We stopped buying any product of Israel 20 years ago.
I gave away a new pair of Caterpillar boots after Rachel Corey, I could not bring myself to wear them.
I left two companies as a contractor as I would not work with Israel or Israeli companies.
I do not take to the streets, I do not get into arguments, I just walk away from the people who accept the Israeli atrocities. If I did get into arguments I would end up using physical violence.
If I could, I would be like de Nero and "Take a flame thrower to ..." but that is not possible. I do not accept that any Israelis are "not responsible".
I know that justice is coming, and 'that right soon'.
Israel is a military base of the USA, within the former British colony of Palestine, disguised as a country. Without the ongoing support of the US and UK governments, since the end of WWII, Israel would not have come into existence.
The petroleum fields of Palestine, formerly under the Ottoman Empire, were strategically important for the British and US navies as they were converting their warships’ boilers to burn raw petroleum instead of coal.
Today, Israel continues to be a strategic listening point and military staging area for control of access to Middle Eastern oil and natural gas.
Per capita wealth of Israel may be the highest in the world, but Israel continues to get weapons of mass destruction as “aid” from the USA at the your expense because the US oil/gas companies aren’t eager to pay for them. Some observers may argue that this is a matter of strategic importance to the USA. It’s actually a matter of economics importance for the fossil fuels companies and the US defense contractors.
The US Congress could have ended this conflict at any time in past 78 years, and still can.
“There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one--on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful--as usual--will shout for the war. The pulpit will--warily and cautiously--object--at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, 'It is unjust and dishonourable, and there is no necessity for it.' Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers--as earlier--but do not dare say so. And now the whole nation--pulpit and all--will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
― Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved fire sides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
Twain
“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”
Hath not a Palestinian hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer as an Israeli is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
If, a Palestinian wrong an Israeli, what is his humility?
Revenge.
If an Israeli wrong a Palestinian then what should his sufferance be by Israeli example?
Why, revenge.
The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction.
.... with apologies to Shylock
:
I am looking for revenge on all who harmed them and all who supported the Israeli atrocity.
Everybody has to set their own level.
We stopped buying any product of Israel 20 years ago.
I gave away a new pair of Caterpillar boots after Rachel Corey, I could not bring myself to wear them.
I left two companies as a contractor as I would not work with Israel or Israeli companies.
I do not take to the streets, I do not get into arguments, I just walk away from the people who accept the Israeli atrocities. If I did get into arguments I would end up using physical violence.
If I could, I would be like de Nero and "Take a flame thrower to ..." but that is not possible. I do not accept that any Israelis are "not responsible".
I know that justice is coming, and 'that right soon'.
Israel is a military base of the USA, within the former British colony of Palestine, disguised as a country. Without the ongoing support of the US and UK governments, since the end of WWII, Israel would not have come into existence.
The petroleum fields of Palestine, formerly under the Ottoman Empire, were strategically important for the British and US navies as they were converting their warships’ boilers to burn raw petroleum instead of coal.
Today, Israel continues to be a strategic listening point and military staging area for control of access to Middle Eastern oil and natural gas.
Per capita wealth of Israel may be the highest in the world, but Israel continues to get weapons of mass destruction as “aid” from the USA at the your expense because the US oil/gas companies aren’t eager to pay for them. Some observers may argue that this is a matter of strategic importance to the USA. It’s actually a matter of economics importance for the fossil fuels companies and the US defense contractors.
The US Congress could have ended this conflict at any time in past 78 years, and still can.
No they can't, because Israel would just buy a new congress.
"I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world." ~
Mark Twain
"There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress. "
Mark Twain
One would have to strain hard to find fault with Twain's trenchant observations.
Indeed one would.
A couple of further examples :
“There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one--on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful--as usual--will shout for the war. The pulpit will--warily and cautiously--object--at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, 'It is unjust and dishonourable, and there is no necessity for it.' Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers--as earlier--but do not dare say so. And now the whole nation--pulpit and all--will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
― Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved fire sides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
Twain
“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”
― Mark Twain
I remember the last one about learning geography -- so true -- but not the two longer ones. Thank you for them.
The man had his fingers directly upon the pulse of the American psyche.
Lovely message, but it wasn't de, niro, it was al pacino as lieutenant colonel frank slade, addressing the fictitious "Baird" disciplinary board
I can never tell the two apart. Mainly because I don't care enough to remember.
Pacino is the great actor, Diniro is the vote blue no matter who performative toolbag
We all must do whatever we can
Sometimes that is just seeing and accepting the injustices and making it clear to those close to us what our stance is.
Justice will come. Because it must. I just fear it will be too late for the Palestinians.
I was wrong, forget about "Justice" :
Hath not a Palestinian eyes?
Hath not a Palestinian hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer as an Israeli is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
If, a Palestinian wrong an Israeli, what is his humility?
Revenge.
If an Israeli wrong a Palestinian then what should his sufferance be by Israeli example?
Why, revenge.
The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction.
.... with apologies to Shylock
:
I am looking for revenge on all who harmed them and all who supported the Israeli atrocity.
Let us 'better their instruction".