This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
My colonial self, our Jewish colonial minds, we have colonized the Palestinians and become victims of our own colonialism. We can’t get out of our own colonial bind. Even in exile. Even the prophetic. Color it colonial – but not only.
Everything is contextual – almost. All speech is limited. All action. Almost. The trick is to give everything you have to give and keep moving. Colonial smlonial – don’t look back, lest the past become your guiding light.
After we have gathered the light there is to gather, we see the limitations that were. As part of the journey. Know it: One day we will look back on the time we were looking back on. However, the past is past – obvious – and the present is present. How are we going to think/speak/act tomorrow?
Cleansing the colonial minds of Jews of Conscience. Leaving behind the Jewish Renewal stuff, the obvious other colonial stuff, focusing on ourselves. It can’t be that only a pack-it-in mentality, a One State vision, is the only (un)colonial option. No way. Don’t let International Law hem you in either.
There’s never only one option. Though it is also true, as I told my Israeli student yesterday, that certain arguments, say the fears that Israelis have, can no longer be argued. The One State option wouldn’t be the end of our colonialism. It’s not that cut and dried. Professing a belief that won’t come into being in our lifetime isn’t the end of our colonial complex. We will have gone on to other things.
Here my argument for Jewish particularity either resonates or doesn’t. Embracing one’s particularity is not a free-floating zone, as in, only if Jews – or Palestinians – are pure then we can embrace them.
Speaking of free-floaters, did you read the Reuters report about Germany wanting to deploy armed drones in its military operations in Afghanistan? “A drone is nothing more than a plane without a pilot,” Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere told the daily Die Welt. “Planes can be armed so why shouldn’t unmanned aircraft be allowed to be armed as well? I don’t understand that,” he added. The report points to the controversy about Germany’s use of unmanned weapons to bomb cities in Great Britain during World War II.
Here’s the kicker. Germany has been using three leased Israeli Heron drones for surveillance in Afghanistan. Germany is also considering buying U.S. Predator B drones, which carry weapons and also have surveillance systems.
Israel is a military weapons producer and an able competitor in the global arms bazaar that grows each year. Being a competitor on such a large scale is worth money and aids in Israel’s defense. It’s a warning on the foreign policy trail. However you speak about Israel in public make sure you leave it alone on the field of battle.
Yet the fascinating aspect of Germany’s use of Israeli drones is how far the German/Israel (arms) relationship has come. How far we are from the Holocaust years. Germany supplies Israel’s navy with nuclear submarines, Israel supplies Germany with drones. On the air and the sea, Germany and Israel have it all covered.
You see what friends can do for one another? As one famous columnist argued some time ago, democracies are great for everything and should spread around the world as a way of encouraging peace. You’ve never heard of a democracy attacking another democracy, have you? If memory serves his argument extended to something like this: Democracies don’t attack other countries. Perhaps I extended his argument, so one day when I’m not in the (historical) lands of the Third Reich, I’ll check if the extension was his or mine.
Regardless if it was him or me or some kind of remote connection, you can either laugh or cry when you think of Germany and Israel fighting the world on land and sea. But while we yuck it up, think, too, of Hillary Clinton’s speech at the Holocaust museum in Washington, D. C. a few days ago. She with other foreign policy experts gathered there to consider modern threats of genocide and how to prevent them. According to a report in the New York Times, the experts agreed that the risk of mass killings increases in places where resources are scarce and governments are fragile or autocratic. Rwanda and Bosnia were cited. Interestingly, the article mentions the scarcity of food, water and energy – and global warming – as danger zones for atrocity. It doesn’t mention the Congo being discussed – where the problem is indeed the amount of resources that others – including democracies – need to fuel their modern economy.
Clinton referred to the Atrocity Prevention Board, President Obama announced in a speech at the Holocaust museum last year. APB – another acronym – file it under – Useless. But give a hand for the Holocaust museum. It seems to have become a hub for policy speeches on genocide prevention. As Israel’s Star of David helicopter gunships patrol the Palestinian skies and their drones make it on the world global sales horizon. On the drones, should they have emblazoned “Never Again?”
Israeli “Never Again” drones on the prowl. With German democratic ownership rights to do what any decent Western nation does to defeat terrorism. After all, the (Nazi)German purgatory has to end one day, so why all the fuss?
Germany minus the Nazi insignia. They’re ready to rejoin the league of nations. What better way to make their comeback than with Israeli drones, since Israel, more or less, just joined the league of nations, too.
Yes I know, too easy. League of Nations. United Nations. Battling scarcity and atrocity on a genocidal scale. At the Holocaust museum. Best to teach those other violent types a lesson from the air. Drone-wise.
Ellis’ repeated conflation of Germany today — even 20 years after the wall came down, for cripes’ sakes — without the distant past of the Nazis is bordering on (if not firmly encamped in) the pathological.
“— even 20 years after the wall came down, for cripes’ sakes”
Berlin Wall was the Communists, wasn’t it Woody? 3rd Reich was long gone by the time it was put up… Oh wait you’re saying Germany has been through such extraordinary changes since WW2, let alone the fall of the Nazis, it’s been defeated, occupied, split between the victors of WW2, under two very different systems, and finally reunited (“the wall came down”), that the 3rd Reich is long dead and gone. Okay, you threw me there for a second with the Wall.
However, I gotta (I do, I just gotta!) think maybe M. Ellis’ constant references to Nazi era Germany are ironic, meant to reflect ironically the persistence and falsity of the Nazi/Holacaust images and tropes used by Zionists in their efforts to manipulate opinion. Another words, if they really believe all that stuff they say about anti-Semitism, why are they having anything, let alone military co-operation (which always carries a risk of Dolchstoss in the jolly old Rucken, too) to do with Germany?
Anyway, that’s what I gotta think, and when I actually read the post, I’ll see if maybe it is true. Mr. Ellis may have a very high MDR.
Okay, read the post. You know, I could be right, sort of.
Mooser, you view “the wall came down” correctly.
As for your view of Ellis’s irony, I must say that I have not been reading this series too closely. If I’ve misread Mr. Ellis, I apologize. (and perhaps if you are right, my reaction demonstrates his point. Or something.)
Main thing is that whilst Germany’s atrocities are long past and mostly forgotten, Israel’s are NOW and should not be forgotten especially by any Jews left who mumble very often about Holocaust. Or Justice. Or any of the nice pudgy stuff that is so antithetical to the IDF mentality.
Mooser: However, I gotta (I do, I just gotta!) think maybe M. Ellis’ constant references to Nazi era Germany are ironic, meant to reflect ironically the persistence and falsity of the Nazi/Holacaust images and tropes used by Zionists in their efforts to manipulate opinion.
Mooser, I know why you “just gotta” think that but I seriously doubt whether even an alchemist such as yourself could transform this base prose into irony:
Hitler followed it through to the bitter end. True, Germany has risen again, dominating Europe economically in much the same way as Hitler tried militarily. Let’s call its dominance in Europe, Germany’s Plan B. Dominance is dominance. Yet anyone who’s had conversations with thoughtful Germans, say of Bob Dylan’s generation, know there’s something haunting the core of German history.
Yes, and I’ve certainly been called on the carpet for not forgiving and forgetting as many in Germany have. That’s for another generation, perhaps for Aaron and Isaiah. I still would rather Volkswagen ceased advertising in America. Its new ad campaign featuring the German CEO and “Das” Volkswagen slogan doesn’t sit well with me.
Ridiculous, I know. Retro-city. Thankfully, at the Cape, I forgo television.
Extract from Marc Ellis’s Aug03 post.
I don’t know any alchemy, but my wife is a witch. On a long trip, when we’ve driven all day, we’re tired and hungry, poof! she turns into a motel!
Germany supplies Israel’s navy with nuclear submarines
Please get your facts straight. These are not nuclear submarines, but nuclear-capable submarines.
Germany has been using three leased Israeli Heron drones for surveillance in Afghanistan. [...] you can either laugh or cry when you think of Germany and Israel fighting the world on land and sea.
Don’t you dare equate Germany with Israel! Also, you seem to have forgotten which country started the Afghanistan war. Hint: It was yours! The USA and Israel are the warmongers, not Germany. Besides, your president already uses drones to murder innocent Muslims. You don’t seem to have a problem with that.
“…Besides, your president already uses drones to murder innocent Muslims…”
Technically, I doubt if we ‘murder innocent Muslims.’ Everyone we target is presumably guilty — at least in our eyes. Unless you can show that we mounted attacks knowing that innocent bystanders would necessarily be killed, it’s not ‘murder.’
I may get grossly drunk and drive home, killing a child en route. That’s awful — but it’s manslaughter, not murder.
“Unless you can show that we mounted attacks knowing that innocent bystanders would necessarily be killed, it’s not ‘murder.’”
Nonsense. The US attacked with depraved indiffernce to the innocence or guilt of the people it knows or with reasonable certainty should know will be killed by its actions. That’s murder anyway you slice it.
“Nonsense. The US attacked with depraved indiffernce to the innocence or guilt of the people it knows or with reasonable certainty should know will be killed by its actions. That’s murder anyway you slice it.”
Even granting your assertion as to our ‘depraved indifference,’ that’s still not so.
It is indubitably irresponsible of me to drink two bottles of wine and then drive home. It reveals complete indifference to the value of the lives I am endangering.
Nevertheless, if I do run over a child, it is not murder, but manslaughter.
However reprehensible our actions may be — and I’m perfectly willing to grant that they are reprehensible — that we ‘murder innocent Muslims’ seems to me to be hyperbole.
I’m actually interested here. If — say — you try to rob a liquor store, and get into a shootout with the owner, can it be murder if you inadvertently bag a bystander?
To return to the drones, I think you would have to demonstrate that those operating the drones knew that innocent bystanders would be killed for those killings to be labelled murder. A mere callous willingness to take the chance that some would isn’t sufficient.
@ ColinWright:
The Young Turks: Obama Drone Strikes Are ‘Mass Murder’ – Jeremy Scahill
link to youtube.com
“It is indubitably irresponsible of me to drink two bottles of wine and then drive home. It reveals complete indifference to the value of the lives I am endangering. Nevertheless, if I do run over a child, it is not murder, but manslaughter. “
The difference is this: When you drive a car, you don’t intend to kill someone. The purpose of car driving is transportation, not ending lives. When you shoot a missile, however, you do intend to kill someone. The purpose of shooting missiles is ending lives.
Also, a child has the chance to run away when he or she sees a car. However, nobody can run away from a drone strike. So, the two situations are not comparable.
@ Colin Wright
RE: “I’m actually interested here. If — say — you try to rob a liquor store, and get into a shootout with the owner, can it be murder if you inadvertently bag a bystander?”
Yes. Under any American state’s “felony murder” statute, the scenario you describe incorporates a sure-fire felony murder charge, inter alia. Mens rea in the traditional common law sense of murderous intent is not required.
Yes, “felony murder” is murder (or killing) done during perpetration of a felony (as robbing the store presumably is In that case, if there are several people doing the robbery 9including the driver of theget-away car, outside, unarmed, no intention of shooting anybody), ALL are guilty og “felony murder”. In many jurisdictions. (Consult a lawyer).
“Nevertheless, if I do run over a child, it is not murder, but manslaughter.”
Actually, there is a move afoot to make such actions depraved indifference murders. But the difference is that you intend to drive home. The drone people intend to murder people.
“To return to the drones, I think you would have to demonstrate that those operating the drones knew that innocent bystanders would be killed for those killings to be labelled murder. A mere callous willingness to take the chance that some would isn’t sufficient.”
Nope. That common misunderstanding is why the zios and their apologists always talk about “intent” and whether the israeli “intended” to kill innocent people as opposed to it being “collateral damage.” The actual, subjective intent is not necessary for it to be murder.
For example, I read somewhere (I don’t have a link) that the israel terror forces changed their rules of engagement so that they were permitted to use weapons within x meters of known innocent people, even though they knew that the blast radius would be fatal to people even beyond that point. So when they used that weapon, they knew that the weapon would kill those innocents, but they said, “Collateral damage; the ‘terrorist’ we targeted (who was x meters from those innocents) was the only one we ‘intended’ to kill. The others were unfortunate colateral damage. We’re better than the Palestinians, who intend to kill innocents.”
You see how that works? But it doesn’t matter. Depraved indifference is murder.
Ah, good ol Colin! For one country, “unqualified loathing”, for another unqualified excuses.
Woody says: “You see how that works? But it doesn’t matter. Depraved indifference is murder.”
Well, perhaps. Nevertheless, there is a distinction between being willing to risk killing innocents to get at what is at least perceived to be a legitimate target (ala our drone strikes) and simply intentionally killing the innocents (ala Babi Yar).
To say ‘we murder innocent Muslims’ still strikes me as hyperbole, as it implies that killing said innocent Muslims is our goal, which it obviously isn’t (at least not yet). If it was, why fuss with waiting for a legitimate target to come along? Why not just whack whatever the most convenient group of civilians was?
Lefty says: “The difference is this: When you drive a car, you don’t intend to kill someone. The purpose of car driving is transportation, not ending lives. When you shoot a missile, however, you do intend to kill someone. The purpose of shooting missiles is ending lives.
Also, a child has the chance to run away when he or she sees a car. However, nobody can run away from a drone strike. So, the two situations are not comparable.”
I’ve conceded much of the larger argument above — but I’m afraid I don’t seen either one of your points as legitimate.
It doesn’t matter whether my purpose was to kill someone else, drive home, or just walk the dog. I didn’t intend to kill the bystander in question.
If a child has the chance to run away when he sees the car, does this mean if I send over — say — an attack helicopter, and everyone has a chance to see it and scatter, that if I nevertheless manage to inadvertently kill someone not wise enough to run, that it wasn’t murder? Should all children flee whenever a car approaches?
ColinWright, You are correct that the two situations are different, but the point is that they are both murder. And I don’t think it’s hyperbole precisely because those who are doing the depraved indifference are counting on people to think that if it isn’t “intentional” then it is unfortunate, but okay. Fuck ‘ em. Let THEM try to argue that depraved indifference murder isn’t really murder.
“Ah, good ol Colin! For one country, “unqualified loathing”, for another unqualified excuses.”
If you insist on reading meanings into my posts that simply aren’t there, I can’t stop you — but I fail to see the point.
You know, you’re really just a kind of resident troll. You’ve figured out who you can flame and who you can’t — and to what extent — and you just have at it.
There’s rarely or never any actual content beyond that. It’s just a disturbed display of hostility towards anyone you feel you can safely attack.
“Don’t you dare equate Germany with Israel!”
I guess sideropenia is sort of an occupational hazard for you, Lefty? Of course, pacifism is a deadly serious business.
I guess sideropenia is sort of an occupational hazard for you, Lefty? Of course, pacifism is a deadly serious business.
Mooser, what are you trying to tell me with this? Please be a little less cryptic.
@ German Lefty
Mooser loves puns, including corny ones. Sideropenia is a deficiency in iron in the human body. The play is on “iron” in behalf “irony.” Just toss a bad German pun back at him. He will be happy all day. Or, now reconsider the irony in the article at issue. You may still come down reaffirming what you originally said.
Just toss a bad German pun back at him. He will be happy all day.
Or why not award him the Irony Cross on behalf of the Bundesrepublik? I’m sure he’d be delighted all week with that.
@libra:
Or why not award him the Irony Cross on behalf of the Bundesrepublik?
Thanks for the laugh. Good one.
@ Citizen:
Mooser loves puns, including corny ones.
I’ve already told Mooser that when talking to Germans, he needs to say what he means and mean what he says. Otherwise, this will inevitably lead to misunderstanding or – as in this particular case – entire lack of understanding. Sadly, he’s not willing to oblige and keeps talking in riddles. Apparently, he likes driving me nuts. Probably a late revenge for the Holocaust…
Sideropenia is a deficiency in iron in the human body.
Yes, I know.
The play is on “iron” in behalf “irony.”
Oh, I see. Thanks.
“Or why not award him the Irony Cross”
Better than being crucified on a cross of gold, I guess.
“Otherwise, this will inevitably lead to misunderstanding or – as in this particular case – entire lack of understanding. “
Yeow! I’ll be more careful, I promise! ‘Cause I (and Mr. Ellis, too) know what the consequences for that can be!
Yeow! I’ll be more careful, I promise! ‘Cause I (and Mr. Ellis, too) know what the consequences for that can be!
Very funny, Mooser. Very funny.
Israeli “Never Again” drones on the prowl. With German democratic ownership rights to do what any decent Western nation does to defeat terrorism. After all, the (Nazi)German purgatory has to end one day, so why all the fuss?
For the record, I disapprove of Germany owning or deploying drones. However, that’s not because of history. History must not be a reason. We are a different country with different people. It’s simply because I am against drones on principle. No country should produce, own or deploy them. However, if the USA is allowed to use (armed) drones, then ALL other countries must be conceded the same right. No double standards. Capiche, Mr Ellis?
No country should produce, own or deploy them. However, if the USA is allowed to use (armed) drones, then ALL other countries must be conceded the same right. No double standards. Capiche, Mr Ellis?
i agree with the first sentence, but the rest of it is a curious position for a pacifist, lefty.
“i agree with the first sentence, but the rest of it is a curious position for a pacifist, lefty.”
I don’t think so at all. If the possession of the weapon by the second country translates into a lowered risk that the first will use the weapon, it may be the most practical stance a pacifist can take. (Although, for the record, I am not a pacifist.)
Which is a better pacifist position, both country’s weapons rusting in the silo or one country using it without threat of retaliation?
Which is a better pacifist position, both country’s weapons rusting in the silo or one country using it without threat of retaliation?
Woody, I totally understand your logic. However, a pacifist would never threaten someone with retaliation.
“Woody, I totally understand your logic. However, a pacifist would never threaten someone with retaliation.”
I know. That’s why I’m not a pacifist.
@ Woody Tanaka
Do you really think German Lefty is the kind of woman who would keep turning her other cheek to get both increasingly black and blue forever? She’s smart too, and educated. She’d use other means, e.g., leverage attached to actual diplomacy. You know, what the US is not doing with Iran.
“pacifist would never threaten anyone with retaliation.”
In that case the pacifist will be a cooked goose when the shooting starts.
I believe in talking softly, but carrying a big stick! The A-bomb was the greatest peace-maker during the past 60 years, all parties were aware that a total destruction is imminent should they start a war.
In case Iran gets a nuclear bomb, that will stop all aggressions from Israel based on above point, and that is the reason why they do everything to prevent such a case. They like to stay the bully in the ME.
By the way, the USA and GB are commiting mass murder since WWII, when they bombed civilian towns without any military importance, killing hundreds of thousands. We continued with Vietnam, (about 3 million dead), Iraq, ( up to a million), Afghanistan and Pakistan. Presently there is no country in this world that has more innocent blood on its hands than the USA.
Mr. Ellis is still fighting the WWII, cannot forget the wrongs done to the jews, although probably he was born after the war. In every article he bring up the past, the Holocaust, perhaps this is his way to divert attention from what jews in Israel do today.
I was told once by the moderator that the purpose of this blog is to fight for the rights of the palestinians, not to hack up the past, so I wonder what is Mr. Ellis doing, if not just that.
I have a great deal of respect for German Lefty. And I’ve no doubt that she would come up with very creative and effective ways of dealing with situations. I simply believe that in some situations the most effective way of keeping the other guy from hurting people is to make him know that if he does, he will be hurt worse. Some people, it is only self-interest that will get through to them.
Woody
Lady Lefty is a dreamer, she lives in a world that just doesn´t exist, at least not now, after 100,000 years of human history. Counting on human nature, during the next 100,000 years we cannot expect any great changes.
The world is getting overpopulated, natural resources will eventually be depleted, great number of people will starve to death. They are doing it right now in many places in Africa.
They will go after food and water and do anything to get it, even killing their next neighbour, because we always did it!
I would like to see the Lady peacifying hungry crowds with lovely words and ideas, it will not work. She is an intelligent and highly educated person, however what we call a daydreamer, she sees this world through rose coloured glasses.
She doesn´t realize we are the bloodiest animals on this planet who likes to kill even if he is not hungry.
@ Citizen, Woody & Theo:
Funny how you guys talk about me as if I weren’t here.
Do you really think German Lefty is the kind of woman who would keep turning her other cheek to get both increasingly black and blue forever?
Well, as long as it’s not WHITE and BLUE.
She’d use other means, e.g., leverage attached to actual diplomacy.
Right.
I simply believe that in some situations the most effective way of keeping the other guy from hurting people is to make him know that if he does, he will be hurt worse.
But if the other guy already knows that I’m a pacifist, then he also knows that I would never carry out my threat. And this would make the threat pointless.
she sees this world through rose coloured glasses.
Nope. The lenses are colourless. The frame is dark grey.
The world is getting overpopulated, natural resources will eventually be depleted, great number of people will starve to death. They are doing it right now in many places in Africa. They will go after food and water and do anything to get it, even killing their next neighbour, because we always did it! [...] we are the bloodiest animals on this planet who likes to kill even if he is not hungry.
You shouldn’t be let near suicidal people.
By the way, I am aware of the fact that people are selfish. I am selfish, too. That’s precisely why I treat others the way that I want to be treated by them. I am nice to others for reasons of self-interest.
Mr. Ellis is still fighting the WWII, cannot forget the wrongs done to the jews, although probably he was born after the war.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Born in 1952.
“She doesn´t realize we are the bloodiest animals on this planet who likes to kill even if he is not hungry.”
If you would like to know the murderous extent of human viciousness, just take a look over the fireplace.
Woody wrote: ” I simply believe that in some situations the most effective way of keeping the other guy from hurting people is to make him know that if he does, he will be hurt worse.”
I reject your idea about hurting people worse than they hurt others. There is a saying “an eye for an eye makes the world go blind”. Hurting someone worse doubles the process. Not only will the world go blind, but to double the harm, they will start taking off other things: noses, ears, feet, soon there will be nothing left. And this excessiveness is to keep people from being hurt?
Leviticus 25:43 Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God.
Peace.
W.Jones,
An eye for an eye might make the world go blind, but the threat of the second being lost might prevent the first being lost.
And I have to say that you lost credibility with me by quoting Leviticus. That may be the worst, most evil thing ever written and responsible for so much inhumanity even to today. I pity you if you deem it worth anything other that the toilet.
And yet such a seemingly evil book still teaches equal responses and prohibits excessive revenge.
The restriction against excessive harm is a limit one must observe in one’s own life. Isn’t it even better to forego revenge completely where this is realistic?
Nothing “seeming” about it in my opinion. Evil. full stop.
And you are conflating two things: revenge and deterrence. Your book is talking about revenge. I’m not. Clearly, if you do not have to threaten to harm someone worse, it is immoral to do so. (but, compare, e.g., the zionists, who fail to take any reasonable step to solve the conflict their invasion of Palestine has birthed. Non-threats are meaningless to them.) I’m taking about not foresaking the use of force where doing so is the only way to get an aggressor to heel.
i agree with the first sentence, but the rest of it is a curious position for a pacifist, lefty.
Ha, ha. But please read more properly. I merely wrote that if one country is allowed to use drones, then all other countries must be granted the same RIGHT. I did NOT say that they should exercise this right.
@ German Left, yes, and too bad for us all that the nuclear nonproliferation treaty membership does not include Israel, and also that the US and Russia have not done more in the way of getting rid of the nukes they have. Even a child must notice the hypocrisy.
RE: “Germany supplies Israel’s navy with nuclear submarines”
MY COMMENT: Diesel-powered, nuclear-armed submarines.
SEE: “Operation Samson; Israel’s Deployment of Nuclear Missiles on Subs from Germany”, by Der Speigel, 6/04/12
ENTIRE SICKENING/SCAREY ARTICLE – link to spiegel.de
Speaking of drones, this whole Exile and the Prophetic series has been droning on for well over a month now (an endurance the USAF can no doubt only dream of) and I suspect that along the way a fault has developed in the Prophet’s guidance system.
When first launched in Florida all seemed well, indeed it made some very interesting observations from over the Holocaust museum. At this point I’m sure Phil was delighted with this new addition to the Mondoweiss arsenal.
But now it seems to be behaving erratically, digressing all over the place even within a single 24-hour period. Is it now completely unguided? Has it slipped into an untested autonomous mode with a mind all of its own? Or has it even been taken over Stuxnet-style by a Mossad virus?
I wonder whether Phil began to suspect something might have gone awry when it targeted that “Das Auto” advertising hoarding at the Miami Volkswagen dealership. I certainly thought that rather odd. Butt then it suddenly veered eastwards and flew all the way across the Atlantic to end up loitering over Vienna.
There I can only imagine Phil was as mystified as I was when quite bizarrely its sensors locked onto the bible in the hands of a visiting Fijian student – on a Peace Studies course of all things – which seemed to switch it into aggressor mode. Out of the blue it descended and subjected the poor girl to what sounded like a prolonged harassment leaving her quite disturbed and upset. Hardly surprising. She’d probably never come across anything quite like it in her life.
Now I must confess to having developed a morbid fascination with my daily drone download. Where has it gone now? What has it done? Who has it upset?
I can imagine Phil back at at mission control somewhere in upstate New York frantically transmitting new instructions to try to bring it back under some semblance of control. Will he manage to get it back to base safely? Will it just just mysteriously disappear? Or will it go down in flames?
libra says: “Speaking of drones…”
Lol. It’s actually been interesting at times, but it does lead to one biting one’s tongue at others.
“Lol. It’s actually been interesting at times, but it does lead to one biting one’s tongue at others.”
I’ve tried that. It doesn’t work. I bite and I bite, and I’m the only one who ends up with a sore lingua.
In context
The top five countries profiting from the arms trade are the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China.
Developing nations buy more arms. Saudi Arabia, by far, is # 1 buyer. India is #2.
Sorry, but that is not true anymore. Germany refrained from selling arms for many decades, however Angela Merkel decided, why should others make that good money. Now Germany is the third, right after the USA and Russia.
I’m kind of surprised at the longevity of “Exile and the Prophetic.” When it first appeared I assumed it would be a five or ten part series.
“I’m kind of surprised at the longevity of “Exile and the Prophetic.” When it first appeared I assumed it would be a five or ten part series.”
Logically, having started, how would it stop? The quest seems unlikely to have a conclusion.
“Logically, having started, how would it stop?”
Yes, it’s kind of like the bus in the movie “Speed” at this point….
Prof. Ellis,
You wrote:
I think it is important to explain what you mean by “colonial”. In my mind, Colonial means a political arrangement whereby a group plants a “colony” in another location or politically controls that other area’s government. So for example “colonies” of political refugees from the British empire like the Puritans set up colonies in North America. Does it make sense that a group of “colonists” could set up a “colony” in another country even if it and the mother country did not recognize eachother?
If I understood you right, in a previous message you had described Christianity as “colonizing” Fiji and other third world countries. Personally, I don’t think that spreading ideas is “colonial”. For example, if I went and taught algebra or construction skills to natives on a Pacific island, it does not seem colonial to me. So if someone goes and spreads ideas like philosophy, it does not seem colonial to me either.
Of course that does not mean the ideas spread are necessarily good ones. In fact, one can even spread “colonialist” ideas, like teachings that the empire is the right “master”. And it seems that if the colony spreads some ideas in order to control the native people, then that could be a colonialist activity.
To give an example, an empire teaching people how to build a colony’s road or setting up official houses of worship would be colonial acts. But a philanthropic group like Oxfam that works with and educates people in starving countries that have sovereignty wouldn’t be colonial. If one responds that “Yes such philanthropy is colonialist”, then it is hard to see what relations wouldn’t be colonialist. Perhaps commercial trade between independent countries wouldn’t necessarily be colonialist. But what if the third world country was willing to pay for the nonprofit’s education work? Paying for the services doesn’t seem any fairer than having the organizations do it for free.
When I think of “the Prophetic,” I think of something that makes or fulfills a prophecy, especially a divine one. So a “prophetic table” could be an imaginary table in a prophecy or a real-life table that there was a prediction about, respectively. And a prophetic “writing” or “literature” I see as having a moral quality, instructing people to follow righteousness. So I don’t see “the Prophetic” as colonial either. If a person writes, like an ancient prophet, to his community, or to a foreigner like Nebuchadnezar, a warning to do good, then it does not seem like a colonial imposition to me. It would have to be a prophecy made by someone seeking to overpower a smaller community, like “give us your land and leave or G-d” will hurt you. In ancient times there were prophecies like this, except I think the prophets wanted the natives to convert and become a member of the community (which I would see as assimilation rather than colonialism) instead of leaving the land.
What do you think?
RE – “Exile and the Prophetic: Israel’s ‘never again’ drones in German uniforms (minus the Nazi insignia)”
MY COMMENT: “Some people” occasionally refer to the Israeli’s “never again obsession” (or complex) and suggest that it might cause the Israeli’s to exhibit certain types of obsessive behavior.
FROM WIKIPEDIA [Obsessive–compulsive disorder] :
SOURCE – link to en.wikipedia.org
• As Good as it Gets; OCD handwashing, locks, and lights [VIDEO, 01:05] – link to youtube.com