Category Archives: American Politics and Life

The Destructive Power of Ego

12 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Quote of the Day

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In watching “Game Change” on HBO this weekend about the rise and fall of Sarah Palin, as well as the controversy around Rush Limbaugh’s nasty slander of a decent young woman activist and law student, the scandal in Britain emanating from the hubris of Rupert Murdoch and his empire, the rise and fall of Glenn Beck after calling the President of the United States a racist, and the failure of Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Donald Trump among the Republican presidential contenders, one character flaw seems to be held in common by them all – egotism.

Frank William Leahy, a Hall of Fame college football coach, once said that “Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”

The Pirkei Avot (4:1) offers counsel to those of us whose egos rage out of control:

“Who is the wise one? The one who learns from all people. Who is the strong one? The one who subdues his/her passions. Who is the wealthy one? The one who is satisfied in what s/he has. Who is the honored one? The one that honors her/his fellows.”

US and Israeli Intelligence on Iran’s Nuclear March – Important Read

17 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Israel/Zionism

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A few days back I wrote about Israeli public opinion concerning Israel ‘s attack against Iran’s nuclear sites. “Yes or No?”

This piece by a veteran journalist is an important read and I recommend it.

Shalom m’Tel Aviv

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/289-134/10009-new-weasel-word-on-iran-nukes

Don’t Run Away From Politics Despite Good Reasons To Do So!

22 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Quote of the Day

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Thankfully, we living in California have been spared the most recent barrage of SuperPac political advertising and candidate trashing of each other. Unless we read the national press we have also been spared the right wing’s wanton distortion of the truth of President Obama’s record and what he inherited upon assuming office three years ago, as well as the candidates’ pandering to the nation’s very worst angels of greed, self-interest, arrogance, aggression, self-justification, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and xenophobia.

In listening to the lies and distortions that daily pour out of the candidates’ mouths it would be natural for decent people to run far from politics. That a two time admitted adulterer and hypocrite and an unrepentant corporate raider who has not a clue about what the other 99% of America has to deal with on a daily basis are the two leading candidates of the Republican presidential contest is enough to make any decent person despair.

Plato reminds us, however, that “The penalty that good [people] pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by [those] worse than themselves.”

Pericles adds, “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”

Rather than run away, each of us has to become even more engaged. If we run then we deserve whoever we get.

A Pure Soul – A poem for Parashat Shmot in honor of Moses and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

12 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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The Book of Exodus is essentially a story about God’s saving love for the oppressed Israelites. It begins with the birth of Moses and follows him as a young prince turned into a rebel and outlaw, then a shepherd, and finally THE prophet of God.

Why Moses? What was so unique about him that God should choose him to be His most intimate of prophets?

Moses is a complex man; passionate, pure, just, humble, at home no where, carrying always the burdens of his people and the word of God.

God identified him because he was unique, and that is what my drash-poem below is about; namely, the uniqueness that would draw Moses out to become the most important Jew in history.

Dr. Martin Luther King, though not Moses, was a prophet for our times, and on this weekend we celebrate his legacy.

—–

So often we walk about in a daze, / Eyes sunk in creviced faces / Fettered to worldly tasks / Blind to rainbows.

I imagine Moses, in Midian, like that, / Brooding in exile, / Burdened by his people’s suffering, / Knowing that each day / They scream from stopped-up hearts / Shedding silent tears.

A simple shepherd Moses had become / Staff in hand / Counting sheep / Until one day / Weaving through rocks / Among bramble bushes / The shepherd heard thorns popping. / Turning his head / His eyes were opened / And he would never be the same.

God had from his birth taken note of him / And waited until this moment / To choose him as prophet.

Dodi dofek pitchi li / A-choti ra-yati yo-nati ta-mati. / Open to me, my dove, / my twin, my undefiled one. (Song of Songs 5:2)

Moses heard the Divine voice / His eyes beheld angels / His soul flowed with a sacred river / Of Shechinah light.

‘Why me? / Why should I behold such wondrous things? / Unworthy am I!’

God said, / ‘Moses – I have chosen you / Because you are soft / Because you weep / Because your heart is burdened and worried / Because you know this world’s cruelty / Yet you have not become cruel / Nor do you stand idly by.

You are a tender of sheep / And you will lead my people / With the shepherd’s staff / From Egypt / And teach them to open their stopped-up hearts / Without fear.’

Trembling, Moses peered a second time / Into the bush aflame / Free from ash and smoke.

His eyes opened as in a dream / And he heard a soft murmuring sound / Like the sound breath makes passing through parted lips.

MOSHE MOSHE!—HINEINI!

Two voices—One utterance! / He hid his face / For the more Moses heard / The brighter was the light / And he knew he must turn away / Or die.

The prophet’s thoughts were free / Soaring beyond form / No longer of self. / To this very day / There has not been a purer soul than his.

God said, ‘Come no closer, Moses! / Remove your shoes / Stand barefoot here on this earth / For I want your soul.

I am here with you and in you / I am every thing / And no thing / And You are Me. / I see that which is and which is not / And I hear it all.

Take heed shepherd/prince / For My people‘s blood  / Calls to me from the ground. / The living suffer still / A thousand deaths.

You must go and take them out! / Every crying child / Every lashed man / Every woman screaming silent tears.

And Moses, know this / “With weeping they will come, / And with compassion will I guide them.” (Jeremiah 31:8) / The people’s exile began with tears / And it will end with tears.

I have recorded their story in a Book / Black fire on white fire / Letters on parchment / Telling of slaves / Seeing light / Turning to Me / Becoming a nation.

The Book is My spirit / The letters are My heart / They are near to you / That you might do them / And teach them / And redeem My world / That it might not be consumed in flames.

It’s the Republican Party – Stupid!

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life

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The press too often, in its extreme efforts to appear “non-partisan”, blames the Congress in general for the dysfunction of the government in Washington, D.C. The truth, however, is simpler. It is the Republican Party that is the cause of the dysfunction, and this piece by Jonathan Chait explains why.

President Obama is finally seeking ways to by-pass Congress in his appointments which have been held up for no reason except that the Republican Party, led by its extremist and cynical leaders, have refused to work with him and the Democrats since the day he took office. I wish the press would call it as it is and assess responsibility specifically instead of doing summersaults to appear above the fray thus ignoring the truth. Here here for Jonathan Chait! Let’s see if others follow suit.

Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
Chait writes: “President Obama’s decision to use a recess appointment to seat Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was a no-brainer – such a no-brainer, in fact, that many of us were racking our brains to figure out why he didn’t do it sooner. It’s an important move that brings together four important battles the Obama administration is waging:”
READ MORE – http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/72-72/9355-the-grand-strategy-behind-obamas-recess-appointment

“How Many US Casualties and Wounded in Iraq? Guess again!”

01 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics

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The Pentagon reports 4,487 American soldiers killed and 32,226 wounded in Iraq since the onset of the American initiated war in 2003. The piece below by Dan Froomkin, however, notes that this ‘official’ government figure of wounded includes only those “wounded in action” and is therefore a vast under-estimate of the true numbers of Americans injured.

Whereas the number of dead as reported is mostly accurate, Froomkin writes that in truth close to 500,000 of the 1.5 million American soldiers sent to Iraq have suffered injuries. When we add to the American dead and wounded the number of Iraqi dead and wounded the catastrophe of that war becomes at once clear and unfathomable.

Given the massive disinformation campaign perpetrated by the Bush-Cheney Administration on the American people in the run-up to the Iraq war after 9/11 it seems to me that those responsible for lying and deceiving Congress should be investigated for war crimes in the interest of justice, truth and moral responsibility.

Froomkin reports that injuries to American soldiers include but are not limited to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depression, traumatic brain injury, fibromyalgia (chronic fatigue syndrome), breathing disorders, substantial hearing loss from acute acoustic blasts, hepatitis A, B and C, leishmaniasis (also known as the “Baghdad boil”), malaria, memory loss, migraines, sleep disorders, and tuberculosis. Deployed soldiers also were exposed to many hazardous health conditions including open-air burn pits, infectious diseases, depleted uranium, toxic shrapnel, cold and heat exposure, and chemical agent resistant paint. Many wounds suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan will persist over our veterans’ lifetimes, and some consequences of military service may not be felt until decades later.

If America has learned anything at all from this immoral adventure (as if we should not have known it already) it must be that war is far too destructive, too deadly and too tragic to too many people on both sides to enter except in the most extreme circumstance of national self-defense, which Iraq was clearly not.

Froomkin does not discuss the numbers of Iraqi dead and wounded. The following chart detailing Iraqi casualties is taken from Wikipedia but does not include Iraqi injuries. If the ratio of Iraqi casualties to injuries is similar to American ratios, the figure of wounded in that devastated land are astronomical.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

 

Source

Casualties

Time period
Iraq Family Health Survey 151,000 violent deaths March 2003 to June 2006
Lancet survey 601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths March 2003 to June 2006
Opinion Research Business survey 1,033,000 deaths as a result of the conflict March 2003 to August 2007
Associated Press 110,600 deaths March 2003 to April 2009
Iraq Body Count project 103,536 — 113,125 civilian deaths as a result of the conflict. Over 150,726 civilian and combatant deaths[1] March 2003 to October 2011
WikiLeaks. Classified Iraq war logs[1][2][3][4] 109,032 deaths including 66,081 civilian deaths.[5][6] January 2004 to December 2009

FOCUS: How Many US Casualties in Iraq? Guess Again.
Dan Froomkin, Reader Supported News
Froomkin begins: “Reports about the end of the war in Iraq routinely describe the toll on the US military the way the Pentagon does: 4,487 dead, and 32,226 wounded. The death count is accurate. But the wounded figure wildly understates the number of American service members who have come back from Iraq less than whole. The true number of military personnel injured over the course of our nine-year-long fiasco in Iraq is in the hundreds of thousands – maybe even more than half a million…”
READ MORE http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/266-32/9181-focus-how-many-us-casualties-in-iraq-guess-again

Dan Froomkin is the Senior Washington Correspondent for the Huffington Post. He previously wrote a column for the online version of The Washington Post called White House Watch.

 

Push Back Against Irresponsible and Dangerous Political Rhetoric on the Palestinians – Sign this Petition

12 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine

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The following is a letter sent out by Jeremy Ben-Ami asking for signatures on a petition to push back against irresponsible, dangerous and regressive political rhetorical pandering by Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich in particular, but also against other candidates (e.g. Rick Perry and Ron Paul) whose concern is more for their candidacy for President than it is the well-being, safety and peace for the State of Israel and the Palestinian people. I am forwarding this as a member of the Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street and as someone who believes that silence is unacceptable.

The following are Jeremy Ben-Ami’s words:

The Palestinians are an “invented” people, says Newt Gingrich.

Israel should cede “not one acre, not one square foot, not one inch” of land to the Palestinians for peace, Michele Bachmann recently said.

Rick Perry has implicitly endorsed Israeli annexation of “Judea and Samaria,” while Ron Paul has called for an end to American aid and engagement in the Middle East.

Who’s pushing back against these off-the-wall and irresponsible comments?

Where are the candidates or elected officials from either party laying out a sensible path forward in the Middle East?

Unfortunately, they’re not speaking out because they’re not hearing loudly and clearly enough from us.

Join us in signing an open letter to the 2012 candidates saying we’ve had “ENOUGH” with dangerous political pandering on the Middle East.

Newt Gingrich may be setting the bar for irresponsibility, but the pandering isn’t a one-person or, frankly, a one-party problem.

Too many candidates looking to be pro-Israel are tripping over themselves to prove their pro-Israel bona fides by being as hawkish as possible.

In the process, they’re setting back the cause of peace and security for Israel as well as the interests of the United States.

Being pro-Israel doesn’t require demeaning the Palestinian people, approving unlimited West Bank settlement expansion, or pulling back from supporting a two-state solution.

It’s time to do something. To restore some sanity to American politics when it comes to Israel in 2012 – and to truly help Israel – we have to mobilize our friends and demonstrate our power.

Sign our call today for all presidential candidates to endorse a two-state solution and to refrain from incendiary and irresponsible rhetoric on the Middle East.

Commit just two minutes today to reclaiming what it means to be pro-Israel in American politics from those at the farthest fringes of the political debate.

Sign our petition, then send it to five of your friends and convince them to sign it and send it on to their friends as well.

Thank you for helping to change the meaning of being pro-Israel in American politics,

Jeremy Ben-Ami
President, J Street

“The International Delegitimization Campaign against Israel and the Urgent Need of a Comprehensive Two-State, End-of-Conflict Peace Agreement”

07 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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“I decided to write this paper because I have of late been asked questions from both Jews and non-Jews that until recently I had never heard before, questions that call into question the very legitimacy of the State of Israel. I have seen nothing in print that can serve as a comprehensive primer, fact sheet, briefing and background paper that can assist rabbis, Jewish leaders, college and university students and faculty, and our friends in the interfaith community, in dealing effectively with the complexities and nuances that underlie the growing international movement to delegitimize Israel.”

So begins my article (CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly, Fall 2011, pages 90-109) that can be accessed on Temple Israel of Hollywood’s Web-site – See About Us – Then Clergy – Then Clergy Writings – Then Rabbi Rosove’s Writings (www.tioh.org – http://www.tioh.org/about-us/clergy/aboutus-clergy-clergystudy.)

In this piece I address the following questions and themes:

  • What Is the Delegitimization Movement and What Does It Seek to Do?
  • Why Israel Is Not an Apartheid State Despite Claims by the Delegitimization Network
  • The United Nations General Assembly: The Central International Arena of Delegitimization Efforts
  • Other Delegitimizing Actions (The UN Resolution on “Zionism as Racism”; The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; Palestinian school textbooks; Official Palestinian maps; The Israel Lobby by John Meersheimer and Stephen Walt; Israel’s security barrier; International boycott of Israel; Israel as the “greatest threat to world peace”; The UN’s Goldstone Report)
  • We Cannot Deny That Israel Is an Imperfect Democracy
  • The Settlements
  • Legitimate Criticism vs Delegitimization: Embrace Loving Critics and Distance Delegitimizers
  • Jewish Organizational Perspectives: Who Is Really In and Out of the Pro-Israel Camp (a review of 14 major American Jewish organizations and their respective positions Israel)
  • Why Settling the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Is Strategically and Morally Necessary Now Before It Is Too Late
  • What Do We do Now?

Conclusion of the article:

“An old UJA advertisement once read “We never promised you a rose garden.” Anyone with eyes wide open understands the truth of this statement. Indeed, the situation between Israelis and Palestinians and within their respective societies is complex and difficult. Nevertheless, unless this conflict is settled, I fear for the Zionist enterprise altogether. In the 1970s there was an American Zionist movement called B’reira (“There is an  alternative”) and that alternative is a two-state solution. That message is even more to the point today.”

Russian Jews Today Singing Their Hearts Out!!!

06 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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I was a 19 year-old UC Berkeley sophomore when I first became involved with the Bay Area Council on Soviet Jewry. It was 1969 and in the middle of a very harsh era for the Jews of the Soviet Union. For the crime of identifying publicly as Jews, learning Hebrew in small groups in private homes and for applying to immigrate to the State of Israel, Jews were fired from their jobs, expelled from universities, arrested, charged with treason, tried, convicted, and imprisoned.

Many of us had become activists after reading Elie Wiesel’s The Jews of Silence. For me, the arrest of 11 Leningrad Jews at the airport as they attempted to hijack a plane out of the country drew me in. The leader was given the death penalty (later commuted because of world-wide reaction) and the others long prison sentences of hard labor in Siberia. The courage of these and many more people was extraordinary and an inspiration.

We in the west protested, marched, disrupted Soviet cultural events, painted “Let My People Go” on the side of docked Soviet vessels, agitated the established Jewish community to take this issue on publicly, and lobbied our Senators and Congressional Representatives urging them to pass the Jackson-Vanik Amendment tying favorite nation status with the USSR to open immigration policies for Jews wishing to leave.

I offer this remembrance as a preamble for your viewing the YouTube below. It shows thousands of Russian Jews singing openly in a concert led by a male Jewish choral group of 10 voices with an energetic back-up band somewhere in Russia.

As I watched it, I pinched myself realizing how much has changed in the 42 years since I was first active in the movement. Jews are now free to leave, and those who remain are able to live openly as Jews. Our own Reform movement is active in the FSU training leaders, establishing congregations and creating connections with Israel and American Jewish communities. Chabad is also very active there. Thousands have immigrated to America, and more than one million formerly Soviet Jews are living as citizens in the State of Israel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h1cPdbdZfw&feature=related

“What kind of society, exactly, do modern Republicans want?” – Robert Reich’s Blog

04 Sunday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics

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“I’ve been listening to Republican candidates in an effort to discern an overall philosophy, a broadly-shared vision, an ideal picture of America. They say they want a smaller government but that can’t be it.”

This is how Robert Reich begins his clearly written blog of last week, and then he tells us what today’s “regressive” Republican Party (as opposed to “conservative” Republican Party) is really all about. If you agree with me that this is a brilliant and accurate expose on what has happened to one of America’s great political parities, then send it to your friends be they Republicans, Independents or Democrats. For those unfamiliar with Robert Reich (see bio below), he is a strong liberal-left thinker. Regardless of his own political philosophy, I believe he is spot on in this analysis.

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/7423-focus-the-rebirth-of-social-darwinism

Robert Reich is an American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997, and is currently Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was formerly a professor at Harvard University‘s John F. Kennedy School of Government. (Taken from Wikipedia)