They've Got To Be Carefully Taught

This morning, I participated in a ritual observed in many families at the start of summer: the departure of campers. Little Miss and her friends were heading off to camp. Last year, the coterie went for 10 days; this year, they were going for a month. Rain was pissing down as all the parents and lots of grandparents huddled under umbrellas while the kiddies check-in and picked their seats. Little Miss and her friends screamed and hugged when they all arrived. You'd think they'd not seen each other since last summer....instead of just the day before. Their excitement was contagious. I saw counselors who looked ever so familiar greeting campers, and then realized these were the kids and grandkids of my friends and I knew them as little kids. Very surreal. Several of my own friends were there and we sheepishly admitted we were just a little bit jealous that they got to go and we got to stay home. Finally, it was time to board the buses (there were 4) and we all started to wave at the window we thought our kiddo was at. You can't really be sure with tinted windows. We kept waving as all the buses passed by, and watched as they went around the corner. As Rabbi Allen used to admonish parents: There is no dancing in the parking lot until the buses are out of sight!

I never got to go to sleep-away camp...only to a brief sojourn at Camp Tekawitha Girls Scout Camp in Hampton Bays, New York. Not the same. My guys flat refused to go to sleep-away camp; they went to Camp Bubbe'n'Zayde in New York, complete with beach club and tennis camp, and that was not to be messed with. So I guess one might suggest Little Miss is living out my dream. All I can say is that I am thrilled she loves it! I woulda, too. 

But this really brings me around to this week's musings. Former Republican and co-founder of the Lincoln Project Rick Wilson wrote an essay on Substack that really got to me. What Will You Tell Your Kids takes a serious look at how we will talk about the virulent and vitriolic political posturing of this year's election. 

Funny thing was that just before I saw it, I had been talking with friends about how my dad sat me down and asked me how I would describe my anti-war demonstrations to my kids. We had been talking about right and wrong, whether or not we were obligated to support our national position on Vietnam, or were we obligated to try to change that opinion. I'll admit I was pretty hostile initially, but Dad was trying to get me to think ahead...action and outcome. What did I want to see happen and how did I want it to happen? Did I want to blow up Washington, D.C., or did I want representation in Congress to listen to us kids and heed our warnings? He was edging me to some really hard thinking to answer really hard questions. 

This was right after Kent State. Although I cannot say he was a friend, I met one of the Kent State 4, Jeffrey Miller (z"l), through a mutual friend who was his neighbor in Plainview. His murder radicalized me. I wanted to be angry and outraged, not thoughtful and reasonable. I did want to burn down buildings. And I did not want to think about the questions my dad was asking.

Every once in a while, I would think about those questions....especially as our kids did not seem to be protesting anything and that worried me and Ziggy. Where was their outrage about something important? Where was their passion? 

Still, when our kids asked us about our participation in the protests of the late 60s and 70s, we were as honest as we could be. We talked about the anger, but we also talked about how society must be changed in order to continue to function; that burning down Congress is not a realistic answer. We asked what issues they wanted to take on....and didn't get much of an answer....other than the legalization of pot.

But when Feckless Loser came on the scene, Ziggy was gone, and I was watching both guys sit up and take notice... by myself. Oh, how I wished Ziggy was with me for those conversations. There was talk of what happens if....

And then it happened. Feckless Leader set fine examples with his pussy-grabbing remarks, his porn-star payouts, and bizarre, on-the-edge-of-completely-inappropriate remarks, about his own daughter. His four years in office were a far cry from the gravitas we'd all come to expect. When the insurrection happened on January 6, 2021, it seemed our entire government was in peril. His attacks have only increased in ferocity and fantasy....and the MAGA people are eating it all up with a dirty spoon.

Now, we 're poised to rinse and repeat. How is this possible?

Wilson was asked by a Republican friend why Biden was a better choice than Trump. It was a serious question, and one Wilson took seriously. In the middle section of the essay, he wrote:

Do you want your sons to treat women the way Donald Trump treats women? With contempt, entitlement, and violence? When you look at your boys, do you think, “I sure hope they grow up to commit sexual assault?”

 

Do you want your daughter to be a target for or a victim of a man like Trump? When you look at her, do you imagine her with a husband like him? A man who will cheat on her while she’s pregnant, demean her when she grows older, and disrespect her at every turn? Do you dream of the day that some future Donald Trump grabs your daughter by the pussy?

 

Do you hope that your kids will treat people the way you’ve taught them…or the way Trump treats anyone beneath him: with contempt, cruelty, ugliness, and lies?

 

Will you tell them he was the one role model they should follow?

This is where the rubber meets the road: what lessons are we teaching our kids?

I cannot answer that question for you, gentle readers; I can only say if you're not asking yourself the same questions, you are part of the problem and the fall of the United States as we know it will be exacerbated by your lack of action. 

You think I'm kidding? Look at the pro-Hamas movement spreading across America. The supporters of this movement are pro-terrorist. They are applauding the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11 whether they realize it or not. They don't know which river or which sea, so don't count on them knowing which World Trade Center. In an age when colleges and universities are providing "safe spaces" from triggers, administrations are negotiating for the approval of acts of violence against Jews. Their overt willingness to kill, destroy, and obliterate Jews should scare way more people than it does. You cannot say you want peace while threatening an entire people with destruction. 

Bit of a conundrum, dontcha think?

Feckless is not the root cause of the the pro-terrorism movement; he is only a symptom. How he conducts himself reinforces the okay-ness of what the anti-Jewish movement demands. While they claim to be against him, they are, in reality, mirroring his behavior. And if you're not speaking to your kids now about the unacceptable rhetoric and behavior, then you are contributors to the overthrow of democracy in these here United States. 

Keep in mind Sir Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion: every force in nature has an equal and opposite reaction. 

If you think Feckless Complainer is the lesser of two evils and that you are justified voting to return him to office, then sit down, shut up, and figure out how you're gonna pay for everything when all those social safety nets you've come to expect to see you through retirement dry up. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Think about what you're teaching your kids. Rodgers and Hammerstein set it to music in 1949's SOUTH PACIFIC:

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade—
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

I was cheated before
And I’m cheated again
By a mean little world
Of mean little men.
And the one chance for me
Is the life I know best.

To be on an island
And to hell with the rest.
I will cling to this island
Like a tree or a stone,
I will cling to this island  

And be free—and alone. 

There Is No Other Hand

Noa Argamani is quite possibly the most recognizable face of October 7th. Screaming as she is hauled into Gaza on the back of a motorbike, we have witnessed her abduction over and over on tape, in photos, on posters world-wide. Her boyfriend, Avinatan Or,  who had been trying to protect her from the terrorists was also taken. His condition and whereabouts remain unknown at this time. But right now, Noa Argmani is finally with her terminally ill mother. 

Let's be real clear about this: Ms. Argamani was NOT RELEASED by Hamas as some kind of humanitarian gesture. That is utter bullshit. She was rescued by the IDF from the Nurseirat home where she was imprisioned, enslaved by journalist Abdullah Aljamal, his physician father, and his family. Enslaved. That means she was held prisoner and required to work for the family. While Al Jazeera denies Aljamal was a reporter for them, he did have a profile on their web page, and published regular articles in The Palestine Chronicle , and seemed to have been a spokesperson for the Hamas-run Ministry of Labor. Think about this for a moment. This guy is reporting about Gaza and the treatment of the civilian population while he is holding a 26-year old university student hostage in his own home and using her as slave labor. 

Ms. Argamani said she had been held in several locations, all seeming to be homes and flats, but never in the tunnels. Apparently, this is okay in Gaza....keeping hostages in your home as slave labor. And according to others who have been freed, sometimes as sex slaves. 

Hamas claims 274 civilians were slaughtered in the raid to free Ms Argamani and three other hostages held at a separate location. Andrey Kozlov, 27; Shlomi Ziv, 41; and Almog Meir Jan, 22 were also rescued from a home in Nurseirat near to where Ms. Argamani was being held. But here's the thing: where does the Gaza Health Ministry get their instant body count from? No one actually knows. In a March 26th, 2024  analysis published in The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Gaza Fatality Data Has Become Completely Unreliable, Gabriel Epstein observes:

In the first month of the war, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health (MOH) in Gaza relied on its existing collection system, made up primarily of hospitals and morgues, to certify each death. Starting in early November, however, hospitals in northern Gaza began to shut down or evacuate during the Israeli ground invasion, spurring the MOH to introduce a new, undefined methodology for counting fatalities: media reports. This methodology, which the MOH has rarely acknowledged publicly, accounts for the majority of fatalities reported over the past four months, surpassing the traditional collection system.
 
A comparison of the two methodologies, using MOH reports and claims published by the Hamas-controlled Government Media Office (GMO), yields wildly different and irreconcilable results, indicating that the media reports methodology is dramatically understating fatalities among adult males, the demographic most likely to be combatants. This undercuts the persistent claim that 72 percent of those killed in Gaza are women and children—a problem that has worsened since it was first noted by a Washington Institute report in January.
 

The result is that MOH statistics do not appear to offer a reliable guide to the actual Palestinian death toll even by the “foggy” standards of normal wartime reporting. Journalists, analysts, and government officials need to be aware that the actual overall death toll may be significantly higher (or, less likely, lower) than what the MOH has reported; the demographic composition of these fatalities is certainly far different than what the MOH claims.

The inaccuracy of reporting is further exacerbated by Hamas's inability to separate combatants from civilians, which is practically impossible when you're using your civilian population as human shields. What exactly does Hamas think is going to happen? These people are trapped in the middle of a hot war. People will die. 

And for the record, it's not like Hamas and Hezbollah aren't shooting missiles at Israel day in and day out. The wild fires in the north of Israel are the direct result of missile and drone and interceptions, according to The Jerusalem Post. This is an ongoing war being fought on several fronts. Let me repeat that: THIS IS AN ONGOING WAR.

On the other hand.....

AIPAC

For reasons I actually understand, Israel is expected to and is delivering aid to Gaza. Although I'm not a big AIPAC fan, this image and the article, Israel Is Working to Improve the Humanitarian Situation in Gaza, does a reasonably good job of illustrating the reality on the ground. No, the system is vastly imperfect, but it's more than other countries do in the middle of an active war. Do you see Russia sending aid to Ukraine? Yet, Israel sends thousands of tons of food, medicine, and fuel into Gaza knowing full well that much of it never reaches the civilian population so desperately in need. Because of the refusal of Hamas to ever build a functioning economy for the people of Gaza, they are reliant on others for their basic needs. And gee whiz, isn't it screwy that Israel is supplying much of those needs? That's the part I just don't get. 

Photo by Tom Wilson on Unsplash

Pro-Hamas demonstrations increase in size, demands for the functional dismantling of Israel grow more strident, and many of us are left wondering how long we will be able to stay in the United States. And then, there's the corollary to that thought: once the Pro Hamas decides Feckless Felon is their candidate, and their growing influence is tossed behind him, how are they going to go up against the evangelical tide behind him? And when he and his minions manage to gut the Constitution, where are all those happy Pride people going to go to save their diminishing civil rights? I guess they never heard of the domino theory. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Day

This meme has been making the rounds.

I think it says it all:

Credi

This Was A Week That Was

Once upon a time, there was a show on the BBC that managed to make its way across the pond: THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS. It ran, albeit briefly, on NBC from January 1963 until May 1964. It was a hotbed of satire and screamingly funny, even to 11-year old me. And I may not have recognized the people on it then, but I sure do now: Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan were on the pilot, Mike Nichols and Elaine May were guests, and a really young Gene Hackman was there, too. Like SNL, there was a recurring cast that included David Frost, Henry Morgan, Buck Henry, Tom Bosley, and Alan Alda. Nancy Ames usually sang an opening news-satire song. Regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, Tom Lehrer, and Calvin Trillin. How can you go wrong with a cast like that? I mean, TOM LEHRER!!!! The patron saint of satire who put his entire catalogue into the public domain!?! 

These people woulda had a heyday with this past week in America.

Three remarkable things have happened in the last 7 days: 

1. in South Africa, the A. N. C. lost its political monopoly for the first time in 30 years, 
2. in Mexico, a Jewish woman was elected president of that nation. 
3. Feckless Loser was convicted on all 34 charges in the hush money trial, 

None of these events were remotely obvious outcomes a year ago. 

In 2019, the A.N.C., the party that rose to prominence with Nelson Mandela, received about 60% of the national vote in South Africa; this year, it fell to about 40%. Sitting president Cyril Ramaphosa who once used his well-respected negotiating skills to help broker the end of apartheid is now under attack because of high unemployment, utility shortages, and rampant crime. His chief rival is Jacob Zuma, former president of South Africa and founder of a new political party, uMkhonto weSizwe, once the name of the armed part of the A.N.C. during the struggle against apartheid, won 15% of the vote, a highly unusual outcome for a newly created party. According to the New York Times:

Despite the astonishing outcome, Mr. Zuma — a scandal-plagued populist who thrives on grievance politics — discredited the election, saying his party had actually received two-thirds of the vote, but the results were rigged. Party officials say they have presented evidence to the electoral commission. But Mr. Zuma, who leads the party despite being barred from joining Parliament, did not make that evidence public. He warned the commission not to certify the election results on Sunday as scheduled.

 

“Nobody must declare tomorrow,” he said during a news conference at the headquarters in Johannesburg, where election officials were releasing the results. “If that happens, people will be provoking us. I’m hoping whoever is responsible is hearing what we are saying. Don’t start trouble, when there’s no trouble.”

Huh. Has a bit of a familiar ring to it, does it not? 

Down south of the border, the former mayor of Mexico city was elected president of Mexico. Now, one might not think this was a particularly unusual step for a politician, but this politician is just a tad different: her name is Claudia Sheinbaum, she's a climate scientist with a PhD in energy engineering, and yes, she is a Jewish woman. Her paternal side is Askenazi, her maternal side is Sephardic, and she is a secular Jew....which means she's not involved at all in the Jewish community of Mexico, and was once photographed wearing a rosary with a cross as a necklace. She was quoted about her heritage in the NYT:

“Of course I know where I come from, but my parents were atheists,” Ms. Sheinbaum told The New York Times in a 2020 interview. “I never belonged to the Jewish community. We grew up a little removed from that.”

Yeah, well, President Sheinbaum, that won't protect you from much. The article goes on to state:

But while Ms. Sheinbaum (pronounced SHANE-balm) has downplayed her ties to Judaism, her origins have not gone entirely unnoticed, revealing currents of xenophobia and antisemitism persisting beneath the surface in Mexican politics.

 

After emerging last year as a presidential contender, Ms. Sheinbaum faced “birther” attacks questioning whether she was born in Mexico or even Mexican. 

Among those leading the attacks against her was Vicente Fox, a conservative former president who called Ms. Sheinbaum a “Bulgarian Jew.” Ms. Sheinbaum responded by releasing a copy of her birth certificate detailing her place of birth as Mexico City. “I am 100 percent Mexican, the proud daughter of Mexican parents,” she said.

Regardless, the haters will hate, the antiSemites will attack, and she will find herself in the center of a firestorm she may not have completely expected. What makes it so sad is that it will impact her ability to serve the people of Mexico without ridiculous and unnecessary distraction. Whatever good she does, whatever progress she makes, there will always be that asterisk that she really wasn't Mexican, she was a Jew. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

And the last item on my thrilling list of events has to be the 34 counts of GUILTY delivered to Feckless Loser. I hope he stayed awake long enough to hear them all. Not that it matters. He's already decided it's all fake, fixed, and rigged. I'm sure he expects the Supreme Jokers to overturn the convictions. Maybe. Maybe not. Hard to predict at this point. But what we do know just by listening to him rant and rave, he is laying the groundwork for violence. His posturing is the same as it was for January 6th. He's relying on his cabal to get the subliminal messages he sent back then with stand back and stand by. 

Here's a link to the Washington Post's docket list for SCOTUS: The biggest 2024 Supreme Court rulings so far, and what’s still to come. It's worth a glance...if you don't mind being just a tad terrified. Oral arguments for prosecuting the rioters on January 6th will be heard on June 16th. Oral arguments for Feckless Loser's immunity from prosecution for his alleged efforts to overturn the election will be held on June 25th.

1861

But here's the thing: it doesn't matter. The kool-aid is drunk, the mob is gathering, and there will be some kind of revolt, probably violent, and definitely nationally divisive. And divide the country it will. The split in 1861 was much cleaner cut between free and slave states. This time the division won't be so obvious. Will the divisions be along economic lines? Religious lines, political lines? It's hard to predict right now. 

If all those MAGA folks threatening the Constitution, the Court, and even the presidency rise to overthrow, there will be a split. You don't think that will happen? I'm not convinced that pockets of insurrection won't exist and that will be the beginning of the deconstruction of the American Experiment. 

Below is all my opinion, conjecture, and observation. 

But if you want to look ahead to the possible, maybe keep in mind that California could conceivably be its own country; it has the 5th largest economy in the world. If it were to secede from the current US, it's likely it would take Oregon and Washington with it, both are "blue." It's not inconceivable that Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado would join them. 

In the midwest, I can honestly imagine Minnesota applying to join Canada...but it's possible Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio will figure out actually having an economy is better. A union with the northern states rather than the southern ones, and possibly joining the northeastern corridor would give them a shot at economic survival.

See, that's the biggest thing that will determine the outcome: a viable economy. Manufacturing and technology is not southern centric. Yeah, they have Texas and agriculture, but that's not gonna be enough you consider all that tax money generated by the blue states will suddenly stop flowing into the southern tier. Federal funding will disappear. All those aid programs, gone. FEMA, gone, Medicare, Social Security,  Medicaid, gone. Sure, those programs in the north will be impacted as well, but the tax base is much broader; the blue states are probably better positioned to adjust those programs as needed. All those small-government devotees will discover the fastest growing segment is the funeral industry.

In their first go 'round with secession, the South quickly learned economics were not easy. This time, the corridors of manufacturing will be compounded by research and development. Intellectual achievement is central to maintaining the edge. People might work from anywhere these days, but it the country splits, the competent people will go where the jobs are housed. It will be a matter or cyber security. 

But like I said above, this is all conjecture. I hope to hell I am totally and completely off-the-mark-wrong.  

The Wifely Persons's Tip o'the Week

My Grandpa Moishe's 45th yahrzeit is this weekend. 

He was dad's best friend and my best cohort in crime.

(Grandma Sarah insisted we were not to be trusted then together.)

If you have a grandparent, remember to hug them.

If you lost your grandparents, talk about them.

When you do that, they live on.