Reaction to the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting in Pittsburgh

Table of Contents

1. What Happened
2. Why the Shooter Did What He Did
3. The Politics Behind the Shooter's Motivations

4. My Inward Reaction to the Shooting, Part 1: White-on-Black Violence, and Guns in Church

5. My Inward Reaction to the Shooting, Part 2: Christian-on-Muslim Violence

6. My Inward Reaction to the Shooting, Part 3: Israeli-on-Arab Violence

7. My Outward Reaction to the Shooting

8. Explanation of My Outward Reaction

9. People's Reactions to My Statements, and My Response
10. Insensitive Israeli Reactions to the Shooting
11. Post-Script

Content

1. What Happened

     On the morning of Saturday, October 27^th, 2018, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a gunman's fire interrupted Shabbat morning services at Tree of Life, a Jewish synagogue also known as l'Simcha (Hebrew for “gladness” or “joy”). The gunman shot 18 people, killing 11 of them, and injuring seven, including a police officer. Three handguns and a rifle were found at the scene of the shooting.

     The gunman was later identified as Robert Bowers, a 46-year-old white man. Bowers was subsequently charged with 11 counts of using a firearm to commit murder, and multiple counts of hate crimes based on religion; a total of 29 charges.

2. Why the Shooter Did What He Did

     Bowers's posts on his account with the social media site GAB.ai show complaints about supposed Jewish infiltration of the United States and its government. His posts indicate that he believes that Donald Trump's devotion to nationalism, and to keeping immigrants out, has been compromised by “kikes” (an ethnic slur used against Jewish people).

     One of Bowers's targets was H.I.A.S., the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (pronounced “HEE-yuss”). H.I.A.S. was founded in 1881 to aid Jewish refugees fleeing Russian pogroms. H.I.A.S. now aids refugees of all backgrounds. Bowers posted “HIAS likes to bring invaders that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in.”

     Bowers apparently chose Tree of Life as his target because it belongs to a group of synagogues which coordinates with H.I.A.S.. Bowers has described H.I.A.S. as bringing in “hostile invaders to dwell among us”. He also complained on social media, “It's the filthy EVIL Jews Bringing the Filthy EVIL Muslims into the Country!!”

     Bowers evidently carried out his crime because he believes that Tree of Life, H.I.A.S., one of H.I.A.S.'s projects called National Refugee Shabbat, and other groups, are part of an extensive conspiracy between Jewish-Americans and refugees, to assist en masse illegal entry into the United States.

     I hope that what I have stated above accurately and sufficiently reflects Bowers's set of reasons and motivations for committing the 29 crimes with which he has been charged. I do not intend this list of reasons to be anything other than an M.O. (modus operandi); an explanation – not an excuse, nor a rationalization – of why the shooter did what he did.

3. The Politics Behind the Shooter's Motivations

     The Tree of Life shooting came after months of reports, especially by Fox News, about the “migrant caravan”; a group of people mostly from Honduras, whom are attempting to migrate to the United States. Many American conservatives believe that billionaire financier and Hungarian Jewish immigrant to the United States George Soros, and other wealthy liberals, are funding the caravan.

     Conservative and nationalist media pundits across the board have labeled members of this caravan as “hordes” of “invaders”, mostly made up of military-age men, with few women or children. I personally believe this to be nothing but fear-mongering, and that the right is doing this because it desperately needs an excuse to use military force within our borders. Some of them even want to see undocumented immigrants get shot for the mere crimes of illegal entry and rock-throwing, and their president is promising them that show.

     Due to the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, there is a limit on the president's ability to use U.S. military troops within the borders of the United States; that is, unless there is a military-level threat to our country and our borders. It seems that Trump's supporters are willing to cast any group or nationality they don't like, as providing aid and comfort to America's enemies, and as providing substantial support to terrorist groups, in order to boost their claim that such a military-level threat really exists.

     Right-wingers seem to want people to think that al-Qaeda and I.S.I.S. are hiding behind every immigrant in that caravan, because they want to see a bloodbath at the border, performed legally by our boys in blue, with Donald Trump at lead command. Some seem to suspect that every single undocumented immigrant is potentially violent, and/or a foreign spy.

     I find it shameful to see such an obvious resurgence of ultra-nationalism and aversion to people not born here, and just as shameful to see people deny it and make excuses for it.

4. My Inward Reaction to the Shooting, Part 1: White-on-Black Violence, and Guns in Church

     I cannot say that I was shocked to hear that 11 Jewish people had been shot at a synagogue. Appalled and horrified, yes; but not shocked, not surprised.

     My inner immediate reaction to the shooting was, first, “This is just like the black church in Charleston that got shot up three summers ago”. For those who don't remember, white racist Dylann Roof shot nine African-American church attendees to death in June 2015 at Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

     My second thought after the shooting was, “This kind of violence happens in the Middle East every day.” I apologize if this seems insensitive, but I live near Chicago, which sees some 500 murders a year. Eleven murders is a Fourth of July weekend for someone in Chicago. I say this not to trivialize or normalize the violence; I am merely stating a cold, hard fact: America's major cities are violent places, and pretending that they are not will only lull us into a false sense of security. I do not mean to be opportunistic by using this shooting to bash gun control, and I know it is ironic to call for more guns when people have just been shot, but I believe that the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

     I saw it reported that the synagogue was a gun-free zone. It may seem paradoxical, but as a private security guard who works unarmed in a gun-free zone, I find gun bans quite difficult to enforce without the use of guns. Fortunately, people have begun to understand that. In response to a shooting at a black church on November 12^th – at First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown in Kentucky – the church has begun to allow select people to be armed, and they have made this fact known to the public. I for one am glad that the church has undertaken this step to attempt to protect their parishioners, and I hope to see more of this.

     I hope there will be no gun accidents at churches as a result of this, wherein people lose control of their guns. I would hate to see such an event used to justify prohibiting churches from deciding who can have guns on their property and when. As unlikely that that may seem, the pro-gun-control lobby is very powerful, and the N.R.A. doesn't protect gun rights as much as we'd like to think (especially not the gun rights of minorities). I hope that more pro-gun African-Americans understand what it means that Martin Luther King was denied a concealed carry permit by his racist government before he was shot to death.

5. My Inward Reaction to the Shooting, Part 2: Christian-on-Muslim Violence

     Another one of my initial reactions to the synagogue shooting was that I recalled an incident from several years ago, in which someone vandalized an Islamic mosque by leaving bacon or pork on its doorstep or door handles. Upon further investigation, I found that there were several incidents wherein white Americans vandalized mosques with pork; one in 2016 and the other in 2017. In January 2016, Michael Wolfe broke into the Islamic Society of Florida Masjid al-Munin Mosque in Titusville, and left a slab of raw bacon behind. On January 22^nd, 2017, Laurel Kirk-Coehlo wrapped pork around the door handle of the Davis Islamic Center in Davis, California. Both Wolfe and Kirk-Coehlo caused additional property damage to the mosques, and were subsequently charged with hate crimes.

     The reason why the synagogue shooting made me remember the use of pork in vandalism against mosques, is that I know that both Jewish and Islamic dietary laws forbid the eating of pork. I knew people vandalized mosques with pork because they want to offend Muslims' religious ideals, and horrify them by damaging their property with the body of a dead animal.

     The only thing I didn't understand was “When is someone going to vandalize a synagogue with pork?” I say this out of concern; I suspected that somewhere, maybe there is somebody out there who hates both Jewish people and Muslims, who would want to offend and horrify both of them by defacing their places of worship with pork.

     A while after hearing of the bacon attacks, my mindset about race in America went like this: “It seems perfectly acceptable in this country right now to hate all Muslims, Hispanics, and immigrants. I can't believe there is not more violence against Jewish people.” To be perfectly honest, I saw those acts of vandalism against the mosques, and I thought that if someone did eventually decide to leave pork out in front of a synagogue, at least people would remember that there are dangerous people out there who hate Jewish people for no reason, without anybody getting shot to death.

     This was a fleeting thought, which I at no point took seriously, nor made any plans to carry out. All I ask is that my readers ask themselves this: If earlier this year, someone had broken into a synagogue, smashed its windows, killed nobody, and left a pile of bacon behind, wouldn't fewer Jewish-Americans be calling for increased restrictions against the arrival of new immigrants? I believe that lives are on the line when it comes to immigration; the U.S. is rigging elections and sponsoring coups overseas, they are coming here, and we are drastically under-filling our immigration quotas from dangerous countries. I would like to see thousand-fold increases in the number of immigrants coming to America from Syria, for example.

     Robert Bowers hates both Jewish people and Muslims. He believes that “filthy evil Jews are bringing filthy evil Muslims into the country”. But he chose to kill Jewish people at a synagogue, instead of defacing a synagogue with pork, or defacing a mosque with pork, or killing Muslims at a mosque. That is why we should ask why Bowers chose to harm Jewish people instead of Muslims.

     Some might suggest that he is an “equal-opportunity racist” who “hates everybody equally”, a thoughtless sentiment echoed by comedians such as Carlos Mencia, and parroted by their fans. Bowers certainly believes that both Muslims and Jews are “filthy” and “evil”. But it would be foolish to say he's not a white supremacist, so we can only conclude that he believes white people to be superior to Muslims and Jews. To call this man anything less than a domestic terrorist who thinks himself a warrior in a fight against all things white and non-Christian – and perhaps even a fascist or Nazi sympathizer - would be an outright lie.

6. My Inward Reaction to the Shooting, Part 3: Israeli-on-Arab Violence

     Aside from thinking about Charleston, the amount of violence elsewhere, the issue of whether to allow guns in church, and the bacon vandalism incidents, the last thought I remember having after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was “The State of Israel just bombed the Gaza Strip a week ago, and I didn't share it on Facebook because I thought it would be perceived as anti-Jewish because it's critical of Israel.”

     On October 17^th – ten days before the synagogue shooting - the I.D.F. (Israeli Defense Forces) bombed the Gaza Strip, six days after Israelis shot six Gaza residents in response to 14,000 Gazan protesters in coming to the heavily fortified Israel-Gaza border. On October 20^th, I found out that there had been some clashes in Gaza. The State of Israel was looking aggressive and in-the-wrong in the news.

     At the time, I believed that there existed a realistic possibility that Jewish people would be targeted for violence somewhere in the world, as a response to those actions in Gaza, by someone who believes all Jewish people are citizens and agents of the State of Israel, and wants to use that idea to justify killing Jewish people. I suspected that attacks on Jewish people would increase because in mid-2018, I found out about Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro.

     Yaakov Shapiro is a Hasidic rabbi, an author, and a contributor to the YouTube channel “True Torah Jews”. In one lecture, entitled “Has Zionism Hijacked Judaism?”, Rabbi Shapiro stated that it is a statistically proven fact that when the State of Israel is having conflicts with other nations, on average, attacks on Jewish people increase around the world. He did not cite his source for that fact during that lecture, but he did say that several years ago in Mexico, Jewish people were attacked following an uptick in Israeli violence.

     Those claims would certainly make sense if they turned out to be true; I was unfortunately unable to corroborate them. But I believe that if Jewish people worldwide do get attacked more on average when Israel is at war, then it is because many people believe that all Jewish people condone the actions of the State of Israel, even the occupation of the West Bank (in violation of a United Nations resolution).

     The State of Israel's founding document, the Basic Law, defines itself as “a Jewish and democratic state”. Precisely what constitutes a “Jewish state” was left up to the citizens of the State of Israel to decide. Shapiro has explained that the State of Israel works very hard to convince the people of the world that the State of Israel is a representative – or even the representative – of all Jewish people. In his videos for True Torah Jews, he has stated that “Israel gets Jews into hot water all over the world”.

It is regrettable to admit this, but I fear that Israel is trying too hard to present a unified face for all 15 million of the world's Jews. I understand that it would make no sense to show a divided Israel to the world, or to show the world that the Jewish people are fragmented, because that would make Israel and Jewish people look weak to the world.

     But I also believe that there are many peace-loving Jewish people, many of them on the political left, who want to criticize the occupation of the West Bank and the bombings of the Gaza Strip, but are afraid to do so because they are afraid to be shouted-down as “Israel-hating Jews”, “self-hating Jews”, or even “anti-Semitic Jews” who don't want a strong Israel, and are careless about the safety of Jewish people. For the State of Israel to pretend to speak with one voice, seemingly on behalf of all Jewish people, offends Rabbi Shapiro as a Jew, and personally, it frightens me as a person who values individual rights and doubts the value of having too strong or domineering a government.

     I am not trying to imply that Robert Bowers saw some news that made the State of Israel look bad, and immediately used that, and solely that, to justify killing Jewish people. But more and more Americans are waking up to the fact that the occupation of Palestine is wrong. Many people wrongly blame Jewish people and Judaism for the occupation of Palestine, and do not differentiate between a Jew and an Israeli. Some people out there want to punish all Jews for Israel's crimes.

     I know that what I have just described might seem like it better fits the profile of a Muslim who hates Jewish people and opposes the occupation, but a white supremacist does not have to love Muslims or oppose the occupation to see Israel getting away with war crimes, and conclude from that fact that “the Jews are getting special treatment”, and then decide to go out and kill Jews, with that as one of the many reasons why he hates Jewish people.

     On the other hand, though, it's entirely possible that Bowers would look at Israeli actions in Gaza and support it, because his enemies “the filthy evil Jews” and “the filthy evil Muslims” are destroying each other. It's also possible that he sees Israel bombing Gaza, and cheers it on for ruining its own reputation, while also killing a few “evil Muslims” in the process. I believe that this is roughly the position of “alt-Right” Nazi sympathizer Richard Spencer, the white American who promotes the occupation of Palestine as part of his ideal vision for a Jewish ultra-nationalist society.

     I apologize for conjecturing as to what Robert Bowers's opinion of the Israel-Palestine conflict is; I know it may seem like an opportunistic attempt to blame Israel for the shootings, and bring Israel into the discussion when nothing in the reporting of the shooting indicated a hatred for the State of Israel or an opposition to its actions. But it is a fact that some people who commit acts of violence against Jewish people do commit those crimes out of a desire to get revenge for acts of violence Israel has committed, and even make their motivation known to their victims.

     A survey taken in spring 2016, among undergraduate students at 50 U.S. university campuses, revealed that “the high rates of anti-Semitic harassment and hostility at these campuses 'are largely driven by hostility toward Israel”. That same Brandeis University survey – titled “Hotspots of Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Sentiment on US Campuses” – also revealed that 20% of students reported “being blamed for Israel's actions because they are Jewish”, and that one-third of respondents reported witnessing “some form of anti-Semitic harassment, often Israel related.”

     It would be careless to fail to ask whether, if the Israel-Palestine conflict had been solved years ago, there would be as much hatred of Jewish people and anti-Jewish violence (based on the idea that the State of Israel represents all Jewish people). It would also be careless to fail to ask whether, if the State of Israel did not draft half of its citizens into its armed forces, fewer people would suspect every person who had ever lived in Israel of being an agent of its government.

     I would never accuse the State of Israel of welcoming acts of violence against Israelis, nor of provoking acts of violence against Jewish people around the world, nor of putting Jewish people at risk by staging fake so-called “false flag” attacks. And there is nothing I would say about the State of Israel that I would not also say about my own government, that of the United States of America.

     But in my opinion, the State of Israel is sowing the seeds of its own destruction, by making its own reputation worse, when it lashes out against its enemies with disproportionate force. Jewish scholars who criticize Israel's violent and illegal actions, such as Dr. Noam Chomsky and former University of Chicago professor Norman Finkelstein, have identified the State of Israel's actions as tantamount to what Nazis did to Jewish people during the Holocaust, have attempted to make their voices heard on the matter, to very vocal criticism, and their careers have greatly suffered because of it. And understandably so; it would be easy to confuse cautioning people about the Holocaust with trivializing the Holocaust by comparing a less deadly event to it (before it becomes that deadly).

     Since 2006, I have been aware of a group of Hasidic Jewish activists called Neturei Karta, which criticizes both the occupation of Palestine, and the very idea of a Jewish political sovereignty. I have tried, for the last twelve years, to make it known that not all Jewish people support the State of Israel and the occupation of Palestine. My hope in doing so has been to help non-Jewish people understand that not only are most Jewish people peace-loving, and horrified by the occupation and by Israel's wars, but also that many of the core ideals of the Jewish religion itself are profoundly antithetical to many of the things that the Israeli government, armed forces, and police are currently doing.

     I know that it may seem anti-Semitic to list the crimes of Israel, but the State of Israel has undeclared nuclear weapons, it drafts into its army young people who want to study the Torah, and racial discrimination and harassment are prevalent in Israel's immigration, security, and travel practices. Arabs, white Christians, peace-loving Jewish people, and secular atheists alike, all see these practices, and are horrified to see them being done in the name of the Jewish religion. With the symbol of the Jewish religion, the Star of David, emblazoned on the flags and war planes of the people raining fire down onto people.

     I can only imagine how it must feel to be Jewish while Israel is at war. Imagine this: Israel - a country across an entire ocean - attacks someone, and all of a sudden Jewish people around the world are liable to be asked whether they know why Israel did that, and whether they know anyone who was involved, and whether they condone it.
     I would hate to find out that most Jewish people feel pressured or obligated to make excuses for Israel's actions. But I also have to admit that Israel is doing very little to make Jewish people feel comfortable criticizing the state without being labeled “self-hating Jews”. Some staunch supporters of Israel even stoop to saying "All criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic." I believe that to repeat such a thing is to intentionally confuse the difference between Israeli nationalism in Palestine, and the Jewish religion which is termed Judaism. The effect is that peace-loving, Judaism-loving critics of the occupation of Palestine can be more effectively and efficiently silenced as anti-Semites. In my opinion, generally, the Jewish religion is peaceful, while the current administration governing the nation of Israel is not.

     I would like to see all Jewish people around the world feel free to criticize whichever of Israel's actions they personally morally object to. I do not want any Jewish person to feel like they either have to excuse or disown Israel's crimes, and I think it would not hurt Israel or its image one bit to allow people to criticize its violent and illegal actions, and even demand answers and accountability for those crimes.

     Some may claim that by saying this, I am promulgating the idea that all Jewish people think alike and support Israel, or that I am saying “the Jews need to keep their own people in line”; but I am not. I am simply expressing my hope that all Jewish people - of all political, religious, and ethnic backgrounds – feel comfortable speaking their minds on the subjects of Judaism, the State of Israel and its policies, the occupation of Palestine, and the safety of the Jewish people.

     I am genuinely concerned that the State of Israel will not admit that it has nuclear weapons, and it concerns me that Israel won't sign a treaty to promise not to sell nuclear weapons to other countries. I am concerned about its draft; its racist security and travel policies; and the occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights in defiance of a United Nations resolution. Israel's recent “nation state law” makes me concerned that Israel is planning to make moves to completely ban all Arabs and Muslims from the country.

     I hope that my readers will understand that if my criticism of the State of Israel is harsh, it is not directed at Jewish people, nor the Jewish religion. I also hope that these thoughts will help explain my reaction to the Tree of Life shooting on social media.

7. My Outward Reaction to the Shooting

     The day after the Tree of Life shooting - on October 28^th, 2018 – I posted the following on my Facebook wall:

     “I guess the Zionists' plan to put Palestinians and undocumented immigrants into internment camps before too many people start hating the Jews[,] and demanding that they be killed too[,] isn't working out so well, is it[?]”

     Needless to say, many of my Facebook friends were upset by the callousness and insensitivity of this statement, as well as the timing. Although I did not mean it as a joke, I did mean it sarcastically, and I understand why my statement upset people.

     At the time when I said this, I was sick of seeing white people attack religious communities – black churches, mosques, synagogues – and I could barely mask my total lack of shock that someone had murdered 11 Jewish people at a synagogue. It's not that I didn't have the sympathy to mourn the dead at that time; I simply didn't have the energy to do so.

     I have seen friends die recently, and many young people in this country are seeing a lot of their friends die of opiate overdoses. That, and news of celebrities dying, and our childhood heroes getting accused of heinous acts, have all served to completely drain me of the ability to feel any more sadness this year. This country is slowly turning into a war-zone, the war might be a race war, and I do not have time to mourn the dead in the middle of what I see to be a battlefield.

     I want people to understand that we are in a race war zone, and that Jews, Muslims, immigrants, homeless people, non-whites, and the L.G.B.T.Q. community, should all consider arming themselves; because their police and governments have been overtaken by fascist sympathizers, want to restrict vulnerable people's abilities to use guns to defend themselves, and maybe even want many of them dead.

     I admit that I said what I said in order to deliberately arouse anger. Unfortunately that backfired, and people got angry at me, instead of getting angry at those who normalize hatred of foreigners because they are foreigners, even if the people doing the race-baiting are Jewish.

     I don't even feel comfortable calling Jewish racists “Jewish”, because I believe that people who commit violent acts, and promote hatred on the basis of race or religion or national origin, have no religion. But if the few Jewish people who are racist want to call themselves Jewish while espousing racist and fascist viewpoints, I also have no right to try to infringe on their freedom of speech. That's why I state my open disagreement with them, and that's why I use it to explain how their open espousal of racist viewpoints is making racists feel comfortable to espouse their racist ideas about Jewish people, and act on it.

8. Explanation of My Outward Reaction

     I apologize to anyone whose feelings I hurt by making this statement. I see creeping Nazism in this country, and I am trying to call it like I see it. I know that it will be difficult to do so without inciting a sort of stampede. But a focused stampede, with a clear and direct target (racists), is what I intend to incite.

     I would also like to add that I did not use the term “concentration camps” simply for comic effect; I know that mentioning Jews being put in concentration camps is an upsetting thought, but it is not impossible to imagine, and the possibility of it concerns me, so I mentioned it.

     I used the term “concentration camps” because I agree with Dr. Noam Chomsky's characterization of the conditions in the West Bank and Gaza as that of an “open-air concentration camp”. Also, because I believe that President Trump's “family detention centers” for undocumented immigrants are the closest thing we have in America to concentration camps. Especially if there are any such sites that are secret, or are working people to death.

     I also apologize for not making my statement clear enough.

     The essence of my statement was that 1) fervent supporters of the State of Israel (which I termed “Zionists”) have put the people of Palestine into an open-air concentration camp, 2) that there exist Jewish supremacists in America who want to encourage people to hate and fear Hispanics and undocumented immigrants, and 3) that those Jewish supremacists were incorrect to predict that they could bash Arabs forever, and that it would never make any racist think “It's OK to be racist now”, and shoot some Jewish people.

     As I stated above, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting did not shock me. It upset and horrified me, but all I wondered was why it didn't happen sooner, when it's perfectly acceptable to be racist against everyone besides Jewish people. It's even acceptable to be racist to Jewish people, though, if you promote a Jewish stereotype in the context of a comedy show, such as Family Guy or South Park.

     We should ask ourselves, why is it more acceptable in so many places in America to openly make a joke about “Jews having all the money”, than it is to speak critically about the occupation of Palestine? Could you even imagine a TV show trying to get away with making a joke about the occupation? Even if the joke avoided criticizing Jewish people and the Jewish religion, some people who strongly support Israel would likely try to find a way to try to describe the joke as anti-Semitic, and claim that a hate crime has occurred.

     Discouraging people to talk about the State of Israel might seem like a great way to quiet criticism of Jewish people, but in my opinion, what it does, is make Jewish people afraid to talk about the State of Israel, in addition to everybody else. If Jewish people do not talk about Israel, and feel free to criticize it, then the State of Israel will remain the belligerent nation it is today, on the brink of nativism and racial supremacy, and peace-loving Jews around the world will not be believed when they say “that nation does not represent my interest, and does not speak for all Jews.”

9. People's Reactions to My Statements, and My Response

     I understand why people were upset by what I said. I was told by one friend that I was “conflating people of Jewish ancestry with Zionism”, and “implying that Jewish people all think alike and think about their tribe to the exclusion and detriment of others is EXACTLY what anti-Semitism has always consisted of.”

    However, I hope that my previous comments have made it perfectly clear that I have known for twelve years that not all Jewish people support Israel's actions, which should go to show that I am very aware that not all Jewish people agree on everything. I know there are various sects and movements within Judaism, and political parties in the State of Israel, and that the State of Israel is an extremely diverse place, in terms of politics, religion, and race. I hope it stays that way.

     Another friend of mine who saw my post said “The congregation were victims of a terrible tragedy and your first thought is about how they had it coming... this is simply a tragedy to which the only response is empathy”.

     I never intended to suggest that the 11 Jewish people who got shot to death at their morning prayers had it coming. What I said was that Jewish racists – not the victims – are among those trying to make people feel comfortable to express their racism, and that this is one of the consequences.

    My friend was correct to point out that empathy is an appropriate response to the shooting, and that I was not thinking about whether what I said was in good taste, nor whether the timing was appropriate. But as I explained earlier, I do not have any more energy this year to spend expressing sadness and empathy.

     I live in a culture that has profoundly desensitized its people to violence. I find it a waste of time to grieve the dead, or post condolences to families of victims who will never see my social media account. The best think I could think of doing at the time was to make people aware that it's not only white Americans who are calling for Arabs and Hispanics to be rounded up, put in camps, and deported; it's fervent supporters of the State of Israel, who support the occupation and its racist nation-state law too.

     I apologize that my focus was on Israel supporters, rather than all racists, but I cannot see war planes with the Star of David on them attacking Gaza one week, then a guy shooting Jewish people in a synagogue the next week, and get away with steadfastly maintaining that there is absolutely no connection or relationship between these two events whatsoever.

     I am not saying that correlation equals causality, but there is much that Israel and its supporters could do to de-escalate tensions between the I.D.F. and Israel's prisoners of war (the Palestinians), and to improve the reputation of Israel (and, as a result, of Jews) as one which promotes peace and immigration, instead of demonizing them.

     To the suggestion that I meant the victims had it coming, I say the following: they did not have it coming, and I commend what Tree of Life and H.I.A.S. were doing (helping refugees settle in America).

     Many white racists in America believe that African-Americans and Jewish-Americans are engaging in “false flag” attacks against themselves, or members of their own community, in order to portray themselves as under attack, and to inspire sympathy.

     I would be lying through omission if I failed to note that there have been incidents wherein black and Jewish people have left racist graffiti, but I also believe that white racists, and conservatives in general, drastically overstate the frequency with which such acts of racist vandalism are attributable to the people who first reported them to the police. I do not believe that the Tree of Life shooting was a false flag by Jewish people or Israelis, intended to inspire sympathy for them.

     It is an unfortunate fact that in 2007, Sarah Marshak, a freshman at George Washington University, admitted to drawing swastikas on her own dormitory door. However, in Marshak's defense, she stated that she drew swastikas on her door in order to draw people's attention to a previous incident, wherein the same dorm had been vandalized with swastikas. Marshak believed that the previous vandalism incident was not taken seriously, and that's why she decided to draw more swastikas.

     While it would not be unreasonable to describe Marshak's actions as an act of staged vandalism, or even to ask whether she did not draw all the swastikas in the first place, I will not say those things. Another student, a male, was arrested for drawing swastikas around the same time, and was subsequently banned from campus. It's entirely possible that he drew the first swastika (or the first two or three), and I believe Marshak did what she did to get people to realize how serious the problem of hatred against Jewish people is. I resent people pointing to that incident and using it to conclude that most or many anti-Semitic attacks are done by Jewish people.

     I believe that the reason why my friend thought I was saying the synagogue's congregants had it coming, is because I was blaming “Zionists” for 11 Jewish people getting murdered. In response to this, I will repeat the words of Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro: “Israel gets Jews into hot water all over the world.” It's not that Israel directly provokes violence against Jewish people intentionally, it's that the State of Israel has nothing to lose when Jewish people are in danger.

That's because, when Jewish people are in danger, whether or not they get saved, Israel looks good. If Israel helps save the Jewish people who are being threatened, then it's done something good, and the I.D.F. gets more money. If the State of Israel fails to protect Jewish people, and they die, then Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference, appears very somber, and makes a statement saying “we stand with the victims”.

     And that is a totally appropriate way to show empathy. However, all that really accomplishes, in my opinion, is make it look like the Israeli army is standing by the Jewish people, saying “We are doing what we do in Palestine because people do this sort of thing to Jews.” It makes all Jewish people look bad, and only a very undiscerning person would claim that I'm trying to make all Jewish people look bad by pointing out that Israel is making them look bad, by claiming it represents all Jews.

     I would never claim that Zionists intentionally put Jewish people at risk. I would also never claim that the people at Tree of Life welcomed acts of violence against them for helping Muslims settle in America. I do not believe in the white supremacist idea that Jewish people are trying to flood the nations of the world with immigrants in order to undermine their sovereignty, racial purity, and moral values. I do not believe that all Muslims are terrorists, and I hope that all non-violent immigrants to America are safe (whether legal or undocumented).

     I was told by a friend that my statement showed that I was “refusing to differentiate between Nazi ideological antisemitism... and leftist antisemitism.” Nazi antisemitism, my friend explained, “hates Jews IN SPITE of the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians” because they “view that conflict as being a net positive no matter who actually wins”, while leftist antisemitism “carries some of the same nonsensical racist roots but is heightened by a lack of differentiation between Judaism and Zionism.”

     Before continuing, I must note that I feel it inaccurate to reduce all hatred of Jewish people to the phrase “anti-Semitism” - especially considering that at least 2/3 of Jewish people worldwide do not have Semitic heritage, and are thus non-Semitic Jewish people – but I will use the term “anti-Semitism” here to mean “hatred of Jews” for the sake of brevity.

     I agree with my friend's distinctions between these two types of hatred of Jewish people. However, I don't want to be too careful differentiating between various types of anti-Semites, because if I spend too much time talking about how and why they're different, people might assume that I think one is less bad, or maybe even better, than the other.

     I oppose anti-Semitism whether it comes from the right or the left, and I understand each camp's motivations for their hatred of Jewish people. That is why I try to get right-wing anti-Semites to soften their hatred of Jewish people, with the ideas that all religions should get along, and that Judaism is a religion that anybody can join regardless of race or nation. Obviously, few racists change their mind.

     Additionally, I try to inform left-wingers who might hate Jewish people, that not all Jewish people support Israel. I believe that the more people know this, the less people will associate Jewish people and Judaism with Israeli violence, and the less they will believe that all Jewish people think the same.

     I do not mean to sound anti-Semitic by listing all the reasons people hate Jewish people. I am not excusing, nor condoning, hatred of Jewish people, when I explain what the most common historical reasons have been for mistreatment of the Jews. This may be offensive to some people, but it is necessary to explain history, and avoid the same kind of thing happening in the future.

     But my friend is right; leftist and Nazi anti-Semitism share “some of the same nonsensical racist roots”. Among them, the ideas that all Jewish people are wealthy, or are engaging in discriminatory hiring practices by hiring only other Jewish people, or control the banking industry, or are hoarding the world's money supply, or are even keeping gold on them at all times.

     These stereotypes are disgusting, they are motivated by a desire to see Jewish people in poverty, and they often neglect the fact that there are many more non-Jewish people who are greedy and power-hungry, than there are Jewish people altogether.

     But more concerns about Jewish people which the left and right share, are their apparent control over American foreign policy, and their religion. White nationalist America-firsters don't want Jewish people deciding what America's military does, and left-wing pacifists don't want the State of Israel to get away with the occupation of Palestine, or see America imitate Israel by reinstating the draft. At the same time, secular atheists on the left and the Christian right both have an aversion to the Jewish religion, ranging from a slight distaste, to wanton misunderstanding, to outright hatred.

     I am not trying to characterize Robert Bowers, the alleged Tree of Life Synagogue shooter, as a leftist. Nor am I trying to prove Donald Trump's claim that hatred of religion, or hatred of Judaism, motivated the attack.

     What I am trying to do is make people aware of why people harm Jews, who else they might hate, what other types of racists they might be willing to work with, who they might try to take out next and how they might do it. Additionally, whether there is anything that we can do to make it easier for leftists to understand that the actions of the Israeli army, and a few rabbis who committed some crimes, should not be used to justify distrust of Judaism or hatred of Jewish people.

     I do not mean to say that left-wing anti-Semites need to be held more responsible than right-wing anti-Semites. I am simply saying that left-wing anti-Semites are probably a lot easier to convince to stop hating Jews, than literal Nazis are. That is why I spend more time criticizing left-wing hatred of Jews than right-wing hatred of Jews. Because it's obvious that fascists will never change, but peace-loving secularists who dislike Judaism but don't understand it, might be convinced that the Jewish religion is not out to get them.

     My friend stated that the anti-Semitism described as motivated by Israel's actions, is “not typically the right-wing kind that created this attack, but the left-wing kind.” I agree with my friend completely on this; however, I am still not willing to rule-out the possibility that Israel getting away with bombing Gaza could have been just one of the many negative thoughts about Jewish people that enraged Bowers that week.

     Whether or not Bowers saw the Gaza bombings and thought negatively of Israel because of it, I believe that hatred of Jewish people was not the sole cause of this shooting. The desire to make it harder for refugees to come here and settle comfortably, was obviously at least a secondary motivation, perhaps even the primary motivation. But we have to look at the whole picture: he killed Jewish people in order to try to stop a Jewish group from helping refugees, whether those refugees are Jewish or not.

     In my opinion, it is patently absurd to consider none of these facts, and simply conclude that the shooter being “crazy”, or the shooter hating Jews, explains the whole thing. I would never say that Bowers shot Jewish people because Jewish people are bringing immigrants into the country. What I am saying is that Bowers shot Jewish people because he believes that Jewish people are deliberately trying to bring in a number of immigrants that they know America cannot handle.

     I do not believe that such a number exists; especially not when the United States let eleven refugees come into America from Syria in 2016, when hundreds of thousands of Syrians needed help (after they and their government had undergone years of bombardment by three or four national militaries and two or three terrorist groups vying for control of the area).

     The idea that there are Jewish people in America who have forgotten that their ancestors came here as immigrants – some of them illegally and without proper documentation, which is perfectly justifiable when their home state has collapsed, or succumbed to war or civil war, or has been overtaken by bloodthirsty racists – and still advocate closing the door on the immigrants who are trying to come in after them.

     In my opinion, America is a “city of immigrants”, and discrimination on the basis of national origin is not the American way.

10. Insensitive Israeli Reactions to the Shooting

     I know that what I am about to say might re-ignite suspicion that I wrote this piece solely to attack Jewish people, but I have to more fully explain why I chose to criticize the State of Israel, and the racists who make excuses for its war crimes and atrocities, in the wake of the Tree of Life shooting.

     On October 29^th, 2018 – two days after the shooting – Grayzone Project founder and editor Max Blumenthal published an article entitled “Israel's Far Right Blame 'Leftist' Victims of Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre”. The subtitle of the article reads, “As Israeli Minister of Education Naftali Bennett sets out to Pittsburgh, prominent members of the governing Likud Party have blamed the Jewish victims of the neo-Nazi massacre 'for causing anti-Semitism'.”

     According to Blumenthal, in the hours after the shooting, a listserv for the Israeli Likud Party (the party of the ruling majority, led by Benjamin Netanyahu) “pumped out talking points”, addressed to “Likud Party ambassadors”, claiming that the shooter “drew inspiration from a left-wing Jewish group that promoted immigration to the U.S. & worked against Trump.” This is evidently a reference to H.I.A.S. (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), which Bowers openly criticized on social media.

     To suggest that Bowers “drew inspiration” from H.I.A.S., when he chose his victims specifically because they belonged to a congregation that was associated with H.I.A.S., is like saying that Hitler “drew inspiration” from Jews when he used his hatred of Jews to justify killing them. It's ridiculous and offensive, and it's the last thing that should be said by someone who wants all Jews to agree with them and feel well-represented by them.

     Blumenthal continues his article by explaining that a Likud Party member and so-called “Israeli hate rapper” Shadow (real name Yoav Eliasi) described Robert Bowers, who killed eleven Jews, as “a man fed up with subversive progressive Jewish leftists injecting their sick agendas” into his country. Eliasi also said “HIAS brings in infiltrators that destroy every country. The murder was fed up with people like you [presumably referring to the Jewish people at HIAS]. Jews like you brought the holocaust and now you're causing antisemitism. Stop bringing in hate money from Soros.”

     This echoes, almost exactly, the kind of anti-immigrant sentiments expressed by right-wing white American racists. Eliasi's views seem to parrot talking points from Fox News and the Alex Jones Show. I'm bringing this information to the American public because I want people to understand that not everyone cheering-on attacks of Jewish people hate Jewish people. Some of them are Jewish. But I'll say it again: Those who promote or excuse violence, in the name of religion or nationality or race or anything, have no religion.

     I'm not going to say that Yoav Eliasi is not Jewish. I'm not going to say that the people at Tree of Life or H.I.A.S. aren't Jewish. I'll leave that to Israel's Askhenazic chief rabbi David Lau, an Orthodox rabbi who said in an interview after the shooting, that Tree of Life is “a place with a profound Jewish flavor” or “profound Jewish mark”. Rabbi Lau was subsequently criticized for refusing to say that Tree of Life is a synagogue, especially considering that the congregants were shot while praying to the G-d of Abraham. Benjamin Netanyahu (and others) later corrected him, and confirmed that it is a synagogue.

     While we're on the topic, Orthodox control over “who is a Jew” in Israel, is another thing that concerns many Jewish people. This is because Orthodox rabbis have gotten a reputation of telling other Jewish people that they're not Jewish, or not Jewish enough. This “voluntary separatism” is increasingly becoming less voluntary, and it is a growing source of unease between the various sects and movements of Judaism.

     I hope that my readers will look into the history of the foundation of the State of Israel, and of the political movement of Zionism with emigration to the Holy Land. I believe that if they do this - and consider the views of Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, Neturei Karta, the Satmar Rebbes Teitelbaum, and Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein – then they will eventually understand that the State of Israel, from the beginning and at its core, is based on the idea that a nation-state can effectively determine what is or is not the Jewish religion, and perhaps even who is and is not a Jew.

     I am not Jewish. But as a student of history, all of this terrifies me. I do not know how to express my empathy for the victims and their families, besides to state that they should arm themselves as soon as possible, and recommend that vulnerable people take up arms to defend themselves in case the police decide that they're not worth their time. I apologize if it is self-aggrandizing of me to pretend that I could ever say anything that could save a Jewish life. But I have to try.

     I do not wish for Jewish people worldwide to present themselves with a single face that is divided. Nor do I want to see all Jewish people represented by an imperialist Jewish supremacist occupier. I would rather have people see Jewish people as individuals, who have no obligation to make excuses for any nation, and have the right to be safe and defend themselves. But I cannot pretend that it is not true that some Jewish people actually do look at other Jews being killed, and think to themselves “they weren't really Jews”, or even “it's OK because they support immigration and they don't want a strong Israel.”

     I believe that the State of Israel, or at least the Likud Party, is trying to make Jewish people all over the world, choose between saving either the State of Israel, the I.D.F., and the occupation of Palestine on the one hand, or else saving the Jewish religion and protecting Jews from being lulled into a false sense of security by Israel and then not protected.

     I hope that the Jewish people in my country are intelligent enough to see that the State of Israel is embracing a white-nationalist distortion – a caricature – of what Jewish culture is supposed to be about, instead of true Judaism. Based on my study of Judaism, I believe that its central moral principles are a belief in G-d, peace, mercy, equality, duty, loyalty, and the idea that oppressing people brings more dishonor and shame than being oppressed.

     I hope that the rest of the 21^st century does not feature a lot of Jews being oppressed. But I also hope that we don't see Jewish people doing the oppressing. Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro says that his study of traditional Jewish values has led him to conclude that Jewish people find it more dishonorable to participate in someone else's oppression, than it is to become the victim of oppression.

     Opportunists might use this to try to claim that Shapiro and I would rather see Jews killed than “a strong Israel” (read: “a brutal, warlike Israel”), but we do not wish to see either scenario happen. Unfortunately, right now, we are seeing both. I have recommended herein how I think that that situation could and should change for the better.

     I apologize again if I have upset anyone with my statements. I do not intend to upset or offend anyone, but to inspire anger and dissatisfaction, and to make people aware of the seriousness of the problems of anti-Jewish violence and threats to the safety of Jewish people. I regret that I was not more precise; I only meant to say that Jewish racists thought they could get away with fomenting racial hatred forever without it coming back to bite Jewish people in the ass.

     I am not rejoicing that the Tree of Life shooting happened. I am a doomsayer and I make negative predictions all the time. I hate being proven right. I apologize if my post sounded like gloating; I was genuinely horrified, but without surprise, so I was unable to pretend that I did not know that Jewish blood would eventually be shed in order to complete the racists' “perfect” nationalist dream (wherein each of the world's 193 countries embrace nativism and ultra-nationalism, and kill or deport everybody who's not exactly like whatever the racist model of the ideal citizen is, which may take hold in their countries during the sweeping xenophobic fervors that will shape their national destinies).

     I am concerned that the Israeli Defense Forces may increase their activities over the holidays, which seems to have been the pattern over the last several years. I suspect that some people will try to use this to justify attacks against Jewish people, as a way to get revenge. I do not condone the Tree of Life shooting, I do not condone any potential copycat attacks, I don't condone attacks against peaceful Jewish people, and I don't condone the use of violence against Jews in order to make a statement about Israeli violence.

     I will not say I condemn these attacks, because to say I have the power to condemn people is to call myself G-d, and I refuse to do that. And that is why I have been hesitant to condemn the attacks, why I have put more focus on urging non-violent Jewish people to arm themselves, and why I am telling people that there are real concentration camps in America and Israel, and that not all Jewish people want to help immigrants and refugees get settled.

     These are sad facts, but they are true, and we have to deal with them if we want to help keep peaceful Jewish people and peaceful immigrants alike safe from attacks against them, whatever the motivations may be.



11. Post-Script

     (added on July 16th, 2021)

     Read the following article, from Israeli media outlet Ha'aretz.com, to learn more about Naftali Bennett (who became the Prime Minister of Israel in 2021):
     http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-americans-may-never-forgive-israel-for-its-reaction-to-the-pittsburgh-massacre-1.6616617

Written on November 16^th, 2018

Based on Notes Taken Between October 27^th and November 16^th, 2018

Originally Published on November 16th, 2018

Post-Script Added on July 16th, 2021

Thoughts on Immigration, Racial Violence, the 2018 Elections, and Jeff Sessions's Exit

     What follows is my reactions to the news of late October and early November 2018, as it relates to American politics; especially to the results of the 2018 midterm elections, the October 27^th shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and whether it was appropriate for now-former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from Robert Mueller's probe concerning possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian agents.

     These remarks were prepared for a gathering at a library in Highwood, Illinois, wherein members of the community, mostly senior citizens, meet to discuss current political events, especially in regards to national and international issues.

     These were my responses to those of the moderator's questions which interested me most, and to those questions on which I felt sufficiently qualified to comment. I have omitted additional and secondary questions which the moderator asked, but on which I did not feel a need to make a direct comment.

Topics #1, #2, and #3: The Roots of Political Polarization, and Crises at the Border

Question #1/#2/#3:

     “Political debates today seem more intense because conservatives and liberals are more often starting from different principles.

     ...Democrats who have called for open border policy have fallen silent, as those who want to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency... know that the caravan is not a winning issue for Democrats now. It's not just helpless women and children... Others know if mass illegal immigration is not stopped, then others will follow.

     ...Do you see the left and right coming together, or will they continue talking past one another?
     …The migrants often show up with diseases including contagious ones such as scabies, chicken pox, tuberculosis, typhoid, and leishmaniasis, which must be treated immediately.

     ...Agents at the biggest port of entry from Mexico are overwhelmed by those who seek asylum legally... The backlog will only worsen, as bigger groups are soon to follow.”

Answer #1/#2/#3:

     The “left” and right will start coming together as soon as they stop seeing each other as polar opposites, “left” and “right”. Democrats are not “the Left”; socialists and communists are. Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi have admitted to being for capitalism and against socialism. Obamacare was inspired by two Republican governors (Romney and Pawlenty); it's not socialism.

     Also, Republicans are not the most far-right political ideology that exists; fascists and Nazis are. Democrats and Republicans are not as far apart as some people would have you believe they are. They compromise with each other all the time. Republicans give-in to Democrats' demands to spend more money and grow the government, and Democrats let Republicans impose whatever totalitarian regulation they want, as long as somebody gets free goodies as compensation.

     You ask, “will the left and right sides of the aisle continue talking past one another?” I say that both parties are all too eager to compromise, when it comes to putting all of our human rights and civil liberties on the negotiation table to be voted away at the whim of the narrow majority. Democrats and Republicans don't care about liberty or equality, safety or health, or opportunity; they only care about securing their own power, winning re-elections, and getting paid. The voting public has sent our lawmakers a clear message: get both parties on-board to throw our precious natural freedoms out the window as fast as you can, get both parties on board, and we will continue to send you money and re-elect you in record numbers.

     We can do much better than this, and the first step is to hold Democrats to their progressive ideals (like being skeptical of big government, instead of just calling for more government bureaus that will only end up unaccountable), and to hold Republicans to the ideals of true libertarian-leaning small-government conservatism.

     Equality must guide Democrats, and liberty must guide Republicans, or we will only get more of what we've gotten for the last 170 years of Democratic or Republican control: bigger and more expensive federal government, more wars, and the utter decimation of the precious Bill of Rights, whose liberties so many troops have fought overseas trying to defend.

     I would like to urge libertarians and conservatives to consider the possibility that it is not primarily socialist ideals which cause them to hate Democrats; it's their adoption of Republican legislation, and their embrace of an overly-centralized, top-down government structure in which blue states are effectively deprived of all legal protections against Republican presidents who want to order the states around.

     Libertarians and conservatives, what you dislike about Democrats is their power-hungry nature, and their abandonment of the working class; not the idea that the Democrats embrace the working class too much. Bernie Sanders supporters recognized that Hillary Clinton cares more about Wall Street than Main Street, and they were right to send her the message that their trust has to be earned, not taken for granted.

     The idea that the migrant caravan has anything in it besides people who are in need of freedom and opportunity and the means to survive, is helping to create a wave of xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, that is harming everyone in America who is not a “perfectly” white, Christian, law-abiding citizen, whose grandparents were all born here. Anything “less” than that – even speaking a language besides English, or displaying another country's flag – will always be viewed by a certain segment of Americans as unpatriotic. We can describe this as wrong, and we'd be correct to describe it as wrong, but it is reality.

     Even if some immigrants are bringing guns and drugs into the country, that is no guarantee that they intend to use them, it is no guarantee that they are violent people, and it is no guarantee that they are terrorists. The fear that terrorists are among these refugees is motivated by a desire to claim that these refugees present a military-level threat to the security of this country, which is not true.

     We cannot infer that these immigrants pose a threat, from the simple fact that some of them are military-age males. Being an adult male who is not yet a citizen of the United States, is no guarantee that you are a military-level threat to America. Military-age males have every right to use firearms to protect their families as they try to cross deserts patrolled by drug gangs.

     To be unarmed in such a situation would be downright foolish, and it would show reckless disregard for the safety of one's family. The same can be said about failing to break the law by crossing a border, when any rational person cares more about feeding their starving family, than the need to obey an imaginary line drawn on the ground by men who died centuries ago.

     If Americans want Honduran immigrants to stop coming to America, then Americans should stop re-electing the politicians who supported the 2009 ouster of the democratically-elected liberal Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. American generals reportedly met with Zelaya's opposition shortly before his overthrow, which they apparently did in order to guard against Hugo Chavez's then-growing influence in Latin America.

     We cannot continue the Reagan-Bush foreign policy, of using sanctions and coups and election interference against every Latin American and Muslim-majority country who doesn't bend to our will. This did not stop under Obama, it has not stopped under Trump. As long as we continue to sponsor coups in Latin American and Islamic countries, and provide military support to terrorist groups that are undermining the stability of democratically elected regimes (which have every right to represent the interests of their own people, not necessarily Americans' interests), then their people will come here.

     We need to stop giving them a reason to hate us. Blowing up their infrastructure and deposing their governments has only caused blowback for the United States the whole 65 years we've been trying it, and to continue this foolish policy will only result in more unintended consequences. It will cause more immigrants who hate us to come here, while the immigrants who like us will be stuck in their own countries, dying from American bombs while they're defending the sovereign governments they voted into power, but which had to be destroyed because they refused to sell their own people out to American financial and geopolitical interests.

     I know I criticized Ronald Reagan a moment ago, but he was right about one thing: the time he admitted that Americans are foolish to think they can understand, and plan around, the irrationality of Middle East politics. Reagan had this to say on the matter: “Perhaps we didn't appreciate fully enough the depth of the hatred and the complexity of problems that made the Middle East such a jungle. Perhaps the idea of a suicide car bomber committing mass murder to gain instant entry to Paradise was so foreign to our own values and consciousness that it did not create in us the concern for the Marines' safety that it should have. In the weeks immediately after the bombing [in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983], I believe the last thing that we should do was turn tail and leave. Yet the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics forced us to rethink our policy there. Is there would be some rethinking of policy before our men die, we would be a lot better off. If that policy had changed towards more of a neutral position, and neutrality, those 241 Marines would be alive today.” I just wish that he had realized it sooner, and I wish that he had taken that lesson of not intervening in countries you don't understand, and applied that lesson to the countries that he and George Bush Sr. helped destroy; Honduras, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Suriname.

     To quote a man named Orlando Battista, “An error is not a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” To stop this disastrous foreign policy is not to admit defeat; not of the American military, not of the American way of life, not of our liberties. The only outcome of reversing our belligerent foreign policy – which naively assumes that we can just boss people around, and steal and bomb their stuff, until we get our way - will be fewer American soldiers dying for no reason (other than to serve as cannon fodder for the financial and geopolitical interests of their masters who started these pointless wars and coups in the first place).

     Ceasing to interfere in countries we know nothing about, will in no way make it more difficult for us to rescue threatened peoples in other countries when they ask Americans for help. The way you help people like that, is not to put more weapons into the hands of militant groups in their country who want to destroy both the duly elected government and terrorize the general populace into submission.

     If people are coming into the U.S. with communicable diseases, then they should be treated, cured, and allowed in as soon as they're better, not turned away simply because they're sick. Part of the reason why some immigrants come here is due to America's high quality of medical care. I hope that teams of doctors are headed to the border; they will really need those doctors once I.C.E. decides to shoot a bunch of non-violent immigrants for walking across an imaginary line in the sand.

     The fear of disease has been used for generations to justify excluding refugees. Since the 1930s, in regards to immigrants from Mexico, for example. In the 1930s, even until years after the typhus outbreak had ended in Mexico, immigrants entering at the El Paso / Ciudad Juarez port of entry were subjected to harsh, noxious, even toxic chemicals, as a way to rid them of lice and typhus. One of the chemicals used against these immigrants included Zyklon-B, which just a decade later was used by the Nazis to “exterminate” Jewish people and other so-called “undesirables”. Anyone wishing to learn more about this, can look up the term “Bath Riots” in any library card catalog or internet search engine.

     The idea that most immigrants are probably carrying some disease, almost always comes along with the idea that immigrants are a disease. Hitler compared Jewish people to rats and parasites, in the same way that wealthy conservatives call poor people parasites because they're having difficulty supporting themselves. Additionally, Hitler compared Judaism, Marxism, and Bolshevik communism to cancers and tumors and diseases.

     This is textbook dehumanization. Comparing Jewish people to parasites who need to be “exterminated” is just another example. But assuming that Hispanic immigrants might be carrying intestinal parasites, or avian flu or swine flu – or to call them all rapists, dogs, animals, sub-human, filth, or to call mixed-race people (even ourselves) "mongrels" and "mutts" - is to reduce human beings to the level of animals and parasites. That is exactly what Nazis did to the peoples they perceived as their political and racial enemies.

     We must learn the lessons of the Holocaust. One of those lessons is that we should be careful not to echo the Nazi rhetoric of dehumanization. History shows us that if you dehumanize people, or even just call them “barbaric” (or assume they're uncivilized just because they're not as industrially advanced as we are), then there's no telling what horrors you might be willing to inflict on them, and excusing it based on the idea that they're not human, so it's OK for them to suffer treatment worthy of dogs. If you use dehumanizing rhetoric, then eventually someone will claim that you are less than human, and use that idea to try to treat you like an animal or a parasite or a disease.

     As the story goes, “They came for the trade-unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade-unionist. Then they came for the socialists... and I did not speak out... then they came for the Jews. ...Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to speak out for me.” Whether legal or illegal; Jewish or Arab or Hispanic; born in America, or just the son of an immigrant; I would like to see everyone who is not a perfectly white Christian law-abiding citizen, unite, to say “We tolerate each other's differences, we agree to disagree, and we won't submit to the fascists' plan to force us all to assimilate to a hyper-patriotic, racist culture that obeys all laws even unto the pain of death.

     We all know immigrants who we love. Some of your parents might have even come here illegally, and I don't blame them for doing that; just because it's against the law, doesn't mean that it's wrong. Some of you might have even known someone who was on the U.S.S. St. Louis (the ship full of Jewish refugees), and they learned first-hand what America does when it thinks it has no obligation to accept refugees. It turns them away, hoping that some other country will deal with the problem; and then 50 to 80 years later it elects Bush Sr. and Bush Jr., the son and grandson of Nazi war profiteer Prescott Bush, who represented German industrialist Fritz Thyssen's American interests, while Thyssen was also funding slave labor camps in East Germany (under the guise of making investments in steel and synthetic rubber, and the like). Some of those camps were converted into death camps after the inmates were worked nearly to death.

     Those who do not learn from history will be doomed to repeat it. As a student of history, I cannot stand idly by while listening to the children of Holocaust survivors make excuses for the Mussolini admirer Donald Trump, and promote an openly fascist, exclusionary, white nationalist ideology, apparently because they think that will spare them the hatred of American white Christian racists who make no special exception for Jewish people in their hatred of everyone who isn't like them.


Topic #4: New Rules Planned for Asylum Seekers

Question #4:

     “...The Trump Administration is moving ahead with a plan to limit when and where foreign nationals can apply for asylum at the U.S. border with Mexico.

     ...The administration will publish a new rule aimed at pushing asylum seekers to already crowded border crossings and deny the opportunity to apply for asylum nearly all immigrants caught crossing the border illegally.

     ...Critics said the rule oversteps the president's legal authority to change immigration law...

     ...What are your thoughts and comments concerning the immigrants, the caravans seeking asylum, and the crises at our border?”

Answer #4:

     The second paragraph of the introduction to this issue says it all: “The administration will publish a new rule aimed at pushing asylum seekers to already crowded border crossings and deny the opportunity to apply for asylum nearly all immigrants caught crossing the border illegally.”

     What this says to me is that the Trump Administration wants to make it harder for people to get in legally (by imposing new limitations on where and when people can apply for asylum). They are doing nothing to make good on their promise to make it easier for people to come in legally.

     And if they're “pushing asylum seekers to already crowded border crossings”, then they're pretty much inviting them to those crowded border crossings, which they will most likely cross illegally, which they're doing because they've been wandering through the desert desperate for food and water, not because they hate America.

     The Trump Administration wants to make it harder to come in illegally. This effectively pressuring immigrants to come in illegally, because that's the only other realistic alternative (besides returning to a country where they're virtually assured to die at the hands of drug gangs). This policy will only funnel them to those ports of entry, where American officials can round them up and deport them more efficiently and quickly. But choking an entry port with illegal immigrants is also going to result in more bloodshed and violence at the border, because we're not focusing on creating a simple path to citizenship that isn't humiliating, invasive, or which orders immigrants to check their language, their flag, and their culture at the door to the country, and abandon their identity on the way in.

     The Trump Administration is raising and changing its standards for no reason and with little notice. Immigrants sometimes wait as long as several decades to get into this country. Just as it did during World War II, America now has immigration quotas that it's not fulfilling, even though these people are fleeing real threats and totalitarian governments (some of which America has supported). Tens of thousands of Syrian civilians died in 2016, America had room for several thousand from that country, yet we let in only eleven people from that war-ravaged country. A country whose sovereign government our government is trying to ouster, which risks throwing his people into the hands of I.S.I.S. and other extremist groups.

     The inscription at the foot of the Statue of Liberty specifically says that “wretched refuse” (that is, human garbage, human filth, trash, etc.) is welcome on our shores. No human being is garbage, but Lady Liberty accepts anyone and everyone who is unfortunate enough to be called garbage, and who gets dehumanized in this way. I want “human garbage” to feel more accepted in America than control-freak racist Nazi sympathizers who want to dehumanize others. If that makes me unpatriotic, then so be it.

     When I see my president making people feel pressured to return to their old countries, while also depriving them of the means to do so - by making it harder for them to leave or enter, by making it hard for them to earn a decent wage so they can afford the trip, and by limiting their rights to work and travel – it reminds me of the steps that Hitler took to trap non-Germans in his country while taunting them with the illusion that they were free to leave at any time. They weren't.

     I urge anyone who suspects that some of my concerns are valid, to speak to any immigrants they have in their family. Go to them, find out whether your parents and grandparents have ever renounced their eligibility to claim citizenship in their former nations. Photocopy their foreign birth certificates, and their proof of American citizenship. You may need this information once Donald Trump decides to deport everybody whose ancestors came here after 1920, or everybody whose parents or immigrants, or whatever he's planning.

     I know that I'm young, and young people exaggerate, and I shouldn't compare other events to the Holocaust because I risk trivializing that event by comparing it to something else. But as a student of history, and as someone who is pretty good at detecting patterns, I am saying all this because I want to prevent a potential humanitarian catastrophe from becoming as bad as the Holocaust. The more that Jewish people say “Obey the law” and “Just come in illegally”, the more they will excuse the idea that the government and the police are always right, even when they're being run by openly racist people with totalitarian goals.

     I happen to know two police officers who live in my area, both of whom are around retirement age, whom I overheard discussing Hitler's rationale for eliminating Jewish people, I believe, talking about it as if it were a good thing, or at least a reasonable one. “Sympathetic” would not be an inappropriate word to describe what I heard. I believe that in most places in America, the kinds of people who become police officers are usually the ones who are excited to find excuses to beat up non-whites, whom have unfortunately been impoverished and discriminated against by our society into a state of having little alternatives to heavily regulated legal work, other than to resort to stealing to make ends meet, and sometimes even to violence in order to get away with that theft. Make no mistake, there are Nazi sympathizers in the police force, even in blue states.

     Additionally, the fact that Trump's actions, such as this one, are routinely criticized as overstepping his authority as president, and overstepping the bounds of the Constitution, proves that Trump has no respect for the rule of law, or our system of checks and balances. For Donald trump to say that police should take people's guns away, and then “go through due process”, is an affront to American values and the American way of life, much more than any immigrant could ever be, no matter how many drugs, guns, or diseases he has on him. Donald Trump is the last person in the world who should be lecturing other people about the need to obey the law.

Topic #5: The Exit of Jeff Sessions

Question #5:

     “...Jeff Sessions, the departing attorney general, leaves as gracious as ever, and doesn't regret his controversial recusal.

     ...Mr. Sessions's conservative critics argued that he should have investigated misuse of surveillance warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the FISA Court warrants that allegedly were gotten illegally to wiretap him by the FBI. His recusal compromised his leadership of the department and made it harder to exert supervision over the FBI.

     ...Did Jeff Sessions bring on his own demise by recusing himself from supervising Mr. Mueller's Russian collusion probe?”

Answer #5:

     I don't agree with all of Jeff Sessions's views; particularly race relations or marijuana legalization. But I have to commend him for recusing himself from the Russian collusion probe, since he would have stood to directly benefit if such collusion happened. I do not claim to know for sure whether such collusion occurred.

     I agree with those who say Sessions was right to recuse himself, but I also agree with those who say he should have investigated the alleged spying on Carter Page. I wouldn't vote for Sessions to be president, but I believe that we need more public officials who are not willing to lie and cheat and break the law in order to make their party or their president look good.

     Sessions may not be a perfect servant of Trump, but disagreement in the executive branch is a sign of freedom and healthy disagreement. It might make America look unstable, but if you read the Tao Te Ching, you'll know that if you're too stable and unwavering, then you become brittle and stiff, and you break, instead of being and being pliable and amenable to change.

     Sessions is putting ethics ahead of his own need to advance his career. Additionally, he is putting the public's need for a fair, impartial investigation, ahead of his fidelity to the people who want to pretend they gave him his job. But Trump didn't give him his job; the American people did, in the form of the United States Senate. Sessions is showing more loyalty to the American people and due process of law than he is showing to the president, and for good reason: the American people are the ones who are paying his salary. Trump just wants to take credit.

     Sessions knows that he is not perfect, and that a certain segment of voters will always need him to prove that he is trustworthy. His recusal was his way of saying, “Hey, I'm playing by the same rules as everybody else. Nobody is above the law; not me, not the president, not anybody.” I'm infinitely more concerned about whether Sessions did enough to investigate the new administration, than I am about whether he is loyalty to a president for whom I have no respect (because he has no respect for me, nor for the rule of law).

Topic #6: Will it Be Gridlock for the Republicans for the Next Two Years After the Split Congress?

Question #6:

     “Divided power in Washington means two years of policy gridlock where new bills and anti-growth policies will not pass.

     ...As for policy, Mr. Trump will need Mrs. Pelosi to pass NAFTA 2.0, raise the debt ceiling, and negotiate a budget. She will try to extract policy concessions, such as tax increases to pay for public works.

     ...Your thoughts about what's in store for the next two years for both parties?”

Answer #6:

     “With a Republican-dominated Senate and a Democrat-controlled House, this means that Trump will continue to have little to no obstacles to his judicial appointments. It also means that we'll see Trump vetoing a lot of legislation that the Democratic House will propose.

     I predict that this will lead to two things: 1) even more controversial Supreme Court picks over the next two summers, which will result in waves of protest (most likely over either social issues or health policy), and 2) more partisan political squabbles over “the power of the purse” (that is, the spending power, which the Democrats now control).

     I believe that the push for Pelosi to be reinstated as Speaker of the House – as well as the push for Hillary Clinton to run again in 2020 (as well as Joe Biden, for that matter) – will continue, full steam ahead. And this, despite obvious indicators that the Democratic Party is moving to the left, despite indicators that their leaders' open embrace of Wall Street and capitalism is turning-off young people, and turning-off workers who live in the Rust Belt states (which voted for Obama and Sanders, but picked Trump over Clinton).

     Believe it or not, there is a way to balance the budget, increase revenues, reduce taxes, and promote growth without promoting destruction of the environment, all at the same time. It's called Land Value Taxation. Have all levels of government work together to make sure local governments aren't squeezing so much out of their residents in property taxes that there's no tax money left over for the “higher” levels of government (state and federal).

     Do that, simplify the tax code, and legally mandate balanced budgets. If the lawmakers can't balance the budget, then fire them, cut their pay, cut their pensions, cut their benefits, and impose term limits. Between 90 and 98 percent of congressmen are re-elected; only drastic measures like the ones I have mentioned will do anything to hold them accountable to the people they supposedly represent.

     Land Value Taxation will provide people freedom of opportunity, without giving them handouts. It will help make government more local, and more often voluntary, while devolving most decisions to the communities they impact the most. It is a way to fund government that does not involve stealing from taxpayers solely in order to funnel that money into already well entrenched business elites, based on the idea that that will help create jobs for the taxpayers from whom they have just stolen. Finally, Land Value Taxation will, most importantly, provide a way to promote jobs and productivity, without putting the environment or the bottom lines of the working poor at risk.

     If we want the working poor to survive, we need to stop taxing people who live below the poverty line, we need to stop giving their money to “job-creators” who are already rich and don't need that money, and we need to stop pretending that it's fine for their bosses to make 500 times as much as they do, while there are people working forty hours a week or more, yet still have to resort to seeking government assistance just to make ends meet. The existence of a social safety net may feel like a comfort and a consolation, but the existence of the social safety net only makes employers feel OK with giving their workers less than they need to survive, because they assume that the government will always fill-in the gaps. Even now, Republicans are working to dismantle that social safety net, mistakenly interpreting each new person thrown off of Food Stamps as a success, because the administration assumes that the person must be off nutritional assistance now, because they probably no longer need it. It is an understatement to say that that is not always the case.

     I fully expect Nancy Pelosi to be elected Speaker, and I expect a NAFTA 2.0 and another debt ceiling increase, and I think that all of those things are bad ideas. The Democrats will propose only those bills which they know the Republicans will support; that is, the ones which increase the president's war budget, increase the amount of money spent on Wall Street, increase the amount which can be spent on relief for farmers (essentially as an apology for Trump's tariff strategy, which predictably failed, and predictably resulted in demands from other industries to be subsidized).

     If the Democratic Party insists on destroying itself, I will not stop it. Nancy Pelosi sent a clear message to me in 2006 when she vowed not to pursue George W. Bush on impeachment, just as she has sent a clear message that she will not pursue Trump for impeachment. Trump, who openly flaunts the rule of law. George W. Bush, the grandson of a war profiteer, and who started two unconstitutional wars, not authorized by the people through the Congress, against two countries that had not attacked the United States.

     Pelosi refused to impeach Bush, whose invasion of Iraq resulted in the use of weaponized depleted uranium on the people of Fallujah, resulting in mutations such as babies being born with one eye in the center of their heads. Bush deserves to pay for his war crimes, and Nancy Pelosi is sending a clear message that Trump's Mussolinian fascism, and Bush's Nazi war profiteer past, are perfectly welcome in the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, which fought in a coalition to stop Hitler and Mussolini from conquering the world.

     I became a Libertarian the year after the Democrats retook the House in 2006, the year Pelosi said that Bush would get a free pass. I could no longer call myself a Democrat, not even a progressive one. The Bill of Rights mattered to much for me, even at the age of 19. I knew then that what both parties were doing was wrong, and I still feel that way.

     I refuse to vote for state or national -level candidates of either party, until their leadership does something to show that they are unwilling to compromise with Republicans on issues like unlimited handouts for Wall Street, assimilation of immigrants, unreasonable immigration restrictions, unwarranted wiretaps and domestic surveillance of citizens, the militarization of local police departments through the use of drones and tanks on our streets, and the continued criminalization of a harmless drug (the non-violent possession of which currently claims one million incarcerated people who could be out taking care of their families and creating jobs for people).

     These are all issues which Democrats have been all too happy to help Republicans implement, as long as the Democrats get a small rider that guarantees them some imaginary, temporary, probably unfunded goodies that distract them from the need to have a society that respects people regardless of their ability to fill out form after form to beg the government for permission to exercise control over their own property, their own households, and their own lives.

Topic #7: The Price of Medicare for All, or Bernie-Care

Question #7:

     “...Medicare for “All”... would finance health care through taxes instead of insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays. ...As in every socialist system, the real “savings” would come from the price controls and wait lists for many health care services. ...Get in line... which may take a year or more. ...Single-payer represents a big threat, and insurers are far too entrenched in Congress to lose the battle... Your thoughts and comments re: “Medicare for All”?”

Answer #7:

     ObamaCare is not socialist-inspired legislation; it was inspired by the health policies of Republican governors Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney (when it was called PawlentyCare and RomneyCare).

     “Price controls” alone do not necessarily indicate a socialist. The Nazis imposed price controls too. In fact, they did it under the guise of socialism. They called it “war socialism”. War socialism is not real socialism, just like the “national socialism” term used by the Nazis was a trick designed to dupe socialists into believing that they wanted equality. The only people they wanted equality or freedom for was the German people, they left a full 20% of their society out of their “socialist” dream.

     To call price controls “socialist” - whether you mean it as a good thing or a bad thing – effectively amounts to giving-in to, and agreeing with, the Nazi propaganda that price controls are representative of what a socialist economy is supposed to look like.

     Command-and-control economics is what defined both the Soviet Union and the Nazis. They both had price controls. They both imposed rationing in order to make efficient use of materials to support the war effort. Guess what... so did the United States! We had rationing and price controls here too. I do not support single-payer health care, nor do I support price controls. But you cannot criticize price controls as socialist, when if you knew anything about socialism, you would know that most socialists would eventually like to abolish the need for pricing and money in the first place. If they succeed, then price controls won't be viewed as necessary. Socialists have no reason to support a monetary and pricing system that they believe only serves to impose a state of destitution and inequality upon them.

     We live in a capitalist system with a large social safety net, not a socialist system. No matter how large the social safety net is, the mere fact that it is large does not make it socialist, as long as private property ownership still exists and is fully legal, and, at that, protected and insured with the help of the government. The mere fact that ObamaCare still exists, should not be taken as proof that we live in a socialist country. The essence of socialism is either worker control, or democratic decision-making, or inclusion of all of society in the decision-making. ObamaCare was pushed through without regard as to whether it was constitutional, affordable, beneficial to workers, or whether it was even a public option or a single-payer proposal in the first place. The mere fact that it is a “public works” does not prove that it is worker-controlled, or that it operates in the interest of the broadest swath of society that our lawmakers could manage to consult.

     If we had a socialist health system, then the profit incentive in health insurance would completely cease to exist. I'm not a socialist, but I think it should cease to exist; there are non-profit charities and humanitarian organizations that could step in to fund health insurance for the poor, without inviting the government to get involved, and rob all of us to pay for it. I also believe that government is pressuring us into choosing for-profit forms of insurance, because non-profits don't have to pay taxes, so the more people choose non-profit health providers, the less tax revenue the government gets from taxing the profits of the health industry. The way the government is being run right now, the government has literally no incentive to help people afford health care and health insurance. That's because if you solve that problem, you eliminate the artificial need for the existence of the branch of government that pretends to solve that problem but does nothing about it.

     Nobody wanted ObamaCare, it had to be forced on us, through what is openly being called the individual mandate. It is mandatory. It's force. It's a bailout of the private insurance companies, in the name of socialism. Single-payer will give us more of the same thing, except it will be more confusing, because all the money will be lumped together into one pool, so Democrats will depict every attempt to save those funds and spend them wisely, as an attempt to lower the total amount being spent, which they will characterize as robbery, even when it is done out of a genuine concern for the fiscal stability of the country. Democrats have stooped to this same irrational, emotionally manipulative fear-mongering, and I hope that Democratic voters will not continue to fall for it.

     The social safety net is something that the capitalist system gives to workers, to make them satisfied with the condition of servitude that they're in, and to make them satisfied with capitalism. They do this in hopes that this will eventually cause far-left Democrats to call for socialism, because the social safety net isn't doing a good enough job. ObamaCare is not socialism; it's a capitalist tool designed to get people to stop complaining, to stop wanting a better quality of life for themselves and their children, to stop asking to be treated equally at the hospital just because they can't afford to pay (even though doctors take oaths to treat people regardless of their ability to pay).

     Doctors and patients alike are increasingly realizing that health insurance companies are middlemen, who get in the way of the efficiency, equality, and confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship. The same could be said about our government, which orders us to buy that health insurance, and then pretends like that's going to help them lower prices, instead of just jack-up the premiums every year while demanding more and more taxpayer bailouts.

     People who are sick don't need health insurance, they need health care. Just like a person whose house is on fire doesn't need fire insurance, they need someone to put out the fire. It does no good to insure against something that has already happened, so being pressured to buy insurance after the problem has already appeared is just an unnecessary expense that distracts from the real problem.

     Insuring anything only serves to convince people that they can be as reckless as they want with it, and that government and the taxpayers will always foot the bill to compensate for whatever thoughtless thing people want to do with their bodies, or their cars, or their guns. This creates a culture of irresponsibility, and needlessly welcoming the insurance industry and insurance legislation into our lives.

     Anyone who wants the government to force all American citizens to pay into the same insurance pool, should be wary that they may be welcoming other people to control their health decisions, based on the idea that they're paying for it, so they get a say in the matter. We can have an egalitarian health system without resorting to redistribution; all we have to do is let people know it's not OK to be pressured into making economic decisions that benefit solely other people, and having free choice in health care and insurance markets, not corporate welfare for the already wealthy insurers and pharmaceutical companies, paid for through legalized theft from taxpayers.

Topic #8: Anti-Semitism “Appears to Be Intensifying” in the U.S.

Question #8:

     “...The Anti-Defamation League [reported a] 57% increase in anti-Semitic incidents from the previous year. ...many synagogues and Jewish day schools have been amping up security measures. ...What do you think is contributing to the increase of anti-Semitism, not just in the U.S. but also around the world?”

Answer #8:

     I think that one of the chief contributing causes of anti-Semitism in recent years, has been the increase in acceptability of the hatred of other ethnic minorities. I feel that Trump and his loyalists have been stoking the flames of xenophobia, and hatred of immigrants, since his campaign began. They have created an environment where questioning people's loyalty to this country is always acceptable, in which nobody has the right to speak their own native language without having to undergo extreme, invasive measures to prove to police that they are not foreign spies.

     Frankly, I would be missing something if I neglected to mention that the Democrats have made it easier for Republicans to hate on immigrants, with the Democrats' demonization of all things Russian (almost as if to re-ignite the Red Scare which the Republicans started 55 years ago), and with their mockery of Trump's German last name. This is a desperate attempt by the Democrats to seem patriotic, but they're just stoking nationalistic hatred against all Russians and Germans by doing these things. The Democrats should not be complimented just for choosing to hate white nations for no good reason instead of non-white nations.

     In a sense, it was only a matter of time before the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment came to envelop Jewish people in addition to other ethnic minorities. Indeed, I believe that Robert Bowers (the alleged shooter at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh) did what he did because he believed – to repeat, he believed this, not me - that Tree of Life and H.I.A.S. (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) were part of a vast Jewish-Arab-Hispanic conspiracy to disobey American law, flood America with immigrants, and have Jewish Democrat politicians tempt Donald Trump away from true conservatism.

     Aside from that shooting, and in general, I believe that the main reason Jewish people are being chosen as targets is because it's no longer acceptable in America – at least while in the company of the 51% of us who are Republicans - to be anything less than a white Christian conservative American citizen with a full-time job, wealthy, and in perfect standing with the law, who additionally sucks up to the power elite. So obedient to the law, some of them, that they will not even consider violating the law, or orders, even when it violates their conscience. You could call that a patriot, but patriot or not, it's also a psychopath, because psychopaths have no conscience (nor empathy, for that matter).

     Many of these people openly embrace, and often promote, the idea that a person who obeys authority is somehow “protected” by God, even if they die, even if they do something wrong in the process. Some steadfast Christians who are control freaks – I repeat, some; not all of them, just the worst of them - are so willing to believe that all orders come from God, that they are willing to encourage people to become victims, tell them that they're protected and safe, allow them to die, and take credit for pretending to help them.

     As much as I support many of the principles in the Constitution, I have to agree with those who have said that our Constitution has been powerless to prevent the chain of excesses and abuses of power which have allowed this to happen. The Constitution has failed to sufficiently limit the power of the president, and the last fifty years of history have shown us that our Congress will needlessly hand its duly-delegated powers over to the president, even when the president isn't asking for that much power (Note: I'm referring to Richard Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which was overridden).

     We the voters, and our foolish faith in the Constitution, have allowed this racist psychopath to take over our airwaves; have allowed this despotic president to whip us all into a race-baiting, war-mongering frenzy of calling the cops on our neighbors, instead of banding together against him in the name of embracing and respecting each other's differences, which is not only our last chance at social cohesion, but maybe also the survival of the planet.

     We should be arming ourselves and providing for the security and well-being of our families, not obsessing over what some idiotic billionaire casino owner who likes to fire people - who can't get by without stealing from all 320 million of us at once – is going to order us to do next. We are free individuals, freedom is all you need to fight a successful revolution, and a free individual does not wait around playing guessing games about what we could do to make the president less mad at us, as if all 320 million of us belong in jail, instead of him.

     Donald Trump and his loyalists are making people of all kinds, cultures, heritages, and religions feel unwelcome in this country. No matter whether they were born here, no matter if they did come in legally (because white people can still get away with calling the cops on Puerto Ricans who wave the flag of Puerto Rico, which is U.S. territory, not a foreign nation). My grandmother was born in Italy and she doesn't know where her Social Security card is. This terrifies me, as someone who sees Trump saying things that I last heard coming out of the mouths of Mussolini and Hitler. I believe that if Trump gets to revoke birthright citizenship and repeal the 14^th Amendment, then the next step will be to revoke the citizenship of people whose parents or grandparents weren't born here. And that includes the vast majority of us.

     Many people in this country will never stop seeing Jewish people as foreigners, as non-white, as rejecting Jesus. Many people in this country will continue to blame Jewish people for killing Jesus, or even to doubt the loyalty of Jewish people because they suspect that they might have more loyalty to the State of Israel than to the United States. It is unfortunate that there are so many racists in America. But wishing that this were not so, does not absolve us of the responsibility to take adequate preparations for the possible scenario of anti-Semitic pogroms, possibly even including racist or Nazi-sympathetic elements of the police (rogue police or not).

     I hope that more Jewish people will consider doing what Israelis have done to protect their own security interests: arm most citizens. I do not think that a draft is necessary to achieve that, but I do hope to see more Jewish Americans come to value their right to bear arms. I feel the same way about liberals, Democrats, and ethnic and religious minorities of all kinds who think that Democratic gun control measures are going to stop racists from targeting them. If the Republicans can win an election and change who's allowed to have a gun, they're going to take guns away from everyone who's not a solid white Christian patriot.

     I would like to urge Jewish Americans to join the interest group J.P.F.O. (Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership). That group aims to spread the message that Senator Chris Dodd Sr. helped spearhead the modern call for increased gun control legislation back in the mid 20^th century, when he evidently took inspiration from the Nazi model of gun control. The Nazis, by the way, curtailed the right of non-Germans to travel, but curtailed less the right of Germans to travel, to make it seem fair. They also increased restrictions on the Jews' right to bear arms, while loosening restrictions on ethnic Germans' right to bear arms; do not allow yourself to be fooled by those who claim that Germany had a general loosening of restrictions. That loosening only applied to Germans.

     I am a Libertarian. I embrace free market ideals. I am open to conservative and right-wing ideas, as long as they are conducive to freedom and independence. But I simply cannot endorse the idea that continuing to obey authority, or obey the law, is going to make it any easier for us. You – immigrant or not, Jewish or not - are being given a choice again between being peacefully murdered, violently murdered, or fighting your way free.

     If I were to go back to Nazi Germany, and tell Jewish people under Nazi rule, that they ought to “respect authority”, and “do what the police say, and they won't mess with you too much”, who would I be talking about? I would be encouraging people to obey Nazis. You may wish to call them “Nazi sympathizers dressed in police uniforms”, but that describes a literal Nazi as well. I don't wish to help order people into death camps. Distrust of authority is healthy, and if an authority is responsible and duly authorized, then it should be able to survive answering a few questions before it resorts to violence and brutal repression (including of people who are just trying to find out what horrible things their tax money is being spent on).

     Your legislatures and your police forces have been taken over by Nazi sympathizers who don't respect your individual right to defend yourself, because they want to pretend it threatens national security, instead of just threatening their power to control you; to order you to work yourself to death or else fuck-off out of the country. Do not trust the police to protect you, and do not let your children grow up thinking that the police, or the president, are always right.

     No state can be trusted to protect Jewish people. How many dozens of European countries have banned Jewish people at one time or another over the centuries? Plenty of Jewish people have gone on to be anarchists: Noam Chomsky, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman. Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, Jewish libertarians, admitted that we could live without the state.

     Jewish people are under no obligation to obey the law unto the pain of death. They are not now, and they were not under Nazi rule. Jewish law obligates Jewish people to defend themselves, and there have been midrashim written which interpret Jewish law as meaning that when G-d made the covenant with the Jewish people, He also commanded them to obey the laws of their host nations, but additionally commanded all the nations of the world to refrain from treating the Jews in a harsh or unreasonable manner. Jewish Americans, just like any other people in America, have every right to arm themselves, and even to disobey laws that seriously violate their conscience. But it is getting increasinly difficult to do both of those things, and I blame politicians who support gun control and support increased restrictions on free speech and freedom of the press.

     Peaceful disobedience of unjust laws founded this country at the Boston Tea Party. That tradition continued with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. Today, the Libertarian Party wholly embraces the peaceful disobedience of laws that violate one's personal conscience. But free people are under no obligation to remain “peaceful” in the face of constant threats and provocations.

     Being in America does not obligate you to be a mouthpiece for American fascism and racism, nor for the anti-immigrant sentiment and xenophobia whose spread helps make these things seem normal by comparison. You do not have to hate on illegal immigrants just because you had the patience and the money and the connections to come in legally, and they didn't. You have no right to close the door on refugees when American immigration quotas from countries with humanitarian catastrophes are being nowhere near fulfilled; humanitarian catastrophes which our country is partly to blame for. That hatred is coming back to bite Jewish Americans in the ass, because they are unfortunate enough to be in America at the height of a race-baiting epidemic, when racists hate all kinds of immigrants, and don't care enough to distinguish which ones are Jewish and which ones are not.

     Last year, a racist put a piece of pork on the handle of a doorway of a Muslim mosque. Should we assume that, just because this man targeted Muslims instead of Jews, that he is above perpetrating the same type of vandalism upon a synagogue, to mock the Jews for their dietary restrictions in the same way? How hard do you think it would be to get Donald Trump to pay the legal bills of anybody who leaves a piece of pork on the doorstep of a mosque? If he did that, how much would you be willing to bet that if someone vandalized a synagogue with pork the next day, Trump would pretend he had nothing to do with creating the environment that said it's perfectly acceptable to treat religious minorities that way.

     Twenty or thirty years ago in New York City, a Hasidic Jewish man was attacked by a racist for speaking Yiddish or Hebrew on his cell phone. Racists don't care what language you're speaking, they just want to attack you if it's not English (or German, or whatever language they want to force people to speak).

     I want all people in America to feel free to use their native language, and practice any part of their religion that doesn't directly call for violence against non-believers (and all three Abrahamic faiths do that, just in different amounts). But ethnic and religious minorities should keep in mind that some people may want to hurt them for doing it, and that the police will not always be nearby to rush to their defense. They might even think that they have more important things to do. Sometimes the cops even defend anti-racist protesters from gangs of white racist thugs. The cops get a free pass for this, because some people are foolish enough to label all anti-racist protesters as belonging to “Antifa”, which people pretend is a terrorist group, rather than the only people who are actively engaging openly racist white people in overt warfare (which is what racists deserve).

     The police care much more about getting paid, than doing their job. They cannot even be held legally responsible for failing to protect anyone who doesn't directly pay them for that protection. The police are, in effect, a mafia, which has legalized its own crimes, and turned its documentation of its own crimes into a basis for law. The police do not care about keeping individuals safe from harm, especially not if it's a small minority of people whom they could easily stand to lose without risking too much of their paycheck.

     Individuals must remain well-armed if we are to guard against perhaps the greatest horror of the twentieth century – a horror with many faces, many dictators as its facades – the deliberate and willfully negligent murder of hundreds of millions of people at the hands of the governments which were instituted, ironically, to preserve their freedoms and protect their lives. We are fools if we think that any country that has ever banned Jews – or anybody else – could not easily do it again.

     An increase in the number of Jewish politicians, or of Jewish police officers, would not guarantee that Jewish people would be protected, because there will always be politicians who want to sell their constituents the illusion of safety. Democrats, for example, do this by telling their constituents, Jews included, to hand their guns over to the racist Donald Trump. Then the Republicans say he needs these guns to protect you from the Muslims. Meanwhile, the government stockpiles more weapons for itself, passes more laws that gives racist governments the right to deny non-whites the right to bear arms in order to defend themselves, and makes secret plans to draft us all again. How these young people are supposed to fight wars overseas without any guns is beyond me.

     That's why I can't support the Democrats. They've shown themselves all too willing to push-through whatever the Republicans want them to, and then to let the G.O.P. Call their own idea socialist just because the Democrats realized that it was the only way to get Republicans to stop complaining. Well, control freaks never stop complaining. You don't just do whatever a control freak wants you to just because you think it will upset them less. Control freaks are not supposed to be obeyed, they're supposed to be confronted for trying to run the lives of free independent people who they're supposed to be getting along with.

     It's very plain to me that Trump is baiting us against each other on the basis of nationality, race, ethnicity, culture, and religion. As much as I want to say that we should not allow him to divide us, the Democrats have proven themselves to be equally incapable of maintaining their affairs ethically or constitutionally enough to deserve the reins of power. As Franklin said, freedom cannot be bought with security. As Jefferson said, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

     I am concerned that President Trump is doing what Richard Spencer is doing; paying lip service to the State of Israel in order to make people believe that he couldn't possibly have an aversion to Jewish people. I also suspect that Trump is trying to use the lip service he pays to Israel as leverage, and even his own daughter Ivanka's Judaism, to distract from the fact that he once promulgated a Jewish stereotype in an interview. Trump told an interviewer that he likes to hire “the guys with the funny little hats” (or something like that) to handle his money, because they're supposedly good with it. We should not just chalk this off as a “positive stereotype”; positive stereotypes are still harmful because they reduce all individuals to caricatures of the culture they come from.

     If this is what we are supposed to expect from the “leader of the free world”, then we might as well abolish the office of the president, and ask another country to invade us and depose our democratically-elected leader, because we've got Nazis. After all, it wouldn't be the first time we'd be supporting the ouster of a sovereign government, so no solid American citizen can rightfully tell me that such an action would be unprecedented, or even inconsistent with American values.

     “Never again”, they say. Never again should Jewish people blindly trust any sovereign nation-state on this planet which has ever banned any ethnic or religious minority from its shores. Sure, wish for “never again” with one hand. But also fight for “never again” with the other hand. I'm sorry if this means putting people at risk, or putting people in harm's way, by urging them to be willing to break the law if it is necessary to protect innocent lives. But the law is not always right, and it is not always on the side of preserving human life. People who know that will continue to fight bad governments in order to achieve a better world. That is the price that we pay for not putting severe limits on our government (which we create, not the other way around).

Written on November 13^th and 14^th, 2018

Published on November 14^th, 2018