Global

There is considerable irony in the fact that Donald Trump when president virtually crawled to do Israel’s bidding more than any of his predecessors. He moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he accepted brutal Israeli settlement and control of the Palestinian West Bank, approved of the Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, and ignored repeated Israeli war crimes using US provided weapons. Yet for all his gifts to Israel, which did not serve any actual US interest, he is currently being crucified by the Jewish/Israel Lobby because of an idiotic dinner with a pair of alleged anti-Semites, one of whom has been labeled a “holocaust denier.”

There is considerable irony in the fact that Donald Trump when president virtually crawled to do Israel’s bidding more than any of his predecessors. He moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he accepted brutal Israeli settlement and control of the Palestinian West Bank, approved of the Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, and ignored repeated Israeli war crimes using US provided weapons. Yet for all his gifts to Israel, which did not serve any actual US interest, he is currently being crucified by the Jewish/Israel Lobby because of an idiotic dinner with a pair of alleged anti-Semites, one of whom has been labeled a “holocaust denier.”

After Ranger Benny’s presentation about Alcatraz’s political prisoners, I climb uphill (trams are available) past cannons, barb wire and beneath a water tower to the main facility where audio equipment for “Doing Time: The Alcatraz Cellhouse Tour” are dispensed (at no extra charge). The taped exposition and explanation of the highly informative, entertaining audio tour are edited to be closely linked to what the lines of headphone-adorned visitors behold, unit by unit, while moving through the cellblocks.

Separated by water from continents, islands have always represented freedom to me. When I graduated from Hunter College as a film major in the 1970s, I realized the Age of Aquarius was experiencing technical difficulties in ascending. So, inspired by movies like Mutiny on the Bounty, I decided to go search for paradise in the South Pacific, going on to visit and live at more than 100 islands in Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia.

Before my latest journey, only three islands remained on my bucket list. At the head of the list was the apogee of isles symbolizing liberty: Pitcairn Island, where the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian lovers fled to escape capture and punishment by the British navy after seizing the Bounty and throwing Captain Bligh overboard in 1789.

For others, however, islands exemplify the idea of imprisonment. In 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte was confined at Elba in the Mediterranean, 6 miles off Italy’s coast. After the French Emperor returned to France and his army was defeated at Waterloo, the British took no chances and exiled Napoleon to remote St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, 1,200 miles from southwestern Africa.

The problem with most Western media’s political analyses is that they generally tend to be short-sighted and focused mostly on variables that are of direct interest to Western governments. 

 These types of analyses are now being applied to understanding official Arab attitudes towards Russia, China, global politics and conflicts. 

 As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to lead a large delegation to meet with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia on December 9, Western media conveys a sense of dread. 

The artist formerly known as Kanye West has told Tucker Carlson he sees “good things” in Adolph Hitler.

Maybe “Ye,” as he’s now called, should know Hitler would have had him sterilized, then gassed.

Indeed, as a man of color, the infamous rapper would have been subject to Nazi race laws that paralleled those imposed on Jews.

But Hitler reserved additional special treatment for those of African descent. By 1937, if he’d lived in his hero’s Germany, Ye was sure to have been forcibly neutered.

To prevent what der Fuhrer called “race polluting,” Nazis rounded up non-whites—-including children as young as 11—-and terminated their ability to reproduce. The procedure was done without anesthetics. Its victims were given a certificate and warned never to have sexual relations with any white German.

That was for those who kept their heads down.

Had the high profile Ye been even suspected of consorting with any non-African woman in Hitler’s Germany—-let alone one as prominent as Kim Kardashian—-he’d’ve been shot on the spot.

Two dogs walking. One of them says to the other: “I bark and I bark, but I never feel like I effect real change.”

This is the caption of a New Yorker cartoon by Christopher Weyant from several years ago. It keeps popping up in my head — I mean, every day. Like everyone else, I want what I do to matter, to “effect real change.” What I do is write. Specifically, I swim in the infinity of possibility. Humanity can kill itself or it can learn to survive. Most people (I believe) prefer the latter, which is all about discovering how we are connected to one another and to the rest of the universe. This is what I try to write about.

Then Congress passes another military budget. And once again, there’s the New Yorker cartoon.

Joe Biden has directed the Democratic National Committee to reduce the danger that progressives might effectively challenge him in the 2024 presidential primaries. That’s a key goal of his instructions to the DNC last week, when Biden insisted on dislodging New Hampshire -- the longtime first-in-the-nation primary state where he received just 8 percent of the vote and finished fifth in the 2020 Democratic primary. No wonder Biden wants to replace New Hampshire with South Carolina, where he was the big primary winner.

The White House and mainstream journalists have echoed each other to assert that Biden would face no serious challenge to renomination if he runs again. But his blatant intrusion into the DNC’s process for setting the primary calendar is a sign of anxiety about potential obstacles to winning renomination.

The Ohio Legislature must not pitch billions more taxpayer dollars down the atomic rat hole.

Instead—-without spending a single cent—-it can make the Buckeye State the hugely profitable world capital of wind power.

It can be done with the simple deletion of a single sentence in the Ohio code.  

It can quickly and simply, without public subsidies, open the door to billions in private investment, creating millions in revenues and thousands of new jobs for the entire nation, with Ohio at the Heart of it All.

Investment in nuclear power has a long, sorry history.  Throughout their existence, atomic reactor projects have come in years late and billions over budget, with delivered power costs far in excess of original promises.  

The latest case in point is the Vogtle Project in Georgia, two reactor construction efforts that wasted $12 billion in federal loans and are now scheduled to open years behind schedule, at a cost more than double original promises.  Under no circumstances will Vogtle ever compete with solar, wind, battery or efficiency technologies.

Damn those Marxists!

You know their game, right? They want to spew truth and real history at our kids. No doubt they’re also in favor of dropping charges against Julian Assange, who (as all real Americans know) deserves 175 years in prison for exposing — with the help of the New York Times, The Guardian. Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País — embarrassing realities about U.S. foreign policy.

How do I know the Marxists are behind this? The Heritage Foundation tells me so. In their dismantling of good old Critical Race Theory, they explain that it’s “an academic discipline founded by law professors who used Marxist analysis to conclude that racial dominance by whites created ‘systemic racism.’”