Headbutted

Don’t piss off the giraffe!

It’s a simple rule out there in the African bush. But some humans don’t listen and then….. they get headbutted.

On top of it all it was a South African veterinary doctor who pissed off the giraffe. He was drawing blood for some tests but clearly he didn’t have the soft touch. The giraffe pushed him against a fence and headbutted him. And a giraffe looks all at peace and magical out in the bush, but when pissed off it got some real power. Result is that the doc is in hospital in serious condition with spinal injuries. Animal power.

From animal power to human onslaught.

The Syrian city of Homs will go down in history as another failure of humanity to stop unlimited, brutal, insane, genocidal butchery. What’s left of the key district in Homs is just rubble and the stench of death. Life has evaporated.

The dictator in Damascus, as too many before him in world history, knows only one way to stay in total power. And that’s pure brutality. The tactics of the gun. The impact of the tank shell. The roar of the bombing jet. The color of blood. The smell
of death. The soul of evil.

And the world stood by. Some tried through the United Nations but Russia and China blocked any attempt. Both nations have their own internal disputes – Tibet in China and Chechnya in Russia – and therefor refuse external scrutiny on any of their worldly friends. Basic, ice-cold world politics. The reality of the reality. Some US Republicans, in the heat of their own presidential race, just wanna bomb and bomb and bomb some more. Obviously such Syrian brutality is hard to swallow, but before pressing the button and sending the bombers in the sky, it is always good and smart to put some braincells into action. Always better to look at the bigger picture and think of all possible consequences instead of just acting like the cowboy tough guy. And being in an election race obviously doesn't help the brainpower. The race for power always dumbs down politicians. It's when thoughts and reasoning is pushed aside for the short possible one-liners to sound tough and "presidential". The masses need to be hypnotized. Being really presidential is far from this. It means thinking more than once before sending your folks into battle and plunging the globe into further instability and bloodshed. Military action is certainly an option, and needs to remain an option at all times, but not blindly and as part of a look-tough-campaign.

The reality is always far from perfect and cold and semi-dirty. But reality needs to be contemplated, and realized and recognized. An internationalization of the Syrian bloodshed has the dramatic potential of a domino effect of mind-blowing proportions.

Follow this roller-coaster scenario. The US, with or without allies, starts an air campaign against Damascus. Syria’s ally Iran (yes, the crazy nuke freak) talks of annihilating Israel. More rhetoric than military possible (because their bomb is not ready yet) but it gives anti-Western fundamentalists around the globe a moral boost. Israel gets very nervous and decides that attack is the best defense and bombs nuke plants in Iran. Iran’s supporters Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine go into revenge mode and send missiles into southern and northern Israel. Lebanon gets politically destabilized and slides back into civil war. The pro-Iran militias in Iraq feel the moment is ripe to step up their terrorist campaigns and start to destabilize the fragile state of affairs in Iraq. The Taliban in Afghanistan sees also the opportunity to re-fresh it’s anti US and anti-NATO actions. Suicide bombers in Kabul. To widen the scope the Taliban, who already has plenty of support in neighboring Pakistan, increases its bombing madness in Pakistan. And any growing instability in Pakistan makes arch-enemy India nervous too.

Meanwhile tough guy Putin keeps uttering raw, verbal attacks on the US (and its allies) which gives Russian nationalism a boost. Maybe the Russians will use the opportunity to “clean up” the last remains of Chechnya opposition. China for now just issues warnings after warnings but nothing else. Their focus for now remains on steps towards world economic domination. But any further debate in the UN is frozen along the the old, cold war, dividing lines. The Muslim Brotherhood, who won a majority in the Egyptian elections, takes Egypt down a fundamentalist path. Western type schools are closed. Media haunted. Freedoms restricted. Al Quada in Somalia and Mauritania goes on a revenge campaign with suicide bombers in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Nigeria.

The war in the Middle East makes London and Washington very nervous about home-based Muslim nutters. Plenty of bomb alerts in subways, on planes, in government buildings. The London Olympics paralyzed. The Republican presidential race heats up with tougher and tougher talk of all out war and race-based hatred for ‘the others”.

Wow. It’s scary. Human behavior over the edge.

Speaking of US Republicans. What’s this recurrence of the links between religion and the State? Do the Romney’s of this planet wanna take us back to the 14th Century or so? They criticize Muslim fundamentalists for using religion as the fuel for politics of
hate and death, but then on the other hand they want religion (aka Christianity and its offsprings) to directly influence American policy. Hypocritical?

Oh, and it seems that Alaskan dear hunter Sarah Palin didn’t really mean ‘no’ when she said some months ago that she wasn’t joining the presidential race. Like a true politician ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘no’. She seems to sit on the sideline, watching the Republican, internal money wasting mudslinging, and then calculating a return to the stage. Oh, and she’s got some serious things to say about bombing the shit out of anybody anywhere on this planet. Not that she could find Syria on a world map, but that’s just a minor detail. Anything outside the US is just evil, awkward, alien and can’t be trusted. And they all speak these funny languages. And dress so different than us. And their food is so strange,... some might even say disgusting. And they don’t play hockey. And they drive smaller cars. And some of them don’t even have popcorn, I-phones, cheerleaders, concerts of the (re-united) Beach Boys, an Oscar-night, ….. and snow. It’s really weird out there!!

It just seems that 2012 could be a year of surprises, insanity, annihilation, bloodshed, mutilation, celebration, intervention, rejection, political masturbation, doubts, pain, suffering, funerals, cries of revenge and cries of sorrow, destruction, re-building, slippery slopes, politics of hate, politics of spin, nation building and empty slogans, elections, rabble rousing, war-mongering,…. A world of fear.

And remember fear fear itself. Human behavior is (too) often driven by fear. Fear of tomorrow. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the others. Fear of fear.

Throw out. Amnesty International released “Chimes of Freedom”, a 4cd combo with covers of Bob Dylan, to highlight human rights world wide. It got some cool bands covering Bob. Rise Against, Tom Morello, The Gaslight Anthem, Sting, Queens of the Stone Age, Elvis Costello, Angelique Kidjo, Flogging Molly, Bad Religion, Sinead O’Conner, State Radio NJ, …..

C –Ya

collateral – March 2012 trickles on