Chamblee54

This is a repost from 2016. There was a tasteful meme on the facebook thingie today. It was about BHO, who may go down in history as the Meme President. The block of JPG text began When a faithfully married black president who was the son of a single mother…
Some people quote the first sentence in a situation like this. In this rant, the first sentence has 91 words. It has more grammar mistakes than a sportscaster seminar. It boils down to: when A is considered B by C who D. And what does D do next? Those 91 words are an insult to the Queen’s English. (91 is the product of 7, a lucky number, multiplied by 13, an unlucky number.)
There are eight more words at the end. “This is white supremacy folks. Plain and simple.” A comma might help in the sentence. Does he mean that the two players in the 91 word sentence are “white supremacy folks.”? Or is the author calling the attitude described “white supremacy”.? In any event, “Plain and simple” is not a complete sentence, nor does it describe the 91 word sentence.
This is a case where the medium is as important to the story as the message. When looking for information about the meme, I typed “When a faithfully married black president who was the son of a single mother” into the wonder window. The algorithm replied: “Did you mean: When a faithful married black president who was the son of a single mother.”
The first reply was from the dependable PuffHo, This Is Not White Supremacy. It made some good points. A few spots down the google page, we see THIS IS NOT WHITE SUPREMACY. That is the original posting of the commentary. PuffHo aggregated it, without paying the original author.
So mush much for the medium. Lets look at the message. BHO, as you may know, is mixed race. The “single mother” of the piece was white. To our racially obsessed culture, this means black. America has had nine years to get over the ethnicity of BHO. It has failed miserably. To some, any criticism of BHO is racist. They mindlessly defend anything BHO does, and say that the critics are members of the KKK. Others are upset because a dark skinned man is in the White House. To these people BHO can do nothing right, because he has dark skin.
Either way, the people who see the skin, and not the man, are doing America a disservice. After January 20, 2017, we will find some other mindless excuse to trash our leaders. (UPDATE: It is so, so easy to find fault with DJT JRB.) This is how politics works. You say whatever you can think of that is negative about the opposition. You gloss over the negativity of your own side. After a while, a lot of people don’t believe a word that either side is saying. When everyone is shouting, nobody is heard. This is politics. The generalizations are plain, and the minds are so, so simple.
There is an attitude among some that “racism” is a metaphysical evil. The R monster must be defeated. Collateral damage is not a problem. If you are going to make an omelet, you need to break eggs. When I hear talk like this, I feel like an egg.
One problem is that everyone has their own idea of what “racism” is. They are correct, and you are mistaken. To some, it is systemic institutional oppression. To others, it is cultural appropriation and microaggressions. Some cynics say that “racism” is anything that rubs you the wrong way. Agree or disagree, you need to check your privilege.
I saw a video last week, A Rant Against an Anti-Millennial Rant. “And we use words like “racist” to describe someone who thinks that the word “bae” isn’t real because it didn’t originate from a white, Eurocentric vernacular.” These are strange times.
If you are getting itchy, this is almost over. If you like, you can skip over the rest, and look at the pictures. They are from The Library of Congress. Image #06663: “Fifth International Pageant of Pulchritude and Eleventh Annual Bathing Girl Revue, Galveston, Texas, August 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1930”
UPDATE: This is a repost. While looking over the text, I saw a paragraph about an obnoxious video. It turns out the video features Dylan Marron, who says “And we understand that surface gestures are totally cool but they do nothing to dismantle systemic patriarchy.”
Alleged comedian Bill Maher got in trouble this week for saying a forbidden word on TV. A national hissy fit resulted. This communal pearl clutching is an example of a surface gesture. Screaming “MOMMY HE SAID THE N-WORD” does nothing to dismantle systemic patriarchy.

Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy
Deep in the heart of Dullsville, at the end of a cul-de-sac, behind a lawn of scratchy brown grass dotted with giant plastic butterflies, three flaking cement deer, and a philodendron the size of Bob Hoskins though with fewer decorative parts, lives Heather Thompson. Heather has a mommy and a daddy. Heather’s daddy is an accountant. Her mommy is a homemaker. Before Heather was born they met, fell in love, and got married. “I love you very much and I’m having your child.”
Danitra is Heather’s best friend. One of Danitra’s dads is an empowerment facilitator. The other is an aura consultant. Danitra doesn’t know what they do at work, except they don’t need briefcases. Before Danitra was born her daddies met and fell in love, and after seventeen years spent discussing caring and support, handling acceptance, and negotiating intimacy, they had a commitment ceremony. “I love you very much and I’m designing the rings,” Danitra’s Daddy Mike said.
One day in school Heather’s teacher, Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez, tells the class to draw pictures of their families. Danitra draws two men, Julio draws two women, and Heather draws a man and a woman. Keanu points at the woman Heather drew, with squiggly yellow hair, a crude red dress and simple brown shoes. “This dad here’s got some ugly drag going on,” he says.
At lunchtime Danitra sits on the bench next to Heather and pulls a sandwich out of a brown paper bag.“Want to trade?” Danitra asks. “I’ve got grilled eggplant and goat cheese on marjoram foccacia.” “Um, I didn’t bring lunch,” Heather stammers, kicking her brown paper bag out of sight. “I’m … uh … on a diet.” “Diet?” Danitra asks. “Haven’t your dads told you not to buy into that patriarchal looks-based chauvinism? And anyway, what’s this then?” she asks, holding up the bag with “HAVE A SUPER DAY!” written in sparkle marker on it.
Julio, who was listening nearby, runs up and grabs Heather’s lunch. “Yeah, what’s this? It’s somebody’s lunch!” Heather jumps at the bag but Julio holds it out of reach. “You give that back!” Heather yells. “Try and make me!” Julio chides. He pulls Heather’s sandwich apart and drops it like it was electrified. He wobbles away, holding his stomach.
“Oh my God!” he cries. “There’s like dead stuff in there!” Danitra looks at the sandwich lying on the cement. “Is that MEAT? Is that like SPAM?” Claudia, sitting quietly at the other end of the bench, bursts into tears. “Heather’s eating BAMBI!” “It’s friggin’ Wonder Bread!” Julio scoffs. Keanu walks toward the bread and peers at it. “And it’s got LUBE all over it!” “You idiot, that’s MAYONNAISE.” “What’s mayonnaise?” “It’s like goat cheese for heterosexuals.”
“Heterosexuals?” Keanu asks. “Heather’s mommy and daddy are heterosexuals?” Heather starts to yell. “No! I don’t have a mommy and a daddy. I’ve got two daddies!” “Hell-OOOO!” Danitra says, drawing the word out to twelve syllables. “We can see your clothes!” “Um . . . “ Heather stalls, “then I’ve got two mommies.” “And we’ve seen you play baseball,” Julio answers.
Heather, unable to think of a response, sits on the bench and starts to cry. Danitra pulls a robin’s egg blue bandana from her pocket and dabs at Heather’s face. “Maybe your mom’s not really a woman,” Danitra offers. “Well,” Heather says, sniffing, “she cleans the house, and cooks, and does the laundry.” Danitra fumes. “We’re trying to establish that she’s female, not that she’s an idiot.”
“Maybe your dad’s not really a man,” Julio suggests.“Well,” Heather answers, wiping her nose. “He’s big and strong and he’s got a mustache.” Several of the children wonder what this proves but nobody says anything. “So let’s say you’ve got a mom and a dad,” Keanu says. “Then where did you come from?” “They went to bed together, and then I was born.” Some of her friends express further interest, but Heather doesn’t have a brochure. “Daddy put his thing in mommy — “
“Oh, man,” Keanu interjects. “Is that legal?” “HelLLLLO!” sings Danitra, who gets the word up to eighteen syllables this time. “We’re in CaliFORnia!”
“And nine months later I came out of my mommy’s tummy,” Heather adds. Several of the children wonder why they didn’t hire a surrogate with a vagina but nobody says anything.

Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy, Part Two
One night there’s a dance at Heather’s school and her parents offer to chaperone. While Heather’s dancing with Danitra she sees from the corner of her eye her mom and dad moving onto the dance floor. She watches in horror as her mom just sort of stands there swaying, her gingham granny dress limply hanging to the floor. She grimaces as her dad starts chopping at the air like Jackie Chan being attacked by locusts.Occasionally their movements coincide with the beat. Heather runs to the bathroom crying.“Heather, don’t feel so bad,” Danitra says. “Lots of kids have embarrassing parents.” She starts to lead Heather out of the bathroom, then stops. “Um, maybe we should stay in here a while longer. They just started doing the Bump.”
One day the class projects are due. Heather brings in the model she’s made. It’s a lump of brown Play-Doh with ketchup poured over it and dotted with marshmallows stuck on with toothpicks. She sets it on the table as her teacher comes over to look.
“Why, Heather! That’s . . . nice! Very very nice!”“What the hell is it?” Tommy asks. “TOMMY! Heather’s parents had me over for dinner once. This is what they call ‘Salisbury steak.’” Heather bursts into tears. “NO IT’S NOT! It’s a VOLCANO! That’s lava, and that’s steam coming out.”
Danitra enters and places her project next to Heather’s on the table. “Why, Danitra, what’s this?” Danitra delicately removes the sheet protecting her project. “Versailles.”
Heather takes one look at the tiny replica of Louis XIV’s summer home, constructed by Danitra and her two dads out of two hundred cubic yards of teak plank, thirty square feet of gold leaf, sixty pounds of Italian travertine marble from the same quarry Michelangelo used, tiny topiary and functional miniature fountains, and cries even harder.
“Why did I have to have a mom and a dad?” Heather sobs. “Why can’t my family be like all the rest?”
Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez pulls Heather close. “Children,” she says,”every family is special, including those conforming to the rigid, stereotypical standard of male domination.” She starts to tell the class about her own family, including her hearing-impaired Hispanic mother, her height-challenged Israeli father, and her Gypsy recovering-substance-abusing brother-in-law and Armenian sex-addict half-sister, but stops, realizing the school year is only 4,074 hours long.
“Just because Heather’s parents are heterosexual doesn’t mean they’re slow-witted philistines, though there are strong correlations you don’t need a PhD in statistics to understand. But Heather is lucky to have a sweet mom and a wonderful dad and a dog named Molly and a hamster named Samson, and they all live together in a lovely house. They’ve got interesting avocado-colored appliances, carpet as long as your hair, and furniture that‘s by-and-large wood that must have taken them hours to assemble. There’s a big plastic sofa that turns into a bed, and a La-Z-Boy — ”
“A what?” Keanu asks. “A La-Z-Boy,” Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez repeats. “It’s a big vinyl chair that reclines.” “Oh, man!” exclaims Keanu, covering his face with his hands. “And I thought our Herman Miller reproductions were embarrassing!”
Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez continues. “But the important thing is, they’re a family. They’re a group united for a common purpose, where each individual is given a sense of empowerment and their shared bonds are formalized in a ritualistic manner.” “Oh,” the students respond in unison. Everybody hugs.
The story was borrowed from World Class Stupid.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.

This is a repost from 2019. The discourse is not any better today. … @gaywonk “The worst part of Pride month is realizing how many of your new gay friends would’ve criticized the Stonewall riots for not being “strategic.” ~ There’s no use arguing with Andrew Sullivan gays you just have to drag them kicking and screaming into a better future. ~ Don’t let your queer rage be shaken by white gays lecturing about “tactics” or “respectability.” They were wrong yesterday, they’re wrong today, they’ll be wrong tomorrow. And eventually, they’ll be toasting you at a fancy HRC gala, swearing they were behind you the whole time.”
A facebook friend posted a screenshot of this mini-rant the other day. Otherwise, I would have missed it. @gaywonk is in the middle of his fifteen minute glory hole. A few weeks ago, this status made him/her/they a star. @gaywonk, aka Carlos Maza, works queer identity for all it is worth. At some point in this procedure, a *comedian,* StevenCrowder, made some unfortunate remarks. @gaywonk went full scale tattletale, and got the Mr. Crowder in trouble.
@gaywonk “Wow. @YouTube now profiting off of ads for Steven Crowder, which include a reference to the “Socialism Is For Fags” shirt he sells to his audience. This platform is unbelievable.” The punishment Mr. Crowder received was not sufficient. The latest salvo has a group of googlers sending out An Open Petition to the San Francisco Pride Board of Directors. “We, the undersigned, employees of Google … urge you to revoke Google’s sponsorship of Pride 2019, and exclude Google from representation in the San Francisco Pride Parade on June 30th, 2019. … We have spent countless hours advocating for our company to improve policies and practices regarding … harassment and hate speech directed at LGBTQ+ persons. …” ICYMI, YouTube is owned by Google.
@chamblee54 “enjoy your fifteen minutes while it lasts” @chamblee54 “but when someone calls @gaywonk out, he/she/they goes screaming to mommy/google, demanding that those mean youtubers be punished.”
When writing that second tweet, I could have used a lot of phrases to describe Mr. Crowder’s tacky remarks. The phrase “calls @gaywonk out” fell into place, without much thought. Then I thought about it. Maybe what Mr. Crowder said was calling out @gaywonk.
Call out culture is a big thing now. Sometimes, it is appropriate. If someone does something wrong, or offensive, criticism is called for. Unfortunately, many times calling out is closer to playground insults, than constructive criticism. Some people think calling someone racist, and making a KKK joke, makes a difference in fighting racism. The truth is, they are just fifth graders, calling someone a poopyhead. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

This is a repost from 2022. Bad Gays still produces new episodes. … Bad Gays “A podcast about evil and complicated queers in history, hosted by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller.” The first episode I listened to was Jeffrey Dahmer. I soon learned that BG is uber-woke. Think Robin DiAngelo on steroids, with better hair. I find this sort of talk to be rather dreary.
As it turned out, I had downloaded a show about Truman Capote. While racism did exist in Monroeville Alabama, and was deplorable, Truman is a hoot. We learn that Miss Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe to play Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Which brings us to thursday morning. “I am sitting on the front porch. I am listening to a podcast about Gertrude Stein It is not kind to the lady. I thought of my friend, who lives in Mexico. He gave me a copy of The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book. I sent him a link to the podcast on facebook. Life is good.” There was a lovely reply: “She and Gertrude Stein are buried in Paris in Père Lachaise cemetery. Their names are on each side of the tombstone. So sweet.”
I don’t know much about Gertrude Stein. It seems like she had a brother named Leo, that she was close to. Leo and Gertrude lived together in Paris. Leo then said rude things about Alice B., and Gertrude kicked him out of her life. While writing this piece, I tried to find more information about Leo/Gertrude/Alice. Google is not always the answer.
Gertrude apparently was fond of the Germans, and the Vichy regime in occupied France. This is curious for a Jew. Somehow, Gertrude and Alice managed to stay in France throughout the war.
Carl Van Vechten was the next episode in the que. CVV was the literary executor for Gertrude Stein, and an all around piece of work. All I knew about CVV was a collection of photographs in the Library of Congress. Some of these portraits are displayed with this post.
Mr. Van Vechten was connected to something called the Harlem Renaissance, a flowering of music, art, and literature in upper Manhattan. As you might imagine, BG had a lot to say about the lives of Black people in the rural south. It is not tough to imagine a person of color, in 1921 Georgia, thinking they would be better off in New York City. BG played this for all it is worth.
I got curious about CVV, and googled him. In addition to the birth/death information (June 17, 1880 – December 21, 1964), there was one delicious item. In 1926, CVV published a book, N____ Heaven. At 14 minute into the podcast, BG discussed this book. I wish I could have seen their faces.
FWIW, the titular phrase was uttered by a character in the novel. It seems as though “Some churches had separate balconies that black and white alike called “n____ heaven”” The book was a sensation, with both admirers and detractors. “This reissue is based on the seventh printing, which included poetry composed by Langston Hughes especially for the book. Kathleen Pfeiffer’s introduction investigates the controversy surrounding the shocking title and shows how the novel functioned in its time as a site to contest racial violence.”
“The one violent protest which has come to my ears was that of a certain Negro whose conversation is heavily sprinkled with the words “darky” and “n___.” When I suggested to him that he eliminate from his own conversation words which he objected to from he lips of others, a deathly silence came over him and our conversation abruptly died. Soon afterward he remembered that he was already late for an important engagement downtown.”
After acknowledging the existence of NH, BG had a pearl-clutching meltdown. One wonders if they actually read the book they were denouncing so fervently. If one is so inclined, NH is available for download here. The end of the book features a “Glossary of Negro Words and Phrases.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

The facebook meme showed a quote about American deaths in a mid-east war, and how Israel is willing to make the *scarifice.* PG remembered a quote from long ago. Something about how the thing Israel hates most is being forced to kill Arab children. Who said it, and when? Veteran readers of this blog should know where this is going. This is a repost.
Golda Meir is a matriarch of the State of Israel. Her wikiquote page has this: “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” The attribution says this: “as quoted in A Land of Our Own : An Oral Autobiography (1973) edited by Marie Syrkin, p. 242.” There is a remarkable second attribution. “Harvey Rachlin was unable to find a primary source for this quote and the one below. The Mystery Of Golda’s Golden Gems”
” The one below” is wiki-listed as a “variant” of the first quote. “We can forgive [them] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them from forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with [them] when they love their children more than they hate us.” “As attributed in an Anti-Defamation League advertisement Ad that ran in the Hollywood Reporter.” The source: “Golda Meir (1957.)
The ADL Ad was reported on August 19, 2014. This was during an Israeli visit to Gaza. It was preceded by Bob Schieffer, on a CBS broadcast in July 2014. “Last week, I found a quote of many years ago by Golda Meir, one of Israel’s early leaders, which might have been said yesterday. “We can forgive the Arabs …” Mr. Schieffer did not give a source for the quote.
When dealing with a quote, you should ask questions. Did they really say it? When and where did they say it? What was the context? What was the original language, and can we trust the translation? Many, many famous quotes fail these simple tests. Brainy Quote is not a valid source.
The Mystery Of Golda’s Golden Gems takes a critical look. It turns out that the Schieffer/ADL team was using a combination of two quotes. These were the quotes investigated by Harvey Rachlin. “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”
“… many of these cite as their source A Land of Our Own: An Oral Autobiography. … The quote appears, along with several others, on the last page of the book’s text (before the index) under the heading “On Peace.” Its source is given as: National Press Club, Washington, 1957. I wrote to the National Press Club in an effort to obtain a copy of Meir’s 1957 speech. The response I received was that Meir, who at the time was Israel’s foreign minister, did not speak there in 1957….”
“…Curiously, most of the books I looked at, as well as Meir’s own autobiography, My Life, contained no mention of these two most famous Meir quotes. Nor was either of them included in The New York Times’s 4,883-word December 9, 1978 obituary of Meir – although Times reporter Israel Shenker found room for more than three dozen other quotes from Meir.”
“My investigation took a turn when I found a 1970 collection of Meir quotes titled As Good As Golda: The Warmth and Wisdom of Israel’s Prime Minister. In this book there are two quotes that bear close resemblance to the pair in question: “Peace will come when Nasser loves his own children more than he hates the Israelis” and “What we hold against Nasser is not only the killing of our sons but forcing them for the sake of Israel’s survival to kill others.”
“Strangely, there are no citations for any of the quotes in the book, and while I found these two exact quotes in other books (all published in or after 1970) none of the citations were from original sources. Even more bizarre is that As Good As Golda was compiled and edited by Israel and Mary Shenker – yes, the same Israel Shenker who several years later would write the massive New York Times obituary that contained dozens of Meir quotes but, notably, not her two most famous ones. …”
“… In August 2014, in the wake of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza, the ADL placed an ad … The ad had both Meir quotes strung together with the singular attribution “Golda Meir (1957).” The ADL did not respond to repeated requests from The Jewish Press for a statement as to whether the organization possessed any verification of the quotes and why they ran together, as though they were part of the same statement.”
Harvey Rachlin comes to the conclusion that there is no way to verify these quotes from Golda Meir. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

Walking the labyrinth is a practice in many traditions. “The labyrinth is a tool for personal, psychological and spiritual transformation. … It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path from the edge to the center and back out again. A labyrinth is unicursal – it is only one path. The way in is the way out. The path leads you on a circuitous path to the center and out again.” Last Saturday, I walked into, and out of, a labyrinth.
There are similarities between the labyrinth, and her sister, the maze. Both labyrinth, and maze, have four parts. There is the path you walk on. The path has several layers. The largest layer is on the outside, and the smallest one in the center. Most, though not all, labyrinths are circular.
The layers of path are separated by a wall, which is the second part. There is an opening in this wall, which enables you to go from one layer, of path, to another one. Finally, there is a barrier across the path, which does not allow you to go any further. This is a section of wall, which crosses the path at a ninety degree angle.
Both the labyrinth and the maze consist of these four parts. The difference is the way that the openings, and the barriers, are used. In the labyrinth, you walk the entire length of the course, in an orderly manner. In the maze, you must make choices. If you make the correct choice, you can move on to the next level. If you make the wrong choice, you will come to a dead end.
Saturday’s labyrinth walk was led by a man, who we will call the Guide. He talked to the group before walking the labyrinth. I got a late start, and missed most of his comments.
Later, I spoke to the Guide, and mentioned some of the similarities between the labyrinth and the maze. The Guide became angry at my observation. He said something about sacred geometry. The Guide also mentioned that most labyrinths are on the ground only, where the maze often has walls that physically prevent you from walking over.
”Labyrinths and mazes have often been confused. When most people hear of a labyrinth they think of a maze. A labyrinth is not a maze. A maze is like a puzzle to be solved. It has twists, turns, and blind alleys. It is a left brain task that requires logical, sequential, analytical activity to find the correct path into the maze and out.”
“A labyrinth has only one path. It is unicursal. The way in is the way out. There are no blind alleys. The path leads you on a circuitous path to the center and out again. A labyrinth is a right brain task. It involves intuition, creativity, and imagery. With a maze many choices must be made and an active mind is needed to solve the problem of finding the center. With a labyrinth there is only one choice to be made. The choice is to enter or not. A more passive, receptive mindset is needed. The choice is whether or not to walk a spiritual path.”
Is it possible to change a labyrinth into a maze, or a maze into a labyrinth? You would leave the basic path, and walls, in place. You would then re-arrange the openings, and barriers, so that the walls and path become either a labyrinth, or a maze. It is a binary choice. Your course is a labyrinth, with a logical unicursal direction. Or, it is a maze, with both correct choices, and dead ends.
The labyrinth walk is a well established spiritual tradition. There is also the possibility of using the maze as a alternative. In the labyrinth, there are no choices, and you are free to focus on your spirit.
In the maze, you will need to make choices. You will not have any clue about which choice is correct, and which one will lead to a dead end. You will have to maintain your enlightened state, while dealing with adversity. This is life … dealing with incorrect choices, while maintaining a level of grace.
There are many labyrinths available. The labyrinth locator can direct you to one, with information about how much public access is available.
Old Men is a portable labyrinth, which frequently appears at Burning Man events. It is made of tent stakes, and fabric walls. “The labyrinth is a modification of a 15th century design. It is octagonal, with four entrances leading to the center. Each path splits and rejoins twice before reaching the center. The participant can then choose which of the four paths to exit from.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.

“… always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” This meme, illustrated by the gnomic face of Elie Wiesel, turns up on facebook a lot. (Elie Wiesel is pronounced like Elly Mae Clampett) Some find it inspiring. Others think it is simplistic and manipulative.
There are two questions. Did Mr. Wiesel say that? What was the context? The quote appears in the acceptance speech for the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. The next sentence is “Sometimes we must interfere.” We immediately go from the absolute always, to the conditional sometimes. That is progress, even if it does not fit on a bumper sticker.
“Elie Wiesel was born in Sighet, Romania, in 1928. … In May 1944, Wiesel was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp along with his parents and his sisters. Wiesel and his father were slave laborers at Auschwitz. His father died in January 1945 during a forced march to another camp, Buchenwald, and his mother and younger sister were murdered as well. After the war, Wiesel moved to France, where he worked as a journalist.”
The Israel-Palestine problem was just as vexing in 1986 as today. Here is what Mr. Wiesel said in his speech. “More people are oppressed than free. And then, too, there are the Palestinians to whose plight I am sensitive but whose methods I deplore. Violence and terrorism are not the answer. Something must be done about their suffering, and soon. I trust Israel, for I have faith in the Jewish people. Let Israel be given a chance, let hatred and danger be removed from her horizons, and there will be peace in and around the Holy Land.”
Who is the oppressor in the Middle East, and who is the victim? Many sides can make a case for their cause. Who is the better at persuasion? Who is better at playing the shady game of influence, and money. Often, more noise encourages the tormentor. The answer to age old conflicts is seldom found in bumper stickers, or facebook memes.
“… to whose plight I am sensitive but whose methods I deplore.” “Always take sides” means that you pick one side in a conflict, and use the tools of rhetoric to promote that cause. It can be tough to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Human suffering is human suffering. Simplistic rhetoric is *never* the answer.
In 1986, the Iran-Iraq war was raging. Hundreds of thousands of men died. Many said the war was allowed to go on intentionally. Allegedly, if Iran and Iraq were not fighting each other, they would be fighting Israel. The United States was allied with Iraq, while making arms deals with Iran. Israeli dealers participated in the United States-Iran arms trading. The profits from those deals went to supply terrorists in Central America. “Sometimes we must interfere.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.