Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): Canadian online outlet The Breach has published a letter by CBC’s senior manager of journalistic standards Nancy Waugh which highlights perfectly the bizarre psychological relationship that westerners have with bombs and airstrikes in foreign countries.
“Take the worst thing you can say about Hamas, multiply it by 1000 times and it still will not meet the Israeli repression and killing and dispossession of Palestinians.” - Dr. Gabor Maté, Holocaust survivor
Exactly , we here in America are just used to this call of duty desensitization. Just a few bombs here and there on some terrorist ragheads never hurt nobody . We are blind to the pain because we are not feeling it ourselves , more concerned with 2024 elections , food and gas prices, market, economy , etc. as everyday our country inflicts more pain and suffering on those far away we believe we have no connection with , forgetting we are one human race . Tragic horror , and the easiest way to live, is forget it exists, pretend it doesn’t , or that it doesn’t concern us . The Powers that be have bred and educated us to be this way. And the worst part, the politicization of this conflict, as not even all these demonstrations for Palestine are sincere , and some are used as tools to divide and conquer further . Either way, they got us by the balls.
"The belief that these attacks should be considered less vicious and brutal because they are launched from a distance by people who won’t see their effects"
For Westerners, this goes beyond just the usage of explosives. So long as suffering and destitution is not directly seen by us, we can convince ourselves all is well and for the best. I'm talking about sweatshops. Most of our clothes and many of our products of daily use are made by workers under conditions we ourselves would find totally unacceptable. Deep down most of us know this. But it is unseen. Distant strangers. We don't see the effects, so we continue.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for having the intellect and heart and care to examine the steep psychological disfunction and poverty that western imperialism breeds. It's such a loss to everyone to be drowning in a cultureless culture. We lose so much by being unwilling to grieve the loss of sanity that this era has witnessed. We lose our mental health, body health, connection to the earth, connection with fellow beings of all stripes. Only when people really see what we serve in the name of such soul homelessness, can we create a better day.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or whatever it is called has now given away the game. It has done its duty. Abolition of its existence should be the next step. Maybe by a bunker-busting 1,500 pound bomb dropped on it from about 40,000 feet. SARCASM.
Thanks for the brilliant letter Caitlin. I love your honest and strident writing. As a South African committed to the overthrow of oppressive regimes this is a totally shocking act and it does seem that a vast number of western news agencies are trying to sanitise the IDF attacks on Palestinian people. The west has caused this genocide and supported it for 75 years. It's twisted and evil and rooted in Islamophobia and racist white supremacy.
"An attack which kills and maims and tortures doesn’t cease to be brutal and vicious just because it looks like a blip on a screen to you. Human suffering isn’t made less acute or less significant by being far away."
If the morally tone-deaf folks at the CBC can't figure this self-evident truth out on their own, then we know that they're not on the side of the suffering innocents, the Palestinians. They're just (poorly) trying to cover for the most despicable genocidal maniacs on the planet, the US and Israel. But why? What will the CBC get out of kissing the butts of the US and Israel? Is having a brown nose this year's fashion accessory in posh mass murderers circles?
If you haven't been in a war zone it's impossible to imagine what it is like.
I have in Sri Lanka.
It's not only the killing it's also the fear of something happening which you don't know of because you are cowering inside your house or community buildings.
It's the fear that you probably will not be protected because everything around you is crazy.
It's the fear of finding water and food to feed your children.
It's the fear of fire.
It's the fear of time itself...........how long will we be here for.
How long is this going to last and how many more neighbours and friends are going to die.
You hear boots outside but you don't look because of fear.
Days on end you hope........and that is all you have.
As a boy who grew up in Northern Ireland and heard and saw the aftermath of hobbytastic bombs (in comparison to these massively powerful, full grade military bombs) i can attest those tin can and shoe lace ones where more than vicious and frightening enough for me. Being in Gaza right now is something none of us, not even three tour veterans can imagine in any way. Perhaps only war journalists can do the impact of it justice. And any survivors who live to tell the tale.
“Take the worst thing you can say about Hamas, multiply it by 1000 times and it still will not meet the Israeli repression and killing and dispossession of Palestinians.” - Dr. Gabor Maté, Holocaust survivor
Exactly , we here in America are just used to this call of duty desensitization. Just a few bombs here and there on some terrorist ragheads never hurt nobody . We are blind to the pain because we are not feeling it ourselves , more concerned with 2024 elections , food and gas prices, market, economy , etc. as everyday our country inflicts more pain and suffering on those far away we believe we have no connection with , forgetting we are one human race . Tragic horror , and the easiest way to live, is forget it exists, pretend it doesn’t , or that it doesn’t concern us . The Powers that be have bred and educated us to be this way. And the worst part, the politicization of this conflict, as not even all these demonstrations for Palestine are sincere , and some are used as tools to divide and conquer further . Either way, they got us by the balls.
By that count, the CBC has no grounds to complain about Houthi drone strikes against Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. Those are carried out remotely.
Bombs away but we're OK!
Somehow any bomb that goes off in the US get huge outcry and forever after.
I almost started with the 9/11 bombs....but we aren't supposed to call them that, or DEW.
This is definitely a "We see no evil here ... because we have our eyes shut."
"The belief that these attacks should be considered less vicious and brutal because they are launched from a distance by people who won’t see their effects"
For Westerners, this goes beyond just the usage of explosives. So long as suffering and destitution is not directly seen by us, we can convince ourselves all is well and for the best. I'm talking about sweatshops. Most of our clothes and many of our products of daily use are made by workers under conditions we ourselves would find totally unacceptable. Deep down most of us know this. But it is unseen. Distant strangers. We don't see the effects, so we continue.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for having the intellect and heart and care to examine the steep psychological disfunction and poverty that western imperialism breeds. It's such a loss to everyone to be drowning in a cultureless culture. We lose so much by being unwilling to grieve the loss of sanity that this era has witnessed. We lose our mental health, body health, connection to the earth, connection with fellow beings of all stripes. Only when people really see what we serve in the name of such soul homelessness, can we create a better day.
"Cowardly" might be another word to describe Israel's "remote" killing of Palestinians.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or whatever it is called has now given away the game. It has done its duty. Abolition of its existence should be the next step. Maybe by a bunker-busting 1,500 pound bomb dropped on it from about 40,000 feet. SARCASM.
Thanks for the brilliant letter Caitlin. I love your honest and strident writing. As a South African committed to the overthrow of oppressive regimes this is a totally shocking act and it does seem that a vast number of western news agencies are trying to sanitise the IDF attacks on Palestinian people. The west has caused this genocide and supported it for 75 years. It's twisted and evil and rooted in Islamophobia and racist white supremacy.
"An attack which kills and maims and tortures doesn’t cease to be brutal and vicious just because it looks like a blip on a screen to you. Human suffering isn’t made less acute or less significant by being far away."
If the morally tone-deaf folks at the CBC can't figure this self-evident truth out on their own, then we know that they're not on the side of the suffering innocents, the Palestinians. They're just (poorly) trying to cover for the most despicable genocidal maniacs on the planet, the US and Israel. But why? What will the CBC get out of kissing the butts of the US and Israel? Is having a brown nose this year's fashion accessory in posh mass murderers circles?
If you haven't been in a war zone it's impossible to imagine what it is like.
I have in Sri Lanka.
It's not only the killing it's also the fear of something happening which you don't know of because you are cowering inside your house or community buildings.
It's the fear that you probably will not be protected because everything around you is crazy.
It's the fear of finding water and food to feed your children.
It's the fear of fire.
It's the fear of time itself...........how long will we be here for.
How long is this going to last and how many more neighbours and friends are going to die.
You hear boots outside but you don't look because of fear.
Days on end you hope........and that is all you have.
Not surprisingly, when military weapons designed for mass killing are used widely on a civilian population, shamelessly, the results are horrific.
And that F Ant-ny the anti-diplomat is yet again running cover for it.
Unless and until western soldiers start to come back in bags, nobody of influence and authority cares.
As a boy who grew up in Northern Ireland and heard and saw the aftermath of hobbytastic bombs (in comparison to these massively powerful, full grade military bombs) i can attest those tin can and shoe lace ones where more than vicious and frightening enough for me. Being in Gaza right now is something none of us, not even three tour veterans can imagine in any way. Perhaps only war journalists can do the impact of it justice. And any survivors who live to tell the tale.
Totally. It doesn't make sense to me that I should be more appalled by a baby beheaded by the blade than by airborne explosive.