Links for Friday, March 8

The 'largest armed uprising since the Civil War' and other linky treats

Miners at Blair Mountain, West Virginia, 1921 (source below)

Six links covering “the largest armed uprising in American history since the Civil War,” a visual tour of the war in Gaza, a tl;dr tour of Modern Monetary Theory, a bit of philosophy to keep your brain working and more. Plus a musical treat. Enjoy.

Links

• The Battle of Blair Mountain (The Cultural Landscape Foundation)

The largest armed uprising in American history since the Civil War, the Battle of Blair Mountain was the culminating event of the West Virginia Mine Wars, a series of conflicts between miners and coal operators spanning nearly a decade. In August 1921, an estimated 10,000 armed coal miners marched south from the state capitol at Charleston, West Virginia, towards the anti-union counties of Logan, Mingo, and McDowell. Their intent was to end the notorious Mine Guard System, which enabled the coal companies, backed by a private force of armed guards, to rule the coalfields as a police state in which the right to free speech, assembly, and other basic rights were forfeited as a condition of employment.

Eight in ten West Virginia miners then lived in unincorporated “company towns” without elected officials or independent police forces. Mine guards (nominally employed by the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency) maintained order, installing machine-gun turrets and searchlights to help quell any rebellion. The miners and their families rented company houses—one-room hovels, always within walking distance of the mine; were paid in company currency called “script”; and bought goods at company stores with set prices. Company representatives even controlled the mail, often removing what they considered to be “subversive” (pro-union) literature.

File under “Oligarchs and their toys, meaning us.”

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• How war destroyed Gaza’s neighborhoods — visual investigation (The Guardian)

This piece offers a nice visual guide to the destruction in Gaza.

An IDF spokesperson told the Guardian: “Hamas operates nearby, underneath, and within densely populated areas as a matter of routine operational practice. As part of the IDF’s operations, it [has] been carrying out strikes on military targets, as well as locating and destroying infrastructure when imperatively required to achieve the goals of the war.”

Right. In the same way, the Guardian talks about Israel’s “war on Hamas,” when the plain evidence tells us the war is against everyone in Gaza.

(Note: This article is more than a month out of date, meaning things are now worse.)

File under “Making more terrorists, one bomb blast at a time.”

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• Biden: Always Israel’s friend (Edward-Isaac Dovere in Politico, 2013)

If you wonder how far back Biden’s support for Israel goes, read Dovere in Politico, from 2013.

“If there were not an Israel, we would have to invent one to make sure our interests were preserved,” Biden said to the left-leaning pro-Israel group crowd that gave him several ovations in his half-hour speech at the Washington Convention Center.

He’s said things like this most of his political life. Here’s a video of Biden saying so twice: once as president and once in the deep past, in a Senate speech in 1986.

File under “Geopolitical murder, Kissinger’s favorite board game.”

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• Simple Explanation of Modern Monetary Theory (Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest)

We dropped the Gold Standard some time ago and don’t have to round up gold to pay for things anymore. Hence the “Modern” in Modern Monetary Theory. MMT just explains how money works in a modern economy. Government “spends” money into the economy and taxes it back out. The amount not taxed back out (“deficit”) is the amount left circulating in the economy. The total over the years (“debt”) is a measure of the money in the economy. “Balancing” the budget means not putting new money into circulation. “Paying off the debt” means removing all the money from the economy.

File under “What ‘everyone knows to be true’ ain’t always true.”

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• The Treachery of AI (David Holiday, Patchfox.io)

As a consumer I’m rejecting algorithmic content I would otherwise be into based solely on how it was made. As a founder I’m willing to algorithmically generate content if it works for my business. I, the business owner, am perfectly willing to contribute to the thing causing what I, the consumer, am sad to see go.

The treachery of AI is that it casts doubt upon the authenticity of the expression of others. It disconnects us from other people, and, in place, connects us more deeply to the machine. Through doubt, it makes us feel like we’re connected to the machine even when we’re not.

And yet,

AI can be our pusherman. […]

File under “AI, all things to all people; many of them wrong.”

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• The first 7 philosophy texts you should read (Jeffrey Kaplan via YouTube)

I’m finding Kaplan interesting. I almost posted his longer discussion of Plato’s Euthyphro, but if this stuff interests you, the piece above is a place to good start.

File under “Thinking can be a revolutionary act.”

Music

Today’s musical offering is a bit different than most. In the late 1970s the French singer known as “Plastic Bertrand” released a mock-punk song called “Ça plane pour moi” — roughly, “That works for me” or “I’m doing all right.”

The lyrics show a wasted man waking up in the gutter who says he’s had a dream “en quatre colours” — in technicolor. The rest is about the dream — about a woman who he meets and sleeps with (or tries to), and who afterward drank all his whiskey and left. Again, a mock-punk song.

Here’s a lip-synced TV performance from 1978. Note the punk-style pogo dancing.

To really appreciate this song, however, listen again, this time to the phrasing of the lyrics (where the phrases begin and end in relation to the musical phrases. Try to count on the down beats — 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

The music is classic, four-square rock and roll with a I, IV, V (C, F, G) blues chord structure. And the phrasing of the chorus (“Ça plane pour moi, ça plane pour moi”) aligns perfectly with the four-square music, just like it does on a Chuck Berry song, for example.

But if you try to see how the phrases of the verse align with the music behind it, things go sideways fast. Again, try counting the beats, keeping the phrases aligned relative to the music. It’s hard, because they aren’t. Now imagine having to sing this piece, having to come in at the right time after each pause in the verse. Nearly impossible.

For many excellent reasons this song has had a very long life in the Francophone world. It’s also appeared as part of several movies, like Wolf of Wall Street. Hope you like it as much as I’ve grown to.