The Horror Show.

Happy Halloween, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Coffee helps.

I’m glad to see the Halloween spirit alive on Threads; I love it and it feels good. This year I am not in the mood, though. I could have tried to get on with it but it wouldn’t feel right to me. This has nothing to do with those who do celebrate and enjoy it this year. Kudos.

I think the horrors we are witnessing every day took the joy of this Halloween away from me. Maybe I am giving in to that feeling when I should keep on living life to the fullest and that is not a good thing but I can’t help it. Halloween is, to me, essentially a children’s holiday. It’s designed for them; to make them happy. This year, in just five days, we will find out how many of us want these children to be able to grow up being happy. Most of us do and hopefully they will.

But what about the others? More than finding out how many of us want a brighter future for our children I am curious to know how many don’t give a fuck about them. I don’t trust polls, good or bad, so any indications from them mean nothing to me. I want to know if we’re making progress and if the number of those who don’t care about our children’s future has decreased. We share our world with some pretty nasty characters who declare openly children only matter before they are born.

What they are really saying is children only matter before they are children, when all they are is part of a woman’s body. They want little girls to carry pregnancies to term after they were raped. They want them forced into marrying men as soon as possible and, of course, to have no rights as they grow up. While most of us find the Handmaid’s Tale horrific they consider it a dreamworld. This could very well be our future. No Halloween for me this year.

As the fact many women married to these kind of men are going to do the right thing in the secret of the ballot station was materialized in a political television ad the reaction was immediate: “how dare they”, and they use this as justification for their view women shouldn’t vote at all. They shouldn’t vote, shouldn’t own property, shouldn’t have jobs, shouldn’t have access to money other than what their husbands give them, provided they bring back receipts.

They look at places like Afghanistan in awe and when the Muslim fundamentalists come up with new ways to degrade and nullify women, like forbidding then to talk to each other or even listen to each other’s voices they slap their own heads and wonder why haven’t they thought about that.

The only difference between Christian Nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism is a burqa. For now. How many women understand this? Most do, I hope, but many don’t.

I am curious about those numbers too. I have been saying for a long time that women will save us this election and the early voting numbers are encouraging. But how many don’t understand the assignment? Quite a few. From those who are on board with a Gilead type society to those who defend societies that oppress women in worse ways today there are plenty of women who refuse to admit this reality. But it gets worse.

Even among allegedly progressive women the rage and indignation is selective at times and they protest Christian fascism with one hand and promote the Islamic kind with the other. Stupidity and ignorance are not a male exclusive. Hopefully it will remain less prevalent among women than it is among men. When Hillary called these people deplorables she wasn’t talking about men alone. There’s plenty of men who see this threat for what it is and find Gilead as horrible as most women do.

There’s plenty of men who don’t want their wives and daughters wrapped in burqas against their will either. It always comes down to religion, doesn’t it? No matter how delusional and extreme the beliefs are the problem is never that some would adhere to them willingly, but that they want to impose it on all forcefully. The parallel between women’s rights in Christian based society and Islamic based society are perfectly aligned. It was never about choice. It’s always been about force.

The power to impose one’s will and belief on everyone else. Darkness. We’re fighting darkness and the dying of the light. No Halloween for me this year. I did what I could; I wrote words to make you think and sent reminders across the country to help people go out to vote and I voted myself. Now all I can do is keep reminding you there’s still time. Five days time. Then all we can do is wait until the results are known. I am convinced we got this. How much is what remains to be seen.

When the wait is over a new chapter will begin; a more important one. The one that will decide whether we will keep the light shining or watch it fade away. Many of those who side with us today against a blatant fascist will go back to supporting a less obvious one. Many who are repulsed by forcing pregnant children to see the pregnancy through will go back to uphold separating them from their parents and denying them lunch at schools.

And many who find rape acceptable if done to Jewish women will keep on thinking that way too. Our all inclusive tent let in a lot of people who don’t really belong in it. Our “blue wave” is not as blue as it should be. Our victory is but the prelude to war. A war we must win with facts, not beliefs.

So get ready to celebrate our victory as it seems more possible with every vote but don’t be fooled by it.

If we fail to deliver tangible results in the next four years the next fascist wannabe will have a clear path to victory. If we fail to expand our numbers among those who really share our view of the world and democracy we will not make up for this one time coalition that will break up in 2026. It was a long and hard road to this point and it will go on after. Don’t stop spreading awareness and fighting for a better world because one election will not change it.

This is but the beginning. We all finally understand what “Democracy dies in silence” means. Don’t ever shut up. Keep the flame alive and never stop raging against the dying of the light. There’s too much darkness in this world for us to ignore it anymore. We are but butterflies but each of us has immense power. Use it. Always. Every single time.

This is not the end. It’s just the beginning.

We’re not going back!

Torn by facts.

Good Saturday morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Must have coffee. Black and sweet.

364 days. Fate has it there is another day on the calendar before October 7 this year. One more day as if 365 weren’t too much already. Jewish holidays are here. Yom Kippur will arrive soon. My childhood holiday season is coming. Christmas. Another year. Time keeps on moving and hope remains.

I became more familiar with Jewish culture since I started using Threads. I raised the Arab-Israeli conflict months before 10/7, shortly after my arrival here, and it allowed me to engage with Jewish threaders from early on, especially with @lisaaronowatelier, and expand my knowledge. I found new books to read and went back to my reference texts… Quite a journey it is still. So much to learn, so little time. I remain a goy, yet in many ways I feel the Jewish people as my own.

I didn’t lose sight of the fight we’re on to save Democracy all along because it is connected to the fight against antisemitism. All this time I am also in awe of the ways so many of my Jewish thriends realize, as I do, there’s an absolute need to identify extreme religious beliefs as the fuel that keeps feeding hate. The secular me was pleased to find so many like minded souls who understand the limits of tolerance as much as the agnostic spiritual me was reassured by it.

Most religions have references to some form of intolerance towards the other alongside calls for understanding and inclusion. Millennial texts that can be twisted and turned to fit self centered people’s interests and turn paradise into an all exclusive resort only the chosen can access. Perhaps the story of the rabbi who was asked why did God create the atheist best describes what religion should be about and yet is not.

I have mentioned before our happiness depends on that of others. There’s no other reward in being kind and understanding, in helping others. No prize for doing the right thing. Many atheists will find themselves in heaven before most religious people ever reach its gates, if there is such a thing. And yet organized religion is like a club with a secret handshake that frowns upon the unknowing. There’s no humanity in it, if you think about it.

What is the point in exacerbating selfishness? Isn’t the invariable result the demonization of all others? Even some atheists seem to have a secret handshake too and frown even harder upon those who believe in what they don’t. In the end, not believing is in itself a system of belief and a sort of religion. We all believe in something, after all. Me, I believe in humanity. I believe in the beauty each of us holds inside. I believe in that which creates music.

I search for meaning and purpose and justice. I don’t expect simple answers to complex questions but I do believe in absolutes derived from facts. Truth is itself the result of a system of beliefs so one could argue there are many, yet what should guide us in our quest for truth is the belief facts matter more than anything and are the ground our convictions should stand on. We may not like them but we can’t deny them. Once you realize this truth all others will follow.

I am torn by facts. They’re inescapable unless you wrap them in a blanket of beliefs meant to give you the illusion of comfort, something you feel better about. It’s tempting and most of us do it all the time. I try not to but I do as well. Facts can be devastating. They are the thorns on the rose of life we wish weren’t so sharp or even gone. But there are no roses without thorns except those you make for yourself so you can find a way to hold them without pain.

Isn’t that the essence of religion after all? The manipulation of reality into a painless illusion we can deal with? The denial of acceptance for our own benefit. All sacred words are but words we read in a state of denial; words, such as these you now are reading, are meant to make you think without prejudice. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons Judaism appeals to me. Of all religions I know it is the most conflicted one and in itself an endless struggle.

But it’s still a religion and as such it suffers from the same twists and turns some people use to manipulate it into their own interests. Very often I read about how Islam teaches hatred yet it does not. Some people twisted and turned it into it and got away with murder. Perception becomes reality and reality becomes fact. We may not like it but we can’t deny it. Such twists and turns are what we call radicalism and its existence converts spirituality into the material world.

When you analyze what is happening in the world today make sure you base your analysis on facts, no matter how they make you feel. For 364 days we have been asking for the hostages in Gaza to be released. Many of them never would alive. Some may still make it. Hope remains. Thousands of people have been living the horrors of war for 364 days in a way we did not expect but the fact is war is the only reality they have ever known. That’s what is wrong with this picture.

The world woke up to this reality on October 7, 2023. And we don’t like it. Personally, I don’t like the way it’s going. I don’t like people I despise must make things right but it’s a fact I can’t ignore. I can only hope this terrible mess will bring about a better future even if I don’t like how it is unraveling. Change will come whether we like it or not; all we can do is try to make it happen based on facts and grounded in reality, not wishful thinking.

There are perverted reasons behind the ongoing war in Israel. We all know what they are and who benefits from it. But there are opportunities that were not possible before it. Opportunities for peace and a better future that only this war could produce. Ignoring those opportunities and missing them because we don’t like the facts involved is a mistake. As it’s a mistake to ignore the fact Israel became in 1948. Like it or not, denying that fact will not set anyone free.

The same goes for the Palestinian Arabs who are themselves a fact. Denying it won’t set anyone free either. Couple those two facts alone and you will discover things you don’t like and wish were different. They’re not and we can’t wish them away. Wishing them away is what radicals want. Picking sides only works if you strip yourself of any truth rooted in fact free beliefs even if the sides are good and evil. There’s nothing esoteric about it, nothing religious either.

The undeniable truth is the fact 364 days went by and many times during those days opportunities were missed to take the hostages home. I don’t know how many more will go by still but I know we can’t give up. Perhaps Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin illustrate this reality the best. They lost their son Hersh to this terrible reality. A senseless loss. Yet they persevere for the sake of others in which hope still lives and in a country at war for its own survival they hope for peace.

The hostages became the image of everything that is wrong with this situation and everything we don’t like about it. The undeniable fact we cannot ignore. Perhaps we should start there and trace our steps back to where it started, fact by fact. Maybe if we do that we can find a way out.

Try to remain strong and hopeful.

Shabbat shalom.

Sweet promise.

Good morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. First coffee of 5785 is sweet.

Today is also National Poetry Day. It’s been a while since I posted in poem… I roam the SM landscape usually looking for animal posts, always have. I run into the “other stuff” occasionally and we all know it’s bad. Very few good news. A couple of days ago I found a simple video of a girl and a cat like millions of others. But not so much.

For some reason I can’t explain it made me think of life as we know it and as we wish it. Of all that is wrong in this world more than of what’s right. All our struggles and battles, everything we find unacceptable, the bane of our existence. Every single conflict begins and ends inside us. And that’s where it exists. Looking at the man in the mirror I hardly recognize him; he changed so much. He’s old, he looks tired. Time passes.

There’s no trace of happiness on his face except for a glimpse of the child within and the gratitude for life itself which is now renewed after a brief encounter with the prospect of an untimely death. Then it occurs to me death is expected to be so and rarely otherwise but I am still grateful and still aspire to live long. Don’t we all. We depend on hardships to appreciate their absence as if without them we’d be oblivious of what a good life is, free from suffering.

We often forget the true meaning of harmony and balance and pretend good can exist on its own. It can’t. We wouldn’t be able to recognize it if it did and the feeling of utter emptiness and sadness, seemingly inexplicable, would be nothing more than the absence of evil. And it all plays out inside ourselves, where it all begins and all stops. It looks like at times our perceptions are created by our actions rather than the opposite, in a game of excuses we play to sleep at night.

There is much evil in this world and we could use less of it, for sure. Balance. The reason we’re so upset with our world is not because evil exists in it but because so little good remains. Perhaps we are looking at it wrong. Perhaps we should be focusing on creating more good rather than eliminating more of all that’s bad. We’ve been trying to put out the fire with gasoline for so long we don’t even notice it anymore.

You can’t get rid of one thing in this world that would fix all others as there are so many reasons for torment in our lives but if I could I would take two of them out: hate and greed. Trust me, there would still be many other wrongs to make right but at least our lives would feel lighter and we’d have a fairer shot at happiness. We need more acts of kindness and more love in our lives, even when in battle. It’s hard. When someone hates you it consumes part of your loving soul.

That’s perhaps what hit me, watching that girl and that cat. It wasn’t the peaceful simple life it portrayed that moved me. It was all that lays behind it: the sadness and hardship, the hatred and greed, the torment of life itself. Without them that girl and her cat would be just another clip among millions of others. Meaningless. As it is, it turned out to be what I wish life could be, in a few seconds. How wonderful would it be to live life so simple and perfectly balanced.

Do not allow evil to consume you for that is what it does: it turns you into it. In a world of hate, please love. Be kind and selfless in the face of greed. You don’t have to stop fighting to do these things. You will find your heart lighter and your soul lifted. A sparkle of light in a sea of darkness. The calm within the torment. Hope where none existed before. You will become the promise. Trust me on this.

Have a peaceful sweet day. 🍯🍎

The girl and cat video:

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFUAVeAy/

Knock Out.

Good hump day, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Damn, this coffee’s good.

I watched what was, in all probability, the last debate of this election. I know many of you decided not to and, hell no, I don’t blame you one bit. Me, I’m a political junkie so I take the good with the bad and try to stay away from the all bad stuff. Yesterday there was good and bad so I watched. Walk with me a little. Bring coffee.

At 9 pm there I was, staring at my phone. The rest of the family opted out and I didn’t feel like watching it in the bedroom or at my desk, besides I am a mobile kind of guy and no smoking indoors so pretty much it’s the phone 90% of the time. I was a bit concerned about the format and the stupid fact checking rules: no moderator checks and each candidate would take that role. Not good. Obviously, when your opponent is a serial liar you’re left with two options.

Either you let him control the debate and spend all your time pushing back at each lie, which means talking about it, or you just brush it off quickly and only real fact check the most outlandish statements, focusing on your message. Luckily for us, despite being an inexperienced debater, Tim Walz went with the second option. The moderators (two women, btw, which was good) were not as bland as I expected and we were in business.

Because Iran had just attacked Israel the first question off the bat was about the Middle East. Surprisingly, Walz made a stronger case for standing with Israel than Vance. There is a dangerous demagoguery in the fascist right that usually poses as “die hard for Israel” in a Bibi kind of way, which makes the Democratic Party’s position seem weaker. It’s not. It’s stronger and it’s very real. The response to the missile attack proved it once more. So a good start.

Walz did a good job, yesterday, though he warmed up to it along the way. From the start it was obvious he was not there to destroy Vance and that’s on brand for the coach. It did pain me he wasn’t more aggressive and allowed a real fascist look like just another guy on that stage, which the moderators were also interested in doing. To me that was the missed opportunity of last night: if you have a fascist POS on stage treat him like one. But no. Did it matter?

Yesterday, in my morning post, I exposed the shape of darkness JD Vance is involved in designing. He is nothing like the smooth liar piece of shit we saw. He is a very dangerous, unscrupulous fascist wannabe with very sinister friends in very dark places. His performance was pathetic but pathetic is more “weird” than dangerous and we know that’s Tim’s vibe, so he stuck to the weird for the most part. It would have helped to expose JD as the menace he represents but… to whom?

Liberals watching already know he’s a fascist and what his real intentions are, conservatives don’t give a shit and mostly go along with it. That leaves the independents, usually less informed. As satisfying as having Vance exposed as a Pluto/Techno bitch would have been I don’t think that exposure would mean much considering that’s not Tim Walz’s expertise. As it turned out, Walz had excellent moments when he exposed JD as the POS he really is. We’re getting there.

As it became the norm with the GOP campaign, the best way to reveal their ineptitude and total absence of rationality is to let them talk a little bit more than they should. And Vance didn’t disappoint in providing lots of cringe moments all by himself. The one that really, really made me cringe was during the abortion part of the debate. For starters it’s odd to watch men debate abortion. Walz did a pretty good job at leaving it to the women, as he understands this.

A woman’s right to choose is nobody’s business but especially, as the coach would say, none of any man’s damned business. Period. If you don’t have a uterus just say women know best and then shut the fuck up. But JD is not of that persuasion and he had a lot to say about women and abortion. After all, he even has a good friend who had one of those. Ouch. I mean… What, the, FUCK? I hope the friend in question applies one of her boots between his legs wholeheartedly. I really do.

Besides that extremely ewwww moment, he spent the rest of his time avoiding to talk about abortion and pointing out, again and again, the solution for it is to give women all they need to have more babies, lots of babies! Like tons of them. He was so obnoxious about it even conciliatory Tim lost it and shot back something along the lines of let’s give women the conditions they need to choose and “then you can have all the babies you want”. I mean… Fucking DUH!

The moderators chose to apply pressure on the candidates’ qualification for the job by throwing two curve balls at them. I expected that. For JD the problem was picking one so I wasn’t curious about it; no matter which he wouldn’t answer and would weasel his way out of it lying, no surprise. So I wondered what the fuck were they going to throw at Walz. I swear I didn’t even know he had misspoken when he mentioned when exactly he visited China. That was it. Okay. Next.

A quick parenthesis to mention the awkward moments provided by the Springfield “Haitian pet eaters”, when JD tried unsuccessfully to mansplain “the law” and the “immigration app” to the moderators who immediately shut him down by cutting off his mic, one of them even fact checking him on the spot, which led to the hilarious moment of the night when Vance admitted on live television the only reason he was there was because CBS agreed not to fact check him. Look it up. The memes abound.

Eventually we got to the good stuff. The stuff that even a honest to God good tempered man like Tim Walz loses his shit over: Democracy. Vance was slowly led to the point where, after wiggling himself out of every question like the spineless douche he is, there was no room to maneuver. He was asked point blank who lost the 2020 election, not by a moderator. By Tim Walz. Aaaaand he doesn’t know. And because that wasn’t stupid enough he got a cherry and put it on top.

Not only didn’t he answer who lost the 2020 election, he looked absolutely convinced (wink wink) TFG peacefully and orderly allowed for the transfer of power to take place at the inauguration of January 2021, just days after January 6, which TFG didn’t even bother to attend because, you know, he’s such a good sport and a paladin of democracy. At first I didn’t believe he said that. I was still recovering from the “who lost the election” knock out by Walz. But yes he did!

As Michael Steele would remark later on, regardless of anything he said in the debate before that moment, the fact Vance can’t bring himself to concede the GOP was defeated in the 2020 election completely disqualifies him for office. ANY office. The “TFG paladin of democracy and peaceful transition” cherry on top was just a bonus. And that, my thriends, was when Tim Walz won the debate. Not because he was losing until then, but a technical KO has got nothing on a real one.

A lot of important matters were discussed during last night’s debate; I mentioned a few. On each topic Vance lied or didn’t address the issue and Walz was knowledgeable and on point. It was a matter of sheer luck CBS left democracy for last but nothing like a knock out to finish a long match. It was perfect. Liberals know why, Republicans don’t care, Independents might. Mission accomplished.

Tim Walz will never be an attack dog. We got plenty of those. He is the honest man who deeply cares about his fellow citizens, those who exist and those not yet born or on the path to being one. He’s a good man and those we don’t have plenty of so be grateful he’s one of them. Yes it’s a hard world full of real threats but if everyone was like Tim Walz we wouldn’t need attack dogs. And the world would be a better place.

No, We’re not going back!

The shape of darkness.

Good morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Coffee endures.

Life still isn’t back to normal, whatever that is, so I haven’t been posting regularly. Hopefully that will change soon. I did watch a segment of Rachel Maddow during dinner yesterday that brought back some thoughts. I don’t watch her like before but I was forewarned of this bit and it was worth watching.

It was what I call a Maddow period piece, where she starts with a forgotten history lesson and lands on present day events reminiscent of it. Yesterday it was the American fascist movement drive to end superior education, public and private, that does not conform to its wishes of what education should be. It started in the 1930s and went on to the 1940s and it was then an echo of the antisemitism spreading in Europe. Rachel linked those bygone fascist designs to tonight’s VP debate.

The reason for that is JD Vance has also advocated for the reshaping of our Universities into conformity models or their obliteration from public life. His reasoning is rooted in old ideas being recycled by neo fascist ideologues, among which his right wing blogger friend Curtis Yarvin, a not so obscure anymore proponent of the end of the American democratic experiment in favor of a dictatorship. This is JD Vance’s source of inspiration for our future.

In their minds, our democracy has become so corrupt and inefficient it needs to be completely done away with. Like a tumor. In its place a mixed Pluto-Technocracy with a strong man at the top, a CEO like figure put in place by plutocrats and technocrats to rule as a dictator. As for government as we know it, it would cease to exist and extra constitutional measures would replace the foundation of the rule of law, the rationale being that the constitution is preventing this “evolution”.

No constitution needed. No bill of rights required. A brave new world where wealth and technology replace what they call the failed Western values of democracy and justice. In JD Vance’s own words the “evolution” into a “political religion”. This is what lies beneath the Christian nationalist platform the GOP has turned into. The link to the Universities derives from the end of all things government represent today and the paradigm of the end of education as we have known it.

I understand the point Rachel was making regarding College education and the past and present attempts to get rid of it, especially those who are bastions of critical thinking and engines of humanity applied studies, but she missed the chance to mention today’s biggest threat to that system of knowledge: the same old antisemitism displayed by the far right in the 1930s-40s in the new clothes of far left fanatical ideologues inspired by radical Islam with the exact same goal.

Rachel Maddow is very bright. She didn’t miss it. She just chose to stay silent with the dubious cover of her subject matter: Christian nationalism. She’s right. That is our greatest threat and what we are up against on the ballot very soon. What is it, 35 days from now? To me around 20 days, since we always vote early. But we cannot pretend the threats also present on that ballot posed by third party candidates who embrace antisemitism as a weapon are not there.

I understand that the inclusion of today’s most obvious danger to superior education posed by radical Islam inspired far left groups would be a distraction from the clear Christian nationalist threat running in our body politics’ veins for decades, but Maddow missed the opportunity to close the horse shoe, especially since she started the segment with a very clear identification of antisemitism as the drive for that undercurrent from the start.

This is what I meant when I initially turned away from Tim Walz’s “Weird” approach. Antisemitism isn’t weird. It’s the poisoned root that feeds the hatred from which all others spawn. And it’s not to be ignored when its ugly head rises from the left wrapped in a fashionable keffiyeh and justified by the “martyrdom” of children from a selected breed. I understand why this election is such a close contest. I know TV ads are effective. I know most people are not informed or aware.

But we are. It’s our duty to make this reality known and spread awareness to it. We’ve been doing it and we have to double our efforts. We don’t have much time left so let’s get to work. Do all you can to keep our momentum going and get people out to vote blue up and down the ballot. Stay joyful and hopeful but also aware of what it is we are up against. Millions of kids are voting for the first time this year. Let’s make sure it’s not their last.

How to connect that clear and present danger to the joy in the promise of a brighter future is not easy or uplifting but we must find a way to keep in mind this is not just another election. If we lose it will be our last. Make sure everyone knows this. If that doesn’t get them all out to vote I don’t know what will. Stay focused and strong. There’s a lot more of us than there are of them. All we need to do is vote. So let’s go win this thing.

We’re not going back!

Nightmare in a sandbox.

Good Saturday morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. More coffee, please.

Last night I found out about the DOJ backed UN claim that UNRWA has complete immunity for any actions under the diplomatic statute of the organization. A complete travesty in line with its practice. Is it time to admit the UN is dead?

From history we learn it will probably take nothing short of a cataclysmic event to create a substitute for the United Nations. World War One created the League of Nations and World War Two the UN. Their legacies are not much encouraging either: WW2 was the League of Nations one. But what is the UN’s? Some would say the Cold War but it runs deeper. In a world truly gone MAD, as in Mutually Assured Destruction, the UN was the stage for MADness. That’s its legacy: madness.

As long as the world craziest leaders had a place where to bang their shoes on the lectern and a podium from which to legitimize their lunacy we would all be safer and peace would prevail. We witnessed many unimaginable things happen at the UN General Assembly but we shrugged and pretended it was the cost of freedom. Not a forum for three dimensional chess players but a sandbox for children to play without parental guidance.

Everybody wants to rule the world, right? Why not go crazy and let it happen, see what gives. Well, we are seeing it. We have for quite some time. The Cold War may be over but we still live in a MAD world.

* Okay, now I am having trouble deciding which song to use at the end of this string… Tears for Fears or Gary Jules?…

We’re running in circles and there’s no turning back. So the songs go and so do we. Nothing lasts for ever is a hard concept for children to grasp, especially when they run around and around in a MAD world.

* Okay, that didn’t help me make up my mind.

Perhaps that’s why many Muslims consider music to be Haram. But I digress. Or maybe not since we’re discussing madness.

Madness; the art of repetition with similar results. The perfect definition of what the United Nations became. The result is always the same, isn’t it? No progress at all, no courage, no initiative for fear of the alternative: assured destruction. So it came to be the institution created to deliver us from the cruelty of humankind turned out to be the ultimate manager of fear, in which billions are spent to maintain it.

“Be very afraid” should be the UN motto. That or “We can’t do that”. Anything to keep us where we are and feel good about it. But do we? Little by little we got used to it like getting used to the discomfort of an incurable disease and learn to live with its painful symptoms. That feeling has made us believe it is in fact incurable. What else can we do but endure it? False. It’s far from inevitable. We were just convinced it is. It’s not.

The delicate balance of power between those who have most of it is achieved by making it acceptable through the parading of all that is wrong in this world within the walls of that sandbox where everything unacceptable is possible and problems become solutions in themselves. Like the unruly spoiled children that wreak havoc inside the house are allowed to play in the sandbox exactly the same way not for their benefit but for the comfort of their parents. A theater of the absurd.

Absurdity is the name of the game, cards against humanity without sarcasm, lining up the steps of the assembly to congratulate a terrorist organization for finally getting a seat in the sandbox. It’s perfectly fine, nothing can go wrong. Nothing ever does. It’s exactly as it’s supposed to be. Maybe one day someone with diplomatic immunity smuggles a nuke inside a suitcase into the building and put us out of our misery. Perhaps that’s what it will take to open our eyes.

I grew up with this lie. I had so much hope for the United Nations and as a child, when it came to play soldier, I always picked a blue helmet. I watched the Swedish troops being stoned on television as they kept the peace without firing a single shot. I watched the children in Africa being fed and the ones in Asia vaccinated. I was sure it was working. It had to. And while I watched the televised feel good show put up for me I missed what was really going on.

I am not a child anymore. Now I know that when I was three years old UNRWA was funding the training of Palestinian Arabs to fight in the Vietnam War. The televised show no longer makes me feel good. My baby shot me down. Bang bang. It’s no longer a game. It never was. All I feel is disgust, frustration, anger. How did we let it get this bad? What were we thinking? We didn’t get taught to hate; we got taught to tolerate the intolerable and we learned the lesson well. We got numb.

September 11 wasn’t enough. Surprisingly we got even more numb. Then came October 7. There were no planes flying into buildings, no balls of fire. There was a slow, painful, excruciating display of cruelty and hate no amount of numbness could deal with. Except in the sandbox. The place built for accepting it and dealing with it the only way they know how: rewarding it in the usual appeasing way designed to pretend it will go away if only we look past it into the void.

I don’t know about you but I am sick and tired of this sandbox where we’re supposed to do what we do for real pretending it’s not. It is real. And it’s eating us alive. The only thing good out of this madness is we finally realize there is no turning back. We can only go forward from here. The question then becomes what the fuck are we waiting for and what are we going to do about it. Maybe start by not taking this shit anymore.

It’s hard to remain sane in this madness but we have to, somehow. Seems reasonable enough to be unreasonable in the face of what we were told reason means by UN standards. It’s time to get rid of our old feathers so new ones can grow and fly out of this sandbox where we are told nightmares are all we can dream.

It’s time to wake up.

Try and have a good weekend.

*

Link to “Mad World”, Gary Jules, Michael

Taking the trash out.

Good morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. More coffee, please.

We’re still processing “Beeper Tuesday” and the extraordinary strike Israel pulled off against the pager carrying Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon. Anytime terrorists are hit hard is a good time in my book and we sure can use the comic relief provided by agent Moti Rolah, though we are using dark humor in dark times.

I’ll take a targeted strike over carpet bombing, though, while the propal crowd raises their arms and cries “foul” just the same as if Beirute was nuked. Nothing shocking there. Of course at a time when opposition grows and the hostages are nowhere near getting home any initiative like this will be perceived as just another attempt at wagging the dog by Netanyahu and there’s truth to it but, as I said, any day terrorists suffer a blow is a good day.

The Lebanese government should actually hope for Israel to blow up all Hezbollah operatives in their country individually if that’s possible. It’s obviously not but that would help them a lot. This sophisticated action and the immediate flood of memes praising agent Moti Rolah’s daring work took over SM but something else happened yesterday that deserves our attention and it was not funny in the least.

I didn’t know who Maya Berry was until yesterday. She’s the Executive Director of the American Arab Institute which has in the past contributed to the recognition of MENA as a category in our census data and other positive contributions against discrimination but recently has expressed views that tarnish its reputation by endorsing positions widely perceived as antisemitic. Her connection to the Democratic Party is known and she has no personal record of extremist views herself.

Maya Berry’s fault is not that she proclaims the end of the Jewish State vocally but rather that she tacitly supported it by endorsing those who do. At least as far as my research can tell. In any case she was testifying before Congress yesterday in a hearing about the rise of hate crimes in the US. Like in other hearings where support for terrorist organizations and the call for violence against the Jewish people are involved it didn’t go well.

At these hearings there’s always a repulsive GOP member who “steals the show” and appeals to what should be common sense notions in the worst possible way, either because they represent the exact opposite of what they pretend to stand for or because they go off the deep end in their interventions. I remember Elise Stefanik during the hearings with University presidents about antisemitism on college campuses and now we got John Kennedy questioning Maya Berry on the rise of hate crimes.

Unlike Stefanik, whose fault was her maladroit questioning and representing the opposite of what she pretended to stand for, Kennedy went straight for the cucamonga approach. These days it makes perfect sense when questioning anyone about hate crimes to ask if they support terrorist organizations or organizations that provide cover for them. Regardless of who you are the answer should be easy: No. Next question. The fact Maya Berry didn’t answer that way says a lot.

She ended up saying she doesn’t support terrorist organizations but only after deflecting with a preamble of victimization intended to put the question against the favorite background used by terror apologists: Islamophobia. Again. Were John Kennedy a smart person he could have made it clear and scored points but being the complete ignorant douchebag he is he decided to brush Maya Berry off with the statement that became the image of that hearing.

No one is talking about what the purpose of the hearing was or what relevant information came from it. All that hearing did was to reinforce the notion Islamophobia is very much a thing and reinforce it’s use as an effective cover for those who wish to promote hate. Because instead of pointing out Berry’s unwillingness to firmly condemn terrorism Kennedy told her she should be wearing a trash bag over her head, in a hateful reference to ANY Muslim women head cover.

Maya Berry got a free pass and Islamophobia a big boost. That’s what happens when you have hate mongers assigned to determine the cause of hate crimes: more hate. This is why the advocates of radical Islam turn the perfectly acceptable religious practice of dressing with modesty into a problem where there’s none. We are all familiar with the comparisons between Catholic nuns and Muslim women, as if all Catholic women were bound for convents or supposed to walk around dressed as nuns.

The problem with women in Muslim society and the way they are treated has nothing to do with their religious apparel and everything to do with those societies inability to accept secularism and choice. There’s nothing wrong with choosing to dress in any particular way but everything wrong when you are expected to dress in a particular way and face penalties for not doing it. This is a symptom of how retrograde Islam is when compared to other religions.

Setting aside the type of dress most if not all other religions impose strict dress codes for those who choose a full immersion in that religion. For Catholics that’s a strict dress code for women who choose to become nuns, the other women of faith being expected some modesty when attending religious ceremonies, which in some cases involves covering their hair in church, and there are no penalties for women who choose not to dress accordingly, whether they are religious or secular.

Islam has a different concept. Not radical Islam, all Islam. In Muslim societies women are expected to dress with modesty to various degrees. In radical Islam they are forced to do so in more extreme ways: case in point Afghanistan. And this brings us to all the different types of Muslim head covers for women and the way they are used. We should be concerned about the mandatory nature of that custom in Muslim countries, since for the most part they are imposed and heavily penalized.

That’s obviously their problem, however, and all we can do is try to make them respect women and their choices. When it comes to the integration of Muslims in Western societies it does become a problem if these customs, regardless of their acceptance by women, involve going against our standards. We should have nothing against modesty in women’s clothing but we are repelled immediately by everyday face concealment as a norm. And this is where ignorance plays its part.

We have limits for tolerance when it comes to dress codes that cover both ends of the spectrum: your supposed to show your face in public and you’re not supposed to show your genitalia in public. Pretty reasonable assumptions. So the problem becomes the use of the extreme types of head covers: the niqab and the burqa. Other than that, any other type of modesty in dressing is just fine. Who cares how many layers of clothes anyone wears? I have no beef with magical underwear either.

But when you start telling Muslim women in our midst they should wear “trash bags” over their heads you lose all perspective and reason. If you want them to respect our ways in acceptable terms you must respect theirs in equally acceptable terms. I feel no discomfort seeing a masked woman because she’s a Muslim but because she’s not showing her face as a norm.

I have no problem with a kid knocking on my door covered with a blanket on Halloween either but I do if he walks around like that every other day and all the other kids are expected to do the same. We shouldn’t trivialize this matter to the point it’s okay to accept it due to the tolerance of religious beliefs but we can’t go on a rampage because Muslim women wish to cover their hair unless they are forced to. Anything else is just bigotry.

We have enough problems fighting radical Islamic views in our society, we don’t need to create false ones and certainly don’t benefit from reinforcing the idea we are as radical as them in dealing with Muslims who are not extreme and fit in just fine. Every time a “John Kennedy” pulls up a stunt like the infamous “trash bag” comment hate grows. Not reasonable opposition to other people’s beliefs infringing on our secular values, just ignorant xeno bashing.

These phobias spread like wildfire and make reasonable expectations turn to bigotry in a heartbeat. Don’t fall for it. All they do is to allow people like Maya Berry to hide their motives and keep pretending Islamophobia is THE thing to fear while allowing it to provide a warm blanket for the terror lurking within. The real problem is hiding in plain sight: xenophobia. The only solution is educating ourselves to cut through the BS and address it reasonably.

Have a good hump day.

Law at the kitchen table.

Good Voter Registration Day, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Coffee!

Voting is your superpower. Vote every time you get a chance to, from School Boards to President. Make sure your registration is correct and you know where to vote. Never miss a primary so you can choose who will be on the ballot then vote for the chosen candidate even if it’s not the ideal one - the opponent is far worse. And every time vote BLUE. Up and down the ballot.

Help others to vote. Everyone you know needs to vote. Make sure they know their superpower too. This is it. 49 days left. We got work to do.

We understand the assignment and know the consequences of defeat. We’re not going back! 

That slogan is with us since day one of Kamala Harris campaign and it’s a reminder WE are the point of this election. We the people.

Women will in all probability decide this election so they can live without fear of becoming objects a step away from being denied ALL their rights in a world where men will decide everything for them but all of us, regardless of gender or age, will decide this election so we can have a better future. The abstractions are important to define our battle: love against hate; democracy against fascism; progress against stagnation. But it’s fundamental to point out what they represent.

How decisions come to be implemented in our democracy is the key. It’s not as complicated as it seems. Our three branches of government are all involved in the process and each is equally important but one of them is key and derives from how well the other two work: the Judiciary.

Locally you MUST vote for judges who uphold the rule of law fairly and without prejudice. You have a say in it so don’t waste it. It starts there.

One of those judges you get to choose may one day be chosen for higher offices and that choice is also yours to make as you vote for the person who nominates them and those who approve it. In the end, you have the superpower to choose every single federal judge and Supreme Court justice. We must reform the judicial system from the bottom up and to do that we don’t just need a president. We need a Congress. All the laws we need to improve and create depend on this.

Looking at the big picture you see how much trouble we’re in already. Take a look at what is happening in Florida with Judge Cannon. She’s on a fast track to replace Thomas or Alito in the Supreme Court if we lose this election and that is just one of the many judges like her waiting to be appointed to federal courts - especially appeals courts. The court system is the first thing any authoritarian seeks to subvert by turning it into the enabler of his/her authority.

That process started a long time ago and it has been exposed in all its ugliness since 2016. While we were all distracted by gas prices and other infamous “kitchen table” issues the GOP put in place the foundation for a complete take over of the Judiciary branch, that thing no one cared about but them. Well we sure care about it now. Is it too late? The fact I am writing about it tells you it’s not. It will be too late when we can’t talk about it anymore.

Behind every decision that affects our lives is a judge and behind every judge there is a political process. Judges are not Gods that just show up one day like they dropped from Olympus; they are the result of our decisions when we vote. By all means consider the issues you discuss around your kitchen table, if you have one, just make sure to include our Judiciary during brunch. We all depend on it.

Every democracy worthy of its name depends on the rule of law to exist and is as advanced as the rule of law permits it to be. It is supposed to help us progress without excess. It’s the one check without which all balance is lost. For many years we took it for granted and expected it to function without our engagement, as if it wasn’t up to us to determine how it works and who is in it. Now we see how much guilt we share in its undoing. And it’s not too late to fix it.

We are on the ballot this November. The reason we call it Roevember is because we must fix the rule of law in this country. So we can have one worth living in. Let’s give Harris the means she needs to fix it: a House majority AND a Senate majority. And don’t rest after that; make sure those we elect understand what they were elected for. We have a lot of work ahead and it doesn’t stop on November 5. It just starts there.

We’re not going back!

The warm blanket of hate.

Good morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Black coffee helps.

Yesterday the GOP campaign got another gift with which to direct most people’s attention away from what really matters. Not that gun regulations don’t matter or crazy white people with guns don’t matter or fear mongering doesn’t matter, but this “assasination attempt 2.0” is as weird as it’s a distraction. So focus.

Just like the “pet eating Haitians” nonsense this “shrub assassin” deal is a short lived joke. Put aside all gun related issues it evokes and the pathetic state the Secret Service is in, it only stokes the flames of hate higher. So no joke. As expected this news eclipses a lot that is going on we should be paying attention to, making many of us wonder if that’s its purpose but we don’t need more conspiracy theories to waste time on.

Yesterday I mentioned how the spreading of hate for “the other” is hurting our urgent need to face the real problems affecting us, creating more layers on the already thick blanket of immunity bad actors hide under. Just as Hamas seeks credibility and vindication hiding in the hate directed at all Muslims so do their minions who hide among us. They go about doing their business and when caught quickly point out they’re just “victims of Islamophobia”.

Islamophobia is their warm blanket; it allows them to carry on untouched, protected by our tolerance and skewed notions of moral equivalence. But that’s not the only blanket that protects them. They are also encouraged by the antisemitism that keeps growing unchecked amongst us. And ignorance. Always ignorance. The very ignorant simps who had nothing to say when Egypt was occupying Gaza, Jordan occupying the West Bank or becoming a state on Palestinian land, for that matter.

I firmly believe their “ignorance” is fake. They know very well the Kingdom of Jordan was established on Palestinian land, but the Jordanians are not Jews so it’s perfectly fine. They even know the British created it, as many other Arab nations, but they’re not Jewish nations so it’s all good. They’re also aware of the existing conflicts among Arabs and the flagrant human rights violations in the Arab World but they’re not Jewish so it’s all good.

Saturday night, a University of Michigan student was attacked by six men. The reason for the aggression was the student is a Jew. They overheard him saying something to that effect, asked him if he was a Jew and when he replied in the affirmative they knocked him to the ground, spat on him and kicked him. For all they knew that kid could be against Netanyahu. No matter. He is a Jew. That’s the only reason they attacked him. Jewish parents are fearful of sending their kids to college.

They know what will happen to them, it’s no longer a possibility. It’s a certainty. Best case scenario they will endure a hostile environment where they will be forced to hear their fellow students call for their death; worst case scenario is a nightmare better left unmentioned. But they are “just Jews” so why bother. As long as the other kids are fine it’s all but a “nuisance”, a passing phase hardly worthy of mention in the news. And so it keeps growing.

Some Colleges started fighting back this year, banning Students for Justice in Palestine from campus, creating stronger rules and even penalizing those who use Zionism to target Jewish students. It’s a start but it’s not enough. The reason I know it’s not enough is that I can imagine what their reaction would be if instead of breaking Mezuzahs on Jewish students dorm room doors they were hanging nooses on the ones of black students; instead of “Zionist” they were using the “N word”.

I know what would happen if they were chanting “white power” and “white America” instead of “free Palestine” and “globalize the intifada”. They wouldn’t last 5 minutes on campus. Yet they keep tolerating calls for the eradication of Jewish organizations from campuses and even Jewish students. I am pleased some are starting to do something about it but it’s not enough. Allowing this to go on without punishment will only make it worse and normalize hate.

Where are the peaceful protests? Where are the people calling for peace and the end of violence? I tell you where: in every Jewish demonstration I have seen. While the so called “pro-Palestinian” protests call for the end of a nation and her people the Jewish demonstrations call for the return of the hostages and the end of war. And only one side calls for the end of Hamas and all radical Islamic terrorist organizations.

I am all for Colleges being places of discussion and exchange of ideas, that’s what they should be, but when that translates into shoving kids around, spitting on them and kicking them it’s time to put a stop to it in no uncertain terms. We are witnessing antisemitism in action and we can’t ignore it. Any university faculty or manager who ignores it is an accomplice. No excuses. Their inaction will lead to dreadful results I don’t even want to mention.

There’s a lot we are being distracted from right now but we must remain focused on what really matters. Among the most urgent is the steady rise of antisemitism in Colleges - because it presents a real danger to Jewish kids AND it’s the incubator for this kind of hatred all others come from. Keep it front and center, don’t look away and demand action. Before it’s too late.

Never Again.

FAFO

Good Thursday morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Must have more coffee today.

There is a perception among many who are against Netanyahu’s war strategy in Gaza that denouncing it equals antisemitism. As if you can’t express any criticism about the war. They are outraged that their speech is being censored and their voices silenced. There’s a reason for it.

I talk about it all the time, from Bibi’s dreams of a theocratic Israel to his unwillingness to adapt his strategy to what should be the priority. With very few exceptions I was never mistaken for being antisemitic. The ones who called me that are on the fringes of the religious Zionist movement and are not voting for Kamala Harris, by the way. So why can I speak freely against the way Bibi is managing this war and they can’t?

Why can I mention the suffering of Palestinian Arabs without being called an antisemite and they can’t? Well, for starters I attribute the suffering of the Palestinian Arabs living in Gaza to Hamas. Let’s start there. On 9/11 a lot of those people were in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank celebrating the horror inflicted upon America and the West and on 10/7 they got to be a part of it. Many of the atrocities committed that day were executed by them.

Following the initial wave of Hamas terrorists on 10/7 many Gazans followed in their footsteps and were responsible for countless acts of terror against innocent civilians themselves. Many of them exulted in their streets as the ones involved in the attack returned with bodies and hostages, parading them for their viewing pleasure. By then it was a celebration and if there were any Palestinian Arabs in Gaza who were appalled by this I didn’t see any. I am sure there were some, though.

You can finally see them in the streets of Gaza demonstrating against Hamas, risking their lives and their families in the process but they aren’t many. The truth is most of the Arab population in Gaza support Hamas and are actively engaged in its efforts to destroy Israel. It’s safe to say most of them were taught to do so since they were toddlers. Failing to recognize this AND denounce it is part of the reason why those “pro-Palestinian” people are so upset they are being “cancelled”.

That’s another rich argument: for “cancelled” people they sure talk and write a lot. No one is cancelling them. What is happening to them, finally (and we need more of it), is their hatred is not being tolerated anymore. So that is one of the reasons they are treated differently than I am. Their disingenuous notion all Palestinian Arabs are good and peaceful people. They’re not. Admit that and your life will be much easier. Then there is the “Israel” approach.

Everything under the sun is “Israel’s fault” and everything Zionist is worse than Nazism itself. They have zero understanding of Zionism, they know nothing of its multiple political expressions and they ignore every single one of the 750,000 Israelis protesting Netanyahu’s government is a Zionist, “recruiting” them to their cause. Following well established propaganda guidelines they accuse those criticizing them of “cosplaying” the pain for Palestinian Arabs. Talk about projection.

They usually issue a short blanket statement about “the tragedy of 10/7”, condemning violence, and then proceed to declare “resistance is justified” and “death to Israel”. Oh, and to America as well. So who’s cosplaying what? Speaking of which there’s the matter of masking their identities during protests just like their pals in the Klan did. And that’s the other reason they are getting the cold shoulder treatment: they are not peaceful; they call for their own glorified genocide.

The reason these people are being targeted at last and feeling the heat is all of the above and more of the same. And when placed in the hard spot they carved for themselves they suddenly become “humble” and “victims”. They appeal to the “humanity” and “understanding” of those who stopped tolerating them in “heartfelt” declarations of “compassion”. They avoid the hateful rethoric they shout in the streets in their “common sense” letters of appeal. It’s not working.

They did not utter a word of compassion for the hundreds of hostages taken by Hamas or the ones they execute periodically. They embrace Tehran’s support and endorsement without a word for its people. They ignore every other ongoing conflict where Islamic fundamentalists are killing far more people than those who are killed in Gaza. And then they say “being pro Palestinian is not antisemitic”. Really?

They either spew hatred in the street, calling for the death of Jews, or barely help themselves to show it in their letters, calling for the condemnation of Israel. Occasionally they mention Bibi but they proceed to chant “from the river to the sea”. They also ignore Jordan and Egypt and not one of them organized ANY demonstrations when Jordanians and Egyptians were pounding Palestinian Arabs to dust while in control of Gaza and the West Bank.

The reason why they can’t express their “solidarity with the Palestinian people” without being called out as antisemites is because they recognize most Palestinian Arabs want Israel gone at the same time they pretend not to understand what that means. And that, my thriends, is antisemitism. Period. They are the ones “cosplaying pain” when they ask for help to keep their jobs, talk in national forums or not being thrown out of colleges.

That’s the price they pay for their intolerance when it becomes too extreme to be tolerated anymore. We will NOT tolerate it. They should show the courage of their convictions and accept the consequences for actions in defense of beliefs they wish to impose on us, along with their keffiyeh wrapped simps. They are the ones selectively showing pain for everyone but the Jews. They are the ones trying to push all those 750,000 protesting Israelis to the sea while using them as cover.

We’re not buying it. We see them. They are paying the price for their antisemitism and I hope it’s as high as possible. If they care about the Palestinian Arabs let them condemn Hamas; if they care about humanity let them demand the immediate release of all hostages; if they care for peace let them demand Iran to stop fomenting war. After they do that they will be able to protest Netanyahu without being called antisemites. Until that time they will be going through some shit.

So excuse me for not breaking a sweat when I call them out as the antisemitic pieces of shit they are and wish they find out what their fucking around got them. I suggest they should go enlist in one of the many “freedom fighter” organizations or go find jobs in Iran or Yemen or Afghanistan. Go on then and do Allah’s bidding. Until then do us all a big favor: vote for Jill Stein and shut the fuck up already. Enough.

Akharai!