Israel’s Suicidal Rupture with the U.S. — Chris Hedges

~ ABN ~ 1 Comment

Israel is turning on its last important ally in an act of suicidal hubris.

Israel is sabotaging the negotiations with Iran and alienating its last important ally by refusing to halt its attacks on Lebanon and withdraw from its occupation of the south. It is determined to reignite a regional conflagration that could see Iran perpetually close the Strait of Hormuz and plunge the global economy into a global depression. And it continues its genocide in Gaza.

Israel is contaminated by racism and genocidal violence. It is blinded by a repugnant moral superiority. It is corrupted by a class of Zionist billionaires in the U.S. who use their wealth to bend foreign policy to serve Israeli interests. It is equipped with a nuclear arsenal Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to use.

It is a menace to the region. It is a menace to itself. And it is a menace to us.

…Israel’s vision of a “Greater Israel,” designed to ensure Israel’s military dominance throughout the Middle East, depends on harnessing the wealth and military power of the U.S.

Over two-thirds of the major arms and munitions Israel imports — without which it could not carry out its genocide of the Palestinians, turn southern Lebanon into a moonscape and bomb Iran, Syria and Qatar — are manufactured and provided by the U.S. And because the Israel lobby, for decades, has owned Congress, because its Zionists allies police and control the media, because it is able to siphon tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to sustain its military adventurism, Israel is blind to its own limitations. It is willing to inflict harm on its allies, including the U.S., in service to itself.

…Israelis, intoxicated by the fantasy of being the chosen people, do not have friends. They do not have allies. They have those they use and those they slaughter.

The game is up. The Israeli domination of the U.S. political system is coming to an end. Israel’s inability to read U.S. and global opinion — or its own population, where over 90 percent believe Israel lost its war against Iran — along with its stubborn belief that its old levers of power can still work, illustrate a leadership that has rendered itself deaf, dumb and blind. It can and will do a lot of damage. It can and will inflict more death and suffering. But it is cannibalizing itself.

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Hedges refers to ‘the obtuse administration of Donald Trump’ and blames much of what is happening on Trump and his admin. He could be right. Many will agree. I see another possibility, which is Trump has given Israel what they wanted and also enough rope to hang themselves. If policy is judged by its outcome, so far Trump’s policy has allowed Israel to show ‘It is a menace to the region. It is a menace to itself. And it is a menace to us.’ I am a pragmatic conservative who understands we are living in an oligarchy and have been for at least 100 years and probably since forever. Weighing Hedges views against that, leaves me in an agnostic state, a position I am very comfortable with because almost everything, including politics, is so full of unknowns, I see no other tenable position. This is also a main reason, I see zero reason to get excited or inflamed over almost anything else. That said, the world is a fascinating place and I remain fully interested in all of it. ABN

Muslims are left drenched in blood as they cut themselves with knives to mark Islamic festival

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Muslims were pictured drenched in blood as they slashed, whipped and cut themselves with sharp blades to mark an Islamic festival. 

The holiday, known as the holy Day of Ashura, is celebrated by Shi’ite Muslims, and mourns the death of Imam Hussein on the battlefield in the seventh century.

The gory ceremony, which sees males of all ages cut themselves across the scalp or whip themselves with blades attached to chains, is meant to commemorate Imam Hussein’s violent end. 

In Iraq, pilgrims converged on the holy city of Karbala, which was the site of the battle and is home to a shrine to Hussein, and were pictured wearing white clothes stained by bright red patches of blood from their wounds.

In Baghdad, thousands marched through the streets, including some who slashed their heads with razors and performed other forms of self-flagellation in a show of grief to mark the occasion.

Muslims also gathered in Iran, Lebanon and other parts of the world for the annual commemoration. 

Shi’ite men bleed from self-inflicted wounds after cutting their heads with swords during a procession to mark festival of Ashoura, on the tenth day of Muharram, in Basra, Iraq, June 26 

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‘Immortality is Awesome, Actually’ — Against the Philosophy of Finitude — J.D. Jayne

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How an Open Future Changes the Case Against Immortality.

The Opening Claim

The traditional case against immortality often assumes that life is meaningful largely due to its finitude. The fact that life will end. That our choices matter because time is scarce. I argue the opposite. If the universe and future remain open1 then immortality grants access to infinite novelty, growth, and participation in the ongoing creation of reality. The value of life is not derived from its ending, but from the possibility of more participation ahead.

While researching some of the previous philosophical questions here, I kept returning to the topic of immortality. I’m not talking about life extension itself, but how often I saw that the defense of mortality was being treated as self-evident. We encounter the assumption that finitude is a boon, and that death gives life meaning. I set out to examine that assumption, because I think it is less obvious than it may seem.

…So I propose the following;

P1: A life is meaningful insofar as it contains novel opportunities for genuine participation in reality.

P2: Genuine participation requires the possibility of novelty, discovery, growth, or creation.

P3: An open universe continually generates those possibilities.

P4: If reality remains indefinitely open, those possibilities remain indefinitely available.

P5: Immortality preserves access to those possibilities.

C: Therefore, if reality remains indefinitely open, then immortality is compatible with an indefinitely meaningful life.


In short, immortality need not lead to boredom. Rather than death being the “horizon that gives life meaning,” immortality may give us access to the inexhaustible horizon of becoming.

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Supreme Court rules in favor of two key immigration restriction policies

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The Supreme Court on Thursday handed Donald Trump two rare wins in a huge victory for his hardline immigration agenda. 

The Court cleared the way for Trump to revoke temporary protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian nationals living in the United States – siding with the President on one of the most closely watched and consequential immigration cases this term.

And the Justices also decided to give Trump more authority to limit asylum seekers in the US coming from Mexico.

In Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, the high court ruled 6-3 to grant Trump administration’s request to revive a controversial ‘metering’ policy that allows federal immigration officers to turn away asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border. 

Justices ruled along ideological lines that migrants seeking refuge do not ‘arrive’ in the country by ‘attempting, and failing, to step foot’ in the United States – clearing the way for the administration to restart its so-called ‘turn back’ policy. 

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Deliberate targeting of children by the Israeli security forces in the Gaza Strip

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“Based on the clustering of injuries and the targeted body parts, I assess that the Israeli soldiers have been deliberately shooting teenage boys in a game of target practice – a different body part being targeted on different days… There is a very clear pattern that suggest this is a deliberate aiming of different body parts [of children].”

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~Page 13 of — The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel

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