What causes a tipping point? At what point did Israel go too far in its wildly brutal bombing campaign against the civilian population of Gaza? Somewhere during the past month, but it’s hard to see why then.
Goldilocks Meets Civilian Death Toll
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
9 Comments. Leave new
At some point, the increasing cognitive dissonance between what we are told we are seeing and what we actually see causes people to snap–in a good way–out of the trance that corporate media work to induce.
I’d like to be on the same trip as you are, Bro. 🙂
What you’re taking might also make us all believe we can as well revert the climate drift .
Thanks…I have no idea how/whether this is going to work out. That keeps it interesting. All I know is to do everything I can, appreciate the efforts of others, and keep a somewhat open mind about what I think is going on.
How is it going to “work” out? If you’re talking about the climate drift itself, most of it is already written on the wall for the next decades: More and more violent climatic phenomena.
What may be interesting, like in “May you live in interesting times”, are the very probable additional surprises we can’t even fathom as of now. But they wouldn’t really be surprises if we could, isn’t it?
Still open to debate are the consequences the inescapable true economic decline, -already effective but inexorably accelerating- resulting from the lack of available energies, will have on our growth-addicted societies.
But time for arguing is very short, and history tells us that wars have always been the moronic politicians’ ultimate answer. As a side note, 48% of the world’s population is already more or less involved in some sort of war.
A call to all true patriots: Make
babiescannon fodder, we’ll need more and more idiots!The only people who believe in infinite growth in a finite world are madmen and economists. Kenneth E. Boulding (1910-1993)
I can’t help but wonder if a comment of mine to one of your previous cartoons helped inspire this.
As it happens, I’ve always questioned the legitimacy of the Israeli state, and viewed increased settlements in the region as what they are (theft). Perhaps others, like me, are becoming more vocal simply because the inertia of indifference is finally giving way, and regional actors who — let’s face it — are going to be the main force applying pressure on the Zionists finally seem inclined to do so.
I urge people to openly disagree with the politicians that they support. I credit the relentless criticism of Biden on this issue, by his otherwise supporters, for both swaying any undecided parts of Biden’s thinking but also for giving him political cover to do the right thing where he was already persuaded but didn’t think he could act on it. I don’t want to debate about which part was bigger in this case, but I am glad that folks openly disagreed with their favored candidate. Keep up the good work!
“Giving Joe Biden political cover to do the right thing”?!? The dude (or rather, the people who use him as a ventriloquist’s dummy) has been steadfastly handing Israel murder weapons and bullets for the ones they already have. Biden is, I hear, the #1 recipient of AIPAC bribes, I mean campaign contributions. He can weep all the crocodile tears he can muster, but until he stops feeding the Israeli monster, it’s just hypocrisy. Or did I miss something? Just what “right thing” do you think Genocide Joe did?
The “right thing” that “Genocide Joe” did is what Ted wrote about: when the fatalities made it into the tens of thousands, Biden became less supportive of Netanyahu’s war. That’s mighty damn little and we need better. Thank you for keeping at it, @brother martin.
Cutting Russia off from the world economy didn’t help and I fear that the US cutting off weapons to Netanyahu won’t help. It will be great signaling (and it is what I would do) … but will it actually save any lives? What we need Biden to be doing is championing and implementing a two-state (or similar) solution, despite the ongoing killings. I don’t see that Netanyahu (or Sinwar for that matter) will lose his local supporters for war until they see that there is an alternative solution that is actually working.
The only “right thing” that “Genocide Joe” did is what Ted wrote about: when the fatalities made it into the tens of thousands, Biden became verbally less supportive of Netanyahu’s war. That’s mighty damn little and we need better. Thank you for keeping at it, @brother martin.