February 22, 2025
Trying not to be bamboozled by the rarely lofty and often lunatic statements made by our new administration is a full-time job. One tactic is to consider one issue at a time.
Our on-going multi-billion-dollar military support of the genocidal treatment of the people of Gaza is one of the most disturbing policies of both the Trump and the Biden administrations. While we are distracted today by the truly criminal treatment of our own people via layoffs, firings and withholding of funds, the attempt to obliterate the Palestinians as a people continues…..in our name.
The sick suggestion that we, the USA, should take over the Gaza Strip, move everyone out of the area into a “beautiful, sunny spot somewhere” and create a “Mediterranean Riviera” is a disgusting joke seemingly enjoyed by the likes of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, stockholders and owners of military contractor companies are raking in dividends and profits, just as our tax dollars are paying the interest on the debt that our nation has taken on to afford it all.
This is no joke! Don’t be bamboozled.
Dale S. Scott
Box 857
Harbor Springs, MI 49740
Retired Auto Mechanic (RAM) and Retail Grocer
231-357-7339
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Stones in the Israeli’s Shoes
April 2024
Recently, I have taken the time to educate myself a bit more about the “situation” in Israel and the lands we know as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. My country, the USA, has pretty much turned a blind eye toward the thousands killed and the 2 to 4 million people still alive in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
What’s the deal here? As a nation, we have massacred thousands of Native Americans on our soil, and enslaved millions of people as if they were domesticated animals, but how does this newest debacle work? We send billions of dollars and tons of weapons to the Israeli government, it uses these gifts to first entrap, humiliate and disenfranchise millions of Palestinian people, and then, in this instance alone, murder 34,000 plus in the Gaza Strip!! Is this any different than our earlier transgressions as a nation? Is it any different than pulling the trigger ourselves?
An article in the March/April edition of “Foreign Affairs” magazine laid out a short history of the politics within the Israeli government. According to the author, Aluf Benn, Israel’s current prime minister Netanyahu has been deeply involved and influential in Israel for decades….actually as far back as the 1990’s. Netanyahu’s consistent stance has been that the Palestinian people and their concerns are just an irritant that Israel has to deal with, like a stone in one’s shoe. He and his cronies have espoused policies that support this attitude for 30 years and still, every US president and their administrations during these decades have lavished Israel with treasure and weapons, without fail, Democrats and Republicans, Senators and Representatives.
Again, what is the deal? I do understand that many, many US citizens hold stock in weapons producing corporations and that they do make a bunch of profit from the building and disbursing of weapons around the planet. However, it just seems incredible that these same stockholders, most likely some acquaintances of mine, are comfortable with these particular “earnings”, gains clearly and shamelessly made from murdering tens of thousands of defenseless people. In my way of thinking, there is a direct line of culpability running from the funding of, production of, and profit from a weapon and it’s use to murder a civilian in whatever the war theatre, by whomever. Our tax dollars are paying for these investment gains as well as for the destruction and death wrought by their use. I do not own stock in these corporations.
Standing here on the shore of the Ionian Sea, I am struck by the thousands and thousands of years of wave action that it takes to turn a square stone into a round stone. Will it take as long for our US social and economic structure to change from profit motivated displacement, imprisonment, and slaughter of fellow humans, to an understanding that we all live here together and need to support one another?
The real kicker is that I have been voting in US elections since 1968, including in 14 presidential elections. The winner of all 14 of these elections swore his allegiance to sending billions of dollars and ton after ton of jet planes, weapons and ammo to the government of Israel…..every single one of them. And here I go again in 2024. Whether I vote for the Green Party candidate, a communist, a libertarian, the Democrat or the Republican, the winner will continue to send weapons of mass destruction to the Middle East.
It is that simple!
Dale S. Scott
231-357-7339
April 2024