Crooked Media: Wilderness The Nightmare

Why did Democrats lose the 2016 election? The candidates, campaigns, and conditions that led to America’s worst person becoming president.

The Wilderness is a documentary from Crooked Media and Two-Up about the history and future of the Democratic Party. Pod Save America’s Jon Favreau tells the story of a party finding its way out of the political wilderness through conversations with strategists, historians, policy experts, organizers, and voters. In fifteen chapters, the series explores issues like inequality, race, immigration, sexism, foreign policy, media strategy, and how Democrats can build a winning majority that lasts.

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The Atlantic: Why Israel Fears Iran’s Presence in Syria

In some ways, Israel has never been more powerful. It boasts a close relationship with the Trump administration, a powerful and nuclear-armed military, and an air force capable of striking enemies hundreds of miles away. At the same time, it is a small country with limited infrastructure: It has one international airport, a handful of major power stations, and an electrical grid that Israeli experts have already warned is vulnerable to attack. [...]

Since Hezbollah’s last war with Israel in 2006, it has expanded its rocket and missile stockpile. With Iran’s help, its arsenal is also now far more technologically advanced. Israel’s missile-defense systems can counter some threats, but would likely be overwhelmed by the sheer number of rockets and missiles that Hezbollah can now fire. “In the event of a war, the Israeli population will absorb blows that it has not experienced in decades,” Ofer Zalzberg, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Israel and Palestine, told me. [...]

The damage done to Israel in another war will pale in comparison to the destruction wrought on Lebanon. Under a strategy outlined in 2008 that calls for the use of disproportionate force on any villages or neighborhoods in which Hezbollah operates, Lebanon would experience a level of destruction that “has not been seen since World War II,” one Israeli defense official was quoted in an International Crisis Group report as saying. “We will crush it and grind it to the ground.” [...]

Oren said Israel will be forced to target civilian areas where Hezbollah has positioned its rockets, and advocates declaring war on the Lebanese government in a future conflict. But he also worried that Israel could be setting itself up for a Pyrrhic victory. The gory images from Israeli strikes are going to be transmitted across the world, he worries, inflicting a serious diplomatic blow on Israel. “The battle that begins in Lebanon doesn’t end in Lebanon. The battle in Lebanon, if Hezbollah wins, ends in The Hague. And the goal there is the systematic wearing away, erosion of our legitimacy. Our right to defend ourselves, and ultimately our right to exist,” he said. “And I’ve got to tell you, honestly, they’re winning this war.”

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The Conversation: America looks hopeless – a lot like the ‘mother country’ once did

This is a useful way for Americans like me to consider our troubles abroad. But when it comes to our democracy’s problems at home, the closer parallel is with 18th century Britain, the “mother country” from which the United States broke away in 1776.

Britons of that time enjoyed many liberties unknown to their favourite bogeymen, the French. These freedoms had many roots, including the Magna Carta of 1215, the Bill of Rights from 1689 and various parts of English common law. Most Britons saw their country as God’s favourite and thanked their “Constitution” — a general term for established forms of law and government — for their rising glory. [...]

This alliance includes white voters who keep their traditional supremacy through gerrymandered districts, restrictive voting laws and mass incarceration of non-white people.

It also includes corporate interests that halt efforts to protect workers and the environment, to say nothing of sick, poor and elderly Americans. These plutocrats not only decide elections with their campaign contributions but also write legislation through their lobbyists.

As a now-famous study from 2014 empirically shows, majority needs and wishes in the United States have virtually no impact on public policy, regardless of which celebrity-candidate wins office. [...]

After all, the British Constitution of the 1700s held firm through much of the 1800s, despite the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution. It gave ground in periodic “Reform Acts” but otherwise kept democracy at bay. The people had to settle for their pride in the empire, their disdain for other countries, and their sense that, as Britons, they were at least free to start over in Canada or Australia or even the United States.

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ARTiculations: When Did Modern Architecture Actually Begin?

Did modern architecture really begin in the 1920s with the founding of the Bauhaus school? Perhaps. But perhaps the changing landscape of architectural practice and theory throughout the last 200 years is not as straight forward as it seems.

Independent: As Jews, we reject the myth that it's antisemitic to call Israel racist

The statement, which 40 Jewish groups from 15 different countries have signed, could not have been more timely. In the UK, the Labour Party is currently under pressure to adopt the full guidelines accompanying a definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). [...]

But genuine anti-racist principles surely lead us to criticise Israel for its many discriminatory policies, whether its segregated road network, its dual justice system, or the “Jewish nation state” bill passed on Wednesday, which entrenches ethnic inequality in law.

Perversely labelling critics of this racism “antisemitic” also silences Palestinians who object to Israel’s historic and ongoing takeover of their land.  [...]

On the contrary, we believe that by dangerously conflating opposition to Israel’s discriminatory policies with anti-Jewish racism, IHRA politicises and harms the fight against antisemitism as well as the struggle for justice for Palestinians.

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The Guardian: Posh Boys: How the English Public Schools Ruin Britain – review

Verkaik’s larger theme is the toxification of British public life by the private school system and the injustice and inequality that educational apartheid based on wealth entails. But the blatant theft of public resources is the book’s sharpest point. From the very beginning the institutions – including St Paul’s, Winchester and Eton – have been hijacked by the wealthy, though they were plainly set up to benefit the poor. [...]

Verkaik’s solution is “slow and peaceful euthanasia”. He would suffocate the schools. Since they cater to just 7% of the population, let quotas be set, so that from their ranks come just 7% of judges (instead of 74%), 7% of senior forces officers (instead of 71%) and so on. Newspapers such as this (the British media is 50% private school-educated) will have to take the same medicine.

My money says private schools will survive: since the second world war successive governments have failed to curtail them in any significant way. As it happens, the departure of Boris Johnson means a Conservative cabinet without a son of Eton for the first time since the 1830s. But that won’t go on long – there are 20 Old Etonian MPs, all Tories. As an Eton school song has it: “Floreat Etona, Floreat, Florebit”. May Eton flourish; she will flourish.

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FRANCE 24 English: Global crowdfunding campaign buys French château

With a price of 50 euros per share, they managed to raise 1.6 million euros, 900,000 euros more than the amount the owner was asking.“This extra money will allow us to begin the preservation work this autumn,” said Julien Macquis, founder of Adopte un Chateâu and one of Mothe-Chandeniers’ new co-owners. [...]

For many of its new co-owners, it was the images of Mothe-Chandeniers published on the internet that made them decide to buy part of it. “I saw a video of the castle filmed by a drone and it was love at first sight,” said Maud. Such videos and photos went viral, giving the château international fame and prompting people from countries like China, South Africa, the US and Germany to buy a share.[...]

The acquisition of the castle might have been a huge crowdfunding success. But that was the easy part. Marquis now has to manage the castle – along with its 27,000 owners. A historian by profession, he must also take on the role of business leader. “There will be a board of directors to make the day-to-day decisions, and the co-owners will vote on the big issues through an online platform,” he says.[...]

There will inevitably be disagreements. Marquis does not expect the 27,000 owners to make unanimous decisions; ergo, a simple majority will be enough to decide on most issues. But he is confident that all co-owners have the same general vision for the château’s future. Notably, none of those interviewed by FRANCE 24 want to restore the building’s original appearance.

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Deutsche Welle: Germany: Thousands gather in Munich to protest Bavarian ruling party CSU

The demonstration follows a large protest in the Bavarian capital on May 5, where at least 30,000 people filled Odeonplatz square to express their rejection of a controversial legislative package put forth by the CSU that sought to widen police powers.

Officials put the attendance of Sunday's anti-CSU rally at 15,000, with organizers saying that 18,000 showed up, despite the unrelenting rain in Munich. Protesters singled out CSU leaders Horst Seehofer and Markus Söder as instigators of an "irresponsible politics of division" at the national and regional levels respectively. Demonstrators also spoke out against CSU parliamentary party leader Alexander Dobrindt.

Organizers of the rally wanted to emphasize that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was not the only political organization that in their eyes promotes a politics of "exclusion and hate." Protesters were called on by organizers to put the spotlight on "a massive societal shift to the right, the surveillance state, [and] the restriction of freedoms and attacks on human rights" that they see as inherent to CSU policies.

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The Guardian: Sanjeev Gupta: Coal power is no longer cheaper – and we'll prove it

Sanjeev Gupta, an industrialist whose family-owned GFG Alliance group of companies has been credited with resurrecting Britain’s steel industry, says he considered investing in coal generation in the state’s Upper Spencer Gulf after buying Arrium’s steel mill last year but found solar backed by “firming” storage technologies made better economic sense. [...]

Gupta’s position is consistent with the Australian energy market operator, which last week released a forecast that found renewable electricity backed by storage and gas would be the lowest cost replacement for the existing coal fleet. The market operator also found it was important to avoid early departures from the electricity grid to ensure an orderly transition. [...]

Gupta is making a series of investments as part of his bid to create Australia’s only fully integrated steel business. He bought the Whyalla mill in 2017 when then-owner Arrium was more than $4bn in debt and he is spending at least $1bn doubling its annual output to 2m tonnes. He plans to expand it further using his green steel model – an increased emphasis on recycling scrap steel and heavy investment in clean energy projects close to the plant. [...]

Beyond his existing commitments, Gupta is planning an electric car plant in South Australia or Victoria to produce 30,000 vehicles a year – “It’s 100% proceeding but the exact location is still being debated” – and said a proposed copper smelter and refinery for South Australia was at feasibility stage. His Australian steel assets picked up in the Arrium sale also include smaller works in Sydney and Melbourne and a planned new mill in Brisbane. He said all three would produce only recycled steel.

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