Thursday, September 18, 2008

What can we learn from Obama [emancipation replay?]

Obama's "change" book... is it going to work? or be enough?
So the election campaign is going full force in the US. Barack Obama is one of the most articulate and relevant candidates in a long time. His "change we can believe in" campaign has ignited the imagination and stirred the spirits of Americans like never before. But you ask: "what does this have to do with Israel? or Tel Aviv?" ~ well, I think P L E N T Y ! If we think in terms of time and history, Barack Obama is the heir of a long chain of black reformers going back to the American slave era. Some do not like to bring up this dark period in American history, but bear with me and keep on reading. I would like to equate the dark time in American history to what the Palestinians seem to be having now. Mostly because of politics and somewhat because of personal ideology the Palestinians seem to feel like the whole world is against them and that the Israelis are heading the lynch mob. Well, what do you think it was like for the blacks of south before the American Civil War? I don't think that the Palestinians can hold a candle to them. As I follow the history from Abraham Lincoln, Fredirick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr. -- fast forward to Barack Obama, you see how the treatment of blacks has gone through ups and downs and seemed to be a series of endless disapointments. Does this sound like the story for Gazans??? Of course it does. But everyone wants the Palestinians to have the same status, opportunity, and lifestyle of the afluent blacks in the good ole' US of A. Of course we all want this, but we seem not to want to go through the "process" or the "change". You may remember that the blacks in the US had the Black Panthers? To most white Americans this was downright terrorism perpretrated by a minority group that seem not to take reponsibility for their own state of affairs.
The point I am making is that change can come. Sometimes slowly and sometimes dramatically. Barack Obama's position and personality as a change vehical is credible only because he does follow a long line of black change ideologist. His ideas and words are an echo of Lincooln's and King's ideas, but this time he is pitting one group against another on an economic and political scale, not on race or religion. He does clearly state that things can not go as they have been going up to now. There are plenty of "signs" that he has a point. I guess he is trying to say, just like the people in Israel and in most of the Middle East: "the era of wars and political terrorism is over". It's hard to say this while the World Trade Center towers in New York are still "a hole in the ground" and the headstones in Israeli grave yards are still white and fresh. It's hard to tell the Iraqis that a dictator is gone and they need to figure out how to live differently. It's hard to tell Iranians that Israel is not going to volley a nuclear bomb at them as they have expected for a long time, probably just because they are fundamentally Muslim. All these ideas can't be changed in a month or a year or even a decade. So I hope to see the Palestinian King or Obama some time in the next 20 years. If you want it faster go get him -/- she is probably living in Gaza or Lebanon and is doing her wash just about now. Or maybe she is on the beach in Quatar (OK I had to get that one in).


For these Americans who bristle at my use of "black" to describe the now popularly accepted "African American" please don't write any comments, they are not going to tell me anything I don't know. Blacks has been used in American English for a long time, before that the term "Negro" was used from the Spanish and Portugese. The sad thing about a loss of historical perspective is how quickly people forget that things actually "got better". I like to point out that life has "changed" for many, not just the "African Americans". Without the people who change them, who said the very short phrases [of the people, by the people, for the people / I have a dream] that encapsulated a big idea into a moto, probably the change would have taken much longer. So read, don't judge (me) and think for yourself. (if you got a good article, write to me :-)


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Friday, September 5, 2008

A state for all people - not just religious ones

Sixsty years ago Israel became a sovereign state for the Jewish people. Today the ultra orthodox (black hats) are trying to change our state to suit their religious community. They use boycotts, coercion, and violence to intimidate more secular Jews. Prospective Jewish converts are also pressured to follow strict Taliban like practices which originated as far back as the 16th century in Eastern Europe. While this sounds a little strange, specially in a modern democratic state, until now the liberal seculars and the conservative orthodox did not intrude on each other's daily lives.

The ultra orthodox are only satisfied when they can dictate to all of us secular Jews what we may eat, how we must dress, our relationships with the opposite sex, where we may shop for cloths or food, where we can go on vacation, and what music we may listen to (movies and television viewing is strictly forbidden). Men and women are forbidden to go to the beach together. Orthodox hate seculars in Tel Aviv, seculars to a great extent told these "Jewish mullahs" to take their dictatorial rule and shove it up their ... you know what!

The latest dictates by ultra orthodox Rabbis from various Hasidic sects is to declare all popular music treif (not kosher) and to forbid such music and dance at all facilities: hotels, restaurants, and wedding halls. The playing of this goyishe music will end with a boycott or worse for these facilities. They will essentially lose all secular business.

Sam-D-man says: time has come for the vast majority of Israelis to stand up to these Jewish ayatollahs -- TELL THEM ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! What we need is a new law, like the one that exists in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany. This law is called "Interference in a Advantageous Business Relationship". This is a civil law which states that unless you have a legitimate civil claim like breach of contract, you can not try to cause financial harm to a business. You can't just do something because you just don't like it. Calling for boycotts, making threats of various kinds, and committing violence will subject these people to civil damages for the loss caused.

If our politicians don't have the courage to legislate against this coercion we the people can stand up and do what we can. We can avoid as much as possible all those merchants who give homage to the ultra orthodox. If a restaurant, hotel, hall facility are pandering to these people try to avoid them and find an alternative.

Stand up for your rights, if you don't, no one else will. sam-D-man / Tel Aviv


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