Oh Canada!

Trudeau standing up for the core Canadian value of not making anyone else look bad.

After winning widespread praise from many embattled foreign leaders, Justin Trudeau was his usual modest self today, expressing feigned surprise when asked if his decision to hobble Canada – so as to stop embarrassing other countries struggling with their own self-dealt scandals and leadership crises – was intentional or just a damned fine thing to do. 

"Let me assure you, this situation is not one that I welcome, or have taken any steps to intentionally create," the prime minister said, stating exactly what you would expect a demurring leader to say, after going out of his way to distract from Donald Trump's presidential remake of the movie 'Speed,' in which the White House will blow up if he makes fewer than 50 mistakes an hour. 

"Bloody decent of them what?" Theresa May said/asked, as per the British tradition of shout-telling. "It really was getting a little bit much, watching the Canadians just lark about with their lovely little economy, progressive agenda, and general lack of millstones around necks tied by selves. Do you think they might vote to intentionally destroy their country? Oh wouldn't that be just splendid?"

And in Russia, Vladimir Putin cracked his knuckles and adjusted his jockstrap, the only thing he had on while addressing his legislature today, in a test of his new rule that anyone who smiles in his immediate vicinity will be summarily executed.  

"Canada thought they were of the smart ones," Putin said, standing with his hands on his hips, pelvis thrust out as only a man directly descended from thousands of years of deadbeat fathers can.

"But now what? Company make little party for the Gaddafis, and the big trouble for the Trudeau when he reminds his attorney general (this like conscience but for government and equally useless) that this company special. Now country implode and hand power to man with round face and no plan. Ha. Ha. Ha. No laughing. Fetch my rhinoceros."

"He wore a jockstrap? In the Federal Assembly?" asked Trudeau, when confronted with Putin's assessment that the PM's missteps appear likely to end in Andrew Scheer chubby-cheekering his way into power. "And rides a rhinoceros?"

The prime minister then shook his head vigorously to dispel the odd mental image, and offered, again, a weak defence of his clearly considerate self-own.

"I've lost two of my closest cabinet ministers, my longest serving aide-de-camp, and the opportunity to speak in a Canadian Tire in Regina to a bunch of climate change skeptics. That last one hurts the least, I will be honest. Nevertheless, my point is: Canada is not collapsing. Certainly not on purpose anyway."

For more sub-zero satire, follow  The Out And Abouter on Facebook, or @OutAndAbouter on Twitter.

ISRAEL AGAIN

THE ABSURD TIMES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Israel Continues

By Czar Donic

 

 

I really have no idea as to how to really drive home the point that Israel is a real danger to humanity and human values.  I've tried, and of course nothing works.  In fact, their lobbying and activity simply gets increased and more lawmakers live in fear of it.

 

Now, we are supposed to avoid "tropes" that are harmful to Zionists, who call themselves "persecuted Jews."  Well, the illustration above gives a fairly accurate of what a "trope" is.  Since I've published, peer-reviewed material, on Renaissance Rhetoric, in fact, too much, I am pretty much written out on the subject.  The rhetoric books of the time list over 200 to 300 specific types of tropes, and about as many "schemes" on the topic.  Also, I had to learn to read Latin for the projects.  Fortunately, I did not have to learn conversational Latin and it seldom comes up these days.  I will confess that I did have a bias in favor of Peter Ramus, or Ramism – but I hardly think that is a great offense, although many did.  Such is academia.

 

I am not sure what sort of trope "dual-allegiance" is, or perhaps some other expression was contemplated.  Now, Congress is voting to condemn Anti-Semitism and, to its credit, possibly Islamophobia.  (I have yet to receive a response from any of the candidates on that issue.) 

 

Some of you may remember Norm Finklestein, a well-published author and respected teacher, whose mother was a holocaust survivor who was denied pressure due to immense pressure by a trove of pro-Israeli agitators, led by Alan Derschowitz, somewhat affiliated with Faux News.  An interview with Norm follows the report from the United Nations.

·        * *

·         

A United Nations inquiry has found Israeli forces may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by targeting unarmed children, journalists and the disabled in Gaza. The report, released by the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday, looked at Israel's bloody response to weekly Great March of Return demonstrations, launched by Palestinians in Gaza nearly a year ago, targeting Israel's heavily militarized separation barrier. The report found Israeli forces have killed 183 Palestinians—almost all of them with live ammunition. The dead included 35 children. Twenty-three thousand people were injured, including over 6,000 shot by live ammunition. We speak with Sara Hossain, a member of the U.N. independent commission that led the Gaza investigation.

---

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: A United Nations inquiry has found Israeli forces may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by targeting unarmed children, journalists and the disabled in Gaza. The report, released by the U.N. Human Rights Council Thursday, looked at Israel's bloody response to weekly Great March of Return demonstrations, launched by Palestinians in Gaza nearly a year ago, targeting Israel's heavily militarized separation barrier. The report found Israeli forces have killed 183 Palestinians, almost all of them with live ammunition. The dead included 35 children. Twenty-three thousand people were injured, including over 6,000 shot by live ammunition. Santiago Canton chaired the U.N. commission.

SANTIAGO CANTON: The commission has found reasonable grounds to believe that the Israeli security forces committed serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. These violations clearly warrant criminal investigation and prosecution, and we call on Israel to conduct meaningful investigations into these serious violations and to provide timely justice and reparations for those killed and injured.

AMY GOODMAN: Another member of the U.N. independent commission, Sara Hossain, described how Israeli forces targeted civilians and journalists in Gaza.

SARA HOSSAIN: We are saying that they have intentionally shot children, they have intentionally shot people with disabilities, they have intentionally shot journalists, knowing them to be children, people with disabilities and journalists. And some of the children—not all of the children are visibly children perhaps, but many of them are. As Commissioner Murungi just said, the journalists were all marked with press vests, that we investigated. And the people with disabilities, as I said, a double amputee in a wheelchair, a person using crutches, they were visibly that. And they've been shot at by snipers, who also have spotters available with them, who have very high-level technology available to see who is out there in the field.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.N. report called on nations to arrest, quote, "persons alleged to have committed, or ordered to have committed, the international crimes," unquote, or to seek their extradition. The U.N. also demanded Israel immediately lift the blockade on Gaza. Israel's acting foreign minister dismissed the report as "theater of the absurd." However, grieving Palestinians welcomed the report, including Raeda Ayoub, whose teenage son Mohammad was killed during the Gaza protests.

RAEDA AYOUB: [translated] We are happy that someone is supporting Gaza's children, and we are happy that they are supporting us to defend Gaza's children and youth in Gaza against the crimes committed by the occupation.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.N. report was issued Thursday, the same day Israel's attorney general announced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing an indictment on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

For more, we're joined by two guests. Sara Hossain is a member of the U.N. independent commission that led the Gaza investigation. She's also a barrister practicing in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. She joins us from Dhaka, Bangladesh. And here in New York, scholar Norman Finkelstein, author of many books, including Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Sara Hossain, let's begin with you. Tell us about the most significant findings of your report and how this report came into being.

SARA HOSSAIN: I'm sorry. I couldn't hear that.

AMY GOODMAN: Please explain the findings of the report.

SARA HOSSAIN: Sure. I mean, this report was commissioned as basis of a resolution by the Human Rights Council. And accordingly, we've conducted investigations for about six months now with trained investigators and a team of experts. I should mention, we haven't been given access to Gaza or to Israel, which obviously has hampered us quite considerably. But nevertheless, we have been able to interview witnesses, and we have been able to interview many victims, as well, some in person and some remotely. We've also been able to gather an extraordinary amount of documentary material, including video and drone footage, social media content, as well as all of the affidavits and other testimonies. So, based on that, we've come to our assessment.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the most significant findings.

SARA HOSSAIN: The most significant, I think, is just the number of killings and the numbers of injuries. There are 183 Palestinians who have been killed in the course of the period that we have investigated, which is from the 30th of March to the 31st of December. As you know, the demonstrations are continuing, and killings and injuries have continued to be reported, but we've just covered this particular period. We also found, as you said, over 6,000 injuries to Palestinians caused by live fire. We found that four Israeli soldiers had been injured during this time, and two Israeli soldiers had also been killed, but both of those were outside the particular parameters of the investigation. They weren't in the context of—they weren't at the protest sites, although one of them was within the protest times. And I think, amongst the numbers of killings, what we also found, which was of great concern, was the fact that protected—groups who are protected categories in international law, protected persons, such as children, people with disabilities, and also health workers and journalists, were amongst those who were both killed and injured in large numbers.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.N. report calls on states to arrest "persons alleged to have committed, or ordered to have committed, the international crimes." What exactly does that mean?

SARA HOSSAIN: Well, our investigation is done according to the standard of reasonable grounds to believe. It's not a criminal investigation. We have made some preliminary findings based on the facts as we found them, and applying international human rights law and international humanitarian law where that was relevant, given that we're speaking about the context of an occupation and the context—in certain contexts, the conduct of hostilities. So we've made these findings, but we believe that these need to be taken further. We've called on Israel itself to conduct investigations, and we understand that Israel has opened at least five investigations into the incidents that we've found. But we are not clear why it has not opened a larger number of investigations. We think that's the first thing that should happen. We've also asked for the international community to look into this. We are going to present our findings, hand them over to the high commissioner for human rights of the United Nations. And I think then it's for other bodies to take this further. As—

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to acting Israeli foreign minister—

SARA HOSSAIN: —you know, there's a process at the International Criminal Court.

Israeli forces have killed 183 Palestinians since weekly Great March of Return demonstrations began in Gaza nearly a year ago targeting Israel's heavily militarized separation barrier. That's according to a new United Nations inquiry that found Israeli forces may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by targeting unarmed children, journalists and the disabled in Gaza. The report was released by the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday. We speak with Norman Finkelstein, scholar and author of "Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom," and Sara Hossain, a member of the U.N. independent commission that led the Gaza investigation.

---

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to the acting Israeli foreign minister, Yisrael Katz, responding to the U.N. Human Rights Council's report.

YISRAEL KATZ: [translated] This report is another chapter in the theater of the absurd produced occasionally by the United Nations Human Rights Council, another hostile, mendacious and slanted report against the state of Israel. It's a report based on distorted information, in which the facts were not at all checked, whose only purpose is to slander the only democracy in the Middle East and harm our right to self-defense in the face of the terrorism of a murderous organization. The state of Israel outright rejects this report.

AMY GOODMAN: Norm Finkelstein, the significance of Israel saying it rejects the report?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, Israel has always rejected the reports, whether they come from the United Nations or, more often than not, they come from reputable human rights organizations, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch or the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. So it's not as if—to use the words of the person you just had on, it's not as if it's a typically mendacious U.N. report. It's a report that falls in line with the findings of every reputable human rights organization.

AMY GOODMAN: What most struck you about this report?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: What most struck me about the report was it was remarkably honest. It was very forthright in its conclusions. And it didn't fake this kind of balance, which most human rights organizations, even reputable ones, attempt between Israel and the United States. So, just to take a couple of examples, it forthrightly stated that Israel targets intentionally children during these demonstrations. It targets reporters. It targets medical personnel. And that's unusual. Allow me just two examples, which you would be familiar with. So, when there was the killings during Operation Protective Edge of the four children who were playing hide-and-seek—

AMY GOODMAN: This was back in 2014.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: 2014. Recently, The Intercept had an article on those four—killings of the four kids, and had this story that they weren't really intentionally killed, it was an accident, it was a mistake. And same thing with The New York Times when it had the big story on Razan al-Najjar, which was quoted everywhere. The essence of the story was, there was an Israeli sniper's bullet, it hit the ground, ricocheted and then accidentally hit three Israeli medical personnel. It was a magic bullet, because there was a huge crowd of people, but this magic bullet only hit three medical personnel.

But this human rights report by the Human Rights Council, it's very straightforward. It says intentionally targets children, intentionally targets even disabled persons. And that, to me, was a credit to them that there was no fake balance. If you look at the proportions, when it looks at the damages done to the people of Gaza, they devote 10 full pages. And then there's a section called "Impact on Israel." It's three paragraphs. And that's exactly what the reality shows, that overwhelmingly—in fact, virtually entirely—all the infliction of death and destruction is on the Palestinian side. For the period they covered, during the demonstrations, there were no fatalities during the demonstrations, and four Israeli soldiers were lightly injured. These are massacres. They're not conflicts. They're not engagements. They're just outright massacres of overwhelmingly unarmed, nonviolent demonstrators.

AMY GOODMAN: This report comes out as the attorney general of Israel says he's going to indict the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The significance of this?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, the Israelis ignore the reports. So, in that context, it's not significant. However, there is a critical significance. Namely, the International Criminal Court has had now two cases referred to it on the situation among the Palestinians. One case is on the Mavi Marmara, the flotilla in 2010 that came under Israeli attack. And the second case is on Israeli war crimes in the West Bank, mostly the settlements, and Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. Now, the chief of staff during Operation Protective Edge during July, August 2014—the Israeli chief of staff is—was Gantz—I guess his first name is Benny, but I could be mistaken—Gantz. And the fact of the matter is, if Netanyahu is out, Gantz will probably be the prime minister, and he will be up for indictment by the International Criminal Court. The chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is desperately trying not to investigate Israeli war crimes. But within the International Criminal Court, there has been an unprecedented pushback. There are large numbers of members—large numbers of members of the ICC who say it's time to indict Israel. And the pressure—because of this report, the pressure on Bensouda, chief prosecutor Bensouda, is going to be enormous. It's time to indict Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: And just to be clear, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, if indicted, as the attorney general says, is not being indicted for this, but for corruption.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: That's correct. It's sort of—like I said, it's sort of like Al Capone being indicted for tax evasion. In the great scheme of things, that was the least of Capone's crimes. But that's the way the judicial system works.

AMY GOODMAN: Has the U.S. responded to the report?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: To my knowledge, the U.S. has not. This is a preliminary report. The full report will come out on March 18th, I think. So this is sort of the—what they call like an executive summary. It was 22 pages. I imagine the full report will be considerably larger.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Sara Hossain, what do you want to see come out of this report?

SARA HOSSAIN: I think we'd definitely like to see some action, action by Israel, action by the Palestinian Authority also and action by the international community.

I just want to mention one thing, though, in terms of the findings. We did also make findings that on two—in two of the incidents we looked at, on the 14th of May and on the 12th of October, there may have been some justification for the shootings. On the 14th of May, we found an incident in which 21 people were killed, but we think there may have been an issue of direct participation in hostilities, possibly justifying the shootings. And that requires further investigation, as well.

But we think that all the findings, we have, and so we're going to take them forward. We think it's critical that with the 30th of March in front of us, the anniversary of the start of the so-called Great March of Return, it's very important that the international community take action to ensure that this death toll and this injuries toll doesn't continue. We're calling for protective monitoring to be put in place. We're calling for action to end—end this terrible death toll and injury toll that has been continuing over the last year and continuing even now.

AMY GOODMAN: Sara Hossain, I want to thank you for being with us, member of the U.N. independent commission that led the Gaza investigation. Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar; his most recent book, Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom. We'll be back in 30 seconds.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

 

The View from the World

THE ABSURD TIMES

 

 

Our shared opinion.

It has been a long week or so, and many of us are simply tired of so much that we see that passes for news.  We all have pretty much made up our minds on Trump, one way or the other, and the only local political news concerns who will be the nominee for the Democrats.  Every Democrat, liberal, or progressive has decided that whomever is nominated by the other party must be defeated.  We have our own favorite.[1]

Furthermore, that every candidate for that party must be defeated.  Clearly, it currently represents only the best interests of less than 1% of the population (although for too many do not realize this as they are too focused on hating other parts of the population).  Fortunately, this amounts to only about 35-39% of the voters.

A recent fad used by the right wing to promote their cause is fear of "Socialism".  We currently have a great deal of Socialism in our country.  For example, the people of New York were taxed to build a giant Golf course, the profits from which would go to Donald Trump.  Democrats simply want to reverse the priority with the funds going to those who really need them and coming from those who have plundered from the tax system.

If we seriously want to eliminate socialism, why not eliminate those socialist traffic lights?  Instead, why not let a group of us get together and put up our own traffic signals and charge everyone a dollar to get through?  Eisenhower's interstate highway system is another example.  Of course, actually maintaining it would be Communist, so that is just not done.

At any rate, it is about time for us to know how the rest of the world looks at us because of Trump, and here is a brief essay on that:

 

"Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response: "A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump's limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever. I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it's a fact. He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn't just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It's all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don't. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He's not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He's more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy' is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: * Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are. * You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it's impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: 'My God… what… have… I… created? If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.""

 

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More options

Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?"

Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response:

"A few things spring to mind.

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump's limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever.

I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it's a fact. He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.

And scarily, he doesn't just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It's all surface.

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

Well, we don't. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.

He's not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.

He's more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.

That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.

There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy' is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
* You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it's impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:

'My God… what… have… I… created?

If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set."

 

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[1] Name withheld to protect the candidate and the party.