– the latest
8 years ago
Sunday, 26 April 2009
hey
Hey! I'm back to normal (for today, anyway). It's been a long time coming (try ten years) . . . I will relentlessly blog (but probably not about this, but maybe) after I return from swimming (maybe) for the few who wander by (who am I kidding? for myself - all right, all right already. I'm not denying it). I knew that post 'is your ass covered?' would bring the less salubrious searches by (though, 'one shot, two kills' is no less non-salubrious in its content). Just a kilometre today. Have been sluggish with a dry, but phlegmy (when something comes up!) cough. Have pity on those in the pool after me.
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5 comments:
Wow. I just checked mamason's blog, saw your comment (I think I know what scared you. Mamason mentioned it, too, and I removed it right away. Mistakes were made.)
Anyway, when I thought I came to your blog before, all I saw was a flower, so I must have gone to the wrong place.
I LOVE this blog. In real life, I'm a political junkie. My number one issue is Palestinian rights. In this country, it is an issue that is -- when covered at all -- so blatantly pro-Israeli (or more specifically, pro Likkud) that one gets the feeling that Bibi Netanyahu is the filter through which Americans get their reports.
Rachel Corrie is from my state, and her death was one more atrocity from a country that seems to delight in committing them.
Before Bush/Cheney were selected, my internet use was devoted to bookdealer sites, humor and absurdities. Then, for the eight nightmare years, I was immersed in the anti-war, impeachment, etc., movements.
Finally, with the election of Obama, I started to get my groove back, and began checking around for more diverse fare. A bookdealer mentioned PAN, and it helped me ease out of political ranting.
Anyway, I'm happy to see that someone I know from an entirely unrelated context is passionate about the plight of the Palestinian people.
I'm sure that Obama's heart is in the right place, but whether he has the testicular fortitude to buck AIPAC and the myriad of pro-Israeli minions in the media and other places of power here....is another kettle of fish.
Cheers,
TOS
yay for normality. I hope to regain it some day. I am not sure I know what it is anymore.
There TOS, I knew there was good in you :-D There are plenty of flowers here, too. I guess being passionate about the Palestinian plight and flowers do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Actually, from some of the posts you put on PAN, I kind of figured that you had more knowledge of the area than most. I lived in Oman for a while, and did know some Palestinians, though they did not go out of their way to educate me. It was the fact that I knew them that I went out of my way to educate myself. Even so, there are many things that I do not know, and the people in the blogroll are more dedicated, and doing a far better job than I.
I think my approach to it was opposite to yours - always very uneasy about torture and my own country's meh attitude towards it (under Howard), and our asylum seeker policies, and the whittling away of human rights, but my country's complete and utter silence on the war on Gaza (slaughter), and prior to that, the U.S.'s stalling (or non-existent) tactics when it came to bombing Lebanon, caused me to look much deeper. And before, I hadn't spoken much, but no-one else with the power to change it in politics, Australian as well as American, is speaking out very much...so, this is maybe the way that change has to come about. If it does come about... let's hope that the sea change that people are talking about is actual. Too many politicians are willing to sacrifice the lives of Palestinians for their political careers.
Anyway - I am not really a political junkie, but I hate to see such blatant injustice done, and I hate that my country is so complicit in it. I am sure I have my own areas of hypocrisy, but to look at it closely is to realise that the people on the street who probably do not endorse an occupation, checkpoints, targeted killings, non-targeted killings, yada, yada, yada have very little influence over their own governments, neither do they obviously have true knowledge of what their government is supporting. Nothing new there, really.
And 'glo! I hope your return to normalcy (aka Harding - always thought it was Wilson) is a lot quicker than mine. Really, it doesn't exist, so I hope you get some semblance of balance soon, and what I feel this morning is not necessarily what I will feel this afternoon. But anyway, for you ♥
Sorry. I meant to come back sooner, but I must've got lost along the way. Thanks for the nice comments, and the Taylor heads up. I've lived in London for 6 years, Paris for 1, NYC twice for 3 and 1, Boston for 2, New Mexico for 2, and Seattle before and after.
My favorite thing to do is travel, especially to countries I haven't been to, but there are some places I can't resist going back to any chance get. I started a chain of espresso bars in London during the 90s, along with a restaurant. Many of the guys I employed were from Morocco, so I would go there with them and stay with their families for extended periods.
I've never been to the middle east (except for Egypt and Turkey, but they're outliers) but in London, I met quite a few Palestinians, and I have close friends who have lived in Israel for extended times, so I have this awareness of the brutality and daily humiliation that the Israelis inflict on the Palestinians.
Unfortunately, the pro-Israeli agenda in which our (US) media and politicians operate, taints many other things that are 'technically" unrelated to Israel. Publications and politicians in the US -- who should have been against a war on Iraq based on the bullshit reasons given -- were for it, because Israel was for it.
Ugh, I don't want to go into an extended rant about things like the recent Israeli aerial massacres in Lebanon and the Dec/Jan slaughter in Gaza, and how are media often functions as an outlet for mossad.
After 9-11, most of my friends and family, viewed me as an idealistic but unrealistic peace-nik nut, because I thought the response to a terror attack should be a police action. Use interpol, etc, round up the perpetrators and bring them to trial.
(I was a newspaper reporter, then a magazine editor, before moving to Paris, so I have a lot of "liberal" friends in NY. When I mentioned my ideas to them, they told me to come back to NY and "smell the blood."
War! War! War!
I would dearly love to see Bush/Cheney/Rummy and company tried at the Hague for War Crimes.
For the past few days, the MSM here has been mentioning that the guys who were "waterboarded" 263 times, were repeatedly asked for connections between Iraq and 9-11. (Almost as if Bush wanted a false confession for his "War President" war.)
Blah blah blah.... I apologize for covering ground that anyone paying attention has already covered.)
I know who you are (PR) from PAN, I think, I do, anyway. But, are you from Australia, but living in Japan, or do I have everything all askew?
I'll go check out your latest posts; they look very interesting. If I comment on those, I'll be MUCH more brief. Promise.
I am not one to criticise another for being verbose! You are indeed accomplished. Again, he is fairly conservative, but the U.S. papers I think paint him as not being conservative, but Robert Baer, who I mention in the other post you commented on, also has stated that the reaction to 9/11 should have been to treat it as a crime, a terrorist crime, but yes, to hunt down individuals in the way that you say, rather than to demonise a religion and make war on the region. He says the investigation closed much too quickly as well.
Waterboarding simulation pictures are horrible. I am sure the real pictures are even more horrible, but I have not seen those.
Baer, who I saw in Perth in March, said that he had received more intelligent questions from a bunch of mostly greying book readers in the two hours he spoke and took questions than he had from both the press and politicians when he should have been called on to give advice to both. Anyway, given your background, I am sure you are far more aware of all that.
My pictures are of flowers! You might not find them as interesting. And yep, I'm an Australian, but am teaching in Japan.
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