Posts Tagged ‘history’

History is what it is

Posted: June 20, 2010 by datechguy in opinion/news
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and no amount of prejudice is going to rewrite what it is:

One may disagree on fences and rights of return. There have been handshakes, summits, accords, cease-fires, negotiations and boycotts. It’s all been on the table, under the table or sometimes tabled. But the connection between the Jew and Israel is valid, historical, ancient, modern, spiritual and eternal. The relationship is beyond the state of Israel. It is a unique relationship of a religion to a land. The Jews are “bnai yisroel,” the children of Israel. Even when they are away, they are connected. Even during exiles and diasporas, they are connected. Even during inquisitions, pogroms and a Holocaust, they are connected.

My grandmother used to kibitz, “Friends you choose; family you’re stuck with.” The Jew is stuck with Israel. There is no ungluing the connection. It is beyond the ambiguous term “chosen people”; they are “the people who have no choice.” It is more than a religious belief; it is a value and a moral barometer of the Earth. History, truth, integrity and the foundation of our world are not negotiable

If the people of Israel were anything other than what they are we would not be having this debate because the Arabs would have been exterminated more than half a century ago. Instead they have to ask the eternal question:

Tevye: I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?

Considering that the Rabbi in question was a liberal Don Surber hits the nail on the head:

They say a conservative is a liberal whose been mugged.

Helen Thomas mugged every Jew in the world.

Bingo!

Jim Hoff finds another story…

Posted: June 14, 2010 by datechguy in opinion/news
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…that fits the “If you start from the idea…” meme to a T:

Students are directed to chant “I am an Obama scholar.”

do the people who run the school system over there have any memory of history? A commentator there nails it perfectly:

Quick quiz: name five countries, past or present, where the youths were required to chant praises to their omnipotent ruler? Any five. Then add together the number of innocent people those regimes slaughtered for political expediency.

Repeat after me: “If you start with the idea…”

Something hit me today…

Posted: June 13, 2010 by datechguy in oddities
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Civil War Monument at Monument Square

When I attended and covered the Twin City Flag day event in Monument Square in Leominster something that I had thought of a few days a go struck me.

If you do any amount of driving in Massachusetts and New Hampshire it is totally impossible to pass through any city or small town without seeing monuments to civil war vets or any others for that matter. In Fitchburg for example we have monuments to Civil War vets, Spanish American War Vets, WW 1 vets, WW 2 vets and Vietnam vets.

WW 2 Monument in Fitchburg

I spent a week in Georgia, I drove through many towns, other than the large Stone Mountain Memorial I didn’t see a single statue in a single square. Not one, zip zero nada. The only marker of any type I saw was a marker for the grave of unknown confederate dead at a cemetery as I passed in Stone Mountain

Unknown confederate dead at Stone Mountain

Now I presume that the people of Georgia once they were done rebuilding from General Sherman’s war, found the funds to put up some kind of monuments in towns etc. Am I wrong about this or were the monuments once there removed for the sake of better relations once the political winds changed? Was a compromise reached where monuments at graveside and significant historical ones such as Stone Mountain would stay and the rest go? I have no idea

I’m sure something like that must be the case, but it just struck me as odd. Does anyone out there know for sure?

Old Habits die hard

Posted: June 8, 2010 by datechguy in oddities
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Last night was kinda busy for me as I had a Knights of Columbus and a Madonna Della Cava meeting scheduled at the same time. (The feast is on the August 15th). We finished at the Knights just in time for me to catch the tail end of the meeting concerning the festival.

After the meeting one of the members that I was close to expressed utter shock that #1 I liked Sarah Palin and #2 I was a republican. It is something I’ve run into on occasion although less these days as more and more people are on the net and are exposed to different points of view.

This is what happens when you try to paint people who don’t have the “approved” set of beliefs a particular way. It leads to such an insulated situation that when you see the reality, it comes as a shock and a half.

It also illustrates to me how history bends over time. She remembers the democratic party of her youth, she remembers the days when democratic were not ashamed of believing Catholics, when Unions actually made a difference in the lives of workers. Those days in my opinion, are gone.

It took me 12 years for my presidential vote to go from Democratic (Mondale) to republican (Dole) and a further 6 years before I changed my registration. It took more than half a century for my mother to be weaned from a party that thinks she is a racist/bigot/homophobe hick and has taken her for granted for years. It may take my friend another 20 years to see what I’m seeing or maybe she will never agree with me on politics at all.

Either way that’s ok, but I doubt she will ever be able to keep that same world view of republicans again.

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