h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Analiese,
If it wouldn't trouble you to much, I was curious about where you got the info on the bankers policies in the occupied territories of Palestine. I would love to read it. It also may be good ammo for a running argument I have going IRL with a near and dear friend.
Thank you in advance.
Ssubnel

It's a joke.

I don't know if there is a policy or not. If there was do you really suppose they would publish it somewheres? However, somebody's financing Israeli colonial expansion and somehow I don't think they're Tantric Buddhist bankers, but I could be wrong.

In traditional Christian doctrine, charging interest when loaning money was illegal, which made banking an alien concept. I'm sure you probably read about the Rothschild connection to banking and Western political families. So, your joke is undoubtably true, but I would love to know who finances the settlements in the Occupied Territories. That would be a hell of a scoop for Indymedia.

The problem here is that on the one hand you've probably got a few, rich, greedy people who happen to be Jewish and on the otherhand you've got a few vicious white supremacist monsters who'll jump at practically any pretext to justify exterminating Jewish people. And you put the two the together and it isn't pretty.

When the Holocausts happen they don't usually happen to the rich people. It's the poor ones who get shaked and baked.

I had a conversation with a very well off Jewish man one time, an airplane pilot who was very pointed in his critiques about how stupid Palestinians are. I asked him if he was referring to all Palestinians and he avowed that he was referring to the leaders who he thought were misleading the "rank and file" as he called the common people.

"Do you think Jewish leaders mislead people?"

"Absolutely not!" he protested.

"Why do you think that?"

"Well, it ought to be obvious," he replied.

"No, it probably ought to be an article of faith, don't you think?"

This short exchange illustrates why the problem is sort of intractable. Everything's an article faith practically speaking. Ultimately, both Muslims and Jews inhabit a world where only one group can survive intact. That's also true of the Christian world. So, yes, it ought to be obvious, and the smart ones say that and the stupid ones dispute it.

Where does that leave you and me? I think we're either for them or against them and if we're not for them, we're against them. That's what I think they think. I also think I'd rather be stupid in this context.

I don't worry too much about how I am going to be labeled. I figure you draw your line in the sand and if anyone stands behind you've got an ally. After all, I have more than once found myself on the same side of the fence as Pat Buchanan (he opposed NAFTA and FTAA), and one of my best friends happens to be gay and Jewish. So, I often find myself, toeing the line politically with people I'd just as soon be in a bar fight with.
As far as being following any particular dogma, I just try to respect the values of those I would consider wiser than me who's values I subscribe to. Sometimes faith is required, even of an Athiest.

Yes, faith is often called for, but as one great Jewish sage once observed, "Get it writing."

In the pen we trust. That's gonna be my new motto.

Well, if it was that simple, they wouldn't need lawyers, who I'm told are a good measure of a society's degree of civilization.

Some of my worst enemies are lawyers. In fact I have to write a check to one every month just to remind myself what a pain in the neck they can be. Of course if I had been more civilized in my youth, I wouldn't be paying him.

I've sort of got mixed feelings.

On the one hand they're a pretty good alternative to bullet proof Ghost Dance shirts for protection provided their firm doesn't also represent the government or the private corporate interests trying to find more relatively free land to free up. On the otherhand, if they didn't also make the laws, we probably wouldn't need them in the first place.

It's just that if you use them, the battle is already taken out of your hands. It becomes a fight that is defined on someone elses terms. I have to strong a self reliant streak to rely on them. Which is of course why I will be paying another man's lawyer in perpituity. Long story short: I broke a man's face, I have to pay for fixing his face. I should have gotten a lawyer. But what can you do?

You probably should have killed him. It might have been cheaper in the long run. Lives are generally worth less than faces in this society I've noticed.

I was actually trying pretty hard at the time to kill him. I'll tell you my bad m.f. story.
So I'm getting drunk at my house one night, when an ex of mine calls and says her crazy Chiropractor boyfriend that she left me for is with her at this Cowboy Bar and he's taken her car keys and won't let her leave. So I tell her to get a cab, and leave me alone. But I'm stupid and relatively easy to bend by people I feel any loyalty toward, so I drive over there to get her.
I get to the bar and go inside to get her, when the wannabe doctor grabs me and tells me how much better he is than me, and how much more money he makes, and how he's better in bed... and you get the gist. So I knock him back off of me, and attract the attention of the rhinestone cowboy bouncer association. They show me the exit, and my ex makes her way out as well. We're walking toward my truck and almost at it(I had an old dodge pick up at the time) when wannabe doctor grabs my ex and tries to slap her. I manage to pull him off her, and I throw him back just as he catches me with a off-balance roundhouse right to the nose. He's just getting back to his knees when I kick him in the head. At that point I figure it's over, and start getting into my truck, but he grabs me and is yelling about how he's gonna beat the hell out of me.
Just for perspective, I didn't want to fight him. Granted he was in good shape, early thirties, 6 feet, maybe 185, workout nut. But I was 20 yrs old, a few inches taller and almost 40 lbs heavier. But, he wouldn't let it drop, so I grabbed his shoulder and head and proceeded to ram him into the side of my truck face first until I got tired. We were eventually broken up by the bouncers who had called the cops as we were going out the door. I guess they figured letting him come after me would constitute entertainment for the evening. I was arrested and released at the scene for assault (even though he attacked me twice), and he was taken to the hospital.
About six weeks later, no criminal charges were filed, because they concluded I had acted in self defense and he was drunk. But he sued me for lost wages and his medical bills for a broken cheekbone and jaw. I settled with his lawyer to the tune of $15,000 which I now pay in small monthly installments. If I was smarter I should have sued the bar or the guy, but I guess I'm not that smart. Next time I'll let the other guy win. Naah, probably not.
As for the girl, I finally got rid of her about two years later, after she crashed that same truck for me. I learned to be less pathetic after that.

That's a story well worth telling, Nelson, despite the discomfort it may have caused. It says more about how things are than volumes of scholarly discourse.

It's too bad you needed to take the deal. I think people are so intimidated by the less rigid standards of proof in civil cases that they don't try to defend themselves, when maybe they should.

Still injury was caused and, since you chose to make amends for it, it shows you're an honorable person, more honorable than the man you injured. We can hope he enjoys his new face. He evidently didn't enjoy the old one or he wouldn't have risked it like he did.

Actually, I think the reason I don't mind paying it anymore is that it reminds me not to do stuff like that anymore. Especially in the last couple of years, I've really toned down my act. I used to be quite the hellraiser, but the less I drink, the more I start to understand the real things that people need to fight for. You know like to level the playing field, or make sure there's a playing field left after we're dead and gone. That's why even though I could have paid the tab in full years ago, I haven't, because it reminds me to think about why I am here. Pretty deep eh. Well I also don't pay it off because there no interest and with inflation the amount I pay will actually be less over time since I got the lawyer to agree to such generous terms. Not so deep eh.

Well drinking is a problem for a lot of people I think. I bet you're probably aware that my people have more than our share of drunks.

It's the resentments I think that get them going. Many have this disease. They're allergic to Anglos and Mexicans. That and nothing else to do all day. Most people are out of work and the ones who still have some land are barely getting by.

So you drink and it seems like everything's great again because you're feeling great again. You can do practically anything just lounging around watching the tumbleweeds blow by. You can reorder the universe from that throne in the dust. And everything looks great until you sober up. So you try to avoid sobering up. That's the trick.

I've been drinking since I was nine or ten so if I go to AA meetings in the city I've probably got more drunk years than some of the adults who could legally drink, but I'm still a baby where sobriety is concerned. I've quit a lot too, hundreds of times.

Quitting's easy. It's avoiding the next drink that's kind of hard, or the second drink actually, but I figure one of these days, when I'm grown up, mature and serious, I'll deal with it.

Actually, I don't feel that resentful. I'm not a victim. I'm a protagonist. And after a day of protagonizing, I need a little something to relax, that's all.

If I make it through my thirties, I'll be an old woman according to injun time. So there's hardly any point in saving anything now. Injuns are like Doritos. We'll make more. We like our kids.

All this stuff is probably probably some of the many benefits of living in a foreign country all your life.

Fortunately, there's still Indian Country. That country exists in your mind as much as anywhere so nobody can steal it from you. I wish white people had a country like that. I think then they wouldn't be so difficult to get along with. They wouldn't have to own everything.

But who knows? Maybe if they were more like you, we'd get along better too. You don't have to own everything do you? I don't think so. I think maybe you're okay with how things are. You don't feel obligated to improve them. But I could be wrong.

I used to go to AA meetings to meet celebrities. No actually it was a condition of my probation, but that is another story that we won't share. No fun remembering the real bad times.
As far as drinking goes, I've got a grandmother in the hospital with liver cancer. Italians know how to drink pretty good too. Especially when they've lived their whole lives in ghettos. My mom got me out though and onto army bases, which is a step up. Now I live in suburbia, which is sort of like the country white man invented. It's just an overpiced place with artificial secenery overlayed on the desert scrub. Someone imagined that this is the way a neighborhood should look and made it so. That's why most white people are such a**holes, because we have weak imaginations. I'd rather live away from them all, but so does everyone else. So we keep pushing out and replacing the real world with our artificial one that takes more and more energy to sustain. I don't know if I'm making sense, but I hope you get it.
The reason I buy stuff is because I figure the only way to fight power is to have power and be "in the system". But power corrupts, and the system perverts you. Sometimes I catch myself forgetting why I am here. And I realize that as hard as I try, I will probably never amount to much, but maybe my kids or their kids will have a good shot at changing stuff in earnest. If only I can teach them what I've learned. And that's where it'll get tricky. Till then I bite off what I can chew, and bide my time.
Now I need a beer.

I like that one, going to AA meetings to meet celebrities.

It's also an interesting insight about suburbia being the country white men invented. I guess I've never thought of people inventing countries before, but it seems to be true.

To survive I suppose everyone needs to accommodate some way or other. Then it depends on how accommodating you become.

Enjoy your beer. I think you amount to very much already.

The AA thing is not an original concept, I heard a lot of deals and stuff involving movies and t.v get done through chance encounters at 12 step meetings. Most of the people out in my neck of the woods are musicians though. But I am not as star struck as when I first got out here. The nicest people tend to be on the fringes of the business
rather than the talent.
The suburban experience has mystified me for a while. I actually would perfer to be a hermit, but I never figured out how to make a living at it. And being remarkably bad at anything resembling survival skills, I am forced to live in an area where I can make a good living or I will die. So I used to live as far away as I could in a semi-rural area but found that multi-hour commutes are wasteful both ecologically and timewise. So now I live about an hour away from work in the heart of the Republican Country. I can throw rocks at the Reagan Library from my freeway exit. (It's actually about 4 miles from my house, but it sounds good.) Ever since I have contemplated what made this area so popular with rich white people and why there are so few minorities around. Especially considering how diverse SoCal is. And I realized we're not diverse, it's all segregated. We all seem to redline each other into specific communities by race around here. It is often divided again by class after they sort out the races. I live in the working class area, contractors and other independent small business types, sales men. While just a few blocks away in the big homes you've got programmers and lawyers. But I digress, I was trying to figure out what the suburban compulsion is. It is some kind of neo-homesteading impulse that we whites have, where we want to claim our part of Mother Earth. And after we've got it we want to seal it off and alter it to our own vision of what Mother Earth should look like. It is so odd. Lucky for me there's a county reserve just a few blocks away that conects to the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy. So if you walk far enough in and go low enough into a canyon, you can get an idea of how it looked here before we f**ked it up. I don't see why we always have to alter our environment. I thought the magic of how evolved humans are is that we can survive in any environment on Earth. Why don't we just let that theory prove itself instead of making it all look the same?
BY the way thanks for the encouragement.

You're welcome.

I guess people come to terms with the environment in different ways. Some adapt to it and some try to adapt it to them. I think the former is better.

I've never understood why people come to the desert and insist on building a golf course, a thing that originated in Scotland, which is hardly a desert. You would think that prudence would dictate extending the sand traps rather than making greens and fairways in such an environment. Sure, it would be more of a challenge but for people inured to challenges and imbued with the pioneer spirit it should hardly pose an insurmountable task. Then again, the pioneer spirit isn't really about meeting challenges but about eliminating them.