After a society gets called out for an atrocity, one of the cries we hear from “good” citizens is that the act does not reflect them as a whole. However, these incidents never occur anonymously. They always reflect a long-term trend and internal moral rot. The latest example is Israel, of course, but it is hardly unique to them.
Not Who Our Fake We Is
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is 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 "2024: Revisited."
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Perhaps this would be an appropriate time for a reminder of an aspect of genuine, completely & proudly bipartisan, US foreign policy: The the ANNUAL death toll of economic sanctions imposed by the US and the EU (as obedient US lap dog) on the rest of the world from 1971 to 2021 is on the order of 560,000 persons. Citation: The Lancet Global Health @
https://tinyurl.com/44ax5v9v
Assuming the same annual rate since the 2021 end of the Lancet study (during which the already sanctions-crazed Anglo-West outdid itself, this time in its effort to confiscate Russian resources), the total number killed during 55 years of the US being PRECISELY itself, that is, the empire of joyously-delivered death and destruction: 31 million. (This does not include the death toll by “kinetic” means employed by the US in its not-so-“cold” war nor perhaps the largest single weapon of mass destruction: economic austerity)
On Memorial Day 2026: solemn memories of the deaths caused with the gleeful support from a massive part of the empire’s denizens and, at best, the power-consuming apathy of the rest.
You’ve hit the crux of the problem. Whatever system you go through, there’s all the humble-bragging. It isn’t just government.
It’s business: “We (hearthands TM) care. That’s why we make our employees sign NDAs and lay them off with security in the room to walk them out of the building like deadbeats.”
It’s healthcare (not just the business end of healthcare): “Yes. I’m your doctor. Nope. I won’t give you my personal phone number and I won’t give you a complete exam, just what I’m allowed to in the time allotted for your case. But when one of the CEOs who has made the system this awful gets here, I will give him all the time in the whole wide world.”
It’s the justice system: “Mr. Smith. The cops have cited you for disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, assaulting an officer, and jaywalking. Clearly, they just threw every charge they could. The ADA is willing to dismiss everything but ‘assaulting an officer’ and that carries a mandatory seven-year sentence. If you’re found guilty by a jury that will be instructed to rule only on the fact that you DID jaywalk, as shown in the video recording, you will be found guilty on ALL charges and go away for at least 12 years.”
It’s the education system: “Your degree is very valuable for securing your future. That you can’t find a job with it isn’t our problem.”
Etc. The whole thing is a three-card monte table.
I would argue that the worst of Israel is that it has totally spat on the religion and culture it is ostensibly there to protect, Judaism and Jewish intellectual and artistic culture. It does that in the name of national defense (really under Netanyahu it’s been an attempt to make a weak Middle East with Israel as the most powerful state). It’s like a much stronger Rhodesia under Ian Smith, and the only good thing about it is that it’s internally imploding from decades of social and market stress….as long as we can steal their nuclear weapons away from them to keep them from total self-destruction, we might have a chance for a Nuremberg-style trial of Israel. It deserves one.