Abort, Retry, Fail?

I’ve written and deleted a number of drafts of this newsletter in the past couple weeks. Each time I just feel worse about it, and I feel bad about bringing my doomscrolling into other people’s inboxes. But there’s so much doom to scroll through! And all of the new information just happens to confirm all of my prior assumptions, so it’s definitely true!

Image from The Simpsons: one of the bullies saying Videotaping this crime spree was the best idea we ever had

Anyway, The Nation has an amazing piece covering scenes from this week’s shitshow that concluded with this:

“This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. She was crying, hysterical. “They’re shooting at us. They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.””

And I am reminded of course, immediately, of an incredibly insightful little phrase from, of all things, the comment section of a rather neoliberal-leaning blog:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.


Decline?

Economist Brad DeLong and VC investor Om Malik face off on the question “Is America In Decline?” in a Pairagraph dialog. DeLong takes the “yes” side, noting that life expectancy in the US is lower than it ought to be, and that foreign students coming to study here often go home wondering why they bothered going to such a backward country that has nothing to teach them.

Malik takes the “no” side, arguing that while this year has forced the nation to look at its flaws, and that it’s reasonable to despair over our failings, we can fix them: “We can and will be better. Maybe it is my day job, or perhaps it is the delusion of an immigrant’s mind, but I believe the tradition of dreaming up something from nothing is still alive in this country. And that is what keeps me betting on America.” It’s inspiring, it really is.

I am, for one moment, sincere when I say this: I think that a lot of our flaws can be fixed and that the first step is in fact acknowledging them and recognizing them. We certainly can do better, and it’s possible that we will.

OK, that was excruciating. Back to bleak sarcasm.

Sure, we’re fucking up the distribution of vaccines in an entirely predictable and preventable way, and all of our economic inequities are revealed by how the wealthy stay healthy and the poor get sick, but at least the CIA is running death squads in Afghanistan, so, you know, we’re still in top form on hearts-and-minds foreign policy front. And we sure have some wicked awesome mansions, like this one owned by America’s wealthiest senator, Kelly Loeffler. And our conglomerates and trusts still do conglomerate and cross-subsidize and crush independent competitors like they did back in the day. And we’ve finally gotten Congress to share in the glory of active shooter drills for our school children! And, concentration camps in China notwithstanding, we’re still the number one incarcerator!

Cops

I don’t yet have enough details about the failures of the capitol police to handle this week’s riots, so here’s my recent roundup of other police brutality:

Misc

Kottke calls out a key detail in this article on credit card rewards programs:“The average cash-using household paid $149 over the course of a year to card-using households, while each card-using household received $1,133 from cash users, partially in the form of rewards.”

Patricia Lockwood is always a delight, even when writing about neurosis and elections.

Cultivating Joy

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