A Meme For All Seasons

When the missionary was killed trying to bring Christianity to the remote people of North Sentinel Island, he gave his life for what he believed in. Similarly, the islanders took his life for what they believe in. Whether you see him as martyr or invasive specie depends on you, on what you believe in. Same for Qasem Soliemani.

The insidious capacity of Republicans in congress and the White House to designate some group as “terrorist” is no different than the Spanish Inquisition. A blank check to justify killing your enemies. For the really simple-minded it’s what Fox News calls “the good guys” and “the bad guys.” Religions connote this as - us versus them. We the true believers, everyone else, the heretics, ie, killable scum.

Reagan, the Bushies, and now Trump have used this “feeble-mindedness” of the masses to justify their objectives. The same way Joe McCarthy used the red scare, “a breathing commie, is one commie too many.” The same way westward expansion declared - the only good Indian, is a dead Indian. Even the stupid may not truly believe these things, but we can use them to feel better about what we know (in our hearts) are crimes against humanity. Like the holocaust, same difference, only the names are changed to forget the innocent.

We’re told of 240 US marines killed in Beirut in 1983. So Hezbollah are terrorists. We’re not told of between 450-800 Shia civilians killed a year earlier in the Sabra/Chantila massacre following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Nor of the US role in that invasion. Why? Is it easier just to designate someone or some group “terrorist” than it is to know the truth. Are we comforted in labelling “the other” as killable scum, just so we feel better about it. Rest assured, the other has labels for us too. 

In WWII US General Curtis LeMay waged a scorched earth policy of firebombing all the Japanese cities he could. His advisor, Robert McNamara asked if this was good policy. LeMay responded “well, if we don’t win, they'll hang us as war criminals.” Following the Inquisition, Spanish invaders and Catholic missionaries exterminated the Aztec and Mayan civilizations, in the name of God. In 2018 the Sentinelese killed John Chau for the survival of their people. Same difference.

My dad used to say - Louis XVI wore high-heeled boots to make himself taller, but the people cut off his head to make him shorter.