November 23 update: Subaqueous Scandivian shenanigans; Recycling as corporate conspiracy; Laundering Israeli Hooligan Violence; Bolsonaro in the dock; American Voters & Gaza; Palantir Rises on Proposed Mass Deportations
Do you hear that? It's the sound of the wealthy and powerful falling in line to get on the right side of the incoming administration and all their attendant pedophiles, Christian Nationalists, whale butchers and other grotesques. You've got corporate 'Resistance' types sucking toes to try and avoid legal/professional retribution, billionaire media tycoons slanting coverage to the right not just on the opinion pages but in their newsrooms, and corporate types snorting up the rapid returns on a post-election sugar rush in the markets. The ground is shifting fast, both in the U.S. as well as Ukraine and the Middle East, and the final weeks of 2024 will be anything but sedate.
I've shifted back into working on longer-term projects the past week or two: a culture-related piece that'll be out the week after Thanksgiving, some documentary material for next year, and getting across an upcoming federal sentencing next month. Unlike the majority of the New York City press corps, I took a hard look (behind the paywall) at incoming Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, the scion of a fervently Zionist billionaire clan with a background in the NYPD's notorious Ray Kelly-era Intelligence Division. Tisch will almost certainly run for city, statewide or federal office in the near future, and this sort of scrutiny should be standard. But that's what billions in donations to local universities, hospitals, cultural institutions and media entities buys you - deference.
Trees ablaze in Berkeley!!!! Maybe next year, Stanfurd.
Finally, a massive thank you to the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant. The degree of Israeli wailing and cope has been delightful to see, and while the warrant may never be served, it is a small glimpse of hope that a body with the Hague's authority recognized the crimes against humanity perpetrating by Israel for more than a year.
Let's get to it.
BLEEDING EDGE JOURNALISM
-In some subaqueous Baltic Sea drama reminiscent of the Cold War, fiberoptic cables connecting both Finland and Germany as well as Sweden and Lithuania were severed last Sunday and Monday. The resulting naval response and investigation into the cause of the apparent sabotage, per the Financial Times, currently implicates a Chinese-flagged tanker transiting through the highly contested sea from a western Russian port to Egypt. This incident comes roughly a year after an anchor dropped by another Chinese ship damaged an underwater gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia. Is this yet another example of the 'hybrid warfare' doctrine Russia and China have adopted in their confrontations with European and North American rivals? Time will tell.
Richard Milne
-Plastics recycling, as useful as it may be, is nowhere close to a substitute for phasing out use of the petrochemical byproducts that are poisoning our water, soil, and air while enriching fossil fuel firms. Those same companies are deeply invested in their short-term profits at our collective long-term detriment, and are engaged in sophisticated greenwashing efforts to push back attempts to phase out plastics usage from governments or civil society. The Guardian's report last week on the scope and sophistication of this pushback is critical reading and might even compel you to change a couple habits in your daily routine. Realistically, it'll take serious sustained effort to turn this ship around since the fiscal incentive to stay course is so high.
Sandra Laville
-Even though it's been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that Israeli hooligans from Maccabi Tel Aviv instigated violence against Amsterdam's Middle Eastern community before being battered by the locals ahead of a Champion's League clash with Ajax Amsterdam earlier this month, the 'IT'S A POGROM' narrative pushed by the Israeli press was swallowed whole by Western mainstream media to a hideous degree. Even this morning, the New York Times is still willing to die on this hill. Jake Hanrahan picked apart the disinformation in real time earlier this month, and recorded an excellent bonus episode of Popular Front this weekend excoriating the journalistic malpractice on display here. Yet one more example of why independent reporters are essential to telling truth to power: they know how things work behind the green curtain, and understand how consent is manufactured.
-Former Brazilian President and would-be caudillo Jair Bolsonaro was indicted along with several allies in the military and police services for plotting to overthrow the 2022 election of his successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and remain in power. This was Brazil's own version of January 6th (one of Jair's sons was coincidentally in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021) and now that Jack Smith's case is dead and dusted, it must be said that Brazil dealt with their garbage far more effectively than their American counterparts. Might come from the lived experience of living under repressive, murderous military rule for decades but hey what do I know.
Jennifer Hauser, Julia Vargas Jones, Stefano Pozzebon, Tara John
-That old familiar 'Americans don't vote on foreign policy' line trotted out every national election cycle to keep megadonors to the DNC happy? Turns out it's bullshit. The Nation delved into the impact of the genocide in Gaza on this month's election results. The magazine has fallen off drastically over the past 15 years from its Dubya-era peak, but this bears reading
Y.L. Al-Sheikh
-Aside from financial journalists, folks who cover national security and intelligence pay close attention to post-election market moves. Policy and personnel speculation around companies in these spheres tends to trigger spikes in trade volume and share value. Unsurprisingly, Peter Thiel's intelligence contracting firm Palantir has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Trump's victory with an increase of $23 billion in value since November 5th. Given the United States Government is the firm's largest client, and how central Palantir's software is to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, this makes perfect sense. It remains to be seen if other Thiel-backed companies in the defense sphere, like Anduril, will similarly benefit.
Tabby Kinder
BOOK OF THE WEEK - For readers who might want to get further into the history of police intelligence operations and 'red squads' in the United States, there still is not a better volume than Frank Donner's 1990 tome Protectors of Privilege : red squads and police repression in urban America.
Along with the NYPD's 40-year-old court oversight for its intelligence division, several American police departments around the country (Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco) were forced into similar arrangements after their spying operations were uncovered during the social unrest of the 1960s and 1970s. My piece this week on Jessica Tisch and NYPD's intelligence operations skims past much of this, but Donner's book was critical reading earlier in my career when I was delving into the mechanics of law enforcement's political operations and the long tail of America's mid-century tumult.
FILM - Norman Jewison's 1979 legal drama ...And Justice For All not only lent its name to Metallica's first album following the tragic death of bass virtuoso Cliff Burton (brilliance on full display during this 1984 set at Oakland's Day on the Green), but is also a touchstone in Baltimore's long, proud and troubled history. Featuring a peak Al Pacino as a cynical, haggard yet committed defense attorney in the midst of his unparalleled 1970s hot streak, Jewison's jeremiad against the criminal justice system is not only decades ahead of its time (sexual violence in jails and transgender abuse is front and center from the opening scenes) but remarkable for its exploration of court and carceral dynamics from the defendants to the guards to the defense attorneys, all the way up to the judges. Dont miss it.
MUSIC - Kendrick Lamar simply does not miss. He also plays by his own rules: Friday's GNX was released without advance notice to his label Interscope. The man long had a fire burning within him, and some highly publicized rivalries have clearly poured accelerant on the blaze. Keep that gas coming, Kenny.