August 19 Update: Tipping Points; Pantsuit Mussolini; Yosemite's Contracting Chaos; HRW Hammers LA, CA on Homelessness; An Afrikaner's Digital Coup; the BBC Goes Long on Mister Bone SAW; Soak the (Super) Rich

Chicago is pro-Ceasefire.

First off, I hate to disappoint anyone here for convention coverage but I'm not about that. The entire point of Bleeding Edge, and my reporting in general, is to run away from the pack. That means not only drilling down into weird and obscure shit like Satanist FBI informants, but also stepping back and seeing the forest for the trees.

The latter approach is what you all saw in last week's kitchen sink post about Oakland's current turmoil: there are overarching narratives and red threads that tie together not only my reporting on the Oakland Police Department and the Bay Area's burgeoning reactionary gray money networks, but also the work of other excellent journalists. It's a collective endeavor to give people actionable information about the world they live in, and given the sort of disinformation that is being intentionally seeded by ideologically-driven, well-funded actors in Northern California in a relatively novel manner, I figured the time was ripe. If you want to hear me riff on this same topic, check out the most recent episode of the Doom Loop Dispatch podcast.

You'll see something law-enforcement related from me in the very near future that hews closely to this decade-old investigation from the first Black Lives Matter cycle. History doesn't rhyme, but it echoes, and sometimes the distortions get very, very weird. You'll see what I mean soon.

Let's get to it.

BLEEDING EDGE JOURNALISM

-If the hottest year on record (again) hasn't convinced you about the pressing need to curb anthropogenic climate change, the science around the globe's 'tipping points' should drive that home like a pneumatic jackhammer. Deforestation, melting permafrost and the consequent methane emissions, the Greenland ice sheet's rapid degradation, the destabiliation of the North Atlantic Ocean's Gulf Stream, fluctuating monsoon patterns - all these bloodchilling possibilities and the underpinning science are spelt out in a very solid multimedia presentation from the N̵e̵w̵ ̵Y̵o̵r̵k̵ Times' Science Desk, one of their last bastions of reputability.

-Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is having a hard time hiding her fash these days, something the Pantsuit Mussolini was able to coyly achieve while on the campaign trail and in media appearances following her ascension to power. Both the prime minister and her government ministers have aggressively pursued a legal war against Italian journalists, filing (and winning) suits over criticism leveled by some of the country's most prominent reporters and commentators. First as tragedy, then as farce....

-The latest edition of Jake Hanrahan's excellent Skeleton Key podcast is a deep dive into the Australian Neo-Nazi underground. The Nazis Down Under are a quite fascinating subset of the far right, given the country's overtly white supremacist history, ongoing struggle to reckon with the subjugation of the continent's Aborigine population, and the influence of most recent Fascist movements in newer immigrant populations from Eastern Europe, particularly the former Yugoslavia. Never boring, and fully worth your subscription.

-Like many of you, I absolutely love Yosemite National Park. It's one of the wonders of the world, and along with Sequoia, is the most gorgeous park of nature in a state that is spoilt for choice in that regard. That's why Laura Bliss' excellent Bloomberg investigation into the disastrous reign of Aramark, the private firm that holds the all-important concessions contract for this national treasure, made my blood boil. If you look carefully at the way other national parks are run, you'll find similar issues as well, but none to the extent that Bliss found. Maybe....contracting out government services is bad?

-Since at least 2018, housing and homelessness in the United States have drawn scrutiny from international rights organizations, including a special rapporteur from the United Nations. California is the unfortunate face of America's unhoused crisis, and the state's policies towards such residents have become increasingly cruel and criminalized, particularly after the recent Grant's Pass ruling by the Roberts Court that gives cities the green light to clear homeless encampments. Human Rights Watch, one of the blue chip watchdog organizations worldwide, issued a report last week hammering both the Golden State and Los Angeles in particular for how they handle this issue. Bears reading, as so many Americans have become accustomed to the sight of people sleeping rough in poverty, filth and desperation.

-Last week's update went long on the race riots that convulsed the United Kingdom earlier this summer. The Guardian's Carole Cadwalladr, who in 2018 broke a major story about the surreptitious collection of Facebook data by the British firm Cambridge Analytica to manipulate voter behavior, had an excellent essay on the significance of Elon Musk's enthusiastic embrace of disinformation and inflammatory propaganda that helped kick everything off in Blighty. By her accounting, the South African emerald heir's role in whipping up insurrection for a political cause he favors (anti-Islamic/black/Asian/non-white race riots) is a test run for Musk's approach to the American presidential elections this November. The Afrikaner, who is also a major federal contractor through his SpaceX and Starlink ventures, is openly in the bag for Trump, who is sinking in the polls as the public starts to realize he's old, crazy, and weird. It's only a hypothesis, mind, but it is definitely in the realm of plausibility.

-I'm still angry at the BBC for geoblocking Americans and the rest of the world from the Corporation's phenomenal documentary output (it all goes directly to their proprietary iPlayer app, which is a technical feat that keeps them paid but at the same time restricts some of the company's best work from broader distribution). So while I'm not (yet) able to watch either part of their new documentary series of the rise of Saudi dictator Mohammed bin Salman, there is this long writeup about his ruthless ascension to power and absolutely wild behavior, like forging his nonagenarian father's signature to start Saudi's still-ongoing war against the Houthis in Yemen back in 2015. A giant meteor could have no more fitting target.

-And if every country in the world emulated Spain's new tax on the super-rich and their assets, it could raise $2 trillion for the common good. Actual social safety nets, a just clean energy transition, and quality education may not be a pipe dream if we ever successfully break out of neoliberal economics' ideological capture of the political and policymaking classes

BOOK - With Chicago in the news this week, I'm going to throw a curveball and not recommend Norman Mailer's Miami and the Siege of Chicago about the 1968 national conventions. For a much more sober, grounded narrative about quotidian realities in Chicago, pick up Alex Koltowitz's There Are No Children Here (1992).

This masterpiece of reporting explores the the lives of African-American boys growing up on Chicago's West Side at the turn of the 1990s, right before the Clinton-era Hope VI project tore down miles of public housing and floods of money remade the Loop into an urban playground, all as gun violence, narcotics, and generational poverty ate (and continues to eat) away at the city's South and West Sides. This book spoke very true to my own experiences working in a South Side middle school while studying at the University of Chicago, and still holds relevance three decades on.

FILM - New York City cinema, like so many other aspects of the Five Boroughs, has become way less unique and edgy since the Disneyfication process begun by Giuliani and kicked into overdrive by El Bloombito took hold and turned so much of a weird, oddball city into simulacra of Friends and Sex & The City (substitute whatever Zoomer TikTok trend you want for the more-up-to-date comparison). Abel Ferrara's films were anything but milquetoast (Bad Lieutenant, anyone?) and King of New York (1990) was a massive hit in Gotham.

Christopher Walken's cold-eyed drug lord Frank White made such an impression on a young Brooklynite named Christopher Wallace that he riddled the versed of his first album, Ready to Die (1993) with KoNY references. The locations are unmistakable, the soundtrack straight off the city's streets circa 1990, and the attitude unmistakable. A neo-Noir classic from the crack era, right up there with New Jack City.

MUSIC - I've never been to London's Notting Hill Festival, but always wanted to make the trip to one of the biggest celebrations of the Carribean diaspora on the other side of the Atlantic (J'Ouvert is a hell of a time but I'll be out of town this year). From what I've heard from friends and seen, the music is to die for, particularly the sound systems that at at the core of reggae. Some of the London entities like Channel One have been in existence for decades and are multi-generational affairs. Here's a video from their set at the 2019 edition of the celebration. If you're going this year - I'm envious!