The angels weep.
January 6, 2009
January 5, 2009
A Norwegian Doctor Tells It Like He Sees It
This story is from CBS, not Al Jazeera.
The truth will out.
The truth will out.
A Desert Called Peace
Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Translation: To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.
Above: American phosphorous bombs falling on Gaza.
January 3, 2009
January 2, 2009
It's Not the Holy Land, It's Chinatown
The bombing of Gaza continues unabated, the dead in their hundreds and the wounded in their thousands, the hospitals already decimated unable to cope. To the American press, this seems of little consequence. These people are, after all, sand niggers who don't look at death the way we do.
If one adopts a short-range perspective, the crude utterances and indiscriminate rocketing of Hamas justified a response by Israel. No sovereign power, after, all, can tolerate such things, even if largely ineffective. That the bombing campaign, like the starvation campaign that preceded it, is likely to prove as useless as it is deadly, could be merely a tactical deficiency.
I have argued that its military and civilian successes, and the exile of Jews from much of the Arab world, make the existence of Israel a fait accompli, whether one likes the place or finds it quite unpleasant, as I did forty odd years ago.
A short-range perspective is not enough, however. If this were so, battles would not rage between the Palestinians and Jews over such questions as whether the old Temple ever existed in Jerusalem.
One Zionist claim is that Jews have rights to the land because it was theirs—up to 70 AD, when their revolt against Rome proved a failure. To the “it once was ours” claim is usually added a quasi-religious justification. Then of course there is the rationale that Israel is needed as a refuge against persecution.
It is true that the land was Jewish before, even if Gaza and Ashkelon were Philistine. The notion that we are going to return the heirs of long-defeated ethnic groups to their former territory is quixotic and ridiculous. If the Palestinians lost several wars and need to adapt to that, and the Sudeten Germans and Smyrna Greeks can lament but not undo their expulsions, why is the Jewish War of AD 70 something different?
The answer given by the atheist Zionist movement is that Israel is the Biblically Promised Land. Sometimes they will add a claim that Jews always lived there.
This claim is, of course, a modern fabrication. Christians, at least before the current dispensationalist fad, have always viewed Judaism as a false religion, and the Christian church as the true heir of the Biblical covenants. Although ADL types lambaste this as “supersessionism,” it is perfectly good Chrisian theology.
Both Talmudic Judaism and early Christianity had to cope, among other things, with the collapse of the Temple cult after the Jewish War. Fulfillment of the Law required pilgrimages and support of the vast abattoir that was the Temple. When the Temple was destroyed a second time, the Law--these practices-- became impossible to fulfill any longer.
Talmudic Judaism was invented to preserve Jewish identity under conditions of exile. Talmudic Judaism did not share the assumptions of modern Zionism. It taught that exile (galut or galus) was a spiritual consequence of Jewish sins, and redemption would come only with the arrival of the Messiah, seen as an earthly king rather than God made flesh in the Christian manner. Christianity generally taught that the Jews (the descendants of those who did not become Christian) would be converted in the fullness of time. There is no traditional Christian support for the view that Jews had any religious claim on the land. To the extent there is any such support, it arose in late Anglo-American nonconformist Protestant circles.
Paradoxically, however, the secularists and atheists who founded the Zionist movement looked to what is now Israel as the Jewish homeland—because it was the historic home of the Jews looked at as a nation, and because it was “promised” to the heirs of Abraham and Jacob.
This attitude was consistent with the European imperialist notion that wogs begin at Calais, and it was perfectly acceptable for the “civilized” to dispossess the “natives” whenever that was convenient. The Zionists, of course, started late, when these imperialist notions had begun to collapse.
Virtually from the beginning of Zionist settlement, it stimulated Arab hostility. Zionists like to point to this history as reflecting badly upon the Arabs, but what would one expect? Strangers come to your country, buying up land, gabbling about creating a state of their own, and refusing event to hire Arab labor.
All the rest flows naturally from this contradiction. Israel's creation always depended upon the dispossession of the Arabs, and it soon became clear that this dispossession would have to be done by force. The rest is history.
In short, at the root of all the violence is the simple fact is that the Arabs lived on the land and the Jews decided to take it from them. (Zionism also destroyed centuries-old Jewish communities around the world, but that's another story for another day).
In the film “The Battle of Algiers,” the French military officer points out that if you want to keep a French Algeria, you must countenance the brutal tactics then followed. In the same way, the starvation and slaughter in Gaza stem ultimately and almost inevitably from the Zionist claim to the land, supportable, if at all, by right of conquest. The ultimate Zionists, then, are not the “beautiful souls” of the crazy Israeli left, but men like Moshe Feiglin and Avigdor Lieberman, uncompromising, ideological, and brutal.
If one adopts a short-range perspective, the crude utterances and indiscriminate rocketing of Hamas justified a response by Israel. No sovereign power, after, all, can tolerate such things, even if largely ineffective. That the bombing campaign, like the starvation campaign that preceded it, is likely to prove as useless as it is deadly, could be merely a tactical deficiency.
I have argued that its military and civilian successes, and the exile of Jews from much of the Arab world, make the existence of Israel a fait accompli, whether one likes the place or finds it quite unpleasant, as I did forty odd years ago.
A short-range perspective is not enough, however. If this were so, battles would not rage between the Palestinians and Jews over such questions as whether the old Temple ever existed in Jerusalem.
One Zionist claim is that Jews have rights to the land because it was theirs—up to 70 AD, when their revolt against Rome proved a failure. To the “it once was ours” claim is usually added a quasi-religious justification. Then of course there is the rationale that Israel is needed as a refuge against persecution.
It is true that the land was Jewish before, even if Gaza and Ashkelon were Philistine. The notion that we are going to return the heirs of long-defeated ethnic groups to their former territory is quixotic and ridiculous. If the Palestinians lost several wars and need to adapt to that, and the Sudeten Germans and Smyrna Greeks can lament but not undo their expulsions, why is the Jewish War of AD 70 something different?
The answer given by the atheist Zionist movement is that Israel is the Biblically Promised Land. Sometimes they will add a claim that Jews always lived there.
This claim is, of course, a modern fabrication. Christians, at least before the current dispensationalist fad, have always viewed Judaism as a false religion, and the Christian church as the true heir of the Biblical covenants. Although ADL types lambaste this as “supersessionism,” it is perfectly good Chrisian theology.
Both Talmudic Judaism and early Christianity had to cope, among other things, with the collapse of the Temple cult after the Jewish War. Fulfillment of the Law required pilgrimages and support of the vast abattoir that was the Temple. When the Temple was destroyed a second time, the Law--these practices-- became impossible to fulfill any longer.
Talmudic Judaism was invented to preserve Jewish identity under conditions of exile. Talmudic Judaism did not share the assumptions of modern Zionism. It taught that exile (galut or galus) was a spiritual consequence of Jewish sins, and redemption would come only with the arrival of the Messiah, seen as an earthly king rather than God made flesh in the Christian manner. Christianity generally taught that the Jews (the descendants of those who did not become Christian) would be converted in the fullness of time. There is no traditional Christian support for the view that Jews had any religious claim on the land. To the extent there is any such support, it arose in late Anglo-American nonconformist Protestant circles.
Paradoxically, however, the secularists and atheists who founded the Zionist movement looked to what is now Israel as the Jewish homeland—because it was the historic home of the Jews looked at as a nation, and because it was “promised” to the heirs of Abraham and Jacob.
This attitude was consistent with the European imperialist notion that wogs begin at Calais, and it was perfectly acceptable for the “civilized” to dispossess the “natives” whenever that was convenient. The Zionists, of course, started late, when these imperialist notions had begun to collapse.
Virtually from the beginning of Zionist settlement, it stimulated Arab hostility. Zionists like to point to this history as reflecting badly upon the Arabs, but what would one expect? Strangers come to your country, buying up land, gabbling about creating a state of their own, and refusing event to hire Arab labor.
All the rest flows naturally from this contradiction. Israel's creation always depended upon the dispossession of the Arabs, and it soon became clear that this dispossession would have to be done by force. The rest is history.
In short, at the root of all the violence is the simple fact is that the Arabs lived on the land and the Jews decided to take it from them. (Zionism also destroyed centuries-old Jewish communities around the world, but that's another story for another day).
In the film “The Battle of Algiers,” the French military officer points out that if you want to keep a French Algeria, you must countenance the brutal tactics then followed. In the same way, the starvation and slaughter in Gaza stem ultimately and almost inevitably from the Zionist claim to the land, supportable, if at all, by right of conquest. The ultimate Zionists, then, are not the “beautiful souls” of the crazy Israeli left, but men like Moshe Feiglin and Avigdor Lieberman, uncompromising, ideological, and brutal.
December 28, 2008
Wrong From the Beginning
Like the rest of the world, I'm watching the events in Gaza with dismay. If this proportion of deaths were occurring in the US, the dead on the first day would number 46,000.
First Israel, with help from Egypt, starved the Gazans. Some Gazans responded with unlawful, but largely ineffective homemade weapons, as well as despicable suicide attacks. Now, however, Israel is killing policemen and schoolgirls from the air, and apparently intends to go on doing it (until what?) No end in sight.
These are war crimes. "Strategic bombing" is a war crime. Supplying high-tech weapons, knowing the track record of the Israelis, is also a war crime.
Pro-Zionists will argue that Israel has a right to defend itself. Perhaps, from a short-term perspective.
Zionism, despite the hollow pronouncements of some of its early leaders, could only have meant what it ultimately accomplished--the expulsion or elimination of the indigenous population, based upon a newly-discovered interpretation of the Jewish religion. Unfortunately, however crudely and stupidly led, the indigenous population has refused to acquiesce in its dispossession.
Meanwhile, Zionism has meant the uprooting and destruction of small Jewish communities the world over, the extinction of their languages, and their subjection to the religious dictates of pettifogging Ashkenazic rabbis, whom the secular state has empowered.
It has also created a claque for the most aggressive and mindless U.S. policies.
In short, although I have defended the existence of Israel notwithstanding my rejection of its mythology, I must recognize another truth, "Zionism poisons everything." That proposition is the beginning of wisdom. It is the same idea that the French officer expresses in the film "The Battle of Algiers," if you want to keep this place, implicit in the wish are the tactics we employ.
Whether some form of accommodation is still possible, or whether the best solution is the evacuation of Israel, which has already begun through voluntary emigration, which now exceeds immigration, I do not know.
I do know this: Zionism poisons everything.
First Israel, with help from Egypt, starved the Gazans. Some Gazans responded with unlawful, but largely ineffective homemade weapons, as well as despicable suicide attacks. Now, however, Israel is killing policemen and schoolgirls from the air, and apparently intends to go on doing it (until what?) No end in sight.
These are war crimes. "Strategic bombing" is a war crime. Supplying high-tech weapons, knowing the track record of the Israelis, is also a war crime.
Pro-Zionists will argue that Israel has a right to defend itself. Perhaps, from a short-term perspective.
Zionism, despite the hollow pronouncements of some of its early leaders, could only have meant what it ultimately accomplished--the expulsion or elimination of the indigenous population, based upon a newly-discovered interpretation of the Jewish religion. Unfortunately, however crudely and stupidly led, the indigenous population has refused to acquiesce in its dispossession.
Meanwhile, Zionism has meant the uprooting and destruction of small Jewish communities the world over, the extinction of their languages, and their subjection to the religious dictates of pettifogging Ashkenazic rabbis, whom the secular state has empowered.
It has also created a claque for the most aggressive and mindless U.S. policies.
In short, although I have defended the existence of Israel notwithstanding my rejection of its mythology, I must recognize another truth, "Zionism poisons everything." That proposition is the beginning of wisdom. It is the same idea that the French officer expresses in the film "The Battle of Algiers," if you want to keep this place, implicit in the wish are the tactics we employ.
Whether some form of accommodation is still possible, or whether the best solution is the evacuation of Israel, which has already begun through voluntary emigration, which now exceeds immigration, I do not know.
I do know this: Zionism poisons everything.
December 20, 2008
More "Bah! Humbug!"
If you're with me in despising "The Little Drummer Boy" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," listen to Fairytale of New York.
This is the version with Katie Melua, not the Kirsty MacColl version. The latter is grittier, but the former's easier to understand.
The people in the song aren't sanctimonious, and are in need of salvation.
This is the version with Katie Melua, not the Kirsty MacColl version. The latter is grittier, but the former's easier to understand.
The people in the song aren't sanctimonious, and are in need of salvation.
December 17, 2008
Honest Abe?
A whingeing pom gives another perspective on Abe Lincoln.
High-level corruption in the Land of Lincoln, and this US Attorney thinks we should be surprised at that -- and Lincoln would be shocked. Oh, sure. As Captain Renault was shocked to find there was gambling going on at Rick's Café.
I am not surprised to see yet more evidence that corruption is endemic in the Land of Lincoln. I'd call it highly appropriate. But then, I've known enough about Lincoln all my life to know that the sobriquet 'Honest Abe' was originally meant as irony. Lincoln was venal and greedy, and long before he was elected president in 1860, the people of Illinois knew it.
Fair use and all that. Read the whole thing.
December 15, 2008
Vile Christmas Music
With a few exceptions ("White Christmas", "Deck the Hall", "The Twelve Days"), I dislike secular Christmas (oops, "holiday") music.
"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"? Yecch.
I reserve particular odium for "The Little Drummer Boy." Cloyingly sentimental, repetitively oppressive, and this years, seemingly, played everywhere.
Most carols, on the other hand, I like. Grouchy, ain't I?
"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"? Yecch.
I reserve particular odium for "The Little Drummer Boy." Cloyingly sentimental, repetitively oppressive, and this years, seemingly, played everywhere.
Most carols, on the other hand, I like. Grouchy, ain't I?
December 14, 2008
Epoxylips Now?
We hear all kinds of weird and distressing news these days:
Are the end-times here, or has history, pace Francis Fukuyama, simply resumed?
- The world financial structure continues to teeter and disintegrate, while free marketeers shovel out subsidies--but not to any company that actually makes anything.
- GM, which used to be the pillar of our economy, is teetering on the edge, begging for a direct subsidy, as opposed to the highway program's indirect subsidy. (Remember "Engine Charlie" Wilson, Secretary of Defense, who said "What's good for GM is good for the country"?)
- Bernard Madoff turns out to have been the biggest crook in world history, to the tune of fifty billion dollars! Most of the booty was swindled from his supposedly money-smart co-religionists.
- The Governor of Illinois was trying to peddle a Senate appointment, on the phone, while he knew he was under investigation. Well, actually, he's a run-of-the-mill Illinois crook, a piker and a nutcase.
- The US defense establishment (and even more so, its political masters) is exposed--a report came out on the hollowing-out of the military in spite of increased expenditures, another on the incompetent effort to rebuild Iraq, and a third on Washington's deliberate encouragement of torture.
- The Tribune Co., publisher of the Chicago Tribune and the Whale (the LA Times), files a bankruptcy petition. NBC gives up on drama or comedy in the 10 o'clock hour, and instead goes for five days of Jay Leno. In short, the MSM are in the tank, too.
Are the end-times here, or has history, pace Francis Fukuyama, simply resumed?
December 5, 2008
Eyesore Central
James Kunstler is an aficionado of apocalypse*. If it wasn't Y2K then, it's "peak oil" now. He's a particular critic of suburbanization, fueled as it is by cheap fuel, which he believes will soon be gone and force us into a less global, more local, and sounder way of life.That's a kettle of fish for a later supper, however.
Today I wish to celebrate a feature of his blog, the "Eyesore of the Month." Kunstler has pretty good taste (at least he dislikes what I do), and each month he posts a photograph of something tawdry, tacky, or pretentious. He has a particular dislike for the Euro-pretentious architect Daniel Liebeskind, whose monkey I decline to touch, no matter how Euro-hip he is.
The above picture is just one of many.
__________
*The use of "apocalypse" here to mean the end of civilization is really a misnomer, or at least a case of metonymy. Apocalypsis means "revelation," not "end times" or anything like it. It happens that St. John's revelation referred, among other things, to the end times, and so the word has acquired an additional meaning.
December 3, 2008
Grave of Fireflies
Apparently I never posted about the Japanese animated film, Grave of Fireflies, by the great Miyazaki.I'll make it short. It's a tragic film about the aftermath of American bombing of Japan in WWII, but it's also about the great love of a brother for his sister.
Heartbreaking but beautiful.
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