SteamedPenguin

Symbols are a powerful tool to push ideas forward. To promote the idea of a one state solution I am trying my hand at designing a flag to symbolize one country combining Palestine and Israel.

I am using the 5 Basic Principles of Flag Design, part of Good Flag, Bad Flag, published by the North American Vexillological Association:

Keep It Simple

The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory

Use Meaningful Symbolism

The flag’s images, colors, or patterns should relate to what it symbolizes

Use 2–3 Basic Colors

Limit the number of colors on the flag to three, which contrast well and come from the standard color set

No Lettering or Seals

Never use writing of any kind or an organization’s seal

Be Distinctive or Be Related

Avoid duplicating other flags, but use similarities to show connections

I want the flag to be easy to draw for a child. The blue flagstaff and the rising sun are easy for a child to put to white paper. The olive branch is also easy; it is big and has distinct shapes and colors.

Peace By The Sea

The symbols come from the joint history of Palestinians and Israelis:

• The blue flagstaff uses the blue stripes from the flag of the State of Israel to represent the Mediterranean Sea
• The rising sun symbolizes renewal and hope for the the future.
• The olive branch on the white field represents peace.
• The colors combine the four Pan-Arab colors and add the blue of the flag of Israel

The last three principles are preserved except for the principle of not using more than 3 basic colors.

Every once in a while you'll hear a tidbit about how Israelis are mistreating Palestinians. Usually when something really terrible is perpetrated, like when a settler goes into a Mosque to kill people praying, or when the state of Israel sees fit to bombard the Church of Nativity for over a month, causing damage to century-old structures. While it is good that the world sees this the immensity of these acts make the actions of the state of Israel seem like abberations. The perception of these acts as so terrible and the resulting hue and cry raised over these acts obscures the small daily crimes perpetrated by Israel against Palestine and Palestinians, the accumulation of which is far more drastic in result than a massacre here or the desecration of a cultural landmark there.

I received these images a while back but haven't had the right context to write about them. I realized today that there never is a right context. These images don't show abberations in the behavior of the state of Israel but only one type of behavior exhibited daily by the state of Israel.

Article 18 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states in part:

Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.

Israeli Military Damages Clinic 00: Palestinian clinic damaged after Israeli attack

Israeli Military Damages Clinic 03: Palestinian clinic damaged after Israeli attack

Note the part where Article 18 says: "maternity cases" as the next images shows destruction of a section of a clinic that is assigned to maternity care"

Israeli Military Damages Clinic 06: Palestinian clinic damaged after Israeli attack

Here the Israeli military destroyed an Ultrasound machine:

Israeli Military Damages Clinic 05: Palestinian clinic damaged after Israeli attack

Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states in part:

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

When a healthcare organization has not committed an offence then the convention states that it can't be punished. Destroying this clinic is collective punishment, intimidation and terrorism. It punishes Palestinians collectively for offences unlisted, it intimidates law abiding Palestinians to stop them from taking care of Palestinians, and it is terrorism because the only reason to destroy property in such a way is to induce fear for the purpose of stopping Palestinians from taking care of sick people. Not just sick Palestinians but any sick person who walks through the doors of a clinic because that is what healthcare workers do.

I really hate to come off as a total heartless bastard but I fear it seems like a done deal when I exhibit such schadenfreude at the plight of a sick man. Yet I can't help myself. Well, honesty compels me to say that it isn't that I can't help myself but I choose not to.

I wrote earlier about Ariel Sharon seemingly getting away with murder; killing thousands of Palestinians then dying a short and merciful death from stroke.

Fortunately he yet lives.

His capacities will be diminished and he won't regain his seat as Prime Minister. I can only hope that it leaves Israeli politician now fighting a three-way battle for Prime Ministership: Kadima, Labour and Likud. If we are extremely lucky there will be no strong enough Prime Minister and Israel is paralyzed politically as government after government fails.

I hope Ariel Sharon will have enough mental abilities to see all this happening while remembering that he could have pulled off a great political coup with Kadima and failed at the last minute. I hope he sees every failure of Israel and Israelis and it makes him bitter until the end.

Disappointment for a few months doesn't make up for the disappointment Palestinians have suffered for the last 57 years, but beggars can't be choosers. I hope his conscience weighs heavily. I hope our dead come to haunt him.

It appears that Ariel Sharon has suffered a massive stroke and cerebral hemorrhaging. I suspect that he'll be dead soon and good riddance.

I am saddened though. That the terrorist responsible for killing thousands of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila as well as killing thousands of Palestinians as a result of his rule between since 2000, not to speak of the thousands of Lebanese deaths he is responsible for gets away with a stroke and general anesthesia. It is not fair that he gets spared the pain and suffering that my people, Palestinians, have suffered, and suffered at his hands. This monster is getting off easy.

My only consolation is that he doesn't get to beat Bibi Netanyahu in the polls for Prime Minister. His death will leave a fractured and weak Israel which makes me happy.

If I could get one wish in the world is that the fat, sorry carcass of Ariel Sharon gets buried face down at a cross-road, his body sprinkled with garlic and salt, and a stake driven through his back. Let no one remember him, and let those who stumble upon his grave wonder what kind of monster this was to deserve such an ignoble fate.

Edit: For more information:

The Guardian

Sharon's condition critical after surgery

The Independent

Sharon struck down by massive stroke

Ha'aretz has an interesting article on Israels' image problems in the USA.

Let me give some excerpts that are interesting:

The article talks about the group of professionals starting to deal with Israels image problem in the USA, they include such illustrious people as:

... Elias Buchwald, one of the founders of Burson-Marsteller, the second-largest PR firm in the United States; Fran Oppenheim, the owner of a consulting company and formerly brand director at the food giant Kraft General Foods; Helen Marlow, formerly Phillip Morris spokeswoman and vice president in the giant tobacco firm, who dealt with the "anti-tobacco" wave

Let's take for example Fran Oppenheim:

One right-wing, zionist organization reports she is a "representative for The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations". This is no big surprise, they aren't going to tap people to market Israel in the USA that are just middle of the road Americans. She'll be a true believer, or better yet, somebody who has totally bought into Israel as necessary for her social and political well being. Not that Israelis are necessary, just Israel. I doubt her Ashkanzi sensibilities really make her care about the unwashed masses our Arab Jewish Israeli immigrants. If the Israeli establishment doesn't care, I doubt these milquetoast-toast American Ashkenazis care.

The true believers are settlers. Not that I find settlers to be respectable people, but you gotta respect that sort of cheap commitment they have; Living in subsidized housing, getting what amounts to free water and power, and getting to shoot all the darkies you want without ethical or legal repercussions is hard living. By comparison this Fran Oppenheim really represent a weak commitment to Israel, living in the USA, being wined and dined by the cream of Israeli and American society, jetted here and there, without having to endure dealing with us smelly Palestinians.

I don't doubt she is a good marketer. After all it must take a wizard to try to sell utter crap. Just imagine what kind of integrity you must have as a person to stand in front of people and tell them that the rubbery piece of shit with a slightly yellow color is cheddar cheese?

That's right, she made her name selling crap and now she can cement it on the sidewalk of shame by trying to sell Israel, a racist, apartheid state that keeps ten million Palestinians under occupation, imprisonment, and terror, as a haven of not only democracy but good living and open-ness.

Next we have Elias Buchwald:

SourceWatch notes:

For the last 20 years Buchwald has been a volunteer media trainer at an annual program organized by the the American Jewish Congress and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A racist zionist crazy person has a mirror of previous article mentioning Buchwald:

The program is designed to improve the primary task of the foreign ministry representatives: hasbara - that peculiar Israeli word that is a hybrid of information, public relations and propaganda.The chief exponents of this craft are supposed to be the prime minister and foreign minister, but their English, ability to express themselves and the content of what they say does not exactly help to promote Israel's hasbara efforts, say Buchwald and Greenberg.

As a side note it is amusing to me to note that the same kind of people who have no problem breaking every international human rights law also have no problem breaking copyright. Not surprised, just amused.

Here is an interesting tidbit:

Buchwald senses that the terror mantra may have worked last year but is no good anymore, given Arafat's death. He suggests delivering a positive message: telling the Palestinians, "Come, let's make peace. We want a good economy for you. We want a good economy for us. We've had enough war. Let's live together."

That old Elias, he is a funny man. Disingenuous shit that he is. You do not work for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs then preach peace with us Palestinians when the mission of the Israeli government, and Prime Minister after Prime Minister is to eradicate the last traces of Palestinians off the land of Palestine. Maybe Elias Buchwald knows something about Israeli policy we do not? Perhaps Elias Buchwald now makes Israeli policy with regards to Palestinians and not the Prime Minister. I doubt that. He says "Let's live together" as if the barrier to Israelis living amongst Palestinians has been Palestinians and not the pervasive destruction of Palestinian homes, the rape of Palestinian resources, the imprisonment of Palestinians, and slaughter of Palestinian refugees.

Lastly we have Helen Marlow. Her name doesn't bring up much usable data, but "formerly Phillip Morris spokeswoman and vice president in the giant tobacco firm, who dealt with the "anti-tobacco" wave" should be sufficient to show what her merits are to the campaign. She defends selling deadly poison to an increasingly anti-smoking USA. That's right, she defends causing cancer, arteriosclerosis, emphysema. Hell, by comparison defending genocide, breaking international law, and torturing children should be easy for her. Maybe her epitaph will say "I was doing a job. I was just following orders."

Let us review:

Elias Buchwald is a professional salesman. His job is to sell anything to anybody. We know he is a long time media volunteer for Israel, but aside from that his credentials are selling the unsellable.

Helen Marlow a shill for the tobacco industry.

Fran Oppenheim salesperson for Kraft Foods. Selling the crappiest food in the world.

If this is Israel's Branding Dream Team then you know that Israels case is extremely weak. It is like getting represented by Johnnie Cochran, you know the perp is guilty when Cochran represents you. We know Israel is a genocidal, law breaking, occupying country, which is only reinforced by the presence of Buchwald, Oppenheim, and Marlow who come to whitewash and prettify the strange fruit hanging from the trees.

Wolfensohn is going to cry to Condi 'My Penis is an Oil Tanker' Rice about how bad the Palestinians and Israelis are treating him:

Wolfenson said he was close to a decision to return home and added that he will convey his worries to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shortly after she arrives in Israel on Sunday evening.

More at Ha'aretz

Palestinians and Israelis have played the diplomacy game longer than Bush has been sober. While both play within the general game that the US sets through policy both use their respective positions to play as best they can. The Palestinian Authority has never really understood the parameters of the game, and therefore play pretty badly, but they have moments where they seem to be able rise above their endemic stupidity and corruption to make a brilliant play. But hey, even a chimpanzee can come up with something higher intelligences think is art, even if they only play with sticks and feces.

The Israelis are playing more and more dangerous games. They are coming up hard against the 15-20 year population limit which will turn the 'Jewish' state into a minority state. After over sixty years of racially cleansing Palestine the Zionists are coming to a world where they are the minority in Palestine. People like Sharon are smart enough to see it, but I think most Israelis are not ready for the consequences and are not able to appreciate the fact that the State of Israel as we have known it for the last 60 years is in its' twilight.

The Palestinian Authority can play stupid. Yes Palestinians are dying, yes they are becoming miserable and more desperate on a day to say basis. Sometime you can see desperation percolate as the minutes go by, but what is that in comparison to the power the Palestinian Authority can reap when the Palestinians get a state. Whatever that state may be. Say Israel faces the music and allows Palestinians to becomes "Israeli" citizens, then the PA is poised to reap the goodwill of that exchange for several years and be a political power amongst Palestinians. On the face of things they will have brought this change. Another scenario is that the US forces the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza or both separately, in order to wash its hands of us. This would also leave the PA in a position of power, for a while, but very likely short lived and forced to share with Hamas. Either way, time is on their side, despite the high costs. They already sold out the essence of the Palestinian struggle and given up any claim to Palestinian principles so the misery of several million Palestinians isn't something that weighs too heavily on their conscience.

The Israelis are in the unenviable position of having won almost every single battle, having scored almost every point, having dominated the enemy so thoroughly only to see themselves lose the war. Right now world Jewry is centered in the US and Israel, and with the economic situation for the Israeli state becoming more and more tenuous over the next 15-20 years their prospects for recruiting more Israelis are very low. At this stage almost anyone who is going to emigrate already did. Despite highly publicized trips to Israel, nominally free, filled with propaganda, brainwashing, and lots of emotional arm twisting, more people are leaving Israel, for Europe, Canada and the USA, than are coming in. Palestinians have a much higher reproductive rate that Israelis, and the reproductive rate is not about to go down as the economy totally gets destroyed and more and more people become ultra religious. Between the anvil of poverty and the hard hammer of Occupation ignorance and desperation are being born in an atmosphere devoid of oxygen. Higher Palestinian reproductive rates spell doom for Israel. Israel has always had a hard time selling its image. Only the facts that the occupation happened "long ago" and that Arabs and Jews have been fighting "forever" and that the occupation is "fait accompli" has given Israel the veneer of respectability, but as the Palestinian population keeps rising the veneer is eroding as the State of Israel ceases to have legitimacy as a "Jewish" state. At some point the fragmented West Bank and Gaza might become self-governed, but they'll be self-governed slums and right next to the pristine white Riviera style homes of the European settlers. Coming only within a generation since the end of Apartheid, these images are deadlier than a thousand suicide bombers.

Where does this leave the Americans? American policy had centered around using Israel as a fulcrum to move the Middle East. The actions in the Gulf War have given rise to a situation where Israel is becoming more and more obsolete and expensive. The US cannot have an about face that is too quick or it will risk looking weak in the Middle East. Should it cut Israel loose it would signal a free for all against Israel that could strengthen too many opposition parties in the state the US is trying to cultivate pro-US regimes in. After the first Gulf War American policy makers began realizing that it is cheaper to have people 'voluntarily' support you than to grind them into the ground to achieve the same object. The Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Egypt are such examples. Especially where the local regimes are already weak domestically on a variety of issues. Yet, the Americans can't be seen as being too friendly to Israel, at least not unacceptably so. So who is sent in to pass these rocky rapid? Is this intrepid band of adventurers lead by people who are articulate, versatile, and capable of dealing with so many nuances of the Middle East? No, they send in the most dogmatic, inflexible, inarticulate, and plain stupid gang that can't shoot straight. At the time where the USA needs more capable leaders American hobble themselves by electing not the smartest and the brightest, but people who reflect them so honestly as to be painful. Venal, vindictive, provincial, ignorant, xenophobic, misogynistic, short sighted, dogmatic, corrupt, and arrogant are not traits that are helpful to have when you are trying to lead the world from over six thousand miles away and never have come together so clearly as they have in the second Bush Administration.

They send in a succession of envoys, special envoys, friends, people of interest, Big Names, and characters to massage the "Palestine Problem" all of which are destined to fail. The Palestinian Authority isn't stupid enough to trust the US so completely as to undo themselves, and like chimpanzees cornered by hunters that aren't above flinging shit at the US as last resort. The Israelis on the other hand know full well how expendable they are. If need be the US would cut them loose without a second thought and as the situation gets less favorable to the US Israel is jockeying for a better position hoping that when the fall comes, it doesn't come to hard.

For all its might though the American game is impotent. The Neocons in power haven't yet realized the magnitude of changes coming across the Arab world. Their destabilization of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon have too many consequences their simplistic world view cannot grapple with. What has not happened yet is somebody calling them on their game. Nobody has yet made the decision to deal with the unknown instability and forsake the current instability that everyone thinks they know.

People talk about the 'realities of the Middle East', the weight of history, and people bred to do this and that, what people haven't confronted yet is that we are for the time being prisoners of little else but out our conceptions. The danger is always there for those people who think that change is not in the air when it is, very few people recover from that mistake. So many agencies making the same mistake has the ingredients of great comedy, tragedy, or most likely, both. Whatever the change though, the people who are paying for it are the people who always pay for it. While governments may lose power and prestige the ordinary person on the street is more likely to lose their life.

At the tender of of 25 I finally completed that quintessential Palestinian coming of age ritual; making my own slingshot.

In the late eighties when the first Intifada gave Israel so much grief Palestinian youth quickly realized that one of the best slingshot materials is medical latex tubing. Those round yellow tubes stretch really well, last for a long time and are tear resistant. Perfect for harassing those assholes in uniform. To this day medical latex tubing is considered illegal by the Israelis, even in "Palestinian Ruled" areas. Big guys with guns are still sacred of kids with marbles and metal pieces. I was too young for the first Intifada, and not in Palestine for the second Intifada, so I never got around to making my own slingshot, even for plinking at bottles.

This week I got my hands on some latex rubber tubing, some stretchy non-latex binding, and of course the 'bone'. The bone actually comes from Palestine, is made from hardwood, and follows the basic slingshot template that I've been familiar with since 1987. Between the tubing and the binding material this is one kick ass slingshot. After binding the latex to the wood and binding the latex to each other where the leather sling is, I bound the binding with electricians tape to make it air tight and seal off the inner part of the tubing.

So yeah, I am 25 going on 13. I can almost smell the burning tires and the sting of wafting tear gas. Long live Palestine!

I am beginning to really get sick of these imaginary 'dialogs' that you see. Let's get together an anti-abortionist, or as they are properly called "women haters", and a choice promoter and we'll have a rational discussion between both sides. You could get together some Zionist and a Palestinian and they can talk about the issues.

Fuck that.

All these discussions do is reinforce the notion that these ass munchers have any sort of legitimate opinion. This gives them power and this is precisely what you don't want them to have. Do you really want to give misogynists, racists, homophobes, and other unsavory characters legitimacy and power over your life? I'll answer this one; no. Absolutely not!

I'd encourage activists of all types to draw the line in the sand and not cross it. Don't be seen talking with these assholes on TV. Don't hold forums where they are allowed to speak and whatever the fuck you do don't 'dialog' with them. It is a waste of resources, it drains your energy towards something completely useless, and it gives their poison currency and access to people. Cut the fuckers off I say. If they go on TV then let them go on TV on their own. If a panel is held at conferences and somebody invites these people then publicly let the world know that you refuse to sit on a panel with them and why. If they bay at the moon let them bay alone like the dogs they are.

It is time we took our world back and this is step one.

When you speak then speak for what you believe in and speak from your heart, don't speak to answer or clarify these hate mongers, these peddlers of death. All they seek is to twist and poison your work and you give them a helping hand. These unimaginative fucks can't imagine a world where people strive for better things and better neighbors but they can come up with a million ways to hurt you. Fuck them. Take back your voice.

No, you don't lose anything by letting them speak, but you lose something by letting them speak in your presence because then people look and see them next to you and get the impression that they are legitimate for some reason. More importantly, the media loves controversy. If they have one of the unimaginative fucks up for a slot and can't find a counterspeaker then all they have is a shit-smearing monkey with too shrill a voice. Nobody wants that on TV or radio.

Let's make sure we know who the enemies are. After that let's find out who gives aid and succor to these enemies and we see it is us. We are the ones empowering these shit stains on the human consciousness and we are the ones who need to stop.

Then what? After that we start gunning for them in earnest. After we learn how to hold the line against them like a solid line of Spartan Hoplites then we learn how to advance and march against them. That's when we learn how to use the short sword against these illiterate, unimaginative, hate filled, unscientific fanatics and butcher them, chopping them up against our shields.

After learning to hold the line we ridicule them. I mean let's get serious here. All these creationist wankers? Do you really want your children to grow up thinking that some bearded gas bag created the world in seven days? Do you want your child to go out into the world with such a handicap on an inquisitive mind? No you do not. What you want is to have your child equipped with an inquisitive mind that has a grasp on hypotheses and theories and what defines what a theory is. You want to make sure that this rubbish is laughed off like it is supposed to be. I mean, do we really want to be living in a society where people think the equivalent of Fairy Tales is what governs the world?

What about homophobes? These people ought to be laughed out into the streets, pitied for their degenerate views on humans, and then washed off with a river of piss to reinforce the notion that pissing on the streets keep them cleaner than having these wankers walking them. This is what you want to teach; that putting down any segment of your population just for what they are is so despicable and vile that these people ought not to be living in society. It ought to be reinforced that voicing such opinions openly should be met with such ridicule and shame that these asshole never open their mouths again.

And to my Palestinian activists. Oh man, what a deluded git I was. I used to dialog with Israelis and other Zionists. Hear their side, listen to them fumble with the inconsistencies in their heads, and go home feeling like I am a better person. Well now I am an asshole and an angry motherfucker and the Zionist Emotional Assistance Program has shut its doors. If you are so fucking conflicted about what you believe that you need your monthly 'Meet the Palestinian and talk to him' fix to get by then re-examine your belief system and fix it or learn to be happy with your wanton destruction of human life, but don't come to my shoulder and cry. I don't want your self-pitying tears and I am not here to put balm on your conscience. I will not sit next to you and talk of peace and your 'suffering' while seven million Palestinians live in mud, dirt, and without jobs or water just so you can live in your little white houses built with Palestinian bones and swim in pools filled with Palestinian blood.

Let the Zionist bay and bark at the moon, those racist fucks don't need us to help them along in being heard and us sitting there like bobble heads while they tell the world what terrorists we are and how bad we are doesn't help us. Let them speak alone, and let me appear alone. Then we go after them, exposing every inconsistency and every lie and justification they hold dear and we do it on our terms, using language we own. We expose every Israeli massacre and every Israeli crime and every time the Zionists applaud and clap for dead Palestinians and we do it our way until the world is a better place and Palestine is free.

That's how you win. No compromises, no quarter given, and no looking back.

Growing up Palestinian, in a firmly agnostic and socialist household gave me a lot of time to consider the world around me growing up. Between the Israeli Occupation that scarred us for the last 57 years, the innate conservatism of the Middle East, and the religious fundamentalism that is engulfing a region in extreme stress I certainly felt like a fish out of water. That is not the story though.

Living in Palestine leaves you with many things to ponder and often no time to ponder them. Even when you are doing absolutely nothing, especially when you are under curfew for forty days, you are worried about how things are going. So even when you think you have time to meditate on the world around you the intrusions of life under occupation take even that small luxury away. Sometimes to better grasp the situation you live in you have to leave and observe it with a distant eye. That, however, is also not the story.

The story is this: it is the unexpected encounters that so enrich your life. Even when you think your live is nice and tasty like rice pudding with raisins and almond slivers, that hint of cinnamon and a touch of dark chocolate powder make all the difference. Actually sometimes you don't even notice the tastes in the rice pudding proper until that cinnamon brings it out. Then you notice more fully how the raisins taste when they burst on your teeth and mix with the sweet, milky, starchy pudding. A little bubble of fruity goodness that hangs there.

I came across an article recently that made me appreciate my rice pudding better. I know Palestine. I can talk ad nauseam about policy, politics, history, intentions, motivations, fears, tears, jokes, etc. Palestine is what I do and yet I managed to miss the raisins in the pudding until I got a nice little hint of cinnamon that profoundly changed my perception of my situation.

Growing up I was involved in dialog groups with Israelis, and often came across Israelis. In the US I come across Zionists, wannabe-Zionists, and Israelis of different shades. It isn't an occasional thing to hear "What do you want? You lost the war. We won, now leave us alone." Often the variation is "We won the war, that's the way it is. Why try to change the unchangeable?" Mind you I always thought this line of argumentation so bizarre and brain damaged that it isn't worth a response. Now I can't. I realize now that these arguments aren't about me, it is about them. Whoever uses these arguments, and generally speaking the formula 'We can't change the world', isn't trying to quiet me. More specifically, they aren't trying to quiet me because of what I am saying or doing, they are trying to quiet the voices in their conscience that my actions or words bring up. They think their little talismans of defeat can keep away the ghosts of social responsibility.

That's what activism for social justice, freedom, and tolerance is; responsibility towards others and accountability for ones' own actions. When people discard their accountability and come up with 'Just let it go already' they want to taint you with their weakness and their lack of accountability. There is no place for them to feel comfortable with your demands, even if unsaid, so they try to put you in a space where you don't rattle their timid minds.

I don't quote religious texts except with irony or because something funny or dirty was in the pages, but the parable of the Good Samaritan is instructive and at least in some circles well recognized enough to make sense. So this dude from Samaria is going through some desolate valley and finds some poor schmoe in a ditch. Apparently this dude was beset by thieves and bandits and left for dead. So this nice Samaritan picks the guy up and takes him to a place where he's taken care of. In the bible there is a different version but that's really about heaven and hell, and sinning. I don't care if you sin. In fact I probably encourage it. All I want is that you go out and be activists for social justice. Let's get back to the story though; The good Social Justice conscious Samaritan helped the poor guy out because the Samaritan is accountable to himself as well as the world around him. Leaving the guy to die in some gully means that the next time it is he himself who could be the poor schmoe in the gully except there is no Social Justice conscious Samaritan to help him out. This is not a world a Samaritan or anyone wants to live in realistically.

We live in an interconnected world. We only survive because of the goodwill of others. You can hem and haw about it with political tracts, you can invoke Hobbes, Locke, Plato, and a whole bunch of other dead people but the social contract that binds us is simple: Don't allow me to be hurt and I won't allow you to be hurt. There is no need for philosophy courses or ethics manuals to make that clear.

Social responsibility and accountability towards oneself and to others isn't a luxury, and it isn't an affectation, it is a basic tool of survival in a dangerous world. Denying that impulse and drowning it out is denying tens of thousands of years of basic human survival.

Wouldn't it be the ultimate cosmic joke if we didn't die because of global warming, nuclear winter, or mutant bacteria run rampant, but because we pretended not to give a shit?