Most absurdly Trump thought he deserved the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. But he didn’t. Maria Corina Machado did for fighting a dictatorship in her country, whereas Trump is fighting to become America’s first dictator. Machado fights for her people. Trump fights against the American people he is supposed to represent. What he represents is a white supremacy NAZI cult. As Commander in Chief of War, he has declared war on Americans. He treats Hispanics the way Netanyahu treats Palestinians. He makes them disappear. And like the Palestinians whose land was invaded by the Israelites, Hispanics were in America before the Americans invaded and stole their land: “The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), signed on February 2, 1848, ended the war between the United States and Mexico. By its terms, Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. Mexico also relinquished all claims to Texas, and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern boundary with the United States” (The U.S. National Archives, now closed due to the shutdown of the federal government).
Friday, October 10, 2025
Thursday, October 2, 2025
Warning to Europe and America!
!!WARNING TO EUROPE!!
lose the Next war
with Russia
Sunday, September 7, 2025
Surfers
Last night I was again drawn to the pier and the sea. Now more than ever I feel the need to be close to the sea. I think I am beginning to understand the surfers who live for nothing more than to sit upon her just beyond where her waves break. Like meditative sea birds, they wait and watch. Sometimes they speak to one another, but mostly they are silent. They do not think; they do not speak. They are. For them there is nothing more important in life than surfing. For them it is a kind of childlike prayer to their God the sea. It is a great, powerful, and beautiful God. It is also a dumb God. Without the playful surfers, her greatness, her power, and her beauty would remain unknown and unappreciated. They are foolish looking creatures, these surfers, as odd looking to the rest of us as the seahorse. But they are at peace upon their sea. They have found, perhaps, all there is to find. Their God is simple, yet mysterious. They do not seek any greater knowledge of her, knowledge that might even destroy her mystery. Also, they do not seek that which even God cannot give. They seek no absolutes beyond their own beauty. They seek no absolute place in the scheme of things unless it be the sea. They know there is no such place. Nor do they seek absolute personal significance for their insignificant being. I think they prefer it that way. They are heroes without enemies. They are heroic, I believe, in their willingness to accept playfully the insignificance of their lives. In the morning before they work, they seek the belly of their God on which they sit and play like God’s fleas. And in the evening after their work is finished, they return to watch the reddish sun sink coldly into the sea. They do not seek immortality, for they do not seek that which belongs to nothing, not even to their God who will become brain-dead with the death of the last cosmic flea. They seek only to frolic and to play and not to brood and, of course, not to linger but to die quickly.
From the unpublished novel The Girl and the Philosopher
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Remembering When America Was Great
Yesterday, the small town of La Mure, France, celebrated America's role in bringing an end to World War II. Liberation came to La Mure on August 22, 1944. There was a parade with men dressed as American G.I.s. There were jeeps and other icons of that horrific war.
The French remember American soldiers as brave liberators:
Those soldiers were unlike the soldiers in today’s America serving America’s first dictator as oppressors of their own people. In 1944 America was the greatest nation in the world not because it was big, rich, and powerful but because of its willingness to sacrifice blood and treasure to help save the world from bloodthirsty expansionist dictators such as Hitler.
As an eighty-year-old American it’s heartbreaking to have witnessed America’s decline. My parents and extended family were of America’s Greatest Generation that sacrificed to destroy the evil that everywhere threatened the world during those years. Here is one of my three uncles who served in the war:
Like the French I recall that time when America was truly great, when the American president Franklin D. Roosevelt understood that greatness doesn’t come with amassing wealth and power but with the willingness to sacrifice to save others who cannot save themselves—as Jesus demands in his parable of the Good Samaritan, and as he sacrificed himself to save others.
That is how America is remembered and celebrated by the French, as a nation of heroes. But that is not the America of today. The America of today has the masked thugs of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) terrorizing Hispanic and Asian families—men, women, and children—arresting them and sending them to concentration camps or simply making them disappear in some authoritarian nation on Donald Trump's payroll. The age of heroes is over in America.
Once brave defenders
Of life, liberty, and happiness
Who bravely fought enemy soldiers
Now an ally of a cruel aggressor.
Of unarmed civilians
Men, Women, and Children
Once loved and respected
Now objects of fear and loathing.
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Uncle Ed’s Goodbye America Trip
“Hey, Grandpa, Uncle Ed’s here.
Turn off the news and come and see.” Grandpa heads upstairs and finds Ed
sitting on the porch with a glass of lemonade. He’s wearing a MAGA hat.
“Ed, what are you doing here?”
“Drinking lemonade. Downright tasty,
reminds me of the golden olden days.”
“So why the visit, Ed, though
you’re always welcome?” Grandpa sees Ed’s old camper parked the curb.
“You drove all that way in your old
camper. Can’t believe it.”
“Might be my last. Drove Highway 66
or what’s left of it. Lots of blue roads. Parts of I-40 for old times sake,
like the time you and I made the trip in my old VW bug of mine, which broke
down in the middle of nowhere. But she got us to a town too small to have a
name. You remember. We were visiting your mom for Christmas. Man was it cold.”
“Those dudes robbed us. Said they
had to remove the engine to fix the problem, an alternator!”
“Out in the middle of nowhere beggars
can’t be choosy. They certainly weren’t getting rich.”
“So why are you here?”
“My farewell trip. Wanted to see
what’s left of America, at least the America I knew.”
“Can’t believe you’d do that.”
“Had to get away.”
“You had to get away from
California. I thought you liked Comanche Junction.”
“Thought I would too. I moved there
mainly because an old aunt lived there. I’d never been there before. She was
the last of my tribe. And the name of the town was appealing. But she died a
few months after I got there and the town really had nothing to do with the
Indians. You’d never know it was once the hunting grounds of the Comanche and Kiowa.”
“Why didn’t you move?”
“Bought a house and too old to move
again. Just said fuck it. But now I’m thinking maybe I’ll have to move again.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah. Don’t know what I was
looking for, but I knew I had to get out of Orange County.”
“Because of the break-in?”
“Fucking Mexican gang-bangers. Those
Mexican gangs created a shit pile of bad karma for their own people. They break
into our country, or their parents did, and that’s how they show their
gratitude. Those gang-bangers created the MAGA nightmare that got Trump reelected
and them deported. They really betrayed their parents who took the risk to enter the country illegally to work, not to join gangs. I get that Americans hated the government even more after
Biden, so they elected a politician who hated the government as much as they
did. And MAGA government turned out to be worse than all the others and no
friend of the Trump supporters. The Big Beautiful Bill for billionaires proves
that much. It’s supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, for
the people, not a government run by billionaires for billionaires. Trump says he wants to make America great again. He never knew America. He has always lived in the amusement park of the super rich who never associate with Americans. And all
those spineless politicians voted for it just like they did for the Vietnam
War.”
“Except for Senators Wayne Morse and
Ernest Gruening. They voted against the war.”
“Those two heroes were like the sheriff
in High Noon, all alone among
cowards. The rest were collaborators who now live in infamy.”
“And because of Trump, Biden became
a saint. How ironic is that? He did as much as the Hispanics to get Trump
reelected. And MAGA is just a Charlie Manson cult full of hate that took over
the country. But I would have left Orange County anyway. A totally unnatural
place. Nature paved over with civilization. Had to go to a park to see a patch
of grass or drive through a ton of traffic to get to the ocean for a breath of
fresh air. But the break-in told me I needed to get out of town for my safety. I
mean my apartment complex looked like a jail with barred windows on all the first
floor apartments except mine. That should have been red flag, but it was all I
could afford if I wanted to own a place in my old age. They caught some bangers
breaking into other homes and wanted me to check them out in a lineup to see if
any were the same guys who robbed me. They told me they were members of a local
Mexican gang.”
“Did you go?”
“Hell no! One of the guys who
robbed me held a knife to my throat while his buddies ransacked my apartment. I
was in bed scared stiff. So even if they were the same guys, no way I was going
to testify against them. If they went to prison the rest of the gang would be
looking for revenge. So I put the apartment up for sale. Sold it for peanuts
and headed to Comanche Junction. But the bad karma in the form of Trump caught up with the bangers
and their parents who probably never broke a law except for coming into the
country illegally but were grateful that they would be able to build a new life
America. And I don’t blame them. The government never cared about defending the
borders. Like Putin, Trump doesn’t believe in borders. Says he does but only ours
because it got him elected but nobody’s else’s borders, like Canada’s and
Greenland’s.
“And the other monster created by
Hispanic bad karma was fucking run-amok ICE. What a bunch of thugs. Mussolini had
his Blackshirts and Hitler had his Brownshirts. Now Trump has ICE. They don’t
bother with lineups or trials. If you’re brown you’re guilty. If you got a
tattoo you’ll disappear in a prison that keeps convicts in cages criticized as
too cruel for animals by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
“I don’t blame the immigrants for
coming here to work and raise a family. Mexicans aren’t like Americans. They’re
not afraid of hard work. But their kids are something else, scary gangbangers
like that MS-13 gang who look like a bunch of zombie escapees from Doctor Moreau’s
island. Beast people! And that’s what got Terminator Trump reelected, and
understandably so. People don’t want to live on Doctor Moreau’s island. But now
they have to worry about ICE and the rest of us have to worry about MAGA. Never
thought I’d see the day.”
“LBJ and his Vietnam War seem like the good
old days. Then America just evaporated.”
“Smoking dope, making love, and
reading Camus and Kerouac, America’s last hurrah. Remember when we saw Peter,
Paul, and Mary with your brother and that Jewish girl he was in love with?”
“Yeah, I remember. I suppose he’s
better off in a way.”
“Nah, John wouldn’t think that. None
of the shit would bother him. He was Mr. Mellow.”
“Zig-Zag man. True enough. Nothing
bothered him so much that he couldn’t enjoy life. I think after his stint in Vietnam
he decided humanity was a lost cause so all you can do is enjoy life as best as
you can. He followed Candide’s advice that we got to cultivate our garden because
the rest of the world is so fucked up it can’t be fixed. And if it was fixed,
some narcissistic politician would break it again. That’s why he got a house on
cul-de-sac at the very edge of the city. His back yard was the desert. Now his
ashes are blowin in the wind over that desert. Just as he wanted.”
“I miss him.”
“Yeah. So you blew off Orange
County.”
“Never like the place anyway. There
was no edge to the city, just more city. I felt trapped like claustrophobic.”
“But Comanche Junction hasn’t worked out either?”
“Did at first, but then the Trumpers
wearing those darn MAGA hats appeared like the ghouls in that movie Night of the Living Dead. I think we saw
that together. Fucking creepy. Wasn’t long until everyone had to wear a MAGA hat.”
He pointed to his. “Make America Great Again. What a load of shit. Rumors were that some Biden’s people with
their own hats got lynched. Hell, I was more afraid of the Trump cult than I
was of the Mexican gangs in Orange County. The gangs were driven by the profit
motive, whereas MAGA is driven by hatred. The country’s really changed. Night of the Living Dead makes more sense
now than it did when it was made. It’s like the people are the bad guys.
“I always believed America was the
land of heroes. I watched too many movies like the John Wayne movies, Casablanca, High Noon, On the Waterfront
you know movies where the American hero stands up to the bad guys. Maybe it was
that way when those movies were made. Then the bad guys were a minority of
outlaws. No longer. Now ordinary citizens are the bad guys and they have taken
over the government. The age of heroes is over for America. It’s sickening. I’d
rather live in Ukraine, a land of heroes rather than backstabbing, money
worshipping Judases. America has become like that old movie Invaders from
Mars where the Martians take
control of people by inserting a mind control device into their necks. In the
movie you can’t trust neighbors any longer. The members of the MAGA cult have
had their minds implanted. They think they’re different from the BLM, ANTIFA,
and WOKE people who had their minds implanted by Marx's ideology of hatred but they ain’t. They’re all cults. America has become a
nation of cults. In the movie you can tell that a person is under the control
of the Martians by the puncture on their necks. With the MAGA cult it’s the
hats. Like the hats take control of people’s minds. So weird.”
“You’re wearing one.”
“For self-protection. Got it from an
old guy where I got gas. They were stacked up in the windows probably to show
the MAGA goons that he was one of them. But he wasn’t. ‘Ed,’ he said, ‘you
can’t be driving around without a MAGA hat. It’s dangerous.’ I noticed he wore
one. He went back into the store and got one and gave it to me. ‘You’ve been a
loyal customer, Ed. Wouldn’t want nothin to happen to you.’ So I got a MAGA hat, but figured I should hit
the road until the MAGA thing blew over. It hasn’t, has it?”
“No. So that’s why you’re wearing that
hat?”
“Yeah. I saw MAGAs roaming about like the walking dead looking for anyone without a MAGA hat to attack. I had to slow down for about a dozen blocking the road. One guy was revving a chainsaw like Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Another guy holding a bloody baseball bat approached the car. I pointed to my hat and they let me pass. I thought I was a goner. I was glad to get out into the wide open spaces with just nature. Fucking people!”
“Well you’re in California now and
it’s safe in most places but not if you’re wearing that hat. Get rid of it. If
Mexican gangbangers see you wearing it you’ll be used as a piñata. Since ICE
has been unleashed, Trump has become their number one enemy. Out here Trump is
considered Big Brother. So, Ed, are you looking for another place to live?”
“Maybe, but where? It would be like
finding a safe cabin on the Titanic after hitting the iceberg. That’s what MAGA
Trump is. A political iceberg that the good ship America just collided with.”
“Biden divided the country and the
idiot Dems thought Harris could heal it. What fools. Now she might run again. Apparently
she doesn’t know that old expression ‘fool me once, shame on you; fool me
twice, shame on me.’”
“What did you expect? Politicians never
learn from their mistakes because they blame everyone else for them. They just
want to be celebrities, you know in the limelight until they are voted out
office or drop dead from old age. They are totally disconnected from the
people—the ordinary folks trying to make a living and raise a family. The
government doesn’t want to represent the people. It wants the people to
represent the government. I remember when Biden was a hit man for the credit
card companies. He was against people declaring bankruptcy even if they over
used their credit cards to pay medical bills. I never liked the man. And Harris
had as much chance against the MAGA cult as a lady bug has against a steam
roller.
“The Good Ship America has been hitting
one political iceberg after another ever since LBJ and his Vietnam War. And now
the country is sinking fast. What was Biden thinking when he allowed immigrants
to flood into the country and then flew them all over the country as if he was
running an immigrant travel service? It's like Biden and Trump are in competition to be the worst U.S. president ever. Most likely it will be a tie. In any case, he set up Harris to
lose. She was already wearing cement shoes for supporting the burning of
American cities. I mean those folks came off as totally anti-American.
“I just don’t get it, none of it.
Anyway, the old America’s gone. The country we’re living in has become no
country for old men like in that movie. Comanche Junction was once Indian
territory. Then the white people moved in. I think a lot of Americans like me
think if they don’t get out of town they’ll end up like the Indians, who at
least have their reservations. So now the country has become like Putin’s
Russia, a MAGA dictatorship, and now the two dictators are to meet in Alaska to divvy up the spoils of war.”
“Never thought the Indians would be
better off than us.”
“Until Trump closes the
reservations. He’s heartless and backed up by the MAGA cult like Hitler’s brown
shirts. And now he’s in control of the government. I envy the Indians having a
place of their own that provides stability—you know, culturally. They deserved
reservations after what the white man did to them. I wonder what black folks
think about what’s going on with the MAGA predators having taken control of the
country. Apparently, black lives still don’t matter. The only lives that matter
are the members of the MAGA cult. Black people call black MAGAs Oreos. It’s
like the Charles Manson cult has taken control of the country. Politicians have
wrecked the country and now we're living among the wreckage. All people want is
stability, safety, and a cultural home of their own, not a dictatorship telling
everyone that they gotta live like the government says.”
“Indians have a cultural home that
can’t be taken from them, but for how long is anyone’s guess with that
monstrosity of a human being in the White House allowing ICE to drag people
from their homes, cars, jobs, and schools. Then they disappear. It’s a lot like
when the Nazis rounded up Jews and then made them disappear. Trump’s a sinister
magician, making people just disappear. First, it was the Negro slaves rounded
up in Africa, then the Indians exterminated or relocated, and now the
Hispanics. What I discovered on the road is that the only thing that doesn’t
change and is never evil is the land, nature. The hills and fields, grass and
trees, the sky and clouds are all that’s left that gives me pleasure. I’d pull
off where there was just nature and no people around. In the morning I’d fix
breakfast and enjoy the natural surroundings while I ate. One night I pulled
off the highway and searched for a place to sleep. When I woke I found myself
on an Indian reservation. There was nothing but an abandoned house and an old
church in the distance. When I got out of the camper, there was an Indian man waiting.
He said he was a Navajo chief.”
“Friend, do you know you’re on an
Indian reservation?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “I got lost during
the night but had to stop or fall asleep at the wheel. I’ll get going.”
“No hurry, friend. I am Chief Old
Fox. Where you headed?”
“Nowhere really. Going to visit a
friend from the old days, then I don’t know.”
“Don’t you have a home?”
“Did, but I don’t feel at home
there.” I showed him the MAGA hat.
“I see.”
“The town’s called Comanche Junction, but
there ain’t no Indians there. Wish there were. Everything has changed like it
did for your people.”
“Yes. Now my people live on islands
in a world that has become stranger and stranger to us.”
“You mean your reservations.”
“They are pieces of the old world
and its way of life. Have you been searching for an island of the old America
for yourself?”
“Not really, but I’m thinking about
it. Got to do something and soon.”
“Do you have a place in mind?”
“In a way. The old world of nature
without people, a place where there are no MAGA hats or any other political
hats.”
“You have no people then?”
“No longer. I feel like alien among
the new Americans as your people must have felt once white people arrived. Now
they are strangers even to me. I knew such change would come, but I was hoping
for something better. It’s strange how nations can be wrecked by stupid ideas.”
“Very strange. Like how Marx’s ideas
wrecked Russia, China, and North Korea, cutting their people off from the old
ways, giving them an artificial culture based on a blueprint invented by a man
who believed he knew how everyone should live. His blueprint made people artificial
like robots. And now the MAGA people are changing America to the way it was
when in a kind of madness Americans destroyed nature and its people, the Indians
and the wild creatures. They were motivated by greed and hate.”
“And the cult has taken control of
the government. Old timers like me feel like we’re living in the end times for
America. But that wasn’t true for your people. Conquest just cut you off,
didn’t completely destroy you. You still have your culture.”
“Yes and no. The old ways can’t
exist when the people of those ways have been destroyed or cut off from their
old way of life. Your people brought with them an idea—Christianity—they used to
replace the old beliefs, but many of us prefer the old ways, but others think
them foolish. So yes, I know what you’re feeling. I have felt the same way.”
“Do they think the old beliefs are more
foolish than Christianity?”
“As I said the old beliefs were
rooted in a way of life that has disappeared. We do not interact with the Earth
world as our ancestors did. And the white man’s religion does not encourage us
to do so. We’ve adopted the white man’s way of living and lost our own. We do
not live with the land as our ancestors did.”
“Why did Indian become Christians?”
“Most had no choice. It was forced
upon them. But the conquest of the white man proved that our beliefs lacked
power. The Ghost Dance was the last attempt of the Indians to call upon their
spirits to defeat their enemy by making them impervious to bullets. The result
was the Battle of Wounded Knee. The Indians were defeated and so were their
beliefs. So, many accepted the religion of the people who defeated them.”
“Why not just do without?”
“That goes against our nature.
People need something to believe in and to us nature is both sacred and
mysterious, so we think spiritual forces are at work in nature.”
“What about you?”
“To become a Christian, one must
give up Earth as the center of values. One doesn’t need a religion to consider Earth as sacred.
And we can’t go back to old religion, though we still tell the stories and
perform the old ceremonies.”
“So what is sacred?”
“Everything in nature is sacred.”
“Do all your people feel that way?”
“Most do. Though many of our young
people have lost their way because of the influence of the white man, but even
those who have lost their way still respect nature. Its value exists beyond the
religious myths of the white man and even those of the Indian.”
“I suppose there is no room for a
white man on the reservation.”
“You’d have to marry an Indian
woman, but there are places where you could live near the reservation and away
from your people. Is that what you want?”
“I would like to live close to
nature and away from my people, yes.”
“I understand. And you carry your
home with you, so perhaps it is possible. You cannot be one of us, but we will
not ignore you if you fall into difficulty.”
“Like if I got sick.”
“Yes. We would not abandon you just
because you are not one of us.”
“I appreciate that, but tell me
does anyone live in that house?”
“No. It was the home of a couple. The
man was a farmer. He owned much land. And he hired many of our men to help him
work it. His name was Ralph. We stand on the land that was once his, but when
he became sick he willed that once his wife died his farm the farm would be
given to us.”
“And his wife agreed?”
“Her name was Susan. She was a doctor
who cared for us for many years. They had no children. She knew us better than her
husband did. She loved us, and that is why the house is sacred to us. It is no
longer a place to be lived in.”
“And the church? It looks
abandoned.”
“It is, but it is still respected.
There is an interesting story about the doctor and the church. Would you like
to hear it?”
“I told the old chief that I would.
This is what he told me.”
Susan went to church every Sunday,
but stopped after her husband died. He never went to church but she did. One
Sunday she was found by Deer Woman, a medicine woman. Susan was sitting on the
side of the road looking very sad. Her husband had died a month earlier. Deer
Woman asked her why hadn’t gone to church. Susan responded saying, “What's the
point? Ralph’s dead and I know he isn’t in Heaven because there is no such
place. All they do in church is worship an old book.”
Deer Woman said that she understood
her sadness because she too had lost her husband.
“But you still have something,”
said Susan, “your people and your beliefs. I have nothing”
“You have your own people.”
“No I don’t. They’ve become
strangers to me. I have no religion. I’m too old to work. I have no people.
Tell me, Deer Woman, what I should do?”
“You have your garden and orchard
where you spend much of your time. And you have us though you are not one of us.”
“There was a time when your people
found religion in nature.”
“We still do,” said Deer Woman. “It’s
not like your people’s religion. There are ceremonies but no lectures because
there is no book. We enjoy ceremonies. They are not about us but about our
connection with the earth and sky and all their creatures. Words are not needed
in our religion. Neither are the ceremonies. They are expressions of love and
appreciation, not for god but for the Earth-World. And they connect us with our
ancestors.”
“Is the Earth-World your god?”
“We have no god, Susan. We have spirits.
Each thing possesses a spirit so is given a spirit name that allows us to
communicate with it. Corn Mother is such a name. We can pray to her to make our
corn plants healthy and strong. As we care for our corn plants we feel her presence.”
“So plants and animals are spirits.
Does that mean they are supernatural?”
“No, because they are natural. What
they are is mysterious. White people think of a deer as an animal, a tree as a
plant, the earth as a planet and the sun as a star. They are just objects to
white people. But too us they are mysteries. There is a white man here who
lives on the reservation who understands what I’m telling you better than me.
We consider him a wise man because he possesses much knowledge that is
different from ours. But Susan you do not need knowledge to be wise and to live
wisely. I believe you already possess wisdom. You were a doctor and still are
if needed. Your husband gave his land to the Indian people and you welcomed him
doing so. Now you spend time among the plants and creatures of your garden and
orchard. I think you are wise but do not know that you are. I think you have a
religion that is truer and kinder than the one preached in the church.”
“I like that. I want a religion but
don’t know where to find it. The church seems dead to me. Services are only
once a month and the only people there are a few elders, all Indians. White
people don’t come because Indians are there. The church is meaningless. Still I
long for something to worship.”
“Susan, I think you have a religion.
It is your garden and orchard. I often see you wandering among the trees.’”
“I love trees.”
“Then I shall name you woman who loves trees.”
“I like that name.”
“Then that is how you will be known
among my people. Susan, woman who loves
trees.”
“After Susan was named woman who loves trees by Deer Woman she
would be seen standing among the trees of her orchard as if she was
communicating with them in some mysterious way. And among her trees is where
Susan is buried. The ground and the orchard are holy, but you can visit her
grave if you wish. Many of our people do, out of respect for her. They made a
stone bench where you can sit and think. The name on the head stone, however,
is not Susan but woman who loves trees.”
“So I cannot speak to her.”
“No,” said the old chief.
“I asked if the wise man Deer Woman
spoke of was still alive.”
“Yes, and you should visit him if
you are serious about living apart from your people.”
“I will, Chief Old Fox, but I must
see an old friend. He and I are both old and not long for this world. After
that I will return if I can and visit this wise man and see if he can help me find
a place to set up a camp. Are there other whites who have done that?”
“Yes, but they do not live on the
reservation like the wise man who had married a Navajo woman. They live in the
wild lands. We have seen more whites come to the wild lands with trailers to
settle on government land. I do not know if it’s legal. You may do that as
well. Many animals are sensitive to changes that threaten them. They flee to
places of safety. I think that is true for many white people today. They no
longer feel safe or at home among their own people. It’s a sad thing. The
Indian has never felt that way.”
“Well I feel that way. I have a
MAGA hat in the truck that I have to wear to keep from being beaten or killed
by the MAGA ghouls.”
“You’ve become like your black
people. Unsafe among whites”
“For some people America has never
been a safe place.”
“If you think you might return to stay awhile, then speak to the white man. He is considered a wise man by us. Like I said, he married one of us, so he lives on the reservation but only at its border.”
* * *
“So the old Chief gave me directions
to the white man. He said to tell him that Chief Old Fox sent me to him. I decided to see the white man before leaving. I was hoping he would advise me on what I
might do. After an hour driving in wildlands of the Navajo reservation I came
upon a weathered mobile home that looked like it had been there for years. It
had a fenced in area for chickens and a small garden. Outside was a faded blue
Ford pickup perhaps ten years old. As I got out of the truck an old bearded man
and a couple dogs came to greet me. I said hello and told him my name and that Chief Old Fox sent me.”
“He did did he? Well, you’re
welcome. My name is Jim. So what can I do for you?”
“I’ve come from Texas, escaped is
more like it. The MAGAs have taken over. And now I just want to get away from
people.”
“Well, Ed. You’re not the first. Trump
and his MAGAs have got a lot of people scared.”
“They come to live here?”
“Some that have trailers like mine
are looking for a place to park them for a while. Most then move on. I know
some have parked their trailers on government land.”
“So not many stay?”
“It ain’t easy. Why don’t you take a
seat, Ed, I’ll get you a glass of water. You look dry.”
“While he was in the trailer I sat
in one of the folding chairs and examined his outfit. The top of the trailer
was covered with solar panels. When he came back he gave me a cup of water in
one of those blue Coleman camping cups that we used to use when camping. Then
he sat down.”
“Jim, you have a pretty nice setup
here, with those solar panels.”
“I have a generator for
emergencies, but the solar panels give me all the energy I need. I shower once
every couple weeks in cold water. I use the Internet for news mostly. I eat
simple, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, and tuna sandwiches. I get my veggies from can
corn, green beans, peas, pinto beans, and chili. Still, I have to drive to the
store every couple of weeks to recycle cans and stock up on water and food.”
“You’re not living in luxury then”
“Actually I am. My luxury is
nature, my chickens, and my dogs Happy and Rose. And I get a visitor now and
then, like you.”
“You were married to a Navajo
woman.”
“I was. She’s buried nearby. I visit
her if I’m feeling lonely.”
“Do you eat your chickens?”
“I wouldn’t eat one of them than I
would one of my dogs. They’re companions and the most entertaining
creatures.”
“Jim, do you think I could make it
out here.”
“You’d have to be off the
reservation, and you would need more than that camper of yours if you would
want to set up more than a few days.”
“Do MAGAs come out here?”
“I haven’t seen any. We’re pretty
independent out here. Even the authorities don’t like MAGAs or their cult leader
Orange Man.”
“The authorities, like who?”
“Like Arizona, New Mexico,
Colorado, and Utah. They don’t have much use for the feds. Never liked them all
that much anyway. They don’t trust them. They’re loyal to their own people, not
to politicians and their thugs. Unlike the do-nothing politicians, we’re not
afraid of them. Live free, die free is our motto.”
“Chief Old Fox said you’re a wise
man.”
“Did he now? I’m no wiser than him
or the other leaders of the tribe. I would say the Navajo are a wise people,
wiser than ours clearly. I suppose that I’ve chosen to live close to nature
apart from people gives the impression of wisdom. But they do as well. The
Navajo are an ancient people who prefer living close to nature and away from
the madness of cities. So I suppose because the crazy MAGA cult has taken
control of the country, you’re looking to escape the craziness.”
“Pretty much. You know when I was a
kid America was a special place, but no longer. I never thought I’d see the
country fall apart. That seemed impossible. Now it’s become evil like Putin’s
Russia. I mean how was that possible?”
“Don’t know. I came here long
before the MAGA madness.”
“Because you married a Navajo
woman.”
“Yes, Doli, Navajo for bluebird. She
asked if I would live on the reservation. And I said of course. You’re old
enough to remember the hippies, right?”
“I remember them very well. I even
attended a few love-ins. Great fun. It was during the Vietnam War. The
government was as sick then as it is today, but people were still joyful, not
hateful like now. What about them?”
“Well, I lived on a commune for a
while. The hippies understood there was a better way to live life, a way more
natural and less artificial. I agreed though my background was quite different.
I was studying engineering, but decided to join the Navy rather than getting
drafted into the Army. In the Navy I became an electrician. After I got out of
the service I let my hair grow long. I wanted to put Vietnam behind me. I got a
general science degree and really didn’t know what to do. I certainly didn’t
want to work for a corporation and wanted to get away from crowds of people.
That’s when I got pulled in with the hippie culture. The hippies I knew were
more into books than into drugs though we smoked a lot of cannabis to liberate
our minds. What they wanted was a way of life very similar to the one lived by
the Navajo, an organic way of life. But the commune didn’t last. It had no
roots, no culture. It was just an idea, a waystation for young people for whom
the American dream had soured, like today. And what they were looking for was more
of an idea than a reality. And most knew that. They wanted a way of life that
earth-bound, like the life celebrated by Henry David Thoreau, Fenimore Cooper,
Walt Whiteman, and many other earth-clan thinkers. It was Thomas Jefferson’s
philosophy of the yeoman farmer who lives independently away from the corrupting
influences of cities and politicians.”
“But it didn’t work out.’”
“It couldn’t. Like I said it was
rootless. So were we really.’”
“Then what?”
“Like the others, I moved on and became
a science teacher in Albuquerque. But I didn’t like the city. Too big, too many
freeways, and poor air quality. And lots of violence. Saw an ad for an
electrician at the Gallup Indian Medical Center, so that’s where I went and where
I met Doli who worked there as a nurse. She wasn’t a city girl. She lived on
the reservation. Once we got serious she asked me if I would be willing to live
on the reservation, which meant getting married. I said yeah. It was like a
bonus for me. I was crazy about her and wanted to live close to nature and away
from people, my people, I suppose.”
“And you lived in this trailer.”
“Yeah. I was an outsider so really
wasn’t part of the tribe. And I didn’t want to be seen as an intruder. So the
trailer was the easiest solution, parked just inside the reservation.”
“Did you get along with the people?”
“Of course. They’re no different
from us. Doli had a sister and two brothers. I taught the older brother to
be an electrician. But I didn’t hang out with the people. I wasn’t a Navajo.
Still, I interacted with them. They would ask me to do electrical work when
there was a problem. I wasn’t one of them, but I was a welcomed outsider. I
think my being seen as a nature hermit made it easier for them to accept me. Actually,
my being into nature is what Doli liked about me.”
“Because she was into nature?”
“Big time. She had a special
relationship with nature. She said it came to her as a child. Her motivation
wasn’t intellectual but emotional. She felt she belong to nature. It was more
her home than even the tribe. She’d go off for days, like on some vision quest.
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. In a way she was as wild as the creatures she
loved.”
“You didn’t go with her?”
“No. Of course, we took lots of
walks together just like other love birds, but that wasn’t same thing. She often
took Rose, the golden colored dog. Happy came later after Doli died. I was
coming home from the hospital and saw him the side of the road. A pitiful sight. So I stopped to check on
him. When he saw me rushed over really happy to see me. And I was happy to see
him. That’s how he got his name.”
“So she found you special just
because you liked nature.”
“I knew the science. I wasn’t into
nature in the way she was. I knew how the Universe evolved, how life came
about. She found all that really interesting. I would get her a science book at
a second-hand book store and she’d read it and ask me questions. But her
relationship with nature wasn’t abstract or intellectual. It was very personal,
intimate. It was like she belonged to the family of plants and animals. Was it
mystical? I don’t know. She would tell me about her experiences in wild, about
snakes and lizards, birds, mice, and rabbits she encountered. Once a bobcat.
But otherwise her relationship with the creatures, plants, mountains, rocks, or
whatever was private. She said she was a creature born as a human. What kind of
creature,I asked. A bird, she said. But she didn’t know what kind of bird.
Maybe her relationship to nature couldn’t be put into words, so she didn’t try
to.”
“But she died.”
“Yeah, worst time of my life. She got
sick. We thought it was the flu, but suddenly she got worst. She was taken to
the hospital, from there flown to the hospital in Albuquerque. I went by car.
When I went to see her the next day, she was already gone. Made me sick. She
didn’t want to be buried in a graveyard with other people but out in nature.
She would say she belonged to nature, not to people. But she’s not far from me.
So the dogs and I visit her.”
“You must get lonely.”
“A little. I don’t know what I feel
really. I have friends, my animals, nature, but I do feel the most important
part of my life was taken from me and is irreplaceable. So, Ed, tell me, what
are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Can’t stay in Comanche
Junction. Need to get away from the MAGA world. I like your setup. Some
animals, a garden. I could sell my place and buy a trailer like yours. I’m retired
so I don’t have to work. What do you think?”
“There is a lot of empty space out
here. But do some exploring. Getting a trailer like mine or a mobile home is a
big step. First you should look at the small communities in New Mexico,
Arizona, or Colorado. They all have small houses for sell outside of town. If
you want a garden you’re going to need more than bottled water. And I’m not a
hermit. I have a community. I’m just not a part of it. But if I needed help,
help would come. It’s a shame that making America great again has made it
unlivable for lots of people.”
“Wouldn’t mind being close enough
to you to visit once in a while.”
“You’re welcome anytime, Ed. But do some exploring and have a plan in mind before you do anything. If you come up with something give me a call and tell me what you have in mind. I’ll give you some pointers if I can. I wish you well.”
* * *
“After talking to Jim, I got back
on the road and headed here. Still not sure what I want to do. I like the idea
of buying a piece of property in the boondocks where I could park a trailer,
maybe a small mobile home.”
“I don’t know, Ed. I get it. I
would like to get the hell out of California and get away from all the people,
maybe the Dakotas or Vermont. Would need to find a community where making
America great again doesn’t matter. A place where people just want to be let
alone to work and raise families. America’s greatness is just meaningless
abstractions. Work, family, and good neighbors are all that matters in life.
Only dull minds like Trump and Putin think what matter is living in a great
country, whatever that means. Sick minds think greatness has
to do with being rich and powerful. If it weren’t for the sick minds of
politicians like Putin, Jinping, and that fatso tyrant of North Korea,
militaries wouldn’t be necessary because only pathological politicians start
wars. The Chinese people couldn’t care less about Taiwan and the Russian people
don’t care about Ukraine. Conquering them won’t improve their lives—just kill a
lot of men, women, and children and destroy cities. Small countries like Norway
or Sweden are greater than the U.S., Russia, and China because they don’t harm
other nations and because they offer a high quality of life for ordinary folks.
Yeah, I just want to get away from it all. Maybe Canada, another one of those
high quality of life nations. We could do that together. Hell the population of
Canada is about the same as California but the country is twenty times bigger.”
“You’ve given some thought to
moving to Canada?”
“Not really, just to getting out of
California. The big appeal of moving to Canada is getting away from Americans.
America has become a land of cults. Fucking creepy.”
“You couldn’t leave your family.”
“No, but you know my son Bill and I
have talked over moving somewhere else. You know Bill has a plumbing business.”
“Yeah.”
“He mentioned selling it and
getting out of California. He says it’s too crowded and too expensive. I think
he’d like a simpler life.”
“Being a plumber he could go
anywhere.”
“But he couldn’t just move out into the wilderness. He has a family to care for and Jimmy needs a school. Mary’s pregnant. He said he could sell the business and start over again somewhere else. But he would need a town where he could work as a plumber. You know, America was already in pieces before Trump came along. And Trump doesn’t get it. He wants to make America great again when what the country needs is to be made whole. It never was. And I have no idea of how it could be made whole when it consists of political, religious, ideological, and just plain weird cults. And certainly Trump doesn’t know. He thinks building a big beautiful ballroom after tearing apart the White House will do he trick. But who will be invited? No plebeians, only patricians."
"I agree. All he does is threaten Americans, other countries, side with dictators, play golf, and come up with money-making schemes. He’s all about money. It’s a sickness. I’ll never understand how some people find him inspiring. He's like his buddy Putin, absolutely without compassion. He is the worst of the the worst. Mass murderer Putin has killed more than 170,000 with his war on Ukraine, including many women and children, and mass murderer Netanyahu has killed 67,000 Palestinians, also including many women and children. Yet by dismantling the USAID aid agency Trump has already killed 600,000 sick and starving people, mostly children. Trump destroys lives. He doesn't save them. I wouldn't want that on my conscience."
"Evil men don't have a conscience. People really do worship sick minds. And doing that makes them sick. So yeah, Bill and I think we should get the family away from the sickness.”
“Me too, do the Thoreau thing. You got to find
a pond away from people where you can live in peace with nature.”
“Sounds good. So what’s next?”
“Tomorrow I’ll head back to Comanche
Junction, but I won’t be in a hurry. I will do some exploring and thinking.”
“You’re welcome to stay here, Ed.”
“Thanks, but I’ve already had
enough of California, but I’ll stay in touch so we can figure out our great
escapes.”
“Sounds good.”
Sunday, July 27, 2025
Hamas Victorious
Vietnam
Every Generation gets at least one.
The title asks the question “What is victory to Hamas and the Islamic Jihad?” I believe the answer is not what most people think, but is important because it explains why Israel is in a forever war for which they are to blame. Israel is a nation that has been in a constant state of war since 1984—though the aggressive nature of the Israelites can be traced back to Moses. Thus, Israel has relied only on one solution to just about every problem with its neighbors—militarism, a bigger, more advanced military, which it has. It has never believed it had to compromise with the Palestinians because it could rely on advanced military weapons and financial support from the U.S. However, no compromise has meant no peace. In other words, the reliance on a super-military, which Israel has, means that Israel’s existence is guaranteed but peace for Israel is not. And the conflict between Israel and Muslims has reverberated around the world in two forms: terrorism and wars. So the conflict between Israelis and Muslims has been a global problem in part because of Israel’s refusal to compromise.
The fact is Muslim jihadists do not fear super-militaries, be they Russian, American, or Israeli, because death and destruction don't intimidate Muslims. They are not afraid to die. Young Muslims have proven that repeatedly. Unlike for Jews, they get to go to Paradise if they die in battle. Israel and everyone should try to give them something to live for rather than to die for. The other issue related to the title of this article is what Muslims consider as victory. Victory is usually considered defeat of an enemy. Hamas knew it could not defeat Israel in a war.
The conflict is a modern David Hamas against Goliath Israel. David’s slingshot is no match for Goliath wearing bronze helmet on his head and a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels. On his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. That was just a story. In reality, against Goliath Israel’s modern arsenal, David Hamas’ slingshot can only enrage, not defeat.
David Hamas slingshot consists of 50 caliber machine guns and AK-47, homemade rockets, Grenades, Paragliders, and Bulldozers. Here are the weapons of Goliath Israel:
I do not mean to glorify Hamas by associating the organization with David. David was not a good man. Just ask his faithful soldier Uriah. David took whatever he wanted be it concubines left to die or Uriah’s wife Bathsheba after having her husband killed.
And by the way, what caused the conflict between the Israel and the Philistines? The Bible tells us: “And I [Yahweh] will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you” (Exodus 23:31). The Israelites imagined God gave them permission to take the lands of the Canaanites and the Philistines, so they did. Scripture has always been used to justify their actions, just as Christians used the same scripture to justify their conquest of the lands of Native Americans with the added justification of converting the heathens. Muslims did the same. In each case, the result was endless wars and killing of innocents.
However, defeat was never the purpose of Hamas’ attack on Israel. It had two purposes. The first was simple: to encourage Israel to destroy Palestinian communities killing thousands of civilian men, women, and children, thus by doing so transforming itself into a terrorist organization. The second purpose was to make sure that Israelis live in a constant state of uncertainty and inquietude. In other words, their way of life is not that of most people but a constant state of preparation for the next attack. I don’t use words like fearfulness or anxiety because I don’t believe they apply to the social psychology of the Israeli people. Israel is more like Sparta than Athens. Like Russia, it is a nation-size military base. And militarism has seeped into every aspect of its culture and society.
Thus, a victorious battle for Hamas need only create a disturbance that continues the uncertainty and inquietude for Israelis. Thus, the Hamas attack was less an act of war than a terrorist attack. Of course, Israel considers the attack an act of war, which for Hamas is the desired result. In fact, for Hamas the more death and damage on either side the better. And it is here the dark side of Hamas's strategy is revealed. First, to Hamas 700 Israelis killed at the cost of 2,000 Muslims, fighters or civilians doesn’t matter, is a victory because the goal was never absolute victory but creating uncertainty and inquietude among Israelis and preventing them from ever settling down to a normal way of life free of constant military concerns. Second, Hamas knew that a vicious terrorist attack would trigger massive retaliation from Israel that would destroy multi-use building that served as home and business and totally wreck communities, and of course kill numberless civilian men, women, and children who were ignorant of the attack and most likely would have been against it.
The strategy here is the demonization of Israel and Jews generally in the eyes of the world. It has worked successfully and more than once. It is an ironic yet brilliant strategy similar to shifting the blame for the crime of rape from the rapist to his victim. The argument implies that the Israelis were responsible for the Hamas attack. The enormous human cost of the victim-is-to-blame strategy doesn't matter to Hamas. The strategy reminds me of King Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia in order to go to war. This is a form of nihilism in which nothing matters or has worth except an overpowering idea fueled by hatred. Israel's desire for revenge is similar in that it is fueled by hatred that has a similar nihilistic effect in that the value Palestinian life is nil.
The origin of the mindset of Hamas toward Jews is Muhammad, as illustrated by the massacre of Banu Qurayza, a Jewish tribe which lived in northern Arabia at the oasis of Medina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiwtpLHVYIc
Another story that comes to mind is Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein created a creature from the dead. He then lost control of the creature, which became a psychopathic mass murderer. The loss of control was not Victor's intention, but it was Hamas' intention. It created a monster—war—from dead Israelis, and war took on a life of its own. Americans know that or should. A military superpower, the U.S. lost three wars against small nations: Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Each war took on a life of its own lasting 20 years each for the first two and the third 7 to 8 years. Unending war is what Hamas wants for Israel. An important factor of those wars unlike Desert Storm (43 days) is that they were fought on the enemies' homeland. Also, with all four the U.S. could pack up and leave. Not possible for Israel. The enemy lives next door so can renew violence at any time. Chaos theory can also be used explain Hamas' strategy. A horrific terrorist act serves as a butterfly flapping its wing resulting in a huge storm that is war. The act was never the intended object for Hamas; the consequences were. The terrorist act was only a trigger.
One other story comes to mind and with it a painting. The story is the wise Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, which shows how the First World War continued to affect those who had lived through it even five years after it ended. For Woolf memory affects the perception of reality. In the story it has a distorting somewhat nightmarish effect. The psychology of the people who endured the war is darken, even to the point of psychosis, as in the case of war veteran Septimus Warren Smith, whose broken life affects others such as his wife. This sort of malformation of people's lives and thoughts and of their culture that Hamas wants for Israel. I assume that Palestinians have lived for decades in the pathological state of chronic anxiety and gloominess described by Woolf.
Yet, there is more. Woolf recognizes that because of masculine aggression the human species exists in a chronic state of insanity that is rare or nonexistent among other species. Wars come and go but always threaten. The subjectivity of humans allows them to remember the horrific events that they experience. Reason enables them to analyze and evaluate, morally, psychologically, and socially those events. For other creatures the frightening events are put out of mind until another threat emerges. Woolf’s story reveals how horrific events settle into the minds of individuals and society to create chronic states of mental illness mild and severe.
Men who possess Woolf’s profound understanding that war is an insanity that creates other forms of insanity are rare exceptions among men. One of those men is the French artist Jacques-Louis David who illustrates in his painting The Oath of Horatii what Woolf describes in her novel:
Rome is threatened by Alba Longa, and three brothers from a Roman family, the Horatii, agree to end the war by fighting three brothers from a family of Alba Longa, the Curiatii. The painting illustrates masculinity’s love of conflict (not David’s) and the terrified, depressed state that war has on women—wives, mothers, daughters, sisters. What one doesn’t see in the painting is that one of the brothers murders his sister for weeping for one of the killed enemy whom she was engaged to. The difference of motivation is important. The brother’s motivation is an idea—patriotism. The motivation of his sister whom he murders is love. In this way, the painting captures an inherent difference between masculinity and femininity. The women represent love and life, the men death. The Israeli soldiers are like the brave Roman brothers who defend the homeland.
It is the deep chronic depression, anxiety, uncertainty, and dread suffered by the women that Hamas seeks to inflict upon Israelis and their society. Woolf saw both as two forms of insanity. She also understood that women are powerless to break the cycle, which only adds to the melancholy of the human condition. Thus the wisdom of animals—even predators who kill but don’t hate or hold grudges. The lion doesn’t hate the antelope it kills, and it kills only because it is hungry. Humans are unique in that they invent ideas that create enemies where none existed before and that create unnecessary reasons to justify killing one another. Doing so is a form of insanity, but the worst form that is common among humans and rare among animals is that killing fellow humans is clearly enjoyed by men. I say clearly because the masculine love of warfare is attested to in human history, stories, and mythologies.
An aspect of the masculine love of war is seen in the Internet’s almost celebratory illustrations of the technologies of war—most popular have been tanks (the favorite), missiles, drones, airplanes, and anti-tank weapons. These weapons have a Star Wars/Terminator quality that makes them makes them amazing and even mesmerizing. The infatuation with these weapons is mostly masculine, which is troubling because the amazing character of the weapons encourages their use and further development. Their existence has a positive reinforcement effect: They are just too wonderful not to have. The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is more amazing than God. One website present “12 new stealth aircraft currently heading toward service.” That doesn’t suggest that the end of war isn’t coming anytime soon. Woolf would say that it is a masculine addiction that is insane. And she would be right.
So it will be violence back and forth forever until a political solution can be reached, and only Israel can bring about a political solution. A demilitarized Palestinian (why not?) state might have avoided this carnage and destruction. However, Israel always thinks militarism is the solution for lasting peace. It’s not. Justice is. The Israeli mindset is made clear in the biblical books Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. What those books suggest is that Israelis can live with chronic violence and may consider it the norm for Israel and a part of the mindset of its people. Violence has always been the Israeli solution to violence, and in the Old Testament the Israelites often initiate it. This is not a trait unique to Jews but to aggressive masculinity. Alexander the Great went on his rampage during the 4th century B.C., and the centuries that followed consisted of ongoing war, including ancient Israel being repeatedly invaded. Endless warfare seems very much the way of life for humans, but it is a game that masculinity enjoys playing. And in my opinion religious and secular ideologies tend to codify, encourage, and justify masculine aggression. The deities of the Abrahamic religions are all masculine and each is on the warpath against all of humanity.
Muslims inherited the aggressive ideology of Judaism, which seemed to perfectly complement the militant culture of the Arabs just as Christianity's militarism (Matthew 10:34-36) was adopted by the bellicose Roman emperor. One characteristic shared by the Abrahamic religions when dealing with conflict is that violence trumps compromise. They accept violence as a normal part of life and their religious ideology reinforces or legitimizes that acceptance. Among Jews and Muslims the threat of violence serves as a unifying principle, thus publicly criticized but privately embraced. Even Jesus said “Peace be with you!” but "I came to bring war not peace." Peace to the members of the Christ cult, war on nonmembers.
Worst of all is the nihilism lurking in the us-versus-them ideologies. Again the Old Testament illustrates: The “Israelites devoted the city [Jericho] to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys” (Joshua 6:21). The Canaanite pagans of Jericho had no moral rights because the Israelite religious ideology declared them an abomination to God. In other words, people who fell outside the protective umbrella of the Abrahamic ideologies were stripped of moral rights thus allowing them to be murdered without violated the “Thou shalt not kill” commandment. The rights and value of these people were considered nil. Hatred also breeds nihilism. Sigmund Freud made it clear that any emotion can overthrow moral reason, be it hate or love.
And we must not overlook that Hamas’ strategy come right out of Osama bin Laden’s playbook. The 9/11 terrorist attacks killed 2,977 people and injured thousands, but all that death and destruction was not bin Laden’s ultimate goal. The horrific attacks were to serve as a trigger to pull the U.S. into a much larger conflict. It was Uncle Remus' Tar-Baby tap. Getting even (retaliation) resulted in two decades of war and disgrace for the U.S. The disgrace emerged with the passing of time, intensified with the Iraq War based on a lie, and culminating with President Biden’s shameful and inept ending of the first war. The shame increased with the estimated 432,093 Afghan and Iraqi civilians who died in those wars. The number of United States troops who died fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan passed 7,000 at the end of 2019. To that are added the 933 deaths of contractors in Iraq.
So the 911 attacks were more than a single terrorist mission. They were a Tar-Baby trap set by Osama bin Laden. He understood that it would not have succeeded were it not for the impressionable, unsophisticated George W. Bush who allowed a cadre of militant neoconservatives to do his thinking. As a Chicken-hawk who served in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, he was gung-ho for war as long as he did have to participate. His father had his war, so Bush Jr. wanted one of his own. Bin Laden gave him that opportunity. Bush rushed in where wise men fear to tread. But with Bush one war wasn’t enough. He wanted two. After thousands of dead American soldiers he still hadn’t killed the master mind of the 911 attacks—Osama bin Laden. So much blood, treasury, and reputation wasted. And Joe Biden would add insult to injury with his bungled ending of the war with Afghanistan, once again proving that sometimes if not often America’s commanders-in-chief have been idiots.
Hamas followed bin Laden’s game plan. It began with a horrific terrorist attack which was not an end in itself but a trigger it hoped would set off a desire for endless bloodletting and destruction. The ever angry and militant Benjamin Netanyahu was their George W. Bush. And the plan worked. A Terminator unleashed it military might against what is basically a political reservation Gaza, one of two Palestinian territories, that does not have an army, navy or air force. Hamas killed 1,400 people in Israel. Thus far, approximately 55,104 people have been killed by the Israeli military since the start of the war with 127,394 wounded. Many more are believed to be buried under the rubble or in areas that are inaccessible to local medics. The damage caused by Israeli blitzkrieg includes many places of worship, many thousands residential units, medical centers, education facilities, industrial facilities, and media offices. However, the Israeli juggernaut is still on loose, so future horrors will occur. Here is an image of the destruction that brings joy to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's heart:
This is exactly what Hamas hoped for. And, of course, of course this is the moral nihilism that has been caused by or revealed by Hamas’ terrorist attacks. It cares no more for the death and destruction suffered by Palestinians than it did for the Israelis it murdered. And Israelis feel the same about the Palestinians. Neither population has value to the other. This is what Hamas wanted and what Israel gave Hamas. The two goals are a forever war for Israel and for Israel to disgrace itself on the global stage, which will mean more people will sympathize with the Palestinians than they will with Israel in spite of their hatred of Hamas, which is seen more as a political gang than a legitimate political organization.
Hamas’ other Tar-Baby trap for Israel: to trap it into killing children thus acquiring national disgrace. “Thou shalt not kill children” is the cornerstone of civilization. And I would add the mothers of children and women generally. (Killers and kidnappers of children are moral monsters, the lowest of the low.) To fail at this is to become evil thus uncivilized to the point of being barbaric. In this the Nazis became superlatively evil that couldn’t be concealed by their immaculate uniforms. Yet, they weren't the first. On a smaller yet no less horrific scale Americans killed in one way or another women and children of Native Americans and enslaved black women and children, a living death. Genghis Khan comes to mind as a representative of pure masculine evil. Yet, it is important to recognize that the issue isn’t barbaric individuals such as Khan and Hitler, but a homicidal archetype that dwells in the DNA of masculinity.
The Abrahamic deity isn’t a great role model when it comes to the moral status of children. Moses, Yahweh’s spokesman is angry with his soldiers for allowing Midianite women to live: “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord.... Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man” (Numbers 31:16-18). Who would have thought Epstein's behavior was biblical! Hardly a moral mission statement. All the other Midianites have been slaughtered.
Next, in Genesis Yahweh tells Abraham “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering” (22:2) Then Abraham “bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son” (9-10). An angel from heaven told Abraham to stop because “Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son” (22:12). So this famous story has nothing to with the immorality of killing children as an inviolable moral principle. Besides, the biblical story couldn’t have continued without Isaac, the grandfather of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Thus, Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac was just a test of faith implying that if God gives the okay killing children is acceptable. All one has to do is interpret the killing of children is justified if one believes God condones the killing, as in the case of Abraham and the killing of Midianite boys in the Book of Numbers. This is where religion becomes nihilism, using God to justify horrific acts or to deny another people’s moral rights and moral value. One recalls that George W. Bush said that he had been on the prayer phone with God Who gave him the okay to invade Iraq, resulting in 186,901 to 210,296 violent civilian deaths.
Then we have the case when “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire” out of the heavens (Genesis 19:24). Reminiscent of what Palestinians are receiving from Israel, brimstone and fire in the form of modern weaponry. The point being that when God destroys a city he kills the children as well as the adults. And then there is flood that kill all of humanity except a single family, followed by “And that night at midnight, the LORD struck down all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn son of the prisoner in the dungeon. Even the firstborn of their livestock were killed” (Exodus 12:29-38). Clearly, not killing children is not a universal prohibition in the Old Testament. And it must be kept in mind that Muslims also understand Islam to be the religion of Abraham.
In conclusion, it can be argued that that during the 19th and 20th centuries the moral ban on killing children as a national policy hadn’t taken hold and little has changed in the 21st century. However, I wish to argue that whatever the justification the killing (actually murdering) of children is evil and uncivilized thus those who engage in killing children are themselves evil and uncivilized. A note on evil is needed: Evil acts are actions that knowingly kill innocent, defenseless people (children being the most innocent and defenseless of all), the evil made even more heinous then the killing is enjoyed by the killers. Thus a nation or people that engages in the killing of children are both barbaric and evil.
Hamas as a terrorist organization is okay with being evil and behaving barbarically. It must be kept in mind that Hamas sacrificed Palestinian children to fulfill its mission to demonize Israel and energize Israel’s forever war. The underlying principle is the end justifies the means. No, when it comes to killing children, the means negates any good achieved by the end. Thus, the evil lingers from one generation to another, as it has in the case of slavery and Indian killing for Americans and the Holocaust for the Germans. Of course, Putin has been involved in killing children since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and even threatens the use of nuclear weapons:
Putin’s Playground
So where is the progress? Where is a solution to be found? I would say start with Socrates’ approach to dealing with issues—dialogue, reason, and skepticism. But he was executed by those who prefer violence to dialogue and reason. However, violence only encourages more violence. It creates a positive feedback or bad karma if you wish. It is a shame to be witnessing so much death, destruction, and waste in this conflict along with the one in Ukraine. It's really discouraging because it suggests that humans are incapable of controlling their fate and that their leaders are the least wise and effective of all, less wise than animals lacking reason, thus making moral and humanitarian progress impossible. As Edward Abbey said in Desert Solitaire, "Swinish politics, our ball and chain."
As Edward Abbey said in Desert Solitaire, “Swinish politics, our ball and chain.” There has been little progress during the past 3,000 years. Actually, the situation has gotten worse because the weapons of war have gotten worse. Once upon a time, there were no religious and secular ideologies that condemn people just for their religious and political beliefs. The most common solution has been bigger, more modern militaries, which is not a solution to end war but an instruments that encourage more war. Abbey understands the problem, as does Freud, who claim a “death instinct” exists in the human species. Because of his chauvinism he overlooked that that what I will call the “will to death” or according to Wikipedia “the drive toward death and destruction” is a masculine instinct located in men’s DNA as masculine aggression. Most interesting the idea came to him after World War I.
Two features that make war incredible: First, is the mindless carnage. Second, wars are usually triggered by single truly dull-minded stupid man who had under his control millions of other similarly stupid men. The values of the “common man” (home, family, work, etc.) are often presented as the solution to war, but the fact is “the common man” is the sine qua non for war. Thus, what you have are warmongering male politicians with armies of male drones willing to do their bloody dirty work. The caveat, of course, is that I’m referring to aggressors such as the lord of flies Putin, not to defenders, such as noble Volodymyr Zelensky and his brave soldiers defending their homeland from monsters unleashed from the Russian abyss.
This version is simply a piece of entertainment that misses the profound insight of the 1953 masterpiece (in spite of a few flaws).The 1953 War of the Worlds is not about aliens but about the weapons of war. The movies contains a documentary review of the evolution of modern weapons from World War I to the atomic bomb. The theme is "We have met the enemy and he is us." The Martians simply represent mankind's ability to destroy cities and nations and perhaps bring an end to civilization. The Martian invasion could very well represent W.W.III. We should recognize this today with two or more wars going on.
The biggest obstacle to peace is dull-minded stupid men. I’m defining stupid as blindness to which is truly and inherently good—love, family, friendship, nature, work, women and children. Some men like Hemingway are stupid in their behavior (see Everybody Behaves Badly by Lesley M.M. Blume). Hemingway’s wisdom was found mostly in his writings, not his behavior. “Big Two-Hearted River” and “The Battler” are stories full of wisdom. (See Frank B. Kyle’s “Parallel and Complementary Themes in Hemingway's Big Two-Hearted River Stories and ‘The Battler,’” Studies in Short Fiction 16 (1979). Wise thinkers who were both wise in action and thought are Virginia Woolf and Basho.
To prove the point of this article and to show how little progress has been made between Israelis and Palestinians one needs only to hark back June 6, 2021:
https://speakingaboutnothing.blogspot.com/2021/06/israels-attack-on-gaza-hitting-back.html
The Old Man in the Moon smiles wryly thinking that the human species was the only one given reason, yet the cows in the meadow show greater wisdom.
William Shayer (1787–1879)