Tag Archives: radicalism

Pride, 2011

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I have been glued to Yahoo and Google News for a week waiting for the gay marriage vote in New York’s Senate.  Tick tock, tick tock.  Apprehension turned to despair as Friday morning turned into afternoon turned into twilight.

POB (partner of blogger) and I went to synagogue for Pride Shabbat.  It was standing room only, as it often is, but there was something hanging in the air.  As we sang hallels (songs of praise) and chanted the ancient affirmation of faith, we knew that change was in the air.  The air was thick with anticipation, with hope and promise and maybe a little resentment that our love and commitments needed legislative legitimacy.  (Especially in a time where we don’t hold our elected officials in the highest esteem.)

The rabbi, who eschews modern-day devices on Shabbat, was not displeased to be informed by those on their gadgets about the minute by minute developments, which she dutifully conveyed to the congregation.  I think she also wanted to keep people seated as we all yearned to be at Stonewall on Sheridan Square (in mind if not in middle-aged body) to celebrate.  She told us that our services would conclude before the New York Senate vote was finished, and she reminded us that the Stonewall riots didn’t start until Saturday morning, after Jews were finished at synagogue, saying the Mourner’s Prayer for Judy Garland, whose funeral that day probably sparked the patrons of Stonewall to fight back against the police that night.

I have been a privileged white woman all my life.  I am Jewish, a minority for sure, but I live in New York City where the public schools close for our major holidays.  I wasn’t a second class citizen until I realized I was gay.  And then realized that there were groups in the country — and the world — who foisted every societal failing on our “evil” love: divorce, plagues, wild fires, floods, etc.   How evil could we be if we contribute more in tax dollars, charitable giving, cohesion of community, and frankly, good parenting than most?  And still these, these, “righteous” people wielded power over my life, livelihood, legal rights and happiness.

I wonder now why people were rejoicing when the Civil Rights Act was passed.  I think people should have been seething that degradation and abuse should have taken so damn long to be outlawed.

While I applaud Governor Cuomo, and those who voted their conscience on Friday, I am not grateful.  If I were grateful, it would imply that I received something possibly undeserved.  Actually, my anger at having to be “protected” is oozing from my pores.  “Why did anyone have this power over me in the first place?”

I am here, I am queer and, no matter what, I am too old to be at Stonewall celebrating anyway.

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It makes me wonder

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People always say that two people can view the same set of events from the almost identical vantage points and have three different versions.

I posted earlier on Facebook that I was walking by a group of men outside a neighborhood bodega, “chewing the fat” about Osama Bin Laden.  “How did the man manage three wives holed up in the same house for five years?” Clearly, proof positive that he was a worthy adversary of the United States of America.

I did not take that away from the unfolding events.  (I will say that I was happy that his kids were able to go out and play.  Judaism teaches that the sins of the fathers are not inherited by their children.)

I didn’t immediately think the wives were complicit or victims.  Those kind of knee-jerk conclusions simply marginalize them as cardboard cut-outs to fit our view of women in the fringes of a culture, religion and world view we have not even begun to understand.

I also did not take away, as Herman Cain did, that President Obama may have “dithered” before making the decision.  On what basis does Mr. Godfather’s Pizza say this?

Here is what I took away from this:

  • The president made a decision that would make him a hero if it worked, or a pariah like Jimmy Carter, if it didn’t.
  • The decision rocked an unsteady alliance with Pakistan, an unstable country with lots of nuclear warheads.
  • The killing will incite retaliation.
  • If Osama Bin Laden was a continuing terror mastermind, then this is what had to be done.
  • If he was the isolated, broken man that some videos suggest, then this was a vengeful and stupid mission with untold consequences dripping in blood.

 

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At the shores of Tripoli

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Nero, Caligula, Hitler, King George, Idi Amin.  These are the names of some leaders who were raving lunatics.  They were vicious, evil and certifiably coo-coo. 

But Moamar Qadafi really takes the madman bloodlust to a new level. 

Does anyone else think he talks like Charlie Sheen and looks eerily like Michael Jackson (odd skin tone and propensity toward make-up).  

Except that we mechanisms to deal with a psychotic Hollywood star or a dead and alleged pedophile pop-star.   

Qadafi will not leave voluntarily.  He will savage his people to stay in power. 

A no-fly zone cannot be a unilateral US action.  It is hard to enforce and, if we engage, we have to be in for the long haul.  Forget what Dick and Rummy told us about easy-win, easy-out strategies in Iraq.  Stupid then; stupid now.

President Obama is pursuing the right strategy to make the military re-think killing fellow Libyans.   John Wayne McCain is being contrarian.  How many wars can we fight?  If the US steps in overtly, it gives Qadafi leverage as a revolutionary against imperialist powers.

We have a moral obligation not to allow the slaughter.  But we have to be intelligent about it.  We have to look before we leap. 

May Allah bless and save the Libyan people.

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lucky

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I hopped a cab tonight because I really, really, couldn’t deal with the humanity that crowds the subway.  Well, actually, it was late enough that the trains wouldn’t be crowded, but still.  There was a chill in the air (frigid, perhaps) and I needed to get home.  A long-ish day.  Not like the “old days” but then again I am not in my 20s or 30s any more (barely still in my 40s).

The cab driver was talking on the phone.  His driving skills were basic:  if your foot is not on the gas (accelerating in a way that gave a born-and-bred Manhattanite motion sickness), then your foot must be on the brake.

Ok, so I needed him off the phone and off the gas pedal.  Hmmm.  I struck up a conversation.

“Where are you from?”

“Sudan.”

“What do you think of the elections?”

“I don’t think it will change much.  There will be fighting.”

“Are you from the north or the South?”

“North.  Independence won’t change anything.  People will fight each other now in the South.  Many different peoples.”

“Same problem in the North?”

“Government there is strong.  So, no fighting in north.”

I offered “brutal” as a more apt description.

He said, “way of life there, not here.”

I had no response to that simple statement of relief and admiration for this country.  I asked him what he thought about Egypt.

“Now the world knows what has been happening there.”

I was silent.  Maybe I should have known before.  I just didn’t think about it.

He offered up, “no one speaks to police.  too much bribes and danger.  not here, government is less corrupt.”

I had never thought of our government in terms of lesser corruption.  Not the superlatives we were raised to expect of our government.  But he meant it as a true compliment.

My world view, turned on an incline — “less corrupt” as a compliment and an ideal.

Another lesson in life from a stranger.

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Tragedy on so many levels

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In Tucson, many are dead and injured as a result of a deranged man with a deranged message.

Let’s put aside the left blaming the right and whether it is foreseeable that a lunatic would do this.  That conversation will get us nowhere and misses the point.

I think it is more worthwhile to wonder why politics is a bloodsport these days in a way that we haven’t seen since in perhaps a century.

Let’s think instead about how our politician are so invested in being right that they vilify the oppositional view and the integrity of its proponents.  In 2008, when Michele Bachmann said that then candidate Barack Obama and Michele Obama were “anti-American” because they hold views different from hers, that is a code that our country is being infiltrated by enemies.  Think about it, she said that the likely 44th President was the Manchurian Candidate of the movies.  And in the movies, a lone gunman (the good guy) kills the Manchurian Candidate.

Then Sarah Palin has a website that has a target on Rep. Giffords’ district (“in the cross-hairs”) for some reason or other.  Or the famous, Palinism: “don’t back down, just reload” or something like that.  Words have meaning, even if you try afterward to refudiate them.

This is war-speak.  And in war, enemies are killed, and our soldiers come home to heroes’ welcomes (ideally).  But war produces body-bags, brutality, starvation, desperation and carnage.

Is that the fevered pitch we want in our national discourse?  So, let us speak gently and with respect when we debate.  Even if we have to fake it.

Let’s set some ground rules:

  1. A socialist and tea-party member can love this country and protect the very institutions of government that make us strong.
  2. It isn’t about being right; it is about building a consensus and keeping this country great.
  3. Political defeat is hard to take but you can’t take your marbles and go home or start threatening people.
  4. The media does more to stoke the divisions than provide any useful information.
  5. If our nation tacks to the left or right, some people will not be pleased, but they must always remain the loyal opposition. (It is hard; I know. I had to endure the policies of George Bush and Dick Cheney and even some of President Obama’s policies I don’t like).
  6. Exemplifying and practicing the principles of this nation are essential for this country to move forward in one piece and in peace.
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Burning the Quran is bad for all of us

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General Petraeus commented that burning the Quran is dangerous for US troops. (See below.)

It is dangerous for all of us.

The Nazis burned books. The Communists burned books. The McCarthy-ites burned books.

Is this really what America stands for?

And just a little side note:  and these Quran burners call themselve the DOVE WORLD OUTREACH CENTER?  Really?  Really?

P.S.:  ONLY C-SPAN and CNN carried live the interfaith press conference denouncing the burning of the Quran. Fox News Channel had no coverage and MSNBC did not carry live coverage.  WHAT DOES THAT SAY???

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By KIMBERLY DOZIER, Associated Press Writer Kimberly Dozier, Associated Press Writer Sept. 7, 2010

[Truncated; excerpt only]

KABUL, Afghanistan – The top U.S. and NATO commander warned Tuesday an American church’s threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book could endanger U.S. troops in the country and Americans worldwide.

Meanwhile, NATO reported the death of an American service member in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday.

The comments from Gen. David Petraeus followed a protest Monday by hundreds of Afghans over the plans by Gainesville, Florida-based Dove World Outreach Center — a small, evangelical Christian church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy — to burn copies of the Quran on church grounds to mark the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States that provoked the Afghan war.

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Transportation Safety Administration

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We know that TSA personnel are mean and threatening.  They enjoy lording over passengers and looking at each pereson suspiciously.  And yet, they still seem to effect that attitude of “I’m doing you a favor, so don’t piss me off.”

We also know that having some one’s smelly shoes in a bin next to your bin (and permeating your coat and blazer) is no way to start or end a trip. 

My favorite, though, is the full-body glaucoma test, where you are in a Woody Allen-esque orgasmatron machine as jets of air hit various areas of your body.  The point is to find any trace chemicals.  I also had someone swab my dirty underwear (I was on my way home) looking for trace chemicals.  And, G-d forbid, you wanted to pack some hair gel.

We put up with these and other indignities.  Why? Because they are keeping us safe.

Hmmm.  Then how does a man previously denied entrance into this country, whose family alerted the authorities that he was dangerous, walk on a plane with a syringe and more liquid than “allowed”?

What have we learned?  TSA personnel are mean and threatening AND incompetent.  Luckily, the terrorist in this case was more incompetent.

There are a lot of very qualified people out of work.  Maybe we should upgrade our TSA personnel (and personality).

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The tragedy at Fort Hood

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Brave men and women lost their lives at the hands of one of our own. 

Yes, Major Nidal Malik Hasan is one of our own. 

Just as much as Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, is one of our own. 

We can make all the shallow distinctions but radicalism creeps person by person, as it did with McVeigh and, as we are told, with Hasan.  The horror and the responsibility begin and end with the person.

There are always signs in retrospect.  And, they allow for a useless free-for-all for Monday quarterbacking pundits.

Yes, let’s look closely at this tragedy and learn its lessons.  But, first, let us bury our dead with honor and with thanks of a grateful nation. 

Just a few days ago, President Obama stood ramrod straight with a crisp salute as the fallen soldiers were carried off an army transport to be buried by their families. 

It is tragic that he must do so again so soon and under these circumstances.

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