Trump: The Panglossian President in a Dystopian World.
Cynical reference to America's complicity in exploding pagers in Lebanon (Cedars of) and even a coded threat to Trump himself? It was certainly explicitly made in the Security Council!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRtN5l02X2c
I find the world and the leaders of nations in it, profoundly depressing and disturbing. I suppose it has always been so.
We are all subject to forces outside our control and I suppose this applies no less to politicians than to us. Idealism and good intentions quickly founder on reality's reefs and pragmatic headwinds. With seven or eight billion individuals, grouped into nearly two hundred 'states' (195), each with their own problems and priorities, I suppose it is not surprising there is competition, in some cases breaking into open hostilities. There is general agreement that co-operation is better than discord; to "Jaw, jaw is better than to war, war", in Churchill's famous phrase. Nevertheless where important interests and ambitions are in direct and unresolvable conflict, violence can and does errupt.
Ukraine and Israel are two current examples. Warfare is brutal and inhuman. It is the antithesis of civilized activity. It permits and encourages the worst and most appalling human behaviour, not we should note limited to so-called 'terrorist groups' but by sophisticated nation-states also. In fact in respect of their destructive power, it is so-called 'civilized' nations that are the chief cause of terror and destruction around the world, yet there is always a concocted excuse or justification to make the accusation go away.
The United States, and by extension the world, has a new President, elected by virtue of his rhetoric and chutzpah. His two main themes were national greatness and world peace, neither of which are particularly novel or unpredictable, but they were effective in securing his land-slide success. Nothing seems to phase him and he adopts a panglossian view of problems considered insurmountable by everyone else. Obstacles disappear in this "all is for the best in this best of possible worlds".
Voters tend to be conflicted over strong leadership: they want it but they recoil from its consequences. Promises often turn out to be illusionary or positively destructive, but life goes on. It has to. The heady world of the political stars may bear little relationship to the world of those the pronouncements and policies affect. Could this be more apposite than to the pronouncements President Donald Trump and his great plans for Gaza?
In his recent press conference with the understandably 'blinking' King of Jordan (See above) forced to back-track on his earlier firm conviction that war would be inevitable if Palestinians were forced upon him, the one question not asked of Trump in his great plans, was have you ever been to Gaza, have you ever spoken to Gazans? In fact it would appear he has spoken to everyone - the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Lebonese, the Syrians and of course the Israelis, for whom apparently he acts as Land Agent - everyone except the people his Pangossian ideas directly affect.
Nor is it possible to find words to adequately express the audacity of labouring over what a 'hell-hole' Gaza is and how unliveable, without conceding the fact that it has been American munitions that have created the devastation. Has there ever been a more delusional or specious non sequitur to match it?
If carried out, his plans to presumably forceably remove if necessary. two million people - leaving aside for the moment those that live on the West Bank - it would be up there with Turkey's treatment of the Albanians, of the Greeks, of Stalin's treatment of Ukrainians, of Hitler's of the Jews, Israel's treatment of the Palestinians from the 1948 'Nakba' to the present day and yes, even of the Jews expulsion by the Romans two millennia ago!
Trump says the Palestinians want to leave Gaza, and its neighbours want to take them, which can only be regarded as wishful thinking. The whole scheme is a thinly disguised land-grab, not for the people who live there, but for their persecutors, gaolors, torturers and killers who have treated it as an 'open air prison' and concentration camp for years.
Neither he, or obviously Netanyahu, show any sympathy or empathy for the oppressed party, gleefully ignoring the horrendous condition of Palestinians released from Israeli confinement, whilst echoing Netanyahu's script about the condition of a couple of Israeli hostages - bombed and starved by Israelis themselves. Does he not realise that kow-towing to a tyrant of a relatively small nation, because he is in hock to the wealthy jewish American caucus, brings his whole nation and proposal into disrepute?
Could there have been any image more humiliating for America than the photograph of Trump grinning manically next to Netanyahu and sliding his chair under him like a paid lacky? Now he threaten more bombs to Gaza - and the West Bank - unless his demands are met.
One thing is clear in all this, despite his protestations to the contrary, Trump is no friend of Palestinians. He is a paid up member of the Zionist plan for an exclusive jewish 'Greater Israel', that has violence, intimidation, vicious discrimination and apartheid at its very heart, all the very opposite of the principles of the American Constitution he has only recently sworn to uphold.
Instead he appears to have become the agent of a foreign power, an autocrat imposing conditions on foreign nationals without consultation or consent, in short a tyrannical leader of the worst kind, intent on just another deplorable American foreign policy blunder, in a litany of them, supporting immoral despots rather than opposing and controlling them.
Is this the legacy he wants to be remembered for, or is he too, like us, merely subject to external forces outside his control?
President George W. Bush's chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, has a message for people who are excusing President Trump's racism:
"I had fully intended to
ignore President Trump’s latest round of racially charged taunts against an African American elected official, and an African American activist, and an African American journalist and a whole city with a lot of African Americans in it. I had every intention of walking past Trump’s latest outrages and writing about the self-destructive squabbling of the Democratic presidential field, which has chosen to shame former vice president Joe Biden for the sin of being an electable, moderate liberal.
But I made the mistake of pulling James Cone’s 'The Cross and the Lynching Tree' off my shelf — a book designed to shatter convenient complacency. Cone recounts the case of a white mob in Valdosta, Ga., in 1918 that lynched an innocent man named Haynes Turner. Turner’s enraged wife, Mary, promised justice for the killers. The sheriff responded by arresting her and then turning her over to the mob, which included women and children. According to one source, Mary was 'stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death.'
God help us. It is hard to write the words. This evil — the evil of white supremacy, resulting in dehumanization, inhumanity and murder — is the worst stain, the greatest crime, of U.S. history. It is the thing that nearly broke the nation. It is the thing that proved generations of Christians to be vicious hypocrites. It is the thing that turned normal people into moral monsters, capable of burning a grieving widow to death and killing her child.
When the president of the United States plays with that fire or takes that beast out for a walk, it is not just another political event, not just a normal day in campaign 2020. It is a cause for shame. It is the violation of martyrs’ graves. It is obscene graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. It is, in the eyes of history, the betrayal — the re-betrayal — of Haynes and Mary Turner and their child. And all of this is being done by an ignorant and arrogant narcissist reviving racist tropes for political gain, indifferent to the wreckage he is leaving, the wounds he is ripping open.
Like, I suspect, many others, I am finding it hard to look at resurgent racism as just one in a series of presidential offenses or another in a series of Republican errors. Racism is not just another wrong. The Antietam battlefield is not just another plot of ground. The Edmund Pettus Bridge is not just another bridge. The balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel is not just another balcony. As U.S. history hallows some causes, it magnifies some crimes.
What does all this mean politically? It means that Trump’s divisiveness is getting worse, not better. He makes racist comments, appeals to racist sentiments and inflames racist passions. The rationalization that he is not, deep down in his heart, really a racist is meaningless. Trump’s continued offenses mean that a large portion of his political base is energized by racist tropes and the language of white grievance. And it means — whatever their intent — that those who play down, or excuse, or try to walk past these offenses are enablers.
Some political choices are not just stupid or crude. They represent the return of our country’s cruelest, most dangerous passion. Such racism indicts Trump. Treating racism as a typical or minor matter indicts us."
— Michael Gerson
The Oxford Union debate, November 28, 2024, considered the motion- “The House believes Israel is an Apartheid state responsible for genocide"
The motion was
passed overwhelmingly. The vote will go down in history as one of the pivotal moments in the global tidal wave against zionism and the zionist American imperial war machine.
Here is the text of Susan Abulhawa’s presentation.
“I will not take questions until I’m finished speaking; so please refrain from interrupting me.
Addressing the challenge of what to do about the indigenous inhabitants of the land Chaim Weizman, a Russian Jew, said to the World Zionist Congress in 1921 that Palestinians were akin to “the rocks of Judea, obstacles that had to be cleared on a difficult path."
David Gruen, a Polish Jew, who changed his name to David Ben Gurion to sound relevant to the region, said. "We must expel Arabs and take their places”
There are thousands of such conversations among the early zionists who plotted and implemented the violent colonization of Palestine and the annihilation of her native people.
But they were only partially successful, murdering or ethnically cleansing 80% of Palestinians, which meant that 20% of us remained, an enduring obstacle to their colonial fantasies, which became the subject of their obsessions in the decades that followed, especially after conquering what remained of Palestine in 1967.
Zionists lamented our presence and they debated publicly in all circles—political, academic, social, cultural circles—regarding what do with us; what to do about the Palestinian birthrate, about our babies, which they dub a demographic threat.
Benny Morris, who was originally meant to be here, once expressed regret that Ben Gurion “did not finish the job” of getting rid of us all, which would have obviated what they refer to as the “Arab problem.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, a Polish Jew whose real name is Benjamin Mileikowsky, once bemoaned a missed opportunity during the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising to expel large swaths of the Palestinian population “while world attention was focused on China.”
Some of their articulated solutions to the nuisance of our existence include a “break their bones” policy in the 80s and 90s, ordered by Yitzhak Rubitzov, Ukrainian Jew who changed his name to Yitzhak Rabin (for the same reasons).
That horrific policy that crippled generations of Palestinians did not succeed in making us leave. And frustrated by Palestinian resilience, a new discourse arose, especially after a massive natural gas field was discovered off the coast of Northern Gaza worth trillions of dollars.
This new discourse is echoed in the words of Colonel Efraim Eitan, who said in 2004, “we have to kill them all.”
Aaron Sofer, an Israeli so-called intellectual and political advisor, insisted in 2018 that “we have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.”
When I was in Gaza, I saw a little boy no more than 9 years whose hands and part of his face, had been blown off from a booby trapped can of food that soldiers had left behind for Gaza’s starving children. I later learned that they had also left poisoned food for people in Shujaiyya, and in the 1980s and 90s, Israeli soldiers had left booby trapped toys in southern Lebanon that exploded when excited children picked them up.
The harm they do is diabolical, and yet, they expect you to believe they are the victims. Invoking Europe’s holocaust and screaming antisemitism, they expect you to suspend fundamental human reason to believe that the daily sniping of children with so called “kill shots” and the bombing of entire neighborhoods that bury families alive and wipe out whole bloodlines is self-defense.
They want you to believe that a man who had not eaten a thing in over 72 hours, who kept fighting even when all he had was one functioning arm, that this man was motivated by some innate savagery and irrational hatred or jealousy of Jews, rather than the indominable yearning to see his people free in their own homeland.
It’s clear to me that we’re not here to debate whether Israel is an apartheid or genocidal state. This debate is ultimately about the worth of Palestinian lives; about the worth of our schools, research centers, books, art, and dreams; about the worth of the homes we worked all our lives to build and which contain the memories of generations; about the worth of our humanity and our agency; the worth of bodies and ambitions.
Because if the roles were reversed—if Palestinians had spent the last eight decade stealing Jewish homes, expelling, oppressing, imprisoning, poisoning, torturing, raping and killing them; if Palestinians had killed an estimated 300,000 Jews in one year, targeted their journalists, their thinkers, their healthcare workers, their athletes, their artists, bombed every Israeli hospital, university, library, museum, cultural center, synagogue, and simultaneously set up an observation platform where people came watch their slaughter as if a tourist attraction;
if Palestinians had corralled them by the hundreds of thousands into flimsy tents, bombed them in so called safe zones, burned them alive, cut off their food, water, and medicine;
if Palestinians made Jewish children wander barefoot with empty pots; made them gather the flesh of their parents into plastic bags; made them bury their siblings, cousins and friends; made them sneak out from their tents in the middle of the night to sleep on their parents’ graves; made them pray for death just to join their families and not be alone in this terrible world anymore, and terrorized them so utterly that their children lose their hair, lose their memory, lose their minds, and made those as young as 4 and 5 year old were die of heart attacks;
if we mercilessly forced their NICU babies to die, alone in hospital beds, crying until they could cry no more, died and decomposed in the same spot;
if Palestinians used wheat flour aid trucks to lure starving jews, then opened fire on them when they gathered to collect a day’s bread; if Palestinians finally allowed a food delivery into a shelter with hungry Jews, then set fire to the entire shelter and aid truck before anyone could taste the food;
if a Palestinian sniper bragged about blowing out 42 Jewish kneecaps in one day as one Israeli soldier did in 2019; if a Palestinian admitted to CNN that he ran over hundreds of Jews with his tank, their squished flesh lingering in the tank treads;
if Palestinians were systematically raping Jewish doctors, patients, and other captives with hot metal rods, jagged and electrified sticks, and fire extinguishers, sometimes raping to death, as happened with Dr Adnan alBursh and others;
if Jewish women were forced to give birth in filth, get C-sections or leg amputations without anesthesia; if we destroyed their children then decorated our tanks with their toys; if we killed or displaced their women then posed with their lingerie…
if the world were watching the livestreamed systematic annihilation of Jews in real time, there would be no debating whether that constituted terrorism or genocide.
And yet two Palestinians—myself and Mohammad el-Kurd— showed up here to do just that, enduring the indignity of debating those who think our only life choices should be to leave our homeland, submit to their supremacy, or die politely and quietly.
But you would be wrong to think that I came to convince you of anything. Thehouse resolution, though well-meaning and appreciated, is of little consequence in the midst of this holocaust of our time.
I came in the spirit of Malcolm X and Jimmy Baldwin, both of whom stood here and in Cambridge before I was born, facing finely dressed well-spoken monsters who harbored the same supremacist ideologies as Zionism—these notions of entitlement and privilege, of being divinely favored, blessed, or chosen.
I’m here for the sake of history. To speak to generations not yet born and for the chronicles of this extraordinary time where the carpet bombing of defenseless indigenous societies is legitimized.
I’m here for my grandmothers, both of whom died as penniless refugees while foreign Jews lived in their stolen homes.
And I also came to speak directly to zionists here and everywhere.
We let you into our homes when your own countries tried to murder you and everyone else turned you away. We fed, clothed, gave you shelter, and we shared the bounty of our land with you, and when the time was ripe, you kicked us out of our own homes and homeland, then you killed and robbed and burned and looted our lives.
You carved out our hearts because it is clear you do not know how to live in the world without dominating others.
You have crossed all lines and nurtured the most vile of human impulses, but the world is finally glimpsing the terror we have endured at your hands for so long, and they are seeing the reality of who you are, who you’ve always been. They watch in utter astonishment the sadism, the glee, the joy, and pleasure with which you conduct, watch, and cheer the daily details of breaking our bodies, our minds, our future, our past.
But no matter what happens from here, no matter what fairytales you tell yourself and tell the world, you will never truly belong to that land. You will never understand the sacredness of the olives trees, which you’ve been cutting down and burning for decades just to spite us and to break our hearts a little more. No one native to that land would dare do such a thing to the olives. No one who belongs to that region would ever bomb or destroy such ancient heritage as Baalbak or Bittir, or destroy ancient cemeteries as you destroy ours, like the Anglican cemetery in Jerusalem or the resting place of ancient Muslim scholars and warriors in Maamanillah. Those who come from that land do not desecrate the dead; that’s why my family for centuries were the caretakers of the Jewish cemetery in the mount of olives, as labors of faith and care for what we know is part of our ancestry and story.
Your ancestors will always be buried in your actual homelands of Poland, Ukraine, and elsewhere around the world from whence you came. The mythos and folklore of the land will always be alien to you.
You will never be literate in the sartorial language of the thobes we wear, that sprang from the land through our foremothers over centuries—every motif, design, and pattern speaking to the secrets of local lore, flora, birds, rivers, and wildlife.
What your realestate agents call in their high-priced listings “old Arab home” will always hold in their stones the stories and memories of our ancestors who built them. The ancient photos and paintings of the land will never contain you.
You will never know how it feels to be loved and supported by those who have nothing to gain from you, and in fact, everything to lose. You will never know the feeling of masses all over the world pouring into the streets and stadiums to chant and sing for your freedom; and it is not because you are Jewish, as you try to make the world believe, but because you are depraved violent colonizers who think your Jewishness entitles you to the home my grandfather and his brothers built with their own hands on lands that had been in our family for centuries. It is because Zionism is a blight onto Judaism and indeed onto humanity.
You can change your names to sound more relevant to the region and you can pretend falafel and hummus and zaatar are your ancient cuisines, but in the recesses of your being, you will always feel the sting of this epic forgery and theft, that’s why even the drawings of our children pasted hung on walls at the UN or in a hospital ward send your leaders and lawyers into hysteric meltdowns.
You will not erase us, no matter how many of us you kill and kill and kill, all day every day. We are not the rocks Chaim Weizmann thought you could clear from the land. We are its very soil. We are her rivers and her trees and her stories, because all of that was nurtured by our bodies and our lives over millennia of continuous, uninterrupted habitation of that patch of earth between the Jordan and Mediterranean waters, from our Canaanite, our Hebrew, our Philistine, and our Phoenician ancestors, to every conqueror or pilgrim who came and went, who married or raped, loved, enslaved, converted between religions, settled or prayed in our land, leaving pieces of themselves in our bodies and our heritage. The fabled, tumultuous stories of that land are quite literally in our DNA. You cannot kill or propagandize that away, no matter what death technology you use or what Hollywood and corporate media arsenals you deploy.
Someday, your impunity and arrogance will end. Palestine will be free; she will be restored to her multi-religious, multi-ethnic pluralistic glory; we will restore and expand the trains that run from Cairo to Gaza to Jerusalem, Haifa, Tripoli, Beirut, Damascus, Amman, Kuwait, Sanaa, and so on; we will put an end to the zionist American war machine of domination, expansion, extraction, pollution, and looting.
..and you will either leave, or you will finally learn to live with others as equals.”
Tim VeaterGeoffrey White It is generally agreed that Ukraine is an utterly broken and corrupt nation. Any young man with sense has either left or is attempting to. To remain is a virtual death sentence. You only have to take a cursory look at the Biden's
involvement to see how America and Ukraine have interacted for the former's benefit, topped off by Biden's comprehensive Presidential family pardon. It is said that Zelinski is now worth billions and I'm sure he's not the only one. As in Israel, Britain finds itself behind dangerous, immoral and criminal regimes and sells it as supporting freedom and democracy. Nothing new. Check out Afghanistan,Iraq, Libya and Syria.
Geoffrey WhiteTim Veater the Economist Intelligence Unit places Ukraine at number 91 in its democracy index of the nations and Russia at number 144. The United Kingdom is at number 18. Norway is number 1. Ukraine's position will doubtless improve so that it can meet the criteria for membership of the EU. I have no knowledge of Mr Želinský's personal circumstances. The Americans offered to evacuate him from Ukraine when the Russians invaded on 24th February 2023. He refused their offer.
Tim VeaterGeoffrey White Bit like Top of the Pops. Whose up, whose down. I admire your optimism that Ukraine will improve let alone gain access to the EU. Despite huge losses, Russia is in a commanding military position both geographically and demographically. A completely false narative has been peddled by the western media. Only huge European and American forces and the threat of nuclear exchange can prevent Russian victory. Boris Johnson bears a big responsibility for scuppering a settlement a couple of years ago since when countless more have been killed or maimed. Only people unaffected bray for the war to continue and for Russia to be beaten.
“Ceasefire on verge of collapse. The King Of Universe aka Orange Man wants Gaza as prime real estate”
So my dear friends, this title sums it all up. I believe by now you heard that despicable orange blob thinks he is a Lord of the Earth and can simply move human beings around as he pleases. If they refuse, he would simply kill them. Hint: sending “mother of bombs” to occupying entity. Today one of his collaborators and servants, which happens to live in our neighboring
country, paid him a visit and took his orders. I guess, whoever refuse to leave Gaza, will leave his bones on the soil of our beloved motherland, Gaza. There is no other way. Occupation broke ceasefire already many times. They were never to be trusted. We know that from years long experience. Imagine during ceasefire, they keep on killing people. They don’t let aid to come. They violate agreement, and of course…emboldened by orange blob, they started threatening to resume killing. There are many evidence of it, enough to check reports, videos, pictures, testimonies from the ground. Of course the lying western media will spin it and blame resistance for breaching the ceasefire. At this point, no person with a brain cell believes them anymore. But this is the situation we are in now.
I wanted to leave Gaza before, many times. I was even a refugee in Greece. I tried everything possible to stay in Europe and start my life there. I dreamt of finding a job, maybe building a career, doesn’t matter how humble. I dreamt of traveling, learning about new cultures, meeting people from all over the world. I dreamt of helping my family and supporting them. But I didn’t make it. When this genocide started, I wanted to evacuate my family and myself. I wanted to stay alive, first and foremost. I opened “go fund me” and thanks to you, my dear friends, I managed to evacuate my mother and younger brother Tariq to Egypt. You saved them, my dear friends. And I will never be able to repay you for that! One of my friends asked me few days ago how come I am collecting funds for evacuation and claim I want to stay in Gaza…I never wanted to leave Gaza permanently. Ever. Temporarily, yes, to save my family and myself, but always with dream to come back to my beloved Gaza. Maybe with some funds to start my business. Maybe with some new skills and education gained abroad. But to leave and never return to my beloved Gaza- NEVER!!! And now, being threatened to leave or be killed…what should I chose? What would you do if you were me?
Nobody is coming to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide. On contrary, more and more of our neighbors are betraying us. Like we literally mean nothing and our lives are worthless. And USA is showing its intent to eliminate Gazan people. I never thought that USA would be our biggest hater, but unfortunately, it seems it is. The world is obeying them like they own literally the entire planet. Why is it so?
Please, my dear friends, pray for me. Pray for us. Pray for Gaza.
We only have Allah with us.''
The western media, slavishly representing western government and interests, is deeply and dishonestly biased. The constant reference to Hamas and Hezbollah as 'terrorists' is an intentional slur, intended to influence the public mind. Israel can kill all it wants - 'it is a just war' These groups kill in the act of defending themselves and their territory - 'it is unjustified terrorism'. It is long since time, Netanyahu and his cronies were made to get out of the occupied territories for good, stop grievously abusing its occupants and agree either a greater Israel based on equal human rights and protection for all, or a truly autominous independent Palestinian entity. The people of the West must demand an end to the news bias and lies and an end to USA/Israel hegmonic death and destruction. (TTV)
21.2.2025: We should not and could not overlook the fact that most of the current fascist leaders in Jerusalem trace their forebears to this central European region. The past and present affiliations and loyalties are not at all clear-cut. Hitler hated both jews and communists, led largely by Jews. This also represented a prevailing Western view. Ukrainians supported the Nazi incursion for oil and wheat and in the drive against Moscow and assissted the expulsion of the Jews and others. It was the Russians who lost twelve million fighting Germany, eventually taking Berlin and in the process freeing the concentration camp prisoners. A Jew was installed in Kiev backed by a largely Jewish and right wing Asos Brigade, which the West both opposed and supported. Zelensky, a sexually indeterminate comedian, was elected on a promise to end the war and promptly fuelled it on instructions from the West. There is no doubt he has corruptly benefitted personally from his position, yet has been hailed an heroic figure in the West. Putin's 'Special Operation' was sold on the basis of protecting native Russians under attack and fighting Nazis. There is some truth in this as is the fact that it has been the West that has broken the Budapest Convention that guanteed Ukrainian neutrality. Given all its history from the Revolution on, including Hitler's invasion and the subsequent Cold War, who can blame it for resisting the American NATO takeover of Ukraine on its strategic door-step? Someone else can work out how all these paradoxes and contradictions play out now in the context of Trump's attempts to end a bloody war. (TTV)
21.2.2025: Geoffrey White It is generally agreed that Ukraine is an utterly broken and corrupt nation. Any young man with sense has either left or is attempting to. To remain is a virtual death sentence. You only have to take a cursory look at the Biden's involvement to see how America and Ukraine have interacted for the former's benefit, topped off by Biden's comprehensive Presidential family pardon. It is said that Zelinski is now worth billions and I'm sure he's not the only one. As in Israel, Britain finds itself behind dangerous, immoral and criminal regimes and sells it as supporting freedom and democracy. Nothing new. Check out Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. (TTV)
21.2.2025: Let's be clear, Ukraine has cost American tax payers about 200 BILLION dollars. Trump claims its 300. Britain, £13 billion. The EU over one billion Euros. The larger proportion has gone on weapons and ultimately widespread destruction (which of course will have to be paid for) and over a million deaths of both Russians and Ukrainians. A billion, it is worth reminding ourselves is a thousand million. Even a million pounds is a lot of money let alone hundreds of billions for wholly destructive purposes. Of course the question is where did it really go? The arms industry is inherently corrupt. Nothing is bought and sold without bribes and back-handers. Where is the accountancy? Just in Iraq where billions of dollars went missing, and the trillions from the Pentagon, this is basically a process where states rob from their people and hand it over to criminals and war lords, with ensuing waste of life and property. It keeps happening because the people in charge of it all, are the people who benefit financially, whilst the common people and electorates are kept on side by patriotic jargon and irrational fears and enmities. Even if the threats are not real, they have to be created for the falacy to be maintained. Jingoism is dangerous. Despite the billions expended, actual humans only find their lives more miserable and unbearable, lacking all the elements to call it civilized and humane. The disparity between rhetoric and reality could not be more stark, but politicians and media maintain the illusion by projecting an image of normality whilst censoring the actual devastating consequences of this madness. Meanwhile back home we are informed of 'black holes' in the economy and the necessity of more cuts and higher taxes. War enriches the few and pauperises the many. (TTV)
Almost a Valentine Sonnet
The morning has come and gone,
But where it went I do not know,
Outside the cold and damp and eastern wind,
I
think could presage snow.
Despite the cold, the coffee cup is hot
And warms my hand in holding it,
It's dark and sweet, sending a thrill right down my throat,
To where it warms the cockles of my heart.
I sip and slurp, there's no one here to hear.
My valentine day passed off, with not a boy or girl to care,
But many in the past, that caused a tear to fall,
Many a slip tween cup and lip, a lifetime isn't time at all,
The time it takes to empty it, leaving the vacant cup to cool,
I cough, I spit and think myself a fool
To value it or miss the passing years.
20.2.2025: Ah Andrew, a tricky one. We can't overlook the fact that the Ukrainian war was made in Washington under previous administrations and that the current President is trying to end it. The British public has been largely shielded from its horrors to keep it on side, just as it has with the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Projecting Putin as another Hitler, whilst elsewhere he amiably shakes hands with our King helps no one and is confusing to say the least. As is the UK's position on an invading Russia whilst condoning an invading Israel. Billions and weaponry to the invaded in one scenario and to the invader in the other; admitting refugees from the one and denying entry from the other. Race, religion and colour appear to be determining criteria rather than humanity, justice or international law. There is no doubt that promises were broken and Russia was provoked by a continuous bombardment of the Eastern provinces before Putin advanced over the border. Millions have now been killed and cities reduced to rubble. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia or even push it back without full-scale, nuclear war which of course would end us all. Nor is Europe able or willing to engage the Russian forces. Compromise and settlement based on a neutral remnant Ukraine, appears the only option. That's what a pragmatic Trump is seeking and which NATO and Europe should support.
Tim Veater zionazis not jews..true jews follow their religion zionazis are european breed that has not much common with Judaism..
Tim Veater
Rising contributorLovejoy Mzili Trouble is they represent themselves as jews and are eager to level a charge of antisemitism when charged with agregious crimes. It is true that a significant number of jews by both birth and religion have distanced themselves from the actions of the zionist state, but the overwhelming proportion have allowed tribal affiliations to trump ethical and religious reservations. However this is not just an issue for jews as both the Christian and political leadership in the west has generally supported the insupportable and unquestionably gone along with all of the Israeli iniquitous propaganda and narrative, when it should have been calling out all of humanitarian crimes and condemning them. It took this stance, whilst at the very same time, hypocritically celebrating the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and claiming "Never again."
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