Political Rants

How much is enough?

Israel continues to pound the people of Gaza to a pulp, bombing yet another UN school and killing many as they slept. The Palestinian death toll is nearing 1,400 as of this writing. How is our mainstream media handling this? They’re basically ripping and reading Israeli government press releases.

Outrage upon outrageToday (Thursday 7/31), it’s been all about the “sophisticated” network of tunnels through which the diabolical Hamas can infiltrate Israel at will and attack the innocent. I heard a bloodless report on NPR in which a correspondent talked about the improved combat capability of Hamas, which they argued, surpassed that of Hezbollah during Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon. “Hezbollah is watching this closely,” we’re told. Cue the fright music.

It’s no mystery why most Americans don’t understand this conflict; they simply never get the facts from their news sources. This attack is completely unjustified; it is a bald attempt to destroy any opportunity for a united Palestinian front, the prospect of which emerged over the past few months. As usual, the Israeli government is not responding to the threat of war, but rather, the threat of peace. When there appears a chance that a credible diplomatic effort might emerge, they shift the ground to military conflict, something they cannot fail at. They have the fifth largest military in the world; Hamas is a bunch of guys with guns and 10-20 pound artillery charges. Does the media report that? Never.

Take the so-called “iron dome” defense system. According to Ted Postal at MIT (who appeared on Democracy Now! this week), this system, like the Patriot Missile batteries of the first Gulf War (1990-1),  is almost certainly less than 5% effective. But the United States government and our incredibly feckless media merely accept the Israeli governments unverified claims without comment. Again, it’s rip and read — if it’s coming from the Netanyahu government, it has to be right. In the midst of all this carnage, they simply can’t resist raising Raytheon’s stock a little bit.

I could say more, but suffice to say, this has to stop. I know Netanyahu and his ministers are shooting for total capitulation on the part of the Palestinians. They may get part of their wish. But there’s no way in hell we should fail to hold them accountable for what has been a really major crime against humanity, made worse by the fact that we could pressure them to stop, and yet we won’t. We have no leverage in Syria. We do in Israel, and we should use it.

Stop. the. killing. now.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Slumming.

Sure, it’s the middle of summer, the doldrums, as it were, and more often than not my feet are dangling off the end of a plank in the courtyard as I sit, hose in hand, splashing water on the dandelions. Hey, weeds have to drink too, you know.

Here comes another oneNot much getting done here in Big Green land. I think you’ve probably guessed as much. Personally, I think productivity is very overrated. All it means to me is more work for less compensation – how can THAT be a good thing?

Still in all, I did take the time yesterday to catalog all of the songs Matt and I (though mostly Matt) have written for our respective Ned Trek characters over the year or so since we finished Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick. I have to admit to being a bit surprised … there were fully 25 songs on that list, including one or two asinine fragments. I had no freaking clue! (Of course, that’s evident to anyone who has listened to more than one or two of these Ned Trek numbers.)

I’ve got to hand it to brother Matt. Who the hell ELSE am I going to hand it to? No, really … the man is a songwriting machine. Back in the old days, say, 1980-95, he would crank songs out at an alarming rate sometimes. I reached the point in the 2000’s when I thought, with all the other stuff he has going on – his various naturalist duties, for instance, as chronicled in his very excellent blog, Tales from the Wild, that he wouldn’t find time to write songs. But what the hell – he writes them out on the trail, records them on his phone, patches them together. He’s a ma-ma-machine, I tell you!

Me, my process is the same as it’s ever been. I start singing in the shower, and when my wife comes in and hits me with a brick, I lapse into a dream state that produces, more often than not, useable song ideas. What I do from that point forward depends on how ambitious I’m feeling. Back to the doldrums … often that means, I do nothing at all.

Still, it’s a good alliance, Big Green, a creative collective that is surely not in it for the money (for there is none) or the fame (for there never was) or the glory (for there is no such thing). Just for the hell of it. Yay.

Political Rants

Target Gaza.

Gaza is a little sliver of land along the Mediterranean; it’s 136 square miles of impoverished territory and one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Exit and entry for the 1.8 million people who live there is strictly controlled by Israel on three sides, Egypt (in cooperation with the Israeli and U.S. governments) on the fourth. It is basically an open-air prison; that’s why when the world’s fifth most powerful military unleashes its killing machinery on the place, you get hundreds dead in a short stretch of days. That’s what we’re seeing now.

Maybe this would help at the HagueIndeed, what we are seeing now is collective punishment of the Palestinians, not the Israel vs. Hamas conflict that the U.S. media constantly refers to. Let us be clear: the Israeli government, in the normal course of screwing the Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank, took the opportunity of the kidnapping and murder of the three yeshiva students to go on a rampage in the West Bank, arresting hundreds of people, including Hamas operatives released under previous ceasefire agreements, and killing about a dozen Palestinians. It should surprise no one that that would result in a response from Gaza in the form of some very ineffective missiles.

Let’s talk about self-defense. The Netanyahu government has an option for stopping the rocket fire: cease the rampage against Palestinians you started weeks ago.  The concept of self-defense does not encompass bombing hospitals, ambulances, and U.N.-run schools. Even if the Israeli government’s extremely dubious claims about hidden caches of weapons in such places were true, it would be no justification for striking medical facilities. Just the order to evacuate from northern Gaza itself amounts to a probable war crime – if the International Criminal Court were anything other than a venue for victors’ justice, Bibi and friends would be standing in the dock at the Hague alongside Barry and John Kerry … and Bush and Cheney, for that matter.

But there is no justice, except that which we bring about ourselves through collective action. So I urge you to contact your representatives in the federal government at every level and make your opposition to this attack known in no uncertain terms. So long as the Israeli government feels it can act with complete impunity, it will continue to heap outrage upon outrage.

luv u,

jp

Weird ass music since 1986