The Unreasonable Man

I shot another anti-war demo today. Click on the image to be taken to a gallery with some of the pictures.

This was an interesting one: some extreme anti-Israel views, some Iranian extremist views, some Palestinian views, and mainly Lebanese “I don’t want my country destroyed” views. Even some Jewish protesters against the war.

A lot of people brought their children (and in some cases used them, like the cute 3-year old dressed in army clothes). You are at a demo to be seen and heard, so no-one minded being photographed (I ask if anyone is the main subject of the picture, and always with children).

Jason’s guitar teacher was over today. He mentioned that his wife is an Acadian. She is still resentful and upset that her family was kicked out of Nova Scotia and told to go to New Brunswick. This is still a major thing for her and many like her - they saw someone in New Brunswick wearing a T-shirt with the names of those thus expelled.

So this act of Ethnic Cleansing, the Grand Derangement, happened in 1755.

And we are expecting the Palestinians to forget what happened to them just half a century ago, within living memory? And this when they are still living stateless in refugee camps? Surely we understand that this resentment will also last 300 years?

The news prompts me to give a brief situation analysis:

• Kofi Annan “in a cold rage”, as the BBC described him, at the apparent deliberate bombing of a UN post.
• Canadian prime minister Harper a laughing stock, concluding without any evidence that of course Israel did not shoot deliberately, and anyway why was the UN there anyway? Please note, this Harper person does NOT speak for me and most Canadians I know.
• Lebanon infrastructure destroyed. A million people in Lebanon homeless.
• Lots of dead and injured civilians. A doctor whose flat was bombed just now on BBC giving Mr Bush a message that he is not a terrorist (but by implication, now he would be happy to be: he has lost everything). An 18-year old boy with no legs. A bloodied child. Hezbollah had 100,000 fanatical fighters? Well, now they have half a million. Well done.
• The world wanting to stop this - but the US and Israel against the world, apparently in favour of some more killing.
• 150 rockets fired into Israel today. It used to be 2 a week. Well, that worked well, didn’t it.

I learned as a child that war was stupid and primitive. You may disagree, but you cannot convince me: Nothing I see is changing my mind.

Fortunately, the Middle East changes quickly so we must hope that this is all over soon - no thanks to America. This is a lose-lose situation.

Our trip to Israel is still on - so far. But the signs look unpromising.

Condoleeza Rice was alone today in Rome, against the entire world, in not calling for an immediate ceasefire. So, no ceasefire. Thanks, Condi. Assistant secretary of state Ms Silverberg just explained on CNN that America was right and the entire rest of the world (except Israel and the USA) was wrong. Sure. As usual.
Meanwhile, the longer the war goes on, the greater the chance that Hezbollah somehow manages to fire missiles at Tel Aviv, as they are now hinting they may be able to. That would certainly cancel our holiday.

The problem, of course, is that Hezbollah cannot be “defeated” militarily, just like the Viet Cong in Viet Nam could not be defeated militarily. Hezbollah, its hundreds of thousands of people, will not down arms: the loss of face would be way too great to bear. My prediction is for more escalation before finally a face-saving way out is found. Israel is discovering quickly that this is Vite Nam, so presumably they will be happy with that face-saving way out.
In the meantime if we need to cancel our trip it will mean the loss of a lot of points, and money; and almost certainly no holiday at all this year. Small price compared to what the people of the Middle East pay, but that will not help much if I have to cancel a holiday. Talk about a cliffhanger.

…is a “New Rule” (a la Bill Maher):
The singular of “panini” is “panino”. From today, no-one is allowed to order “a panini” anymore.

The war in Lebanon is a sad study in if-only-this-were-preventable dynamics. Now, five UN peacekeepers were killed by Israeli fire. Lemmings all going over the cliff.

Israel really has no choice: weakness in the face of Iranian-backed missiles attacking your territory would be fatal. How could they not have fought back? I think “Good for them”. Hezbollah also has no choice: attacking was a mistake, but climbing down now would mean fatal (perhaps literally fatal) loss of face. So Hezbollah is heading to decimation, and Israel is headed for another Vietnam. The cliff.
Clearly, the only entity able to resolve the mess, and force a quick stop to the fighting, and a face-saving way out where Israel retreats and Hezbollah stops firing rockets, is the USA. Please, America, get to it.  Hundreds of civilians are dying and Lebanon is being destroyed again.

And purely selfishly, I want my holiday. Not a big reason as reasons go, but my holiday in Israel next month is a metaphor for normal life.

Or not. I have mentioned before on these pages that some three months ago, I put my retirement savings, such as they are, from almost-no-interest into mutual funds.

Every time in my life that I have even come close to the stockmarket I have lost money. This time is no exception: I have lost about 4% of my money. That equates to an annual loss of 16%.

So, the bank has done what? When I meet my “personal financial planner” next month, my one question to him will be: please calculate exactly how much you have made off me since I engaged your services and moved my money. That is the only question I want answered.

So why do I bother? Why do I keep believing the bullshit, the “stay in for the long term”, the “don’t look at the short term”, the “in the end, only the stockmarket makes you money”? I am 47, and it hasn’t done so yet: it has only cost me money.

Now if I bought stock in the banks, maybe that would be a good idea…

Ann Coulter, she of http://www.anncoulter.com/ , is an alien from outer space. The other day, 19 July, she said, in her column about the Israel-Lebanon war:

Some have argued that Israel’s response is disproportionate, which is actually correct: It wasn’t nearly strong enough. I know this because there are parts of South Lebanon still standing.

Nice, Ms Coulter. One thing about the American neocon right is that while protesting about human life, “values”, Christianity, and so on, it is itself devoid of any sense of humanity. Ms Coulter, despite the fact that she is gorgeous, punchy and sometimes funny, is the worst example of this.

She sometimes makes valid points, though. In the same solumn she writes:

There are only two choices with savages: Fight or run. Democrats always want to run, but they dress it up in meaningless catchphrases like “diplomacy,” “detente,” “engagement,” “multilateral engagement,” “multilateral diplomacy,” “containment” and “going to the U.N.”

I guess they figure, “Hey, appeasement worked pretty well with … uh … wait, I know this one … ummm … tip of my tongue …”

That is, on the face of it, a valid point. Appeasing savages does not tend to work.

But hang on: this is not entirely right, is it. If you are not Ann Coulter, you might ask what makes perfectly normal people into “savages”? What circumstances cause that, and can you take those circumstances away? Will destroying their country make them less savage, or more? Is going in guns blazing going to help? Has it helped before (ask all the Americans during the US’s previous presence in Lebanon).
And is diplomacy actually “appeasement”? Wow, if that is the US right-wing point of view, that all diplomacy is always appeasement, then the US is in worse shape than I thought. It is a dumb argument: diplomacy, by its very definition, is of course not appeasement. Diplomacy means taking two different points of view, and working out a result by other means than guns. Lester B. Pearson said that diplomacy is “the art of letting the other guy have your way”. Not an art Ms Coulter understands: she can only do it with guns and slander.

Perhaps I am overdramatising, but I have begun to realise that for the first time in my life, many things are getting worse. Is this just middle age, or it is really happening?

I am a child of the 60s. Ever since the 60s, things have gotten better. From the bus to Concorde. From bourgeois and religious dogma to freedom. From Fiat 500s to BMWs. From $10 a minute to call Australia to $0.05 a minute. From telegrams to the Internet. From paper to PCs. From Brittanica to Wikipedia. From coffee to Starbucks. From 45rpm singles to CDs. From WW2 to the UN. I could go on. And on. Life is better than ever.
Or is it? It seems to me that now, there are just too many forces pushing the other way. Concorde is gone. My cell phone costs more and more every month (I don’t use it much, but always pay between $200 and $1000 a month). I cannot remember a time in my life when things started to cost more every month. Banks are also getting much more expensive, not less. And I pay Air Canada, the quasi-monopoly airline, very much more than my US and European colleagues pay their competitive airlines. Microsoft constantly ups the price, ups the oversight, and decreases the freedom.

And it is not just about cost. “Hollywood” is fighting media freedoms we have had for decades. “Intellectual property” is actively preventing innovation in many areas. ID is needed for everything, and RFID chips will track you and your every purchase and activity for life soon. The so-called US “war on terror” is shaping life around the planet. Political discourse is being rapidly replaced with populist rhetoric. Civilised nations abandon 1,000 years of legal protections just because they have ‘discovered’ that there are nasty people out there. GPs used to visit: now I cannot even get a GP in my town, a wealthy Toronto suburb: none are taking patients (the government runs medicine, so it is a mess).

Of course lots of things are getting better (technology drives tremendous improvements). But technology in a monopolistic environment only serves to make Bill Gates richer. In a world where every country has only two banks, two airlines, and two telcos, is it not time again for aggressive anti-trust enforcement?

So am I just having a bad Sunday morning and am I being unduly pessimistic, or is my sons’ generation in for a world battle to preserve what we have? Has World War 3 started, not in the US Neocon sense, but in the sense of “force vs choice”? What do you think?

I just obtained a used (but as-new) backup camera body (click for larger image):

Although it is not a 5D, I am very impressed. If we ever get to Israel I will give the backup body to Jason to use.

As for that trip: we are still on, and no reason to change quite yet. If the situation gets very unstable after an invasion, we may need to defer the trip, but only if it really gets that bad. So far, that does not appear to be happening, and central/south Israel is just fine. Fingers crossed.