The Growths and Deaths of Empires

 
The Growths and Deaths of Empires
 
Classical military empires had typically expanded in oceans of blood and gore. They had often retreated and collapsed in the same way.
 
History is full of examples of both processes. 
 
To remain stable and strong, military-economic empires that have been established over multinational, multi-ethnic domains need to secure not just the submission and compliance of the subjugated groups, but also some measures of willing participation, belonging, and loyalty from the subjugated nationalities or ethnicities--or at least from subgroups or classes within those.
 
Indeed, the military personnel of successful, stable empires of the old-fashioned sort almost invariably consisted largely of conscripts recruited from the ranks of the subjugated populations. 
 
Many of us know this from our own family histories of service in the military forces of the British Empire recruited from the subcontinent. These were utilized not just in the subcontinent and adjacent areas such as SE Asia, but in distant theaters, such as West Asia, North Africa, and Europe.  
 
Without the willing contributions of labor and skill from a fair number of those who had been subjugated, an empire is unlikely to last for long.
 
So some measure of inclusivity is needed for the longer-term survival of an empire, distinguishing it from a shorter-term raiding and looting venture. 
 
Among the more recent empires, we see instances of more stability and so also often more inclusivity in, for instance, the developed Mughal, Ottoman, and British Empires. 
 
We saw this also in the USSR, which inherited the Russian Tsarist Empire. This did not, however, save that vast multiethnic giant from collapse after eighty years of communist party rule that had granted the various regional nationalities and ethnicities far more recognition, including of their diverse cultures, beginning with their languages, than the Tsarist Russian Empire ever had, along with more relative autonomy, while still preserving highly centralized structures.
 
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire saw the rise of strong ethnic nationalisms, such as Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Kurdish. The mayhem that ensued has still not abated.
 
The British Empire contracted after WWII, with varying degrees of management and violence. The ethnic nationalisms that rose and clashed in the subcontinent also led to mass mayhem and displacement. The echoes of the cries of that bloody partition can still be heard and may even be building in volume, with ominous implications. 
 
In Africa, the British often did not leave without much violence. Kenya is a case in point. 
 
The French did not generally manage their exits from their colonial ventures as adroitly as did the British. One notes the instances of Algeria, a horror story, and Indochina--which had to also deal with imperial Japan and with the USA, with lethal tolls in each case. 
 
One notes what occurred in Yugoslavia during its own collapse. Although, like present-day India and even more so, it could not be considered to be an empire, it was a large, multiethnic state with a history of internecine warfare, mainly that of competing regional kingdoms and empires. Its central government and its diverse populations had been able to overcome that legacy--until the horrors of the 2000s. 
 
One prays that India will not go the way of Yugoslavia--or of Pakistan as occurred in 1970-71.
 
The collapse of the USSR appeared for quite a while to have managed to be an exception to the general rule of multiethnic empires collapsing into violent conflicts between their constituent nationalities.
 
However, there was Chechnya, which was in some ways, though not all, an extension of what had begun in Afghanistan under US-Pakistani-Saudi auspices, spreading even as far into the Soviet interior as to strike Moscow, while metastasizing globally.
Putin, who emerged as the Russian strongman, appealing to Russian nationalism even as other fierce, exclusive nationalisms arose in the former components of the USSR, "solved" that Chechen rebellion with brutal force, as he did the one in Daghestan.
 
Since the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, a lethal civil war had been ongoing in Eastern Ukraine, with the USA, especially during Trump's first term and continuing into Biden's presidency, pouring huge amounts of arms into Ukraine. Then came the Russian invasion of 2022 February. The mayhem continues and widens.
 
Within the US homeland, we note the increase in inclusivity that was the trend during parts of the last century and the first quarter of this century, embracing, to varying degrees:
 
- the long-exploited and oppressed descendants of African slaves;
 
- the few surviving members of the indigenous peoples;
 
- the large numbers of newer immigrants, including those from places other than Europe. 
  
Sadly, we have been seeing sharp reversals of these trends over the past several months, with slower ones accruing over some past administrations.  
  
Is it possible that the federation that is the US  homeland will break up in the near future? One cannot rule that out, although that would be a grim chapter.
 
2025 September 18, Thurs.
Berkeley, California
 

The Wages of Sin in the USA

 

The Wages of Sin in the USA: the consequences of non-collective mindsets, of yielding to short-term competitive pressures, of absentee governance, and of a captive political class 

 
As a domiciled USAn, residing, studying and working in the country for over half a century, watching this short but telling video hurts. 

https://youtu.be/uf_GCOSZ2bA

Setting that hurt aside, however, I recall being perplexed and worried, even in the 1980s and 1990s, as the US establishments—within both the private sector and government, seemed to be focused on short-term profits and fixes, and not on the longer-term good of the people of this country, let alone of others. 

From the 1990s onwards, we saw the outflow of US manufacturing jobs to countries with lower costs of production, with large US corporations leading the charge. 

Little or no thought was given to maintaining a manufacturing base for essentials here, so as to preserve basic national self-reliance, ensure security, and protect workers, including with training to help them adapt to a changing manufacturing world. 

Surely, the government, as well as consortiums of corporations, should have had a role in this, as individual corporations are often caught in competitive races, with cost of production, including the cost of labor, being a very important consideration, as is share price value. 

The focus on stock price values, projected changes in which helped determine the inflows and outflows of investments in a corporation, seemed indeed to drive much of the decisions of business executives, with longer term considerations being set aside for shorter term ones. 

Soon enough, remote service jobs began to move abroad as well, and that trend has continued and accelerated ever since.

Corporate takeovers and mass firings of employees to boost shareholder values, and other such profit-taking actions added to the mayhem. Job stability and pensions came to regarded as liabilities by private corporations and were basically done away with.

Within the USA, outsourcing, automation and competition with immigrant labor added to the pressures on workers. The rise of the Internet marketers, led by Amazon, dealt a series of blows to retail businesses with physical stores and to their sales- and other employees.

Free trade agreements such as those concluded, through NAFTA, with Mexico and Canada, and then with the Pacific rim countries, unconstrained by input from workers' organizations and even from legislators here and abroad, added to the outflow of jobs, as had been predicted, for instance, by the self-financed, billionaire presidential candidate, Ross Perot.

This was largely ignored by both the Republican and Democratic establishments. Obama even sided with the Republicans and against the majority of Democrats in Congress in trying to push through free trade agreements with China and other countries that were predicted to hurt workers here and did. 

Both the Republican and Democratic establishments continued to focus on and celebrate economic booms that mainly benefited only certain sections of workers as well as those with surplus income that they were able to invest wisely.

These booms also greatly benefited, of course, the ever more wealthy and powerful oligarchs who exert great influence over both the major political parties here and so also largely determine or strongly constrain legislative and executive actions at federal, state, and municipal levels, over time also affecting the composition of the judiciary.

The alliances between the Zionist lobby, very affluent corporate and individual donors, the war hawks in the two parties and in the military, and the arms manufacturers and marketers led the USA into multiple regime-change operations abroad, including through coups, covert operations and overt military assaults. 

In retrospect, one sees more clearly the influence of AIPAC and its allies in the involvement of the US in multiple highly destructive wars and other destabilizing actions in West Asia and North Africa.

All of this involved massive military and other expenditures, even as Republicans, especially, but also corporate Democrats like Andrew Cuomo waged what one sees, again in retrospect, as austerity campaigns within the USA, at all levels.

These put increasingly hard squeezes on many workers and those with limited means, with what remained of the labor unions increasingly coopted and crippled.

Moving to more current times, the economic pain and anxiety inflicted on large segments of the US working classes manifested themselves not only in things like rising suicide rates and the lethal opioid epidemic, but also in resentment against the increasingly affluent elites that had benefited from what was effectively a massive “upward” transfer of wealth withiIn the USA.

This transfer began in earnest during the 1980s, in the Reagan years, and has continued through subsequent administrations, both Republican and Democratic, accelerating more in the Republican ones.

Rising awareness and resentment of this led to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the identification of the role of the “1%”,  and subsequently to the rise of populist movements within both the major parties.

The movement within the Democratic party was genuinely social-democratic and inclusive, led by Bernie Sanders in his Democratic-primary challenge to Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the 2016 general election. 

The corresponding movement within the Republican Party was strongly nativist, capitalist, and reactionary in the dictionary sense, coalescing around Donald Trump.

I began to notice and be startled that many working-class residents of New York City, including  long-term Democratic voters, were moving towards supporting Donald Trump, and that they did in fact vote for him. 

Some had supported Bernie Sanders but could not stomach Hillary Clinton, with her very close ties to the Wall Streeters, her support for and even active involvement in wars of aggression abroad, etc. 

She had also been subject to many smears from the Republican propaganda machines during and after Bill Clinton’s two terms. Some of these smears have stuck.

Unfortunately, many Democratic politicians, with exceptions such as Zohran Mamdani, remain blind and deaf, as it were, to some of the genuine concerns of many USAns whom they lump together as MAGA morons.  

I noticed this recently in the clever but arrogant comments made by Mehdi Hassan in an encounter with mainly MAGA folk, including many young people. 

He repeatedly dismissed their economic concerns and their worries about competition from new immigrants for scarce good-paying jobs.

In one case, he noted that the GDP and employment had been rising during the Biden years and that he himself, a recent US immigrant, had founded a company and had hired workers here in the USA.   

It is noteworthy that Bernie Sanders has been getting record crowds at his rallies, including in "Red" (Republican) areas.

One can be against blind, callous nativism, the hero-worship of a narcissistic, bullying clown, and other such problematic developments. 

There is also no doubt that newer immigrants have long helped to power, in multiple ways, the economy of the USA, in addition to providing many essential services. 

One should still be careful not to be blind and deaf oneself to genuine human concerns. 

The Democratic establishment has not even come to grips yet with our deep complicity in the daily, deliberate, systematic slaughter of trapped, defenseless civilians, mainly women and children, in Palestine and adjacent areas, ongoing now for almost two years. 

Here again, they have lost touch with much of their own electoral base. 

2025 Sep 4., Thu.
Berkeley, California

https://youtu.be/uf_GCOSZ2bA 

Linear Directional and Cyclical Views of Human Affairs--Plus Absolutism versus Relativism

 
Linear Directional and Cyclical Views of Human Affairs
—and their possible association with absolutist/purist and relativist/accommodative views of the same 

A) Forward Moving (or Linear Directional) versus Cyclical Views of Human Affairs

The main issue I have with Marx's view of human affairs, which I otherwise admire, is the same as I have with many other views that might perhaps be traced most directly to Europe and: 

- initially, its admirable "Renaissance" (rebirth), sparked by the entry and reentry of knowledge and analytical thought into southern, Mediterranean Europe (mainly southern Spain and then Italy) through the Muslim, mainly Arab, Mediterranean North Africa and Asia

- subsequently, and perhaps more significantly, Europe's equally admirable "Enlightenment". 

The roots of these views extend further in space, including, most obviously, North Africa and West Asia, but also the rest of the Old World, and also further back in time.

The common element in these "modern" views, with which I have some issue, is the idea of a "forward" direction in our collective and perhaps even individual human affairs. 

On the Left, the view behind the words "progressive" and "reactionary," as applied to political directions, is one manifestation of this basic view of human affairs. 

However, this same view (and the drive issuing from it, with its benefits and its harms) can be found in many other human attitudes and endeavors.

This includes, in politics, views prevailing on the political and economic Right, despite its adoption of the term "Conservative" in Britain and the USA. 

This “conservative” view also assumes a linear path in human affairs, with the purpose being to either resist any movement away from the current state of human affairs, or else to move this state "backwards" towards what is viewed as a better state.

Then there are all the views in the economic sphere, be these on the political-economic Left or Right, that advocate a particular economic system and its consequences. 

This can be contrasted with the cyclical views that had long been prevalent in many human cultures previously, as especially evident in the philosophical and religious literature and scholarship in Asia, including China, especially, but also India. 

So, just as the yin rises within the yang and vice versa and just our own multiple biological rhythms, along with the tides, the days and nights, and the seasons of the year, keep cycling through, so also, in this view, empires and other human constructions rise and fall and various currents in human affairs surge and ebb.

*************************************************

B) Absolutist and Relativist Views of Human Affairs

In association with these two world-views, one finds also, in general:

- an intolerance for other views, or absolutism/purism, often accompanying the first, "forward moving" or “linear directional” view;

- a tolerance for other views, or relativism/accomodation, accompanying the second, "cyclical" or “mingling, spreading, and circulating” view.

Absolutism in the Abrahamic Religions

One possible historical manifestation of this association of absolutism/purism with a "forward moving" or “linear directional” view, often also seeing the world as a struggle between polarized opposites, might perhaps be found in some of the precepts and practices of the "Abrahamic" religions, each of these faiths being again admirable in many ways in its other teachings and practices.

These Abrahamic religions, among which Judaism is usually accepted to constitute the common, shared base, are of ancient and medieval provenance, originating and finding stable form, in the case of Judaism, in West Asia and North Africa, spreading later, mainly as proselytizing Christianity and Islam, into parts of the rest of the Old World and subsequently, via Europe, as Christianity, into much of the rest of the human-inhabited planet.

The "forward moving" view within the "Abrahamic" religions may be most evident in the proselytizing views and practices of Christianity, which were followed historically by those of Islam, with possible influences from Zoroastrianism and perhaps Mithraism and Buddhism, with Judaism remaining mainly (with some important exceptions) a hereditary, tribal religion.

Interestingly, though perhaps incidentally, both Zoroastrianism and Buddhism, though otherwise different, were radical reform and revolutionary movements that had arisen within adherents of polytheistic religions practiced initially mainly by speakers of Indo-Iranian languages. Among other things, both developed strong ethical codes that extended to all humans, and even, in the case of Buddhism as also in Jainism, all sentient beings.

The two major proselytizing Abrahamic faiths (Christianity and Islam, with their various branches) are closely linked to each other, and also to Judaism, with these linkages most clearly understood, accepted, and respected in Islam. The ethical codes in Christianity and Islam are based on that which existed in Judaism, but are further extended, in keeping with their generally more inclusive views on humans. 

The three major Abrahamic religions share, to varying degrees in their various branches, a core absolutism/purism and so also an often-accompanying disrespect towards and intolerance towards other faiths, especially non-Abrahamic ones, with this absolutism/purism and intolerance being inherited from Judaism.

Indeed, Judaism, at its hard, resistant core, extends this disrespect and intolerance even to Christianity, especially, but also, to a lesser extent, to Islam.

Christianity typically extends this intolerance to Islam and also, in historical practice, to Judaism. 

All of this said, it is possible to find many historical and current exceptions to these general patterns in all three Abrahamic traditions. 

While Islam has, both in core precept and general practice, generally respected both Judaism and Christianity (though regarding Jesus as a prophet, not as an incarnation of divinity, a concept as alien to Judaic thought as it is part of the religious traditions of the Indo-Europeans and others) its attitudes and actions, again in both precept and practice, has rarely been truly free of this absolutism (and consequent intolerance) that is rooted in Judaism.

Again, one can find many exceptions to these general remarks, both in practice and in the core teachings of these three religions. 

This absolutism has generally persisted and prevailed in all the three major Abrahamic religions, with large variations in their branches and over time. 

As religious faith and affiliation waned in many countries over the last century, so also did this absolutism, at least in the religious sphere if not in others. 

However, we have been seeing resurgences of religious faith and affiliation, for better or worse.

Unfortunately, there have been accompanying surges, typically associated with weaponizations of religions for political-economic purposes, of absolutism, disrespect, and intolerance.  

These surges have not been confined to within the branches of the three Abrahamic religions. They have been very strongly evident in non-Abrahamic ones. 

Absolutism in Economics, Politics and Other Human Affairs

In the economic and political spheres, we again encounter absolutist views, with "statist" opposed to "democratic", "capitalist" opposed to "socialist", etc.

In the closely associated social sphere, one finds again "individualist" and "collectivist" views, with extreme versions of each being, typically, intolerant of other views and practices. 

In various other human endeavors, be these in medicine, education, science, engineering and other technology, industry, commerce, or whatever, as well as in all the humanities, arts and crafts, one also often encounters "absolutist" views, at times presented as "optimal" ones. 

In these views, anyone who disagrees with there being "one best way", or one set of "best practices" or "one right way" is regarded as a woefully misguided nuisance at best and, too often, as a dangerous crank who needs to be silenced and eliminated. 

In many of these cases, one may detect a strong association of these absolutist views with "forward moving" views of human affairs, and a disassociation of these with more "cyclical" and so also often generally more relativistic and accommodating views of human affairs.

2025 February 3, Mon.
Berkeley, California 

The Future of the Left-Some Preliminary Reflections

 
The Future of the Left—Some Preliminary Reflections

The Rise of Rightist Domination and Extremism

I lack knowledge and experience in politics and economics. However, based on whatever news I have had of events and trends around the world, combined with my own experiences and observations over the course of my life, I find myself increasingly alarmed.

Among other things, one notes the increasing resurgence of the Right, manifesting in extreme forms, such as the increasing concentrations of wealth and power, the consequent growth of inequalities, the very close, incestuous relationships between big capitalists, government, and military industries, the associated capture of the mainstream media, the rise of authoritarian governments headed by dictatorial “strongman” figures, exclusive hyper-nationalism, incitement of divisive and violent ethnic conflicts, the demonization of minorities, and the persecution of those who try to speak out against oppression and exploitation, or try to act against these.

This persecution is directed not only against the few who resort to armed resistance, which is to be expected, but also to those whose attempts at resistance to discrimination, subjugation, dispossession, injustice and violence are through the courts, through organizing of collective movements, theough peaceful protests and publicity, and through other nonviolent means.

****** 

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity

Because of all of this and more, many of us are searching for some means of hope for humans and others in our times as well as for those who will hopefully survive and succeed us.

In this context, I find myself returning to the ideals and practices most clearly expressed and utilized by what came to be known (by a historical accident of seating in the French parliament during the French Revolution of the late 18th century) as “the Left”. 

In particular, I find great value in the three basic principles, ideals or impulses articulated, in that early revolution, as “liberty, equality and fraternity”. I believe that these should form an essential part of the basis of our interactions with at least others of our own species, with each of these three impulses being constrained by the other two. 

One could go into some detail about this, but I will leave that for now as a mental exercise for the reader.

******

Difficulties and Mistakes

That being said, if one looks back at the known history of the Left, including what became of the French Revolution itself, and how the later “communist” revolutions, beginning in Russia in 1918, ran their courses, one has to pause and reflect, with some sobriety, on the difficulties encountered and the mistakes made. How can we learn from and avoid these difficulties and mistakes? 

******

Current Problems

Looking next at the current state of what is left of the Left, one notices several things, including the following:

a) Most countries, including the affluent ones, had not only retained significant levels of inequality of income, wealth, opportunity, and access to resources, but have, over much of the past four decades, been moving steadily towards increasing levels of these.

b) There has been disarray and disunity within the ranks of the Left, at the local, national, and global levels.

c) There has been a movement, especially in the more affluent countries, away from the prior main focus of the Left. This had been on reducing economic inequality and exploitation. Over time, the focus has shifted more towards what has come to be known as “identity politics”. 

Each of the longstanding issues associated with our less pliable human identities, such as ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, surely deserves attention. Among many other things, the following, well publicized movements come to mind: 

 - the struggle for voting rights for women;

 - the attempts to combat the very long legacy and consequences of caste discrimination in India;  

 - the struggle for basic civil rights and against segregation and other forms of discrimination by African Americans in the U.S.A.;

 - the struggle against apartheid rule and its consequences in South Africa;

 - the attempts by gays, lesbians and others to be free of discrimination and gain basic rights all over the world.

However, increasingly, these struggles have become disconnected from the struggles on the more universal economic issues that affect the majority of human populations, even in the affluent countries. 

d) What is worse, the increasing focus of the Left on “social issues” has increasingly served divisive ends, disuniting us and distracting us from the core, common economic issues. 

This diversion of focus, away from unifying economic issues, has served to deepen some of the very divisions that had long hindered the formation of united fronts, at local, national and global levels, across all sorts of borders, to secure better deals for ordinary working people, and to free them from oppression and exploitation.

******

Destruction of  the Biosphere, including through Extinctions, and of Human Communities, including through Genocides

I had not mentioned the "environmental issues" that include such cataclysmic things as manmade climate change as well as a host of other things associated with pollution, destruction of habitats and extinction of species. Clearly, these affect all of us to varying degrees and need to be recognized and addressed. 

There are at least two dangers associated with this. The first is that of ignoring or dismissing these issues, no matter how lethal their consequences. The second is that of making these into niche issues, that are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as things that matter to only the affluent classes, ignoring both the basic needs of the others, and the very real adverse impacts of human activities, potentiated by technology, on their lives. 

I had also not mentioned the destructive, atomizing effects of economic pressures on communities and even families. These issues deserve a separate discussion, including things such as the physical and cultural genocides, within our own species, that have been ongoing for several centuries and show no sign of abating. 

******

What to Do?

Finally, looking forward, can the Left still contribute in meaningful, practical ways to increasing the chances of human happiness? Can it do the same for the long-term survival of our species, along with that of all the others? If the answers to both of these two basic questions are “yes”, then how can this be done?

2024 April 12th, Fri.
Berkeley, California

The Two Realms in Which We Live

 

_*The Two Realms in Which We Live*_

I had read, when young, some of the works of Erich Fromm and been touched by these. 

But rational thought is, at base, a survival tool, as are memory and imagination.  

We are driven by our instincts and emotions. These set our primary goals, with memory, imagination, and reason being tools for reaching these ends.

We, along with other sentient beings, including surely all animals and perhaps most plants, live in at least two connected realms. One is the physical, objective realm. The other is the mental, subjective realm. 

The physical realm is the one on which observations can be made by one person and independently verified by another. We access phenomena in this realm through our sense organs and instruments of observation, including those of measurement, the earliest ones being perhaps our own fingers, hands, feet, strides, etc., later standardized, along with days, lunar months, solar years, etc. 

This is the realm of study of the natural sciences, the physical universe of space and time, of matter and energy, and of information and its processing and transfer. 

This last part--information and communication--may, in fact, be a bridge between the two realms.

The physical, objective realm appears to be one that is shared by all of us and that exists independently of each of us. 

If you or I lose consciousness or die, the physical universe will continue. It was there before we were born. This is an assumption made by the natural sciences and by most of us, appearing to be a reasonable (but still far from uncontested) assumption.

The second realm--the mental, subjective realm--is the realm of experience and of the experiencer, and so also the realm of sentience/consciousness itself. 

I cannot usually access your mental realm, nor can you usually access mine. 

I cannot really "feel your pain", "experience your pleasure", sense your other sensations, including those of your five senses, or experience your emotion (beginning with fear or aversion and desire or attraction) or directly experience your thought, memory or imagined thing. 

The natural sciences cannot be applied to the mental, subjective realm. They are restricted to the physical, objective realm that we all share and in which we can independently make and verify observations of physical phenomena. 

Things such as faith and divinity exist only in the mental, subjective realm. 

Although reason, memory, and imagination are also part of that mental, subjective realm, they are limited in their reach and power, as are symbols and language. 

We usually agree that there is only one, shared, physical realm, although quantum physics and the multiverse theories cast some doubt even on that.

Is there an infinite multiplicity of mental realms, constantly being born with every birth of an individual sentience and also constantly disappearing with every cessation of sentience, including the irreversible death of a living organism?

Or is there also only one, shared mental realm of which our individual mental realms are either portals or portions, shielded from one another for functional or protective purposes, just as our individual, physical bodies are. 

I have had a couple of experiences, not communicable through reason or language, that suggest that this is so. 

I expect that many others have had similar experiences. 

We often tend to disregard these "breaks in the shielding", even if they are  consciously noticed, as misperceptions, coincidences or delusions. 

Delusions do, of course, occur, and some rationalists would group all spiritual experiences, faiths, devotions, divinities, etc. in that broad category, along with bhuuts, shaitaans, et al.

_2024-03-24 Sun._

_Berkeley, California_

The Issue in Palestine

 

***The Issue in Palestine***

*The Problem with Zionism*

Even if one stops short of equating Zionism with Nazism, and so also Zionists with Nazis, the sad fact is that Zionism, in both its original and developed theory and practice, cannot be reconciled with basic, universal human rights as we normally define those. 

*The Impunity Enjoyed and Employed by Israel*

One may of course claim that human rights, as so defined, have been and still are being constantly violated all over the world. 

The problem is that public criticism of either the Israeli government and military or of Zionism in its theory and practice has for a very long time been very difficult to carry out without being labeled as an "antisemite" or, more recently, a Hamas supporter, or even a supporter of ISIS. This tactic has been used to not only silence criticism but to destroy the critics. 

Hamas has of course been bracketed within the caregory "terrorist", while the governments and military of Israel, the USA, the UK, France, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and (until 2022 February) Russia, along with others, have escaped that bracketing. 

This situation is one in which Israel, in particular, is in a very special category. It is both shielded zealously against criticism and also free to basically do as it wills, no matter how heinous its actions.

No government had been able to directly challenge the Israeli government's actions or to halt its long and seemingly never-ending stream of criminal injustices and atrocities. 

To attempt this meant having to face not only the might and wrath of Israel's very well equipped military, but also the  military, economic and political might and wrath of the governments supplying it with their weapons and their economic and political support and shielding. 

Those governments that had tried have either been eliminated and replaced or have been besieged, by various means, including massive violence. 

*The Criminality of the Enterprise in Palestine*

These actions of the Israeli government, carried out by its military and other agencies, as well as through its settlements and settlers, include not only legalized discrimination and injustice, but also routinely carrying out chronic harassment, kidnapping, incarceration, dispossession and displacement of the Palestinians, while continuing to illegally occupy and settle their territories, including by violent, even murderous means. This has been going on through my lifetime, starting earlier.

These clearly criminal actions of the Israeli government have also included carrying out, periodically, sustained massacres of thousands (indeed even at times tens of thousands as in Lebanon and again currently), of defenceless civilians. This too has a long history, starting in 1948 and only increasing in scale and ferocity over the decades. 

These civilians, mostly children and women, have continued to be killed and injured in the most horrific ways imaginable, as most clearly evidenced through reportage from the ground over the last five months, even as the reporters have been systematically targeted and killed, including with their families.

*What is Needed--and the Obstacles*

This has to stop, without further delay. Israel needs to return to the land area granted to it, however illegitimately, by the UN General Assembly in 1947, pulling out its illegal settlements and its illegal military occupation from areas taken by force. 

This can no longer wait for fraudulent "peace processes", including the recruitment of regional and local collaborators. The injustice, slaughter and suffering have to be ended forthwith.

However, the power of money and influence is such that, whether it be for the strategic or economic interests of the Western Alliance or for narrow Israeli ends of domination and expansion, or for both, public criticism of Israel (and of the flow of funds and arms and more to it from the West that enables these crimes, all clearly such under whatever there is of international law) has been impossible to sustain. 

Every Western politician who has tried, including past U.S. presidents and more recently a Labour party leader in the UK, has been ousted or otherwise silenced, along with their supporters. 

More importantly, every new crime of epic proportions results not only in no sanctions or condemnations, but in increased support, especially from the USA and the UK, including literally tens of billions of more armaments with which to carry on the atrocities. 

In addition, there is the never ending threat of military, economic and political action taken, not only by Israel but also by its supporting Western governments, against any government that dares to challenge or intervene in this sordid enterprise.

*The Unfortunate Implications of Zionism for the Jews*

Returning to the basic tenets of Zionism, one must also ask whether those who are of otherwise "liberal" or even "leftist" bent, should reconsider continuing to associate themselves with such a pernicious political ideology and its lethal consequences.

Tens of thousands of Jews in the USA and elsewhere have recognized this and have been trying their best to distance themselves from Zionism. Setting aside basic humanism and idealism, this is also clearly in the long term self interest of Jews, be they religious or secular, all over the world, including even in Israel and the Occupied Territories, although it may be far too late there, given especially what has occurred over the last five months.

The long-running scam has finally been exposed for much of the world to see.

Unless Jews, all over the world, make a very public and successful effort to not only distance themselves from Israel and what the world has seen the Israelis doing in Palestine, but also to put an end to this horror immediately, can one expect anyone who is not unusually insightful or sainted to not associate not just Israelis or Zionists but Jews more generally with these repeated and horrific crimes? 

No calling out of "antisemitism" is likely to have any effect, past a certain point which we sadly seem to have already passed. 

This would be as sad and as predictable an outcome for the Jews (and surely others) as was that which resulted from the  arrogance of establishing a state for European Jews in West Asia--for not only the Palestinians but for many others in the region, including the Jews of Africa and Asia. 

https://www.facebook.com/reel/671935595067485

Two Emailed Messages on US Politics and Palestine

 
******Two Emailed Messages on US Politics and Palestine******

Owing to the dying of my mobile phone, and associated problems, I may be inactive on Facebook and other social media for a while.
Meanwhile, here below are two emailed messages I sent recently to a few relatives and friends here in the USA who have been upset with me for stating that I cannot vote for Biden or his associates. 

I have lightly edited the emails and have added some starred (***...) separators, along with section-labels within the second email. The (mainly labeled) sections that are explicitly about Palestine in the second email are towards its end, after the final separator with 15 or so asterisks. 

I had not gone, in these two emails, into the historical context of the issues in Palestine. That is, of course, crucial and may be well known to many here--though generally not known within the USA until very recently, with a lot still left unknown. However, it would take too long to go into these historical matters, spanning most of the last century as well as this century to the present time.

Some of the written submittals by 53 countries and three international organizations in the ICJ case regarding, firstly, the legality of Israel's long occupation of Palestinian territories and, secondly, its responsibilities as an occupying power, have gone into this historical context in detail, with parts of this summarized and emphasized in the spoken presentations during the court hearings of 2024 February 19-26. 

Suffice it to say that the moving images that have  been projected onto (and to a good measure imprinted into) the public consciousness in this country over the course of the last 75 years have generally been the photographic negatives of the horrific and worsening  realities on the ground in Palestine over that period. 

This misrepresentation has hardly been confined to the USA, but this is one of the places where it has been worst. This has been aggravated by the general distancing between this country and the rest of the human world. 

Paradoxical as this may sound, this distancing had been a unidirectional one. While decisions made in the USA profoundly affected the lives of people across the planet, including very adversely, people within the USA remained relatively well shielded from being adversely affected by events in other countries. 

Part of that unidirectionality ended abruptly (in a horrific way for several thousands of us in my main place of work and residence) over 22 years ago. It was also changed more gradually but perhaps more profoundly by the large flows of firstly manufacturing and then remote-service industries to what is now called the "Global South", and by the industrial and economic rise of China, especially, along with other countries of that very large and populous group.

Many here will be aware of all that I have written below and may decry my focus on the internal politics of the USA. Having lived and worked here for the past half century, having noted the virtues and failings of its people and its systems and seeing also its very active role in events all over the planet over my lifetime, including what is occuring currrently in Palestine, I might perhaps be excused or at least understood.

***************

***Email of 2024-02-24 Sat.***

We have reached a breaking point in this country and in the global system. Trump was a warning symptom of that breakdown and Biden is part of it.

Those like me in this country who had been forced to choose the lesser evil repeatedly in past elections, have had enough. We cannot and will not vote for active supporters and enablers of genocides.

The world continues to be beset with problems of human origin, locally, nationally, regionally and globally. It is time for those aware of this, within each country's population, to rise up and say, "Enough!".

This country has played an outsize role in world affairs. It is time for its government to either step aside in these matters or else not continue to make these worse.

Let us remember past genocides and other catastrophes of human origin.

Let us be fully and painfully aware of the current, ongoing one and our role in it, including through our votes and the taxes we pay.

Never again. Enough!

****************

****Email of 2024-02-26 Mon****

I read the responses to my earlier enail, for which thanks. Here below are some detailed remarks regarding certain aspects of the political situation within the USA and how this situation is currently being affected, for a change, by events in Palestine.

**The Populist and Anti-Establishment Surge in the USA**

I am acutely aware of the danger to us (especially those of us who are "colored" immigrants) and others, here in the USA, from many of the Republicans and especially from their extreme wing. 

Trump tapped into this extremism, as part of his strategy, during his presidential primary and general election campaigns leading to the general election of 2016 November. 

However, in that general election, one should note that Trump also drew in many Independents (a very large group in this country) as well as a substantial number of Democrats.

These included many lifelong, working class Democrats, such as those in fairly liberal NYC. This was a phenomenon that I observed with alarm and initial puzzlement during the presidential campaign leading to 2016. 

Over time, having seen also how Bernie Sanders had risen up from nowhere in the Democratic primaries, without the huge big-donor funding and without the media and party-establishment support that Hillary Clinton had enjoyed and utilized, and seeing also how Trump had roundly beaten, in the Republican prinaries, the very well funded and strongly supported Republican contenders, I began to better understand at least parts of the phenomenon of so many voters abandoning the "political center". But that is another discussion.

******

**Rebellion**

One should note in passing that while the labor union leaders in NYC, Detroit, Chicago, etc., along with the African American politicians in the South and the urban centers had pushed hard for Hillary Clinton, much of the rank and file of even the unions rebelled, along with a significant fraction of the urban African American working class. African Americans in the South were a major exception. 

**Historical Context**

As we know, the Democrats in the South were the party of Jim Crow and segregation right through the 1960s, but that began to change with Johnson and more so with Nixon, with the black-white flip in the South being completed by Reagan. African Americans in the South have been among the most loyal Democrats ever since, with the majority of the Whites and others being loyal Republicans, joining in this with the old traditional Republican-heartland states. 

The same loyalty towards Democrats has not been that evident among Indian Americans, except perhaps in the West Coast, parts of the Northeast, Chicago, etc. As soon as we gain in income level, and at times even earlier, we tend to migrate into the Republican camp, with exceptions as noted. 
We see this reflected at the highest levels in those like Bobby Jindal, former governor of one of the Carolinas, Nikki Haley, yet another such, and <senior moment> that young, abrasive guy with hair rising high who dropped out of the presidential race.

Vivek Ramaswamy.

One sees this also at the highest levels among the Tories (Conservatives) in Britain, with the current prime minister Rishi Sunak and the former Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, being examples. 

******

**Donald Trump**

Trump is a wild card, in a category by himself. He is a New Yorker, and likes to have his name splashed all over the city and his face and antics all over TV, including entertainment and news. 

So I had the most unpleasant fortune of being well acquainted with both his clowning and his nastiness, for a very long time, beginning long before he ran for President and won. He represents some of the worst aspects of  USAn, New Yorker, and perhaps human character, while displaying very few of the positive, redeeming features in any of these.

******

**The Questionable Political Strategy of the Democrats**

Be that as it may, no matter who runs on the Democratic side, unless he/she breaks the usual mold, Trump has a very good chance of being elected again--unless he is assassinated or jailed, both of which cannot be ruled out, with both probably leading to something akin to a civil war in this country. Trump and the Republicans need to be challenged and defeated politically, fair and square. The Democrats have shown no sign of being up to that challenge. 

They have focused instead mainly on demonizing Trump and his allies and relying on fear to motivate voters. What they have not been able to inspire in the general electorate is hope and passion. 

This is not to demean or downplay whatever has been done to reduce the damage caused by Trump and the Republicans during Trump's term in office. This simply represents the reality on the ground in the perceptions, justified or not, among much of the historically Democratic electorate.

******************

**The Gazza Massacres and Palestine**

Recent events have also caused a very crucial segment of voters--the younger, more liberal ones, to become completely disgusted with the establishment in both parties, with this revulsion clearly hurting the Democrats far more than the Republicans. 

Every new Security Council veto of a permanent ceasfire by the USA (with even its closest ally, the UK, typically abstaining, and all the other 13 voting yes), every vote in Congress to send tens of billions of dollars to Israel, every bypass of the Congress by the Biden administration to send more bombs, missiles and bullets to kill yet more tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, every lack of condemnation and concrete action to stop the systematic bombings of residential buildings, schools, hospitals, refugee camps, UN refugee shelters, mosques and churches, every child or other civilian killed by sniper fire, burned alive or blasted into bits by weaponry from the USA drives yet another nail into the political coffins of Biden and his associates.

Each of these repeated actions also further isolates the USA from the public and even the governments across the world, with India being perhaps the major exception in the "Global South"--not unexpectedly, given the changed situation in India.  

******

**How U.S. Involvement in the Genocide in Palestine is Bringing Down the Democrats in the USA** 

It is not those like me (who see all of this and are revolted to the core) who are the problem. 

What is bringing down Biden (and with him much of the Democratic party) are the Democratic politicians, both in the executive and in Congress, who are carrying out these actions and voting as they have been doing. They have been going against what has been, for a while now, a 2/3 majority of the electorate and an even greater majority of both registered Democrats and of the younger voters. They are cutting their own throats in this regard. 

Why are they doing this is the question that should be asked. 

What is driving these executive actions and these votes in Congress and in the UN? 

Do the government officials and legislators not know that this is making us actively complicit in a relentless genocide, ongoing now for five months, against a trapped, defenceless and increasingly physically and psychologically terminal population? 

Why is the US itself increasingly isolated from even many of its closest allies? 

I humbly submit these simple questions to you.  I request that you seek the answers, including  through queries made to the offices of these politicians, whose staff can be reached by phone, which is best, or else by emails, including via their governmental, campaign or other websites. 

******

**Unacceptable Choices**

One can argue, on solid grounds, that the Republicans and Trump would make matters even worse. But this is like having to choose, in effect, between Hitler and Goebbels. 

******

**US Complicity in the Gazza Genocide Leading to its Global Isolation**

Even the Indian government has finally found it fit to vote with the overwhelming majority in UN General Assembly resolutions calling for a permanent ceasefire in Palestine. 

Out of the 193 member states of the UN, only a handful have persisted in voting with the US against these UNGA resolutions, mostly some Pacific Island states and some of the former members of the Nazi Axis in the Europe--such as Hungary and Austria (which had been absorbed into Germany at the time).

The ICJ provisional ruling declaring that there were plausible grounds for an ongoing genocide in Palestine did not come as a surprise to those of us who had been following the case closely. 

However, even many of us who had been following the case closely were surprised at the near unanimity of the five directives issued, corresponding to the five major charges brought against Israel by South Africa. The vote was 15-2 in favor in three of the five rulings, and 16-1 in the remaining two. 

See below, although you may be familiar with some or all of what I have written.

The US judge who presided over the hearings was a state department official during Hillary Clinton's time as Secretary of State. She voted, in each of the five counts, with the majority, choosing not to exercise her right to add her personal notes or cautions to each ruling.

The temporary Israeli judge appointed to the bench (along with a temporary South African judge, to hear this case brought by South Africa against Israel) was known to be a very strong hardliner in his judgements in Israel against the Palestinians, and had almost surely been selected by the Israeli government for this reason.

Even he voted yes, agreeing with the majority, on two of the directives.

Only the judge from Uganda voted no, against the majority, on all five counts. The Ugandan government has distanced itself from her judgments. 

**Continuing Disappointment**

What disappointed us bitterly, though not unexpectedly, was the lack of the most crucial things:

1) a directive to bring about an immediate ceasefire;

2) a follow-up security council resolution demanding the same, not watered down or vetoed by the USA;

3) actions (not just words) to stop the ongoing mayhem and suffering;

4) real movement on the ground  towards a truly just and lasting settlement of the issues in Palestine.