On Criticizing Chinese Slavery

Publicly criticizing slavery in China must be a lot like publicly criticizing the Holodomor and Stalin's purges back in the day. So much of the intelligensia was convinced that the Soviet Union was the hope of the future and actually they were this brutal horror. And now people are convinced China is the hope of the future and they're this slave power.

The Holy Wars of Modern Fascism

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which now governs Iran, is led by bellicose fanatics who dream of jihad, not in the sense of a personal struggle against evil, but rather in the sense of conquest. They are likely to fail in their dreams, but they can do a great deal of harm in the failing. But they are not much different from

The Global Trade War Is Here

So, the Iranian government, which is the consolidated result of the most radical elements of Iran, is now apparently planning on tolling all traffic through the Persian Gulf. I expect them to try to strangle the Arab states of the Gulf, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, which they regard as heretics. So long freedom of navigation.

Crunch Time for Renewable Energy Deployment

Trump and Netanyahu’s ill-considered war on Iran has brought us to a situation where 20% of the world’s oil supply is bottled up in the Persian Gulf. If the war continues–and none of the participants show signs of backing down–the price of crude oil is expected to double over time. Other raw materials are bottled up in the Gulf as well, fertilizer, and helium, important for chip manufacture.

Global Brain Sclerosis and the Conscience of the World

Over on Bluesky @henrythedog.bsky.social comments:

One thing I haven't seen enough people talk about is Iran's infrastructure was already at the edge of falling apart, Tehran already has a serious water shortage problem, bombing and the disruption of government services and control could push it over the edge unleashing a massive humanitarian crisis.

This is unconscionable. Even the worst administrations of my life would not have risked such a thing, and leads to the following reflection:

This disastrous administration is showing us that the United States was the conscience of the world, is no longer, and so far no other country is stepping up. It was also the biggest charitable organization in the world and the keeper of the peace. With the predominance of fascists in the United States, it is as if the brain of the world has had a stroke, and part of it is gone. Considering that multiple Western nations have fascist parties, maybe it's correct to say that the brain of the world has a vascular disorder, leading to multiple TIAs in addition to a major stroke.

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savour, from where shall it be salted?”

The Choice of Publisher: X, Substack, and All

The problem of staying on X is that one becomes part of the network and, even if you are not yourself a white supremacist or Nazi, people who follow you are recruited onto a site where they will propagandized. It’s been observed that the propaganda is effective:

The Coup: Gray Thoughts on a Gray Day

• It is a huge failure of US democracy that there was no preparation for this coup; we have known it was in the offing for 25 years.

Late Reflections on the Banning of Will Stancil from Minneapolis Resistance Signal Groups

Since I seem to be having a subpost discussion of secret-keeping in political movements, yes, sometimes it is necessary, but it tends to take over, and make people suspicious of anyone not in the in-group. All the stuff that is a staple of spy novels (and court romances) applies. There are risks of infiltration, subversion, … and betrayal. All the nasty dynamics of in-group politics can operate.

On Non-Partisanship In Media

What is non-partisan, when one party is normal, and the other is fascist? The solution that our press has used for decades is to report the sides of partisan disputes as if each party is of equal credibility; to place the gross failings of the Republican Party and the minor failings of the Democratic Party as equal. The practical result of that sort of "non-partisanship" is not at all non-partisan; it ends up defending the indefensible and is a large part of how we have ended up here.

Lindsay Beyerstein: On Epstein and His Circle

Lindsay Beyerstein, writing on Bluesky on Feb 8, 2026:

Calling the Epstein [circle] a pedophilia ring lets society off too easy. What the Epstein files reveal is the impunity of the elite class to do anything they want—though, in point of fact, most don't want to have sex with children. I don't think Epstein was practicing blackmail on an industrial scale. After reading thousands of his emails, there's no hint of that. The people in his orbit adored him and begged to be included. They were having a great time. Epstein may well have blackmailed people; but that wasn't his business model. Once you get a feel for who the most blackmailable motherfuckers in his circle are, it's astonishing how well they continue to get along with Epstein for years and years. They want to come over and hang out, they delight in being invited to his events, they lavish praise on him. I wouldn't put any bad act past Jeffrey Epstein, he was a sociopath who committed all kinds of crimes. But when you look at the evidence in total, it doesn't seem like blackmail was Epstein's default. He was honey over vinegar for powerful men.

Used by permission.

Slavery and Solar Panels Bibliography

On the way to writing that short piece on slavery and solar panels, I looked at quite a few reports and articles. Here's a bibliography, for anyone interested.

Xinjiang: Slavery and Solar Panels

In Xinjiang, western China, the polysilicon that is used the in the inexpensive photovoltaic panels that have become so widespread is manufactured. The people who manufacture it are members of an Islamic ethnicity called Uyghurs,¹ and they are enslaved by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This is widely reported, but is most clearly laid out in Prof. Laura Murphy’s extensively-researched report, In Broad Daylight² from the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC) at the United Kingdom’s Sheffield Hallam University.³

A Few Notes on Venezuela

• Chalk up another ignominiously lost destabilizing war. As with Iraq, it may take a while for the failure to become clear, but I do not see any path to a meaningful victory.
• Trump has badmouthed Nobel winner Machado in favor of Maduro's VP, Delcy Rodríguez, who has not returned the favor.
• Venezuelan oil is heavy sour crude and their refineries are decaying; there's no profit in that oil now or in less than a decade, probably ever. Oil is not going to pay for this.