"We The Elders - What Will Be Our Legacy?"
Israeli Genocide Facilitated By The Collapse Of Liberal Institutions
Same Collapse Seen Across A Wide Spectrum - From Climate To Homelessness
(Caption: Bernie Sanders March (Philadelphia, PA, 7/24/16 - Bill Wolfe)
“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.” ~~~ Mario Savio
For over 6 months now, Israel has engaged in a transparent genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign in the Gaza Strip (and West Bank). These war crimes and atrocities are conducted in full view, with multiple videos posted every day around the world on social media.
In response to an exhaustively documented complaint filed by South Africa, the UN's highest Court, the International Court of Justice, found that there is a plausible case that Israel is engaged in Genocide.
Back on January 26, the Court imposed "Interim Measures" mandating the Israel stop:
(a) killing members of the group;
(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and
(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
For the extraordinarily powerful South African complaint and all documents on that case, see:
Yet, Israel completely ignored and immediately defied the Court's ruling and mandates. The Israeli defiance went unreported and the genocide continued with impunity.
Literally the day after the ICJ decision, the US - in an obviously coordinated campaign with Israel and virtually all western governments - manufactured the story that members of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) had participated in the October 7 attack on Israel. These governments all simultaneously announced, before conducting any investigation, suspension of funding for UNRWA, the agency that feeds millions of starving Palestinians.
The US media, also without any investigation or independent fact finding, immediately reported that UNRWA story on page one, which drove the ICJ decision completely out of the news cycle. This is exactly what the US backed Israeli propaganda campaign was designed to do.
Since then, the death count has mounted, and so have starvation and disease and Israeli genocidal bombing of civilian refugee camps, hospitals, et al, slaughter of starving Palestinians seeking food, dubbed the "Flour Massacre" by the UN, - even including recent discovery of hundreds of dead bodies in mass graves.
Yet US legacy media report very little of this, while constantly printing Israeli propaganda as fact or making each atrocity a "He said/she said".
The Biden administration has vastly accelerated provision of US military support, bypassing Congress and violating US laws that prohibit export of weapons for war crimes.
The entire universe of establishment institutions, e.g. the Church, the professional societies, academia, et al are mostly silent about all this.
A similar story is occurring in Ukraine, as the US instigated and backed proxy war has killed over 500,000 Ukrainians, with Russia on the verge of a humiliating military and geo-strategic victory.
The few voices in protest are occurring on college campuses, and these protesters are being attacked as anti-semites.
It is hard to imagine a more perverse situation.
There are similar collapses occurring on other issues, including massive and growing homelessness, ecological collapse, "deaths of despair", and the climate catastrophe.
Chris Hedges predicted the collapse of liberal institutions that we are now witnessing in his 2010 book "The Death Of The Liberal Class". Here's a video of his talk on that book
Perhaps we can respond to that collapse - particularly us "elders" - by getting off our asses and out in the streets to support the college protesters and the climate activists.
For an example of that, see:
"We The Elders - What Will Be Our Legacy" (check out the photo of this banner from 2016 demonstration):
Bill: Thanks especially for the speech back in 2010 by Chris Hedges - The Death of the Liberal Class. At your recommendation I have just nearly finished a reading of his book - so to hear him speak to it was like a refresh/revising right on top of the reading. How powerfully incisive and without fear or favour is his understanding. I loved especially his statement about those attracted to power being of two kinds - the mediocre (and back then represented by Obama - and I admit to being hoodwinked by his two books) or the venal - represented by Bush Jr. In 2016 I recall visited the Bush Jr Presidential Library in Dallas - shocked to find no books! How naïve was I not to understand that a Presidential Library was not necessarily a library! Rather inanities such as The Bush Doctrine framed and hanging upon the wall as if a profound truth with four parts! Thanks again..
The Bush Doctrine (as on a wall in the Dubya Pres. Library:
1. Take the Fight to the Enemy;
2. Make no Distinction Between Terrorists and the Nations that Harbor Them;
3. Confront Threats Before They Fully Emerge;
4. Advance Freedom.
I think its clear that Netanyahu is following the Bush Doctrine with all its nonsense and ironies!
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