RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://sarahhonig.com/2012/03/29/another-tack-batman-and-the-iron-dome/

“With their own earthy good-sense commoners throughout Israel’s South recognize that the best defense is offense and that good offense isn’t shelling vacant lots, eliminating the odd miscreant, and generally trying not to get IDF hands too dirty, so as not to offend sanctimonious European sensibilities.”

They know that the only way to defend is to win and that you win by breaking the enemy’s spirit and will to fight.

Rare are the violent clashes from which all sides emerge positively cheery. But the latest exchange of fire with Gaza was just such an atypical conflict. When the smoke cleared, both combatants came away upbeat and sure their respective enemy was taught a painful lesson.

We are near-giddy with gladness over the technological wonders of our Iron Dome anti-missile missiles, while the Gazans are hoarse with victory whoops because they managed to fire off as many rockets as they did. We effusively congratulate ourselves because no major catastrophes were wrought on our side of the border. Nevertheless, the Gazans know that had we truly won, they wouldn’t be left standing and able to spark another conflagration at another time.

What does all the sound and fury signify in real terms? Most likely that no lessons at all were taught, that no one was punished and that in all probability we once more critically misread the signs. It’s as if somewhere along the line we’ve managed to lose sight of what constitutes triumph in our peculiar immediate environment. According to Mideastern conventions, the absence of incontrovertibly humiliating vanquishment denotes a degree of victory.

This local logic mustn’t be dismissed out of hand.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2079/Hoodie-Justice.aspx

“Victims of violent crime, both black and white, abound. Their undeserved suffering and grief are things that everyone wants to prevent. In the Trayvon Martin case, what also hurts is the cold, political calculation to divide us as a nation for nefarious ends. What hurts in the Bob and Nancy Strait case is the silence.

For the record, President Obama has not mentioned that Nancy Strait looks like his grandmother.”

Is there any interest in discovering the facts about the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman? Facts, after all, can undermine ideology. They have the power to dispel fantasy. They can put the brakes on error. They lead, sometimes, to logical conclusions. All of which means, in this particular case, that when the facts come out, they might well undermine “the cause.”

We simply don’t know all of the facts yet. We can say with certainty, however, that the cause is not justice, no matter what the protesters, agitators and officials say. The cause is not truth, either. The cause is social strife, division, leverage, power and — you never know — violence and revolution, all of it drawn and driven by an outrage-stoked engine of racial grievance.