When Politics Fails
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Darrell Castle talks about the use of politics to address the world’s problems and how that use or lack of use, specifically regarding the disputes in the Middle East and in Ukraine, makes good political campaigning but fails to actually solve the problem.
Transcription / Notes
WHEN POLITICS FAILS
Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday, the 9th day of May in the year of our Lord 2025. I will be talking about the use of politics to address the world’s problems and how that use repeatedly fails. Specifically, how the use or lack of use of politics to solve the disputes in the Middle East and in Ukraine make good political campaigning but when push comes to shove politics fails to solve the problems.
The dictionary defines politics as: “the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.”
We might be able to glean something from that definition, but it really means that normally politics is a precursor to war rather than preventing war. This Report then is not really about politics but about war. Yes, I suppose you might be able to conclude that the Castle Report is a report on war and my opposition to it. Here is an analogy, your kid sister is waiting on the school bus to bring her home from school and some bully slaps her and runs away. When confronted the bully denies having anything to do with it but you know and everyone knows that he did it. Retaliation is therefore a must. That bully has to be shown that he cannot insult you and yours with impunity so you attack him when he is on the way home just as he did your sister.
Does it end there, not likely. The bully approaches his friends for help and since his friends compete with you in local business they agree to supply the bully with people and weapons knowing that it will hurt you. The story just goes on and on without ceasing and when great nations are involved, great destruction results but also great profits for those who make the weapons. Those who make weapons and those who gain power because they are financed by those who make weapons seem to delight in war and want war to continue without end. They talk about peace but they never do anything to bring peace because they don’t really want it to happen. Politics fails then to solve the problems as it almost always does because politics is quite often false and meant to fail.
I look at the Middle East, specifically Gaza, and I try to apply my human reasoning to what is going on there. The story seems to change week by week or even day by day and it becomes so murky that it is very hard to make sense of it. I suppose that is because war is idiotic and senseless so how can one make sense of the Middle East. The attacks of October 7th by Hamas against civilians in Israel killed about 1200 people most were innocent meaning non-military targets. In other words, the object was to create terror and you don’t do that by attacking military targets you do it by murdering women and children.
That is what Hamas appears to have done, murder women and children. Stories of murder, rape and torture have been documented and if anything, they tend to downplay what really happened. I understand now that many more than 1200 were killed because many died of wounds later. I can’t blame Israel for retaliating with the purpose of not letting their people continue to be exposed and vulnerable to such attacks. The question becomes then; how much retaliation is enough and how much goes way beyond what can be justified as self-protection.
I read many people who report the Israelis as genocidal maniacs because of their alleged intentional killing of Palestinian children, etc. What the reporters or commentators of that version don’t seem to realize is that is exactly what the Israelis accuse Hamas of doing. Those who support the Palestinians in the struggle say the Israelis intend to kill every Palestinian so is that true or are these people really just anti-Semitic or more plainly do they just hate Jews. There seems to be a lot of hatred on both sides and that is for sure. Hatred seems to go back far beyond the life spans of anyone now fighting so I guess that means people are born hating and they pass the hatred on to their offspring. It seems then that a place with that type of historic ethnic conflict is a good place to stay away from.
I could look at every war the United States has fought since WWll and take apart the decision to go to war and the tactics of the war and it would appear to be nothing but a giant hypocritical boondoggle to benefit the ruling elite. The reason it would look that way is because that’s actually the way it is. None of this constant warfare makes any sense for the United States. We are here in North America, protected by the earth’s two greatest oceans, with no enemies on our borders. We have no real enemies abroad who threaten our existence except those we seem to intentionally create. Despite all that, we are constantly at war, constantly killing and constantly dying, constantly exhausting our revenue to build newer and bigger weapons. Why?
There has to be something extremely sinister at work because all those impeccably educated Ivy League geniuses who have run things for generations can’t be that stupid. A lot of them are educated idiots, granted, but not all of them, so they seem to be a self-perpetuating kind of Ivy League death factory. We don’t even have the excuse of hundreds of years of ethnic hatred like they have in the Middle East. There are many in America who try to give us ethnic hatred based on race, gender, etc. but that is obviously to keep the people divided so they don’t recognize what is being done to them.
This is a free country, right, so why don’t we do something about it. That’s a good question, but political partisanship blinds us to reality, I suppose, and it definitely keeps the real enemy obscured from us and that is the real purpose. I ask myself quite often, what does this have to do with the United States and the answer is almost always the same, absolutely nothing. There are always people who think we should go abroad and fight the enemies of other people but rarely are those experts expected to do the killing and dying. What about any of these foreign adventures and military intervention in other people’s foreign wars and ethnic struggles is an America First concept. I have yet to see it and it is not why the people tried to upset the apple cart in the last election.
There are undoubtedly many things that Marjorie Taylor Greene, the representative from Georgia, has said or done that is silly and we could get a good laugh out of it but on the subject of America First she is absolutely correct and she said it very well.
“I represent the base and when I’m frustrated and upset over the direction of things, you better be clear, the base is not happy. I campaigned for no more foreign wars. And now we are supposedly on the verge of going to war with Iran. I don’t think we should be bombing foreign countries on behalf of other foreign countries especially when they have their own nuclear weapons and massive military strength. And on top of that, now we are told that we have signed a deal for mineral rights in Ukraine, in order to pay us back for the hundreds of billions of dollars that we gave Ukraine and they used for money laundering, sold the weapons we gave them to our enemies, and their leader is a dictator who canceled elections, was involved in the first impeachment of Trump, and campaigned for Biden.
Didn’t we learn our lesson when we went to war in Iraq and killed Saddam Hussein because of weapons of mass destruction? Did we ever find any? And did any of that oil over in the Middle East make us rich? The answer is no; we are 36 trillion in debt today.”
To that I say amen Marjorie, well said, you have my attention and I trust that of the American people who can still think with some logic. She’s not finished though.
“I also campaigned on accountability for the communist and tyrannical acts made by the government during Covid. Yet the Covid vaccine still has FDA approval even though there are millions of reported injuries and deaths, and this mRNA vaccine is known to have horrific side effects and does not stop people from catching Covid. And to this day, it’s still on the vaccine schedule, why on earth is this happening? Hasn’t big pharma made enough billions and billions and billions of dollars on this lie?”
She goes on and on but I must stop there since I intend to end this Castle Report with some good news. My thanks to Tom Woods and his newsletter for reporting the MTG speech to me.
So, good news first from the Middle East. I have no good news from the struggle in Gaza but the United States campaign against the Houthis seems to be over or at least on hold for a while. The U.S. has announced that it will stop the round the clock bombing attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen because the Houthis announced that they will stop their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. I suppose that means that we are expected to believe that the Houthis have capitulated in their struggle to make the world pressure Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza. The Houthis have thrown in the towel, quit, cried uncle, or however you want to say it, but it means that the war is over or more likely on pause for a while.
Starting today the U.S. and China will hold trade talks in Switzerland on May 9-12. China will be represented by its Vice Premier and the U.S. by the Secretary of the Treasury. It will be the first meeting of high-ranking officials from the two countries since the Trump administration announced tariffs of up to 145% on Chinese goods. Will the talks resolve the dispute or amount to anything. That remains to be seen but at least they are talking instead of fighting.
In Russia, today the 9th of May they are celebrating Victory in Europe day when the Germans surrendered ending the Great Patriotic War. The Chinese Premier, Mr. Xi is in attendance so he could not be at the trade talks in Switzerland. Mr. Putin announced a 3-day ceasefire for the event so no fighting for the Russians although Mr. Zelensky in Ukraine sees it differently and has made numerous drone attacks near the ceremonies in Moscow.
The Indians launched missile attacks into Pakistan killing many people in retaliation for Pakistani attacks in India killing many people. The Pakistani defense minister says Pakistan would like to deescalate the tensions if the Indians would be willing to listen.
The world takes a breath for a little good news but even though this is good news it is really just rearming so nothing much ever seems to change at least not for long.
At least that’s the way I see it,
Until next time folks,
This is Darrell Castle,
Thanks for listening.
