You Can’t Be True to Yourself
July 15, 2019
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
“To be successful you need friends and to be very successful you need enemies.” – Sidney Sheldon
U.S.A Military: “I Got Enemies, Got a Lotta Enemies”
President Trump openly welcomes authoritarian heads of state to the White House. In May Trump cheerfully hosted Viktor Orban, Hungary’s dictatorial prime minister and one of Europe’s leading nationalists, despite concerns about Orban’s assault on democratic institutions and his close ties to Russia. Last month Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and joked about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election. The president’s obviously warm relationship with dictators, particularly Putin, is colliding with military and intelligence assessments and preparations.
Pursuant to a revamped Pentagon strategy, ongoing secretive mission rehearsals and other operations involving some 1,400 American commandos and their allied partners are taking place behind-the-lines on Europe’s eastern flank. Just days before Trump’s meeting with Putin, teams of Army Green Berets and Navy Seals were practicing missions for local resistance forces in Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania in preparation for possible confrontations with the likes of Russian commandos who helped Moscow seize Crimea in 2014.
The goal of these so-called grey-zone operations is to combat ever-increasing threats from Russia’s “hybrid warfare,” which allied officials describe as the manipulation of events using a mix of subterfuge, cyberattacks and misinformation. The operations are reminiscent of Cold War-era intrigue, but involve the use of bytes and bandwidth instead of bombs and bullets. The allied commandos reenact possible scenarios in which their high-tech equipment guided by satellite communications and precision strikes are foiled by a Russian cyberattack.
Putin’s Power Struggles
- Vladimir Putin’s current term as Russian president ostensibly ends in 2024, and the early stages of a power struggle over succession appear to be underway. Thanks to Putin’s rule in the last 20 years, the power, resources and clan rivalries of the “siloviki” — a vast network of security, intelligence and military officials — has steadily grown.
- Competing agencies like the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) and the Investigative Committee (IC) warily cooperated in persecuting Kremlin critics. But last month’s arrest by the FSB, and subsequent detention of the brutal head of Volgograd’s IC, “Dark Lord” Mikhail Muzraev, is a clear indication that festering infighting has burst into the open. (NYT)
- Putin’s Rasputin: Journalist Amos Barshad meets with “Putin whisperer” Aleksandr Dugin to try to understand how a shadowy advisor exerts influence. (Longreads)
To Find Air Pollution, Just Follow Your Heart
- A recent study revealed that billions of toxic air pollution particles can be found in the hearts of city dwellers as young as three. Damage was seen in the cells of the organ’s critical pumping muscles containing the tiny particles.
- The new research is the first direct evidence that iron-rich nanoparticles, produced by vehicles and industry, could be the underlying cause of the long-established statistical link between dirty air and heart disease.
- In 2016 scientists found the same nanoparticles were present in human brains and were associated with Alzheimers-like damage. Air pollution may be damaging every organ and virtually every cell in the human body, as tiny particles are inhaled, move into the bloodstream and are transported around the body.
- A study in 2018 even found air pollution particles in the placentas of women who had given birth. (Guardian)
And Now Here Is The Protests In Your Neck Of The Woods
- Demonstrators in Hong Kong have singled out a new target of scorn: dominant news station Television Broadcasts, aka TVB. Protestors say coverage of the continuing political crisis by TVB journalists is pro-Beijing and a deliberate marginalization of their movement.
- An analysis of the station’s reporting showed a focus on how the protests have disrupted Hong Kong’s famed efficiency, while playing down the political frustrations that have driven people to the streets in large numbers. TVB has a virtual monopoly on free-to-air TV rights in Hong Kong, and a senior executive was once a top Communist Party official in Shanghai. (NYT)
- ‘We’re Almost Extinct’: China’s Investigative Journalists Are Silenced Under Xi (NYT, $)
Additional World News
- India’s Going to the Moon, and the Country Is Pumped: India will launch an unmanned rover into space on Monday. If successful, India will join a select group of nations capable of reaching the moon. (NYT, $)
- Permafrost thaw sparks fear of ‘gold rush’ for mammoth ivory: Prospectors in Russia dig up remains of extinct animals for trade worth an estimated £40m a year (Guardian)
- Trump’s Asia Gamble: Shatter Enduring Strategies on China and North Korea (NYT, $)
- Zen terror: Master Nissho Inoue and his band of assassins teach some uncomfortable truths about terrorism, for those who will hear (Aeon)
- New Zealand Starts Gun Buyback Program In Response To Christchurch Mosque Shootings (NPR)
- How Mexico Beefs Up Immigration Enforcement To Meet Trump’s Terms (NPR)
- New Workers of the World (Bloomberg, $)
Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Pettiness
- In a stupefyingly offensive series of tweets Sunday, the president who was elected to serve all Americans said four Democratic congresswomen should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Trump’s deplorable comments were aimed at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York; Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts; Rashida Tlaib of Michigan; and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
- “So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” Trump wrote.
- Only Omar was not born in America; she is from Somalia and became a naturalized US citizen when she was 17. Pressley is African American, Tlaib was born to Palestinian immigrants and Ocasio-Cortez comes from a New York-Puerto Rican family.
- Trump’s acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, dismissed the tweets as presidential campaign rhetoric. But Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris tweeted: “Let’s call the president’s racist attack exactly what it is: un-American.” (CNBC)
- Trump tells Ocasio-Cortez and other female progressives to ‘go back’ to ‘original’ countries: Tlaib responds: ‘He needs to be impeached’, Pressley: ‘This is what racism looks like’ (Guardian)
- Trump Fans the Flames of a Racial Fire (NYT, $)
- American Carnage: a masterful must-read on Trump’s Republican takeover (Guardian)
Additional USA News
- We hired the author of ‘Black Hawk Down’ and an illustrator from ‘Archer’ to adapt the Mueller report so you’ll actually read it (Insider)
- In new book, Paul Ryan admits he was a fraud all along: As a congressman, Paul Ryan shamelessly ran cover for Trump. But in an interview with Politico’s Tim Alberta, the former House Speaker made it clear what he thought of the president. (Vanity Fair, $)
- After Dozens of Fentanyl Killings, Hospital C.E.O. and 23 Employees Are Forced Out: The chief executive of Mount Carmel Health System in Ohio resigned one month after a doctor was charged with overprescribing fentanyl to 25 patients. (NYT, $)
- Congress Delays Robert Mueller Hearings One Week Amid Dispute Over Questions (NPR)
Note To Self: Who Are You?
- Throughout recorded history, the coming-of-age narrative has remained essentially the same. And as New York-based writer and historian Cody Delistraty contends, finding one’s true place in the world is a massive trope, not just in film and theatre, but also in literature, education and motivational seminars — any place where young people are involved. Delistraty makes the case that in all these instances, the search for the ‘self’ is dubious because it assumes that there is an enduring ‘self’ that lurks within and that can somehow be found.
- The idea of there being a single ‘self’, hidden in a place that only maturity and adulthood can illuminate — the “to thine own self be true” admonition — suggests there is some inner essence locked within us, and that unearthing it could be the key to figuring out how to live the rest of our lives. In fact, Delistraty argues, the only ‘self’ we can be sure of is one that changes every second, our decisions and circumstances taking us in an infinite number of directions, moment by moment. (Aeon)
- “We know what we are, but not what we may be.” – William Shakespeare
Additional Reads
- Does psychology have a conflict-of-interest problem?: Some star psychologists don’t disclose in research papers the large sums they earn for talking about their work. Is that a concern? (Nature) And Economics Is Broken: A former economic adviser to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama argues that the field should be focused on maximizing people’s happiness and fulfillment. (The Atlantic)
- No, you can’t make a person change (Mark Manson)
- Antivaxxers turn to homeschooling to avoid protecting their kids’ health: One anti-vaccine parent planned to quit her part-time job to “become an educator.” (Ars Technica)
- Zen terror Master Nissho Inoue and his band of assassins teach some uncomfortable truths about terrorism, for those who will hear (Aeon)
- Siberian lake loved by Instagrammers is toxic, power plant says (BBC)
- I Used Google Ads for Social Engineering. It Worked: Ad campaigns that manipulate searchers’ behavior are frighteningly easy for anyone to run. (NYT, $)
- Americans Shouldn’t Have to Drive, but the Law Insists on It: The automobile took over because the legal system helped squeeze out the alternatives. (The Atlantic)