Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Monday, October 7, 2024

Grim Anniversary

 A year ago today some of the worst people in the world perpetrated horrors that empower some of the other worst people in the world visit brutality on civilians caught in the middle. This led other terrible people to join in and now they have dragged Lebanon into the maelstrom. 

Among the many tragedies of this new round of violence is that there would seem to be a clear path to peace: Israeli and Palestinian states living independently from one another. Sadly, as clear as that solution is, the worst set of decisions makers - from Hamas to Netanyahu/Likud to Hezbollah to Iran - want to make sure it doesn't happen.

It's similar in some ways to the Republicans who have killed the immigration bill or won't return to appropriate FEMA money in the middle of a disaster, because the politics might work to their benefit.

UPDATE: This post by Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib is poignant and accurate.

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