Political Cynic comments on this once valued publication.

Title: In the ring with Mailer

Sub-title: The author’s gladiatorial contest of art

By James Marcus

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/norman-mailer-richard-bradford-j-michael-lennon-robert-begiebing-book-review-james-marcus/

Not much here, but the news that Mailer was buried in his boxing gear.

I recall reading a paperback of Mailer’s ‘An American Dream’ that I purchased at a liquor store on Long Beach Blvd. in Lynwood California. Hadn’t read much American, nor other fiction- mostly out of curiosity, allied to pure ignorance of literature of any kind. I watched too much television yet, was curious about that World of Thinkers/Writers. The wife stabbing portion of the story was perplexing…

Later I read Mailer’s ‘The Armies of the Night’ and then in 1974 Mailer review of ‘Last Tango in Paris’ ,that features Pauline Kale, in the Lead Role: I was surprised at Mailer’s ability to write comic invective, at the time I found it amusing.

A Transit to Narcissus

Norman Mailer

May 17, 1973 issue

This paragraph stands out …

…

We know that Spengler’s thousand-year metamorphosis from Culture to Civilization is gone, way gone, and the century required for a minor art to move from commencement to decadence is off the board. Whole fashions in film are born, thrive, and die in twenty-four months. Still! It is only a half year since Pauline Kael declared to the readers of The New Yorker that the presentation of Last Tango in Paris at the New York Film Festival on October 14, 1972, was a date which “should become a landmark in movie history—comparable to May 29, 1913—the night Le Sacre du Printemps was first performed—in music history,” and then went on to explain that the newer work had “the same kind of hypnotic excitement as the Sacre, the same primitive force, and the same jabbing, thrusting eroticism…. Bertolucci and Brando have altered the face of an art form.” Whatever could have been shown on screen to make Kael pop open for a film? “This must be the most powerfully erotic movie ever made, and it may turn out to be the most liberating movie ever made….” Could this be our own Lady Vinegar, our quintessential cruet? The first frigid of the film critics was treating us to her first public reception. Prophets of Baal, praise Kael! We had obviously no ordinary hour of cinema to contemplate.

…

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1973/05/17/a-transit-to-narcissus/

I was at the Library over the weekend, and discovered this, at the end of one of the stacks.

I read the first chapter and skipped to the debate between Wm. F. Buckley and James Baldwin, titled ‘The Most Hated Man in America’: The Reader enters the World of the carefully refracted ‘Best Seller’, that posits the notion that Buckley and Mailer were two of the prime political actors of ‘The 60’s’. At best Buckley was a leering ‘Conservative’ gargoyle and Mailer a posturing would-be Hemingway, with a pretentious vocabulary and the mannerisms of a pugilist.

A work colleague had given me a paperback of ‘Ancient Evenings’ and I applied myself to reading it, but kept confronting Mailer’s, or his main character’s penchant for sodomy.

Political Cynic

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Added February 24, 2023:

I had forgotten that I had seen Howard Hawks’ ‘Land of the Pharaohs’ script by William Faulkner, Harry Kurnitz, Jack Bloom in 1958. And had seen ‘The Egyptian’ directed by Michael Curtiz, from a script by Philip Dunne (screen play), Casey Robinson(screen play), Mika Waltari (novel) – probably at The Arden Theater in Lynwood, California, just one long block from my childhood home. Or that I had actually read portions of the novel by Waltari, as a teenager, for the sex scenes- that was a topic of discussion with my friends.

Mailer’s novel had some stiff competition from Hollywood Historical Grandiosity, pioneered by D.W. Griffith, and the windy self-advertiser Cecil B. de Mille!

P. C.

Political Observer comments.

Headline: Isolated, out of touch, but clinging on: how Russians see Putin

Sub-headline: A year on from the disastrous invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin could be just one crisis away from collapse

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-perceptions-putin-evolved-one-year-russia-ukraine-war-b79xh0xgr

The reader might wonder at the ‘sources’ of Professor Professor Mark Galeotti’s essay, those twenty books act as a preamble, after a political/psychological portrait of Putin. And his evolving ‘methodology’ for the care and maintenance of his power?

Vladimir Putin is notorious for asking Russian historians how he will be judged a hundred years hence. With his invasion of Ukraine, he has ensured that he will be assessed a failure, an example of the way hubris can devour any initial successes.

Had Putin chosen to step down at the end of his second presidential term, in 2008, it is likely he would be remembered as someone who dragged Russia back from the brink of collapse, even if often by brutal methods.

He then spent four years running the country behind his proxy-president Dmitry Medvedev before returning to the Kremlin. Had he retired after his third term in 2018, he would have left a Russia in dispute with Ukraine and the West, but in possession of Crimea. As it was, though, he was not content, and let his desperation to leave his mark on history drive him to fatal overreach.

What does this war show us about Putin? Has he changed so much from the apparently cautious and calculating figure who humbled rebellious Chechnya and defiant Georgia, and effortlessly seized Crimea?

Only in degree: Putin is still Putin, just much more so. Like so many autocrats, over time he became a caricature of himself, with any past strengths becoming weaknesses.

All of the above lacks empirical evidence, because it is based on Galeotti’s Mastery of Putinology After the introductory paragraphs Prof. Galeotti provides subject headings to frame his arguments: Yet The Critical Reader might wonder at Prof. Galeotti as a ‘Senior Associate Fellow’ at RUSI:

‘ABOUT RUSI

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) is the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and security think tank. Our mission is to inform, influence and enhance public debate to help build a safer and more stable world.

https://rusi.org/

Prof. Galeotti is a Government Employee, in a not very roundabout way. So this explanation of Prof. Galeotti‘s political standing provided by The Times is incomplete, in the most self-serving way:

Professor Mark Galeotti is the author of over 20 books on Russia, most recently Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine, published by Bloomsbury

So the essay that he writes is in fact propaganda, under the banner of political comment! Here are the paragraph titles provided by Galeotti: Note my reductionism of these pseudo-historical observations, for want of more apt term!

From confidence to arrogance:

In previous wars, Putin was often lucky.

The second Chechen war (1999-2009) was horrific…

The five-day war against Georgia in 2009 was fought against a country…

The 2014 annexation of Crimea took place…

Nonetheless, this cultivated Putin’s belief that he was a geopolitical mastermind with an unstoppable army.

Egotism becomes isolation:

Putin’s system was always what I term adhocracy, shaped by the protean politics of the court, in which the favour of the monarch is the real currency of power.

In earlier years, Putin was willing to listen to alternative perspectives and keep around him those who might challenge his assumptions.

…his circle has shrunk to a handful of mini-mes … Nikolai Patrushev, … Alexander Bortnikov, … Yuri Kovalchuk…

None challenged Putin’s view that Ukraine was not a “real” country —…

Distance turns into detachment

This insulation from reality is also putting stress on his political system.

The system depended on him being the arbitrator.

Now, presumably consumed by the war, he is out of touch and not doing his job, and fierce personal and policy rows are emerging, unchecked by the boss.

… One of the most serious is between Yevgeny Prigozhin, businessman… and Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister.

After all, this model of competing initiatives has also been exported disastrously on to the battlefield.

…but there are many others, including Wagner, the paramilitary National Guard, Chechen fighters loyal to their leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, and the armies of the former “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk,…

Fighting among themselves

Sometimes they co-operate, sometimes they compete, and this can prove murderous. There have been brawls and firefights between army and Wagner troops.

…ultra-nationalist captain Igor Mangushev was killed in an ambush blamed not on the Ukrainians but on everyone from the army to the Chechens.

…the need to keep Putin happy continues…the need to keep Putin happy continues…demoted in January after just three months because he had not delivered any victories.

…Valery Gerasimov, seems to have launched the long-awaited spring offensive…

Relying on a Pyrrhic victory

Of course, it is foolish ever wholly to discount Russia’s latent strengths. Putin probably still believes he can win, if he can outlast western unity and resolve. Without the billions being spent every month to maintain the Ukrainian war effort and economy alike, Kyiv would be in a much more perilous position. It could still be that he is right.

Editor: Let me interject; this resembles Realism?

President Zelensky predicted a “big Israel” — and unlikely to be willing to accept this as a final outcome. His chances of being able to block Ukraine joining the EU or even Nato are likely minimal.

Disillusion with their leader

Even Putin’s former partisans are beginning to see that the tsar has no clothes.

Putin demands miracles and when they cannot deliver, he publicly humiliates them. Denis Manturov, the industry minister, was publicly upbraided for “fooling around” having failed to establish a domestic industry building…

The kleptocrats who backed Putin because he offered unlimited opportunities for enrichment are finding the pickings getting leaner, the competition sharper and the chances to enjoy their success limited.

Most seriously, the hawks and nationalists who used to believe in Putin are becoming disillusioned by the incompetence, corruption and indecision on show in Ukraine.

Lack of a real alternative

That said, Putin may stay in power for some time: these kinds of regimes can be hard to unseat, at least so long as the security apparatus sees no better alternative.

…and tens of thousands have been arrested, prosecuted, beaten and imprisoned for expressing their opposition.

Besides, as the West arms and funds Ukraine, Putin’s claims — that they are facing a hostile coalition that wants to see Russia humbled and even forcibly broken apart — do spark a certain grudging patriotism.

Increasingly, his strongest asset is the lack of a clear, credible alternative rather than any great enthusiasm for him.

The latest official figures have shown the budget deficit growing after oil and gas revenues nearly halved over the past year.

Who is lying to whom?

The result is a rotten state. It may look sturdy at first glance and in his delayed state of the nation address, now scheduled for Tuesday, Putin will try to put a positive gloss on the situation. However, this will be a mix of propaganda and self-deception: one Russian political commentator privately lamented: “The tragedy is that it’s impossible to tell these days when Putin is lying or when people are lying to Putin.”

…

Putin arguably dragged Russia back from near-collapse in the early 2000s, but the very characteristics that made him successful then have metastised now into weaknesses.

Putin the Terrible

…

There is a striking parallel with the very first tsar, Ivan the Terrible. The institutions of modern government in Russia began to emerge in the first half of his reign, but as he was increasingly gripped by hubris and paranoia, the latter years were soaked in blood and terror. This led to the Time of Troubles, a prolonged era of crisis and war after his death.

Although there is little likelihood of Russia breaking apart, 1990s-style chaos is not impossible. As Putin may also discover, a state-maker may prove a state-breaker, too.

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For not just an alternative view, to the question of the American Proxy War in Ukraine, The Reader need only turn to Douglas Macgregor on YouTube. Whose experience, expertise and political sanity demonstrates his mastery of subject and practice!

https://www.youtube.com/@StraightCallsDouglasMacgregor

Political Observer

Political Observer checks Mr. Brooks’ sources

Mr. Brookes begins here:

“The coronavirus caused by far the biggest disruption in the history of American education,” Meira Levinson and Daniel Markovits wrote in The Atlantic last year.

Things have not reverted back to normal as Covid has gradually lost its grip on American life. Today’s teachers and students are living with a set of altered realities, and they may be for the rest of their lives:

The essay by Meira Levinson and Daniel Markovits is behind a Pay Wall, so unavailable to most readers. And Mr. Brooks declaims the bad news in the starkest of terms, it might even be named hysterical.

Mr. Brooks 319 word synopsis of the problems follows: I have taken liberties!

… 

fell by 1.1 million student…

…

New Stanford-led research finds that 26 percent of that decline…

…

the National Assessment of Educational Progress…

…

Researchers calculated that the decline in math skills alone will lead to $900 billion in lower future earnings over the course of students’ lifetimes. …

…

According to one preliminary estimate, 16 million students were chronically absent during the 2021-22 school year…

…

In New York City, about 41 percent of public school students were chronically absent that year…. 

Surging inequality. As Robin Lake and Travis Pillow write in a Brookings Institution article, “American students are experiencing a K-shaped recovery, in which gaps between the highest- and lowest-scoring students, already growing before the pandemic, are widening into chasms.”

This last entry might be comic, if Mr. Brooks wasn’t a War Mongering Neo-Con, anxious to burnish his non-existent notion, of caring for the welfare of any human beings , as this essay demonstrates:

‘The American Identity Crisis’ of July 15, 2021, is pure War Mongering: featuring Public Moralizing, by a man who has never served, nor fought in a War: but is utterly enthusiastic for others to make that sacrifice, to American Exceptionalism, even as it reaches the point of absolute failure.

Then came Iraq and Afghanistan, and America lost faith in itself and its global role — like a pitcher who has been shelled and no longer has confidence in his own stuff. On the left, many now reject the idea that America can be or is a global champion of democracy, and they find phrases like “the indispensable nation” or the “last best hope of the earth” ridiculous. On the right the wall-building caucus has given up on the idea that the rest of the world is even worth engaging.

Many people around the world have always resisted America’s self-appointed role as democracy’s champion. But they have also been rightly appalled when America sits back and allows genocide to engulf places like Rwanda or allows dangerous regimes to threaten the world order.

The Afghans are the latest witnesses to this reality. The American bungles in Afghanistan have been well documented. We’ve spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of our people. But the two-decade strategy of taking the fight to the terrorists, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, has meant that global terrorism is no longer seen as a major concern in daily American life. Over the past few years, a small force of American troops has helped prevent some of the worst people on earth from taking over a nation of more than 38 million — with relatively few American casualties. In 1999, no Afghan girls attended secondary school. Within four years, 6 percent were enrolled, and as of 2017 the figure had climbed to nearly 40 percent.

…

More of Mr. Brooks’ sources

as Nat Malkus pointed out in National Affairs, by 2022

National Affairs is Neo-Conservative.

This first sentence of this paragraph ‘This moment of disruption should be a moment of reinvention’ reeks not of any Neo-Conservative, except when she is attempting to misrepresent Carl Schmitt as one of their own?

This moment of disruption should be a moment of reinvention. It should be a moment when leaders rise up and say: Let’s get beyond stale debates over charters, vouchers, gender neutral bathrooms and the like. We’re going to rethink the nuts and bolts of how we teach in America.

There are no ‘stale debates’, just debates. And note the mechanistic frame of the last sentence: ‘We’re going to rethink the nuts and bolts of how we teach in America. Education is a humanist endeavor: look to Plato, Socrates, Aristotle ? It is not, nor can it ever be mechanistic- in his ideological frenzy Brooks, doesn’t loose his way, but is mired in the mechanism of his own construction!

Let me end my comment here on the question of EdChoice :

EdChoice, formerly the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, is an American education reform organization headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was founded in 1996 by economist spouses Milton and Rose D. Friedman. The organization’s mission is to advance “school choice for all children” nationwide.

School Choice = Charter Schools, as the means to destroy the very power Teachers Unions!

Political Observer

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Political Observer comments, and quotes from McGeorge Bundy’s 1952 review of ‘God and Man at Yale’.

Some ‘highlights’ from the utterly unimpressive @RichLowry essay, on the equally unimpressive Nikki Haley:

Headline: Opinion | The Real Reason Nikki Haley May Struggle to Break Through

Sub-headline: It’s only partly about Trump.

…

It’s a sign, though, that Trump doesn’t feel threatened by her candidacy that he — focused solely on Meatball Ron aka DeSanctimonious, aka Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — didn’t personally blast her upon her entry.

…

Haley isn’t the former and doesn’t look to be the latter, either. Her path has to be Trump and/or DeSantis being much weaker than they appear or blowing one another up in a GOP Ragnarök that creates an opening for her. This is going to be the hoped-for path of any number of other candidates, as well, adding yet another layer of difficulty.

She deserves to make her case, though. If fortune doesn’t always favor the bold, no one has ever won a presidential race by not entering it.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/15/nikki-haley-run-president-donald-trump-00082976

It almost makes This Reader long for the days of that sanctimonious Oil Man’s brat, Wm. F. Buckley Jr., and his scolding reactionary chatter: sounding like a Hohenzollern Prince, whose Royal Privilege is now in the past tense. For added insights as to the character of Mr. Buckley, read McGeorge Bundy’s 1952 review of ‘God and Man at Yale’ at almost four thousand words:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1951/11/the-attack-on-yale/306724/

Should the reader name this ‘review’ expressive of ‘historical irony’ ?

Political Observer

SAVECROSS-POST

Almost Marx confronts a New York Times Public Intellectual!

The opening paragraphs of Mr. Friedman’s ‘almost defence’ of Netanyahu is awash in carefully laundered gush:

If you want to understand the economic riskiness and moral fraudulence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s headlong rush to ram through a total overhaul of Israel’s judicial system and put it under his thumb while he faces corruption charges, you just need to study two statistics and ask one question. 

The two statistics: The Economist ranked Israel as the fourth-best-performing economy in 2022 among O.E.C.D. countries. And in 2020, Israel ranked 19th among the economies in the world, making the top 20 for the first time in its history, based on G.D.P. per capita — ahead of Canada, New Zealand and Britain. 

That’s right: Israel has been enjoying a quiet economic miracle in the past few decades, and no Israeli leader deserves more credit for that than Netanyahu. During his previous 15 years as prime minister, he did a superb job, in my view, helping to transform Israel into the world’s leading start-up nation. He put in place smart economic policies to attract investors. He would go anywhere and talk to anyone (except me!) to promote the Israeli economy. And he played a key role in providing government resources so Israel’s high-tech community could forge world-leading positions in cybersecurity technologies, water conservation, solar energy and digital health. 

…

The Critical Reader might look to these statistics offered by the BBC of May 24, 2021

Headline: Israel-Gaza: How much money does Israel get from the US?

…

This support came as part of an agreement signed by former president Barack Obama in 2016 for an overall package of $38bn (26.8bn) in military aid over the decade 2017-2028.

…

Over the years, US aid has helped Israel develop one of the most advanced militaries in the world, with the funds allowing them to purchase sophisticated military equipment from the US.

For example, Israel has purchased 50 F-35 combat aircraft, which can be used for missile attacks – 27 of the aircraft have so far been delivered, costing around $100m (£70.4m) each.

Last year Israel also bought eight KC-46A Boeing ‘Pegasus’ aircrafts for an estimated $2.4bn (£1.7bn). These are capable of refuelling planes such as the F-35 in mid-air.

https://www.bbc.com/news/57170576

That America handsomely finances Israel’s Military, and as argued ’That’s right: Israel has been enjoying a quiet economic miracle’ … so this praise for the standing of Israel @TheEconomist is based , indeed, under-written by The American National Security State.

’The Economist ranked Israel as the fourth-best-performing economy in 2022 among O.E.C.D. countries.

In the face of the near final ‘evolution’ of the toxin of Zionism, Mr. Friedman, in a moment of almost political honesty, confronts the facts of Zionist Fascism? All the while, avoiding at all costs, the fact of the Genocide-On-The-Installment Plan against The Palestinians: The Reader confronts ,again, the moral/political vacuity wedded to mendacity of this propagandist !

So you cannot be surprised that many global and Israeli investors are looking at Israel today and asking this simple question: If the Israeli legal system that has gradually and collaboratively evolved over the past 75 years was so awful — so in need of emergency radical surgery overnight, without any national debate — how did it help produce and guard the Israeli economic miracle of the past 20 years that Netanyahu always, and justifiably, takes credit for and has made Israel’s middle class amazingly prosperous? 

Nothing is more dangerous to Israel’s continued prosperity than Netanyahu’s inability today to give a credible answer to that simple question. 

Because in the absence of a credible answer, the only thing one can believe — the only thing foreign investors increasingly believe — is that the whole process is being driven by a small group of far-right authoritarian ideologues, an extremist right-wing think tank inspired by the Federalist Society in America and a prime minister who seems so desperate to escape from his trial on 2020 charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust that he is ready to change the rules of the entire Israeli Monopoly game to secure his own get-out-of-jail-free card. 

Now, that is scary. 

The Reader has yet to confront the remaining 1, 038 words of this Propaganda… I’ll engage in a bit of self-serving reductionism, that might demonstrate/elucidate the dominant economic theme of this intervention. That dissolves the question of Netanyahu’s attack on the fiction of Israel’s ‘Democracy’ by way of his Economic Leadership?

…

Any investor, foreign or domestic, should be worried that Netanyahu is letting the judicial extremists in his cabinet ignite a legal intifada in Israel and a Palestinian intifada in the West Bank — at the same time. 

…

And you want to talk about governance risks? Israel’s own president, Isaac Herzog, is publicly

…

As a general rule, investors don’t like investing in countries roiled with protests and chaos. 

…

And that is why some have started pressing the pause button.

…

“Investors are taking a step back and saying: ‘First, decide whether you are a democracy or a dictatorship, and then we’ll talk,…

…

And that is also why, behind the scenes — behind their don’t-worry-be-happy public bluster — my business contacts tell me that Netanyahu and his strategic adviser Ron Dermer have been calling global corporate leaders, financiers and even economists, like Lawrence Summers, to try…

…

But the more that Netanyahu and Dermer call to tell them not to worry, the more those investors worry that they have something to worry about. 

…

Here’s a report on Sunday from one of Israel’s leading business newspapers, The Calcalist: “An investigation by Calcalist shows that a large number of high-tech companies, whose managers are not at all involved in the protest against the judicial coup, are quietly withdrawing their companies’ cash balances from Israel.

…

And on Tuesday, The Times of Israel reported that the country’s leading bankers met with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and informed him that they were seeing “early signs” that the planned radical judicial overhaul “will damage the economy and urged the coalition to adopt a compromise plan proposed by President Isaac Herzog.” 

…

According to Israel’s Channel 12, Uri Levin, the C.E.O. of Israel Discount Bank, one of the country’s largest, told the finance minister: “We see a tenfold increase in interest in opening savings accounts in foreign banks.

…

This comes after Amir Yaron, the nonpartisan governor of the central bank of Israel, reportedly warned Netanyahu — after talking to business leaders in Davos — that “the ruling coalition’s plans to upend the judiciary could scare away investors and negatively impact the country’s credit rating,” The Times of Israel reported.

…

Caution: One should have no illusions that somehow the market will save Israel’s democracy for democracy’s sake. The electronic herd of global investors has no soul. It will take money away from Israel or put money into Israel based on one criterion only: the ability to make a profit. Just ask China. 

…

But here is why one of Israel’s most important, veteran high-tech investors, who asked not to be identified for fear of government reprisals, is becoming so worried.

…

“It is not that you will see a stampede of all the high tech running away,” he told me. “But people are very concerned that the rules of the game are being unilaterally changed.

…

Foreign investors, he added, always trusted Israeli courts. If foreign companies had disagreements with the Israeli government over the firing of employees or the land authority over property or the customs authority over imports, they knew that they could go to the courts and get a fair hearing, he said.

…

Also, international and Israeli investors and innovators, he said, need to decide where to register their companies — in America, Europe or Israel — and where to put their profits. If this radical judicial coup goes ahead, he added, you will see more and more companies registering abroad and moving resources abroad.

…

Netanyahu thinks he can finesse all of this with investors, he said, adding, “The problem is: Suppose that he’s not right? The risks are enormous.” 

The damage won’t happen overnight, but over time, he concluded: “It will be like termites eating your house. It looks great today, but it will one day suddenly collapse.” 

The Reader confronts the remainder of this ‘essay’ steeped in economic imperatives: yet more evidence of Mr. Friedman’s moral/political vacuity, wedded to mendacious apologetics.

Almost Marx

The Reader has to be unsurprised by The Times celebratory, even ecstatic ‘reportage’ regarding the expulsion of Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party. Starmer has always been Tony Blair’s political catamite. Starmer offers no real threat to Blair, whom Mrs. Thatcher named her greatest accomplishment. The Reader is overwhelmed by the Times ‘reportage’ on this Excommunication of Corbyn…

Tuesday February 14, 2023

Headline: Keir Starmer: My Labour is patriotic, a party of equality not protest

Promising change is the easy part. Delivering it is painstaking. It requires commitment, hard graft, focus and humility. From the moment I was elected Labour leader I was clear about what we needed to do to rebuild our party. Not only had we lost an election badly, we had also lost sight of our morals and our purpose. That was why the most pressing and urgent change we needed was in the way we dealt with antisemitism.

Antisemitism is an evil. It is a very specific type of racism, one that festers and spreads like an infection. Its conspiratorial nature attracts those who would have no truck with any other form of prejudice. Indeed, it can be those who call themselves “anti-racist” who are most blind to it. The reason the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) opened their investigation into the Labour Party was because it had become an incubator for this poison. We needed to change. That’s why my first act as leader was to commit to tearing antisemitism out by the roots, without fear or favour.

The first step meant accepting the EHRC’s report in full. That investigation was a humbling and painful experience for a party that has always prided itself on equality and tackling racism. But it was completely necessary. We also had to be clear that anyone who did not accept those findings had no place in the party.

But being frank about what had happened was only the beginning. We then had to begin to right the wrongs of the past. That meant many months of hard work and honesty, rebuilding trust not just with the Jewish community but with all those who were rightly appalled by how low we had fallen.

Before now, there were two moments when I knew we were getting it right. Firstly, when Louise Ellman, a Jewish former Labour MP who under the previous leadership had suffered appalling abuse, came to Labour Party conference in 2021. Then, when I spoke with Jewish voters returning to Labour in Barnet during last year’s local elections. This announcement from the EHRC is the third.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-my-labour-is-patriotic-a-party-of-equality-not-protest-xgsrflzl8

Tuesday February 14 2023:

Headline: The Times view on Sir Keir Starmer’s rejection of Corbynism: Gloves Off

Sub-headline:The Labour leader has been admirably clear in condemning antisemitism in his party but he will need to be equally detailed in his election promises

very so often a modernising Labour leader has to throw down the gauntlet to the left of the party. For Neil Kinnock it was the conference speech in 1985 during which he lambasted the Militant faction in Liverpool for hiring taxis to scuttle around the city handing out redundancy notices. For Tony Blair, it was the Clause Four moment in 1995 when he persuaded his membership to abandon its commitment to nationalising the commanding heights of the economy. And now it is the turn of Sir Keir Starmer to take on the Corbynist rump of MPs who still mourn the loss of the most electorally disastrous leader since Michael Foot.

In his article in The Times today Sir Keir focuses on the issue of antisemitism to challenge those who would derail his drive for victory at the next general election. Welcoming the decision of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to grant Labour a clean bill of health on antisemitism and remove it from special measures, he promises that there will be no return to the barely concealed bigotry that characterised the Corbyn years.

This is to be welcomed, of course. But Sir Keir makes a wider point, and indeed issues an ultimatum. Labour, he implies, will never return to Corbyn’s electorally suicidal brand of leftism, and those in his party who don’t like it can get out. This is refreshingly tough talking by a man who chooses his words carefully. Calling your own party an incubator of poison is a brave thing to do, particularly if you were sitting on the shadow front bench when the poison was being incubated. It will no doubt hearten those who have previously detected in Sir Keir a little too much of the metropolitan lawyer, forever struggling not to speak his mind. But disowning the evil of antisemitism is an obvious hill to fight on. If Sir Keir is to triumph at the polls, he must show the country that he is prepared to tackle more nuanced issues.

…

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-sir-keir-starmer-s-rejection-of-corbynism-gloves-off-nxwdjp0g8

Tuesday February 14 2023:

Headline: Back me or quit Labour, Keir Starmer tells hard left

Sub-headline: We’re never going back, says leader in ultimatum to Corbynistas

Sir Keir Starmer has issued a challenge to the hard-left Labour MPs who oppose his plans for government to either back him or leave the party.

Labour is due to be taken out of special measures over antisemitism by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on Wednesday morning, more than two years after a report identified “serious failings” under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Writing for The Times, the Labour leader says the changes he has made to the party are “permanent, fundamental, irrevocable”, describing the party as unrecognisable from the one he took over in 2019.

“There are those who don’t like that change, who still refuse to see the reality of what had gone on under the previous leadership,” he says. “To them I say in all candour: we are never going back. If you don’t like it, nobody is forcing you to stay.”

…

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/back-me-or-quit-labour-keir-starmer-tells-hard-left-3swrnvwwg

Wednesday February 15 2023:

Headline: Starmer says Jeremy Corbyn will not stand for Labour at next election

Jeremy Corbyn will not stand as a Labour candidate at the next election, Sir Keir Starmer vowed today.

The leader of the opposition said his party was “not going back” to the time when antisemitism was rife within its ranks. He also fired a warning shot at the left-wing group Momentum, which has the support of some in Labour.

Starmer was speaking after the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which found that Labour under Corbyn had been responsible for unlawful discrimination, ceased its monitoring of the party. He defended having served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet and said that he had challenged the behaviour at the time. However, he admitted the party had at the time lost sight of “its purpose or its morals”.

Starmer warned those who were resisting his changes: “If you don’t like that, if you don’t like the changes we have made, I say the door is open and you can leave.”

When asked whether that included those in Momentum, he said that for “whatever group or individual in the Labour Party” the message was clear. “We have changed from a party that looked inwards to a party that meets the public gaze . . . From a party of dogma to a party of patriotism . . . From a party of protest to a party of public service.

…

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jeremy-corbyn-keir-starmer-labour-mp-next-general-election-r990dkv3g

Is a bit early to celebrate? This Times reportage of ‘the fall of @jeremycorbyn’ is founded on the ‘as if’ that Corbyn political career is now finished. What of :the Al Jazeera expose?

The Labour Files: The Purge I Al Jazeera Investigations

Is Jeremy Corbyn about to disappear from the British Political Scene? The vain hope, of the Blair/Starmer coterie, is that Corbyn will go quietly? From a political actor, who has spent his whole career, in service to his constituency. Or the political fact of Momentum as not just a possible/probable avenue for Corbyn’s ability to continue his service? Not to speak of all those purged, and or dis-invited, by Starmer, ‘Leftists’, might be the key to the Tories maintaining their hold on political power? Which would be more than welcome to the Times Political Romantic ‘sensibility’!

Political Observer & Almost Marx

Almost Marx follows the incense, and kowtowing…

What does ‘woke’ mean? Think of the hysterics who inveigh against this- what it means is no longer a concern, but it is that elusive ‘substance’ , a political non-sequitur …that fires the political/moral imaginations of Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, former comedian Bill Maher. And a host of political opportunists, looking for a conveyance to various state capitals, and D.C.: an opportunity to jeer at Senile Old Joe, at the next State of the Union Address is the bait?

Daniel Lippman reports at Politico on Vivek Ramaswamy, the $500 Million Dollar Man:

Headline: The ‘CEO of Anti-Woke Inc.’ Has His Eye on the Presidency

Sub-headline: Vivek Ramaswamy leaves the boardroom for a barn in Iowa to test out his businessman-turned-culture-warrior brand on rural conservative voters.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/13/anti-woke-ramaswamy-2024-election-00082414

Could The Reader compare ‘Woke’, to a burning ambition to be President? Or are they completely different ‘imperatives’ … the questions ask themselves.

Should I catalogue some apt quotations of Vivek Ramaswamy? Interspersed between the gush of Mr. Lippman. A politician need never fear, Politico treats its subjects with kid-gloves, unless you are Donald Trump.

“One of your main jobs as a senator is to make laws, and I came to understand that many senators were not interested in engaging in that job,” he said. “Their goal was to get on cable television, and I was already on cable television.”

Ramaswamy insisted this trip to Iowa and other prep work he’s doing for a potential run are serious; this isn’t a play for attention, he said. He has already fashioned a policy platform: defeating China economically, firing the “managerial class” of the federal government, drastically changing or shutting down large numbers of federal agencies, reforming the national security apparatus and shunning affirmative action. He says he is plotting out his potential cabinet too, impressed with the intellect of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the likes of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. (Pompeo, however, seems to have a different White House position in mind.)

What may be his most vital political asset are the resources he would bring to the race. Ramaswamy’s net worth is reportedly in excess of $500 million, enough to seed his campaign through the key early states.

…

The Republican Party’s id makes an inauspicious appearance, Freud will never die, as shorthand for Actual Thinking! That ‘Woke’ has morphed into a catch phrase ‘Woke Inc.’ that Ramaswamy, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, former comedian Bill Maher all use this descriptor ‘Woke’ , as a rhetorical placeholder for ‘The Left’ ! This is McCarthyism ‘re-branded’ in the common Neo-Liberal parlance, of our Age of Fracture :

Ramaswamy said he has had similar receptions on his 20-stop tour for his book “Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.” He said all of the compliments had been “humbling” and led him to believe he should give the presidential campaign a shot. That he’s even found himself on this path is a testament to how central fighting culture wars and the perceived malevolence of wokeness has become in the Republican Party’s id.

Ramaswamy offers an analysis, without Freud: ‘we lack a national identity’ with a assist from Mr. Lippman ‘woven it into their policy agendas’ and ‘a leader who shares his own vision’

The Reader has to wonder at the assertion that ‘we lack a national identity’ … ‘We’ are The American National Security State, and We Rule The World with near absolute impunity? Except for our current failed Proxy War in Ukraine? Ramaswamy attempt to resuscitate an ersatz American Innocence?

“I think the GOP has a historic opportunity to answer the question of what it means to be an American at the moment where we lack a national identity,” he said. “I’m grateful that many Republican governors and other leaders have borrowed my message and woven it into their policy agendas. But when it comes to who leads our country next, I believe that it’s going to take a leader who shares his own vision, not someone else’s, and that’s what calls me to do this.”

Mr. Lippmann surprisingly interjects:

Ramaswamy’s self-confidence barometer is off the charts. When talking to his Iowa host Bruere, Ramaswamy speculated that if he were to jump in the race and start polling well, DeSantis might reconsider running. (To be clear, we’ll sooner see snow in Miami.)

But all the self-confidence in the world doesn’t change the fact that, for now, Ramaswamy is an interloper on the political scene. When he was in the Iowa State Capitol, he received a friendly reception on the House floor from Iowa House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl. But Iowa Republican State Rep. Anne Osmundson told me she didn’t know who he was. When I told her he was in town to talk about ESG, she asked me whether he was for or against it.

I’ll skip some of the the ‘political chaff’ , as provided by Mr. Lippman sometimes surprisingly insightful, and able reporting, on the political phenomenon of Vivek Ramaswamy …

…

Ramaswamy’s growing team now consists of nearly 20 people, including former Pennsylvania GOP Senate candidate Kathy Barnette to lead his potential grassroots efforts and Tricia McLaughlin, who led communications for Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s 2022 reelection campaign, as his press secretary. He’s hired Republican operative Rex Elsass’ political consultancy, based near Ramaswamy’s home in central Ohio, to run his potential operation, and Elsass’ top deputy Ben Yoho is expected to serve as “CEO” of any future campaign.

…

Despite his daunting chances of success, Ramaswamy does seem likely to take the plunge. His wife, Apoorva, who he said would be an “excellent” first lady, has told him that “her gut instinct” is that if he joins the race, “there’s a very good chance that you’ll win so make sure you’re ready for that.” He’s only slightly less optimistic.

“You know, maybe all of this is ill-advised and I’ll fall flat on my face,” he said. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

Almost Marx

Almost Marx reads @Peter_Conradi on Brigitte Macron

Headline: Brigitte Macron ‘advises president on understanding the French

Less than a year into his second term President Macron cuts an increasingly isolated figure: his ratings are poor, the team that helped him to power in 2017 has broken up and his landmark pension reforms face resistance in parliament and on the street, with mass protests across the country again this weekend.

Yet help is at hand from a more popular resident of the Elysée Palace: Brigitte Macron, his wife and former school teacher, who is said to be giving the president discreet lessons on how to understand the mood of their ever fractious compatriots.

The première dame, 69, sees her role as telling her husband, 45, what people are talking about in their corner cafés, the magazine Le Point claimed in a detailed profile last week. She allegedly scribbles down notes of what she sees and hears during the day and briefs him when they finally sit down alone every evening. She also shares with the president, widely viewed as an aloof technocrat, the contents of the 20,000 letters she receives each year, many reflecting the gloom enveloping France.

Underlying her thinking is a desire to be “useful” for the country but getting the balance right in her role is akin to walking along a mountain ridge and avoiding falling in either direction, she confided. “There are those who think I am lazy and those who think I ought not to be here,” France’s first lady said.

The couple, the magazine claimed, are already contemplating what to do when the president leaves office in 2027: still not 50 by then, he may seek another high-profile job, such as president of the European Commission or start his own foundation, perhaps even in New York. She will be 74.

…

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brigitte-macron-advises-president-on-understanding-the-french-qlz9nmk53

The Times is the headquarters for Royal Apologetics, so Mr. Conradi celebratory missive is a central propaganda corollary, of the demonization of the Great Unwashed, that have never really been gone from French Political Life. Except in the pages of The Times. Of Late Harry and Meghan has been the target of the Royalists at the ‘newspaper’ .

Conradi continues with this:

Macron’s government has given itself until Friday to get a first reading of the measure through parliament, but, without a majority, is struggling to get the support it needs — which could leave him with little alternative but to push the measure through by decree, at the risk of more trouble on the streets. Demonstrations took place across France yesterday with unions saying that half a million people protested in Paris alone, though the interior ministry put the number at 93,000, a record since protests began last month, and 963,000 in France as a whole.

And then Conradi lapses, in the remainder of the essay, into more political kitsch featuring Brigitte Macron… Its the stuff of Hollywood Public Relations drivel, think of all those feature stories about Nancy Reagan and ‘Just Say No’!

Almost Marx

Political Observer.

Headline: In 46 Words, Biden Sends a Clear Message to Israel

Here are the opening paragraphs of Mr. Friedman’s Feb 12, 2023 column:

I woke up on Saturday morning, read the news from Israel that at least 50,000 Israelis had just demonstrated once more against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to strip the Israeli Supreme Court of its independence and put it instead under Netanyahu’s thumb — at a time when Netanyahu himhself is facing corruption charges — and I asked myself a simple question: “What does President Biden think of this?”

Biden is as pro-Israel in his gut as any president I have ever covered. He has also had a long and mutually respectful relationship with Netanyahu. So I can tell you that whatever Biden has to say about Israel comes from a place of real concern. It’s a concern that the radical transformation of Israel’s judicial system that Netanyahu’s ultranationalist, ultrareligious coalition is trying to slam through the Knesset could seriously damage Israel’s democracy and therefore its close ties to America and democracies everywhere.

Wasn’t the reading of ‘guts’ of sacrificial animal the endeavor/practice of Priests of Ages Past:

https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/38591/chapter-abstract/334653021?redirectedFrom=fulltext

This next sentence reeks of Friedman’s commitment to The American National Security State, and his, and its commitment to The Zionist Faschist State. The ‘fate’ of America is now in the hands of Senile Old Joe, and his collection of Neo-Conservative ghouls. Note that Friedman has access to the President, and his commentary is steeped in ‘Foreign Policy demotic’.

Here is the statement that Biden sent me on Saturday afternoon when I asked for comment: “The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, on an independent judiciary. Building consensus for fundamental changes is really important to ensure that the people buy into them so they can be sustained.”

Followed by this recitation of ‘The Party Line’ adopted by the respectable bourgeois apologists for The Zionist Faschist State.

This is the first time I can recall a U.S. president has ever weighed in on an internal Israeli debate about the very character of the country’s democracy. And although it’s only 46 words, Biden’s statement comes at a crucial time in this wrenching Israeli internal discussion and could well energize and expand the already significant opposition to what Netanyahu’s opponents are calling a legal coup that would move Israel into the camp of countries that have been drifting away from democracy, like Turkey, Hungary and Poland.

Yet, The Reader confronts another 1,216 words remaining in Mr. Friedman’s -what to name it? some samples …

…

Here’s why Biden’s 46 words are so important: First, it puts him squarely behind the compromise approach called for by President Isaac Herzog of Israel — and behind keeping Israel’s widely respected judiciary independent.

…

Herzog has pleaded with Netanyahu and his coalition to step back and organize some kind of bipartisan, national dialogue that can patiently study what kind of judicial changes might be healthy for Israel but do it with legal experts, in a nonpartisan fashion and in a way that preserves the integrity of the judicial system that has existed since Israel’s founding. 

…

Unfortunately, Netanyahu rebuffed the Israeli president, which prompted Herzog to declare on Jan. 24 about the so-called judicial reform: “The democratic foundations of Israel, including the justice system, and human rights and freedoms, are sacred, and we must protect them and the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

…

With Biden’s 46 words, Netanyahu now finds himself in a situation where, if he just keeps plowing ahead, he won’t just be snubbing the Israeli president; he will be snubbing the American president as well.

…

The second reason Biden’s words matter is their timing — it could not be more important.

…

Those leading the opposition have called for a nationwide workers’ strike on Monday and a mass rally outside the Knesset to coincide with the first rounds of voting on the legislation.

…

Third, Biden has put himself and America squarely on the side of the Israeli majority opposing Netanyahu’s just shoving his “reform” through — in what increasingly looks like a judicial putsch.

…

A poll published Friday “indicated that over 60 percent of the public wants the government to halt or delay its legislative efforts to dramatically weaken the High Court of Justice and secure political control over judicial appointments,” the Times of Israel reported.

…

Mr. Friedman drones on: never has the politics of another country, been subject to such a self-serving examination, by an American commentator? But the patience of The Reader is exhausted, she skips, after much highly embroidered political chatter, she arrives at the final paragraph:

That’s why Biden’s 46 words are so crucial. With those 46 words, Biden is telling Israel our relationship has never truly rested on shared interests. It’s always been built up from our shared values. That is why it has endured so long — even when we disagree on interests. With his simple statement, Biden is signaling that whatever Israel does, it must not fundamentally depart from those shared values. Otherwise, we are in a totally new world.

Like his fellow Zionist Apologist/Advocates, at The New York Times: David Brooks and the perpetual hysteric Bret Stephens, the ‘evolution’ of The Zionist Faschist State, modeled after, that reliable Germanic Political Romantic invention of Lebensraum, is the rallying cry of Netanyahu, and his political operative @itamarbengvir.

Political Observer

For those interested Readers here is a link to my January 2022 essay:

@arishavit ＆ @tomfriedman attempt to come to terms with the toxin of Zionism?

Old Socialist ＆ Almost Marx comment.

https://stephenkmacksd.substack.com/p/arishavit-tomfriedman-attempt-to?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

Old Socialist resorts to minimalism!

Headline: How Earthquakes Test Our Souls and Our Governments

I’ll not waste much time on Neo-Con Ghoul Bret Stephens selective compassion: the last two paragraphs are enough melodrama, in which he plays the Lead Role.

Even in the age of Ukraine and other disasters, can we still muster a sustained sense of charity and compassion to help, intelligently, in the long recovery that lies ahead?

Around noon on that September day in 1985, my mother came to my school and took me home to my dad’s embrace. To this day I think about how very lucky we were, and ache for so many who were not.

Old Socialist