The Witness Chronicles, February 24, 2024
Why do I put pretty pictures on these newsletters? Because the stuff I’m writing about is not pretty.
One Week From Today the US Government Will Begin Shutting Down
Next Friday we will see the Trump Republican plan in action
The House of Representatives does not return to DC until Wednesday of next week. The first deadline for shutting down the government is Friday, giving them a scant two days to write and pass bills to keep it open and get those bills to the Senate and the President.
It will not happen.
Why? Because nothing happens in this house of Congress. They have no leadership that knows what leadership is, only a hardcore group of right wing government haters controlled by their unhinged candidate for President, an indicted alleged felon.
Unfortunately this is not an opinion, it is reality. With enormous challenges ahead House Speaker Mike Johnson bored his colleagues this past week with a 90 minute evangelical sermon promoting a state religion. The speech was meant to unify his party but all it did was irritate people who know the reality they face.
The Republican Party is facing an exodus of their most reasonable members. 23 have already announced they will not return after their terms conclude. Those left may rejoice at the Party’s capitulation to Trump and his zealots but many will secretly worry at the chaos they are party to.
That chaos will belong to the Republican Party, Johnson, and Trump, no one else. The solutions are simple but they do not want solutions, convinced that the American voters will somehow blame this on President Biden.
What the majority of Americans want is no longer a factor for these people. Alabama’s declaration that a human embryo is a human, justified by its Supreme Court justice’s statements that Alabama is a religious state, are wildly unpopular.
This extremism is the place where these people are taking us. Not will take us, are taking us. Constitution be damned.
We have seen the chaos building at an accelerated pace this year. A leading Presidential candidate constantly in court and ranting incoherently about the evils he faces, evils entirely of his own doing. A Congress hamstring by a tiny minority of zealots and led in the House by a weak man who was chosen for his weakness.
We are not even two months into this year as I write this and as I do I shake my head at the absolute insanity of it all. But there is a glimmer of hope, because for once the Democrats and Biden are letting the Republicans hang themselves. We will not forget these actions, or more accurately, inactions. They are on the record.
The strategy of resistance is to constantly remind our fellow citizens of the folly and danger of these people. And the overwhelming selfishness of their actions and statements. How selfish? 85% of Americans support in vitro fertilization (IVF), a life-giving procedure that Alabama just made illegal.
85%. So much for government for and by the people.
We still have power. You don’t have to be a liberal to know this is not right. Tell your congress members you are mad. Tell them we will throw them out and elect reasonable, civil people to run our government. Otherwise we capitulate to the worst of our natures by staying on the sidelines.
This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. It is a question of who we are as a country and what we believe in. We can agree to disagree. That is our right as citizens. But in the world these people would make, disagreement will not be an option.
Netanyahu’s Mush: Indefinite Occupation of Gaza, Border Control, No Rights for Palestinians
We wanted to know what comes after. Not this
This man must be stopped. He does not care for Israel or the Jewish state. He sees Palestinians as sub-humans, explaining the total chaos of hunger, death, and suffering in Gaza at his hands. He does not care about the hostages or those who died, were raped, or lost loved ones in the Hamas terror of October Seventh.
Today he released his one page plan for the future of Palestine. In it there is no future and now it is in writing, a blunt rebuke to Biden, the US, Israel's supporters, and his own people, not to mention the Palestinians.
This document is the truth and it should outrage all those who care about human rights, sovereignty, and human dignity. It is an insult to the world in black and white print.
We watch the actions of dictators like Xi in China where more freedoms are curbed daily and Putin in Russia where any freedoms were strangled years ago and enemies die in the dark. Now we see the attempted rise of the newest dictator, a man who has sought absolute power at any price for all his life.
He is no different than Xi and Putin. In America we have our own nascent dictator who seeks to emulate these excuses for men and, like Netanyahu, he has his own rabid followers. What they all have in common is the tool they use to gain power: fear.
Fear of those who are different. Fear of the monsters in the closet. Fear of conspiracies with no reality. Fear of freedom and personal responsibility. And fear of appearing weak in the face of their fears.
Netanyahu’s ultimatum will not solve any of Israel’s problems. It will not make Israelis safer. And it will not stop terrorist attacks, it will fuel them because it removes any glimmer of hope, and without hope we resort to violence, not caring about death anymore.
Netanyahu knows this. It is his ace card to retain control by encouraging chaos. The hostages will die. They are dying as he stalls and refuses any discussion or negotiation. Negotiation does not serve his purpose. Death served his purpose.
Yes, I am describing evil. But Israel is not evil and cannot allow itself to become evil. There is no returning from that path of suffering and death on both sides.
One can hope that this document, this single piece of paper, becomes the lever that takes this man down once and for all. We are watching. The world is watching. But Israelis cannot watch, they must act and throw this budding dictator out once and for all, call for a ceasefire, bring aid in, and create a plan for a Palestinian state.
That's the hard work, not bombing and killing at random hoping to get Hamas. But getting Hamas is not Netanyahu’s goal. His goal is personal power by any means and now we have it in writing.
Israelis know what they must do.
Note: this is my opinion. In a free state, I have the right to express it, just as others have the right to disagree. When there is no right to disagree there is no free state.
~ I write The Grasshopper, a letter for creatives, The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate, and The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. All are weekly and free, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your upgrade to a paid subscription helps make that happen.
If you want to show support but don’t want to commit to a subscription, you can always buy me a coffee!
Believe me, it makes my day. M
You made many mistakes in your haste to take down Netanyahu. The first one was "...Hamas terror of October Sixth." You could have at least gotten the date of that horrible act of terror correct.
The Palestinians don't want a state. They want only to kill Jews. I could go on but until the Arabs are willing to say that they will accept a Jewish state, they will only be at war.
They could have built a thriving country as the Jews did in Israel but they chose to put their energy into terror.