Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Let sleeping giants lie
Pretext pretext pretext. Good morning MZ. I’m finding the ‘news’ frustrating.
Water is the new Oil. Fight for access to it, fight for the use of it, fight for the appropration of it.
If you can have them both at the end of the same fight, all the better with which to eat you, er, I mean, bring democracy to the region.Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/26 at 07:25 AMMudge #32 from last night..."Empress, RMJ, MZ: What makes one group’s suffering more valuable than another’s? No one has ever dealt with this question that I pose so often. The sufferings of the Kurds deserve...? The sufferings of the Native Americans deserve...? And if there are differences in your responses for the Jews, why are those differences there? Does anyone contend there is a “morally pure” or “guiltless” government anywhere, still less the Middle East or whatever vogue term one uses for that area?”
Mudge, I agree with everything you say here except that “no one has ever dealt with the question” that you pose. Maybe there seems to be more sympathy for the “Palestinians” because of the inequality of the the weapon systems and the body count. There is the belief that the Palestinians are the underdogs being bullied by the usa/Isreal. It seems to me that most people who are sympathetic to the Palestinians have no prejudice against the religious beliefs that are prevalent in Israel. It is not a matter of religion. It is a matter of body counts and it is a matter of which side is the aggressor. The suffering of an Israeli civilian IS equal to the suffering of a Palestinian. To me a “civilian” is a “civilian”. Religion, race, and ethnicity are all meaningless to me. It is very complicated, but if the usa kept its money and weapons out it might improve things. It is the usa that is objecting to the call for a cease fire. It seems to me that this is just one more example of the usa wanting to enrich the arms manufacturers. I keep saying, “Just follow the money”. There is also the influence of the Jewish vote in usa elections. No politician is willing to ignore that.
Good morning Amelopsis.
Mickey, the Glaspie quote (we have no position of Arab conflicts) is an important one that proves that the usa invasion of Iraq was the result of a “bait and switch” deal with Saddam.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/26 at 07:55 AMOff topic but what do you think about this?
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/26 at 08:10 AMRosemarie that OT disease link is weird and disturbing. I’m not sure what to make of it at all...natural? Unnatural? Why Texas?
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/26 at 08:32 AM“The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.”
--Lorraine Hansberry, playwright and painter (1930-1965)Okay, RMJ, here’s the thing...what you’re saying doesn’t make me feel like your argument deals with my objection. Bullying Israel? How so, please? The states surrounding Israel threaten its existence daily, in vicious rhetoric (which not infrequently does use Jewishness as a club to beat Israel with) and the “Palestinians” are supported and encouraged to use homicide bombers to kill civilians in retaliation for the Israeli defense of itself. Israelis, in their (justified) paranoia, attack the enemies they see. Civilians get hurt. This is the nature of war. Their targets are hit, and so are their targets’ neighbors and grannies and schools.
This is why I do not suport any war for any reason at any time or in any place. The best solution to a conflict is to find the resolution that makes the most people angry and enforce it with something that doesn’t kill people. Since I don’t have a clue as to what might make a bunch of hate-filled anthropoids stop their hatin’, war it is and war it will be and I come down on the side of those whose claim to injury makes a shred of sense, not those whose pigheaded obtuse stubborn refusal to acknowledge they lost the war and now need to suffer the consequences is the root cause of the latest round of death and destruction in this hideous place.
Anyway. Nice days to each and all, smooches from the Southlands.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin, Texas 07/26 at 08:34 AMI’m plugging Youngfox’s blog again, but I’m sure Mickey won’t mind because this time it’s a link to an Arundhati Roy video excerpt which he posted up yesterday. It’s shortish...about 10 min., and worth watching.
http://tinyurl.com/gpw66
(even if it isn’t likely to sway you Mudge, mayhaps it will explain some of the reasons for my opinions on the Palestine issue)Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/26 at 08:56 AMHello Expendables...from hot, hazy, and humid Astoria. I’ll try to check your suggested links soon. For now, on the topic of pretext: http://www.counterpunch.org/frank07262006.html
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/26 at 09:25 AMA very important article, MZ. I actually heard the ‘alternate’ version reported first, and as the article points out, later reportings seemed to come straight from the Israeli govt or not at all. Surely the Lebanese govt. should also be allowed to report its facts and the journalist should be reporting on these equally? (ha!)
Fortunately I don’t think this pretext is taking off as well as the MSM might have us believe; either that or I’ve just not delved deep enough into the realm of blogs who are cheering the aggression ever onward.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/26 at 09:31 AMThe funny thing about pretexts, Empress, is that once stated, they tend to endure against all odds. Consider that link I posted in a comment yesterday in which we learned that more Americans believe Iraq has WMD now than a year ago.
Decades of conditioning have created a population of sheep and, as Ben Franklin sez: “Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you.”
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/26 at 09:34 AMRules and rationality go out the window when it comes to the actions of the US and Israeli government. I have been arguing about the sitution with some friends of the family and was accused of being anti-semitic. This is by people from the midwest who have never know a jewish person. Though I am Irish Catholic, I pretty much grew up a Jew on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They then proceeded to tell me that what NYC Jews thought about the whole thing. Funny what people believe without any facts to back it up.
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 07/26 at 09:41 AMMickey, you’re right about the pretexts standing up despite all odds...I seem to manage a peculiar self delusional hopefulness about such things although I don’t really know how or why.
JOS, "Funny what people believe without any facts to back it up."
Too true. I believe this is the entire reason for the historical complacency and uncontested US taxpayer’s support of Israel’s position over the better part of the past century.Not forgetting of course that the term ‘anti-semetic’ has been entirely misappropriated to serve as ‘anti-Jewish’.
It is another example of the lack of literacy in the media and of the public in general.
Words are no longer understood and used appropriately...society has learned to glean only the catch phrases or the colloquial understanding of the implication of a term such as Semite. This is foolhardy and misleading and only contributes to a greater ignorance.
A small detail perhaps, but details are important.Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/26 at 09:54 AMThe US’s policy is truly anti-semitic, let them kill each others semitic selves.
The creation of Israel was a land theft as outrageous as the Europeans in America. The only difference is that Israel was in living memory. The problems there has nothing to do with religion. If the Israelis can hold out another twenty years, almost all the original inhabitants of Palestine will be dead, greatly diminishing the Palestinians moral arguments (see today’s native Americans). This is why both sides are getting more desperate.
I do have a solution. The world shall pony up some hundreds of billions of dollars, and loan it to Israel, who will pay every living Palestinian for land and business lost, at today’s price, including rental for all the years since the theft, including interest for late payment, plus damages. Israel and her children would have to struggle for a century or two, to pay this loan off, but then the Israelis can make even “the desert flower” (sic). And it would be worth it to slave away making the vig, being on THEIR own biblical land. Meanwhile, the Palestinians will have to figure out how to set up shop again, with incredible wealth behind them. Maybe they could buy up Southern California?
captch= “ready”?
Posted by Peter (the other) on from California 07/26 at 10:06 AMMudge, you said…
I do not suport any war for any reason at any time or in any place.
...which is the only thing you’ve said in the last few days that makes the least bit of sense. Everything else is hogwash, such a disappointing flight from any kind of adherence to universalism or basic morality that I don’t know what to do with you.
If you need to be so cynical ("war it is and war it will be"), let them do their fighting with sticks and stones, not phosphorus and cluster bombs that you and I, incidentally, have funded.
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 07/26 at 10:20 AMPeter I’m not sold on your solution, I think a right of return cannot be ignored, although I agree (sadly) that the people are more likely to be killed off over the next century than to be compensated justly. The DU is taking the long road, the bullets taking the short road.
Captcha: “race”
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/26 at 10:22 AMMudge: I know you expressed a wish to let this discussion end with us ageeing to disagree...but you’ve opened up an industrial size can of worms.
I say “right on” to Keir and Peter.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/26 at 10:23 AMPhosphorus...cluster bombs...now this:
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 07/26 at 10:25 AMSorry, Empress...simultyping. I also do not necessarily agree with the scope of Peter’s solution but he nailed it here:
The creation of Israel was a land theft as outrageous as the Europeans in America. The only difference is that Israel was in living memory. The problems there has nothing to do with religion. If the Israelis can hold out another twenty years, almost all the original inhabitants of Palestine will be dead, greatly diminishing the Palestinians moral arguments (see today’s native Americans). This is why both sides are getting more desperate.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/26 at 10:25 AMSimultyping all around...I refrained from addressing Mudge’s considerations directly but I also agree with Keir and with Peter’s synopsis of the extinction of the Palestinians looming on the horizon.
A key point of contention is the behaviour of settlers within the occupied territories, rather than that of a good many peaceful Israeli’s who are disdainful and disapproving of them. Just as our MSM coverage shows a clear bias, so are those Israelis against the settler movement and further expansion omitted from any news coverage. They too are great in number but their voices are muffled while the State uses the settlers and supports their violence in order to expand their boundaries.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/26 at 11:07 AMHas anyone watched that Promised Land youtube video yet? It deals quite directly with the machinations of creating and promoting a pretext for ‘defense’.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/26 at 11:08 AMEmpress: I haven’t had a chance to view the video. For now, however, I think this adds to our Expendable discussion:
http://tinyurl.com/mnj6fPosted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/26 at 12:19 PMI just dug up two older articles of mine and added them to the end of today’s main post. Here they are:
Ariel Sharon’s Generation
Elie Wiesel’s Strange ParadePosted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/26 at 12:38 PMYes, I believe that there are a myriad of things worth dying for, but there is nothing worth killing for. It seems Keir and I share this quaint belief (yea Amsterdam, from where my forefathers came).
The history of our world is musiqed with the sound of cries and gasps of dying and disappearing peoples. I no longer care about any specific national, cultural or religious identification. Culture is what humans make when living. It has yet to be controlled by media, no matter what the paranoids might think. It is not endangered (in spite of rap
). All it takes is a bunch of humans and time. So I have no concern with saving native americanism, palastiniasm, jewishness, frenchness. I am concerned with individuals who are flesh and blood identification. If humans don’t stop killing each other soon, nature will have to step in to show us how it is really done. One of the most selfish traits I have, is a desire to see things myself, in my time. This desire warps my sense of importance, giving power to arguments to promote violence, called self-defense or not. Mr. Churchill is worried about HIS children, and implies that he will kill for them, as if this holds some moral strength. And some would, indeed, have us return to “the natural” eat or be eaten, as opposed to our modern… cultured eat or be eaten.
Listening to all the arguments, each hiding some secret little “me, me, I ,I mine, mine” under the guise of intelligence, morals etc. is enough to tire even a god out. I would completely understand if she (god) chose to end this world from disgusted boredom.
Mmmmm, mmmm, I can watch that Arundhati Roy as much as you care to run the videos, more please!
Posted by Peter (the other) on from California 07/26 at 12:54 PMHi everyone, great discussion going on here today.
Mudge # 5 says..."Okay, RMJ, here’s the thing...what you’re saying doesn’t make me feel like your argument deals with my objection. Bullying Israel? How so, please?”
Israel is part of the largest military power in the history of the planet. It is often referred to as the 51st State. Right now the usa is calling for the total disarmament of Hezbollah while, at the same time, sending more and more weapon systems to Israel. Even those, who believe in war as a solution to conflict, are offended at the lack of equal treatment on both sides by the usa. You cannot assume that anyone who does not support Israel is anti-semitic or anti anything. My ancestors were affected by the holocaust in Poland. Most of them were Catholics, some might have been Jews, some maybe were Gypsies and some were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The point is this, nothing that happened back then justifies what is happening now. Reparations, yes. Killing even one civilian, no. There has to be zero tolerance for the killing of civilians. Most of the world gets that. It is only the usa and Britain that object to the call for an immediate ceasefire. I am embarrassed and angered when I hear Karen Hughes and Condo Rice making the statements that they have today. Every usa citizen owes the rest of the world a deep apology. Hughes, Rice and rest of them should be facing war crimes trials.Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/26 at 12:54 PMJOS #16…
http://tinyurl.com/htrlnPosted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/26 at 01:00 PMMickey those added articles of yours are great. It’s convenient to forget or omit the origins of the Zionist movement when discussing Israel, however it is indeed crucial to understand the degree of Nazi collaboration, as well as the utter disregard held by those original Zionists for thousands upon thousands of Jews who were at the time facing death in Europe from those same collaborators. The religiosity of the region is not the issue at all, as Rosemarie mentioned previously; rather it’s a tool and an excuse for absolutely psychopathic behaviour.
As to reparations, I’m all for them too; and Germany has paid their dues in full. Upon visiting Bergen Belsen I was struck by a sense that even today it is even more socially awkward to discuss the issue in any real sense - the only ‘acceptable’ discussion is one extolling pity and guilt to the predictable players.Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/26 at 01:07 PMGee RMJ, I would have to agree with Amelopsis when he/she wrote:
“Words are no longer understood and used appropriately”
Maybe it is your military indoctrination that makes it easy for you to know what a “civilian” is. All one has to be today, to be murdered ruthlessly by nice uniformed men and women, is a “suspected militant”.
1. Fighting or warring.
2. Having a combative character; aggressive, especially in the service of a cause: a militant political activist.(dictionary.com)
Hmm, I might a betta’ DUCK AND RUN!
captch="high" like, I wish!
Posted by Peter Kaye on from Cali 07/26 at 01:10 PMThanks for this timely history lesson, Mickey! And for some reason I remember April Glaspie very well ..
I was surprised to see that there are 24 comments already - here I was thinking I was early. It is 4:10 am down under but seeing I went to bed early last night, I am up and feeling reasonable.‘Hi’ to Amelopsis, Rosemarie, Mudge (smooches to you from down under), JOS, Peter (the other)and Keir. Now I’ll click on a few links.
Here is a good run-down on the current ‘crisis’ in the Middle East:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0725-23.htmCiao expendables, Helga
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 07/26 at 01:11 PMAll these horrible weapons developments. Who needs another Goebels to blame when you can turn to a massive global industry under private governance who’ll give you kickbacks?
Truly horrible.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/26 at 01:11 PMAs it turns out, there were 26 comments - hi, Peter Kaye! Wow ..
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 07/26 at 01:15 PMOops, let my secret identity slip. Now I really better run (I hear black helicopters, just outside my win…
Posted by Peter (the other) on from California 07/26 at 01:21 PMPeter Kaye #26...With apologies, I am not sure that I get your point but there is a reason that I use the word “civilians”. It is in keeping with my belief that everyone has the right (within some limits) to live his/her life any way he wants. Maybe those who enjoy war should be “allowed” that right. I envision war as happening between opposing armies on a battlefield. I could object even to that limited kind of warfare on the grounds that it adds to the violence on the planet, but that explains my use of the word “civilians”. My definition of the word would be...any one who chooses not to participate in aggression (as opposed to self defense).
They tried to indoctrinate me while was in the military. I often think about how so much of the training was geared toward building up hatred for civilians.
Yes, I agree. The use of language these days is very interesting. According to our government, would GWB be an illegal combatant? He doesn’t wear a uniform.Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/26 at 01:30 PMRMJ, a global referendum (just imagine that!) would declare GWB a terrorist by an overwhelming majority.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/26 at 01:36 PMAmelopsis, it is agreed. The world sees him as a terrorist but the usa government also classifies him as an illegal combatant because of his attire.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/26 at 01:43 PMRosemarie #31, I enjoy your libertarian ways, and can almost relish the idea of a modern colosseum where those who want to can… but I would not go myself. Just as I can and do refrain from a (very) occasional, strong desire to grab certain females and have my way with them, so I find that my “natural”, animal warrior blood (and my blood can boil as any humans can), can be thwarted by my consciously refraining from practicing war. I, dogmatically, will not “study war, no more”. I have not yet lived through a war that the US has participated in, that wasn’t “self defense”.
Just today Israel killed (murdered) eight “militants” in Gaza, including a young girl. Who declares one a militant, or not? Is there any oversight? One of the grandest delusions of military philosophy, is the delusion of control. Strategy, strategy, like a bunch of boys playing in the mud, “...and then he swung his mighty forces to the right… “ yawn (they go on and on, books, institutes and such). No one will ever figure out who is or isn’t a civilian (you know the line about letting god sort them out).
Amelopsis #32, Ahhh, a dream of justice, and then you wake up. But Ahm not cynical, no sirree!
Posted by Peter (the other) on from California 07/26 at 02:01 PMRMJ #24, I knew I had read about this somewhere before...and it was your article that I had read. I guess we are now seeing its effects...possibly on civilians.
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 07/26 at 02:16 PMPeter #34...I would not go either. I am opposed to all forms of competition and “one-ups-manship”. That is why I oppose football, baseball, volleyball, dodge ball, and most games that necessitate a winner and a loser. I don’t even play Scrabble. BUT, I respect the right of other people to live their lives the way that they want. Yes, I know that they have perverted the language with terms like “collateral damage” and the misuse of the word “militant”.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/26 at 03:40 PMPathetic:
http://tinyurl.com/ku2bmPosted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/26 at 06:05 PMMickey #37...It is VERY pathetic. The Vermont delegation, except for the Republican, were “TOO BUSY” to attend. The democrat in the Senate and even the independent in the House were not there.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/26 at 06:22 PMOne of the four UN soldiers killed by a laser guided US supplied missile was a Canadian.
Our neoLacky minority govt. PM Stevo says that he doubts the IDF directly targetted the UN post and wonders why the UN forces were still positioned in the middle of war zone.
I wish I were joking.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canadia 07/26 at 07:35 PM
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