Premature Silence

 It is a good thing when people are concerned with justice, when they want to acknowledge and fight against racism and other forms of bias and prejudice. But it is also a smart thing to see that a lot of people agree that these issues are important, but sometimes have different opinions about the methods to achieve it.

This is a good topic of discussion. It is not smart to assume that one political group has ownership on these issues, and has authority to dictate what is right and what is wrong, and that disagreeing with this group means being on the side of racism and injustice.

There is danger when discussing things becomes a crime in itself. Danger of stalling all the dialogue and giving the victory to a political group by force.

For instance, some movements took the front in the manifestations of the rightful outrage about the hateful and racist treatment that George Floyd received from some policeman, which resulted in his unacceptable death. Obviously there was reason for protesting.

But what also happened is that I read about a maestro that criticized when some people, during the protests, attempted to burn a public building. Also, there was a journalist that manifested outrage when some vandalized a synagogue. I agree with them both, just as I believe that looting is wrong, even in the case of a rightful protest.

But the result of these two people manifesting their opinion, that seems to go against the idea that a certain movement should be “untouchable” – no movement should – was that those people, who manifested their legitimate opinion, just couldn’t find work anymore, and their old colleagues didn’t show up to defend them by fear of being targeted too.

I am not saying that Freedom of Expression should not have any limits. I don’t think someone should be allowed to say, “What those cops did to Mr Floyd is what must be done”. That would be incitement of racist violence. But I also think it would be horribly wrong to say “let’s do that with people who question any of our methods”.

Those two examples I gave are not the only ones. There are more people who lost their jobs, lost all opportunity of working with what they learned to master, they were somehow excluded from places they had got into with their hard work. A kind of banishment.

Banishment is no joke. There were societies in the old, old times where a person convicted of a crime could choose between death of banishment, that is, leaving the tribe and going alone to the woods. Because in fact it probably meant death.

And in fact, deaths did happen in our modern world persecutions. There was did Canadian teacher, a white man, that was present in a meeting where a black girl from outside the school said that Canadian education system had worst problems than the US one. He disagreed with that, he simply disagreed with that. The girl mocked him and proceeded to accuse him of all kinds of bigotry, referring to him as “whiteness”. He too lost all respect from his previously friendly working environment, and ended up suiciding. I have no problem saying that this black girl acted in a criminal way. Why should I? She was given power and used it horribly.

It is not smart to say that the cases are few. Thought policing must be cut by the root. One single case like that can put a whole group of people in fear, giving more and more strength to the patrol. The more we accept, the worst it gets. Who can say what the limits will be?

And we can see clearly that the limits are being tested. You see how people are policing about everything. Nowadays, it seems that it became wrong to say something like, “I see differences between man and woman”. It’s happening. I don’t claim to have totally solved this mystery about man and woman, but why should the discussion be shut?

Saying simply that there is something called “woman” and something called “man” now can get you accused of hating Trans People. I have all solidarity and respect for Trans People, but I also think: if that person decided that she is a Trans Woman instead of a man, it is because she sees meaning in the word “woman”. Isn’t it obvious? Oh, but what about all the spectrum? Well, a spectrum is something that goes from some place to somewhere else, not something that goes from no place to nowhere. Right? Again, I am not saying I have all the answers, but forbidding basic human concepts is insane.

Just like some values that I always cherished, like “I treat people the same with no regards for color”. Now it is considered wrong. It is what we should have done to the beginning. You think it’s too late to do it now, okay, but I won’t accept to be called racist if I think different. I heard of a teacher who even suggested flagging students that say things like that. Are you kidding?

Again, it is not a small problem. Nowadays you don’t need a guillotine. Just destroy some people’s lives and see everybody else getting afraid. In the old times, you could escape defamation by packing your things and moving to another place. Now, with Internet, sometimes you just can’t escape.

And of course, there are not only the ones who dislike the situation but are afraid. There is a lot of people who just rides whatever wave is there for their own benefit. The system that is being formed in the world of education is no joke. In the press too.

And the more power this thing gains, the more it starts to interfere in other spheres of human life. For instance, if a man is accused of the hateful crime of sexual harassment, and you say, “I think he wasn’t properly judged yet”, a lot of people will be mad at you and scream, “don’t you see you may be defending a sexual predator?” The thing is, I am not defending or accusing nobody – I am defending a principle, the principle of fair judgement that has proven to be the best to solve some kind of issues.

Don’t you see the obvious danger of thinking that “some crimes are so horrible that just being accused of them makes you guilty”? Think, please. Parallel judgements, judgements by “the public”, the influenceable public, are terribly dangerous, just check History.

The goal of this total politization of all spheres of life seems to be simply establishing that there is a group of people with a certain political mind that have all the answers. There are no more issues to be discussed, just answers to be accepted. The fight against prejudice and injustice simply belong to these groups. They can do all they want.

It can go to unpredictable places, have strange consequences. You can become unable to even say you don’t like certain song lyrics. I don’t like, I am not saying it should be censored but I don’t like, songs that have a too explicit, artificial and exaggerated vision of sex, like so many around. And I like even less, the fact that a lot of it is somehow made in a way that can be appealing to children.

For some reason, it seems that academical people acts as if this music is an authentic expression of the oppressed ethnic groups of the world, so criticizing it is something related to a racial prejudice. So, this is what black and brown people are? A people who sings pornographic songs for children? When did it happen? Oh, wait, I saw it happening. On television. Yes, television.

Also, a lot of people in the World act the same way regarding rap music that talk about women in a disrespectful way and about crime as a “cool” thing. I have to respect it because it’s the “black thing”.

Of course I have nothing against the rhythm itself, and probably there are some lyrics that are more interesting than that, but there are too many guys who just talk shit. What? I can’t say nothing bad of a guy if he descends from Mtv? Oh, it started small somewhere… a lot of things start somewhere, but just some are picked by Mtv.

I imagine that there are some people that listen to those crime lyrics the way I used to listen to a Bob Dylan outlaw song. Probably. But I wouldn’t say those crime songs hadn’t pushed some people “a little more” to that side. I am forty years old and don’t expect everybody to have the same musical taste as mine. But why should I feel any bad for not liking it?

I repeat, I am not saying gangster rap should be forbidden – or even the porn “songs”, although some protection for children is a good topic of discussion, in my opinion. What I am saying is: a guy can make the song, another guy can say he loves it, and I can’t say I don’t?

What I am discussing here is not even those songs in themselves, but the politization that happens, when they make it a matter of “racial identity”. Suddenly, I could be called “racist” for not liking a type of song. Music as a root expression of peoplehood ended with the beginning of the recording industry and the age of celebrities. It’s just a different moment in History, not necessarily worst. But now, an artist speaks for himself. Just for himself. And I can dislike anything, and talk about it, right?

And what is the connection here? Why the Entertainment Industry seem to have majorly picked a side politically, and why the college people praise the Industry? Well, there must be something good for both. Having the praise of college people is good for those artists, and be on the side of the “cool” people of Entertainment makes the College people seem “cooler”.

All in all, people take sides politically, and a lot of times is by hatred. Maybe college people and entertainment people both hate the same thing, the “normal life”. There are people who will feel much better about themselves if they prove that “normal life” can only be a fraud.

And so, alliances form. American anti-American people and foreign anti-American people hate America for different reasons, but there is a lot of money and champagne flowing in all directions, and what exactly will replace America, well, we’ll see that later, let’s just enjoy seeing those silly commonsense losers fall.

Can’t you see that in this World all is falling into politics, and politics is big business? I personally find it difficult – I am just being honest – to see any real plan playing out there except “win at any cost”, but the fact is that people get tied. They have to please their comrades.

And we all had a good example of it all in the current Israel-Hamas War. There was not much room for discussion. It was simply established that Israel was wrong. Almost nobody in the entertainment and very few people in the press spoke differently from the mainstream, seems that nobody wanted to be seen by their comrades as taking the “wrong side”.

Of course they made it all a matter of “caring for the Palestinian civilians”. Okay, but wasn’t the subject worthy of at least a little bit of discussion? Discussion about the fact that we can’t say the democratic countries are never justified for going to War, discussion about when a reaction is needed and what is the best possible reaction. Discussion about the complex World where a country like Iran supports Terrorism and is treated so nicely by the UN. But there was no discussion at all, only the “nice guys” taking the “right side”. Even talk about hostages was kind of forbidden, kidnaped babies’ posters torn down.

Why not discuss, if you say you care so much? For instance, here is what I see. When you have your civilians under brutal attack, like October 7^th, you basically have three options. One, do nothing to defend them, don’t react against the source of the attacks, leave your civilians just praying that it won’t happen again. Two, make a reaction with no ethics or any regard to the civilians on the other side, say goodbye to International Law. Or Three, react with ethics, try your best to avoid civilian casualties, respond to International Law, knowing that war will be painful and tragic losses will happen on both sides, but hoping that it will end with a peace that is worthy, the end of attacks, and a bigger conscience in the World about how serious Terrorism is and how just say the word “peace” will not stop it. Hoping a better World can come.

Israel clearly took the third option – they are ready to respond any questions regarding International Law and seem compromised to not go one step further once Terrorism is out. Besides those three options, do you see any other? Do the Hollywood people have some other option to suggest?

The “nice guys” can’t answer the question: should Israel consider the existence of Hamas acceptable? In fact, not even the UN wants to discuss this.

It is a clear example of how all this “coolness” and “look how righteous we are, on the side of the oppressed”, instead of fomenting important discussions, is being used to shut them. I ask again, are we so sure we already have all the answers?

What the mainstream intellectual world seems to be proposing is a strange kind of “End of History”. Yes, all thoughts have been thought, all questions made and answered, the right side is defined, and is totally connected to a specific political group. It’s not time to hear nobody anymore, just apply what we know – we seem to know everything – with an iron hand.

Who is not afraid of losing all their friends, of being considered totally in the wrong side? Of losing all opportunities of realize any dream connected to what they most love to do?

In the end, we just get afraid. Afraid of being judged. And consequently, we end alone, because everybody else can turn into accusers. So, that’s it. The intellectuals winners got it all, and everybody else is isolated from one another. Even if those intellectuals and entertainers didn’t solve the problems they speak about yet.

Come on, let people come with different ideas to solve these big issues of prejudice and injustice. And if you end up being the one who solve them, then you can claim some recognition. Until then, don’t try to shut everybody else.

10 Years of this Blog!

 In fact it was in January, but i didn't see it.

10 years and counting...

Now I've put this gif here and I am fearing this looks like a weird page from the 90s. Anyway...

Now seriously, at this right moment I am just feeling SO grateful that you appreciated.

Determinism and Arbitration

 As you probably realized, my line of work has not been one of writing a lot of proper names. But there is this guy, Antonio Guterres, the chairman of the UN. He has been the prime minister of Portugal by the socialist party. This should make us think: Should someone connected to a socialist party be in that position?

I am not saying that someone should go to prison for being socialist, but should he be the chairman of the UN? Shouldn’t that position be occupied by someone more neutral? Socialism is an ideology and socialists clearly take sides on the conflicts based on their ideology.

The political parties in the world that use the name “socialist” differ between  themselves in some aspects, but they have this general tendence of trying to get more people to their side by spreading the idea that no other group is really concerned with justice, with poverty and so on. They also have a very strong connection with the academical establishment, the intellectual status quo. Their emphasis on education don’t have much to do with giving people  a lot of options of thought, it has all to do with this dominant line of thought in the education world, especially in history and social sciences.

So, to understand the tendences and consequences of giving them more power it is crucial to dive a little in this intellectual tendences, in the mainstream academical idea of “critical thinking”. Even if this is not the ideology they sell to the general public in time of elections necessarily, it shows where their ideological mentors would actually like to go in the future, or, at least, the weapons they intend to use to gain more power.

The ideology that the academical establishment sells is one of division. To make a young person believe that he or she cannot be on the side of the people who face bigger hardships in the world, except he or she lines with their political agenda, they sell the vision of a world divided clearly between oppressors and oppressed. So, not aligning with a political agenda that opposes the oppressors, would make you an oppressor yourself, no matter what you do. In the past it was all about workers versus bosses, now their main focus is in ethnicity. Oppressed ethnic groups versus oppressor ones.

There are, indeed, issues in our society that come from a long history of a world divided by visions of racial superiority. The Blacks shouldn’t ever be asked to forget slavery, the Jews shouldn’t ever be asked to forget the Holocaust and so on. But the World is more complex than tracing simple lines to divide people. What if a person, that you place in the oppressor group, do right in his individual life, and a person in the oppressed group do wrong?

Wouldn’t this generate a paradox inside their thinking, wouldn’t this make us see that a blind “Robin Hood” political system can a lot of times be unfair? Don’t we need some impartiality, I mean, help people in need, sure, but not judge a cause between two people based on their social positions or ethnicity?

To avoid that this kind of questioning lead the young people to put in doubt the justice, or even the efficacy, ff a system totally based on “reparation”, they have to murk a little the very idea of right and wrong. They have to say something close to this: Whatever people do, even things you call “wrong”, they do it for social reasons, the position in which people are in a society snd the history behind it move the person to act in such a way that is, there is social explanations for everything, even things we consider just wrong.

In fact, this means destroying the very concept of right and wrong because “wrong”, by definition, is something we must oppose, and must oppose with good, not say it was somehow “natural”. Where I live, if a person steals a bit of food and it is proven that the person was starving, he will probably not go to jail, and I agree. But if you steal a car at gunpoint, it is just wrong and something must be done.

All this idea of seeing everything as “social” has to do with determinism and free will. “Determinism” is a concept related to Science. After the mechanical discoveries of guys like Newton, following the mathematics of guys like Descartes, scientists seemed very excited with how predictable some phenomena could be. A guy named Laplace famously said that a mind that knew all positions of all things in the present and knew all the laws that rule their actions and reactions, would be completely able to see all the future. I repeat, neither Descartes or Newton envisioned such absolute determinism, Laplace came later.

Anyway, if you think that those laws that rule everything rule also the actions of human beings, which you may end up thinking, if you believe we are nothing but chemical reactions, then there is no more free will. Whatever decision we make is predetermined by the movements in the past, like billiard balls. And if the human being is not a being blessed with the ability to choose, then, in fact, there is no more right and wrong.

But why do I affirm we have free will? Why not billiard balls? Well, is it so antiscientific to think about your own existence? Come on, if you look at your life, and believe you have the ability to make choices, then you have a challenging but exciting road ahead. On the other hand, if you really believe that you are just fooling yourself that you have choices then nothing has any meaning at all.

And also, I think there isn’t much doubt that what made the human beings develop all these cool things we developed through History is that at some point we became able to contemplate the options we had in a certain circumstance and what would be the consequences of each option, and to give ourselves the responsibility for choosing correctly.

So, speaking against free will is the same as to affirm that what moved us through our evolution, what brought me from sitting in a cave hoping to just stop my hunger pain all the way to being here listening to music on my cell phone, is something totally contrary to how the Universe actually works. Doesn’t make any sense to me…

In fact, in the old times, people didn’t have so much trouble with this question. Seems to me that it was well understood that we definitely can’t control all the circumstances around us, but we have room to make choices, to try to make our path better. And we can help someone when we think his path is too hard, but not say that someone didn’t have any option except becoming a murderer, because if he is a human being, he has free will…

And now, back to our main subject, shouldn’t this kind of universal common knowledge of mankind, this search to face the unpredictable circumstances with our power of choice, this balance between helping people in need and keeping the individual accountable for his deeds, what should guide the International Organizations, like UN, to try to build peace?

Shouldn’t peace be about finding common ground between different cultures and finding common moral principles that mankind can share, instead of following a specific political Ideology, which is something artificial in the sense of being created by a very small group of people?

Of course people in these Organizations speak of peace, but to find common ground we must challenge, not follow, ideologies that want to create division, or at least try to be impartial. The way they speak about peace in the Middle East is particularly harmful, since they don’t denounce, but rather propagate, all stereotypes created against Israel.

It’s hard for them to take Israel for what it is: A Middle East Country, built by people who were persecuted elsewhere, and were able to thrive and prosper both in economic and human terms, with individual rights and respect for minorities and so on, choosing as friends the countries that are democratic.

This doesn’t fit their overall scheme of things, it’s easier for them to label Israel as oppressors, because of their economic success, as if it did come by exploiting someone else – who? And to say they are a white people, which is far from truth – but if it were? It seems as the less successful country must always be the victim of the more successful, which is definitely not a fruitful way of thinking, considering all peoples who are oppressed by their own leaders.

And how are the bad leaders going to be denounced, if all this over-intellectualization makes everything so relative, so hard to tell right from wrong? Think with me: When journalists repeat the old mantra that “the situation is Middle East is extremely complex” they are practically giving reason to the Academic Mainstream.

Some aspects may be complex, but when they speak as if absolutely everything is too complex for us to even try to apply any standard, they are taking away the responsibility that people have for crimes committed here and now, they are denying us the right to just call horror by its name, and giving a lot of room for intellectuals to “explain” everything in their sociological way.

Well, the mainstream intellectuals consider the idea that “Israel is stolen land” as legitimate, like, of all the changes that happened in the map with the end of the Empires, with all the displacement of people, including, but not only, Arabs and Jews, Israel was “the one change that should be reverted”.

So all the actions of a group like Hamas are thrown in that deterministic pool, as if they were the inevitable consequence of something, no matter how horrific and cowardly those actions are.

This deterministic blackhole is the favorite place of the Socialists, because it kills right and wrong. And with people who come from this ideology in big positions in International Organizations, then nobody seems allowed to come to the conclusion that reaction is necessary, even when we see a total nightmare filmed by camera.

Something that should not be so hard to see as evil, like an army invading a country, killing, raping, taking hostages, indiscriminately, is now something with “too many factors” for a person like me or you to “judge”.

So, it is never about a country that was cowardly attacked and went to War to destroy the source of those attacks, it’s all about a region where everything is “too complex”, so all we can do is ask for people there to “cool things down” and wait for something – what? When? – that will come and heal the divides.

Then with this “peace” talk, Israel, who is the a successful and prosper country, also a country that is accountable, who subjects to international norms and so on, is judged by what they do at their home to protect themselves from a danger that is proven to be real, to protect their lives from people who try to kill them. The Palestinians, because of their unusual situation of not really having a State – how can they have a State with police and army and guns and all as long as the ideology in power there is all directed to overtake the land of their neighbors by any means necessary? – is not subjected to the same standards.

Israel is the favorite target of UN Human Rights denounces, beating countries like Russia. China, that is not under attack, and treats minorities horribly, besides wanting to control everybody’s lives in the smallest details, is barely denounced.

And it is not only about speaking against Israel. Iran was the chair of the 2023 Human Rights Forum. Iran, with so clear Human Rights violation inside, and clear support to Terror Organizations outside.

Also, all this tendence to turn the blind eye to the terrible challenges that Israel faces, and to relativize all actions of Israel’s enemies, in fact allows that people who are personally committed to anti-Israeli movements, to thrive within these Organizations or in its fringes.

UNRWA, an agency with the sole purpose of “helping” the Palestinian refugees - who are not really refugees, they have a place to live, to work, and Jews were also expelled from many countries in the Middle East taking nothing with them – well, this agency is a good example of effective anti-Israelism sponsored by an International Organization.

UNRWA has schools where textbooks were found to teach the stolen land story, many of their installations were found to have been used by Terrorists, UNRWA vests were found in Terror Cells next to weapons, and at least nine UNRWA employees were confirmed internationally – Israel’s intelligence says many more – to have actively participated in October 7^th.

Once again, too many factors? Infinite factors, so we can never think? As I said, I don’t think nobody should go to jail for simply having some socialist ideas, but should this really be the only thought allowed in the “relevant” part of the Academical World? And more, should it dominate Organizations that are meant to arbitrate World’s conflicts?

And then the journalists say, "UN said that..." and it has such a weight, doesn't it?

Conduct Matters

     Hey, did you know that Gaza, where the Gazans live, once was completely controlled to Israel and Israel by their own free choice gave it back to the Palestinians? Yes, Israel conquered that territory – from Egypt – in 1967, and in 2005 disengaged – that is, all military basis they had there were removed and deployed somewhere else, same as all the settlements that Israelis had there.

International people say that Israel “kept” controlling, but this seems to be for the sole reason that Israel still have an eye on it, and controls the common border – how would they not? They are a Country that needs to consider their security. But yes, they stepped back from that piece of land.

How can it not be thought of as an attempt for peace? Of course that now, after all the money that the Gazan government, namely Hamas, received from international sources and spent in tunnels and weapons and training soldiers for attack, after all the terrorism not only planned but executed, Israelis are not sure about the exact next steps. Yes, but what is the conspiratory take on this story? That Israel gave them land back so they could later practice “ethnic cleansing”?

And why is this simple fact just not told? Why all the bias in the world of Education, press, even entertainment?

For instance, you can talk about the deal, the release of Israeli hostages from the hands of Hamas and Palestinian prisoners from Israel, as a “hostage exchange”. You can then say that Israel released Palestinian prisoners that included “woman and children”. Yes, there were minors there – not necessarily children – like 14 year old boys who tried to stab someone, things like that, that started to happen frequently and led Israel to lower the detention age. And this is precisely the kind of thing that people have been using for years to say that Israel is “tyrannical”. Like arresting people “just” for participating in public stonings. Man, that means throwing as much hard stones as you can hoping it hits someone’s head.

And that makes you think on what is worthy of news and what is not. For instance, yes, a lot of journalists can “forget to say” that the powerful Iran backs those groups, but can they say that Iran doesn’t back those groups? What Iran says? That they don’t support Terrorism, they just support “Resistance” against Israel and US influence… More sincere than some journalists, at least.

Also, a lot of times, they show destruction in some areas in Gaza, one of their favorite images, for sure. Always without the proper context, without commenting that Hamas has installations in residential areas, and without saying that Israel dropped millions of paper flyers from the sky warning people about the areas they would have to strike. They do it whenever circumstances allow them to.

This kind of image is what they use to influence ordinary people to believe in the existence of War Crimes, especially people who never took a time to think and search about the subject. Images of destruction seem to make us think there is something wrong there. Yes, there is a War, it is a bad thing that wars exist.

But the concept of War Crimes is not about the mere existence of damage. War is basically about damage. You aim to damage your enemy – in the case, Hamas – and unfortunately collateral damage happens. Ethics in War is about “Conduct”.

Now I would like to make a kind of digression to think about the concept of “Conduct” more broadly. We know that it is impossible to complete avoid that bad things happen in this turmoiled World, but we expect that the leaders present a good and ethical conduct, situation by situation, one day at a time.

In civil life, it is not only about the current politicians in office, but everybody in any position of power.  Are they doing their best to help people with what they need? Providing opportunities of education, health, freedom, good conditions to seek for prosperity?

You can see that there is a lot of people in Israel doing good jobs, but what about the conduct of the leaders in Gaza, that is, Hamas? With the resources they have, and they do have resources, are they providing anything but authoritarianism, indoctrination and martyrdom? They openly aim all that falls in their hands to their violent fight, and make no room for any idea of real peace, that is, recognizing that something called “Israel” can exist.

We can’t have an international situation where a violence-driven regime is preferred over a Democratic Country. Yes, of course know it is not only about the conduct of the leaders regarding internal issues, the conduct toward neighbors matters a lot.

But think: we have a situation where a side that never express any allegiance to the International Law have it’s acts of aggression extremely relativized, and the side who declare their allegiance to the Laws, who shows up at International Courts and all that, is quickly judged by instant frozen images without context.

The very reason why there even exists such a thing as “War Crimes” – at least in the Western World – is that going to War itself is not always a crime. Not if it’s goal is a necessary and urgent defense. And one thing about defense is that, if someone is attacking you, to defend yourself you must make him stop. If for that, you have to move your body forward and give him a push, it doesn’t suddenly make you the aggressor.

After decades of Terrorism not only planned but executed, having Israeli citizens aimed at, stabbed, bombed, even in moments where the political direction was to look for peace, and all that with no reaction of International Organizations but judging Israel whenever they strike back, and now, after Hamas proven to be able to do something, in October 7^th, in horror and scale that nobody thought they could, Israel decided to go to war.

But of course the ethic obligations remain. That’s where those Laws come in – like the law that you have to differentiate your fighters from your civilians, which Hamas don’t do (Idf is all in uniforms)  and can’t use human shields, which Hamas does (Israel evacuates their population from danger when they can). It’s about conduct, careful analysis of events and context, not quick news.

For instance, an important – and misunderstood – concept is “Proportionality”. It doesn’t mean that the number of deaths on the winner side must be close to the number of deaths in the losing side. You fight wars to win, and the protection of civilians on the other side doesn’t depend only on you.

What matters is how each strike was crucial for the goal, which have to be to destroy your enemy’s military capabilities, and how you access possible collateral damage. For example, striking an area because maybe there are fighters there, with no actual intelligence to confirm it, and doing that not once by mistake, but over and over again, causing a lot of civilian casualties with no actual military advance, that would show that it is aiming to hurt the population itself.

Idf’s great achievements in terms of destroying a lot of Hamas capabilities – and killing the main leaders, shows what their goal is. They have the obligation to be ethic, but don’t have the real control of numbers of deaths, considering the ideology of martyrdom and human shields.

There is a very sad reason, but a good reason, why you can’t make one side obliged to avoid all the consequences of the enemy’s misconduct. This would incentivize precisely this misconduct. Think, if the enemy was obliged to avoid all the consequences of your bad behavior towards your own population, then behaving badly for your own population would make you invincible.

Remember, war is, and must always be, the last resource. But if there weren’t people who are committed to the good values of peace and freedom, and also go to war, the World would have been turned into a very dark totalitarian iron cage long ago. Which is the dream of people like the leaders of Iran, for reasons people like us can’t really understand.

Also, safety is a necessary part of what makes a country. A country is a place for human beings to live in, and it has to be minimally safe. Safety is about the future. If someone suddenly opens a big door for danger and horror, how can you say your family is minimally safe if you leave that door open?

It is all very sad, but remember, soldiers fight on the last resources, last hopes. To avoid things to go that far, well, this is why politics exist, supposedly. The International Community can’t never say they weren’t warned about indoctrination for violence and authoritarian regimes.

But the political world is always policed by the intellectual world, that never even tries to see the Israeli side, because in fact they don’t think Israel should even exist, as they said many times. A very small country that got it’s independence 76 years ago, with displacements of both Muslins and Jews in the still huge and all around Muslin Middle East, in a century that redefined the World’s Geography – a small Country chosen among all the countries in the World to be “The One That Shouldn’t Exist”.

People do scream from far away when Israel decides that they need to fight those forces. This is like saying that the Israelis have to resign to be undefended, because when attacked they can’t fight back. Or saying that Jews can only defend themselves from a Genocide – what’s the intention of killing as many Jews as you can at random? – after it happens, like the Holocaust. Or, at least, that they must resign to live their lives normally, accepting that, from time to time, something will come from outside to collect a “few” lives.

            When they got into South Lebanon, the Israelis found everything set, by Hezbollah, to execute the plan called “Conquer The Galilee”. Again, why the finding of a ready plan of cruel and bloody invasion is not news-worth?

            Hezbollah was going to invade Israel from the North and execute a bigger October 7^th. There would be a lot of Israeli families trying to find a place to hide, in a morning, or during the night, a lot of armed masked men in black with no heart seeking them. And if they get you, there is no possibility they will have mercy. It’s over. That would happen all over Israel’s North. Sounds like a nightmare or what?

            To explain how I feel about the whole situation I'm seeing, in more simple terms, I will make an illustration.

            Imagine you are at your small house with your family, and a bunch of guys start coming from far away shooting. They screams something you disagree with, but you scream back that there must be some possibility of negotiation. For peace. No response. They just keep approaching and shooting.

            As they hit and kill someone of your family, you start shooting back. Those guys are bringing their families with them, but you don’t aim at their families. Again, you scream for some kind of negotiation. No response again.

            He keeps coming and shooting, aiming at your family and you shooting back, aiming at him. You hit someone of his family, then you scream for him to just stop, surrender. Nothing.

            As he gets closer and closer, and killed a lot of your family, your loved ones you swore to protect, you shoot more and more. Still not aiming at his family, but the closer he comes, the more you shoot. In the end, you killed him. But more people of his family died than of yours. Would it be right if the World judged you as a murderer? A World that was watching and doing nothing?

            Yes, there is something happening in the World, something big. And I hope someday everybody’s conduct will be carefully analyzed.

can't get in twitter this morning

 just to be sure nobody is posting nothing there. My last one was the bathroom thing

Not Someone's Scale Model

 

Wherever you go, there you are.

(Confucius)

 

One thing that political ideologies seem to have in common is that they put politicians and ideologues as the most important people in the World. It’s never about seeing everybody’s role in Civil Society as equally important, like, the real solution being mostly about people with the X profession being a better X, not only technically but specially ethically. No. They don’t want it, because it would not make us all feel as if politicians and ideologues hold the magical power in their hand. They have to make us believe that there is A simple political direction that if we follow, will solve all our problems.

To make us believe in that simple political direction, they obviously have to simplify everything, make us believe That everything that happens in the World Fits in some simple political equation.

You take what’s happening in the Middle East. We need some History to understand things. The fact is that the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^{th w}as the time when the Big Empires ended. The British Empire, the Austro Hungarian, the Ottoman. There was a lot of fight in the World – good or bad that’s how it was – and a lot of Nations got their independence.

In the middle of that, a small Nation was born in the Middle East. The Jewish state, Israel. Maybe very few years later than when others got their independence, but what is that compared to the centuries of the Empires? Jews were expelled from other countries in Europe and the Middle East, and an equivalent number of Arab Muslins left or were expelled from that area as the Jews got their tiny peace of a region in which they were always present. Those are the kind of things that happened with the end of the Empires, and the Middle East remains 99 percent Arab in area. Check it.

But the ideologues need to fit all that in their equation. The Jewish State can’t be a Nation that just got their independence painfully like the others, because it represents something they don’t want to see in their pictures. Leftist ideologues can’t accept the prosper as the right side in a story.

And somehow it is indeed about pictures, pictures of poor people. Nations like some Muslin nations in the Middle East, where the bosses are extremely rich and the peasants poor and extremely unhappy, still give us good pictures of poor people, so we will defend those Nations.

As for poor people in the Democratic countries, who are in trouble but still with better chances than the ones of the non-Democratic country. Well, the ideologues divide these people into good poor people, that vote with them, snd stupid poor people, who vote contrary. So, poor people are good for pictures and maybe social poems, but they really listen and talk to people who vote with them, poor or not.

But when it comes to a country as far as Israel, they can say everybody is bad, everybody is oppressor, even people who live in small apartments, even people who are left leaning politically. All bad. Somehow, demonizing Israel fits their battle against the “Evil Capitalist West”. Israel never had any Empire or was part of one. They took from the West what they thought was good, freedom to seek prosperity and also the advantage of seeking good relations with Democratic countries.

What I think the ideologues like in the non-Democratic countries are precisely the strong pictures, the very sad stories of poverty. They probably think that showing images of poor people suffering in the World, and not thinking too much about the ways of the leaders of those countries, will make people angry with the prosperous West, and therefore come to the conclusion that our freedom is evil in it’s nature. So people will want to fight against the fundaments of our Societies as a whole.

In fact, I think these Academical people who do that, need to do that to keep relevant, because even with all political polarity most people would agree that there must be a balance between social help and individual freedom and responsibility. Almost nobody who lives real lives in the real world are actually interested in socialism for real.

So Israel is perfect for that. It’s far enough so you can demonize everybody, and we have images of Gazans suffering, and the people in the West cities have no memory of being attacked by armies – it was an army – of cruel indiscriminate murderers, so the students can even get some support of normal people and therefore feel that they are real humanist fighters, not socialist fanatics that live in a bubble.

“Everybody will end up agreeing with us because wars are bad, and it doesn’t matter all that much how they started. Because, obviously, if you are powerful enough to win a war, you are obviously powerful enough to completely avoid it, right? I think Sun Tzu must have said that somewhere…”

It all works, but at the same time it is delicate, it seems that those people can’t let a drop of truth come in. So, even if most of the media is making a real show with the suffering of the Palestinians, they will be angrily attacked if they show any suffering on the Israeli side. Not a drop of the other side of the story.

Imagine talking about fallen Israeli soldiers and their families… Even posters of Israeli hostage people, including children, were torn because people might ask “who are these children?” And you could obviously talk about civil deaths in Gaza, but you would have to explain the whole situation.

You would have to talk about October 7^th. The description of October 7^{th  -} –  I can’t see it, I only forced myself to read the partial description from a trusted source, and even felt horrible because that person have seen that – but I don’t think he was wrong – anyway, the description of October 7^th would make people think, “well, something have to be done”, which brings us to the next step in the conversation, “What should be done?” You would have to say what Israel should do instead of what they are doing. And you don’t seem able to.

It is better to keep a perfect picture of a horribly rich and extremely white country, that confirms all you preach to your students, the students of great American Colleges, who also probably think they are the only people in the World smart enough to really see how bad the wars are.

Instead of explaining that people are dying because a group of leaders, with tyranny, make people believe, including children, that it is unacceptable that the end of the Age of Empires also gave birth to a small Jewish State in the Middle East. A tiny country for a people with no country, right there were they once first published the Genesis for us all.

Joe

 Joe and his coworkers were Having coffee. The guys were boasting. One said he was friends with boss, the other said he knew the richest guy in town, other knew the richest guy in the state, other the mayor, other the governor.

They looked at joe to see what he has to say. 

Joe sipped his coffee and said:

"These people know well enough to not even show up in front of me."