A platform for sense and decency … and smackdowns of reactionaries

Good riddance, Joe Biden.

In relative terms, you may be less of a sociopath than Trump. But that’s hardly a triumph. For half of your term, you’ve presided over the killing of 45,000 people and the destruction of a territory with an intent to make it uninhabitable for the people who live there. Sure, it wasn’t you or your […]

January 2025: A quick tour of places where nihilism is on the march.

USA: Two weeks before inauguration of the criminal sociopath. Breathless coverage by the Infotainment Complex of every utterance by him and his cronies, especially Musk, a billionaire narcissist, illegal immigrant with a dozen (and counting) offspring, who, through a chunk of the public airspace — X (f/k/a Twitter, now “Xitter”) — he owns, compulsively opines […]

Seasoned reporter, Judy Woodruff, legitimizes “fake news” claims by known liars.

PBS reporter Woodruff recently felt compelled to apologize. What sin had this veteran, if vanilla, journalist committed to warrant her to do that? While reporting from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, she said that Trump was “on the phone with [Netanyahu] urging him not to cut a [hostage] deal [with Hamas] right now because […]

John Kirby: Imperial Clerk and Apologist for Moral Squalor

Israeli forces have taken out a convoy of three trucks that was bringing food to Gaza. Apparently, the 32,000+ civilians they’ve already offed in their Project Vengeance, now in its fifth month, haven’t been enough. Deliberate starvation is next on the menu for the unfortunates trapped there. As the IDF knows, its ability to destroy […]

Not-News News: Israel rejects two-state solution; press serves left-overs.

Or, as the kids would say, No shit, Sherlock. Menachem Begin told Ronald Reagan in 1980 — 1980! — that Israel would never agree to a Palestinian state west of the Jordan. How did the dolt of dolts, the god in the pantheon of Republican gods respond? Gosh; OK, then. Forty-four years of illegal Israeli […]

US war crimes committed openly in Gaza aren’t war crimes unless we say they are.

Imagine the US as a gigantic elevator into which is piped background music that soothes riders with the affirmation that theirs is a society governed by laws. Their economic-military colossus of a country is “a nation of laws,” a place where “no one is above the law,” where “justice is blind”. Compared to other countries, […]

US bullshit continues to be world-class.

Some 15,000 American bombs and 18,000 dead (50,000 wounded) Palestinians later, the US president has opined that Israel is “starting to lose support by [its] indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza. He is said to have had “blunt private conversations with Netanyahu” about Israeli tactics, though how an American defines “blunt” likely differs markedly from the Israeli […]

Wie sieht es in Deutschland aus?

Ein Freund aus Deutschland schreibt. Meine Frau aus Thailand macht sich Sorgen über die ca. 30.000 Thailänder in Israel. Viele sind bei der Terroraktion der Hamas getötet und auch entführt wurden. Die meisten arbeiten in Israels Landwirtschaft. Um die 5.000 wollen Israel derzeit so schnell als möglich verlassen. Die Bevölkerung in Thailand nimmt korrekterweise die […]

Another Boot-Licking Festival

As predictable as ever, Western leaders, politicians, and commentators have been lightning-quick in their response to the deadly cross-border raids from Gaza to swear undying fealty to Israel and “its right to defend itself against terror”. Headlines, often in 16-point font size, blare about the “unprecedented invasion”. Always first with one-sided and misleading stories, the […]

And the rest of the world watches: Part 2

Why do the countries with the means to compel a change in Israel’s course — a course Western leaders routinely describe as counter-productive to peace and even contrary to Israel’s long-term interest — limit their role to hand-wringing? Is their helplessness feigned or real? There are four elements that maintain the status quo, variously playing […]

The self-styled “civilized” world continues to watch, bemused: Part 1

If the demographic curve’s against you, resort to more direct means of righting the imbalance. Always ready to off Arabs, Netanyahu decided, to the cheers of his countrymen, that it was time for another round, this time through an assault on the refugee camp in Jenin (northern Israel), a squalid place since 1953. But for […]