And all of them should be forced to live in Gaza for a week minimum in the same manner of the Palestinians. Actually make them live there until they condemn Israel and stop funding the genocide and end it for good. Let those legislators starve to death if necessary.
We are seeing who we are now........as a society, as a so called 'western civilization'.
It isn't pretty, but people who have never believed in their own capacity for evil likely don't know where to begin even acknowledging that western elites are with the genocidal monsters.
Knowing what to feel about that.......let alone what to do about that, isn't easy.
Even on Chris Hedges.......most of us are readers, not activists.
I don't hold myself accountable for those who provide support for this genocide. During our Middle Eastern wars I was part of group who was against them, actively against them, but all came to naught. However I tried, others tried, and yes, useless, but I tried. What always bothered me was that many, too many who were active against our Middle Eastern wars during the Bush/Cheney years did an about face during Obama's reign and kept their mouths shut, and did nothing. All you can do is try Ingamarie.
Same here....I think what the genocide is showing us is that however we vote, the establishments of power in the west are on side for the kind of wars of which Gaza is just the worst example. We too did what we could against the Iraq wars.......and many marched with us. But its hard to see the complete his story of the western powers.
And how we're all inscripted in a horror story dressed up as humanitarianism..l...do goodism, and beneath all that window dressing.....imperial looting of what the third world countries have.
They don't have much, but anything they have is to be destroyed. Reminds me of an eleven year old Palestinian girl named Dunia, who lost her family and her leg in an Israel bombing. She was in the hospital recovering when Israel struck the hospital and she died, and lost her dream of am artificial leg and being able to grow up so she could help people. https://www.youtube.com/@DCIPS
Yes - and while that is happening - Canada needs to send its very poorly informed Canada's Minister Anita Anan for at least a month to Gaza City - and she can only have the food, water and medicine that the children in Gaza City have. Apparently it takes 40 days of malnutrition before permanent damage is done so her being there for a only a month wont do anything permanent to it - unless she gets bombed.
I'm sure the population you reference understands fully the horror being implemented in Gaza which they have given their full support. Most people, ordinary people, could not live with themselves if they were implementing such despicable acts of mass murder, or live with themselves knowing they are torturing others slowly to their death. Some might say it's for the best and rationalize their position, but difficult to see a normal human being able to do that. Equally true is that Israel's citizens, only a stones throw away from the horror, support this carnage and understand exactly what they are doing are equally culpable as those implementing it, and worse they are maintaining a soulless indifference which is true for many Americans.
The problem with your thesis is that there is no such thing as "ordinary" or "normal" people. All people are capable of extraordinary and abnormal thoughts and actions. The evidence throughout human history is obvious and copious--including that which is being discussed in this report.
I didn't know I was writing a thesis, but only expressing my perspective based upon things I've read through the decades in reference to the Palestine/Israeli issue. I don't see where your comment reflects in any meaningful way on what I have said.
Well, if you don't know what you're writing, maybe you shouldn't write it. Nonetheless, let me help you out. Your thesis (as presented) and however weak it is:
Most (ordinary or normal) people would not implement despicable acts of murder because they "could not live with themselves". You're attempting, in my opinion, to demonize the bulk of the Israelis population as not "ordinary" and not "normal" and therefore can live themselves whatever the facts are regarding co enabling war crimes and genocide (in an alleged democracy) . In fact Hedges carries your thesis further and infers that they are actually thrilled with delusions of grandeur o what the Palestinian genocide will bring to Israelis. IMO that thesis is bullshit.
My comment is quite relevant in that it challenges your thesis simply on the basis that there is no such thing as "ordinary" or "normal" people. If there is, then I challenge you to provide those definitions. I contend that just about any person (I will allow that there may be some exceptional medical anomalies out there) is capable of the full range of human emotion and action given the proper conditioning and/or mindset. Further, I believe the Israeli population, as a whole, has been properly conditioned over many decades for accepting the atrocities they are co enabling their government to commit as legal and morally justifiable. Suffice it to say that "normal" and "ordinary" human behavior is subjective and must be codified and defended within international law on the global stage in order to be meaningful to any degree. In my opinion, it currently it is not...and never has been. I hope that changes.
WWII, when you make a concerted effort to demean a person, suggesting quite strongly they are stupid then present your argument on why the Israeli population is complicit in this genocide what makes you think I will be amenable to what you have to say? A very naive and ignorant approach to reaching out with the desire to be understood which is not your intention at all. Just a little insight into your insensitivity which is coupled with a dogmatic and abusive mindset.
I had to tell him off as well.......mansplaining is part of why we're in this pickle.......where children can be starved, shot in the head as they attempt to get food, and women left to die while men with big guns run rampant.
They start the massacres.......then assume they alone know the causes and how to fix things.
First, I don't believe I demeaned anyone. Questioning a position is not a personal attack. If you want to take it personally, then that is your problem; not mine.
Second, I never made an argument for the Israeli population being complicit in a genocide-- as you claim above. Quite the contrary. They simply co-enable their government to commit war crimes and genocide. I say co-enable because, as an alleged parliamentary democracy, the Israeli public has the choice to vote or impeach criminals out of pubic office. They don't. In that sense, they simply co-enable--in my opinion. However, I don't believe co-enabling by the general population is a crime and involves any legal complicity. Nor do I believe it to be conspiratorial crime anymore than the American public co-enabling Joe Biden or Donald Trump to lead the U.S. military into aiding and abetting genocide in Palestine by providing weapons used by Israels political leaders to murder innocent Palestinians.
Rather, I believe complicity, aiding and abetting, and being prosecuted as an accomplice to a crime is reserved for individuals; not the general public. For these reasons, the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Israeli individuals accused of war crimes; not for the general public. For that matter, the German public, as a whole, was not prosecuted for Holocaust crimes during the Nuremburg Trials following WWII. It has been a long established legal doctrine that the general public does not have a legal duty to prevent crime. Did some members of the German public look the other way as Jews were rounded up for concentration camps and gassed to death? I would assume so. However morally questionable that may have been, that did not constitute criminal culpability for a war crime or participation in a genocide. Thus, the "Israeli population" is no more complicit in a genocide then their German counterparts were 80 some years ago. IMO, it is ridiculous to assert such absurdity.
Lasting, it is not my goal or responsibility to cater to your personal sense of amenability. I sleep the same every night whether it is gained--or not.
My suggestion is that you work on your reading comprehension before engaging in the absurd. Yes, that's a positional statement based on fact(s), not a personal and subjective affront.
Shame on you world war II.........you need to change your superior attitude and maybe your handle. The sins of the west encouraged WWII......after carving up the planet at the Treaty of Versailles........and we still haven't done half enough to shut the warmongers down and learn to listen and have respect for all perspectives.
PS: I DIDN'T READ YOUR SCREED AFTER THE FIRST PARAGRAPH WHERE YOU DID THE MANSPLAINING ROUTINE OF TELLING FRAN TO SHUT UP.....SO THAT YOU COULD 'HELP HER OUT'.
God's Blood man!!!! What you believe is not the point of this substack.
@Ingamarie: The shame is all yours. I recommend that you attack the issue, not the person; if you are even capable. BTW, no need to yell in your post, It only serves to highlight your unwarranted misandry and ignorance.
Remember, I've got every right to post here just as you do--whether you like it or not. The fact that you don't serves a good purpose in and of itself.
By the way, to have dutifully come to accept the multiple atrocities implemented on the Palestinians over a period of decades is not the same as accepting a full blown genocide which is against International law. ..
How is it "not the same" in your distinction? By "multiple atrocities" I can only assume you mean military war crimes or political apartheid. Both are against international law, as well.
Sometimes men just like to correct women. Don't know if that is the case here, but I've experienced it all my life....and so I do know something about that process.
The insidious thing about that process is that part of what makes them do it.......is that your speech, or analysis threatens their superiority of perspective in some way.
Collaborative thinking....working to be part of a larger collective or movement, does not come naturally to many men. And so they are asserting their superiority............their more complete and excellent understanding of an issue, not realizing that what they are doing is a form of lateral violence. Infighting over who gets to have voice..rather than encouraging a rising tide of many voices.
Don't know how we change that........but it is counter productive...and I've watched it fragment small groups that could go on to grow......instead of argue among themselves.
Sometimes, its good to know what to ignore....be well.....and keep doing what you can do. We're going to a march in a couple of hours...inspite of the trouble I'm having now with my old feet!!!
Ignore is the answer to him, and thanks for your input. I don't come across these characters too often on Sub-stack, since few are here for the wrong reasons. Free, Free, Palestine!!!
However, were those same congressional sociopaths forces to endure one hundredth of the horrors of Gaza, then there would be a wailing and gnashing of teeth, yea, a rending of garments and the cry to Get Me Out Of Here!
These same politicians had a hand in shutting down UNRWA. Do not believe their lies if they show up on " X " condemning the ongoing starvation campaign. They're complicit in this as much as Netanyahu.
You've apparently watched Kubrick's Clockwork Orange too many times. The answer lies not in lid prop's. If the eyes are simply the window to the soul, then you must understand that it is stupidity that has led to a festering of the soul. Stupidity generally does not allow for a reading of an alternative reality to result in compassionate change. To the contrary, I believe the most expedient course of action is for American legislators to be forced; but rather, forced out. As for the editor of the New York Times: I have a choice in reading the Times. As far as I'm concerned, he's already been forced out.
Given the fact that humanity is allowing this to happen after what took place in Nazi Germany and many other genocides along the way, there is little hope for humanity’s future. It seems to me that there is no way that humanity ever comes back from this latest atrocity. The GENOCIDE happening before our eyes is eventually coming for all of us and the whole world including flora and fauna in the name of ECOCIDE. The powers that be are too driven to amass all the “artificial wealth” they can. And things like war and genocide are huge money makers for them. They will not give it up. They are like those monkeys who refuse to let go with their fists inside those food traps. They will die off with the rest of us in their insane quest to amass all that so-called wealth. Too bad they can’t see their insanity. And those of us who can see it seem powerless to stop them now. They are now making it illegal to even criticize such things. Gaza is apparently our future with little to stop it from happening as it gets worse and worse daily now. Beam me up Scotty.
PS- I don’t usually comment on my own posts - but I am seeing everywhere that there is some collective responsibility, and “we” are all responsible. If the whole globe, every man, woman, child is “responsible” for this holocaust, then no one is.
In which case, there is nothing we can do except “feel terrible” because if all are accountable, there is just no way to hold anyone to account.
Netanyahu is responsible. The Israeli people are responsible for. Kier Starmer, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden. Donald Trump, the EU commission leadership, the US Congress and Senate, The New York Times, the BBC, CNN - there are lots of people responsible, but they are listable, countable.
There is no essential difference between how what is happening in Gaza and how corporations operate. In each entity, there must be a terrible split in the psyche that produces the capacity to crush life no matter the cost to capture their gain. By going unconscious to the evil they proliferate, they celebrate their wins. Their "privilege". These are psyches that are dangerous to life - human and earth; to the creativity emanating from the freedom of speech and academic freedom; from the generativity of the freedom to assemble. We must love what we love with our everything and act from that. Those of us who are not dis-eased by such a split. By those of us who carry genuine empathy, compassion, and love if not veneration for miraculous life, the life force. By those of us willing to have our "no!" And set in our minds, we know what we must do even though this minute we think we know not. What's the point of "life' if we don't face the fear of imagined catastrophic consequences, and dare to act anyway. Because it is the right thing.Because we love. Truth. Goodness.
Selina ultimately people will suffer either way, but the genocide in Gaza played out in broad daylight is almost unbearable to watch, and is supported by a people who experienced one of their own. I do mean they are supporting it! Israel has sold its soul little by little through the decades, and they have learned over time how to do that, since they have implemented this mindset toward the Palestinians for decades.
Because our own people are not out in the streets en masse insisting on our government halting all help to Israel in reaction to the colonial zionist Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, suggests our own citizenry has purposefully been dulled to the magnitude of the barbarity. So unlike the protest days during the Vietnam War. Something serious has happened to the instincts of our own people.
Zionist Israel, supported by Christian Zionists. Not all Israelis. Remember the thousands of Israelis who have marched in Jerusalem potesting what their Zionist government is doing. Netanyahu is 'just' trying to stay out of jail and can only do so by remaining PM. He can only do that with the support of th extreme right wing Zionists. Hence - the disingenuous use of the Oct.7th 2023 attack as an excuse to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza, and the West Bank, including use of mass murder through saturation bombing and starvation - both of which are against international law.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/majority-israelis-support-expulsion-palestinians-gaza-poll Read the reality for yourself, and don't dismiss it because this information is published in Middle East Eye since the information I referenced is provided by many sources. By the way I never said all Israeli's, but the majority, a large majority, some 85% do. No need to get defensive. Better to face the truth and deal with it. I never gave a thumbs up to the Christian Zionist which support this. I have no intention of forcing the truth down your throat.
When I was in Israel - now about 20 years ago - the apartheid was already hard to fathom. However, I met with many non-Zionist Israelis who were very upset and not supportive of Zionism and - at that time - were very worried what would happen if these extreme elements in Israeli society ever got into power. Obviously their fears have been repeatedly validated. Also - the level of propaganda and fear with which Israelis are raised was scary - and we are now experiencing the result of this fear in this engineered ethnic cleansing. Where is the international community? Why is there not a military corridor made up of the 25 nation states who - together with Canada - signed that letter asking Zionist Israel to let the aid in? And this corridor needs to include air cover.
Why do we have a military if it cant be used to get desperately needed aid into starving people - particularly starving children - whose lives eill be maimed if their survive this war crime and contravention of international law?
Well, from an historical perspective there has always been continuous confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli's, since the birth of Israel in 1948. The Brits handed it over, not hard, since they operated with a colonial mindset that saw the Arab and Muslim populations as inferior, and if desired to be exploited. So in 1947 they partition Palestine and the best part of it goes to the Jews, but in 1947, 1948 we have the Nakba. Seven hundred thousand Palestinians displaced, some 70 thousand killed, and their property and belongings stolen. It got off to a real bad start and never got better, but worse. Israel has engaged in continuous onslaughts through the decades and lets not forget they are implementing a genocide in a cage that was built for the Palestinians in this century where they couldn't come and go as they pleased since 2007. This does not mean I think all Jews, in Israel and the US, support this genocide, and many have shown they do not but have been shut down by the US. Also, look at what is going on in the West Bank where hundreds of thousands of Israeli's reside and their treatment of the Palestinians is loathsome. I agree that Netanyahu and his ilk make things far worse. If you live in the states where Indians once resided across this land, you know we killed them and those that survived we put on reservations. Nothing to feel good about either, and not to mention our onslaughts elsewhere. Ever read the book, Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs. I do Ancestry and let me tell you it's so true!
Very illuminating is Niko Peled's talks (youtube.com) and book The General's Son about the 24/7 governmental brainwashing of Israeli society to view Palestinians as "human animals." He was an IDF elite soldier during apartheid when he woke up to the reality of evil he and the Israeli government were doing to the Palestinians. He left Israel. Came to the US. I don't understand your comment Fran "ultimately people will suffer either way." Please elaborate. thanks.
What I referenced was your statement that corporate greed, basically, will cause a great deal of suffering as is this genocide in Gaza, and true. The genocide however is operating at full speed and it's results are right in your face. I saw a number of interviews with Niko Peled in the past and he was very vocal on this issue, but I haven't seen him lately. I also feel that too many Jewish people have learned to define their suffering as unique, and worse then the suffering of all others. They have also learned to cultivate their victimhood, as a defense of any criticism of them and to justify anything they do. We have certainly played into that and cultivated that perception ourselves. In a sense they are the forever victims.
Well put. I did not experience that (perpetual victimhood and the guilting of others as a means of justifying their exceptionalism) - when in Vietnam and Cambodia - the site of the killing fields where millions were literally hacked to death - one by one - not in gas chambets.
However - they are Buddahist' and various versions of shamanism - hence - no belief they are 'God's/a divinities chosen people'.
And here in Canada and other parts of the world, many indigenous people's traditional teachings include that their divinity gave their territory to them.
Israel and the Jewish peoples are not unique in this origin myth.
So - lets get past this, put a war tax on Israel, the USA, the EU and all the corporations who have profitted from this genocide and attempt to ethnically cleanse Gaza and give the money to Palestinian Gazans to rebuilt the Strip for themselves - with Trump and his obscenity towers and golf courses locked out of any reconstruction.
Maybe recruit Brad Pitt given his constructive involvement in rebuilding appropriate communities in New Orleans after Katrina.😘
Yes - not all Israeli's are Zionists - which really says something about the human spirit. Israeli socialization and propaganda is much more intense and prevalent than American which is easily 10x more intense and pervasive than the British, any communist regime, or any other mass brainwashing undertaking.
The famous Speech of CHIEF SEATTLE keeps echoing in my mind. "Every part of this country is sacred to my people...hallowed by some fond memory or some sad experience of my tribe. ... The dust under your feet responds more lovingly to our footsteps than yours because it is the ashes of our ancestors...our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. ... When your children's children shall think themselves alone in the fields, the shops, the highway, or the silence of the woods...they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this land." I know this is true because I have seen and heard the Seattle area Indigenous ancestors all my life.
The first version of the speech comes from Dr. Henry A. Smith, a very early (1853) settler, and published by the Seattle Star newspaper in 1887. Smith knew the local Indigenous people well, and could speak the language. Since the '80s, the speech has been attacked as suspiciously Victorian (florid,) eco-hippie wishful thinking, or outright fake by smug rationalists, objectivists, and apologists for econopathy. Smith, an MD and poet, would have been attentive to translation best to get across meaning. He was also heavily invested in local timber and railroads, becoming very wealthy. What reason would he have had to make up something like this? The Suquamish say Smith consulted with tribal elders.
I bring it up because it's apropos re: Gaza. We've already heard denials that Palestinians have been connected to this locale for millennia. Denials that Indigenous roots mean anything. And in the very near future, the extreme rationalists and econ determinists will deny the spirit of place is still present in Gaza. But poets, artists, visionaries, and sensitive souls will know a different reality, both joyous and horribly sad. Ask anyone who has been to Auschwitz or other concentration camp memorials what they could feel there.
{[ S. Cat: I'm posting under your comment since I can no longer do so directly to anything on Substack, including paid subscriptions.]}
Chris. You have put into words all the truths that add up to Genocide. A word the Democratic establishment can’t seem to utter. Also I have been getting
posts from Israeli group Standing Together who are, more or less, calling
Netanyahu a genocidal war criminal as
does Haaretz. Yet the Israeli establishment ignores all this in its
thirst for Gaza’s land! I fear the end is
near for my wonderful Gazans who love books and are great cooks and
Chris, you write so passionately what most of the people in the world think and feel. It is sickening that somehow the power on Earth has now concentrated in such evil actors and that there is apparently no way to stop them. We are in the grip of a greedy , rapacious and
morally bankrupt killing machine disguised as human beings.
I wonder. "that there is apparently no way to stop them." Observable power ...concentrated in such evil actors". What about the invisible power, inactivated power, the latent power - in each of us? Hasn't the outline of this dynamic played out historically? Kings and peasants? Emperors and serfs? Robber Barons/ Industrialists and workers? White slave holders and slaves? Colonial Rulers and the dispossessed? What if - every time we said to ourselves we can't do anything we IMMEDIATELY matched it by saying out loud with "yes, I and we can and will do that something to break this open, I don't know what that is right this minute, but I will know, and I want to know with my whole being. My kids and my neighbors' kids lives depend on me to know, the miracle of life depends on my to know, the miracle knows what I can do" -----One main characteristic of Inverted Totalitarianism is corporate manipulated (media, msm, etc) civic apathy, civic un-involvement, "there's nothing I can do", "it's hopeless", "I'm helpless" (a state or trance conditioned gradually by the ruling class/corporate "I own and I'll do what I want to and there is nothing you can do about it"). Oh yea? The time has come to break out of the trance; to refuse the hypnotic suggestion; to claim personal power, to own our "no"! I refuse to be confused, blotted out, asleep; then choose collective civic (civilized community coming together) power. And act like your life depended on it.
Selina, I would sincerely like to embrace your resilience and passion for hope and healing. You are absolutely right when you say giving in to defeat and apathy is the certain way to lose it all for our children and our neighbors. For now, I can keep hoping, but we do require some flesh and blood leaders with some plans. I know, historically the bravest and most powerful leaders have risen from among our own neighbors. I am keeping the faith that that will happen for us. Flooding the world with positivity, making ripples in the waters of the ethos--that seems better than despair.
I think you misread my comment Lexine. I'm not talking about "positivity" . I'm talking about lots of "well meaning people" who obstinately refuse to get out on the streets in a show of force because they adhere to the "spiritual belief" - if I'm positive and cheery to those in my orbit I' am doing my piece to change the world." "It's not my personality to be out in the streets holding posters and chanting." "I'm not a joiner; that's not my personality." The trouble with this is that individual nice-ity is not the anti-dote to the array of the ruling class's panoply of oppressive power that is increasingly ripping to shreds our Bill of Rights and Constitution as it consolidates its authoritarian power. How the ruling class in University Boards of Trustees are smashing our right to free speech, assembly, academic freedom. They are ruining our universities!!! Excellent professors are leaving the USA!!! Isn't it telling that millions of us are not in the streets rebelliously insisting on the genocidal war Israeli Zionist Supremecists are doing to the Palestinians be halted? The citizenry is as blind to their own survival instincts on the genocide as it is to their instincts on Corporate Big Oil/Gas/Coal destruction of life on earth. This split-off from one's survival instincts is connected to brain washing, governmental aka corporate inc. brain washing. Which is exactly why the Israeli society is all for starving, shooting, and bombing little Palestinain babies. Nazis Jewish Zionist version. Niko Peled - ex IDF elite soldier who woke up to the evil apartheid state, left Israel and wrote a book The General's Son in support of the Palestinans and described the 24/7 indoctrination of the entire society to view Palestinians as nothing but "human-animals." The Israeli society is in a perpetual trance state induced by that brain washing. We Americans have also and are being brain washed by msm (corporate) to feel, be, act helpless and unconnected. Unless you access news by alternate sources, you have no clue on the distortions, misrepresentations and omissions of facts that msm gives the populace.
Selina, totally agree with you. I don’t mean folks should sit around and be “nice” to one another, and that will fix it. I do believe action must be taken against the corporatist authoritarian oppression of the people of our world; of course demonstrations to support our universities and neighbors who are being disappeared. Of course testimony against racist attempts to take over school curricula. Outing all of the members of Congress ( most of them for years and years) who support the racist apartheid state of Israel, which is gleefully watching people—children, babies, previously healthy productive adults— slowly and painfully starve to death in full view of the rest of the world. Of course, but to remember we must not lose our own souls. Action must come from love, not hate. I too have read the book by Peled and Chomsky and by Pappé. And others. But what I do know is that all action must come from love and hope.
"Isn't it telling that millions of us are not in the streets rebelliously insisting on the genocidal war Israeli Zionist Supremecists are doing to the Palestinians be halted?"--SS
Not really. It's much more telling (at least to me) that all the students that are paying outrageous tuition to support "the University Boards of Trustees are [our] smashing our right to free speech, assembly, academic freedom" don't withdraw their enrollment immediately and fully. If the world is quickly becoming devoid of civility and the rule of law--as inferred throughout the many responses to this Report, what is the point of continuing to seek a higher degree with which participate within it?
WWII I learned so much in grad school and am immeasurably grateful for that experience. I prefer to work toward righting the institutional wrong than advocate limiting a person's educational experience.
Well, I learned quite a bit in school as well. That was some time ago...and I never felt I was being indoctrinated or used as a political pawn. If I did, I would have terminated my enrollment promptly. I think times have changed where what I expected is no longer a delivered given. BTW, I paid for all my educations, so I have no reason to feel grateful to receive it.
BTW, I think the students I am currently suggesting terminating their enrollment are already receiving a " limited educational experience", so I take nothing away from them in giving my advice. I suggest they search for a better educational experience (and retain their civil rights) elsewhere. Also, if you believe in strikes as a crucial element of social change (as Hedges, I, and many others do on this forum apparently do) then put your money where your mouth is. As the saying goes: You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Collective action starts with recognition of the real issues . I only stated the present state of affairs. Bernie Sanders said his colleagues told him they could not support his bill to stop arms and funds to Israel because they wouldn't be re-elected for lack of funding by the Israel lobby . In the most powerful military and wealthy nation, the representatives of the citizens cannot vote their consciences because money is more important and they can be bought. With the Citizens United decision and the Supreme Court balance as it is, I see no apparent way to change things. Hopefully this will change in the future. Chris Hedges , investigative journalists and independent media and those who read them are not conditioned by the mainstream media nor are they in a trance.
I donate to organizations striving against the odds to feed the people anyway. World Central Kitchen every month… they are the bravest of the brave fighting against time with ladles as their weapons. This ugly hate machine can’t stop itself now. I cannot cry enough at the madness that lets this unfold by the world. The videos of the starving children and their parents hasn’t persuaded anyone in power. This is proof there is no higher being. This is humanity’s Truth.
I have donated to them for quite some time. Yes they are still there. From an email yesterday:
“After a five day pause, limited cooking operations resumed today at World Central Kitchen's Deir al-Balah Field Kitchen in Gaza.
This marks the second time in 2025 our hot meal program has been forced to halt due to a lack of available food supplies. Our teams on the ground are showing deep commitment and resilience, starting to cook again as quickly as possible.”
Good point--how did God get it so wrong? I know, the stock answer is that God gave us free will. Great, I'm for that. Why didn't we all get access to a moral compass/a conscience?
I have only heard the "gave us free will" answer from Roman Catholic folks. My response is, what about the free will of people, such as the Palestinians in Gaza, who are being murdered whether by guns or starvation. Where is their choice in this?
Excellent response, Sandy. And you outed me as having had to memorize the Baltimore Catechism at one point in my life--very long ago. The power of indoctrination, eh?
The juxtaposition of the images of starving Gazans with those of people stuffing their faces in the AI generated Gaza Riviera video is beyond sickening. It’s the genocide of Native Americans by European colonialists all over again - this time on a global stage, with all of us watching.
This, truly is "The American Way." Clear the land with fire power and starve the survivors into submission or death. It worked very well here in the United States of America.
Boycott America for our complicity in this crime. Convert your dollars to bitcoin or foreign stocks to undermine the US dollar, reduce consumption of American goods as much as possible, move overseas if you can. This genocide wouldn't be possible without American support and there is about zero hope of changing this state of affairs through democratic means.
I am American and had left for Mexico 15 years ago and will never return , for any reason. If I were a bit younger than 86, I would apply for Mexican citizenship, which, like everything here, takes quite a while to accomplish. Then: give up my US citizenship.
I knew bits and pieces of the US/CIA interfering, providing weapons and intelligence to countries that had voted for Democracy. Guatemala, Chile, ....but, since Oct7 I began study of that region, which led to complete disgust with the USA.
Now, it is aiming at China. This with a crazy idiot President and his confederacy of dunces, this should put a stop to the powers the USA has had since 1945. China does not want war, China wants to continue its advancement. China will kick our butts.
And, war on Iran and Russia. This should end America's hegemony for good. And, BRICS is getting down to work serious about its goal of Life Without The USD!
As a social studies teacher at the high school level, I lobbied for us to change our curriculum from a focus on Ancient/Medieval European studies and examine the history, cultures, and political systems of the Americas. No one every supported my efforts. So I decided to develop my own course on an overview of "Latin American" studies...when I realized the role of the US in the subjugation of the people of that region, I knew why no one wanted a course like that. Our US history is very hard to look at.
Americans, including me, until quite recently, know nothing about the rest of the world..... Except the bull they are fed by the media/arm of the war machine USA....
People think everywhere is dangerous. Except maybe Canada and gated tourist places and tours, where they are protected at QUITE a price. For the price of a tour or a hideous cruise for 2 weeks, I could travel/live in SE Asia or India or almost anywhere for 6 months. I was in Dangerous Guatemala, Sri Lanka when it was at war..and, Burma! Always safe . Kinda lucky too.
Actually, "everywhere" is dangerous...especially, highways and your bathroom.
You betcha. I spent 2 months in Guatemala in 1991. I was not a history major or even interested in history. But, when I spend a lot of time (solo, budget) in a country, I end up studying its history. In Antigua, there is a library, CIRMA, where one can study there, No check outs. I learned about their elected government which was a bit too socialistic (communistic by US standards) and was subsequently overthrown by us...1954...which led to total chaos and many many Mayan villages overtaken by kids recruited to kill ...kids from other villages. ..just read an article about 80 year old women who sued a few of their rapists from that time. They were supposed to get reparations for the educations of their granddaughters but that is not possible given the USA's stoppage of funds to help anyone...(except our billionaires.)
Bitcoin and its competitors are one of the biggest drivers of ongoing exponential climate catastrophe with its HUGE use of energy to maintain its “mining” operations. That will lead to ecocide in the end. Humanity if it is to have a future needs to move beyond the concept of artificial wealth and the creation of it and the amassing of it as well by a few sociopathic fools who literally want it all for themselves.
Ah but 45/47 wants the dollar to plunge so his bitcoin value surges and he earns millions from his campaign of destruction in tandem with this genocide and his cover up. This isn’t a great option
The League of Nations failed to prevent WWII. The United Nations has failed to prevent genocide and aggression of such nations as Russia into sovereign lands like Ukraine. Where do we go from here when there is such an imbalance of power and wealth, when there is an intractable belief that 'my-God's-better-than-your-God' and, for this reason alone, "I deserve all that you have".
I suppose then, we - not having this intractable belief - must not be emotionally manipulated by that power play (my God is...have). So what? We "know" you are greedy, arrogant land hogs rationalizing your pillaging and evil; but we don't operate that way. Either you participate hamoniously or you are out! Perhaps, in the long view - current events are teaching that the "Peace-Ables" have to claim the power of our "no" and "no more" to those "wanton" corporate and ruling class members. Wanton - (of a cruel or violent action) deliberate and unprovoked."(Oxford languages) The Peace-Ables have to cultivate/develop the spine, teeth and courage to be the Force that commands "No!" - not that but this.
The Democratic leadership is NOT silent. Listen to them. Look at the photo of the people surrounding the international criminal Netanyahu when he visited the US last month--they are standing proudly by him. Those Senators include: Ted Cruz (R-TX), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Steve Daines (R-MT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), John Thune (R-SD), Jim Risch (R-ID), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Dave McCormick (R-PA), and Jon Husted (R-OH)
Don't kid yourself, the US has been sending billions of dollars to support the racist apartheid state of Israel for many years, under BOTH Democratic and Republican leadership. Read about the ascendancy of AIPAC in our congress since LBJ.
I find it difficult to comprehend the amount of evil that characterizes the Zionist state. Is it worth it to commit genocide to get a bit more land? Settler colonialism has its own twisted means of justifying this macabre behavior. The land becomes the all-important commodity. People's lives don't matter, so long as they are different and judged inferior by those committing the genocide. One of the great Jewish mystics, Martin Buber, wrote a book called "I and Thou." He argued that proper moral treatment of another is as "thou," or as an equal to oneself. On the other hand, we find many who maintain "I/it relationships" instead of I/thou. In I/it, we use others, whether people or other living beings just for the purpose of getting what we want. And if they get in the way, we kill them. The worst of wars are fought on an I...It premise. We reduce the other to something we consider mean and ugly, and we kill them So have the Israelis done to the Palestinians. I/it is the essence of evil. It is the way of devaluing that is the basis of genocide.
The only solution to this unnamable catastrophe that could have been foretold is the dimanteling of this satanic State of the Jews, which brings unspeakable oprobrium on all those who call themselves Jews.
Thanks, Chris, for another incisive article about the disaster in Gaza. I would quibble just slightly with your laying the guilt for the atrocities in Gaza at the feet of ALL Israelis ("Israelis do not see the images of skeletal corpses...", "Israelis do not look at the savage bombing and shelling...", etc.). Perhaps an oversight, but couldn't you have rectified that broad blaming with the formulation "some Israelis" or even "the Israeli government"? As an US citizen, I know I would not like it if a non-US journalist spoke of the actions of the Trump administration as something that "Americans" supported or approved of. I've also seen many photos and videos of large protests in Israel against the actions of their own unaccountable, fascist government.
A horrible, disgusting, gut wrenching article every American legislator should be forced to read along with the editor of the New York Times.
And all of them should be forced to live in Gaza for a week minimum in the same manner of the Palestinians. Actually make them live there until they condemn Israel and stop funding the genocide and end it for good. Let those legislators starve to death if necessary.
I don't, most don't have to live in Gaza to understand the horror of it. What is difficult to understand is the indifference to it.
We are seeing who we are now........as a society, as a so called 'western civilization'.
It isn't pretty, but people who have never believed in their own capacity for evil likely don't know where to begin even acknowledging that western elites are with the genocidal monsters.
Knowing what to feel about that.......let alone what to do about that, isn't easy.
Even on Chris Hedges.......most of us are readers, not activists.
I don't hold myself accountable for those who provide support for this genocide. During our Middle Eastern wars I was part of group who was against them, actively against them, but all came to naught. However I tried, others tried, and yes, useless, but I tried. What always bothered me was that many, too many who were active against our Middle Eastern wars during the Bush/Cheney years did an about face during Obama's reign and kept their mouths shut, and did nothing. All you can do is try Ingamarie.
Same here....I think what the genocide is showing us is that however we vote, the establishments of power in the west are on side for the kind of wars of which Gaza is just the worst example. We too did what we could against the Iraq wars.......and many marched with us. But its hard to see the complete his story of the western powers.
And how we're all inscripted in a horror story dressed up as humanitarianism..l...do goodism, and beneath all that window dressing.....imperial looting of what the third world countries have.
They don't have much, but anything they have is to be destroyed. Reminds me of an eleven year old Palestinian girl named Dunia, who lost her family and her leg in an Israel bombing. She was in the hospital recovering when Israel struck the hospital and she died, and lost her dream of am artificial leg and being able to grow up so she could help people. https://www.youtube.com/@DCIPS
Because they pay no price, personally or professionally. That is all they care about.
Yes - and while that is happening - Canada needs to send its very poorly informed Canada's Minister Anita Anan for at least a month to Gaza City - and she can only have the food, water and medicine that the children in Gaza City have. Apparently it takes 40 days of malnutrition before permanent damage is done so her being there for a only a month wont do anything permanent to it - unless she gets bombed.
I'm sure the population you reference understands fully the horror being implemented in Gaza which they have given their full support. Most people, ordinary people, could not live with themselves if they were implementing such despicable acts of mass murder, or live with themselves knowing they are torturing others slowly to their death. Some might say it's for the best and rationalize their position, but difficult to see a normal human being able to do that. Equally true is that Israel's citizens, only a stones throw away from the horror, support this carnage and understand exactly what they are doing are equally culpable as those implementing it, and worse they are maintaining a soulless indifference which is true for many Americans.
The problem with your thesis is that there is no such thing as "ordinary" or "normal" people. All people are capable of extraordinary and abnormal thoughts and actions. The evidence throughout human history is obvious and copious--including that which is being discussed in this report.
I didn't know I was writing a thesis, but only expressing my perspective based upon things I've read through the decades in reference to the Palestine/Israeli issue. I don't see where your comment reflects in any meaningful way on what I have said.
Well, if you don't know what you're writing, maybe you shouldn't write it. Nonetheless, let me help you out. Your thesis (as presented) and however weak it is:
Most (ordinary or normal) people would not implement despicable acts of murder because they "could not live with themselves". You're attempting, in my opinion, to demonize the bulk of the Israelis population as not "ordinary" and not "normal" and therefore can live themselves whatever the facts are regarding co enabling war crimes and genocide (in an alleged democracy) . In fact Hedges carries your thesis further and infers that they are actually thrilled with delusions of grandeur o what the Palestinian genocide will bring to Israelis. IMO that thesis is bullshit.
My comment is quite relevant in that it challenges your thesis simply on the basis that there is no such thing as "ordinary" or "normal" people. If there is, then I challenge you to provide those definitions. I contend that just about any person (I will allow that there may be some exceptional medical anomalies out there) is capable of the full range of human emotion and action given the proper conditioning and/or mindset. Further, I believe the Israeli population, as a whole, has been properly conditioned over many decades for accepting the atrocities they are co enabling their government to commit as legal and morally justifiable. Suffice it to say that "normal" and "ordinary" human behavior is subjective and must be codified and defended within international law on the global stage in order to be meaningful to any degree. In my opinion, it currently it is not...and never has been. I hope that changes.
WWII, when you make a concerted effort to demean a person, suggesting quite strongly they are stupid then present your argument on why the Israeli population is complicit in this genocide what makes you think I will be amenable to what you have to say? A very naive and ignorant approach to reaching out with the desire to be understood which is not your intention at all. Just a little insight into your insensitivity which is coupled with a dogmatic and abusive mindset.
I had to tell him off as well.......mansplaining is part of why we're in this pickle.......where children can be starved, shot in the head as they attempt to get food, and women left to die while men with big guns run rampant.
They start the massacres.......then assume they alone know the causes and how to fix things.
Pathetic.
First, I don't believe I demeaned anyone. Questioning a position is not a personal attack. If you want to take it personally, then that is your problem; not mine.
Second, I never made an argument for the Israeli population being complicit in a genocide-- as you claim above. Quite the contrary. They simply co-enable their government to commit war crimes and genocide. I say co-enable because, as an alleged parliamentary democracy, the Israeli public has the choice to vote or impeach criminals out of pubic office. They don't. In that sense, they simply co-enable--in my opinion. However, I don't believe co-enabling by the general population is a crime and involves any legal complicity. Nor do I believe it to be conspiratorial crime anymore than the American public co-enabling Joe Biden or Donald Trump to lead the U.S. military into aiding and abetting genocide in Palestine by providing weapons used by Israels political leaders to murder innocent Palestinians.
Rather, I believe complicity, aiding and abetting, and being prosecuted as an accomplice to a crime is reserved for individuals; not the general public. For these reasons, the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Israeli individuals accused of war crimes; not for the general public. For that matter, the German public, as a whole, was not prosecuted for Holocaust crimes during the Nuremburg Trials following WWII. It has been a long established legal doctrine that the general public does not have a legal duty to prevent crime. Did some members of the German public look the other way as Jews were rounded up for concentration camps and gassed to death? I would assume so. However morally questionable that may have been, that did not constitute criminal culpability for a war crime or participation in a genocide. Thus, the "Israeli population" is no more complicit in a genocide then their German counterparts were 80 some years ago. IMO, it is ridiculous to assert such absurdity.
Lasting, it is not my goal or responsibility to cater to your personal sense of amenability. I sleep the same every night whether it is gained--or not.
My suggestion is that you work on your reading comprehension before engaging in the absurd. Yes, that's a positional statement based on fact(s), not a personal and subjective affront.
Shame on you world war II.........you need to change your superior attitude and maybe your handle. The sins of the west encouraged WWII......after carving up the planet at the Treaty of Versailles........and we still haven't done half enough to shut the warmongers down and learn to listen and have respect for all perspectives.
PS: I DIDN'T READ YOUR SCREED AFTER THE FIRST PARAGRAPH WHERE YOU DID THE MANSPLAINING ROUTINE OF TELLING FRAN TO SHUT UP.....SO THAT YOU COULD 'HELP HER OUT'.
God's Blood man!!!! What you believe is not the point of this substack.
@Ingamarie: The shame is all yours. I recommend that you attack the issue, not the person; if you are even capable. BTW, no need to yell in your post, It only serves to highlight your unwarranted misandry and ignorance.
Remember, I've got every right to post here just as you do--whether you like it or not. The fact that you don't serves a good purpose in and of itself.
By the way, to have dutifully come to accept the multiple atrocities implemented on the Palestinians over a period of decades is not the same as accepting a full blown genocide which is against International law. ..
How is it "not the same" in your distinction? By "multiple atrocities" I can only assume you mean military war crimes or political apartheid. Both are against international law, as well.
Sometimes men just like to correct women. Don't know if that is the case here, but I've experienced it all my life....and so I do know something about that process.
The insidious thing about that process is that part of what makes them do it.......is that your speech, or analysis threatens their superiority of perspective in some way.
Collaborative thinking....working to be part of a larger collective or movement, does not come naturally to many men. And so they are asserting their superiority............their more complete and excellent understanding of an issue, not realizing that what they are doing is a form of lateral violence. Infighting over who gets to have voice..rather than encouraging a rising tide of many voices.
Don't know how we change that........but it is counter productive...and I've watched it fragment small groups that could go on to grow......instead of argue among themselves.
Sometimes, its good to know what to ignore....be well.....and keep doing what you can do. We're going to a march in a couple of hours...inspite of the trouble I'm having now with my old feet!!!
Free, Free Palestine!!!
Ignore is the answer to him, and thanks for your input. I don't come across these characters too often on Sub-stack, since few are here for the wrong reasons. Free, Free, Palestine!!!
They wouldn't care.
However, were those same congressional sociopaths forces to endure one hundredth of the horrors of Gaza, then there would be a wailing and gnashing of teeth, yea, a rending of garments and the cry to Get Me Out Of Here!
These same politicians had a hand in shutting down UNRWA. Do not believe their lies if they show up on " X " condemning the ongoing starvation campaign. They're complicit in this as much as Netanyahu.
The editor of the NYT is a Zionist. He knows this better than anyone.
You've apparently watched Kubrick's Clockwork Orange too many times. The answer lies not in lid prop's. If the eyes are simply the window to the soul, then you must understand that it is stupidity that has led to a festering of the soul. Stupidity generally does not allow for a reading of an alternative reality to result in compassionate change. To the contrary, I believe the most expedient course of action is for American legislators to be forced; but rather, forced out. As for the editor of the New York Times: I have a choice in reading the Times. As far as I'm concerned, he's already been forced out.
Given the fact that humanity is allowing this to happen after what took place in Nazi Germany and many other genocides along the way, there is little hope for humanity’s future. It seems to me that there is no way that humanity ever comes back from this latest atrocity. The GENOCIDE happening before our eyes is eventually coming for all of us and the whole world including flora and fauna in the name of ECOCIDE. The powers that be are too driven to amass all the “artificial wealth” they can. And things like war and genocide are huge money makers for them. They will not give it up. They are like those monkeys who refuse to let go with their fists inside those food traps. They will die off with the rest of us in their insane quest to amass all that so-called wealth. Too bad they can’t see their insanity. And those of us who can see it seem powerless to stop them now. They are now making it illegal to even criticize such things. Gaza is apparently our future with little to stop it from happening as it gets worse and worse daily now. Beam me up Scotty.
“Humanity” isn’t allowing this. I am not allowing it. Chris is not allowing it. The vast majority of humanity is appalled and repulsed.
A tiny sliver of monsters are “allowing” this, funding this, cheerleading this atrocity.
Humanity is helpless in the face of these monsters.
PS- I don’t usually comment on my own posts - but I am seeing everywhere that there is some collective responsibility, and “we” are all responsible. If the whole globe, every man, woman, child is “responsible” for this holocaust, then no one is.
In which case, there is nothing we can do except “feel terrible” because if all are accountable, there is just no way to hold anyone to account.
Netanyahu is responsible. The Israeli people are responsible for. Kier Starmer, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden. Donald Trump, the EU commission leadership, the US Congress and Senate, The New York Times, the BBC, CNN - there are lots of people responsible, but they are listable, countable.
There is no essential difference between how what is happening in Gaza and how corporations operate. In each entity, there must be a terrible split in the psyche that produces the capacity to crush life no matter the cost to capture their gain. By going unconscious to the evil they proliferate, they celebrate their wins. Their "privilege". These are psyches that are dangerous to life - human and earth; to the creativity emanating from the freedom of speech and academic freedom; from the generativity of the freedom to assemble. We must love what we love with our everything and act from that. Those of us who are not dis-eased by such a split. By those of us who carry genuine empathy, compassion, and love if not veneration for miraculous life, the life force. By those of us willing to have our "no!" And set in our minds, we know what we must do even though this minute we think we know not. What's the point of "life' if we don't face the fear of imagined catastrophic consequences, and dare to act anyway. Because it is the right thing.Because we love. Truth. Goodness.
Selina ultimately people will suffer either way, but the genocide in Gaza played out in broad daylight is almost unbearable to watch, and is supported by a people who experienced one of their own. I do mean they are supporting it! Israel has sold its soul little by little through the decades, and they have learned over time how to do that, since they have implemented this mindset toward the Palestinians for decades.
Because our own people are not out in the streets en masse insisting on our government halting all help to Israel in reaction to the colonial zionist Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, suggests our own citizenry has purposefully been dulled to the magnitude of the barbarity. So unlike the protest days during the Vietnam War. Something serious has happened to the instincts of our own people.
Zionist Israel, supported by Christian Zionists. Not all Israelis. Remember the thousands of Israelis who have marched in Jerusalem potesting what their Zionist government is doing. Netanyahu is 'just' trying to stay out of jail and can only do so by remaining PM. He can only do that with the support of th extreme right wing Zionists. Hence - the disingenuous use of the Oct.7th 2023 attack as an excuse to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza, and the West Bank, including use of mass murder through saturation bombing and starvation - both of which are against international law.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/majority-israelis-support-expulsion-palestinians-gaza-poll Read the reality for yourself, and don't dismiss it because this information is published in Middle East Eye since the information I referenced is provided by many sources. By the way I never said all Israeli's, but the majority, a large majority, some 85% do. No need to get defensive. Better to face the truth and deal with it. I never gave a thumbs up to the Christian Zionist which support this. I have no intention of forcing the truth down your throat.
When I was in Israel - now about 20 years ago - the apartheid was already hard to fathom. However, I met with many non-Zionist Israelis who were very upset and not supportive of Zionism and - at that time - were very worried what would happen if these extreme elements in Israeli society ever got into power. Obviously their fears have been repeatedly validated. Also - the level of propaganda and fear with which Israelis are raised was scary - and we are now experiencing the result of this fear in this engineered ethnic cleansing. Where is the international community? Why is there not a military corridor made up of the 25 nation states who - together with Canada - signed that letter asking Zionist Israel to let the aid in? And this corridor needs to include air cover.
Why do we have a military if it cant be used to get desperately needed aid into starving people - particularly starving children - whose lives eill be maimed if their survive this war crime and contravention of international law?
Well, from an historical perspective there has always been continuous confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli's, since the birth of Israel in 1948. The Brits handed it over, not hard, since they operated with a colonial mindset that saw the Arab and Muslim populations as inferior, and if desired to be exploited. So in 1947 they partition Palestine and the best part of it goes to the Jews, but in 1947, 1948 we have the Nakba. Seven hundred thousand Palestinians displaced, some 70 thousand killed, and their property and belongings stolen. It got off to a real bad start and never got better, but worse. Israel has engaged in continuous onslaughts through the decades and lets not forget they are implementing a genocide in a cage that was built for the Palestinians in this century where they couldn't come and go as they pleased since 2007. This does not mean I think all Jews, in Israel and the US, support this genocide, and many have shown they do not but have been shut down by the US. Also, look at what is going on in the West Bank where hundreds of thousands of Israeli's reside and their treatment of the Palestinians is loathsome. I agree that Netanyahu and his ilk make things far worse. If you live in the states where Indians once resided across this land, you know we killed them and those that survived we put on reservations. Nothing to feel good about either, and not to mention our onslaughts elsewhere. Ever read the book, Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs. I do Ancestry and let me tell you it's so true!
Very illuminating is Niko Peled's talks (youtube.com) and book The General's Son about the 24/7 governmental brainwashing of Israeli society to view Palestinians as "human animals." He was an IDF elite soldier during apartheid when he woke up to the reality of evil he and the Israeli government were doing to the Palestinians. He left Israel. Came to the US. I don't understand your comment Fran "ultimately people will suffer either way." Please elaborate. thanks.
What I referenced was your statement that corporate greed, basically, will cause a great deal of suffering as is this genocide in Gaza, and true. The genocide however is operating at full speed and it's results are right in your face. I saw a number of interviews with Niko Peled in the past and he was very vocal on this issue, but I haven't seen him lately. I also feel that too many Jewish people have learned to define their suffering as unique, and worse then the suffering of all others. They have also learned to cultivate their victimhood, as a defense of any criticism of them and to justify anything they do. We have certainly played into that and cultivated that perception ourselves. In a sense they are the forever victims.
Well put. I did not experience that (perpetual victimhood and the guilting of others as a means of justifying their exceptionalism) - when in Vietnam and Cambodia - the site of the killing fields where millions were literally hacked to death - one by one - not in gas chambets.
However - they are Buddahist' and various versions of shamanism - hence - no belief they are 'God's/a divinities chosen people'.
And here in Canada and other parts of the world, many indigenous people's traditional teachings include that their divinity gave their territory to them.
Israel and the Jewish peoples are not unique in this origin myth.
So - lets get past this, put a war tax on Israel, the USA, the EU and all the corporations who have profitted from this genocide and attempt to ethnically cleanse Gaza and give the money to Palestinian Gazans to rebuilt the Strip for themselves - with Trump and his obscenity towers and golf courses locked out of any reconstruction.
Maybe recruit Brad Pitt given his constructive involvement in rebuilding appropriate communities in New Orleans after Katrina.😘
Yes - not all Israeli's are Zionists - which really says something about the human spirit. Israeli socialization and propaganda is much more intense and prevalent than American which is easily 10x more intense and pervasive than the British, any communist regime, or any other mass brainwashing undertaking.
I've been waiting for the Saucers to land since the '60s. I've since given up, they ain't coming.
The famous Speech of CHIEF SEATTLE keeps echoing in my mind. "Every part of this country is sacred to my people...hallowed by some fond memory or some sad experience of my tribe. ... The dust under your feet responds more lovingly to our footsteps than yours because it is the ashes of our ancestors...our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. ... When your children's children shall think themselves alone in the fields, the shops, the highway, or the silence of the woods...they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this land." I know this is true because I have seen and heard the Seattle area Indigenous ancestors all my life.
The first version of the speech comes from Dr. Henry A. Smith, a very early (1853) settler, and published by the Seattle Star newspaper in 1887. Smith knew the local Indigenous people well, and could speak the language. Since the '80s, the speech has been attacked as suspiciously Victorian (florid,) eco-hippie wishful thinking, or outright fake by smug rationalists, objectivists, and apologists for econopathy. Smith, an MD and poet, would have been attentive to translation best to get across meaning. He was also heavily invested in local timber and railroads, becoming very wealthy. What reason would he have had to make up something like this? The Suquamish say Smith consulted with tribal elders.
I bring it up because it's apropos re: Gaza. We've already heard denials that Palestinians have been connected to this locale for millennia. Denials that Indigenous roots mean anything. And in the very near future, the extreme rationalists and econ determinists will deny the spirit of place is still present in Gaza. But poets, artists, visionaries, and sensitive souls will know a different reality, both joyous and horribly sad. Ask anyone who has been to Auschwitz or other concentration camp memorials what they could feel there.
{[ S. Cat: I'm posting under your comment since I can no longer do so directly to anything on Substack, including paid subscriptions.]}
Chris. You have put into words all the truths that add up to Genocide. A word the Democratic establishment can’t seem to utter. Also I have been getting
posts from Israeli group Standing Together who are, more or less, calling
Netanyahu a genocidal war criminal as
does Haaretz. Yet the Israeli establishment ignores all this in its
thirst for Gaza’s land! I fear the end is
near for my wonderful Gazans who love books and are great cooks and
have such care for others.
Linda
Thank you!
Here is hoping, praying and doing everything in our power to stop this horrific slaughter.
Netanyahu, Trump and Biden are not worth this sacrifice of everuthing Palestinian.
Chris, you write so passionately what most of the people in the world think and feel. It is sickening that somehow the power on Earth has now concentrated in such evil actors and that there is apparently no way to stop them. We are in the grip of a greedy , rapacious and
morally bankrupt killing machine disguised as human beings.
I wonder. "that there is apparently no way to stop them." Observable power ...concentrated in such evil actors". What about the invisible power, inactivated power, the latent power - in each of us? Hasn't the outline of this dynamic played out historically? Kings and peasants? Emperors and serfs? Robber Barons/ Industrialists and workers? White slave holders and slaves? Colonial Rulers and the dispossessed? What if - every time we said to ourselves we can't do anything we IMMEDIATELY matched it by saying out loud with "yes, I and we can and will do that something to break this open, I don't know what that is right this minute, but I will know, and I want to know with my whole being. My kids and my neighbors' kids lives depend on me to know, the miracle of life depends on my to know, the miracle knows what I can do" -----One main characteristic of Inverted Totalitarianism is corporate manipulated (media, msm, etc) civic apathy, civic un-involvement, "there's nothing I can do", "it's hopeless", "I'm helpless" (a state or trance conditioned gradually by the ruling class/corporate "I own and I'll do what I want to and there is nothing you can do about it"). Oh yea? The time has come to break out of the trance; to refuse the hypnotic suggestion; to claim personal power, to own our "no"! I refuse to be confused, blotted out, asleep; then choose collective civic (civilized community coming together) power. And act like your life depended on it.
Selina, I would sincerely like to embrace your resilience and passion for hope and healing. You are absolutely right when you say giving in to defeat and apathy is the certain way to lose it all for our children and our neighbors. For now, I can keep hoping, but we do require some flesh and blood leaders with some plans. I know, historically the bravest and most powerful leaders have risen from among our own neighbors. I am keeping the faith that that will happen for us. Flooding the world with positivity, making ripples in the waters of the ethos--that seems better than despair.
I think you misread my comment Lexine. I'm not talking about "positivity" . I'm talking about lots of "well meaning people" who obstinately refuse to get out on the streets in a show of force because they adhere to the "spiritual belief" - if I'm positive and cheery to those in my orbit I' am doing my piece to change the world." "It's not my personality to be out in the streets holding posters and chanting." "I'm not a joiner; that's not my personality." The trouble with this is that individual nice-ity is not the anti-dote to the array of the ruling class's panoply of oppressive power that is increasingly ripping to shreds our Bill of Rights and Constitution as it consolidates its authoritarian power. How the ruling class in University Boards of Trustees are smashing our right to free speech, assembly, academic freedom. They are ruining our universities!!! Excellent professors are leaving the USA!!! Isn't it telling that millions of us are not in the streets rebelliously insisting on the genocidal war Israeli Zionist Supremecists are doing to the Palestinians be halted? The citizenry is as blind to their own survival instincts on the genocide as it is to their instincts on Corporate Big Oil/Gas/Coal destruction of life on earth. This split-off from one's survival instincts is connected to brain washing, governmental aka corporate inc. brain washing. Which is exactly why the Israeli society is all for starving, shooting, and bombing little Palestinain babies. Nazis Jewish Zionist version. Niko Peled - ex IDF elite soldier who woke up to the evil apartheid state, left Israel and wrote a book The General's Son in support of the Palestinans and described the 24/7 indoctrination of the entire society to view Palestinians as nothing but "human-animals." The Israeli society is in a perpetual trance state induced by that brain washing. We Americans have also and are being brain washed by msm (corporate) to feel, be, act helpless and unconnected. Unless you access news by alternate sources, you have no clue on the distortions, misrepresentations and omissions of facts that msm gives the populace.
Selina, totally agree with you. I don’t mean folks should sit around and be “nice” to one another, and that will fix it. I do believe action must be taken against the corporatist authoritarian oppression of the people of our world; of course demonstrations to support our universities and neighbors who are being disappeared. Of course testimony against racist attempts to take over school curricula. Outing all of the members of Congress ( most of them for years and years) who support the racist apartheid state of Israel, which is gleefully watching people—children, babies, previously healthy productive adults— slowly and painfully starve to death in full view of the rest of the world. Of course, but to remember we must not lose our own souls. Action must come from love, not hate. I too have read the book by Peled and Chomsky and by Pappé. And others. But what I do know is that all action must come from love and hope.
"Isn't it telling that millions of us are not in the streets rebelliously insisting on the genocidal war Israeli Zionist Supremecists are doing to the Palestinians be halted?"--SS
Not really. It's much more telling (at least to me) that all the students that are paying outrageous tuition to support "the University Boards of Trustees are [our] smashing our right to free speech, assembly, academic freedom" don't withdraw their enrollment immediately and fully. If the world is quickly becoming devoid of civility and the rule of law--as inferred throughout the many responses to this Report, what is the point of continuing to seek a higher degree with which participate within it?
WWII I learned so much in grad school and am immeasurably grateful for that experience. I prefer to work toward righting the institutional wrong than advocate limiting a person's educational experience.
Well, I learned quite a bit in school as well. That was some time ago...and I never felt I was being indoctrinated or used as a political pawn. If I did, I would have terminated my enrollment promptly. I think times have changed where what I expected is no longer a delivered given. BTW, I paid for all my educations, so I have no reason to feel grateful to receive it.
BTW, I think the students I am currently suggesting terminating their enrollment are already receiving a " limited educational experience", so I take nothing away from them in giving my advice. I suggest they search for a better educational experience (and retain their civil rights) elsewhere. Also, if you believe in strikes as a crucial element of social change (as Hedges, I, and many others do on this forum apparently do) then put your money where your mouth is. As the saying goes: You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Cheers SS!
Collective action starts with recognition of the real issues . I only stated the present state of affairs. Bernie Sanders said his colleagues told him they could not support his bill to stop arms and funds to Israel because they wouldn't be re-elected for lack of funding by the Israel lobby . In the most powerful military and wealthy nation, the representatives of the citizens cannot vote their consciences because money is more important and they can be bought. With the Citizens United decision and the Supreme Court balance as it is, I see no apparent way to change things. Hopefully this will change in the future. Chris Hedges , investigative journalists and independent media and those who read them are not conditioned by the mainstream media nor are they in a trance.
I donate to organizations striving against the odds to feed the people anyway. World Central Kitchen every month… they are the bravest of the brave fighting against time with ladles as their weapons. This ugly hate machine can’t stop itself now. I cannot cry enough at the madness that lets this unfold by the world. The videos of the starving children and their parents hasn’t persuaded anyone in power. This is proof there is no higher being. This is humanity’s Truth.
I started monthly donations to WCK a year, or so, before Oct7. They have suffered great losses in Gaza. Are they still there?
I have donated to them for quite some time. Yes they are still there. From an email yesterday:
“After a five day pause, limited cooking operations resumed today at World Central Kitchen's Deir al-Balah Field Kitchen in Gaza.
This marks the second time in 2025 our hot meal program has been forced to halt due to a lack of available food supplies. Our teams on the ground are showing deep commitment and resilience, starting to cook again as quickly as possible.”
I would say God Bless the WCK.
But God is on my shitlist .
It's hard to imagine how they can do this.
The Israelis target any sources of help for Gazans. Hospitals, kitchens.
God's Chosen people?
Bad choice, God.
Good point--how did God get it so wrong? I know, the stock answer is that God gave us free will. Great, I'm for that. Why didn't we all get access to a moral compass/a conscience?
I have only heard the "gave us free will" answer from Roman Catholic folks. My response is, what about the free will of people, such as the Palestinians in Gaza, who are being murdered whether by guns or starvation. Where is their choice in this?
Excellent response, Sandy. And you outed me as having had to memorize the Baltimore Catechism at one point in my life--very long ago. The power of indoctrination, eh?
That’s why there isn’t a god.
IF there ever was one...(there wasn't) She, He, It has moved on in total disgust.
If God is good, s/he is not omnipotent. If God is omnipotent, s/he cannot be good.
Actually, there is no God.
I get emails about my contributions but not what they are doing....
The juxtaposition of the images of starving Gazans with those of people stuffing their faces in the AI generated Gaza Riviera video is beyond sickening. It’s the genocide of Native Americans by European colonialists all over again - this time on a global stage, with all of us watching.
This, truly is "The American Way." Clear the land with fire power and starve the survivors into submission or death. It worked very well here in the United States of America.
Boycott America for our complicity in this crime. Convert your dollars to bitcoin or foreign stocks to undermine the US dollar, reduce consumption of American goods as much as possible, move overseas if you can. This genocide wouldn't be possible without American support and there is about zero hope of changing this state of affairs through democratic means.
I am American and had left for Mexico 15 years ago and will never return , for any reason. If I were a bit younger than 86, I would apply for Mexican citizenship, which, like everything here, takes quite a while to accomplish. Then: give up my US citizenship.
I knew bits and pieces of the US/CIA interfering, providing weapons and intelligence to countries that had voted for Democracy. Guatemala, Chile, ....but, since Oct7 I began study of that region, which led to complete disgust with the USA.
Now, it is aiming at China. This with a crazy idiot President and his confederacy of dunces, this should put a stop to the powers the USA has had since 1945. China does not want war, China wants to continue its advancement. China will kick our butts.
And, war on Iran and Russia. This should end America's hegemony for good. And, BRICS is getting down to work serious about its goal of Life Without The USD!
As a social studies teacher at the high school level, I lobbied for us to change our curriculum from a focus on Ancient/Medieval European studies and examine the history, cultures, and political systems of the Americas. No one every supported my efforts. So I decided to develop my own course on an overview of "Latin American" studies...when I realized the role of the US in the subjugation of the people of that region, I knew why no one wanted a course like that. Our US history is very hard to look at.
Lexine,
Americans, including me, until quite recently, know nothing about the rest of the world..... Except the bull they are fed by the media/arm of the war machine USA....
People think everywhere is dangerous. Except maybe Canada and gated tourist places and tours, where they are protected at QUITE a price. For the price of a tour or a hideous cruise for 2 weeks, I could travel/live in SE Asia or India or almost anywhere for 6 months. I was in Dangerous Guatemala, Sri Lanka when it was at war..and, Burma! Always safe . Kinda lucky too.
Actually, "everywhere" is dangerous...especially, highways and your bathroom.
In The good ole USA: Classrooms
You betcha. I spent 2 months in Guatemala in 1991. I was not a history major or even interested in history. But, when I spend a lot of time (solo, budget) in a country, I end up studying its history. In Antigua, there is a library, CIRMA, where one can study there, No check outs. I learned about their elected government which was a bit too socialistic (communistic by US standards) and was subsequently overthrown by us...1954...which led to total chaos and many many Mayan villages overtaken by kids recruited to kill ...kids from other villages. ..just read an article about 80 year old women who sued a few of their rapists from that time. They were supposed to get reparations for the educations of their granddaughters but that is not possible given the USA's stoppage of funds to help anyone...(except our billionaires.)
Bitcoin and its competitors are one of the biggest drivers of ongoing exponential climate catastrophe with its HUGE use of energy to maintain its “mining” operations. That will lead to ecocide in the end. Humanity if it is to have a future needs to move beyond the concept of artificial wealth and the creation of it and the amassing of it as well by a few sociopathic fools who literally want it all for themselves.
Ah but 45/47 wants the dollar to plunge so his bitcoin value surges and he earns millions from his campaign of destruction in tandem with this genocide and his cover up. This isn’t a great option
Meanwhile, here in America, 500 tons of emergency food is being incinerated. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/07/usaid-emergency-food-incinerate-trump/683532/
The League of Nations failed to prevent WWII. The United Nations has failed to prevent genocide and aggression of such nations as Russia into sovereign lands like Ukraine. Where do we go from here when there is such an imbalance of power and wealth, when there is an intractable belief that 'my-God's-better-than-your-God' and, for this reason alone, "I deserve all that you have".
Ukraine is no more sovereign than we are here in the U.S.
We are owned, lock, stock, and barrel.
Arbitrary lines on a map matter little to our transnational owners and the merchants of death.
I suppose then, we - not having this intractable belief - must not be emotionally manipulated by that power play (my God is...have). So what? We "know" you are greedy, arrogant land hogs rationalizing your pillaging and evil; but we don't operate that way. Either you participate hamoniously or you are out! Perhaps, in the long view - current events are teaching that the "Peace-Ables" have to claim the power of our "no" and "no more" to those "wanton" corporate and ruling class members. Wanton - (of a cruel or violent action) deliberate and unprovoked."(Oxford languages) The Peace-Ables have to cultivate/develop the spine, teeth and courage to be the Force that commands "No!" - not that but this.
We know why the Democratic leadership is silent.
Follow the AIPAC money..
The Democratic leadership is NOT silent. Listen to them. Look at the photo of the people surrounding the international criminal Netanyahu when he visited the US last month--they are standing proudly by him. Those Senators include: Ted Cruz (R-TX), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Steve Daines (R-MT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), John Thune (R-SD), Jim Risch (R-ID), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Dave McCormick (R-PA), and Jon Husted (R-OH)
Don't kid yourself, the US has been sending billions of dollars to support the racist apartheid state of Israel for many years, under BOTH Democratic and Republican leadership. Read about the ascendancy of AIPAC in our congress since LBJ.
And AIPAC bought every one of them which is why they bow down before that racist Booby Nincompoopo.
I'm well aware that Spineless Schumer has said it's his job to keep the left Democrats on Israel's side.
I find it difficult to comprehend the amount of evil that characterizes the Zionist state. Is it worth it to commit genocide to get a bit more land? Settler colonialism has its own twisted means of justifying this macabre behavior. The land becomes the all-important commodity. People's lives don't matter, so long as they are different and judged inferior by those committing the genocide. One of the great Jewish mystics, Martin Buber, wrote a book called "I and Thou." He argued that proper moral treatment of another is as "thou," or as an equal to oneself. On the other hand, we find many who maintain "I/it relationships" instead of I/thou. In I/it, we use others, whether people or other living beings just for the purpose of getting what we want. And if they get in the way, we kill them. The worst of wars are fought on an I...It premise. We reduce the other to something we consider mean and ugly, and we kill them So have the Israelis done to the Palestinians. I/it is the essence of evil. It is the way of devaluing that is the basis of genocide.
"Never again," huh? How many times has this happened since WW II?
Is it any wonder that antisemitism is on the rise?
Unfortunately, all Jews will be held guilty by association, and will suffer the revulsion of the Zionists. The Zionists are their own worst enemies.
Zionists see antisemitism as a feature, not a bug.
I don't understand. I'd appreciate it if you explained it to me. Thanks.
Take away antisemitism and Israel would have no reason to exist.
Ahhh... of course. I never thought about it in that way. But I concur.
The trifling limited ego minded
We’ll ensconced
In their putrefied prefabrications
Feeding sumptuously
At their gilded
Totalitarian tables
On meals of moral rot
Isolated from the light
As they lounge in the sand
Of the Mediterranean shore
Staring blankly
Into the ever-black sunsets
Haunt inside their dreams
Which wander those graveyards
Of their Genocidal creation
As the blood red waves
Lap the crimson colored sand
Eroding that Riviera Nightmare
That raised it’s ugly head
Against the Kingdom of the Divine
✌🏼🇵🇸🇱🇧🇸🇾🇮🇷🇮🇶🇾🇪❤️🙏🕉
Israeli already live in moral squalor.
The only solution to this unnamable catastrophe that could have been foretold is the dimanteling of this satanic State of the Jews, which brings unspeakable oprobrium on all those who call themselves Jews.
Thanks, Chris, for another incisive article about the disaster in Gaza. I would quibble just slightly with your laying the guilt for the atrocities in Gaza at the feet of ALL Israelis ("Israelis do not see the images of skeletal corpses...", "Israelis do not look at the savage bombing and shelling...", etc.). Perhaps an oversight, but couldn't you have rectified that broad blaming with the formulation "some Israelis" or even "the Israeli government"? As an US citizen, I know I would not like it if a non-US journalist spoke of the actions of the Trump administration as something that "Americans" supported or approved of. I've also seen many photos and videos of large protests in Israel against the actions of their own unaccountable, fascist government.