Acts of bravery and cowardice

As I write on Father’s Day Iranians are on the verge of rebellion. The odds are against the insurgents; they have neither the guns nor the organization, just Twitter and Facebook. They do have the moral authority, and sometimes that’s enough. I wish president Obama were more forthright in his support, just as I wished that president Reagan had been more forthright in his support of Filipinos when they took to the streets following their rigged elections in 1986, and I wish that president Bush (41) had come to the defense of the Tiananmen Square democracy advocates, but that didn’t happen either.

I envy the Iranian (and before them the Filipino and Chinese) protestors courageous enough to face the armed police without themselves resorting to violence. But it embarrasses me to see the brave of Teheran demanding an honest recount while in America we stood idly by as our presidential election was stolen in 2000. Yes, in Florida there were protests (Mary Matalin famously denigrated them as Jesse Jackson’s rent-a-riot) but the rest of us who were in the plurality did nothing. What a fiasco that election was. Buchanan won votes from myopic Jews of Palm Beach instead of to Al Gore their intended recipient; remember the hanging chads, and the confusion of the butterfly ballot, and the uncounted ballots, and the disenfranchisement at black polling places, and the fact that one candidate’s brother was in charge of the farce? Florida should have become the epicenter of a mass protest; instead one person (and four of his colleagues) gave the election to Bush, the fellow with the fewer votes, and what a swell job he did. And we did nothing as government became a shambles and the Afghanistan war was abandoned before victory was attained, and Osama bin Laden still taunts, and we still cower. Congress should have discussed scuttling the anachronistic 18th century Electoral College and substituting direct elections or some other way of approximating reality, but it too did nothing. In America, the self-styled land home of the brave we dared not oppose the coup. In Teheran, they are daring.

In shul last week we read about the ten spies Moses had sent into Canaan along with Joshua and his doggedly honorable friend Caleb. Yes the land was beautiful and flowed with milk and honey, but the people are giants, the ten wailed, and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves and so we must have looked like it to them, they groveled. And despite the contrary testimony of Joshua and Caleb the people refused to believe in themselves, refused to believe that they had the power to overcome the obstacles, refused to believe in God, if you will. The lesson of the Hebrew spies is that failure to do the right thing, the moral thing, failure to have confidence in oneself can be a recipe for disaster. I wish I had been braver in 1961 and again in 1967 when each time I had the opportunity of doing the right thing, but didn’t. In 1961 I didn’t join the Freedom riders as they boarded their integrated busses and headed southward. In 1967 I didn’t fly to Israel to work the fields or factories. I live with the shame and try to make up for it.

Then I read of Jihad Jaara who orchestrated the murder of an unarmed 71 year old American turned Israeli during the second Intifada, ironically a man who’d befriended Arabs. Jaara was part of the murderous crew trapped in the Church of the Nativity in the spring of 2002. After a five weeks’ siege U.S. officials of the Bush (43) administration arranged for the European Union to take the killers. Jaara was flown to Dublin where he cowers in fear of Mossad or CIA attack. When a reporter from the New York Times found him he was shocked and afraid. His physician told the reporter, “You must give up the name of the person who gave you this address. Jihad is terrified because his security has been so easily breached.” “You must help us," Jihad said, angry, moving toward [the reporter]. "They want to kill me.” Shakespeare put into Julius Caesar’s mouth the sentiment that cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. Jihad Jaara, who conspired in the murder of innocents now fears inevitable retribution and dies his thousand deaths one by one, day by day. Poor Jihad.

On Bailing out Fat Cats and other atrocities

• Golly Gee Willikers, haverim, the investment bankers who have received such tax largesse from the Bush administration, who have misdirected our economy from one that’s productive into one service-based now need us little-folk to bail them out. If we don’t we are threatened with depression on world-wide scale. $700,000,000,000. For openers—and Congress can’t ask who is to get how much? This is supposed to save their hides after they’ve flayed ours. And the money is somehow going to trickle down to those of us who had nothing to do with the melt-down but are its victims. What a country!

•The Red Sox have the second highest payroll in Major League Baseball; no wonder they ended up second in the A.L. East. Ah, but the odd thing is that the team that wound up in first has the lowest payroll in the Majors. I root for the Red Sox with more fervor than for anything else secular, but as long as the team made the playoffs I’m not unhappy that the Rays finished first. It’s a tale out of a child’s morality story. If the Old Town Team doesn’t make it to the top, I’m rooting for them—and there are two Rhode Islanders on the team. (Jews? I’m thinking not, but maybe…)

• Seven-hundred-billion-dollars? For openers?

• How come when we have a leader whose poll numbers are lower than his shoe size, who gets us embroiled in a war-of-choice which is a no-winner, and racked with scandal, we can’t just get rid of him the way Israel disposed of Olmert. Oh, I remember, our founding fathers, the same bewigged, knickers-wearing elitists who allowed slavery to continue, who created equal senators for each state (California with its population in excess of thirty-six and a half million, and Wyoming—with its population of hardly anyone, each gets two) prevented that. They were a tad afraid of democracy, you see.

• Remember the halcyon days (pre-GWB) when we wondered how best to use the trillion or so that was a surplus in the treasury?

• In its time of crises, Britain had Churchill to rally the people. In my parents’ time of economic disaster the nation had Roosevelt to inspire it. In those days there was greatness. Who do we get? Bush? What did we do that was so wrong? Why are we being punished with such blatant mediocrity?

• Oh, and then there was GWB’s plan to privatize Social Security by allowing us to invest our portion of it in the stock market? Wow, whataguy!

• It’s Yom Kippur time again. If the postal service is on the ball you will receive this on the Sabbath of Repentance. We are told that on Rosh Hashanah God inscribes the names of those to be saved and that on Yom Kippur the book is sealed. We are enjoined to ask for forgiveness of sins. Every year I make a deal with Him. I pretend that I’ll really, really, really try to be a better person, and He pretends to believe me. At least that’s the way it’s been for the past several decades and if it’s OK with Him to continue the charade, it’s OK by me too.

• Not that I don’t think government intervention is necessary. Hey, if Republicans want to transform market driven Wall Street into a People’s Republic, I’ll just sit back and enjoy the spectacle. It’s that we’ve been rushed into things before by these guys. We must invade Iraq to get to the weapons of mass destruction! We must pass the Patriot Act! We must invest 700 billion dollars! The sky is falling, the sky is falling! (Oh? Democrats want to put a cap on CEO’s salaries? Why, that’s just class warfare!) The villain here? It’s not GWB; he’s merely the current marionette. The problem goes back to the handlers of Ronnie Reagan. Government isn’t the solution, government is the problem. We have to untie the fetters that bind capitalism! We must deregulate. Well, folks, how’s that working out, exactly?

• Each year on Yom Kippur I pray in my own fashion for two things—life and health for family, friends and myself, and for belief in prayer. So far, He has granted the former and spared me the latter, and if I’m lucky, He’ll spare me again.

• The purpose of these columns over the year has been to stimulate thought and to provoke discussion. If I’ve offended I apologize; it was never my intention, though it may have been my result. Please forgive. I’ll make my amends to Him on Thursday.

Whence cometh the Religious Right?

I wonder why, as a Jew, I should care what kind of Christianity is acceptable to the religious right of the Republican Party. Do I really care whether Mitt Romney’s religion is a legitimate branch of the Protestant tree, or a cult that has sprung up, like myriad others in the fertile soil of American credulity? No, but I have to admit that this question is of importance to someone out there.

I used to hate it when old folk would begin a sentence with “When I was young…” or its variant, “It used to be that…” but now that I’m approaching mid-life myself, I suppose I’m entitled to say, When I was young it used to be that public piety was the exception to the rule, not a requirement for the presidency equal to, or more important than, knowledge of foreign policy. Samuel Johnson, once famously said that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” I humbly add, “…and religion is the first defense of the inadequate politician.” Did Eisenhower flog his religion in public? Even that scoundrel Nixon somehow managed to avoid recourse to his Quaker piety. Barry Goldwater, the modern standard-bearing forerunner of the Republican right wing, Barry Goldwater said many things about religious tests for office, but they boil down to this one statement: “I don’t have any respect for the Religious Right.”

So, what happened? How did religion come to dominate a party that purports to stand for strict construction of the constitution—which states clearly that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”? And how is that even Democrats are bowing before the altar of faith? Here the culprit, as is often the case, is Ronald Reagan, whose handlers decided that wooing the Moral Majority would win votes. His success taught the others. At first religion was disguised as “family values” but out of the closet it came with the 2000 Republican debates. George W. Bush announced that his favorite political philosopher was Jesus Christ—foolish ol’ Thom Jefferson thought the correct answer was John Locke! When Bush won despite his obvious deficiencies those who would be his successors learned to play the same card.

As to Romney, his speech to Evangelical Christian leaders spoke volumes in what he said, and what he omitted. He asked not to be rejected based on his religion, but only once in the course of his 20 minutes did he mention the word “Mormon.” He said that he would not let his faith intrude on decisions, but then called for “a robust role for religion in public life, declaring there was a common moral heritage across religious lines in the country that he would champion,” according to the New York Times. He promised, in his words, to “take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from the God who gave us liberty.” He also said, “In recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life.” (I plead guilty to that one!) Then he said two other things, but ignored their opposites. He said that “Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world.” Then he cited as proof that the founders did not want an absolute separation of religion and state a story set during the continental Congress. When someone suggested a prayer be said he was told that there were too many different religious views present. “Then Sam Adams rose, and said he would hear a prayer from anyone of piety and good character, as long as they were a patriot.”

What Romney failed to say was that in 1774 there was no constitution of the United States to guide proper action; what he failed to say was that during the Constitutional convention, an acrimonious debate ensued; prayer was again suggested—this time met with embarrassed silence; before the founders got back to business. What Romney failed to say is that despite the fact that “Americans do not respect believers of convenience,” when he was Governor of liberal Massachusetts he was pro-choice; now that he’s running for the Evangelical vote he’s pro-life. Is anyone surprised?

“Of Mice and Men”

You've seen the story about Farfur? He was Hamas' version of Mickey Mouse who taught Palestinian children to hate Jews and to look forward to Islamic world rule. Following an international storm of protest, al-Aqsa TV finally canceled the obnoxious rodent—by having him beaten to death, on television, by an actor portraying an Israeli because while the Jew wanted his land, the mouse gallantly refused to hand it over. The world forced the withdrawal of a particularly noxious pediatric poison, but at what price? In place of a malicious mouse, the civilized world gave Hamas the opportunity to create yet another martyr to its cause.

It may be time to acknowledge that those who doubt the capacity of humans to progress beyond their immediate self-interest are right. Palestinian Arabs of the Hamas stripe are reluctant to emerge from the clawing spider's-web of the past, preferring instead to fight to the death all those with whom they differ whether they be Jews or other Arabs. Given a chance to make a model state in Gaza, Hamas chose instead to pelt Israel with rockets and to launch a bloody self-defeating civil war against its nominal ally Fatah. Nor is Hamas and its ancillary mobsters alone among the Arab population. Tom Friedman of the New York Times, who initially supported the Iraq war, now concludes that America must pull out by a date certain. He cites Basra as evidence that gradual withdrawal is not viable. “The British forces there have slowly receded into a single base at Basra airport. And what has happened? The void has been filled by a vicious contest for power among Shiite warlords, gangs and clans and British troops are still being killed whenever they venture out.” I might mention that in and around Baghdad the same scenario is being played out with the added ingredient of Sunni terrorists murdering Shiite civilians and vice versa with mosques being bombed and politicians assassinated.

A recent New Yorker article reminds that one of the principal architects of this disaster, Paul Wolfowitz, thought that Iraqis would joyfully greet our liberating forces. He was right. But what he didn't realize, until it was too late, was why. With Saddam's heavy hand gone, pent up hatreds could explode, vengeance against enemies could be accomplished; heretical and infidel blood could flow again on the streets of Iraq. Who now considers that the people of Iraq are better off in the post-Saddam world or that the area is more stable now that Bush's America has tried and failed to impose its will on the region in an aborted effort to bring democracy? Everybody would have been better off had we simply hunted down bin Laden in Afghanistan and then come home to lick our wounds.

Our misadventure in Iraq was doomed from before we started. If Arabs had wanted democracy, they would have had it. If America were a democracy, Al Gore would have been president. The hypocrisy of a nation with the Electoral College trying to bring democracy to a people that doesn't want it is staggering.

In an earlier era, in a less self-aggrandizing spirit, Northern liberals attempted to bring integration and equality to a Southern white culture we were told was so racist it could not be changed. After a while we thought we'd won. And then the backlash began. It always does. The South first took over the Republican party and then swung the entire country to the right. Richard Nixon used a Southern strategy in 1968 to win the White House, and Ronald Reagan announced his 1980 candidacy for president in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town best known for the murder of three civil rights workers, including two Jews, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. The South, Hydra-like had risen again. Last month the Bushs' Supremes virtually abrogated Brown v. Topeka's guarantee of equal educational opportunities. Believers in Natural and Constitutional law had lost again

Humanity, our hope for creating a better world, is a mere chimera while people put more blind faith in obscurantists than in advocates of human potential, in superstition rather than in science, in religion rather than in reason. But they always will. Our salvation is with us, the living, with us the forward thinking, not with antiquated bigotries that lead to Farfur, and Philadelphia, Mississippi and George W. Bush. We are lost if we forget that. We thought the times had a'changed. We were wrong.

A comparison between US and Israel when poor leaders are in charge.

I love America And Israel. (And France and Italy and Britain and Canada, but let's not complicate things too much.) I love the things we share and the things that distinguish us as separate. We practice different forms of democracy—ours based on principles of separation of powers, theirs a hodgepodge of forms including elements that would be familiar in France (multiple parties and separate elections for the legislature and head of government); the Netherlands (proportional representation); British (virtually independent cabinet ministers and an unwritten constitution). We both have trouble controlling our borders, and each has a dominant religion, though we both practice forms of religious pluralism. We both have incompetent leaders who got us into lost/losing unnecessary wars. (It is an historical truism that if you are going to get your country involved in a war of choice, you may as well win.)

And the differences? In America we pretend that religion has no place in secular society despite “In God we trust” and “one nation under God” and crèches on public property and menorah lightings in state houses; Israel pretends to be a secular society independent of its official religion until the rabbinical authorities assert their control over everyday life (see Alison Golub's occasional columns on the perils and pitfalls of trying to prove you are Jewish enough to get married in a theocracy).

But a key difference is in the way we can or cannot control the executive power. In America, regardless of how George W. Bush-like the president is, it's almost impossible to get rid of him before his term expires. Yes, congress controls the purse strings (when it wants to) and yes, the president can be impeached and convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors—whatever that means but in fact, unless one rises (sinks?) to the level of Richard Nixon, there's no effective way to remove a president—and even if there were, in our current case we would just be exchanging the puppet for the puppeteer. Congress can override a presidential veto, but the president can run roughshod over the will of 2/3 (minus one) of either house and have his veto sustained. Israel, which is working with an independently elected prime minister avoids the Italian imbroglio of constantly falling governments, but there can be pressure placed on the prime minister to resign even without a formal vote of no-confidence as required in England, for instance.

Which inevitably brings us to the two commissions. In America an independent commission of senior legislative, executive and judicial retirees, all of great distinction, from both political parties, studied the origins of the Iraq war and made suggestions as to what to do now. These boiled down to “incompetence” (the generous reading) and “withdraw” respectively. Not wanting to influence the 2006 mid-term elections, the commission withheld its final report until after the polls were closed and the votes were counted and it became obvious to all that the president's policy of imposing democracy in Iraq by bullet was throughly repudiated by the democratic process by ballot. So, what has the president decided to do? Ignore. First he called for a surge of troops (the immediate result of which was the huge increase in civilian and GI deaths) and then he vetoed a congressional spending bill which called for gradual then total withdrawal of American troops. If you read this on May 11 there will still be 610 more days of this administration to endure.

In Israel where a similarly constituted commission, this on the origins and conduct of the war in Lebanon this summer reported that “There are very serious failings in these decisions and the way they were made. We impose the primary responsibility for these failures on the prime minister, the minister of defense and the [outgoing] chief of staff.” By the time you read this the Olmert premiership may already be over. It is a consummation devoutly to be wished. Being an accidental premier can work, but not this time. The man who managed to defeat the sainted Teddy Kollek back in 1993. was and is the wrong man at the wrong time who did the wrong thing. His time may already have come and gone, or perhaps he's still hanging on, but at least in Eretz Yisrael it's possible to change course, to get rid of incompetence and try something new. Here in America, we wait, and wait, and wait and wait. 610 and counting.