There are scores of Palestinian writers and photographers, many of whom have been killed, who are determined to make us see the horror of this genocide. They will vanquish the lies of the killers.
Once again your incredibly beautiful writing of this epic horror has moved me to tears. Tears for the dead, tears for the wounded, tears for all those trapped in this waking nightmare and finally tears for my own shame. The great Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil, not to act is to act”. It is my country that makes me cry in shame for not just it’s silence and failure to act but in it support for this evil committed in the full light and without one scintilla of its own shame. As I sit in comfort and safety I fear for the justice of history which will call us to account for what is being done in our names and our tax dollars. Thank you for always refusing to remain silent and for your never ending eloquence
The quote from Edmund Burke was simply agreeing and supporting the quote from Bonhoeffer that Vinnie included in his post. The last sentence is by way of pointing out that Burke said 'good men', understandable because in Burkes' day women had no vote or power. In modern language, at least in most western countries, that should be 'most people'.
No, not entertained but based on his empathy developed from his years of being at the front lines of many conflicts as a journalist to be enlightened by his experience.
I wish I had not liked this comment but I hit on the like by mistake.
Tell me Pita what have you got against a man who reports on war and what he sees?
Obviously you are not a citizen who has been in a war zone.
Americans do NOT know what war is yet you vote for 'warmongers' in the name of Democracy which you do NOT have.
I have lived in war and it's violent and the first people who suffer are women.When soldiers come into a war zone they seem to think it's OK to rape women and kill baby's. Women who have given birth to children.
No ... you think I'm a troll because you can't possibly believe this man has been intimidated into deserting the principles he espoused for the past two decades ... but ya see, there are people out there like Hedges' friend Naomi Wolfe and former Phizer exec Karen Kingston who are risking their lives to expose the truth ...
The Cost of Bearing Witness...broke my heart. Yes I wept. I still get tears while thinking about it. I will be thinking about it for a long time. I hope, in fact, that I never forget it...though it is a nightmare, which includes the image of my 10 year old granddaughter without her legs, without her hand, without pain medication, without her family, without hope, and begging for death. My two adult sons and my daughter under tons of rubble that used to be their family home....but was never a refuge. They have none. They have no safe place. There's nothing I can do to help or protect them.
Thousands of pregnant Palestinian "Mary's" giving birth in the Giant Zionist designed Manger called Gaza! While celebrating Christmas for millennia, was anything learned? Jesus the Prince of Peace was considered a heretic, today in Israel he would be called a "self hater" and traitor! As the Genocide continues, over 20,000 so far. Quoting Gwynne Dyer "Ranking with the worst air raids in WW2, the firestorm of Dresden killed 25,000 German civilians, the first thousand bomber raid killed 40,000 in Hamburg in 1943. About ONE IN A HUNDRED of the residents of Gaza have been killed so far in 75 days. Compared to Germany from 1942-45 500,000 German civilians were killed or ONE IN ONEHUNDRED AND SIXTY over four years! Palestinian's are therefore having a much worse time than German civilians under British and American bomber raids!" As Chicken Hawks Genocide Joe, Bloody Blinken and Butcher Bibi play 21st century Wise Men! WAR IS PEACE IN ORWELL WORLD ISRAEL!
Yes Jon, and I trust you also know that nothing exists to prevent U.S. citizens from eventually being tortured by our own military personnel ... rest assured that all the justification U.S. military officials may need can be found in the bible ... the bible is actually beautifully vague on the topic of torture ... so vague, that it begs for "meaningful" interpretation ...
If you re-read the Gospels, you will understand the teachings of Christ. Revelations and most of the New Testament was written by men who didn't even know Jesus, let alone learn from him.
Nobel Peace Prize for literature to Chris Hedges. But even that award has been wesponized. Thanks Chris. Thank you also for making me be a proud member of Veterans for Peace where you are an active member of our Advisor Board.
Your stories, experiences, touch me, and leave my heart weeping and grateful for the sensitivity that deeply appreciates La Vida and courageously defies the brutes drive to hollow it out and throw it on the ash heap for the faux thrill of power at others’ precious expense. Cuidate a ti y tu familia.💚
You never fail to remind us of our common humanity, and of the damage the powerful and demented by ideology have so often done to it. We will be carrying candles in a silent vigil tonight for the people of Gaza......and I keep thinking:
IF WE WERE TRULY A FREE PEOPLE....ALL OF US WOULD BE IN THE STREETS TONIGHT...TOMORROW NIGHT...AND EVERY DAY AND NIGHT TO COME...until this genocidal slaughter ends and real Peace on Earth comes to pass.
Whatever we believe.........we fail that belief when our passivity lets this continue. Thank you Chris Hedges for everything you write.
I don't know how to thank you for these words, these heartbreaking images. They are unbearable. But the Gazans and Palestinians - truly our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our own beloved children - whose suffering we are witnessing daily need all of our tears, need us to grieve with them, our remembering them, and need our unflinching witnessing.
I don't know what brings us to our life tasks, but I am so grateful to you, Chris, and for the difficult one you have carried and that you have the courage and heart to share with us.
Chris you have exceeded my expectation of writing about war.
Interestingly I am reading the newest book about John Donne: Super-Infinitive by Katherine Rundell. I don't particularly like the book but Donne's writing is sublime.
I am an artist and am fighting the American public (I am not a war correspondent) BUT I have seen DEADLY war in Sri Lanka and have NEVER forgotten it. Perhaps one day I can write about it. To see a man dragged from a bus and beaten to death by mindless citizens has and still does change my life. MY probable age was about 6yrs old. I just remember my mother ripping me away from the window and nothing was said.
Americans do NOT know war and I feel until they do nothing will change.
MY Father was in the 2nd World War in the desert. He got a wound in his knee and was taken out of service because he could not walk.
MY brother and sister tried to get him to talk about war BUT he couldn't. The atrocities he saw made him an insomniac all his life. My mother tried to stop us asking questions. WRONG.
IF we as human beings (men in particular) do not talk to our family friends we are screwed.
What is it to "bear witness?" Mr. Fish's drawing shows us clearly what it is, and at the same time, why so many of us cannot do this.
Thank you Mr. Fish, and Chris Hedges for bridging the gap of the pain of the distant "other" to my safe and filled with daily busy-ness being, so I can feel the pain of the world and begin to reclaim my self.
Your writing so often moves me to tears as does this essay. I have the Harper's magazine with your article Gaza Diary. I copied the part of the article in which you talk about the sadism of the Israelis where they taunt children and shoot them for sport. I have used that part to confront supporters of that evil country. What breaks my heart even more is that is is my people committing those crimes on Palestinians. When I was young and very naive I never dreamed for a minute that Jews could be cruel, evil and sadistic. Israel proved that I was wrong.
Thank you for your words. They should sound out around the world and especially into the White House, the supporters of the Gaza genocide.
Jesus is a Palestinian. A Jewish man who came to give us a "New Law": The new law is simple, it is "Love thy neighbor as thyself" -- Treat others as you wish to be treated. In the 3 most prominent holy books there is a common verse, in the Bible it is Micah 6:8 = "What does the Lord require of you? That you act justly, Love mercy, and walk humbly with your God".
For all we know he could have been a crazy person or a myth, or even a con artist; But the teachings he tried to impart are good ones. Most people who profess to follow his teaching do no such thing. They use Christianity like a weapon. He would be furious with their hypocrisy. I am not a Christian. I dislike religion. But I do like and attempt to practice what many different ones teach. I love the Dalai Lama. His religion is Kindness.
Jon, you don’t appear to have much charity in you, do you? You are also very ahistorical. Why do you need to argue with history? That leads to nowhere. What matters about documents is how you use them. Of course, that use can be bigoted.
I agree with you. Isn't that what I said? The "kindness" quote came from the Dalai Lama who is Buddhist. What he actually said was: My religion is simple. It is kindness.
There's too much hate in your posts against religion Jon...and while I sympathize in part, (I left my church because it seemed all talk and not much active politic) I'm not sure you're achieving anything by sweeping generalizations about western religions. A lot of people who care not a bit about old or new testament, the Torah or the Koran are engaged in defending this current genocide in Gaza.
It's a mistake to mistake the whited sepulchres for the church/synogague/ temple.
What is ridiculous Jon is your repetitious condemnation of religion in general and the originating Old Testament in particular. You make valid points about the ethnocentrism to be found in the Bible, but it sounds as if you are more obsessed with it than are many Jews, Christians or Moslems.....and its a piece of this puzzle, not the entire ball of wax.
Were we to follow you down your highway, we'd pretty soon replace one set of intolerances with another. The power of old religions are already on the wane, and just maybe....I'm not a Goddess so can't say for certain sure....just maybe, there are other factors in play in this tragedy.
Land thieves often use religion as an excuse. Most often they have no religion but the worship of Mammon. Come to think of it, Mammon may well be who Americans actually worship.....and the money made, in every part of your country, from the production and sale of weapons of mass destruction, might have more to do, not just with this genocide, but with the snailmate in the Ukraine.......than you imagine.
So while I don't disagree with parts of your rants about western religions, I do think you might branch out a bit..........and consider why so many of your countrymen continue to support Israel.
From up here in Canada..........it looks like the black hoof prints of the oil and gas industry are all over any conflict that uses up lots of bombs and destroys lots of homes. It might be the Petro God...that Black Beast of a deity....that fuels the wars the west loves to cheer for.
Who is it demonizes the Other until its okay to kill all the OTHER'SPEOPLE??? Who is it sanctions Cuba, Venezuela, Iran.....and anyone else it decides has voted for the wrong party???
You don't have to be a Christian, a Moslem or a Jew to worship the Stars and Stripes and tell yourself that flag can do no wrong.
Forgive me, but I've got my hands full not hating the lot of you.....even though my intellect tells me that would be to commit a sweeping generalization and risk my immortal pagan soul.
Jon....take a few deep breaths, perhaps re read what you've written....and consider whether it is necessary to bring the entire his story of western religions into everything you write.
It feels obsessive. It feels as if you have THE ANSWER to everything happening now....and I capitalize THE ANSWER for a reason.
I'm a retired English teacher, who taught dialogically with discussion, writing workshop and presentation. My goal was to have every student able to express their ideas and feelings, in a variety of formats.........to bring them into their voice, and away from those BIG VOICES in their heads that made them feel inadequate.
To be successful, I had to SHUT UP. Literally, my ideas could not trump theirs. My job became not to drill ANSWERS into their heads but to open up their minds to their questions and imaginings. I believed that many didn't learn to write well because no one gave them the time to think well.....and everyone in the know it all west was on the ready quick to tell them where they'd gone wrong.
If we had all the answers Jon.......if everything reduced to "THE TROUBLE WITH JUDEO-CHRISTIANITY.ISLAM....would we be in the mess we are now???? It's not just Israel and Gaza, there's Ukraine and Russia, there's Sudan, there's Somalia, there's rapidly moving climate change. These are all signs of dysfunction, of messes we've managed to make working together and apart. Our religions may well bear some of the blame...but surely not all.
So my objection is to the way you reduce the current conflict to a religious problem....assuming I guess that if we got rid of our western sky gods things would be better.
Different maybe, but not necessarily better...
Plus, you throw the baby away with the bathwater, forgetting the many good people of faith . In all faiths. Not to mention the good people who left their faith but continue to live according to its best precepts.
And my concern is that in demonizing the faiths of many many people, you actually might be delying the rapid changes we need to make now. Simply put: I don't give a rat's ass what you believe....I watch what you do. As one of our best Canadian writers, Timothy Findley, put it in his classic THE WARS: "Pay attention: People can only be found in what they do."
I'm interested in that: What we are all going to do now, moving forward. I march with Islamic people every week, we're talking....listening to each other, crying together. It feels like the colour line is being dissolved in these gatherings...and I want to cross it so many times its obliterated.
And it may also be true that Racism is an invention of western religious traditions. I wouldn't be surprised. But it got no foothold in my family, and with every cause we work on, it is trampled under more. Let's build a new faith: In Fully Human Beings....
We need so many more of them now and into the future.
Jesus probably never actually existed as an individual, but only as an amazing story. The story of a “desert prophet” who spent a lot of time, like many other prophets, in the sandy wastes, to come back with new insights and declarations of “divine knowledge”, so called inspiration. Most true biblical scholars agree with this type of assessment.
Even Paul of Tarsus, Saint Paul, never heard of Jesus, only his vision of The Christ, who never came to earth. And Paul was the most prolific writer in early Christianity. All religions are based on stories that are just stories, however inspirational, they are all mythical. But myths can be powerful, as per Joseph Campbell.
I should know, I studied them for seven years in seminaries and monasteries in several States, in the Sixties.
Chris lets me know I’m not alone in my grief, horror and shock at the cruelty of war. As a teacher, I hardly know how to face my students. I’m not supposed to be political, yet saying nothing seems cowardly. My mind just keeps returning to this nightmare brought to us, once again, by the US death machine. When will we Americans demand an end to this insanity?
I think Mr. Fish is one of the finest 'illustrators' (I don't like to use the word cartoonist) this country has ever produced. One after the other. One image like this one above and I'm immediately in tears.
As always Mr Hedges' writing touches both the mind and the heart. Like many I find it difficult to read him without shedding tears. My frustration is not knowing how to stop the killing. The bravery of those covering and being killled should be honored by our actions but what are they?
Chris
Once again your incredibly beautiful writing of this epic horror has moved me to tears. Tears for the dead, tears for the wounded, tears for all those trapped in this waking nightmare and finally tears for my own shame. The great Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil, not to act is to act”. It is my country that makes me cry in shame for not just it’s silence and failure to act but in it support for this evil committed in the full light and without one scintilla of its own shame. As I sit in comfort and safety I fear for the justice of history which will call us to account for what is being done in our names and our tax dollars. Thank you for always refusing to remain silent and for your never ending eloquence
Vinnie De Stefano
National Organizing Director
Assange Defense
" All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke.
The Victorian language in no way absolves women by the way.
I really do NOT understand this comment?
The quote from Edmund Burke was simply agreeing and supporting the quote from Bonhoeffer that Vinnie included in his post. The last sentence is by way of pointing out that Burke said 'good men', understandable because in Burkes' day women had no vote or power. In modern language, at least in most western countries, that should be 'most people'.
Thank you for your work defending Assange
Thank you John. The work is its own reward
Vinnie,
Thank you for your comment which puts into words - far more eloquent than mine - how I felt when I read Chris' essay.
Ah, so that's why you follow St Chris so religiously ...
You wish to be entertained, right?
No, not entertained but based on his empathy developed from his years of being at the front lines of many conflicts as a journalist to be enlightened by his experience.
I cry for the Palestinians and I'll pray for you too. Nihilism is unprofitable for your soul.
So did you remember to pray for me last night?
Did you forget? ... eagerly awaiting your reply ...
PITA Contrarian.
I wish I had not liked this comment but I hit on the like by mistake.
Tell me Pita what have you got against a man who reports on war and what he sees?
Obviously you are not a citizen who has been in a war zone.
Americans do NOT know what war is yet you vote for 'warmongers' in the name of Democracy which you do NOT have.
I have lived in war and it's violent and the first people who suffer are women.When soldiers come into a war zone they seem to think it's OK to rape women and kill baby's. Women who have given birth to children.
I posit to you.
IF men had baby's there would be NO war.
And one more thing ...
How on earth would know that I vote warmongers into office?
Much to the contrary ... Hedges is ignoring the war here in the U.S. so he can talk about Israel.
Troll!
Is that all ya got, is that the best you can do?
... call me names?
Can't be bothered - You think you are being provocative but you are just trolling.
No ... you think I'm a troll because you can't possibly believe this man has been intimidated into deserting the principles he espoused for the past two decades ... but ya see, there are people out there like Hedges' friend Naomi Wolfe and former Phizer exec Karen Kingston who are risking their lives to expose the truth ...
The Cost of Bearing Witness...broke my heart. Yes I wept. I still get tears while thinking about it. I will be thinking about it for a long time. I hope, in fact, that I never forget it...though it is a nightmare, which includes the image of my 10 year old granddaughter without her legs, without her hand, without pain medication, without her family, without hope, and begging for death. My two adult sons and my daughter under tons of rubble that used to be their family home....but was never a refuge. They have none. They have no safe place. There's nothing I can do to help or protect them.
My heart is Gaza. Broken. Broken. Broken.
Thousands of pregnant Palestinian "Mary's" giving birth in the Giant Zionist designed Manger called Gaza! While celebrating Christmas for millennia, was anything learned? Jesus the Prince of Peace was considered a heretic, today in Israel he would be called a "self hater" and traitor! As the Genocide continues, over 20,000 so far. Quoting Gwynne Dyer "Ranking with the worst air raids in WW2, the firestorm of Dresden killed 25,000 German civilians, the first thousand bomber raid killed 40,000 in Hamburg in 1943. About ONE IN A HUNDRED of the residents of Gaza have been killed so far in 75 days. Compared to Germany from 1942-45 500,000 German civilians were killed or ONE IN ONEHUNDRED AND SIXTY over four years! Palestinian's are therefore having a much worse time than German civilians under British and American bomber raids!" As Chicken Hawks Genocide Joe, Bloody Blinken and Butcher Bibi play 21st century Wise Men! WAR IS PEACE IN ORWELL WORLD ISRAEL!
Jon. Myth and legend passed down through century's!. It is gossip.
Yes Jon, and I trust you also know that nothing exists to prevent U.S. citizens from eventually being tortured by our own military personnel ... rest assured that all the justification U.S. military officials may need can be found in the bible ... the bible is actually beautifully vague on the topic of torture ... so vague, that it begs for "meaningful" interpretation ...
As a Jew, I resent your generalizations and lies which state that I am a bigot. You are using projection because you are the bigot.
Phil. I don't know who you are talking to in this reply.
I know that before this war on Palestinian people a huge number of Jewish people hated Netnayahu. They were protesting in the streets.
I have many Jewish friends who are really 'scared' now from what Net. has done.
He has put back the clocks and all we can do as citizens in the world is to stop hating people who are not the perpetrators of this genocide.
If you re-read the Gospels, you will understand the teachings of Christ. Revelations and most of the New Testament was written by men who didn't even know Jesus, let alone learn from him.
Jon> This is what Zionists do. Study a book of myth!
Nobel Peace Prize for literature to Chris Hedges. But even that award has been wesponized. Thanks Chris. Thank you also for making me be a proud member of Veterans for Peace where you are an active member of our Advisor Board.
https://www.veteransforpeace.org/
Good comment Jim. Chris Hedges is an outstanding person. He should get the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s me Phil L. your fellow chapter 42 member.
Perfectly written, as always. I hope the Palestinian people know how many stand with them and want peace and justice.
It's our leaders who have to know this......time for another letter to my Canadian PM.
Attacks on journalists reveal the genocidal nature of the Israeli project in Gaza. Regimes that respect human rights do not fear transparency. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/the-first-casualty-of-war-is-the
Your stories, experiences, touch me, and leave my heart weeping and grateful for the sensitivity that deeply appreciates La Vida and courageously defies the brutes drive to hollow it out and throw it on the ash heap for the faux thrill of power at others’ precious expense. Cuidate a ti y tu familia.💚
You never fail to remind us of our common humanity, and of the damage the powerful and demented by ideology have so often done to it. We will be carrying candles in a silent vigil tonight for the people of Gaza......and I keep thinking:
IF WE WERE TRULY A FREE PEOPLE....ALL OF US WOULD BE IN THE STREETS TONIGHT...TOMORROW NIGHT...AND EVERY DAY AND NIGHT TO COME...until this genocidal slaughter ends and real Peace on Earth comes to pass.
Whatever we believe.........we fail that belief when our passivity lets this continue. Thank you Chris Hedges for everything you write.
I don't know how to thank you for these words, these heartbreaking images. They are unbearable. But the Gazans and Palestinians - truly our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our own beloved children - whose suffering we are witnessing daily need all of our tears, need us to grieve with them, our remembering them, and need our unflinching witnessing.
I don't know what brings us to our life tasks, but I am so grateful to you, Chris, and for the difficult one you have carried and that you have the courage and heart to share with us.
Chris you have exceeded my expectation of writing about war.
Interestingly I am reading the newest book about John Donne: Super-Infinitive by Katherine Rundell. I don't particularly like the book but Donne's writing is sublime.
I am an artist and am fighting the American public (I am not a war correspondent) BUT I have seen DEADLY war in Sri Lanka and have NEVER forgotten it. Perhaps one day I can write about it. To see a man dragged from a bus and beaten to death by mindless citizens has and still does change my life. MY probable age was about 6yrs old. I just remember my mother ripping me away from the window and nothing was said.
Americans do NOT know war and I feel until they do nothing will change.
MY Father was in the 2nd World War in the desert. He got a wound in his knee and was taken out of service because he could not walk.
MY brother and sister tried to get him to talk about war BUT he couldn't. The atrocities he saw made him an insomniac all his life. My mother tried to stop us asking questions. WRONG.
IF we as human beings (men in particular) do not talk to our family friends we are screwed.
What is it to "bear witness?" Mr. Fish's drawing shows us clearly what it is, and at the same time, why so many of us cannot do this.
Thank you Mr. Fish, and Chris Hedges for bridging the gap of the pain of the distant "other" to my safe and filled with daily busy-ness being, so I can feel the pain of the world and begin to reclaim my self.
Your writing so often moves me to tears as does this essay. I have the Harper's magazine with your article Gaza Diary. I copied the part of the article in which you talk about the sadism of the Israelis where they taunt children and shoot them for sport. I have used that part to confront supporters of that evil country. What breaks my heart even more is that is is my people committing those crimes on Palestinians. When I was young and very naive I never dreamed for a minute that Jews could be cruel, evil and sadistic. Israel proved that I was wrong.
Thank you for your words. They should sound out around the world and especially into the White House, the supporters of the Gaza genocide.
Jesus is a Palestinian. A Jewish man who came to give us a "New Law": The new law is simple, it is "Love thy neighbor as thyself" -- Treat others as you wish to be treated. In the 3 most prominent holy books there is a common verse, in the Bible it is Micah 6:8 = "What does the Lord require of you? That you act justly, Love mercy, and walk humbly with your God".
For all we know he could have been a crazy person or a myth, or even a con artist; But the teachings he tried to impart are good ones. Most people who profess to follow his teaching do no such thing. They use Christianity like a weapon. He would be furious with their hypocrisy. I am not a Christian. I dislike religion. But I do like and attempt to practice what many different ones teach. I love the Dalai Lama. His religion is Kindness.
Jon, you don’t appear to have much charity in you, do you? You are also very ahistorical. Why do you need to argue with history? That leads to nowhere. What matters about documents is how you use them. Of course, that use can be bigoted.
I agree with you. Isn't that what I said? The "kindness" quote came from the Dalai Lama who is Buddhist. What he actually said was: My religion is simple. It is kindness.
Maybe you should try it sometime.
✌️ Peace.
Which Buddhism are you talking about?
Theravada Buddhism praticed in S. Lanka and Thailand are closely tied to both Govts. Bigotry is alive and well.
There's too much hate in your posts against religion Jon...and while I sympathize in part, (I left my church because it seemed all talk and not much active politic) I'm not sure you're achieving anything by sweeping generalizations about western religions. A lot of people who care not a bit about old or new testament, the Torah or the Koran are engaged in defending this current genocide in Gaza.
It's a mistake to mistake the whited sepulchres for the church/synogague/ temple.
What is ridiculous Jon is your repetitious condemnation of religion in general and the originating Old Testament in particular. You make valid points about the ethnocentrism to be found in the Bible, but it sounds as if you are more obsessed with it than are many Jews, Christians or Moslems.....and its a piece of this puzzle, not the entire ball of wax.
Were we to follow you down your highway, we'd pretty soon replace one set of intolerances with another. The power of old religions are already on the wane, and just maybe....I'm not a Goddess so can't say for certain sure....just maybe, there are other factors in play in this tragedy.
Land thieves often use religion as an excuse. Most often they have no religion but the worship of Mammon. Come to think of it, Mammon may well be who Americans actually worship.....and the money made, in every part of your country, from the production and sale of weapons of mass destruction, might have more to do, not just with this genocide, but with the snailmate in the Ukraine.......than you imagine.
So while I don't disagree with parts of your rants about western religions, I do think you might branch out a bit..........and consider why so many of your countrymen continue to support Israel.
From up here in Canada..........it looks like the black hoof prints of the oil and gas industry are all over any conflict that uses up lots of bombs and destroys lots of homes. It might be the Petro God...that Black Beast of a deity....that fuels the wars the west loves to cheer for.
Who is it demonizes the Other until its okay to kill all the OTHER'SPEOPLE??? Who is it sanctions Cuba, Venezuela, Iran.....and anyone else it decides has voted for the wrong party???
You don't have to be a Christian, a Moslem or a Jew to worship the Stars and Stripes and tell yourself that flag can do no wrong.
Forgive me, but I've got my hands full not hating the lot of you.....even though my intellect tells me that would be to commit a sweeping generalization and risk my immortal pagan soul.
You tell ‘em girlfriend! 👍😉
Jon....take a few deep breaths, perhaps re read what you've written....and consider whether it is necessary to bring the entire his story of western religions into everything you write.
It feels obsessive. It feels as if you have THE ANSWER to everything happening now....and I capitalize THE ANSWER for a reason.
I'm a retired English teacher, who taught dialogically with discussion, writing workshop and presentation. My goal was to have every student able to express their ideas and feelings, in a variety of formats.........to bring them into their voice, and away from those BIG VOICES in their heads that made them feel inadequate.
To be successful, I had to SHUT UP. Literally, my ideas could not trump theirs. My job became not to drill ANSWERS into their heads but to open up their minds to their questions and imaginings. I believed that many didn't learn to write well because no one gave them the time to think well.....and everyone in the know it all west was on the ready quick to tell them where they'd gone wrong.
If we had all the answers Jon.......if everything reduced to "THE TROUBLE WITH JUDEO-CHRISTIANITY.ISLAM....would we be in the mess we are now???? It's not just Israel and Gaza, there's Ukraine and Russia, there's Sudan, there's Somalia, there's rapidly moving climate change. These are all signs of dysfunction, of messes we've managed to make working together and apart. Our religions may well bear some of the blame...but surely not all.
So my objection is to the way you reduce the current conflict to a religious problem....assuming I guess that if we got rid of our western sky gods things would be better.
Different maybe, but not necessarily better...
Plus, you throw the baby away with the bathwater, forgetting the many good people of faith . In all faiths. Not to mention the good people who left their faith but continue to live according to its best precepts.
And my concern is that in demonizing the faiths of many many people, you actually might be delying the rapid changes we need to make now. Simply put: I don't give a rat's ass what you believe....I watch what you do. As one of our best Canadian writers, Timothy Findley, put it in his classic THE WARS: "Pay attention: People can only be found in what they do."
I'm interested in that: What we are all going to do now, moving forward. I march with Islamic people every week, we're talking....listening to each other, crying together. It feels like the colour line is being dissolved in these gatherings...and I want to cross it so many times its obliterated.
And it may also be true that Racism is an invention of western religious traditions. I wouldn't be surprised. But it got no foothold in my family, and with every cause we work on, it is trampled under more. Let's build a new faith: In Fully Human Beings....
We need so many more of them now and into the future.
Jesus probably never actually existed as an individual, but only as an amazing story. The story of a “desert prophet” who spent a lot of time, like many other prophets, in the sandy wastes, to come back with new insights and declarations of “divine knowledge”, so called inspiration. Most true biblical scholars agree with this type of assessment.
Even Paul of Tarsus, Saint Paul, never heard of Jesus, only his vision of The Christ, who never came to earth. And Paul was the most prolific writer in early Christianity. All religions are based on stories that are just stories, however inspirational, they are all mythical. But myths can be powerful, as per Joseph Campbell.
I should know, I studied them for seven years in seminaries and monasteries in several States, in the Sixties.
He was a MYTH
Chris lets me know I’m not alone in my grief, horror and shock at the cruelty of war. As a teacher, I hardly know how to face my students. I’m not supposed to be political, yet saying nothing seems cowardly. My mind just keeps returning to this nightmare brought to us, once again, by the US death machine. When will we Americans demand an end to this insanity?
I feel for you having to teach in this nightmare scenario. Just get the History right and lay it out in front of the kids......is all you can do.
Thank you.❤️
I think Mr. Fish is one of the finest 'illustrators' (I don't like to use the word cartoonist) this country has ever produced. One after the other. One image like this one above and I'm immediately in tears.
As always Mr Hedges' writing touches both the mind and the heart. Like many I find it difficult to read him without shedding tears. My frustration is not knowing how to stop the killing. The bravery of those covering and being killled should be honored by our actions but what are they?