tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12413553974563486232024-03-06T00:32:22.620-05:00Hootsbuddy's New PlaceHootsbuddy's New Place is the successor to Hootsbuddy's Place (2004-2009) Still accessible via Web search. Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.comBlogger909125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-37874639077585696222024-03-01T02:22:00.002-05:002024-03-01T02:32:40.049-05:00Forgiveness Note<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>In the middle of the night, surfing the web looking for something else, I came across something I wrote and forgot in 2008. These reflections about forgiveness may some day be helpful for someone struggling to forgive someone or come to terms with injustice to themselves or others about which they know. <a href="https://bedouina.typepad.com/doves_eye/2008/04/forgiveness.html"><b>Forgiveness is the most challenging of all Christian ideas.</b></a></i></p></blockquote><p>I finally got around to following up this comment thread. Thanks for the promo!</p><p>You raise the central question: Should one forgive in the midst of the ongoing unrepentant practice of evil?</p><p>If we use Christ as our model his dying words suggest exactly that. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."</p><p>Thankfully I no longer work for him, but for nearly twenty-seven years I was subordinate to one of the meanest men in the company for which we worked. Without going into detail, it is sufficient to say that he was known by one and all to be insulting, sarcastic, abusive and unaccountably indifferent to the feelings of others. He kept his job because he was knowledgeable and well-organized...and his father was well-placed. Anyway, at one particularly stressful point a sympathetic customer who knew the situation said something helpful: "It will build your faith," she said. And she was correct.</p><p>I thought about that a lot as the years went by, and I had to forgive this man, sometimes several times a day, for what he said and did. In time I came to feel sorry for him, much the same way one feels sorry for any of God's pitiful creatures. I learned in time actually to defend him when talking about him with others, despite his ungrateful, relentless verbal and psychological abuse. (It was some comfort knowing that he was not just picking on me. He was that way to everyone at one time or another, scapegoating or insulting them for situations over which they had no control.)</p><p>You put your finger on the dynamic in your post. We forgive, not because of what forgiveness does for the perpetrator, but for what it does for us. When we fail to forgive we get infected with a corrosive, septic spiritual condition that poisons everything in life. All our senses are affected, and we can no longer hear, see, feel or experience life without distortion. For me, it is the same dynamic that makes me oppose capital punishment. The reason has more to do with what it does to me than what happens to the criminal. In the same way that capital punishment caused me as a citizen to become a perpetrator of evil, unforgiveness also transforms me into someone I know I don't want to be.</p><p>It's easier said than done, of course. But that's the best I can do in a comment thread.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>I wrote about Leila Abu Saba at my first blog if anyone cares to know the backstory. She died of cancer shortly after this was written but thankfully some of her writing remains accessible, <a href="https://bedouina.typepad.com/doves_eye/2008/04/forgiveness.html"><b>including this link to one of her several blogs. </b></a><b> </b>This post is not linked to my social media platforms because some of my friends from the past will recognize the person about whom I wrote and I want to avoid conflict.</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-17326049302584469912024-02-11T13:22:00.000-05:002024-02-11T13:22:47.639-05:00Without Equality There's No Freedom<p><span style="background-color: white;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 17px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b><i>This story appeared in my "X" feed and received many moving responses.</i></b></span></span></div><h1><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a href="https://twitter.com/alon_mizrahi/status/1756407671844995396">Alon Mizrahi | without equality there's no freedom</a></span></span></h1></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 17px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">
</span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMk27wdfCXZZbRujNgTCnsqa3gfXVpZrHwJWMGPncJOyUk5wwVoNqKrkE_R4SNE9B_B3ll6HCHdJB3cJNFzFF14WmnrZNTt9gDLrub8GgnsLChpKxBhCGoZTXU6Vqw92I9nycDKThp8403D-7hsyrdJhmIbpFIft5hbjh31bdHXB_SuACbFZXrZdt3YBZ/s629/Screenshot%202024-02-11%201.08.48%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #0f1419; float: right; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="629" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMk27wdfCXZZbRujNgTCnsqa3gfXVpZrHwJWMGPncJOyUk5wwVoNqKrkE_R4SNE9B_B3ll6HCHdJB3cJNFzFF14WmnrZNTt9gDLrub8GgnsLChpKxBhCGoZTXU6Vqw92I9nycDKThp8403D-7hsyrdJhmIbpFIft5hbjh31bdHXB_SuACbFZXrZdt3YBZ/s320/Screenshot%202024-02-11%201.08.48%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 17px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Let me share with one of the most surreal and sobering moments of my life, that happened to me while I was an IDF soldier stationed in Gaza in at the end of 1992.
That kind of moment could only happen to a Mizrahi, or Arab-jewish soldier. You'll see why I say it. And I could swear to you that every word of it is true. No embellishments, no filling in missing pieces of memory. All truth.
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In the summer of 1992 I finished basic and some advanced infantry training, and my platoon was ready to partake in combat function, which really was just (same as for generation of young Israeli men and women before and after that) enforcement of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The unit I was joining at this stage had under its responsibility (for purposes of overt occupation activities) the Al-Shati refugee camp and some of the adjacent Rimal neighborhood, on the northwestern part of the Strip.
At the end of 1992, Israel's leadership decided that the (Zionist and brilliant) solution for the growing discontent, or resistence, in the Strip, was removing 400 Hamas 'leaders' from Gaza and sending them into exile in Lebanon.
As many of those Hamas figures lived in and around the area designated for my unit to handle, we were appointed with making dozens of arrests, or maybe hundreds (Israel would always arrest additional people for more information, as a form of pressure and to prevent an eruption of a violent reaction).
For weeks in November of 1992 I would spend whole nights of my very young life walking from house to house in the dead of night in Gaza, knocking on doors, threatening family members of missing wanted people and handing over those who were home to the representatives of the security services, who were always with us, and always in plain cloths.
As part of my service there, I was in hundreds of Palestinians homes in Gaza, many of them during that month of endless nocturnal search and arrest hours.
Some nights we would take in 10 different people from same numbers of homes.
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I was too young and shocked to understand anything, though it was clear to me that this was not the hero's service fighting evil I spent the months and years before joining the IDF hoping for and fantasizing about.
Those people in Gaza were normal in a way that no part of me could align with evil. And I could never bring myself to become that natural lord and master that colonial and racist regimes always expect their soldiers and cops to be. I was too soft.
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The people we took in never cried, begged for forgiveness or claimed it was a mistake. They would climb up and sit in the military vehicle with their hands tied behind their backs and their eyes covered in a kind of quiet that was more thunderous, more painful for me to remember all those years later, than any other act would be.
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One man in particular I remember. A big, sombre man in his 30', who looked untouchable in a big, thick black coat. But as he sat in the military vehicle with his hands tied behind his back his coat slipped over his shoulders, revealing a tank top and a body and skin that did not look invincible, or untouchable. He was human.
And he sat there, staring into space, in total quiet. Back then I had no idea where these men were taken, and what was going to be unleashed upon them. Only many years later did I discover how extensive Israel's use of torture was, and how horrible.
<br /></span></span><div><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 17px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But the big, somber, fragile man sat there, quiet, and, like any other Palestinian I saw in this situation, with what I can best describe as dignity in brokenness, that was astonishing. I have never seen anyone with more dignity in my life than a hand-tied, eyes-covered Palestinian detainee.
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Towards the end of those weeks of knocking on doors and arresting people, one morning, around 7AMm after a long long bight, that moment happened to me. It was something that I never forgot and never will forget.
It was the last arrest for that night, which already becade day. We stood there, a small band of soldiers, and knocked on the door of what looked like a well built, well kept house. It was not fancy, but it surely not the house of poor people.
We waited for someone to come and open the door. After a minute or so, someone did.
If you ever felt like reality around you had its fundamentals twisting and changing, or like the layer of meaning that enveloped reality was torn, revealing another layer of deeper meaning, but in a way that makes you dizzy and dumbfounded - if you know that feeling you'll know what I went through that moment.
Because the person that opened that door at that house that morning in Gaza was my very own and only sister.
The door opened and the actual, precise, living and breathing image of my sister, identical as any identical twin ever was, stood in the doorway. It was her face. her expression, her hair, her highet, her age, her build, her movement, her skin tone accurate to the 1000th degree.
I didn't know what was going on, or what kind of insane trick was being played on me. I gasped, lost for words. I stood a meter away from her, and my very wanted to call her by my sister's name.
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Not long after this, after that whole period, I started cracking. I could not take it anymore, though I never could tell myself what it was that I couldn't take. I went to see a psychologist and got restationed to a non-combat unit.
It took me many years to start to appreciate the damage done to me by what I was sent to do and see in Gaza. I don't think that even today I have completely processed it.
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She stood at the door and was a little puzzled, bot not panicked. She was wiping the floor, and it was still wet. A bucket with a rug in it stood by. It was a clean house, with a shining clean floor. The officer told her to get out and speak to us from street level, as the house was one stair up from that.
But the street was dirty and sandy, and she couldn't bring herself to step outside barefoot. Her foot (my sister's foot) ventured out for a second, not actually stepping, just hovering, but then was drawn in.
The officer pretended to not notice. He didn't insist, and she remained inside. By not insisting and not becoming violent, I think, he saved my actual sanity, and never knew it.</span></span><p></p></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-85249067742759243782024-01-15T10:25:00.001-05:002024-01-15T10:25:32.611-05:00 The Tame Geese -- A parable by Søren Kierkegaard<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><b><i>This is a backup copy of something I blogged over a decade ago that was lost in my memory, not to mention that the link has also since gone dark.</i></b></p></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://hootsnewplace.blogspot.com/2013/04/morning-reading-april-2.html" target="_blank">The Tame Geese -- A parable by Søren Kierkegaard</a> <i style="font-weight: normal;">(by Søren Kierkegaard, from A Kierkegaard Anthology, edited by Robert Bretall, p. 433)</i></h3><p></p><blockquote><p>Suppose it was so that the geese could talk — then they had so arranged it that they also could have their religious worship, their divine service. </p><p>Every Sunday they came together, and once of the ganders preached. </p><p>The essential content of the sermon was: what a lofty destiny the geese had, what a high goal the Creator (and every time this word was mentioned the geese curtsied and the ganders bowed the head) had set before the geese; by the aid of wings they could fly away to distant regions, blessed climes, where properly they were at home, for here they were only strangers.</p><p>So it was every Sunday. And as soon as the assembly broke up each waddled home to his own affairs. And then the next Sunday again to divine worship and then again home — and that was the end of it. </p><p>That was the end of it. For though the discourse sounded so lofty on Sunday, the geese on Monday were ready to recount to one another what befell a goose that had wanted to make serious use of the wings the Creator had given him, designed for the high goal that was proposed to him — what befell him, what a terrible death he encountered. This the geese could talk about knowingly among themselves. But, naturally, to speak about it on Sundays was unseemly; for, said they, it would then become evident that our divine worship is really only making a fool of God and of ourselves. </p><p>Among the geese there were, however, some individuals which seemed suffering and grew thin. About them it was currently said among the geese: There you see what it leads to when flying is taken seriously. For because their hearts are occupied with the thought of wanting to fly, therefore they become thin, do not thrive, do not have the grace of God as we have who therefore become plump and delicate. </p><p>And so the next Sunday they went again to divine worship, and the old gander preached about the high goal the Creator (here again the geese curtsied and the ganders bowed the head) had set before the geese, whereto the wings were designed. </p><p>So with the divine worship of Christendom…</p></blockquote><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">And a commentary...</h4><p></p><blockquote><p>Why didn't the geese fly?</p><p>After hearing and understanding such a powerful message about the opportunities available to them, they seemed to ignore it. They didn't fly home. The message made no impact on their lives. They continued to do what they had always done. They waddled home.</p><p>Why, when there were so many good reasons to change, didn't the geese fly?</p><p>It seems a part of the human condition that we don't always do what we know we should. We don't always act in our own best interest, even when we know better. In fact, we sometimes even deliberately do things that we know we are going to end up paying for in the long run. We might call this phenomenon the Amazing Action Anomaly. That is, people most often know what it is they should be doing but usually choose to ignore or act in contradiction to either their strongest instincts or to reality. Although, it makes no sense, we continue to waddle.</p></blockquote><p></p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-50127654298821587942024-01-02T11:33:00.001-05:002024-01-02T14:01:46.441-05:00Reflections about Education<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><b><i>This is mostly a cut-and-paste copy of an 18-year old post from my old blog. Many of the hyperlinks have since gone dark and some obscure references are outdated but my views of education have changed very little. Perhaps some day one or more of my grandchildren will come across this post and find it interesting, especially the part about my maternal grandmother and her father.</i></b></p></blockquote></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <a href="https://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2006/03/mamacita-and-others-on-education.html">Mamacita and others on education</a></span></p><p>One of my jobs where I now work is dipping ice cream. (I was working in the dining room of a retirement community.) And one of the flavors is Moose Tracks. Don't ask me why, that name...maybe because moose leave huge lumps of stuff behind as they go tromping through the woods. Or maybe the dairy people, like the people who name real estate developments, just ran out of names one day. I dunno. Anyway, in moose tracks you sometimes dig around in the tub and come across a mother-lode of chocolate all in one piece, a semi-sweet chocolate boulder of chocolate magma than has to be broken a time or two to make room in the dipper for even a little vanilla ice cream. For the average ice cream aficionado it is a nice perq, but for the chocoholic, it is like waking up on Easter to find your basket packed with nothing but chocolate. No marshmallows. No circus peanuts. No jelly bird eggs. Just one chocolate treat after another.</p><p>I say all that to introduce three rich wellsprings of rich blogging all in one post. Nothing I write here (as you can see for yourself) will be anything like what they say themselves. They are <b><i>The Anchoress, Siggy</i></b> (short for Sigmund, Carl and Alfred), and<i><b> Mamacita.</b></i> Think of <i>Siggy</i> as a the most indulgent banana split you have ever been served, <i>Mamacita</i> as a big portion of Moose tracks on the side, and <i>The Anchoress</i> as a tall, frothy cup of gourmet coffee, not too much sugar, with a generous shot of Drambuie added.</p><p>These three converge on this occasion to discuss the sorry state of education in America. Since my own baby is pushing thirty and my grandchildren are a generation down the line, separated more by keyboards than books, I don't have personal credentials to speak with authority about what is happening in schools today. I'm sure it is as bad as they say, maybe worse. But I am more alarmed at the whole in loco parentis theme defining what now passes for education in the post-WWII era which has made the two-income family obligatory instead of optional. It is all well and good to say that the mission of school is to educate, not provide day-care. But that ideal is a distant dream for a lot, maybe a majority, of families. And the poisonous phrase single-parent family is not helping.</p><p>My own views on education have already been formed. I am open to whatever ideas might be added as time passes, but I cannot break free of the foundational importance of the family in determining the end result. There are good reasons for officials, authorities, politicians and other putative "leaders" and "role models" to offer guidance about what should and should not be included in a curriculum, but I have no confidence that any certified outline or syllabus can ever substitute for old-fashioned parental encouragement and support. I am careful to avoid using the word "involvement" because it is misleading. Involvement implies that a level of parental accomplishment that is commendable but not essential to the success of the process. How else would illiterate parents ever rear children who develop into physicians or physicists?</p><p>Only two days ago I came across a wonderful family treasure: a three-page letter, written in pencil toward the end of the nineteenth century. With two or three erasures and corrections, and a couple of repetitions that reveal that the writer was not accustomed to writing much of anything, it was a sincere written plea to my grandmother from her father to seek the advice of a well-educated Dr. McKee and his daughter regarding what might be the best course of study for her, my grandmother, to pursue in school. She was a college student in Ohio at the time and it was easy to spot her daddy's thinly-veiled concern that her interest in elocution and physical education might not serve her well in finding a "profitable position" when she got out of school. Having lost her mother, his wife, in childbirth, and his fortune by having sold the family estate to someone who paid him off in Confederate money, he was in no position to give his only child, being reared by relatives better able to feed and support her, much more than encouragement to seek the advice of others whom he respected.</p><p>Again I am reminded of my own great heritage, not of formal education, but of a family that valued the process of learning. Whatever educational achievement I have I attribute to that heritage more than any institution. And my guess is that most educated people, given enough time, would tell a similar story. Classrooms, instructors and others from academia would be an important part of the story, of course, but in the end there would be role models -- maybe not parents or family -- who became the linchpins of their success.</p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-18227660357206426482023-11-28T11:13:00.000-05:002023-11-28T11:13:12.527-05:00Hate and It's Children (January 2008)<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2008/01/hate-and-its-children.html"><b>"Hate and it's children" is a long-form stream of consciousness</b></a> posted at my old blog about fifteen years ago. Much has changed since then including the disappearance of links and personalities as the appearance of Substack and podcasts replaces old-fashioned blogging. This backup enables me to add editorial adjustments since I have no control over the original Hootsbuddy's Place. </i></p></blockquote><p>This morning's post by <b><i>The Anchoress</i></b> is one of those treasures worth keeping, found on the shore of the ocean we call the blogworld. I'll get to that in a moment, but first I want to address a question someone asked me a few days ago.</p><p>I told one of my children who does graphic design work that for Christmas I wanted some cards, like business cards, that I could give to people I meet identifying my blog. A blog card, if you will, instead of a business card. She came up with a layout of ten to be printed on photo paper that I chop up into cards. I gave one to someone who asked what made me start blogging and I realized I didn't have an answer. Not a good one, anyway.</p><p>In the beginning there was a fantasy about becoming well-known as a sage or thinker, someone whose insights and opinions would be sought by those seeking clever or wise commentary about matters large and small. I admired the wit of James Lileks, sharp insights of Michelle Malkin, over-the-top excesses of Rachel Lucas, timely scoops from Matt Drudge, and catholic attention to the whole universe by Glenn Reynolds. I knew that Steven Den Beste and Bill Whittle were writing long pieces that were atypical of blogs generally, but even they had respectable followings. I could tell by the comment threads how people were perceived. This was before the TTLB ecosystem emerged as a gold standard for traffic and links. All I knew was that the ocean was out there and the water looked fine, so in I jumped.</p><p>I realized as time passed that the sites that had excited me most shared a common political undercurrent I had not noticed at first. I saw myself as a veteran of the Civil Rights movement, a child of the Sixties whose anti-war predilections led me to change my draft status to conscientious objector, later to be drafted as such to serve two years as an Army medic. Yet here I was, twenty or thirty years later, having gone into the world of business, serving as a manager and boss, attracted to the Conservative wing of political writing like an ant to sugar. Like Freddy said to Eliza, "It's the new small talk...you do it so awfully well!" I didn't particularly appreciate the content, but the form was truly wonderful.</p><p>Oh, there were places from what can be called "the Left" that also were pumping out stuff. But they were the lunatic fringe, you know...conspiracy theorists, astrologers, practitioners of exotic (typically Asian) alien philosophies, Marxists (who never tire of endless fountains of words, words, words) and other cranks who were hard to peg. Pejorative use of the word "moonbat" came about quite naturally because those of us from the nether edge of the political spectrum do tend to be poorly coordinated, less focused on practical details and more taken with crazy dreams. (Two of my favorite lines are Will Rogers' I'm not a member of any organized political party...I'm a Democrat and Ambrose Bierce's definition of a "Conservative" as One enamoured with prevailing evils as opposed to a Liberal who wished to replace them with new ones.)</p><p>Pajamas Media represents the Right perfectly, creases pressed and colors coordinated, small points of discussion notwithstanding. That venerable assembly preceded Netroots by a few years, but that latter-day rag-tag outfit with all its profanity and outrage, emerged as the Left's reply to Pajamas. I have watched helplessly as the aftermath of 9/11 and a knee-jerk reaction have polarized national politics to the point that I no longer identify easily with either pole. When I started blogging I felt comfortable with a messy but principled Left, such as it was, but I have been embarrassed by extremes from that side. Excoriating the name of General Petraeus and failing to recognize positive efforts by the president to bring about meaningful immigration reform come to mind (not to mention uncoupling health insurance from employment, an idea which has great practical appeal to me but which no one is speaking about openly...though it is an idea specifically from the White House).</p><p>Anyway, getting to what <b>The Anchoress</b> said, she opens by describing an important difference between what I call partisan hate and personal hate. Partisan hate is rather generic, enabling the hater to close ranks with others of like persuasion in a feeling of power or solidarity. Personal hate, on the other hand, tends to be individual, more inner-directed and as a result more corrosive to one's character and temperament than an outburst at a rally or surge of excitement seeing one's letter to the editor in print. Personal hate is like tinnitus, always ringing or buzzing in your head, never going away. Sometimes, even in your sleep, grinding teeth and nightmares nurture the poison, leaving a kind of mental pus staining the rest of life, dampening happiness and excitement into dull tolerance.</p><p><b>That is the end of Part One </b>of my thinking this morning.</p><p>In order to fully appreciate the pain and suffering that grows from what I have termed Personal Hate, go there now and read this woman's incredible confession, self-examination, and journey toward absolution. She is articulate to the point of tears. Her description of personal hate and how her family members, the angels that God has given her to let her know He loves her, lead her out of her darkness into the light that only comes from faith.</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>What upset me more than anything is that for the first time in my life, I was actively hating someone. I’ve never hated anyone - not even people who have done me physical and spiritual harm. But I was hating this fellow. And hating him even more for “making me” hate him.</i></p><p><i>Which, of course, he could not do. No one can “make” you hate; I simply allowed hate in; I welcomed it in, gave it an honored chair and fed it. And fed it. And it was incredibly destructive and oppressive - to me, mostly - but it did nothing good for anyone who had to be around me if the subject had my head. My whole family, and a few friends, have had to endure watching me give myself over to this resentment, allowing it to have its way with me, and to own me, body and soul.</i></p></blockquote><p></p><p>I'll wait here while you read the rest. She tells her story better than any excerpt can capture.</p><p><i>(The Anchoress is the blog name of Elizabeth Scalia who is still blogging but her old posts are not easily found. She also has an X account these days.)</i></p><h3 style="text-align: center;"><i><b>§§§§§</b></i></h3><p><b>For Part Two</b> I want to redirect the reader's attention to what I have called <b>Partisan Hate.</b> <br />Partisan hate is importantly different from personal hate. Partisan hate derives from groups more than individuals, although individuals plant the seeds and nurture its growth. What impulse attracts others to this or that category of hate is not clear. The reasons are probably as diverse as the numbers attracted. My instinct is that partisan hate may be an outgrowth of personal hate, but I don't want that laid on me. MY partisan hate is not as bad as YOURS, of course, so we know there are exceptions to such a rule.</p><p>I don't want to run down that road too far because it will have us all running in circles. What I want to point to is a partisan argument now developing over the use of the word "fascism." Individuals are involved in the discussion, so I want to be clear here: my aim is not to "disrespect" (I think that's the right modern usage of that neologism) any person, but to point to an idea or trend with which I find problems.</p><p>With September 11, 2001 now six years past, we divide contemporary history into Pre- and Post-9/11 eras. Thanks to what seems to have been a carefully-orchestrated narrative America's response to that event has had two misleading concepts at the core. <br />• The first is that there is no significant difference between Muslim extremists and Muslims as a population. <br />• The second is that the attack on the World Trade Center was an act of war, not just an act of terrorism.</p><p>Recently a voice of reason in Britain finally pointed to the naked king, stating the obvious:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>The Director of Public Prosecutions said: 'We resist the language of warfare, and I think the government has moved on this. It no longer uses this sort of language."</i></p><p><i>London is not a battlefield, he said.</i></p><p><i>"The people who were murdered on July 7 were not the victims of war. The men who killed them were not soldiers," Macdonald said. "They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way."</i></p></blockquote><p></p><p>His remarks signal a change in emphasis across Whitehall, where the "war on terror" language has officially been ditched.</p><p>This important moment has gone unnoticed both there and here but <a href="https://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-year-2008.html"><b>a few people</b></a> have taken note and perhaps one day in the future, when more <u>reflective</u> than <u>reflexiv</u>e observers are doing an analysis of the post-9/11 era that moment will find "new" meaning.</p><p>Regarding the other misleading idea, that there is little or no difference between Muslim extremists and Muslims as a population, it was plain to me from the start that there was a serious disconnect between the Muslim faith and terrorism. Having worked with a few people who were Muslim, both devout and nominal, I had and continue to have a clear impression of them standing in sharp relief to the images being fashioned and fed to Americans for popular consumption.</p><p><b>Helplessly I watched as preparations for the invasion of Iraq got underway. I had mixed feelings about what was being advanced as a "preemptive" invasion, and along with everyone else I gave credibility to the "threat"scenario. Once the war was underway, matters got out of control and there was little that anyone could do to bring about coitus interruptus in an international violent rape.</b></p><p>In the aftermath we see that General Petraeus and his insights should have been involved from the start, but you know what they say about hindsight...</p><p>Underscoring my instincts, I heard <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18144563"><b>General Sir Michael Rose </b></a>say in an interview last night that "by invading Iraq, of course we were going to make it almost impossible for the West to be able to mobilize the very people we need to help us fight Al Qaeda and that are the Muslim people of the world."</p><p>Which leads me to a neologism that has bothered me ever since I first heard it: Islamofascist. I'm not sure where the term originated, but I don't think it came from any confessing Muslim. Since no one wants to be associated with fascism (even those who are by definition fascists, I believe) it becomes a perfect label to attach to any group or individual one wants to discredit. Since the end of World War II the word fascism has the same stench to the children of the Allies that terms like Commie and fellow-traveler had in the Fifties or Nigger-lover had in the deep South about the same time. In fact, the term fascist is worse. I know people not ashamed to have been associated with the idealistic Communists of the past. And I, myself am satisfied -- no, honored, to be called Nigger-lover.</p><p>But that word fascist is another matter. I haven't met anyone who wants to own that designation, just as I have yet to meet anyone (or hear of anyone) pleased to be called Islamofascist.</p><p>All of which gets me to the point of this post.</p><p>The book <i><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Fascism">Liberal Fascism </a></b></i>and it's cute logo, a happy face with a Hitler-type mustache, is emerging, thanks to its provenance, from the mire of pulp slime trolling to the status of acceptable commentary. If a less well-known writer had produced this book it would not have attracted as much attention. It certainly would not have been viewed with as much respectability. But we are living in a time when the Ron Pauls of the world can go <a href="https://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2008/01/one-final-nail-in-ron-pauls-political.html"><b>tromping across the national carpet</b></a> with muddy boots and get away with it because what they say scratches a national itch that just keeps getting worse.</p><p>I saw the logo before I saw reference to the book. I dismissed it as so much sillyness. Then I saw it was a book, but I didn't pay much attention. We who openly call ourselves Liberal are accustomed these days to all kinds of personal invective. Then I noticed David Niewert's remarks followed by Jonah Goldberg on C-SPAN talking about his book. That got my attention. I see now that a heated argument is underway among pundits, historians and other experts regarding the pros and cons of Goldberg's book.</p><p>It's not hard to discern which side of this discussion is which.</p><p>I'm not enough of a scholar to say comment about the derivation of the word fascism. Moreover, I'm not interested in doing the homework when people like David Niewert are on duty. (Someone in the comment thread even linked to a critical review by Michael Ledeen.)</p><p>But I am smart enough to know it is an execrable insult to anyone to be called a fascist. There is an old saying in the South that even a dog knows when he's been kicked. There's a difference between being kicked and being tripped over. And I, as a self-identified Liberal, feel kicked and it really pisses me off. I'm not to the point of personal hate as referenced above, but it is fair to say that in the same way that The Anchoress draws the line between partisan hate and personal hate, I have to say I am full in the glow of partisan hate, resentment and insult.</p><p>This rant is as far as I will allow myself to go. But the issue has been stuck in my craw ever since I became aware and I had to get it out so I can move on with my blogging.</p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-68271950008112760292023-11-27T06:01:00.001-05:002023-11-27T16:11:22.594-05:00Israel/Hamas Thread by Mouin Rabbani<p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouin_Rabbani"><b>Mouin Rabbani is a Dutch-Palestinian Middle East analyst specializing in the Arab-Israeli conflict and Palestinian affairs.</b></a> Rabbani is based in Amman, Jordan and was a Senior Analyst for the International Crisis Group, the Palestine Director of the Palestine American Research Center, a Project Director for the Association of Netherlands Municipalities, and a volunteer and General Editor for Al Haq. Rabbani is currently a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, a co-editor of Jadaliyya, and a Contributing Editor to the Middle East Report. </i></p></blockquote><p>THREAD:</p><p>On 7 October Israel vowed to destroy Hamas. To eradicate it as an organization. To neuter it as a military force, political movement, and governing entity. More recently Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in true mob boss style, stated that he had given Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, Mossad, orders to assassinate all Hamas leaders residing in exile. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkHIwykJTkUAaRxm7ay9ZdFh_3tEORG2bcMBr24DUkf5oUrQOyLsMrIBdgjxRei0jckN3BlkE8pUFAp2pkaSK8AlFqm7cHWktEr7feEHK_2J4QW-AT_MiQXgx_Ye32b3BvRe6oTcvL0GJanE8ZH1WSyxjofk1Q9siz5uQCvhvkjg8mlD8sS5zjDb0KNS2B/s643/Screenshot%202023-11-27%205.48.33%20AM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="226" data-original-width="643" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkHIwykJTkUAaRxm7ay9ZdFh_3tEORG2bcMBr24DUkf5oUrQOyLsMrIBdgjxRei0jckN3BlkE8pUFAp2pkaSK8AlFqm7cHWktEr7feEHK_2J4QW-AT_MiQXgx_Ye32b3BvRe6oTcvL0GJanE8ZH1WSyxjofk1Q9siz5uQCvhvkjg8mlD8sS5zjDb0KNS2B/s320/Screenshot%202023-11-27%205.48.33%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>Fifty days into the war, how close is Israel to achieving its objectives? The short answer is that it requires zero knowledge of military affairs to conclude that </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> Israel’s proclaimed objectives are unattainable, and </li><li>Israel has additionally failed to significantly degrade either Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). </li></ul><p></p><p>The elimination of Hamas is unattainable for several reasons. Most importantly, unlike for example ISIS or the European Union, Hamas has – much like the IRA/Sinn Fein or Facebook, in the decades since its establishment in 1988 become deeply rooted within society, and today exists wherever Palestinian communities are to be found. So even if Israel succeeded in eradicating Hamas from the Gaza Strip – or, more accurately, driving it underground – the organization will survive in the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, and elsewhere. </p><p>Indeed, the combined efforts of Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank since 2007 have yet to succeed in eliminating either its military, political, or social presence. FYI it is now 2023. </p><p>Previous campaigns to eradicate Palestinian movements have not only generally failed, but as a rule enhanced their stature. The scale of the current onslaught has catapulted Hamas’s stature to unprecedented levels among Palestinians, and indeed among Arabs and in the Global South more generally. That’s not a challenge that can be resolved by a fleet of F-35s armed with tons of high explosives. </p><p>Israel’s extraordinary self-regard and capacity for self-glorification notwithstanding, the elimination of Hamas is a non-starter, least of all at the hands of the thoroughly mediocre Israeli military and intelligence capabilities revealed on 7 October. Let’s for example take a closer look at those charged with assassinating Hamas leaders abroad. </p><p>When a Mossad cell tried to poison Hamas leader Khalid Mashal in Amman in 1997, the assassins were caught and arrested by one – just one– of his bodyguards, after a long chase. On foot. </p><p>King Hussein threatened to publicly execute the James Bond wannabes, and Israel (in the person of none other than Netanyahu) was forced to deliver to Jordan not only the antidote that saved Mashal’s life but also imprisoned Hamas founder/leader Shaikh Ahmad Yassin. </p><p>In 2010, when the Mossad inexplicably dispatched a team of some two dozen agents to Dubai to assassinate a single Hamas operative, Muhammad Mabhouh, they forgot to observe elementary principles of operational security (e.g. hiding their faces from hotel CCTV monitors), and all ended up on Interpol’s wanted list. Their amateurish use of foreign passports additionally strained relations with key international allies, like Israel acolyte Stephen Harper of Canada. </p><p>There’s no indication the agency has gotten any better during the intervening years. Unless you’re watching a Hollywood movie produced by Mossad asset Arnon Milchan, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency is not your go-to outfit for a campaign of high-profile foreign assassinations against an organization on high alert. I suspect American and European intelligence agencies are slowly reaching similar conclusions. </p><p>Mossad’s domestic counterpart, Shin Bet, hasn’t fared better. Not only because it has been unable to eliminate Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif for decades, but more importantly because Hamas was able to arm, prepare, and launch the 7 October attacks right under its noses, and it hadn’t a clue. While Israel was busy “mowing the lawn” in the belief it was keeping Gaza’s armed groups in check, the Palestinians constructed an entire rainforest in plain sight. </p><p>Israel may well get a few high-profile scalps and proclaim the End of History, but the organizational impact will be minor and temporary. Yassin was assassinated in 2004, a time when the most powerful rocket in the Hamas arsenal had difficulty making it across my living room. Its successful assassination of Hizballah leader Abbas in Mussawi in 1992 produced Hassan Nasrallah, Israel’s worst nightmare. In 2006, a daring midnight wartime raid in the Bekaa Valley finally captured Hassan Nasrallah. But there was a minor hiccup: the Mossad, which constantly proclaims itself the greatest and most sophisticated intelligence agency in recorded history, confused the head of Hizballah with a greengrocer bearing the same name. </p><p>Similarly, Israel’s assassination campaign against Iranian nuclear scientists has been – to put it mildly – ineffective. Even the 2004 assassination of Yassir Arafat was counterproductive, as it set the stage for not only the obedient non-entity that is Mahmoud Abbas but also made possible the rise of Hamas as a genuinely national movement. </p><p>But I digress. How significantly has Israel weakened Hamas since 7 October? If you listen to Daniel Hagari (the tunnel meme celebrity), Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (who looks like death warmed over when delivering good news), or Netanyahu, it’s clear there is very little left of the Palestinian movements, their leadership, or infrastructure. Antony Blinken, Jake “All Quiet on the Western Front” Sullivan, and John “Tearstosterone” Kirby, who seem to prefer receiving news after it has been vetted by the Israeli military censor, appear similarly confident. </p><p>But once you step outside their echo chamber, reality tells a very different story. </p><p>A significantly degraded organization would not have been able to uniformly and simultaneously cease firing throughout the Gaza Strip at the very moment a truce went into effect. </p><p>Or to continue firing coordinated rocket barrages until moments before. Or to record, edit, and centrally broadcast video footage of its military operations from multiple locations on a nearly daily basis. Or collect and deliver captives from multiple locations, to multiple locations, during the truce – including deliberately choosing a location in central Gaza City that the Israeli military claimed is under its control. The most important functions of any military organization – command and control, communications, logistics, reconnaissance, PR, and last but not least the ability and will to fight, appear intact and at best marginally affected. </p><p>As pointed out previously, Israel has killed more UN staff than Hamas commanders. The same in fact holds true for journalists and medical personnel. And the Israeli military has yet to unearth a fraction of the tunnels found in Hagari memes. It's inconceivable that Hamas has not been weakened and degraded during the past 50 days, or not lost important cadres and commanders, or depleted a significant proportion of its arsenal. But significantly degraded? The evidence for this is entirely absent. The Israeli military is admittedly a highly efficient killing machine, but also a mediocre fighting force, particularly in ground operations. </p><p>Wars are not won by slaughtering children by the thousands, or turning Gaza City into rubble and depriving an entire society of basic necessities. The Germans tried this in the Soviet Union, and the Americans in Iraq, and it didn’t end well for either of them. </p><p>Many have expressed disgust at the video of an Israeli major dedicating the destruction of a building to his daughter on her second birthday. One could also point out that when a military reaches the point of celebrating the demolition of an apartment building, it should repurpose as a municipal engineering corps and can no longer be considered a serious fighting force. </p><p>This also helps explain why the US – by any standard an active participant in this war – and Israel decided to not only negotiate with Hamas, but specifically with Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the 7 October attacks, and to accept most Hamas’s conditions for the agreement reached several days ago. </p><p>Before the truce was concluded US and Israeli officials – who previously rejected anything of the sort – explained that it would be an important agreement because it would legitimize a subsequent continuation and escalation of the war against the Gaza Strip. Several additional months on the scale of what we have witnessed this past month or even greater, as Gallant and Hagari keep promising, now seems increasingly unlikely. </p><p>To be sure, Israel has an overwhelming advantage in military power. But when a serving cabinet minister advocates using a nuclear weapon against the Gaza Strip (a threat that has yet to be acknowledged by a single Western leader), it suggests the conventional military is having difficulty succeeding. Given its overwhelming power Israel can of course inflict very severe damage on not only Palestinian society but also Hamas. It will almost certainly make another effort to do so in the coming days or weeks. </p><p>But it seems increasingly unlikely it is prepared to expend the blood and treasure required to achieve a meaningful military result. Its US and European sponsors also appear to be reaching a point where they would prefer to gradually wind this down before it gets completely out of hand and Israeli conduct ends up damaging rather than promoting their interests in the region. Israel’s systematic, deliberate attacks on the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, and systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, should be understood in this context. </p><p>In addition to being motivated by a lust for revenge and desire to achieve a body count many time higher than that inflicted by the Palestinians on 7 October, such campaigns, for example by the Nazis in occupied Europe, the French in Algeria, the British in Kenya, the US in Iraq and before that in Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia, and indeed Israel in Palestine and Lebanon, deliberately target civilian society in order to put pressure on armed groups that superior military force is unable to eliminate. The British after all pioneered the concentration camp during the Boer War for this objective, decades before the Nazis repurposed it for mass extermination. </p><p>Given the above examples one might conclude that such tactics rarely end well for the occupiers. They often don’t. </p><p>Yet it is also true that the dustbin of history is littered with just causes. In the case of Israel and the Palestinians, and despite the colossal imbalance of power, it appears that Israel is increasingly losing the plot. END</p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-58156061611522995942023-11-01T09:33:00.004-04:002023-11-01T09:33:42.480-04:00The world was warned about Hamas years ago<p><b>Few people now remember that Fatah was elected in Gaza in 2006 </b>-- nearly eighteen years ago -- in an election approved even by Israel and <a href="https://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2006/02/jimmy-carter-at-eighty-one.html"><b>monitored by none other than Jimmy Carter,</b></a> the president whose diplomatic acumen had yielded the Camp David Accords. </p><p>Soon after that<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/19/AR2006021901138.html"><b> Carter issued plain advice </b></a>on how positive results of that election could be lost if Israel and her allies failed to respond carefully.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>During this time of fluidity in the formation of the new government, it is important that Israel and the United States play positive roles. Any tacit or formal collusion between the two powers to disrupt the process by punishing the Palestinian people could be counterproductive and have devastating consequences.</p><p>Unfortunately, these steps are already underway and are well known throughout the Palestinian territories and the world. Israel moved yesterday to withhold funds (about $50 million per month) that the Palestinians earn from customs and tax revenue. Perhaps a greater aggravation by the Israelis is their decision to hinder movement of elected Hamas Palestinian Legislative Council members through any of more than a hundred Israeli checkpoints around and throughout the Palestinian territories. This will present significant obstacles to a government's functioning effectively. Abbas informed me after the election that the Palestinian Authority was $900 million in debt and that he would be unable to meet payrolls during February. Knowing that Hamas would inherit a bankrupt government, U.S. officials have announced that all funding for the new government will be withheld, including what is needed to pay salaries for schoolteachers, nurses, social workers, police and maintenance personnel. So far they have not agreed to bypass the Hamas-led government and let humanitarian funds be channeled to Palestinians through United Nations agencies responsible for refugees, health and other human services.</p><p><b>This common commitment to eviscerate the government of elected Hamas officials by punishing private citizens may accomplish this narrow purpose, but the likely results will be to alienate the already oppressed and innocent Palestinians, to incite violence, and to increase the domestic influence and international esteem of Hamas. It will certainly not be an inducement to Hamas or other militants to moderate their policies.</b></p></blockquote><p>President Carter's good intentions notwithstanding, even at the time he spoke Hamas was already a clearly malevolent group. <a href="http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000424.htm"><b>This is from another source </b></a>I came across at the time.</p><p></p><blockquote><p><b>Calling the Hamas "militant" is more than an understatement. It is like saying Stalin was an "outspoken activist." Hamas began about 1985 as a seemingly innocuous charity and religious group that even got the support of the Israeli government. However, when the first Intifada started, Hamas turned militant. </b>They drew up their charter, which explains their views on negotiations and what might be called "the Jewish question." It is hard to imagine a more racist and terrifying document. Some quotes:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."</i></p><p><i>The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "</i></p><p><i>There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."</i></p><p><i>After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."</i></p></blockquote></blockquote><p> The Hamas victory was also <a href="https://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2006/01/the_hamas_victo.html"><b>noted by 3Quarks Daily</b></a> at the time. </p><p><b><i>Journalist and blogger, Laila el-Haddad, on the Palestinian elections and Hamas' victory in The Guardian's news blog.</i></b></p><p></p><blockquote><p>The latest events can only be described as a political earthquake, both locally and regionally. Not only are these the first truly democratic and hotly contested elections in the Arab Middle East, but also the first time an Islamic party has come to power through the system and the popular will of the people.</p><p>To say we are entering a new stage is an understatement. Everyone knew Hamas would do well in these elections and that they would constitute a significant challenge to the ruling party. But this well?</p><p>Voters in Gaza were shocked.</p><p>"I cast a sympathy vote for Hamas but truthfully I did not expect them to win at all. It was a surprise to everyone; no one expected this to happen," a young college student said.</p><p>Even Hamas members and supporters were surprised.</p><p>"We thought we'd get at most 50% of the votes," one Hamas insider told me.</p><p>"We didn't expect the security forces and the upper classes to vote for us, but it seems they might have tipped the balance. I guess we're more popular than we realised."</p><p>How the new government will take shape and whether western positions towards it will evolve have all yet to answered. It's likely that Hamas will form a kind of national unity government, or a coalition of some sort, with a mixture of other parties. The burden of the sudden and overwhelming responsibility for running a state and answering to their constituents' long and varied list of demands may be more than they can deal with alone at the moment.</p></blockquote><p>That "burden of the sudden and overwhelming responsibility for running a state and answering to their constituents' long and varied list of demands" did, in fact turn out to be "more than they can deal with alone at the moment."</p><p>Moreover, from that day to this Israel's response to that election has been to seize the moment and make it a <b><i>divide-and-conquer strategy (Hamas vs. Fatah)</i></b> controlling and overcoming the entire Palestinian population inside the official borders of the country, in Gaza and the Occupied Territories (aka the West Bank).</p><p>Gaza was already tightly controlled, but since then Hamas has, in fact become more militant than before, and Israel's controls have become progressively more severe, making it one of the world's biggest open-air prisons, housing a civilian population half or more of whom may not have even born when when Hamas was elected. </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>I don't know if these links will be active as I publish this post. <a href="https://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2006/02/jimmy-carter-at-eighty-one.html"><b>I gleaned them from my old blog</b></a> which has somehow survived for searches but with no one in charge. When I go there I see many now-inactive urls but the old ship without a captain somehow survives somewhere in the cloud...</i></p><p><i> </i></p></blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br /></p><p></p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-3919294866860972852023-10-29T14:14:00.001-04:002023-10-29T14:20:29.476-04:00David Rothcopf Thread<h3 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/djrothkopf/status/1718627028126023941">David Rothkopf @djrothkopf (Twitter thread)</a></h3><p>The sides are so deeply entrenched that having a reasonable discussion about what is happening in Gaza is nearly impossible. Part of the problem is the large number of "facts" that are stated by one side or the other that are either untrue or misleading. Let's debunk a few.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDomzXLVDauKY7XY5nQg4vB2YQ46WSFFpvVhDZ3hMFJwBaeAcsz9m0MkxVG5KEW6H9aK_L0YSpVS5yTF-FtpNRs5iGQ0QurEK8MZ-biTn3E6Ih_3CDTn8RVs6xMLy9SzSlZeLZeZksqF9kghhTH8Kkff27ON0GK8oRNRiQxj5U2Hb_weGydIqJD-s4xkzQ/s635/Screenshot%202023-10-29%202.08.27%20PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="230" data-original-width="635" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDomzXLVDauKY7XY5nQg4vB2YQ46WSFFpvVhDZ3hMFJwBaeAcsz9m0MkxVG5KEW6H9aK_L0YSpVS5yTF-FtpNRs5iGQ0QurEK8MZ-biTn3E6Ih_3CDTn8RVs6xMLy9SzSlZeLZeZksqF9kghhTH8Kkff27ON0GK8oRNRiQxj5U2Hb_weGydIqJD-s4xkzQ/s320/Screenshot%202023-10-29%202.08.27%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>First, to place them in context, let my frame briefly my view. <p></p><p>• What Hamas did on 10/7 was indefensible and horrific. Any nation would respond. Israel has a right and an obligation of self-defense. Removing the threat posed by Hamas is essential.<br />• Both Israeli and Palestinian innocents have an equal right to living secure lives and to controlling their own destiny. There is no justification for killing members of either group. The long term path to their security requires a two-state solution.<br />• In my personal view, both sides have an equal right to self-determination. The lives of the people of both groups should be equally cherished and protected. It is very important to distinguish between the people of Israel and Palestine and their leaders.<br />• The people of Israel and Palestine have been badly served by their leaders for many years in multiple ways that provide the context for the current crisis. The current crisis cannot be removed from that context no matter how it may suit either side to do so.</p><p>You can calibrate all that I am about to say against the above nutshell description of my views on this complex issue which I have studied closely for many years. I am Jewish. I do not just acknowledge I actually celebrate Israel's existence. But I believe the rights of any nation to exist are conditional based on whether it derives its existence from the consent of the governed, respects and protects equally lives of all those within its borders, honors international laws and boundaries, etc.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I am an American and I carry plenty of biases associated with that with me too. </li><li>I believe in the separation of church and state. </li><li>I believe in democracy. </li><li>I believe states are imperfect but should strive to perfect themselves.</li></ul><p></p><p>That said, here are a few things I view as the big distortions and misconceptions that are distorting the current debate:</p><p>Hamas is not an existential threat to Israel. It is a threat. But it is small and weak compared to Israel. It can inflict damage as we have seen but whatever the malevolent aspirations of its leaders may be it cannot destroy or substantially weaken the state of Israel.</p><p>Israel cannot "eradicate" Hamas. It can eliminate its leaders. It can target and likely eliminate all those that took part in the 10/7 raids it can eliminate its stores of weapons. It can cut off its financial resources. But there are tens of thousands of members of Hamas. And to eradicate them all would produce such high civilian casualties it would likely lead to massive new recruitment of Hamas terrorists.</p><p>Suggesting Israel is culpable in setting the stage for Hamas' brutal 10/7 attacks is "blaming the victim." Hamas is culpable for its crimes. But Hamas was propped up the Israeli government. The conditions that left Israel vulnerable were created by the Israeli government.</p><p>The history of Israel's mistreatment of Gaza and Palestinians matters. The worsening conditions and prospects for Palestinians under the Netanyahu government matters. The prospect of a regional normalization accord between the Israelis and the Saudis that would have very likely papered over the problems of the Palestinians and weakened their leverage to achieve crucial political progress matters. Security in the future will depend on political progress that addresses grievances and issues raised in the past.</p><p><b>War is hell. I see plenty of folks saying Hiroshima and Dresden and the like prove that civilians have to die in "just" wars. Killing civilians, collectively punishing societies is against international law for a reason. </b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>It is unjust. </li><li>It was unjust in Hiroshima</li><li>it was unjust in Dresden</li><li>it is wrong in Ukraine</li><li>It was wrong in Syria</li><li>it was wrong in Iraq. </li></ul><p></p><p><b>It is always wrong. It is never acceptable.</b> There is no magic formula for acceptable civilian losses. They must always be avoided. Yes, it is hard when an adversary uses civilians as shields. But tactics must be adapted accordingly. Care must be taken. But also, the focus should in such cases be focus as suggested above on where the blows will be to greatest effect--against leaders, supply lines, flows of financial support.</p><p>We also should not forget the lessons of past such conflicts. In Iraq, the US estimated that each civilian killed resulted in 10 more new adversaries being recruited. Whatever the specific number, killing civilians is both wrong and undermines tactical and strategic goals.</p><p>Military action is essential to restoring stability. If a military solution could solve this conflict, it would be over. Israel is vastly more powerful than Hamas. It has punished Hamas frequently. It has imposed its will on the people of Gaza (and the West Bank) for years.</p><p>None of these steps have worked in making Israel more secure (as 10/7 proves) or solving the underlying problems. That can only be achieved by finding a lasting political solution that treats the aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians equally. The international community must make that its objective. (In so doing, it must recognize that Iran's malign influence and aspirations here must be contained. Iran is an existential threat to Israel. Its proxies are what could spread this into a regional war. The collaboration of Russia and Iran compounds the threat posed by those proxies. Defeating Russia in Ukraine, punishing the sponsors of the proxies financially, recognizing they are pulling the strings with Hamas, is critical to actually solving this problem. We must be realistic about this and we need to be resolute in addressing those threats. And, just as Hamas must effectively be removed from the equation in Gaza, so too must the Netanyahu government go. ASAP.</p><p>I could go on. The point is to solve this serious problem and to protect the lives of innocents we must be honest about the issues involved and see them for what they are and not for one side or the other tries to present them as. We require clarity to go with our resolve and our compassion. We can only hope that the urgency of this crisis helps us achieve that clarity.</p><p><b><i> https://twitter.com/djrothkopf/status/1718627028126023941</i></b></p><p><i>David J. Rothkopf is an American foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator. He is the founder and CEO of TRG Media and The Rothkopf Group, a columnist for the Daily Beast and a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors. </i></p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-89486026607474015122023-10-19T07:42:00.002-04:002023-10-19T07:55:34.960-04:00Gaza Flashback<p><a href="https://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2009/01/one-state-solution-for-israel-palestine.html"><b>This is a flashback about Gaza</b></a> from my old blog posted fourteen years ago in 2009. As you will see, much has changed since then. </p><h1 style="text-align: center;"><b>------------------</b></h1><p><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919;"><b style="font-size: 15.6px;">Here is a great story that NPR ran four</b><i style="font-size: 15.6px; font-weight: bold;"> </i><b style="font-size: 15.6px;">years ago </b><span style="font-size: 15.6px;"><b><i>(now eighteen) </i></b></span><b style="font-size: 15.6px;"> that caught my attention at the time. It describes a curious symbiosis between Israel and Gaza reflected in how automobiles were tagged in Gaza City. This was prior to Sharon's removal of Israeli settlers from Gaza, making me wonder if some of them may have had a surreptitious part in the story.<br />Much has changed since then, and not for the better as this little snapshot shows. <br />The audio and transcript have since disappeared but here is what I captured at the time.</b></span></p><p><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4514002" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #bf4e27; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px; font-weight: bold;">An Odd Hierarchy of License Plates in Gaza</a><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The local government in Gaza issues a unique kind of license plate: one for stolen cars. Driving school owner Raeed el-Sa'ati decodes the region's vehicle license plates.</span><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px; font-weight: bold;">SIEGEL:</span><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px;"> Last week, as we were riding through the streets of Gaza, our interpreter, Hosam Arhoun(ph), pointed out something that is, so far as we know, unique to that isolated strip of Mediterranean coast. It's a kind of license plate. I thought he was kidding. We would be behind a car, and he would say, `See that pair of Arabic letters on the tag? That indicates this is a stolen car. And that one,' he said, `that's an official stolen car.'</span><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px;">Well, we dropped in on Raeed el-Sa'ati, who owns the Ekhlas Driving School in Gaza, to get more details. And he explained that Gaza license plates can be red for official, green for taxis, and white for private vehicles. The lower the number on the red plates, the higher the position of the official. The number 30 designates a truck.</span><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px;">All this is pretty conventional stuff for license plates. But then...</span><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #cc0000; font-size: 15.6px; font-weight: bold;">Mr. RAEED EL-SA'ATI</span><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px;"> (Ekhlas Driving School): (Through Translator) And then the cars which, written in Arabic, the letters M and F, it is the stolen cars.</span><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px; font-weight: bold;">SIEGEL:</span><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px;"> The stolen cars?</span><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mr. EL-SA'ATI</span>:</span> (Through Translator) And then there is these plates which, M-H-F--it is stolen cars, but working at the authority, means, aha, it is a stolen governmental car. There's also another kind, but this is the same plates; the numbers are different. The numbers which started with 25, it is a stolen car, but it is allowed to work as taxis. This is a very modern law in the world.</span><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px; font-weight: bold;">SIEGEL:</span><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px;"> As you can hear, our man Hosam could hardly stop laughing as he translated this.</span><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px; font-weight: bold;">It turns out this system is a legacy of the most efficient but embarrassing example of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation in the 1990s: auto theft. The Palestinian Authority took over Gaza, and the Israeli police were out, so Israeli car thieves fenced thousands of stolen cars into the Gaza Strip, about 15,000 of them, where they were then sold. Thousands are driven by Palestinian security and other officials. A lot of them are in that stolen taxicab category, vehicles that provide income while costing a lot less than a legal yellow minivan.</span><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><br style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #191919; font-family: Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px;" /><span face="Trebuchet, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f7f0e9; color: #000099; font-size: 15.6px; font-weight: bold;">When their cars were stolen, the Israeli car owners would get reimbursed by their insurance, and they would go buy new cars. So in effect, Israeli insurance companies were paying for Gaza's used car trade. When the insurance companies sued, the Palestinian Authority settled, and the settlement cost was offset in part by much higher registration fees for cars that had been stolen. So to designate those cars, they were given special license plates. According to the Transportation Department in Gaza, the news is that the Authority has decided in principle to end stolen car plates. Everyone will pay the same registration fees. But since this may put a lot of self-employed taxi drivers out of work, no one is saying how long it will take to abolish the license plate that says, `This car was stolen.'</span></p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-45397159264922193162023-10-08T10:27:00.003-04:002023-10-08T10:27:34.854-04:00Thread from Israel<p>🧵</p><p><a href="<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Exclusive: 100s of young party-goers have been killed or are missing feared kidnapped to Gaza by Hamas militants, who attacked a festival yesterday. Among them is Brit Jake Marlowe. Me &amp; <a href="https://twitter.com/NatalieLisbona?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@natalielisbona</a> spoke to witnesses who survived, relatives, friends <a href="https://t.co/Hs5ISzbJ3s">https://t.co/Hs5ISzbJ3s</a></p>&mdash; Bel Trew (@Beltrew) <a href="https://twitter.com/Beltrew/status/1711008201221509629?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>"><b>Exclusive: 100s of young party-goers have been killed or are missing</b></a> feared kidnapped to Gaza by Hamas militants, who attacked a festival yesterday. Among them is Brit Jake Marlowe. Me & <a href="https://twitter.com/NatalieLisbona"><b>@natalielisbona</b></a> spoke to witnesses who survived, relatives, friends</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTrZUgzxa5fWk3wNt9mXBSFC-DqJRikce83i2Y4HDzLPnSEGHkJEjsY1tMcuBDwNP7RMlHjAGNJUIn1UVEP_QSNyzHT2IEkvOwsfPGN4mGPxg76LkLPNRoSCB7CXUM0UspBIC8Uy6MrfjPk7ZrvugGLvgQ_uKKSyouhDmImglfQVxHZZTg7nVCicUMcQ7R/s708/Screenshot%202023-10-08%2010.21.40%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="708" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTrZUgzxa5fWk3wNt9mXBSFC-DqJRikce83i2Y4HDzLPnSEGHkJEjsY1tMcuBDwNP7RMlHjAGNJUIn1UVEP_QSNyzHT2IEkvOwsfPGN4mGPxg76LkLPNRoSCB7CXUM0UspBIC8Uy6MrfjPk7ZrvugGLvgQ_uKKSyouhDmImglfQVxHZZTg7nVCicUMcQ7R/s320/Screenshot%202023-10-08%2010.21.40%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>2. The witness accounts are frightening. At around 6.30am a rocket barrage started, the event was interrupted as everyone hit the floor. The problem was most people at this festival had no transport, they came on buses. They had no way to get to safety.<p></p><p>3. Those who survived, who were not killed or kidnapped left in a crucial window immediately after the rocket barrage before militants stormed the festival with automatic weapons and grenades. They described coming across cars of dead civilians riddled with bullets.</p><p>4. Those who didn't and couldn't get out - which reportedly included a woman who had a broken leg and was in a cast so couldn't run - tried to hide as best they could. They furiously messaged friends and relatives for help, begging the military to intervene but no help came.</p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-45737401782218077012023-10-08T06:55:00.002-04:002023-10-08T06:55:32.886-04:00Thread from Breaking the Silence -- Another Palestinian Uprising<p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1710962102679019901.html"><b><i>Breaking the Silence posted this thread.</i></b></a></h3><p>Hamas's attack and the events unfolding since yesterday are unspeakable. We could talk about their cruel and criminal actions, or focus on how our Jewish-supremacist govt brought us to this point. But as former Israeli soldiers, our job is to talk about what we were sent to do</p><p>🧵</p><p>Israel's security policy, for decades now, has been to “manage the conflict”. Successive Israeli governments insist on round after round of violence as if any of it will make a difference. They talk about “security”, “deterrence”, “changing the equation”.</p><p>All of these are code words for bombing the Gaza Strip to a pulp, always justified as targeting terrorists, yet always with heavy civilian casualties. In between these rounds of violence we make life impossible for Gazans, and then act surprised when it all boils over.</p><p>We talk about "normalization" with the UAE and now Saudi Arabia, while hoping the world will turn a blind eye to the open-air prison we built in our backyard. Apart from the unfathomable violation of human rights, we've created a massive security liability for our own citizens.</p><p>The question Israelis are all asking is - where were the soldiers yesterday? Why was the IDF seemingly absent while hundreds of Israelis were slaughtered in their homes and on the streets? The unfortunate truth is that they were “preoccupied”. In the West Bank.</p><p>We send soldiers to secure settler incursions into the Palestinian city of Nablus, to chase Palestinian children in Hebron, to protect settlers as they carry out pogroms. Settlers demand that Palestinian flags are removed from the streets of Huwara; soldiers are sent to do it.</p><p>Our country decided - decades ago - that it's willing to forfeit the security of its citizens in our towns and cities, in favor of maintaining control over an occupied civilian population of millions, all for the sake of a settler-messianic agenda.</p><p>The idea that we can "manage the conflict" without ever having to solve it is once again collapsing before our eyes. It held up until now because only few dared to challenge it. These heartbreaking events could change that. They must. For all of us between the river and the sea.</p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-31659940430444256732023-10-05T11:24:00.001-04:002023-10-05T11:24:53.609-04:00Snapshots of Migrants in New York <h3 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/tomwatson/status/1709938570847560185">Tom Watson posted this thread about the crush of migrants in New York.</a></h3><p>I just took a walk over to the Roosevelt Hotel, ground zero of the so-called "migrant crisis" in New York. It's an easy set-up for news crews, an easy target for anti-immigrant protesters, and frankly, the current Mayor used it as an easy prop when he declared a crisis.</p><p>So I took a slight detour to walk around and briefly duck into the lobby to see for myself. Didn't take photos out of respect for the asylum seekers. There were no protesters. A few cops, which is prudent because of the outrageous threats against those temporarily housed there.</p><p>The first thing I noticed was the presence of children in the lobby, or tightly gripping their parents' hands at the entrances. I didn't wander around because I was probably not supposed to be there. But wearing a suit and tie (and being an old white dude), nobody stopped me.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVVDCFY9YOhbktu_mG78P631YIk01mx9B1-sP-DfBKgUehGWFXCD5rrYnmVDYcHZ4ksLDus6wv7JCA3HwlxpQX5h5LaQjn2pdM1N49iuXDUkzA9llDjlrg2t1VereyggMUDB7ttVtfz8LLRG7Ma08qZdkS5TIRJMrEnSH-wjZvR3kxmsxLCcVC4vur0Tfh/s703/Screenshot%202023-10-05%2011.20.55%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="703" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVVDCFY9YOhbktu_mG78P631YIk01mx9B1-sP-DfBKgUehGWFXCD5rrYnmVDYcHZ4ksLDus6wv7JCA3HwlxpQX5h5LaQjn2pdM1N49iuXDUkzA9llDjlrg2t1VereyggMUDB7ttVtfz8LLRG7Ma08qZdkS5TIRJMrEnSH-wjZvR3kxmsxLCcVC4vur0Tfh/s320/Screenshot%202023-10-05%2011.20.55%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>This Times piece from a couple of weeks ago has some great photos that capture the setting of a once palatial railroad station hotel serving as a makeshift processing center.<p></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The second thing I noticed is the rather vast corral of scooters, ebikes, and motorcycles lined up outside - the product not of immigration policy but our modern "gig economy" and the workforce of Uber Eats and Door Dash couriers. Yes, workforce! You see where this is going...
And the third thing? Relative calm. Yeah there was some weed smoke (but where is there not these days?) Yeah the bikes block the street and the drivers do not - shall we say - obey traffic laws. But where are they not these days? And how come the vast NYPD doesn't enforce them?</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But for a "crisis" it was rather mundane. Yet we're fed a constant barrage of angry, screaming, hateful mini mobs in Staten Island or on Vanderbilt Avenue. The truth is much quieter! Yes, there is a policy and budget challenge. No question. But New York is hardly falling apart.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Don't believe me? Head over to the Roosevelt Hotel.</span></span></p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-5011658615717176972023-10-04T11:14:00.000-04:002023-10-04T11:14:14.269-04:00[Reader advisory] This is a Disturbing Report from Syria <blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><i>I'm noting this grotesque report from Syria for future reference. <a href="https://twitter.com/joshua_landis/status/1709572997013442908">The link is passed along by Joshua Landi</a></i><a href="https://twitter.com/joshua_landis/status/1709572997013442908">s.</a></h4></blockquote><h2 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.alsouria.net/%d8%af%d9%81%d9%86%d9%88%d9%87%d9%85-%d8%a8%d8%b5%d9%85%d8%aa-%d9%85%d8%ad%d8%b7%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%b1%d8%ad%d9%84%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d9%88%d8%aa-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%b3%d8%ac%d9%88%d9%86/">“They Buried Them Silently.” The Stations Of The “Death Journey” From Assad’s Prisons To Mass Grave“</a></h2><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyihXNMQwGP3LnbUxjTaEztiZBSoAajbKphMcF43x886vwEYgw75xYHy0e5MgwfYO-r91QbPohFfY01rLt9Tyg5S9Z8FfSduqJlfMhOcYNsjODDp0CeKl9JVK6KifoAmwnj3OBrdKzZgzSdXuPcSq5jDFCzo_wgxmTUY2Z-aiOPCUVKzkBQ0tqW3RAtioH/s715/Screenshot%202023-10-04%2010.59.21%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="715" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyihXNMQwGP3LnbUxjTaEztiZBSoAajbKphMcF43x886vwEYgw75xYHy0e5MgwfYO-r91QbPohFfY01rLt9Tyg5S9Z8FfSduqJlfMhOcYNsjODDp0CeKl9JVK6KifoAmwnj3OBrdKzZgzSdXuPcSq5jDFCzo_wgxmTUY2Z-aiOPCUVKzkBQ0tqW3RAtioH/s320/Screenshot%202023-10-04%2010.59.21%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>They were carrying me and beating me on the ground in the halls of Tishreen Military Hospital. This lasted a quarter of an hour, after which they expected that I was finished, so they placed me with the dead. The bodies were placed on top of each other, so my share came on top of two bodies, then they placed two more on me, who were killed after me.”<p></p><p>It is the story of the detainee Muhammad, who comes from the Hama countryside and was detained for two years in Saydnaya prison, which Amnesty International described as a “human slaughterhouse.”</p><p>Muhammad tells his story while he was transferred from prison to Tishreen Military Hospital, which is considered a station for sick detainees, who are transferred from prison to the hospital before being killed and buried in mass graves, according to what human rights reports documented.</p><p>Mahmoud continues his story by saying, “After about half an hour, I woke up and a shiver ran through my body, starting from my toes and gradually extending to the rest of my body. I moved a little and the two bodies fell on top of me and I started screaming in a voice that I had no idea where it came from.”</p><p>“They started hitting me on the head, stomach, kidneys and everywhere, and I would not stop screaming (..) After I left the prison, I told one of the doctors what had happened, and he said my heart had stopped, then it came back to life and began pumping blood again</p><p>Muhammad’s story is one of dozens of stories documented by the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons in Sednaya Prison, and included in a report called “Bury Them Silently,” which talks about the mechanisms of killing and disappearance in Tishreen Military Hospital between 2011 and 2020.</p><p>The report was based on 154 interviews with 32 detainees, doctors and nurses who worked in Tishreen Military Hospital, and others who worked in military intelligence, the military police, political security, and the military judiciary.</p><p>The report explains the structure of military hospitals in Syria, their importance to the security branches, the network of relations between them, and the distribution of responsibilities between them in torturing, killing , and burying detainees in mass graves.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Glasses...the first step towards “death”</h3><p>According to the report, the bodies of detainees, who were killed under torture in prisons and security branches, in addition to sick detainees, are transferred to Tishreen Military Hospital, so that torture stations in hospitals begin.</p><p>The first stop is in a place called “Al-Nadara” in Tishreen Military Hospital, which is a place where sick detainees are received as well as the bodies of the deceased, whether they were sick or those who lost their lives in a detention center.</p><p>The report confirmed that the process of transferring detainees from detention centers to hospitals is accompanied by brutal attacks that reach the point of loss of life in many cases.</p><p>The report says that the “glasses” is “the first stop for a sick detainee upon his arrival to the hospital, and it is also the place where the bodies of detainees are collected before they are loaded and transported to mass graves.”</p><p>He added, “The bodies are placed at the outer door of the prison, and the detainees are forced to carry the bodies of their colleagues and place them in the vehicles prepared to transport them to the cemeteries.”</p><p>Sometimes there are patients among the corpses who are between life and death, and the assistant in the hospital kills them. Members of the National Defense Forces who are arrested on criminal charges are also brought in to assault the sick detainees and kill them before bringing them to the doctor.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Alternative ambulance station</h3><p>The second station is the “Alternative Ambulance Department,” which is the second station for detainees who survive death in the “Al-Nadara” station.</p><p>It is an old, one-story underground warehouse adjacent to the main ambulance department. Its area is about 100 square meters and contains 30 beds, and the medical staff in it is between 30 and 40, including nurses and doctors.</p><p>Sick detainees are presented to the “alternative ambulance” department only as a routine procedure and are given painkillers at best, without being presented to the relevant departments.</p><p>One of the detainees says: “They took me to the emergency department in the hospital. An assistant and a regular conscript entered and showed me to a doctor who looked nothing like doctors. I later learned that he was a colonel or brigadier general.”</p><p>“He entered angrily and started shouting at them, ‘Why are you bringing him to me?’ I mean, we are bringing him to sign a death certificate for him. The assistant replied to him, ‘Sir, his soul has not yet returned.’”</p><p>After that, the doctor left due to the end of his shift, and “the recruit turned to the assistant and said to him: What do we want to do with him?” The assistant replied: Put him back on the glasses so that he will vomit and give us relief from him.</p><p>The goal of this section, according to the report, is to completely isolate the detainees from anyone, and deprive them of any opportunity to communicate with the outside world or get to know one of them in any way.</p><p>The medical staff in the department carries out torture on patients, as the medical staff allowed to enter this place are strictly loyal to the regime, and it can be said that the majority of them are from the Alawite sect, according to the report.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Transport station for mass graves</h3><p>The third station is transferring the bodies of detainees who were killed under torture in prisons and patients who were liquidated in the hospital to mass graves, after a death certificate is issued to them by the “forensic medicine” team.</p><p>According to the report, the role of the medical team is to “legitimize the process of liquidating opponents and hiding their bodies,” by writing a report on the causes and manner of the detainee’s death.</p><p>But in reality, doctors do not examine or autopsy the bodies of deceased detainees, and the causes of death are almost always written as related to heart diseases.</p><p>The bodies of detainees who died under torture in prisons and branches and who are being liquidated in the hospital are collected in several places next to the detainees’ cells and in the hospital’s transport area, and are loaded from their collection places into transport vehicles to be buried in mass graves.</p><p>There are six large refrigerated cars in the hospital’s transportation area for transporting bodies, as well as closed Mazda cars that have been modified to become ambulances that move within Damascus and its countryside.</p><p>There are also Chevrolet cars belonging to the Forestry Foundation in the Ministry of Agriculture, in addition to 16 Mazda microbuses with a capacity of 14 passengers, old military sanitary cars, and modern sanitary cars with about 20 cars (donations from Japan and Korea before the revolution).</p><p>The report confirmed that the detainees in the prison were forced to carry the bodies of other detainees in cars to transport them to mass graves.</p><p>The report also confirmed that bodies were being “beaten, insulted,” and trampled in the hospital by security personnel, nurses, and nurses.</p><p>One of the detainees said, “The bodies were brought by dump trucks, and they were lifted and lowered like sand. After filming was completed and the records were organized, they were transported to the dump cars by a truck if the number was large.”</p><p>The bodies are being transported, accompanied by members of the military police and two security vehicles from Branch 227, to three mass graves in Najha, Al-Qutayfa, and Baghdad Bridge near the labor city of Adra.</p><p>A former worker in the machinery factory in Damascus Governorate says in the report that he was asked to dig a trench 10 to 15 meters long and more than 3 meters deep.</p><p>After that, cars containing more than 450 bodies arrived, and “a security officer asked me to shovel them and lower them into the ditch. The bodies lying on the ground were disrupting my movement. I tried to get around them so as not to crush them under the bulldozer.”</p><p>“But he waved his hand and ordered me to come forward and forced me to crush them under the wheel, and I started carrying the bodies with the bulldozer bucket and throwing them in the middle of the trench that I had dug.</p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-6399979013851456992023-09-29T07:45:00.001-04:002023-10-29T14:36:52.425-04:00Early Morning Racism Note<p>Listening to Morning Edition in the early morning darkness I heard a story about a Sikh family in Canada disappointed to be denied visas to return to India because the two countries are having a diplomatic conflict. One man was disappointed about not being able to bring his children to celebrate Diwali in the place where he was <b>born and raised</b>.</p><p>Listening I had a flashback from childhood of my maternal grandmother, who was a teacher of elocution, correcting me when I said something about a woman who was "raised" to believe something or other. She corrected my use of the term <i><b>raised</b></i> by saying "Don't use that word for people because <i>people are <b>reared</b>, not <b>raised</b>. </i><u>A</u><i><u>nimals are <b>raised</b></u>, </i>and <i><u>people are <b>reared</b></u></i>."</p><p>On another occasion she corrected me for referring to a woman of color as a <b>lady</b>. "Say <i><b>woman</b></i>, not <b><i>lady</i></b>. We say Negro <i><b>woman</b></i> and white <i><b>lady</b></i>." She is also the only person I knew who used the word <b><i>octoroon</i></b> in conversation suggesting someone she saw on TV likely had a black great-grandparent.</p><p>I was spoon-fed polite prejudice and racism from an early age. I already knew not to use the word "black" because it was how ignorant people spoke. Also we were always taught to pronounce the word properly: NEE-grow. We never used the N-word. </p><p>I was nearly twenty when I realized how prejudiced I had been "reared", becoming pro-active overcoming it in myself and others. And now, pushing eighty, I'm still fighting the same level of ignorance in the world around me.</p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-44964708753107233112023-08-18T07:09:00.000-04:002023-08-18T07:09:31.875-04:00Morning Reflections<h4 style="text-align: left;"><b>Early morning reflections...</b></h4><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibs30bDivs9eroFQIIfhRYCD1vbY_8SBqaIwDwRapAsKJZ-KOPZQyGEqnM8LTv2gSsmPO750sJJXP0ZQ-iYZW8-0VmZQMX26PHD_fpnjnTA2Z-f6n25lw10xVUROplBD_PjqNRifXvNK2GHjZbrPSbI6AQSD5gT8E5hJLk14buxS7NQ_Yr9WkcwqDMRxSw/s689/Screenshot%202023-08-18%206.15.13%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="476" data-original-width="689" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibs30bDivs9eroFQIIfhRYCD1vbY_8SBqaIwDwRapAsKJZ-KOPZQyGEqnM8LTv2gSsmPO750sJJXP0ZQ-iYZW8-0VmZQMX26PHD_fpnjnTA2Z-f6n25lw10xVUROplBD_PjqNRifXvNK2GHjZbrPSbI6AQSD5gT8E5hJLk14buxS7NQ_Yr9WkcwqDMRxSw/s320/Screenshot%202023-08-18%206.15.13%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>One consequence of the Hawaiian tragedy was the resignation of the management chief in Maui. He cites health reasons but the real reason is his being targeted for what is being called the "failure" to sound the alarm systems that might have saved lives by triggering an evacuation. The reason the alarms were not sounded is that the system that has been in place for years is designed to move people out of the way of possible tsunamis by moving to higher ground. Such a move in this case would have sent people into the fires, not away. Moreover, there were no plans to evacuate people from areas deemed safe from tsunami threats so the alarm systems would have just added to the danger. <p></p><p>As I listened my mind wandered to all the times I have heard similar warnings about weather threats, child abductions, road closures and such. I wondered how many agencies, commissions and other regulatory authorities we have and realized how much they affect our ordinary lives. Interstate commerce, stock trading, food safety, work rules, labor laws... the list seems endless. </p><p>My web search "How many federal commissions do we have?" (noting two billion-plus responses) was reworded to read "The President also appoints the heads of more than 50 independent federal commissions, such as the Federal Reserve Board or the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as federal judges, ambassadors, and other federal offices." </p><p>Before moving on with the rest of my day, I finally settled on the Wiki article <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_United_States_government#:~:text=The%20Paperwork%20Reduction%20Act%20lists,the%20Consumer%20Financial%20Protection%20Bureau."><b>Independent agencies of the United States government</b></a> which lists a remarkable array of agencies and commissions. This, I suppose, is what cynics call the <i>deep state</i>, or <i>swamp, </i>in an effort to suggest political implications. </p><p>Take a look at the list and decide for yourself what life would be like this population of technocrats -- nearly all of which are non-political -- were somehow fashioned into the political resources authoritarian leaders typically use to control non-democratic regimes. FTC, ICC, GSA, NLRB, NRC, Peace Corps, Social Security, Postal Service, the list seems endless.</p><p>"Agencies outside of the executive branch" are also noted...<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Fannie May</li><li>Freddie Mac</li><li>National Gallery of Art</li><li>Smithsonian Institution</li></ul><div>That's enough. <br />Time to start my day...</div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-60651394835800056902023-08-10T08:32:00.004-04:002023-08-10T16:36:04.678-04:00Polite racism, spoon-fed from my childhood<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2007/10/naomi-wolf-and-defeat-of-dream-act.html"><i><b>Blind Tom, polite racism and other notes from my original blog</b></i></a> <i>sixteen years ago.</i> </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>When I was young, I got radicalized by events around me. Now that I'm older, the same disease is returning. I don't know which is easier to take, a young person who doesn't know his head from a hole in the ground, or an old person getting ready to go into one. David Neiwert mentioned "sundown towns" and how the phenomenon is spreading . For those who don't know what is meant by the term, sundown town refers to a community that makes it clear, one way or another, that the good people of that place do not want anyone there who is not like them in every fundamental way. (Gives meaning to the word fundamental, by the way.)</i></p></blockquote><div><div><b>Sundown Towns</b></div><div>I am familiar with the term from childhood. I never saw an actual sign, but my dad said there were places in Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee where signs were posted at the city limits that said "Nigger, don't let the sun go down on you in [town or county name]." The meaning was clear. If you were black you are not only unwelcome but likely to be at risk for injury or death if you were still there at sundown. It's one thing to visit, spend your money or work in a place. It's very different if you expect to live and be accepted there socially.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>I was spoon-fed racial prejudice from an early age. I know what it feels like, tastes like and how it penetrates to the core of your very being. Thanks to an epiphany sometime in my youth, I left that part of my heritage behind. Unfortunately, like a reformed alcoholic or abuser, I was left with a higher awareness of the problem than normal, and so the rest of my adult life it has been my portion to point and inform every chance I get. This is the purpose of my post this morning.</b></div><div></div><blockquote><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/366370864_10222524068066875_8057110717956763000_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5cd70e&_nc_ohc=XrsVZOeVK-QAX9w_4YN&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&oh=00_AfCEv1XqICwBgLOyp716QQvAEh7KTGqmRLBfpiq7PGmW8Q&oe=64D9E419" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="360" height="359" src="https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/366370864_10222524068066875_8057110717956763000_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5cd70e&_nc_ohc=XrsVZOeVK-QAX9w_4YN&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&oh=00_AfCEv1XqICwBgLOyp716QQvAEh7KTGqmRLBfpiq7PGmW8Q&oe=64D9E419" width="285" /></a></div>Flashback: as I wrote that last paragraph, I remember a story about my maternal grandmother. About 1959 I was listening to a record of someone reading short-stories by Somerset Maugham. There was a passing reference to "Blind Tom, a Negro half-wit who played the piano." We were living in Columbus, GA at the time which is where Blind Tom, a slave, also had lived. I noticed a historic marker about that which piqued my curiosity.</div><div><br /></div><div>My grandmother, who was in failing health, was living with us at the time, and I mentioned Blind Tom to her in conversation. She said that her father got a chance to see Blind Tom once while traveling on a train. He didn't hear him play the piano, but he met Blind Tom's master, or as she said, "the man who owned him." He asked permission to feel the man's head, which he did, because it was thought at the time that the shape and growth patterns of the skull had something to do with mental development. It was nothing more than a layman's interest in phrenology, but this great-grandfather of mine didn't want to miss the chance to feel for himself this remarkable man's head to see if he noticed it to be any different from anyone else's head.</div><div><br /></div><div>My grandmother told the story as dispassionately as if she were remembering a dress her mother had made. There was no hint that there was anything out of the ordinary, other than what we now call a savant's gifted ability to play the piano. No hint of racism, note. It was not necessary to mention that. The Brown decision was not yet five years past and a national movement was not to reach where we lived for a couple more years.</div></blockquote><div>Getting back to Naomi Wolf and Dave Neiwert...</div><div><br /></div><div>At the end of Neiwert's post he referred to yesterday's defeat of the DREAM Act, a test vote in the Senate that once again reveals that the country is not yet ready to come to terms with what to do with illegal immigrants. That piece of legislation would have opened the doors of opportunity to the children of undocumented immigrants to start the slow, tedious process of becoming Americans the old-fashioned way: facing an uphill struggle like that which faced the progenitors of nearly everyone who lives here now. I remembered a great story from two years ago of some kids in Arizona who make the realization of the "dream" a possibility.</div><div><br /></div><div>A blog search for DREAM Act is my wake-up call.</div><div>Scanning down the list of hits, I realize that the opposition to that piece of legislation is widespread and tight-knit. The angry rhetoric of shock-jocks, Fox News and journalists who claim to speak for the "conservative" side of American society is gripping the body politic in a way that makes Naomi Wolf's arguments sound a lot less shrill. Her credibility shoots way up when I come across one blog's commentary. Documenting statistics from Investor's Business Daily about widespread opposition to the DREAM Act, the blogmaster feels the need to add:</div><div><blockquote><i><b>Please consider this: no matter how large or small the turd is and, no matter what color one paints said turd, the fact remains as follows; a turd is still a turd and no, you cannot pick up a turd by the clean end.</b></i></blockquote></div><div>That language is not remarkable. It is an idiom not only understood but appreciated by a growing number of otherwise decent Americans. Lots of folks will think it's cute.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nor is the Congress to blame. They know, both in the Senate and the House, that their jobs depend on not pissing off their constituencies too much. They can lean this way or that and call it leadership... but in the end, if they don't do pretty much what they were sent there to do, they will not be re-elected. Simple as that. Why else do earmarks outweigh common sense? The old-fashioned dilemma was "guns or butter" We now face "guns or bacon." Why else would a multi-billion-dollar war keep sucking up money when the price of S-CHIP is trivial by comparison? And yet, the bacon (earmarks) keeps coming home.</div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Daniel Mackler, LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) is a filmmaker, musician, and lover of life-and for ten years was a psychotherapist in New York City. He writes extensively on healing childhood trauma and reclaiming the true self. (Google Books)</i></div></h4></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i>His You Tube channel is loaded with videos like this about a variety of subjects. </i><i>I cannot find links to professional peer-review journals but his common-sense observations and obvious curiosity seem harmless enough. </i></div></h4></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="336" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xjn9gT02UJo" width="438" youtube-src-id="xjn9gT02UJo"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-8602428728658744232023-07-28T08:22:00.016-04:002023-07-28T08:39:56.024-04:00The Real Goal of the New Mar-a-Lago Charges Against Trump<p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>This is a backup copy for future reference.</i></b></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/07/new-mar-a-lago-charges-against-trump-jack-smith.html">The Real Goal of the New Mar-a-Lago Charges Against Trump</a></h2><h4 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/07/new-mar-a-lago-charges-against-trump-jack-smith.html">BY DENNIS AFTERGUT<br />JULY 27, 2023</a></h4><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://compote.slate.com/images/139674ae-646d-446a-9009-0a263e432797.jpeg?crop=3000%2C2000%2Cx0%2Cy71&width=840" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://compote.slate.com/images/139674ae-646d-446a-9009-0a263e432797.jpeg?crop=3000%2C2000%2Cx0%2Cy71&width=840" width="320" /></a></div>On Thursday, the Florida grand jury that indicted Donald Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta, in June for obstructing a grand jury investigation and conspiring to willfully retain classified documents, filed a superseding indictment. That means the grand jury issued a new charging document to replace the old.<p></p><p>It’s a bombshell.</p><p>The new indictment adds a new defendant, Carlos de Oliveira, Trump’s property manager at his Mar-a-Lago property. More importantly, it also adds explosive new charges that include allegations of a conspiracy to corruptly persuade another person to alter, conceal, delete, and mutilate security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago.</p><p>That footage presumably documented the unlawful retention of government documents. The new allegation is that Trump sought to have it destroyed after receiving a grand jury subpoena for it.</p><p>Of course, an indictment is only an accusation, not proof. And the defendants are innocent until proven guilty.</p><p>Without minimizing the importance of those legal facts, one can state the obvious: These allegations are dynamite for a trial jury. Special Counsel Jack Smith would not have allowed the grand jury to include the charges unless he had compelling evidence to prove them. That evidence at the very least appears to include testimony from Yuscil Taveras, a Mar-a-Lago IT employee whom de Oliveira allegedly cornered in an audio closet days after Trump received the subpoena and told “the boss” wanted the server deleted.</p><p>This May Be the Strongest Legal Case Against Trump</p><p>As an experienced prosecutor, Smith knows that defense lawyers’ bottom-line job is complete if they provide a jury with enough reasonable doubt so that a single juror resists voting to convict and hangs the jury. Smith is not blind to the fact that Florida, where the trial will take place, is Trump country, and that jurors who start out leaning strongly his way are likely.</p><p>What Smith appears to have done with this superseding indictment, however, is to have assembled the kind of case that that is so strong—and alleged misconduct that should be so offensive to any law-abiding citizen—that any majority in the jury room for conviction will be armed with the kind of ammunition that could overpower even the most recalcitrant hold-out.</p><p>Here are four reasons why the new charges are packed with punch for jurors.</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><b>First,</b> you don’t need to be a criminologist, or even to have binged Law and Order episodes to understand that destroying evidence is what mobsters do to cover their tracks and try to stay out of the joint. Prosecutors call it “consciousness of guilt,” which can be the best available evidence of corrupt intent.</li><li><b>Second, </b>the new indictment makes clear that Jack Smith has an inside witness to the conspiracy—the indictment’s “Employee No. 4,” whom the New York Times has reported to be Taveras. The indictment details how the new defendant, de Oliveira, attempted to enlist Taveras in the newly charged obstruction by telling him, “The Boss wants to delete the server.”<br />Per the indictment, when Employee No. 4 equivocated, Nauta repeated the statement insistently and asked, without apparently subtlety, “What are we going to do?” Again, this would sound to any juror like mobster talk.<br />You can be sure of three things. First, there’s only one “Boss” at Mar-a-Lago. Second, Taveras testified to those words to the grand jury, or it wouldn’t have included them in the superseding indictment. Last, Jack Smith will not be relying on the word of Taveras at trial without a mountain of corroboration.<br />Just to take a wild guess about one possibility: It could well be that there is video tape footage in the grand jury’s possession that show de Oliveira and Taveras stepping into that audio closet together. There’s also voluminous texts between de Oliveira and Nauta immediately after Trump would have been informed of the subpoena for the server that points to the pair plotting, as well as documentation of respective phone calls between the two men and Trump.</li><li><b>Third, </b>the time sequences detailed in the indictment scream cover up. Smith would not have described them so precisely without proof beyond any doubt of the timeline. It adds a layer of culpability that will be hard for any common-sense juror to resist.<br />For example: On June 22, a Trump lawyer was informed that the grand jury was going to subpoena the security footage tapes. The next day, Trump talked by phone to de Oliveira for 24 minutes. The day after that the formal subpoena was delivered and Nauta, meanwhile, immediately changed his travel plans, returning to visit Florida instead of travelling with Trump from Bedminster to Illinois. At this point he contacted de Oliveira and Taveras to enlist them to meet at Mar-a-Lago. The conversations between de Oliveira and Taveras about “deleting the server” occurred first thing that Monday morning, June 27.</li><li><b>Fourth, </b>the grand jury has charged de Oliveira in a separate count of making false statements to the FBI about his role in the conspiracy. Again, the timing is critical. The recounted false statements occur in an interview months after the grand jury subpoena was received and after de Oliveira is on video moving boxes of classified documents, which the FBI had subpoenaed and acquired. In the FBI interview, de Oliveira denied six times—count them—that he had any role in the subterfuge.<br />That count puts enormous pressure on de Oliveira, just as a parallel count charges Nauta with virtually identical falsehoods. To a prosecutor, and likely a jury, that strongly suggests they got their stories together.<br />The pressure on these two Trump loyalists, whose lawyers are reportedly being paid by Trump’s PAC, does not mean that either will “flip.” Any one of us can just guess what promises Trump has made to them if he is reelected president and they keep quiet.<br />But do note this: These separate counts give them a lesser crime to plead guilty to if either decides to protect himself. The maximum penalty for a false statement to the FBI is five years imprisonment. The maximum penalty of concealing or destroying documents from a grand jury is 20 years behind bars.</li><li><b>Fifth,</b> the superseding indictment does something for the nation. Trump himself, and his many defenders, have repeated the argument falsely equating the classified documents found in President Joe Biden’s office and those that Trump has claimed he had a right to. Many citizens not paying close attention may have fallen for that talking point.</li></ol><p></p><p>But even for citizens who have to date failed to see the difference between Biden’s immediate cooperation in returning the documents in his home versus Trump’s 18 months of stonewalling, here we have something new: There is simply no way to misunderstand the new, even sharper contrast between Biden and Trump: There is no report that Biden sought to conceal anything from a grand jury, much less to have security camera footage obliterated.</p><p>And by the way. If, as Trump claims, he had every right to keep the classified documents after his presidency ended, why on earth did he feel a need to destroy tapes or a server?</p><p>Just to hammer the point, in this new superseding indictment, Smith added one more charge against Trump under the Espionage Act for a document he allegedly showed a reporter who was working on a book about Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. As we know from the initial indictment, Trump is on tape discussing the document and saying that he never declassified it, an admission that blows a hole in one of his biggest previous defenses.</p><p>He has since claimed that there was never any document and that he was just discussing news clippings. Previously, the document had been missing—not recovered in the search of Mar-a-Lago—and Trump’s attorneys had said they couldn’t find it. Well, apparently now Jack Smith has found it. This newly discovered document—reportedly a plan of attack against Iran—will be hung on Trump to show how careless he was with the nation’s top secrets and how he knew that he had no right to show them to anybody.</p><p>These charges seem as close to bulletproof as they come.</p><h3 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1684883320029765632"><b><i>https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1684883320029765632</i></b></a></h3>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-87075870552223162652023-07-09T05:09:00.001-04:002023-07-09T05:12:03.158-04:00Twitter thread from Ukraine<h3 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1677685454706036736.html">Day 500 of the Russian war in Ukraine.</a><br /></h3><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkdYJaxScEUgXOv1X7ZfjZrw9UsD698Bupy5oqF-mxSjcqCI9mFa_kjjZW_jkAflRVTFkJN8H8ax_ll33fMcBBxmbgzJIbnUJPc-QB5n8uGPTyhPf0MWFv6sv72wZO_00uIl6Oak5a2eZW4E06z8vipfUEjH0OCcxmq_wyxxSKeLoTi4eD6UAvGk7JgGa4/s582/Screenshot%202023-07-09%205.06.09%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="582" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkdYJaxScEUgXOv1X7ZfjZrw9UsD698Bupy5oqF-mxSjcqCI9mFa_kjjZW_jkAflRVTFkJN8H8ax_ll33fMcBBxmbgzJIbnUJPc-QB5n8uGPTyhPf0MWFv6sv72wZO_00uIl6Oak5a2eZW4E06z8vipfUEjH0OCcxmq_wyxxSKeLoTi4eD6UAvGk7JgGa4/s320/Screenshot%202023-07-09%205.06.09%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />I am president of the Kyiv School of Economics, a former minister of economy of Ukraine, and a professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh. I left the US for Kyiv 4 days before the war. These are the lessons I learned.</i></span></h4><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><b>We owe our survival to unity and ingenuity</b></li><li><b>Empathy holds more power than rationality.</b></li><li><b>Understanding is out of reach without personal experience</b></li><li><b>War can forge you into a better person, tuned into the world's real problems</b></li><li><b>Our Ukrainian success hinges on knowledge and continual learning</b></li><li><b>The harshness and monotony of war quickly become the norm</b></li><li><b>Life's singular purpose is to persist and advance towards victory for Ukraine; all else is secondary.</b></li></ol><p></p><p>Let me expand on each of this points.</p><p><b>1. Unity and ingenuity.</b><br />Russia was hoping that a politically polarized Ukrainian society won't be able to provide a quick and unified response to the invasion. They expected that Ukrainians will be slow to react. And surrender its state and government. After all, in the Russia view, people don't have agency. Russian people are no one for the Kremlin, why should Ukrainians be any different. But we are. The war has shown unprecedented unity, willpower, and innovation by the Ukrainians </p><p><b>2. Empathy holds more power than rationality.<br /></b>This one is difficult to explain. Because it is irrational. People sacrifice their lives so that others can survive. On the individual level, to a rational person, educated in the West, or living in Russia, it might not make sense But when you are in the war, you are not doing careful rational calculus. You are often driven by emotions, a much more powerful motivator. In the case of Ukraine, these are primal emotions. Ukraine has been attacked, people are tortured and killed. </p><p>This is the biggest injustice there could be in the world, and it must be corrected. This is what drives people. While it might not be rational, it saves Ukraine and it will ensure our independence and safety from Russia in the future. At the unbelievable high cost of lives Now I understand that it must be how nations are created and that not any tribe or people could be a nation. Independence and freedom are not free. I just wish fewer people would have to die. </p><p><b>3. Understanding is out of reach without personal experience<br /></b>The war is covered in fog. Literally and through disinformation. Also, most of our cognitive and learning frameworks that we are humans and societies have developed - fail. They are not adequate for this environment. So, unless you see and experience it, you don't really know what to believe. This is why it is critically important to visit the front lines, to speak with the soldiers, to interact with the survivors of occupation, and visit all kinds of places in Ukraine. Ukraine is large and the war is diverse. Sometimes two villages a couple of miles apart have had very different experiences and now have different attitudes and culture. So, I have learned to be humble and try to learn first from eyewitness to form my own opinion.</p><p><b>4. War can forge you into a better person, tuned into the world's real problems<br /></b>This one is simple. War makes you a better person because it cleans you of all secondary thoughts and ambitions. The human life, dignity, freedom become key for me. Now I truly understand the meaning of the human rights. They are not an abstraction for me anymore. Yes, they can be taken away. They can disappear from your life without warning. You can wake up occupied. But human rights must be defended at all costs.</p><p><b>5. Our Ukrainian success hinges on knowledge and continual learning<br /></b>Russia is powerful, bigger, has a lot of weapons and people willing to fight or too afraid to desert. So, we need to be smarter, better educated, more tech savvy. We have to deploy technology to win. And we have to be educated to continue to run our society and economy, during and post war.</p><p><b>6. The harshness and monotony of war quickly become the norm<br /></b>Before the war I was afraid of the war. I was not sure whether I would behave in a decent way. Would I run away from Ukraine? Would I be afraid to be at the frontlines? Clearly, people are differently programmed. But what I learned about the fear of war is that it also comes from ignorance, from the loss of control over your life. Over time one get used to the war, one learns how to live through. Humans are amazing at adapting. The war shows it to you.</p><p><b>7. Life's singular purpose is to persist and advance towards victory for Ukraine; all else is secondary.<br /></b>That's for me. And for most Ukrainians. We want to survive. So, while I miss my academic career in the US and regret that I might not be a good economist as a result of coming back to Ukraine before the war, I think I have made the right choices as a human. I have one life and I want to liver it true. So, Ukraine must win, and the rest can wait.</p><p>Thank you for reading this. I feel we are not alone in this. It will be over one day. X</p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-75547910993098639312023-06-22T09:00:00.001-04:002023-06-22T09:04:32.363-04:00Mastadon Report<p>At this writing I am among a flood of cyber-refugees exploring the social media world beyond the old platforms which have for years enjoyed having those ubiquitous Facebook and Twitter icons splattered indiscriminately all over the web. I cannot imagine how much free advertising that little feature of social media might be worth. This morning I decided to curate this Mastadon equivalent of a Twitter thread...</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://newsie.social/@emc2@indieweb.social/110579530114337794"><b>Mastadon doesn't have an aggregator like the Twitter Threadreader (as far as I know) so I curated this interesting "thread" by Eric McCorkle here at my blog. </b></a></p></blockquote><p><b>emc2@indieweb.social<br />Eric McCorkle</b></p><p>Note up front: I'm going to use words like "decommodify", "consumerism", "capital", and "rentierism" a lot here, because I need the vocabulary. I am not a Marxist or some other kind of radical, nor wholesale anti-capitalist, and *certainly* not a revolutionary. I'm a social democrat, progressive, and reformist. Keep that in mind if you reply to me.</p><p>Something I don't think many people realize is just how much the OSS movement has altered the private sector.<br />Sure, there have been the SCO v. Linux suits, and the battles with old Microsoft, both of which OSS won, and it's certainly produced a huge amount of software at this point. But look back to the software industry of the 90s, and the picture looks *completely* different. [1/n]</p><p>Back then, there was a whole parasitic cottage industry of companies that made a living off of selling the kinds of software packages we take for granted today. You wanted crypto, you bought a closed-source library for 4-5 figures. Same for all kinds of protocols we take for granted today. Beyond that, standards were frequently closed, and cost that much. ASN.1 was an example of this. This was essentially software rentierism. [2/n]</p><p>Worse yet, this created all sort of perverse incentives. Example: "surfing the wave of mediocrity" [link]<br />It was more profitable to deliberately produce broken/non-compliant implementations, and make them deliberately just short of too buggy to buy. This had a serious negative impact on a number of standards. ASN.1 and CORBA are two examples. In essence, there was zero incentive for interoperability, and lots of incentive to sabotage it. [3/n]</p><p>OSS has essentially wiped all this out by making alternatives freely available. Nobody in their right mind would pay out 5 figures for an SSL implementation when we have OpenSSL and 4 other alternatives. Also, however many issues OpenSSL has had, closed-source libraries tend to be much worse. Sunlight is a good disinfectant. Put in terms of political economy, this is a significant degree of decommodification. [4/n]</p><p>This is *directly* responsible for the productivity of the software industry over the past 2 decades. The startup economy as we know it could not have existed under the previous rentier system.</p><p>There's no way you could have launched most startups in a world where you have to pay out 4 figures a head for an OS license, then that much again a head for a compiler, then either buy or reimplement every package. [5/n]</p><p>There are some very important lessons to learn about the relationship of #OSS and the private sector. Those who were around in the early days remember how rag-tag early OsS was. Anybody remember battling to get their network card working? Remember early Gnome/KDE? It was scrappy, a headache to set up, often ugly, and the UI/UX was *terrible*. By the late 2000's, Linux desktops were beating Windows Vista in UI/UX. [6/n] </p><p>The reason for this is that OSS works on completely different dynamics from for-profit software. It is *highly* persistent, it tends to monotonically improve over time, and it is very hard to shut down. OSS is at its best when it embraces differentiation followed by cross-pollination. This enables it to explore alternatives and find ways around obstacles. It also makes it very hard to kill. This is something for-profit simply cannot do. [7/n]</p><p>At this point, I actually don't think OSS would have been killed had we lost the SCO v. Linux lawsuit itself. It would have been a massive setback, but an alternative would have stepped forward: BSDs, L4, or something. It's like Hydra: even if you manage to kill one project, two more will take its place. It also snowballs over time. The OSS ecosystem of today is *massive* compared to the old days. [8/n]</p><p>There was also a whole conflict over DRM. That's its own story, but the OSS world has fought and won several key battles to keep computing platforms open, and prevent a whole layer of rentierism from being set up. RIAA/MPAA were major opponents in this in the 2000s. So bringing it back, OSS has a *significant* effect on the for-profit sector simply by existing. [9/n]</p><p>Summarizing, it is <br /></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li> persistent and nigh impossible to kill, </li><li> more or less monotonically growing and improving,</li><li> inherently decommodifying.</li></ol><p></p><p>Gates *hated* OSS in the old days for precisely all this, but even he ultimately came around. So that's history. Let's look at the #FediVerse... [10/n]</p><p>#FediVerse had an additional barrier, that social media has a critical mass of users. For reference, I joined #Mastodon back in 2017, when it was below critical mass. The critical mass effect seemed to have #OSS attempts to affect social media behind the eight-ball. The #TwitterMigration and #redditMigration revealed a very powerful approach for getting around this. [11/n]</p><p>Both of these reveal a shortcoming of for-profit social platforms. Cory Doctorow's concept of "enshittification" sums it up succinctly. In more detail, a for-profit platform is under a mandate to squeeze more and more profit out of its users. In a social media platform, this means more surveillance, data gathering, "use the app", and ultimately gouging where possible. [12/n]</p><p>Something else to note: the profitability of surveilling users, collecting their data, and selling it is steadily declining in profitability. The whole adtech world is constantly climbing uphill against an landslide.</p><p>The takeaway from all this is that for-profit social platforms will eventually create a crisis for themselves. They degrade, trying to squeeze more and more profit out of an increasingly arid source, until they eventually do something dumb and blow their foot off. [13/n]</p><p>What happened with Twitter is that #Mastodon happened to be poised, almost by accident, to scoop up enough users to rocket past the critical mass point, and became self-sustaining. What's happening with #reddit is similar, but it's enabling something analogous to a strike by the mods. This is essentially Naomi Klein's notion of Shock Doctrine, except being employed *against* capital, not by it. [14/n]</p><p>One of the biggest strengths of the #OSS movement is that it does not hesitate to use the tools of its opponents against them. Pretty much the entire left is uniformly and vehemently against that idea. OSS does it enthusiastically. I suspect it's part and parcel with the hacker mindset: pulling off political-economic zero-days is right in line with how we think. [15/n]</p><p>So now #TwitterMigration fed us enough users to get #Mastodon to critical mass, and then #redditMigration proved it can be replicated. We have a model that seems to work.</p><p>Enter Facebook. They're already in a death-spiral, and I suspect somebody over there figured out essentially what I've said here. So they want to try to jump in and get out in front of it. It's worth gaming out what they're up to. [16/n]</p><p>Two tactics that have actually succeeded in being an impediment to OSS have been carpetbagging (showing up and using organizational weight, presumed prestige, etc to shove out a project's leadership and take over), and de-inventing (my term: what Google did to XMPP, RSS, and is currently trying to do to email). Google has tended to employ both of these in its quest for hegemony. If Facebook knows what they're doing, this is what they are planning to do. [17/n]</p><p>If Facebook thinks merely being part of the Fediverse is going to somehow magically going to save them from a reddit-style catastrophe, they're sorely mistaken. That will only make it easier for people to leave when that time comes (and it will).</p><p>So by this analysis, #ActivityPub and other protocols, standards, etc are what need to be protected. More broadly, OSS would do well to develop better defenses against de-invention anyway. [18/n]</p><p>As for the question of whether to federate with Facebook, I go back to differentiation and cross-pollination. Diversity is our strength. I have complete faith in the ability of OSS/FediVerse to outmaneuver a gigantic, ailing behemoth.</p><p>Somebody will figure out the right move at every point, and the rest will follow. The protocols will grow and adapt, and it will be on Facebook to keep up. [19/n]</p><p>So in closing, this is a very exciting time. #OSS has created a lot of change for the better, and back in November I felt like we were starting to remember that. I think this model, worked out and refined over the years is really quite powerful, and recent events have showed that. It's consistently overcome obstacles that were said to be impossible. So I'll close with the exhortation to dare to dream big about what else we might be able to accomplish.</p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-75668215399718208692023-06-20T11:47:00.000-04:002023-06-20T11:47:23.650-04:00Hannah Arendt on Thought & Moral Propositions (1970)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LEa__Xg3je4" width="320" youtube-src-id="LEa__Xg3je4"></iframe></div><p>[16ff] Now Kant says "I do not approve of the rule that if the use of pure reason has proved something this result should later no longer be doubted, as though it were a solid axiom." And he said "I do not share the opinion that one should not doubt once one has convinced one's self of something. In pure philosophy this is impossible. Our mind has a natural aversion against it. From which it seems to follow that the business of thinking is like the veil of Penelope. It undoes every morning what it has finished the night before." <br />If it is true that the ability to think and even certain habits and the ability to engage in so profitless an enterprise must be ascribed by everybody -- to the many and not to the few -- then we find ourselves in a curiously difficult and paradoxical situation. For this everybody writes notebooks to tell us about his experiences, yet much more urgent business... And the few who do write books can hardly [make a coherent explanation(?)]. </p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelope"><b>Wikipedia explains the Penelope reference.</b></a></p><p></p><blockquote>Penelope is married to the main character, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman mythology), and daughter of Icarius of Sparta and Periboea (or Polycaste). She only has one son with Odysseus, Telemachus, who was born just before Odysseus was called to fight in the Trojan War. She waits twenty years for Odysseus' return, during which time she devises various cunning strategies to delay marrying any of the 108 suitors.<br />On Odysseus's return, disguised as an old beggar, he finds that Penelope has remained faithful. She has devised cunning tricks to delay the suitors, one of which is to pretend to be weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus's elderly father Laertes and claiming that she will choose a suitor when she has finished. Every night for three years, she undoes part of the shroud, until Melantho, a slave, discovers her chicanery and reveals it to the suitors.</blockquote><p></p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-36929206954252691102023-06-19T16:52:00.001-04:002023-06-19T16:52:59.764-04:00Twitter exchange from Texas <h4 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://newblueusa2022.com/">New Blue USA</a> is a progressive organization that is building a nationwide Political Action Committee to:</h4><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Fight Donald Trump, his MAGA forces and all others who seek to terminate the freedoms guaranteed by this nation’s constitution.</li><li>Build on recent Democratic Party successes at every level of the ballot.</li><li>Unify, streamline and prioritize the efforts of progressive organizations seeking to election well-qualified candidates.</li><li>Oppose those who embrace the rich and powerful elitist conservatives.</li></ul><h4 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/MartyTa94849826/status/1670855531290828800">Founder Marty Taylor posted this today:</a></h4><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FzAL0nmWAAszzfI?format=jpg&name=900x900" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="800" height="181" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FzAL0nmWAAszzfI?format=jpg&name=900x900" width="320" /></a></div>In 1984. Recent law school grad Greg Abbott was jogging in the affluent Houston, Texas suburb of River Oaks. When he jogged past Divorce attorney Roy Moore's home. A giant oak tree broke and tragically fell on Greg Abbott. Crushing his spine and leaving him paralyzed. <br />Uninsured and unemployed. Abbott had no health insurance. He had over $81,000 in hospital bills. He sued. Abbott got his hospital bills paid and received over $5.7 million dollars in payouts from Moore's home insurance and the tree services company who failed to detect the tree was rotten inside. Still to this day Greg Abbott gets a monthly check that includes cost of living increases each year. And will receive a check for the rest of his life. <br />When Abbott was on the Texas Supreme court . He voted to decrease the amount of money someone in a similar situation could receive. Gregg Abbott supported capping non medical damages in cases like his at $250,000. A reward like the multi million dollars in payouts Abbott received and still receives each and every month till the day he dies would be impossible today. Of course these bills were crafted to not be retroactive. So they do not affect Greg Abbotts payments. <br />Gregg Abbott does everything he can to hurt us Texans. While he laughs all the way to the bank every month with his very generous monthly check that he happily denies to another Texan who is injured in the same way as Abbott was. It goes without saying. This is another example of a GOP hypocrite. OK for me but not for any other Texan. That should be Gov. Greg Abbotts theme song for his life. What a despicable man who cares nothing about anyone's pain and suffering. He got his and to Abbot and the GOP. That's all that matters.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Reply:</b> Marty, I have just read a previous tweet, and I am interested in your background. Being in the political world, what do you think has made people whom you felt as if you knew very well decide Trump was the answer? I am so baffled by this, and people I thought I knew as well. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Taylor:</b> I have no idea. Like our dentist friend. He was from a Republican family but only became radicalized by Donald Trump. I was raised in an affluent family that was Democratic on my dads side and Republican on my mothers. I was exposed to politics my whole life. We had two Governors of Tennessee and two Congressman in my family. Until Trump. We could disagree without being disagreeable. Those days are long gone. And that is very sad. Trump has made hatred of America and fellow Americans part of his brand.</div><p></p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-26146921698822589902023-06-17T15:06:00.000-04:002023-06-17T15:06:01.619-04:00Two Twitter Threads<h2 style="text-align: left;"> Two Threads</h2><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiisKf-JouVOzTRZjh1v-6dX8e-zgEbF4nkiuh341ey034xD9uerksYVznYi9Zesb9P0wfFa16Sr9Klg52q0Bg5c0JH-Hsj0omA0A06JOOuVbZt_HlMOwvgnIntVOAVxwLnLfXMLFxx0jaSYM31czN59-0lTdrTOdtrAKpMNBg8RAzdjAcaHnMMmuloLQ/s640/Screenshot%202023-06-17%202.48.04%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="640" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiisKf-JouVOzTRZjh1v-6dX8e-zgEbF4nkiuh341ey034xD9uerksYVznYi9Zesb9P0wfFa16Sr9Klg52q0Bg5c0JH-Hsj0omA0A06JOOuVbZt_HlMOwvgnIntVOAVxwLnLfXMLFxx0jaSYM31czN59-0lTdrTOdtrAKpMNBg8RAzdjAcaHnMMmuloLQ/s320/Screenshot%202023-06-17%202.48.04%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><b>1/ Good morning.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1669327042398261249.html"><b>If any of you are still bamboozled by Nancy Jacobsen and Mark Penn's @NoLabelsOrg's actual intentions let me hook you up.</b></a></div><div><br /></div><div>They claim to be moderate, centrist problem solvers who are running a 3rd part effort to "give Americans more choices." </div><div><br /></div><div>2/ Nancy is one of DC's most powerful, influential, and connected players. A Swamp Empress. Richer than God.</div><div><br /></div><div>She and Mark Penn are angry, though. Very, very angry. At whom, you ask?</div><div>Well, Democrats.</div><div>They were exiled from Clinton world. Obamas, same. </div><div><br /></div><div>3/ They've been on a jihad ever since. Mark has dozens of Fox hits defending and praising Trump.</div><div>Their major donors are the EXACT same billionaires funding Ron DeSantis. (Yeah, Nancy hides her donors, but girl, your org leaks because your staff hates you.) </div><div><br /></div><div>4/ They formed No Labels as a long con, a way to break the Democrats, get rich doing it (and again, they are VERY rich), and punish their imagined enemies.</div><div>They branded it as "centrist problem solvers" buy their plan to run a 3rd party candidate this year was anything but. </div><div><br /></div><div>5/ They're working to put a conservative Dem (Joe Manchin is their number one pony, but Sinema is also in the running if Joe falls off) on the ballot in key states to drain off votes from Biden.</div><div>Their math, maps, and polling are utter fantasy, an ever-changing target. </div><div><br /></div><div>6/ @ThirdWayMattB at Third Way and @Philip_Germain at LP have more stats, data, and proof of fundamental mathematical and polling dishonesty than you can imagine. NL *makes up the polling numbers* to fit their narrative. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAlLtNWeIJaK_ai_3-NMbQvqxV52gB6GKvDiFDXMdkuvEFPwyEb77UiDmbHqdAeV2GzAYZ_KiqXJ6wftJOvJR1aa26Uta8x0r1pN9dBYhm5On8oe32zh6H6sjfvWnRPlF9uAnhGry-AXeqWhblexgr2MZxu9V2mM5OP8OHuhUYQb_5ScZzFcC-OZTPVg/s708/Screenshot%202023-06-17%202.51.27%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="708" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAlLtNWeIJaK_ai_3-NMbQvqxV52gB6GKvDiFDXMdkuvEFPwyEb77UiDmbHqdAeV2GzAYZ_KiqXJ6wftJOvJR1aa26Uta8x0r1pN9dBYhm5On8oe32zh6H6sjfvWnRPlF9uAnhGry-AXeqWhblexgr2MZxu9V2mM5OP8OHuhUYQb_5ScZzFcC-OZTPVg/w320-h194/Screenshot%202023-06-17%202.51.27%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>7/ When challenged how they'd get a candidate to 270, they argued their 3rd party goon could win in...Delaware. And Florida. And Washington State. And Utah. And um...well, you tell me if this is a serious map in your mind:</div><div><br /></div><div>8/ It's all a fraud. They describe Joe Biden and Donald Trump as "equally unacceptable"...an assertion I'll leave you to assess. The plan all along was to burn down Biden, and they're getting on the ballot in key states to do just that. </div><div><br /></div><div>9/ We know the why but what about the how? Getting on the ballot is hard, and NL is fraudulently representing its petitions in many states and changing voter registrations. They're in trouble in Maine and AZ already, with more to come. </div><div><br /></div><div>10/ But they'll be on enough close states to drag off a % of conservative Dems and elect Trump or -- and here's the big reveal -- they'll drop out and not run a candidate if the Republican nominee is -- wait for it -- Ron DeSantis.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll let you process that while I get coffee. </div><div>11/ From @politico, this week:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNB9aotHCTUYGJCMX1slEH7rYH4ClLQvZ2zZ9Co0V9_Pad9Ks69x67RJk4haaGCnmhYM_14-RUjjv0p0nclViqN3L6lCBQnc32_TYd4iJqOXSkfA6ggnqPrXBbskNaCM8COkS1G9mwbmaSvJz9oKsDMFR1tS8KcU9fIrXff-Zdlr34RUc904Uia4Kpg/s735/Screenshot%202023-06-17%202.54.46%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="735" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNB9aotHCTUYGJCMX1slEH7rYH4ClLQvZ2zZ9Co0V9_Pad9Ks69x67RJk4haaGCnmhYM_14-RUjjv0p0nclViqN3L6lCBQnc32_TYd4iJqOXSkfA6ggnqPrXBbskNaCM8COkS1G9mwbmaSvJz9oKsDMFR1tS8KcU9fIrXff-Zdlr34RUc904Uia4Kpg/s320/Screenshot%202023-06-17%202.54.46%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div>12/ That's right. Centrist, moderate, problem-solver, just trying-to-give-voters-a-choice @NoLabelsOrg gave away the entire game.</div><div><br /></div><div>You know, Ron DeSantis, that noted moderate. You know, Smilin' Ron, the nicest Republican. </div><div><br /></div><div>13/ We're on final now, so bear with me. Why would they say that? The answer is "Dallas" and the answer is "Manhattan."</div><div><br /></div><div>Nancy has raised something like $70 million dollars (as noted prior) from the EXACT SAME billionaires backing DeSantis. </div><div><br /></div><div>14/ This donor set (including Sugar Daddy Harlan Crow) cares about 3 things; lower taxes at the Mt. Everest end of the income scale, carried-interest deductions, and oil-and-gas subsidies/write-offs.</div><div>They'll get them from Trump, but DeSantis has marginally better aesthetics.</div><div><br /></div><div>15/ If they have to spend the $$$ to destroy Biden, they will...and @NoLabelsOrg is designed to be the vehicle for an ocean of dark GOP money dressed up as moderate do-gooderism.</div><div><br /></div><div>They're perfectly fine with Trump if it happens, and if it's DeSantis they think it's in the bag. </div><div>16/ I implore DC media types to stop referring to @NoLabelsOrg as "centrist" or "moderate" for they are neither.</div><div>It's the most cynical ploy in service to Trump and the MAGA GOP one can imagine. </div><div><br /></div><div>17/ Two other quick notes then I'll let you get on with your day. The Ian Fleming Rule of Coincidences (look it up) of is always right.</div><div><br /></div><div>Last week, NL heralded former NC Gov Pat McCrory as their new front man. Pat's main advisor and close friend is Chris LaCivita. </div><div><br /></div><div>18/ For you folks playing at home, Chris LaCivita is also the lead strategist to another candidate running in 2024.</div><div>That candidate is Donald Trump.</div><div><br /></div><div>So endeth the lesson. </div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><h1 style="text-align: left;">~~~~~</h1></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">Josh Marshall's Thread</h3><div><div><a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1670077726047215616.html"><b>A friend asked me my take on this thread. So I’m seeing it a bit late. As someone who knows A LOT about Democratic politics, this is all true. If you were asking my own take I’d probably focus less on the anger abt getting exiled, though that is definitely part of it.</b></a></div><div><a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1670077726047215616.html"><b>Unroll available on Thread Reader</b></a></div><div><br /></div><div>2/ In Star Wars terms, these two were on the dark side before they got the boot. Many on the left say yeah they were always triangulators and centrists and all that. They suck. And they may suck because of that. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, the dark side. </div><div><br /></div><div>3/ The best way to illustrate this is that there are a number of groups which come out of that world, you know, more centrist politics, a third way and all that. Those folks are all united abs frankly on fire saying these folks are dangerous liars. Rick refers to them. </div><div><br /></div><div>4/ So maybe you’re from AOC style politics or more market oriented politics. But all these groups can agree that the Penn-Jacobsons are lying sleazeballs. Watch out. These are folks sponging up GOP high roller money for the sole purpose of ideally electing Ron DeSantis but</div><div><br /></div><div>5/ if that’s not possible electing Donald Trump. The goal is 100% to prevent the re-election of Joe Biden. It’s 100% that. They know to a certainty their candidate won’t win. The only other thing I’d add that’s not in Rick’s account is don’t ignore Mark’s advertising … </div><div><br /></div><div>6/ holding company “Stagwell Group”. That’s the formal for profit arm of Penn-Jacobson Inc. that’s how Mark owns Zombie Harris Poll, a sad afterlife of a once respected poll. He also gave Harvard University some cash to slap their name on it. Sad. Mark bought Harris … </div><div><br /></div><div>7/ for parts and relaunched it as a kind of Rasmussen Poll 2.0. Sad. Anyway, that’s the story. Everything Rick says is 100% accurate. My points merely complement the story, add some details based on the world I come out of. Two awkward but feral gimbuses, cast out… </div><div><br /></div><div>8/ by the forces of light and plotting with Harlan Crow to take their revenge, supporting Trump on the down-low and often loud and proud. And of course taking in people not closely involved with politics who wish our politics was less divisive. </div><div><br /></div><div>9/ And I shld add, yes, most beltway political news orgs are totally taken in/go along with this, frequently referring to them as “the centrists”. They’re not. A group like Third Way is an actual centrist group in the context of D politics. They’re dedicating big resources …</div><div> </div><div>10/ to out the Penn-Jacobson cabal for what they are. Politico, Axios, Punchbowl mostly go along with the charade or present the NL v Third Way stuff as I fighting among “the centrists”. That’s false. It’s a pure fraud. Like I said, the dark side. Sad.</div></div><div><br /></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-71232417939460512722023-06-16T11:32:00.026-04:002023-06-16T11:45:57.263-04:00Leo Frank Remembered<div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><h3 style="text-align: left;">I have waited twenty years for this piece of history to be flagged once again for contemporary history.</h3><p><a href="https://www.tpr.org/2023-04-05/broadways-parade-is-based-on-the-1915-antisemitic-lynching-of-leo-frank"><b>This 11-minute clip tells the story.</b></a></p><p></p><blockquote><p>The Broadway musical “Parade” is a retelling of the story of Leo Frank, a Jewish man from Atlanta, falsely accused and sentenced to the death penalty for the killing of a 13-year-old girl in 1913. Two years later, he was exonerated and lynched.</p><p>Steve Oney has studied the event since the early 1980s, met several people who attended the lynching and wrote the acclaimed book “And the Dead Shall Rise.” He joins host Robin Young.</p></blockquote><p></p></div><div dir="auto" style="animation-name: none; transition-property: none;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/GPBNews/videos/645236634149742"><b>GPB Political Rewind</b></a><br /><blockquote>Friday on Political Rewind: Last Sunday, the musical "Parade" won the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. Written by Atlanta native Alfred Uhry, "Parade" documents the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank. Host Bill Nigut welcomes Alfred Uhry, Rabbi Alvin Sugarman, and author Steve Oney to tell Leo Frank's story.</blockquote><br /></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-16951679728409253712023-06-05T07:34:00.001-04:002023-06-05T07:34:32.933-04:00Remembering history <p>I began blogging in retirement about nineteen years ago, reflecting on events that have shaped my beliefs and opinions over a lifetime now approaching eighty years. My thumbnail bio in the right sidebar has changed a few times but it still says <b style="font-style: italic;">I knew that in management I was supposed to become Conservative (which meant Republican) but I was not cut from the right fabric and I remained an old-fashioned Liberal. </b>And even now I sometimes have flashbacks to my younger years reminding me why that remains true after all this time.</p><p>Channel-surfing yesterday afternoon I watched key parts of recent history which included formative events which occurred during my young adult life shaping core beliefs which have remained solid ever since -- the possibility of another use of nuclear weapons (Cuban missile crisis), the unfolding Vietnam conflict, the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK and my decision to register as a conscientious objector anticipating the military draft which commenced in 1964.</p><p></p><blockquote>During the Vietnam War era, between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. military drafted 2.2 million American men out of an eligible pool of 27 million.</blockquote><p>Even now, years later, Robert Kennedy's historic speech, delivered without notes shortly after the King assassination, still brings tears to my eyes.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GoKzCff8Zbs" width="320" youtube-src-id="GoKzCff8Zbs"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><b>From the link...</b></span></div><p></p><blockquote><i><b>The reason I labeled it as "The Greatest Speech Ever" was simply the fact that it was never written, it wasn't read from a piece of paper, while there are numerous speeches that are life-changing and timeless, they were almost all written and thought of much more than this one. This one was only written in his heart.</b></i></blockquote><p></p><p></p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1241355397456348623.post-60661706412896731222023-06-04T09:26:00.001-04:002023-06-04T09:26:39.801-04:00ONLY TIME WILL TELL: SEDITIONIST OATH KEEPERS SENTENCED AMID TEARS AND PROMISES OF REDEMPTION<h3 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/06/04/only-time-will-tell-seditionist-oath-keepers-sentenced-amid-tears-and-promises-of-redemption/">ONLY TIME WILL TELL: SEDITIONIST OATH KEEPERS SENTENCED AMID TEARS AND PROMISES OF REDEMPTION</a></h3><p><b><i>June 4, 2023</i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Minuta-Taunt-1152x630.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="437" data-original-width="800" height="175" src="https://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Minuta-Taunt-1152x630.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>When they came to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, and terrorized the U.S. Capitol, the Oath Keepers hellbent on advancing a seditious conspiracy to keep Donald Trump in the White House were self-righteous and self-professed warrior patriots. <p></p><p>But in the cold light of reality inside a federal courtroom blocks from the U.S. Capitol this past week, some of those self-stylized “warriors,” were rendered to spittling, Kleenex-clutching tearful heaps as they finally faced the consequences of their actions and U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta prepared to sentence them to prison. </p><p>Oath Keepers Roberto Minuta, Edward Vallejo, David Moerschel, and Joseph Hackett went to trial last December and a jury found them guilty in January on multiple counts including sedition and conspiracy to obstruct Congress from certifying the 2020 election. The men were sentenced over two days and roughly a week after leaders of the conspiracy like Oath Keeper founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Jessica Watkins, and Ken Harrelson were sentenced. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Roberto Minuta</h3><p>No longer sporting tactical gear or chemical spray on his hip as he did on Jan. 6 while assaulting and taunting police, Oath Keeper Roberto Minuta appeared Thursday clad in a dark suit with hair neatly coiffed. His eyes rarely lifted to meet Judge Mehta’s as he read from a prepared statement seeking mercy in the face of the Justice Department’s 17-year-sentence recommendation.</p><p>Where Minuta had once followed Stewart Rhodes faithfully, in these last moments before sentencing, he sought to set himself apart from him. It was only now, Minuta explained with a calm and even tone, that he realized how profoundly “misled” he had been. </p><p>Rhodes’ leadership was “deranged,” he added. </p><p>When he was seemingly less repelled by Rhodes, Minuta purchased some 5,500 rounds of ammunition in the days before Jan. 6 and while participating in numerous chats where the group’s operations were discussed. It was in mid-December 2020 when he began talking with Rhodes about the need to do something other than peacefully protest if they were to keep Trump in office. He had raved on a Facebook live stream about election fraud and wailed that the “integrity of our democratic system is fucking dead.”</p><p>To stand by the results of that year’s election, he continued, would “lead to the boot of the government on your fucking face for eternity.”</p><p>For Roberto Minuta, by his own admission, by December 2020, the nation was already at civil war. When another leader of another extremist group, Proud Boy honcho Henry “Enrique” Tarrio posted messages online praising “lords of war” who took to the streets in support of Trump, Minuta posted messages in support online. He would echo similar notions about “war in the streets” on Jan. 6 where he was recorded speeding away from a nearby hotel on a golf cart. He was initially posted up at the hotel as a member of ratfucker Roger Stone’s security detail. </p><p>Minuta’s voice didn’t shake as he spoke to Mehta. He told the judge he had waited a long time to speak to him directly. He told the court he “cringed” at his “embarrassing use of language” and his “display[s] of anger” in the evidence presented.</p><p>A line had been crossed on Jan. 6 that destroyed the legitimacy of what he thought was a peaceful protest, he said, and when he taunted police, it was this belligerence that added to their stress. </p><p>Notably, on his way out of the Capitol, Minuta took the time to shove his fingers in an officer’s face as he screeched that “all that is left is the Second fucking Amendment.” </p><p>“The recipients of my verbal belligerence were undeserving and it was misplaced frustration…as a father, I would be embarrassed for my children to see me behaving how I did that day. It would be a perfect example of how not to behave. My poor judgment didn’t stop at belligerence. I entered the Capitol, alarms blazing, chemical irritants in the air, and despite my instincts not to go in, I did,” Minuta said. </p><p>And then, though the 38-year-old Oath Keeper would rebuke Rhodes and disavow the Oath Keepers, he nonetheless propped up a wafer-thin defense that has time and again been blown apart by evidence and dismissed by the courts: on Jan. 6 he was helping police, not harming them. </p><p>“I had an opportunity to help police and I blew it,” Minuta said. “While using my own words as their evidence, it does not look like I was helping police. I failed at assisting police that day and I now perceive myself as an added stressor in what was already a terrible situation.” </p><p>Judge Mehta acknowledged that while Minuta was not necessarily a leader in the way that Kelly Meggs or even Jessica Watkins had been, he nonetheless inspired other Oath Keepers to join a conspiracy analogous to treason.</p><p> It may have only been dozens of Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, but when they went up the Capitol stairs, they inspired others to do the same. </p><p>But unlike others in the mob that day, Mehta said Minuta clearly understood, at a minimum, that when he showed up, violence was possible. After all, he was prepared to engage in it himself. There was a trail of communications leading up to the 6th proving this and it wasn’t just overheated rhetoric, the judge said. </p><p>He wasn’t charged with seditious conspiracy because he was belligerent. </p><p>“You are not being charged and convicted because of your words. It is because they reflected your state of mind and gave us a window into what you were thinking and why you came to Washington… when you told [Proud Boy] Dominic Pezzola who you just met that Stewart Rhodes thinks the ‘time for peaceful protest is over,’ – the fact that a lightbulb didn’t go off to you at that point to avoid any further contact with Rhodes, to avoid contact with Oath Keepers, or to avoid coming to D.C. on Jan. 6, what inference should one draw?” Mehta said. </p><p>The judge, who is a former public defender with a frequently even-keeled, almost understated delivery, sounded exasperated. </p><p>He sighed deeply. </p><p>Minuta hadn’t simply lost his way on Jan. 6, the judge said. </p><p>Though he empathized with Minuta over the closure of his tattoo parlor during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and even his frustrations over how civil unrest in 2020 metastasized, these factors had still blinded him to better sense. And what was worse, the judge acknowledged, was that despite the show of contrition in court, he still stood before him today contending that he helped police on Jan. 6. </p><p>Opening his eyes wide and looking into Minuta’s face, Mehta said: “You weren’t there to help them. You may have convinced yourself of that but there isn’t any shred of evidence that would be consistent with that intent…and on the way out, you taunted police more. And as you are walking out of the building, after they have laid their own bodies on the line, you don’t thank them. You vilify them some more. There’s nothing that crossed your mind to assist police. You and I will have to agree to disagree on that.” </p><p>The law, he added, also did not permit Minuta to cloak himself in the tradition of the Founding Fathers. Nor does the Second Amendment give him or anyone else the right to battle the U.S. government. </p><p>Given the limited role of his actions in comparison to other conspirators and a lack of evidence supporting claims by the prosecution that Minuta was a leader of Oath Keepers in New York more broadly speaking, Mehta departed significantly from the Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation and gave Minuta just 4.5 years. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Edward Vallejo</h3><p>Where Minuta was stoic, 64-year-old Oath Keeper Ed Vallejo was overcome with emotion, openly sobbing while speaking to Judge Mehta. Vallejo cut a much different figure in court than he did in footage from the 6th. The wild unkempt beard he sported in 2021 was gone. He appeared frail as his white dress shirt billowed around his torso. His hands shook as he grasped a hard copy of his statement. </p><p>An Army Veteran sober for 40 years after a battle with alcoholism following the loss of his son, Vallejo drove 2,300 miles from his home in Arizona to Washington, D.C. fueled by disinformation. In this way, Mehta acknowledged, Vallejo and others suckered in by disinformation were victims in their own right. </p><p>“That doesn’t mean people aren’t responsible for their own actions,” Mehta said. </p><p>In late 2020, Vallejo had faithfully shared an open letter that Rhodes had issued in December calling on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act so Oath Keepers could be raised to help him stay in power. By the 6th, he was tapped to oversee a stockpile of weapons dumped at a hotel in northern Virginia. The cache was transported by Oath Keepers from around the U.S. The hotel, just outside of Washington and across the Potomac River, was dubbed a “quick reaction force” or “QRF.” </p><p>Though at trial Oath Keepers maintained the QRF was a defensive maneuver only and arranged to support their security detail for Trump VIPs and the like, no such evidence to support this claim ever emerged and Judge Mehta summarily and repeatedly dismissed the notion at sentencing. </p><p>Before Vallejo delivered a tearful plea, Mehta reminded Vallejo that on the morning of the 6th, it was he who went on a podcast with fellow Oath Keeper Todd Kandaris and boasted of unloading rifles (albeit indirectly) and then proceeded to speak of the need for “guerilla warfare” and armed conflict if the certification didn’t go as they wanted it. </p><p>It was Vallejo who spoke of the Oath Keepers as the “final check and balance” on the process. He also mentioned on the podcast that the people on the ground in Washington that day were prepared to do more than taunt police. </p><p>Where Vallejo’s defense attorney Matthew Peed argued those words were bloviations from a “goofy” man, Mehta disagreed.</p><p>There were multiple texts Vallejo sent to Rhodes during the attack, telling him he was ready to deploy if someone said the word. There were media interviews revealing his intent to advance the seditious conspiracy. There was also witness testimony at trial stating that Vallejo and Kandaris told Oath Keepers supping at Olive Garden after the attack that they were “waiting to be called to the Capitol.” And if that were not enough, Mehta pointed out, instead of leaving D.C. in short order, on the morning of Jan. 7, Vallejo returned to the Capitol and surveilled and probed police lines to see how law enforcement had responded in the aftermath. Messages show the Arizona Oath Keeper told Rhodes he would only return home if the founder ordered it. He was willing to stay on hand to deliver “after action reports” that would begin after the inauguration, he said. </p><p>And when Kandaris asked Rhodes what to do after the 6th, it was expressed plainly that he and Vallejo were excited about the “next steps.”</p><p>Mehta speculated last week on why, ultimately, Rhodes didn’t answer Vallejo’s call to activate the QRF and start hauling guns and rifles and ammunition into Washington. </p><p>“I think only Mr. Rhodes knows… perhaps he thought it would take too long to get weapons in or perhaps Mr. Rhodes knew, being the Yale law school graduate that he is, it wouldn’t be wise to respond to Mr. Vallejo, saying he can bring weapons in,” Mehta said.</p><p>During the prosecution’s allocution, assistant U.S. attorney Louis Manzo asked the judge to consider: What if Rhodes’ mind had ticked a little bit differently at that moment? </p><p>“Is there any doubt in your honor’s mind that Vallejo would have delivered?” Manzo said. </p><p>The confidence he had in January 2021 was missing in action this week. Vallejo wiped his nose profusely as he spoke through tears, his voice quaking. His cries grew slightly deeper while he hung his head and offered an apology to U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and other members of law enforcement. </p><p>Dunn delivered a charged victim impact statement in May along with Metropolitan Police Officer Chris Owens. </p><p>“It hurt me so bad that [Officer Dunn] is going through so much hurt,” Vallejo rasped, crying through his mea culpa. “I would do anything to help console him… my heart went out to him… I wish with all my soul I had never went… I wish I never associated with Stewart Rhodes… I see now how wrong and foolish I was… my life has been destroyed by this catastrophe in so many ways. I doubt I will ever fully recover from it.” </p><p>Vallejo’s wife, who is 70, is unable to care for their rescue animals or their home if she is alone and he is incarcerated for a significant length of time, he said. Telling Judge Mehta he was a changed man who had “sworn off” politics, the internet, and the outside world and that he had started removing tattoos related to the Oath Keepers and his recent past from his body.</p><p>“This wasn’t simply a belief that ballots had been miscast or ballots were brought in illegally. You know, Mr. Vallejo, I can appreciate that concern and that people had it and have had it. And you weren’t alone in that. Whether it was because you genuinely believed it based on your own review of evidence or the former president convinced you of it, you still are where you are,” Mehta said.</p><p>There is a process, he emphasized. </p><p>Trump went through the courts and failed to prove election fraud. There was nothing there, Mehta said.</p><p>But there was a process.</p><p>“What can’t happen is a willingness to take up arms when the process didn’t work out the way you had hoped it would. It can’t be that dozens of judges got it wrong. It just cant be. I can’t imagine a single judge didn’t look at it carefully… if you believe in democracy, you take the good with the bad. You take the results you don’t like,” Mehta said. “Go out into the streets and protest peacefully, sure. Hope for a better outcome, of course. But you can’t conspire to undo a result because you and a group of your cohorts believed that process failed you.” </p><p>Though prosecutors sought 17 years for Vallejo, Mehta only sentenced him to 3 years in detention and one year in home confinement after he is released. The departure in sentencing was somewhat expected after the light touch given to Minuta. Unlike Minuta, Vallejo was not at the Capitol and never went inside. His advanced age was also a boon.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">David Moerschel and Joseph Hackett</h3><p>To close out the week, Oath Keeper and former neurophysiologist turned-convicted-seditionist David Moerschel was also sentenced.</p><p>Right behind him was Oath Keeper and former chiropractor Joseph Hackett.</p><p>It was Moerschel and Hackett who coordinated the transport of weapons to the QRF with Kelly Meggs, a top leader under Rhodes. Moerschel joined a key text channel Oath Keepers used to communicate on Dec. 20, just one day after Trump invited his supporters to descend on Washington via Twitter. By Christmas Eve, Moerschel told Oath Keepers he thought Trump would wait until every avenue legally had been exhausted before he invoked the Insurrection Act but when Oath Keepers showed up, they would have firearms near D.C. if needed. Moerschel had pondered then: why else would Trump call them up? </p><p>On Christmas Day 2020, Moerschel, who reminded Judge Mehta of his devotion to god and missionary work during his sentencing last week, told Oath Keepers in a group chat that he thought then-Vice President Mike Pence wouldn’t stand by Trump. It was also here that Oath Keeper Jeremy Brown told him he thought the nation was on the brink of war and Moerschel replied by telling Brown about his guns and how he wanted “extra knockdown power” on the 6th. </p><p>He ended up bringing an AR-15 as well as a .45 caliber handgun to the hotel in Virginia.</p><p>“He didn’t do this for any other purpose than to wait for Trump or Kelly Meggs or Stewart Rhodes to tell him to use them,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy Edwards said Friday. “The safety of our community and balance of our democracy should not hinge on the impulses of madmen. I don’t believe Mr. Moerschel would have ignored someone like Mr. Meggs or Mr. Rhodes should they have said, ‘Go grab the firearms.’”</p><p>On the 6th, Moerschel went along with the first stack of Oath Keepers and got inside for just under 15 minutes. Like he had helped provide support with the weaponry, Mehta noted that his presence with the stack contributed to the overall force used to stop proceedings. </p><p>Moerschel rarely lifted his head as his attorney, the judge and prosecutors reviewed the court’s factual findings of his case. Instead, he kept his eyes glued to a paper in front of him. On occasion, the 45-year-old would shift in his seat, clasping closed hands near his mouth as if he was in silent prayer. </p><p>Tall and thin with the contours of his face sharply angular, Moerschel approached the podium and offered a quick preface to his allocution: His wife wasn’t present because they were unable to arrange care for their three children. His voice was clear as a bell as he said this and then, as if on cue with the first word of his prepared remarks, Moerschel’s voice began to quake immediately. </p><p>If there were tears, they were not immediately or as clearly visible, unlike with Ken Harrelson, Kelly Meggs, Jessica Watkins, and Ed Vallejo. Where their faces had flushed, where their tears had flowed, where they were undeniably overcome as they hit random points throughout their remarks—usually triggered by the first mention of a family member they had shamed—Moerschel did not emote as strongly though the sounds of weeping were there, however. </p><p>Moerschel said when he was on the Capitol steps, he had a revelation. </p><p>“I felt like God said to me, ‘get out of here’ and I didn’t and I disobeyed God and I broke laws. I’m not sorry because I’m being punished. I’m sorry because of the harm that my actions have caused other people,” he said. </p><p>Jan. 6 contributed to a national crisis, he added.</p><p>He was sorry for what it had done to his family. In the wake of his indictment, Moerschel lost his job as a neurophysiologist and has since taken work as a landscaper in Florida. (Moerschel, Vallejo, Minuta, and Hackett were granted bond ahead of trial.) </p><p>Mehta remarked on his good upbringing, education, and loving support system. Perplexed how he ultimately ended up on a road to ruin, Mehta told Moerscshel he thought he was a “smart guy” up until the fall of 2020. </p><p>During his remarks, the Oath Keeper riffed to Mehta: he appreciated the compliment but his actions were “really dumb.”</p><p>Leaning foward with eyes wide, Moerschel quipped: ”I don’t mean anything bad about Kelly Meggs but he’s a used car salesman and it was really dumb to follow that guy.”</p><p>Before rendering the sentence, Mehta told Moerschel that at a time, perhaps his joining the Oath Keepers was rooted in something more noble. He told him he could understand how joining a group of like-minded individuals and then treating that group as a primary source of community, validation, or even “news” could infiltrate one’s thinking. </p><p>“It is something that can suck you in like a vortex,” Mehta said. “And it is very difficult to get out. That is not an uncommon story.”</p><p>Moerschel’s lawyer Scott Weinberg argued that but for Trump’s tweet on Dec. 19, his client would have never come to D.C. at all. In effect, Moerschel was taken in by conmen like Rhodes and Trump, Weinberg argued. </p><p>He was “naive,” he said.</p><p>Moerschel was sentenced to just 3 years in prison though prosecutors sought 10. Mehta explained this was because Moerschel came to the conspiracy later than other members, was inside the Capitol very briefly, and did not appear to personally shout at or accost officers. He noted too that Moerschel disassociated with Oath Keepers and had no further dealings with the group after the 7th.</p><p>Fellow Oath Keeper Ken Harrelson, who received a 4-year sentence, did not do this. He kept talking to Meggs after the fact. </p><p>“Look, sentencings are—each person is unique and the reasons for sentences are unique to each individual. But I want to say something I haven’t said so far: Sentencings shouldn’t be vengeful or such that it is unduly harsh for the sake of being harsh… different periods of incarceration apply to different people for various reasons,” Mehta said Friday. </p><p>Oath Keeper Joseph Hackett, once a chiropractor with a flourishing practice, was sentenced to 3.5 years though prosecutors sought a 12-year term. </p><p>Wearing a light gray suit and somber expression, Hackett grew emotional and like Vallejo, was overcome though his voice was soft and quiet. He hadn’t realized, he told the court, just how much damage he had done on the 6th, or how many people were scared of him.</p><p>It wasn’t until police officers testified that he realized the “full measure” of his actions, he added. He also admitted: he had been too busy thinking of the damage he had caused his own family. </p><p>“I have destroyed my life,” Hackett said. </p><p>He hated himself, he said. And he really hated himself for hurting his daughter and wife who had received death threats since he was first exposed as a rioter at the Capitol.</p><p>“I am the reason we are not enjoying a happy and normal life,” he said. </p><p>Angie Halim, Hackett’s defense lawyer, called Hackett a “head-burier” who didn’t get involved with Oath Keepers to be extreme or political. The Oath Keepers didn’t get extreme until the country got extreme, she argued. Trump was saying the election was stolen, high-ranking politicians were too, and, she added, some media outlets failed to dispel the lie, not helping matters. In a flowery blame-shifting plea for her client, Halim beseeched Mehta to “trudge through the layer of human complexity” as he weighed a sentence. </p><p>Hackett, she said, was “scared of his own shadow” and had been for the last two years. </p><p>Hackett was no Rhodes. He was no Meggs either. But he was a recruiter for Oath Keepers who wanted to join the fray on the 6th. </p><p>Mehta acknowledged this as well as the fact that Hackett brought at least one gun on his trek to DC. While evidence wasn’t concrete at trial, according to the Justice Department, Hackett also very likely added an AR-15 to the QRF.</p><p>Though Hackett wasn’t inside the Capitol for long, he still showed up in tactical gear and then once inside, ended up lurking outside of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office.</p><p>In a statement seeming to signal a direct rebuffing of those who claim the Oath Keepers acted properly under the First Amendment, Mehta made a point to note that he agreed with prosecutor Alexandra Hughes’ take on Hackett’s involvement with the organization: </p><p>To the extent that the Oath Keepers were a lawful organization with lawful intent, it would have been fine for Hackett to participate. But the lawfulness component changed while he was an active party and “in it” for some time.</p><p>Hackett sat up straight in his chair as he heard his sentence. He nodded almost imperceptibly as Judge Mehta reviewed the terms of his supervision. His face didn’t look tense. He looked passive, almost accepting of his fate. In the clatter of his last moments in the courtroom, as lawyers began to gather their things, Mehta told him though his words might sound hollow, he hoped the life he lived before the fall of 2020 was something he could one day reclaim. </p><p>“Make your wife, daughter, and country proud,” Mehta told him. </p><p>Hackett smiled at the judge warmly, closing his eyes for a moment before nodding and mouthing subtly: “Thank you.” </p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858939352263715787noreply@blogger.com0