No comment although I have them.

Thu Oct 14 14:47:42 UTC 2021

I was considering the linguistic roots of annihilation to mean something like making null. I was talking about making null the conceptual framework of a nation, not destroying people or a place.      I can understand confusion over the term and should have tried for greater clarity on that point. To my thinking nations are fictions that can change and even disappear  with or without injury to actual living beings. 
 I am not on Mach T’s side, whatever that is, and do not want to confront anything intellectually but hate, fear and violence against people, other life forms, the air, water, oceans.  I thought many or most of the points in your response to mach thomberi were sound and well said, and he has now made it clear that he wasn’t speaking tongue-in-cheek, which seemed possible to me with his first post, though I couldn’t tell. . 

As for labeling my writing as tirades and rants lacking meaningful contribution…… well, you seem all too ready to annihilate the actual intent and meaning of my words with out-of-control assuptions about my intentions or alliances. I don’t think I am the one who is angry here, which is the essence of a tirade. I prefer respectful discourse but do not like words being put in my mouth. If you have done that through a sincere misunderstanding of my intentions, well that can happen.  Let’s try to put it behind us. 
> On Oct 14, 2021, at 3:05 AM, matthew cissell <mccissl at gmail.com> wrote:
> Tracy,
> 
> Ok, you stepped into the ring. I've seen your lengthy tirades and rants and normally ignore them as they lack depth, clarity and any meaningful contribution to discussed topics. You say I am wildly sentimental? Go look at your own words. You have certainly misunderstood the rhetoric employed in my post, the purpose of which was to compare the creation of the USA and Israel as "imagined communities"; the ideas that feed into Zionism (go read some Isaiah Berlin) and the desire of the jewish people to have a land of their own is the same as the creation of the US (mutatis mutandis), a point that did not escape Edward Said.
> 
> As for Zionism, you might hold back on your "disease" metaphor and go listen to some reggae that is heavily Zionist in its outlook and language. Irie.
> 
> Oh, go look up the word "annihilation"; in German it means Vernichtung. Sound familiar? Imagine someone annihilating your garden, house, or community. Does it sound loaded? Loaded like a chamber slipping into the chamber as the sights train on you? Because violence is behind what you imply.
> 
> And if you want to be on Mach T's side go right ahead but I don't think you will like the company much as they are serious hamberder munchers and they are ready to produce a thousand years of peace, it just involves undoing a bit of history and then making everyone forget. Gosh, that almost sounds nice but it won't be with "Imagine" on the soundtrack, unless the lyrics have been rewritten by Identitarians, national conservatives, white nationalists or whatever euphemistic label they have cooked up to rename their creed: fascism.
> 
> Y por cierto, there are certainly aspects of Israeli governmental action that look fascistic at times. You see, the wonder of fascism is that it can appeal to anyone - jews, gays, POC, ... you and me.
> 
> And finally, as that great author once wrote, "It is not enough to be anti-fascist, one must also be anti-totalitarian."
> 
> Sincerely,
> MC, son of Homer and descendant of Irish, Scots and Cherokee (among others) and a wrestler struggling with the nightmare of history and the madness of humans. Ni dios, ni patria, ni rey. Ne Obliviscaris.
> 
> On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 6:21 AM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net <mailto:brook7 at sover.net>> wrote:
> Annihilation is a loaded word. It sounds cruel and violent. Truthfully though, a name or concept or form of government can be eliminated or replaced without destroying human lives or poisoning the earth. Nations and religions have changed and died before with little or even benign consequences. And those nations  that survived and rose to become “great powers" have a pretty shitty track record to justify themselves. Imagine all the people living life in peace. 
> I don’t know exactly what Thomberi ( sounds a made up name) is intending, whether tongue in cheek or weirdly sincere, but I think matthew c is wildly sentimentalizing how Israel came into being. As to what is to be done. It is a question for all of us, not just Israel. Settler colonialism and its cruelties are embedded in most of the world. Western civilization as configured has desertified vast parts of the globe, moved sane indiginous cultures into bantustans and is rapidly destroying the diverse species upon which life as we know it exists, rapidly moving us toward waves of mass destruction . As for me, yes i really am ready to hand over my land and the very concept of property to the tribal peoples of north america. Would they want this mess, our mini-flags, banks and fracking machines? I don’t know, but I could not be more serious about my acre of workspace , fruit trees, asparagus, maple trees, and stone walls.  My whole life is about the effort to move myself and others toward an ecologically sustainable life, and the biggest impediment to change is the settler colonialist warfare that continues from the ancient to the modern world, that turns from warlordism to nationalism  to imperial warfare. What Israel and the US and China and Russia and Brazil and Canada and so many rapacious military dictatorships are expressing in this shared planet  is varying forms of  sociopathic madness organized by  self destructive dreams, egomania, and imaginary polities that have ravaged our common sense as animals, our friendliness as neighbors, our ability to choose life above what they have too offer. And what do they have to offer as their civilization crumbles? Comfortable places to watch the world burn, endless entertaining air conditioned shitpiles, debt,  fat people eating big juicy hamburgers and an all too violent and real global annihilation, James Bond may or may not have lost his dick, but he stil has a license to kill. 
> 
>  Zionism is the same disease as the master race, manifest destiny,  salafism, pax romana, capitalism, militarism. Its origins can be read by anyone. Joshua crosses into “ the promised land” to kill the sinful Canaanites or make them into slaves to the chosen people.”Blessed is he who dashes thy little ones against a stone”. This fable has become the script for modern day Israel, just as some version of this script has written so much human history. It will script global suicide if we let it. If we cannot prevent it.
> 
> Zionism was never the remarkable part of Judaism, the heart of this holy path is to choose life, to love the great mystery of being wih all the heart and all the mind and the very kernel of life we have been given, and to treat others as we wish to be treated. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > On Oct 13, 2021, at 4:14 PM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com <mailto:mccissell at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > 
> > Mach,
> > 
> > So let me see. You seem to propose the annihilation of Israel, a country
> > created whole cloth from ideas, dreams, stories and more by carving out a
> > space for that community that had formed a nation but lacked a state.
> > 
> > Ok. Two things (that I'll say) occur to me: What do you propose for the
> > people? Do you have some... solution for them as well? Would it be the same
> > for Arabic and Jewish citizens? What would it entail?
> > 
> > Next: If you (and others that share your view) are the descendent of
> > Europeans living in the Americas (or some other previously
> > colonized place), I suppose you are also ready to 'undo' your county and
> > hand over your land to the indigenous communities. Or are you writing from
> > somewhere else, in which case we might talk about that place.
> > 
> > Criticizing the trespasses of any country or government is one thing, but
> > calling for its abolition is something else. The actions of the Israeli
> > government have often been reprehensible or even criminal, but that does
> > not justify your language, which would certainly find applause and echoes
> > in a certain rising current in not only US political discourse but more
> > widely.
> > 
> > I'm responding not because I think your mind is likely to be changed but
> > because I want you and others to know that in this open forum you will find
> > voices that do not apathetically ignore your statements.
> > 
> > Ne Obliviscaris
> > Matthew Cissell
> > 
> > On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 4:33 PM Mach Thomberi <machthomberi at gmail.com <mailto:machthomberi at gmail.com>>
> > wrote:
> > 
> >> No we wouldn't want that would we.  Deprive Israel water and medicine.
> >> 
> >> What would be marvelous.  Would be removing Israel from the map.  Cut it
> >> out and dispense it into the ether.
> >> 
> >> Then do likewise of our collective memory of Israel.
> >> On Oct 13, 2021 9:23 AM, "Joseph Tracy" <brook7 at sover.net <mailto:brook7 at sover.net>> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> I would not go so far as to cut Israelis off from medicine or clean water
> >>> as they have done to Gaza, but a cultural boycott is potentially a way to
> >>> bring the debate into a more public sphere. We need equally to confront
> >>> what so many in the western press and politics  have done on this issue.
> >>> They  have supported  the insane idea that anyone who publicly
> >> criticizes
> >>> Israel’s abuse of Palestinians is doing so out of  anti-semitism. They
> >> are
> >>> labeled  anti-semitic even if they are Jews whose parents and relatives
> >>> survived or died  in Nazi concentration camps.
> >>>  Sally Rooney said she would be honored to have her book translated to
> >>> Hebrew but will not work with a publisher who does not distance
> >> themselves
> >>> from Israel’s aparteid treatment of Palestinians.
> >>> 
> >>>> On Oct 11, 2021, at 3:44 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com <mailto:fqmorris at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>>> 
> >>>> Why no comment?  This is a place for opinion.  As for me, I say
> >> Bravo!  I
> >>>> think Israel deserves full apartheid treatment right now.  And too many
> >>>> people are afraid to say so.   There!  I said it.
> >>>> 
> >>>> David Morris
> >>>> 
> >>>> On Mon, Oct 11, 2021 at 3:25 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com <mailto:mark.kohut at gmail.com>>
> >> wrote:
> >>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> https://forward.com/opinion/476513/why-wont-sally-rooney- <https://forward.com/opinion/476513/why-wont-sally-rooney->
> >>> allow-her-latest-novel-to-be-translated-into-hebrew/
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
> >>>>> 
> >>>> --
> >>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
> >>>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> --
> >>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
> >>> 
> >> --
> >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
> >> 
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>