RUTHFULLY YOURS

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In today’s Times a letter to the editor appears from Letty Cotton Pogrebin regarding the accusations of anti-Semitism in the Women’s March: “Since the first Women’s March in 2017, a number of feminist intermediaries have tried to help bridge the organizers’ ideological and political gaps, with scant success. Until all of us understand that anti-racism and anti-Semitism are the same toxic madness split at the root, and until we embrace intersectionality, without defining any woman out, our struggle against sexism and racism will be hobbled by our squabbles with one another.” When I googled Letty’s name with different combinations of women’s march/anti-Semitism, only one article surfaced written in March 2017, a few months after the first march. Here’s what Letty said then: “When it comes to Israel and Palestine, I’m with Nancy Kaufman, CEO of the National Council of Jewish women, who says she’ll work with anyone except those who reject Israel’s right to exist. This winter she (Kaufman) met in advance with organizers of the Women’s March on Washington to ensure that message would be ‘pro-something, not anti-Israel.’ She received assurances that the march would focus on the issues NCJJW cares about – women’s health, reproductive justice, immigration, children and families, economic equality, voting rights, misogyny and bigotry. The Washington March did all that and more based on its core commitment to intersectionality, the belief that forms of oppression are linked and must be confronted simultaneously. Given today’s vitriolic political environment, intersectionality is not just a galvanizing theory, it’s an organizing tool. (Moment magazine, 3/6/17

Before the first march took place, co-organizer Linda Sarsour, an American woman who identifies as Palestinian and wears a hijab to proclaim that, made it clear that “no feminist could be a Zionist,” that as a woman of color, she could not invite Zionist women to march with other females because they support a colonial, oppressive regime – Israel. Co-organizer Tamika Mallory joined with Black Lives Matter to also protest the inclusion of any Zionist and both women were ardent supporters of infamous anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan as well as the BDS movement which aims to destroy Israel economically and culturally and ostracize that country from the community of nations. As for intersectionality, it notoriously excludes Jewish groups from participation, considering them among the “privileged white” as opposed to the oppressed people of color. Sarsour’s comments before the first march were made on national t.v. – not hidden in a private e-mail. At the time of the first march, no Jewish leader spoke out to caution Jewish women about supporting a movement organized with anti-Semitic intent. In New York, some religious leaders were proudly marching alongside members of their congregations whom they urged to participate. In New York, feminist Letty remained silent and subsequently endorsed the march despite all contrary evidence that anti-Semitism had been removed from its fundamental charter.

It took a year before actress Alyssa Milano, a founder of the MeToo movement, came forward and announced that she would not join the 2019 march unless the organizers repudiated their adulation of Lewis Farrakhan and their own anti-Semitic comments. That made news and suddenly other voices were heard, though it wasn’t until Dec 28th that Letty’s letter appeared, particularly odd since she had written about anti-Semitism in the women’s movement as early as June, 1982. (Ms Magazine) Letty, along with other religious, community and political leaders, needs to do more soul-searching as to why so many Jews who are outspoken about Islamophobia, racism and misogyny and other headings of the liberal agenda – waited until after the Pittsburgh massacre to focus on the clear and blatant message of Jew hatred behind the Women’s March.

I just read one of the most honest pieces of self-indictment ever written at Medium.com. I just read one of the scariest pieces of self-indictment at Medium.com. These two articles were one and the same and they define the complete arrogance of the Progressive movement; a movement which has now turned full-blown Fascist.

In this article, titled Intolerant Liberals by Tucker FitzGerald (love the capitalized ‘G’ in Fitzgerald, it’s so painfully hip) he professes to explain to everyone that people who identify as Conservatives are completely miss-reading Progressives. He states clearly that, “We have no interest in everyone getting treated the same. We have no interest in giving all ideas equal airtime. We have no interest in ‘tolerating’ all beliefs.”

Indeed, Mr. Fitzgerald – with a capital ‘G’ – has it right when he says Conservatives have Progressives pegged incorrectly. Progressives aren’t “progressive” at all. They are Fascists.

In speaking from his pedestal of arrogance, he posits an example of “true equality” in saying that the election of a female President of the United States would mean nothing but a drop in the bucket. In Fitzgerald’s eye (and evidently those of his Fascist brethren, as well) he believes true equality can only happen in the instance of the presidency after 45 women are elected, consecutively, to the office.

Evidently, Mr. Fitzgerald’s testicles reside in the bottom of his girlfriend’s woMan-wallet.

https://quillette.com/2018/12/26/democratic-socialism-or-social

Back in August, Jacobin journalist Meagan Day declared that “democratic socialists want to end capitalism.” The subtitle of her article in Vox explaining the movement explicitly stated: “It’s not just New Deal liberalism.” There is some disagreement about this on the Left. Kyle Kulinski, an independent media commentator and co-founder of the Justice Democrats, supports democratic socialist candidates such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Justice Democrats endorse a myriad of candidates who do not take large donor capital, many of them sharing endorsement with the DSA. Nevertheless, Kulinski rejects the “post-capitalist” approach to democratic socialism, and holds that “so many people now describe themselves as ‘democratic socialists’ and they do not support a post-capitalist philosophy.

In the clip above, Kulinski argues that there is a fundamental confusion of labels—politicians whose policies are entirely in line with Nordic social democracy are defining themselves as democratic socialists. He places the blame for this confusion on Bernie Sanders, who, despite a career of never praising actual socialism, has been lumped in with Venezuela and a post-capitalist ideology. If Bernie had labelled himself correctly, Kulinski maintains, the current confusion over democratic socialism and social democracy would not exist.

DSA co-chair Joseph Schwartz was quoted in a 2015 PolitiFact article litigating the difference between democratic socialism and the Nordic model: “When Bernie is asked, ‘Are you a socialist?’ he doesn’t deny it, and he immediately talks about Scandinavia. He uses [democratic socialism and social democracy] interchangeably. But if you look at his history, he knows the distinction.” A Quillette article published in March and entitled “The Falsity of the Sanders Venezuela Meme,” also observes that Sanders, uniquely among left intellectuals, has never expressed support for the Venezuelan model of politics: “There is no record of Sanders sponsoring or co-sponsoring any symbolic motion which praises the ‘achievements’ or policies of Hugo Chavez,” as well as a quote from Sanders during the Presidential primary, emblematic of his career: “When I talk about democratic socialism, I’m not looking at Venezuela. I’m not looking at Cuba. I’m looking at countries like Denmark and Sweden.”

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/12/swine-before-pearls-the-lefts

‘Tis the season to be … quoting spurious scriptural interpretations in support of open-borders immigration policies. Baby Jesus was a refugee, don’t you know? A simple slogan for simple minds, it cannot withstand the slightest scrutiny. Yet year after year, that is what we are loudly and insistently told.

It’s become quite fashionable with the advent of social media for amateur theologians to posture as experts on Christian living, doctrine and to even claim confidence of what the historical Jesus Christ would support or oppose. Ironically, many personally reject any authority or validity of Scripture in their personal lives – it’s just something they pretend has authority when they ignorantly assume it supports their position.

The most common example by far people who quote the first two words of Matthew 7, “Judge not”, without reading the rest of that very chapter, which teaches Christians how to judge righteously, looking beneath the surface of every issue, identify the root by the fruit while discriminating against metaphorical pigs, dogs and wolves in sheep’s clothing and rebuking oppressors. Far from not judging, there’s an awful lot of good judgement required, not to mention self-examination.

I was advised by a good friend with whom I almost always agree, that I should include more columns criticizing the withdrawal of our troops from Syria. I did below. However, they only hardened my support for troop withdrawal.

First: Jewish “leaders” are opposed? As I recall they were not uniformly opposed to Obama’s disastrous and scurrilous appeasement of the mullahs in the infamous Iran deal.

Second: Israel is “nervous” that the removal of 2000 American soldiers will embolden Iran, Turkey and Syrian jihadists. Now, I am hawkish on Israel- very hawkish on a hawkish Israel with defense forces that do not rely-never- on any foreign guarantees for the security of the nation. Am I to believe that the presence of 2000 United States troops is necessary for Israel’s defense?

Sorry I remain unconvinced. And as for General Mattis- he was opposed to moving the United States embassy to Jerusalem; opposed to quashing the Iran deal; was opposed to the 2017 bombing of Syria in retaliation for Syrian chemical weapons attacks; opposed to leaving the G20 global climate fraud. Since it is a holiday I will say one nice thing about him. General Herbert Raymond McMaster was worse. rskrsk

https://spectator.us/adults-trump-childish/

What Malcolm said of the Thane of Cawdor — ‘nothing in his life/ Became him like the leaving it’ — cannot be said of General James Mattis’s leavetaking his position as Secretary of Defense.

Let me first say that General Mattis has long served his country with distinction, betraying immense care for the Marines and soldiers under his command as well as condign fierceness towards the enemies of civilization. As Secretary of Defense, he obliterated ISIS as a fighting force and has overseen the beginnings of a critical upgrade of America’s military infrastructure, which had been allowed to atrophy under the lead-from-behind posturing of Barack Obama.

Like President Trump, I liked the fact that Mattis’s nickname was ‘Mad Dog,’ though I understand he dislikes the soubriquet. After the America-last, apologize-first foreign policy of Obama, it was nice to have a Secretary of Defense with sufficient backbone to compliment the steeliness of a robust Commender-in-Chief such as Donald Trump.

At the same time, I remember several conservative friends expressing reservations about Mattis when his nomination for the post of SecDef was announced. He was, it was widely rumored, a Hillary supporter and, what’s more, his view of foreign policy was much more in line with the Bush-Obama species of moralism than Trump’s ‘we’ll-do-what’s-in-our-national-interest’ pragmatism.

So it was hardly surprising that rumors of Mattis’s imminent departure have circulated at least since last summer. As the Trump administration matured and the President’s policy of ‘America First’ (which does not, as POTUS perhaps neglects to point out frequently enough, mean ‘America Alone’) came increasingly on line in his foreign policy, it was inevitable that fissures between Mattis and Trump would open up.

Predictably, the neo-con fraternity has its collective knickers in a twist over Mattis’s announced departure. Max Boot, who is always good for a laugh these days, epitomized the angst in some recent tweets. ‘Jim Mattis is gone,’ he said in one. ‘God help America. And the world.’ But then it has been obvious for some time that for Max the criterion of a good decision is that it was not taken by Donald Trump.

It should also be said that that even if the President and his Secretary of Defense were in perfect accord about things, it is hardly surprising that a Secretary of Defense should leave after two years. Indeed, by the time he departs, at the end of February, Jim Mattis will have served longer than the last three Secretaries of Defense: Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, and Ash Carter.

The sad thing about Jim Mattis’s exit is his grandstanding, not to say petulant and immature, mode of departure. The letter announcing his resignation, circulated yesterday, is half bureaucratic boilerplate (‘I have been privileged to serve,’ ‘proud of the progress,’ etc., etc.).

But those nuggets are set in a jelly of snarky recrimination about how he, Jim Mattis, has always believed that our strength as a nation is ‘inextricably linked’ to our system of ‘alliance and partnerships.’ Further, he says we must treat our allies ‘with respect’ while remaining ‘resolute and unambiguous’ about ‘those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours,’ e.g., Russia and China.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-not-steel-will-win-the-next-war-11545598669

The Trump administration this year imposed tariffs on steel, claiming that imports “threaten to impair the national security of the United States.” But the age is long past when steel was the most important input in a nation’s military arsenal. The modern military depends more on digital technology—semiconductor chips, sensors and software—than it does on steel.

The U.S. pioneered the technology that made today’s advanced weapon systems possible. But America’s competitive advantage in the digital economy is eroding at an alarming pace, along with its domestic high-tech manufacturing capacity. The majority of electronic systems first invented in the U.S. now are designed and made overseas, mainly in Asia. With few and dwindling exceptions, the U.S. no longer makes things like flat-panel displays, memory devices, light-emitting devices, lasers, imaging chips for digital cameras, and computer system packaging software.

As the manufacture of these component technologies has migrated offshore, so have many key systems suppliers. Intel is the only remaining U.S. company capable of fabricating high-density, high-performance computer chips in America. International Business Strategies estimates that investors are pouring $50 billion a year into advanced chip production facilities in Asia, more than 10 times the level of domestic spending. A state-of-the-art chip-fabrication plant can cost $20 billion to build and must be continuously upgraded.

The national-security implications of this industrial migration are dire. Without a domestic capability in critical electronic technologies, the U.S. may find itself unable to translate innovation into effective weaponry. Overseas supply chains are inherently insecure. Unless the manufacture of critical technology remains under domestic control, American systems are vulnerable to espionage and sabotage.

https://quillette.com/2018/12/18/confessions-of-a-soulless

I became friends with Jamie when I was 13, a few years after my family fled the Soviet Union and settled in what was then one of the most diverse neighborhoods of south Brooklyn. When we first met, Jamie (not his real name) told me that he was a genius—that his Catholic school teachers said so after he wrote a poem about vaginas and read it aloud in front of the whole class. He told me he wanted to be “an author.” In the 1990s, our street was a spontaneous symphony of the working poor, a place where kids bonded by trading ethnic insults in a dozen languages. I had mastered this crude local vernacular. Jamie’s ability to step outside of our street language, speak freely and dream about something larger was transfixing.

Unlike Jamie, I churned through the city’s public schools without attracting much notice. My teachers did not seek genius. In high school, they were too busy keeping us from killing each other. I learned nothing and barely graduated. After Jamie went off to a university in Manhattan, we lost touch. I attended a local public college and came out with degrees in Business and Philosophy, graduating shortly after the 9/11 attacks. The business major was a concession to my immigrant parents. But Wall Street was in ruins. And philosophy obviously wasn’t much help. I worked a string of odd jobs, ultimately landing a writing gig for a consumer magazine that paid less than what I’d earned parking cars.

In 2009, I joined Facebook and looked up Jamie online. He had graduated from a prestigious Master of Fine Arts program in fiction. He also was awarded a coveted fellowship that came with a brief mention in one of the country’s finest literary magazines. He was married, and had a toddler son. Though surprised at first, he seemed happy to hear from me.

I was eager to catch up. We hadn’t spoken or seen each other in more than a decade. But the conversation invariably steered itself toward our young new president, Barack Obama. I’d voted for him and felt a swell of emotion when he spoke at his 2008 inauguration. Like Jamie, Obama was bi-racial, raised by his white mother, with a penchant for rhetorical flight.

Jamie and I would speak on the phone, discussing how refreshing it was to finally have a man of eloquence and grace in the White House. We railed against obstructionist Republicans who undermined Obama—like Joe Wilson, who shouted “you lie!” during the 2009 State of the Union address. We were living in momentous times. At last, the nation had elected its first black president, and Jamie and I were friends again.

The big news from their respective sides of the Atlantic was the sentencing of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and the confidence vote in UK PM Theresa May. Neither party merited the final score.

I would find the standard operating procedure of US federal justice – squeeze till you squeal – utterly repugnant even if it were not so selectively applied. Me on October 19th 2016:

Comey’s FBI is hopelessly corrupted – and certainly more corrupt than J Edgar Hoover’s FBI…

That was months, and in some cases years, before the revelations about Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page et al. Michael Cohen is a sleazy shyster even by the standards of his grim trade, but the issue is the ability of the feds to get you on something once they decide it’s in their interest to do so. Which is not the hallmark of any real justice system.

~In that respect, the more interesting federal prosecution in the news yesterday was an under-reported story out of New Jersey. Per The North Jersey Record:

Feds: NJ woman forced Sri Lankan woman to marry her, enslaved her for 9 years

On a dreadful rainy night this past Thursday, I trudged to Carnegie Hall to hear the magnificent “Messiah” composed by George Friedrich Handel in 1741 performed by “The Masterwork Chorus and Orchestra.” Since I was in high school I have never missed a holiday season performance even if I had to sit on uncomfortable wooden pews in churches or in 1969 when I was nine months pregnant and stood during an entire 137 minute performance.

In William Congreve’s play “The Mourning Bride” (1697) the first line states ” Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.”

Truer word were never spoken. I went home in driving rain humming “And He shall reign forever and ever.”rsk