Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I know the feeling. I'm considering whether or not people have strong feelings on what kind of garlic to plant. I've got mostly hardnecks going in, some Music, some Ukrainian and Romanian varieties, but most people are a lot more used to the softneck stuff, especially California Garlic, and its much more gentle taste. To tell you the truth, I say screw the Californians and their weak little garlic.

There, I said it.

You might like to read A Garlic Testament, by Stanley Crawford. I did.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Arafat created a permanent impasse by dragging Barak and Clinton thru a peace process that was 90% done, only to back peddle at the last second and demand what he knew would blow up the deal - right of return. He conveyed to Israel and the world that the PLO was not and would not negotiate in good faith for realistic two state solutions.



There isn't one. You know my view of religion, so it won't surprise you to hear that any claim to the land based on that is void in my opinion. So then we're left with the law of power. The Israelis did live in the area historically and received and held the land for the last eight decades. Not unlike the Native Americans here, who will never get back that which was lost, nor will the Palestinians. Time marches on and the realpolitik has been for a long time (indeed, embraced by Egypt, Jordan, and soon, Saudi Arabia) that Israel is there to stay, as a Jewish state.

You can argue the Brits fucked up the boundaries, the state should have been elsewhere, whatever. It is what it is. It's there, and most of the Palestinians who lost land are long dead, and their families could have received equivalent land or money under various different deals, but have refused.

And finally, perhaps most importantly, what did those Palestinians lose? Desert. They'd not done anything with it and it wasn't worth anything. The Israelis made the state of Israel into what it is today, because they installed a liberal democracy. Would the Palestinians have done so? No.

Yeah, it's unfair, but any more unfair than giving generations long removed from Israel a right to return to it and reclaim something that's been improved 100X only by the hard work of the current residents?

I totally agree with you that it's a really messy situation. I don't like the law of power ruling any more than anyone else, but if you look around this country, are things much different? We're never giving reparations to descendants of slaves or land back to indigenous peoples because it's just not realistic, and too much time has elapsed for the concept to have any validity. Israel, Northern Ireland... these places are the same.

You can't give the Palestinians back the land, so that means the only thing you can give them is money. How? I don't know.



Yes. I agree. But I also think it's a lack of a future that drives them into Hamas. Rather than disengage, Israel should have subsidized more of the industry that was growing north of Gaza and given aid to the area itself. The more Gazans worked with Israelis and made decent wages, the more money Gazans had, the more its people would develop a sustainable economy as opposed to a welfare state dependent on Iranian money.

We fucked that up. The Israelis fucked that up. We should have tried to buy off/improve these people (those two are not mutually exclusive). Instead, Sharon cut it off, and Netanyahu encourage Hamas for his own political gain.

We piss away so many billions on bullshit around the world. Why we haven't thrown a few billion at placating/improving the Palestinians baffles me.



I've said why. I think Hamas' recent attack is depravity. They've not been depraved before.



We can talk about both, as we are here. But when something so grotesque happens that the perpetrator deserves to be globally condemned in the harshest possible terms, noting in immediate response that the victim isn't exactly blameless is a counterproductive diversion.

An imperfect analogy is the George Floyd thing. In the fallout of that a number of stories cited the fact that he had a long criminal record, that he came from a poor background, that police were ill trained, etc. All these things were true. But IMO they all detracted from what needed to be assessed in a vacuum - the cold blooded killing of the man. That first had to be processed. And I think it had to be seen for nothing more than the brutality it was. Because it was so shocking. Among all the other takeaways that would follow, this had to be front and center, and stand alone: A guy was choked to death under a police boot on camera while three other officers watched and did nothing.

I still cannot figure out how that horrific event occurred. And similarly, I still cannot figure out how Hamas soldiers raped mothers in front of their families and shot them.

An event of depravity is always part of a bigger book. But needs its own chapter, devoted to nothing else but it.

It is somewhat remarkable to see you move so quickly from a completely unprincipled approach to what the Palestinians should expect from a settlement to a stridently moralistic approach to Hamas's recent atrocities. I mean, either can make sense on their own terms, but the juxtaposition between the two is jarring. The guy who says the Palestinians are screwed because of the law of power is aghast when Hamas exercises power.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You might like to read A Garlic Testament, by Stanley Crawford. I did.

Looks like a good book.

Garlic is among my favorite crops. We grow a little bit of a lot of things, but if I were to actually farm a big crop, garlic would be at the top of my list. It gives you three crops, the chives, the scapes, and the bulbs, and two ways of reproducing (bulbils and cloves). The crops come in at times of year when other things aren't ready for harvest, so it fills in quiet times. And there is a wonderful variety of different kinds.

Of course, I'm also laying plans now to get over 50 varieties of peppers going next year (we did 30 last year and were trying for 40 this year - didn't quite make it because I got distracted).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Looks like a good book.

Garlic is among my favorite crops. We grow a little bit of a lot of things, but if I were to actually farm a big crop, garlic would be at the top of my list. It gives you three crops, the chives, the scapes, and the bulbs, and two ways of reproducing (bulbils and cloves). The crops come in at times of year when other things aren't ready for harvest, so it fills in quiet times. And there is a wonderful variety of different kinds.

Of course, I'm also laying plans now to get over 50 varieties of peppers going next year (we did 30 last year and were trying for 40 this year - didn't quite make it because I got distracted).

Fuck distraction.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Fuck distraction.

Amen to that.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

It is somewhat remarkable to see you move so quickly from a completely unprincipled approach to what the Palestinians should expect from a settlement to a stridently moralistic approach to Hamas's recent atrocities. I mean, either can make sense on their own terms, but the juxtaposition between the two is jarring. The guy who says the Palestinians are screwed because of the law of power is aghast when Hamas exercises power.

The dividing line is easy. Taking land, retaining land, barring right of return. These are of a kind.

Bombing in response to that? I can understand that.

Killing people in a manner on par with serial murderers en masse? Raping women in front of their families? These are of a kind. A very different kind.

But you’re right. I’m trying to square the circle. The situation is not resolvable in any fashion that stands as entirely just. I don’t think it can ever be.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The dividing line is easy. Taking land, retaining land, barring right of return. These are of a kind.

Bombing in response to that? I can understand that.

Killing people in a manner on par with serial murderers en masse? Raping women in front of their families? These are of a kind. A very different kind.

But you’re right. I’m trying to square the circle. The situation is not resolvable in any fashion that stands as entirely just. I don’t think it can ever be.

The dividing line is not easy at all. The Israeli Army forces Palestinians off their land and gives it to settlers. You say, might makes right, such is life. Hamas comes back over the fence and massacres the settlers. You say, this is uniquely awful! Uh, no it is isn't. It is a long-running tragedy of two peoples, each convinced (not without reason!) that they are uniquely world-historical victims, and that that justifies their doing awful things to the other side. Both are aggressor and victim, each in their own unique and incommensurable way. To the Israelis, they are few, the victims of centuries of anti-Semitism and then the Holocaust, and the Arabs are many. To the Palestinians, they are powerless and abandoned by other Arabs, victims of a form of European colonialism that is no longer tolerated anywhere else in the world. Each absolutely and justifiably sees the conflict as existential.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

All the Trump lawyers pleading guilty sure make Fani Willis's charging decisions look better. Changed your mind yet, Sebby?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The dividing line is not easy at all. The Israeli Army forces Palestinians off their land and gives it to settlers. You say, might makes right, such is life. Hamas comes back over the fence and massacres the settlers. You say, this is uniquely awful! Uh, no it is isn't. It is a long-running tragedy of two peoples, each convinced (not without reason!) that they are uniquely world-historical victims, and that that justifies their doing awful things to the other side. Both are aggressor and victim, each in their own unique and incommensurable way. To the Israelis, they are few, the victims of centuries of anti-Semitism and then the Holocaust, and the Arabs are many. To the Palestinians, they are powerless and abandoned by other Arabs, victims of a form of European colonialism that is no longer tolerated anywhere else in the world. Each absolutely and justifiably sees the conflict as existential.

1 Have you ever used law to harm another person’s position?
2 Have you ever raped a woman in front of her husband and kids?
3 Have you ever chopped a baby’s head off?

I’m willing to bet for you it is Yes, No, No?

For Hamas it’s the other way.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

1 Have you ever used law to harm another person’s position?
2 Have you ever raped a woman in front of her husband and kids?
3 Have you ever chopped a baby’s head off?

I’m willing to bet for you it is Yes, No, No?

For Hamas it’s the other way.

So you're saying Hamas is bad. Got it. Thanks for contributing that.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

So you're saying Hamas is bad. Got it. Thanks for contributing that.

You'd be an interesting judge. Everybody who did bad would get a similar sentence.

The infant decapitation enthusiast wouldn't be terribly far removed from the carjacker.

(There is a reason the sentencing guidelines enhance penalties based on depravity of crime.)

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

So you're saying Hamas is bad. Got it. Thanks for contributing that.

Was 9-11 an understandable response in your mind?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The dividing line is not easy at all. The Israeli Army forces Palestinians off their land and gives it to settlers. You say, might makes right, such is life. Hamas comes back over the fence and massacres the settlers. You say, this is uniquely awful! Uh, no it is isn't. It is a long-running tragedy of two peoples, each convinced (not without reason!) that they are uniquely world-historical victims, and that that justifies their doing awful things to the other side. Both are aggressor and victim, each in their own unique and incommensurable way. To the Israelis, they are few, the victims of centuries of anti-Semitism and then the Holocaust, and the Arabs are many. To the Palestinians, they are powerless and abandoned by other Arabs, victims of a form of European colonialism that is no longer tolerated anywhere else in the world. Each absolutely and justifiably sees the conflict as existential.

Could you imagine Israelis entering Gaza and raping and murdering people, gleefully, in a celebratory fashion?

Something has gone haywire in the mind of people who do things like that. It's the reason we have a thing called war crimes. Soldiers just being soldiers does not explain My Lai, or Rwanda, or the massacre of Muslims in Bosnia.

Hamas knew there was a line between what they'd been and ISIS. They knowingly stepped over it. They wanted to shock and horrify. They wanted to be extreme.

Our decision to torture people after 9/11 is a good analogy. We'd blown a lot of goodwill attacking Iraq, an innocent nation. But we still had some shreds of respect in the international community. Then the torture stuff came out, and every foreign nation (save those hosting our black sites) said, "Nope. That's a step too far. No bueno. Not acceptable."

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You'd be an interesting judge. Everybody who did bad would get a similar sentence.

It's really irritating to say to, again and again, very explicitly, that I'm not equating Hamas and Israel, or what each has done, and for you to keep saying this bullshit again. Are you being obtuse or passive aggressive? Passive aggressive isn't your style, but I thought you had better reading comprehension.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Was 9-11 an understandable response in your mind?

I don't get what you're asking me. Did I try to understand why bin Laden and others did what they did? Absolutely. But I'm not super interested in spending the time it would take to truly get into their minds, much as I'd like to read the Odyssey in the original Greek but don't have the time to make that happen.