Links 5/10/2025

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166 comments

1. SPK May 9, 2025 at 12:50 pm

   This is slightly off topic, and for that I’m sorry, but what does “resilc” mean? It drives me crazy that I don’t know.

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   1. Omicron May 9, 2025 at 12:53 pm

      I’ve had the same problem for years, and didn’t dare ask….

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      1. amfortas the hippie May 9, 2025 at 1:00 pm

         i think Resilc is a mostly non-commenting lurker who helps aggregate a lot of the links we see around here.
         as for what the term designates…well..i have no idea.

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         1. Neutrino May 10, 2025 at 9:44 am

            Really Excited Since I Last Commented? ;)

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            1. Revenant May 10, 2025 at 10:12 am

               I always wondered about
               RES Ipso Loquitur C???
               Commenter, contributor?

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      2. RJCvn May 9, 2025 at 1:06 pm

         I assumed it was the nickname of a regular poster.

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   2. vao May 9, 2025 at 1:00 pm

      This is the pseudonym of a links contributor.

      Yes, I also wondered for a long time what “silc” was an abbreviation for (re silc?)

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      1. SPK May 9, 2025 at 1:09 pm

         Ah… Thanks!

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   3. mahna May 10, 2025 at 9:59 am

      It’s like “guurst”, but different.

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      1. Sokratis Ioannidis May 10, 2025 at 10:16 pm

         It’s so guurst to even think to give ’em an explanation!

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   4. Jeff W May 10, 2025 at 3:32 pm

      The more enduring mystery for me for quite a long time was how, exactly, that pseudonym was to be styled—was it rešilc, reŠilc, Re Silc, re silc, or even re silC or re SilC? (the last two being found in the same collection of links)—assuming, of course, that all those variants referred to the same commenter. I always rather liked the s with a caron version (rešilc) which gave the name a Slavic or Baltic air (and seemed very unlikely to be an accident). There is a house style—which I assume is simply resilc, only because that’s the one used by Yves—which now appears to be followed more consistently.

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2. none May 9, 2025 at 12:56 pm

   https://blog.adafruit.com/2025/05/08/high-tariffs-become-real-with-our-first-36k-bill/

   Small online electronics shop gets a $36K tariff bill for stuff from China, quite a bit above the cost of the merchandise itself. Makes the interesting point that:

   We’re no stranger to tariff bills, although they have definitely ramped up over the last two months. However, this is our first ‘big bill’, where a large portion was subjected to a 125%+20%+25% import markup. Unlike other taxes like sales tax where we collect on behalf of the state and then submit it back at the end of the month, or income taxes, where we only pay if we are profitable, tariff taxes are paid before we sell any of the products and are due within a week of receipt which has a big impact on cash flow…. And the products were booked & manufactured many months ago, before the tariffs were in place.

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3. amfortas the hippie May 9, 2025 at 1:09 pm

   noah’s hagiography of billary is almost exactly the opposite of what ive seen in my time on this earth.
   i cant tell how he’s massaging the numbers, but he must be.
   prior to coming way out here 30 years ago, i was everywhere from houston to the florida panhandle…and the only way for a high school diploma’d guy to make any real money was to work for the oil services industry.
   hell, my own grandad’s small manufacturing outfit(sheet metal and pipefitting—we built everything from the AH brewery in houston to the various can plants and box factories) dried up and blew away because of the policies that enabled the Big Boys to relocate the plant elsewhere…effectively rmoving his customer base, since thats who we built things for.
   dear noah,lol.
   has he ever known a poor or near poor person?

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   1. earthling May 9, 2025 at 1:21 pm

      Thanks for piping up. I read that delusional stuff with mouth agape. None of that was my experience in various parts of the country. The quote “lies, damn lies, and statistics” came to mind. Hope no 20-somethings read that and think it’s actual history.

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   2. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 7:33 am

      Maybe they should take Noah Smith and drop him off in the middle of Flint, Michigan for a few hours, for example, and see if what he says tallies with what he sees on the ground. Have a guide point out what use to be open there and what life was like pre-globalization. Who am I kidding? He’ll probably report back that ‘This is fine.’

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   3. CanCyn May 10, 2025 at 7:39 am

      My thanks too for piping up. When I saw the headline, I couldn’t even bring myself to read the article! I appreciate that we need to know both sides to gain better understanding but I really hate Noah Smith – my poster boy for useless economists

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      1. John Wright May 10, 2025 at 12:05 pm

         I looked at Smith’s Wikipedia page and saw that his degrees are in physics and econ.

         Per the page, he was asked to replace Paul Krugman at the Times, so the Times must like his content.

         I have read some of his content over the years and got the impression that he was auditioning for better things at a well paid think tank or foundation, but his (apparent) turning down of the Times offer undercuts this somewhat.

         But I find more economic wisdom in historians such as Walter Scheidel and Timothy Morgan than in traditional media promoted economists and their worship of GDP.

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   4. Taurus May 10, 2025 at 8:26 am

      First sleigh of hand is in the graph under the subheading “America is not actually that globalized”. It is Export of Goods AND SERVICES. He mostly discusses manufacturing in his piece but cannot resist to reach out and lump them together.

      Services is what balances the hollowed out manufacturing and seemingly supports the thesis that America produces so much more at home. If you pull on this thread, you would realize that while the services are very large nominally, they do not require nearly as many people AND – perhaps with the exception of tech – are so highly stratified as to put the majority working there at very modest wages. Think bank tellers, insurance adjustment clerks, adjunct faculty – the bottom of the human service pyramid.

      point is, while it may be true that numerically some of the manufacturing jobs were replaced by service jobs, the majority of these service jobs pay very low wages. The hollowing of the middle class is therefore expressed better in the distribution of wages across the income scale.

      But what takes the cake, is his other graph showing that median wages have risen 50 % since 1970…

      However, “$1 in 1970 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $8.24 today, an increase of $7.24 over 55 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 3.91% per year between 1970 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 724.22%.”

      In other words, median wages have not kept with inflation by a solid order of magnitude. If that doesn’t say “hollowed out middle class”, i don’t know what does.

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      1. TomDority May 10, 2025 at 9:21 am

         Thanks for pointing out this – Noah’s knowing deceptive illusions – I mean for F sake …50% over 55 years as some great thing –
         I believe Klein is pushing the – less regulation around building codes would lower the cost of housing BS to solve the affordability crisis in housing – prices for housing are 1,011.79% higher in 2025 versus 1967.
         It just an onslaught of economic puffery…
         I just dismiss anybody who mentions free-market a real thing – just another PR man.

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         1. jsn May 10, 2025 at 4:32 pm

            Yeah, like if we got rid of insulated glass, thermally broken window frames and other structural assemblies, didn’t insulate and didn’t require designing for wind, fire or seismic, and now that we’re comfortable again with all kinds of workplace injuries (and why not deaths), buildings could be affordable again if we just trusted contractors to build quality. If we didn’t require independent third party inspections, we could have periodic collapses like we did in the good old days. And sprinklers and vented plumbing, who needs that.

            I first encountered Noah Smith when he was a grad student at Stonybrook. I guess he couldn’t get a job a Renaissance Technologies (started out of the Physics Department there) so set his sights on pundit asshattery. His early blog was interesting and he debated the likes of Freddy DeBoer and J W Mason at John Jay, then he had a bit of a nervous breakdown, met Ezra Kline and joined the Matrix.

            It was a pity to watch what had been a fresh and earnest voice normalize into the Blob.

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   5. Neutrino May 10, 2025 at 9:52 am

      Recent high school grads could do worse than going into a trade. Electricians can make pretty good money and there will always be a need. Firefighting is another sought-after job, if you can get past the local hurdles and preferences. Plumbing and HVAC are attractive, although the latter are said to have been rolled up or conglomerateds by the usual PE suspects, along with niches like garage door and water heater services.

      Overall, think local service that is harder to outsource or offshore, beyond the typical haircut or barista example. And save on that college tuition and debt.

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      1. Neutrino May 10, 2025 at 9:57 am

         p.s., some Angelenos tell me that Hollywood is undergoing some big shakeups. Studios have very little in the production pipeline, and some are banding together to open new facilities in Nevada to escape the local unions.

         If that doesn’t get Newsom’s attention, what will?

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         1. Wukchumni May 10, 2025 at 10:02 am

            Not only the stars lived in tony Pacific Palisades, but all of the people that made tinseltown turn out the finished product.

            …a Hollywood ending

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      2. Terry Flynn May 10, 2025 at 10:59 am

         Richard Murphy said recently there is a crisis in universities here in UK. Agreed. But it’s not the one he thinks. Nottingham does NOT need two universities. It needs one (properly audited *ahem*) with key courses from both kept and rest of the useless degrees closed down and people redirected into vocational other jobs with proper pay and benefits, which should be valued by us as society.

         I taught med students back in 1998. That group were definitely IMNSHO surplus to requirements due to innumeracy and illiteracy and just “learning for the exam” rather than learning general principles. The explosion in universities was the first phase in virtue signalling. Quit with that rubbish and value both genuine academics and manufacturers like my dad who can instantly do calculation relevant to their jobs in their head and don’t have to ask ChatGPT.

         We are running quickly towards Idiocracy. YouTube is concentrating on the coming supply crunch to the USA but meanwhile in Nottinghamshire that Reform victory is already looking shaky. One newly elected councillor resigned within a week and two more are alleged to be under investigation. Turns out governing is more difficult than shouting Reform/MAGA buzzwords.

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   6. ambrit May 10, 2025 at 10:23 am

      I am in complete agreement with you. I have also lived through the “event” that Noah claims didn’t happen. From my worm’s eye vantage point, I can say that the ‘good’ lower middle class construction jobs have not so much “carried on briskly,” as have been, here in the North American Deep South, re-populated by immigrants, many from Down South (of the Americas,) who have fulfilled their traditional roles by driving down wages. Without strong Unions and or pro national Governmental regulations, employers will generally engage in a “wage race to the bottom.” Immigrant labourers, even skilled ones, are used to lower wages, because the standard of living where they originate from is significantly lower than that previously applying to the United States. Many know this and compensate through also traditional social practices like shared accommodations and living expenses. The result of this is that the foreign workers often import their lower standard of living into the American region that they are working in. Then everyone local at their level of socio economic status begins to drift downwards in their standard of living. The amount of money available to live on for this group is reduced as a percentage of the whole economy. The owners and managers reap the excess.
      Question: Is an economy “doing well” if the available wealth in it is massively skewed to the high side of the socio economic distribution? Roughly the same amount of wealth, perhaps even more wealth, but now the rich are obscenely wealthy, and the lower classes are barely scraping by, and even falling into outright poverty. Remember that, due to inflation, the upper border of what constitutes “poverty” continuously creeps upwards. In the “good old days,” one could be uncomfortably “poor” on, let us say, $10,000 USD a year. Today, one needs, for argument’s sake, $15,000 USD the year to be virtuously “poor.” The price of living has risen while the standard of living drops.
      The so called “middle class?” One fact to demonstrate why this canard will not fly. The price of housing in America. One measure of having made it into the “middle class” has traditionally been home ownership. As many commentors here have remarked on many threads, the prices of houses in America have soared much faster than median wages have grown. The proof of this is people working full time but having to live in their cars because they cannot afford to rent, much less buy, a dwelling close to where their employment is situated. I have seen this myself, even here in the Rancid Underbelly of the North American Deep South.
      I’ll take a guess here and suggest that, as Noah states, the Middle Class is not shrinking, the definition of it has been “refined.” I suspect that the old fashioned economics profession tactic of moving the goalposts is in play.
      So, I’ll end by saying that I will take Noah’s thesis with a metric ton of gourmet Himalayan Pink salt.

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   7. Maxwell Johnston May 10, 2025 at 12:57 pm

      Many thanks to all previous commenters (both above and below) for shredding Noah’s contribution to public discourse. Saved me a lot of time.

      I would only add that:

      “Americans, as a people, are startlingly rich” — Oh, please, gag me with a spoon. Even Russians enjoy free public health care, free high-quality public education (including university assuming one’s test scores are sufficient), outstanding public transportation (free for children and pensioners), an excellent national train network, etc. And all of this at tax rates lower than even what relatively lightly-taxed Yankees pay. Noah can take his ‘Median Disposable Household Income, Including In-Kind Transfers’ and stick them where the sun don’t shine. Noah needs to get out more and talk with actual human beings.

      Oh, and he actually quotes Jason Furman (yeah, Barry O’s key economic advisor) approvingly. Gag me with another spoon.

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   8. eg May 10, 2025 at 10:25 pm

      Noah Smith is the absolute worst hack apologist for eternal submission to neoliberalism that I have ever had the misfortune to endure. His imperviousness to any acknowledgment of the socioeconomic ills of maldistribution is adamantine.

      He is simply intolerable.

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4. AG May 9, 2025 at 1:21 pm

   re: DEI vs. Trump and “2025”

   SCHEERPOST

   Demolition of DEI: Is It Working?
   By Jim Mamer
   https://scheerpost.com/2025/05/08/demolition-of-dei-is-it-working/

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   1. Christopher Smith May 10, 2025 at 9:51 am

      What utter nonsense. Mr. Marmer is pulling the obnoxious rhetorical move of talking about how teaching kids about the history of slavery and affirmative action programs in the workplace are DEI, while not mentioning (either through ignorance or bad faith) that what most people dislike about DEI is DiAngelo/Kendi ideology and the struggle sessions that nonbelievers are subjected to in the schools and workplace. It’s a classic use of the motte and bailey fallacy.

      Nowhere addressed in Mr. Marmer’s piece is the fear of students, documented by FIRE. THAT is what people are talking about when they complain about DEI, not teaching slavery.

      Prior to DiAngelo and Kendi, we had a stable consensus, America should be a colorblind society (one could argue about a far along we were to actually achieving it). Racial preferences are evil, but some affirmative action practices are a necessary evil to achieve a colorblind society. DiAngelo, Kendi, and their disciples declared that this consensus was racist, and here we are.

      Let me know when Mr. Marmer wants to address the real issue – DiAnglelo/Kendi ideology – and I’ll give him a read. Right now, he is completely off topic.

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      1. AG May 10, 2025 at 1:25 pm

         I have given up to try to understand what is going on in the States in this regard in the bigger picture.
         I have enough to deal with the DEI issue in my job.
         It´s totally depending who I work with.
         “Insane”, a word my American colleagues like to say to such matters.
         And when projects depend on not being too politically controversial in communication you are not saying anything unfit. The self-censorship is gigantic. Completely depending on the counterparts.
         But of course, DEI being the dominant elite talking point you have a bit more freedom criticizing it with those who are critical of it. Than in the opposite case.
         But the hot topic buttons are seamlessly put into the communications board. Whoever your partners. You will always find some issue you will just not address. Issues the media talk about incessently.

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5. Tommy S May 9, 2025 at 1:38 pm

   Whew. that Noah Smith article, I wouldn’t know where to start. I’ve not seen, nor read, anything of sort, for the past 30 years. So all ‘left wing’ bias and confirmation bias when I read? For 30 years? I guess Im dumb. but would like to see actual ‘worker wages’ not household, not median household, per person of the bottom 1/3. And compare that with inflation of all real costs (rent, healthcare, college, care repair, etc)….. since the 90’s. Which I know NC has done over and over …these years….. I assume this was just a post to see what ‘the other side thinks’?

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   1. TiPs May 10, 2025 at 7:16 am

      I was about to click on the article because of the headline, but then I saw who wrote it and knew it would be a waste of time…

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   2. Arby May 10, 2025 at 7:40 am

      For the most part of 30 years, a clear majority of every other demographic of the American public has felt that the country is on the wrong track while white, well educated, higher income have mostly felt things are going swimmingly. The Noah Smith piece fits with the determined obfuscation of decades of policy failure to lift all boats by those privileged sitting on the yachts sipping champagne watching those clinging to rafts drown.

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   3. Bugs May 10, 2025 at 8:44 am

      The hooray Henrys in the comments give me the conniptions. I couldn’t close that tab fast enough. If it’s my confirmation bias, so be it; but I think that it’s just the insane mess of poor x y axis choices there that bothers me most. My statistics prof would have flunked him.

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   4. Christopher Smith May 10, 2025 at 9:54 am

      I know where to start and end on that article: elite gaslighting. The system is not working for anyone below upper-middle class status. And the upper middle class might want to worry since the Oligarchs are dying to replace them with AI. I am not sure how much more quality Noah delivers for price than a Noah-trained AI would.

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      1. chris May 10, 2025 at 11:28 am

         The upper middle class is in trouble due to the wealthy accelerating the price of assets away from their financial reach. Good colleges for the kids cost a lot even if you make a lot. Retirement and Healthcare are obnoxiously expensive. Food, repairs, energy, all massively inflated over the recent period. We’ll see the Road to Wigan Pier play out in the US soon enough.

         Right now you see a lot of families who know they should be supporting their kid’s ambitions to be on the travel soccer trip for the tournament in Italy but they can’t do that and buy a new water heater, and the paint in the living room really needs touched up. Soon it will be: I know I need to have a good looking car when I drive to see clients but I can’t afford that and my kid’s braces and why do I need to buy a new computer every two years to access my citizen benefits?

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   5. jsn May 10, 2025 at 4:44 pm

      Upthread, Taurus nailed it:

      “Wages have risen 50 % since 1970…

      However, “$1 in 1970 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $8.24 today, an increase of $7.24 over 55 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 3.91% per year between 1970 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 724.22%.”

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      1. Wukchumni May 10, 2025 at 4:52 pm

         1970 was a seminal moment in terms of full sized candy bars going from a Nickel to a Dime, making it more costly to rot your teeth out, kid!

         My older sister confessed to enjoying Hershey’s milk chocolate bars, and her heresy was duly noted. Probably eats Underwood deviled ham* too.

         They are now a buck fifty a bar, 15x the price 55 years ago.

         * oddly enough for a canned food product, it comes gift wrapped in festive paper, just add a holiday bow, and your ready to go at the Xmas gift exchange

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         1. steppenwolf fetchit May 12, 2025 at 7:05 pm

            I remember Underwood deviled ham from my childhood. I remember it had a little red devil holding a pitchfork on it. So I looked up its present day images to see if it still does, and it still does.
            https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrErUVTfiJo8gIAk2lXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=underwood+deviled+ham+logo+images&fr=sfp

            Maybe I should buy and eat a can of it just to satisfy my long-dormant and long-unremembered nostalgia for it. If it tastes the same as I remember, then that is one product which has not been crapified or enshittified over time. ( WD40 is another).

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            1. Wukchumni May 12, 2025 at 8:30 pm

               …it’s pre-masticated for easier chewing

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      2. sbarrkum May 11, 2025 at 10:37 am

         A much better measure is how much a ounce of gold costs over the years

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   6. eg May 10, 2025 at 10:33 pm

      When even the Rand Corporation admits that wages have abjectly failed to remain connected to productivity increases over the course of the last 50 years, you know that Noah Smith is engaged in a polemic rather than empirical analysis.

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6. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 7:20 am

   “Pay Attention to What Happened in Newark.”

   Newark had yet another radar blackout earlier-

   https://abc7ny.com/post/newark-airport-problems-gottheimer-call-atc-system-reform-cancellations-delays/16365308/

   Pilots coming into this airport are really going to have to be on the ball as regards other traffic in the area while landing. This has happened to Newark several times now.

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   1. jsn May 10, 2025 at 4:46 pm

      What with the traffic from Laguardia, JFK and Teterboro all within 10 miles, no problem.

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7. Ben Panga May 10, 2025 at 7:39 am

   Re: The most dangerous man in America isn’t Trump—it’s Alex Karp

   I have been saying here that Palantir/Thielworld is a bigger danger than Trump since early December.

   I’ll repeat (as nauseum) the question: what happens if/when 80 year old Trump ‘dies in office’. Younger, more focused fascists smoothly take over the infrastructure they are now setting up.

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   1. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 8:14 am

      If Trump falls off his perch, then it will be Vance sworn in as President. Not a confidence builder that. Might be better to go with Chinese Trump-

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErHkv1G3RVE (12:35 mins)

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      1. Carla May 10, 2025 at 8:43 pm

         I read somewhere (maybe here) that DJT’s son and Tucker Carlson both pointed out to the Orange Man that choosing JD Vance as VP would be insurance against assassination attempts by those who are wont to foment them against sitting presidents (CIA anyone?).

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         1. Red Snapper May 11, 2025 at 7:09 am

            I remember reading about Mike Pence being insurance VP. There’s nothing new under the orange sun.

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   2. FreeMarketApologist May 10, 2025 at 8:38 am

      Since we would get JD Vance (and might well get him in the next election as well), the fun question will be who gets to be VP: Musk, Thiel, Karp, Zuckerberg, or some other socially maladapted freak. I should go look at the prediction markets to see who might be leading.

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      1. .human May 10, 2025 at 10:21 am

         We got the unelected Nelson Rockefeller following Agnew’s demise.

         Very informative article re poor vice-presidential choices (or is that redundant?):

         Smithsonsonian

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         1. Neutrino May 10, 2025 at 10:35 am

            Well, it was his turn! /s

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         2. ambrit May 10, 2025 at 10:55 am

            You missed a step.
            When Agnew ‘fell,’ he was replaced by Gerald Ford, then House Minority Leader.
            When Nixon went, Ford ascended to the White House and Rockefeller was appointed Vice President.
            So, curiously enough, from 1974 to 1977, America’s government had both top spots filled by unelected politicos.

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            1. .human May 10, 2025 at 12:38 pm

               Yes! I did neglect to mention that. Rockefeller was VP 41. Agnew 39 and Ford 40.

               I have a friend who used to expound on unelected, filled positions. The best democracy money can buy ™.

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               1. ambrit May 10, 2025 at 6:39 pm

                  “The best democracy money can buy ™.”
                  Yes! Nelson had a lot of it. Plus, there was always that shadowy Trilateral Commission lurking in the wings.

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               2. ex-PFC Chuck May 10, 2025 at 8:53 pm

                  Check your math. Nelson Rockefeller was born in 1908 and Spiro Agnew in 1918.

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                  1. hk May 10, 2025 at 9:01 pm

                     I think that’s 3oth through 41st VPs, not their years of service…

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   3. intmarine May 10, 2025 at 10:56 am

      Well done exposé of Thiel at Unfucking The Republic:
      https://www.unftr.com/episodes/unftr77

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      1. Ben Panga May 10, 2025 at 7:46 pm

         This is a good synopsis of his life, and influence

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      2. Rolf May 11, 2025 at 9:26 pm

         Great piece. Thanks for linking here.

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   4. Kouros May 10, 2025 at 4:18 pm

      I keep readin Alex Krap…

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   5. Mikel May 10, 2025 at 4:48 pm

      Part of the missing piece is making sure there are no other countries that will present a challenge.
      Hard to name one country that isn’t struggling with an economically disgruntled populace with other divisions inflamed.

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8. Deb Schultz May 10, 2025 at 8:04 am

   I too read the Noah Smith post with disbelief. Made me wish Kevin Drum were still alive and posting because although perennially optimistic, he was realistic about charts and bias.

   The stuff in the Noah Smith post about well-paying service jobs taking the place of working at Wendy’s made me wonder who he knows who does that work. Because many of the people I’ve met who are doing this sort of technician, care-giving work are in debt for the education now required for certification and often, this career is their second or third iteration of training and licensing in hope of finding something that doesn’t turn to shit on them.

   And what does the average wealth in comparison to other workers in the world mean if US workers don’t have healthcare, pensions, childcare, clean air and water?

   But even more interesting to me is if this argument is true, why are workers so easily manipulated to fear the “invasion” of illegals coming to steal their jobs? It doesn’t seem to make much sense.

   Why do theorists like Smith and Krugman discount the sentiments of actual Americans who say they feel insecure and less well off and furthermore behave as if they were without power and agency? I’m a bit puzzled by this refusal to see what’s motivating many Americans.

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   1. Taurus May 10, 2025 at 8:39 am

      Deb – the graphs he uses to illustrate his point actually work against him. 50% gain in median wages means an erosion of purchasing power of that median wage by an order of magnitude due to inflation over the same period.

      This is simply not a serious argument.

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   2. neutrino23 May 10, 2025 at 6:43 pm

      +1 for Kevin Drum. RIP

      Reply ↓
9. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 8:12 am

   ‘WW2 The Eastern Front
   @ShoahUkraine
   May 8
   This was probably one of the most emotional scenes of the first Victory Day parades. Veterans of the Red Army, having just survived four years of war, dumped their war trophies; Nazi flags and swastikas; at the foot of Lenin’s Mausoleum, as if to say to each other, ‘We did it, boys!”

   First time I saw that it had such a Roman feel about it. Destroying enemy formations, seizing their standards, and bringing them back to the Capitol to be thrown down to the ground in contempt. For those interested, Mark Felton did an interesting video on the ins and outs of that ceremony and it was not the soldiers of the Red army that did it but troops from the NKVD-

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSXEJ5Ud3Co (10:02 mins)

   And here are those battle standards-

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_standards_at_the_Moscow_Victory_Parade_of_1945

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   1. hk May 11, 2025 at 1:47 am

      Some of the standards do show that either Soviets were being exceptionally and pettily vindictive or didn’t care. (I think the former) Most of the regimental standards, especially of cavalry units, were not those of the Nazi regime, but the old Prussian and, later, Imperial armies, the units that were disbanded in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles. One regiment caught my attention since it shows up twice: the 4th (“Brown”) Hussars, aka the 1st Silesian “Duke of Connaught” Regiment. One standard, from 1888, was probably used during WW1, but it served mostly in the West, IIRC, and likely did not fight the Russians (although what cavalry would have been doing on WW1 Western Front is beyond me). The one from 1813 would have been used when Prussia was Russia’s ally against Napoleon, when the regiment fought alongside Alexander’s army at Leipzig. Its inclusion seems odd unless Russians took issue with the regiment having been part of Napoleon’s Coalition of the Willing in 1812–although Prussians weren’t that willing back then. Given how Russians supposedly vetted the flags, to choose a few hundred among the nearly 1000 they captured, I suspect this was an intentional choice. So Russians hold grudge for a really long time, then?

      Reply ↓
      1. Polar Socialist May 11, 2025 at 5:53 am

         Don’t know how it reflects to your rhetorical question, but in the Soviet movie Bitva za Moskvu (Battle of Moscow) there’s a scene where a Soviet general tasked with forming a defense line arrives at the Borodino museum (turned to his HQ) and is extremely annoyed to find the standards and flags of the Imperial Russian units still there. He immediately gives an order to evacuate those, no matter what.

         As another real life example, there’s an “English Park” in a Finnish city of Kokkola exhibiting a preserved Royal Navy launch. The good citizens captured it during the Crimean War when the Royal Marines attacked city’s tar and plank storage. It’s allegedly the only vessel The Royal Navy has lost to the enemy and never recovered or sunk. And The Royal Navy has tried to buy it back from Kokkola several times.

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         1. hk May 11, 2025 at 3:07 pm

            Interesting. I do know that the Germans evacuated the flags and such from the Tannenberg memorial, but I always thought that was on the account of Germans having been at war with the Russians during World War I and the logic wouldn’t apply to the older history, when the alliances were different. But, I suppose, military glory of hte enemy is military glory of hte enemy and fair game, regardless of whom they were fighting, then?

            Reply ↓
10. AG May 10, 2025 at 8:58 am

    re: Covid Germany vs. mask mandate

    This interview was published today by altern. site NACHDENKSEITEN

    machine-translation

    Corona: “Plausibility was not sufficient to impose a mask requirement for the entire population”
    By Marcus Klöckner
    https://archive.is/oJgRD

    “The RKI suspends scientific work” – under this subheading, habilitated hospital hygienist Ines Kappstein focuses on the Robert Koch Institute in her current book. In an interview with NachDenkSeiten, Kappstein says the agency’s mandate is to “work scientifically,” which is incompatible with “simply making claims for which there is no scientific data.” In the interview, Kappstein describes the basis for her criticism of the RKI and shows how fragile the foundation was on which politicians built a general mask requirement. Her conclusion: “The effectiveness of the mask for its intended use has not been proven. There was no scientific basis whatsoever. Therefore, a mask requirement should not have been imposed.”

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11. stevefromNJ May 10, 2025 at 9:07 am

    It’s a little unnerving to hear the Pakistani General say “If you don’t shoot you get shot” knowing that both sides are nuclear capable.

    Reply ↓
    1. Michaelmas May 10, 2025 at 9:28 am

       The Peacemaker’s on the job —

       India and Pakistan announce ceasefire
       Donald Trump claims credit for agreement after ‘long night of talks’

       https://archive.ph/CYCyE
       https://www.ft.com/content/559ec37b-f048-4e4c-88f7-a5d6bc086632

       What a world, huh?

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       1. Yves Smith Post authorMay 10, 2025 at 9:32 am

          While this is better than the escalation that was underway, we need to see what happens.

          Alistair Crooke has said ceasefires hold for only as long as three weeks. So what comes next?

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          1. Michaelmas May 10, 2025 at 10:08 am

             Quite.

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          2. ChrisFromGA May 10, 2025 at 10:12 am

             Just like the Gaza ceasefire that Trump claimed credit for, it lasted about 3 weeks?

             I’m very skeptical that Trump had anything to do with this, BTW.

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          3. Yves Smith Post authorMay 10, 2025 at 12:14 pm

             I forgot to point out that this was Trump and the UK’s David Lammy taking advantage of Global South leaders being busy going to and hobnobbing at Russia’s Victory Day celebrations. Alexander Mercouris said Pakistan had asked Russia to intermediate with India as a long-standing ally of India. Mercouris speculated that Putin would not want to pressure Modi that way. But regardless, Modi did not go to Moscow and the Collective West jumped into the breech.

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             1. ChrisFromGA May 10, 2025 at 12:56 pm

                That sounds very much like the thinking of fools like Trump and Lammy.

                RT is reporting that the ceasefire may have already fallen apart:

                https://www.rt.com/india/616873-pakistan-operation-kashmir-strikes/

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                1. mrsyk May 10, 2025 at 1:29 pm

                   Heh heh, no kidding. Let’s remember what this is about. India-Pakistan water treaty remains suspended despite ceasefire, sources say, Reuters.
                   Ceasefire favors India who got spanked in the air. Gives them a chance to jig their strategy.
                   China/Russia should step in and sort the water sharing agreement, put an end to this before it goes “tactical”.

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                   1. Mikel May 10, 2025 at 4:56 pm

                      “Ceasefire favors India who got spanked in the air.”
                      It also has to be considered that’s a narrative that gets India to dish out more money for what will be sold as “new and improved” arms or technology.

                      I can hear it now…”Modi, you don’t have enough AI.”

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             2. Terry Flynn May 10, 2025 at 3:31 pm

                FYI Lammy and his ilk are here in heart of red wall regarded as totally out of touch.

                There are 100+ Labour MPs getting very worried that they are gonna be wiped out by Reform in 2029. No govt should be doing THIS badly so soon after an election victory. Sir John Curtice….. our best psephologist…. raised alarm bells for Labour this week.

                Though wishing for Samson figure got us into trouble before, I’m hoping we bury Labour. Gen X are truly fed up and ready to finally do what those younger gens don’t do…..go to the bloody ballot box rather than put out bloody memes.

                I’m SICK of online complaints. Democracy is going to the ballot box and I want it compulsory (with none of the above as option). Plus change the bloody voting system to best-worst. I studiously sat on fence before but now I have decided it’s time to put 18 years of research to the test.

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          4. Mikel May 10, 2025 at 1:27 pm

             Not only that, I’ve noticed that a ceasefire with one conflict seems to mean another conflict will start or escalate elsewhere and all with entangling alliances.
             It’s like war/conflict Whac-A-Mole.

             Nobody wants to attempt a global “ceasefire”, because what would that imply?

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             1. hk May 10, 2025 at 5:06 pm

                That would require some form of peace enforcement force from 3rd countries with unlmited rights to monitor and where necesszary enforce them for them to work–or some other, analogous enforcement mechanism. Without such mechanisms, no ceasefire can work beyond a few days, methinks. It is important, in particular, that ALL parties to conflict should be subject to such enforcement–which, in the case of Middle East, Israel would have to be subject to such peace enforcement regime, in case of Europe, it would require non-European/non-North American troops occupy France, UK, Germany, and Poland (and possibly, Canada and US, too) to ensure compliance.

                It does make me wonder about what all these ceasefire proposals, without any enforcement mechanism would add up to. It’s always the case of “you cease fire, while we keep shooting.” The perfect retort to this, I wonder, should be, “alright, we accept your ceasefire proposal, but we require that Israel be occupied by a Turkish force, Germany by a Chinese force, France by a Vietnamese force, and UK by an Indian force, etc, to ensure their compliance, Rambouillet style.”

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          5. Kouros May 10, 2025 at 4:21 pm

             Depends if that water treaty is reinstated or not.

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       2. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 9:36 am

          Looks like both countries went to the edge of the abyss, looked over the edge, both said ‘Nope!’ and walked their way back. Lots of people on both sides were itching for a fight but they will have to be satisfied with all those strikes on each other. So did Trump pull it off? Maybe. But he always takes credit for any good thing that happens so now many people will dismiss his present claim based on his past history.

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       3. Randall Flagg May 10, 2025 at 9:38 am

          Trump taking credit,
          It will obviously be the best, biggest, most beautiful greatest ceasefire evahhh!!!
          Until it falls apart and it someone else’s fault.

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    2. Wisker May 10, 2025 at 10:35 am

       To be fair he was referring to aircraft fighting in BVR. It looks like India went up without much of an air defense plan. 20th century tactics against 21st century tactics. Air warfare is uniquely unforgiving of doctrinal sloppiness.

       Western missile technology continues to look like it’s a generation behind Russia (and now China). While Rafales and Meteors are looking like more overpriced European junk.

       If I were the US I’d be looking elsewhere for a long-range air to air missile. If I were India I’d be kicking myself for buying Rafales instead of the Su-57 (assuming India could have convinced Russia to include their longest range missile as China apparently did for Pakistan).

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       1. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 10:50 am

          The Indians must have gone in knowing that their missiles had a much longer range than the export-version of the Chinese missiles that the Pakistani fighters carried. But then found out too late that the Chinese had secretly supplied the Pakistanis with the Chinese air force version of that missile with the much longer range. And that means that Indian airstrikes in Pakistan are out of the question unless they can take out the Pakistani air force out first.

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          1. Wisker May 10, 2025 at 11:38 am

             This is possible and speculated. I don’t think we can exclude the following possibility however:
             -The missiles were standard export PL-15E’s
             -Pakistan did a better job integrating AWACS, data-link, and their J-10’s–their doctrine was better
             -Rafale and Meteor underperformed and/or Indian doctrine overall was inferior*

             FWIW, I see claims that the spent PL-15 found was an E model. By the way, the PL-15 is effectively in the middle range of modern AAMs, with Russia & China fielding very long range models in the 300+km range. No western equivalents. Meanwhile the F-35 is still waiting to be certified with the mid-range Meteor.

             * I predict you’re going to hear a lot of [bleeping] and moaning about “rules of engagement” restrictions if or when the extent of the IAF’s humiliation becomes clear. For now, I’m with you and I hope this is all over until the next flare up.

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             1. skippy May 10, 2025 at 7:29 pm

                Yes, export PL-15s range is 145 km at a speed of Mach 5.

                French MICA 60/80 km.

                As you have noted – it seems Paks C&C aided by better airspace information in real time increased air-frame/missile effectiveness. Also if rumor control is correct with the Indian boss being stood down for not being aggressive enough – its an own goal.

                On an other level in this cray cray market reality … seems a certain Chinese military Mfg’r is experiencing a big increase in its stock price as a result of this fracas …

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       2. hk May 10, 2025 at 5:10 pm

          This is surprising to me since India is not exactly the “usual” consumer only of Western military technology. They are a close ally of Russia and has had close cooperative relationship in weapons development, among other things. So how likely is it that Indians overestimated what the Western weapons could do relative to Eastern bloc gear? Unless, of course, the Chinese have passed even the Russians by quite a lot and are confident enough to share their latest tech with the Pakistanis–who, from the Chinese perspective, would be a rather unreliable ally given the considerable influence US has over its government and military.

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          1. PlutoniumKun May 10, 2025 at 5:50 pm

             The Indians have always been closer to Russia when it comes to weapons procurement. However, there appears to have been a major breakdown in relationships over the past 2 decades or so as a number of joint weapons projects (usually Indian versions of new Russian weapons) ended up in development hell. The purchase of Rafales was more or less a stopgap purchase after the failure of a joint project for an Indian version of the Su-57. The IAF felt that they had a dangerous gap in capability between their Su-30’s for air superiority and their strike aircraft, most of which are very old and not particularly useful against modern defences.

             I think it’s far too early to make any judgements on the performance of weapons. It seems that the Indians have been mostly on the attack, and the targets were well signalled in advance, so any IAF aircraft would have been highly vulnerable to ambush style attacks. For whatever reason, they seem to have thought they could do quick strikes without significant suppression of air defences – probably for political reasons (i.e. not striking Pakistani military bases) The Pakistanis seem to have more or less kept to their own territory and so kept their aircraft our of harms way. So a disproportionate loss ratio for the IAF would be more or less inevitable.

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12. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 9:11 am

    ‘Olga Bazova
    @OlgaBazova
    There are many different traditional Victory Day songs, but this one is by far my personal favorite – “Smuglyanka” from the iconic WWII movie “Only Old Men are Going into Battle”. It’s beautiful and bright. It’s about love. It’s about peace.’

    It’s actually a very simple song based on a folk song. It’s about a boy that falls in love with a beautiful girl who eventually goes to the woods to become a partisan. After a time, he too goes to the woods to become a partisan where he is reunited with her. It is easily recognized in the Russian world-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogqzPbtDFhM (4:06 mins)

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    1. Polar Socialist May 10, 2025 at 11:53 am

       The somewhat hidden symbolism of the song is that it was composed before the war to commemorate certain Grigory Kotovsky, a Bessarabian activist-gangster-communist turned to a Red Army general who was a significant character in the formation of Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

       Kotovsky’s dad was Polish and mother Russian. After they died, he was taken care by his godmother, a Belgian neighbor, and godfather, an Armenian landowner. It seems that many historical figures from this area have both multicultural roots and quite adventurous lives.

       Anyway, since the song was published only in 1944, people assumed it was about the partisans of the current war, not the one fought twenty years earlier.

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       1. Kouros May 10, 2025 at 4:27 pm

          I do have a good high school friend with roots from Basarabia that has a very complex family tree as well.

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    2. Wisker May 10, 2025 at 12:26 pm

       I’m more partial to Soviet Jihad ;^) but to each their own.

       Meanwhile, you can still find troops marching to this 1988 Kino song as recently as the May 8 rehearsal (don’t have the video handy, sorry). They had a lot of bangers in their day. Mildly ironic given the band’s association with Gorbachev-era liberalism.

       Reply ↓
    3. Kouros May 10, 2025 at 4:26 pm

       I love the song. But I don’t see Moldavians from what is now R of Moldova (Basarabia of Principality of Moldova) joining as Moldovan partisans to fight against Romanians/Moldovans from Romania. Maybe a Moldovanka from Odessa. Maybe. The song is ahistoric, like the Moldovan language.

       On top of that most of Moldovan peasants from MSSR were colectivized by Stalin, which didn’t hapen with Moldovans from Romania until after the war.

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13. Wukchumni May 10, 2025 at 9:29 am

    The first of 2 pivotal moments yesterday with VE Day, as it marked the end of the fourth turning, and the way it works on the surrender front…

    1865: Appomattox
    1945: Germany
    2025: USA?

    The other moment comes in August, nobody wants to open Pandoras Box again, but shift happens.

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    1. ChrisFromGA May 10, 2025 at 9:43 am

       We’re off to a good start, we surrendered to the Houthis this week.

       Russia got next?

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       1. Wukchumni May 10, 2025 at 9:59 am

          Saw 3 kinds of monkeys in the Peruvian jungle, and we most resemble the Howler Monkey, which makes an ominous sound that could double as a soundtrack in a horror film. Didn’t see any surrender monkeys.

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14. Henry Moon Pie May 10, 2025 at 9:38 am

    Re: breaching 1.5 and geoengineering–

    What follows is a brief passage from Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael. Written in the 90s, the book anticipates what will become an ever crazier and stupider effort to geoengineer the Earth so that we can continue with Happy Motoring, the middle class dream and giant pickups for a while longer.

    Ishmael is mostly in dialogue form between an enlightened individual and a typical Modern, moreover an American Boomer who “started out so young and strong, only to surrender.” The enlightened party to the conversation is trying to get the Modern to understand what lies at the heart of the Modern’s worldview. I’ve modified the text slightly by connecting each statement of the dialogue with the speaker’s name for the sake of clarity:

    (An important bit of context: “the gods” doesn’t refer to Zeus or YHWH but to the laws of physics, evolution, etc. and perhaps the Tao, Ground of Being, etc.)

    Enlightened: So your lives are now in your own hands?

    Modern: That’s right.

    Enlightened: Then what are you all so worried about?

    Modern: What do you mean?

    Enlightened: If your life is in your own hands, then it’s entirely up to you whether you go on living or become extinct. That’s what this expression means, isn’t it.

    Modern: Yes, but there are obviously some things that aren’t entirely in our hands. We wouldn’t be able to control or survive a total ecological collapse.

    Enlightened: So you’re not safe yet. When will you finally be safe?

    Modern: When we’ve taken the whole world out of the hands of the gods.

    Enlightened: When the whole world is in your own, more competent hands?

    Modern: That’s right. Then the gods will no longer have power over us. Then the gods will no longer have power over anything. All that power will be in our hands and we’ll be free at last.

    If this little dialogue doesn’t describe Nature-hater Bill Gates to a tee with his robot bees, Frankenplants than can withstand the tons of pesticides poured on fields, and finally shooting sulfur in the sky every two years, I don’t know what does. And most of his billionaire brothers (and they’re overwhelmingly male) are the same.

    As foolish, even suicidal as our societies have behaved over the last 50 years with respect to planetary boundaries, we ain’t seen nothing yet as long as these rich egomaniacs are in control.

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15. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 9:52 am

    “New German chancellor tells US to ‘stay out’ of Berlin’s affairs”

    Merz trying to be a tough guy here while he tries to work out a way to ban the AfD. But as the guys at The Duran pointed out, he failed to be elected to Chancellor in the first vote which has never happened in German politics and he has had to make a deal with Die Linke to get the votes to be elected-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4-gp79W2QY (12:52 mins)

    So I begin myself to wonder if he will still be Chancellor by this time next year.

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    1. AG May 10, 2025 at 10:17 am

       Ihis is German only but you can C&P into google. The stats are easy to understand:
       elite weekly DIE ZEIT on this issue
       Not by chance the headline:

       It was close in the past, too.
       No candidate for chancellor has ever lost the first round. However, a look at previous elections shows that some of Friedrich Merz’s predecessors also had to tremble.
       https://archive.is/IfRRW

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    2. hk May 10, 2025 at 6:49 pm

       We cam start by cutting all military cooperation with the Germans, withdrawing all our forces from Europe, and formally declare that US will not come to Germany’s aid if they are at war against Russia..

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16. Carolinian May 10, 2025 at 10:12 am

    Re The Limitations of Partisan Politics–a long article that deems a lot of explanation necessary to come to the conclusion that the symbolic humanists of the Democratic party, and the PMC who support them, are passive and ineffective actors as long as their own generous sized rice bowls remain filled. Actually the article doesn’t get into rice bowls but probably should. If academia’s response to bullying has seemed more timid than before it could because the stakes for them, and the similar “symbolic” profession of journalism, are much higher. According to one source Rachel Maddow makes 8 million dollars a year for those yarn diagrams. Top Ivy professors also do quite well and are supported by those billion dollar endowments. What the article fails to acknowledge is that if a class war is the reality of modern America then academia is batting for the wrong team assuming their “liberalism” is anything more than symbolic. They’ve been bought off.

    In truth it’s the rest of us who should be objecting because Trump’s cynical attack on academic freedom means that we are next. Personally I don’t think he will get very far with this because Americans in general likely care more about their freedom than those in the Ivory Tower. What institutions like Harvard do have though are lots of lawyers and legal talent to throw up roadblocks. More power to them.

    Reply ↓
    1. Henry Moon Pie May 10, 2025 at 12:36 pm

       I wouldn’t be too sure about Harvard’s lawyers. A few years ago, students began an effort to strip the Sackler name off two Harvard buildings, including one of the university’s three art museums. The response was to offload the decision to a committee long on administrators and short on faculty and students. Predictably, the committee devised some tenuous reasons to keep the name, the validity of which you can judge for yourself by checking out this Crimson article.

       The reason not mentioned by the committee is brought out in the Crimson article and contrasted with two other institutions who found themselves with the Sackler name on the wall somewhere:

       And even if the committee had deemed activists’ arguments credible, the University might have hit a legal barrier to denaming: the gift agreement that bound Harvard to certain conditions when it accepted Sackler’s 1982 donation.

       In considering the denaming proposal, the committee instead “decided not to assume that the gift agreement completely forecloses the possibility of denaming” due to “broad community interest,” the severity of the opioid crisis, and “interpretive issues” in the gift agreement, which is not publicly available.

       Harvard’s decision stands in contrast to Tufts’ 2019 decision to strip the Sackler name entirely from its campus programs and facilities, including the Arthur M. Sackler Center for Medical Education. The Metropolitan Museum of Art also removed the Sackler name from seven exhibition spaces but retained its Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.

       I’m just speculating here, but is it possible that these different outcomes, even within the the namings in a single institution like the MMA, are due primarily to how well the Sackler lawyers did against the institution’s lawyers in negotiating the terms of each gift?

       And it’s hard to do more than speculate since the Crimson article points out that Harvard has not released the gift agreement. It’s also interesting that Harvard kept the names of this committee secret until the decision had been made, probably because it would have made the eventual decision apparent from the start.

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       1. Yves Smith Post authorMay 10, 2025 at 1:34 pm

          Harvard, like any organization of size, has many law firms it uses.

          The issue you mention is not likely to have gone to outside counsel but have been (at most!) run by in-house counsel, which would have been under pressure to rationalize whatever the committee wanted to do.

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17. AG May 10, 2025 at 10:13 am

    re: Hollywood/Europe DEI vs. Trump

    Is Europe the Last Bastion of DEI in Film and TV?
    European producers are pushing back on Trump’s crackdown on diversity initiatives: “We have no lessons to learn from the boss of America.”
    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/europe-dei-producers-film-tv-1236212010/

    Reply ↓
    1. Carolinian May 10, 2025 at 11:22 am

       From your link

       “A lot of people, especially the bosses, haven’t haven’t accepted the idea that you need a diverse cast, a diverse pool of talent to represent everyone in society,” notes one German producer. “DEI was an American idea, essentially, that got transplanted here,” agues a French director. “It can still be torn out.”

       It seems odd that Europe feels the need to defend DEI when this is the place that black Americans once went to find equality. Are they claiming to not be culturally captured by still being culturally captured? Hollywood justified the practice by pointing to it’s undeniably racist past.

       As for Trump, he needs to dial back the “running the world” disease that he inherited from Biden. He’s making a mess of merely running America, much less the rest of the planet..

       Reply ↓
       1. Mikel May 10, 2025 at 12:44 pm

          “It seems odd that Europe feels the need to defend DEI when this is the place that black Americans once went to find equality.”

          Appreciation and equality aren’t exactly the same thing.

          Reply ↓
          1. AG May 10, 2025 at 1:31 pm

             “Appreciation and equality aren’t exactly the same thing”
             👍

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          2. Carolinian May 10, 2025 at 1:40 pm

             Perhaps it depends on which Europeans. I’ve seen a French Josephine Baker film from the 30s that was definitely a bit patronizing.

             But postwar American jazz musicians were treated as heroes. Meanwhile in America Dave Brubeck had to sometimes argue accommodations for his black bassist Gene Wright.

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             1. Pearl Rangefinder May 10, 2025 at 5:30 pm

                Thank you for bringing up Josephine Baker, a truly remarkable woman who exemplifies your earlier remark about Europe being the place black Americans went to once upon a time. Or at least, France, which was the epitome of high culture.

                Josephine Baker

                There is a memorable anecdote about Baker’s sea voyage in the 1930s on the SS Normandie from the book “Lost Liners: From the Titanic to the Andrea Doria” by Robert Ballard which captures some of the difference in attitudes between French and American high society of the time. From page 162:

                Over the course of the Normandie’s short life, the dining room would be the setting for its share of high-society dramas. In October 1935, for example, Josephine Baker, the African-American star of Paris’s Folies Bergère, was returning to America to appear in a new rendition of The Ziegfeld Follies. For the first few evenings, seasickness kept her in her deluxe suite, but she roused herself when she discovered there was another star on board, the almost equally famous Billie Burke, who happened to be Ziegfeld’s widow. Miss Baker sent Miss Burke an invitation to join her for dinner, which, apparently, was accepted. When Baker appeared at the top of the staircase, sheathed in a sheer, pale yellow gown by Erté, the entire dining room gave her a standing ovation. But Billie Burke upstaged her, making her own grand entrance, then approaching Baker’s table only to flash her a look of withering scorn, before passing on without saying a word. Miss Baker ate her meal alone, proceeded to the top of the stair, turned and rewarded the assembly with a radiant smile, which earned her yet another round of applause and surely the last word of the evening, which reportedly was, “I assume she belongs to the black-hating race.”

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             2. Mikel May 10, 2025 at 8:02 pm

                And there’s the more measured assessments from black Americans like James Baldwin.

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       2. AG May 10, 2025 at 1:41 pm

          They think showing pretty, model-like non-white faces in made-up stories lit on sound stages will make the world a better place. There is of course the issue of hiring. So the concept is breaking through material realities of minorities by hiring quotas through DEI. But in how far that is working or just a fig leaf I don´t know. The numbers must be tiny. It already starts with the fact the some minorities are not in entertainment. Which is after all a privileged group..
          They do certainly not understand how complex systems function.
          So that being in favour of destroying Russia which for many entertainment people is a fun topic, will necessitate higher military spending and energy costs which will e.g. destroy social security or slush cultural funding and that eventually will weaken those very groups they intend to support via to-the-face campaigns and DEI hiring policies which will never outweigh the harm done in the world outside their own. How many Syrian theatre directors can you hire??? Of course they then argue it´s about representation. But every serious labour unionists or civil rights activist and fighter can tell you straight away that "representation" is bullshit and changes nothing unless it is built upon serious political and economic change. But to achieve latter you need to make your hands dirty and risk you party pool friendships.
          p.s. just recently they said that the insanely rich city of Munich has 100k people who need food banks. Is DEI gonna change that??? Of course not.

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18. pjay May 10, 2025 at 10:20 am

    – ‘The Limitations of Partisan Politics’ – Musa Al-Gharbi (albrt). Today’s must read.

    This is indeed a very good overview and take-down of lib/Dem partisanship. It is well worth reading despite its length. I had a few minor quibbles, including his use of the term ‘symbolic *capitalist*’ to refer to what many NC commenters call the ‘professional managerial class’ (he does provide a link to another long but informative lit review article where he goes into the history of this concept and his reasoning behind it). But very good overall. As a resident of NY state and a retired academic, I appreciated his examples from both of those “liberal” Democratic enclaves. I suspect most NC readers are already aware of most of his points, but it is still useful to see them laid out so thoroughly.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lefty Godot May 10, 2025 at 3:22 pm

       I think a Venn diagram would show great overlap between symbolic capitalists and the professional managerial class, but not an exact match. The PMC still has members who deal with actual physical reality (production of tangible goods and services), while symbolic capitalists by definition are preoccupied by narratives, symbols, analyses, ideologies and other abstractions. As we keep offshoring goods production and cutting services, the overlap gets stronger.

       Reply ↓
    2. hk May 10, 2025 at 7:16 pm

       One way to think about this is to decouple the substantive and “symbolic” dimensions of politics.

       Doing something actually substantive about some matter of policy means having to understand the moving parts and actually delivering the result. If you want to, say, do something to control the cost of health care in US, “defend” Ukraine, or whatever, you need to do make sesne of the underlying moving parts and the required steps needed to actually deliver some meaningful “results” that the people close by can actually see, feel, and appreciate. The problem is that most politicians don’t represent the people who are close enough to appreciate the real moving parts–they are all far away. They know nothing about the actual moving parts. They only know the “headlines.” “Democracy” in this context means having to address the vast majority of people who are clueless about the “substance” but can easily be appeased with delivering merely symbolic results. Yes, ther support will be shallow and fickle, but it doesn’t matter–there are more of them and their votes count as much as those who are actually in the know and care about the details.

       This is acutally an old observation in political science: back in 1920s and 30s, E. E. Schattschneider, who had written about the foundations of party politics (based on analysis of tariff politics) wrote about “fine print” and “headlines”: the actual aggregate % of tariffs don’t matter much, because that affects precisely nobody. The rates on specific goods are the important thing. You buy off people who matter with the “fine prints” about the specifics while you appease the masses with the relatively meaningless “headlines.” This, in a sense, has been the received wisdom about politics for decades thereafter: that the few people who care about things have greater influence on related policymaking than the masses with superficial understanding has been accepted as immutable truth among poli sci types.

       Except this is not necessarily true nowadays. On one hand, yes, it is true that people like DiAngelo and Kendi do care a great deal about DEI and wokiness because they make tons of money off of it. But there is far more than the greed: they really believe, at least in some aspects, in what they are doing and their righteousness, too. What they say, furthermore, appeals to the comfortable people who are faraway from the scene in a highly abstract and “symbolic” manner, based on popular (mis)understandings of history. Note that this is hardly a new phenomenon: this is how a lot of “Romantic” nationalist (and other) myths were borne. People have often untrue or (self-deceptively) half true misinterpretations of history that strokes the national/tribal/caste/group vanities. Grift that appeals to such vanities can go a long way–especially when the grifters themselves believe their own shtick. (See, for example, the fake d’Ubervilles in the Thomad Hardy novel). It used to be that nationalism was the main conduit through which such con took place, but nationalism isn’t the only “abstract and symbolic moral good” that people can buy into.

       Have we learned much about how far cons based on “nationalism”:can go from the events of, say, 1914-18? Well, in the end, nationalistic myths of one kind didn’t suffice to keep empires together, but to claim that they were discredited by 1920 or so would mean ignoring the history of the next 2-3 decades. We didn’t exactly snap out of it after 1945 either: Soviets had a far clearer understanding of the power of symbolic myths in motivating the people, when coupled with real grievances–they forcibly removed millions of people from areas where disputes could arise, and one thing we need to remind ourselves is that we didn’t do enough ethnic cleansing and forced population removals, apparently (deliberate irony, but not really “sarcasm,” I suppose.)

       Of course, it is silly, to come back to the original point, to focus too narrowly on symbolic nationalism–it is not the only source of symbolic “tribalism.” As long as there is some form of symbolic “moralism,” things that people believe to be “moral” without needing an explanation or understanding, among sufficient numbers of “important people,” it can still act as the conduit for scoundrels, especially the believing scoundrels. You don’t need to deliver results–those things will be complicated and expensive. But if you can cheat every one of these “important people” of a dollar apiece while delivering only words and symbols, that’s still a lot of money and, where applicable, votes. So a complete flip of the old poli sci truism: at least on some issues, a lot of people with casual understanding and symbolic preference over such issues outweigh the few who have real stakes. The more “democracy,” furthermore, reinforces this trend–it empowers the people who are distant and unrelated to whatever that happens to override the people who have real stakes, particularly by magnifying the influence of self-righteous hucksters.

       Reply ↓
19. Quintian and Lucius May 10, 2025 at 10:26 am

    Re: “BOOM Chinese tech giant Baidu…”

    I don’t need AI to hallucinate what my cat is saying to me, I can do that perfectly well myself. In fact I believe absurd anthropomorphizing is one of the great joys of owning an animal. One must imagine that this innovation exists to sell to the gullible the idea that they’re actually in meaningful verbal communication with non-verbal organisms and I’m finding these successive models of ostensibly AI-driven grift unbelievably tiresome.

    Similarly exhausting is what seems like a cottage industry on the dead bird app of posting about Chinese tech innovations in the most bombastic language (or sfx in this case) available. There are paranoid interpretations available – that these posts exist to big-horse the Chinese tech industry against the yadda yadda west, or contrarily that there’s some sort of hawkish western interest involved in presenting the Chinese tech golem as something to be feared (particularly with all those robot videos) – but I had my coffee this morning so I think it’s just highly effective engagement farming, even at the level of the SCMP’s original article, the 2020s equivalent of pop-academic news stories about red wine or dark chocolate or having sex 3 times a week or whatever else. At this rate surely a 2 man Shanghai startup will have developed a Jetsons-era flying car by the solstice; look forward to the AI generated video about it.

    Reply ↓
    1. moog May 10, 2025 at 10:52 am

       It’s just run-of-the mill tech-bro junk intended for people that watch too many movies (and want to believe), with a variaton being that tech-bros are Chinese and movie a cartoon.
       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrAIGLkSMls

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20. DougK May 10, 2025 at 10:29 am

    Yves, I have a quotation from Thackeray’s “Irish Sketchbook” that ties in beautifully to your musing about the pigeons enjoying the view from your balcony:

    “Thank Heaven, I have neither tail nor wings, and have not the slightest wish to be a bird: that continual immensity of prospect which stretches beneath those little wings of theirs must deaden their intellects, depend on it. Tomkins and I are not made for the immense; we can enjoy a little at a time, and enjoy that little very much; or if like birds, we are like the ostrich-not that we have fine feathers to our backs, but because we cannot fly. Press us too much, and we become flurried, and run off and bury our heads in the quiet bosom of dear mother earth, and so get rid of the din, and the dazzle, and the shouting.”

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21. Neutrino May 10, 2025 at 10:33 am

    If you have school age children or grandchildren, or just because, here is some good news on the reading and literacy front.

    Reply ↓
22. Michael Fiorillo May 10, 2025 at 10:35 am

    Regarding Wisconsin ginseng, that’s where most of the ginseng in the US is grown, all of it cultivated under tarps, and requiring large amounts of herbicides and fungicides (ginseng is susceptible to phytophera, the fungus that caused the Irish potato famine).

    Cultivated ginseng is the cheapest and least desirable form of ginseng: if you are serious about using it, better to buy wild (supah expensive) or wild-simulated ginseng grown in the forest understory, which is the plant’s natural habitat.

    Ginseng, though associated with Korea and China over millennia, has a storied history in North America: Daniel Boone was a ginseng trader when it was the only product worth shipping by land over the Appalachians: John Jacob Astor financed his real estate empire selling North American ginseng to China. It was an important trade item in the early years of the country, and for generations has been a folk medicine in Appalachia and source of cash in backwoods communities. There’s a Ginseng Mountain in the northern Catskills of Upstate NY, which is prime ginseng-growing country: it seems to thrive growing under mature maples and white pines.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 10:55 am

       I know that what you wrote is all perfectly true but to be honest, at first read it appears to be talking about an alternate timeline America. You just never know what facts are going to turn up in comments so thanks for this one.

       Reply ↓
23. John D May 10, 2025 at 10:51 am

    Why the Democrts are still stuck in the past. An interesting article from Salon”

    https://www.salon.com/2025/05/10/why-the-democrats-are-still-stuck-in-the-past/

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    1. Old Jake May 10, 2025 at 7:19 pm

       Interesting but pointless. Why? There are likely many ways to describe a system and this is one. It describes the D as lacking components the Rs have. But i missed (did I?) any thought as to why they are different, what led the Rs to be more complete and what might alter the Ds to develop such capabilities, or why they may be unable to do so. So we can continue to sit on our hands and whine. Not that I’m innocent of that, though I at least am looking for better. But then I guess Salon has to stay in business somehow, so from this we can get some idea of their target audience, maybe.

       Hmm, I guess I’m feeling especially grouchy today.

       Reply ↓
24. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 10:52 am

    “Democrats fume over Biden’s return to spotlight”

    Old Joe knows that there is still easy money to be made out there for him giving the occasional speech and keeping his face known by appearing on programs like The View. And he is not one to turn down easy money – mostly because the guy has a reputation of being lazy. He still think that he could have beaten Trump and for all I know, perhaps he wants to spearhead the opposition to Trump. As the Democrats appear to be doing nothing much, he may very well succeed.

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    1. Old Jake May 10, 2025 at 7:25 pm

       Old Joe? Or someone pulling the strings? I can’t believe there’s anything happening above the medulla in that body.

       Reply ↓
25. tegnost May 10, 2025 at 11:02 am

    Yascha Mount is a good read and parallels my experience that there is no self reflection going on among the blue partisans. I don’t find much small ball support for the woke policies. It’s nearly impossible imo to defend 5th place boy is now 1st place girl in a one on one conversation, but like noah smith they believe in the holy american global empire and that is a running fence in which there are few or no gaps.

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26. Roger Blakely May 10, 2025 at 11:07 am

    RE: The tour apparently started in [West Coast city] with two of them being robbed at gunpoint.

    Social decay in Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood is no joke. As a local I am not worried. However, a wealthy Chinese tourist would need to be careful.

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27. .Tom May 10, 2025 at 11:19 am

    > The Road Right – Wolfgang Streeck, New Left Review (Robin K)

    Paywall and the usual door openers don’t work.

    Reply ↓
28. KD May 10, 2025 at 11:20 am

    Enjoyed the Noah Smith article, but he seems to miss the point of industrial policy from the national security perspective: industrial production capabilities translate into war production capabilities in ways that highly educated service-based economies do not. This point is evident from the way in which Russia, despite having a GNP the size of Texas supposedly, is still able to outproduce NATO in munitions. Being a highly educated, highly compensated mergers-and-acquisition lawyer in a coastal city is a good gig, and better than being a production worker in a textile mill, but a highly financialized service-based economy is not going to cut it against a production-based economy, especially if the latter also has a lot of highly-educated workers.

    Global trade and economy are great, but what can you do if you cannot protect the shipping lanes or transportation routes that your trade depends upon. The US just lost the Red Sea to the Houthi’s. It is not as if the Houthi’s represent some technologically advanced society or some emerging world power, what they accomplished can be reproduced by others very easily. Trump has the interesting idea of trying to hit up the world for relying on US security and dollarization. The Houthi’s are acting on political motivations, but there is nothing to stop someone from using the same tactics to set up a de facto toll bridge at key logistics points.

    A view one might call “economism”–looking purely at economy to raise GNP or maybe increase the standard of living for the average person–is very prevalent these days. It is very much downstream of the now-past American unipolar moment. It is a fine idea for a past age in which international security was assured for the World Hegemon. We now have a multipolar world, and in that world, even a small group of rebels like the Houthis can play an outsize part if they are clever. This divorce of economy from security was never sustainable.

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29. Tom Stone May 10, 2025 at 11:31 am

    Wisconsin ‘Sang was considered the best in the USA 50 years ago when I was the head Garbler at Fmali herb company, it’s nice to see that it still is.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lightningclap May 10, 2025 at 2:10 pm

       The Fmali herb warehouse is now the site of a huge proposed housing development, basically a dorm for UCSC kids. Just up the street.

       Reply ↓
       1. Tom Stone May 10, 2025 at 4:24 pm

          I’m not surprised, it’s a good location for housing and Ben Zaricor seldom misses a chance to make a $.

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30. Es s Ce Tera May 10, 2025 at 12:02 pm

    re: Adding to Dr. Hirschson’s points: /twittersnip/

    Would the solution to the H5N1 problem be for humans to become vegetarian or vegan? Would this reduce the human caused factors which contribute to (or led to) it?

    Reply ↓
31. Mikel May 10, 2025 at 12:36 pm

    RE: India Pakistan Row

    Rows, SMOs…nobody wants to say the “W” word.

    Trying to untangle and understand alliances is a full-time job.
    Also, I’ve noticed a few observers saying Pakistan is advantaged by having less to lose. But that seems to discount the importance of millions of lives.

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    1. Mass Driver May 10, 2025 at 4:32 pm

       I would not call it a row, nor a war, but a skirmish. That being said, India Pakistan Skirmish sounds a bit like a cricket game that went out of hand, or maybe one of those breakdancing battles that they have on regular basis.
       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXoWNe_HAak

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32. Quintian and Lucius May 10, 2025 at 12:49 pm

    Responding in some length to “The Limitations of Partisan Politics” –

    I appreciate Al-Gharbi’s perspective (and his abstention from the soul-dissolving act of voting in our performance-elections) and hadn’t been familiar with him before this piece, so perhaps my criticism here is too specific to this article and doesn’t fully cover his way of thinking; I’m interested in his book, now. Qualification aside:

    The construction of symbolic capital and symbolic capitalists is an idea I think of by another name, that is American Brahminism (I believe someone’s written about this concept in more depth but the various search engines aren’t helping me find it; I’m mostly getting articles about the Indian tradition proper and cows). This is the construction I prefer because it renders more obvious the caste-system character of American society. Now, in the American model we make overtures to social mobility (and in some cases such mobility does indeed manifest – in both directions; as an indulgent anecdote I must admit as a much younger man I was drawn to the right wing as a rebellion against this caste which was in fact my heritage, fundamentally out of fear that I might fail to perform the expectations of that caste and fall out of it) but fundamentally speaking this caste in particularly is largely impermeable and in any case permanent. That the system functions as caste rather than class is also, I think, beyond argument; a family like mine, largely constructed of scholars and not one of us earning a salary of six digits or more, has rather more in common politically and culturally with the big money New Yorkers (we even sometimes get invited to their parties, aren’t we special!) that are the subject of Al-Gharbi’s piece than with our own distant relations who work what I’ll call real jobs out in the midwest. Class is of course not irrelevant, both systems are functioning in parallel.

    My criticism of Al-Gharbi’s piece, then, is that it seems he is just on the cusp of understanding why symbolic capitalists, Brahmins, etc., fail to practice what they preach – but he doesn’t quite get there. He doesn’t quite admit that the caste itself is the problem. He pivots to blame the Democratic party as an institution – in fact I believe it is more correct to understand the Democratic party as an organ in full capture by the American Brahmin caste. Intermittently the party finds itself intruded upon by some ruder populist sort (of a variable sincerity, see AOC), whereupon it sets out to first marginalize and then integrate these characters into its apparatus. Understood this way it becomes absurd to imagine that the party could possibly serve the American public in its entirety.

    Elite universities are in precisely the same position. Quoting Al-Gharbi here:
    “We need to be more explicit about addressing ways our institutions are not, in fact, representing and serving large swaths of America. However, we also need to be more muscular about pushing back against false narratives, asserting our value to society, and defending our institutions from inappropriate forms of political interference.”
    This idea is simply utopian. It is not in the interest of any of these institutions to serve large swaths of America. These institutions themselves are replicators of the privileges of our Brahmin caste. They’re happy to pat themselves on the back when they elevate some portion of the youth of the lower castes up to their own, but this in no way represents a meaningful societal leveling.

    The only reason an institution like Harvard has to fight back against the present ruling administration is that this administration represents a caste somewhat apart from the Brahmins – something like the American version of the Vaishya caste to clumsily extend the Indian metaphor, but a particularly elite and techy version of it – and this caste seems no longer interested in co-governance with our Brahmins. Harvard’s defense against the administration is simply existential self-interest, the principled objections on the basis of intellectual freedom so much verbal wrapping paper. Indeed, and I think this is critical, Brahminite progressivism is itself little more than a Moscaite political formula for self-justification. It has no real interest in rearranging societal structures which already guarantee its power, and its “resistance” to Trumpworld, zoomed out, is little more than a cold war of succession against a now-ascendant rival elite.

    I’d like to again stress that I feel Al-Gharbi is very close to understanding this, and indeed maybe he does; maybe this is a concept he explores in his book or in other writings. I briefly looked at “actual capitalists” header from his book’s FAQ – which tells me very plainly he’s capable of identifying the caste and its activities. His deficiency is in recognizing and acknowledging the final vacuity of the Brahmin-progressive political formula. He has an optimism, an “I think they really mean it, they just don’t know how to do it (and neither do I incidentally)” about his caste, which is still too rosy by half. The American Brahmin caste has arrogated to itself a tremendous quantity of power and privilege and it cannot possibly serve a truly progressive project without divesting itself of this privilege – which it will never, ever do voluntarily. What privileged caste ever has?

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    1. KD May 10, 2025 at 3:18 pm

       The identification of the Progressive Democrat/Symbolic Capitalist group with the Brahmin Caste is spot on. They are a caste of priests, promising what all priests promise, pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by mystification, while delivering more of the status quo. The entire political program might as well be the means-tested sales of indulgences available on a national electronic exchange.

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    2. Lefty Godot May 10, 2025 at 3:45 pm

       The Brahmin caste in America used to be reliably Republican, of the northeast Rockefeller variant, while the Democrats’ base were the deplorables from the farmer-laborer caste of society. Basically, between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s, the Brahmins flipped over to the Democrat side in large part, both because the Democrats actively solicited their investments in the party and because the Brahmins’ very mild version of cultural and social liberalism was increasingly unwelcome in a Republican party that had moved its geographical base to the South and West and its religious base to evangelical Protestants. But, like confusing symbolic capitalists with the professional managerial class, conflating them with the Brahmin caste is just another source of confusion. Our Brahmins were overwhelmingly mainline Protestant (i.e., not evangelical fundamentalists), but symbolic capitalists have an outsized percentage of Jewish and atheistic thought leaders and spokespeople. Our Brahmins were the Yankees in Oglesby’s Yankee and Cowboy war, and some of them, like the Bush family, saw the writing on the wall and switched sides to be with the winners. You could say that many of the Brahmins are the employers of the PMC and symbolic capitalists, because those two groups are getting a big employee compensation package for their services from somewhere.

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       1. Quintian and Lucius May 10, 2025 at 6:05 pm

          It sounds to me as though you’re conflating class and caste (or just referring to a different and narrower population); I’m intentionally distinguishing the two. My version of the Brahmin caste leans on the formulation of the Indian caste system predicated mostly on the type of work one does – that is to say, the Brahmin caste consists of those who preach, as the Vaishya caste consists of those who peddle. “Preaching” in our America is not the exclusive domain of the clergy per se – we mustn’t ignore the etymological continuity from clergy to “clerical” work, or that the “white collar” we associate with our symbolic capitalists or manager class was originally a priestly article. In any case in my construction a beat writer at a periodical in narrow circulation as much belongs to this caste as the Sulzbergers, and the band is drawn broadly around anyone with a profession that bears a resemblance to “thought leaders and spokespeople”; journalists, ad men, academics, politicians, and so on.

          I want to be clear that members of these professions are not inured against the precarity inherent to capitalism or the oppositional class interests that define most employment. The beat writer or adjunct professor is no less subject to the will of capital than the assembly line worker, but the difference in caste is clear, and I must insist on the idea that both class and caste structures are at all times operating on American life in a deeply meaningful way.

          Lastly your point about mainline Protestant vs Jewish/atheistic – I would actually argue there’s a sense in which these three categories demonstrate the caste I’m positing. East coast Protestantism and Reform Judaism are themselves rather more secular manifestations of their parent religious traditions (and most of the younger people I know from the both are essentially agnostics with a handful of aesthetic practices maintained). Really it seems to me that broadly speaking members of those groups have more in common with one another than they do with the traditionalists of their faiths. Speaking personally again, I have both populations (and some lapsed eastern seaboard Catholics! very ecumenical!) in my extended family, and all representatives aged less than 80 are rather embarrassed by their own traditions.

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          1. Lefty Godot May 10, 2025 at 8:13 pm

             You’re right, I was moving too far from what you wrote and harking back to the “Boston Brahmins” and WASP Aristocracy of my youth (long ago now). Much more of a class based on inherited money and ownership of resources. So your usage of “caste” as based on profession does match al-Gharbi’s symbolic capitalist notion much better than my sense of the term. One of his other articles (I think the one about how symbolic capitalists are more prone to defend deeply held but wrong beliefs than ordinary deplorable joes are) discusses how the symbolic capitalists are demographically far from representative of the general population (one way being that they are far, far less Christian-identified). This splitting of society into opposite camps that don’t resemble each other seems like a prime example of Bateson’s schismogenesis, although it’s unclear to me how greatly it is, in this case, a spontaneous versus engineered phenomenon. And there are plainly right-wing symbolic capitalists (how else would you describe Karl Rove) and they go back at least to the “New York Intellectuals” in the 1960s.

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             1. Quintian and Lucius May 10, 2025 at 9:16 pm

                Quite, I feel by the time I was remotely politically conscious the old Boston Brahmin caste had not disappeared exactly but had certainly receded from clear view; I imagine they still exist prominently in our oligarchy but they’re not nearly the most visible elites any longer.

                It’s absolutely the case that there are right wing Brahmins, Rove is a splendid example. The right wing needs Brahmins just as the left and center do, every ideological flavor needs its scribes and tastemakers, but there’s a sense in which they’re all doing the same work; the right wing versions codify and prescribe (for the proles) the preferences of actual power elites, the leftish versions flatter their consciences (for those of the elite that have any; I think there’s probably a few billionaires out there who read of the goings on in Gaza and actually do feel sick to their stomach…probably) but in any case they’re all reasserting the status quo as regards actual power distribution. What’s most interesting about the right wing Brahmins to me is how they’re obligated by a sort of deceptive populism to engage in hypocritical castigation of their own caste (and yes these words have the same latin derivation, no pun intended).

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                1. Lefty Godot May 11, 2025 at 12:04 am

                   Yes, Barbara Ehrenreich points out in Fear of Falling that much of the rhetoric being vulgarized by Nixon and Agnew against the “pointy-headed intellectuals” that look down on the patriotic Silent Majority was originating in the New York intellectual circles of the anti-Stalinist (former) leftists whose feelings had been hurt by the New Left’s disrespect. All of them in symbolic capitalist professions (magazine editors, tenured professors, foundation scholars, etc.). It was definitely a case of the newly converted right-wing intellectuals pointing at the left-wing ones and crying to the masses, “Look at those snotty intellectuals–over there!”

                   Reply ↓
    3. Kouros May 10, 2025 at 4:42 pm

       Luis Menand – The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America maybe?!

       Reply ↓
       1. Quintian and Lucius May 10, 2025 at 6:08 pm

          That’s not what I was thinking of, although it looks interesting; I think it’s probably dealing with a narrower band of thought than the thing I’m attempting to describe. The American Brahmin idea I’ve definitely read somewhere along on the blogosphere in some form or other.

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33. Jason Boxman May 10, 2025 at 12:58 pm

    Wowzers, it wasn’t just me then. It felt wrong. Too much movement for a truck near my house, just a shake and rumble, and it wasn’t a jet.

    My first thought was honestly, “f*k me, so Indian and Pakistan did start a world nuclear war after all”.

    4.1 magnitude earthquake shakes parts of Tennessee, western NC: Officials

    I thought I was done. Waited for death, but after a few more seconds, seemed clear whatever it was, it wasn’t a nuclear detonation. Also the power was still working, which I expected to be gone immediately.

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisFromGA May 10, 2025 at 2:56 pm

       T’was a nothing-burger around here, except the neighbors claimed they felt something, right around the time I was driving back from a morning workout.

       It did kick off a storm on social media, however.

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34. antidlc May 10, 2025 at 2:03 pm

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/british-airways-flight-caught-fire-151541434.html
    British Airways flight caught fire after pilot mixed up left and right

    A British Airways flight caught fire after a pilot mixed up left and right during take-off, a report has revealed.

    The co-pilot aboard flight BA2279 to Vancouver pulled back with his left hand during take-off when he should have done so with his right.

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35. jo6pac May 10, 2025 at 3:08 pm

    This might lead to good news in Calli if the govt. can do the right thing.

    https://calmatters.org/justice/2025/05/inmate-firefighters/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqEAgAKgcICjCbvYILMJ-8_wIwvdXiAw&utm_content=rundown

    I’m waiting for the property manager to find a well repair company.

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36. flora May 10, 2025 at 3:52 pm

    Two from Glenn Greenwald and Yanis Varoufakis, utube ~15+ minutes.
    First:
    Yanis Varoufakis: Europe Being Sold TOXIC Lies

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3fHfe-7Oe8

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37. flora May 10, 2025 at 3:53 pm

    Second:
    utube, ~16+ minutes.

    Israel’s Destruction of Gaza is “Our Generation’s Kristallnacht” Warns Yanis Varoufakis

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoD4ocVBBTs

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 7:36 pm

       I’m afraid that I disagree. Israel’s destruction of Gaza is our generation’s Auschwitz and this time around the Nazis are live-streaming what they are doing.

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       1. MicaT May 10, 2025 at 8:03 pm

          I agree with you Rev.

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       2. bertl May 10, 2025 at 8:29 pm

          The little men who couldn’t go to the big parade also do nothing about Gaza because Useless might shout at them really loudly and Kaja might threaten to hold her breath until her face turns blue and she wets herself and that will show them. Instead, these little men prefer to tough it out alongside their loser mates, the Yukkies, embarrass their fellow citizens by making empty threats enriched by pointless deadlines, and really leave Putin just ashakin’ n aquakin’ in his boots with anxiety about their zillionth sanctions package: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/10/leaders-britain-france-germany-poland-arrive-kyiv-ukraine

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       3. hk May 10, 2025 at 8:55 pm

          And we are shipping them Zyklon B, claiming it’s to protect inmates from typhus.

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       4. vao May 11, 2025 at 4:12 am

          It is more like our generations razing of Warsaw / killing everybody (1943-1944) and the rape of Nanking / razing the city and killing everybody (1937-1938).

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    2. hk May 10, 2025 at 8:52 pm

       Methinks it’s gone far past just Kristalnacht….

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       1. JBird4049 May 10, 2025 at 9:51 pm

          I’m thinking of 1943 Warsaw.

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          1. The Rev Kev May 10, 2025 at 9:55 pm

             And the Nazis that cleared out the Warsaw ghetto were only defending themselves.

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38. Mo May 10, 2025 at 4:09 pm

    So the first shipments of 145% tariffs are just now reaching ports!

    I was correct when calling BS several days ago on all the twitter posts where retailers issued receipts pretending to detail additional tariff costs of 150%+.

    And actually those bogus posts were claiming maybe 300% tariffs, since they showed tariffs at 150% of retail!

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39. playon May 10, 2025 at 6:24 pm

    Re: Novavax, I seriously doubt their claims of any kind of immunity. I had just gotten the Novavax jab when last September my wife inadvertently brought back a dose of COVID to our home. I still got sick (although thanks to having the shot the week before I did not become as ill as my wife did). It sounds like very irresponsible hype to me.

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40. Expat2uruguay May 10, 2025 at 10:31 pm

    North Korea sends 700 commandos to shield Burkina Faso leader IBRAHIM TRAORÉ
    https://youtu.be/kEwE7UYOG7Y

    The video looks authentic, but there hasn’t been any official reporting yet. Here is a North Korea source from May 5th saying that they were going to provide weapons to Burkina Faso. https://www.nknews.org/2023/05/burkina-faso-leader-says-country-wants-more-weapons-from-north-korea/

    I’ve been studying this country and this leader for 2 days, ever since I read the article posted in Saturday’s links about “Washington being nervous about Burkina faso’s new revolutionary leader”

    Here’s the best video I’ve found so far about him: https://youtu.be/TUD1fouJ2ho (15:32)

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41. LawnDart May 10, 2025 at 10:48 pm

    Dear Readers of The Wire

    In a clear violation of the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press, the Government of India has blocked access to http://thewire.in across India. +

    https://x.com/thewire_in/status/1920736427937079739

    Pissing the right people off: bookmarked.

    https://m.thewire.in/

    Here’s more:

    https://thewire.in/media/statement-by-the-wire-on-the-governments-blocking-and-unblocking-of-its-website

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42. Jason Boxman May 11, 2025 at 12:10 am

    What’s mind bending is people do want to help others. But the Pandemic continues unabated and unacknowledged. The January 2025 newsletter from MANNA illustrates the compassion and resilience of the local community in western NC.

    Stories like Community Kitchen’s are a powerful example of neighbors helping neighbors in this time of crisis. While the loss and devastation caused by Helene is staggering, the support and determination of our partners and community members has been nothing short of inspiring.

    In November and December 2024, MANNA distributed over 2 million pounds of food across the region—providing over 1,667,000 meals to families in need. Holiday distributions, supported by partners like Metrolina Food Bank and Food Lion, brought essential meals to nearly 3,000 families, ensuring they could celebrate together despite their hardships.

    Why can’t this apply to cleaning the air, providing free respirators to all, and advocating for mandatory paid time off for illness?

    And there are mask blocks in some places in the US, so there is some solidarity on this, but we need so much more.

    They still have “COVID-19 Safety Protocols” on their web site for volunteers, but the PDF is dated from 2022, so I don’t know if this is still operative in 2025.

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43. AG May 11, 2025 at 2:16 am

    re: international labour in crisis

    Doug Henwood in a very good interview with Vijay Prashad

    1st half (30 minutes)
    May 1, 2025 Vijay Prashad, executive director of Tricontinental, on the state of the US empire and the state of the global working class
    https://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArchive/2025/25_05_01.mp3

    2nd half I haven´t listened to yet:
    Becca Rothfeld, author of All Things Are Too Small, speaks up for bigness

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44. Expat2uruguay May 11, 2025 at 5:40 pm

    I’ve spent the weekend studying this issue and will present the fruits of my labor for your consideration and comment. There is a social media Firestorm brewing about the leader of Burkina Faso. YouTube channels include the Black Cultural Diary, the New Tourist, acb King TV, and Africa Today, for example: https://youtu.be/HlRXpnL9jJ0 Aside from the Ibrahim Traoré hero worship, the narrative theme is one of pan-africanism, nationalism, and anti-imperialism, with flavors of “new multi-polar world” and Marxism.

    Everyone knows that Traoré came to power in a military coup, but did you know that he replaced the leader from a previous coup? The first military coup was in January 2022 against the elected president, who was losing the war against the insurgents from ISIS and Al-Qaeda. When the first coup happened insurgent groups controlled 40% of Burkina Faso, but 8 months later the new leader continued to lose. So a second coup was launched among his of supporters, after which Captain Ibrahim Traoré was selected as the new leader. He assumed the interim presidency on October 6th, 2022.

    Traoré is a 37-year-old Muslim, has a family, and is influenced by Marxism and pan-africanism. To fight against the insurgencies Traoré called for a mass mobilization into the Volunteers for the Defense of the Patria (VDP), a civilian militia. https://acleddata.com/2024/03/26/actor-profile-volunteers-for-the-defense-of-the-homeland-vdp/
    This call raised 90,000 volunteers, twice the goal, which shows the popularity among the people. Traoré also ejected the French forces who had been “helping” in the failing military efforts and asked Russian military forces to come to help train the new expanded militia. Along with Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) to organize a regional response to the ISIS and Al-Qaeda insurgents. (US connected?)

    Traoré also had nationalistic dreams of sovereignty and economic development. He started nationalizing gold mines and distributing mechanized farming equipment, seeds and expertise for agricultural development. The old system had been to send raw agriculture products and gold ore to be processed in other countries, but Traoré started building those capabilities at home for domestic consumption and foreign export. But export was complicated by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), who didn’t like these three upstart dictators in the Sahel and demanded that democracy be restored. Instead the AES chose sovereignty and left the ECOWAS, which meant that the landlocked group lost their access to the global ports in the neighboring coastal countries. But Morocco steps in to provide a corridor to their port, in exchange for port fees of course. (This also helps Morocco solidify a claim on land that is under dispute with Armenia.) https://youtu.be/OTBIfdjySV4

    Traoré also wants to improve education, transportation, medical and water facilities, along with building nuclear power. https://youtu.be/TUD1fouJ2ho As I said at the beginning, a social media universe is forming with a lot of propaganda about these things. Meanwhile in the US, Palestine activism is exhausting as the genocide winds down in Gaza. Will African-Americans in the US be inspired by the nationalism and Marxism growing in Africa?

    All of this information is intended to help you evaluate the link from mint press Fridays Links post: “WHY WASHINGTON IS WORRIED ABOUT BURKINA FASO’S YOUNG REVOLUTIONARY LEADER”

    Thank you for reading, I enjoyed putting this together. A funny thing about all this social media narrative is that you don’t actually hear him speak much, so here is a final link of the man himself from the Kremlin website on his weekend meeting with Putin https://youtu.be/TUD1fouJ2ho

    saludos

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