Category: 2016

If I were an alien from an intelligent sphere studying Planet Earth, what do you suppose would I be thinking? If you were an ET (Extra Terrestrial) what would you think?

To begin with, I would think that the political leaders of the world have become totally unhinged, which is truly and pathetically laughable were it not for the fact that their total ineptness has – and is – leaving millions of human beings either dead, maimed, uprooted, raped, kidnapped, traded and/or poverty-stricken, as well as entire nations in shambles! And I would really wonder how, after all these centuries of experience and existence, is it even remotely possible that such incompetence and corruption could still exist?

Then there are The Walls! Should you enjoy knowing about Walls, you can go back to Hadrian’s 80 miles-long Wall built in 122 AD. Its objectives were defense. Another theory says it was to control immigration, smuggling and customs. Sounds familiar? Yes? Walls were built around the ancient city of Jerusalem that did not prevent its being invaded, sacked, burnt, its women raped, its men slain on numerous occasions. In Palestine today there is the defensive Wall that Israel has erected to ward off “terrorism,” as they call it, and mostly on land that was expropriated: orchards and homes belonging to many Palestinian families. Then, of course, there was the Great Wall of China, which still somewhat stands; the Berlin Wall that was toppled; the Saudi-Yemeni Wall on which construction began in 2003, and which has not prevented anything, not even a devastating war going on as I write this. The US has a Wall between it and Mexico, which is kind of amusing when politicians threaten to build one that is already mostly built??!! How does one explain such ignorance of facts, or those that lap it up? Even the United Kingdom has become part of this ridiculousness by erecting (in process still?) a Wall in Calais, France and paying for it, and there’s also a recently built Wall between Hungary and Croatia, all to prevent the hapless, uprooted, war-torn humans from “invading!” Did I overlook any other Walls? Nevertheless, it is all so pathetically laughable, because, at the end of the day, no Wall is unsurmountable, impenetrable or full proof! Somehow, or the other, people climb, or go around it. We build Walls between nations, forgetting that cyber space has no Walls at the moment and that all sorts of hacking, crime and even aspects of war are rampant in that sphere! Cyberspace tears down Walls, Countries build Walls! How Pathetically Laughable is that?

Politicians have even resorted to name-calling the “enemy,” whomever that is at the moment. As one example: Israeli settlers hurling slurs at, and about, the indigenous Palestinian population (which they have been doing for many years), and their Prime Minister who is so pathetically laughable when he says that the Palestinians, who are under a ruthless and suffocating occupation, are trying to “ethnically cleanse” Israel of its Jewish citizenry. Seriously?

The Philippines Duterte saying that the US President is a “son of a whore?” Really? I criticize the President constantly, many people in the US and across the world are also very disappointed in him, however, having Heads of State like the Israeli PM and the Philippines President resorting to such crass indignity is way, way beyond low and depraved! As I write this post, I hear that Obama was chastising Trump for admiring Putin. He was asking how anyone can admire a leader who invades weaker countries – meaning, Ukraine??!! Excuse me? Was he seriously saying this? What part of Invading Another Country doesn’t he get without his face reddening with shame? And there are other numerous examples of this infantile behavior! Are such politicians taken seriously by anyone with a functioning brain? How does one explain this, if at all? Can you explain it?

The depravity is so rampant and has become so endemic that I wonder how it could be rooted out? Here is a quote that I kept from a Reader’s Digest issue in September of 2012 by Bob Ingils, who was a Republican from South Carolina at the time:

“We get invited to a lot of receptions sponsored by lobbyists, but ethics rules say that you can’t sit down and you can’t have a fork. So the caterers set up standing tables and serve every food you can think of that you can stick with a toothpick.”

And there you have it in a nutshell! The ruling classes will go around every rule and law, twist it, squeeze it and turn it around on its head in order to justify their behavior and ensure that they will remain in power. How little they must think of the “people,” of you, me and all of us! What flagrant disrespect!

I know! I know! It seems that more and more people are tuning out, ignoring the so-called news and the so-called reporters and corrupt journalists, disregarding totally greedy and unethical politicians, and forgetting the numerous tragedies and wars raging around the globe. Some of my friends don’t even read my blog anymore because they say that it disconcerts them! They would rather not know! How tragic! However, there are numerous humans who are becoming more involved, more aware and more willing to look beyond their safe and immediate cocoon, because they know that the bubble they dwell in will not always be as safe . . . as an example, there are viruses and as yet-to-happen pandemics from which none of us will be safe . . . there is the threat of violence from nations, ours in particular, and from ideologies that could sweep all of us into such quagmires . . . there are devastating weapons galore in the hands of nuclear nations and individuals . . . and the list goes on and on! Not knowing, not protesting, not voting for the right people, not supporting organizations that are fighting on our behalf does not make all this go away by itself! Freedom, Justice, Equality, Democracy and Peace are in grave peril.

I am not a politician, statistician, or any ician or ist! Yet, I wonder for how much longer will human beings tolerate these things? At some point, the pot will boil over, wouldn’t it? Yet, the State, Military, its Corporate Benefactors and those in Power are so entrenched that they might unleash their police and their armies to quash any dissent? This is already happening, actually!

Are you depressed already? Worried, perhaps? What will you do about it all?

If I were an intelligent alien studying Earth, I would be holding my breath in fearful anticipation of the ignorance and future horrors that are looming over that planet.

Pathetically Laughable!

Almost invariably, when we human beings see pictures of little children we go gaga, goo-goo! I remember so well those pictures in all the American magazines I used to buy in Beirut during the fifties, sixties and early seventies. They depicted all those cherubic-looking, blond, blue-eyed Gerber babies that were just so adorable. I was still “under the influence” in those days – “influence” being that everything US was terrific! I woke up from that fantasy pretty quickly after that, and after realizing what the sordid intentions of the white Western World were regarding the rest of the colored world!

During the years since Vietnam, and those horrific pictures of maimed and Napalm-burned children, we have seen in magazines, newspapers and on our television screens the pictures of thousands of little boys and girls maimed, snatched, burned, jailed, traumatized, tortured, uprooted and orphaned all across the hot spots of our globe. We have seen, and read about indigenous children, kidnapped from their parents, placed in colonist orphanages where they are re-trained to become civilized – aka: behave like Whites. We have seen, and read about the abducted children being trained as suicide bombers and killers. We have seen, and read about the enslaved children being trafficked for sick sex. And on and on goes the depraved exploitation. Some of those images have left me sleepless for nights on end! I am, of course, not alone.

There was something very disturbing, though about the recent picture of that lone little Syrian boy with blood on his face, looking totally forlorn and lost, that wrenched the hearts of millions of people all over the world. So, too, did the startling body of a two-year-old child of migrants dead and listlessly washed up on the shore. They were both shocking, ugly situations; the senseless result of a war fuelled by ruthless objectives; by greed, arrogance and corruption, and political leaders on all sides who have lost any semblance of humanity, or compassion! I am sure that any person, especially those who have children or grandchildren around those little children’s ages, were extremely disturbed as they hugged their safe, well-fed, clean children.

I applaud and admire all the photographers risking their own lives sometimes to bring us those pictures. However, what struck me as a very distressing aspect was that certain agendas are sometimes using the plight of children as props to arouse emotions against this or that or the other. This is unconscionable. As human beings with twenty-one centuries of history and experience we should not need tragic pictures of little children to remind us of the ugliness and the horrors of war. We should not need to see a maimed, or burnt child in order to arrive to a political decision as to which side is right or wrong, or whom we are with or against in what is essentially a criminal endeavor to begin with, and no matter who is advocating it. We should not need the pictures of orphaned, uprooted children to make us realize which side is “good” and which is “evil,” when every side in every war that involves innocent children (and they all do) is wicked and immoral.

Every political faction, and every country has used the images of war-torn children in order to elicit our emotions and to prove to us that they are the moral defenders of what is right, while the other side is causing the children to suffer because they are depraved! Every participant in a war is immoral, and we know that all of them have caused children to suffer, to be traumatized, to be killed senselessly! There is no one who is holier-than-thou in any war. Every political leader’s hands are soaked with the blood of the innocent. Every political leader is guilty of the most egregious kind of crimes against humanity

The United States, Israel and all the Western nations will never be able to cleanse their murderous hands from the blood of millions of Middle Easterner children. That blood will haunt them, as well it should!

There is a huge difference between sharing pictures of one’s children, or grandchildren on social media and doing a little bit of bragging as we all sometimes do, and using similar pictures by governments and organizations in order to elicit emotional reactions for the ultimate goal of political gain, charitable giving, or sexual arousal. This is exploitation. Child Exploitation! Pure and simple!

We all need to grow up, to become smart-thinking adults and stop behaving like teenagers at a horror show gasping and screaming and then emerging from that experience only to forget our shock once the appalling images are not staring us in the face! How can we do that and call ourselves compassionate humans? Do we really need to see pictures of burned and starved Jews in Hitler’s camps to realize the horrors of the Holocaust?  Isn’t it enough to simply be aware of such immoral acts for us to recoil in revulsion and to shout from the rooftops: Never Again! Never Again for Jews, or Anyone else! Do we really need to see the pictures of gleeful, racist Israeli settlers after they burn a Palestinian child by making him swallow gasoline and lighting a match, or igniting him in his bed and home in order to be shocked by an ongoing illegal, criminal, immoral occupation?

And, yes, I do realize that graphics are stimulating and, in most cases, will elicit emotional reactions. That is not enough to convince me anymore that we need to see horror being perpetrated on little children in order for us to feel charitable, to sense pain, revulsion, anger, fury or anything else. We should feel that way without governments, institutions, or specific agendas using appalling images of little children to provoke our response and to achieve a sick political, monetary, or sexual objective. 

Any Exploitation of Any Child should be a criminal transgression and should be condemned by one and all.

The Guardian reported on January 30, 2016 that the criminal intelligence agency, Europol (European Police), estimates that there are 10,000 immigrant children who have disappeared over the past year. Vanished! What is happening to these hapless victims? How do we allow this abuse and criminality to continue and say that we are civilized? Moreover, this is the main result of senseless wars and uprooting! How do we sleep at night knowing of such crimes, being apathetic, acquiescing to the powers that be who allow it to continue reprehensibly unabated?

However, I am also gratified these days when I see pictures of babies and children in our glossy publications who have different ethnicities; to read articles about the achievements of children with special needs and see their beautiful pictures; to realize that there are people speaking up saying that no child should go hungry, be traumatized, victimized, and suffer because adult politicians and leaders cannot solve their issues and differences without going to war. How ludicrous is this, really! We should demand to show all our professed love for children by not Exploiting them any more! We ought to demand that our leaders negotiate with their mouths and not from the mouth of a gun!