Osan Girl was scandalously dressed when I saw her just after curfew in 1998. Her drunken body gyrated in the street at the top of the entertainment district outside Osan Airbase as she taunted the non-commissioned officer calling to her plaintively from the base gate below.
Daddy was penned inside by the midnight curfew for U.S. military personnel in South Korea. However, the curfew didn’t apply to his civilian dependents. Leaving his precocious 15-year-old daughter free to roam the ville’s 400 bars, discos, and hotels.
I was reminded of Osan Girl today as I reflected on U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahua – the shameless political hookers occupying two of the most important offices on Planet Earth right now. Truyahu is jointly responsible for killing 111 Palestinian protesters and wounding 12,000 since March 30.
For reasons that elude those of us in the Reality-Based Community they’re just as proud of this wanton slaughter – which shames both democracies – as Osan Girl was at the prospect of being used like a plastic sex doll.
Unlike Osan Girl, these two grown men are not just saying the rules don’t apply to them. They’re killing unarmed civilians by the trainload. The vast majority of the dad and wounded are peaceful protesters. The kind of people who are normally allowed to speak their peace, arrested, or roughed up by police in the free world.
Not intentionally shot by snipers.
Truyahu’s provocative actions in moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and then using military force against civilians protesting this needless provocation are indefensible by almost every reasonable measure of basic human decency. It’s the kind of epic fail that ends careers, destroys national reputations, mints Muslim extremists, and alienates allies and loved ones.
As another 1,171 Palestinians were killed and wounded Monday, Truyahu brazenly celebrated the relocation. Flaunting the expectations of principle leadership which have long attended the highest elected offices in The U.S. and Israel.
What would former President Dwight Eisenhower -who pointedly refused to mention the bloodthirsty Eugene McCarthy by name -have done?
It’s a safe bet the former World War II commander of all Allied Forces in Europe would to have mentioned either of them by name. Instead he would have alluded to their shortcomings, by saying something along the lines of leadership by example being an unattainable standard for “some people.”
The painful truth is that neither Donnie Trustfund nor Netanyahu are doing their best and it’s just not nearly good enough. The politics of tribal hate is all they’ve got to offer. Principeld leadership being beyond their skills set.
The two have found a
friend in one another simply because neither can do any better.
There were no surprises here from Trump, the five-time drafter evader. Netanyahu – the former Israeli commando was once made of sterner stuff.
Apparently, that was a long time ago. Before he sold out everything he believed in to become a political hooker and started nickel and diming the Israeli people with one crooked scam after another.
Despite the lopsided casualty figures, the Palestinians are clearly winning this battle in the public forum. I know because they’ve won me over.
I will no longer support an Israel which defines itself as the modern embodiment of the Apartheid regime which poisoned South Africa from 1948 to 1991. Or an America which embraces the supremacist identity politics of The Jim Crow South.
The hell with that noise.
In the “you’re either with us or against us” world of The Idiot Right, this principled liberal is most definitely not on their team any more.
And I am not alone.
Sometimes you don’t realize what you’ve got until it’s gone. Like being proud of being American and Jewish. Today, I am ashamed of both.
I don’t recall ever being simultaneously ashamed of both before.
Israel and America have always been imperfect – like all tribes – but I don’t recall them ever being quite so far from the core liberal values of equality, freedom, compassion and democracy. I don’t recall either country ever having such awful authoritarian leaders, being so obsessed with forever profit growth, so boorish to their neighbors, or so indifferent to the suffering of the masses.
Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson were both tone deaf to the widespread opposition to The Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but they never evidenced the complete contempt for the masses of Truyahu.
To borrow a show business term, Truyahu “jumped the shark Monday.” That’s a nice way of saying Trump and Netanyahu completely lost their minds, compromised their ability to lead by example, embarrassed their allies and supporters, and illustrated their unfitness for office. Other than that, it was a good day for them.
(blank stare)
Turkey and South Africa both withdrew their ambassadors to the Jewish state afterward and more withdrawals lay ahead. Israel is about as close to being part of the U.S. as a foreign nation can be, which makes the withdrawals a slap in the face for us, too.
France, Britain, Russia and China have all critcized the massacres.
It’s hard to argue that we don’t deserve it under our current Asshole-in-Chief, who has clearly given Netanyahu the green light on needless brutality. Just as he has here at home to U.S. law enforcement and the useful idiots of the Alt-Right.
Freedom is rapidly evaporating in both Trump’s America and Netanyahu’s Israel, like early morning mist on a summer day.
Israel has accused Hamas, the Islamist group which controls Gaza, of instigating the protests and forcing its quick use of lethal force.
The United Nations, which condemned the massacre as an outrageous human rights violation, isn’t buying that line of knowing bullshit.
“The mere fact of approaching a fence is not a lethal, life-threatening act, so that does not warrant being shot,” said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN high commissioner for human rights.
Lethal force may only be employed as a last resort und
er international law, according to Colville. It cannot be a first resort.
“It is not acceptable to say that ‘this is Hamas and therefore this is OK,'” he told The Guardian.
We’ve reached the point where it’s actually appropriate to pray for an early death for the two garbage-mongers that are Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Just as it was once OK for decent people to pray for an early end to the likes of Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Tojo, and Mussolini.
Because that’s who Truyahu is.
It is a two-headed monster of corporate profits over people, propaganda over news, blind obedience over freedom, empire over peaceful coexistence, and political corruption over equality and democracy.
Trump and Netanyahu are the Bull Connors, Richard Daleys, Caligulas and Boss Tweeds of their time. Drunk with power and completely unworthy of both the high offices they hold and the good people they’re supposed to represent.
They are not just a disgrace to Americans, Israelis and Jews, but to the species.
Eff th
em both and may they die screaming. Albeit legally, or from natural causes. Which is to say without violating the laws that make it a crime for publications like The Cynical Times to call for violent revolution against tyranny.
We are not doing that.
Instead, we are seeking comfort in prayer. Just as Mark Twain did during the Spanish American War when he wrote a short satirical story called “A Prayer for War.”
The iconic story and prayer mocks those who hide their egoism in fake idealism, rush to war, and enrich themselves through the needless suffering of their fellow man.
The Cynical Times has never been a religious community, but I think the time has come to turn this one over to God. So, I’ve written a modern-day version of Twain’s invocation called “A Humble Prayer for Rectal Cancer For Bloodthirsty Mofos.”
(blank stare)
No really.
Please join hands. Or, failing that, press your keyboard to your crotch.
“Dear God, in the name of Jonathan Stewart, Steven Colbert, George Carlin and Susan Sarandon we humbly beseech thee. Do not abandon us in the face of the little dick mofos afflicting us.
“You are the Beneficent One, for your mercies never cease; the Merciful One, for your kindnesses never end; the Bad Ass One, for your delight in slapping the taste out of the mouths of serial-line-crossers is never exhausted.
(Congregation Stands)
“Oh Jesus, join with us now in our time of need as we battle the assorted religious nuts, paid liars, lickspittles, mammon worshippers and false prophets of the far right who start trouble in your name.
“For the path of the righteous man is b
eset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish, the tyranny of the Kountry Klub Kommandos, and the avarice of the self-described “Masters of the Universe” on Wall Street. Lately, all three have just been completely off-the-hook and the time has come for you to pull their choke collars. Very, very hard.
“Oh Lord Our Father, as nonviolent pro-democracy protesters go forth to expose the wickedness of the Predatory 1 Percent and a global economy with no labor protections, be Thou near them.
(Congregation is Seated)
“Oh Jewish God, the people of America and Israel are good people for the most part. Bless us as we shepherd the weak through the valley of darkness and past the ravening hordes of toxic elites, useful idiots, gold diggers, shameless lackeys and political hookers who blight the land.
“Helpeth us to remain steadfast in the face of the biblical plagues of forever profit growth, high speed trading, payday lending, for-profit medicine, prosperity theology, The Right Wing Lie Machine and The National Military Establishment.
“Oh Atheist God – (blank stare) – never mind.”
“Oh Buddha, give us the wisdom to support your servants by returning to the Liberal principles of democracy, equality, freedom, compassion. Which are the very foundations of the United States of American itself.
“Oh Allah, you are our strength. You teacheth our hands to war, our fingers to type, and our mouths to talk trash to market cheerleaders. Please guide us to some smartass shit that will expose Truyahu as the sputtering jackass we know him to be.
(Male Congregants Discreetly Adjust Package)
“Oh Vishnu, you are our goodness, our fortress, our chocolate cake, and our high speed Internet connection. You are our shield and he in whom we trust. Do not be shy about smoting the ruthless sonsabitches who afflict us.
“Oh Krishna, if you really exist would you please strike down Trump and Netanyahu and their financial backers with something awful that makes their dicks fall off and their asses explode?
(Female Congregants Discreetly Adjust Bra Straps)
“Oh Lord Our God, we
’re thinking Stage IV rectal cancer but we’re not locked into it. We leave it up to you to findeth the best way to blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, maketh heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, and stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet.”
“Cause this shit is on now.
(Congregants Pretend to Rest Eyes While Sleeping)
“We ask this all humbly, in the spirit of love, of he who is the source of love, and who is our ever-faithful refuge, doobie provider, and friend of all that are sore, beset, and seek his aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
“Postscript, is there any way you can light a fire under this mofo?
“Pretty pleaseth with sugar on top. Time is a factor your Magnificence
“Amen.”
“FYI, you’re looking good big guy. Have you lost some weight?”
