Cause or Effect?

       Candidate Arthur Jones: Cause or Effect?

Most people are familiar with the aphorism "While the optimist sees the glass as being half full, the pessismist sees the glass as being half empty."  For as long as I can remember, my response has been: "What matters most is that there's something in the glass, which would make one a realist." Of course, one person's reality is another's fantasy, just as one person's factuality is another's falsity The difference between fact and fiction - or "real" versus "fake" news - has over the past several years become a matter heated, angry debate. Recently, veteran Sixty Minutes reporter Lesley Stahl interviewed PBS Newshour host and editor Judy Woodruff. At one point in the interview, the conversation turned to '45. Stahl recalled interviewing him and asking why he relentlessly attacked the media. Woodruff told Ms. Stahl that the POTUS answered “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you." One suspects he doesn’t believe half of the mean-spirited and unfounded statements and tweets about the media that come out of his mouth and/or fingers, but rather uses these attacks as a shield, a dangerous shield against the truth and truthful reporting.

If you are a "glass is half full" sort, you likely believe the mainstream media is reporting things factually. If you are a "glass is half empty" sort, you likely believe the POTUS and his tight-knit circle that there's a conspiracy of fakery going on 24-hours a day.  If, like moi you are a "what matters most is that there's something in the glass" sort, you are likely concerned with cause and effect: e.g., are '45's rants and twitter raves the cause of all those merchants of mendacity succeeding with a large portion of the public,  or is '45's being elected POTUS the reflection - or effect - of all this mendacity itself?

If this last point seems a bit intellectually murky or turgid, perhaps a chillingly specific example will clear things up a bit.  According to a recent  report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, at least eight white nationalists and self-admitted Nazis are running for office in 2018. They have been as up-front and unabashedly loquacious about their hatred for African Americans, Hispanics and Muslims, as well as their firm belief that Israel and the Jews represent an even greater threat to America than Islamic terrorists. And mind you, these hateful candidates aren't running for dogcatcher in East Elbow, Idaho; they are running for the House of Representatives, the United States Senate and state legislatures.  Whether or not any of them stand a snowball's chance in hell of being elected (they do not) is besides the point.  The fact that they are actually running as Republicans and are unafraid of telling the public what they "know" to be "the truth" is. This story, which was brought to my attention by my student and constant reader Richard Cohen, has been covered by NBC News. It is a story that should cause a lot of constipation, worry and more than a few sleepless nights.

"There's nothing new about these kinds of people running for office," the more historically savvy members of the alt-right will proclaim, and then mention the late West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who was a member of the KKK back in the mid-1940s. Byrd spent nearly 60 years serving West Virginia in both the House and Senate, and spent nearly 60 years apologizing for ever having been a part of that noxious, racist group.  But to compare a man from West Virginia who was a member of the Klan in the 1940s to a California anti-Semite (the appropriately-named Richard Little) running for the United States Senate from California in 2018 betrays a lack of historic knowledge. Sure, Robert Byrd did belong to the Klan in 1946-47.  Then too, nearly 70% of the people in America smoked cigarettes in the 1940s, and there were actually ad campaigns proclaiming that Camels were, by far," the favorite smoke of American physicians." Then too, during the 1940s, it was illegal for a white man to marry a black woman in more than half  the states, and one could be given a "blue discharge" from the United States military for being gay. Simply stated, these were incredibly different times. In retrospect, while a majority of sensible people don't agree with their points of view,, we should nonetheless understand that Byrd's being a short-time Klansman in  1940's West Virginia - although despicable by latter-day understanding - wasn't all that peculiar.  To bring it up in the twenty-first century as a rationalization for a racist or proto-Nazi being cool in 2018 is both intellectually degraded and morally reprehensible.

The question becomes one of cause and effect:  if disgustingly noxious candidates like Arthur Jones, Paul Nehlen, Sean Donahue, John Abarr, Patrick Little and others who are as openly racist and Holocaust-denyingly anti-Semitic as any Klansman or neo-Stoßtruppen, are given strength by - or are reflections of - the current president and his administration. Without question, '45 has a lot of Jewish people in his inner circle: son-in-law Jared Kusher, Secretary of the Treasury Stephen Mnuchin, former economic advisor Gary Cohn (who resigned and was replaced by the now-Catholic Larry Kudlow), former campaign advisor Sam Nunberg (whom Trump sued for $10 million),  and attorney Michael Cohen.  Many Jews believe '45 to be the most pro-Israel, Jewish-friendly president in American history, largely on the strength of his moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem. And yet, many prominent anti-Semites (like David Duke and Pastor Robert Jeffress) believe him to be a member in good standing of their houses of worship.  And yet, professional anti-Semites seem to have found a landsman, an understanding compatriot in the nation's 45th president.  Oh sure, there were racists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis during the Regan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama years; it's just that they weren't so damnably open about it . . . feeling empowered enough to run for office on platforms of extreme prejudice and hatred.  Perhaps back then, they knew that the White House would be quick to condemn their brainless bigotry; but not today.

This past week has focused attention on yet another big-mouthed, small-minded bigot: Rosanne Barr.  The Twitter tirade which caused ABC to cancel her top-rated show is by now so well known that there is no need to repeat it here.  In matters of "cause and effect," it is hard to know if her words and sentiments were caused by the words and sentiments emanating from the White House, or are a mere reflection (call it "echoing") of the current atmosphere.  Whatever the answer - if indeed, there is one - it is worth noting that it took the POTUS nearly a week to break his silence on the scandal.  That is notable.  What is just as notable - if not more so - is what he didn't say.  For in his utterly sarcastic tweet on the subject, '45 wrote: "Bob Iger of ABC [actually, he's CEO of Disney, which owns ABC] called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that 'ABC does not tolerate comments like those' made by Roseanne Barr. Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just didn't get the call?"  Rather than distancing himself from Barr's racist remarks, '45 jumped right into the argument about whether she was subjected to a double standard.

So school me: is it cause or effect?

502 days down, 970 days to go.

Copyright©2018 Kurt F. Stone

March 24, 2018: the Beginning of a Movement Or Just a Moment in Time?

This past Saturday, March 24, 2018, the world became a smaller place.  For the first time in many years, we were reminded that despite our myriad histories, religions and world views, we are, essentially, a single species with a single set of values, hopes and fears.  And all it took was an utterly remarkable group of teenagers from Parkland, Florida, to remind us of this truth and get the globe off its collective derriere. Throughout the United States and indeed, around the globe, children and adults, school children and their grandparents, gathered with their idealism, their political signs vigor, and an awakening social consciousness to shout "NEVER AGAIN!" - To change a world over-saturated with lethal weapons of mass destruction.   Finally, finally, America's - and the much of the world's - children came to the conclusion that if leaders and elected officials would not - or   could not - stop the murders, it was up to them.  What took the leaders and elected officials by surprise was the courage, wisdom, and articulate strength of the student survivors of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.   And, despite all the knocks, slurs and peurile ad homonem attacks hurled at them by the pro-Second Amendment, "Make America Great Again!" crowd, they remain both steadfast and unafraid.

The collection of signs and placards were as varied and imaginative as anything seen since the anti-war protests of the Vietnam era:

• "With guns, you can kill terrorists; with education,  you can kill terrorism"
• "Strive for peace; ban the piece"
• "Don't kill my future: end gun violence"
• "Isaiah 11:6: 'And a little child will lead them'"
• "You can't fix stupid . . . but you can vote it out!"
• "Students today, voters in November: we are change!"
• "Girls clothing in school is more regulated than guns in America"
• "Thoughts and prayers don't stop bullets"
• "Too old to create change? Move aside: We'll do it"
• "The scariest thing in a school should be my grades"
• "Voting is Like Driving - 'R' Goes Backward - 'D' Goes Forward" and, perhaps the most compelling,
• "This is not a moment; it's a movement!"

Charged with being "puppets,"  "paid stooges of George Soros and liberal Hollywood elitists" as well as "pawns of the ultra-left fake news media," the student leaders from Stoneman Douglas and schools across the country have proved themselves to be anything but mindless dupes. They are both media savvy and in possession of a political consciousness well beyond their tender years. The media savvy is obvious: no group or movement has so captured the eyes and ears, the hearts and minds of a nation through sheer luck. As Slate's Dahlia Lithwick notes: What we saw on Saturday afternoon in Washington, D.C., was stunningly original media, as far removed from the hackneyed conventions and archetypes of cable television as you could imagine. The irony is that great masses of adults who have been brainwashed by television believe that young people behaving like genuine young people can only have been scripted and staged.  Interestingly, American high schoolers don’t watch much TV. They Instagram and Snapchat, watch Netflix and YouTube. Fifty percent of American millennials don’t watch any television at all. Members of Generation Z—the kids who organized the rally Saturday in Washington D.C.—watch even less. One study shows only about 36 percent of them watch traditional programs. That means these kids aren’t influenced by standard reality television tropes and probably explains why they would not bother to perform them, as they’ve been accused of doing.

The political smarts of the group that got the rallies started were made abundantly clear when they decided that it would be far wiser to have their message of outrage and change come solely from the lips of their contemporaries, rather than from those of elected officials.  What struck me most was how relatively little "political tribalism" was on display at the more than 800 rallies across the country.  The conjoined issues of gun violence and the dire need for sensible legislative action wasn't made out to be a purely partisan tension between Democrats and Republicans or progressives and conservatives. Rather, it was spoken of as a matter of civics and sanity.  Media accounts coming in from a clear majority of the nation-wide rallies reported that thousands upon thousands of the youthful attendees registered to vote . . . thus declaring that they are an emerging force to be reckoned with. This is a great sign for the future of participatory democracy.  For their overarching "threat" - if indeed that is the proper word - was not one of violence, but rather of voting pro-gun, NRA-funded politicians out of office.  

Already, their message and nascent power is beginning to cast shadows on pro-gun, pro-NRA politicians.  Just here in Florida, we are seeing our junior senator, Marco Rubio, scrambling to defend himself from attacks made by his youthful constituents . . . who have promised that they will vote against him in 2022 - the next time he's up for reelection - unless he begins distancing himself from his NRA handlers.  Then there is  Brian Mast (R-Fl 18), a first-term Republican whose district extends from West Palm Beach northward to Vero Beach. A U.S. Army explosive ordinance disposal expert who lost both his legs in Afghanistan, Mast entered the House as a favorite of the NRA. Nine days after the "Valentine's Day Massacre" in Parkland (where Mast had recently resided), he broke with the NRA and began calling for sweeping restrictions on guns.  Needless to say, Mast's turnabout got him in political hot water with fellow Republicans who began labeling “blue falcon,” suggesting a supposed ally who ends up stabbing fellow soldiers in the back.  Although nominally Republican, Mast might still win reelection . . . with the help of moderate independents who seek to reward him for his political courage.

I for one hope the hundreds of thousands of young Americans who participated in the #marchforourlives (which already has more than 350k Twitter followers) will never permit their moment/movement to be co-opted by elected officials. I also hope they will expand their agenda to include other issues like education, healthcare and global warming. 

They seem to understand that in order to succeed, their cause must continue being fueled by the energetic idealism of youth.  Take it from one who marched a half-century ago against the war in Vietnam: it can be done; youthful idealism is a self-renewing fuel . . .

430 days done, 1,029 days to go.

Copyright©2018 Kurt F. Stone

Cache and Carry

According to Mark Twain, it was British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli - the self-proclaimed "blank page between the Old and New Testament" - who first said "There are lies, damn lies and statistics." It just may be that, Disraeli  - who lived from 1804 to 1881 and served as Queen Victoria's P.M. from 1874 to 1880 - was the first person to understand the difference between news and "fake news," which he chose to call "statistics."  Well, here's a frightful statistic (in its true sense): since 2013, there have been 290 school shootings in America.  Moreover, in the first 45 days of 2018, there have been 17 school shootings, which works out to one every 63.5 hours.  

 As numbing as this latter statistic is, it becomes even more stupefying when one of the shootings takes place in in one's own backyard. Our son Ilan graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School many years ago (he has now been a practicing attorney for more than a dozen years), and our daughter Nurit, her husband Scott (also an attorney) and their daughter Claire, live within jogging distance of Stoneman Douglas. Just about any and everyone who lives in or next door to Parkland knows children who died or were injured in the Parkland massacre.

Sadly, there are all sorts of predictable responses from those who actually could make a difference - or else have a specific political ax to grind:

• The "our thoughts and prayers are with you" crowd of public officials who issue these 7 words and then do next to nothing else. 
• The right-wing conspiracy theorists who blame the attack on an ISIS affiliate, or see the Parkland  massacre as being the inevitable result of ethnic gang violence.  (Believe it or not this one comes from '45's A.G. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, who seems to have had no idea that Parkland is a largely upper-middle class Jewish town) and just last year was named "Florida's Safest City" by the Washington-based National Council for Home Safety and Security.
• Calls ranging from more metal detectors in schools, greater scrutiny of - and treatment for - people with mental health issues, and the arming every teacher in America (despite the fact that the current administration has drastically cut funding for all three) to reinstating the absolute ban on assault weapons, drastically curbing the number of  ammo rounds per  magazine and making it legally impossible for anyone on a "terrorist watch list" to purchase a weapon.
• Lastly, there are many who place blame squarely on the FBI, which was reportedly given information about the alleged shooter but failed to act upon it.  Even as I write this last bullet point, the POTUS has Tweeted: "Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!" (Needless to say, this Tweet drew an immediate negative response on social media.  One Stoneman Douglas survivor Tweeted: "17 of my classmates are gone. That's 17 futures, 17 children, and 17 friends stolen. But you're right, it always has to be about you. How silly of me to forget. #neveragain"

Of course, for each and every one of the above-mentioned actions (and there are a lot of others which could be added) there are people who will tell you that "Guns don't kill people; people kill people," shout out "We've got the Second Amendment!"  or urge that what we really need are more people locked and loaded . . . have cache, will carry.  

And along with all this, Speaker Ryan, (who just this past Friday was at a fund raiser in Key Biscayne, less than an hour's drive from Parkland) has announced that Hell will freeze over before he'll bring any form of gun safety (a.k.a. "gun control) legislation to the House floor.  To say that his stance is predictable is not surprising; to say that it will likely cause a mass national response is hopeful.  With each passing school shooting, an increasing number of American students, parents and neighbors are demanding that Congress show both the guts the sanity and humanity to enact legislation with teeth that will stem the tide of this horrific "one school massacre every 45 days" reality.  Without question, we feel powerless; we scream out into the night "what in the Hell can we do?" We fear that there is next to nothing we can do to change the direction of an administration and a Congress that cannot (strike that, will not) listen to us.  Our frustration, our anger, is both palpable and perhaps - just perhaps - about to burst forth as the fuel for meaningful action.

So what can we do?

These are the first, most obvious steps:

• Do a little research: find out how much funding your senators, congressional representative, governor or state legislators have received from the National Rifle Association and how the NRA's political action committee (PAC) rates them. (Note to Floridians: Senator Marco Rubio is the sixth largest recipient of NRA funding: $3.3 million.)
• Write, call or email your senators, congressional representative, governor or state legislators demanding that they pass specific pieces of legislation - such as those mentioned above. If your senator(s), congressional representative, governor or state legislator is a Democrat, it is reasonable to assume that they are just as frustrated as you are.  Nonetheless, write, call or email them and express your thanks.  If they are Republican, the response (if any) will be what we call the "All due consideration" letter . . . i.e. "Thank you for writing . . . I will certainly give all due consideration to your point of view . . ."
• Contact your local Democratic Party and find out how to become a deputy registrar of voters.  It's easy; it's rewarding, and can go a long way toward voting out members of congress who consistently stand in opposition to passing sensible gun safety legislation.
• Add your name to an ever-growing list of people demanding that members of congress immediately return all campaign contributions from the NRA or other gun lobbying groups.  Make them put up - or explain themselves.

The first rule in the politician's playbook is "Get thyself reelected."  In order to do this, one must first raise tons of money.  When you or I donate to a candidate (whether incumbent or challenger), we generally expect nothing in return except an elected official who will agree with us most of the time.  Not so when it comes to accepting unlimited contributions from billionaire- and corporate-created PACs. They expect something in return for their "investments."  You don't vote the way they want, you'll find yourself challenged by a well- heeled opponent during the next election cycle. These funding entities (which, "thanks to" the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case were declared to possess the same the rights and protections as individuals) is one of the central reasons why it is next to impossible to pass rational gun safety legislation.  Overturn Citizen' United and the NRA - plus all the other pro-gun PACs - will be neutered, defanged and declawed.  

Overturning a decision of the Supreme Court is certainly not easy.  But neither is it impossible.  There are nearly three dozen groups collecting signatures, organizing events, marching and educating citizens on how to successfully drain this fetid swamp. Neutering, defanging and declawing the NRA (a lot of whose members actually favor gun safety legislation) is absolutely essential.  Channeling our grief, anger and disbelief into positive action such as this can go a long, long way.  It's been done before . . . and can be done once again.

89 years to the day (February 14, 1929) before the Parkland horror, there was another mass murder . . . the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre," in which four of Al Capone's goons, armed with two Thompson submachine guns and two shotguns, murdered 5 members of the "North Side Gang" as well as two bystanders in a Chicago garage.  Unlike today's media, newspapers across the country published photos of the seven bloody bodies. The nation was both horrified and outraged - at gangsters, at bootleggers and at the deadly violence created by Prohibition.  Eventually, the shock and emotional nausea - not to mention the leadership of Presidents Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, congress and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI - led to both the repeal of Prohibition and the "Tommy" gun's demise.  Eventually, this rapid-fire weapon would accompany GI.s onto the battlefields of Europe.  But it wasn't only national shock and horror which led to the removal of Tommy guns; it was a concerted effort on the part of the people, the White House and Capitol Hill.

Gun safety can happen.  Together, we can take the tools of mass murder out of the hands of deranged killers and haters of humanity.  Together, we can place the lives, the safety and the sanity of our children above the "rights" of the merchants of death.

393 days down, 1,164 days to go.

Copyright©2018 Kurt F. Stone

Shake Hands With the Devil

                        Mnuchin,  '45 and Cohen

OK, by a show of hands, is there anyone out there who remembers the last time we had a 24-hour news cycle without at least one breaking story guaranteed to shoot the old systolic up into the stratosphere?  Waiting . . . waiting.  Hmmm . . . by the absence of hands, I guess that means the answer is "no" - that for the longest time, every day brings at least one bulletin, one screaming headline, one hyper-dramatic (or hyper-inane) matter which is all but guaranteed to eclipse (or make us all but forget) yesterday's screaming headline. Now mind you, it's not just the White House and its current occupant who are totally shouldering the blame for this rise in cacophony; the media plays a huge role as well. After all, there are just so many sources and platforms for news (both real and fake) and views, and thus, so many ways to make a pile through selling ads. The competition for these ad dollars is intense.  In other words, '45 has been a boon-and-a-half to all those who book and sell ad time and space.

In the main, we've become unknowingly inured to the fact that today's front-page-above-the-fold, top-of-the-hour screamers (North Korea, the Mueller investigation, the pardoning of "Sheriff Joe") quickly gets pushed back a page or three until they are largely relocated to the file marked "ho-hum." Occasionally, a story comes along with so many aspects ("sidebars") as to possess what in show business is  called "having legs" -- that is, staying power.  One obvious example is the Charlottesville horror and what it says about the POTUS and the country he supposedly leads.  By now, everyone knows that there is a Grand Canyon of difference between the scripted and off-the-cuff '45. The former presents him as a man possessing a modicum of compassion and a desire to bring a fractured nation together. The latter unshackles him from these chains of sane moderation and permits the "loose cannon" of his soul to escape the censor of his lips.  

One day '45 (unscripted) blames "many sides" for the violence in Charlottesville, absolves himself of any blame by insisting that these sorts of incidents occurred when Barack Obama was POTUS and proclaims that there were "some very fine people" in attendance at the confrontation. Then, less than 48 later (and four days after the actual event) the scripted '45 states "Racism is evil -- and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans . . . . Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America."  Then, in another (unscripted) speech in Arizona, he goes back to his initial approach, in which he does not specifically condemn the KKK, neo-Nazis or white supremacists . . . and which draws ecstatic  reviews from the likes of  David Duke and the White Supremacist website The Stormer. 

That the POTUS does not find any moral difference between neo-Nazis, white nationalists, white supremacists and what he has been told to refer to as the "Alt-Left," is both highly disturbing and terribly frightening. That those Jewish people who support him - either as financial backers or actual employees - have remained mostly mum is disgusting.  Just the other day, '45, flanked by, among others, Gary Cohen (Director of the White House Economic Council) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin came down to the lobby of Trump Tower for what was supposed to be a press event dealing with infrastructure. Instead, the two most visible and highly placed Jewish members of the administration (save Jared and Ivanka, who seem have been on an extended holiday in the "Land Beyond Denial") stood in obvious shock and discomfort as their boss (unscripted) once again proclaimed “There is blame on both sides. I have no doubt about it – and you don’t have any doubt about it either.”

Since that August 15th gobsmacking, much has been made over the fact that 45's Chief Economist Gary Cohen actually gave serious consideration to resigning his post.  To date, he has not.  What the former president of Goldman Sachs did do was  release a critique of the president in an interview with the Financial Times in which he stated “This administration can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning these groups and do everything we can to heal the deep divisions that exist in our communities."  Giving some insight into the storm brewing in his kishkes (Yiddish for "guts") Cohen further stated “I have come under enormous pressure both to resign and to remain in my current position.  As a patriotic American, I am reluctant to leave my post . . . because I feel a duty to fulfill my commitment to work on behalf of the American people. But I also feel compelled to voice my distress over the events of the last two weeks. Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK."

Good for Mr. Cohen; his words make sense.  But if he is that disaffected, that disgusted and alienated, why in hell is he still working for a man and an administration which kowtows to racists, white supremacists and people who, given the chance, would gladly consign him, his family and all those he loves to crematoria?  And while we're at it, why are Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, '45's son-in-law Jared Kushner, '45's longtime personal lawyer Michael D. Cohen and billionaire backer Sheldon Adelson (among others) as mute as Marcel Marceau?  Sam Nunberg, a former campaign adviser came to '45's defense, rationalizing that “I have spent thousands of hours with this man. He does not have one anti-Semitic bone in his body.” Nunberg, who himself is Jewish condemned the neo-Nazi protesters as “a bunch of disgusting people. A bunch of people saying anti-Semitic stuff.”  Nonetheless, he had not a single word to say about his former boss's lack of response.

I'm sorry; this just doesn't cut it.  I find it difficult to swallow that a man who quietly accepts the plaudits of anti-Semites and racists isn't in some way either an anti-Semite or racist himself, or at best, an egregiously opportunistic fool.  From a political point of view, '45 - who has been campaigning for reelection since the day he was inaugurated - knows how badly he needs to hold on to his ever-shrinking base.  And, if in order to maintain that base - which includes the likes of David Duke, Richard Spencer, Sheriff Joe and all their jackbooted followers - he must be acquiescent . . .  so be it.

WRONG!  To my mind, it is the sacred obligation of any and every American - whether Jewish or not - who believes in equality and humanity to denounce '45 and those who persist in supporting him.  Obviously this is not the case; there are Jewish people out there who are willing to rationalize his actions and overlook his immoral recrudescence.  As a progressive political blogger who also happens to be a rabbi, I am frequently on the receiving end of nasty comments from readers informing me that they are more than willing to overlook '45's "shortcomings" because " . . . on the one issue that matters - Israel - he is the best thing that's every happened!"  Whenever I receive a comment containing this sentiment, I write back asking the correspondent to provide examples with which to under-gird  their contention; to tell me precisely what he has done for Israel that makes him such a great friend of the Jewish State. Generally, the answer is something like "Well, at least he's not Obama, who made an 'Apology Tour,' bowed down to the King of Saudi Arabia and had his Ambassador to the U.N. vote against Israel every chance she got." I'm sorry, but it's always been my strong belief that a POTUS who is not good for the country cannot be good for Israel.

In just a little over a month, Jewish people the world over will be observing Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, where we confess our sins, beg for forgiveness and search our souls for the moral strength we need in facing a new year.  

Are you listening Messrs Cohen, Mnuchin, Kushner, Adelson, Nunberg et al?

218 days down, 1,239 to go.

Copyright©2017 Kurt F. Stone

Who Came First: Jews or anti-Semites?

                         Ha-Emet.net

It is likely that anyone who has ever seriously studied the history of Judaism and the Jewish people has, at one time or another, facetiously wondered aloud "Who came first: Jews or anti-Semites?"  Or, to clothe the query in tacky thread-bare garments: "If God, in co's* (that's my divine pronoun, meaning "his/her") infinite wisdom had  not created the Jewish people so that they could become a "light unto the nations," would the evil impulse have created anti-Semites in order for humanity's worst to have a universal, eternal source of blame and obloquy?"  It's a tough question, for despite the fact that the term Antisemitism is of relatively recent vintage (first coined by a German political agitator named Wilhelm Marr not quite 145 years) the fear, phobia and fable about Jews and Judaism go back to the dawn of time.  And, as long as it has existed, anti-Semitism has consisted of two coterminous ideological strains:

• That which claims that because they are spawns of Satan, Jews are inherently weak and utterly immoral . . . or
• Jews are all active participants in an eternal international conspiracy whose end goal is total world domination.

As I write these words I am reminded of the classic Blondie song One Way Or Another, whose lyric begins:

                              One way or another I'm gonna find ya/I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha . . .

Historically, Anti-Semitism has, generally speaking, be kind of like the Dow Jones average, where there are times when its strong and roars like a lion and others when its weak and  rather quiescent.  Ever since the end of World War II, Anti-Semitism has, for the most part, been more rhetorical  than real.  With the creation of the Internet, there are today, tons of sites which permit bigoted troglodytes to introduce new generations to conspiracies involving Zionist bankers, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Federal Reserve and the spread of AIDS - not to mention the "sins" of Israel. To be sure, this does represent an upward spike in Antisemitism. And, since ;45's election and inauguration, anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. (which had surged more than one-third in 2016) jumped more than 86% in the first quarter of 2017. Many in the press point a finger at '45 for making this latest spike possible.  "Not so!" proclaim a significant minority of American Jews and Christian Zionists. They defend the president, pointing to his having a Jewish daughter and Jewish grandchildren, a Jewish Treasury Secretary, a Jewish  Secretary of Veteran's affairs and innumerable Jewish lawyers . . . all of which drives hardcore anti-Semites crazy.  "He's the best friend the Jewish State ever had" others insist, without offering much proof.  "If there is any rise in anti-Semitism, it's got nothing to do with him!" they conclude. 

There are, to put is diplomatically, chilling indicators that '45, his administration and advisers, are inconsistent.  Consider that:

• The President's senior in-house political strategist, Steve Bannon is, in the words of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect's Executive Director Steven Goldstein " . . . the most dangerous anti-Semitic threat to American Jewry of our time, with only Patrick Buchanan coming close."  In his struggle for supremacy with Jared Kusher, Bannon has repeatedly referred to the president's Jewish son-in-law as a "globalist" . . . a term which has  been used as an anti-Semitic dog whistle and echoes pernicious anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.

• On International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January, a statement from '45 failed to mention the millions of Jews who were murdered at the hand of the Nazis. Earlier in April, [now former] White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer mistakenly said Nazi leader Adolf Hitler didn't use chemical weapons while referencing chemical weapons attacks by Syria's leader, before apologizing and backtracking.

• In May, when '45 visited Yad Vashem, Israel's national holocaust memorial, he wrote what the Washington Post termed "a strangely upbeat, self-referential" note all in caps: "IT IS A GREAT HONOR TO BE HERE WITH ALL OF MY FRIENDS — SO AMAZING & WILL NEVER FORGET!”  The same article compared '45's entry with that of his predecessor who, on his first visit in 2008 wrote: “I am grateful to Yad Vashem and all of those responsible for this remarkable institution. At a time of great peril and promise, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man's potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world. Let our children come here, and know this history, so that they can add their voices to proclaim 'never again'." And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims, but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit.”

• Earlier this month, while visiting Poland on his way to the G-20 summit in Berlin, '45 became the first POTUS in nearly 30 years to go to Warsaw without visiting the Ghetto uprising monument.

• Perhaps most importantly, just the other day Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ordered the closure of the State Department's Office of Global Criminal Justice, the agency which for more than two decades has monitored and sought to bring to justice war crimes and those participants in crimes against humanity and genocide. According to a State Department press release, the decision is a product of an “employee redesign initiative.” To my way of thinking, this is a gross obfuscation of truth.  

• At the same time, '45 and Secretary Tillerson have left vacant the post of "Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism," (SEAS) most recently held by Ira Forman, who was my direct superior in the 2012 Obama reelection campaign.  In a Washington Post op-ed piece which Ira published less than two weeks ago, he wrote: When testifying before Congress in June, Tillerson said that, even as he has considered making the appointment, he has been vexed by the concern that anti-Semitism could actually get less attention if the special envoy position continued to function. The secretary stated: “One of the things we are considering — and we understand why (the envoys) were created and the good intentions behind why they were created — but one of the things we want to understand is, by doing that, did we weaken our attention to those issues? Because the expertise in a lot of these areas lies within the bureaus, and now we’ve stripped it out of the bureaus.” Ambassador Forman began the next paragraph by saying that he and his colleagues "couldn't disagree more." 

This last matter is of great importance.  To leave this post vacant - along with thinning out much of our diplomatic corps - is to send a message that Jews and other minorities really do not count; that our current administration is far more concerned with keeping the political support of narrow-minded, conspiracy-loving bigots, than protecting the rights and freedoms of a community which has done so much to make this country great.  

I urge - nay, implore - you to take a minute or two and sign this petition demanding that the White House allocate the resources to reinstate the nation's Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.  Let your voice be heard!

As the POTUS and his administration continue tooting dog-whistles called variously "America First," "Make America Great Again" and "Globalists versus "Nationalists," our country - our world - is becoming an increasingly dangerous place.  By making this country safe for millionaires and billionaires and shutting ourselves off from the rest of the world - except when it comes to steroidal capitalism - they are creating a new Gilded Age - a time when disparity between haves and have-nots was staggering, rugged individualism trumped community, and conspiracy theories were given free reign. 

184 days down, 1,273 to go.

Copyright©2017 Kurt F. Stone