Martin Luther King's Birthday, Dealing With Jihad, Poor Mimi and Thoughts on 2016 Candidates

                                                           

Dealing with the Jihadists

Putting it succinctly, the angry, impoverished and often unemployed Muslims who attempt to join up with or emulate the aims of the  Islamic State (ISIS) or Al Qaeda are extremely vulnerable to two particular tenets of the Jihadists:  (1) violent retribution to those who insult their prophet, Muhammad, ignoring the fact that at least 75% of the world’s population do not accept him as such, and (2) anti-Semitism because of the presence of the State of Israel on territory which they believe belongs to Muslims. These are two specific issues which fuel their movement, within its broader anti-Western agenda.

Meeting this challenge requires making these people understand that the Western concept of free expression allows people to speak their minds and if they cannot accept this, they must return to an existence in the primitive nomadic tribe-inhabited world of their ancestors where such freedoms did not exist.  There is no room for that mindset in the West, and in countries in other regions which aspire to democracy.  And if they are comfortable with despots, so be it.

It also requires that they recognize that the State of Israel, which aside from its historic justification, has an irreversible legal basis established by the United Nations in 1947 and that the absence of an accompanying Palestinian state is entirely the fault of the Arab nations who refuse to acknowledge the permanent existence of Israel and who have attempted on numerous occasions to destroy it.

Be that as it may, solving these two problems may take decades, if not centuries.  How then, should the West immediately respond to the violence threatened and perpetrated by Jihadist groups such as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda whose agendas includes establishing a world-wide Muslim Caliphate?

Because the United States and its Western allies are reluctant to put troops in any great number on the ground to destroy the Islamic State’s forces and the bases of Al Qaeda, the only immediate answer I see is the thorough and complete “carpet” bombing of all Islamic State installations in Iraq and Syria, as well as all known locations of bases and training grounds for Al Qaeda’s Jihadists throughout the Middle East and Africa.  We have the technology to locate all of the targets in these areas.  Such bombing would be on a scale even greater than that which destroyed the German city of Dresden during World War Two, and must continue over a period of years, not months, until its aims are accomplished.   After the rubble is cleared, in the absence of a political and economic structure, the United Nations should administer all of these areas until realistic borders can be established and a rational basis for the establishment of nations agreed upon.  


Rubble of Dresden after 1945 bombing

As a corollary to the bombing of the Jihadists, Western nations will have to review their relationships with the Arab nations which are our "friends" to some extent but also supporters of the Jihadists at the same time.  Qatar and Saudi Arabia come to mind as nations which cannot be fully trusted and must be taught a lesson, sooner or later.  Meanwhile, Egypt and Jordan, while far from democracy, can be useful allies in view of their unspoken but nonetheless existing acceptance of Israel.  Hopefully, Turkey will eventually be in that category, but right now it is not.

Bombing as described above would force the West to face the same problem the Israelis faced when they attempted to destroy Hamas’ rocket launching facilities in Gaza in 2014.  To do so necessitated bombing raids in which civilians, despite advance warnings to leave an area, would be killed.  Similar warnings preceded the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during World War Two.  Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, such warnings are usually unheeded.  This is a tough decision, but it should not stop the bombing.

It would be expected that the Muslim Jihadist movement would not sit idly while such bombing is carried out.  Terrorist attacks in the West will occur as retribution.  To deal with this, there would have to be a tightening of security in Europe and North America to the extent that the personal freedoms we now enjoy may have to be temporarily limited, as they were during World War Two, but that is not too great a price to pay to preserve Western civilization.  We see this already happening in Western Europe and the United States will not be far behind.

As a footnote to this, the West must reach some kind of rapproachment with Iran, a nation which is on our side in terms of opposition to both Al Qaeda and ISIS, but not on our side when it comes to replacing the present leader of Syria, Bashir al-Hassad, support of Hamas and Hezbollah, and its continued animosity toward the State of Israel.  The problems of the Middle cannot be solved without the involvement of Iran, and once that nation is firmly committed to peaceful nuclear development, real negotiations for permanent Middle East peace can begin, with Israel as an active participant.  But as I said in the fourth paragraph of this piece, this might take decades, if not centuries.
Jack Lippman
                                                     

Thoughts on Martin Luther King's Birthday

Some years ago, during the late 1940s and the terrible 1950s, there was a Congressional committee dedicated to rooting out subversives.  It was called the House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC for short.  Its existence marked some of the darkest days in American democracy.

But we have need for that committee again today, in the second decade of the 21^st century, because there are a lot of “Un-American” activities going on today.  And on this holiday celebrating Martin Luther King, it might be useful to look at some of these activities.

But first, let’s look at the what I feel to be the core of American Democracy.  It appears in the Declaration of Independence  in the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  It appears in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address when the sixteenth President said that “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”  
It  appears in Martin Luther King’s 1963 speech when he said that “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Get the idea? All men are created equal. Many are quoting Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech today, but I am here including the full text of Lyndon Johnson’s “Voting Rights” speech, two years later, which makes some of the same points.  Of course, the Voting Rights Act was passed.  But I think that, on the day dedicated to Martin Luther King, Johnson’s speech must also be remembered.  Here it is:

 

(Delivered March 15, 1965, Washington, D.C.)

I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.

I urge every member of both parties—Americans of all religions and of all colors—from every section of this country—to join me in that cause.

At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.

There is no Negro problem. There is no southern problem. There is no northern problem. There is only an American problem.

And we are met here tonight as Americans—not as Democrats or Republicans—we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.

This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, north and south: "All men are created equal" — "Government by consent of the governed" — "Give me liberty or give me death."…

Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in man's possessions. It cannot be found in his power or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being….

Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.

Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes….

Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot overcome systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law that we now have on the books—and I have helped to put three of them there—can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it.

In such a case our duty must be clear to all of us. The Constitution says that no person shall be kept from voting because of his race or his color. We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend that Constitution.

We must now act in obedience to that oath.

Wednesday I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote….

To those who seek to avoid action by their National Government in their home communities—who want to and who seek to maintain purely local control over elections—the answer is simple. Open your polling places to all your people. Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin. Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land. There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States rights or National rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.

I have not the slightest doubt what will be your answer….

But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.

Their cause must be our cause too, because it is not just Negroes but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome….

This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all—all black and white, all North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies—poverty, ignorance, disease—they are our enemies, not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too—poverty, disease, and ignorance—we shall overcome.

Well, President Johnson hit the nail on the head in the part of his speech directed to “those who seek to avoid action by their National Government in their home communities – who want to and who seek to maintain purely local control over elections.”  These people are still around, but nowadays they are playing games with early voting hours and the kind of ID required at the polls in order to make it more difficult for certain citizens to vote.  The voting fraud they claim justifies such measures is virtually non-existent.  Their actions are just an Un-American subterfuge to get around the words of the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and the words of Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson, all quoted above.  Do we need a new House Un-American Affairs Committee to investigate these subversives?

JL

                                                       
                                                           

Opera News

We saw a wonderful performance of La Boheme at the Palm Beach Opera this weekend.  Of course, the final curtain descends as poor Mimi dies of consumption in her lover’s frigid Paris loft, without having received medical care.  Well, it’s 120 years later now, and it is reassuring to know that if the same thing happened today, Mimi and Rudolpho would be eligible for medical care under the French health insurance program, and if the opera took place in the United States, benefits under the Affordable Care Act would have prevented the tragedy … and Musetta would not have had to sell her earrings in an last-minute effort to get money to buy some medicine for poor Mimi. 

JL

                                                        

The 2016 Race

The race for the Republican nomination is now shaping up as a contest between those who will be able to raise sufficient funds to run ... and that limits the contestants to Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie.  The others (Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, etc.) are to the right of these three and have no chance of raising the necessary money to run, but can influence their right wing advocates to support Romney, Bush or Christie ... rather than sit out the election.  So watch the rightward drift of these three over the next year and a half.  Immigration and taxation will be the major issues since none of them will be willing to get more specific on foreign policy, other than opposing Islalmic radicalism and supporting Israel.

The Democratic nomination is Hillary's for the taking, but in the event for some reason she does not want it, the Democrats will end up choosing between Elizabeth Warren and Vice-President Biden.  Neither would be able to defeat Romney or Bush but either would run a toss-up race against Christie.  But I remain convinced that Hillary will run, but it will be a revamped, centrist candidacy, supporting changes in the Affordable Health Act and stressing spending on environmental and infrastructure issues as ways of strengthening the economy.
JL
                                                  

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Jack Lippman 

Je Suis Charlie, Anti-Semitism and a Short Story from the Archives

                       
                                     

Je Suis Charlie

Western civilization, as practiced in most of Western Europe and North America, affords freedoms and opportunities not readily available in much of the rest of the world.  That’s why so many wish to emigrate from wherever they are to North America and alternatively to Western Europe.  An immigrant living in a slum in the United States or in Western Europe is guaranteed more freedoms and has more opportunity than they would have in less developed and less democratic countries.  

One of these freedoms is the freedom to express one’s ideas, however radical they may be.  Nazis are free to spout anti-Semitic ideas in Skokie, Illinois (although not in Germany today).  Media is free to expound ideas, however extreme they may be.  The line is placed where such freedom of expression creates a danger for the community.  An example of this might be shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre or auditorium, and creating a stampede for the exits.

Charlie Hebdo published extreme satire in its magazine, exercising its freedom to do so.   Its cartoon depictions of Mohammed were vulgar, nasty and obscene.  But that is what that publication is all about.  It has been equally vicious in satirizing other religions and institutions by words or by cartoons. Almost as often as it pokes fun at Islam and its Prophet, It frequently equates Israel with Nazi Germany.  But in Western society, it is permissible to do so.  Such freedoms should not be abridged because of the danger exercising that freedom brings about from those who are so offended by such media vulgarity that they feel they must personally take violent action against the offenders, since  a freedom-guaranteeing government will not.

They do not understand that accepting such vulgarity is the price they must pay to live in a country where personal freedom reigns.  Usually, this is because they feel that their loyalty to their religion or political goals overrides the freedom of others to express themselves in any manner they wish.   Such individuals do not deserve to live in a free country!  They should be meticulously screened out and not permitted entry into Western European and North American countries as students, immigrants, workers or tourists.  And if they are already citizens of a country and act that way, their behaviors should be harshly punished for the criminal deeds that they are. 

Nations which agree with the religious and political loyalties of such individuals in Western democracies, and in any way shape or form support them, should be considered enemies and treated accordingly by the civilized nations of Europe and North America, regardless of whatever economic or political reasons have justified our having relations with them up to now.  And this includes nations from whom we purchase petroleum!  If they support terrorism in any form, they are our enemies.

Although I may be offended by some of what Charlie Hebdo publishes, its right to do so must be protected along with my right to express myself however I may choose to do, and therefore, JE SUIS CHARLIE.

........

Here are a few of the gentler cartoons, including an anti-Semitic one, from Charlie Hebdo, accompanied by my translation. They are pretty nasty ... but worth killing for in civilized countries?  No way.
Jack Lippman

Love is stronger than hatred.                                 100 lashes if you don't die laughing first.




Slaughter in Egypt"  The Koran is made of shit and can't stop bullets.



Untouchables: You can't make fun of Muslims nor Jews



                                                         
Anti-Semitism is Not Dead
The terrorist who, in attempting to help the criminals who murdered much of the staff of Charlie Hebdo, chose to seize a kosher supermarket, killed four male customers and proceeded with a hostage-taking scenario.  A Muslim, he chose his target because as a Muslim, he had an antipathy toward Jews, primarily based on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and considered all Jews to be fair game.  This is despite the fact that Arabs in Israel have more freedoms than Arabs in Muslim nations and a Palestinian state, once it fully recognizes Israel and ceases attacking it, would probably also offer freedoms other Muslim nations do not.  Anti-Semitism has long existed in France (Dreyfus incident, cooperation with Nazi occupiers during WW2, tolerance of extreme right-wing anti-semitic political groups and a myopic readiness to condemn Israeli acts of self-defense as aggression) and unfortunately, there are Frenchmen today who were not unhappy with the terrorists choice of a target for his hostage-taking.  Therefore it is not surprising that despite the show of unity among all groups and nations in reaction to the events of last week, many French Jews are uncomfortable living there and are considering leaving the country, primarily for the State of Israel.  

 
Albert Dreyfus, accused of treason in the late 19th Century




    
Maimonides left Spain for North Africa when discrimination started there

It has been said that American Jews are fortunate in that they live in a country where their freedoms are strongly guaranteed.  But for centuries, Jews living in the Diaspora have felt that way about temporary homelands.  Eventually they were proven wrong.  This was true for Jews living in Spain, in North Africa (Moroccan Jews are satisfied with their status there at present) and in European countries.  It was inconceivable that the Holocaust could have occurred in a civilized European nation ... but it did.  The atmosphere in France cannot be ignored.

Therefore, beyond proclaiming support for freedom of expression (Je Suis Charlie), Jews throughout the world should take the events of last week as further reason to support the State of Israel, as a place where all Jews will always be welcome.  
JL

                                                                  
A Short Story                                                           

(from my archives)

Circus  

Jack Lippman 

“Yeah, Charlie, it’ll be real fun.  It isn’t Barnum and Bailey but it’s still a real circus and it’s free for kids tomorrow.  There’s no school so we can take a bus over to the stadium about noon.  Tell you what!  I’ll meet you in front of the candy store on Bergen Street across from the Esso Station at a quarter to twelve.  Okay?”

I didn’t know Charlie very well, but he did go to the same school as I went to and he seemed to be a nice kid, even though he was sort of a loner without any real buddies.  And I certainly didn’t want to go to the circus alone.  Charlie looked at me, somewhat surprised, but readily agreed, “That’ll be great. I don’t think my Ma would mind.  I’ll be there!”

That night Jerry called me.  Seventh graders, still not really free from parental controls, made a lot of their social arrangements on the phone. 

“Wanna go to the circus at City Stadium tomorrow?” Jerry asked.  “Herbie and Harvey are going too.  We decided we’re all meeting in the schoolyard at eleven-thirty and we’ll catch the bus on Bergen Street.  Okay, Jack?

“Yeah, sure,” I said into the phone, a little annoyed that I was being asked belatedly to join in something three of my friends had decided to do without even letting me in on it beforehand.  I knew that if they had, I never would have arranged to go to the circus with Charlie. “I was going anyhow, Jer, but we’ll have a ball, all four of us going together!  See ya in the schoolyard tomorrow!”

The next morning, as I gulped down my cornflakes, my mother asked me if anything was wrong.  She thought I looked a little down.  I guess it showed that I was worried about what I had said to Charlie about meeting him.  An hour later, as the four of us left the schoolyard, I was still trying to figure out how I could go to the circus with Jerry, Herbie and Harvey without abandoning Charlie.

“Hey, guys,’ I called out. “Let’s walk down and catch the bus by the candy store across from the gas station. We got time to get some candy for the ride.”  I hoped that Charlie wasn’t going to be there.  Maybe his mother had said he couldn’t go to the circus.  But if she said that to him, why didn’t he call me up last night?  Maybe he couldn’t find my number.  But if I could get the guys to walk the few blocks, and if Charlie were there waiting by the candy store, we could all get on the bus together and I could handle that.

“Nah,” Jerry blurted out. “I can see a bus coming now.  We’ll never make it if we walk down there.  And there won’t be another one for half an hour.”

We all got on the bus together and as it passed the candy store, I saw Charlie standing there, looking around in vain for me, and holding the hand of his six year old kid brother. 

For the rest of the term, I avoided Charlie and because his family moved away over the summer, I never did find out whether or not he and his brother made it to the circus that day.   I have no recollection whatsoever of that circus performance but, in my mind’s eye, I can still clearly bring back the painful image of Charlie and his brother, abandoned by me, hurt, standing in front of the candy store.  

(This story was written about ten years ago as part of the writing projects carried out by the Cascade Lakes Writers' Group.  That organization is being resurrected and it is possible that some of the work it produces will appear on this blog.)

JL

                                                       

HOW TO BE ALERTED TO FUTURE BLOG POSTINGS.

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HOW TO VIEW OLDER POSTINGS.                                                

To view older postings on this blog, just click on the appropriate date in the “Blog Archive” midway down the column off to the right, or scroll down until you see the “Older Posts” notation at the very bottom of this posting.  The “Search Box” in the right side of the posting also may be helpful in locating a posting topic for which you are looking.

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Jack Lippman