Reply #96: My View, Ma'am

[The Magistrate]

Is that the real thing is something of a side-show. In West Africa, in Burma, in Aceh and in Chechnya, to name just a few, far more people are subject to far greater torment and misrule. Great portions of the Moslem world are up in arms concerning the matter, but if Israel were expunged, or Palestine for that matter, it would not affect their daily lives one whit: they would still be ruled by authoritarian leaders beholden in some degree of puppetry to the capitalist powers of the West, and living in societies mired in unemployment and penury. Indeed, their rulers would have to find some other convenient scape-goat, probably a local minority, religious or ethnic, or a smaller neighbor, to distract their discontent from themselves. A great proportion of radical energy is expended on the matter in the West, though again, neither success nor defeat for their efforts would do a thing to improve the distribution of capitalist swag to those who work, nor would either diminish the prospects of reactionary political forces in their own countries. It amounts to a colossal distraction, puffed up to give people the feeling they are wrestling with something huge and important, without actually achieving a damned thing to the material good of anyone. Half the effort, devoted to campaigns against corporate coruption and globalist exploitation, or towards provision for health care, or to sensible expenditures of energy, or even to union organization, might achieve real gains.