So, nasties, guess I owe you an apology. I carelessly disregarded your antipathy to religion when I used the word baptize when I referred to your new name. Oops. Egads - oops, that comes from Oh G-d - so, Geez...oops again since that is a slurring and slang version of the name of Jesus. Well, then how about Heavens! Oops again. Seems that there is very little free from a religious connection, even when it sounds innocent. Nefarious, huh? Must be a plot. Maybe the malcontents invented religion and that is why you are planning on censoring it? Do you not see how foolish and wrong you are?
Anyway, I woke up with a desire to read some serious stuff today, to think about things so I figured I would run to a library for some ideas. Thoughts of Thomas More or St. Augustine. Thoughts of the 95 Theses of Martin Luther. Thoughts of Sir Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, knighted by the Queen and the former Chief Rabbi of England - but all these thoughts were obviously incorrect since they all had connections to religion. So...."I Am Jewish" the book inspired by Daniel Pearl's last words before he was slaughtered because he was a Jew - too much religion there too? The point is made, there is little in this world that has naught to do with religion either in meaning, or source, or portent for the future or choose your category. So....if you cannot deal with that fact then perhaps it would be better if you kept your pathologies to yourself and your mouths closed so as to avoid the harm you cause to befall others. And forget any apologies.
Now to the real and rather more important topics to discuss. It is presidential election time again and once more the politicians open their mouths and spew forth what they think the audience wants and perhaps needs to hear. And as all the candidates spoke to AIPAC, other than Sanders who was too busy campaigning, he said, but who made sure to tell and assure people he was a friend to Israel but also a friend to the Palestinians - in other words, as wishy - washy and unrealistic as he has been this whole campaign.
So Clinton gives a whole speech vowing to do the right thing for Israel. There will never be a wedge between our two countries. A peace treaty can never be imposed from outside and a top. She will invite Netanyahu to the White House. She took Trump to the woodshed for a bit of a spanking on his words about Israel. Trump had somebody finally write a speech that was crisp and clear but who can trust this man as he is a loose cannon and wobbles with his mood. Cruz vowed to support Israel and I believe he means it, closed with Am Yisrael Chai - the people of Israel live (forever) but what about his other policies? They scare me. And I remember Obama coming here to the Village and speaking quite well, hitting all the high points, vowing to support Israel, to keep Jerusalem as its undivided capital and man! did he ever go off the path in the next four years. In fact, we have never had a worse president for Israel than Obama and I believe that this is his true inner feelings, what he was raised with or learned in his madrassa days or from his anti Semitic reverends that he followed or for whatever the cause - but what a disaster.
I think of all that has gone on over the past few years and I believe much of the blame has to come from him, for if the President of the United States was allowed to be anti Israel and yes, even anti Semitic, then so could they, so anti Semitism grew like a rabid stain over mankind. It was now okay to rant and rave in Apartheid week, ignoring the fact that it was Jews, rabbis and common folks, famous people, who marched arm in arm during the civil rights years. It was Jewish blood spilled too as three young men did not return home from the Freedom Riders days until found in swamps, dead.
And I think of the self hating Jews like Sidney and Max Blumenthal who think that come the apocalypse they will be spared the cruel treatment because they backed their natural enemies. I think to myself how these people have not learned the lessons of history. I think of the country of Israel where gay rights or rather people who are gay are accepted in most of society other than by the fanatical ones. How they have parades. How they are inducted into the army without fuss. And yet, there is a gay section here in this country that turns their back on this and rallies for those countries that throw them off roofs, hang them from lampposts and building cranes, behead them, refuse to allow them to live. I think of the continent of Europe once more enmeshed in screaming anti Semitism. Have they not done enough with their treatment of Jews over the millennia culminating in the Holocaust? Have they not done enough to encourage the slaughter of Jews and Israelis no matter where they are - even in Turkey as tourists? Does it ever end? Does it ever go away?
I think of the bereaved of Israel, the parents wailing over their children, the children crying, bewildered at who wanted to kill their beloved parents who died protecting them, of the young men and women weeping over the loss of their comrades, burying so many. I think of a nation which barely makes two degrees of separation and wish the world would understand that we live for life, not death, that we feel each stab wound, each blow, each bullet, for surely we know someone who knows the victim if we actually do not know them ourselves.
And where does all this stem from? From religion. From a hatred of those who practice Judaism or who have some connection to it. From a lack of knowledge about the true nature of true faith.The enemies of Israel, of Jews, for they are interchangeable no matter what people try to say and maintain, even purport to give compliments and then zing in with their truths. Tamim, the head of police in Dubai spoke of how the Jews need to lead a bi-national state for the Arabs could not do so - a compliment, one thinks - and yet go on to the rest of what he said. But in 70 years or so, the Arabs will take over. And there ya' go!
Why are we still forced to rescue Jews from the world, to wrest them from harm? So we are still bringing over Ethiopian Jews and now, this week, have brought over 19 Jews from Yemen. French Jews have come in waves and Ukrainian Jews come to a place where they know they are welcomed and safe. Why is one little country living in a bad neighborhood so resented and why is that small piece of land coveted by a people that did not exist before 1948? Twenty odd Arab countries and approximately or close to 50 Moslem countries and they all need to see the land of Israel, the home for all eternity, the safe haven for all eternity of the Jewish people destroyed - that little country bothers them so?!
So, to come back to the beginning of the piece and to return to the issue of censoring of knowledge and information, of the violation of freedoms granted to us in this country since its founding - here we are again. Censorship is wrong, wrong, wrong, legally and morally. Does that mean that the nasties are lacking in these areas? Well, you figure it out. And who owes whom an apology? Figure that one out too. And it does not help matters when Elaine Brown, one of the nasties, puts on "her" blog how there are 5,000 gods that people worship but not to worry for yours is the right one. This is the kind of person who instigates war and hatred. Why can we not allow for the beliefs of others? Why can we not all call upon our specific deity for help in reaching and maintaining peace? Why can we not stop the abuse of religion? Why? Because of people who believe that discussion is to be avoided, that knowledge is to be limited and censored, that nastiness is the way to go. G-d help them! And us as well.
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