A hushed erosion by Markus Gibbons

A paradox dressed in patriotic language, often justified through legal precision and procedural restraint. The latest move by the Supreme Court to further weaken the Voting Rights Act follows this familiar rhythm, measured in tone but seismic in consequence.

The Voting Rights Act was never meant to be a relic. It was designed as a living safeguard, a recognition that democracy requires maintenance not ...nostalgia. Yet, over the years, the Court has treated it less like a vital instrument and more like an artifact whose relevance must be repeatedly proven. Each decision that chips away at its protections is framed as technical, even neutral. But neutrality, in this context, is a posture that masks a deeper transformation.

What is striking is not just the legal reasoning, but the cumulative effect. The Court insists it is merely interpreting the law as written, stepping back from what it views as federal overreach. But stepping back, in a system already tilted by history and power, is not an act of balance, it is an abdication. When protections are removed, they do not vanish into abstraction; they disappear from real communities, real polling places, real lives.

There is an insistence among some justices that the conditions that necessitated the Voting Rights Act have changed, that the country has progressed beyond the need for such robust oversight. This argument, appealing in its optimism, falters under even casual scrutiny. Progress is not a straight line, and history has a way of resurfacing when vigilance fades. To declare victory over voter suppression while dismantling the tools designed to prevent it is to confuse aspiration with reality.

The language of these decisions often leans on the idea of equal treatment among states, a principle that sounds fair until one considers that not all states have traveled the same road. Some have long histories of restricting access to the ballot, histories that do not dissolve simply because time has passed. Treating unequal histories as though they were identical does not produce fairness; it produces erasure.

What emerges from this latest decision is a Court increasingly comfortable with narrowing the scope of federal protections in the name of constitutional purity. But purity, like neutrality, is not without consequence. It reshapes the terrain on which political battles are fought, often in ways that advantage those already positioned to benefit.

There is also a quieter, more insidious effect: the erosion of trust. When voters see the mechanisms meant to protect their participation weakened, the message is not subtle. It suggests that access to the ballot is negotiable, contingent, subject to reinterpretation. Democracy, in this light, begins to look less like a shared enterprise and more like a contested privilege.

The defenders of the decision will argue that it returns power to the states, that it respects the boundaries of federal authority. And there is, in theory, a democratic appeal to local control. But local control, without adequate safeguards, can become a vehicle for exclusion rather than representation. The framers of the Voting Rights Act understood this tension. That is why the law existed in the first place.

What makes this moment particularly unsettling is its familiarity. This is not a dramatic overturning that sparks immediate outrage; it is a continuation of a trend, a slow recalibration that unfolds decision by decision. The danger lies precisely in its subtlety. By the time the full impact is felt, the legal foundation that once supported broad access to the vote may already be too weakened to restore easily.

In the end, the question is not whether the Court is following the letter of the law, but whether it is honoring the spirit of democracy that the law was meant to protect. That spirit is not self-sustaining. It requires reinforcement, attention, and, above all, a willingness to recognize that rights, once secured, can still be undone.

The erosion is quiet. But it is no less real for its silence.

Fortress of doubt by Marja Heikkinen

Europe Day was supposed to commemorate a miracle, a continent that had finally grown tired of burying its children. The European project emerged from the rubble of World War II not merely as a political arrangement but as a moral rebellion against history itself. The idea was simple. Nations that had perfected the machinery of slaughter would instead bind themselves through trade, law, diplomacy, and mutual dependence until war became economically irrational and psychologically unimaginable. Europe would no longer be a battlefield. It would become an argument against barbarism.

And yet, in 2026, Europe celebrates itself with a nervousness it can barely conceal. The speeches still invoke unity, democracy and solidarity but the mood has changed. One can sense it in the guarded language of officials, in the rise of nationalist parties, in the razor wire stretching across borders once advertised as permanently open. Europe now speaks less like a civilization confident in its ideals and more like an aging aristocrat protecting inherited silver from burglars outside the gate.

The war in Ukraine shattered Europe’s illusion that economic integration alone could tame geopolitical ambition. Europeans believed commerce would pacify the continent because it had pacified Western Europe for decades. But Vladimir Putin reminded Europe that history does not retire because intellectuals declare it obsolete. Tanks rolled across borders again. Cities burned again. Refugees crossed Europe again. Suddenly, the twentieth century no longer looked buried. It looked patient.

At the same time, Donald Trump’s hostility toward NATO and the European Union exposed another uncomfortable truth. Post-war Europe was built under the protective umbrella of American power. European countries could invest generously in welfare states partly because the United States carried much of the military burden. Trump’s contempt for alliances forced Europe to confront the possibility that America may no longer guarantee Europe’s security out of sentimentality or habit. The old transatlantic romance has become transactional.

Still, the deeper crisis is not military. It is philosophical. Europe cannot decide whether it remains a moral project or merely a marketplace with a flag. The European Union speaks eloquently about human rights while striking migration deals with authoritarian governments. It condemns illiberalism abroad while tolerating democratic erosion within member states. It celebrates freedom of movement yet increasingly treats desperate migrants as contaminants to be contained beyond its borders. Europe wants the language of universal values without always accepting the sacrifices universalism demands.

This contradiction has produced a peculiar exhaustion. Europeans continue defending liberal democracy rhetorically, but many seem unconvinced it can survive economic inequality, demographic anxiety, digital propaganda and cultural fragmentation. Across the continent, voters increasingly choose leaders who promise protection rather than openness. The politics of fear has replaced the politics of aspiration. Europe once imagined itself as the world’s first post-national civilization. Today, nationalism is staging a noisy comeback across the Union.

And yet it would be unfair to dismiss the European experiment as a failure. The fact that Europeans now argue bitterly about regulations, migration quotas, energy policy, and budget rules instead of invading one another is itself extraordinary. France and Germany now bicker like exhausted business partners. That is progress. Europe has also preserved something increasingly rare in modern politics: the belief that compromise is not weakness. In a century intoxicated by strongmen, that principle still matters.

But Europe’s greatest danger may be complacency disguised as virtue. The post-war generation built institutions because they remembered ruins. Contemporary Europe remembers comfort instead. Peace has lasted so long that many Europeans treat it less as an achievement than as a natural condition. They assume liberal democracy will survive automatically because it has survived before. History suggests otherwise.

So, is Europe what Europeans dreamed of after World War II? Partly. It achieved the unimaginable by transforming a continent of rival empires into a community governed largely through negotiation rather than bloodshed. But the dream was never only about preventing war. It was about creating a civilization confident enough to defend human dignity consistently, even when inconvenient. On that question Europe remains undecided. Europe Day no longer feels like a celebration. It feels like an annual reminder that the European project is unfinished, fragile and still arguing with its own conscience.

#eBook Into Picasso’s blues by Ovi Art eBooks

Before the minotaurs. Before the screaming women and the fractured guitars of Cubism. Before the fame and the fortune and the furious loving there was the blue.

Why make a book about a four-year span in a career that lasted seventy-eight years? Because the Blue Period is the key to everything that followed. Picasso had to learn how to paint grief before he could learn how to paint rage. He had to sit with the blind and the broken before he could shatter a face into a thousand diamonds. The blue was his apprenticeship in darkness.

Turn the page. But dress warmly. It is 1902 inside these pages, and the wind cuts through every cracked window. We are going to meet a young man who has just seen his best friend die and who has decided, without quite knowing why, to paint only the colour of that moment for the next four years.

That young man will become Picasso. But first, he must become blue.

Ovi eBook Publishing 2026

Into Picasso’s blues

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Read it online & downloading it as PDF or EPUB HERE!
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2nd opinion! 26#08 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Seriously, a human hater self-centred agoraphobic in quarantine!
I think you’ll need a second opinion after this.

For more 2nd opinion, quarantined!, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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A Fractured Mandate: West Bengal’s 2026 Election and the Strain on India’s Social Fabric By Habib Siddiqui

The results are in, and the unthinkable has happened. What I had feared for the past five years has now come to pass: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), under the ideological leadership of Narendra Modi, is set to form the next government in West Bengal. Suvendu Adhikari—whose record of incendiary, anti‑Muslim rhetoric has dragged political discourse to new lows—appears poised to become the state’s next chief minister. For a state long celebrated for its pluralism, cultural sophistication, and resistance to communal politics, this moment marks a profound rupture.

Even The Hindu, one of India’s most respected newspapers, described the outcome as a “paradigm shift in the BJP’s political journey.” Adhikari himself wasted no time claiming that the results reveal a “visible crack” in the Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) Muslim support base. For those of us who have watched India’s political evolution over decades, the BJP’s first solo victory in West Bengal is not a sudden development but the culmination of a long, calculated project.

Behind the BJP’s historic breakthrough lies the strategic acumen of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, often described as the party’s modern‑day Chanakya. Shah camped in Bengal for two full weeks, holding late‑night organizational meetings, coordinating booth‑level operations, and addressing more than 50 rallies and roadshows across the state. During this period, he made targeted promises—such as implementing the 7th Pay Commission for government employeesand vowed to crack down on “goons and infiltrators,” language that played directly into the BJP’s polarizing narrative.

After the first phase of voting, Shah confidently declared that the BJP had already secured more than 110 seats, setting the tone for the second phase. This projection, amplified across media and social networks, created a sense of inevitability around the BJP’s victory, especially in regions previously considered difficult terrain for the party.

A National Election Day, but One Result Dominated

The West Bengal elections were one of five whose results were announced on May 4. Tamil Nadu witnessed a political upset as actor‑turned‑politician C. Joseph Vijay swept aside established parties with his new TVK formation. In Kerala, the Congress defeated the ruling left coalition. A BJP‑led alliance captured Puducherry, and in Assam the BJP returned to power with a commanding majority.

Yet, despite this flurry of outcomes, it was West Bengal’s verdict that overshadowed all others. After 15 years of TMC rule, the state’s dramatic political reversal carried implications far beyond its borders. For more than a decade, West Bengal had resisted the BJP’s advance even as the party expanded across India. The state was widely regarded as a bastion of regional pride, cultural pluralism, and resistance to Hindu majoritarianism under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. That bastion has now fallen.

The BJP’s victory in West Bengal is not merely electoral. It is ideological. The party is now in power uninterruptedly from Gangotri in Uttarakhand, where the Ganga originates, to Gangasagar in West Bengal, where the river meets the Bay of Bengal. Symbolically, this is a triumph of the BJP’s long‑term project to consolidate political control across the entire Gangetic belt.

West Bengal also holds special significance as the birthplace of Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP’s predecessor. For decades, the BJP’s ideological ecosystem has viewed Bengal as unfinished business, a region that must be brought into the fold of its Hindu nationalist vision. The 2026 result fulfills that long‑standing aspiration.

Early results showed the BJP winning or leading in roughly 200 of the state’s 294 seats—an unprecedented leap from its previous best of 77 seats in 2021. The TMC, once dominant, was reduced to fewer than 90 seats. Analysts cited in the reporting describe the outcome as a convergence of anti‑incumbency, religious polarization, and a highly disciplined BJP campaign machine.

The Human Story Behind the Numbers

Yashraj Sharma’s reporting for Al Jazeera opens with the story of Seema Das, a domestic worker who traveled two days across India to cast her vote. Das had always supported the TMC, but this time she switched to the BJP after being convinced that Mamata Banerjee “favours Muslims.” This narrative—long promoted by the BJP—has been central to its strategy in Bengal, a state where Muslims constitute more than a quarter of the population.

Das’s shift reflects a broader trend. Analysts noted that urban Hindu men were particularly polarized. The BJP’s messaging – casting itself as the defender of Hindu interests and portraying the TMC as “pro‑Muslim” – resonated with voters who felt economically insecure or culturally threatened.

The Limits of Welfare Politics

Mamata Banerjee’s political rise was built on welfare schemes, grassroots mobilization, and resistance to both communist rule and Hindu majoritarianism. Yet after 15 years in power, her administration faced growing dissatisfaction. While she remained personally popular, many voters felt alienated by the TMC’s local machinery, which they viewed as intrusive and overbearing in everyday life. At the same time, growing economic hardship and unmet aspirations deepened anti‑incumbency sentiment. Welfare programs that once energized her base could no longer offset the frustration of those who felt left behind, and the party’s inability to offer a fresh vision allowed resentment to build beneath the surface.

Polarization as Strategy

The BJP’s campaign was described as “better‑managed,” with a clear strategy to consolidate Hindu votes while exploiting urban‑rural divides. Suvendu Adhikari openly credited “Hindu consolidation” for the victory. He also claimed that some Muslim voters shifted away from the TMC, though this remains unverified until detailed Election Commission data is released.

The deployment of 2,400 companies of paramilitary forces – the largest ever for a state election –was justified by the central government as necessary to prevent violence. Opposition parties, however, argued that the heavy security presence intimidated voters and created conditions favorable to the BJP.

The Controversial Voter Roll Revision

One of the most contentious aspects of the election was the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter rolls conducted by the Election Commission of India. In West Bengal alone, more than nine million names (nearly 12 percent of the electorate) were removed. Six million were classified as absentee or deceased; the remaining three million lost their voting rights because their cases could not be heard in time.

Opposition parties accused the ECI of bias, arguing that the revision disproportionately disenfranchised Muslims and vulnerable communities. Mamata Banerjee challenged the process in the Supreme Court, calling it “opaque, hasty, and unconstitutional.” Although the Court did not restore voting rights, it ordered the ECI to publish the list of affected voters.

A National Turning Point

The implications of the West Bengal result extend far beyond the state. After the 2024 national elections, the BJP had fallen short of a parliamentary majority and depended on coalition partners. The 2026 state victories, particularly in West Bengal, Assam, and Puducherry, helped the party regain political momentum. Analyst Praveen Rai argues that the Bengal win “substantially increases the national standing of Modi’s leadership” and strengthens the BJP’s ability to govern India.

The Road Ahead

Mamata Banerjee’s initial response was defiant. In a video message, she urged her party workers to remain vigilant during the counting process and accused central forces of “forceful use” against the TMC. Analysts expect significant political turbulence ahead, noting that Banerjee is unlikely to retreat quietly.

The deeper question is what this election means for West Bengal’s social fabric and for neighboring Bangladesh, where the political reverberations may trigger concern among Muslim communities already wary of rising hostility across the border. This anxiety is hardly surprising: the campaign itself was defined by intense Hindu–Muslim polarization, and the voter‑roll controversy has left many vulnerable groups feeling exposed and uncertain about their place in the political order.

The BJP’s rise is often framed as a late‑20th‑century phenomenon, but its ideological roots run deeper: back to the Hindu Mahasabha of the 1940s and to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee’s vision of a culturally unified Hindu nation. Bengal, with its history of communal tensions and competing nationalisms, was the crucible in which this ideology first took shape. Today’s electoral shift thus carries a historical resonance that extends far beyond the state’s borders.

The 2026 West Bengal election is a reminder that democratic outcomes are shaped not only by party performance but by the broader political environment: identity, economic anxiety, institutional trust, and the narratives that resonate with voters.

As I see it, the election noted that the BJP’s victory was driven not only by strategic campaigning and deep anti‑incumbency, but also by a level of polarization intensified by what can be described as an unfathomable rise in intolerance and open bigotry toward Muslims. This atmosphere, repeatedly highlighted in reporting from the ground, became a powerful force shaping voter behavior and the broader political narrative.. The TMC’s defeat underscores the limits of welfare politics when confronted with shifting social dynamics and organizational fatigue.

What remains to be seen is whether West Bengal can preserve its tradition of pluralism, whether disenfranchised voters regain confidence in democratic institutions, and whether political competition can proceed without deepening communal divides. For now, one thing is clear: West Bengal has entered a new political era, and its consequences will reverberate across India.

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[Dr. Siddiqui’s forthcoming book, ‘Modi‑fied’ India: The Transformation of a Nation, is slated for publication by Peter Lang in 2026.]

Progress 1+1=10 #Poem by Jan Sand

The word itself is implacable
That time advances in its chances
To endow the inevitable, the reliable,
That failures fail.
To whack that nail
Hammerwise square and solidly
On its head may demand
Lots of lives
Becoming dead.
The no go of the dodo,
The pterodactyls disappearance
Was just an act of clearance
For the hummingbird,
Not at all absurd.

These days that logic still persists.
It cannot be missed that humanity
Is eager to conform.
Evolution cannot resist advance.
Therefore it is obviously a plus
That the atmosphere must rearrange
In planetary change to toss away the
Vast stupidities that now drive with energies
Humanity’s departure from persistence.
Within a decade or two, perhaps a camel
Might remain to gaze in curiosity
At the pyramids.
Perhaps a meerkat might stand and stare
In wonder at the wreckage and blunder
Distributed here and there
Left by a humanity that has terminated
In nowhere.

 

Remembrance under strain by Virginia Robertson

The annual Time of Remembrance and Reconciliation for Those Who Lost Their Lives during the Second World War was created as a solemn promise to history that sacrifice would never be reduced to political convenience or selective memory. In recent years however that promise feels increasingly fragile as public discourse hardens into rivalry rather than reflection

In parts of contemporary political culture including rhetoric associated with figures like Donald Trump critics argue that the shared narrative of Allied cooperation during World War Two is sometimes diminished or reframed in ways that elevate national grievance over collective victory This perceived shift unsettles historians and citizens alike because it risks flattening a complex alliance into caricature.

The memory of European allies who endured occupation resistance bombing and immense civilian suffering is not a footnote to history but a central pillar of it From the ruins of Warsaw to the resilience of London and the partisan movements across the continent the war was not won by any single nation alone

Yet today there is a growing tension between remembrance and reinterpretation where political messaging can sometimes recast allies as secondary actors or even question their contribution Such framing whether deliberate or rhetorical risks weakening the moral clarity that remembrance days are meant to preserve

The danger lies not only in historical distortion but in the erosion of shared responsibility that defined the Allied effort When remembrance becomes a stage for contemporary political posturing it risks transforming collective sacrifice into competitive narratives of superiority rather than solidarity This is particularly troubling in a world where historical literacy is already under pressure from misinformation and simplified slogans that flatten nuance and replace it with emotional immediacy Remembrance should resist becoming a battleground for present day identity politics because its purpose is not to rank suffering or distribute blame but to acknowledge the interconnected cost of a global conflict that reshaped the twentieth century In that sense the memory of European allies is not optional it is foundational to understanding how freedom was preserved

Ultimately remembrance is a test of political maturity and cultural honesty It asks whether nations can hold multiple truths at once celebrating their own contributions while respecting those of others The Second World War remains one of the clearest examples of what can be achieved through alliance rather than isolation and any attempt to reduce that history into narrow national pride diminishes its lessons for future generations In an era marked by renewed geopolitical tension the temptation to rewrite or weaponize history becomes even more pronounced Yet the memory of shared struggle should serve as a reminder that cooperation across borders is not weakness but necessity The sacrifices of European allies stand as enduring testimony to resilience under unimaginable pressure and their place in remembrance is neither symbolic nor optional it is essential to the integrity of history itself When leaders or commentators diminish that role they risk not only misunderstanding the past but also weakening the moral foundations upon which contemporary alliances depend The act of remembering must therefore remain vigilant inclusive and resistant to distortion even when political climates encourage simplification and selective memory Only through such vigilance can remembrance retain its true meaning as a shared human responsibility rather than a tool of division and fragmentation of historical understanding.

Fika bonding! #121 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Fika is a state of mind and an important part of Swedish culture. It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee and a little something to eat.

For more Fika bonding!, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Gary Snyder : (1930 - ) A Zen View of Nature by Rene Wadlow

Rapprochement of Cultures

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the Decade 2013-2022 as the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures building on the efforts in the UNESCO General Conference which had called for “the development of a universal global consciousness” based on dialogue and cooperation in a climate of trust and mutual understanding and for a “new humanism for the twenty-first century”. Thus we look at the creative efforts of individuals who built bridges of understanding over the divides of cultures, social classes, and ethnicity and created a foundation for the New Humanism   Garry Snyder , whose birth anniversary we mark on 8 May, is a model of the cultural bridge-builder, creating linkes between Japanese – Chinese and US culture and at the same time developing a new awareness of Nature.

Gary Snyder : (1930 - ) A Zen View of Nature

The most revolutionary consciousness is to be found among the most ruthlessly exploited classes:
animals, trees, water, air, grasses. 
-- Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder reached the consciousness of a wide reading public  in the USA as Japhy Ryder, the name given to him in Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel The Dharma Bums. Kerouac, then the best known of the USA-based Beat Generation, sums up Snyder’s life till then “the number one Dharma Bum of them all was he, Japhy Ryder, who coined the phrase. Japhy Ryder was a kid from eastern Oregon brought up in a log cabin deep in the woods with his father and mother and sister, from the beginning, a woods boy, an axman, farmer, interested in animals and Indian lore so that when he finally got to college by hook or crook he was already well equipped for his early studies in anthropology and later Indian myth and in the actual texts of Indian mythology.  Finally he learned Chinese and Japanese and became an Oriental scholar and discovered the greatest Dharma Bums of them all, the Zen Lunatics of China and Japan. At the same time, being a Northwest boy with idealistic tendencies, he got interested in old-fashioned Industrial Workers of the World anarchism and learned to play the guitar and sing old workers songs to go with his Indian songs and general folksong interests.”

The adventures of Snyder as Japhy Ryder in the mid-1950s San Francisco Renaissance, along with Allen Ginsberg, the older poet Kenneth Rexroth and the scholar of Asian thought Alan Watts are well told in The Dharma Bums, a book less known than the Kerouac classic On the Road but still worth reading. A reflection of the Beat period comes from Snyder’s 1955 poem “For a Far-out Friend”:

            Visions of your body
            Kept me high for weeks, I even had
                        A sort of trance for you
            A day in a dentist’s chair.
            I found you again, gone stone,
            In Zimmer’s book of Indian Art:
            Dancing in that life with
            Grace and love, with rings and
            A little golden belt, just above
                        your naked snatch,
            And I thought – more grace and love
            In that wild Deva life where you belong,
            Than in this dress-and-girdle life
            You’ll ever give
            Or get.

By the time The Dharma Bums was published in 1958, Snyder was living in Japan, studying Zen having become a Zen Monk under the name of Chofu, and working on translations from Japanese and Chinese. He spent most of his time in Japan until 1968. When he returned to the USA, the Beat Generation of San Francisco had gone on its way. Allen Ginsberg had gone back to New York to lead a Zen-poetical battle against the war in Vietnam.

Snyder’s return to the USA was on the eve of a broad ecological consciousness that took its political form with the UN-sponsored 1972 Stockholm conference on the environment.  Synder was influenced by the most famous of the American “back to nature books, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854). For Snyder “Human economies are based on utilizing whatever nature makes available, and it would be very prudent and healthy for all complex societies to be informed about ecological and economic systems at the same time. A lot of what happens in the economic realm runs counter to the health of the ecological system.”

Gary Snyder has become the poetic spokesman for bioregionalism. “The differing regions of the world have long had each their own precise subsistence pattern developed over millennia by people who had settled in there and learned what particular kinds of plants the ground would ‘say’ at that spot. Countless local ecosystem habitation styles emerged. People developed specific ways to be in each of those niches: plant knowledge, boats, fishing, the smaller animals and smaller tools — a spirit of what was to be there evolved, that spoke of a direct sense of relation to the ‘land’ — which really means, the totality of the local bio-region system, from cirrus clouds to leaf-mold. Bio-regional problems are always linked to the larger biological world. But paying attention to your immediate region gives us a quicker way to monitor and understand what is happening and thus to be able to apprise our citizens more swiftly.”

For Gary Snyder, there is a close link between the spirit of a region and creativity.

“Creativity is an expression of gratitude and a celebration of a place.  All art is essentially devotional. A place will specifically express itself through the colours and shapes and materials used by the artist.  Many natural cultures transform their landscape into the very clothes and designs they wear.  The old Scottish tartans, for instance, reflect the deep purples and blues, oranges and reds of the colour of the Highlands in the autumn.  Craft, and art come together as part of the pure expression of the place.  You make your art out of that which grows there, you dye your clothes from plants that grow there. It is wonderful reinforcement of the whole picture — and of course it is spiritual. It is the song of the place to itself.”

Snyder's poetry, deeply influenced by the Zen tradition, is the opposite of the much-practiced 'confessional poetry' which is a confrontation with the self and the ways the ego has been twisted by social determinants. Confessional poetry is much influenced by Freudian theory in which the inward voyage is a dense tangle of repressed memories, forbidden desires and multiple associations.  On the other hand for Snyder “the practice of meditation, for which one needs only the ground beneath one's feet wipes out mountains of junk being pumped into the mind by the mass media and supermarket universities. The belief in a serene and generous fulfillment of natural loving desires destroys ideologies which blind, maim and repress.”  Zen allows the person to calm the ego and to discover the order and value within the world as it is.

Snyder brings his long study of Eastern religious thought to present wholeness and a sense of time. While we live in a world of seeming separation and division, our universe is a unified whole brimming with life and infused with a spiritual presence.  He writes “I try to hold both history and wildness in my mind, so that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our time.” A good introduction to the writing of Gary Snyder is his 1974 book Turtle Island. The title comes from the native Indian name for North America. The book was awarded in 1975 the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry – a leading award for literature.

 ***********************

Rene Wadlow; President, Association of World Citizens
Drawing: Evgueni Bosyatski

War on Humanity and Earth and the US-Israeli Moral, Intellectual and Political Bankruptcy by Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.

The US-Israel War on Mankind and Fear of the Future

Wars are paradoxes of conflicting political and individualistic interests - gains in the present and loss in the future. At times America supports Israel’s war on Iran and the Arab world as if a child of a surrogate mother but knows little of what puzzles are in play by PM Netanyahu’s naive egoism. The unwarranted war has global consequences of systematic socio-economic and political destabilization and degeneration. The war unleashed dreadful tragedies which could result in goading humanity unthinkably to catastrophic ends. Wars and continued conflicts are lifelines for the Israeli leadership. It is widely reported that the current war against Iran was instigated by PM Netanyahu for his own political survival and re-election Israel.

After Gaza, occupied West Bank territories, border towns of Syria, Iran and Lebanon are the latest victims of collaborated hegemonic war by Israel. The ceasefire and protection of civilians are daily violated by Israel without any check. The people and nations once colonized remain colonized forever in time, traditions and history. A recent revelation by American ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee (interview with Tucker Carlson, 02/22/26), exposes the monstrous claim: “Israel would be justified in taking over a vast stretch of the Middle East on Biblical grounds.... from Nile to Euphrates.”Tucker Carlson, asked Huckabee whether Israel had a right to an area which the host said was, according to the Bible, "essentially the entire Middle East". https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn5gkkgdzkyo

The ruling Arab elite have no idea of whether living in the present, past and how the future is going to be sustainable? Instigating the unwarranted war on Iran, America and Israel would entice and entrap the oil producing Arab states of UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait to react with military actions against Iran. They would watch and coordinate as America occupied the Arabian states with its own military bases causing deaths and destruction of the whole Arab region. America and Israel would not put boots on but conspire to engage Arab-Iran battles. Huckbee would be foretelling the outcomes as Arab and Iran could go on fighting and ending in demise of the Muslim world. Israel’s death grip (AIPAC) on the US political system is also documented in “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

An Israeli Professor and Rabbi of Philosophy and Religions narrates his story to this author, why he left Israel seeking a new life in Canada.There was no peace and normalcy in life.... Jews are divided, atheist, secular, Zionists and lost precepts of the faith of Moses - the Divine Judaism. Israeli leaders are misleading people for their own political power, not for the good of Israeli masses or for peace or a sustainable future. Israel, to the Rabbi, could be at an edge of unknown disasters of survival in the Middle East unless it rethinks and reshapes its policies and practices to co-exist with the people of Palestine.

Israel Pursues Political Objectives by Military Assaults

The UNO was supposed to be the body to stop this war to ensure civilian safety and security and try to embark on a peaceful resolution. But it working is at standstill as the US and Israel have made it impotent to play any useful role in global peace and security. Gaza and West Bank territories are the scene of insane cruelty and daily killings by the IDF. Suspicious and embittered PM Netanyahu unleashing violent assumptions of hatred, animosities for his own political survival, Are the Israeli leaders purging America and its history of national freedom and democratic values?

America and Israel are fearful of the phenomenon of change as it could make them obsolete and misfit for the future even with all the imaginary power and monetary influence. They are bewildered with no sense of time, strengths and weaknesses - how to collaborate for an uncertain future. Do civilizations grow out of moral mire, tyranny and military conquests? America according to its thinking hubs lost more than it gained by supporting Israel unequivocally.Sigmund Freud(Civilization and its Discontent, 1930), noted that: “the inclination to aggression is an original self-subsisting instinctual disposition in man, and that it constitutes the greatest impediment to civilization.” Consequent to the Israeli bloodbath of civilians in Gaza, all futuristic imagination of peace with Arabs is gone. Was the discovery of “oil” an obsession - a stigma, a conspiracy (“fitna”) to forfeit the Arab culture and Islamic civilization? Please see: “How Arab Leaders Betray Islam and Defy the Logice of Political Change, Peace and Security.” https://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/2023/10/07/how-did-arab-leaders-betrayed-islam-and-defied-the-logic-of-political-change-peace-and-security.php

Every beginning has its end but nothing in sight how America wants to end the war and how Israel prefers its own agenda to surprise the American political intellect.  Jerome Irwin (“America Is Israel, Israel Is America, and the Military-Industrial Corporate Fascism Is What It Is”: Global Research: 3/01/24), author of The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey, a  criminology professional and a Canadian-American former CIA agent explains: https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-israel-israel-america-military-industrial-corporate-fascism/5851096 What is happening today to the Palestinians in their former homelands of Palestine can be likened to what happened to indigenous Indians, Black slaves and Mexican peasants in the 18^th & 19^th century history books of America and Canada’s Wild West or Southern ante-bellum states. ......Yet now in 2024, thanks to America’s latest shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel’s settler-colonial racist apartheid state, its Zionists are able to even more effectively kill or wipe out whole families, villages, refugee camps and settlements of Palestinians; ruthlessly pushing aside, or totally removing, whatever still recalcitrant defenders still remain in their former territories.

The Earth is a  Divine Trust to Humanity Those Bombing the Earth are Ignorant and Insane People

The earth is living and spins at 1670 km per hour and orbits the Sun at 107,000 km per hour. Imagine, if this spinning fails, what consequences could occur to the living beings on Earth. Think again, about the average distance of earth from moon is 93 million miles -the distance of Moon from Earth is currently 384,821 km equivalent to 0.002572 Astronomical Units. Earth is a “trust” to mankind for its existence, sustenance of life, survival, progress and future-making. Wherever there is a trust, there is accountability. The Divine warning (Chapter 7: 56: The Quran), warns:Do no mischief on the Earth after it hath been set in order, but call on God with fear and longing in hearts; For the Mercy of God is always near to those who do good. (44:38-39), the reminder is explicit: We created not the Heavens and the Earth; And all between them merely in idle sport. We created them not, Except for just ends. But most of them do not understand. The Divine Message  (Quran:40:64),clarifies:   It is God Who made for you the Earth as a resting place and the sky as a canopy; And has given you shape and made your shapes beautiful, And has provided for your Sustenance, of things pure and good; Such is God your Lord. So Glory to God, The Lord of the Worlds.

And killing of innocent people is prohibited in the Ten Commandments (Torah):

'Thou shalt not kill' (Exod. 20:13; also Deut. 5:17). Jewish law views the shedding of innocent blood very seriously, and lists murder as one of three sins (along with idolatry and sexual immorality), that fall under the category of yehareg ve'al ya'avor - meaning "One should let himself be killed rather than violate it."According to Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague: ‘Jewish law forbids the killing of innocent people, even in the course of a legitimate military engagement.

The War on Gaza is a stigma of political survival for PM Netanyahu as the Ultra Nationalist groups aligned with him continuously violate the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Arab-Muslim leaders are simply the spectators watching the provocations. Please see: “Al-Aqsa Mosque Waiting for the Arab Leaders.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57491.htm 

Intelligent leaders always heed voices of reason and rational advice but American and Israeli’s  warmongering and crimes against humanity are contrary to the Nature of Things. Netanyahu and Trump both lack the capacity and foresight to end the war or win the unthinkable consequences. Our failure to grasp the compelling realities of Israeli atrocities against the helpless 2.5 million civilians of Gaza makes us feel to be standing at some of the darkest timeline of history. The time and opportunities call for urgent rethinking and reshaping  of new visions and creative ideas to reject violence, genocide and vengeance as contrary to the nature of humanity, peace and intellect. We, the People of Global Conscience and thinkers share seamless common bonds of truth, universal morality and being One Humanity and must reject tyranny of war and genocide as a means to solve political problems and stand united to facilitate dialogue and globalization of one people for conflict resolution and peace-making.

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Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution and has spent several academic years across the Russian-Ukrainian and Central Asian regions knowing the people, diverse cultures of thinking and political governance and a keen interest in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including: Global Humanity and Remaking of Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution for the 21st Century and Beyond, Barnes and Noble Press, USA, 2025 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/global-humanity-and-remaking-of-peace-security-and-conflict-resolution-for-the-21st-century-and-beyond-mahboob-a-khawaja/1147150197 and We, The People in Search of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Kindle Direct Publishing-Amazon, USA: 2025 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F6V6CH5W

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Check Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD. eBOOK,
Wars on Humanity:
Ukraine, Palestine and the role of Global Leaders
HERE!

Rollercoaster #poem by Abigail George

“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind.
The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”
Henry James

Dear King,
You’re made of glass
Glass toes

Glass hands
Glass elbows, glass neck
your nose is a lake

You play with the duck
in the blue lung of bathwater’s
wet molecule

You follow my instructions
call me teacher
and something

quietly erupts within me
fades away into dark chocolate

You wail, Vertigo!
and reach for the Starship Enterprise
of my mother

Tourist, your shoebox
of toys turns into hours of silence
A white bunny

on a shelf
You read the ingredients on the back
of the petroleum jelly label

(six verses follows on next page)
You wipe a sea
of brown sticky fingers
on my dress

in the runny apricot
jam tin a cloud nestled in subtle orange light

The wood is salt,
a map, a fire extinguisher

Inside your brown eyes, exists a ballroom
your tears, salt, light

I want you to remember
that you summoned the ancestors

with the wave
of your little hand, that is all it took
for democracy