Global
This article was written shortly before Israel assassinated the Deputy Head of Hamas Political Bureau Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut on January 2. The assassination is a further illustration of the Israeli government's desire to escape the consequences of its disastrous war in Gaza, by igniting a regional conflict.
The clashes between Hezbollah and Israel are the closest to an actual war that the Lebanon-Israel border has seen since the war of 2006, which resulted in a rushed Israeli retreat, if not outright defeat.
We often refer to the ongoing conflict between Lebanon and Israel as ‘controlled’ clashes, simply because both sides are keen not to instigate or engage in an all-out war.
Obviously, Hezbollah wants to preserve Lebanese lives and civilian infrastructure, which would surely be seriously damaged, if not destroyed, should Israel decide to launch a war.
Now that he is safely dead let us praise him,
build monuments to his glory,
sing hosannas to his name.
Dead men make such convenient heroes.
They cannot rise to challenge the images
we would fashion from their lives.
And besides,
it is easier to build monuments
than to make a better world.” -- Carl Wendell Hines
“Now That He Is Safely Dead” is the poignant poem that was written by black poet/musician Carl Wendell Hines soon after Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. The poem has since then been appropriately associated with the death of Martin Luther King and his legacy of nonviolent struggle for black liberation, freedom, equality, economic justice and the pursuit of happiness for all.
And now the same thing is happening to Nelson Mandela, the latest black liberation activist-hero whose name has been exalted (but by lip service only) by the very international ruling elites who once tried to obstruct everything that Mandela stood for.
Sustainable ecological value monetized will have profound four-fold global benefits. Creating sustainable ecological value is the easiest path toward quickly mitigating climate change, expanding ecological global economic growth, pursuing a radical reduction in pollution depletion and ecological damage, and sharply reducing rampant global inequality. It is the basis for the pursuit of the New Wealth of Nations.
Including ecological value in global market dynamics is the missing piece needed to enable the price system and the pursuit of profit to help radically diminish the attraction of externalities by making the market send price signals realistically valuing and rewarding sustainable conduct to increase profit. Regulatory schemes and taxes on polluters have not stopped the global march toward ecological catastrophe. Monetizing ecological value is both a recognition of the inescapable importance of the global ecosphere under catastrophic assault, and a crucial improvement in the incentives of the price system embracing ecological sanity in the name of profit as well as survival and justice.
A famous quote by Franz Kafka says, “Every thing you love is very likely to be lost, but in the end, love will return in a different way.”
The same principle, I believe, applies to any other powerful feeling, including resentment, hate, anger, even rage.
American officials should know this well as they continue to support Israel with billions of dollars of military and economic aid, and anything and everything that would allow Israel to continue with its genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.
The Arabs, the Muslims - in fact, the whole world - are watching, listening, reading and are getting angrier by the day, at the direct American role in facilitating the Gaza bloodbath.
Perhaps the primary value of war – from the point of view of national leaders and their loyal followers – is that it places 100 percent of the blame for whatever’s wrong on the other guy: the enemy. And thus there’s no alternative but to kill “him,” which nowadays amounts to slaughtering and dismembering anybody and everybody who lives in his sector of the planet, including children . . . though that part isn’t said out loud.
