Demonstrations in Springtime

I’m glad that college students across America are protesting on their campuses. It shows that for some of them, their consciences have not gone completely to sleep.

They see Palestinians in Gaza being obliterated, more than thirty-four thousand of them dead, thousands of children killed, many more with lost arms and legs, their houses turned into rubble, their schools crushed, hospitals bombed, childhoods devastated, their hope for a sane and peaceful future wrecked, their parents either dead or emotionally shattered. No hope for a decent life. They stare at their devastation with sad eyes.

When you repeatedly kill defenseless adults by the tens of thousands, that’s a war crime. When you bomb children to death, that’s a crime so deep and so terrible that it defies categorization. There is no forgiveness for such crimes.

Britain and the U.S. committed a war crime during World War Two when they obliterated Dresden. The U.S. committed a second war crime when it unnecessarily nuclear-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Israel continues to commit war crimes every day, when it continues to obliterate Gaza.

But winners never pay a price. They control the levers of power and define the scales of justice. They always declare themselves innocent. Only losers are found guilty.

The incarceration and torture and murder of six million Jews was a crime against everything: against humanity, justice, history, culture, and nature. It was as if morality itself had been assassinated.

But that does not entitle Israel, decades later, to pulverize another people into dust.

We watch the slaughter in Gaza and our souls grow sick.

And then spring comes. American college students emerge from their dormitories and gather in the quad and proclaim outrage.

Police round up the usual suspects and TV reveals pushing and shoving and signs and banners. Letters to the editors abound. Politicians duck and cover. And nothing changes.

The Vietnam war did not end because of demonstrations. It ended because North Vietnam won. The Iraq war did not end because of demonstrations. It ended because the U.S. grew weary. The Gaza war will not end because of demonstrations. It will end when Israel obliterates the last café.

But still, it is good that people mingle and shout and declare outrage, if only to overcome the silence of indifference. The helplessness of such demonstrations helps to focus the mind, if only for a week or two.

Right now, Palestinians need food to eat and water to drink and shelter to protect themselves from the sun and the rain. They need toilets for defecating and beds to sleep in and shovels for burying their dead. And, oh, yes, they need the bombs and missiles to stop falling on their fragile lives.

That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

On the other hand, the U.S. has just agreed to give Israel another $14 billion to strengthen the Israeli military. Uncle Joe Biden to the rescue.

That’s what passes for a peace initiative in America.

The Palestinians will just have to wait their turn or until Hell freezes over, whichever comes first.

In fact, who will help them rebuild anything — their homes, schools, streets? Will Israel even allow them to re-settle in Gaza and the West Bank?

I haven’t heard any such discussions on my side of town.

Meanwhile, college graduations will begin next month. After that, it will be summer and the college demonstrators will scatter. Some will take classes. Others will start careers. The rest will go swimming.

The Palestinians, meanwhile, will continue to die. Their children will continue to be sad. And the rest of the world will continue to do nothing.

Except for Israel.

The East Wind

When the wind is chilly and blowing between 12 and 20 knots and coming out of the east and I’m sitting or trying to sit under or at least near the black cherry tree at Lighthouse Point, I have no place to hide.

But when the wind is out of the south or the west or the north or the northwest , I can move around the brambles and so block the wind. But there are no brambles to the east. So no matter where I move my chair, I can’t find protection against the east wind.

It’s not a serious problem in July and August. The temperature is warm enough during those months to take the edge off the wind. But during the rest of the year, the east wind has a special nasty imposition to it that determines whether I stay at the sea or go.

Today, in mid-April, I left.

And so it goes.

The Pornography of Bad News

It’s been true for decades. But it hasn’t made any difference. I keep doing it, but nothing changes. Nothing takes notice. Nothing says that things will change for the better. And things don’t change for the better.

And yet, I keep doing it.

Everyday, starting early before breakfast, and then after my two-mile walk, and then through breakfast, and then after breakfast: I read and then listen to the world news.

I get out of bed and turn on National Public Radio. Then I sit down and read half of two newspapers: the New Haven Register and the New York Times, which I have delivered early in the morning by a man named Erick.

I then go on my two-mile walk and feed two groups of birds and then return home and eat breakfast. During breakfast, I read the second half of the two newspapers, and then listen to the hour-long BBC news hour on the radio broadcast from New York Public Radio.

In the evening, I often listen to the political commentary on MSNBC and watch more TV news on the BBC.

So I have a pretty good idea of what mayhem is taking place in the world. I read and hear stories and interviews about people being killed or starved to death, children dying from bombs and malnutrition, governments terrorizing their own people or people next door, so-called friends of my government acting like savages, whole populations under the tyrannical thumbs of their governments, people arrested for trying to escape the ravages of their own countries and looking for sanctuary in countries that turn their backs on them.

I read and watch millions of people supporting a thug for president who promises to be a “dictator” if and when he takes over. I read about other world leaders killing their opponents. I read about America that has more guns than people and whose guns are used to kill children in school.

And I think: What the fuck am I doing?

Nothing I read or hear or see gives me the power to change a goddamn thing of importance. Everything terrible I learn about the world stays terrible year after year and has remained terrible during my 86 years of life. And it is not about to change for the better just because I subscribe to the print edition of the New York Times or listen to the clear rationality of the BBC.

The human race is the most toxic element on Earth. And today’s global menu is providing a dog’s breakfast of hate and pain to make matters truly venomous.

If I could give one Palestinian child a peanut butter sandwich, that would do more good than my reading all the op-ed essays in the Times or listening to all the expert analysis on Meet the Press.

When all the good that people do or wish for can be annihilated in an instant by a drone in Ukraine or a bombed out hospital in Gaza, no amount of analysis or lamentation can make the agony less gut-wrenching or despairing.

Perhaps my daily dose of awful news is a moral price I should pay for not having to live the agony of others. Maybe the tears in my eyes when I read about the death and suffering of Palestinian children are the necessary whiplashes I inflict upon myself as a secular penitent in my private Way of the Cross.

If so, it is a cheap kind of pain that barely extends beyond the teacup.