…joke’s on who? [DOT 12/10/23]

& why aren’t I laughing…

12/10/23 SplinterRIP 26
Image of blackboard with text "I Don't Need an Inspirational Quote, I Need Coffee" written on it.
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…so…look…not to put too fine a point on it…I can’t promise to make a habit of breaking the habit where the posts I manage to produce are concerned…but…some days…you just can’t…you know?

…or nights, come to that…& since ellie induced me to fess up to some extent about quite how many waking hours I clock up…& it seems like this one in particular is maybe going to come up entirely empty without any consideration for what that does to my chances of getting through my usual thursday morning antics…&…since one of the things that I could argue is keeping me up is something I read a couple or three weeks back or so…which there’s really no call to think anyone else hereabouts would have been particularly inclined to track down & slog through…I might as well see if I can kill two birds with one stone by giving up the unequal struggle to skim back through it to try to draw out some of what puts it into the costing-me-sleep column for me…& then use the results in lieu of the post I’ll be too bleary-eyed to grit my way through in an effort to get up & going with the other things I have to get to that couldn’t give a toss whether or not I got any rest…but…it’s liable to be long…like…insanely long…like…getting-on-for-half-as-long-as-the-thing-I-can-see-why-nobody-would-have-read long

…so…if any of you found this guy to seem like he might have a read on some stuff that I kind of feel a need to keep in the abstract today…you might prefer this playlist to the foray into an academic text that’s coming next…it’s not about the same thing…although there’s probably some overlap if you squint right as he talks about patterns when “you have a big force & a small force”

[…it’s a playlist…some are a from a while back as you can see…but they all deal with that manual business one way or another…which for my money he pretty much seems to have a point about that’s stood up a time or two]

…but they both sidle up on a bunch of stuff that’s pretty relevant to a lot of the stuff I can’t help but think about these last few days & weeks…or…fuck it…months…years…decades…of people whose idea of not dropping the ball seems to be to clutch the idiot ball in a death-grip that’s freaking me out more than mr onion head in terminal C

…that’s more fun, too…funny, even…but…also kinda circling the stuff I don’t want to talk about up close to the specifics because I don’t think I can bear it today…or at least…not first thing, anyway…so…if anyone would care to join me on a tangential trip into some abstractions about some things that aren’t…but also don’t happen just up front & center like the obvious examples do…or even just in the obvious ways…then…where up there your man beau is coming at the thing from the perspective of how the nuts & bolts of the moving pieces fit together in mechanisms that have been shown to have some things in common…& much in the way the war the ever reliable if late lamented stalwart bill is talking about has passed its expiry date…albeit one indistinguishable from the one that has shown up alarmingly frequently in a lot of shorthand I’ve been seeing around in the last few days as a parallel…”it’s israel’s 9/11″ is a thing I’ve heard a lot…& when that son of texas went all “mission accomplished” about his daddie’s war…in a hostile environment coincidentally rich in things that could end us all…against a rubric of defeating “terror”…well…for a dead guy his material stayed fresher than seems natural but that might just be precisely because it is

…what is it they say…those who don’t…or…for “whatever” reasons…won’t…learn from mistakes…are doomed to repeat them…& if we were staring down tragedy already…I don’t think I can stand the ensuing farce…even from a distance?

…so…I’mma hide out with some boffins for a spell…y’all wanna skip it…I was going to say all the usual things…bottom right corner takes you 1 click to the top…click the comment count to skip to the end…still an option by the way…though hopefully this might be my shortest long version yet…or the other way around…don’t ask me…I just work here

…but if you’re game…I mentioned a 60-page read the other day…& I don’t aim to do like genius with hicks’ war & give you the full text with optional annotations…so…for the sake of being able to leave more out than it takes to type myself…& cut into that 60 page count a little…their go to & recurrent exemplar is the extreme but abundantly demonstrated one offered by dolt45 as the figurative authority decrying the media to be the enemy of the people…it’s easier that way than bouncing about with different examples like that daily mail front page with the pictures of some judges on it…but in a lot of ways that’s into the stuff I aim to skip in favor of the framework they discuss & the sort of pieces that fit in it…&…to make it sort of ironic…because I happen to think irony is the leading contender for best real-world analogue for the force in star wars

TL;DR

…hope you got some rest…times a’wastin’ & we got entirely too much to do & not enough time to do it as it is, if you ask me?

[…I usually find another one so the embed works…but that’s redgum’s “official video” for “I was only 19 (a walk in the light green)…& I might have shed a tear as that one played this morning, personally…so I hope you’ll forgive me]
[…that one kicks off with “down the 303″…but unlike beau’s “rule .303″…that’s a road…that passes stonehenge…& the group are named for a historical bunch who are quite interesting to read about, for that matter…any road…they weren’t the only ones to call it that]
[….the longer version has a preface that’s worth bearing in mind…& a coda, come to that…if that’s still the right word for words…which genius has you covered for https://genius.com/Jun-tzu-here-lies-a-soldier-radio-1-exclusive-lyrics]

…oh…&…not to come off like I’m extracting the michael or anything…but…did I mention that skinner lad’s been at it again?

https://www.youtube.com/@thestreetsmikeskinner/videos

…or if that’s not your cup of tea…this morning’s edition of “in our time” with a bloke called melvyn bragg was on the topic of “the federalist papers“…& if you like it…there’s a little north of a thousand more where that came from…anyway…I’ll shut up now…this coffee isn’t gonna pour itself

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26 Comments

  1. …I know talking to yourself is supposed to be the first sign of madness…& at least the way I was told it…the second one is answering yourself…so…this might seem like I’m taking leave of my senses…but…from the tunes that letting youtube run the streets have served me since this went up…this one kinda hit the spot?

    • A super smart college professor told me that it’s okay to talk to yourself, it’s even okay to answer yourself. You don’t have to worry until you’ve answered yourself with “huh?”

      • …I like that…a lot

        …almost certainly going to steal it, in fact?

        • By all means, please use it! Rarely do I have any pearls of wisdom worth sharing.

    • Can someone explain to my why Israel can do whatever they want to Gaza civilians? Like is it a sneaky rule like Hamas isn’t recognized as the leader of a country so they’re not waging war against a country so there’s no humanitarian rules involved?

       

      • …I definitely don’t know…but if I had to guess…the strip I think became “part of israel” in a somewhat de facto sense after (iirc) the 10days war?

        …basically the “peace” agreement involved them offering to give it back (unless I’m thinking of the west bank) & the previous owners (egypt?) were all “eh…keep it…they’re nothing but trouble let them be your headache”

        …so…it isn’t a formally recognized state in enough senses for that to be a big part of the point of a “2 state solution” you hear a fair bit about

        …basically…it’s kinda no man’s land between israel & some states that are on the record as saying they’d happily wipe it off the map & into the sea?

        …aside from being maybe the most densely populated place in the world…none of those people have the full suite of rights because they aren’t the kinds of citizens that get that sort of recognition?

      • It is technically their territory (which IMO long story short, depends on how much weight you give historical claims etc. etc.), but it’s mostly because the Western world, us in particular, has made sure that Israel is armed to the teeth and always has a green light to do what it is currently doing.

    • This is the first story about Lauren Boebert that makes her even slightly relatable.

      • Don’t forget her alleged former career as an escort. I suspect that’s the only time she provided any value for a paycheck.

    • …you & me both

      …that excessively lengthy TL;DR runs to about 20-odd pages of me speedrunning my way through that thing I muttered about the other day to do with “enemy creation” & the press

      …in that paper they’re concerning themselves with the part where a certain someone was creating the enemy out of the press in a different sense…but the extent to which the press, the world & its dog seem to be out there engaging in very much that act of creation…complete with the exigent circumstances of a state of exception in that bothersome schmittian sense…is freaking me right the fuck out & no mistake?

        • …I don’t know if that mentioned it (definitely read it later but doing the headless chicken dance at the minute) but I saw a clip of bill clinton from the early 2000s or so in which he talked about W’s little project to get them to have elections & how hamas won…the previous party (the name escapes me but started with f iirc) essentially followed a campaign strategy that had previously served them well but was outdated in the worst way

          …he likened it to the dems trying to win red states by…& I’m paraphrasing…putting a member of team DNC & a member of “the squad” on each ballot & hoping one or the other would beat the GOP?

        • …so…having now read the vox thing…I forget which of those fifth columnist clips it would be in but he mentions something that serves as a pretty close template for what I’d say stuck out for me from that piece…it would probably slot in right between this bit

          “Terrorism derives from hope — a hope to weaken us,” Smotrich argued. “The statement that the Arab yearning for national expression in the Land of Israel cannot be ‘repressed’ is incorrect.”

          …& this bit

          Yet the current Hamas attack, and the longer history of Israel-Gaza, does not appear to track such a trajectory. Israel has besieged Gaza for about 16 years, and fought multiple wars with Hamas and other Palestinian militants in the strip. They were not under imminent risk of being stamped out by Israel prior to this attack, nor is there any evidence that Hamas leadership believed this was the final window to try to stop Israel from seizing control of the West Bank. Calling Palestinian terrorism a pure product of “hope” is a simple ideological construction at war with a more complex reality.

          …& it’s this…if you look at it in terms of attributes this particular example of an intractable problem that has endured so long as to become multi-generational in addition to asymmetrical shares with analogous examples…you’ve got a big force & a little force…& although this particular bout of heinous & morally repugnant violence was, the way he puts it, sufficiently well-coordinated &…for want of a less god-awful term with which to describe it…executed…to very much seem like something of a departure from the “normal” level of violence in ways that beg some questions about who helped them…which today of all days I wouldn’t want to try to guess…a lot of people say iran…which would sort of be S.O.P. …but vlad hasn’t even employed the usual diplomatic condolences…the guy who happily sends out his best “na, guv – couldn’t be us” spokespeople to talk to the brits after a guy got poisoned in the west end in the middle of the day by a substance that effectively left a glow in the dark trail all the way to his desk…so it’s not like he isn’t usually happy to lie through his teeth about that sort of thing…which makes it kind of pointed gesture…& if you’ve had a few & you’re thinking about ockham’s razor & qui bono?

          …it’s a slippery slope that’s covered in tin-foil…& this is why I didn’t feel up to trying to do the usual kind of post today…I don’t honestly trust myself to speak about a lot of this stuff because I don’t know enough to be sure what is or isn’t accurate or proportionate…only the bits that are basically universal…& those make me want to weep…so if I try I wind up bouncing off a thing that’ll be busy comparing it all to 9/11…& then one that basically says netenyahu had prior warning & there’s a whole pearl harbor angle…to something like that vox thing that offers a set of more than sufficient causes for enough of the way things went down not to seem like there’s any “necessity” for the stuff I can’t tell the veracity of…or if it’s a potential explanation for something that lacks one…or if it’s a thing trying to shore up the justifications of people coming at the thing from a particular direction & looking to get it to a specific destination…but when it comes to the first bit of that vox effort that I quoted…I’m pretty confident that I’m with beau on the part where I wish any time someone says that kind of thing or argues for the sort of course of action it implies…there were someone there who could make them answer the question “show me one time that’s ever worked?”

          …he makes a few points that land with me & that’s certainly one of them…it’s been tried in a lamentable number of places a truly dismal amount of times over the course of recorded history…& it never works…not if you’re trying to get the violence to end, anyway…it makes that job harder & likely makes that small force get less small

          …but if you’re the ones bearding daniel in the lions’s den…which they resemble more than they do the lions…the point of doing the unspeakable is to provoke an over-reaction…& since what would have counted as an over-reaction of the sort that came pretty close to happening after george floyd was murdered but…per his estimations…canada did a much better job of handling in the case of the truck driver thing…among other examples…show that for the big force a softer touch is more effective…because the “win” for the small one is to provoke…like the IRA inducing bloody sunday

          …& to run with IRA thing for a minute…though he uses a few examples…what works for stopping the guns & bombs part of the thing is to bring them to the table

          …that manual of his (well, US Army but I’m sure you know what I mean) specifically says you don’t respond with a massive security clampdown

          …if you’re going to, though…& I don’t recall him talking about this part…if you give the people you’ve kettled a single exit point & encourage them to use it or assume they’re fair game because the ones who picked the fight (for much the above reasoning) work out of buildings that would ordinarily be considered civilian targets…which is where that “state of exception” shit bites us all in the ass because those people are in a hurry to pull the rip cord on the all bets are off end of the spectrum…then…insanely…subsequently throwing some missiles at it…is less counter-intuitive than you’d hope it would be

          …but…time & time again…that’s the way it seems to go despite the best efforts of better people than me

          …you had bush senior throw a war in oil sands…& scatter some bases about the place…dunno how many exactly never quite got all the way packed up…but they do like to leave them if they can the way they are all over europe for example…either way…bill hicks seemed pretty on point about that one…& those three links I wedged in just after?

          …that would be three bona fide establishment takes on the war on terror

          https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-was-the-gulf-war
          …that’ll be the imperial war museum

          https://history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/desert-storm/index.html
          …the US army

          https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/gulf-war
          …& the state department…for the first round, so to speak

          …sure seems like a lot of mistakes from that one got repeated the second time just like the saying…hence my fear that we keep getting the tragedy & the next card in that hand is allegedly farce…though…apparently without the benefit of comedy…& not just on account of bill’s dead?

          …unthinkable as it seems to me…I can’t get past the conclusion I’m forced to when it comes to the question of not just how but why is this happening…is that it’s because people…on both sides of the conflict itself & on several sides of several others that think they might have an angle to play that might pay off for their interests…actively want it to…& they want it to get worse

          …I know even cut down to a third of its length that academic thing is too academic for most tastes so I begrudge nobody having too many better things to do with their time than read it…& it’s by no means the only place I’ve seen the case laid out or the comparisons made…but…this thing so many people are doing that makes so many of us uncomfortable because we want to sympathize with elements of it but can’t because of others that we balk at?

          …it’s that…it’s the whole “we have to do this inhuman thing that normally we’d agree would be beyond the pale…but it’s the bad guy’s fault…we’re the good guy & you need to support us” dynamic…& the consequences were that side of things to get out of hand…may be of a different order of dire…but I’d hesitate to call them a lesser threat in a wider sense

          …& most of all…I don’t know the smallest part of the beginning of what it would take to even get a handle on the real situation without superimposing the parts of it I do know about onto contexts I know more about…so I’m damn near the last person I’d expect anyone to listen to on the subject…& everywhere I looked I saw “that guy” going at it one way or another…& I didn’t want to add to the chorus by running my mouth or picking links that felt like picking sides…so…I dunno…that thing the other day said the way people use the term is clinically wrong…but there strikes me as maybe a reason that “dissociating” has been going viral of late…& I guess hiding in the proverbial tomes of academia would be a lot like my version of a panic room that way?

    • That’s an excellent summation. I read an interview with a progressive rabbi who said largely the same thing.

  6. The Redgum video/song – heartbreaking. I still mourn my cousin Bobby, who was killed in Quang Tri by artillery, rocket, and mortar fire in 1968. He was only 22. The war in Ukraine, this war in Gaza, they are beyond comprehension. And those who remain will mourn. Today, it is hard to find a peaceful heart. I feel like history and the future are built on mourning.

    • …it’s like nobody even read that letter of sassoon’s…& I can’t get shit done if I keep reducing myself to tears…so… displacement activity for the win?

  7. I like how this is your ‘short’ DOT

  8. I also can’t with the American media coverage of what’s happening in Israel. It’s so empty of anything beyond war fever and bloodlust.

    My only sliver of sunshine is that there’s more of a pushback from non-mainstream news sites against the drumbeat. That was basically not available during 9/11, and was still in its infancy for Iraq. There’s at least some reasonable information and thoughtful coverage out there, even if I know way fewer people see that than do CNN’s “Israelis killed, Palestinians dead” dehumanizing.

    • Public radio has been pretty balanced from what I’ve heard in the car. A lot of coverage on civilian injuries and criticism of indiscriminate bombings in Gaza.

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