ISRAEL AND THE “MANDELA POINT”

 ISRAEL AND THE “MANDELA POINT”—ISRAEL COMING TO TERMS WITH REALITY

In South Africa of 1990, a nation which had suffered through decades of racial discord, oppression, humiliation and death to South African blacks under the ruling Afrikaans government policy of “apartheid” which confined blacks to enclosed ghettos known as Bantustans (“homelands”), SA president Fredrick DeKlerk finally came to the realization that there was no future for SA in the long-held suppression of the African population. On that date, DeKlerk released his former nemesis, freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, from prison after 27 years of incarceration, ended apartheid, and submitted the nation to free elections.

Perhaps, in Israel, after this two month long descent into unprecedented inhumanity of death, violence and hate manifested by the Israel-Hamas Gaza War, some new leader in Israel will come to their “Mandela Point” and realize that there is no security for Israel, no secure peace, no options for acceptance of Israel by the world at large, and no future with the present polices of suppressing the legitimate statehood goals of the Palestinians. This unknown “Israeli DeKlerk” will end the racist-colonialist policies within Israel, close the outdoor apartheid prisons of the West Bank and Gaza, formulate a policy that will unite Gaza and the West Bank into a coherent free state. This new leader will envision the dark future of recurrent descent into violence, hate, death, and political turmoil, as well as the continued decline of Israeli respect and world acceptance. After this present demonstration of Israeli “war goals” with little regard for international norms of war or respect for innocent life the world at large can no longer afford or permit to such circumstances to continue.  There is no hope for either Israel or Palestinians under the policies of this present Israeli government. 

Israel’s present stated policy is to destroy Hamas and root it out of Gaza. This is not a reasonable goal given the reality of the situation, the nature of the terrane and the manifest massive collateral death and damage required to even attempt to achieve this goal. It is manifestly impossible.   

MORE SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER REVISED 12-05-23

 “Speaking Truth to Power” (American Friends Service, 1955) is a peaceful political tactic used to change the power structure under which people live and was effectively used by: Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu, Martin Luther King…and many others. 

However, today we are faced with a world where “speaking truth to power” is limited by fear of reprisal.  Noam Chomsky explained why. He stated : “‘Speaking truth to power’ is unnecessary. Power knows the truth already and is busy concealing it. He might have added: in modern times they are also busy preparing reprisals for those who attempt to use it. 

We live in a world in which our present government attempts to control “truth” by generating  narratives that protect and empower them.  If you fail to accept THEIR reality, they attack you as an apostate, ignoramus, terrorist sympathizer, or worse. Often their “reality” is so radically at odds with what your senses, your intelligence and experience tell you is true, you can not logically accept what they claim, and you wonder how rational humans could have could have reached such “far out”conclusions.  They are rational..their intention is to deceive. 

On Nov 20, 2023, John Kirby, Biden’s National Security Advisor, was queried about the “Genocide Joe”, taunt directed at President Biden by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Many Democrats  believe our President, who has steadfastly refused to call for a cease fire in Gaza is thus “complicit in IDF ethnic cleansing, and in the killing of 15,000 innocent Palestinian civilians”.  In fact, a formal lawsuit alleging “genocide” was recently filed in a San Francisco court against the President and members of his administration who staunchly support the Netanyahu government. 

Kirby responded, claiming the term “genocide” was used “inappropriately”. In the Biden-Kirby world of alternate reality it is  Hamas, not Israel who is committing genocide.  In Kirby’s world, Israel (which has the 4^th largest military in the world, equipped with US supplied heavy armor, massive intercontinental missiles, long range artillery, a powerful modern air force, and with 300,000 elite troops deployed in tiny Gaza)  is the victim of “genocide”!   In Kirby’s twisted reality a lightly armed militia of perhaps a few thousand—holed up somewhere in the vast area of shattered buildings and concrete rubble in Gaza— are committing genocide upon Israel which is the victim.   Empirical observations, logic and human senses make that argument impossibly difficult to accept.  

Hamas is a terrorist organization, it has attacked Israel in a vicious, horribly violent act, but can that attack be constituted as “genocide”?  That would be difficult to prove.  Were the 9/11 terrorists who struck the Twin Towers in fuel laden passenger jets  committing genocide? They killed many more civilians, but was it genocide? No one has ever made that claim. (George Bush (like Netanyahu) turned our massive military forces upon Iraq in rage filled revenge response to that attack killing tens of thousands and displacing millions of innocents in a nation which had little to do with 9-11. 

In Gaza our empirical observations from video and media reports reveal each day the level of destruction meted out in that narrow strip of land. The IDF has dropped the “equivalent of two Hiroshima nuclear bombs” in an area about the size and population density of Queens NY.  Imagine that level of destruction in Queens!  Media reports document the purposeful targeting and destruction of civilian sites such as flour mills, bakeries (11 bakeries have been purposely blown up), food caches, water purification facilities, hospitals, ambulances, sewage systems, residential areas, known refugee camps, and hospital parking lots where hundreds were seeking refuge against the incessant bombing.  These IDF list of targets are enough to provide evidence to the world of the Netanyahu government’s intentions to kill, to terrorize and to eliminate or “cleanse” civilians from Gaza.  Observers conclude the Israeli objective of these attacks are to drive the civilian population out of Gaza into surrounding nations. Additional evidence of attacks on civilians is the fact that the IDF cut off all electricity, water, medicine and fuel supplies into the tiny enclave of 2.4 million. Furthermore they directed civilians to flee to areas to the south, where those areas were then intentionally bombed. These are evidences of war crimes, “ethnic cleansing” and even genocide.  It is terrible to think that our “democratic” ally Israel has descended to this level of rage, revenge and inhumanity. We do not want to believe it.  But the facts impose themselves on us.

But here in the USA we are not really surprised. Kirby’s alternate reality is the typical  modus operandi of the Biden administration where wrong is right, functional is dysfunction, open is closed, “safe” areas are targets and perpetrators are victims. 

For Biden and Kirby our Mexican border is closed.  Yet our eyes reveal thousands of illegals worming through razor wire coils, wading across the the Rio Grande or simply files of young men walking across that border each month. Millions have done so already. Tens of thousands of illegals clutter the sidewalks in tent communities of our major “sanctuary” cities where they  find handouts and temporary comfort.   In the real world our border is wide open. 

Joe Biden claims: “Bidenomics is working”, but consumer’s eyes roll and jaws drop when confronted with massively inflated prices at the gas pump, or the grocery store check-out- counter”, or at McDonald’s—and its “$16 burger meal”.  Our pocketbooks and intellect tell us we have lost almost 1/5 of the value of our “Trump-years” dollar’s purchasing-power under Biden. That will not come back when inflation drops back to 2% (if it ever does)  Our flattened pocketbooks tell us the truth: Bidenomics is not working.

For Biden and his supporters, the 2020 election was perfectly “valid”. They dissemble. They continue to suppress  the facts surrounding many irregularities of that election. Such as that Mark Zuckerberg gave over $400 million dollars as a legally questionable and hidden “get out the vote campaign” for Democrats in key states. That Democrat sympathizers and propagandists suppressed and then debunked the Hunter Biden laptop news story. The FBI lied about it, 51 former “security sources” claimed it was Russian disinformation. The suppression of these damaging revelations surely altered perceptions of voters at a critical time in the election cycle. Must most egregious and damaging were the often illegal alterations to absentee, mail-in and eligibility voter-requirements which were instituted by appointed State or county individuals rather than the legal legislators of the state. Yet anyone who rightly claims that there were election “irregularities” in that election (in which only slightly more then ten thousand votes in each of four key states changed the results) is deemed a conspiracy theorist or liar.   

In the Biden world alternate reality there is “no crime wave”. But our senses tell us that  “defunding the police”, police “accountability” initiatives, and support for BLM has led to a “soft on crime mentality”, and a spike in car jackings, shootings, street-violence, and robbery.  The spreading plague of  “smash and grab” looter mobs in urban areas are called “peaceful, legitimate demonstrators” in this alternate Biden world. On the other hand, political demonstrators objecting to established government narratives or “received wisdom” get long sentences of incarceration, while “progressive” judges using no bail and “equity incarceration” policies  release violent criminals to emerge on the streets to commit more vicious or heinous acts. They know the truth, but hide it.

Each weekend our President stiffly staggers and stumbles across the White House lawn to a waiting helicopter pad for his trip to Delaware; he often knows not where to stand, verbally fluffs his printed lines, falls ignominiously climbing stairs, can not reliably remember where he is, reads haltingly (only from a prompter), when not stumbling a reading from a prepared text he falls into “faux history” parables as his mind wanders, yet his staff tout him as “fit for another 4 years”.  They know the truth but hide it. 

The Biden government has actively turned the powerful forces of the government judicial and policing power against its political enemies by raiding Mar a Lago, over a dispute that is tantamount to “over-due library books”, bringing flagrant charges that are designed to smear political opponents, drain their financial resources, imprison them, or tie them up in a legal quagmire so that they can not effectively campaign for office. These efforts are indefensible.

We live today in a world where “truth” is only what elites in government and their media propagandists want you think.   Those who actually see that the “Emperor has no clothes” and have the temerity to express that idea are attacked as idiots, “irredeemables”, conspiracy theorists, liars, antisemites, or dangerous “agent provocateurs”.  They use fear to silence you and control your ability to speak truth to power.  

Chomsky was right: Kirby and Biden know Hamas is not “committing genocide”, they know  crime is rampant, that Bidenomics is a failure, that the head of government is too old for the job, that our border is wide open, that they are using “lawfare” against political enemies. But they are consumed with concealing these facts, so as to prevent your-the voters-from acting on that knowledge.  

But Chomsky would agree: Don't let them get away with it.  Keep speaking  truth to power!

The Open Air Prison

 Israel created an open air prison in Gaza and the West Bank to seal off its problem of legitimacy.  Israel is a great and modern nation.  But its history has left it with serious and deep seated doubts. Does it have legitimate rights to the land it occupies?  They, the Israelis, are not actually convinced. There are other people who claim this land, the Palestinians, and it seems they will not go away.  The area was once shared by these two peoples. These earlier occupants  continue to insist that the land must either be shared  by two peoples or divided into two states.  The Israelis do not like either option. 

To “solve” this conundrum  they have sealed off one of their “problems” in Gaza ( and area of 7 x 20 miles or about the size and population density—2.2 million —of Queens NY) with steel fencing, razor wire, watch towers and a “no a mans” land.  So imagine an area about the size of Queens NY surrounded by fencing with no exits or egress, ways in or out,  except through military check points. Imagine no way to escape by air or sea.  Israel controls who goes in and out, as well as the water, electricity and sources of fuel.   Now imagine that area being bombarded by F16 jets and rocket fire.  Buildings blow up and  collapse around you.  Citizens run away as far as the steel fence and go no farther from the explosions.  This is reality for Gazans. 

The Israelis  hoped - this outdoor prison—requiring “mowing down” with bombs every” few years—- would solve their problem and no one would remember these ignored people deeply locked  away.  Sadly, Israeli allies and “friends” in the west simply went along with this clearly unjust, unworkable and untenable circumstance. In fact in the USA many elements helped the Netanyahu government sustain and strengthen the dangerous fantasy they created. That is until the tragic day of October 7,  2023 when the outdoor prison blew up in their face. 

Today thousands of innocents have been killed on both sides. 

Our leaders should be trying to end this horrible disaster, not become a co-belligerent by encouraging the combatants with funds and military supplies. Real leaders would separate themselves from the militarists committing war crimes as they respond only to rage and vengeance.   

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER

 “Speaking Truth to Power” (American Friends Service, 1955) is a peaceful political tactic used to change the power structure under which people live and was effectively used by: Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu, Martin Luther King…and many others. 

However, today we are faced with a world where “speaking truth to power” is limited by fear of reprisal.  Noam Chomsky explained why. He stated : “‘Speaking truth to power’ is unnecessary. Power knows the truth already and is busy concealing it. He might have added: in modern times they are also busy preparing reprisals for those who attempt it. 

We live in a world in which our present government attempts to control “truth” by generating  narratives that protect and empower them.  If you fail to accept THEIR reality, they attack you as an apostate, ignoramus  or worse. Often their “reality” is so radically at odds with what your senses, your intelligence and experience tell you is true, you can not logically accept what they claim, and you wonder how rational humans could have could have reached such “far out”conclusions.  They are rational..their intention is to deceive. 

On Nov 20, 2023, John Kirby, Biden’s National Security Advisor, was queried about the “Genocide Joe”, taunt directed at President Biden by demonstrators. Many Democrats  believe our President, who will not call for a cease fire in Gaza is thus “complicit in IDF ethnic cleansing in the killing of 15,000 innocent Palestinian civilians”.  In fact, a formal lawsuit alleging “genocide” was recently filed in a San Francisco court against the President and members of his administration who staunchly support the Netanyahu government. 

Kirby responded, claiming the term “genocide” was used “inappropriately”. In the Biden-Kirby alternate reality world it is  Hamas, not Israel who is committing genocide.  In Kirby’s world, Israel (which has the 4^th largest military in the world, equipped with US supplied heavy armor, massive intercontinental missiles, long range artillery, a powerful modern air force, and with 300,000 elite troops deployed in tiny Gaza)  is the victim of “genocide”!   In Kirby’s twisted reality a lightly armed militia of perhaps a few thousand—holed up somewhere in the vast area of shattered buildings and concrete rubble in Gaza— are committing genocide and Israel is the victim.   Empirical observations, logic and human senses make that argument impossibly difficult to accept.  

Hamas is a terrorist organization, it has attacked Israel in a vicious, horribly violent act, but can that attack be constituted as “genocide”?  That would be difficult to prove.  Were the 9/11 terrorists who struck the Twin Towers in fuel laden passenger jets  committing genocide? They killed many more civilians, but was it genocide? No one has ever made that claim.

But our empirical observations from video and media reports reveal each day the level of destruction meted out in Gaza. The IDF has dropped the “equivalent of two Hiroshima nuclear bombs” in an area about the size and population density of Queens NY.  Imagine that level of destruction in Queens!  Media reports document the purposeful targeting and destruction of civilian targets, such as flour mills, bakeries (11 bakeries have been blown up), food caches, water purification facilities, hospitals, ambulances, sewage systems, residential areas, known refugee camps, and hospital parking lots where hundreds were seeking refuge against the incessant bombing.  These IDF list of targets are enough to provide evidence to the world of the Netanyahu government’s intentions to kill, to terrorize and to eliminate or “cleanse” civilians from Gaza.  Additional evidence of attacks on civilians is the fact that the IDF cut off all electricity, water, medicine and fuel supplies into the tiny enclave of 2.4 million. Furthermore they directed civilians to flee to areas to the south, where those areas were then intentionally bombed. These are evidences of war crimes, “ethnic cleansing” and even genocide.  It is terrible to think that our ally Israel has descended to this level rage, revenge and inhumanity. We do not want to believe it.  But the facts impose themselves on us.

But we are not really surprised. Kirby’s alternate reality is the typical  modus operandi of the Biden administration where wrong is right, functional is dysfunction, open is closed, “safe” areas are targets  and perpetrators are victims. 

For Biden and Kirby our Mexican border is closed.  Yet our eyes reveal to us thousands of illegals worming through razor wire coils, wading across the the Rio Grande or simply crowds walking across that border each month. Millions have done so already. Tens of thousands of illegals clutter the sidewalks in tent communities of our major “sanctuary” cities where they  find handouts and temporary comfort.   In the real world our border is wide open. 

Joe Biden claims: “Bidenomics is working”, but consumer’s eyes roll and jaws drop when confronted with massively inflated prices at the gas pump, or grocery store check out, or McDonald’s, (“$16 burger meal”). Our pocketbooks and intellect tell us we have lost 1/5 of the value of our “Trump-years” dollar’s purchasing power under Biden.  Our flattened pocketbooks tell us the truth: Bidenomics is not working.

There is “no crime wave” in Biden’s alternate reality. But our senses tell us that  “defunding the police”,police “accountability” initiatives, and support for BLM has led to a “soft on crime mentality”, and a spike in car jackings, shootings, street-violence, and robbery.  The spreading plague of  “smash and grab” looter mobs in urban areas are called “peaceful, legitimate demonstrators” in this alternate Biden world. On the other hand, political demonstrators objecting to established government narratives or “received wisdom” get long sentences of incarceration, while “progressive” judges using no bail and “equity incarceration” policies  release violent criminals to emerge on the streets to commit more vicious or heinous acts. They know the truth, but hide it.

Each weekend our President stiffly staggers and stumbles across the WH lawn to a waiting helicopter pad for his trip to Delaware; he knows not where to stand, verbally fluffs his printed lines, falls ignominiously, can not reliably remember where he is, reads haltingly (only from a prompter), when not reading prepared text he falls into “faux history” parables as his mind wanders, yet his staff tout him as “fit for another 4 years”.  They know the truth but hide it. 

We live today in a world where “truth” is only what elites in government and their media propagandists want you think.   Those who actually see that the “Emperor has no clothes” and have the temerity to express that idea are  attacked as idiots, “irredeemables”, conspiracy theorists, liars, antisemites, or dangerous “agent provocateurs”.  They use fear to silence you and control your ability to speak truth to power.  

Chomsky was right: Kirby and Biden (?) know Hamas is not committing genocide, that crime is rampant, that Bidenomics is a failure, that Biden is too old for the job, and that our border is wide open. But they are busy concealing  facts which they do not want you to know and act on that knowledge.  

But he would agree: Don't let them get away with it.  Keep speaking  truth to power!

IN THE “FAR AWAY” FROM WAR

 I am far away from war in Israel and Gaza. I am sitting today on my porch in the low sunshine of a warm fall day, yet my thoughts are of the terrible horror and human suffering in that war torn place.  I recognize I have the physical and mental advantage of being safe, not threatened by bombs, collapsing buildings, or saddened by death around me, or targeted by masked intruders with death-dealing weapons..

I have the advantage of thinking clearly—from my position of safety— yet I can imagine the terror, the pain, horror, the sorrow of loss of these two peoples so far away. 

There are many of us like me—far away.  We can see both sides, we are not natural religious or ethnic partisans, we know that killing children, innocents, the elderly by AK47s or by F16s is wrong for whatever purpose respective leaders claim.   There is never justification for engaging in the purposeful or avoidable, even “collateral” death of innocents. 

Yet sadly there are those of us in high places of the far away…who self-serving, hypocritically pander to the combatants and encourage, facilitate, incentivize, support them to greater violence, more death and destruction. They are morally corrupt, more so than those who kill when ravaged by war on their doorstep .  Our most human and moral instincts drive us instead, to end the carnage and killing, and shun or silence the repugnant verbal justifications aired in the yellow media for escalation, more and greater violence and death.  Our goals must be the difficult compromises that will bring stability and peaceful coexistence. 

Those of us in the far away, can see clearly what these objectives are. We must have the political courage and determination to bring that vision to the combatants.  End the support for death—work for peace. In truth, our fragile, dangerous and changing modern world can no longer afford or  survive those who continue to bring us to the brink of world war for the price of an election, or a dusty dessert landscape.    

Yes, we are far away, but from here we can see the wrongs on both sides.

DEATHS OF DESPAIR IN WHITES: NO COLLEGE DEGREE?—OR NO JOB?

 

Deaths of Despair in Young Whites—Related to Communities of Despair—-Offshoring and Outsourcing Jobs

Princeton economists Deaton and Case study Death in America (rf: 2020 publication, 9/28/2023  Brookings presentation). 

The authors  have recently (9/28/23) presented new data at a Brookings Institute seminar where they presented a shocking graph showing a close correlation of “deaths of despair” in young white men (mortality by opioids, suicide, cirrhosis) , with a disparity in college education. Their conclusion: those with college degrees live longer. 

 However, correlation does not prove causation. The authors blithely ignore the great swath of middle America, where in the 1970s to the present, tens of millions of factory jobs were lost when whole industries  were offshored to China. The vast swath of hollowed out “communities of despair” had a devastating and demonstrable impact on young working class Americans of those communities. No doubt, idleness, depression, poverty, despair naturally lead to higher mortality rates.  

These two talented Princeton economists might be well served to get out of their oak paneled offices with whirring computers and visit these devastated communities where factories sit idle, main streets are empty, and the smell of rotting wood mixed with ganja smoke predominates.  The authors should analyze those data. An put the blame where it belongs.  

N Y CITY FLOODS - TOO MUCH UNCOLLECTED GARBAGE

 Saturday, 29, 2023

The recent (Friday 28, 2023) storms which overwhelmed N Y City with heavy rain, flood water flowing into basements, pouring down into subways and pooling up into hip-deep water in low places stranding cars, busses and trucks. Subway trains were stalled and service suspended on ten different Transit lines. Even flights at JFK and LaGuardia were detained by the downpour. At LaGuardia, the historic Marine Air Terminal was flooded and forced to close. 

Nearly 8 inches of rain fell at Kennedy Airport. In Brooklyn, about 4.5 inches fell in three hours (a rate of 1.5 inches per hour) In Central Park rain fell at a rate of about 1.9 inches per hour. Over most of the City, between 6 to 8 inches accumulated over a 24 hour period.

As expected, the “climate catastrophists” were quick to blame this bad “weather” on the warming “climate” (a process which has been going on now for 17,000 years, since the glaciers departed.)  Our climate is warming —the Earth is in a natural warming cycle. But there is no doubt that humans are also responsible for pumping massive amounts of heat absorbing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But we can not blame all natural and human phenomena on this one very popular environmental cause. The natural world is more complex than that.   As we will see below, recent storms in the present El Nino cycle are more powerful and dangerous. But in this case, we must not ignore other human factors which are very obvious contributors. 

What about the City?   About 72% of the NY City is covered with impervious concrete or asphalt, or is covered by homes or buildings.  Heavy rainfall can not recharge into the ground, and seep downward, but must be directed along impervious surfaces into sewers and drains to avoid floods.  For this purpose New York City is more than adequately covered by a combined sewer and storm water drain system composed of  7,500 miles of subsurface pipes and tunnels which carry the storm and waste water .  Most of the sewers (60 %) carry rainfall from storms directly into the City’s  surrounding rivers and harbors. In recent years an area along the coast (the “Bluebelt”) was designed and installed to capture sewer water and treat it before it is discharged.   

The City’s sewage system was engineered to adequately discharge rain water from a “once in five 5 year storm” having a rate of rainfall at  @1.75 inches of rain per hour or almost at a rate of 2 inches per hour. Though rain a accumulated over the City over the 24 hour period at 6 to 8 inches. Such  accumulations are obviously less  than the 1.75 inches per hour. 

Thus the City’s sewer and drain system is more than adequate to prevent street and subway flooding from the vast majority of storms that may develop over the City’s skies.  The Friday storm had rates of downpour that were at or well below the rate of flow that the system is designed for. So why all the flooding?  

However this most effective system is NOT designed to swallow up big plastic bags of floating garbage, cardboard boxes, old food containers, plastics, and human generated debris.  The system was originally designed to carry away only sewage and surface water. 

The City has over 100,000 illegal immigrants living rough on the streets all of which produce solid  waste. Piles of 50 gallon black garbage bags, old packing, styrofoam, stacks of cardboard on every corner and in-front of each business are legendary. These piles were left for the storm to float away and clog sewer drains.

During this Friday’s storm these plastics, cardboard boxes and other solids simply were floated away and carried along to the nearest sewer grate where the strong current pulled the solids to the grate and obstructed and clogged the water flow. Over a very short period rain water accumulated into hip deep ponds with rafts of floating cardboard, bags of garbage and other human generated debris on its oily surface.  Let’s put the blame where it belongs…poor preparation for the storm, too many people, too much waste, and too much trash and garbage left  on the streets! 

EMBARRASSING STUPIDITY ON DISPLAY AT GOP DEBATE

September 28,2023

Some of us were not smart enough to ignore the Fox News “debate” of the GOP hopefuls last night `.                                        and watched their chaotic performance. I plead guilty. I had seen enough after about 55 minutes. 

The “debate” did reveal the embarrassing stupidity of several of the war monger neo-conservative “hold over from Bush” class of candidates. Their answers to the questions regarding support for the Ukraine War was revelatory.  It seems clear some remnants of the war monger element are still alive in the old GOP.  These folks—Pense, Haley (who would even send special forces troops into Mexico a close ally and economic partner.) , and Christie, simply have learned nothing from our awful history in foreign policy over the last decades.  One wonders where have they been? Thankfully, these candidates all  have GOP voter-support only in the single digits..  They eagerly support the un-winnable  war in Ukraine. For them, the US policy-goal is to degrade and destabilize Russia, a nation seen as an intractable enemy. Their reasoning is irrational. 

Ukraine has lost about 20% of its most industrialized and valuable Black Sea coast to Russia. That area will be very difficult to take back. Ukraine’s  so-called “summer offensive” failed. That failure has been exposed, not by media reports, which control, ignore, and hide such information, but by the actions of the Biden Administration itself. As the war effort stagnated in Ukraine, the US Administration has consistently escalated the conflict by increasing the number and destructive capacity of weapons, as well as their range. Ukraine now has  our best armor, tanks and top fighter-airplanes. We have also provided them with iternatinally banned and illegal cluster bombs. These are all signs of desperation which simply  underscore the fact that Ukraine is NOT winning. 

There is no possible “winner” in this war. Ukraine can not defeat Russia. The outcome can only be either a political compromise and territorial settlement —-or a wider NATO vs Russia Nuclear War.  The latter result would be a disaster for all of Europe and the western world. The result would be the horror of a radioactive, smoldering failed state on the border of eastern Europe with an angry and nuclear-armed Russia, under the control of even more radical elements in Moscow.  

Think back to the decisions of of the “geniuses” in the US State Department and Washington, DC that made similar decisions about Libya in 2011, and the awful outcome there.  Only this war in Eastern Europe would be much bigger and much worse.  

But evaluating the candidate’s stated rationale for this war—one recognizes that they have none.  The idea that our goal is to destabilize and weaken an eastern European nation..with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons on Earth and simply hope that after we achieve this goal that all of Europe will be safe  ——is so ridiculous— it deserves no response. 

Europeans take note.  You will be the close neighbor of another failed state  the USA war-monger neo-conservative interventionists will have created not in Ssouth America but in the heart of Europe.

NO MORE AID TO UKRAINE—PEACE POSSIBLE WHEN USA MONEY ENDS.

 

September 27, 2023. 

DEMOCRATS AND SOME REPUBLICANS IN THE SENATE ARE PROPOSING AN ADDITIONAL $6 BILLION DOLLAR AID PACKAGE FOR UKRAINE AS PART OF A STOP-GAP DEAL TO END THE BUDGET IMPASSE. A BAD IDEA. 

Some in Congress support blank-check spending in Ukraine, with no `end and no accountability for how these funds are spent. Continued blank check funding only incentivizes the war. 

Ukraine is awash in foreign money. The USA alone—the largest donor,—has sent Ukraine over $120 billion dollars in cash, aid and outright gifts, while the EU and NATO added an additional $30 billion. Canada donated $10 billion, Poland $5 billion, and many other nations added to this largess.   Today,  the total amount of monetary aid to Ukraine hovers at @ $200 billion dollar mark. This for a nation with a population of only 40 million.   Two hundred billion dollars for Ukraine is equivalent to a handout of about $5,000 for every man, woman and child in Ukraine.  ($200,000 million/40 million = @$5,000 dollars for each Ukrainian citizen).   Before the war in 2021, Ukraine’s entire gross domestic product was just $ 200 billion dollars.  This nation is being swamped with cash.

Then too, almost all of that cash and investment is completely unaccounted for.  As a result of this “free for all” windfall of loans, gifts, and  money, inflation in Ukraine is rampant. In July 2023, inflation in Ukraine surged above 18%. While money poured in to the nation in 2020, GDP soared to over 19% above  its pre-war level.  As a consequence of this tsunami of cash reports of corruption skyrocketed, even being reveled by official government sources.  Ukrainian elites have been exposed buying multimillion dollar properties in “millionaire resort towns” such as Gstaadt, Switzerland.  Zelenskyy has a $4 million dollar real estate portfolio of city apartments, several commercial properties and five parking facilities. Domestically, with so much money in the hands of corrupt officials,—home and business properties  prices in Ukraine, even in-war torn regions, have risen in value by 75% in less than two years. Why? 

Corrupt Ukrainian entrepreneurs have access ro nearly unlimited funds for personal self- emolument and investment.  Battered war-torn homes and business properties are purchased and reconditioned for sale at massively inflated prices. This nation is awash in money. Money is fungible !! 

 For too many in Ukraine, war is a money-making proposition. Peace and compromise can only be possible when the monetary incentive for the Ukrainian elites ends.  The end of bombardment, the awful destruction, the human and societal toll, the death dealing— the threat of a nuclear exchange, will only come to an end when the incentive for war—-the US money train— ends. 

But lets not put all the blame on the greed and self-serving elements in Ukraine. Ukraine has been a cash cow for many in our own government. ( Recent revelations exposed the infamous activities of the Biden family, which is heavily invested in Ukraine.) In the Senate, we have, on both sides, many who take cash or gifts from defense industry lobbyists and do the bidding of this vested interest. Like the Ukrinan elites and just as guilty are US “war monger” politicians who are also in this dangerous war for profit and self-interest. 

HORSES (EQUUS) HUMAN HISTORY AND LANGUAGE ARE INTERTWINED

 Horses (Equus) have had a long and intimate relationship with humans.  One of my most cherished remembrances of early Long Island is that of a friendship I had with a long time local farmer and horse and mule lover—Jim.  When his own farm was retired from agricultural production—on which he used only horses and mules for power…he could not retire the team of horses and mules he had trained and used almost all of his life.  At that time several local farms had been converted from crop production to growing trees and nursery stock.  My friend JIm found work for his teams in the hundreds of acres of closely spaced nursery stock—row plantings where big wide tractors could not go.  Jim’s team of mules and horses worked to till those rows quickly and very effectively for many years. 

 Horses have been used as beasts of burden, as general transport, and as essential agricultural work-animals used to till the soil and harvest our foods and grains. They worked in mines. In wartime, they carried massive burdens, as well as the officer class to the front lines. They served famously as mounts for our western beef herders—our cowboys.  Municipal police departments use horses to safely and effectively control crowds.  Their uses have been eclipsed Yet they are still part of wild America.  Wild horses are presently found on every continent except Antartica.  In the wild they interact with the natural environment to improve soil and increase plant and animal diversity.   In the past, and not so long ago, everyone had a stable for the family horse.  In those days human-horse relations were very intimate and common. 

Today, horses continue to serve as a source of healthy exercise. They are used in sports like polo, and observer sports like horse racing.  Most recently horses are kept as service animals where they facilitate horse-rider interactions helpful to improve human pysiological well-being and realtionships which improve motor coordination, relaxation, and better mental health.   Their sounds, smells and appearance, are all part of a deep, strong bond between these patient, big and beautiful animals and their human owners,  which anyone who has had the opportunity to experience finds unforgettable.     

The horse genus Equus first evolved in North America, millions of years ago. Adapted to grasslands, the genus spread widely over North America, evolving from a tiny species no taller than a large dog, into a near-modern size horse in the Late Pleistocene. During the Pleistocene or Glacial Age (2.6 million years ago  to 12,000 years ago) when a land bridge connected North  America and Asia, wild horses expanding their range, migrated west across the Bering Strait land bridge into Eurasia.  

Perhaps the first contact between horse and  humans occurred somewhere along  the Bering Straight land corridor late in the Pleistocene.  For during that time, our own species (Homo sapiens) was migrating east  from Eurasia into North America, as horses went west  to populate and form herds in Asia and eastern Europe.  However, by 10,000 years ago, horses  horses in North America had disappeared from the fossil record, perhaps as a result of  climate change, helped on by human predators who may have hunted them—no one knows.  

But they thrived in Europe, and in the great grass-lands or steppes of central Asia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.   About 8,000 years ago in what is now Kazakhstan, the people of these vast grasslands or steppes may have first hunted horses for food and skins. But they soon came to realize that they were  more valuable alive and began to use them for riding, to facilitate hunting, as beasts of burden and as a source of meat too. These people of the steppes domesticated horses. They herded horses into corrals and paddocks where they were used as a source of food, milk, skins, and to carry burdens.  

The advent of the domestic horse changed the economy of the steppe people.  No longer were they forced to remain in one place. They could pack up their horses with their goods, tents, and families and travel to better lands for grazing, and hunting. Their change in lifestyle gave them an advantage over other tribes. There were able to exploit the grassland environment more effectively for meat and food. They accessed more calories, and nutritious foods and were healthier, taller, and were more likely to dominate their neighbors. 

From about 6-7000  years ago these horse-based pastoralists  spread out from Kazakhstan into western Europe riding and leading  their horses. Their nomadic lifestyle, military prowess  and horsemanship permitted them to dominate those areas into which they moved. 

These “horse people” who dominated others, brought not only the horse but also the language they spoke—Indo-European.  Indo-European is the parent language of almost all the modern languages we speak in the west today. The Indo-European language and the horse spread all through Europe.  

More than 5,500 years later, the Spanish discovered and widely explored the New World. They brought horses with them to serve as mounts and beasts of burden during these incursions. Thus the Spanish speaking an Indo European language—introduced a language as well as the horse into North America. The Spanish reintroduced the horse to where it once had evolved and introduced their Indo European language to North America as well. 

Many Spanish horses escaped into the wild, to form wild bands or herds.  Others were stolen by indigenous peoples of the southern  plains, most notably the Comanche who famously adapted to the horse, just as those ancient people of the Asian steppes some 6,000-8,000 years ago had done.   More than nine thousand years after if was exterminated from North America the horse again prospered in the grasslands of the west. 

Today our wild mustangs still roam the hills and valleys of Nevada, Utah and Colorado where some say they are feral —not wild—animals introduced by man.  But history seems to suggest-they came form North America and are now back where they belong.