Short and Sweet

The only walls and bans that all of 45's xenophobic othering attempts to appeal to his equally xenophobic base are going to get him this time around are a big, beautiful wall of voters who are going to ban him from ever entering the White House again!

Stop the Train! (VOTE in November against 45 ever becoming 47!)

I was up way past midnight, watching 45's absolutely horrifying and terrifying speech to the RNC.  I don't know which is more frightening:  the fact that he engages in such blatantly dehumanizing, hate-inducing othering, or the fact that his cult following is so rah-rah fueled by that.  The way 45 dehumanizes immigrants is horrifying.

He kept lying, first of all, and saying that the current administration is somehow bringing in thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants from "mental hospitals" and "prisons", and that all these thousands, upon thousands are an "invasion" of "murderers and rapists".  He kept using the word "invasion" and talking about how all these murderers and rapists and violent criminals are "invading" by the thousands, as soon as Biden somehow (per 45's lies that he kept repeating last night) is releasing them from mental hospitals and prisons (I didn't realize that Biden somehow was in charge of mental hospitals and prisons in Mexico and/or Guatemala and/or wherever, but, according to 45's lies, somehow Biden is just bringing in this "invasion" of murderers, rapists and, oh yeah, I left out that they are all terrorists, too, into "our country").

This is how dictators, how fascists, instill and/or nurture existing HATE, which they can then run on as their very fuel, weaponizing the masses to be in lock step with whatever they do.  This is how you "Other" human beings so that various groups of same are no longer looked at by the majority that the dictator wants with him, wants behind him, as human beings, and so that the dictator can then do anything he wants to those "Others" because they aren't human beings or even innocent sentient animals deserving kindness and respect, no, they are all subhuman and evil, they are all "invaders", "murderers", "rapists", "thugs", and "terrorists".

Yet when 45 was POTUS, the immigrants I saw him kidnap from their family, throw into cages in concentration camps, with nothing but a Mylar "blanket", neglect and traumatize, thereby torturing and orphaning were just BABIES.

Now he is saying that he will do mass, mass, MASS deportations the likes of which haven't been seen in American history, if he gets back into power.  And he went on and on yet again/still about how the 2020 election was stolen from him (never mind that its been litigated massively and the 2020 election was found to be totally legitimate), setting things up to not accept the results of this coming 2024 election, which, per the news last night being discussed during the RNC by the journalists on air, something like 20 states already have MAGA officials in place, in charge of certifying the election results, who are saying they will refuse to certify the results if 45 loses in 2024, which could thereby muck up the electoral college being able to proceed normally.

So we have a fascist (not a wannabe fascist, as I used to call him, years ago, until the aforementioned babies in cages, but an actual fascist, which he became upon implementing that policy) who is wanting to get back into power, who now, thanks to his despicable, complicit, disgusting party has people who have been systematically put into place over the last few years while most people assumed that the January 6th coup attempt was over (oh, it wasn't, it was just getting started), and who are now poised to basically and actually OVERTHROW THIS NEXT ELECTION IN NOVEMBER, if they have to, to get this man back into power.

Once back in power, 45 is GOING to engage in mass deportation and, in my strong opinion, WORSE--he will have concentration camps, again, and they won't just be for all the immigrants he is continuing to "Other", to dehumanize so that no one among his followers will bat an eye as the trains roll by, he will be putting American citizens onto trains to deport and/or to throw into concentration camps, too.  Mark my words, because even though, as the fictional Dr. Ian Malcolm from "Jurassic Park" said, "I hate being right all the time" (and I, in fact, am not right all the time, but I've been right all the time about everything I predicted 45 would do in his first term), I was right about everything I predicted in 2015 and 16, and throughout the 45 administration, about what he would do, even though quite a few people told me I was being over-the-top.  No, I was listening to 45 tell us and show us who he was, and I was, as Maya Angelou said in a famous quote is important to do, believing him the first time.

Friends:  it is IMPERATIVE that every single one of you reading this get out (or stay in and fill in your mail-in ballot) and VOTE in November, for whomever the Democratic presidential candidate is, it does not matter who it is, you get yourself to your polling place, and you drag every single person in your life who is of voting age with you, and you vote AGAINST 45 BECOMING 47.  Period.

America, the constitutional republic and democracy that I was amazingly blessed to grow up in, even with all its pathologies and flaws, is already gone, as of the July 1, 2024 Supreme Court ruling that we now are a kingdom (and I feel that word is way too non-alarming, as we are a potential fuhrerdom and that WILL happen if 45 becomes 47), so I thought that the ONLY silver lining of that tragic truth is that, maybe now I could finally rest.  I could stop trying to do whatever little, tiny bit I as an individual could do to save America, as I've been trying to do since I came of age in 1980.  I could just rest and maybe take a vacation one of these years.  But no, because even though our special democracy is GONE, we at least have a decent person in the presidency at the present moment, so we have not gone full fascist as far as the reality on the ground, yet.  If 45 becomes 47, WE WILL HAVE A DYSTOPIAN, EXTREMELY DARK, FASCIST COUNTRY IN WHICH WE WILL ALL FIND OURSELVES WITHOUT MOVING ANYWHERE:  IT IS COMING TO US.

Vote, vote, vote, vote, VOTE in November against this terrifying, othering, sociopathic, treasonous traitor, con artist FASCIST.  Or you will hear trains in the night and you will know you didn't do everything you could to prevent them.  And you just may even be on one.

America is gone.

In America, no one was beneath the law, and no one was above the law. That was the thing (or one of the core things) that really made America great. Now that is gone. The Supreme Court has ruled that the President is basically a King or Queen, and that s/he can do whatever the flip s/he wants, as long as it is an "official act". Let me tell you something: Hitler did a lot of "official acts". America ended today.

It didn't go out with a bang. All is quiet, and seems so normal, yet it is NOT, because my beloved country is gone. It seems so sudden. Yet it isn't sudden. It's like a death that has been coming for a while, yet when it does, you are surprised at how hard the grief and disbelief hits you.

Everything looks the same yet I'm in a different country now. And I don't know what to do.

Yes, I am a Zionist.

When I listen to the news I am horrified and also terrified, but it's a quiet, oddly calm terror, because I feel like I'm watching news from 1938 in Germany, so it's like I'm a spectator watching from far away, and surely it can't be real now.  Even though I know it's real and I know it's happening and I know it's in America and I know what I was watching was unfolding in New York City, which I thought of as one of the safest places for Jews in the world, so it does terrify me, even though all of that:  I still somehow--I guess it is a survival mechanism, so that the terror won't totally immobilize me--have some kind of denial in place, so that it feels like I'm watching a movie.  Yes, I'm terrified, since I know it isn't a movie, it's real, yet the "no, this just can't be" factor counteracts that with "Just stay calm.  Live your life.  Take care of your fur kids.  Get up and go to work tomorrow and act like everything is fine."

Yet I saw what I saw on the evening news last night.  Hate-filled antisemites taking over a subway train, demanding that "Anyone who is a Zionist, raise your hands!"  "This is your chance to get off now."  "No one?"  "Good, no Zionists here!"

😮

Did that just happen in America?  In New York City?  On the subway I've probably ridden on, and that friends of mine ride on, and could have been on?

I had to think last night:  would I have raised my hand?  I had to hope that I would have.  And that I would have said "Yes, I'm a Zionist." And also followed that with "But no, I will not get off this train."  Not in America.  I can ride the train.  ...Can't I?

Where are the chants of "From Russia to Hungary, Ukraine will be free!"?

You can tell that the "ProPals", as I keep seeing them called on social media (I personally don't like that term for them, as they aren't so much pro-Palestinian as they are rabidly anti-Israel and antisemitic, so I will just stick with calling them "antisemites", but I digress) are just blatently anti-Israel and antisemitic because, if they are so against genocide (even though they throw that word at Israel utterly incorrectly/inaccurately), WHY aren't they out blocking bridges, interrupting government meetings, and taking over various and sundry public places to protest the outrage of Putin's unprovoked war against Ukraine, in which Putin truly DOES engage in war crimes (and, in fact, is now wanted by the Hague as a war criminal) and truly DOES target civilians, and has kidnapped children and put them into camps, etc.?

I don't hear a peep out of these oh-so-woke college kids about the absolute atrocities Putin is carrying out on a daily basis in Ukraine. Why aren't they right now, TODAY, as congress is deciding whether to send help to Ukraine, there demanding that congress vote to send aid to Ukraine (oh yeah, probably because aid to Israel is also in the package--okay, let me give one of the plethora of other examples of how they could protest Putin's war crimes against humanity in Ukraine, then)? Why aren't they loudly yelling on college campuses and holding up Ukrainian flags, and accusing Putin of the actual war crimes he's committing? Where are the chants of:

"From Russia to Hungary, Ukraine will be free!" ??? (It even rhymes.)

(Answer Key: they don't care about Ukraine. They don't care about war crimes. They are just plain old, garden variety ANTISEMITES, and it takes the form of being anti-Israel (po-TAY-to, po-TA-to).

If you're so "woke", why are you SILENT (or chanting for my people to be wiped out)?

The Times of Israel article I've linked below is hard to read and to share, but the world must know.  The world must see.  The world saw what unfolded on October 7th and yet almost immediately chose to look away and to chant slogans about wiping Israel off the map.  The world trained its misguided righteous wrath on the victim, not the perpetrator--Hamas.

And now the world calls "Ceasefire now!  Ceasefire now!", not "Hamas:  release the hostages now!  Release the hostages now!" (By the way, that is the way to get a ceasefire now:  demand that Hamas release all the hostages NOW.)

And where are the self-described feminists, and progressives, as more and more the horrors of the sexual violence, the rape, the torture, that was perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th, and continues to be perpetrated on at least some of the hostages, continues to come to light?

Your SILENCE speaks so, so many disgusting volumes.  I don't know which is worse, when you are silent or when you are chanting for my people, the Jewish people, to be wiped out (alternating with gaslighting us with labels and words that do NOT apply to our actions and which DO re-traumatize us and cause us harm in ways you can never, ever begin to imagine--so much for "woke" progressives never wanting to cause harm to, or re-traumatize, indigenous peoples, which you supposedly are SO big on:  you are an EPIC FAIL on that front, as, guess what?  WE--Jews--ARE indigenous people, and to where?  Three guesses and the second two don't count:  ISRAEL, look it the rhymes-with-duck up!).  You know that wiping us out is what you are oh-so-self-righteously chanting for, right?  You know what your chants mean, yes?

So a pogrom, slaughter, massacre, shooting babies in the heads, beheading them, dragging Holocaust survivors and families and other babies and hundreds of other innocent people from their homes and from a peace-promoting music festival and into dark tunnels, and raping people, this is all okay with you, yes?  Thought so, okay, so I just have to say:  you may want to get checked out because you have a confirmed case of antisemitism and it has reached extreme fever level.  Your actions are therefore not rational whatsoever and you are a danger to others.  Please go hydrate, rest, and read some HISTORY BOOKS.

But even without doing that, you should be against RAPE, period, right?  I mean, if you are so progressive and such a feminist, do I speak the truth?  Because if you are, then take your febrile self out into the streets and/or onto social media and speak up against Hamas raping people, or do you not care because said people are Jewish?

Click this link for Times of Israel piece: "Released hostage Amit Soussana tells NYT she was sexually assaulted by Hamas captor in Gaza"

Dream Weaver

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of my handful of true heroes.  Today, I have the day off of work, which I profoundly need.  I'm under so much pressure and have a lot of upsetting things going on with my job.  So this is a welcome day off.  But it is so much more.  Today is a day to stop, in my case, all the "adulting" (checking my bank balance on line, paying bills, doing laundry, cleaning the cat box--already did that one but anyway, etc.) I do need to do also today, take a pause, and reflect on the importance of Dr. King's actions and legacy.

In 2024, we have a Governor of Texas lamenting that it is too bad he can't just shoot people attempting to cross the border.  You have the Republican frontrunner for President of the United States running ads appealing to the xenophobic (his base) demographic of voters, referring to "illegals".  Not "illegal immigrants", no:  that would make them human beings.  Just "illegals".  This is a blatant (and sadly, effective) attempt at othering:  at reducing human beings in a given group other than your own to a sub-human status.  This has been done successfully throughout history by, for example, Hitler and the Nazis in the Holocaust, by America throughout slavery, and by 45 during his previous administration to, among others, all immigrants.  This man and his administration kidnapped babies at the border, did not keep records of who they belong with, put them on the floor in literal cages, with mylar "blankets", and left them alone (babies, alone) in those concentration camps (and yes, they were concentration camps--that is not an exaggeration, as I do not throw that term around carelessly or lightly, only when it is accurate) for YEARS in some cases.  45 kidnapped, orphaned, neglected, tortured and traumatized these babies and children, as President of the United States of America, so in all of our names.

45 now campaigns on the same successful, xenophobic, "othering" platform/fuel that he used to win in 2016.  In 2016 he talked openly in his primary campaign--in fact, he "vowed" to do this--about "banning all Muslims from entering America".  That, my friends--that right there--was vowing to violate the constitution.  I posted at the time, in 2015 or 2016, whenever he said that, that the Republican Party should disqualify him as a candidate in their primary field because he was openly vowing to violate the constitution that he would be taking an oath to uphold if elected POTUS.  I have since realized (in fairness to the disgusting repug party) that I'm not sure a political party can disqualify someone from running on their primary ticket, once they are in the race, but anyway:  I clearly saw back then what a threat Trump was to everything America stands for at its best, every ideal of America I was raised to love and aspire to make more and more real instead of ideal, and to our constitution itself.  And, as we saw play out during the 45 era and now beyond, 45 is indeed a fascist, and a treasonous traitor.  And scarier than that:  there are a significant number of Americans who are all for that, in a big way.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an eloquent, inspiring, courageous person who not only gave the most amazing speeches I've personally ever heard (I was just a baby and a tot when he gave them, but I have listened to them many times since and, *every time*, I cry, during "I Have a Dream" in particular), but who put his life on the line time and time again to advance civil rights for African-American people in this country, where they have been so terribly oppressed (even to the point of being brought here--kidnapped and brought here--against their will and kept as slaves, as we all know) throughout American history.  This alone makes him heroic.  But who he was, what he did, and what he stood for, was so much more and bigger than even that, which was so big and awesome in itself.

Martin Luther King believed in the principle of creative, non-violent resistance.  He believed in the POWER of it.  He believed in the righteousness of it.  He got me to believe in it.  He was inspired by Gandhi.  He knew it worked and it is, like I said, a righteous path.  And honestly as I write this, I find myself in tears because (perhaps like Dr. King himself in the last few years of his life, from some things I have heard yet never wanted to think/believe were true), I no longer think creative, non-violent resistance is *always* the path.  But I DO still think and feel and passionately believe is it *always* what we need to think of *first*, and try whenever it is even at all possible.  It's the go-to.  And he taught me that.  His words rang out (they did that--they positively rang, like inspiring music) when I was just a baby/tot, from my parents' radio or television.  They absorbed into my very DNA.  And I was raised to believe in bringing about social change via the path of love, of creative, non-violent resistance.

I've been in so many protests and marches and rallies.  I've been teargassed.  I've had a gun brandished and pointed at me/us.  And some of the social change I've engaged in creative non-violent resistance to bring about has happened.  Quite a bit has not.  Quite a bit has stayed the same or worsened.  Yet I still believe in the power of creative, non-violent resistance.  It is still my go-to.  Even though I'm older and I'm way sadder and I'm utterly dismayed.  Even though things may seem hopeless (as I'm sure they did to Rosa Parks and all those who broke barriers that seemed hopelessly impossible to break), I still believe in TRYING.  Even though I now also know that sometimes the path of utter non-violence not only seems but is impossible.  Even though I feel like that is a betrayal of MLK and Gandhi and Herman Wrice, even to say/write/feel... know that.  Yet even though now I am not the idealist I once was, and it breaks my heart to say that, I still always want to TRY for that.  I still carry the music and the substance of Dr. King's idealism and practical idealism in my heart, soul and imagination.  And there was something else he taught, another part of his idealism besides non-violent resistance, that is a part of me:  we may have differences on the outside but human beings are all the same inside and we all share that common, universal humanity.

It's not okay to shoot immigrants as they try to cross into our country, or to stop people from rendering aid to them as they drown trying to get here.  It's not okay to kidnap babies at the border, keep no records of who they belong to/with, and put them in cages.  It's not okay to take away women's rights, or the right of consenting adults to marry who they love.  We still have have to put in the work to bend the arc toward justice.  And love.  Even in this violent, disheartening world, we can't give up.  We have to keep trying.  When I listen to "I Have a Dream" again today (and I will), it won't be with such a pure, flower child, idealistic heart and soul as I used to come to it with, as I used to hear it with.  Honestly, it will be with a heavy, disillusioned, sad heart.  But I will still listen to it.  And I will still love it.  And I will still know that Dr. King's highest ideals are my highest ideals and the ones I believe lead to a healthy world and what in Judaism is called "tikkun olam" (to mend, heal and repair the world).  I will still know that we have to keep trying.  We have to keep dreaming and *working for the dream* in everything we do.