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While We Still Have Time

In spite of the grimness of the times in which we live, there is still hope. If you feel, like I do, that the usual discourse about matters of critical concern tends to be superficial, misguided, and false, then you might find some solace and inspiration here. I will try to offer insight and a holistic perspective on events and issues, and hopefully serve as a catalyst for raising the level of dialogue on this planet.

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Name:
Location: Madison, Wisconsin, United States

I was born in 1945, shortly before atom bombs were dropped on Japan. I served in the U.S. Army from 1968 to 1971. I earned master's degrees in Economics and Educational Psychology, and certificates in Web Page Design and as a Teacher of English as a Second Language. I followed an Indian guru for eight years, which immersed me in meditative practices and an attitude of reaching a higher level of being. A blog post listing the meditative practices I have pursued can be seen here.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Guilt By Association

Genocide Joe, 100% politician, empty suit from Scranton, er, Wilmington, er, Washington, is reaping what he sowed. Genocide in Gaza was fine with him as long as he could trust that it wouldn't hurt him politically. Now it is biting him in the proverbial arse.

The movement to vote "uncommitted" in primaries is gathering steam, and though he has the "Democratic" nomination locked-up, the likelihood of a second presidency isn't so clear. I won't vote for him, and I'm not an Arab or Muslim. I won't vote for Tammy Baldwin for Senate either, and told one of her office staffers that I would be voting for Alfred E. Neuman. She also has been in support of genocide in Gaza. And, locally, she supports the forced deployment of F-35 aircraft at Truax Field in defiance of Madison's citizens.

Between now and election day things should get plenty interesting. Trump is disintegrating before our eyes. When his trials begin, it will likely be the end of him. He is not a "strongman" or a strong man. Once the witnesses in his various criminal prosecutions start to sing, he will melt like candle wax on a hot stove. The "Republicans" will have to come up with another criminal.

As this dual meltdown progresses, we might want to reexamine what we think we are doing on this planet, and who we think we are to do what we do here and there. One way to start is to take a look at who Genocide Joe snuggles up to. We can extrapolate this to all previous presidents.

But not future presidents. It is over. It isn't just the debacle in Gaza that will bring this on. Climate change will do the rest. We will find this out this summer, if we already haven't. The election, November 5, will follow what will likely be the hottest summer in human history, eclipsing the previous hottest, last summer.

For now, enjoy a few photos of Biden and his international cronies. They will be gone soon enough. Dictators, autocrats, "strongmen," corrupt Supreme Court justices, they all are very temporary. The times, they will be a'changin' soon. It is the end of the empire.
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Genocide Joe puppet at pro-Palestinian demonstration in Washington, D.C., January 13, 2024You can let Genocide Joe know what you think about his complicity in the genocide in Gaza. I did. It was both fun and serious. Fun because I was able to tell truth to illegitimate power without hesitation or scruple. Power is illegitimate whenever it is used to engage in genocide, which Israel is doing with U.S. money and weapons - and the eager support of Genocide Joe. Here's what I wrote:

To: The White House

Greetings Genocide Joe
 
I was reading about the primary election results from Michigan, where 101,436 preferred no one in particular to you. I suspect voters in upcoming primary elections in other states, such as Wisconsin, where I live, will do the same. I called the Dane County Clerk today, asking how to vote uncommitted in Wisconsin's presidential primary, and was told the choice would be not bound to any candidate. This will be my choice, and it will be a contest here and in other states to beat the Michigan total.

I, a three-year veteran of the U.S. Army, am almost as old as you, serving during the time you made other choices, becoming a 100% politician. I voted for you in 2008, 2012 and 2020. I won't this year, for obvious reasons. We sort of met when you were VP, I even waiting outside on the street when you rode by. We traded grins. The windows were tinted, so all I could see was teeth. Even through the tint you outgrinned me. I now understand that all I saw was teeth because that is all that was there, and all that is there in the White House. Here's a song.

John Hamilton
Madison, Wisconsin
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Here's a song. And another. Have some sympathy for Genocide Joe and his cronies Netanyahu and Blinken. They are only nowhere men. They are a lesson to all of us. Everyone has some devil inside. Thankfully, most of us are able to keep it tucked away. A song for the political careers of Trump and Biden.

Update, Sunday March 17: 
Trump is calling for the January 6 Committee to be jailed. I posted a response: 

This is great. Trump is finally losing his mind, or, more accurately, has lost his mind. I was expecting this, but not until his criminal trials began and the parade of witnesses testifies against him in endless succession while he has to sit there in person, knowing that with each witness to what he actually did his fate is sealed. 

I don't look at it with so much schadenfreude as with a long-deserved relief, and that maybe we can proceed to get G*nocide Joe to end his candidacy. That way we can have some semblance of an election.

Trump is also predicting a "bloodbath" if he isn't elected. Duh. He was never "elected," even in 2016. He won the Electoral Collegein 2016, not the election by the people. In the same speech he said that some migrants are not people. How would he know? Given what we know about his life history, it is safe to say that he is projecting out about himself, hoping to kill the devil inside by desperately claiming it is others who are the bad ones, not him.

Sunday, March 03, 2024

Let's Outdo Michigan

Thirteen percent of Michigan voters voted "Uncommitted" in last Tuesday's presidential primary. The total of uncommitted votes was 101,449, about 91,000 more than was hoped for. It was a protest vote against Genocide Joe Biden, the incumbent president and soulless supporter of the carnage in Gaza. He showed how much he cares Monday by answering questions about a ceasefire while eating an ice cream cone. His fun couldn't be interrupted. 

If this trend of one spreads, which it will, Genocide Joe could be forced to abandon his candidacy. News media (the herd) are saying the uncommitted voters are trying to get Biden to call for a ceasefire. Maybe, but many, if not most, want him out of office. Some, like me, would like to see him in the dock at the Hague, on trial for complicity in war crimes and genocide.

I am old enough to remember when president Lyndon Johnson withdrew his candidacy in 1968 when an anyiwar challenger, Eugene McCarthy garnered 42% of the vote - enough to convince Johnson he was through.

Wisconsin's presidential primary election is April 2. I called the Dane County Clerk on Wednesday to find out how to vote uncommitted, and was told the choice would be "not bound to any candidate." I might write in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but not bound has a nice ring to it, fits me to a T. 

There are many more primary elections left, starting with "Super Tuesday," March 5, this coming week, when 15 states will hold their elections. You can vote one form of uncommitted or another in your state by either calling your city or county clerk, or ask when you show up to vote. It should be fun getting rid of a genocidist.
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R.I.P. Aaron Bushnell. R.I.P. also for everyone who has died since the beginning of the catastrophe in the Southern Levant. 

Friday, February 23, 2024

Happening In Tandem

I was born three years before the creation of the nation-state of Israel, in 1945. I have fewer days ahead than behind, by decades. Just as individual life is impermanent, so also are the lives of nation-states. It is a little more obvious with Israel, an awarded state, granted to assuage international guilt for the Nazi Holocaust, and also for European governments to get rid of their Jewish citizens without killing them

It was O.K. with these governments that the existing residents were evicted from their homes and land. It was a matter of expediency, and also of a kind of ethno-pomposity, an arrogance towards the formerly subjugated peoples of the colonial era. The well-known atrocities of the British Empire precurse the awarding of their former protectorate of Palestine to the Jews of Europe.

Israel has inherited the colonial atrocities of the British Empire, and has been practicing them to an increasing degree since 1948, and indeed even before, with terrorism being the method of stateless Zionists to displace Palestinians from their land. This makes Israel not only an awarded state, but a nation of thieves and murderers. Small wonder that the Palestinians would disagree. Now the theft and murder campaign is almost complete. Various officials of the Israeli government have publicly stated their intention to kill and/or remove all the Palestinians from the occupied lands.

This, as has become clear, could not have happened without help – our help. The U.S. government has been more than willing from the beginning to fund and arm Israel, and in our case it had little to do with assuaging guilt or getting rid of Jews. Relative to European countries, Jews are reasonably well-integrated in "America," itself a nation of immigrants - settlers and genocidal removers of existing populations

Jews blended in with immigrants in a comparatively seamless manner, and have had great success in every sector of the population. Not without resistance. "White" "Christians," blaming Jews for killing their mythical savior "Jesus," have expressed their resentment in a variety of ways, including mass homicide. Not mass to the degree Israel is practicing with the Palestinians, but mass enough to be called mass killing.

It is pretty common knowledge why the U.S. government is so complicit with the genocide practiced by Israel. The "Israeli lobby," personified by the American-Israeli Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), can make or break the careers of politicians. It can provide or withdraw campaign funding, "primary" office-holders who don’t toe the line with Israel, and of course feed information and disinformation to our compromised commercial news media.

Then there is the military-industrial-political lobby. It isn’t enough for weapons manufacturers to sell their wares to the U.S. “Defense” Department. These gun-runners need new markets. Here in Madison, Wisconsin, where I live, the nearby Air National Guard base has been "gifted" with a fleet of Lockheed Martin F-35s. 

The gift was actually to Lockheed Martin, who didn’t have enough customers within the normal active duty system, but needed the money. The noise from these planes is beyond deafening, and far beyond any requirement to defend the State of Wisconsin. The weapons manufacturers, dependent on profits for their existence, need an annual increase in revenues in order to stay in business. In Capitalist reality, profits either go up or down, and constant profits have the same meaning as declining profits.

So, absent the opportunities provided by endless war, the weapons industry needs to sell more weaponry in various ways outside the U.S. The U.S. government fills the gap. We sell guns, bombs, missiles, artillery and military technology to countries like the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, various African governments, South and Central American regimes, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, and really anywhere we can find a compliant regime. We armed Iran to the proverbial hilt in the Shah era, and the current government still has those weapons.

This worked for decades, also largely during my lifetime, since 1945. It is now running out of time. We have a corrupt political system, and our corruption in arming the world is done by the same corrupt people who inhabit our various branches of government within the U.S. As elsewhere, so here.

As we are seeing on a daily basis, this corruption has changed over time. It has descended into chaos in the House of Representatives, the Senate has insurrectionists holding office, and the Supreme Court is 2/3 political hacks. This is not a formula for a functional civilization.

Just in time for climate change to kick into high-gear, and for our unsustainable infinite-growth economic system to reach its growth limit. My early childhood was spent in Chicago, and I can remember at about age five saying to my parents when they were driving somewhere in the city for what seemed like forever, "Are we still in Chicago?" That would have been 1950, seventy-four years ago. 

We left Chicago two years later, and every time I go back there I am dumbfounded at how monstrously big the metropolitan area is. It is a world unto itself. Really numerous worlds. We lived on the South Side of Chicago, in the 63d Street area, a city unto itself even then, with its own downtown, larger than in most cities. It had its own Illinois Central train station, a hub of activity in the days when people still rode in trains. Our neighborhood was known as Woodlawn.

Now Madison is a growth-destination. Developers seem to run this city, putting up one ugly building after another. Or really ten ugly buildings after another ten. It used to be at the University of Wisconsin campus where there were building cranes all over the place, but now that "Republicans" in the state legislature have declared war on higher education ("liberals"), the cranes are spread out across the city in every direction.

Multiply this around the country, and we have an obliviousness to the folly of infinite growth. Even Genocide Joe Biden uses the success of infinite growth as reason enough to vote for him again. America beware. Genocide Joe in one place is Genocide Joe everywhere. You can’t be a purveyor of genocide in just one place. You are either a genocidist or not a genocidist. In the grandest scheme he is no better than Donald Trump. Maybe worse. Trump, international criminal and troublemaker, wasn't complicit with genocide, but it was not because he wouldn't if the opportunity arose. His actions towards Israel and Palestine set the stage for what is going on now

We will see this summer just how "successful" infinite growth has been for the world. It is February 23. The temperature yesterday in Madison was 59 degrees, almost 30 degrees above normal. On February 8 Wisconsin had its first tornado in recorded history. This coming July, 30 degrees above normal will be about 110 to 120 degrees. I, for one, will be lucky to live through this, even with air conditioning. Many more won’t be so lucky. 

It won’t be so much fun in Israel either, facing the aftermath of its genocide campaign. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Planetary political, economic and ecological breakdown all happening in tandem, a genocidal settler state and its sponsor reaping the whirlwind. It’s the stuff of blockbuster movies, except live, real and without the entertainment. We will all be in our own blockbusters.
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Chris Hedges explains the situation with great insight and eloquence. 

A "pundit" on PBS's Amanpour & Company interviewed a Palestinian-American doctor Tariq Haddad, who had 100 members of his family killed in Israeli bombing raids. He refused to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The pundit in question, Michel Martin, used the Fox News technique of creating imaginary "others," who might see his refusal as "grandstanding." 100 relatives murdered in Gaza, and the suggestion he was grandstanding. I responded thusly. You can see the sequence starting at 9:03.

Here's my reply:

I watched this segment on TV, turned the set off and went to bed when Michel Martin suggested Dr. Haddad might seem to some as grandstanding when he refused to meet with Antony Blinken. Before this she made a quizzical look, and the gestalt of her questioning was arrogant, performative and disrespectful. This is typical of mainstream media. Ego-centered, above the news, more than a little microaggressive, about themselves, deciders of who is worthy and who isn't, establishmentarian, herd mentality and conformist to the herd, which in "America" is that Israelis are the ones who matter. In the words of her colleague New York Times "journalist" Thomas Friedman, people in the Mideast are parasitoid wasps and caterpillars - reminiscent of World War II Germany. This carnage will not end well for anyone.

I, three year veteran of the U.S. Army, will not be voting for Genocide Joe. I won't be voting for a "Republican" either, but might write-in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who will be 35 on October 13, just in time for the election. November 5 is a long time off. I don't believe either criminal sociopath Trump or Genocide Joe will be their party's nominees. If I had my way, Genocide Joe would be in the dock at the International Criminal Court at the Hague. That of course won't happen, because the "U.S." has pronounced itself above the law.

Meanwhile, I won't be watching this show anymore, which I don't like much anyway. Michel Martin isn't the only arrogant one there. Heh, I won't meet with Antony Blinken either. Or Genocide Joe. Not that they would want to meet with me, but I still can set standards. I sort of met Genocide Joe once, before he was Genocide Joe. It was after a speech in 2015. I waited as his limo passed by. The windows were tinted, and all I could see was teeth. I gave him my biggest grin, but even behind a tinted window he outgrinned me. Maybe it really was only teeth. He is a 100% politician, not much better than a row of teeth.
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For some perspective on Thomas Friedman's dehumanization of people in the Mideast, click here.
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 Let's shout goodbye Genocide Joe. There is more than one wasteland of the free in this world. A newer take on an old song. In an even newer take, Ed Sheeran. The original. Of course, both the U.S. and Israel have God on their side. Steve Miller. John Prine. Life is far, far stronger than genocide. Here's a song celebrating life after genocide. This of course will be abundantly clear when the truth finally comes.
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Here's a fun Chicago story.
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I made a second attempt to send an email to the German government about their contention that the genocide in Gaza was not a genocide, and got through. Here's a transcript:

To: poststelle@bundesregierung.de-mail.de poststelle@bundesregierung.de-mail.de
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2024 at 04:08:37 PM CST
Subject: A Suggestion

Greetings

I served in FRG decades ago, part of the U.S. force in NATO (OTAN). Back then I attended a rock fest at the Heidelberg Thingstätte. Times change. Now the Deutsche government is proclaiming to the world that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. One would think a lesson had bean learned over the past 80 years-or-so. The track record of Germany in euphemizing and/or denying genocide is a bit flawed and lacking credibility. It is not for you to say what is and what is not genocide. You will not erase the past by supporting a new genocide. 

Worthy of mention is that during my time in Germany I went on a three-day pass to Paris. It was great, but when I returned to Germany it felt like home. A Germany that supports genocide wouldn't feel like home to me now. 

John Hamilton  
Madison, Wisconsin

Sent: Thu, 15.February 2024 00:42:05 
To: poststelle@bundesregierung.de (poststelle@bundesregierung.de) 
Subject: Fw: A Suggestion

I thought I would try this again. Given that the genocide in Gaza is about to intensify, you might be having second thoughts about your carte blanche of Israel, and your presumption that you are in a position to say what is and what isn't genocide. 

John HamiltonMadison, WI internetpost
From:internetpost@bundesregierung.de
To:John Hamilton 

Sehr geehrter Herr Hamilton, vielen Dank für Ihre E-Mail. Ihre Ausführungen wurden aufmerksam zur Kenntnis genommen. 

Ich darf Ihnen versichern, dass die Bundesregierung großen Wert darauf legt, über die Meinungsäußerungen der Bürgerinnen und Bürger regelmäßig unterrichtet zu werden. Anregungen, Empfehlungen und auch kritische Beiträge werden sehr ernst genommen und fließen in den Meinungsbildungsprozess der Bundesregierung mit ein. 

Zusätzlich möchte ich Sie auf das Internetangebot der Bundesregierung aufmerksam machen, auf dem Sie umfangreiche Informationen zur aktuellen Regierungspolitik finden. Sie erreichen die Seite unter www.bundesregierung.de . 

Über die Umsetzung wichtiger Maßnahmen der Bundesregierung können Sie sich im Regierungsmonitor informieren. Entdecken Sie, woran die Bundesregierung aktuell arbeitet, was bereits vom Bundeskabinett beschlossen wurde und welche Gesetze schon in Kraft getreten sind. Der Regierungsmonitor wird einmal im Monat aktualisiert: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/bundesregierung/regierungsmonitor 

Kind Regards 
Im Auftrag 
Inga Seeliger 

Dear Mr Hamilton,

Thank you very much for your email. Your comments were listened to carefully. 

I can assure you that the Federal Government attaches great importance to being regularly informed about citizens' opinions. Suggestions, recommendations and critical contributions are taken very seriously and are incorporated into the Federal Government's opinion-forming process. 

I would also like to draw your attention to the Federal Government's website, where you can find extensive information on current government policy. You can access the site at www.bundesregierung.de. 

You can find out about the implementation of important measures by the federal government in the government monitor. Discover what the federal government is currently working on, what has already been decided by the federal cabinet and which laws have already come into force. The government monitor is updated once a month: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/bundesregierung/regierungsmonitor 

Kind regards 
On behalf 
Inga Seeliger

Bürgerservice Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung Wussten Sie schon, dass Ihre Gruppen uns jetzt auch außerhalb Ihrer BPA-Fahrt online besuchen können? Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen des Bundespresseamts lohnt sich auch im digitalen Raum! Weitere Informationen zu den Online-Besuchervorträgen finden Sie hier: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/bundesregierung/bundespresseamt/digitaler-besuch-bpa-1962378 Hinweis: Informationen zum Datenschutz finden Sie auf der Internetseite der Bundesregierung unter https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/service/datenschutzhinweis/datenschutzerklaerung-1532494 Citizen service Press and Information Office the federal government

Did you know that your groups can now visit us online outside of your BPA trip? It's also worth taking a look behind the scenes at the Federal Press Office in digital space! Further information about the online visitor lectures can be found here: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/bundesregierung/bundespresseamt/digitaler-visit-bpa-1962378 

A notice: Information on data protection can be found on the Federal Government's website at https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/service/datenschutztipp/datenschutzerklaerung-1532494
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In other words, a nothing answer, passive-aggressive bureaucratese, in German. It gave me something to practice German with, should the whim occur to me. Meanwhile, Oh das macht nichts! (mox nix!)

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Genocide Joe Gets Treated Unfairly

The "special" counsel investigating Joe Biden's possession of classified documents completed his probe Thursday, and found the president to be innocent of wrongdoing. Part of his reasoning was that Biden is an elderly man who is sometimes confused and forgetful. As an example of his memory problems it was mentioned that he couldn't remember the year his son Beau died (2015), not that long ago. He also confused the president of Egypt with the Mexican president.

Biden’s response was to show outrage, saying "How in the hell dare he raise that?" His vice-president and numerous other Democrats are exhibiting similar outrage, claiming it was "political."

Of course it was political. He’s the president running for reelection. The special counsel, Robert K. Hur, is a Republican operative. We have a corrupt system. Both parties are corrupt.

So now Joe Biden has to spend the entire campaign denying he is feeble-minded. It is reminiscent of Richard Nixon saying "I am not a crook." His likely opponent, Donald Trump, IS a crook, and worse. He is a dangerous and deranged criminal sociopath, and if "elected" will unleash the power of the Federal government in a tirade of vengeance against not just his political opponents, but the rest of the country – and the world. I believe he will crash and burn well-before the election comes around, but as of now he is the "front-runner." 

In the most surreal set of options in our nation's history we have the feeble-minded versus the sociopath. In the grand scheme of choosing the lesser of two evils, the choice should be simple: pick the feeble-minded one. Take up his argument that he is not feeble-minded, but the other guy is a criminal sociopath. A true path to victory.

Except for a couple of things. Joe Biden caved to "Republican" pressure to propose legislation to make the southern border criminally restrictive. It failed, not because it was criminally restrictive, but because Donald Trump said it would give Biden an election-year "victory," and Republicans should vote against it.

Then there is Gaza. Biden is complicit in genocide. He should be in the dock at the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Our mainstream media give him support for this, parroting his weak criticism of Israel while turning a blind eye to the genocide he – and almost the entire Congress – are funding. His latest weak criticism of Israel is that its indiscriminate bombing campaign against the people of Gaza is "over the top." 

Over the top of what? Over the top of what Muslim and Arab voters in the U.S. accept – in his mind. It is a political problem for him. He needs to get these people to vote for him, and Genocide Joe, not knowing his elbow from a hole in the ground ethically and morally, thinks saying "over the top" will work for him. Proof that he is feeble-minded, likely has been for a long time. It has little to do with age.

Genocide Joe puppet at pro-Palestinian demonstration in Washington, D.C., January 13, 2024


Should we feel sympathy for Genocide Joe? Many will, in the reductionist way of thinking that is our tradition. Isolate this one thing – a prosecutor saying he is feeble-minded – from everything else in the Universe, and focus on that. Never mind that he is fomenting genocide. He is being treated unfairly, and the alternative is Donald Trump.

I have a better idea. Genocide Joe should resign immediately and surrender himself to the ICC for criminal prosecution. The Democratic candidate should be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is not corrupt, is smart, and opposes genocide. In addition to being smart, she is not feeble-minded, and is young and energetic, and won’t cave to pressure to go along with the criminal Republicans in their various and relentless schemes. 

As a bonus she could be our fist female president and the first not of European descent, of which we have had more than more than enough. She will be thirty-five years old on October 13, the minimum age requirement for being president. 

In our corrupt system this is of course unrealistic, but the realistic choice is between a fomenter of genocide and a deranged criminal sociopath who means only harm. Maybe it is time to forget about being "realistic" and go for the best.
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Here's one of AOC's favorite songs. Here's her playlist. 

Here's a song for Genocide Joe. Here's another, celebrating his departure.


Friday, February 02, 2024

Proxy Revenge

In today's news it  was  revealed that 800 officials in 12 countries, including the U.S., Great Britain and the EU, have signed a letter protesting their governments' policies regarding Israel's war in Gaza. The governments of these various countries have been either passive or in full support of the genocide the settler state Israel is perpetrating in its occupied territory.

This is me at the Anne Frank house, Prinsengracht 263 Amsterdam, in March 1971. I was in Amsterdam on a 3-day pass from the U.S. Army in Germany
It is a curious thing, official backing  for genocide, though not  unprecedented.  When the Nazi Holocaust was going on countries looked the other way, refused entry to fleeing Jews (the U.S.), and in some cases helped the Nazis round up Jewish citizens (Holland and France come to mind.) Now European countries are constrained by their history, and need to assuage their guilt by supporting the Jewish state that they helped create.

I don't buy it for a second. It's all politics. The "leaders" of these governments are following the path of least resistance. Though their citizens may no be so genocide-friendly, presidents, prime ministers, kings and other government officials risk being accused of  being antisemitic if they support  a cease-fire or  basic human  rights  for the Palestinians.

When I heard that the government of Germany announced plans to intervene in support of Israel in South Africa's allegation of genocide in Gaza I sent an email to the German government suggesting Deutsch government officials might not be the most credible arbiters of what constitutes genocide. It came back undeliverable, though I sent it to the address they provide. I can post it here, though:

From: John Hamilton 
To: poststelle@bundesregierung.de-mail.de
Sun, Jan 14, 2024 at 4:08 PM

Greetings

Concert atI served in FRG decades ago, part of the U.S. force in NATO (OTAN). Back then I attended a rock fest at the Heidelberg Thingstätte. Times change. Now the Deutsche government is proclaiming to the world that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza

One would think a lesson had bean learned over the past 80 years-or-so. The track record of Germany in euphemizing and/or denying genocide is a bit flawed and lacking credibility. It is not for you to say what is and what is not genocide. You will not erase the past by supporting a new genocide.

Worthy of mention is that during my time in Germany I went on a three-day pass to Paris. It was great, but when I returned to Germany it felt like home. A Germany that supports genocide wouldn't feel like home to me now.

John Hamilton
Madison, Wisconsin
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I wasn't expecting much anyway in the way of a response, but I thought I would register my dissent. I lived in Germany for 2 1/2 years when I was indentured to the U.S. Army, from February 1969 to July 1971, and I still have some affinity for the country. I got to know some students towards the end of my time there, and crossed paths with a few young radicals, who, in retrospect were likely early members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang. I didn't have anything to do with the radicals - they were friends with some G.I.s I knew casually. I didn't like their vibe. An exchange group between my Army unit and some German students, though, was a positive experience. The upcoming generation of Germans held great promise, and I was encouraged for the country's future.

I'm still encouraged, for Germany and many other countries around the world, where massive demonstrations are being held against the Gaza  genocide on a continuing basis, and they are making their "leaders" very embarrassed and uncomfortable.

That includes the United States, though our "leader," Joe Biden, is likely neither embarrassed nor uncomfortable. He, the 100% politician, is concerned only about how his support for genocide might affect his reelection chances. Morally and ethically he doesn't know his elbow from a hole in the ground, and by extension everything in between. He is latest example of the proverbial "lesser of two evils" in the  upcoming presidential election, but not by much.

Meanwhile, Israel has announced its plans to attack Rafah, the last refuge for Palestinians fleeing the siege. Israel, begun as an imposed settler state displacing the existing citizens of Palestine, is now a genocide state, supported by Genocide Joe and U.S. money.

Something should be mentioned, though, about Germany's support for Israel's genocide. Given the rage and zeal for revenge that is being expressed by Israelis almost universally, I wonder why they never directed their rage towards the country that tried to do what they are attempting with the Palestinians: Deutschland, the perpetrator of the greatest genocide in human history. Could it be that German leaders fear that Israel, a nuclear power, could turn its eyes towards the land of the death camps, crematoriums, gas chambers and medical experiments. They surely haven't forgotten. Maybe it's just to easy to kill all the Palestinians, who live right next door. They will do as a proxy. And we pay the bills.
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Here's a song. Here's another. Creedence. Jefferson Airplane

Sunday, January 28, 2024

House Of Cards

The International Court of Justice found Friday that the government of South Africa has a legitimate complaint against the government of Israel for committing the crime of genocide in Gaza. To which, my reaction is Duh! Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and various other of its government officials and apologists are proof enough of their guilt by the way they deny culpability, basically declaring Israel to be above reproach, and the very accusation of genocide is an insult to the memory of the Holocaust.

The Holocaust excuse has been trotted out for decades, and it never gets old, for Israel at least. For the rest of humanity I suspect it has become a bit hackneyed. Worse, really. It is an often hysterical omnibus excuse and deflection for whatever perfidy Israel foists on the Palestinians.

Like the accusation of "antisemitism," playing the Holocaust card has finally run its course. After the fully intentional genocide in Gaza, Israel has used up its moral capital in the world. To be sure, there was much moral capital to use up, 6,000,000 Jews murdered in the Nazi Holocaust. Not 6,000,000 Israelis, it should be noted, but 6,000,000 people identified as Jews, or Juden in German, a people associated by religion and ethnicity. After World War II Israel was created, or granted, as compensation for the horrors that Jews experienced at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Or, as some have noted, to get rid of them.

Then there was the benefactor – the United States of America, not a particularly Jew-loving country. Israel was seen as a handy ally in both the Cold War and as a surrogate presence in the Mideast. To serve these dual purposes, much money was required – and given, in the hundreds of billions, in both economic and military assistance.

Just as playing the Holocaust card has run its course, so also have the Cold War and hegemony in the Mideast cards. The Cold War is over, and our track record of meddling in the area between North Africa and Southwest Asia is a tale of folly and mischief. We have no credibility in the region, and have caused great harm wherever we have stuck our moneyed noses. Whether it was in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and of course in the Southern Levant that includes Palestine and Israel, we have behaved with bad intentions, and with horrendous results.

We also allied with the Apartheid regime in South Africa, and in combination with Iran in the Shah era and Israel, we had a supposed "iron triangle" of client states doing our bidding and keeping the region free of "communism" and profits flowing. It is no small irony that it is the post-Apartheid South Africa that has risen to file an Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).

It is all over but the shouting, and of course we are hearing much shouting. Realities have changed on Planet Earth. There is no more Cold War, we have run out of shenanigans in the Mideast, and there are what economists call secular trends - the unsustainability of our infinite-growth economic system and the impending and ongoing disasters caused by climate change.

Genocide Joe puppet at pro-Palestinian demonstration in Washington, D.C., January 13, 2024
Joe Biden, candidate for reelection, is trying to finesse the Gaza genocide, supporting what Israel does while pretending to apply pressure on Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The key element in his attempted finesse is that we are being "told" that he is applying pressure. Biden has never suggested a cease-fire, and when questioned about the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza both he, his secretary of state and his national security spokesman have responded that Israel has the right to self defense. The most concern he showed was to say that he was "worried" by the number of civilians killed in the bombing attacks. 

Biden, a 100% politician, is worse than dishonest and naive. He says what he thinks will work - true or false. Lying about Israel, Gaza and the Palestinians will fool the American people just like it always has. Except things are different now. He is unpopular for a number of reasons, and only diehard Democratic voters believe anything he says. Young people, many of whom are from Arab and Muslim backgrounds, are deserting him and the Democrats. I am neither young nor Arab or Muslim, but I won't vote for Genocide Joe this fall. I voted for him in 2020, largely because of Trump, but also because I never vote for Republicans, who stand for the wealthy, corporations and for trodding on the downtrodden. 

Beyond that it doesn't matter much. In a condition of pending climate disaster and economic collapse, who might be the corrupt president of the United States is of minor consequence. I suppose the best we can settle for is the person who is the least corrupt. Whomever that person may be, the days of unlimited and unquestioning political, economic and military support for the genocide state of Israel will be a thing of the past. We will be lucky to still have a country.
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Here's a song. Here's another. David Byrne.

R.I.P. Melanie. I used to have her double album. She sang at Woodstock, wrote this song about being there.

We are spending what little is left of our moral capital. 

Here's an update about the lawsuit in Federal Court in Oakland, California, accusing Genocide Joe, his secretary of state and his secretary of defense of complicity in genocide and that they be enjoined from further military aid to Israel. 

Update, January 31: The judge in the genocide lawsuit in Federal court in Oakland, California against the Biden administration dismissed the case on the grounds that the courts lack authority over certain political decisions made by Congress and the executive branch. 

The trial set a precedent, being the first time Palestinians had the opportunity to present their case in a court anywhere. The International Court of Justice case is different, Brought by a country, South Africa, against Israel. This case was brought by Palestinians, represented by lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights. 

Though this result is a setback, it brought attention to the plight of the Palestinians, and it put Genocide Joe and his cronies on notice that his complicity in the genocide in Gaza will have consequences.

Meanwhile, here's an interesting discussion of the meaning of the word genocide. We will be dealing with this current genocide for a long time.

An interview with non-genocidal presidential candidate Cornel West can be seen here.

Sunday, January 07, 2024

Nature Abhors a Vacuum

Trump jokes are no longer funny. His act has gone on too long. Acts about his act have gone on too long as well. It used to be that satirizing, ridiculing, parodying and mocking him were ways of taking him down to size, showing defiance and rendering him unworthy. At some point it has to be fait accompli. He is now a national joke, so why the need to keep making jokes about the national joke?

It certainly can be argued that he is still a force to be contended with, so we need to keep making fun of him. He is running for president again, and "the polls" show he is the leading "Republican" candidate. His leadingness in public opinion polls has been news for a couple of years now, which says more about the "news" industry than about what is important in people's lives. For pundits and pundit wanna-bes on TV especially, talking about endless minutiae regarding Donald Trump gives them a reason to exist, an easy way to feign knowledge and wisdom without knowing much of anything. And, they can rise up the ladder of punditocracy, maybe even becoming "the most trusted man in America" (always a man) like Walter Cronkite once was.

I was all-in on Trump humor. It helped keep my spirits up during this surreal episode in this country's history. Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth MeyersJon Stewart, John Oliver and Trevor Noah provided hilarious scorn and ridicule, and often showed great insight into the nature of Trump’s criminal operation. Others, like various players on Saturday Night Live, used parody and farce to lampoon the real farce that Trump has foisted on the American public for too many years.

I feel an energy shift. Trump is now a pathetic character. He is losing in court repeatedly, his behavior is becoming even more deranged and erratic, and former friends, allies and co-defendants are turning against him on a daily basis. He is like a bull in the final stage of a bullfight – worn down, enraged, body pierced all over with picador lances, stumbling, dazed and confused, the matador closing in for the kill.

The kill, in Trump’s case, is metaphoric. The matador could be any number of prosecutors, judges, witnesses, or even family members, should they turn on him after he turns on them. More likely it will be an agglomeration of matadors delivering the final thrust into the body of the exhausted beast. The end is near for Trump. No man has the strength to withstand the onslaught of prosecution, conviction and disgrace that is coming his way, certainly not someone 77 years old and in steep mental decline.

Trump's supporters likely also see him as a wounded and worn-down battler, except in heroic terms, the valiant hero fighting against the godless oppressors. What sane, intelligent people see as a grifter getting his due to the Trump faithful is the savior of mankind, a Jesus figure being crucified. Pundits and others, of course, see the MAGA crowd as a great threat to “democracy,” and are spreading fear about what his followers would do, should he be sent to prison or removed from eligibility for "reelection."(Fact-check: in order to be reelected you have to hold office. Otherwise you are just a candidate.)

When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, yell and shout. Television again, thrives on hysteria, hype, excitement. The sky is falling, let’s keep watching TV! Taking a calmer approach, I recognize the danger, but as we have seen, the actual threat of physical harm comes from a small portion of the "right wing." Most MAGA adherents are the kind of people who are fair game for mob-inciters, but who are not likely to act beyond the complaint stage. The people who actually showed up in Washington in 2021 to overthrow the election were a very small percentage of Trump's supporters. 

The same goes for the plotters who planned to kidnap and kill the governor of Michigan. Very few in number. Vigilantes are a danger, but modern law enforcement is up to the task of investigating them and bringing them to justice.

What is of real concern, though, is the condition that makes a candidate for office like Trump possible in the first place. He is the worst kind of demagogue – hateful, inciter of violence, scapegoater, a total criminal, loyal to no one but himself, and an advocate of the most divisive, mean and harmful government actions imaginable. Somehow he was able to convince enough people to vote for him in 2016 that he "won" the presidency.

What makes the situation even more pathetic is that the supposed alternative is Genocide Joe, the cheerleader for the carnage in Gaza. This makes him a man without honor, ethics and morality. If he can't be trusted to act with honor, ethics and morality elsewhere, he can’t be trusted here. Joe Biden, the 100% politician, can be trusted to do what is politically advantageous – to him. Hmm. Sounds a bit like Trump.

In spite of all this, I am optimistic. In Physics, potential is the thing that is not. The evil of today implies its opposite. Yang implies Yin. There was a buildup of negative energy over many decades. It came to fruition with the ascendance (or descendance, like on an escalator) of Donald Trump. He only got so far, and now his criminal operation is in shambles. It is fitting that we would have both him and Genocide Joe at the same time as our supposed leaders. Nature abhors a vacuum.
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R.I.P. Tom Smothers. Here's an example of his humor. He was in the Give Peace a Chance video.

Here's a song for Trump. Here's another. One way or another, Trump will be leaving his brokedown palace(s), maybe for the jailhouse, maybe for the poor house. Maybe here from time-to-time.