Without Comment; With Questions: Transcripts of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and President Trump Addresses to General and Flag Officers at Quantico, Virginia

 

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Thank you very much, Pete. And great job you're doing too, fantastic job. I've never walked into a room so silent before. This is very -- oh, don't laugh, don't laugh. You're not allowed to do that. You know what, just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want -- you can do anything you want.

And if you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future, but you just feel nice and loose, OK, because we're all on the same team. And I was told that, sir, you won't hear -- you won't hear a murmur in the room. I said, we got to loosen these guys up a little bit.  (President Trump, Address to General and Flag Officers, transcript).

I post where, without comment, but with questions, the text of the addresses delivered by President Trump and Secretary of War Hegseth to General and Flag Officers on 30 September 2025. The Addresses speak for themselves.  Their interpretation will be a function of some sort of aggregation past context and interaction, present situation, and future objectives. Each is a complex block in a sequential chain of cognitive construction of both the military enterprise and the enterprise of political leadership the contours of which have been as flexible as the boundaries of the expectations of this Republic respecting the duty, honor, and respect of the Republic's leaders for the people whom they serve. 

Beyond that is the unknown. Each address can be understood as occupying a number of distinct levels of communication, each with a different audience and each with a different agenda. Each describes complex battles--wars that are both physical and meta-physical, that touch on enemies near and far, internal and external, organized and institutional and not. Their interpenetration, and their projection will be come clearer in the months to come, as the meaning of the words and ideas become clear in the contexts into which they were projected. For the moment we have text and performance, and place and actors. That, certainly, will be enough to keep many busy at their little looms of speculation, each weaving whatever fairy story to suit the needs, desires, and expectations of their own audiences. The result, in the short terms, produce theater, and to those with the strategic need for such engagement, the instruments that that may be useful in the battlefields on which they engage. . . both friend and foe.    

How, indeed, does one wield an instrument that has a spirit of its own?; how does one provide leadership and guidance where all serve a higher master that can neither be seen nor heard, but which is manifested in and as those who serve it?; how does one manifest the great brooding omnipresence(s) of the Republic that tends to take on the appearance of each generation that by embodying it in themselves becomes a part of its aggregated manifestation, sometimes at war with itself? If the United States is the great phenomenological (federal) Republic--one whose constitution is no more than the constantly shifting and constantly repeating but never identical aggregation of the actions of its members, then is the solidarity of that legion bound together by text or faith in itself derived from the boundaries outside of which text, habit, history, or inertia, dare not go? We will find out. 

 

CfP: Conference, Online Platforms: Private Actors with State-Like Power? organized by Maria Diory Rabajante Daniel Buchmann Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law

 

I am delighted to pass along this CfP for the Conference, Online Platforms: Private Actors with State-Like Power? organized by  Maria Diory Rabajante Daniel Buchmann Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law. 

📚 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐀𝐁𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐒 📢

According to a famous quote by Mark Zuckerberg the online platform Facebook is more like a government than a company. Many scholars have picked up on this comparison, calling online-platforms the "new governors" or "speech police" of the digital public sphere. These remarks underscore the increasing role of online platforms in regulating speech, enforcing laws, and shaping political and economic landscapes—functions traditionally associated with sovereign states. As these platforms wield unprecedented power not only in influencing human behavior and interactions, but also in shaping public discourse, political economy, and democratic processes, critical questions arise about their impact on fundamental rights, governance, and democracy.

Our conference entitled 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬: 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞-𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫? explores the extent to which platforms like Meta, Google, X, and TikTok exercise state-like powers. Through keynote speeches, panels, and discussions, we will examine issues like
• regulation of online speech,
• the platforms’ influence on public discourse and democratic processes including elections,
• the platforms' influence on the exercise of fundamental rights and the issue of effective fundamental rights protection in the digital sphere,
• regulation approaches between self-regulation and “hard” governmental regulation and
• the role of private platforms as regulators and norm-enforcers.

By fostering discussions across various controversial yet timely topics surrounding the enormous power of online platforms, this conference aims to critically investigate these platforms’ responsibilities in the digital age and chart pathways toward a more transparent, accountable, and equitable governance in the digital public sphere. Contributions can focus on any area of the issue, including EU law, other legal frameworks, policy issues, and theoretical foundations.

The conference will take place on 21./22. May 2026 at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg, Germany. You can apply by sending an abstract (max. 600 words) as a PDF to the organizers' e-mail addresses (m.bovermann@csl.mpg.de; m.rabajante@csl.mpg.de; d.buchmann@csl.mpg.de) until 19. December 2025 at the latest. Funding for travel and accommodation within the EU is available to all speakers, subject to confirmation by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law. More information is available in the Call for Abstracts below.

Maria Diory Rabajante Daniel Buchmann Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law Max Planck Law

 

The CFP follows below.  

Journal of Legal Education Symposium on 47 Years of Essays and Perhaps a Path Forward

 

 I pass along the following announcement:

For more than 75 years, the Journal of Legal Education (JLE) has played an essential role in chronicling the development of legal education in the United States. New York Law School (NYLS) is hosting a symposium on October 8, 2025 where scholars will present their views on some of the most important work that has appeared in the journal over the preceding decades. A series of panel discussions will address a wide range of articles from the JLE’s archives, and in some instances, the original authors will join in. The symposium complements the 2026 Annual Meeting, which will examine and reflect on the many contributions of legal education to our society and American life.

Panels will be accessible both in person and online via Zoom. Papers written for the symposium will be published in a forthcoming issue of the JLE, which is co-hosted by University of California, Irvine School of Law and NYLS. JLE editors also plan to make recordings of each discussion available through the AALS website. Presenters will reflect on articles on topics including: mental health challenges in law schools; pedagogical reform; the impact of the financial crisis on legal education, and; accommodations for students with disabilities. Register here to attend the symposium online or in person. The symposium agenda can be found here with additional information available on this flyer.
(Announcement)

The Journal of Legal Education made an additional and much appreciated announcement: "Along with honoring the history of the JLE with this symposium, the journal’s website is in the process of adding its entire back catalog online with 47 volumes available as of October 1, 2025. All volumes of the journal are expected to be added by the end of 2025." The Journal is especially proud top be able to bring to wider audiences the prior publications of famous and influential people. I appreciate as well the insights, sometimes profound, from the other members of the Academy who, though they might not be famous, contributed some extraordinary essays in the 47 years of the JLE's existence. 

 

Just Published: Telos 212 (Fall 2025): Debating Postliberalism

 

 

I am delighted to pass along the news that  . The description is from the Press Release from David Pan, Telos' editor:

Telos 212 (Fall 2025): Debating Postliberalism is now available for purchase in our store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are also available in both print and online formats. Moving from an academic theory to MAGA policy prescriptions, postliberalism has shifted the landscape of political discourse. As political conflicts between liberals and postliberals heats up, the theoretical debate between varieties of postliberalism has also intensified. Its core ideas remain contested, particularly amongst its key theorists. Telos 212, edited by the key postliberal theorist Adrian Pabst and available today, provides an overview of the postliberal turn in theory as well as some different perspectives on its meaning and significance. Looking ahead, we will be presenting additional contributions to this debate in our next issue.

 The Table of Contents follows below along with the text of Adrian Pabst's Introduction to the Issue, which discusses the contributions.

A Transformative Moment for the European Model of Regulatory Governance With Application to AI?: On the EU Digital Omnibus; Simplification But No Pause

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 One might have been excused for believing that the European project of regulatory supervision, or of regulatory governance, was unstoppable (OECD (2022), Better Regulation Practices across the European Union 2022, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/6e4b095d-en. ). In the economic sector, the approach was grounded in a framework in which the State would serve as a source of policy and objectives the realization of which would be delegated to enterprises in the form of compliance and reporting requirements.  Compliance would be the product of the work of large interlocking bureaucracies in constant communication--one lodged in and as the state apparatus, the other developed within the institutional apparatus of the complying enterprise. 

A key trend driving regulatory evolution is the growing demand for evidence-based compliance. As highlighted in recent discussions, EU regulations are increasingly requiring organizations to not only implement policies but also provide auditable, documented proof of compliance. This shift moves compliance beyond check-the-box exercises to defensible, data-driven processes that regulators can scrutinize. (here)

The result was an increasingly comprehensive and complex system of administrative supervision; one in which enterprises might, to some at least, appear to serve as the privatized organs of public administration of state policies and objectives. As a privatized public body their principal objective was to serve as an instrument of state policy, to be undertaken in the course of pursuing economic or commercial objectives.  The approach was comprehensive but especially notable in the business and human rights and sustainability areas through the European Green Deal. 

The push back was manifested in the form of Mario Draghi  

Mario Draghi – former European Central Bank President and one of Europe's great economic minds – was tasked by the European Commission to prepare a report of his personal vision on the future of European competitiveness. The report looks at the challenges faced by the industry and companies in the Single Market. It outlines how Europe will no longer be able to rely on many of the factors that have supported growth in the past and lays out a clear diagnosis and provides concrete recommendations to put Europe onto a different trajectory. (here)

The substance of the Draghi Report, supported in some measure by the European Commission resulted in the intensification of efforts to roll back, slow down, or reduce the net effects of projects of regulatory governance, now balanced by issues of efficiency and competitiveness.  

On 26 February 2025, the European Commission adopted a simplification package. It covers a number of legislative areas, including sustainable finance rules, carbon border adjustment mechanism and investment with the aim of simplifying EU rules, enhancing competitiveness and attracting investment. This initiative is part of the Commission’s commitment to reduce administrative burdens by 25% for all businesses and 35% for SMEs. In order to boost competitiveness and unleash growth, the EU needs to foster a favourable business environment and ensure that companies are not stifled by an excessive regulatory burden. This, in turn, will unlock investments and enable companies to embrace the transition to a sustainable economy in a more effective and pragmatic way, ultimately meeting our climate and other sustainability goals. The “Omnibus” package will reduce compliance complexities for all companies, while focusing the rules on the largest companies that have a bigger impact on the environment and climate. (here)

 Simplification has now come to the regulatory governance of A.I. The European Commission has distributed a Press Release Commission collects feedback to simplify rules on data, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence in the upcoming Digital Omnibus. 

The European Commission has opened a call for evidence to collect research and best practices on how to simplify its legislation in the upcoming Digital Omnibus, especially when it comes to data, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI).  This is fully in line with the Commission’s simplification agenda and efforts to create a more favourable business environment, by lightening administrative burdens and costs on companies. The initiative also supports the Commission’s target in the Competitiveness Compass to cut administrative burden by at least 25% for all companies and at least 35% for small and medium-sized enterprises.  * * * This call for evidence follows extensive stakeholder engagement that included public consultations on the Data Union Strategy, the Cybersecurity Act revision, and on the Apply AI Strategy. It is a first step in simplifying the EU’s digital rulebook and remains open until 14 October 2025.

 A Call for Evidence is a peculiarity of the EU lawmaking process.  It is described this way:

The Commission uses Call for evidence to define the scope of: (1) a politically sensitive and/or important new law or policy (2) an evaluation of an existing law or (3) policy a fitness check of a bundle of related existing laws and/or policies. A Call for evidence describes the problem to be tackled and objectives to be met, explains why EU action is needed, outlines policy options and describes the main features of the consultation strategy, including whether a public consultation with a questionnaire is needed.  The Call for evidence combines two steps that were previously sequential: the roadmap/inception impact assessment and the questionnaire (where relevant). (EU Commission, Planning and Proposing Law).

But in the case of the AI Act, simplification does not appear to also suggest a pause in its enforcement.  As recently reported: 

According to Cynthia Kroet from Euronews, the European Commission has rejected calls to pause the AI Act’s implementation, with Commission official Yvo Volman confirming to EU lawmakers that no moratorium is being considered. Speaking to the European Parliament’s LIBE Committee, Volman emphasised that the focus remains on making the rules work practically. He also clarified that the upcoming digital simplification package, due in December, won’t involve a complete overhaul of the AI Act, addressing concerns about potential US pressure influencing changes. (The EU AI Act Newsletter #87: Digital Simplification Consultation Launches).

Of interest may be the  Draft Guidance article 73 AI Act - incident reporting (Download); Incident report for serious incidents under the AI Act (High-risk AI systems) (Download). "While the rules will only become applicable from August 2026, you can already download the draft guidance and reporting template below. Both these documents will help providers to prepare. The draft guidance clarifies definitions, offers practical examples, and explains how the new rules relate to other legal obligations. The EU’s approach also seeks alignment with international initiatives, such as the OECD’s AI Incidents Monitor and Common Reporting Framework." (here).

All of this suggests a conversation rather than a retreat. There is no going back to wherever it was that European governance had been in the 1970s, or 1980's, or thereafter in that short effervescent period that produced both a theory of regulatory governance (including its financial sector version as regulatory supervision, though the two align in fundamental respects). But going forward, the  calculus of regulatory governance will likely be encumbered (or blessed--depending on one's ideological starting point respecting the roles and responsibilities of states, markets, and the bodies corporate through which they are manifested), by an additional set of factors that, added to the calculus of regulatory governance, may reshape its outcomes and the expectations that drive those outcomes. It may be clearer now, and perhaps wiser, to indulge the foolishness of thinking that the European governance project will be abandoned--it will not. But perhaps it will be enriched by the incorporation of factors that had, until now, been marginalized from the analytics of European welfare, and in the process continue the development of European governance theory with strong foundations in liberal democracy and the autonomy of the individual within it.     

Brief Reflections on Recent Messages of the Trump Administration to Religious Communities on Michaelmas and Yom Kippur

 

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There is a bit of semiotics lurking within the recent messages of the Trump Administration to faith communities.  I focus on two of them:   Presidential Message on the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel; and Presidential Message on Yom Kippur. The text of both Presidential messages follows below.  They are both short but each is quite interesting both in themselves and for their inter-connections as woven by the Office of the President.

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On their face the two messages suggest distinct invocations. For the Jews the emphasis is on personal and collective spiritual reconciliation; for the Christians the emphasis shifts to the triumphal reassertion of "God’s sovereignty over all creation"  for which Christians look to the Archangel Michael for "protection, strength, and courage in times of conflict, distress, and doubt." As so conceived, the older tradition acknowledges an inward turn to the holy and communion with the divine; the younger one projects that internal communion outward against the enemies of the divinely constituted 'ummah, the commonwealth of believers.  That is a tradition common to the three Abrahamic traditions--indeed the idea of Michael as the defender of the faithful has deep roots especially in the first two traditions.

Both Yom Kippur and Michaelmas mark moments of transition. Michaelmas is attached to the turning of the seasons--and the struggles against external forces that must be overcome. It looks to the bounty of summer in the knowledge of the turning toward  winter. Yom Kippur is also attached to a cyclical ending and beginning, a renewal of relationships among humans and with the divine; it marks the turning of the individual toward the divine, the wrestling with divine forces that then transform the individual, and with them, the community of believers.  Both suggest a wrestling with forces that recall a "struggle" ur-text in the tradition of both communities:

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24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. 26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. 28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. 29 And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. 30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. (Gen 32:24-30; KJV).

 

 But Michael is more than a protector; in the tradition this Archangel is also  the divine force that weighs the souls of humans. In that aspect the Archangel is connected to contrition for sin. The Saint Michael Chaplet, approved by Pope Pius IX in 1851 (from Portuguese Carmelite nun Antonia d’Astonac), provides an analogue to that of the Jewish Amidah (Standing Prayer) which plays a central role in the order of services for the Yom Kippur observances and is also connected to repentance (Teshuvah) and confession manifested in accordance with Jewish practice and belief rooted in praise of the divine. 

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life. Amen (Saint Michael Chaplet, Contrition)

 Our God and God of our fathers, may our prayers come before You, and do not turn away from our supplication, for we are not so impudent and obdurate as to declare before You, Our God and God of our fathers, that we are righteous and have not sinned. Indeed, we and our fathers have sinned. * * * And so may it be Your will, Lord our God and God of our Fathers, to have mercy on us and forgive us all of our sins, grant us atonement for all our iniquities, and forgive and pardon us for all our transgressions.  (from Amidah for Yom Kippur)

All of this swirls around the proclamations and point to something quite interesting. When they are put together one might be forgiven  seeing in these two proclamations a particular weaving.  It is this: one must first seek communion with the divine which requires a reconciliation within a framework of human failings--confession, contrition, penance and absolution, each in accordance with their own traditions. This inner and communal reconciliation is a necessary predicate for the activation of the responsibility of the divine to protect their human flock, a flock made special by their communion with the divine authority itself.  It is from a rekindling of faith that the human community might  seek the protection of the instruments of the divine against heavenly and mortal danger. 

If that is the template, then the critical question becomes--how does one transpose this onto the spheres of human activities. For the Jews, it seems, there ought to be contentment, and perhaps gratitude, against persecution (the UK version here). But that is an old story in Europe and elsewhere, one marked by cycles of protection and betrayal, and the quid pro quo of which, the meanderings of which might be understood to have led circuitously to the formation of the State of Israel--and in this way to the Jewish version of Michaelmas. That may be disconcerting for a global community more comfortable with the semiosis of the "compliant" and "well behaved" Israelite (or Hebrew, or Jew--the semiotics of naming from outside merits an essay in itself)  who is willing to pay for protection. That may provide context for the reference to 

 "the sacred cause of peace both at home and abroad." 

(Presidential Message on Yom Kippur ). The old  agreement built on temporary ceasefires  wrapped in the discourse of "genuine" or "perpetual" peace becomes harder to reconcile with Isrealites more comfortable with Archangelic cultures of conflict than deference. Here one might encounter the spirit of Michaelmas in Yom Kippur (see discussion of US ceasefire plan here).

Christians, on the other hand, appear to be sorely in need of the Archangelic spirit, or at least its totem. But that requires  the  internal dialogues central to Yom Kippur.  For Christians there ought to be a an Archangel who can protect--yet this is a peculiar sort of Archangel--one who judges before he protects. And that brings one back to contrition and internal  communion with the divine. In that sense one might extract a sense that an internal purging is a necessary perquisite to external protection; it is hard to seek protection against Stan when Satan has insinuated himself within  the persons of those seeking protection.  This is also an old story--one older than the Holy Office  and the bonfire of the vanities. But what may be much more important is the possibility of the emergence of thinking in which these lines of premises combine and become manifest within political communities. For one there is the peace that comes from behaving well enough to merit protection from persecution--always a contingent bargain with no easy payment plan. For the other there is  an internal purification that is a prerequisite to casting Satan and his minions back to hell. 

And yet the underlying semiosis of Yom Kippur and Michaelmas suggests something infinitely more nuanced and complex. For Yom Kippur it is the underlying premise that the fundamental forgiveness would be manifested in the return to Zion. For Michaelmas it is embedded in the Saint Michael Chaplet, and a return to a state of communion with the divine. The President wishes the People of Israel a meaningful holiday.  And yet it is not clear that the meaningfulness is understood across the religious aisle in exactly the same way. To Christians, the President offers greetings and an emphasis on the responsibility of going forth in battle. And yet that battle is as much an internal one as it is one against external forces, whether clothed in the bodies of humans or otherwise. Both of these imaginaries appear to be deeply embedded in the meaning structures of the messages delivered by the President to the Nation. That suggests the challenges of thinking in linear trajectories and embedding past expectations into future realities. 

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U.N. Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Offers Platform to Build Safe Systems and Open Call for Candidates

 

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 "!The United Nations tends to be a useful mirror, reflecting the current version of orthodoxy among its various stakeholders, some of whom are states, many of whom are elements of the complex ecologies of techno-functionaries who in public and private institutional organs, constitute the only global focus group worth watching. Its advisory bodies, experts and related functionaries are especially useful for inscribing the forms into which orthodoxy, translated into the law and norms of social relations, will morph." (Made in Our Own Image; Animated as Our Servant; Governed as our Property: Interim Report "Governing AI for Humanity" and Request for Feedback). 

December 2023, the UN Secretary-General's AI Advisory Body launched its Interim Report: Governing AI for Humanity. Almost a year later they brought us the Global Digital Compact.

The Global Digital Compact is a comprehensive global framework for digital cooperation and governance of artificial intelligence. Twenty years after the World Summit on the Information Society, it charts a roadmap for global digital cooperation to harness the immense potential of digital technology and close digital divides. On 22 September 2024, world leaders convened in New York for the Summit of the Future, where they adopted a Pact for the Future that includes a Global Digital Compact. (HERE).

Now comes dialogue--or better put, the launch of the launch the Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance. (Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Offers Platform to Build Safe Systems, Secretary-General Says at Launch) 

Today, we lay the corner-stones of a global AI ecosystem that can keep pace with the fastest—moving technology in human history. A system that rests on three fundamental pillars — policy, science and capacity.

The first pillar, policy. Today, we launch the Global Dialogue on AI Governance at the United Nations — the world’s principal venue for collective focus on this transformative technology. * * *  The goals of the Global Dialogue are clear: To help build safe, secure and trustworthy AI systems — grounded in international law, human rights and effective oversight; To promote interoperability between governance regimes — aligning rules, reducing barriers and boosting economic cooperation; And to encourage open innovation — including open—source tools and shared resources — accessible to all. * * * In short, this is about creating a space where governments, industry and civil society can advance common solutions together. Where innovation can thrive — guided by shared standards and common purpose. In an era of rapid disruption, policy dialogue must also be well-informed.
 
And so, the second pillar of an effective global AI system is science. The creation, within the United Nations, of the International Independent Scientific Panel on AI, represents another milestone — putting science at the centre of our efforts. Today, we are launching an open call for candidates — from all regions and disciplines — for the International Independent Scientific Panel on AI. This group of 40 experts will provide independent insights into the opportunities, risks and impacts associated with AI. The Panel will be the world’s early warning system and evidence engine — helping us separate signal from noise, and foresight from fear. Their independent assessments will inform the Global Dialogue and beyond — helping the international community anticipate emerging challenges; Make informed decisions about how to govern this unprecedented technology; And level the information playing field for policymakers worldwide.

The third AI cooperation pillar is capacity. I recently submitted a report on financing options for AI capacity building. The report sets out practical pathways to narrow the AI divide — in computing power, data, research, education, training and safety standards. It proposes innovative and blended approaches — from philanthropic capital to concessional instruments, from computing credits to shared regional centres of excellence and fellowships. Building on that, I will soon begin consultations with Member States, potential funders and partners on the establishment of a Global Fund for AI Capacity Development. (Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Offers Platform to Build Safe Systems, Secretary-General Says at Launch)

Thsi is all very nice, one can suppose. One can also suppose that much of its work, and certainly its trajectories, have already been scripted.  That assumption, at any rate, may be not unreasonable given the performances at the event announcing the Dialogue:

To begin the initiative, dozens of U.N. member nations — and a few tech companies, academics and nonprofits — spent a portion of Thursday summarizing their hopes and concerns about A.I. In short snippets, the speakers extolled the promise of the technology to cure disease, expand food production and accelerate learning. But they also identified risks including mass surveillance, the spread of misinformation, the consumption of energy resources and worsening income gaps among people and nations. (Countries Consider A.I.’s Dangers and Benefits at U.N.)

One notes variations of these themes at virtually every public facing event  framing an underlying regulatory project. That is not a bad thing, but it does suggest that the semiotics of dialogue may be more narrowly understood here as a pathway toward an anticipated (regulatory) and normative goal--one already presupposed.  "“The future will not be shaped by algorithms alone,” Annalena Baerbock, president of the U.N. General Assembly. “It will be shaped by the choices we make together.” (Countries Consider A.I.’s Dangers and Benefits at U.N.). Still one has the sense that the choices were made before the dialogue, one that is pre-shaped by the normative rivalries of the U.S. and China, or better put, by the choices both are making about how they mean to use the U.N. apparatus strategically for the advancement of their respective interests.

“We totally reject all efforts by international bodies to assert centralized control and global governance of A.I.,” Michael Kratsios, director of White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said on Wednesday. As the United States has pulled back, China has increased its support for global A.I. initiatives and cast itself as a champion of developing nations. Speaking on Thursday, Ma Zhaoxu, China’s executive vice minister of foreign affairs, warned that A.I. must not become “a game of the club of wealthy nations” and “tool of hegemony.” (Countries Consider A.I.’s Dangers and Benefits at U.N.; more on the U.S. current position here and here).

All of these performative acts continue to move forward a quite peculiar approach to generative intelligence in automated decision making and virtual systems.  It is one that assumes that these systems are inanimate instruments that can be bent to conform to the variety of usually highly contested human institutional objectives, values, desires, and organizational (and policy) frameworks. In the prpocess it reconstructs these systems as something that perhaps they are not--both as something greater and something less than what is being developed. 

The text of the Press Release: Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Offers Platform to Build Safe Systems, Secretary-General Says at Launch, follows below. The Open Call for Candidates may be accessed here and below.

Though, of course, one cannot help thinking that there are multiple tracks for selection. everyone with even the slightest interest ought to seriously consider submitting an application.  Oneof the most curious elements of the se4lcxtion process is the bias in favor of bubble and peer connections. In the process the selection process appears to provide an ironic example of the sorts of bias that the appointed group is supposed to worry about.  But then, perhaps the group is not meant to do that, but rather to protect the interests of the peer reinforcing groups that produce the sort of bias loops that the Committee is, at least in theory supposed to consider. For the moment, the bias of se4lection rewards "peer marker" collectors. And that bias is compounded by the choice of data markers used to replicate, in Committee forms, the "forbidden cities" of experts who might have contributed to the problem and who certainly have as great an interest in peer marker collection as in anything else. In that sense, the UN might have considered skipping this tedious process and merely develop AI enhanced analytics that can accumulate the data markers it values. That may be most appropriate in an institution the cognitive architecture of which is biased to ensure both self-replication and the protection of the normative bubbles which sustain its self-referencing normative systems.   But then, that may be the point where the objectives and goals are pre-set and the Committee is selected to connect sequenced data dots to "scientifically" get from a pot of information to the preferred "insights into the opportunities, risks and impacts associated with AI" that follow from the normative cage constricted for that purpose. 

America First as a Template for the Global: Text of the U.S. Cease-Fire Plan for Gaza

 

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Merchants orient around transaction, like  (The "Merchant" (商), the "Bureaucrat" (士) and the "Tariff War"--The Cognitive Cages of the New Apex Post-Global and the Condition of the U.S. and China in their Folie à Deux). Transaction provide the foundation for what Merchants do best--negotiate; while officials tend to prefer a more guided (controlling?) managerialism (Merchants Negotiate and Officials Manage Discretion Fueled Legal Structures--While Mexico Bargains Brazil Adopts Countermeasures).

Merchants hate conflict, unless, of course, conflict is the predicate for transactions. But transaction in conflicts, however lucrative, tends to narrow substantially a broader spectrum of activities within with transaction is possible.   

How does the phenomenologically oriented merchant-type relate to conflict? Perhaps the best answer to that is to recall the grounding source of a merchant's cognitive cage--transactions. For the warrior it is conflict and security; for the official it is order and stability, for the peasant it is the risk bearing engagement with risk controlling forces beyond the peasant's control. But for the merchant it is the transaction. And it is not just the transaction, of course, but the elaboration of an environment in which transaction is possible and may be undertaken in a framework that is, and is grounded in, transactional thinking. From the position of semiotics, the transaction is simultaneously the object (action and result), its own signification (as interaction), and its own interpretation (the aggregated interpretation of transaction as system the purpose of which is transaction). This is neither capitalism, nor Marxist-Leninist development of productive forces; it is just what it holds itself out to be--transaction. . . the action, the idea and the object.  (The text of and Reflections on "Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Secures Agreement to Establish United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund" )

If for no other reason perhaps, merchants embracing the foundational reality shaping generative principle of "transaction" will seek, not peace, but cease fire--a space within which it is possible to broadly project transactions, even if, at the end the ceasefire expires and another round of transactionally fueled conflict arises again, until the next cease fire. Or perhaps put differently, peace is understood as cease fire, and cease fire is enough to attain the statius of peace, for the time that peace is possible ("President Trump is the President of Peace" Reflections on the Power of Presidential Self-Revolution (自我革命), the Republic's Social Revolution (社会革命) and the Presidential Message: "President Trump Brokers Another Historic Peace Deal"). 

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That is the essence of the dialectic of transaction in contested spaces--not to end but to extend conflict through sequentially arranged blocks of "ceasefire", punctuated by periods of conflict that can then fuel ceasefire again. The ceasefire dialectic is paid for in blood--and indeed, requires a small and steady stream of blood, managed through principles of proportionality that serve as the means by which an acceptable level of blood sacrifice is exacted as the price for cease fire, until, it is not. Semiotically, however, ceasefire perhaps represents a peculiar application of the principle of the proportionality of violence in the face of the irreconcilable  but now assessed across time--a temporally embedded proportionality, or a proportionality of time.  

That, perhaps, might be one way of approaching the Multi-Point Ceasefire plan for Gaza proposed by the Trump Administration and endorsed by the Prime Minister of Israel on 29 September. As reported by the New York Times, the elements of the Ceasefire Plan are these:

 Here is the full text of the proposal, provided by the White House.

• Gaza will be a de-radicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.

• Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough.

• If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end. Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed upon line to prepare for a hostage release. During this time, all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen until conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal.

• Within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.

• Once all hostages are released, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1700 Gazans who were detained after Oct. 7, 2023, including all women and children detained in that context. For every Israeli hostage whose remains are released, Israel will release the remains of 15 deceased Gazans.

• Once all hostages are returned, Hamas members who commit to peaceful coexistence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Members of Hamas who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage to receiving countries.

• Upon acceptance of this agreement, full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip. At a minimum, aid quantities will be consistent with what was included in the Jan. 19, 2025, agreement regarding humanitarian aid, including rehabilitation of infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage), rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries, and entry of necessary equipment to remove rubble and open roads.

• Entry of distribution and aid in the Gaza Strip will proceed without interference from the two parties through the United Nations and its agencies, and the Red Crescent, in addition to other international institutions not associated in any manner with either party. Opening the Rafah crossing in both directions will be subject to the same mechanism implemented under the Jan. 19, 2025, agreement.

• Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza.

• This committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the “Board of Peace,” which will be headed and chaired by President Donald J. Trump, with other members and heads of State to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

• This body will set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza until such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program, as outlined in various proposals, including President Trump’s peace plan in 2020 and the Saudi-French proposal, and can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza. This body will call on best international standards to create modern and efficient governance that serves the people of Gaza and is conducive to attracting investment.

• A Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza will be created by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East. Many thoughtful investment proposals and exciting development ideas have been crafted by well-meaning international groups, and will be considered to synthesize the security and governance frameworks to attract and facilitate these investments that will create jobs, opportunity, and hope for future Gaza.

• A special economic zone will be established with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries.

• No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.

• Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration program all verified by the independent monitors. New Gaza will be fully committed to building a prosperous economy and to peaceful coexistence with their neighbors.

• A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations and that New Gaza poses no threat to its neighbors or its people.

• The United States will work with Arab and international partners to develop a temporary International Stabilization Force (I.S.F.) to immediately deploy in Gaza. The I.S.F. will train and provide support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza, and will consult with Jordan and Egypt who have extensive experience in this field. This force will be the long-term internal security solution. The I.S.F. will work with Israel and Egypt to help secure border areas, along with newly trained Palestinian police forces. It is critical to prevent munitions from entering Gaza and to facilitate the rapid and secure flow of goods to rebuild and revitalize Gaza. A de-confliction mechanism will be agreed upon by the parties.

• Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. As the I.S.F. establishes control and stability, the Israel Defense Forces (I.D.F.) will withdraw based on standards, milestones, and time frames linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the I.D.F., I.S.F., the guarantors, and the United States, with the objective of a secure Gaza that no longer poses a threat to Israel, Egypt, or its citizens. Practically, the I.D.F. will progressively hand over the Gaza territory it occupies to the ISF according to an agreement they will make with the transitional authority until they are withdrawn completely from Gaza, save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.

• In the event Hamas delays or rejects this proposal, the above, including the scaled-up aid operation, will proceed in the terror-free areas handed over from the I.D.F. to the I.S.F.

• An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence to try and change mind-sets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.

• While Gaza redevelopment advances and when the P.A. reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.

• The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous coexistence. (also listed here)

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There is nothing necessarily odd about the plan, and it reflects a variety of positions and offers of pathways to ceasefire that have been raised and rejected.  But time shave changed and perhaps this one will work, including, as it does, a modern day temporary International Mandate status for Gaza until it is "de-Hamasified" and (a much more interesting task) the apparatus of the West bank is cleaned up.  That suggests a very long road, indeed, especially for those who would prefer to see a Jew free Middle East however nicely they might dress it up, or those who would prefer the two State solution to finally die after the mortal blow it received in 2000 at the hands of the MENA belligerents and their strategists elsewhere or the status quo (a discussion from the sidelines here). President Trump also included his sense of the state of support for the initiative: Global Support for President Trump’s Bold Vision for Peace in Gaza.

What makes this most interesting is this: "Mr. Trump, speaking alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel would have his “full backing” to eliminate the threat of Hamas if the militant group does not agree to its terms. Hamas said it was not consulted on the proposal." (here). And yet that may the essence of America First and the bordering of inclusion. One deal may breed others. And lots of deals may breed a longer peace or a more tolerable state of violence. And at its best it suggests the sort of religio-cultural clean up that may be a necessary predicate for a longer term cease fire that may, in turn, morph into something else. The challenge will be to avoid the trap of reproducing the structures of corruption and displacement that had haunted the administration of this area for some time leading to 7 October, and its aftermath. 

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"They Shoot Horses Don't They?". . . . The "Jewish Problem" in "Palestine" as Performed by the State Inmates of that Asylum of Politics

 

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A year ago the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority both thought it was in their respective best interests to perform in that seraglio reserved for states, whose harem ( حَرِيمٌ,), that place traditionally reserved in Muslim households for reserved for such wives, concubines, and female servants of political authority,  has been erected on the banks of the East River in New York.  I considered the semiotic state of the "Jewish Question" it continued to raise in my reflections on the texts of those performances (Cognitive Rifts and the Politics of Global Solidarity: The Remarks of Mr Abbas and Mr Netanyahu to the United Nations).

It appears that the global taste for seraglio entertainment continues unabated. This is especially the case when the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority perform, if only because it becomes a communal dance-a-thon in which all potentates gathered for the performances can themselves perform for the wider audience of press organs, who in turn are expected to package these multi-level performances into appropriated projected bits of agit prop theater. Last year the dominant theme was cognitive rifts.

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And, indeed, one might approach these conflicts as a manifestation, in physical form, of the cognitive ruptures that is manifested in conflict. The intensity of that conflict, quite violent in both cases, signifies not merely a fundamental incompatibility of perceiving the world and the role and expectations of the relationships of key actors within it, but also of the intensification of that dissonance a critical element of the character of which is the conviction that the fundamental starting points for perception are unalterable and require the obliteration of the other. Perhaps it does. But if that the case then these conflicts merely manifest in physical form the more fundamental semiotic contests on which the resolution both the Jewish and the Ukrainian question depends, one way or another.

The cognitive rift and its consequences/justification schemata in the Ukrainian context have been considered in earlier posts (eg here, here, here, here, and here). In the context of the Jewish presence in Israel (it is assumed, without much discussion, that what will be a State of Palestine must be or will be free of Jews--another cognitive baseline that might require exploration elsewhere), these fundamental cognitive rifts serve as the essence of the remarks of given by Mr. Abbas (first) and then by Mr. Netanyahu at the United Nations this week.(Cognitive Rifts and the Politics of Global Solidarity: The Remarks of Mr Abbas and Mr Netanyahu to the United Nations). 

This year the rift is taken for granted and it is time for the inmates to choose a side--and to do so as theatrically as possible given the constraints of the asylum they ave built for themselves. For the agit-prop this year the Palestinian Authority choose the "we are good children willing to  do as you say" theme; the Israeli's chose to do an interpretive dance around a theme inviting the participants to have sexual relations with themselves. And in the sidelines all of the usual actors, and those with rising ambitions watched from the corners of  in the (virtual) smokey dance den in the Harem and cabaled amongst themselves about the way to best deal with the naughty Jew and the now innocent Arab habituating lands in what had once been, after the Jewish Kingdom had been conquered, Pagan and then Christian Roman Palestine (nothing is simple in an area as ancient as this). Tony Blair is running around hoping to be a bureaucratic Lawrence of Arabia for Gaza, others plan for the Miami Beachification of the place, and still others, who have barely brushed off the offal stench of their own engagements with substantial population movements and territorial shifts, are busy lecturing smaller states about the evils of both.  

 

Still the speeches are worth the effort, as long as one understands them for what they are-necessary performances for bloated sacks of power too lazy or disinterested in solving a problem that by its persistence has been of substantial value to them in their own internal politics. The rest is just posturing and advancing sometimes in quite spectacular ways the personal ambitions and careers of those meddlesome individuals who are making a living out of righteousness on all sides in a context in which to meddle is a positive global virtue at least in this state of the historical development of the harem politics of global engagement. . . . . or perhaps this is our version of the Ottoman "Sultanate of Women." And that makes for great television drama: One of the performers danced to a less than full house; the other "star" danced from her own palace in exile to a full house of people whose bodies were there, at least. And for both it is the Harem, and its seraglio, rather than the actors themselves, that serve as the most important object element of this year's performance. And in this style of the agit prop of this century, it is not a close reading of the text that is as important as the snippets woven into the agit prop that is propelled from out of those performances onto the spaces of mass agitation which recursively will provide all the cover the elites need for doing what they intend--one way or another. It isn't that the dancing in the harem is unimportant, quite the reverse, but its purpose is other than what may appear on or as its text--con-text and memory clips are its foundation and instrument. And yet, what the Russians appear to have been teaching the world (again) is that the contest is as likely to be decided on the ground as in the theater designed for the avoidance of what became unavoidable. Both Presidents Abbas and Netanyahu know this, and the rest follows--including the constitution and deployment of the necessary justificatory tropes--the "bad" Jew, the freedom fighter, the hierarchy of oppression, the vectors of terror, etc. Faith may be blind but it enjoys a good performance in any form. 

 The text of both speeches follow below with links to original sources on line. 

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习近平 纵深推进全国统一大市场建设※ 习近平 [Xi Jinping, "Deepening the Construction of a National Unified Market"]

 

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建设全国统一大市场，既是攻坚战，也是持久战，各地区各部门要从政治和全局高度抓好落实。中央和地方、地方和地方、政府和企业、企业和企业都要加强协调配合，形成推进合力。[Building a unified national market is both a crucial and protracted battle. All regions and departments must implement it from a political and overall perspective. The central and local governments, local governments, governments and enterprises, and enterprises must strengthen coordination and cooperation to form a joint force for advancement.]  (习近平 纵深推进全国统一大市场建设※ 习近平 )

China's QS Theory journal have recently republished part of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech at the Sixth Meeting of the 20th Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission on July 1, 2025, 习近平 纵深推进全国统一大市场建设※ 习近平 [Xi Jinping, "Deepening the Construction of a National Unified Market"]. 

The excerpt is meant to provide a summary gloss of a portion of the 10 April 2022 "Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Accelerating the Construction of a National Unified Market" [中共中央 国务院关于加快建设全国统一大市场的意见] a copy of which in the original Chinese and in a crude English translation, in the  shadow of the work of the recently concluded 3rd Plenum of the 10th CPC Congress on socialist modernization and high quality productivity, the core policy  premise of which was this: 建设全国统一大市场是构建新发展格局的基础支撑和内在要求。[Constructing a national unified market is the fundamental support and inherent requirement for building a new development pattern.] (中共中央 国务院关于加快建设全国统一大市场的意见). 

The value of the summary is the framework it provides for the values/objectives at the core of post 3rd Plenum objects from out of which it may be possible to assemble the way in which Chinese Marxist-Leninism now approaches the construction of and utility of a "National Unified Market". In addition, the connection between National Unified Markets and post 3rd Plenum Socialist (high quality production) modernization becomes clear as well. As well, its connection to the further development of the dual circulation economy, now more closely coordinated. "建设全国统一大市场，不仅是构建新发展格局、推动高质量发展的需要，而且是赢得国际竞争主动权的需要。我国作为全球第二大消费市场，必须把全国统一大市场建设好，增强我们从容应对风险挑战的底气。" [Building a national unified market is not only necessary for building a new development pattern and promoting high-quality development, but also for gaining the initiative in international competition. As the world's second-largest consumer market, my country must build a national unified market well to strengthen our confidence in calmly responding to risks and challenges.]

The General Secretary reduces that framework into six policy objectives , each of which represents a principle of the New Era National Unified Market: 第一，着力整治企业低价无序竞争乱象。[First, we will focus on rectifying the chaotic phenomenon of low-price, disorderly competition among enterprises. ]; 第二，着力整治政府采购招标乱象。[Second, we will focus on rectifying irregularities in government procurement and bidding.]; 第三，着力整治地方招商引资乱象。[Third, we will focus on rectifying irregularities in local investment promotion. ]; 第四，着力推动内外贸一体化发展。[Fourth, we will focus on promoting the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade.]; 第五，着力补齐法规制度短板。[Fifth, focus on filling gaps in laws and regulations. ]; 第六，着力纠治政绩观偏差。[Sixth, focus on correcting distorted views of performance. ].

The General Secretary's comments were widely reported because of its reference to neijuan (“内卷”), involution. "“内卷”重灾区，要依法依规有效治理。" ["Areas severely affected by "involution" must be effectively governed in accordance with laws and regulations."]. But the focus here is not on its use as Chinese internet slang for cut throat competition or race to the bottom or systems of increasing effort for diminishing reward. Instead, the General Secretary framed “内卷” as leveraging the self-regulatory role of industry associations to guide enterprises in improving product quality, implementing a policy of high quality and high prices, and opposing low prices and inferior quality. [更好发挥行业协会自律作用，引导企业提升产品品质，实行优质优价，反对低价劣质。]. In addition, there was a focus on eliminating "obsolete production capacity to achieve dynamic market clearance. We will implement integrated online and offline governance." [推动落后产能有序退出，实现市场动态出清。线上线下一体治理。].

With respect to government procurement, the focus was also on the delivery of inferior products, which, one might infer, serves as the core of the understanding of involution in New Era socialist modernization structures. "重点整治最低价中标、以次充好、利益勾连等突出问题。" But also in focus was the bidding process as well as complaint processes. More interesting may be the third element--one which suggested the continuing challenge for the central authorities of elaborating a national unified policy overlay for Chinese macro economic planning and its manifestation in the allocation of resources and production. "重点整治最低价中标、以次充好、利益勾连等突出问题。规范政府采购和招标投标，加强对中标结果的公平性审查，健全企业正常申诉渠道，完善投诉处理机制。" [We will formulate a nationwide unified list of local investment promotion activities, clearly defining which activities are encouraged and which are prohibited. We will establish and improve a standardized fiscal subsidy policy system. We will strengthen the disclosure of investment promotion information. We will severely punish verified violations.]

  The fourth point focused on the deeper coordination, within dual circulation principles, of internal and external markets. "畅通出口转内销路径，提高国内国际标准一致性，建设内外贸一体化综合服务平台，培育一批内外贸优质企业，开展“外贸优品中华行”活动。" ["Smooth the conversion of exports to domestic sales, improve the consistency of domestic and international standards, build an integrated service platform for domestic and foreign trade, cultivate a group of high-quality domestic and foreign trade enterprises, and launch the "Foreign Trade Premium Products Tour of China" campaign."]

The fifth point looks to the contributions of Socialist legality and rule of law to the construction of the National Unified Market. Here the emphasis is not just on law making but also on elaboration the institutional structures for their application. "持续开展规范涉企执法专项行动。健全有利于市场统一的财税体制、统计核算制度和信用体系。"["Continue to carry out special operations to standardize law enforcement involving enterprises. Improve the fiscal and taxation system, statistical accounting system, and credit system that are conducive to market unification."]. Of some interest here is the reference to social credit systems (for discussion see“Smart Regulation, Smart Society, Smart Courts, and Smart Party: The Ideology of Chinese Social Credit and its Dialectics.”).

  The last point focuses on narrative and discipline. It also redirects the  focus to the 3rd Plenum's high quality production but now not limited to the economic production at the heart of a National Unified Market but also with respect to its supervision and guidance. "完善高质量发展考核体系和干部政绩考核评价体系。" ["Improve the high-quality development assessment system and the cadre performance assessment and evaluation system."]. But also on the long troublesome issues of local protectionism and abuses of administrative discretion. 

  The full text of the document follows below in the orginal Chinese and in an English Translaiton, along with the text of the 10 April 2022 "Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Accelerating the Construction of a National Unified Market" [中共中央 国务院关于加快建设全国统一大市场的意见] .