WORDS YET AGAIN

     Before I write a  posting today and then run due to holiday demands, let me just recommend Stew Richland's erudite article on the campaign. Check it out on Phyllis's blog.
     I continue to be amazed at the power of words to present both truth and lies, horror and hope. A mass murderer dies, as he should, paying for his crime of terror in blowing up a bus with the only stated goal of murder and mayhem. Yet this same murderer is given the name 'martyr', a word which once meant a person who died in the name of something good, something holy or beneficial to mankind, for a positive reason, or killed by others in the name of evil. Today this term is applied to killers, to despicable human beings who do not even deserve that term of human.
     And yet, the power of words continues to be twisted and people just let it ride. A Harvard law student who called an MK (Israel Parliament) "smelly' claims now that he did not KNOW that it was an anti Semitic canard???!!! Really? Are we to believe those words? How could he believe that we would believe such a transparent lie and even were it somehow true, really, that is how a supposedly bright person addresses a pertinent question in a public gathering to a distinguished visitor from another country? Words!!
     Today we receive a warning from the head of security at NATO warning us that ISIS is planning a nuclear attack on Europe using either dirty material or material it obtained, including hundreds of rockets from Iran, hacking a self drive car or even putting bombs of nuclear or biological complications within the body of a human, to form a living bomb whose only purpose is to bring mass death to perhaps millions of others. And yet, the words go on, with people using words uselessly or to promote more hate and war. Would that our words helped bring us together.
     Words of hate spew out from a new head of the National Student Union in England, words which emit from the mouth of a black Muslim woman who should know better. She should remember that people of color, black people in Darfur, in Somalia, in Sudan are chased and slaughtered, kidnapped, abused, brutalized by Arab Moslem people of these countries. Boko Haram is no friend to black people of Africa yet this woman can only find words to disparage Israel and then make that usual canard of a statement that to be anti Israel is not to be anti Jewish. Sorry. Doesn't fly. Just does not.
     Words that pour forth from the mouths of the presidential candidates this year have also been demoralizing and even disgusting in many cases. One candidate has evidently been taken to the woodshed by his advisers as his mouth is somewhat quieter but is this the caliber of our candidates? These are what we present to the world as our potential leaders, one who will lead us into and hopefully out of, perilous times? Whoosh! There goes any sense of truth and reality. Down the drain.
     Personally, this affliction of misuse of words infects all levels of government and supposed leaders. For those of you who did not quite catch it, David Israel has removed from his blog all the nasty and old comments that were under his Recent Comments section on his site, the only purpose of which was to incite. The category is still there, but empty as of the moment. Let us keep watch to see what happens next. Hopefully nothing and it will lie fallow - or even be removed totally as it serves no purpose. Might be a nice sign of extension of an olive branch? Hmmm?
     Words accompanied by actions of violence and threats are the worst category. These words are the ones that accompany marchers who threaten violence, who spew forth obscene words of hate, demands that are impossible to meet and in truth, would be disastrous were they actually met. But words are also words of conciliation, that bring hope as former enemies begin to see new points of agreement, similar needs and concerns and it is these words that will finally bring hope to the world. Here in the USA I believe the only hope we have amongst the candidates is Hillary Clinton. I believe she is the only candidate that has the strength to meet the challenges, the strength to stand up to bullies and terrorism. Is she perfect? Nope, but perfection is found in the graveyards and the World To Come, not here on earth. In any case, ain't it about time that we had a woman at the helm? It is 2016, not 1818. Can we not speak words of equality and mean them!! It's not as if the men have done any great job up till now, have they? Think about that!!