I was having a chat the other day with a guy who is a staunch supporter of the Labour Party in the UK. The Labour Party, if you don’t know, are the UK’s “socialist” party. I put that in inverted commas because “socialist” means very different things to different people. Let’s just say that, by and large, we’re not talking about a full-on property is theft and I’ll take everything you have and give to a poor person version of socialism so that everyone has the same. It has represented a degree of socialism within an overall framework of capitalism (if that makes sense).
I used to be a Labour supporter, too. I have never voted for any Conservative candidate in any election. The UK’s Conservative Party has historically mostly been a party of privilege with policies designed to increase the wealth and comfort of a few, already wealthy, people (in my view).
Today, I don’t have the faintest idea who I support. Nobody, by the looks of it. They’re all unremittingly awful in their own different ways - although some of those “differences” are only paper thin these days. They all seem to spout broadly the same shite on things like ExistentialPandemicDoom™, DIE and The Climate™ - and even when they mumble something with broad popular support (like how’s about we get some control of immigration?) - fuck all actually changes.
Anyway, there I was, chatting away about poverty and the difficulty many families in the UK are facing making ends meet, as you do, and his answer to all of this was “more taxes”.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of taxation1. I really don’t get the “taxation is theft” slogan at all.
Let’s imagine in times gone by you were living in some idyllic village community, singing your Kum-By-Yah’s round the campfire and doing embroidery. Along comes some barbarian at the gate who says he (and his army) are going to do some embroidery with your face. You try a lethal rendition of Kum-By-Yah, but it has no effect, sadly.
Faced with such a threat you might want to establish some kind of standing defence force; people whose job it is to train themselves to be able to defend the community2. These people would have to be supported somehow, and so everyone gets together and chips in a bit so that everyone can be safe.
And so the idea of taxation was born.
Of course, I may have left out one or two historical details along the way - but I’m currently spending my time weaponizing The Muppet Song.
Curious about how “more taxes” would actually solve the problem of poverty, I pressed for more detail. I’m still waiting - although I think the words “investing in the economy” made several brief appearances.
Now, I make no claim to be a great thinker, but at least I try. There’s much I don’t understand, much yet to understand, and much I will never understand. But I’d like to think I put some kind of effort into ruminating about the issues - even if I end up getting everything hopelessly wrong.
The only effort I can see being made these days is in the colourful posters being made for “protests”.
Is There Anybody In There?
Sure, there was a country created in 1948 that took over half of Palestinian lands and occupied them.
But enough about Jordan - what about Israel?
I’ve been reading some truly spectacular accounts of the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict. These start in 1948 with the expulsion of Palestinians by the Israelis. Basically, the picture is drawn that, there they were, sitting round their campfires singing the Islamic version of Kum-By-Yah3 and doing some wicked embroidery with Arabic script, when along comes the Israeli army who, for absolutely no reason at all, kick them off their land.
The fact that this was in the middle of a fucking war seems to be of such minor historical importance that it isn’t even mentioned in these articles.
It’s not like we in the enlightened West ever interred people during periods of war is it? Those Japanese and German folk in the US and UK were perfectly free to go about their business during WWII.
Although I have never personally experienced war (thank God), I have been led to believe that it isn’t about trying to defeat your enemy with ghastly versions of folk songs. I have been told that some seriously bad shit4 happens during wars. I may have that wrong.
You’ve probably seen, by now, the former leader of UK’s Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, being asked by Piers Morgan whether Hamas are terrorists or not. Now, Piers Morgan’s whole TV persona (and his revenue stream) are built around him projecting the image of being an arrogant offensive pillock, but Corbyn was unable to denounce Hamas in the terms Morgan was demanding.
I actually kind of agree with Corbyn. Hear me out.
What image does the word “terrorist” conjure up? To me, it kind of conjures up a picture of a small bunch of crazy fuckers, operating in the darkest fringes of society. Or people wearing MAGA hats - which is about the same thing.
But Hamas are not some “fringe” group. They are the government of Gaza. This government basically declared war on Israel on Oct 7th.
I still don’t know what the “right” response of Israel should be to that - but singing Kum-By-Yah at Hamas was not one of the options I considered.
I’m not sure there has ever been a formal declaration of peace from the losing side in that 1948 war. I think, on the contrary, there have been repeated calls to eradicate Israel in its entirety. Here’s what Hamas’ 1988 charter had to say, for example, in some select quotes :
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it
The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day
[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement . . . There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad
The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: “O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.”
The last quote here, contained in the charter, is from the Hadith (sayings of Muhammad which are weighted according to ‘reputation’ in a process known as Isnad. I do not know the Isnad for this particular saying, so it might not carry much weight within majority Islam).
Given that it is a government saying these things (along with similar statements made by other Arabic nations in the past) it’s almost like Israel is justified in considering itself still to be in a state of war?
Rightly or wrongly, this puts something of a different perspective on things. It’s certainly a more nuanced view than just painting Israel as the eternal aggressor who, seemingly, can do no right, with the beautiful peace-loving Palestinians just bearing the brunt of wholly unwarranted atrocities committed by Israel.
Any even moderately honest attempt to uncover the historical facts will lead one to the conclusion that neither side has been entirely “innocent” in all their actions and dealings.
But how come we end up with such puerile nonsense as “from the river to the sea” being chanted by crowds in the West? Amongst them are people who fully condone what Hamas did on Oct 7th, but most will be simply against further loss of innocent life. They get caught up in the madness of it all, though, and end up chanting what are essentially genocidal slogans like the rest of the crowd.
There seems to be almost zero expenditure of effort in getting to grips with the historical context and realities in any honest way. It’s like the rise of the robots, or a zombie apocalypse.
The death count in Syria and Yemen might be up to a million by now, but for some reason it’s only Israel and Palestine that seems to ignite ferocious passions amongst the protest robots. It’s only Israel from whom we demand a ceasefire and against whom we protest in large numbers. I couldn’t possibly speculate on the reason for that.
The rights and wrongs of the whole Israel/Palestine thing aside - and we’re not going to see any kind of consensus emerging any time soon - what concerns me is that we’re just being swayed by wholly emotive arguments. It seems to be more common these days - and it certainly seems to be a feature of the whole Pomo/Social Justice movement - but that might just be the familiar gripe of the old git talking.
Is it really getting worse? Is there anybody in there?
Perhaps, like abortion, it should be safe, legal, and rare?
Later records show that the defence force butchered everyone in the village; they were driven mad by endless crappy renditions of Kum-By-Yah
In some Islamic traditions music is actually haram - and so we must assume these were more moderate Muslims
Actually, thinking about it, is there anything worse than some gormless twat trying to sing Kum-By-Yah?
MAGA is not fringe. It’s 50 percent plus of the US voters.
I was telling my family and friends about 25 years ago that allowing mass migration into the UK of Muslims would lead to civil war, and I still believe this. Now most of Europe is in the same boat. The recent 300,000 people protest in London against Israel ( against Jews) is just the start. Imagine what will happen if it really kicks off and the RAF are involved in a greater conflict in the Middle East, with bombing missions in various Muslim countries. Imagine if 50,000 “Protesters “ decided to march on an RAF base to protest the bombing of Iran!! Would the Military/ Government leaders allow the angry mob to storm the gates and fences of an RAF base? You can all think this scenario through without me needing to expand. At what point does it escalate to the burning of our churches? To streets blazing with burning cars and shops ? If the Isreal situation escalates ( which I believe it will) then get ready for streets and churches on fire in a town near you.