We were born to be
Recently Hamas found some people it believes are Israeli spies. I guess you could say they took them for a ride. “Hate”, Graham Greene wrote in the Power and the Glory “is a lack of imagination.” He could have been wrong. Sometimes it is the excess of it. The idea is that by shooting someone; raising a flag or firing a rocket one can make up for all the work we didn’t do; and all the time we never spent building a world for ourselves.
Magic is indicative of a surfeit of imagination: the idea that one enchanted day we will awaken to a place different from where we were going all along. Greene noted that:
Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t, why should we? They talk about people and the proletariat; I talk about the suckers and the mugs. It’s the same thing.
Well you could say a similar thing about the vanguard and the masters. The some who are more equal than others. Leon Trotsky in his The Revolution Betrayed, called for one more revolution, one more act of magic, one final round of killing to propitiate the gods of night.
None ever thought to think that building a civil society consists in exactly that.
And in another part of the world “Tariq Riebl, a humanitarian officer for the organization Oxfam in Goma, said that there had been reports of ‘fighting, looting, complete panic’ across parts of Goma” as that city fell to Rwandan backed rebels who seized it. The War in the Congo has been the most destructive conflict since World War 2. It receives scant attention however in the world’s press.
The deadliest war in modern African history, it directly involved eight African nations, as well as about 25 armed groups. By 2008, the war and its aftermath had killed 5.4 million people, mostly from disease and starvation, making the Second Congo War the deadliest conflict worldwide since World War II.
Well thank God no Jews are involved. Then it might be an atrocity gripping the EU, UN, the State Department and whoever else.
Reuters reports that UN Peacekeepers “looked on” as the city fell, even “parading past United Nations peacekeepers who gave up the battle for the frontier city of one million people.” Then apparently they went on to burn the UN barracks.
According to the Washington Post, the UN made a tough call not to open fire. Citing the spokesman of the Secretary General, the article said:
the decision is made on the ground by the U.N. force commander. “There has to be a value judgment made,” he said. “Do you open fire and put civilians at risk, or do you hold your fire, continue your patrols, observe what’s happening and remind the M23 that they are subject to international humanitarian and human rights law?”
Is there any mystery about why the Rwandan massacre occurred? Can anyone guess how come the UN missions never disarm the warring parties? Here’s a modest proposal. The UN should form up their troops into a brass band to provide music and entertainment as a backdrop to proceedings. They serve some purpose that way.
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
Tip Jar or Subscribe or Unsubscribe
I don’t think even Marx implied this style of dealing with your foes, except in a massive, Stalinist-like way…for pragmatic purposes alone, of course.
This is more personal, more visceral, a sacrifice to a vengeful god.
Unclear how this kind of thuggery operates when everybody has a camera in their phone and every instant of atrocity is uploaded to the Cloud. I suspect that Stalin and Hitler and their ilk succeeded in part because they could keep the bloody bits out of sight. That allowed the gullible to keep on believing until it was far too late; allowed also the imaginative to wonder why so-and-so had never come back from the trip down to the police station; generally kept things tidy and the Narrative under central control.
But now? When we get this footage 24/7 whether we like it or not? Does it not force the gullible to confront the hard facts? Does it not confirm to the imaginative that, yes, there was to be no return?
I would think this exposure to “reality” would tend to stiffen the spine of even the most wishful and accommodating.
#2 oMan: Perhaps, but I am more likely to think that the 24/7 coverage will desensitize us to the carnage. Just like all the lying and deception from politicians has inured us to it, so that we scarcely react if we even notice.
If Daniel Pearl’s murder didn’t appropriately stiffen spines…
Now, if that had been a noted CNN “journalist”, who happens to be “reporting” from Gaza, towed on that rope, we might see some spine stiffening.
The Christian Apologist Francis Schaeffer, of the last century, said that modern man carries an umbrella constantly over his head to keep the consequences of his beliefs and actions from raining down on him, and the job of the preacher is to knock the umbrella out of his hand.
The first settlers to America came to believe that the land and all its riches were limitless. Their great-great – - – -grandchildren have a firm grasp on the truth that anything in the natural world can be exausted. But they apparently believe that the things made by man are limitless;
you can knock down the walls that protect society and nothing bad will come in
money can be printed with no concern as to its value
the church can be made a thing of no effect and people will still be nice to each other, still be moral
the customs and mores accumulated over thousands of years of human experience can simply be disregarded with no consequences
The Christians first job is to be a faithful witness to the world of the things of God.
The world seems to be going ninety miles an hour down a dead end street.
Maybe we should concentrate on putting up as many stop signs as we can.
Do they actually want some kind of backlash? This is a half step from Achille Lauro…
“Unclear how this kind of thuggery operates when everybody has a camera in their phone and every instant of atrocity is uploaded to the Cloud.”
Yes but the union admonishes against non-union labor, the MSM warns against fraud on the internet. Grandma and the kiddies get the information from the modern equivalent of Pravda (ABC, CBS, NBC, et al).
All of the graphic gore we see everywhere is the plan to harden us to what is to come. If I put it the true terms I get ridiculed.
The TV, movies, “news”, music, etc all have it. People eating others faces seen on prime-time “news”. Red mist from fake movie shootings. All of serves to coarsen us. Now most can look at the worst man has to offer and be …… entertained.
The rough men of the world, the sheepdogs, need to make sure the world around the evil ones is destroyed. It will change us as wretchard knows but someone has to do it. Make the rubble bounce.
Then maybe we can let some small amount of peace exist.
Evil is real.
Evil is not equal.
The enemies of Israel appear to employ a missile-centric strategy that could represent a “single point of failure.” Over-relying on one weapon (missiles) may translate into vulnerabilities to specific countermeasures. Iron Dome is one such countermeasure. Another possibility would be to invade the links to time-critical targets, such as battlefield ballistic missile launchers or mobile surface-to-air missile launchers.
Suter 3
Previously -
Sky Crows
“This is a half step from Achille Lauro…”
The terrorists from Achille Lauro were captured when their airliner was forced down by USN fighters. The Italians locked them up, for a while, but let some of them go and after a while allowed some to leave prison on weekends for visits with relatives, and strangely enough they decided not to come back from one of those visits.
Years later we killed one of them when we invaded Iraq.
We really showed them didn’t we? For their heinous crimes they were seriously inconvenienced for a while.
And there has been a steady stream of Muslim immigration into N. America — now numbering in the millions — over the last three decades. Bush2 even upped the numbers after 9/11 in an act of disgusting appeasement. I’m sure he was assurred by all the Muslim consultants and “experts”, all of whom assured him that such gestures were necessary to prove to sensitive Muslims that we like them, aren’t at war with Islam, etc. we let more of them in, in oher words, to “win their hearts and minds”.
Did the good little government apparatchiks dutifully determine whether these millions of new Muslims reject utterly this kind of barbarity??? What do you think, good reader? I doubt a single Muslim was asked any such question, lest their nuclear indignation be detonated.
Does anyone doubt this is the kind of thing we can look forward to in Dearborn, in Los Angeles, in Minnesota, or anywhere else where large enough clots of Muslims accumulate?
So few bullets, so many a**holes in dire need of a double tap. The Palestinians are moral lepers. The world would be far better off without them.
RWE, I read how “Abbas” turned up in Iraq. I’m not worried about it, and no one asked what us simpletons think anyway… Tanks think for us, and to them we give ‘tanks.
They really should listen to us though.
I read a comment on another blog that very astutely attributes the Hamas rocket offensive to the insistence of the Iranians, who are watching the Iron Dome performance to determine it’s weaknesses. It’s a probing attack.
We are determined to nullify reality, because it is frankly too real. Too much objective reality is bad, because it has consequences like the necessity to think objectively, apply logic.
The preferred method of mental inner life these days is fantasy and wish projection. The Internet is indeed a facilitator of fantasy dream fulfillment, as any psychotic can get a blog, write crazy things and get people to read, participate,comment and agree. Participatory psychosis.
It’s what’s on the Internet.
d @ 15: I read a comment on another blog that very astutely attributes the Hamas rocket offensive to the insistence of the Iranians, who are watching the Iron Dome performance to determine it’s weaknesses. It’s a probing attack.
Eh. It would be news if it failed entirely, other than that I’m not sure what Iran would be doing that would be affected by Iron Dome. The Hizboolah has enough missiles to overload any defense. Major ballistics from Iran to Israel are out of Iron Dome’s league, presumably Patriot territory. Presume it’s beyond Iran’s capability to build their own, nor are they likely to be attacked by the kind of stuff Iron Dome intercepts, at least not by Israel or the US.
I don’t think it’s anything more than the Palis doing what they do, as usual nasty, ineffective and pointless, at least in the short term.
I read that General Ham was fired from Africom for wanting to help the besieged Americans in Benghazi.
Its too horrible to even comment on. How do the bastards compare to other bastards in the world. Passively waiting for a chance to do as much harm as they can get away with. Dressed up in convenient rhetoric.
Their cult truly is Satanic: by their fruits shall you know them. This, the contractors who were shot, burned, dismembered and displayed on the bridge in Iraq; the girls hanged –slowly– from construction cranes in Iran; the Christians shut in their churches and burned alive; endless pogroms against the Jews. . .
Demonic.
From JammieWearingFools:
Hamas Responds to Hillary’s Plea for Calm by Blowing Up Bus in Central Tel Aviv, Executing ‘Spies’
Posted by Jammie on Nov 21, 2012 at 7:45 am
“That smart diplomacy never fails to produce results, huh? Fresh off her wine-tasting tour of Australia in order to avoid testifying about Benghazi, Hillary Clinton rushed to Israel for a photo op and a call for peace in the latest skirmish between Israel and the savages Tuesday.
Following her arrival in Israel, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated at a press conference Tuesday that America’s commitment to Israel’s security is “rock solid,” adding that “the goal must be a durable outcome that promotes regional stability and advances the security and legitimate aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
“The rocket attacks from terrorist organizations inside Gaza on Israeli cities and towns must end, and a broader calm restored,” Clinton said, adding that there are no substitutes for security and a just and lasting peace.
The savages responded by executing alleged spies and dragging one of them through the streets of Gaza.
Masked Hamas gunmen executed Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel — and at least one victim was dragged through the streets of Gaza City.
The grotesque scene yesterday accompanied some of the worst bloodshed of the weeklong war and came amid frantic efforts to negotiate a truce.
Witnesses said four masked men pulled six suspected informers from a van stopped at a busy intersection in Gaza City’s Sheik Radwan neighborhood.
But hey, we can work with these peace-seekers, rights? It’s only a small group of rabble-rousers, so the peace process must move forward.
A street mob quickly gathered around the bodies.
Witnesses said the mob stomped and spit on five of the bodies.
The sixth was tied to a motorcycle by a cable and dragged through the city as people screamed, “Spy!” and “Traitor!”
Gunmen on motorcycles rode along with the body in celebration of the executions.
They celebrated. How special.
In another peaceful gesture earlier today, a bus blew up in Tel Aviv. Fortunately nobody was killed.
A terrorist blew up a bus on Tel Aviv’s Shaul Hamelech Street around noon Wednesday. A total of 16 people were injured the attack, according to a spokesperson from the city’s Ichilov Hospital.
One person was severely injured, one moderately and one light to moderately. The remainder of the casualties were lightly injured or suffering shock.
None were in a life threatening condition, though two have been taken into surgery, the hospital spokesperson said.”
Posted for Victor – ah! – those innocent Pali’s
I think Hamas is creating future spies. The friends and families of the lynching victims won’t forget.
I think Israel needs to collate the names of the victims of Hamas lynchings. Somebody – definitely somebody – among the lynch mob’s victims’ relatives will want revenge. Perhaps the time will come when Khaled Meshaal himself will be dragged through the streets to his death…
This was probably how John Osterlind got fired. He was one of the best DJs in the country. The poor guy couldn’t contain himself one day, said some things, and that was that… All for somebody’s harebrained security plan.
I’d change only one thing about Unsk’s JWF post: “execution” to “lynching.” I was going to say “murder,” but “lynching” is more precise.