Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): When Israeli president Isaac Herzog described the assault on Gaza as a war “to save Western civilization, to save the values of Western civilization,” he wasn’t really lying. He was telling the truth — just maybe not quite in the way that he meant it.
You're taking a very black and white perspective on this country and although there's a lot wrong, there is a lot right. Nothing is black and white, and often comes in shades of grey.
I have to agree with BJ...The flag waving seems to be a type of ignorant denial ..i get the idea that what they wish the USA represented but i can no longer fly a flag that represents what the USA has turned into and really has always been...i know the flag for some represents some ideal but it's never been that ideal in reality...so it seems disingenuous to celebrate it or wave it... when it starts to actually embody the ideals and not just the feel good mythology then maybe it can be honored.. but not anymore!
Thank you! What it represented long, long ago, no longer exists. The corruption, the malfeasance today, is omnipresent, putrid and profound. Step back and look at us from afar, from an overall perspective - LOOK at this government - everywhere! What an absolute disgrace! They run for office strictly for what they can get - not give.
I live in NJ outside of NY and I can tell you this is absolutely a third world Country. The indecency the crime the attitude. The deterioration is metastatic. Good, decent, law abiding, caring and respectful citizens are a rarity. This Country is being eaten alive by maggots. And just to be clear it's not just the lower income people or the obscene magnitude of illegals that have infested NJ and surrounding area's. It's an attitude!
I get around, I talk from people all over the Country and world, who say the same. When my friends and I get together we all ask the same question - where can we go instead? My former neighbor went back to Austria to protect her 3 small children and give them a proper upbringing! She writes all the time saying she did the right thing My dog park friend is thinking about going home to Denmark with her two children.
I think that's probably one of the worst things - the education system and what these kids are being taught and LOOK what's now going on with colleges!! There is no way we would be on the precipice of civil war in this Country if none of this were true.
Elaborate . . . . I don't vote never did nor will - the system is a joke and of course I agree with the Horseshoe theory hence why I don't vote. I am neither Republican or Democrat I merely follow to keep track of the extent of the subterfuge.
This Country is gone - it is not coming back. Many of the experts say the same. I believe there is more than ample reason why crime now goes unabated and illegal immigration is without end. This is the deliberate destruction of Western Civilization.
You know they may hang out a flag, not because they love their government, but because they care about their country and the people in it. When I was a kid I separated he people of my country, America, from the government whom I felt could not be trusted to tell the truth, since they lied to me about the Indians in their TV movies. Made them the bad guys. No, they were here first, so their land. I saluted the flag and left out the last part, with liberty and justice for all. Never said it all through school.
Yeah i get all that..i never said the pledge in school if i could help it ..it always felt uncomfortable to me like mindless pledging when school just treated you like you had been just their property to abuse and kick around if you didn't just mindlessly obey and shut up,, and never ask questions or actual be "smart" ..school always felt like obedience training .. Me and my dad would watch old war movies and stuff about fascism and then i would go to school and see it represented before my eyes..
Back in the day millions of Europeans came here and made this Country great! Everyone always, always did the right thing. They would never seek or accept a dime from the government! They worked so hard and were so thankful to be here AND they assimilated! Now, just the opposite holds true. They come solely for all they can get.
that may be true, but i have never known anybody that habitually displays the US flag that wasn't a fervent supporter of the forever wars. just personal experience of course.
to put it another way, I often see US flags accompanied by some sign like a Ukrainian flag, but never alongside a peace symbol. I admit the Ukrainian flags are less common these days.
Exactly right. I have lived in Vermont for over 25 years. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know where those "progressive" Vermonters, proudly displaying the flag, ALWAYS stand. As a latino person not considered "white enough" by most Vermonters, I learned quickly that those people displaying the flag (SEE: Social Darwinists 'R' US) ARE NOT SHY about their bold faced bigotry towards minorities. The U.S. is NOT a "free country" for minorities, PERIOD. I was bornin the U.S. I'm staying here. May God DAMN (and I am not swearing) my country for its historic brazen embrace of 'Might Equals Right" cruelty.
I am a Christian, and, unlike MOST "Christians" in this Zionism supporting God Forsaken country, I do not play word games with the Holy Scripture. While it is true that many bigots who display the flag are not even nominal christians, those flag wavers who hypocritically claim to be "Christians" should be required to ONLY display the Stars and Stripes IF they display an equally sized flag next to the U.S. Flag WITH THIS Scripture Passage on it, in BOLD FACED PRINT:
1 Corinthians 10:24
👉 LET NO MAN SEEK HIS OWN, BUT ANOTHER'S WEALTH.
I expect a LOT of well off "Christians" would suddenly notice that their revered Old Glory is getting a bit "thread bare" and needs to be put in storage for a while... 😉
You know Pretzel, thinking about this you're probably right. If I were a betting man I would say more Republicans display it than Democrats many of whom have also served. The guy next door to me is a Vietnam Vet and he displays it!
I was just reading your rant on NJ and it vanished ... I used to live in Manhattan and frequent the surrounding areas and lived in NJ too..i do get the crime and attitude is pretty bad there ..
In the US you are even more brainwashed from birth than we in the UK. All this pledging before the flag every morning at school, even we don't do the stuff. All that flag worship before any major sports event with military in uniform strutting around. All that junk put out by Hollywood. Meantime, you have no public health service, your tax dollars fund genocide, and the NRA makes sure that you keep on killing each other. If it comes to it, I hope Trump wins. next year. He'll fuck America up but Biden is killing the world. If its between the US and the rest of us, then there's only one choice.
Tony this too is another great comment and perspective. I wonder how many people might now abstain at games because of Gaza. That's actually a superlative thought, how to bring attention to this. Someone should start something on social media stand with the Palestinians and do NOT stand at these events. WOW! That's actually a great idea
I’ve been doing that my whole life; baseball games, concerts, rodeos. This government has been evil since way before most Amerikkkans ever heard of “Gaza”.
I am not brainwashed and know what is going on, and because I don't wallow in the bad doesn't mean I am unaware of my country's failings, and it's flaws which is to put it nicely. You have a one sided view of America and it's a side I don't reside on, but I have spent my life and continue to do so in working in fields which help others. There's always shades of grey and when you look at like in black and white terms, as you seem to do you get a very skewed picture of things.
There is no shade of grey in the irrefutable reality of how our country is run, and for who it is run. Yes, people of good will exist here, as anywhere else on planet Earth, but we-the-people of good will have ZERO influence in U.S. Foreign and Domestic Policy.
The USA is an oligarchy: This scholar explained how in 1956 (with historian Aaron Good)
In his 1956 book "The Power Elite," New Left sociologist C. Wright Mills detailed how decision-making in the United States is not democratic; it is determined by (1) Wall Street capitalists and large corporations, (2) the Pentagon and military-industrial complex, and (3) the corrupt political class.
Well, can't disagree with you on that count, but to tell you the truth I always thought that was true. I've heard of the book you referenced and maybe I should read it, just to fully recognize how little power the American people have. Now media whores who make big money can spread the government's propaganda as they try to come across as people who really care. Rachel Maddow comes to mind immediately, but there are so many more. Good for me because I pay them no mind.
Talk to me Fran - tell me where there is hope. For years I have let certain things slip thinking it was isolated or a phase or it would stop. I got out of the car the other day to finish pumping my gas - there were four other people in my car, two the same age as myself (mid 60's) and were shocked by my politeness. We were raised by politeness and yet everyone makes the same comments about me. When did it stop or go out of fashion?
I will say this, I have extreme hope for the younger generations but especially seeing the reaction to Gaza. This is not some Taylor Swift band wagon crusade these kids know there stuff! Granted I believe it can be attributed to being forced to move back home because they can't afford anything else and they've finally realized why!!
Maybe you expect things to be different then they are, but I don't. Maybe I don't expect it to be any different then it is. I grew up with an abusive father who never wanted children and my mother had 4. Each and every day he expressed his resentment at our very existence. He was scary, really scary, but then I had my mother's brother whom I adored and loved and cared who about me, and he made a lot difference in my world. There's good and there's bad, and I guess you make the best of it, and don't allow the bad side to win.
Fran I grew up without a family and have been on my own since I was 11 years old, started my own business at age 17. There is nothing I do not appreciate and or take for granted. This is why I am the way I am - respect for me is everything. You might say it's my Achilles heel. And there is none today.
Sorry to hear that. My mother and her siblings all grew up in an orphanage. It takes it's toll. My mother could never deal with the death of her brother, my brother, who died young. All of them reflected their loss in one way or another. I never even knew anything about their background, all so closed mouth, until I did their Ancestry, and now I know almost everything of their past which they never spoke of.
Invading countries, slaughtering indigenous peoples, enslaving the conquered, etc, etc. These are not the exclusive actions of Western Civilization. Were the Romans a “Western” civilization? The Egyptians? The Hittites? Ancient Persians? No. These violent and oppressive actions are the exclusive preview of human beings, from time immemorial. We just happen to exist in an era when it is Western civilization that is at the helm of current atrocities.
Lets be succinct. When Germans were poled in 2021 or so, about Israel's behavior toward the Palestinians they said she was acting like Nazi Germany. How right they are. I don't care what other countries did, or do, but Israel in total complicity with the US are implementing a genocide. I hated our many Middle Eastern Wars, where millions were killed, and we're still moving forward with that same neocon agenda, but genocide, no, may happen but not our intended purpose, but it is the intended purpose of Israel to kill the men, women and children of Palestine.
Well said - I totally agree with what you say. Currently the US (and its partners in crime and genocide like many Western nations including Israel) are the worst. But at different periods in history, other civilaizations and empires have committed many of the same atrocities. Maybe tomorrow it could be another future empire like China or India.
That doesn't mean we can excuse or justify the actions of the prevailing genocidal regime.
The whole China and Russia bashing phenomenon has been a Hollywood production for generations of red scare. All the while the CIA has whole departments dedicated to warping the perceptions of the western mind to create all this Russian xenophobia and Putin bogyman syndrome ..i know i work among it and i see it and have been told of experiences around their influence and agents coming on set to insert ideas into productions that have nothing to do with the script.. Hollywood is one of their most effective propaganda engines of mind control ....
The one like tells me that what I said is so very true about how deeply dug into their brain stem has been inserted the Russian xenophobia and Putin bogeyman syndrome.
I wish I could tell you how right you are, but then you already know that.
The MIC works hand-in-hand with Hollywood to brainwash everyone against its enemies - be it Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Palestine,... (the list is endless).
Hollywood also has a long and sordid history of portraying Israel in the best light possible and gaslighting the public. Here is an interesting book on that: "Hollywood and Israel: A History" by Tony Shaw & Giora Goodman (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58064554)
OH, so you are all for Genocide as long as it is the people you hate. Just out of curiosity, if Palestinians are so wonderful, how do you explain to yourself the fact that no country will allow Palestinians into their lands. They are arab, but yet, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, etc will not open their borders to Gaza Palestinians....I would love to see the mental gymnastics you go through to make sense of that one
You…fucking….MORON. For your infor-fucking-mation, about half the population of Jordan IS Palestinian, which fled there during the Nakba.
Similarly Lebanon.
Egypt has made it VERY CLEAR (listen to me, shit for brains), VERY FUCKING CLEAR that they will not allow Palestinian refugees BECAUSE THEY’D NEVER BE ALLOWED TO RETURN TO GAZA.
What is stolen land, my yard? No, I paid for it and I am still paying my mortgage. But, I'll play your silly game...you are saying that because, what is referred to as Native American Indians, were here before the European settlers that it is their land my house sits on. Well, riddle me this Batmutt, what land on the face of the planet is currently occupied by the first peoples to land there? and then, you need to go one step further, the history of Native American Indians is to move every season to a warmer climate and in doing so, take land away from other indian tribes in the process, threw murder and pillaging....so which Indian tribe am I supposed to give my land back to, in you perfect little world, and please tell us all, which tribe you gave ownership of your house.
So much nonsense to wade through, but I’ll give it a shot.
Both of the residences that I occupy are on land belonging to the Chippewa.
I can’t tell you whose land you are occupying, because you didn’t allude to precisely where you live, silly.
Your recounting of red nation’s history reads like something straight out of a child’s comic book, or a colonialist propaganda sheet.
It would seem that is all that you read, except maybe the Stars and Stripes broadsheet.
If you borrowed/spent money purchasing something that was stolen, that’s called receiving stolen property.
Ignorance, and ignorance of the law is no excuse, I’ve been told.
If justice were ever to prevail in my lifetime, and the Chippewa people were ever to inform me that I was squatting on their space, I would be honest enough to acknowledge as much, and ask politely if I could hang around, preferably with them, so I could become more educated.
Then I would show them the place on each property where I have seeded the river bank with stones from one of their holy sites, and that I have been waiting, watching, and hoping for their return.
I’m not a low life thief.
I doubt that I’ll see it I’m my lifetime.
But, that doesn’t prevent my from being aware that those people have rights that have been violated, and acting accordingly.
I appreciate that you find the displacement and abuse of the indigenous peoples of north america silly.
I just bet that you’d feel differently if it were to happen to you.
Textbook definition of hypocrisy, wouldn’t you say.
Please, enjoy your king’s castle, and the rot it is founded upon.
And, hoist high your murderous flag, and your personal petard.
Just one person’s point of view.
How can I possibly own a portion of mother earth?
There’s no clear title to be had.
The inventor/creator wasn’t selling any of it.
Thought we could just share it equitably, I’m guessing.
I keep wanting to respond to this David idiot but you guys are doing such a great job.. Typical Christian Zionist nut case who forms his arguments out of known lies and propaganda.
So you're in favor of the endless wars that support our military industrial complex and millions or innocent lives we continue to eradicate under the false guise of promoting democracy?
I struggle every day not to hate. As I told my young granddaughter, I don't want to be that kind of person. We have to see what they are doing, how they are lying, how the western world is allowing Israel to commit genocide, how they turn everything around so that we are anti semites, terrorists or whatever. We have to see all of that but not allow ourselves to hate them. Because then we are on the way to becoming like them. Which would be even worse that what is happening now.
Whenever a people works up a big hate, it ends up with a lot of other people who are just trying to go about living their lives getting killed by those who are doing the hating. We need to find better ways of bringing about changes that we want to see. That's what our brains could be used for.
Gaber Mate is an exceptional person and resource who speaks on similar things. I really enjoy listening to him - he calms me down and makes me consider alternate perspectives that would not come easily to me.
It is important to not step foot on that retribution road that has brought us to this place and time. Leaving it is the only way our species is going to survive beyond the immediate term.
I hope you're not suggesting we have to love them.
What I'm getting at - it's not a choice between love and hate. Both states are thoughtless emotions. Responsible adults should be sober in their evaluations and actions and not be subsumed under those types of passions.
That's easier said than done. With all the challenges one faces in life and all the struggles, I don't want to burden myself more with struggling to trying to "not hate evil people".
But I understand what you mean. And your sentiments are more evolved, judicious and commendable. Unfortunately, I am not that evolved of a human being as yet. I am trying to work on myself and hopefully may get there someday. For the time being, I prefer to sandbox my feelings of "hate" so as to affect my emotions, reactions and behavior as less as possible. And just trying to keep a certain level of emotional control when facing hateful events/people is a challenge in itself.
Hate is neither legitimate or illegitimate. It is just an emotion that blinds people to better ways of doing things. Anger can be used to make things better sometimes, but hate just runs amok.
Hate is an emotion evoked in response to something that one experiences. What one does in response to that emotion is a choice. That is what separates us from every other known species. That we often choose unwisely is the problem.
I think it is anger that is evoked that then goes to hate. We can choose to allow our anger to morph into hate or we can use our anger to get something accomplished (other than bombing and killing, hopefully).
sorry, I absolutely do not agree that hate run amok is what needs to be unleashed on anyone. Mostly because it just keeps going and we have endless war. Like we do now.
Susan, I agree with you. Hating is easy to do - but it often propagates more evil actions and more hate further down the road of history.
The Germans hated the Jews and other ethnicities.. A subset of these Jews (the Zionist Jews) now hate Arabs and Palestinians and other ethnicities.
And now, many people in different parts of the world are being pushed (sometimes unconsciously) towards hating Jews. BUT THIS IS WRONG! The problem is NOT Jews. It is the Zionist ideology.
This Zionist ideology (practiced by some Jews and some Christians) is not only bad for the world, but is also really bad for Jews themselves. Zionist Israelies are just creating more problems for themselves (and the rest of the world). It almost seems that these Zionists don't even really care about the Jews. What a paradox!
It is wonderfully ironic that when these right wing extremists, like Shapiro or Murray, go on talk shows to sing the praises of western values and warn of the apparent war on them, they are never asked to define what they actually are - because then the whole argument would unravel...
...Sunak, Starmer, Johnson, Braverman, Patel, Hancock, etc., here in the UK. If they weren't psychos to start with then, by golly, surprise surprise, the huge power handed to them on a plate in representational 'democracy' they will be completely psychologically corrupted not long after. Demockery or even, DemAllCrazy describes this well. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely... ...and that's before we come on to the power lusting monarchy here in the UK with the WEF antics of not-my-king. The system itself is politically carcinogenic & requires dismantling and something like direct democracy installed to properly share the power out between ourselves. Such things as the Gaza genocide & all the rest of the ZOG horrors would have been nipped in the bud.
I didn't realize that Douglas Murray was such a nut-job. I only knew him from the Munk Debates in Toronto, where he paired with Matt Taibbi to absolutely shred Malcolm Gladwell and the NYT writer over the issue that "MSM is not to be trusted." Murray was outstanding in that role, but wow does Reason (another "Western value," but a real one when you can find it) go out the window when Israel pops up. If I had his address, I'd send Murray a "Netanyahu Doll" for Christmas, maybe with a little Zelensky doll on the side...
So many seem to throw out all intellectual courage or logic out the window when its the emotional investment in the tribes guilt reparations narratives.. the perpetual victims status rhetoric warped the minds of these people.. Israel is the litmus test to see who is a raving hypocrite rendering their opinions on anything suspect of being taintied in bias.
My daughter was recently in New Orleans and bought me a tank top from Marie LeVeaux’s Voodoo Shop. I requested an effigy of ByeDone that I could stick pins into, but they didn’t have one 😉
Yes Douglas Murray is a director of Toby Young's Free Speech Union, who say sensible things about free speech and jab mandates but nonsense things about climate change and Murray, along with council member Torygraph writer Allison Pearson, have revealed themselves to be a total Zionazis.
I cannot argue against this. I'm just exhausted these days, there is kind of a constant tension in the air, in social interactions, in trying to absorb and escape the constant barrage of media. Just dealing with more or less everyday life problems is exhausting. I'm sure I'm technically depressed, but if you're not depressed you aren't paying attention. Thanks to Caitlin for a small oasis of sanity in an increasingly fractured world.
No, you need to change your life so you can see the horrors and still function, experience joy and contentment. Having a good marriage or at least good friends is critical; doing meaningful work; and spending time in nature are all important. And consider some things to cut out, like maybe Facebook, TV, certain friends,m a job you hate...
Nothing justifies Israel’s actions in Gaza — not the Holocaust, not the Diaspora, not God telling them they are the “chosen people”. They need to reread the Old Testament. Non-Zionist Jews in NYC blocked a bridge in protest but that was barely covered in the news.
You don't really imagine zionist are the slightest bit religious or influenced by the idea of a omnipotent deity that can see everything they have been and are up to do you??
Of course they're religious. That's their super power. That's what enables their ongoing project to eliminate the Palestinians: that their god gave them the land. Killing babies? They shouldn't have been on the land their god gave them. And of course, religious nut jobs are all over the place in the US halls of power.
Every day, I look closely at what American culture offers me, throws at me in distraction -- usually when I'm trying to do something productive -- and mostly what I want to scream (and often I do) is "exploitation". That's what we do. We exploit: the planet, the biosphere, and anyone the culture has set up to be most susceptible to that exploitation. And it's all perpetrated with a consumerist smile that tries to make us feel so so democratic that all these choices are flung before our consciousnesses, when in reality, it's all an authoritarian push by big money to keep the destructive front of the tsunami of consumption moving forward inexorably. Once you see it, it's pure madness incarnate.
Red pill blue pill red state blue state coke pepsi red can blue can .. the illusion of choice in between the fences of the slaughterhouse ramp where we are podded and encouraged to argue about who is first to get to face the blades.. left right left right keep shuffling along the left right corral fences.. and oohh look a centrist in the middle thinking they are well balanced... move along ...said the polite farmers.
Upon the subject of flag shagging & its associated dystopian behaviours, I rather like this 1969 Terry Riley poem, "A Rainbow In Curved Air", that offers us hope...
And then all wars ended / Arms of every kind were outlawed
and the masses gladly contributed them to giant foundries
in which they were melted down and the metal poured back into the earth
/ The Pentagon was turned on its side and painted purple, yellow & green
/ All boundaries were dissolved / The slaughter of animals was forbidden /
The whole of lower Manhattan became a meadow in which unfortunates
from the Bowery were allowed to live out their fantasies in the sunshine
and were cured / People swam in the sparkling rivers under blue skies
streaked only with incense pouring from the new factories /
The energy from dismantled nuclear weapons provided free heat and light
/ World health was restored / An abundance of organic vegetables,
fruits and grains was growing wild along the discarded highways /
National flags were sewn together into brightly coloured circus tents
under which politicians were allowed to perform harmless theatrical games
I am depressed reading so many comments, believe it I wish it wasn't what it is.
But it is. An old gal i used to know, a German lady that survived ww2 and the appalling atrocitys of the soviet occupation. Shit in one hand, wish in the other & see which one fills fastest she would tell me. Of course its right to call out the genocide going on in Gaza today. And every new atrocity that will never ever end.
All of our congressional reps in my State pat themselves on the back over how many military contracts they "secure" for our state and how many "good paying jobs" they are creating, never for a moment considering the carnage that is left in the wake of U.S. weaponry, or that we blindly value jobs regardless of the part we play in murder across the globe.
That's the thing that really pisses me off about Capitalism. It doesn't care where it makes its money.
I don’t think he used the word “western “ in this context. He was:is very clear the driving contradictions are between classes, not cultures or national nor regional boundaries
These people's lack of understanding of the simple concept of opportunity cost is mind boggling.
But then again, these same people would likely account for the destruction that these weapons cause when used as a benefit, instead of a huge direct cost.
100%. And it should never have been created in the first place, it was done with zero consideration of the existing inhabitants. They tried to persuade the world "a land without a people for a people without a land" and I know people TO THIS DAY who say "there was nothing there". Actual IDIOTS.
Now they plow under ancient olive groves out of spite and its one of the more profoundly disturbing disgusting things they do and to have NO reverence for it...
The West, or at least Western Elites, has unleashed its Inner Nazi. We support neo-Nazis over in Ukraine, and we give practically unqualified support to the the Right Wing Extremist-Supremacists in Israel. The West has a Fascist monkey on its back that it never shook off, despite a Fairy Tale of defeating Fascism in World War 2.
Every time the USA says they are fighting some terrorist it turns out they had been funding them.. USA dropped weapons and supplies on ISIS and called it an accident..they did the "accident" three times ...
You can see your car on google earth with pedestrian technology and they want people to believe they did it all by "accident" ... they bet on the fact most average humans have the logical attention span of a gnat..
That's what government run education (obedience training ) has been all about for generations. make them learn to memorize dates and times of historical (distorted ) beliefs to than mindlessly repeat official narratives ..its pretty much ushered in the time of idiocracy that has really caught up to the film.
Literally 2000 years in Europe. It started with barbarian Rome's claims to be "Bringing civilisation", when all it was really doing was mass slaughter and extracting loot to pay for further slaughters.
Yes, it is the settlement of what is now called America, Canada, New Zealand, & Australia. The violence against indigenous, the slaughter, the reservations, the smashing of customs, so it’s easy to see why these countries support Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians.😢there is no conscience!
Alastair Crooke, They Can Wait at Leisure, Whilst Netanyahu Labours – and Errs (paraphrasing Sun Tzu's Art Of War)
This man in the wheelchair and with the rickety earpiece – Sheikh Ahmad Yasin – was the founder of Hamas.
And what he said to me that morning has come to upend the Islamic world today.
What he said was: “Hamas is not an Islamic movement. It is a liberation movement, and anyone, be they Christian, or Buddhist – or even I – could join it. We all were welcome”.
Why was this simple formula somehow so significant and connected to today’s events?
Well, the ethos of Gaza, at that time (2000-2002), was predominantly that of ideological Islamism. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was deeply embedded. It was not then a resistance movement per se – it was capable of violence, but its prime focus was social work and uncorrupted governance. It wanted to show how well it could govern.
Yasin’s comment was revolutionary because liberation trumped dogma and the various ‘schools’ of political Islam. This ultimately was to become ‘Gaza Hamas’ – at odds with its conventional leadership resident in Doha. Sinwar and Dief are ‘Yasin’s children’.
‘Long story short’, a little while later, Yasin, on one of his Friday prayers’ wheel-chair trundles across the road to his adjacent mosque, was blown to pieces by an Israeli missile as he exited...
..PM Blair and President Bush put together a secret (unacknowledged to the EU) plan in response: Hamas leaders – plus the movements’ social support NGOs – were to be eliminated. And the Palestinian Authority would crack down on all and every Hamas activity – in close collaboration with Israel.
The West Bank, in this plan, would be the recipient of large financial aid to construct a prosperous western-style consumer/security state, and Gaza explicitly was to be impoverished...
..As Tareq Baconi writes in Foreign Policy:
“Hamas was stuck in … a “violent equilibrium,” whereby military force emerged as a means for negotiating concessions between Hamas and Israel. [Hamas used] missiles and other tactics to compel Israel to ease restrictions on the blockade, while [Israel] responds with overwhelming force to build deterrence and secure “calm” in the areas around the Gaza Strip. Through this violence, both entities operated within a framework whereby Hamas could maintain its role as a governing authority in Gaza even under a blockade that enacts daily structural violence against Palestinians”.
It is this siege paradigm for Gaza that blew up on 7 October...
..Hamas has transformed: It is now the ‘liberation movement’ that Sheikh Yasin foresaw – liberation of all living under occupation, and again, Yasin-like, is centred around non-ideological Islam on the civilisational icon of ‘Al-Aqsa’ mosque which is neither Palestinian nor Shia nor Sunni, nor Wahhabi, Brotherhood, nor Salafist.
And it is this – Hamas’ liberation framing – that chimes directly with the new global ‘independence push’ that we are witnessing today, and that perhaps explains the huge marches in support of Gaza, across the global south, as well as in Europe and the U.S. The punishment meted out to Gaza civilians has that unmissable ‘old colonial’ touch to it – one that evokes wide resonance and anger.
Hamas’ calculus is that its military resilience, plus the sustained international pressure from the Gaza massacres, ultimately may compel Israel to negotiate – and eventually reach a (costly, ‘all for all’) hostage deal with the Palestinian movement – as well as a paradigm-change in the political realm of endless ‘peace talks’ with Israel. In short, Hamas’ bet is that its military resilience will likely outlast the White House impatience to bring a speedy end to the Gaza war episode...
..Netanyahu both has to keep the war going (for his own survival), because the end of it may spell disaster for the him (and his family). Netanyahu therefore is in the midst of ‘a campaign’. It’s not an election campaign, because he has no real chance of surviving an election.
On the contrary, it is a ‘campaign for survival’ with two aims: to hang on to his seat for two more years (which is feasible as the chance of government defections is far from assured), and secondly, to preserve, or even strengthen, the slavish admiration of ‘the base’.
"Only I, Netanyahu, can prevent a Palestinian State ever coming into being in Gaza, Judea or Samaria”: “I will not allow it”. “There will never be” a Palestinian state. Only I can manage relations with Biden. Only I know how to manipulate the U.S. psyche’.
“I am leading”… not only on behalf of Jewish history, but also for western civilization.
“But what good is a long war”, Israeli correspondent, Haaretz commentator B. Michael asks,
“if at the end, or even while it’s still ongoing, the ‘base’ becomes bored and indifferent and disappointed? That’s not the kind of base that will rush to the voting booth with the right voting slip in its teeth. A base wants action. A base wants blood. A base wants to hate, to be angry, to be offended, to get revenge. To unload on ‘the other’ everything that is getting it riled up”.
“This is the only way to understand the stubborn evasion [by Netanyahu] of any serious discussion of an exit policy from the war. This is the only way to understand the groundless promises of everlasting control of Gaza”. The Base is delighted. Hopes coming true. “We’re really sticking it to the Arabs, pushing them toward the sea. And it’s all Bibi”.
“There isn’t a drop of logic to the massive bombardment in Gaza. Nor will a drop of benefit result from the killing of more Palestinians … the step is blatant foolishness and embarrassing grovelling to the base – lest it be at all disappointed by the leader. What will become of the hostages? The base is more important”.
Israel has seen this before – notably with the 1948 Nakba. The hubristic expectation that this would be the ‘end to it’ – Palestinians expelled, their property plundered and appropriated – ‘End of story’ (it was believed). ‘Problem solved’.
Yet it was never solved. Hence 7 October.
The Prime Minister and his cabinet are on a ‘campaign trail’ to seize and magnify the base’s trauma arising from the 7 October – and to mould it to their electoral needs.
Netanyahu has been repeating a single message: ‘We will not stop the fighting’. From his perspective, the war must continue forever:
“The vision of Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich and company is taking shape. And the messiah’s arrival must be just around the corner. And it’s all Bibi. Hooray for Bibi!”.
The Resistance understands and can see it all: How does Israel get out of this? Overthrowing Bibi? That won’t do it. It’s too late. The stopper is off; the genies and the demons are out.
If the ‘front’ remains co-ordinated, proceeds by consensus; eschews any Pavlovian over-reaction to events that might plunge the region into an all-out war, then:
'They can wait at leisure, whilst (Netanyahu) labours’ – and errs (Sun Tzu).
Another brilliant article from Caitlin. Possibly one of the most succinct articles which hopefully will get people to think about what values they really have.
One of the biggest issues is that western culture has imposed greed into society, whereby people are looking for financial returns, particularly on their superannuation. Incidentally, Australian Super Fund one would think that it's Australian, It's Not. One does not have to look far to see that a greedy few all but control the ASX top 200 companies, including our "big 4 banks", govt. advisory groups, political parties, in fact almost every aspect of Australian business.
Australia has all but given it's sovereignty to America with the most ridiculous "purchase of the nuclear submarines" AUKUS !!
America makes money out of war, America is a failed state which cannot even look after it's people (except for the privileged few) and those with their "snouts in the trough" so America wants a war, any war as long as they can make more money from providing arms, missiles, hardware, ships, submarines, bombers, etc.
This article from Caitlin needs to be available for all to read, not just the people who subscribe here.
Yeah, she's pretty well right and one worry is that the US has declared China and the Chinese people the greatest threat to their interest and security (of course, they really mean their global domination), but Darwin has a large ethnic Chinese population, so I don't know how that's going to play out.
Darwin used to to be a great and fun place to live, but I wouldn't go back there now. Apart from anything else, I saw what happened to Kings Cross in Sydney, with the US troops visiting for their R&R during the Vietnam war.
ASK??? the entire world is now in debt to WHOM?? The dynasty banking families? and why do we put up with it just because they order society in their psychopathic abusive images to hold power..
"That mountain of child corpses is a much better representation of western culture than anything Mozart, da Vinci or Shakespeare ever produced."
Bravo! This shocking mental image epitomizes the audacious hypocrisy of those who hold to "western values". More like western insanity than values, really.
"We say we value freedom, justice, truth, peace and free expression, but our actions paint a very different picture. The real western values, the actual product inside the box underneath the attractive label, are the ones you see acted out in Gaza today."
Bingo. You can't sum up in words any better than what is being done in action. Westerners commit genocide. Western values are all about genocide and the murder of children obviously. Westerners should be ashamed of themselves, but they are too sociopathic to realize just how sick they are.
This might be the most important article from Caitlin - Perpetual and brazen lying is the Perfect Embodiment Of 'Western Values'.
The adherents of the western "values", "liberty", "freedom", "equality" etc bullshit religion - let this post sink in.
Every time I walk my dog and see someone displaying the American flag I wanna puke!
You're taking a very black and white perspective on this country and although there's a lot wrong, there is a lot right. Nothing is black and white, and often comes in shades of grey.
I have to agree with BJ...The flag waving seems to be a type of ignorant denial ..i get the idea that what they wish the USA represented but i can no longer fly a flag that represents what the USA has turned into and really has always been...i know the flag for some represents some ideal but it's never been that ideal in reality...so it seems disingenuous to celebrate it or wave it... when it starts to actually embody the ideals and not just the feel good mythology then maybe it can be honored.. but not anymore!
Thank you! What it represented long, long ago, no longer exists. The corruption, the malfeasance today, is omnipresent, putrid and profound. Step back and look at us from afar, from an overall perspective - LOOK at this government - everywhere! What an absolute disgrace! They run for office strictly for what they can get - not give.
I live in NJ outside of NY and I can tell you this is absolutely a third world Country. The indecency the crime the attitude. The deterioration is metastatic. Good, decent, law abiding, caring and respectful citizens are a rarity. This Country is being eaten alive by maggots. And just to be clear it's not just the lower income people or the obscene magnitude of illegals that have infested NJ and surrounding area's. It's an attitude!
I get around, I talk from people all over the Country and world, who say the same. When my friends and I get together we all ask the same question - where can we go instead? My former neighbor went back to Austria to protect her 3 small children and give them a proper upbringing! She writes all the time saying she did the right thing My dog park friend is thinking about going home to Denmark with her two children.
I think that's probably one of the worst things - the education system and what these kids are being taught and LOOK what's now going on with colleges!! There is no way we would be on the precipice of civil war in this Country if none of this were true.
Elaborate . . . . I don't vote never did nor will - the system is a joke and of course I agree with the Horseshoe theory hence why I don't vote. I am neither Republican or Democrat I merely follow to keep track of the extent of the subterfuge.
This Country is gone - it is not coming back. Many of the experts say the same. I believe there is more than ample reason why crime now goes unabated and illegal immigration is without end. This is the deliberate destruction of Western Civilization.
I had to look that up the horseshoe theory ..I laughed its a real thing..and i have been saying it for my whole life
You know they may hang out a flag, not because they love their government, but because they care about their country and the people in it. When I was a kid I separated he people of my country, America, from the government whom I felt could not be trusted to tell the truth, since they lied to me about the Indians in their TV movies. Made them the bad guys. No, they were here first, so their land. I saluted the flag and left out the last part, with liberty and justice for all. Never said it all through school.
Yeah i get all that..i never said the pledge in school if i could help it ..it always felt uncomfortable to me like mindless pledging when school just treated you like you had been just their property to abuse and kick around if you didn't just mindlessly obey and shut up,, and never ask questions or actual be "smart" ..school always felt like obedience training .. Me and my dad would watch old war movies and stuff about fascism and then i would go to school and see it represented before my eyes..
Who needs to pledge allegiance to a goddamned flag, anyways, Chaz? It ain’t nuthin but a piece of cloth!
Back in the day millions of Europeans came here and made this Country great! Everyone always, always did the right thing. They would never seek or accept a dime from the government! They worked so hard and were so thankful to be here AND they assimilated! Now, just the opposite holds true. They come solely for all they can get.
that may be true, but i have never known anybody that habitually displays the US flag that wasn't a fervent supporter of the forever wars. just personal experience of course.
to put it another way, I often see US flags accompanied by some sign like a Ukrainian flag, but never alongside a peace symbol. I admit the Ukrainian flags are less common these days.
Exactly right. I have lived in Vermont for over 25 years. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know where those "progressive" Vermonters, proudly displaying the flag, ALWAYS stand. As a latino person not considered "white enough" by most Vermonters, I learned quickly that those people displaying the flag (SEE: Social Darwinists 'R' US) ARE NOT SHY about their bold faced bigotry towards minorities. The U.S. is NOT a "free country" for minorities, PERIOD. I was bornin the U.S. I'm staying here. May God DAMN (and I am not swearing) my country for its historic brazen embrace of 'Might Equals Right" cruelty.
I am a Christian, and, unlike MOST "Christians" in this Zionism supporting God Forsaken country, I do not play word games with the Holy Scripture. While it is true that many bigots who display the flag are not even nominal christians, those flag wavers who hypocritically claim to be "Christians" should be required to ONLY display the Stars and Stripes IF they display an equally sized flag next to the U.S. Flag WITH THIS Scripture Passage on it, in BOLD FACED PRINT:
1 Corinthians 10:24
👉 LET NO MAN SEEK HIS OWN, BUT ANOTHER'S WEALTH.
I expect a LOT of well off "Christians" would suddenly notice that their revered Old Glory is getting a bit "thread bare" and needs to be put in storage for a while... 😉
You know Pretzel, thinking about this you're probably right. If I were a betting man I would say more Republicans display it than Democrats many of whom have also served. The guy next door to me is a Vietnam Vet and he displays it!
Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't, but as they say don't judge a book by it's cover.
Fran . . . . I truly and sincerely applaud your attitude.
I was just reading your rant on NJ and it vanished ... I used to live in Manhattan and frequent the surrounding areas and lived in NJ too..i do get the crime and attitude is pretty bad there ..
CaazLB Flags come with the word Patriot. I believe?
Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind ~Albert Einstein
In the US you are even more brainwashed from birth than we in the UK. All this pledging before the flag every morning at school, even we don't do the stuff. All that flag worship before any major sports event with military in uniform strutting around. All that junk put out by Hollywood. Meantime, you have no public health service, your tax dollars fund genocide, and the NRA makes sure that you keep on killing each other. If it comes to it, I hope Trump wins. next year. He'll fuck America up but Biden is killing the world. If its between the US and the rest of us, then there's only one choice.
Tony this too is another great comment and perspective. I wonder how many people might now abstain at games because of Gaza. That's actually a superlative thought, how to bring attention to this. Someone should start something on social media stand with the Palestinians and do NOT stand at these events. WOW! That's actually a great idea
I’ve been doing that my whole life; baseball games, concerts, rodeos. This government has been evil since way before most Amerikkkans ever heard of “Gaza”.
Wow!!!
This - has opened the eyes of everyone
I am not brainwashed and know what is going on, and because I don't wallow in the bad doesn't mean I am unaware of my country's failings, and it's flaws which is to put it nicely. You have a one sided view of America and it's a side I don't reside on, but I have spent my life and continue to do so in working in fields which help others. There's always shades of grey and when you look at like in black and white terms, as you seem to do you get a very skewed picture of things.
There is no shade of grey in the irrefutable reality of how our country is run, and for who it is run. Yes, people of good will exist here, as anywhere else on planet Earth, but we-the-people of good will have ZERO influence in U.S. Foreign and Domestic Policy.
The USA is an oligarchy: This scholar explained how in 1956 (with historian Aaron Good)
https://youtu.be/1PGah9yfulw
In his 1956 book "The Power Elite," New Left sociologist C. Wright Mills detailed how decision-making in the United States is not democratic; it is determined by (1) Wall Street capitalists and large corporations, (2) the Pentagon and military-industrial complex, and (3) the corrupt political class.
Well, can't disagree with you on that count, but to tell you the truth I always thought that was true. I've heard of the book you referenced and maybe I should read it, just to fully recognize how little power the American people have. Now media whores who make big money can spread the government's propaganda as they try to come across as people who really care. Rachel Maddow comes to mind immediately, but there are so many more. Good for me because I pay them no mind.
Talk to me Fran - tell me where there is hope. For years I have let certain things slip thinking it was isolated or a phase or it would stop. I got out of the car the other day to finish pumping my gas - there were four other people in my car, two the same age as myself (mid 60's) and were shocked by my politeness. We were raised by politeness and yet everyone makes the same comments about me. When did it stop or go out of fashion?
I will say this, I have extreme hope for the younger generations but especially seeing the reaction to Gaza. This is not some Taylor Swift band wagon crusade these kids know there stuff! Granted I believe it can be attributed to being forced to move back home because they can't afford anything else and they've finally realized why!!
Maybe you expect things to be different then they are, but I don't. Maybe I don't expect it to be any different then it is. I grew up with an abusive father who never wanted children and my mother had 4. Each and every day he expressed his resentment at our very existence. He was scary, really scary, but then I had my mother's brother whom I adored and loved and cared who about me, and he made a lot difference in my world. There's good and there's bad, and I guess you make the best of it, and don't allow the bad side to win.
Fran I grew up without a family and have been on my own since I was 11 years old, started my own business at age 17. There is nothing I do not appreciate and or take for granted. This is why I am the way I am - respect for me is everything. You might say it's my Achilles heel. And there is none today.
Sorry to hear that. My mother and her siblings all grew up in an orphanage. It takes it's toll. My mother could never deal with the death of her brother, my brother, who died young. All of them reflected their loss in one way or another. I never even knew anything about their background, all so closed mouth, until I did their Ancestry, and now I know almost everything of their past which they never spoke of.
If i had to tell someone from another country what is good, it would not be possible
Just tell them that the U$A is good for nothing.
Good for $hit.
Good for war and killing.
Good at genocide. (Just ask the original inhabitants of north america)
Good at theft.
Good at public relations/advertising/propaganda.
Good at amnesia and forgetting inconvenient truths.
Good at consumerist garbage.
Good at imprisoning/incarceration.
Good at bandwagoning.
Good at drug induced stupor.
Good at bigotry.
Good at greed.
Good at illiteracy.
Good at health care.
Good at education.
Good at student debt.
Great at politician debt.
Good at sanctions and blockades.
There’s so much more, but this should suffice to inform your audience.
And, the U$ is getting really good at foreclosure and homelessness and poverty and safe and effective shots/shocks to the system.
And, qualified immunity.
BEYOND great comment, Mike!
This country’s a fucking cesspool of corruption. If I live through this, I vow to move somewhere else.
Invading countries, slaughtering indigenous peoples, enslaving the conquered, etc, etc. These are not the exclusive actions of Western Civilization. Were the Romans a “Western” civilization? The Egyptians? The Hittites? Ancient Persians? No. These violent and oppressive actions are the exclusive preview of human beings, from time immemorial. We just happen to exist in an era when it is Western civilization that is at the helm of current atrocities.
Lets be succinct. When Germans were poled in 2021 or so, about Israel's behavior toward the Palestinians they said she was acting like Nazi Germany. How right they are. I don't care what other countries did, or do, but Israel in total complicity with the US are implementing a genocide. I hated our many Middle Eastern Wars, where millions were killed, and we're still moving forward with that same neocon agenda, but genocide, no, may happen but not our intended purpose, but it is the intended purpose of Israel to kill the men, women and children of Palestine.
Well said - I totally agree with what you say. Currently the US (and its partners in crime and genocide like many Western nations including Israel) are the worst. But at different periods in history, other civilaizations and empires have committed many of the same atrocities. Maybe tomorrow it could be another future empire like China or India.
That doesn't mean we can excuse or justify the actions of the prevailing genocidal regime.
The whole China and Russia bashing phenomenon has been a Hollywood production for generations of red scare. All the while the CIA has whole departments dedicated to warping the perceptions of the western mind to create all this Russian xenophobia and Putin bogyman syndrome ..i know i work among it and i see it and have been told of experiences around their influence and agents coming on set to insert ideas into productions that have nothing to do with the script.. Hollywood is one of their most effective propaganda engines of mind control ....
The one like tells me that what I said is so very true about how deeply dug into their brain stem has been inserted the Russian xenophobia and Putin bogeyman syndrome.
I wish I could tell you how right you are, but then you already know that.
The MIC works hand-in-hand with Hollywood to brainwash everyone against its enemies - be it Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Palestine,... (the list is endless).
Hollywood also has a long and sordid history of portraying Israel in the best light possible and gaslighting the public. Here is an interesting book on that: "Hollywood and Israel: A History" by Tony Shaw & Giora Goodman (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58064554)
BJ, I consider setting them on fire!
I'm howling!
Leave then. Are you 15?
Beat you to it, asshole! We’re looking into obtaining Mexican passports and already have our awesome little city picked out.
And while I speak rudimentary Spanish, I’m practicing with a Mexican neighbor in order to become as fluent as I was in high school.
Put that in your crack pipe and smoke it 😁
No silly, Gypsy is 33.
Hi Mike.
Actually I’m much older than that. I was born in the third day of the third month, which makes me mystical magical Pisces 🙂
Oh?
Jackie-ass was talking about age?
Wasn’t really clear to me.
I’ve aged something serious since israel picked up the pace of their genocide of Palestinians.
I didn’t know when you were born, but based upon what I read, it wasn’t yesterday.
Aged like fine wine.
Jackie-ass is old whine.
It’s always a pleasure, Pisces person.
Keep writin’.
You’re a lot of fun.
Try that in small town.
I live in an area surrounded by small towns and villages, and I haven’t noted an Amerikkkan flag in sight.
I guess we folks in Michigan are better-informed than the shithole backwater you’re from.
I’ve got those eyesores all over the god damn place round here.
Lotsa blue lives matters ones too.
I’ve been displaying a twelve foot Palestinian flag for years now.
My newish democrat catholick neighbors told me they thought it was some sort of sports flag.
I explained what I thought of Israel and bastard-Biden.
We won’t be getting together for Christmas cheer, I don’t think.
I’m fine with that.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Hopefully, a just, and genocidists free new year, as well.
That’s what I want for Christmas.
Hi Mike, as a Pagan, I don’t celebrate Christmas, only the Solstice.
IMHO, anyone who celebrates a “Merry Christmas” this year, with so much indescribable suffering occurring, is a self-centered POS.
Even Christmas in Bethlehem (Beit Leh’am) is cancelled.
Then go live in Gaza. I think I will put up a second American flag in my yard due to this post.
“Go live in Gaza”.
Well, asshole, my hope is to go to Gaza once somebody wipes IsraHell off the map, to help restore their farms and olive groves.
Take your Amerikkan flags and wipe your ass with ‘em, or better yet, let me do it.
Hope not his ass, though. As that would have taken quite a few flags, and far larger than the usual size.
😳
😁
OH, so you are all for Genocide as long as it is the people you hate. Just out of curiosity, if Palestinians are so wonderful, how do you explain to yourself the fact that no country will allow Palestinians into their lands. They are arab, but yet, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, etc will not open their borders to Gaza Palestinians....I would love to see the mental gymnastics you go through to make sense of that one
You…fucking….MORON. For your infor-fucking-mation, about half the population of Jordan IS Palestinian, which fled there during the Nakba.
Similarly Lebanon.
Egypt has made it VERY CLEAR (listen to me, shit for brains), VERY FUCKING CLEAR that they will not allow Palestinian refugees BECAUSE THEY’D NEVER BE ALLOWED TO RETURN TO GAZA.
Put that in your crack pipe and smoke, asshole.
"... will allow Palestinians into their lands." - that's the stupidest "argument" some smart ones came up for dimwits to pick up.
Let me ask you - why do Palestinians have to give up THEIR land? Why would those other Arab states agree to such imbecility? Ever thought of that?
or you could just put up an Israeli flag with it and just really cut to the chase
Not everyone is blind to the usa agenda. If we lived in gaza our govt would bomb us.
I appreciate that.
Two targets for molotovs or urine, instead of one.
For the record, you don’t have a yard, on turtle island.
It’s stolen land, just like israel.
😁
What is stolen land, my yard? No, I paid for it and I am still paying my mortgage. But, I'll play your silly game...you are saying that because, what is referred to as Native American Indians, were here before the European settlers that it is their land my house sits on. Well, riddle me this Batmutt, what land on the face of the planet is currently occupied by the first peoples to land there? and then, you need to go one step further, the history of Native American Indians is to move every season to a warmer climate and in doing so, take land away from other indian tribes in the process, threw murder and pillaging....so which Indian tribe am I supposed to give my land back to, in you perfect little world, and please tell us all, which tribe you gave ownership of your house.
So much nonsense to wade through, but I’ll give it a shot.
Both of the residences that I occupy are on land belonging to the Chippewa.
I can’t tell you whose land you are occupying, because you didn’t allude to precisely where you live, silly.
Your recounting of red nation’s history reads like something straight out of a child’s comic book, or a colonialist propaganda sheet.
It would seem that is all that you read, except maybe the Stars and Stripes broadsheet.
If you borrowed/spent money purchasing something that was stolen, that’s called receiving stolen property.
Ignorance, and ignorance of the law is no excuse, I’ve been told.
If justice were ever to prevail in my lifetime, and the Chippewa people were ever to inform me that I was squatting on their space, I would be honest enough to acknowledge as much, and ask politely if I could hang around, preferably with them, so I could become more educated.
Then I would show them the place on each property where I have seeded the river bank with stones from one of their holy sites, and that I have been waiting, watching, and hoping for their return.
I’m not a low life thief.
I doubt that I’ll see it I’m my lifetime.
But, that doesn’t prevent my from being aware that those people have rights that have been violated, and acting accordingly.
I appreciate that you find the displacement and abuse of the indigenous peoples of north america silly.
I just bet that you’d feel differently if it were to happen to you.
Textbook definition of hypocrisy, wouldn’t you say.
Please, enjoy your king’s castle, and the rot it is founded upon.
And, hoist high your murderous flag, and your personal petard.
Just one person’s point of view.
How can I possibly own a portion of mother earth?
There’s no clear title to be had.
The inventor/creator wasn’t selling any of it.
Thought we could just share it equitably, I’m guessing.
As for banks, check out FIRE sometime.
It’s a quite a grift.
I keep wanting to respond to this David idiot but you guys are doing such a great job.. Typical Christian Zionist nut case who forms his arguments out of known lies and propaganda.
So you're in favor of the endless wars that support our military industrial complex and millions or innocent lives we continue to eradicate under the false guise of promoting democracy?
I think I would feel the same.
Then get out of this country bub
Ouch!
Merry Christmas to you too . . .
What?
The B in BJ stands for “bub”?
Parents have a strange sense of humor.
I’m an atheist, but merry Christmas to you.
If you leave, will you take me with you?
Please?
Good grief then get the hell out. Simple. Perhaps you’d be happier in China or Iran.
Perhaps.
Who are you, the f*cking landlord?
I know damn well I’d be happier in China. I’d rather live under a benevolent dictator than a corpse posing as “president”.
Daughter, who minored in Chinese studies at
Michigan State, and I are talking about a possible trip there.
I struggle every day not to hate. As I told my young granddaughter, I don't want to be that kind of person. We have to see what they are doing, how they are lying, how the western world is allowing Israel to commit genocide, how they turn everything around so that we are anti semites, terrorists or whatever. We have to see all of that but not allow ourselves to hate them. Because then we are on the way to becoming like them. Which would be even worse that what is happening now.
I have no problem with hating child killing genociders.
it isn't hating child killing genociders that is a problem, it is risking becoming like them that is the problem.
That makes absolutely not one iota of sense.
Whenever a people works up a big hate, it ends up with a lot of other people who are just trying to go about living their lives getting killed by those who are doing the hating. We need to find better ways of bringing about changes that we want to see. That's what our brains could be used for.
Gaber Mate is an exceptional person and resource who speaks on similar things. I really enjoy listening to him - he calms me down and makes me consider alternate perspectives that would not come easily to me.
So you’re hating on Hamas right?
It is important to not step foot on that retribution road that has brought us to this place and time. Leaving it is the only way our species is going to survive beyond the immediate term.
I hope you're not suggesting we have to love them.
What I'm getting at - it's not a choice between love and hate. Both states are thoughtless emotions. Responsible adults should be sober in their evaluations and actions and not be subsumed under those types of passions.
"Thoughtless emotions"???
Are you a machine? Sure sounds like it.
I think he is. Met Russian-bot many times.
And every time passing by without saying hello.
ugh. I am not suggesting that we love them. Just not hate them.
That's easier said than done. With all the challenges one faces in life and all the struggles, I don't want to burden myself more with struggling to trying to "not hate evil people".
But I understand what you mean. And your sentiments are more evolved, judicious and commendable. Unfortunately, I am not that evolved of a human being as yet. I am trying to work on myself and hopefully may get there someday. For the time being, I prefer to sandbox my feelings of "hate" so as to affect my emotions, reactions and behavior as less as possible. And just trying to keep a certain level of emotional control when facing hateful events/people is a challenge in itself.
Hate is a legitimate human emotion.
And I’ve never hated as I do now.
Hate is neither legitimate or illegitimate. It is just an emotion that blinds people to better ways of doing things. Anger can be used to make things better sometimes, but hate just runs amok.
Hate is an emotion evoked in response to something that one experiences. What one does in response to that emotion is a choice. That is what separates us from every other known species. That we often choose unwisely is the problem.
I think it is anger that is evoked that then goes to hate. We can choose to allow our anger to morph into hate or we can use our anger to get something accomplished (other than bombing and killing, hopefully).
Well said!
agree…or murdering, raping and mutilating
sorry, I absolutely do not agree that hate run amok is what needs to be unleashed on anyone. Mostly because it just keeps going and we have endless war. Like we do now.
Susan, I agree with you. Hating is easy to do - but it often propagates more evil actions and more hate further down the road of history.
The Germans hated the Jews and other ethnicities.. A subset of these Jews (the Zionist Jews) now hate Arabs and Palestinians and other ethnicities.
And now, many people in different parts of the world are being pushed (sometimes unconsciously) towards hating Jews. BUT THIS IS WRONG! The problem is NOT Jews. It is the Zionist ideology.
This Zionist ideology (practiced by some Jews and some Christians) is not only bad for the world, but is also really bad for Jews themselves. Zionist Israelies are just creating more problems for themselves (and the rest of the world). It almost seems that these Zionists don't even really care about the Jews. What a paradox!
The western value of democracy is the kicker. You're a democracy if you support Imperialism but not if you don't.
Agreed.
I would not say so. It is just very simplifized self-hatred of a left radical kind. Useless.
It is wonderfully ironic that when these right wing extremists, like Shapiro or Murray, go on talk shows to sing the praises of western values and warn of the apparent war on them, they are never asked to define what they actually are - because then the whole argument would unravel...
Don't know who Murray is (and don't care to) but Shapiro is a psycho belonging in an asylum.
The pertinent psychos are the ones with the power of public office, like Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan, Austin, Biden etc.
...Sunak, Starmer, Johnson, Braverman, Patel, Hancock, etc., here in the UK. If they weren't psychos to start with then, by golly, surprise surprise, the huge power handed to them on a plate in representational 'democracy' they will be completely psychologically corrupted not long after. Demockery or even, DemAllCrazy describes this well. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely... ...and that's before we come on to the power lusting monarchy here in the UK with the WEF antics of not-my-king. The system itself is politically carcinogenic & requires dismantling and something like direct democracy installed to properly share the power out between ourselves. Such things as the Gaza genocide & all the rest of the ZOG horrors would have been nipped in the bud.
Agree with all on the list so far but add Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld,Wolfowitz, Bush, Powell, Rice, Obama, et al. War criminals one and all.
I didn't realize that Douglas Murray was such a nut-job. I only knew him from the Munk Debates in Toronto, where he paired with Matt Taibbi to absolutely shred Malcolm Gladwell and the NYT writer over the issue that "MSM is not to be trusted." Murray was outstanding in that role, but wow does Reason (another "Western value," but a real one when you can find it) go out the window when Israel pops up. If I had his address, I'd send Murray a "Netanyahu Doll" for Christmas, maybe with a little Zelensky doll on the side...
So many seem to throw out all intellectual courage or logic out the window when its the emotional investment in the tribes guilt reparations narratives.. the perpetual victims status rhetoric warped the minds of these people.. Israel is the litmus test to see who is a raving hypocrite rendering their opinions on anything suspect of being taintied in bias.
Lol. I've got an old Mcain doll somebody gave me, I was thinking of sending it the trs guys at one time.
Heh, Todd:
My daughter was recently in New Orleans and bought me a tank top from Marie LeVeaux’s Voodoo Shop. I requested an effigy of ByeDone that I could stick pins into, but they didn’t have one 😉
I don't think Joe would feel it if you found one, he's that FarGone. Hey, no Voodoo vote for Joe in 2024!
Yes Douglas Murray is a director of Toby Young's Free Speech Union, who say sensible things about free speech and jab mandates but nonsense things about climate change and Murray, along with council member Torygraph writer Allison Pearson, have revealed themselves to be a total Zionazis.
Hello Riwaq Allah. Don't know these people.
Which Murray?
Douglas Murray, kind of a British pop-intellectual type, as far as I can tell.
Thanks
I cannot argue against this. I'm just exhausted these days, there is kind of a constant tension in the air, in social interactions, in trying to absorb and escape the constant barrage of media. Just dealing with more or less everyday life problems is exhausting. I'm sure I'm technically depressed, but if you're not depressed you aren't paying attention. Thanks to Caitlin for a small oasis of sanity in an increasingly fractured world.
ugg do i know this one... i have been paying attention for my 60 years and im profoundly exhausted..
No, you need to change your life so you can see the horrors and still function, experience joy and contentment. Having a good marriage or at least good friends is critical; doing meaningful work; and spending time in nature are all important. And consider some things to cut out, like maybe Facebook, TV, certain friends,m a job you hate...
Nothing justifies Israel’s actions in Gaza — not the Holocaust, not the Diaspora, not God telling them they are the “chosen people”. They need to reread the Old Testament. Non-Zionist Jews in NYC blocked a bridge in protest but that was barely covered in the news.
You don't really imagine zionist are the slightest bit religious or influenced by the idea of a omnipotent deity that can see everything they have been and are up to do you??
Of course they're religious. That's their super power. That's what enables their ongoing project to eliminate the Palestinians: that their god gave them the land. Killing babies? They shouldn't have been on the land their god gave them. And of course, religious nut jobs are all over the place in the US halls of power.
Some are religious, others are simply "might is right - except when it happens to us!"
Feral, most of them are Zios for the $$$, I suspect.
All i meant is their "religion " is a cover to commit crimes
Every day, I look closely at what American culture offers me, throws at me in distraction -- usually when I'm trying to do something productive -- and mostly what I want to scream (and often I do) is "exploitation". That's what we do. We exploit: the planet, the biosphere, and anyone the culture has set up to be most susceptible to that exploitation. And it's all perpetrated with a consumerist smile that tries to make us feel so so democratic that all these choices are flung before our consciousnesses, when in reality, it's all an authoritarian push by big money to keep the destructive front of the tsunami of consumption moving forward inexorably. Once you see it, it's pure madness incarnate.
Red pill blue pill red state blue state coke pepsi red can blue can .. the illusion of choice in between the fences of the slaughterhouse ramp where we are podded and encouraged to argue about who is first to get to face the blades.. left right left right keep shuffling along the left right corral fences.. and oohh look a centrist in the middle thinking they are well balanced... move along ...said the polite farmers.
The flag and voting in America has been branded into the psyche of America!
To be a part of the process, pick out your own rope!
If you do not vote, you can argue over rope burns!
The flag still relates to the John Wayne syndrome
Standing blindly behind all the propaganda for flag and country!
Immigrants need time to catch on, their still getting free money!
This is what makes me laugh, yet it is folklore here in Transylvania!
That politicians have shiny white teeth and change directions like the wind!
Yet they sit in front of a tv watching it all day and arguing about it every other second!
Pure self inflicted abuse! People do their own brainwashing!
People are all addicted to this red blue crap like they say in AA get a hobby!
Dissecting propaganda and lies. It’s not useful for a happy weekend.
It is why I will only talk baseball to anybody inside the matrix!
I start with we need all grass fields!
Too much artificial shit in this world!
Upon the subject of flag shagging & its associated dystopian behaviours, I rather like this 1969 Terry Riley poem, "A Rainbow In Curved Air", that offers us hope...
And then all wars ended / Arms of every kind were outlawed
and the masses gladly contributed them to giant foundries
in which they were melted down and the metal poured back into the earth
/ The Pentagon was turned on its side and painted purple, yellow & green
/ All boundaries were dissolved / The slaughter of animals was forbidden /
The whole of lower Manhattan became a meadow in which unfortunates
from the Bowery were allowed to live out their fantasies in the sunshine
and were cured / People swam in the sparkling rivers under blue skies
streaked only with incense pouring from the new factories /
The energy from dismantled nuclear weapons provided free heat and light
/ World health was restored / An abundance of organic vegetables,
fruits and grains was growing wild along the discarded highways /
National flags were sewn together into brightly coloured circus tents
under which politicians were allowed to perform harmless theatrical games
/ The concept of work was forgotten
Hmm. That's given me an idea...
I grew up in that time period when a lot of people wrote and talked liked this poem! People knew for a long time something is amiss!
Mother Nature, organic living stop the wars was a real thing back then.
DuPont corporation! The poisoning of our lakes and streams!
Corrupt governments starting wars!
Back then late 1960’s early 1970’s and peace sign on your jacket would get you at the very least attacked! If not seriously beat up!
From all kinds of citizens!
Good times I miss them!
To this day 2023 people will say do not give me any of that hippy crap!
Ha ha ha ha Got to love it!
You want to live in harmony with Mother Nature!
What are you a commie pinko!
...and you can't machine gun an idea to death!
I am depressed reading so many comments, believe it I wish it wasn't what it is.
But it is. An old gal i used to know, a German lady that survived ww2 and the appalling atrocitys of the soviet occupation. Shit in one hand, wish in the other & see which one fills fastest she would tell me. Of course its right to call out the genocide going on in Gaza today. And every new atrocity that will never ever end.
So well said, I have saved this into my list of great quotes :-)
All of our congressional reps in my State pat themselves on the back over how many military contracts they "secure" for our state and how many "good paying jobs" they are creating, never for a moment considering the carnage that is left in the wake of U.S. weaponry, or that we blindly value jobs regardless of the part we play in murder across the globe.
That's the thing that really pisses me off about Capitalism. It doesn't care where it makes its money.
I think it was Marx who said something like "there's no crime a capitalist won't commit for additional profit".
Actually, Marx quoted T.J. Dunning. The full quote is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dunning#Recognition
Marx... no human construct doesn't slaughter the weaker.
It is human nature.
I don’t think he used the word “western “ in this context. He was:is very clear the driving contradictions are between classes, not cultures or national nor regional boundaries
These people's lack of understanding of the simple concept of opportunity cost is mind boggling.
But then again, these same people would likely account for the destruction that these weapons cause when used as a benefit, instead of a huge direct cost.
"That's the thing that really pisses me off about Capitalism. It doesn't care where it makes its money."
A dollar made teaching elementary school is worth just as much as a dollar made selling heroin to elementary school kids.
Both are worth one dollar.
Jobs could be created in building schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and delivering services to people! Better jobs even!
Imagine what could be done domestically with the already spent 115 Billion dollars and then the next 100 billion dollars plus that was proposed?
Hell, even take half of that and use it for humanitarian purposes offshore -- imagine the good will that would come of that?
This blood-lust will have a terrible price.
It’s always about money 💰 don’t get it they just jabbed all their personal in the forces. Maybe this is how they are going to test the
Israel actually has no right to exist. Really. We have to quit accepting the utterly dishonest foundations of their lies.
https://open.substack.com/pub/phillipbadger/p/yes-virginia-there-really-is-no-reason?r=ia08f&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
100%. And it should never have been created in the first place, it was done with zero consideration of the existing inhabitants. They tried to persuade the world "a land without a people for a people without a land" and I know people TO THIS DAY who say "there was nothing there". Actual IDIOTS.
Now they plow under ancient olive groves out of spite and its one of the more profoundly disturbing disgusting things they do and to have NO reverence for it...
ZIopaths only know how to hate and resent..
"Hitler may have lost WW2, but fascism won." -- George Carlin.
The West, or at least Western Elites, has unleashed its Inner Nazi. We support neo-Nazis over in Ukraine, and we give practically unqualified support to the the Right Wing Extremist-Supremacists in Israel. The West has a Fascist monkey on its back that it never shook off, despite a Fairy Tale of defeating Fascism in World War 2.
Every time the USA says they are fighting some terrorist it turns out they had been funding them.. USA dropped weapons and supplies on ISIS and called it an accident..they did the "accident" three times ...
You can see your car on google earth with pedestrian technology and they want people to believe they did it all by "accident" ... they bet on the fact most average humans have the logical attention span of a gnat..
and they've been engineering usd to have gantlike attention spans, via all those fracking screens
That's what government run education (obedience training ) has been all about for generations. make them learn to memorize dates and times of historical (distorted ) beliefs to than mindlessly repeat official narratives ..its pretty much ushered in the time of idiocracy that has really caught up to the film.
Literally 2000 years in Europe. It started with barbarian Rome's claims to be "Bringing civilisation", when all it was really doing was mass slaughter and extracting loot to pay for further slaughters.
And that is all it has been ever since.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x72r71p
"The only democracy in the Mid East" is sorely in need of a tune up, or a regime change.
Sure. It needs to match those other real democracies of the West. Wait, it actually does!
Sorry for the oversight. Not even Kanadian.
Yes, it is the settlement of what is now called America, Canada, New Zealand, & Australia. The violence against indigenous, the slaughter, the reservations, the smashing of customs, so it’s easy to see why these countries support Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians.😢there is no conscience!
Alastair Crooke, They Can Wait at Leisure, Whilst Netanyahu Labours – and Errs (paraphrasing Sun Tzu's Art Of War)
This man in the wheelchair and with the rickety earpiece – Sheikh Ahmad Yasin – was the founder of Hamas.
And what he said to me that morning has come to upend the Islamic world today.
What he said was: “Hamas is not an Islamic movement. It is a liberation movement, and anyone, be they Christian, or Buddhist – or even I – could join it. We all were welcome”.
Why was this simple formula somehow so significant and connected to today’s events?
Well, the ethos of Gaza, at that time (2000-2002), was predominantly that of ideological Islamism. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was deeply embedded. It was not then a resistance movement per se – it was capable of violence, but its prime focus was social work and uncorrupted governance. It wanted to show how well it could govern.
Yasin’s comment was revolutionary because liberation trumped dogma and the various ‘schools’ of political Islam. This ultimately was to become ‘Gaza Hamas’ – at odds with its conventional leadership resident in Doha. Sinwar and Dief are ‘Yasin’s children’.
‘Long story short’, a little while later, Yasin, on one of his Friday prayers’ wheel-chair trundles across the road to his adjacent mosque, was blown to pieces by an Israeli missile as he exited...
..PM Blair and President Bush put together a secret (unacknowledged to the EU) plan in response: Hamas leaders – plus the movements’ social support NGOs – were to be eliminated. And the Palestinian Authority would crack down on all and every Hamas activity – in close collaboration with Israel.
The West Bank, in this plan, would be the recipient of large financial aid to construct a prosperous western-style consumer/security state, and Gaza explicitly was to be impoverished...
..As Tareq Baconi writes in Foreign Policy:
“Hamas was stuck in … a “violent equilibrium,” whereby military force emerged as a means for negotiating concessions between Hamas and Israel. [Hamas used] missiles and other tactics to compel Israel to ease restrictions on the blockade, while [Israel] responds with overwhelming force to build deterrence and secure “calm” in the areas around the Gaza Strip. Through this violence, both entities operated within a framework whereby Hamas could maintain its role as a governing authority in Gaza even under a blockade that enacts daily structural violence against Palestinians”.
It is this siege paradigm for Gaza that blew up on 7 October...
..Hamas has transformed: It is now the ‘liberation movement’ that Sheikh Yasin foresaw – liberation of all living under occupation, and again, Yasin-like, is centred around non-ideological Islam on the civilisational icon of ‘Al-Aqsa’ mosque which is neither Palestinian nor Shia nor Sunni, nor Wahhabi, Brotherhood, nor Salafist.
And it is this – Hamas’ liberation framing – that chimes directly with the new global ‘independence push’ that we are witnessing today, and that perhaps explains the huge marches in support of Gaza, across the global south, as well as in Europe and the U.S. The punishment meted out to Gaza civilians has that unmissable ‘old colonial’ touch to it – one that evokes wide resonance and anger.
Hamas’ calculus is that its military resilience, plus the sustained international pressure from the Gaza massacres, ultimately may compel Israel to negotiate – and eventually reach a (costly, ‘all for all’) hostage deal with the Palestinian movement – as well as a paradigm-change in the political realm of endless ‘peace talks’ with Israel. In short, Hamas’ bet is that its military resilience will likely outlast the White House impatience to bring a speedy end to the Gaza war episode...
..Netanyahu both has to keep the war going (for his own survival), because the end of it may spell disaster for the him (and his family). Netanyahu therefore is in the midst of ‘a campaign’. It’s not an election campaign, because he has no real chance of surviving an election.
On the contrary, it is a ‘campaign for survival’ with two aims: to hang on to his seat for two more years (which is feasible as the chance of government defections is far from assured), and secondly, to preserve, or even strengthen, the slavish admiration of ‘the base’.
"Only I, Netanyahu, can prevent a Palestinian State ever coming into being in Gaza, Judea or Samaria”: “I will not allow it”. “There will never be” a Palestinian state. Only I can manage relations with Biden. Only I know how to manipulate the U.S. psyche’.
“I am leading”… not only on behalf of Jewish history, but also for western civilization.
“But what good is a long war”, Israeli correspondent, Haaretz commentator B. Michael asks,
“if at the end, or even while it’s still ongoing, the ‘base’ becomes bored and indifferent and disappointed? That’s not the kind of base that will rush to the voting booth with the right voting slip in its teeth. A base wants action. A base wants blood. A base wants to hate, to be angry, to be offended, to get revenge. To unload on ‘the other’ everything that is getting it riled up”.
“This is the only way to understand the stubborn evasion [by Netanyahu] of any serious discussion of an exit policy from the war. This is the only way to understand the groundless promises of everlasting control of Gaza”. The Base is delighted. Hopes coming true. “We’re really sticking it to the Arabs, pushing them toward the sea. And it’s all Bibi”.
“There isn’t a drop of logic to the massive bombardment in Gaza. Nor will a drop of benefit result from the killing of more Palestinians … the step is blatant foolishness and embarrassing grovelling to the base – lest it be at all disappointed by the leader. What will become of the hostages? The base is more important”.
Israel has seen this before – notably with the 1948 Nakba. The hubristic expectation that this would be the ‘end to it’ – Palestinians expelled, their property plundered and appropriated – ‘End of story’ (it was believed). ‘Problem solved’.
Yet it was never solved. Hence 7 October.
The Prime Minister and his cabinet are on a ‘campaign trail’ to seize and magnify the base’s trauma arising from the 7 October – and to mould it to their electoral needs.
Netanyahu has been repeating a single message: ‘We will not stop the fighting’. From his perspective, the war must continue forever:
“The vision of Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich and company is taking shape. And the messiah’s arrival must be just around the corner. And it’s all Bibi. Hooray for Bibi!”.
The Resistance understands and can see it all: How does Israel get out of this? Overthrowing Bibi? That won’t do it. It’s too late. The stopper is off; the genies and the demons are out.
If the ‘front’ remains co-ordinated, proceeds by consensus; eschews any Pavlovian over-reaction to events that might plunge the region into an all-out war, then:
'They can wait at leisure, whilst (Netanyahu) labours’ – and errs (Sun Tzu).
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/12/18/they-can-wait-at-leisure-whilst-netanyahu-labours-and-errs/
I'm surounded by psychopaths
Completely surrounded, or just almost?
:-o
With a few minor exceptions ...Catlins got a few exceptions on her subscriptions list at least..
Another brilliant article from Caitlin. Possibly one of the most succinct articles which hopefully will get people to think about what values they really have.
One of the biggest issues is that western culture has imposed greed into society, whereby people are looking for financial returns, particularly on their superannuation. Incidentally, Australian Super Fund one would think that it's Australian, It's Not. One does not have to look far to see that a greedy few all but control the ASX top 200 companies, including our "big 4 banks", govt. advisory groups, political parties, in fact almost every aspect of Australian business.
Australia has all but given it's sovereignty to America with the most ridiculous "purchase of the nuclear submarines" AUKUS !!
America makes money out of war, America is a failed state which cannot even look after it's people (except for the privileged few) and those with their "snouts in the trough" so America wants a war, any war as long as they can make more money from providing arms, missiles, hardware, ships, submarines, bombers, etc.
This article from Caitlin needs to be available for all to read, not just the people who subscribe here.
"Australia has all but given it's sovereignty to America..." I wouldn't bother with the 'all but', the sentence is correct without it.
Lol Dave… Caitlin has described Australia as a US. Military base with kangaroos 😉
Yeah, she's pretty well right and one worry is that the US has declared China and the Chinese people the greatest threat to their interest and security (of course, they really mean their global domination), but Darwin has a large ethnic Chinese population, so I don't know how that's going to play out.
Darwin used to to be a great and fun place to live, but I wouldn't go back there now. Apart from anything else, I saw what happened to Kings Cross in Sydney, with the US troops visiting for their R&R during the Vietnam war.
ASK??? the entire world is now in debt to WHOM?? The dynasty banking families? and why do we put up with it just because they order society in their psychopathic abusive images to hold power..
War is a racket.
"That mountain of child corpses is a much better representation of western culture than anything Mozart, da Vinci or Shakespeare ever produced."
Bravo! This shocking mental image epitomizes the audacious hypocrisy of those who hold to "western values". More like western insanity than values, really.
"We say we value freedom, justice, truth, peace and free expression, but our actions paint a very different picture. The real western values, the actual product inside the box underneath the attractive label, are the ones you see acted out in Gaza today."
Bingo. You can't sum up in words any better than what is being done in action. Westerners commit genocide. Western values are all about genocide and the murder of children obviously. Westerners should be ashamed of themselves, but they are too sociopathic to realize just how sick they are.
Stinging endictment. Hard not to disagree.