Predictions Of The Future

When I was in graduate school studying Economics decades ago there were two names that were most prominent: Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. It was the early 1970s, and revolution was still in the air, so Marx was more popular with students. For me it was simple. In Marx’s landmark Das Kapital (Capital) he showed how Capitalism contains the seeds of its own ruin, becoming increasingly monopolistic until declining profits result in system collapse. It seemed pretty obvious then, and seems even more obvious now.

As popular as Marx was among the students, he was largely ignored by the faculty, who were focused in various ways on making Capitalism work. There were two approaches to advancing this agenda, Monetarism – controlling the money supply, and Keynesianism, the use of taxation and government spending to stimulate the economy in recessions and depressions and slowing it down in times of rapid expansion. It is the art of balancing boom and bust. Keynes's renowned work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money introduced his ideas in great detail.

There was one Marxist on the faculty, Art Ford, and I suspect that a few others were compatible with Marx, but not in any dedicated way. Monetarism, personified in the ideas of the University of Chicago’s Milton Friedman, was largely debunked and ridiculed, somewhat unfairly, but Friedman was a free-market extremist, and had an annoying and arrogant personality.

Though Keynes espoused an approach that was credited with ending the Great Depression and getting Allied countries through World War II, he ironically echoed Marx, saying at one point "In the long run we’re all dead," though perhaps not with the same meaning as Marx. It is kind of a moot point now. The U.S. Government no longer practices taxation and spending to balance the business cycle, and instead only deficit spends, lowering taxes for political reasons while increasing spending for similar reasons. Keynes would be rolling over in his grave, were it possible.

For me it took a biologist, Barry Commoner, to transcend all these competing ideas. He was a Marxist (I knew him. He told me this personally.), but predicted the demise of Capitalism from a resource perspective, that the depletion of petroleum reserves would cause innovation to decline, resulting in profits to fall to zero. What sealed the deal was a class I audited in economic growth theory, which was all imaginary equations, no reality. The system could grow forever because various equations based on nothing say it can. In the long run, according to these equations, we just keep having more and more ad infinitum.

Commoner, author of The Closing Circle, died in 2012, well-before our current malaise. Like Karl Marx, he didn’t live to see his prediction come true. Also like Marx, he didn’t have much of a plan for what came after. It is one thing to look at what is and deduce what it is trending towards. It is quite another to predict or advocate for something for which there is no evidence beyond one’s imagination. Marx imagined Communism, a form of social organization that has appeared only in name. Commoner’s easy answer was a vague utopia of Socialism.

I don’t have such a rosy view of the future. If we survive as a species there may be pockets of mutual, ecologically integrative, humble clusters of people, but the mass system, with its concentrations into nation-states, is through. It has led to what we have now, and the secular trend, as economists say, is towards ill will, xenophobia, escapism, fanaticism, corruption, chaos and violence. As we have seen in the last couple of centuries, this violence can often descend into genocide, such as today in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan,  Indeed, right here in the U.S.A., as European settlers grew into masses, genocide against the unmassed indigenous populations followed as automatically as night follows day.

Whatever humans exist after the fall of mass civilization, they will have to contend with what we leave behind: plastic waste of various kinds everywhere, a plethora of poisons, a warmed climate that devastates life as we know it, extinction of more and more species, extremes of weather and depletion of resources.

This is uncharted territory. Anyone who claims to have a chart for the future is a fraud. What we can do, though, is summarize the things we can’t do, which is most of what we are doing now, and hope for the best. We can start with ending gratuitous war and fascism.

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Here's a song. Here's another.

R.I.P. Dickey Betts. My favorite Allman Brothers song. This instrumental features Betts in an interwoven rhapsody with Duane Allman, especially at 27:10.

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Barry Commoner also wrote likely the best analysis of our fossil fuel addiction, The Poverty Of Power. Here's an interview with Studs Terkel, where he discussed the book. It is previewed here.

A recent interview with William Robinson on Madison's WORT discusses the crackdown on free speech on U.S. college campuses.

A Long Downward Path

I remember well the day of September 11, 1973. It was the day the Nixon-Kissinger inspired, planned and funded coup d'état that overthrew the elected government of Chile. The president of Chile, Salvadore Allende, shot himself in the head rather than be captured by the coup plotters. This was at a time when investigations of Richard Nixon were closing in on his criminality in the Watergate scandal, where he was attempting to spy on Democrats, among other things.

Having served in the U.S. Army for three years during the Vietnam War, I was well-aware of the deceit and malevolence inherent in our country’s interaction with the rest of the planet. People don’t matter in this complex equation of evil. What matters is power. Go along with our program or go into the Great Beyond. I knew intuitively that Nixon and Kissinger would do here what they did elsewhere, if only they could get away with it. Nixon was my commander-in-chief for most of my time in the Army. I had deep understanding of what he and his crony Kissinger did to the people of Vietnam, and to their ecosystem with their poisons.

Watergate slowed things down for a while, but things picked up with the election or Ronald Reagan in 1980. The Cold War resumed in full murderous malevolence. Reagan used various elements in the kit-bag of American hegemony to subvert democratic uprisings in Central America. The CIA, the State Department, military "advisers," the U.S. Treasury, and of course compliant corporate news media – all were harmonized in a symphony of evil to subvert democracy wherever it encroached on U.S. power.

Just for practice, Reagan invaded the helpless little island of Grenada, calling it an outpost of Cuba. He funded an insurgency based in Honduras to engage in terrorism against neighboring Nicaragua, whose Sandinistas overthrew our client dictator Somoza. He sold weapons to the revolutionary government of Iran to fund his "Contras," a mercenary cadre of terrorists.

Then came George H.W. Bush, who invaded Panama for practice, and followed that up with a full-scale invasion of Iraq, having found sufficient reason. Our "allies" were easy to bring along with the ruse, providing both military and diplomatic cover.

Not much went on during the Clinton years, a kind of holding-in-place while plans were being brewed. It was necessary for the "Republicans" to win the 2000 election, and, by hook or by crook, they did "win," saved at the last minute by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Out of nowhere, it would seem, came another September 11, this time in 2001. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were too easy. Too easy because they were made too easy by active negligence. To exact gratuitous revenge we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, neither of which country was party to the attacks. For both countries the invasions and occupations resulted in nothing but carnage and bad luck.

 

During the Obama years our shenanigans consisted mainly of inertia in Iraq and Afghanistan, military offensives against the Iraq war-generated ISIS, drone attacks in Yemen, and arming various regimes like Saudi Arabia and other clients around the world.

And, of course, Israel. Billions every year - weapons of the worst kind and gobs of money. The reasoning for this, such as it is, is partly for domestic politics, partly for the military-industrial complex, and partly to have a proxy bully in the Mideast.

It worked, sort-of, for decades. The game started changing with the end of the Cold War, creating a power vacuum, and a new arch-enemy needed to fill the void. With "911" the War on Terror provided enough of an enemy to have a few invasions, and of course plenty of weapons manufacturing, gun-running and fear-mongering.

The applecart got upset with the ascendency of Donald Trump, traitor and trouble-maker. It hardly ever gets mentioned, but Trump is almost certainly under Kompromat from Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. Putin fully intends to recapture all the satellite countries lost when the Soviet Union collapsed, and Trump, a man with no morals or scruples, was the perfect tool to weaken the U.S. as a countervailing power.

Trump also inflamed tensions in the Mideast, moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, reducing aid to the Palestinians, and assassinating Iran’s most powerful military official. Trump moved the U.S. closer to Saudi Arabia diplomatically, and cancelled the nuclear weapons agreement with Iran, restarting the country’s atomic bomb program.

We know well the perfidy of Donald Trump. He is a 100% criminal sociopath, a man with no redeeming qualities, except for the perverse cult-like influence he has over his followers, which is about 21% of the U.S. population. Because he professes to be a "Republican," his popularity magnifies to close to half the voting public, at least in our mass media's totally accurate and reliable polls.

Joe Biden, a 100% politician from politician Central Casting, defeated Trump in the 2020 election, and was well on his way to being reelected, but events overtook, as they inevitably do. The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 of last year didn’t just cause Israel’s brutal prime minister Netanyahu to respond with carnage. It upset the entire hegemonic structure of the Mideast, ending for good any credibility either the U.S. or Israel had in the region, and likely destabilized and set in motion the demise of the various kingdoms, dictatorships and authoritarians we prop up throughout the planet.

The presidential election is November 5. We have Trump, the deranged criminal sociopath and traitor versus the weak and empty stock politician Biden. Both of them very old. I am between them in age, and can attest to the difficulty it has to be to be the president of the United States. I am amazed that I have lived this long, and I don’t have the burdens of murder, treason, complicity in genocide and other criminality to weigh me down. 

I can’t imagine what it must be like to be either of these two terrible human beings. I don’t have to. What I can do is oppose both of them in whatever legal way I can. It isn’t much. Voting, writing, donating what little I can. Beyond that I trust the Law of Karma, the generally accepted principle of antecedent and consequence, that what is sown is eventually reaped. Or, as Thomas Jefferson put it, "Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just."

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As Andrew O'Hehir, editor of Salon, put it, we are a blind, blundering colossus on a downward slide.

A recent interview on Madison's alternative radio station covers the decline in some depth. Here's the article it is based on.

The New York Times did a retrospective on the Chilean Coup on its 50th anniversary last year. It has some harrowing pictures from that day. 

Some news: A new report shows how Israel is using artificial intelligence to indiscriminately kill civilians in Gaza. An interview with Yuval Abraham, the reporter who exposed the practice was shown on Democracy Now, April 5. The Guardian reports on the program in depth. The story also appears in Gizmodo.

In other news, an Israeli doctor says Palestinian prisoners are routinely having amputations from handcuff injuries.

Palestinians describe their experiences here.

Update, April 12: Surprise of surprises, the Israeli claims of massive and grotesque rapes by Hamas invaders on October 7 of last year were all lies. It was discussed yesterday on Madison's WORT (The interview also can be accessed here). The guest, Arun Gupta, also wrote an article for Yes Magazine that details his research. His writing also appears in The Intercept, where his expose of American corporate media consistently repeat discredited Israeli propaganda as truth. Biden unhesitatingly repeats these lies as truth. He insists he saw pictures of beheaded babies. If he lies about the genocide in Gaza, he lies here when it suits him, which can be any time about anything. We should insist that he, Genocide Joe, resign, not just for the good of the country, but of the planet.

A freedom flotilla will be headed to Gaza soon.

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Here's a song. Here's another.  Another from Sam Cooke. One more from Sam Cooke. The Byrds. Donovan. Buffy Sainte-Marie. John Prine. John Lennon.  Barry McGuire. Bob Dylan. The Grateful Dead. Another from the Grateful Dead. Ben Harper.  A theme song for Trump. Here's what happens when the Law of Karma is violated. Encore by The Grateful Dead. Or the Clash. We will see in the coming days how The Law wins.

A Question For Genocide Joe

What good are you?

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Among other reasons to ask this is that he is in favor of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. This is of course in addition to his lying about what is going on there.

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I voted early last Tuesday for "uninstructed delegation" in Wisconsin's presidential primary. Early voting is still going on, much easier than absentee ballot or waiting in line on election day. Just about any public library in Wisconsin is an early voting site, as well as many other places.

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Here's a song. Feel free to substitute Genocide Joe for war. They are becoming interchangeable. 

Here's a link to the Common Dreams article about voters supporting a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. It's not too late for Genocide Joe. Hmm. Maybe it is too late.

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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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: 

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.

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 antiwar 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 "uninstructed delegation." 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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Here's a song. Here's another. Bob Marley. Bob Dylan. The Who. Gil Scott-Heron. Jimi Hendrix.

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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. 

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!)

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.

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.