In the Words of Hedy Lamarr ("That's HEDLEY!")

                   Harvey Korman as Hedley Lamarr in “Blazing Saddles”

Without question, Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” is one of the greatest comedies ever produced. Who can suppress a belly-laugh during the campfire bean-eating scene? Or not chortle  at the very name “Lili Von Shtüpp,” the send-up of Marlene Dietrich  for which the late Madeleine Kahn was nominated for an Academy Award? Then there’s Governor Lepetomane’s power- behind-the-throne “Hedley Lamarr,” as played by the marvelous Harvey Korman, who is given some of the picture’s best lines, such as “My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives,” to which his dumber-than-dirt side-kick Taggart (played by Slim Pickens) responds “God darnit, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.”

Again, without question, Blazing Saddle’s best lines belong to Hedley, the most dexterous of which of comes when he is telling Taggart about the gang of miscreants he wants rounded up in order to overthrow the town of Rock Ridge: “I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.”

I don’t know about you, but to me, this sounds a lot like former President Trump’s cattle call for the January 6 insurrection. But in this case, the verbal shopping list wasn’t meant for merely one set of ears (Taggart) but rather for a handful of co-conspirators, among whom were Chief of staff Mark Meadows, presidential aide Dan Scavino, professional grizzled hobo Steve Bannon and determined remora Kash Patel. (The remora by the way, which in the world of ichthyology, is known as the “suckerfish,” is known for getting a “free ride” on host fish.  As such, remora has also come to describe a person or a group of people who get a free ride and a free meal by way of the efforts of others.)  

As of today, Donald Trump’s gang of “. . . mugs, pugs, nitwits, halfwits et al are in severe legal jeopardy.  Although “Rock Ridge” (the nation’s Capitol) has not been torn down, they themselves have all been subpoenaed by the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Not surprisingly all 4 have declared that they will neither honor said subpoenas nor turn over any documents relevant to their participation in the January 6 insurrection.  And more on point, Trump, the FPOTUS (“Former President of the United States”) has also declared that he will not hand over any documents related to the insurrection, claiming that he is protected by Executive Privilege.” (n.b. There is a possibility that members of the former president’s staff who have yet to be issued subpoenas are speaking to the Select Committee behind closed doors, away from the spotlight, in order to save their hides and future careers.)

This is - or in any event should be - a non-starter; there is absolutely no mention of executive privilege in the Constitution. Richard Nixon, who knew one hell of a lot more about what was in that document than the immediate FPOTUS, learned his lesson the hard way . . . and resigned office before he could be arrested. (And while it is highly likely that arrangements had already been made for Nixon’s hand-picked successor, Gerald R. Ford, to pardon Nixon, there are precisely two chances that current President Biden has made the same sort of arrangement with his predecessor: absolutely none and one hell of a lot less than that.)

Battle lines between the White House, the Select Committee and those who remain steadfastly in support of Donald Trump have been both widening and hardening in recent days. For in addition to the various subpoenas handed down, President Biden announced this past Friday his steadfast demand that the FPOTUS hand over thousands upon thousands of pages dealing with January 6 to the Department of Justice. Trump swiftly responded with the “Executive Privilege” argument, calling Democrats “drunk on power” and insisting that “this assault on the Constitution and important legal precedent will not work.” Without question, the Constitutional issues involved here are soon to be headed into federal court.

Legal experts say they think Biden, as the sitting president, is far more likely to prevail in court than Trump. But they also say that the legal questions raised by this conflict are highly significant.

“This is one of the historic tests of executive power,” says Walter E. Dellinger III, the Solicitor General under President Bill Clinton and the
Douglas B. Maggs Professor Emeritus of Law at Duke University. Still, he says, “the decision of the current president not to assert executive privilege is going to weigh heavily” on those having to make the decision. Select Committee member - and longtime Constitutional law professor - Jamie Raskin, speaking about Trump’s lawyer’s assertion that Congress has no claim on any information put it succinctly: “This is a matter of the utmost seriousness, and we need to consider the full panoply of enforcement sanctions available to us. And that means criminal contempt citations, civil contempt citations and the use of Congress’s own inherent contempt powers.”

 The last of these -- “Congress’s own inherent contempt powers” - - is found not in the Constitution, but rather in the U.S. Code (Title 2, Section 192), but has not been used since 1934. According to the Code, Congress has the unilateral authority to fine or even jail recalcitrant witnesses. The offender(s), after being cited for contempt of Congress, is/are  tried on the floor of the chamber of Congress invoking the power. If a majority affirms the contempt charge, they may instruct the Sergeant at Arms to arrest the offender(s) and detain them in the Congressional jail [yes, there is one in the basement of the Capitol] or until they comply with the subpoena or until the end of the session. This is highly unlikely to be employed, mainly because it would all but certainly involve a lengthy court battle involving Trump and his “mugs, pugs and  thugs” which would no doubt run on the front pages of papers as well as the twenty-four-hours-a-day-seven-days-a-week propaganda industrial complex for years to  come . . . thus giving Republicans a political issue for the ages. 

To my way of thinking, even before the House Select Committee concludes hearings and issues its final report, it should begin working in tandem with Attorney General Garland and the Department of Justice.  Let the DOJ do its job.  With the legislative and executive branches working together, they then should be able to issue arrest warrants and ultimately put the sowers of sedition in prison. And it could, as an added benefit, force individual Republican office-holders and future candidates to go on record as to whether or not they support those who sought the dismemberment of our democracy.

Insurrection is not a matter that should be taken blithely; it carries serious sanctions which should be undertaken for the sake of our future as a nation.

How do you like them eggs Hedy . . .  (that’s HEDLEY!)

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

One Person's Religious Exemption is Another's Civic Mandate

According to most modern-day Republicans, America’s Founders were, for the most part, a bunch of pro-life, Christian fundamentalists who would have little or no argument with today’s right wing office holders. Not only is their knowledge of America’s Founders deeply flawed; it reveals an astounding lack of understanding of what makes America truly great.

Consider that among America’s most important founders, and early presidents, Washington, Madison and Monroe were Episcopalians; the Adamses,  both pere et fils were Unitarian; Jefferson (who like John Adams and James Madison could read and translate the Old Testament from Hebrew to Latin and from Greek to English)  and Benjamin Franklin non-denominational Deists. None - we repeat none - would have understood - let alone accepted - the hard-core “born-again” Christianity of their modern successors. They really, truly believed in the separation of Church and State, and would have found the incursion of one upon the other to be both noxious and deeply dangerous. Yes, they certainly did believe in the G-d of creation; nonetheless, they also had a deep and abiding faith in both human reason and the discoveries of science. 

Today, those who argue that the federal government oversteps both its rights as well as its licit moral and legal boundaries by mandating COVID-19 vaccines ought to learn from history; had it not been for General Washington mandating Small Pox vaccinations for all his troops before going into battle, this essay would have been composed in the Southern-most colony of the British Empire. According to the U.S. Library of Congress's Science, Technology, and Business Division, the smallpox inoculations for all of Washington's forces who came through the then-capital of Philadelphia and then through Morristown, New Jersey, following the Battle of Princeton, began Jan. 6, 1777.  As noted above, had not Washington done so, this week’s essay would have been composed in the Southern-most colony of the United Kingdom . . .

But alas, not that many citizens in early 21st century America know jack about our early history; about how George Washington mandated that all his troops be vaccinated against Small Pox, thus saving a revolution. Today, a small but garrulous minority - aided largely by the conspiracy theorists predominating a right-wing social media blitz - argues that mandating vaccinations against COVID-19 is a flat-out abridgement of individual rights and freedoms. (As opposed to not smoking on airplanes, wearing seatbelts or vaccinating children before they can attend public school.)  As we have seen, such utter נאַרישקייט (nareshkeit - that’s Yiddish for “lunacy”) has led to thousands upon thousands of needless deaths. Unlike G. Washington and his loyal troops, these modern Americans find no truth coming from the ivy-covered halls of science. Their preference is following a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible, all the while praying for recovery from the immediate agency of the Divine. Of course in reality, this approach has far more to do with partisan politics and the winning of elections than with religion versus science. Although the number of so-called hard core anti-vaxxers is getting smaller all the time (thank G-d), there are still those who steadfastly proclaim that  they have every right to receive a religious exemption from said vaccines. In fact, for every law which has been enacted at some level, there is a group that demands its religious values permit them to abrogate the law or clause in question. As Washington Post contributing columnist Kate Cohen wrote in a recent piece: “A person can claim a religious exemption to the equal opportunity clause that’s required in all federal contracts; to the contraceptive coverage mandate of the Affordable Care Act; and, in some states, to the requirement that a child be immunized to attend public school.”  We’ve all read about bakers refusing to bake wedding cakes for same-sex couples because they believe that to do so would be going against the word of G-d.  Where does it end? This seems crazy. Obviously not everyone agrees with every law, but that’s the bummer and the challenge about living in civil society. In a democracy, if you feel strongly enough, you can set about finding like-minded people and then try to change the law. Or, if that doesn’t work, and you truly believe it’s a sin to, say, fill contraceptive prescriptions, then (a) don’t be a pharmacist or (b) risk getting fired. Wouldn’t G-d appreciate the gesture? For now, let’s return to the issue of vaccines and masks. By keeping an angry, largely unlettered minority believing that scientists, progressives and Democrats (frequently referred to as “Socialists”) are purposefully injecting vaccines and salad dressings with GPS trackers and various poisons, keeps that minority within the Republican fold . . . thus keeping Republicans in charge of the three branches of government.  

So let’s get this straight: according to these משוגעים (m’shugoyim - that’s Yiddish/Hebrew for “screwballs”), it is both good and perfectly legal to keep government from imposing on individual liberty and freedom when it comes to the wearing of masks, getting vaccines and mandating social distancing, but not so when it comes to a woman’s right to choose whether or not to get an abortion . . . under any circumstance, whether it be rape, incest or the health of the mother? And then, adding even further insult to injury, legislating precisely when life begins? According to the Texas Legislature (and soon the legislatures of George, Mississippi and Florida), a viable life begins at precisely 6 weeks . . . a time when a vast majority of women have yet to discover that they are pregnant. According to Texas, after six weeks, abortions are illegal, and anyone who assists a woman in any way, shape or form to terminate a “viable fetus,” can be arrested, tried and sentenced. (And whosoever notifies the authorities about these “assisters” may receive a reward of up to $10,000.)

In other words, what Texas has done in passing this onerous legislation is to, essentially, incinerate Roe v. Wade. Publicly, those legislators (the majority of whom are men) who vote in favor of such draconian laws, say they are doing so with G-d’s blessing . . . that abortion - regardless of the circumstance - is  murder.

These are the folks who self identify as “Pro-Life.”  I have never understood this.  How can it be that the vast majority of “Pro-Life” legislators consistently vote against such things as food stamps, funding for healthcare and universal pre-K education, cannot and will not lift  a finger to fund clean air, clean water or dozens of other things which are necessary for life?  By their actions it would seem that they are of a belief that although life begins at conception (if not even before - like the moment one considers engaging in sexual congress), it ends with birth.  If so, let’s call a spade a spade: they are not “Pro-Life” - - - they are stridently “Pro-Birth” and nothing more.

Recognizing that many readers of this blog are “MOT” (“Members of the Tribe”), permit me a few words about the beginning of life from a Jewish legal perspective. Jewish law (halacha) has a nuanced view of abortion. While it is true that many פרומע יידין (frume Yidd’n - Yiddish for “pious Jews”) have not been overly worried by these and other efforts to curtail legal abortion, in America, the pro-life narrative is largely articulated by the Christian right; there are important differences between how Judaism and Christianity view the span of time between conception and birth.

Jewish law does not consider the fetus to be a being with a soul until it is born. It does not have personhood. Furthermore, before 40 days, some poskim, (deciders of Jewish law), have a low bar for allowing an abortion. The Talmud, in Yevamos 69b, cites the view of a rabbi named Rav Hisda that “until forty days from conception the fetus is merely water. It is not yet considered a living being.” Moreover, if there is a threat to a woman’s life, the safety of the mother takes precedence over continuing the pregnancy at any stage. Many sources illustrate this graphically and rather unambiguously, and all modern poskim, or religious deciders, agree on this. In fact, in certain circumstances, a fetus that endangers the life of the mother is legally considered a “murderer” in active pursuit.  Jewish law prohibits killing in all cases — except if one person is trying to murder another. If an individual is trying to end someone’s life, killing that person is actually a requirement. How much more so, a fetus (not yet a full person) who threatens the mother’s life may be aborted.

In his Mishneh Torah, Maimonides (one of the greatest physicians of his day) writes: “The sages ruled that when complications arise and a pregnant woman cannot give birth, it is permitted to abort the fetus in her womb, whether with a knife or drugs, for the fetus is considered a רודף (rodef - a murderer in pursuit]) of its mother … If the head of the fetus emerges, it should not be touched, because one life should not be sacrificed for another. Although the mother may die, this is the nature of the world.”

In other words, when a fetus endangers the life of the mother, unless it is in the process of being born, abortion is a halachic (Jewish legal) requirement.  How very different from that of the fundamentalist Christian perspective . . .

One of the biggest differences is that Jewish law has never, and will never, be decided on the basis of contemporary political needs.  Although there are centuries-old disputes within the world of Jewish law on how various laws and enactments should be interpreted and/or adjudicated.

Whether it comes to vaccines, climate change or choice, there is a lot to be learned from ancient texts. One of the most insightful comes from an ancient sage known as Rabbi Tarfon:

“It is not up to you to finish the task, but you are not free to avoid it”.

Sounds like something the Founders might have said . . .

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

Not Every Ivy League Grad Sits Atop the Progressive Heap

                                                     Harvard College: 1650

Founded way back in 1638, Harvard College (today University) is America’s oldest and most prestigious seat of higher learning. Indeed, of America’s 46 presidents, 7 (John, and John Quincy Adams), Rutherford B. Hayes, cousins Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush (who also graduated from Yale), and Barack Obama) have earned degrees there. 10 future Secretaries of State (Elihu Washburn, Robert Bacon, Dean Acheson, William Evarts, Edward Everts, Christian Herter, Richard Olney, Thomas Pickering, Henry L. Stimson, and Mike Pompeo have been graduates of America’s best college. 119 senators (including Richard Blumenthal, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Sam Ervin, Al Franken, Tim Kaine, Edward Kennedy, Carl Levin, Martha McSally, Elizabeth Warren, Paul Sarbanes, and Chuck Schumer have earned degrees there in fields as diverse as political science, law, and education, as well as nearly 370 members of the House of Representatives. Then too, the lead floor managers of both of Donald Trump’s impeachment trials were graduates of Harvard Law: California’s Rep. Adam Schiff and Maryland’s Rep. Jamie Raskin.

Not all Harvard Graduates entered into public service. Among the most famous of her graduates (as well as those who never completed degrees) one finds Helen Keller; poets T.S. Elliot and E.E.. Cummings; conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein and cellist Yo Yo Ma; writer/poet Gertrude Stein; actors Jack Lemmon, Stockard Channing, Tommy Lee Jones, Ashley Judd, and Natalie Portman; “Unibomber” Ted Kaczynski; writers William S. Burroughs (“The Naked Lunch”), John Updike and Norman Mailer, as well as writer/M.D. Michael Crichton; Transcendentalist author Ralph Waldo Emerson, theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer; architect, systems theorist and futurist Buckminster Fuller . . . and Bill Gates.  (And let’s not forget that there are lots of “Elis” -(Yalies) Princeton Tigers, and graduates of other Ivy League schools serving in the current 117th Congress who cover the political spectrum from such far-right senators as Missouri’s Josh Hawley, Texas’ Ted Cruz and Nebraskan Ben Sasse to Ohio’s ultra-progressive Democrat Sherrod Brown).

Then there’s Donald Trump’s “Mini-Me” - former House member and current Florida governor Ron DeSantis.  DeSantis is anything but an uneducated redneck; he earned a B.A. (magna cum laude) from Yale in 2001 and a J.D. (cum laude) from Harvard Law in 2005.  (It should be noted that while attending Yale, DeSantis was captain of the school’s varsity baseball team, where he played the outfield, and as a senior led the team in batting with a .336 average.) 

There’s hardly a political nerd, geek, or junkie who doesn’t know that the 43-year old DeSantis wants nothing more than to be the Republican standard-bearer in 2024. In order to fulfill this dream, several things would have to happen:

• He would first have to be reelected governor in 2022;

• Donald Trump must stay out of the race because he is either hospitalized, on trial, or out on bail;

• The voting public has not yet figured out just how anti-(small-D) democrat De Santis really is, and 

• That DeSantis figures out a way to keep 45’s core constituency - and their cash - in his back pocket.

Although DeSantis is a bit less Narcissistic than his hero and a tad more polished to boot, he nonetheless possesses the same rigorously authoritarian streak as the Lord of Mar-a-Lago. Where Donald Trump is an avatar of unbridled contrarianism . . . a monster of the ages (a Queen’s born Larry “Lonesome Rhodes”), the Florida governor is more self-controlled. DeSantis appears to be less puerile than Trump, but equally demanding when it comes to putting personal loyalty above all else. And where Donald Trump has spent years in the public eye bragging about his elite education and utter brilliance (!), Governor DeSantis tends to let his policies, appointments and pronouncements get the same point across . . . that he is smarter than anyone in government . . . without all the swagger.

You wanna bet?

                           Gov. Ron DeSantis and Dr. Joseph Ladapo

Last week, Governor DeSantis appointed a new Florida Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, M.D., PhD, a graduate of Harvard Med. Truth to tell, before DeSantis’ announcement, the vast majority of people in Florida weren’t aware that Florida had a Surgeon General - or that Governor DeSantis even cared; before  his appointment, Dr. Ladapo’s predecessor, Dr., Scott Rivkees hadn’t had a face-to-face meeting with Governor DeSantis since the end of 2020. In many respects, Governor DeSantis and Dr. Ladapo are two peas in a pod: both are graduates of Harvard; both are diehard conservatives; both put politics way ahead of science when it comes to COVID-19.

At his initial press conference on September 21, Dr. Ladapo (who was simultaneously appointed to a high-salaried professorship at the University of Florida School of Medicine) introduced himself to members of the press and then boldly told reporters "Florida will reject fear.” The  new Surgeon General has a record of writing op-ed after op-ed after op-ed after op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, questioning the very reality of COVID-19, the value of vaccines and the efficacy of masks.  There was also, of course, a New York Daily News op-ed touting hydroxychloroquine. Just as importantly, Ladapo has boasted about his support for the so-called "Great Barrington Declaration," a highly controversial joint statement, released in October 2020, that endorsed protections for the elderly and those with compromised immune systems, while simultaneously arguing that the authorities should pursue "herd immunity" by allowing the deadly virus to spread untrammeled through the rest of the population.

Like  former president Trump, Governor DeSantis has been a disaster when it comes to the pandemic. He has done everything in his power to put “freedom” and “a person’s right to choose” ahead of vaccinations (although both he himself and his wife have already been inoculated). DeSantis has made it all but impossible for counties, municipalities and local school boards to set their own rules or mandates . . . without being arrested, severely fined or suffer loss of personal income. This, from a man who firmly believes that government should be as close to the people as possible. Like Donald Trump, he has had his legal wrists slapped by more than one conservative court.  Is it any wonder that he appointed Ladapo to be his Surgeon General?

As mentioned above, Dr. Ladapo, who before his appointment here in Florida was a professor at the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine is a leading member of “America’s Frontline Doctors,” and signer of the widely criticized Great Barrington Declaration, the coven for physicians who are COVID deniers. Dr. Ladapo does not have a background in public health and has never been in charge of so much as a med school department.  At UCLA, he was an associate professor and health policy researcher “. . . whose primary research interests include[d] assessing the cost-effectiveness of diagnostic technologies and regarding the population burden of cardiovascular disease,” according to his UCLA bio (which was recently taken down). He has an MD and PhD in Health Policy from Harvard and is board-certified in Internal Medicine. In other words, Dr. Lapado is to Governor DeSantis what Dr. Scott Atlas (professor of radiology at Stanford and member in good standing of the highly conservative Hoover Institution) was to Donald Trump: completely without relevant experience in the fields of epidemiology, infectious diseases or public health.

In my view, the only reason Dr.Lapado got the job was because DeSantis needed window dressing for his anti-science views on managing the state’s COVID response. Dr. Ladapo proved his loyalty to DeSantis on his very first full day in office by issuing an “emergency” rule giving parents sole discretion over whether their children wear masks at school. The rule also says that if a student has been exposed to COVID-19, parents can choose to keep their children in school “without restrictions or disparate treatment, so long as the student remains asymptomatic.”

This is totally unbecoming and wrong-headed for anyone who was both educated and trained at America’s oldest and most prestigious university. As mentioned above, Dr. Ladapo has even written about (and relentlessly endorsed) the use of hydroxychloroquine  (and now Ivermectin, which is meant for horses) in the fight against DOVID-19. In discussing this with my fellow medical ethics board members (the overwhelming majority of whom either teach, were educated at, or practice within a few blocks of Harvard Med), they agree that both DeSantis and Dr. Ladapo have placed politics way ahead of science. DeSantis should learn from the 2020 election; one of the key reasons why Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden is that the former, outside of being in office during the miraculous development of anti-COVID vaccines, didn’t have the slightest idea of how to lead the nation to recovery. His main concerns were with the economy; he placed presidential power, personal aggrandizement and  politics way ahead of science.  DeSantis and his new Surgeon General are doing virtually the same thing here in Florida.  To quote the Harvard-trained philosopher Georges Santayana (who was also a member of the faculty): “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I for one would greatly prefer pay attention to the pronouncements of Dr. Anthony Fauci than Governor Ron DeSantis or Dr. Joseph Ladapo. But then again, Fauci only graduated from Cornell . . . which didn’t enter the Ivy League until 1865, 3 years before my beloved  University of California.  

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

In the Majestic Words of JFK (Or Ted Sorensen, or Winston Churchill or George St. John)

Without question, one of the most majestic and awe-inspiring of all presidential inaugural addresses was the one delivered by the then 43-year old John Fitzgerald Kennedy on January 20, 1961. It was also one of the shortest - a mere 14 minutes. That speech contained such gems as:

• 'Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.'

• 'If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.'

• 'Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.' and perhaps the most magical of all presidential phrases:

• 'And so, my fellow Americans - ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.'

The inauguration of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) represented a seismic change in American politics.  He was, after all, more than a generation younger than his predecessor, President Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969).  He was also the first president born in the 20th century and brought to the White House, a dash and flair, an energetic youthfulness and élan unlike anything America and the world had ever seen before. JFK and his picture-perfect family had it all: wealth and movie-star good looks; sophistication, 50-mile hikes and above all, breathtaking charisma.  He only lived a brief 46 years; unbelievably, he has now been dead for nearly 60. 

Kennedy’s image is that of a fire-breathing progressive.  In truth, he was anything but.  Rather, he was a slightly right-of-center moderate Democrat whose greatest accomplishments - Medicare, the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts - were mostly completed by his successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was likely American political history’s most masterful legislative prestidigitators.  What Kennedy had in spades over Johnson - and most all of our presidents before or since - was the ability to motivate people of all ages to get off their backsides and give something back to “The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.”  The motivation of which we speak was of course wrapped up in the ultimate sentence of JFK’s  inaugural address: to "Ask not what your country can do for you, [but rather] ask what you can do for your country.”  Ironically, those words for which he is best remembered may well have not come from his pen . . . or that of Ted Sorensen, his brilliantly poetic 33-year old speechwriter.  According to Chris Matthews, the former press spokesman for Speaker Tip O’Neil,  chief speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and former MSNBC news host, that phrase likely came from either from one of Winston Churchill’s war-time speeches or George St. John, who was JFK’s headmaster at Choate  in the early 1930s.  In his 2011 book Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero,  Matthews, who interviewed many of Kennedy’s Choate classmates, notes that they frequently heard headmaster St. John tell his students precisely the same thing.

I well remember listening to JKF’s inaugural address on the radio in Miss Cook’s class that January afternoon in 1961.  (The next day would be our father’s 45th birthday).  The new president sounded so young; his Boston accent was like something we only heard in movies; hearing Robert Frost read the poem The Gift Outright was especially rewarding . . . I was terribly smitten by great poets, thanks largely to “Granny Annie,” my mother’s mother. (Actually, Frost had written a brand new poem for the event entitled Dedication.” He approached the microphone, but blinded by the sun's glare on the snow-covered Capitol grounds, Frost was unable to read it. Thinking quickly, he instead recited "The Gift Outright," a poem he had written in 1942.)

I also well remember wanting desperately to join the Peace Corps and go out on a 50-mile hike. Alas, one needed a minimum of a B.A. in order to join the former, and their parents’ permission to participate in the latter. (I was but 11 at the time and possessed neither the degree nor parental permission.) Nonetheless, JFK inoculated in many of us a desire to be active, to give something of ourselves back to the country of our birth. JFK would be the reason why many of my generation became involved in what used to be known as “causes.” It’s something woefully lacking in today’s world . . .

        Post-war: able to get back into tailored clothing!

As a child, I well remember going to either the Union (train) Station in downtown Los Angeles or what was then known as the Los Angeles Airport (where parking was still both unpaved and free). In my recollection, both places were filled with uniformed soldiers, sailors, and marines rushing to make connections. In our neighborhood, there were many men who still bore the scars and halting gait of men who had been injured in the war. Unbeknownst to us - children living lives of relative privilege, many of our parents were actually in the 91%-92% income tax bracket and yet never tried to start a revolution. They were children of the Great Depression who survived a gruesome war and helped rebuild both a nation and a world. For some, it was a matter of noblesse oblige; for most, it was part of the obligation of being a patriotic citizen.

Where have those times gone?

I for one firmly desire to see Congress and the Biden administration institute something akin to “National Service; a series of programs and policies meant for the masses to join, thereby repairing our country while answering JFK’s challenge to “ask what we can do for our country.” In one of the very few conversations I ever had with my father about his 6 years of service during WWII, I remember him telling me that perhaps the best part of being in the service (outside of winning the war and coming back alive) was working alongside and getting to know people he otherwise would never have met. “I learned so much about people who were vastly different from myself . . . and they about me. Imagine: I was the first Jew many of these lads had ever met . . .”

Let’s face it: for quite some time, Americans have been growing further and further apart, whether the dividing lines be race, religion, politics, ethnicity economics or a combination of any or all these things. We frequently take sides, “knowing” that our problems or shortcomings are due to others with whom we have next to no contact with - let alone or knowledge of. This is a loss for all of us. If there were some way for people to work together for the common good, perhaps we could revive the dream of JFK: to ask what we can do for our country. I for one couldn’t care less whether the words come directly from JFK, Ted Sorensen, Winston Churchill or George St. John or Bob Dylan. If America is to survive, we must all find a way to work together.

Interestingly, the one person in the Biden Administration who has spoken most about reviving a national service program is Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He is all all in favor of expanding the Peace Corps (which still exists), as well as Vista and other such programs. Ironically Elaine Chao, Secretary Pete’s immediate predecessor at DOT (she is the wife Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell) served as the head of the Peace Corps during the first Bush Administration. Perhaps Buttigieg and Chao should get together with President Biden and his Chief of Staff Ron Klain in order to begin the process of creating a new National Service agenda for all of America.

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

Pride and Privilege, Paranoia and Prejudice

The late Alan King - one of the greatest of all Jewish comedians - once quipped “Here’s a brief summary of every Jewish holiday: ‘They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat!’”  

Mathematician/topical song writer Tom Lehrer wrote a well-known satiric piece called “National Brotherhood Week,” the opening lyrics of which go: “Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics, and the Catholics hate the Protestants, and the Hindus hate the Moslems, and everybody hates the Jews.”

In 1923, the Welsh-born, sober-sided David Lloyd George, who served as British Prime Minister from 1916-1922, noted: Of all the extreme fanaticism which plays havoc in man’s nature, there is not one as irrational as anti-Semitism. … If the Jews are rich [these fanatics] are victims of theft. If they are poor, they are victims of ridicule. If they take sides in a war, it is because they wish to take advantage from the spilling of non-Jewish blood. If they espouse peace, it is because they are scared by their natures or traitors. If the Jew dwells in a foreign land he is persecuted and expelled. If he wishes to return to his own land, he is prevented from doing so.”  Then too, there was an anonymous wit who once proclaimed “I don’t know which came first: the Jews or the anti-Semites.  It  seems to me that if G-d hadn’t, in his great wisdom created the ‘Chosen People,’ anti-Semites would have, in order to have an eternal target for their deranged animosity.”  

To my mind, the best of all quotes about the Jews comes from the pen of Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens): "If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one quarter of one percent of the human race.  It suggests a nebulous puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way.  Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of.  He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.

His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are also very out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.  He has made a marvelous fight in this world in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it.  The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished.

The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmaties, of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind.  All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains.  What is the secret of his immortality?”

Between the humor of comedian King and the wit of satirist Lehrer one gets an insider’s grasp of the irrepressible, self-deprecating wit of the Children of Abraham and Sarah.  Likewise, the brilliant insights of two non-Jews - Lloyd George and Mark Twain shine a blinding white light on the historic enigma of this people who are about to enter the year 5782 with prayers of hope and forgiveness, as well as historic pride and tearful remembrance.    

Without question, there are tons and tons of things to be proud of when it comes to the accomplishments of Jewish people.  Hell’s bells, a brief ramble through the pages of movie history, broken down into producers, directors, screenwriters, composers and stars is enough to make one’s chest puff up to the point of exploding.  Then too, the number of Jewish brothers and sisters involved in medical research, physics, chemistry, biology and various sciences we cannot even pronounce is legion. In the world of politics, the Senate Majority Leader (New York’s Chuck Schumer) and the floor leaders of both Trump impeachment trials (California’s Adam Schiff and Maryland’s Jaimie Raskin) are all "MOT” (members of the tribe).  Within the  Biden Administration we can identify far more than a minyan occupying important posts:

Ron Klain: Chief of Staff

Janet Yellin Secretary of Treasury

Alejandro Mayorkas: Secretary of Homeland Security

Tony Blinken Secretary of State

Merrick Brian Garland: Attorney General

Jared Bernstein: Council of Economic Advisers

Rochelle Walensky: Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Wendy Sherman: Deputy Secretary of State

Anne Neuberger Deputy National Security Adviser for Cybersecurity

Jeffrey Zients: COVID-19 Response Coordinator

David Kessler: Co-chair of the COVID-19 Advisory Board and Head of Operation Warp Speed

David Cohen: CIA Deputy Director

Rachel Levine: Deputy Health Secretary

Jennifer Klein: Co-chair Council on Gender Policy

Jessica Rosenworcel: Chair of the Federal Communications Commission

Stephanie Pollack: Deputy Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration

Polly Trottenberg: Deputy Secretary of Transportation

Mira Resnick: State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regional Security

Roberta Jacobson: National Security Council “border czar”

Gary Gensler: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman*

Genine Macks Fidler: National Council on the Humanities

Chanan Weissman: Director for Technology and Democracy at National Security Council

Thomas Nides U.S. Ambassador to Israel [to be confirmed]

Eric Garcetti U.S. Ambassador to India [to be confirmed]

David Cohen: U.S. Ambassador to Canada [to be confirmed]

Mark Gitenstein: U.S. Ambassador to the European Union [to be confirmed]

Deborah Lipstadt: Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism [to be confirmed]

Jonathan Kaplan: U.S. Ambassador to Singapore [to be confirmed]

Marc Stanley: U.S. Ambassador to Argentina [to be confirmed]

Rahm Emanuel U.S. Ambassador to Japan [to be confirmed]

Sharon Kleinbaum: Commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom  

Thankfully, to date, there has been precious little chatter from cyber anti-Semites about the overwhelming number of Jewish men and women serving the country in top-line posts.  Historically, those who hate Jews need little reason for their conspiratorial animosity.  Historically, the reasons why people hate Jews falls into roughly six categories:

1. Economic -- "We hate Jews because they possess too much wealth and power."

2. Chosen People -- "We hate Jews because they arrogantly claim that they are the chosen people."

3. Scapegoat -- "Jews are a convenient group to single out and blame for our troubles."

4. Deicide -- "We hate Jews because they killed Jesus."

5. Outsiders -- "We hate Jews because they are different than us." (The dislike of the unlike.)

6. Racial Theory -- "We hate Jews because they are an inferior race."

Every other hated group is hated for a relatively defined reason. We Jews, however, are hated in paradoxes: Jews are hated for being a lazy and inferior race - but also for dominating the economy and taking over the world. We are hated for stubbornly maintaining our separateness - and, when we do assimilate - for posing a threat to racial purity through intermarriages. We are seen as pacifists and as warmongers; as capitalist exploiters and as revolutionary communists; possessed of a Chosen-People mentality, as well as of an inferiority complex. It seems that we just can't win.

Over the past year or so, there has been an obvious rise in the number of anti-Semitic events in both the United States and Europe, as well as throughout much of the rest of the world. Much of it has been focused on Israel and the spread of COVID-19. In a sense, history is repeating itself; much of Europe blamed the Jew for the spread of the so-called “Black Death” of the early Middle Ages. And yet, if there are any bright spots on the horizon when it comes to COVID-19 and its Delta variant, they emanate from Jewish scientists, immunologists and infectious disease specialists in America, Europe and Israel. As Jews, we can be proud, knowing that our sons and daughters have been largely at the forefront of containing the worst, most lethal pandemic of the past century. But at the same time, we are both puzzled and frightened by the response of professional Jew-haters who tell their followers that we are largely responsible for its spread.

It is one of the great ironies of human history that virtually every powerful culture or civilization which sought to eliminate the Jews from the face of time are now extinct . . . to be found mostly in museums or libraries.  It is even more ironic that the great and literate histories of their growth, decline and fall, have been written primarily by Jewish historians.  Perhaps. when all is  said and done, the underlying truth of being  part of the “Chosen People” is precisely this: that we have been “chosen” to exist throughout time . . . to continue adding to human history regardless of what our enemies - both ancient and more contemporary - might have wished.    
I for one am more than amazed that few professional anti-Semites have yet to figure out that the vast majority of the people serving in the current administration are either Jewish or Catholic. If they had, the level of finger pointing and ethno-religious animosity would be far, more virulent than it already is.

We are by no means a people without flaws. Like any people, we have our historic and contemporary embarrassments. From the phony “Messiah” Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi (1626-1676) and the man who continued Zevi’s cult, Jacob Frank (1726-1791) and from such psychopathic American gangsters as Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegal (1906-1941) Mickey Cohen (1913-1976) and America’s greatest/worst fraudster Bernard “Bernie” Madoff (1938-2021) Jews have plenty of MOT (“Members of the Tribe”) to be embarrassed by.  Then too, we have provided the world with more medical discoveries, scientific breakthroughs, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners as well as Emmy, Oscar and Tony winners and MacArthur Fellowship (“Genius Grant”) recipients than any other tiny family on the face of the earth.   

As we enter this New Year, we have much to be proud of . . . and much to worry about. Those who hate despise and dream up noxious conspiracies about the children of Abraham and Sarah not about to disappear from the human equation. Then again, their pernicious derangement isn’t about to stop us from doing everything in our power to make the world a better, saner, more healthy place. It’s just part of the price we pay for being “chosen.” Pride comes with privilege; paranoia always runs alongside prejudice.

So be it.

Copyright ©2021 Kurt F. Stone

Faith and Belief . . . Wisdom and Comprehension

(Once again, it’s that time of year when, in addition to twice-weekly medical teleconferences, thrice-weekly college lectures, writing essays and trying to follow as many Dodger games as possible [they are currently in the midst of a nine-game winning streak], preparations for High Holiday services are consuming more and more of my time and grey matter. And again, its that time of the year when, in the hopes of using my waking hours more expeditiously, I double-dip: my weekly blog essays form the main basis for of my Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services . . . and vice-versa. What follows, will likely be delivered on Tuesday morning, September 7, the first day of the Jewish New Year 5782.)Unlike most monotheistic religions, Judaism has always placed a higher value on the deed, rather than the creed. Want proof? Ask ten learned rabbis what Jews believe about X or Y, and chances are, the rabbis will stroke their beards (that is, if they are males) and get a thoughtful look on their faces and then begin with something like “Well, some Jews believe . . . “ Then again, ask the same ten learned rabbis what Jews do in situation X or Y and the answer will be quickly forthcoming if not precisely the same. I have long assumed that the bit with pulling on a beard (or perhaps twirling a curl or a side lock) permits the scholar to look both thoughtful and wise even when he/she doesn’t know the answer.

The vast majority of rabbinic literary works (commentaries on virtually anything and everything under the sun) come mostly in the form of debate and argumentation. Indeed, one terribly wise and long forgotten sage once compared these discursive meanderings as “intellectual arguments across the generations.” Occasionally, when one sage wished to insult a colleague without calling him an uneducated simpleton, he would quote the 12th/13th century Spanish thinker Nahmanides (known as “The Ramban”): והמשכיל יבין (v’ha-maskeel yavin -  meaning - “The educated person will understand”).

                        Nachmanides (1194-1270)

Let’s take a brief rhetorical respite before returning to The Ramban’s insightful bit of wisdom and how it ties in to this essay/sermon. The past several years have brought unutterable changes to our lives - and not just in terms of our physical health, the state of our economy, or the changes made in the way we live our lives all over the globe. Most of us have, at one time or another, spent days, weeks and even months cordoned off from family and friends. We have learned, due to dire necessity, how to shop on-line, work from home, and even attend school and religious services via Zoom or other cyber platforms. For Anna and I as well as our family, the changes have been relatively easy; we love and get along well with our constant cabin-mates, and are employed in fields (like teaching, law and medical ethics) which can easily be accomplished from home. At the same time, we - like you - miss getting together panim el panim (Hebrew for “face-to-face”) with our friends, “playmates” and people who don’t live in our homes. Everyone should be so lucky! But the changes go well beyond matters of lifestyle and communication. One of the most serious and even frightening changes deals with how many people respond to reality. One of the very worst things to emerge over the past several years is the inability on the part of many to believe others . . . of being mistrustful of professionals, the highly-educated or leaders of the so-called “opposition” or, conversely the poorly educated, stridently fearful or those suffering from any number of noxious phobias.  Again, COVID-19 provides a chilling example of this most dangerous new trend . . . mistrustfulness.  Here in the  United States alonge, nearly 650,000 have lost their lives to COVID-19; many more have had the pants scared off them by the very thought of testing negative and perhaps beginning a wrenching downward spiral. Then too, there are all those who refuse to believe that there is any such thing as a COVID-19 pandemic - that it is a conspiracy on the part of one political party to wrest power from the other party or to take away individual freedom and liberty (think masks). How many times have we heard that the vaccines which nearly 190 million Americans have already willingly taken contain tracking devices - put there by Communists, Socialists and assorted agents of maleficence for various evil purposes?"  Or that the real reason for healthcare workers going door-to-door isn’t to get citizens vaccinated, but to ultimately take away their guns and Bibles?  (Yes, there are quite a few people who have bought into this bilge). In short, there are many who have lost the ability to trust anyone in a position of knowledge or authority. These are the folks that Ramban (Nachmanides) spoke of so many centuries ago when, tongue in cheek, said oh so many centuries ago והמשכיל יבין - “The enlightened, the educated will understand what is נָכוֹן (true) and what is שְׁטוּיוֹת (uttrt B.S.).”   

Of late, we have learned about virulent “anti-vaxxers” who have fallen prey to COVID-19 and its Delta variant and then, shortly before death, have urged people to go out and get vaccinated, be sure to wear masks, wash their hands and keep a reasonable amount of social distance. While it is both good and meritorious for them to warn people before their death of the importance of of these things (masking, social distancing and getting vaccinated), one must wonder what got into their minds prior to falling ill. How could they have ever been so easily convinced that they were somehow immune to the gravest pandemic since 1918? And even more important, how could so many supposedly intelligent, well-educated people convince so many others that they should fall prey to such an obvious hoax?

והמשכיל יבין

As we turn our attention to the New Year (whether Jewish or not), we would do well to recognize that truth comes far more often from the lips of experts (no matter what their fields) than from the mouths of fools.  And that those who attempt to convince the masses that it is the fools who are the true experts, generally have an ulterior motive up their sleeve.

מאחלת לך שנה טובה ומתוקה  (Hebrew for “Wishing you a and happy, healthy and sweet New Year.”

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

Afghanistan: "The Mother of Vicious Circles"

Afghanistan (originally called Qandahar) has long been known as either ‘The graveyard of empires” or “Where empires go to die.” Long before it was known as “Afghanistan,” Alexander the Great wrested the land from the Achaemenid (Ah-KEE-meh-ned) Persian Empire, only to lose it to the Seleucids who in turn were defeated by the Mauryans (from India) and eventually ended up under the control of the Greco-Bactrians. Jump to the early 13th century an history records that Genghis Kahn and his Mongols, were tossed aside by Tamerlane and the Mughal Empire. At various times Afghanistan has been invaded by the Sikhs (1837-38), Brits (1838-42 [First Anglo-Afghan War], 1878-1880 [Second Anglo-Afghan War] and 1919); the Soviet Union (1979-1989) and most recently, of course, The United States and NATO (“Operation Enduring Freedom” - 2001-2021). Somewhere along the line historians, noting that what all these invading empires had in common was that they had all been swept away into the dustbin of history . . . that there was a causal connection between Afghanistan and their demise; i.e. those Empires which attack, invade or take over Afghanistan are ultimately signing their own death warrants.

This is not necessarily true: while the Persian, Maurya, Mongol, Mughali and Soviet Empires may no longer exist as such, the Iranians, Indians, Greeks, Turks and Russians still do. And while the United States is in the midst a host of difficult challenges – both external and internal - its power and prestige is far from marching off to history’s bone yard. And while many agree with the long-forgotten wag who originally gave Afghanistan the moniker “The graveyard of empires,” I greatly prefer the New York Time’s columnist Maureen Dowd’s epithet . . . “The mother of vicious circles.”    By this she means - and I agree - that going into Afghanistan and doing battle there is far, far easier than getting the hell out. This is what history teaches again and again.

We are, of course, in the midst of this vicious circle today. President Biden’s recent announcement that he would have the overwhelming majority of U.S. and Coalition troops out of Afghanistan by September 11, 2021 (the 20th anniversary of the single-worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil) has quickly made military “experts” out of mere opinion-makers and forgetful finger-pointers out of partisan politicians. The fact that the Taliban have taken back the entire country in just a matter of days has forced Afghani President Ashraf Ghani’s flight from his embattled country, and left millions of Afghanis running after jet planes taking off from the tarmac at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, hoping to escape the terror that has already begun. To many - myself included - it is incomprehensible that Afghani government forces (for whom the U.S. and her allies spent far more $90 billion training and even more equipping) has quickly fallen like a wash-line of damp clothes.

Leading politicians on both sides of the aisle have expressed disagreement with the administration’s plan:

• Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a moderate New Hampshire Democrat who backed the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq nearly two decades ago, recently criticized President Biden, arguing his decision could embolden the Taliban to further destabilize the country.  She was, of course, correct.

• Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the former third-ranking Republican in the House and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, blasted the policy shift as a capitulation. “Wars don’t end when one side abandons the fight,” she said in a statement that echoed her father’s hawkish rhetoric in selling the wars at the start. “Withdrawing our forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11 will only embolden the very jihadists who attacked our homeland on that day 20 years ago.”

• In an op-ed published on Fox News on Friday, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), said the situation in Afghanistan was “. . . heartbreaking and infuriating. The Taliban are barreling towards seizing control of the country and could very well take Kabul before the 20th anniversary of September 11th. In their wake, Al Qaeda is poised to come roaring back and attack America, once again,” Waltz wrote. (I rather doubt this last sentence; we have as much to fear from QAnon as from Al Qaeda.)

• Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a potential presidential candidate in 2024, attacked Biden on Friday over Afghanistan and critical race theory, a favorite issue of conservatives. “It’s clear President Biden and his Department of Defense have been more concerned with critical race theory and other woke policies than planning an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Cotton tweeted.

It seems like many Republicans are secretly glad that the Taliban have quickly seized 24 of Afghanistan’s 36 provincial capitals, made their way to Kabul and forced President Ghani, his family and top aides to flee to Tajikistan. How could this be? Do they find joy in so much bloodshed? In seeing women and girls banned from attending school, driving cars, using cell phones or listening to music? Maybe yes, maybe no; one can never tell what any group’s most religious radicals will support. But aside from that - and all the murdering and raping going on - they find it heartwarming that they can pile on President Biden and the Democrats . . . scoring points with their “base” as they state their case for both the 2022 and 2024 elections. They seem to forget that not too long before the 2020 election, then President Donald Trump stunned the Pentagon by announcing that he would get all American troops out of Afghanistan before the end of the year:

Then too, few seem to remember that the Taliban first rose to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s; that it was formed by guerrilla fighters who drove out Soviet forces in the previous decade; that they had the help of both the CIA and Pakistani intelligence services.  In the fall of 1996, the Taliban seized Kabul and declared the country an Islamic emirate. Taliban rule was brutal and repressive. It instituted the most severe form of shariah law imaginable. Women had virtually no rights; they were barred from education and forced to wear clothing that completely covered them. Music and other forms of media were banned.

The Taliban’s ideology was similar to that of its counterpart al-Qaeda, though its interests were limited to ruling just Afghanistan. In exchange for help fighting groups aligned with the nation’s government, Taliban leaders harbored Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda members involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A U.S.-led coalition ousted the regime later that year. The Taliban quickly grew.  From whence their funding? For the most part, its funding came from a variety of sources: some money comes from the opium trade and drug dealing, or other crimes such as smuggling. The group taxes and extorts farms and other businesses. Militants are sometimes involved in kidnapping for ransom. The group also gets donations from a wide array of benefactors who support its cause or view it as a useful asset, experts say.

Many politicians, pundits and foreign policy/diplomatic experts are accusing the Biden Administration of conducting a rushed, poorly planned, and chaotic withdrawal. In the main, I agree with these critics. But then again, those who criticize have provided no answers as to what U.S. and Coalition forces should have done.  One must take into account that any administration, any arms, any invading force from Alexander the Great to George W. Bush would have suffered the same consequences. This is a tough, largely tribal part of the world that can withstand almost anything. It is, to say, in Maureen Dowd’s pity expression, the “Mother of the vicious circle.”

I truly wish I had an answer and a bushel-basket full of suggestions as to how to eliminate the Taliban and restore Afghanistan to the sort of place it was before Tamerlane or Genghis Kahn. But I cannot . . . nor can anyone in Foggy Bottom, the Pentagon, at NATO headquarters,  or on Capitol Hill.

Knowing and understanding history may be a start. Understanding what, at base, the goals of the Taliban are, may be useful. But, it seems to me, turning on one another and using our failures (or lack of long-term success) as political tools for the next election is the worst thing one can do when facing the most vicious of all historic circles.

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

What Does Tucker Carlson See in Viktor Orban?

Let’s assume that most, if not all of you reading this piece know who Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson is. For the few who don’t, Tucker (1969- ), is the son of Richard “Dick” Warner Carlson, a former “gonzo” journalist who eventually became the director of the Voice of America, president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles. When Tucker was nearly 10, his father married Patricia Swanson, an heiress to the Swanson Food Enterprises fortune. Tucker is a Paleoconservative news commentator for Fox News. As of the beginning of 2021, he is the most-watched, most popular commentator on cable television. Estimates of his salary at Fox range from $6-25 million a year. The ultimate preppy who received his undergraduate education at St. George’s School in Rhode Island (where he chaired the “Dan White Society” [an apparent reference to the American political assassin who murdered San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk] and married the headmaster’s daughter Susan), Carlson has long been a vocal opponent of progressivism, a critic of immigration, and has been described as a racist, misogynistic, ultra-nationalist. He is also a first-class pain in the ass, who while on camera interviewing someone he disagrees with, is well-known for maintaining a look of puzzlement; at times variously frowning and raising an eyebrow in supposed consternation. 

This past week, Tucker Carlson broadcast live from Budapest, where he spent a good deal of time interviewing and exchanging grins with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who heads an authoritarian government bent on targeting liberal institutions, including universities, the judiciary and the media. While in Hungary, Carlson took a helicopter to inspect a border fence designed to keep out migrants. Yes, in addition to all his other political phobias, P.M. Orban is also a xenophobe. Carlson’s visit bolsters Mr. Orban’s mission to establish Budapest as an ideological center for what he sees as an international conservative movement. 

Orban (1960- ) who refers to his governing philosophy as “illiberal” democracy, has, over the past twenty years, been compared to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, France’s Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump . . . which tells you just about all you need to know about the corrupt Hungarian autocrat. To Tucker Carlson and a growing number of American paleoconservatives, Orban is a shining star; a guidepost on the path to a new America built for – and run by – white Christian men who bar the gates to most of the world’s “struggling masses yearning to breathe free,” and use whatever conspiracies they might concoct in order to keep their camp followers scared witless.

In his first nightly newscast from Budapest, Carlson praised Hungary as a “small country with a lot of lessons for the rest of us,” and held up Hungary’s hardline policy on rejecting asylum seekers as a model for an American immigration system that he believes is too lenient and has weakened the power of native-born citizens, an argument that Carlson’s critics say overlaps with white supremacist ideology. Carlson also praised Hungarian Prime Minister Orban for not allowing "this nation of 10 million people to be changed forever by people we didn't invite in and who are coming here illegally.” To make sure his US viewers understood his message, he contrasted Mr Orban's policies with those of President Biden:

"Because the lessons are so obvious, and such a clear refutation to the policies we currently have, and the people who instituted those policies, Hungary and its government have been ruthlessly attacked and unfairly attacked: 'It's authoritarian, they're fascists…' There are many lies being told right now, that may be the greatest of all."

Unbelievably, Carlson has gone so far off the rails as to claim that Hungary is “freer than America.” In Orban’s Hungary, the ultimate preppie told his fellow travelers, their leader refers to white Christians as “the original inhabitants” of the country. Carlson treats this vision of national identity as fundamental to Hungary’s “success.” As Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent recently noted: According to Carlson, here [in America] . . . you’ll be silenced by Silicon Valley or hounded from your job if you dare criticize the “orthodoxy” of liberal internationalism and social liberalism — that is, if you yearn for association with a national identity that is culturally insulated and unsullied by socially liberal threats (like “transgender athletes”) to traditional conservative values. Who’s freer? If you’re an American, the answer is painful to admit.

It would be a pleasure to say that Tucker Carlson is a lone voice in this disgraceful, despotic forest. But alas, he is not; far from it. As the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum noted in an essay which came out just the other day, The aggrieved Americans who now find their way to Orbán or Vladimir Putin also dislike their own country, albeit for different reasons. They cannot abide its racial diversity, its modern culture, its free press. Those who dream of a white-tribalist alternative—one that also puts pressure on gay people and uses anti-Semitic tropes in its propaganda—believe they have found this nirvana at dinners and think-tank events in Budapest. What American paleoconservatives fail - or even worse, refuse - to recognize is the irony that under a nationalist autocrat like Orban, it’s impossible for a Hungarian equivalent of Carlson—a loud television pundit, critical of the government, watched by millions of people—to exist. In Hungary, the ruling party doesn’t merely influence the press. It owns the bulk of the press, and not metaphorically.

My dear “Pal Al” Blake - the nicest Yankee fan I know – sent me an email the other day asking whether it might work for people to start boycotting Tucker Carlson’s advertisers on Fox.  Well, I looked it up, and to my amazement discovered that at his peak the likes of Disney, T-Mobile and the brokerage firm Ameritrade were among those who paid big bucks to keep him on the air. Of late, most have left the fold. In the second quarter of 2021, Tucker Carlson Tonight had as its most prolific sponsors “Fox News Channel” (17 airings), “My Pillow” (13 airings), “Balance of Nature” (9 airings) and “Rejuvenate Muscle Health” (5 airings.) Could it be that the preppie who has been at the forefront of pushing anti-vaccine theories, called the Joint Chiefs of Staff head “a pig” and continually talked up replacement theory is now on a downward spiral? Well, in the words of Elliott Ness, “Follow the money.”

To give the paleoconservative Carlson the benefit of the doubt (why, I do not know . . . but I guess that’s the rabbi in me), that he truly doesn’t believe much more than a soupçon of the bilge he broadcasts on Fox, his cynicism about America is so profound, and his nihilism so overpowering, that he simply does not care. If he can make people angry, he achieves his most important goal. Sound like anyone who served as POTUS from 2017-2021?

This is all very, very dangerous stuff.  People like Tucker Carlson, Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green, Paul Gosar and Matt Gaetz as well as Governors Ron De Santis  and Greg Abbott (and let’s not forget the terrorists of January 6), American Democracy stands atop a desperate precipice.  

If anyone had told me back in the 1960s that a half-century later I would consider myself and fellow “freaks” more patriotic than the “straights,” I would have asked them what in the hell they were smoking. But this is no more the case.  As we used to say back in the days of the Free Speech Movement and People’s Park . . . “let your freak flag fly” . . .

Don’t give in, and above all, don’t give up: America is not and never shall be Hungary . . . or Russia or Brazil.  We are the land of the free and the home of everyone . . . 

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

Way Down East in the Land of Lobsters

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Maine, the easternmost state in the nation is tiny. According to the most recent census, it is home to a mere 1.344 million people (42nd smallest in the nation). In 2018, HealthIQ.com named Maine the nation’s 3rd most vegan state; in 2010, a study found Maine to be the least religious state in the United States; in 2018, Bon Appetit magazine name Portland, the state’s most populous city (population c. 67,000) “Restaurant City of the Year.” By far, the most famous people to hail from Maine have been Nelson A. Rockefeller, Dorothea Dix, film director John Ford (to my way of thinking the greatest of them all), as well as writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.B. White, and Stephen King.

Maine is also known for its pristine parks and waters, and for producing more lobster, crabs and kelp (seaweed) than any other state in the nation. These have long provided a steady flow of jobs and income for the state whose motto Dirigo (Latin for “I lead” or “I direct”) has long set a striding point for the people of this physically beautiful, utterly delightful state. (Springtide Seaweed, the nation’s largest organic seaweed farm, can also be found on the shores of Frenchman Bay, located in a onetime cannery.)

But much of this is now in jeopardy, and cries out for our help . . . no matter whether we live in Maine, Florida, Ohio or Washington State.   

So what is the challenge?   

According to a troubling, fact-filled article published in the July 23rd, 2021 edition of the Boston Globe Magazine, there is a move afoot on the part of a firm larded with Norwegian investors called American Aquafarms to build the world’s largest “closed cage” ocean-based salmon farm — 30 circular pens, each 150 feet in diameter — on two sites covering 120 acres in the heart of Frenchman Bay (shown in photo). According to Globe writer Ellen Rupell Shell, “At full capacity, the annual yield of the [proposed] farm is projected to be 66 million pounds [of salmon], three times the total production of the state’s only other large salmon farming operation.”  And here’s both the rub and the challenge: not only would the “aqua farm” cause Maine’s lobster industry (which represents a substantial percentage of the state’s annual income) to plummet by as much as 62% and likely cause the nation’s largest kelp/seaweed business to collapse; it would cost thousands upon thousands of jobs, and destroy one of the most Edenic places in the United States. . . Frenchman Bay.

A brief word about Frenchman Bay (called by some “Maine’s most dramatic bay”): Likely named for Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer who visited the area in 1604, it was an important staging point for French warships preparing to fight the English during “King William’s War” (1689-97).  Located in Hancock County, the bay is bounded on the east by the Schoodic Peninsula, and on the west by Mount Desert Island; parts of both are in Acadia National Park. The area has long been the summer home of rich easterners (including several generations of Bushes whose compound, “Walker Point Estate” has been in the family for more than 100 years) and provided the state with a significant financial base. 

Frenchman Bay also has a highly fragile and vulnerable ecosystem; because it is served by no large rivers, the bay’s ability to flush out waste is rather limited.  And this presents yet another glaring problem with American Aquafarm’s proposed “closed cage” salmon farm. It would likely force the remaining lobsters (already beginning to suffer from the effects of global warming) to move north (thus decimating an entire industry) and turn a historically untarnished biome into an ecological trash heap.  And to what end?  Profit my friend . . . tons and tons of profit for shareholders who will never have to witness precisely what their investment hath wrought.

From Norway, American Aquafarm’s vice president Eirik Jors (founder and former CEO of a Nordic securities firm), insists that what he calls his company’s “cutting-edge” closed-pen technology — built around a cavernous fabric bag tucked around the pen to collect debris and ward off pests — will prioritize fish health and “on average” capture 90 percent of solid waste, thus minimizing ocean pollution and deadly algae blooms.

One should note, however, that the cited technologies have not as yet, to the best of my knowledge, been tested under Maine conditions, making their potential for ecological impairment unknown.  Then too, Norway, the world’s standard-setter in commercial fish farming, has extremely strict environmental regulations that include — among other things — limiting the size and density of aquafarming operations. The salmon farm that American Aquafarms has proposed for Maine will have 20 to 60 percent higher density of fish than would be permitted in Norwegian waters.  How does American Aquafarms expect to accomplish this “miracle” in the face of a lot of lots and lots of devoted Mainers who fervently oppose the salmon farm?  One way might be for American Aquafarms to spread tons of $$$ to members of state government and convince them that it will be in everyone’s best interest to give the project the go-ahead. 

Sound familiar?

Don’t get me wrong: I am by no means against capitalism; we Stones are still beneficiaries of our father’s career as a stock broker. Nonetheless, I’ve never been sanguine with those whose drive for profit all but blinds them to the rest of reality. I mean, what good is yet another fortune if in so doing it ultimately destroys the ecological balance?  Can more millions shield anyone from increased global warming, a decimated environment or the utter destruction of the brilliant balance the Good Lord constructed during the six days of creation?  I for one find it utterly stupefying.  If a lobbyist temps a stakeholder with a treasure, what will that treasure avail him/her if it ultimately adds to the destruction of other living creatures?  Let’s just hope that there are far more people out there who love the lobsters of Frenchman Bay than pots of gold. 

We Americans are a most resilient people.  Born of revolutionary fervor and nurtured by the concept of e pluribus unum (Latin for “out of many, one”) we have the unique ability to band together as Davidic warriors when it comes to going up against the Goliaths who attack us. This is precisely what is going on up in Maine.  I urge readers to check out the website of the Frenchman Bay United Organization – a group of brothers and sisters who have banded together to stop the raping of their beloved corner of the ecosphere.    I am in personal contact with many of them, offering what little advice I can for their campaign against those who would trade in their lobster/kelp culture for the big business of salmon farming.  They are good people who deserve both our praise and assistance . . . regardless of where we live.  

The good people of Frenchman Bay United Organization are of course striving to keep the issue before state leaders from Maine Governor Janet T. Mills (who just announced she is running for reelection) on down to members of the state legislature and local municipal leaders.  Precisely how much lobbyist money is going to ultimately flow around the state (on the part of the pro-fish farming gang) is as yet uncertain.  What is known is that the folks of Frenchman Bay, Acadia National Park and beyond possess something the deep-pocketed investors and lobbyists do not: people power. 

Although I don’t personally indulge in lobsters, clams, oysters or other treyf delicacies (keeping kosher will do that), I nonetheless whole-heartedly applaud and support the efforts of both the people and the shellfish who love Frenchman Bay.

Check out their website and see if you can lend a hand . . .

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

We Alone Can Fix It

In their riveting, best-seller on the final year of Donald Trump’s presidency (Only I Can Fix It) crack Washington Post writers Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker have thrown open the doors and windows of an Oval Office and an administration which perpetually put personal gain and political triumph well above the needs, interests and future of the people of the United States, and thus the world. Far from being a partisan political screed, Leonnig’s and Rucker’s book is a day-by-day, moment-by-moment account of what history will likely remember as being the most misguided presidency in this nation’s history - ever since the day George Washington took the oath of office in New York. Speaking of our country’s first President, Trump actually had the delusional chutzpah to claim “I think it would be hard if George Washington came back from the dead, and he chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice president, I think it would have been very hard for them to beat me.”

In their painstakingly-documented work, Leonnig and Rucker dispassionately show Trump’s growing inability to respond to the Covid pandemic, thus separating the nation’s health from his own political needs - most specifically, of wiping up the electoral floor with former Vice President Joseph Biden in the November election 2020. Most of us well remember reading about Trump’s personal encounter with Covid-19; of his brief hospitalization at Walter Reed, and his sudden return to the White House. Upon reading that he had been treated with a pharmaceutical cocktail of Dexamethasone (a steroid commonly used to treat asthma and rheumatoid arthritis), the experimental drug Remdesivir, (a monoclonal antibody cocktail, also called REGN-COV2), Zinc, Vitamin D, famotidine (Pepsid, to treat ulcers), Melatonin (commonly used to treat insomnia) and aspirin, I thought it to be a rather bizarre medical package with many potential side effects. Particularly the first, Dexamethasone, whose known side effects include paranoia, delirium and hallucinations. From this point on (October 2020) Trump seemed to get weirder and weirder . . .

Trump’s political modus operandi was all about down-playing the seriousness of the Covid-19 virus, and proclaiming - against all available medical evidence - that warm weather (or hydroxychloroquine or internally administered bleach) were just what the doctor ordered — precisely which docs he never got around to telling us. Those who remember his presidential press gatherings will no doubt recall the severely pained, looking down at their shoes responses of such MDs as Deborah Birx (the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator) and Anthony Fauci (the then long, longtime Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and today, President Biden’s Chief Medical Advisor).

Then there was the issue of wearing masks, maintaining social distance and keeping public crowds to an absolute minimum. With all these issues, Trump and his closest advisors came out on the wrong - the strictly political - side of the challenge.  As early as October 2020, Trump told his team that he would not wear a mask in public because he thought it would “make me look weak” in the eyes of his supporters.  In one rambling comment, Trump told a reporter: I just don’t want to be doing — I don’t know, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute Desk, the great Resolute Desk. I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens — I don’t know, somehow I don’t see it for myself. I just, I just don’t.”  Truth to tell, there were any number of high-ranking members of the  administration who paid close attention to what the medical folks were advising. But for many, their tight-lipped approval wound up being a one-way ticket back to the private sector.

As time went on, the Trump version of Covid-19, masking and what its true dangers might be, seeped into the very marrow of his political base . . .  including those who were and are most comfortable with conspiracy theories. They decided that if their leader wouldn’t wear a mask, neither would they;  if their local leaders told them that vaccines were more dangerous than the virus itself, they surely would never submit to a vaccination which included electronic tracking devices . . . and on and on.  

Eventually, Trump and his team came up with their version of FDR’s Manhattan Project: they called it Operation Warp Speed; the name was derived from Star Trek’s imaginary USS Enterprise’s ability to travel at a speed faster than light. Trump’s greatest priority was creating a vaccine (a “cure”) by early November 2020 - just before America went to the polls.  Turns out that the British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca came through with a vaccine that was highly effective in blocking transmission of the virus first.  Jared Kusher, the president’s son-in-law quickly brokered a $1.2 billion deal to purchase 300 million of the first one billion doses the  company planned to produce. When told this, his father-in-law “sounded deflated” in Leonnig and Rucker’s words.  “I’m going to get killed,” the president said.  “Oh, this is terrible news.  (British P.M.) Boris Johnson is going to  have a field day with this. . . . I don’t want any press on this” Trump told Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar (the former CEO of Eli Lilly & Co. “Don’t do any press on this.  Let’s wait.” 

And so they had to wait until January 21, 2021 - the first day of the Biden administration - to make “Operation Warp Speed” completely functional.

As we head into August, 2021, America and the world are entering a new phase in the COVID19 pandemic. In the past month alone, cases of COVID-19 have tripled, and hospitalizations and deaths are rising among unvaccinated people. While the rates are still sharply down from their January highs, officials are concerned by the reversing trendlines and what they consider needless illness and death. Where at the beginning of June the CDC advised that those who were vaccinated were pretty much out of the woods and that schools, businesses and sporting venues could pretty much resume as before, by the end of July President Biden, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Wilensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical advisor, are urging that due to the Delta mutation and the fact that so many, many Americans are refusing to be vaccinated, we are likely going to see the return of masks, social distancing and a massive campaign to get people immunized.   “Look,” the POTUS said just the other day, “the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated.”

Indeed, there are now approximately 90 million Americans who have yet to get shots. Just four states with low vaccination rates made up 40% of new cases last week, and nearly half of them came from Florida alone. Those of us living here in Florida are well aware of how Governor Ron DeSantis (a.k.a. “Donald Trump’s ‘Mini Me’”) has placed economy over health and actually threatened to fine any business, school or cruise line for mandating people to show proof of having been vaccinated against COVID-19. And, it is strictly against the law here in the “Sunshine State” to mandate the wearing of masks.  According to statistics provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation, states, and individual Congressional Districts that voted for Donald Trump in 2020 had a significantly lower percentage of adults receiving COVID19 vaccinations than states and districts that gave their votes to Joe Biden.  Not only does the rate of the vaccinated-versus-unvaccinated show a partisan political divide, so too does educational level (the lower the amount of schooling, the smaller the percentage of those receiving vaccines) and then there’s  urban-versus rural.  

According to Dr. Fauci, the U.S. is in an “unnecessary predicament . . . . We’re going in the wrong direction.”  And just as the number of those entering hospitals is on the rise, so too are conspiracy theories which keep people from seeking prophylactic measures.  Case in point: when the president suggested that healthcare volunteers go “door'-to-door” talking to people about the importance of getting themselves vaccinated, Representative Madison Cawthorn (R.-NC) warned “Now they’re talking about going door-to-door to take vaccines to the people . . . . Then think about what those mechanisms could be used for,” Cawthorn darkly warned. “They could then go door-to-door to take your guns. They could then go door-to-door to take your Bibles.” 

Although I am a firm supporter of the Constitution’s 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech, this is going too far; it is akin  to violating Justice Holmes’ dictum from the 1919 Schenck v. United States case about "falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."  Those who spread these kinds of vile lies via the internet, blogs or the so-called “dark net/dark web” should be fined and be held accountable.  Period.  This is playing with people’s lives, and from what I can see or tell, for purely political reasons.

So obviously, Donald Trump’s claim about “Only I Can Fix It” contained a massive dose of what Grandma used to refer to as “canal water.”  I would like to amend this and state  that  when it comes to the current grave challenge, “Only we can fix it.”  And despite the rapid rise in new cases of COVID-19 and the Delta variant; despite the even greater levels of anger, fear and brainlessness which adhere to imbecilic anti-vaxxers,  there are some challenges which we may well be able to fix.  Increasingly over the past few weeks, there are a greater number of people both great and small, beginning to emerge from the anti-vaxxer’s closet.  Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Louisianan Steve Scalise, number two in House Republican leadership  and Alabama Governor Kay Ivey are admitting to having been vaccinated and urging their constituents to do likewise.  Conservative radio and television celebs like talker Phil  Valentine and Fox News’ Sean Hannity are talking up the necessity of being vaccinated.  (Egad . . . for the first time in my life Sean Hannity and I actually agree on something!)

Locally, teachers,  preachers, sports icons and just plain folks are standing up, helping people change their minds . . . coming to the understand that getting a shot and wearing a mask is not  the end of personal freedom . . . but can actually save lives.  I’ve come to believe that where once  these  Republicans used the weapon of fear in order to score  points and win votes, it’s now come too close to home; the time to act like responsible, empathic leaders is now.

I wish I could tell you that having a heart-to-heart conversation with a staunchly anti-vaxx neighbor, friend or family member just might help them change their tune - but I cannot.  Debating people who  choose not to think for themselves is akin to banging one’s head against a brick wall; all you gain is a concussion or a migraine.  And so, unless you are in love with cerebral pain, leave the convincing to those occupying the same original space as the naysayers.

These are difficult times.  However, I do believe that a healthier future is within our grasp - if only we recognize that together, we can fix it. 

Masks on!

Copyright2021 Kurt F. Stone

Ty

       Ty Redler and his Fiancée, the soon-to-be-doctor Kira Dubester 

At this point in my life I’ve been an ordained rabbi for more than 40 years (41 to be precise). In all that time I’ve never considered it a job or profession . . . as normally understood. No, to me, it’s always been somewhere between a passion and an art form. I did spend many years serving various congregations in Ohio and mostly Florida, but eventually discovered that as much as I loved the art form, I really, truly did not like the job; too many bosses exercising far too much authority over a single human being and his family. As a rabbi, I’ve officiated at easily more than 500 weddings, trained at least 1,000 b’nai, b’not mitzvah (bar/bat mitzvah students) and presided at well over 3,000 funerals.  “How in the world,” people have long asked, “can you maintain emotional stability when you’re around so much death and dying?”  A good question indeed.  If there is an answer, it comes from my mentor, the late Rabbi Emanuel "Manny”  Schenck (1909-1991). 

Upon arriving in South Florida in July of 1982, Manny sort of attached himself to me and I to him. He would grill me on texts, watch me give sermons and offer advice . . . whether or not I asked for it.  Manny was a no-nonsense kind of rabbi; heck, he spent WWII as a chaplain with the 4th Armored Division, a part of Gen. George S. Patton's famed Third Army.  He was even the presiding rabbi  when U.S. troops liberated the Nazis' Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany at war’s end.  I well remember him  telling me one day how to emotionally survive as a rabbi: “At day’s end, open the bottom drawer of  your desk, stare into it, and then slam it shut.” I have followed his advice ever since. 

As mentioned above, I’ve officiated at thousands of funerals.  Many died of what we Stones call “terminal longevity.” Others succumbed to long-term illness;  some died at birth or in accidents; some were murdered or committed suicide; many died of AIDS or sudden cardiac events.  I have buried thousands I never knew as well as my own parents, grandparents, mother-in-law and close friends.  The most difficult task of all, is officiating at the service of a current or former student. 

Today . . . and tomorrow . . . and for a  long time into the future, I/we (including my wife Annie) mourn the passing of one of our all-time favorite students, Ty Redler.  So long as we may live, we  will always have vivid memories of Ty sitting at our kitchen table, our Chocolate Lab Ginger Rogers Stone (the dog with the “Shabbos pearls”) at his feet, chanting his haftara in preparation for becoming a bar mitzvah.  Ty and I would spend tons of time discussing the one thing we had most in common: Crohn’s Disease.  By the time I met Ty, he was in the very early stages of diagnoses; I, on the other hand, had first been diagnosed back in the late 1960s when it was still called “Terminal Ileitis.”  I had already gone through 5 surgeries tons of medications, and bouts of being fed nothing but T.P.N. (Total Parenteral Nutrition) through what is called a “Hickman Catheter.”  The whole contraption is attached to a large bag containing a solution of water (30 to 40mL), energy (30 to 45kcal), amino acids, essential fatty acids (1 to 2kg), vitamins and minerals.  It is then carried around in a canvas should bag.  When speaking of whether or not some day he would have to go around wearing a TPN bag, he asked me “what does it taste like?”  Smiling, I asked him if he remembered studying about the manna G-d provided the Israelites throughout their 40 years in the wilderness.  “And do you remember how the rabbis answered your question?” I asked him.  “Oh yes,” Ty said, brightening; “whatever food they thought about while eating the manna, that’s what it would taste like!”  “Precisely,” I told him . . . “another miracle!”

The one thing I tried to get across to my young student was that in the long run, attitude was as important - if not more so - than medicine, surgery or prayer. “Just remember,” I would tell him over and over, “You are a healthy person who, it so happens, has a serious condition; you are not sick. That attitude can and will add so much to your life.” For me, that attitude has served as the motivation for entering the world of medical ethics and pouring over tens of dozens of clinical trials dealing with gastroenterological deficits. For Ty, it led him to earning a B.S. in Molecular Biology, co-authoring research papers on the development of the intestinal ecosystem, and eventually going to work for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America.

Despite his Crohn’s and Achalasia (an aftereffect - or sequela - of Crohn’s), despite being fed via TPN and eventually submitting to an Esophagectomy (a surgical procedure to remove some or all of the swallowing tube between your mouth and stomach [esophagus] and then reconstructing it using part of another organ), Ty kept up a solid and seemingly endless social life. Indeed, he was a healthy man with a serious condition. He even fell in love with a medical student, Kira, whom I understand is going to make pediatric gastroenterology her medical specialty.

Ty’s passing hits so very close to home. That he should have left this world in his latter 20s, while I, his rabbi, teacher and friend should continue soldiering on into his 72nd year, makes no sense whatsoever. To his parents Sandi and Artie, his brother Gage, Kira, whom I have never met, and Rusty, his beloved service dog, all I can say - beyond the usual words of sympathy and condolence - is that in his all too brief life, Ty managed to accomplish something very few ever do: make the world a better place. Both his memory and his accomplishments are eternal. In Ty’s memory, please consider making a contribution to either the Humane Society of North Florida or the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America . . . the first for Rusty, his four-legged “Partner in Crime,” and the second, for a young healthy man who, most regrettably, was saddled with a serious condition.

May Ty rest in peace . . . and may his memory be a blessing for us all.

Be healthy . . . regardless of whatever condition G-d may have saddled you with.

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

Want to Join Us for High Holidays 5782?

Within the Jewish world, it is most commonplace to hear people say either “Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur (the Jewish High Holidays) are really early this year,” or “Gee, the Holidays are really late this year.” Truth to tell, this is impossible: Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year) always begins on the first day of the Jewish month of Tishri; Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Atonement) always falls on the 10th day of Tishri . . . come rain or shine. What does come either early or late are the corresponding dates on the Gregorian Calendar. This year - 5782 on the Jewish calendar - falls, as ever, on the 1st day of Tishri, which corresponds to Monday, September 6, 2021 on the Gregorian; Yom Kippur begins as the sun goes down on the 10th of Tishri, which corresponds to Wednesday evening, September 15. Precisely why or how the Jewish calendar is about to enter year 5782 is a horse of a different color. But don’t worry: I’m not going to go into it at this point, and besides, it won’t be showing up on your final exam . . . whether your are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jain. Suffice it to say that official setting of the Jewish calendar vis-à-vis years (which goes according to the sun) is attributed to a an early rabbinic work entitled Seder ha-Olam Rabbah (“The Great Order of the World”) by the 2nd century (C.E.) rabbi Jose (pronounced Yossi in Hebrew) ben Halafta, the fifth most frequently mentioned tannah (sage) in the Mishnah, occasionally referred to as “The best Jewish you’ve never read.”

Once again, we, the men, women and children of the North Broward Chavurah are holding High Holiday services via Zoom.  We held them (along with a bit of trepidation) last year, and things worked out beyond our wildest expectations.  We had people joining us in our sanctuary (actually, the Stone family dining room) from as far away as Germany, France and Israel, as well as California, Massachusetts and Wisconsin.  And believe it or not there were any number of non-Jewish folks joining us for prayers, fellowship, stories, singing and a whole lot of contemplative moments.  For while at root, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are deeply Jewish observances, they are also eminently international in scope.  In other words, even if you are not Jewish you are more than welcome . . .

Below, are the dates and times (all Eastern Daylight Time) for services:

Erev (Eve of )Rosh Hashanah, Monday, Sept. 6, 7:30 PM

1st Day Rosh Hashanah, Tuesday, Sept. 7, 10:00 AM

2nd Day Rosh Hashanah, Wednesday, Sept. 8, 10:00 AM

Kol Nidre (Eve of the Day of Atonement), Wednesday, Sept. 15, 6:30 PM

Yom Kippur, Thursday, Sept. 16, 9:30 AM

_______________________________________________________________

For those interested in finding out more about services, please email me/us at: highholidays@kurtfstone.com 

Ask any and all questions you wish . . . and don’t be put off by the cyber technicality of attending services via Zoom.  We will be happy to send you simple instructions on how to sign up and fully participate, as well as a link for you to download a beautiful (free) high holiday prayer book (machzor).

Although services are held in a combination of Hebrew, English and just a touch of Aramaic, don’t worry . . . as with everything I do, I’m teaching and explaining every step of the way.

L’shalom,

Rabbi Kurt F. Stone, D.D.

There's More to President Grant Than War, Whiskey and Dishonest Dealings

Today is the 4th of July; America’s 245th birthday. It is, of course, a day of fireworks (“The bombs bursting in air”), backyard barbeques and for some of us, watching for the umpteenth time Peter Stone’s magnificent musical 1776, starring William Daniels (John Adams), Howard Da Silva (Benjamin Franklin) and Ken Howard (Thomas Jefferson). For American historians, it is the time to write yet another essay, hopefully shedding even greater light on this magnificent experiment in liberty and representative democracy called America. At this time of year, Presidential historians are, as is their wont, surveying anew the presidential ranking of all 45 of the nation’s Chief Executives - from Washington to Trump. (#46, Joe Biden has not yet made the list as of today he’s only served in office 165 days.)

                             Ulysses S. Grant: America’s 18th President

When it comes to Presidential ranks decade-by-date, there are many givens: Lincoln, Washington, FDR and TR have ranked numbers 1-4 as long as anyone can remember. Then too, those at the bottom of the list - Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Warren G. Harding and John Tyler - haven’t budged; they are still the worst of the worst . . . with the exception of Donald J. Trump who now enters the list at 41 out of 45.  (BTW: Barack Obama debuted at #12 in 2016 and as of the latest polling, has moved up to #10). There are some surprises: Dwight Eisenhower, as an example, has moved all the way from 9th to 5th best over the past 2 decades.  The president whose reputation has improved the most in the past two decades? That’s Ulysses S. Grant, who started at No. 33 and is now ranked 20th. Grant has had a number of sympathetic biographies in recent years, and these days gets more credit for Reconstruction and his diplomacy than condemnation for his supposed dipsomania and alleged corruption.

That Grant loved bourbon (likely “Old Crow”) was well known to just about everyone.  According to one tale, a leading politician told President Abraham Lincoln that the man he was about to appoint his commanding general was nothing more than a rotten drunk.  “He is not himself half the time; he can’t be relied upon, it is a shame to have such a man in command of an army,” the man told Lincoln. “So Grant gets drunk, does he?” queried Lincoln, addressing himself to one of the particularly active detractors of the soldier. “Yes, he does, and I can prove it,” was the reply. “Well,” returned Lincoln, with the faintest suspicion of a twinkle in his eye, “you needn’t waste your time getting proof; you just find out, to oblige me, what brand of whiskey Grant drinks, because I want to send a barrel of it to each one of my generals.”  That might have ended the crusade against General Grant . . . not the historic stereotype . . . which may or may not be true.  

At the end of  1930, Scribner’s Magazine began publishing what would prove to be a short-lived series of “alternative history” pieces. The first installment, in the November issue, was “If Booth Had Missed Lincoln.” This was followed by a contribution from none other than Winston Churchill who turned the concept on its head. It was piece bafflingly titled “If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg”—but, as we all know, Lee didn’t win the Battle of Gettysburg.  Reading Churchill’s story brought out the zaniness in parodist James Thurber, who then wrote “If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox” in The New Yorker in December of that year. The next month Scribner’s published a third essay (“If Napoleon Had Escaped to America”) before bringing the series to an end. All three pieces were soon forgotten, but Thurber’s parody became one of his most famous and beloved works, and is still being performed on stage.  I urge you to you read If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox and have a good laugh . . .  So much for Grant’s affinity for whisky.  Politically, his presidency was long associated with corruption . . . most notably (and ironically) the so-called “Whiskey Ring,” a scandal uncovered in 1875 involving whiskey distillers, agents of the I.R.S. Treasury clerks and various members of the Grant Administration.  Although Grant appointed the nation’s first “special prosecutor” to look into the case (who discovered, tried and sentenced the culprits), the president and his time in office were nonetheless forever tarnished. In the eyes of history, he may have been a successful commanding general, but was definitely a worthless drunk and criminal.

Presidential historians, it turns out, have begun finding out that U.S. Grant was far, far better than his reputation or personal stereotype would have us believe.  He was responsible for bringing hundreds of thousands of former slaves into American society, and see that the  South not get away Scot-free with their moral and political transgressions.  Although deeply flawed, the “Reconstruction Era” did make it possible for government to get back on its feet after the War.  Grant had a lot to do with making the politics of that difficult program possible.

Then too, Grant was far better read and far more philosophical than historians have given him credit.  He was a damn good writer whose prose was praised by none other than the great Mark Twain who came to Grant’s financial aid during the former president’s final days by convincing Merrill Lynch to put up $50,000.00 to buy the rights to Grant’s autobiography, which Twain would then publish. (Twain accomplished what he sought out to do; most regrettably, Grant put the finishing touches on his autobiography just 5 days before dying in July 1885 at age 63.  The two-volume work was published at the end of that year.)

One of the Grant’s most prescient and chilling messages was delivered in a speech he gave at the Annual Reunion of the Army of the Tennessee in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sept. 29, 1875.  Its most revealing passage sounds like something could - and should - be spoken on this year’s Fourth of July observance.  We will conclude with these words, think about them, and then prepare to watch 1776:

I do not bring into this assemblage politics, certainly not partisan politics, but it is a
fair subject for soldiers in their deliberations to consider what may be necessary to secure the prize for which they battled in a republic like ours. Where the citizen is sovereign and the official the servant, where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign — the people — should possess intelligence.

The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation. If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.

Now in this centennial year of our national existence, I believe it a good time to begin the work of strengthening the foundation of the house commenced by our patriotic forefathers one hundred years ago, at Concord and Lexington. Let us all labor to add all needful guarantees for the more perfect security of free thought, free speech, and free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and of equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion.

Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money appropriated to their support, no matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school. Resolve that the State or Nation, or both combined, shall furnish to every child growing up in the land, the means of acquiring a good common-school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistic tenets. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. With these safeguards, I believe the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee will not have been fought in vain. 

And may Ulysses S. Grant’s name, deeds and reputation grow with every passing year.

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

The Collapse of Champlain Towers South: Oh the Humanity

I am beginning to write this piece at precisely 4:09 PM EDT on Sunday June 27. It has been about 63 hours since the Champlain Towers South collapsed in Surfside, Florida. The latest update, issued ten minutes ago by our local NPR station (WLRN) - shows at least 9 deaths and at least 156 unaccounted for. Specialized rescue crews from all up and down the beach and as far away as Mexico and Israel (פיקוד העורף pekud ha-oref “The Home Front Command”) are continuing to work at a breathless, nonstop pace, using heavy equipment, highly trained rescue K-9s and EMTs from virtually every part of Florida. I know one of these EMTs quite well; I performed her wedding, her father’s funeral and tutored several members of the family for becoming b’nai mitzvah. I cannot imagine the level of adrenaline flowing through her veins.

Camera crews, local, national and even international reporters are on the scene, along with an occasional visit from our governor, our two senators. a host of local elected officials and civil engineers, as was well as Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose congressional district includes Surfside. The Biden Administration has weighed in, declaring a “State of Emergency,” and unlocking the key to millions upon millions of FEMA dollars. Even Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has thanked the president for the extreme alacrity with which he has set the trusty wheels of government in motion.

It is now 5:10 PM, EDT.  The numbers have yet to change, but already there are at least two law suits which have been filed, a full-blown conspiracy theory blaming the tragedy on the recently-deceased software pioneer (and world-class screwball) John McAfee for the tragedy, and numerous suggestions from construction engineers as to what possibly went wrong and who was ultimately to blame for it.  Champlain Towers South is, when compared to, say,  New York’s Dakota (1881) or Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont (1926) an architectural newbie: it was completed a mere 40 years ago.  However, the land upon which it sits (a man-made spit of sand) is far less structurally amendable than Manhattan’s rock-hard 72nd Street or Hollywood’s far more tractable Sunset Blvd. 

Questions about the long-term problems of a twelve-story building erected on sand - especially in an era of rising tides) abound.  Then too, there are all those questions about how often a tower on Collins Avenue should be inspected by civic engineers.  But all this for the future.  Today - and tomorrow and the day after - can and must deal with checking out not only the structural safety and integrity of the  North Tower but all those condos and apartments stretching from Surfside to Miami Beach and from Hollywood north to Boca Raton and Palm Beach.  Surfside is a unique bit of heaven a few feet from the Atlantic Ocean.  A high percentage of its inhabitants are Orthodox Jews, many of whom are originally from Russia . . . as well as South America (notably Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay).  This is the place where many have purchased winter homes, have created innumerable shuls and synagogues as well as a plethora of kosher restaurants.  One is just as likely to hear Russian, Yiddish or Hebrew  spoken on its streets as Spanish or English.  Personally, I spent a couple of semesters lecturing on American and International politics (on behalf of Florida International University) in the Surfside City Hall chambers. The city leaders were kind enough to lure my students to class by providing them with first-class lunches.  For the most part, these men and women were well-educated, deeply engaged, and always ready to be both challenged and challenging.    

Unlike with many disasters - whether of natural, manmade, political or idiopathic character - it is next to impossible to know precisely what to do . . . how to play a part in the solution without at the same time playing the  simplistic - though well-intentioned - fool.  Within the past 65 hours (it is now 6:15 PM EDT) we have all heard the  words “our thoughts and prayers are with them.”  While “thoughts and prayers”  are certainly both welcome and understandable, in the long-run they accomplish more for those who read or hear about disaster than those who actually suffer or undergo it.  (I  wrote about this in March 2019 at the time of the Christchurch,  New Zealand, disaster.  You may want to check it out). 

What is far more important in these early hours and days of the Surfside disaster is good old-fashioned cash. Many of the people who have managed to survive the collapse will need places to stay as well as food and transportation.  Then too, it is highly likely that those in the North Tower are going to have to move lest their homes come falling down.  They too will need financial assistance. Prayers and wishes are certainly meaningful.  Attempting to assess blame and lodge legal claims – although understandable, lack immediacy.  Making contributions for those in need is what we call in Hebrew תיקון עולם - literally, “Repairing the world.” It is one of the highest and most important of all Divine Commandments, and that which is most important at a time like this. This is not an act meant to be directed to Jewish people alone, but rather to all of G-d’s creatures who are suffering from disaster. Please, I beg  you: take it upon yourself and - along with your thoughts and prayers - to make a tangible contribution to the families and survivors of the Champlain South Towers. Therefore, I urge everyone reading this essay to contact one of the many agencies whose sole purpose is to get assistance to these people.  Here are a few of the best and most honest:

• The Miami Heat and several local organizations have launched a hardship fund for the victims: supportsurfside.org

• The Chesed Fund: The Shul of Bal Harbour created a central fund that will be donated as needed to victims and their families. Click here to donate to the Miami Tragedy Central Emergency Fund.

• The Greater Miami Jewish Federation launched an emergency fund for families and individuals for short-term and long-term needs. Click here to make a monetary donation online.

• Those in need of crisis counseling and housing assistance can call 211.

• Members of the clergy are on-site at the Surfside Community Center. To reach a chaplain, email rabbiklein@gmjf.org.

Once again, please consider making a tangible contribution to the families and survivals of the Champlain South Towers.

Thank you.

Copyright©2001 Kurt F. Stone

Is It Finally Time to Stop Being so Damned "Nice?"

“When they go low, we go high.” These were the words of a political catchphrase first made famous by First Lady Michelle Obama at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. “When they go low, we go high,” she said while discussing how to best “handle bullies” in support of Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House. Her motto quickly caught on. Even Secretary Clinton herself used it to defend herself against then-Republican candidate Donald Trump a few months later during their final presidential debate. “Going low is easy, which is why people go to it,” the former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State told Oprah Winfrey in 2020. “It’s easy to go low. It’s easy to lead by fear. It’s easy to be divisive. It’s easy to make people feel afraid. That’s the easy thing and it’s also the short-term thing . . . . When I want to go low, it’s all about my own ego. It’s not about solving anything.... It’s about seeking revenge on the thing that happened to you.”

For quite some time, many of us - mostly Democrats and Independents, but a handful of Republicans to boot - have found Michele Obama’s pronouncement to be on the money; an accommodating, well-conceived and gracious response to irresponsible political lunacy.  But now, after having lived through the first six-months of the Biden presidency - which has, in the main been quite successful despite what the opposition would have their core backers believe  - have begun reconsidering Mrs. Obama’s bon mot. To wit:

• When they go low, we might well consider going even lower;

• When they lie, we must call it out in 1,000 decibel syllables;

• When they insult, we should return fire;

• When they use fear instead of a political platform, we must boldly proclaim what our positions are. 

It’s easier said than done . . .

For as long as many of us can remember, it simply hasn’t been in Democratic DNA to “go low.”  Holding our heads up high and traveling a road of higher elevation has been both our wont and our custom.  The party of FDR, JFK, LBJ, Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden has produced few - if any - demagogues. Oh sure, back in the days of the “solid south” there were any number of Democratic S.O.Bs and racist brutes to make us quake in our brogues and loafers.  But that was then and now is now . . . when the brutes and liars, the fictionalizing fearmongers and abject bigots all seem to be products what was once proudly called “The party of Lincoln.”  Today. it is “The party of Trump,” and whereas it was founded on the lofty principles of  honesty, humanity and justice for all, today it is swirling around a toilet bowl overflowing with grifters, gougers and alarmist prophets of doom.  In these days of paranoid Cassandras, can we continue to afford “going high” when they persist in remaining “low?”

In a recent article entitled For Republicans, ‘Crisis’ Is the Message as the Outrage Machine Ramps Up the New York Times’ Jonathan Weisman summarizes the above by noting: House Republican leaders would like everyone to know that the nation is in crisis. There is an economic crisis, they say, with rising prices and overly generous unemployment benefits; a national security crisis; a border security crisis, with its attendant homeland security crisis, humanitarian crisis, and public health crisis; and a separate energy crisis.  These seemingly disparate issues have one thing in common: they are all meant to scare the pants off of Republicans and reinforce the absolute necessity of ridding America of the “Communist/Socialist Democrats.”  

For fans of Fox News, News Max and One America News America is on verge of becoming a Marxist dictatorship.  The supreme enemies of the state are President Biden (whom, they claim, is suffering from significant mental deficits), Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (both of whom are pushing an obvious Socialist agenda), the six House members making up “The Squad” (who are all virulent anti-Semitic racists) and Dr. Anthony Fauci (whom Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has accused of being "criminally liable" for allegedly helping to create the COVID-19 "bioweapon” and then making a personal fortune off of it. Then too, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the loudest and most pugnacious of all Republicans, has been telling anyone who will listen that that President Biden's face-to-face meeting this past Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland was a “disaster” which showed that American leader “has no idea who Putin is.”  And let’s not  to forget about Vice President Kamala Harris, she has come under fire for not having visited the nation’s Southern Border while on a recent diplomatic mission to Guatemala and Mexico.

Yes indeed: according to Trumpeters, QAnon aficionados and other assorted conspiratorialists, there is so much to be fearful of . . . and we haven’t even mentioned the teaching of Critical Race Theory (a.k.a. “Lessons in ‘how to hate America’”), stolen elections, the participation of transgender athletes participating in high school sports, and  the taking away of oh so many liberties from “real” Americans by “forcing” them to become vaccinated against COVID-19 and confiscating all their automatic weapons.

As anyone who follows national politics closely knows, there is a lot of tension and dislocation within the Republican Party.  While many give the public impression of being 100% dyed in the wool supporters of the former president, in reality, it is not truly political support they are expressing . . . it is a fear of falling out of favor with their “beloved leader” and facing an even more stridently pro-Trumpeter in the 2022 primary. About the only tie that binds Republicans  together is outrage . . . and fear-mongering. Outrage at what the “Socialistic Democrats” are planning for America, and the  spreading of abject fear. In his aforementioned Times “memo,” Jonathan Weisman noted that “House Republicans, still overwhelmingly in the thrall of Donald J. Trump, have learned over the last four years that grievance, loudly expressed, carries political weight, especially with their core voters.

In other words, House and Senate Republicans are already in full mid-term election mode, stressing not political policies or plans, but the need for a one-party Congress.  They have made abundantly clear that they will stand up defeat whatever Democrats seek to enact, and live up to the old saw that “the best defense is a good offense.”  It also keeps them from having to deal in any way, shape or form with the cataclysm of January 6. 

Republicans have long been far better than Democrats at imparting a sense of impending crisis.  Well, isn’t it about time that the Democrats learn from their so-called “friends across the aisle?” Republicans have long been better than Democrats at imparting a sense of crisis. How many remember the Solyndra crisis?  Congressional Republicans made the failed solar company a household name back in 2011, with heated news conferences, accusatory hearings and angry statements, when the solar company went bankrupt and left the Obama administration — and the taxpayers — the bill for a $535 million federal loan guarantee. This week, an electric pickup truck plant in Lordstown, Ohio, midwifed by the previous president, lost its top executives, its prototype burst into flames and it is on the brink of economic collapse.  And yet, there hasn’t been word one emanating from the Biden White House, Speaker Pelosi’s office or any Democrat of note.  As we used to say in high school, “There are times when you just have to ‘show some hair.’”  If they really tried, Democrats could make Lordstown the new Solyndra.  

Then too, there was the 2012 deadly terrorist attack on Benghazi in Libya, which became a two-year ordeal for Hillary Clinton, thanks to the Republican outrage machine.  Literally dozens of congressional hearings were held, all seeking to turn the then-Secretary of State into the guilty party.  It wasn’t until late June 0f 2016 that the  the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued its final report, finding no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Secretary Clinton in the Libya that left four Americans dead.  The 800-page report delivered a broad rebuke of the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department — and the officials who led them — for failing to grasp the acute security risks in Benghazi, and especially for maintaining outposts there that they could not protect.  And keep in mind, that all of the committees which held hearings were chaired and staffed by Republicans.

Then there was the botched military attack ordered by President Trump in Niger, in which 4 American soldiers died.  Not only did the Republican-controlled Congress fail to look into this tragedy which led to the largest loss of American troops during combat in Africa since the 1993’s “Black Hawk Down” debacle in Somalia; the president fumbled the name of one of the dead and told a grieving widow her husband “knew what he signed up for.”  This debacle quickly became forgotten, due mostly to the Democrats keeping their mouths shut.  Once again, Democrats failed to explain to the American public the gross culpability, insensitivity and incompetence of the other guys.

I say it is time to stop being so damned nice and quit “going high” whenever Republicans “go low.” The traditional Republican playbill, which for eons has stressed “more freedom for individuals with lower taxes, a stronger economy and a safer nation,” has all but evaporated amid a constantly shifting menu of crises and outrages. For whatever reason, most Democratic leaders don’t believe the Republicans’ crisis talk is working, beyond spinning out clicks for right-wing media outlets and Facebook algorithms that thrive on outrage over such things as the decision by Dr. Seuss’s estate to cease publishing works that include egregious racial and ethnic stereotypes or the switch by Hasbro to a non-gendered brand name for its iconic plastic toy, now known as Potato Head. Democrats who truly believe this, do so at their own political peril.

It seems to me that if Democrats really, truly want to counter the Republican “world of crisis,” they must stop going high and, with all apologies to Michelle Obama, attack the current Republican strategy by calling a spade a spade, and replacing that spade with a full-throttled agenda. Democrats are not pernicious Socialists; Republicans are not prideful Patriots.

It’ time to stop being so damn nice, and start fighting pernicious fire with the power of full-throated truth.

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

Guess Who?

We’ve all heard it time and again. It’s gotten to the point where many we wish we wore hearing aids, just so we could shut them down or take them off . . . if for no other reason than to blot out the noxious noise of political lunacy and outright lies. How often do we have to listen to such blather as “Fake news,” "The greatest election fraud in the history of the country . . . in the history of any democracy," and “The deep state is deep within this government” before we go absolutely מְשׁוּגָע (m’shugah - “bonkers)?

If you think you know who’s been making all these אמירות הזויות (amirote h’zvee’yot - “delusional statements”) look no further than the language we are employing . . . it’s Hebrew . . . the language of about-to-become former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. And yes, the over-the-top charges with which Bibi has long been attacking his political enemies does sound an awful lot like the bilious puke the previous POTUS has been spewing at his political foes. In matter of fact, they frequently sound and act like they are following the same playbook . . . one written from right-to-left, the other from left-to-right.

But as Ed Valenti (the father of the modern infomercial and creator of Ginzu Knives) would say, “BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!” Both Trump and Netanyahu are largely despised by a majority of their respective constituencies for being cruel, overly abrasive, fabulistic (to put it kindly) and consumed with the fear that they will end their days bankrupted and perhaps behind bars. Unlike Trump, Netanyahu is already on trial for his sins; unlike Netanyahu, Trump maintains just enough political power among his base to continue being a cause for political concern.

As you are reading this post, there is every likelihood that Bibi Netanyahu’s twelve year run as Israeli P.M. will have come to a crashing conclusion. And while he is still a member of the Knesset and leader of the once vaunted Likud bloc, he leaves his post under a deep, storm-tossed cloud. Israel hasn’t had a functioning budget in more than two years. His personal relationship with President Joe Biden, although publicly strong is, behind closed doors, problematic at best. Bibi’s longtime coalition, an amalgam of hard-core conservatives, ultra-nationalists and far-right religious parties is about to be replaced by a coalition consisting of 3 conservative parties, 2 liberal, 2 centrist and, for the first time, an Arab party. About the only thing they have in common is their utter dislike for Bibi.

Under a rotation deal, Naftali Bennett, leader of Yamina (“Rightward”) will serve as P.M. for the first two years, with Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Ateed (“There is a future”) party taking over as P.M. for the next two. Speaking about the new unity coalition, Israeli political scientist Shlomo Avineri said “The parties are disparate, but they share a commitment to reconstitute Israel as a functioning liberal democracy . . . . In recent years we saw Netanyahu begin to govern in a semi-authoritarian way.” Another prominent political observer, Tamar Hermann, who teaches at Israel’s “Open University” noted “They (the parties in the coalition) will not deal with the highly contentious issues between left and right,” In practice, this means a likely concentration on domestic rather than foreign affairs.

Here in the United States, President Biden, who has long prided himself on “working across the political aisle” in order to get things done, has found that compromise with Republicans is next to impossible. In Israel, the fact that so many disparate parties have agreed to come together in common cause - despite their innate philosophical and political differences - is a telling sign. In Israel, hard core political folks on the right have a tendency to move closer to the center. Here in the United States, it is nigh-on impossible to find even a handful of Republicans who will back any bill or initiative emanating from the Democrats. Their fear of Trumpian revenge surpasses their love of country.

                      Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett

Naftali Bennett, an America-bred modern Orthodox self-made tech millionaire who is considered to be to the right even of Mr. Netanyahu on many issues, is determined to deliver higher standards of living and prosperity to a population weary of such paralysis.  His main coalition partner,  former newscaster Yair Lapid, is a former news anchor known for his chiseled good looks Lapid Lapid is the Tel Aviv-born son of the fiercely secular former justice minister Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, another journalist who left the media to enter politics. His mother, Shulamit, is a novelist, playwright and poet. Lapid was a newspaper columnist and has also published a dozen books. His role as a presenter on Channel 2 TV boosted his stardom.

The new 8-party coalition will make establishing good relations with the Biden administration, a priority, and improving relations with America’s majority liberal Jewish community - another significant goal - will also require centrist restraint. The parties in this coalition, which range from Mr. Bennett’s Yamina party on the far-right to Labor and Meretz on the left, and Ra’am (the acronym for הרשימה הערבית המאוחדת (ha-r’shemah ha-ahraveem ha’m’ohkhedet - “United Arab List”) disagree on virtually everything from L.G.B.T.Q. rights to public transport on Shabbat. The one thing they do agree on is that Netanyahu must go. Autocracy must be replaced by democracy.

The decision by Ra’am, to join the government so soon after last month’s violent clashes between Jewish and Arab mobs in Israel last month, reflects a growing realization that the marginalization of Arab parties brings only paralysis and repetitive elections. It also suggests a desire among some Palestinian citizens of Israel to exert more political influence. Fakhira Halloun, an expert in conflict resolution at George Mason University, recently wrote: “Usually the dominant discourse is one of perceiving Palestinians inside Israel as an internal enemy. We need to change this perception by not being always in the opposition.”

Certainly, Ra’am, with four seats in Parliament, will be critical to the survival of the coalition, even if it will not hold any cabinet posts. The coalition will have to consider the interests of the Palestinian minority in a different way. Among many questions to be answered, none is more important than whether Mr. Bennett turns out to be an ideologue or a pragmatist.  Already, the new Knesset has chosen a member of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Mickey Levy, to become the new Speaker.  He beat out Yaakov Margi, an ultra-Orthodox politician who is part of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition. Mr. Levy, 69, is a former police officer who commanded police units in Jerusalem during the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in the early 2000s. He later served as a police attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, according to his biography on the Parliament website, and then ran a bus company.  As speaker, Mr. Levy will exert considerable influence over parliamentary procedure, giving his government greater influence over the passage of legislation. This is a sign that Bennett and Lapid are serious about making this government work.

Unquestionably, there is much work to be done together by political parties and factions that have long been at one another’s throats. If they can help put Israel back on a strong democratic footing it will teach democracies the world over that those who manage to place country above party and the commonweal above the individual have it within their collective power to work miracles.

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

Charles Laughton Recites Lincoln's Gettsyburg Address

Back in 1935, Charles Laughton, one of the 3 or 4 most brilliant stage actors to also star on the Silver Screen, made a classic comedy called Ruggles of Red Gap, based on a best-selling novel by the now long-forgotten Harry Leon Wilson. Directed by Leo McCary and costarring Charles Ruggles, Mary Boland, Roland Young and Zasu Pitts, Laughton plays the impossibly proper English valet Ruggles who, having been won in a poker game by Egbert and Effie Floud of Red Gap, Washington, bring him back to their hometown where he, Ruggles the valet, is decidedly a fish out of water.

The highpoint of the film comes when Laughton, who is beginning to catch on to what it means to be an American, recites Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address from memory to a saloon full of cowboys and western tipplers. Director MCary wisely keeps the camera in motion, panning the faces of the hicks as they become increasingly captivated by the words effortlessly flowing from the valet’s mouth.

Laughton became so attached to Lincoln’s 10 sentences, that he would, over the next quarter century, recite it literally thousands of times . . . to WWII troops in military hospitals, at awards ceremonies and at gatherings of at least 4 presidents.

Last semester, I screened Ruggles of Red Gap in a film course at Florida Atlantic University. Laughton’s 2+minute rendition of the greatest, most moving presidential address in all American history, left not a dry eye in the theater. It is the masterful meeting of a stellar address and a brilliant actor.

Few people can hear these words - whether spoken by Orson Welles, Gregory Peck or Charles Laughton - and not feel their meaning, nor sense that Lincoln wasn’t merely speaking these 278 words to a gathering of fellow citizens in November 19, 1863, but for all Americans ever since. Their meaning is just as powerful, just as compelling today - and tomorrow - as it was nearly 157 years ago.

Please . . . listen as Charles Laughton speaks the words of Abraham Lincoln. And, as the French would say, it is perfectly understandable if you Préparez vos mouchoirs . . . “take out your handkerchiefs.”

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

What in the Hell is "Critical Race Theory?"

Received a message the other day through Facebook in which the writer . . . whom I have never met . . . tried to get my goat by writing “For what it’s worth, you have the greatest governor in the country and Florida has become attractive to me in terms of relocation for the first time in my life.” My response was (I hope) pleasantly direct, mostly truthful, and carrying just a smidge of sarcastic humor: “It has long been a hard and fast rule with me that I neither argue, debate nor discuss politics unless I am getting paid. Having written this I will tell you that I've never been all that wild about Florida. I greatly prefer mountains (which we have in great abundance in my native California), which can be enjoyed from a great distance; oceans, on the other hand, require one to live close by in order to get any benefit. Also, I do like an occasional chilly morning and cold night . . . which is virtually impossible in South Florida. Have a great week.”  I have yet to receive a response.  I would suspect that the reader is an avid Trumpeter who has a world-class political crush on Donald Trump’s “Mini-Me,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. 

This week’s essay is not expressly about the Florida governor; we posted a piece about him (The Clone) this past March 2, so you know something of my thoughts and opinions about him. Rather, this piece is about an issue that DeSantis and most of his Republican colleagues have been increasingly putting under the political electron microscope for the past several months: “Critical Race Theory.” Simply stated, Critical Race Theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice (like racism or [dis]organized white supremacy), but  something embedded in legal systems and policies.

Through continually clanging the ultra-conservative claxon and demanding that the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) be made illegal (lest impressionable children be led to “hate the United States”), they hope to create yet another “Marxist” scare tactic which will keep their more gullible supporters on edge and champing at the Trumpian bit to replace Democracy with authoritarianism. Strategically, “Critical Race Theory” motors along the same highway as the spate of restrictive voting laws passed by the majority of Republican-controlled state legislatures (who would have us believe that the 2020 presidential election was rife with corruption and criminality on the part of the “Socialist Left”),  the gutting of any and every attempt to bring sanity and safety to gun ownership in America, and that illegal immigrants - with the blessing of Left - are increasingly entering the country in order to turn us all into Marxist slaves. These sorts of political canards are all meant to create fear of the so-called “Cancel Culture” and “woke,” and place as many restrictions as possible on anyone and everyone who disagrees with their reality.  This is the new reality for the erstwhile GOP - now called in many circles the “Q (Anon) OP.”

Republican governors and lawmakers across the country have been advancing legislation that would limit how public school teachers can discuss race in their classrooms; increasingly, educators say the efforts are already having a chilling effect on their lessons.

In recent weeks, Republican legislatures in roughly half a dozen states (including Florida) have either adopted or advanced bills purporting to take aim at the teaching of critical race theory. Conservatives have made the teaching of critical race theory a rallying cry in the culture wars, calling it divisive and unpatriotic for forcing students to consider the influence of racism in situations where they might not see it otherwise.

Instead of seeking to galvanize their core activists with such traditional Republican issues as less government, local control and tax cuts, GOP officials at the state level are now rolling out policies that flow from the woke/cancel culture fight. These include limits on public schools’ use of the New York Times’ 1619 Project which chronicles the role of slavery in American history and the teaching of critical race theory at public colleges. They consistently call Critical Race Theory “ . . . a Marxist framework that views society only through the lens of race-based oppression,” and claim “It is everywhere these days . . . In corporations, federal agencies, schools, and even the military; it sows hatred and division in the name of “dignity” and “equality.”

Warnings about the danger inherent in employing critical race theory in public schools and universities are spreading like wildfires in the West. In an article by the Associated Press’s Bryan Anderson it was noted that “Teachers and professors in Idaho will be prevented from ‘indoctrinating’ students on race. Oklahoma teachers will be prohibited from saying certain people are inherently racist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously. The Tennessee schools will risk losing state aid if their lessons include particular concepts about race and racism."  At least 16 states are considering or have already signed into law bills that would limit the teachings of certain ideas linked to “Critical Race Theory.” It has gotten so loopy that one state lawmaker in Tennessee actually declared that the Constitution’s original provision designating a slave as three-fifths of a person was adopted for “the purpose of ending slavery.” (n.b. while it is true that many historians agree that this compromise gave slave-holding states more political power, it is far from the historic truth . . . except to modern-day members of the QOP.)

Even House Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has gotten into the act.  Recently, he led his party in protesting a proposed Biden administration rule promoting education programs that address systemic racism and the legacy of American slavery, calling the guidance “divisive nonsense.”

In a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, McConnell, along with three dozen other Republicans, singled out a reference in the proposal to The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project, which was included as an example of a growing emphasis on teaching “the consequences of slavery, and the significant contributions of Black Americans to our society.”

“Families did not ask for this divisive nonsense. Voters did not vote for it,” the senators wrote. “Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil.”  

What is inherently evil, is rewriting, reinterpreting and re-legislating history in order to score points with people who know next to nothing about history.

There are 526 days until the 2020 election.

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

Congressional Bigots, Racists and Utter Morons

Ever since day one, Congress has been peopled with generations of Blue Bloods like the Saltenstalls, Cabots Lodges, and Freylinghuysens, as well as the Dingells of Michigan, The Chaffees of Rhode Island and the Tafts of Ohio. Then too, there are the California actors who served in Congress; their numbers include the very first, Julius Kahn, a noted Shakespearean actor whose San Francisco district has long been represented by Speaker Nancy Pelosi; former Broadway star (and wife of Melvin Douglas) Helen Gahagan (who was derisively called “The Pink Lady” by California ultraconservatives); Sonny Bono, George Murphy (whom satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer noted “Now we’ve got a senator who can really sing and dance”); and of course two non-members of Congress: Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Moving away from the Golden State, Minnesotans sent Al Franken to the U.S. Senate, Fred Grandy (A.K.A. “Gopher” in The Love Boat) represented an Iowa house district for 8 years, and The Dukes of Hazzard’s Ben “Cooter” Jones, was a two-termer from Georgia.

Among the professional athletes who became successful politicians, several were Hall of Famers in their respective sports: New Jersey Senator and basketball legend Bill Bradley (who was also a Rhodes Scholar and an Olympic Gold Medalist); Kentucky Senator (and Hall of Fame hurler) Jim Bunning; Seattle wide receiver and 4-term member of the House from Oklahoma, Steve Largent.

Congress has also had more than its share of morons, bigots, anti-Semites, and outright intellectual lightweights.  One of the most obnoxious of ‘em all was a sixteen-term Democratic Representative from Mississippi, by the name of John E. Rankin (1882-1960).  Rankin, who served in the House from 1921-1953 at one point chaired the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee. He was a thorough-going racist and anti-Semite. He hated anything involving Hollywood . . . which he believed with all his heart and soul was the American capital of the Communist conspiracy.  That’s Rankin in the picture to the left, enswathed in an endless petition demanding a thorough investigation into the producers, directors, writers and actors in Hollywood . . . all of whom he was certain were card-carrying Jewish Marxists.  One wonders if it ever dawned on him that being draped in all those signatures made him look like a rabbi!

In 1944, Time Magazine reported Rankin referring to Jewish columnist Walter Winchell (Winshell) “the little Kike.” This incident inspired the novelist Laura Z. Hobson to write her world-famous story of antisemitism, Gentleman's Agreement (1947).

Today’s 117th Congress likely has more bigots, racists, anti-Semites and utter morons than any gathering in the past 100 years.  Among the worst are:

• North Carolina Freshman Republican Madison Cawthorn, the youngest member of Congress, who defended his having missed the most votes in Congress by claiming that it was far more important servicing his wife during their honeymoon than serving the people of his district.  "If I have to choose between voting with Nancy Pelosi or spending time with my beautiful wife, I’m choosing Cristina every time," he said.  Cawthorn further admitted he had missed a number of votes in the week he was gone but said it was all "Democrat garbage."

• Georgia Republican Andrew Clyde who likened the mob’s breaching of the Capitol on January 6 to a “normal tourist visit,” despite photos from that day showing him, mouth agape, rushing toward the doors to the House gallery and helping barricade them to prevent rioters from entering. The images resurfaced this week on social media amid a wave of disbelief and outrage over Clyde’s comments, including from several Republicans.  (It should be noted that the actor who probably played more dumb sidekick parts in Hollywood Westerns than anyone in history was the Scottish-born actor Andy Clyde, best known for playing Hopalong Cassidy’s comic relief, “California Carlson.”  Oddly ironic, no?)

• Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, who is so far out of it that even his siblings want him expelled from Congress. 

• Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert who freely concedes that people believe that he’s the “dumbest member of Congress.”  Among his loopiest actions are claiming his face mask likely gave him COVID-19 (on the extremely rare occasions he wore one) and then taking the failed Donald Trump “cure” hydroxychloroquine to fight it. He has said that caribou love to “date” over oil pipelines and nominated Republican Newt Gingrich to be speaker of the House 13 years after Gingrich left Congress.

• Georgia Freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who, among many other inanities, recently likened Congressional leaders forcing members to wear masks during their time on the House floor to the Holocaust.  Furthermore, she was voted off all her Congressional committees due to her steadfast support of QAnon supported-reality, and has spent the lion’s share of her free time stalking the likes of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Eric Swalwell as well as Marjorie Stoneman Douglas survivor David Hogg.  Moreover, even before she won her seat in Congress, Greene suggested that  a bank controlled by the Rothschild family, who are Jewish, a utility company responsible for the fire and then-Gov. Jerry Brown had a compelling motive to spark lethal forest fires in California, thus clearing the path for a high speed rail project that Brown wanted.

• Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert who, like her freshman colleague M.T.G. is out on the edge of political sanity, recently posted a tweet asking her followers to reveal their favorite verse from the Bible. Unfortunately for Rep. Boebert, her public tweet garnered responses from people who are decidedly not impressed with the Colorado legislator’s overall performance as one of Congress’s most notorious wanna-be seditionists and gun-rights advocates.

It would seem that Rep, Boebert, who knows as much about the Bible as yours truly does about about lobster bisque, has posted her question in order to gather in more reelection cash. How in the world could I be so dismissive of another’s religious convictions? Well, it seems to me that one who truly knows their Bible, would be aware of certain verses, such as:

                    Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (L) & Lauren Boebert (R)

• “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others,” (Matthew 6:15);

• “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25, 35)

• If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you.” (Lev. 25: 35)

• '"Before the blind, do not put a stumbling block- (Lev. 19:14).

This last verse, "וְלִפְנֵ֣י עִוֵּ֔ר לֹ֥א תִתֵּ֖ן מִכְשֹׁ֑ל” is, in my humble opinion, one of the most important of all verses in the Bible, and an exceptionally important lesson for anyone who makes their living as an elected official. For this verse makes crystal clear that those who place what we today call a “big lie” before the people, are committing a fundamental sin - not to mention breaking several Divine Commandments. Whether it be getting the public believing that that the last election was purposefully stolen; that the Holocaust was an invention of the Jews; that the COVID-19 pandemic was the intentional work of Dr. Anthony Fauci or that all those who broke into the the U.S. Capitol on January 6 were either “left-wing radical Marxists” or “peace-loving patriotic Americans” are knowingly driving a lethal wedge between neighbors and moving America ever closer to a second Civil War. And for what purpose? To put money in their pockets? To destroy the planet’s oldest and most successful democracy and replace it with a malevolent autocracy? To sell as many stumbling blocks as the market will bear?

An even more basic question has to be “Do the people spewing all this fraud and rhetorical deceit really believe what they are saying?” To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what is worse: believing with a full heart that the 2018 California wildfires were caused by Jewish space lasers (just ask Rep. Taylor-Greene) or knowing that they (the liars-in-chief) know full well that they are absolutely full of what Granny would call “canal water.”

My hope, prayer and dream is that come November 8, 2022, the public will give the likes of Reps. Clyde, Gosar, Gohmert, Greene and Boebert (not to mention Senator Ted Cruz and Florida’s own Matt Gaetz) their walking papers and replace them with ladies and gentlemen (of either party, but hopefully Democrats) who know that Congress is no place for bigots, racists, morons and habitual liars.

 There are 532 days left until November 8, 2022.

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone

"There's Nothing New Under the Sun"

It seems that hardly a week goes by without my receiving emails from longtime readers of The K.F. Stone Weekly or students in the All Politics All the Time courses I’ve been teaching at local universities for the past 22 or 23 years.  These emails frequently include links to essays or articles with an appended  note asking either What do you think about this? or Is this really true?  More often than not I don’t send back lengthy, detailed replies to the  What do you think? questions . . . either because of the constraints of time or because I feel reasonably certain that the inquirer is less interested in my reply than satisfying him/her self that I haven’t a brain in my head. Ofttimes I handle these Is this true? questions with a link to one of serious fact-checking websites like Snopes or the Washington Post.

One of the most constant questioners (who, mirabile dictu finds that I do have a brain in my head) is a long-time student and dear friend who refers to himself as “Pal Al.” Beyond sharing an obsessive love of baseball (he the Yankees, yours truly the Dodgers) we are both אוהבי ישראל - “lovers of Israel.” and political progressives. It should come as no surprise then, that My Pal Al wrote me asking what my thoughts were about the whys, wherefores and conceivable outcome of the current lethal confrontation between Israel and Hamas. Without having access to either a functioning crystal ball or any inside information, I will nonetheless attempt to share some thoughts - not just for his sake but for mine as well.

Prior to the outbreak of this newest conflict between the Gaza Strip-based Hamas and Israel, sort of led by Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, it had been 7 years since the two sides had gone at it toe-to-toe against one another.  Back in 2014, Barack Obama was POTUS; Donald Trump was starring in the 10th season of The Apprentice; the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) movement was growing on American college campuses and around the world; the official position of both the Obama Administration  and the Democratic Party was in favor of a “Two-State” solution.  Then, in July 2014, Israel began to conduct an operation called Brother’s Keeper as a response to the kidnapping of 3 Israeli teenagers by Hamas members in Gaza.  Soon, a war broke out.  It lasted 7 weeks (July 8-August 26) and ended with both sides claiming victory.  According to Israel and Palestinian Authority President Abbas, Hamas was severely weakened and achieved none of its demands. According to Hamas, Israel was repelled from Gaza. 

The summary for this war could easily have been authored by the Biblical essayists Kohelet (King Solomon), who wrote in Ecclesiastes: .מַה־שֶּֽׁהָיָה֙ ה֣וּא שֶׁיִּהְיֶ֔ה וּמַה־שֶׁנַּֽעֲשָׂ֔ה ה֖וּא שֶׁיֵּעָשֶׂ֑ה וְאֵ֥ין כָּל־חָדָ֖שׁ תַּ֥חַת הַשָּֽׁמֶשׁ. (That which has been is that which shall be; and that which has been done is that which shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.) Since that 7-week conflict, we have experienced 4 years of Donald Trump who, living up to the terms of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 (passed during the Clinton Administration) moved our diplomatic mission out of Tel Aviv. Many have adduced (myself included) that this was done far more for purposes of political optics than actual diplomatic progress; after all, it garnered both the support and attention of normally Democratic-voting Jews and pro-Zionist fundamentalist Christians. (How many have times have we heard that “Donald Trump has been better for Israel than any American president”?) Additionally, the Trump Administration yanked the U.S. the hell out of The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iranian nuclear deal, and just this last September, an exultant Donald Trump announced completion of the grandiosely titled “Abraham Accords,” which brought about the normalization of relations with 2 Sunni monarchies . . . Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

At the White House ceremony announcing the pact, Trump proudly announced: “We’re here this afternoon to change the course of history. After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East,” and claimed that it would “serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region.” In the following months, both Sudan and Morocco entered their own processes of normalization with Israel. It should be noted that for better or for worse, this accord was met with overwhelming cynicism in both the Middle East and foreign policy establishment worldwide. Neither the UAE nor tiny Bahrain was ever at war with Israel. They already maintained numerous channels of clandestine cooperation with the Jewish state. The agreements they signed, as would later be the case with Sudan and Morocco, came with significant geopolitical sweeteners from the Trump administration. And as nondemocratic states, their ruling elites could not claim to even represent the abiding views of their small numbers of citizens, let alone the critical mass of regional public opinion.

So what’s behind this latest - and potentially most lethal - battle between Hamas and Israel? What has changed and what might be its cause? One of the first things that comes to mind is the current deadlock in Israel’s national politics. Jerusalem has suffered through 4 national elections in just under 2 years, and is no closer to forming a viable coalition government than it was when the process began.  And to make matters even worse for Netanyahu - Israel’s longest-serving P.M. - he is currently at the center of a corruption trial and fears that if he fails to form a government and is without an office, he may well go to jail. 

As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently noted, it is Bibi’s hope that his right-wing rivals might “. . . have to abandon trying to topple him and declare instead that this is no time for a change in leadership.”  It sounds a bit like Republicans arguing that a sitting president can neither be indicted nor tried while occupying the White  House. Many observers have stated a belief that Netanyahu bears responsibility for a brazen action on the part of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces which underlies the current military action: began on the night of April 13, (which corresponded to the 2nd of Iyar, Israel’s version of Memorial Day . . .  יום הזיכרון . . . when the nation mourns and remembers its fallen soldiers.  The observance begins at sundown with the wailing of a siren that can be heard from one end of the country to the other. Israeli citizens stop whatever they're doing, wherever they are, and stand firm to honor those they've lost. It is both haunting and quite emotional.

It so happens that Israel Memorial Day generally coincides with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. This year, the 1st day of that holy month coincided with  יום הזיכרון - Yom Hazikaron - Israel Memorial Day. Inexplicably on Tuesday April 13, the local Israeli police broke locks and cut electric lines to the loudspeakers at four minarets in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, thus silencing evening calls to prayer. To say the least, this infuriated the Muslim community . . . like a caterer serving pork chops and lobster tails at a Jewish (or Muslim) wedding. Plus, the local Jerusalem authorities had of late been evicting Muslim families from their homes in East Jerusalem, a neighborhood which has long been a bone of both emotional and historic contention.

Another possible answer to the question Why Now? deals with Iran, who has increasingly become the banker of first resort for Hamas. It is the Iranian intention to gain in importance in both Gaza and the West Bank (which Hamas wishes to control). The ground-to-ground weaponry Hamas has purchased with their Iranian rials is neither as sophisticated nor as on-target as the missiles launched from Israeli warplanes or ground installations.  That is why the numbers are so lopsided when it comes to deaths.  Israel, according to their communiques, has trained a majority of its air attacks on the web of underground tunnels in Gaza.  Sadly, many, if not most, of these tunnels run just beneath neighborhoods, schools and hospitals, which increases the civilian carnage.  And unlike Hamas, the  Israelis have the “Iron Dome” defense system, which can destroy a clear majority of the approximately 3,000 missiles they have hurled at Israel before they even come close to their targets.

Interestingly, few Sunni Arab countries have joined in on the murderous catcalls against Israel.  True, they despise Israel; but even more importantly, they don’t really care that much for the plight of the Palestinians; they are far more fearful of Teheran than Jerusalem. According to a recent report from National Public Radio sources on the ground in various Arab capitals, there is a new, popular hashtag which reads (in Arabic): #thePalestiniansarenotmyproblem.

Not surprisingly, this latest war has caused a steep spike in anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe. And here in the United States, where the Biden Administration - which has spent its first 100 days far more engaged in domestic rather than foreign issues - have been more frequent and muscular calls from Democrats for a cease-fire and disparaging remarks from Republicans and some Jews that the current administration is far more disposed toward the Palestinians than the Israelis.  Then too, the most progressive Democrats in Congress (notably the “Squad”) are sounding more and more skeptical about Israel.  Kohelet was correct: There is nothing new under the sun.

Let us conclude with the understanding that being pro-Israel or pro-Zionist does not require one to be a right-wing nationalist. One can still favor a two-state solution or speak out against the Netanyahu policy of settlements in disputed regions without being labeled an anti-Semite . . . or worse. Eventually this latest conflict will wane, a 5th election will be held in Israel, and whatever passes for ‘normality’ in that region of the world will resume . . . for however long it may last.  But the seeds of greater hatred for Israel in the ravaged Gaza Strip and Hamas’ political incursion into the West Bank will become exponentially increased.  

That which has been is that which shall be; and that which has been done is that which shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone