Mel Gibson, as we all know by now, is not one to go quietly upon being arrested for drunk driving. Instead, he gets rather boisterous, insulting, bilious, and sometimes downright abusive.
So old Mel had quite a load of booze in him when he got pulled over this last time, and he really let the officers have it with the anti-Semitic bile, which he appears to have inherited from his father. Nothing really new in any of this, is there? At one point he belched out something about Jews causing all wars. I won't bother with the direct quote, because we've all heard plenty of variations on that theme.
Mouths of babes, and drunks. Is there anything at all to this outburst? Can people even have a calm, rational discussion about it? Let's find out.
It stands to reason that on a planet with limited resources, those who play the geopolitics game best will have a disproportionate influence on events, including the process of getting wars started.
However, to me, accusing Jews in particular of starting "all" or even the majority of wars is stretching credulity. For one thing, there simply aren't enough Jews to go around, especially in places like China. Maybe Mel forgot about China. It's easy to do if you don't go there much. Or if you don't look at global maps much.
Another thing you miss if you don't look at big maps much is Russia. They've been fighting border wars for decades for various reasons that don't appear directly related to anything Semitic. I'm sure Kossacks can come up with at least a few other examples of wars that don't appear to have any Jewish influence. Ruwanda, anybody? Throw a dart anywhere in Africa...
Dang, Google Earth really opened my eyes. What a huge planet!
Yet another aspect of wars that Mel missed is multiple causation (admittedly a tough concept to grasp with a gut full of booze). Wars often are waged over land, water, oil and such, but the reasons can be mixed, shaded, masked by religion, etc, including matters of vanity, as with George Bush's war in Iraq.
Drunks tend to have huge blind spots, which is why they shouldn't drive cars. It's also a good reason to dismiss much of what they say when they're in their cups.
I wish Mel Gibson well on his journey towards sobriety, and I wish him well also on his much longer, more arduous journey towards peace of mind. Unfortunately, the painful ogres of his bigoted upbringing may be one of the reasons he feels the need to drink.
Some demons are particulary hard to vanquish. Mel Gibson's demon wears a big, ugly Jewish mask. I hope he eventually is able to tear off that mask and reveal the frightened little man behind it, the one that looks suspiciously like his father.