The Criminal State

A while back, I mentioned that a book I had just started had me wondering if I was in for a "hate read" since it was a highly anticipated book on the subject of International Law published in 2026 that did not mention Gaza once in its introduction.   Burning with curiosity about what, if anything it would have to say on the topic, I hauled ass and finished the book-- The Criminal State by Lawrence Douglas, professor of "Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought" at Amherst College.  As I suspected, the gent admits to Zionism, actually in a way that seems to make clear that he equates anti-zionism with anti-semitism.  It’s in the context of discussing Israel and its historic problems with its Arab neighbors.  (i.e., equating Arab anti-zionism with Anti-semitism).  After critiquing the Nuremberg Tribunal for studiously excluding the testimony of Holocaust victims in its prosecution of Nazi war criminals at the conclusion of World War II, Douglas goes on (contra Hannah Arendt's criticism of the practice) to praise Israel's successful prosecution of Adolph Eichmann, captured by Israeli Mossad agents in Argentina in 1960, and tried in Jerusalem in 1961 more than ten years after Nuremberg, almost exclusively through the testimony of victim after victim of Eichmann's Nazi war crimes. Moreover, according to Douglas:

... the Israeli proceeding can be rightly credited with transforming the shared experience of victimhood into a source of group status and an element of group identity. And as the trial made clear, legal recognition of a group’s history of victimization can serve as a potent source of symbolic capital available to advance a group’s social and political goals.

This is before he even gets to Gaza which is discussed for about 3 electronic pages (much less I’m sure in the physical book) in a section called “The Wages of Riskless War in Gaza and Kosovo” which is within a chapter on Kosovo.  Gaza comes up as an example of what he calls Riskless War—he’s comparing the casualty free intervention in Kosovo in the Clinton years in which NATO pilots flew above the threshold at which you could distinguish civilians targets from military targets (the trade-off being, continued public acceptance of the intervention which would be undermined by say American soldiers being killed from flying close enough to the action to distinguish  military from civilian targets but also vulnerable to being shot down in exchange for some NATO caused civilian casualties) with the low Israeli casualty response of Israel to the Hamas attack in which the risk of distinguishing Hamas from civilians by hand-to-hand up close combat on the part of IDF which would have resulted in heavy IDF casualties was averted by IDF accepting levels of civilian casualties in the targeting of suspected Hamas strongholds placed among civilian infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, markets etc.   According to Douglas Israel has a metric of “acceptable” civilian casualties on 4 levels and given the severity of the Oct 7 attack and the objective of removing Hamas altogether in order to eliminate the threat of future such attacks, they had adopted an acceptance of Level 3—almost the top number of accepted civilian collateral damage but not quite.  

Douglas acknowledges and cites in a footnote some of the  differences of opinion about whether Israel’s response was genocidal—but in his estimation, although he has described genocides in almost exactly the same terms as what we’re seeing in Gaza in Germany, Rwanda, Turkey and Yugoslavia—he does not believe Israel’s actions in Gaza rise to the level of genocide.  He does admit it is hard to look at the devastation in Gaza and not conclude that there have been war crimes (but he does not himself go so far explicitly).  And then he is back to Kosovo.  In summary, for Douglas, Gaza is an example of a sovereign state undertaking what he calls riskless war in response to a terrorist attack against its own civilian population. On concluding the book, I watched a discussion held at Washington DC’s Politics and Prose bookstore between Douglas and a former undergraduate student of his at Amherst, now a law professor at Georgetown.  Douglas was not challenged by his interviewer or by anyone in the audience on this point.

So was it a "hate read" for me?  Not exactly.  I certainly adamantly disagree with the professor on the prosecutability of Israel for what to me is uncontestably its genocide against Palestinians, most notably and recently in Gaza.  And yet it was an instructive read.  Douglas in my view inadvertently or not strengthens the case for pursuing International consequences for Israel, for crimes against humanity.  The book opens with an admiring discussion of Hobbes, who set out the problem of international justice succinctly:  while the sovereign state is responsible for containing the natural state of war that its citizens by virtue of being self-interested brutal and nasty humans would perpetually wage against each other, there is no natural uber sovereign to contain the natural inclination of sovereigns to be at perpetual war with each other.  Therefore war is the natural state of nations, and this forces the pursuit of international justice as a means of keeping a check on the wayward Criminal State.  The Criminal State is that which, according to Douglas commits crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, crimes of aggression or crimes of atrocity and genocide.  The Nazi state was the Criminal State extraordinaire-- but Douglas is not willing to put Israel under the same lens, thereby falling into what he calls The Hobbesian Trap that cannot distinguish between a sovereign's right to wage war in the interests of forestalling aggression against itself and the natural inclination of sovereigns to aggress for the sake of aggression.

The discussion of Hobbes has inspired me to envision a different kind of sovereign than the world has yet seen.  Imagine if you will a sovereignty of the people:  the people coming together to mediate conflicts among themselves will not have the unchecked ambition of the self-appointed leader of the state.  We have evolved to the point at which we no longer need the protection of a warlord.   Rather, we can rely on the wisdom of each other to keep the surfacing of individuals' worst impulses at bay.  We have the tools at our disposal-- history, experience, democracy by lot.   We have only to dream to make it so.

As Maine Goes

The 2026 Maine Democratic Primary for US Senate took place yesterday.  The New York Times lost.  

The rest of us won.  In a document on Graham Platner's campaign  website detailing what he calls his Defend Democracy Agenda is this paragraph:

For too long, the promise that all people are created equal has remained unfinished business in our Constitution. Passing the Equal Rights Amendment would help complete that work by making clear that equality under the law cannot be denied because of sex. But we must also confront how protections like those in the Fourteenth Amendment—written to defend the freedom of formerly enslaved people and guarantee equal rights—have been twisted over time to shield powerful corporations while the rights of real people are attacked. Communities of color, LGBTQ Americans, immigrants, and others have too often found those protections turned against them instead of working in their defense. We need a 21st-century Constitution that restores the original purpose of these guarantees: equal rights under the law, protected for every person in this country

Women's issues come up repeatedly in Platner's platform. Defending the right to choose abortion; legislating against government intrusion into women's lives; passing the Equal Rights Amendment to constitutionally guarantee equality in the law for women.  All are on Platner's agenda for the Senate.  Additionally, Platner is a proponent of policy that improves the lives of working women (and men):  early childcare for all; healthcare reform including Medicare for All; funding and protecting Public education; clean air and water and a healthier environment.  

The 989 American billionaires and the megacorporations who offshore their wealth fare less well. Platner's tax plan to "End Billionaire Welfare" is a must read for understanding how Platner intends to work for legislation that imposes a modicum of burden on the ultra wealthy in repayment of the some of the debt they owe society for their obscene riches.  Is there a better equally non-violent way to take care of the billionaire problem than electoral politics and popular legislation?  If I were a billionaire I wouldn't want to find out.  For the rest of us, Platner promises to work to ease the burden with protections to social security, increases in the Child Tax Credit, and a buffer against tax hikes on the poor and working classes thanks to "making the wealthy pay their share."  

Also in the platform are policies that address campaign finance flaws and other crises of democracy; housing (including the epidemic of private homes being sucked up by hedge funds while home buying becomes more out of reach for each generation)l; tribal rights; increased protections and enhancements of quality of life for the disabled; the promise to prevent pointless wars, overspending on the military budget-- including especially to aid Israel's genocide in Gaza-- while underspending on those who sign up for the military or who have served.

Platner's run-of-the-mill Centrist Democratic Primary opponent (and Chuck Schumer's pick), Governor Janet Mills had already seen the writing on the wall and suspended her campaign, so one has to wonder what this outburst of anti-Platner propaganda in the past few weeks has been for.  Maine voters foiled the campaign of the mainstream media and the Democratic and Republican establishment who are terrified of a candidate who promises to bring change to the system that elevated our feeble-brained elite and its infrastructure in an effort to rise the tide and lift the boats of all of his constituency.  But do not count the media campaign out just yet, because the stakes are not just about Maine, but about what a Platner defeat of  Susan Collins portends for the nation.  It's an effort to besmirch Platner before his energy infests the Senate.

Privilege is when your identity comes before your socialism.  But a socialist whose platform is not for women, for African Americans, for Native Americans, for new and would be Americans, for Gay and Trans men and women, for working men and women of all identities, for old and young and in between, for solidarity with those across the globe, isn't really a socialist.  Take time with Platner's extensive Platform and it is impossible to to miss why the Privileged and powerful and the bought gatekeepers of the status quo in the mainstream media do not want what he brings to the table in its full power and glory.

Moanin' and Moanin'

Ernestine Anderson sings Bobby Timmons' Moanin' (lyrics added by Jon Hendricks) with Cherry Wainer on Hammond organ and her husband Don Storer on drums on German TV show Beat Beat Beat in 1967.

 Not to be confused with Charles Mingus's 1959 piece of the same name with actual moaning (along with bass) from the man himself and Pepper Adams on baritone sax:

I Heart to Hate Read

I am just starting to read a "most highly anticipated book of 2026" based on a recommendation from a local "political" bookstore's almost daily spam newsletter I am on a mailing list for.  The topic is the basis of force of International Law.  I had not anticipated the book personally, nor had I heard of the author, a professor at an elite Northeastern college.  But the topic sounded a bit irresistible to me in light of current events-- and in a book highly anticipated by someone no less-- so I snapped it up.  Already on reading the Introduction, alarm bells are going off.  The introduction indicates that the Nuremberg Trials will be a focus, which makes sense, but as for contemporary topics, while it makes reference to Putin's aggression against Ukraine, there is not one mention of Gaza.  Since it was Gaza that motivated my interest in the topic to begin with, I ask myself, what can be said of a book on the topic of international law published rather deep into 2026 that does not promise in its introduction to treat the issue of Gaza?  I start to wonder, is this going to be the at least one book per year I have been told I should try to read that I do not agree with?

I don't remember where I came across this piece of advice about one's reading habits-- it seems likely to have come from Current Affairs editor Nathan J Robinson or someone like that-- but I do remember my distaste for the idea when it was proposed to me.  I don't think it should be much of a challenge to imagine why a very prolific reader would suggest such a thing.  It can't be a bad thing to expose yourself to the caliber of thought of influential people you disagree with.  Challenging your beliefs strengthens your own argument on the theory that what does not kill my principles makes them stronger.  But the thought of deliberately putting myself through the exercise of trying to stomach the literary voice of a Bill O'Reilly, an Ezra Klein or an Ann Coulter makes me gag.  I couldn't see myself doing it as a matter of habit.  But as my habit demands a steady stream of new titles to read, I would keep it in mind.

What happened instead was that the advice became a guidepost for me for those instances I was already familiar with of finding myself in the middle of reading a book I had innocently "anticipated" for some preconceived notion that turned out to be something else-- rather like what I am now preparing myself for with the book on International Law that I'm currently reading.  In short, it is now my firmly established habit that while I won't generally seek out titles I expect to disagree with for the purposes recommended by whoever introduced me to the concept of the intentional annual hate read, when I find myself in the middle of one I will finish reading it on the basis that it will satisfy the ideal quota.  

For instance, last year, probably on the basis of a recommendation from the very same political bookstore's newsletter, I leapt on Breakneck, by Canadian tech writer  Dan Wang on the topic of China's intention to dominate engineering at which it is largely succeeding.  I came across the title fresh from learning about the Chinese version of AI which reportedly actually does machine learning with far fewer resources than the over-hyped American vaporware version, as well as the electric vehicle from Chinese car company BYD models of which can be purchased for less than $20,000 wherever they are allowed in the market, and which can be fully charged in the time it takes to fill a gas tank.  I expected some journalism about what made Chinese innovation possible and how it could be emulated in the United States, and failing that support for the idea of liberating the US market for Chinese products.  I did not expect a whiny echo of Ezra Klein's neo-liberal Abundance bullshit, which is what I got.  Had it not been for the Hate Read quota, I might have abandoned it close to the jump, but I soldiered through.  If nothing else, I got some value for the bucks I spent on it.

A very similar experience occurred reading the much vaunted collaboration of emeritus Princeton economics professors (and real life husband and wife) Anne Case and Sir Angus Beaton, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism.  This was a book that had been mentioned in several recent titles I had read that had earned my respect.  In finally undertaking the filling in of this gap in my personal bibliography, I was focused on the first half of the title, a reference to the phenomenon of suicides, overdoses and other avoidable deaths due to neglect and lack of healthcare among the largest poorest percentiles of Americans.  I was not keyed into the puzzling emphasis on the second half of the title, the preservation of Capitalism in spite of its role in the epidemic of desperate deaths (particularly white deaths which was the book's primary focus).  Nothing could have prepared me, given the severity of the problem discussed for Case and Beaton's insistence that Medicare for All was not part of the solution, but rather that what was needed was more capitalism.  In light of its obtuse insistence on Capitalism as not only the cause but the cure of the epidemic, it never fails to surprise me that the bulk of references to the book that I come across in readings to this day do not mention this gaping flaw.

A little more in keeping with the Hate Read Quota, I purposely selected Dirtbag by Amber A'Lee Frost a couple of years ago when it came out.  It's a collection of memoir-flavored essays about her brand of irreverent leftist politics as could be encountered via her writings for Jacobin, Current Affairs and other leftist journals and particularly her semi-regular hosting of the Chapo Trap House podcast with Will Menaker, Matt Christman, Felix Bederman and (formerly) Virgil Texas.  I have been edified by Frost's formerly fresh perspective on multiple occasions over the years, but had become impatient with the growing pre-occupation with Democrat Derangement Syndrome at least in my sparser and sparser encounters with the dirtbag scene, and what once seemed fresh has now taken on a patina of stale. Pre-COVID it was impossible not to trip over members of the Trap House in any casual surfing for leftist media online, but as my own quest for a leftism I can live (and hope) with post Bernie Sanders has developed over time, I am finding the Dirtbag left, outside of some overlap with my own orientations, to be a mostly empty pose.  My last encounter with Frost was in a discussion around the launch of her book in which she reveled in the disgust she felt for the earnest sincerity of Greta Thunberg.  Having nothing else lined up at the time and knowing that Frost's style would at least be palatable and might occasionally be entertaining I took the plunge.  As I expected, the charm of the Dirtbag approach had worn off for me.  Beware of being trapped in a pose.  You might get stuck that way.

I was introduced to former New Republic editor Martin Peretz's The Controversialist by an essay by the Nation's Jeet Heer (himself a former writer for New Republic) who highly recommended it for its fascinating "unreliable narrator" view of the devolution of a leftist into neo-conservatism.  Peretz had gone through a period of disgrace following the disaster of the Iraq War that he pushed aggressively in the pages of his magazine and had written the memoir to explain himself and to make an attempt at another few moments in the conversation.  True to Heer's word, it was a fun read.  It was clear to me that from the start what Peretz had always been was a Zionist first and foremost.  Any beliefs that contradicted that stance had had to be jettisoned along the way and at the end of a long career of contrary refinement, Zionism was essentially all that was left.

Am I about to face something similar with the book I'm reading?  I don't know but I am itching to find out.

Pineapple Kryptonite

While we are on an extended vacation we retroactively present Atarashii Gakko with their hit Pineapple Kryptonite.  Thank you for your understanding.

My Affluence is Your Good News

Imagine a system of thought that not only tells you that your Truth is privileged, but that holds that your affluence has been justified by Rationality.  Imagine a world view in which elaborations of the extent of wealth inequality between percentiles of the national, let alone global, population can be dismissed as missing the point  that greater wealth overall means that more people (perhaps including yourself and those intelligent enough to call themselves your readers) are living better, happier longer lives today than possible in the remote past.  The plight of the most poor though real according to this world view is still an improvement over poverty that existed before the skyrocket of wealth among the wealthiest nations engendered by industrial innovations of the past 200 years.  And never mind that inequality of incomes and outcomes might be exacerbated by the damages inflicted on the parts of the world where the poorest live in service of extracting the resources demanded for sustaining growth in the wealthiest parts of the world.   It is a mistake according to this system of belief to measure the success of a society in terms of how far short it falls from an "unattainable" ideal of equality; it should be measured instead against the extent to which its enlightened cleverness has increased its distance in aggregate from a dismal past.

This world view overlooks the fact that beyond your affluent neighborhood people are struggling, because you hardly need statistics to tell you that your storybook world is direct evidence that wealth has actually increased, and your own abundant happiness is itself evidence that wealth contributes to an increase of happiness in the world.  You insist that the $3 per day that the most miserable percentile along whom you inhabit the earth live on is hundreds of percentages more than the pennies their even more miserable forebears made do with (and more evidence in itself that life has become better globally since your world view took sway), although this may be what blinds you to the trifling problems of the poorest of your own country who are tens of times wealthier with access to goods and services such as smart phones and televisions, cars and refrigerators that the most miserable can't even dream of owning in the poorest parts of the world.  Notions of injustice in this worldview are really a blindness to how fortunate we all are in the aggregate even if some of us are vastly more fortunate than others.  But don't take your word for it, this is science we're talking about.  This is the enlightenment and the wisdom of the market, inventions of a clever group of mostly men, mostly pale rich men, mere centuries ago.  

How do you imagine someone with this world view might perceive global warming?  You would be right if you imagined that this person would both acknowledge the healthy nature of the challenge as well as pooh pooh those who fret about it and urge drastic change rather than merely trust that more cleverness from the smart, enlightened class that caused it and that daily exacerbates it will address it as needs to address it arise.  

Why take his word for it, though,  even if it is backed up by rigorous statistical analysis of the data?  Because he is a scientist.  He has advanced degrees in cognitive psychology and linguistics.*  He teaches at Harvard.  He lives in Boston.  He is a best selling author of good genetic stock.  

What do you got?

~~~~~

* On which topics, read him.

O fole roncou

And now for something completely different, a 1973 classic from the king of Forró music of Brazil's  Northeast, Luis Gonzaga.  The song was revived in the US by its inclusion up front on Luaka Bop's 1991 release Brazil Classics 3 with liner notes by label founder David Byrne.  The song's title (and first line) refers to the roar of an accordion's bellows.

O fole roncou no alto da serra

Cabroeira da minha terra

Subiu a ladeira e foi brincar

O fole roncou no alto da serra

Cabroeira da minha terra

Subiu a ladeira e foi brincar

O Zé Buraco, Pé-de-Foice, Chico Manco

Cabra Macho, Bode Branco

Todo mundo foi brincar

Maria Doida, Margarida Florisbela

Muito triste na janela, não dançou

Não quis entrar

O fole roncou no alto da serra

Cabroeira da minha terra

Subiu a ladeira e foi brincar

O fole roncou no alto da serra

Cabroeira da minha terra

Subiu a ladeira e foi brincar

Naquela noite me grudei com Juventina

E o suspiro da menina era de arrepiar

Baião bonito tão gostoso e alcoviteiro

Que apagou o candeeiro pro forró se animar

O fole roncou no alto da serra

Cabroeira da minha terra

Subiu a ladeira e foi brincar

O fole roncou no alto da serra

Cabroeira da minha terra

Subiu a ladeira e foi brincar

Naquela noite eu fugi com Juventina

Quem mandou a concertina

Meu juízo revirar

Eu sei que morro de bala de carabina

Mas o amor da Juventina

Me dá forças pra brigar

O fole roncou no alto da serra

Cabroeira da minha terra

Subiu a ladeira e foi brincar

O fole roncou no alto da serra

Cabroeira da minha terra

Subiu a ladeira e foi brincar

English (lightly edited from Google Translate's rendition) -

The bellows roared high in the mountains, The kids from my land climbed the hill and went to play.

The bellows roared high in the mountains, The kids from my land climbed the hill and went to play.

Zé hole, Sickle-Foot, Chico Manco

Male Goat, White Goat

Everyone was playing

Crazy Mary, Margaret with the Beautiful Flowers

Very sad in the window, didn't dance,

I did not enter.  

The bellows roared high in the mountains, The kids from my land climbed the hill and went to play.

The bellows roared high in the mountains, The kids from my land climbed the hill and went to play.

That night I clung to Juventina, and the girl's sigh was breathtaking. A beautiful, delicious, and suggestive baião, that blew out the lamp so the forró could liven up.

The bellows roared high in the mountains, The kids from my land climbed the hill and went to play. The bellows roared high in the mountains

The kids from my land

Climbed the hill and went to play

That night I ran away with Juventina

Who ordered the concertina to

Turn my mind around

I know I'll die from rifle bullets

But Juventina's love

Gives me strength to fight

The bellows roared high in the mountains

The kids from my land

Climbed the hill and went to play

The bellows roared high in the mountains

The kids from my land

Climbed the hill and went to play