Disgust is the word today that captures my feelings about the actions of “my” government. Disgust at facilitating and defending the Israeli genocide in Gaza, as casualties among Palestinians soar above 100,000. Disgust that Congress only clamors for more billions for Israel ($14 billion in the Biden administrations’s bill; $17 billion in the alternate bill from the House Speaker) to enable more killing. Disgust at the strenuous efforts being exerted to get $61 billion in more weapons and aid to Ukraine while denying any oversight over or insight into how that money is spent. Disgust at the government seeking more billions to arm Taiwan, possibly stirring up a hornet’s nest of trouble with China. Disgust at constant fear-mongering about Russia hacking the 2024 presidential election, as if that “threat,” such as it is, can’t be countered and contained. Disgust.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who makes a distinction between America and the US government; I believe conflating the two is the most commonly accepted idiocy, a disservice to democracy, and a flirtation with fascism.
Bill, this was a tough post to read - and I'm sure to write - as it brought up similar frustrations and anger that I have. I suppose I feel most a sense of betrayal; betrayal of the hopes and ideals that most of us were raised to believe; both were shattered on a cold November day in 1963. But we strove to still believe as Vietnam raged; as RFK and MLK were murdered; the shootings at Kent State. And all the crimes and murderous wars since through to today.
Yes, I know and met many of similarly wonderful people that you have. They are not responsible for the crimes of the US government; it's increasingly difficult to call it "our government" as it doesn't represent us. But many still cling to some view of this country that is a fairy tale - at best existing at one time in the past; at worst being only a creation of the owners to provide distraction.
Cynicism seems to be the logical outcome. But as I recalled a movie critic writing about Rick (Bogart) in Casablanca: his cynical exterior covered his shattered ideals. That's the way I feel.
Your disgust for our leaders is shared by many Americans and much of the civilized world! Our policies and blind support of the Genocidal maniacs in Israel have painted a bullseye on every American's back.
Our Founding Fathers warned about this tragedy, and they also suggested what we should do about it. Something about feeding our Tree of Liberty with blood! I hope it doesn't come to that, but I can't support the psychopathic, murderous thieves in Washington any more.
Bravo, Bill! As usual, you've said as much as anyone can say in a limited number of words, and you've said it explicitly and extremely well. You've said what has to be said and summarized it in the single word "disgust." Your Bracing Views tell it like it is. We cannot all imitate Aaron Bushnell's self-sacrifice, but we can do what you have done by verbally and vocally crying out our disgust, our outrage, to all the nations. We must not let such a painful sacrifice go unnoticed, unreported, ignobly ignored. Keep up the good work!
Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation was ultimately a religious act, one that radically delineates good and evil and calls us to resist.
Aaron Bushnell, when he placed his cell phone on the ground to set up a livestream and lit himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C., resulting in his death, pitted divine violence against radical evil. As an active duty member of the U.S. Air Force, he was part of the vast machinery that sustains the ongoing genocide in Gaza, no less morally culpable than the German soldiers, technocrats, engineers, scientists and bureaucrats who oiled the apparatus of the Nazi Holocaust. This was a role he could no longer accept. He died for our sins.
“I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” he said calmly in his video as he walked to the gate of the embassy. “I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
Young men and women sign up for the military for many reasons, but starving, bombing and killing women and children is usually not amongst them. Shouldn’t, in a just world, the U.S. fleet break the Israeli blockade of Gaza to provide food, shelter and medicine? Shouldn’t U.S. warplanes impose a no fly zone over Gaza to halt the saturation bombing? Shouldn’t Israel be issued an ultimatum to withdraw its forces from Gaza? Shouldn’t the weapons shipments, billions in military aid and intelligence provided to Israel, be halted? Shouldn’t those who commit genocide, as well as those who support genocide, be held accountable?
I think our situation can be summed up fairly easily and it is highlighted by the Bushnell suicide that is so hard for us to grasp. We would never do the same because all we can think of is his horrible pain with death with nothing we can think of for which we would suffer it. To hold an idea so dear, so superior to existence, is alien to us. It is no surprise that Christianity is rapidly fading away as it was all about that very thing - putting idea over the material.
People are selfish. That is no crime because all of life is selfish and survives because of it (so far, at least). Striving is natural and for humans, the ultimate strivers become billionaires. If what Bushnell did was unnatural and crazy, equally crazy are the likes of Bezos and Musk, only in their case we accept it as naturally crazy because we understand always wanting more as a fact of life, only with them it is obsession at any cost in character.
Thousands of lives lost at a distance can be tolerated, even ignored, if things are going along ok for me. What do dead Palestinians matter? Give me my big flat screen, my new pickup and the incredible 24/7 cornucopia of Amazon that brings goodies from all over the planet to my door often in only 1 day from the moment my interest is aroused. What will pique my interest tomorrow? What will tech bring in a year or two?! And TV. Dozens of channels for every interest and professional sports - a beautiful thing to see in fabulous color in my living room! Sure the team owners are the 1% but I love baseball and football and hockey and you name it. As for distraction, what can top my smartphone always at my side if not in my hand?
I don't need to think! Take the advice given everywhere and often. Enjoy! We are in consumer paradise, while billions are inadequately fed. It isn't me that's suffering. Why change that?
Yes, some people are angry, mistakenly putting Trump on a pedestal to represent them. There is too much drug addiction, too much money spent on the MIC, Congress is corrupt and as has been true with every society in history, those at the top rake it in. But what collection of hundreds of millions of people anywhere at any time has had all our stuff?
Bottom line: capitalism produces our stuff. Capitalism depends on endless growth. The earth is finite. We are literally undermining the ground beneath our feet. Capitalism has no future as global warming has arrived to show us beyond doubt. But as the short term creatures we are, present pleasures far outweigh future threats.
It was mentioned here that what we need to do is stop buying. That is the very last thing we would do because it is what makes life not just tolerable but enjoyable as community crumbles. Bushnell would certainly understand the motivation but his kind is rare and our kind, the dedicated consumer not really thinking too deeply about anything, is everywhere.
NEW POLL FINDS PRESIDENTIAL RACE IN DEAD HEAT BETWEEN 'UNCOMMITTED' AND 'NONE OF THESE'
U.S. — According to a new national poll, the 2024 presidential race is locked in a dead heat between Democratic incumbent "Uncommitted" and Republican opponent "None of These".
Members of the American public have reportedly dissolved friendships, even turning against their own families, as INTENSE DISAGREEMENT BREAKS OUT OVER WHETHER THE NATION SHOULD GO WITH "UNCOMMITTED" OR IF "NONE OF THESE" CAN BE THE CHANGE AMERICA NEEDS.
"I'M TEAM 'NONE OF THESE' ALL THE WAY," SAID LOCAL CALIFORNIA RESIDENT DYLAN VERNON. "IT'S NOT THAT I'M 'UNCOMMITTED', I KNOW GOOD AND WELL I WANT NONE OF THESE FOOLS TO BE PRESIDENT."
According to American statistician Nate Silver, the American public hasn't been this divided since the Civil War. However instead of fighting over slavery and states' rights, SILVER FEARS THE NATION WILL SOON TEAR ITSELF APART OVER HOW MUCH THEY HATE EVERYONE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. "People either can't decide because they dislike their options, or have decided for sure that they dislike their options," explained Silver. "It's really going to come down to the wire."
At publishing time, "No Opinion" entered the race as a viable third-party candidate.
I consciously stopped using the possessive plural when referring to the US government's actions. We didn't bomb anyone, our GOVERNMENT did. Most Americans, like most people in the world, are good people. The ruling elite can try to train us to hate our neighbor, but I don't think it's working that well anymore.
It's us vs them. "Them" are the rulers, the ultrawealthy, and all their support staff who chose money over morals. My plan is to talk with my neighbors. To smile at the person I'm supposed to hate. It might not seem like much, but it's a good place to start.
Get out of the mindset that you 'employ' or 'vote' people to do it for you.
No. That's not right. That's not what you're supposed to do. You are supposed to do it.
They are just supposed to obey your instructions - 'represent' YOU '.
BUT we recognise it has never been practicable to poll the people all the time about everything/anything. Even an election once every few years is a mammoth undertaking.
BUT it is all different now.
With cellphones and the internet and the right apps we can be polled on anything at any time night or day. We can register our vote any time night or day 365 per.
We can monitor the behaviour of our 'reps' and control it.
I won't carry on. You either get the drift or you don't.
The essence: we're living in the past. Using anachronistic structures, methods.
I see George Galloway won the by-election making UK complicity in Gaza a real campaign issue. In his victory speech he said, "Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are two cheeks of the same backside and they both got well and truly spanked tonight.”
Great line and a glimmer of hope as he proclaimed, "This is going to spark a movement, a landslide, a shifting of the tectonic plates ... We crushed Labour by ten thousand votes. The second place candidate was not the Conservatives," [but an independent.] "This is the first time in British political history that in a by-election both of the major parties were completely crushed."
Scott Ritter concludes his 2 Mar 24 piece THE SILENT EULOGY as follows:
So here is to the American experiment.
Born July 4, 1776.
Died…we’ll never know.
An imperfect union, it strove to be better, fighting a revolution to free itself from the tyranny of the British crown while preserving slavery as a constitutionally approved institution. America fought a bloody Civil War to end the evil of slavery and preserve the Union, all the while implementing its self-anointed God-given “manifest destiny” which drove into near extinction the indigenous people who populated the continent we conquered. We came to the aid of Europe not once, but twice, over the course of a century, helping defeat the forces of fascism and imperialism, before becoming fascist-like in our domestic policies that supported our imperialistic foreign policies.
America, the beautiful.
God shed his grace on thee.
This is the eulogy I will never be able to deliver, because like the rest of you, I am fated to die in a nuclear holocaust of our own making. We have embarked on a collective journey whose only destination is death and destruction.
We have ignored, at our own peril, the efforts of those, at home and abroad, who have tried to get us to take an off-ramp.
I would have liked to have had the epitaph on my gravestone read, “Here lies a warrior for peace, who dedicated his life to the cause of making the world a safer place to live.”
Alas, I, like all of you who are reading this, am doomed to die in a war that could have been avoided if we just tried a little bit harder to avoid it.
The shame is that, at that moment when the inevitability of our passing hits home, in the millisecond that will follow the flash of light and the comprehension of what it signifies, all of us will think “If I had just…”
But it will be too late because we did not.
We allowed the military industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about to become manifest.
We remained indifferent to the reality of its pervasiveness, even as our own government informed us that the reason for pursuing our suicidal path of destruction with Russia in Ukraine was so that our defense industry could profit.
But there is no profit in death.
Rest in peace, America.
And may God damn us all to hell for destroying that which he had bequeathed us.
It's Zionism. We must De-Zionize our institutions. Simply changing the official spokesperson of the ruling classes (e.g. Politicians) does no good. We have to reform our institutions from academia to healthcare and government. It all has to be divorced from the racist extremist ideology that is Zionism. UN Resolution 3379 declared Zionism to be racism decades ago. Time to act on it.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who makes a distinction between America and the US government; I believe conflating the two is the most commonly accepted idiocy, a disservice to democracy, and a flirtation with fascism.
Disgusting is right.
Bill, this was a tough post to read - and I'm sure to write - as it brought up similar frustrations and anger that I have. I suppose I feel most a sense of betrayal; betrayal of the hopes and ideals that most of us were raised to believe; both were shattered on a cold November day in 1963. But we strove to still believe as Vietnam raged; as RFK and MLK were murdered; the shootings at Kent State. And all the crimes and murderous wars since through to today.
Yes, I know and met many of similarly wonderful people that you have. They are not responsible for the crimes of the US government; it's increasingly difficult to call it "our government" as it doesn't represent us. But many still cling to some view of this country that is a fairy tale - at best existing at one time in the past; at worst being only a creation of the owners to provide distraction.
Cynicism seems to be the logical outcome. But as I recalled a movie critic writing about Rick (Bogart) in Casablanca: his cynical exterior covered his shattered ideals. That's the way I feel.
Thank you Bill!
Your disgust for our leaders is shared by many Americans and much of the civilized world! Our policies and blind support of the Genocidal maniacs in Israel have painted a bullseye on every American's back.
Our Founding Fathers warned about this tragedy, and they also suggested what we should do about it. Something about feeding our Tree of Liberty with blood! I hope it doesn't come to that, but I can't support the psychopathic, murderous thieves in Washington any more.
Bravo, Bill! As usual, you've said as much as anyone can say in a limited number of words, and you've said it explicitly and extremely well. You've said what has to be said and summarized it in the single word "disgust." Your Bracing Views tell it like it is. We cannot all imitate Aaron Bushnell's self-sacrifice, but we can do what you have done by verbally and vocally crying out our disgust, our outrage, to all the nations. We must not let such a painful sacrifice go unnoticed, unreported, ignobly ignored. Keep up the good work!
Aaron Bushnell’s Divine Violence
Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation was ultimately a religious act, one that radically delineates good and evil and calls us to resist.
Aaron Bushnell, when he placed his cell phone on the ground to set up a livestream and lit himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C., resulting in his death, pitted divine violence against radical evil. As an active duty member of the U.S. Air Force, he was part of the vast machinery that sustains the ongoing genocide in Gaza, no less morally culpable than the German soldiers, technocrats, engineers, scientists and bureaucrats who oiled the apparatus of the Nazi Holocaust. This was a role he could no longer accept. He died for our sins.
“I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” he said calmly in his video as he walked to the gate of the embassy. “I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
Young men and women sign up for the military for many reasons, but starving, bombing and killing women and children is usually not amongst them. Shouldn’t, in a just world, the U.S. fleet break the Israeli blockade of Gaza to provide food, shelter and medicine? Shouldn’t U.S. warplanes impose a no fly zone over Gaza to halt the saturation bombing? Shouldn’t Israel be issued an ultimatum to withdraw its forces from Gaza? Shouldn’t the weapons shipments, billions in military aid and intelligence provided to Israel, be halted? Shouldn’t those who commit genocide, as well as those who support genocide, be held accountable?
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/aaron-bushnells-divine-violence
You could footnote this with a reference to Biden eating an ice cream cone while answering reporters' questions about his genocide in Gaza.
Consider it a nice cherry to top off the Sundae of our Disgust.
Devil's advocate here.
I think our situation can be summed up fairly easily and it is highlighted by the Bushnell suicide that is so hard for us to grasp. We would never do the same because all we can think of is his horrible pain with death with nothing we can think of for which we would suffer it. To hold an idea so dear, so superior to existence, is alien to us. It is no surprise that Christianity is rapidly fading away as it was all about that very thing - putting idea over the material.
People are selfish. That is no crime because all of life is selfish and survives because of it (so far, at least). Striving is natural and for humans, the ultimate strivers become billionaires. If what Bushnell did was unnatural and crazy, equally crazy are the likes of Bezos and Musk, only in their case we accept it as naturally crazy because we understand always wanting more as a fact of life, only with them it is obsession at any cost in character.
Thousands of lives lost at a distance can be tolerated, even ignored, if things are going along ok for me. What do dead Palestinians matter? Give me my big flat screen, my new pickup and the incredible 24/7 cornucopia of Amazon that brings goodies from all over the planet to my door often in only 1 day from the moment my interest is aroused. What will pique my interest tomorrow? What will tech bring in a year or two?! And TV. Dozens of channels for every interest and professional sports - a beautiful thing to see in fabulous color in my living room! Sure the team owners are the 1% but I love baseball and football and hockey and you name it. As for distraction, what can top my smartphone always at my side if not in my hand?
I don't need to think! Take the advice given everywhere and often. Enjoy! We are in consumer paradise, while billions are inadequately fed. It isn't me that's suffering. Why change that?
Yes, some people are angry, mistakenly putting Trump on a pedestal to represent them. There is too much drug addiction, too much money spent on the MIC, Congress is corrupt and as has been true with every society in history, those at the top rake it in. But what collection of hundreds of millions of people anywhere at any time has had all our stuff?
Bottom line: capitalism produces our stuff. Capitalism depends on endless growth. The earth is finite. We are literally undermining the ground beneath our feet. Capitalism has no future as global warming has arrived to show us beyond doubt. But as the short term creatures we are, present pleasures far outweigh future threats.
It was mentioned here that what we need to do is stop buying. That is the very last thing we would do because it is what makes life not just tolerable but enjoyable as community crumbles. Bushnell would certainly understand the motivation but his kind is rare and our kind, the dedicated consumer not really thinking too deeply about anything, is everywhere.
NEW POLL FINDS PRESIDENTIAL RACE IN DEAD HEAT BETWEEN 'UNCOMMITTED' AND 'NONE OF THESE'
U.S. — According to a new national poll, the 2024 presidential race is locked in a dead heat between Democratic incumbent "Uncommitted" and Republican opponent "None of These".
Members of the American public have reportedly dissolved friendships, even turning against their own families, as INTENSE DISAGREEMENT BREAKS OUT OVER WHETHER THE NATION SHOULD GO WITH "UNCOMMITTED" OR IF "NONE OF THESE" CAN BE THE CHANGE AMERICA NEEDS.
"I'M TEAM 'NONE OF THESE' ALL THE WAY," SAID LOCAL CALIFORNIA RESIDENT DYLAN VERNON. "IT'S NOT THAT I'M 'UNCOMMITTED', I KNOW GOOD AND WELL I WANT NONE OF THESE FOOLS TO BE PRESIDENT."
According to American statistician Nate Silver, the American public hasn't been this divided since the Civil War. However instead of fighting over slavery and states' rights, SILVER FEARS THE NATION WILL SOON TEAR ITSELF APART OVER HOW MUCH THEY HATE EVERYONE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. "People either can't decide because they dislike their options, or have decided for sure that they dislike their options," explained Silver. "It's really going to come down to the wire."
At publishing time, "No Opinion" entered the race as a viable third-party candidate.
Source: https://babylonbee.com/news/new-poll-finds-presidential-race-in-dead-heat-between-uncommitted-and-none-of-these; EMPHASES added.
https://youtu.be/sRCLHBhZPQ4?si=ZDRCfCyDNo52ugz0
Hope isn't a plan but all plans start with hope.
I consciously stopped using the possessive plural when referring to the US government's actions. We didn't bomb anyone, our GOVERNMENT did. Most Americans, like most people in the world, are good people. The ruling elite can try to train us to hate our neighbor, but I don't think it's working that well anymore.
It's us vs them. "Them" are the rulers, the ultrawealthy, and all their support staff who chose money over morals. My plan is to talk with my neighbors. To smile at the person I'm supposed to hate. It might not seem like much, but it's a good place to start.
You need people to start running the country.
Get out of the mindset that you 'employ' or 'vote' people to do it for you.
No. That's not right. That's not what you're supposed to do. You are supposed to do it.
They are just supposed to obey your instructions - 'represent' YOU '.
BUT we recognise it has never been practicable to poll the people all the time about everything/anything. Even an election once every few years is a mammoth undertaking.
BUT it is all different now.
With cellphones and the internet and the right apps we can be polled on anything at any time night or day. We can register our vote any time night or day 365 per.
We can monitor the behaviour of our 'reps' and control it.
I won't carry on. You either get the drift or you don't.
The essence: we're living in the past. Using anachronistic structures, methods.
We need to wake up and get with it.
https://abrogard.com/blog/2023/12/25/dont-write-to-congress/
I see George Galloway won the by-election making UK complicity in Gaza a real campaign issue. In his victory speech he said, "Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are two cheeks of the same backside and they both got well and truly spanked tonight.”
Great line and a glimmer of hope as he proclaimed, "This is going to spark a movement, a landslide, a shifting of the tectonic plates ... We crushed Labour by ten thousand votes. The second place candidate was not the Conservatives," [but an independent.] "This is the first time in British political history that in a by-election both of the major parties were completely crushed."
Amen.
https://mywisdom.substack.com/p/light-on-a-genocide
Scott Ritter concludes his 2 Mar 24 piece THE SILENT EULOGY as follows:
So here is to the American experiment.
Born July 4, 1776.
Died…we’ll never know.
An imperfect union, it strove to be better, fighting a revolution to free itself from the tyranny of the British crown while preserving slavery as a constitutionally approved institution. America fought a bloody Civil War to end the evil of slavery and preserve the Union, all the while implementing its self-anointed God-given “manifest destiny” which drove into near extinction the indigenous people who populated the continent we conquered. We came to the aid of Europe not once, but twice, over the course of a century, helping defeat the forces of fascism and imperialism, before becoming fascist-like in our domestic policies that supported our imperialistic foreign policies.
America, the beautiful.
God shed his grace on thee.
This is the eulogy I will never be able to deliver, because like the rest of you, I am fated to die in a nuclear holocaust of our own making. We have embarked on a collective journey whose only destination is death and destruction.
We have ignored, at our own peril, the efforts of those, at home and abroad, who have tried to get us to take an off-ramp.
I would have liked to have had the epitaph on my gravestone read, “Here lies a warrior for peace, who dedicated his life to the cause of making the world a safer place to live.”
Alas, I, like all of you who are reading this, am doomed to die in a war that could have been avoided if we just tried a little bit harder to avoid it.
The shame is that, at that moment when the inevitability of our passing hits home, in the millisecond that will follow the flash of light and the comprehension of what it signifies, all of us will think “If I had just…”
But it will be too late because we did not.
We allowed the military industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about to become manifest.
We remained indifferent to the reality of its pervasiveness, even as our own government informed us that the reason for pursuing our suicidal path of destruction with Russia in Ukraine was so that our defense industry could profit.
But there is no profit in death.
Rest in peace, America.
And may God damn us all to hell for destroying that which he had bequeathed us.
Full article at: https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/the-silent-eulogy .
It's Zionism. We must De-Zionize our institutions. Simply changing the official spokesperson of the ruling classes (e.g. Politicians) does no good. We have to reform our institutions from academia to healthcare and government. It all has to be divorced from the racist extremist ideology that is Zionism. UN Resolution 3379 declared Zionism to be racism decades ago. Time to act on it.