#minus the Zionism

[reasonandempathy]

It is truly absolutely insane seeing exactly how much Zionism continues to be a prevalent and major, supported ideology, especially in and around Israel's current behavior of the ethnic cleansing/genocide in Gaza and even the saber-rattling about Iran, which Netanyahu has been trying to start a war with for decades now. This war is in nobody's interest, at all, period, unless that person is Bibi Netanyahu, a direct political ally of his, or is so committed to enacting violence (on either side) that they will almost happily see Israel and Palestine as a whole turn into a literally bloody wasteland.

Even limiting every other article/source to just Israeli press, Israel's attack on Iran is delegitimizing everything it's saying or proposing about attacking Rafah.

Taking over the Gaza Strip, the great "ground operation" that has left more than 34,000 Palestinian dead, was born in a diplomatic and strategic vacuum, with no plan for the "day after," no exit plan, and conducted by improvisation, with daily events replacing the empty square called "strategy" and dictating its content. The same is true for the killing of the Al Quds Force commander in Syria and Lebanon, Hassan Mahdavi (also known as Mohammad Reza Zahedi), which was not based on an understanding or recognition of the expected Iranian response, and which forced Israel to hurriedly built a response to the response – which also is not anchored in a strategy that takes into account the global and regional repercussions, especially the repercussions on Israel's own security.

The war and IDF are carrying out what is best for Netanyahu's political interests, not for Israel itself.

But history has shown us that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a world champion in missing opportunities. There have been so many since the first week after the atrocities of October 7. That's the problem with a striker who plays for himself. He's only concerned about the glory from scoring goals. He doesn't care if his team suffers a stinging loss. That's how it is when your eyes are constantly on the wrong ball – political survival, not Israel's interest. ... The Bibi-ist social media was beaming with unabashed pride on Sunday: If only Netanyahu had been woken up in time on October 7, Israel would have been protected from its enemies and everything would be beautiful.

Bibi's actions and escalation are actively endangering Israel as a whole.

Israel is facing a historic defeat, the bitter fruit of years of disastrous policies. If the country now prioritizes vengeance over its own best interests, it will put itself and the entire region in grave danger Unfortunately, Benjamin Netanyahu and his political partners have repeatedly proven that they are unfit to make such decisions. The policies they pursued for many years have brought Israel to the brink of destruction. So far, they have shown no regret for their past mistakes, and no inclination to change direction. If they continue to shape policy, they will lead us and the whole Middle East to perdition. Instead of rushing into a new war with Iran, we should first learn the lessons of Israel's failures over the past six months of war.

The war and escalation are actively harming the Israeli economy on the long-term

Ratings agency S&P Global cut Israel's long-term ratings to A-plus from AA-minus overnight into Friday, the confrontation with Iran heightened last weekend and amidst the already elevated geopolitical risks for Israel. In addition to the downgrade, S&P also published a negative outlook, meaning the agency believes it's likely there will be an additional downgrade in the future. S&P typically updates credit ratings on predetermined dates, with the exception being if an urgent update is needed. Israel's update was due to be published on May 10, and the agency said the political and security situation led to the urgent update. "We forecast that Israel's general government deficit will widen to 8 percent of GDP in 2024, mostly as a result of increased defense spending," S&P Global said in its statement.

Israeli courts are calling bullshit on the government's claims that they're taking steps to address the famine.

"This is the opposite of how people see the High Court of Justice. People think the state comes to court trembling with the fear of being reprimanded. But actually the court is very careful not to intervene." But the Supreme Court – serving as the High Court of Justice because it was responding to a petition – found a way to intervene. It didn't lash out at the state, it opted for soft activism. "The court, in its wisdom, entered through the opening that the state gave it," says Eyal Benvenisti, an international law professor at Cambridge University. "The justices told the state, 'You're saying you're taking steps; let's hear what you're really doing. And what you can do more of." ... Cohen-Lifshitz wondered why the state was so proud of its coordination with the aid agencies if in the same breath it rejected their reports about the acute humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza, arguing that these reports are based on Hamas' phony numbers.

Israeli claims that they're not going to takeover Gaza are laughably at face value, especially since the IDF is actively building fortifications in Gaza.

Satellite images and photographs shared on social media show extensive development and construction at two outposts the Israel Defense Forces is building on the strategic road that divides the Gaza Strip into two. The army calls the construction of these outposts in what it calls the "Netzarim Corridor" as a long-term achievement. The whole corridor is referred to as something that is here to stay. The Netzarim Road, in the heart of this corridor, bisects the Gaza Strip. The outposts were built along this road, which is intended to enable the IDF to control the movement of Palestinians from the south to the north and launch operations in different parts of the Strip.

And, of course, it isn't actually about Gaza or Hamas at all. Israel is still building new, Jewish communities in Jerusalem. There are many more to come.

A report by Ir Amim and Bimkom nonprofits, said that since October 7, planning agencies have advanced 17 master plans for Jews in East Jerusalem that encompass 8,434 apartments. The plans for almost 3,000 of these apartments have been submitted by the custodian general, which is responsible for managing Jewish assets abandoned when Jews were forced out of eastern Jerusalem during the 1948 War of Independence. Some other plans would expand large Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, like Gilo and Pisgat Ze'ev, by replacing low-rise buildings with high-rise ones. According to the Peace Now nonprofit, the invitation to bid shows that "Israel is advancing new settlements in East Jerusalem at top speed, and thereby perpetuating the bloody conflict with the Palestinians and the countries of the region."

And of course they're still speeding along any and every action to kick more Palestinians out of their homes, legal opinions be damned.

A court ruled that the Palestinian family's home is owned by a right-wing Jewish group that acquired the interests of a Jewish trust that bought the site prior to Israel's establishment in 1948. The Israeli justice who ordered the eviction stated he's not waiting for the attorney general's legal opinion

#i/p #israel #palestine #original content #zionism #anti-zionism #bibi netanyahu #ethnic cleansing #genocide

[disco-cola]

im german and really mad and disgusted about germanys extreme pro-israel (turned pro-genocide) stance but what some of you might not know is that this is actually something thats not always been this way. when germany was divided into east and west and the GDR/east germany was its own entity after 1949 (stayed a soviet satellite state though in contrast to the western part of germany which was under control of the usa/britain/france aka the kings of colonialism), the government of east germany actually described itself as "anti-zionist" because the GDR considered itself an "antifascist state" and viewed israel as a "fascist state" (so no, the politics there have not only just been racist and discriminating under netanjahu, its been a problem since its inception) that would have to be fought (never officially though). east germany existed as its own country between 1949-1990 and never recognized israel, however did recognize palestine and was an ally of the PLO, actively arming them to "fight" against the occupation and oppression. it was only when the wall came down and germany was re-unified as one country in 1990 and the rest of the eastern bloc fell apart in 1991 shortly after and the capitalistic west took over control and influence that the stance of germany as one shifted, and palestine is not recognized anymore ever since. i wrote a few days ago that there used to be the official UN-resolution 3379, declaring zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination. it was voted for through a big majority in 1975, the countries who actively voted against it were mostly located in north america and the european west plus australia (dont forget about australias history though, it explains this), whereas most of the rest of the eastern and southern part of the globe actively voted for it. you have to understand that in the entire soviet union and its satellite states (like east germany) anti-zionism was widely spread because zionism as a political ideology in real life practice went so much against communist values that they considered israel fascist and imperialistic, also due to its connection with the united states in particular. so just after the ussr and its satellite states fell apart, literally in december 1991 the same month the ussr officially ceased to be, the usa under (first) bush republican presidency came forward to pressure the UN to revoke resolution 3379. the statement by bush literally reads like gaslighting, completely twisting and re-making what zionism means in practice, and especially what it meant and continues to mean in reality for palestinians until this day, in fact he never adressed them at all. it was only then that a lot of countries did a complete 180 (minus most arabic countries) and after 16 years the resolution was revoked. not even 3 full years later, in 1994, israel began building a bigger barrier around gaza which then turned into the whole ass barb-wired-super-surveillance wall we still see today. so yeah. dont tell me all this is not connected to western imperialism and capitalism. like most evil in the world, that is its entire basis.

#free palestine #why is it always the two of you responsible for trouble @ USA @UK #the colonizers of yesterday just stand with the colonizers of today #fuck capitalism #fuck imperialism #fuck the entire west #my family is from east germany which might explain why they never argued with me about this

[cocteautwinslyrics]

Eurovision zionism discourse will begin again t minus 4 days

[p0ison-moon]

i overheard this random old dude outside of synagogue earlier today (right after services when everyone stands around and talks minus the kiddush part) saying that lots of young Jews, especially from day schools and similar places, are leaving the community because they open their eyes and learn real values and then they feel betrayed by the institutions that lied to them. and then I was going to go talk to him because a) literally that is exactly what I experienced and what I’m still dealing with, b) there are basically no adults or even teenagers at my synagogue who agree with me or can have like. productive conversations about Israel with me, and c) where did this guy get the courage to lecture a bunch of typical synagogue-goers about Zionism on Yom Kippur and can I please be more like that. but then he disappeared before I could get to him :(

#mercy.txt #oh well #maybe he’ll be back for simchat torah #and probably services tonight but I’m not going bc I’ll be busy #but like he absolutely hit the nail on the head #after I had my anti-Zionist awakening and subsequent drama (because I’m incapable of shutting up sometimes) #I didn’t go to shul for over a year bc I was so hurt and angry #like I’d been betrayed by people who I had trusted not to mislead me #and thanks to the way I’d presented my stance at the beginning of the whole thing everyone knew me as The anti-Zionist #so I felt very alone and targeted bc people would constantly belittle me and try to argue with me and it was just. exhausting. #and that whole time I was still working through all the stuff I’d been indoctrinated to believe & with every revelation I got more upset #also I was purposefully excluded from a lot of things #eventually I came back but I won’t participate in USY or my school’s JSU or anything because those are heavily Zionist spaces #& I do still feel alone because there’s so few Jews I know that share the same position #at this point I’m almost being an observant Jew out of spite. #synagogue and other Jewish spaces became very hostile to me #but I’m not going to be chased away you know? like that’s my heritage (not stolen land) and I won’t give up on it

[dragonloyal]

"𝐀𝐥𝐥  𝐨𝐟  𝐮𝐬  𝐰𝐡𝐨  𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞  𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡  𝐡𝐞𝐫  𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦  𝐄𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐬,  𝐰𝐞  𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞  𝐢𝐧  𝐡𝐞𝐫.  𝐒𝐡𝐞'𝐬  𝐧𝐨𝐭  𝐨𝐮𝐫  𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐞𝐧  𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞  𝐬𝐡𝐞'𝐬  𝐭𝐡𝐞  𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫  𝐨𝐟  𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞  𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠  𝐰𝐞  𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫  𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐰.  𝐒𝐡𝐞'𝐬  𝐭𝐡𝐞  𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐞𝐧  𝐰𝐞  𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞."

an  independent,  highly  selective  and  private  MISSANDEI  OF  NAATH  roleplay  blog.  low  activity,  21+  show  based  (  minus  that  clusterfuck  at  the  end  cause  seriously  what?  ),  fantasy  compatible  verses 

a  study  in;  unwavering  loyalty,  soft  to  be  strong,  the  scribe  with  the  sharpest  mind,  the  noble  bleeding  heart,  the  maiden,  it  is  the  only  proper  language  for  poetry.  the  butterfly  amongst  the  dragons,  all  men  must  die...but  we  are  not  men. 

Other blogs: @saud4des // @lucentsin

  CARRD.  (  under  co  )  temp  rules  below  the  cut. 

⁽   ͥ   ⁾  don't  be  a  dick.  i  have  a  zero-tolerance  policy  for  hatred  and  bigotry  of  any  kind.  racism,  sexism  (  including  internalized  misogyny  cause  this  site  is  stank  with  it  ),  homophobia,  transphobia,  zionism,  islamaphobia,  anti-semitism,  pedophilia,  and  the  fetishization  of  people  and  characters  based  on;  race,  sexuality  or  identity.  

⁽   ͥ    ͥ    ⁾  this  is  a  show  based  missandei  (  outside  of  what  d&d  decided  for  her  which  is  trash  and  we  don't  acknowledge  that  ),  all  head  canons  on  this  blog  are  mine  that  i  have  curated  over  years  of  writing  her  on  and  off.  please  don't  steal.  one  of  which  is  that  missandei  in  our  realm  would  be  on  the  spectrum  and  as  an  AUdhd  individual,  i  see  her  on  the  autism  spectrum. 

⁽   ͥ    ͥ    ͥ   ⁾  i  would  like  to  keep  this  blog  fantasy  based  and  therefore,  the  bulk  of  her  respective  verse  will  be  in  that  stratosphere. 

⁽   ͥ   ᵛ  ⁾  on  shipping;  i  love  it.  all  respective  kinds  and  building  dynamics  so  please  don't  be  afraid  or  ashamed  to  ask.  missandei  is  bisexual  and  demiromantic  so  she  needs  to  build  a  connection  with  others  to  be  intimate.  i'm  no  opposed  to  missandei  and  greyworm,  i've  just  never  had  the  chance  to  play  that  out  but  it's  clear  they  have  a  connection.  i  really  also  love  dany  x  missandei  or  missandei  x  any  targ  cause  she  is  loyal  to  those  dragons. 

⁽  ᵛ  ⁾  activity  will  be  low  and  i'll  likely  run  on  a  plot  system  to  keep  things  going  and  keep  a  partial  queue.  mild  formatting,  please  reblog  from  the  source  etc  etc. 

#frigga. #she/they #25+. #PSD: the birds and the girls by calisources.

[momowho34]

Here are some jewish myths you might still believe!!!!

(Pls read and reblog I’m tired of people echoing shit like this)

Jesus was not a rabbi. He lived a hundred years before rabbinic judaism even started to develop. Please stop saying this as if it lends him credence in our religion, because no. It doesn’t.

Yeah, Jesus was jewish, but he also rejected mainstream Judaism and hated it. Stop pretending he means anything to us. Idk if you guys have even read your own books, Matthew is like 60% about how the Pharisees are bad and wrong and evil for sticking to the traditions that have kept them alive for 100s of years. It’s also, y’know, historically inaccurate to the actual behavior of the Pharisees in that time period. Seriously man he is not ours and means nothing to us, keep your Jesus and stop trying to shoehorn him into judaism.

Our god is not yours “minus the Jesus.” In trinity terms; divide the Holy Spirit by the Father and then subtract the Son and that is a bare bones grasp of what god appears as for Jews.

Jews are not white as a whole. Are there white Jews? Yes. Are there jews who are literally every other skin tone? Also yes!! We are all over the place. India, numerous Middle Eastern countries, Morocco, Spain, and a lot more I can’t be bothered to list. You are actively hurting poc jews by pretending that all jews are European, holy shit stop doing that please!!! Most white jewish people are Ashkenazi, which is just one type of judaism.

Actually, the historical relationship between Jews and Muslims is a lot more complicated then you think it is. Sometimes we got along, sometimes we didn’t. Some would argue that Jews were treated better by Islamic caliphates in the Middle Ages then they were by Christian kingdoms. Stop trying to pretend we are and have always been “arch nemeses” or some fucking bullshit (that would be the Amalekites for us, actually, and not the Muslims) Also we’re honestly more similar to them when it comes to traditions then christians so like take that into account thanks

Hey guys listen to Romani when they talk about the Holocaust too!!!!! Please, they have a different experience/perspective and deserve to have their voices heard. Don’t pretend they don’t exist and that it didn’t effect them because uh.... it did. To a degree that I don’t think I can properly explain. Do not overlook them and then pretend it’s just because ur a “jewish ally” or whatever the fuck.

Stop pretending that we’re the same as Christianity. We aren’t. Stop stop stop holy shit stop. That’s not how any of this works at all. Christianity is so so so different, it takes like a handful of jewish beliefs and runs with them. Christianity is its own thing and so is Judaism, stoppp.

Not all Jews are zionists. some are explicitly anti-zionists. Not all zionists are anti-Semitic, but some of them are. Basically, jews aren’t inherently zionists and anti-Zionism isn’t inherently antisemitic. That being said, some people do use anti-Zionism as a cover for their anti-semitism. Watch out for those people, they’re not that hard to spot. That’s all I’m going to say about that, don’t want to start on this issue because it isn’t what this list is about.

Jews never actually lived by the literal laws of the Torah. We did not stone people. There is no archeological evidence of that and actually more evidence pointing to the opposite. jewish communities actually held capital punishment as being inherently immoral and was very very very rarely used in some communities. Understand that. Don’t ever say shit like “but the Jews used to live by the Bible too, and they stoned gay people!!!” No. No we didn’t. Ever. Nobody did that in ancient times.

Guess what, jews are not rich or greedy! what the fuck are you talking about??? Quit it please. This stereotype has literally been used since the Middle Ages to alienate Jews as a more privileged “other” that deserve their prosecution. Stop stop please stop, please!!!!! People actually believe this shit and commit hate crimes, stop, even as a sarcastic joke.

The Old Testament is not the same as the Torah/Tanakh. It’s just not? For one thing, the Old Testament is a translation of a cut down version of a translation of a different modified version, so no. Not the same. Also the books are ordered differently and the sections are mixed up.

God does not abandon the Jews in the Tanakh or the Old Testament for that matter. It’s like... sort of implicated to happen between the two testaments in Christianity. The Old Testament basically structured the books non-chronologically so that the last one would be Malachi because his prophecies are supposed to echo Jesus. We end the Tanakh on Nehemiah, and there is no “New Testament” for us because there’s only one and it ends at the end of the story.

Antisemitism is definitely still a thing. I don’t know who the fuck told you about this one? The Jews got treated like shit after the holocaust, and some of the few survivors 70 years later got reparations so now everybody’s acting like antisemitism doesn’t exist. It does. It really, really fucking does. Please listen to us.

Holocaust denial isn’t “a fringe conspiracy theory,” it’s genuinely awful and dangerous and hurts real people. I’m serious about this one, holocaust denial (and any genocide denial for that matter, whether it’s talking about the Armenian genocide or Holdomer or any others) is legit dangerous. Pay attention to it and have 0% tolerance for that shit

You are allowed to be invited to a jewish event if you’re not jewish! We literally do not care. Respectfully participating in traditions if you’re invited to is fine! The issue is when people take a jewish tradition and twist it into something for them. That’s a no-no, but getting invited to a seder/bar mitzvah/bris is fine. just show respect to traditions you see, even if you don’t entirely understand them. Do that and you’ll be fine.

Jews are a ridiculously diverse group of people with a lot of different beliefs! We all have vastly different ideas of fucking everything from god to the purpose of pomegranates (not a joke). Accept that we think differently form eachother and aren’t a monolith please

These are all the ones I could think of lol, jewish friends add more if you can think of some. Ok and encouraged to reblog for everyone.

#jews and judaism #judaism #jewish #jews #antisemitism #antisemites #christanity #not a shitpost #ok to reblog #ok to rebagel #xtianity #xtian #be respectful in the notes pls #it’s cool if you didn’t know this stuff before I was surprised at how many ppl didn’t #keep it in mind now though #common myths #myths and facts #pls reblog

[sunshine-tattoo]

a few common misconceptions about Jewish stuff that I have had to explain to non-jewish friends

1. Judaism is just Christianity minus Jesus.

False.

Judaism is a complex faith that has many differences from Christianity (all types) besides the J man.

These differences are not a bad thing but should not be ignored.

2. The Old Testament is word for word from Hebrew texts.

False.

Many of the stories in the old testament have been altered, rearranged, or written without historical context from the original Hebrew.

Again, this does not have to be a bad thing. I like to think of it as fanfiction/ creative interpretation.

But also again, they are not 100% identical.

3. Jews have the same concepts of afterlife as Christians.

False.

Jews actually have very little interest in matters of an afterlife. We believe that there is one and there are many complicated thoughts and traditions on the subject.

But we do not believe in a Heaven/ Hell system as Christians do.

Our concern is in doing "Good works" here on Earth. We will deal with the next step when we get there.

4. "Goyim" and "Gentile" are insults.

False.

Goyim just refers to people who are not Jewish.

Gentiles refers to goyim who are specifically Christian.

They are not meant to be insulting in any way.

Can they be used as insults? Sure. But so can literally anything. I could call someone a mango and it be an insult somehow. Context is always important.

5. Jews are still waiting on a Messiah.

False.

The Messiah idea was born from Roman occupation of ancient Israel.

The Jewish people were sick of colonization and were dreaming of someone to come along and throw the Romans out.

Whether you believe Jesus was the son of God or not, he clearly didn't free Israel as hoped so that dream kinda just went by the wayside.

The only reason it's even brought up 2000 years later is because of Christian faith.

The Jewish people have been though a lot since then, some good and some very bad. A Messiah is the last thing on anyone's mind.

6. All Jews are Zionist.

FALSE! BIG ASS FALSE!

Zionism is a political movement in Jewish communities that began in the 1800s. The idea was to establish a Jewish nation state, run by Jewish law.

The idea was born due to the anti-Semitic discrimination faced by the Jewish people at the time. Many felt displaced and longed for a home where they were the ones in charge.

After WWII, this supposedly was granted through creation of the country of Israel. Many Holocaust survivors moved there in the hopes that this would be a better life.

However, that is not actually the case. Israel, from its inception, has just been a pawn for the United States so they could have a powerful ally in the Middle East. It started as a result of the Cold War and remains to this day.

The actual name of the occupied land is Palestine. And it has been the home of Jews, Christians, and Muslims for centuries. Many of the native Jews did not support the development of Israel and fought against it, seeing it as just another way for outsiders to meddle in affairs not their own.

7. Christians and Jews worship the same God.

False. -ish?

Really it's complicated.

Judaism does not believe that God could exist as a human and/or impregnate a human woman.

God is much more unknowable than that and certainly too immense.

So a God who does do this is not ours.

However. If one is referring to the God of the stories found in the Old Testament, it is roughly the same one.

I guess? Again it's complicated.

#Judaism #jewish #free palestine #jewish history

[drinkywhiskers]

Fuck you Hollywood.

I finally get around to watching Wonder Woman and enjoyed it immensely. It's everything young me would have wanted from a badass female led superhero movie - if such a thing had existed *cough*

Then I do a little reading and find out Gal Gadot is most certainly NOT who I would want my younger self to be looking up to as a role model.

Seriously Hollywood? There wasn't ONE actress or unknown who could have fit the bill minus a history of zionism? Not ONE woman who could look bad ass with a sword and shield and genuinely believe in justice for all - regardless of race, colour, religion, sexuality or gender?

There must be around 500 million women in the world within a suitable age range for that part. But of course Hollywood would pick a problematic one.

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Birds flying high you know how I feel Sun in the sky you know how I feel Breeze driftin’ on by you know how I feel And this old world is a new world And a bold world For me And I’m feeling good I’m feeling good — Nina Simone, Feeling Good, 1965 The idiocy of our times – those tick-tick-tock-tock empty cranial caverns of the American collective delusion – have us clear thinkers and revolutionaries at heart on the ropes. How do we even sleep walk through the carnival that is Facebook, Saturday Night Live, endless Black Fridays, malls and movies, the spectacle that is un-news and the infantile capacity of adults from Ellen to Trump, from Rachel to Tom Friedman, from MSM punks to you-name-it-still-employed economist to control vast hundreds of millions – check that, billions – of destinies. Looting the tax coffers, hollowing out the middle class, rampant perpetual poverty and indebtedness, chronic illness, crashing climate, and a shit-storm of a planet now that we all think Capitalism is the only solution to death. We fiddle with holiday deals while holocaust looms, and we sit, kneel, genuflect, roll over, lie down and plead in our hog-tied American way. Bombs from the suburbs lifted into space with the deadly drone god while Southern California burns, Phoenix evaporates, and both ends of the country flop around like lice-plagued GMO fish on the sinking deck. Prognostication, this is the daily bread, by the millions – blogs, WoP, WSJ, NYT, endless on-line mutterings of the controlled opposition. We have become Pokémon dealers, shuffling the next culling of the economy, or placing bets on the insanity plea of Trump and Company, hoping for black rain and Sunday bloody Sunday. This is the time of Botox broadcasters, the male and female versions of the same plastic people, there, in their million dollar flats at night, conjuring up more of the same silly and insane narratives about things they know nothing about. They ply their trade like traveling prostitutes, selling their bits of Cellophane wisdom and glowing manicured selves like jesters, clowns. The more they try and sound Ivy League and display Driveling Room Temperature IQ, the more difficult it is to understand them. The elite is not some gang of point-one One Percenters. They are in the several millions, count, sixty million of them in the USA, held together with the thieving accountants and hired hands of the legal-illegal class. They are wannabe’s and blue collar millionaires, two doctor heads of households, high end business owners, the traders of guns, pharmaceuticals, laws and other lies. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we cannot have both. — US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis Yet, we have to listen endlessly to the We Are the Ninety-nine, which is the absurdity of double-think. One percent isn’t holding up the house of cards. The minions, and the mighty masses supporting these titans of industry and billionaires, they are the Twenty-Solid (& Hard) Percent, in their glory, libertarians and thieves and unwilling to be the blood coming from their proverbial onion hearts. In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in relatively few hands. As of 2013, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 36.7% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 52.2%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 89%, leaving only 11% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.8% I dance through this mumbo-jumbo Hollywood and Single-Screen-Scroll-after-Scroll mush we call culture, and I hurdle over the Eichmann’s, big and small, and I end up in the same place I started more than 45 years ago – all thieves and charlatans, but with that big all-you-can-eat American cafeteria grin, the lives set in drive through coffee, grease and drugs delivery. This country, ripe for the taking, after genocide after genocide, and then the War is a Racket turned into America is the King Pin, the Biggest Racket of them All. Blue blood in her circulatory system, ever the slave-trading mindset, dredged in Puritanical and Crypto-Zionism. Promised Land is the Disney Effect, and chosen people come and go, as the drive-in’s turn to weeds and the ever-present huckster and PT Barnum and Lying Lynching Legal class rule over the entire mess, over all of the stars and tycoons. Beady-eyed money changers, and those sniveling ones making markets out of nothing, the very steps we take, breaths we exhale, lives we shed. There will be blood is the banker’s credo now, backed by Smith and Wesson and plethora of rockets bursting in air from every corner of the White Man’s/Christian/Jewish world. Cops and coaches, captains and CEOs, we know their kind, and no matter which XX or XY you attempt to rationalize into the madness of Capitalism, no matter which Gender or Identity serves the point-one One Percent class, the project is all cornered and flayed because Capitalism is the breeder of the heathens, the reckless and ruthless, the smiling and sincerely elitist crew. Yet, we hear endless drivel now about Groping A and Groping B, the slithering tongues of these Capitalists on steroids and amyl nitrate and human growth hormones and T-cells, and lubricated eggs from virgin sturgeon. These people in the center of that millionaire goo, in that trade of body and soul for the spin around the rotunda or jaunt down Sunset Boulevard, no matter which Charlie Rose or Dustin Hoffman or Sean Penn you end up with in the same room or office or court of law, unfortunately, they are all the same, groping or masturbating or climaxing or exhibitionisming or peeping tomming or S & M-ing, no matter how you run with them, these elites will eventually get under your skin like pin worms and chiggers. We’ll be seeing the fallout now of the alleged perversions and sexual overtures and manipulations and cajoling and assaults and rapes, wherever they go with those gag rule clauses after the payoffs and silence money. Just out on this day of infamy, Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, stories on John Travolta, one of the richest guys in Hollywood with 5 planes and jets, and his own runway in Florida. This is the microcosm of what Americans are, what they watch, what they believe. Imagine he and his wife, Kelly Preston, living their multimillionaire tax-evading, money-sheltering, cash-gouging lives. So, old John (the Italian-American actor) is accused of attacking masseuses, and he is now in the pig wash slurry of more scandal, as his movie on John Gotti is being dropped (by Lionsgate) because of the allegations swirling around old John (Travolta) attacking guys coming to his hotel rooms for massages (professional): Mafia leader Gotti was brought to trial multiple times throughout the 1980s, only to be acquitted. Travolta, 63, plays Gotti in multiple stages of his life, including when he finally went to prison in 1992. Gotti died of throat cancer, while still incarcerated, in 2002. Last month Travolta was named in a criminal complaint by a 21-year-old masseur who accused the actor of sexual battery that reportedly took place in 2000. According to the bombshell police report, the masseur alleged that Travolta groped his bare buttocks and indecently exposed himself during a deep body massage at the LaQuinta Hotel in Palm Springs, California. During the alleged incident, Travolta, 63, also made lewd remarks about gay fantasies while at the hotel’s spa facility around 1:30 am on February 15, 2000. The masseur reported the incident to the Palm Springs Sheriff’s Department. Officer Mark Peters went to the hotel to speak with Travolta, who had already checked out by the time he arrived. This isn’t the first time Travolta has been accused of misconduct while getting a massage. In 2012, Travolta was sued over accusations that he tried to have sex with a male masseur during a therapy session at the luxury Beverly Hills Hotel. Okorie Okorcha, the lawyer representing the masseur said: ‘My client is afraid of John Travolta’. He added: ‘Mr. Travolta made very explicit threats against my client, which are contained in the lawsuit. ‘Specifically, John Travolta told my client that Hollywood is controlled by homosexual Jewish men who expect favors in return for sexual activity. ‘Let’s face it, John Travolta is an extremely powerful man, and my client absolutely felt threatened by Mr. Travolta. My client was sexually assaulted by Mr. Travolta and he needs to be held accountable for his actions.’ Read more: I bring this most recent case up to illustrate the insane and perverse and surreal aspect of American society, and the money made by talent-less actors who are in bizarre relationships with spouses (arranged marriage with Preston per Scientology), who have the lives of the rich and famous all bundled up in their wacko ways. Do we want to sit through two hours of Gotti, at $12 a pop per movie ticket? Do we have no common sense in this country? The poor and the rich are the mad crowd, the spectacle now conjoined as aberrations of humanity. Travolta, a deacon in the Scientology cult. Do Americans boycott these people, these companies, these ideas, these death by a thousand cuts philosophies and this repressive un-culture to our own humanity? Boys will be boys, and then some. How many men have made the news for their alleged crimes of groping, harassing, cajoling, blackmailing? How many rabbis are speaking out against the large amount of Jewish men caught up in the allegations? How many preachers and priests are speaking up? What about the school teachers, and those university faculty? Mothers? Daughters? Aunts? Any Trump family out there willing to go out on a limb? Where is that ethical code humanity universally has to live with to make sure we do no harm? Golden Rule, Seven Sins of Gandhi ? On October 22, 1925, Gandhi published a list he called the Seven Social Sins in his weekly newspaper Young India. Politics without principles Wealth without work Pleasure without conscience Knowledge without character Commerce without morality Science without humanity Worship without sacrifice The list sprung from a correspondence that Gandhi had with someone only identified as a “fair friend.” He published the list without commentary save for the following line: “Naturally, the friend does not want the readers to know these things merely through the intellect but to know them through the heart so as to avoid them.” Unlike the Catholic Church’s list, Gandhi’s list is expressly focused on the conduct of the individual in society. Gandhi preached non-violence and interdependence and every single one of these sins are examples of selfishness winning out over the common good. It’s also a list that, if fully absorbed, will make the folks over at the US Chamber of Commerce and Ayn Rand Institute itch. After all, “Wealth without work,” is a pretty accurate description of America’s 1%. (Investments ain’t work. Ask Thomas Piketty.) “Commerce without morality” sounds a lot like every single oil company out there and “knowledge without character” describes half the hacks on cable news. “Politics without principles” describes the other half. In 1947, Gandhi gave his fifth grandson, Arun Gandhi, a slip of paper with this same list on it, saying that it contained “the seven blunders that human society commits, and that cause all the violence.” The next day, Arun returned to his home in South Africa. Three months later, Gandhi was shot to death by a Hindu extremist. The law of reciprocity, and where does that fall on American culture, whether through the lens of millionaire men or millionaire women? One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself (positive or directive form). One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated (negative or prohibitive form). What you wish upon others, you wish upon yourself (empathic or responsive form). The Golden Rule differs from the maxim of reciprocity captured in do ut des—”I give so that you will give in return”—and is rather a unilateral moral commitment to the well-being of the other without the expectation of anything in return. The fall-out in this dog-eat-dog, one man/woman for him or herself stolen land, which is the undertow of predatory capitalism, unfortunately, is all (unduly so) on the shoulders of all men – fathers and uncles, teachers and social workers, sons and uncles, all of us, righteous and far from any capitalist usury mindset, divorced from the take-take-take that is America, seemingly embraced by every boy or girl, man or woman, all intersexuals and transsexuals. The voyeurism, titillation, exhibitionism, proclivities toward gender and self debasement, and the ejaculatory and phallus aims of those tainted elites, and not so elite, are tied to the usury, exploitative and downright greed in every human or business transaction in Capitalism. Men, alas, the patriarchy, are all tied up with what we in America have become along all gender and sexual identities: paranoid, exceptionalist, supremacist, imperial and self-important, warring, and supercilious, superficial and shallow.  It’s an epigenetic cause and effect relationship, inside the DNA code of most red-blooded Americans, gay, straight, lesbian, trans-sexual, and what have you! Scam, flimflam, extort, fine, levy, tax, fee-fee-fee, and then, we steal from our futures, bankrupt our own retirements, rip off generations yet born, dredge the lake for that last caviar-producing fish, and we put it all out there in Google-land, Selfie the Entire Disaster, go on Twitter Tizzies, and then ask for more, and order it all on Amazon, trucked to the door and drone-delivered to the balcony. Funny, how conservative guys like Paul Craig Roberts see this next spasm of looting with the Republicans throwing down their true colors and the Pelosi-Schumer schemers in the Big D club yawning about their protected investments/millionaire and yammering about Russia, here at Counterpunch: What we are witnessing is the complete looting of America and the entirety of the West.  While the Western World collapses, the insouciant, submissive people sit there sucking their thumbs while they are being ruined. Nothing is left of the West except looters at work. This tax bill is an abomination, an act of brutal plunder.  Its sponsors should be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, if not hung from a lamp post. If we really break this down, really, what is that tar and feather routine? Imagine, a real world where we aren’t going to take it anymore, one where the tar is 200 degrees and the feathers are all knife sharp and hardened. Imagine the dunking of those thieves-murderers in vats of their fossil fuel gunk, near boiling temperature. I wonder if that’s what Craig Roberts is asking for? And, then, really, what does it mean to be hung on a lamp post? The old ways put the tarred and feathered tied to a lamp post, but hung evokes a lynching. Is that what this staid and conservative Paul Craig Roberts is asking for? Hmm, a call to action, violence? The reality is Americans love their thug royalty, all the Bushes and Clintons and Obamas and the endless Kennedys and now the Trumps. This country not only tars and feathers dissidents, but we’re strung up to dry on the vine. I have lost jobs for speaking out, for advocating as a teacher or journalist or social worker. I write about this all the time, and many places I’ve called my work place were havens for women, me being in the super minority. I have no bended knee and favoritism for the female side of capitalism, like many now are gaggling about. I have been face to face with ameliorating, middling, and in many cases malfeasance prone supervisors and HR directors with the XX gene, and I am not about to go on a tirade of reverse stupidity and count all men as Harvey Weinsteins or John Conyers. We are living up to our collective reputation as mushy thinkers, in this next Tweeting for the Highest Scream for grope x, y and z. Untethered bathrobes, full-on kisses, and all the other pathetic pranks and sexist fun (sic) these leaders of the free world engage in. But . . . . Bombing the world, gutting the world, and possibly stealing all the world’s things, and we talk about Al Franken the Bumbler. Imagine now, a few days ago, that parading multimillionaire, mutilating man, Obama, calling for more women to be elected to office. “. . . because men seem to be having some problems these days.” In all his neoliberal, girl child killing, female wedding party murdering, undocumented woman deporting glee, he sits on the pile of manure that is American retro-thinking and makes these declarations worthy of the nonsense that overrules everything in this country. This is Obama at a private event in Paris on Saturday, and he, of course, was referring to the sexual misconduct allegations made against many high-profile men he golfs with, rubs elbows with, hobnobs for.  Here, this is a must read, his eleventh-grade wisdom and drearily daft psychology: “Not to generalize but women seem to have a better capacity than men do, partly because of their socialization.” Here he is, commenting on the plethora of misdeeds and worse of the great elite class, those champions of perversion like Weinstein or the Franken fellow or Alabama Crimson Tide Moore and Company. This is in Paris, speaking to his elites, arranged by a network of communications professionals known as the Les Napoleons. Millionaires, and many of them perverted on many levels. You think one of these boys and girls club acolytes have a bone of humanism left? Listening to wise scriptures, austerity, sacrifice, respectful faith, social welfare, forgiveness, purity of intent, compassion, truth and self-control—are the ten wealth of character (self). O king aim for these, may you be steadfast in these qualities. These are the basis of prosperity and rightful living. These are highest attainable things. All worlds are balanced on dharma, dharma encompasses ways to prosperity as well. O King, dharma is the best quality to have, wealth the medium and desire (kāma) the lowest. Hence, (keeping these in mind), by self-control and by making dharma (right conduct) your main focus, treat others as you treat yourself. — Mahābhārata Shānti-Parva 167:9 This is 21st Century Google Man, Obama, at his best and most hypocritical, somehow declaring that I as a man should not run for local office or be involved in social change at the political level because of a few perverts making the Twitter feeds? He declares men seemingly have a few problems, and so, this wise American Murder Incorporated CEO (ex) is asking me to stand down as a male and wait for the female leaders, because women have a better grasp on socialization? What the hell does that mean? Where do these Gollum characters come from, this Barak and his Michelle and the millions of shekels shoved into their pockets for their mere existences, for a few hiccuped words ghost-written into Number One Best Seller Hardbacks? The socialization of women like Madeline Albright, Chancellor Merkel, Margaret Thatcher, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Janet Reno, and, well, the reader can generate his-her-their own list. Socialization of these fine ladies shine a light on their incredible lightness of goodness? This is side-mouth, PC, identity politics talk. These are loopy times, and we’ve been in them for decades, really, since Eisenhauer, as undertow after riptide produced the death of integrity, the death of common thinking, the inability of the American trite and superficial man and woman to advance to a level of sophistication or deep thinking or even wisdom or common sage sense. Look at these fellows and women running the world into the ground while they stash-stash-stash away retirement money enough to feed the world 50 billion times over.  Look at how they are not us and they indeed want us prostrate and afraid and on the run and now in their goofy show of faux integrity. All for one, one for all women. Here’s a run down of some of those so-so better socialized women Obama is calling on. I need not go into their dirty deeds, their recklessness, their thieving and in many cases direct connection to murdering thousands and structurally and violently assaulting millions and millions more. That other gender Obama is asking for help from, the female persuasion, is now front and center the only gender to be socially and structurally ready for service to the country, as Obama blurts out during one of his Point One Percent Meetings in France . . .  because men seem to be having some problems these days. Madeleine Albright  Condoleezza Rice Hillary Clinton . Arizona governor Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security Margaret Spellings Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos  Secretary of Education Susan E. Rice, Loretta E. Lynch, Laura Bush, Karen Hughes (Bush Women) Samantha Power? (Wow, what a bastion of integrity . . . I had to throw that in). More rah-rah bullshit from mainstream propaganda: Forbes USA Most Powerful Women Fortune’s Most Powerful Women And, the following from other lists, imagine, the power they wield, and because they are women, according to Barak Obama’s calculus, are stalwarts of humanity! Merkel, May, Gates, Trump — bastions of integrity! Angela Merkel is still the most powerful woman in the world. The German Chancellor has held the top spot on the Forbes Most Powerful Women List for seven consecutive years, and 12 years in total. Another prominent political leader, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, ranked second. It is her first time appearing on Forbes‘s annual list. Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is the highest-ranking American woman, taking the third spot. Seven of the world’s 10 most powerful women are American, according to the Forbes list. Forbes determines its ranking by evaluating four categories: money — which covers net worth, company revenues, assets under management or GDP — media presence, influence and impact. Of the 100 women on the list, nearly half are from the United States. Ivanka Trump, senior adviser to and daughter of President Donald Trump. Here’s the David Letterman Countdown, Top Ten. Gates Foundation, Facebook, GM, YouTube, Fidelity Investments, IMF, Bank, IBM. Just think of those companies, and how unjust, how predatory, and how destructive they are, but with women in higher up positions and even as CEOs, well, according to Obama, we all can sleep better tonight now that women are at the helm! * Angela Merkel: Chancellor, Germany * Theresa May: Prime Minister, U.K. * Melinda Gates: Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, U.S. * Sheryl Sandberg: COO, Facebook, U.S. * Mary Barra: CEO, General Motors, U.S. * Susan Wojcicki: CEO, YouTube, U.S. * Abigail Johnson: CEO, Fidelity Investments, U.S. * Christine Lagarde: Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, U.S. * Ana Patricia Botín: Chair, Santander Group, Banco Santander, Spain * Ginni Rometty: CEO, IBM, U.S. Here, an interesting list, with, of course, a few amazing human beings lumped into the superficial and super-rich — Addams, Aquino, Carson, Curie, Mead, Parks, Wolff. But it’s Time Magazine, so we know what that means (run by a woman, or has she been replaced?) Jane Addams (1860-1935) Corazon Aquino (1933-2009) Rachel Carson (1907-1964) Coco Chanel (1883-1971) Julia Child (1912-2004) Hillary Clinton (1947-Present) Marie Curie (1867-1934) Aretha Franklin (1942-Present) Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) Estée Lauder (1908-2004) Madonna (1958-Present) Margaret Mead (1901-1978) Golda Meir (1898-1978) Angela Merkel (1954-Present) Sandra Day O’Connor (1930-Present) Rosa Parks (1913-2005) Jiang Qing (1914-1991) Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) Gloria Steinem (1934-Present) Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) Martha Stewart (1941-Present) Mother Teresa (1910-1997) Margaret Thatcher (1925-Present) Oprah Winfrey (1954-Present) Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Most Powerful Women According to Fortune Magazine, 2010! Highest paid, take a look at that loot, again, as Obama proclaims, why not have them all (women) run the senate, congress, Supreme Court and the Executive Branch? Carol Bartz                          Yahoo!                 $47.2 million Safra Catz                            Oracle                   $36.4 million Carrie Cox                            Schering-Plough      $23 million Irene Rosenfeld                  Kraft Foods         $22.1 million Wellington Denahan-Norris      Annaly Capital Management $21.6 m Pamela Patsley                 Moneygram International            $17.9 million Susan Ivey                          Reynolds American          $16.2 million Martine Rothblatt            United Therapeutics       $15.8 million — Carol Meyrowitz               TJX Companies              $14.8 million Indra Nooyi                      PepsiCo                           $14.2 million Angela Braly                     WellPoint            $13.1 million Brenda Barnes                  Sara Lee               $11.5 million — Linda Chen                        Wynn Resorts    $11.2 million — Patricia Woertz                 Archer Daniels Midland     $11.0 million Kim Sinatra                       Wynn Resorts    $10.5 million — Mary Callahan Erdoes     JPMorgan Chase $10.4 million Nancy Wysenski               Vertex Pharmaceuticals          $10.2 million — Jackwyn Nemerov           Polo Ralph Lauren $10.1 million Ursula Burns                     Xerox    $9.9 million Martha Stewart                Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia     $9.7 m Ann Livermore                 Hewlett-Packard              $9.7 million Doreen Toben                   Verizon Communications              $9.2 million Katherine Krill                  AnnTaylor Stores              $9.1 million — Kathryn Fagan                  Annaly Capital Management       $8.6 million Ellen Kullman                   DuPont $8.3 million You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times. — Nina Simone Note:  Give it to the New York Daily News to call this “the Weinstein Effect as Sexual McCarthyism” http://clubof.info/

[millennial-truth]

Zionism is for war mongering, blood thirsty politicians. The majority of humans don’t want to live in war zone.

Being against Zionism isn’t racist. I don’t hate Jewish people. I’m a brown person and have experienced horrendous amounts of racism, so for me to turn around and hate another group of people would mean that I was a really shitty person. I want the world to become a better place, so in everything I do, I try to reflect this sentiment in all my actions. That is why I am against the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. You are colonizing their land. What is the quota you have established to allow some of them to exist? The same quota as the US and Canada had when they killed off most of the Native Americans, only allowing some of them to exist? (They would print in our textbooks that the average Native American Chief was violent and savage, yet at pow wows I’ve been to, I’ve felt nothing but love and inclusion.) The whole situation sounds similar to the spin doctoring in the news. Hamas and these children throwing rocks, wow they are so dangerous, we hear about massive innocent Palestinian lives being killed by Isreal, just statistics. I have no idea of your weaponry, but considering one statistic I heard recently, it was 66 IDF and two thousand or so Palestinians, most of which were women and children. These deaths are justified according to you just to get rid of Hamas when the rest of the world is watching and wants this shit to stop (minus the politicians… somehow Isreal’s brutal existence is of utmost importance to the blood hungry politicians of the world, mostly of which are white people who represent the western world).   The world now is mostly comprised of millennials, the kids of the boomers. We’re taking up the torch where our parents left off. They tried, and they did make improvements, and now it’s up to us to continue that divine legacy. We are the future. To all the old politicians, please find another way to make your cash grab that doesn’t involve hurting an innocent life. You are the people we “elect” to supposedly solve problems, but it seems that you’re far more involved in creating chaos and human misery.

--E���V�

[janiklandre-blog]

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

9:25 a.m.  sunny - soon to go on 80 - daily decisions what to wear - not very happy with my long not replaced wardrobe - years and years ago gave up on dry cleaners - also don't throw things into washing machines - never really made friends with washing machines and the new ones here in the room next door you now have to program - touched hot but it washed cold - aware - made very aware  by my recent visitor who just loved the washing machines, put everything he could find into it - well, I've  never quite made it to American standards - though now books are written suggesting, my standards may be better. Until I came to America there never was hot running water - there never was central heating - in Germany - 1946-1951 all we had - luckily - was our own toilet - the bathroom upstairs was used as a kitchen by three couples who came to live upstairs.

My mother had a electric sewing machine - very advanced - I cannot remember her using it - she was doing forced labor from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. - I never was allowed to touch it - I did learn some mending, was good at it - the America to which I came, did very little mending.

Hardly ever were new clothes bought - no money - later empty stores - I was growing up - lengthening the one or two dresses I owned was improvised - when finally clothes appeared in stores - in 1948 after the currence was changed and DM - deutsche Mark - was introduced - I was 16 - and my mother said: I must mound  a career - and an amazing career she did mound at 46 years of age by then - I need clothing. You, she said, you are 16, you don't need clothes - you are good looking and will look good in anything. There and then I lost interest in clothing and never, ever regained it. My husband Robert G. - we were married from 1956-67 - he was a dandy - the first place in New York where he took me was Brooks Brothers - he loved clothing, he wanted an elegant wife - a German saying: Kleider machen Leute - good clothing makes people - my mother believed that also and did put emphasis on how she was dressed - in those married days I was an elegant lady and that made my mother very happy - alas - after 1967 I came to live on a shoe string - and it was Paco who introduced me to thrift shops and also to the notion: nothing wrong with wearing clothes that have been worn before.

Women interested in elegance can dress extreme;y well on very little money - it is the interest I lack. I try to look decent - at times have been told: you look dowdy - could go on -Time today also limited - meeting at 12:30 at the bar area of the boat house in Central Park Sue - whom I met years ago on a bench, she lives in New Jersey and only comes for brief visits to New York - told her about self publishing and she since then has published a lovely memoir - lovely cover, crafted writing - and she today has invited me for lunch in the fancy boathouse restaurant - only alas I am minus my lower teeth - cannot eat much - also aware - I really don't have one elegant summer dress for the occasion - have been wearing a lot a black linen dress - totally simple - fraying at the edges - really should have been washed - and I'll wear a red linen jacket, my daughter in law replaced the broken buttons also did wash it and iron it - I have never owned an iron. Luckily times have caught up with me - people now pay for prewrinkled clothing - torn blue jeans - I do realize O often have been avant garde without trying - avant is ahaed - sometimes to my disadvantage. In 1961 I wrote my second novel - still in Geneva - about my years in post war Germany - 1946-51 as mentioned above - where I met in early fall of 1947, at the age of 15 a young man then 18 - Arno, also often mentioned. In this novel I detailed his life - as a Jew in Poland, an only child, torn from his mother in Auschwitz in 1944 - he was 15 then - ending up in Dachau outside of Munich and then coming to live with his father outside of Munich. I have written about it in greater detail in my memoirs - now available on line at the Leo Baeck Institute - for the cdmputer savvy. Our close relationship only ended when I met Robert G. in 1953 - Arno remained my best and most caring friend until he died in 1987. He too married and had three children. Avant garde - this was in many ways a holocaust novel - way ahead of the later holocaust industry - on which a lot of hey has been made. I did submit it to some publishers - alas never had "the wife" Nabokof of Lolita fame had - his wife typed his work, edited it and submitted, submitted hundreds of times - many a "successful" writer has wallpapered rooms with rejection slips - one jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge to get attention - he survived but has remained unknown - oh well.

So, I'm looking on my watch - should quit in 30 minutes - this morning, once again, CW much on my mind - a black woman who since has died - Dee - standing outside and telling people: The CW is killing people. She has not been the only one to say so. Speaking of clothing, she was one of those and there have been others - who wanted me to dress better - and she did try to befriend me and always found items in what they call the clothing room. They do attract mountains of donations - often brand new expensive clothing - Dee who once upon a time had been a besutician and had a good eye - often even was at the door intercepting donations and filling her room with them, until she no longer could get into her room. Stories have been written about her - she loudly proclaimed how much she hated the CW and was told, nobody is keeping you here - her reply: and where would I go? She ended up a number of times in the psych ward - she had attacked somebody with a knife - she was an angry woman, who also could be one of the kindest, guiding visitors all over New York, she loved the city. The last time she was in the psych ward she then ended up in a facility on an island in the East River - then was much visited by Catholic Workers - I too visited - and died. 

Observing me. My friend drew me into the CW in 1997 - twenty years ago - she and the CW have made my life a lot less lonely - but the incident with M.H. early this year suddenly did wake me to how many people there really are not treated the way they should be - and that included me. My mind has been uninteresting to them.

This morning I did go to the Bean - Moishe's bakery closed for Jewish holidays from today until the 19th of April. M.H. was there with her computer - she is the main organizer of the vigil I attended briefly yesterday - I was hiding behind the NYT - she leaned it to say: Good morning sweetie. Has she noticed at all that I was cutting her?

I was reading a column by David Brooks - never one of my favorits but lately he has written a few columns that grabbed my attention. Today's was about the role ideologies played in into the middle of the last century - certainly true for my own parents - ideologies a few - Jacques Maritain, a Catholic of whom I heard only recently - considered misguided early on - my own parents totally disillusioned by 1945 - my father never joining any group again - as far as I know - my mother attracted to Catholicism, never acting on it - proclaiming admiration for Zionism - I never touched the topic.

I often had said - those of us turning 13 as I did in 1945 - we looked at out parents as deluded fools - never ever wanted to be part of any "ism" - I and probably some others too at times accused: all you want is fun. Hard work, by the way.

Having had the privilege of spending so much time in libraries - I love libraries and librarians - my mother often said my father should have been a librarian - I muself did apply in 1975 to school for social work, Hunter, first school ever to turn me down - luckily. I am happiest in streets, parks, cafes - do make some structure in my life - dealt for many a year with imposed ones - glad now for the absence - in any event, David Brooks does write about the rejection of ideologies - not well replaced. CW is making an attempt - still - why concentrate on Yemen?

In any event - thank you Ken fot teaching me to use a computer - and thank you all my helpers popping up - my grandson, Molly, my fiend in Germany - a few who appreciate my writing, appreciate my mind - appreciate this here sloppy project - and now off to meet Sue and look half way respectable - Marianne