“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
As for the Canadian emphasis today by Caitlin, we have seen so many examples in recent times of Canadians following extreme directions in so many matters that the comment by Nancy Waugh should be seen as the norm. In fact if you questioned all Western countries on the same subject, those willing to proudly state their support for Israel and its terror campaign of bombing, I feel confident that their answers and explanations would also be the same.
Top of the tree would be the UK and Germany, France close behind and the NATO youngsters running along behind just to show a level of agreement with their US masters, some having been through similar experiences with The Third Reich.
Remember lads? Not that long ago was it.
It's the new grouping.....the Anglo / Christian / White / Israel group of budding Nazis who care so little for the likes of an average of 10 little children a day in Palestine being forced to have to have amputations ....without anaesthetic. It wouldn't even raise a single voice of concern.
For Canada in this example, , see "the West".
That kind of killing, using bombs, is hardly worth a mention. What a world.
Thanks Biden, NATO and all the subservient vassal states.
I believe this is related, when discussing those psychopaths like "senior manager of journalistic standards" Caitlin mentioned. "Julian Assange and "The Committee to Protect Journalists" Hustlers Swimming through the cesspool that is the US establishment is a nauseating proposition. The water's not fine; enter at your own peril."
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.
And the US citizens wonder why they are hated so vehemently by those whose countries they invade and occupy with military bases. The startling thing about 9/11 was not that it happened but that it doesn't happen more often
Well, somebody did. But now we have the Hell bomb in production again and can take out, euphemistically speaking, half the damn population in minutes...look out!
It’s worse than this, most I talk to just see it as a black and white issue, Israel is the good guy and Palestine is the bad guy. If innocent people die, that’s the price of war. They actually don’t care how these innocents are killed, because there are no innocents, they are all evil terrorists that deserve what they are getting. IDF is the most humane army on earth is another one. They told them to leave is another. I’ve heard every justification you can imagine from people about the killing going on. I just tell them, “whatever helps you sleep at night”:
This would be fine if they agreed to the same treatment from people thinking otherwise. They shouldn't complain when they are bombed, especially remotely. As long as they are not beaten to a pulp by some hood in a bad part of town.
Which is precisely why we need war to come to US soil, something we haven’t seen since the Civil War, which was fought almost exclusively in the South at any rate.
Perhaps this, and only this could inspire something like empathy for others’ suffering.
I sincerely believe If our species cannot learn to live in empathy without firsthand experience of the horrors and atrocities of wars, we will mere survive, even in the short run. We need to figure this out fast!
About 80 years from the Founding to the War where Lincoln invaded the South. About 80 years from then to killing JFK. About 80 years from JFK to now. It’s literally about time.
Probably true in a sense, but then who in their right minds wants war ? Especially those of us with families to take care of. But I understand your point
There's plenty of advantage to be gained by those who use protest movements as a means to discredit the stated goals of the movement. For example: agents provocateurs disguised as protestors who bring vandalism and violence to a protest to discredit its goals. It's not a stretch then, for the sick fucks in our spook agencies to organize 'protests' that are designed to descend into vandalism and violence for the sole purpose of discrediting the larger movement.
I understand your perspective and agree. There are those in probably any protest who are infiltrators, agent’s provocateurs, and plain old rowdies who join in when they think mayhem can be unleashed. I recall well 2019 in Hong Kong. I also recall 1964 in Los Angeles being involved in anti-war protests, and later learning some of the people I trusted were part of COINTELPRO.
It’s pretty obvious actually . Just like BLM protests, lots of them are just disrupting and causing havoc , to average citizens that have nothing to do with this conflict . For example, vandalizing veterans gravesites . Making the whole movement identify with leftist / Marxist movement , when it has nothing to do with that.
You’re spreading disinformation and then lies too.
Civil disobedience has a long and clear place in history. And Black Lives Matter focuses on a long running and concrete problem in America. It’s called racism. Has nothing to do with Marx. America has a centuries long history of racism. Vicious and violent state supported racism. To the point when in WW II African Americans were fighting to free Europeans from nazi oppression….while the US government was oppressing their families back home with Jim Crow racist laws, and the African American solders too were placed by US government in segregated troops.
And then you want to lie about “veterans” too? Disgusting.
But those attacks by Ansarallah, aren’t brutal or murderous; they interrupt sea-traffic, I.e., commerce, interfere with profits, which means they, the ships, must be protected, unlike bodies. For the US government, these are the attacks that must be stopped.
It is such a stupid assessment of things. To see how personal, and brutal the deaths in Gaza are go to Aljaeera and see the bodies wrapped in sheets lying side by side in a mass grave. See the children bleeding, bruised, ripped apart, running, crying, or a mother comforting a dead child. Know they have to live with the knowledge Israel wants you dead, your mother, your father, your brothers and sisters, all the people of Gaza dead. See the collapsing buildings, your neighborhoods destroyed, and have to remember so many of the people you knew are now dead, and knowing that you and your family might be next. Live your life in constant fear knowing no one has made it stop and it's been months, not days,
"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?
Yeah, I think Substack has helped tremendously. Fingers crossed it remains as helpful in the future. The MSM pundits aren't going down without a fight.
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.
Hello again Gypsy. Wow. How did you manage that? There were a lot of problems in Sri Lanka with Civil Wars/Coups d'etat/Major strikes on the railways etc.
But the last Civil War was the biggest against the Tamils in the North.
I was born in S.L. to white colonialists (British) and loved the country and it's people, of course the British were without a doubt arrogant and nasty. I watched everything from my little girl eyes and saw such innocence in the people and mostly kindness.
People start wars for all sorts of things and a lot of it was to do with religion and terrible pay.
This is why I loathe and detest other countries meddling in affairs which have nothing to do with them, it's always about greed.
I guess someone in your heritage left Sri Lanka and either went to the US or England. It should make you happy to have that little part of what was once the most beautiful country in the world.
Thanks for your reply Jenny. My ancestors seemed to have followed trade routes along the Mediterranean and I was surprised as anyone to discover I had some Sri Lankan in me, as well as African.
I have medium blonde hair and blue-green eyes, but my skin is the color of coffee with cream in it.
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
You are right, Gabor
As for the Canadian emphasis today by Caitlin, we have seen so many examples in recent times of Canadians following extreme directions in so many matters that the comment by Nancy Waugh should be seen as the norm. In fact if you questioned all Western countries on the same subject, those willing to proudly state their support for Israel and its terror campaign of bombing, I feel confident that their answers and explanations would also be the same.
Top of the tree would be the UK and Germany, France close behind and the NATO youngsters running along behind just to show a level of agreement with their US masters, some having been through similar experiences with The Third Reich.
Remember lads? Not that long ago was it.
It's the new grouping.....the Anglo / Christian / White / Israel group of budding Nazis who care so little for the likes of an average of 10 little children a day in Palestine being forced to have to have amputations ....without anaesthetic. It wouldn't even raise a single voice of concern.
For Canada in this example, , see "the West".
That kind of killing, using bombs, is hardly worth a mention. What a world.
Thanks Biden, NATO and all the subservient vassal states.
I once wrote a letter to an Ottawa MP and later found out his reply was a form letter sent out from NATO HQ.
I sent the news article to Anthony Housefather, MP about Eiland who said that not enough Palestinian children had been killed yet. https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/influential-israeli-national-security-leader-makes-the-case-for-genocide-in-gaza/
His reply was that he is retired and has no influence over the present Israeli government.
An honest man! And he is not alone....
I believe this is related, when discussing those psychopaths like "senior manager of journalistic standards" Caitlin mentioned. "Julian Assange and "The Committee to Protect Journalists" Hustlers Swimming through the cesspool that is the US establishment is a nauseating proposition. The water's not fine; enter at your own peril."
https://trygvewighdal.substack.com/p/the-committee-to-protect-journalists
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.
And the US citizens wonder why they are hated so vehemently by those whose countries they invade and occupy with military bases. The startling thing about 9/11 was not that it happened but that it doesn't happen more often
In my opinion, 9/11. As 10/7, was orchestrated by the same purveyors of freedom. But that is a whole separate discussion
US citizens were assaulted by the CIA/NSA working for global oligarchs on 9/11. Saudi patsies were treated like Oswald in the JFK hit.
Don’t forget the Dancing Israelis Jon…
Well, somebody did. But now we have the Hell bomb in production again and can take out, euphemistically speaking, half the damn population in minutes...look out!
And when our boys come back with severe PTSD, we wonder why they are “off.” What a sick sick nation we are. Our reckoning won’t be pretty...
It’s worse than this, most I talk to just see it as a black and white issue, Israel is the good guy and Palestine is the bad guy. If innocent people die, that’s the price of war. They actually don’t care how these innocents are killed, because there are no innocents, they are all evil terrorists that deserve what they are getting. IDF is the most humane army on earth is another one. They told them to leave is another. I’ve heard every justification you can imagine from people about the killing going on. I just tell them, “whatever helps you sleep at night”:
This would be fine if they agreed to the same treatment from people thinking otherwise. They shouldn't complain when they are bombed, especially remotely. As long as they are not beaten to a pulp by some hood in a bad part of town.
Hi AS
Which is precisely why we need war to come to US soil, something we haven’t seen since the Civil War, which was fought almost exclusively in the South at any rate.
Perhaps this, and only this could inspire something like empathy for others’ suffering.
Hi Gypsy,
I sincerely believe If our species cannot learn to live in empathy without firsthand experience of the horrors and atrocities of wars, we will mere survive, even in the short run. We need to figure this out fast!
I was thinking the same thing. We need to propagate this idea.
About 80 years from the Founding to the War where Lincoln invaded the South. About 80 years from then to killing JFK. About 80 years from JFK to now. It’s literally about time.
Not really. Empathy is not part of the psyche of the nation.
Probably true in a sense, but then who in their right minds wants war ? Especially those of us with families to take care of. But I understand your point
What I’m saying is this:
If there were war on Amerikkkan soil, would we be so eager to support wars in faraway places?
If we were to have a taste of our own medicine?
Yes. Well said.
Why do you think not all of the demonstrations are sincere? There’s little advantage to be gained by doing so.
There's plenty of advantage to be gained by those who use protest movements as a means to discredit the stated goals of the movement. For example: agents provocateurs disguised as protestors who bring vandalism and violence to a protest to discredit its goals. It's not a stretch then, for the sick fucks in our spook agencies to organize 'protests' that are designed to descend into vandalism and violence for the sole purpose of discrediting the larger movement.
I understand your perspective and agree. There are those in probably any protest who are infiltrators, agent’s provocateurs, and plain old rowdies who join in when they think mayhem can be unleashed. I recall well 2019 in Hong Kong. I also recall 1964 in Los Angeles being involved in anti-war protests, and later learning some of the people I trusted were part of COINTELPRO.
Exactly, what I wanted to convey, but couldn’t find the exact words to explain. Thank you 🙏
It’s pretty obvious actually . Just like BLM protests, lots of them are just disrupting and causing havoc , to average citizens that have nothing to do with this conflict . For example, vandalizing veterans gravesites . Making the whole movement identify with leftist / Marxist movement , when it has nothing to do with that.
You’re spreading disinformation and then lies too.
Civil disobedience has a long and clear place in history. And Black Lives Matter focuses on a long running and concrete problem in America. It’s called racism. Has nothing to do with Marx. America has a centuries long history of racism. Vicious and violent state supported racism. To the point when in WW II African Americans were fighting to free Europeans from nazi oppression….while the US government was oppressing their families back home with Jim Crow racist laws, and the African American solders too were placed by US government in segregated troops.
And then you want to lie about “veterans” too? Disgusting.
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.
But those attacks by Ansarallah, aren’t brutal or murderous; they interrupt sea-traffic, I.e., commerce, interfere with profits, which means they, the ships, must be protected, unlike bodies. For the US government, these are the attacks that must be stopped.
Indeed. The Neoliberal Empire is under attack and the Oligarchs must reply with max force.
Bombs away but we're OK!
It is such a stupid assessment of things. To see how personal, and brutal the deaths in Gaza are go to Aljaeera and see the bodies wrapped in sheets lying side by side in a mass grave. See the children bleeding, bruised, ripped apart, running, crying, or a mother comforting a dead child. Know they have to live with the knowledge Israel wants you dead, your mother, your father, your brothers and sisters, all the people of Gaza dead. See the collapsing buildings, your neighborhoods destroyed, and have to remember so many of the people you knew are now dead, and knowing that you and your family might be next. Live your life in constant fear knowing no one has made it stop and it's been months, not days,
Night in Gaza (audio recording) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7T2N9U8ZmE
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."
Except their eyes are wide open with a maniacal smile.
True. It is the public who keep their eyes tightly closed to it. "Eyes Wide 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.
Well said Erica Shugart!
"Cowardly" might be another word to describe Israel's "remote" killing of Palestinians.
The personification of coward is the IDF
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.
Ahhhh, I thought you meant for real. Kidding,
Should be for real, Fran !
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.
VIVA SOUTH AFRICA
🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦❤️❤️❤️
Neoliberal capitalism of the oligarchs and white power and supremacy is a potent mix.
"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?
It is our responsibility not to look away.
It's interesting because I think a lot of the MSM are going down fast. I hope so. Substack has done a good job.
Yeah, I think Substack has helped tremendously. Fingers crossed it remains as helpful in the future. The MSM pundits aren't going down without a fight.
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.
If only the survivors of war zones had a platform, like the war makers.
Thank you for the snippet.
Thanks Mike.......this was more of a Civil War and I was a child. It's impossible for me to see the images of Gaza.
But, the tools of war were supplied by outside countries.
Oh. I am sure.
Of course. Money and greed.
Dismantle the MIC
Yes, rapaciousness and megalomania have taken over much of Western Civilization.
Wow Jenny. I would like to know what you experienced there; according to Ancestry.com, I have a bit of the Sri Lankan in me.
Hello again Gypsy. Wow. How did you manage that? There were a lot of problems in Sri Lanka with Civil Wars/Coups d'etat/Major strikes on the railways etc.
But the last Civil War was the biggest against the Tamils in the North.
I was born in S.L. to white colonialists (British) and loved the country and it's people, of course the British were without a doubt arrogant and nasty. I watched everything from my little girl eyes and saw such innocence in the people and mostly kindness.
People start wars for all sorts of things and a lot of it was to do with religion and terrible pay.
This is why I loathe and detest other countries meddling in affairs which have nothing to do with them, it's always about greed.
I guess someone in your heritage left Sri Lanka and either went to the US or England. It should make you happy to have that little part of what was once the most beautiful country in the world.
Be safe.
Thanks for your reply Jenny. My ancestors seemed to have followed trade routes along the Mediterranean and I was surprised as anyone to discover I had some Sri Lankan in me, as well as African.
I have medium blonde hair and blue-green eyes, but my skin is the color of coffee with cream in it.
I envy you having resided in so many places!
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.
I hope that day comes, Feral.
I don't, because that means a lot of innocent middle eastern people get killed before Americans have a sad over all the dead troops.
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.