Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Month: August 2024

Holding our breath

27.08.2024 /

It is not easy to gauge the political temperature in my country these days. Not easy at all. Corporate news outlets persist in doing what they are paid to do, which is to keep us in the dark.

We were told, yes, that Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan had been sentenced to a good many years’ imprisonment, but we were not told that this was a US-orchestrated regime change operation. We were told that the PM Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh was forced to resign due to violent demonstrations. We were not told that this was another US-orchestrated regime change operation and that India is now squeezed between two US puppet states. The USA is protecting us, defending Democracy.

Democracy? Well yes, if you consider votes cast by a blindfolded electorate watertight evidence.

While Harris et al. are gushing all over our screens and newspapers – opening a paper is akin to eating a pound of cotton candy – some of us ask ourselves whether WWIII will start in the Middle East or in Europe. Harris is “tough”, though, and will make no concessions. Bring ’em on, she seems to say. The bipartisan magazine Responsible Statecraft is not impressed. Harris appears to share the Neocon view, writes Jack Hunter, that

diplomacy could prevent war, their primary goal, so better to avoid it. A tried and true method in preventing diplomacy is to accuse anyone who wants it of siding with America’s enemies.

In contrast, the magazine Foreign Affairs reassures its readers with the article “What Was the Biden Doctrine?”:

… it is clear that the past four years have witnessed remarkable achievements in foreign policy…the active pursuit of diplomacy… demonstrating a grasp of the traditional elements of statecraft…

How many Europeans read Foreign Affairs? How many Europeans read Responsible Statecraft? I have absolutely no idea. One thing is pretty sure though: Our own mainstream media is likely to parrot the former rather than the latter.

Last night I joined a few old friends for a drink down town. I know they still follow the mainstream news outlets, the news outlets they have been taught to trust as “objective”. For some mysterious reason, “objective” is seen to be synonymous with “neutral”, at least in this country. If the reporter claims to be – and convinces the reader that he or she is – “neutral”, i.e. neither left-wing nor right-wing, most Norwegians believe she will be more likely to “objectively” discern what is good (or correct) from what is bad (or disinformation), than if she is strongly opposed to mainstream policies.

You will have noticed that I did not provide any link to Foreign Affairs. I believe that the agenda of most Foreign Affairs contributors is continued US global supremacy at all costs, an agenda I strongly object to. So you are right to assume I am anything but “neutral”.

My friends knew that I have not been neutered (pun intended). They know I am angry. But I love my friends, so I have learnt to shut up, and since they love me, they allow me to keep my peace. We do not discuss foreign affairs. Period. As for domestic affairs, the so-called “objective” and “neutral” press is mostly interested in the Norwegian Royals’ domestic problems and my friends are as indifferent to the Royals as I am. So I wonder: What do my friends really make of the “news”, all told?

Last night, I informed them that Associated Press had reassured me that the cat Sam had been reunited with his mistress (name not given by AP) after 11 years’ painful separation. My friends raised ironical eyebrows and retorted that the Norwegian press, on the other hand, was currently devoting most of its attention to the circus of the upcoming US elections. I interpreted this as an expression of dissatisfaction with the Norwegian press.

And since most of us in this country are very distressed about the vicious extermination of all fellow human beings from Gaza, I thought it might be safe to comment that from the few surviving Palestinians’ perspective, at least, it did not matter who became president, since AIPAC gives generous “donations” to both candidates and will make sure that Netanyahu gets what he wants regardless. “No US president can ever refuse whatever the Israeli government asks for,” I declared and received blank stares in return.

What did those blank stares express? I don’t know, because I did not press the point.

I assume my interlocutors still firmly believe that Putin is a new “Hitler”. After all, that is what they’ve been told day after day, just as they’ve not been told about AIPAC and FARA.

On the other hand, many people have learnt to appreciate Aljazeera over the years as an addition to N.Y. Times. Many also know Palestinian refugees living here. Finally, a growing number believe that what has been going on in Gaza has surpassed, in sadism if not in scale, Holocaust itself. Finally, the USA has made no attempt to conceal that they have sent billions and billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and other military aid to Israel over the past year. Yes, team Biden says they want Israel to stop the mass killing of defenceless human beings, but words have decisively been contradicted by facts. And weapons and military support are definitive facts.

So do my friends believe that the USA is not complicit in the ongoing genocide? And if we insist on using the Hitler-analogy, who is then the modern-day Hitler?

We are being kept in the dark. Yet even in the dark, a person might see the red-hot metal of distant burning tanks and smell the distant human flesh. Even in the dark, we can hear sirens.

AIPAC

11.08.2024 /

Frankly, I doubt the mood will change enough to stop Kamala Harris from doing Aipac’s bidding. Worse: I think that if you think Kamala Harris will change anything for the better, you’d better think again. Quite aside from my suspicion that women are not “morally” superior to men (nor, for that matter, inferior) and that non-whites are no better than whites, although I wish they were, Harris simply cannot bypass AIPAC even if she wanted to. Nobody can.

Thanks to “independent” media, we now know a great deal more about AIPAC than we did before October 7. That is because of the vocal opposition of some very brave US Americans – many of them Jews – to active US support of Israel’s depraved treatment of the population they are so determined to exterminate.

Many years ago, my family bought live lobsters in a French supermarket and were instructed to cook them… live. That’s a traumatic memory that surfaces from time to time. I felt like a monster. But Israelis! They are truly –— no, I won’t say the word. They are just truly very, very sick.

I expect you, like me, have read about the inhuman treatment to which psychotic patients were subjected in the early days of psychiatry. Those who were wealthy enough were institutionalised in stately mansions with beautiful grounds, where they were subjected to what were often counter-productive therapeutic regimes. Virginia Woolf, for instance, loathed it.

The threat of being sent back would later lead to her contemplating suicide. Despite her protests, [Dr.] Savage would refer her back in 1912 for insomnia and in 1913 for depression.

Source: Wikipedia as at 11 August 2024

The first sentence of her final suicide note to her husband reads: “Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times… . [ibid]

Why am I writing about madness and psychotherapy in a post about AIPAC, effectively Israel? Isn’t it obvious? Israel is a very sick society which has been treated with the wrong cure. I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure that insisting that Israeli Jews are God’s chosen people who are entitled to rule a large chunk of the world, was not a good idea. The patient’s delusions have grown dramatically more acute over the years.

Meanwhile the disease has been passed on to one US administration after the other, understandably, since the USA and Israel “share the same values”, not something to be proud of, let me tell you!

As early as in 2018, M.J. Rosenberg warned against the power of AIPAC, although he had himself been an AIPAC member. In his warning statement, he also explains why AIPAC is not required to register as a foreign agent (i.e. is not subject to FARA obligations).

Some of the commentators and analysts who wonder why the USA currently appears to be acting – again and again – against its own interests, find parallels in history; the decline and eventual collapse of the Roman Empire, for instance, and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These analysts see signs of end-of-empire decadence such as lack of accountability in a number of spheres, ineffective and incompetent diplomacy, non-existent long-term planning and strategy, over-spending in defence, and geographic over-extension. Not least, a growing indifference to public opinion at home and abroad – so-called “exceptionalism” – has predictably lowered USAs standing.

The recent decline of simple good manners when references are made to US presidents and their retinues, on this and other sites, is symptomatic. US soft power is starting to give, and is being replaced by incipient authoritarianism.

Warring against Iran, when the USA is already at war in Ukraine and Gaza and when it (very unwisely) wants to go to war with China, will definitely not be a good move, one that is nonetheless very likely to be made.

I think there can be no doubt that AIPAC, in lockstep with the military industrial complex, are behind many of the appalling US policy choices. And, behind AIPAC we find Bibi, who would rather start WWIII than serve a little time in jail. What a man! What a specimen of humankind!

Oh, and if you think I was exaggerating…

08.08.2024 /

A couple of days ago, I wrote about watching a horse-drawn carriage in which my children are riding. Alas, the horses have been stung by something and have gone bananas. They are careening towards a precipice. Is there nothing that can stop them, no horse whisperer who can soothe them and halt their flight?

You may think I’m too pessimistic. After all, things have looked bad in the past, too, but humankind always survived.

And it it is indeed true that WWI was not the end of the world, it only killed around 15–22 million. Even WWII was not the end of the world (“70–85 million people perished, or about 3% of the estimated global population”). We didn’t have the bomb yet, except at the very end, and of course then we used it.

I’m not into wars, but it seems to me that WWI was an utterly senseless affair, pointless and basically unnecessary. WWII, however, was a different matter: The Nazis’ policies regarding what they considered the “untermensch”, and their determination to realise said policies, could simply not be allowed to prevail.

My reading is that Israel’s policies regarding non-Jews and their determination to realise said policies … I say no more.

Only the USA can stop the Israelis now. Will the USA stop the Israelis?

Listen to US Colonel Wilkerson here.He knows a thing or two, is a good talker, and he has a sense of humour too. “Fortunately …,” he said, among other things, “the mood is changing.” He meant the mood among the constituents, not the mood in Congress, yet.

Let’s hope that the “mood” will prevent WWIII.

Master

07.08.2024 /

On August 5 Glenn Greenwald asked: Who is governing this country (“this country” being, of course, the one that rules us all in the so-called West)? Obviously, it isn’t Biden or for that matter Harris. Has it ever been Biden? Or Obama, come to think of it? Or Clinton? Not to mention “nukiller” Bush junior?

Not that I really care, being spared the pain of having to live in a country where I would never be able to afford decent health care, or education for my kids, etc., etc. etc. But the question certainly merits some attention since – well, obviously, when your kids are in a carriage pulled by a runaway horse, you want to know whom to shoot when the equipage hurtles off the cliff.

US presidents – it has long been obvious – are not free agents. Not that I propose to defend their actions: They should have known better than to stand for such an ignominious office. They were possibly ignorant or even stupid, when they did so – though I doubt that Clinton and Obama were stupid or even ignorant – or they may have been psychopaths. (By definition, a psychopath is somebody whose lust for power over someone or something drives him or her to break rules, even to kill.) Kill they certainly did, if not with their own hands – God forbid; they had menials to do their dirty work.

But I am not really interested in dissecting the moral decrepitude of dangerous men and women. I would, however, honestly like to know who, in the final count, rules over the USA and its host of servile little fiefdoms in Europe. I can think of a few candidates, mainly the trillionaires who finance the unconscionably expensive presidential campaigns. They will want their money’s worth, I expect, when the race is won. I suspect they place their bets in both camps, by the way, so as to have leverage on the winner, whoever he or she might be.

So who are they? Obviously the military-industrial complex is a front runner. Christian fundamentalists are also a passionate, ruthless and frequently well-heeled lot, and they often coincide with the Zionists.

Oops! There I dropped the dirty word. “Zionists”. At the moment, yes, it would appear that Zionists are running the circus, the race to the cliff. I have been given to understand that Christian Zionists actually welcome a final solution for mankind because then they will all go to heaven. Good luck with that.

I doubt that Israelis share their pious end-of-world wishes. I gather that most Israelis are as brainwashed and deluded as most US Americans and US Europeans, including US Norwegians. Yet, I suspect they don’t want a world war, don’t want war, period, any more than the rest of us. But they don’t count. They, like us, were not asked. Democracy, my foot!

How was Israel able to indoctrinate healthy boys and girls into treating Palestinian boys and girls as vermin to be exterminated? Did they learn from Nazi Germany?

Alas, I fear they have learnt not from Germany but from the USA: The entire population of that great country was bamboozled into supporting the killing and torturing of millions and millions – in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Central America, South America, Indonesia, Haiti, Somalia…Those were all feats of brilliant indoctrination! Now watch while Master grooms his subjects to cheer the destruction of – no, not China, yet – Iran! Yes, that was not really the plan, but they are in the way.

And Master’s great Orwellian doublethink machine rumbles on, patiently repeating, again and again, and again, even as we sleep: war is peace, ignorance is strength, rule of law is Master, war is peace, ignorance is strength, rule of law is Master…

Yesterday, a Russian woman told me angrily: “You all speak so warmly of Democracy – and I agree, Democracy is beautiful – but what you have is not Democracy! It’s humbug.”

Master has committed his crimes with impunity ever since his first genocide, of the Indians, by indoctrination! As we speak, “rule of law” is allowing Israel to assassinate people here, there and everywhere. Whoever governs the USA knows full well that support for Israel now is suicidal: BRICS is growing stronger by the day as countries hastily jump out of the run-away carriage. But Master cannot stop. Master is law, Master must rule.

Master is currently Zionist (and no longer merely male). He/she is driving our children, at breakneck speed, towards the precipice. One of his/her murder victims was Ismail Haniyeh. May Ismail Haniyeh’s spectre haunt Master till the end of time.

Zionism is very ugly. It is, when all is said and done, the most insidious form of abject racism!

I recently stumbled across a couple of quotes from one of the fathers of Israel, a passionate Zionist, Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion was probably a nasty piece of work, but at least he, unlike US presidents, seems to have understood, what a nasty piece of work he was. I have copied the following quotes from this site.

If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?

Source: David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.

Source: David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.

Source: David Ben-Gurion May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, a Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population? ‘Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said ‘ Drive them out! ‘

Source: Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.

Zionism

07.08.2024 /

On August 5, Glenn Greenwald asked: “Who is governing this country” (“this country” being, of course, the one that rules us all in the so-called West)? Obviously, it isn’t Biden or for that matter Harris. Has it ever been Biden? Or Obama, come to think of it? Or Clinton? Not to mention “nukiller” Bush junior?

Not that I really care, being spared the pain of having to live in a country where I would never be able to afford decent health care, or education for my kids, etc., etc. etc. But the question certainly merits some attention since … well, obviously, when your kids are in a carriage pulled by a runaway horse, you want to know whom to shoot when the equipage hurtles off the cliff.

US presidents – it has long been obvious – are not free agents. Not that I propose to defend their actions: They should have known better than to stand for such an ignominious office. They were possibly ignorant or even stupid , when they did so – though I doubt that Clinton and Obama were stupid or even ignorant – or they may have been psychopaths. (Psychopaths have enough lust for personal power over someone or something to be willing to break all rules, or even to kill.) Kill they certainly did, if not with their own hands – God forbid. They had menials to do the dirty work.

But I am not really interested in dissecting the moral decrepitude of dangerous men and women. I would, however, honestly like to know who, in the end, governs the USA and its host of servile little fiefdoms in Europe. I can think of a few candidates, mainly the trillionaires who finance the unconscionably expensive presidential campaigns. They will want their money’s worth, I expect, when the race is won. I suspect they place their bets in both camps, by the way, so as to have leverage on the winner, whoever he or she might be.

So who are they? Obviously the military-industrial complex is a front runner. The Christian fundamentalists are also a passionate and frequently well-heeled lot, and they often coincide with the Zionists.

Oops! There I dropped the dirty word. “Zionists”. At the moment, yes, it would appear that Zionists are running the circus, the race to the cliff. I have been given to understand that Christian Zionists actually welcome a final solution for mankind. Then they will all go to heaven, I am told. Good luck with that.

I doubt that Israelis share their pious end-of-world wishes. Most Israelis are probably as brainwashed and deluded as most US Americans and US Europeans, including US Norwegians. Yet, I suspect we – most Europeans and Israelis – don’t want a world war, don’t want war, period. But we don’t count. We were not asked.

Yesterday, a Russian woman living in Norway told me angrily: “You all speak so warmly of Democracy – and I agree, Democracy is beautiful – but what you have here, now, is not Democracy! It’s all based on lies.”

Indoctrination is a fascinating field of study! How was Israel able to indoctrinate healthy boys and girls into treating Palestinian boys and girls as vermin to be exterminated? Did they learn from Nazi Germany?

Alas, I fear they learnt not from Germany but from the USA: How was the entire population of that great country bamboozled into supporting the killing and torturing of millions and millions – in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Central America, South America, Indonesia, Haiti, even Africa…. ?

By indoctrination!

The USA has committed its crimes with impunity since the initial genocide of the Indians,

By indoctrination!

And the USA is letting this happen in Gaza as we speak, is letting Israel assassinate people here, there and everywhere. The USA knows full well that its support to Israel now is suicidal. BRICS is growing stronger by the day, and US hegemony is waning because it has not been wisely administered. (“Pax Americana” has not been pax.).

Zionists, then, in the USA and in Israel – are driving our children, here and there, at breakneck speed towards the precipice. A murder victim, Ismail Haniyeh, was one of many who tried to stop them. He paid for his efforts with his life.

Zionism is a very ugly disease. It is, when all is said and done, abject racism!

I recently stumbled across a few quotes from one of the fathers of Israel, a passionate Zionist, Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion was probably a nasty piece of work, but at least he, unlike US presidents, seems to have understood, what a nasty piece of work he was. I have copied the following quotes from this site.

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.”
— David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

“We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.”

David Ben-Gurion May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, a Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

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