3 April — Netanyahu, Syria, Iran, REM, Mad Max, Trump-Biden, and John Sinclair
Sometimes I think, it couldn’t get any worse for the Netanyahu government. Then an airstrike kills a bunch of aid workers in Gaza. Shiny, happy people, as REM once sang. Three of them were Britons. The smiling faces of these now recently deceased Good Samaritans now top the BBC’s website. They acknowledged that they accidentally killed these people, while also launching strikes into Damascus that killed some Iranian generals. Iran has promised to retaliate at a time of its choosing. It’s hard to imagine that they won’t. It’s interesting to me that we still see this Middle Eastern situation as a contained war involving Israel avenging 7 October. But missiles have hit Syria and Lebanon and the war involved Iran too. This is a regional war, and the Israeli government is pretty gung-ho about its prospects, even though most of its Allies have at least morally deserted it, even as they hold their noses while handing them weapons, as Allies do.
People think that Biden could stop the war, but this is another conflict where a client state has gone rogue. It happens. Israel is to America what Syria is to Russia. They’re bastards, but their ours. I’m sure the Israelis could get weapons from someone else too. Being a supplier gives the Americans some measure of control, or the right to lecture the Israelis. Netanyahu though is a political corpse by this point. He bet way too big. There’s no way he actually survives. If anything, he too should have an ICC warrant out for his arrest, and in fact it would make the ICC much more respectable if they did issue one, just as they issued one for Vladimir Putin. That was also his political death warrant. Unless the entire global system collapses and we descend into geopolitical chaos, like something out of Mad Max, and Mel Gibson is riding around in a souped up apocalyptic jeep.
Some people, I think, secretly want that to happen.
Those people are also supporting Mr. Trump. Why did the New York court lower the amount on the bond he needed to post so that he could keep his beloved properties? Oh, there, there. Only $175 million. If this guy was black, forgive me, he would be doing hard time in some maximum security prison, or, quite honestly, would have probably been executed by a rival long ago. But not Trump. He’s got the suit, the impeccable Colgate smile. He is a former president, after all. But one who seems to be in forevermore legal jeopardy. Even the Republic base was sane and logical, they might have chosen a candidate who, say, didn’t spend half of his time in court. That candidate would be out on the trail right now, and probably would be trouncing Old Man Biden. Nikki Haley had some moderate appeal. Some.
But no, loyalty to Trump outweighs all sanity. People choose him over their children or their parents. They prefer their loyalty over anything else.
This is exactly why he needs to lose.
Anyway, I read that John Sinclair died today. He was the founder of the so-called White Panther Party, a leftist ridiculist political movement that emerged in Detroit in the mid-1960s. He’s the one that gives that fiery speech at the start of the MC5’s 1969 album Kick Out the Jams. So both Sinclair and Brother Wayne Kramer of the MC5 died in the same year. 2024. Bummer.
