tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79207230010206210552024-03-18T06:38:43.968-07:00On bounced rent cheques and teary-eyed excusesB. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.comBlogger663125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-71567932952863630172024-03-04T08:49:00.000-08:002024-03-05T06:30:39.834-08:00Not Alone<p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1opAFsLsqA9xVl2ra87k-I1wAndJa64qU/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"> CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Written by Moss & Rotchin</p><p><br /></p><p>There was one who said that she felt lonely,</p><p>There was one who begged me to come home,</p><p>There was one who told me that she loved me,</p><p>And I told her she was not alone, she was not alone.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are times things just don't seem right,</p><p>There are times you feel it in your bones,</p><p>And you know there's something that she's hiding,</p><p>When she speaks you hear it in her tone.</p><p><br /></p><p>In her eyes I saw what she was thinking,</p><p>In her eyes I saw she wasn't true,</p><p>That was when I felt my heart was sinking,</p><p>I could tell she saw just what I knew, saw just what I knew.</p><p> </p><p>There was one who said that she felt lonely,</p><p>There was one who begged me to come home,</p><p>There was one who told me that she loved me,</p><p>And I told her she was not alone.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-30108132189383060242024-03-02T15:30:00.000-08:002024-03-02T15:30:48.066-08:00Always Between<p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W9iuPe0JTQ5r0RrKdM_fZ-6bUMc05IZU/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG</a></p><p><br /></p><p>I've got me a job,</p><p>I guess it's okay,</p><p>Don't care very much,</p><p>But it's worth the pay.</p><p><br /></p><p>I've got me a girl,</p><p>Yeah, she's alright,</p><p>Watch movies, have dinner, </p><p>Almost never fight.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sometimes I think, </p><p>There's another way,</p><p>Choices I could make,</p><p>Before I go gray.</p><p><br /></p><p>Take myself down,</p><p>A different road,</p><p>Where the sky is wide,</p><p>The air not cold.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ain't as young as I was,</p><p>Or as old as I'll be,</p><p>It feels somehow, </p><p>Like I'm always between.</p><p><br /></p><p>My girl ran away,</p><p>Took part of me,</p><p>All she left behind, </p><p>A mountain of lonely.</p><p><br /></p><p>Used to have buddies,</p><p>Shared a game and a beer,</p><p>They're off doing something,</p><p>Or so it appears.</p><p><br /></p><p>My folks worry 'bout me,</p><p>Say my life's a dead-end,</p><p>I'm happy they're talking,</p><p>Since their marriage did end.</p><p><br /></p><p>I may not go far,</p><p>Whatever 'far' means,</p><p>I'm heading somewhere,</p><p>I'm always between.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ain't as young as I was,</p><p>Or as old as I'll be,</p><p>It feels somehow, </p><p>Like I'm always between.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-88320922326400693332024-03-01T06:12:00.000-08:002024-03-01T10:14:37.452-08:00A State For The Jews<p>A state for the Jews, or a Jewish state? This dilemma, which has been at the heart of Israel's identity for at least the last 40 years, is coming to a head. Reframed, the question is really about whether Israel is to be a democracy or a theocracy. It has been moving toward theocracy for political reasons at least since the mid-1980s, as the secular right-wing Likud Party saw that the only way it could maintain its stranglehold on power was to consolidate an alliance with the religious parties. Today, Israel is a divided nation, as divided as it has ever been in its 75 year history. And now, the war with Hamas has brought those divisions to the fore with a new move to eliminate the exemption of Haredi military service. Some points to keep in mind... </p><p>Point 1: Israel was never meant to be the guardian of Orthodox Judaism. Quite the opposite. There were 37 signatories to Israel's Declaration of Independence, and only three were rabbis. The signatories were chosen to represent a broad cross-section of the <i>yishuv</i> (the pre-Independence settlement Jewish society). There is no overt mention of God in the document (unlike the US Declaration of Independence which mentions God in the first paragraph). There was some debate surrounding whether or not to include it. Most of the signatories were strongly against any reference to God, but they finally settled on including the euphemistic term 'Rock of Israel' near the end of the document. They rationalized that secular Jews would understand that phrase in the literal sense as the Land of Israel. The Zionist movement(s) that inspired the creation and building of the modern State was decidedly secular, beginning with Herzl who envisioned a country where Jewish culture could flourish together with European heritage within a society that balances the best of Capitalism tempered by elements of Socialism. Religion did not factor, except in the sense that freedom of religion had to be a basic right. Herzl wrote, "Matters of faith were once and for all excluded from public influence...Whether anyone sought religious devotion in the synagogue, in the church, in the mosque, in the art museum, or in a philharmonic concert, did not concern society. That was his [own] private affair."</p><p>Point 2: In 1948 the exemption from military service for the ultra-Orthodox was justified by the need to restore the Torah world that was destroyed in the Holocaust. At the time it made sense on a couple of levels. The Haredim of this era were a relatively small minority of the country. In subsequent decades, the explosion of the birth rate in the religious community combined with their aliyah (immigration to Israel), and the comparative collapse of secular births together with their emigration from Israel, means that one in four young Israelis will be ultra-Orthodox by the end of this decade.</p><p>Point 3: Military service in Israel is a central factor of cohesion in Israeli society, reflecting a sense of civic responsibility and creating networks of lifelong interpersonal bonds. It's commonly seen as the great social equalizer, of the rich and the poor, of cultural groups and traditions, of the Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Yemeni. The Haredi exemption did the opposite. It split society in two, creating a division of two main specialized classes of citizens, as it were, distorting the social contract of Israeli society. The exemption from military service for the ultra-Orthodox generated a two-tier society in which haredim were seen as 'privileged', and secular citizens who served in the military increasingly grew to resent them for it. There is the sense that society's burdens are not equally shared, with secular Israelis paying the heavier price. As it was put in a <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/israel-s-population-cannot-be-the-ultra-orthodox-s-flak-jackets-regarding-idf-service/ar-BB1j4C5p?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=41044ff782b747e6929ffe7fea192a9d&ei=88" target="_blank">recent article</a>,"...the time has come to strip the Israeli flak jacket from the haredim..."</p><p>Point 4: As Israel has become more religious and politically dominated by religious movements - who themselves have become more extreme as exemplified by the push to expand settlement of biblical Judea and Samaria - it has become more alienated from the secular Jewish diaspora. In recent decades Israel has trumpeted its economic independence and strength, at the same time as it has become increasingly isolated within the international community, and direct involvement of the United States in the Middle East has receded. The traditional alliance between Israel and the United States is fraying, and we can expect it will continue to fray as long as successive Israeli (right-wing/religious) governments define themselves in terms that are antagonistic to the west. Some don't think it matters, or that it's temporary. I don't believe it's temporary, nor do I believe tiny Israel can afford to lose the support of the secular Jewish diaspora.</p><p>Israel continues shifting away from an open secular democracy toward a socially fragmented, institutionally atrophied, theocracy at its peril. It's splitting the country apart. The so-called Judicial reform proposed last summer was part of it. Israel is at a crossroads. Hopefully, the post-war period will result in a political and cultural reckoning that will re-calibrate the country's navigation system toward the secular democracy and home to all Jews that it was always meant to be. </p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-11475470544539328542024-02-27T13:17:00.000-08:002024-02-27T14:39:33.312-08:00Riding a Bike<p>We live in a constant state of anticipation. Always waiting for the resolution of conflict. Our minds and bodies exist in a permanently agitated condition, in the throes of omnipresent anxiety and duress, and we don't even realize it, because we are not in the moment. </p><p>It's hoping for a temporary ceasefire in the Middle East that will bring hostages home. </p><p>It's waiting on the next judicial decision in any one of the number of cases against Donald Trump. What it will mean for the future of democracy, and maybe even the world.</p><p>It's the news, the notifications, the messages bombarding us on our phones. </p><p>It's thinking about what others think. Caring about what others care about.</p><p>It's the obsession with things that are beyond our control. The anxiety of the unknowable future.</p><p>I'm thinking about how two of my children never learned to drive a car. One of my children never learned to ride a bicycle. When she was in her late teens I tried to teach her, but it was very difficult to the point of frustration. Like learning language, riding a bike seems to be much easier when you are younger. She eventually gave up trying. Perhaps my kids (they're adults now) will never know the feeling of mastering a skill to such an extent that it feels so natural they don't think about it. When people use the expression, 'you never forget, it's like riding a bike' they get it wrong. Riding a bike has nothing to do with memory. Riding a bike is the opposite of memory, it's un-remembering what you've worked so hard to learn, until the point that no thought whatsoever is involved. It becomes a skill that your body just 'knows' by feeling, your senses are calibrated precisely to achieve balance through acceleration and momentum. It's what your mind and body feel like when they're in the moment, the barrier between oneself and the world outside has fallen away, and you are inseparable from the forces that govern your movement. In fact, if you were to 'think' about riding a bike while you were doing it, the chances of faltering probably increase. It doesn't mean you don't have to pay attention. Of course you do. If you didn't pay attention to the road you'd hit the curb, or god forbid, a pedestrian. But what are you actually paying attention <i>to</i>? Not the mechanics of riding/driving. Not your body or thoughts in action. You are paying attention to the moment and your surroundings as you move through space and time. Your mind is not wandering off. You are <i>in the moment </i>so much so<i> </i>that your emotions and thoughts are untethered to anything but the moment itself. It's the mind-body 'problem' resolving into balance. </p><p>I am reminded of the Zen-Buddhist teacher Alan Watts who described one indispensable qualification needed by a person to comprehend the path of Zen, "...he must understand his own culture so thoroughly that he is no longer swayed by its premises unconsciously...He must be free of the itch to justify himself."</p><p>But back to bike riding. I get a kick out of seeing those serious helmeted cycling dads, clad in stretchy, sleek, fashionable body-hugging apparel, riding on their $20,000 titanium racers up and down Mount-Royal. I respect their desire to keep in shape, and cycling is great heart-health exercise, but do they have to look like they're competing for a gold medal? I was a pretty serious cyclist myself in my late teens. Bought a state-of-the-art 18-gear racer and went on two or three day cycling trips with a buddy through the Green Mountains in Vermont or the Adirondacks in New York. That was forty years ago and a phase that didn't last long. A few years ago while cleaning out the garage I came across my old bike. The chain was rusty and the wheels were flat. It looked decrepit. There was another adult racer in the garage that must have belonged to one of my kids. It was driveable. So, unhelmeted, I took it for a quick spin. It was a warm sunny day. Instantly, it all came back to me. I don't mean <i>how</i> to ride, of course, that did. I mean the feeling of being at one with my body and the wind, the untethered feeling of serenity and careless joy. </p><p>What does riding a bike have to do with the hostages in Gaza, American politics and the future? No idea. Probably nothing. But does it really matter? </p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-87675749572552187892024-02-27T07:27:00.000-08:002024-02-27T07:27:09.970-08:00Zen<p>I heard a Buddhist </p><p> once give a talk about Zen;</p><p>not a word of truth.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-37774387647232083142024-02-21T07:21:00.000-08:002024-02-21T11:52:59.387-08:00Up is Down, Down is Up<div>This week we had the murder of Alexey Navalny, Russian anti-corruption crusader and leader of the opposition against Putin and his tyrannical oligarchy. Putin killed him, either by direct order or by gradually poisoning him and then sending him to a brutal Siberian penal colony. In response to Navalny's murder, Donald Trump, who is a sociopathic narcissist incapable of empathy, sympathy or even seeing anything from anyone else's point of view, commented on Navalny's 'sudden' death that it made him more aware of how America was corrupt and in 'decline'. What he meant was that he sees himself as being 'persecuted' by the American legal system after two recent massive monetary civil case judgments against him, and two major federal indictments. Of course, the comparison to Navalny is absurd. Trump is an adjudged rapist and white-collar criminal who lives in a multi-million dollar Palm Beach estate. He is the exact opposite of a corruption fighter like Navalny, whose only crime was speaking out against Putin. Trump is using the news of Navalny's death to impugn American rule of law. In Russia, where using the term 'war' to describe the war in Ukraine is 'illegal', there is no rule of law, only rule by an all-powerful tyrant. To suggest that the rule of law in America bears any resemblance to what passes for a legal system in Russia is Orwellian. Navalny's persecution bears zero similarity to Trump's criminality, it's the opposite. By erasing the distinction, Trump wants to subvert the meaning of right and wrong and turn America into a Russia-style tyranny.</div><div><br /></div>The world in which we live, the shape of reality, is constructed from words. Change the meaning of the words and the construction shifts and potentially collapses. It's that fragile.<div><br /><div>We learned the truism of the importance of words, that they construct our world, in our biblical reckoning of how the world was spoken into existence. "And God said 'Let there be light / God saw that the light was good / And He separated the light from the darkness." Spoken words bring the physical world into existence, and the words embody meaning that separates opposites. When words lose their capacity to distinguish (light and dark), the foundational meaning on which the world is constructed collapses.</div><div><br /></div><div>In his novel 1984 Orwell updated the idea when he described how the essence of (Soviet-type) totalitarian control over people hinged on subverting the dilalectical principle of meaning that undergirds civilization, with phrases like "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” If words mean their opposite, there is effectively no meaning at all. In physical terms it's like a negative and positive canceling out coherence and truth. </div><div><br /></div><div>These are some of the opposite-equivalences we are experiencing in the public informational sphere that are intended to cancel out meaning: </div><div><br /></div><div>Self-Defense is Genocide</div><div>Insurrection is Patriotism</div><div>Criminality is Innocence</div><div>Freedom is Subservience </div><div>Losing is Winning</div><div>Justice is Persecution</div><div>Victimization is Virtue</div><div><br /></div><div>This week, with Navalny's death, it felt to me like the foundations of global order were shaking. I couldn't comprehend why. Trump comparing himself to Navalny clarified it for me. Order slips into chaos when language loses its meaning. </div><div><br /></div></div>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-45563596437046824852024-02-18T08:57:00.000-08:002024-02-18T09:36:35.795-08:00Bob Barker (the song)<p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gszcoCgTTg_jQHDlJo_-AdwQ8IbtnqW3/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG</a></p><p><br /></p><p>A boy at home</p><p>Nursing a cold</p><p>Bored and hopeless</p><p>Watching daytime soaps</p><p> </p><p>The game shows</p><p>Oh the game shows</p><p>Saved the day </p><p>For a boy so bored</p><p><br /></p><p>No one smarter</p><p>Than Bob Barker</p><p>No one smarter</p><p>Than Bob Barker</p><p><br /></p><p>The way that he smiled</p><p>And the way he spoke</p><p>Made contestants excited </p><p>Gave them hope</p><p><br /></p><p>Johnny calls a name</p><p>Says come on down</p><p>For a chance to win prizes</p><p>Jump on stage and dance around </p><p><br /></p><p>No one smarter</p><p>Than Bob Barker</p><p>No one smarter</p><p>Than Bob Barker</p><p><br /></p><p>An animal lover</p><p>Cause there's nothing cuter </p><p>Than loving your pets </p><p>So get them spayed or neutered</p><p><br /></p><p>Bob Barker Bob Barker</p><p>Made the world better</p><p>Guess the right price</p><p>And you're the winner</p><p><br /></p><p>No one smarter</p><p>Than Bob Barker</p><p>No one smarter</p><p>Than Bob Barker</p><p><br /></p><p>Spin the big wheel</p><p>Nearest to a dollar</p><p>To the showcase showdown </p><p>With Bob Barker</p><p><br /></p><p>Bob Barker and his beauties</p><p>Janice, Dian and Holly</p><p>Will cure any boy </p><p>Of his melancholy. </p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p> </p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-53079605337271603162024-02-16T15:57:00.000-08:002024-02-16T15:57:29.962-08:00The world is getting meaner<p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bNmUzMKIGv9DclFqO6XEGMR6zZSsvT2O/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ</a></p><p><br /></p><p>The world is getting meaner </p><p>and so am I </p><p><br /></p><p>to a body the ocean</p><p>is personal</p><p><br /></p><p>tread water or</p><p>sink</p><p><br /></p><p>I’m learning how </p><p>to work with the current</p><p><br /></p><p>so I'm not dragged</p><p>completely under.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-62122559835169393692024-02-13T06:20:00.000-08:002024-02-20T09:28:55.174-08:00Hostage rescue, 1 for 100<p>News this week of the IDF rescuing two hostages from Rafah in southern Gaza. The hostages are 60-year-old Fernando Simon Marman and 70-year-old Louis Har. Both men are in relatively good condition. The rescue operation involved police special forces and an IDF tank brigade entering a residential building where the hostages were being held. The hostages were found on the second floor “in the hands of Hamas terrorists.” Hamas militants were stationed in adjacent apartment buildings. The rescue comes at a time of widespread international condemnation of Israel, with US and European allies ramping up the pressure to wind down operations, and a threat from Egypt to withdraw from its peace agreement with Israel if it enters Rafah. The rescue operation came at the reported cost of up to 100 Palestinian lives (not sure how many of those are militants). Tough spot to be in. Rafah was supposed to be a safe zone where many Palestinians from the north of Gaza were told they could flee. What they weren't told is that when they arrived they would be used as human shields and therefore become criminally complicit. Hamas continues to violate international law and use Palestinian civilians as military tools. Is there any question remaining whether the continuation of Israel's military operation to rescue hostages is justified? If 100 Palestinians die for every hostage that is rescued (in this case it was 50), who is responsible for that? With a story like this I ask myself, if my wife and kids were being held hostage and I have to blow up a building to rescue them would I do it? Damn right I would (after warning the residents to get out). And who could blame me? To me it's analagous to a school hostage situation. The rule of thumb is to go in with guns blazing, because every second of hesitation is a second closer to greater catastrophe. Why isn't the world joining in with Israel's effort by coming down as hard as they can on Hamas to surrender and release the hostages? That is the surest way to save Palestinian lives. Every day of hesitation in that effort is a day of more lives lost. Israel's only moral obligation is to spare no cost to get the remaining hostages back (and remember 30 have already died) or force Hamas to give them up as soon as possible. The ball's in Hamas's court. They can decide to end the suffering of 'their people' tomorrow. But they don't, buoyed by the world's condemnation of Israel's rescue operation. It confounds the mind. Until then, we fight for the lives of every hostage.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-28653209021893836652024-02-02T06:28:00.000-08:002024-02-06T12:39:21.025-08:00What Happened to Parenting<p>Like so many, I watched some of the US Senate Judiciary committee hearing on the harm of big tech platforms to children. The performance politicking hit a particular low when Tom Cotton of Arkansas questioned Singaporean TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew repeatedly about his citizenship (not seeming to understand that Singapore was a country) and asked if he was a member of the Chinese Communist Party. That moment was only outdone by Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee accusing Mark Zuckerberg of wanting to turn Meta into the 'premier sex trafficking site in the country.' The irony was palpable that such 'gotcha' moments were designed to go viral on the very same social media platforms the Senators were vociferously attacking. Irony died with hypocrisy in Congress a while ago. </p><p>The other moment that featured prominently on the nightly news was Zuckerberg turning to apologize to the assembled parents behind him, many of whom were holding pictures of their children who had been bullied or blackmailed online into committing suicide. He told them he felt bad for the pain and suffering they were enduring. Crocodile tears.</p><p>I understand the demands for social media platforms to do more to make online spaces safer for young people. They should do more to make them safer for the rest of us too, curbing hate-speech, antisemitism, racism, bigotry, misogyny, terrorism and political interference. </p><p>Still, while watching the hearing the question I couldn't help asking myself was: Whatever happened to parenting? It's not as if I'm completely insensitive to the challenges of raising kids in the age of social media. Of our four daughters, one of them has never known a world without it, and the others have lived with it since they were adolescents. Three of my four children are subsumed in it, their lives barely exist outside of social media in any meaningful way, their online personas indistinguishable from their real-world ones. Like alcohol, social media can and should be understood as an addictive substance, and the dangers of abuse should be made clear to anyone who chooses to partake, especially adolescents who lack fully-formed brains. </p><p>As parents there's only so much we can do, after a certain point in time. But my question about parenting relates to the years before that point is reached, before the die has been cast and your offspring is an independent agent in the world who will make their own decisions, good and bad, and any parental influence is henceforth negligible. The moment when your parental report card comes in, and all the work you've put in with your children, loving them, spending time with them, listening to them, nourishing them, teaching them, guiding them and helping them, either pays off or doesn't. As with any report card, when enough work hasn't been put in, it usually shows.</p><p>Extending the school analogy... my concern is how we've been offloading parental responsibilities on non-parents for years, especially in the schools. Schools no longer just provide educational services, they feed our children and provide them with social services and psychological services too. Teachers have been telling us for a long time that they are finding it difficult to do the job they were trained to do because they are overwhelmed with so many non-teaching aspects of the job related to the wellbeing of students. Burn out is rampant and fewer people are entering the profession because it's become unmanageable. Our eldest daughter was a post high-school CEGEP English teacher (Quebec's version of grade 12 and 13). The workload was too much for her to bear and the frustration level was off the charts. The job literally made her stressed to the point of physical illness. Her career lasted less than two years. </p><p>Might the dearth of values and moral obtuseness we're witnessing in recent generations have something to do with the fact that so much basic child-rearing has been dumped from the home onto the system? </p><p>Coincidentally, this week we saw the beginning of the unprecedented trial for involuntary manslaughter of Jennifer Crumbley, mother of Ethan, the teenager who murdered four high-schoolers and wounded seven others in Oxford, Michigan. Ethan's father James will be tried separately. The Crumbley parents purchased the murder weapon for their underage son as a Christmas present, apparently despite being aware of his unstable mental health. Without knowledge of the case against the elder Crumbleys, it's not a stretch to surmise that parental neglect was involved. Don’t take my word for it take Jennifer's, who wrote in text messages after the shooting, “I failed as a parent. I failed miserably.”</p><p>I’m no psychologist but might there be a connection between parental inattention, and disturbed children taking out their rage on their school? A kind of sublimation of anger actually intended at their parents? Ethan Crumbley’s journal was found at the scene of the shooting in which he wrote, “my parents won’t listen to me about help or a therapist... I have zero help for my mental problems and it’s causing me to shoot up the fucking school.”</p><p>I’m not saying Ethan’s criminally reckless parents are comparable to the parents whose children committed suicide after being cyber-bullied. But there is the same main missing ingredient in both cases, although in different quantities, with tragic consequences. One thing’s for sure, you can’t blame the kids.</p><p>[<u>Update</u>: The jury returned an involutary manslaughter guilty verdict for Jennifer Crumbley]</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-72026591578005973422024-01-31T06:36:00.000-08:002024-01-31T06:45:48.810-08:00Making Bad Decisions<p>According to the UN Gaza is on the brink of full-scale famine. Media images have started appearing of dirty children in soiled, ripped clothing in the rubble-strewn streets of Gaza holding metal cups and bowls clambering for ladles of watery soup, like a scene out of a Dickens novel. No doubt Israel will be blamed. CNN did a story the other day about the ten countries including the US and Canada who have suspended funding to UNRWA in the wake of a report that as many as 10% of the agency's 12,000 employees in Gaza have ties to Hamas, and a dozen are known to have physically taken part in the attacks against Israel on October 7th. The CNN story ended showing a desperate Palestinian woman pleading to the camera that if UNRWA ceases services everyone in Gaza will die. Count on CNN to focus, not on the corruption of the organization that has both implicitly and explicitly supported terrorism with their activities, but rather on a victim's heartbreaking plea for continued funding of that same corrupt organization. It's hard to fathom how by now everyone doesn't understand that the catastrophe of the Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank) is the responsibility of the Palestinians and their so-called leadership, underwritten, enabled and supported by the funding of the international community via the UN. It's somewhat heartening to see that the rot below the surface is finally being exposed. But I'm not terribly encouraged that anything significant will come of it. Unfortunately, some important funders of UNRWA, like the EU fearing a backlash from their Arab citizenry, are not getting the message. In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foy8VP0XtIk" target="_blank">recent podcast, Sam Harris</a>, in his inimitably calm rational way, lays out the moral and political stakes of Israel's war against Hamas. He covers most of the points I posted about in my Moral Clarity series (he calls them 5 myths), but much more clearly and succinctly than I do. It's one of his remarks near the end of the podcast that sticks with me most. A factoid I didn't know. Harris notes that when Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7th attack, was in an Israeli prison, he was treated to remove a life-threatening brain tumour. I'm not suggesting that Sinwar should not have received the medical care he needed while in Israeli custody (although I doubt that the hostages in Palestinian detention are receiving anywhere close to the same care.) But think about it. Israeli surgeons in an Israeli hospital (at Israeli taxpayer expense) saved the life of the man who years later would plan and execute the slaughter of their citizens in the most savage attack on Israeli soil in its history. I can't think of a more straightforward example of the way that Israel and the Palestinians operate in separate moral universes. Of course, it wasn't only Sinwar's surgery that permitted him to become Israel's nemesis, it was also his release from jail as part of the absurd 1:1000 prisoner swap. All of it highlights how we in the west have continually undermined our own position because we fail to grasp how our (higher) moral standards have been leveraged against us by our enemies. They do it through our media. They do it through our universities. They do it through our international aid organizations and charities. I'm not suggesting we should lower or alter our moral standards. On the contrary, we need to do everything we can to raise and protect them. And to do that we need to acknowledge when we're being played and stop making bad decisions based on it. Our bad decisions have allowed the Palestinians to live in the delusion for decades that Israel will one day go away. They've chosen and supported their corrupt and genocidal leaders based on this delusion. We've enabled the delusion with our funding of UNRWA, with our anti-Israel demonstrations, with our anti-Israel universities, with our bleeding heart media coverage, and most importantly, with our own weak political leadership and decision-making, both in Israel and in the diaspora. Weakness sends a signal that we can be played with. As Harris says in his podcast, had Israel responded to hostilities with pacifism it would have been suicidal, had the Palestinians responded with pacifism, they would have had a state long ago. They had no incentive to act responsibly and take a reasonable position because we in the west have shown time and again that given enough pressure we'd cave. It's time that we helped the Palestinians, learn from their catastrophically self-defeating mistakes, by no longer showing weakness, and not making any more mistakes of our own. </p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-44222116327293588712024-01-29T06:56:00.000-08:002024-01-31T12:35:14.650-08:00Resumé For An American President<p>Sexual assault.</p><p>Adjudicated rape.</p><p>Defamation.</p><p>Defrauding the public.</p><p>Bank fraud.</p><p>Insurance fraud.</p><p>Business fraud.</p><p>Falsifying business records.</p><p>Misuse of funds from a tax-exempt charity.</p><p>Tax evasion.</p><p>Accepting foreign emoluments.</p><p>Willful retention of National Defense Information.</p><p>Corrupt concealment of documents.</p><p>Mishandling classified documents.</p><p>False statements to a federal official.</p><p>Election interference. </p><p>Racketeering.</p><p>Conspiracy.</p><p>Conspiracy to obstruct justice.</p><p>Obstruction of an official proceeding.</p><p>Insurrection.</p><p>Incitement to violence.</p><p>Dereliction of duty.</p><p>Impeachment.</p><p>Racism.</p><p>Bigotry.</p><p>Misogyny.</p><p>Adultery.</p><p>Draft dodging.</p><p>Bankruptcy.</p><p><br /></p><p>Bankruptcy.</p><p><br /></p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-24204583327807467122024-01-27T12:21:00.000-08:002024-01-27T12:21:02.680-08:00Word flowers<p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Uu4ZlT-QUNBZWMRR4tomscfK0SoyWA7K/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Word flowers</p><p> redolent blossoms</p><p>of sticky nectar</p><p> my mind </p><p> buzzed by </p><p>meaning</p><p> moves from petal </p><p>to petal </p><p> to petal </p><p>pollen spray of sentiment</p><p> dust blooms</p><p> astral floating </p><p> settling on the</p><p>infinite </p><p> moment </p><p> </p><p>I was in love </p><p> once</p><p> and believed </p><p>that word</p><p> and so it was </p><p>until </p><p> it wasn't</p><p>but in memory </p><p> the scent is still </p><p>so</p><p> sweet.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-82710602134763050482024-01-18T07:44:00.000-08:002024-01-18T11:59:00.628-08:00The Age of Stupidity<p>Has there ever been a stupider time? There's just so much stupidity available for consumption these days, it's so widespread the world teems with it. Used to be people were careful about saying stupid things. These days people revel in it. There's no shame in public stupidity. Stupidity finds stupidity and reinforces stupidity. There are groups organized around stupidity. Tribes of stupidity. People are proud of their stupidity and shout it from the hills. Saying stupid things is like carrying a flag - a freedom banner that says 'I'm so free I can say the stupidest things imaginable!' People wear stupid slogans on their clothes. Support stupid people who say the stupidest things in their politics. They buy stupid products advertised by stupid people who make stupid claims about them. They watch stupid movies, play stupid video games and listen to stupid songs. This is truly the age of stupidity. I'm not saying there aren't smart people. And I'm not saying smart people aren't doing smart things. I'm saying that stupid people saying and doing stupid things rule the day. So much so that even smart people are saying stupid things. I like to watch videos online about ideas. I've noticed that there are a lot of very smart, highly educated people promoting and taking seriously some of the stupidest ideas. Lately, for example, I've been interested in theories of consciousness. Reading books about consciousness from lay-scientific and philosophical perspectives. For decades, the theory and study of consciousness was an area considered marginal at best in academia. It wasn’t taken seriously. If you wanted an academic career specializing in the theory of consciousness it was a fast track to obscurity or unemployment. Now there seems to be an entire industry of academics solely devoted to theories of consciousness, and online discussions about consciousness abound. They talk about consciousness from all kinds of angles, philosophical, psychological, neurological, zoological, sociological, quantum-mechanical, mathematical and spiritual. The funniest part is that no one is quite sure what consciousness is, and they all say as much. Maybe that’s the reason some of the stupidest theories by smart people I've seen are posited about consciousness. They say consciousness does not really exist, or that rocks are conscious, or that consciousness exists outside of our consciousness, or that what we think is consciousness is actually a computer simulation in which we live. I have nothing against stupid theories. History demonstrates how some theories once thought stupid turn out to be correct. It's important to put forward stupid theories. But most stupid theories turn out to be just stupid, and these days we're inundated by them. The difference is that there used to be a system in place to separate the promising stupid theories from the ones that are just stupid. There were gatekeepers before that blocked most of us from hearing the unpromising stupid theories. That gatekeeping system has evaporated and now we hear them all. Obviously social media is a big part of it. Smart people with stupid ideas can reach a wide audience, just like dumb people with stupid ideas can, and everyone loves attention. In fact, stupid ideas are magnets for getting attention. It's how the National Enquirer became a newspaper empire. If you’re an academic toiling in obscurity on a stupid theory, the incentive to put your half-baked ideas out there is undeniable. Of course, for the rest of us with stupid opinions, social media has been a bonanza. We can take adolescent pleasure in showing how free we are to say stupid and irresponsible things. At the beginning of widespread internet access we all thought it would make us smarter and more informed. It turned out the opposite. We learned that we are far more attracted to stupidity than expertise. Ignorance is definitely bliss. It feels good to let our cellphones tell us what to do and how to think. But we shouldn't forget that being stupid is actually a very big deal. Stupidity inevitably leads to chaos, disorder and destruction. Wars result from stupidity. I think our turn to toward populist far-right politics relates to our age of stupidity. With so much stupidity on display we want strongmen leaders to save us from ourselves. Our pervasive apathy and disillusionment also relates to all the stupidity to which we are constantly exposed. Even our fear of AI relates to stupidity. Many of us believe it's inevitable that the computers we create will become more clever than us and decide to be our overlords because we're just too stupid to do anything about it. We seem convinced by our own stupidity that we are irredeemably stupid. That would be a paralyzingly self-defeatingly stupid conclusion to draw.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-83439055729857373622024-01-18T07:29:00.000-08:002024-01-18T07:29:56.030-08:00Buddha<p>Are we not supposed</p><p> in the thick heat of the day</p><p>to kill mosquitoes?</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-40166205184892866512024-01-16T07:02:00.000-08:002024-01-16T08:50:34.682-08:00The Sermonizer<p>My wife hates it when I sermonize. I don't blame her. It's my vice. Even when I am venting frustration about politics, I somehow end up preaching, as you've probably found from reading this blog lately. </p><p>So there we were chatting at my wonderful mother-in-law's 85th birthday party this weekend at our home. Most of the crowd had gathered around the dining room table to partake in the various homemade gastronomic delicacies prepared by my wife. All the seats were taken. As it is beyond my skill-set to stand around a buffet table making small talk while balancing an overflowing plate of food in one hand and a fork in the other while trying to stuff my face, I politely took myself and my over-capacity plate (and drink) to the living room couch. I sat there alone for a few minutes shovelling it in, before I was joined by my strapping, handsome, 15-year old nephew. He didn't have a plate, I presume because he'd scoffed his food down as athletic teenage boys do. Looking bored out of his mind, he plopped his muscular 6-foot frame down next to me on the couch and smiled. I said, "I guess you'd rather be playing hockey?" He didn't answer, understanding instantly that the question was rhetorical. I thought to myself, poor kid has no idea what he's in for sitting next to me.</p><p>We began talking about school. He's in grade 10 (or as we call it here in Quebec, Sec. IV). I asked him about the government exams he has to write this year. He said, English, French, Science, but the worst, he said, was History. He's not a great student in general. More of a jock-type, as you might have guessed by my description of him. You'd think French or Science would be the tricky subjects. History, the worst? I inquired in a puzzled tone. Yeah, he said, what do I care about the fur trade? The French colonists? You live in Quebec, I stated the obvious. The government here makes policy that affects every day of your life. Some of it seemingly ridiculous, like the language laws. Understanding the history helps us understand why. "Actually," I say to him, "you probably don't feel it at all. You live on your little island. I get it, believe me. I was exactly like you. Grew up in my English-speaking Jewish enclave. Went to Jewish school. Had only Jewish friends. Went to Florida for Christmas break like all the Montreal Jews. The only time you ever see a dyed in the wool Québecois is on the ice at the arena, I bet. Must feel like you're playing against a foreign team." He nods. "Your world is so small," I repeat, without condescension. "At least this semester we're going to study World War I," he says. "Ah, the Conscription Crisis," I declare. The comment draws a blank. For him, there is a modicum of interest in that period because it's closer to his personal history on one side of his family. His paternal grandparents were born in Europe, survived WWII, came to Canada as refugees, and speak with accents. "You see how important history is," I tell him. "You <i>are</i> history." He smiles politely. "But I have trouble remembering dates," he says flatly. </p><p>Now I'm thinking about how this kid is the embodiment of history. How his grandparents escaped persecution. How he doesn't have a care in the world because of all the sacrifices they made. And of course I'm relating that history to my own which is similar (although my grandparents came before the war), as it is with all Jews. I tell him, "Understanding history, caring about it, is actually a way of appreciating who you are and how far your family has come, what they had to go through to get here." </p><p>It makes me think about our ancestors, I say to him. And not just from the last hundred years, but our biblical ancestors too. "You know, how they came out of slavery, and wandered in the desert, and got the Torah at Sinai and were led to the Promised Land," I say. "Jewish history repeats." Now, I realize I have to tread lightly, because what 15-year old kid wants to hear a sermon from his uncle? But I seem to still have his interest, because I'm sort of connecting <i>his </i>history to <i>our</i> history. He's looking engaged, and not strictly out of respect for adults.</p><p>"But even if you don't believe any of it," I say to him. "Let’s say you think it’s all BS. You don't believe in the biblical Israelites, or that we were slaves in Egypt, or that we wandered in the desert for 40 years, or were given the Tablets of Law at Mt. Sinai, any of that stuff. The Torah tells us something else very special. Something that's as relevant today as it was back then. Maybe more so."</p><p>"What's that uncle Glen? he asks.</p><p>Mindful that I have to keep it short, I say, "At the very end of the story, Moses tells the people, after everything they've been through... not that God has given them all the answers... but that he's given them a choice. God has shown them 'the blessing and the curse', and he tells them to choose wisely. What he means is that it's up to us, no one else, what we do with our lives. There's no one to blame if it doesn't work out, no one to point a finger at." I tell my nephew that I don't think that any other western religious tradition offers that as the ultimate message. Muslims are told to surrender to Allah or be deemed unworthy apostates, like the Jews are. The Christians blame the Jews for rejecting Jesus and we are damned to eternal hell for it. I say to my nephew, "In our sacred scripture, we're told that we have no one to blame but ourselves for our predicament. And that's the secret sauce of our endurance and success. And it's also why you've got so much to be thankful for. The power is yours how to run your life, and thanks to your grandparents, you've had a lucky head start." </p><p>At that moment, my sister-in-law enters the living room and says to my nephew, we've got to leave, get your coat. "Saved by the bell," I say with a chuckle. </p><p>My nephew lifts himself up off the couch like he's carrying a boulder, looks down at me from his towering height and says, "I like talking to you uncle Glen." We weren't talking about the rapidly fading playoff hopes of our beloved hapless Habs (the Montreal Canadiens hockey team), but I can tell he's being sincere. </p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-15916662153843792902024-01-12T12:59:00.000-08:002024-01-15T06:23:35.205-08:00Moral Clarity part 20: Taking the Palestinians seriously<p>Israel is judged differently. We're seeing the hypocrisy on full display at the International Court of Justice this week, where South Africa is making a case against Israel for genocide. As retired Canadian Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella put it succinctly in a Globe and Mail article, "It is a legal absurdity to suggest that a country defending itself from genocide is thereby guilty of genocide." </p><p>The double standards go deep. What other nation, after being brutally savagely attacked by an enemy, is expected to respond 'proportionately'? What other nation at war against an enemy whose sole stated mission and purpose is your annihilation is told they must use restraint? How is fighting back not self-defense? What other nation is accused of 'genocide' when it engages a terrorist aggressor in military operations by dropping flyers to try to minimize civillian casualities? After the United States was attacked by terrorists on September 11th was there a discussion of 'proportionality? Between 280,000 and 315,000 Iraqi civilians were killed according to a conservative estimate in that operation. Was the US accused of genocide? The Syrian Network for Human Rights has stated it documented 230,784 civilian deaths and 14 million displaced persons in the Syrian Civil War between 2011 and 2023. That war has resulted in an estimated 470,000–610,000 violent deaths, making it the second deadliest conflict of the 21st century, after the Second Congo War. Did any members of the international community take Bashar Al-Assad to the ICJ for genocide? I'll give you a hint, no.</p><p>In the war with Hamas there is no doubt that Palestinian civilians have suffered greatly. And the reason for that is because unlike a 'normal' war, with a 'normal' combatant, the Hamas army does not seek to protect non-combatant civilians. On the contrary, it seeks to use them as a tool of warfare. That the international community is not unanimously outraged by this and does not demand full-throatedly that this criminally inhuman practice stop immediately, is to me the most unfathomable and shameful aspect of the current conflict. They would rather accuse Israel of genocide.</p><p>We know that Israel stands alone because it's unique in a host of ways. It's a tiny country of unusual religious, historical and geographical significance. It's the only country whose existence was given assent by the international community via a vote of the UN. But the scrutiny of Israel's conduct shouldn't be seen as unique. That it seems unique is an indictment of the way the international community let's other nations get away with murder, literally. Furthermore, it only seems like Israel is held to a <i>higher</i> standard of moral conduct vis-a-vis the Palestinians, because they are not held to <i>any</i> standard of moral conduct at all. They are infantalized and treated as children under guardianship, coddled and enabled by the UN and many other Arab and non-Arab nations who take advantage of them. For their part, the Palestinians like to have it both ways. They want the rights and privileges of being treated like an 'adult' member of the international community, without any of the accompanying responsibilities. </p><p>Some people argue that there's no such thing as Palestine, and the Palestinian 'nation' doesn't really exist. I'm not one of those. I don't think anyone has any right to tell another group of people how to identify themselves. All identities are a conglomeration of fact and fictions, whether they are based in politics, culture, race or religion. It's about stories we tell ourselves. But I suspect that part of the reason some people don't take the Palestinians seriously, in spite of the flag, the slogans, and the narrative they embrace, is because serious people take responsibility for decisions and actions. The Palestinian people must be held to the same basic standard.</p><p>When it launched its war on Israel, Hamas was hoping that it would be joined in the fight by the Palestinians of the West Bank (as well as Hizbollah and other Iran-backed and anti-Israel factions). They miscalculated. West Bank Palestinians didn't join the fight because they are (quietly) hoping Israel will succeed in destroying Hamas so they can regain control of Gaza. Another example of the Palestinians hoping Israel will clean up its messes. It's hard to take them seriously.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-3358774369402141182024-01-05T09:51:00.000-08:002024-01-05T10:01:04.335-08:00Moral Clarity part 19: Antisemitism<p>It's been called 'the oldest hatred', 'a mutating virus', another word for 'anti-Israel'. I dislike talking about antisemitism so much. I dislike it because I don't completely understand it. Calling anything 'antisemitic' often feels to me reflex, reactive, or at best imprecise, a kind of catch-all for any destructive act directed at Jewish people. It's an uncomfortable term to use. Try and find a definition of antisemitism and you'll understand what I mean. </p><p>On Wikipedia you get "hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews." No word of 'hatred'. On the US State Department website they use a definition taken from something called the Plenary of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA): "A certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews." Hatred is mentioned but it's a 'certain perception' that 'may be expressed as hatred'. Pretty vague stuff. It continues, "Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities" ('non-Jewish individuals'? I guess it's not always apparent if someone is Jewish to antisemites). They struggle with the definition too, and go on to give examples to help explain it. </p><p>I had always thought 'hatred' was the essential component of antisemitism. But that's where things get tricky, because how do you know when someone 'hates'? Hate is an extreme emotion and is associated with extreme and irrational actions. I'm thinking now about when the trump campaign started calling his opponents 'haters'? It was effective because most people don't want to think of themselves as motivated by irrationality. There's a blindness implied by hatred. I don't think most antisemitism is 'hateful' in the sense of blind rage. The Nazis were quintessentially antisemitic, and they were also very methodical and rational, even scientific. Arendt calls their coldbloodedness 'banal'. Seems to me that most people who take actions that are motivated by antisemitism do so with a degree of rationality. If that's the case then something more subtle than 'hatred' must be at play. </p><p>Let's say it's not about hatred, although hatred could certainly play a role. Let's say it's more about blame - which makes it weird that I didn't see the word 'blame' used in any of the definitions I found. That would mean that the essence of antisemitism is blaming Jews as a group for problems; big problems and small problems, global problems and individual problems. The 'as a group' part seems critical. The blame must be generalized, because antisemitism appears to embody something grand, systematic and conspiratorial. In this way, even when a Jewish person is identified as 'blameworthy' it is not because they act alone, but because they represent the group. And so Jeffrey Epstein, or Bernie Madoff, might be terrible people who do reprehensible acts meriting accusation, but the accusations become antisemitic when the fact that they are both Jewish becomes the central factor of their actions, implying that their behaviour is representative (a trait) of the group to which they belong. </p><p>This idea of blaming the group, would help to explain how antisemitism could play such a significant role in conspiratorial belief systems as diverse as Christian Nationalism, Islamism and Qanon, and could motivate such a range of heinous acts as 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing and the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. It would also explain the historical persistence of antisemitism over millenia in different cultures and religions. There's never been any rhyme or reason to antisemitism. Jews were blamed for being arch-communists (unionists) by the capitalists, and for being arch-capitalists by the communists. Antisemitism has been religiously motivated, racially motivated, economically motivated and politically motivated. There's only one common element; it's about blame, and blame is human nature. Everyone blames all the time, because taking individual responsibility is hard. Bottom line, if it's human nature, it can't be stamped out. This understanding also explains better, in my mind, how Jews can be antisemitic. I dislike the term 'self-hating' because as a rule I generally don't think people hate themselves. But they can dislike aspects of themselves, namely the group to which others identify them, because it makes them feel insecure. Antisemitism practiced by Jews is essentially an effort at disassociation. It could be motivated by shame, or other forms of psychological discomfort, which launches a whole other topic worthy of deep scrutiny, but not here.</p><p>Putting psychology aside, why have Jews been such a perennial favourite for scorn and blame by others throughout history? I've heard some people argue that it's because of jealousy. Jews have been disproportionately prominent, in culture, academia, business, media etc. Jewish prominence is a very recent phenomenon. Historical antisemitism demonstrates otherwise. In most societies where Jews have lived we've been poor, powerless and disfavoured, which never stopped antisemitism, quite the contrary, it accelerated it. Seems to me antisemitism has been around for so long for three simple reasons: Jews have been around so long, we've lived everywhere, and we've been the minority everywhere we've lived (we've kept to ourselves). That's it. It doesn't have to be more complicated. We've been an easy and identifiable target.</p><p>If my understanding is correct, we can conclude two things: First, as long as people blame others for their problems, antisemitism will exist. Second, the only thing Jews can do about it is not be such an easy target. Having an army certainly helps.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-19779665470473473632024-01-02T10:50:00.000-08:002024-01-02T11:43:10.482-08:00Moral Clarity part 18: Dumb War, Necessary War<p><i>"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country.”</i></p><p>The quote is taken from Maj.-Gen. William T. Sherman, commanding officer of Union troops in the vicinity of Atlanta, in early September 1864, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/david-j-bercuson-are-we-beasts-war-civilian-casualties-and-hamas/ar-AA1mlHFG?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=5cd8149571174197a8bcf50403fca9da&ei=26" target="_blank">as quoted by David J. Bercuson</a> in a National Post commentary. Bercuson argues that the debate over using so-called 'dumb bombs' over so-called 'precision munitions' is largely moot. Yes, dumb bombs are much less expensive which is why they continue to be used. But in neither case can civilian casualties be avoided. Precision bombs don't magically distinguish between enemy combatants and nearby family members or innocent pedestrians in the wrong place at the wrong time either. </p><p>The principal tactic of every war ever fought is to inflict as much cost on your enemy as you can until the point when they decide it's time to surrender. War may be understood as a form of political persuasion, because each side must make a unilateral decision on when the point of surrender has been reached. The tolerance for damage to the point of defeat is variable. Some nations have a very high threshold indeed. During World War 2 hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in the bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, and of course Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, before Germany and Japan respectively surrendered. Germany would not surrender until its cities were reduced to rubble and high-school children and retirees were enlisted to fight - in the final battle of Berlin the Nazis called upon the <i>Hitlerjugend</i> (Hitler Youth) and the ragtag <i>Volkssturm</i> (citizen army) to defend the capital against the approaching Soviet Red Army. France, on the other hand, surrendered shortly after German forces breached the Maginot Line and waltzed into Paris within a few weeks, sustaining relatively little damage to their civilian population and infrastructure. </p><p>The difference between Germany/Japan and France? It's who made the decision to surrender. In dictatorships that decision ultimately rests entirely with one person. In a democracy it rests with institutions ie. a government that is accountable to the electorate. Take the war in Vietnam as an example of how the difference works. That war did not end because the US was defeated militarily. The US military had the firepower and resources to continue fighting for decades. The war was ultimately brought to an 'ignoble' end because of widespread disfavour expressed by a politically active and vocal citizenry. It goes without saying that this political dynamic does not happen in dictatorships. More importantly, once defeated militarily, if they surrender, peace can't be made with dictatorships because no dictatorship will negotiate to compromise their absolute power. It's simply not in the DNA of dictatorship. The dictator will sooner die than surrender power, let alone make peace. It's why defeated Germany and Japan had to become democracies in the aftermath of the war. Power had to be ceded to the governed. It was the only possible result to ensure peace in the long term, since the only truly humane form of governance, the only form that embodies the legitimacy to wage war and can ensure that war will end at a point that reflects the interest of the people who wage it, is democracy. </p><p>The analogy of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan holds equally true for the war with Hamas, it has to be seen first and foremost as a war against tyranny. To the extent that the Palestinian people fully support Hamas, agree with their aims, or have accepted the entirety of Gaza being turned into a military facility by them, including rocket launchers installed in residential apartment buildings and elementary schools, and military warehouses and command centers being built under hospitals - they bear moral responsibility for what is happening to them. To the extent that the UN has been complicit, it too bears responsibility. </p><p>Bercuson concludes his essay by writing, "There is really only one way to avoid civilian casualties by aerial bombardment — don’t start a war in the first place. Either Hamas could not figure that out, or they didn’t care." Bercuson doesn't entertain another notion; Hamas <i>wanted</i> to increase civilian casualties and invited aerial bombardment, licked their chops for it, because being so severely militarily outmatched as they knew they were, it was the only way to achieve a political victory in a war with Israel. Hamas needed on their side of the battle the large swathes of the sympathetic (western) public and antisemitic (Arab) public. In the fight between democracy and tyranny, a total victory of democracy is the only humane and moral resolution. Proportionality as a consideration in such a war cannot apply. My corollary to Bercuson's conclusion is, don't start a war you can't finish.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-2799746794003078942023-12-29T17:29:00.000-08:002023-12-30T10:32:37.643-08:00War In Israel<p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ubdLlCFW0uHy6mHN2vFtPeQ0VCFSk6ne/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ</a></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><span>for KS</span></i></p><p><br /></p><p>On a rainy day in late December</p><p>two old Jews talking</p><p>over tepid bowls of kosher chicken soup</p><p>(we are nothing if not clichés) </p><p>my friend across the table</p><p>says he's had enough,</p><p>decided with his Canadian wife</p><p>the time had come </p><p>to decamp permanently </p><p>to Israel, </p><p>says as someone born </p><p>in the South Bronx</p><p>even after 40 years </p><p>he's never felt completely</p><p>at home in Toronto:</p><p>And what better time to leave?</p><p>With a war going on,</p><p>a grandchild on the way,</p><p>and the elective hemorrhoid surgery</p><p>finally behind him.</p><p><br /></p><p>I feel jealous.</p><p>And maybe it's cause </p><p>like my dad, I was born</p><p>in Montreal and the place</p><p>has a certain strange hold on us.</p><p>There's a mural of Leonard</p><p>20-stories high on Crescent</p><p>that you can see from inside</p><p>the Musée des Beaux Arts,</p><p>the top of Mt-Royal,</p><p>or when you stumble out of a bar </p><p>at midnight from the street</p><p>Cohen's face glowing over the sacred city</p><p>like stained glass.</p><p><br /></p><p>A few days ago</p><p>they threw Molotov cocktails</p><p>at a synagogue door and</p><p>shots were fired at a yeshiva</p><p>because of the war in Israel.</p><p><br /></p><p>Between slurps, my friend says,</p><p>you can't always choose your battles,</p><p>but sometimes you can choose</p><p>where to fight them.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-12653964514155404662023-12-28T11:49:00.000-08:002024-01-02T11:08:50.473-08:00Moral Clarity part 17: Good riddance 2023<p>"I misunderstood you correctly the first time."</p><p>- Tommy Smothers (1937-2023)</p><p><br /></p><p>The year is ending...</p><p>Israel continues to reduce Gaza to rubble and the UN votes almost unanimously to call for a 'humanitarian' ceasefire, without holding the terrorist group Hamas responsible for the catastrophe in the first place. It was a shameful vote, and you know how I know this? The next day the political leader of Hamas publicly thanked the government of Canada for their support. [What is the surest quickest and most humane way to make this tragedy stop? For all the nations of the planet to demand, in one strong unanimous clear voice, for the terrorist organization Hamas to release the hostages and surrender, not to side with the terrorists and gang up against Israel - in other words, when hell freezes over.] </p><p>The Presidents of Harvard, MIT, and University of Pennsylvania testified before Congress refusing to say whether calling for the genocide of Jews constitutes harassment according to their school codes of conduct. The President of UPenn and Chair of the Board of Governors were forced to resign, after major donors came out publicly against them. The President of Harvard received the support of her Board of Governors to stay on, of course. </p><p>Congressional Republicans were congratulated by Vladimir Putin for blocking further funding to Ukraine. </p><p>14 students and faculty members in the Department of Philosophy were murdered (25 more were injured) at Charles University in Prague. Were this in the United States, it wouldn't be much of a surprise. In the Czech Republic it's the worst mass shooting in its history, and not something often seen in Europe. We don't know much at this point about the killer's motive (he was a 24-year old Masters student in History), but the symbolism is unmistakable. </p><p>Is this what the collapse of western civilization as we know it looks like? Or this all just symptomatic of shifting political alignments? Maybe both?</p><p>To me it <i>feels</i> different from the usual social or political re-alignments. We've lived through regional conflicts before, especially in places where there was poverty and political instability. Perenially that's been in post-colonial Africa and the Middle East, but in the last few decades we've also seen it happening in parts of Europe, particularly in the Balkans, and former Soviet Union. </p><p>The greatest difference of the last 20 years has been the internal political division and instability of the United States, which sends shockwaves around the world. We've seen that happen before. Perhaps the most domestically turbulent decade of the 20th century in the United States was the 1960s, marked by political assasinations, social unrest, mass protests against war and civil rights riots. And yet, in spite of that turbulence, public confidence in the institutions of government and authority remained high. The social contract remained relatively strong and intact. The Cold War with the Soviet Union and the pride of the space race ending with the Americans planting a flag on the moon played a role. What we're witnessing today is deeper and more fundamentally threatening; the fraying of the social fabric. Trump did not initiate it. He took advantage of a process that began in the late 1990s and early 2000s which exacerbated fragilities and vulnerabilities of American democracy, including the economic stagnation of the middle classes and growing disparity of wealth between the top five percent and the bottom ninety-five percent.</p><p>As the sole true global superpower (political, military, economic, cultural), the United States has been the guarantor of international stability since the end of World War 2. For the last 20 years or so, America seems to be questioning that role. It's this turning inward, increasing isolationism, doubting itself and becoming consumed with its own insecurities, that has precipitated the current situation. Some commentators point to the advent of social media, in the first decade of the 21st century, as a key contributing factor. Undoubtedly it has played an important role, making many of us impervious to facts, doubtful of expertise and authority, and politically apathetic. We are less engaged in honest, meaningful relationships and conversations, and more interested in having our predispositions, biases and prejudices reinforced. This has led to the greatest crisis of our age: A crisis of trust, in ourselves, in each other, and by extension in our institutions, be they governmental, regulatory, educational, and even faith-based.</p><p>Yesterday I <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TegQZ8dnogY" target="_blank">watched an interview with historian Timothy Snyder</a> on his new book called Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning. Essentially, as I understand it, not having read the book, it's about resisting the western tropes we have imbibed about the Holocaust and the necessity of re-visiting it for new prescient lessons. The one that resonated with me is an observation he makes about where most Jews were murdered. It was in the countries where the local population could be counted on to participate (either actively or passively). These were countries where there was a complete absence of institutional authority, countries like Poland and the German-occupied parts of the Soviet Union, that had already been essentially wiped off the map as political and legal entities even before the Nazis invaded. The lack of authority provided by an institutional presence unleashed lawlessness that could be taken advantage of by the Germans. This was not the case in German-occupied France, for example, and French Jewry largely survived the war. His point for us, is that we rely on institutions for life and death. Not just because institutions enforce the rule of law. But more importantly because they provide us with a moral framework of values and attachment to community and to each other as citizens and neighbours. As Snyder puts it, the Nazis discovered that the easiest method to get rid of Jews was to make them stateless. It's why, they were mostly deported before being killed, instead of just killed on the spot. It's why Jews who were saved in numbers, were saved by government officials and diplomats who could issue to them papers that allowed them to escape to other countries (Wallenberg, Sugihara, de Sousa Mendes, Lutz, among others.)</p><p>Which is also why Israel is such a necessity. Why "From the River to the Sea" chants is such an affront to many of us. Why Israel is not just the front line of a war against the Jews, but the front line of a war on civilization and western values. Why the over-educated intellectual dupes who publicly attack Israel, and their morally-deficient, guilt-ridden, justice-warrior student underlings, who vocally support Palestine under the guise of free speech, don't understand how they are being manipulated by the very radical authoritarians who silence their opposition by killing them, and would do the same to them if they dared to speak 'freely' against them. This is what institutional rot looks like. They've latched on to a 'cause' that makes them feel good and important, without seeing the obvious: it's actually self-defeating. For 2,000 years Jews were targeted and scapegoated because we were weak. Today Jews are targeted and blamed because we are strong. If we've learned anything, if we can teach the west anything in 2023, it's to recognize who your enemies are, and to never believe what they say, except when they tell you who they are. </p><p><br /></p><p>[Postscript: Harvard's Gay resigned amid claims she was found to have plagiarized in her academic work.]</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-54936440219698532252023-12-23T14:54:00.000-08:002023-12-23T14:54:00.081-08:00Scheherazade<p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IR5GJAVH3hf81LC37DhI-CBEP7Cp6_2q/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Putin says, fight!</p><p><br /></p><p>and they fight</p><p>for some stupid reason</p><p><br /></p><p>and die </p><p>by the tens of thousands </p><p>without knowing why.</p><p> </p><p>I don't get it.</p><p><br /></p><p>So many of them</p><p>and only one of him.</p><p><br /></p><p>He plucks them</p><p>from the masses </p><p>one by one</p><p>like gnats </p><p>off an ox's ass</p><p>yoked and dumb.</p><p><br /></p><p>Maybe it's the money,</p><p>he's got more of it </p><p>than all of them combined</p><p><br /></p><p>owns a $500 million</p><p>6-story super yacht</p><p>called Scheherazade</p><p><br /></p><p>and they don't even realize</p><p>it's their money</p><p><br /></p><p>bamboozled</p><p>LOL.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-30000743610448428332023-12-15T08:13:00.000-08:002023-12-15T09:05:14.559-08:00Moral Clarity part 16: The dirty little secret<p>I'm still reeling from the disgraceful 'emergency' UN General Assembly vote demanding an immediate 'humanitarian' ceasefire in Gaza, a resolution supported by Canada, along with other paragons of international 'humanitarian' conduct and concern Russia and Iran. In a rare move, Canada broke with the United States, one of only 10 countries having the guts (moral clarity) to dissent. </p><p>I've always been a supporter of the UN. I have argued to anyone who would listen that no organization in human history has done more good for humanity than the UN. And we need it to work more than ever. From nuclear weapons and climate change, to trade and worldwide pandemics, our problems are global and the future of humanity has never been more interdependent. Nations will either cooperate internationally to solve these problems within a stable and orderly system of discussion, negotiation and cooperation according to conventions, norms and values such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or we will let the chips of conflict and chaos fall where they may, at our peril. The UN should (and I believe could still) offer our best hope for a safe and secure future. It has been relatively successful since the end of World War 2 on many accounts, ushering in an era of unprecedented global peace and prosperity. This doesn't mean there hasn't been international conflict and crises - that's guaranteed - which is precisely why we need a functioning UN. But as we've seen in the past few years, especially during our recent once-in-hundred-year pandemic, the UN's record has been a pretty dismal failure in several respects. </p><p>Perhaps the worst of it, consistently so, has been its longstanding deplorable record on Israel. It's as if the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, when the UN played an important role specifically with Resolution 181 the so-called Partition Plan, is the organization's dirty little secret, an episode from its past for which it carries deep regret and shame, and would bury or reverse, if it could. The irony is that in helping to midwife the State of Israel out of the ashes of the Holocaust, Israel should represent a laudatory achievement of the UN. The realization of its universal humanitarian goals based on a consensus-building approach (72% of members voted in favour of Resolution 181, more than the required two-thirds). Instead, the UN has acted to undermine Israel's sovereignty continuously, not in spite of the way it came into existence, but seemingly because of it. Israel is like the pebble in the UN's shoe. The annoying emblem of everything wrong with the way the UN works (or rather doesn't work). The failure of the UN to accept Israel - and by 'accept' I mean simply to apply to Israel the standards it applies to all other member states, the foundational principle on which the UN exists, namely Article 2 of the Charter which calls on all members to equally respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of other states - has been a primary reason for the perpetuation of conflict in the region. </p><p>The original sin of Israel is that it won a War of Independence. Palestinian Jews didn't want a war. They accepted the Partition Plan promoted by the UN. The Palestinian Arabs didn't. Israel declared its Independence and the Arabs responded by attacking it, which contravenes the UN Charter. The war resulted in the nascent State of Israel successfully establishing its Independence and also in approximately 750,000 Arabs becoming displaced, which is unfortunately not an unusual consequence of war. What is unusual, however, is that the UN felt it was responsible for what happened, so it created an agency devoted to the Palestinian Arab refugees called UNRWA (The UN Relief and Works Agency), separate from the UNHCR (The High Commission for Refugees) the agency that addresses the needs of all other refugees around the world. In addition to having their own permanent exclusive agency, Palestinians are unique in that they are the only refugees in the world who pass down their status as international refugees from generation to generation. As a result, the original 750,000 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war has now grown to approximately 6 million refugees. According to UNRWA's website nearly one-third of the registered Palestinian refugees, more than 1.5 million individuals, live in 58 recognized refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. From their own website: "Socioeconomic conditions in the camps are generally poor, with high population density, cramped living conditions and inadequate basic infrastructure such as roads and sewers." It's not terribly surprising that the Palestinian refugee camps have become the principle breeding grounds for hatred, resentment, and radical political and religious ideologies, as well as factories for the creation and recruitment of terrorist organizations.</p><p>You might ask, what was the alternative? What else could the Palestinians who were displaced do after the 1948 war with Israel? Well, what happens to any other group of people who are displaced as a result of war (and not necessarily one they started)? They are typically absorbed by other countries. For example, before the founding of Israel, millions and millions of Jewish refugees fled war and persecution in Europe for decades and were eventually absorbed by other countries all over the world (after also being rejected by many countries). In fact, Palestinian Arabs could have been absorbed by Israel, and 160,000 of them were. Today, approximately 1.6 million 'Palestinian' Arabs are now citizens of Israel, roughly 20% of the country's total population. UNRWA is literally an artificial life-support system for people in limbo. People who exist outside, and in the case of Israel, in opposition to, the UN's own stated purpose to ensure the territorial integrity of sovereign member states. It's a system that legitimizes Palestinian claims at the expense of Israel, a member state. </p><p>How unique is the case of the Palestinians with respect to Israel? In a word: Singular. Palestine is not a member of the UN but it has non-member observer status. It can make speeches but cannot vote. It is the only 'political' group with such status. The other non-member observer at the UN is the Vatican (called the Holy See). The natural question is, why haven't the Palestinians declared statehood just as Israel did? The answer: They did, on the 15th of November 1988, a state comprised of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. But at the time it did not exercise control over any territory. That changed with the negotiations of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Palestinian representatives recognised Israel's right to exist, and Israel recognised the PLO as representative of the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established to govern their territory. The State of Palestine has already been recognized by 139 of the 193 UN members. The two-state solution <i>de facto</i> exists right now which means Palestinians in Gaza are not refugees, they've just been subject to dysfunctional (and outlaw) governance since Hamas took over in 2006. UNRWA should be dissolved immediately as a step toward peace.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-82578747917956927132023-12-12T10:25:00.000-08:002023-12-15T08:36:02.912-08:00Moral Clarity part 15: Thinking about where you actually stand<p>I truly didn't want to continue making these posts, but it seems I can't help myself, the world being where it is, and the situation always developing, or rather deteriorating. We live in a world in which a lot is said publicly about everything, there are already too many words spewed liberally, imprecisely and often intentionally to obscure, confuse and sow distrust by muddying the waters. How is adding more words going to help? I ask myself. Maybe if those words are intended to remind us to take a step back to sort out the confusion. To think not of words but to focus on actions and their consequences to help us reflect on where we actually stand in a moral sense. For example, consider: </p><p>If you were a Jew who supported Donald Trump, you stood with a President (and party) who presided over the worst massacre of Jews on American soil in its history (the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting).</p><p>Or how about, if you were a Jew who supported Netanyahu, you stood with a Prime Minister (and party) who presided over the worst massacre of Jews on Israeli soil in its history (October 7th).</p><p>One may wonder if these facts are connected.</p><p>Sometimes words do match actions, and we just haven't been paying enough attention. For instance, since 2005 when Israel abandoned Gaza, Hamas has continually and regularly attacked Israel with rockets. These were all unprovoked attacks. October 7th was only the culmination of an ongoing gradual process. You might argue that the Israeli blockade of Gaza was a kind of provocation because it made life 'unlivable' for Palestinians. The facts demonstrate otherwise. The blockade was ineffective in the only way it was meant to be effective, stopping Hamas from building its war machine and network of tunnels. While there was a blockade Hamas's leadership got rich on stolen public funds, and built a formidable infrastructure to wage war against Israel. Also, consider that there is at least one Gaza border that Israel had no control over, with Egypt. The life of Palestinians in Gaza was made 'unlivable' not by Israel, but by Hamas, because Hamas was devoted not to the wellbeing of Palestinians but to their stated mission and purpose, to destroy Israel and kill Israelis. </p><p>And then there is the case of where the UN actually stands, despite its pronouncements. The UNRWA is either wittingly or unwittingly complicit in Hamas atrocities. Its schools, hospitals and shelters have been used by Hamas terrorists to attack Israel and shelter militants. It needs to be dismantled and the effort to support Palestinians as generational refugees needs to end. In an unprecedented way, no other agency is more responsible for turning the Palestinian people into international parasites, and for maintaining that status quo for generations. Their lot has never improved since 1948, only deteriorated. </p><p>In a rare move, the UN Director General evoked a special article to demand an emergency vote in the Security Council and the General Assembly (GA) on an immediate 'humanitarian' ceasefire in Gaza. The US vetoed the resolution in the Security Council. But this will be the first time in history that the GA will vote in favour of one of its member states standing down from defending its sovereignty after being attacked by a non-state terrorist actor, essentially siding with terrorists.</p><p>Words matter. And actions matter more in the final analysis. </p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7920723001020621055.post-27442901610770219192023-12-08T10:12:00.000-08:002023-12-08T12:33:13.062-08:00Moral Clarity part 14: Emotional stakes<p>Unbelievably, yesterday we learned from the presidents of three of the most prestigious Ivy League universities in the US that calling for the 'genocide of Jews' does not violate their school's code of conduct. I'm referring to the testimony given to House Committee on Education and the Workforce by Harvard president Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, and MIT president Sally Kornbluth. Specifically, when asked <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg_jorma2eA&t=26s" target="_blank">a direct question, the presidents hedged</a>, answering that unless it was directed at an individual, or it was acted upon, a call for 'genocide' would not constitute a violation of rules of conduct. Magill and Gay called it "a context dependent decision." Calling for the genocide of Jews needs 'context'? Seriously?! One can only wonder what 'context' would make it acceptable. Or better, it has to be acted upon. Genocide? And we wonder why antisemitism on university campuses has exploded virtually unchecked, especially since October 7th. The university presidents demonstrated the mechanism through which antisemitism has been mainstreamed as a kind of moral relativity and obtuseness promoted by the academic institutions that we rely on to educate the next generation of supposed leaders. It's a shameful abdication of responsibility. It might also have something to do with recent reports of American universities receiving <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/top-u-s-universities-received-over-8b-in-funding-from-arab-countries/ss-AA1ivRgu" target="_blank">$billions from Arab governments</a>. Tracking the ways in which this money has influenced the decisions made by academic institutions is certainly worth pursuing. </p><p>I didn't think I'd have more to say about this, and then, sure as snow in winter, I got a message from my daughter who is in university (graduating this month thank god, it's not soon enough.) Among other things, she wrote that she felt ashamed of being Jewish and her unwanted association with a 'genocide' being perpetrated in Gaza. She even used the term 'holocaust' to describe it, saying that the Jews were doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis had done to them. I realized quickly that there was no point in trying to correct my daughter's misconceptions. She was not receptive. I did however try to answer her, in a way that would keep the channels of communication open. I tiptoed around the issues of what actually constitutes a 'holocaust' and 'genocide'. I wrote, "What concerns me most is when taking a viewpoint about an issue, which everyone is entitled to do, that it can become so emotionally charged when others disagree, that it changes the way you see others to the point of demonizing them. You start seeing them as morally deficient, even as an enemy. Demonizing people who disagree with you is one of the biggest problems we face in my view. It's the source of intolerance that tears families apart, and even nations, and leads to autocracy and fascism." Our exchange felt like my daughter and I were sleepwalking, arms locked, into a house on fire and we would both be consumed in flames. That's what happened. After some increasingly heated exchanges, she wrote that I lacked 'moral goodness' in her eyes, and she doesn't want to 'associate herself' with people like that (meaning me). </p><p>My daughter clearly has a lot emotionally invested in her opinion. And that's the crux of my greatest fear. For a while I've been trying to pinpoint exactly when rational discussion and healthy debate became replaced with feelings of offense and being personally threatened? I figure it relates to the lens through which most subjects of a liberal education have been taught in our higher education institutions for several decades; as a function of the way the powerful dominate the powerless, the oppressor oppresses the oppressed. Our 'white privilege' (read: victimizer) is to blame, which relates to the ascendancy of identity politics in all its forms, religious, racial, gender etc., and the inherent moral righteousness of minority groups by virtue of their victimization. </p><p>But I've also thought that there must be something else to it. An ingredient in some people that makes questions of politics emotionally charged in the extreme and overly personal. People like Gabor Maté, himself a child-survivor of the Holocaust, in whom their politics merges with their personal trauma and shame. These people seem to have a grandiose sense of self (probably related to an inherit insecurity), so that their opinions about politics become a matter of moral rectitude, and opposing viewpoints aren’t debatable on the merits, but rather represent an affront and are reprehensible and need to be scorned. To them it's not a question of policy, of political right and left, but a matter of moral right and wrong. To acknowledge an opposing perspective is tantamount to being personally invalidated.</p><p>I don't think I'm imagining it, but there was a time when a difference of opinion was just that. You could agree to disagree, let bygones be bygones, and do it over drinks. I know the informational siloing of social media also plays a part in the breakdown of civil discourse. Not to mention the depersonalization of social interaction that attends our contact mediated through screens in more and more domains of everyday life. The net result is that we are becoming emotionally ever more fragile and less resilient as our exposure to difference becomes increasingly filtered. We are hardening like glass, and our democracy is at risk of shattering. </p><p>In response to backlash, the presidents of the Ivy League universities have made statements since their debacle before Congress. Liz Magill said that in the moment she was focused on the thorny issue of First Amendment Constitutional free speech rights, and wasn't thinking about how a call for genocide actually meant a call for mass-murder (I paraphrase). When we lose sight of the meaning of a word like 'genocide' - whether it's in the flippant way my daughter used it, on the one hand, or in the way the president of an Ivy League university neglected to consider the obvious because she was intellectually trying to dodge legal and political land mines, on the other - we're all in trouble.</p>B. Glen Rotchinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05815057617780242871noreply@blogger.com1