REAL ART

Goya's The Third of May 1808



From Wikipedia:

The Third of May 1808 is a 1814 oil painting by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya. It depicts a scene from the Spanish war of liberation when many innocent citizens were shot by Napoleon's troops.

And

The white of the victim's shirt represents the innocence and purity of the some 5000 Spanish civilians who were executed between May 2 and May 3. At the time of his death, the brave Spaniard becomes a martyr, raising his arms in a Christ-like fashion.

Click here for a bit more on the painting, here for more on Goya, and here for a much closer look at the painting.

This is what we're allowing Israel to do to Lebanon, and what the US has unleashed in Iraq and Afghanistan, by both encouraging sectarian division which is causing all kinds of violence and murder, and indiscriminately targeting, well, everyone. This kind of thing, wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians, was obviously understood to be insanely immoral in the 19th century, and it is obviously insanely immoral now. The sickness that I felt during the first few days of the US invasion of Iraq has returned to me bigtime as I watch every day on television Israeli tanks and planes, which were paid for and manufactured by the US, tear up a tiny nation that is, by and large, defenseless. I understand how Hezbollah is violent, too, and how Israel has a legitimate grievance, but destroying a defenseless nation, turning 500,000 people into homeless and destitute refugees overnight, is a crime against humanity, and our government bears no small part of the responsibility.

Like I said, I'm sickened.

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