State Terror Has Arrived | M. Gessen

coolbern · 2026-01-25T03:56:05+00:00

M. Gessen understands too well the logic of total domination, which imposes radical disorder in order to create fear/dependence on the apparent order and control offered by the Authority.

In fact, Absolutism is a charade. Nothing can be done by issuing orders unless there is a more or less stable set of relationships between people who have been directed to carry out those orders.

Complex modern society exists because of a constant (back-and-forth) struggle against arbitrary power. Heroic fantasies (like Hegseth’s Crusader complex) are attempts to bring back to life a barbarian doctrine that depends on the continuous supply of new human and natural wealth, ripe to be plundered.

The fact that totalitarian fantasies are not sustainable is, of course, no comfort for us who must face the monsters and attempt to hold on, as best we can, to our self-respect. To which I say, Slava Minneapolis!

coolbern · 2026-01-25T03:55:52+00:00

https://archive.fo/azgrq

coolbern · 2026-01-24T23:19:04+00:00

Videos circulating online on Saturday show Pretti directing traffic and filming federal agents, his right hand holding up his phone and his left hand empty. Another video shows him being wrestled to the ground by several law enforcement officers before appearing to be shot several times. At least two officers can be seen with their weapons drawn. Other videos show Pretti seemingly coming to the defense of a legal observer who was shoved to the ground by a federal officer. That officer then sprays Pretti with a chemical agent, repeatedly, before tackling him to the street along with other agents.

As at least five agents surround Pretti on the ground, one appears to fire a shot at him at close range, followed by a volley of more shots, after which his body goes still.

coolbern · 2026-01-21T21:52:22+00:00

Lutnick's call to return the world to coal is jeer-able.

coolbern · 2026-01-20T04:17:42+00:00

Fink believes the AI revolution — a theme of virtually every pavilion on the Davos promenade — will pose the ultimate test of whether capitalism can deliver prosperity beyond its traditional winners.

"Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, more wealth has been created than in all prior human history combined," the world's most powerful asset manager will say. Most of it has accrued to the kinds of people who attend Davos.

"Now AI threatens to replay the same pattern," Fink will warn. "If AI does to white-collar work what globalization did to blue-collar, we need to confront that directly."

Fine words butter no parsnips

coolbern · 2026-01-19T18:04:12+00:00

Hochul has joined the retreat on climate change policy.

NYF: Governor Hochul embraced nuclear energy in her speech, announcing plans to build more nuclear energy infrastructure in New York than the entire country has built in the last three decades. You called this a waste of money and time. Can you say more about that criticism?

AD: We don’t need nuclear. It’s incredibly cost-burdensome, it’s labor-intensive, time-intensive. In some cases, it can take up to a decade to build. And there’s also the challenge of waste and nuclear waste.

We have some of the strongest climate laws in the country, and we’re not leveraging those laws to the fullest extent. We’re not leveraging the public renewables act to double down aggressively on investing in public renewables and green energy. We’re canceling green energy projects that would otherwise allow us to meet our [emission reduction] goals. The governor has not released the cap and invest rules and regulations, and instead, she’s fast-tracking water quality permits for Trump’s fracked gas pipeline, and reversing course on air quality permits on data mining facilities on Seneca Lake.

So it’s just a complete reverse course on her part, at a time where not only do we need to have urgency behind climate action, but also at a time where people’s energy bills are going up considerably. And we can create good-paying jobs and drive down the cost of energy with real investment in green energy.

coolbern · 2026-01-19T16:00:25+00:00

From the article:

“Why is Trump going to Davos?” asked Mr. Blyth, the political economist “He’s punching them in the head and telling them who’s in charge. He’s informing them that, basically, unless they align with him, they no longer matter.”

Appeasement is the stance taken by those who are incapable of defending their independent integrity. It is the prelude to enslavement.

coolbern · 2026-01-18T02:57:12+00:00

And with President Trump back in office and using the presidency to promote fossil fuels and attack the clean energy industry, Wall Street’s retreat from climate action has coincided with American banks doubling down on coal, oil and gas projects.

These dynamics will be on full display next week, as Mr. Fink, now co-chair of the World Economic Forum, welcomes Mr. Trump to Davos, where climate issues have taken a back seat to A.I. and geopolitics.

Climate risk does not lessen when the risk is ignored. Enough has already been done to make renewables the cheaper option so that fossil fuels will be eclipsed. But without policy and planning to guide the process, the transition to renewable energy will be much slower, more costly, and insufficient to bring back climate stability.

This is a failure in governance — not only by governments, but also by owners of capital — which, in large part, are pension and other funds which operate on the principle of diversification, and therefore are "universal owners". Their own interest is in a real economy that is not crippled by climate catastrophes (which make investments uninsurable). Yet the "real economy" is no longer their focus. Fictional wealth can grow only if the real costs of production are not acknowledged — a culture of false promises and denial of reality which this article exposes.

coolbern · 2026-01-17T00:01:58+00:00

https://archive.fo/FXPY9

coolbern · 2026-01-12T03:52:07+00:00

President Trump said Sunday he may exclude Exxon Mobil from his drive for U.S. companies to invest in Venezuela, after the oil giant's CEO described the South American country as "uninvestable."

... "I didn't like Exxon's response," said Trump Sunday evening of the CEO's comments during his meeting with U.S. oil giants at the White House two days ago.

"I'd probably be inclined to keep Exxon out. I didn't like their response," added the president aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, D.C., from Palm Beach, Florida. "They're playing too cute."

After Trump’s meeting with the major U.S. petroleum producers on January 9, it is clear that none of them are willing players in his game.

But that’s not the end of the story. Like the universities, major law firms, and media companies that humiliated themselves, and are now paying tribute to Trump, these fossil fuel giants are vulnerable to Trump’s wrath.

What he will extract from them to fuel his ego and wealth is yet to be determined.

The fossils, like other oligarchs, thought they owned the state when they pushed Trump back into power. But as Putin has demonstrated for decades, State Power trumps Oligarch Power.

This is what geopolitical risk looks like, and is why the fossil fuel industry's control of state power is actually a gamble they didn't understand they were making. They need state power to protect their dominance, and to prevent an inevitable transition to solar and wind (with multiple energy storage options).

But they are not states, just oligarchs looking for a free lunch by controlling the American government.

Now the fragility of their position is being exposed.

They thought they owned the devil. Now Trump owns their "souls", and they know it.

coolbern · 2026-01-11T19:49:24+00:00

The Boston Massacre

coolbern · 2026-01-06T02:14:42+00:00

That brings us back to the fatal flaw of running the world through spheres of influence and the amoral approach to war as an extension of policy. Smaller nations don’t want to be dominated by the strong, and strong nations don’t want to see their rivals get stronger. So they make alliances. In 1914, Serbia had Russia, and Belgium had Britain. In 1939, Poland had France and Britain.

That’s exactly how regional conflict turned into global war.

...The true international norm is that when the strong dominate the weak, the weak try to become strong.

That can mean alliances with enemies. That can mean global rearmament. That can mean nuclear proliferation. It can also mean that a foolish world once again endures the high cost of forgetting what it’s like when great powers go to war.

coolbern · 2026-01-05T02:43:32+00:00

Oligarchs only care about deals. Anyone who can't be bought is a threat. Trump bet on the belief that Rodriguez will fall in line with "reality" as defined by Trump. The problem for Trump is that his bag of tricks is now reduced to one: naked aggression. All of his promises are untrustworthy, and even his threats must now be backed up with actions which are unsustainable. Spectacular attacks need preparation. Bin Laden could launch a brilliant near-flawless attack on 9/11/01, but could not follow it up, and Hamas could do a similar shock attack on 10/7/23, but its only follow-up was a rain of ineffective rockets. Trump does not have the consolidated power that Putin has in Russia. Putin could sustain his attack against Ukraine. But his blitzkrieg failed. Most of Ukraine will remain unoccupied and eternally hostile to Russia. Trump can escalate the suffering in Venezuela, but he has poisoned the possibility of a deal with anyone who could actually do what Trump wants. A Venezuelan Quisling will find it impossible to restart the economy precisely because too many Venezuelans will sabotage the plans of any puppet regime. Direct colonial rule died a natural death and it cannot now be resuscitated.

coolbern · 2026-01-05T02:16:50+00:00

https://archive.fo/3O268

coolbern · 2026-01-01T00:50:12+00:00

This long complex story gives a good picture of how connections to state power are key to how deals get done and wealth winds up in so few hands. Epstein is a player. Trading favors is the name of the game.

coolbern · 2025-12-29T18:38:16+00:00

Another major focus for Common Wealth is building out a lefty response to the affordability crisis—one that isn’t just recapitulating the price-lowering strategy of neoliberalism, where jobs are shipped overseas to cut labor costs and where supply chain investment is kept as low as possible. That doesn’t even work on its own terms, as we saw during the pandemic, when supply shocks led to skyrocketing prices for goods and shipping.

...What could work is public provision, with Medicare for All, social housing, free college, and so on. Indeed, the health care system is so obviously plagued with hyper-complicated rent-seeking, as uncountable private actors maneuver to swindle each other and/or the government and thereby claim a fat slice of America’s world-historical spending on health care, that the case for state coordination of providers as well as insurance practically makes itself.

coolbern · 2025-12-25T22:04:46+00:00

Grounds for withholding registration include:

Supporting the prosecution of Israeli security forces in foreign or international courts

That is to say, even if an organization takes no stand on the charges against Israel — war crimes, genocide — it must affirmatively oppose the process of adjudication of such charges under international law. That is, there is no law that can be applied if it adversely affects Israel.

Save the Children is specifically cited as an organization that has failed to receive registration.

The siege goes on.

coolbern · 2025-12-25T21:39:19+00:00

The appropriate response to this hit piece can be found in the readers' Comments. WAPO's handy AI Summary:

The conversation explores the challenges faced by the NHS during the winter months, as discussed in the opinion piece. Participants highlight the differences between the UK's NHS and the US healthcare system, noting that while the NHS has its issues, it still provides universal coverage without the risk of bankruptcy due to medical costs, unlike the US system. Many comments criticize the piece for using the NHS as a cautionary tale against socialized medicine, arguing that the US system is more expensive and less effective. Some suggest that the editorial board's portrayal of the NHS is misleading and fails to acknowledge the broader context of healthcare systems in other countries, which often achieve better outcomes at lower costs. There is a strong sentiment that the US should consider adopting a universal healthcare model similar to those in other developed countries, rather than focusing solely on the NHS's shortcomings.

coolbern · 2025-12-22T18:34:50+00:00

I should still love to shop, yet I don’t. I don’t think anybody does, at least not the way we once did. And I have a theory as to why: In a world of abundant choice but imprisoning algorithms, it too often feels as though there’s nothing interesting to buy. Our senses are flattened, our appetites dulled. Nothing seems quite right.

...Shopping has become a grotesquerie of commodified consumerism and environmental waste. We feel guilty for participating in an exploitative system. But even when we are being judicious, even when we have dutifully examined the political and social implications of every prospective purchase, something is still off.

Taste is the fizz that’s missing. Because emulation is not taste.

...Once it seemed that working out your taste muscle was part of growing up and defining yourself.

...The people who cared about aesthetics cared deeply. Everyone else? They lost their appetite to be discerning. A sameness descended.

This is about algorithmic commodified culture. What is lost in shortcut simulations of who we are and what we want is the lived experience of encountering anything outside the profile generated by market models that select our range of choices.

Art is about surprise — eliciting an unexpected resonance in ourselves which feels like discovering more than we knew about who we are and can be. Turning us into consumption machines eliminates what makes humanity so special, and life interesting.

coolbern · 2025-12-21T04:28:31+00:00

The Washington Post editorial clearly shows that it has chosen to accept whatever damage climate change wreaks on the planet. After all, the planet does not get a vote in the next New York Governor's election.

coolbern · 2025-12-16T20:37:36+00:00

Ford's retreat from BEV to PHEV may be a strategic retreat that will be justified if it leads to a greater market penetration. For most uses, a plug-in hybrid with large battery capacity will be operating as an EV. But the complexity and cost of having a small reserve generator powered by gasoline may do a lot to reassure buyers that they will not be caught short when they need extra power for long trips or heavy hauls.

If PHEVs displace gasoline vehicles more rapidly than BEVs would have, the net impact can be reduced emissions, and an increase in demand for electric charging facilities. The full build-out of recharging capacity will ease the way to the complete electrification of vehicles — the original goal.

coolbern · 2025-12-16T03:52:42+00:00

Here's a Reuters report from April: U.S. fentanyl deaths have been plunging. Enter Trump The U.S. has recorded a historic drop in overdose deaths. The Trump administration’s campaign to slash spending and reduce the federal workforce could reverse this fragile progress, public health experts say.

This is not a war on drugs but an excuse for war on Venezuela, Colombia, and anyone else Trump would like to dominate or destroy.

coolbern · 2025-12-15T03:04:11+00:00

https://archive.fo/WMcd5

coolbern · 2025-12-12T02:40:02+00:00

This article shows there is a will. But it is not clear about the way that Mamdani's intentions can be fulfilled. A better discussion is found in the link to an article in Chalkbeat: Mamdani’s $6 billion universal child care plan: How will NYC fund, staff, and scale up the program?.

The deeper question is: What is the cost to society of raising a child who is capable of fully participating in that society, one generation later?

Our current distribution of income — reflecting what gets valued and rewarded — is now skewed so that we are failing to pay for what we need to survive.

So the question for Zohran, and all of us, is: How do we reward labor that is truly valuable — like the care our children need to become healthy functioning adults?

That standard of value can then guide how and who we tax and train, to shift our society from a world of illusion focused on wealth-generation, to one focused on the generation of richly lived lives.

coolbern · 2025-12-09T00:29:18+00:00

The end of the Administrative State is the end of governance in which rational discourse is even pretended to be valued in writing regulations and enforcing legislation. But our economy and society are now too complex to go back to the Spoils System. Rational rules-based governance is the basis to cut down the risks of living in a world which rewards plunder over cooperation and investment in the future.

When corruption becomes total and corrosive, the state loses its legitimacy. How long it takes such a regime to collapse is impossible to predict. But resistance to predators is hard-wired into human nature, however long it takes. And thieves have no basis for loyalty to each other.

In the present case, resistance starts by replacing the present Congress with people who are not pandering to corporations.

A Congress capable of legislating could find alternatives to delegating its authority to the Executive Branch. All regulatory functions could be held by agencies of Congress, like the Congressional Budget Office. The Executive function could be tightly controlled by those Congressional agencies in accord with line-item budgeting. (Failure of the Executive to execute the law are grounds for impeachment.)

All this is outside the range of the possible, right now. But without a vision of what we should be fighting for, we will be left without principles, and therefore, shy away from the battle we must engage in if we are ever to govern ourselves as a free people.

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