Fractured America by Marilynne Eichinger
The News Feels Unreal
This is one of those weeks when the news feels unreal. Watching Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, and Russia slaughter citizens in a power play over land and politics is despicable, but it is so far away. Unless you have family there, the scenes are like watching the movie All Quiet on the Western Front. Such films are all too familiar, desensitizing us to brutality.The American Academy of Family Physicians reports that 91 percent of movies on television contain violence, including extreme violence. The public appears to crave seeing them.
Unfortunately, what we’re witnessing on news channels is occurring in real-time and is not fun or exciting. Despite what is happening abroad to thousands of innocent people, life in the U.S. continues with relative calm. I spoke to an intelligent woman who didn’t know about Israel’s invasion. She doesn’t follow the news, saying it is too depressing. Life continues without too much concern for the suffering of others. I worry about my granddaughter turning in her seventh-grade assignments and a homeless man’s housing situation when he leaves the hospital. I did the laundry and made a savory stew, sending odors through the house that reminded me of my childhood.
In early summer, my sleep was disturbed by Fl6 planes going through maneuvers in preparation for deployment to Ukraine. This week, military helicopters practice overhead in preparation for deployment to Israel. Though not as obnoxious as the jet planes, they disturb the calm I try to maintain at home by the edge of the woods.
Despite the carnage displayed on television, I am Pollyanish enough to hope peace is possible and that the combatants will come to their senses and compromise. Otherwise, I don’t see how the Earth’s eight billion inhabitants will continue to get along. Staking out of a rigid position begets distrust, hate, and violence. Sometimes, I wonder if Mother Nature isn’t getting impatient in her wait for humans to find a way forward. Perhaps war, pandemics, and homelessness are her ways of reducing the population and returning it to the earth’s carrying capacity. Too many people are fighting, polluting, and emitting greenhouse gasses for us to continue without making changes.
The first week of the invasion killed 1,300 Israelis, took 150 plus hostages, and wounded over 3,400 people. Palestinian officials say there are 2,215 dead and 8,714 wounded. The attempt by Israel to rid Gaza of Hamas started by cutting off water, food, power, and medical supplies, creating a humanitarian crisis. Though we aren’t hearing as much about Ukraine, their casualties continue to mount, with 120,000 dead and 180,0000 injured during the past 20 months. Russia also suffers, with 70,000 dead and another 120,000 wounded.
Towns are being destroyed, and children are terrorized while the world’s nations decide what side to take in a conflict that started in 1948. During WWII, my college history teacher served on a Roosevelt-appointed committee to determine if Israel should be taken from Palestine to establish a Jewish homeland. The committee concluded not to do it—that fighting would plague the region forever. President Roosevelt, an anti-semite, ignored the committee’s recommendation. He didn’t want millions of Jewish refugees from concentration camps settling in the U.S. Does this approach to refugees sound familiar? As a result of that decision, the fight continues, with thousands of people in Gaza becoming homeless.
Social media and news outlets issue false reports and spin the news to get people to take sides. It is the way a gullible nation reacts to misinformation. The twenty-seven election lies listed in Trump’s Georgia Indictment, though well analyzed many times and disproved, haven’t stopped much of the public from buying into his lies. We are warned that many false reports have been posted about the Israeli-Hamas fight. We must be careful about what we read and pass on to others if the information hasn’t been fact-checked. I don’t like strong-armed would-be dictators like Netanyahu and Trump, nor do I like Republicans and Democrats pitting people against one another.
While citizens wait for democracy to work on their behalf, the press gives us distracting information. News articles posted this week include “6Captivating Facts about Jackie Kennedy.” Who cares? The food page has photos of apples dipped in chocolate and nuts that look scrumptious. Taylor Swift donated funds to food banks on her Eras Tour, and fans followed her lead. A 104-year-old Chicago woman skydived from a plane. “Age” is just a number,” Dorothy Hoffner said after landing. The Musical!, a play about the printing press inventor, opened on Broadway. NASA unveiled a collection of asteroid rocks from the Osiris-Rex seven-year journey to the asteroid Bennu. The samples included waterlogged clay materials, indicating that Earth may have become a water planet when similar asteroids crashed into it four billion years ago, filling our oceans. Nasa says the successful mission collected a treasure trove of scientific samples to analyze.
These articles may be comforting, but they take us away from a critical debate that needs to happen if worldwide peace is to prevail. In theory, sovereignty among minorities should equalize the playing field, but in practice, it never has. Maintaining stability requires relinquishing a degree of autonomy for the betterment of the whole while respecting social customs and religious beliefs. When thirteen colonial states joined to become a sovereign nation, they gave up rights to the federal government. In 1993, European countries handed over powers to a supranational authority in Brussels, charged with balancing national and collective interests. Though there are problems, the experiment is working with EU countries obtaining economic, political, and security benefits.
In 1960, 1,9 million Jews and 239 thousand non-Jews occupied Israel. Gaza had 266 thousand residents. This September’s census shows 7,145 million Jewish citizens and 2.07 million non-Jews in Israel. Gaza’s population is 2.4 million, half under 19 years of age. These numbers translate to 434 people per square kilometer in Israel and 500 people per square kilometer in Gaza. They are among the most densely populated countries on earth. It isn’t surprising that both Israel and Gaza want more land.
Though just as violent as many of Hollywood’s movies, the fighting in Israel doesn’t have a plot we know will end well. Real problems need to be debated and acted on, perhaps under the auspices of a more powerful United Nations. Once again, I fear that wars, pandemics, and homelessness will be nature’s way of dealing with the earth’s problems if we’re unwilling to compromise and rule with our brains, not emotions.
Now is the time to enter into a debate. Don’t be shy. Please comment below.
Art is always for sale. For information about Fractured America, go to www. eichngerfineart.com
References:
Chang, K. (2023) NASA Unveils First Glimpse of ‘Scientific Treasure’Collected from Asteroid Samples. New York Times. retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/science/nasa-asteroid-osiris-rex-bennu.html#:~:text=rex-bennu.html-
Website. Good News. Today. Retrieved from https://www.today.com/news/good-news
Dale, D. (2023) 27 Donald Trump election lies listed in his Georgia indictment. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/16/politics/fact-check-trump-georgia-indictment-lies/index.html
Cordesman, A. ( 2023) Latest Analysis: Israel-Hamas War. Center for Strategic and International Studies. Retrieved from website, https://www.csis.org/
Vital Statistics: Latest Population Statistics for Israel: Jewish Virtual Library.. retrieved from https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/latest-population-statistics-for-israel
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