Wishing all of you who celebrate a very Merry Christmas. Hope Santa was good to you. As for me, I will be joining my parents, boyfriend and brother in the ancient Jewish Christmas ritual of seeing a movie and eating Chinese food. Saw INVICTUS last night and highly recommend it, and not just for the hunky guys with great legs running around in shorts. Also saw AVATAR and think it’s worth seeing just to be awed by what they are doing with CGI special effects, although I think it could have been half an hour shorter and some of the characters (especially the villains) were too one-dimensional.
But back to politics:
- Peter Schiff, who calls himself “the principled Republican” in the GOP Senate primary race, describes yesterday’s health care vote “the nightmare before Christmas.”
- The Day urges both Democrats and Republicans in Hartford to stop pointing fingers and get serious about solving the state’s budget deficit. They’re right when they say this is going to be painful, and it’s going to take both cuts in services AND tax increases. There’s no humane way to do it without a combination of the two.
- Joe Lieberman’s favorables have dropped 10 points in just two weeks, according to a CNN poll quoted in The Hill. I wonder why?
Well, I’ve got to run to some festivities, so I’ll leave you with the Christmas column I wrote for the Stamford Advocate/Greenwich Time –
“Let’s vow peace and goodwill like we mean it.”
Pax. Joyeux Noel. Feliz Navidad. etc.
33 responses so far ↓
Sarah, if your column didn’t include the back-handed slap to Father Coughlin it might strike one as sincere.
Taking the entire anti- health care reform movement and using holocaust imagery should be subject to Godwin’s law.
Had you used Meir Kahane’s views on purity and race and talked about the ongoing ‘Who is a Jew?’ legislation battle in Israel I might have detected some honesty and self-awareness in the message.
I’d say you still haven’t gotten over your ‘Peace and Good Will Towards All Men’ envy.
And Sarah,
If Phillip Roth took the Mengele experiments to create 12 sets of Jews and then plant them in Israel only to reassemble themselves as the 12 tribes of Frankenstein based on the Laws of Return and Laws of Jewry I’m pretty sure it would be both humorous and insightful. I hope you can handle that kind of material with wit and grace.
Not a bad piece Sarah; however I kind of like a more;
“We’re gonna have peace and goodwill towards all people…or we’ll kick your ass!” perspective.
Yours is nice too though.
>if your column didn’t include the back-handed slap to Father Coughlin it might strike one as sincere.<
Oh, it wasn’t backhanded. It was a full-fronted, straight up across the face blow to a man who was a vile anti-Semite and who expressed support for the policies of Hilter and Mussolini. Goat Boy, you can’t seriously be defending the guy can you?
Even as a child, I remember my dad telling me stories about his childhood; the fear his family felt as they heard Father Coughlin preaching his hate speak over the radio waves, particularly when they saw what was happening in Europe. I also remember my father telling me of the day my Grandfather received the telegram telling him that his parents, who had stayed behind in the Ukraine when he emigrated, had been murdered by the Nazis.
I do not use this language lightly, and that is why I am so angry that those images were used at the healthcare rally. It was despicable, and I was appalled that Republicans that I spoke to personally about this did not seemed that bothered by it.
As for your using idea of using Meir Kahane – I have six hundred words and therefore must stick to the point. I was writing an article about political discourse in the United States, not Israel. But the late Meir Kahane fell into the very category of extremist that I warn about in my piece.
The “who is a Jew” issue is not just taking place in Israel. There was just a case in the UK where a Jewish Day school wouldn’t admit a student whose mother hadn’t undergone an Orthodox conversion, even though there were other students at the school whose parents weren’t at all observant but were halachically Jewish. The parents sued and it was found they were discriminated against according to UK law. Now the Beth Din has to figure out how to resolve Jewish law with UK law. It’s a very tricky situation.
Sarah, I think your bigotry is sincere.
Had you used a Jewish example of depression era bigotry in your Holiday good cheer example I’d have had a problem. Then I might have to take your anti-bigotry at face value. As such, I don’t need to read it as anything other than what it is: propaganda
Of course we’ll never see eye to eye on this. I find your use of Coughlin at Christmas as manipulative as the users of Nazi imagery at Health Care Reform rallies. Digging up depression era bad blood is holiday spirit and holiday healing?
BTW there are those of us that lost more family than you did in WW II when the uncles and their cousins are factored in not to mention their potential descendants. Perhaps next Christmas I’ll write an essay on the ingrates they were defending and freeing and call that a Holiday message with a sick smarmy grin.
The point of all this — old wounds like Coughlin are not going to heal if they keep getting rubbed by the wrong people at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.
>>old wounds like Coughlin are not going to heal…
Nor should they – ever.
What next?
“That Joe Mengele….. what a card! No sireee they don’t make `em like old Joe anymore……”
Get over it – some people are simply better off dead and the Nazi’s were a perfect example.
It wasn’t just the camps; the behavior of German troops all over the place was horrific. Raping 12 year old children and if anyone complained, shoot them, or better drag them to a public square and make an example of them.
Most WWII vets rarely talked of the horrors they saw; and my own father only spoke of it once; but I got it in one take.
>>It was a full-fronted, straight up across the face blow to a man who was a vile anti-Semite…
You should do it a little more often; *and* you should pay a little better attention to the members of your party instead of assigning blame to mine for the actions of rabid nitwits that probably haven’t voted in years.
Jimmy Carter’s grandson is seeking state office, naturally Jimmy decides it’s time to clean up his act.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/24/us/AP-US-Carter-Jews.html
In other news; amazingly Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the system worked as it should have!
Feeling safe yet?
<A href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/27/national/w061337S17.DTL"Homeland security head: The security system worked.
If the annoyance of flying wasn’t enough to make you think twice about whether or not driving might be worth it; this should be.
Overseas travel becomes a problem seeing as it’s a tough drive to Europe.
Homeland security head: The security system worked.
Feeling safe yet?
Heaven help you if you hyperlink anything – it’ll go directly into moderation today.
>Had you used a Jewish example of depression era bigotry in your Holiday good cheer example I’d have had a problem. Then I might have to take your anti-bigotry at face value. As such, I don’t need to read it as anything other than what it is: propaganda
Two things: First of all, Goatboy, you consistently read my posts looking for things to find to find offensive with, instead of seeking to understand the actual message. Father Coughlin’s membership in the Christian Front wasn’t mentioned to point out that he was Christian. If you read the piece again, it was part of his biographical information to put him in context.
Secondly, you go find me a Depression -era Jewish bigot who announced over the national airwaves in the United States that “Someone must be blamed.” I think you’ll struggle. But Father Coughlin did that. It is a well-documented historical fact. So I used him, because he was the one who said it. If he’d been a Hindu or a Moslem or a Jew, I would have used him. But he wasn’t. He just happened to be a Catholic, and from what I’ve read, even the Vatican was not happy with his broadcasts but unfortunately did little to silence him.
>The point of all this — old wounds like Coughlin are not going to heal if they keep getting rubbed bythe wrong people at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.
Good Lord, listen to yourself! And you have the nerve to call ME a bigot! Look in the mirror, dude.
>BTW there are those of us that lost more family than you did in WW II when the uncles and their cousins are factored in not to mention their potential descendants. Perhaps next Christmas I’ll write an essay on the ingrates they were defending and freeing and call that a Holiday message with a sick smarmy grin.
You have no idea how many family members I lost. I just happened to mention my great grandparents. There where whole BRANCHES of my family wiped out in Poland. Once again, you are making ignorant assumptions and writing offensive comments based on them. “Ingrates”?
You make me sick. Absolutely sick. Have you ever been to Auschwitz? Someday get your bigoted ass over to Poland. Walk through the gas chambers. See the piles of hair and shoes. The piles of prosthetic devices taken from cripples. The baby clothes. And then have the NERVE call me an ingrate.
My conversation with you is over.
ACR – A lot of stuff is going into moderation that I can’t figure out why. I think maybe yours went in because the hyperlink is broken.
ACR, if you think German troops were bad, maybe you should read up on Soviet troops.
Segueing from Let’s vow peace and goodwill like we mean it to a partisan political attack isn’t terribly effective rhetoric.
Sara and GoatBoy. Obviously what you both need is a good mathematical model: we would need to know number of relatives deceased, expected fertility rates, and the distribution of age of childbearing at a minimum. Then we can address the issue who has suffered the most. Which is crass, irrelevant and crude. The Holocaust is comparable to … nothing. Just don’t go there.
“ACR, if you think German troops were bad, maybe you should read up on Soviet troops.”
Indeed, it was the Soviets that were responsible for the famine in Ukraine that may have touched Sara’s family: http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2005/01/famine-lies-justice-and-ukraine.html
People know who the detestable Fr. Coughlin was, but they do not know Walter Duranty.
Happy Holidays everyone.
The long dead Walter Duranty was a reporter and a Stalin apologist I believe.
Everyone have a happy holiday.
>Then we can address the issue who has suffered the most. Which is crass, irrelevant and crude>
You, like Goatboy, miss persist in missing the point, Gerard. I don’t want to go there at all. The only reason I brought any of that up was in a vain attempt to tell Goatboy not to make offensive comments based on stupid assumptions the way he does on pretty much every post I write.
But there’s not point trying to have a rational conversation with an irrational person, so I’m not going to respond to him. End of story.
At this point, I’m so disgusted with the commenters on this site, I’m starting to look forward to the day Ghengis decides to shut it down.
Hopefully there can be CIVIL disagreement,without personal attacks. It is through civil disagreement that we polish our views and change them as we are presented with exigent circumstances,new facts and new evidence.Personal attacks have no place in civil discourse and should not be tolerated here.
Sarah,
I went too far in my last post. FWIW I would have deleted it seconds after posting it as I had that niggling feeling I should shelve it as soon as I posted it–it was too pointed and lacked any sense of subtlety or sensitivity. Accept my apologies.
Campbell & Don; I’m well aware of what a bunch of `fun loving pranksters’ the Soviets were; and I remember the mia lia massacre too.
However my father didn’t witness any of that nor did he engage those perpetrators.
He only met some Nazi’s in the south of France towards the very end of the war when they were intent on destroying the evidence of their crimes, which was to include eliminating the witnesses.
Instead, and in his own words, “scared to death”, he and his small band of OSS agents, dropped by and eliminated all 235 who represented “the problem”. (And couldn’t get out of there and back to the states fast enough to suit him.)
ACR and all,
I met with Bruce today for breakfast and a long chat. Since he had mentioned that his father and mother were conservatives – He was misled long ago as a raw youth by some college professor, possibly the late William Kuntsler – I thought it might be useful to work a conversion at the Hartford eatery where we met. I aspersed him as best I could with sound conservative ideas and did detect some dangerous rightist tendencies in the lad; for instance, he is uncomfortable with the status quo – and we all know what that is in Connecticut. However, I detected a perverse resistance, and I’m not sure the conversion took. But I like to think seeds were planted, and he did pick up the tab – which I consider a minor triumph. We will have another shot at this later in the year — hopefully before Connecticut economy collapses in ruins — at some eatery in Vernon, most likely Rein’s. I may need some help. Who’s in? I’m thinking — TOTAL IMMERSION.
LOL Don..I enjoyed the chat and look forward to another sometime soon.Anyone that calls me a LAD,deserves to have their breakfast paid for.I did know Kunstler personally…..you would have loved him,if not for his poitical philosophy, but for his total raw energy into challenging the government at every turn.I am seeing ACR soon….to share a cuban cigar and coffee with him….that’s the way to toast a new year in that both right and left can agree on.I am singularly uncomfortable only chatting with those whose ideas and politics I share, it seems limited to me.So I do enjoy chatting with those whose ideas are different then mine, not for conversion purposes, but for more intellectual stimulation.I was not disappointed in meeting Don in that respect as he has an inquiring mind.
Goatboy – I accept and greatly appreciate your apology. Really, the whole point of that article was what I want to reiterate now – that regardless of our “labels” we all share things in common and maybe sometimes it helps to focus on things once and a while. For instance, I might be a “liberal” but I’m also a mom who loves her kids and is trying her darndest to raise them with good manners, good values and good grammar – something that become more challenging when now that they’re both teens, taller than me, and think they know everything and I suddenly know nothing . Oh, and I’m a totally and utter embarrassment, merely by the inhalation and exhalation of breath. I also love this country of ours and genuinely want what is best for it. I imagine you do too. The suspect that we disagree on what that “best” is, and how we should go about achieving it. But that’s where, as Bruce says, if we can keep these discussion and disagreements civil and not personal, it will make CTLP much more pleasant place.
Sara…you may not ” know anything ” when they are teenagers…but when they are 30 they will be surprised at how much you know.
Yeah, that’s what they tell me…let’s just hope I survive till then! Problem is my son with Aspergers has a Mensa IQ (got in when he was 9) and a stubborn streak, whereas poor mom is merely gifted, so he can out argue me. When I was a teenager I always swore that I would never tell my kids, “Because I’m the MOM, that’s why!” but there are some nights I’m just so freaking tired that those words have been known to escape my lips. But on the other hand, he’s fascinated by history and he kept asking me all these questions about Stalingrad and the Eastern Front I bought him the BBC series The World At War (narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier) for Chanukah. It isn’t a present a lot of 16 year olds would be interested in, but I love that we can share that kind of thing and talk about it and talk about politics and history and military strategies.
You may be surprised at the number of liberals on this board. For example, I fully support National Health Care; I oppose with all my heart (unto my dying breath to quote the great Khan quoting Shakespeare) the current way the state is run including its budget priorities. It’s the only thing Rell and I have in common. I’d rather not spend the money when I know it will be misspent.
My frustration is exemplified by Michael Lawlor. He actually understands prison reform and the cost to the state. OTOH He supports gay marriage which I oppose but it doesn’t keep me up at night, Then he turns around (with butt buddy McDonald) and wants to micromanage the Catholic Church (at the bequest of one parishioner) and simply can’t find any budget cuts, or reorganizations, or layoffs, or apply any Lawlor/McDonald micro management techniques to apply to the State of CT.
The one thing Lawlor was voted for (managing the state of CTs finances) he can’t do. He won’t do. He’s defiant in his incompetence. He relishes the fact he won’t do his job and is proud of it. How can anyone not oppose Lawlor and his party hacks?
What? No taxpayer ever asked him to reform or micro-manage CT state government? It’s only the Catholic Church they wanted him to micro-manage? What’s next? He appoints himself and McDonald Rabbi and Rebbe?
I’ve never seen a greater admission to political incompetence. What’s his campaign slogan? I can’t manage state government but I can manage your churches and temples? Give me your checkbook–I’ll manage that too!
Sarah, it’s good to know you’re gifted.
Would someone please gift me a couple million to move to Greenwich? My ego simply can’t overrun without a smaller house in a richer town.
Sara…I have a Mensa IQ ( tested 143 on the Stamford Binet test) also and I am constantly surprised at the mistakes and mishaps I make…though I didnt join Mensa.Your son might be a budding politician and reading military strategy,particularly the works of the great chinese military strategist Sun Tzu,like “The Art of War” could be helpful here,especially in combating unruly posters and bloggers.
Believe me, although he is brilliant, at this stage, as the English put it so pithily, “he couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery”. I’m working on the whole “life skills” issue, so that when he goes off to college the year after next (G-d villing) he can actually do his own laundry and feed himself and know how to call the help line when his computer breaks instead of me doing it for him and (and this is the tricky bit) have the patience to wait for half an hour while he gets passed from pillar to post and has to explain the same problem to six different people until it gets solved without going off the deep end.
They just read “All Quiet on the Western Front” in school and son said it was the best book he’s ever read.
>>I have a Mensa IQ
Face it Bruce, most of you guys are lucky to show up without wearing two plaids at the same time.
Higher than average amount of advanced attention deficit disorder too, or have you noticed?
lol ACR,,,you have a good point there…..LMAOOOO..Im not the high fashion type and just might show up in 2 plaids.
I dont have ADD but I do have a very type A personality and might border obsessive compulsive behavior, as many lawyers do.
Sara Aspergers I believe is very treatable and you are doing very good and important work with your son in making him pay attention to social interacting, a skill lacking in folks with Aspegers.Hopefully you will do the homework and check around for a college that offers the most logistical support for someone like your son.He is very fortunate to have a mother like you who loves him and is concerned enough to follow through in the way you have,where other mothers would throw up their hands.I hope his father is doing his bit as well as life is challenging enough for 1 person with Aspergers but having the support and unconditional love of both parents is a blessing indeed.
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