Wow - strong and well-written about a part of the world I admit I don't know. My dad pointed out Indian schools to me long ago and distant Piegan ancestry so I have familiarity, and a better understanding of Ukraine with a Ukrainian wife, but it's harder (for me) to differentiate truth from propaganda in the Middle East as I can in "news" of Ukraine.
I have Piegan ancestry, too. Small world! We've seen enough genocide in North America due to white settler colonialism. There's no need for our tax dollars to be given to the modern state of Israel (started by Europeans in 1948) in order to kill the indigenous peoples of Palestine, is there? More genocide is never the answer to anything! Only peace and diplomacy can solve problems.
As a narrative there are tone problems, I feel like both sides in this discussion are a bit cartoonish but in the main it seems accurate to me. (Born and raised in Appalachia.) Israel has been the good guy culturally around here for as long as I can remember but yeah the part that's really unavoidably accurate is the priorities. I don't think anyone working class in the south is going to be in favor of paying for free college and healthcare in Israel before paying for it here. (Or at all if they're that type of right wing.) The over representation of the Zionist argument in American power structures is impossible to see as anything other than a special interest at best. Some American cryptofascists may secretly approve of funding Ukrainian Nazis. But the thing that should bother everyone is imagining why (or if) that same logic wouldn't extend to helping a Zionist ethnostate genocide a population of Arabs. Put simply, it seems to me that ultimately the Nazis won WW2. No one put Henry Ford on trial, and if we're honest, I don't know of a single time in American history when we weren't fascist in the corporate rule sense. People don't know how close we came to being planet Germania. Hitler's drug use and Smedley Butler's singular heroism as far as I know were the only brakes on that train.
Not that it matters. We don't have a say because we refuse to fight for one. The billionaires own Earth now. We didn't stop the war in Iraq and we're not gonna stop the war in Iran. Sorry. Prove me wrong. https://innomen.substack.com/p/wirehead-media-tm-p-or-how-i-became
Any time the "US Americans" (coined description by that Miss America candidate) can hold a mirror up to the country's face, it's a win, as I've been disappointed with narratives Hollywood keeps producing in every film, sitcom and blockbuster movie to our 24 hour news cycles, which, by the way, seem to be dying a slow death of being ignored. When you get down to it, no one can really believe human kind's right of passage on the backs of other humans. They tried to indoctrinate me in school with manifest destiny and other history written by the "winners", so I am long ready for REAL versions to shake our memory of history and big mirrors to be held in front of us.
I read this to my husband as we drove back from visiting our grandson who (fortunately) appreciates studying at a Big 10 school, as we realized this beautiful Fall day. As I read it, I started acting each voice in character, and what occurred to me is that this "dialogue" should be a short that should be animated online or on stage. So many juice filled lies, so many half-truths about the people of the land should be pointed out this way, as it starts another version and helps us get to the truth as to who owns the land. No one owns the land, and all the games we play underneath our big sky which sounds like we DO own the land should have cold water thrown on it. Take a time out, Mr. & Mrs. US America. Take time to ponder who the hell we think we are, OB.
"We know that if it walks like a Nazi, talks like a Nazi, ethnically cleanses like a Nazi, and genocides like a Nazi, then it’s a goddamned Nazi. "
Yep, that's about the size of it. My grandfather didn't fight in WWII to liberate concentration camps just for us to support even more Nazis today. Nope.
Also, all peoples in the Palestine/Israel region are "Semitic peoples." To be "antisemitic" means not to like anyone who speaks a Hebrew or Arabic dialect. We really got to stop using that term since it's been used inaccurately for decades now.
Yes, the anti-Semitic trope doesn't work AT ALL if one thinks about it. The Arabs are a Semitic people, as were the original Hebrews. By DNA, though, most present day Israelis are one variety or the other of Eastern European.
If one or the other side has to be labeled anti-Semitic, genetics says that would be the Israelis.
Definitely a small world!! You'll find my great-great grandmother, Almost Owl Woman, in Blackfoot family history at http://www.blackfeetgenealogy.com/ .
And yes, we need peace and diplomacy, but I don't expect it as long as Biden, and Biden's handlers, are in charge. Just another reason for Biden to be listed as the worst President in the history of the United States.
Thanks for being my honorary commie friend, I don't disagree with a single thing you wrote there. Populist front to end U.S. empire and focus our money at home now!
Parentheses around jewish names is anti- semitic. Telling jews that are anti American intervention to leave the US for no other reason then they are part of the same "tribe" is anti Semitic.
There is a difference between being against the extreme Zionist leadership in charge Israel and being against the Jews. You should have been raised as a child to understand that, but apparently you'd rather others hug cactuses then admit your were never hugged as a child. You would have come to understand other humans on the planet. Sorry for your plight in this life, Yosef.
Yeah, I'm good at being a mom to a deceased cat, but I've had years on discussion boards with OB, and I'm not sure you may have interacted there. Am I incorrect? We were both moderators on the last known discussion board called Jackpine Radicals. Both of us had many a moderator discussion over many a subject at JPR. I don't think OB suffers fools easily and I don't see it here, either. What I see is that sometimes people are more sensitive than other people, and when persons accuse others of "classic new nazi tactic to id jews", I would have to say that those persons sound paranoid.
The only hate I see is coming from you. Are you sad your Zio-Nazi propaganda for genocide got called out? Let me play the world’s smallest violin just for you. Welcome to my block list you hateful gaslighting genocide apologist smear merchant.
Thank you. I had you in mind when I wrote it, though it is still a completely honest description of where families like mine are often coming from. We, meaning my family, were never taught to hate Jews. Most never had anything against Blacks or Latinos because they were Blacks or Latinos, either, at least in my lifetime. Some did. No family's perfect.
The logic of one of my Confederate ancestors went something like this:
He grew up in North Carolina and some of his family owned slaves. He was taught they weren't quite human, or at least not as evolved or whatever. Not really men.
He fought white Union troops at places like Shiloh, Chattanooga, and Atlanta. He faced Black troops in battle very late in the war. He said they were the best soldiers he had ever faced.
Only a man can be the best soldier, therefore Black people are people, therefore ALL racism is bullshit. You might say he learned that lesson the hard way.
He hated bankers far more than he ever did Black people, even when he thought the latter weren't really people. He might have hated a Jew for being a banker, but not for being a Jew. Big difference.
Dresden is, in many ways, a good moral equivalent to Gaza. It was a deliberate attack on civilian targets. The USAAF and RAF knew it had no military significance, arguably LESS than Gaza does now. It's main accomplishment was to kill as many Germans as possible.
It was unnecessary, and by many standards was a war crime, so yes, it has a lot of similarities to Gaza. There's one big difference, though. The bombing of Dresden lasted three days and it was done. The bombing of civilians in Gaza has gone on, and off but frequently on, for 50 years.
Wow - strong and well-written about a part of the world I admit I don't know. My dad pointed out Indian schools to me long ago and distant Piegan ancestry so I have familiarity, and a better understanding of Ukraine with a Ukrainian wife, but it's harder (for me) to differentiate truth from propaganda in the Middle East as I can in "news" of Ukraine.
I look forward to comments on this!
I have Piegan ancestry, too. Small world! We've seen enough genocide in North America due to white settler colonialism. There's no need for our tax dollars to be given to the modern state of Israel (started by Europeans in 1948) in order to kill the indigenous peoples of Palestine, is there? More genocide is never the answer to anything! Only peace and diplomacy can solve problems.
As a narrative there are tone problems, I feel like both sides in this discussion are a bit cartoonish but in the main it seems accurate to me. (Born and raised in Appalachia.) Israel has been the good guy culturally around here for as long as I can remember but yeah the part that's really unavoidably accurate is the priorities. I don't think anyone working class in the south is going to be in favor of paying for free college and healthcare in Israel before paying for it here. (Or at all if they're that type of right wing.) The over representation of the Zionist argument in American power structures is impossible to see as anything other than a special interest at best. Some American cryptofascists may secretly approve of funding Ukrainian Nazis. But the thing that should bother everyone is imagining why (or if) that same logic wouldn't extend to helping a Zionist ethnostate genocide a population of Arabs. Put simply, it seems to me that ultimately the Nazis won WW2. No one put Henry Ford on trial, and if we're honest, I don't know of a single time in American history when we weren't fascist in the corporate rule sense. People don't know how close we came to being planet Germania. Hitler's drug use and Smedley Butler's singular heroism as far as I know were the only brakes on that train.
Not that it matters. We don't have a say because we refuse to fight for one. The billionaires own Earth now. We didn't stop the war in Iraq and we're not gonna stop the war in Iran. Sorry. Prove me wrong. https://innomen.substack.com/p/wirehead-media-tm-p-or-how-i-became
Any time the "US Americans" (coined description by that Miss America candidate) can hold a mirror up to the country's face, it's a win, as I've been disappointed with narratives Hollywood keeps producing in every film, sitcom and blockbuster movie to our 24 hour news cycles, which, by the way, seem to be dying a slow death of being ignored. When you get down to it, no one can really believe human kind's right of passage on the backs of other humans. They tried to indoctrinate me in school with manifest destiny and other history written by the "winners", so I am long ready for REAL versions to shake our memory of history and big mirrors to be held in front of us.
I read this to my husband as we drove back from visiting our grandson who (fortunately) appreciates studying at a Big 10 school, as we realized this beautiful Fall day. As I read it, I started acting each voice in character, and what occurred to me is that this "dialogue" should be a short that should be animated online or on stage. So many juice filled lies, so many half-truths about the people of the land should be pointed out this way, as it starts another version and helps us get to the truth as to who owns the land. No one owns the land, and all the games we play underneath our big sky which sounds like we DO own the land should have cold water thrown on it. Take a time out, Mr. & Mrs. US America. Take time to ponder who the hell we think we are, OB.
"We know that if it walks like a Nazi, talks like a Nazi, ethnically cleanses like a Nazi, and genocides like a Nazi, then it’s a goddamned Nazi. "
Yep, that's about the size of it. My grandfather didn't fight in WWII to liberate concentration camps just for us to support even more Nazis today. Nope.
Also, all peoples in the Palestine/Israel region are "Semitic peoples." To be "antisemitic" means not to like anyone who speaks a Hebrew or Arabic dialect. We really got to stop using that term since it's been used inaccurately for decades now.
Yes, the anti-Semitic trope doesn't work AT ALL if one thinks about it. The Arabs are a Semitic people, as were the original Hebrews. By DNA, though, most present day Israelis are one variety or the other of Eastern European.
If one or the other side has to be labeled anti-Semitic, genetics says that would be the Israelis.
Definitely a small world!! You'll find my great-great grandmother, Almost Owl Woman, in Blackfoot family history at http://www.blackfeetgenealogy.com/ .
And yes, we need peace and diplomacy, but I don't expect it as long as Biden, and Biden's handlers, are in charge. Just another reason for Biden to be listed as the worst President in the history of the United States.
Thanks for being my honorary commie friend, I don't disagree with a single thing you wrote there. Populist front to end U.S. empire and focus our money at home now!
Note he actually had sympathy for the Jews even if he didn't want the US to get involved.
That isn't anti- Semitic.
You on the other hand hate the ((Jews)).
Hug a Cactus.
Says you...
Parentheses around jewish names is anti- semitic. Telling jews that are anti American intervention to leave the US for no other reason then they are part of the same "tribe" is anti Semitic.
There is a difference between being against the extreme Zionist leadership in charge Israel and being against the Jews. You should have been raised as a child to understand that, but apparently you'd rather others hug cactuses then admit your were never hugged as a child. You would have come to understand other humans on the planet. Sorry for your plight in this life, Yosef.
Have you seen him interacting with me in the past?
He is blatantly anti- semitic.
He puts parentheses around Jewish sounding names which is a classic neo nazi tactic to id jews.
You are joining in the middle of a conversation with an ignorant take.
Stick to what you are hopefully good at....being mickeys mom.
Yeah, I'm good at being a mom to a deceased cat, but I've had years on discussion boards with OB, and I'm not sure you may have interacted there. Am I incorrect? We were both moderators on the last known discussion board called Jackpine Radicals. Both of us had many a moderator discussion over many a subject at JPR. I don't think OB suffers fools easily and I don't see it here, either. What I see is that sometimes people are more sensitive than other people, and when persons accuse others of "classic new nazi tactic to id jews", I would have to say that those persons sound paranoid.
The reply was aimed at Mr Raven not OB.
And it isn't paranoia...
Google parentheses around Jewish name.
My apologies, Yosef.
I actually respect OB even though I disagree with him....see my other comments.
And I do appreciate that.
Note he actually had sympathy for the Jews even if he didn't want the US to get involved.
That isn't anti- Semitic.
You on the other hand hate the ((Jews)).
Hug a Cactus.
The only hate I see is coming from you. Are you sad your Zio-Nazi propaganda for genocide got called out? Let me play the world’s smallest violin just for you. Welcome to my block list you hateful gaslighting genocide apologist smear merchant.
I guess you telling me to leave the US isn't hateful...
You are a coward.
If you truly hate (( jews)) at least grow a pair and stand by your past statements.
I'll hate you but respect you.
Now I think you are an anti Semitic bastard and a coward.
I admit I got a good laugh out of this article.
Very well written.
I agreed with 90% of it.
America does not have to get involved and it isn't anti Semitic to want American isolationism.
You haven't given a reason why Dresden isn't a good moral equivalent to Gaza...
Thank you. I had you in mind when I wrote it, though it is still a completely honest description of where families like mine are often coming from. We, meaning my family, were never taught to hate Jews. Most never had anything against Blacks or Latinos because they were Blacks or Latinos, either, at least in my lifetime. Some did. No family's perfect.
The logic of one of my Confederate ancestors went something like this:
He grew up in North Carolina and some of his family owned slaves. He was taught they weren't quite human, or at least not as evolved or whatever. Not really men.
He fought white Union troops at places like Shiloh, Chattanooga, and Atlanta. He faced Black troops in battle very late in the war. He said they were the best soldiers he had ever faced.
Only a man can be the best soldier, therefore Black people are people, therefore ALL racism is bullshit. You might say he learned that lesson the hard way.
He hated bankers far more than he ever did Black people, even when he thought the latter weren't really people. He might have hated a Jew for being a banker, but not for being a Jew. Big difference.
And I didn't address your last point.
Dresden is, in many ways, a good moral equivalent to Gaza. It was a deliberate attack on civilian targets. The USAAF and RAF knew it had no military significance, arguably LESS than Gaza does now. It's main accomplishment was to kill as many Germans as possible.
It was unnecessary, and by many standards was a war crime, so yes, it has a lot of similarities to Gaza. There's one big difference, though. The bombing of Dresden lasted three days and it was done. The bombing of civilians in Gaza has gone on, and off but frequently on, for 50 years.
Way to go!!Fantastic essay.