Mason on Monday…on Monday.
Random stuff, writing because I’ve made a commitment to do so, and because I have a deadline for another paid piece, which I’ll obviously now avoid doing in favour of writing something for this blog that nobody reads.
So far, so normal.
Anyway, here is the news.
The expression, ‘Politics makes strange bedfellows’ comes from a 19th century political cartoon that concerned itself with mistrust and the fear of the British Empire being misled and ultimately missing out on the spoils of colonialism. It actually means that people who otherwise have little in common, could, if the rewards seem worthy, form alliances from the most unlikely places.
This saying is adapted from a line in the play The Tempest, by William Shakespeare: “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” It is spoken by a man who has been shipwrecked and finds himself seeking shelter beside a sleeping monster.
Groucho Marx offered the opinion that,
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Both of these statements seem particularly prescient during a week where it would seem that a lot of people, understandably have very strong opinions on the abhorrent events in Israel and Palestine. The disregard for human life, the attempts to impose religious AND political fundamentalism upon people, the unfolding humanitarian crisis as countless innocent people are literally given their marching orders from one pile of rubble and despair to what will in all likelihood, will soon be another.
In a world already so polarised by so much, this past week has seen unrelenting demands to take sides in this bloodlust, which like every other abandonment of humanity over the centuries, will have no winner. There are no victors in war, ever. I have friends on both ‘sides’ of this argument, and it would seem they need to know what my thoughts are! I have a constant stream of social media posts full of political and religious ‘whataboutery’, the flags and emblems of opposing belief systems and the touting of ‘my FACTS are more factual than your FACTS, and on and on it goes.
I have spent time in Israel, I have friends there, my ancestry is Jewish, Simon David, my first two names, my sister is Ruth Helen. I have spent a lot of time in Islamic countries and have friends who have family in Gaza and Lebanon. None of which leaves me any the wiser as to what needs to happen to stop this current disaster from continuing until who knows what? The dust never really settles in situations where religious fanaticism drives people to murder each other as we have witnessed and continue to witness from the comfort of our safe European homes.
I have no ‘belief’ in any kind of god whatsoever I’ve, never seen the slightest evidence to suggest there is some all-seeing, all-caring omnipotent ‘eye in the sky’ who loves us all, never seen it because there is none. Make no mistake, there is ‘god’ very much at the centre of all this, the various claims for this disputed land all stem from religious belief. The Old-Testament has probably caused more death than the nonsense in Mein Kampf. Lies damn lies, and for what it’s worth, if jesus was so bloody enlightened, why was he such a fanboy of all that rubbish?
Deprive people of the basics to survive and they behave like animals, the illusion that humans are civilised is laid to waste like the communities being obliterated by the armies of vengeance, sadly shown to often be a ridiculous notion when we are forced to witness this sort of barbarity unfolding in front of us. I see the faces of the young men and women in the IDF, as Benjamin Netanyahu presses the flesh with them, encouraging them to be brave as they seek out retribution upon those who have slaughtered their fellow Jews. They are so young and now many of them will never grow old. When many Nazis were questioned after WW2 as to how they justified the slaughter of innocents, particularly Jewish children in the camps, many of the SS soldiers stated they had been told that unless these children were also murdered, they would grow-up to seek revenge and the ‘situation’ would never be resolved. The diabolic actions of Hamas has now created a situation where the IDF will now attempt to kill as many armed Palestinian fighters as possible, there has already been in excess of 2000 deaths on top of the 1400 Israelis killed just over a week ago.
And now, as ‘we’ wait for the invasion of Gaza to commence, the IDF primed and ready to go, the Hamas fighters dug-in and ready to die for their own twisted ideology, the ‘accountants’ of war, watch their wealth increase as the slaughter continues. Just as in Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and let’s not forget Northern Ireland (More than 3,500 people were killed in the conflict, of whom 52% were civilians, 32% were members of the British security forces, and 16% were members of paramilitary groups.)
People, led to believe that an imaginary ‘god’ has dictated certain rules, commanded from on high that Thou shalt not kill, unless it’s someone from the opposing side.
Imagine no religion?
If only
.
Religion ,The opiate of the masses, Karl Marx .