{Also published at Jews Down Under and the Elder of Ziyon.}
I was going to name this piece "The Death of American Politics" but American politics has been dying since it was born.That is, American politics has been so partisan and so toxic for so long that it has become virtually impossible to separate fair assessments of truth from media-driven propagandistic bullshit which, today, almost always favors the Democratic Party.
The gang rape of Donald Trump makes for an interesting case in point.
It no longer matters much what Donald Trump says because even if he says "boo" the media will clobber him on behalf of the Clinton campaign, which is to say, on behalf of the dysfunctional Democratic Party status-quo.
No matter what Trump says the progressive-left and the Democratic Party will defame him as a racist and a sexist.
The great irony, of course, is that the progressive-left is the most racist political movement in the West today, outside of political Islam, and a great enemy, along with political Islam, of the Jewish people. Even as progressives and many Democrats decry the lone, sole Jewish state as a racist, colonialist, imperialist, militaristic monstrosity - despite its democracy and liberalism and general decency compared with so much of the rest of the world - they perpetually whitewash and make excuses for the very worst aspects of political Islam.
A Muslim slaughters 49 people in a Gay nightclub in Orlando in the name of the Islamic State?
Blame the Republicans or blame Trump or blame generalized American bigotry and homophobia or some alleged violent American "gun culture." But whatever you do, do not blame political Islam because that would make you a "racist." The progressive-left and the Democratic Party consider "people of color" to be something akin to little children that must be protected from the foreseeable consequences of their own behavior. It is the twenty-first century version of "White Man's Burden."
And it is the most prominent form of bigotry today among westerners.
This form of bigotry - otherwise known as humanitarian racism - like all prominent forms of bigotry, has wide-ranging consequences. Because white western "liberals" consider non-white-westerners to be naturally inferior and, therefore, in need of protection, they refuse to criticize political Islam. This means that the hard-core boys in the Islamist organizations (like ISIS and Hamas and Boko Haram and on and on and on) flourish, while the true Muslim moderates and secularists are shunted aside by the West even as under physical threat from their Islamist brothers.
{They embrace Islamists like Tariq Ramadan as they spit hatred toward reformers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali.}
It means that Arab and Muslim homophobia, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and generalized anti-non-Muslim bigotry and persecution, are given a pass because to do otherwise opens oneself to charges of racism and, therefore, to social ostracism (among the political and intellectual sectors) and potential loss of employment.
It means that ISIS gets a pass even as it buries Yazidi kids alive in mass graves and beheads Christian Copts by the dozens and blows priceless antiquities (the very birthright of humanity) to smithereens.
Donald Trump is not a racist for wanting to hold back Islamic immigration until we develop effective screening methods. Political Islam - like Nazism or Soviet Communism - is an ideologically violent political movement and we know that a certain percentage of emigres will be Jihadis. Thus any normal functioning intelligence would conclude that holding back Arab and Muslim immigration into the United States is merely common sense. This does not mean that we keep a Muslim grandmother from Manchester from seeing her grandkids in Michigan. Nor does it mean that we prevent a Muslim physician from Toronto from traveling to Manhattan to perform a surgery.
What it means is necessary due diligence so that San Francisco does not start looking like Paris with blood running in the streets.
I saw that Trump came out for increased Zika funding. That's a sure fired way to end all Zika funding now.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Michael. I share your frustration and anger.
ReplyDeleteNo question that progressives and Democrats love to be superior, at least in their own minds.
ReplyDeleteWith Trump, it includes Republicans and conservatives that also believe they are better.
A good article on the matter:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-global-elites-forsake-their-countrymen-1470959258
It's about global vs. national/local. It's about leaving behind the international system developed after WWII. Evidence shows it is obsolete and something else is needed, that maybe the Westphalia system was not as evil as men.
Most elites became elites under the "global" paradigm. They stand to lose influence and power of there is a true realignment of global orientation to issues.
As the stock market rises to new heights and individual freedoms are steadily diminished, the perverted global approach to all things is obvious.
Trump is exposing just how corrupt things are. No wonder he is vilified by the superior crowd. Through his strange ways, these issues are in the open like never before, and they will be addressed no matter the outcome.
The Westphalia system, ay?
DeleteSounds like your calling for a revitalization of nationalism.
As I know that you know, after the Big One the rise of hypernationalism was blamed for the war and liberals, such as you and I, have had good reason to be skeptical of it.
However, as London has made clear to Brussels, nationalism, at least, has the potential for democratic systems of government. International systems, such as the EU, are democratically-challenged and thereby lose the support of regular people under their sovereignty.
Political sands are shifting.
Of course this is a big thing in Europe to blame nationalism for WWII when it was, to use your word, hyper nationalism that motivated the Nazis, or a deep disrespect for anyone else's nationalism or nation, as the Nazis went empire building by crossing and then crossing out the borders of other countries and peoples. But the "internationalist" Soviet Union seemed to have the same basic problem. At least the Nazis were tried for their crimes.
DeleteThen we have the UN and its crimes against the Jewish people of Israel.
I just got in my email the latest Tablet touting the big article for today "The Problem Isn't Black Lives Matter. It's The Occupation.", big O and all. I'm very tired tonight due to a lack of sleep and a busy schedule. I just can't think of reading distortions of history and reality tonight that would very well disturb my sleep. If someone else would like to wade into this rather lengthy article and report back, be my guest. It would seem wise to have a barf bag or other receptacle at the ready. Who knows, maybe the author has a point? Probably at the top of his head.
The Occupation with the Big O.
DeleteWhat is the significance of the Big O?
It is the Big Daddy of all Occupations.
It is the means by which some Jews, particularly in diaspora, make themselves feel superior to Arabs and Muslims.
After all, if 6 million Jews in the Middle East can defeat the Palestinian-Arabs, via the Big O, despite the serious objections of 400 million Arabs and 1.5 billion Muslims, what does that say about Jewish strength?
It says that, # 1, Jews kick ass and, # 2, we're humble enough to regret it.
It's a means by which good-hearted and intellectually-inclined Jewish boys and girls get, on the one hand, to feel powerful even while, on the other hand, they burnish moral credentials.
There is a kind-of arrogance to the use of the Big O by Jews when discussing those few of us who choose to live in the lands of our heritage.
It raises us and diminishes us, both, at the same time.
If Palestinians continue along the same lines we have seen, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, they may lose their capital as the people who suffer the most on the planet. Not that they are, but the perception. In its place they are seen as uninterested in peace, more interested in spreading poison and self-inflicted wounds.
DeleteTo follow up:
DeleteAccording to a report last year by Global Humanitarian Assistance, in 2013 the Palestinians received $793 million in international aid, second only to Syria. This amounts to $176 for each Palestinian, by far the highest per capita assistance in the world. Syria, where more than 250,000 people have been killed and 6.5 million refugees displaced since 2011, received only $106 per capita.
A closer look at the remaining eight countries in the top 10—Sudan, South Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo—is even more alarming. CIA Factbook data show that these countries have a combined population of 284 million and an average per capita GDP of $2,376. Yet they received an average of $15.30 per capita in development assistance in 2013. The Palestinians, by comparison, with a population of 4.5 million, have a per capita GDP of $4,900.
In other words, though the Palestinians are more than twice as wealthy on average than these eight countries, they receive more than 11 times as much foreign aid per person. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a case in point: Its 79 million people have a per capita GDP of $700, yet they receive only $5.70 in aid per person.
Between 1993 (when the Oslo Process began) and 2013, the Palestinians received $21.7 billion in development assistance, according to the World Bank.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/where-does-all-that-aid-for-palestinians-go-1453669813
The world, even some Arab states, are finally catching on to Palestinian insincerity, corruption, and outright abuse leading to perpetuation of war and human suffering.
In essence, they are defrauding everyone, with an added incentive due to the UNRWA definition of refugee, which should be changed yesterday,
Or we could simply sit this one out and let the Democrats own whatever happens. However it all unravels, this is on them. I'd be ok with that too. Look, if there are mass terrorist attacks in 10 cities, if buses blow up all across America if there's bombing every other day, we could just stand back and listen to the Democrats tell us their nonsense de jour. It's Trump's fault, it's global warming, it's the 1%, it's whatever.
ReplyDeleteFine. What's the worst that happens? CNN spends the last 2% of their broadcast day not attacking Trump on blaming Trump? Ok.
If they don't care, that's good enough for me.
Your concern for duh Donald is sadly wasted. Ask one who knows him well: Jack O'Donnell: I know Trump, and he's not fit to be president
ReplyDeleteIn summary, Trump is the kinda guy who would never ever take a bath or even brush his teeth. Even a still pic of him stinks on ice.
And that's on a good day.
Randall,
DeleteIf you think that Mike's concern is for Donald Trump, I think you may have missed the point.
If Jack O'Donnell says so. It therefore must be. Forget that he is voting for Clinton and wrote a book about what a terrible man Trump is.
DeleteRead his piece. He surely has not agenda. What makes him an expert on "fitness" to be president anyway?
No, he is not missing the point. The point is that no matter how pro-Israel you are, and I defer to no one in the strength of my sentiments, it is because of the essential importance of Judaism that I feel that way. But what good is it to be pro-Israel and pro-Judaism if Judaism has lost its soul? http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-being-pro-trump-is-anti-israel/
DeleteJoseph, I have to tell you, for me it is not about the faith.
DeleteI respect the faith, and I certainly in no way look my nose down upon religious people - in fact, every year it is my honor to host a Passover Seder - but I stand up for Israel because the Jewish people of the Middle East are a people under siege.
There is a terrible injustice being advanced against the Jews in that part of the world, if not the rest of us. You know what is going on Europe.
Who says that pro-Israel and pro-Judaism has lost its soul?
DeleteWho decides that anyway? Hope not the guy who wrote that blog post. Aside from the slanted presentation of the premise, why listen when the writer admits to hating the subject?
For all the claims that Trump supporters are haters, there is no shortage of outrageous words and acts from his detractors.
What has happened to so many Democrats that they seem to have become what they once disdained?
oldschooltwentysix,
Delete"Who decides that anyway?" Israel bashers, hysterics, Peter Beinart, my uncle in Canada, and various others I wouldn't give the time of day to on the subject. Many of them are very nice people, but...
You know, there are articles on why Tump would be bad for Israel and articles on why he would be good for Israel. I'm always amazed by people who post these articles as absolute proof of anything other than their own opinions. They don't know, you don't know, and I don't know. What disgusts me are those Jews and others who would impose their half way around the world morality and ignorance on the only Jewish state in the world on a sliver of territory surrounded by Islamic Arab Jew haters.
Rather than worry about Trump votes causing Judaism to lose its soul (doesn't that sound a bit looney?), I worry more about what Obama, the president with a tick up his butt, might still do after the November election is over. There is a history there and this time he might go full tilt.
I think many of these "deciders" are so programmed they react much like Pavlov's dog.
DeleteMike,
ReplyDeleteI deleted my comments from this morning because they were too disorganized and rambling.
I just want to say I think it's an outstanding piece.
Thank you, Jeff.
DeleteI don't mind push-back, tho, dontchaknow.
Amid the ramble was coherency.
DeleteShoot, I'm sorry that I missed it!
DeleteThank you, oldschooltwentysix, with your very long name. :0)
DeleteI guess really what is bothering me, here, is the tendency toward group-think... which we can also call the Manufacture of Common Sense.
ReplyDeleteY'know, people tell one another "Israel is apartheid."
"Israel is apartheid."
"Israel is apartheid."
And after awhile it becomes the accepted common sense.
From 2000-2008 the liberals and progressives took themselves out of the equation, sat on the sidelines and complained endlessly about all the heavy lifting everyone else did. The mainline NRO conservatives 'sound' like that now but there's a key difference. They didn't take themselves out of the process. There is no two party system. They and the democrats are the process. They are mad for personal reasons AND ideological reasons because the interloper Trump is interfering with their one party rule and the benefits that accrue. It sounds like they'd rather lose than compromise but there's nothing for them TO lose. When Hillary wins and that's a foregone conclusion that the fix has been in for years, the GOP and mainline conservatives will carry on as they did before.
ReplyDeleteThis is all theater and none of it matters. If nothing else 2016 will go down as the watershed year where it finally became transparent that:
1 This is a one party state
2 There is no political process and that is by design
3 Elections, votes and people don't matter
4 There are no laws that apply to the elites and that too is by design
5 There is no difference between the media and the government
6 The media is an unelected unaccountable 4th branch of government
7 Everything the government tells you is a lie
8 Everything the media tells you is a lie
9 Foreign interests and their money control large sectors of the government
10 And no one in America even when presented by these facts AND they accept those facts as accurate and true, cares.
America finished and this is the last so called American election that even the outside world will consider marginally legitimate by modern standards. After this, presidential elections will be random affairs to rubber stamp Dear Leader and to drag out the fake 'loyal opposition' who's job is to erect a fiction of democracy. Lower the flag, send home the band and then burn the ships at mooring.