Friday, October 26, 2012

Voter Fraud Follies or A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Election


I have cast the bones.  I have consulted the cards.  I have watched the stars, drunk the tea, read the leaves.  I have studied the entrails…then chopped them up, sautéed them with onions, garlic and fresh herbs in a bit of butter, then added them to a pan of gravy and observed the pattern it made as it was poured across freshly-made biscuits.  I have even read the Huffington Post, which should tell you just how desperate I’ve been getting for hints as to what lies ahead.

Thus far, all of the omens point to this being one of the messiest election days (and nights) on record.

Some would say it’s mere coincidence that the precise spot where Julius Caesar was murdered has just been found, but I’m not so sure.  At any rate, while Mercury goes retrograde on November 6th, there doesn’t seem to be anything approaching the ominous level of the ‘Ides of March’ around that date.  It seems that all we’re left with is the Internet and our gut instincts to guide us.

Certainly we can expect at least a few cries of ‘voter fraud’!  A report out of North Caroline has raised fears that votes cast for Mitt Romney were tallied as votes for Barack Obama.  This is been attributed to improperly calibrated machines, and supposedly after being adjusted the machines are registering votes properly.  Others have raised concerns about Tagg Romney (Mitt’s oldest) having ties to the company that makes the computerized voting machines used in Ohio.  The presumption is that Team Romney will use these ties to rig machines to transmogrify Obama votes into Romney votes in this critical swing states.  This idea has been rebutted by the Weekly Standard, but I question just how many Democrats will believe the rebuttal, despite liberal thinkprogress.org stating categorically “…there is absolutely no evidence that this crony capitalist network extends to interference with voting machines”.

There have been other rumblings, as well.  The Huffington Post (see? I told you I had been reading it!) has been trumpeting the removal of billboards from the Cincinnati area that state the fact that ‘Voter Fraud is a Felony’, punishable by a $10,000 fine and 3 ½ years in prison.  This article flatly states that “voter fraud is an incredibly rare event which, unfortunately, too often serves as a political boogeyman for those who wish to suppress the vote” and “these "voter fraud" billboards were not placed randomly or evenly across the Ohio landscape. They were placed primarily in urban environments, with high densities of African American voters in cities like Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus”.  The insidious intent of these unknown billboarders?  To HuffPo, it’s simple:  “To scare. To intimidate. To confuse,” African-Americans into not voting.  Apparently, reminding these voters of the law, or providing this information to them if they didn’t previously know it, constitutes voter suppression.  That these billboards might also make voters think twice about participating in Democratic schemes to vote multiple times isn’t something that HuffPo is willing to consider.

The response to these heinously factual billboards has been donated signs that say “Hey, Cincinnati, Voting is a Right-Not a Crime!”  Sadly, these signs (which someone other than the Offended Peoples of Cincinnati paid for) neglect to add: “only once, in the district where you live, and only if you’re a citizen”.  I suppose that when ‘rights’ like these are invoked, little things like facts are allowed to slide.

The issue of non-citizen voter (and other) fraud is not a trivial one.  James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas has done a number of videos exposing cases of non-citizen voting, dead people being offered ballots, and voter fraud being embraced in multiple states.  Their YouTube site has over 60 videos, many of which are hidden camera captures of people actively participating in and encouraging voter fraud.  Additionally, a recent report from Colorado claims that at least 441 non-citizens are on the voting rolls in that state, with more questionable voters still under investigation.  In Florida, Federal Judge William Zloch recently ruled that the state could continue to purge its voter rolls of non-citizens right up until the day of the election.  In a hotly-contested case, Zloch wrote, “Certainly, the (National Voter Registration Act) does not require the state to idle on the sidelines until a non-citizen violates the law before the state can act….  And surely the NVRA does not require the state to wait until after that critical juncture — when the vote has been cast and the harm has been fully realized — to address what it views as nothing short of ‘voter fraud.’ ”

Recent history is undoubtedly fueling some of the suspicion of voter fraud from both ends of the political spectrum.  Who can forget the 2000 debacle of the hanging chad?  Many people believe that suspected voter fraud in the 2008 Senate election gave Al Frankin the seat previously held by Norm Coleman, which in turn gave the Democrats their 60th vote in the Senate, and thus gave the nation Obamacare (by removing the Republican’s ability to filibuster the Affordable Care Act).  We certainly can’t forget the hacked Stratfor emails that allege the McCain campaign had evidence of Democratic ballot box stuffing in Ohio and Pennsylvania on election night, and the candidate chose not to pursue these allegations.  And, no mention of voter fraud would be complete without mentioning ACORN, who a Nevada judge described as "...reprehensible. This is the kind of thing you see in some banana republic, Uruguay or someplace, not in the United States." 

But, never fear!  Despite evidence that "When vote fraud is detected, those caught are nearly always Democrats,", the NAACP has asked the United Nations to intervene in the upcoming election.  The NAACP believes that voter identification laws in 14 states are an attempt to disenfranchise African-American voters.  However, Artur Davis, formerly an Alabama Democrat (and now Virginia Republican) has stated “What I have seen in my state (at that time, Alabama), in my region, is (that) the most aggressive practitioners of voter fraud are local machines who are tied lock, stock and barrel to the special interests in their communities," and “I don't think that any of these (Voter ID) laws...disenfranchise people.”  So, if you see people with funny accents hanging out around your polling place, don’t call Homeland Security—they’re probably just election observers from the UN-affiliated Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and their Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).  In fact, this mission is already here, having started their mission on October 4th!

The OSCE/ODIHR team of 13 international experts and 44 long-term observers drawn from 23 presenting states bring with them their extensive democratic experience from such bastions of liberty and freedom as Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia.  According to an OSCE spokesperson, “They are focusing on a number of areas on the state level, including the legal system, election administration, the campaign, the campaign financing [and] new voting technologies used in the different states.”  In a letter to the OSCE from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU, the OSCE observers have been warned about “a coordinated political effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans — particularly traditionally disenfranchised groups like minorities.”

Unlike some, I think this is a WONDERFUL idea!  However, given the controversy that's bound to surround this election, I think we should ask for more observers!  Rather than arrest them, I think we should scatter them liberally in such contentious areas as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and every other swing area.  If Team Romney were smart, they’d ask the UN for the literally hundreds of international observers it would take to do this.  At the same time, these observers (most of whom could easily be drawn from the international populations of New York (the UN itself) and Washington, D.C. (embassies, etc.) could help Republican AND Democratic poll workers—since both camps absolutely need their own people at these sites—keep the chicanery and shenanigans to a minimum this election.

In short, I think the country will best be served if the Republicans double-down on the Left’s bringing in the UN to supervise the upcoming election. Let them come!  Here in the South, we’ll ply them with sweet tea, fried chicken, barbecue, peach cobbler and pecan pie until they’re far gone in the Itis…and then go about our business while they’re sleeping it off.  Honestly, does anyone really expect these ‘observers’—many of whom have less than extensive experience in elections to begin with—to be able to figure out all the ways the Democrats have found to commit voter fraud, to say nothing of the Republican's schemes?  Bring them on, I say!  Who knows, they might even learn something….

I can’t help but wonder what the DNC and David Axelrod will say when the RNC and Team Romney take my suggestion about calling in the UN to reduce fraud in the upcoming election.  I’m betting it won't be happy, but will be interesting to watch on YouTube!

Regardless, I’m planning on spending election night at home, curled up on the couch with the TV on and plenty of popcorn and fizzy beverages.  It's gonna be a loooooong night!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

And now, after the third debate...

I tried to watch last night's third and final debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, really I did, but I just couldn't.

Mitt was stuttering and stammering as he agreed with Barack, and Barack was smug, sanctimonious and self-righteous as he made some comment about how he personally had made sure we didn't give weapons to people who didn't like us in the Middle East.  Since there's a fair amount of evidence that exactly that kind of thing occurred (Benghazi, just to name one), I switched channels to watch Humans vs. Zombies.  It was more realistic and less cheezy.

I did scan the post-debate debriefs.  Chris Matthews looked like the tingle was back (or maybe that was just the meth really starting to kick, he was a little glassy-eyed), Rachel Maddow was had that half-smirk/half-turd-under-my-nose look that passes for happy with her, and Al Sharpton looked like a bobble-head on MSNBC.

Just as an aside, what's wrong with Al?  Either he's had big-time gastric bypass, is on some truly harsh diet, or he's got something chewing on him, either cancer or AIDS or some such.  Al, dude, kudos on loosing all the weight, but really, time to eat something.  Have some fried chicken or a sandwich, please.

On Fox Biz, Cavuto was his usual pleasant, neutral self, but appeared somber. Regular Fox, just like MSNBC, was completely in the tank for 'their guy', no surprises there.  Over on CNN-you know, the cable network nobody watches anymore-Jon King was talking about how both men did fairly well.  Back on Fox, Chris Wallace made the comment that Romney looked like an incumbent defending a strong lead, and Obama looked like a scrappy challenger coming on hard.  Well, since that matches what the recent polls are showing, I guess Obama actually decided to show up for this one.

I suspect that Barry hasn't played a lot of golf the last few weeks while his handlers crammed all the talking points into his head.  Maybe one of these days, Mitt can take some time off to get some elocution lessons and speech therapy.

So, I suspect the debate was pretty much a draw.  We'll have to see what the polls do in another few days.  Regardless, I think it's clear that Goldman Sachs will be taken care of for the next few years.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Two Debates Down, and One To Go

Some thoughts on the first two Presidential debates:

The second Presidential debate has come and gone, and thus far the most interesting bit of gossip to come out about it has been that the Facebook chatter has been less than it was for the first debate. By that metric, the second debate—where both men came to participate—was considerably less exciting than the first.  This is understandable, since this week’s debate was more or less what we expected:  cherry-picked ‘facts’, twisted truths and outright lies, with a moderator who might as well have been wearing an Obama t-shirt under her jacket.  Mitt Romney acquitted himself well (and by ‘well’ I mean “didn’t stutter too badly, look too constipated, or channel Joe Biden”) while Barack Obama looked like he didn't want to be there.  A number of the questions focused on voters’ disappointment with President Obama, his policies, and the dismal state of the economy.  Mr. Obama cannot deny that his policies haven’t given us the wonderful state of affairs he promised four years ago, and now he’s being called to account for why they have not.  His answers to these questions were smooth and polished, but ultimately boil down to (a) it’s still Bush’s fault and (b) those evil old Republicans just haven’t let me do what I wanted to.  The President did have one Presidential Moment when he took ultimate responsibility for the Benghazi debacle:  “I’m the President, and I’m always responsible”.  In this, he is correct, but it was perhaps not as strong a statement as many would have liked, considering that his Secretary of State had already claimed responsibility for the incident…and she looked equally ‘Presidential’ when she did.

Obviously, Mr. Obama’s debate prep focused on not repeating the mistakes he made in the first debate; namely, to look like he was offended just by having to defend his policies and record.  Then again, maybe it was just the altitude.  Unlike Denver (where Mr. Obama gave his 2008 nomination acceptance speech, and then bombed the first debate), Hofstra University is only 50-odd feet above sea level.  If this is the case, then the country as a whole should be thankful that Washington, D.C. is also very close to sea level.  One shudders to think of the consequences of the President making critical decisions affecting the country and the world from a more altitudinally-challenged location.  Perhaps, for the remainder of his term, the President should be restricted to the White House?  Sadly, under this scenario, Air Force One (pressurized at between 6000 and 8000 feet) and Camp David (elevation 1840 ft.) are right out!

Somehow, I just don’t see that happening, not at this stage of the election.  There are too many fundraisers Mr. Obama has scheduled for him to travel by AmTrack.

At any rate, it’s too late to worry about little things like altitude at this point.  It obviously didn’t bother Barack Obama in 2008, so Mr. Gore’s hypothesis fails on that point.  Also, if that were the case, what does it say about the President’s handlers if they didn’t take the altitude differential into account when they sequestered him in Las Vegas (elevation 2014 ft.) for the week before the first debate?  Isn’t Mr. Obama something of a basketball fan?  Aren’t sports teams aware of the need to spend a day or so conditioning themselves in Denver before critical games?  If I, fat old band geek that I am, know this…why didn’t someone on the President’s team?

Meh, it’s less than three weeks until the election; what’s done is done.

I suspect the true reason behind the markedly different versions of Barack Obama we’ve seen at the first two debates stems from something much simpler than altitude-induced lethargy.  The President made no secret of the fact that he doesn’t enjoy the work of preparing for these debates, calling it "a drag".  In the first debate, this lackadaisical attitude showed itself.  Barack Obama was obviously unprepared, and irritated at being confronted at every turn by a vigorous Mitt Romney.  For the second debate, after two weeks of significant drops in every major poll, the President had much more motivation to do his homework.  Whether this motivation was internal and reflected an honest desire to continue in the office, or external as applied by his wife, Chief of Staff and various handlers is something we’ll never know.  I suspect that, like most things, it was a combination of the two, and the ratio varied from hour to hour during the days leading up to this second debate.

There is one more factor that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere, but I think needs to be considered:  the shock factor to Obama’s psyche that was the first debate.

Mr. Obama lost the first debate.  Period.  Even his most ardent supporters admitted as much immediately after Jim Lehrer closed it down.  From James Carville’s "Mitt Romney came in with a chainsaw" to Al Gore’s “altitude” excuse, the Left flapped and flailed, wept and wailed and in general twisted themselves into pretzels trying to explain away the debacle that their candidate brought down upon himself.  I thought Rachel Maddow was about to cry on camera during the first post-debate analysis on MSNBC.  Between the general angst of Ed Schultz and Chris Matthew's meltdown, it was much more entertaining than the smug gloating on Fox, or the self-serving defense of Candy Crowley’s performance on CNN.

Before his first debate with Mitt Romney, Mr. Obama hadn’t been seriously challenged in a debate in…well, EVER.  He wasn’t just out of practice.  Mr. Obama’s aversion to the press is well known, except for those places where he can be guaranteed the interview equivalent of slow-pitch softball.  For the first time in his political career, an opponent came at him without the kid gloves.  For the last several months, Mr. Romney has been called everything but a Child of God, first in the Republican primaries, then by Team Obama and their surrogates (and I include the mainstream media, most of CNN and all of MSNBC in that group).  Trailing in the polls and tarred with every ad hominem attack in the book, Mr. Romney had NOTHING to loose and everything to gain in Denver.  Obama’s own supporters and their incessant attacks had already stripped Mr. Obama’s greatest defense—the fear that any who dared say anything against him would be labeled RAAACIST—off Mitt Romney.

The result?  “Chainsaw.”

Before you dismiss this idea out of hand, think back to 2008.  Remember the Hillary/Obama California 'debate'?  It’s obvious that Hillary was restrained in her disagreements with a young, completely unqualified candidate Obama.  The harshest ‘attack’ ad she ran against him was her now-infamous 3 AM phone call.  She had no other choice, as she knew that attacking Obama would alienate the black voters she and the Democrats so desperately need.  In the general election, Obama faced John McCain—low key, soft-spoken and unable to gesticulate effectively because of his injuries in Vietnam—who apparently had this same fear of alienating potential voters.  Then, on election night, McCain refused his staff's advice to seek a Federal injunction against Democratic ballot box stuffing in Philadelphia and Ohio because it would be “detrimental to our country”, “coupled to the possibility of domestic violence”.

Translation:  if McCain called the Dems on voter fraud, he would be called RAAACIST and the blacks would riot.  In hindsight, McCain’s nice-guy approach was useless; 96% of black voters voted for Obama anyway.  Worse still, fully 60% of Americans believe that race relations are either stagnant or worse now than before Obama took office.

In the first debate, Mitt Romney didn’t seem to care about being called RAAACIST, and rightly so!  He’s been hearing that swill for months now, and it’s hard to see how the attacks against him could possibly get any worse.  Even more disturbing, Twitter has been deluged with twits threatening to riot if Romney is elected, both from (probably) black and union sources.  Throw in the racially tinged rhetoric of Louis Farrakhan and floridly anti-white spewings from King Samir Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party, and it’s hard to see how vigorously debating this President on his policies could add any more fuel to those fires of resentment and hate.

Just as an aside, Romney voters on Twitter have generally threatened not to riot, but to leave the country, i.e. ‘vote with their feet’.  Bit of a difference there, isn’t there?

Freed from any real concerns about being labeled RAAACIST, Romney did the last thing Obama expected in round one:  Mitt actually debated.  Obama’s reaction—peeved, irritated, smug and condescending—did more damage to his campaign than anyone imagined could be done in a single night.  Romney was challenging, (mildly) confrontative and unwilling to roll over and play dead at Obama’s feet…and Obama didn’t know how to handle that particular reaction because he’s never experienced it before.  As we all know, Obama doesn’t think well on his feet.  Without his teleprompter, Barry sometimes says the wrong things.  He avoided any major verbal gaffs in the first debate, but the frowny face didn’t do him any favors.

Obviously, Mr. Obama didn’t repeat that particular mistake in the second debate.  His performance was at least as polished and professional as Mr. Romney’s, and his command of his own set of ‘facts’ was bolstered by a sympathetic moderator.  The result was, for all practical purposes, a tie, just like most of the current polls.  The election is still up for grabs by either man.

Expect Second Debate Obama to show up at the third debate, if for no other reason than his handlers will flog him as hard or harder than they did for the one just past.  With the election this close, and the first debate as proof of the effect of one bad night, Mr. Obama is in for an intensive round of foreign policy prep, as that is the stated focus of the third debate.  Foreign policy has never been Obama’s strong suit, but then again, it’s not Romney’s, either.  Barry can at least take comfort in that fact as he crams for his final debate.

Far less likely is the possibility that First Debate Obama will ‘phone it in’ to the third debate, just as he did the first time.  In that case, I think the most important things to do will be to put Chris Matthews on suicide watch, sedate Ed Schultz with the rhino tranquilizers and make sure the tissue box is close to Rachel Maddow.

The riots probably won’t come until election night, and hopefully not even then.

A Powerful Sermon

This sermon was recently delivered by Rabbi Shalom Lewis of Atlanta, and is shared here with his permission.

WARNING:  This is NOT for the faint of heart.  Rabbi Lewis doesn't pull any punches, but does speak lots of Truth to Power.


I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share.  We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel.  We want to be shaken and stirred – but not too much.  We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much.  We want to be provoked but not too much.  We want to be transformed but not too much.

I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard.  And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express.  I am guided not by the frivolous but by the serious.  I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.

We are at war.  We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know it from our behavior. During WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters.  We didn’t call the Gestapo, militants.   We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine as acts by rogue sailors.  We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our fault.  We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people.
We did not apologize for Dresden , nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein , nor for D-Day.

Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake.  It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna , not just Casablanca .  It was the entire planet.  Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.

Not all Germans were Nazis – most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night.  But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.”  Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well.  Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.

In WWII we won because we got it.  We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute.  We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis.  We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe.  We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence.

We are at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers.  We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.

Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London , from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza , the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.

To camouflage their identity is sedition.  To excuse their deeds is contemptible.  To mask their intentions is unconscionable.

A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour.  It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage.  When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city.  Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews.  Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation.  We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.

After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos.  At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me. 

“Shalom,” he said.  “Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania .”

“Yes,” I replied.  “It was quite a powerful experience.”  “Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno?  The one with the big arch in the courtyard?” 
“Yes, I did.  In fact, we helped them make minyon.”  His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory.  For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned.  “Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch.  The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.”

He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past.  His smile faded.  Pain filled his wrinkled face.  “I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul”  (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin’s mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.)  Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears.  He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming.  Jews abandon your city.’ ”

We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler.  We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic.  We got out but most did not.”

We are not in Lithuania .  It is not the 1930s.  There is no Luftwaffe overhead.  No U-boats off the coast of long Island .  No Panzer divisions on our borders.  But make no mistake; we are under attack – our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land. 

Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably – I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside.  I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks.  I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t worship at all.  I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.

Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers.  Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided.  The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well.  The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square , in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent.  Thus far, they have not.  The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times.  They must buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent – thus far, they have not.  Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish Islam and define it.

Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.

I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion.  Knowing he had little time left he shared the following – “Shal.  I am ready to leave this earth. Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I’ve had it.  I’m done.  Finished.  I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.”

This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio.  – Yet his twilight observation was – “The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out.

I share my father’s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril.  We must wake up and smell the hookah.

“Lighten up, Lewis.  Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You’re sounding like Glen Beck.  It’s not that bad.  It’s not that real.”

But I am here to tell you – “It is.”  Ask the member of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not.  Ask the members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown Paris , fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration.  Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target – pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole.

Ask them, ask all of them – ask the American GI’s we sit next to on planes who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation package.  Ask them if it’s bad.  Ask them if it’s real.

Did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what Europe would look like in the 1940’s. Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture? Did anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade?  Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw , Vilna, Athens , Paris , Bialystok , Minsk , knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz ?

The sages teach – “Aizehu chacham – haroeh et hanolad – Who is a wise person – he who sees into the future.”  We dare not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security.

We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul.  We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of offending the offenders.  Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top.  From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral resilience.  Immediately after 9/11 how many mosques were destroyed in   America ?  None.  After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America ? None.  After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America ? None.  And yet, we apologize.  We grovel.  We beg forgiveness.

The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues.  Should there be a shul in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs at noonday prayers?  Should there be a museum praising the U.S. Calvary on the site of Wounded Knee ?  Should there be a German cultural center in   Auschwitz ?  Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims?  Should there be a thirteen story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero?

Despite all the rhetoric, the essence of the matter can be distilled quite easily.  The Muslim community has the absolute, constitutional right to build their building wherever they wish.  I don’t buy the argument – “When we can build a church or a synagogue in Mecca they can build a mosque here.”   America is greater than Saudi Arabia .  And New York is greater than Mecca .  Democracy and freedom must prevail. 
Can they build?  Certainly.  May they build?  Certainly.   But should they build at that site?  No -- but that decision must come from them, not from us.  Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in feet or yards or in blocks.  One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does not.

If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, sincere, tolerant Muslims, as they claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning permits and build elsewhere.

Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying, card carrying member of the ACLU, yet from start of finish, I find this sorry episode disturbing to say the least.

William Burroughs, the novelist and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say – “I want to see the manager.”

Let us understand that the radical Islamist assaults all over the globe are but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious decoys.  Christ and the anti-Christ.  Gog U’Magog.  The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness; the bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border between Lebanon and Israel .  It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the   West Bank .  It is on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned   mall of Ben Yehuda Street .  It is in the underground schools of Sderot and on the bullet-proofed inner-city buses.  It is in every school yard, hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater – in every place of innocence and purity.

Israel is the laboratory – the test market.  Every death, every explosion, every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy.  It is a calculated, strategic probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West.

In the Six Day War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and strategy while the Arab alliance was the proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and strategy.  Today too, it is a confrontation of proxies, but the stakes are greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank .   Israel in her struggle represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, Iran , Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.

As Israel , imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western World have lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not understanding, for Israel ’s galling plight, but downright hostility and contempt.  Without moral clarity, we are doomed because Israel ’s galling plight ultimately will be ours.  Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins of Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew. 
We are the trial balloon.  The canary in the coal mine.  If the Jew/Israel is permitted to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny snickers and pushes forward with its agenda.

Moral confusion is a deadly weakness and it has reached epic proportions in the West; from the Oval Office to the UN, from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC, from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university campuses to British teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty International, from Goldstone to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

There is a message sent and consequences when our president visits Turkey and Egypt and Saudi Arabia , and not Israel .

There is a message sent and consequences when free speech on campus is only for those championing Palestinian rights.

There is a message sent and consequences when the media deliberately doctors and edits film clips to demonize Israel .

There is a message sent and consequences when the UN blasts Israel relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran , Sudan , Venezuela , North Korea , China and other noxious states. 

There is a message sent and consequences when liberal churches are motivated by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy.

There is a message sent and consequences when murderers and terrorists are defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy is the only evil that walks invisible.”

A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant happened past my office, glanced in and asked in a friendly tone – “Rabbi.  How’re y’ doing?”

I looked up, sort of smiled and replied – “I’ve had better days.” 
“What’s the matter?  Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?” he inquired.

“Thank you for the offer but I’m just bummed out today and I showed him a newspaper article I was reading. 

“ Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.”  I explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent from Tel Aviv was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because the mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.”

The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is   Israel .  The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay pride parade, is Israel .  The only country in the Middle East that has gay neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel .

Gays in the Gaza would be strung up, executed by Hamas if they came out and yet Israel is vilified and ostracized.  Disinvited to the parade.

Looking for logic?

Looking for reason?

Looking for sanity?

Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest day could not keep up with this bizarre spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander and fawn over cutthroats, sinking deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy laughs all the way to the West Bank and beyond.

It is exhausting and dispiriting.  We live in an age that is redefining righteousness where those with moral clarity are an endangered, beleaguered specie. 
Isaiah warned us thousands of years ago – “Oye Lehem Sheh-Korim Layome, Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who call the day, night and the night, day.”  We live on a planet that is both Chelm and Sodom .  It is a frightening and maddening place to be.

How do we convince the world and many of our own, that this is not just anti-Semitism, that this is not just anti-Zionism but a full throttled attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything that is morally precious to us?

How do we convince the world and many of our own that conciliation is not an option, that compromise is not a choice?

Everything we are.  Everything we believe.  Everything we treasure, is at risk.

The threat is so unbelievably clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless how anyone in their right mind doesn’t get it is baffling.  Let’s try an analogy.  If someone contracted a life-threatening infection and we not only scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the bacteria had a right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop spreading. 

Anyone buy that medical advice?  Well, folks, that’s our approach to the radical Islamist bacteria.  It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread unless it is eradicated. – There is no negotiating.  Appeasement is death.

I was no great fan of George Bush – didn’t vote for him.  (By the way, I’m still a registered Democrat.)  I disagreed with many of his policies but one thing he had right.  His moral clarity was flawless when it came to the War on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror.  There was no middle ground – either you were friend or foe.  There was no place in Bush’s world for a Switzerland .  He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M., not the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the Phillies, but a deadly serious war, winner take all.  Blink and you lose.  Underestimate, and you get crushed.

I know that there are those sitting here today who have turned me off.  But I also know that many turned off their rabbis seventy five years ago in   Warsaw , Riga , Berlin , Amsterdam , Cracow , Vilna.  I get no satisfaction from that knowledge, only a bitter sense that there is nothing new under the sun.

Enough rhetoric – how about a little “show and tell?”  A few weeks ago on the cover of Time magazine was a horrific picture with a horrific story. The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman, Bibi Aisha, who fled her abusive husband and his abusive family.  Days later the Taliban found her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty of violating Sharia Law.  Her punishment was immediate.  She was pinned to the ground by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut off her nose.

That is the enemy (show enlarged copy of magazine cover.)

If nothing else stirs us.  If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s mutilated face be the face of Islamic radicalism.  Let her face shake up even the most complacent and naïve among us.  In the holy crusade against this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi Aisha’s disfigurement should be displayed on billboards, along every highway from Route 66 to the Autobahn, to the Transarabian Highway .  Her picture should be posted on every lobby wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio .  On every network, at every commercial break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear with the caption – “Radical Islamic savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad was approved by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Islamic Jihad, by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by Ahmanijad, by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The Muslim Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”

“The moral sentiment is the drop that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Today, my friends, the sea is woefully out of balance and we could easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political correctness.

We peer up into the heavens sending probes to distant galaxies. We peer down into quarks   discovering particles that would astonish Einstein.  We create computers that rival the mind, technologies that surpass science fiction. What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real.  If we dream it, it does, indeed, come.  And yet, we are at a critical point in the history of this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that would make the Neanderthal blush with shame.

Our parents and grandparents saw the swastika and recoiled, understood the threat and destroyed the Nazis.  We see the banner of Radical Islam and can do no less.

A rabbi was once asked by his students….
“Rebbi.  Why are your sermons so stern?”  Replied the rabbi, “If a house is on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing their sleep, would that be love?  Kinderlach, ‘di hoyz brent.’  Children our house is on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.”

During WWII and the Holocaust was it business as usual for priests, ministers, rabbis?  Did they deliver benign homilies and lovely sermons as Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, as North Africa fell, as the Mideast and South America tottered, as England bled?  Did they ignore the demonic juggernaut and the foul breath of evil?  They did not.  There was clarity, courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and we were victorious.  Today it must be our finest hour as well.  We dare not retreat into the banality of our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good guys will prevail.

Democracies don’t always win.
Tyrannies don’t always lose. 
My friends – the world is on fire and we must awake from our slumber.  “ER KUMT.”
Welcome to the new blog!  We needed a place to blog, so we created this site.

Please bear with us, as we are new to this, and learning as we go.


Well, at least the first pic seems to have come through.

You can seem more at our regular website:  Hype and Fail

We hope to see you there!