Thursday, November 26, 2015

Thanksgiving

What am I grateful for? This blog.

In 2003, this nation made one of the worst mistakes it has ever made. I spoke against it at the time, but my voice did not reach beyond the ears of those who knew me personally. A frustrating situation.

Now my country is repeating the same horror on a grander scale. The U.S. is using ISIS as an excuse to topple the legitimate government of Syria, we are aiding the barbaric Saudi invasion of Yemen, we launched a coup which brought Nazis to power in Ukraine, and we are needlessly re-igniting the Cold War. Worst of all, much of our media tells incessant lies about these matters of life and death. Every minute of every day, our well-paid pundits and pseudojournalists lie and lie and lie.

But 2003 is not 2016. Now, whenever I decry these outrages, thousands hear. Not millions -- not enough to make a difference. But an audience of a thousand people is a thousand more than I had back in 2003.

A small blog such as this one cannot do much to amplify a voice. My hope is that the readers of these words will do their own research, and then speak out wherever they can. Tell the truth in other corners of the web. On Facebook. At work. At family gatherings. If an impoverished, lonely oddball like yours truly can reach thousands, you can reach thousands. A thousand voices can become a million voices, and a million can become ten million.

One person is easy to ignore. A collective shout will be heard.

In their hearts, most Americans do not want war -- yet those who vocalize their opposition to war are always made to feel strange, eccentric, unpatriotic. Our culture demonizes anyone who refuses to think the way the teevee tells us to think.

Be brave. Say what needs to be said. Say it boldly, in mixed company. Defy the ill-informed dupes who believe the lies they hear on cable news. Your opponents, however misled, are not evil. People are suckers for the truth once they hear it.

Every time you decry the warmongers, you normalize the argument for peace.

7 comments:

Prowlerzee said...

It's time. It's past-time. I've renewed the cry, and I've seen others begin to do so. Thanks. Nice post for today.

b said...

Want to do your bit to help prevent WW3?

Here is a draft letter people could send to their representatives:

*******************************
I write to urge you to hold the government (e.g. US, French, British, Turkish) to account for its apparent contempt for UN Security Council Resolution 2249 (20 Nov 2015), which calls on member states that have the capacity to combat Daesh (ISIS) to
coordinate their efforts.

Those member states include Russia, and it is therefore the (US, French, British, Turkish) responsibility to coordinate its efforts with Russia.
*******************************

I wondered earlier whether Putin would be viewed by Daesh as the Dajjal, the False Prophet in Islamic eschatology. As those who have read Daesh's zine Dabiq will be aware, this is a serious question.

And here we have it, a statement by former NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer:

"I think Putin will eventually fall on his own sword. He will be - to put it in Christian terms - the anti-Christ for every single Sunni in the Middle East."

The poor soul probably doesn't know what "fall on his own sword" means; I reckon he thinks it means to be brought down by a mess of your own making.

But the second sentence could be something he's been told by a US official or at Chatham House in London, and it indicates what it seems the "coalition" plan actually is, namely to build up strong support for the Daesh caliphate.

Almost all Muslims know the Islamic teachings about "Doomsday". It's not like Christians and the Book of Revelations.

The massing of armed forces of five great powers (the US, China, Britain, France, Russia) and some lesser powers (Turkey, Iran) near or in Syria is remarkable.

Christian fundamentalists (to use a now dated term) please note: after the Dajjal comes into the fray, one of the things that is predicted to happen is that Issa - known to Christians as Jesus - will come again...clutching the Koran.

Alessandro Machi said...

Can't you find anybody to help you install a share button on your site?

-> said...

@b 10:50 PM
Not to forget about the rapidly approaching 2000th aniversary of the destruction of "the" temple, 2079.

ben said...

Great post Joe, all true. Spreading the word, when we can, within our sphere of influence, is a great way to start. For all of us.

fred said...

I'm dying here. Everywhere I turn I come across neocon mutual backslappers dressed up in their think tank camouflage. It's as if I've stumbled upon some hillbilly, back woods militia, all of them with disturbing signs of inbreeding and a lust for killing Muslims.

Clare Lopez --"She is a senior fellow at the neoconservative Center for Security Policy (CSP), vice president of the Intelligence Summit, a senior fellow at the Clarion Project, and a former executive director of the hawkish Iran Policy Committee. Along with many of her colleagues at CSP and Clarion, Lopez is a vocal proponent of the notion that the U.S. government—and in particular the Obama administration—has been infiltrated by Islamic extremists tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. She is the author of a conspiratorial 2013 Gatestone Institute report alleging the group's involvement in a decades-long plot to infiltrate the U.S. government and spread "Sharia law" in North America through "front groups" like the Muslim Students Association and the Council on Islamic-American Relations, among other mainstream U.S.-based Muslim organizations."

Then there's... Gatestone Institute...Center for Security Policy...International Intelligence Summit...Clarion Project...Iran Policy Committee...Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

All the usual suspects are there -- all of them -- with Israel sitting in the middle of every group. Every lie is reproduced ("Saddam was working with bin Laden", Iraqi wmds, Iranian threat...). An anti-Islam clash of civilizations figures prominently.

These people are more alive and dangerous than ever, yet our media seems blissfully unaware of them.

fred said...

On a positive note, Happy Thanksgiving, Joseph. And a huge thank you for your invaluable work.