Flotillas and Fools

By now you all - in one way or another - have probably heard about what went down in the Med today.

A flotilla of ships, attempting to break Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, was boarded by Israel's navy and...things didn't go so well. At last count, 9 flotilla participants died. According to what I've read, several of these purportedly "peaceful" activists attempted to grab the weapons of Israeli soldiers. I've also heard that the activists (who apparently have a big problem with Israel, but not so much with Hamas) might have had crude weapons of their own, using them to assault - maybe even stab - Israeli soldiers, whose perseverance and bravery I salute.

I've been looking at the prominent role being played by Turkey in all this - you can do your own news searches regarding this, as I wouldn't want to deny you the "fun" and I'd rather not be your sole source of news..hint, "IHH" - and after some considerable consideration, I wouldn't be surprised if Turkish PM Erdogan intended for things to go this way, in order to have political cover to further downgrade the state of Turkish-Israeli ties. I'd say the Turks were counting on Israel reacting strongly, though they might not have expected such consequences as this. Or maybe...they did?

All they needed were a few willing agents provocateurs, a little money slipped under the table by Ankara...et voilà, Israel looks bad before the world (like that is new), and Turkey has a "good" reason to call in an Israeli ambassador or other consular official, dress him down, all as cover as Turkey gets cozier with Syria and Iran. Heck, Turkey's already recalled its ambassador to Israel (so quickly!). And who can blame Turkish protestors for trying to storm an Israeli consulate in Istanbul, even if - perish the thought - whatever protests "spontaneously" erupted were, in fact, pre-planned and well-coordinated?

They need only say, "Look what Israel did!" and understanding is born. Especially, in America, amongst devotees of the Huffington Post, acolytes of His Awesomeness Barack H. Obama II, and supporters of J Street. Meanwhile, though the Muslim world as a whole doesn't exactly need another reason to bash Israel, a brief perusal of Al Jazeera's English website this afternoon showed me they'll still gladly run with whatever they get.

Sure, Turkey could openly repudiate Israel (and by extension, the West), but that wouldn't look so good, now would it? Especially not if there's still the slightest chance the EU might one day consider possibly letting the Turks join their club, even nowadays when it might not seem to be the best club to join. But if you get Israel to be your unwitting fall guy, many more people than might otherwise see your perspective now will. You can go your own way and hardly be accused of further abandoning your country's secular roots and longstanding partnership with Israel, after an event like this.

One also can't discount a major role by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which of course stands to benefit from the international media's focus switching from one regional pariah to another. After all, the more the int'l media focus on Israel and its actions (policies, etc), the less they'll be talking about Iran, it's despotic regime, and that regime's nuclear program. You know something ain't kosher when Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has the gall to call Israel's actions "inhumane". What a spectacle! Pot calling kettle black, much?

This is also, in a way, exactly what North Korea needs at the moment. I'd be willing to bet money that this flotilla incident today is enough to get Jerusalem hauled before the UN Security Council before North Korea's torpedoing of a South Korean naval vessel (with 46 fatalities) in March gets Pyongyang censured by that body. Never mind, of course, that Israel gave fair warning before boarding the ships, and that North Korea's attack was surreptitious and unprovoked. It's the way of the world: Blaming Jews (and/or Israel) works.

Call me a cynic, but don't tell me I don't have justification to be cynical!

This just seems to have gone too badly - for Israel's image, and the flotilla participants' lives - to have come about by mere happenstance.

Turned On the Faucet. This Came Out.

It's funny. What's funny? I don't know. That's just the first thing that popped into my head. I was wondering what to write, somewhat concerned that nothing was coming to mind, and then...it's funny. That's what popped into my head. Come to think of it, I just repeated myself. I said popped into my head twice. Why did that happen? How did it happen? Oh, shit. Does it really matter one way or the other, why or how? Is it going to affect my future, wondering about that? I don't know. Which is why determining the worthiness of spending time wondering about it is either much or little, depending on the moment. Depending on the moment. Shouldn't it be depending on the moments? No, probably not. Moment to moment, that's what it depends on. There's no need to pluralize that which needn't be so.

Needn't be so. That sounds somewhat archaic. I read too many older things, maybe. Too much or too little, because the writing today often pales in comparison to what was written in the past. Take Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work about the Great Boer War. I spent about 20 minutes today perusing that on my Kindle for Mac, and the only thing that caused me to cease my reading was...well, my memory is fuzzy on just what it was that inspired me to stop. It could have been hunger, or thirst, or a need to pee. Hell, it could have even been a hard-on. I'm not really sure. And the funny thing is...heh, it's funny...that at the time of this writing, the moment - oh, there's a connection - I speak of took place just a short time ago. Just a few hours, ago. Why did I put that comma there? Fuck if I know. I don't know myself half as well as I think.

Anyway, what was I saying? I digress. No, I wasn't saying that. I digressed, that's it. So anyway, I was reading the author of Sherlock Holmes' work about South Africa. I bought it months and months ago, while I was still in Coree du Sud. Wait, why the fuck did I just write South Korea in French? What purpose does that serve? What does it add to the narrative. Wait, is this a narrative? Wait, why the hell am I saying wait so much? Okay, back to the story. Doyle's words regarding the failings of British policy in southern Africa don't read like a modern history narrative. They might as well be a novel, for the way that they collectively enrapture me, instill in me a desire to keep on reading until something or other - again, I can't remember what - distracts me enough that I decide to pull myself away from the book and abandon it for a while.

Distractions. They're interesting, aren't they? Of course they are, otherwise they wouldn't distract us to begin with. They wouldn't command our attention. Mind you, when I started writing this bit about distractions, I was meaning in the more general sense that they are interesting. The very act of being distracted isn't so strange, but that we get upset about it. We're told we need to focus, focus, focus, keep our eyes on the prize, maintain our trek toward whatever the goal may be. But like I said, distractions are interesting. And perhaps even more interesting is what it is that distracts us, as I said before. I, for one, am particularly distracted by a woman's pretty face, or - as is just as often the case - the bust situated just beneath it. I can't be honest? You want me to say a woman's face is all I look at?

But see, just there I was distracted. I wasn't thinking about me, but about you. What do I care what you think, about what distracts me? The saying might be, judge not lest ye be judged, but we all do it anyway, and file an appeal...at least, in our minds we do. We know, or think we know, when we're being judged, and we rush to defend ourselves. Why? How well do those who are judging us know us? Not that well. So when I write about how cleavage manages to distract me even in a bookstore - where not much besides is able to easily disrupt my attention - there's a part of me that knows that whoever is reading this has suddenly come to certain conclusions about me that may or may not be accurate. They certainly aren't the whole story, those conclusions. So why do we care so much that they're being made?

Alright, enough of that. I'm not a philosopher, I don't need to try to answer questions others who believe they are philosophers spend plenty of time worrying about on their own. I think for myself, of course, but ultimately the bigger questions about why we worry about what we worry about don't affect me all that much. The questions don't get in my way when I'm reading a book. They don't normally bother me when I'm watching TV. They stay out of my line-of-sight when I'm wandering around a tourist attraction. Obviously, they pop into my head - there it is again - when I'm writing, but that's what happens when you lift off the bridle of the mind and just run with it. Thoughts you'd rather not have but aren't ashamed to have force their way into your consciousness, and if you're in the process of writing, they're added to the evidence.

The evidence of what? The evidence of the writing, of course. The tangible, readable shapes you now see before you. They are evidence that, one way or another, I have been thinking. Maybe I haven't been thinking all that profoundly, but then, who needs to think profoundly except those who believe they have to think profoundly? My reputation - such as it is - doesn't depend on any such notion. I could think about banal, vulgar things, and then write about them, for days on end. Well, not literally for days on end. I'd need to sleep, eat, shower, brush my teeth, masturbate, drink water, drink juice, drink beer, etc. And when you get right down to it, I probably wouldn't be able to keep up the banal thread for long. Sooner or later, I'd involuntarily try my hand at profundity again, realize I don't need to, and then write about it all.

What in that last paragraph, that preceding collection of words combined into sentences, sticks out at you right now? Don't think too much about it. Just think, and say. Well, think it, at least, 'cause I can't hear you and if you're talking out loud to yourself there's a good chance you'll have some explaining to do later. As for me, what sticks out is...well, fuck. I don't know. I'm not sure what there is to remember in that last paragraph, whether there's anything in there that I should be remembering more than any other thing accompanying any other thing. I just kind of repeated myself, but I don't care and didn't mean to do it. I, well...fuck it. I actually want to talk about something else, but damned if I can think of what. I'm not in command of this process. It's just happening, flowing freely, like the Nile, the Jordan, the Han. Rivers.

Rivers! That's what I can talk about. I can talk about the rivers I've seen. Such as the Mississippi, and the Nile, and the Jordan, and the Han, and the Yarkon, and the...well, there was a really dirty river in Daegu, Korea, but I can't remember the name of it at the moment. It was really dirty, as I recall from research the dirtiest in Korea, but...what does it matter? I'm talking about a river. Or rivers. Say, is it redundant to speak of multiple rivers? Does it matter, in the greater scheme of things? It sounds weird, to say there are multiple rivers on our planet. Shouldn't it be enough to just say, there are rivers on our planet? Doesn't that speak for itself, the plural of river? Obviously, if there is more than one river, there are rivers. It stands to reason that if there are rivers, they aren't just found in one spot, but many. Hence the plural. Rivers.

Okay, time to write about something else. How about this: Writing. Am I writing right now? There are many books about writing and being a writer. But am I writing? No. I'm typing. I'm the author of this, yes, and it could be said that I authored it and whoever said it wouldn't be wrong. But, as I said, did I write all of this, pen in hand, paper in front of me? No. If I'm being literal, practical, then I can't say that what this is is writing. It's typing. On a MacBook Air in a cafe at a Barnes & Noble in Tucson, Arizona, USA on March 31, 2010 at 8:26:26 p.m., or 20:26:39 if you're in the military or in a country other than the United States of America. Shit, digressed again. Writing. Erm, typing. These words have not been written, not in the traditional sense. Not in the literal sense. So why do we call people who type books, writers?

To Obama, and the Future Glory of His Changed America!

I think it's obvious, isn't it? Barack Obama is the New Savior not only of America, but all Mankind. Even for those who don't believe in God, he is the Messiah, resurrected. His record stands on its own: Not quite four years into his freshman Senate term, he already has a personality cult whose growth, tenacity and spirit rivals the cults which once surrounded Stalin and Hitler. Obama has, as we know, overcome great odds to defeat a favored Democrat rival and become his Party's official nominee for the job of President of the United States of America. And his rise to power, coming as the George W. Bush era comes to a close, is as providential a sign as there can be that Obama's meant to be President, or to even prepare the ground for a "President for Life"...a position to be occupied only by Democrats for the duration of the American Republic.

Change!

And who are Democrats, to deny that such is their goal - permanent power? Permanent power, devoid of dissent, or at least as devoid of dissent as is possible in the United States at this time? Such permanent power is - can it be disputed? - the best, most assured way of putting one's political plans into action. The Nazis and Soviets, the late Saddam Hussein regime and the current Islamic Republic of Iran, the House of Sa'ud in Arabia and Putin in Russia all demonstrate this truth clearly. For his part, Senator Obama has already shrewdly given his tacit blessing to his supporters to silence the opinions of those who oppose his/their views, and since he changes those views so often, he makes it very difficult for people to oppose him in the first place. This is hardly worrying; be encouraged! One-Party Rule depends on such leaders!

Change!

Obama has already showed us what the New Seal of the President of the United States will look like. He has already rallied millions upon millions of naive, young college students, mostly freshmen just like him (but of a different sort), and a few older students, who know only what their parents have taught them, what their professors have taught them, or what the mainstream media has taught them. Get 'em while they're young, as the saying goes, while they still have yet to really learn how to think independently. This is something to celebrate, the easy indoctrination of the leftist, liberal mantra (Republicans are bad, conservatives bad, Americans are bad, Democrats good, liberals good, power good, the Party is more important than the individual, the Government is more important than the individual, etc.) of willing acolytes.

Change!

Just imagine everything which will be possible once Democrats have retaken the White House and further entrenched their majority in Congress, securing their indefinitely extended power: We'll have a socialist-style universal medical system, just like in Cuba. And just like in Cuba, dissent against the Government will slowly but surely be quashed in the New Revolution (bye, conservative talk radio!), and only the elite in the Party or foreigners with money - who'll become, as they are now in Cuba, a different kind of elite - will be able to take advantage of all the medical advances (shorter wait times, for example) in our Great Republic. Can't you just see it? It will be a glorious time in America, a New Golden Age. I wonder who "our" Che Guevara will be. I really do. Will he murder as many people as the real one did? For the New Revolution?

Change!

The planet Earth, of course, will also be saved alongside America after Obama wins the Presidency and Democrats begin what will hopefully be a permanent period of residency in the White House. Because only Democrats, or rather, liberals, are capable of and willing to fight Global Warming to the bitter end. Yes, only left-wing liberals are willing to take on both humanity and Mother Nature herself. They'll not be content with simply ending humanity's contribution to Climate Change...they'll also take measures to ensure that the natural processes of the Earth - which led to past Climate Change and ended the last Ice Age (and which enabled humanity, civilization, to grow to such numbers and advancement as it has) - adhere to left-wing, Democratic liberalism's theoretical physical laws, not today's proven laws of Physics.

Change!

Barack Obama's inauguration will be a cause for further celebration abroad, beyond that which will follow Climate Change's inevitable, permanent defeat once the Earth stops rotating on its axis. Europeans, especially, will have reason to feel comfortable in the event the Democrats win the presidential election of 2008 and every such election thereafter, since Europeans, we cannot forget, know a thing or two about the potential power of a Government which intends to rule over the People rather than serve them. We have so much to learn from Europeans, for they are receptive to such systems of Government, and Europeans are obviously so much wiser and more worldly than Americans are. How could they not be, when they've learned so much from their fratricidal conflicts, and they've taught us how to industrialize mass genocide?

Change!

Yes, the world will Change for the better when the Democrats have power once more. Especially in the Middle East. Israel will be forced to partition Jerusalem, a la Berlin, with the Arabs despite there having been a Jewish majority in the modern city for over 140 years, and despite repeated Palestinian demonstrations of hatred, disrespect and irresponsibility toward Jews and their beliefs (demonstrated especially well during the period of Jordanian rule in East Jerusalem, when Jews, Christians and Muslims from Israel were prevented from worshiping at their Holy Sites). Governments the world over will flock to Jerusalem to establish and open their embassies to Palestine, while most embassies to Israel will likely remain in Tel Aviv, despite the mantra of those who say that Jerusalem will be a capital of two states, not one. Ah, a just peace!

Change!

Back in the U.S. Homeland, there will no longer be such a thing as illegal immigration. Not because our sovereign borders will have been secured by the Federal Government, but because said sovereign borders will have been opened in accordance with the demands of sovereign Mexico. We musn't forget, it is far easier for the Mexican Government to sanction illegal immigration, to print official fliers explaining how to sneak into America, than it is for them to work to grow their indigenous economy. But once full amnesty has been granted to all previous "illegal" immigrants, and the borders are forcibly opened - to the everlasting chagrin of the formerly semi-autonomous States - the Mexican Government will be able to spend its money on other things, like a campaign to make Spanish the official language of the U.S. Viva la reconquista!

Change!

As for African-Americans, an Obama victory would mean that finally, all their hopes and dreams have been (or can be) realized. It will signal the end of all the trials and tribulations afflicting "Blacks". An Obama victory in November '08 would be the ultimate vindication of the Civil Rights struggle, and all who fought for an America that lives up to its founding creed would have cause for immense pride. For how else might African-Americans have helped to realize Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream, of an America whose citizens are judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, than by voting en masse for a candidate based primarily on his...skin color? It makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Doesn't it?

Change!

As Election Day nears, this much is certain:

Change, either domestically or internationally, is only possible with an Obama victory in the presidential race and a further Democratic victory in Congress and throughout the States of the American Union. Even though a change in the administration of Executive power is mandated by the Constitution and its amendments (meaning that no matter who wins in 2008, we'll have a new president in 2009), True Change, the kind that will restore dignity and honor to America, can only be implemented once ultra-liberal Democrats control our Government. Change, after all, never even existed before the advent of Barack Hussein Obama. Before Obama, there was just change. Regular, old, lawful "change". That will change, though, once Obama wins and Change comes to America. Can we so Change America...not just change it? Yes we can!





To facetious fascism!