Bipartisanship?

Flying at night two die
when their small plane
hits a Canadian goose.

While I applaud Obama’s plan to reach across the aisle and attempt to have everyone cooperate in trying to solve our many serious problems, I have no reason to believe he will find anyone on the other side that shares his desire. Republicans have so far shown no interest whatsoever in cooperating on our serious problems, and, indeed, have been doing everything they can so far to undermine any such effort. They tried to ruin the domestic auto makers with their union-busting mania, they are going to try to block the Obama plan to rescue the country, they will resist universal health care (socialistic), try to not seat Al Franken, help Blagojevich seat his Senate nominee, and continue their race-baiting and whining apparently until doomsday. And you can be sure they will resist any attempt to hold Bush/Cheney and others accountable for their crimes, just as they will try to prevent Eric Holder from becoming Attorney General. Given the tenor of the country, and the hope most have for Obama, they will quite likely fail in their attempts to sabotage everything Democratic, but you can be pretty sure they will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing anything that might benefit the country or its ordinary citizens. When in the past eight years have they been known to compromise? And what in those eight years have they ever done for the nation and its citizens, as opposed to what they have done for their party and their wealthy corporate sponsors? Personally, I believe Obama will just waste his time attempting to work with this sorry collection of greedy criminals.

The Israelis continue their slaughter of helpless Palestinians while the rest of the world just watches (with satisfaction?). How is it that the Israelis can violate any canon of international law or morality and even common decency and continue to get away with it year after bloody year? There is no excuse for the unconscionable things they are doing. Their claim they have the right to protect themselves is not a license for genocide. The fact that the U.S. continues to support their shameless colonial aspirations and murderous means is itself shameless and unconscionable. As they are apparently running out of things to bomb they will either invade on the ground or, perhaps, agree to another truce. It doesn’t matter in one sense, because whatever they do now will be too late to overcome the generations of hate they will have created and continue to experience.

Consider, if you will, the following account:

“__________ravaged numerous settlements without mercy, and in this barbarous manner conquered both banks of the river as far as ________. Below this tributary the region was ‘completely devastated within a week’s time as the _________looted and burned and cut down the natives ‘like trees.’ In one instance, they seized hundreds of women and children; ‘with God’s help,’ recalled _________, ‘we burned them, we knocked them on the head…and counting big and little, we killed six hundred and sixty one.’ His rampage continued….

Would you like to guess what country was involved in this behavior? In this case it was Russia, conquering Siberia, but I submit it could have been any European colonial power anywhere: Africa, the U.S., the Philippines, South America, India, wherever Europeans had colonies. The horrors that were perpetrated in the name of colonialism, if they had not been recorded, would not have been imaginable. They have not entirely disappeared although nowadays they take on a somewhat different form.

LKBIQ:
Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.
James A. Froude
TILT:
In ancient Rome the testimony of a slave was not regarded as useful unless it had been obtained by torture, as slaves were not believed to otherwise tell the truth.