Missing the Mark: A March of Falling Expectations
A peak at the situation in Gaza, how we aid the suffering. Boeing ties a loose end with more assurance than they can provide for fuselage. Boat brings down bridge, a sign of the times.
Two stories have stuck in my mind these past few weeks, the death of a Boeing whistleblower and the fatal air drop of aid into Gaza. The simple explanations that allowed these two images to coexist will never square with our capabilities as a species, therein it all lies. Instead of a bionic limb we just installed a rubber ducky, you understand right?
Let’s take Gaza first.
On Mar. 8th a US backed air drop of humanitarian aid was dropped over Gaza, one of the parachutes failed to open turning help into harm. Five dead with ten injured. To be under circumstances warranting humanitarian aid, through bombs and rumble, without food or water, how peculiar for the aid to become more deadly than the conditions it is intended to combat. Perhaps instead America could stop selling weapons to Israel and prevent them from further hindering the miles of aid trucks waiting to go into Gaza.
On Mar. 28th Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Brown gave a particularly inept statement regarding American military assistance to Israel stating, "although we've been supporting them with capability, they've not received everything they've asked for." That is what you say when you don’t have a good answer. It was reported that there have been over 100 arms sales to Israel since Oct. 7th, but since they don’t meet the threshold for congressional oversight. Mhmm? How convenient, it’s like they know what they’re doing. On Mar. 25th a UN security council passed a resolution calling for the immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Continued allegiance to American exceptionalism thwarts pesky UN resolutions by abstaining to vote, how American.
Boeing has had a rough start to the year, doors falling off, wheels landing without the plane, they’re lucky no one has died. Scratch that, Boeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead Mar. 9th the day after giving a deposition in a retaliation case against Boeing. In chilling detail friends of Barnett say that he warned about this outcome, and said to not believe the claim of suicide. As Matt Stoller said on Breaking Points this week, Boeing is clearly comfortable with killing people, the Max 9 proved that. The whole thing stinks of Epstien didn’t kill himself. Sadly this is only representative of our larger state of affairs.
It has become increasingly evident that nobody is behind the wheel. Economists remark, maybe we should humble ourselves when asked when inflation will end. The pain of covid spending is only now being realized. A hearing called Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office is a perfect example of people trying their best to prove that the reality the other side claims to be occupying is but a fantasy.
Kennedy Shanahan is now a thing, democrats fear they will take votes away from Biden. We all have a sense that 2024 will make history, just how much is yet to be seen.
Biden and the polls seemed pleased with his state of the union, though the cargo ship crashing into the Francis Scott Key bridge might have said it better.