A financial newsletter I read projected that sometime in the next 5 years or so, the annual interest payment on the debt will exceed the bloated military budget; the writer assumed that dramatic cuts to "entitlement programs" (e.g., Social Security and Medicare) would follow - else 85 percent of all other Federal spending would be cut.
The writer's assumption, and mine, is that no cuts to military spending will ever be considered - no matter the impact on the American citizenry. The empire must be preserved at all costs.
At some point, the American people hopefully will realize they are seen by those in charge as no different than Vietnamese, Afghans, Iraqis, or Palestinians. But by then it will be too late.
Social Security - something members of Congress will never have to rely upon - is not now, nor has it ever been, an "entitlement program." As far as I can tell, it is only Congressional Republicans who call it that, no doubt thinking if they keep calling it that, people will either believe that's what it is or that it will magically become one, most likely during a Congressional recess.
Nov 3, 2023·edited Nov 3, 2023Liked by Bill Astore
I've been long aware of the imbalance of influence from and for this one country. But now, even I stand amazed at Congress pressing full steam ahead on their 14B+ package when, FINALLY, a huge chunk of America from across the political spectrum is raising holy hell about the horrific Israeli response. (I am not a bit surprised by the moronic response from the anti-diplomacy-driven Biden administration. My expectations from them can sink no lower than they already have from the Ukraine meat grinder.) Of course, the Democrats didn't like the Republican bill (with its cuts to the IRS budget) but still enough crossed the aisle to get it passed. Only two republicans voted against it. No surprise which one those were--Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Democracy doesn't have much of a chance in this country (and none in Israel in its present form), but it certainly will continue to be the sham it is as long as the PACs exist and buy our entire electoral process.
Now we are finding out this was a convoy of ambulances transferring patients to a hospital that at least still has electricity. It was announced in advance by the Palestinian's, and deliberately attacked by the cowardly IDF.
The photograph illustrates what victory in the 21st Century looks like. Not quite "no stone left atop another" but getting closer every day. They'll be salting the ground next.
Slaughtering thousands of children with Boeing guided US supplied JDAM (apropos!) 2000 pound bombs is justified because terrorists!
Russians don't hold a candle to the USA when it comes to slaughter of civilians aka collateral damage. Civilian casualties since Feb 2022 are a fraction of the number killed by Ukraine shelling of Donetz.
Neither Biden nor the Hagenah heirs advanced ethically since the Cathar crusade in France where the Papal representative called on God to 'sort out the innocent!
Has anyone tried unplugging the United States, or Israel for that matter and plugging it back in!? Sad commentary...Carl Sagan knew the score --"War is murder writ large."
i had a very early ~ and still have a very incessantly persistent ~ suspicion about the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
That it was, is, and ever will be a “False Flag” operation launched by the United States and Israel designed to: 1] Divert attention from the War in Ukraine; 2] Launch the “Israel-Hamas War,” another boom event for America’s Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex; 3] Begin the physical expansion of the state of Israel, in preparation for the planned regional War; and 4] make Biden a “War Time President” when Election2024 rolls around [if it does], one year from tomorrow.
Here is at least one other person who feels, believes, and thinks the same way, except for #4 …:
THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT: NETANYAHU’S “FALSE FLAG”, CONNECTING THE DOTS – AND MORE by Peter Koenig / Global Research / 11 Oct 23
Most people, including journalists on both sides of the aisle – mainstream and non-mainstream — seem to believe that this a one-off war, a surprise attack by Hamas, the “defenders” of Palestine.
It is not.
Connecting a few dots over the past 70 years may help better understand what is going on in the Middle East, Israel-Palestine – and around the world. How the bloody Israel-Palestine conflict fits into the Big Picture.
What if Hamas has been created either by Israel directly, or rather by the US-UK-Israel Secret Services for the “benefit” of Israel, for precisely the reason they (Hamas) are used today: to justify Israel’s all-out war for wiping out Palestine, for extending her territory, absorbing over time about as much as a third or half of the current Middle East – into “Greater Israel”?
Hamas has no chance in heaven to win this war. It is David against Goliath. Except in this case, David is Hamas and Goliath is Israel. Both Hamas and Israel know it.
What if Hezbollah was also created by the same villains for the same reasons, to create chaos and eventually war in the Middle East? They are the official “protectors” of Lebanon (similar to Hamas for Palestine) but, with their possible aggression on Israel, or their involvement in the current war, they will make sure that Lebanon will be one of the countries absorbed by Israel. Israel’s massively US-military-supported IDF (Israel Defense Forces) may just crush Hezbollah and take over Lebanon.
This plan is not known by most people. Netanyahu becoming prime minister again in December 2022, despite his narrowly losing the election, is a well-planned scam, supported by the well-known secret services and the Kazarian Zionists, supporting Israel’s expansion throughout the Middle East.
Let us not forget, Israel is the power broker for the western world. They control worldwide banking and corporate finance, communication, Hollywood, art, education systems – and more.
Already in 1815, Nathan Rothschild, British financier and member of the Rothschild banking family, made his famous statement:
“I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls the British money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.”
The same Nathan Rothschild also infamously said, “the time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets.”
This is precisely a reflection on what we are living today – a limitless quest for superiority, no matter what it costs, in money and blood.
Back to Hezbollah: Lebanon has also lots of natural resources, off-shore oil and a deep off-shore sweet water aquifer. Current Israeli territories have almost no fresh water, one of the reasons (among many others) Israel wants to take over the so-called West Bank, where about 80% of all the fresh water sources of greater Palestine (before 1948) is located and which Israel now is virtually stealing from Palestine.
Palestine also has natural gas. The Gaza Marine is a natural gas field less than 40 km off the coast of the Gaza Strip. The deposits of the Gaza Marine natural gas field are estimated at 35 BCM, larger than those of Israel’s Yam Tethys maritime gas field.
THE ROLE OF AL QAEDA
In the same spirit of Hamas and Hezbollah, Al Qaeda was created in the early 1980s. Al Qaeda is a Sunni pan-Islamist militant organization; an international “terrorist” organization which was to generate unrest around the world, as needed, to justify military interventions – mostly by the US and UK – and destabilization of otherwise stable (and mostly resources-rich) Middle East and African countries. Al Qaeda has also been operating in Asia — for example in Pakistan, where it supposedly was founded; also in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and elsewhere.
U.S. WEAPONS FOR HAMAS
It is no coincidence that weapons used by Hamas in this “assault” on Israel are of US origin, earlier shipped to Kiev to fight Russia. By now it is no secret that about 70% of US- and EU-supplied weapons never made it to the Ukrainian front fighting Russia, but rather to the black market, from where tracing them was thought to be next to impossible.
Washington and Brussels – the EU puppets of the wannabe empire – knew from the beginning about the deviation of a large proportion of weaponry to the black market. But they did nothing against it. Did they know this was a covert way of arming Hamas and possibly Hezbollah for a soon to come, well-planned “hot” war with Israel?
Amazingly, since Benjamin Netanyahu had been made PM again, he had been advancing a judicial reform which was considered as damaging to Israel’s democracy and devastating to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Many potential recruits have refused to serve. Analysts warned that this might crack the IDF and its ability to defend the state.
Would Netanyahu not have known about the risks to the IDF of his judicial reform?
A long screed that circulates a dangerous myth that it's the Jews who control the world. See here: "Let us not forget, Israel is the power broker for the western world. They control worldwide banking and corporate finance, communication, Hollywood, art, education systems – and more."
Who is "they" in that sentence? And are "they" really the puppet masters of the world?
Of course, Israel is powerful and influential. But let's not exaggerate that power and influence.
Of the 1755 Billionaires on Earth, 20% of them are Jewish with combined assets of some $1.7 TRILLION Dollars. Not insignificant figures.
They could easily pay for all the $Billions the US Taxpayer gives Israel every year as an indirect Subsidy to the US Weapons Manufactures, the US Military-Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned about.
And he had many problems with the Jewish RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT!
An Old Testament JEWISH RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT took over Government in Israel in January, long before October 7.
That's why the United Nations Secretary-General with all his Experience said, "October 7 didn't happen in a vacuum!" and Israel is demonizing him for saying that simple Truth and Reality.
Regardless of that, do You agree that a strong case is made for this whole Israel-Hamas War being a "False Flag" operation?
And another question: If the United States ORDERED Israel to cease all offensive operations, initiate a cease fire, and completely open Gaza to any and all Humanitarian Relief Aid, would Israel comply?
And if it didn't, what would the United States do?
Jeff, I have no special insight or expertise here.
There's a tendency I think we need to guard against here, and that's to give too much power to Israel and its leaders and not enough credit to Hamas and its leaders. Thus there's the idea Israel must have planned this, or allowed 10/7 to happen, precisely because they wanted to annihilate Gaza, and 10/7 gave them the cause to initiate their carefully laid plans.
I don't doubt Israel had plans to eliminate and annex Gaza. I do doubt that Israel controls everything and either launched a false flag or allowed Hamas to kill 1000+ while taking 200+ hostages.
Occam's razor may apply here: the simplest scenario. It's likely Hamas was behind 10/7 and that an overconfident Israel simply didn't believe Hamas could launch such a concerted strike without Israel knowing about it. Of course, after the attack, the right-wing Israeli government is taking full advantage of it, using it to eliminate Gaza, what some are calling a "final solution," words I don't use since for the Nazis the Final Solution was total extermination.
My guess is that the ultimate objective of this whole operation is to rid the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of anybody that Israel does not want living there.
Not "total extermination"; just total forced emigration.
Where all those Palestinians and West Bankers go after ejection is the Arab/Muslim nations' problem, not Israel's.
Reflecting on it further, Bill, i remember when, how, and why the seed that this whole thing may very well be a False Flag Op was planted.
And that was back on October 7 with the obvious, evident fact that all of Israel’s intelligence, surveillance, and embedded espionage APPARENTLY had failed to detect the attacks and to prepare the military and its Israeli civilian population for it.
And the key, operative word here is APPARENTLY.
The fact that the heads of Israeli civilian and military intelligence haven’t been sacked for failure to perform their duty says a great, great deal. Just like nobody in America’s civilian or military intelligence and air defense agencies was sacked for dereliction of duty after 9/11.
So why do You doubt that Israel allowed those 1000+ fatalities and 200+ hostages? How much has the Israeli government and military benefitted from all those civilian casualties? Especially in terms of generating American ~ and international ~ support for their actions?
And WHEN in its history has Israel EVER been “overconfident” about what their neighbors were intent upon and capable of inflicting?
What we are witnessing Israel do to Gaza is a "Final Solution" October 7 gave them cover to do.
I have heard over and over again Israel's goal is the "total extermination" of Hamas
As much as the US-Israel say what The Islamic Resistance Movement, aka Hamas, did October 7 is a WAR CRIME, what we see on TV Israel do every Day is a WAR CRIME + and the US WEST gives Israel the green light to commit whatever WAR CRIMES it chooses to accomplish the FINAL SOLUTION of eliminating Hamas.
That means killing mostly Innocent Palestinians including BABIES, in addition to witnessing an unconscionable Israeli MASSIVE Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their own Land destroying their HOMES with no place to go to escape Israel's WAR CRIMES the nominally Christian US WEST is complicit with it's unqualified support for Israel.
Bill, it would be worthwhile to provide the context for America's "Cross of Iron"
It comes from the last real Commander-in-Chief General-President Dwight D Eisenhower from one of his earliest speeches on becoming President April 16, 1953.
The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.
The worst is atomic war.
The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labour of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road. the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a CROSS OF IRON.
The DoD Budget when Eisenhower gave that speech was $60 BILLION a Year.
Now it's close to $1,000,000,000,000 every Year, and it's more evident that ever before Humanity is still hanging from a CROSS OF IRON
These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953-2023.
It's a shame Eisenhower didn't follow that logic when he launched the Crusade to Take Back Southeast Asia even before the French Colonialists surrendered at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
Christian fundamentalists are notorious for taking the parts of the Bible that are clearly metaphorical literally and ignoring altogether the parts they find inconvenient, like-"love your enemies".
As Kierkegaard said when calling out Christians as "scheming swindlers": "Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."
Think of how unbelievable and incredible a place the Earth can/could be if we were all Saganists , and ditched all Religion!!! The folly of Religion, Nationalism with Borders and Wars might actually become obsolete... November 9th is his B'day. We need him now! "We may just be a advanced breed of monkey's, on a minor planet, of a very average hum drum star, but we can perceive plus understand the Universe and that makes us very special... Stephen Hawking!
This is the opening line and vision of the Major Jewish Prophet Isaiah in the last chapter of his Book in the Book of Books,
"So says the Lord, "The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool; which is the house that you will build for Me, and which is the place of My rest?"
Is the "house" man made Jewish Synagogues &Temples, Christian Churches and Muslim Mosques?
The 2nd line continues, "And all these My hand made, and all these have become," says the Lord. "But to this one will I look, to one poor and of crushed spirit, who hastens to do My bidding."
If the foot that touches the footstool is Holy, it makes the footstool Holy. Earth is the footstool which means this WHOLE EARTH is the Holy Land, not just that small sliver of blood soaked Land still being fought over for the last 4000 years, the people have been manipulated and brainwashed to view as the only Holy Land.
The Christ taught 'call NO MAN on Earth your Father because we have ONE Father in Heaven."
Individuals Living to pursue the Spirit of that Earthly Goal and understanding, transcends all Religious Establishments!
Ray, sorry to be a pain in the butt here my friend!
But that a "Lord" (?) actually said "The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool; which is the house that you will build for Me, and which is the place of My rest?" is unprovable.
Surely these words were merely made up, pulled out of the air, by religious cultists who wrote the Bible.
And your interpretation that the foot that touches the footstool is Holy, it makes the footstool Holy. Earth is the footstool which means this WHOLE EARTH is the Holy Land - is a huge deductive leap eh? Thats the whole problem with the obscure and extravagant imagery word salad that the Bible is. One can read anything into that one wants! One man's interpretation may be another man's bovine excrement eh!
And if you believe a guy called Christ taught 'call NO MAN on Earth your Father because we have ONE Father in Heaven.' OK, but did he ever come up with any definition of or evidence that this place called 'heaven' actually exists? Let alone there is a 'father' in it! Or even that there is an afterlife! No proof of any of this eh?
If he did not - wouldn't reason say his teachings were worthless at best?
They maybe worthless to you Dennis, but not to me and others.
Seems your logic cannot discern "The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool; which is the house that you will build for Me, and which is the place of My rest?" the Spirit of those letters should tell you God is not some white haired Old Man sitting on a throne but a Spirit.
Christ is that Spirit of God revealed in Jesus having an ongoing struggle with the OT Jewish Religious Establishment that took over the Israeli Government in January of this Year of the Lord 2023.
Btw, the Bible describes God as being like both our Father and Mother.
I don't care what the Bible says. Or ANY old religious book!
They are all man-made, and a lot of it is nonsense. And dangerous. As we are seeing on our TV's since Oct 7th. All religious folk are simply superstitious and never ask themselves.. "Why is my "God" real and all the others except mine are false?"
An atheist reads many books and knows he must learn more. While a theist partly reads one very old book written by unknown authors and has been edited hundreds of times, and there are many versions of - and thinks he knows everything!
An atheist can change is mind upon discovery of new evidence. A theist cannot.
I have no time for "God", "Jesus", "The Lord", "Satan", "The Spirit of God", "Heaven", "Eternal Afterlife", "Angels", "Judgment Day", "The Word of God", "The End Times", "Biblical Prophecy", "Prayer", "Salvation", "Repentance" and all the other cult mumbo jumbo. These concepts are man-made and not useful to me.
Like you I am older than dirt. But I have lived a very productive, fulfilled and happy life without the need for supernatural believes. The only life you get.
I enjoy your non-religious comments. We both think alike and have the same values. But all these Bible scriptures leaves me cold and, as hard as I try, I derive nothing of value from them. I don't need an old book to tell me genocide is wrong.
fluidly fluent words flowing into my atheistic nullifidian cortex, dennis. thank you for your eloquent inputs... particularly regarding the bloody balderdash of religiosity that has captured and enshackled those whose be'LIE'fs in myths govern their lives. i understand and try to sympathize w/ the perfervid ardency of those who need these myths to sustain them, such as the african slaves, the trampled depauperate, the stragglers and strugglers w/ no other hope for surcease, or the ones who have been devastated by losing their most precious loved ones and yearn to be reunited w/ them in some fantasy fairytale future. it's the feverish proselytizing that seems tiresome, injudicious, hubristic, indecorous, and solipsistic.
Obviously you haven't noticed Dennis, but I don't disparage your lack of belief in God, but you constantly attack my Faith which has only grown stronger with MY LIFE experience of God since my unexpected SPIRITUAL awakening February 1, 1975.
That was 48 years ago, and I'm sure even Atheists like you and Jeanie can see this World is at the precipice of Armageddon because of the Israeli MURDEROUS KILLING of thousands of Palestinians including BABIES.
According to the Revelation of Jesus Christ written some 1900 years ago, Armageddon STARTS in nuclear armed Israel recreated from the BIBLE after an absence of some 2670 years ago and it's unfolding TODAY!
You can't change peoples beliefs, and I understand that. Mine are more aligned with Carl Sagan. "My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn't believe in something until there is evidence for it.
"The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there is little evidence-- better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides."-- Carl Sagan
your kitchen table suggests a simulacrum of our kitchen table when growing up in the 1940s and '50s [i was birthed in 1941]. my parents and one brother were/are draconian calvinist presbyterians. one sister and a brother became devout members of the church of jesus christ of the latter day saints [i.e. moronic mormons]. that 'moron' brother [a veterinarian like my father and calvinist brother] committed suicide when he was 51. another brother has finally drifted into the agnostic category, and another sister, tho' not particularly 'ecclesiastical' or devout, does sing in her church choir b/c she likes the music. she does not discuss her beliefs w/ anyone; she acknowledges that it is 'private matter'... as it should be for every yokel, eh?
Absolutely.., my 2 sisters sang in their parish choir until a rather cruel & abrasive priest dressed them down one sunday so they quit, and my wife also sang in her choir for 18 yrs. , and also not especially devout, either. Like your sister my wife confesses she liked the music too... lol
a corrigendum, fireman1110: by 'family', i did not mean the family my husband and i created [2 girls, 5 boys], NONE of whom subscribes to any religiosity of any persuasion. i meant the family i sourced from, i.e. my uber-religious parents [long-dead, of course] and 5 siblings [2 sisters, 3 brothers], one of whom is also dead.
Jeanie: My Parents dad was Cath., mom was Lutheran made for interesting X's. around the kitchen table. Mom wasn't into the ceremony, incense, bells Latin Masses etc. I survived Catholicism, and my Siblings 2 brothers younger and two sisters older are an amalgam of christian doctrines & denominations. I may be the only "Eggnog!" (agnostic) lol I'd be Athiest if I had more courage in my convictions...!
a pleasure to be of service to you, fireman1110... or at least to your expressed approbation, particularly given all the disapprobation my religiously feral friends and the obloquy that members of my own family snarl w/ gnashed teeth at me.
after the past month of thunderous bombings by the israeli nazis and the wailing ululations and agonizing tintinnabulations of the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and grandparents of firth's and my 'people' in gaza, ramallah, and nablus, your selcouth concoctions, black adder's hilarity, and johnson's tongue-in-cheek logorrhoea, i confess that i need every chuckle and chortle on offer at dennis merwood's verbal salvers and 'opera bouffes'. 3 of firth's and my former students are confirmed dead; they were NOT members of hamas [which was originally funded by israeli zionists to confront and instaurate conflict against the PLO which has now transmogrified into fatah]. as you may know, our son firth and i returned in august from volunteering in 4 different palestinian refugee camps surrounding nablus, this past may, june, and july. we returned to our respective homes [vancouver and mindoro island in the philippines] in august. this unspeakable anguish bombs my brain into fragments of shattered glass. our former students were killed in nablus and gaza where 2 of the 3 had immediately offered themselves as volunteers in gaza to help pull victims, mostly children, of those genocidal naziis in israel from the rubble of their bombed-out homes. tnx again for the refreshing zephyr of levity, dennis.
The American taxpayer will pay no more for their government’s involvement in the Israel-Hamas War than they have paid for every war that government has been involved in since 9/11: Nothing.
Everything “defense” and “security” ~ along with surveillance and, increasingly, censorship ~ goes on Uncle Sam’s tab and credit card. That’s How and Why ~ at least in part ~ the national, sovereign Debt grew from $5.8 in 2001 to $33.7 TRILLION today.
I see where Antony Blinken is off to Israel to argue bravely for "pauses" in this ongoing massacre.
"Pauses." As in "Don't kill all the Palestinians too quickly." Geez, leave some time to get our people out of Gaza. Then kill them all.
Pauses to get the foreigners out of Gaza, via Eqypt.
A financial newsletter I read projected that sometime in the next 5 years or so, the annual interest payment on the debt will exceed the bloated military budget; the writer assumed that dramatic cuts to "entitlement programs" (e.g., Social Security and Medicare) would follow - else 85 percent of all other Federal spending would be cut.
The writer's assumption, and mine, is that no cuts to military spending will ever be considered - no matter the impact on the American citizenry. The empire must be preserved at all costs.
At some point, the American people hopefully will realize they are seen by those in charge as no different than Vietnamese, Afghans, Iraqis, or Palestinians. But by then it will be too late.
More money needed, the F-35 needs new engines, and won't be upgraded to do any mission until after F-16 and F-15 rust to dust!
Just one example!
The US needs to deal with Iran and China before it bloated war welfare state collapses! It is not done with Putin!
Social Security - something members of Congress will never have to rely upon - is not now, nor has it ever been, an "entitlement program." As far as I can tell, it is only Congressional Republicans who call it that, no doubt thinking if they keep calling it that, people will either believe that's what it is or that it will magically become one, most likely during a Congressional recess.
I've been long aware of the imbalance of influence from and for this one country. But now, even I stand amazed at Congress pressing full steam ahead on their 14B+ package when, FINALLY, a huge chunk of America from across the political spectrum is raising holy hell about the horrific Israeli response. (I am not a bit surprised by the moronic response from the anti-diplomacy-driven Biden administration. My expectations from them can sink no lower than they already have from the Ukraine meat grinder.) Of course, the Democrats didn't like the Republican bill (with its cuts to the IRS budget) but still enough crossed the aisle to get it passed. Only two republicans voted against it. No surprise which one those were--Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Democracy doesn't have much of a chance in this country (and none in Israel in its present form), but it certainly will continue to be the sham it is as long as the PACs exist and buy our entire electoral process.
Tom, I'm watching Al Jazeera TV here in the middle of the night in New Zealand.
The reporter is driving down a wide 2-lane road.
Weaving in and out of the dead bodies of civilians every 20-feet.
And all their belongings scattered where they were gunned down!
Its more than gut wrenching I tell you!
EDIT: And now they are firing missiles at the entrance to the hospital
All these young kids seeing this - will surely be traumatized for life!
I can't even imagine. Sadly, all too many turn a complete-blind eye.
Now we are finding out this was a convoy of ambulances transferring patients to a hospital that at least still has electricity. It was announced in advance by the Palestinian's, and deliberately attacked by the cowardly IDF.
Who are the real "animals" now eh?
The photograph illustrates what victory in the 21st Century looks like. Not quite "no stone left atop another" but getting closer every day. They'll be salting the ground next.
Dexter had it going on.
More wisdom from my good friend.
Thank you for your service. xo
Kill them all..... and let God sort it out!
Slaughtering thousands of children with Boeing guided US supplied JDAM (apropos!) 2000 pound bombs is justified because terrorists!
Russians don't hold a candle to the USA when it comes to slaughter of civilians aka collateral damage. Civilian casualties since Feb 2022 are a fraction of the number killed by Ukraine shelling of Donetz.
Neither Biden nor the Hagenah heirs advanced ethically since the Cathar crusade in France where the Papal representative called on God to 'sort out the innocent!
Has anyone tried unplugging the United States, or Israel for that matter and plugging it back in!? Sad commentary...Carl Sagan knew the score --"War is murder writ large."
Maybe they should just leave us unplugged?
Maybe We, the American People, need to DEMAND that our government gets unplugged .
Or better: Maybe We, the American People, should unplug our government ourselves.
Which is the only way any unplugging that doesn't result in total chaos ~ or in its only alternative, total tyranny ~ is going to happen.
i had a very early ~ and still have a very incessantly persistent ~ suspicion about the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
That it was, is, and ever will be a “False Flag” operation launched by the United States and Israel designed to: 1] Divert attention from the War in Ukraine; 2] Launch the “Israel-Hamas War,” another boom event for America’s Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex; 3] Begin the physical expansion of the state of Israel, in preparation for the planned regional War; and 4] make Biden a “War Time President” when Election2024 rolls around [if it does], one year from tomorrow.
Here is at least one other person who feels, believes, and thinks the same way, except for #4 …:
THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT: NETANYAHU’S “FALSE FLAG”, CONNECTING THE DOTS – AND MORE by Peter Koenig / Global Research / 11 Oct 23
Most people, including journalists on both sides of the aisle – mainstream and non-mainstream — seem to believe that this a one-off war, a surprise attack by Hamas, the “defenders” of Palestine.
It is not.
Connecting a few dots over the past 70 years may help better understand what is going on in the Middle East, Israel-Palestine – and around the world. How the bloody Israel-Palestine conflict fits into the Big Picture.
What if Hamas has been created either by Israel directly, or rather by the US-UK-Israel Secret Services for the “benefit” of Israel, for precisely the reason they (Hamas) are used today: to justify Israel’s all-out war for wiping out Palestine, for extending her territory, absorbing over time about as much as a third or half of the current Middle East – into “Greater Israel”?
For the wellbeing of the “Chosen People”?
[ Note: For information about “Greater Israel,” see https://michelchossudovsky.substack.com/p/greater-israel-zionist-plan-middle-east .]
Hamas has no chance in heaven to win this war. It is David against Goliath. Except in this case, David is Hamas and Goliath is Israel. Both Hamas and Israel know it.
What if Hezbollah was also created by the same villains for the same reasons, to create chaos and eventually war in the Middle East? They are the official “protectors” of Lebanon (similar to Hamas for Palestine) but, with their possible aggression on Israel, or their involvement in the current war, they will make sure that Lebanon will be one of the countries absorbed by Israel. Israel’s massively US-military-supported IDF (Israel Defense Forces) may just crush Hezbollah and take over Lebanon.
This plan is not known by most people. Netanyahu becoming prime minister again in December 2022, despite his narrowly losing the election, is a well-planned scam, supported by the well-known secret services and the Kazarian Zionists, supporting Israel’s expansion throughout the Middle East.
Let us not forget, Israel is the power broker for the western world. They control worldwide banking and corporate finance, communication, Hollywood, art, education systems – and more.
Already in 1815, Nathan Rothschild, British financier and member of the Rothschild banking family, made his famous statement:
“I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls the British money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.”
The same Nathan Rothschild also infamously said, “the time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets.”
This is precisely a reflection on what we are living today – a limitless quest for superiority, no matter what it costs, in money and blood.
Back to Hezbollah: Lebanon has also lots of natural resources, off-shore oil and a deep off-shore sweet water aquifer. Current Israeli territories have almost no fresh water, one of the reasons (among many others) Israel wants to take over the so-called West Bank, where about 80% of all the fresh water sources of greater Palestine (before 1948) is located and which Israel now is virtually stealing from Palestine.
Palestine also has natural gas. The Gaza Marine is a natural gas field less than 40 km off the coast of the Gaza Strip. The deposits of the Gaza Marine natural gas field are estimated at 35 BCM, larger than those of Israel’s Yam Tethys maritime gas field.
THE ROLE OF AL QAEDA
In the same spirit of Hamas and Hezbollah, Al Qaeda was created in the early 1980s. Al Qaeda is a Sunni pan-Islamist militant organization; an international “terrorist” organization which was to generate unrest around the world, as needed, to justify military interventions – mostly by the US and UK – and destabilization of otherwise stable (and mostly resources-rich) Middle East and African countries. Al Qaeda has also been operating in Asia — for example in Pakistan, where it supposedly was founded; also in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and elsewhere.
U.S. WEAPONS FOR HAMAS
It is no coincidence that weapons used by Hamas in this “assault” on Israel are of US origin, earlier shipped to Kiev to fight Russia. By now it is no secret that about 70% of US- and EU-supplied weapons never made it to the Ukrainian front fighting Russia, but rather to the black market, from where tracing them was thought to be next to impossible.
[See https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2023/10/09/scott-ritter-are-hamas-fighters-using-american-weapons-meant-for-ukraine/ for Scott Ritter’s take on this.]
Washington and Brussels – the EU puppets of the wannabe empire – knew from the beginning about the deviation of a large proportion of weaponry to the black market. But they did nothing against it. Did they know this was a covert way of arming Hamas and possibly Hezbollah for a soon to come, well-planned “hot” war with Israel?
Amazingly, since Benjamin Netanyahu had been made PM again, he had been advancing a judicial reform which was considered as damaging to Israel’s democracy and devastating to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Many potential recruits have refused to serve. Analysts warned that this might crack the IDF and its ability to defend the state.
Would Netanyahu not have known about the risks to the IDF of his judicial reform?
Continued at https://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-palestine-conflict-connecting-dots-more/5835802 .
A long screed that circulates a dangerous myth that it's the Jews who control the world. See here: "Let us not forget, Israel is the power broker for the western world. They control worldwide banking and corporate finance, communication, Hollywood, art, education systems – and more."
Who is "they" in that sentence? And are "they" really the puppet masters of the world?
Of course, Israel is powerful and influential. But let's not exaggerate that power and influence.
Of the 1755 Billionaires on Earth, 20% of them are Jewish with combined assets of some $1.7 TRILLION Dollars. Not insignificant figures.
They could easily pay for all the $Billions the US Taxpayer gives Israel every year as an indirect Subsidy to the US Weapons Manufactures, the US Military-Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned about.
Well, Jesus was Jewish too, and He was not a billionaire.
I simply believe the USA shouldn't be providing billions in weaponry to any country. That's not what I want my taxpayer dollars spent on.
We must beat our swords into plowshares, Ray, and make war no more.
And he had many problems with the Jewish RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT!
An Old Testament JEWISH RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT took over Government in Israel in January, long before October 7.
That's why the United Nations Secretary-General with all his Experience said, "October 7 didn't happen in a vacuum!" and Israel is demonizing him for saying that simple Truth and Reality.
Ray: Do You have a source on that?
jg, I searched Google for how many $Billionaires are there on Earth, and then how many Billionaires are Jewish, and Google came up with those figures
Thanks.
Good point, Bill.
Regardless of that, do You agree that a strong case is made for this whole Israel-Hamas War being a "False Flag" operation?
And another question: If the United States ORDERED Israel to cease all offensive operations, initiate a cease fire, and completely open Gaza to any and all Humanitarian Relief Aid, would Israel comply?
And if it didn't, what would the United States do?
A strong case? No.
My other two answers: I don't know and I don't know.
What is weak about the case?
Jeff, I have no special insight or expertise here.
There's a tendency I think we need to guard against here, and that's to give too much power to Israel and its leaders and not enough credit to Hamas and its leaders. Thus there's the idea Israel must have planned this, or allowed 10/7 to happen, precisely because they wanted to annihilate Gaza, and 10/7 gave them the cause to initiate their carefully laid plans.
I don't doubt Israel had plans to eliminate and annex Gaza. I do doubt that Israel controls everything and either launched a false flag or allowed Hamas to kill 1000+ while taking 200+ hostages.
Occam's razor may apply here: the simplest scenario. It's likely Hamas was behind 10/7 and that an overconfident Israel simply didn't believe Hamas could launch such a concerted strike without Israel knowing about it. Of course, after the attack, the right-wing Israeli government is taking full advantage of it, using it to eliminate Gaza, what some are calling a "final solution," words I don't use since for the Nazis the Final Solution was total extermination.
My guess is that the ultimate objective of this whole operation is to rid the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of anybody that Israel does not want living there.
Not "total extermination"; just total forced emigration.
Where all those Palestinians and West Bankers go after ejection is the Arab/Muslim nations' problem, not Israel's.
Reflecting on it further, Bill, i remember when, how, and why the seed that this whole thing may very well be a False Flag Op was planted.
And that was back on October 7 with the obvious, evident fact that all of Israel’s intelligence, surveillance, and embedded espionage APPARENTLY had failed to detect the attacks and to prepare the military and its Israeli civilian population for it.
And the key, operative word here is APPARENTLY.
The fact that the heads of Israeli civilian and military intelligence haven’t been sacked for failure to perform their duty says a great, great deal. Just like nobody in America’s civilian or military intelligence and air defense agencies was sacked for dereliction of duty after 9/11.
So why do You doubt that Israel allowed those 1000+ fatalities and 200+ hostages? How much has the Israeli government and military benefitted from all those civilian casualties? Especially in terms of generating American ~ and international ~ support for their actions?
And WHEN in its history has Israel EVER been “overconfident” about what their neighbors were intent upon and capable of inflicting?
Bill, haven't you been paying attention?
What we are witnessing Israel do to Gaza is a "Final Solution" October 7 gave them cover to do.
I have heard over and over again Israel's goal is the "total extermination" of Hamas
As much as the US-Israel say what The Islamic Resistance Movement, aka Hamas, did October 7 is a WAR CRIME, what we see on TV Israel do every Day is a WAR CRIME + and the US WEST gives Israel the green light to commit whatever WAR CRIMES it chooses to accomplish the FINAL SOLUTION of eliminating Hamas.
That means killing mostly Innocent Palestinians including BABIES, in addition to witnessing an unconscionable Israeli MASSIVE Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their own Land destroying their HOMES with no place to go to escape Israel's WAR CRIMES the nominally Christian US WEST is complicit with it's unqualified support for Israel.
Bill, it would be worthwhile to provide the context for America's "Cross of Iron"
It comes from the last real Commander-in-Chief General-President Dwight D Eisenhower from one of his earliest speeches on becoming President April 16, 1953.
The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.
The worst is atomic war.
The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labour of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road. the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a CROSS OF IRON.
The DoD Budget when Eisenhower gave that speech was $60 BILLION a Year.
Now it's close to $1,000,000,000,000 every Year, and it's more evident that ever before Humanity is still hanging from a CROSS OF IRON
These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953-2023.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwighteisenhowercrossofiron.htm
It's a shame Eisenhower didn't follow that logic when he launched the Crusade to Take Back Southeast Asia even before the French Colonialists surrendered at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
Christian fundamentalists are notorious for taking the parts of the Bible that are clearly metaphorical literally and ignoring altogether the parts they find inconvenient, like-"love your enemies".
As Kierkegaard said when calling out Christians as "scheming swindlers": "Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."
Think of how unbelievable and incredible a place the Earth can/could be if we were all Saganists , and ditched all Religion!!! The folly of Religion, Nationalism with Borders and Wars might actually become obsolete... November 9th is his B'day. We need him now! "We may just be a advanced breed of monkey's, on a minor planet, of a very average hum drum star, but we can perceive plus understand the Universe and that makes us very special... Stephen Hawking!
This is the opening line and vision of the Major Jewish Prophet Isaiah in the last chapter of his Book in the Book of Books,
"So says the Lord, "The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool; which is the house that you will build for Me, and which is the place of My rest?"
Is the "house" man made Jewish Synagogues &Temples, Christian Churches and Muslim Mosques?
The 2nd line continues, "And all these My hand made, and all these have become," says the Lord. "But to this one will I look, to one poor and of crushed spirit, who hastens to do My bidding."
If the foot that touches the footstool is Holy, it makes the footstool Holy. Earth is the footstool which means this WHOLE EARTH is the Holy Land, not just that small sliver of blood soaked Land still being fought over for the last 4000 years, the people have been manipulated and brainwashed to view as the only Holy Land.
The Christ taught 'call NO MAN on Earth your Father because we have ONE Father in Heaven."
Individuals Living to pursue the Spirit of that Earthly Goal and understanding, transcends all Religious Establishments!
Ray, sorry to be a pain in the butt here my friend!
But that a "Lord" (?) actually said "The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool; which is the house that you will build for Me, and which is the place of My rest?" is unprovable.
Surely these words were merely made up, pulled out of the air, by religious cultists who wrote the Bible.
And your interpretation that the foot that touches the footstool is Holy, it makes the footstool Holy. Earth is the footstool which means this WHOLE EARTH is the Holy Land - is a huge deductive leap eh? Thats the whole problem with the obscure and extravagant imagery word salad that the Bible is. One can read anything into that one wants! One man's interpretation may be another man's bovine excrement eh!
And if you believe a guy called Christ taught 'call NO MAN on Earth your Father because we have ONE Father in Heaven.' OK, but did he ever come up with any definition of or evidence that this place called 'heaven' actually exists? Let alone there is a 'father' in it! Or even that there is an afterlife! No proof of any of this eh?
If he did not - wouldn't reason say his teachings were worthless at best?
Take care my friend.
They maybe worthless to you Dennis, but not to me and others.
Seems your logic cannot discern "The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool; which is the house that you will build for Me, and which is the place of My rest?" the Spirit of those letters should tell you God is not some white haired Old Man sitting on a throne but a Spirit.
Christ is that Spirit of God revealed in Jesus having an ongoing struggle with the OT Jewish Religious Establishment that took over the Israeli Government in January of this Year of the Lord 2023.
Btw, the Bible describes God as being like both our Father and Mother.
Ray, you are just not getting it - on purpose!
I don't care what the Bible says. Or ANY old religious book!
They are all man-made, and a lot of it is nonsense. And dangerous. As we are seeing on our TV's since Oct 7th. All religious folk are simply superstitious and never ask themselves.. "Why is my "God" real and all the others except mine are false?"
An atheist reads many books and knows he must learn more. While a theist partly reads one very old book written by unknown authors and has been edited hundreds of times, and there are many versions of - and thinks he knows everything!
An atheist can change is mind upon discovery of new evidence. A theist cannot.
I have no time for "God", "Jesus", "The Lord", "Satan", "The Spirit of God", "Heaven", "Eternal Afterlife", "Angels", "Judgment Day", "The Word of God", "The End Times", "Biblical Prophecy", "Prayer", "Salvation", "Repentance" and all the other cult mumbo jumbo. These concepts are man-made and not useful to me.
Like you I am older than dirt. But I have lived a very productive, fulfilled and happy life without the need for supernatural believes. The only life you get.
I enjoy your non-religious comments. We both think alike and have the same values. But all these Bible scriptures leaves me cold and, as hard as I try, I derive nothing of value from them. I don't need an old book to tell me genocide is wrong.
Take care my good man. Sorry.
fluidly fluent words flowing into my atheistic nullifidian cortex, dennis. thank you for your eloquent inputs... particularly regarding the bloody balderdash of religiosity that has captured and enshackled those whose be'LIE'fs in myths govern their lives. i understand and try to sympathize w/ the perfervid ardency of those who need these myths to sustain them, such as the african slaves, the trampled depauperate, the stragglers and strugglers w/ no other hope for surcease, or the ones who have been devastated by losing their most precious loved ones and yearn to be reunited w/ them in some fantasy fairytale future. it's the feverish proselytizing that seems tiresome, injudicious, hubristic, indecorous, and solipsistic.
Obviously you haven't noticed Dennis, but I don't disparage your lack of belief in God, but you constantly attack my Faith which has only grown stronger with MY LIFE experience of God since my unexpected SPIRITUAL awakening February 1, 1975.
DAY OF AWAKENING – DAVID vs GOLIATH vs ARMAGEDDON
https://rayjc.com/2011/12/25/day-of-awakening-david-vs-goliath-vs-armageddon/
That was 48 years ago, and I'm sure even Atheists like you and Jeanie can see this World is at the precipice of Armageddon because of the Israeli MURDEROUS KILLING of thousands of Palestinians including BABIES.
According to the Revelation of Jesus Christ written some 1900 years ago, Armageddon STARTS in nuclear armed Israel recreated from the BIBLE after an absence of some 2670 years ago and it's unfolding TODAY!
You can't change peoples beliefs, and I understand that. Mine are more aligned with Carl Sagan. "My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn't believe in something until there is evidence for it.
, so I'm agnostic."-- Carl Sagan
"The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there is little evidence-- better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides."-- Carl Sagan
tnx, fireman1110.
your kitchen table suggests a simulacrum of our kitchen table when growing up in the 1940s and '50s [i was birthed in 1941]. my parents and one brother were/are draconian calvinist presbyterians. one sister and a brother became devout members of the church of jesus christ of the latter day saints [i.e. moronic mormons]. that 'moron' brother [a veterinarian like my father and calvinist brother] committed suicide when he was 51. another brother has finally drifted into the agnostic category, and another sister, tho' not particularly 'ecclesiastical' or devout, does sing in her church choir b/c she likes the music. she does not discuss her beliefs w/ anyone; she acknowledges that it is 'private matter'... as it should be for every yokel, eh?
Absolutely.., my 2 sisters sang in their parish choir until a rather cruel & abrasive priest dressed them down one sunday so they quit, and my wife also sang in her choir for 18 yrs. , and also not especially devout, either. Like your sister my wife confesses she liked the music too... lol
a corrigendum, fireman1110: by 'family', i did not mean the family my husband and i created [2 girls, 5 boys], NONE of whom subscribes to any religiosity of any persuasion. i meant the family i sourced from, i.e. my uber-religious parents [long-dead, of course] and 5 siblings [2 sisters, 3 brothers], one of whom is also dead.
Jeanie: My Parents dad was Cath., mom was Lutheran made for interesting X's. around the kitchen table. Mom wasn't into the ceremony, incense, bells Latin Masses etc. I survived Catholicism, and my Siblings 2 brothers younger and two sisters older are an amalgam of christian doctrines & denominations. I may be the only "Eggnog!" (agnostic) lol I'd be Athiest if I had more courage in my convictions...!
a pleasure to be of service to you, fireman1110... or at least to your expressed approbation, particularly given all the disapprobation my religiously feral friends and the obloquy that members of my own family snarl w/ gnashed teeth at me.
after the past month of thunderous bombings by the israeli nazis and the wailing ululations and agonizing tintinnabulations of the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and grandparents of firth's and my 'people' in gaza, ramallah, and nablus, your selcouth concoctions, black adder's hilarity, and johnson's tongue-in-cheek logorrhoea, i confess that i need every chuckle and chortle on offer at dennis merwood's verbal salvers and 'opera bouffes'. 3 of firth's and my former students are confirmed dead; they were NOT members of hamas [which was originally funded by israeli zionists to confront and instaurate conflict against the PLO which has now transmogrified into fatah]. as you may know, our son firth and i returned in august from volunteering in 4 different palestinian refugee camps surrounding nablus, this past may, june, and july. we returned to our respective homes [vancouver and mindoro island in the philippines] in august. this unspeakable anguish bombs my brain into fragments of shattered glass. our former students were killed in nablus and gaza where 2 of the 3 had immediately offered themselves as volunteers in gaza to help pull victims, mostly children, of those genocidal naziis in israel from the rubble of their bombed-out homes. tnx again for the refreshing zephyr of levity, dennis.
An increasingly popular meme making the rounds goes something like this: “Your Tax Dollars Are Funding The Genocide Of Palestinians.” [ https://attackthesystem.com/2023/11/03/your-tax-dollars-are-funding-the-genocide-of-palestinians/ ]
It is also a myth.
The American taxpayer will pay no more for their government’s involvement in the Israel-Hamas War than they have paid for every war that government has been involved in since 9/11: Nothing.
Everything “defense” and “security” ~ along with surveillance and, increasingly, censorship ~ goes on Uncle Sam’s tab and credit card. That’s How and Why ~ at least in part ~ the national, sovereign Debt grew from $5.8 in 2001 to $33.7 TRILLION today.