Obviously, I Didn't Die

Apparently, I was a victim of Influenza A. How anyone can tell A from B or C or XYZ is beyond me, nor do I care enough to find out. What I learned from the experience is that having had the flu shot before I  went to Israel in October may have helped to mitigate the worst of it. Additionally, during my attempted self-diagnostics is that Aleve really works on the body aches and joint pain. Not being a doctor and all, I can't recommend anything past mint or jasmine green tea and chicken soup to cure whatever ails you, but NSAIDs were my best friends last week. And for all of you who were trying to keep tabs on me (and you know who you were) I did manage to go to the movies on Christmas Day to see AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH.

I want to talk about that for a moment. Ziggy was still sucking air when the first one came out and we opted not to go, which was unusual for a guy who was heavily into computerized film making. I eventually saw it on tv and it was meh. I did not see the second one. But for reasons I cannot really explain, I wanted to see this one, so I went with a friend. It was visually stunning, of course, and the 3D was very effective. There was stuff going down I could not grok or even follow, but I was able to figure out what I needed. HOWEVER, there were some parts of the story line that niggled at the back of my neck. I knew I would have to think through some of my random thoughts. 

This episode is clearly anti-colonial and a whole lotta people are saying this is a thinly veiled version of Israeli colonialism. I call bullshit on that. Jews are the indigenous people of the area via language, culture, religion, burial, and written history. Period. End of discussion. The return of Jews to Israel should be the poster story for all indigenous people longing to return to their homeland. Show me ANY cultural documentation demonstrating a 5000-year PALESTINIAN presence in that land, and then I'll ask for your crack supply. Oh, for G-d's sake, they have always called themselves refugees in Gaza, Jordan, and Lebanon. And that's exactly what they are. If they were so damned interested in having a functioning state, there was ample opportunity beginning in 1948 to have one. Just ask a Palestinian when the last time they had an independent Palestinian state on that land, or a Palestinian currency. They can't. It never existed. 

The last independent NON COLONIAL government on that land was the Kingdom of Judea and that was dismantled in the first century CE by Rome. Following the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 132 C.E,  Hadrian, the Roman emperor at the time, changed the name to Syria Palaestina and the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina in an attempt to sever the relationship between Jews and their homeland. It didn't work. From that point on, Jews remained on the land, albeit in fewer numbers, considered Hebrew to be their language of prayer and literature, and lived under a series of rulers right through to the Ottoman Empire. When Great Britain took over, it was just another in a long line of foreigners who wanted control of the Holy Land.  But the Brits did something else: they agreed to partition the land. Hence, the birth of the state of Israel in 1948. Click here for a succinct timeline.

Why bring this up now? 

For two reasons. First, if someone tells you they don't hate Jews but they are anti-Zionist, they are full of shit. WE ARE ZION. We are the people of Israel. We come in many colors, many traditions, many foods, many dialects, but when push comes to shove, we can always reach each other in Hebrew...whether it's through a line of liturgy or a passage in Torah. It is in Hebrew and that is our language. The oldest known inscription spelling Yerushalayim as we know it today is 2100-years old, dating from the first century B.C.E.  While the inscription is Aramaic, it uses Hebrew letters and says, "Hananiah son of Dodalos of Jerusalem."  Islam was founded in 610 C.E. Do the math.

The second reason is because I am sick to death of the hypocrisy. We own the banks, the media, governments across the globe according to the Jew haters. If that was the case, don't you think we'd be doing a better job of taking care of our own people? If we actually ran the world, do you think Yasser Arafat's daughter Zahwa would be a billionaire living off money skimmed from the PLO and aid to the Palestinians? Hate needs a scapegoat and Jews have been serving that purpose for a couple of thousand years....yet we're still here. We returned home, started "start-up nation," became a major player in technology and medicine...yet we are vilified for existing. Israeli civilians are attacked, murdered, mutilated, raped, kidnapped, and burned, yet Israel is the aggressor because it defends its citizens? If those same terrorists crossed the border from Canada to, say, Buffalo, what would you expect the United States to do? 

Jews are already heading back into hiding. UK PM Starmer pointed out British Jewish children are the only ones attending school behind armed gates yet just yesterday, he welcomed Alaa Abd El-Fattah to England despite his repeated calls to kill all Zionists. Jewish shops are closing all over Australia...and that was before the Bondi Beach massacre. Every shul, community center, and day school in this country have armed guards. And the haters will blame us for not being shot up enough. And it's global. 

Here's a happy New Year thought for all those who think Feckless President Felon is a friend to the Jews: if you saw what he did to Ukraine and Zelenskyy, understand he will throw Israel and the Jews under the same bus the minute the revenue stream slows to a trickle. The Goniff-In-Chief has not interest past the lining of his own pockets. As he manipulates mergers and acquisitions, he enriches his family coffers steadily and without shame. His big plans for Las Gaza....will never be completed because he will default as he has done countless times before this, leaving others to clean up the mess. 

And waiting in the wings for this collapse will be Mayor Mamdani who keeps appointing pro-Palestinian hate mongers to positions of power in NYC's government. As soon as the wheels come off the pretend protectionism of this administration, Mamdani will stand back and let the haters hate out loud and in person. 

Meanwhile, back at the government teat, JD Bedbug, Pete Hogshead, and others are all loudly proclaiming the new Christian America we will all be enjoying as we seek salvation. They are celebrating the birth of Jesus by cutting off access to healthcare for millions of Americans, destroying the families of thousands of immigrants with legal ties to this country, bombing other countries without congressional consideration as they shit on the institutions that are the pride of this country. But that hasn't stopped any of them from putting out very religious messages from their government offices. Makes me wonder whose religion they subscribe to, because it sure ain't the one Jesus was preaching.  See for yourself: Trump Administration Emphasizes Religion in Official Christmas Messages from the NYTimes.

As 2025 draws to a close, We, the People need to have a reckoning about who we are as a People. After growth and progress, are We, the People really willing to revert to the way things were in 1900? 

Measles are surging back to life in America. Rubella and Pertussis are already rearing their ugly heads.  Polio is in the wings. Are we ready to sacrifice our children on the altar of Trumpian stupidity?  Make sure you know that answer to that because that very issue will become the centerpiece of the next real societal war. 

One last thought: may your New Year be happy, healthy, and peace-filled. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If your kids aren't up to date on their vaccines, fix that

NOW.

Waiting is not a wise option.

“What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?"

I am taking a breather to write about something domestic this week: education in America. 

photo: Kimberly Cambra/Philadelphia Inquirer

In the last year, good folks of Bucks County had a bit of an issue with the Central Bucks school board. Seems the Republican run school board has been replaced by a whole new crop of Democrats. One-time Republican now turned Democrat Karen Smith was sworn in as school board chair not on a Bible,  but on a stack of banned books. The book on top? NIGHT by Elie Wiesel. She chose it because a quote from that book was ordered to be removed from a library due to a board policy that "banned staff from advocating beliefs to students on “partisan, political, or social policy issues." The removed quote? 

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. 

The other books in the pile?

• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: about a child being raped by her father. 
• Lily and Dunkin, by Donna Gephart: with a transgender main character
• All Boys Aren’t Blue, by George M. Johnson: about a young man growing up Black and queer.
• Flamer, by Mike Curato: about a teenager grappling with his identity
• Beyond Magenta, by Susan Kuklin: about the lives of 6 transgender teens

Each of those books confront marginalized groups. Kids need to read books in which they see themselves even when they have not shared that intimate knowledge with others. They need to see they are not alone or weird or abnormal. Each one of those books deals with identity and should never be locked away from readers.

Is this what education in the United States has come to? Mob rule? Get elected or appointed and make rules up as you go? 

Marginalized groups are being terrorized in academic settings and some seek to legitimize that rhetoric. When administrators turn a blind eye and then turn their backs on students of any kind of minority, they are not serving their communities with justice. They are painting targets on kids backs whether or not they fully comprehend the impact of their actions. They are providing tacit approval for bullying and harassment. Doesn't matter if it's gay kids, or trans kids, or Jews, or Muslims, or kids who wear green sneakers. Pull the books about marginalized communities outta the library, tell kids that stuff is bad for them, and the kids will do the rest. Once the target is in place, the potential victim is established, marked, and eventually attacked. 

Ms. Magill, Dr. Kornbluth, and Dr. Gay

This week, presidents of three prestigious universities testified before a congressional House committee about anti-semitism on their campuses. Students across the country are being harassed, attacked, and openly threatened because they are Jews. Those attackers are not going after Israelis per se, they are going after all Jewish students and faculty. Swastikas, threatening graffiti, and physical intimidation are becoming increasingly common on campuses. 

The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and MIT were all asked about what was happening to Jewish students on their respective campuses. All three were asked the same question by Representative Elise Stefanik (R, NY):

“I am asking, specifically: Calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?”

All three, Ms. Magill of Penn, Dr. Kornbluth of MIT (who is Jewish), and Dr. Gay of Harvard said it depended on context. While one might argue context may be a factor in prosecutorial conversation, the intent of the speeches, chants, or verbal assaults cannot be dismissed as requiring context. What context would they accept? Someone's head bashed in? Jews herded into a building? Or perhaps a synagogue shot up...like Tree of Life in Pittsburgh or Temple Israel in Albany?

There is a point missing from their context-laden speeches...and that is intent. The shouts, the jeers, the slogans are not innocuous; they are meant to incite a reaction. Just as the January 6th insurrectionists were not merely peaceful demonstrators intent on visiting the Capitol to take in the sights, crowds screaming From the River to the Sea, Palestine Must Be Free are not simply trying to make a point. They are trying to rally others to their cause.   

What would the three presidents say had the word Jews been changed to Blacks? Would they remain as morally ambiguous as they appeared? 

Korbluth did admit to being Jewish during her testimony. She said,

As an American, as a Jew, and as a human being, I abhor antisemitism, and my administration is combatting it actively." 

Still, she insisted that calls for genocide be tempered by context. I wonder how Sally Kornbluth would feel if she was the one being targeted because she was Jewish? Or if her kids were the ones being attacked because they were Jewish? Would that have been enough context for her?

Maybe someone should've asked that. follow-up question.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you're gonna shout slogans,

at least bother to learn what they mean.

from the Wall Street Journal - 5 December 2023

***********

PS: Bonus points if you get the title quote right. Send an email to 

thewifelyperson@gmail.com

I'll announce the winner next week. 

There just might be a prize for the first correct email. 

Living In a Post Factual Society

The blog I originally drafted for today cannot be published. It's a total screed.

Mousa Abu Marouk

I am not without compassion for the people of Gaza. They are victims;  victimized by their own leadership who park their sorry-ass butts in some posh hotel in Qatar while thousands of the people they supposedly represent die because they are used as human shields, sitting atop tunnels filled with Hamas rockets, bombs, and supplies. 

In an interview aired on Russian television, Mousa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas spokesman, was asked:

Many people are asking: Since you have built 500 kilometers of tunnels, why haven't you built bomb shelters, where civilians can hide during bombardment? 

Mousa Abu Marzouk: We have built the tunnels because we have no other way of protecting ourselves from being targeted and killed. These tunnels are meant to protect us from the airplanes. We are fighting from inside the tunnels. Everybody knows that 75% of the people in the Gaza Strip are refugees, and it is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect them. According to the Geneva Convention, it is the responsibility of the occupation to provide them with all the services as long as they are under occupation.

In other words, it's not their job to protect their citizens.

Then whose job is it?

Did Hamas really think Israel would not retaliate for the massacre of October 7th? Did their leadership not give a single thought to what would happen when Israel struck back? 

Or are they playing a very long game, using the blood of their own civilians cast into harm's way as a new blood libel for Jew hatred?

Yeah, I think they were. 

They were depending on 2000 years of anti-Jewish sentiment lying right beneath the surface to bring out the wide swath of haters who would prefer to see Jews back in the gas chambers. 

From the river to the sea is absolutely their plan from the get-go, making sure the blood sacrifice of their own people would be the newest blood libel used to kill Jews, thereby attaining their Jew-free goal. 

Baked babies, beheaded babies, raped mothers, tortured grandparents...none of that mattered because, after all, they were just Jews. Dead Palestinian babies, mutilated Muslim children, some live ones used to pose as dead kids...only to get up again for repositioning...hospitals bombed by Islamic Jihad, but blamed on Israel, anything they could stage to make sure all Jews...not necessarily Israelis...take the fall to become the enemy worthy of extermination.

And if that's not gruesome enough, the Hamas 07 October invaders filmed themselves performing atrocities, using victims' cell phones to upload these videos to social media so that families got to watch their loved ones' last moments. Yet, when that same footage is shown in public places , supporters of Hamas, the very people who committed these atrocities, protest and, as at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, brawls ensued outside the venue. I should think those supporters should have been cheering to see their acts of depravity shown to the world. 

Silly me. 

Those same people talk about ethnic cleansing. Wanna know what's ethnic cleansing? That's when people of one culture/religion/color are forced to leave the place where they've lived for 2500 years. Maybe that question should be directed at the countries that make up the Arab world. 

Photo © J. Tocker 

In 2019, the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv captured that exodus in an exhibit: Leaving, Never To Return. That slogan was written on the side of the one suitcase each person was allowed to carry out: رحلة بدون رجعة  which is Arabic for Trip with no return. Hundreds of thousands of Jews with just the clothes on their backs and their single valises had no place to go, so they went home...to Israel where their journeys began in the first place. Where after three thousand years the same language was spoken, the same alphabet was used, and the walls of the cities their ancestors built still stood.

From the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities

Apartheid? Let's talk about that for a moment. Currently, the majority of Israelis would be, at least in this country, considered persons of color. All different colors. Jews are Jews; that's all that matters...not the color of skin, eyes, hair, or shoes. None of that is a barrier to citizenship.

At the same time, Israeli Arabs are fully Israeli citizens, serving in the IDF, in the police force, as members of Knesset, as doctors, heads of hospitals, lawyers, supreme court justices, voting in elections, establishing political blocs government, getting health care, education, power, water, and passports just like any other Israeli citizen..Jew, Christian, Muslim, Druze, Bahá’í , whatever.  Oh, and Gay Pride is a really big deal in Tel Aviv...and no one even gets thrown off a rooftop for being gay. 

For the record, Israel is a democracy. It is the only functional democracy in the Middle East.

According to Hamas's charter, Jews are not permitted to live in Palestine and most of the other Arab states. Israelis can visit, but they cannot establish residency. That more closely resembles apartheid.

For the umpteenth time...the only group occupying Gaza is Hamas. If the Palestinians would like to stop being human shields, then they have to get rid of Hamas. Israel is happy to help, as are many other nations, but the Palestinians have to start that process. They must begin to take back their own country. Plenty of nations will step up with economic and humanitarian aid when the funds stop being diverted to rocket launchers, missiles, and terror tunnels.

Keep this in mind: if you want to support Palestinian rights, don't condone the wholesale murder of kids at a music festival. Don't cheer for missiles being lobbed nonstop on schoolyards. You don't want Israelis to cheer when you get bombed, so why would you think Israelis are gonna sit back and let you bomb them without a response?  

Not realistic thinking on their part.

Exactly how many ceasefires and suicide bombers do you think it would take for your government to respond appropriately? Unless, of course, you're okay with your children and grandchildren being beheaded, kidnapped, and tortured? If that's okay with you, you should be offering up your family as human shield sacrifices for your staunch belief in the righteousness of Hamas.

I am damn tired of living in a post factual society, a place where fantasy passes for reality, and people who should know better don't do their homework. Where universities allow departments to spread utter garbage under their logo like the University of Minnesota's Department of Gender Women and Sexuality Studies faculty has done with their statement on Palestine. Clearly, the writers of that statement drank Hamas Kool-Aid before they put it out instead of doing their homework. 

Maybe they should send a delegation of feminists and LGBTQ+ folks to negotiate with Hamas. I'm sure Mousa Abu Marouk would welcome them all with a great rooftop party....if he happens to be in Gaza.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Day

If you're not a fan of Jews, I would strongly urge you to boycott 

products invented/developed by Jews.

That means no instant messaging since IMs, DMs, WhatsApp 

are all derived from ICQ, an Israeli invention.

No USB Flash drives....Israeli invention.

No Epilday hair removers.

No Rummikub or Mastermind games.

No pressure bandages.

No mobile or camera phone.

No polio vaccine.

No Google. 

One should always be consistent 

about not benefitting

from those you hate. 

Maybe, Maybe Not

I am actually glad my Dad is no longer alive; this America would break his heart. Dad used to say he fought in Germany so we would never have to worry about being Jews again. The events of the last couple of weeks would've decimated him. FIL, too...and he wasn't even Jewish.

I'm not just talking about the slaughter at the Supernova music festival, the kibbutzim, and the Israeli towns near Gaza. I'm not just talking about a raging mob in the Republic of Dagestan hunting for Jews at the airport. I'm not just talking about the crowd at the Sydney Opera House shouting Gas the Jews. I'm not even talking about Berlin where Jews are becoming afraid to go to the greengrocer because it's an Arab-owned store. 

No, I'm talking about America. 

I'm talking about Jewish kids being barricaded in the Cooper Union Library because a "pro-Palestinian" mob was trying to break in. 

I'm talking about Cornell University where the threats against Jewish students were so extreme the kosher dining facility and the whole of the Center for Jewish Living is now under police protection. Look at the screenshot on the right. Those are credible threats made against Jewish students. Not Zionists. Not Israeli. No, these are threats against all Jews on campus.

I'm talking about Jemma Decristo, a professor at US Davis, openly threatening "zionist" journalists...AND their families. In a Sacramento BEE op-ed piece responding to Decristo's post, Reuven Toff, writes:

Jewish college students across the U.S. have been subjected to antisemitism — and the incidents are only increasing. National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has been at the forefront of demonstrations on campuses. They often use the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in their demonstrations, which is a rallying cry used by terrorist groups, including Hamas, the organization responsible for the recent slaughter of more than 1,400 and the wounding of 3,500 men, women and children. 

Hamas’ Charter unapologetically calls for not just the destruction of Israel, but for the annihilation of the Jewish people. SJP, meanwhile, is routinely permitted by college administrators to spew its hatred toward Jews and Israel. Is it any wonder that Jewish students are increasingly feeling attacked?

I'm talking about Stanford, where a professor didn't simply harangue Jewish students, he/she sorted them out of the class and into a corner. According to a report in the British The Jewish Chronicle:

According to details shared by Jewish student leaders at the California university, a popular lecturer called out “individual students in class based on their backgrounds and identities,” asking Jewish and Israeli students to identify themselves during a class entitled “civil, liberal, and global education”. 

Rabbi Dov Greenberg, director of the Chabad Stanford Jewish Center, said he was told by three of the 18 students who were in the room that the lecturer separated them from their belongings and instructed them to stand in a corner. The non-faculty lecturer, whose name has not been publicised while the investigation is ongoing, is then alleged to have said: “This is what Israel does to Palestinians,” according to the student reports relayed to Greenberg. 

The instructor went on to ask how many people died in the Holocaust, to which a student replied “six million.”

The instructor is alleged by students to have replied: “Yes. Only six million,” and: “Colonisers killed more than six million. Israel is a coloniser.”  

This has not been uncommon. What's next? Yellow stars? Hamas would love that. Jews would be so instantly recognizable!

How about Let's all be mad at the Jews because they've managed to survive as a recognizable people? Maybe you should call that people envy.

Israel has been Israel for over 3000 years. When you dig up really old stuff in Israel, it's in Hebrew, the same language then as we speak now. Our language was never a lost language; it was always present in our prayers, our texts, our scrolls. We have the same communal calendar we had then, the same rituals, the same traditions, the same burial practices.

How are we colonizers in our own land?

And these people who shout "From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free?" Free from what? Homosexuals and homosexualtiy? It's illegal in Gaza. Free from having a functional economy? Free from utilities and potable water?

Or did they really mean Judenrein....Jew Free? I think that's the one they're going for.

If you cannot call Hamas what they are...terrorists...or you find you are making up justifications for their actions, you are a terrorist. Just thought I'd say that out loud. Supporting it, justifying it, rubber stamping it...it makes you one of them. 

Body storage for those
yet to be identified.

Arieh O'Sullivan, a reporter for KAN English news in Israel, (and the son of my dear friend Dina,) sent this to his mother this morning when she expressed concern about what was happening in Gaza:

Here you go mom, bodies of dead Jews, unable to bury yet because the Arabs mutilated the bodies so much they haven't yet been identified. Babies, found burned in ovens, put in alive. Women raped and murdered their faces so cut up they can't be identified. Did u see this on CNN? Don't compare us with the Arabs. All of Gaza is hamas. 

Yet, in spite of that, as Jews, we are told to be concerned about our enemies; even as we celebrate our freedom from bondage, Egyptians died. When we recite the 10 plagues, we remove a drop of wine from our cups for each plague to remember the suffering of those who would have seen us dead. 

Yet, even with the murder and the missiles, there is a prayer we've been reciting at morning minyan that has been adapted from Psalm 91 for the hostages, the IDF and the defenders of Israel. Please note the line I have bolded:

Our God, the One who raised Joseph up from the pit, be "a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble" 

Send complete rescue and full redemption to those held captive by the enemy. 

Strengthen their spirit and bring them our prayers that they be protected from all harm. 

Implant understanding in the heart of the enemy that they may return the captives in wholeness of body and spirit. 

Grant wisdom to the Israel Defense Forces that they may secure freedom for the captives without loss of life. 

Grant strength of spirit and courage of heart to all the sons and daughters of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar to release bonds of captivity and allow us all to live in freedom. 

"They shall call upon Me, and I will answer them; I will be with them in distress; I will rescue them, and honor them" 

We are not the only ones who live on this planet, we are not interested in world domination or shutting people out. Israel, warts and all, is still a democracy where Arab Israelis serve in government, the IDF, go to school, become doctors, lawyers, supreme court justices, police people, and do everything a Jewish Israeli does. Straight, gay, bi, trans, whatever...you get to live in a society where you can be what you want. Sure, they are crazy haredi that hate everyone who's not like them, but about 78% of Israelis consider themselves non-haredi. In the same breath, we just want to be what we are: Jews living free in the land we've inhabited for 3000 years. 

I'm guess most indigenous peoples feel the same way about their original homelands. Some have even come out to support Israel and the hostages. A group of Maori in Wellington, New Zealand, came together to perform a Haka to send strength and fortitude to IDF and the hostages in Gaza as they demanded their release. Their Haka is a powerful message that we are not alone in our desire to be our own people. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Speaking of that desire to be left alone to practice our religion and our culture without fear of proselytization from those who think they have a lock on religion....the US House of Incredible Stupidity elected an openly christofascist, Mike Johnson, R-LA as its new Speaker of the House. From Heather Cox Richardson:

The rejection of democracy in favor of Christian authoritarianism at the highest levels of our government is an astonishing outcome of the attempt to prevent another Great Depression by creating a government that worked for ordinary Americans rather than a few wealthy men.

But here we are.

After Johnson’s election as speaker, extremist Republican Matt Gaetz of Florida spelled out what it meant for the party…and for the country: “MAGA is ascendant,” Gaetz told former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, “and if you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement, and where the power of the Republican Party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention.”

This guy believes his religion belongs squarely in the center of governance. In their article detailing the new Speaker's position, The New York Times reported:

Mr. Johnson declined an interview request and did not respond to a request for comment about whether he considers himself a Christian nationalist. But the little-known speaker of the House has made clear that his faith is the most important thing to know about him, and in previous interviews, he has said he believes “the founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around.”

Just where does that leave the rest of us? Not so sure it's America if this guy and his cabal have anything to say about it.

Yeah, this stuff keeps me up at night. And I keep thinking about mob rule, and the squeaky wheel, and whether or not America is at the end of our noble experiment in democracy. Or maybe this is the end result of democracy? The majority does rule and if that majority thinks Feckless Loser should be the winner. If enough congressclowns are voting a christofascist in as Speaker of the House, and enough people are questioning the veracity of our electoral process, and if enough people are running for office as right-wing local school board and city council members, and enough of those candidates are winning.....that's democracy. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Maybe we who feel differently no longer have a place in these here United States. 

Ever think of that?

When Politicians Lie

I've come to the conclusion that almost all politicians lie, some more egregiously than others. Some actually never tell the truth about anything, and if we're lucky, they get caught and get forced out of office. Or at least not re-elected. Once upon a time, back before I had reached double digit age, I believed politicians were in it for the good of the people. Silly me. 

In her rather brilliant 1967 essay, TRUTH AND POLITICS, Hannah Arendt wrote:

It has frequently been noticed that the surest long-term result of brainwashing is a peculiar kind of cynicism – an absolute refusal to believe in the truth of anything, no matter how well this truth may be established. In other words, the result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world – and the category of truth vs. falsehood is among the mental means to this end – is being destroyed. And for this trouble there is no remedy. It is but the other side of the disturbing contingency of all factual reality. Since everything that has actually happened in the realm of human affairs could just as well have been otherwise, the possibilities for lying are boundless, and this boundlessness makes for self-defeat. Only the occasional liar will find it possible to stick to a particular falsehood with unwavering consistency; those who adjust images and stories to ever-changing circumstances will find themselves floating on the wide-open horizon of potentiality, drifting from one possibility to the next, unable to hold on to any one of their own fabrications.

The yellow highlight is mine. While the sentence is really the root of her argument, I think it needs to be seen as part of the whole paragraph as well as being singled out.  

Listening to the bombastic speeches from Feckless Loser and the cohort of candidates gives Arendt's words a new kind of spectacular clarity. The inability to determine truth from fiction will be, in the next few years, that which brings this country to its knees. Even when candidates like Mike, Pence, Chris Christie, and Ron De Santis say that Feckless lost the election aloud, it does not begin to make a dent in the cult following of the last administration. 

Never mind that indictments have had no discernible impact on Feckless other than to broadcast and intensify his bombastic claims, he has now gone one step further: he has openly threatened the people of the process on his social media platform. I keep thinking this is like shouting FIRE in a crowded theater...only the audience doesn't have to worry about the fire...they have to worry about the firemen. 

If you want to read about the aftermath of that post, check The New York Times or The Washington Post.  I cannot write about it here without wanting to vomit. 

Whether or not it was intended to be a threat, veiled or otherwise, is actually not all that important. Like every other dog-whistle he has used, this is the starting gate. He doesn't have to make any threats at all...he simply has to give permission to his rabid followers that it's okay to "go after" anyone they perceive as trying to prosecute their leader's ass. 

As Arendt says, there is no remedy for this. Once the lies transcend the truth, the orders to behave accordingly will be embedded and ingrained in the language of the devoted minions. Every time he opens his mouth and the lies about the last election spew out, Feckless Loser empowers those who are seeking open revolution. They know he can't win, so like drunks in a bar, they will attempt to toss stools, break windows, and punch out anyone who tries to stop them. 

Jon Minadeo II

The insidious beginnings are all too often ignored. Last week, outside Raleigh, North Carolina, hundreds of anti-semitic flyers were distributed in 5 neighborhoods. The flyers reference The Goyim Defense League, a known hate group and conspiracy theory network. They are headed up by Jon Minadeo II. This guy is not an unknown quantity. He's a proponent of the sovereign citizen's movement, and an established provocateur. Despite frequent arrests, his following continues to expand. Once found mainly in California, Colorado, and Florida, the Goyim Defense League has expanded along the eastern seaboard of the U.S. And their numbers will continue to grow as Feckless dog-whistles them into action.

Oh, wait! Never heard of the Sovereign Citizens Movement? The Anti Defamation League provides a good definition: 

The "sovereign citizen" movement is a loosely organized collection of groups and individuals who have adopted a right-wing anarchist ideology originating in the theories of a group called the Posse Comitatus in the 1970s. Its adherents believe that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to "restore" an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed. To this end, sovereign citizens wage war against the government and other forms of authority using "paper terrorism" harassment and intimidation tactics, and occasionally resorting to violence.

The Southern Poverty Law Center  goes even further...and falls right into Arendt's descriptives:

Sovereign citizens believe they are not under the jurisdiction of the federal government and consider themselves exempt from U.S. law. They use a variety of conspiracy theories and falsehoods to justify their beliefs and their activities, some of which are illegal and violent.

Do not think for one New York minute that they are gonna go away, blow over, or otherwise disappear after the next election. This shit is here to stay.

Look, I know politicians have lied since there were politicians to be heard. This is not new. In his novel, LYING CHEATING SCUM, Ed Uravic, a former Washington insider wrote:

The American people remain forgiving of their politicians, as long as those politicians put the people first and deliver tangible benefits for all of us.

I think he's spot on. Think about who we forgive and who we don't. I'm sure you can come up with a few names. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week 

Read the whole Truth and Politics essay.

It's important. 

What If They Held A Day of Hate...and no one showed up?

I am suffering through a wretched case of sniffleous. COVID negative, possible minor sinus infection that quickly resolved itself with lots of green tea with jasmine, and not enough of a sore throat to bother with, but that frickin' sniffleous took me down with a dull thud. 

I guess not breathing may have played a part, but I felt so lousy that on blizzard morning, I asked Ziggy for tea and toast. Wasn't 'til I actually opened my eyes that I figured out two major things: 1) he wasn't in the bed, and B) as the senior sympathetically pointed out, his dad, like Generalissimo Franco, is still dead. Y'know, I know this, but I was still annoyed that I had to get up to make my own tea and toast when I felt like my head was closer to the Titanic than to the surface.  

I was alert enough on Shabbat morning to flick on CNN to see what was happening with National Day of Hate. I admit, I was somewhat curious about who was gonna do what to whom, despite a couple of nagging ideas in the back of my head. As I was lying in state, much as Franco had once done, I watched CNN, then MSNBC for a while, before I checked in at (shudder) FOX before I fell asleep from boredom. When I awoke, still nothing was going on. Not exactly a surprise. 

Let's unpack this red herring a bit. 

To the best of my research, there was no evidence anyone applied for parade or gathering permits in preparation for Day of Hate rallies across the countr. That should've been a bit of a red herring flag right there. 

Okay, you're not gonna rally, but maybe you wanna blow something up.

Let's pretend you want to blow up the local synagogue. Do you announce it to the media prior to setting the explosives, or after setting them in place, but before detonation? Either way, bomb squads and sniffer dogs are gonna show up. After detonation, it's a sure bet they're gonna show.

Okay, no building. Maybe what you had in mind was a mass shooting. Again, are you gonna send out flyers to the media so they can catch you in action?  Nah, I don't think so. 

But the NYPD did. They sent out a secret memo that was leaked, of course, detailing what they thought, based on various social media posts, was being planned for this Day of Hate: graffiti, flyers, banners, stickers.

Yup. Stickers. 

Groups in Iowa, California, and New York, according to their social media, were on board to scare us all with stickers. I bet they even had bumper stickers made up. Someone should check hardware stores and assorted Walmarts for sharp increases in spray paint sales. 

But that didn't stop every cop house in the country from prepping battle gear just in case something went down. 

Sure, forewarned is forearmed. Granted, based on NYPD intelligence, nail polish remover and GooGone instead of assault weapons were more in order...but then again, maybe there were code words for guns (graffiti,) fireworks (flyers,) bazookas (banners,) or semi automatic rifles (stickers.) 

On the other hand....

What a great way to float a trial balloon...Chinese or otherwise... to see what precautions are being taken and how they are laid out. It's a reconnaissance mission. A dry run. A rehearsal. Call it what you will, but nothing happened on Shabbat because it wasn't supposed to.

Do not think for one New York minute that we are outta the woods on this. I think all the speechifying, pot banging, and sabre-rattling does not scare these guys. Quite the opposite. I think they gathered more than enough intelligence to actually do something on another date set aside to hate Jews, only this time, they are not gonna announce it to the media. 

The hate is being fanned on two sides, tragically enough. From the white supremacist side on the extreme right, and by the "anti Zionist" side of the extreme left. BOTH sides, people. "The left?" you ask. If you haven't figured it out yet, let me clarify the extreme left "anti Zionist" position. This is the new shadow phrase for antisemitism. "Anti-Zionists" conflate all Jews with an extreme form of Zionism that does not represent the majority of Jews either in the Diaspora or in Israel. You know as well as I do there are radical sides to every. group,  but do you damn an entire population for a wing-nut side? Usually, not, unless there are Jews involved; then it's okay.

photo: CARLO ALLEGRI/REUTERS

Jews have been expelled from almost every country in which we have settled as a small minority, where we were content to keep our laws and customs within our own communities, usually discouraging conversion, often shunning intermarriage, thriving in the businesses which we are permitted to operate. But that never stopped anyone from passing laws about how we were to dress, walk down the street, build our houses. It wasn't enough we gave the rest of you our Bible? Did we ever mention how we feel about cultural appropriation of our beliefs as you morphed them into something alien to us? How many times have you seen Jews rushing into a church or mosque to deface the building, or worse, shoot down worshippers in cold blood? Nah. I didn't think so.

Yet there is a segment of these here United States' population that thinks it's a great idea to sponsor a Day of Hate in our honor. Not that anything happened. No one seemed to show up. 

I don't know about any of you, but that's the part that worries me more. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Day

Never underestimate the grit and determination of

a newly minted 5-year old.

Lego directions today...tomorrow, Ikea...the day after that?

Maybe NASA.

Happy 5th Birthday, Young Sir

What Else Can I Say?

 

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