Dear America,
Over the course of millennia, mutual immolation has been the rule in the history of the middle east rather than the exception: civil wars in Yemen and Syria, the Iran-Iraq war, Hezbollah brutality in Lebanon and as perpetrated against Israel across their mutual border as well as the Israeli responses, Syrian attacks in the Golan Heights, Sunni's against Shiites over who killed Mohamed's son-in-law, Ali, and later over whether Islam should be led by Mohamed's dynasty or by the established clergy--Shia vs. Sunni respectively--and on and on back through the annals of the Levant and the middle east for four thousand years. Even the Romans were not immune from the sanguinary ethos of the region as manifested in the siege of Masada and the first Jewish-Roman war of the first century CE. So today's conflict in Gaza and Israel is no surprise, especially considering the conflicts that have raged there since 1967. In consequence of that 1967 war Israel occupied Gaza and allowed several thousand Israeli's to build and live in settlements there and in "Samaria," which is in the West Bank. Then in 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the dismantling of those settlements and the evacuation of the 8,000 or so Jews who had occupied them for the sake of making Israel's borders more defensible, and the buildings they had occupied were destroyed rather than leaving them for use by the Palestinian residents of Gaza. I mention that destruction because it is symbolic in my mind...scorched earth. The Israeli's could have left the buildings standing, and thus usable by the Palestinians who remained in the area for the purpose of offering an olive branch to them, but they didn't. I am not saying that doing so would have prevented the various periods of intifada and outright war that have intervened between then and now, but it could have softened the enmity between Palestinians and Israeli's. It would have been worth "a shot" if you'll excuse the expression and it would have saved the Israeli's the cost of demolition in the bargain, but that shot wasn't taken. Instead, millions of gunshots have been exchanged, and thousands have died.
Today we have the atrocity perpetrated by Hamas, entailing the outright slaughter of 1400 Israeli men, women and children, the vast majority of them completely unarmed, and the Israeli response in which more than 8,000 Palestinians have been killed mostly by bombs in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians justify their slaughter of innocents with, among other things, today's Israeli settlements in the West Bank territory occupied mostly by Palestinians and formerly belonging to Jordan, and on those grounds they claim the moral high ground. Similarly, Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in a speech he gave over the past few days that the Israeli's occupy the "moral high ground" in consequence of Hamas's outright murders. Concomitantly, the supporters of both sides reiterate the moral high ground claims around the world from the opinion pages of the New York Times to the streets of Turkey, thus entrenching themselves in bellicose rhetoric and, at least in their own minds, justifying continuing hostilities. But I say this two sided colloquy is at best self-servingly misguided, but at worst nothing but rationalization of the bad intentions harbored by each side. The fact is that there is no moral high ground in the middle east, and historically, it seems that there never has been. The pugnacity inherent in the raging debate proves it. The occupants of the middle east are incapable of civility and mutual consideration, even if it is to facilitate peace, and thus self-preservation.
I recently had a conversation with my son about the conflict that rages on in Gaza and Israel, and he expressed an opinion cleaving to the rhetoric of one side; I won't bother to tell you which side as it really doesn't matter given all the history I have just cited. My response, and I must admit that I am ashamed for the callousness of it, was that the rest of the world should build an immense wall around the middle east like the one the Chinese built along their northern frontier to ward off the attacks of their enemies. But the wall the world should build today would not be to insulate us from our adversaries. It would be to isolate us all from the consequences of the insidious internecine politics of the region. It should be built for the purpose of allowing the rest of the world to obviate involvement in the most futile and spuriously justified series of conflicts that have ever been perpetrated in all the world. As I said, I am ashamed for thinking it and now for saying it for others to read. But I'm afraid I am not inclined to retract a single word.
Your friend,
Mike
Dear America,
President Biden's enjoinders to others about intervening in the hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel seem gratuitous to me. In fact, they seem more like dares to intervene than exhortations to keep away. We're finally out of Afghanistan, and barely present in Iraq, and here is our president mixing in the affairs of another ally that to many are of dubious rectitude to begin with. I have no problem with The President ordering an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean out of apprehension of potential necessity, but he could have done it and said nothing to anyone but Israel and accomplished the desired security goal. It would be different if the moral lines being drawn relative to the conflict were crystal clear, but they are not, and the domestic news coverage as well as the public reaction around the world definitely indicate that the world is of two minds on that point. I would have preferred that Biden predicate his public reaction to the conflict taking that ambivalence into account in the privacy of his own thoughts rather than potentially inviting adventurism among Israel's and our adversaries by exhorting them not to intervene. But that die is cast, and the question now is how to proceed with ensuring the perdurability of the Jewish state without inviting a threat to it, but doing even that with the dubiety of Israel's continuing local imperialism in mind.
I think we should acknowledge that the international community and the laws of international conduct do not comport with Israel's conduct in what used to be called the Levant. Its continuing suzerainty over the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip with settlement of the West Bank and control of the area's utilities, tax revenues and such, along with the isolation and effective dominion over the Gaza Strip render Israel ripe for adamant criticism universally. The current reactionary political control of Israeli politics by Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party, wrapped in the putative biblical sanctimony inspired by Menachem Begin's wishful claim that "Samaria and Judea" belonged to Israel by dint of historical events millennia ago, stamp the effective imprimatur of Israeli expansionism on the forehead of every citizen of Israel, or at least the Jews among them. Likud's perspective is the equivalent of a claim that Manhattan belongs by right to the Lenape Tribe because they occupied the area before the Dutch East India Company bought it from them. Both areas have changed hands by dint of history, the Levant several times, and the practical reality is that both claims are nothing but casuistry in light of the realities, and President Biden should make that reality the predicate for everything he discusses with Netanyahu when he sees him over the next day or two. Warning the world not to intervene is folly.
Were I in a position to do so, I would propose to Netanyahu what President emeritus Obama did: that Israel and the world recognize a Palestinian state comprising "The West Bank" and Gaza with a corridor through the Sinai desert linking the two areas. That corridor could be territory of Palestine or if that is disagreeable, an internationally monitored strip of neutral territory sufficient to accommodate transportation of people and goods by rail, car and truck. But I would warn the Palestinian authorities in advance. With sovereignty comes responsibility. So if organizations like Hamas and Hezbolah commit acts of war, Palestinian should expect just deserts. And to encourage Israel to accept these terms of creation of a Palestinian state, it should be advised likewise.
The purpose of such a two state solution would be to give everyone notice of what the future of the area entails: peace with consequences for disturbing such. There would be no exogenous imperatives involved, leaving both sides to their own devices unless a neutral body...the UN in a peace keeping capacity perhaps...were empowered by its member nations to do otherwise.
The advantages to such an arrangement may not be obvious, but they exist, just as does the law we all follow and the prior constraint it imposes. Contrary to some popular opinion, the law is ordered and rational. It's implications in general are clear, and thus provide a prediction of the future for any who fail to abide by it. That orders society, and it would order the Middle East as well. In the event of such a resolution of the chaos in Israel and the rest of the Levant I would say, this is what you wished for. Now be careful because you've to it.
Your friend,
Mike
Dear America,
While I was reading the opinion section in the New York Times yesterday, an unidentifiable frustration came over me. As on every other Sunday, Times regulars commented on MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump, but it always seemed that they can't get to the point of refuting their argument that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. I have had that experience with Trumpers that I know. No matter what one says, their response is that the fraud Trump claimed to have defeated him must be there if for no other reason than that he won, he got the most votes, but those winning votes were just obscured by this alleged fraud. That's the end of their argument: it's so because it must be so. And week after week I look and listen for someone to confront one of them with the flawed nature of their argument, but no one ever does, so I am bringing that flaw into plain view. It is called teleology.
Teleaology is arguing from the conclusion backward. There actually is a word for what they are doing: teleology. The way it works is that you posit the putative fact that Trump won as indisputable, and then you look for the proof of that proposition. But when you find no proof, that isn't a refutation because you started from the proposition that what you believe is categorically true. Put another way, Trumpers think themselves vindicated by the fact that no one has proven that there was not some massive fraud that neither they nor anyone else can find. The only thing that has been proved is that the fraud claims made by Trump, Giuliani and the other Trump minions were false, which by MAGAlogical extension just means that neither they nor anyone else looked in the right places. The Trump fraud myth is an axiom for them, a given, and thus it needs no proof, but it is my contention that every time one meets someone who believes the Trump lie, one should explain to them what teleology is. It is nigh unto impossible to prove a negative, for example, that there are no real flying elephants. You can adduce the fact that neither you nor anyone else has ever seen one, but the fact that one has never been seen doesn't convince the true believer, who will argue that there may be one hiding somewhere; the fact that you haven't seen it doesn't prove that it isn't there. Or the true believer might say with levity intended to reduce the impact of genuine logic on his magical thinking, what about Dumbo, to which you might rightly respond in cognate levity that you are talking about real elephants, but that would be to no avail too. The true believer believes none-the-less, thinking that a paradigmatic Dumbo is out there, and it's real, and knowing that it's out there is tantamount to proof that it is. Knowing that there was fraud in 2020...being certain of it...is proof enough for a MAGA type.
Of course, the true-believer's reaction often is anger and petulance, but the fact of the teleology of their beliefs has been explained to them and it cannot be undone. Initially it will seem a futile effort if you make the endeavor to so explain, but I can almost guarantee that they will be unable to erase from their thoughts that the belief they are cleaving to has no basis in logic or fact. That doubt will be there lurking in the back of their MAGA little minds, and in some cases...maybe very few, but some...you will have made some progress in debunking the myth for them, and once that happens, the Trumper may well be disabused in general of the merit of Trump's fusillade of bogus claims.
The key to diverting a MAGA Republican from the delusion that despite his gesticulating and raving, he is dispossessed of any verity with which he may ever have been endowed, say in early childhood. All that is left of Trump's soul today is the snake oil that he sells, and that is what it is: snake oil.
Your friend,
Mike
Dear America,
I'm afraid that the Democratic Party made a bad mistake by failing to thwart the ouster of Kevin McCarthy from the house speakership. It's not that he is good for anyone, including the country, but consider the reactionaries who are in line to replace him. Yes, McCarthy is cut from the same cloth as predecessors like John Boehner. He'll say anything that favors Republican politics and/or undermines that of the Democrats. It doesn't need to be true for it to fall from his mouth, just as was the case with Boehner. I remember Boehner talking about how there were 50 job creation bills pending in The Senate after passing out of The House, so I looked them up. There were perhaps 5 that had anything to do with economic policy. The rest were bills dreamed up by Republicans to impress constituents or vilify Democrats, and none of them were of any significance, not just for job creation but for anything. In fact as to most of them, I couldn't even find a remote connection to jobs and the economy, but those fifty bills were a stock component of every statement he made for weeks. Paul Ryan embroidered the facts too, but his excuse wasn't sheer dishonesty or partisanship. He was just full of Reagan Kool-aid and he couldn't see beyond the blindly plutocratic propaganda. And then there's McCarthy, who's too blinded by party affiliation to see the forest for the trees. Like Boehner, he'll say anything to advance the Republican agenda without even considering whether that agenda has merit. None of those three was good for us, America, but the harm they could do was constrained somewhat by civility and probably the fear of being involuntarily committed. But Jordan and Scalise? They are both dangerously committed to the reactionary cause...and Trump.
During the Democratic impeachment inquiry, Jordan was on the committee, and I believe he was the senior Republican. He latched on to some line about Trump, which I unfortunately don't remember even though it almost lifted me out of my chair each time I heard it, and he would repeat it whenever he saw the need to make a point of any kind, and he would say it with such unctuous sanctimony that even he couldn't help smirking. And now as he runs the impeachment committee against Joe Biden he has raised sanctimony to a dark-art form. He is fond of positing as truths questions that he wants to ask and calumnies that his fellow Republicans want to convince Americans to believe. I have come to the point at which I almost don't mind dishonesty because you can respond with truth. But the intellectual dishonesty of people like Jordan defies response. Jordan and the other Republicans don't even ask the witnesses before them questions. They just rant on with what they think are reasons to be suspicious while adducing no evidence to support their innuendos, and Jordan facilitates their efforts as if he is on a sacred quest. He's one successor prospect. Then there's Scalise.
He's the representative who got shot at baseball practice while preparing for the annual congressional inter-party game. He was seriously wounded and became something of a hero to all just for surviving. Now he is the number two Republican in The House, and he is as intellectually dishonest as Jordan, and as shameless as well. Scalise will cast any aspersion against his Party's political adversaries as he can make up on the bases of some perceived misstep by the Democrats and attribute it to villainy. He invokes a putative dichotomy between good...that is Republicans...and evil, and you know who he thinks the evil is. And all the while he praises Donald Trump without even a hint of self-awareness that he is being a hypocrite. He is as devious as Jordan is, but more dangerous because he actually seems to believe the tripe he spews.
So as between McCarthy and his two likeliest successors, there is a clear distinction with regard to the jeopardy that our democracy is about to be put in. The difference is between real malefactors in Jordan and Scalise and merely an oafish and transparent political operative, which is what McCarthy was, and will always be. The Democrats will not be able to turn their backs on either Jordan or Scalise because they are both armed. I would have preferred haplessly misguided myself.
Your friend,
Mike
Dear America,
The Kevin McCarthy fiasco is a demonstration of the dysfunction of the Republican ethos in two respects. First, when McCarthy was nominated for Speaker of the House, there was record setting resistance to his election to the office. I have had my say about McCarthy's ineptitude, partisan dogmatism and preemptive loyalty to party over loyalty to the nation, so I won't reiterate those opinions further, but I feel compelled to point out that skepticism regarding his competence was obviously rampant in the first place during the process of the Republican Party's nomination, and they nominated...then elected...him anyway. They did so after he promised to be the captive party hack of the "Freedom Caucus"--and I must say that the odiously self-serving and peremptory choice of that designation by a group of less than twenty rabid reactionary partisans would be laughable if it weren't so despicable--which doesn't comprise even a significant constituency within the Republican caucus as a whole, much less the nation. That fringe component of the Republican Party has members like Mat Gaetz and Jim Jordan, two of the most devious and disingenuous human beings on earth, Louie Gohmert, half a moron if that, and Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who has both integrity and intelligence, but unfortunately her integrity disappeared when she was in business and her intelligence is out looking for it. This group of reactionaries believes in freedom, but only for those sharing their beliefs in areas like religion, sexual identity, nationalism in the form of compulsory flag waving and the like. For all those whose behavior and beliefs don't comport with their definition of righteousness, they have nothing but contempt and opprobrium. Their definition of Freedom is such that it does not extend to anyone but them; freedom to believe other than they do merits condemnation and "canceling." That is the cadre that is now in control of the Republican Party as evinced by their success in ousting McCarthy on the first try.
Second, now that I have invoked values as an indicator of dysfunction, the Republican Party continues to seek to dictate to us, America, what we may and may not think, and they want to change "may" to "can" by law. They stand for book banning (and I wouldn't be surprised if banning turned to burning by the next election), blocking gender conversion even for those who demonstrably need it in order to avail themselves of the founders' promise of the right to "the pursuit of happiness" for all, what they call parental rights, which is a euphemism for letting right wing fanatics prevail on school boards to revise history so as to vindicate slavery as something that slave owners did to improve the lives of slaves with skills that they could use after they were freed, the proscription of sexual preference for those who are not strictly heterosexual, denying poor people governmental assistance when the can't fend for themselves and so on, all of which they characterize, again peremptorily, as "Christian values," and they have no tolerance for values of any other kind. And that constellation of dysfunctional ethics and contempt for all those who differ from them--the second form of dysfunction to which I referred at the outset--is dangerous, as in a threat of totalitarianism.
The didacticism and sanctimony of the Freedom Caucus, the Republican Party and conservatism in general is a menace. It is not so because their values differ from mine. They can believe what they want and live by those values in this country as long as it remains truly free, not in the sense of the arrogation of the term for themselves by the Freedom Caucus but in the sense of our founders' commitment to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." And I have no problem with that. But I do object to them concerting their efforts to circumscribe the freedoms of others to make them comport with theirs, and to teach our children that it should be so when they are in school. I object when they as parents try to dictate to other parents how they should raise their children and what medical care they can provide for them. I object when they fly OUR flag and claim that it stands for their beliefs.
In the sixties, some young people took to sewing that flag to the seats of their pants. Ordinarily I would declare aversion to doing so, but in that instance it was the only way that some of them could express their intolerance of intolerance. I don't know if that strategy would work today, though it along with parallel tactics and strategies worked to change the nation then. But something has to be done to prevent a disastrous and subtle slide into "Big Brother" authoritarianism. You can vote, America. Remember the threat when you go to the polls.
Your friend,
Mike
