Gaza and Israel: It’s As Complicated As It Is Brutal And Simple, With No Answers.

I deliberately left my last post ‘on top’ for a long time because it sums up almost all the themes of this blog relating to the Orwellian nature of our tax surveillance states, and the fallacies of both the common good and the social contract held by statists of both Left and Tory hues: that post is a précis of classical liberalism so I hope you might want to read.

 

That said, Gaza. On Twitter this morning someone assumed I might want to join this weekend’s protest march against the Israeli campaign in Gaza. This was my response.

 

Media Resources #NZ4Gaza mass actions inc Pls RT/witness! http://t.co/71re388egF @MPHoneHarawira @NZHRLA @HumAnonymous @MarkHubbard33 ty <3
— Decentralise Occupy (@endarken) July 25, 2014

@endarken Why would you assume I would a) want to be in a march, period b) that particular march?
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) July 25, 2014

@endarken I hate the current Israeli campaign in Gaza, but I understand it. And it's way too complicated for a march. + I take Kundera's 1/2
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) July 25, 2014

@endarken ... approach to protest marchers. Mobs marching with fists raised *are* the evil. Have a good one though.
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) July 25, 2014

To expand: the current Israeli operation in Gaza is brutal - as war always is - and sickening: being the next thing to a pacifist myself, I hate what is happening. On the other hand, every Islamic neighbour of Israel is on record as wanting to, quote, ‘obliterate’ Israel, and there are again anti-Semitic marches in Europe where the neo-Nazi far right are strengthening out of the ruined lives of dependence from Keynesian, big brother state economic chaos, meaning Israel has done the simple, ruthless arithmetic and realised if it loses even the once, there will be a holocaust of WWII scale, not the scale of Gaza. Every Hamas rocket truly threatens the survival of an entire nation of people.  And the important fact here being lost in the fog of emotion in the West, is that Hamas chooses to keep firing its missiles, and chooses to fire them from hospitals and schools, and unlike the Israelis does not ring through fifteen minute warnings, nor set up field hospitals – I’ve seen the pictures – to treat the wounded of both sides.

 

Because Israel cannot afford to lose even once, the mathematics further mean meeting force with overwhelming force. If the position is taken as many on today’s protest march do, that the height of supposed Israeli evil is measured by the difference in body count, well during WWII something over ten times the number of German civilians were killed by the British bombing raids, than the reverse, so does your algebra end you up on the British high command of that time being evil also? Albeit, especially in one of the Israeli sniper incidents I've seen on video, there should certainly be war crimes investigations of some things that are happening in Gaza.

 

Are there solutions? No. It’s religion, stupid, we’re not dealing here with an enlightened, reasoned humanism. In the fundamentalist Islamic vacancies between the ears of Hamas, Israel is dealing with people who have renounced their humanity by renouncing their responsibility to think, indeed, whom decapitate, regularly, those who do.

 

How do you plan to encapsulate all that in a protest march?

 

As for my tweet reference, that was to the inimitable Milas Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being:

 

When she told her French friends about [why she would not attend a street protest against the communists], they were amazed. "You mean you don't want to fight the occupation of your country?" She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison. But she knew she would never be able to make them understand.

 

I reckon those fundamentalist blokes in Hamas – sorry to my women readers, but no equality to be found here – would enjoy a good fist clenching march. To paraphrase this quotation, I would further say that I lied above, there is a solution, being individualism, but the West is moving further away from me being able to make you understand that either. Which is why I say please count me out of your marches and your boycotts of all you don’t like, it’s complicated, and I’ve grown up.

 

(Oh, and just before the conservatives who read this get all excited, no, my position on welcoming multi-culturalism and – mutter, spit, cringe – moderate Islam, hasn’t changed, and I hold to first principles and an open immigration policy. That position is explained on this post. We won’t break down the unenlightened nature of that faith below the fundamentalist level by isolating it. Wars are best won peacefully, where possible, a mind at a time, and I love difference.)

Gender Politics / Rape Culture: The Unbearable Silencing of Willie Jackson and John Tamihere.

When she told her French friends about [why she would not attend a street protest against the communists], they were amazed. "You mean you don't want to fight the occupation of your country?" She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison. But she knew she would never be able to make them understand.

Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

I’ve run the full gamut of gender politics this month, albeit without contradiction. From my blog piece against that brand of radshitzy neo-Marxist feminism suggesting the ludicrous notion that women should not be prosecuted for making false rape complaints, to adding my voice against a rape culture that has been driven painfully, finally, into our consciousness’s by the rapists calling themselves Roast Busters. My position on that is unequivocal:

… sex without consent is rape: it doesn't matter what a woman, or worse, a girl, wears, or if she is intoxicated. In a civilised, free society a woman can expect by right to not fear rape no matter her state. Just as men can expect to be victim of no violence.

But equivocation has beset me with the silencing of Willie Jackson and John Tamihere’s radio show. I don’t listen to Willie and JT’s show; their Left politick is anathema to me. I haven’t listened to their interview with Amy, in which their attitude was apparently supporting rape culture, making me most probably as uninformed in this piece as the Commissioner of Police was when he allowed himself to be interviewed on Campbell Live. But I have this inbuilt freedom loving radar that responds to individualism, and recoils from mob group think.

Nothing surrounding the silencing of these two men breaches Libertarian philosophy in any way. Blogger Giovanni Tiso started a campaign of putting pressure on their show’s advertisers, and those advertisers submitted to it, pulling their paid time. There was no government coercion involved: every action has been voluntary … that’s the correct way to bring about change. Good on Tiso.

My trouble is, as Lindsay Mitchell aptly put it:

But it's still a disturbing example of the repercussions of thinking the 'wrong stuff' out loud.

Yes. That. On the surface, everything is right here. Real strides are being made to turn back the insidious rape culture destroying our society. And yet … and yet, in my mind there ‘lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison.’ But I know I will never be able to make the radshitzy clique understand. Nor even the centre anymore.

On other hand, no matter how much I disagree with a commentator, it gives me a queasy feeling seeing voices silenced by a mob #justsaying
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) November 11, 2013

Mindful that the mob believes, seriously believes, despite the lessons of history, that it owns my income, that I should not drink so much, I should not smoke, nor ensconce a high sugar-content jam. That I am owned, in other words, by them.

Individuals: we’re complicated. But long live the individual. The silencing of Willie and JT doesn't fit right with me. While there must be admonition, there must also be room for grace, learning, changing, and carrying on. What was ever solved by forcing voices into the void?

Update 1:

Below is simply a comment I’ve put up below in answer to a questioning of my approach. I reprint below simply because it explicates in some important ways, my position above. (Not in any way to ‘get at’ commenter Katie who I am delighted is, for now at least, reading my blog).

Albeit short, my piece had the nuance of Kundera's quotation, yet you've read it in a straight line, Katie.

Nowhere in my post do I admit the ultimate result was wrong, necessarily, just that it did not 'sit right with me': and because I understand the evil of the mob baying for blood, over an individualistic sensibility, it still does not fit right with me.

I vested myself mainly in the last two paragraphs, but some random points that are important to me:

A man I have been following for a long time on Twitter, a very technical, reasoned man, who's opinion I have grown a lot of respect for, has said of the interview - which I no longer have a concern to listen to - quote:

" I did listen to Amy's interview and it could easily be mostly (&properly) playing devil’s advocate to elicit all her views."

I suspect I would take that point of view over a mob that starts out bent on change, then converts to bent on retribution (that ugly thing).

Giovanni Tiso has tweeted of at least one advertiser who is angry with what has happened. That advertiser was quite willing to accept Willie and JT's apology and continue on advertising, and became quite infuriated after saying so, and themselves coming into the mob's anger fuelled frame. That was their right to accept the apology.

Back to my own stance, if I had my livelihood taken from me every time I made a mistake I'd be broke: we all would. I, too, would have been happy - if I listened to their show - with a personal apology, and thus changed behaviour. We learn from our mistakes, change, move on. Giovanni's campaign turned from light to dark, when it became a campaign not to show the presenters' they were necessarily wrong, but to seek retribution by taking their livelihoods from them.

That's my opinion, that's what would have sat right with me. But I said quite plainly that what did happen breached none of the libertarian principles I hold. Good on Tiso.

Regarding my last two paragraphs, don't ever confuse morality or the truth of an issue or fact, with having the numbers: when Galileo's lone voice stated the Earth moved around the Sun, the Catholic Church tried him for heresy: the opinion of the numbers didn't change the truth of Galileo though. So with many moral issues. That Kundera quotation is one of the wisest writings in our modern literature, informed as it is by an underlying humanity born of reasoned observation.

I hate a mob in almost every instance. It's a sensibility that is part of me. I hated being forced to play team sports at school, I keep pretty much my own company, I don’t go on street protests even for issues I care for greatly. Because the mob can so easily turn against you. And especially as this particular mob also thinks they own my income and can tell me how to live my life regardless I harm no one. That is unfortunately the fundamental basis on which our democracy is constructed, a tyranny of the majority, in the ugly face of which my single voice saying no, that is immoral, will always be the truth.

Here's an interesting question for you. Despite my vociferous condemnation of rape culture on my Roast Busters post, last year I wrote a post that defended the ability of a comedian, or person in certain circumstances, to make a rape joke (even if I would never do same). Here’s the post, does it make me guilty of the sins of Willie and JT? Am I to be run out of town by the mob also? Does it make me a misogynist? (An offensive accusation I am seeing tossed so flippantly around against anyone who puts themselves against the radshitzy cliques). 

Dog Rescue: Penultimate Post – Not Great News.

An update on what can happen when hard arsed hunting folk meet the brick wall of a libertarian nut-job: appallingly, a Labrador dog may next week be shot, though I hope not.

Importantly, a note about privacy and the people involved in this first, because I have been personally struggling with some aspects of it: I don’t particularly like looking over my neighbour’s fence. I am one of the most private of people, and I would be mortified, then furious, if someone were spying over my fence, and privacy forms a pervasive theme in this blog, given the police state is the absence of same. So this is how I rationalise it: the privacy concerns in this blog chiefly concern privacy from the intrusive state, as the state is the only power that can breach privacy with impunity, indeed, specifically legislates itself the right. To take my property and my freedoms from me, the state first had to do away with my privacy, or more precisely, my right to be left alone, hence, the new surveillance states we live in. Whoops politicking … I believe that if you initiate force that is not self-defence, then you lose your right to be left alone, obviously: that’s why we have the law. I would differ from Objectivists, proper, by then carrying the non-initiation of force (or cruelty) principle over to protecting an animal, and I have no compunction about that at all: I explained why in this earlier post. That said, I have never on this blog named the people involved in this rotten affair regarding the dog, nor, at this stage, do I intend to ‘name and shame’. There’s a great image Kundera evokes in his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being:

When she told her French friends about it, they were amazed. "You mean you don't want to fight the occupation of your country?" She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison. But she knew she would never be able to make them understand.

The quotation doesn’t relate to privacy, not directly at least, but there’s an undertone in that paragraph about ‘being careful’ not to be subsumed unthinkingly in affairs that are emotionally charged – thinking over feeling,again  – and moreover, there’s a bullying menace to indiscriminate naming and shaming: as Kundera says, a ‘more basic, pervasive evil’ that I am wholly uncomfortable with, even here, though I’m not counting it out.

This is complicated. No, no, sorry those who would advocate the instant outing, this IS complicated. I hate the way it’s going, but my hotheadedness probably hasn’t helped: I’ve pushed the dog owners’ concerned into a corner by being so much on their case. Regardless, the final result is now going to be known Friday (read following), and naming and shaming would a) just make things worse at the moment, and b) is not warranted yet.

The origins of my recent dog rescue posts can be read at the bottom of this post: a voluntary dog ownership guide for the clueless. 

From that, and after hoping the issues regarding the dog involved were resolved in earlier remonstrations with the dog’s owners, they quickly slipped back into their old ways, leading to the issue coming to a head again this Sunday, when, with no one at the their house, I had to go over and feed their dog, and put this note on their door.

The below email sent to two interested blog readers, sums up the aftermath, vis a vis yesterday’s ‘negotiations’ – I’ve extended it where necessary: 

Cheers xxxx

I'm not too sure what to do at the moment. This is ornery folk with a dreadful view of animals, but on own terms, human to human, can be fine. Up until we fell out over the welfare of their dog, they've been good neighbours. I'm just done talking to her now, and her/their position is they're going to try and find dog another home this week, (despite our offer to take her) otherwise, quote: 'they'll have it shot. That's the thing about animals, we can shoot them, problem gone'.

The dog is currently not on their premises; it hasn't been since last night. I said to ‘the mother’, do not have the dog shot, we will take it on. But she is adamant, 'it's her problem'. Sadly, I suspect that's my fault, because the message I left them on Sunday said 'the last thing we need is another big dog, but we'll take your dog on' ... that was stupid. She may be 'proudly not giving me a problem'.

It’s not against the law to shoot your dog, so long as done 'humanely', whatever that means. She might just be bluffing to get at me, I've no idea. Part of the problem is she works long shifts, and she's tired, and the dog is just another problem she doesn't need: but still, because we have offered to take the dog on, that's not good enough. She does have an option, but either does seriously see it as 'her problem, she'll fix it', or is so angry with me she thinks she's 'getting at me', because I have been a pain for a while now, given I 'see red' over animal welfare issues. Pauline is making phone calls to various authorities this afternoon and tomorrow morning, including the local SPCA.

Regards Mark

 Will keep you up to date … I'll ring them again within the week, hoping it is partly hot air, currently, and they'll climb down. And in the meantime, I've actually got to get some work done.

Oh, one thing, and it sounds awful, but the dog has had no emotional input: it's never had company of other dogs, or a kind word spoken to it from a human, yet its kept in conditions that would be hard for SPCA to prove outright abuse (it's a high threshold). For example: after I went over on Sunday and gave her some biscuits and a pat, she never barked again, so she obviously was hungry, and I'm wondering if she had anything to eat Friday, which she spent wholly in her kennel, after I went over and put her in her kennel Thursday night when it was raining, and took some biscuits with me – when she’s not in the kennel she’s tied to a tree on a two metre chain, and can’t get out of rain and weather, though there is some shade -  but I can only surmise that, I can't prove anything. And she doesn't appear to be emaciated. So given the no-mans land she appears to be stuck in, and heaven only knows what sort of other home they would find her, in that sense she would be better off dead, frankly, rather than carrying on as the living dead (and they certainly won't be getting another dog while we're here). It’s just that in every contact I've had with her (the dog) recently, she appears to have a lovely nature, against all the odds, so we want a go to see if she can be retrained as an inside, family dog. I'll let matters cool down a day or two and see where we are then.

Humans. They're over-rated.

I doubt if the dog’s owners are reading this blog, I’m sure they would have told me yesterday if that were the case, and I’m not too concerned if they do anymore given for now I’m keeping all names out. Hence this update.

My wife has since talked to SPCA, and I’m afraid, as wiser heads had warned me, they’re not much use. Dog owner’s not liking dogs, is not abuse. And yes, I think the care of this dog is atrocious, and it is, but proving actual abuse is another matter altogether; the owners for the most part have, eventually, given her enough dirty water, and enough of the cheapest form of dry biscuit to keep her alive. Plus it’s not against the law to shoot your dog, so long as you do so humanely – proving you can have all the laws, regulation and state bullying for people to do the right thing you like, that doesn’t make the people who need to be, civilised: that can only be had by changing people’s minds. Worse, the dog, a Labrador, is six coming on seven year old, a bit older than we thought, and re-housing that age dog that has lived as spartan as this one, is probably impossible outside ourselves.

Anyway, back on track, in yesterday’s discussion, I typically thought of what I should have said only afterward, so luckily I’ve still got one chance left. ‘The Mum’ is not threatening to have dog shot until next week – and yeah, oh course they wouldn’t think of a peaceful euthanasia. So I’m ringing a last time on Friday, with my final argument being along the lines of it is now not just the owner’s problem anymore, as she says it is, for by saying as the result of my pestering she plans to shoot the dog, she has made it my problem.  More pertinently, if she has the dog shot when I have said I'll take the dog into our care, then she is shooting a dog only to get at me, and couldn’t care less about its welfare, despite her verbal protestations regarding ‘working long hours’ (which is a copout anyway, but I let that slide while talking). Obviously that would put her on the highest order of evil, but then, as she says, ‘it’s just an animal, we can shoot them, problem solved’. Something still makes me think she’s just bluffing and venting, albeit, if it does come to that, then I guess one hard arsed libertarian nut-job will lose it in a (hopefully) controlled explosion.

I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to update this blog on the result, sorry, until between Christmas and New Year. I need to be doing many more hours working than I am, and we have a house in the Mahau Sound we’re trying to get to Boxing Day for a break. Although, should we manage to get the dog, that in itself will be a huge bunch of problems; not the least of which is the Hubbards’ are a three member family now, two adults and one small Daisy Dog, and we have packing and traveling between Geraldine  and the Sounds , an eight hour day, in our zippy little Ford Focus down to an art form. A Labrador dog will disrupt all that, and I guess I would be in the market for a station wagon next week, pending Friday’s discussions, when we thought our big dog station wagon days were well over. Mind you, a couple of weeks in the Sounds would be a perfect place to start house-training a dog that has never seen the inside of a house before.

Jesus.

Four things only can result from here:

(1) The dog’s owners find another home for her where the people are able to care for her properly – and hopefully they actually like dogs. Personally, reservations about this as I’ll have no way of knowing what the future welfare of the dog will be (especially if another bloody hunter – sorry for the ‘decent’ hunters who read this blog, but I’ve stated my views on hunting, at the beginning of this, and those views are only hardening).

Or (2), we’ll take over care of the pooch. Huge curve from there, re-training, syncing in with Daisy which is a big concern as Daisy is used to 100% of our attention, us, etc. Pauline and I are reticent about the notion of taking her on, this is largely forced on us, and it’s a hell of an upheaval, given after three Great Danes across our marriage, our responsibilities now all cared for, we had deliberately planned for the mobile family we’ve become; however, when dealing with this dog, she’s had a shit life to date, and we’d love to have a go at giving her a doggy heaven for the last part of it, given the chance. (Or at the very least getting her house trained, see what sort of a dog she can be - we have no idea what behavioural issues she now has - in view of finding a good home).

Or (3), the pooch will be shot, at which stage this issue will unfortunately go nuclear.

Though fourthly, the only certainty: Boxing Night, I will be sitting on my balcony, in the Mahau, looking at this:

 … with a bottle of wine, and pleasantly tiddly. 2012 has been a rotten year in many ways, not just this dog; I’m over it.

There may be one more tax post next week, but now I’ve got to work …

Finally, remember my dog guide to the clueless (scroll down for rules): apart from what I will call hunters’ heartlessness, in this case, some type of basic empathy missing in this family’s make-up, remembering this dog is the son’s who has now left home, this family initially broke the following rule:

If you are buying a dog as an accessory for your five year old child, stop, read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and bugger off. The dog doesn’t need you.

This dog very definitely did not need these people.

Dog ownership is no different to thinking about family size: you’ve got to think about it, from conception and then over the entire life of the sprog or dog. It requires time. It requires financial resources. It requires, believe it or not, intellectual wherewithal. And only after that, it most importantly requires you to want a dog or sprog in your family because it betters your life, and you love having them. Having sprogs or dogs is not mandatory, and if you’re not equipped, then don’t do either. Those in society who do not think about these issues just cause chaos for the rest of us who have to clean up after them. Through a coercive tax system, and then nonsense like this, I’m ‘over’ the stupid, slave society voted in by our social(alist) democracy: generation text would say it’s a bit shit, I would say it’s damned evil, and growing worse, daily

Now I’ve mentioned children and family size, if you still have a spare minute, spend it reading Liberty Scott’s succinct philosophic demolition of Office of the Children's Commissioner Report on Child Poverty in New Zealand. Hell, meet the hand-cart …