Being an anarchist at heart, my gut says no nation has a 'right to exist'. All nations are simply the local warlords in charge, creating laws out of nothingness, compelling everyone within certain invisible boundaries to obey said laws, or face punishment or death. Nobody inside the borders has a choice, except perhaps the wealthiest people, who own the government.
If there's a nation the above doesn't describe, brief me please, as I'm unaware of it.
Arguing for anarchy is a fool's folly, though, so let's instead discuss how things are and ought to be, within our shared worldwide framework of nations and borders and laws.
I'm an American. Within this nation's borders, the poor are hugely disenfranchised and left to fend for themselves, and beyond our borders the USA has attacked 68 nations and counting, give or take, all around the world. So the United States of America fails on both counts, ① and ②. We'd need at least a century of good behavior on probation, before I'd grant that the USA has any right to exist.
For most other nations, I can't speak for criterion ① without doing research, something I'm not about to do. Sorry bub, but I don't study global and international politics, and only know what I grok from the headlines.
Certainly, though, under criterion ② Russia, Pinko China, and probably other nations would be disqualified from any 'right to exist'.
Israel fails the 'right to exist' flamboyantly, on both counts. Israeli-Arabs are treated as second-class internally, and Israel's next-door neighbors are frequently treated to military attacks. At least with America, so far as I know, we're not bombing anybody this week.
Israel was attacked by terrorists on 10/7/2023, and it was a hell of an attack. What's Israel supposed to do in response? Hell if I know, but certainly — the opposite of everything they've done.
"Israel must defend itself" is not a valid reason for bombing and invading and destroying Gaza. A terrorist act, no matter how awful, doesn't justify perpetual terrorism in response, and it ain't kosher to respond by killing anyone who looks like the terrorists.
That's what George W Bush did after 9/11/2001, and he ought to be in prison in the Hague for it, with Benny Netanyahu as his cellmate.
I'll add before closing, if you imagine any of the above as an endorsement of Hamas, you're an idiot. It's also not an endorsement of Pearl Harbor to say that Japanese-Americans shouldn't have been rounded up and stored behind barbed wire. Guilt by ethnicity is horseshit.
11/17/2023
Incoming hate mail in 5, 4, 3...
ReplyDeleteTextbook definition antisemitism, with long excuses built around it doesn't mask what you are. You should be ashamed bu t lack the empathy maybe lack the intellect to know what you say.
ReplyDeleteFuck
You.
You're a hockey puck
DeleteNot sure I've ever heard anyone but Rickles use 'hockey puck' as an insult.
DeleteIt's an homage!
My all time favorite comedian. Never see his likes again.
DeleteHis bit at Reagan's inauguration is fucking relentlessly funny, if a bit racist, haha:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0eye_lfUss
But fuck Reagan, of course. Don Rickles should have been president instead.
Funny stuff but way too short, just like Emmanuel Lewis.
DeleteThanks for your analysis but you wouldn’t know shit if you stepped in it.
ReplyDeleteWhat if he shaved the asshole that produced the shit?
Deletestupid and insane?
DeleteNot a regular long-time reader of Doug's work, eh? If this sort of post upsets you, his zine would have horrified you. Your loss, brother.
Deletestupid and insane
Delete"Failed to publish comment. Please try again later."
ReplyDelete22 times. Gotta love the Googs.
And all I wanted to say was — thanks, Mr Z.
I used to have more sympathy for Israel. It runs dry when they respond with war crimes after every attack, and you said it very well.
ReplyDeleteIt's surprising how fucking stupid Israel is. They have this policy of through-the-roof overresponse to attacks, reliably war crimes every time. 75 years of this shit, but it doesn't stop the attacks so they keep doing it worse.
ReplyDeleteAll it does, really really well, is it sells Israel as a nation of bloodthirsty monsters.
Now, is Israel really a nation of bloodthirsty monsters? Call a spade a spade, man. Israel does all it can do to make sure nobody in the region could ever see them as good neighbors.
Just spitballing here but what if, what if Israel had a 75-year-long policy of being good neighbors. What if, what if Israel mourned its dead and used its famous intelligence force to seek out the perpitrators and terrorists instead of raining holy hell on generic Arabs? What if, what if Israel provided some support for the people in Gaza, one of the world's biggest slums, instead of killing them and making their hell slum even worse?
Israel would've been hated by the region's Arabs even if they'd gone door to door with fresh-baked cookies in 1948.
DeleteHatred can subside over time, though, and they'd doubtless be hated less these days if Israel tried not killing Arabs for a while.