Recent mentions of the sadly late but eternally great Hunter S Thompson collided with an idle wish to do something a bit more interesting with my BlogLists the other day. As a tribute to the good doctor, and for something regular to write about, I'm going to continue a tradition that he started in his own columns, namely the Swine Of The Week.
I'm sure once parliament comes back we'll be spoilt for choice but I would welcome any suggestions for that person or persons who've just made your blood boil that week. I'm going to start us off with a specific example from this week of something that really gets on my tits.
the violent minority
The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza this week has been an intensely complex, emotional and historic piece of history. Personally I have to say that the withdrawal makes sense and is, hopefully, a step towards a real and lasting peace. With this in mind, the obvious anguish of many of the settlers is an unfortunate, but necessary sacrifice.
That said, however, I do sympathise deeply with those settlers who do not wish to leave. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the settlements, those people have been let down by their government. Removing the settlements is a good idea but not building them in the first place would have been a much better one.
I have also been impressed by the way in which the resistant settlers have chosen to protest. Forcing the Israeli government to physically carry them from their homes is a very powerful, yet entirely responsible way for them to make their point. I can even understand those settlers who have burnt their homes before leaving.
The smaller stories within this greater piece of history were what got my blood up. First there was some crazy settler in the West Bank shooting dead three Palestinians then some of the resisters at one of the Gaza settlements started throwing acid at the troops.
These guys were probably visiting activists rather than local settlers but that doesn't really matter to the guy who loses his nose does it? What bugs me about this violence in particular is that it is occurring within a volatile situation that is actually being handled quite well by both sides. Besides the obvious pain inflicted directly, these violent few are risking the entire process taking a turn for the worse.
Now while Im opposed to all violence just on principle, if a few fools want to dress up and try their luck against heavily armed urban law enforcement why should I care? Them getting their skulls cracked is surely just natural selection in action.
No, the problem comes when their preferred mode of protest not only gives the whole movement a bad name, but also make it more difficult for wittier, more constructive forms of protest to proceed. In a way its more the arrogance than the action that pisses me off. The actions of these people affect everyone else around them yet for some reason they think they have the right to decide that our sacrifice is worth it.
This is why this weeks Swine Of The Week are violent minorities everywhere. Mark my words, one day the rest of us are going to work things out and the only way you guys are going to be able to feed your need for action then is to fight each other to the death on prepay TV.
And how much smaller impact would these violent protesters and extreme groups have .. if half the time they were not passion posing for the cameras to promote their cause. Rather than telling them to sod off and get a grip, the media feeds on them to show their responsible care. Oh and the bucks they earn to win audience ratings ( but that's not why they do it.. is it now) Would the grizzly executioners beheading non combatants have such a high profile if the tainted and sick Al Jareeza did not delight in flaunting these psychos. But that's just one example. We live in a media greedy world without morals and without scruples. So I would like to offer the "concerned" journalists worldwide as the next possible future candidates for Swines of the Week.
D