Titania McGrath

The Trust of Liberal Jews

Michael Lumish

I haven't written on here for one hell of a long time, but maybe I can breathe a bit of life into this old blog strictly for the heck of it..

A New York Post headline from today reads, Biden administration weighs nationwide ban on gas stoves.

    "The Biden administration is considering a nationwide ban on gas stoves —          citing the harmful pollutants released by the appliances, according to a report."

It frankly astonishes me the willingness of people to stand up for their political team under virtually any circumstances, no matter how absurd.

It’s very tribal, very primal.

I posted the link above on Facebook with very little commentary other than using the famous Charlton Heston quote, "They will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands."

The next thing that I know I am getting pushback from real-world friends who either claim that none of this is true or, even if it is, it's the fault of Republicans.

I am not a Republican, but it is obvious that it is the left-wing of the Democratic Party that is pushing for legislations, particularly in California, that seek to lessen the usage of fossil fuels out of concern with the environment.

Is that false?

Of course, it is not.

The progressive-left seeks to remove fossil fuels from consumption, as much as possible, in order to achieve a cleaner, healthier, and better future for all of us... or so we are to understand.

Thus we have Consumer Product Safety Commission chief, Richard Trumka Jr., telling us that gas stoves are a "a hidden hazard." 

Richard L. Trumka Jr. is a Commissioner of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). He was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden and confirmed by the United States Senate for a 7-year term beginning on October 27, 2021. 

“Any option is on the table," he said. "Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

Further:

"Governor Newsom Announces California Will Phase Out Gasoline-Powered Cars & Drastically Reduce Demand for Fossil Fuel in California’s Fight Against Climate Change" by 2035 according his own office.

The Biden administration, however, was quick to deny any intention of banning gas stoves.

CNN tells us, "Biden not in favor of ban on gas stoves, White House says."

I want to thank Jon Segall, a staunch Democrat, for calling that CNN article to my attention.

What I would say to him, however, is that it will take a lot of work for the party to regain the trust of liberal Jews such as myself.

I worry about Madonna.

Michael L.

She's my generation and I did not care about her music or celebrity in the 1980s. At the time, I looked down upon her stuff as pop-40 trash. 

I listened to Zeppelin, the Moody Blues, and Pink Floyd while the industry advanced Madonna and Huey Lewis and Hall and Oats.

At some point, over the last 10 years, or so, I came to appreciate her much more than I did at the time and "Papa Don't Preach" is part of the reason why.

I just wish that she would retire to wood fires on cold winter nights and rainbow trout in the spring.

Conservatism

Michael Lumish

One of the primary ways of thinking among twentieth-century American conservatives was a close-mindedness. Even a religious close-mindedness.

In the 1950s and 1960s, when conservatives held some power in American politics, they were widely mocked by the growing counterculture and the Beats and Kerouac and Ginsberg and Kesey -- and all that jazz -- led to the rise of The Movement. 

The Movement.

It was the 1960s. It was anti-war. It was second wave feminism. It was the rise of the New Left and people like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party. It was also the rise of environmentalism and the movement to protect the planet, not to mention space exploration and people like recently passed Apollo 11 astronaut, Michael Collins.

These were people, whatever their political affiliation, who refused to be close-minded.

The Republican Party of the 1950s, with perhaps the exception of people like William F. Buckley, was rigid and close-minded and represented just the kind of people that liberals are pushing back against today.

The contemporary-left in the US today is just as close-minded and rigid and boring and authoritarian as were many Republican in the 1950s.

We will stand up against them today, just as we did yesterday.

Jason Paluch's "Liberalism and Leftism"

Michael Lumish

The shifting meaning of words is key to understanding political sensibilities.

In this piece, written for

Karen Lehrman Bloch

's White Rose Magazine, Jason Paluch outlines the essential differences between "Liberalism" and "Leftism."

This is something that has stuck in my craw for years.

Liberalism is about the political tradition, grounded in the European Enlightenment, that values the freedom of the individual and that probably reached its height with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Paluch concludes:

"Liberals adhere to the idea that people have a right to freely live their lives in any way they see fit as long as their choices and actions do not prevent others from doing the same. Leftists believe they have a right to dictate to others how they must live and what they should believe. The difference could not be more clear."

Another One Bites The Dust.

 Doodad