Junior High Cit Ed Refresher Course

What used to be Jerusalem Avenue Jr. High

Seventh and eighth grade social studies, at least at the now defunct Jerusalem Avenue Junior High, was called Cit Ed...short for citizenship education. In hindsight, these were by far and away the most important classes I ever had in either junior or senior high school. We learned US history, New York State history, and how our federal and state governments are supposed to work. Yeah, there was a certain amount of indoctrination going on, but the lessons about government and the separation of powers has stuck with me forever. So, let's have a review of what kind of governments are out there.

The United States is supposed to be a constitutional federal republic operating as a representative democracy. This means: 

1. power is divided between the federal and state governments
2. The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land
3. The federal government has three working branches:
• the legislative - Congress
• the judicial - The Supreme Court
• the executive - The President, Vice President, cabinet, et al

Communist countries are few and far between since Communism as a form of government is difficult to manage. China, Cuba, Laos, and North Korea are pretty much it. 

Communist governments have:

1. One party rule
2. Collective ownership: State owned major industries, resources, and agriculture on behalf of the public.
3. Social and Media Control: Information, mass media, and civil liberties like free speech or religious expression are heavily regulated

Democratic Socialism is a left-wing political and economic philosophy that advocates for political democracy alongside a socially owned or heavily regulated economy. Their stated goals are:

1. Democratic Control: Emphasizes that both political and economic life should be run democratically, aiming to replace what adherents view as the "dictatorship of capital" with worker and community self-management (TIME Magazine)
2. Abolition of the Profit Motive: Advocates for replacing capitalism with an economy driven by social needs rather than corporate profit, (TIME Magazine)
3. Social or Collective Ownership: Long-term goals often include placing key economic drivers—such as utilities, healthcare, and transportation—under public or cooperative control rather than private ownership. (Democratic Socialists of America)

And just to be clear, countries like Denmark and Sweden are NOT democratic socialist governments. No, and they are very clear about that. They are SOCIALIST democratic countries and therein lies a HUGE difference. 

If you get Social Security or Medicare or MedicAid, you are using the very social democratic kind of safety net. Same with SNAP benefits or health insurance through your state program. In a truly capitalist country, these things would not necessarily exist. 

Social democracy emerged in the late 19th century as a response to the challenges of inequalities of the existing class system. They do not seek to abolish capitalism or private property, favoring instead an economy that leverages the economic engine of a free market. Social inequalities of capitalism can be remediated through high taxation, social safety nets (like universal healthcare and public education), and strong labor laws. (Politics Stack Exchange)

1. The Welfare State: Advocates for government-funded public services to ensure a basic standard of living for all citizens.
2. Progressive Taxation: Promotes a tax system where higher earners pay a larger percentage of their income, redistributing wealth to fund public programs and curb extreme inequality.
3. Market Regulation: Supports private enterprise but emphasizes strong labor rights, minimum wages, and environmental regulations to protect workers and society 
4. Democratic Process: Believes in achieving these goals entirely within the framework of a representative democracy.

These days, however, the Democratic Socialists are sucking up all the air in the room, effectively shutting down any sort of debate about what they actually stand for. It's pretty well established they have an unwritten purity test to determine if you can be a part of their movement. Candidates are expected to adhere without question to the following planks in the platform:

1. Health care for all through a single payer system
2. Support for the New Green Deal 
3. refusal to accept any campaign money from corporate PACs or fossil fuel executives.
4. Opposition to foreign military interventions, significant cuts to the defense budget, and support for ending military aid to Israel.

And #4 is where the buck stops for. In addition to ending military aid to Israel, they have also adopted an "anti-Zionist" plank: 

• Anti-Zionism: The DSA views Israel's character as a Jewish state as inherently exclusionary and officially supports the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
• Right to Return: The organization advocates for the realization of full Palestinian self-determination and the right of return for refugees, actively supporting protests that use the slogan "from the river to the sea".
• Expulsion Rules: At its national convention, the DSA passed resolutions establishing that promoting or supporting the Israeli state constitutes an expellable offense for members. 

This means, in no uncertain terms, our indigeneity, our right to live in our own homeland, is not permitted under their rules. Their support for "the river to the sea" supports Hamas' goal to exterminate Jews wherever they live. This is not about Jews who live in Israel; this is open season on Jews in London, Paris, Brooklyn, and in every city in the world. 

Can you imagine what would happen if you tried to tell the French that they are really Italians because Caesar once conquered Gaul, thereby wiping away their language, their culture, their cheese, their wine, and the pastries????? Good luck with that. 

But somehow, it's okay to do to Jews. Because that's what they're telling us: that 5000 years of recorded history in one language (still spoken today) with front and forward archeological evidence in literature (ie the Bible,) on tombs, walls, coins, and paving stones means nothing. Never mind one of their own BIG guys was born in Judea, spoke the language, read the texts, and died because he was a Jew going against the status quo of Rome. 

Nah. Don't look here! Look over there at the purple elephant! 

Let me put this in a way everyone can understand: IT IS NOT ABOUT THE LAND. IT IS ABOUT WE, THE JEWISH PEOPLE.

Either the moderate voices of this country pull their collective heads outta their asses and start showing up for candidates who don't advocate for the mass murder of Jews, be prepared for what is to come. Right now, we are being given a choice between a blithering idiot in the Gold House, and a congress made up of anti-Jewish hate mongers. Even if Feckless President Felon keels over tomorrow, we get JD Bedbug who wants to make this a totally Christian country. 

And for all those RIVER TO THE SEA people you're supporting with blind devotion? Be forewarned: after they have gotten rid of us, they will come after the next group standing in their way. Iran will make sure of that. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Graham Platner just will not go away. Between the nazi tats and the allegations of rape, I think the Democrats in Maine have taken leave of whatever sense they had. 

This guy is a democratic socialist. See above. When their purity driven platform backs a guy like this, their support of Hamas and Hezbollah makes a strange amount of sense. 

The timing of the new allegations also leave me with an odd discomfort. Did someone contribute to her decision to go public at this exact moment? Although this does give them a brief window to float another candidate. I know; that's awfully jaded of me, but still....

16 years of writing this blog has taught me never to accept anything at face value and to research, research, research. I am suspicious of everything. And after reading the Politico article, I'm thinking not having him in Congress is the right way to go. If Maine, considering Platner's issues,  doesn't have a backup candidate waiting in the wings, that's a them-problem. A BIG one. They should've. And not having one may cost this nation dearly.

My trip to San Francisco for the premiere of THE DARKEST LIGHT is a little more than a week away. I'm excited, nervous, but ready to go. Pedophelia is tough enough, but in any religious community it chips away at the fabric of belief. If coming forward encourages others to speak out, then we've done good. I've spoken to the other panelists and we agree this is soooo the right thing to do. If you're in the Bay Area, come see the film, stay for the panel discussion, and say hi. 

12:00pm Sunday July 19, 2026 , JCC Kanbar hall.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Everybody gets a free Slurpee at 7-Eleven 

on 7/11 even if it isn't YOUR birthday. 

You Still Can't Fix Stupid

One of Ziggy's favorite expressions was "You can't fix stupid." He woulda loved this sign at President Felon's Great American State Fair. Just note the word FREEEDOM. The Great Pumpkin must be reduced to doing his own editing. Never mind that Ziggy, as the Minnesotan who annually dragged me to State Fair at seven in the morning so we could have breakfast at the Hamline Church Dining Hall before the crowds got bad because the coffee was so good (it was,) would've taken additional perverse delight in the lack of humans attending that ridiculous event desecrating the National Mall. 

I don't think crowds were the issue at the GASF. Photos of the event show more than enough room for a herd of elephants to charge by without disturbing so much as a sleeping visitor.

Apparently, Melania was unable to attend the debacle, but she did have a stand-in: Melania the calf. The kids that named her thought it was the patriotic thing to do. I'm not certain Madam would be pleased with a namesake bovine, even if their hair colors were similar. Still, it was meant to be a lovely gesture no matter how it plays out in the Gold House. 

Of course, President Felon claimed the crowds were "packed with happy people." He claimed 45,000 attended. NBC estimated 1,000. On the other hand, opening day at the 2025 Minnesota State Fair was also a little slow. Only 137,148 went through the gate that day, and total attendance for the 12 days of last year's State Fair was 1,940,869, just a tad less than 2024. This is what our opening day looked like:

Must he lie about this, too? 

Here's the thing: lying isn't simply a matter of not telling the truth. Lying is the undermining of trust, and in President Felon's case, it's not trust in him as our president, but trust in our entire government. His weaponization of the DoJ reduces the belief that there is due process under the law. Lining the pockets of his family through no-bid contract kickbacks and sweetheart international deals like the Kaz Resources deal in Kazakhstan is classic graft. A Supreme Court that continually shifts traditional powers of Congress to the president, as it did this morning with their granting of sweeping powers over regulators does nothing but thwart Congress and ultimately, the Constitution. 

When will they simply declare him Caesar and get it over with?

Then again, SCOTUS let the E. Jean Carroll defamation verdict stand, denying his appeal. I can't wait to see how he manages not to pay her the $5,000,000 judgement to which she is entitled. 

Meanwhile, back at the Golden Gate...

If you actually believe all the anti-Zionist shit put out by the Trans and LGBTQ community is all about Israel and Gaza, have I got a bridge to sell you over by the Golden Gate Strait!...which is not the Strait of Hormuz, just to be clear. Seems that gay Jewish California State senator, Scott Wiener, was driven away from the Transgender March because he is "shit on Gaza." Never mind that he's an established champion of Transgender rights, or has protested against Israel's actions in Gaza. No, he believes Israel has a right to exist. They tossed him because he is a Jew even though he supports their causes...however weird that sounds. On Instagram, Hen Mazzig wrote:

Scott Wiener gave them everything they asked for.

It still wasn’t enough.

He’s spent decades fighting for the LGBTQ community. He passed the pro-trans legislation they’re now thanking him for in the same breath they scream at him. He’s one of the frontrunners to replace Nancy Pelosi in Congress. And earlier this year, he did the one thing they demanded most, he called Israel’s war a “genocide.”

And then they chased him out of a march he’d attended for 22 years. Cornered him at a bar and made him perform “free Palestine” on camera. Told him he “stopped being queer the moment he supported Israel.”

Here’s the lesson every Jew should memorize: there is no sentence you can say that earns you back in. The demand was never a policy position. It was your disappearance.

They don’t want the right answer. They want the wrong kind of Jew to vanish, and they’ll move the line every single time you reach it.

Wiener learned that this week. The rest of us should be paying attention.

It was all about him being a Jew and believing that Jews have a right to live in our own homeland that was established thousands of years before Islam. 

I think Jen Gilman Porat, however expressed my feelings on her Substack rather well:

I used to be so angry when I saw the Pride flags being waved by Hamas cosplayers that I’d fantasize about shipping them off to Gaza. This was my coping skill, but now that schadenfreude failed to kick in for me, I need a new method for endurance.

It's my coping skill, too. But I still want to buy them  all tickets. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Yes, I'm getting ready for San Francisco

Yes, THE DARKEST LIGHT is getting noticed

If you're in the Bay Area, yes, you want to come see it. 

Individual tickets should be available soon.

Bonus tip o'the Summer: 

State Fair starts August 27th. 

I'll meet you at the Hamline Church Dining Hall at 7a.

The Darkest Light

Me

For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, you may also know I've been working with Simon Mendes on a documentary about Shlomo Carlebach. For those of you unfamiliar with him, Carlebach was a prolific and popular songwriter in the 60s and 70s. His music is intertwined in our liturgy across Jewish denominations. His tunes are fun and catchy. Carlebach had a cult-like following and was considered by many to be saintly and holy.  

Or not.  You see, Shlomo was a known pedophile and abuser of women. He flattered, he groomed, he molested. And I was 14 when he molested me. 

He told me I was a schoene maidel...a beautiful girl...which I was not. I was gawky and goofy, and, well, not pretty. This was not news. I knew this and it wasn't something I thought much about. But then this famous man came from behind, wrapped his arms around me, and told me I was beautiful, I could barely breathe. He hugged me and continued to press against me while he whispered how beautiful I was... until someone else came into the place where we were standing. Then he let go. 

At this point, I have to admit my mother becomes the real hero of this story. And in very soft and non-scary tones, (hardly like my mom at all!) she explained that what I felt was his erection, which she had to further explain because I was 14, naive, and completely unaware about that sort of thing. After that very cautious, non-threatening conversation, Mom quietly took action, beginning with our outraged and very supportive rabbi.

I was warned about being alone with him after that, and in two other encounters, I made sure he didn't touch me or anyone else. His behavior, it turned out, was not unknown to his handlers or anyone else that had worked with him. It just seemed no one gave a damn. After that, I put it all away until....

Lilith published an article about Carlebach. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach's Shadow Side in 1998. I read it and shared it with Mom. She and I talked about what happened. I was relieved to know I was not alone, nor had I imagined it. Mom urged me to tell Ziggy and I did. 

When Hadassah Magazine featured him on its cover, Ziggy brought the offending item into the house pinched between two fingers and suggested I let him pitch it into the trash...or at least let him read it before I did. The story, by-lined for January 2008, appeared as the cover story of the October 2008 issue. That issue sat face down on my desk for a while before I read it...and wrote an angry letter to Hadassah, a women's organization who had, at that time, a man editor-in-chief of their glossy magazine. Shlomo Carlebach The Music Man did not get the reaction they must've expected, but there were lots of angry letters. 

Finally, in December of 2008, Hadassah pretended to address the anger:

Editor’s Note: Our October cover story, “The Music Man,” focused on the musical legacy of Shlomo Carlebach. We mentioned the controversy surrounding his behavior toward women, but many of our readers found this insufficient. The following is just one of the numerous letters we received.

They published a single, wimpy letter not written by one of us. It was not enough of a response and I damn near quit Hadassah over it. 

Enter Simon Mendes. On January 26, 2022, he reached out to me, a total stranger:

I'm writing to you today because for the last several months I've been developing and in production on a film about the legacy of Shlomo Carlebach and his music, and the question of what to do with the music...I read your story in one of the comment threads on one of the articles that has circulated over the last several years. I was struck not only by the story, but also how you shared the cover up and the fact that he was confronted repeatedly about his behavior. 

And I have been working on this film ever since. What Mendes has done in THE DARKEST LIGHT is to give voice to so many who were largely ignored or dismissed because the allegations seemed so ridiculous. But they were not. The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival describes the film this way:

In this searing portrait, filmmaker Simon Mendes examines the towering and deeply complicated shadow cast by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, the “Singing Rabbi,” whose music transformed Jewish worship across denominations and became woven into the fabric of the Jewish people. Through the perspective of his daughter, singer Neshama Carlebach—who spent years carrying forward her father’s teachings and music—the film traces a painful reckoning that emerged after numerous women publicly accused Carlebach of sexual abuse following his death in 1994. Haunted by revelations about the man she idolized, Neshama and an entire community are forced to confront the difficult question: what do you do when someone revered as a holy teacher has also caused profound harm? With compassion and complexity, Mendes crafts a thoughtful exploration of faith and accountability, capturing a community and a family still grappling with how to reconcile the comfort and ubiquity of Carlebach’s music with the disturbing allegations surrounding his legacy.

If you are in the Bay Area on Sunday, July 19th, come see THE DARKEST LIGHT...and me at noon at Kanbar Hall, 3200 California Street, San Francisco. Please stay for the panel discussion after the film. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Projects like this one is not fun.

It's serious stuff, but I am so glad I did it. 

Be a voice, not a silent observer. 

You can make a difference. 

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

Illustration by Tenniel

"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail.
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle -- will you come and join the dance?
"Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?

"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!"
But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance --
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.
"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France --
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
"Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"

                                                           Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

In a word?  NO. 

Illustration by Tenniel

These days I think I'm living in some even more twisted Wonderland....and not in a good way. Alice displayed a healthy amount of skepticism as met the challenges of Wonderland. Our feckless president, however, wants We, the People to hail him as the greatest president ever, the peacemaker of the world, the bringer of Christ to the masses, and first living guy to be canonized as a saint. Nah. We, the People may not be too bright, but we're not nearly that collectively stupid. Nor do we really get off on our own heads spinning out of control...and that's his favorite game. Keep us all off kilter with his musical game plans. None of it is real; it's all horse-hockey.

• Yes, we have a deal with Iran....but I'm bombing them tonight.
• They agreed to everything I wanted.....but I'm bombing them tonight.
• Their nuclear program has been obliterated...but they can still enrich
• I've destroyed their entire regime....but I'm leaving the leadership intact. 

Our heads are spinning so fast...

This is a really good example from the New York Times: 

“They can never go beyond a certain amount,” he said. But when asked whether that limit was the same as in the Obama-era agreement — which limited enrichment to 3.67 percent, a level that is usable in power reactors but not weaponry — he said only that the new accord would assure that “they can only enrich for nonmilitary purposes. Forever.”

Huh? And if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. 

Yet, the regime remains. The thousands of Iranians who were murdered and executed without trial no longer matter. The reason he claimed we were going to war was simply bullshit. The real reason was to manipulate oil prices and enrich his own pockets and those of his friends. Exxon Mobil, Shell, and Chevron all saw huge increases in profits as the price per barrel shot up. And while prices at the gas pump will drop, it's not really a windfall for the consumer. It's all optics. President Felon is just hoping/trusting We, the People, are stupid enough to join his happy dance because his great statementshit caused the price at the pump to drop a few pennies. 

But just like with the people of Ukraine, President Felon has grown bored and now abandons the people of Iran. As for the Hezbollah occupation of Lebanon, Feckless President Felon said:

 We do want to see if we can straighten out the Lebanon thing. It just seems to never end. Hezbollah, we have to have a little talk with them.

And whatever happened to the Gaza City Riviera he was planning to build? He must've figured out there was real work involved. It's all a mountain of lies over lies.

Pongo &Perdita

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had cousinly houseguests over the weekend. I cooked strictly vegetarian and discovered Impossible Beef makes great tacos! My cousin Perdie delivered a terrific talk about the Park Slope Food Coop debacle. I am just so damn proud of the work she is doing to fight BDS. One of the saddest parts is the damage it's doing to Palestinian owned business in Israel; they are caught in the crosshairs and the folks fighting BDS are banding together to help those very businesses stay afloat. Which only emphasizes the reality that BDS doesn't give a shit about Palestinians. Go, Perdie!

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Today's tip comes to you from William Pitt:

Where law ends, tyranny begins.

William Pitt the Younger

28 May 1759 – 23 January 1806

When Truth Is Barely A Consideration

Wow. Only Monday, and already it's a busy week. The Senior Son is home for the weekend and will stay at lease long enough to play at the blues jam at the Midway Saloon tonight. I have a great soft spot for Moses Oakland who runs the jam. He was Ziggy's friend, and dad to Senior Son's friends. I like having the Senior Son home. I like being Mam even if it's just for the weekend, after which I go back to being, oh, mother! I don't mind; I'm just glad he wants to come home every so often.

We got to watch Young Sir play baseball...he did get a couple of good hits off the pitching machine and didn't have to use the T even once! We all went to Snuffy's for malts. I come from a great baseball lovin' family and watching Young Sir made me so happy. Right now, he says he likes being catcher best. That will change again and again, I'm guessing. Still, seeing him in the mask just makes me grin all over. After the game, we all headed over to Snuffy's for onion rings and malts. Nothing is more fun than cramming 3 grandparents, two adult kids, and a hot, sweaty grandson into a booth. I'm absolutely serious about that!

Tuesday, my cousins come for an overnight before heading to Duluth for a couple of days, and then back to me for Shabbat. Since the overnight is Tuesday, there will be tacos....made with Impossible Beef because I want to serve cheese and sour cream and all sorts of stuff and if they were made with meat, most of that is off my very kosher table! I'm kinda excited about this, by the way. I haven't made tacos since Ziggy left the building. But all this vegetarian cooking for my vegetarian cousins is not what has me so excited about this visit. 

See, the cousin whom I lovingly call Perdita, is, in reality, Barbara Mazor, champion of the fight against BDS at the Park Slope Coop in Brooklyn. In the past few weeks, the debacle at the Coop has made a whole lotta newspapers. This is not the first time I've written about the demonization of Israel and Jews at that august institution. Barbara started a blog, Stop BDS At The Park Slope Coop, about the fight. Back in March, 2012, I wrote an episode about it: When The Coop Is In The Balance. At that time, they were able to beat back the BDS movement, and she even changed the name of the blog to We Stopped BDS At The Park Slope Coop. But like all pernicious diseases, it percolated in the background. And now it's back.

The City Journal did a better job of explaining the issue than either the New York Time or The Guardian. They also quoted Barbara:

Barbara Mazor, who opposed the boycott movement alongside Maislen, told City Journal that the vote was “a lost opportunity to build a politics of co-existence.” The purpose of a co-operative, she said, is to “put your difference aside” to work on something collaboratively. Many members stressed that their ability to do so, even when they did not agree on everything, contributed to the Brooklyn neighborhood’s unique social fabric.... 

...In evaluating the vote, it is hard to ignore the influence of the wave of anti-Semitism and religious intolerance that has erupted in New York City since the October 7 attacks. Though many of the boycott’s leading figures are Jewish themselves—including Alyce Barr, who led the push to divest—Mazor suggested that the move “provides a lot of validation for people” who dislike Jews more broadly. “It provides encouragement for the most extremist actors, and it’s a permission structure for attacking Jews,” she said.

Mazor’s suggestion is borne out by members’ reports. Those who opposed the boycott were likened to antebellum “pro-slavery” supporters. When a member declared “Jewish supremacy is a problem,” 50 people applauded, Maislen told City Journal. One Israeli member working a shift who requested anonymity was told by a customer that she smelled “of Palestinian blood” and that “Jews are rejoicing in raping and killing Palestinians.” 

This is not some tempest in a teapot. That the anti-BDS side was not permitted to present their side at the meeting speaks volumes to those of us watching this fight, ostensibly because of technical issues. Regardless, this was shutting down the opposition and screams of a variety if messages to whatever side you're on. 

But here's the thing: how did we (meaning all Jews) become the genocidal maniacs in the court of public opinion after Hamas raped, murdered, decapitated, mutilated, and kidnapped over a thousand people attending a music festival on October 7th, 2023? What if those same terrorists did that at Coachella? What if they did it at Wembley Stadium? What would the response have been then? 

People usually fixate on Jewish tragedy...why is that? They're fascinated with death camps, gas chambers, and ghettos. Why can't they see the benefit of live Jews? The ones who invent stuff and make medical devices and apps and desalination plants that bring water where there wasn't any? Not to mention their boycotts are selective. I don't see them advocating the removal of messaging from their phones or WAZE from their cars. I cannot speak or think for anyone else, but I gotta wonder what their end-game really looks like. 

I am fascinated by the colonization part. What do they think the Muslims were doing during their conquest period? Bringing free press to Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Algeria, Tunisia, or Libya? What do all those kind hearted protestors think were happening to the indigenous populations or, for that matter, all the Christians that lived there? And what about, in recent years, the plight of queer or gay communities living in those countries? Especially in places like Gaza? Are they holding Gay Pride Month parades there? Yet, those communities are silent on those issues. Dead silent. And that's not meant to be a pun. 

How is it that millions of Israelis sheltering against bombing attacks that have been ongoing for decades makes them aggressors? And the ultimate question: why isn't Israel allowed to defend itself?  Like this is news. Not. 

In his Morning Musings on Substack, Peter Himmelman digs deeper into the heart of that question:

And on the other side we do not see merely opposing viewpoints. There are states, media networks, political movements, universities, NGOs, influencers, bots, and vast oceans of money invested in the creation and dissemination of anti-Israel—and often overtly anti-Jewish—sentiment. There is the propaganda machinery of Iran. There is Qatar's immense financial reach and its state-sponsored media network, Al Jazeera, arguably the most influential anti-Israel media platform in the world. There are Russian and Chinese information operations—coordinated networks that seed anti-Western narratives across social platforms, for which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a reliable accelerant. There are social media algorithms that reward outrage and flatten complexity. There are hundreds of millions of people predisposed to see the conflict through ideological, religious, or historical lenses that Israel has little power to alter.

With a PR machine like that, it's amazing Israel has lasted this long. 

Or maybe it isn't all that amazing. Israel takes defense seriously. Citizens are not used as human shields, nor are they told death is a desirable outcome. The rest of the world never sees that part, thanks to the PR machine, but we know better. What other ancient civilization has survived intact the way we have? Same language, same culture, same religion despite exiles, persecution, and a real attempt at genocide? And what other people have welcomed others into the safety tent expecting nothing more than community...not conversion, not extra taxes,  not assimilation...the way Israel has. Look at the demographics: nationality is ISRAELI. Not Jewish. Over  20%  of the population is Arab and they, too, are ISRAELI. As is the almost 6% of other population segments like Druze or Baháʼí; they, too, are ISRAELI. And the official language may be Hebrew, but the street signs are all in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Is that asking anyone to relinquish their cultural heritage or identity?

Does anyone actually care about the lives and livelihoods of the Palestinians? No one gave a damn about the billions funneled into Gaza that built the murder tunnels and paid for the bombs, many of which never made it across the border and fell on their own people while they huddled in tents and watched Hamas commandeer their food supplies. The only things all those Greta-Thunberg-wannabes care about are the creative optics designed to provide sheeple with a scapegoat on which to vent their self-righteous and misplaced fury. In the end, no matter what happens to Israel, Gaza will still be occupied by terrorists who are in it for the money and the chance to spill blood...even if it's the blood of their own people. They'll just find another group to victimize. 

Just ask any gay or trans Gazan.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, Meet the Press held a show in a barn. It didn't go well.

President Felon: Your elections are crooked and you’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked.

Kristen Welker:   But Mr. President–

President Felon: And so is ABC and CBS and CNN.

Kristen Welker:   But Mr. President--

President Felon: You’re a one-sided crooked network. Sorry. Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.

Kristen Welker:  Mr. President, let’s — please, I traveled all the way to Wisconsin.

President Felon: I’ve sat in the rain with you--

Kristen Welker:   I traveled all — I know. I traveled all the way--

President Felon: I sat in the rain with you for an hour.

Kristen Welker:   --to Wisconsin.

President Felon: On and off in the rain, and I’ve given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press, because you know what?

Kristen Welker:   Mr. President--

President Felon: A country can never be great with a dishonest press.

Kristen Welker:   – we traveled all — listen. We traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview. 

And then he got up and walked out. Wanna know what I wanna know? If a country can never be great with a dishonest press, what are we supposed to do with a dishonest president? Read the transcript of the interview for yourself. The lies per square minute are astounding. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week:

As Kander and Ebb wrote for CHICAGO, 
(and I am asking the same questions daily) 

Whatever happened to fair dealing?
And pure ethics
And nice manners?
Why is it everyone now is a pain in the ass?
Whatever happened to class?

The Wifely Person's EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS Tip o'the Week

If you are interested in hearing Barbara speak about the Coop,

drop an email to thewifelyperson[at]gmail.com.