19 Friday Apr 2024
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19 Friday Apr 2024
Posted in 2024 the year of disconnection, Artificial Intelligence., Attention economy, Uncategorized
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY SAYS; ENTERTAINMENT IS NOW BEYOND THE PALE. WHAT CONSITUTES ENTERTAINMENT? WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE? IS THERE ANY LINE TO BE DRAWEN?
( Ten minute read)
Even as violence is a concept that has long accompanied humanity, it is no easy task to make sense of what it is, or how it is exercised.
Ancient Romans flocked to carnage in the Colosseum.
Even the most brutal acts committed by our ancient ancestors pale in comparison to the organized assaults countries have executed in the last century alone.
Ongoing wars and human right violations suggest that we are living in one of the most vicious times in history.
The relationship between violent media and real-world violence has been the subject of extensive debate and considerable academic research, yet the core question is far from answered.
Portrayals of violence can manufacture our consent with government policies, encourage us to endorse the legitimacy of state power and state violence, and help determine who are “worthy victims”.
Results from the two studies suggest that socialization models of media violence may be inadequate to our understanding of the interaction between media and consumer behaviour at least in regard to serious violence.
Our media outlets from News to Gaming – Movies – Net flicks – Social Media – are saturated with violence.
More than 100 million people watched the gory Netflix show, Squid Game.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice wins Game Beyond entertainment.
This is a bit like benign masochism, the enjoyment of aversive, painful experiences in a safe context.
Whether or not screen violence is bad for us has been extensively studied and there are reasons to reconsider how much we like watching violence per se.
For example, violence creates tension and suspense, which may be what people find appealing. Another possibility is that it is action, not violence, which people enjoy. That it is violence being deemed off-limits that makes it appealing. It may be that it is justified punishment, rather than violence, that we enjoy watching.
All this suggests that media companies may be giving us violence that many of us don’t want or need.
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We should hence consider what other corporate, political or ideological pressures may be encouraging onscreen violence globally causing us to become disconnected with reality.
Movies lie about the real impact of violence on the human body – with almost 90% of violent actions showing no realistic physical consequences to the victim.
The west won the world not by the superiority of its ideas … but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence.
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The question of how humans came to be domesticated — at the will of a deity, independently, as some sort of evolved trait — has plagued philosophers and scientists for hundreds of years.
It is tempting to try to answer this question by invoking biology and genetics, arguing that humanity is wired to be violent.
Whether humans will ever live in a violent-free, as digital technologies—such as social media platforms—become increasingly central to our daily existence they have become essential components in how violence is enacted and experienced. Indeed, as access to and use of social media continue to expand across the world so does the violence enacted through these digital platforms become more common.
For proof of that, just turn on your TV to the evening news and watch murder in all its forms.
What lies behind these episodes. Perhaps, some have argued, our intelligence and systems of culture, such as laws and social norms, are all that are holding that innate violence in check.
How good and evil may have come to co-exist in our unique species. Are humans, by nature, good or evil? The question has split opinions since people began philosophising. We have a low propensity for impulsive aggression, and a high propensity for premeditated aggression.
It raises a deeper question: Why did such an unusual combination of virtue and violence evolve?
A deeper understanding of how and why violence emerges, or doesn’t, might help us achieve a less violent future—or at least one in which we can better comprehend and manage our violence.
41% of people in the United States of America have suffered online harassment, from physical threats (14%) and sexual harassment (11%) to name-calling (31%).
But violence in digital environments is not only expanding, it is also becoming more complex as the evolving affordances, structures, and cultures of contemporary digital environments increase their scale, speed, reach, and visibility (Backe et al., 2018).
For instance, violence on social media is found in the new ways cultural and informational wars are enacted and deployed in the United States filled with school shootings and mugging and terrorist attacks and wars.
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It is a widespread phenomenon that directly or indirectly affects many aspects of our lives.
Nonetheless, digital manifestations of violence are often thought to be less “real,” “serious,” or “harmful” than those enacted face-to-face (Dunn, 2021).
Capitalism is a dirty word for many intellectuals but there are a number of studies showing that open economies and free trade are negatively correlated with genocide and war.
Warfare provides people with a semblance of psychological positivity in oppressed societies where other outlets are lacking.
Any stable, lasting peace depends on creating societies with a richness of opportunity and variety that can meet human needs. The fact that so many societies throughout the world fail to do this makes our future prospects of peace look very bleak.
War and other destructive capabilities are merely the flip side of the same uniquely human faculty that has enabled us to coexist peacefully, to innovate, to travel in space and shape our world.
The evolution of entertainment into a global landscape signifies a world where cultural boundaries blur, and creativity knows no limits. In today’s interconnected world, the entertainment industry has expanded its reach, influencing and captivating audiences worldwide with diverse content and experiences.
Entertainment has transcended geographical boundaries, morphing into a global phenomenon that unites people across cultures, languages, and continents.
Social media is cursed with pervasive and impactful harmful content. Can we imagine addressing only part of this violence without considering the rest?
Can we continue to feign not to see that all of these forms of violence mutually reinforce one another.
Film and television have long been seen as legitimate and powerful means to educate, inspire and empower wider society. To deliver a transformational experience beyond pure entertainment – whether that is to raise awareness through empathy and emotional impact, to engage with real world problems, or to make the world a better place.
The prevalence of war, not just its persistence, could now be our future.
The past two years have seen the most conflicts of any time since the end of the Second World War.
(The list encompasses not just the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, but hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, Serbian military measures against Kosovo, fighting in Eastern Congo, complete turmoil in Sudan since April, and a fragile cease-fire in Tigray that Ethiopia seems poised to break at any time. Syria and Yemen have not exactly been quiet during this period, and gangs and cartels continuously menace governments, including those in Haiti and Mexico. All of this comes on top of the prospect of a major war breaking out in East Asia, such as by China invading the island of Taiwan.)
What happens when a smart TV becomes too smart for its own good?
The answer, it seems, is more intrusive advertisements.
Reaching beyond video to monopolise the attention of audiences in the home TV violence increases aggression and social anxiety, cultivates a “mean view” of the world, and negatively impacts real-world behaviour.
We are exposed to social media violence just by being there.
The amount of violent content has helped normalise aggression. The reality is that social media platforms have got a lot to answer for. In practically every situation where we’ve seen violence happen there has been some sort of connection with an online platform in some form.
Why are these social media platforms not being held to account?
Why are we so scared of asking really difficult questions and why are these social media platforms not putting more money back in the communities that are being affected by violence?
We don’t fully know the impact of social media.
But social media and the fact that something that is say in passing becomes written down, causes what might have been nothing to become something.
For most violence isn’t at all normal, but there is a proportion whose lives are far too full of violence because of inequality and poverty.
The key driver of violence.
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But what about games?
As our younger industry matures, what role should games play in reflecting and commenting on the world around us?
Already we have a number of implications that will define the future shape of the online entertainment market. As society seeks answers in the media they trust, streaming devices are now everywhere, pouring news into social media 7/7
People in entertainment, tries to make something for everyone/to make the most profit instead of making what they want, so personality and quality takes a hit.
There is definitely a cultural degradation taking place.
Violence is an almost ubiquitous phenomenon in contemporary digital environments.
Games beyond entertainment.
The advent of video games raise new questions about the potential impact of media violence, since the video game player is an active participant rather than merely a viewer. Video games that involve assuming the roles of aggressors or soldiers offer players the opportunity to be “virtual perpetrators.”
Rewarding players for successfully carrying out violent behaviour.
Online gaming communities, esports tournaments, and multiplayer platforms enable players worldwide to engage, compete, and connect in virtual worlds. Digital platforms have revolutionized entertainment accessibility. Social media influencers transcend borders, shaping entertainment trends and culture on a global scale, such as cultural sensitivities, censorship, and legal barriers that can hinder the free flow of content across borders.
There are fewer empirical studies of video game violence than other forms of media violence. Still, several meta-analytic reviews have reported negative effects of exposure to violence in video games.
Content matters. much of the research into video game violence has failed to control for other variables such as mental health and family life, which may have impacted the results.
Given that effects on individual users may differ widely, policy discussion should be more focused on “more pressing” issues that influence violence in society such as poverty or mental health.
Rest assured that entertainment will need to master new forms of interactive entertainment — whether in video games, sports betting or the more social and communications-based services that thrive on smartphones — to keep audiences hooked.
There was no such thing as YouTube its their Tube.
U Tube now has a War Channel created to appeal military enthusiasts around the world; offering viewers hours of programming on the American Civil war, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Ukraine and all.
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Why are people less imaginative?
Because we all have the internet and other high-information sources that fill in the gaps for us.
Story telling, character-building, authenticity, and originality have all gone out the window, as entertainment has become largely an industry as opposed to a genuine creative outlet.
Game makers have the opportunity – and responsibility – to offer their players an appropriate and powerful means to get close to challenging issues or subject matter.
Games are brilliant at engendering empathy by allowing you to experience the life of other people first hand. As game makers and storytellers we have the ability to take our audiences to places they haven’t been or to feel things they have yet to experience.
There’s the possibility of vertical escalation—meaning that Russia would use more advanced weapons, including nuclear weapons—on the battlefield. And there is the possibility of horizontal escalation, the war spilling over to other countries.
What if anything can be done?
Here are a few key recommendations, which includes improve regulations and legislation for social media companies, greater responsibility so tech companies are held accountable for inaction, and for young people to be involved in panels that are consulted on tackling online harms and the development of games, new content and online spaces.
Legislation in relation to social media platforms is needed, but it is one aspect in an array of required measures, including education, the need to address social inequalities, the need for transparency by companies, by governments who should be constantly aware of how fake violence on our screens serves real violence in our world.
Why?
Because exposure to media violence can desensitize people to violence in the real world.
Yes, its true that for some people, watching violence in the media becomes enjoyable and does not result in the anxious arousal that would be expected from seeing such imagery , but society as a whole is another question.
An average American youth will witness 200,000 violent acts on television before age
18. 46% of television violence occurs in cartoons.
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The prevalence and impact of violence portrayed in media and entertainment and the near-ubiquitous portrayals of violence in various forms of media must remained a topic of intense scrutiny.
Fear is what, anxiety and depression, wars, domestic violence, relationship breakdowns, child abuse, terrorism, mass shootings, self-harm and all forms of violence towards oneself and others have in common.
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Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com
19 Friday Apr 2024
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18 Thursday Apr 2024
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≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. ISRAEL WILL NEVER BE A SECURE NATION.
( Two minute read)
Indeed, Israel’s deliberate, industrial-scale murder of the Palestinian people under the pretext of “self-defence” won’t enhance its security or secure its future.
Rather, it will produce greater insecurity and instability, further isolate Israel and undermine its chances for long-term survival in a predominantly hostile region.
Without shedding its colonial regime and embracing normal statehood by excepting the rights of all its people in a one state solution ( not two state) its demise is not in the so distant future.
Israel’s colonial nature presently supported by the USA, dominates its behaviour at each and every turn wasting countless opportunities to end its occupation and live in peace with its neighbours.
It has multiplied the number of illegal Jewish settlements and settlers on stolen Palestinian lands and networked them through special bypass roads and other planning projects, creating a dual system, a superior, dominating one for the Jews and an inferior one for the Palestinians.
In the absence of peace and in the shadow of colonisation, the country has slid further towards fascism, enshrining Jewish supremacy into its laws and extending it to all of historic Palestine.
As they tightened their siege of the Gaza Strip, the world’s largest open-air prison, and dropped all pretence of ever allowing it to unite with its Palestinian hinterland in a sovereign Palestinian state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it is undermining its own institutions, and any chances of peace based or coexistence between two peoples.
To have any chance of living in peace it must address the root causes of the conflict with the Palestinians, namely their dispossession, occupation and siege.
Even with USA/ UK backing it has no chance of surviving among all the indigenous people of the region, who have coalesced more than ever before.
Israel can no longer use its fanciful theological claims to justify its violent racist practices. God does not sanction the slaughter of innocent children.
Israel has no good options after the war ends. If it continued on the same destructive path the demise of Israel “as we know it” is around the corner regardless of how much Palestinian, Arab and Israeli blood it sheds.
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The reflexive identification with Israel, by both US media professionals and politicians, always obscures the fuller picture of what’s happening between Israel and the Palestinians.
We have to understand: Israelis aren’t going anyplace, and Palestinians aren’t going anyplace.
Discussions of a two-state solution is now cobblers.
A decent number of Israelis and Palestinians have come to conclude that it’s not a solution, that the nature of Israeli behaviour, especially in the West Bank, makes a Palestinian state unviable.
How exactly, or who would drawn the borders, never mind decide how or who rules.
(A substantial line of thought [in Israel] is that it’s more important that Israel be Jewish than democratic.)
There are alternatives to a two-state solution — including a one-state solution, a confederation.
One of the biggest challenges for Israelis is balancing the need for a Jewish state and a democratic state. This could and can be achieved with a written constitution approved by international law.
“If you have a one-state solution that gives citizenship to all of the natural-born residents of Mandatory Palestine — which includes Gaza and the West Bank — you don’t have a Jewish majority,”
It’s hard to imagine this kinds of possibilities in this moment, but the need for change is clear.
Iranian leaders have been among the sharpest critics of Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip. Tehran has made no secret of its praise for those who attack Israelis, including the Hamas-led attack that Israel says killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7.
Iran blames Israel for the April 1 airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus that killed seven members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, including two IRGC generals. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied being behind the attack.
If Israel was responsible, it would be the latest in a long line of attacks against Iranian targets.
A shadow war between Iran and Israel has grown over the years and with the recent Iran drone and missiles attack you may rest assured that if Israel targets Iranians nuclear sites the USA will be over the moon.
That will trigger not just a major regional war but threaten the very existence of us all.
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Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com
15 Monday Apr 2024
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≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHAT DO YOU KNOW WHEN IT COMES TO IRIAN?
Tags
History., Iran, Iranian Israel, Israel, middle-east, politics
( Ten minute read)
Iran has scarcely been out of the headlines in recent months. But how far back does the history of Iran stretch?
Like me I am sure we know little or nothing of it history.
Long before Iran came to be known in the mid-twentieth century as one of the countries of the Middle East, for nearly two and a half millennia it was known to the Western world as Persia.
So here is a starting point for an exploration of the history of modern Iran.
The Islamic Republic has been in a state of influx almost from its start. It has managed to survive in this state of perpetual crisis — and sometimes even benefited from it — because confrontation, or anticipation of confrontation with a nemesis, that is with the United States, played into its hand. It gives the regime the pretention of legitimacy as the core to national resistance against Western hegemony and regime change. The sense of emergency hence contributed to its survival. Moreover, the ruling clergy and its associated groups, such as the Revolutionary Guards, although a small minority devoid of the true support of a majority of Iranians, survived in power probably because of a strong sense of group solidarity.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution represented the first time in the modern history of the Muslim world that a movement dominated by the clergy took control of a state. Historically, this is a very unusual event, not just in the Islamic world, but anywhere. Religion and state were seen as two pillars of stability in Iranian society.
Shi’ism as a belief system, supported and reinforced by the region’s geopolitical complexity, preserved Iran’s socio-cultural identity.
Through the preservation of the language, Iran managed to preserve a collective memory of its past, which is also rather unusual.
Basically, the memory of Islamic conquest became the foundation myth for the sense of Islamic identity that emerged in Egypt, Syria and eventually Iraq. Iran was different. It preserved its memories of pre-Islamic times and grew quite proud of them.
Iran’s oil industry was basically a colonial industry created and developed by the British. A massive amount of the revenue went to the British government while a much smaller percentage went to the Iranian government. But even that share of the revenue was crucial for a nearly bankrupt Iranian state in the post-WWI era. It provided the necessary funds for greater centralization; for enforcing modern reforms; for strengthening the armed forces; and for the creation of an autocratic regime under the Pahlavis that no longer sought the traditional support of the religious establishment.
The Allied occupation of Iran in September 1941 was a rude shock to most Iranians.
Facing the soldiers of the Red Army, the British Indian Army, and soon after American military personnel seemed almost a surreal reversal of two decades of Pahlavi assurances of Iran’s reclaimed sovereignty and the might of the Iran’s Imperial Armed Forces.
The occupation triggered one of the most eventful episodes in Iran’s modern history and revealed persistent themes in the country’s recent past: the struggle for democracy. The gradual return to autocratic practices after 1953 put an undue end to Iran’s perilous experiment with participatory politics. Instead, an era of stability, albeit politically repressive, began to set in, and with the exception of a brief interlude in the early 1960s, it remained essentially unchanged until the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
The exile of Ayatollah Khomeini and the shah’s success, at least for a while, in silencing the forces of opposition generated a sense of royal self-confidence with an almost prophetic mission. The decade of 1963 to 1973 represented, with all its shortcomings, the best of the shah’s years: an age of economic development, success in foreign policy, and relative popularity at home.
Iran in the 1960s and 1970s witnessed an era of cultural florescence, a period remarkable for artistic creativity, the rise of new talents, and greater international exposure but also greater state sponsorship. Expressions of artistic and intellectual dissent, often transmitted through a language of symbols, emerged in cinema, poetry, and popular music.
The tumultuous events that led to the revolution of 1979 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran were a classic example of modern popular revolution. Out of a broad alliance of Islamic tendencies there emerged a militant clerical leadership, led by Ayatollah Khomeini. Over the course of the following decade, Khomeini played a decisive part in defining the Islamic Republic.
Between August 1978 and February 1979, a period of less than seven months, Iran witnessed a revolution that brought down the Pahlavi regime and abolished the institution of monarchy, wiped out the privileges of the Pahlavi elite, and significantly weakened its secularized middle classes. In its stead Ayatollah Khomeini and his associates created the Islamic Republic, which aimed to establish the “Guardianship of the Jurist” (welayat-e faqih) as the only legitimate model of governance.
That Ayatollah Khomeini and his cohorts put their mark on the Islamic Revolution was more than an accident of history. At least since 1961, and with a greater resolve since 1970, clerical Shi‘ism explored ideological Islam and contemplated juridical authority as an alternative to secular power.
In less than a year after victory of the revolution in February 1979, the new regime managed to consolidate its base, build new institutions, and eliminate its contenders for power.
It conducted a referendum on the change of regime to an Islamic republic, ratified a new constitution, elected a parliament, elected a president to office, and established revolutionary courts, the Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Guardian Council, and the Assembly of Experts. All the while the newly established republic was engaged in major domestic and international crises that threatened its very existence.
A crisis of great magnitude was in progress, one that shook Iran’s relations with the outside world and initiated an adversarial encounter with the United States that shaped their relationship for decades to come.
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1979 November – Islamic militants take 52 Americans hostage inside the US embassy in Tehran. They demand the extradition of the Shah, in the US at the time for medical treatment, to face trial in Iran.
The hostage crisis of November 1979 started an international tremor that for the following fourteen months would enrage the United States, preoccupy world media, appal public opinion worldwide, and irreparably damage the image of the Islamic Republic.
1980 22 September – Start of Iran-Iraq war, which lasts for eight years.
1981 January – The American hostages are released, ending 444 days in captivity.
1989 November – The US releases 567 million dollars of frozen Iranian assets.
The magnitude of this paradigmatic shift, and the way a conservative Shi‘i establishment transformed into a radical force of dissent, becomes all the more striking when we set the Islamic Revolution in the broader political and cultural contexts of the past five centuries.
2002 January – US President George Bush describes Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an “axis of evil”, warning of the proliferation of long-range missiles being developed in these countries.
2002 September – Russian technicians begin construction of Iran’s first nuclear reactor at Bushehr despite strong objections from US.
2003 December – 40,000 people are killed in an earthquake in south-east Iran. The city of Bam is devastated
.2007 October – US announces sweeping new sanctions against Iran, the toughest since it first imposed sanctions almost 30 years ago.
2009 September – Iran admits that it is building a uranium enrichment plant near Qom, but insists it is for peaceful purposes.
The country test-fires a series of medium- and longer-range missiles that put Israel and US bases in the Gulf within potential striking range.
2015 July – After years of negotiations, world powers reach deal with Iran on limiting Iranian nuclear activity in return for lifting of international economic sanctions. The deal gives UN nuclear inspectors extensive but not automatic access to Iranian sites.
2018 May-June – President Trump announces the US withdrawal from the 2015 international deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. Iran in turn warns that it will begin increasing its uranium enrichment capacity if the deal collapses as a result of the US move.
2020 January – Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, responsible for Iran’s military support for the Syrian government, killed in a US air strike at Baghdad Airport, prompting Iranian threats of retaliation.
2024 April Iran fires hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel in retaliation of Israel attack on its Embassy in Syria.
If the current regime caves under another popular upheaval, the outcome may not be promising at all.
The recent Middle East popular movements of political reform, such as the Arab Spring, have by and large failed. Likewise, any attempt toward a regime change through military option or covert operation almost definitely helps strengthen the regime’s popular base. On the other hand, if it is left to its own devices, will Iran become another China? Whether it moves away from a hostile ideological position to a more pragmatic regime with capitalist economy and friendlier posture toward the outside world is a matter of speculation. The recent U.S. departure from the Five Plus One nuclear deal with Iran, and the impending re-imposition of sanctions, does not offer a bright prelude for success of the latter option.
You only have to look at Israeli and the Iranian recent UN Security Council presentations after Iran’s direct attack to see that the Middle East is now a tinder box that no amount of Verbal is going to solve.
Iran’s ambassador repeated Tehran’s claim that it was responding in “self-defence” after the April 1 explosion at its Damascus consulate in Syria, for which Iran blamed Israel.
Israel will exact a price from Iran in response to Saturday’s attack when the time is right.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com
04 Thursday Apr 2024
Posted in Israel and Palestine, Uncategorized
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASK’S : WHEN THIS WAR BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PALISTIAN ENDS WHAT SORT OF COUNTRY WILL ISRAEL BE? NEVER MIND WHAT’S LEFT OF PALISTIAN.
( Fifteen minute read)
As global attention has turned to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, many Israelis are on a parallel warpath to convince the world they are victims, not aggressors.
Indeed any country has the right to defend its self but not to extent that it creates a genocide.
The slogan Yachad Nenatzeach!, Together We Will Win!, is everywhere in Israel:
Once there is no more Muslim land in the land of Israel … after we make it the land of Israel, Gaza should be left as a monument, like Sodom.
Of all forms of human error, prophecy is the most avoidable.
Israelis’ sense of security has been undermined.
The fear among Israelis is that if Hamas can do it once they can do it again.
By moving methodically through the Strip, Israel slowly pushed over a million Gazans into Rafah along Gaza’s southern border. It is only now poised to take Hamas’s last remaining stronghold, with international opposition, even among Israel’s closest friends, reaching a verbal fever pitch, the UK/USA are breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.
The UK government does not directly supply Israel with weapons, but does grant export licences for British companies to sell arms to the country.
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When people fight a war that begins with a murderous genocidal attack by one side on the other, the side that was attacked is less inclined to be empathetic towards its enemies.
However the demolition of much of Gaza will make it difficult for Israel as a society to function.
“More of the same”
Continuation of a war in the Gaza Strip, albeit at a diminished intensity, dragging on for an extended period, turning into a protracted war of attrition, resembling the eighteen-year Israeli presence in the security strip in southern Lebanon or the Soviet engagement in Afghanistan aligns well with the alt-right’s so-called Decisive Plan.
While everyone’s attention would remain fixated on Gaza, where the primary efforts of the regular army would continue to be concentrated, local settlement guards or militias functioning as irregular or semiregular units, akin to paramilitaries, could turn the West Bank into hell on Earth.
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Is there a way back from the hardness of Israeli hearts in the face of hundreds of thousands of people who because of our war are fighting like animals for pieces of food, a safe place where their children can lay down their heads, medicine, clean water and dignity? The answer is probably yes, but its going to take generations.
On the current trajectory of Israel’s attacks from the air, sea and the ground, Gaza looks set to be an enclave with 2.3 million people essentially living in rubble.
The fear among Palestinians is that Israel wants a “second Nakba”. Palestinians use the word Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe” — to refer to the estimated 750,000 Palestinians who were forced to leave — or fled in fear – upon the formation of Israel in 1948. Many Palestinians believe the reason Israel is bombing Gaza so heavily is to make it unliveable so that eventually the majority, if not all, of the citizens, facing starvation, will force their way into Egypt.
The 1948 expulsion remains an animating force in Palestinian identity, and it changed the demographics of Israel.
The Jerusalem Post — has carried a prominent opinion piece advocating the emptying of Gaza. That in itself is extraordinary — the most read English-language newspaper for Jewish communities around the world running the argument that the new home for Palestinians in Gaza should be Egypt.
Flattening the whole strip so it becomes an empty museum like Auschwitz.
Joel Roskin, an academic from Israel’s Bar Ilan University, said that the major portions of Gaza were now considerably incapacitated and cannot be simply fixed. “Rather, the damaged and destroyed structures must be completely torn down. The tunnelled – and consequently exploded and bulldozed — soil must undergo extensive environmental and engineering rehabilitation … the facts demonstrate that the northern Sinai Peninsula is an ideal location to develop a spacious resettlement for the people of Gaza. Its open areas, along with the existing infrastructure, can easily host large-scale development projects that, if led by the Chinese and supported by local labour, for example, can easily mature in just one to two years.” Bull shit!
Writing in Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Sfard questioned who Israelis would be after the war, asking “how many tons of coldness and indifference have settled inside us in order for us to turn high-rise buildings into dust, promenades and plazas into ruins and a million and a half people into displaced people who have nothing?
“And what will become of a society whose media outlets, which provide it with information about its deeds, have refrained for over 10 weeks from bringing even a single interview – a single one! – with a resident of Gaza to tell what’s happening to them; who censor the pictures of the dead children and the weeping mothers, the children that we killed and the mothers whose bereavement we caused? The Israeli TV channels are shaping our collective perceptions not only by means of what they show, but also, and perhaps mainly, by means of what they’re hiding from us.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects any suggestion of ethnic cleansing, insisting that the primary aim of Israel’s military action is to “destroy Hamas”.
It’s debatable whether this can actually be done — Hamas is in part an ideology and idea, it’s also one of many groups whose aims are “resistance” to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and, along with Egypt, its blockade of Gaza.
Hamas, in turn, makes no secret of its ultimate aim – its charter commits it to the eradication of the state of Israel.
The longer term issue for Israel is that an entire new generation of young Palestinians could be radicalised by seeing their homes and sometimes their families destroyed.
At this crossroads, neither Israel, Iran nor Hezbollah wants an all-out war that would have terrible consequence for all of them. But no side seems ready to stop the slide towards it.
That Israel must, instead, finally agree to a two-state solution under which Palestinians have their own state is a grave mistake.
WHO WOULD WANT TO LIVE IN A COUNTRY THAT WILL NEED MORE THAN WIRE FENCING OR A WALL TO MAKE IT SECURE IN THE FUTURE.
There will be a profound shift in Israel’s concept of security: many believe they must now protect themselves.
Several proposals have been put forward to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas with the U.S., Egypt and Qatar pushing to de-escalate in phases. But major sticking points about who should govern Gaza are blocking progress as Israel doesn’t want to govern and is against the top contender, the Palestinian Authority. So why is coming to a consensus for a ceasefire or peace deals so difficult?
There’s now only a one state solution.
———————
As the conflict with Hamas bleeds across borders, is wider violence inevitable?
Even if the Gaza war winds down, Israelis are shifting their gaze toward their northern border, preparing themselves for a potential new war — with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Iranian-backed group is better armed than Hamas, with long-range missiles that could paralyze the country.
Historical precedents abound: paramilitary groups of this kind take orders from local commanders or charismatic political figures and are loyal only to them, not directly beholden to the central authority.
Israel’s war with Hamas has served to energise already existing tensions.
Without an end in sight, at present – the war is in danger of creating its own dynamic. And for now at least, the reality of the cross-border exchanges has a greater clarity than the rhetoric enfolding them.
———–
What sort of country will Israel be after this war? And will Gaza be liveable, or will its 2.3 million citizens be forced to move to the Sinai desert in Egypt?
No body really knows how this is going to end.
Even if the Israel pushes what remains of the Palestinians into the Sinai Desert and succeeds in dismantling Hamas as an organized military force in Gaza, it will survive as “a terror group and a guerrilla group.
Even if Israel changes it leader there is little room for wishful thinking here.
The likelihood of a left-wing government materializing due to internal protests appears scant. Far more probable is that Israelis will be drawn to a hawkish leader exemplifying strength and authority, typically a retired general with a distinguished military career, with a capacity to assume responsibility and navigate intra-Jewish divides.
Any withdrawal by Israel, including under a hostage deal, would create a vacuum that Hamas would do everything it can to fill as it emerges from its tunnels.
Those measures might assist in holding off Hamas in the coming months, but Israel still needs a long-term solution. That means actively replacing Hamas while it is still underground.
Discussing a plan for the future governance of Gaza brings with it political complications.
Who will replace Hamas?
Gaza will become an area in deep crisis.
——————-
To stop selling arms.
When is a war crime not a war crime? Answer: when it’s done by an allied nation.
This will only happen when western governments, whose history of hypocrisy that fill many pages of history’s sad story of human exploitation, decide the political cost to them of ignoring the Palestinian deaths inflicted by their own weapons is higher than the cost of the current policy.
Key actors—Palestinian, Israeli, regional, and global—have staked out very different, often antagonistic positions on critical questions. UN interference is necessary, and it should take the shape of an interim, multinational peacekeeping force similar to the one that was tasked to facilitate the transition to an independent East Timor in 1999 or the NATO-led force deployed to Kosovo in the same year.
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The world we live in is changing at an astonishing pace. New technologies and ways of thinking are rapidly altering the way that human beings live, do business, communicate and interact with other. In just 40 years we have gone from rotary dial phones to 5G smart devices capable of accessing the collective knowledge of humanity. And the field of warfare is no exception.
Approaches to warfare that 30, 20 or even five years ago would have guaranteed success on the battlefield have now been made redundant. It can no longer be assumed that because a tactic worked in a previous conflict that it will work today. As the current Ukrain war with Russia shows modern day warfare does not require solders on the ground.
Today’s conflicts can also extend to the domains of cyber and space.
In the cyber domain, orchestrated hacking campaigns conducted on the behalf of nations can disable and shut down key pieces of civilian infrastructure and institutions, leaving nations in a state of panic and vulnerable to attack.
New technologies are also constantly rewriting the rule book for warfare – AI – Drones.
It seems likely that the coming years will see a major focus on soldier systems that ‘declutter’ the battlefield for soldiers by providing information on threats and targets as they are needed.
The decision on whether what that soldier sees is a friend or a foe comes entirely down to their own judgement and discretion. Making the decision can be extremely difficult in a confusing battlefield environment. To make life easier for soldiers, future weapons may have electronically flags popping up in the sight, telling them whether they’re aiming at a friend. Prior to firing, the weapon would send a small electromagnetic pulse at the target. If no response is received back from a friendly transceiver, the soldier will know they are not aiming at their own troops and will be able to confidently proceed.
So, while modern conflicts are being waged in the most complex environments in history, are there solutions to bring clarity to the minds of both soldiers in the field and leaders. NO.
We see something terrible and then it disappears.
What are the rules of war?
It’s a timely question in the wake of attacks on civilians, aid workers and hospitals in conflict zones around the world.
However enforcing out of date rules can be difficult.
For example, the five veto-holding permanent members of the Security Council — the U.S., China, Russia, the U.K. and France — must vote unanimously to pursue a resolution that might call for an investigation, refer a case to a court for trial, threaten sanctions or propose another motion. But often one or several of these countries has a vested interest in the conflict in question.
You would be more than naïve if you do not realise by now that Israel is not currently using AI. Indeed its has a program called Lavender choosing targets to bomb. An artificial intelligence tool developed for the war, marked 37,000 Palestinians as suspected Hamas operatives.
Mistakes were treated statistically. SUCH AS THE RECENT KILLING OF SIX INTERNATIONAL AID WORKERS.
We need to keep saying that these protections are valuable, they’re worthy, and they speak to our common humanity.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com
01 Monday Apr 2024
Posted in 2024 the year of disconnection, A solution to Climate change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., CAPITALISM IS INCOMPATIBLE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE., Climate Change., Collective stupidity., Dehumanization., Digital age., Disaster Capitalism., Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., How to do it., HUMAN ABILITIES., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Imagination., Inequality., INTELLIGENCE., Language, Migrants/Refugees., Modern day life., Monetization of nature, Natural selection., OUR BRAINS, Our Common Values., Purpose of life., Reality., Robot citizenship., Society, State of the world, Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Technology's, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Internet., The new year 2024, The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD. , Unanswered Questions., Uncategorized, VALUES, War, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What is shaping our world., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: WHEN WE REFLECT UPON OUR ORIGINS IT IS DIFFICULT TO AVOID THE MOST ESSENTIAL QUESTION OF THEM ALL – WHAT MAKES US HUMANS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER ANIMALS?
Tags
Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism and Greed, Capitalism vs. the Climate., Climate change, Environment, Inequility, Sustainability, Technology, The Future of Mankind, Visions of the future.
( Twelve minute read)
Our brain have difficulties in accepting that we actually are animals and thus highly dependent on nature where nothing exists alone.
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Science has organized human evolution into six levels.
We share the first five with other creatures, while the sixth level makes us unique – language.
Our use of language and given rise to the sciences and philosophical thoughts that now are transforming the entire biosphere, while abusing it to such a degree that we are currently on the verge of destroying it completely.
It is difficult to understanding that extinctions are not features of this civilization, but virtually all past civilizations have faced this fate. We might be more advanced technologically now, but this gives little comfort as we are not immune to the threats that undid our ancestors.
MAYBE THIS IS THE MAIN REASON THAT WE ARE UNABLE TO ADDRESS THE CLIMATE CRISIS, WHICH IS NOW AN INDUSTRY RATHER THAN A THREATH TO OUR VERY EXISTENCE, to the biodiversity, to food security, access to fresh water, the lack of which will result in wars.
Unfortunately we are still animals living in a world that is changing the atmosphere’s chemistry, which is becoming a reality, not tomorrow, but right now and that’s with the number of people we already have.
Indeed the very technology we now rely on bring new unprecedented challenges.
From the emergence of Homo sapiens, it took roughly 300,000 years before one billion of us populated the Earth, with people evolving into their current form some 200,000 years ago.
(Huts, 2 million years ago. Boats, 900,000 years ago. Cooking, 500,000 years ago. Javelins, 400,000 years ago, Glue, 200,000 years ago. Clothing possibly 170,000 years ago.)
“Behavioural modernity,” evolved 50,000-65,000 years ago. It took 15,000 to 10,000 years to start growing stable foods.
The planet most likely will surpass eight billion people sometime around mid-November. (The world population is to exceed 10 billion this century.)
Climate change – the world population – technologies inequality – you name it, will determine how many of us will be living on Earth as we approach 2100.
There can be no mistaking the import of this, as it belies the dangers of the next several decades which will see migration on a massive scale, due wars because of runaway climate change.
Unprecedented droughts or city-destroying floods would prompt mass migrations, destabilizing the rich world or giving rise to far-right nationalism. Or a global famine could send food prices surging, triggering old-fashioned resource wars.
Survival and success do not depend on brutal force. There is an empirical connection between violence and climate change that’s persists across 12,000 years of human history.
The long chain of evolutionary development has taught us with technology and political trends conflict will continue and even intensify.
“Whether we like it or not changes will be happening, and the situation will not improve by itself.
The future well-being and actual life on earth depends on us all and our ability to express compassion and work together as the eusocial creatures we de facto are.
“No one is doing this in the right way at the moment,”
World hunger, ecological and environmental disaster, global warming, massive shifts in weather systems, the re-emergence of diseases long thought controlled, with political turmoil, in a world where a barrel of water is more expensive than a barrel of oil.
Empathy, compassion and cooperation are now so saturated by Tec that we are becoming a species totally unscrew and desentized to reality, others, and their needs, becoming algorithms predictions.
Efforts so far to incorporate climate change into future population projections have been inadequate.
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Where is it leading us?
To answer that, we have to think about how we got here in the first place – Greed
Currently it is estimated for that 50 million people are living on less than the $3.65 a day, with half of the global population lives on less than US$6.85.
You could add another few billons who are not poor enough to feature.
The world is divided into the very rich, and the very poor. And since everybody knows there aren’t a whole lot of very rich people, they assume the majority of the world’s population is living in extreme poverty. But that’s completely wrong; the overwhelming majority of people live somewhere in the middle.
Our problem is inequality, attached to Greed, which is now plundering the world in the form of profit seeking algorithms that are generating profits for the few, using the latest technology Algorithmic trading designed to capitalize on market inefficiencies, trades can be completed at speeds and frequencies impossible for mere mortals.
Algorithm’s are creating a new social contract between a sovereign and citizens, in which the people collectively who were sovereign are becoming digitalised citizens.
Power now resides with those best able to organize knowledge.
The knowledge revolution should bring a shift to direct democracy, but those who benefit from the current structure are fighting this transition. This is the source of much angst around the world, including the current wave of popular protests.
Neither, physical military strength, nor access to capital are now sufficient for economic success.
If we are to have any chance, we have to change to direct democracy which is easier to achieve than big, sprawling governments.
I’m not sure we can, but I know it will happen because capitalism or any other systems will no longer generate sufficient income to sustain social welfair states.
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The problem is how do we reconcile that with democracy in countries composed of millions of citizens?
Talk of artificial intelligence destroying humanity plays into the tech companies’ agenda, and hinders effective regulation of the societal harms AI is causing right now.
Barely a week seems to go by without a tech industry insider trumpeting the existential risks of artificial intelligence (AI). Fearmongering narratives about existential risks are not constructive.
Serious discussion about actual risks, and action to contain them, are.
The sooner humanity establishes its rules of engagement with AI, the sooner we can learn to live in harmony with the technology.
Algos require an uninterrupted power supply and reliable internet access. Even a brief failure in these conditions can prove cataclysmic.
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What is needed are direct opportunities for all to invest in the future.
One of our fundamental challenges in the years ahead will be to mobilize the substantial sums needed for investment in everything from green infrastructure to the cutting-edge technologies that we will need to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and slow the course of climate change.
At the moment we have Green bonds/Climate change bonds are issued exclusively to finance projects that positively impact the environment. Today, more than 50 countries have issued green bonds. However, the appeal of this market and the fact that there is no binding regulatory framework for green bonds may lead to suspicions of ‘greenwashing’ (false green claims).
There’s nothing new or specifically European about green bonds.
They’ve been around since the beginning of the 21st century. Although they weren’t yet called green bonds, the first of them are thought to have been issued in 2001 by the City of San Francisco to finance a solar power project.
Any organization – such as governments, corporations, and financial institutions – can issue a green bond.
The green bond market is a portion of the larger debt market. Historically, over US$2 trillion of green bonds have been issued globally to date, with the potential to grow to US$5 trillion by 2025.
Industry bodies and investor action groups such as Climate Action 100+, as well as large
market investors such as sovereign wealth funds and pension funds, are in a strong position to drive development of this market. However there is no universally accepted legal and commercial definition of a green bond.
Green bonds are proven to be an effective means to secure the resources required to meet the national climate change goals, so why not issue green bonds that any joe soap could invest in.
Lotteries exist in 46.67% of countries worldwide. In many countries, with the adoption of digitalization the Lottery is a lifestyle and a massive contribution to their revenues. The Lottery industry continues to grow worldwide, with an expected increase of 4.1% CAGR by 2031. The spread of online lotteries associated with the increase in smartphone and internet usage is one of many factors that can drive growth in the global market. The Lottery market is projected to grow to $405.20 billion by 2028.
It would be everyone’s collective interest to identify with the physical manifestations of climate change.
Climate change is a defining issue of our time.
All human comments appriciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com
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10 Saturday Feb 2024
Posted in Uncategorized
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: WE NOW ENTERING INTO A MORAL DARKNESS IN THE ISRAEL /PALESTINE WAR.
(Two minute read)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli army and other officials to submit to the cabinet a plan to evacuate Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost governorate.
International humanitarian law prohibits the forced displacement of civilians except when temporarily required for their security or imperative military reasons.
Forcing the over one million displaced Palestinians in Rafah to again evacuate without a safe place to go would be unlawful and would have catastrophic consequences.
I say that its time that all states that are party to the Genocide Convention now have a legal obligation BEFORE IT TOO LATE. To take material steps to put an end to Israel’s genocidal acts in the besieged Strip.
If they dont do so we are very likely entering another long and painful era where armed struggle and violent domination become increasingly and mutually dependent on each other for survival. Yet neither can win.
After Hamas’s deadly attacks in Israel and Israel’s hellish bombardment of Gaza is the world going to sit back and watch what remains of Gaza and its people wiped from the face of the earth, endorsing further murderous violence against civilians.
Who gets to count as human?
The real aim of Israel’s lobbying efforts to undermine UNRWA is the liquidation of the Palestinian identity and the right of return of the Palestinian people that the UN agency has come to embody. If the Western states, and especially the United States, continue to bow down to Israel’s genocidal demands they will only add further weight to the accusations that they are complicit in its genocide in Gaza.
What is at stake today is not only the future of millions of Palestinians and the very viability of the Israeli state, but the stability of an entire region, and the future of the rules-based world order.
The Palestinians will remain. They cannot be eliminated. Israel too will continue to exist. The future is full of unnecessary and horrific bloodshed all around.
Terrorist organisations like ISIL and al-Qaeda could not have asked for a better environment to regroup and mount new attacks on the West, as the global majority now views the West solidly as an enabler of the ongoing genocide of an occupied and oppressed Indigenous people.
The international community must first ensure the safety of the Palestinian people.
Given the current gridlock and the total devastation of Gaza, the first step towards ending occupation should be to bring the Palestinian people – who have now been identified by ICJ as a unique “group” – under international protection.
The inclusion of Hamas in any peace process is crucial as no sustainable settlement can be achieved without acknowledging the concerns and expectations of the group that has led Palestinian armed struggle against occupation for many years.
This means the killing must stop, captives on both sides should be released, the siege should end, adequate aid and basic services should reach all Palestinians in Gaza immediately.
The international community must make it clear to Israel that it cannot infringe on the territorial integrity of Gaza by occupying any part of the territory, establishing a so-called “buffer zone” within it or dividing it into smaller settlements.
The international community must unanimously call for an immediate and unconditional cessation of all illegal construction and land-grabbing activities in the West Bank and demand accountability for the violence and aggression perpetrated by Israeli settlers against the Palestinians. World’s nations must insist on Israel decommissioning all the settlers outposts in the West Bank, and obviating any such intentions in the Gaza Strip.
To ensure that the Palestinian people can live freely and with dignity under the governance of their own elected representatives, the international community should officially recognise a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and commit to ensuring the swift implementation of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals in post conflict Palestine.
Desperate western attachment to morally bankrupt double standards bears a large portion of the blame.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com
22 Monday Jan 2024
Posted in Uncategorized
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: ISRAEL THE LAND OF THREE BIBLES IS NOW A CESSPIT OF VIOLENCE.
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( Three minute read)
If God wanted a ‘flagship’ nation that was an example to the world he sure has got one now.
Not just a whaling wall of religious forgiveness, stricking chest’s, in the hope of jolting awakness.. but a land of no promises with a revelation that no matter what you belive in, there go I but for the grace of God.
Forgive us our Father for we have erred… is now burning example of vengeance. Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth not as God said, turn the other cheek.
My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:36, NIV) I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
Of course there are Bibilical quotations for ever situtation.
For the Christian, the Holy Land is birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth and the site of his ministry, for the Moslem, Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock marks the spot from which the Prophet Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven. The Qur’an specifies that the Land of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, that God Himself gave that Land to them as heritage and ordered them to live therein.
For jews its the promised Land. In Genesis, God promised Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land of Canaan, so Canaan became known as The Promised Land. Modern Israel and Palestine encompass the majority of Canaan.
For the rest of us its any land of promised, any place of complete bliss and delight and peace.
In reality the promised land is a theological concept.
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There is no other example in all of recorded human history where a people were conquered, expelled from their country, exiled, dispersed and then, as a unique community suffered persecution, oppression and multiple attempts at genocide over a period of 2,000 years than Palistian.
On the other hand the list of massacres of Jews in Europe is virtually endless, but the birth of the State of Israel in 1948 did not, in any way, reduce antisemitism, which is on the rise.
Any society that has been influenced by Christianity, Islam, or European civilization will have antisemitism in it, even if there are no Jews living there.
The Islamic persecution of the Jews has its own unique history which is in full swing today.
Israil is now a spiritual cancer without a cure.
So tell me what exactly is Israel’s singularly unforgivable fault, because of which a permanent peace deal with it simply cannot be achieved. Fighting wars? Occupying territories? Having security and repressive apparatus? Granting citizenship on ethnic basis? Being set up by the British in early 1900s upon ruins of Ottoman Empire?
What exactly is a person called Jewish?
Judaism isn’t just a bunch of men in black suits and white shirts, it is a mystical religion that is about revealing the divine presence in this world. They spread throughout the world not by conquest and colonization, but by being conquered and scattered around, persecuted and exiled from one place to another.
Who wrote the Torah? (Consists of the five books of the Hebrew Bible, its primary goal is to convince Jewish people that Yeshua (Jesus Christ) is their Messiah.)
We don’t know. The tradition claims it was Moses, but the Torah itself says otherwise.
The black boxes are called “tefillin.” are actually a set of 2, one worn on the head and a second worn on the non-dominant arm is always bearing God and religion in their minds, giving a sense of masculinity and gender roles, since they are only worn by men.
Why do Jews sway from side to side when reading Torah or praying, trembling.
There seems to be no single reason and I am left scratching my head.
The skull cap is called a yarmulke or a kippah.
It is worn as a sign of humility before God. Some say that wearing the kippah is a reminder that God is always above us, others that it helps to remind Jews that we are separate from the rest of the Nations.
God revealed his character in this declaration to Israel:
“I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”
How is any of that different from any other state in the region?
One of the things which always impressed me about traditional Jewish law (Halakhah) is the principle of pikauch nefesh, which states that if human life is in danger, an observant Jew is not merely allowed, but obliged to break any other of Jewish intricate laws that could stand in the way of saving it:
Now compare that to Hamas’ interpretation of Islam, or for that matter with any fascist’s interpretation of their national or religious idea; that unless you’re willing to kill yourself and as much as other people possible in heroic death for the Grand Idea, you’re a traitor to the cause and deserve nothing but death yourself.
So which of these two approaches do you think will be more likely to win wars, build states, maintain a society and endure in the long run?
The Jewish way has shown itself, time and again, able to survive even under the rule of a fascist death cult; while a fascist way cannot even survive on its own, because it will eat itself alive. Hence, the only thing left for it is to blame the Jews, who ruin everything by refusing to die!
Political Zionism, is seeing it as a an attempt to ‘force God’s hand’.
I supported Israel’s right to exist and defend herself, but not to expand by means of genocide and not to treat others whose homes were there unfairly.
(Since Israel is a Jewish state and governed by Jews, many people throughout the world feel increasing support for the Palestinian cause and concomitant opposition to Israeli policies/actions. These attitudes toward Israel may shift into, or be manipulated into, hatred of Jews (i.e., anti-semitism. Many Jews perceive anti-Israel activities as anti-semitic, though this is subject to some debate even within the Jewish community.)
So long as Judaism exists, (a religion out of time) the validity of Christianity and Islam is cast in doubt.
What it boils down to is their religious stance of “being the chosen people.”
When we wonder, “Did God choose Israel and not the other nations?”
For example Iran, which is notable for its anti Israel policies, does not limit the practice of judaism within the country.
Is there any soloution. One State Two State.
The religious affiliation of the Israeli population as of 2022 was 73.6% Jewish, 18.1% Muslim, 1.9% Christian, and 1.6% Druze.
All prophecies are fulfilled in a Federation with a written constitution ( See previous posts)
“Let there be light” is an English translation of the Hebrew יְהִי אוֹר found in Genesis 1:3 of the Torah, the first part of the Hebrew Bible.
So God created in darkness, hopefull it would turn out all right.
All human comments appriciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com
11 Thursday Jan 2024
Posted in American Cultures, CULTURES COLLIDE, Dehumanization., Donald Trump Presidency., Extermination., Uncategorized
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHY DO THE US SUPPORT ISRAEL?
( Five minute read)
We have the spectral of Mr Antony J. Blinken the Secretary of State for the USA (the largest and once the most powerful military country in the world) running around the middle east unable to call for a cease fire in the current war Israel/Palestine.
Why?
Because, President Joe Biden’s promise for the US to “stand with Israel” continues a special relationship that dates back to 1948, when President Harry Truman became the first world leader to recognize the Jewish state, moments after its creation.
Even before 7 October, support for Israel among American Jews – who constitute the world’s second largest Jewish population after Israel – was shifting. At this point, more Americans, but not a majority, think Israel’s response has been appropriate.
The idea that of all nations in the world, Israel alone doesn’t have the right to respond in self-defense, of course is wrong, but as the saying goes two wrongs don’t make a right.
The question is why does the US support a country that is committing a genocide.
I believe this is because americans learned very few details about the role of racist violence in American history. They are not always familiar with the often coded language and imagery of antisemitism.
The answer lies in its history.
The USA is a country founded on immigration, so it has historical roots of support for Israel.
In our current age of unapologetic racism and resurgent authoritarianism, for dismantlers of democracy, there is no better exemplar than a Genocide.
The mechanics of Hitler’s rise are a particularly example.
Hitler had no blueprint for the Holocaust.
Nazis took inspiration from American racism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
He was a student of history and admired America’s rapid industrialization and growth, which he attributed to a vast, diverse continental empire and agricultural base. So Hitler’s plan was for Germany to emulate the United States.
What possessed a society of seemingly, sane, educated and cultured people to implement a policy of barbarism and depraved violence upon the Jews of Europe during World War II?
Hitler’s understanding of how the American republic came to industrialize and prosper through expulsion of indigenous people and, especially, through the institution of slavery, which is now understood to have been central to America’s economic development.
First by seizing large tracts of productive land by pushing the indigenous populations out. If those natives could not be pushed out, they were to be killed. And then slave labor was to be employed to produce the food necessary to support industrialization and militarization, just as the United States had done.
When Hitler praised American restrictions on naturalization, he had in mind the Immigration Act of 1924, which imposed national quotas and barred most Asian people altogether.
Commodification and suffering and forced labor of African-Americans is what made the United States powerful and rich.
Nazi ideology also embraced virulent European anti-semitism.
The kind of genocidal hatred that erupted in Germany had been seen before and has been seen since.
Why?
First, the very application of the term “genocide” is applied too slowly and cautiously when atrocities happen. Second, the international community fails to act effectively against genocides. Third, too few perpetrators are actually convicted of their crimes.
Seventy years after the UN Convention, genocide remains ever present in our global society. Now consider that only three have been legally recognised – and led to trials – under the convention:
The world watched in apparent indifference. Rwanda in 1994, Bosnia (and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre), and Cambodia under the 1975-9 Pol Pot regime. The widespread killing and displacement of Yazidi by IS and Rohingya in Myanmar and Darfur, are ongoing.
Add the Indonesian genocide of 1965-66 and the Guatemalan genocide of 1981-83, the Kurds in 1988-91 in Iraq, and by West Pakistan forces against Bangladeshis in 1971, the Tamils in Sri Lanka between 1983 and 2009, not to mention the Australia’s “stolen generations”, the Irish Famine that might fall under the UN definition is frighteningly long.
The US, for example, famously never officially recognised the 1915 Armenian genocide as one.
Only by stripping away its national regalia and comprehending its essential human form do we have any hope of vanquishing genocide.
———————-
The “tyranny of hindsight”—the lordly perspective that reduces a complex, contingent sequence of events to an irreversible progression.
So Hitler’s model was in fact the U.S.A.
It goes without saying that he was an extreme narcissist lacking in empathy. a loner.
He had a Jewish grandfather; that he had encephalitis; that he contracted syphilis from a Jewish prostitute; that he blamed a Jewish doctor for his mother’s death; that he was missing a testicle;
Hundreds of thousands of Americans died fighting Nazi Germany. Still, bigotry toward Jews persisted, even toward Holocaust survivors.
These chilling points of contact are little more than footnotes to the history of Nazism.
But they tell us rather more about modern America.
Since Trump entered politics, he has repeatedly been compared to Hitler, not least by neo-Nazis.
What is worth pondering is how a demagogue of Hitler’s malign skill might more effectively exploit flaws in American democracy. He would certainly have at his disposal craven right-wing politicians who are worthy heirs to Hindenburg, He would also have millions of citizens who acquiesce in inconceivably potent networks of corporate surveillance and control.
The above however is not the only reason as such, it is only fair to my American readers to point out.
We certainly live in a VUVA world; Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.
Undoubtedly our world is becoming increasingly digital and there is a blurring between the digital and non-digital world.
The excesses of social media and the impact that this has on people’s psychological wellbeing needs to be addressed. (I think that psychology; understanding of people, their behaviour and how the mind functions, will be increasingly important.)
Desensitization is an unsettling phenomenon which stems from individuals refusing or being unable to react to or express emotion towards a certain situation. Through the click of a button on our device, we distance ourselves from the serious happenings of society.
Ours is a forgetful age. In an era of instant news, amnesia is baked in. And amnesia has consequences.
While it is vital to be aware of current events and their impacts, like the war in Ukraine and the current Israeli/Palestinian war, both are purposeless if we aren’t able to understand these events and empathize with the people involved.
We spend much of our lives on devices that are designed to need replacing every three years, accessing social media platforms that amplify the sense of a continuous present and an absent past. Everything feels unexpected, as if it is coming out of nowhere. Developments appear unconnected to the past, and indeed to each other. In the absence of a plausible historical narrative, people retreat into tribalism or conspiracy theories (perhaps both) to help them make sense of the pace of change.
They expose vulnerabilities in the national consciousness that:
With one in every ten people in Gava now killed the future of further any peace efforts with Arab nations could now be in doubt, as Israel continues to bomb the Gaza Strip in its effort to punish Hamas.
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Finally:
The spread of white-supremacist propaganda on the Internet. YouTube is a superb vehicle for the circulation of such content, its algorithms guiding users toward ever more inflammatory material.
Given its billion or so users, YouTube may be one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century.
The internet is a breeding ground for loners who have a “vague notion of being reserved for something else. Suicide bomber, Mass killer, may attempt to turn metaphor into reality.
He might be out there now, cloaked by the blue light of a computer screen, ready, waiting.
For me, this digital and data analytically world emphasises the important of social connections and networks. There will be a need for collaboration and for different ways of working.
Part of this will be reflected in the changing power dynamics. Organisations may operate in different ways. This includes social change, climate, and the balance that we want in our lives, simply because the repetition can be overwhelming. When things occur again and again, we become too-familiar with the situation, thus not treating it as important, unable to put intense situations into perspective.
Which inclines us to fawn over the future, and either patronize the past or ignore it altogether.
To sum up, as Albert Einstein said ‘learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new.
The question is, are we happy to live in a world that deliberately creates destitution for some?
Our technology does not help us here.
Memory, in contrast, should generate humility:
The acknowledgment of our past, with all its strengths and weaknesses, and the recognition that the reason we have the moral convictions we do, and the material advantages we do, is because of our ancestors.
As James Baldwin relentlessly pointed out, we are our history.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
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