There is talk of a general strike this Friday. This seems to me the wrong approach. A general strike is a good idea, but it shouldn't be done in haste. It should be dangled as a threat for at least a month, which in itself will change the behavior of the opposition by, for example, strengthening the hand of moderates in the Congress. That month should be spent organizing the infrastructure required to support the strike. There is a danger that the strike will be called, it will prove to be a bust, and future threats of strike will not look credible. Someone should speak to the Boeing employees Union. Find out how to do this properly.

Is the next step for private concentration camp operators to start renting slave labor to business (agriculture, abbatoirs, …) for profit?  Convert a cost to a revenue source.  This solves the government's problem with farmers, etc, who have lost their cheap labor source and are pushing back on the migrant round up. There's plenty of precedent: for-profit prisons currently do this to a limited extent, and of course we have the Nazis as examples.

Watched two YouTube videos of government press conferences from today: the first by the Prime Minister in Ottawa, the second by my state's Governor and attorney general. Canada announced a program of food aid for low-income residents being hurt by inflation, effective immediately. Washington State announced preparation for worst case scenarios for responding to a surge in ICE and CBP thugs in our state.

Our two countries are in very different places.

For the record: my vision for fixing asylum applications in the US is to fix the actual problem, which is delays that extend for years. To fix this, the federal government should deputize as many immigration lawyers as needed to become temporary immigration judges to clear the backlog of applications. Lawyers should be nominated by the the American immigration law association.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-are-federal-agents-gunning-down Noah Smith writes about the Minnesota ICE killing soon after the event, where he makes the point that 

‘“When a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life” is a perfect description of an authoritarian police state.’

In the course of the argument he includes a (still frankly shocking) list of documented assaults by ICE against civilians, gathered over the course of “a couple of days” from X.  The rhetorical impact of the length of the list was what stuck with me from reading the article.

Roger’s article (https://rogerpartridge.substack.com/p/the-hidden-architecture-of-government) points out the danger of separating responsibility from consequence.  An interesting echo shows up in this article (https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/europe-has-more-bargaining-strength) on the power of the EU in confronting Trumps threats:

“The implication, then, is that the European Union might be much more credible with the Bessents of the world if they could more readily bind themselves to take painful or difficult steps to counter aggression. However, the European Union’s member states often look at the problem differently. They are worried about delegating security power to the European Commission, for fear it will do something that hurts their economic interests or other national interests. The Schelling argument is that this increases their flexibility, but weakens their ability to demonstrate resolve against outside threats.”

That is, the responsibility for security lies with the collective, but the consequences fall on individual states. Therefore, they are understandably reluctant to invest the collective with the requisite control.

I watched this two days ago, and this morning every news feed I follow points to it.  I walked with David Gray last weekend, and he still laments the lack of leadership we have in the US.  As I said months ago, Carney is the man he wants to see in the US.  Schumer, here is how you lead from a position of weakness.

As you can tell from this essay: https://kk.org/thetechnium/how-will-the-miracle-happen-today/

I disagree with CDM’s call for more explicit definitions in Bandcamp’s new anti-AI policy announcement.  IMHO, Bandcamp have done the right thing by allowing for human judgement in determining what constitutes a violation, and what consequences should follow, for any particular case.  Encoding more rigid definitions for both violations and consequences is an invitation to bad actors to find and exploit legalistic loopholes.  I prefer the broad statement of purpose the announcement makes, coupled with nuanced human evaluation of specific cases.

David Brin has proposed a set of government reforms to address the current catastrophe, based on the principle that unless 60% or more of the voting public agree with a given policy it’s counterproductive to incorporate it into your election platform.  He points to Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” as the paradigmatic example that got Republicans into power for the first time in decades, and contrasts his proposals with Robert Reich’s policy proposal list which he rightly notes is DOA because it doesn’t pass the 60% rule.  In fact, he notes that Reich might as well add an eleventh element that proposes giving everyone a pony, or a unicorn.

Brin’s list is thorough and do-able.  As this reviewer notes, it’s an engineering project: specific actions, with measurable results and mechanisms for accountability.  Worth reading the review first to understand why Brin’s proposal is useful.