If Men Could Get Pregnant, Abortion Would be a Sacrament

There seems to be little question that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is on the verge of replacing the late Chief Justice Roger B. Taney as the most notorious (odious?) federal jurist in all American history. Taney (1777-1864), of course, wrote the majority opinion in the 1857 case Dred Scott v. Sandford, which denied Blacks citizenship under the Constitution and helped pave the way for the bloodiest war in American history. With the leaking of a draft opinion in the Mississippi abortion case,  Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Alito is likely to earn either the eternal prayers of thanks or eternal howls of damnation from future court historians and citizens everywhere.

According to Alito’s draft, the court - likely by a vote of 6-3 - will overturn Roe v. Wade’s holding of a federal constitutional right to an abortion . . . which, just as importantly, protected a woman’s right to both privacy and the ability to have ultimate control over her own body. The draft opinion, which will undoubtedly lead to Roe’s dismemberment, would be the most consequential abortion decision in decades and transform the landscape of women’s reproductive health in America. Additionally, when the Court announces its final decision in either late June or early July, it will represent the first time in American history that a protected right has been taken away from more than half of all citizens of the United States.

Is it any wonder that Sam Alito’s name and reputation will place him right next to Roger B. Taney in all future histories of SCOTUS?

For nearly a half-century, Roe v. Wade has not only ensured that abortions are both safe and legal; it has guaranteed women the right to have control over their own bodily destiny.  At the same time, however,  the very existence of Roe v Wade has been a casus belli for a steadily growing and increasingly powerful conservative movement in America.  Adroit - mostly, though not entirely - Republican politicians  have ceaselessly (and cynically) used and played the abortion card as a means of getting religiously inclined people to go to the polls; prior to Roe, true believers took their cue from the Gospel of St. Matthew, as well as St. Mark and St. Luke: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God, the things that are God’s. In short, outside of paying taxes to the government, a majority of religious conservatives stayed the hell away from politics. As mentioned above, with the confirmation of Roe v. Wade in 1973, God began being increasingly used as a lynchpin for bringing religious issues into the so-called “culture wars” being acted out in the public square.

Unquestionably, there is a large measure of hypocrisy in the fact that so many of those who have made it their political raison d'être to overturn Roe - the self-proclaimed “Pro-Lifers” - tend to be against such life-affirming programs as SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program), Aid to Families With Dependent Children, Universal Preschool and Family Tax Credits. . . to name but a few. That is why I have long referred to the two sides of the abortion issue as “Pro-Choice” and “Pro-Birth,” with the latter seeming to lose all interest once the so-called “unborn” leave the mother’s womb. Sometimes, the hypocrisy even leaves an obvious trail . . .

Case in point:

Back in 2018, Dave Barnhart, a pastor at Saint Junia United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama posted the following sermonette on Facebook . . . it soon went viral:

"The unborn" are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”

For the past several years, states with Republican-controlled legislatures have been passing - and their Republican governors signing - legislative fiats which severely delimit the ability of women to receive abortions . . . even if their pregnancies are the result of rape, incest, sex-trafficking or would endanger their very lives. In some cases, the limitations involved a matter of time: that if an abortion were to take place, it must be before the 15th, 12th or even 6th week of gestation. In some cases these bills required pregnant women to wait a certain number of days or weeks after first discovering that they are pregnant; in others, family planning centers must be within a certain number of miles from a state-approved hospital. There are even bills - notably in Texas, Mississippi and Florida - which would permit anyone to blow the whistle on anyone who has anything to do with an abortion . . . up to and including an Uber driver who provides transportation for a woman to reach a center across state lines. Reading through these laws, it is obvious that they are aimed primarily at the poor or women of color. As a result of this, there are already some states that have but a single place for women to go in order to undergo an abortion.  Then too, many states have enacted so-called “Trigger Laws,” which hold that the very moment Roe v Wade is overturned, their state laws will go into effect.

Once SCOTUS puts an end to Roe v. Wade and returns the issue to the various states, America will join a worldwide “Hall of Shame” . . . the countries in which abortion for any reason is illegal. The two-dozen members of that infamous “Hall” are:

Andorra, Aruba, Congo, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Jamaica, Laos, Madagascar, Malta, Mauritania, Nicaragua, Palau, Philippines, San Marino, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Tonga, the West Bank & Gaza Strip.

Quite an exclusive club, one must admit.

One would think that after so many years of politicking, campaigning and running on the issue of overturning Roe v. Wade, Republican members of the House and Senate would be overjoyed; would be giving themselves high-fives and pats on the back for the sake of their voting base. But interestingly, such is not the case . . . far from it.  Within the past several days we have noted a profound silence among leaders of the GOP.  Despite having been fighting for decades to overturn Roe, they are now loathe to take a victory lap while on the campaign trail.   Just the other day, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), advised Republican candidates to downplay and soft-pedal the prospects of anti-abortion legislation . . . both at the state and national level.  Why?  Because he and his colleagues can read poll numbers.  They understand that more than 60% of the voting public is against an outright repeal of Roe v. Wade. Then too, they recognize that if they gloat and run a victory lap, it will be pitting men against women . . . and women, they know, vote in higher numbers than men.

Instead, they are more concerned with trying to figure out precisely who was responsible for leaking the Alito draft to the press.  Texas Senator Ted Cruz proclaimed that it was “a liberal clerk on the court” who was undoubtedly responsible for the dastardly deed . . . as if he had even a scintilla of inside information.  In another piece of barely concealed racist inventive, Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield suggested — again, without evidence or logic — that future Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson may be responsible for the leak. (It should be noted that as a Justice-in-waiting who has not yet taken the oath of office, she has neither been privy to the Alito draft, nor had the ability to appoint any clerks who might have access to the 90+ page document).  But hey: racism is racism.

Is there any logic to be found in making sure that 12 or 14-year old girls cannot be ordered - as a matter of law - to wear masks at school, and then turn around and ordain that if these same girls become pregnant as a result of rape, incest or sex-trafficking they must - again, as a matter of law - go full term and give birth?  The only bit of logic I can find is that the vast majority of legislators and political leaders who lead the charge in this gross inconsistency are . . . you got it: MEN.  Writer and activist Gloria Steinem was snarkily correct in giving voice to the words which serve as the title of this week’s blog.

Will the Supreme Court’s impending dismemberment of Roe v Wade bring even more women out to the polls in the coming months in order to express their fear and utter displeasure? Will Alito’s assertion that since the U.S. Constitution nowhere mentions a legal right to privacy, lead to the evisceration of such additional rights as gay marriage and the acquisition and use birth control? Will the court’s ruling effectively drive a further wedge between a “Red State” and a “Blue State” America? Will this one day lead to a second Civil War?

Only time . . . and the actions of an energized voting public will tell.

Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone

Oh When Will We Ever Learn?

On April 5, 1945, U.S. Army troops entered Ohrdruf, part of the Buchenwald concentration camp system. One week later, April 12, 1945 (8 days before what would have been Adolph Hitler’s 56th birthday), Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower flew to Ohrdruf to meet American generals George S. Patton and Omar Bradley. The camp was still filled with the bodies of prisoners who had been murdered just before the SS guards fled. The stench of death filled the camp. That which they saw was beyond human comprehension; the stuff which causes the most gruesome of all possible nightmares . . . the sort that never go away.

General Eisenhower quickly cabled U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, declaring that everything that had appeared in the press about these sites was “an understatement." He requested: 

If you would see any advantage in asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to make a short visit to this theater in a couple of C-54s, I will arrange to have them conducted to one of these places where the evidence of bestiality and cruelty is so overpowering as to leave no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps. I am hopeful that some British individuals in similar categories will visit the northern area to witness similar evidence of atrocity.

Eisenhower, a man often underestimated for the depth of his knowledge and foresightedness, understood that it was of extreme importance that everything the conquering Allied Forces saw, smelled or felt be committed to film - both cinematic and still. His reason? He understood that the day would likely come - whether it be in a year, a decade or even more - that people would forget the Holocaust; would declare that it never had happened . . . that it was all a myth perpetrated by the very people “claiming” to have been its victims.  

   Hebrew translation: “The Israeli connection to the Twin Towers terrorist attack.”

Eisenhower’s prescience was and still is, sadly, a marvel to behold. For the number of “Holocaust Deniers” is continually growing. Indeed, it is an essential part of the bedrock that underlies the philosophical feculence called QAnon. As noted in a recent ADL report on the frightening growth of anti-Semitism in both America and around the world: Today, the most popular QAnon influencer, GhostEzra [recently outed as Robert Randall Smart of Boca Raton, FL], is an open Nazi who praises Hitler, admires the Third Reich, and decries the supposedly treacherous nature of Jews. 

 It is estimated that the ironically-named “Smart,” has a minimum of 300,000 followers on the so-called “Deep Web,” best described as “the parts of the web not indexed (searchable) by search engines.  His followers are conspiracy theorists of the highest (or deepest) water; they are fervent Holocaust deniers who find George Soros’ fingerprints (as well  as his billions) on virtually everything from Democratic pedophilia and COVID-19 vaccines to the “stealing” of the 2020 presidential election.  They are loony, dangerous, very, very well-armed, and more than willing to kill in order to “save” America and the White Western World from the Great Satan. Believe it or not, there are even QAnon followers in Israel!

As recent as the mid-1980s (when he would have been in his nineties) there were people the world over who, at the drop of a hat, would proclaim that Hitler was alive and well, and living in Argentina (or Bolivia or Peru). Similarly, there are inane conspiracists today who fervently believe that  J.F.K. Jr. is still alive, well, and about to reappear in the public square in order to announce that he is going to be Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 election.  Shakespeare hit the nail on the head when he put into the mouth of Puck “Lord, what fools these mortals be” (A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2).   

Of course, it’s not just QAnon and their unlettered fellows who are unfurling and raising aloft the flag of anti-Semitism. Hatred of Jews, Jewish ideas, ideals, and accomplishments, have long earned the obloquy of the frightened, the fearful and the utterly feckless.  A Holocaust-era chestnut told the tale of an anti-Semite who asked  a fellow he knew: "Who is to blame for our economy going to hell in a hand bucket and everything else falling into the trashcan?” His friend told him: "It’s simple: it’s the fault of two groups: the bicycle-riders and the Jews.”  “What in the world do the bicycle-riders have to do with our problems?” the man asked.  “Beats the daylights out of me,” his friend responded.  “What in the hell do the Jews have to do with our problems?” 

And so it goes . . .

Late last week, The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a report showing that, in 2021, there were more anti-Semitic incidents in America than in any year since the group started keeping track over 40 years ago. The rapid growth of Jew hatred isn’t limited to the United States. According to a new report from the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, anti-Semitic incidents were up last year in countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, France and Germany. Comparisons to 2020 might be misleadingFeducated because pandemic lockdowns likely reduced the numbers of anti-Semitic assaults and in-person harassment. But in several countries, including the United States, there were more anti-Semitic incidents in 2021 than in the prepandemic year 2019.

As the New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg noted in a trenchant op-ed piece, “. . . something has obviously gone wrong. The question is, what? Some, she notes, blame the left for being anti-Zionist . . . as if finding fault with the Israeli government (which I do from time to time) is really anti-Semitism cloaked in a kippah (a Jewish skullcap, often called a yarmulke, which I myself wear). An extension of this observation would then have it that anyone who does not support everything the Israeli government says or does is really an anti-Semite. To me, this is stuff and nonsense; they should study the centuries-old arguments of the rabbis of the past, who made careers of disagreeing with one another. These were not haters of Jews; they were seekers of truth.

Just yesterday, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with California Representative Adam Schiff and 9 other Democratic members of Congress met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in war-torn Kyiv (which had been bombed just hours before their secret arrival), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov caused an absolute furor when he told an Italian interviewer that Russia’s purpose in invading Ukraine was to ““denazify” the country - a justification which Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly used for months.  When the Italian interviewer mentioned that President Zelenskyy was himself Jewish and had lost family members in the Holocaust, Lavrov responded “. . . when they say ‘How can Nazification exist if we’re Jewish?’ In my opinion, Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean absolutely anything. For some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest antisemites [sic] were Jewish,"  One can only imagine how well that comment is being received by anti-Semites around the world.  Once again, the victims are being accused of having been the perpetrators. . .

The reason - or reasons - for the stunning rise in anti-Semitic incidents both in the United States and worldwide is nigh on impossible to thoroughly comprehend. Certainly, there is an [un]fair measure of anti-Zionism involved, though, as mentioned above, simply being critical of Israel does not necessarily make an individual, a group or a political alignment guilty of being anti-Semitic. Then too, the explosive growth and untrammeled “Wild West” nature of social media over the past generation has made the spread of all kinds of mis- and disinformation and conspiracy theories available to the credulous masses. But in the main, the reason for the growth of the baseless hatred of Jews is what it always has been: cultural breakdown and economic uncertainty, which frequently lead to both antisocial behavior and the dire need to “pin the tail on the donkey.” It’s what the father of sociology, Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), himself a French Jew from a long line of Rabbis, called anomie, generally translated as “normlessness” . . . a "condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals."

It is absolutely essential to restore norms to society; to challenge anyone who is shallow, callow or ignorant enough to liken anything or anyone they don’t agree with to Hitler or the Nazis;  to have the courage to stand with the angels (in the Jewish world we call them mentchen),  call a monomaniac a menace, and refuse to remain silent before the megaphones of mendacity.  

I have long pondered - with a soupçon of frustration - about what came first: Jews or anti-Semites. “How’s that?” you may well ask. At times it just seems to me that if G-d in Co’s (the “Divine Possessive Pronoun” id est .. His/Her) infinite wisdom had not created the Jews, the “Eternal People,” anti-Semites, in their infinite depravity, would have, in order to possess a target for their eternal hatred and inhumanity. As a question, it is no doubt a non-starter . . . but one which has long drawn my attention.

Another imponderable is how or what can ever bring an end to anti-Semitism . . . to the hatred of Jews? It is undoubtedly the case that psychopathy cannot be cured with a pill, shockwaves or a set of facts and photos. What can help - if not solve - this menace is a commitment on the part of individuals, leaders and nations to make the world saner, less economically unbalanced, and more universally educated; to do whatever we can to delimit the causes of severe anomie . . . toxic normlessness.

Or, to slightly paraphrase the late Pete Seeger, Oh when will we ever learn?

Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone

“Our greatest fears lie in anticipation.”

                            Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850).

As I begin writing this week’s essay, it is 11:15 AM EDT, on Sunday, the 24th of April 2022. The citizens of France are at the polls, voting for whether centrist Emmanuel Macron, the 8th President of the Fifth Republic of France will retain his presidency, or be bested by the ultra-right populist Marine Le Pen. Although going into the final days of the runoff campaign Macron’s polling show him to be ahead Le Pen by nearly 10 points, few political observers are sanguine about Macron being reelected for another 5-year term.  That’s just in the nature of French national politics. 

French politics have certain similarities to that which we experience here in the U.S.  As is the case here across the pond, the French have a political left, right and center, although it is quite a bit more delineable in the land of Liberté, égalité, fraternité.  Unlike in America, these political approaches are more or less codified into three separate political parties . . . but with a decided difference.  Le Pen’s political party, the National Rally (Rassemblement National, formerly the “National Front”) is quite a bit more hard core far-right than our Republican Party; Macron leads  the centrist La République En Marche! (frequently abbreviated LREM, and translatable as The Republic on the Move, or The Working Republic); LREM was Macron’s attempt to create a political home for those who were neither as statist as the Socialists nor as anti-immigrant or Fascistic as the far-right. Lastly, there is a far-left democratic-Socialist party called La France Insoumise  (“France Unbowed”), headed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former member of the European Parliament (MEP), who is, roughly speaking, the French equivalent of Bernie Sanders. In  the first presidential primary, Mélenchon came in 3rd with nearly 23 % of the vote.  Today, many Mélenchon supporters are either voting for Macron or staying home and abstaining.

The title of this week’s post, “Our greatest fear lies in anticipation,” (Nos plus grandes craintes résident dans l’anticipation) comes from La Comédie humaine by the great French writer Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850). Always filled to overflowing with pithy maxims, de Balzac really hits the nail on the head here. For with regards to today’s election in France, it’s not so much the anticipation of whether Le Pen will defeat Macron which stimulates our fear, but rather whether she - like Donald Trump here in America - will wind up having more power than Macron in shaping the next five years.

Like Trump and his coterie, Le Pen is a pathologic Islamophobe. Although she has toned down the verbal hatred and outrageousness since she last took on Emmanuel Macron, her political positions remain the same: anti-NATO, anti-immigrant and pro-Putin. When it comes to Putin, Le Pen has been totally up front and totally prideful about accepting a multi-million dollar loan from the Russian strongman. Were she to G-d forbid win the election  she would then be able to attack NATO from the West while Putin does his best to bring it down from the East.

IT IS NOW 2:15 EDT: JUST A FEW MINUTES AGO, MARINE LE PEN CONCEDED THE ELECTION TO EMMANUEL MACRON!

HALLALUYAH!

Unlike Donald Trump, Mlle. Le Pen freely admits she’s been soundly defeated. The latest figures show Pres. Macron besting the final polling figures. (n.b. As of midnight the final figures are Macron 58.5%, Le Pen 41.5%). It should be kept in mind, that 5 years ago, he defeated Marine Le Pen by a much wider margin than today’s 17 points. However, this is the first time that an ultra-right candidate has scored above 40% in  a presidential election. Being a political animal, Mlle. Le Pen, who publicly ran on such issues as “. . . our daily lives - salaries, taxes, pensions” -  put the best, most positive spin on her loss as possible, calling the results ". . . a shining victory . . . in this defeat, I can’t help but feel a form of hope.”  It should be noted that the French will go back to the  polls for Parliamentary elections on June 12 and 19.  It is likely that Le Pen’s Rassemblement National will pick up additional seats in the 577-member body.  As of this morning, Macron’s La République en Marche group has 308 deputies.  It will be Le Pen’s purpose to get as many of her allies elected, thereby weakening Macron’s chances for enacting his national political agenda.

As word spreads across Europe of Macron’s victory, various leaders have expressed their overwhelming joy:

• Spanish P.M. Pedro Sánchez: “Democracy wins. Europe wins.

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: “Together we will make France and Europe advance.”

• Italian Premier Mario Draughi: “. . . splendid news for all Europe, and a “boost to the E.U. being a protagonist in the greatest challenges of our times, starting with the war in Ukraine.” 

President Biden called President Macron Sunday night, but was only able to speak with members of his staff. When asked about this, Biden told reporters after returning to Washington from a weekend trip in Delaware, “I feel good about the French election . . . . I tried to talk to him last night. I spoke to his staff and he was at the Eiffel Tower having a good time. And I’m going to be talking to him today.”

The French, it has long been noted, don’t generally love their presidents; with his victory, Macron becomes the first to be reelected since 2002.  Somewhat predictably, Le Pen did better in the country’s north and in southern areas along the Mediterranean; both areas are rural, economically depressed and less educated.  Macron’s base is largely urban, better educated and far less likely to blame France’s economic and cultural difficulties on immigrants.  If this sounds a bit familiar, it should; in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and much of Europe, political divisions are drawn largely between those who are fearful of being overrun by “aliens” and those who see that the future will undoubtedly be different . . . so why not help make the best of it?

Considering the frightful rightward turn in the politics of so many countries, Macron’s victory offers for many, a brief international sigh of relief. Today we celebrate; tomorrow many will be back to fearing the future. For those inclined to fearfulness, remember de Balzac’s insight . . . that the genesis of fear is anticipation. Anticipation - whether it be about future success or failure - is at root an abstraction; it need not be real. Let us hold on to Emmanuel Macron’s victory and see it as a harbinger for greater sanity and humanity in the political realm, rather than a mere blip on the screen of growing autocracy.

Vraiiment: ‘Nos plus grandes craintes résident dans l’anticipation.

Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone

"There Are More Horses' Asses Than There Are Horses"

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Without question, Dorothy Parker and Will Rogers were two of the most notable, quotable wits of the past century or so. Parker, a poet and world-class epigrammatist, screenwriter and saucy satirist, the teeny-tiny “mouth that roared” was best known for such pity maxims as “Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses,” The best way to avoid a hangover is to stay drunk,” and a marvelous epigram about the equally quotable Oscar Wilde which appeared in a 1927 issue of the original Life:

If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.

Then there was Will Rogers: vaudevillian with a lariat, beloved motion picture actor, political commentator and honorary mayor of Beverly Hills, He was perhaps best known for the statement: “I belong to no organized party; I am a Democrat.” One of Mayor Rogers’ very best political quotes (although wrongly attributed to Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy) is as satirically insightful today as when he first uttered it nearly a century ago: “There are more horses’ asses than there are horses.”  Rogers’ bon mot is, perhaps, best understood by Parker,  who once noted: “There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.”

And indeed, when considering all the utter cruelty and cerebral rigor mortis occurring in partisan politics these days, Rogers’ quip about horse’s asses is absolutely spot on.  Need some examples? Just the other day, while a clear majority of America was proudly celebrating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to become the first Black woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court, there was a concurrent walkout of every Republican senator (save one, Utah’s Mitt Romney) the moment Vice President Harris announced the final vote.  Despite possessing virtually every quality and experience one might wish for a Justice - including humility and brilliance - 47 Republicans voted against her, claiming either that she was soft on crime, supported pedophilia or possessed an “activist” judicial philosophy.  Did they really believe it?  Of course not; they simply did not want to give the Republican base a reason to challenge them in the next election.

Then there’s the case of another Black judge, the late Joseph W. Hackett (1932-2021) who was the first Black man to serve on the Florida Supreme Court and the first Black judge on a federal appeals court in the Deep South.  Upon his passing, it seemed both natural and fair for Congress to pass a bill naming a federal courthouse after him.  When the time came to organize such a proposal, virtually every member of the Florida congressional delegation - Republican Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, along with all 16 Republican members of the House and all 11 Democrats, signed on as co-sponsors.  It appeared that Judge Hackett was going to be enshrined.  History was on the side of a man who attended segregated public schools and graduated from two historically black universities, and then rose to the judicial heights. For generations, the naming of federal courthouses after distinguished jurists has been the one area where congressional bipartisanship is both expected and de rigueur.  But such was not to be the case with Judge Hackett.  As journalist Annie Karni wrote in a February 22, 2022 (2/22/22) piece in the New  York Times: “ . . . in a last-minute flurry, Republicans abruptly pulled their backing with no explanation and ultimately killed the measure, leaving its fate unclear, many of its champions livid and some of its newfound opponents professing ignorance about what had happened.   

                                                  Rep. Andrew Clyde (R.-GA)

What had happened? The late Judge Joseph W. Hackett’s nomination had appeared in Georgia Republican Andrew Clyde’s crosshairs . . . that’s what happened. Clyde, shown in the photo on the right, is a dead-ringer for the australopithecus robustus, a late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene (4 to 2 million years ago) epoch humanoid. How and why did Rep. Clyde singlehandedly turn a routine vote to name a federal building after a trailblazing judge into a Republican purity test? 

First the how: Rep. Clyde circulated a 1999 Associated Press article about one of Hackett’s decisions relating to prayer in schools. Never mind that Hackett was following Supreme Court precedent when he ruled against student-approved prayers at graduation ceremonies. This single decision made him toxic among House Republicans, with 89% eventually voting against naming the courthouse after him. Since the bill’s passage was seen as certain, it had come for a vote under a fast-tracked process that required a two-thirds majority, which meant that with Republicans suddenly opposed, it failed.  When Republican members of the Florida Congressional delegation were asked why they wound up voting against a nominee they had originally supported, most answered “I don’t know.” Well, at least they were being honest . . . 

Next the why: Rep. Andrew Clyde, like fellow Georgian Marjorie Taylor Greene, is a first-term member of the House.  In his short Congressional career, he has become known for such things as voting against a resolution to give the Congressional Gold Medal to the police officers who responded to the January 6th insurrection; opposing the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act that made lynching a federal hate crime; and voting against recognizing Juneteenth as a federal holiday.  He’s the guy who called January 6 “just a normal tourist visit,” and has been repeatedly fined for not wearing a mask on the House floor.  In other words, despite resembling a prehistoric ape, he’s one of congress’s leading horse’s asses.  And let us not forget California’s Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, who said not a word about Clyde’s - or his party’s lunacy.  And this is the man who desperately wants to become the next Speaker of the House! We can always pray that the stable suffers a bout of equine encephalitis.

This is not meant to imply that horse’s asses are housed in just one political stable. Goodness knows, one can find equine tuchases within the ranks of Democrats and progressives as well as Libertarians, Socialists and QAnon quacks.  But still and all, the largest and most egregious number reside in the Republican paddock.  

Here in Florida, we are subject to the constant whinnying of Governor Ron DeSantis who, while ignoring such major statewide issues as skyrocketing insurance premiums, unaffordable rental costs and a chief medical officer who does not believe in the conclusions of science, instead has created his own militia whose sole purpose is to ride herd on electoral fraud (?), made abortion all but illegal for women and definitely felonious for physicians, and puts  the rights of parents to keep their children from having to read any book which might “make them feel bad” well ahead of the purpose of education - teaching children how to think. Just the other day, the head of the State Department of Education announced that the state was rejecting more than 50 math textbooks from next school year’s curriculum, citing references to critical race theory among reasons for the rejections. When questioned, Gov. DeSantis said there were different reasons for the books being rejected and officials aimed to “focus the education on the actual strong academic performance of the students.” “We don’t want things like math to have, you know, some of these other concepts introduced. It’s not been proven to be effective, and quite frankly, it takes our eye off the ball.” If anyone can explain what the hell he meant by that, please text me ASAP.

So what’s the cure for this extreme number of horse’s asses? As I believe I suggested a couple of weeks ago, stockpiling tens of thousands of feet of film showing them at their worst . . . and then airing the evidence of their idiocy on ad after ad after ad. And make sure that the media asks them truth-seeking questions . . . make them justify why they are doing everything in their power to excise ethics, fairness and the truth from democracy.

When all is said and done, horses belong in stables, paddocks and racetracks; not in the hallowed halls of Congress, state legislatures, the various governors’ mansions and above all, the White House.

Copyright©2022, Kurt F. Stone

Behind Closed Doors With Senators Cruz, Hawley, Cotton and Blackburn (SATIRE)

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO): “So guys, what’s your take on the confirmation hearings so far? Think we’ve scored any significant points?”

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR): “Certainly not enough to keep her from being confirmed by the Senate as a whole. But we knew that going in . . . We’ll be lucky to keep the committee from sending her name up to the floor on a tie vote, although there’s no telling how Dr. Sasse’s going to vote . . . I mean he didn’t even show up when she was being voted on for D.C. circuit last year.  Personally, I think he’s squishy soft when it comes to our issues.”

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX): “Yeah, but unless I’m dumb as a community college grad, defeating her in committee . . . let  alone the Senate . . .  wasn’t our purpose in the first place. We all know that what we’re after is scoring points with the hoi polloi . . . which I, as a graduate of both Princeton and Harvard Law, class of ‘95, where I was editor of the Harvard Law Review . . . know means the common folk, and not ‘The Upper Crust’ like most idiots do . . . “

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): “Shut the f. . .k up Ted.  We all know you graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law, and that Josh here graduated from Stanford and Yale, and that Ben Sasse earned degrees from Harvard, St. John’s and Yale. And you can even  look over at the Dems on the committee and see Booker, Klobuchar, Blumenthal, Coons and Whitehouse, all of whom graduated from Yale.  Big deal . . . none of you ever started a successful business like my Mister and me. And by the way: what’s this guys crap? I’m not a guy. I’m a a friggin gal.  And don’t you forget it!”

Cotton: “Yeah Marsha, we hear ‘ya, but right about now,  here in this little private hidey hole, you sound all kinds a’ “woke” to me.  But out there in the big, bad hard-nosed world of political warfare, you come off like some sort of June Cleaver ‘Suzy Homemaker’ clone who’d prefer hanging out in the kitchen, standing by your man.  What gives? Are you in reality a RINO?”

Marsha: “Of course not! You know better than that! It’s just that when the doors are closed, the cameras have gone dark and the stringers have scattered, we all get to loosen our girdles ‘n ties, toss out  the scripts and act and speak like real selves.  And the great thing about it is that the simpletons we urge to give us bucks and votes don’t even know the difference.  Ain’t it the truth?”

Cruz: Yeah Marsha, we all know it’s true; that’s just the nature of big-league politics . . . for both us and the folks across the aisle. Although just between you, me and the hitchin’ post, we are one hell of a lot more obvious about it than the Dems.  I mean Hell’s bells: just so long as we keep 99.44% in the  good graces of our numb-nuts leader, we’re going to keep on getting reelected, turnin’ back the country to the way it was when Mrs. Cleaver was raising Wally and the Beaver and the Lord’s Prayer was said everyday in school across the nation.  Fear’s the ticket . . . fear of the lying left-wing fake media; fear of non-Aryan immigrants and the ‘Black Lives Matter’ crowd, and fear of ‘The Squad’  . . . as if these gals are the entirety of the ultra-Socialistic Democrat Party.”

Josh: “But aren’t we going to have to eventually say what we’re for and not just what we’re against?  Up till seems to me all we’re doin’ is implying, not stating, that we’re for defending the White Christian masses from a future filled with Commies, homosexuals, pedophiles and teachers’ unions bent on ‘groomin’ children for lives filled with godless filth. I mean that’s why we kept on hammerin’ away at Judge Jackson’s record, making her seem like the kind of jurist who in an earlier day would have been the protector of Oscar Wilde, Lord Montbatten and Errol Flynn.  I mean, we couldn’t attack her on her record . . . she did one hell of a lot better at L-school than any of us, and turned out to be virtually unflappable.  Hate to  admit it,  but that woman is the real deal . . . but let’s keep it to ourselves.  We’re just lucky that the Democrats didn’t  point out that we haven’t proposed a single piece of legislation dealing with child porn . . . or that we’ve loudly supported Supreme Court nominees who are less than paragons of virtue . . . remember Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh?” 

Cruz: “Now wait just a second there Josh: when it comes to anti-child porn legislation, Lindsey Graham  does have a bill to form a commission to study online child porn (for which you, Marsha, were a co-sponsor), and I for one introduced a bill to nix Covid relief rebates to those convicted of sex offenses involving children . . .  and oh yeah, remember that book I ragged on about as being filthy dirty and ought to be removed from school libraries? Anti-Racist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi? Well, I’ll be hornswoggled: it’s now the #1 bestselling children’s book on Amazon. Sort of makes me wish I’d read the bugger instead of just claiming I had . . .

Marsha: “. . . and speaking of your bill Ted, you know as well as I that got a big fat zero co-sponsors and was never even assigned to a committee . . .  and by the way, you never got on board Lindsey’s commission bill . . . “

Tom: ‘Let’s be honest guys ‘n gal, so far as the Jackson hearing, we did the best we could.  Let’s admit it behind closed doors: nary a Republican - and that includes Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert and Madison Cawthorn -  for one second believes that Judge Brown-Jackson is ‘soft on porn.’ All we were doin’ was grandstanding to beat the band . . . and  for good reason: to stay in the good graces of the QAnon wing of the party.  We all read polls the way bookies pour over Vegas betting odds, and know very well that a poll from PRRI found that 23 percent of Republicans believe that ‘the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation,’ and that another poll by YouGov found that fully 50 percent of Trump’s supporters believe that ‘top Democrats are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings.”’ And while we may all agree that this is a barrel of crap while sitting behind closed doors, it would be political suicide not to have brought it up again and again and again during the hearings.  To a large swathe of  the party faithful ‘Pizzagate’ lives! Are we in agreement?”  

Ted, Josh and Marsha: YES INDEED!”  

Ted: We’ve got to keep on hammerin’ away at the idea that so long as Democrats control the two houses of Congress and Senate and God forbid continue controlling the Executive Branch, America’s goin’ to become a place where parents have no say in what their children read or what they’re taught, that biological males are goin’ to be be playin’ on girls’ teams and squatting in women’s bathrooms, and that God almighty HIMself is going to be outlawed. And whether or not we believe this is true is far from the point. We absolutely must keep these fears in the forefront if we are gonna to take back the country . . . if we’re going to continue being showered with the hundreds of millions of campaign dollars our best-heeled donors can bestow upon us. I know that I for one would greatly prefer to be the savior . . . ah . . . President . . . of the United States than a mere senator from the Lone Star State. Are we all in agreement?’

Josh: “Everything except your becoming the next POTUS!”

Tom: “I’m going to have to agree with Josh on that one. How’s about you, Marsha?”

Marsha: “I haven’t really given it much thought . . . I’m too busy raising money for my 2024 reelection race - and perhaps traveling out to meet with the good folks of Ioway . . . “

Josh: OK, it’s time to tighten our ties and our girdle, throw open the doors of the hidey-hole, and get back to the task at hand . . . of warning and solving problems which we do not believe truly exist.”

All: FORWARD INTO THE PAST!!!

Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone

Sholem Aleichem's Response to Tucker Carlson More than 160 Years Before the Fox News Mamzer Opened His Big Fat Moyl

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                         Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916) at Age 24

For the past couple of weeks, in addition to all my other tasks, I have been preparing for my one-man show on the greatest of all Yiddish writers, Sholem Aleichem. I will be performing it this coming Tuesday, March 22 at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, beginning at 3:00.  If you are interested in attending, just show up at FAU’s Friedberg Hall at about 2:30 at sign up.  Or, you can call 561-297-3185.)

I’ve been appearing as the man born in 1859 as Shlomo Nohumovich Rabinovich (1859-1916) for nearly a half century now, and each time I do, I try to make “his” performance a bit different from the last time we trod the boards. The Jewish equivalent of Mark Twain, the Russian-born Rabinovich (whose penname, Sholem Aleichem, is the most common Yiddish/Hebrew greeting, meaning, roughly “How’re ya doin’?) wrote hundreds of short stories, essays, novels and plays capturing the essence of a world which no longer exists. And yet, he is terribly universal: think of Fiddler on the Roof, which, adapted from many of his stories about a Jewish dairyman named Tevye, is one of the most popular, beloved and successful musicals/movies in the history of entertainment. Oy, if only the terminally impoverished writer could have lived a bit longer, he would have become as rich as Rothschild . . . 

Sholem Aleichem (Rabinovich) was born in Pereyaslav, a small city with a large Jewish population in the Poltava Governate of the Russian Government . . . that is to say, the Ukraine . . .  in early March, 1859. His father, a prosperous merchant named Nohum Rabinovich, gave his favorite son (Nahum had 12 children), in addition to a rigidly Orthodox Jewish education, a first-class secular education in which he read everyone from Shakespeare and Dickens to Gogul and Cervantes, as well as learning math and science.  At age 18, he became tutor to Olga Loyev, the daughter of one of the wealthiest Jews in Czarist Russia.  Upon Elimelech Loyev’s death, Shlomo inherited his vast estate, liquidated it and moved to Kiev (the Yiddish pronunciation of what we today call "Kiiv,” and became a stock broker on the "bourse.”  Within a few years, Rabinovich (who had already adopted the  penname ‘Sholem Aleichem’ so that his colleagues wouldn’t know what he was doing after hours), lost  all his money.  By this time he and Olga (whose Yiddish name was "Hudel,” which would become famous years later) and their growing family, had to move from Kiev and begin a trek which would eventually see them and their 6 children (which he always referred to as his "Republic,” resettle in such cities as Odessa, Nurmi, Copenhagen, Paris, London and twice, NYC.  Olga, by the way, in order to help  support the family while her husband wrote, went on to became a dentist - the first Russian woman to do so.

Before Sholem Aleichem began publishing stories, novels and essays in Yiddish, Hebrew was the only literary language taken seriously by Jewish readers; Yiddish, the daily lingua franca of European Jews, was, from a literary point of view, only for women.  In matter of fact, all of his earliest works (including a Jewish Robinson Crusoe), were written in classical Hebrew.  His idea of writing Yiddish pieces for the masses was indeed, revolutionary.  

                            Sholem Aleichem’s Funeral Procession May 14, 1916

No matter what his financial troubles - and they were many - he continued to write . . . and write and write.  No matter where he lived and what the state of his health (he suffered from Tuberculosis, prostate disease and diabetes) he managed to publish an essay or chapter each and every week :”starring” such favorites as Tevya, Menachem Mendel and Motl, Pesya, the Cantor’s Son. His characters moved form the shetlach (small villages of the Russian/Polish “Pale of Settlement”) to New York’s Lower East Side, Paris and Johannesburg, South Africa,  provided an essential link to a world which was ever-changing.  Ironically, in his distinct cultured household, the language his "republic” spoke was Russian; none of his children were able to read their father’s works in the original.   

Always living hand-to-mouth despite his universal readership in the Jewish communities around the world, he died in poverty in New York City in May 1916, and was mourned by hundreds of thousands. (At the time, it was widely reported that upwards of 300,000 people followed his funeral march from 165 Kelly Street in the Bronx to his final resting place at the Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Brooklyn. It may well have been the largest funeral procession in the history of New York City.  His ethical will was a moving work of brilliance . . . so much so that it was reprinted on the front page of the New York Times and read into the Congressional Record by New York City Representative William Stiles Bennet. 

So what in the world has all this to do with Tucker Carlson, his coterie of bahndit’n (that’s Yiddish for “gangsters”) and the ongoing dismemberment of Ukraine?  Just  the other day, Carlson, who has been accused of being “one of the biggest cheerleaders for Russia” during the now more than four-week conflict, asked viewers on his top-rated Fox News show a series of questions about whether Putin had promoted “racial discrimination” in schools, made fentanyl, attempted “to snuff out Christianity” or eaten dogs . . . all of which he suggested the Ukrainians were engaged in.  Carlson’s central question was “Why in the Hell should we be concerned with Ukraine?”  

Two quips - one humorous, one filled with anger - coming from the mouth of Sholem Aleichem’s beloved dairyman Tevye, provide the answer:

• "Why should I break my head about the outside world? Let the outside world break its own head."  and

• "Get off my land. This is still my home, my land. Get off my land."

As things turned out, of course, more than 2 million Jewish men, women and children fled the Pale of Settlement, the vast majority of whom made the perilous trek to the  United States of America where, freed of the shackles of Czarist oppression and anti-Semitism, went from being pushcart peddlers and pants pressers on New York’s Lower East Side to creating the motion picture industry, the great department stores like Saks, Macys, Sears and Gimbels, sending their children to colleges and universities and living long enough to see them win Nobel Prizes in medicine, physics, chemistry and literature, as well as Pulitzers and Oscars.  In short, Ukraine’s - and Russia’s - loss was the world’s gain.  At the same time, Sholem Aleichem was deeply aware that at some point in time, there would arise a new era of pogroms (organized massacres of particular ethnic groups . . . most notably Jews) that would once again bring about mass exoduses and unspeakable destruction.  And  though he knew that he would not be alive at that future time (he always believed that he would die before turning 60 . . . just like his father), he urged that his children and grandchildren be at the forefront of creating peace where there would be war, and love and humanity where there was senseless bigotry and hatred.

In his last will and testament, he urged that at the time of his yarzheit (the anniversary of his death) his children, grandchildren, friends and readers gather together and recite kaddish (the mourner’s prayer written mostly in Aramaic) in whatever language they best understood  and rather than shed tears, “. . . select one of my stories, one of the really joyous ones and read it aloud in whatever language they understand best, and let my name be mentioned by them with laughter than not mentioned at all.”  

Sholem Aleichem died at his home at 165 Kelly Street, the Bronx, on May 13, 1916 - the 10th of Iyar, 5676 on the Jewish calendar.  This year, the 10th of Iyar, 5782, falls on Wednesday, May 11 on the Gregorian calendar.  I for one will be heeding Reb Sholem’s request by gathering with as many of his fans as possible via “Zoom” for  the reading of one of his most humorous stories . . . in English and yet to be selected.  In that way, not only will we be honoring his last request, but answer the bandit’n  und m’shuga’im (gangsters and lunatics) who side with the heirs of the Czars.

Anyone who would like to participate in the Zoom gathering, please email me through this blog or at kfstone@kurtfstone.com Title your email “Sholem Aleichem Zoom” and do provide your name and email address.  The Zoom gathering will begin at 7:30 EDT on Wednesday May 11 and last about 45 minutes.  A link will be sent to you on the morning of May 11.

Sholem Aleichem!

Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone    

"Woke"

A couple of days ago, North Carolina Republican Madison Cawthorn, the youngest philistine in Congress, held a town hall forum in his home state. Speaking to the group - many of whom are not supporting him for reelection - he called Ukrainian President Zelinskyy (the correct transliteration of his name) a "thug," and posited that the Ukrainian government, now under siege by the Russian military, is "incredibly corrupt, and incredibly evil, and has been pushing woke ideologies." Someone should have informed the 26-year old man child that the word woke, when used in its relatively modern political incarnation is decidedly not plural. Simply stated, there are no woke ideologies. Had I been at the gathering I would have fought through the increasing nausea to inform him of his misstatement and then ask him a simple question: “Would you please define the term woke (or stay woke) in its political context for all of us?” Not having been there (thank G-d!), I can only imagine the utter jabberwalky with which my inquiry no doubt would have been met. By and large, I have rarely met a Trumpeter who has the slightest idea of what the word woke means. When coming from the mouth of a moron, it is intended to be a derisive political aspersion; a synonymous look-down-the-nose slur . . . a middle-finger-in-the-air epithet for politically correct, progressive or liberal. 

A little research turns up the fact that the term woke or the two-word phrase stay woke goes back nearly 85 years when blues musician Huddle Ledbetter (better known as “Lead Belly - the King of the 12-String Guitar”) used it in a 1938 protest song entitled Scottsboro Boys. In the song, Ledbetter tells a story about nine black teenagers who were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train in Scottsboro, Alabama, in 1931. Ledbetter warns black people that they “. . . best stay woke, keep their eyes open", when travelling through Alabama.  In addition to the Scottsboro Boys, he also wrote songs about people in the news, such as FDR, Adolf Hitler, Jean Harlow, boxer Jack Johnson and, believe it  or not, Howard Hughes.

Three decades later in 1962, African American novelist William Melvin Kelley (1937-2017) wrote an article in the New York Times titled If You're Woke, You Dig It, in which he describes a 'woke' person as someone who's aware of the experiences of black people in the United States. The term gained popularity on social media in 2014 following the killing of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old who was fatally shot by a white police officer named Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. After prosecutors said that they did not have enough evidence to bring charges of murder or manslaughter against the officer, protests took place nationwide, with the slogan "stay woke" being used to shed light on instances of police brutality against Black people.

While it originally meant “becoming woken up or sensitised to issues of justice”, its meaning has changed over time into a political slur, according to linguist Tony Thorne.

The labels 'woke warrior', 'wokerati' (a British term) and 'woke worthies' are often used to insult people on the left, who are seen by conservatives as a threat to freedom of speech. A year ago, British P.M. Boris Johnson's spokesman said he was not sure what the word "woke" meant, despite the government having declared war on "woke worthies" and introducing a law to stop them. Then too, when leaving office in January 2021, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo tweeted: "Censorship, wokeness, political correctness, it all points on one direction — authoritarianism, cloaked as moral righteousness."

Secretary Pompeo’s statement is – as Granny Annie would have it “utter canal water.”

What this brief historico-entymological journey through the land of woke teaches us is a couple of intriguing factoids:

• That woke and its linguistic derivatives have a longer history than one might suspect;

• That its meaning changes over time, and that these changes are, generally speaking, due to changes in political action and vocabulary.

• That this single one-syllable word has so many meanings - especially today - as to be almost devoid of meaning itself.

New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), herself an avatar of wokeness, tweeted not too long ago that ‘Woke’ is a term pundits are now using as a derogatory euphemism for civil rights & justice.” As one of the most visible members of her generation (who grew up in the ‘90s, she insists - unlike progressives who grew up in the ‘60s through the ‘80s - that “Woke ain’t broke.” Where once woke meant to keep one’s eyes and ears attuned to social and political injustice, today’s up-and-comers believe it is far, far more. That being woke is senseless if it does not motivate liberals and progressives to action; to the understanding that words aren’t nearly as important as sweat they can produce.  

The next time you hear or read the word woke coming out of the mouth, pen or keyboard of a political Luddite, you might demand for them to define the term . . . and prepare yourself for the  sound of silence.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Taking a Tip From R. Tarfon

After nearly two week’s of Putin’s savage pummeling of Ukraine, even the most obsessive of news watchers feels in need of a break. The 24-hour-a-day footage of buildings and bridges being reduced to rubble, the miles long Russian convoys and endless lines of fleeing refuges makes for moral outrage, sleepless nights and heated debate centering on two questions:

1. What’s going on in Vladimir Putin’s debilitated mind? and

2. What can we do about it?

Of course, at the same time, we marvel at - and pray for - the awesome heroism, resilience and fortitude of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Ukrainian countrymen who, like the Maccabees of old, refuse to take it.  Then too, as we noted in last week’s blog the response of the E.U., the U.S., and countries around the world has been heartening.  No, they have not invoked NATO’s Article V, which says in black-and-white "Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."  One reason is that Ukraine is not a member of NATO; the other is that an armed response from NATO either on land or from the air could most likely trigger World War III.  And there are debates about the wisdom of establishing a “No Fly Zone” over Ukraine, despite President Zelenskyy’s urgent request that NATO do so.

(N.B. A no-fly zone is an order to ban aircraft in a specified area. Such zones are sometimes imposed over government buildings or public places for security reasons, or over sacred sites for religious and cultural reasons. Their most contentious use is when they are used during conflicts to prevent military aircraft from engaging in hostile actions. The modern use of such strategy goes back to the Persian Gulf War. No-fly zones can allow countries to take action without committing large numbers of ground troops, relying instead on a comparatively small number of aircraft and supporting infrastructure. But enforcing such restrictions can also involve a significant use of force, including destroying anti-air defenses or shooting down aircraft.)

While diplomats and national leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, Israeli P.M. Naftali Bennett (who flew to Moscow on the Jewish Sabbath, despite being a practicing Orthodox Jew) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have all met with President Putin; here at home we have the likes of South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham calling for someone to assassinate the Russian president, and Fox News entertainer Tucker Carlson acting like Putin’s “Tokyo Rose.” And of course, the vast majority of Congressional Republicans are telling their constituents that it’s President Biden’s many weaknesses that are what gave Putin the idea of invading Ukraine in the first place.

And here we are, beset with what physicians call malaise, feeling confused and angry to the point of catatonia and wondering “what in the world can we do to help end this nightmare?

Enter the Talmudic sage Rabbi Tarfon who, lived sometime between 70 CE and 135 CE. His most famous bit of wisdom can be found in the Mishnaic work Pirke Avot (“The Ethics of the Fathers”), chapter 2, verse 16: "It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either.” It’s almost as if he’s speaking to us from across the centuries . . . not telling us precisely what to do, but rather reminding us that we should never sit idly by during an overwhelming crisis just because our actions cannot and/or will not solve it.  

So what can we do to help shake our feelings of anger, inadequacy and utter helplessness?

One of the best ways to be of assistance is through making a donation. There are any number of organizations collecting and distributing food, clothing, emergency healthcare, transportation, toys and housing for the millions of Ukrainians currently undergoing the worst crisis of their lives.  As of today (March 8), more than 2 million Ukrainians have fled their native land and headed mostly to Poland (which is being, for the  most part, wonderfully welcoming), Romania, Bulgaria and parts further west.

Now mind you, whenever and wherever devastation rears its ugly head, scammers are not too far behind, gobbling up tens of millions of dollars, Euros, shekels and other donations in order to line their pockets.  If there is a Hell, it is meant for them.  But please, don’t let the fear of being scammed keep you from making a donation to any of the charitable organizations we’re going to be listing below.  For those who do not yet know, there is a wonderful online organization called Charity Navigator, which is to 501c3 organizations what “Snopes” is to the world of political facts fiction and conspiracy theories: it investigates thousands upon thousands of charitable organizations from top to bottom, and then rates them on  a scale of one to five stars.  If a group, such as the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, receives the coveted 5-star rating, you can give without worry.  

What follows are five 5-star rated eleemosynary (charitable) organizations playing a large role in the Ukrainian crisis.  For your convenience, each bulleted entry begins with a live link.

• Jewish Joint Distribution  Committee: Founded way back in 1914, “The Joint” began with a cablegram requesting the American Jewish community’s support in aiding starving Jews in Ottoman-era Palestine; it continues to serve as a beacon of hope for Jews and others in 70 countries today.  It is the oldest such organization in the world.

• World Central Kitchen: Founded in 2010 by José and Patricia Andrés, the good folks of WCK are guided by the principle that  “ . . . food relief is not just a meal that keeps hunger away. It’s a plate of hope. It tells you in your darkest hour that someone, somewhere, cares about you.  This is the real meaning of comfort food. It’s why we make the effort to cook in a crisis.

• Doctors Without Borders: Recipient of the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize, DWB (Medicins Sans Frontieres) describes itself as “An independent, global movement providing medical aid where it’s needed most."  With regards to Ukraine, DWB is up and running in the port city of Odessa and in Warsaw.

• Direct Relief: According to its website, the 5-star rated charity “. . . is working directly with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health and other partners in the region to provide requested medical aid, from oxygen concentrators to critical care medicines – while preparing to offer longer-term medical aid to people displaced or affected by the conflict.”

• The International Rescue Committee: Founded at the call of Albert Einstein in 1933, the IRC now works in over 40 crisis-affected countries as well as communities throughout Europe and the Americas. They deliver lasting impact by providing health care, helping children learn, and empowering individuals and communities to become self-reliant.  They have a special project honing in on the needs of Ukraine.

This list is, of course, far from exhaustive.  There are many other sites collecting funds for Ukraine as well as “Go Fund Me” sites who likewise are aiming funds specifically for the war-torn democracy.  Please remember to check out as best you can any organization or charity seeking your hard-earned dollars for the people of Ukraine.  If you need assistance evaluating a charity please email me and I will try to lead you in the right direction.

And please, keep in mind the wisdom of Rabbi Tarfon. 

To repeat: "It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either.”

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

"There's a Spectre Haunting the World"

We begin by paraphrasing one of the most famous opening lines in all 19th century literature: “There’s a spectre haunting much of the world . . . the spectre of fascistic victimhood.” The literate amongst us will no doubt recognize from whence this paraphraseology comes: the opening paragraph of Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto (1848), which reads “A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre; Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French radicals and German police spies.”

Leapfrogging ahead 170 years, we find a no less brilliant, prescient and disturbing analysis of contemporary times, which should be read by anyone wishing to understand the political crisis currently engulfing the world: Professor Timothy Snyder’s The Road to Unfreedom, which begins with the words “The politics of inevitability is the idea that there are no ideas. Those in its thrall deny that ideas matter, proving only that they are in the grip of a powerful one. The cliché of the politics of inevitability is that ‘there are no alternatives.’ To accept this is to deny individual responsibility for seeing history and making change. Life becomes a sleepwalk to a pre-marked grave in a pre-purchased plot.”

Whether it be Marx or Snyder, both are (or in the case of the former, “was”) writing about tremendously dynamic, potentially earth-shattering changes in the political world. Marx wrote about an ancien regime made up of the churchmen, nobles and the ever-growing banking houses of Europe. He (along with his co-author, the German political philosopher Friedrich Engels, was concerned with a new order; one which would lift up the very victims of the ancien regime. In the case of Professor Snyder (he’s the Richard C. Levin Professor of history at Yale University), his focus is also on victims . . . but in a very different way. For his victims are not society’s dispossessed; rather they are the modern era’s version of the ancien regime, being convinced by their leaders that unless they man the barricades against immigrants, Jews, and a vicious “new world order,” they will be taken over by, and become enslaved to, a growing hoard of anti-Christian, “woke,” ultra-liberal Communist immoralists (the American version) or anti-Christian pro-Nazi fascists (the European/South American version). 

Writing in this past Saturday’s The Guardian, Jason Stanley noted that “Vladimir Putin’s pretext for invasion recasts Ukraine’s Jewish president as a Nazi and Russian Christians as true victims of the Holocaust.” To accuse Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, of being a Nazi ranks right up there with the worst lies in all recorded history. President Zelensky is, of course, himself Jewish, and comes from a family partially wiped out in the Nazi Holocaust. For the atheistic, autocratic Putin to recast himself as the ultimate defender of Christian nationalism puts him in league with America’s 45th POTUS, who somehow convinced most Evangelicals that he is the ultimate bulwark against Socialism and immorality. . . and that White Christian males – not Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Jewish or Muslim folk – are modern American society’s true victims. Just as Putin asserts that Nazified Ukrainians represent a lethal threat to the Russian people, so too do Trump and his ilk warn that “ultra-left-wing Socialists and Communists” represent the gravest threat to “real” Americans.  Both believe the enemy must be defeated at all costs.  Between Putin and Trump (and their most avid acolytes) there is barely a millimicron’s worth of distance in their political weltanschauung..

Historically, it was hard-right conservative Republicans who feared and warned of “Reds under the beds” . . . those lurking writers and academics, screenwriters and actors (a huge percentage of whom happened to be Jewish) who were the true enemies of America. Today, the shoe is on the other foot; former President Donald Trump describes Putin as “smart” and “savvy, and, Fox “News’” host Tucker Carlson insists that “Hating Putin, has become the central purpose of America’s foreign policy. It’s the main thing that we talk about. It might be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious: What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?” As far as the Republican right is concerned, Putin is the one standing up to the “Nazified” Ukrainian President Zelensky (who was democratically elected), while President Biden kneels before those who are doing their best to demean and destroy White Christian America. Oh what an unfathomable change of footwear!

How is it possible that the American chapter of the “Friends of Putin” can ignore that this mass murderer has ordered his troops to bomb the largest cities in a Democratic nation which is our ally, as well as deploy TOS-1 heavy flamethrowers (which are capable of vaporizing human bodies) against innocent civilians? How can they aver in poll after poll that Vladimir Putin is a more capable leader than Joe Biden? I guess they just prefer Tom Doniphon (the character played by John Wayne in the 1962 film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) to Thomas Jefferson ‘Tom’ Destry, Jr.) the character played by James Stewart in the 1939 film Destry Rides Again). As Emily Tamkin, senior editor of The New Statesman wrote in a recent New York Times guest editorial, “The American political right was long associated with Cold War hawkishness. But in recent years the trend has shifted toward fawning praise for autocrats, even those leading America’s traditional adversaries, as well as projecting our own culture wars overseas. Where once Russia and other autocracies were seen as anti-democratic, they have now become symbols of U.S. conservatism — a mirror for the right-wing worldview.“

This “victimization” battle-cry has become both the raison d'être and basis for the platform of one of America’s two major political parties. It tells voters that they - and they alone - can put an end to all the malevolent, progressive (which they spelled either S-O-C-I-A-L-S-T, W-O-K-E or U-L-T-R-A- L-E-F-T- W-I-N-G) conspiracies designed by the “enemies of America” to continually victimize and thus destroy the “real America.”

A frightening proof of this is Florida Senator and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott’s 31-page GOP agenda that he’s dubbed “My Plan to Rescue America.” Scott’s 11-point proposal for what Republicans promise to do should they take back the Senate in 2022 can be summed up in a few chilling sentences:

• Finish construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border -- and name it after Donald Trump;

• Ban all racial disclosures and references to ethnicity on government forms;

• Legally recognize that there are only "two genders," and that "unborn babies are babies."

• Limit absentee ballots and demand that "no ballots that show up after election day will be counted, ever,"

• Mandate that school children say the pledge of allegiance, salute the Flag, and learn that America is a great country;

• Starve Washington’s economy, and stop Socialism;

• Eliminate all federal programs that can be done locally, and enact term limits for federal bureaucrats and Congress;

• Guarantee that Americans will be free to welcome God into all aspects of their lives;

• Guarantee that every American pay income taxes, so as to assure they have “skin in the game.”

Having lived through eight years of Rick Scott’s governorship here in the Sunshine State, many of us have discovered that as a political leader, he is both hapless and hair-brained. This proposal of his will no doubt - if used correctly by Democrats - become an albatross for Republicans in the 2022 election. For Scott’s lame rescue plan is attempting to solve problems which do not exist . . . such as stolen elections, the teaching of “Critical Race Theory" in public schools, millions upon millions of Americans not paying income taxes (ever hear of payroll taxes?”) illegal immigrants stealing jobs from hard-working Americans. In other words, Scott’s plan, like Vladimir Putin’s, is using the spectre of victimization to keep the legions in line.

But there is some hopeful news on the horizon - both in Europe and America. In Europe, we are daily witnessing both the adroit leadership skills and breathtaking heroism of President Zelensky and the Ukranian people, and the growing unity of our allies in the E.U. and NATO (even Sweden has dropped its centuries-long position of political neutrality). And here in America, it’s not so much what we see as what we‘re beginning to sense: the muteness of the institutional wing of the Republican Party towards the purveyors of victimization - folks like Trump, Scott, Cruz, Hawley, Greene, Carlson and Bannon.

Yes, there is unquestionably a spectre haunting the world . . . but precisely what spectre, only time, tolerance and the truth shall tell.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

From Rurik to Putin is Measured in More Than a Thousand Years . . . and Less Than a Couple of Hundred Miles

Once upon a time I was really into Russian history, literature and music. I went through a long spell reading their great writers - Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Yevtushenko - listening to their musical masters - such as Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich - and learning about their historic underpinnings going all the way back to the days of the legendary Rurik (830 CE - 879 CE), a Varangian (that’s Scandinavian or Viking) warrior who, in the mid-to-late 9th century CE, founded the first significant dynasty in Russian history. It would be called the Rurik Dynasty. Rurik and his heirs also established a significant geographical and political formation known as Kievan Rus’, the first incarnation of modern Russia. (Notice how the name consists of two entities - Kiev and Russia - which are all over the news these days? Some things never change)

The line of Rurik (that’s a bronze statue of him on the left) continued to rule Russia well into the 16th century and the mythology surrounding the man Rurik is often referred to as the official beginning of Russian history.

All this can be read in the first book of Russian history, known variously as either The Primary Chronicle or Tales of Bygone Years, which is the history of Kievan Russia from the year 850 to about 1110.  It’s not an easy read . . . but then again, neither are novels by Dostoevsky, or poems and plays by Pushkin.  I vividly remember reading these Tales of Bygone Years sometime in the late sixties; at the time Leonid Brezhnev was First Secretary of the Communist Party, although he had yet to consolidate his power to become the regime’s ultimate leader (he would hold that post until his death in 1982, and then be replaced by the long-forgotten Yuri Andropov).

One of the things I came away with from reading this ancient work (in English translation, of course) was that even as far back as the 10th century, these mythical, eponymous figures who would one day lead the Russian Soviets, were already showing signs and symptoms of possessing an historic, geographic and political inferiority complex classically defined as “an intense personal or historic feeling of inadequacy, often resulting in the belief that one is in some way deficient, or inferior, to others.”  It has also been described to as “a sense of incompleteness” or “a gateway to narcissism.”   

In keeping up with the latest news surrounding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s shocking and - to my way of thinking, mindless - attempt to rewrite history, I see the unmistakable fingerprints of Rurik and the monks of Kievan Rus’. Like the ancients, Putin and his small inner circle of multibillionaire oligarchs are still trying to figure out who they are and where they belong  on the world stage.  Are they Europeans?  Are they Asiatic?  And what arrows do they have in their quiver to hold all the disparate nationalities, language groups, religions and time-zones (there are 11 of them ) together into a unified whole? 

 What is Putin’s ultimate goal in invading (or not) the Ukraine? To continue the process of reassembling the old Soviet Union? To earn for himself newer and greater chapters in history books yet written? To put NATO in its place? And where does this all stop? At the gates of Finland, Poland or Estonia? It seems to me that anyone who can plumb the depths of his mind and ultimate intent, is likely also capable of squaring the circle (completing a seemingly impossible task) . . . in this case, granting Russia the identity and superiority which has eluded it since the beginning of time.

Putin certainly knows and understands that invading the Eastern Ukraine is going to unleash an economic embargo against his country the likes of which haven’t been seen in decades. Russia’s two greatest assets are, of course, nuclear weapons and oil. The second is of tremendous importance.  Within the past couple of hours, Germany has pulled the plug on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline (a 765-mile-long natural gas pipeline from Russia, running under the Baltic Sea to Germany. The project is intended to enable Russia to circumvent Ukraine and other countries and pipe its gas directly into Europe), as the UK and European shares see-saw and the ruble has already sunk to a two-year low. Hauntingly, this does not seem to worry Putin at all . . . at least in public.   He no doubt understands that sanctions from the U.S., UK and other Western economic powerhouses will likely have a negative echoing affect on these economies . . . such as significant raises in the price of oil. Then again, a rise in the price of oil in Europe can be a boon to American oil companies.

Here on the home front, President Biden has, in my opinion, been handling the situation with a far greater degree of intelligence, aplomb and political craftsmanship than his predecessor ever could have hoped for. Responsible members of the Republican leadership in Congress, along with - believe it or not - the editorial page writers of the Wall Street Journal have had some pretty positive thing to say about Biden’s handling of this looming international event.

One Republican no one has heard from during the past several weeks and months is the former POTUS .. . . until just today. The former President slammed President Biden’s handling of the crisis with Russia, insisting that Vladimir Putin would never have invaded Ukraine on his watch. Touting his close relationship with the Russian autocrat (“I know Vladimir Putin very well, and he would have never done during the Trump Administration what he is doing now, no way!” ), Trump suggested on that he would have figured out a way to prevent Putin from moving troops into breakaway provinces of Ukraine, without offering any specifics. Even for Trump, the harsh attack on Biden marks a shocking break from the traditional deference that the opposition party leaders typically give to a sitting president during a mushrooming global crisis.

When all is said and done - and there is so much yet to be said and done - Putin’s reasons for invading (or not) the Ukraine are as unknowable as the Russian soul, as cold as a frigid Muscovite winter. He seems bent on earning for himself an entire chapter in the saga which began with Rurik oh so many centuries ago. At the same time, his immediate goal, Donetsk, is a mere 535 miles from the Kremlin.

The one person who likely understands Vladimir Putin the best, died 71 years before the future Russian strongman was even born: Fyodor Dostoyevsky. For in his immortal novel, The Idiot, (his own personal favorite), he writes: “Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.”

Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone

Super Bowl LVI: An American Celebration (?)

In slightly less than 2 hours, Super Bowl LVI will get underway at SoFI Stadium in Inglewood, just a couple of miles from LAX, the Los Angeles International Airport. When we were kids, the land upon which SoFI sits was the home of the Hollywood Park Racetrack, which opened in 1938. Originally built by the Hollywood Turf Club, the racetrack’s chairman was Jack L. Warner of Warner Brothers film studio. Prominent shareholders included Jack Warner's brother and fellow Warner Bros. executive Harry, Hollywood studio executives Walt Disney, Sam Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck and actors Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Joan Blondell, George Jessel, Ronald Coleman and Ralph Bellamy.  Eventually sold to Los Angeles Rams Owner/Chairman E. Stanley Kroenke, SoFi is the both the nation’s first indoor/outdoor stadium, as well as being home  to L.A.’s two professional football teams; the Chargers  and the Super Bowl-bound Rams.

Los Angeles’ historical name is El Pueblo de la Reyna de Los Angeles - “The Town of the Queen of the Angels.” In fact, many churches, businesses and at least 1 hospital go by the name “Queen of [the] Angels.” (Since 1989, “Queen of Angels” hospital, which now holds historic status, is called “Hollywood Presbyterian”). Somewhat ironically, Cincinnati, home of the Rams’ Super Bowl opponents, the Bengals, has been called “The Queen City” for more than a century-and-a-half, although earlier, it was frequently referred to as Porkopolis, due to the city’s rise as a pork packing center.  Cincinnati’s claim to “The Queen City” name was strengthened considerably in 1854 when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Catawba Wine” was published. The concluding passage of the poem read:

And this Song of the Vine,
This greeting of mine,
The winds and the birds shall deliver
To the Queen of the West,
In her garlands dressed,
On the banks of the Beautiful River.  

Fans of Longworth well understood that he was referring to America’s most German city, Cincinnati.    Historically, the Los Angeles (and St. Louis) Rams have face the Cincinnati Bengals a mere 14 times, with the Bengals having emerged victorious in 8 of those games. 

Today’s game marks only the 3rd time the Bengals have been in the Super Bowl.  They have yet to win the vaunted Lombardi Trophy, having lost  to the San Francisco 49ers 26-21 in Superbowl XVI (1981) and again to the 49ers 20-16 in Super Bowl XXIII (1989).  By comparison, today’s game (which is now in 1 hour) will be the Rams fifth appearance; they have won just once, a 23-16 victory over the Tennessee Titans back in Super Bowl XXXIV (1999).  Most polls favor the Rams in today’s scrap.  According to the American Gaming Association there will likely be upwards of $7 billion in legal and illegal wagers.  Most of the money will be bet on the Bengals which, were they to win, would net bettors a tidier sum than a wager placed on the Rams.

Without question, the  Super Bowl is one of the year’s most  highly-rated television events, although precisely  of what viewers percentage  of the viewing audience are tuning in to watch the game itself versus those more interested in viewing ads or the half-time extravaganza starring the likes of rappers Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar (none of whom I am terribly familiar with) is anyone’s guess.   As for the commercial extravaganzas, we can expect spots for various beers, chips, wings and electronic devices. (Turns out, there were also quite a few spots for bitcoins, which I have concluded after a bit of research, are the early 21st century’s version of snake oil). How many millions of dollars will have been spent on talent, breathtaking technology and the like is again, anyone’s guess.

So who are you going to be rooting for? I know my sister Erica (Riki) is a steadfast Rams fan and has just texted me that SoFi is magnificent, the temperature is 86 and should the Rams win, “. . . they will own this town!” I hope her dreams come true.

As for me, I really don’t much care who wins. In a sense, I have a stake in both cities, having been born and raised in Southern California (during all those years when the Rams were just awful) and spending 5 years in Cincinnati during the late ‘70s studying for my rabbinic ordination. L.A. was and still is home. I love mountains which encircle the valleys; feel very close to its values, and still have the lion’s share of my classmates living there. And where else can one be broiling in the sun while above you, people are skiing in the snow?

But truth to tell, I rather enjoyed my years living in the Queen City; their Philharmonic was and still is world class, the zoo is fantastic, Graeter’s ice cream is the world’s absolute best, and it is still actually possible to live in a 19th century Victorian abode for next to nothing. (Our huge apartment, the “Rose Hill” in North Avondale, was the same building where Theda Bara was raised). However, I couldn’t abide by its highly conservative politics (although Jerry Springer was just beginning to make progressive waves in a city whose historic first family are the Tafts), and found the City Council to be antediluvian. Don’t forget: Cincinnati is, after all, Northern Kentucky,

In a way, today’s Super Bowl is perfectly emblematic of America in 2022; a single country with many, many differences in taste, style and politics.

(We’ve reached halftime. The Rams have a slight lead; Odell Beckham, Jr. (who wore $200,000 diamond studded cleats during pre-game warmups) is out with a badly injured knee; it’s time to stop writing and pay a bit of attention to the entertainment. Back with you shortly . . .

I’m back. Turns out that to my taste, the entertainment wasn’t terribly entertaining. I’m not terribly fond of hip-hop; my tastes run more to musical pieces with melody, harmony and tonality. Watching and listening to a bunch of multi-million dollar gold-encrusted stars play up their gangsta roots (whether real or contrived) will never replace the Stones, Airplane, CSNY or CCR, That’s just me. I also found it rather off-putting that several of the performers couldn’t lip sync very well.

Back to the game . . .

The Rams managed to pull off a squeaker of a victory. Down 20-16, the Rams went on a 15-play drive capped by Matthew Stafford’s 1-yard touchdown pass to Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp for the go-ahead score with 1:25 left. Kupp’s touchdown catch came after three costly penalties on the Bengals’ defense.  Throughout the game I was texting back-and-forth with my slightly older sister, who is a fanatic fan of any team headquartered in Los Angeles.  By the final whistle, she had me converted to being a Ram’s fan.

But to me, the the Super Bowl is far, far more - and far, far less - than a celebration of American sports and national pride.  It’s a sectional war between geographic and political regions; a triumph of merchandizing in which stars are paid more than most of us will earn in a lifetime just  to make a minute commercial featuring products most of us cannot afford; a roving camera pointing out all the celebrities occupying the best seats.  As Super Bowl games go, this one certainly had its moments of excitement, and definitely put both Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp on the map; expect to see them all over the tube and making a commercial or two in the days to come.  

But as to being an “American Celebration?”  It will never replace William Daniels, Ken Howard and Howard Da Silva in the film 1776! 

Now that’s an American celebration! 

Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone

Mother Nature's "Self-Propelled Flowers"

Without question, one of G-d’s most unique and fascinating creatures is the butterfly, of which there are more than 24,000 individual species. Scientifically, they are of class insecta, order lepidoptera, and suborder Rhopalocera. They are among nature’s most colorful entities and unlike virtually any other thing on earth, spend far more time metamorphosing from seed to fully actualized creature than living as an adult. (Depending on the species, it can take upwards of a year to go from seed to caterpillar to chrysalis to full-fledged butterfly. And yet, the average lifespan of an adult butterfly is no more than 40 days.)

And, unlike just about anything that lives, it starts out as a work of great physical ugliness - a caterpillar - and winds up as one of nature’s most colorful beauties. The late science fiction writer Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers) referred to them as “. . . self-propelled flowers.” Another writer, Anton Chekov, in comparing butterflies and moths to human beings noted: “In nature, a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with humans it is [often] the other way around: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.” Me thinks both writers were on to a great truth.

Heinlein, because his terse description is so apt; Chekov, because he understood that many otherwise good people inexplicably devolve into base, gullible and purely repulsive creatures. In the first instance - that of understanding butterflies to be Nature’s “self-propelled flowers,” we here in South Florida have only to get into our  cars, drive a few miles, and treat ourselves to a glorious afternoon at Butterfly World in Coconut Creek which bills itself as “The Butterfly Capital of the world.” Located at 3600 W. Sample Road, Butterfly World encompasses 3 acres of butterfly aviaries, botanical gardens, a working butterfly farm and a research center. Over the past 30+ years, the park has expanded to include 2 additional aviaries for tropical birds and an interactive lorikeet encounter, as well as a skilled aviculture care and research staff to support these endeavors.  Today, Butterfly World is the home to thousands upon thousands of different species of these colorful winged creatures.  It is a marvelous place to spend an afternoon, and to my way of thinking, is one of the holiest spots on earth . . .

For his part, Anton Chekov (1860-1904), the greatest of all Russian playwrights (The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard) and short-story writers (Rothschild’s Fiddle, The Lady With the Little Dog, The Death of a Government Clerk) was a close student of the human condition, who easily grasped both human weakness and misdirection . . .  the beauty of the butterfly and the repulsive nature of  the caterpillar.  I have to believe that were Chekov alive today, he would not be at all surprised by how a butterfly refuge at the Texas border had become the target of appalling lies created by the conspiratorial crazies who fly the flag of QAnon.  

What in the world could a butterfly conservatory have to do with QAnon . . . the anonymous online lunatics who a couple of years ago somehow tens (hundreds?) of thousands of gullible souls that a popular Washington, D.C.-area pizza parlor (“Comet Ping Pong”) was engaged in a child sex trafficking conspiracy - all under the watchful eye of then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Originally born in 2016, the so-called “Pizzagate” conspiracy - despite world-class debunking - is still alive and kicking, mostly on Tic Tok.

A week ago last Wednesday, the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, closed indefinitely after a couple of years of wild QAnon conspiracy theories and mounting threats of violence, including a physical altercation with a Republican congressional candidate from Virginia demanding ". . . to see all the illegals crossing on the raft," according to a piece in The Texas Tribune. On any given day, hundreds of species of butterflies travel through the 20-year-old nonprofit sanctuary, the Houston Chronicle reports. "Birders from across the country visit the refuge to observe and photograph birds unique to the Rio Grande Valley, and thousands of local schoolchildren take field trips to the center each year."

The center’s founder, Dr. Gary Glassberg, a lifelong lover of butterflies who also developed the process of DNA fingerprinting, issued a statement about the current conspiracy which forced the center to close its gates: “We know it’s a dangerous lie . . . .  People say you’re raping babies, then unhinged people come out of the woodwork.”  Marianna Trevino Wright, the center’s longtime executive director, who has actually received death threats, told the New York Times “When I took this job, I thought I would be able to spend a good amount of time outdoors: butterflies, birds, educating children, writing grants . . . . Now every day my children literally worry whether I’m going to survive a day at work.”  What in the  world could have brought this all about?  In a word: Trump’s Border Wall.

In 2017, the National Butterfly Center sued the Trump administration to block construction of a border wall through its property. Two years later, "We Build the Wall" chief Brian Kolfage posted doctored photos of the butterfly sanctuary's dock, claiming it was being used for migrant transport and child sex trafficking. During the wall-funding campaign, Kolfage repeatedly attacked the butterfly center on social media. “Instead of enabling women and children to be sex trafficked like @NatButterflies, we are taking action! This is a war for control of the most powerful country,” (It should be noted that Kolfage was later indicted for allegedly misusing funds for his nearby crowdfunded border wall.) In a country where many believe that Satan-worshiping pedophiles run the government and that the resurrection of John F. Kennedy Jr. will restore a Trump presidency in 2024 (if not sooner), the butterfly center has become the latest unlikely victim of wild misinformation and outright lies spreading rapidly online.

Simply - and hauntingly - stated, the National Butterfly Center has become a borderland version of Comet Ping Pong.

So what can the majority - the ones whom Anton Chekov sees as being beautiful - do about the growing minority of caterpillars who believe every conspiracy put out by Alex Jones, Steve Bannon and the anonymous, eponymous “Q?”  It seems to me that responsible members of the mainstream media should bluntly, unhesitatingly question every right-wing, ultra conservative politician during their campaign appearances and press conferences and ask them how they respond to charges that the National Butterfly Center is running an underground child sex-trafficking ring or that John F. Kennedy Jr., never died and is going to reemerge to campaign for Donald Trump in 2024 or any of a number of other ludicrous notions.  Force them to admit they know it’s all a crock . . . or that they whole-heartedly support these conspiracies.  Force them to answer whether or not they support the likes of QAnon, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and all the others who have devolved from butterflies to caterpillars.  

To a great extent, various types of media share a mutual responsibility for the growth and spread of toxic and even lethal conspiracies. And in the long-run, it will take the concerted effort of various types of media to act as a rampart against the onslaught.  

Let every caterpillar evolve!

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

RFK Must Be Turning Over in His Grave

Many of us remember precisely where we were and what we were doing in the early morning hours of June 5, 1968: we were glued to the television and shedding tears. For it was shortly after midnight, that New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the man many of us were supporting for POTUS, was gunned down by the 24-year old Sirhan Sirhan in the kitchen of the old Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, who was then gang tackled by journalist George Plimpton, former Olympic decathlete Rafer Johnson and former NFL great Roosevelt “Rosie” Grier. I well remember sitting in paralytic astonishment, my mother next to me on the couch in the family room. The next several hours would turn out to be the first (and only) time I ever got drunk with her . . .

Senator Kennedy was such a good man.  Perfect?  No, of  course not, but he was pretty damn close for my taste.  I well remember his brother, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy’s eulogy, delivered at his memorial service held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral: 

My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

RFK and his widow Ethel Skakel Kennedy (who turns 94 this coming April) had 11 children over 18 years.  The third of them (after Kathleen and Joseph), born in 1954, was Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr.  Like his late father and a majority of the Kennedy family, Robert Jr. is a graduate of Harvard and earned a juris doctor at the University of Virginia.  For most of his professional career, this Kennedy has specialized in environmental law, advocating and litigating for the protection of waterways, indigenous rights and renewable energy.  He created a bottled-water company which, before being sold to Nestlé in exchange for a significant donation to local waterkeepers, turned over all its profits to Waterkeepers Alliance. Additionally, for nearly 30 years, he held the post of supervising attorney and co-director of Pace Law School's Environmental Litigation Clinic, which he founded in 1987.  Through other projects and investments, RFK., Jr. has engaged in a lot of  good works . . . typical of most Kennedys past, present and, we can only pray, future.

But then too, there is a disturbing side to Bobby Kennedy’s namesake . . . one which began evincing itself as far back as 2005.  RFK, Jr. was a founding board member of the Food Allergy Initiative. His son suffers from anaphylactic peanut allergies. Kennedy wrote the foreword to The Peanut Allergy Epidemic, in which he and the authors falsely linked increasing food allergies in children to certain vaccines that were approved beginning in 1989. Kennedy is the chairman of Children's Health Defense (formerly the World Mercury Project), an advocacy group he founded in 2016. The group alleges that a large proportion of American children are suffering from conditions as diverse as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), cancer, and various autoimmune diseases due to exposure to certain chemicals and radiation. The Children's Health Defense has blamed and campaigned against vaccines, fluoridation of drinking water, paracetamol (acetaminophen), aluminum, wireless communications, and others “dangers.” Kennedy's group has been identified as one of two major buyers of anti-vaccine Facebook advertising.

All this is merely the tip of a potentially lethal iceberg.  It should perhaps come as no surprise then that RFK, Jr. has been a longtime anti-vaxxer, anti-masker whose lies and anti-science rhetoric have fueled the anti-vaccine movement. According to a study by The Center for Countering Digital Hate (PDF) there are just a dozen people who are responsible for 65% of the COVID-19 disinformation being spread on social media platforms; unbelievably, Kennedy and his organization, Children's Health Defense, were the second biggest offenders.

Goodness knows, many of us have become sadly enured to the anti-vaxx, anti-mask conspiratorial rantings of everyone from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Senator Rand Paul and Representatives Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz and Madison Cawthorn, to loonies like radio talk-show conspiratorialist Alex Jones and soon-to-be confirmed Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. Whether they really, truly believe the shund (that’s a dismissive Yiddish term meaning, roughly, “dramatic theatrical trash”) or not is beside the point. Some are vaccinated liars who are merely doing what they do and saying what they say in order to gratify and thus solidify their political base. But Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr.? What in the hell is wrong with him? I mean, he’s neither running for office nor attempting to fill his already overflowing bank account.

And, to make matters even worse - if that’s possible - RFK, Jr.,  like the worst of the anti-vaxxers, has, on many occasions likened the directives of science and medicine to the Nazi’s “final solution.”  This past January 25, appearing at an anti-vaccine, anti-mandate rally in Washington, D.C., Kennedy Jr. told the crowd that today’s COVID-19 mandates, along with technological advances in surveillance, had rendered anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers more persecuted than Anne Frank. (Pardon me while I brekh’n - that’s Yiddish for “upchuck.”)

His exact quote was: “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did. I visited in 1962 East Germany with my father, and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped. So it was possible. Many died [inaudible], but it was possible.”

Anne Frank?  Doesn’t Jr. care or realize that Anne Frank is one of the world’s best-known symbols of the profound tragedies of the Holocaust; that she is a reminder of what was lost when humanity failed to stop the rise of Nazi fascism?  Bobby Jr.’s comment - and this is certainly not the first time he’s made it - brought about a torrent of negative comments. So much so that he did issue an apology on his Twitter feed: “I apologize for my reference to Anne Frank, especially to families that suffered the Holocaust horrors. My intention was to use examples of past barbarism to show the perils from new technologies of control. To the extent my remarks caused hurt, I am truly and deeply sorry.” But this was far from enough.  Both his sister Kerry and wife, the actress Cheryl Hynes (of “Curb  Your Enthusiasm” fame) issued  stunning condemnations.  Kerry Kennedy wrote: “Bobby’s lies and fear-mongering yesterday were both sickening and destructive. I strongly condemn him for his hateful rhetoric. He does not represent the views of @RFKHumanRights or our family.

His wife, who has a recent history of throwing house parties that expect visitors to have proof of vaccination and other sensible COVID-19 public health precautions—tweeted out: “My husband’s reference to Anne Frank at a mandate rally in D.C. was reprehensible and insensitive. The atrocities that millions endured during the Holocaust should never be compared to anyone or anything. His opinions are not a reflection of my own.”

I for one simply cannot fathom how anyone with an ounce of sense or an education can buy into the anti-vaxx, anti-mask, anti-Dr. Fauci, anti-Bill Gates world of conspiracies.  I have a feeling that the late Senator  Robert F. Kennedy would not have been able to either.

His son and namesake must be giving him many sleepless  nights in the world beyond . . .

Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone

Beware the Poisonous Newt

Most crossword puzzle freaks - defined as those who would never be caught dead using a pencil - know that the answer to the clue “eft” is “newt.” For those who don’t inhabit the world of Will Shortz (the puzzle editor of both the New York Times, and National Public Radio and likely the world’s leading enigmatologist - “Newt” is a salamander in the subfamily Pleurodelinae. There are easily more than 100 varieties of the creature, a couple of which are highly toxic. The most deadly contain a toxin known as TTX, the most lethal non-protein substance known to man. When ingested into the body, this toxin directly attacks the nervous system and causes muscle paralysis, which can easily lead to cardiac arrest.

But please know that this week’s post deals with a slimy creature belonging not to the Salamandridae family, but rather to the subspecies of Homo Sapiens we shall call letalis ultra-conservativa popularis (Latin for “lethal ultra-conservative Republican”).  And by now, I’m pretty sure we’ve all sussed out that the Newt we’re referring to is Newton (“Newt”) Leroy Gingrich, House Speaker during the  Clinton administration, primary author of the “Contract With (Against?) America, and current Fox News contributor.   And like his animal kingdom namesake, he can be plenty toxic. Gingrich, like the the “Man From M.A.G.A.” whom he adores, loves lights, camera, action and all the attention a narcissist can handle. As a 10-term member of the House of Representatives from Georgia’s Sixth District, he was never what you’d call a legislative powerhouse; he’s always been more interested proving that he’s the smartest guy in the room. Like the former president, he has a long track record of treating his first two wives like dirt and once blamed his marital indiscretions (he was actually having an affair with his soon-to-be third wife while leading the impeachment charge against then-President Clinton) actually blamed them on his love of country, saying: "There's no question [that] at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.")

Over many years, Gingrich has co-written a series of “alternate history” novels about the Civil War (Grant Comes East, and Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant: The Final Victory) and World War II (Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8, and Days of Infamy), as well as dystopian novels (with titles like Treason, Duplicity and Collusion). Among the things one learns about the former Speaker through reading his fiction are that:

1. He isn’t a very good writer;

2. He is history’s deus ex machina;

3. He has an abiding love of - and extraordinary admiration for - white men who almost single-handedly change the course of history  . . . and not necessarily for the better.

Newt’s self-image is that of a prophet; one who not only can see the future . . . but has been endowed with the power to shape it in his own toxic image.  His latest prophecy was announced to the world this past Sunday on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bertimoro. In addition to railing against the current Democratic legislative agenda, he suggested that people who favor higher levels of government spending to build out the social-safety net are in thrall to a "secular religion" (as opposed to the supply-side economics that have governed the Republican Party ever since Art Laffer laid out the theory on a cocktail napkin in 1974) and compared its practitioners to the Jacobins and Bolsheviks.  Then came the bombshell, based on a Gingrich op-ed piece published in Newsweek, entitled "The Wolves Will Become Sheep," in which he accused the Jan. 6 Committee of being a “lynch mob,” but (as was the case in his TV segment on Fox) does not cite any specific laws that have been broken by investigators. The closest he came to making an actual indictment was saying that “The Jan. 6 Select Committee is in the process of potentially bankrupting scores of Americans who worked for or supported President Trump. They face financial ruin defending themselves against the committee’s attack.”  Say what?

Forgetting that during the Obama years, the Republican-led Congress spent more time and money investigating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s role in the attack in Benghazi, Libya (in which 4 Americans - including the American ambassador were murdered by terrorists) than it did on the 9/11 attack, Gingrich floated the idea that the January 6 Committee was nothing more than a “partisan lynch mob” (despite having 2 Republicans on that committee) To all but the politically deaf, dumb and blind, it was obvious that the real purpose of the innumerable Benghazi hearings was to drive down Secretary Clinton’s national polling numbers on the way to the 2016 presidential election.

With regards to the single, ongoing January 6 committee hearing, Gingrich blustered that once the G.O.P. took back the  majority after the 2022 mid-term elections, committee members would be tried and sent to prison.  And this prognostication came on the heels of possible future Speaker Kevin McCarthy suggesting that come January 2023, he would move to have members of the January 6 committee stripped of all their House committee assignments . . . if not expelled and put on trial.

This streak of authoritarianism as exemplified by former Speaker Gingrich, possible future Speaker McCarthy, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz (who is giving serious consideration to his state seceding from the Union) is breathtaking in its gall, its political chutzpah and utter political toxicity.  Among those in Gingrich’s corner, one finds such political oddities as Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (who, though loudly, proudly, defiantly unvaccinated, has been buying and selling stock in Pfizer and Moderna, which likely makes her guilty of insider trading) and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz who, appearing on Steve Bannon’s podcast said “You know what, Newt’s right! We are going to take power. And when we do, it’s not going to be the days of Paul Ryan and Trey Gowdy where the Republicans go limp-wristed, where they lose their backbone, and they fail to send a single subpoena.”  On the same podcast, Bannon himself also floated the idea of impeaching Joe Biden. It’s probably just a matter of time before both ideas—Gingrich’s and Bannon’s—are the default positions for Republicans running for office.

Indeed, as Charles Dickens wrote in the opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities: 

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, …”

Beware the toxicity of a Newt Gingrich, the authoritarianism of  a Steve Bannon or the seditiousness of a Donald Trump; for where they go, poison enters the body politic.

And to them and those who support them I say: Be careful what you pray for . . . . 

Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone

Seeking Light in the Growing Darkness

                     Congregation Beth Israel, Colleyville, Texas

Without question, the explosive growth of anti-Semitism - both real and rhetorical - over the past several years, should have civilized people of all races and places extremely concerned . . . to say the least. Ghastly homicidal events have taken place at Jewish houses of worship in Europe and America, while anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi websites have become an increasing “fact of life” on social media and the “Dark Web.” Saturday’s scene at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas was, thankfully, different; all four Jewish hostages escaped unharmed after a more than 10-hour stand-off. The combined actions of many law enforcement and anti-terrorism agencies - including the FBI and both local and Texas State police - did a textbook job of bringing a potentially tragic event to a successful conclusion.

Much has been written - and rightfully so - about the bravery, level-headedness and ultimately, the modesty, of Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who somehow held it all together and even garnered words of respect from the terrorist holding him and the three  congregants hostage.  It was the rabbi who granted Malik Faisal Akram entrance to the synagogue during Shabbat services, when the 44-year old British citizen explained that he was homeless, and looking for a place of shelter on a particularly cold North Texas morning.   Hearing his accent, Rabbi Charlie gave him a cup of tea. Once a mensch, always a mensch.  At one point Rabbi Charlie - at Akram’s request - called a well-known rabbi in New York City so that the suspect could talk about Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani with a PhD in neuroscience (ironically, from Brandeis University) who is currently serving an 86-year federal prison sentence in Fort Worth after being found guilty of attempted murder and other charges in an assault on US officers in Afghanistan. Akram told the rabbi in New York that Siddiqui was framed and was thus demanding her release.  

As I write this account, little additional information has been released, save that British authorities have  detained two teenagers in southern Manchester on Sunday evening who "remain in custody for questioning," according to a statement from the Greater Manchester Police. Multiple law enforcement sources in the U.S. told ABC News that the teens are the children of the alleged hostage-taker.

Both President Biden and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss described the hostage-taking as an “act of terrorism,” Secretary Truss taking it a step further, adding that it was also “an act of anti-Semitism.” When Matthew DeSarno, the FBI Special Agent in Charge told reporters “the Texas synagogue hostage taker’s demands were specifically focused on issues not connected to the Jewish community,” it raised a storm of protest by Kenneth Marcus, the founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and former assistant U.S. secretary of education for civil rights in the Trump Administration. He disagreed wholeheartedly with DeSarno’s characterization, telling Fox News Digital that “. . . the FBI got it wrong.  Failure of the FBI to understand this is something of a pattern with law enforcement in the United States and frankly in Europe. It seems that time after time, we see law enforcement officials fail to understand when an anti-Semitic incident occurs, even when it’s entirely obvious, and sometimes the results of that are tragic. This time, fortunately, they have not been . . . , If the law enforcement community doesn’t understand what’s going on, they’re not going to be able to address the fallout from this,” he added. “This was not a mere slip-up. It is symptomatic of a widespread failure with law enforcement to understand the problems of antisemitism [sic] and anti-Zionism,” Marcus said.

According to one of the hostages, Akram went off on several anti-Jewish, anti-Israel diatribes, sounding more and more delusional as the hours wore on. So it would appear that the FBI’s DeSarno spoke before thoroughly debriefing the hostages.   

Besides the fact that everything turned out for the best in Colleyville, there are other bits of light that have received next to no coverage.  In the “thank our lucky stars” column, Rabbi Charlie credited security training that his suburban Ft. Worth congregation has received over the years for “getting him and the other three hostages through the ordeal.”  Then too, there is the very nature of the good people of North Texas.  In a op-ed piece in this morning’s Dallas Morning News entitled “What we can learn from Colleyville synagogue terror attack,” the editors urged its readers to “Remember Congregation Beth Israel’s welcoming courage versus the anger of the attacker.”  

The piece continues:

Moments like this give all of us so much to think about as the emotions settle, as we catch our breath and consider what was and what could have been, and as we think about why these sorts of terrible things ever happen.

There is an important contrast that it draws out. We are so quick today to make enemies of those with whom we differ politically. We see everywhere around us the belittlement and dehumanization of people who think differently, act differently, love differently, worship differently.

We should stop. We should take a moment like this to calculate the difference between something with which we strongly disagree and that which is truly horrible and terrible and deserves the name evil because it would steal innocent lives for its own ends.

The fact that a Jewish synagogue was targeted is a reminder of how an entire people have been scapegoated and demonized throughout history. It can happen again, and we must not let it.

Even as we think about these things, there is also an opportunity to reflect on what is good.

There were two kinds of people at Congregation Beth Israel. One was angry, ranting and threatening violence. The others had opened their arms and their hearts and called the stranger in from the cold.

I am sure there are  plenty of people who find the sentiment expressed in this op-ed to be overly treacly; like something out of an old Andy Hardy movie. “But the world’s still overflowing with anti-Semites and terrorists,” they say . . . and  of course, they are correct. But what they do not know is that people coming together despite their religious, political or ethnic differences can make a tremendous difference . . . and bring light to the gloom.  In the area where one finds Congregation Beth Israel, there exists a commitment - call it  a passion - for people to meet and treat one another as brothers and sisters.  Their religious leaders sit together in common council, seeking to provide their congregants . . . whether  Jewish or Muslim, Catholic or Protestant, Hindu  or  Bahai . . . with a sense of solidarity and respect.   

After all the murder and mayhem at synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, anti-Semitic graffiti at a Tucson synagogue, desecration of synagogues in the Bronx in the spring, leaflets claiming that COVID is a conspiracy foist upon an unsuspecting Christian nation by a cabal of Jewish doctors and scientists — or worse, arson at an Austin, Texas, synagogue this fall, we Jews have to think twice before attending shul - frequently entering through a side door.  It has long been a tradition that when Jews travel abroad, even the most secular amongst us - we seek out a local synagogue - whether we be in Istanbul, Amsterdam, Lisbon or Lyons - just to spend a bit of time with our landsleit (Yiddish for, broadly speaking, “kinsmen”).  Nowadays, there is no need to ask for an address . . . all one need do is seek out an area where there are armed guards outside a building with a Star of David.  It’s gotten to that point; both abroad and in the United States.  Yes, anti-Semitism has gotten that bad.

An anti-Semitic Screed Circulated to the People of Greensboro, N.C.

So what can be done?  For one, here in the United States, the Senate can finally get around to confirming Dr. Deborah Lipstadt,  professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University to become the State Department special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism abroad. Despite being nominated to this ambassadorial position by President Biden last July, it has been held up by Republican members of the Foreign Relations Committee.  Why?  According to the Committee’s ranking minority member, Idaho Republican James Risch, the nomination is being held up while committee members pour over Professor Lipstadt’s Tweets.  According to Committee Chair, New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, “The minority has refused to grant her a hearing, apparently because there is some concern about her tweets calling out the use of anti-Semitic tropes. Let’s think about that [for] a minute. We don’t want the person nominated to advance our global efforts against anti-Semitism to call out anti-Semitism? I sincerely hope that’s not the position of the minority.”  (It should be noted that Committee members Marco Rubio (FL), Rand Paul (KY), Ted Cruz (TX) and Ron Johnson (WI) have all joined in on holding up Dr. Lipstadt’s nomination. Keeping that post empty is simply not in our national security interests. 

The Senate can and should also pass Nevada Senator Jackie Rosen’s bill which would increase the appropriation for the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism by 25% (currently, it is a paltry $5 million). 

These two simple acts - confirming Dr. Lipstadt’s ambassadorship and passing Senator Rosen’s heightened appropriation - could shed a tiny glimmer of light onto a situation which is becoming more and more sepulchral with every passing month. 

Bringing light where there is darkness is terribly difficult, but absolutely essential if we are to survive.

Do remember on the Martin Luthor King,  Jr., day of remembrance two of his most prophetic truths:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”  

“But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Follow the Money

In the nearly 17 years this blog has existed (on February the fifth we begin our 18th year) more than a handful of the now 874 posts have dealt with the history, nature and psychological underpinnings of political conspiracies. Regardless of whether the conspiracy involved Masons or Jews, Communists, Socialists or the Hollywood film industry - to name but a few - they all seem to have found an audience prepared to believe that they were true, thus explaining that which was both frightening about contemporary political society or making understandable the otherwise deeply inexplicable.

Goodness knows, we are once again in the midst of “Conspiracy Land.”  To many of us, it seems like the wheels have become detached from the democratic wagon, becoming replaced by a kind of pilotless drone searching out the quickest path to autocracy.  In seemingly the wink of an eye, American politics have become obsessed with the “Big Lie” (AKA “Stop the Steal”); the danger of teaching “Critical Race Theory” to public school students (which they are not); the dire necessity of curbing voting rights in the name of keeping elections free of dishonesty (which demonstrably, they are not); and enacting laws which, if allowed to stand, will make a woman’s right to choose all but impossible in more than half the states of our now teetering Union.

The late conservative pundit/Harvard-trained psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer (whom I read regularly . . . and just as regularly disagreed with) once noted “In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.”  In another place he wrote “Whenever you're faced with an explanation of what's going on in Washington, the choice between incompetence and conspiracy, always choose incompetence.”  These are likely the only 2 “Krauthammerisms” in which I ever found more than a soupçon of truth.  For when it comes to the various conspiratorial bits floating about these days, it’s really, truly difficult to imagine them being dreamed up and led by the MAGA crowd.  Look back on the people he surrounded himself with during his 4 years in office.  The only qualification  for appointment to the cabinet or his personal staff was loyalty . . . not experience, nor accomplishment nor vision nor even a scintilla of competence.  If experience, accomplishment, vision or competence were required, he never would have  made John D. McEntee ii (his onetime “body man” who carried his golf clubs and suitcase) the Director of Presidential Personnel, or Daniel Scavino (who was general manager of the Trump International Golf Club) Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications or Hope Hicks, (a former model of - and P.R. person for  First Daughter Ivanka Trump’s fashion line) his Director of Communications. 

As the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol continues to issue subpoenas and invitations, hold hearings and work alongside the Department of Justice, it seems only logical that they would follow the advice so succinctly stated by “Deep Throat,” as played by the late actor Hal  Holbrook in All the President’s Men: “FOLLOW THE MONEY.” For all we know, perhaps that is part of the Select Committee’s strategy; to determine where all the money for organizing the January 6th insurrection came from, as well  as  to determine who is underwriting all the various issues - CRT. library book banning, anti-vaxx demonstrations as well as state and municipal legislative efforts to give Botox injections to the American system of voting.  By following the money behind all these efforts, we exit the world of the incompetent and begin the journey to the land of the capable.  For all we know, perhaps the trail will lead abroad,  and one day the face of Vladimir Putin will  begin appearing in the mirror. 

Sound overly conspiratorial . . . too 1984ish?  Well, we do know with a degree of certainty that Putin and his cronies played a major role in the 2016 presidential election . . . putting their favorite "useful idiot” into office.  What’s to say they ever stopped? 

Dear Chairman Thompson and members of the Select Committee . . . do whatever you have to in order to get to the bottom of this ghastly insurrection and all that surrounds it.

And please, please, by all means, follow the money!

Copyright©2022 Kurt F. Stone

Q: What Do Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield and Harry Potter All Have in Common?

A: They have all been central characters in classic novels that were - or still are - banned from many school libraries . . . 

To many of us it seems well beyond the bounds of reason; what in the  world could be so objectionable about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, or the Harry Potter series as to be worthy of banishment from bookshelves . . . or even worse, being burnt?  Many of us remember the war on Catcher in the Rye back in our schooldays; how, for many teenagers, it’s banishment lead us directly to devouring J.D. Sallinger’s only novel-length work.  In the day, the guardians of literary mortality found it to be "obscene,” with an "excess of vulgar language, sexual scenes, and things concerning moral issues."  I for one found Holden to be one of the most real people in all literature.  To this day I can quote him:

• "All morons hate it when you call them a moron.”

• "I’m always saying ‘Glad to’ve met you’ to someone I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though."

• "I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am - I really do."

• "What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it."

My sister Erica (Riki) and I were among the fortunate ones of our generation; our parents didn’t put any restrictions on what we read.  There was a pretty large library in our home, and I/we got the benefit of becoming friends with Shakespeare, de Balzac, Mauldin, and Steinbeck if we so chose . . . all of whom were at one time or another banned. (I must admit that my “slightly older sister” wasn’t nearly as much of a reader as her younger brother . . . just a hell of a lot smarter, more sociable and far more well-rounded!)

From the first book banned in the American colonies (Thomas Morton’s three-volume work of history, natural history, satire, and poetry New English Canaan in 1637) through today, the number of famous and meritorious essays and novels banned by bigots and what used to be called “bluenoses” could easily fill a mid-size, small-town bookstore.  Among those found to be “irremediably evil” at worst,  “decadent” or salacious” at best, were such well-known works as:

• Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, banned for passages that were considered "sexually offensive," as well as for the tragic nature of the book, which some readers felt was a "real downer."

• Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), was criticized for being immoral and scandalous, and now is considered an important work in feminist literature. 

• Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), was challenged in schools and libraries across the United States for being "centered around negative activity."

• Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, frequently challenged and banned for what has been termed "sexual and social explicitness."

• John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath'; banned and challenged for "vulgar" language.” Parents have also objected to "inappropriate sexual references."

• William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies; Despite the fact that "Lord of the Flies" was a bestseller, the novel has been banned and challenged — based on the "excessive violence and bad language."

• The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850): censored on sexual grounds. The book has been challenged under claims that it is "pornographic and obscene."

• Ulysses by James Joyce (1918): a masterful novel with impenetrable prose, it was banned for obscenity. In the 1930s, the U.S. Postal Service burnt copies sent in the mail.

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960); still banned in many school and local libraries, Harper Lee’s only novel has been frequently banned and challenged on sexual and social grounds. Not only does the novel discuss racial issues in the South, but the book involves a White attorney, Atticus Finch, defending a Black man against rape charges.

Banning - if not burning - questionable books from public school and municipal libraries is a hot-button issue which rears its ugly head every 2 or 4 years. Thanks to the politically maladroit comment of former Virginia Governor Terry McAulliffe (“I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.") and the fast-tracking of “Critical Race Theory” (CRT) as a central focus of many campaigns, state legislatures and local school boards have made education a central focus for the 2022 midterm elections. Already, several state legislatures - most notably Texas and Oklahoma - have enacted legislation which essentially gives any parent the power to petition for the removal of books they find objectionable.

In Texas, Matt Krause, a Republican in the state House of Representatives, recently went hunting in public-school libraries for any books that might generate “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of [a student’s] race or sex.” He then distributed a watch list of 850 books. In parallel, Texas governor, Greg Abbott called for a criminal investigation into the availability of “pornographic” books in public schools. Then, a San Antonio school district pulled 414 books from its libraries in response to the ongoing pressure from Texas lawmakers and a vocal segment of angry parents to limit what children can choose to read.

Just the other day, Oklahoma state Senator Rob Standridge introduced a book-banning bill that would enable parents to challenge books in public schools, setting a $10,000 bounty to be collected by parents for each day a challenged book remains on library shelves.  If this sounds somewhat reminiscent of the recent Texas abortion bill (which is now headed for the U.S. Supreme Court), you are correct.  The idea of adding the $10,000 per diem bounty on each book makes it a matter of civil - rather than 1st Amendment - concern.  In his remarks before the Oklahoma Senate, Standridge justified his proposed legislation in a statement which read: “Our education system is not the place to teach moral lessons that should instead be left up to parents and families. Unfortunately, however, more and more schools are trying to indoctrinate students by exposing them to gender, sexual and racial identity curriculums [sic] and courses. My bills will ensure these types of lessons stay at home and out of the classroom.” 

Parents believing a book violates the bill may demand school officials remove it within 30 days. If the book is not removed during this time, the school employee tasked with getting rid of it will be terminated —subject to due process— and prohibited from working at another school for at least two years.  Parents may then seek “monetary damages,” according to the bill, including a minimum of $10,000 for each day the challenged book is not removed.

Under Standrige’s second bill, public universities in Oklahoma beginning next year would be prohibited from requiring students to enroll in courses “addressing any form of gender, sexual, or racial diversity, equality, or inclusion curriculum,” which fall outside course requirements for their major. 

Many of the books in question do include passages about sex, abortion, race, and sexuality. Some are nonfiction; others are novels. They span several decades in American publishing and include authors who have been awarded Pulitzer, Nobel and Booker Prizes, as well as McArthur “Genius Grants.”  In some cases, local school librarians weren’t even aware that the “nasty” books were on their shelves. As will happen when the “. . . censorious zeitgeist swallows up a novel” (in the words of The Guardian’s Luke Winkie), sales of those books goes through the ceiling.  It’s nothing new; in 1982, when the United States Supreme Court set the standard for banning books in Board of Education v. Pico, sales of such previously banned works as Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, Theodore Dreiser’s The Genius and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five experienced a merchandizing renaissance. 

Expect education - and the centrality of parents’ freedom to choose what their children are taught or assigned - to be a central MAGA-pushed issue in the upcoming midterm elections.  There is a sick irony at work here: adults, who are  repeatedly told that principals, librarians and individual teachers have no right or authority to create curricula for their children, are instead brainwashed into believing that they should heretofore cede that authority to politicians and their deep-pocketed benefactors . . . supposedly in the name of "personal freedom.”  Just because a state legislator or local schoolboard member declares that Jenny Nordberg’s The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan, or Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex, or Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Reluctantly Alice (all 3 of which are on Texas’ ‘no-no’ list) must be removed from the shelves of public school libraries, doesn’t mean they are experts, authorities or trained literary critics.  The first question I would ask of them would be “Can you summarize the book in question?”  “Did you actually read it yourself, or are you just taking someone else’s word for it that it’s bad, or salacious or even worse?”

Keep your eyes and ears open in your city, county or state for attempts to muzzle what children can read.  And do remember the haunting words of the great German-Jewish poet Heinrich (Harry) Heine (1797-1856), whose haunting words adorn both the Yad va-Shem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: “Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well."    

Copyright2022 Kurt F. Stone

Riddle Me a Riddle

Stretching across the intellectual highways called “philosophy,” “theology,” and “cerebral gymnastics,” one finds riddles and intellectual imponderables aplenty, the contemplation of which can provide the best - and occasionally most frustrating - forms of mental, moral and ethical gymnastics. Two of my favorites - neither of which I have come even close to solving - are the following:

Question: if G-d is omnipotent, is it possible for Co* (a divine pronoun I invented 40+ years ago meaning “He/She) to create an object so large and heavy that Co cannot lift it?

Answer: Of course not.  If G-d could  create such an object, that would wipe out Co’s omnipotence, because there would be something beyond Co’s physical ability.

Question: But if the omnipotent G-d were incapable of creating such an object, wouldn’t that then mean that there is something beyond that very omnipotence . . . namely the inability to create something too large and heavy to lift? 

Answer: You’ve given me a migraine . . . better check back later . . . much, much later.

Then there’s imponderable #2, which comes from an early rabbinic work known as Pirke Avot . . . a  book of wisdom whose title is roughly translated as The  Ethics of the Fathers.   In Hebrew it goes:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

                                                               הַכֹּל צָפוּי, וְהָרְשׁוּת נְתוּנָה,

(ha-kohl tza-fuey, v’ha-r’shoot n’tunah) Roughly translated this enigmatic bit of wisdom states “All things are foreseen, but nonetheless there is free will.”

There’s an obvious paradox at work here:   If G-d knows the future and every act we will do for the rest of our lives, do we truly have free will? Do we truly have a choice how we will behave? It is already known, so to speak, that I will sin at a particular time and place. And if so, there is no possible way I can avoid it! I am going to do it! G-d knows it already! There is no humanly possible way for me to alter my predetermined future! And so, isn’t my life merely a meaningless exercise — a futile performance of an already-written and predetermined script?

I have always been intrigued by this sentence (which is ascribed to the great Rabbi Akiba). I really love it, perhaps because it is an enigma to me, spiritual and intriguing. Every once in awhile the sentence pops up in my mind. And for the longest time, I said “Not yet, I still don’t understand its meaning.”

Talk about an imponderable riddle! Talk about yet another migraine!!

Annie asked me a question the other day that brought this omniscience- versus-free-will conundrum to mind. Annie, as many of you know, has taught for years at Broward College in the Ft. Lauderdale area. She teaches English as a Second Language (ESL) to adult immigrants, refugees and asylees. Her students come from places as diverse as Haiti, Cuba and the Caribbean to South and Central America and the Middle East. Many received next to no education prior to their arrival in the U.S.; some were college-educated doctors, accountants and engineers. The latter find it next to impossible to resume their professions; once skilled surgeons become registered nurses; engineers turn to  the building trades and accountants become bookkeepers.

Recently, the college offered a cash incentive ($250.00) for any and all students who agreed to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and another $250.00 for receiving a booster shot. Annie contacted each and every one of her students to make sure they were aware of this program and answer any questions they might have. Of necessity, she asked each student whether or not they had already been vaccinated and/or received a booster injection. Hauntingly, a fair number of her students - including the doctors and other professionals - had not, but refused to give a reason why.

“How’s it possible for a doctor to be against getting a COVID vaccine?” she asked.  Indeed, how is it possible for anyone (save those whose religion refuses medical attention or those with compromised immune systems) to willingly refuse a potentially life-saving vaccine?  Or fight tooth and nail against being compelled to wear a mask . . . or compare any mandate concerning COVID protection to the Nazis forcing Jews to wear a Yellow Star?  Do they have any brains?  Do they really, truly believe all the conspiracy theorists who likely have been vaccinated behind closed doors?  Amazingly, just the other day fringe factions of the right wing erupted in anger after both former POTUS Trump and former FAUX News commentator Bill O’Reilly urged people to get vaccinated and boosted.  Anti-vax conspiracy theorists  such as Alex Jones and Ali Alexander swiftly rebuked Trump over his pro-vaccine stance. Members of QAnon-linked Telegram channels said they felt betrayed after Trump said to get the shot.  Ultra-conservative millennial commentator Candace Owens hit back hard at Trump for telling the truth about vaccines, explaining to her growing legion of fans that he's "too old" to find the "obscure websites" where people do their own research on the vaccines. "People oftentimes forget that, like, how old Trump is," Owens said on an Instagram Live post last Thursday night. "He comes from a generation — I've seen other people that are older have the exact same perspective, like, they came from a time before TV, before internet, before being able to conduct their independent research."

(It should be noted that Trump, who famously had his own reality TV show, never lived in "a time before TV." Then again, he reportedly doesn't use a computer.)

In the Luddite-larded world of antivaxxers, one finds such utterly ludicrous beliefs as: urging - if not mandating - vaccinations, masks and rigorous hand-washing during a time of mutating pandemia is a “human rights” violation; that according to Fox commentator Tucker Carlson (who, after all, knows everything) the nation’s leading expert in infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci created the Covid virus (and is making a fortune off of it); and that COVID-19 is a plot by big pharma to make a fortune.  And for those who haven’t been paying a lot of attention, one of the loudest anti-Fauci voices in the country is attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a mainstay in the vaccines-cause autism brigade whose newest book is entitled The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, which just about says it all. 

Truth to tell, some of those peddling these - and other ridiculous notions have stock holdings in  many  of the companies manufacturing the very vaccines which are  saving tens of millions of lives.  (One of these is loud-mouthed Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene who, in addition to recently saying on Steve Bannon’s podcast that "vaccine Nazis [are] "ruining our country," holds stock in AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson.)  In fact, according Business Insider’s “Conflicted Congress” project, at least 13 senators and 35 US representatives held shares in Johnson & Johnson, 11 senators and 34 representatives held shares in Pfizer, and two representatives or their spouses held shares of Moderna. 

In their drive to monetize the COVID pandemic, hardcore right-wing conspirators who insist (and will sell you) that Ivermectin, herbal “cures,” tons of vitamin C and Hydroxychloroquine will cure what ails you are - either knowingly or not - are endangering the lives of the very people they need to “Make America Great Again.” According to a recent report on National Public  Radio, "Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden.”  Recent polling shows that partisanship is now this single strongest identifying predictor of whether someone is vaccinated. Polling also shows that mistrust in official sources of information and exposure to misinformation, about both COVID-19 and the vaccines, runs high among Republicans.  According to Liz Hamel, vice president of public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation, (a nonpartisan health policy think tank), "An unvaccinated person is three times as likely to lean Republican as they are to lean Democrat . . . . If I wanted to guess if somebody was vaccinated or not and I could only know one thing about them, I would probably ask what their party affiliation is." 

It would take a heartless fool to cheer on those Trump acolytes who are killing the future of their movement by potentially killing themselves. But it has gotten to a point where they won’t even listen to their leader, who now tells them that getting vaccinated and boosted is a good thing.

In the words of Puck, perhaps Shakespeare’s most endearing creation: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

Sorry to say, but when push comes to shove, I haven’t got an answer to Annie’s question about how in the world doctors and otherwise educated people - let alone those who are not - can bury their heads in the sand and their feet in concrete when it comes to saving their lives and the lives of their families and friends. It will have to remain an unsolvable riddle . . . perhaps even to the G-d who, despite being both omnipotent and omniscient, grants each of us free will . . .

Copyright©2021, Kurt F. Stone   

Liz Cheney: Lauding the Courage of a Politician I'd Never Vote For

                                   Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY)

Back in November, 2009, when this blog was still called “Beating the Bushes,” I posted a piece entitled In the Words of Joseph Nye Welch. In this op-ed, I castigated right-wing radio Luddite Rush Limbaugh for continuing to claim that then-President Barack Obama (who had been elected the previous November) was continuing to proclaim that our 44th POTUS was not only foreign-born (thus invalidating his presidency) but a Muslim plant to boot. In that essay, I called upon the ghost of the late Harvard- trained attorney Joseph Nye Welch (1890-1960) who, in 1954, became the epitome of a political hero when, during the nationally-televised “Army-McCarthy Hearings” unmasked the Wisconsin senator for the ogre he truly was:

Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness . . . . If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. I like to think that I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me . . . . , Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?  As history records, Welch’s heroism turned out to be what would become the first - and ultimately deepest - shovelings in what would shortly thereafter become Joseph McCarthy’s grave. 

Now mind  you, Welch was not an elected official; he had no seat to lose, nor would he carry a target upon his back.  He was just (just!) a mild-tempered man with a love of justice and the courage to put his convictions before the court of public opinion.  In her own way, Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney is a Welch clone; a courageous person willing to put her convictions foursquarely before the court of public opinion. What obviously separates Rep. Cheney from attorney Welch is that the former has much to lose . . . like  her political life. In voting for the conviction of former President Trump and then becoming one of the most visible and forthcoming members of the Select Committee on the January 6 Attack (of which she serves as Vice Chair) Liz Cheney has already been thrown out of her position as Chair of the House Republican Conference, has earned the undying enmity of the former president and nearly 100% of her caucus. Moreover, she stands a good chance of losing her seat in Congress.

Without question, Liz Cheney is Republican Royalty: her father, Dick Cheney, at various times served as Chair of the House Republican Conference (1987-89); Secretary of Defense (1989-1993) and 46th Vice President of the United States (2001-2009); her mother Lynne served for seven years as Chair of the National Council of the Humanities under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush (1986-1993). Yet despite her political bloodlines, Republicans treat her as if she were the spawn of Bella Abzug and Barney Frank. With every pronouncement or revelation regarding the January 6 coup she makes, the lower her stock goes with her former political allies. The Wyoming Republican Party has disowned her; along with the former president, the party has endorsed Harriett Hageman to be Ms. Cheney’s opponent in the 2022 Republican primary. (It should be noted that in 2016, Ms. Hagemen tried to overturn Donald Trump’s victory in the Wyoming presidential primary, noting that Trump was both “racist and xenophobic.” Once he endorsed her for Ms. Cheney’s seat, she began referring to him as “the greatest president of my lifetime.”)

These days, the only people saying positive or congratulatory things about Liz Cheney are Democrats and a tiny handful of what the Jim Jordans, Madison Cawthorns and Rand Pauls of the world call “RINOS” - “Republicans in name only," like Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger and Senators Mitt Romney, Richard Burr, Ben Sasse and Lisa Murkowski. I’ve even chatted with a few people who wonder if Democrats could convince her to move to the other side of the political aisle and join the party of FDR, JFK, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.  Sorry, one Joe Manchin is enough . . .

Whoa there!

As much as I admire her courage and stiff spine, I will remind you that Liz Cheney is a dyed-in-the-wool ultra-conservative. Jake Bernstein, co-author of the book Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency, recently noted: “I think part of the reason for why Liz Cheney is doing what she’s doing is directly the result of her father in the sense that her father was the very embodiment of the Republican establishment for decades. . . . She’s still very conservative. She would never see eye to eye with Democrats on anything else but a belief in the institution of Congress and the democratic process. To believe that she is in any way a moderate politically says more about what Donald Trump has done to the Republican party than it does about her.”

Need proof of Cheney’s ultraconservatism? According to an article in the May 26, 2021 issue of Forbes, from 2017 to 2021, Cheney voted in line with Trump's position 92.9% of the time, supporting him more consistently in House votes than even his former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Believe it or not it wasn’t all that long ago that Cheney publicly feuded with Rand Paul over who was "Trumpier.”

Make no mistake about it: outside of the valiant stand she has taken vis-à-vis the impeachment of Donald Trump and informing the public about his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, few of those reading this piece could find any political commonality with Liz Cheney. And that’s OK. Political courage need not be packaged in a set of positions which find favor with voters on both sides of the aisle. One can, however, hope and dream that such courage is ultimately contagious.

Three cheers for Liz Cheney!

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

"The Darkness on the Edge of Town"

This past Thursday (December 9, 2021) the veteran journalist and news anchor Brian Williams signed off as host of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour, thus ending his 28-year run with NBC News. In his final 3 minutes and 51 seconds on-air, Williams delivered a highly reflective valedictory which, if it had had a musical backdrop, would undoubtedly have come from Paul Anka’s My Way, featuring the lyric Regrets, I’ve had a few/but then again, too few to mention/I did what I had to do/and saw it through without exemption . . . But more than that, he spoke out for his greatest fear: the future of America:

After 28 years of Peacock logos on much of what I own, it is my choice now to jump without a net into the great unknown,” he said. “As I do, for the first time in my 62 years, my biggest worry is for my country.

The truth is I am not a liberal or a conservative, I am an institutionalist. I believe in this place, and in my love of country I yield to no one. But the darkness on the edge of town has spread to the main roads and highways and neighborhoods. It is now at the local bar and the bowling alley, at the school board and the grocery store. And it must be acknowledged and answered for. Grown men and women, who swore an oath to our Constitution — elected by their constituents, possessing the kind of college degrees I could only dream of — have decided to join the mob and become something they are not, while hoping we somehow forget who they were. They’ve decided to burn it all down with us inside. That should scare you to no end.

Williams announced he would be leaving NBC News back on Nov. 9, bringing to an end a relationship that began in 1993 when he joined the network. Before moving to MSNBC, Williams served as chief anchor and managing editor of NBC’s Nightly News, succeeding the legendary Tom Brokaw in 2004. In 2015, he faced scandal and a six-month suspension over false claims about his helicopter being hit by a grenade in March 2003 while covering the Iraq War. He was later replaced by Lester Holt in the anchor role, and made his transition to the 24-hour cable network.

To Brian Williams’ detractors, the scandal and suspension represent the entirety of his nearly 3-decade career. Sadly, that’s the way things go in the modern world; one’s detractors make sure their audience never forgets the foibles of the fallible who happen to occupy the opposite side of the whatever aisle divides them, all the while turning both a deaf ear and a blind eye to the imperfections of those they support. A handful of mistruths from Brian Williams make him lower than Lenin in the minds of the Fox/News Max/OAN/Breitbart crowd, while the 30,000+ whoppers told by Boss Tweet matter neither whit nor farthing.

Like many on our/my side of the aisle, I found Brian Williams' valedictory to be terse, his words well crafted and his message scary as hell.  His message - and what today we increasingly refer to as “messaging” - hit the nail on the head.  “Messaging” is a fairly new concept, and means something like: the ideas or messages conveyed either explicitly or implicitly by a politician, advertising campaign, etc., or the way in which this is done.  Williams’ political messaging, in a nutshell, conveyed a great truth: We need more people WITH A PLATFORM to step up and say, “Hey folks, we’re on the ledge of losing our imperfect republic, our highly flawed but great democratic experiment. Open your eyes. We are hanging on by our freaking fingertips. 

Writing about Williams’ messaging in The Daily Kos, progressive Stella Ray noted “There will be those who say this is hyperbolic---but I now think those are the same sort who didn’t see Hitler coming, even after the Brown shirts had arrived. And make no mistake about it, the Brown shirts have arrived in the United States of America. They just go by different names these days. All sorts of  names, but most disturbing of all is this name: the Republican Party. There is no ‘both sides do it’ in this ultimate game, despite my opinion on the many imperfections of the Democratic Party.  I

I think there is no doubt this is who Williams was talking about.  Think about it: so much of what is driving Americans apart and democracy down is due to things such as:

• The promotion of anti-vaxxing, anti-masking lies in the name of “preserving individual freedom,”

• The passing of countless pieces of state and local legislation making voting terribly difficult - if not impossible - for the poor and people of color . . . and this in the name of safeguarding against electoral fraud;

• State-after-state enacting laws which make abortions next to impossible for all but women (or families) of means;

• The perpetuation of a solid slate of lies concerning the dangers posed by refugees, asylees and non-white immigrants;

• Perpetuating myths and lies about the teaching of Critical Race Theory; fostering bullying against children who are LGBTQ;

• Denying climate change;

• Spreading conspiracy theories about virtually everything in order to keep their base close at hand;

• Convincing a vast portion of America that anything they disagree with is the product of a Socialist/Communist revolution in the making.

Democrats have long been unsuited to repelling Republicanism. Hells bells: Democrats have long been unsuited to fighting fire with fire, to calling a spade a spade or showing anger. For too long, Democrats have strapped on lace gloves for any lethal Mixed Martial Arts battles they’ve entered. For the past couple of decades Democrats have held on to the canard that “working across the aisle” is the best way to survive, succeed and progress.  

It seems to me that if Democrats are going to succeed - to continue occupying the White House and leading both the House and Senate, they are going to have to shine one whole hell of a lot of cleansing megawattage on that “Darkness on the edge of town” of which Brian Williams spoke during his final segment of “The 11th Hour.”

Democrats are going to have to pump ungodly amounts of cash, courage and energy into races for POTUS, Congress, governorships, state legislatures, county commissions and boards of supervisors and education across the country. We are going have to flood airways with visuals and actualities of what such political miscreants as Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley et al have been vomiting out for the past several years . . . mostly as an act of obeisance to their cult leader, Donald J. Trump. In addition to being the one party running on a platform of political possibilities, Democrats will have to point out their opponents’ lies, conspiracy theories and penchant for scaring the daylights out of the citizens of America. Anything less will spell not only loss at the polls, but the loss of democracy in cities, towns and farmlands of this once great nation.

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone