I have just GOT to start reading my comments!

THIS IS A BEAUT!

"Anonymous" (which means "pussy" in my book) wrote in response to a guest post:

Anonymous said...

This is in response to the blogger who said I am being endoctrinated by Fox News. So if someone does not agree with idiology, then they are being brainwashed by Fox news? So, then Liberals must be getting endoctrinated by MSNBC, is that fair to say? Michael Moore must be your idol, correct? That is the problem with left wing extremists, they are an angry group of people who misrepresent the truth and make accusations that I am somehow being endoctrinated by Fox News. In my blog, that "L.G." responded to, I never once mentioned Fox or Glen Beck, she and this blogger, have put words into my mouth. This is hate speech and what you are basically saying is that if people do not agree with YOU GUYS, that we are being brainwashed by Fox News. All this is doing is helping me further prove my point as to what is wrong with your party and your people. Bring it on!

APRIL 14, 2010 12:15 AM

The original post is here: http://lookoutofanywindow.blogspot.com/2010/04/guest-post-thank-you-for-sharing-lg.html

Okay, please allow me prove you have been indoctrinated:

1. Your first premise is that liberals play the race card when backed into a corner. This is Bill O'Reilly's rallying cry. Here's an example from his show: http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201003290058.
2. Premise two: democrats are against "personal responsibility" and republicans are for it. Classic Beck. http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/6949/. Actually, progressives include within their definition of personal responsibility a responsibility for society-- for the country as a whole. Does personal responsibility include watching people die in the street, or do I have a responsibility toward those less fortunate than myself. You, my friend, are a parrot.
3. Premise three: The provisioning of basic human services is socialism ("money, education, healthcare, and everything else..."). Glenn Beck: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/38531/. Hey, guess what, THE FOUNDING FATHERS put this strange clause in 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 defense, 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." General Welfare?! No way! Our people should be allowed to starve in the streets and die of easily preventable diseases. We have to change the constitution. As far as education goes, it is very much in the interest of Fox News to encourage an anti-education agenda. The Constitution does not mandate education. However, that right has been enshrined in the Constitutions of every state in the Union. If we stopped educating our poor, we would certainly create a cheap labor class. That would be nice as long as we are the Eloi.
4. Premise four. Republican ideals are common sense. You say, this Glenn Beck for of "personal responsibility" is what you teach your children. You are not only stupid, but you may actually be sick. First of all, trickle down economics are NOT common sense. Making the rich richer will make the poor richer? How about making the poor richer in the first place. After all, they are the ones who spend the money on consumer goods. When the poor and the middle class spend, the economy works. Trickle down economics is not only counter-intuitive, but it also destroyed our economy. The numbers are in. This is fact. Second, apparently unlike you, I taught my children to be responsible for themselves AND for others: to share their toys, to feed the hungry, to befriend the lonely and to help the needy. I taught them to love others and to cherish the special qualities of all people. I taught them to bring others up with them as they climb the ladder of success, as I have done. I shudder to think that my children will have to share this planet with selfish bastards like you are apparently raising.

I could go on and on; however, I believe that my readers are intelligent enough to ridicule the rest of your post without my help.

If you, however, need assistance, please let me know. I can recommend an excellent psychologist for the mental illness part. As for the intelligence part, I cannot help you, though an education might make you seem a little less stupid. Oh wait, I forgot-- education is for liberals, not true conservatives like yourself. How 'bout Glenn Beck University?

A cautionary tale.

1. Step one: Convince the poor and middle class that economic favoritism of the super wealthy is in their best interests and get them to vote Republican. It's okay, we can laugh behind their backs.
2. Step two: Cower in fear when these people who don't know they've been fooled start taking over the party and espousing armed conflict and an abolishment of all public social services and genuinely believe that we should have poor people starving in our street.
3. Step three: blame the black guy.
4. Step four: give a charismatic hater (like Glenn Beck) who effectively turns nonsense into fact and picks a simple target, in this case Moslems and anyone else who likes religious freedom, a national media outlet and make sure that the only news reported on that outlet supports the demagogue's fantasy based theories. Do this in the name of religious freedom and tolerance, so your followers won't understand that you are trying to undermine the Constitution.
5. Step five: Let this demagogue rewrite history so that his fantasies actually become fact for his millions of followers, by, say, hijacking an important historical event. Tell them that Jesus wanted poor people to die in the street and for the sick to go unhealed. If you can get their religious leaders to espouse this position your homefree.
6. Step six: You can get their leaders to espouse this position if you promise that you will make this country a Christian country instead of a religiously neutral one.
7. Step seven: Watch the United States become a fascist country in which the wealthiest citizens, by controlling the government are able to seize and use to their own profit, all of our public resources AND use the power of the government to control conduct and use of private property.
8. Step eight: Watch as Australian, Rubert Murdoch, and his pal Prince Waleed, both now trillionaires many times over, laugh as those of us left in America have been reduced to substistance farmers.

Why is Israel Unpopular?

By Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

reposted from Chabad.org

Question (from a citizen of India):

There is an anti-Israel feeling growing around the world. Especially after the First Gulf War and 9/11. Almost all means of media are contributing to this anti-Israel feeling. There are different lobbies working behind this. I am wondering why Israel is not doing enough to stop or control this. It is truly a total failure. This is high time to do something. War is not an option. Think about it.

Response:

Thank you for taking the time to provide these comments.

You write that Israel's popularity has suffered since the First Gulf War in 1991. This is surprising to hear. As far as I can recall, I do not remember any time that Israel was popular, from the time she was granted autonomy to the present day. In fact, I cannot recall a single act that Israel ever did on the international stage that gained her acclaim and admiration.

Does it have something to do with our occupation of a strip of land on the Mediterranean? Or perhaps because we are not nice to our neighbors?

I doubt it. We were not too popular in Europe, where most of us lived beforehand. But that may have had to do with our involvement in science and the arts. After all, what business did Mendelsohn, Heine, Mahler, Freud, Einstein, Chagal et al have mixing their noses into European culture?

But that doesn't work either, because when we lived in the ghettos and minded our business, our popularity was also somewhat under par.

I wish I could say it was just a European thing, but my history lessons tell me that we never quite won an award for popularity from the Arabic-speaking world. Neither were we too popular under the Byzantines, the Persians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Babylonians or the Pharaohs of Egypt.

It's not as though we didn't try. We offered them many new ideas, and they accepted most of them—our alphabet, architecture, crafts such as glassmaking and metalwork, monotheism and divine providence, our prophets and what they call "the book of books," most of our ethics, the idea of the equality of all human beings before G‑d. They happily took it all, even claimed it for their own. But for whatever reason, we remained even less popular than those who contributed somewhat less.

So today things have not changed much. Whether Israel defends herself or grants concessions, assassinates terrorists or frees them, speaks out or shuts up, she receives the same degree of criticism and outrage. Even when, only a few months ago, Israel provided the most advanced medical aid of any country in the world to the suffering people of Haiti, her motives were questioned and not a thing changed.

You will say, "So what did you people do to deserve this bad rap?"

And I will ask you in return: What did the peace-loving Ahmadiyya of Pakistan, whose motto is "Love for all, hatred for none" do to deserve a massacre of 86 of their following in a mosque last June? What did the peace-loving monks of Tibet do to deserve the torture and persecution of the Chinese conqueror while the world remains quiet? What did Gabriel Holtzberg and the tourists in Bombay do to deserve the bloodthirsty cruelty of terrorists? Since when were the peaceful and virtuous touted as heros among humankind, rather than simply trampled beneath the horses' hooves, the chariot's thunder and the grinding battalions of war?

In truth, there was one time that Israel gained a small window of popularity. When Israel's young men fought back Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, Saudi and Iraqi troops directed and armed by Soviet aid to victory in six days, then there was a short outburst of admiration. Even our enemies were truly impressed. Why? Because they don't admire wimps who try to live in harmony. They admire tough men and winners of war.

Perhaps Jews are the woman of the nations. Our forefathers are praised for many traits, but prowess at war is not one of them. Look in the Talmud and you'll be hard put to find the sages extolling the virtues of their people as warriors and the mighty heroes. Rather, they describe "three virtues of this people: they are compassionate, they bear a sense of shame and they do acts of kindness"—all very feminine virtues. Perhaps as macho men beat their wives, so the nations of the world are obsessed with beating down the Jews.

Or perhaps, as Paul Johnson writes in his History of the Jews, Jews represent G‑d to the world. G‑d is what provides people with guilt and shame. They don't like guilt and shame. So they don't like Jews.

Or perhaps we should go to the greatest anti-Semite of all time and ask him. Adolph Hitler, may his name and memory be forever erased, wrote that, "The Jews have provided the world with two blemishes; one on their bodies and one on their psyches. On their bodies, they have provided circumcision, and on their psyches, they have provided a conscience."

It's simple: You're told that Hitler gassed the Jews while the world looked on, that those nations who had a chance to save Jews deliberately failed to do so, and those lands to which Jews fled refused to let them into their borders. How do you rid yourself of this horrible guilt? By pointing to Israel, reinterpreting the facts and saying, "See, they're just as bad as the rest of us!"

Perhaps that's it. Perhaps if we stop being the conscience of the world, then they will let us come to the prom and even dance with us.

Perhaps. But if we do, we will no longer be who we are.

So I have a better idea. Maybe we'll just stop apologizing for everything we do, lift our heads high and be who we are without regard for the world's opinion.

One day soon, all the world will turn upside down and those who loved peace and compassion will rise to the top while the emperors and conquerors will fall to the bottom. I'm quite sure that at that time we will gain some popularity. Until then, we can wait.

Print this Page | Post A Comment

By Tzvi Freeman More articles... | Rabbi Tzvi Freeman heads Chabad.org's Ask The Rabbi team, and is a senior member of the Chabad.org editorial team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. To subscribe to regular updates of Rabbi Freeman's writing, visit Freeman Filessubscription. Rabbi Freeman is available for public speaking and workshops. Read more on his bio page. All names of persons and locations or other identifying features referenced in these questions have been omitted or changed to preserve the anonymity of the questioners.