Killing with Impunity

“Hate and ignorance have not driven the history of racist ideas in America. Racist policies have driven the history of racist ideas in America.” Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning.

How does an Israeli soldier shoot an unarmed Palestinian, a human being? What does the soldier feel as he or she brings a man or boy into the crosshairs? Is there any remorse after pulling the trigger, any flicker of conscience hours or days later? Dozens of non-violent Palestinian protesters have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces in the past few weeks, thousands more wounded or injured. The protesters pose no lethal threat to Israel, they are not surging across the border, crossing from their occupied territory into Israel, and yet Israeli soldiers fire live ammunition into crowds. Think of the military officers who issue these shoot-to-kill orders. Why don’t Palestinian deaths matter? Palestinians are protesting the longest military occupation in modern history, an occupation that couldn’t be sustained without unquestioned backing from the United States. Why does my country support this slow, ongoing genocide?

To kill with impunity and without remorse requires indoctrination. You must convince your own people that you are killing inferiors or terrorists. Hitler’s regime indoctrinated many Germans to believe that Jews were the source of Germany’s problems, a blight on the purity of the German nation. Jews were systematically dehumanized, their rights abridged, their property stolen; but even this wasn’t enough, the Jews had to be exterminated, wiped out. Hasn’t Israel been doing the very same thing to Palestinians for more than half a century?

Israel has perfected the tactic of deflecting any and all criticism by shouting, screaming, and fulminating that all its critics are anti-Semitic. Israel has a right to exist as a state. It has a right to security. But it doesn’t have a right to murder unarmed people. It doesn’t have the right to bomb Gaza every few years in what is known in Israeli defense circles as “mowing the lawn.” It doesn’t have the right to control who and what enters or exits Gaza, the right to control Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters. Aside from the United States, no nation in the world gets away with murder like Israel does, year after year, decade after decade.

Short Takes:

The Trump kleptocracy is right on track, normalizing corruption, hastening the fall of the American empire. The oligarchs must know, on some level, that the end is near because they’re making a mad grab for as many spoils as they can haul.

Capitalism is killing us, and the planet. Goes to show that any ideology taken to extremes will produce tyranny.

Fukushima is now the worst nuclear disaster in history. Seven years gone and the media has no interest, as if by ignoring the calamity it will vanish. Kind of the same charade Trump and the Republicans play with anthropogenic climate change.

I was fortunate to meet author and activist Tasoula Hadjitofi when she visited Santa Barbara on April 29. I reviewed her book, The Icon Hunter, for the SB Independent. Hadjitofi is a gracious, intelligent and intrepid woman.

Sinking into a Sea of Fire

Another week in TrumpLand. As far as I know, the US hasn’t launched another barrage of cruise missiles at Damascus. How many times have I heard right-wing politicians moaning about “entitlement” programs, but then do a 360 and vote to give the Pentagon and the defense contractors even more money for more bombs? Most of my adult life. War after war after war. The list of supposed enemies of our country is long. We always have money for war, death, destruction, it’s a profitable enterprise, addictive as opium. Meanwhile, there are tent cities in places like Los Angeles, in the shadows of sleek high-rise office buildings; children that go to bed hungry, water that is poisoned. Average people care about these things, but the political class serves other masters and doesn’t care, not even a little. Profit is paramount, making money; money is power, influence, juice, respect, the ultimate in human achievement, the only worthwhile measurement of a human life. Trump wants to up the volume of US arms sales to the world, exceed the heights reached by Barack Obama; Trump must best the black man or the deep inferiority complex he carries everywhere will swallow him.

Keep the peace by making war, by creating a river of refugees, by killing children. Has this country always been depraved, all of my nearly 59 years; did I simply not want to see? Through the Nixon presidency, the first I was really aware of, Ford, Carter, Reagan (who reigned when I was serving in the Air Force overseas and believed that the USA kept the world safe for democracy), both Bushes, Obama, he of the silk tongue and hammer fist, and now this madman, Trump, who launched missiles at Syria for reasons other than those stated to the American public, who he cares not a whit about. No real effect on the Assad regime, of course. Trump thumped his man-boobs and felt virile. Draft dodgers often get orgasmic on war, having never faced the terror and stupidity and absurdity of it, been the target of bullets and bombs, flying metal, glass, plaster, arms, legs, viscera, brain matter.

These days. Heavy. Like being on a ship that is slowly sinking into a sea of fire, but powerless to stop it. The captain is on the bridge, mad as a hatter, a blend of Ahab and Queeg, barking commands as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening, as if the lower decks aren’t taking on water, drowning poor passengers; on the luxury deck, under the crystal chandeliers, booze flows, food is plentiful, music plays, waiters in white coats step lively, beautiful people shimmy on the dance floor, diamonds winking in the light. The rich people on this level can’t hear the screams of the people below, and even if they could, it wouldn’t move them to relinquish an ounce of their privilege, which they believe with all their might is deserved, earned, justified, even if handed to them on a platter, even if ill-gotten, made off the sweat or gullibility of other human beings.

That’s what it feels like. Not drowning yet, but the threat hangs on the horizon, always, a gray smudge that only grows darker.

Short Takes:

Just finished reading and interviewing Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, a wonderful novel that seeped into my skin. Doerr is a friendly, down-to-earth guy, wonderful to converse with, and a fine writer.

I can’t believe the amount of building activity I see around town these days; the new stadium project at Santa Barbara High, the condo complex rising near the Santa Barbara Bowl, more condos down Milpas; backhoes, cement trucks, a huge machine that slices perfect lines in the street, skip-loaders; I think of money flowing into SB from other places, Los Angeles, New York, who knows? Money has no home these days. Money moves through the ether, ducks, dodges, takes refuge, hides, stands out, blends in, invariably finds the pockets of the very few.

My Chelsea boys have won two straight away league games for the first time in 2018, and are trailing Spurs for a Top 4 place by five points. I still believe Chelsea will finish fifth, where we belong, because we have played inconsistent and sometimes maddening football this year. Too many matches lost against sides we should beat, home and away, a dismal, fearful, abject performance at Man City, a loss at Old Trafford, a loss at home to Spurs. Not enough goals scored, too many let in by a defense that has often been shambolic. Antonio Conte has moped on the touch line, his face pinched, all the joy and passion sucked out of him. Game in and game out, he can only depend on N’Golo Kante and Cesar Azpilicueta to put in a shift.

The Coward's Pulpit

The other day I was thinking about Franklin D. Roosevelt and his fireside chats that were broadcast on radio across the country. I’m not old enough to have heard FDR in real time, but I have heard recordings. That patrician voice coming from the box, families gathered around hungry for hope, some certainty in a time of economic hardship at home and growing turmoil in Europe and Asia. Roosevelt said he understood their worries and fears -- and people believed him. Roosevelt used his bully pulpit to lift people’s spirits and assure them that America would come out all right.

Then I thought of Donald J. Trump and how he abuses the most powerful bully pulpit on the planet, creating divisions between people, inciting others to follow their basest instincts, spreading falsehoods, and attacking anyone who challenges, contradicts or criticizes him. Has any American president since the turn of the 20th century used such coarse and imbecilic language as Trump does almost every day via Twitter? Has any American president in that same time threatened to bomb countries with whom the United States isn’t at war so cavalierly, as if the bombs will only harm the “bad guys,” never innocent men, women, and children? Has any American president been so obsessed with appearing strong? How many people has Trump called “weak” or “sad” or “pathetic” since he was inaugurated?

Trump World is a frightening, dystopian place ever on the verge of chaos, the border is porous and dangerous people are always breaching it, hell bent on mayhem, plunder, rape, and murder; other countries take advantage, refuse to play by our rules or show enough deference for our greatness; laws are onerous things for others to abide by; the media is dishonest; judges are biased; minorities are greedy. In Trump World we must fear the Other, the outside world, and each other. Strength must be our highest virtue, all else is subordinate. The weak are unworthy. Women should know their place and stay in it. Dissent of any kind is unpatriotic. Empathy and compassion are for suckers.

Echoes, faint perhaps, of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia. If he could, Trump would purge the government of rivals and institute loyalty oaths -- not to the United States or its citizens -- to him.

Short Takes:

I’m delighted that the cruel Ayn Rand disciple, Paul Ryan, has decided to turn in his speaker’s gavel and retire to a lucrative career doing God-knows-what for the Koch Brothers. Good riddance to a true political hack.

Trump’s knee-jerk, shoot-from-the-hip response to a chemical attack in Syria, allegedly perpetrated by the Assad regime, who Trump referred to as an “animal,” is another example of his manifest unfitness for office. Nobody knows with anything approaching certainty who is responsible for the chemical attack. It could be the Assad regime, of course, but it could also be opponents of the government or some splinter group; the situation in Syria is very complicated and Trump’s stupidity is making a bad situation tense and dangerous.

Once again, Israel is getting away with murdering unarmed Palestinians. The Israeli propaganda machine works overtime to paint the protesters as tools of Hamas, an absurd but useful claim. As usual, the US corporate media turns a blind eye and deaf ear. The US must support Israel -- no matter what crimes the latter commits.

How does Sarah Huckabee Sanders sleep at night? All the lies she vomits up on behalf of Trump has to take a toll.

Hats off to football club AS Roma, who knocked FC Barcelona out of the Champions League tournament. Talk about David versus Goliath.

Poem: Black and Unarmed

50 years since Dr. King was gunned

down in Memphis,

a sad milestone.

Rivers of black blood have flowed

since that April day,

coast to coast,

in big cities and small towns.

Dr. King was unarmed in 1968,

so was Oscar Grant in 2009

Trayvon Martin in 2012

and Michael Brown in 2014.

Tamir Rice packed a toy gun in 2014,

Freddie Gray an illegal knife in 2015.

Anton Sterling was unarmed when

he went down in 2016,

shot,

like Philando Castile the same year

and Stephon Clark two years later.

Black and unarmed,

empty hands in the air,

but still a threat

to the peace,

property

or the man behind the badge

always presumed guilty.

There are many more names than these,

a roll call of victims, testament to white America’s
fear and savagery.