RUTHFULLY YOURS

I AM A JEWISH LATIN AMERICAN WOMAN…..BUT ….THIS IS NOT QUITE UP MY ALLEY….AS MY E-PAL M.P. ASKS “WHAT EXACTLY ARE “INCLUSIVE PUBLIC SPHERES…..MAYBE URINAL FOR WOMEN????”

The Sword, the Pen, and the Uterus: The Role of Jewish Latin American Women in Creating Inclusive Public Spheres

Wednesday, December 5, 2012
3:30PM
Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall, HBI
Epstein Building, Brandeis University,
515 South St., Waltham, MA 02454 (Directions/Map)

From 1976 until 1983, Argentina lived under a repressive military dictatorship. Join current HBI Scholar-in-Residence Dalia Wassner to learn about the creative activism of Jewish women in Argentina as they fought to bring transparency and accountability to the period of terror through film and writing. Members of the public are welcome to join Fernando Rosenberg’s class, “Culture and Social Change in Latin America” for this lecture. Learn more about the event.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2309/America-2012-Running-Scared.aspx

If Election Day is about picking winners, the morning after is for post-mortems. That’s when we slice open the losing campaigns, set aside the hundreds of millions of dollars that gush out and pick apart the cause of death.

Why did the Romney campaign fail? Maybe the country is now GOP-proof. That is, maybe a Constitution-guided, free-market, limited-government candidate no longer can “appeal” to the majority of the electorate. It could be that the death knell rang early this year once 67.3 million of us, or one in five Americans, had come to depend on federal assistance, formerly known as “the dole.”

This nearly takes us back to the level we hit in 1994 (23.1 percent), before President Bill Clinton and the GOP-led Congress “ended” welfare as we knew it. After a noticeable decline, the percentage skyrocketed during President Obama’s first term. So, too, did the percentage of Americans who pay zero federal taxes, now a shocking 49.5 percent. Right off the bat, half the country listens to Mitt Romney promise to relieve taxpayers of the onerous burdens imposed by the federal government and either fears for its livelihood or hears static.

It was exactly such an economic message that formed not just the core of Romney’s campaign, but all of it. On one level, this exclusive focus on economic issues to the point of tunnel vision marked a campaign determined to play it safe. On another level, it was a huge gamble, a roll of the dice on which Romney staked everything.

Why? I think this risky strategy evolved from the defensive crouch the average center-right politician assumes even to enter the intensely hostile environment our mass media have made of the public square. Seeking to avoid media retaliation, Romney advanced a cramped line of attack. For example, we have in Barack Obama a president more demonstrably socialist than any since FDR, but if Mitt Romney were to have mentioned that or called Obama a socialist – with fact-based backup from, say, Stanley Kurtz’s scholarly book “Radical-in-Chief” – the media catcalls would have begun.

http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&P%20Auto%201&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5109

“The game is still on. Conservatives have the persuasive case to make, but invective, insult, rant and rave won’t do it. Reasoned argument will. This goes for Democrats, too. They should remember the infallible Pruden Principle: Nothing recedes like success. History proves it.”

Woe is us. But next time, the woe will be for the other guys. Keeping that in mind is the secret of surviving the morning after.

Losing an election always hurts; winning hurts the other guys, which is why winning is so sweet. This one hurts conservatives a lot, and it’s particularly painful for those with unrealistic great expectations.

Pessimists abound. Rep. Ron Paul, who holds the North American franchise for pessimism, says we no longer have to worry about the “fiscal cliff” because we’re already lie in the rocks and weeds at the bottom of Gruesome Gulch. Rep. John Boehner, the speaker of the House, who promised defiantly on election eve to hang tough on the Republican mantra of “no new taxes” even if the president were to be re-elected, now sounds not so sure.

Some of the more prominent conservative pundits are on their way to New York City in search of a building high enough to jump out of. Rush Limbaugh went to bed on Election Night “thinking we had lost the country, I don’t know how else you look at this.” Sean Hannity told his Fox News audience that he wouldn’t succumb to depression but it looks like to him like America is “no longer the center-right country that it once was” and “has been conditioned to be an entitlement society.” If that’s not depression it’s a reasonable facsimile of it. When Ann Coulter, the prolific author and pundit who writes exclusively in purple ink, told talk-show hostess Laura Ingraham that the nation is now interested only in handouts, “There is no hope.”

Miss Ingraham told her: “Pep up, move forward, girl.” Good advice. It’s easy for anyone to be misled by the media, whose patron saint is Chicken Little. The media covers politics the way television “journalists” cover the weather: all panic all the time. They can’t help it, it’s all they know. The coverage often reminds me of my devout grandmother, beyond elderly when she called me in tears one day many years ago to tell me that “God is dead, they just announced it on the television.”

Another Tack: Shelly’s macho-man mentor Hanna Rovina, the late-great first lady of the Israeli theater, once quipped: “people with connections don’t need protectzia” (“favoritism,” in Israeli parlance). This is perhaps why in days bygone retiring IDF generals invariably gravitated to the Labor Party, where they had ample connections which guaranteed them a helpful leg-up to the […]

http://send.hadavars.com/index.php?action=message&l=3603&c=13681&m=12193&s=a317a26441993bdd8f740ee9a6c71bce Just like the role of “Red Lights” in intersections, so would “Red Lines” reduce the probability of a military collision with a nuclear Iran. Clear “Red Lines” would upgrade the US posture of deterrence and enhance preparedness against – and minimizes the cost of – aggression. On the other hand, the absence of “Red […]

http://yeshaviews.blogspot.com/
“How will we in Israel deal with the election results?
We will do fine. It might get a little difficult. The road might become slippery, rocky, and sometimes seem impassable, but we will engage in the 4X4 mode, put it in low gear, and get through what we need to get through, shoving aside as many obstacles as necessary through the hilly terrain. We are stronger than any candidate, and we have what to show the world.”

I landed in the US on Nov 7… the “day after”. Like many others on my flight, if not the majority, when I checked the results of the election, I was not surprised. I watched as the faces changed from the joy of landing safely and beating out the Nor’easter, to near horror-stricken when realizing that the White House would not be changing hands.
At the same time, I felt a bit of relief. It’s over, results known; time to assess, and to move forward. Reports conveyed that approximately 70% of the Jewish vote went to Obama − again no surprise there. There were statements of shock regarding just how many “religious” Jews voted for a candidate who is in favor of ripping the Jewish heartland from its people. In fact, the chasm between those of us who live in Israel, and those in the US, once again proved to be as wide as ever, with no prospect of attenuating the intensity.
That chasm which is the real problem, that had it been truly addressed, analyzed, and properly challenged would have brought about a different result in the “Jewish” vote, and perhaps even in the election results.
The tens of millions of dollars or more donated to the Romney campaign by our Jewish brethren did little to sway the Jewish vote. Nine percent change in the Jewish voting margin cannot be considered success.
While Israel is not the top swing topic of liberal Jewish voters, it is right up there, next to Women’s and Gay rights and other human rights issues. The Israel/Palestinian peace efforts have affected many of our voters and I find it troubling that 70% of American Jewish voters do not comprehend what’s at stake. Worse yet, if they do comprehend then they presented a clear statement of apathy.
The support for Obama conveys indifference on the part of American Jewry over Israel giving up its heritage and its heartland. Their apathy paves the way for a new Arab state to rise, void of the ideals and values treasured in western culture, a state, which would undoubtedly be hostile to Israel and the United States.
Conversely, polls communicated unmistakably the over 80% of Israeli support for Romney as their choice for US president. Israelis, for the most part, recognize that Obama cannot be trusted with regard to Israel’s security.
We are on our own, and we accept that.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ Now that we have lost the election of 2012, where our champion, a third-rate imitation of Ronald Reagan, without either his charm or his principles, who believed in absolutely nothing except being the best salesman he could be; let’s pause to reflect on all the things we lost out on through his defeat. When […]

I write this as a proud and patriotic American, a Jew, and a staunch Zionist and supporter of Israel. I have not time or desire to scold the Jews who voted for Obama. I am in too much despair at the calamity that has befallen Jews throughout the world as violent anti-Semitism is not viewed as a “hate crime” but rather as a trendy lefty fad.

And here, in my America, I can no longer feel sanguine that Congress will support Israel. In fact, some of our best supporters lost and the best candidates were trounced. They were targeted by J Street…here is their gloating letter:

“You should feel GREAT today!

All 49 JStreetPAC-endorsed incumbents in the House – elected.

All 7 JStreetPAC-endorsed Senate candidates – elected.

JStreetPAC’s challengers and candidates for open seats – elected in 13 out of 15 races (Ami Bera hanging on to a razor thin lead in his race for a Congressional seat in Sacramento would make it 14 of 15.)

You helped raise and contribute over $1.8 million to these 71 pro-Israel, pro-peace candidates for Congress, and, thanks to you the 113th Congress will have 50 percent more JStreetPAC-endorsed members than are in Congress today. Not only did you help elect champions like Tammy Baldwin, Martin Heinrich and Tim Kaine to the Senate, you defeated some of the most outrageous voices on our issue. Come January the House of Representatives will no longer have One-State Caucus members like Joe Walsh, Allen West, Bobby Schilling, Frank Guinta, or Ann Marie Buerkle.

This is an incredible victory – one that is part of transforming the political atmosphere around Israel in the U.S. that has blocked meaningful American efforts to achieve a two-state solution for decades.

Our work doesn’t end here, of course. We have to spread the word about the incredible success of pro-Israel, pro-peace politics so that more candidates and more public officials in the future will start to speak out in pro-Israel, pro-peace way.”

This is ominous news. There is an old joke about leaders of the three faiths….Jewish, Christian, and Moslem being engulfed by a flood and their last words:

The Imam prays he gets the reward of the virgins.

The Christian prays for salvation of his soul and the world.

The Jew prays that Jews fill find a way to surviv and thrive under water.

Dear e-pals: We are under water.Our life vests are the conservatives, Evangelicals, all Christian supporters of Israel, and each other.

LET’S ROLL!!!!

YALE KRAMER IS A PROMINENT PSYCHIATRIST AND WRITER IN NEW YORK….HERE IS HIS TAKE WITH WHICH I AM IN TOTAL AGREEMENT

I cannot say that I am not bitterly disappointed about Romney’s loss. I do not blame him–I think he ran an energetic and honorable campaign and gave it his all. His campaign may have made some minor mistakes, but I think that he lost the election because of the bias of the press which resulted in their protecting Obama from any serious criticism.

But he also lost because of several components of his and his party’s platform which I’ll get to in a moment. What is most important in our world view is freedom which means less government and all that that implies (taxes, regulations, etc.)and a strong and vibrant competitive economic system. That is essentially it. The rest is trivial.

It is clear that Romney could have won the election if he had the latino vote and the women’s vote. I think that the new GOP must acknowledge those facts of life and give up on both of those issues. Women’s waist-down issues should not be political matters no matter what religious people would like. They are and should be individual matters. Get rid of it as a political issue.

Whatever GOP is left after this defeat must also revise their views on illegal immigration and make it more possible for the latino to feel included by creating several different routes to citizenship and naturalization. This doesn’t have to lead to abusive entitlements–some compromise can be worked out which involves service for young people and citizenship programs for older people.

Also even though Romney did not win the popular vote I also think that the electoral system is totally antiquated, outmoded, and has no relationship today to what the founding fathers had in mind and that the new GOP should work toward getting rid of it and fostering some popular voting system that would foster the feeling in voters that their vote was important and not just the voters in 8 or 9 so called battleground states.

I don’t think Obama has a mandate to work his evil plans and the congressional GOP should resist him quietly as much as possible all the time sharpening their knives and planning for 2014 and 2016 to accomplish those important values mentioned above. Although I might not be around to see it happen.

Your friend and blogmate

Yale Kramer

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/11/07/The-Election-Is-Over-Investigate-Benghazi-Now Now that the election is behind us, it’s time for a serious investigation into what did and didn’t take place in Benghazi: an investigation that seeks clear, on-the-record answers to some very important questions. Questions like: 1. What did Obama know and do (and not do), and when did he know? 2. When did […]