"The Mandate of Heaven"

 

Last night I finished John F. Melby's The Mandate of Heaven: Record of a civil war CHINA 1945-49 with photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson (University of Toronto Press, 1968).  I was visiting the University of Toronto and (as is common for a university history department) there was a box with a bunch of books that professors were giving away.

At first I thought this was a strange book.  There are around 25 chapters that begin with Melby summarizing what happens in the time period to be discussed, followed by his diary entries during that time.

What makes his diary entries relevant is that Melby was a high-ranking diplomat in the United States Embassy in China (Chungking 1944-45, Nanking 1946-48).  So he had access to many of the main actors in the drama of the fall of the Kuomintang government and the eventual victory of the Chinese Communist Party.  

Richard Dawkins' "The Magic of Reality"

 He has a pleasant speaking voice (as does his co-reader Lalla Ward) and I listen to this book while I'm drawing.

If you really think about the evidence-based scientific view of the world, it is so much more impressive than those of the religions that fabricated (admittedly profound) stories about gods who ruled the Earth and the skies that humans could see from the Earth.

I'm going to buy the actual book one day.

Good Article

 

"How US Policy Has Empowered Hamas" by Stephen Zunes at Common Dreams:

So, even if the Palestinians got their act together like the Western Saharans have largely done, the United States would probably continue to support the Israeli occupation anyway. The U.S. government has provided virtually no incentive for Palestinians to become more moderate. This too has contributed to the rise of Hamas.

...

Israel has also brutally suppressed nonviolent protests. When thousands of unarmed Palestinians held demonstrations in 2018 near the fence separating Gaza from Israel, Israeli forces opened fire, killing more than 150 protesters. In 2010, Israeli forces attacked an unarmed international humanitarian aid flotilla on the high seas, killing 10 passengers and crew, including an American teenager. A large majority of U.S. House members signed a letter defending the attack.

Increasingly desperate conditions inside the besieged enclave and the failure of diplomatic means and nonviolent resistance to end the siege only increased the fanaticism of Hamas.

...

Even if Hamas was using human shields, Protocol I of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that if one side is shielding itself behind civilians, it “shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians.” (To use a domestic example: If bank robbers were holding hostages and were shooting at people from among them, the SWAT them could not get away with killing the hostages as well by simply saying that the criminals were using human shields.)

The civilian death toll in from Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign in Gaza has now topped 5,000 people. President Joe Biden and members of Congress are once again blaming Hamas for using “human shields,” yet none of the accounts about the air strikes killing civilians so far indicate that Hamas fighters or officials were doing so. Despite well-documented cases of war crimes by Israeli forces, Biden and a huge bipartisan majority in Congress are pushing to provide even more arms to Israel to kill even more Palestinians.

A sober evisceration of all the sickening drivel being spewed by our degenerate overlords.

I've Seen Enough!!!

 I don't care what happens now.  The fact that the dog cleared 3 Jenga blocks is enough for me to find it remarkable.

I watched a video by this guy narrating a speedboat accident and I decided to watch a few more throughout the day.  Then I saw that talented pooch.

Tempting World War III (Again)

 

First of all, it seems that the primary reason for the Hamas attacks was to sabotage the Israel-Saudi Arabia deal being orchestrated by the Biden administration.  Because it's so important for the future of humanity that Zionist assholes and the loathsome House of Saud support each other and the United States to continue to exploit the peoples of the world in the name of capitalism.

Humanity is Too Stupid & Debased to Survive

 

Palestinians in Gaza brought their sufferings upon themselves when they had the temerity to elect Hamas to power in 2007. Gazans turned to Hamas (supported in its early days by Israel as a rival to the PLO/Fatah) after the Fatah Party's peace deal with Israel not only failed to improve things for them but actually made things worse.

Israel is a viciously racist, lawless, apartheid state.  And many Jewish Israelis (there is a large non-Jewish Arab minority ... mainly Muslim) actively support it.  Many of these Jewish Israeli civilians cooperate or compel the Israeli state to cooperate with them in building illegal "settlements" on Palestinian lands in the West Bank.  They also, on their own accord, abuse Palestinians on a regular basis.  

But, apparently, to even mention this puts you on the same level as Adolph Hitler.  Meanwhile, liberal shit-heads and right-wing Evangelical Christian "End-Times Prophecies" lunatics can rage about the cultural failings of the Palestinians all they want without being racist (in their view anyway). 

Some Antidotes to the Tsunami of Racist Hypocrisy

 

As the state of Israel behaves with consistent brutality and racism, decade after decade, public opinion has slowly turned against them.  (You wouldn't know that from our shit-for-brains politicians and our shit-for-brains corporate media, bathed as they are, in the corruption of Zionist/US imperialist propaganda, and morally damaged by their own opportunism and cowardice.  These are the people who gave a former SS fighter a standing ovation in the House of Commons recently.  Complete fucking idiots.)