Anti-Semitism, Fine Tuning, FBI, Trump Taxes, Wealthy Cuts

  • Our President finally, awkwardly, speaks out against anti-Semitism and the surge in anti-Jewish vandalism here in St. Louis and elsewhere. At The Swash Zone, (O)CT(O)PUS considers the grudging, belated acknowledgement and is unimpressed.
     
  • The case for a strong, everlasting Israel is compelling. We just need to look to a brutal history of ethnic and religious oppression. T. Paine, at Saving Common Sense, could easily make that case, but relies instead on rhetorical slight of hand and anti-Palestinian shortcuts.
     
    It seems that Palestinians in the area have no legitimate grievances. Those who were displaced by the establishment of modern-day Israel, and their descendants, are not really Palestinians because there exist so many Palestinians who live in other areas. Palestine is a region, not a country, therefore, Palestine should be a region, not a country.
     
    T. Paine is an important, very busy, individual. When he finds the time, we can look forward to a more coherent case.
     
  • Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post finds President Trump’s boast of an administration running as a fine-tuned machine to be humorous in a macabre sort of way.
     
  • Jon Perr at PERRspectives explains the connection between the Trump tax return cover up and the strange math advanced by Republicans planning more tax cuts for the fabulously wealthy.
     
  • Max’s Dad is on another creative rant, this time about Trumpian RussiaGate.
     
  • Last Of The Millenniums is impressed by the White House attempts, and the FBI’s rejection of those attempts, to interfere with current investigations into Trump campaign collusion with Russia during the Presidential campaign. Covering up is not supposed to be so obvious.
     
  • Dave Dubya analyzes the escalating attacks against mainstream press by the prickly new national administration and finds a longer term pattern.
     
  • The Onion, offers a ticktock account of Donald Trump’s relationship with the Press from 47,891 BC to now.
     
  • We have made it through another Week in Alternative Facts. Jonathan Chait explains how administrative aides are using fake news as a sedative to pull our President back from the more dangerous of his maniacal moods. Visits to the parallel universe soothe his troubled soul.
     
  • Jonathan Bernstein explains how and why Donald Trump can become a greater danger to democracy as the administration weakens.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged, catalogs the mystery of creepy, shifting, conservative reaction to Milo Yiannopoulos.
     
  • In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, former pastor and current atheist Bruce asks his evangelical readers to count through all the evil sins they and those they know were led into by the newest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.
     
  • Oh my living God NO. PZ Myers, reports on a horrible sort of Super Glue substitute for tampons in a product semi-invented by a maniac.
     
  • For Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes and a correspondent, separate visits to Walmart become spiritually mystical experiences.
     

5 thoughts on “Anti-Semitism, Fine Tuning, FBI, Trump Taxes, Wealthy Cuts”

  1. Mr. Deming, I appreciate the review of my posting on your excellent unbalanced site; however, I think I need to set the record straight because you must have inadvertently misstated the facts, my friend.

    The Palestinian people do have some legitimate grievances and I never believed otherwise. That said, when they and their government support Hamas, Hezbollah, and terrorist tactics against Israeli civilians, it really undermines their credibility to most grievances, wouldn’t you agree Mr. Deming?

    Further, the poor “displaced” Palestinians are that way due to their own choice, or at least so for those that were alive during the creation of modern-day Israel. You see when the U.N. mandated the creation of Israel, all of the surrounding Arab nations gathered their armies in an attempt to eradicate the nascent country. Before the attack though, the Arabs told all of the “Palestinians” living in the new Israel to evacuate their homes prior to their attack and then they could return to join in the spoils after the Jews and Israel had been obliterated. Unfortunately for the Arab armies, and fortunately for the rest of the world, Israel survived and even decimated their attackers. The “displaced” Palestinians were now stuck being removed from their homes and the surrounding nations refused to take them in as refugees.

    Indeed, this is one of their illegitimate “grievances” they voice today. They want the “right to return” to their former homes in Israel and to bring their offspring that has absolutely ballooned in number since then. Indeed, if the tiny country of Israel were to acquiesce to this “grievance” those returning Palestinians could do by ballot what they could not do militarily in their attempts to destroy Israel by their sheer numbers alone.

    Oh, and those Arab Palestinians that didn’t leave Israel prior to the attack… they are now Israeli citizens today and share all of the same rights that other Jewish Israelis do.

    1. Thank you for the revision, T. Paine.

      You present three interesting propositions:

      • First: that those excluded from participation in a country have a moral obligation to remain when that country is attacked by determined, destructive aggressors.
      • Second: that removing their families from harm should deprive those residents of any future right to self-government.
      • Third: that punishment for this imagined transgression must be visited upon all future generations.

      Your response is a better effort than your original attempt, T. Paine.

      However, I encourage you to try again. I have faith in your ability to get past this.

      Your entirely valid central thesis, that Israel must continue to exist as a haven for the historically oppressed Jewish people, will be much stronger when it no longer depends on other, more dubious, propositions.

    2. I’m no expert scholar on Modern Israel but… that’s… not exactly how Israel came about, but alright, T.P. There was fighting between Jews and Arabs before the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. The U.N. also didn’t mandate anything. They passed a partition plan which suggested how the Arab and Jewish communities should be split up following the end of the League of Nations’ British Mandate over the area. A suggestion that the Arab-Palestinian communities apparently did not approve of or agree with. This would not be the last time people have disagreed and acted against U.N. resolutions. Not surprising, the U.N. plan was not implemented.

      Also your point regarding terrorism is short sighted, seeing as how the formation of Israel and the Zionist movements of the late 19th and early 20th century arguably employed terroristic tactics. The Irgun actively attacked the British Government and Arab communities within Palestine.

      “Indeed, this is one of their illegitimate ‘grievances’ they voice today. They want the ‘right to return’ to their former homes in Israel and to bring their offspring that has absolutely ballooned in number since then.” — Are you talking about now? Or the late 1800s and early 1900s where the population of the entire region was vastly Muslim? Because if you’re talking about the late 1800s and early 1900s, you saw an influx of Jewish people claiming a “right to return” to their ancestral homeland. This argument lacks any historical context aside from ‘The mean old Arabs attacked little ol’ Israel just for existing’.

      From your blog post: “Sadly, the anti-Semitism in U.S. universities has often been created by the students within them from the Middle East who covet Israel’s land and prosperity.” — I must of have missed this at my own University. We had a lot of student organizations, Though we didn’t have a SJP group at my school, so… #noteveryuniversity?

      “The students don’t bother to do the research to find out the history and the truth of what is really going on in Israel.” — The irony of this statement was amusing.

  2. Ah Mr. Deming… I guess it does becomes necessary to explicitly answer each of your points of concern for the sake of clarity.

    “First: that those excluded from participation in a country have a moral obligation to remain when that country is attacked by determined, destructive aggressors.”

    If that were the entirety of the situation then we would be in possible agreement. However, when those civilians are asked by those would-be “destructive aggressors” to temporarily leave their homes in order to better facilitate the Arab armies in their plans of attack so that friendly Arabs civilians are not hurt, then I have far less sympathy for those who show such willing compliance to said “destructive aggressors” requests.

    “Second: that removing their families from harm should deprive those residents of any future right to self-government.”

    I agree; they can and should be able to self-govern in a sovereign Palestinian state once they acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and wish to live next to them in peace. I think this is a long way off though considering that the Palestinian text books for their children depict Jews as subhuman monkeys and other such vile propaganda.

    “Third: that punishment for this imagined transgression must be visited upon all future generations.”

    This “imagined transgression” is actually quite factual and not a product of my imagination at all, my friend. Further, as I stated, were all of the “displaced” Palestinians and their progeny allowed “the right of return” as Israeli citizens, they would electorally outnumber and be able to destroy the Jewish state of Israel at the ballot box rather than by homicide bombers, rockets, and mortars. You did acknowledge that the “case for a strong, everlasting Israel is compelling,” didn’t you? Or did you mean just as an Israel that is no longer Jewish?

    Please let me know if you have any further issues that you think are worthy of dispute on this topic and I will endeavor to explain them. I know you will! 🙂

    1. Thank you for the further development of your thoughts, T. Paine. I believe your original effort was explicit. Lack of clarity has not not been the issue.

      However, I think can help you on a couple of your newer creative points.

      Leadership failure to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, and the acceptance of terrorism toward Israel, composed the strongest part of your original argument.

      The textbook blood libels and the more general issues of propaganda and education are valid and your case is strengthened by their addition. I wish you had included all that in your original version, but late is better than never, is it not?

      Your continued reaction to “imagined transgressions” does not help you, I’m afraid. I would like to imagine that I would have the bravery and inclination required to place myself between Israel and the bullets I have been warned are about to come from aggressors. However my imagination instead informs me that I would more likely surrender to fear, especially if family was involved. I confess that possible accusations of passive complicity by future T. Paines and Burr Demings, commenting from distant posts of safety, might not deter my flight from imminent danger.

      But then, I lack the stalwart bravery that you display.

      As I pointed out, the case for a strong, everlasting Israel is indeed compelling. I don’t recall arguing, even by implication, that it ought not to be Jewish.

      History makes that case compelling. It is surprising that you did not bother to make it, distracted as you were by those Palestinians who gathered up their families and fled as armies approached.

      I hope you keep working at this, T. Paine. You are edging incrementally toward the compelling case you want to make.

      I have faith in your ability. I believe you can do it.

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