Date: Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 2:00 PM
Subject: Meditations in a Time of Delusions and Lies: Happy New Year Gaza Death
To: obenzinger@stanford.edu
Happy New Year Gaza Death
Meditations in a Time of Delusions and Lies
January 5, 2009
Hilton Obenzinger
Note:
I began writing little commentaries during the months leading up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. I called them "Meditations in a Time of Delusions and Lies," and I wrote them, as I explained, to keep from going insane in the face of faith-based idiocy and murder. I didn't expect to change opinions but simply to keep myself from exploding.
Should I stop? Should I instead write "Meditations in a Time of Clarity and Truth" now that Obama has been elected? I'd like to think I should – but somehow I feel that delusion and mendacity are still alive and well. I do have hope, but human stupidity has not let me down so far, so I'll keep the name. And the task: To keep from going insane in the face of official insanity.
If you want to read others, go to OpEdNews.com.
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In the hiatus before Obama takes power, Israel has decided to take advantage of the vacuum, get one more shot at decimating the Palestinians before who knows what happens once the neo-cons finally step down. The Israelis only have a couple of weeks, but that's just enough time to hand President Obama a fait accompli.
So now we have the Bloodbath of Gaza. Haaretz reported on Dec. 31 that the Israeli military planned the invasion when it was in the midst of negotiations to extend the cease fire 6 months ago. A while ago a senior office in the Israeli military warned the people of Gaza that they faced a "shoah," the Hebrew word for holocaust, in retaliation for Hamas's rockets. That officer was shushed by other Israeli leaders for being a bit too blunt. It turned out that he spoke the truth.
One more time the Israelis are trying to crush the Palestinians. Beirut 1982, now Gaza 25 years later. Can you guess the result?
Hamas is irresponsible to its own people, and launching rockets against civilians violates international law. But after every so-called peace agreement, such as the Oslo Accords, conditions get dramatically worse for the Palestinians: more land is stolen from them, more checkpoints, more targeted assassinations, more blockades around Gaza. And after every advance, such as the Israeli evacuation of Gaza, the shape-shifting occupation only takes a different form. So, the logic of despair goes, why not the absolutist religious violence of Hamas? Diplomatic and political methods have only allowed Israel to stall, allowed it to keep on building settlements and enforcing misery. Hamas may be thoughtless, but in their minds what do they have to lose? Why not try the Ghost Dance?
At the same time the world economy is contracting furiously. Financiers have gouged out huge "bail out" sums from the government, as if they're being awarded for wrecking their own capitalist system. Industries are about to collapse, state governments are on the verge of growing broke, jobs vaporize before our eyes.
American leaders scorned the Soviet Union when it collapsed. How much of a failure is the command control economy! Unbridled free market is holy, and God has chosen Capital as his only Son.
But it turns out that the Soviet Union wasn't the only loser in the Cold War. Now Americans can see what it's like to be brought low by the collapse of delusions. What rational choice theory takes into account lies and greed in its econometrics? Takes into account that greed breeds stupidity? You don't need a PhD to realize that the Lords of Money don't really know what they're doing, don't even understand their own system. What rational choice are they talking about?
It was Reagan's arms race plus the Afghanistan quagmire that bankrupted the Soviet Union, even though the Soviet system played its own part in rotting from within. Bankruptcy and Afghanistan – why, that sounds like déjà vu all over again!
And, as if it couldn't get any crazier, the greatest Wall Street swindler in the history of the world turns out to be a Jew. Between the murderous Jews with guns and the venal Jews with money schemes, is history written by an anti-Semite? Where's that other stereotype, those Commie Jews?
But now the shit streams toward Obama like lava streaming down volcanoes in Hawaii . . . Just a slight shift in power – his election was not a revolution, just a shift – and the universe conspires to give President Obama a welcome in blood and misery. What next? A mid-winter Hurricane? Huge California earthquake? Nuclear war between Pakistan and India? The Arctic ice cap dissolves like Alka Seltzer?
Just a shift. Imagine if his election were really a revolution?
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