I do not believe that there is a person on this earth today who can clearly define the status quo of anything - certainly not as a true and clear determined fact. Yes, the situation is all SNAFU'ed up, no doubt about it, but the roiling and the boiling keep the contents rolling around, first one on top and then the other and suddenly, yet another pops up. No one is actually very sure or clear what the ingredients even are and how they interact with each other.
Kamala Harris said something that would help clear things up. When asked about her mixed racial background - black from a Jamaican father and Indian from her mother, her response was that this is not important in defining who she is for she says, "I am an American." Music to the ears. She stressed that what is important is not her, but the people. More music. This is what we need in the next President. This is the sentiment we need to be pushed and recognized as the national motto of the country. We have already stated it in a host of places - e pluribus Unum - from many, one.But somewhere along the way we lost sight of that, particularly under this most recent illegitimate President.
We have elevated hypocrisy to the level of an art as the man who encouraged hatred, who talks of Mexicans and "little brown men", who embraced both body and soul of right wing Jew hating extremists suddenly talks ever so righteously about a picture of what is claimed to be the present governor of Virginia in blackface. He says not, but Trump doubles down on this and calls down the wrath of all upon him.
When I was a kid I did not think anything about blackface, seeing it as just one of the techniques singers used to make the presentation more real to the audience. Now I understand the effect on African Americans but also wonder why the snide presentations of Jews also does not raise hackles. The other day I watched a TV talking head snicker his way through a whole routine about Jews, using terms and canards to oh so stimulate his snickering. I heard not nary a word of protest about this. Not from anyone.
I also have a question for Trump and his minions. This took place many decades ago so why does this guy not get a pass when Kavanaugh, the pervert, said he never did it, but even if he did, it was when he was a kid - not really - and therefore he should receive a pass on it anyway, and the Republicans of slimy fame went along and we now have two sexual perverts on the Bench.
The point is that we must be fair and must be understanding. We are just beginning a pathway to unity after two, closer to three years of disunity and encouragement of hatred and differences. We need almost to walk in the shoes of others, many others, if we are to feel the pains and the joys, the motivations, of others and know and learn how to behave, what to say, what to strive for, how to be better people. And that certainly does not involve encouraging hate speech.
One of the biggest bones of contention that the Democratic Party will have in the next few years is the increasingly violent and hateful speech put forth by Tlaib and Omar about Israel. They do not pull punches, using all the canards of old - globalists, bankers, murderers, dual loyalties - and fully conflate, though they deny it, anti Zionism with anti Semitism, and use excuses from freedom of speech to justify their rants. I cannot abide the present Republican Party. They are a boatload of hateful, weak willed, spineless moral cowards who have ceded the authority of the legislative branch to the Demented One in the Executive seat. Oh, sometimes they talk the words but the actions never ever follow through. Wimps. Useless. But this trend in the Democratic party will certainly force me to think again. Perhaps I will vote only locally if the candidates for President do not speak up. Perhaps I will vote with my feet. Perhaps I will be able to find some remorse and understanding from those in the Democratic Party who have allowed, no, even encouraged this hateful trend. I am sorely disappointed in Pelosi who caved and gave Tlaib a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, a freshman given such power!
And I am not alone in these feelings. I get all the pleas for donations but have not yet clicked on any this time around. I need to be sure what and who I am clicking for. And many others, Jews and non Jews alike are uneasy with the situation. Even that loser, Jeremy Ben Ami, from J Street, has voiced his unhappiness and concern re these two and their adherents. It is time for the world to finally stand up and acknowledge the fact that though we have different wrappings and different approaches to life as we grew up in various differing areas of the world, we are all the same underneath the wrappings. The bullets kill all, no care as to the color of the wrapping or the age of the soldier, or the age of the little girl who is raped and then sold into sexual slavery.
Kamala Harris said it right when she said, "I am who I am." She is fine and if others need to dabble in that nonsense, then it is of no concern of hers. She will concentrate on policies. I ask, I plead, I demand, that all the candidates speak up on this Israel concern and come down firmly where they believe they need to be. See, I have no problem with different and even opposing situations. My concern is with the hatred conjoined to these opinions, the viciousness, and the return to the canards of life eternal for the Jewish people. Is it not time that we drop all this? Is it not time that we recognize the truth of the poet, Heinrich Hesse, who warned us that where people begin with burning of books, their thoughts contained within, they will end by burning people. We have seen it before, and G-d help us, we are seeing it today. Time to stop.
Time to dive in and change that status, to finalize the ending of hatred, of cruelty, of pointed barbs at cultures and people who might differ from us. Have we not seen enough of the dying and starving children, the desperate faces of the adults as they try to find refuge for themselves and their families, at the agonies on the dead faces, and the crumbled cities of the world, and remember, there is always payback, always consequences and they are not pleasant. Power grabbed is power to be usurped. Uncertainty ruling the world will only bring more war into it. We are now back in a Hot Cold War, in national competitions of an unfriendly nature so what - do we drill our kids to get under their desks again??
I am so tired of this, tired of the intransigence of so many, of the lack of caring and understanding of so many, of their inability to look beyond the tip of their noses and see both the trees and the forests. Dive in, folks, for if you do not, then who will, and if no one will - well, you do the math here. Ain't difficult, is it?
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