LET ME SEE IF I GOT THIS...

 

    So... according to the Republiscum/Trump/MAGA Cult...

    You're not a REAL Roman Catholic if you deliver a prayer at the Democratic National Convention.

    You're not a REAL Christian if you're a Democrat.

    You're not a REAL Christian if you believe that Christianity focuses on God being love and calling for acceptance of others.

According to Christian tradition, Satan is "the father of lies". The Orange Fuhrer lies about his wealth, on his taxes (for which he is a convicted felon), about the size of any and all crowds to which he speaks, about "winning" the 2020 presidential election, about "winning" his debate with Vice-president Harris, about encouraging organized groups of thugs like the Proud Boys, 3%ers, etc. to mount a coup, knowing that Nick Fuentes is a white supremacist and anti-Semite, his "right" to hoard classified government documents, encouraging the January 6, 2021 insurrection, wanting dictatorial powers, wanting to suspend the U. S. Constitution, his criminal activity, his convictions for his various crimes and, basically everything down to his golf scores and yet he is the anointed of God? Is it not obvious that anyone who claims to be your one and only salvation is out to scam you, especially if he has scammed others in he past?

You're not a REAL American if you're not a Christian.

    You're not a REAL American if you believe in the separation of church and state.

    You're not a REAL American if you live in a city.

    You're not a REAL American if you live in a state that touches the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic north of Cape Hatteras.

You're not a REAL American unless you're white.

    You're not a REAL American unless you're as white (supremacist) as Tucker Carlson.

    You're not a REAL American if you believe that the U. S. Constitution is the law of the land instead of a talking point.

    You're not a REAL American unless you live in "Fly-Over Country" because there are definitely no airports west of Pittsburgh and east of Las Vegas.

You're not a REAL American unless you think that the murderer, Kyle Rittenhouse, is a hero.

    You're not a REAL American unless you fetishize our flag, using it for ridiculous, public displays of affection overkill without giving a damn about anything it actually stands for.

    You're not a REAL American unless you're willing to use the hallowed ground of a national cemetery for a political photo opportunity.

You're not a REAL American unless you believe any bat shit crazy conspiracy theory that validates your own bat shit craziness.

You're not a REAL American unless you believe that immigrants whose delicious, traditional cuisine centers on goat meat are suddenly inclined to eating household pets.

You're not a REAL American unless you want to "deport" millions of people you deem "illegal" after giving them an identifying number just like those magnificent role models, the Shutzstaffel, gave to their "deportees" at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau and Treblinka.

I am appalled that my fellow Americans hold "these  'truths' (above) to be self-evident" when they are not self-evident at all.

I am appalled and frightened that a majority of my fellow citizens swallowed the lies above with incomprehensible gusto on November 5, 2024. Henry Louis Mencken observed a century ago that, "No one ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public." And that's not lie!

IT'S ALWAYS ACCIDENTAL

 

How reassuring to know that no matter what horrendous thing you do it will always be an accident! No matter how many people you kill it's always an accident. Even when you kill citizens of your closest ally, a simple, "Sorry! Didn't mean to," is all you need to slink guiltily away from all responsibility.

On Friday, September 6, 2024, a 26 year old Turkish-American woman, carrying no weapons other than her concern for her fellows, attended a demonstration by Palestinians against Israeli settlers who had illegally usurped land and homes of their Palestinian neighbors in the occupied West Bank. Despite this usurpation being illegal under both Israeli and International Law the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) appeared on the scene to defend,  not law, decency or common sense, but rather the usurping settlers. 

Some Palestinians threw rocks at the armed settlers and armed IDF soldiers who were up to 200 meters away. I think that we can agree that even young David needed to be much closer than 200 meters to Goliath to kill him. Still, the stone throwing became the excuse for IDF members to use deadly force. Part of that deadly response included setting up a sniper on the rooftop of one of the usurped homes. 

The first shot the sniper fired was a little off. Rather than killing a young stone thrower the bullet hit a metal dumpster(?, building?). The sniper then aimed at Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, an unarmed American citizen who was not throwing rocks but was, convenient for the sniper, fully exposed. The IDF sniper then shot Ms. Eygi in the head. 

But wait! That aimed shot was an "accident". It was nothing more than a totally accidental confluence of totally unexpected events. Who could predict that a skilled sniper would bring his rifle to a demonstration? Who would believe that there would be a convenient rooftop overlooking the demonstration? And what are the chances that the sniper would find his way to that rooftop? So, the sniper just happens to be looking through his rifle's scope just at the moment that Aysenur Ezgi Eygi surprises the sniper by deliberately walking into the focus of that scope causing him to jerk the trigger?

CLEARLY AN ACCIDENT! WITHOUT QUESTION!

Of course, Ms. Eygi's "accidental" murder is just one in a line of similar "accidents" perpetrated by the IDF. Time after time Israeli murderers make the slimey, transparent excuse that their crimes are purely accidental. It's rather as if Jeffrey Dahmer were to have said, "Gee, I don't know what could have happened to my neighbor. Would you like this casserole? Some kebabs?"

The toll of Americans murdered by Israeli military, police and settlers keeps climbing.

Ms. Ezgi Eygi murdered by IDF sniper on Friday, September 6, 2024. She was 26 years old.

Tawfiq Ajaq murdered by an off duty Israeli policeman and a settler on January 19, 2024. He was 17 years old.

Shireen Abu Akleh, a journalist murdered by an IDF sniper on May 11, 2022. She was 51 years old.

Rachel Corrie, a journalist clearly wearing visible press credentials crushed by an IDF bulldozer on May 16, 2003. She was 24 years old.

And then there is the worst "accident" of all. On June 8, 1967 some IDF planes and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, a reconisance ship, killing 34 American service men and wounding 171 more. The Liberty was in international waters, clearly marked as an American ship but the Israeli Navy and Air Force "mistook" it for an Egyptian vessel.

The Israeli government has compensated the families and survivors of the Liberty with  cash but continues to pretend that the attack on the Liberty was an "accident" rather than designed to insure that Americans could never tip Egyptians off to Israel's looming surprise attack initiating the 6 Day War.

The death toll in Gaza is about to reach 41,000 with no sign of abating. The death toll in the West Bank is now over 700 and rising. But, no matter! It is all an "accident". It couldn't be other than an "accident" because Israelis are always the only ever victims of genocide, never, ever perpetrators of it. And, if the citizens of the United States happen to place themselves in the path of genocide, well, ...accidents will happen. She/He/that ship shouldn't have been there in the first place.

..

MY WISH FOR THE FAILED ORANGE FüHRER

 

    So a young man whose motives, as of this writing now weeks past the shooting, are unknown tried shooting The Failed Orange Führer on Saturday, July 13, 2024. Immediately J. D. Vance of Ohio blamed Joe Biden/Democrats/The Left for inciting the violence visited upon his Dear Leader.

    Aw! Come ON!

    First, a Liberal (Liberal, not Radical Leftist) with a gun is almost as believable as kitten with a gun, possible if you really, really stretch your very strange imagination, but all but incomprehensible.

    Second, the shooter has been identified as a loner who is registered as a Republiscum voter. In other words, someone not very likely to be motivated by Joe Biden/Democrats/The Left. Which candidate is it again who calls for jailing and executing rivals? Now where have I heard lots of rhetoric about "bloodbaths", "uprising", "take back our country"? I don't think it was from my Lefty friends, even the radicals.

    Third, I despise The Failed Orange Führer. I do not hate him. I hate everything he stands for but not that despicable scum himself. I have been saying since 2016 at least that the last exhibit in the The Failed Orange Führer Presidential Library should be the jail cell in which he spends the last years of his miserable, criminal life. I do not want The Failed Orange Führer to achieve the martyrdom that he so undeservedly affects. No. This despicable shit stain on American history deserves to live out his life shorn of his golden penthouses, estates, self-labeled buildings and his sleasily accumulated wealth. I want him eating prison food and, in my darker moments, serving as the bitch of a muscled, 275 pound undocumented Mexican lifer - I'm thinking Danny Trejo with young Arnold Schwartzenegger's body - who hasn't had any sexual relief in the last decade except from his own, preferred hand. That is my darkest wish for The Failed Orange Führer. Long life like that to him!

    I am also absolutely certain that the vast majority of my Lefty fellows would giggle a little and then tell me how awful a person I am and disown me emphatically. 

    Now, I ask you to contrast my dark demise for this despicable person with the litany of violent rhetoric spewed by The Failed Orange Führer from "Lock her up!" to "Grab them by the pussy." to "Some, I assume, are good people." to "Stop the steal!" to "poisoning the blood of our country" to "I am your retribution." to "in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote." Let's take that in the context of his proven false arguments that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him when The Failed Orange Führer insisted that his phony election fraud claims "allow for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution." King Donald the 1st anyone? Our successful Führer? His Highness, Fearless Leader, President-for-Life Bone Spurs?

    No, I don't wish him dead...right away. I just want him imprisoned and abused, forgotten and obscure, dying alone in his prison cell noticed by a dwindled cult that often forgets to send a card on his birthday. Were I a religious person, I would find a church in which I could light a candle as I pray for his long, lonely demise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT'S IN A NAME?, BRAINWORM EDITION

 

    Robert Francis Kennedy, Junior has suspended his pointless presidential campaign and endorsed The Failed Orange Führer in that felon's run to become a successful Führer for what would quickly become our failed democracy.

    I think it is not unreasonable to say that Bobby's father, Robert Francis Kennedy, Senior would have hired Sirhan Sirhan before endorsing George Wallace or Richard Nixon.

    The bulk of the discussion following RFK, Jr's announcement has centered on what he brings to the current presidential campaign other than shame and embarrassment.  Let's consider that for a moment.

    Bobby, Jr. made his name as an environmental lawyer who has now endorsed the poster child for polluters.

    The scion of the family most associated with the Democratic Party has endorsed The Failed Orange Führer whom even many Republicans can't stomach.

    What could possibly inspire this bizarre turn of events? A brain worm, if you'll pardon the pun, comes to mind but that seems too facile an answer. I am going to speculate since I don't know RFK, Jr and have no evidence for my speculation, yet it seems that he has an animus toward the Democratic Party. Why might that be? Perhaps it could be that RFK, Jr harbored some thought that he should be the party's nominee for the presidency. Perhaps he feels that he has inherited a leadership mantle that he didn't deserve. Has he ever paid attention to the term "nepo-baby"? Up-starts like the Clintons and Barack Obama capture the notice of party members in preference to him and the boy-who-would-be-king is left with a speaking problem, anti-vaccination conspiracies, a brain worm and some weirdness with a dead bear. Perhaps it seems unfair to him. Perhaps it seems to us that we have dodged that lunatic bullet.

    In 1980, RFK, Jr's uncle, Edward Kennedy, drove a resounding nail into the coffin of the Kennedy family's political ambitions by being unable to make an extempore case for his candidacy. The untimely death of John F. Kennedy, Jr. drove in another nail and now RFK, Jr. has killed the political careers of every member of his family for at least another generation. Personally, I'm sorry to see that. Every large family is allowed one crazy member whom they usually keep locked in an attic. RFK Jr's failing is that he's been allowed to roam free. Yet it does allow a future generation of Kennedys to chart their own courses perhaps one of which may be leadership in the Democratic Party. I wish saner members of the Kennedy family well  but that nail he's driven so firmly home today seals RFK Jr's own coffinas well as the family's immediate fate.

    In her acceptance address, Kamala Harris noted, quite correctly, that The Failed Orange Führer is an "unserious man". Today, RFK, Jr has announced that he is even more of an "unserious man" than the fascist he's endorsed.

August 30, 2024 -

    More information came to light in the past week that moves me to pity RFK, Jr. a little, only a little. In endorsing The Failed Orange Führer, RFK, Jr. or his worm-damaged brain has allowed himself to be conned by The Failed Orange Führer. First, he's been offered a possible cabinet post. The offer itself is probably bullshit. We all know how quickly The Failed Orange Führer renegs on promises. Still he made Ben Carson HUD Secretary so it's possible that RFK, Jr. could find some hope in that.

    What has moved me to pity is that The Failed Orange Führer apparently promised to release all the government files on the assassinations of RFK, Jr's father and uncle. I see that as a baited lure just as it is also a wild goose chase, The murders of President John and Senator Robert Kennedy have been investigated and reinvestigated most importantly by the Congressional Committee led by Senator Frank Church in the 1970s. The likelihood of some dark secret lurking in those files is pretty slim but is an undeniable draw for a loyal, disturbed son and nephew who is inclined to conspiracy fantasies. That I find sad and pitiable while also finding RFK, Jr's endorsement all the more appalling because it's been bought by false hope, mental distress and vicious manipulation.

BY DEFINITION

 

     Donald John Trump, Failed Orange Führer and former United States president, is now a convicted felon. He has been a felon for decades but, heretofore, was not convicted. His fervent supporter, Lauren Boebert (R-Total Insanity) opined that her Führer was a victim of "communism". Trump himself has claimed that he is a victim of "fascism". In both cases the terms are misapplied. Boebert uses "communism" as a dirty word because she does not understand what communism is. She also does not care to find out given her consummate willful ignorance. Trump uses "fascism" because he fully understands what fascism is and continues his congenital accusation of claiming that his current object of derision is guilty of what he is and intends.

    I'll get back to "communism" shortly but first I want to clarify what fascism actually is. According to Merriam-Webster, "fascism is a political philosophy, movement or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized, autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of oposition."

        Trump has specifically claimed that he intends to exercise dictatorial powers should he be elected president again. He regularly speaks of imposing extreme economic controls through limits on trade and reducing taxes on the wealthy people of which he is one. He also demands limits on his opposition such as demonstrators and opponents (e.g. "Lock her up!"). Also worth noting at this point is Trump's penchant for claiming that others are guilty of crimes of which he, himself is actually guilty (e.g. claiming that he is the victim of the fascism which he intends to impose on his opponents).

    Now, let's return to communism and the Merriam-Webster definition which identifies it, as beginning with a lower case "c", "a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed." And, as  beginning with an upper case "C", "a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production." The communism which we see today was codified by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The Communist Manifesto published in 1848 and subsequently modified by Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and others associated with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequently, the Soviet Union.

    For decades American Evangelicals have been indoctrinated with the farrago that communism and fascism are the same. That false concurrence starts with the fact that both philosophies are totalitarian. Also, these contemporary Christo-Fascists make much of the fact that what we commonly call the Nazi Party's actual, official name was the Nationalsozialistische Arbiterpartei (National Socialist Worker's Party. The evangelical fascists want their congregations to notice that the Nazis called themselves "socialists" and ignore the fact that any person or group may call itself what it likes while its actions determine its true nature. The claim to be a "Worker's Party" ignores the fact that its general membership came from the working class but that it's leadership and financial backing came primarily from the old, established classes of the nobility and very wealthy. The promoters of Christo-Fascism, like Trump, want to erase the idea that their fascist, ultra-right wing movement is nearly identical to that of the German Nazi Party of the 1920s through 1945 and it's remnants down to today. American White Supremacy, promoted by Trump, is almost indistinguishable from the German racial purity, Aryan Supremacy promoted by the Nazi Party.

    Thus we have the Failed Orange Führer naming his opponents "fascists"when he is, ipso facto, himself an actual fascist. We have, too, a woman and Congressperson of unfathomable depths of ignorance naming her Führer a victim of "communism" when it's obvious that all she knows of communism is that it's a "bad word".

    Calling the Democratic Party "communist" or even "socialist" is incorrect, a misnomer. If nothing else, one must consider the overwhelming Federal resources that the Biden Administration has offered to business interests for job creation, to manufacturing in businesses new and old. Still, I would suggest that, in one tenuous sense, Rep. Boebert is correct. If the communist axiom of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" may be applied to the American justice system at last, the New York jury's decision in Trump's hush money trial shows that Donald Trump, according to his ability to violate law and tradition, received the conviction that he so absolutely needed.

    I fervently hope that the Failed Orange Führer continues to fail and is rejected on next November 5th even more overwhelmingly than he was in 2020. His rejection is essential for the United States to continue as a democracy. I also fervently hope that, once again rejected at the polls, his most vicious, lunatic supporters do not repeat the insurrection of January 6, 2021. Further, I fervently hope that Trump's sycophants on the Supreme Court and Judge Aileen Cannon allow his other Federal trials to proceed to whatever verdict his peers deliver. Despite what the Failed Orange Führer and the fools who follow him would have everyone believe, Donald John Trump is not a victim of any philosophy or conspiracy. Donald John Trump is, by definition, not a victim of fascists or communists. He is, by definition, the victim of his own crimes and now adjudged a felon by the American people.

    It's about damned time!

"WHAT'S IN A NAME?" POOR PLUTO AND ANTI-SEMITISM

 

    Not so long ago we learned in school that our solar system contained 9 planets which, in order from the sun outward, were as follows:

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Mars

Jupiter

Saturn - these were all the planets known to everyone up through Galileo's time

Uranus

Neptune

Pluto

 Then, in 2006, some well-informed, well-educated and very anal-retentive astrophysicists decided that Pluto was really a "Dwarf Planet" (Little People of America take note!) and no longer deserved to be classed with it's bigger, gassier, ring-ier, moon-ier neighbors. Thus were disappointed many an elementary school student, executives at Disney and knee-jerk defenders, like myself, of "the little guy" despite the best efforts at explanation by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

    We must remember that Pluto, regardless of technical definition, is a rock out in the Kuiper Belt, orbiting our sun and acting very planet-like in all matters except size. Pluto is a solid fact regardless of what definition and name we apply to it. Personally, I think we should redefine it as a full planet but rename it Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I like Mr. Tyson though I have never met him, making my landing in his presence about as likely as my landing on the planet Neil DeGrasse Tyson (nèe Pluto). In any case, the point is that nèe Pluto is an incontrovertible fact name and designation notwithstanding.

    Such is also true of the current designation of many statements, words and phrases called anti-Semitic. The major difference, however, is that words are ephemeral and fungible regardless of our technological ability to record them and collect them. For example, the phrase "From the River to the Sea" is only anti-Semitic if you presume that Palestinians have no right to the lands on which they have lived for at least 1,950 years or possibly since Abrahamic times. The Palestinian State, which preexisted the 1948 recognition of Israel as a Jewish Homeland, held the lands from both sides of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. 

    The great Anglo-Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw, wrote an extremely short vignette in response to The Balfour Declaration which culminates with the declaration from Shaw himself that Balfour had created "another Belfast". With 75 years of history in hand, I think that we can say that Shaw was spot-on prescient. Israeli Governments from 1948 onward have laid claim of the lands "From the River to the Sea" based in the thin promise of a book of mythologized history

     For the whole history of the modern Israeli nation the world has presumed that both Israeli and a Palestinian nations would exist side-by-side in the old protectorate of Palestine. That is the presumption of the United Nations resolution that created Israel in 1948 and the presumption of successive agreements since. It is the presumption that both nations would exist "From the River to the Sea". However, the Anti-Defamation League has now decided that Palestinian supporters chanting "From the River to the Sea" are inherently calling for the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel. Inherently the phrase is nothing of the kind but now the ugly creature, Context, raises its objectional, 2-faced head. 

    If you're a true anti-Semite, like the Tiki Torch carrying scum that marched in Charlottesville,Virginia in 2017, "From the River to the Sea" does mean the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel. Those "good people" are now the darlings of the Republiscum Party here in the United States. If you are shocked by wanton murder, genocide and suppression of an entire people, "From the River to the Sea" means creation of an autonomous, contiguous Palestinian homeland that extends along side Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean coast. If you are intent on suppressing the Palestinian people by denying them their own homeland, one that preexisted modern Israel, of the land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean coast you will define "From the River to the Sea" as an anti-Semitic phrase as vile and noisome as the "Arbeit Macht Frei" inscribed above the entrance to Auschwitz or the "Jedem Das Seine" above Buchenwald's gate. That definition is no more valid than my suggestion that we make Pluto a full planet again and rename it Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

    The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has defined "From the River to the Sea" as an anti-Semitic curse because they feel that anything that fails to support a restoration of Biblical Galilee, Samaria and Judea from the time of Kings David and Solomon must ipso facto be anti-Semitic. That is, of course, special pleading nonsense. It is the same sort of special pleading nonsense that inspires the American ultra-right wing claim of validity to Constitutional "Originalism". In Constitutional "Originalism" right wing extremists cherry pick evidence, regardless of how specious, from the past to support their predetermined opinions. Likewise, the ADL cherry picks authority from a book of myth, legend, fiction and history filtered through myth, legend and fiction to claim ownership of a land in which they had no ownership for 1,900 years.

    Criticism of Israel is not ipso facto anti-Semitism. If it were, thousands of Jewish Israelis, who have spent months, both before and after October 7th, protesting the policies of the Netanyahu government, would be considered anti-Semitic, something that is, on its face, utter nonsense. It is possible to criticize the policies of any Israeli government while being a staunch supporter of a Jewish homeland in the former protectorate of Palestine and even one that stretches "From the River to the Sea".

    Protests against the wanton murder of 35,000 Palestinian civilians justified by outright lies and blatant obfuscaction in pursuit of the farrago of "eliminating" Hamas is ipso facto genocide despite the number of times that Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters object to that definition. Both the lies and obfuscations seem predetermined to cover the Israeli government's evil intent. When, I would ask, did the "conference" of the Netanyahu government take place to codify the "final solution" for the Gaza Palestinians? Who, if not Benjamin Netanyahu himself, presided at this "conference" in the role of Reinhard Heydrich? You, dear reader, if you find this comparison of the current Israeli government to the Nazi scum at the infamous Wannsee Conference appalling, I would ask you to explain to me any difference other than one being held for genocide perpetrated on Jews and the other being perpetrated for genocide by Jews.

    Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's book Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust establishes, as definitively as possible, that the ordinary Germans, who might not have been Nazi Party members, were sufficiently anti-Semitic as to support the rounding up of Jews in their communities and not care what happened to those same Jews. I would agree with Goldhagen's most negative assertions that those ordinary Germans knew or suspected that the Concentration Camps were actually murdering Jews. I do so from an incident from my teens.

    As a high school senior is was taking German as my foreign language. I then planned a life in politics for myself and felt that a central European language like German would situate my skills well for the on-going conflict with the Soviet Union. My German teacher, Herr Kaslaukas, had been a translator assigned to a commanding officer in the 3rd Army. Herr K, (a Kafka reference was not lost on me) had been, as my Uncle Eddy was, at the liberation of the Buchenwald Death Camp. One day one of my classmates asked Herr K about his World War II service. Quickly the discussion came to his experience with the Nazi Death Camps. Herr K told us that the officer (Colonel?) to whom he'd been assigned had entered the Buchenwald Camp and entered one of the barracks in which men too weak to walk lay. Herr K said that his officer had been in Europe since D-Day, that he'd seen men in his command "blown apart by shells and, literally, cut in half by machine gun fire". Then he added that his officer, "came out of that building, went behind it and threw up." 

    Herr K went on to say that what I remember as the next day an higher ranking officer arrived at Buchenwald. That officer ordered that his troops enter Weimar, immediately across the river, round up every person they could find and march them over to the camp. These good, ordinary Germans from Goethe's city, were marched through the camp. As they exited Herr K was tasked with stopping them individually to ask what they knew of this camp and the horrors there. What was most remarkable was that Herr K was relating this story to us but for most of it he had clearly been back at Buchenwald on a cold, April day in 1945. He had taken us with him. I, for one, was seeing this story play out with his eyes which is why, nearly 60 years later, the hairs on the back of my neck still rise remembering his description. So he asked those ordinary Germans of Weimar what they knew of this camp. The smell must have blown into town when the wind was right. They must have heard the screams of men being tortured in the nearby "Screaming Forest".  Herr K told us what those ordinary Germans answered, "We didn't know. We thought they were making soap. We didn't know." He paused. "They knew. They knew."

    Today, there are Israelis who are appalled by the actions of their government because "They knew." Other Israelis are happy that Al Jazeera is being closed down so they can avoid inconvenient truths. "They knew." There are leaders of Israel who claim that they never would consider genocide of the Gaza Palestinians. "They knew." There are members of the Israeli government who deny any atrocities by the IDF. "They knew." The IDF members who deliberately murder jouralists, doctors and humanitarian aid workers then claim it was all an accident. "They knew." The Israeli air force pilots who bombed and sank the USS Liberty with all hands on board in 1967 then claimed it was an accident. "They knew." The leaders of the Anti-Defamation League here in the United States who claim that bombings that have murdered thousands of Palestinian children are just the old, anti-Semitic "Blood Libel". "They knew." The politicians, Israeli and American Republiscum who define anything anti-war as anti-Semitic for their crass personal gain purposely ignore or encourage the inhumanity perpetrated on the people of Gaza. "They knew." Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman General C. Q. Brown have denied that Israel is committing genocide with U. S. weapons. "They knew." My President, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., for whom I will vote again in November, who has supplied this genocidal Israeli government with the means to wholesale murder of the Palestinians of Gaza has only lately moved to rein in the Netanyahu government. He knew.

    One of my Jewish grandsons has stayed away from both anti-war and pro-Palestinian demonstrations on his college campus. For his decision to stay away from both sides he has been called anti-Semitic by fellow Jews and vile names by pro-Palestinians. He is personally appalled by the Netanyahu government. I couldn't be more proud of him.

    The Holocaust has not prevented Jews from perpetrating the Nakba which is on-going in Gaza. The genocide of Jews does not, appallingly, preclude a genocide by Jews. Pluto may be a "Dwarf Planet" to astrophysicists but it is the 9th planet in our solar system to most of us. The war on Gaza may be an action for Israel's defense to some but it is manifestly genocide to most of us. The Hamas attack on October 7th was horrible and appalling to most of us. The genocide in Gaza is horrible and appalling to most of us. Rachael bitterly weeps for her children but by her side Hagar weeps full as many and as bitter tears for hers too. It is long past time that we should allow both Rachael and Hagar to dry their eyes. We all know that.

DRONING ON

    Chef José Andrés' World Central Kitchen (WCK) has been lauded over most of the civilized world for feeding the hungry in disaster and war zones. Chef Andrés is fulfilling, whether intentionally or not, one of the essential aspects of human decency, a Beatitude perhaps, voiced by some itinerant preacher in the Middle East a long time ago when he said, "...for I was hungry and you gave me food...and for as much as you have done this unto the least of these, my bretheren, you have done it unto me." 

    I think that guy meant that the simple human decency of sharing food with the hungry transcends all the pettiness of this world and shows some exceptional greatness. But that's just my opinion and what do I know? I'm just an over-educated old man and an atheist too. Maybe that itinerant preacher just meant "Screw the hungry, feed me!" Regardless, Chef Andrés deserves some serious plaudits for the charity he has organized.

    The other day, some of Chef Andrés' employees and their guide and translator were in a convoy amid the war in Gaza. Surrounded by gratuitous death and destruction these 7 World Central Kitchen workers were going about the business of saving some civilians from starvation. The convoy was moving at night along a route specifically arranged with and agreed upon by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The cars in which they were riding were clearly marked as World Central Kitchen vehicles on their roofs to make any air units of the IDF aware that the vehicles carried neutral, non-combatant aid workers.

    As this aid convoy made its way along this allegedly safe and pre-cleared route one or more IDF drones appeared overhead. These drones were equipped with U. S. provided Hellfire Missiles. They also were equipped with cameras specifically used for targeting, cameras which sent their images back to some one or more IDF pilots controlling the drones from a chair some safe distance away. Because cameras need to see in the dark, these drones had either conventional lights or night-vision sensors or infra-red sensors on board to give their controllers specific information about the vehicles and their passengers.

    Before we go further, let me make clear, the person or persons controlling the drone or drones above the WCK convoy could see the vehicles blow those drones.

    What happened next has been clearly attested to and explained. A drone fired a Hellfire Missile at 1 of the convoy vehicles. The survivors of that missile strike got out of the wreck and ran to the the next vehicle. When they arrived at that next vehicle another Hellfire Missile hit that vehicle. The survivors of the 2 Hellfire Missile strikes then ran to the third vehicle in the convoy. When they reached that third vehicle a third Hellfire Missile destroyed this new vehicle finally killing the rest of the 7 WCK employees who had survived the previous 2 missile strikes.

    The IDF and the Israeli Government have brushed this horror off as a terrible mistake. Let me ask you, is that denial of responsibility credible? Is there any iota of truth in that denial?

    Remember that the convoy was on a prescribed route pre-cleared by the IDF. Remember that the vehicles were clearly marked specifically so that they could be identified from the air. Now remember that aid workers who survived the first missile strike weren't targeted until they reached the second vehicle and again weren't targeted until they reached the third vehicle in the convoy. Finally, I would ask you how utterly full of shit are the IDF and the Israeli Government? How clearly, I ask you, is it that those WCK workers were targeted over and over again. 

    Two ships laden with food for those starving in the Gaza Strip turned back to Cyprus and WCK withdrew from Gaza following the murders of their fellows thus insuring that more Palestinians would die of starvation, a horrible, lingering death that takes children first. How, I must ask you, can the malignant, meretricious and mendacious IDF and Israeli Government of Benjamin Netanyahu retain any scintilla of credibility. And finally, I ask you to look up or call to memory the piles of emaciated corpses in the Nazi death camps, the skeletal survivors in the Nazi death camps, the destruction of Lidice and Ležáky and the Warsaw Ghetto and then I ask you how can the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who suffered those horrors can consent to visiting the same horrors on any of their fellow human beings?

    All Palestinians are not Hamas. I would suggest that even as honorable and decent Jews (I am excepting Stephen Miller who is Jewish but otherwise neither.) oppose the Netanyahu Government, so are there Palestinians who oppose Hamas. Just as there are Hamas fighters who dehumanized Jews to commit the atrocities of October 7, 2023 so there are some Israelis, the drone operators in this WCK case for example, are no better than the vilest of Nazi SS officers, non-coms and camp guards. I have spoken with and respected survivors of the Nazi death camps. I have known men who liberated the Buchenwald Camp, one of those being one of my uncles. I find it incomprehensible that Israelis have dehumanized Palestinians as the Nazis did the Jews. I find it incomprehensible that Israelis, no matter how threatened they may feel, would sink so low as to dishonor the the 6,000,000 murdered in the Shoah by becoming like their murderers.

    I do find those things incomprehensible yet there is plenty of room left to rend my heart that my country, my government, my president is willfully complicit in the on-going Palestinian genocide and in the wanton murder of the 7 workers of the World Central Kitchen.