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I think the country should practice what I preach. I’m quick to say that Israel should act like a mature, functioning state when their armed forces go a bit far. I don’t see how I could argue Britain shouldn’t.
The forces of the state shot dead over a dozen of its own citizens and wounded over a dozen more. Modern democratic states claim their ultimate legitimacy through the will of the people. In order that they hold that sort of authority it is essential that they behave and hold themselves to higher standards, at the very least towards their own citizens, than a bunch of homicidal gangster terrorists. I believe to do anything else breeds notions of injustice, infuses resentment and ultimately feeds a struggle that becomes worth killing and dying for. That means any failings of this sort of magnitude by the state must be fully and rigorously investigated. It also means that the lessons arising from that investigation be studied extremely carefully in order that it never be allowed to happen again.
It is curious that it seems so easy to combine an abhorrence of vulpicide with a relish to get started with the homicide. I always think so, anyway.
In the end, these type of issues can’t be worth murdering for, since that implies a kind of eqivalency of fox and human existence. When I consider that, given a hypothetical choice, I would happily see foxes extinct as a world-wide species rather than lose any of my children, while I would have a serious moral quandry over swapping my loss with two or three strangers’ children, the idea that fox lives are in some way equal to human lives becomes a nonsense.
I always knew you were pure evil. Machine gunning foxes is an awful idea. Think of the mess, man, think of the mess. Also, splattered fox clashes horribly with the powder blue of a boy’s room. You can’t win, though. Half-eaten baby’s face doesn’t go with the pink of a girl’s room. It’s a dilemma.
I must admit I’ve reconsidered the whole urban hunt thing as well. The pitbulls and staffies would just keep veering off and eating slow moving pensioners. They’re the wrong breed all together.
I’m now convinced mockery is the way forward. I’ve taken to standing in my back garden loudly pointing out in colourful language just how poor Basil Brush’s efforts have been since the eighties. I have to say, I haven’t had any of my children eaten since I started. In fact, I recommend the technique to everyone I talk to. You can’t argue with that sort of data.
Once we’ve decided we need to kill some, why not have a laugh doing it? I vote letting the chavs pursue them on their BMX bikes with their pitbulls. They could all dress in Glory Red England tops and get pissed on vodka and RedBull before they start for extra entertainment. It’d be like a community thing.
:lol: I’m off to bed.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood… Awww shucks. It ain’t ever gonna happen, folks. We is wastin’ our time when we could be eating chicken and being good niggers. It ain’t so bad. Ain’t nobody starvin’ and it ain’t like those white folk have ever backed down before…
Listen, lads, Will Scarlet and I will get into Nottingham Castle by pretending to be nuns. Little John, you and Friar Tuck get ready to swing down from the battlements amd rescue Maid Marian as soon as I give the signal … oh why bother? Let’s face it, there’s loads of them and I saw them sharpening their swords earlier on today. One of them was massive. If we all go back to our villages and keep our heads down it’s more than likely the sherrif will forget all about us. We’ll be able to pay the extra taxes if we cut back a bit on venison and mead…
We will we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, oh who am I kidding? Look, I think it’s only fair to warn everyone that the German paratroopers will have guns when they invade and we should all probably just give up and try not to rock the boat too much. It’ll be alright as long as no one gets lippy…
What a ridiculous thought. You’ve basically just said that all oppression ever should have just been put up with.
Mark Steel: Of course, they were asking for it
It’s time the Israeli government’s PR team made the most of its talents, and became available for hire. Then whenever a nutcase marched into a shopping mall in somewhere like Wisconsin and gunned down a selection of passers-by, they could be on hand to tell the world’s press “The gunman regrets the loss of life but did all he could to avoid violence.” Then various governments would issue statements saying “All we know is a man went berserk with an AK 47, and next to him there’s a pile of corpses, so until we know the facts we can’t pass judgement on what took place.”
To strengthen their case the Israelis have released a photo of the weapons they found on board, (which amount to some knives and tools and wooden sticks) that the naive might think you’d expect to find on any ship, but the more astute will recognise as exactly what you’d carry if you were planning to defeat the Israeli army. It’s an armoury smaller than you’d find in the average toolshed in a garden in Cirencester, which goes to show the Israelis had better destroy Cirencester quickly as an essential act of self-defence.
It’s a shame they weren’t more imaginative, as they could have said “We also discovered a deadly barometer, a ship’s compass, which could not only be frisbeed at someone’s head but even had markings to help the assailant know which direction he was throwing it, and a set of binoculars that could easily be converted into a ray-gun.”
That would be as logical as the statement from the Israeli PM’s spokesman – “We made every possible effort to avoid this incident.” Because the one tiny thing they forgot to do to avoid this incident was not send in armed militia from helicopters in the middle of the night and shoot people. I must be a natural at this sort of technique because I often go all day without climbing off a helicopter and shooting people, and I’m not even making every possible effort. Politicians and commentators worldwide repeat a version of this line. They’re aware a nation has sent its militia to confront people carrying provisions for the desperate, in the process shooting several of them dead, and yet they angrily blame the dead ones. One typical headline yesterday read “Activists got what they wanted – confrontation.” It’s an attitude so deranged it deserves to be registered as a psychosis, something like “Reverse Slaughter Victim Confusion Syndrome”.
Israel and its supporters claim that Viva Palestina, made up of people who collect the donated food, cement and items for providing basic amenities such as toilets, and transport them to Gaza, wanted the violence all along. Because presumably they must have been thinking “Hezbollah couldn’t beat them, but that’s because unlike us they didn’t have a ballcock and several boxes of plum tomatoes”.
One article told us the flotilla was full of “Thugs spoiling for a confrontation”, and then accused them of being “Less about aid and more about PR. Indeed, on board was Swedish novelist Henning Mankell.” So were they thugs or about PR? Did they have a thugs’ section and a PR quarter, or did they all muck in, the novelist diverting the soldiers with his characterisation while the thugs attacked them with a lethal spirit level?
But some defenders of Israel are so blind to what happens in front of them there’s nothing at all they wouldn’t jump to defend. Israel could blow up a cats home and within five minutes they’d be yelling “How do we know the cats weren’t smuggling semtex in their fur for Hamas?”
If this incident had been carried about by Iran, or anyone we were trying to portray as an enemy, so much condemnation would have been spewed out it would have created a vast cloud of outrage that airlines would be unable to fly through.
But as it’s Israel, most governments offer a few diplomatic words that blame no one, but accept the deaths are “regrettable”. They might as well have picked any random word from the dictionary, so the news would tell us “William Hague described the deaths as ‘hexagonal'”, and a statement from the US senate said “It’s all very confusing. In future let’s hope they make every effort to avoid a similar incident.”
The Independent Wednesday, 2 June 2010
:lol:
