Showing posts with label Oppression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oppression. Show all posts

December 17, 2023

Why Wokeism Hurts More Than It Helps

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "Why Wokeism Hurts More Than It Helps."

While we should continually strive to promote mutual understanding and empowerment, we must also call out the false messiah of wokeism for what it is: a hateful, corrupt, and self-righteous ideology of entitlement and dictatorship. Instead of wokeism endlessly talking about victimhood, trying to turn one against another, and taking "all you can get," we should instead take a more positive and unifying approach that includes strong individual and family values, hard work, constructive reform, and of course, faith in the One above.

(AI Generated Photo via Craiyon)

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October 14, 2023

Muslim and Jew Against Evil

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "Muslim and Jew Against Evil."

This isn't anything about Palestinian vs. Israeli or Muslim vs. Christian and Jew. It is everything about evil vs. good. Hate and terror are diseases, and we need to eradicate their ideology, structures, and sponsors. The only reason they exist is that "someone" is benefiting from them! Unfortunately, the people are brainwashed with hate and threatened if they don't go along with it by those who live off it. To them, dead Palestinians are martyrs whose photos can go on CNN and MSNBC.

While all people may be created equal, some end up good and some have gone awfully bad, and we need to differentiate between the two. And yes, there are plenty of "grays in between." In the end, we need to embrace those who are faithful, decent human beings (even with flaws and all), and we must soulfully band together to root out and confront the entire system of evil, where and for what it truly is, and before it's too late.

(Stock Photo: Ali Wannous https://www.pexels.com/photo/dirt-road-between-ruined-buildings-under-a-blue-sky-10932512/)
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January 30, 2022

People of Ukraine

It hit me today — with all the news about Russia preparing to invade Ukraine and devastate its people, unprovoked, there is nobody talking about the people of Ukraine.

Our leaders and news media are so misguided and focused on the geopolitics of the thing, all they talk about is what the U.S. and EU will do in terms of some measly sanctions.

But they have completely forgotten the innocent people there — 44 million of them — who face death and occupation.

Where is our leadership????

Where are the speeches about the innocent people? About freedom? About democracy? About human rights?

Where is the United Nations????

They are supposed to safeguard and maintain peace and security around the globe.

Where are the outspoken liberals who call out occupation, apartheid, and human rights abuses????

Not a word from anyone.

It’s incredible how prejudiced, biased, discriminatory and corrupt all these people can be. They can be brainwashed, bribed, and bought to speak out for those when it will somehow fit their agenda or benefit them!

But when the Russian or Chinese powerful aggressors are at the doorstep of Ukraine or Hong Kong/Taiwan — where is anybody to speak out?

Last night, I imagined the people of Ukraine sitting in fear, in worry about what will happen to them, their families, their homes.

Do the world leaders care anything about the lives of real people — men, women, and children — or only about how any conflict makes them look, and how they are polling, and the next election?

Morality and conscience — is it on life support or dead in this narcissist world of the powerful and elite. ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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June 19, 2021

Menachem Begin, Hero of Independence and Beyond

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, "Menachem Begin, Hero of Independence and Beyond."

While David Ben-Gurion was the politically savvy founding father of the modern-day State of Israel, Menachem Begin was the military genius who brought the Jewish people from British subjugation to being a free people in our own land.
In the end, the Jewish people’s fight for freedom from oppression and for an independent homeland, even the willingness to accept a partitioned land along with the desire for peace, required both the political fight that Ben-Gurion brought to the world’s governments as well as the military struggle that Begin was expert at against both the British overlords who refused autonomy under the mandate and to the Arabs who refused partition. Further, this underscores the stark contrast between the Jewish struggle and that of the Palestinians who have incessantly rejected negotiation and any opportunities for autonomy and peace, including at Oslo, Camp David, and Taba, as well as after Israel’s full withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 that was followed by Hamas’s terror tunnels, kidnappings, incendiary balloons attacks, and rocket barrages on Israel civilian population centers.

(Credit Photo: Israel Government)


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March 8, 2017

Women's War

Today was International Women's Day. 

But this guy was protesting something else.

WAR.
"War is chaos, War is lawless
War ignores our civil rights
Land it poison and our rivers
War inspires both rape and murder
Death of children go uncounted
War betrays all Women's Rights"
Not sure how he connects this all up with women's rights at the end, but might as well try, right?

For women to have the rights that they should, they need to fight the good fight too.

That type of war does not betray them, but bolsters their cause. 

Everyone who has been abused, enslaved, and discriminated against needs to free themselves of the shackles of oppression.

What we do know is that "war is hell!"

And certainly war is an option of last resort. 

At the same time, war can restore the peace and right the wrongs of despots and tyranny and violence and persecution. 

War is something to be feared and avoided, until it can't.

At which time, hell on earth is released, so hopefully peace can ultimately prevail once again. 

In war, everyone loses, but with the hope that at the end, good wins!

For woman, today is also the continuance of that war and fight for equality, respect, and proper treatment in every way they completely deserve.

That's a war worth fighting for. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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December 12, 2016

Jewish Humor Is Part Of Our Survival

So the prior Jewish generation (my parents) had a really good sense of humor. 

My dad always had a joke to tell and make people laugh. 

And as the movie, "When Jews Were Funny" portrays, the suffering of the past led to the lighthearted humor of the times. 

From the unbelievable horrors of the Holocaust and pogroms came the yearning for comic relief in the everyday life around us.

We are the survivors! 

And we yearn to go on living and making the world a better place, and you can't do that from the depths of sorrow and fear.  

In the movie, here were two funny jokes to start your week off with:

1) This old Jewish lady goes through a red light and 2 stop signs, and her husband, Sadie shrieks and says to her, "What are you doing? You just drove through a red light and 2 stop signs!"  And his wife replies, "I didn't even know that I was driving!"  

2) This Jewish man living in anti-Semitic times trying to hide his Jewishness is reiterating his answers to various questions posed to him to rout him out. He innocently goes, "And when they asked me what religion I am, I fooled them good and told them I was Goyish!"

Yeah, they just don't tell them like they used to. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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May 31, 2016

Only Our History Is Colored

Last night, my daughter and I watched the premier of the new miniseries, Roots (on the History Channel). 

The story of American Slavery like all tales of racism, oppression, terrorism, and genocide is completely appalling. 

It represents the worst of human nature whether for motives of profiteering, power, or plain unadulterated hatred. 

We watched, my youngest daughter (in college), literally in tears.

And frankly, we watched until we literally couldn't watch the suffering on the screen any more (but to be continued another evening). 

What people can do to other people...beyond words, comprehension. 

Is it people doing these things or is it a vicious animal or evil within?

Either way, humankind has a lot to be sorry for...whether for slavery or the Holocaust. 

I can't imagine what G-d must think or how we can in any rational sort of way explain these things to our children. 

The stain is marked on the souls of the aggressors, and the only thing colored is our history. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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February 4, 2016

Stupid Stupid Ties

So ties are an unfortunate part of a man's wardrobe. 

But while some ties may look nice (in a feminine type of way), for the most part they are nothing but a pain in the neck.

- Feels like a noose

- Looks like a dog collar

- Enforced as the yoke of oppression

- Constraining since a tie ties 

- Costs as much as $385 at Nordstrom

- Klutzy when oops!! it hangs out your fly

- Hazardous when caught in an office shredder. 

- Filthy when eating soup, spaghetti, etc. 

- Disgusting when bending over and it flops into the toilet

Some day fashion will grow up and ties will go the way of The Waltons, and even Goodwill will throw them unabashedly into the trash where they most rightfully belong.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to bark)
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January 30, 2016

What's Cool Is Being Oppressed

So we were having this discussion with this lady in synagogue who prides herself as an activist and participates in numerous groups for social justice.

What was most striking to learn is how these days everyone is vying for the title of most oppressed. 

It's no longer "cool" or "in" to be part of the elite privileged rich, strong, and powerful.

If you are any of these, you are part of the corrupt 1%--that have more wealth now than the other 99% of society combined--and you are leeches that feed off of the legitimate working, middle class society. 

The privileged are the bullies, the racists, the occupiers, the unjust, the thieves, and the liars. 

Today, people and groups are arguing to be put on the pedestal for who is underprivileged:

- The poorest in society

- The ones with the greatest inequality

- The most discriminated against and oppressed

- The smallest of the minorities

The prize for those that attain the marks of distinction for worst status can hope to achieve:

- Sympathy (protests, petitions, and actions for boycotts, divestitures, and sanctions)

- Economic Assistance (donations, grants, loans, scholarships, and advanced technology)

- Preferential treatment (college placement, training programs, hiring, promotion, business awards, and board seats)

- Votes (elections, laws, resolutions, decisions, and court awards)

The super underdog has it way up over the superpower. 

Discontent by the masses, supercharged by social media, is leading to an overturning of society from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street.  

Socialism even for presidential candidates is no longer a dirty word in Democratic America and terrorists around the world are now "freedom fighters." 

Regimes such as Iran that sponsor terrorism, abuse human rights, and build weapons of mass destruction now just need to be "opened up" to the outside world and sanctions and non-proliferation is just more western bullying and infidel occupation.  

Other countries like Syria that are ruled by tyrannical leaders that besiege their own cities, starve and torture their people, drop barrel bombs indiscriminately, and use chemical weapons are no longer crossing a "red line", but are simply in need of a political settlement and even can enjoy two or more years of continued rule. 

Small but flourishing Democratic countries like Israel--the size of New Jersey and the only Jewish state in a world of 50 majority Muslim countries--is demonized as Apartheid oppressors of the Palestinians--those very people who are sworn to their destruction and to throwing them into the Sea--just 70 years after the Jewish Holocaust. 

Back in the United States and in Europe, waves of mass immigration across borders is perfectly fine and perhaps even desired to file the ranks of needed employees, obtain desired future voters, and alleviate the aggrieved hearts of those that committed past atrocities or closed their doors to refugees in the past, while those that speak of vetting, border control, and homeland security are Nazi fascists.

Moreover increases in taxes and spending is in vogue, while general fiscal disciple, paring the national deficit and debt, and sequestration are lunatic concepts by those seeking to suppress the middle class and destroy America. 

Don't get me wrong, we as a country can and should go a long way to decreasing inequality and improving the lives of everyone with a living wage, universal healthcare, paid maternity/paternity leave, free or reasonably-priced advanced education, and decent retirement benefits.

However, when we call everything and anything discrimination, racism, and inequality, take away individual accountability, make every grievance into a revolution and opportunity for a lynching or guillotine, things have gone from one insanity to just another. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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September 6, 2014

Chocolate Putin and Lemon ISIS


Ok, so Chocolate Putin and Lemon ISIS are a true recipe for global disaster. 

GLOBAL THREATS: With Chocolate Putin, we have the old Cold War back again (or maybe it was never really gone) with nation states facing off and state-of-the-art weapons galore such as thermonuclear ICBMs onshore, offshore, and aloft. And with Lemon ISIS, we have extremists posing a new level of terrorist threats such that we have never seen before with beheadings, crucifixions, and mass killings, and the potential for (very) dirty bombs. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL INTIMIDATION: While Chocolate Putin still denies his troops are even in Ukraine or that they all along wanted to harbor Snowden, Lemon ISIS tells the whole world they seek to establish a caliphate across the Middle East. Either way the psychological impact is to confuse and scare.

OPPRESSION OF THE PEOPLE: Both Chocolate Putin and Lemon ISIS declare that the people (along with their territory) in their sights are really wanting it--Ukrainians, Georgians, the Baltic States and Poland want to be Russian and maybe really are, while ISIS declares that good Muslims really want to live under strict Sharia law. The victims are not victims, they are willing participants in their own takeover. 

RULING BY AUTOCRACY: Chocolate Putin and Lemon ISIS rule by dictatorship with a supreme leader or all powerful president, the people must follow or be put in the gulag or hung by a tree limb. Either way, you will obey, freedoms begone, and the collective will be better off for it. 

The list of ingredients and description for world chaos and terror can go on and on here...but the point is that we are facing enemies that are digging in to inflict serious metabolic harm on us. 

While some may like chocolate Putin or Lemon ISIS, the results of closing our eyes to the calorie count will be catastrophic to a peaceful world order. 

(Source Photo for Lemon ISIS is Andy Blumenthal and for Chocolate Putin is here with attribution to jlib)
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May 19, 2013

Women, Not Things

In the context of the brutal raping and murder last year of a 23-year old women on a bus to the disgusting rape of a 5-year girl more recently in India, the Wall Street Journal (17 May 2013) has an article on "To Wed Your Rapist, or Not: Indian Women on Trial."

It is an eye-opening article about the prejudices and horrible injustices that women face in India and other countries--and it's not only due to the misogyny of some, and power- and pleasure-seeking of others, but it is based also on justices, lawyers, law enforcement, legislators, and spiritual figures in society that perpetuate the oppression of woman. 

Some societies are stacking the deck, so women cannot reasonably win due protection--from legislators who do not write and pass substantive and equitable laws to protect women, to law enforcement that will not commit the resources to pursue the rapists and women beaters, to lawyers and judges that raise ridiculous demands for proving guilt and sentencing, and to spiritual leaders that blame the victim rather than hold the perpetrators to task. 

These people who are supposed to bring justice to the victims, instead add insult to injury. Some of these include:

- Ruling against rape victims because they didn't successfully fight back. For example, a "lower court ruled that she was lying citing among other things the fact that she could have scratched the man's genitals, but didn't."

- Professing that victims are at fault for causing the rape, such as by wearing skirts, having male friends (i.e. "asking for it"), or otherwise dressing or behaving immodestly. At the extreme, one prominent spiritual figure actually held that the victim could've avoided trouble if she had "chanted a prayer, taken one of her attackers by the hand, and called him 'brother'"--as if one can convince an attacker not to attack by holding their hands and gushing brotherhood.

- Teaching that rape is not possible for strong women or those of a labor caste. A 2005 textbook stated, "In normal circumstances, it is not possible for a single man to hold sexual intercourse with a healthy adult female in full possession of her senses against her will." Oh, really? I doubt these teachers would like to test this hypothesis on their beloved mothers, sisters, wives, or daughters.

In Indian and other societies where women are so degraded, there is a standing notion of a rape victim having to marry their rapist--to make things right. Yet, how can this resolve anything? As if the incident of rape is not enough, the victim must endure a lifetime of rape--and by an individual without character or soul, who could commit such a brutal, violent act to begin with. 

Forcing the victim to marry the rapist does not spare a woman the challenge of marrying normally after such an traumatic act, but rather it precludes her from ever having an opportunity to rid herself of the pain and shame, and go on to be with someone who truly loves and respects her as a person, and not an object. 

As long as societies marginalize women through their beliefs, teachings, and systems of injustice, women will not be spared the agonizing harm they suffer by men who abuse their status of power. But as the old saying goes, "what goes around, comes around,"--what is incredible is that so many of these people just see it going, but don't see it coming. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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