Breaking news! South Africa has taken the lead in referring Israel to the International Court of Justice for the acts of genocide in Gaza! This is an extremely important step. Thank you, South Africa!
If everyone could read this essay and grok it to their core we might still have a chance. Starting with all the sociopaths in positions of power. Never going to happen of course, but an old man can still dream. Thankfully Chris Hedges has a gift to tell the truth with his crafted words, even as those words endlessly break my heart. It feels like a struggle to get out of bed every day, knowing that things will be worse. I intend to hold onto my compassionate humanity until the day I die, and reading writers like Chris Hedges help me along the way towards that end.
Thank you. Well, on an encouraging note: We have Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Katie Halper, Max Blumenthal and so many more, speaking the truth about this genocide, as Democrats, with the academy and censorship apparatus working together, lead our country into totalitarianism, banning Trump from the ballot, so on. I would add two writers to your partial list of folks who warned us about totalitarianism: Norman Cohn and Milton Mayer.
From Mayer:
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter."
May Genocide Joe and his buddy Barbaric Bibi burn in Hellacious Hell for eternity along with all their supporters for unleashing hell on the rest of us who simply want to get along with each other. Why is it that sociopaths rise to positions of power and reign terror and death upon the world? All my life I’ve felt like I got off on the wrong bus stop when I incarnated here. And things are only going to get worse and worse until we kill ourselves off along with most flora and fauna. I would wish everyone a Happy New Year, but it would be a lie as we continue devolving into unimaginable dystopia.
Thank you for your ruthlessly honest analysis of this horrific situation. I learned from Democracy Now yesterday that there are many children in Gaza who require the amputation of one of their limbs as a result of the bombings. These amputations are being performed without anesthesia since no more anesthetics are available. If they are lucky enough to survive such an ordeal, these innocent children will likely be traumatized for the rest of their lives.
As Orwell's Obrien said about what the future will be "A boot on a human face forever, and remember I said forever"! Forever said twice, puts the fascist power elite in perspective. The MSM has pretty well ignored the daily Kristallnacht's taking place in the West Bank before Oct 7 and doubled down ever since. It made me sick today, hearing the Aljazeera interviewed Palestinian's rounded up and zip tied, so tight their hands were turning blue, waiting in lines of humiliation for their turn for interrogation. Raising your blind folded head got immediate beatings. All the while searching and destroying property in their apartments! Today the 6 o'clock news of CNBC, CNN and ABC had no story about Gaza at all! Ignorance is Strength when it comes to Israel. The 30 deaths in Ukraine by Russian rockets took top spot, along with big waves in California and the tight security of Times Sq. for New Years Eve celebrations. New York's Cop/Mayor Eric Adams promised drones, helicopters, war horses and walking torture chamber Swat Teams and machine gun toting cops to keep everyone "SAFE". Saying in this heightened time of the Israeli Hamas war they were needed, but admitted there were no real threats reported! Paranoia is good enough and good enough to pass it to all the ignorant sheep! BBBAAAHHHH!
What Chris writes here is likely true.........for the most part. But we also need to remember how the western propaganda machine has whitewashed Israel and erased as much as possible, the west's understanding of who the native people of Palestine actually are.
Over 40 years ago I had a friend who was doing a masters in Political Science, and who became radicalized around what we had done to the Palestinians. I remember wanting to avoid talking to her, since I was a busy teacher and mother of two........with enough overload already. Still, she was my first real encounter with the complex situation in the Holy Land...and though it appalled me...and though from that time on, I understood who the boys throwing stones were......there wasn't any real movement in Canada that had the media's attention in the way this war has it now.
And even now......our CBC is shaming me with the pussy footing way it discusses the war...it can't hide what is happening, as the death toll in Gaza mounts.........but the reports come mainly from inside Israel...and the only time I've heard them use the term 'genocide' is to describe the Hamas attack on Oct 7.
By now that selective use of the term is ludicrous.......at least for me and my partner. But there is still something of a mafia out and about defending Israel. No one loses their job for being on the side of the state of Israel....but it can be politically dangerous to support the people in Gaza and the Left Bank. People resort to blaming Hamas for it all.......but I think they know that's ridiculous at this point as well.
I think many people are waking up to how dreadful the Israeli state is and has been.....but it leaves them disoriented....and perhaps afraid.
It's not only the global south and parts of Africa and Asia that are seeing how easily the bombs might fall on any of us.....I think we're all getting it. It might just feel like one more horror in a rising sea of disasters, threats and dangers that seem to be coming for all of us....covid, climate disasters, wars everywhere.........and of course ethnic cleansing as an inevitable part of a world in crisis. There's not enough to go around....not at the level we in the privileged parts of the world wish to live.
So where do we start.......where do we stand? And does it even matter what we do or don't do? It all feels so awful, and so hopeless....
But for sure: the Western powers have a black eye in this genocide..........and anyone with half a brain can see that.
"The price for this more convenient atonement was robbing the Palestinians of every basic and natural right they had and allowing the Zionist movement to ethnically cleanse them without fear of any rebuke or condemnation.”
The Holocaust was weaponized from almost the moment Israel was founded."
What the world has been calling "reparation" has actually been blackmail. Yes. This is the truth. It feels so right to finally call it what it is.
I believe that what is happening now in Gaza is even uglier....it feels like payback to the world for what Jews suffered during the holocaust, with Palestinians bearing the worst of it, but all of us suffering the pain and damage. Their collective memory has been holding onto that outrage and wanting to punish someone...anyone....EVERYONE!....for generations. It is bloodlust now. They let the monster out of the cage and it won't stop killing, maiming and destroying until it is exhausted.
If I sound unhinged, I apologize. I'm feeling very Gazan right now. I'm in a bunker, underground, in the dark, hungry, cold and terrified, and listening to a young soldier of Hamas weep for his people.
If I die, at least I won't have to go back to my miserable, hopeless life.
This is the most powerful and humane account of us that I have ever read. It is hard to look in the mirror after reading this and feel adequately civilized.
We are in our 70s and have never read the Bible from beginning to end, so decided to do that this year. We did not realize before that when God promised land to the Jews, he knew the land already had other people living there; it appears to us that Numbers 33 contains pretty detailed instructions straight from God on how to commit genocide. I know, unlike me, you are a Biblical scholar, so perhaps some commentary on this might be warranted?
Thank you once again for your brilliant and focussed analysis. There are too few who are willing to stand for justice in the face of overwhelming power. You are a true beacon.
My own attempt is to do what I can to help establish a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, not with Palestinians suffering under oppressive conditions, but as a place where all live with peace and equality. It is time for Pope Francis to do more than talk. He must go to Gaza and make a stand for peace and freedom.
Breaking news! South Africa has taken the lead in referring Israel to the International Court of Justice for the acts of genocide in Gaza! This is an extremely important step. Thank you, South Africa!
Wow. This is an absolute masterpiece. Thank you!
If everyone could read this essay and grok it to their core we might still have a chance. Starting with all the sociopaths in positions of power. Never going to happen of course, but an old man can still dream. Thankfully Chris Hedges has a gift to tell the truth with his crafted words, even as those words endlessly break my heart. It feels like a struggle to get out of bed every day, knowing that things will be worse. I intend to hold onto my compassionate humanity until the day I die, and reading writers like Chris Hedges help me along the way towards that end.
Your most concise, powerful and clear writing yet on the ongoing genocide.
Thank you. Well, on an encouraging note: We have Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Katie Halper, Max Blumenthal and so many more, speaking the truth about this genocide, as Democrats, with the academy and censorship apparatus working together, lead our country into totalitarianism, banning Trump from the ballot, so on. I would add two writers to your partial list of folks who warned us about totalitarianism: Norman Cohn and Milton Mayer.
From Mayer:
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter."
-- Milton Mayer's They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (University of Chicago Press. ©1955).
May Genocide Joe and his buddy Barbaric Bibi burn in Hellacious Hell for eternity along with all their supporters for unleashing hell on the rest of us who simply want to get along with each other. Why is it that sociopaths rise to positions of power and reign terror and death upon the world? All my life I’ve felt like I got off on the wrong bus stop when I incarnated here. And things are only going to get worse and worse until we kill ourselves off along with most flora and fauna. I would wish everyone a Happy New Year, but it would be a lie as we continue devolving into unimaginable dystopia.
Thank you for your ruthlessly honest analysis of this horrific situation. I learned from Democracy Now yesterday that there are many children in Gaza who require the amputation of one of their limbs as a result of the bombings. These amputations are being performed without anesthesia since no more anesthetics are available. If they are lucky enough to survive such an ordeal, these innocent children will likely be traumatized for the rest of their lives.
As Orwell's Obrien said about what the future will be "A boot on a human face forever, and remember I said forever"! Forever said twice, puts the fascist power elite in perspective. The MSM has pretty well ignored the daily Kristallnacht's taking place in the West Bank before Oct 7 and doubled down ever since. It made me sick today, hearing the Aljazeera interviewed Palestinian's rounded up and zip tied, so tight their hands were turning blue, waiting in lines of humiliation for their turn for interrogation. Raising your blind folded head got immediate beatings. All the while searching and destroying property in their apartments! Today the 6 o'clock news of CNBC, CNN and ABC had no story about Gaza at all! Ignorance is Strength when it comes to Israel. The 30 deaths in Ukraine by Russian rockets took top spot, along with big waves in California and the tight security of Times Sq. for New Years Eve celebrations. New York's Cop/Mayor Eric Adams promised drones, helicopters, war horses and walking torture chamber Swat Teams and machine gun toting cops to keep everyone "SAFE". Saying in this heightened time of the Israeli Hamas war they were needed, but admitted there were no real threats reported! Paranoia is good enough and good enough to pass it to all the ignorant sheep! BBBAAAHHHH!
What Chris writes here is likely true.........for the most part. But we also need to remember how the western propaganda machine has whitewashed Israel and erased as much as possible, the west's understanding of who the native people of Palestine actually are.
Over 40 years ago I had a friend who was doing a masters in Political Science, and who became radicalized around what we had done to the Palestinians. I remember wanting to avoid talking to her, since I was a busy teacher and mother of two........with enough overload already. Still, she was my first real encounter with the complex situation in the Holy Land...and though it appalled me...and though from that time on, I understood who the boys throwing stones were......there wasn't any real movement in Canada that had the media's attention in the way this war has it now.
And even now......our CBC is shaming me with the pussy footing way it discusses the war...it can't hide what is happening, as the death toll in Gaza mounts.........but the reports come mainly from inside Israel...and the only time I've heard them use the term 'genocide' is to describe the Hamas attack on Oct 7.
By now that selective use of the term is ludicrous.......at least for me and my partner. But there is still something of a mafia out and about defending Israel. No one loses their job for being on the side of the state of Israel....but it can be politically dangerous to support the people in Gaza and the Left Bank. People resort to blaming Hamas for it all.......but I think they know that's ridiculous at this point as well.
I think many people are waking up to how dreadful the Israeli state is and has been.....but it leaves them disoriented....and perhaps afraid.
It's not only the global south and parts of Africa and Asia that are seeing how easily the bombs might fall on any of us.....I think we're all getting it. It might just feel like one more horror in a rising sea of disasters, threats and dangers that seem to be coming for all of us....covid, climate disasters, wars everywhere.........and of course ethnic cleansing as an inevitable part of a world in crisis. There's not enough to go around....not at the level we in the privileged parts of the world wish to live.
So where do we start.......where do we stand? And does it even matter what we do or don't do? It all feels so awful, and so hopeless....
But for sure: the Western powers have a black eye in this genocide..........and anyone with half a brain can see that.
"The price for this more convenient atonement was robbing the Palestinians of every basic and natural right they had and allowing the Zionist movement to ethnically cleanse them without fear of any rebuke or condemnation.”
The Holocaust was weaponized from almost the moment Israel was founded."
What the world has been calling "reparation" has actually been blackmail. Yes. This is the truth. It feels so right to finally call it what it is.
I believe that what is happening now in Gaza is even uglier....it feels like payback to the world for what Jews suffered during the holocaust, with Palestinians bearing the worst of it, but all of us suffering the pain and damage. Their collective memory has been holding onto that outrage and wanting to punish someone...anyone....EVERYONE!....for generations. It is bloodlust now. They let the monster out of the cage and it won't stop killing, maiming and destroying until it is exhausted.
If I sound unhinged, I apologize. I'm feeling very Gazan right now. I'm in a bunker, underground, in the dark, hungry, cold and terrified, and listening to a young soldier of Hamas weep for his people.
If I die, at least I won't have to go back to my miserable, hopeless life.
Happy New Year, Chris Hedges and friends.
This is the most powerful and humane account of us that I have ever read. It is hard to look in the mirror after reading this and feel adequately civilized.
BROVO, Mr. Fish! The most telling of them all.
We are in our 70s and have never read the Bible from beginning to end, so decided to do that this year. We did not realize before that when God promised land to the Jews, he knew the land already had other people living there; it appears to us that Numbers 33 contains pretty detailed instructions straight from God on how to commit genocide. I know, unlike me, you are a Biblical scholar, so perhaps some commentary on this might be warranted?
Thank you once again for your brilliant and focussed analysis. There are too few who are willing to stand for justice in the face of overwhelming power. You are a true beacon.
My own attempt is to do what I can to help establish a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, not with Palestinians suffering under oppressive conditions, but as a place where all live with peace and equality. It is time for Pope Francis to do more than talk. He must go to Gaza and make a stand for peace and freedom.
Please sign the petition and share widely.
https://chng.it/CRQ7qw4Gzn
Other petitions, including
Codepink:
https://www.codepink.org/cnngaza?utm_campaign=12_15_pali_update_alert_3&utm_medium=email&utm_source=codepink
Ceasefire Now:
https://www.change.org/p/sign-and-share-this-urgent-petition-calling-for-a-ceasefirenow-in-gaza-and-israel
Signing petitions is one small thing we can do. If we can do more, let us do more.
This is one of those writings, which stuns you. I hope this widely shared. Thank you for all you do.
Reading Chris Hedges gives me faith there is the hope of sanity and humanity in the world. We must preserve it.