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" Speaking of the happy new year, I wonder if any year ever had less chance of being happy. It’s as though the whole race were indulging in a kind of species introversion — as though we looked inward on our neuroses. And the thing we see isn’t very pretty… So we go into this happy new year, knowing that our species has learned nothing, can, as a race, learn nothing — that the experience of ten thousand years has made no impression on the instincts of the million years that preceded." — John Steibeck, 01 January 1941 Necessary contradictions of the human nature
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Jeff Halper "lays out the case for Israel’s centrality to the system of transnational economic hegemony by following up his initial question with a section entitled, “The Global Pacification Industry,” which explores capitalism’s accumulative process, alongside the changing nature of global conflict. As state to state engagement involving tanks and conventional armed forces has receded, Halper argues it has been replaced by the increasingly important role of what he terms “securocratic wars,” located in the “global battlespace,” which aim at nothing less than the pacification of the world-wide population to which his title refers." War Against the People See also My interview with Jeff Halper (2008)
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The US and Israel's settlements A settler-colonial state is advising another settler-colonial state: It is not about what you are doing; it is about how you are doing it.
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" In the land of Law and Justice [political party], anti-intellectualism is king. Polish scientists are aghast at proposed curriculum changes in a new education bill that would downplay evolution theory and climate change and add hours for “patriotic” history lessons. In a Facebook chat, a top equal rights official mused that Polish hotels should not be forced to provide service to black or gay customers. After the official stepped down for unrelated reasons, his successor rej ected an international convention to combat violence against women because it appeared to argue against traditional gender roles. ... "Yet nothing has shocked liberals more than this: After a year in power, Law and Justice is still by far the most popular political party in Poland. It rides atop opinion polls at roughly 36 percent — more than double the popularity of the ousted Civic Platform party."
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