Gary Markstein cut his cartooning teeth while doodling in the margins of his grade-school homework. Now he makes a living by skewering pompous public figures and politicians of every political stripe. Markstein is an artist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and was previously the cartoonist for the Tribune Newspapers in Arizona.
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dtroutma
said, 6 months ago
The fight started with “Abraham’s” sons, and hasn’t changed,only the weapons have. Interpreters of a “book” have increased the hatred on BOTH sides about a piece of land few would want.
MY ancestors were given by “the Great Spirit” a land far richer, over 6,000 years before “Moses” and his laws were created by a small tribe in the desert, who were always angry at everyone, about everything.
MIllennia after MY ancestors began to thrive on the land we call “North America”, a new people arrived with a new “god”, called “guns”, and they began stealing my people’s lands. Finally a group called “Congress” and a man named Jackson used force to throw my highly civilized ancestors off their land, and moved them, by force off to “reservations”.
The myth of Abraham and Moses is accepted by BOTH tribes fighting over a small parcel of land called “Palestine” by all but a few, and an even smaller strip called “Gaza”.
At the turn of the 20th Century, a tribe called “Zionists” started attacking the Ottomans, British, and anyone else, to throw the people who’d been there for 2,000 years, off the land.
After what TRULY WAS the most horrendous genocide in human history, in numbers, but the intent was no different than the practices of Moses and Joshua, the Zionists got their own country, which unlike the Peel Commission called for, gave the Palestinian Arabs, nearly nothing for THEIR “homeland”.
Like the Cherokee in the 19th Century America, the people whose ancestors held land for millennia, were forced away, so that newcomers from Russia, eastern Europe, and interestingly, from America, could take the land and start a “new nation”, in 1947!
I really don’t side with any side that choses a violent book as their rationale for continued violence against their “fellow man”. My own experience with our history for killing was in a place where Buddhist monks burned themselves to death to protest the oppression of their people, by the “government” the United States was backing. These were men who sought peace, without causing harm to other people, but only sacrificing their own lives, to draw the world’s attention to the horror being done upon people by “good Christians” fighting “communism”, that was FAR from “godless”.
My friends were killed in large numbers. I killed people in large numbers, the killing convinced me that the Buddhist monks knew more about the world, and the way Man SHOULD act, than anything in “the Book of Hate”, or practiced by the sheep following the Abrahamic traditions.
There IS one simple rule they claim, but do not follow: “do unto others. . .”
sSTttrugglePup said, 6 months ago
Well, it is evident from your lengthy post that you have quite a few axes to grind…
Where do I start!? your revisionism is so prevalent…to attack it all would take too much time…
You deride on set of “mythology” , yet exalt your people’s (apparently you are “Cherokee”) own narrative to gospel status…
In defense of two people groups who might be fighting over what is written in their common lore 0ver 2000 years ago…I submit that the Holy Bible is also a DOCUMENT containing an history of cultural covenants and specific knowledge explaining their existence. Your so called 6000 year old utopian community apparently didn’t have the same philosophical, culrural, or technological sophistication to document anything for posterity. I’m not putting this tribe of yours down specifically – but there is probably reasons why they weren’t able to do so…one would be superstition and a reliance on whatever hegemony had control. I submit further that these leaders of this hegemony or similar function probably were as tyrannical, inegalitarian, sexist, racist, violent, ignorant, and self-serving if not more so than the other cultures you dismiss as ignorant and violent. Stupidity is stupidity no matter who perpetrates it…
Furthermore… to those who are interested – this book that dtroutma derides contains the only solution to a lasting and fair peace between the various peoples of this planet. I predict that you will look in vain for another…
sSTttrugglePup said, 6 months ago
Also, I feel – even though these two parties clam the God of Abraham as their God – they both couldn’t be more wrong. The Jews rejected their Messiah and in doing so gave up their special status as the People of God. Their stubborn refusal to accept the truths delivered by Jesus suggests their Father (or Chief Forebear) is not Abraham or even Jehovah, but Satan himself . Which relegates the tribe of Israel to no better claim to that name than the Gentiles.
The Muslims – on the other hand, follow a false Prophet who is demonstrably NOT a messenger from God – but a mere man at best and an agent of the Evil One at worst. Your Statement about “doing onto others as you would have them do unto you” is a good proof of this. lobbing thousands of missiles into a neighboring community is a good proof that these Muslims are not following a rational or loving God…
I Play One On TV said, 6 months ago
@dtroutma:
Palestinian Arabs were given their own state in 1948, at the same time Israel was formed. It is now called “Jordan”. I am pretty sure, however, even if it was called “Palestine”, we’d still have the same animosity/history.
dtroutma
said, 6 months ago
Transjordan goes back to 1922. The lands on the west bank were added in 1948 by the British, and “Jordan” was created. In the ’67 war, the Israelis stole the land back.
btw, The Ottomans ran the area from the 16th century until WW I, and the empire was broken up, by Europeans with interest in oil. (In1924 Mobil oil essentially created Saudi Arabia.)
Redkaycei Repoc said, 6 months ago
@sSTttrugglePup
Just out of curiosity how do you explain all the contradictions in that book. There so many places where it says something and then another that say different…. how do you decide which of the contradictory statements you believe?
dtroutma
said, 6 months ago
^Over 30,000 “Christian” denominations around the world, contradiction is a lot more prevalent than consistency. Then go back to Judaism’s divisions, and Islam’s, more than just Shia and Sunni, and it gets really difficult to follow all the divisions and arguments over what the “ONE God”, means??