The conventional meme I gather is that Israel is blockading Gaza for the simple reason that it is mean and wants to punish the Palestinians there for no reason at all, and that security concerns are mere pretext for the blood-thirsty, civilian slaughtering military of the Jewish State.
Do people realize how heinous and vile a claim that is? I don't think so, and that's why I will never tire of pointing this stuff out when it comes to my attention. I don't care who rules Egypt; I frankly don't care if they summon the friggin' pharoah back. But I don't have to "understand" why Morsy is an anti-semitic pig. After all, isn't it racist to "understand" and excuse and condone racism in less developed countries (even when expressed by a highly-educated man like Morsy)? Isn't that what we do all the time? Don't we presume that even the most educated folks in less-developed c
Destroying any last vestige of hope for a demonstrable showing of the allegedly buff-to-the-max Hebraic Lobby, Senator Chuck Schumer, Jew of Jews and Senior Senator of Jew (I mean New) York, announced that he would support Chuck Hagel--the newly-minted BFF for all real progressive Americans. A Jew-led revolt against a major American presidential nominee in the foreign policy realm appears to be another might-have-been. Stephen Walt and MJ Rosenberg were seen weeping outside of the ADL offices in Washington after learning that that zionist entity just wanted to be left alone and would hav
The situation is far more complex than it is often made out to be. Hamas is the Gazan offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood is now in charge of Egypt. Over the past few days of fighting in Gaza, no more than 900 Palestinians per day--about the average apparently--have been allowed to enter Egypt. No flotillas, no boycotts, just crickets. Interesting place, the Middle East.
This is almost impossible to believe, but Robert Murray, who is apparently the largest independent coal operator in the United States, announced that he was laying off 160 workers on the day after Obama was re-elected, citing Obama's victory as the principal basis for the layoffs. This is the same guy who, inter alia, required his employees to attend a rally with Mitt Romney during the workweek, and then docked that day from each worker's pay. If there is a bigger douchebag out there, I've not heard of or read about one. By the way, the guy announced the layoffs with a fucking p
Ta-Nehisis Coates writes that, notwithstanding voter suppression efforts in Ohio, 15 percent of the electorate in that state this year were African-Americans, as compared to 11 percent in 2008. That is amazing, given the historical dimensions of what was going on in 2008. That is people power, and with genuine respect to the really potent arguments we have about whether this election means anything, I submit that the response of the African American community in Ohio to the efforts to marginalize and suppress them is all I need to conclude that this election mattered and will have consequ
Sam Bacharach was my organizational behavior professor in my first semester at Cornell in the fall of 1977. The guy is ageless, or else I'm catching up with him. In any event, he's the guy who first exposed me to folks like Durkheim and Marx and Weber, and more often than not I had no friggin' idea what I was reading or what Bacharach was talking about. Here's an interesting take by the ageless professor that was emailed to me on the leadership qualities that propelled Obama to victory in 2012 (pragmatism), as compared to those qualities (dazzle) that propelled him to victory in 2008.
John Sununu suggests expressly tonight that Colin Powell endorsed Obama because of the color of the president's skin. This really is the stuff that separates the Democratic Party, which would never tolerate this filth, and the GOP of the 21st Century. And I ain't the kind of guy to pretend that the Democratic Party, or our president, is all sugar and spice and all that is nice. But there is a difference, and it's as clear as day. Sununu never would have said what he said if the campaign didn't consider the power of the whistle.
Jews and "Christian Zionists" are not the only Americans who look with favor at the Jewish State. Seventy percent of Americans view Israel with favor.
In short, that means that discussions about a small group of Americans having a stranglehold on American foreign policy is not only evil--it is factually incorrect, i.e. rightly or wrongly, the American People continue to love the Jewish State.
My friends, these are the facts. The discussion should proceed accordingly.
Knees jerk on many issues, but nowhere as much as with respect to the voting habits of Americans who happen to be Jewish. The assumption of some is that [some] Jews put another nation-state, the Jewish State, first, and then they put the United States second (or third, or whatever--even after derma and pickled herring). From that springs the hateful allegation that [some] Jews are "Israel Firsters". Even in the most progressive of salons, even in the year 2012, there is a presumption that some Jews put the interests of the Jewish State above the interests of the United States of America.
The Rabbinical Assembly is what I like to refer to as the collective bargaining representative for rabbis affiliated with Judaism's conservative movement. But it also the ultimate authority on interpretation of Jewish law in the conservative movement (my personal affiliation). Notwithstanding the express and unambiguous language of what much of the world refers to as the Old Testament, the RA has unanimously approved same-sex marriages.
Matthew O'Brien, business editor for the Atlantic, reports that a majority of unemployed Americans have attended college. O'Brien reports that this has never before been the case among those falling within the definition of unemployed. The good news, according to O'Brien, is that the statistic does not suggest that a college degree is no longer a prudent long-term investment.
France has the largest Jewish community remaining in Europe, notwithstanding French complicity in the murder of their Jewish citizens and the decades it took that country to acknowledge helping put the kids on the trains to the death camps with a gusto.
