@admitsWrongIfProven The connection to the Austrian dude is just that a democratic election can lead to democracy’s end. The connection between Biden and events in Gaza is that Biden’s embrace of Israel’s choices have left the non-Trump part of the American polity divided and bereft of moral confidence. 1/
@admitsWrongIfProven We need to make a full throated case that we are virtuous relative to the other guy’s evident vices, but we collectively don’t perceive ourselves as virtuous. Half of us look in the mirror and see ourselves drenched in Palestinian blood, the other half mocks us and is furious that we can’t let increasingly unsupportable distinctions exonerate Israel and us by extension. 2/
@admitsWrongIfProven How are we supposed to fight fascism’s rise when we nonfascists can barely tolerate ourselves and one another?
That’s the conundrum Israel and Biden’s policy towards Israel has created in US politics. We have ten months still, much can change, but at the moment it feels quite fatal. /fin
@admitsWrongIfProven i don’t think he’s claiming German democracy was “never restored” even until today. he’s pointing out democracy ended until the military defeat of the Nazis. Gerrymandering is a longstanding practice + problem in the US, but not to the level where control of government at every level has not been competitive, despite a divided or even opposed public. now that’s increasingly the case at state & local levels, and the fear is that it could soon be at the Federal level.
“Israel’s genocide, US assistance, and consequences thereof” by #ThomasPalley https://thomaspalley.com/?p=2386
@jik shouldn’t they be called “continuing irresolution”, really?
it’s not a survey article. it’s a panopsis.
comedy is dead so it would just be angry magazine.
with great power comes great responsibility, but unfortunately not the other way around.
@otfrom besides, who doesn't like a puzzle a few years from now?
@buermann yes. that has been my experience. but of course i must write it and keep it current, lest my demons be provoked.
the dogs of war
pull tirelessly
you so want to relax your grip.
watch them fly, frolic, fight
why not?
you know why not.
do everything and all you can
to never let them slip.
Every cool thing you implement imposes a quiet burden of documentation debt.
"it’s very hard for people — certainly for economists — to give up the idea that there exists something called 'real GDP' or 'real income' that behaves like a physical quantity." @jwmason https://jwmason.org/slackwire/thirteen-questions-about-money/
For parents who may send kids to expensive colleges someday, what is the effective marginal tax rate embedded in the tacit sliding scales in the effective tuition those colleges charge?
@Arianity Thanks! I’ll see if I can’t tighten thise margins a bit more on mobile.
@ouguoc you were very nice about the design early on!
and i'm attached, even though i admit it's less readable.
maybe i'll keep it on the blog, but conform to hegemonic ergonomics in the newsletter.
(thanks a ton for reading it regardless!)
@gl33p (great point! thanks!)
Help?
I am working on making my drafts blog subscribable as a newsletter. The design conceit of the drafts blog is it's styled as a typewritten page. I can't decide whether to do something analogous in the newsletter design, or use a "standard" layout, which might be more readable.
I'd really love some feedback! Here's a sample of a "typewritten" post: https://drafts.interfluidity.com/misc/drafts-layout-typewriter.html
Here's the same post in "default" layout: https://drafts.interfluidity.com/misc/drafts-layout-default.html
Which is better?
12.5%
Typewriter
(3 votes)
87.5%
Default
(21 votes)
@monicarooney we're an elite.
man, what is this racket called "premium domain names"?
what a stupid, stupid world.
@John No one says the job is easy. The Israel/Palestine conflict is old and intractible, but Oct 7 and Gaza are new events. Israel is perpetrating a conflict more brutal in character than anything Western powers have supported or engaged in since Indochina, and the US has chosen to own that. I’m on your side here. I will vote for Biden and encourage others to. I favor sustaining and reforming Pax Americana rather than overthrowing it. 1/
@John But this is a moment when the global security order is severely challenged, when sustaining a normative consensus in favor of the US-led order against temptations offered by emerging, resentful new contenders is essential. You can draw all the moral distinctions you think appropriate. I’ll agree with some of them. But the case Biden had begun to make, that the US is “back” as a force for order worthy of the world’s respect has been eviscerated by these new events and the US response. 2/
@John That’s not a normative claim. It’s a descriptive claim. Perhaps it is mistaken. I have been known to be. But I think events in Israel / Palestine and this administration’s effective endorsement of them have rendered restoring near consensus to the order that has kept a broad peace since the Cold War, and really since WWII, much, much more challenging than it had been on October 6. /fin