Violence

Delusion


Post 1,050

Not Looking Too Supreme

Yes, the ballot disqualification decision was unanimous and it may well lead to further disapproval of this ethically challenged court. We don’t know if that unanimity was because every justice dug deeply into their vault of jurisprudence and agreed or because the justices feared a violent public reaction to banning Trump from ballots and office. You know: like it says in the 14th Amendment. That is to say, they chickened out, which is exactly what bullies hope for.

Here’s what CREW, the plaintiff in this 14th Amendment case, said of this decision:

The Court had the opportunity to clear Trump of the finding that he incited insurrection, and the Court chose not to. Instead it simply ruled that states do not have the power to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment unless Congress says they can. [I.e. the Court’s decision was based on a technicality.]

It’s disappointing that the Court failed to bar Trump from the ballot. This was a test for the Court, and it failed to meet the moment.

But in this ruling, there is a win for our democracy: Trump will go down in history as an insurrectionist. [emphasis original]
.

See this for a clear explanation of what this means. Sadly, the Supreme Court effectively erased Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, essentially adding a 28th Amendment. They did it without the formal process required by the Constitution. The notion of doing that should be delusional.

American Terrorists – Constant Delusion

You’ve seen the shaved head militia crazies, AR-15s strapped to their chests, fingers covering triggers, Glocks strapped to their thighs just above their cargo pockets filled with ammo clips. This look is their macho swagger, their tattoos giving messages of death and so-called patriotism. They seig heil their leader, muscles a-popping, brows furled in intensity and they promise death to the elite scum who they say are traitors to the true America.

Sure, it’s a stereotype, maybe a bit immoderate, but you’ve seen these guys in television news coverage invading the Capitol Building on January 6 and in state capitol buildings in Wisconsin and Michigan and just outside polling places (here and here) on missions of voter intimidation, as though that’s their patriotic duty. Sometimes they parade in a forest of Trump flags, American flags and Nazi flags. The mixed symbols clash in a display of confusing bravado, but the testosterone, absolutism and love of violence messages are clear. And while you didn’t see all the automatic weapons they had on January 6 (many were stashed in their hotel rooms in Virginia), these are members of the army of angry people who stormed and desecrated our Capitol Building looking to murder the Vice-President and the Speaker of the House.

These people are itching for a fight and they think they are going to retake control of America (that means control of you) and establish their notion of patriotic purity by means of their might. They have plenty of would-be Rambos standing by and over 400 million guns in their arsenals.

I’m reading an old Tom Clancy novel, Dead or Alive, and it is, of course, a good guys versus bad guys macho tale. One paragraph (p. 115) describes bad guy Islamist terrorists. See if it makes you think of anyone else.

” .  .  .  they thought of themselves as Holy Warriors and sought after their seventy-two virgins but were in fact young people with few prospects, to whom religion was the path to greatness they would otherwise never achieve. It was remarkable that they were too stupid even to see that.”

Strip that description of the seventy-two virgins and replace religion with MAGA and you have our delusional American crusaders. They believe their mission is holy and they can justify it with quotations like a Jeffersonian Tree of Liberty “spilling of blood” phrase and demonization of immigrants bringing their “poisoning blood.” These are the people who will bring Trump’s “bedlam” when things fail to go Trump’s way.

We don’t need any more standoffs, like Cliven Bundy’s chest puffing idiocy. We surely don’t need a Ruby Ridge or a Waco – Branch Dividian catastrophe. So, when these guys, these self-styled American crusaders, decide to provoke a confrontation, what are we going to do?

I hope our government people are working scenarios that will result in the security of our nation and that they have a notion of how to accomplish neutralizing these Rambo wannabees with minimal loss of life. But that’s a tough challenge when dealing with people who think their cause is holy and pure and who are willing, some eager, to die for their cause. You know enough history to recognize the delusional pattern.

Now, This Is Delusional So, Bless Her Heart!

Click the pic for the SNL version of Sen. Katie Brttt’s (R-AL) cringe-worthy rebuttal to the SOTU. Start at 2:26 or watch the Biden lead-in first.

Delusional Senator Endorses Violence

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) brought his usual cerebral fuzziness to the issue of aid to Ukraine, as reported by PBS:

MUNICH (AP) — A Republican opponent [Vance] of new U.S. funding for Ukraine argued at an international security conference Sunday that the package stuck in Congress wouldn’t “fundamentally change the reality” on the ground and that Russia has an incentive to negotiate peace.

Ukrainians are dying. Their cities are being destroyed by Russian bombs, artillery and rockets. The country is being obliterated. That’s Putin’s stated goal – to erase Ukraine and rebuild it as part of Russia.

What you need to know is that Vance has never served in combat, so he knows nothing about battlefield realities. He has never served in uniform, so he knows nothing about any nation’s military. And he knows nothing about any incentive for Russia to negotiate peace. He is an ignoramus lacking the sense to keep his ignorant mouth shut.

Many thanks to JN for the pic

That package stuck in Congress is designed to bolster Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and to drive the Russian army out of Ukraine. Without that aid, Ukraine will run out of munitions and all will be lost. And Putin has publicly stated that he will then set his sights on the Baltic countries, Romania and eastern Poland. Happily for Putin and the Russians, Trump has invited them to do “Whatever the hell they want.“

People are dying as Vance displays his boundless ignorance and cowardly fealty to Trump, who told Vance to oppose military aid for Ukraine. Decide for yourself why Trump would insist on blocking aid to Ukraine and, as a result, provide aid to Putin.

Vance is not just spineless. He is a promoter of Putin’s butchery.

Nickname Rhymes with “Tucker”

Tucker Carlson outdid himself by directly promoting Vladimir Putin and, in consequence, undermining democracy everywhere. He did so in a suck-up interview witnessed by pinheads in Red states and by some already shaky allies. That has earned Carlson a special award.

Many thanks to JN for the pic.

I wonder if MAGA Americans can remember when we were the good guys and the Russian oppressors were the bad guys, especially when they invaded another country and committed war crimes. The righties used to be good at standing up to Russian tyrants. Now they cower before Trump and his despotic pals Orbán, Erdoğan and Putin and they puff their chests as though they are brave.

Congratulations on your award, Comrade Tucker. You’re delusional.

  • Today is a good day to be the light
  • _____________________________
  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Joe Biden Has To Be Better Than Super Bowl Commercials


Post 1,042

However odd it might be, we love our Super Bowl commercials as a form of entertainment. Millions tune in just for them, not so much for the football game. And with the cost for just 30 seconds of ad time at $7 million, the ad agencies and the companies they create ads for better make you want to buy their product.

So, here’s a test: Name all the brands or products you remember seeing in the 59 commercials you watched on February 11. I’m guessing you won’t remember many of them, so let’s try this another way.

There were roughly 101 celebrities in the ads. How many can you name and what is their connection to the product they hawked? (Answer: none)

Far more to the point, having seen the Super Bowl commercials and had your arm twisted by celebrities, are you likely to buy any of the advertised products? Betcha you’re not. And there is a point to this that goes well past your product buying habits and Super Bowl commercials.

While we might have been entertained by some of these ads (whether or not we could figure out what they were for), our behavior will be largely unchanged. The reason for that is the same as for poor political messages.

For a message to cause us to take action, it has to move us. We have to feel something that lights our fire or brings tears to our eyes. It doesn’t matter if there are celebrity endorsements unless the message speaks to us deeply.

So, here’s the deal for Joe Biden. He has to stop doing whatever it is he’s doing now and speak to us from his gut to ours. He has to make us feel why we should care.

We know that the other guy is entirely bad for our country and bad for us personally. We get it and it’s okay for Joe to tell us about that. But nobody wants to vote for Joe Biden only because he isn’t as bad as the other guy.

Joe, ya gotta make us want you bad. You have to reach into us and touch our hearts and our guts. Then your gaffs and your verbal and physical stumbles won’t matter to us and we’ll vote for you.

When the message digs into our innards we remember it and we just might be moved to give the product – Joe Biden – another try, as did the best Super Bowl ad ever, the 1984 Macintosh ad.

You clicked through to watch that Macintosh ad, didn’t you? If you hadn’t seen it already you were curious and if you saw it back then, you remember it because it did more than entertain you. it moved you. It shook your world and made you think differently about what is possible. Maybe it changed you. You were hungry to see whatever that Macintosh thing was going to be and how it was going to leave behind the boring stuff the big boys had and how it would make your world not just better, but really cool, too. That feels really good and motivates us to take action.

Click me – and then see point #5 below

Simon Sinek has a wonderful TED talk and a book called Start With Why. He points out that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t tell us that he had a plan. King told us, “I have a dream today” and we were grabbed down deep by that dream. We were captivated and motivated and had tears of passion in our eyes. His message was moving and memorable through the great magic of hope and that’s just what we need right now in order to restore our democracy, revive America and heal our deep, self-inflicted wounds.

Biden has a plan to do that, and nobody wants to hear about it.

In other words, Joe, you have to be what the Superbowl LVIII commercials were not: moving and memorable. Tell us about your dream for us, Joe.

What if the people running Biden’s campaign were that good? What if his messages truly spoke to us and were more powerful than the largely ineffective Super Bowl LVIII commercials? What if Joe Biden told us about his dream?

Super Bowl Ad Clunker

Boyhood pal Frank Levy reacted in a FaceBook post to the Jesus “He gets us” Superbowl ad:

“I always thought the point of Christianity and Christians was that they are supposed to get Jesus, not the other way around.“

He’s right.

Who’s Counting?

$5M + $83.5M + $453.5M .  .  .

and the interest meters keep on running.  Plus. the threat of prison time is looming.

Accountability: It’s a good thing.

Have I ever mentioned that I love it when a bully gets punched in the nose?

Finally

There was a campus shooting resulting in murders last week. I know someone living nearby the scene. That it was nearby makes our ongoing mass murders more than horrible. It makes them very personal.

I wasn’t having an empathy outage during the Kansas City and Atlanta and Fayetteville and Claxton and Baltimore and Bronx and Jackson and Huntington Park and Chicago and Birmingham and Carson and Montgomery and Burnsville and Middleton and Indianapolis mass shootings (those are just since Super Bowl Sunday). It’s just that this campus shooting, being close to home (as in: heart) brings it into stark reality for me. It’s funny how sometimes we don’t fully “get it” until it’s personal.

Well, I don’t need that up close and personal wake up call to feel the pain and awfulness of these murders. Nevertheless, these shootings do carry more voltage for most of us when they are personal. And every one of them is personal to real live people, like you, me, our families, our friends and our neighbors, whether across the street or across the country. Now two more are dead and more families wail and grieve.

See my post about this here.

  • Today is a good day to be the light
  • _____________________________
  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Violence


Post 1,034

Violence – Part 1

From David French’s piece Political Christianity Has Claws:

” .  .  .  when you combine theology and ideology but subtract virtue, you’ve created a formula for viciousness and strife. Raise the stakes to an existential or eternal level, remove the restraints of kindness and self-control, and watch the worst of humanity emerge.”

We are possibly facing a worst-of-humanity episode, a Ruby Ridge style catastrophe, fomented by the ideological, falsely theological, angry ones.

They are creating a trucker convoy to descend on points of entry at our southern border, specifically including Eagle Pass, TX, where there has been so much confrontation already. They are calling themselves the Army of God, which should send chills down your spine, because you know what has happened throughout history when people bathe themselves in the religious justification of representing God. They see themselves as holy and they justify all their violations of law, of religion, of morality and of good sense by declaring that they are doing God’s work. That often becomes lethal.

Here’s how one FB post reported this:

“This is a biblical, monumental moment that’s been put together by God,” one convoy organizer said on a recent planning call. “We are besieged on all sides by dark forces of evil,” said another. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. It is time for the remnant to rise.”

Clearly, these guys aren’t just itching for a fight; they are trying to provoke one with the imagined self-justification of doing so in the name of God. They’re puffed-up truckers, so call it a diesel crusade.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has clashed with the federal government over policing the border. He was shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court but vows to defy its ruling. That has been the spark for far right, hard-headed indignation and likely ignited the, “You can’t tell us what to do – we’ll show you!” trucker convoy. It smacks of the Cliven Bundy confrontation during the Obama administration. And it smacks of a far right test drive and even a flash to ignite a civil war.

President Biden is going to have to deal with these provocateurs. An armed confrontation will have disastrous consequences, yet he can’t let the armed mob rule or wantonly break the law. This is going to be a rule-of-law showdown and a really difficult situation to defuse. It has the potential for national disaster.

Violence – Part 2

The angry guys with guns (you know who they are) regularly eliminate peace makers, people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby Kennedy, Rabin, Sadat and Gandhi. The thugs consistently live in their rationalized, religious zealotry belief that might-makes-right and that they have the black-and-white, universal ownership of truth and righteousness, like the extremists heading to the border in trucks right now.

Re-read the quote above from David French. With Trump leading his mob of millions and specifically calling for violence, we have let the anger and hatred genie out of the bottle and have truly removed the restraints of kindness and self-control.

On a different scale, read this from Everytown For Gun Safety:

“[the week of January 28] marks a devastating milestone: By early February, more people are killed with guns in the U.S. than during an entire calendar year in ANY OTHER high-income country.”

Please don’t say or tolerate anyone else saying that we are a peaceful country. Violence and murder are woven into the fabric of what it means to be Americans. Reference: our daily mass murders and the Army of God truckers swaggering with their AR-15s – you’ll see that soon.

The behavior we tolerate is the behavior we get (see: Trump, Nixon, Reagan and both Bushes). The longer it takes for us to take a stand, the harder it will be to end the craziness.

Have we become so distracted (see this) or so “nice” that we won’t stand up for ourselves and what we know to be right? There are lawsuits against Trump now, so we’re attempting to enforce accountability, but most Americans are silent and too many think he’s a hapless victim. Only the angry mob is speaking up.

Each of us has full freedom of choice about this. Violence and cruelty in the name of freedom of speech or worse, with the excuse of religion, is never okay. Nevertheless, it happens regularly and it’s happening right now. So, we better exercise our freedom of speech to stand against the haters and the violent ones.*

Reading Assignment

In Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From an American on January 27 she writes about what became known as the Lyceum Address, delivered in 1838:

“[Abraham Lincoln} called for Americans to exercise ‘general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws.’”

We are in every bit as existential a crisis today as was our nation when Lincoln warned us. I urge you to read her post.

______________________________

* Watch this space next Wednesday, February 7 for The Moronica Awards, which will include directions for what to do about our national craziness.

  • Today is a good day to be the light
  • _____________________________
  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Taking Sides


Post 1,027

___________________________________

Golda Meir, 1964

Golda Meir

As Israeli Prime Minister during the Yom Kippur war and so many other murderous events aimed at killing all Jews and wiping Israel from the globe, Meir said:

“When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

― Golda Meir, A Land of Our Own: An Oral Autobiography

True and sad words, these. There has been progress, of course, but the Iranians, Qataris and Syrians continue to pour money and tools of murder into the hands of angry, violent men who are all too eager to kill and to force others to kill them, and causing the deaths of non-combatants by the thousands.
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There Is a Corollary To This In America Today
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It is the verbal and physical violence of right wing extremists who puff themselves up with claims of patriotism, yet are working every day to demolish our Constitution, to end our democracy and to inflict “retribution” (read: murder) on those they see as, not opponents, but enemies.
.
Peace will come when these extremists
love the Constitution and our democracy
more than they hate the rest of us.
.

The top line reads “During the arrests around the capitol attack, police seized .  .  .” From Every Town for Gun Safety – click me

We are facing an existential threat, a constitutional crisis in the form of extremists who are working every day to tear down what we have painstakingly built for our rights and our freedoms over the past 248 years. We taught the world that people can be free, that self-government can work, that it isn’t necessary to make war both within and without. We aren’t perfect at that, which is why we are tasked by our Founders to continually work to create a more perfect union.

But now we are beset by home grown terrorists, liars and cheats, as well as the cowardice of those who know better but knuckle under. They focus only on their own short term welfare, heedless of the harm they are allowing to be done to our people and to our nation. We are plagued by well armed haters acting out their meanness and cruelty, cowards who lash out in physical and verbal violence, whipped up by those who would be our overlords.
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Because of the brilliance and beauty of our Constitution we are being given one more chance to set ourselves back onto the path carved out of a wilderness of dominance from others. It will take our dedication and our blood, sweat and tears to set things right. Should we fail, it will lead to an enduring night of suffering.
.

Elie Wiesel, recipient of The 1986 Nobel Peace Prize

Elie Wiesel survived Holocaust death camps, then spent the rest of his life in the role of teacher, hoping to help craft a better world and forcing us to remember, lest we forget. Here’s a little of what he had to say about hatred and suffering:

“In any society, fanatics who hate don’t hate only me – they hate you, too. They hate everybody.”
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Let that sink in. They hate everybody.
.

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant.”

Are you seeing it? We must take sides, whether you or I are being persecuted or if it’s someone else. The side we must take is against the tormentors and in aid to the tormented. We must stand for and with those who need our help. And if that isn’t compelling in and of itself, driven solely by our empathy, it will become compelling when we realize that we are next to be tormented.
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We Must Take Sides

The next 10 months are all the time we have to stand and be counted, to take sides. Every one of us knows the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. Silence favors the wrong and the evil. Therefore, choose right and good. Stand for it and speak for it. Our silence will not do.

It means to talk to your friends and family members. Yes, I know it can be awkward to risk getting crosswise with close ones. And I also know it will be far worse than awkward if we allow our home grown haters and traitors to steal our democracy from us.

It means that we must take the action that our pathetic Congress won’t take.

They use the lives of Ukrainians as pawns for their own political advantage, leaving millions to suffer and die. That isn’t just cruel; it’s self-defeating, because the Ukrainians are fighting to preserve the same freedom that benefits us, too. Link through to Safe Skies and read what Professor Timothy Snyder has to say about how you can help to keep Russian-fired Iranian drones from killing Ukrainian civilians. We shouldn’t have to do this individually, but that’s what our spineless congressional Republicans have left us.

Hurry: People are dying.

Terrible things happen when we fail to take sides. You don’t have to be a Holocaust survivor or a history professor to know that’s true. You just have to see how we’ve normalized violent behavior and have refused to do anything to stop it. We’ve accepted lies and outrageous propaganda and allowed the theft of our majority rule. We’ve even allowed our children’s education to be taken from them and for hatred inspired terrorists to kill our children.

Elie Wiesel knew this lesson far too well and suffered terribly from its reality. His righteous call to us to take sides is to make sure such things don’t happen while we can still do something about it.

We – you and I – have to take a stand. Refusing to do so is effectively the same as standing for the wrong side. It’s tacitly helping the oppressor.

Start the new year right:

Take Sides! *
.
The Side to Take Isn’t Republican

Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis each took questions at their town halls in Iowa last Wednesday. Each was asked why they don’t go after Trump. Each of them responded by attacking the press. Neither even mentioned Trump.

There is a word to describe this:

COWARDICE!

.

Perhaps you can think of additional descriptors. They apply to all who fail to speak up, to take a side and make a stand.

____________________________________

* From the New York Times, January 6, 2024, This Election Year Is Unlike Any Other:

Re-electing Mr. Trump would present serious dangers to our Republic and to the world. This is a time not to sit out but instead to re-engage. We appeal to Americans to set aside their political differences, grievances and party affiliations and to contemplate — as families, as parishes, as councils and clubs and as individuals — the real magnitude of the choice they will make in November.

Click the link and read the opinion piece. The danger we face isn’t just about Trump. It’s time to TAKE SIDES.

  • Today is a good day to be the light
  • _____________________________
  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

EXTRA! EXTRA! – v2.0


Post 1,017

—————————————

Yesterday there was a mass shooting at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV). It is reported that a lone gunman shot and killed 3 people and wounded 1. The police and FBI killed the perp are working to find accomplices (if any), where the weapon(s) used were obtained, whether they were purchased legally and, most important, the shooter’s motives.

There are two pieces of recurring news that accompany this shooting.

  1. Children of school age have lived with a looming sense of danger all their lives. They are accustomed to active shooter drills to the point that the mass shooting at a school yesterday produces just another shoulder shrug by them, although some wonder if they’re next. They don’t want to talk about it and they go on with their lives with yet another wound to their mental health and to their hearts. Nobody knows what the long term effect of such ongoing trauma will be.
  2. Congress will likely offer nothing at all. The members were called out by the Parkland kids for their “thoughts and prayers” hypocrisy a few years ago, so what can they say? A few well meaning legislators will stand and call for reform and exactly nothing will change to create better safety for our citizens. The good news is that neither anyone in Congress nor anyone in any state legislature will have to find his or her spine. None will have to stand up to the gun lobby or understand the Second Amendment for what it actually says, instead of believing the perverse story told by the gun lobby.

Be clear that it takes courage to face reality and stand up for what’s right. Sadly, that commodity – courage – is in very short supply in the ranks of our lawmakers.

Doing the Math
  1. This was the 631st mass shooting this year on the 340th day of the year. The math says that we’ve averaged 1.85 mass shootings per day since the first of the year.
  2. There were 2,408 people killed in the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor 82 years ago today. In 2023 we lose that number of our people to mass shootings every 16.6 days.* In 1941 we went to war over those deaths. Today we do nothing.

So, no big deal about this shooting at UNLV.

————————————————

* For the purists, there have been 40,086 gun deaths since the first of the year. That includes homicides, suicides, accidents and mass shootings. Our world leading average is 118 gun deaths per day. Every day.

We’re number 1 in this shame game and we intend to stay number 1. You can’t stop us because, hey, we got guns.

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

What Will You Do?


  • Post 1,014
  • PLEASE read the comments that follow this post.
  • __________________________________

Millions of years and millions of generations have made mammals and humans in particular protective of our young. It is a species preservation imperative and our instinct to preserve and protect has magnified into a tenderness, a softness of heart and an arms-enfolding vigilance for children.

That is why my heart breaks for 4-year-old Abigail Edan, who was held captive by Hamas terrorists. She’s alive only because her father shielded her from Hamas bullets with his body, this following her mother having been gunned down.

And my heart breaks, too, for the Palestinian children who are suffering, orphaned and terrorized. Would that I had a name and picture to make this more personal, but you’ve seen the pictures and videos so you know as well as I of the enormous trauma to these little kids.

To be clear, my heart breaks for all the innocents, whether dead or suffering, whether they are children, adults or old people. It’s just that little kids like Abigail Edan grab at my heart by the fistful due largely, I suppose, to that protection imperative.

In this momentary truce while innocent hostages who were held by Hamas are being exchanged for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, people of many nations are beseeching Israel to be cautious, to protect civilian Palestinian life. Everyone – including Israel – agrees that’s the right thing to do, but there’s just one answer needed in order for Israel to comply:

How can Israel ensure that Hamas is made thoroughly unable to attack Israelis when the terrorists still hold their arsenals, stand ready to unleash death on Israelis and they have promised to do so “again and again“?

Hamas is dedicated to only two things: Wiping Israel off the map and killing all Jews. They’ve armed themselves to do just that and they don’t care who else suffers or dies in the process. Recall Maya Angelou’s words:

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

So, believe Hamas: They are murderers.

Given the homicidal reality of Hamas, its butchery, its ISIS-copying barbarianism, Israel must protect its citizens. Doing that requires eliminating Hamas’ ability to attack Israel and Israelis. But Hamas is hiding behind cute 4-year-olds who are just as precious and just as heart grabbing as Abigail Edan.

With the constant of worldwide condemnation of Israel, I’ve asked this question in various ways and haven’t heard any workable answer:

If you were making the decisions for Israel, what would you do?
.

In an effort to protect Palestinian civilians, Israel has announced when and where it would attack so that civilians could get out of the way. It did so via tens of thousands of leaflets dropped on Gaza and by tens of thousands of cell phone warnings. It has directed Palestinians to go south because attacks would commence in the north. It has done everything short of taking Palestinians by the hand and leading them out of harms way.

At the same time, Hamas has blocked civilians from leaving the northern part of Gaza. Hamas has kept them where they know Israeli munitions will strike because they’re directed at Hamas weapons caches which Hamas embeds with civilians. Arguably, Hamas is the murderer of those thousands of innocents, including those cute 4-year-old Palestinian kids.

Setting aside the insanely one-sided and ignorant international rage-fests against Israel, I’m wondering where the demonstrations are against Hamas for causing the deaths of Palestinians. Hamas is getting them killed as surely as if they themselves were shooting Palestinian children.

If you want to rail against the cruelty happening to Gaza Palestinians, and even if you don’t care about the cruelty still being done to Israelis by Hamas rockets, at least dump the responsibility for the main part of the human carnage in Gaza where it belongs: On Hamas.

Everyone agrees that the fighting and the misery it causes are awful, so what should Israel do now? Should it stop rooting out the torturers, the rapists, the murderers and their weapons caches? Should it hold peace talks with people who not only don’t want peace, but who live only for killing Israelis? Come on, help a little. Tell us your workable solution.

For those who still want to go rabid over the actions of Israel, first be informed. Go there. Live in the terror of that constant siege, waiting for the rockets and the machine guns to be pointed at you and your 4-year-old daughter, knowing that the terrorists intend to gang rape your 12-year-old daughter and that they may burn you and your spouse alive in your own house. We know that those are their intentions because it is what they have already done. Stay in that terror for a year or two and then let’s see if you still think Israel should stop attacking Hamas.

And remember: Your 4-year-old daughter is counting on you to protect her with your arms-enfolding vigilance. What exactly should Israel be doing now? What will you do?

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

America Today


Post 1,013

—————————————

Put ‘Em Up

Markwayne Mullin is a brand new Republican Senator from Oklahoma. He stood vainly proud a couple of weeks ago for all Americans to see and emulate.

He was challenged by Teamsters boss Sean O’Brien, himself not an exemplar of gentlemanly conduct. Not one to let a stupid challenge go, Mullin challenged back, stood and took off his ring, daring O’Brien to a fist fight right there in the Senate hearing room. It took all the power committee chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders could muster to stop the idiocy.

Mullin exemplifies much of our national leadership, where differences are worked out with fists, just as they were on the playground in 7th grade. These are the people setting an example for the rest of us. These are the people telling Americans that physical violence is not just appropriate, but that it’s good.

These are the people leading the way to thugocracy, where elbows to the kidneys rule in the Rotunda, where laws mean nothing, where shouting down neighbors in a school board meeting proves that you can out-volume everyone else to get your way. They pave the path to where death threats and mass shootings are the stuff of real Americans, the currency of the realm. They make sure that the biggest bully gets to be President.

Mothers and fathers, teach your children well so that they have the sense not to follow these thugs. Our nation is counting on you.

The Supreme Court

After multiple exposés of big money from extremely wealthy Republican donors falling into the laps of 2 or 3 Supreme Court Justices and the public outrage these scandals caused, the Court has bravely issued its own ethics guidelines. It is a code of conduct much like that which applies to lower courts, but it differs in one key respect: The Supreme Court ethics rules offer absolutely no method of enforcement. It’s essentially a statement of, “Here’s how we should behave, but we don’t have to and you can’t make us. Nya-nya.”

Court watcher Dahlia Lithwick said that this new code appears to have been “principally drafted with the intention of instructing us that they still can’t be made to do anything.”

So, enjoy the Court’s disingenuous “there, there” pat on the back of your hand over their scandalous behavior. They are saying that their ethics rules mean nothing more than that you should ignore their possibly illegal behavior and just shut up about Court scandals.

Should we allow them their continuous self-pardon, the Court, the final arbiter of the law, will officially be the only place in all of America that is formally allowed to ignore the rule of law.

Oh, wait – that’s how it’s always been. What have we done?

The Rule of Law

Last Wednesday was the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. That caused me to remember various events of his foreshortened presidency, including the much resisted admission of James Meredith to the University of Mississippi in 1962.

Governor Ross Barnett did everything he could to prevent the integration of Ole Miss, including appointing himself registrar of the university so that he could personally reject Meredith’s application. At last President Kennedy federalized the Mississippi National Guard to enforce the Supreme Court decision that Meredith must be admitted to the university. Not long after that Kennedy addressed the nation. Here is part of what he had to say.

For our nation is founded on the principle that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty – – and defiance of the law is the surest path to tyranny. The law which we obey includes the final rulings of our courts as well as the enactments of our legislative bodies. Even among law-abiding men, few laws are universally loved – – but they are uniformly respected and not resisted.

Americans are free, in short, to disagree with the law – – but not to disobey it. For in a government of laws, and not of men, no man – – however prominent or powerful – – and no mob – – however unruly or boisterous – – is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men, by force or threat of force, could long defy the commands of our courts and Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors.

That was 60 years ago and Kennedy is still right.

We have plenty of people breaking the law right now as flagrantly as Gov. Barnett did back then, although they’re often sneakier and more destructive of our democracy and the Constitution today. Think:

– January 6: Both the riot and all the criminal machinations to steal the election to keep Trump in power. You can add in Kari Lake in Arizona and all the other lying, self-centered, election denying defrauders.

– Trump’s promise that if elected in 2024 he will take all federal power for himself and remove all  public servants who aren’t loyal solely to him.

– Project 2025, a lofty language guide from the starch-in-their-underwear Heritage Foundation to dismantle the Constitution and all traditional American values and to give all power to a small cabal of rich people.

– The promised return of Trump’s Muslim ban and cruelty to dark skin people at our southern border, including the theft of their babies.

Lawlessness is not new, but we are at a point of dis-integration, where elected leaders gaslight us and incite us to break the law and where destruction fails to raise many eyebrows. The history books tell us what will happen if this progresses. Indeed, with the violence that happens every day, we are already at the point where “no citizen would be safe from his neighbors.” Ask any of the survivors or loved ones of the slain from our daily mass shootings how they’re feeling about their neighbors.

From Steve Schmidt:

We are accustomed to think of sociopaths as violent criminals, but in The Sociopath Next Door, Harvard psychologist Martha Stout reveals that a shocking 4 percent of ordinary people—one in twenty-five—has an often undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that that person possesses no conscience. He or she has no ability whatsoever to feel shame, guilt, or remorse. One in twenty-five everyday Americans, therefore, is secretly a sociopath. They could be your colleague, your neighbor, even family. And they can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt.

Given the constant presence of those who would demolish the rule of law, perhaps it’s time to reinvigorate our dedication to it. That will most certainly mean that we elect people who think the rule of law, democracy and majority rule are pretty good things. We’ll need people who have a conscience and possess the ability to feel guilt and shame. Perhaps it’s time that we refuse and eject from office all who think power for themselves is all that matters.

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Forget About Finding the Why – We Already Know – Part 2


Post 1,012

—————————————

First, an Update to Part 1

It’s maddening, deeply sad and quite astonishing that so much of the world is waving Palestinian flags, cheering terrorists, and demanding a suicidal Israeli ceasefire. As of this writing it appears there will be a temporary halt of hostilities to exchange prisoners for hostages. No one knows what will happen after that or the likely fate of the remaining roughly 190 hostages.

Meanwhile, in the cacophony of demands for an Israeli ceasefire, I have not heard anyone demanding that Hamas cease firing its rockets into Israeli cities. So many seem to have lost their powers of critical thinking and even of simple observation. What was and remains predictable is virulent or useful idiot anti-Semitism.

I highly recommend that you watch this discussion between Piers Morgan and British journalist Douglas Murray. You may want to put your fingers in your ears whenever Piers Morgan’s lips are moving, but it’s worth the bother to hear what Douglas Murray has to say. For example:

  1. Israel is the only country in the world that is never allowed to win a war. The world always jawbones Israelis into moderating their actions, much as it now demands a ceasefire, which will inexorably lead to a faster replenishment of arms by Hamas and an earlier next attack on Israel.
  2. Upon viewing the videos they posted online, there is no mistaking the joy, the glee, the rapture of Hamas terrorists celebrating their raping, mutilating and burning to death their Israeli victims. There is no such thing done by IDF soldiers when Palestinians die.

Watch the interview. Then come back and post your comments. I assure you that you will have some.

And watch this video. Scratch your head, if you must, as she reveals the near-complete lack of any Arab support for Palestinians – ever. Then wonder in amazement over how angry so many are at Israel for the plight of Palestinians.

.

Key question for protesters: “Where were you when  .  .  . ?”

Many thanks to MZ for this.

Now, Part 2

It’s hard to understand, but in the face of Trump’s painfully obvious racist and misogynist statements and behavior that there are Blacks for Trump and Women for Trump. They wear the tee shirts and wave Trump flags. They are placed behind Trump at rallies so that everyone sees them. Their self-defeating beliefs appear to be as mindless as they are impassioned and we are left to wonder why they would be so masochistic and so mindlessly ignorant and reactionary.

For a clear explanation of at least some of the reasons for that and to explain the general scrambling of minds, read Sheila Markin’s report. Short version: change is happening and people fear loss of their privilege and status, so they rage.

Perhaps you’ve seen Jordan Klepper’s interviews of Trump supporters. It’s a marvel how these people contradict themselves and then brush that off as meaning nothing. They hold firm to their idiocies. Listen to their rationalizations and their denial of reality, mimicking Trump in his grift and his lies. He’s taught an entire nation that being gaslighted is normal. That’s very dangerous, as now 43% of Americans believe there will be a civil war in the next 10 years. And many are okay with that! They just want to rage and be violent.

I had believed since Reagan’s rantings about things like “welfare queens” and “young bucks” and “trickle down” economics that understanding why people believe the unbelievable, the stupid, the false and the lies was important. Then we could figure out what to do to counter the gleeful acceptance of gaslighting and self-imposed destruction.

Now, honestly, I don’t care about the why of the MAGA insanity, the reality deniers, the willingly gaslighted. I don’t care about the why of the people who go to extraordinary lengths to avoid critical thinking or who love to hate. I don’t care about the reasons behind the fervor of cult members or the people who hate what this country was intended to be and yet claim to be patriots. I don’t care about the why of empty-headed demonstrators or the insane chants of anarchists or the hatreds promoted by Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Mike Johnson or any of the others.

We know what’s behind our self-destructive tailspin to authoritarianism:
We love to hate and we love our rage.
.

We have a crisis of confidence in our democracy and our Constitution. It’s driven diabolically and cruelly by far right extremist nihilists, chaos lovers, hatred stokers – add any negative moniker you prefer. These people have lied and cheated their way into power and they use their positions to tear down what we hold dear, the rights and freedoms we cherish. That’s why preserving and protecting our democracy from these thieves is the number one job for us right now.

To that end I’m recommending a webinar on November 30 at 8:00PM EST from The Union: Project Democracy Town Hall. Here’s the program description:

Join us and Senior Advisor to the Lincoln Project, Trygve [Olson], as we delve into the issues surrounding the extreme party and the vital choices we face in the coming years for a crucial discussion on the upcoming 2024 election. The importance cannot be overstated, as there are significant concerns about preserving democracy and the sanctity of the constitution. This goes beyond any individual, including Trump.

Use this link to register. No need to be shy about it – invite friends and family to this freebie event. We all need to learn about this.

For motivation, watch this video from The Lincoln Project. This is serious business.

Rights and Freedoms

Roughly 50 years ago then-Rep. Gerald R. Ford (R-MI) used a bit of House legerdemain to dislodge the Equal Rights Amendment of 1972 from committee in order to bring it to a vote. Two years later as president (shortly before he pardoned Richard Nixon and thereby weakened the rule of law) he put his support to that amendment, urging congress to pass it.

It has been a rocky road since then and it still isn’t formally ratified. The resistance has come nearly entirely from those bearing the label “Republican” or “conservative.” The conservative term may be accurate, as describing the continuation – the conserving – of patriarchy. Clearly, we wouldn’t want women to have all the rights and protections that men have. What might happen then?

Chief Justice John Roberts was the driver in the Shelby County case that gutted the power of the Voting Rights Act. Roberts wrote for the 5-4 majority, saying that the need for voting rights protections in the former slave states is long gone. It’s a cruel irony that immediately following that fateful decision that North Carolina and a number of other southern states enacted laws to protect Republicans from the pesky votes of non-White people.

Now the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that ordinary citizens cannot file suit challenging gerrymandering. And, of course, our presently torqued to the extreme right court killed the rights established by Roe. The Republican rights killing hits just keep on coming.

The steady march of the destruction of American rights and freedoms goes on, with fearful and angry citizens on the gerbil wheel that propels our nation backward. They are all Republican gerbils.

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA

 


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Forget About Finding the Why – We Already Know – Part 1


Post 1,011

—————————————

Hamas terrorists brutally wounded and killed thousands of Israelis on October 7. Most of the world was aghast at the massacre – right until the Israelis began doing what every other nation on Earth would do in such a situation: They hit back.

They set out to make it so that the terrorists could not attack them again. That’s a lot like the U.S. going after ISIS – you know: the be-headers of journalist Danny Pearl and many others. Most thought clobbering those terrorists was a pretty good idea. The IDF got into full motion on October 8 to do the same sort of thing. That’s when world opinion began to shift.

One of Hamas’ war crimes is that it embeds itself in civilian Palestinian infrastructure. Their doing so means that for Israel to protect itself by going after the terrorists, civilians will die. So, do a thought experiment with me.

Imagine that you’re the Prime Minister of Israel and you’re making decisions from among only terrible choices. What would you do?

Hint: A ceasefire is not an option while Hamas is still armed and prepared to kill your people; indeed, is still killing your people.

What’s your decision, Prime Minister?

Israel chose to protect its people and has been condemned internationally for doing so.

Hamas provides video and claims to have statistics of injured and killed Palestinians, especially of children and babies. They claimed that 4,737 children had been killed by the IDF by November 7. Our human empathy insists that we care. But there is no way to verify Hamas’ spectacular claims. They commonly lie for propaganda purposes and the world oddly and dumbly accepts their claims as true.

So, upon hearing these questionable claims, the world became shockingly outraged over Israelis “killing Palestinian babies” and began calling for a ceasefire. This is a stunningly effective PR campaign by Hamas. And it’s a stunningly effective counter to the Hamas killings of Israeli children and babies that Hamas videoed and posted online on October 7.

There is not now, nor has there ever been, a way to overpower the always instantaneous Arab claims of victimhood. Just a few weeks ago Hamas used its errant missile fired into a Gaza hospital parking lot to blame Israel. The world Pavlovian dog salivated.

You may also recall how expertly Yassir Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Army used this same blaming technique to point a damning finger at Israel for killing innocents. He garnered huge world support for Palestinians and condemnation of Israel. The technique is simple: “Hit and run, leave civilians in the center of the bulls eye and claim victimhood when Israel hits back.” Rope-a-dope. It worked then just as well as it does for Hamas today.

Strangely, other than on October 7 (and only on October 7) there hasn’t been world indignation about Hamas’ terrorism unleashed upon Israelis. There’s no hint of recognition of or sympathy for the thousands of Israelis killed and maimed. There’s no world outrage over Hamas continuing to fire rockets into Israeli cities to injure and kill civilians. World outrage is aimed only at Israel.

Since 2006 Palestinians have at least tolerated and sometimes supported Hamas and the cruelty it does. They allowed Hamas to embed their command centers, their weapons caches and their rocket launchers in the midst of Palestinian civilians, knowing full well that many would die if Israel chased into Gaza after the Hamas terrorists.

At this point, though, I don’t care why Palestinians agreed to risk their lives in that way or why people around the world march in mindless solidarity with terrorists. I’m out of patience with seeking to understand people who only want paroxysms of rage and violence and murder.

I don’t care about the why of the fools and the gaslighted millions who are demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, an action that would allow Hamas to rearm and attack Israelis again, exactly as they have promised to do. And I certainly don’t care about the why of protesters worldwide and their abhorrence of Israel’s actions to protect its citizens but who don’t give a damn about the terrorism done to Jews and Israelis by Hamas.

Their protests make it clear that they don’t care about the mass murders, the bombings and rocket attacks, the parents and children burned alive, the concert attendees gunned down in the desert, the babies beheaded in front of their parents, the hundreds held hostage, including Holocaust survivors. They just rage.

The death and destruction visited upon Israel really doesn’t matter to the world’s ignorant and gaslighted protesters. Here’s the quiet part said out loud:

They don’t care because the threatened and the dead Israelis are just Jews.
.

As well, that explains the indifference of so many.

Forget wondering about the why of this. The world already knows. It has always known.

For a gentler form of this message, read this short essay/poem. If you’re feeling quite brave, read it out loud.

Many thanks to SL for providing the link. And many thanks for KL for caring.

Note: To be fair, there are some rallies in support of Israel. Not many, but some.

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Precedented


Post 1,009

—————————————

Precedented I

Republican Warren G. Harding was our nation’s 29th President of the United States. His administration was infested with scandal. He died two years into his presidency, thus preventing him from doing even more damage. He was long considered the worst president ever, an impressive achievement, given some of the dopes who have held that job.

But then came Nixon to lower the bar.

Then Dubya.

Then Trump.

Even before they came along with their scandals and criminal behavior there were extremists who promised division, chaos and nothing to solve our national problems and challenges.

In the early 1960s the Republican Party was a groundswell of extremism, proudly led by Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). He was famous for saying chest-thumping, stupid absolutist things, like,

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
.
He ginned up “the base” with such stuff, along with promises of nuclear annihilation. Goldwater and other far righties made fearful advances toward taking over the Republican Party and caused moderates more than a little worry. On July 14, 1963 Governor Nelson Rockefeller (R-NY) gave a speech addressing this very issue. Sections of it are below. I’m confident this will feel uncomfortably current.
.

I am now convinced that, unless the vast majority of Republicans who subscribe to these [extremist] principles are aroused from present inaction – whether this inaction stems from complacency, from fear or from a fantastically short-sighted opportunism – the Republican party is in real danger of subversion by a radical, well financed and  highly disciplined minority.

For it has now become crystal clear that the vociferous and well-drilled extremist elements boring within the party utterly reject these fundamental principles of our heritage. They are, in fact, embarked on a determined and ruthless effort to take over the party, its platform and its candidates on their own terms – terms that are wholly alien to the sound and honest Republican liberalism that has kept the party abreast of human needs in a changing world, wholly alien to the broad middle course that accommodates the mainstream of Republican principle.

This cannot be allowed to happen. The continuing commitment of the Republican party to its historic principles including its fundamental dedication to equality of opportunity for all men cannot and must not be betrayed. No temptation of political gain through cynical expediency can be permitted to becloud our commitment to principle and purpose.

After branding these extremists “the radical right lunatic fringe,” Rockefeller went on to say,

These people have no program for the Republican party or the American people except distrust, disunity and the ultimate destruction of the confidence of the people in themselves. They are purveyors of hate and distrust in a time when as never before, the need of the world is for love and understanding.

They have no concern with and offer no solutions for the problems of chronic unemployment, of education and training, of housing of racial injustice and strife, of all the other problems which must have answers if our democratic ideals are to be translated into living reality.

So much of what has happened over the past 50 years has been labeled “unprecedented,” including anything from the falsely named Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus to nearly everything Donald Trump has done or said over the past 9 years, perhaps foreshadowed by his fraudulent Birther defamation. But in fact, there is precedent for much of what we’ve seen, perhaps excluding Trump’s over 30,000 lies and his blatant attacks on the rule of law and his denial of actual reality.

It’s sad to say, but extremism never fully disappears. It waxes and wanes with new appearances of those who covet power for themselves above all else.

This stuff is precedented, including by the Confederates in the 1800s all the way into the 1900s; Nazis in the 30s and 40s; by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, both of whom thought they were above the law; and by the dastardly far right today using perversions of our laws to steal the vote from whole swaths of our citizens and to mount a multiple front assault to steal an election from our nation. It’s plain that these attacks on freedom, democracy and our Constitution come along regularly to torture our nation.

Fortunately, our justice system is now applying the proper elbow to the solar plexus of law breaking extremists. The political elbow blows, though, are left to us to deliver to make extremism wane before permanent damage is done.

Precedented II

Likely you remember those pictures for kids about which you’re asked to name what doesn’t belong, like a carrot in a tree. It’s more difficult to identify what’s missing from a picture.

It’s right that we have empathy for Palestinian civilians who have been wounded or killed and for their loved ones who are suffering. They are our fellow human beings in terrible circumstances, largely through no fault of their own. The media coverage of that is front and center. We are fed those images every day, but there’s something missing from that picture.

The only victims of the October 7 massacre to which the world media seems to be paying any attention are the hostages. The focus is largely on what happened next.

There is footage of injured Palestinians, but where is the coverage of the 3,300 injured Israelis? We see awful funeral processions for dead Palestinians, but what about the funerals of the 1,400 Israelis killed and the wailing of their loved ones? We see the destroyed Palestinian homes and apartments, but where are the stories and video of the thousands who had to flee their homes in terror on October 7 and who then came back to devastation? Even as so many Palestinians suffer, there are tens of thousands of Israelis suffering, too. Why the stark empathy disparity?

This is not unprecedented. This is standard unbalanced world attention orchestrated by Hamas and we’ve seen this time and time again. Hamas, like Yassir Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Army before it, uses the suffering of Palestinians to twist world opinion in their favor. They keep their own people hostage in areas they know Israel must attack in order to stop Hamas, so Palestinians suffer, making Israel look like the bad guys. It’s such an obvious PR scheme and the world falls for it every time.

People are calling for a ceasefire in the name of mercy, but it doesn’t work that way (see this). Were the IDF to simply pack up and go home now they would leave Hamas its weapons, its mob of terrorists and time to rearm. That would hasten the next October 7 style massacre of Israeli civilians. More brutally said, the lopsided empathy of the world, calling for a ceasefire, seems to prefer Israeli corpses over Palestinian corpses. Where is the mercy in that?

This manipulative PR stunt is not unprecedented. It is old and predictable and cruel.

Just For Fun

Here’s are five golden rules for spotting an idiot, this from Arwa Mardawi of The Guardian.

  1. Beware of anyone who describes themselves as a “proud non-reader of books.”
  2. Similarly, avoid anyone who thinks that every book should have been a six-paragraph blog post.
  3. Remember that wealth isn’t directly linked to intelligence.
  4. Dropping “AI” or “ChatGPT” into every second sentence is a major idiot red flag.
  5. Keep a wide berth from people who obsess about their IQs.

Here’s my favorite, linked to #3 above:

Click the pic for the source. Many thanks to JN for the pointer.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

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  • Fire the bastards!
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    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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