Hate, Discrimination, and Violence...But We're One

As we live day-to-day in near endless and escalating cycles of hate, discrimination and violence along national, religious, racial, gender and other divides...

It is nice and refreshing to see someone wearing a t-shirt this morning that says:

"One World, One Dream"

I don't know what the Asian characters above it say...but hopefully, it's more hopefullness!

Unfortunately, without a common enemy--whether disasters, plague or alien invasion--what divides us normally seems stronger than what holds us together.

Hence, routine murders, maimings, abductions, rapes, enslavement, and harrassment of one neighbor against the other. 

We behave like little children fighting for the toys in the sandbox except with consequences that can elevate all the way to genocide or WMD. 

As we squabble with each other, perhaps there are moments when we can have the self-awareness and strength of character to actually look in the mirror with some shame for how low we'll stoop to get our share in a world of divine comedy. 

Wouldn't it be nice for humanity to change ways and instead have compassion on each other (children of G-d), share the toys, and end the miserable hate. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Hate, Discrimination, and Violence...But We're One

Bigotry Reveals Her Stripes

OPEN LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

What an outrageous article in the Daily News by morally-bankrupt journalist, Linda Stasi (yeah, like the repressive secret East German police in the Cold War). 

Ms. Stasi calls out as deserving of death, the single Jewish victim of terror in the latest terror attack in San Bernardino that killed 14 and injured 21, where according to Stasi only "13 innocent people are dead", because the one "Born Again Christian/Messianic Jew" was what she judges as a bigot. 

Stasi tries to create some sort of ridiculous moral equivalency between mass murdering terrorists who pledged allegiance to ISIS and mowed down dozens of municipal employees in California with the Jewish guy who posted some stuff on Facebook. 

Vehemently anti-Republican, Stasi, lashes out at conservative, Mr. Thalasinos with posts that were supportive of  conservative political commentator, Ann Coulter and "pro-NRA" and "anti-Planned Parenthood" -- neither of which are bigoted things, but are conservative political views in America!

Similarly, Stasi accuses the victim, Thalasinos of being "anti-government" for questioning things like whether politicians are "bought and paid for" or are "moron[s]" -- when Stasi should be aware that approval ratings for politicians (e.g. Congress) has slipped to a dismal 11%.

Finally, Stasi goes after Thalasinos for an inappropriate negative comment about a Muslim Million Man march and for saying G-d should destroy, Axis of Evil, Iran that has repeatedly threatened to Annihilate friend and Ally, Israel as well as threatens the entire Western world. 

Apparently, Stasi is quite hateful of many many people as she is neither concerned about Iranian threats of Jewish Genocide, dishonoring victims of terror (which she has a history of doing such as with Charlie Hebdo), or accepting those with opposing political views to hers (i.e. Conservatives). 

She has defamed the memory of the dead victim of terror, Mr. Thalasinos, and the Daily News owes it to itself and its readers to immediately dismiss the one true hateful bigot in this story, Ms. Linda Stasi.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Blake Emrys)

Bigotry Reveals Her Stripes

Silence In the Face of Ongoing Terror And Murder

In the recent wave of terror attacks in Israel, in less than 3 months (Oct 1- Nov 23), there have been:

- 21 Murdered 

- 184 Wounded (20 critically)

Through:

- 74 Stabbings

- 10 Shootings

- 11 Car Rammings

The murdered include Ezra Schwartz, an 18-year old American citizen from Massachusetts. 

Despite the terrorism and the death of an American citizen along with so many other innocent Jews, the superpower country of the world is silent--not calling it reprehensible or deplorable or condemning it or demanding the terrorism stop immediately. 

- Silence, despite about the murder of Jews and even its own U.S. citizen in Israel on November 19.

- Silence, yet signing nuke deals with "Axis Of Evil" Iran--the #1 state sponsor of terrorism (undiminished in 2015) and top abuser of human rights.

- Silence in the face of terror attacks against Jews elsewhere abroad, like the Jewish teacher stabbed and killed in Paris last week by three assailants shouting anti-Semitic insults? 

- Silence through a "no-show" at the Solidarity Rally in Paris with 40 other heads of state in January to denounce the terror attack on Charlie Hebdo and on the Jewish grocery store that killed 17 innocent people. 

Could this perhaps be payback time to one of it's closest friends and allies for: 

- Continuing settlements for an expanding Israeli population who are surrounded by hostile neighbors that want to throw them into the Mediterranean Sea. 

- For a peace deal with the Palestinians that didn't materialize without a peace parter that would recognize the Jews States' right to even exist.

- For Netanyahu's objection to the Iranian nuke deal that put's Israel in the crosshairs of a sprouting nuclear regime that threatens annihilation against it. 

Regardless of why, it is abundantly clear that the killing of Jews in Israel and abroad is tacitly being given the green light to continue--and so it's an open field day for terror and murder of Jews!

Even the generally harsh critic of Israel, Amnesty International, has come out calling the terror against Israel "reprehensible and unjustified" and "a clear contempt for human life."

The appalling indifference to the murder of Jews by top administration officials, just 70-years after the Holocaust, is being heard loud and clear around the world.   

- It is a sanctioning of terrorism and murder, period. 

- It is reprehensible, period. 

- It is cementing a legacy of blind hatred and blatant discrimination and anti-Semitism that will go down in history, period. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Silence In the Face of Ongoing Terror And Murder

BDS Just Another Terrorist Attack

There over 200 land disputes around the globe, but on Wednesday, the European Union singled out the one Jewish State of Israel and targeted them over the dispute with the Palestinians.

The EU insists that goods produced in Israel--on land seized from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in The Third Arab-Israeli War of 1967--be labeled as "Made In Settlements"--thereby supporting the anti-Semitic movement of Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) against the democratic State of Israel.

Just two days later, the EU got their sincere thank you from extremist Islamic terrorists who mercilessly struck Paris with attacks at the concerts halls, restaurants, and sports stadiums brutally killing at least 129 people and wounding over 350 others.

All loss of life is terrible, and especially innocent victims of terror, and my heart goes out to the victims of these evil attacks in Paris. 

Unfortunately, Europe is getting just a taste of what Israel has been living with for 67 years surrounded by hordes of violent extremists willing to inculcate generational hatred and wage unending terror and war--from missiles and suicide bombs, rocks and molotov cocktails, guns and knives to BDS, they are more than happy to use whatever it takes to kill all Jews and Zionists and throw every last one into the sea.

So perhaps Europe may finally awake from its deep slumber and long Anti-Semitic history, and instead of targeting Israel with BDS just 70 years after the Holocaust where six million Jews were murdered in Europe, the EU will recognize who is attacking them and is the true enemy of western civilization, democracy, and their very national identities.

High time for Europe to embrace Israel as their brothers in faith and allies in the battle against terrorism, hate, and extremism.

BDS is just another terror tactic by the extremists who want to terrorize and murder Jews and other "infidels." And labeling products from Israel like labeling Jews in the Holocaust with the Star of David is anti-Semitism and evil. 

It's time to reject BDS for the terrorism it is and instead Buy, Invest, and Promote (BIP) the Holy Land...and those that bless Israel will be blessed. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to zeevveez)

BDS Just Another Terrorist Attack

Living In The Dark Ages--Of Hate, Violence, and Endless Excuses

Despite the enlightenment of everything technology has to offer, we are as a global society, in many senses, living back in the Dark Ages again.

Unbelievable terror and killings have become routine and yet we have become deaf and desensitized to it. 

- Using chemical weapons...what red line? 

- Dropping barrel bombs...heck, at least it's not more chemical weapons. 

- Besieging of cities...how about a short truce to let in some much needed humanitarian aid?

- Beheadings on YouTube...already so cliche. 

- Burning people alive in cages or crucifying them...grotesque, but what were they doing there anyway? 

- Stoning women for being victims of rape or simply for some trumped up charges...sluts, they must've deserved it!

- Mass abductions, selling, enslavement, and gang rape of women and children...nice photo op for Bring Our Daughters Home.

- Raining missiles down on cities and digging terror tunnels under borders...well their aim isn't so good and the tunnels took them a lot of hard work.

- Bombing and shooting up pizzerias, cafes, clubs, hotels, stores, buses, weddings, funerals, and houses of worship...what can you do--it's a cycle of violence!

- Hacking off limbs, axing and stabbing attacks... of course, a legitimate airing of grievances.

- Flying airplanes into skyscrapers...it was a plot for the Crusaders to invade our lands.

- Building nukes and other weapons of mass destruction along with ballistic missiles, drones, and suitcase bombs to deliver the payload...well, you can't put the knowledge back in the bottle!

More excuses from the political peanut gallery:

Are we just war-weary, being lazy, fearful, hiding out and putting our heads in the sand for a while, focused on other pressing domestic issues, pivoting east, in need of a better strategy, rooting for and helping the other (wrong/evil) side, a little delusional as to our own national and homeland security here, or perhaps, have some seriously gone off the (rational) deep end? 

Appeasement, disengagement, and withdrawal...vice leadership.

How do we explain this type of insane, immoral world to our children and is this really the type of sick and treacherous world we want to leave to them?

Oh yes, it's so comfortable and cushy where we are--there is nothing for us to worry about--or is there? ;-)

(Source Photo: Facebook)

Living In The Dark Ages--Of Hate, Violence, and Endless Excuses

Feeling It All

Feelings are one of those things that make us oh so human. 

We feel love and hate, joy and sadness, hopeful and anxious, peaceful and distraught, and countless more emotions. 

While some people come across as stoic, others seem to take it all in (maybe even right on the chin). 

Hence, the perennial stone-faced poker player verse the person who seems to show every emotion and just can't hide it. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, about 20% of both men and women are what's called highly sensitive people (HSPs).

HSPs simply feel everything more!

These are the people who are crying at the movies and so on. 

They can also be extremely empathetic and caring--because they just almost intuitively understand. 

I think they are also deep thinkers, they are watchers of people, taking in the stimuli and processing it in terms of their feelings. 

I remember as a kid sitting with my sister and her friends who were considerably older than me--8 years--and I would listen to their "mature" girl conversations go on and on, and then at the end, I would just sort of say my sensitive two cents, and I think more often then not, I got a lot of surprise looks at a young boy who seemed a lot older and wiser than his age. 

In retrospect, I think that I was always just very sensitive to people, their plights, their hurt, the injustices in the world, and sought to understand it and try to make it right. 

The flip side is that one schmuck of a manager years ago said to me, "You need to get a thicker skin!"

But you know what, I like feeling, being very human, and deeply experiencing the world.

I would imagine (having never tried drugs, true) that perhaps people who get high either are running away from some feelings or running to others--but as a HSP, you just feel it all straight up. 

Being very sensitive to the world can almost be like extrasensory perception...sometimes you can see what others don't, but you also have to learn to cope with the firehose flood of feelings--sometimes even having to tune some of it out. 

Cut me and I bleed, caress me and I am comforted.  ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Feeling It All

Erase Me Not

So in the war between good and evil, the battlefield has become a war of words as much as that of guns and bombs. 

If you can't exterminate a people physically, then why not try to do it historically? 

With despots like former Iranian president Ahmadinejad as a exemplar for Holocaust denial, history revisionists now make fair game of rewriting the past, so that it plays their way.

How convenient--if you don't like how something turns out, simply change it in the history books so it never even happened. 

I was surprised recently to see how far this method of verbal warfare has gone, when I happened to look up some information online about the Jewish Exodus from slavery in Egypt and trek to the Promised Land of Israel, only to find that in Wikipedia, this has now been deemed a "Charter Myth."

I wondered how both the thousands year old Jewish Torah and the Christian Old Testament that records my people's hundreds of years of slavery and redemption in the Biblical book of Exodus was now just recorded in the most prominent online encyclopedia on the web as a false belief!

Ah, maybe those pyramids in Giza just showed up one day--and my people didn't build them with straw, mortar, and dead Jewish slave bodies.

Forget about how convenient calling this a myth is to the terrorists who don't want to acknowledge that the Land of Israel was given by G-d to the Jewish people and instead want to believe in Jihad against all "infidels."

My daughter asked me on a recent walk why they hate us? 

And I answered and said, if another people--i.e. the existence of the Jews and their homeland, Israel--is a refutation of their hate-filled "religious" beliefs, then maybe we can understand why they want to get rid of us, the inconvenient evidence.

This same story is playing out in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, where despite incredible destruction to Hamas in Gaza, they are claiming victory on social media. 

The Jewish people are small in numbers, and if millions of religious militants wants to write us off in the history books and on the web, they can certainly try. 

But what Jewish people do that is smarter than trying to erase something bad from history is that we force ourselves to remember it--to learn lessons from it and become better despite what happened. 

That is why we celebrate Passover to remember the Exodus from many thousands of years ago. The same with Yom Hashoah to memorialize the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust, and Tisha B'Av to remember the destruction of the two Jewish temples. 

Even we the commandment to blot of the remembrance of the evil that Amalek did in attacking the our infirm and elderly among us in the dessert in Exodus, we remember this annually!

The Jews are a people of the book--we remember, we study, we learn, we grow. 

In the Bible, there are plenty of people that did bad things, but we would never think to rewrite it or any portion of it. It is sacred and most valuable to learn from--the good and the bad. 

While damning the memory of someone bad is not uncommon among all cultures, it is really more a remembrance of what they did bad, rather than forgetting they ever did it. 

It is far more courageous to remember history and learn from it, then try fledglingly to rewrite the parts that you don't like or are inconvenient to you. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Erase Me Not

Can't Wait For The Walking Dead - Season 4

This show, The Walking Dead, is just awesome.

It's the end of the world...

With the the few battling to survive.

The scary fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaah 26:19  that the "dead will live; their corpses will rise up."

But rather than "shout for joy," in this version of events, we scream with horror as zombies keep coming  and coming, and their is no place left to hide. 

Those left have to run and fight, but if they get bitten (and eaten) and die, they too become what they fear and hate most--"The Walkers."

The characters, the action, the intensity, the ultimate challenge for humanity.

Can't wait for October 13, 9 pm on AMC. ;-)

Can't Wait For The Walking Dead - Season 4

Academic Assignments In Hate

According to the New York Times (12 April 2013) a high school English teacher in Albany, New York on Monday asked students to write a persuasive essay on why Jews are evil and the source of our problems. 

The assignment stated: "You do not have a choice in your position: you must argue that Jews are evil, and...convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!"

This assignment echoed a similar assignment given to students in Georgia and New York City earlier this year instructing students to calculate math problems by using number of slave whippings and killings. 

Yes, these school assignments--to our children--are shocking and appalling. 

Although they call these teachers giving these assignments, these are not real educators, but rather bigots given a classroom pulpit.

Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, the school district superintendent, said: "Obviously, we have a severe lack of judgement and a horrible level of insensitivity."

But this "apology" does not go far enough--in fact, there is no apology--just excuses and calls for sensitivity training. 

Wyngaard should've called this behavior for what it is--discrimination, anti-Semitism, bigotry, and hatred, and announced the firing of the teacher--who shouldn't be teaching anyone, anything!

With the Holocaust Remembrance Day this past Monday, April 8--this teacher added insult to injury in making such an assignment.

While teaching students how to write persuasively and argue different points of view can mean that sometimes you have to argue "the other side"; it crosses the line to assign students to write about why a whole race of people are evil, and on top of it to force them all to take that position.

According to CNews, a third of the students stood up and refused to complete the assignment--thankfully, there are some good and decent people left in this world.

Excuses are not apologies. Sensitivity training is not removal of a hateful bigot. And this school superintendent should've had the ethical backbone and courage to join the students who stood against this wrong. 

These "teachers" and school superintendent have at least six million reasons to do better, much better.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Academic Assignments In Hate