OCCUPIED TERRITORY

I am more than willing to admit that this is not the most coherent entry I have ever made. Partly because the ties between what is happening now and what has happened in the past hit me like  roller coaster when this news broke this morning.

So there has been another school shooting. And another village idiot showed up to show, what the hell he was trying to show is beyond me. But here is in all his male, while privilege glory.

This is going to be a picture heavy entry I believe. As I was trying to digest my horror and disbut that this keeps happening I had a flash back to Roman occupied Judea/Palestine. This map is courtesy of the Wickipedia entry on Palestine.shows the borders depending on who was defining and occupying. 

I mean the land was always occupied by the peasants who worked the land. Tended the olive trees. Tried to survive. Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, the Turks. The red line is the borders of the mandate granted to Britain after the end of WWI. One British government promised a homeland to the Jews. Another promised independence to the Arabs. 

So what does this have to do with a shooting in Texas? I suspect the occupying legionaries, not all Romans by the way a lot of Syrian locals joined the army, went around in full kit. Armor, swords, lances etc. And I suspect they tolerated the militia forces that protected the local rulers. Anyone care to guess what would have happened to one or more peasants spotted carrying swords or lances or what looked like swords or lances or who didn't snap to there was a local disturbance of some kind?

In the first century, around 70 BCE the province of Palestine/Syria rebelled. It wasn't the first time. There are records of smaller, local rebellions.Put down and the rebels executed.  One of the causes was province wide rebellion was the order to place a statue of the emperor inside the Temple in Jerusalem.I believe it was a statue of Nero. Anyway it was an insult that couldn't be ignored. There were other causes. Dissension between different power groups. Requests from one group or the other for support from the legions. When it was over thousands of locals were dead or sold into slavery. Jerusalem was leveled. When it was rebuilt Jews were forbidden to live in the city. 

So we have an occupying force and an attempt to enforce a religious practice. Taxes were probably in there also. Where is this semi coherent entry going? Proviso. I do not support in any way the white supremacist militia groups. But I'm getting the overwhelming belief that for many of  our fellow citizens we are faced with an unofficial gun worshiping, religious zealot "army" of occupation.