In times such as these, it's important to speak up.
I am for peace. I am for a future where all our children can make a better world. That's not naive. That's the only sane choice for humanity.
President Obama did a good job in speaking truth to intransigence yesterday in Cairo. Those who see the "other" only in demonizing terms are afraid to move toward a more-balanced relationship. This is understandable. Humans have done some pretty inhuman stuff to each other--and that's not an insult to animals. (Animals have been known to adopt children or other species and raise them as their own.)
Now, we--on all sides of this dispute/conversation--need to reign in or quash the extremist tendencies among us. Those who speak of violence must be shouted down or outed. Those who threaten the peacemakers are afoul of the law. Incitement to violence, especially against our leader, is intolerable.
Those American Jews in Israel--and elsewhere--who denigrate President Obama are a challenge we must confront. Fear is natural. We must remember the past and not repeat the worst part of it. With that, Israel must not bomb Gaza--unless it allows all civilians sanctuary within its borders.
And Palestinians and the Arab world and Muslims in general must recognize the Jewish people and their historic connectedness to Palestine and Israel. Terrorism must end. Israel-hating must stop. Ishmael AND Isaac were brothers, afterall.
Everyone can love the same land, and that's okay. I am not your enemy. I love the things you love. If you demonize me...you lessen yourself.
In that vein, people must not feel superior to anyone. The best spiritual teachers I have had have known this truth. If certain ones are "chosen"...it begs the question: Chosen for what? Hating the other, instead of trying to understand a different point-of-view, is embracing failure and disconnectedness.
There is no favorite. All are children of the One. A true parent loves all its children.
We should respect one another and stop acting on our fears and start living our dreams and aspirations for the good of all.
See the reflection in the other's eyes:
"I and I should not fight but live in peace for ever."
Just sayin'...shalomsalaampeace... ohhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Or is that just ridiculous?
Or pointless...
a circle might, in fact, be a spiral
Lest I sounded totally naive in my previous post, let me say clearly that when a country is attacked, it's natural to want to respond. Israel has been attacked since it was recreated as a modern state in 1948.As Benny Morris so succicntly explained in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, Israelis are in a tight spot.This is not only about Hamas in Gaza. The larger picture includes Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. With crazy men like Ahmedinejad spouting lies and disinformation about the Jewish people, one can understand why the "situation" has escalated in the Middle East.So long as Arab educators and leaders deny Israel's right to exist in its own historical homeland, there will be chaos.
Happy New Year.
These are legitimate questions. Is the cocky, dominant, top-gun attitude the best for making ethical decisions? In war should we be "removed" from our targets? What numbers are acceptable "collateral" casualties? Where is the leadership? Where is the humanity in war? Where's empathy? When is a response too much?
I taught high school students at the American International School in Israel for one year in the late '80s. [I had previously spent my junior year in Jerusalem at Hebrew University.] We had kids from around the globe. In one senior English class, I had an Israeli (born Canadian) student who had just been chosen to join a pilots program in the Israeli Air Force. He was a blonde, blue-eyed Tom Cruise type. He was also the son of a Jew for Jesus, a Christian convert. His mother objected when I assigned "Native Son" to the class. She didn't want her son to have to read about such a bleak situation. I explained that it was an important work of literature. She didn't want him becoming depressed by it, she countered. I asked how reading a book and discussing issues was more dangerous than choosing to be a pilot and making life and death situations for those people living on the ground. I never got an answer. You might say it's easy for me to prattle on; after all, I'm not living through bombardment as are the Israelis and, more so, the Palestinians in Gaza. Sitting in a safe place in the states leaves me in a different emotional situation than if I were over there. So, I can only imagine how people's judgments are affected by the stress on all sides. As Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshusa wrote in a recent articles, Hamas can be blamed for launching the attacks, but there needs to be a cease fire.The way forward has to be one of eventually coming together--or at least balancing the seesaw. Like the yin and yang or the two halves of the kabbalistic star...the one on top is not superior, it is merely the one above. The half on the bottom--this is very important--is not inferior. It is the root. The two halves make one. Like in the creation story where the first human was made in the Creator's image with both male AND female parts (Adam/Adamah), they complete each other. (It wasn't until much later that the superiority/inferiority tale emerged.)
People don't have to love or even like one another, but they can respectfully work for a more just future for all the people living in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The way forward is not more bombs and rockets.
I love much about Israel--I have friends who live there; I'm hopeful about a Palestinian state.
Meeting your "enemy" and walking through their world for a day is one way to start. Let's refuse to be enemies and make a better future. Taking risks for what is right is strength, too. Peace.
Are you set on reform, Barack Obama, or more of the same?
Where's the change in this pick? Just askin'.
Saturday we spent canvassing Croton-on-Hudson neighborhoods.
Today I spent the day in Pittston, PA--near Wilkes-Barre--hanging door flyers for Obama/Biden. Nestled in the Susquehana River valley, the neighborhood was beautiful...colorful trees and Halloween decorations still about. Only two minor negatives...one woman outright refused the flyer. Her prerogative. Another group at one house surrounded on both sides by Democratic yard signs yelled "Obama" in my direction several times as I went about my task. When offered a flyer they declined. Down the street an elderly woman asked which flyer I was handing out. She was relieved it was for Obama. She said that her yard sign was recently stolen.
Why are William Kristol, Joseph Lieberman and David Brooks pushing the McCain-Palin ticket? Evidently, they think they've got friends in extremist religious communities. What they don't know may hurt us all. Do they think that McCain and Palin will take on Iran and the whole bloody mess in the Middle East will disappear? How so?
I don't think they represent the majority of Americans on this idea. As an American Jew I am alarmed.
And by the way AIPAC isn't the only group representing American Jews with regards to Israel. They're just a behemoth that gets most of the attention. What about J Street?, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and other Jewish American voices for peace? These groups want dialogue NOW and are for negotiating peace that ensures Israel's safety. Unfortunately, their work tends to get silenced or ignored by the media who go to the old familiar, AIPAC.
Moderates and liberals should be upset that the process has been taken over by the far right. To what end?
This is when I fondly recall my agnostic grandfather's annoyance regarding organized religion. Man's inhumanity toward his fellow man is often made in the name of religion. It's time for freethinking people everywhere to make their opinions known.
Extremists can appear in all religions. I don't want our kids led to war by some End Days evangelicals fulfilling a dark dream. Because in the end the extremist Christians' plan for America and the Jews is no better than Ahmadenidijad's. Am I wrong?
Here's the deal, Sarah Palin. Since Hillary is busy...doing who knows what, I volunteer to step up and do the right thing.
On behalf of the Independents and Democratic women everywhere, I challenge Sarah Palin to a skeet shoot. A what? our urban friends may ask. I'll take her on with my shotgun, and we'll keep score as to how many clay pigeons each of us blasts into smithereens. Start quaking in your go-go boots, Palin. When I was a twelve-year-old, I joined my dad and uncles in my grandparents' backyard in rural Michigan to blast away at the flying targets. I won the high praise of my country kin and that was with a hefty 12-gauge. Imagine what I'd do with a 20 gauge equipped with a poly-choke like some folks. My point being, you're not the only 40-something able to get the job done.And if that's not fun enough for you, I'll fly up to your neck of the woods and have a go at bagging a moose--it's gotta have antlers, though. I'm all for culling a herd if needed but not a mama moose. And certainly NOT from an airplane; that's not hunting in my book. And if you don't want to take me on, I'm sure my cousin Debbie, who knows her way around high-powered rifles and elk, would oblige. Or, if you prefer, let's have a fishing contest. I once skinned and gutted a mess of blue-gill and sunfish with my jackknife. And that was before I knew you should pierce the fish's brain so he doesn't have to live through the ordeal. (Please forgive me, oh fish.) We could get our rods, reels, worms and see who can get the biggest thing with fins.How about it, Governor? If you don't mind messing up your manicure, just have your people get back to my people--then we'll start cutting your myth down to size.
You're not the only shooting mama, and this one's for OBAMA!
Night Three of the Republication National Convention...
Is it just me or are there like barely any people of color at the Republican Convention? Or maybe that phrase to them means brunette. Seriously, Carly Fiorina had to darken down to back up Meg Whitman or it would have been non-stop blondes.Anyway, not that there's anything wrong with being rich. I just can't stand rich people whining the trickle down mantra. Hey, they got to their positions somehow--so can you. But the government shouldn't help you. Nope. And they're pretty upfront about if the rich folk's taxes go up, they'll just pass that burden along to everyone else...isn't that what they've done during the Bush and Reagan years anyway? Hypocrisy. The GOP ruins the economy and the surplus and then gripes about paying their fair share. It's okay for Bush to leave this country in tatters but don't expect anyone to pick up the pieces. You're on your own, as Barack and others have said.Well, as an American, I find that self-righteous attitude disgusting. They back up their personal luck stories with tales of the valiant folk who've fought and died for our country. As if only Republicans have served their country. My ancestors were here before the Revolutionary War and many served along the way. And being a tortured war hero doesn't mean you're automatically qualified to serve as president. Between Mitt Romney, Huck Finn Huckabee and blood-blathering Rudi Giuliani, it's getting pretty moist in the xCel center. Now, he's denigrating Obama for having worked as a community organizer.
Now it's a circus. Drunk people are turning beet red under their straw hats guffawing for the "nice" mayor who has tried to milk 9/11 for all its worth. "Change is not a destination, just like hope is not a strategy," he says. What does he know about improving the economy? The GOP is only about pillaging. Oh...and now he's complaining about the Dems not talking about Islamic terrorism. He's pushing his constituency for a Holy War. The idiot. Now he's saying Democrats have given up on Iraq and, therefore, have given up on America. Hello...W went to the wrong country! It wasn't Iraq that attacked us, it was Al Quaeda in Afghanistan.Giuliani is good at propaganda. You have to give him that.Oh, and now Governor Palin is on the stage. The cutaway shot is to the boy making eye-contact with his future mother-in-law...looks like he's about to cry. Talk about being able to deliver. I hope her daughter actually likes him. I wonder what Hillary Clinton is doing right now. This Palin woman is slick. She's a true believer. (Note to self...reread Eric Hoffer's book.) She's a threat and the Dems are going to need to make their case. Oh my...the audience is eating her up. There she goes telling the world her son's exact deployment date...why is that necessary? Oh...because it's 9/11. Duh.
Now she's addressing special needs families. "You will have a friend, an advocate in the White House." Great, but who's going to give us coverage for health insurance? She's definitely a politician. And just happens to mention hubby's 1/144th Yu'pik Inuit ancestry but says "eskimo".
Oh my...she grew up with the people who "are always proud of America." I wonder why, then, her husband was/is a member of the secessionist movement in Alaska? Oh, and now the baby is on the littlest daughter's lap. HAng on to him while daddy takes his bow."Being a small town mayor is like a community organizer except that you have actual responsibilities." A real zinger, Sarah. May I call you Sarah? Oh and a bunch of muscle men in suits are dragging a woman up the stairs...did she not clap enough for Princess Sarah? Oh my, she's gonna be a tough one to beat. Oh...and she's going to have a "servant's heart and carry (her)self in that spirit as vice president." Mmmmmmkay. Why the dis on community organizing though? Snarky.She's slick...kinda like Willy. She's lying about not wanting the bridge to nowhere. First she wanted it and when the Feds cut off funding, that's when she said, "thanks but no thanks" and kept the money!
Now she's talking about ravaging the North Slope of Alaska. And she's picking up the alternative fuels football. And she's really dissing Obama. Nasty.She's quite the cheerleader. I wonder how she debates. She's got those lies on her sleeve. Boy, if I could speak so quickly, I'd want to tell the truth, not obfuscate. She's got a real smarmy tone. Now she's rah-rah-ing the fact that John McCain is the only one to have served in the armed forces. See...guns matter.McCain might be smart. He picked a daughter-like shadow. Smart move on her part taking the baby in her arms after her family joining them onstage. And now there's John Mccain...he's seems pleasantly surprised. Okay, so if they win who's going to give him his Ritalin in the White House?
