I do appreciate that you understand our situation here, Mick. That's why you are not the same as a Pat or Marc, I don't think they understand it at all. So, yes, I get that you are being silly, but as you are tangling with David, who basically is expressing he is not finding some of what you are saying funny, maybe pull back a bit and play it straight.
David can take a joke, I know I've joked with him. It's also easy, particularly when we are doing it just in words on a page, to say something that is meant to be funny but is not taken as such. When I speak with Pat and Marc I often know fuck all about what they mean or are trying to say. Sometimes I read it as they must be joking, and I think it is supposed to be humorous, and sometimes I read it and think maybe they really mean this.
I would not say you are making things worse, I would just say that when you make jokes about things like dead kids in Gaza and the joke implies we are somehow complicit in that, well, that might hurt somebody more than make them laugh. You've got to kind of put yourself in the other person's shoes. I don't want to stifle your humor or cause you to edit what you say. Just use that deeply compassionate side of yourself and step back a second to consider the response you are getting. I know you are a good man, Mick, I know you love David and did not mean to upset him. I know Joe is the same. A really good man and wonderful human being and that he also just got into a mix-up that was about not understanding something, not about animosity.
People are oversensitive these days but it not without merit, we are facing potential tragedy as a country and species the world over if a guy like Trump does the kind of hostile takeover of our entire government as he did with the Republican party. I am not asking you to like Biden, never would, he's the firewall though, he is what is standing in the way of us plunging off the cliff into the depths of pure horror.
On how Biden played it, I think within less than a week or so of the Hamas attack on Israel, he warned Israel not to go overboard with their response. Telling them that would be a mistake. Then Biden was asking for a ceasefire and telling Israel there had to be a plan for humanitarian aid almost immediately after that. He was not slow footed, nor did he go soft on what the US wanted done there. The Israelis simply ignored him initially, but then there was a ceasefire and they did try to sort out aid and helping Palestinians.
The problem has always been this, not so much the US support of Israel, but Netanyahu's promise to his people he is not going to stop under any circumstance until Hamas is wiped out and this includes if he has to kill every last Palestinian. Which we know a faction of his group feel is the preferred route. Then add into this mess, that the surrounding countries to the conflict are also willing to let every Palestinian die. This is where the US is thrown into having to negotiate. If they completely backed away from Israel, that would be like a signal that the surrounding countries now have the OK to wipe out Israel. And we know there is a great deal of sentiment there to do just that.
Yes, everybody wants the US to step in and fix it because they know it is a near impossibility to fix and nobody else wants to eat that shit sandwich. So, blaming Biden and the US is the easy route but it is a bad one. It is one that will result in much more death and destruction.
If you go back and read my comments from when Hamas attacked, I said right off this looked like the excuse Bibi had been waiting for to go on a genocidal rampage. He is using it as such.
In terms of how this impacts Biden in the election, yes, we see it. It really would not matter how he reacted because the bad actors would have criticized whatever he did and again, blamed all the death and destruction on him. If he criticized Israel, they would say he was standing in the way of Israel defending herself, if he shutdown all support to Israel, they would say he was sanctioning the deaths of Israeli women and children, if a major attack on Israel happened involving surrounding nations and war broke out because Biden said the US would not support Israel, then every single death and that entire war would be blamed on Biden.
So, I believe we see the potential outcomes here, and they are not good. Yeah, American politics is a stinking topic, and sadly now the whole world is hanging on how 2024 turns out. Just know this, Mick, in terms of numbers I think more than 75% of our country thinks Trump is a total cunt...that does not bode well for his getting elected. Yesterday I heard numbers stating that about 30% of Republican voters may not vote for him and as he is the candidate, a lot of Republican voters may not even show up to vote. All signs that I can see point to him losing. So, I am not that concerned with Trump getting back into the White House but I am concerned with what kind of riots and bloodshed he will invoke because he knows he can't win. I think we will see that happen.
