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.
About Me
- Name: John Hamilton
- 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.
Sunday, March 24, 2024
Saturday, March 16, 2024
Guilt By Association
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.
You 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:
Sunday, March 03, 2024
Let's Outdo Michigan
Friday, February 23, 2024
Happening In Tandem
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Chris Hedges explains the situation with great insight and eloquence.
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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Sent: Thu, 15.February 2024 00:42:05
Thank you very much for your email. Your comments were listened to carefully.
Saturday, February 10, 2024
Genocide Joe Gets Treated Unfairly
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."
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."
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.
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Friday, February 02, 2024
Proxy Revenge
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 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.
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
Sunday, January 28, 2024
House Of Cards
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.
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.