tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-329243292024-03-07T15:34:40.898-08:00Empathic RationalistDaniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.comBlogger702125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-13101933483990253072022-07-23T06:56:00.002-07:002022-07-23T06:56:29.503-07:00Learn from History, Save the Democratic Party ... and the Country<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">History is a story told by the winners. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That is an old saw. It is understood by victims of racial/ethnic
discrimination and women, who have found themselves written out of history books
since time immemorial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they ask, “What
about us?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they are faced with
hard-headed and hard-hearted men of the more powerful tribes, who scoff at the notion
that their petty little complaints – and their trivial heroes – should possibly
capture equal time.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Liberal people all understand and accept this
now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least when it comes to ethnic
and gender issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But where liberals have
a blind spot is when it comes to battles over the souls of political parties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If, perchance, these liberals are center-left
Democrats, the ones whose preferred candidates almost invariably win the
nomination and frequently the general elections, they have no compassion
whatsoever for the complaints of the folks to their party’s political
left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those complaints are known simply
as whining, divisiveness, and the stuff by which Republican victories are
made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Strong sentiments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that’s what happen when compassion is gone.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Look at the data.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From 1992 until 2000, the Dems were led by Bill Clinton, who campaigned
as a “Southern Democrat” from the political center. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was succeeded by his handpicked successor,
Tennessee’s Al Gore – Gore’s nomination was frankly inevitable, but it is safe
to say that he wasn’t yet Mr. “Inconvenient Truth,” he was the heir apparent
from the party’s center-left wing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
2004, John Kerry beat back more progressive challengers to take the nomination<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-- remember “the Scream,” not the painting, but
the yell that doomed Howard Dean?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2008, the progressives had their moment –
they pushed Barack Obama, who ran a truly inspired campaign, to the finish line,
only to discover that he would allow centrists Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and
Joe Biden to serve as his chief lieutenants, not to mention his former foe
named Clinton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And that led us to 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Democrats faced a surprisingly tough
challenger named Bernie Sanders, who had a singular focus against economic
inequity that resonated with much of the party’s base.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when Sanders threatened Hillary Clinton’s
seemingly hereditary claim to the throne, she had the party’s leadership in her
back pocket and was able to summon hundreds upon hundreds of Superdelegates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The party’s largest media outlets treated
those Superdelegates as fully legit, and Sanders had no chance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clinton prevailed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Then came 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At that point, the progressives in the party who had given Bernie more
than 40% of the primary vote in 2016 – especially the younger voters, who voted
primarily for him – were feeling like those “losers” who were left out of the
history books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What they experienced was
that Joe Biden, the guy the media and the party elites originally thought was “due”
(i.e., the successor to B. Clinton in 1996, Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004, Obama
in 2012, and H. Clinton in 2016), was failing miserably in Iowa, New Hampshire
and Nevada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And immediately after
Nevada, Bernie appeared poised to lead the race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This, they thought, was their time – finally a real progressive seemed
to be on top.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then what happened?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>T<span style="color: black;">he media and the
party elites came down on him like a Mack Truck. I'm not referring to the
other candidates, but rather the talking heads and op-ed writers. So
negative. So gratuitous. Digging up stories about who he supported
40 years in the past. Just one hit after another. It was as if all
the talking heads decided at the same time, "we better not nominate him or
Trump will be President forever." And sure enough, he went down the
tubes, Biden’s centrist competitors quickly cleared the road, and Biden drove
right in to victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All he needed was
to do well in a single primary in a small state that never votes Democrat in
the fall, and the race was effectively over.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">To Biden’s base, aka the center-left of
the party and especially the older voters, there was nothing odd about any of
this.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was just the majority candidate
winning a nomination and then doing what his supporters thought he was best suited
to do – beating the maniacal Donald Trump in the general election.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">But to the party’s progressives, the folks
who occupy the leftist third, or the younger third (or both), this was just
another example of history being a story told by the victors.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Just another example of how they don’t really
belong to this political party, any more than many African-Americans living in the
Jim Crow south felt that they belonged to this country.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I went through all of this to explain just
how difficult it has become for a politician to unify the Democratic Party.
There is not simply mutual disrespect between Dems and Republicans, there is a
hell of a division within the Party – along ideological and largely age-based
lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is why precisely one percent
– that’s right, ONE percent of Democratic voters under 30 “strongly” approve of
the job Joe Biden is doing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That number
is as low as it is because of the above history and the resentment it
creates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Biden’s supporters are
being tone deaf to this dynamic in a way that they would never allow themselves
to be tone deaf to the cries of women or people of color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It's a problem, one that takes truly
inspired leadership to solve. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would
love to find such a leader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe my own
Congressperson, Jamie Raskin, has the combo of smarts and integrity to make
this happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does he have the temperament?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The courage<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">? </span>I don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I’d love it if
he tried.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My one practical suggestion as
to how to unify the party I have voiced before: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a combination of ranked voting, to satisfy the
centrists, and a commitment on the part of the centrist media/political leaders
not to panic and turn on the progressive candidate should s/he appear poised to
actually win a Democratic nomination, to satisfy the progressives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Dems, in short, should run positive
campaigns within the ranks – making their own case for themselves, rather than
denigrating their opponents as commies or the alike – but it is also time for
ranked voting, thereby actually making the party MORE democratic, which should
be something all Democrats believe in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And remember, all of this would be
happening as part of the most righteous of causes – removing from power a party
that has been taken over by Donald Trump and those who have, at one time or
another, kissed his ring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let the words
of Trump’s former press secretary, Stephanie Grisham (printed in today’s NY
Times), remind you of just who the Democrats are fighting:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I don’t think I can rebrand; I think this
will follow me forever…. I believe that I was part of something unusually evil.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only way to fight something unusually
evil is with a force that is unified and potent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no time to waste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-10844588345315275732021-05-23T12:57:00.003-07:002021-05-23T12:57:34.745-07:00Peace and Polarization <p> I know I have not been regularly blogging, but I have been regularly writing. On my website, <a href="http://www.danielspiro.com">www.danielspiro.com</a>, you can find a new page devoted to two of my obsessions -- Peace and Polarization. I recommend for your perusal two documents in particular on that page -- a statement on American Political Polarization and the diary I have been keeping recounting reflections on the recent fighting between the Israelis and the Palestinians. </p><p>Enjoy!</p><p>Dan </p>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-91518356255545298002020-10-23T08:07:00.001-07:002020-10-23T08:07:35.988-07:00Spinoza on Liberty, Equality and Fraternity<p>Spinoza's political theory is a highly underrated aspect of his overall philosophy. Back in the 1930s, when Professor Harry Wolfson came up with what was then considered the most comprehensive tome on Spinoza's thought (a 795 page work called "The Philosophy of Spinoza"), only ten pages were devoted to politics. Similarly, when Oxford University recently came up with a 666 page compendium of essays by leading contemporary Spinoza scholars, only a single essay (26 pages) dealt with his politics. Yet of the seven treatises he wrote, two included the words "Political Treatise" in the title -- indeed, politics was at the heart of what Spinoza was working on at the time of his death at the age of 44. Not surprisingly, Spinoza's politics have been highly influential to a diverse set of thinkers, including John Locke, Moses Mendelssohn, and Henry Kissinger. The political theories of the Enlightenment clearly owe a substantial debt to Spinoza's views. </p><p>This past year, I have embarked on a lengthy effort to explore the foundational principles of Spinoza's politics. I was especially struck by the importance Spinoza placed on fraternity, a societal characteristic that is sorely lacking today in contemporary America. This research on Spinoza has inspired me to re-double my thinking about a topic I addressed in my first novel, "The Creed Room" -- namely, how to best build fraternity in a society that is not only polarized, but in which political leaders seem to be increasingly indifferent to retaining their credibility or honoring basic human values. Building fraternity is surely a wonderful aspiration. But these days, how to do it appropriately is easier said than done. </p><p>The result of my research into Spinoza's politics is an essay that I delivered this past week at a meeting of the Washington Spinoza Society. <a href="http://www.danielspiro.com/uploads/3/1/0/2/31022605/spinoza_on_liberty_equality_and_fraternity.pdf">Here is the essay</a>. I hope you enjoy it. </p><p><br /></p>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-24929721051319427232020-07-25T08:10:00.005-07:002020-07-25T08:10:45.716-07:00Just Say No to "One-Sentencing"<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<div class="" dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">
<div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc e5nlhep0 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_83" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 4px 16px;">
<div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;">
<div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;">
<span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 enqfppq2 jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: var(--primary-text); display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; margin-bottom: -4px; margin-top: -4px; max-width: 100%; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">
One of the services I enjoy performing for my society is spreading allergies -- to certain kinds of writing. I enjoy helping people become allergic to, for example: (a) the strawman fallacy, (b) the fallacy of the excluded middle, (c) what-aboutism, (d) the technique of pretending that one invariably has found the "golden mean" when all one has found is a position, and (e) the attitude that a person can be writing about political-economic matters with the perpetual certitude of a mathematician ("isn't it funny that I'm always right and my political opponents are always wrong?"). </div>
</div>
<div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">
So today, I would like to coin a term for a phenomenon to which I hope you will become allergic: to "one-sentence." Let me give two examples of this unfortunate type of pseudo-persuasive writing. Example 1: "I'd like to begin by saying that I found President Clinton's conduct with Ms. Lewinsky to be deplorable and in no way, shape or form do I condone it. [But allow me now to spend the next 10 minutes attacking President Clinton's political enemies and by implication supporting him.]" Example 2: "I have spent countless time working for a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians and have seen it as the ideal way of resolving this conflict. [But allow me now to give you that ten or fifteen reasons why I think the one-state solution is a terrific solution, is the only viable solution, and is the only solution at this point that is consistent with the basic principles of morality. And allow me in fact to bury the two-state solution 5,000 feet underground and then spit on its coffin.]"</div>
</div>
<div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">
Honestly, whenever you see someone starting an argument with a single sentence that is supposed to show that they are NOT a one-sided, unsubtle thinker but are rather sympathetic to the other side ... they are either insulting your intelligence or they really are a one-sided, unsubtle thinker. Because if someone, to return to the Clinton example, really did find his conduct to be deplorable, they wouldn't have taken precisely 1% of their speech criticizing it. </div>
</div>
<div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">
So there you have "one-sentencing." Next time someone tries to "one-sentence" you, protect yourself. Don't be "had" by that kind of rhetoric.</div>
</div>
</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<div class="stjgntxs ni8dbmo4 l82x9zwi uo3d90p7 h905i5nu monazrh9" data-visualcompletion="ignore-dynamic" style="border-radius: 0px 0px 8px 8px; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden;">
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<div class="l9j0dhe7" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<div class="bp9cbjyn m9osqain j83agx80 jq4qci2q bkfpd7mw a3bd9o3v kvgmc6g5 wkznzc2l oygrvhab dhix69tm jktsbyx5 rz4wbd8a osnr6wyh a8nywdso s1tcr66n" style="align-items: center; border-bottom: 1px solid var(--divider); color: var(--secondary-text); display: flex; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; justify-content: flex-end; line-height: 1.3333; margin: 0px 16px; padding: 10px 0px;">
<div class="bp9cbjyn j83agx80 buofh1pr ni8dbmo4 stjgntxs" style="align-items: center; background-color: white; color: #65676b; display: flex; flex-grow: 1; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; overflow: hidden;">
<span aria-label="See who reacted to this" role="toolbar" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="bp9cbjyn j83agx80 b3onmgus" id="jsc_c_85" style="align-items: center; display: flex; font-family: inherit; padding-left: 4px;"><span class="np69z8it et4y5ytx j7g94pet b74d5cxt qw6c0r16 kb8x4rkr ed597pkb omcyoz59 goun2846 ccm00jje s44p3ltw mk2mc5f4 qxh1up0x qtyiw8t4 tpcyxxvw k0bpgpbk hm271qws rl04r1d5 l9j0dhe7 ov9facns kavbgo14" style="border-bottom-color: var(--card-background); border-left-color: var(--card-background); border-radius: 11px; border-right-color: var(--card-background); border-style: solid; border-top-color: var(--card-background); border-width: 2px; font-family: inherit; height: 18px; margin-left: -4px; position: relative; width: 18px; z-index: 2;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 a8c37x1j p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl l9j0dhe7 abiwlrkh p8dawk7l gmql0nx0 frigt3m8 ni8dbmo4 stjgntxs" role="button" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-height: 19px; outline: none; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: none;" tabindex="0">
<span aria-hidden="true" class="bzsjyuwj ni8dbmo4 stjgntxs ltmttdrg gjzvkazv" style="float: left; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; width: 100px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="gpro0wi8 pcp91wgn" style="font-family: inherit; padding-left: 6px;">1</span></span></span><span class="gpro0wi8 cwj9ozl2 bzsjyuwj ja2t1vim" style="background-color: var(--card-background); float: left; font-family: inherit; margin-left: -100px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="pcp91wgn" style="font-family: inherit; padding-left: 6px;">Steve Curless</span></span></span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="pcp91wgn" style="font-family: inherit; padding-left: 6px;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
</span></div>
<div class="kb5gq1qc pfnyh3mw c0wkt4kp" style="background-color: white; color: #65676b; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; width: 7px;">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-47326521427189692882020-07-12T08:48:00.002-07:002020-07-12T08:48:45.726-07:00My Response to Peter Beinart<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I am happy that the
N.Y. Times published Peter Beinart's opinion piece calling for the end of the
Jewish State. Beinart does a relatively nice job of making the argument for
what is in essence a "United States of the Middle East" (my words,
not his) in which pre-‘48 Palestine would be populated by Jews and Palestinians
alike, living in complete equality and moving about freely, much as we in the
USA move about from Florida to Maine, Alaska to Arizona.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beinart says that the Jewish State would be
replaced by a "Jewish home that is also, equally, a Palestinian home"
and that this home would provide "refuge and rejuvenation for Jews across
the world."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now lest this sound
like a utopian piece, Beinart does admit at one point that the "process of
achieving equality would be long and difficult," adding that it
"would most likely meet resistance from both Palestinians and Jewish hard
liners." But, he argues, if the Irish and South Africans can largely
reconcile, so can the people of Israel/Palestine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
When I was at a yeshiva, I was told once by an Orthodox rabbi that each Jew
should wake up every morning questioning the existence of God. Well I would add
in a similar spirit that every Zionist should wake up every morning questioning
the virtues of Zionism. Particularly for those of us Americans who love our
nation's purported commitment to pluralism and equality, if it's right for us,
why wouldn't it be right for the people of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Hebron, Nablus and
Jerusalem? The thing is, though, when I ask that question about God, I still
come up with "yes" and when I ask that question about the
"United States of the Middle East," I still come up with
"no."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You see, when I have
visited England, Japan or Italy, I see a country devoted to the language,
history, and culture of a particular people. I see nations with a special
relationship to the ancestral faiths and holidays of that people. And I see
that culture shine and develop in a way that goes far beyond mere "refuge
and rejuvenation" -- I see it grow organically. The world is filled with
countries like that. My Arab cousins have enjoyed a number of them. It is no
coincidence that my beloved Spinoza, for example, has taken root far better in
Israel, as a Jewish State, than in the pluralistic salad bar known as the
United States -- countries with a dominant ethnic flavor polish the gems that
their group has given us, and whether you love him or hate him, it was the
Jewish world that gave us Spinoza so it is the Jewish world that tends to be
most interested in what he has to offer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
It is no coincidence that the Jewish-Islamic Dialogue Society of Washington was
founded by two Americans who fell in love with their ancestral faiths in Israel
and Saudi Arabia, respectively. America can be a "Jewish home" -- but
there are homes, and then there are HOMES -- and if you are a Mexican American,
an African American or yes, a Jewish American, you know the difference. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
In yesterday's New York Times, the deputy national director of the
Anti-Defamation League asked a rhetorical question, responding to Beinart's
piece: "Where else on earth would the idea of an independent sovereign
state disappearing from the map be acceptable except in the case of
Israel?" Nowhere, of course -- or everywhere, because we live in a time of
deep polarization, tribalization, and alienation from the "other," in
which for example more and more Americans are wishing that Lincoln had allowed
the South to leave the Union so that we can have our politicians and they can
have theirs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
Fortunately, though, Lincoln did preserve the Union and slavery was abolished.
And there are plenty of things in Israel that should be abolished, including
the notion that the Jewish People can arrive in large numbers around the end of
the 19th century and boot the Arabs in the region into what Beinart correctly
calls "an archipelago of Palestinian towns, scattered across as little as
70 percent of the West Bank, under Israeli control." No, just like the
United States during the first century of its existence, Israel has a lot of
growing up to do, and leaders like Bibi Netanyahu are part of the problem, not
the solution. So, too, are those American Jews who claim to oppose Bibi but
invariably oppose any efforts to put pressure on his expansionist dreams. But
Zionism does not entail expansionism. The two-state solution makes room for a
robust Palestinian state next to a robust Jewish state -- not robust by
expansionist standards, but rather based on the goal that both sides deserve a
"peace of earth" in which to grow their own gardens in peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As the child of leftist
parents, I understand better than most the dreams of absolute equality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I understand the corruptibility of private
property in all its forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I
appreciate that to a degree, choosing a “Jewish State” and a “Palestinian State”
over a “United States of the Middle East” is choosing to privatize land more
than it needs to be privatized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as
an individual, I have also come to appreciate the extent to which human autonomy
and self-expression – in other words, freedom in the positive sense of that
term – are fostered by some degree of privatization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we all must recognize that in our world,
the vast majority of useful land is divided into nation-states in which certain
ethnic groups tend to hold a permanent majority and use that majority to express
themselves as a people – linguistically, historically, religiously,
philosophically, aesthetically …. The list is endless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If you speak to Jewish
anti-Zionists, you will note that the one thing that they can least abide is
when someone mentions the Holocaust (or other pogroms) in connection with the
raison d’etre for Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As soon as that happens, they will reflexively
start calling the Zionist dream one that is grounded in PTSD, and refer to
Zionists as “emotionally-based” people who fail to see that the “United States
of the Middle East” (or some similarly “egalitarian” approach) is the only fair,
rational solution to the fact that two peoples occupy the same land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The truth is, though, that events like the
Holocaust and the Expulsion of Spanish Jews in 1492 are significant in part
because they tell us what life can be like in societies that truly appeared to be
welcoming environments for thriving Jewish communities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We in America have offered another such
environment – and yet we have also seen Jewish people banned from hotels,
placed on a quota system in colleges, and sent back to die in Europe when they
arrived in ships off of American shores seeking refuge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beinart ignores all of this history when he glibly
assumes that a society in the Middle East that starts out as 50% Jewish (that
is how he described what a one-state solution would look like on his CNN appearance
today) would remain a “Jewish society.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The truth is that most
Jews are attached to Israel because it is more than just a place of temporary
hospitality to Jews.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a place where
Jews live as a permanent majority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
a place where the Jewish culture flourishes to the max.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a place where Jewish history isn’t
marginalized, and the Hebrew language isn’t marginalized, and where – if there
is to be a movement to rejuvenate the language of Yiddish on a large scale, it
will almost certainly happen there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most
Jews are attached to Israel just as we are attached to our spouses, our
children, and our oldest friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
are darned right that these are deep emotional attachments, and we’re not
likely to choose the kind of pot-luck that Beinart has to offer if we can instead
hold what we currently have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all,
if the Germans, the Dutch, the English, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Koreans …
and the Arabs can have their countries, why can’t we? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But we are at a crossroads,
we Zionists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We see a leader of Israel
who seems to have washed his hands of the fate of our Abrahamic cousins from Palestine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we see this leader getting re-elected
over and over again by an electorate who is moving further and further to the
right politically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Particularly here in
America, Jews and allies who have fought for Zionism must make a choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either we call for a United States of the Middle
East, as Beinart has.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or we start
calling for the United States to put real pressure on Israel to treat the Arabs
in pre-‘48 Palestine like full-fledged members of the moral community who have
the same natural rights as any other people, including the right of
self-determination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If that means putting
a stop to the extent of the United States’ financial and military support for
Israel, so be it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to mean
business that it is time for both sides to work hard for the two-state solution
that we have been advocating for so long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yes, the Palestinians have hardly demonstrated a deep desire for that
solution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But frankly, the leadership of
Israel hasn’t demonstrated one either, at least not lately. It’s time for us to
take a stand that two states isn’t a request, it’s a demand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Either that, or go
with Beinart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because as wrong as he is
(from my perspective), there are worse solutions than advocating for another
United States. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-53582470305056629222020-03-28T08:12:00.004-07:002020-03-28T08:29:21.209-07:00Dr. Strangetimes: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Coronavirus
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When growing up, I often focused on two era-defining
phenomena from the previous generation: The New Deal and the Holocaust. How
could the members of my society, one shaped by a faith in Adam Smith's
invisible hand and a love for the gadgets that result from Smithian economic
competition, have so thoroughly embraced a program in which the federal
government took such a prominent role over the means of production? And how
could the members of another great society, one associated with some of the
finest composers, philosophers and writers who ever lived, have so thoroughly
close their eyes, ears and hearts, while their soldiers dehumanized,
terrorized, and pulverized nearly an entire ethnic group, which happened to be
my own? </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The answers, I decided, include the following:
Circumstances define character. Needs take precedence over wants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Human beings, like other animals, are
inherently self-interested, and our interests begin with
self-preservation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Accordingly, we are
averse to risks, we don’t fix what isn't broken, and we don't rock the boat
without a damned good reason … yet we are willing to take steps to protect ourselves
-- and our fellows -- when we all feel a common threat is coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like a storm … a worsening of a major
economic depression … or a deadly, global pandemic. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bernie Sanders and some of his supporters fooled
themselves into thinking that America was ready for another New Deal when he
declared his candidacy in recent years. At one point, after the Nevada
Caucuses, I even fooled myself into believing that he could get nominated,
elected, and empowered to enact a program based on an expanded notion of
"human rights." Unfortunately for Bernie, he ran and lost in the B.C.
era -- Before Coronavirus. Back then (i.e., a full month ago), the majority of
Democrats and left-leaning Independents thought that the only national
"virus" was in the White House, and that once we are rid of the pestilence
of Trumpism, we could get back to the glory days where Bill Clinton and Barack
Obama presided over a society marked by prosperity, complacency, and a love for
the gadgets that result from economic competition. Bernie had no chance in such
a climate -- particularly not when the media was reminding us that he was
trying to rock the boat at a time when the waters were rough (when Trump is
President) and would continue to try to rock the boat even if the waters were
to become calm (after the Trump Presidency is over, and prosperity,
complacency, etc., returned to the kingdom). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, of course, we live in the A.C. era. And we can
contemplate a period of 1-2 years where a virus comes and goes and comes again,
destroying lives and jobs, and hearts and lungs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the A.C. era, we no longer dream of an
America where we as individuals can either satiate ourselves with wonderful
gadgets and trips to exotic places, or at least contemplate a time when our
family will have lifted themselves up to be able to enjoy such prosperity and
complacency. (For yes -- complacency is itself a luxury good in this dream).
Now, we realize that we live interdependently. Our health and welfare, and that
of our precious loved ones, is completely tied up with the virtue and wisdom of
everyone else. And now we take seriously the sanctity of human life and human
health because finally, we have an agent that poses an imminent threat to the
rich as well as the poor. We're not simply talking about a scourge of bullets
in the inner-cities, or of treatable cancers that devastate poor, underinsured
communities in the countryside. We're all in this together and -- like the
soldiers in the great wars of yesteryear -- we'll be "in the shit"
together for quite a while. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, it is possible to understand what the
progressives like FDR or Sanders were talking about. Now it is possible to
understand that we, for selfish reasons, might want a strong government devoted
fundamentally to the protection of universal human rights. Roosevelt spoke
about the four freedoms: freedom of speech/expression, of worship, from fear
and from want. Now in the A.C. era, it is finally reasonable to consider that
the critical mass of American voters might soon realize that their own
enjoyment of these latter two freedoms cannot be preserved in a society molded
with the spirit of Adam Smith and Ronald Reagan. Oh, we're not there yet, I get
that. But after a round or two, or three, of the Coronavirus, I suspect that we
just might be.</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><br />
Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-65058386864628958802020-01-05T07:08:00.001-08:002020-01-05T07:08:22.516-08:00Jew Versus Jew: How Incomplete Visions of the Faith are Dividing the People
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Recently I wrote an essay for two groups:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jews and Allies (i.e., anti-Semites or people
who don’t care about Jews per se shouldn’t bother to read it).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The essay addresses the hatred/disrespect related
to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict that threatens to undermine Jewish
solidarity at a time when that solidarity is especially important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will analyze why a schism exists among Jews
concerning the Conflict and why both sides have a legitimate point to make
based on authentic Jewish values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I’m
not trying to persuade anyone to “change teams,” so much as to foster mutual
respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You could say that this is an
invitation to intrafaith dialogue, which sometimes is every bit as vital as
interfaith dialogue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope you find the
essay to be thought-provoking. Here it is. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">http://www.danielspiro.com/uploads/3/1/0/2/31022605/jew_versus_jew.pdf</span><br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-56244093301450610712019-10-26T09:56:00.000-07:002019-10-26T09:56:04.006-07:00Cable Schmooze<br />
I have a brief request to make. Would everyone please stop referring to the programming on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC as "Cable News"? From now on, these programs should be referred to as "Cable Schmooze" and the guests on these shows should be thought of as Paid Schmoozers. <br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: -apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont,"Helvetica Neue","Segoe UI",Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
Think about it. Where do you get your breaking news? Newspapers? Websites? Friends who inspire you to check websites or newspapers? How often do you get it from Cable News? Almost never, I suspect. Indeed, for every minute of truly breaking news on those shows, my guess is that there would be 100 or more minutes of schmooze.<br />
<br />
Whenever I turn the channel away from a drama or a ballgame to watch the above-referenced channels, I'm invariably treated to schmoozing on the part of Washington insiders and the hosts (aka "journalists") who talk to them. Sometimes they're all sitting around a table. Other times the people-in-the-know will be waxing eloquent from their book-laden study, the street in front of the White House, or in front of a bust inside the U.S. Capitol Building. Truth be told, if you and your friends read the newspapers or even news-oriented websites, you can have just as informative and insightful a discussion with your friends than what you'd hear on Cable TV. In that sense, it's very different from, say, watching a ball game. You can do that with your friends as well, but only at a MUCH lower level. On Cable Schmooze, by contrast, we are frequently treated to talking heads who make far less sense than the typical informed person on the street. Apparently, the powers-that-be decide that it drives ratings to hear provocative/absurd drivel. Maybe it makes us in the audience feel smart. Or maybe such drivel is crucial to building admiration for those few talking heads who consistently speak logically and at least try to be objective. <br />
<br />
Mind you, I'm not requesting that you stop watching these programs. My request is only that you stop thinking of them as Cable News and call them what they are. As for the hosts, you can think of them as journalists if you wish, but please don't confuse their programs with journalism. Those shows are pure entertainment, and their hosts have far more in common with the more successful members of the Screen Actors Guild than they have with Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow. Who knew that Schmooze would ever be so lucrative?<br />
<br />
<br />Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-12133695922316434402019-10-20T08:40:00.003-07:002019-10-20T08:40:43.769-07:00How Many Democrats Were on the Stage Tuesday Night?
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I grew up in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the only child of two relatively
old parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My dad was born in 1912 and
my mom in 1921. I’m not even 60 yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
do the math.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The thing is, though, even
though they were older than my friends’ parents, my folks were always further
to the left politically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Constantly, I
would hear them complain about economic inequality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when they weren’t complaining, they were schlepping
me to marches -- like the May 12, 1968 “Resurrection City” rally in which tents
were placed on the National Mall to fight poverty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had yet to have my religious awakening
then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, inspired in part by my
parents’ railing against religious hypocrisy, I didn’t trust what came out of
the mouths of most clerics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this
much I did recognize: if the Abrahamic faiths stood for anything valid, it was
to fight poverty in particular and injustice generally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All this “love” crap meant nothing if it wasn’t
associated with working hard for the poor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I also realized for myself back in elementary school that those who think
that the private sector alone will take care of the poor were no better than Mary
Antoinette, whose “let ‘em eat cake” line has always, for me, defined the spirit
of unbridled capitalism.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, my country had two
political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They still exist today, albeit with different
spirits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My parents always voted
Democrat because the Dems were the party of progressive taxation and using governmental
programs when needed to help the poor and the working class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From 1965 – 1980, the top marginal tax rate varied
from 70-77%, yet even those figures weren’t high enough for the loudest voices
of the Democratic Party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They didn’t see
why the richest of the rich needed all the money they had when so many people
were poor. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my house, all I heard was
that for the most affluent country in world history to have a high level of
poverty and economic equality is a “shanda.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whether or not you know Yiddish, you get what that means.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Fast forward now to 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The top marginal tax rate is no longer in the
70s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, depending on how you
calculate it, it’s roughly 40 percent. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not coincidentally, economic equality has only
gotten worse. Far worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was
chronicled most exquisitely in a book by Thomas Piketty called “Capital,” which
was published in 2014.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since then, the
problem has only become more extreme, thanks to tepid leaders on the “left” and
bold leaders on the right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what do
you say we look at some of Piketty’s comparisons between the situation in 1980
and the situation 30 years hence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From
1980 and 2010, the share of the top decile in national income rose from 33 to
48%, the share of the top 1% in total income rose from 10% to 20%, and the
share of the top 0.1% in total income rose from 1% to nearly 8%.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As for wealth inequality, the differences aren’t
so dramatic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the trend is the same –
the top 1% and 10% had a significantly greater share of the nation’s wealth in
2010 than in 1980.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, whereas our
wealth equality in the USA was less than that of Europe from 1810 to 1960, it
has well exceeded that of Europe ever since.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By today’s standards, the America of my youth thus had
far more economic equality than it has today, yet it still had a far more
progressive tax system. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To repeat,
Democrats back then didn’t think that tax system was progressive enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Republicans represented quite a
range.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were the folks my parents referred
to as “conservatives,” who liked things pretty much as they were, though they would
allow for a little tinkering here and there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And then there were the folks my parents called “reactionaries,” who wanted
to return things to a by-gone era – like perhaps the 1920s, when the top decile
earned roughly 45 percent of national income, less than they make today, but far
more than they made throughout my childhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was growing up, we had
Republican Senators like New York’s Jacob Javits or Maryland’s Mac Mathias.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My parents thought of them as conservatives, others
would have called them centrists or even liberals, but they demonstrated that
the Republican Party created a home for folks who loved the status quo and
wanted only to tinker around the edges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
remember – the status quo back then was FAR more economically equal, and may I
say “progressive,” than today.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So let’s return to 2019 and, specifically, last
Tuesday night. We had 12 “Democratic” candidates – so many that a comic on the
Daily Show requested that in the future, the Party leaders should ensure that
their candidates are spayed and neutered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The 12 candidates were all attempting to unseat Donald Trump, the Republican
President who enjoys a 94% approval rating within his party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two candidates on Tuesday, Elizabeth Warren
and Bernie Sanders, were passionately arguing for the position that our tax
system isn’t nearly progressive enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
both want to dramatically increase the taxes on the top 0.1% -- and perhaps
even the top 1% or 10% -- in order to raise funds that are needed for the poor,
the working class and even middle-class Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My father, as you imagine, has long since passed from
this Earth, so I can’t ask him what he thinks of Warren or Sanders. My mom,
while still alive at 98, isn’t in good enough shape cognitively to worry about
the nuances of American politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I suspect
that if I took the time to explain what happened on Tuesday, she would have
been proud of Warren and Sanders for their willingness to fight for those who our
capitalist system is leaving behind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
short, I saw two Democrats on that stage who would have been recognized as
Democrats by any political observer of the ‘60s and ‘70s, let alone the Depression
Era period that shaped my parents’ thinking.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But what about the other ten Democrats?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How were they responding to the phenomenon
that Piketty chronicled so extensively in his book?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was struck by the unwillingness of the
other men and women on that debate stage to sound like Democrats even during a
primary contest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sanders, who had a
heart attack a couple of weeks earlier, was kindly left alone by the other
candidates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Warren, who has risen to
the lead in the betting markets, if not the polls, was relentlessly piled on by
one Democratic candidate after another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
first wave was Biden, and Buttigieg, and Klobuchar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were critical of the idea that Warren supported
a single payor health care system and was afraid to admit that taxes might have
to go up if we wanted to ensure that the poor get the same health care as the
rich.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I get why they would have wanted to press her
to be more candid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But later, when Warren
started talking about adding a tax on wealth in excess of $50 million and Beto
O’Rourke criticized her for being “punitive,” where was Biden?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or Buttigieg?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or Klobuchar?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Were they coming to
Warren’s defense?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Were they saying that “We’re
Democrats. We believed back in the ‘60s and ‘70s that the uber-rich weren’t paying
enough taxes when they were taxed a hell of lot more than they are today. We’re
not going to sit back and let you bash a candidate as ‘punitive’ simply because
she wants the uber-rich to shoulder a lot more of the tax burden.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They said nothing of the sort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, when called upon to show their
passion for economic equity, they responded with radio silence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The loudest of Warren’s interlocutors would like us to
see them, first and foremost, as “pragmatists.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This philosophy can best be summarized by a line from Amy Klobuchar, in direct
response to Warren’s progressive plans: “The difference between a plan and a
pipe dream is something that you can actually get done.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And there you have it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From the time Bill Clinton took back the White House for the Dems after
12 years of GOP Rule in 1992, the idea that we would make America’s economic
profile resemble that of my youth has been viewed by the Democratic
establishment as a “pipe dream.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clinton
sought a “third way” – one that isn’t nearly as progressive as the approach of old
Democrats, but is more compassionate than the Let ’Em Eat Cakers who served as the
vanguard of the “Reagan Revolution.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
2016, when his wife ran for President against Bernie Sanders, only a single
Democratic Senator supported Sanders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
Warren refused to commit; that was the extent of the stranglehold that the “Third
Way” has had on Democratic politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So now that Warren has regained her progressive voice,
and Bernie has gotten out of his hospital bed to resume his jeremiads, I keep
asking the same question: what would my parents think of Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar
and the rest of them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are they more like
the Democrats of my youth?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or are they
merely the second coming of Jacob Javits and Mac Mathias – centrist 60s-70s style
Republicans?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My parents, being professional economists, would
probably point out that Biden, Buttigieg and company may even be further to the
RIGHT than Javits and Mathias, for at least the latter are not on record as essentially
tolerating our pitifully non-progressive tax system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Truly, if things have moved so much further
to the Republican side of the spectrum in the last 30-40 years, why do Warren
and Sanders seem so damned alone on that stage?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or was that evening just another reminder that Ronald Reagan has won the
soul of America, and that the two-party system is really about nothing more
than nibbling around the edges of the cake that he (and Marie Antoinette) have given
us?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There were times during Tuesday’s debate when both Warren
and Sanders frustrated me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most notably,
neither explained very well why they supported Medicare for All.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My parents would have been disgusted with how
little they tried to demonstrate the downside of the so-called “public option”
approach to health care or why a focus on taxes instead of COSTS as the primary
metric on which to evaluate a health care system is simply a Republican talking
point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bernie and Elizabeth had a chance
to speak out articulately for all progressive economists that night and their
performance left something to be desired.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But at least they were recognizable as Democrats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least I felt they represented my party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least I felt they have absorbed the teachings
of Thomas Piketty, Julius and Evelyn Spiro, and all other economists who
clearly have given a damn about the poor and the working class.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You see, Senator Klobuchar, it’s not enough to join
the Democratic Party, insert yourself across the aisle from Donald Trump and
Mitch McConnell, and vote in favor of top marginal taxes that are 40% plus
rather than 40% minus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not young anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, I’m only two months and two days
younger than you are. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember when
Democrats were Democrats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you
want to act like one, you’ve got to show me that you couldn’t even abide being
satisfied with the America of our youth because of its economic inequalities, let
alone that you can’t satisfy yourself with mere tinkering when America has
become far LESS economically equal now than it was before.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I heard you say, Senator Klobuchar, that neither you,
nor Mayor Pete, nor even the billionaire on that stage Tuesday night is “standing
up for billionaires.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that’s not
enough, is it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I need to see that you
are standing up for the guy I saw lying on the ground late Friday night two
blocks from my daughter’s row house in a part of Washington DC that most of the
barons of today’s Democratic Party wouldn’t set foot in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can see that Bernie and Elizabeth, for all
their slip-ups, are standing up for that guy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One of them will get my vote in the primary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-51311655212495562422019-05-04T05:44:00.000-07:002019-05-04T05:44:09.807-07:00Sabbatical<br />
With some regret, I am announcing today that the Empathic Rationalist will be taking a sabbatical. I've been keeping this blog going for 13 years without one, and that's frankly too long.<br />
<br />
I will miss taking the opportunity to communicate with my loyal readers on a weekly basis. Thank you so much for letting me know over the years that you enjoy reading this blog; that means more to me than you know. However, due to certain events in my life, I feel the need to cut down on my so-called "extra-curricular activities," and at the moment, blogging didn't make the cut. I fully expect that this self-imposed sabbatical will be merely temporary but what I can't say is how long it will last.<br />
<br />
All the best to each of you. Enjoy the upcoming political campaign season. And may you and your family experience the very best of health.<br />
<br />
DanDaniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-8032189018217186032019-04-28T06:44:00.002-07:002019-04-28T06:44:30.267-07:00A Request to My Fellow Democrats: Time for Spring Fever
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">We’re nearly two months away from the first Presidential
Primary debate and yet already, liberal pundits are savaging those Democrats who’ve
had the courage to enter the race.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I see
the criticism frequently in such on-line forums as the Huffington Post.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And just yesterday, I heard an MSNBC talking
head criticize Biden for daring to criticize President Trump’s “very fine
people on both sides” remarks.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>According
to this pundit, Biden would be well advised not to talk about such issues given
his own track record when it comes to the topic of race.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Really?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>From
what I can tell, Vice President Biden has been a devoted public servant for
more decades than that progressive pundit has been alive, and yet the latter doesn’t
think he has standing to highlight the single worst moment in the Presidency of
the man Democrats are trying to defeat.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Folks,
can we stop eating our own? <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Please?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">My hope is for all Democrats to spend the remainder of
what I call the “pre-season” keeping our hearts and minds open about all these
candidates.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Let them make mistakes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Let them speak vapidly or duck difficult questions.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Let them take back an ill-advised comment or
policy position.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And to the extent they
feel compelled to speak sharply about a fellow Presidential candidate, encourage
them to take on the candidate running as a Republican, not each other.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Why do I say that?<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Because at the end of the June, and for the next 8-12 months thereafter,
some amount of intra-party conflict is inevitable and even healthy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Presumably, our candidates won’t be offering us
childlike monikers such as “Lyin' Ted,” “Little Marco,” or “Low Energy Jeb,” but
the ones who are hurting in the polls will owe it to their supporters to throw at
least some barbs in the direction of the favorites. But for the good of the
Party, can we at least enjoy an extended honeymoon period?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Can we spend the next two full months building
up as much affection as possible for all these candidates?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Or do we have to wallow in the kind of
mockery-narratives that are increasingly popping up with respect to each of Trump’s
would-be challengers? </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">If you’re not immediately familiar with these narratives,
just ask yourself which of the 20 Democratic candidates are best positioned to
defeat Trump and lead the Democratic party.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The elderly, grumpy, unelectable white male socialist
who scares the crap out of moderate Democrats, let alone Republicans, Bernie
Sanders?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The out-of-touch, kind-of-creepy, gaffe-prone politician
whose record is the antithesis of progressive, Joe Biden?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The charisma-challenged, condescending professor who reminds
everyone of Hillary except that she’s even less electable, Elizabeth Warren?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The “Senator Pothole” tinkerer who claims to be
Minnesota-nice but has proven to her Congressional staffers to be anything but
nice, Amy Klobuchar? </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The frivolous dilettante, whose Presidential campaign
is fueled primarily by narcissism and a desire to have a really cool personal
adventure, Beto O’Rourke?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The finger-in-the-wind pol who refuses to answer substantive
questions and yet has much to answer for herself in the way she has dealt with
the criminal justice system, Kamala Harris?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The inexperienced millennial who also doesn’t think voters
deserve to know what he stands for but thinks he can get elected by spewing pseudo-intellectual
gibberish, Pete Buttigieg?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The guy from Jersey who is pretending to run on a
Kumbaya platform at a time when nobody wants to hear anyone sing Kumbaya,
especially if he’s from Jersey, Corey Booker?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Or one of those other pathetic, nameless candidates
whose standing in the polls is so damned low that nobody is even bothering to
insult them?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Folks, mocking a politician is as easy as shooting
fish in a barrel.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>These people
self-promote at the same time that they self-reveal.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You show me a politician, any politician, and
I’ll show you a hypocrite.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It comes with
the territory.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But unless you want to
see President Trump re-elected, I suggest you look at the above list and
recognize that (a) you’ll be voting for one of those folks in the fall of ‘20,
and (b) the person you’ll vote for in the general election probably won’t be
the one you’d like to vote for today.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In
fact, I’d go as far as to say that because elections among twenty contenders is
kind of a crap shoot, you’re most likely going to have to go crazy in support of
a general election candidate who you voted AGAINST in your state’s
primary.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If that’s going to happen, you’d better figure
out a way to stay as positive as possible about as many of these people as
possible for as long as possible.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">So what do you say we allow all these candidates the
next two months to impress us with their positive characteristics – their visions,
their policy proposals, and their formulas for taking on President Trump.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What do you say we embrace what it means as
voters to be able to wholeheartedly support ANY of the above?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe if that happens, the intra-party criticism
that will inevitably begin to flow in July and thereafter would be a bit more
measured.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then, when it does come time
to nominate someone in the summer of 2020, we will have identified a person who’ll
be beloved by the entire Democratic party and many of the Independents.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And that candidate will not only beat Donald
Trump in the next election but also grab a mandate to change the direction of
government in January of 2021. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Let’s face it – the Russians weren’t the primary
reason why we lost the election of 2016.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Mostly, we caused ourselves to lose – by taking for granted states like
Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and by teaching a veritable master class in
how NOT to run a primary campaign.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Now,
we have a chance for a do-over.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We have
a chance to replace a crooked coronation (where a single, favored candidate was
given debate questions in advance) with an honest, give-everyone-a-fair-chance
celebration of democracy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We have two
months to set the table for that celebration.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>I say, let’s call this the “Spring Fever” period.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Let’s fall in love with our candidates.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Let’s build them all up, so that ultimately,
for the good of the country and the world, at least one of them will not fall
down.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-43855003288090040372019-04-13T09:33:00.001-07:002019-04-13T09:33:17.789-07:00Relections After Another Netanyahu Victory
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Everyone who associates themselves with a religious
faith surely takes pride in its “values.”<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>In fact, we tend to identify our faith above all else with the values preached
and exemplified by our greatest role models. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At least that’s the case with Judaism.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">My people have plenty of catch phrases to remind ourselves
of what “Jewish values” mean. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We speak of
Rabbi Akiva and how he taught that the Torah’s fundamental principle was “Love
your neighbor as yourself.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And we often cite Rabbi Hillel, who when asked
to summarize the entire Torah while standing on one foot, replied “What is hateful
to you, do not do to your neighbor. All the rest is commentary.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Now go study.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In both cases, these rabbis place central
importance on how human beings should treat one another.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>More than our observance of religious ritual
or even our devotion to God, that’s what defines our commitment to the Jewish
faith.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Whenever values are discussed, of course, there is
room for ambiguity.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In the above
examples, a debate could center on the word “neighbor.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In theory, if a person lives in a Jewish
community, their “neighbors” will tend to be fellow Jews.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So, taken literally, as long as we care for
our fellow Jews, we can disregard or even disdain gentiles and not run afoul of
the directives to be good to our neighbors.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But that’s not the way I’ve been taught.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>From parents and Jewish-school teachers alike, I’ve heard that the Jew
is obligated to take care of ALL people, and especially the most vulnerable,
regardless of their ethnic or religious backgrounds.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Such universalism is indeed mainstream
American-Jewish doctrine and has been for generations.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That’s
why so many of our parents and grandparents were attracted to socialism and
other left-leaning ideologies. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">When I grew up in the 60s, America had the largest
Jewish community in the world.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Our community
was also known for its overarching political liberalism.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In 1928, only 28 percent of Jews voted for Hoover
– and that was the election he won.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In
1932, Hoover’s total among Jews was 18%, and for the next four elections, the
Republican candidate did even worse.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Even in 1972, when Nixon won 49 states, McGovern had a +30% margin among
Jews. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Next year, in fact, will be the
100<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the last time that a Republican Presidential candidate
won 40% of the Jewish vote.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Over the
past 100 years, our community has become far more affluent, but no less
politically liberal.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Some might say that
we’ve been willing to vote against our own pecuniary interest in order to be
true to the “values” that defined our sense of identity.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">As children who cleaved to our sense of Jewish values,
my friends and I spoke about the nation of Israel in glowing and even heroic
terms.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Back then, Israel symbolized both
Jewish progressivism and an antidote to Jewish victimization.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This little country was started primarily by
secular socialists and other leftists.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They
gathered together in economic collectives known as Kibbutzim and for decades, their
progressive party (Labor) dominated every election.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>While most American Jews weren’t exactly historians,
one fact we did know was that when Israel became a state, its citizens
supported partitioning the land into two-states-for-two-peoples, but it was the
Palestinians who fought against such an outcome.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Decades after the creation of Israel, there
was still no “Occupation.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And even
after the Settlements began being built, we all assumed that Israel’s leaders would
support the existence of a Palestinian state as soon as they had a legitimate
partner for peace on the Palestinian side.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The problem, we assumed, was that enough Palestinians seemed hell bent on
crushing Israel and taking back the land for themselves that Israeli had no
choice but to watch their backs and build walls.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In one war after another, Arab States ganged
up on precious little Israel, and it practically took miracles for Israel to
survive, let alone to win these wars.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When
the Israeli army seized such strategic land as the Golan Heights, no American Jew
in their right mind would have begrudged Israel’s right to keep it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But we remained passionately committed to
Israel giving up the land necessary to create a viable two-state solution – one
state for our own people and another for our Palestinian “neighbors” who were also
victims in the arena of geopolitics and who for the most part are as innocent
as the Israelis.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That two-state commitment
became an integral manifestation of “Jewish values,” one that I and millions of
other American Jewish Zionists continue to hold dear and always will.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">American-Jewish values, you see, aren’t changing so
dramatically.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But Israel is.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Now its leaders have enacted the “Jewish Nation
State Law,” which stands for the principle that Israel is a nation state ONLY
for the Jewish people, rather than being a nation state for both the Jewish
people and for any gentiles (i.e., Palestinians) who happen to be citizens of
the nation.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>More significantly, its
Prime Minister now stands for the principle that all the Jewish Settlements in
the West Bank can legitimately be annexed by Israel – meaning that what would
remain of “Palestine” would be a small chunk of swiss cheese, one that couldn’t
possibly give rise to a “state” worthy of the term.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Honestly, though, what’s notable about Israel
these days isn’t just that it is led by people who appear to have given up on
the notion of Palestinian autonomy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s
that the citizens of Israel continue to vote for such leaders.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Frankly, just as the center-right movement in
America seems incapable of getting a majority of Jewish support, the
center-left movement in Israel seems equally incapable of winning
elections.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yes, they do just fine in and
around Tel Aviv. But in the hinterland and in Jerusalem?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The majorities there would rather vote in for
a fifth term a Prime Minister who has completely abandoned a two-state solution
and who is close to being indicted for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Better that guy than anyone who stands for the
same principles that the vast majority of American Jews would select. Houston,
we have a problem.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Speaking personally, I feel no modicum of alienation
from the Israeli people right now.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I
have never had problems knowing, respecting and loving right-wing Jews.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But what I’ve not had to wrap my arms around,
until recently, is that the world’s largest Jewish population (Israel overtook
the U.S. in that regard during my adult life) is becoming one of the most
right-wing democracies in the world.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I
cannot possibly relate to what plan the Netanyahu voters have in mind for the
Palestinians.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Are they expecting the
Palestinians simply to pack up and head for Jordan – sort of a Middle Eastern
Trail of Tears?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Or are these “majority”
voters reconciled to the Palestinians remaining in Israeli-controlled areas as
a stateless, impoverished underclass?<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Honestly, what is the vision and how do we get there? And how is this
possibly consistent with Jewish values? </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Actually, I can guess the answer to that last
question.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’ve read the Book of Joshua.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’ve seen the single-mindedness of God’s
alleged directive to the Hebrew people to seize the Promised Land by, among
other things, killing its inhabitants. Compared to Joshua and his troops, Bibi
Netanyahu is positively Gandhi-like in his treatment of the Palestinians.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What’s
more, I have heard many Jews over the years argue that the disputed land is
ours because we have the prior claim to it and thus the superior legal right to
it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>After all, we gave the Palestinians
the chance to divide it up and they chose instead to terrorize us and to fight
wars over the land; they lost, we won, and to the victor goes the spoils.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Some of the Jews I know who adopt that
attitude are otherwise progressive people who care deeply about the poor or infirm.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So I guess an argument can be made that this
view is consistent with “universalist” values.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But that argument would not be made by more than a small minority of
non-Jews throughout the world.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And it
would not be made by the vast majority of American Jews either.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So why, then, are most Israelis going to
polls and supporting political parties who trade in that sort of reasoning?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What has happened to Jewish values?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">These are questions that young American Jews are
surely going to ask in schools and summer camps throughout this nation.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They were asking them before this recent
election cycle, and now that the Jewish Nation State Law has been passed, the
Prime Minister has stated his willingness to annex all the Settlements, and his
alleged corruption has been exposed, young Jewish Americans will be raising
these questions at a fever pitch.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You’ll
forgive these young people if they wonder if their progressive teachers have
been feeding them a load of crap in suggesting that Jews are any more
altruistic or compassionate than anyone else.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>You’ll forgive them if they wonder if the term “Jewish values” has any meaning
at all.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And you’ll forgive them if they
wonder whether they have far more in common with American Episcopalians or Unitarian-Universalists
– or, for that matter, the so-called “Nones” – than they have with Israeli
Jews.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Such wondering is surely going to present an incredible
challenge to those of us who wish to see Judaism continue to flourish in America.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s a challenge that my Jewish friends and I
didn’t have to face back in the 60s, and yet many of our cohort still gave up
our Jewish identities and assimilated.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I
can only imagine what’s going to happen to my grandson’s generation.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Fortunately, though, I don’t have to worry about my
grandson himself – his mother is a rabbi and his parents will raise him
right.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They will explain that in truth,
the values of a religion are the values that the religion inspires in the minds
of all of its inhabitants.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So Jewish
values are my values, they’re Netanyahu’s values, and they’re the values of
everyone who identifies with the faith and is inspired by it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">It is incumbent on each of us to continue to study the
great works associated with our faith, to develop our values based on that
study, and to exemplify those values in our conduct.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If in doing so we seem out of step with the majority
of our people, so be it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There is enough wisdom in Judaism – and, for
that matter, in all the world’s great religions – to inspire free-thinking
individuals to find a set of values by which they can live their lives.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If you’re truly religious, you should have
the courage to stick to those values even when it appears you’re merely a voice
in the wilderness.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">So to those people in and around Tel Aviv who continue
to lose one national election after another, please hold your heads high and keep
on fighting.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Someday, you might find
yourselves in the majority again. And who knows?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe that’s when your country will dismantle
some of these imperialist settlements and make the kind of peace that honors
the Palestinians, your values, and mine.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-63464790227687248312019-04-07T09:20:00.002-07:002019-04-07T09:20:17.615-07:00Spring Comes to the Nation's Capital
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Last week’s blogpost contained a tribute to the
stately live oak of the South Carolina Lowcountry.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Today, I’m thinking instead about my own city
and its adopted favorite tree, the cherry.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Visitors to the Nation’s Capital understand early April to be the most glorious
time for a visit, both because of the weather and because of the cherry blossoms.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Guidebooks funnel these tourists to the Tidal
Basin of the National Mall, where cherry trees majestically line the perimeter.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But locals know there are better places to
appreciate the blossoms without even needing to go to Japan.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am speaking
of the narrow, winding streets in the suburbs where cherry trees form a canopy of
blossoms that engulf anyone who is blessed to walk or drive by.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I had the pleasure of taking such a stroll
this morning.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I was with my bichon,
Benny, who was just groomed yesterday.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His
fur and those flowers were a perfect match – Blonde on Blonde, as Bob Dylan
might say. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So fresh, so restful, so
bright … so un-Washington.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Forbes recently ranked Washington DC as the fourth
most stressful city in the United States.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But the three above us (L.A., N.Y., and Chicago) are all many times
larger.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So perhaps I can state the obvious
– pound-for-pound, we’re number one.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>People come here to enhance their career.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They find a job.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They go to work. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They stay at work – hour after hour after
hour.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They spend another hour or more
commuting home, either on a metro train where nobody smiles or among the nation’s
most congested roads.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When they get home
in the evening, they consume themselves with their addiction to that form of
mud-wrestling otherwise known as American politics.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Eventually, they start fantasizing about
moving away to someplace more bucolic – like just about anywhere.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">This past week was the beginning of baseball season,
which is definitely a major event in Washington D.C.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Gradually, we’ve been becoming a baseball
city – oh, not of the caliber of St. Louis, for example, but we’re not exactly
Miami either.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This past Tuesday evening,
we showed baseball fans all over the country that D.C. is a place to be reckoned
with.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Philadelphia was in town, and that
means that the Phillies’ Bryce Harper – who the Washington Nationals signed to
a rookie contract and who for years was the Nationals’ biggest star – was making
his first return to his former home town.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The Baseball Gods have ordained the etiquette that cities are supposed
to follow in situations like these.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>First,
Harper should get a video tribute from his old team, during which his former fans
should cheer him in appreciation for his years of loyal and glorious service to
the city.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Next, in his first at bat for
the visiting team, the home fans should give him one final standing ovation in
recognition of his past service.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And
then, in his second at-bat --and for as long thereafter as the mood feels right
-- his former fans should boo the roof off the stadium as soon as he enters the
batter’s box.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That’s the way it’s
supposed to work.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Well, here in (arguably) America’s most stressful
city, we made a little modification.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>From
the moment the Harper video tribute began, he was booed.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Relentlessly.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Tens of thousands of fans stood up and called him a traitor.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then, whenever it was time for him to hit or catch
a baseball, the boo-birds kept on chirping.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>That stadium was loud, and the people were nasty.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It was one big F-U to a guy in his mid-20s
whose sole offense was to manifest a desire to earn market wages, which the
owner of his former team wasn’t willing to pay.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>And here’s the funny thing about the whole episode: everyone in D.C. loved
it!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It wasn’t that we begrudge Bryce Harper
the right to earn $330 million in the next 13 years.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It was that we enjoyed witnessing so many
Washingtonians care so much about our city that they would scream bloody murder
against a man whose cardinal sin was to leave it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Does that sound strange to you?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Perhaps it should.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But I totally get while the local commentators
are universally glowing about Tuesday’s Boo-Fest.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It showed civic pride – in an odd way I
admit, but it was there nonetheless.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Washingtonians
are sick of hearing what a gross place this is, sick of being on all the wrong
lists (most stress, worst weather, most violence, etc.), and tired of watching
their sports teams lose all the time.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They’re
also done with seeing fans in other cities go crazy about their teams while
their own stadiums are filled largely with visiting fans or local transplants
who continue to root for the teams they grew up with.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Last year’s D.C. hockey team won the Stanley Cup,
and we all watched as loyal fans finally were rewarded after decades of
futility. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It reminded people that
Washington is as real and legit a place to be from as anywhere else. Strangely
enough, that was apparent from the energy behind those boos.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Of course, it’s stressful here.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Everyone knows that.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Everyone knows also that our weather stinks
in the summer and isn’t so great in the winter.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Everyone knows that this is a one-industry town that caters to hypocrites,
sycophants, and phonies who take themselves incredibly seriously.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Everyone knows that what stinks about D.C. tends
to be lasting and what’s great about D.C. tends to be ephemeral.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>(No sooner do you make a good friend then you
start having to listen to them talk about moving away. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Hell, even the cherry blossoms last only for two
weeks a year or less.) <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">But for one glorious night, none of that mattered. That’s
because tens of thousands of Washingtonians – and hundreds of thousands more
(like me) who were watching on TV – got to express our pride in our home
town.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And yes, we did it in a characteristically
crazy way: by booing relentlessly at the sight of a hardworking man who did nothing
wrong except move away from our city.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It
was one hell of a primal scream.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And it
was truly a tribute, only it wasn’t Bryce Harper who was being celebrated, but
rather having the loyalty to remain in your town, even if it’s as obviously
flawed and as often disgusting as Washington D.C.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">What?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Do you
think I’m being hyperbolic?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Do you think
D.C. is no more disgusting than any place else?<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Notwithstanding my loyalty to the old home town, I’ve got to admit that
this place can get downright ugly.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Only
a couple of days after the Harper-booing incident, we Washingtonians were
graced with a far more familiar kind of event.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>It took place in the “People’s House” – the chamber of the House of
Representatives.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There, Congresswoman
Debbie Dingell addressed her colleagues on behalf of a bill that would enhance
limits on guns for people who have been convicted of crimes involving domestic
abuse.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who wouldn’t support such a bill,
right?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who wants a man convicted of
beating his wife or stalking his ex-wife to carry a gun?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Well, click on this link, watch this video,
and you’ll hear a bunch of faceless Congresspeople boo Dingell as if she were Bryce
Harper leaving the on-deck circle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://ijr.com/debbie-dingell-nra-speech/"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://ijr.com/debbie-dingell-nra-speech/</span></a></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">I don’t know the names of the folks who did the booing.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But we can all guess.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They’re virtually all rich, white men whose
titles begin with the term “The Honorable.” <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And there
is nothing whatsoever appealing about their performance in booing Debbie Dingell.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Yeah, we Washingtonians know what kind of city we live
in. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We are even more aware of its
problems than any anti-Government curmudgeon from Kansas, Kentucky or Kalamazoo.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But we love our Cherry Blossoms, we love our
baseball team, and we love the fact that in this city, people care about politics
and public policy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That ultimately is
what unites all of us boo-birds – Nationals fans, Democratic Congresspeople,
Republican Congresspeople, you name it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No matter who you are, if you live in this
city, the stress will get to you and some of your neighbors will at times make
you sick.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yet there is also a bond here
that stems from the fact that friend or foe, we’re all in this thing
together.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No matter what side of the
aisle we occupy, we all care about the local industry – enough, in fact, that we’re
generally able to cope with the stresses and keep on fighting.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Every now and again, we even get to assemble
and let out a primal scream – together – knowing that tomorrow we’ll be back in
our respective corners fighting for our respective causes.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">So let’s celebrate the baseball season of 2019.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But let’s not kid ourselves – the real
sporting season of Washington D.C. begins in June.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For a local junkie like me, those debates can’t
come soon enough.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-88480906846341149262019-03-30T08:04:00.000-07:002019-03-30T08:04:03.109-07:00On Dignity <div class="MsoNormal">
Nearly every year at this time, I write and deliver and
essay inspired by the Jewish holiday of Purim.
This year’s essay focuses on the concept of dignity and why it is both
central to authentic religion and incredibly misunderstood by the society at
large. I think you’ll find it
interesting.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Here’s the essay: <a href="http://www.danielspiro.com/uploads/3/1/0/2/31022605/purim_2019.pdf">http://www.danielspiro.com/uploads/3/1/0/2/31022605/purim_2019.pdf</a></span><br />
<br />
Other Purim essays can be found on the Other Writings/Purim Essays page of my website, www.danielspiro.com. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-30679192990270801572019-03-23T05:00:00.001-07:002019-03-23T05:00:11.581-07:00Six Days<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It took the New Zealand Prime Minister all of six days
after a mass shooting incident to announce a ban on certain weapons of mass
destruction. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re talking about semi-automatic
rifles, bump stocks, even<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>high-capacity
magazines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Cabinet has already
agreed to rid the country of those scourges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As soon as the Kiwi Parliament reconvenes in April, their absolute
prohibition will be the law of the land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">New Zealand has endured only a single mass shooting
in the last 20 years, but that one was enough to bring lawmakers together on
behalf of common sense and the sanctity of human life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By contrast, in the past 20 years, we in
America have seen 18 shooting sprees resulting in ten or more deaths and eight
such sprees in the past four years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet
here, except for the soon-to-be-implemented ban on bump stocks, the federal
government doesn’t dare touch our guns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Semi-automatic weapons flood the landscape. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>High-capacity magazines rack up corpses in
droves. Meanwhile, mentally-fragile residents can buy these insane killing
tools without even needing to submit to a background check.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the leaders of our government?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They duck and cover – much like the children
at our schools during one of our increasingly common active shooter situations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the United States, whenever there is a mass
shooting, the face of the event quickly becomes the head of the National Rifle
Association – tough, macho, uncompromising, callous ... and victorious on
Capitol Hill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In New Zealand, we are
greeted instead by the face of a woman – equally tough, but also open-minded, empathetic,
and transparent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prime Minister Jacinda
Ardern is a mere 38 years old. Had she sought to be head of state in America,
we surely would have heard a million reasons why she is unqualified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Weak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wimpy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unpresidential.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just imagine her grieving in public as she
has done so often in the week after the recent massacre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The opposition party would mock her relentlessly
for being someone foreign adversaries would never fully respect or take
seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, Americans would
pine for the days of George W Bush, who after 9/11, expressed the desire to
“find out who did this and kick their ass.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ardern isn’t talking about kicking anyone’s ass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s simply mourning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And changing laws for the better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What is it about America and its obsession with
machismo?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that why we love guns so
much?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>why we insist on permitting every Tom, Dick
and Harry to own weapons that can take out scores of innocent people in a
single spree?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why can’t we appreciate
the strength behind feminine figures like Jacinda Ardern?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why can’t we appreciate that a lady who is
publicly mourning is far more dignified than a cowboy bent on revenge?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I know I sound jealous of people from places like
New Zealand or Scandinavia, where the values of femininity seem to be given more
respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The truth is, though, that I’m
a loyal American, one who takes tremendous pride in so many aspects of American
history and culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet I’m also
not deluded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes, you have to
recognize your own flaws, or those of your country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when you contemplate what it means to
live in a place that has never elected a woman as head of state, has become the
murder capital of the developed world, inures itself to hateful rhetoric from
the highest levels of Government, and is so fundamentally partisan that it has
trouble coming together even on common sense legislation, you find yourself
saying that Houston, we have a problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It understates the point to say that we haven’t been
electing women as President.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lately, we
haven’t even been electing short men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jimmy Carter was the last President who was 5’11” or shorter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was elected 43 years ago, before Ronald
Reagan touted the cowboy ethos and set the country on an economic path of haves
and have nots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Four years after Reagan
was first elected, he ran again – and this time, for the first time in history,
there was a woman on the ticket (albeit in the #2 slot).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That ticket came to be known,
unaffectionately, as “Fritz and Tits.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They won only a single state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In some respects, we’ve clearly made progress since
1984.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2016, a woman ran for President
and won the popular vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then again,
when it came to the all-important Electoral College, she lost to a political
novice who ran largely on a platform of tribalism and machismo, and who was
caught on tape boasting that as a celebrity, he can grab women “by the pussy.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In some respects, he was perceived as the lout
at the end of the bar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But his opponent
was perceived as an intense, uppity woman – and in much of America, that’s the
greater deal breaker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today in America, we have more women in political
office than ever before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many are in
Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some are even given a chance
to win the Presidency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s true that
none who seek the Democratic nomination is polling in the double digits (unlike
two men who would become octogenarians by the end of their first term), yet I suspect
that most of us believe that with the right personality, intelligence,
experience, and policy chops, a woman might actually win the prize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I also suspect that most of us believe
that the lane to victory is far, far wider for a man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stated differently, many a male American
political candidate has been made of Teflon when it comes to surviving scandals,
mistakes and limitations, whereas with a woman, it almost goes without saying
that they’re made of Velcro.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s the situation here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps it is different in New Zealand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the experience of seeing Jacinda
Ardern unify her country with sympathy, rather than hatred, may remind her
fellow citizens of what a wonderful choice they have made in a Prime
Minister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately, the world is
becoming a small place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ardern’s
compassion and courage are nearly as visible here as they are there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We might want to take note of what real
leadership looks like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now is not the time
to get jealous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it might be the time
to emulate greatness when we see it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-24392168400820531332019-03-16T05:50:00.001-07:002019-03-16T05:50:48.902-07:00The College-Admissions Fetish
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">For many people, the story about college admissions
that came to light this week centered on a legal scandal.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The Empathic Rationalist, however, is a
law-free zone, so I will have nothing to say about the scandal du jour.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What I would like to talk about instead is
the rat race that gave rise to this particular scandal.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Specifically, I’d like to draw an analogy
between the way our society approaches getting children into college and the
world of sports.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Imagine for a moment that a sports league declared
performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) legal.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Not just some PEDs, but all PEDs.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Hell, imagine that the league encouraged PED use -- for professional
athletes, for college athletes, for high school athletes, you name it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You’d expect many people to refuse to partake
in them, thinking that these drugs are dangerous to body and mind.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But those athletes presumably would have
trouble competing, because if there is one thing we sports fans have learned
over the years, it’s that PEDs work.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">In our hypothetical, that fact is hardly lost on the
athletic community.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So one by one, in
town after town, athletes would go to their local pharmacies and get themselves
on the juice.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Quickly, they’d find
themselves running faster, hitting harder, and remaining injury free (at least
in the short run).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It wouldn’t take long
before these PED users came to dominate their sport.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They’d fill the rolls of the All-Mets in high
school, the All-Americans in college, and the All-Stars in the pros.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>By contrast, those who were drug free would
end up sitting on the bench, or if they were really talented, perhaps they’d
attain the status of “role player” – you know, the utility infielder, long
snapper, or winger on the fourth line of a hockey team.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But the Hall of Famers, they’d all be
shooting up or drinking up ... at least until the point where their bodies fell
apart or they started contemplating suicide.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>You see, in this hypo, just like in the real world, PEDs will eventually
destroy the ones who use them.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Now let’s get back to the context of getting little
boys and girls into college in the real world.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>When I look at our society, I see that process as very similar to the hypothetical
I just described.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In well-to-do towns
like mine (Bethesda, MD), it may be the rule, rather than the exception, for
parents to obsess about getting their children into the very “best” of colleges.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And so they essentially give their kids a
childhood on steroids, one that is encouraged by the admissions departments of
the colleges themselves.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Some of these
kids start studying for their so-called “Aptitude” tests when they are 11 or 12,
perhaps with the help of SAT tutors or prep classes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Other kids are pushed, relentlessly, into the
most advanced math classes possible by parents who are practically doing their
homework with them, much like Willie Shoemaker used to whip his race horse down
the home stretch.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>These parents also become
obsessed with finding “extra-curricular activities” at which their progeny can
excel and which are valued by colleges.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>So, for example, instead of encouraging little Junior to play the
guitar, an instrument he might possibly enjoy playing in rock bands, on
campouts, or pretty much anywhere, they buy him a bassoon in the hope that he
can become one of the best damned bassoon players of his cohort and thereby
fill an elite college’s need for that rarest of musical breeds, the virtuoso orchestral
bassoonist.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">For the PED families, this approach to starting out
in life essentially means that their kids will not have a childhood.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Instead, they will become soulless rat-racers.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>On paper, they’ll look pristine with their
4.0s, 1600s, and demonstrated excellence at some sport, musical instrument, or
other avocational vehicle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But when you
talk to them, you’ll quickly realize that they’re neither interested nor
interesting.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They’re just unappealing machines.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">And then there are the families who aren’t buying
into the whole rat race and who, for one reason or another, are allowing their
children to grow up ... as children.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>You know, normal kids.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The ones
who often have time on their hands to day dream, play computer games, run
around the backyard with other “underachieving” friends, etc.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>These days, such kids might find themselves
at college too.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But it won’t be the “top”
colleges.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And they won’t come to see
themselves as “top” students.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They’ll be
the butt of the joke when they go on the road trip to watch their college team
play at one of the PED colleges, whose crowd chants “That’s alright, that’s OK,
you’re gonna pump our gas someday.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">This approach to childhood is insane.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It isn’t fair to the kids who tried to enjoy
their childhood, only to find themselves being pushed aside as mediocrities.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And it isn’t fair to the PED abusers who gain
admittance to Harvard, Yale or Princeton, only to later realize that they’ve
lost their humanity in the process.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Is
there any question that this epitomizes a negative sum game?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But what in God’s name do we do about
it?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>How do we stop the rats from running
around in their mazes for one generation after another with no end in sight?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">To me, the most obvious suggestion is to get rid of
the standardized tests – those phony symbols of meritocracy that eat up so much
of our children’s psyches.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Instead, I
would suggest that the college emphasize the interview process and hire
interviewers who can spot genuine warmth, curiosity and courage.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Secondly, colleges admissions departments need
to stop rewarding over-programmed kids, who clearly are so busy building their
resumes that they haven’t had the time to build their souls.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Thirdly, colleges need to stop providing
information about their schools to those organizations who attempt to rank
colleges, like that God-forsaken U.S. News and World Report.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If not for those rankings, the elitism that has
fueled all this insanity wouldn’t be nearly as intense.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But perhaps the most important thing is for
all of us – from college admissions departments, to high school administrators,
to parents, to students – to encourage kids to be just that: kids.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The truth is that you can lead a remarkably
productive life with an education from a non-elite state college and a
tragically unproductive life with an education from an Ivy League school.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Given that fact, it makes no sense for us to
destroy what ought to be some of the best years of our lives worrying about
whether we’re heading to one college as opposed to another.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And it’s clearly not fair to those who lack
either the opportunity or the inclination to jump into this rat race to make
them feel like mediocrities or losers in the so-called “meritocratic” society
we claim to be creating.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Anyone who
thinks that merit can truly be measured by an SAT score or a child’s
willingness to devote at least hours a day to practicing a musical instrument is
definitely on drugs.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And they’re not
wisdom-enhancing drugs, I can tell you that.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Folks, this shouldn’t be difficult.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The fixes to this mess are right in front of
our eyes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>All we have to do is wake up,
smell the roses, and let our kids do the same.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-76736582810416361742019-03-09T07:53:00.002-08:002019-03-09T07:53:25.520-08:00Fighting for the Right to be a Religious Progressive
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Something very disturbing happened yesterday.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It should have been a big news item.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yet since it didn’t have anything to do with
Donald Trump, it was ignored on these shores.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The print version of the New York Times didn’t mention it once.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nor did the Washington Post.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I only know about it because it was the topic
of my rabbi’s sermon last evening at synagogue.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>The rabbi had announced prior to the service that we would be
celebrating International Women’s Day by saluting the Women of the Wall, a
group that for the past three decades has struggled for the right of women to pray
aloud at the Western Wall in Jerusalem holding Torah scrolls and adorned in
traditional prayer attire.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>True to form, hundreds of these women showed
up at the Wall yesterday expecting to do their thing, when they were met by mobs
of literally thousands of Ultra-Orthodox teenagers and young adults who had
come from all over the country to stop the outrage.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Violence ensued, a couple people were
injured, and the police watched with disturbing passivity. Ultimately, after
the Women of the Wall left the scene in order to protect themselves, the police
blamed them for the confrontation.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It
was the praying women’s use of loudspeakers, rather than the ultra-Orthodox’s
use of violence, that was deemed especially offensive by the authorities.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Like so many things that happen in the world these
days, yesterday’s skirmish in Judaism’s holiest site was shocking but not
surprising.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Any Israeli observer has
long ago realized that Orthodox Judaism has been given a virtual monopoly over
religious life, and the ultra-Orthodox in particular enjoy special
privileges.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>To be sure, most Israelis aren’t especially
religious.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A 2015 Gallop Poll found that
nearly two-thirds of Israelis claimed either to be “not religious” or “convinced
atheists.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But to the extent Israeli
Jews do partake in religion, what they’re imbibing comes almost exclusively from
Orthodox rabbis.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and
Renewal Judaism are moribund in the Holy Land.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>So it only stood to reason that when it came time for the Women of the
Wall to stake their claim to gender equality, they were met by a far greater
number of Ultra-Orthodox zealots.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Yeshiva rabbis could simply tell their teenage students to get on the
bus, go to the Kotel (the Wall), and make sure that feminists aren’t able to violate
the faith’s traditional prohibitions.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>These include women wearing prayer shawls, praying loudly enough to be
heard by men, reading collectively from a Torah scroll and praying together with
men without a physical barrier to separate them.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Apparently, it isn’t enough for the
Ultra-Orthodox community in Israel to keep their own synagogues pure.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They feel the need to ensure that nobody else
practices Judaism unless they, too, follow the “rules.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Why do fundamentalist Jews have such power in
Israel?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One reason is because secular
leaders need support from multiple political parties to form a leading
coalition in Parliament, so they make a deal with the ultra-Orthodox parties: “you
join our political coalition and we’ll give you control over religious life.” <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But there is another, even more important
reason: we live in a world where, increasingly, people are dividing into two
attitudes when it comes to religion:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>(a)
fundamentalist and (b) thoroughly apathetic.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Since the apathetic people could care less what happens inside a church
or a holy site, when it comes to religion these days, the energy is increasingly
on the side of the fundamentalists.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Don’t believe me?<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Just look at another recent, underreported story.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’m referring to the decision on February 26<sup>th</sup>
of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church to pass the so-called “Traditional
Plan,” which reaffirmed the prohibition of gay marriage and the ordination of
LGBTQ clergy and asserted that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible
with Christian teaching.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Methodism is
America’s second largest Protestant denomination, with over seven million
Americans, most of whom I suspect opposed the Traditional Plan.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But the fateful vote of February 26<sup>th</sup>
involved representatives from all over the world.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And while the American delegations may have
been pretty evenly split, that wouldn’t appear to be the case for the delegations
from places like Africa and the Philippines.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Moreover, the victory of the Traditional Plan was made possible by the
fact that the membership of the United Methodist Church in America has been
shrinking substantially over time.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So
even if I’m right that most American Methodists voted with the minority, the
overall size of the delegation was too small to defeat the more fundamentalist
elements of the church in a worldwide vote of the movement.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">It’s not hard to figure out what is going on.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Fundamentalism offers a simple, comforting
answer to all our deepest questions. Trust in the Great Supernatural Law-Maker
in the Sky and the handbook of right and wrong that He graciously has bestowed
upon us.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Follow that handbook and you will enjoy
eternal bliss.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Otherwise, you will
undergo a painful second-guessing process throughout your life on earth and perhaps
an even worse experience in the hereafter.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>As for Non-Religious Secularism, it offers an alternative that is nearly
as comforting.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Play hard.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Work hard.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Do both. Or simply relax.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But whatever
you choose to do, you can do so guilt-free and armed with the knowledge that
the entire domain of religion is just a bunch of ca-ca.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So enjoy your absolute freedom!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Superficially, those paths are polar opposites.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But truly, they’re quite similar.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Both rest on an appeal to simplicity and a
life without cognitive dissonance.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Both
profess to be the path to maximizing one’s own happiness and minimizing one’s
own pain.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And finally, both offer a path
with literally billions of fellow-travelers along the way.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">By contrast, the path of liberal religion -- the one
preferred by those Women of the Wall or the LGBTQ rights advocates in the
Methodist Church – offers none of those blessings.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Liberal
religious leaders can’t pretend that their path is the easy one here on
earth.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nor can they pretend to be
offering eternal bliss in the afterlife.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>For that matter, many of them refuse to preach about a God who is
created in the image of the human ideal.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What they can offer is a life of
struggle, of meaning, and of service -- a life modelled by such figures as
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel, neither of whom spent his
days in the lap of luxury or lived to see his 70<sup>th</sup> birthday.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I have no crystal ball.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I can’t tell you whether recent trends will
change and liberal religion will catch a second wind in the popularity
department.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What I can tell you,
however, is that there will always remain a number of us who are devoted to it --
whether in the trappings of Judaism, Christianity or any other faith.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It is not for me to proselytize my devotion
to liberal religion and “convert” others to that frame of mind.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But it is for me to assert the right of
people to live a progressively religious life if they so choose.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So here’s to those Women of the Wall who keep
on fighting for gender equality in Judaism.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>And here’s to those gay Methodists who keep on fighting to get married
and join the clergy, notwithstanding the existence of some pretty homophobic
verses in Scripture. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>May you realize
that you will never be alone.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For liberal
religious people may not currently number in the billions, but we still number
in the millions.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And I for one have no intention
to get off of this path, no matter how lonely or frustrating it can be at
times.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-37841534829827799742019-03-02T08:33:00.001-08:002019-03-02T08:34:28.876-08:00Reflections on Democracy<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">For many people throughout the world, the idea of “Israeli
Democracy” is an oxymoron.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But this past
week, Israel did something suggestive of a very healthy democracy – its Attorney
General, Avichai Mandelblit, who is ideologically compatible with its Prime
Minister, publicly recommended only weeks before the upcoming elections that Prime
Minister Netanyahu be indicted.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No
indictment will be filed until after Netanyahu is given an opportunity to state
his case before Mandelblit.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But
ultimately, Mandelblit will be the one to make the decision, and we know where
he stands at present. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">This is not the first time a sitting Israeli Prime
Minister has been the subject of a legal scandal.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It was just such a scandal that brought down
the Administration of Ehud Olmert, who served as Prime Minister in 2008.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Notably, Olmert ended up serving 16 months in
prison for his criminal activity.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Clearly,
Israel is a country that takes very seriously the principle that every
individual, even the heads of state, are accountable to the public and to the
rule of law.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Mandelblit’s announcement this week made me think
about the essence of democracy and how it can be evaluated in so many different
ways.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In some respects, Israel looms
large as a democracy; in others, it falls far short.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This past July, for example, Israel enacted
its “Nation-State” law, which cemented some very profound ways in which Israel
extends preferences to Jews over gentiles. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The United States, my own country, has a very
proud and comparatively ancient tradition of democracy, and yet this tradition
is not without gaping holes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>On the very
same day that Mandelblit was recommending the indictment of his nation’s
leader, I was touring the Smithsonian Museum of African-American History and
Culture.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Needless to say, I got more
than a whiff of the way the leaders of my own country, while waxing eloquent
about their devotion to democracy, hypocritically treated one race of people as
truly sub-human – an affront that makes the worst of Israel’s abuses look
benign by comparison. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">As an American, when I think about the moments in
which I was proudest of our own democracy, my attention inevitably turns back
to the summer of 1974.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I was a rising 10<sup>th</sup>
grader and deeply riveted by the hearings of the House Judiciary Committee and
its consideration of whether to recommend the impeachment of President
Nixon.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When I look back on Elizabeth
Holtzman, Peter Rodino, Father Robert Drinan, Paul Sarbanes, John Conyers and Charlie
Rangel – they were truly heroes to me.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>That’s because they were all Democrats, that was my party, and they were
leading the prosecution of a corrupt President.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But now that I’ve aged a bit, I realize that the true heroes weren’t so
much the Committee’s 21 Democrats but its 17 Republicans, who opened their
hearts and minds to the facts of the case and ultimately voted – unanimously –
to submit three articles of impeachment to the full house against their party’s
leader and the nation’s President.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Those
Republicans put country before party -- just like Mandelblit did this past
Thursday in his own country.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">At some point in my life, I came to conclude that you
can largely judge the health of a democracy by how willing its citizens are to
buck their party’s leaders when the circumstances so warrant. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>To me, that is just another way of asking
whether we view ourselves as Democrats and Republicans first and foremost, or whether
we see ourselves as Americans.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Sometimes
it is critically important to be loyal to your party; I get that.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If one party is playing rough, then perhaps
the other needs to do the same just to maintain some semblance of equity.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But that principle is hardly relevant to the
situation that the House Judiciary Committee faced in 1974, or to the situation
Mandelblit faced this past week.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They
saw abuses being perpetrated by their party’s leaders, and they could either
bury their heads in the sand or honor their oaths of office.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Thankfully, they chose the latter path.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Near the end of the Clinton Administration, I
remember another scandal consuming my country, and this time it was associated
with the leader of my own party, President Clinton.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Looking back at the so-called “Monica
Lewinsky Scandal,” the facts about the President’s behavior were hardly in
dispute.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The only question was what to
make of them.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>On the Democratic side,
everyone acknowledged that the President’s conduct was inappropriate.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yet with few exceptions, they seemed willing
to condone it – or at least they appeared that way to me.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For the first (and last) time in my life, I
found myself watching Fox News more often than the other Cable News networks
because I agreed more with what the Republicans were saying about the scandal
than the Democrats.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No, I didn’t support
impeachment, but I had hoped the President would resign and was rather appalled
by the way Democrats trivialized the significance of his misconduct. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I felt, in short, like the Democrats had
failed the test passed in 1974 by the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee
or last week by Attorney General Mandelblit.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">In early-March 1999, I gave a speech to a few dozen
people that discussed precisely why I felt that the President’s behavior was so
profoundly disturbing under the circumstances.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>You can find a transcript of the relevant comments at the following
link, beginning on page 9:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="http://www.danielspiro.com/uploads/3/1/0/2/31022605/purim99.pdf"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.danielspiro.com/uploads/3/1/0/2/31022605/purim99.pdf</span></a></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Was I right in being so tough on President
Clinton?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Should I have taken a more laissez-faire
attitude about his sex life?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In
hindsight, I would agree that reasonable people can be found on both sides of
this issue.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But what’s important is not
so much that Mandelblit interpreted the law correctly in recommending indictment,
or that the Republicans who favored the impeachment of Nixon were right in
their legal analysis, or that I was right in hoping Clinton would resign in 1999
-- what’s important is that when it comes to evaluating the conduct of our own
leaders, we put party aside and country first, or at least we try to do so.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">A lot had changed from 1974 to 1999 in America.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This country became far more polarized during
that quarter century.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In the twenty
years since, its polarization has become even worse.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So, I ask you: how strong is our democracy?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Are we an exemplar of a mature republic, with
a sufficiently free and healthy public sphere as to give rise to human passions
and the political factions that inevitably result from them?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Or are have we instead morphed into two ideologically
incompatible peoples sharing the same land and fighting our wars in the ballot
box every two years, with the spoils going to whoever happens to win the most
recent election?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe that is the situation
at present, but it doesn’t have to describe our future.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I look forward to the day where both parties
will have plenty of free-thinking mavericks who follow the truth wherever it
leads and aren’t afraid of taking on the leaders of their party, whether they
are in the White House, the People’s House, or on the God-damned radio.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-48207252230744965802019-02-23T14:09:00.003-08:002019-02-23T14:09:32.939-08:00Taking Stock in the 2020 Presidential Campaign -- An Early Look
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Forty-seven percent.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>That’s the proportion of polled Americans, according to Nate Silver, who
do not disapprove of President Donald Trump’s performance.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yes, I just committed a cardinal sin of
emphasizing a double negative.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But just
think about what that first sentence signifies.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>If after 25 months of Donald Trump’s presidency, you don’t disapprove of
it, the high likelihood is that you’d consider supporting him in 2020.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>President Trump has had one humiliating defeat
after another – including most recently a 35 day Government Shutdown with
nothing to show for it – yet he’s still at 47% in the “I don’t disapprove”
category. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And that doesn’t even account
for the “guilty secret pleasure” theory that many people may be afraid to admit
to pollsters that they like Trump but will nevertheless check his name in the
privacy of their own voting booth.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If Democrats aren’t scared, they should be.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">As was demonstrated in 2016, you don’t have to
approve of a candidate in order to vote for them.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You can simply disapprove of the opponent
more.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That is why a Presidential campaign
is often a war of attrition, and no institution is better at destroying the
good name of its opponents than the Republicans.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They
couldn’t destroy the candidacies of the Democrats’ two political superstars of
the past forty years – Obama and Bill Clinton – but damned if they haven’t
succeeded against literally every other Democratic nominee.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Just consider the facts.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The GOP turned rock-solid Walter Mondale into a dour
“Eat Your Peas’ Democrat,” and he lost every state but his own.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Next, they took on the architect of the
so-called “Massachusetts Miracle,” Michael Dukakis, and they Willie Hortoned him
into oblivion.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>(I especially appreciate
seeing a photo of the man in a tank, which the Republicans quickly used to make
Governor Dukakis look like an even more absurd version of the Great Gazoo from
the Flintstones.)<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then, after Bill
Clinton’s two terms, the Democrats served up future Nobel Peace Prize Winner Al
Gore.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He could have dramatically changed
world history by doing battle with climate change.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Instead, the Republicans ridiculed him as “AlGore”
the fraudulent robot who took credit for other people’s work.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When the laughter was over, Gore couldn’t
even carry his own state.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In 2004, the
Dems ran a real war hero, John Kerry, against a chicken hawk who got us into an
endless debacle in Iraq based on false intelligence. So what did the GOP
do?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They “Swift Boated” the war hero, successfully
lampooned him as an effete, blue-blooded wind-surfer, and gave their own
candidate the popular vote victory he lacked the first time.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Finally, after two terms of Obama, we
witnessed the circus known as the Presidential Campaign of 2016. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That’s when everyone was treated with an
endless dose of references to “Crooked Hillary” and chants of “Lock Her
Up.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No, President Trump didn’t win the
popular vote; he lost it by millions.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But damned if he didn’t take the Electoral College by 74 votes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In baseball, the only thing that really
matters are runs scored, not base runners; in Presidential Politics, the game
is all about Electoral College votes, and Donald Trump won over 300 of them.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He is not to be taken lightly as a candidate
in 2020.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Democrats, in short, need to ensure that they don’t
repeat the big mistake of 2016 and get cocky about their chances.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The nominee can hardly expect a walk in the
park in the fall of 2020.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And we, as
voters, must be aware that some nominees lose their electability because they’re
viewed either as overly leftist (and hence unable to compete for the “Reagan
Democrats” who showed up for Clinton and Obama) or overly centrist or
corporatist (and hence, like Hillary, unappealing to those progressives who
consider voting for the Green Party or simply sitting out elections).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">So what we do?<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>My current thinking is that we aim for the sweet spot.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Find a person who will appeal to the progressive
wing of the party, which is where the enthusiasm is centered, but won’t easily
be dismissed as a socialist.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Find a
person who is a preacher of profound transformational reforms (not a Senator
pothole) but doesn’t come across as a pie-in-the-sky idealist or a
pander-to-the-progressives phony.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And
most importantly, find someone who is charismatic enough that s/he can survive
the inevitable attacks when they do come.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>(Contrast Reagan and Obama, who were made of Teflon when it comes to attacks,
to Dukakis and Kerry, who were made of Velcro.)</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Truly, it’s impossible for a Democrat to appeal to everyone.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s also impossible to avoid political
gaffes or to have the requisite experience for this job without having taken
regrettable positions in the past.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So,
in talking about the “sweet spot,” let’s not worry about finding perfection,
because we won’t even come close to that.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Let’s just look at the matter viscerally.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who does your gut tell you would make the
most effective leader for our time?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who
seems to have the charisma to appeal to a wide audience within the party, and
won’t be as much of a laughing stock outside of it?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who is hardest to demonize?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who is easiest to like?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who is most likely to get stuff done – big stuff.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">For me, I find myself asking the following: who has
the potential to inspire a movement to: (a) <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>elect the kind of Democratic majority Obama
had in 2009 (which makes everything else I’m going to talk about more possible),
(b) fight climate change in a huge way and not just tinker around with it, (c)
bring back the level of economic equity we had before Reagan upset the apple
cart, and (d) get some common sense gun laws so that we all can feel like we’re
living in a sane country.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">When I think about these issues at this point in
time, I see Kirsten Gillibrand and Corey Booker and I don’t notice anyone
talking about them; it’s as if they’re not even running.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I see Amy Klobuchar doing a nice job of being
inoffensive to swing voters, but I don’t see her thinking big enough to inspire
the base.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I look at a pair of candidates
like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and feel confident that they will take
on the above causes in a sweeping away.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But
when I think about Kamala Harris, I think that not only will she fight hard for
those same causes, but she might be more effective in doing so – and she’ll
wear far more Teflon in the process.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So
far, at least, I think her ability to communicate stands alone.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She is charismatic and figures to be likeable
to pretty much everyone other than the most sexist and racist among us.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She comes across on the campaign trail as
intense yet joyous.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She’s smart and
thinks well on her feet. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And, if
elected, she would be both the first woman and first woman of color ever to win
the Presidency.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Just from a sheer
ethnicity standpoint, she would appeal to African Americans, East Indian
Americans and, through her husband, Jewish Americans.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Oh
sure, there’s plenty of time for her to put her foot in her mouth.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In fact, she’s already done that up to a
point with her non-nuanced comments on universal health care.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yet you can fix that problem with a bit of
coaching.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You can’t coach charisma and
widespread appeal – or at least not successfully.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Harris, from all appearances, is a
natural.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">During the upcoming months, Donald Trump will surely
have his good weeks and his awful weeks.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He’ll be counted out many times, just like everyone counted him out in
2016.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Some folks simply assume he’ll be
impeached and convicted; others figure he won’t bother to run again.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Me?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’m
assuming he’ll be a willing and “electable” candidate no matter who he
faces.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But right now, relative to
previous election cycles, I’m liking the list of contenders on the Democratic
side, and I’m especially liking the rollout of Kamala Harris.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So,
while I don’t plan on being cocky, I look forward to next fall’s battle royale
without any fear.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The stable of talented
Democrats is large enough and the lessons of 2016 vivid enough that I expect my
party to be ready to fight a smart campaign led by an excellent candidate.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe in 10 years we’ll be talking about a
third political genius that the party has given us in recent decades – and this
time, maybe the “genius” won’t simply be great at campaigning or triangulating
but will actually implement profound progressive changes in our society and our
world.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Think big.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-77221374339946399972019-02-17T05:39:00.001-08:002019-02-17T05:39:22.745-08:00Some Very Fine People on Both Sides<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m
sure you recognize the title of this post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is the infamous phrase used by President Trump in the aftermath of
the August 2017 White Nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia – the one
where the marchers chanted such monstrosities as “Jews will not replace us” and
“Blood and Soil.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, the phrase is
commonly used to mock the President for suggesting that not only the group that
protested the march but also the marchers themselves included some “very fine
people.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many saw the President as using
a dog whistle, indicating that even though he may not personally approve of all
the beliefs of the White Nationalists, he sure as hell wants their votes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
this post, I’d like to talk about two other groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As with the folks in Charlottesville, their members
flat out dislike each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Personally,
I tend to oppose the positions of both groups, but my goal in this post isn’t
to mock either one, but instead to preach compassion for both.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quite literally, I’d like to suggest that
these two groups, despite having plenty of closed minded bigots and hate mongers
in their midst, also have some “very fine people.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Faint praise?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Low bar?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet for all I’ve done in the past to
criticize their positions, allow me to dedicate this one post to explaining why
good people can legitimately align themselves with either group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am referring to the American Israel Public
Action Committee (AIPAC) and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
impetus for this endeavor began with the statements by a freshman
Congresswoman, Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First,
Omar tweeted that American support for Israel was “all about the
Benjamins.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, asked to clarify what
she meant, she responded with one word:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“AIPAC!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">My
reaction to these tweets was visceral and negative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reflexively, I went on Facebook and offered
the following response:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<span style="background: white;">To Congresswoman Ilhan Omar -- there are plenty of reasons
to love Israel and Zionism that don't involve being paid by AIPAC. Many of us
who are proud Zionists don't even support AIPAC, and many who do support AIPAC
have legitimate concerns about Israeli security in the event it made the kind
of concessions that some of us would like it to make. Sadly, constant Israel
bashing from the left (see, e.g., BDS) is one of the things that fuels fears
throughout Israel, thereby un</span><span class="textexposedshow"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">dermining the progressives in
that country and contributing to the building of more and more settlements. Do
you want a two-state solution or are you seriously expecting that the Jews will
voluntarily give up their state without casualties of Biblical proportions? Why
don't you talk about that issue and the basis for your opinion, instead of
offering lazy, one-sided rhetoric?”</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Fortunately,
this freshman Congresswoman swiftly and unequivocally apologized after
representatives of both parties schooled her for her comments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever was in her heart and mind at the
time she made the statements, it makes sense for America to accept her apology
and assume (until proven otherwise) that she was sincere in learning more about
the history of anti-Semitism and why she struck a chord with those
comments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what I’d like to do is to build
on my own statement about AIPAC, because it is not often that I publicly seek
sympathy for that organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Omar’s
tweets reminded me of how vital it is that Israel has at least some trusted
allies outside of her borders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lord
knows that J-Street, for its many virtues, has spent much more time over the
years criticizing Israel than praising it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>AIPAC, by contrast, represents Israel’s cheerleading squad in the United
States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes, that’s exactly what
Israel needs ... and deserves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Consider
that outside of Israel and the United States, this world is 0.03% Jewish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That amounts to roughly one out of every 3000
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Israel was created by the United
Nations at a unique time, when all but the vilest anti-Semites felt horrified about
the Nazi Holocaust and wanted to do something kind for those Jews in Europe and
elsewhere who survived it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately,
U.N. backing was hardly enough to ensure its survival; the fledgling nation of
Israel needed to defeat many larger nations simply in order to survive. Less
than 30 years later, the Jewish State having valiantly survived one existential
military crisis after another, the U.N. General Assembly voted by more than two
to one that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These facts are not lost on the members of
AIPAC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor are AIPAC supporters unaware
of the Covenant of Hamas (the organization that now controls the Gaza Strip),
which calls for Islam to “obliterate” Israel, or the various hateful statements
of the leadership of Iran, whose former President not only denied the Holocaust
but suggested that “Israel must be wiped off the map.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is precisely what the world had done to
the Jewish State for the 1900 years prior to the creation of modern
Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can better believe that the members
of AIPAC are far from ignorant about the centuries of anti-Semitism in Europe,
where Jews were blamed for being economically rapacious, power-grubbing,
murderous, and concerned only about the letter of the Biblical law rather than
its spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As
AIPAC’s devotees can also tell you, it took fully 3 ½ decades for the
Palestinian Liberation Organization to recognize Israel’s right to exist in
peace and to reject the strategy of “violence and terrorism.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As recently as this decade, the Palestinian
Authority operated a Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund, which paid cash to the
families of Palestinians who were involved in terrorist attacks against
Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not surprisingly, Hamas operates
a separate “pay for slay” fund of its own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even now, I am unaware of any Palestinian organization that recognizes
Israel’s right to exist as a “Jewish State.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In fact, while many Palestinians express their willingness to accept a
two-state solution, I have found little enthusiasm among Palestinians for such
an outcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s more, I suspect that many
Palestinians who would willingly accept “two states for two peoples” see that
result as a temporary measure that ultimately will give way to a single,
primarily-Arab state occupying all of present-day Israel, Gaza and the West
Bank.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
you consider all of the above, is it any wonder that so many AIPAC supporters
think that the two-state solution is a pie-in-the-sky idea?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have lost faith that Israel has a
partner for peace that would ensure a permanent and secure Jewish State on
Israel’s side of the border.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As for me, I refuse to give up the two-state
dream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the Jewish world should
be advocating far more concessions and extending many more olive branches to
the Palestinians than AIPAC supporters have been willing to offer on behalf of
that dream – the one known as true peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I’m not going to demonize
all AIPAC supporters just because they’re less patient or more cynical than I
am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I refuse to attribute their
positions simply to anti-Arab bigotry or Jewish greed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They make legitimate points that every friend
of peace needs to take seriously.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Comparatively
speaking, it is more difficult for me to defend BDS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The focus of BDS is to boycott Israel (and
only Israel) as well as the products of her companies, divest from any holdings
in Israel, and work to persuade other countries to stop trading with Israel and
expel the Jewish State from international organizations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In short, the BDS movement seeks to turn
Israel into an international pariah. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly,
the idea of singling out the Jewish State for such treatment infuriates me for
the same reasons that Omar’s tweets got under my skin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For centuries, anti-Semites have unjustly
singled out the Jews in discriminatory ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But that was then, and this is now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For all my opposition to BDS, the spirit of fairness requires me to
acknowledge that one doesn’t have to be an anti-Semite to support that movement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">BDS,
at its worst, comes from a place of bigotry and bullying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How easy must it feel in so many countries to
wage a campaign of hatred against the Jewish State and on behalf of a group of
oppressed Muslims and Christians in a world where Muslims alone outnumber Jews
by well over 100 to 1?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, BDS, at
its best, comes from a place of understandable desperation and an unwillingness
to accept perpetual war and Palestinian statelessness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Increasingly, Israel is losing its
progressive base when it comes to the Palestinian Question, and the ruling
coalition there seems to have abandoned any pretense of concern for the goal of
two-states-for-two-peoples.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In West
Jerusalem and throughout much of the nation, complacency rules the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as most Americans shrug at the crisis of
climate change en route to buying another gas guzzling vehicle, most Israelis
shrug at the notion that anything can be done to create a viable Palestinian
state without risking Israel’s security in the process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So when right-wing Israelis clamor for more
territory and seek to build communities in the West Bank, Israeli leaders take
the path of least resistance – they offer some amount of concessions to the
settler movement and ignore the fact that each settlement makes a two-state
solution more and more difficult to achieve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Stated
simply, the dominant perspective in Israel regarding the Palestinians appears
to be that the status quo might not be perfect, but it’s as good as it’s going
to get.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why politicians like
Netanyahu would rather turn their attention to other topics (like the Iranian
threat) and treat the Palestinians more like pests than like partners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
Palestinians are not termites or mosquitos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They are people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have a
right to a state like anyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
you will forgive the advocates of BDS for reacting to Israeli complacency with
a sense of urgency and desperation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>BDS
is not a violent movement. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quite the
contrary, it abhors violence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor does it necessarily entail
Jew-bashing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, in theory, BDS
could even be advocated by a Zionist who has decided that the only kind of love
that will shake off the complacency is tough love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most supportable principle of BDS is that
something outside-the-box needs to be done to get Israel to stop building
settlements and start talking about concessions for a Palestinian State –
because nothing inside-the-box seems to be working.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anti-BDS
liberals can whine all they want about the settlements, but such whining hasn’t
had any effects, the argument continues, so why not try BDS as a last resort? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, BDS advocates contend, we’ll
never have Palestinian autonomy (i.e., justice) unless their Israeli overlords
are forced by external pressures to get off their high horses and start
negotiating like peers and not masters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These pressures can take one of two forms: violence or BDS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of the two, BDS is infinitely
preferable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or so goes the argument.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
have already devoted an entire blogpost to all the reasons why I oppose
BDS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, many of my other posts
over the years signal my profound disagreements with AIPAC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But today, I’ll spare you those points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, I come to you with a request.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether you disagree with one of these groups
or both, try to have a little tolerance for what the best people in these
organizations are trying to say, for we are talking about a predicament that is
as intellectually vexing as it is emotionally gut-wrenching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this case, there really are very fine
people on both sides of the divide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
not suggesting that we treat the Palestinian and Israeli narratives
equivalently, let alone that we can possibly side with both AIPAC and BDS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it behooves us to dialogue respectfully,
warmly and compassionately whenever you encounter a representative of either <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“side”
that is willing to extend the same courtesies in your direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who knows, maybe both of you will learn
something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-53907130935533153012019-02-09T06:57:00.002-08:002019-02-09T07:09:41.192-08:00Where's the Green New Deal (or Old Deal) for Civil Servants?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Normally, I don’t like blogging about issues on
which I have a pecuniary interest, so I should begin by saying “consider the
source” when you read what follows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Still, I represent a constituency that apparently has no champions in positions
of power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So if people like me don’t
call out the facts, who will?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here are the
federal civilian pay increases and the corresponding CPI increases for the
previous year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Federal pay increases <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CPI
increases for the previous year<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2019<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0.0<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>2.2%<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2018<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1.4%<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>2.1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2017 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1.0<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>1.3<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2016 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1.0<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>0.1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2015 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1.0<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>1.6<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2014 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1.0<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>1.5<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2013 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0.0<span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>2.1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2012 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0.0<span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>3.2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2011 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>0.0<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>1.6<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">9-yr Avg<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>0.6%<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>1.75% <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In essence, federal civil service compensation has
effectively dropped well over 10% during this decade alone, and that doesn’t
even count the ways in which benefits have been cut in recent years or the way
inflation-adjusted salaries have been decreased in past decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, these recent decisions to reduce Civil
Servant compensation are obviously bi-partisan; just consider who was President
during most of these years and the lack of outrage among the Democratic
legislators who passed his budgets . <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
all heard no shortage of crocodile tears shed by Democratic legislators during
the 2018-19 Shutdown about the plight of the federal workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you can thank numbers like the ones above
for why so many civil servants were hurting so much in January.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The rumor is that, as we speak, the Democrats and
GOP are close to a deal to avert another Shutdown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you think demanding a pay increase commemorate
with increases in the CPI is something that the Dems are demanding as a pre-condition
to do the deal? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hopefully, that’s what
is happening. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet I have seen no such
reports in the media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, I hear
crickets on this entire topic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The fact is that neither party has shown much
concern for the drop in compensation for civil servants over the past few
decades, let alone the effect of that drop on morale and recruitment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not saying the two parties are equally
unconcerned, but this time I’m not even going to bother to point out which one
is worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just look at those years from
2011 to 2013, when Barack Obama was President.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Where was the Democratic Party uproar then?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where is it now that there are no more
political points to be scored by raising the issue?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There is no disputing that, on an aggregate basis, the average
civil servant is paid more than the average non-civil servant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To some, that would make us overpaid – and indeed,
many lawmakers cite the aggregate pay gap between the public and private sector
as a justification for continuing to dock civil service pay relative to the
rate of inflation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you don’t have to
be an astrophysicist or a brain scientist to realize that it makes zero sense to
compare the salaries of, on the one hand, a NASA astro-physicist or NIH brain
researcher to, on the other hand, a burger flipper at Wendy’s or a telemarketer
with “your local carpet cleaning service.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The better comparison would be to compare the salaries of government
astro-physicists with their analogues in the private sector, and do the same
with brain scientists, economists, attorneys, or whatever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Congress knows better than to commission
that kind of comparison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wouldn’t be “fiscally
prudent.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Clearly, there are more pressing issues in the world
to think about than this one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then
again, unless the topic is climate change, that could be said about any
topic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I simply felt compelled this
week, now that we may be on the verge of another budget deal, to raise a
concern that sticks in the craw of those “800,000 people” -- of which I am one -- that our nation’s demagogues
kept talking about since Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Truly, this is just a microcosm of the way the members of our media and our politicians
play games with us – selecting some issues to obsess about, ignoring other
important issues altogether, and constantly tossing rhetoric around as if they
really care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, the American people
know better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s one reason neither
of those groups is terribly popular with either side of the political
spectrum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-57095918635802078452019-02-02T08:14:00.001-08:002019-02-02T08:14:22.860-08:00Dealing with Triangulators: How to Call out Their B.S.
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Reasonable people can disagree about who should be
on the Mount Rushmore of Philosophers.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But I think we all can agree on two people: Plato and Aristotle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Plato used reasoned discourse to seek out our
best angels.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He wrote beautifully and inspired
us all to keep our heads in the clouds – or, more specifically, to leave our
caves, walk into the sunlight, and open our minds to the essence of beauty, freedom,
love, justice, and goodness.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I, for one, could not argue with Alfred North
Whitehead, who taught that the “safest general characterization of the
philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>To be sure, however, Plato doesn’t stand
alone.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Far from being a lone wolf, he is
known for having one of the world’s most brilliant philosophical teachers
(Socrates) and one of the world’s most brilliant philosophical students
(Aristotle).</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Aristotle built on his teacher’s brilliance and
grounded it in all the right ways.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He
equally respected common sense, empirical thought and the rigors of logic.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It is difficult to know whether to praise
Aristotle more for his depth of thought or his breadth of thought.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If
you are a lover of religion, your favorite Greek philosopher is probably
Plato.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But if you are a lover of western
philosophy, political theory, or science, my guess is that Aristotle is your
man.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">So what do you say we use a little Aristotelian thinking
to call out some bullshit?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Book 2 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics spoke about
the “virtues” and preached the doctrine of the golden mean.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The virtues are identified as being placed in
between two vices – one indicating too much of some disposition and the other
indicating too little.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For example, one
such virtue is “courage,” which is the mean between foolhardiness and cowardliness.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Another
is “temperance”, the mean between gluttony and self-denial or asceticism.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A third is “generosity,” the mean between
wastefulness and miserliness or uncharitableness.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You get the idea.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">But that’s only half of the point.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You’ll also note that the so-called “virtues”
are identified more with one side of the divide than the other. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In other words, they represent a clear
departure from the norm in one direction.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>When it comes to the quality of risk-taking, for example, we praise people
for their “courage” because people generally have too little of that quality.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So even though we don’t want people to be
foolhardy, we’re generally more concerned that they’ll be cowardly.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Similarly, when it comes to self-restraint, we
praise people for their “temperance” because most of us have too little of the
relevant quality.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So even though we don’t
want people to be completely ascetic, we’re more concerned that they’ll be
gluttonous and name our virtue to guard against that outcome.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In each case, one vice seems to be more
directly contrary to the virtue than its corresponding vice on the other side
of the divide, at least for most people.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">With that as background, let’s take a look the contemporary
rhetorical device – or should I just shorten that word and say “vice”? -- known
as Triangulation.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Triangulators claim
that their position represents the voice of reason because it is situated
between two extremes:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>namely, the respective
positions of their ideological opponents.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Most of us know this device from politics.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Bill Clinton was associated with it when he
was both a Presidential candidate in 1992 and then again when he was
President.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He loved to take on the “left”
in his own Party and thereby represent himself as the reasonable man between crazy
leftists, on the one hand, and whacko-bird Republicans on the right.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Those weren’t his exact words, but they may
as well have been.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In fact, they convey
pretty much the same picture all the political triangulators try to paint.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Personally, I see the Triangulation device used outside
of politics as well.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When I read books
about religion, I often see writers promote their own reasonableness by
contrasting their position with two so-called extremes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe their extremes are represented by the
religious fundamentalists, on the one hand, and the thoroughly secular (aka “amoral
hedonists”), on the other.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Once they set
up these strawmen, our heroes, the Triangulators, swoop in right down the
middle and save the day!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Thank you, Mighty Mouse.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Thank all you Triangulators, or “centrists,”
as you like to call yourselves, for your humor, your sanctimony and your
illogic. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I find Triangulation funny because the perpetrators
of it play the same pathetic card over and over again and in that sense remind me
a little of the Three Stooges.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I say “a little”
because, as one commentator pointed out, those boys constantly turned to the
same damned bits -- “slaps, eye pokes, head conks [and] nose honks.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Still, at least they had some variety.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Triangulators seem to be one-trick
ponies.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“I’m the reasonable man.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’m the centrist.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Everyone else is on one extreme or the other.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yawn.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">As for the sanctimony of the Triangulators, that
should be obvious by now.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Their stock in
trade is to pretend that only their position is reasonable and everyone else’s
is extreme.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>To be fair, it is common
for them to claim, in essence, that they represent the silent majority, so in
that sense, they don’t come across as elitist so much as thoroughly
disrespectful of the possibility that maybe, just maybe, some of their
ideological opponents might actually have a valid point.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Almost by definition, how can an “extremist” ever
have anything valid to say?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">As for the illogic of the Triangulators, that is
what I would like to concentrate on for the remainder of this post.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You see, it is critical that all of us understand
their little game and call them on it.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Triangulation is similar to what logicians call the fallacy of the excluded
middle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Under that fallacy, a person
takes a shot at one position (call it “Z”) and says that because Z is wrong,
then their position (“A”) must be right.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Implicitly, they assume that there are only two possible positions that
can be taken on an issue and that every other possibility (call them “B through
Y”) does not exist.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That’s why this is
called the fallacy of the excluded middle – the proponent of the position
excludes the possibility of all possible moderate or “middle” positions.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Similarly, the Triangulators, instead of suggesting
that there are two possibilities, suggest that there are precisely three – one extreme
position, its polar opposite, and their own.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But as Aristotle pointed out, when it comes to each disposition of
character, there is actually an entire continuum of possibilities.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Most people tend more toward one extreme than
the other, and virtue rests in moving away from the norm and toward the road
less taken – but not all the way down that road.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In other words, there may be a few people who
represent the “Z” spot (the completely foolhardy whacko-bird who never met a
risk he didn’t take) and many others who represent the “A” or “B” spots (we
know them as total wimps), but virtue lies somewhere around “S” or “T” – clearly
courageous, just not to the maximal degree. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Triangulators would never admit to such
nuance.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Let’s apply this lesson to the man that so many
people are talking about right now, Howard Schultz.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He wants to be President despite having no
political experience and an unwillingness to run for the nomination of either
mainstream party.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He is claiming that
both parties have become extreme, the one on the right and the other on the
left, and the nation needs a voice of reason like his, who represents the
silent majority.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Only a “centrist” like
Schultz, the argument goes, can provide the common sense reform that America
needs, as is demonstrated by his willingness to take on the heartless economic
inequalities perpetrated by the Republicans without embracing the socialist,
pie-in-the-sky proposals of the Democrats.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Clearly, Mr. Schultz has not read his
Aristotle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If he had, he would have addressed
a fundamental question: is our society’s central problem from an economic
standpoint that wealth is distributed too unequally or that people are overly
willing to threaten the hallowed market mechanisms that should be left well
enough alone?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If
Schultz believes that the problem is the latter, he should say so.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He might even want to become a Republican and
challenge the incumbent President based on the argument that even though
laissez-faire economics generally works best, there are a few market failures
that this Administration is failing to address and needs to.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>If, by contrast, Schultz believes that we
have an economic inequality crisis, than damn it, say so!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Stop straw-manning all the efforts on the
political left to try to rectify that inequality by labeling them
extremist.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Praise these Democrats’
goals, and promote whatever approach to those goals makes the most economic
sense.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I guarantee you that the
Democratic voters will take you seriously ... and that you would fit in well
within the Democratic tent.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">By running as an Independent, Schultz is making the
statement that he is indifferent to whether Trump (and his feed-the-rich economics)
or some Democratic progressive (with their emphasis on equality of outcomes and
not merely equality of opportunity) is elected.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Ralph Nader essentially admitted as much when he ran for President in
2000, and he purported to be guilt-free when his candidacy threw the election
to George W. Bush and gave us the Iraq War and a generation of indifference
toward climate change.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So far, from what
I can tell, Schultz has been unwilling to declare his preferences between the
two political parties, or even to state his indifference.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He would prefer instead to play the
Triangulation Game and to repeat over and over again that he won’t be a
spoiler, he’ll be the winner.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Honestly, if you truly think Howard Schultz has a
chance to win the election, you should go to the E.R. and tell the medics that
you’ve had a stroke.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But what Schultz
and his Triangulation Logic might accomplish is to give Donald Trump a second
term as a minority President.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Try to
imagine six more years like the last two.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Or better yet, just ask yourself, if Aristotle had a ballot, what do you
think he would he do with it?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am
planning to vote with him, not with Schultz or with Trump.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-62108469725295725272019-01-26T08:06:00.000-08:002019-01-26T08:11:18.293-08:00Remembering the HolocaustIn Israel, Holocaust Remembrance Day is set for May 2nd this year. But this weekend, in various other parts of the world, the day set aside to commemorate the Holocaust will come this weekend. Tomorrow, January 27th, marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the most infamous concentration camp of Nazi Germany. Of the roughly 1.3 million people who were forced to enter the camp, more than 1.1 million died, roughly 90 percent of them Jews. In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27th as International Holocaust Memorial Day, and this is the primary date that the European Union marks to remember the atrocities of the Holocaust. Those who mark this date also use this opportunity as a day to remember other genocides across the world.<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<br />The Jewish-Islamic Dialogue Society of Washington (JIDS), an interfaith group over which I preside, is one of many organizations around the world that will be holding an event tomorrow to remember the Holocaust and other genocides. I don’t normally speak at JIDS events, but this time I couldn’t resist the temptation. The Holocaust is, quite simply, the seminal historical event of my life, cutting to the heart of both my religious and political views. If you have read my most recent book, “Liberating the Holy Name: A Free-Thinker Grapples with the Meaning of Divinity,” you would have seen just how early in life I was exposed to information about the Nazi atrocities and how profoundly it would affect my thinking about God and humankind.<br /><br />When reflecting on the Holocaust, different people have different focal points. There are those who think primarily about Hitler, arguably the most evil figure in world history. We all can understand why he is such a focus – people love to personalize situations. That’s why so much attention is paid to individual athletes, entertainers or for that matter serial killers, and why the media can’t stop talking about all things Donald Trump despite the fact that he derives most of his power from his followers in Congress and throughout the country. Another common focus of the Holocaust is the heroes. Hollywood loves to make movies about the “righteous gentiles” who saved lives during that period of history, or the way many of the victims of the Nazi atrocities (like Anne Frank) were able to live dignified lives despite the most trying of circumstances. Clearly, those are compelling stories that need to be told. <br /><br />For me, however, the primary focal points are neither heroes nor villains. One of them is God. Where was God in Auschwitz? I refuse to stop asking that question. To those who want to know why I am so enamored with the conception of God associated with the philosopher Spinoza, a big part of my answer is Auschwitz. Spinoza’s theology anticipated the horrors of Auschwitz without sounding escapist or Pollyannaish. Personally, I simply cannot attribute that house of horrors, and the infinite number of other examples of “natural” and man-made suffering, to an omnipotent, omnibenevolent creator of all existence. My passion for the truth calls out for a more philosophical God than that, and no God more epitomizes the so-called “God of the Philosophers” than Spinoza’s. In short, Auschwitz hasn’t caused me to deny God’s existence any more than it made Spinoza an atheist, but my conception and the traditional conception of God are hardly the same thing. You can attribute that fact above all else to the Holocaust.<br /><br />My other primary focal point when it comes to the Holocaust is the millions of people who didn’t die, didn’t murder, but rather enabled. They lived in Germany, Poland, and much of Europe. Some of them lived in America too. For the most part, they kept their heads down, went about their lives and minded their own business. And while they tended to their own gardens, they surely assumed little if any responsibility for the slaughter that was taking place. But believe me, they knew what was going on was horrific. <br /><br />These people weren’t “evil” under any conventional understanding of that word. I assume that only a minority of them had hatred in their hearts for Jews, homosexuals, Roma or other victims of this genocide. They simply weren’t heroes, that’s all. They didn’t want to make sacrifices on behalf of strangers. Nobody told them that such sacrifices were truly their “duty” – and it was left up to them as to whether to engage in supererogatory acts of heroism. <br /><br />For me, one of the two greatest lessons of the Holocaust is that, when push comes to shove, we have no choice but to be heroes or enablers. You see, suffering and injustice didn’t end in 1945. And until the proverbial “Moshiach” comes (or returns, under the Christian interpretation), suffering and injustice are bound to continue indefinitely. We can either make personal sacrifices to confront them. Or we can tend to our own gardens, disavow responsibility, and enable their seeds to grow once again. There is no third option. As for that other great lesson of the Holocaust, it’s that when developments truly go off the rails, the number of heroes pale in comparison to the number we need to stop the bleeding. <br /><br />As I write this, America’s Government Shutdown has just ended and those of us who have been furloughed are about to dig out from the damage done over the past several weeks. This is a<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"> great time to be thankful that
nobody died in a recent plane crash, no epidemics of food poisoning were
reported, and no other out-and-out calamities have occurred as a direct result
of the Shutdown.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But let’s not kid
ourselves – we have put ourselves in the line of fire because our political
system is not working the way the framers of our Constitution intended.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For me, the Holocaust provides plenty of
lessons of what can happen if we don’t seize this moment and stand up for our
principles and against those who threaten them.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>You see, we can hardly count on the ability of any people to save the
day once a society reaches a certain tipping point.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Our Founding Fathers understood that, and
they didn’t even have the benefit of Auschwitz to use as a laboratory.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-64825616644168030302019-01-19T06:58:00.001-08:002019-01-19T06:58:14.176-08:00Time to Step up to the Plate
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">It is easy to be a member of a minority party.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>All you have to do is throw mud.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You can channel Senator Mitch McConnell and,
in essence, announce that you’re going to oppose everything the President does
so your own party can take over the Presidency (even if it means hurting the country
in the short run).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Hell, you can even channel Groucho Marx as
Quincy Adams Wagstaff and say, “I don’t care what they have to say.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It makes no difference anyway.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Whatever it is, I’m against it!”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">It worked for the Republicans in 2010.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It worked for the Democrats in 2018.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">But this is 2019.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>It won’t work nearly so well for anybody now, because each side has some
power and will be held accountable for how it wields it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Accountability is critical to the functioning
of society, both in the political and the business context.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Unfortunately, with accountability comes
pressure, tough decisions and, yes, the risk of demonstrable failure.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">This afternoon, the world will watch as President
Donald Trump tries to hold the Democrats accountable.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His team has leaked that he will make a
proposal to end the Government shutdown that will not remove funding for his
cherished Wall/Barrier but will include other concessions to the
Democrats.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His goal, presumably, is to include
enough concessions so as to cause the nation’s attention to shift to the House
Democrats.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Are they willing to find a
reasonable way to end this national stalemate for the good of the country?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Or are they simply playing the role of
Professor Wagstaff?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>To date, nobody has
been holding the Democrats accountable for this shutdown.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And why would you, given the famous meeting
among Pelosi, Schumer and Trump in which the President announced that “I’ll
take it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yes, if we don’t get what we
want one way or the other, whether it’s through you, through military, through
anything you want to call — I will shut down the government. I am proud to shut
down the government. I will take the mantle.”</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Today, the President’s job is to pass that
mantle – or at least be perceived that way. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">So let’s say he succeeds and sweetens the pot
sufficiently to make the Democrats look bad if they don’t enter into
negotiations to end the Shutdown without jettisoning the Wall.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And let’s say the Dems bite the bullet, fund
the Wall, and re-open the government.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We
would finally see something we haven’t seen in the past two years – vocal divisions
within that party. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Some people might
fear that development. Personally, I’d welcome it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You see, I feel a desperate need to have the Democratic
Party consciously redefine itself, even if it means tightening up the breadth
of its coalition.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The last time the Party of the Donkey redefined
itself was in 1992, when the Governor of Arkansas and a Senator from Tennessee
convinced the membership that they had moved too far to the left to be
electable and needed to chart a “Third Way” between the path of the “old”
Democrats and the majority (Republican) party.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>That resulted in eight years of Clinton Gore Triangulation, followed by eight
more years of Republican Rule, followed by an Obama Administration that campaigned
on something as nebulous as “hope and change” and never really could define
what it was about (other than saving the economy from collapse and implementing
Romneycare), followed by two more years of Republican Rule. As for the Party of
FDR, Truman and LBJ, we haven’t seen them in power for so long that if we
attempted a New Deal or a Great Society today, it would probably be viewed as
an act of socialism rather than a Democratic Party initiative.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>To me, that must change.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A conscious re-definition is called for.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That starts with the willingness to tackle
tough decisions and not shy away from public disagreements in doing so.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The Democrats might even lose a few points in
the polls as such a family feud plays out in the press, but they also might
just gain a soul in the process.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Do you
have the guts to do that, my fellow Democrats? </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">On a local level, we’re seeing this kind of internal
battle play out within my own community – the non-Orthodox Jewish community of
Washington, D.C.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The vast majority of us
are progressive Democrats.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But we’re
totally split on the issue of whether to attend the Women’s March, which will
be happening at the same time that President Trump makes his announcement.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">In what can only be described as an “unforced error,”
Tamika Mallory, one of the leaders of the Women’s March, turns out to be a big
fan of Louis Farrakhan, the celebrated Jew-hater.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>For reasons known only to God and Satan, Mallory
won’t renounce Farrakhan’s hateful words, and to some degree appears to have
endorsed them.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Now I think it’s safe to say that nobody in my
local Jewish community sympathizes with Farrakhan or even Mallory.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The question is whether her conduct, and the
lack of a stronger rebuke by the other leaders of the march, warrants a
decision to avoid the march altogether.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Area rabbis are giving speeches or writing letters to their
congregations, weighing in on one side or the other.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Personally, I’m in the “Hell no, I won’t go,” camp.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But I have no inclination to bore you with
the details of my reasoning.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What’s most
important to me is not whether to attend the march, but how we can best build a
center-left movement that will effectively meet the needs of our society and
our planet.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It starts with the courage
to frame the issues publicly, even if it means we air our disagreements.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It includes a deep desire to identify leaders
who have distinguished themselves based on the righteousness of their values, rather
than simply their opportunism and ambition.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>And it involves the willingness to engage in civil, respectful dialogue
whenever you disagree with members of the coalition.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Now, in including that last sentence, I am aware
that I violated that principle in the way that I discussed Farrakhan and
Mallory.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I did so consciously to make a
point.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It is vital that the members of
this movement I’m discussing figure out just how big a tent it wants to
create.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Should it include people like
Farrakhan who have done plenty of good things for lower-income communities but
who also have outed themselves as rank anti-Semites?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>(I say no.)<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Should it include people who strongly disagree with the progressives on hot-button
issues like abortion rights but who nevertheless side with them on most other
issues and support the Democratic Party?<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>(I say yes.)<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Again, however, the
important thing to me is not where we as individuals fall on these specific
questions.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s that we embrace this
kind of conscious, soul-searching process so that the movement we create is
built carefully and wisely.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">In short, this is a crucial time in our
history.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>You can see that every time you
turn on the news.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Clearly, the party in
power is failing us.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Our challenge is
how to replace it – and if we want to do this well, this will require
soul-searching, courage, and some growing pains.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Are you ready to do your part?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Stay informed and stay active.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Please.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-45672986636027122262019-01-12T07:16:00.003-08:002019-01-12T07:18:07.554-08:00A Breath of Fresh Air<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Politicians frequently spin.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But they don’t often dance.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) does
both.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It drives the Republicans
crazy.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And now even the Democrats are
turning against her.</span></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I’m with them on the spinning thing.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When politicians speak, I want them to speak
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I realize I won’t hear the whole truth.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But please, can we at least hear nothing but
the truth?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>AOC does herself no favors
when she uses false analogies to understate the expenses of Medicare-for-All.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And when she makes a mistake, she should own
it, rather than adding that “<span style="border-image: none; border: 1pt windowtext; margin: 0px; padding: 0in;">there’s
a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and
semantically correct than about being morally right.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="border-image: none; border: 1pt windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px; padding: 0in;">Honestly, being factually correct IS a
way to be morally right.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And being loose
with facts is, sad to say, the opposite moral.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="border-image: none; border: 1pt windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px; padding: 0in;">But damn it, I still love AOC.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I like her unbridled enthusiasm, her striking
boldness, her authentic progressivism, her media savvy, and her willingness to
take on the Democratic establishment.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In
fact, I like that last characteristic the best of all.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="border-image: none; border: 1pt windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px; padding: 0in;">In case you haven’t noticed, AOC is
ruffling more than a few feathers with her Democratic colleagues.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She is committing the capital crime of --
gasp – supporting primary challengers to Democratic party incumbents.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She is looking for people who are deeply
concerned about climate change, racial justice, and economic equity, and she is
willing to fight for those candidates whenever they are running against
conservatives, even if those conservatives are Democratic incumbents.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>(Note to my readers:<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>a “conservative” is a proponent of the status
quo, and these days, as many conservatives are Democrats as Republicans.)<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Unfortunately, to the powers-that-be in
Congress, taking on a party incumbent is practically a form of treason.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">“I’m
sure Ms. Cortez means well, but there’s almost an outstanding rule: Don’t
attack your own people,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.). “We just don’t need
sniping in our Democratic Caucus.”</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>And then we have the reported comments of an unidentified Democratic
Congressperson who is considered a fellow progressive: “She needs to decide:
Does she want to be an effective legislator or just continue being a Twitter
star?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There’s a difference between being
an activist and a lawmaker in Congress.”</span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Indeed there is.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Activists, you see, reflect a wide range of
political views. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They think for
themselves.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>They don’t feel
straightjacketed by party discipline.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>They may even make people like me proud to be Democrats.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But lawmakers?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Not so much.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Consider the primary campaign for
President in 2016.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We had two
candidates who basically split the members and the activists of the Democratic
Party down the middle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Personally, I’d
say that roughly half of the Democrats I know were for Bernie, and half for
Hillary.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nationally, Bernie won roughly
3/7<sup>th</sup> of all Democratic Primary votes.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Pretty close, right?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But now consider the lawmakers and other
power-brokers.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Bernie won the
endorsement of only a single U.S. Senator (Jeff Merkley).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He also won the endorsement of only a single
individual who had ever served as a Cabinet Member (Robert Reich).<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In the House, you can count the number of
Bernie’s endorsements on both hands.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As
for sitting Governors, Bernie didn’t get a single endorsement.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>When it came to the powers-that-be, Hillary
cleaned his clock.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">How did that all work out, America?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Believe me, AOC was watching.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>She supported Bernie at the time,
notwithstanding former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s comment (in
reference to the Sanders/Clinton competition) that “There’s a special place in
hell for women who don’t help each other!”<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>AOC would have also seen what happened when the Democratic Party
controlled the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate (at one
point, having 60 members of that body).<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>It failed to pass any meaningful gun control measure.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It failed to implement substantial
progressive reforms to the tax system.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>It failed to implement transformative climate change legislation.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And while it did succeed in implementing the
same health care program that Mitt Romney once brought to Massachusetts (which,
from a progressive standpoint, is a positive step toward universal health
care), it failed to implement the public option, let alone Medicare-for-all –
and now even our Romney Care is in jeopardy.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">In short, once we move beyond the ancien
regime, with its Great Societies and its New Deals, the Democratic Party hasn’t
done much to satisfy the needs of the working class, and not since Richard
Nixon have we seen a massive governmental boost to help the environment.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>AOC isn’t satisfied with those results.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Can you blame her?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">At 29, AOC still has a lot to learn
about Washington.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Most critically, she
needs to guard her credibility like a hawk and recognize that a commitment to “truth”
is every bit as important as a commitment to justice and compassion.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Empathic Rationalism demands that our
politicians refrain from B.S., no matter what broader principles they are
trying to serve.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But when it comes to
fighting for high marginal tax rates, Green New Deals, or politicians whose
greatest loyalties are to the needy, I am 100 percent behind her.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We’ve seen what happens when the old guard
runs the party.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s time for AOC and
others like her to assume the mantle.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">So keep dancing, AOC.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’ve got your back.</span></div>
<br /></span></div>
Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.com0