Is Possession Nine Tenths Of The Law?

A nice little Jews-only settlement built on land that’s not theirs.

Friends, a new report on Al Jazeera shows what some of the world already knew. It shows that, since 1967, the Israeli Government and the Israeli Military have been conspiring and working together to steal land from the Palestinians and build permanent settlements there.

By permanent settlements I don’t mean a few buildings. I means whole towns with residences, synagogues (should that be sinagogues?), police stations, schools, roads, etc.

Of course, according to International Law, this practice is illegal but it seems that even the laws of Israel have been corrupted to allow this settlement activity to continue without proper permits and in spite of many U.N. Resolutions demanding that such activity be stopped.

It appears that 120 ‘authorized’ settlements  have been constructed since the 1967 war on Palestinian land with another 100 ‘unauthorized’ settlements placed here and there wherever Jewish people decided might be a nice place to live.

Now can you imagine how you would feel if suddenly an army of occupation invaded your town and just threw you and the rest of the people out of their homes and into the street without compensation, then demolished the town and set about building a nice little Jewish town there, a Jews-only enclave?

Read more…

The World And Me!

Friends, while visiting Running Cause I Can’t Fly (see Special Links), I came across this painting by Hieronymus Bosch, a Dutch painter (1450-1516).

It jumped out at me immediately because, in it, I saw myself perfectly captured on canvas. In case you’re wondering, I’m the one in the bottom right-hand corner, the pugnacious one who is trying to convince the others that they are on the wrong track or on no track at all.

Now the truth is that the angry visage is not mine at all. People tell me I have a kind face but little do they know that inside I am filled with rage, filled with emotions that boil and bubble. Call the angry man my alter ego if you will. He is the one who, like me, will fight to the death for what is right.

But Bosch has captured the sheeple perfectly as well. They’re the three who closely surround me, stare defiantly into my face, the ones who are jeering. Attractive, aren’t they? Their faces mirror exactly what they are: dull, vacant, clueless and, without doubt, brave when they’re in a large group. The dunce’s cap is a nice touch!

Read more…

But The Sheeple Love This Image!

Friends, consider well this photograph. It shows two trained killers, sorry…soldiers, two smiling American soldiers, receiving flowers from some grateful little Iraqi girls. Doesn’t it just warm your heart? Pass the apple pie.

The intent behind the photograph is to show how the imperial forces of America, and by association the Government of America, are greeted after they’ve completed yet another invasion and occupation.

Of course, anyone who knows anything at all about American invasions and occupations especially the ones in Afghanistan and Iraq, know that this picture is complete bullshit, a fabrication, a manufactured illusion!  Americans are not loved. In the main they are hated!

That aside, let us consider the image in detail. First thing I noticed was that soldier’s weapons are almost conspicuously absent. After all, we don’t want to confuse the simple viewers, do we, have them think that rapid fire guns designed to kill are a part of this happy little scene. No, we want them to think that ‘our boys’ are over there spreading happiness and freedom to unfortunates who, overjoyed, are lucky that America has picked up their ball and run with it! Of course, their ‘ball’ is huge and it’s filled with oil and strategic advantages as it happens.

Next, consider the other three soldiers further down the street. We wouldn’t want five soldiers being shown together, would we, five soldier with weapons, with big boots, with helmets and black sunglasses? That might appear somewhat threatening. And of course, there is no sign of tanks or armored personnel carriers or Apache helicopters or F16s or missiles or one tonne bombs or Shock and Awe, is there?

Read more…

I Wish!

Friends, I wish I could stop this child’s tears. I feel so inadequate, so impotent because I can’t stop them. And I can’t stop the horror that is her daily life. I can’t stop the fear she feels, the nightmares she has, the loss of her childhood, her innocence.

This child was attending a funeral for a relative of hers, a funeral on the other side of the world. It was the Palestinian farmer the IDF killed in his fields following the bombing of an Israeli patrol which killed one soldier. Israel has promised further retaliation. An eye for an eye, the saying goes. For Israelis, ten thousand eyes for an eye is not enough!

It’s funny, I write constantly. Sometimes I think I write strongly, even passionately. Sometimes I think, well that will have an impact. That will make them sit up and take notice, mend their ways. But nothing I say has stopped any of the horrors that have happened in the last eight years including this poor child’s tears.

Often I wonder why I bother. I mean the sheeple don’t give a stuff and the Masters of the Universe, well they have the game sewn up and they certainly don’t read blogs like mine. Sure, their world is suffering some glitches at the moment but they’ll make sure it gets back into balance even if they have to destroy every prole in the process. Proles are expendable. They don’t count.

Read more…

The Truce Is Over!

One soldier, one like these, was killed in a border skirmish.

Bombing has resumed in Gaza especially tunnels!

A feared tunnel smuggler! Is that a tank he’s got in that bag?

Or an F16? Or…is it food?

Friends, the top photograph shows three members of the IDF. Aren’t they a handsome looking trio? And you can tell they’re bright. And brave too. Yes against incredible odds, they and others like them went into Gaza recently and managed to kill 1350 Palestinians, 410 of them children, with only ten losses for themselves, three of those being when they shot their own men. How’s that for a good outcome?

Yes, in the annals of world history, it will go down as a brilliant, daring victory. The IDF, armed only with F16s, Apache helicopters, heavy artillery, tanks, warships, missiles and bombs and all manner of ‘unusual’ munitions took on the might of Hamas and its superior armed forces. Yes, the crack troops of Mighty Hamas were armed with exquisite range of handguns, mortars, and home-made rockets and a few of them might have had knives too or even bows and arrows! Truly, a force to be reckoned with.

But was the IDF deterred? No way. Like Leonidis and the 300 at the bridge, the IDF girded their loins, prayed to their God, and, without thought for themselves, fell upon the feared Palestinians. And the battle raged. And the bombs dropped. And the phosphorus burned. And Jehovah looked down and saw His children struggling against impossible odds and He smiled and was well pleased. “Smite them,” He called out in a voice like thunder.

And, verily I say unto you, though outnumbered and facing a far more formidable force, they smited and smited their little hearts out! And after 22 days victory was theirs and Gaza was in ruins and jubilation spread throughout the Promised Land and there was much head-bobbing and laughter and feasting.

Read more…

U.S. Leads The World – The Wrong Way!

Can we become the Good Samaritans that the U.S. needs?

Friends, I have had enough! I am sick of pussyfooting around. It is time to speak plainly.

The United States is a danger to itself and to the whole world. It is largely amoral. It is largely without principles. It is the world’s major warmonger. It is elitist. It is an unashamedly imperialist nation. It believes that might is right, that force will and should win every argument. It carries out genocide without shame. It is driven by greed and fanatical nationalism. It employs double-standards of breathtaking proportions.

It borrows money which it can’t repay to finance both its huge military and its endless wars while its own citizens have little or no health care or proper schooling. It harbors numerous fanatical Christian fundamentalists who don’t care if the world is destroyed by a nuclear holocaust. It spies on its own people and has taken away many of their rights. Its Presidents regularly abuse their office. Lobbyists control its Congress and Senate. Its voting system is open to fraud.

It supports and arms Israel which is like a small, ugly clone  of itself. It vetoes all resolutions which seek to restrict or condemn Israel’s brutality against the Palestinians and its neighbors. It has pretended to support a separate State for the Palestinians while it’s constantly blocked any progress towards such a goal.

The U.S. is no longer a nation which deserves admiration. Instead, it deserves condemnation and contempt. It has changed since WW2 to become a parody of its former self. It has become the most hated and feared nation in the world. It has killed millions of innocent people: in Vietnam, in Cambodia, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, etc.

Read more…

Contemplating The End Of The World.

The Precipice yawns below us!

Friends, it has occurred to me that we are rapidly heading towards the end of the road at least as far as humans are concerned. The number of things that are happening at the moment, their complexity, their interrelatedness, their direness lead me to no other conclusion.

The are many problems one could list: global warming. Recessions. A financial crisis. The struggle by America to control the world using force. The deranged actions of Israel. The hatred between races and religions. The gross inequalities between nations. The prevalence of war and occupation. The ridiculous belief that might is right, that bombs and massacres solve problems. The existence of multitudes of weapons of mass destruction and armaments. The mistaken belief that greed is good, that self is pre-eminent, that material goods bring happiness. Then there are the drugs that permeate our society, the violence, the rape, the incest, the pedophilia, the egocentricity, the greed and dishonesty, etc. What a sorry mess!

Sure you say, there are these things but we’ve always had these things, for ten milleniums we’ve had these things and we’re still here. That is true of course but it seems to me we’ve never had such a collection of things boiling in the cauldron all at the same time before.

And we’ve rarely witnessed such extreme barbarity as occurred in Gaza, a barbarity which was enabled by American arms and tacitly approved of by the World’s major Superpower (the one that is supposed to uphold freedom, democracy and human rights).

Read more…

Back To School For Traumatized Kids!

Friends, this Al Jazeerah photo shows Gazan children returning to school for the first time since they were subjected to UMA, thanks to the IDF and America.

410 of them won’t ever return. Many others may come back eventually when their terrible injuries heal. All Gazan children will be psychologically scarred for life.

These kids are returning to a school but many are just piles of rubble on the ground. Nothing escaped the brutal attention of the IDF. Tents have been erected in many places and the children struggle to learn in difficult conditions given that the strangling Israeli siege is still in place.

Israel is not allowing in many construction materials for fear that the Palestinians, who they just crushed,  might continue to make their ineffective homemade rockets, the ones that are virtually directionless, the ones that have killed 18 Israelis in 8 years, the ones fired by legitimate Resistance Fighters who, like their families, have been under occupation and siege for 60 years.

Teachers and counselors are working with the traumatized children and are trying to help them cope with the horrors that they were subjected to: the loss of loved ones, the horrific injuries others family members and friends sustained. They are trying to get the cork out of the bottle, release some of the terrible memories: the fear of being killed, the noise of bombs exploding, tanks firing phosphorous shells, of starving, of having no water, people screaming and crying, F16s passing overhead… That’s a heavy load for kids to carry.

Read more…

Uncompromising Military Absolutism!

Friends, it is obvious that UMA has been the rational behind much of the conflict in the world during the last few decades.

Uncompromising Military Absolutism is a strategy popular with some nations in the world. How does it work? It begins when a ‘problem’ nation or group is attacked by one or several nations with a massive bombing campaign, a ‘shock and awe’ if you like.

Of course, you must choose your targets carefully to ensure you don’t fight someone who has the means to fight back and give as good as it gets. You also ensure your troops can’t be hauled before any World Court for war crimes and of course you don’t count civilian casualties or allow the media to get too close to the action. And you must clothe your imperialist objectives in glowing terms, things like ‘spreading freedom and democracy’ and ‘fighting terrorism’ and ‘self-defense’. It’s also helpful to find or invent some pretext for invasion like getting rid of  ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or ‘removing a potential threat’.

The purpose of this ‘shock and awe’ is to cause severe damage to the country’s infrastructure (but not its valuable resources). A secondary purpose is to ensure that its inhabitants are terrorized and many of them killed. Doing this quickly gets the message across that no one is safe and that you are uncompromising and will kill civilians, women, kids, the elderly, anyone who gets in your road. Then you begin the next stage.

Read more…

Let’s Rewrite The Play!

Ah, how the high and mighty crowd together on center stage while we, the closely-packed audience, sit in the shadows and gape.

We have been trained to do this, of course. From birth. Unthinkingly, we accept our lowly status, our powerlessness and, decade by decade, we watch while the main players speak all the lines and do all the actions and enjoy all the applause, the status, the perks. We squirm in our seats much of the time, not liking what we’re seeing.

But the truth is that the audience is in the majority and if we don’t like the actors or the play, we could rush the stage and get rid of the whole production and write our own script and participate in the running of the world ourselves. Couldn’t we?

Sorry. Do you find this thought disturbing? Does this idea make you feel uncomfortable, uneasy, less secure. After all you’ve always left it to others. You’ve always thought that others know best, that all you had to do was to watch and applaud at the appropriate time.

Read more…