I've spent much of the morning

 

listening to a left-wing political philosopher named Vivek Chibber.

He's got me thinking in broad ideological terms about the nature of the current Left and about my own position within the broader spectrum.

So my first question this morning is, if Marxist Hegelianism gives us the tension between capitalism and socialism allegedly resulting in communism, why instead cannot the desired resulting synthesis be regulatory capitalism, aka "social democracy"?

Marx believed in Hegel's notion of thesis > antithesis > synthesis as applied to the material world of capitalism.

For Marx the thesis was capitalism, the antithesis was socialism, and the synthesis was communism.

I find a more sensible synthesis between right-wing neo-liberal capitalism and uptight authoritarian socialism would be regulatory capitalism of the type that we have throughout the West today with necessary modifications according to national conditions and culture.

We do not need revolution in the West, but a rational and compassionate balance between free market capitalism and its regulation in order to promote the general well-being.

It is this tension which stands at the very center of our politics.

What I often tell people is that the central political tensions in the West today are neatly expressed in the Preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The primary tension between the Left and Right is the tension between the government's obligation to promote the general welfare in constant tension with the blessings of liberty.

The Left leans toward the former, while the Right leans toward the latter, but both are necessary to a well-functioning society.

We need capitalism, not socialism, because it promotes an expanding economy and creative entrepeneurship, but it must be regulated so that regular people also benefit from that expanding economy, have universal access to health care, worker safety, and a curb on the capitalist tendency toward unjust exploitation.

Chibber reminds us that socialists claim their political ideology comes directly from the seventeenth-century Enlightenment because it applies Enlightenment Rationalism to the social world of politics and human relations.

Certainly traditional liberalism is a manifestation of the Enlightenment as it gave us capitalism, democracy, freedom of speech and, thus, the US Constitution, itself.

The difference is that at the core of the Enlightenment is the belief in the autonomy of the individual, while the core of socialism is not the individual, but the collective good.

In the contemporary West, most conservatives acknowledge the need to promote the general welfare and most leftists acknowledge the need for individual liberty, which is part of the reason that they support a woman's right to choose an abortion.

Right and Left on the contemporary scene are not nearly so mutually exclusive as we like to think.

Further, too much emphasis on individual liberty allows individual authoritarians to run amuck, while too much emphasis on the collective well-being ultimately deterioriates into state authoritarianism.

A contemporary antizionist

 

is someone willing to fight for social justice until the last Jew.

The Most Important Question

anyone who cares about politics and the well-being of their people must ask is, "What is the best argument on the other side?"

If you honestly care about what is happening around you then you should want to speak the truth and the only way that you can possibly do that is to fairly consider relevant counter-arguments... however much you may despise the Woke Idiots or Right-Wing MAGA Fascists on the other side.

The problem is that the vast majority of us, including me, tend to be terrible at this. The reason for that is because it is psychologically discomforting to think of oneself as wrong and, worse yet, demonstrably shown to be wrong by The Enemy... on the otherside.

The Dark Side.

The Bad People.

I am right and they are wrong!

I am Good and Smart and Caring.

They are not.

{You get me.}

So, the question that I am beginning to ponder is, what are the best arguments coming out of the Democrats concerning how Trump sucks?

I was talking to my better half, who is a liberal Democrat, and she was arguing that The Big, Beautiful Bill cut Medicare and Medicaid to some citizens who are legally entitled to it and that it is going to increase the national debt by 3 or 4 or 5 trillion dollars.

I don't know the truth, yet.

But we shall see.

--

Part of the reason that I liked being on political social media is because it is the best way to keep one's ear to the pavement.

By doing so you learn how the issues that concern you are framed.

One thing that needs to be realized by the pro-Jewish / pro-Israel / pro-liberalism camp is that the fight is not between some evil white-Zionist-racist-colonial whateverthefuck of the progressive neo-socialist imagination against the innocent, bunny-like "Palestinians."

This contemporary, leftist, academic way of looking at the conflict conjures the Jewish state as the latest and most miserable form of despised Western Colonialism that must be eradicated in order to create decent lives for the oppressed.

The problem is that this is ideological fantasy.

What is true is that Zionism is the most successful anti-colonial movement in world history.

What is also true is that the rise of political Islam, despite 9/11, is largely ignored by the West -- left, right, and center.

The Islamic Republic in Iran is (or was) the foremost example of the Jihad in the world today. As such it represents one of the greatest opponents of not only the Jewish people, but of liberalism.

Thankfully, there is a liberal movement within Iran that seeks to overthrow the Ayatollahs and the imposition of Islamic religious authoritarianism on that country.

The bottom line is that if you stand with the Palestinian-Jihadis against the tiny Jewish minority in the Middle East then you are standing against the liberal resistance in Iran.

Ultimately, by standing with the Jihadi, you are standing with those who throw Gay people from tall buildings, keep women quite literally under wraps, and who seek the genocide of the Jews as a religious obligation.

Any western liberal who wishes to actually stand with liberalism as a political orientation -- and thus stand with the regular people of Iran -- must stand against the Jihadis and that includes the poor, crazed, pathetic Jihadis in Gaza.

And if you honestly care about the well-being of Gazan children you should be demanding the surrender of Hamas and the release of the hostages because only that can save lives.

The Cover-Up

 

I was just listening to a conversation between Ezra Klein and Jake Tapper concerning the so-called "cover-up" of Joe Biden's cognitive abilities.

The implication of the conversation is that it was not a cover-up. A "cover-up" is a conspiracy and a conspiracy requires a number of people who understand that they are doing something underhanded and they intend to keep their participation secret.

What Tapper was talking about was "group think."

So, it was not that members of Biden's inner circle came together with the intention of deceiving the public, but that they came to believe what they were telling one another in the face of obvious truths to the contrary.

There was nothing nefarious about it and it was not due to personal stupidity. The truth is -- and I see this increasingly as the years go by -- that people believe what they want to believe. And generally what they want to believe is not just what is good for them personally, but what their families and friends believe.

It is a social imperative.

I think it is reasonable to say that what most people believe around politics has less to do with a thoughtful consideration of the issues over time, then it has to do with the tendency toward social conformity and deference to authority.

When it came to Biden's cognitive abilities they, most of them, probably believed that, yeah, he wasn't the Biden of ten years ago, but he's OK.

Everybody else around them thought he was OK and, for the most part, he was OK. Of course, then there were the times when it wasn't... but basically he was.

Or so they thought.

It wasn't so much that they were lying to us as they were lying to themselves.

Just like the rest of us do about any number of issues every damn day.

The Zohran Mamdani

victory for the NYC Democratic Party mayoral candidacy is the most significant challenge yet by the antizionist neo-socialist wing of the Democratic Party to the decrepit Schumer-Pelosi establishment.

I find all this Mamdani Hoo-Ha fascinating.

There is talk concerning the extent to which his antizionism will affect his candidacy and relationship with his voter base. This is obviously most concerning around the fairly sizeable Jewish population which is highly pro-Israel.

His supporters insist that he is not antisemitic and, in fact, just recently he reaffirmed his commitment to the safety of New York’s Jews. 

Speaking strictly for myself, I’d rather throw myself off a cliff than support an antizionist.

The guy spoke in favor of “globalize the intifada,” for fuck’s sake.

The intifadas in Israel, particularly the Second Intifada, meant open season on Jews by Palestinian-Jihadis who killed over a thousand of our brothers and sisters there.

The call for an intifada is a call to blow up busses and set-off suicide belts in pizzerias.

If “intifada” means kill the Jews, “globalize the intifada” means kill the Jews wherever we may be found, including New York.

Frankly, a New York Jew would have to be a stone-cold idiot to support this guy... yet we know that many did. About 20 percent, apparently.

"Do They Pay You..."

 

Reddit - r/headlinepics

TrueHaiku:

Do they fucking pay you to come in here and defend genocide? I mean, the world sees what is happening. We have livestreams and videos now. The world generally sees Israel for what it is. No amount of Israeli cockslurping is gonna change our minds, so what's your goal?

.

Good_Low2461 (me):

It's important for Jewish people to see how the hatred evolves in real time.

See, we didn't have that opportunity in the 1930s because the media wasn't nearly as evolved as it is now.

--

hellomondays:

It is antisemitic to say that Jews (not just Israel, apparently) are incapable of upholding human rights in wartime.

.

Good_Low2461

"Human rights"?

My guess is that Israel is doing a better job upholding human rights in wartime than probably any other country in human history.

If you look into it you will find that the civilian-to-combatant death ratio in Gaza is far lower than was the US civilian-to-combatant death ratio in Iraq War II.

One of the main problems that Israel (and the Jews, in general) has is not the never-ending attempt by the Palestinian-Jihadis to murder the Jews in Israel, but the anti-Israel / anti-Jewish propaganda campaign that seeks to spread hatred.

We see this throughout social media constantly.

Israel is portrayed as demonic.

And, really, that was the entire point of Oct 7.

Surely you have asked yourself what Hamas hoped to achieve on that day.

Well, what they wanted was plenty of dead Palestinian-Arabs so that their progressive friends in the Red-Green Alliance could scream from the hillsides how "Zionists" are evil.

And, I tell ya, it worked very well.

--

EyeGod (his response to my claim that Jews are from Judea).

Nope, not all of them.

But, hey, you go back far enough, we’re all from Africa, right?

So, how far do you wanna push your logic?

.

Good_Low2461

That's a fair point.

Antisemitic antizionists basically engage in two styles of attack on the Jewish people and Israel.

The first is in portraying Israel and its supporters as evil.

You know, in the Middle Ages they accused us of killing Jesus because that was the most evil thing that you could ascribe to someone at the time and it justified their killing of Jews.

Now they scream from the hillsides about "genocide" because, today, that is the most evil thing that you could ascribe to someone and it justifies the killing of Jews.

The second is in what I call "The Indigeneity Question."

In this case, the enemies of the Jewish people will say, "You stole the land from the indigenous Palestinians!"

Well, the fact is that the Jewish people, including those of us from European diaspora, have genetic roots that go to the Levant.

So do most Palestinian-Arabs, of course.

But questions of indigeneity are not primarily about genetics, but about culture.

The Palestinian-Arabs are still Arabs.

Their culture is primarily derived from the Arab side of their family.

Their language is Arabic and Islam was born on the Arabian Peninsula.

Likewise, the Jews are indigenous to the Land of Israel.

The Hebrew language comes from there, as does our religion.

These are five things

that anyone who cares about the well-being of the Jewish people -- and, thus, the well-being of Israel -- should know in their bones.

1 - The Jewish people, including those of us from the European diaspora, are indigenous to Israel.

See: Tony Masiuk & Dani Ishai Behan, No, Ashkenazi Jews are not ‘genetically European’ (2024)

2 - There is no genocide in Gaza.

It's not a genocide if you can end it at will simply by releasing the people that you are torturing.

3 - There is no reference to a Palestinian-Arab nation or ethnicity in all of human history until the mid-1960s.

This is because there was no such nation or ethnicity.

4 - Israel offers its Arab citizens greater civil liberties and access to economic opportunity than regular Arabs have anywhere else in the entire Muslim Middle East.

5 - Whatever the intention of the antizionist movement within the western-left, it manufactures hatred toward Jews with the intention of replacing the lone, sole Jewish state with a 23rd Arab dictatorship.

--

If the Palestinian-Arabs can be considered a distinct ethnic group it is a result of Arab-Muslim imperialism and religious hostility toward Jewish self-determination and self-defense on historically Jewish land.

Were it not for the never-ending war against Jewish autonomy in Israel the "Palestinian" people would never have come into existence.

It seems pretty obvious

 

that, increasingly, the internet is less about people communicating with one another than it is about computers communicating with one another.

I no longer have certainty that any post, or even comment, that I may be responding to was actually written by a human being.

We know that a significant percentage of it is AI sludge, but we don't know exactly how much. Whatever that percentage is, it is increasing.

The Golden Age of Blogdom is dead and buried.

The small blogs, from back in the 00s and 10s, had an authenticity and sense of community which, to me at least, seems very much over with.

My own little journey into the world of the political blogs started with Daily Kos in the early-mid 00s. There was a real sense of community then and a feeling that regular people were taking back the conversation.

Daily Kos, even then, was quite big. My UID # was fifty-five thousand something, but people got to know one another pretty well.

But, hell, that was a long ago, now. It was when still when I favored Democrats.

I then joined Maryscott O'Connor's now defunct My Left Wing, which was considerably more left-leaning than was Daily Kos. If dKos was about promoting Democrats, MLW was more about promoting socialism or the progressive-left, although none of us were formal in our political allegiances.

She even got written up by the Washington Post in a 2006 article titled, The Left, Online and Outraged: Liberal Blogger Finds an Outlet and a Community

MLW was never more than 1/50th the size of dKos, but we had a pretty strong regular group for awhile. Eventually the tensions within the left tore MLW apart, particularly the tensions between the Jewish left and the antizionist left.

MSOC was stuck in the middle. Although I suspect that she is increasingly antizionist, she always avoided the topic and much like Markos Moulitsas recognizes that it's nothing but trouble for the left, in general.

Then I started up this joint in '09 and it did pretty well for awhile through the mid-late 10s, until I joined Facebook a few years ago and neglected this place.

Now, of course, there is almost nobody here and I am just using this as a space for reflection.

As someone with an obvious

interest in social media around the Never-Ending War against the Jews of the Middle East, I continue to look at the nature of various venues going all the way back to Daily Kos in the 2000s.

Recently I have been taking a gander at Reddit and compared to, say, X or Facebook I am pleasantly surprised.

From what I can tell, Facebook is pretty much the bottom-of-the-barrel in terms of gutter-level antizionism.

The hate towards Israel coming out of Facebook pages like "Artists for Palestinians" is very low rent... but that is part of what I found interesting about it.

I want to know what people think on the street and it doesn't get more street level than Facebook antizionism. Those guys absolutely despise Jews Zionists and they haven't the intelligence or sophistication to gild their hatred in the form of academic-sounding neo-socialism that you might find from, say, AOC or, much to my disgust, Bernie Sanders.

The "subreddits" that I am beginning to participate in include r/Isreal and r/IsraelPalestine.

To my taste, at least, the environment of Reddit is better than Facebook and X, mainly because it's a bit more homey, if you get me.

X, btw, is just awful and alienating and cold.

Although I fully expect to get banned from Reddit shortly -- because I keep getting banned from various social media venues -- for the moment I can be found under the name u/Good_Low2461.

I didn't even choose that moniker.

They chose it for me and, for the time being, at least over there, I welcome the anonymity.

I think that Reddit tends to be more anonymous than either X or Facebook.

Ever since I left Daily Kos, somewhere early in the Obama administration, I have remained pretty much open about my identity.

--

Just heard the term “AI Slop” to refer to internet content, like increasing numbers of youtube videos, that are created by AI and voiced by AI. 

Awful.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

wants to know if our universe is in a black hole.

I think that is an excellent question!

--

On the Daily Show -- which I used to love back in the day -- Jon Stewart pointed out that Netanyahu has been screaming his bloody head off concerning Iranian nukes for decades.

The implication is that he was wrong then and is probably, therefore, wrong now. Iran is not necessarily on the verge of gaining nuclear weaponry and they deny that they even want nukes.

What I would ask is, what if he's wrong?

Those who think that Iran is not on the verge of gaining The Bomb may very well be correct. Fuck if I know. But is that honestly a risk that the West, in general, should want to take?

This is just flat-out stupid.

Of course, Israel and the West cannot allow a Jihadi-run state to have nuclear weapons. Does that statement even require justification? Is it not obvious on its face?

Could it be

 

that Trump is hesitating because Israel has brought him a different option toward the same end? - my paraphrase of Aaron Cohen, Israeli Special Ops veteran on Larry Kudlow (FOX).

In other words, could it be that Israel has another plan around special ops designed to take out the deeply buried nuclear facilities?

Could the delay also be to organize the incoming regime?

Or has Trump simply gotten cold feet out of fear of getting the US dragged into a prolonged military presence?

--

It's an open question the extent to which Israel actually needs the US in order to deal effectively with Iranian nukes.

On J-TV I just saw an Israel intelligence officer, or someone along those lines, say that Israel has contingency plans in the event that Trump withholds the B-52 bomber and the Amazing American Cluster Fuck Bomb that could potentially take out the facility in Fordow.

The US is the best friend that Israel has in the world, but it needs to be as independent as it can possibly be.

--

I almost hate to say it, but if Trump doesn't want the US to get militarily involved in Iran, Israel could very well use low-yield nuclear shells to eliminate the Fordow facility.

In any case, given the fact that Iran trained and financed Hamas prior to Oct 7, there is no way in hell that the Jews of the Middle East can possibly allow a Jihadi regime with nuclear weaponry.

We are on the verge

 

of God Knows What.

The big question at this moment is Trump.

Will he, or won't he, authorize the US to take out the Fordo nuclear facility in Iran?

My suspicion is that he will and my hope is that this represents the entirety of American involvement in the military aspect of whatever goes down.

My hope is that the Persians take this as an opportunity to remove the Jihadis from power and I honestly do not care if they bring in Reza Pahlavi (the "Crown Prince") to head up the government or not.

That being said, those of us who favor Western Liberalism over Jihadism must support the Pahlavi movement in Iran for the purpose of removing the ayatollahs. Whoever among them heads that government, whether it be Pahlavi or somebody else, is entirely up to them.

At the end of the day, I care about two things when it comes to Iran.

1) They must not be allowed to gain nuclear weaponry.

2) The government going forward cannot be Jihadi because that will mean ongoing war against the Jews in the Middle East.

--

The Iranian movement to replace the Jihadi regime with Reza Pahlavi is going unnoticed in the US media.

I was just watching the "2-Way" morning show with Mark Halperin, Sean Spicer, and Dan Turrentine and in their discussion of Iran they do not even reference the fact that a majority of Iranians want the ayatollahs to go away.

--

Today is Juneteenth!

This a new American holiday that makes beautiful sense.

I am sick to death of "woke" neo-socialism, but a holiday celebrating the end of slavery is entirely appropriate.

Peace to you, please.

--

Times of Israel - "White House: Trump will decide whether to join war on Iran ‘within next two weeks’"

Hmmm...

I don't know what to make of this.

It seems as if Trump is torn between two major priorities. One is to avoid war and the other is to eliminate the possibility of Jihadi nukes.

I very much hope that he can do both.

Will the US occupy Iran?

Landon Hill

@ImaBigCat

I’m disappointed in Tucker, but population is relevant in that if we are going to try and occupy Iran, keep the peace between factions, support the new government…92M people is a lot of people.

MichaelLumish

@MichaelLumish

My suspicion is that the US will not occupy Iran, but we shall see!

--

The best possible hope, I suppose, is that the Jihadi regime will fall and be organically replaced by secular democrats (or a constitutional monarchy?) who will want good relations with the US and Israel.

We can hope.

One thing that has consistently bothered me about coverage of the never-ending conflict is that there seems to be little recognition by the media that the ayatollahs are part of a larger international movement coming out of the Middle East that we call Jihadism.

Jihadism is a violent, authoritarian, Jew Hating theocratic political movement that seeks the annihilation of Israel and conflict with the West.

Some would say that this is not "Jihadism" or "radical Islam" or "political Islam," but just Islam, in general.

That may be the case, but it's important to make a distinction between the political movement and your regular Muslim neighbor down the street.

I live in one of the most ethnically-diverse places in the world and there is no reason for me to think poorly of my Muslim neighbors.

The problem is not Muslims, particularly those born and bred in the United States. The problem is the international political movement coming out of the Middle East and typified not only by relatively small regional groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad or Boko Haram, but by state governments like those in Iran and, increasingly, Turkey.

--

Patti Mohr

@MohrMedia1

I guarantee you, they sure as hell don't want a government subservient to your government or mine. 

Regime change is a disatrous policy that creates instability all around the world.

MichaelLumish

@MichaelLumish

That's a very good point and the concerns of isolationist Republicans are not unfounded.

My hope is that in an organic fashion the Persians overthrow the Jihadis and normalize relations with Israel.

--

Question to Grok3:

In a recent John Stewart bit he mocked Netanyahu for complaining many times since at least 2012 that Iran was on the verge of nuclear weapons and it never happened. Ben Shapiro countered that the reason Iran did not cross the nuclear threshold is because Israel prevented it from doing so. In what ways has Israel, not including the present moment, countered Iranian nuclear efforts?

Grok3:

As of 07:30 AM PDT on Wednesday, June 18, 2025, Israel has undertaken several notable actions to counter Iran’s nuclear program prior to the current moment, aligning with Ben Shapiro’s argument that these efforts have delayed Iran’s nuclear threshold. Here’s a concise overview based on historical data and verified reports: - Operation Olympic Games (2009–2010): Israel, in collaboration with the U.S., deployed the Stuxnet cyberweapon to sabotage Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility. This malware damaged thousands of centrifuges, setting back Iran’s program by 1–2 years, as confirmed by the *New York Times* (2012) and Institute for Science and International Security. - Targeted Assassinations (2010–2012): Israel’s Mossad is widely believed to have assassinated key Iranian nuclear scientists, including Masoud Ali-Mohammadi (2010), Majid Shahriari (2010), and Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan (2012). These strikes disrupted Iran’s nuclear expertise, with estimates of a 1–3 year delay, per *The Guardian* (2012). - Operation Orchard (2007): Though primarily targeting a Syrian nuclear reactor, Israel’s airstrike (with suspected Iranian involvement) signaled its willingness to preempt nuclear threats, indirectly pressuring Iran’s program through regional deterrence, as noted by the *Washington Institute* (2008). - Sabotage and Covert Operations: Israel conducted multiple covert operations, including the 2018 sabotage at Natanz (likely via explosives), which damaged centrifuge production, and the 2018 theft of Iran’s nuclear archive from Tehran, exposing program details. The IAEA and *Reuters* (2018) estimate these actions delayed enrichment by 6–12 months. - Economic and Diplomatic Pressure: Israel lobbied for international sanctions, notably influencing the 2010 and 2012 UN resolutions, which restricted Iran’s nuclear material access, complementing military efforts, per *Foreign Affairs* (2013). These actions, spanning cyberattacks, assassinations, and sabotage, have collectively delayed Iran’s nuclear progress by several years, supporting Shapiro’s claim that Israel’s interventions have prevented Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold, despite Netanyahu’s repeated warnings since 2012. The effectiveness varies, with experts like the Arms Control Association noting gaps remain, but Israel’s strategy has been proactive.

--

Tehran, as a single city, has almost the same population as the entirety of Israel, about 10 million.

--

There is a very interesting conversation on X hosted by Canadian politician of Iranian descent, Goldie Ghamari, with people on the ground in that country.

This gives me hope that the Persians may overthrow the Jihadis.

You should check her out.

--

What we are looking at in Iran is less a fight between Iran and Israel / US as it is a fight between Jihadis and Persians.

--

Is Zionism an actual ideology?

All it means is that you believe in Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

How is that an ideology?

Are the Portuguese holding to some nefarious nationalist ideology because they believe that Portugal is, and should be, the nation-state of the Portuguese?

Are the Kazakhstanis holding to some nefarious nationalist ideology because they believe Kazakhstan is, and should be, the nation-state of the Kazakhstanis?

Yet Jihadis and their progressive-left allies insist that Israel... of all the countries in the world... is fundamentally and ideologically unacceptable.

They think of it in neo-socialist terms, which they do not do with any other country.

That is, they think of Zionism as a racist, white-European, colonial ideology hell-bent on oppressing the innocent, bunny-like "Palestinian" people-of-color.

In other words, they've conjured a hateful ideology and then project it onto the Jews.

The overthrow of the ayatollahs

could mean the failure of political Islam (Jihadism) which could lead to the normalization of Israel via the Abraham Accords and, thus, to greater prosperity in the region. After that we just need the racist left to stop hating Israel.

--

I was permanently banned from Facebook last week, June 11, for violating "Community Standards on account integrity."

The only thing that makes sense to me is that the people who watch over the site didn't like me telling antizionists, in a whole variety of ways, that they could go fuck themselves.

--

Oh, and btw, please say hello to Mervin, my tarzier spirit-guide!

--

We live in such a strange world.

This is an actual tweet on X today by the office of the Ayatolla Khamenei.

"the terrorist Zionist regime"

Plenty of his allies on the western-left use that exact type of terminology.

It shows the influence and crossover in the Progressive-Jihadi alliance.

--

Rumor has it that Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is threatening to resign if the US joins Israel in an attack on Iranian nukes.

--

Grok3 tells us:

According to a Reagan Institute poll conducted from May 22 to June 2, 2025, 84% of Americans support preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, viewing it as crucial to U.S. security.

Unless, of course, you think that "Zionists" are evil

One of the truths that almost no one ever discusses is that the Arabs we call “Palestinian” threw away a golden opportunity with the arrival of Israel in ’48.

It was right there at their feet, and they pissed all over it.

If they had simply made nice with the Jews, they could have built great lives for themselves and their children.

Arab citizens of Israel have greater freedom and economic opportunity than do regular Arabs throughout the entire rest of the Arab and Muslim Middle East.

The infant mortality rate among Israeli Arabs is 5.1 deaths per 1,000 live births. 

In Yemen it’s 44.6 deaths per 1,000 live births and in Iraq 18.7.

The “Palestinians,” and the Arab world, more generally, had a beautiful opportunity and trashed it out of theocratic hatred towards Jews.

Meanwhile, the western-left despises “Zionists” because they view the Jihad – and thus the beheading of Jews and the strangulation of Jewish babies -- as justified resistance to racist, white, western colonialism. 

I tell ya, man, it doesn’t get more fucked up than this.

People think that Nazi ideology was twisted, but it had nothing on this shit.

Oh, and btw, the image above?

It has nothing to do with anything beyond the fact that I conjured it and it represents my feelings toward most everything at this point.

Return to Ziyon

The Golden Age of Blogdom

Well, I haven’t been around these parts in awhile.

A few of you guys may recall my name, I suppose... maybe.

I wrote something like 170 opinion pieces for the Elder between 2014 and 2020. 170. I can’t even believe it, myself.

I got dragged into the legal process because of one of them.

I started the H-Net group "H-1960s" when I was graduate student at Penn State University. I participated on Daily Kos and Maryscott O’Connor’s defunct My Left Wing as “Karmafish,” as well as my own little joint, Israel Thrives. 

Those blogs were not so different from this one, actually.

They came up around the same time, just as the political blogs were coming into vogue, and all got overshadowed by the big social media sites.

It was the Golden Age of Blogdom before the Giant-Corporate-Evil-Mega-Blogs like Facebook and Twitter / X and TikTok and Fuq-Dash sucked the heart and soul out of the baby… while strangling it in its crib!

It represented the transitionary period between the widespread introduction of the internet to the mainstream, in the early-mid 1990s, until domination by the big social media sites.

But what to make of that initial period of the small, transitional political blogs in the history of social media has yet to be written, as far as I know, but for me it basically lasted from about 2004 until I joined Facebook, maybe 5 years ago.

I knew joining Zuckerberg’s thing was probably a bad idea, but naturally I did it anyway. 

I liked the early blogs, prior to the rise of the Techno-Spider-Borg, because there was a level of intimacy, community, and discussion that you almost never see on the giant platforms.

There was also a strong sense that one no longer needed to be a member of the mainstream media to have a say in the public discussion. The possibilities seemed wide-open and to my eyes, at the time, like a step forward in the history of the western progressive-left. 

The Rise of Progressive-Left Antisemitic Anti-Zionism

But, sadly, the main thing that I got from the leftwing blogs, on places like Daily Kos, was an introduction to progressive-left grassroots/netroots antisemitic anti-Zionism. That is to say, I became intimate with the primary form of contemporary Jew Hatred which, today, just ooozes out of the Democratic Party and its progressive-left base.

This had a distinct influence on my thinking.

I was a very leftwing guy, a graduate of San Francisco State University, and a member of the Green Party in the early 00s.

Since then a number of former friends have wondered aloud, "What the hell happened to Lumish?"

The answer is that I became aware of the toxic anti-Zionism masquerading as "social justice" at the heart of the Democratic Party which seemed to grow in inverse proportion to the erosion of its core liberal values.

The liberal values eroding before our very eyes in the Democratic party are obvious. 

They include urinating all over the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement by honoring biological race over individual character.

They include a disregard for the essential ideal of freedom of speech as Antifa and BLM brownshirts threatened violence toward Milo Yiannapolis and Ben Shapiro at UCAL Berkeley.

Correlation does not imply causation, but it doesn't suggest mere happenstance either.

As progressive-left and Democratic Party antisemitic anti-Zionism seemed to grow, so the core liberal values seemed to erode.

Daily Kos under Markos Moulitsas, back in the day -- prior to the rise of woke-cultural Marxism in the United States -- was an up-and-comer in Democratic Party politics. We squabbled among ourselves, but many of us supported candidates like Howard Dean and Ralph Nader and Hillary Clinton. Almost all of us supported the street activists years before the rise of Black Lives Matter and Antifa. Many of us championed the ridiculous idea that defunding the police would make lives better for the urban poor.

We helped lay the semi-psychotic groundwork for the violent and ignorant frenzy that swept the country following the suicide of George Floyd on a Minneapolis street in the Spring of 2020.

Daily Kos represented the base of the party and was, to use the cliché, like a mansion with many rooms. The signs on the various doors as you walked down the hallway read “Feminism” or “Environmentalism” or “Racial Justice” or “Economic Justice” or “Anti-Colonialism” or “Veganism” and on and on and on.

But there was one door down the hall and around the corner that had a rather unpleasant smell coming out of it. This door, hanging from its hinges, with rats scurrying to-and-fro and cockroaches climbing on the walls, was a problem for Markos and it was a room he almost never entered.

The sign on that door read “Israel-Palestine.”

It was there that I really came to learn the nature of contemporary-left antisemitic anti-Zionism. I was working on my dissertation at the time and had never come across this level of anti-Zionist fervor before.

Certainly, nobody in the real world ever said to me, “Heya, Mike, you’re a Jew, right? A Zionist, maybe? Well, Jeez, don’t you know that Zionism is a white, racist, colonialist, imperialist, oppressive system of oppression on land brutally stolen from the indigenous Palestinians by Euro-Jews? Huh? Dontcha know that?”

Jeez, if only I had known that’s what we are.

The Question of Indigeneity

So, it was through my experience with social media that I came to learn the extent of antisemitic anti-Zionism crawling the hallways and houses of the progressive-left and the Democratic Party.

Anyway, I’ve been on sabbatical, so to speak, for the last year and dropped off social media almost entirely. There are a number of trends in the current conversation around the Long Arab / Muslim War that I hope to discuss in these pages going forward. 

The first of these is the question of indigeneity.

The hatred directed at Israel from left-leaning social media, as you guys are well-aware, is grounded in the idea that the Jews are interlopers on the land of the “indigenous Palestinian” population.

This false and toxic notion lurks behind virtually every contemporary anti-Zionist argument despite the fact that it is an obvious ahistorical fantasy. We need, remarkably enough, to always remind people that in the history of humanity there has never been a “Palestinian” nation. We need, remarkably enough, to always remind people that in the history of humanity there has never been a “Palestinian” state.

We need to remind them that the very words “Palestine” and “Palestinian” are Euro-Roman colonizer terms that refer to an Aegean seafaring people, the Philistines. We need to remind them that the very word “Palestine” was not created by Arabs nor did it refer to Arabs and, until after the ’67 War, it was not even accepted by the local Arabs to refer to themselves.

However, if we are to now accept that there is a newly-created “Palestinian” nation -- as conjured by Arafat and the Soviet Union in the early-mid 1960s – just how does this “Palestinian” nation or ethnicity or people differ from the rest of the Arab world?

If they share the same religion, language, and culture of all the other Arabs in the neighborhood, what is it that makes them a distinct ethnicity?

The answer is that they represent the spear-point in the Long Arab / Muslim War against the Jews of the Middle East.

And that is also why no one will allow the Gazans to flee the war. They are needed where they are. Their entire reason to be, from the Nazi-like perspective of the Palestinian-Arab national movement, is to be flung at the Jews.

They are there so that their “friends” in the Arab world, and throughout the western-left, can lap their blood while pointing the trembling finger of blame at the cruel "Zionists."

1,200 of our brothers and sisters were slaughtered on Oct 7 and 250 taken captive. On that day I noted in my journal that the western-left was going to blame Israel -- i.e., the Jews -- for that attack upon our people.

What I did not understand was the intensity with which they would do so.

This is a very scary moment.

I have zero intention of making aliyah, but every intention of looking into it.

As Twain famously is said to have said, history doesn't repeat itself... but it sure as hell rhymes.

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.