Miscellanea Agnostica

… you end up facing a situation that very well might cost millions of lives, and for no discernible, rational reason. The trifecta of Israel, Iran and the Right within the United States is rapidly reaching this point. It would have been hilariously funny, if not for the fact that it might lead to a latter-day holocaust.

First, we have Iran, which is led by a furiously religionistic cast-eyed freak known as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who can’t seem to get over the fact that a Jewish state exists, several hundred miles from his own borders. As the New York Times reports, he’s come to the Big Apple this week to spew yet more of his juvenile anti-Semitic rants (WebCite cached article):

Defying a warning by the United Nations secretary general against inflammatory remarks, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said Monday that Israelis had no historical roots in the Middle East and that the existence of Israel was just a passing phase in the region’s long history. …

At the breakfast meeting, he said that the Israelis had been around the region for only 60 or 70 years, in contrast to the Iranians, whose civilization has existed for thousands of years.

“They have no roots there in history,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said of the Israelis, according to Reuters.

This is, of course, a lie. DNA studies have shown that modern Jews do, in fact, have Middle Eastern roots. I’m sure Iran’s cast-eyed freak — and pretty much every other anti-Semite on the planet — would dismiss these DNA studies as products of the pervasive and evil “Jewish cabal” that controls the planet … but paranoiac thinking like that is par for the course, for this childish crew, so one can hardly expect otherwise.

So this is hardly the first time he’s unleashed this kind of tantrum and it certainly won’t he the last. However, this little childish antic has been compounded by another episode of juvenile religionism, and that is, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to nuke Iran because it appears they may have a slim chance of someday creating a workable nuclear weapon, as NPR reports (cached):

During a joint press conference in Jerusalem with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Netanyahu expressed his frustration with how world powers are handling Iran and its nuclear program.

“The world tells Israel ‘wait, there’s still time’. And I say, ‘Wait for what? Wait until when?’ Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” Netanyahu said.

It doesn’t matter to Bibi, I guess, that Iran’s nuclear program is, in a word, delicate … so delicate that cyberattacks like Stuxnet and Flame have been able to derail it. Oh no. The fact that Iran’s cast-eyed freak has been rattling his saber for the last few years, is all Bibi needs to tell him that his country is only 10 seconds away from nuclear extinction at Iran’s hands. That Bibi is motivated to nuke Iran, by militant religionists within his own country, is something he’d never admit to … even though it’s true.

Now, added to all of this tension — which all by itself is sufficient to ignite a war that no rational person should wish be fought — we have a third party intruding on it, scrapping for a fight at all costs. That would be America’s Right, which is absolutely enraged that President Barack Obama insolently chose not to meet with Bibi, presumably in order to get his blessing for Israel’s nuking of Iran (cached). (Memo to the Religious Right: No, Obama does not have to meet with Bibi just ’cause Bibi asked to meet with him. The leader of the free world gets to choose who he meets with, and when. He is at no one’s beck and call … not even the Israeli Prime Minister’s.)

Because of the R.R.’s sanctimonious outrage over this, Mitt Romney, GOP presidential candidate and current commander-in-chief of the Religious Right’s political arm, is also aching to start a war in the Middle East, as CNN reports (cached):

“Tonight on 60 Minutes, President Obama called Israel’s legitimate concern about the impact of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons ‘noise’ and referred to Israel as merely ‘one of our closest allies in the region,’” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

Saul continued in the statement: “This is just the latest evidence of his chronic disregard for the security of our closest ally in the Middle East. Governor Romney’s views stand in sharp contrast to the President’s. Governor Romney strongly believes that Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East and that support for Israel is essential to extending freedom, peace and democracy throughout the region. As president, Governor Romney will restore and protect the close alliance between our nation and the state of Israel.”

It’s not true that a war between Israel and Iran could ever be in the best interest of the U.S., and there’s no valid reason Americans should ever want one, so long as there are alternatives available (cached). But in order to appeal to the evangelical Christians here … who’ve been itching to ignite Armageddon and usher in the return of their precious Jesus … Romney is forced to agitate for a war he knows would be bad for the U.S.

What a fucking joke this all is. And it’s all useless and pointless. It’s only come about because of the militant religionism that comes from the Abrahamic faiths. There’s no rational reason for any of this tension.

Isn’t it time for the world’s leaders to just fucking grow the hell up already and get over their militant religionism? I’ve had enough of your goddamn infantile tantrums, fercryinoutloud.

Photo credit: Clover_1, via Flickr.

Tags: abrahamic faiths, anti-semite, anti-semites, anti-semitic, anti-semitism, antisemite, antisemites, antisemitic, antisemitism, apocalypse, armageddon, benjamin netanyahu, bibi, christian, christian right, Christianity, christians, diplomacy, end time, end times, foreign relations, international relations, iran, iranian, iranians, Islam, israel, israeli, israelis, jew, jewish, jews, judaism, mahmoud ahmadinejad, middle east, muslim, muslims, nuclear, nuclear attack, nuclear power, nuclear war, nuclear weapon, nuclear weapons, preemptive strike, religious right, second coming, war, warfare

Angry that she was accused of having somehow contributed to the recent Tucson shooting, former Alaska governor and Republican (and Religious Right) starlet Sarah “Reload” Palin has gone on the attack. Rather than merely disavow any participation in the incident, she childishly and impetuously made a rather startling claim. As reported by Mediate, she released a video accusing her critics of having forged a “blood libel” against her and the rest of the vehement Right (WebCite cached article):

Every word Palin says in this video will most likely be analyzed for days. Palin treats this address with the seriousness of an actual leader and appears to do her best to unite all Americans together, no matter their political beliefs, in a recognition of “America’s Enduring Strength.” The one group left out of the celebration is Palin’s persistent nemesis, the mainstream media, as she says:

But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

What is perhaps more reprehensible than what any of her critics have said, is that she fired the “blood libel” bomb at them. You see, this term has a very singular meaning. It refers clearly and specifically to an anti-Semitic legend-motif in which Jews ritually murder Christian children as part of their profane rites. “Blood libel” stories historically were used as cudgels against Jews at various times. In other words, she’s setting herself and the rest of the Right as victims of a propaganda tool that Christians used to justify their hatred of Jews.

Real nice, there, Sarah. How marvelous of you, in the midst of your persecution complex, to appropriate the term “blood libel” to serve your own purposes.

Her gross misuse of this term hasn’t gone unnoticed, e.g. by Howard Kurtz of the Daily Beast [cached], The Caucus at the New York Times [cached], CNN’s Political Ticker [cached], & The Note by ABC News [cached], and I expect it will haunt her for the next several days. Then, she will likely make quips about “the lamestream media” criticizing her for having used this phrase and claim righteous indignation that they now dare now vilifying poor little her, for her response to having already been vilified by them. In other words, even in the face of her own immaturity, she will continue to refuse to accept that she may have done anything wrong.

(No rigid ideologue ever admits fault — for anything — at any time. Each childish tantrum is fully justified; any criticism of any childish tantrum is never accepted as having any validity; and merely results in yet another childish tantrum. Immaturity is the engine of all ideology.)

As an aside, the question of Loughner’s motivations likely will never be satisfactorily answered, although the media and pundits on every side will likely continue acting as though they know what it is, definitively, and will pontificate on it forever. But I don’t see anyone asking the most salient question, which is, why such a disruptive and disturbed individual as Jared Lee Loughner — who had several run-ins with law enforcement over the last few years, and was thrown out of classes and a school — was never assessed for mental illness and put into treatment. Everyone around him (including his family) simply veered around him, avoiding him, pawning him off on the next person, and hoped never to run into him again. Once they were free of him, they were all happy. And that was it. Well, this collective decision resulted in several deaths, a lot more wounded people, and Loughner will never see the light of day again. How did this benefit anyone, including Loughner himself? He’d have been much better served if someone, along the way, had gotten him some psychiatric treatment.

Update: True to form, ideological Rightists are reflexively declaring Palin faultless. Many are pointing to Alan Dershowitz’s declaration that there is nothing wrong with her having used the phrase “blood libel” against her critics. Big Government offers his remarks [cached]. The problem here is, even if others have misused the phrase “blood libel” in the past, this does not constitute logical permission for Palin to misuse it, now. Not only that, Dershowitz has no authority — even in spite of him being a famous Jewish lawyer — to grant Palin a dispensation on this score. In fact, no one has such authority; her misuse of “blood libel” is semantically and contextually incorrect, and no one in the universe can change that. Unfortunately the Right can’t help itself … they’re pathologically incapable of admitting Palin was wrong.

Photo credit: PBS NewsHour.

Tags: 2011 tucson shooting, 2011 tuscon shooting, america's enduring strength, anti-semite, anti-semitic, anti-semitism, antisemit, antisemitic, antisemitism, blood libel, childish, christian right, gabby giffords, gabrielle giffords, immature, immaturity, jared lee loughner, jared loughner, juvenile, loughner, religious right, sarah palin, sarah reload palin, tucscon AZ, tucson, tucson shooting, tuscon shooting

The fiercely Christian-theocratic, extreme-right-wing Texas GOP is revealing its anti-Semitism, over the matter of who is to be the Speaker of that state’s House of Representatives. Fox News — of all outfits — reports on this not-very-surprising revelation (WebCite cached article):

The race to lead the Texas House of Representatives has taken a religious turn, with some conservatives in the state suggesting that the speaker of the House, who is a Jewish Republican, should be replaced by a “Christian conservative.”

The state’s GOP insists this is not due to Straus’s religion, but his supposed ideological impurity:

Over the past month, in a spate of e-mails and political pitches, conservative opponents of incumbent Speaker Joe Straus have said they want him replaced not because of his Jewish religion, but because of his betrayal of Republican principles.

This, however, is a lie … because the emails in question reveal that it IS, in fact, Straus’s religion which is the sticking point, and which the Texas GOP finds offensive:

“We elected a house with Christian, conservative values. We now want a true Christian, conservative running it,” [State Republican Executive Committee official John] Cook said in the Nov. 30 e-mail, first published by the Texas Observer.

These people can sugar-coat this all they want, but the truth is they’re anti-Semitic. That’s just the way it is.

Hat tip: Skeptics & Heretics Forum on Delphi Forums.

Photo credit: Great Beyond.

Tags: anti-semites, anti-semitic, anti-semitism, austin, austin TX, christian, Christianity, christians, gop, joe straus, republican, republican party, republicans, texas, texas gop, texas house, texas house of representatives, texas legislature, texas republican, texas republicans, texas speaker

After his pledge to destroy Jim Wallis over the issue of Christianity and “social justice” fizzled like old ginger ale, Glenn Beck has decided to take on another one of his old foes: George Soros. Soros, you see, leads a “shadow government” in the US and has been the puppet master of the country for years. He’s a Communist who rules the Democratic Party, and now the country, with an iron fist. (Forget for a moment that, for long stretches during the 80s, 90s, and 00s, we’ve had Republicans in charge — at various times and in various combinations, including all three at once — of the House, the Senate, and the White House. So it’s pretty hard to see how the Democratic Party’s “puppet master” could have been running the country for so long.) He recently ran what he considers an exposé of Soros, which, as the New York Times Lede blog revealed, included some stretches of the truth as well as some outright lies (WebCite cached article):

In his indictment of Mr. Soros this week, what Mr. Beck did not say about the list of governments he claimed the philanthropist had helped to topple was striking. Before naming America as Mr. Soros’s next “target,” Mr. Beck ominously intoned:

Soros has helped fund the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in the Czech Republic, the “Orange Revolution” in the Ukraine, the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia. He also helped to engineer coups in Slovakia, Croatia and Yugoslavia.

What Mr. Beck failed to mention is that in each of the countries he named, Mr. Soros in fact provided support to popular pro-democracy groups battling repressive regimes led by Communist or former Communist autocrats. The Fox host also seemed confused about some of the events he described in those nations.

To start with, the mass street protests led by the Czech playwright Vaclav Havel in 1989 that brought down Prague’s Communist regime took place in what was still Czechoslovakia, not the Czech Republic, which did not exist at the time.

There were also no coups in Slovakia, Croatia or Yugoslavia. Slovakia was created by the so-called “velvet divorce” [cached], the peaceful dissolution of the federal state of Czechoslovakia by democratically-elected leaders in 1993; Croatia’s wartime president, Franjo Tudjman, an authoritarian former Communist general, died in office [cached] in 1999 and was replaced by a former member of his party after a democratic election; Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav leader who was most responsible for the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing that killed tens of thousands in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, resigned in 2000 [cached], following street protests after his loss in a democratic election.

Thus, if one looked only at Soros’s activities during the late 80s and early 90s, one would have to assume him to have been a vehement anti-communist, rather than the devout Marxist Beckie-boy tells us he is.

And while it is true that George Soros does bankroll a lot of Democratic Party operations and Leftist groups, the Times shows he doesn’t leave the Right untouched by his money:

The Fox News host also made no mention in his program of the fact — first reported by Justin Elliott of Salon on Friday — that Mr. Soros has paid more than $150,000 to Randy Scheunemann, a Republican lobbyist who is a senior adviser to Sarah Palin, to press Congress and the White House to keep sanctions in place against Myanmar’s military junta and promote a resolution “calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,” whose party won the last free elections held in the country.

The Times goes on to say that Beckie-boy’s rhetoric is eerily similar to that of the Islamofascist regime of Iran:

Oddly, Mr. Beck’s conspiratorial reading of the recent history of Eastern Europe puts him in complete agreement with Iran’s intelligence ministry, which for years has been working to discredit the country’s reformist leaders and their calls for fair elections as the puppets of foreign plotters. …

Mr. Khatami called the allegation absurd, but, as The Lede explained in a post on “Iran’s Fear of a ‘Velvet Revolution’” [cached], Iran’s intelligence service seems to be obsessed with Mr. Soros.

What’s more, other commenters on Beckie-boy’s “exposé” of Soros have noted more than a whiff of anti-Semitism within it, among them Michelle Goldberg at the Daily Beast (cached article):

Anti-Semitism, like all ideologies, tells a story about the world. It’s a story about almost occult Jewish power, about cabals that manipulate world events for their own gain. In classic anti-Semitic narratives, Jews control both the elites and the masses; they’re responsible for the communist revolution and the speculative excesses of capitalism. Their goal is to undermine society so that they can take over. …

If you know this history, you’ll understand why Glenn Beck’s two-part “exposé” on George Soros, whom Beck calls “The Puppet Master,” was so shocking, even by Beck’s degraded standards. The program, which aired Tuesday and Wednesday, was a symphony of anti-Semitic dog-whistles. …

Soros, a billionaire financier and patron of liberal causes, has long been an object of hatred on the right. But Beck went beyond demonizing him; he cast him as the protagonist in an updated Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He described Soros as the most powerful man on earth, the creator of a “shadow government” that manipulates regimes and currencies for its own enrichment. Obama is his “puppet,” Beck says. Soros has even “infiltrated the churches.” He foments social unrest and economic distress so he can bring down governments, all for his own financial gain. “Four times before,” Beck warned. “We’ll be number five.”

Now, for the record, I do not believe Glenn Beck is an anti-Semite. And that’s not just because I believe Fox News’s denials of it, or because Beck claims he’s a supporter of Israel. No, it’s because I think he hates Soros so vehemently and so passionately, that he will stoop to nothing, including using Protocols of the Elders of Zion-type claims against him, in his campaign to destroy Soros. He’s so driven by hatred, that he simply doesn’t care that he’s using traditional anti-Semitic rhetoric against a Jewish survivor of the Third Reich.

Two final points: I’m not a fan of George Soros myself. He supports the ideological Left too much for my taste; I consider Americans’ thralldom to ideology of any sort to be counter-productive if not dangerous, and Soros is as responsible for this as anyone else at the moment.

And lastly … I’d like to point out that Glenn Beck, and the “Tea Party” movement of which he is a core part, is itself the product of secretive ideological philanthropists; David and Charles Koch, to be exact (cached article). Beck is very much an officer in their army, if not its Field Marshall. Presumably he has no problem with the Koch brothers’ own large, “shadow” ideological apparatus (seen as how Beckie happily does their bidding); yet he points an accusing finger at another ideological philanthropist. How dare he! What a fucking hypocrite. Glennie, haven’t you read your Bible recently? You must have missed the parts of it where your own Jesus instructed you never to be hypocritical … ever … not for any reason. He said it clearly, unambiguously, and offered no caveats or exceptions to this rule. Christians such as yourself, Glenn, must never be hypocritical. That’s just the way it is.

Hat tip: Religion Dispatches.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore.

Tags: anti-semite, anti-semitic, anti-semitism, beck, christian, christian hypocrisy, Christianity, christians, delusion, fox news, george soros, glenn beck, hypocrisy, hypocrite, koch brothers, liars for jesus, lying liars for jesus, puppet master, soros, tea party, tea party movement

No sooner do I post a blog entry on a juvenile stunt by some cowardly anti-Semites in Fairfield, CT, than I see another story of a similar nature within the same town. The Stamford Advocate reports on this second incident:

Anti-semitic letter shocks, angers Fairfield teacher

Shortly after taking part in a workshop in November designed to help provide teachers with lesson plans about the Holocaust, Fairfield Woods Middle School teacher Tina Rembish got her own first hand lesson in prejudice.

Rembish was one of several teachers quoted in a Connecticut Post story about “Echoes and Reflections,” the training session developed by the Connecticut Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federation Association of Connecticut, Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum and Shoah Foundation.

Four days later, she received an anonymous, anti-Semitic letter in her mailbox at the middle school. The letter, according to the police report, contained several quotes from the Bible regarding Jewish people.

There are any number of Bible quotations that have been used against Jews over the last two millennia, unfortunately. Among these are the so-called “Woes of the Pharisees” found in the gospels — but other passages have also been used for this purpose. Like a lot of other anti-Semitic literature, this letter presents itself as “news material,” even though it’s not:

She said the letter was titled “Bible Predicts Worldwide Persecution of Jews-2009!” and was postmarked in Stamford. It contained quotes like “Many nations around the world will turn against the Jewish people in the last days (today) — especially those Jewish people living in the city of Jerusalem and the rest of Israel!”

This letter, and the marred menorah-lighting I just blogged about, are not the only recent anti-Semitic acts in Fairfield:

Rembish hasn’t gotten any other notes like this, but it is one of three anti-Semitic incidents reported in town over the last two months. Rembish received her note Nov. 12. On Dec. 11, a transport van from the Jewish Home for the Elderly’s adult daycare program was vandalized; two of its tires slashed and what appeared to be swastikas scratched into the side of the bus. The latest incident was the menorah lighting Sunday at the green, which police continue to investigate.

I wonder what’s going on in Fairfield that caused this. I took a look at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Hate Groups Map” for Connecticut. 5 are listed, two based in Bridgeport (which is the next city over from Fairfield); one of these is called “White Revolution,” and listed as a Neo-Nazi group. I have no idea if they’re responsible or someone else is.

At any rate, I have to wonder how foolish it is for this to have been mailed to a teacher in a public school, of all places. Such a thing was bound to be noticed by more people than just the person it was sent to; and the authorities will be more inclined to investigate it.

Tags: anti-defamation league, anti-semite, anti-semitic, anti-semitism, antisemite, antisemitic, antisemitism, fairfield CT, jewish, jews, judaism, letter