War Criminals Agree to ‘Ceasefire’
Indeed, we assess that Hamas has created almost as many new militants as it has lost. That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.
The redundant, tepid, and ultimately absurd statement above was uttered (or rather vomited out) by United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken. While that is his official title, I prefer the label affectionately bestowed on him by a protester yesterday — “Bloody Blinken” and “Secretary of Genocide”. As a student of Hebrew and Arabic, I have an affinity for “functional” names and titles. In our Western culture, we thrive on our essentialism because it allows us to hide behind platitudes and euphemisms, giving us the illusion of control. I chose that word “platitude” purposefully, because it is etymologically tied to the Greek word πλατύς platys — broad/ flat and therefore Πλάτων (Plato), the one who gave more importance to immaterial ideals than to the Semitic עולם ‘olam which is the realm of the sky and the land. Ideals are created by man in the brain, and are therefore subject to our control. Does the United States have a department of war? Well, not since 1947! We have the “Department of Defense” now! Yeah. Defense. What exactly were we defending when we spent a decade in Vietnam? Was it the ideal of “freedom” over “Communism”, at a time when melanin determined something as innocuous as what kind of water fountain you were allowed to use? Or when we illegally invaded Iraq, a crime that will continue to have devastating consequences into the foreseeable future? It doesn’t matter how the agency functions, its name speaks to an idealist vision for what any civilized and enlightened nation would feature — an agency for protection, rather than aggression. Something to maintain peace, rather than initiate war. The essentialist sees this as acceptable. It’s like that stupid American saying, “It’s the thought that counts”. Try that one with your spouse. Has anyone ever seen the George Carlin skit on euphemisms?
Two quotes from Carlin really speak to this phenomenon:
“Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins, it’s as simple as that.”
“These poor people have been bullshitted by the system into believing that if you change the name of the condition, somehow you’ll change the condition!”
That’s the name of the game in the world of propaganda, and specifically in the realm of Technique in the Ellulian sense. Human beings are not complicated. Clerics, monarchs, philosophers, psychologists, and politicians have had us figured out for centuries. If you create a comfortable environment for someone, you can bullshit them into believing just about anything — even the idea that Israel was only defending itself against Hamas, invading Gaza merely to neutralize the “terrorists” and rescue the hostages. If you honestly believe that, there’s no hope for you. The “Technological Society” has already assimilated your higher brain functions like the Borg Collective producing a new Borg drone. That’s why everybody, Gen X and older, is so nostalgic for the 1990s more than any other decade. It was a world before 9/11, when the United States could comfortably settle in Neoliberal fantasyland. While Americans were busy enjoying their consumer excesses, Bill Clinton was destroying the social safety net in favor of capital interests, cementing the economic value (for capitalists) of mass-incarceration, repealing the law (Glass-Steagall) that prevented commercial (and federal) banking from being involved with marketable securities, obliterating American blue-collar factory jobs (with NAFTA) in favor of corporate exploitation of “cheap” labor, all in the name of meaningless Platonic values: the free market, personal responsibility, law and order, free trade, and whatever else Neoliberals have concocted to hide their brazen corporate interests. Ronald Reagan, a textbook Neoliberal, has actually convinced people (even two decades after his death) that lowering taxes on the wealthy will “trickle down” to their middle and lower class households. What George H.W. Bush once called “voodoo economics” was championed by his son and the broader Republican Party, facing only tepid pushback from the Democratic Party (the so-called champions of the working class) who have themselves been bought and sold by their own special interests. It’s one big club and you ain’t in it.
While ideals can be controlled and weaponized by man, the real world (Heb. עולם) is out of man’s control. While the Israeli government can plead to their idealistic propaganda of “defending against terrorism”, the reality is that they’ve massacred more than 70,000 civilians, completely leveled the Gaza Strip, and have spread their carnage to Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank. There is no “cease-fire” and there is nothing to celebrate. Joe Biden has ended his presidency as a war criminal, just like his predecessors. That is the reality of the matter. That is why the Bible and the Qur’an are anti-Plato. You are not allowed to call yourself by an ideal, and then act in a way that contradicts it. The Israelites emphatically did not have unalienable rights to Jerusalem or the broader “land of Canaan” and God was not unconditionally theirs.
כִּי־לִ֖י הָאָ֑רֶץ כִּֽי־גֵרִ֧ים וְתֹושָׁבִ֛ים אַתֶּ֖ם עִמָּדִֽי
Because the land is mine, for strangers and sojourners you are with me — Lev. 25:23
וַיֹּ֕אמֶר קְרָ֥א שְׁמֹ֖ו לֹ֣א עַמִּ֑י כִּ֤י אַתֶּם֙ לֹ֣א עַמִּ֔י וְאָנֹכִ֖י לֹֽא־אֶהְיֶ֥ה לָכֶֽם׃
And he said, call his name Not My People because you are not my people and I will not be your God. — Hos. 1:9
What about the second scroll, where Jesus thunders that only those who do the will of God will be accepted into his kingdom?
Οὐ πᾶς ὁ λέγων μοι Κύριε Κύριε, εἰσελεύσεται εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν, ἀλλ’ ὁ ποιῶν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ Πατρός μου τοῦ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς
Not all who say to me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, except the one doing the will of my Father who is in Heaven. — Matt. 7:21
What about the third scroll, where it is emphatic that the religious institution is fundamentally self serving. Salvation isn’t found by following the Jews and the Christians (to be like them), it is found in the guidance of God.
وَلَن تَرْضَىٰ عَنكَ ٱلْيَهُودُ وَلَا ٱلنَّصَـٰرَىٰ حَتَّىٰ تَتَّبِعَ مِلَّتَهُمْ قُلْ إِنَّ هُدَى ٱللَّـهِ هُوَ ٱلْهُدَىٰ وَلَئِنِ ٱتَّبَعْتَ أَهْوَآءَهُم بَعْدَ ٱلَّذِى جَآءَكَ مِنَ ٱلْعِلْمِ مَا لَكَ مِنَ ٱللَّـهِ مِن وَلِىٍّۢ وَلَا نَصِيرٍ
And never will the Jews or the Christians approve of you until you follow their religion. Say, “Indeed, the guidance of God is the guidance.” If you were to follow their desires after what has come to you of knowledge, you would have against God no protector or helper. — Q. 2:120
Do not be fooled by the luscious date palms in the garden! Do not fall for Plato’s γενναῖον ψεῦδος (“noble” lie). Even Satan, Paul says, appears as an angel of light. Test the spirits. What do they do? What is their fruit? When Jesus speaks about fruit, he is speaking about function! God gives no regard to the face of men. Labels, appearances, masks — are all meaningless. I seek refuge in the Abrahamic Scrolls because they, unlike Platonic liberals, are planted in reality, like the house ‘built upon the rock’. The Scroll that speaks is all I need. The label of the church organization, the fancy laurels of the head pastor, the doctrinal statement — all of this is vanity. Don’t you understand? Matthew 25 is clear that the test is tied to function, not essentialism. Do not follow the idealism of Hegel or his descendants. Follow the words of Qohelet, who painfully realized that idealism is vanity and submission to the Torah is the only hope. There’s no “noble lie”, only the stone-cold unadulterated truth. There is no god, but the God projected by the scroll.