U.S. and China escalate

benfell

Imperialism

China


Fig. 1. “Map of Qing Empire filled with the flag.” Graphic by Daniel222potato [pseud.], via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Warren P. Strobel and Gordon Lubold, “Cuba to Host Secret Chinese Spy Base Focusing on U.S.,” Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/cuba-to-host-secret-chinese-spy-base-focusing-on-u-s-b2fed0e0

Taiwan

U.S., Taiwanese, and Japanese forces will be sharing drone information. China is not amused.[1] But surely the country had to expect an answer, and probably more of an answer than this, to its agreement with Cuba to set up a spy base.[2]

Kathrin Hille and Demetri Sevastopulo, “US to link up with Taiwan and Japan drone fleets to share real-time data,” Financial Times, June 8, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/bde0db76-a7f8-4ecd-b5d5-03de0b5a8659

Russia

Ukraine


Fig. 2. “Destroyed Russian military vehicles located on the main street Khreshchatyk are seen as part of the celebration of the Independence Day of Ukraine in Kyiv, August 24.” Photograph by Gleb Garanich for Reuters, August 24, 2022,[3] fair use.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon takes as given that Russia is behind the destruction of a dam in Ukraine and proceeds directly to an allegation of a war crime.[4] I’ll grant that blowing up the dam was a war crime and I think it more likely than not that Russia is behind the blast, simply because Russia has motive—to foreclose some Ukrainian counteroffensive opportunities[5]—and obvious opportunity—it controls the dam—but I have not seen this confirmed and that Ukraine may have been behind the Nord Stream pipeline blast[6] reminds us that “truth is the first casualty of war.”[7]

Of course, attacking evacuation efforts doesn’t help Russia’s case either.[8]

More worryingly, and perhaps rightly, Bretton-Gordon sees the dam sabotage as unconventional warfare and a potential resulting meltdown at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as steps toward nuclear war.[9]

Breaking: The long-expected Ukrainian counteroffensive may have begun.[10]

Gabriel Gavin and Veronika Melkozerova, “Dam sabotage creates Ukraine’s worst environmental disaster ‘since Chernobyl,’” Politico, June 6, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/dam-sabotage-ukraine-worst-environmental-disaster-chernobyl/

Samuel Granados and Ruby Mellen, “Maps show how damaged Kakhovka dam hurts both Ukraine and Russia,” Washington Post, June 6, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/06/kakhovka-dam-maps-impact-russia-ukraine/

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, “We are now dangerously close to nuclear war,” Telegraph, June 7, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/07/we-are-now-perilously-close-to-nuclear-war/

Paul Ronzheimer, Gabriel Gavin, and Victor Jack, “Zelenskyy denies Ukraine involvement in Nord Stream pipeline blasts,” Politico, June 7, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/zelenskyy-denies-ukraine-involvement-in-nord-stream-pipeline-blasts/

Veronika Melkozerova, “Russia bombs school where flood evacuees were sheltering after Zelenskyy visits Kherson,” Politico, June 8, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-strikes-school-where-evacuees-were-sheltering-after-zelenskyy-visits-flood-struck-kherson-ukraine-war/

Zoya Sheftalovich, “Ukraine counteroffensive: Kyiv claims gains in Bakhmut,” Politico, June 8, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-claims-gains-bakhmut-amid-reports-counteroffensive-russia-hanna-maliar/

Israel

Palestine


Fig. 3. Graphic by Al Jazeera, May 15, 2022,[11] fair use.

In the 60-page document [the White House’s national strategy to combat antisemitism], the Biden administration referred to the IHRA definition — named after the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which promotes it — as the “most prominent” of several definitions of antisemitism and one the administration has “embraced.” But it emphasized that it has no legal value and does not supersede existing laws or constitute binding guidance for public agencies and local government.[12]

Alice Speri, “Biden Embraces Antisemitism Definition That Has Upended Free Speech in Europe,” Intercept, June 6, 2023, https://theintercept.com/2023/06/06/antisemitism-definition-israel-palestine/

Neoliberalism

Self-driving cars


Fig. 1. Photograph by Mark Doliner, August 1, 2012, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

We’re dependent upon the very limited data reporting that they make to the CPUC. Cruise and Waymo seem focused on avoiding injury collisions directly but do not seem concerned about the intensity of the chaos that they’re creating around them, like delays to emergency response times, the opening of passenger doors into the bike lane or other factors that may result in safety problems. Moreover, Cruise in particular has strongly promoted their safety record, but based upon the data that we have available, it appears that a Cruise vehicle is 6.3 times more dangerous than a human driver at this stage.  . .

[The California Department of Motor Vehicles] had the first regulations around autonomous vehicles in the country. At the time, those regulations were quite clever, but we’ve learned a lot in the last several years about unintended negative consequences. For example, we didn’t anticipate the delays to emergency response time. When a human driver gets confused, they will find a place to pull over safely on the side of the road and sort things out, whereas when an autonomous vehicle gets confused, it just comes to a complete stop wherever it happens to be. If that happens to be in front of a fire station or in the middle of an arterial intersection, that creates some pretty significant traffic and safety problems.

Similarly, DMV did not anticipate an autonomous vehicle needing to understand a human traffic-control officer directing traffic or understand firefighters at a fire scene. As it turns out, autonomous vehicles are having a really hard time with very common situations that the industry still calls edge cases but are ubiquitous in urban places like San Francisco.[13]

Kevin Truong, “San Francisco Transit Chief Blasts Cruise, Waymo Robotaxis as Unsafe: ‘Race to the Bottom,’” San Francisco Standard, June 7, 2023, https://sfstandard.com/transportation/san-francisco-transit-chief-blasts-cruise-waymo-robotaxis-unsafe/

Gilead

Competitive authoritarian regime project


Fig. 1. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Clarence Mitchell during signing ceremony of the voting rights act. Yoichi Okamoto, August 6, 1965, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Robert Barnes, “Supreme Court: Alabama must draw new voting map favorable to Black residents,” Washington Post, June 8, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/08/supreme-court-alabama-redistricting-voting-rights/

  1. [1]Kathrin Hille and Demetri Sevastopulo, “US to link up with Taiwan and Japan drone fleets to share real-time data,” Financial Times, June 8, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/bde0db76-a7f8-4ecd-b5d5-03de0b5a8659↩
  2. [2]Warren P. Strobel and Gordon Lubold, “Cuba to Host Secret Chinese Spy Base Focusing on U.S.,” Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/cuba-to-host-secret-chinese-spy-base-focusing-on-u-s-b2fed0e0↩
  3. [3]Reuters, “Ukraine puts destroyed Russian tanks on display in Kyiv,” August 25, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/ukraine-puts-destroyed-russian-tanks-on-idUSRTSALV9Q↩
  4. [4]Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, “We are now dangerously close to nuclear war,” Telegraph, June 7, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/07/we-are-now-perilously-close-to-nuclear-war/↩
  5. [5]Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, “We are now dangerously close to nuclear war,” Telegraph, June 7, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/07/we-are-now-perilously-close-to-nuclear-war/; Samuel Granados and Ruby Mellen, “Maps show how damaged Kakhovka dam hurts both Ukraine and Russia,” Washington Post, June 6, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/06/kakhovka-dam-maps-impact-russia-ukraine/↩
  6. [6]Paul Ronzheimer, Gabriel Gavin, and Victor Jack, “Zelenskyy denies Ukraine involvement in Nord Stream pipeline blasts,” Politico, June 7, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/zelenskyy-denies-ukraine-involvement-in-nord-stream-pipeline-blasts/; Dan Sabbagh, Philip Oltermann, and Lorenzo Tondo, “Officials believe pro-Ukraine group may have sabotaged Nord Stream – reports,” Guardian, March 7, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/07/officials-believe-pro-ukraine-group-sabotage-nord-stream-pipelines↩
  7. [7]The origin of this passage is unknown: Garson O’Toole, “Truth Is the First Casualty in War,” Quote Investigator, April 11, 2020, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/04/11/casualty/↩
  8. [8]Veronika Melkozerova, “Russia bombs school where flood evacuees were sheltering after Zelenskyy visits Kherson,” Politico, June 8, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-strikes-school-where-evacuees-were-sheltering-after-zelenskyy-visits-flood-struck-kherson-ukraine-war/↩
  9. [9]Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, “We are now dangerously close to nuclear war,” Telegraph, June 7, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/07/we-are-now-perilously-close-to-nuclear-war/↩
  10. [10]Zoya Sheftalovich, “Ukraine counteroffensive: Kyiv claims gains in Bakhmut,” Politico, June 8, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-claims-gains-bakhmut-amid-reports-counteroffensive-russia-hanna-maliar/↩
  11. [11]Mohammed Haddad, “Nakba Day: What happened in Palestine in 1948?” Al Jazeera, May 15, 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/15/nakba-mapping-palestinian-villages-destroyed-by-israel-in-1948↩
  12. [12]Alice Speri, “Biden Embraces Antisemitism Definition That Has Upended Free Speech in Europe,” Intercept, June 6, 2023, https://theintercept.com/2023/06/06/antisemitism-definition-israel-palestine/↩
  13. [13]Jeffrey Tumlin, quoted in Kevin Truong, “San Francisco Transit Chief Blasts Cruise, Waymo Robotaxis as Unsafe: ‘Race to the Bottom,’” San Francisco Standard, June 7, 2023, https://sfstandard.com/transportation/san-francisco-transit-chief-blasts-cruise-waymo-robotaxis-unsafe/↩

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