Tag Archives: Charlottesville

I’m Still on About Nazis! AKA Our President.

16 Aug

I might be stupid for putting this out on the Internet but whatever, if the National Security Agency is really reading our communications then it has seen me say way worse than what I am about to share here. So here it is: every single time a New York Times alert goes off on my phone there is a small (and ever growing) part of my brain that is hoping it is alerting me to the death of Donald J. Trump.

There, I said it.

I am not saying that I want someone to kill him, necessarily. Or that I want him to die in a car crash, or a fire, or of some extremely slow-moving but massively painful terminal illness. I haven’t really thought about it in that amount of depth. I just want him, as I have said over many easily monitored modes of communication, to take a long walk off a short pier and leave us to get along with the business of actually making this country great because these last few months, and specifically these last few days? They have not been great at all. At least not for any of us who believe that racism is a scourge and that all those horrible men (and the few women) who marched this past Friday with their tiki torches were inherently violent. Because here’s the thing: you don’t need to physically assault another person to be violent. Marching through a city carrying the flags of the oppressors, the enslavers, the genocidal and chanting, among other things, “Jews will not replace us” is in itself an act of violence. A permit for that sort of abhorrent behavior simply should not exist. Not on paper, and not in the words of the President of the United States of America. Because that is what Trump did yesterday. He gave a nod to the white supremacists and said, without equivocation,

Yes, this is okay on my watch.

And they fucking celebrated. Of course they did. They can finally rip off their hoods of shame and wear their racism proudly on their sleeves. They can mow down counter protestors,* beat an unarmed black man in a parking garage, vandalize the Holocaust Memorial in Boston for the second time this summer and plan to blow up a building in Oklahoma City. They can finally show us all how fucking oppressed they really are. It feels like open season here in the United States and Trump just threw his support solidly on the side of evil. And his propaganda machine simply continues churning out articles to be sure that they can control the narrative and keep people thinking that those pedaling hate and those protesting that hate are one in the same. And this is what I have to say to them:

Open your goddamn eyes, white people. OPEN THEM.

We are the fucking norm. WE ARE THE NORM.**

Turn on the TV and who do you see?
Walk into almost any board room, who do you see?
Look at any list of millionaires and billionaires, who do you mostly see?
Look at the photographs of our 45 presidents and, barring one single person in that entire list, who do you see?
Look at our Senate and House, who do you mostly see?

I could keep on going but I think I made my point alright and if I didn’t, then whatever, I am not going to waste my time. Because here’s the thing: loss of privilege is not synonymous with oppression no matter how you slice it. What is happening in America is simply an attempt, one moving at a glacial pace it feels like, to even the playing field and afford others the same opportunities that white people luck into at birth. Because that’s what it is: luck. God didn’t smile down on you and bless you with the ability to have a boss that looks like you, a name that doesn’t get your application thrown in the garbage can or the ability to leave an interaction with a police officer alive and uninjured. You happened to be born into a system that values something as inconsequential as the color of your skin and then just hands you things. And you have the fucking nerve to harken back to a time when you were guaranteed that privilege because people that looked like you and thought like you literally owned the competition. They bought them and sold them and bred them and worked them to fucking death and we are still entirely incapable as a nation to engage with that history in a way that gives it due credit for the fucked up systems we continue to recreate and reinforce. Well, fuck you. Seriously. Fuck you.

And fuck Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is a farce. He is a sorry excuse for a human being who only cares about you as long as you remain blindly faithful to him and when you lose the faith? Well, then he will use his applauded “straight talk” to eviscerate you on Twitter in much the same vein as a bully on the playground. And if you think for even a second that Donald Trump is seeing any sort of loss of privilege, that he is being oppressed in any way, think again. Because the only thing more protective than being a white man is being a filthy rich white man with absolutely no concern for the well being of any body else.

So, yeah, I wish Donald Trump would go the fuck away. If that means he dies, so be it. If it means he somehow gets stranded on an island somewhere with no access to Twitter or the presidential lectern, that’s okay too. Because as much as I have heard people mumbling that maybe it’s better that these bigots are out in the open because at least we know who they are, I have to disagree. They are using this as a way to fanaticize more people, to normalize their beliefs and to come at  us bigger next time. There is nothing good about that. There is nothing good about violently bigoted people, some of whom are armed to the gills with all manner of weaponry, feeling safe en masse in public spaces. This isn’t about free speech, because this version of free speech that keeps getting touted around values the rights of the oppressors over the rights of the oppressed. And the oppressors are doing just fine as far as rights go, in my opinion anyway.

So I say chase them back to where the fuck they came from. Identify them, humiliate them, let them cower in their basements. Kick their websites off servers and report them to social media. And then when social media does nothing about it, take social media to task. It’s enough already. These people don’t deserve access. They are disgusting. And so is the man that currently emboldens them.

So yeah, Trump can go. I don’t care where and I don’t care how, but I hope it isn’t pleasant.

*One of the recommended advanced searches when I looked for an article to link to regarding the death of Heather Heyer was for video of the attack put to music. This is America.

**As a Jewish person who sometimes passes as white and sometimes does not, I will include myself in this because I also benefit from white privilege. That being said, this is a particularly uncomfortable time to be a Jew, to say the very least.

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Nazis, Am I Right?!

13 Aug

Did you guys know that after World War II Germany outlawed both Holocaust denial and the Nazi salute? It’s true. It’s almost as if Germany looked at those things and said to themselves,

Hey, maybe if we police semantics and denial of actual history we can stop the rise of dangerous ethnocentrism!

But what does Germany know about the rise of that sort of stuff, you know? It’s not like one of their former leaders stirred some percentage of the German population into a hateful frenzy that resulted in the deaths of 11 million people in concentration camps alone. Or wait, were those called Holocaust Centers? I can’t remember anymore. So much dangerous rewriting of history has happened recently that it’s almost difficult to keep track.

But really. This shit is bonkers. So as many of you know I am a Jew. Did you hear that, Nazis? A Jew. My first and middle name both come from the Old Testament, I got Bat Mitvah’d and my dad even used to work in the stock market. You know, so he could steal money from goys and advance the Jewish agenda to take over the financial system, the media and then…. THE WORLD. And you know how we can do this? Because there are just so damn many of us! I mean, go anywhere and you’re practically tripping over Jews. Here’s some information for you about how many Jews there are!

In 1939, just before World War II – which happened, by the way – the global Jewish population peaked at about 16.6 million which is twice the population of New York City. And there are lots of people in New York City. Also lots of Jews. Which is why some people call it Jew York City for laughs. Of course then the Holocaust happened (because it totally happened, there are books and photographs and everything) during which approximately 7 million Jews were killed. So let’s do some math.

16,600,000 – 7,000,000 = …? (Maybe this will be easier if I take the zeroes out.)

16.6 – 7 = 9.6 (Don’t forget to add the zeros back in now!)

That left 9,600,000 or (9.6 million of you prefer letters to numbers) Jews at the end of World War II! Still bigger than the population of modern day New York City! That’s \ a lot of Jews, friends. Plus some of us have so many babies so we should be able to rebound just in time to take over the financial system, the media and then…. THE WORLD! Hooray Jews! J-E-W-S Jews, Jews, JEWS!!!!!

Because think about it. World War II ended in 1945 and now here we are in 2017. That gave us Jews…. ugh more math… 72 whole years to regain the lost 7 million Jews plus some in order to return to our previous state of leaders of the entire world but especially all the money. According to a study published in 2015, the Jews finally reached our pre-Holocaust numbers. Phew! But wait, that study was maybe not entirely accurate! Traditionally speaking, Jewish law is actually pretty strict about who is really considered Jewish. I mean, what with all the money laundering and slum lording we can’t let any rats in our ranks, ya know what I’m saying?? Basically, your mom has to be Jewish or, if she isn’t, she has to go through a formal conversion process. Some Jews think that is too limiting a definition. Israel’s Law of Return – the legislation that allows Jews to immigrate to Israel – was amended in 1970 to include the “child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew” to enter the country and even live there. Wow, that’s really nice! But also, woah, clearly us Jews are just trying to pad our numbers so we can take over the financial system, the media and then… THE WORLD more quickly. Sneaky, right??

Here’s the thing though: the study that cited a return to pre-Holocaust numbers included the people considered Jewish under the updated Law of Return which is totally cool with me. I mean, the more the merrier. But the thing is that back in 1945 after the Holocaust – which happened big league – the people now allowed to live in Israel under the 1970 version of the Law of Return probably weren’t considered Jewish under Jewish Law. I mean, maybe the Nazis didn’t care about all that. I’d have to get some confirmation on that. Luckily for us there are lots of photos of modern day Nazis with their names, phone numbers and addresses floating around the internet. Maybe I will send one of them an inquiry. They clearly know all about Jews seeing as how they hate us so much.

Rebekah, focus!

Sorry, I just find Nazis so damn distracting!

Anyway. This professor named Sergio DellaPergola – by the way he is the most well-known expert in the world when it comes to Jewish Demographics – came up with his own number. He argues that if “we add persons who state they are partly Jewish and non-Jews who have Jewish parents, an extended global aggregate population estimate of 17,236,850 is obtained.” And in case you got confused, that is actually more than the pre-Holocaust population. The only thing, though, is that DellaPergola doesn’t think that is a very good way of measuring demographics and he says as much!  He even drew a parallel to PhDs since he is a PhD and therefore is very full of himself. I mean, that’s always the case, right? Academics are arrogant and elitist? And they silence people of differing opinions, but especially those who spew hate? How dare they. As I was saying, he said the following:

“If the United States had 6.7 million holders of a doctorate, and 1 million of these hold a doctorate partly, how many Ph.D.s are there in America?”

I don’t feel like doing the math right now because my brain is tired from all the numbers but it seems like you could measure that population in two distinctly different ways and come up with very different answers, one of them larger than the other. And that’s just what happened with Jews! If you measure only those who self-identify as Jewish you end up with 14.2 million Jews worldwide. That number is way smaller. Not only is it smaller than the 17+ million Jews that some people quote, but it is also smaller than the number of Jews worldwide before the Holocaust. Not only that, but a recent study by Pew predicts that the world’s Jewish population will rise by about 15% over the next 2.5 decades as compared to 35% for the overall population. If those estimates are correct, that means the Jewish population won’t reach pre-Holocaust numbers until 2050 when the global population is vastly higher than it was in 1945. So that means that even though there will be the same number of Jews, we will make up a smaller percentage of the population relative to overall growth.

Woah. That’s heavy. And it almost makes you wonder what all the fuss is about. I mean, we should almost be flattered by the outsize power and influence that these people think we have. Or maybe it’s just fun to beat up on the little guys (with the big noses and the penchant for being shysters – that’s Yiddish, a language spoken by Jews!). Come to think of it though, threats of genocide and actual genocide are not really very flattering at all so never mind.

For those of us who work better with pictures and stuff, it was suggested that maybe I put Jews as percentage of world population into a chart to draw some useful parallels but I didn’t feel like wrestling with Excel. Also I’m a Jew and I was taught to steal things from other people and then hoard them so instead I found this nice pie chart on the Internet. As you can see, as of 2007 the world had a lot of people but not a lot of Jews. Way less than all the other religions measured here besides the Bahai faith which is an Abrahamic religion that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity and equality of all people. That sounds really nice, actually. I wonder why more people aren’t Baha’is (hint: because people are fucking assholes).

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So, yeah. In all seriousness, I don’t give a shit what measure you use or whether we are talking about Jews, members of the LGBTQ community, people of color or anybody else. People are people are people. (And Nazis are Nazis are Nazis.) What is going on in this country, and around the world, is fucking disgusting. And the fact that our current president took the Oval Office riding a wave of hate that empowered the worst among us is something we should all fear and be ashamed of. This has been brewing for a long time. Trump just has no goddamn soul and doesn’t care how he gets to call himself a winner as long as he can do it. He’s a King amongst the soulless and that’s good enough for him. But it’s not good enough for the rest of us. So I don’t know. Let’s keep resisting and keep arming ourselves with information in the face of their claims of “fake news.” We know what’s real so let’s shout it from the rooftops.

And in the meantime, go out and punch a Nazi. I hear it’s good for the soul.

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