Sooner or later the American people are going to demand that we adjust our relationship with Israel. In the current conflict Hamas is committing war crimes, and Israel is committing war crimes. Both are targeting civilians. Israel claims not to be targeting civilians, but for every adult Israeli civilian that Hamas manages to murder, Israel kills ten small Palestinian children. Tit for tat, sort of.
Israel makes it clear that it has been tricked into killing children, that Hamas shields its missile launchers with Arab children. Then when Israel bombs the missile launchers, the children get killed by accident, and Israel gets bad publicity. So successful is this wily Hamas trick that the Israeli military have been fooled by it hundreds of times in a row.
There's no way to stop this. Let's face it, when the Israeli military see a missile site surrounded by little Arab children, they are on it like white on a Republican. It's a twofer. In fact, Arab children playing on a beach are a dead giveaway that there might possibly be missiles of some kind somewhere nearby. That's a given, right? Once the children and soccer ball are spotted, the artillery can't resist. (We need to be fair.)
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Monday, July 28, 2014
Men Hitting Women
Not long ago a professional football player knocked his girlfriend unconscious and was photographed dragging her body out of an elevator. She then married him, and the NFL suspended him for two games. The NFL penalty for smoking marijuana is16 games, so the priorities are clear: to hell with women, even if they do buy tickets.
I have never actually seen a man hit a woman, but my father did. My father was a starting guard on a JC football team that won a national championship. One night he was walking home from work in a seedy part of town. He came on a man punching a woman, so my father grabbed the guy and threw him down. You know what happened next. The woman rose up from the ground and attacked my father. He always laughed when he told that story.
I have seen a woman hit a man. My mother had an Irish temper and my father liked to argue. One evening he came home from work, said the wrong thing, and my mother hit him as hard as she could in the mouth. With red-stained teeth, my father caught her hands and held them until she cooled off. The rule was that you never hit a woman under any circumstance. That was the rule my friends and I learned. It's not a complicated rule subject to wide interpretation--but I wouldn't want to see what those five duds on the Supreme Court might make of it.
I have never actually seen a man hit a woman, but my father did. My father was a starting guard on a JC football team that won a national championship. One night he was walking home from work in a seedy part of town. He came on a man punching a woman, so my father grabbed the guy and threw him down. You know what happened next. The woman rose up from the ground and attacked my father. He always laughed when he told that story.
I have seen a woman hit a man. My mother had an Irish temper and my father liked to argue. One evening he came home from work, said the wrong thing, and my mother hit him as hard as she could in the mouth. With red-stained teeth, my father caught her hands and held them until she cooled off. The rule was that you never hit a woman under any circumstance. That was the rule my friends and I learned. It's not a complicated rule subject to wide interpretation--but I wouldn't want to see what those five duds on the Supreme Court might make of it.
Monday, July 21, 2014
The What Generation?
Harper's has published (August 2014) a provocative article by William Pfaff in which he argues against the militarization of America. Most of us join him in opposing militarization. But he makes a peculiar comparison that contrasts the current army with what he sees as the more honorable drafted generation that won World War II. In Pfaff's vision the old army had a mandate "to treat prisoners honorably and act under Army regulations and Geneva rules at all times." The current army sends drones to kill civilians by the handful. My trouble with this is that I can't get out of my mind the civilians on the ground during our firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm trying to recall the Geneva Conventions, which I read while in the army. I suspect that nuking 60,000 civilians at once might have been a step too far.
Pfaff notes that when Gen. David Petraeus retired in 2011, he wore more than 50 ribbons and badges to the ceremony, including three that celebrated the fact that he had parachuted from an airplane. And so he put Audie Murphy to shame.
(Wickipedia says that the 19-year-old Murphy received the Medal of Honor after single-handedly holding off an entire company of Germans for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, then leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.)
Friday, July 18, 2014
Planet of the Apes
We see in a photograph a small group of Israelis partying on a hillside overlooking Gaza. They smile, enjoying the fireworks show in the distance, as scores of Palestinian civilians are murdered from the air. I'm not blaming Israel for these happy folk. They don't represent Israel, and they could be from any country. In fact, a ground offensive that will kill more Palestinian children is about to start, and this deadly over-reaction to the murder of a few Israelis has the full support of our President. Obama is a man who tries to model his behavior on Abraham Lincoln, for god's sake. I worked for Obama's election.
On television I see the editor of THE NATION discussing the shooting down of a passenger plane over Ukraine by someone using complex Russian technology. Her fervent advice is that we find ways to appease Putin, a neo-Fascist dictator, she admits, clear-eyed, and of course a victim. When have we ever treated a Fascist fairly? Now the Russian Fascists are under verbal attack with only China's oligarchy and America's Teaparty Left defending them. The editor calls on us to give Putin what he wants, appease him in the name of "common sense." We need him, she reminds us.
As Russia and Ukraine and Hamas and Israel kill civilians over a few bits of land, the sky begins to swell with heat. The water rises. We pay little attention, fixed on stealing fruit from one another.
On television I see the editor of THE NATION discussing the shooting down of a passenger plane over Ukraine by someone using complex Russian technology. Her fervent advice is that we find ways to appease Putin, a neo-Fascist dictator, she admits, clear-eyed, and of course a victim. When have we ever treated a Fascist fairly? Now the Russian Fascists are under verbal attack with only China's oligarchy and America's Teaparty Left defending them. The editor calls on us to give Putin what he wants, appease him in the name of "common sense." We need him, she reminds us.
As Russia and Ukraine and Hamas and Israel kill civilians over a few bits of land, the sky begins to swell with heat. The water rises. We pay little attention, fixed on stealing fruit from one another.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Grant and Lee
It's 150 years since the Civil War, and yesterday I watched on TV as an ancient southern historian delivered a talk on that conflict. I was struck by one comment this old duffer made, which was that before Grant came east to take charge of the Union army, the two forces, Union and Confederate, had been playing chess; after Grant arrived they played checkers.
During his lifetime, Grant was the most admired man in America, more popular even than Lincoln. A negative view of the clash between Grant and Lee developed long after the Civil War as part of a glorification of "The Lost Cause." It's now out of date.
I am no expert, but even I can see that Grant and Lee were not in equal positions. Lee was in charge of the Army of Northern Virginia, one of a handful of separate Confederate armies. He had no control over what Joe Johnston's army was doing in Georgia, for example. This lack of coordination was built into the concept of secession and one reason the North rejected state's rights. Grant was, in 1864, in charge of every soldier in the Union army. Grant had a plan to end the war. If Lee was playing chess, Grant was playing three-dimensional chess.
At the time, most people thought they were smarter than Grant, who was kind of dowdy. Sherman, for example, was absolutely devoted to Grant, a dedicated follower, but he thought he was smarter than Grant. General Grant was one of those creative people who are absolutely brilliant but seem to their contemporaries as merely above average, nothing special. He somehow managed to get the navy to join him in a joint attack on Vicksburg--maybe the first major joint attack in American history. In that same campaign Grant cut loose from his supply line and led his army into Mississippi to forage off the land, the astonishing tactic that later resulted in Sherman's march through Georgia. When Grant was put in charge of the entire army, he sent Sherman to Georgia with instructions to destroy the region's ability to supply the Confederate army with food and manufactured goods (all Grant's plans were worked out with Sherman and Lincoln, but Grant had the last word). Grant sent Gen. Sheridan through the Shenandoah Valley with instructions to destroy the rest of the Confederate food supply. The hard job Grant assigned to himself: keeping Lee and his army occupied, out of the strategic battle, penned up. In the end Lee's army had no food.
Another way to put it was that Grant was a strategist; Lee, a tactician. Grant, who wore a private's uniform with stars on the shoulders, looked ordinary but wrote the only military memoir by an America general that is taught as literature. His prose was plain and exact. I don't think his reputation needs help from people like me these days. Historians have caught up with him. I'm just struck by how some people can be so much smarter than those around them understand.
During his lifetime, Grant was the most admired man in America, more popular even than Lincoln. A negative view of the clash between Grant and Lee developed long after the Civil War as part of a glorification of "The Lost Cause." It's now out of date.
I am no expert, but even I can see that Grant and Lee were not in equal positions. Lee was in charge of the Army of Northern Virginia, one of a handful of separate Confederate armies. He had no control over what Joe Johnston's army was doing in Georgia, for example. This lack of coordination was built into the concept of secession and one reason the North rejected state's rights. Grant was, in 1864, in charge of every soldier in the Union army. Grant had a plan to end the war. If Lee was playing chess, Grant was playing three-dimensional chess.
At the time, most people thought they were smarter than Grant, who was kind of dowdy. Sherman, for example, was absolutely devoted to Grant, a dedicated follower, but he thought he was smarter than Grant. General Grant was one of those creative people who are absolutely brilliant but seem to their contemporaries as merely above average, nothing special. He somehow managed to get the navy to join him in a joint attack on Vicksburg--maybe the first major joint attack in American history. In that same campaign Grant cut loose from his supply line and led his army into Mississippi to forage off the land, the astonishing tactic that later resulted in Sherman's march through Georgia. When Grant was put in charge of the entire army, he sent Sherman to Georgia with instructions to destroy the region's ability to supply the Confederate army with food and manufactured goods (all Grant's plans were worked out with Sherman and Lincoln, but Grant had the last word). Grant sent Gen. Sheridan through the Shenandoah Valley with instructions to destroy the rest of the Confederate food supply. The hard job Grant assigned to himself: keeping Lee and his army occupied, out of the strategic battle, penned up. In the end Lee's army had no food.
Another way to put it was that Grant was a strategist; Lee, a tactician. Grant, who wore a private's uniform with stars on the shoulders, looked ordinary but wrote the only military memoir by an America general that is taught as literature. His prose was plain and exact. I don't think his reputation needs help from people like me these days. Historians have caught up with him. I'm just struck by how some people can be so much smarter than those around them understand.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Gaza
Hamas and Israel are lobbing weapons at one another again. This is how the leaders of Hamas and Israel win elections, which is why the war between them never ends. Each year a few Israeli civilians and a few hundred Palestinian civilians are killed, and the leaders are re-elected on platforms promising justice. In this country we have Dick Chaney and Noam Chomsky telling us that we should favor one side or the other in the sociopathic kill-off. Maybe if we got completely out of the way, the voters in these two democracies would elect better people to lead them.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
The Truth is Reckless
Last year a deputy sheriff shot Andy Lopez eight times as the 13-year-old walked along carrying a BB gun, a replica of an AK-47. The deputy was within his rights in this county, because he was scared. An officer can shoot as many children as he likes, if he is frightened at the time. Our district attorney will not indict him.
Common sense has no place here. For example, in these parts, you don't see people--or children--strolling along with real AK-47s. The county is safe from AK-47s. That's why I suggest that the next deputy might wait or maybe shoot the child only four times.
Never mind, the DA won't prosecute, now that she is re-elected.
Someone commented that Sonoma County officers are free to shoot anyone they want. Columnist Chris Smith, something of a dullard, found the comment "reckless." But what should you write when the truth is reckless?
And what if Andy Lopez had been walking along carrying a genuine rifle. Is that a death penalty offense in the United States? Or is it protected?
Common sense has no place here. For example, in these parts, you don't see people--or children--strolling along with real AK-47s. The county is safe from AK-47s. That's why I suggest that the next deputy might wait or maybe shoot the child only four times.
Never mind, the DA won't prosecute, now that she is re-elected.
Someone commented that Sonoma County officers are free to shoot anyone they want. Columnist Chris Smith, something of a dullard, found the comment "reckless." But what should you write when the truth is reckless?
And what if Andy Lopez had been walking along carrying a genuine rifle. Is that a death penalty offense in the United States? Or is it protected?
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
My Insincere Beliefs
One of my parents was a fallen away Catholic and the other was a fallen away Protestant. I was raised like a rope in a tug-of-war in which neither side pulled. As a consequence, my religious beliefs are insincere. This might be true of many American Christians. For example, I am insincerely committed to the Ten Commandments, including "Thou shalt not kill." I served in the navy and the army.
As you know, the United States Supreme Court, which has a ton of power and no credibility, has decided that certain corporations, owned by people with sincerely-held religious beliefs, have the right to withhold contraception from their employee health care plans. Corporations have this right to withhold contraceptive coverage, because corporations are people, and they can be sincerely religious corporations. My point is that I am a person, too, just like a corporation but smaller.
Like some corporations, I have an employee. A hard-working lady comes twice a month to clean my floors. I pay her about $25 an hour. I know what you will say, that I have no stake in which contraceptives women employ as long as I don't have to use a condom. But I resent having my right to impose my beliefs on working women limited by the Supreme Court because I'm insincere.
As you know, the United States Supreme Court, which has a ton of power and no credibility, has decided that certain corporations, owned by people with sincerely-held religious beliefs, have the right to withhold contraception from their employee health care plans. Corporations have this right to withhold contraceptive coverage, because corporations are people, and they can be sincerely religious corporations. My point is that I am a person, too, just like a corporation but smaller.
Like some corporations, I have an employee. A hard-working lady comes twice a month to clean my floors. I pay her about $25 an hour. I know what you will say, that I have no stake in which contraceptives women employ as long as I don't have to use a condom. But I resent having my right to impose my beliefs on working women limited by the Supreme Court because I'm insincere.
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