Inscrutable Belief
How to be a blockhead.
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The Politics of Eating
Reflections on the psychological, moral and political implications of what we eat, and on prospects for non-violent social change.
Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.
— Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste, Brillat-Savarin, Jean-Anthelme, (Penguin Books, 1994): p.13.
Getting back into fasting after a break is difficult. In the past, I would fast for two days in every week, but occasionally challenged myself to extend that by a day or two, maybe three, until one day — evidently one day too many — I collapsed like a device unplugged and cracked my head on the sink …
On the Perpetration of Mass-Death Events
The holocaust now visited on Palestine by US-Israel is unique in many ways. Rates of killing and maiming exceed those of previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, the perpetrators announce their genocidal intent with unusual frankness, and Western media and official apologists are especially shameless.
But in a world under centuries of West European domination, this particular intentional genocide/mass-death event ought to seem familiar. These mass killings have always been necessary for the global system to function, providing land for settlement, cultivation and resource extraction, labor for hyper-exploitation, and geopolitical power.
In the “long 16th century” (~1450 to ~1650) the capitalist world system …
Shaping the Political Race
Will Joe Manchin become the next U.S. president?
The divisive America of today longs for the time when the country united in one mission and selected a leader it could trust to accomplish the mission. The year is 1940 and the New York Times estimates that incumbent president, Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. (FDR), a non-declared and drafted candidate for the Democratic Party (D) nomination, will have 691.5 delegates before the convention, well ahead of his two rivals, Vice-President John Garner’s 69.5 delegates and Postmaster General James Farley’s 38.5.delegates. At the convention, FDR wins the nomination on the first ballot by near acclamation.
Before the Republican (GOP) convention, …
War in Gaza: Decoding Nasrallah’s speeches
Since he was elected Hezbollah Secretary General in 1992, following Israel’s assassination of his predecessor and mentor Sayed Abbas Mousawi, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah has achieved a very special status in the history of Arab & Muslim leaders. As Norman Finkelstein put it, “Nasrallah is the only political leader in the world from whom you learn in the speeches. He is a teacher. He is among the shrewdest and most serious political observers in the world today. Israeli leaders carefully scrutinize Nasrallah’s every word.” And denouncing the relentless censorship suffered by my translation …
Coming to Terms with a Lifetime of Trauma While in Prison
I am a Black man in prison, and I want to talk about trauma. I want us all to be able to talk about trauma.
I’m here because when I was a teenager and young man, I made many bad life choices involving drugs and violence. Living with the consequences of my actions is not always easy, but I keep moving forward toward redemption. As I have struggled to understand those choices, I also have realized I must go further back in my life, long before I committed a crime, if I want to heal myself.
When I was a child, I …
Human Connection and Social Change
Standing on a corner,
alone,
in the early morning
half-dark, half-light,
You, waiting for
the commuter bus
to take you to
the Big Apple,
Me, on one of my
3/4 times a week
long distance bike rides,
approaching you,
30-20-10 feet away,
And our eyes meet,
followed a second or two later
by a smile,
an involuntary acknowledgement,
you to me
and vice-versa,
that though we
don’t know each other
and may never see
each other again,
Today, this morning,
for literally one second,
we felt the warmth,
the quiet joy,
the reassurance
of human connection.
I wrote this poem in 2016. I was reminded of it by something which happened yesterday morning.
I’ve been sick for a week and a half, needing to stay home and concentrate on trying …
Israel and its Allies are Repurposing the Goals and Lies of 1948 in Gaza in 2023
Israel is openly carrying out ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Yet, just as happened with the first Nakba in 1948, Israel’s lies and deceptions dominate the West’s media and political narrative
History is repeating itself – and every politician and establishment journalist is pretending they cannot see what is staring them in the face. There is a collective and wilful refusal to join the dots in Gaza, even when they point in one direction only.
There has been a consistent pattern to Israel’s behaviour since its creation 75 years ago – just as there has been a consistent pattern to the “see no evil, hear no evil” response of western powers.
In 1948, in events the Palestinians call their “Nakba”, or Catastrophe, 80 percent of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their lands …
What If the Constitution No Longer Applied?
Freedom’s Greatest Hour of Danger Is Now
We are approaching critical mass, the point at which all hell breaks loose.
The government is pushing us ever closer to a constitutional crisis.
What makes the outlook so much bleaker is the utter ignorance of the American people—and those who represent them—about their freedoms, history, and how the government is supposed to operate.
As Morris Berman points out in his book Dark Ages America, “70 percent of American adults cannot name their senators or congressmen; more than half don’t know the actual number of senators, and nearly a quarter cannot name a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment. Sixty-three percent …
Inscrutable Belief
Belief is a choice that is antithetical to critical thinking.
Xi Jinping in the US
News on China No. 172
This week’s News on China. Sources:
• Xi Jinping in the US
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplo…
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/20231…
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/artic…
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Inte…
• BYD catches up with Tesla
Lawrence M. Peters
His June 18, 1996 obituary in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is short and succinct:
Lawrence M. Peters, 78, a retired Allied Mills employee, was found dead Friday [June 13] in Teague. Funeral: 11 a.m. today at Avant A.M.E. Church in Teague. Burial: Fairfield. Mr. Peters retired in 1982.
It’s not much of a lede, but it’s where we should start.
Lawrence M. Peters died on June 13, 1996, and his obit ran on June 18. No picture. No next of kin listed. No mention of his loved ones.
Most of the obits around it have pictures of the deceased, several lines about the lives …
Collectivist, Individualist and Communist Selves Part II
Summary of Part I
In Part I of my article, we began by distinguishing the social self from two forms of identity that are often confused with it: temperament and personality. The focus of part one is to show how very social (or even socialist) was the work of social psychologist George Herbert Mead. We discussed in detail the thirteen building blocks necessary for creating the social self. This self must construct both an objective and subjective identity. From here even by the age of eight the child must learn to navigate routine, …
Entitlement
For shallow thinkers.
For Crazed Pro-Israel Crowd even Trudeau is an Antisemite
“Justin Trudeau is and always has been an antisemite”, according to Canada’s former ambassador to Israel. While Vivian Bercovici has staked out an extreme position, other commentators have expressed some variation of this perspective since the PM expressed opposition to killing of babies.
In a statement in which he repeatedly condemned Hamas and failed to explicitly call for a ceasefire, Trudeau told the press “we’re hearing the testimonies of doctors, family members, survivors, kids who’ve lost their parents. The world is witnessing this — the killing of women and children, of babies. …
Born Unequal
A glimpse into apartheid.
Rigging Avian Ballots: New Zealand’s Bird of the Century Competition
They can be a serious lot in New Zealand. They got upset at – forgive this author such reference – the use of a rule in cricket back in February 1981 which led to expressions of misty anger from the Prime Minister of the day, Robert Muldoon. While permissible within the laws of cricket, sides are generally not meant to bowl underarm. This, Greg Chappell’s Australians did. “I thought it most appropriate that the Australian team was dressed in yellow,” Muldoon fumed.
Recently, mild tempers were stirred by what could be regarded as a form of ballot interference, this time …
Showdown at COP28
$200 trillion is needed to stop global warming.
— Bloomberg New Energy Finance
Buckle up, fireworks will be going off in a couple weeks in the pristine complex known as Dubai. World leaders, climate scientists, environmentalists, and fossil fuel producers will clash over the outlook for climate change and the impact of global warming, or should it be called global heating? Already, there are signs of tension, as explained in a recent BBC News headline: “Deep Divisions Ahead of Crucial UN Climate Talks” d/d October 31, 2023.
The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, more …
A Duty to Obey: David McBride, Whistleblowing and Following Orders
The unpardonable, outrageous trial of Australian whistleblower David McBride was a brief affair. On November 13, it did not take long for the brutal power of the Commonwealth to become evident. McBride, having disclosed material that formed the Australian public about alleged war crimes by special forces in Afghanistan, was going to be made an example of.
McBride served as a major in the British army before becoming a lawyer for the Australian Defence Force, serving two tours in Afghanistan over 2011 and 2013. During that time, he gathered material about the culture and operations of Australia’s special forces that would …
Here Comes the Rain Again
The rain has been almost constant these early months of 1996. Great storms from the US have arrived even to here, the Caribbean coast of Honduras, thousands of kilometers to the south. At times in Tela, the run-off courses thigh-deep.
And every day, it seems, some piece of news about those Northern-owned Fruit Companies has flooded the papers. A banana war has begun between them and the European Community. Accusations and denials gust through the pages of El Tiempo and La Prensa.
In February, I read in La Prensa of some campesinos who have taken over lands of the Tela RR Co. …
Killing the Story
The ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza has been described as the deadliest period for journalists. 53% of all journalists killed by Israel between 2000-2023 were killed during Israel’s current assault on Gaza. Journalists in Gaza are finding it more difficult to report Israeli atrocities due to prolonged periods of communication blackouts. With 48 media facilities in Gaza hit or destroyed, Israel is committing a genocide under a complete media blackout.
Gaza Water 2023
Before the genocide, Palestinians in Gaza struggled to access clean water, with 97% of Gaza’s freshwater resources contaminated due to the Israeli blockade and repeated bombardments. Many families in poverty were forced to spend a third or more of their income to purchase water from unregulated sources, with the hopes that it is safe. Now, this already dire situation is exponentially worse.
CODEPINK Launches International Campaign Urging ICC Investigation into Israel’s Alleged War Crimes in Gaza
THE HAGUE — In the wake of alarming statements by Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which have been perceived as incitement to genocide in Palestine, CODEPINK and its international partners are spearheading a global letter-writing initiative calling for an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Since the commencement of Israel’s military offensive after October 7, 2023, Gaza has been subjected to a series of war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to Article 5 of the Rome Statute, the ICC holds jurisdiction in cases where states are “unable” or “unwilling” to …
From Gaza with Rage
The repeating Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza are beyond my own comprehension. For at least 10 of the last 40 days, missiles have rained down on the most densely populated refugee camp in all of Gaza.
And it is not just the days; it is also the nights. The bombing is done in the dark, when the power is off and the only light is from the fires that burn. It is done when the internet is cut, when the journalists are shot dead, to hide their crimes, the burning of children.
I have …
A Modern Day Addiction
How disciplined are most people?
Korea: Colonized, Plundered, Divided, Devastated by War, under Ongoing Threat of War
The War on Korea (1950-53) was suspended with an armistice agreement. A hostile truce has persisted ever since. With respect to that ongoing confrontation, what Americans get from their government and their news mass media abounds with crucial omissions and misleading distortions resulting in a false portrayal of the geopolitical realities. Relevant history and essential facts.
The Fight for National Independence
Korea was unified as a nation by the 10th century. During the last half of the 19th century, multiple invasions by foreign powers (US, France, Britain, and Japan) forced the country to allow foreign capital to enter and operate in Korea. [1]
In 1905, …
The God Card: What’s in Your Wallet?
It wasn’t so long ago that the truly faithful knew with certainty that Donald Trump was chosen by God to be president of The United States of America. They knew it, not because God had materialized at the base of the Washington Monument to publicly announce the appointment; they knew it via the usual human grapevine. For reasons most cryptic, God eschews public appearances and chooses to communicate the big stuff through special emissaries. Luckily for the less than special, the Lord chooses wisely and his certified go-betweens obligingly and unerringly put the news out for general consumption.
It’s not clear …
Superstitions
How does the legend of vampires cowering at a cross compare to people acquiescing to COVID-19 mandates?
The Intimate Embrace Between Liberalism and the Far Right
The Forty-Sixth Newsletter (2023)
For Comrade N. Sankaraiah (1922–2023)
One of the curiosities of our time is that the far right is quite comfortable with the established institutions of liberal democracy. There are instances here and there of disgruntled political leaders who refuse to accept their defeat at the ballot box (such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro) and then call upon their supporters to take extra-parliamentary action (as on 6 January 2021 in the United States and, in a farcical repetition, on 8 January 2023 in Brazil). But, by and large, the far right knows …
The Politics of Indefinite Detention in Australia
The High Court of Australia is not known for its zealotry in protecting human rights, and certainly not when considering the persuasive pull of international law and conventions. The Australian Parliament is usually given a generous hand in making policies that tend to outrage such conventions, a freedom made that much easier by an absence of any bill of rights.
A grim example of this was the 2004 High Court decision of Al-Kateb v Godwin, which gave the Commonwealth full assurance that policies on indefinitely detaining unwanted, designated “unlawful” arrivals were entirely within its power. The case concerned the application …