Category Archives: Uncategorized

07.28.16
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Erick Erickson and the Obama Lookingglass

9h9 hours ago

The GOP offered a vision of doom, despair, and division. Tonight the President I think divides us offered optimism. I hate this year.

There’s a tell here in Erick “Erick” Erickson, Son of Erick’s, baffled shoulder-shrug of a tweet. The tell is “I think”.  There are of course two ways to read that: the assertive, and the tentative, backpedaling way. It all depends on the inflection. If you emphasize the “I”, you’re taking ownership over the thought, claiming that this opinion is yours, and by dint of agency, you are transubstantiating it into fact. Imagine saying “Actually, your honor, I think that you’re the one drunk in court.” Bold, yes?

The second way is the emphasis on “think”. It’s hedging. It’s what you say when you are deeply unsure of something, and don’t want the responsibility for being wrong. “I think I can land a blimp?” It’s also used when the world is crashing around you, and the edifice of unreality you’ve been creating is knocked over. For Erick, Son of Erick, I think he intended his tweet to be the former, but it is, almost unwittingly, the latter.

Last night’s DNC speech by The President of the United States Barack Obama was pretty much universally well-received, except by Donald Trump. On Twitter, at least, conservatives were calling it great, unifying and optimistic, in stark contrast to the “last call at Ragnarök” vibe we got in Cleveland. There was a certain teeth-gnashing about how Obama was using the language of hope and uplift, taking it from Reagan, whereas their party was one of doom and despair. Part of it was a sort of rueful pride and maybe even unconscious politics: see, they win only by acting like us. But I have to think there was also a bit of shock and even awakening. After all– this was not new.

It seems disingenuous for them to pretend that the Obama message, that of an imperfect union where we work together, strive together, look failure straight in the eye and learn from it, and reject the calls of demagoguery and hatred, is new. He’s always said these things, from his first major speech until last night. He’s tied the liberal values of community and togetherness, of not letting people be crushed by an invisible hand, into the theme of what America was founded on, and what it has too often failed to be. He’s always been the best at tracing that jagged, crooked, and often-broken line between who we want to be and who we can be, recognizing who we are, but not despairing. You can fairly say that the line shouldn’t lead to liberalism, or statism or whatever, and that’s fine. But to pretend he hasn’t always been who he was last night is incorrect.

I said “seems disingenuous” instead of “is, in fact, wildly and comprehensively disingenuous” because I think the level of cognitive dissonance was so great that it took a Trump to break it. They were so deeply vested in the idea of Obama being a divisive President, for reasons that go from normal (for our elevated and rabid times) political disagreements to a vast well of newly-tapped racial hatred. The thinking went. A) There are a lot of people who hate him partly or largely because he’s black.  B) Those people are on “our” side, therefore, I can’t say they are racist. C) I myself don’t like his idea of government, and let’s be honest, don’t love the idea of a successful black liberal, because then what does the party have. D) Therefore, the hatred isn’t coming from our side, but because he’s divisive.

Everything was contained in that shattered lookingglass. The whole theory of Obama- aloof, American-hating, jihad-loving, police-killing, Panther-adjacent, the real racist– had to spring from the idea that he was the divisive one. It was raw cynicism, and the opposite of any of his deeds and actions. Yes, he wanted Democratic policies to succeed. He was a Democrat. But they had to pretend that every action and every statement was so far beyond the pale that he was shattering every norm. And that left them deeply emotionally and intellectually unprepared when the caricature of Obama they created– a dumb, shallow, callow, vain, divisive, narcissistic, thin-skinned, hateful racist authoritarian demagogue– took over their party.

So yeah, that must have been tough for Erick “Erick” Erickson. This was the real Obama, the one whose has always moved to unite. The imperfect President with whom they can have serious and substantive disagreements, but who is clearly thoughtful, clearly intelligent about America and American history, and who clearly cares deeply about the country. They are forced to pretend that this is a reaction to Trump and that Obama is stealing from Reagan and all that, but I’d like to think that for a moment, before the gauzy veil of political hatred fell back down again, that they recognized, for a moment, the lies of the last eight years. And maybe they were saddened for a bit that hatred, paranoia, and petty small-brained bullshit made them miss entirely the most remarkable politician of our lifetime.

07.25.16
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RIP DWS. DNC? GFY.

 

“How many times have I failed at this job?” 

 

Well, it took catastrophic stupidity to finally end the DNC tenure of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, but since that’s what it clearly took to appoint her, and to keep her in after 2014, I suppose that’s fitting.  A few quick thoughts.

  • The main take from the emails– that the DNC was pulling for and maneuvering in favor of Hillary– is not surprising. Not surprising in the sense that we already knew this, but also not surprising in tone. Political people think like political people and talk like them. There wasn’t going to be any neutrality. Remember this when you see people talking about the rigged Democratic leadership who were wondering when the Republican leadership was going to step up to stop Trump. It’s always ok when Republicans do it.
  • That said, this is terrible. It’s another example of DWS’s disastrous “leadership”, in which we managed to lose the Senate, virtually every possible statehouse, and fall backward in the House. It’s like she saw Rahm ignoring the successful lessons of Howard Dean, and saying “I think we should do more of this.” The organization followed. Were in not for the once-in-the-lifetime skills of Barack Obama, and the energy of the resurgent left giving new life to the party, it would be total disarray.
  • I’m not worried about this electorally. Bernie will still be speaking tonight, calling for unity. There will be protests, and a lot of #neverhillary people yelping on TV, but these people weren’t going to vote for her anyway. This is cover, not a reason.
  • That they are right– the system was set up against Bernie– should, in theory, give them even more resolve to push the party to the left. Look at what they accomplished with (admittedly incompetent) enemies. And now DWS is gone! This is a great chance to keep pushing one of the only two viable parties more toward their goals. I know that’s what I am hoping for: an actually progressive in the DNC chairperson role. Why not bring back Howard Dean under whom we were, remember, wildly successful. In the short, medium, and long run, this idiocy could be hepful. (It’s Donna Brazille, at least through the election, which is fine.)
  • A lot depends on the speech tonight, and how well the convention goes. The press would love to have a “both parties in turmoil” story, based on the equivalence of jumped-up fundraisers and college interns at the DNC acting like their venal boss and the rise of American fascism. It’s going to take a hell of a convention to turn that tide. If so, and the story is “a week that started in disarray ended with great unity”, that’ll be a rising tide. I think having Bernie and Michelle and Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden and Barack Obama speak makes it a decent bet.
  • Really, the big story is the Russian connection. It looks more and more likely that they were officially behind the hack, in whatever way the Russian intelligence services work. Trump and Putin are clearly sympatico, though I don’t think Putin sees it as a gathering of equals. Trump does a lot of business in Russia, and needs Russian money, since American banks don’t trust him. His top advisors are intimately intertwined with Russia, and its goals of using energy to dominate their regional rivals. They are vested in the dissoltuion or Europe, the weakening of NATO, and an isolationist agenda. And hey, those are all Trump stances! This could get really interesting…
07.25.16
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The Hazara Suicide Bombing And The Hint of Normal Life

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Image from al-Jazeera

The week after the horrors in Nice was another brutal one, a visceral slog through the depths of today’s insanity, focused mainly on Germany.  An axe attack in Germany. A suicide bombing by a Syrian refugee in Germany. Another German tragedy, an American-style mass shooting, was (seemingly) not directed or inspired by ISIS or al-Qaeda, or any militancy at all, save for the militancy of a disturbed criminal mind (which: same with Nice, and Munich, and Orlando. Same mindset; barely-different justifications).

There was also a massive suicide bombing in Afghanistan, in which 80 people were killed and another 230 were wounded. It’s a strange number, 80. On the day of the Nice attack, as the number kept spiraling upward, 80 seemed unimaginable. It feels different in Afghanistan, though. It feels almost normal. We’re inured to violence there, in a way that dehumanizes the victims of ISIS. Even when lip-service is paid, even (especially) when politicians say that “ISIS kills more Muslims than anyone else”, there’s a feeling that those lives don’t matter. They certainly don’t grab the headlines.

That’s partly a man-bites-dog thing, of course: Afghanistan has been in a state of near-constant war for nearly 40 years, and we’re fatigued. Same with Iraq and Syria and Lebanon and Yemen and anywhere else where people are seemingly constantly being killed. It seems like part of normal life, just the regular course of things. We have trouble extending empathy to imagine them feeling the same kind of pain we can envision in France or Germany.

The thing is though, one of the grossest tragedies of the Afghanistan suicide bombing is who the targets were, and why they were there. The targets were the Hazara, Persian-speaking Shi’ites, a minority based mainly in Afghanistan who are the frequent target of the Taliban, of ISIS, of al-Qaeda, of the Pashtun, and others. They are frequently kicked around, and struggle for protection. Iran is the one constant friend.

So, then, why were they all in a group, able to be targeted?

Guardian

The protesters were marching against government plans for a major power project to bypass Bamiyan, a predominantly Hazara province in the central highlands. Following similar protests in May, Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, established a commission to look into the issue but government attempts to find a compromise failed. On 19 June, a contract was signed to build a smaller electricity line through Bamiyan, which did not placate Hazara activists.

Al-Jazeera

The 500-kilovolt TUTAP power line, which would connect the Central Asian nations of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with electricity-hungry Afghanistan and Pakistan, was originally set to pass through the central province.

But the government re-routed it through the mountainous Salang pass north of Kabul, saying the shorter route would speed up the project and save millions of dollars.

Electricity. Power. Zoning. The desire to be economically and literally connected. The decision to bypass them might have been to save money, or it might have been to further put the screws on the Hazara, or it may have been both. The former might have been an excuse for the latter, or maybe just a coverup for it. The reasons are part of Afghan history and politics, and I don’t feel comfortable speaking to them.

But the protest? That’s normal life. That’s a group of people who are tired of their situation, who feel oppressed, and who want something that is normal. Take away the historical oppression, and imagine it as anything else: a potentially lucrative and life-bettering development was going to happen (imagine it if you want a railroad or a dam or a base to build the newest military joint-strike hybrid disaster) and then it was taken way. The hydroelectric plant was supposed to go near this town but the TVA shifted it away. There are a million parallels around the world. Anyone would be mad, and anyone would protest.

That’s exactly the point: this is normal life, or at the very least, the desire for it, taken away in a energy-filled pulse, that pulverizes organs and rends limbs and makes the face of life unrecognizable. These are (and were) human beings, who despite living in a land of war, many of whom have known war and terror their whole lives, who are willing to stand outside and protest electrical lines. They petition for surveyors and government project planners to look over their notes again and maybe try something new. They are standing up in the city council meeting of a mid-sized Illinois town and asking for the baseball diamond on 4th to be maintained.

There’s no simple answer for terrorism, and the extension of empathy (which can’t just be willed, not even for someone who tries) won’t end it. The recognition that Muslim lives are real won’t stop ISIS, especially when they are the ones taking Muslim lives like a joyless Queen of Hearts. But the dehumanization of Muslim lives, whether that is in the headlines or in the speeches of politicians who treat refugees like a murderous and faceless horde, serves the recruitment purposes of our enemies. It can help a non-political, non-active, and not-even-particularly-religious immigrant decide that they are going to move from petty crimes and personal abuse to a mass killing, in the vague name of some group they barely know. It’s a cycle that will take a generation to break out of. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a duty to start.

07.20.16
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Jabhat al-Nusra and Post-ISIS “Syria”

 

Meet the new boss- not quite the same as the old boss. 

 

Syria and The Success of Smarter Militants

Interesting WaPo article by David Ignatius about Jabhat al-Nusra, the Qaeda affiliate in Syria. They’ve bascially bided their time during the rise of ISIS, gaining reputations as good fighters and building alliance with relatively more-moderate groups, and they seem poised to emerge successful out of the wreckage when the more apocalyptic jihadist group enters its post-Caliphate stage (which could be loosely described as “A caliphate of the mind”).

Jabhat al-Nusra has played a clever waiting game over the past four years, embedding itself with more moderate opposition factions and championing Sunni resistance to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The group has mostly avoided foreign terrorist operations and has largely escaped targeting by U.S. forces. Meanwhile, it has developed close links with rebel organizations such as Ahrar al-Sham that are backed by Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

But the global jihadist ambitions of Osama bin Laden remain part of Jabhat al-Nusra’s DNA. U.S. officials report increasing evidence that the group is plotting external operations against Europe and the United States. Its operatives are said to have tried recently to infiltrate Syrian refugee communities in Europe.

A stark warning of the danger ahead comes from the Institute for the Study of War, which closely follows events in Syria. In a forthcoming forecast, the institute argues that by January 2017, “Jabhat al-Nusra will have created an Islamic emirate in northwestern Syria in all but name” and will merge with the supposedly more moderate Ahrar al-Sham.

And that’s the smart way to do it. It’s one of the reasons why AQAP in Yemen has been so successful for so long, even so far resisting an ISIS takeover (more on that coming soon). There are certain organizations which are “lessons learned” oriented, who can take the success and mistakes of the past and integrate them into the local situation from which they are emerging. They don’t try to jam a rigid system into a fluid situation. You can have short-term success doing that, but it is far more difficult to maintain, as ISIS is finding out.

(That said, of course, ISIS isn’t halfway out the door. I am as guilty as this as anyone: because the outline of the end, or at least the end of this phase, can be roughly seen, it shouldn’t be assumed that it will play out the way we imagine, and shouldn’t be so quick to act like we are already in the next phase. Analysts and bloggers are, I think, more guilty of that than actual military people, so I’m not too worried.)

This is part of the mutation of the jihadist threat, and why it needs to be treated as a generational problem, one that requires supple and strategic thinking, on all levels, and not be treated as a eopochal failure when it isn’t met with “unconditional victory” during, say, a Presidential term.

It’s almost inevitable that, if not al-Nusra, another AQ or ISIS-like group emerges in whatever comes out of Syria, whatever post-state shape it is in. That isn’t a clarion call to give up, but more that we have to be realistic about what can be accomplished, and to me, that means not trying to force Syria back together again.

I think the Kerry plan, which Ignatious describes as a “three-cushion shot”, is a good outline. “Kerry’s plan would include joint U.S.-Russian operations against the group, as well as the Islamic State. Kerry also hopes to reduce Assad’s attacks on moderate rebel forces so that they (rather than Jabhat al-Nusra) can gain ground in a post-Islamic State Syria.” That’s probably the best outcome that can be hoped for: increased moderation, though not perfection, in post-Syria areas. The more we try to maintain a 20th-century fiction, the more other fictions, like that of the glorious caliphate or the purity of fanaticism, will tell the story.

07.19.16
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Desultory Liveblogging RNC: Day 2

 

Pictured: Chris Christie

 

Ate dinner and watched Vice Principals with the wife right after the Alaska thing, so missed the beginning. Watching Ron Johnson, who has about 5 months left in public life, accidentally forgetting he is speaking on Economy night.

7:56: Chris Cox, of the NRA. Make America Work Again! Seriously, this guy can go jump.

7:58: NRA guy starts with a blood-curdling example of a single mother being preyed upon by a home-invader. It wasn’t a true story, of course. You’d think that he could come up with a non-hypothetical to really bolster his case, but he didn’t even try. It’s more the dumbass “politicians have bodyguards, so they’re hypocrites!” argument. I can’t stand it.

(More after jump)

Continue reading →

07.19.16
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RNC Liveblogging Day 2: The Roll Call

It’s the roll call, which means…well, it means dumb nativism, screeching, some controversy, and, most weird, the fact that at some point, later than usual, the 1237 will be crossed, and then Donald Trump will be the nominee. It’s really happening.

5:39: Probably shouldn’t be this close. I mean, it isn’t close, but it still doesn’t look great for party unity. The unbound delegates aren’t moving to Trump, as they normally do for the sake of unanimity. This isn’t a disaster, but the optics aren’t great.

The only real drama so far was when DC’s delegate all went to Trump, even though it was 10-9 between him and Cruz. But, you know, Republicans don’t really care about DC.

Alaska was also upset about all their delegates going to Trump. RIght now, Kentucky is trying really hard to be the most right-wing, by saying that their citizens still respect God and the military and the police officers. They might have been topped by Idaho, who claimed that they are “so republican, during the pledge of allegiance we say “and to the Republicans for which is stands,” which, hahaha, go pound sand, man.

More after the jump.

Continue reading →

07.18.16
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RNC Live Blog Day 1: Strength Through Strength Day

I’ll be honest, guys: I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this all night, much less all four nights. Still, let’s get going. We’ve got Benghazi survivors and people whose children were killed by illegal immigrants, and Scott Baio. It’ll be emotional, since it is the parents of dead people, which is awful. But, in terms of policy, it’s also irrelevant and insulting (people get killed all the time; the only way to prevent it is depopulation).

Already angry. OK, so love blogging is all below the jump.

Continue reading →

07.18.16
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After Weeks of Violence, What Is Legitimate Protest In The Age of Trump?

 

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies…

 

Sunday struggled awake to the news of another mass, targeted killing of police by a lone gunman, trained by the military and motivated by racial, anti-police anger. This time it was in Baton Rouge, one of those American cities that is a simmering racial flashpoint, as we’ve all learned in these last few hot, tense weeks.  It already feels like we’re living in a documentary about that terrible year, 2016, where everything sped up, where the divisions between white and black, between those who believed in the police and those who believed the police were just a tool of oppression, boiled over. Where economic anger, racial hatred, xenophobia, and several strands of populism

It already feels like we’re living in a documentary about that terrible year, 2016, where everything sped up, where the divisions between white and black, between those who believed in the police and those who believed the police were just a tool of oppression, boiled over. Where economic anger, racial hatred, xenophobia, and several strands of populism distorted our politics. Reading the news has the uneasy feeling of watching that documentary, that every day is part of the central montage of an uneasy summer. We’re watching the flash points scroll by in real time, all leading up to that violent week in Cleveland, where the least-qualified and most dangerous candidate in American history grabbed his nomination, against a backdrop of horrible violence.

Obviously, as Sunday gave way to Monday, that hasn’t happened yet. But everyone believes it is going to. The Cleveland police certainly do, as Reason reports. 

To prepare for that, Cleveland has reportedly purchased over three miles of “Blockader” steel barricades, plus over 3,000 feet worth of six foot-high barricades, over 2,000 sets of riot gear, and 10,000 sets of plastic handcuffs.

Almost half of downtown Cleveland, roughly 1.7 square miles, will be under major restrictions as the designated “event zone.” Within that area, according to the New York Times, everything from glass bottles and tennis balls to “large bags and backpacks, mace, loudspeakers, tents, coolers and canned goods” will be prohibited. The Washington Postnotes that it has provided a “standard kit” to its staff attending the RNC, including “helmets, gas masks and flak jackets,” but gas masks are among the items banned from the event zone.

That is, simply put, a police state. And maybe it is needed. There is no doubt that this year is a far angrier one than 2012, or even 2008, when the world was collapsing. We say every four years “this is the worst”, but things are qualitatively different this year. For one thing, you no longer have Barack Obama. For another, you have Donald Trump, and that leads to the question: what is legitimate protests in the face of a quasi-fascist, white nationalist campaign?

For many people, the only good form of protest is peaceful, maybe marching in the designated areas, maybe giving a speech to fellow freaks at some kind of jazz club, but preferably at home. Anything else — anything that smacks of violence, or even without humble acqueisence to the men in the riot gear, pushing back with their truncheons — is beyond the pale of reasonable discourse. This year, after the killings, the desire by the media and all the establishment for absolute calm will be even more severe. We’re too divided and too on edge, and the natural deference toward law and order will be a full-throated scream.

Even anti-Trump Democrats and liberals are hoping for nothing distracting in the streets, nothing to take away from the spectacle of watching Donald Trump become the candidate, hoping that the mere sight of that will jar people into awareness that this is really happening. And I’m in that camp as well. I’m hoping that the focus will be on the surreal nightmare that is the Trump candidacy, and not on juvenile anarchists thinking that smashing up a Starbucks is a counterstrike against Trump, or really against Trumpism (neither, by the way, is the naked woman protest, as the libertine Trump won’t exactly be scandalized. Still, highlighting female autonomy to the GOP is always a good idea).

But then, what is? This is a completely different candidacy than we’ve ever had, one that is explicitly trying to divide the nation into “us vs. them”, with “them” being everyone who isn’t white, Christian, and already a Trump voter. I don’t feel like we have a duty to treat this as politics as normal, to respect the process, and to assume that this convention is, well, conventional. I feel that the media, and the protestors, should do everything they can to highlight the grotesque nature of what is happening, and just how dangerous it is.

To me, I think that means following the letter of the rules, but not the spirit. Don’t bring in any restricted items, and don’t throw down the barricades, but protest everywhere. Make it so that people can’t go anywhere without seeing protestors, being strong and forceful, though not violent. Make every street corner an area for speeches. Make all of Cleveland one big bughouse square. Drown out the lunacy inside Quicken. Hold a mirror to the wild madness inside.

Because, to be clear, the violence that is spreading in America is reflected in the gaping, stupid mouth of Donald Trump. Elections matter, and he’s legitimized the howl. He’s the candidate of the authoritarian right. He’s the candidate of having armed goons and rabbled supporters brutalize anyone who dares question him. He’s the candidate of the truncheon and the flak jacket, of the newly-deputized posse, of the flurry of arms and legs pummeling the prone and terrified outsiders. He’s cranking the wheel on the projector, speeding up this documentary, to where all the images blur together. The people marching in the center of the frame move toward a lockstep while around them the film burns att he edges. It is his carnival, and the only response seems to be just as mad.

There are smart responses to Trumpism, and intelligent, helpful ways to protest this week. There are ways that can make everything worse, and heighten this unbearable tension. There are ways that can empower the candidate of “law and order” (his law, and his order). But when it comes down to it, there are no illegitmate ways to protest this candidacy. Its very existence is already a protest against reason and decency. It’s a savage axe-blow to the heart of the American experiment, and any reaction pouring from that supperating wound is justified.

07.15.16
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Nice, The New Terrorism, And The Limits of Freedom

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Image from NYTimes

As of this writing, no jihadist organization has taken credit for the horrific attacks in France last night, when a petty criminal with no known ties to any group plowed a truck through a mile of death during a celebration of freedom. It doesn’t mark a new chapter in terrorism, but it does make everyone aware that we are firmly in that chapter, that the pages have turned around us, and we’re stuck in a new plot.

My initial instinct is that this will be the plot of a small, independent cell, possibly with some training behind them, but more than likely not. If it wasn’t coordinated with any central ISIS/Qaeda group (as seems to be the case), it also wasn’t entirely unsophisticated, despite the bluntness of the attack. The right street was picked for maximum efficacy, and the presence of weapons in the truck showed the ability to acquire the tools of war.

All that said, it wasn’t very sophisticated, and indeed was taken right out of the pages of Inspire, as well as a few smaller-scale attacks. This is the new kind of terrorism: as what ISIS actually is changes over the next few months, there will be more of these attacks, both coordinated by the remnants of the caliphate or their affiliates, or from independent groups/actors who might pledge allegiance to ISIS but in an essentially meaningless way, tactically.

That it is meaningless doesn’t really matter, though, especially to the dead. These small cells usually wind up shooting themselves in the ass, but they can sometimes be successful, especially if they keep things very simple. One of the main dangers, as I see it, is that as ISIS starts to create a vacuum, there will be more room for a) affiliated terrorist organizations to try to take the leadership mantle with coordinated, large-scale attacks; and b) unaffiliated-but-inspired groups to try to step up with attacks like these, which can be large-scale by dint of simplicity and luck.

The former can potentially be slowed down (if not stopped) by intelligence, and also luck. The latter might not be as spectacularly successful, but they can be extremely dangerous, and potentially do more to unravel the fabric of free society than larger groups. It makes everyone with a grudge, some sociopathic tendencies, and the “right” sort of inspiration (jihad, rather than The Matrix or whatever), a potential terrorist.

The problem is that a free society won’t really be able to stop these attacks until the fervor of jihad runs its course, which it will, at some point, though possibly not in the lifetime of anyone reading this. As the Middle East convulses, and as Europe tries to handle the expansion of superstates, the reaction of nationalists, and the influx of the stateless, emotions and politics on personal and international levels will be subject to huge changes and dangerous trends. We’re at the beginning of it now. The end is nowhere in sight.

The key is not to give up on the idea of a free society. Bastille Day was the right day to pick for this, for maximum symbolism. It is a celebration of freedom. Of course, the French Revolution became a horrible Goya flipbook of bloodlust and revenge, and ended in Empire, but through fits and starts, it became France. It has its problems with assimilation, but has strong democratic values.

As a free society, that’s the sort of timeline we have to look at when dealing with the mutating scourge of jihad. One day, it will be history. The question is if we’ll be reading that history in a free society, or if we’ll be looking at it through the gray-barred schoolhouse of a modern police state.

07.13.16
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Ding Ding Ding! Dow, S&P 500 At Record Highs: Economy Totally Great!

Twitter Goes Public On The New York Stock Exchange

The problem with capitalism isn’t so much that it has winners and losers. That’s a problem, of course, but with a strong social safety net, and an eye toward social, economic, and environmental justice, it’s most ill-effects can be negated. That this is more common in the breach than in practice doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

The problem with modern capitalism isn’t even that there is a sector of it controlled entirely by the skittery greed of hyperactive man-children who do nothing but make and lose money by swapping paper. In any society, you can have a clique of gamblers.

No, the problem is that so much of the economy revolves around, and is in fact dominated by, this skittery greed, this reckless gambling, this enormous creative and computative power dedicated toward gaming the system, boosting the fortunes of a small number of shareholders, and powering stock at the cost of any workers. It’s a problem because the markets have a deep impact on the way the economy is perceived, and the way it acts.

Look at right now: the DJIA and S&P 500 are both at record highs, and that’s good. It’s amazing it can happen with an anti-business socialist in the White House, you know? The problem is thinking that this in and of itself is the indicator of a sound or sustainable economy, or a just one.

The soundness is evident by the market fluctuations. A few weeks ago, things seemed bleak, as reactions to Brexit sent the market into panic. But now it has rebounded, or, as CNBC said, “as fears eased over Brexit and Japan signaled more economic stimulus.” Many are crediting the new stability in Great Britain, as Theresa May is today becoming the new Prime Minister.

Now…did the markets think that wouldn’t happen? That they would be without a Prime Minister forever? Conversely, do they think that the worst of Brexit is over, just because they’ve gotten over the initial yips, even though the impact has barely begun? Do they know that a object still exists when it leaves their line of vision?

That’s sort of the point. “Markets were shaken today following turmoil in the Middle East, sun rising in east.”  It’s not the market isn’t reacting to real things. It is (oil prices, company losses, etc). It’s that it is reacting often insanely, with short-term thinking, and in a way that impacts the broader economy. The problem isn’t that the market reacts; it is that we react to it.

Our economy is tied up inextricably with gamblers who are concerned with short-term profit, and so many businesses are geared toward appeasing them. You could lose your job to make a shareholder another buck. If a mouse sprints across the trading floor you could lose your pension. It’s an insane economy, and the more you think about how precarious it is, the more terrifying it gets. I won’t pop champagne to celebrate new highs, but I might drink it to be able to sleep.