Someone asked if The Redneck Mystic Lawyer would like to be Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s running mate, and then she told him to stay sexy

    My friend “Bob" does the tech work for The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast and publishes my fiction and stranger than fiction books at the free internet library, archive.org.

    Recent email correspondence with two Americans about The Redneck Mystic Lawyer for President campaign:

Milo to: southernlawyerwhobecameamystic@gmail.com

How is Sloan wrapping up his campaign? Is it just forgotten or discarded ?

Bob to Milo: 

Dear Milo:

Thanks for writing. There are a number of new posts now at Sloan's campaign blog. Fear not, Sloan isn't wrapping that up.

Deandra to southernlawyerwhobecameamystic@gmail.com

Hi Sloan ! Hi Bob !

If RFK Jr runs on a third party ticket, would Sloan be interested in being his Vice President ? What do you think they'd call their third party ?

I'm no gold digger but Sloan, even for a 32 year old woman like me, he looks pretty cute.

Stay sexy Sloan !

Bob to Deandra

Dear Deandra thank you for writing. 

Sloan finds your idea very intriguing except neither he nor myself know how to get in touch with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. If you know a way please let us know ! Thanks for your great question(subliminal suggestion  ) !

 As for what I would call their party,  I would name it the RFK Jr/SYB Jr  Rush to Restore Sanity Party ! 

Uh no comment on Sloan's Attractiveness. That kinda talk got Trump in a LOT of trouble. LOL

Sloan to Milo last night:

Hi, Milo-

Bob receives emails related to our podcast and reads them to me, and, when I ask, he forwards them to me. We receive very few emails.

During a new podcast last night, Bob read the longer thing you posted somewhere, which platform I had not heard of before.

I appreciate your inquiry, and we actually went into that in a podcast last night, which we hope to have in the Torrent system soon, and then up on YouTube, if it clears YT's moderation. It's title is, "Thank you Donald Trump for making America dangerous for disagreeing with you".

During the past few weeks, Bob had three intense medical situations, which kept us off the air. I explained that during last night’s recording of the podcast.

And that for some stupid reason, perhaps, I started posting new material at the Tiny Kingdom Black Sheep blogspot, instead of at The Redneck Mystic Lawyer for President blogspot. Two days ago, I reposted those posts at the campaign blogspot. 

As we did the podcast last night, Bob received an email asking if I might be interested in being Robert Kennedy's vice-president running mate? I wondered if Kennedy would be interested in having me as his running mate? This morning, Kennedy was interviewed on CNN re whether he and the Libertarian Party will strike a deal for him to be their candidate.

I did not think the timing was a coincidence, but how to get from here to there, or to wherever, it's beyond my crystal ball :-)

The other email was from a woman in America, who has quite a wit about her. I have not responded yet to her, and maybe I need to sleep on it to help me not make a mess of it :-).

I am thinking of including the text of your and my and her and my correspondence in a post at the campaign blog. If I do, I will only use first names. 

If you have more thoughts, or suggestions, I'd like to hear them.

Thanks,

Sloan

Sloan to Deandra this morning:

Hi, Deandra -

Bob receives all of our podcast's emails and forwards them to me. We get very few emails.

Your email came in while Bob and I were doing a new podcast episode, and after we were done, Bob saw your email and told me about it. We named that podcast episode, "Thank you Donald Trump for making America dangerous to anyone who disagrees with you." It should be in the Torrent universe shortly, and maybe on YouTube, depending on its moderator.

Your email cracked me and Bob up, and his email back to you cracked me up.

I twice saw on CNN yesterday, Robert Kennedy being interviewed and asked if he would seek the Libertarian Party's nomination, and the Libertarian Party's leadership saying they like some of Kennedy's positions, and they are keeping friendly with him. 

This morning in my Apple newsfeed was a FOX News article about Trump's campaign team actively trying to get Robert Kennedy to be Trump's 2024 V.P. running mate, because Kennedy represents a lot of votes. I hope Kenndey don't want to join the oldest profession :-)

Now I take all of that and your email to us as not in any way a coincidence, but I lack a Tarot deck or crystal ball or psychic friend who can read the future. But to answer your question, yes, I would be flattered for Kennedy to ask me to be his V.P. running mate, yet I wonder if he would care for my positions on America's issues? And, I wonder if he would appreciate me expressing my views in the public arena, if they differ from his views? For there ain't much hope that I would do for Kennedy what Trump wants all his lemmings to do - blind loyalty, whatever you say, Sir.

So, if you know or can figure out a way to get me an audience with Robert Kennedy, or get selected episodes of The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast and select posts at the campaign blog to him, please do that. If not, perhaps the angels conspiring behind the scenes will come up with something?

As for the personal parts of your email, I have given that much thought. 

If you lived near me, I would invite you over for a home-cooked meal, or we could dine at a nearby popular restaurant, and then head back to my apartment, where you are welcome to try to raise my prostate cancer radiated yang from the dead. I provide a generic Viagra prescribed by my urologist, but never used for lack of opportunity, and you provide digitalis, in the event you succeed in raising the dead and I go into cardiac arrest :-)

I may include your and Bob's and my emails in a post at The Redneck Mystic Lawyer for President blogspot, using only first names, and an email the day before yours, from an American man inquiring if I was winding up the campaign? Hell, no!

That was no coincidence, either.

I feel tag-teamed, and contrite for appearing to have flaked out. 

God don't have much use for pussies. Not the kind Trump bragged about grabbing, which I imagine the E. Jean Carrol jury heard all about!

:-)

Sloan

    When I told my mother in 1960 that that I thought John Fitzgerald Kennedy would make a good president, she looked like she had been stung by a wasp and said we could not let the Catholics take over America! Later, she told me that what I had told her had really upset my father. 

    After being elected, President Kennedy came to Nashville, Tennessee and spoke to the school in Vanderbilt's football stadium, and asked we students what we could do for our country and the world? 

    President Kennedy appointed his younger brother Robert to be his Attorney General, and by and by Robert saw two different meanings in communications from the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy gambled on Robert being right, and they responded to the communication in a way to make it known they understood, and nuclear holocaust was averted, and the Soviet Union took its nuclear intercontinental missiles back to the Soviet Union.

    President Kennedy then got cold feet about America getting into a land war in Vietnam.

    I recall hearing on the radio one morning at Vanderbilt that President Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas, and when I attended a cost accounting course class later that day, I told my professor what I had heardand he looked shocked and said he guessed he needed to call his stockbroker.

    Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, from Texas, became President, and by and by he promised on national television, I saw it, that he would never send American boys to die in a war in Asia, and then he broke that promise.

    Robert Kennedy had become a US Senator, and during his own campaign to be the Democrat Party nominee for president, he said he would not support a war in Vietnam, and then he was shot and killed.

    Dr. Martin Luther King came out against President Johnson's white man’s land war in Vietnam, and Dr. King was shot and killed.

    Malcom X came out against President Johnson's white man’s land war in Vietnam, and Malcom X was shot and killed.

    Muhammed Ali refused to be inducted and fight against brown people who never caused him no trouble, nor called him no nigger, and he got put in prison.

    The Catholics never took over America.

    Yet today America has a devout Catholic president who enabled Israel to commit genocide in Gaza, and, as a result, has America on the verge of being in a very large shooting war against Islam in the Middle East. 

    What would do if I were president? 

    I would stop sending Israel arms and munitions and money, and I would bring the US Military home to peacefully as possible defend America's southern border with Mexico. 

    I would stop all products and labor coming into America from Mexico, and I would stop Americans from going to Mexico, and I would stop private money transfers from people in America to people Mexico- until Mexico stops the invasion through and from it into America.

    I also would put my soldiers in American schools to defend children and teachers and school staff from domestic National Rifle Association/US Supreme Court-enabled domestic terrorists.

    I wonder how Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, might feel about any or all of what’s in this blog post? 

    I wonder if Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, who quit the Democratic Party last year and became an Independent presidential candidate, feels the ghosts of his father and uncle calling him to do more for America and the world than they did?

    Based on what I read in Wikipedia, Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., who in his early manhood, got busted for heroin and fell from grace, came back and did many things to help America, humanity, and Mother Nature. 

    That cannot be said of President Biden’s addict son, Hunter. 

    Based on what I read in Wikipedia, RFK, Jr. is nothing like Joe Biden and Donald Trump. 

    RFK, Jr. may be a genuine decent alternative for the American people to choose as their next president.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr. 

    Having weird me as his running mate, or rooting for him at Bob’s and my podcast, might be the worst possible rat poison for RRK, Jr. 

    But then, what do I know? I’m just an ornery 81-year-old white man, who was born with a silver spoon and a gold spoon in his mouth, which he barfed away and went off and did stuff his parents and grandparents and he never could have imagined.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

The World Court tossed South Africa some animal crackers and chopped the Gaza baby in half

    I dunno if there is any connection, but on the day a federal jury in New York City awarded E. Jean Carrol $83,000,000 in damages against Donald Trump, for defaming her and, I think, causing her to receive a whole lot of death treats from his lemmings, The World Court tossed South Africa a few animal crackers and cut the Gaza baby in half.

    The World Court Opinion is the topic of today’s post, which begins with a missive from retired international war correspondent profiteer Chris Hedges (link provided), who had predicted the World Court Would come down hard on South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel.

It May be Genocide, But it Won’t Be Stopped CHRIS HEDGES The ruling by the International Court of Justice was a legal  victory for South Africa and the Palestinians, but it will not  halt the slaughter.  https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/it-may-be-genocide-but-it-wont-be?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Sloan Bashinsky

Here is the first part of The Wall Street Journal report on The World Court’s decision. When I practiced law and a court basically left each side where the court found them, which seems to be the case with The World Court, we called such a case a “dog fall”.

Wall Street Journal

Updated January 26, 2024, 3:07 pm EST
World Court Rejects Demand for Gaza Cease-Fire

International Court of Justice orders Israel to take measures to prevent destruction of Palestinian community, avoid incitement and facilitate humanitarian aid

The International Court of Justice declined a plea to order Israel to cease military operations in Gaza following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks but required the Jewish state to enable humanitarian aid to the enclave’s civilian population and take every measure to prevent destruction of its Palestinian community.
Friday’s decision, adopted by an overwhelming majority of the United Nations court, was a nuanced response to a blood-soaked conflict that began with Hamas’s massacre of more than 1,200 people in Israel, triggering an Israeli military campaign that Gaza officials say has claimed more than 25,000 lives.
“The court is acutely aware of the extent of the human tragedy that is unfolding in the region and is deeply concerned about the continuing loss of life and human suffering,” the ICJ’s American president, Joan Donoghue, said in announcing the ruling from the Peace Palace in The Hague.
The ICJ order came a month after South Africa initiated proceedings accusing Israel of violating the 1949 Genocide Convention, and two weeks after hearings where South Africa, backed by the Palestinian Authority, presented its case, portraying the Gaza operation as a continuing assault on Palestinians that began with Israel’s establishment in 1948.
Israel, in rebuttal, said that its military complies with international legal obligations and that noncombatant casualties had been exacerbated by Hamas’s practice of locating fighters and supplies in civilian areas.
To side with South Africa, the court had to find that its allegations, if true, could be in violation of the treaty; a final determination of those questions could take years of litigation.
In Friday’s provisional orders, adopted In a series of near-unanimous votes, the world court required Israel to punish incitement to genocide in the Gaza Strip, preserve evidence of potential violations of the treaty and report back to The Hague on its compliance. It also called for the immediate and unconditional release of hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack and held by it and other militant groups.
But the court stopped short of the fundamental objective South Africa and its allies sought: ordering an immediate end to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Both sides claimed vindication.
“Our war is against Hamas terrorists, not against Palestinian civilians,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said shortly after the decision. “We will continue to facilitate humanitarian assistance, and to do our utmost to keep civilians out of harm’s way, even as Hamas uses civilians as human shields.”

South Africa’s Foreign Ministry called the decision “a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people.” The ICJ, it said, “has determined that Israel’s actions in Gaza are plausibly genocidal and has indicated provisional measures on that basis.”

JennyStokes

There is more to come.
This to me is a beginning.
IF the US and Europe continue to send weapons to Israel I perceive :
1. That the IJC will become defunct. Owned and headed by a US Judge.
2.There is still the Criminal court in the Hague.Probably headed by a US Judge> I do not know.
I still am an optimist although my brain tells me I am stupid.
MY last sentence is to all those who vote for Biden (the warmonger)
IF you people can go to bed at night knowing that YOUR President is aiding and abetting Israel good luck to you and sleep well.

Karma is coming for the USA 

Sloan Bashinsky

I mostly agree with you, Jenny. Although a lawyer, I have no international law experience, and while I imagined The World Court was sort of like, say, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the sense that the justices all get to put in their two cents worth before a decision is handed down (published), I wasn’t sure, so so I went to Wikipeida and found:

*******************

The International Court of Justice (ICJ; French: Cour internationale de justice, CIJ), also called the World Court,[1] is the only international court that adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on international legal issues. It is one of the six organs of the United Nations (UN),[2] and is located in The Hague, Netherlands.
The ICJ is the successor of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which was established in 1920 by the League of Nations. After the Second World War, the League and the PCIJ were replaced by the United Nations and ICJ, respectively. The Statute of the ICJ, which sets forth its purpose and structure, draws heavily from that of its predecessor, whose decisions remain valid. All member states of the UN are party to the ICJ Statute and may initiate contentious legal cases; however, advisory proceedings may only be submitted by certain UN organs and agencies.
The ICJ consists of a panel of 15 judges elected by the UN General Assembly and Security Council for nine-year terms. No more than one judge of each nationality may be represented on court at the same time, and judges collectively must reflect the principal civilizations and legal systems of the world. Seated in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, the ICJ is the only principal UN organ not located in New York City.[3] Its official working languages are English and French.

Since the entry of its first case on 22 May 1947, the ICJ has entertained 191 cases through 13 November 2023.[4] Pursuant to Article 59 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, the court’s rulings and opinions are binding on the parties with respect to the particular case ruled on by the court. 

Sloan Bashinsky

Continuing my other comment to what you wrote, Jenny.

From what I have read, The World Court’s Gaza opinion is the view of the entire court panel, as I am not aware yet of any dissents. What leaped out at me, which I think was really important to the entire panel, is that Hamas needs to release its October 7 hostages, which tells me the panel is not giving Hamas the free pass it has consistently gotten from Chris Hedges and everyone I have discussed this with at Chris's place. 

I think the panel should have gone further, by deciding Israel’s IDF was committing genocide in Gaza. I think the panel should have condemned President Biden and America for not stopping to supply Israel with arms and munitions after Biden saw what IDF was doing in Gaza, which was what Hamas hoped Israel would do in Gaza, which, as a lawyer, I bet The World Court justices also figured out. Meaning, Hamas was okay with IDF killing a whole lot of Gazans and destroying where they lived, in an attempt to destroy Hamas. And, I think the justices are acutely aware that Hamas uses the Gaza civilians as human shields for the very purpose of getting a whole lot of Gaza civilians killed by IDF.

If Chris Hedges had taken that approach, I would have been with him all the way. But he didn’t, and I think The World Court’s decision reflects the reality that Hamas is a monster, too, but what can The World Court do about Hamas? Nothing, except what it did in its ruling. 

I applaud your dragging karma into this matter, for I agree with you that President Biden and America have created awful karma by helping Israel do what it has done, and will do, in Gaza. It’s beyond just that, though. During the fracas, Donald Trump said he is Israel’s best friend, and he may or may not be that, but he said it because he wants the vote of every Jew and conservative Christian in America. I think anyone who thinks Trump will go hard on Israel is dreaming. 

A lot of people in America believe God sent Trump to them, and they will be very upset if he is not elected in 2024. They might revolt with violence, if he is not elected in 2024. The January 6, 2020 insurrection was a tea party compared to what Trump has primed his lemmings to do, if he is not elected in 2024. So, please understand that I worry plenty about that happening where my children and their families live,  but I’m an ornery old geezer, and my continued breathing is kinda unimportant compared to my children and their families' safety. 

As for Gaza, I look forward to Hamas’s reply to The World Court telling it to release its October 7 hostages, for if Hamas does that, it will put Israel in a really ugly bind, if it does not cease fire and bring IDF back to Israel.

    I have not practiced law for some time now, but I can read court opinions and understand what the judges are saying, and The World Court handed the South African claimant a few animal crackers, and cut the baby in half between Israel and Hamas, and how it will go from here is anybody’s guess, but it's crystal clear to me that The World Court sees that Oct 7 was Hamas’s bait to get Israel to destroy Gaza, and up to now Hamas got a free pass from people who have not gotten out of the shallow end of the swimming pool yet, or are still in the baby pool above the swimming pool. 

    In that regard, this happened over at Caitlin Johnstone’s cult the day before The World Court issued its opinion:  

   

Karen Williams
I haven't said this aloud yet, but how sick is it to murder your own citizens to prevent their future use as bargaining chips (the likely real reason), or even to prevent their possible death at the hands of Hamas.
What evidence there is (notably from the only released Israeli hostage who was allowed to speak publicly before being whisked off out of sight by the Israeli government) suggests that Hamas was trying to engineer another prisoner exchange like the one that happened in 2011 (Israel released 1,027 people from jail in exchange for the captured soldier Gilad Shalit) and was not brainlessly engaging in an orgy of violence as the Israeli government claimed.

Sloan Bashinsky
How about the orgy of rape used by Hamas’s soldiers on 0ctober 7. And the orgy of Hamas soldiers killing unarmed men, women and children on Oct 7. And the orgy of Hamas taking children hostages back to Gaza on October 7. I swan, if this forum mostly doesn’t seem like another brainwashed cult. Certainly, Israel’s response to Oct 7, where it happened in Israel, and then in Gaza, has been atrocious. But you folks that don’t give Hamas credit for provoking Israel to do precisely what it did in Gaza seems to me as brainwashed as the lemmings who worship Joe Biden and the lemmings who worship Donald Trump.

Karen Williams
It is not in dispute that Israeli troops were being trained to execute the "Hannibal protocol." It is very much in dispute that Hamas raped even one woman or mutilated even one woman or child. Some of the evidence was proven to be fabricated, and the rest is not available for examination.
Did you read any of the material about Oct 7 on The Grayzone, mintpressnews, etc.? It certainly doesn't seem like you did.

Sloan Bashinsky
Well, do you suppose Hamas also knew that Israel’s soldiers were being trained to execute the “Hannibal protocol”, and that is precisely what Hamas hoped would be executed in Gaza after the Oct 7 attack? I swan, why cannot YOU SEE THAT HAMAS WANTED ISRAEL TO OBLtIERATE GAZA? What has happened to you that you cannot see what is in plain view? Please take a few days to ponder that, before you weigh in again like you are a programmed member of a cult.

Karen Williams
Hamas members are in Gaza. Hamas members' families live in Gaza. Hamas members' friends live in Gaza. Or did, before they were killed. You are deranged.

Sloan Bashinsky
Hamas is deranged, or doesn’t care for its member’s families and its friends, and if you don’t see that, then if the shoe fits :-)

    A few days later postscript:  

jim harper
Sure Sloan, your jurisprudence is a little off. Israel was built with terror, founded with terror, maintained with terror, expanded with terror, ruled with increased terror, now Genocidal TERROR in Gaza! The mask is off, if Oct 7 tore it off, it is only because people have been fooled with sophisticated hasbara, along with money and power in Washington and the US Media! I have said it more than once before. Israel has been a fascist government from the outset! When or if a fascist government comes to America, it will be with the help of Zionists and Zionism! Genocide Joe is going to keel over any time now. Waiting in the wings is the Orange Jesus and Niki Haley, backed with AIPAC Zionist and Christian Billionaires and Tea Party Koch Big Donor Money! PNAC Neo Con John Birchers will end it all in a Nuclear Armageddon! What a pathetic choice! P.S The Palestinian's are starving to death, while Israel tortures UNRAW workers to smear the only ones getting food in and murdered doing so, even if true 12 out of a hundred thousand makes it an outrageous excuse! Although 30,000 murdered Palestinian's and 60,000 wounded and maimed gets the short end of the stick! While Israel gets IRON CLAD Guarantees of $billions and $billions of more more more more! War humph, What is it Good For ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN !

Sloan Bashinsky
It’s a horrible mess, Gaza.
The UN fired some of its workers because they participated in the October 7 raid, which led to the genocide.
I say the leaders of Israel, Hamas and President Biden should be hanged together. 
It’s not my jurisprudence, but the World Court’s which I simply explained.
You are right, America will back Israel, regardless of who’s in the White House, which disgusts me.
I dunno, maybe if Caitlin and Chris Hedges, and all of their readers, including you, Jim, start beating up on Hamas for inviting hell-squared into Gaza, Hamas might feel some pressure and maybe something will come from that?
Up to now, it has looked to me that Hedges, Caitlin, and their readers are on Hamas’s payroll. 

jim harper
Palestinian Hell On Earth is Israeli Designed. LONG BEFORE HAMAS. Maybe you should start beating up AIPAC, Bnai Brith, ADL and Genocide Joes Zionist MIC Cabal destroying the world. Hamas is a Guerilla organization, like Ho Chi Mien in Vietnam. They are resisting their tormenters and jailers! The US is the ONLY one who can put a stop to it by cutting off aid and bombs and demand a ceasefire! The Genocide is Israel's choice and fault! Full STOP! Instead of reading the Wall St. Journal etc. propaganda, why not read Haaretz and watch Al Jazeera!

Sloan Bashinsky
The past has come and gone. The October 7 raid provoked a massive criminally insane counterattack from Israel, which Hamas hoped would happen.
I agree, America should cut off money, weapons and munitions to Israel, but that will not stop Israel from raiding the huge stockpile of American war materials and munitions stored in Israel for the U.S. Military's use in that region.
Israel has a large stockpile of nuclear weapons, which it will use if it feels sufficiently threatened by Islamic groups and Iran.
America is very close to being in another war against Islam.
Thank you, Hamas, for your clever October 7 raid and its fallout.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com 

The beatings will continue until ears and morale improve: outlaw poets vs. the zombie apocalypse

                     

    In my email feed this Thurstay morning:

The Future Belongs to the Poet

Poetic Outlaws

By: Henry Miller   

"We live entirely in the past, nourished by dead thoughts, dead creeds, dead sciences. And it is the past which is engulfing us, not the future. The future always has and always will belong to—the poet.”

The Future Belongs to the Poet

The Future Belongs to the Poet Poetic Outlaws By: Henry Miller

Sloan Bashinsky

Although I think all of life is poetry, it’s freaking hard for me to see poetry in a lot of human dramas, say for examples, the war in Palestine, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Democrats, Republicans, MAGAs, KKK, Antifa, Proud Boys, Christendom, Judaism, Islam, Ukraine, American politics, etc. barf, etc. barf, etc. barf. I think it’s not the zombie apocalypse future that belongs to the poets, as there might not be a future, the way humanity is killing the planet, as well as many of its own members and mangling the psyches and souls of the temporary survivors. I think it’s the present, the now, today, that belongs to the poets, for it looks to me that it is the poets, the artists, the writers, the musicians, who answer only to their Muse, who feel, sense and see what is really going on, and if they don’t speak to it, call it out, parade it naked devoid of fig leaves, the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly and the horrible, who will at least have tried to bare the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them God, cross their heart and hope to die and burn in hell forever, if they don’t right now love and praise what is good and beautiful, and assault and ravage and fuck and cut to ribbons that which opposes what is real and important and valuable and necessary and precious? 

Ethan Summers
it's hard to change anything when you speak to so many deaf ears

Sloan Bashinsky
The Muse demands air time, her slaves ignore her and experience her sorrow, displeasure, wrath, even? 

 

Ears receive mention in this poem :-) 

"Eve's Answer”

Vexing Truth
Life is Poetry,
Poetry is Life,
There's no more to say,
but that wouldmake God
a really dull boy,
now wouldn't it, Eve?

So, Eve,What say you?
After all,You have been,
still are,
blamed,for everything that went wrong
with hu - MAN - i - ty.

Well, do you really want to hear
what I gotta say?
Is this one of those
be careful what you ask for pregnancies?
Well, is it?

Probably, but say what you wish -
I s'pect you need to be heard.
Heard?

Funny you mention ears.
Yes, ears.
Such important receptacles.
Yet filled with concrete,
shit, propaganda, beliefs,certainties,
well, let's not leave out
SUPERSTITION and RELIGION,
now should we?

By the way,
where do ya suppose
God came from?
Or, out of?
And, why do ya s'pose
I made Eve
in my own IMAGE?’

'Cause Adam was
so bored and dull -
so ... predictable
He was BORING!!!
the shit outta me!!!
That's why.

Now
Shusssssh -
Don't go round quoting me
on any of that -
I've had quite enough of
the religious right
ta last me

the rest of forever! 

Ethan Summers
Well, if God is pleased or rather entertained then who am I to comment? 

Sloan Bashinsky
I think She was not even slightly pleased, and maybe she might appreciate any help you can lend her? :-) 

 

Ethan Summers
Sadly, I haven't been blessed with the gifts necessary to please the gods. Yet, if that helps in any way, I try to use my ears as well as I can, as I imagine most people in this community do ☺️

Sloan Bashinsky
I think the gods are appeased when people use their gifts and don’t get swallowed up and stifled by joining herds and losing their individuality, common sense, decency and openness to change and appreciation of mystery and adventure.

sloanbahinsky@yahoo.com

Soul X-Rays: Joe Biden, America, Chris Hedges and his church

 

    Finally, somebody appears to have written an exhaustive criticism of Joe Biden based on actual facts and events, as opposed to whatever Donald Trump says about Joe Biden is true.

The Four Horsemen of Gaza’s Apocalypse

https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-four-horsemen-of-gazas-apocalypse

Joe Biden relies on advisors who view the world through the prism of the West’s civilizing mission to the “lesser breeds” of the earth to formulate his policies towards Israel and the Middle East. 

(Reproduced in full at the botttom of this post)

Sloan Bashinsky
Thank you, Chris, I think every Democrat and all school children in America should be required to read what you wrote about Joe Biden, much of which was news to this Independent.

Instead of being in bed with Israel, Biden should be doing all he can to stop the invasion from Mexico. Yet yesterday, the all-wise U.S. Supreme Court ruled Texas had no right to line its southern border with razor wire, after the wall Donald Trump had promised Mexico would pay for, which got Trump elected in 2016, didn’t get paid for by Mexico, and most of it didn’t get built.

If I were president, I would ban American travel to Mexico, money being sent from America to people in Mexico, and Mexican products and services from entering America, until Mexico stops the invasion from it into America.

I would bring the troops home and put them on America’s southern border to repel the invasion as peacefully as possible.

I would put American soldiers, armed to the teeth, in American public lower, middle and high schools, to protect school children from domestic terrorists armed to the teeth with guns protected by the National Rifle Association, gun lovers, and the United States Supreme Court, none of whom ever once considered Amendment 2’s right of the citizens to bear arms is predicated on a well regulated militia to carry those arms.

As for how I would deal with the war in Palestine, which will continue for so long as Israel is there, it’s biblical, I abandon Israel altogether, and give Israel the choice of stop fighting in Palestine, because it ran out of American ammunition, or use its nukes against its Islamic enemies and make Palestine uninhabitable, and there is no holy land for Judaism, Christendom and Islam to squabble over.

To attempt to head off that dystopia, I release all of  UFO files, hoping that so jangles the thinking, hopes and dreams of every person and government and political party and religion on this planet, that they all put aside their personal squabbles and unite against the sum of their greatest fears, which heretofore they had ignored or not even believed they had.

In that way, Israel’s best friend Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, and their lemmings all get chopped off at the groin. 

 

Alan H Torok
This is a remarkably disgusting and ignorant comment!?

Sloan Bashinsky
Disgusting topic, ignorance is in the eye of the beholder.

Daedalus
Kinda sounds like you want an 'Iron Curtain'. How American.  

Sloan Bashinsky

The Iron Curtain didn’t allow people to leave the Soviet Union and go somewhere else, as well as it kept people from going into the Soviet Union. America doesn’t need any more immigrants, from anywhere, but its southern border is a real problem and has been for a good while, and that’s because Mexico has not been inclined to do anything about it. So, let Mexico trade with other countries, and see how much it misses American dollars, and maybe Mexico will decide to stop the flood through and from it to the America southern border. 

On the other side of that “fence,” America has many internal troubles, which it needs to give its full attention, and one way to help America do that is stop immigration, and another way is to stop America's foreign military excursions. And, the way things are going with the political/religious landscape in America, it looks to me that the time is coming when the US Military will be needed inside of America to try to keep it from going into another civil war. It’s so much easier to hold forth about something awful going on across an ocean than is to roll up the sleeves and deal with bad shit going on inside America.  

 

Daedalus

You bring up another point. I certainly agree that stopping foreign military excursions would be a good thing. However, the creation of that military in the first place causes a problem that's been evident for over 2,000 years. The problem of the 'returning military'.
First, you train youngsters to follow orders and hate 'the other' so that they can more easily kill fellow humans. Next you set them loose on 'others' halfway around the world. But, when they return home, you reap the results of your ill-conceived plan. The result (as Greece and Rome found out) is that your 'republic' often becomes a dictatorship, and that leads to the same distinctly authoritarian division between those that take and those that give orders. This submerges any vestige of an egalitarian (democratic) ethic. Such a situation created the American Revolution (among a few others). The 'United States' were States that found common cause against the authoritarian British Crown. That's what made 'America', not hatred of 'the Other'. The hate-filled Pilgrims made cause with the peace-loving Quakers. 

Are you, perhaps, a former military minion?

Sloan Bashinsky

Never served in the military, and was spared by what seemed a miracle at the time from being drafted during the Vietnam war. That any country feels it needs a military, or uses its military against another country, speaks to the devolution of humanity, in my opinion. Yet most countries, including America, have a military, so I say put it to use defending America from the southern invasion, defending children in public schools, and defending America from insurrection. 
In a different sense, I am very much a soldier, and I have fought many battles in many wars, but the weapons were, and remain, words spoken and written. The chain of command I serve is vast beyond human comprehension, and although some religions think or believe they have a grasp on it, it is unfathomable and cannot be comprehended in human ways, but its workings can be seen at times and acknowledged.
I have participated in many public forums or places: churches, government meetings, face to face, and in many online forums. Sometimes I receive a like or attaboy, but mostly slings and arrows. 
If you are not familiar with it, I suggest you read THE SPEAR OF DESTINY, by Trevor Ravenscroft, which is about Hiter and his inner circle, how they became so powerful, and some people with special abilities who opposed them and reported to the Allied Command. 
Humanity is really messed up. Palestine is really messed up. America is really messed up. Just about every place is really messed up, while some places are less messed up. 
I live in Birmingham, Alabama, which once was one of the seats of white supremacy in America, but today Birmingham is a blue city surrounded by seas or red. 
I’m 81 years old and I don’t figure I will be around long enough to see America end up like Great Britain, Rome, Greece and the Persian empires. But I think that is where America is headed and I see no way to avoid it, which leaves for each person living in America to do the next right thing, so to speak. 
A Court far above any human court observes all of those proceedings, and in that Court we all are on trial.

    Although me thinks talk of the Death of Israel might be a tad premature, given its large nuclear arsenal, Israel’s response to Hamas's Irresistible October 7 bait certainly killed Israel's reputation a lot deader than any previous attempt to kill its reputation.

"The Death of Israel" - A talk Given by Chris Hedges at The Islamic Society of Central New Jersey

This is a talk I gave on Jan. 18 to a largely Muslim audience of several hundred people at The Islamic Society of Central New Jersey.

https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-death-of-israel-a-talk-given

Sloan Bashinsky
What’s going on in Gaza is horriific, but I have to wonder, Chris, are you trying to get more paid subscriptions to your Substack newsletter, which might cease to exist, if there were no wars for you to analyze and dissect? I have to wonder if your paid subscription$ increased after you began covering the October 7 attack and its aftermath? If so, do you donate your war profits to the beleaguered people of Gaza?

PITA Contrarian
Well said ...
Ya see, it's just too risky to stand with "we the people" of the U.S. working class ...

Athena1Elucidate the Mechanisms of Act
I've lived in or near the poverty line my entire adult life. People like me are legion. While I can forgive with relative ease, I don't forget. Y'all shoulda expected us. 
:)

Sloan Bashinsky
I’m curious who someone like you voted for president in 2016 and 2020? Or there wasn’t a candidate you wanted to vote for and you didn’t vote?

Athena1Elucidate the Mechanisms of Act
Boring troll is boring. 

Sloan Bashinsky
It’s been a long time since I was accused of being boring:-).  

Athena1Elucidate the Mechanisms of Act
Well, get used to it.  

Sloan Bashinsky
It will take a lot more people than you for me to get used to being called boring. Based on lots of angry replies to comments I have made at Chris’s place, I ain’t boring. Whats’ boring for me is people using fake names and still not answering questions, such as, who’d you vote for in 2016 and 2020? :-)

Carl Retter

Sloan: Your petty and unwarranted criticism of Chris Hedges reveals your illiteracy about his life and work and is a sad attempt to elevate yourself by diminishing someone else. 

In fact, Hedges speeches and writings and prison teaching provide star light in a dark world from his compassion and courage.

Sloan Bashinsky

Agreed, and I think Chris should go to Gaza and ask the people there what they now think about Hamas?

And I think Chris then needs to turn his attention to the bizarre freak shows going on inside his own disintegrating county. 

Athena1

Elucidate the Mechanisms of Act…

Boring trolls are boring.

Sloan Bashinsky

Your definition of troll is someone who disagrees with you and Chris Hedges? Someone who disturbs your perspective, comfort zone, etc.? Looks to me Chris has started his own religion and this forum is its church and a lot of people, including me, pay to attend daily services here.

Athena1

Elucidate the Mechanisms of Act…

Boring troll is still boring. 

Sloan Bashinsky

I’ve been reading Chris about 3 months, watching him over and over give Hamas a free pass all that time. He really ought to know better. I’ve said that many times here, and that the people running Hamas and Israel should all be hanged. And Joe Biden, too, for helping Israel do what Hamas wanted Israel to do in Gaza. 

 

Julio Santos
Sloan and whom did you vote for?

Sloan Bashinsky
Joe Biden, instead of Donald Trump. The first time I voted for a major party candidate, and maybe the last. 

 

The Four Horsemen of Gaza’s Apocalypse

                              Blood Brothers - by Mr. Fish

Joe Biden’s inner circle of strategists for the Middle East — Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk — have little understanding of the Muslim world and a deep animus towards Islamic resistance movements. They see Europe, the United States and Israel as involved in a clash of civilizations between the enlightened West and a barbaric Middle East. They believe that violence can bend Palestinians and other Arabs to their will. They champion the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. and Israeli military as the key to regional stability — an illusion that fuels the flames of regional war and perpetuates the genocide in Gaza.

In short, these four men are grossly incompetent. They join the club of other clueless leaders, such as those who waltzed into the suicidal slaughter of World War One, waded into the quagmire of Vietnam or who orchestrated the series of recent military debacles in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. They are endowed with the presumptive power vested in the Executive Branch to bypass Congress, to provide weapons to Israel and carry out military strikes in Yemen and Iraq. This inner circle of true believers dismiss the more nuanced and informed counsels in the State Department and the intelligence communities, who view the refusal of the Biden administration to pressure Israel to halt the ongoing genocide as ill-advised and dangerous. 

Biden has always been an ardent militarist — he was calling for war with Iraq five years before the U.S. invaded. He built his political career by catering to the distaste of the white middle class for the popular movements, including the anti-war and civil rights movements, that convulsed the country in the 1960s and 1970s. He is a Republican masquerading as a Democrat. He joined Southern segregationists to oppose bringing Black students into Whites-only schools. He opposed federal funding for abortions and supported a constitutional amendment allowing states to restrict abortions. He attacked President George H. W. Bush in 1989 for being too soft in the “war on drugs.” He was one of the architects of the 1994 crime bill and a raft of otherdraconian laws that more than doubled the U.S. prison population, militarized the police and pushed through drug laws that saw people incarcerated for life without parole. He supported the North American Free Trade Agreement, the greatest betrayalof the working class since the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. He has always been a strident defender of Israel, bragging that he did more fundraisers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than any other Senator. 

“As many of you heard me say before, were there no Israel, America would have to invent one.  We’d have to invent one because… you protect our interests like we protect yours,” Biden said in 2015, to an audience that included the Israeli ambassador, at the 67th Annual Israeli Independence Day Celebration in Washington D.C. During the same speech he said, “The truth of the matter is we need you.  The world needs you. Imagine what it would say about humanity and the future of the 21st century if Israel were not sustained, vibrant and free.”

The year before Biden gave a gushing eulogy for Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister and general who was implicated in massacres of Palestinians, Lebanese and others in Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon — as well as Egyptian prisoners of war — going back to the 1950s. He described Sharon as “part of one of the most remarkable founding generations in the history not of this nation, but of any nation.”

While repudiating Donald Trump and his administration, Biden has not reversed Trump’s abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama, or Trump’s sanctions against Iran. He has embraced Trump’s close ties with Saudi Arabia, including the rehabilitation of Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, following the assassination of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2017 in the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul. He has not intervened to curb Israeli attacks on Palestinians and settlement expansion in the West Bank. He did not reverse Trump’s moving of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, although the embassy includes land Israel illegally colonized after invading the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. 

As a seven-term senator of Delaware, Biden received more financial support from pro-Israel donors than any other senator, since 1990. Biden retains this record despite the fact that his senatorial career ended in 2009, when he became Obama’s vice president. Biden explains his commitment to Israel as “personal” and “political.” 

He has parroted back Israeli propaganda — including fabrications about beheaded babies and widespread rape of Israeli women by Hamas fighters — and asked Congress to provide $14 billion in additional aid to Israel since the Oct. 7 attack. He has twice bypassed Congress to supply Israel with thousands of bombs and munitions, including at least 100 2,000-pound bombs, used in the scorched earth campaign in Gaza. 

Israel has killed or seriously wounded close to 90,000 Palestinians in Gaza, almost one in every 20 inhabitants. It has destroyed or damaged over 60 percent of the housing. The “safe areas,” to which some 2 million Gazans were instructed to flee in southern Gaza, have been bombed, with thousands of casualties. Palestinians in Gaza now make up 80 percent of all the people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, according to the U.N. Every person in Gaza is hungry. A quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water. Famine is imminent. The 335,000 children under the age of five are at high risk of malnutrition. Some 50,000 pregnant women lack healthcare and adequate nutrition.

And it could all end if the U.S. chose to intervene.

“All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S.,” retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brick told the Jewish News Syndicate. “The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

Blinken was Biden’s principal foreign policy adviser when Biden was the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. He, along with Biden, lobbied for the invasion of Iraq. When he was Obama’s deputy national security advisor, he advocated the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. He opposed withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria. He worked on the disastrous Biden Plan to partition Iraq along ethnic lines.

“Within the Obama White House, Blinken played an influential role in the imposition of sanctions against Russia over the 2014 invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and subsequently led ultimately unsuccessful calls for the U.S. to arm Ukraine,” according to the Atlantic Council, NATO’s unofficial think tank. 

When Blinken landed in Israel following the attacks by Hamas and other resistance groups on Oct. 7, he announced at a press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “I come before you not only as the United States Secretary of State, but also as a Jew.”

He attempted, on Israel’s behalf, to lobby Arab leaders to accept the 2.3 million Palestinian refugees Israel intends to ethnically cleanse from Gaza, a request that evoked outrage among Arab leaders.

Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, and McGurk, are consummate opportunists, Machiavellian bureaucrats who cater to the reigning centers of power, including the Israel lobby.  

Sullivan was the chief architect of Hillary Clinton’s Asia pivot. He backed the corporate and investor rights Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which was sold as helping the U.S. contain China. Trump ultimately killed the trade agreement in the face of mass opposition from the U.S. public. His focus is thwarting a rising China, including through the expansion of the U.S. military. 

While not focused on the Middle East, Sullivan is a foreign policy hawk who has a knee jerk embrace of force to shape the world to U.S. demands. He embraces military Keynesianism, arguing that massive government spending on the weapons industry benefits the domestic economy.

In a 7,000-word essay for Foreign Affairs magazine published five days before the Oct. 7 attacks, which left some 1,200 Israelis dead, Sullivan exposed his lack of understanding of the dynamics of the Middle East.

“Although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges,” he writes in the original version of the essay, “the region is quieter than it has been for decades,” adding that in the face of “serious” frictions, “we have de-escalated crises in Gaza.”

Sullivan ignores Palestinian aspirations and Washington’s rhetorical backing for a two-state solution in the article, hastily rewritten in the online version after the Oct. 7 attacks. He writes in his original piece:

At a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last year, the president set forth his policy for the Middle East in an address to the leaders of members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan. His approach returns discipline to US policy. It emphasizes deterring aggression, de-escalating conflicts, and integrating the region through joint infrastructure projects and new partnerships, including between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

McGurk, the deputy assistant to President Biden and the coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa at the White House National Security Council, was a chief architect of Bush’s “surge” in Iraq, which accelerated the bloodletting. He worked as a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority and the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad. He then became Trump’s anti-ISIS czar.

He does not speak Arabic — none of the four men does — and came to Iraq with no knowledge of its history, peoples or culture. Nevertheless, he helped draft Iraq’s interim constitution and oversaw the legal transition from the Coalition Provisional Authority to an Interim Iraqi Government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. McGurk was an early backer of Nouri al-Maliki, who was Iraq’s prime minister between 2006 and 2014. Al-Maliki built a Shi’ite-controlled sectarian state that deeply alienated Sunni Arabs and Kurds. In 2005, McGurk transferred to the National Security Council (NSC), where he served as director for Iraq, and later as special assistant to the president and senior director for Iraq and Afghanistan. He served on the NSC staff from 2005 to 2009. In 2015, he was appointed as Obama’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. He was retained by Trump until his resignation in Dec. 2018. 

An article in April 2021 titled “Brett McGurk: A Hero of Our Times,” in New Lines Magazine by former BBC foreign correspondent Paul Wood, paints a scathing portrait of McGurk. Wood writes:

A senior Western diplomat who served in Baghdad told me that McGurk had been an absolute disaster for Iraq. “He is a consummate operator in Washington, but I saw no sign that he was interested in Iraqis or Iraq as a place full of real people. It was simply a bureaucratic and political challenge for him.” One critic who was in Baghdad with McGurk called him Machiavelli reincarnated. “It’s intellect plus ambition plus the utter ruthlessness to rise no matter the cost.”

[....]

A U.S. diplomat who was in the embassy when McGurk arrived found his steady advance astonishing. “Brett only meets people who speak English. … There are like four people in the government who speak English. And somehow he’s now the person who should decide the fate of Iraq? How did this happen?”

Even those who didn’t like McGurk had to admit that he had a formidable intellect — and was a hard worker. He was also a gifted writer, no surprise as he had clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. His rise mirrored that of an Iraqi politician named Nouri al-Maliki, one careerist helping the other. That is McGurk’s tragedy — and Iraq’s.

[....]

McGurk’s critics say his lack of Arabic meant he missed the vicious, sectarian undertones of what al-Maliki was saying in meetings right from the start. Translators censored or failed to keep up. Like many Americans in Iraq, McGurk was deaf to what was happening around him.

Al-Maliki was the consequence of two mistakes by the U.S. How much McGurk had to do with them remains in dispute. The first mistake was the “80 Percent Solution” for ruling Iraq. The Sunni Arabs were mounting a bloody insurgency, but they were just 20% of the population. The theory was that you could run Iraq with the Kurds and the Shiites. The second error was to identify the Shiites with hardline, religious parties backed by Iran. Al-Maliki, a member of the religious Da’wa Party, was the beneficiary of this.

In a piece in HuffPost in May 2022 by Akbar Shahid Ahmed, titled “Biden’s Top Middle East Advisor ‘Torched the House and Showed Up With a Firehose,’” McGurk is described by a colleague, who asked not to be named, as “the most talented bureaucrat they’ve ever seen, with the worst foreign policy judgment they’ve ever seen.”

McGurk, like others in the Biden administration, is bizarrely focused on what comes after Israel’s genocidal campaign, rather than trying to halt it. McGurk proposeddenying humanitarian aid and refusing to implement a pause in the fighting in Gaza until all the Israeli hostages were freed. Biden and his three closest policy advisors have called for the Palestinian Authority —  an Israeli puppet regime that is reviled by most Palestinians — to take control of Gaza once Israel finishes leveling it. They have called on Israel — since Oct. 7 — to take steps towards a two-state solution, a plan rejected in an humiliating public rebuke to the the Biden White House by Netanyahu. 

The Biden White House spends more time talking to the Israelis and Saudis, who are being lobbied to normalize relations with Israel and help rebuild Gaza, than the Palestinians, who are at best, an afterthought. It believes the key to ending Palestinian resistance is found in Riyadh, summed up in a top-secret document peddled by McGurk called the “Jerusalem-Jeddah Pact,” the HuffPost reported. It is unable or unwilling to curb Israel’s bloodlust, which included missile strikes in a residential neighborhood in Damascus, Syria, on Saturday that killed five military advisors from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and a drone attack in South Lebanon on Sunday, which killed two senior members of Hezbollah. These Israeli provocations will not go unanswered, evidenced by the ballistic missiles and rockets launched on Sunday by militants in western Iraq that targeted U.S. personnel stationed at the al-Assad Airbase.

The Alice-in-Wonderland idea that once the slaughter in Gaza ends a diplomatic pact between Israel and Saudi Arabia will be the key to regional stability is stupefying. Israel’s genocide, and Washington’s complicity, is shredding U.S. credibility and influence, especially in the Global South and the Muslim world. It ensures another generation of enraged Palestinians — whose families have been obliterated and whose homes have been destroyed — seeking vengeance.  

The policies embraced by the Biden administration not only blithely ignore the realities in the Arab world, but the realities of an extremist Israeli state that, with Congress bought and paid for by the Israel lobby, couldn't care less what the Biden White House dreams up. Israel has no intention of creating a viable Palestinian state. Its goal is the ethnic cleansing of the 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza and the annexation of Gaza by Israel. And when Israel is done with Gaza, it will turn on the West Bank, where Israeli raids now occur on an almost nightly basis and where thousands have been arrested and detained without charge since Oct. 7. 

Those running the show in the Biden White House are chasing after rainbows. The march of folly led by these four blind mice perpetuates the cataclysmic suffering of the Palestinians, stokes a regional war and presages another tragic and self-defeating chapter in the two decades of U.S. military fiascos in the Middle East.

     Here’s what Donald Trump and his lemmings are chasing after:

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com