OOH …Here’s One Thing
Bang On the Drum
by Jim Johnsen,
Managing Director, Johnsen, Fretty & Company
“When I get older, they think I’m a fool
The teacher told me I should stay after school
She caught me pounding on the desk with my hands
But my licks were so hot, I made the teacher wanna dance
And that’s why”. Todd Rundgren
For those poor unfortunate souls who read my drivel from time to time, you can attest to the fact that I am rarely serious and I am NEVER political. But on this morning of a day that will live forever in infamy, I feel compelled to say something. Please feel free to hit the delete button before reading on as I will most likely offend you.
First off, a moment of silence for the poor innocent Israelis who were brutally murdered last October 7th, or after, as well as those still held in captivity. [please pause here]
Hell has no bottom for the terrorists that carried out those attacks. In my humble opinion, nothing that came before could justify those actions. In light of those actions, who wouldn’t root for the Israeli objective to eradicate every terrorist from the face of the earth. I mean, if someone were coming for you in the dark, and told you with no uncertainty they would not stop until they found you and killed you, wouldn’t you want them eliminated?
Now the other side of the coin. What if I told you that each time your friend eliminated that terrorist coming for you, it created five more killers, laser focused on wiping you off the face of the earth. Surely if I just keep killing them they will at some point run out of human resources right? Do we (or more importantly the Israelis) believe that they can exhaust the entire Middle East community to the point that terrorism is vanquished? Really? What of the collateral damage to innocent lives? Surely they will just turn the other cheek at some point, right?
I read an article the other day that at first I thought downright stupid, but then I started to think about it and it really began to resonate. (Again I know this will clearly offend those that sit on the “RIGHT” side of this conflict (and by right, I mean the right or the left political side) but here are some key quotes anyway:
- Humans have a legendary capacity to invent conflict.
- When a group of monkeys have a go at each other, we don’t investigate motives, do we? I don’t know why we get all worked up about motives and reasons when cousins of monkeys have a go at each other.
- Cousins of monkeys don’t fight over right or wrong; they just have to fight and make up profound reasons after the fact.
- And fights are not won based on who is right or wrong; they are won based on who has a better ability to kill. Period…So chill and …keep up the holy fight. (You won’t stop anyway until the end of the Earth or until one side is wiped out.)
- The poor, malnourished, uneducated, stone-pelting Palestinians are no match to the suave, educated, moneyed, politically well-connected Israelis — backed to the hilt by the most powerful country in the world.
- If you are still outraged, read this …if an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If someone maintains that two and two are five or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction.
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. — Bertrand Russell
Feel free to read the entire article here→ Israel-Palestine conflict will end soon — but for a shocking reason https://medium.com/@phystro/israel-palestine-conflict-will-end-soon-but-for-a-shocking-reason-7e74e7b1d0d1
Apologies for wading in… wading out. Now, with a prayer for all the victims of October 7th, and perhaps for the U.S. not going to war.
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