Fascist Facts

Now that a Republican is president, the old copy is being dusted off and “fascists” is reappearing in the press.  Trump and his ilk are fascists, like most conservatives.  Well, as they say, if you repeat something enough it must be true. I also say, back at ya!

Fascism is the creation of the left, who borrowed some ideas from the extreme right. AND, the progressive movement in the United States applauded what Mussolini created, as well as the Bolsheviks, as the way to a more perfect state.

From two sources noted below I summarize.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

In 1919 Benito Mussolini described fascism as a movement that would strike “against the backwardness of the right and the destructiveness of the left”

The Italian term fascismo is derived from fascio meaning a bundle of rods, ultimately from the Latin word fasces.[14] This was the name given to political organizations in Italy known as fasci, groups similar to guilds or syndicates and at first applied mainly to organizations on the political Left.

Fascism was influenced by both left and right, conservative and anti-conservative, national and supranational, rational and anti-rational.

After King Victor Emmanuel III forced Mussolini to resign as head of government and placed him under arrest in 1943, Mussolini was rescued by German forces. While continuing to rely on Germany for support, Mussolini and the remaining loyal Fascists founded the Italian Social Republic with Mussolini as head of state. Mussolini sought to re-radicalize Italian Fascism, declaring that the Fascist state had been overthrown because Italian Fascism had been subverted by Italian conservatives and the bourgeoisie.[54] Then the new Fascist government proposed the creation of workers’ councils and profit-sharing in industry, although the German authorities, who effectively controlled northern Italy at this point, ignored these measures and did not seek to enforce them.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewsubcategory.asp?id=1223;

Fascism is a totalitarian movement that empowers an omnipotent government to control every nook and cranny of political, economic, social, and private life – generally in the name of “the public good.”

Thus it is accurate to say that progressivism is, in effect, an American version of European fascism.
“Progressivism was a sister movement of fascism,” writes Jonah Goldberg, “and today’s liberalism is the daughter of Progressivism.” The journalist J. T. Flynn – perhaps the best-known anti-FDR muckraker of the 1930s, foresaw that American fascism might one day manifest itself as “a very genteel and dainty and pleasant form of fascism which cannot be called fascism at all because it will be so virtuous and polite.”
“Progressivism was a sister movement of fascism,” writes Goldberg, “and today’s liberalism is the daughter of Progressivism.” The journalist J. T. Flynn – perhaps the best-known anti-FDR muckraker of the 1930s, foresaw that American fascism might one day manifest itself as “a very genteel and dainty and pleasant form of fascism which cannot be called fascism at all because it will be so virtuous and polite.”

Below are some of the famous US folks in the 30’s and what they thought of fascism.

HG. Wells, said in 1932 that progressives must become “liberal fascists” and “enlightened Nazis.” The poet Wallace Stevens pronounced himself “pro-Mussolini personally.” The historian Charles Beard wrote of Mussolini’s efforts: “Beyond question, an amazing experiment is being made [in Italy], an experiment in reconciling individualism and socialism.” Lincoln Steffens, for one, said that Italian fascism made Western democracy, by comparison, look like a system run by “petty persons with petty purposes.” Mussolini, Steffens proclaimed reverently, had been “formed” by God “out of the rib of Italy.” Reporter Ida Tarbell was deeply impressed by Mussolini’s attitudes regarding labor, affectionately dubbing him “a despot with a dimple.” NAACP co-founder W. E. B. DuBois saw National Socialism as a worthy model for economic organization. The establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, he wrote, had been “absolutely necessary to get the state in order.” In 1937 DuBois stated: “there is today, in some respects, more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past.” FDR adviser Rexford Guy Tugwellsaid of Italian fascism: “It’s the cleanest, neatest, most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I’ve ever seen. It makes me envious.” New Republiceditor George Soule, who avidly supported FDR, noted approvingly that the Roosevelt administration was “trying out the economics of fascism.” Playwright George Bernard Shaw hailed Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini as the world’s great “progressive” leaders because they “did things,” unlike the leaders of those “putrefying corpses” called parliamentary democracies.

So, to quote the signs of protesters, “We are all Fascists, (especially those of us on the left since we invented the concept)”  I added a few words, tough to put on a poster in a protest.

Can we not just get along and stop calling each other names; that goes for you too President Trump.  Also President Obama, Secretary Clinton, President Clinton, et al.

Biden Rule

Hoopla and Hyperbole. The nomination of Judge Gorsuch has raised the level of political BS to new heights.

“The stolen seat” is the new slogan, kind of like the “stolen election” of the Bush years. A little originality please. When President Obama nominated judge Garland the senate majority leader invoked the “Biden” rule. I note below the core then Senator Biden’s comments, with a link to it all.

“Mr. President, where the nation should be treated to a consideration of constitutional philosophy, all it will get in such circumstances is a partisan bickering and political posturing from both parties and from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. As a result, it is my view that if a Supreme Court Justice resigns tomorrow, or within the next several weeks, or resigns at the end of the summer, President Bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not — and not — name a nominee until after the November election is completed.”

Biden said if Bush were to nominate someone anyway, “the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over.”

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/mar/17/context-biden-rule-supreme-court-nominations/

So, After the Dems invoke the nuclear option to get cabinet members nominated for Obama they are now yelling about a “Mainstream” judge is the only thing that should occur. What goes around,…..

The judiciary is there to ensure laws follow the constitution, not to interpret the will of the people and make law, that is the job of the Congress.  Bi-partisanship is needed to pass laws. I hope the new president doesn’t slip down the slope like our last one did and go around Congress. Leadership is required, sorely lacking for the last eight years.

“If you’re happy with your plan, and doctor you can keep it/them”

Wow!  This ranks at the top of lies.  Not a lie you say, well, the below comes from Jim Geraghty of National Review online, today.

As Matthew Fleischer wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 2013, “Most young, middle-class Americans I know are happy that millions of previously uninsured people will receive free or heavily subsidized insurance under the Affordable Care Act. We just didn’t realize that, unless we had health insurance at work, we’d be the ones paying for it.” The chief architect later glibly joked about how gullible the public was when the administration was selling it: “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the ‘stupidity of the American voter’ or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”

I am in agreement that we as a rich country should not deny medical attention to anyone. What I disagree with is how the ACA has done it.

My wife and I are int he category of “we’d be the ones paying for it.”  Our insurance costs have risen 200%, we are a combination of medicare and private. Our costs are now 12% of our income. We are blessed to have a higher than average income in retirement, however, when our president said the average household would see a reduction in total costs, he didn’t say those of us in this income category would see the kind of increases we have seen.

My hope and prayer is our system is changed so that:

  1. All people pay to fund health insurance, a $600 penalty is nuts, nuts, nuts.  The penalty should be what they would pay for a private plan.
  2. States don’t get to create the requirements of a plan, too much opportunity for collusion. Insurance companies offer plans with a cafeteria approach of what the person wants and all plans have catastrophic coverage.
  3. The legal costs are reduced through tort reform.
  4. Drug costs are subject to the market place.
  5. Competition across state lines.
  6. Medical information is in some sort of database so that each doctor doesn’t have to have the burden of creating and updating information on their own, huge unnecessary cost.
  7. Kids are off parents plan at 21.  If the parents want to pay for a private plan, let them.
  8. Higher charges for lifestyle choices that increase total medical cost, smoking, obesity, etc. Especially if repeat care is required for refusing to change your lifestyle.

This has got to change.

Idealism versus Realism

I was reading the article below and it immediately brought a moment of clarity to the recent political upheavals, Trump was elected because enough people were irritated with idealists talking about what might happen, and didn’t.

Having been in Alaska and after talking with those who live there polar bears are, well bears, who goal for 7 months is to eat, just about anything they can. Bald eagles, really pretty, symbol of the country, strong, free, wow. Scavengers who defecate all over wherever they are, turn over trash cans, get in your way, can really hurt you in the right circumstances. Bears in the Great Smokey mountains are sooooo cute, let’s feed them, until they decide you look better to eat than the morsels you throw at them.

Well, politics should be realism with a tinge of idealism. What is the data concerning the results of an idea to fix a problem should be the driving motivation behind a policy.  Not whether the policy pleases your supporters. Education, Trillions of dollars and falling results. Regime change, more trillions. Loans to favorite industries. Forcing banks to loan to those who obviously will never repay a loan. Zero percent interest rates that beggar savers. OK, no more.

Are we making better decisions that we made in 1916?  Has 100 years taught us anything about how to govern ourselves, I would say yes, but only slightly so.  Progress is progress, it would be faster if we used more data.

 

 
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442660/dog-polar-bear-video-showcases-media-lies-propaganda-animals?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=161202_G-File&utm_term=GFile

In our culture, animals are portrayed as cuddly and innocent, but some of them actually want to eat your face. It’s time for an open and frank national conversation about bear propaganda. Having grown up in New York City, I had not been made aware of the problem until fairly late in life. This was remedied by my lovely wife, who grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, where bears are not an abstraction. In policy terms, I was an idealist and she was a realist. The issue didn’t come up much during the wooing stage or the early years of our marriage. But as often happens with matters of core conviction, it was when we had a child that my wife’s passion on the issue was made clear to me. Any time my daughter and I watched something on TV featuring a bear behaving like a cuddly companion or some majestic, gentle denizen of the woodlands for hippies or retirees to take pictures of, my wife would shout, “That’s bear propaganda!” I was once watching a credit-card commercial with my daughter in which a middle-aged woman was fulfilling the dreams that only MasterCard or Visa can make reality. She sat on a bus snapping pictures of some glorious polar bear that came right up to her window. At that moment, the mother of my child walked into the living room with a look on her face like she’d caught me watching Apocalypse Now with a five-year-old. “Bear propaganda!” she shouted. “It wants to eat her face.” It’s been one of the staples of home life. If we’re watching a documentary about adorable bear cubs, she’ll explain that they’re just waiting to get big enough to eat our faces. Performing bears? Biding their time for the right moment to eat your face. And even though my daughter and I tend to make fun of Mommy’s obsession, over the years I’ve become convinced. The culture is shot through with bear propaganda. Coca-Cola runs elegant Christmastime cartoons of polar-bear families celebrating the season. Never mind that polar bears don’t live in intact nuclear families. The males are cads who spend a few days with the single white females before scampering off to spend the rest of their lives as deadbeat dads. Also, if the supply of adorable (yet tasty!) seals runs low, the males have been known to eat bear cubs. They also eat other things when the opportunity arises. Which is what prompted this column in the first place. Last month, a video of a polar bear palling around with a dog went viral, appearing on numerous news shows and eliciting a chorus of “awws” from audiences and anchors alike. But experts in polar-bear behavior recognized that the bear was checking it out the way an experienced shopper squeezes a cantaloupe. Indeed, the bear was baited to come check out the dog so that a Canadian businessman could provide better photo-ops for tourists. “To me, it’s like it’s trying to see if the food’s ready or not,” Tom Smith, a wildlife biologist, laughingly told the Washington Post. “It’s not surprising that it would try to explore this dog . . . but I guarantee if you left that bear there long enough, it would say, ‘I wonder what this dog tastes like?’” Well here’s the good news: The bear didn’t eat the dog. The bad news: It (or another bear) ate a different dog. Why? Because that’s the kind of thing polar bears do. But you wouldn’t know that from popular culture. Every couple of months, a new big-budget animated film comes out — Finding Dory, The Secret Life of Pets, etc. — in which animals have human personalities. Many animal lovers think it’s harmless and entertaining — and in one sense they’re right. I like a lot of those movies. But it’s a remarkable thing if you take a step back and think about it. Many of these movies treat humans as the enemy — cruel, careless despoilers of the environment — while at the same time telling us that the highest compliment we can pay to animals is to assume they’re just like us. These movies tell us virtually nothing about animals but a great deal about ourselves. Warthogs don’t sing No Worries, and sharks have never joined a support group that says, “Fish are friends, not food.” By all means put down the crystal and swim with your spirit-animal dolphin friends. But bear in mind, male dolphins are rapists. And should you get a chance to steal a hug from a polar bear or grizzly, don’t be surprised when it eats your face.

 

Facts about Dakota access pipeline that protesters don’t want you to know

From the Daily Signal, http://dailysignal.com/2016/11/17/the-facts-about-the-dakota-access-pipeline-that-protesters-dont-want-you-to-know/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Top5&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTkdWaE1EWTFabVl5TlRGbSIsInQiOiJqVmlaQ011OUV1MzdvcUZHVnN1S1lyRDBoQjRjSjRqXC9Pb212aG9UT2hYREVYdk94Q1BCQ1JoRTlMV1JVT1I5ekI4UVVuTGJERlNZK2hhZUlYMHQ2QUx5ZkRTMkhuMWdcL2o1MEhrRXJpWFZnPSJ9

For more than three months, thousands of protesters, most of them from out of state, have illegally camped on federal land in Morton County, North Dakota, to oppose the construction of a legally permitted oil pipeline project that is 85 percent complete.

The celebrities, political activists, and anti-oil extremists who are blocking the pipeline’s progress are doing so based on highly charged emotions rather than actual facts on the ground.

This 1,172-mile Dakota Access pipeline will deliver as many as 570,000 barrels of oil a day from northwestern North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to connect to existing pipelines in Illinois. It will do this job far more safely than the current method of transporting it by 750 rail cars a day.

The protesters say they object to the pipeline’s being close to the water intake of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. However, this should be of no concern as it will sit approximately 92 feet below the riverbed, with increased pipe thickness and control valves at both ends of the crossing to reduce the risk of an incident, which is already low.

The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.  We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed.

Just like the companies that run the 10 other fossil-fuel pipelines crossing the Missouri River upstream of Standing Rock, Energy Transfer Partners—the primary funder of this pipeline—is taking all necessary precautions to ensure that the pipeline does not leak.

But even if there were a risk, Standing Rock will soon have a new water intake that is nearing completion much further downstream near Mobridge, South Dakota.

From the outset of this process, Standing Rock Sioux leaders have refused to sit down and meet with either the Army Corps of Engineers or the pipeline company.

The Army Corps consulted with 55 Native American tribes at least 389 times, after which they proposed 140 variations of the route to avoid culturally sensitive areas in North Dakota. The logical time for Standing Rock tribal leaders to share their concerns would have been at these meetings, not now when construction is already near completion.

The original pipeline was always planned for south of Bismarck, despite false claims that it was originally planned for north of Bismarck and later moved, thus creating a greater environmental danger to the Standing Rock Sioux.

The real reasons for not pursuing the northern route were that the pipeline would have affected an additional 165 acres of land, 48 extra miles of previously undisturbed field areas, and an additional 33 waterbodies.

It would also have crossed zones marked by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration as “high consequence” areas, and would have been 11 miles longer than the preferred and current route.

North Dakotans have respected the rights of these individuals to protest the pipeline, but they have gone beyond civil protesting.

Though these protesters claim to be gathered for peaceful prayer and meditation, law enforcement has been forced to arrest more than 400 in response to several unlawful incidents, including trespassing on and damaging private land, chaining themselves to equipment, burning tires and fields, damaging cars and a bridge, harassing residents of nearby farms and ranches, and killing and butchering livestock. There was even at least one reported incident where gun shots were fired at police.

The recent vandalization of graves in a Bismarck cemetery and the unconscionable graffiti marking on the North Dakota column at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., are examples of how the protesters’ actions do not match their claims of peaceful demonstration.

Equally disturbing is the meddling by the Obama administration in trying to block this legally permitted project through executive policymaking. This has encouraged more civil disobedience, threatened the safety of local residents, and placed an onerous financial burden on local law enforcement—with no offer of federal reimbursement for these increasing costs.

All that remains for the pipeline project to be completed is for the Army Corps of Engineers to issue a final easement to cross the Missouri River at Lake Oahe. With no legal reason remaining to not issue it, I am confident the Trump administration will do what’s right if it’s not settled before President Donald Trump takes office.

The simple fact is that our nation will continue to produce and consume oil, and pipelines are the safest and most efficient way to transport it. Legally permitted infrastructure projects must be allowed to proceed without threat of improper governmental meddling.

The rule of law matters. We cannot allow lawless mobs to obstruct projects that have met all legal requirements to proceed.

A prayer for unity

An invocation at the beginning of a Rotary meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, and some comments from a rabbi, on the day of the election prior to the results.

I am honored to offer an invocation the day after presidential election. With the nature of the campaign, my thoughts turned to the seemingly overwhelming need for unity, as spoken to by both our president elect this early morning and Secretary Clinton an hour ago.  We live in a dangerous world, we must be as united as possible, which means not getting everything we want.

There is plenty of advice to us from scripture about putting aside dissention.  Psalm 133,  “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity!”; Matthew 12:25 “And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. Surah 3:103   “hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided.”

 

From a founder, Patrick Henry; in his last public speech, given in March 1799,  He declaimed, “Let us trust God, and our better judgment to set us right hereafter. United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.” At the end of his oration, Henry fell into the arms of bystanders and was carried almost lifeless into a nearby tavern. Two months afterward, he died.

Lastly, from Ronald Reagan, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where we were free.”

Please join me in prayer.

God of all nations, Father of the human family, we give you thanks for the freedom we exercise
and the many blessings of democracy we enjoy in these United States of America.
We ask for your protection and guidance for all who devote themselves to the common good who are working for justice and peace at home and around the world, such as Rotary clubs.

 

We lift up all our duly elected leaders and public servants, those who will serve us as president, as legislators and judges, those in the military and law enforcement.
Heal us from our differences and unite us, O Lord,
with a common purpose, dedication, and commitment to achieve liberty and justice
in the years ahead for all people, and especially those who are most vulnerable in our midst.

Lastly we give thanks for this food we are about to consume, bless those who produced and prepared it for us today, and bless us to thy service.    Amen

Rabbi Jonathan Miller

Temple Emanu-El

Birmingham, Alabama

 

I made a point of writing this sermon early in the week, before the election results came in. As I prepared my message for tonight, I wanted to make sure that I was specifically not current with the results of who were the winners and who were the losers in the election. I have not commented on this election from the pulpit. I want to speak to you about the election and not about who was elected and who was defeated. I do not feel that it is my place to publicly support candidates or parties. If as your rabbi I refrain from supporting candidates and parties, I can freely speak to the issues of the day when I share what Judaism has to say about the issues we face as a community, as a people and as a nation. As a citizen, I can be partisan. As a rabbi, partisan politics does not have a place on my pulpit. I am here to speak to you today as your rabbi and not as Jonathan Miller.

 

There are other reasons that I eschew partisan politics from the pulpit, even as I have my own opinions as a citizen. I believe that you should have the ability to come to worship, to bring your tired soul in need of uplift and your thirst for Torah and have these needs addressed. I respect the differences of opinion that our democratic system allows and even encourages. Through the lens of history, I realize that I can be wrong on certain things. I also realize that people and parties who have differed with my opinions over the years have also been wrong. Democracy challenges us with the notion that no single person or party has the corner on rectitude. We can differ from one another, and we can differ passionately.

 

I also believe that we are one nation, even though at times, as to the run up to this election on Tuesday, we do not feel ourselves to be “under God” or “indivisible.” Sometimes it is hard to be in fellowship with people who do not see the world the way we see it. I want the synagogue to be a place of unity and safety. Here we can discuss issues, and not candidates. We can listen to people, with respect, who differ from us. And we must defend the rights of all the citizens of our country for each person to do their part to determine the future course of our nation and the world through our representative democracy.

 

There are other reasons that I do not discuss candidates or party from the pulpit. I am usually disappointed in our politicians. Did I say usually? I should have said always. Politics is a rough and tumble contact sport. It is a zero sum game of winners and losers, a popularity contest wherein 50% plus one lands a person in the win column. And coming in “almost a winner” means absolutely nothing. I don’t like to live my life that way. And, while this election was extreme, the people who vie for a position in political leadership more often than not are most effective when they tear down their opponents, instead of building themselves up. Politics is bloody and it is real, and I don’t like to see real blood shed in the public square. In this election in particular, both of our national candidates and their families were wounded terribly. And it was sad to watch the debasement of the character of the people who would wish to lead our nation. More than any election I have witnessed in my fifteenth presidential election, this election was an election of slogans and character assassination. I believe that we are better than that. I pray that we are.

 

And finally, I am a religious person. I am uncompromising in my beliefs. While I can appreciate the beliefs of others, religious people do not have to compromise. We have to get along and cooperate, but never do we ask a person of faith to explain himself or herself so that we might be satisfied. Politics is by nature a give and take. Politics is by nature most effective when the politicians and their parties compromise for the sake of the greater good. Religious faith is absolute. It should not keep score. Political conviction is a combination of firmly held principles with the knowledge that everyone gives a little and sometimes a lot to make the future better. Political compromise keeps score from one battle to the next. And there is always a next battle. That is the political world in a nutshell. Religion is about finding deeper meanings in the struggles we encounter and working to better align our lives with the dictates of God who commands us to lead better lives.

 

In the Torah, we read about Abraham and Sarah, who are both people of uncompromising faith in God. They did not make truck with the idol worshippers or the Canaanites. They were not politicians. They garnered respect from the people for their absolute fealty to their faith. But who would want Abraham or Sarah or Isaiah or Jeremiah sitting on the throne or legislating in the halls of Congress or Parliament? Religious people are driven by principle. Politicians bend their principles to achieve results.

 

With this backdrop, I want to comment on these sorry elections. I want to share with you my views and my sorrow that this is where we have come as a nation. Not a single one of us should feel righteous. All of us, no matter how Tuesday night’s results turned out, or what transpired in the aftermath of the election on Wednesday, or Thursday or today or tomorrow, no one should feel happy and each one of us ought to feel a bit dirty and soiled.

 

I was shocked at the anger so many of us feel in this country. This election has unleashed a rage against imaginary demons. From the very start of this season, every American was made to feel that he or she is being done wrong, that sinister forces are colluding to take away–ok, let’s do the list–our moral nature, our prosperity, our borders, our health care, our guns, our freedoms, our rights, our security. They, whomever they might be, are coming to take away that which we cherish. Instead of building an inclusive society where all Americans have the opportunity to prosper, we are hunkering down to protect what is ours from our fellow Americans. We have lost our sense of common purpose. No great society was ever built on a foundation of anger.

 

And after anger inevitably comes scapegoating. The Mexicans are the cause of our misfortunes. The Muslims are the cause of our misfortunes. The communists are the cause of our misfortunes. The Catholics are the cause of our misfortunes, and the blacks and the women and the rich and poor and the corporations and the media and the banks and Hollywood and the Chinese–they cause our misfortunes. Ominously for us Jews, many have pointed to us as the cause of their misfortunes. Good Lord, where does it end? Someone else is always a cause of my misfortune. My friends, what does this do?

 

All we have focused on is our misfortunes. And our misfortunes are amplified month to month, week to week, until we punch people at political rallies and threaten each other and hurt each other. And all we think about are our misfortunes and revenge. Does this country have any blessings? Are we not blessed by God? Do we not have opportunities and resources and comforts and strength, the kind of which our American mothers and fathers could not have even imagined one hundred years ago. The ever-expanding knowledge of the world is at our fingertips. We can buy raspberries in November and enjoy roses in December and fill our refrigerators in January. Is there not a single blessing that we enjoy? We have focused and amplified every misfortune imaginable.

 

And then of course, we do not take responsibility for our own state of affairs. It is his fault or her fault or their fault. It is never my fault. I am never responsible for my aches and pains and woes. Let’s blame the Jews or the Muslims or the Mexicans or the Ivy League pinheads. And then none of us have any responsibility for where we have come from or for where we are going. The blaming and the suspicion is beyond anything that could constitute even the possibility of our creating a decent society.

 

We do not trust either candidate. It feels like forever that we have been lied to. We have been lied to by the Republicans. We have been lied to by the Democrats. We have been lied to by the FBI and law enforcement. We have been lied to by the media. Mark Twain wrote that there are “lies lies, and damned lies–and then statistics.” We find it hard to believe that anyone is telling the truth. Fact checkers check the facts, but for what purpose? The lies, lies, damned lies and statistics are repeated over and over again, and when we hear them we recoil.

2000 years ago, Rabbi Shimon taught in this Midrash:

In the hour when God was about to create Adam, the angels were divided into different groups.… Love said, “Let him be created, and he will do loving deeds.” But Truth said, “Let him not be created because he will be all deceit.” Righteousness said, “Let him be created because he will do righteous deeds.” Peace said, “Let him not be created because he will be all quarrelsome and discord.”

 

What did God do? He seized hold of Truth and cast it to the earth, as it is said, You “cast truth to the ground” (Daniel 8:12). Then the angels said to God, “Why do you despise your Angel of Truth? Let Truth rise out of the earth, as it is said, ‘Truth springs out of the earth’” (Genesis Rabbah B’reishit 8:5).

 

In this election, Truth was cast to the ground. And there was no one to claim it. When truth is the first casualty; love, righteousness and peace are established on flimsy foundations. As religious people, we have to hold our leaders accountable not to tell us what they think we want to hear, but instead to tell us what we have to know to be good citizens and to make all of our lives better.

 

That is a great segue to my next concern. All of us cherry pick our news. When I was a child, we read the same newspapers and watched the nightly news at 6:30. We all had the same experience of living together and absorbing the same set of facts. The facts were rarely in question. Instead, we differed in our opinions and then went to the ballot box to cast our votes. The fringe elements were the outliers. Instead today, we gravitate to the sources of news and comment which first agree with our opinions, so we do not have the ability to speak with common discourse. The proliferation of the “gotcha media” poisons our common good. We have created a fractured universe.

 

So where do we go from here? Remember, I wrote this message before the polls were closed in Alabama and before the winners were announced.

 

The Torah tells us about going from here to there. This Shabbat we read “lech l’cha, God’s call to Avram.”

 

The Lord said to Avram, “Go forth from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land that I will show you.

“I will make you into a great nation,

and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing. 

I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all the people on the earth

will be blessed through you.”

 

Friends and fellow Jews, I have always thought that the United States of America was the greatest nation ever created. I have always believed that despite our problems and the ugliness that sometimes rears its head in this mighty and diverse country of ours, that we have each been kissed by God because we live here. As citizens, in the aftermath of the election, we are charged to take Avram, our most founding father, and be willing to go out from where we have been. We are charged to take the journey together. We are charged to be a blessing. We are charged to live in a world where God’s name will once again be great, and we are to be God’s agents to help the Divine achieve that greatness.

 

It is well past the time to put the rancor and suspicion behind us and move from where we are to come home to the kingdom of God. America has, since its inception, been the Promised Land for Jews and Christians and Muslims and other believers and those of no belief at all to exercise our freedom for the common good and create a more just and more perfect union. This election, no matter who is elected, cries out for truth, for compassion and for trust that our mission as a nation is still the most inspiring mission for all of humanity. And let us move forward together towards our best selves.

 

Israel Baline was born in Russia in 1888 and came to America at the age of five. During World War I, Israel Baline served as a soldier in the United States’ army during. He put pen to paper and wrote this now famous song. The song was tucked away in a drawer someplace, and pulled out in 1938 as Europe prepared for its apocalypse and America was riven with post-depression fear, resentment and anti-Semitism. By 1938, the Jewish boy from Russia, Israel Baline was known to the world as Irving Berlin. I will spare you my singing. But listen to the words which came from this Jewish boy’s heart, who loved his country even during challenging times–especially during challenging times.

 

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,

Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free.

Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,

As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer:

God bless America, land that I love,

Stand beside her and guide her

Through the night with a light from above.

From the mountains, to the prairies,

To the oceans white with foam,

God bless America, my home sweet home.

God bless America, my home sweet home.

May God bless the United States of America, this homeland and this ideal that we all love, and may we live so that we might be worthy of God’s blessings.

 

Amen

Harry Reid, Good Riddance

WSJ, 10/31/16, Opnion piece

Harry Reid is retiring, thank goodness. A rabid partisan who has lied on the Senate floor and then said, paraphrasing, well it worked didn’t it!  This was about Romney paying taxes.

The article in the WSJ details much more. Reid is one of the reasons Congress doesn’t work, Pelosi another and certainly there are some on the other side of the aisle that don’t help much either.

At least McConnell has stated that the Senate will work as designed, and according to the article it is closer to being so.

Charles Wolf, Jr. Intellectually Honest

Mr. Wolf died in late October, 2016, 92 years old, R.I.P.

He worked for the Rand Corporation for most of his career and called most things right; the strength of the Soviet economy-Japan’s inability to rule the world-the negative effects of the 2009 stimulus, and others.

How did he get it right, by analyzing data without a prejudice towards what he wanted it to say. We need more of that.

Opinions are worthless without data.

Director Comey, Evil or a Saint? Depends on what he does.

FBI Director Comey had a tough decision.  Do his job or play along. He chose the right path, to do his job-or so it appears. Thus the right who trashed him this summer put him on the pedestal the left just ripped him off of. I just hope that the truth comes out, almost seventy and still hoping the truth can come out of D.C.  Pollyanna to the end.

But, from www.nationalreviewonline.com, Jim Geraghty, today.

You have to have a sense of humor to follow politics.

When Comey does what Democrats want him to do, they praise him as Eliot Ness, King Solomon, Frank Serpico, and Jesus all rolled into one. But the moment he follows procedure and brings up topics the Clinton campaign doesn’t want in the news, he’s Torquemada, Captain Queeg, Javert, and Ahab rolled into one. Look, we get it, Democrats, you have absolute faith in Comey’s judgment as long as he’s ruling in your favor. If you guys were less invested in an emotionally convienient narrative where all wisdom and virtue aligns with your political interests of the moment, you would have praised Comey’s summer decision but not put him up on a pedestal.

Instead, they had to insist that no reasonable person could question his summer decision. I mean, it was just in July that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was telling us how independent, thorough, respected, and honest Comey was.

Throughout his long career in law enforcement, the independence of FBI chief James Comey has rarely been questioned. Comey is a well-respected Republican who served as George W. Bush’s Deputy Attorney General. And when President Obama tapped him to serve as Director of the FBI, he was confirmed by a 93-1 vote.

Donna Brazile — now the Democratic National Committee chair — said that attacking James Comey’s decision was attacking the rule of law itself.

Since Donna Brazile blocked me last night when I pointed out her former words, here’s a screenshot of her Tweet.