots like Samantha Power and Michael Ignatieff, who are Russophobes as acolytes of Isaiah Berlin’s ‘Liberalism’: hallmarks of which are the courtship of the politically powerful and a sycophantic homage to the current political orthodoxy.

Political Cynic

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Editor: Neo-Con Anne Applebaum writes on The Never Trumpers, its all in The Family! Political Observer selectively comments

Posted on July 10, 2020 by stephenkmacksd

On the why of the rise of the ‘nativist government’ in Mitteleuropa read ‘Europe Since 1989’ by Phillipp Ther. Chapter 4. Getting on the Neoliberal Bandwagon and Chapter 5. Second-Wave Neoliberalism. These countries rejected any form, of what they considered to be ‘Socialism’, and as a result that Neoliberalism’s toxicity was all pervasive. And was the political precursor of those nativist governments. Applebaum uses this occasion to advertise her book!

I’d had a similar experience myself, in Poland a few years earlier — I’ve described what happened when a nativist government took over the country in my new book, Twilight of Democracy —

The reader has to cultivate patience when reading Applebaum, she is of the Leo Strauss School of self-serving rhetorical bloat, as a means to create an exploitable reader fatigue. That contributes to a wan acceptance, on the part of that reader’s surrender, to what was/is presented as somehow meeting argumentative standards.

After the preliminary cast of characters that establishes a verisimilitude, she has demonstrated her mastery of the politics of her own ménage. Applebaum is a Neo-Conservative and a friend/ally of the Bush Coterie, that has now appears in the political guise of The Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump.

A more rough hewn, as compared to a once Conservatism of a ‘genteel world’. As a person in her mid fifties, how can she ‘know’ of that world, except by study? She is not just a Political Historian, but an Historian of Sensibilities?

These organisations moved the argument away from the rooms in Washington and into a different sphere. In doing so, they recognised a changed reality: once upon a time, conservative politics was a genteel world where well-written articles for literary magazines or editorial pages could exert great influence. At least at the high end, voters as well as politicians listened to William F Buckley in the National Review or George Will in the Washington Post. The election of 2016 proved that was no longer true. Nowadays, real politics mostly happens somewhere else: in the swamps of social media, in the great battle for attention, in advertising wars and duelling YouTube video clips.

The Lincoln Project waded into those swamps, battles, wars and duels with gusto, drawing fire. Their breakthrough moment was an advertisement on the theme of “Mourning in America” — a direct reference to the famous Ronald Reagan advertisement and slogan, “Morning in America”. The video had sad music, Americans in hospitals and an ominous voiceover: “Under the leadership of Donald Trump, our country is weaker, and sicker and poorer.”

In this essay Applebaum self-presentation is that of outside commentator, when, again, she is a Fellow Traveler.

In its defence, the Lincoln Project’s founders are all former Republican strategists, their real target is Republican voters rather than the president, and they believe that much of the language Republicans are used to hearing from their party is already overwrought. The point is to give them familiar symbols, people and stories with which they can identify, and which will persuade them to turn against the president. Outrage is a tactic needed to break through what feels like a wall of indifference, even in the news media: “It’s not just the consumers of information that are numb,” Weaver told me, “It’s also the conveyors.”

More of Mr. Weaver:

None of these groups are affiliated directly with the Biden campaign, and they don’t want to be. “We’re just blowing up supply lines,” says Weaver. “We’re not responsible for winning the war.”

What reader can forget Mr. Weaver’s other self -congratulatory comment on the French Resistance and supply lines :

“We are like the French resistance. We are blowing up the supply lines,” said John Weaver, a veteran Republican political consultant and one of the co-founders of the group, which is named after President Abraham Lincoln.

https://www.ft.com/content/9d64b55a-0cbe-4e27-b546-6a4cf7c9345b

This followed by more of Applebaum’s jejune political observations, the reader is then presented with this shameless political advocacy, or just call it propaganda!

Follow @projectlincoln and @RVAT2020 if you want to watch them try.

Political Observer

https://www.ft.com/content/69d9d287-6d9c-41f4-901d-8f1a18f4b8e1

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Editor: A short review in The Economist of Applebaum’s ‘Twilight’ .

Twilight of Democracy. By Anne Applebaum. Knopf; 224 pages; $16. Penguin; £16.99

Anne Applebaum starts her tale at the point where Mr Davies ends: with the new millennium. On New Year’s Eve the American-born journalist and her husband, Radoslaw Sikorski, who later became Poland’s defence minister and foreign minister, gathered friends at their manor house. The air was crisp with optimism. After decades behind the Iron Curtain Poland had joined NATO and was in the EU’s waiting room. But during the following 20 years the camaraderie crumbled. United by their rejoicing in the collapse of communism, the guests split into liberal and populist-conservative camps. The latter, represented by the Law and Justice party (PiS), is now in power. Over the past eight years it has weakened Poland’s hard-won democracy by packing courts and public media with party loyalists. Other post-communist countries, notably Hungary, experienced similar developments.

In “Twilight of Democracy”, which was published soon after the re-election of the PiS government in 2019, Ms Applebaum, a former correspondent for The Economist, traces how intellectuals—frustrated, self-pitying and opportunistic, in her description—became agents of populism. She names and shames old friends who became leading supporters of the PiS government. Some may play prominent roles in the parliamentary election due in late 2023.

Other liberals have criticised Ms Applebaum’s pro-Western assumptions. In “The Light That Failed”, Ivan Kratsev, a Bulgarian academic, and Stephen Holmes, an American one, argue that eastern Europeans resent being cast as imitators of the progressive West. Populists have seized on their disillusionment. Pro-Western liberals like Ms Applebaum, Mr Krastev says, have tragically failed to respond with a compelling narrative of their own.

https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2020/07/11/how-the-intellectual-coalition-forged-by-the-cold-war-collapsed

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Editor : A note on Anne Applebaum’s husband and former writer for the National Review:

Europe | Polish politics

Sikorski in hot water

MORE illegal recordings are destabilising the Polish government this week. The juiciest revelation so far is that the foreign minister, Radek Sikorski (pictured), said in January that he viewed Poland’s alliance with America as “worthless”.

https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2020/07/11/how-the-intellectual-coalition-forged-by-the-cold-war-collapsed

Political Observer

Political Observer on Jessica Winter Professional Political Moralist/Scold!

stephenkmacksd.com/

Dec 13, 2024

…

More than forty years ago, Richard E. Meyer, a scholar of American folklore, noted the essential difference between the outlaw—which Meyer defined as “a distinctively, though not exclusively, American folktype”—and the mere criminal. He wrote that “the American outlaw-hero is a ‘man of the people’; he is closely identified with the common people, and, as such, is generally seen to stand in opposition to certain established oppressive economic, civil and legal systems peculiar to the American historical experience.” (The italics are Meyer’s.) The outlaw-hero’s persona is that of a “good man gone bad,” not unlike the oncology patient Walter White, of “Breaking Bad,” who started cooking meth because his insurance didn’t cover his cancer treatments. To remain in good standing as an outlaw-hero, a man’s crimes must “be directed only toward those visible symbols which stand outside of and are thought of as oppressive toward the folk group,” Meyer writes. In exchange for both his audacity and his discretion, “the outlaw-hero is helped, supported and admired by his people.”

In the Reconstruction-era South, the outlaw-heroes Jesse James and Sam Bass “robbed banks and trains, symbols of the forces which kept the common man in economic and social bondage,” Meyer wrote. The bank robber and murderer Charles Arthur (Pretty Boy) Floyd, whose crimes spanned Ohio, Oklahoma, and Missouri during the Great Depression, idolized James as a Wild West spin on Robin Hood. Floyd took in possible tall tales “about how Jesse and his boys shared their bounty with widows and orphans,” Michael Wallis writes in “Pretty Boy: The Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd.” “Adoring fans said that when Jesse plundered a train, he examined the palms of the passengers and took valuables only from the ‘soft-handed ones.’ ”

Floyd likewise shared his loot with those in need; according to several accounts, Wallis writes, “when Charley robbed banks, he sometimes ripped up mortgages in shreds before the banker had an opportunity to get the papers recorded.” This magnanimous gesture, though it burnished Floyd’s legend, would have also considerably slowed his escape from the scene of his crime. He hid in plain sight: attending weddings and funerals, crashing with family and friends, and getting treated as a dreamboat celebrity wherever he went.

…

Mangione allegedly took a human life, which is despicable. This act did not justify itself. But this act also gave people permission to go far enough—to acknowledge their righteous hatred of our depraved health-care system, and even to conjure something funny or silly or joyous out of that hate. The folk hero is a folk hero precisely because he does what we would never dare. Most of us have felt something like hate in our lives; most of us would never dream of harming anyone. Hatred corrodes the soul, but the smallest sip of it, now and then, can be intoxicating. It can remind us that we are still alive.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Editor: What exactly does Jessica Winter know about the 30% denial rate of UnitedHealth? Instead Richard E. Meyer, a scholar of American folklore is what she offers, the reader. An American Studies Major could offer the same, without the scolding superior tone, about the ‘Outlaws in our History’. Jessica Winter offers this drivel: ‘Hatred corrodes the soul’ : I can almost see Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, twirling his robes, as he moves to the blackboard, in that gainey black & white of yesteryear!

Political Observer.

Political Observer.

stephenkmacksd.com/

Dec 13, 2024

Editor: Can The Economist headline and sub-headline even surprise?

United States |

Headline: Message in a bullet Luigi Mangione’s manifesto reveals his hatred of insurance companies

Sub-headline: The man accused of killing Brian Thompson gets American health care wrong

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/12/12/luigi-mangiones-manifesto-reveals-his-hatred-of-insurance-companies?utm_content=ed-picks-image-link-1&etear=nl_today_1&utm_campaign=a.the-economist-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=12/12/2024&utm_id=2021942

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Editor: First comes the shocking, to the staid readers of this Capitalist Rag, in its first sentences, I’ll will provide the first senteces on each paragraph:

Homicide investigations are like bankruptcies: they come along gradually and then all at once.

…

Mr Mangione, of course, is legally innocent until proven guilty.

…

Despite his writings, Mr Mangione did not seem determined to get caught.

…

Mr Mangione now faces five criminal charges in New York City, including second-degree murder.

…

What could have inspired the killing?

…

Biographical details add some context. Mr Mangione belongs to a wealthy Italian-American family from Baltimore.

…

If his goal was to get America discussing its health-care system, Mr Mangione seems sure to succeed.

….

Editor: The data that this News-magazine relies upon is: the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy think-tank. Should that signal that The Economist is not just a friend of Capital but its apologist?

Certainly frustration with insurers is growing. According to a survey conducted last year by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy think-tank, in the preceding year 18% of Americans were refused care they thought would be covered, and 27% had insurers pay out less than expected. Two-fifths say that they have had to go without health care because of insurance limitations. In recent years denial rates have been rising, while insurers have adopted new tactics (such as the use of artificial intelligence to make determinations) that are deeply unpopular and have produced some shocking errors. Knowing what will be covered or denied is extraordinarily difficult, even for professionals. Around half of Americans say that they are unsure how their coverage works (see chart 1). The other half are overconfident.

…

America has fewer doctors per capita than almost all other rich countries, and over one in four doctors earns more than $425,000. Yet a tight federal cap on residencies stops more being trained. And much treatment offered to Americans (and either paid for or refused by insurers) simply would not be offered at all in more statist countries. Mr Mangione’s back surgery is in fact a revealing case in point. The details are unclear, including whether insurance paid for his treatment. But his Reddit account suggests that he shopped around doctors before persuading one to conduct a “spinal fusion” surgery. Elsewhere, the number of such surgeries has declined over the past decade because research shows them to be ineffective compared to simpler treatments. Yet in America the number has continued to rise.

…

Editor : What remaines is the fact of the real and utterly unmentioned Rebellion Against The Elites, The Reader might consider the recent election of Donald Trump and the abysmal defeat of Harris, as instructive about The Rebellion Against The Elites? As much as you may didaine it! Think of the gilets jaunes in France, The Canadian Truckers Strike, the Netherland’s Farmers Strike, The Farmers Revolt in France, and the recent Farmers Strike in Britain , led by Jeremy Clarkson! I’m sure I’ve forgotten more that I recall! It does not take much thinking, and or Historical Imagination, to place Luigi Mangione in that Rebellion Against The Elites?

Anti-Capitalist

Anti-Capitalist on The Rebellion Against The Elites: where can the reader place Luigi Mangione?

stephenkmacksd.com/

Dec 12, 2024

Editor: Can The Economist headline and sub-headline even surprise?

United States |

Headline: Message in a bullet Luigi Mangione’s manifesto reveals his hatred of insurance companies

Sub-headline: The man accused of killing Brian Thompson gets American health care wrong

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/12/12/luigi-mangiones-manifesto-reveals-his-hatred-of-insurance-companies?utm_content=ed-picks-image-link-1&etear=nl_today_1&utm_campaign=a.the-economist-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=12/12/2024&utm_id=2021942

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Editor: First comes the shocking, to the staid readers of this Capitalist Rag, in its first sentences, I’ll will provide the first senteces on each paragraph:

Homicide investigations are like bankruptcies: they come along gradually and then all at once.

…

Mr Mangione, of course, is legally innocent until proven guilty.

…

Despite his writings, Mr Mangione did not seem determined to get caught.

…

Mr Mangione now faces five criminal charges in New York City, including second-degree murder.

…

What could have inspired the killing?

…

Biographical details add some context. Mr Mangione belongs to a wealthy Italian-American family from Baltimore.

…

If his goal was to get America discussing its health-care system, Mr Mangione seems sure to succeed.

….

Editor: The data that this News-magazine relies upon is: the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy think-tank. Should that signal that The Economist is not just a friend of Capital but its apologist?

Certainly frustration with insurers is growing. According to a survey conducted last year by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy think-tank, in the preceding year 18% of Americans were refused care they thought would be covered, and 27% had insurers pay out less than expected. Two-fifths say that they have had to go without health care because of insurance limitations. In recent years denial rates have been rising, while insurers have adopted new tactics (such as the use of artificial intelligence to make determinations) that are deeply unpopular and have produced some shocking errors. Knowing what will be covered or denied is extraordinarily difficult, even for professionals. Around half of Americans say that they are unsure how their coverage works (see chart 1). The other half are overconfident.

…

America has fewer doctors per capita than almost all other rich countries, and over one in four doctors earns more than $425,000. Yet a tight federal cap on residencies stops more being trained. And much treatment offered to Americans (and either paid for or refused by insurers) simply would not be offered at all in more statist countries. Mr Mangione’s back surgery is in fact a revealing case in point. The details are unclear, including whether insurance paid for his treatment. But his Reddit account suggests that he shopped around doctors before persuading one to conduct a “spinal fusion” surgery. Elsewhere, the number of such surgeries has declined over the past decade because research shows them to be ineffective compared to simpler treatments. Yet in America the number has continued to rise.

…

Editor : What remaines is the fact of the real and utterly unmentioned Rebellion Against The Elites, The Reader might consider the recent election of Donald Trump and the abysmal defeat of Harris, as instructive about The Rebellion Against The Elites? As much as you may didaine it! Think of the gilets jaunes in France, The Canadian Truckers Strike, the Netherland’s Farmers Strike, The Farmers Revolt in France, and the recent Farmers Strike in Britain , led by Jeremy Clarkson! I’m sure I’ve forgotten more that I recall! It does not take much thinking, and or Historical Imagination, to place Luigi Mangione in that Rebellion Against The Elites?

Anti-Capitalist

Anti-Capitalist wonders about the long delay in notofication of the readers @FT, about invaluable Capitalist Apologetics!

stephenkmacksd.com/

Dec 12, 2024

Editor: The question might occour to The Reader: What is Statista

Statista is a global data and business intelligence platform with an extensive collection of statistics, reports, and insights on over 80,000 topics from 22,500 sources in 170 industries. Established in Germany in 2007, Statista operates in 13 locations worldwide and employs around 1,100 professionals.

Empowering people with data. Our pursuit of knowledge and innovation drives us to be thought leaders in the field. As pioneers in shaping the future of the data economy, our ultimate goal is to create a world that is more transparent, reliable, and trustworthy. We strive to empower fact-based decision-making that positively impacts society.

https://www.statista.com/aboutus/

Editor: For those Hungry Capitalists on the hunt for readily usable self-exculpitory apologetics!

Anti-Capitalist.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

On the Politics of the Periphery

New urban forms characterizing contemporary metropolises reflect a certain continuity with the patterns of the past. They also include unexpected forms of settlement and design that have emerged in response to social and economic needs and as a way of leveraging new technologies. Politics of the Periphery sets out to explore sub/urban governance in diverse contexts in order to better understand how materiality and space are shaped by the possibilities and constraints of confronting actors.

This collection, edited by Pierre Hamel, examines the empirical aspects of collective action and planning in eight urban regions around the world – across North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa – and reveals the impacts and consequences of various structures of suburban governance. The case studies feature a diverse range of local actors facing both the specificity of their respective milieus and the broader context of extended urbanization as metropolitan regions cope with new territorial challenges.

The book focuses on suburbanization processes that characterize most of these post-metropolitan regions and questions whether it is possible to improve suburban governance in the face of growing uncertainties arising from structural and subjective transformations. Paying close attention to the relationship between the local and the global, Politics of the Periphery challenges the planning processes of evolving metropolitan regions.

https://muse.jhu.edu/book/115093

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Editor: Anti-Capitalist opines that the Politics of the Periphery represents the only rational politics!

Anti-Capitalist.

Political Dissident considers the final paragraphs of his latest execise in bellicose Zionist Propganda!

stephenkmacksd.com/

Dec 11, 2024

Leo Strauss re-wrote the History Of Philosophy so that the Neo-Conservatives like Stephens could use it as there/his touch-stone? This just a bit of hyperpbole! yet Strauss betrayel of the facts of the History Of Philosphy is/was an act of the betrayel, of that Philiosopical Tradition, that became the lynch pin of Neo-Conservatism!

Editor:Mr. Stephens is the former editor of The Jerusalem Post which might leade The Reader to obvious conclusions

…

Now that Israel is the war’s clear victor, it needs to bring its hostages home. Let Hamas try to rule from the ruins it made.

That doesn’t mean that Jerusalem should cut a weak deal. Above all, it would be a mistake for Israel to agree to bring back the hostages in stages, since it would give Hamas an incentive to raise the price for every additional hostage. Trump can be especially helpful here by informing Hamas’s patrons in Qatar that the United States would revoke Qatar’s status as a major non-NATO ally and move the Al-Udeid air base — forward headquarters of the U.S. Central Command — to the United Arab Emirates if all of the hostages aren’t released by Jan. 20. Let the conniving Qataris figure out the rest.

Other players? The Turks will have to be deterred by Washington from trying to use Syria’s revolution as an opportunity to settle scores against the Kurds. That means, especially, maintaining our detachment of forces in eastern Syria. The Saudis will also need to demonstrate regional leadership by helping rebuild Syria and resuming negotiations for diplomatic normalization with Israel.

None of this will be simple or straightforward. But the end of al-Assad’s wretched regime unlocks many doors.

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Compare Mr. Stephens politics to the notorious Cold Warrior Joe Alsop’s , via Edwin M. Yoder Jr.

Book Details

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In the years after World War II, Georgetown’s leafy streets were home to an unlikely group of Cold Warriors: a coterie of affluent, well-educated, and connected civilians who helped steer American strategy, for better and worse, from the Marshall Plan through McCarthyism, Watergate, and Vietnam. The Georgetown set included Phil and Kay Graham, husband-and-wife publishers of The Washington Post; Joe and Stewart Alsop, odd-couple brothers who were among the country’s premier political pundits; Frank Wisner, a driven, manic-depressive lawyer in charge of CIA covert operations; and a host of other diplomats, spies, and scholars. Gregg Herken gives us intimate portraits of these dedicated and talented, if deeply flawed, individuals, who navigated the Cold War years (often over cocktails and dinner) with very real consequences reaching into the present day. Throughout, he illuminates the drama and fascination of that noble, congenial, curious old world,” in Joe Alsop’s words, bringing this remarkable roster of men and women not only out into the open but vividly to life.

https://penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com/book/?isbn=9780307456342

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Editor: The thing that sets Joe Alsop apart from Mr. Stephens is that Joe was in the Asian Theater of War during WWII, and in Korea during that War- he was too old for Vietnam. Mr. Stephens is in sum a Zioninst Propgandist !

Political Cynic wallows in @FT Political Propaganda! Should @NTY follow suit? Another ? Where is my favorite Janan Genesh, with his attempted riffs on the long forgotten Tom Wolfe?

stephenkmacksd.com/

Dec 11, 2024

https://ep.ft.com/permalink/emails/eyJlbWFpbCI6ImRjNDUwNzkyNmFlYjQyZmNiNDc0Zjc3ZGIzNmQyZDRmZjA4NDE5ODkwYTk1IiwgInRyYW5zYWN0aW9uSWQiOiI4OTQyNWVhYi0zMjg0LTQ2M2QtOWY4Ny02NTEzOWU5YWYyY2IiLCAiYmF0Y2hJZCI6IjFhMWVmNGM2LWIxZWItNGJjYS04NWQyLTk5MTFhYjlhZTgzOSJ9?segmentId=b0d7e653-3467-12ab-c0f0-77e4424cdb4c

Newspaper Reader

stephenkmacksd.com/

Dec 10, 2024

The New York Times begins the construction of a plausable suspect in the murder of Brian Thompson: Reader refresh your memory of a dire crime in the Asssination of John F. Kennedy! And the Warren Comission Jr. Council, Arlen Spector and that Comissions finding of ‘The Magic Bullet’! The pruest fiction, to hide the political macinations of The American National Security States culpability in the Kennedy Murder:

The Construction of the ‘The Singular Harrative’ has begun in the photograhs delow:

Editor: The tiling effect of these ‘reports’ add an ersatz verrisimilitude ?

…

This the Evolution not of a News Story, but the birth of National Secutity State Propaganda Made To Measure! In the wake of the Kennedy Murder the arbiters of political respetability coined the phrase ‘conspiracy theorists’ as a term of opprobrium.

The Reader might consider the recent election of Donald Trump and the abysmal defeat of Harris, as instructive about The Rebellion Against The Elites? As much as you may didaine it! Think of the gilets jaunes in France, The Canadian Truckers Strike, the Netherland’s Farmers Strike, The Farmers Revolt in France, and the recent Farmers Strike in Britain , led by Jeremy Clarkson! I’m sure I’ve forgotten more that I recall!

Newspaper Reader.

Political Observer offers three sources.

stephenkmacksd.com/

Dec 09, 2024

Editor: The New Statesman’s Will Dunn:

28 November 2024

Russia’s economy is doomed

Vladimir Putin is paying heavily for the illusion of economic success. In the long run, it can’t last.

By Will Dunn

https://www.newstatesman.com/business/economics/2024/11/russias-economy-is-doomed

…

Adnan Vatansever, reader in Russian Political Economy at King’s College London’s Russia Institute, estimates that Russia’s spending on the war in Ukraine (including associated spending such as the spiralling cost of recruiting soldiers and welfare payments to casualties) could be approaching ten per cent of the country’s GDP.

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However, Vatansever explains that rising wages are also inflating demand, creating a “price spiral”. The result is that inflation in Russia is now running at nearly ten per cent. On Russian social media, clips have circulated of shoplifters raiding butter, the cost of which has risen by more than 25 per cent in the last year.

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The reason for this, Vatansever explains, is that “Russia is no longer a normal economy”. Putin is aggressively subsidising the lifestyles of Russian citizens with very high public spending, but because the country is disconnected from capital flows – there is almost no foreign investment in Russia, nor are Russians investing abroad – the demand for imported goods keeps growing, the rouble keeps getting weaker, and this compounds the effect of inflation.

Russia has also been artificially inflating its housing market by subsidising mortgages, creating a dangerous housing bubble. Property prices in Russian cities have more than doubled since the Ukraine war began, but when this subsidy was withdrawn for most homebuyers in July, demand halved, leaving an unstable bubble that Vatansever says “could lead, at some point, to a financial crash in Russia, if that bubble bursts”.

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For previous crises, Vatansever told me, Russia has been prepared with large financial reserves, but this is no longer the case; part of Russia’s policy of “de-dollarisation” involved holding around $207 billion of its central bank reserves in euro assets, which have been frozen since 2022, and won’t be thawed any time soon (unless they’re handed over to Ukraine). The one remaining financial buffer is Russia’s national wealth fund. If the global oil price falls below $60 a barrel this will, according to a report by the Russian central bank, be depleted in about a year. It is very hard to say how sincerely we should believe anything Trump says, of course – but most economists were already predicting a slower rate of growth for next year.

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Editor: The Atlantic Council:

UkraineAlert

October 31, 2024

Russia’s economy is overheating but Putin cannot change course

By Alexander Mertens

Russia’s economy is overheating but Putin cannot change course

Russia’s Central Bank raised its key policy rate to 21 percent in late October as the Russian authorities struggle to manage a wartime economy that is in danger of overheating due to a combination of factors including rising inflation, sanctions pressure, and record defense sector spending. While Kremlin officials and many international analysts insist that the Russian economy remains in remarkably good shape, the country’s longer term economic outlook is becoming increasingly precarious.

Despite frequent predictions of impending economic meltdown, there is currently little sign that the Russian economy is in immediate danger. At the same time, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine appears to have placed Vladimir Putin in an unenviable economic position. If the war continues for an extended period and is accompanied by factors including increased sanctions, inefficient military leadership, and pervasive corruption, this could plunge Russia into a severe economic recession.

Ending the conflict also presents economic risks. Russia’s unprecedented military spending since 2022 has enriched elites and boosted domestic demand, overheating the economy. If the war ends, this fiscal stimulus will cease, potentially causing a significant drop in real incomes for much of the population. This could lead to heightened social tensions and undermine the stability of the ruling regime.

Vladimir Putin frequently claims that Western sanctions have been counterproductive and often uses his public addresses to boast of Russia’s wartime economic performance. Official data broadly supports this narrative, with Russia reporting strong GDP growth in 2023 and during the first half of the current year.

A range of factors are fueling the current growth of the Russian economy, with military expenditure perhaps the single most important driver. The Russian authorities allocated around six percent of GDP for the military in 2024, representing the highest total since the Cold War. Further increases are planned for 2025. Nor does this cover all war-related costs. Significant additional spending is required to fund a range of defense-related industries and to finance the occupation of Ukrainian regions currently under Kremlin control.

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Despite the outward appearance of stability, Russia’s wartime economy faces mounting challenges. Russia’s National Welfare Fund is steadily dwindling, while export revenues have gradually declined during 2024 as a result of tightening sanctions and constraints on resource extraction caused by limited access to modern technologies.

Economists are now warning that the Russian economy is in danger of overheating, largely as a result of unprecedented military spending. Meanwhile, Russia’s low unemployment rate of around 2.5 percent is more indicative of a severe labor shortage than a healthy economy. The problems caused by this lack of workforce add to the challenges created by sanctions-related restrictions on access to Western equipment, exacerbating Russia’s technological deficit.

Inflation currently poses the single greatest threat to Putin’s wartime economy, and was a key factor behind the recent decision to hike the country’s key interest rate. Russia’s Central Bank aims to reduce inflation to around four percent in 2025, but this may not be a realistic target. Indeed, official inflation data from the Kremlin may actually underestimate the rising cost of living for ordinary Russians.

Over the past year, even official Russian government bodies such as Rosstat have cautiously acknowledged negative economic trends such as rising inflation, labor shortages, and declining activity in some sectors of the economy. Taken together, these negative factors are likely to contribute to a period of slower growth, if not stagnation.

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Editor: The Reader must always keep in mind that The Atlantic Council is the propganda arm of NATO!

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European Markets

Russian economy shows solid growth despite Ukraine war sanctions

By Reuters

August 28, 202411:15 AM PDTUpdated 3 months ago

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-economy-shows-solid-growth-despite-ukraine-war-sanctions-2024-08-28/

MOSCOW, Aug 28 (Reuters) – The Russian economy has shown solid growth in many sectors while unemployment remains at a record low, new data showed on Wednesday, prompting officials to hint at a brighter outlook for the year despite Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

Driven by military production, industrial output rose by 3.3% in July compared with a 2.7% increase the previous month, and by 4.8% since the start of the year, compared with 3.1% growth in the same period in 2023.

A preliminary estimate for gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the first half of the year stood at 4.6%, compared with 1.8% for the same period last year.

Officials attributed this growth to strong capital investment, including by the private sector, which in the second quarter rose by 8.3% year-on-year to 8.44 trillion roubles ($92 billion), following 14.5% growth in the first quarter of the year.

“Given such high results in the first half of the year, we expect even higher figures for the entire year of 2024 than we had initially projected in the economic forecast published in April,” said Polina Kryuchkova, deputy economy minister.

The data suggested the economy was holding up despite Western economic sanctions and problems with international payments with Russia’s major trading partners, such as China, which led to a 9% fall in overall imports in the first half of the year.

However, they also pointed to overheating, which forced the central bank to hike its benchmark interest rate by 200 basis points to 18% in July, the highest level in more than two years.

The central bank said persistent labour shortages and wage growth, as well as high inflation, were the main signs of an overheated economy and promised to maintain tight monetary policy and fight inflation until it cools.

New statistics showed that real wages rose 6.2% year-on-year in June, following an 8.8% increase in the previous month, while average nominal wages rose 15.3% year-on-year to 89,145 roubles a month.

Wage growth in Russia is being spurred by the payouts handed to contract soldiers fighting in Ukraine, which have become a new benchmark in the economy as workers in fast-growing sectors facing acute labour shortages demand similar pay from employers.

In the first half of the year, real wages grew by 9.4%, while nominal wages increased by 18.1% compared with the same period in 2023, according to the new data. Unemployment remained at a historically low level of 1.9 million people in July, or 2.4% of the workforce.

Political Observer