There has never been anything in history resembling the evil, sadistic and burial regime of evil apartheid Israel. This is unsustainable, and good riddance on the day it crumbles.
I am pretty sure that we are being governed by people who have no minds and no humanity. People I thought were friends either do not want to know about what is happening in Gaza or worse they support Israel. I am left wondering about how I chose my friends. Was it my youth? Was I an idiot? Or has the world just gone nuts?
We were propagandized our entire lives and were afflicted with the manufactured mental disorders of Russophobia, Sinophobia and Islamophobia. We were idiots but awakened to truths. We began to question. We now know the truth and are Palestinians🇵🇸 now.
What you describe about friends and family is also what I'm faced with. My daughters and niece are with us!🇵🇸
No question but that we are ruled by sociopaths. This inevitably happens in any society, as sociopaths are precisely the people who will do whatever it takes to get power.
Learn well The Iron Law Of Oligarchy and its corollary, The Iron Law Of Institutions.
Yep, had everything from "They're as bad as each other" to "You're just against the Jews". What sickens me most is that they don't actually care, but are moved to say something to protect - of all things - their egos.
Whoever ends up populating Gaza in the future will have to deal with alarmingly high cancer rates and other nasty health ailments. Depleted Uranium, toxic chemicals, asbestos, petroleum by-products and who knows what else are all over the place now. Seriously, fuck Israel.
And according to medical experts, Israelis are already breathing in massive amounts of atomised toxins and human tissue. Their destruction and mass murder in Gaza may just be the poison that destroys many Israelis long term.
"They’re talking about turning the desert planet Mars into a thriving biosphere while we’re turning our own thriving biosphere into a desert planet."
This is a perfect analogy of how sick in the head these destructive bastards are. They will nuke, starve, genocide, pollute, and bomb to death their fellow humans and destroy the environment without a thought, but somehow the elite of the elites will have a "blooming desert" to dwell in afterwards. Sounds like something a zy0nist settler would say or Elon Musk... Insane sociopaths alike.
India should not even be in Kashmir. It is a colonial expansionist state and it has been murdering Muslims and Christians for centuries and more so since the India created by the British, which cobbled together warring kingdoms, became independent.
India's colonial domination of Kashmir is why the Pakistanis are concerned. And like the Palestinians the poor Kashmiris are the meat in the colonial sandwich.
No no. I was not trying to suggest that the Indians putting their sticky noses anywhere can be justified. Not even by the (formerly?) great British Empire. Merely an observation.
>>"Scientists are reporting a stunning 63 percent decline in populations of flying insects in the United Kingdom since 2021."
Humans have been killing thousands (if not millions) of species for a while now (often deliberately). What gives HUMANS the right to reign superior over the rest of the inhabitants of the Earth?
Humans seem to be the MOST dangerous and threatening species around (IMHO). Something to think about...(and I'm not talking about just Gaza...)
I can remember when my car windscreen had to be cleaned regularly during the summer months because of insects getting splatted when driving. I have noticed for sometime, it no longer happens ☹️
Seems like a good case could be made that the flawed hominid experiment is drawing to its inevitable conclusion. We, being the last of the hominids, well, maybe, we were the best of the bunch, or the worst. I'm not sure which would be better, if any thing could, to salve our souls.
I went to the hyperlinked Guardian article which describes having citizen scientists counting bug splats on license plates. Although Caitlin equates decline of bug splat count percentage in the Guardian article to actual decline in flying insect population, I couldn’t help wondering if the percentage of decline is actually greater (perhaps far greater). I have no background in Entomology (though when I happen to read anything regarding that subject, I find it fascinating) but I started wondering things like whether there are many flying insects that live their entire lives, or congregate mainly, around areas NOT near roadways, whose populations are declining more rapidly (I suppose someone could also wonder the opposite as well, but that would seem to go counter to what new articles are saying about insect decline). Anyway, just wondering.
I live rurally. If you want some flying biting insects come and get some from out here. Maybe avoiding roadways is an evolutionary step in the battle for survival. Given all the woke/environmental horse shit that is going around why would you take this as the gospel?
What will it take to stop Israel at this point? The leaders are the only ones who can intervene and their indifference is stunning. They obviously have no intention of doing anything even though all Western nations strut around claiming to be democracies. No amount of protest seems to concern them in the least. What next? Will Israel put in an order for cattle cars? It’s as if they’re taunting people to confront them with the obvious comparisons to the Holocaust.
They say “never forget” — thanks for the advice. We won’t.
Yes SW, you are spot on! When the zionist regime was at the start of its ethnic cleansing of Gaza, I thought - even if the US was fully behind Israel - that the European states and their governments will protest and put a stop to the beginning of a carnage. That they will condemn it at the UN; cut off diplomatic relations; stop giving succour to an apartheid regime. Boycott and divest.
What happened was exactly the opposite.The old colonial regimes were fully behind the neo-colonialists and the new settler colonial state. And still they play dumb and are silent while witnessing the live streamed second holocaust bringing untold misery for a colonised people. They do not have democracy but are clever at equating neoliberal capitalism with democracy, their freedoms go only so far as to enable the market. Made obvious by the numerous arrests when the citizenry protest the genocide of the Palestinians. Will the Zionist regime be so bold and brazen if it weren't sure of the Western block support....
Sadly the cause and effect of old colonial enterprises are playing out even today with the latest India/ Pakistan conflict. The British in their final act of malevolence in vacating the empire laid the groundwork for dividing India resulting in millions of deaths. More innocents will die if Modi emboldened by the Israeli example starts a useless war.
The former colonies with their colonised mindset, instead of getting together against a common enemy are destroying each other - another step in the cause and effect of things.
Certainly a good start, and within our means to do, as a majority of Americans are in favor of doing just that. Uh-oh, few people in Congress have a backbone and many are bought by AIPAC.
“U.S. Navy Loses Third F-18E/F Super Hornet Fighter During Yemeni Air Campaign
The U.S. Navy has lost a second F-18E/F Super Hornet fighter aircraft in little over a week according to a report by CNN… while taking part in the ongoing air campaign against the Yemen...”
“time to admit that Israel is a sick society. The Israeli Holocaust against the Palestinians is worse than the Nazis”, Reuben Rivlin , Israeli President.
India should not even be in Kashmir. It is a colonial expansionist state and it has been murdering Muslims and Christians for centuries and more so since the India created by the British, which cobbled together warring kingdoms, became independent.
India's colonial domination of Kashmir is why the Pakistanis are concerned. And like the Palestinians the poor Kashmiris are the meat in the colonial sandwich.
TLDR version and retort to most of your comments: European colonial powers should not have even been in India or anywhere else, ever. All of this stems from their meddling and arbitrary partitioning of land and people to suit imperial diktats and economic benefits.
you cannot retrofit modern values to the past. Everyone colonised in past centuries not just Europeans. Asians, Africans, Indians, Polynesians were all colonising. One thing which pushed the British to create India as a unified entity was the savagery, warring and colonisation by the many Kingdoms.
The Indians have chosen, since independence to become colonial rulers in Kashmir and meddlers in Nepal. That cannot be blamed on the British because the Indians were colonising before the British ever arrived.
I can assure you that the Indians today are delighted the British created them as an entity, uniting north and south and pacifying the warring kingdoms.
"The Indians" - there you go lumping everyone in the most densely populated (and populous) country on Earth into a single group.
Of course other civilizations engaged in some form of "colonialism" or settler-colonialism/expansion. The difference is the industrial scale used by the European and American imperial seafaring powers and the systematized brutality and wanton cruelty/dehumanization/racism they engaged in for counter-insurgency and pacification.
You couldn't produce a single 'scientific' argument for why India or any other former European colony is "better off" today that doesn't rely on BS like having shopping malls or interior plumbing. Those civilizations were far more highly advanced than propagandists and western chauvinists like you are fond of pretending.
By the use of the term Indians, we mean the citizens of the country called India in the same way we talk about Americans who are citizens of the US. Of course there is diversity and indeed southern, Dravidian Indians were totally different to the northern, Aryan, heavily intermixed with Europeans, Indians.
If you study the Mongols there was an industrial scale to their invasions and occupations. Same for the Egyptians, Romans and others.
I think what you mean is that you know more about British and anglo-european colonisations than you do say about African tribes doing the same thing, or the Arabs.
And can you provide evidence for your claims of wanton cruelty and dehumanization by the British please. And you chide me for using a term in general for the Indians. Oh, and make sure it is in context. Do not compare different centuries. Context is critical.
It is irrelevant to create hypothetical scenarios about what India might have been like if the British had not ruled it for centuries. It would not be one united country, it would not have the extensive rail and road network, Bombay and Madras and other cities would not exist and the Taj Mahal and other great Moorish structures would be rubble.
And it would be equally idiotic about the British to moan about who and what they could have been if they had never been invaded and colonised by Celts, Angles, Saxons, Danes, Vikings, Romans, Normans etc. All of those colonisations actually created the unique nature, culture and quality of the English. I suggest you watch the comedy skit, WHAT DID THE ROMANS DO FOR US, and remember it applies to every colonised people and is a reminder to stop moaning.
There is no way anyone who has the claimed in-country experience in India that you do wouldn't know this stuff, so you're obviously either 100% FOS or a liar.
Any study of Indian history makes it very clear that the people have suffered at the hands of all of their rulers and probably less under British colonial rule than the others. History only matters if we deal in facts.. Opinion is not the equal of facts.
I have seen Life of Brian and Monty Python's What Did the Romans Do For US and even more remarkable, I have studied histories of England, Europe, Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the other three African countries in which I have lived as well as India where I have lived. How about you.
And yes, I know the Bengal Famine has been vomited up in recent times to demonise the British but I suggest you ensure your research is broader and deeper than things coming from the sites you link. Real history. Facts. Logic. The Why matters even more than the What, particularly in this age when there is a deranged attempt to pretend only anglo-europeans colonised and everything they did was evil.
Look at the history of famine in India and the causes from before the British ruled India from 1858. Then apply logic and common sense. India was valuable to the British for resources and workers in various industries. For that you need people. So, major question is, WHY WOULD THE BRITISH WISH TO KILL OFF MILLIONS OF INDIAN WORKERS?
If you read the histories of the earliest famines in India, they were happening before even the East India Company arrived in the 1620's.
Legendary famines preserved in oral tradition are the Dvadasavarsha Panjam (Twelve-year Famine) of south India and the Durgadevi famine of the Deccan from 1396 to 1407. From Hindu literature, there is the 7th century famine due to failure of rains in Tanjore district mentioned in the Periya Puranam. According to the Purana, Lord Shiva helped the Tamil saints Sambandhar and Appar to provide relief from the famine. Another famine in the same district is recorded on an inscription with details such as "times becoming bad", a village being ruined, and cultivation of food being disrupted in Alangudi in 1054.
The ancient Ashokan edicts of the Mauryan age around 269 BC record emperor Ashoka's conquest of Kalinga, roughly the modern state of Orissa. The major rock and pillar edicts mention the massive human toll of about 100,000 due to the war. The edicts record that an even larger number later perished, presumably from wounds and famine.
The Tughlaq dynasty under Muhammad bin Tughluq held power in Delhi during the famine in and around Delhi in 1335–42. The sultanate offered no relief to the starving residents of Delhi during this famine. Other pre-colonial famines in the Deccan were the Damajipant famine of 1460 and the famines starting in 1520 and 1629.
The famine in the Deccan and Gujarat, was another famine in India's history. An estimated 3 million perished in Gujarat and one million in the Deccan. In the second year the famine killed not only the poor but the rich as well. The Damajipant famine is said to have caused ruin both in the northern and southern parts of the Deccan. Famines hit the Deccan in 1655, 1682 and 1884. A further famine from 1702-1704 killed over two million people.
AND THEN WE HAVE THE FAMINES AFTER INDEPENDENCE. Why was that happening if the British were no longer ruling India?
India experienced seven major drought periods (1876–1882, 1895–1900, 1908–1924, 1937–1945, 1982–1990, 1997–2004, and 2011–2015) based on severity-area-duration analysis of reconstructed soil moisture.
🎯💯 Thank you Tom! Right on the money! She has fooled many with her 'fake' support of Palestine. I say 'fake' because many of her posts come across as those of being from a Jew-hater (not a Zionist hater, but specifically a Jew hater).
The correct thing to say is that all Empires, including the British did good in some respects. Because no-one gets it all wrong.
The greatest Empire of all, Mongol, was renowned for its savagery but it was not all bad. Same for Egyptian, Sumerian, Roman, Ottoman, Moors, Spaniards, Portugese etc.
The British Empire did some admirable things i.e. in India it saved the Tam Jahal and other great Moorish buildings which the Hindus wanted to see fall down. What a loss for humanity that would have been.
And they translated the ancient Vedic scripts into Hindi so ordinary Indians could read them and not just Brahmins.
Just two of many positives. Tell me, why do you believe that British colonisation was always so bad? Indeed India would not exist as it does today if the British had not ruled it for centuries and cobbled the warring kingdoms together. Modern India is dependent on British rail, roads, utilities and could not survive without them.
Roslyn Ross, I do not think we need a history lesson from you. The narrative
of history has been distorted enough by the colonialists.
We know that the only permanent aspect of this human earth is impermanence. Empires come and go, great civilisations crumble and fall.
But the burning topic here and now is how the British empire ( also other European powers ) paved the way for most of the ills that global south nations are going through to this day. Israel's atrocities, behaviour and its very existence in its current form are a direct result of empire arrogance.
And you are so convinced of your superiority as to ask Tom here " can you provide evidence for your claims of wanton cruelty and dehumanization by the British please"!
As for your claim that the British " translated the ancient Vedic scripts into Hindi so ordinary Indians could read them and not just Brahmins" - Good individuals and discerning intellects impressed by the magnificence of the Indian texts would have translated and unearthed ancient scripts. (To paraphrase Bertolt Brecht even in the worst of times there are good people).
These " good deeds" weren't an empire project. Just as the empire didn't build roads for the "natives" but to transport the loot. The rulers of empire were the kind that called Gandhi "... a half naked fakir... ". You would know whom I am referring to.
Maybe you still haven't come across William Dalrymple's book " The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World ".
Rosslyn Ross is a full-blown colonialist and Genocide apologist. The only reason she sides with the Palestinians is because she is also a Jew-hater and a white supremacist (as observed by many of her comments).
I would humbly suggest that despite the Indian confidence in its own brilliance and superiority the nation has hardly excelled since independence. I do not think spending billions on space programmes and the military is an achievement when most Indians still shit in the street and the Government and powerful do not care.
As Ghandi said, if the Government wanted every Indian to have a flushing toilet it would happen. The caste-ridden Indian society is one of the most racist, unjust and misogynistic on earth.
It is because India wants to control Kashmir that Pakistan is there. One would think India had enough to do to look after its people rather than playing colonial bully. China has done far, far more for its people than India has.
Roslyn Ross, you are one sick, twisted, racist, white supremacist peace of work - not to mention utterly disgusting in your support of colonial regimes and genocides perpetrated by Western civilizations.
Please seek professional therapy - you desperately need it!
"The caste-ridden Indian society is one of the most racist, unjust and misogynistic on earth."
So you're telling us that 200 years of British imperial rule and the East India Company failed to correct the racist, unjust and misogynistic caste system? No shit, Roslyn! In fact it PERPETUATED IT!!
Forbidden love: Indian inter-caste marriage ends in husband’s murder, allegedly on order of father-in-law
Pranay Perumalla and Amrutha Varshini were in love and about to become parents when Pranay, a Dalit, was hacked to death allegedly on the order of his father-in-law. In India, despite rapid modernisation, the caste system maintains its stubborn grip on society
NEW DELHI — An Indian runaway couple were allegedly attacked outside a court in northern Uttar Pradesh state, barely a week after they released a video on social media desperately pleading for police protection from the woman’s father who despised her relationship with a man from a so-called ‘untouchable’ Hindu caste.
Sakshi Mishra, from a Brahmin caste — the tip of the Hindu caste pyramid — had earlier this month secretly married her childhood friend Ajitesh Kumar, 29, a member of the 300 million-strong but historically marginalised Dalit community —formerly known as ‘untouchables’ — that rests at the bottom of a rigid Hindu caste hierarchy. Source, TRT World.
Any understanding of India would make it clear that destroying the caste system was almost impossible.
And in fact it was another version of the British aristocratic system so the Indian upper castes and English, upper classes anyway, fitted well with each other. I am not saying that was a good thing, just stating it as a fact.
And the marriage of caste and religion made it even harder to bring changes. The best the British could do was try to improve life for the lower castes, particularly the Untouchables, and to ban atrocities like Suttee.
If the British perpetuated the caste system then logic says it would have declined after independence. It has not. Women are still considered the source of evil, as are the poor, crippled and those with very black skin and higher castes still employ Untouchables to flush their toilets.
Flying in and out of India for nearly five years, I can assure you the airline hosties hated the flights into and out of India because the Indians refused to flush toilets after use. Then again, non-Indians are also considered to be Untouchables so that was the job of the cabin crew.
Young men and women who attempt to marry out of caste are still murdered, with the women raped first. India, if it changes at all, does so very slowly.
The plight of the lower castes remains entrenched today and Indians have been free to make changes for nearly 80 years and they have chosen not to.
Too depressing and heartbreaking - is there any hope anywhere?
And insects- I have a fair few flowering plants in my garden ( planted to attract Insects) the other day saw one bee and one butterfly, that's it( Sydney where it's a ridiculous 27 degrees today)
I no longer trust the phrase "terror attack" since nowadays it could mean a resistance operation, a protestor saying "stop genocide" or a Muslim sneezing. Does anyone know what happened in Kashmir, from alternative media sources?
There is a long history of border conflicts (that's the background) between India and Pakistan. This is the latest in the ongoing tit-for-tat border fighting/terrorist attacks.
In brief, since Modi came to power in 2014, he has been converting India into a Hindu nationalist state (instead of the secular republic as written in the Indian constitution). Indian-controlled Kashmir is the only Muslim majority state in India. Modi is trying to convert Indian-controlled Kashmir into a Hindu majority state by changing laws and clamping down on the Kashmiri people. (BTW, There is also a Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and a Chinese-controlled Kashmir). Just as the British colonized the ME and divided Palestine into Israel and Palestine, the British divided India into Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
There is much more to the history, but basically it is the Hindutva ideology of the BJP (Modi's party) that has been causing most of the problems in Kashmir (and the rest of India).
One might also add the CIA's long term relations with the Dali Lama in Tibet, the practice of effective class/caste slavery, and China's rightful claims to the region.
No, I'm not going to refer to the CIA here - as it is extraneous to the Kashmiri issue.
Also, this is not an issue about class/caste slavery or a dispute with China (which is a separate concern not on the same level as the border disputes with Pakistan).
Chang, I gotta ask: You patrol this comment section day and night. I typically agree with your statements, but am curious. How do you have the time or mental bandwidth for so much Substack commentary?
No longer? Hell, the entire Star Wars movie franchise is based on the fact that the imperial powers and their proxies (US - Israel) have always labeled inconvenient and rebellious indigenous people as "terrorists" - it's baked into the cake. And you're god damned right - the Houthis, Hamas and a few others are the only legitimate resistance groups that have the balls and the conviction to stick to their guns in the face of massive military and economic forces.
On India-Pakistan, I wonder what the situation would be if the US didn't engineer/push along the soft coup of Imran Khan?
>>"On India-Pakistan, I wonder what the situation would be if the US didn't engineer/push along the soft coup of Imran Khan?"
This incident/on-going dispute has NOTHING to do with Imran Khan or the US doing anything to Pakistan. There is a long history on the Kashmiri conflict going back to the partition of India in 1947.
If you don't think Khan would have handled recent events differently, then it's a purely speculative argument we'd be having. "They" got rid of him for a reason, though, and that's not excusing Modi's hindutva supremacist bullshit, which I think we can all easily call out.
No, that's NOT what I'm saying. I'm saying that the Kashmir conflict has been going on since 1947 under multiple prime ministers and heads of states with different ideologies. This conflict supercedes 'leaders'. This conflict would continue to exist regardless of if India had Modi as a Prime Minister or not.
That's why I asked you to look at the history in more detail. Only with understanding the complicated history of Kashmir will you obtain a better grasp of the multiple underlying factors, politics, and geographical importance of the region (+ resources) for Pakistan, India, and China.
All I can write, over and over and over again, is GOD DAMN BERSERK, COLONIAL/GENOCIDAL ZIONISM!--every element of it, of course including 'Christian' Zionism.
(I've been noting what I term credible nuggets of data that the elegant/passionate SR for Palestine Francesca Albanese is seriously on the hit list for assassination. Possible/probable? With Colonial/Genocidal Zionism, of course, ANYTHING is on the table....)
The Yemen war won't de-escalate any time soon. The Houthis will continue to strike Israel with their missiles and drones as long as Israel attacks Gaza and the West Bank. The only way for Netanyahu to stay out of jail is to continue the ethnic cleansing. Trump either doesn't understand the Houthis' position, or he's getting tired of being led around by the nose by Bibi!
There has never been anything in history resembling the evil, sadistic and burial regime of evil apartheid Israel. This is unsustainable, and good riddance on the day it crumbles.
The way it all seems to be heading, it'll likely take the rest of us with it.
Seems that way to me too.
Really ?. Just 1 example = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T5JRVR53Eo
I am so confused. I don't even know what I'm looking at anymore.
It's either the world has lost its mind, or I have lost mine.
I am pretty sure that we are being governed by people who have no minds and no humanity. People I thought were friends either do not want to know about what is happening in Gaza or worse they support Israel. I am left wondering about how I chose my friends. Was it my youth? Was I an idiot? Or has the world just gone nuts?
You’re awake.
I have one friend I trust, and people I see on my walks. I’m a loner for a reason.
People are sound asleep. God is my Hightower🕊️…and Nature…🕊️🌻🌞🌲🌊…
Every one here is awake! We're ALL Palestinians🇵🇸 now!
We must act! It's the deed that counts! Support the Freedom Flotilla Coalition!🇵🇸
We were propagandized our entire lives and were afflicted with the manufactured mental disorders of Russophobia, Sinophobia and Islamophobia. We were idiots but awakened to truths. We began to question. We now know the truth and are Palestinians🇵🇸 now.
What you describe about friends and family is also what I'm faced with. My daughters and niece are with us!🇵🇸
Check out Freedom Flotilla Coalition!🇵🇸
No question but that we are ruled by sociopaths. This inevitably happens in any society, as sociopaths are precisely the people who will do whatever it takes to get power.
Learn well The Iron Law Of Oligarchy and its corollary, The Iron Law Of Institutions.
Yep, had everything from "They're as bad as each other" to "You're just against the Jews". What sickens me most is that they don't actually care, but are moved to say something to protect - of all things - their egos.
Hint: Your mind (and moral compass) is not lost.
Whoever ends up populating Gaza in the future will have to deal with alarmingly high cancer rates and other nasty health ailments. Depleted Uranium, toxic chemicals, asbestos, petroleum by-products and who knows what else are all over the place now. Seriously, fuck Israel.
Agreed. Fuck Israel! Free Palestine! (The title of my protest song: https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com/p/an-anthem-for-our-times )
And according to medical experts, Israelis are already breathing in massive amounts of atomised toxins and human tissue. Their destruction and mass murder in Gaza may just be the poison that destroys many Israelis long term.
Good.
Fuck Israel.
"They’re talking about turning the desert planet Mars into a thriving biosphere while we’re turning our own thriving biosphere into a desert planet."
This is a perfect analogy of how sick in the head these destructive bastards are. They will nuke, starve, genocide, pollute, and bomb to death their fellow humans and destroy the environment without a thought, but somehow the elite of the elites will have a "blooming desert" to dwell in afterwards. Sounds like something a zy0nist settler would say or Elon Musk... Insane sociopaths alike.
My thoughts exactly!
Hoping that karma proves to be the quintessential bitch for them. Sure would be apropos
if they went to Mars and got stuck there.
Gotta be a reason God put humans on this planet and not Mars :-)
Once Musk and his ilk leave the planet there's no backsies!
👍👍👍
Horrible news about India and Pakistan. And about Gaza -- it breaks my heart.
India should not even be in Kashmir. It is a colonial expansionist state and it has been murdering Muslims and Christians for centuries and more so since the India created by the British, which cobbled together warring kingdoms, became independent.
India's colonial domination of Kashmir is why the Pakistanis are concerned. And like the Palestinians the poor Kashmiris are the meat in the colonial sandwich.
Britain has had its sticky nose in so many situations that have turned murderous.
And that justifies the Indians putting their sticky nose into situations which turn murderous how?
All empires throughout human history have had a sticky nose in many situations that turned murderous and the British are no exception.
No no. I was not trying to suggest that the Indians putting their sticky noses anywhere can be justified. Not even by the (formerly?) great British Empire. Merely an observation.
I know you were not but I was making the point they are doing what the British are being blamed for.
And who did they learn from?
I am sorry your heart is broken. I feel so pissed off and angry I can't even think about a broken heart.
>>"Scientists are reporting a stunning 63 percent decline in populations of flying insects in the United Kingdom since 2021."
Humans have been killing thousands (if not millions) of species for a while now (often deliberately). What gives HUMANS the right to reign superior over the rest of the inhabitants of the Earth?
Humans seem to be the MOST dangerous and threatening species around (IMHO). Something to think about...(and I'm not talking about just Gaza...)
I can remember when my car windscreen had to be cleaned regularly during the summer months because of insects getting splatted when driving. I have noticed for sometime, it no longer happens ☹️
Seems like a good case could be made that the flawed hominid experiment is drawing to its inevitable conclusion. We, being the last of the hominids, well, maybe, we were the best of the bunch, or the worst. I'm not sure which would be better, if any thing could, to salve our souls.
I went to the hyperlinked Guardian article which describes having citizen scientists counting bug splats on license plates. Although Caitlin equates decline of bug splat count percentage in the Guardian article to actual decline in flying insect population, I couldn’t help wondering if the percentage of decline is actually greater (perhaps far greater). I have no background in Entomology (though when I happen to read anything regarding that subject, I find it fascinating) but I started wondering things like whether there are many flying insects that live their entire lives, or congregate mainly, around areas NOT near roadways, whose populations are declining more rapidly (I suppose someone could also wonder the opposite as well, but that would seem to go counter to what new articles are saying about insect decline). Anyway, just wondering.
I live rurally. If you want some flying biting insects come and get some from out here. Maybe avoiding roadways is an evolutionary step in the battle for survival. Given all the woke/environmental horse shit that is going around why would you take this as the gospel?
Religion
YES!!!!
What will it take to stop Israel at this point? The leaders are the only ones who can intervene and their indifference is stunning. They obviously have no intention of doing anything even though all Western nations strut around claiming to be democracies. No amount of protest seems to concern them in the least. What next? Will Israel put in an order for cattle cars? It’s as if they’re taunting people to confront them with the obvious comparisons to the Holocaust.
They say “never forget” — thanks for the advice. We won’t.
Yes SW, you are spot on! When the zionist regime was at the start of its ethnic cleansing of Gaza, I thought - even if the US was fully behind Israel - that the European states and their governments will protest and put a stop to the beginning of a carnage. That they will condemn it at the UN; cut off diplomatic relations; stop giving succour to an apartheid regime. Boycott and divest.
What happened was exactly the opposite.The old colonial regimes were fully behind the neo-colonialists and the new settler colonial state. And still they play dumb and are silent while witnessing the live streamed second holocaust bringing untold misery for a colonised people. They do not have democracy but are clever at equating neoliberal capitalism with democracy, their freedoms go only so far as to enable the market. Made obvious by the numerous arrests when the citizenry protest the genocide of the Palestinians. Will the Zionist regime be so bold and brazen if it weren't sure of the Western block support....
Sadly the cause and effect of old colonial enterprises are playing out even today with the latest India/ Pakistan conflict. The British in their final act of malevolence in vacating the empire laid the groundwork for dividing India resulting in millions of deaths. More innocents will die if Modi emboldened by the Israeli example starts a useless war.
The former colonies with their colonised mindset, instead of getting together against a common enemy are destroying each other - another step in the cause and effect of things.
Well said Indu. Agree with you 100%
You expect *independence* from *europans*?
This will end in only one way. Their greed and brutality will lead them to destruction.
I'm reporting you for "antisemitism"!
"What will it take to stop Israel at this point?"
Force.
What kind of force? Nuclear?
Stop sending weapons 🕊️🍉
Certainly a good start, and within our means to do, as a majority of Americans are in favor of doing just that. Uh-oh, few people in Congress have a backbone and many are bought by AIPAC.
In the Conscience incident — Israel violates international MARITIME law, a variation on its international criminality.
Except of course that Israel violates some flavor of international law just about every second.
And Malta quivers, another country intimidated by the Israeli-US superbully.
But reams and reams of condemnatory rhetoric flow without any consequences. Undoubtedly, it'll be similar for the India-Pakistan situation.
And the human race builds models of biosphere dynamics and wonders why they fail miserably. Basically, we brainiacs don't understand very much.
“U.S. Navy Loses Third F-18E/F Super Hornet Fighter During Yemeni Air Campaign
The U.S. Navy has lost a second F-18E/F Super Hornet fighter aircraft in little over a week according to a report by CNN… while taking part in the ongoing air campaign against the Yemen...”
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/uu-navy-loses-third-f18-engagements-yemen
“time to admit that Israel is a sick society. The Israeli Holocaust against the Palestinians is worse than the Nazis”, Reuben Rivlin , Israeli President.
India should not even be in Kashmir. It is a colonial expansionist state and it has been murdering Muslims and Christians for centuries and more so since the India created by the British, which cobbled together warring kingdoms, became independent.
India's colonial domination of Kashmir is why the Pakistanis are concerned. And like the Palestinians the poor Kashmiris are the meat in the colonial sandwich.
TLDR version and retort to most of your comments: European colonial powers should not have even been in India or anywhere else, ever. All of this stems from their meddling and arbitrary partitioning of land and people to suit imperial diktats and economic benefits.
you cannot retrofit modern values to the past. Everyone colonised in past centuries not just Europeans. Asians, Africans, Indians, Polynesians were all colonising. One thing which pushed the British to create India as a unified entity was the savagery, warring and colonisation by the many Kingdoms.
The Indians have chosen, since independence to become colonial rulers in Kashmir and meddlers in Nepal. That cannot be blamed on the British because the Indians were colonising before the British ever arrived.
I can assure you that the Indians today are delighted the British created them as an entity, uniting north and south and pacifying the warring kingdoms.
"The Indians" - there you go lumping everyone in the most densely populated (and populous) country on Earth into a single group.
Of course other civilizations engaged in some form of "colonialism" or settler-colonialism/expansion. The difference is the industrial scale used by the European and American imperial seafaring powers and the systematized brutality and wanton cruelty/dehumanization/racism they engaged in for counter-insurgency and pacification.
You couldn't produce a single 'scientific' argument for why India or any other former European colony is "better off" today that doesn't rely on BS like having shopping malls or interior plumbing. Those civilizations were far more highly advanced than propagandists and western chauvinists like you are fond of pretending.
By the use of the term Indians, we mean the citizens of the country called India in the same way we talk about Americans who are citizens of the US. Of course there is diversity and indeed southern, Dravidian Indians were totally different to the northern, Aryan, heavily intermixed with Europeans, Indians.
If you study the Mongols there was an industrial scale to their invasions and occupations. Same for the Egyptians, Romans and others.
I think what you mean is that you know more about British and anglo-european colonisations than you do say about African tribes doing the same thing, or the Arabs.
And can you provide evidence for your claims of wanton cruelty and dehumanization by the British please. And you chide me for using a term in general for the Indians. Oh, and make sure it is in context. Do not compare different centuries. Context is critical.
It is irrelevant to create hypothetical scenarios about what India might have been like if the British had not ruled it for centuries. It would not be one united country, it would not have the extensive rail and road network, Bombay and Madras and other cities would not exist and the Taj Mahal and other great Moorish structures would be rubble.
And it would be equally idiotic about the British to moan about who and what they could have been if they had never been invaded and colonised by Celts, Angles, Saxons, Danes, Vikings, Romans, Normans etc. All of those colonisations actually created the unique nature, culture and quality of the English. I suggest you watch the comedy skit, WHAT DID THE ROMANS DO FOR US, and remember it applies to every colonised people and is a reminder to stop moaning.
I suggest you watch LIFE OF BRIAN. Tally Ho, mate!
https://stophindudvesha.org/british-rajs-heinous-crimes-in-india-the-indictment/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsxBaqQtksM
https://www.studycountry.com/wiki/what-was-the-british-genocide-in-india
https://resurgentindia.org/the-bengal-famine-of-1943-how-the-british-engineered-one-of-the-worst-genocides-in-the-human-history/
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians
There is no way anyone who has the claimed in-country experience in India that you do wouldn't know this stuff, so you're obviously either 100% FOS or a liar.
Tom, Roslyn Ross is Full-Of-Shit AND a liar, and worse...
Any study of Indian history makes it very clear that the people have suffered at the hands of all of their rulers and probably less under British colonial rule than the others. History only matters if we deal in facts.. Opinion is not the equal of facts.
I have seen Life of Brian and Monty Python's What Did the Romans Do For US and even more remarkable, I have studied histories of England, Europe, Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the other three African countries in which I have lived as well as India where I have lived. How about you.
And yes, I know the Bengal Famine has been vomited up in recent times to demonise the British but I suggest you ensure your research is broader and deeper than things coming from the sites you link. Real history. Facts. Logic. The Why matters even more than the What, particularly in this age when there is a deranged attempt to pretend only anglo-europeans colonised and everything they did was evil.
Look at the history of famine in India and the causes from before the British ruled India from 1858. Then apply logic and common sense. India was valuable to the British for resources and workers in various industries. For that you need people. So, major question is, WHY WOULD THE BRITISH WISH TO KILL OFF MILLIONS OF INDIAN WORKERS?
If you read the histories of the earliest famines in India, they were happening before even the East India Company arrived in the 1620's.
Legendary famines preserved in oral tradition are the Dvadasavarsha Panjam (Twelve-year Famine) of south India and the Durgadevi famine of the Deccan from 1396 to 1407. From Hindu literature, there is the 7th century famine due to failure of rains in Tanjore district mentioned in the Periya Puranam. According to the Purana, Lord Shiva helped the Tamil saints Sambandhar and Appar to provide relief from the famine. Another famine in the same district is recorded on an inscription with details such as "times becoming bad", a village being ruined, and cultivation of food being disrupted in Alangudi in 1054.
The ancient Ashokan edicts of the Mauryan age around 269 BC record emperor Ashoka's conquest of Kalinga, roughly the modern state of Orissa. The major rock and pillar edicts mention the massive human toll of about 100,000 due to the war. The edicts record that an even larger number later perished, presumably from wounds and famine.
The Tughlaq dynasty under Muhammad bin Tughluq held power in Delhi during the famine in and around Delhi in 1335–42. The sultanate offered no relief to the starving residents of Delhi during this famine. Other pre-colonial famines in the Deccan were the Damajipant famine of 1460 and the famines starting in 1520 and 1629.
The famine in the Deccan and Gujarat, was another famine in India's history. An estimated 3 million perished in Gujarat and one million in the Deccan. In the second year the famine killed not only the poor but the rich as well. The Damajipant famine is said to have caused ruin both in the northern and southern parts of the Deccan. Famines hit the Deccan in 1655, 1682 and 1884. A further famine from 1702-1704 killed over two million people.
https://www.liquisearch.com/famines_in_india/ancient_medieval_and_pre-colonial_india
AND THEN WE HAVE THE FAMINES AFTER INDEPENDENCE. Why was that happening if the British were no longer ruling India?
India experienced seven major drought periods (1876–1882, 1895–1900, 1908–1924, 1937–1945, 1982–1990, 1997–2004, and 2011–2015) based on severity-area-duration analysis of reconstructed soil moisture.
...... next Roslyn Ross will say that the British empire was a "force for good"! 🤮
She's a total idiot and empire apologist.
🎯💯 Thank you Tom! Right on the money! She has fooled many with her 'fake' support of Palestine. I say 'fake' because many of her posts come across as those of being from a Jew-hater (not a Zionist hater, but specifically a Jew hater).
The correct thing to say is that all Empires, including the British did good in some respects. Because no-one gets it all wrong.
The greatest Empire of all, Mongol, was renowned for its savagery but it was not all bad. Same for Egyptian, Sumerian, Roman, Ottoman, Moors, Spaniards, Portugese etc.
The British Empire did some admirable things i.e. in India it saved the Tam Jahal and other great Moorish buildings which the Hindus wanted to see fall down. What a loss for humanity that would have been.
And they translated the ancient Vedic scripts into Hindi so ordinary Indians could read them and not just Brahmins.
Just two of many positives. Tell me, why do you believe that British colonisation was always so bad? Indeed India would not exist as it does today if the British had not ruled it for centuries and cobbled the warring kingdoms together. Modern India is dependent on British rail, roads, utilities and could not survive without them.
Roslyn Ross, I do not think we need a history lesson from you. The narrative
of history has been distorted enough by the colonialists.
We know that the only permanent aspect of this human earth is impermanence. Empires come and go, great civilisations crumble and fall.
But the burning topic here and now is how the British empire ( also other European powers ) paved the way for most of the ills that global south nations are going through to this day. Israel's atrocities, behaviour and its very existence in its current form are a direct result of empire arrogance.
And you are so convinced of your superiority as to ask Tom here " can you provide evidence for your claims of wanton cruelty and dehumanization by the British please"!
As for your claim that the British " translated the ancient Vedic scripts into Hindi so ordinary Indians could read them and not just Brahmins" - Good individuals and discerning intellects impressed by the magnificence of the Indian texts would have translated and unearthed ancient scripts. (To paraphrase Bertolt Brecht even in the worst of times there are good people).
These " good deeds" weren't an empire project. Just as the empire didn't build roads for the "natives" but to transport the loot. The rulers of empire were the kind that called Gandhi "... a half naked fakir... ". You would know whom I am referring to.
Maybe you still haven't come across William Dalrymple's book " The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World ".
Roslyn Ross, maybe you need to study some history (and work on your critical thinking skills?)
Here are some resources ->
(1) Dr Shashi Tharoor - Looking Back at the British Raj in India (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB5ykS-_-CI)
(2) Dr Shashi Tharoor MP - Britain Does Owe Reparations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4)
(3) Read the book "An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32618967-an-era-of-darkness)
Read ANY book on India or talk to ANY (non-white-supremacist) historian about British colonialism of India.
Or, continue pretending you know history and keep inventing and twisting narratives to satiate your 'Western culture' supremacy.
Rosslyn Ross is a full-blown colonialist and Genocide apologist. The only reason she sides with the Palestinians is because she is also a Jew-hater and a white supremacist (as observed by many of her comments).
I would humbly suggest that despite the Indian confidence in its own brilliance and superiority the nation has hardly excelled since independence. I do not think spending billions on space programmes and the military is an achievement when most Indians still shit in the street and the Government and powerful do not care.
As Ghandi said, if the Government wanted every Indian to have a flushing toilet it would happen. The caste-ridden Indian society is one of the most racist, unjust and misogynistic on earth.
It is because India wants to control Kashmir that Pakistan is there. One would think India had enough to do to look after its people rather than playing colonial bully. China has done far, far more for its people than India has.
Roslyn Ross, you are one sick, twisted, racist, white supremacist peace of work - not to mention utterly disgusting in your support of colonial regimes and genocides perpetrated by Western civilizations.
Please seek professional therapy - you desperately need it!
"The caste-ridden Indian society is one of the most racist, unjust and misogynistic on earth."
So you're telling us that 200 years of British imperial rule and the East India Company failed to correct the racist, unjust and misogynistic caste system? No shit, Roslyn! In fact it PERPETUATED IT!!
Thank you Tom.
So, if Indians have not changed their caste system in nearly a century after independence, what makes you think the British could have eradicated it?
https://www.ndtv.com/video/young-couple-set-on-fire-woman-s-family-was-against-inter-caste-marriage-514583
From 2019.
Forbidden love: Indian inter-caste marriage ends in husband’s murder, allegedly on order of father-in-law
Pranay Perumalla and Amrutha Varshini were in love and about to become parents when Pranay, a Dalit, was hacked to death allegedly on the order of his father-in-law. In India, despite rapid modernisation, the caste system maintains its stubborn grip on society
NEW DELHI — An Indian runaway couple were allegedly attacked outside a court in northern Uttar Pradesh state, barely a week after they released a video on social media desperately pleading for police protection from the woman’s father who despised her relationship with a man from a so-called ‘untouchable’ Hindu caste.
Sakshi Mishra, from a Brahmin caste — the tip of the Hindu caste pyramid — had earlier this month secretly married her childhood friend Ajitesh Kumar, 29, a member of the 300 million-strong but historically marginalised Dalit community —formerly known as ‘untouchables’ — that rests at the bottom of a rigid Hindu caste hierarchy. Source, TRT World.
From 2024.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/tragic-honour-killing-jajpur-man-murdered-over-inter-caste-marriage/articleshow/113864487.cms
Any understanding of India would make it clear that destroying the caste system was almost impossible.
And in fact it was another version of the British aristocratic system so the Indian upper castes and English, upper classes anyway, fitted well with each other. I am not saying that was a good thing, just stating it as a fact.
And the marriage of caste and religion made it even harder to bring changes. The best the British could do was try to improve life for the lower castes, particularly the Untouchables, and to ban atrocities like Suttee.
If the British perpetuated the caste system then logic says it would have declined after independence. It has not. Women are still considered the source of evil, as are the poor, crippled and those with very black skin and higher castes still employ Untouchables to flush their toilets.
Flying in and out of India for nearly five years, I can assure you the airline hosties hated the flights into and out of India because the Indians refused to flush toilets after use. Then again, non-Indians are also considered to be Untouchables so that was the job of the cabin crew.
Young men and women who attempt to marry out of caste are still murdered, with the women raped first. India, if it changes at all, does so very slowly.
The plight of the lower castes remains entrenched today and Indians have been free to make changes for nearly 80 years and they have chosen not to.
I noticed in the "timeline" from the NYT, no mention of that 1948 Plebiscite that is still outstanding, that promised a vote on Kashmir's status.
Too depressing and heartbreaking - is there any hope anywhere?
And insects- I have a fair few flowering plants in my garden ( planted to attract Insects) the other day saw one bee and one butterfly, that's it( Sydney where it's a ridiculous 27 degrees today)
I no longer trust the phrase "terror attack" since nowadays it could mean a resistance operation, a protestor saying "stop genocide" or a Muslim sneezing. Does anyone know what happened in Kashmir, from alternative media sources?
There is a long history of border conflicts (that's the background) between India and Pakistan. This is the latest in the ongoing tit-for-tat border fighting/terrorist attacks.
In brief, since Modi came to power in 2014, he has been converting India into a Hindu nationalist state (instead of the secular republic as written in the Indian constitution). Indian-controlled Kashmir is the only Muslim majority state in India. Modi is trying to convert Indian-controlled Kashmir into a Hindu majority state by changing laws and clamping down on the Kashmiri people. (BTW, There is also a Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and a Chinese-controlled Kashmir). Just as the British colonized the ME and divided Palestine into Israel and Palestine, the British divided India into Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
There is much more to the history, but basically it is the Hindutva ideology of the BJP (Modi's party) that has been causing most of the problems in Kashmir (and the rest of India).
One might also add the CIA's long term relations with the Dali Lama in Tibet, the practice of effective class/caste slavery, and China's rightful claims to the region.
No, I'm not going to refer to the CIA here - as it is extraneous to the Kashmiri issue.
Also, this is not an issue about class/caste slavery or a dispute with China (which is a separate concern not on the same level as the border disputes with Pakistan).
Chang, I gotta ask: You patrol this comment section day and night. I typically agree with your statements, but am curious. How do you have the time or mental bandwidth for so much Substack commentary?
Multitasking. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
https://ket.org/program/amanpour-and-company/imran-khan-on-the-kashmir-dispute/
Again, linking something doesn't make an argument for you. Imran Khan is irrelevant to this Kashmir dispute and incident.
No longer? Hell, the entire Star Wars movie franchise is based on the fact that the imperial powers and their proxies (US - Israel) have always labeled inconvenient and rebellious indigenous people as "terrorists" - it's baked into the cake. And you're god damned right - the Houthis, Hamas and a few others are the only legitimate resistance groups that have the balls and the conviction to stick to their guns in the face of massive military and economic forces.
On India-Pakistan, I wonder what the situation would be if the US didn't engineer/push along the soft coup of Imran Khan?
>>"On India-Pakistan, I wonder what the situation would be if the US didn't engineer/push along the soft coup of Imran Khan?"
This incident/on-going dispute has NOTHING to do with Imran Khan or the US doing anything to Pakistan. There is a long history on the Kashmiri conflict going back to the partition of India in 1947.
If you don't think Khan would have handled recent events differently, then it's a purely speculative argument we'd be having. "They" got rid of him for a reason, though, and that's not excusing Modi's hindutva supremacist bullshit, which I think we can all easily call out.
Again, this has little to do with ANY Pakistani leader. Please brush up on your history of Kashmir and the actual conflict.
You seem to come from a place of not knowing enough about the background - and throwing around theories willy-nilly doesn't help any.
So you're basically saying that no matter who leads any country, events based on historical border grievances are set in stone. OK
No, that's NOT what I'm saying. I'm saying that the Kashmir conflict has been going on since 1947 under multiple prime ministers and heads of states with different ideologies. This conflict supercedes 'leaders'. This conflict would continue to exist regardless of if India had Modi as a Prime Minister or not.
That's why I asked you to look at the history in more detail. Only with understanding the complicated history of Kashmir will you obtain a better grasp of the multiple underlying factors, politics, and geographical importance of the region (+ resources) for Pakistan, India, and China.
All I can write, over and over and over again, is GOD DAMN BERSERK, COLONIAL/GENOCIDAL ZIONISM!--every element of it, of course including 'Christian' Zionism.
(I've been noting what I term credible nuggets of data that the elegant/passionate SR for Palestine Francesca Albanese is seriously on the hit list for assassination. Possible/probable? With Colonial/Genocidal Zionism, of course, ANYTHING is on the table....)
The Yemen war won't de-escalate any time soon. The Houthis will continue to strike Israel with their missiles and drones as long as Israel attacks Gaza and the West Bank. The only way for Netanyahu to stay out of jail is to continue the ethnic cleansing. Trump either doesn't understand the Houthis' position, or he's getting tired of being led around by the nose by Bibi!
They put a guy on the spectrum in charge of space flight and they think we're going to Mars? Such normal times.