Ethnic Hatred

Democrats only need to win 15 more House seats to take back the House. That's out of 40 surprisingly close races. Well, the Republicans have all but conceded one of those races, meaning Democrats only have to win 14 more.

White Supremicists are often too close for comfort to the Republican Party. Virginia Senator Allen, for example, is clearly a bit too much of a racist for my taste, leading me to donate to and advocate for Democratic candidate for the Senate, Jim Webb. But Republicans in general don't necessarily LIKE being associated with white supremicists. Witness the Republican candidate for AZ-8 Congressional seat: Randy Graf is well connected with white supremicists and has now been endorsed by former Grand Wizard of the KKK (and former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor of Louisiana and twice for president of the United States) David Duke. This was too much even for the Republican Party, leading them to do the right thing and pull out all support for Graf.

Here's a statement from the DCCC on this:

I couldn't have better news. The Republicans have withdrawn all of their financial support in the pivotal race in Arizona's 8th Congressional District, all but conceding defeat in a race that we had targeted.

This is adapted from a talk I gave to the Latvia Special Interest Group luncheon at the Jewish Genealigical Conference in NYC this week. I don't know how much it will resonate with a general readership, but it means something to me and to those who heard it. It's adapted from a Powerpoint presentation, so the format is different than what I normally do.

1. SEARCHING FOR JEWISH IDENTITY: Preserving our Heritage; Preserving our Identity

Today I don’t just want to talk about my efforts to save a small, sad synagogue in a corner of Eastern Latvia. I also want to talk about why I am trying to save that synagogue. It is a story that, for me, looks at the thorny question of Jewish identity and Jewish heritage and the value of preserving that identity and heritage.

2. “Your origin and your birth are of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite, you’re your mother a Hittite.” (Ezekiel 16:3)

Genetic evidence confirms the belief that most Jews are closely related and that ultimately we all have roots in the land of Israel or at least its general region. Even an isolated black South African tribe that claims Jewish descent, the Lemba, have genetic traits that point to a common Jewish ancestry. Archaeology shows that the original Jews, if I can use that term for people living so long ago, lived in a small group of poor and isolated villages from around 1200 BCE in what is now the West Bank whose only unique characteristic we can detect archaeologically is that they didn’t eat pork. In all other ways these original Jews were typical Canaanites archaeologically. But they gave up pork. In those tiny, pork-shunning villages we all probably have distant ancestors.

In America today, torture is considered acceptable. Detention without due process is considered acceptable. Republican politicians are calling America a "Christian Nation." Mainstream media talk show hosts are telling Jews to "move to Israel" if they don't consider America a Christian nation. In Indiana Republican politicians are telling Jews they don't matter because they only make up 2% of the population. In Seattle a man shoots up the Jewish Federation because he is "mad at Israel." In Delaware a town considers Jews and Muslims unimportant because they are a small minority and when Jews and Muslims complain about (un-Constitutional) Christian prayer in schools and government meetings they are forced to flee the town by threats of mob violence.

Forget Mel Gibson's drunken, anti-Semitic rants. Throughout America anti-Semitism is rampant. In fact, hate crimes against Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, Hispanics, etc. are rampant. Mix this new Culture of Intolerance, routinely fed and encouraged by the Republican Party and its media lapdogs, with the acceptance of torture and detention without due process and you get an America that is walking the path that Germany walked in the 1930's.

  

Not exactly a face that would make most women swoon.

When Eva Braun was a teenager, she worked as a salesgirl in the shop of the official Nazi Party Photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. Eventually, she began working as his photography assistant and it was in his darkroom that she first glimpsed the man whose paranoia, gastrointestinal agonies (do the research), and "Vitamin B" shots caused the death of millions.

She fell in love with a face that only a (blind) mother could love. Yeah, yeah, I know...I have slept with men who are unconventially sexy, but I doubt anyone in their right mind would classify Hitler as such. He suffered from constant bouts of noxious gas, had terrible taste in clothes, and quite frankly, that whole trying to take over the world thing just doesn't work for me.

I imagine Eva standing in a darkroom as she watches the glow of his face form into an image that captures her heart. Now, I have no idea if it happened this way or not, although it is documented that she met Hitler in this shop and because Hoffman was the official Nazi Party Photographer, she did see photos of Hitler before she met him. As a woman, I can almost guarantee she was already drawn to him through the photos.

Get the Pope, the President and the Prime Minister on the phone, quick! I've had an epiphany, a flash of understanding about the nature of the divine that should literally SAVE THE WORLD.

It's revolutionary, you ready?
Come closer.
Here it is --

Every person on earth is a nonbeliever. That's it.

Every person on earth is a nonbeliever. Even the most devout believers in each religious tradition are therefore nonbelievers of everything else, no matter what doctrine or denomination they claim as their own, or whether they claim any religion at all.

Every person on earth is a nonbeliever. Of someone's else's religion. Of someone's else's truth, and lies.

Every person on earth is a nonbeliever because in order to believe one thing, you must disbelieve everything else.

For any one given religious belief, most of us will be in its nonbelief camp.

Every person on earth is a nonbeliever.
The recent post from Thomas Jefferson 198 years ago, got me pondering all this:

"Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion.

Hey there,

This is my friend who I met at the Spirituality Beyond Religions
conference in India in February. He's awesome, so if you have a chance
to go to any of his talks, I highly suggest it! If you go, please
introduce yourself and tell him Rae from the India conference says hi
and that I send my love.

Love,
Brittany/Rae

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From: Eliyahu McLean

Hello friends,

I am in the US, teaching a course on Judaism and peace-building and
will soon embark on a short speaking tour of the West Coast. Please
forward this invitation to anyone who may be interested in upcoming
West Coast events in Los Angeles, Ashland, Santa Cruz and Berkeley.

This is followed by an announcement for the multi-faith peace
prayer gathering taking place Thursday, July 27th in Gan Sacher,
Jerusalem, from 5:00-8:00 PM, Jerusalem time.

Shalom, Salaam,
Eliyahu McLean

Jerusalem Peacemakers, director
Abrahamic Reunion, coordinator

------------------------------------------------------------

Healing Abraham's Wounded Family: Reconciliation in the Holy Land in
a Time of Conflict

with Eliyahu McLean of the Jerusalem Peacemakers

Eliyahu will speak about the response of the Israeli and Palestinian

When I was a child, in England, in the North, there was still fireweed growing among the scattered bricks of empty lots. Fireweed is often the first plant to grow after a fire or bombing. It is the scab that covers the wound, a filling in of the holes in the earth, where "death came in like thunder." It grows, too, in the Pacific Northwest, on scarred hillsides where fire has taken down the trees, leaving behind the charred skeletons of what was once magnificent.

The fireweed was a reminder. Even in the 1960s, it had been less than two decades since the countryside had been ravaged by German bombs. In many places, all evidence that the war had ever happened had been erased, but in the neglected North, the barren urban land, incapable of growing anything else, had covered itself with fireweed as a cloak against its hideousness.
I search for refuge from all of this. Perhaps I'm not entitled to refuge. After all, the bombs are not falling on my children, they are not destroying my homes, I am not of a people that another people has set out to eradicate from the face of the earth, so really, what the fuck am I getting all upset about? It is my own narcissism that tries to claim that the suffering all around me, that is around me but is not touching me, can justify my own helplessness and rage of the past, god, I don't even know how long anymore.

I have been absolutely horrifed by how the world is decending into chaos, even as our great leader is giving unwanted massages to the German Chancellor, and how so few people can find the compassion and balance to sympathize with Israelis, Palestinians and Lebanese alike. Our world leaders, from Hamas to Kadima to Hezbollah to Bush, are failing. The result is death and chaos. The solution...just may be you and me and a thousand other regular people who care.

Sometime back I began a project that I called an Integrated, Grassroots Development project for East Africa. People responded well to it and one of the beneficiaries was Kiva.org whose efforts to generate microloans to small businesses originally in East Africa, now globally, were greatly aided by the blogsphere. Inspired by this I tried generating interest in a more global effort, which didn't get as much attention. I now want to apply my ideas regarding Integrated, Grassroots Development to the horrible situation in the Middle Easte. If not now, then when? If not us, then who? It is up to us.