"Israeli racism has a new and original justification: The people love it" (Gideon Levy in Haaretz)

Haaretz caption: Beitar Jerusalem fans holding the flag of the outlawed racist Kach party at Teddy Stadium

by Ken

Probably there will be a lot of Americans who bristle at the idea that Israelis have broken new ground with the discovery that bigotry is good for business. Certainly Chick-fil-A CEO doesn't need any lessons from around the world in making bigotry pay -- although he does seem to have some killjoy traitors in his organization who leaned on him to delete the tweet he sent out decrying the Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage.

Israel has its killjoys too, among them Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy, who unaccountably isn't thrilled by the idea of using anti-Arab bigotry to sell soccer. Can you imagine? My friend Leo passed this along to me, and I couldn't resist sharing it.

The Haim Revivo racism project

The new representative of Beitar Jerusalem's owner announced last week he wouldn't sign Arab players.

By Gideon Levy | Jul.07, 2013 | 4:41 AM |  7

Israeli racism has a new and original justification: The people love it. When there is racism, Arabs are prevented from joining sports teams, so the teams can find sponsors. If once we had political, practical, spiritual and religious Zionism, now we have ideological racism and racism stemming from the need to sign sponsors. The person who thought this idea up, the ideological successor to Theodor Herzl and Ahad Ha'am, is an ex-soccer player, someone who made the list of greatest Israelis of all time: Haim Revivo.

The new representative of Beitar Jerusalem's owner announced last week that he wouldn't sign Arab players. "We do not seek to bring in an Arab player and provoke the fans," Revivo said. "It wouldn't be the right thing to do." He also told the fans to tone it down because "these things make it hard to get sponsors" - he was referring to the spate of racist slurs, stone-throwing, spitting and other violent acts by Beitar fans.

Revivo's new deal, as clear as the whistle of former star referee Pierluigi Collina, is that racism is good because the fans like it. The fans must not be provoked because then there will be no sponsors and no money. Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jorg Haider never thought of that.

It's a fine thing to hear from Revivo, of all people, such base justification for racism. He reached the height of his glory when he played in a Muslim country. From 2000 to 2003, Revivo was the king of Turkey. He played for the two finest teams in Istanbul, Fenerbahce and Galatasary, scored lots of goals and was voted the best foreign soccer player in Turkey. To this day there are taxi drivers in Taksim Square who, if you say "Israel" to them, will respond "Revivo," their eyes glistening.

No "representative of the owner" at those two clubs ever said he wouldn't sign Jewish (or Israeli ) players so as not to provoke the fans. Nor was there any problem with sponsors. It's not hard to guess what would have happened if a problem had come up with the Jew Revivo. A top-of-their-lungs chorus would have emerged from Elie Wiesel, the Wiesenthal Center, Yad Vashem, the Anti-Defamation League and Benjamin Netanyahu against the Turkish anti-Semitism that was calling for our destruction. But Turkey simply loved Revivo, judging him only on the number of goals he scored, not where he came from.

Revivo has forgotten this. He is a coward, with the reality shows "Dancing with the Stars" and "Eyal Golan is Calling You" and chairmanship of the Israel Football Players' Association under his belt. He knows the soul of the beast - the fans of his new club - which is the soul of many Israelis, just more crude and violent. So sometimes I love the Beitar fans; they shout what Israelis are thinking. It's not for nothing that Eyal Golan sings: "Who casts out the demons? / It's us, the Beitars. / Who's the queen? / Who's the champ? / Beitar Jerusalem on top."

This tune just goes on and on; words of praise for Yitzhak Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir, and words of hatred for Rabin and his late wife, Leah. "It happened in the square / The SWAT team was helpless / It didn't stop Amir / And suddenly, a red stain / We don't want a peace treaty." (The next part, about Leah Rabin, is unprintable ). And they sing: "We swear by the menorah / To the racism that is our dream / The whole world is our witness / There will be no Arabs here."

When they are lectured day and night about a Jewish state, they understand the real meaning better than other Israelis. Do Netanyahu and Likud MKs Yariv Levin, Danny Danon and Miri Regev think differently? Would Habayit Hayehudi leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked phrase it differently?

Beitar's racist singing raises up dark and hidden feelings, whose very raising the self-righteous reject. Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu of Safed and the Beitar fans known as La Familia are the only ones who still manage to disgust us. Our political, judicial and educational leaders, no less racist and much more institutionalized, harmful and systematic, don't disgust us. So maybe we should thank this project of Revivo's. At least it disgusts us.

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Minutemen-- Liars, Rapists, Murderers, Nazis... And, Of Course, Republicans

3 American Nazis with a toxic agenda- Gilchrist, Simcox, Hannity

Last week David Vitter's viciously anti-immigrant amendment was defeated in the Senate, 58-36, with 7 Republicans rejecting it and only the most reactionary Democrat in the Senate-- Mark Pryor-- crossing the aisle and voting with Republican anti-immigrant extremists. Vitter's amendment was meant to slow down the temporary grant of legal status or adjustment to citizenship status of immigrants. John Cornyn's poison pill amendment suffered a similar fate two days later-- 54 senators voting to table it, only 43 backing it (just Manchin and Pryor among Democrats). When you hear respectable Senate Republicans-- not to mention less respectable ones like Ted Cruz and Chuck Grassley-- ranting about their Quixotic quest for “border security,” it’s a legacy of how the Minutemen changed the ground rules of the debate. And no one has covered that development better than David Neiwert, whose spectacular new book, And Hell Followed With Her: Crossing The Dark Side Of The American Border paints the definitive picture of what the Minutemen plague really consisted of, rather than the propaganda pumped out by political grifters like Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Tom DeLay (R-TX), John Culberson (R-TX), and Phil Gingrey (R-GA) and anti-immigrant media shills Lou Dobbs on CNN and Sean Hannity on Fox.

Right after Neiwert's book was released, Dobbs', Hannity's and Tancredo's close buddy, a founder of the Minuteman movement in Arizona, Chris Simcox, was arrested and jailed for raping a series of prepubescent girls. Hopefully Simcox will get what's coming to him in prison. Unfortunately Dobbs, Hannity and Tancredo are still free and still doing great damage, if not to 9 year old girls, then to Americans in general.

Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minuteman border watch movement, was arrested Wednesday morning for allegedly having sexual contact with three young girls. Phoenix police booked Simcox on two counts of molestation of a child, two counts of sexual conduct with a minor, and one count of attempted molestation of a child.

Simcox, 52, co-founded the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, an armed volunteer group who assigned themselves the task of securing the southwest border. The group’s mission was to prevent “the unlawful and unauthorized entry of all individuals, contraband, and foreign military” in to the U.S.

Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Tommy Thompson told Phoenix-based ABC 15 that authorities “developed probable cause to believe Simcox had sexual conduct with the girls, all under the age of ten.” ABC 15 reports Simcox has denied the allegations.

Before he founded the Minutemen, Simcox had a long history of working with children. In a 2006 USA Today profile, Simcox explained his first job was at a "a very bad high school in South Central L.A." Simcox then moved to work at a private elementary school where he taught kindergarten through third grade for 13 years before becoming a private tutor.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate-group activities, points out Simcox has been accused of child molestation before. His first ex-wife, Deborah Crews, accused him of pedophilia in 1998. "He tried to molest our daughter when he was intoxicated," Crews told the SPLC. "When she ran out, he tried to say he was just giving her a leg massage and she got the wrong idea.”

Dave's book begins with the story of one band of Minutemen who broke into homes to rob people, murdered a family in cold blood-- including a 9 year old girl-- and then loudly blamed it on Mexican immigrants. Not every Minuteman was a home invader, a murderer or a child rapist. But almost every one of them was a violent Nazi, KKK or militia militant. Heroes to the GOP, this was a group of murderous extremists, dangerous misfits and Glenn Beck-quoting racists who would have conversations like this, when, according to Neiwert's book, they didn't know informers were among them:

[Undercover journalist] Dave Holthouse listened as his fellow Minutemen explained their border philosophy: like Simcox’s old friend Craig Howard, they thought that a few well-placed rifle shots would solve the nation’s border problems.

“It should be legal to kill illegals,” said one of them, a sixty-nine-year old retired Special Forces veteran who fought in Vietnam. “Just shoot ‘em on sight. That’s my immigration policy recommendation. You break into my country, you die.”

His neo-Nazi compatriots nodded in assent. “I agree completely,” one of them said. “You get up there with a rifle and start shooting four or five of them a week, the other four or five thousand behind them are going to think twice about crossing that line.”

The locals down in the border area tended to not agree-- and to not support Simcox and his Nazi brigades. Border Patrol officials he interviewed told Holthouse that the Minutemen were "more hindrance than help because they so frequently called in false alarms and set off ground sensors."

“The Border Patrol didn’t want them, my community didn’t want them here, and I didn’t want them here,” said Ray Borane, the Douglas mayor who frequently crossed swords with Chris Simcox and the other border watchers. “All they succeeded in doing was creating hard feelings and spreading a racist message. The amount of media attention they received has been totally out of proportion to their actual impact. The Mexicans have a saying that I think applies quite well to the Minuteman Project: ‘It was all song and no opera.’”

Monday, just before the Senate started voting, Obama had a high visibility meeting with prominent businessmen who back immigration reform. He made the economic case for why reform would be helpful to the country. "All of these business leaders," he said, "recognize the degree to which immigration is a contributor to growth, a contributor to expansion, a creator of jobs, but they also recognize that the immigration system that we currently have is broken." He hit all the talking points:

We have a system in which we bring outstanding young people from all across the world to educate them here, and unfortunately, too often, we send them right back so that they can start companies or help to grow companies somewhere else instead of here.

We have a situation in which millions of individuals are in the shadow economy, oftentimes exploited at lower wages, and that hurts those companies that are following the rules, because they end up being at a disadvantage to some of these less scrupulous companies.

And so, all of us I think recognize that now is the time to get comprehensive immigration reform done -- one that involves having very strong border security; that makes sure that we're holding employers accountable to follow the rules; one that provides earned citizenship for those 11 million, so that they have to pay back taxes, pay a fine, learn English, follow the rules, get to the back of the line, but ultimately can be part of the above-board economy, as opposed to the low-board economy; and a system that fixes and cleans up our legal immigration system so that we can continue to be a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.

The good news is, is that we've got a strong bipartisan bill that meets many of those principles. As I've said before, it's not a bill that represents everything that I would like to see; it represents a compromise. And I think all the business leaders here recognize that there are elements of it that they might want to tweak one way or another. But it does adhere to the core principles that we need for comprehensive immigration reform, and now is the time to do it.

Just this past week, the Congressional Budget Office noted that this would end up bringing more money into the federal government. It would reduce our deficits-- people would be paying taxes. It would end up strengthening our economy, growing our economy. And so you've got a broad consensus all throughout the country, not just business leaders who are represented here today-- many of whom are immigrants themselves, many of whom started businesses and are now creating opportunity all across the country-- but we're also seeing labor leaders, we're seeing clergy, we're seeing people from all different walks of life saying now is the time to get this done.

Monday afternoon, the Senate voted 67-27 (with several supporters stuck at airports and on planes) to move forward with the immigration bill by further militarizing the U.S.-Mexican border and screwing with immigrants in various and sundry ways-- Democrats giving in to dozens of petty Republican demands in return for their votes. (One was to confiscation billions of dollars paid into Social Security by undocumented workers.) The Republicans who voted YES were John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC), Marco Rubio (FL), Jeff Flake (AZ)-- Gang of Eight members-- and Bob Corker (TN), Lamar Alexander (TN), Kelly Ayotte (NH), Jeff Chiesa (NJ), Susan Collins (ME), Orrin Hatch (UT), Dean Heller (NV), Mark Kirk (IL), John Hoeven (ND), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Roger Wicker (MS).

And yesterday there was another Republican filibuster of the immigration reform bill. It was shot down 67-31, with every single Democrat plus 13 Republicanos voting to shut it down. That should be similar to the final vote, although Dems might persuade Chiesa (NJ) and Chambliss (GA) to cross the aisle as well and vote for reform. The Republicans who voted with the Democrats yesterday:

• Lamar Alexander (TN)
• Kelly Ayotte (NH)
• Susan Collins (ME)
• Bob Corker (TN)
• Jeff Flake (AZ)
• Lindsey Graham (SC)
• Orrin Hatch (UT)
• Dean Heller (NV)
• John Hoeven (ND)
• Mark Kirk (IL)
• John McCain (AZ)
• Lisa Murkowski (AK)
• Marco Rubio (FL)

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So Even a Pathetic Pipsqueak Like Dana Rohrbacher Scares Boehner?

Dana!

Rohrbacher used to be... a surfer, a folk singer, a pot head, a homo, Congress' #1 supporter of the Taliban and a terrorist in Afghanistan (or at least someone who dressed up as a terrorist for a photo shoot). Rohrabacher recognized the affinity between the Taliban and the Republican Party, backed them for bringing "stability" to Afghanistan and told his dumb-as-abrick-constituents in Orange County that the Taliban "intend to establish a disciplined, moral society" and, like Republicans, are just misunderstood "devout traditionalists, not terrorists or revolutionaries." And people in Orange County keep voting for him anyway. Or at least the idiots in Orange County do, not normal people there.

And, yes, Dana Rohrbacher is no longer a surfer, a folk singer, a pot head, a homo (he's married with kids now but...) or a Taliban backer, but he's still one of the biggest crackpots in Congress-- and a die-hard racist who's built a career on his hatred of Mexicans and by his unabashed expression of vitriol towards them. He is suspected by many of having fed Mitt Romney that memorable line about self-deportation that sealed the fate of not just Romney, but of so many Republicans in 2012.

And this week he publicly announced that he would try to depose John Boehner if he allows a vote on the Senate's immigration reform bill. He knows it would pass in the House and he's apoplectic that Boehner might even consider allowing a vote. “If Boehner moves forward ... and permits this to come to a vote even though the majority of Republicans in the House-- and that’s if they do-- oppose what’s coming to a vote, he should be removed as Speaker," hissed Rohrabacher menacingly. So Boehner caved-- at least temporarily.

Even though most mainstream conservative Republicans in the House support the bill-- including Boehner lieutenants Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan-- Boehner, gin to his head, agreed to abide by the so-called Hastert Rule and not allow a vote unless a majority of House Republicans decide its OK.

“I also suggested to our members today that any immigration reform bill that is going to go into law ought to have a majority of both parties’ support if we’re really serious about making that happen, and so I don’t see any way of bringing an immigration bill to the floor that doesn’t have a majority support of Republicans,” Mr. Boehner said at a news conference after meeting with House Republicans.

Mr. Boehner’s comments, both privately in the closed-door meeting at the Capitol Hill Club and publicly, came as some House Republicans have begun to draw a firm and vocal line in the sand, warning Mr. Boehner that his speakership could be at risk if he tries to force through an immigration bill without the support of his conference.

...Though Mr. Boehner has violated the Hastert rule several times this year — to help avert a fiscal showdown, provide relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy and pass the Violence Against Women Act — he explicitly said on Tuesday that he would not take up an immigration bill without the support of a majority of his party.

Mr. Boehner’s comments will make it harder for him to buck conservatives on an immigration overhaul, something that many consider crucial for Republicans hoping to regain their national standing with Hispanic voters. His position will also make it harder to strike a deal between the House and the Senate on a final immigration measure if the legislative process gets that far.

...Mr. Boehner is well aware of the difficult political situation he finds himself in. When asked if he believed he could lose his job if he violated the Hastert rule on immigration, he said, to laugher, “Maybe.”

In the meeting before his news conference, Mr. Boehner offered further reassurances to his members.

“This town thrives on non-stories, and the biggest non-story of the week is this speculation that I’m somehow planning secretly to pass an immigration bill without a majority of Republicans,” Mr. Boehner said, according to a source who was present at the meeting. “I have no intention of putting a bill on the floor that will violate the principles of our majority and divide our conference.”

Still, Mr. Boehner’s comments come as conservative Republicans are increasingly worried about how the immigration bill will be handled in the House. Representative Steve King, an Iowa Republican and leading opponent of the immigration overhaul making its way through the Senate, plans to hold a six-hour news conference outside the Capitol on Wednesday to voice his concerns about the current bill.

GOP reactionaries and bigots fear that what Boehner will do is allow a vote on the bill the emerges eventually from the Senate-House reconciliation. There may not be many Republican congressmen as racist as Rohrabacher, but Texas lunatic Louie Gohmert certainly is one. And he's ready to rumble. He's running around telling fellow extremists that Boehner "has been consistent on that as far as a bill coming to the floor of the House that the House generates. That is not the concern that Steve King, Michele Bachmann and others and I have had. Our concern has been that even if we pass a very good bill, like Trey Gowdy’s bill, if the Speaker sends that to a conference committee and the report comes back and that’s the one we’re concerned may not have a majority of Republicans... If we get a bill back that has amnesty and 99 percent of the Democrats vote for it and the Speaker can put the pressure on 30, 40, 50 of our guys, people that are committee chairs or in leadership positions, then they can still pass it even without a majority." No one pulls the wool over Louie Gohmert's eyes! NO ONE. (Boehner now appears to have been beaten into submission on the conference report as well.)

Compounding the problems of the radical right and Know Nothing xenophobes, Alabama wingnut Jeff Sessions (KKK) demanded the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to estimate how much money immigration reform would cost the taxpayers. Sessions was unprepared for the answer. Not only does the deficit shrink in the first 10 years by $197 billion if the Senate bill goes into law, the second tens years will see an astronomical $700 billion windfall for American taxpayers. I imagine Sessions, Rohrabacher, Bachmann, King, Gohmert and the other freaks were ready to jump into the DC sinkhole that's swallowing up calls this week.

The CBO score could give the bill a significant boost as the Senate tries to clear it before the July 4 recess. Supporters are hoping for a strong vote in order to put pressure on House Republicans to pass a bill this year.

The bill requires increased spending on border security and ultimately would provide a path to legal residency and possible citizenship for the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. That status would allow immigrant to tap into federal entitlement benefits but they would start paying taxes for the first time as well.

The CBO normally uses a conventional 10-year budget window and this has been a sore point for opponents of the Gang of Eight bill, who had called for a longer-range estimate.

The chief Senate critic of the immigration reform bill, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) last month said the bill will be costly once illegal immigrations qualify for entitlements.

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Yesterday The Republicans-- Plus 3 ConservaDems-- Voted To Get Busy Deporting Latinos

The overall bill was for appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security and that passed 245-182, 25 Democrats joining all but 10 Republicans in favor. The Democrats who crossed the aisle and voted for the bill were mostly a bunch of New Dem scum like Patrick Murphy (FL), Scott Peters (CA), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY), John Barrow (GA), Bill Owens (NY), Brad Schneider (IL), Ami Bera (CA), Mike McIntyre (NC), Joe Garcia (FL), Ron Barber (AZ)... all the usual suspects backing the toxic GOP agenda. But the real problem was the amendment voted on earlier in the morning and offered by Iowa racist and neo-fascist Steve King. King's amendment defunds the Obama Administration DREAMer policy, which prioritizes deporting criminals instead of students.

Republicans have argued that these orders amount to the selective enforcement of U.S. immigration laws that discourages enforcement against children who were brought to the United States illegally, or illegal immigrant adults who are not in any legal trouble. Many Republicans have dubbed Obama's orders as "administrative amnesty."

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) sponsored the amendment to the 2014 Department of Homeland Security spending bill, and called for its passage in late Wednesday debate by saying Obama's orders-- also known as the Morton memos-- violate the Constitution.

"The point here is… the President does not have the authority to waive immigration law, nor does he have the authority to create it out of thin air, and he's done both with these Morton memos in this respect," King said.

King added that while the government has prosecutorial discretion, Obama does not have the authority to create classes of people who are exempt from the law through an executive order.

Democrats said King's language is a "poison pill" that would not survive final passage, and that the Supreme Court has ruled that the executive branch has the right to prioritize cases through an order.

"So for the gentleman to argue that there is some constitutional infirmity with deferred action is wrong," Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said in response to King's arguments. "He's wrong on the law. He's wrong on his constitutional argument."

It passed by a much narrower margin, 224-201, only 3 of the most conservative Democrats in the House going along-- while half a dozen Republicans opposed Boehner and Cantor and cross the aisle to vote with the Democrats against it. The three Democrats backing the racist proposal:

• John Barrow (Blue Dog/New Dem-GA)
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC)
• Nick Rahall (confused-WV)

It will be interesting, of course, when the DCCC attacks Republicans for voting to deport Latinos. I mean they should attack Republicans on this vote but the fact that DCCC chairman Steve Israel is promising Barrow and McIntyre as much as $2 million each for their reelection campaign... well it really does smack of hypocrisy, especially when the DCCC says something to the effect of "send us money so we can defeat the evil deporters" and then gives millions to... evil deporters. Last cycle, he DCCC (and their House Majority PAC) spent $1,080,748 saving Barrow's ass from a weak opponent. This year he's likely to have a much tougher and better funded opponent. And last year, the DCCC's $2,005,888, propelled McIntyre to the narrowest of victories-- 165,590 to 167,057... just 533 votes. His opponent of last year, David Rouzer, is running again and will be much better funded. Maybe Barrow and McIntyre shouldn't be catering to Republican voters who want to replace them and think a little bit about Democratic voters who have few reasons to bother turning out on election day.

So someone still thinks there's any chance in hell the House will pass a comprehensive immigration bill? There are enough teabaggers and racists in the GOP caucus to keep even Republicans who understand the demographic tidal wave heading for places like Texas from backing any policy towards undocumented immigrants other than deportation. Period.

In response to the vote, United We Dream Managing Director Cristina Jimenez released the following statement:

“Representative Steve King, an anti-immigrant extremist with a history of attacking our community, is up to his old tricks. Late last night, Rep. King filed an amendment to block funding to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which narrowly passed this morning. Our community, the immigrant youth movement, fought and won a huge victory last year with the deferred action policy. Now, some House Republicans are making their demands clear—a return to deporting DREAMers!

This is an outrage and the exact opposite of what our country needs from its political leaders. Does Speaker Boehner want to follow Rep. Steve King’s lead and seal his party’s fate as an out-of-touch, extremist party that has forever marginalized the immigrant and Latino community? Or will the House take a new direction and pass immigration reform that not only stops the deportations of DREAMers and our families but also creates a clear path to citizenship? It’s up to them. DREAMers will not let politicians get away with this.

Starting next week, United We Dream will once again bring dozens of DREAMers to Washington, D.C. to confront and challenge politicians who are blocking our path to citizenship and harming our community. We will be holding Senate and House negotiators from both parties responsible for protecting provisions that matter deeply to our families. We won’t settle for anything less than a clear path to citizenship, family unity, and an end to the deportations of DREAMers and our families.”

The White House statement was more succinct:

As the Senate prepares to debate bipartisan commonsense immigration reform next week, House Republicans chose to spend today passing an extreme amendment to strip protections from “Dreamers.” These are productive members of society who were brought here as young children, grew up in our communities, and became American in every way but on paper. This amendment, sponsored by Representative Steve King, runs contrary to our most deeply-held values as Americans. It asks law enforcement to treat these Dreamers the same way as they would violent criminals. It’s wrong. It’s not who we are. And it will not become law.

And Karl Rove warned Republicans that they could be sealing their fate for years to come. "Republicans must consider the impressions they will create," especially among Hispanic voters, Rove said Thursday in a Wall Street Journal column. "There is growing public support for providing a pathway to citizenship for those now in the country illegally."

Rove made note of how important the immigration issue could be to Republicans in future elections by pointing out that 58 percent of Hispanics seem immigration reform as one of the most important issues facing the country, topping everything else.

"A January Latino Decisions survey suggested that 42 percent of Hispanics would vote Republican or be more likely to if the GOP 'took a lead role' in passing comprehensive reform with a path to citizenship," he wrote.

"Many Hispanics won't be open to Republicans until it is resolved," Rove added.

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Re. the Boy Scouts' "compromise": Compromise with crackpots isn't compromise, it's capitulation

Lord Baden-Powell, inventor of the Boy Scouts: Would you entrust your burgeoning lad to this man? Would you want your burgeoning lad anywhere near this man?

"President Obama praised the Boy Scouts of America's decision to lift its ban on openly gay youth, but added he hopes the organization will take further action to allow openly gay Scout leaders, according to the White House."

-- the lead of Chris Johnson's Washington Blade report

"Allowing gay scouts but not adult scout leaders . . . was a step backward, because it reinforced the most vile stereotypes and misconceptions deliberately peddled by anti-gay activists."

-- Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen

by Ken

The president's take on yesterday's vote by the Boy Scouts of America overturning the ban on membership by openly gay boys but maintaining the ban on openly gay Scout leaders, is the moderate middle-of-the-road position enunciated by many in the LGBT community and our sympathizers. It is the traditionally honored incrementalist response.

It's not my reaction, though. I find myself generally more comfortable with the statement issued by Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen:

Today's Boy Scout's decision was insulting and pandered to ignorance and bigotry at the expense of  gay people and their families. Allowing gay scouts but not adult scout leaders was a compromise -- only in the sense that BSA compromised its integrity and decency. Let's be clear — this was not a step forward, but a step backward, because it reinforced the most vile stereotypes and misconceptions deliberately peddled by anti-gay activists.

Today's decision was degrading, dehumanizing, and disgraceful. It stigmatized LGBT people and their families and sends the dangerous message that they are inferior and a threat to society.

The new policy continues to tarnish the organization's image and TWO urges increased pressure on the BSA.

Homosexuality is not a moral issue, but a natural expression of who some people are. However, bigotry is a moral issue -- one which places the BSA on the wrong side of history.

TWO does applaud those who fought and victoriously ended the cruel ban on gay scouts. Now is the time to begin the next phase of this fight and bring down the final wall of BSA discrimination.

Of course way over on the other side of the issue, worshippers of the depravevd and bigoted status quo are having conniptions, announcing the end of civilization. Still, I'm with Wayne B -- "compromise" with degenerate fiends isn't really "compromise," it's capitulation.

I should add that I'm out of my comfort zone when it comes to the Boy Scouts, which were never part of my reality. My parents never explained it as such, but when I noticed other kids in school turning up in blue Cub Scout uniforms, it was communicated to me in some vague terms that no, we didn't do that. The "we," I came to understand, was Jewish folks.

I'm not saying there are no Jewish scouts, but I'm going to guess that the numbers aren't large. And anytime I read anything about arch-scout Robert Baden-Powell and what he thought he was up to with the youth of the British Empire, the freakier it all seems to me. Man, that was one weird dude. It's hard to imagine anyone less suitable for deciding what constitutes healthy physical and mental development for burgeoning lads.

My first thought is that the tradition-bound folks who think they're fighting for Baden-Powell's vision don't know much about that vision. My second thought is that quite possibly they are. Basically, the way i read yesterday's "split decision," it says:

Fagotry is of course a filthy preversion, but given the mounting pressures of political correctness, we can't afford to dump all the burden on the budding preverts but instead have to welcome them in the hope that it's just a phase and we can help them come out the right side of it so that just possibly they don't grow into the preverts we so rightly revile.

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Whether in Israel or America, is it time to fight the Far Right's "smirking, obscene, proudly bigoted pronouncements"?

Israeli "patriot" Steven Plaut had "a suggestion" for Stephen Hawking, following the great physicist's announcement that he is boycotting the upcoming Presidential Conference in Jerusalem because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. "I suggest," Plaut wrote, "that the people of Israel send Hawking for a free trip on the Achille Lauro!!"


"The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, 'My country, right or wrong.' In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."

-- Missouri Sen. Carl Schurz, on the Senate floor, Feb. 29, 1872
(cited in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations, 1989)

"It has to stop. It has to stop here and now. When self-styled pro-Israel advocates on the far-right practice incitement and repulsive bullying to further their cause, when hate speech becomes the go-to tool in their belt, it is time for people who care about Israel's future to take a stand, call them out, shut them down, fight their smirking, obscene, proudly bigoted pronouncements."

-- Bradley Burston, in a Haaretz.com blogpost, "Targeting Stephen Hawking and Dustin Hoffman: Right-wing 'pro-Israel' advocacy as hate speech"

by Ken

With regard to the famous Carl Schurz "My country, right or wrong" quote, according to Respectfully Quoted "Schurz expanded on this theme in a speech delivered at the Anti-Imperialistic Conference, Chicago, Illinois, October 17, 1899":

I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves . . . too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: "Our country, right or wrong!" They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: "Our country -- when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right."

(Schurz, “The Policy of Imperialism,” Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, vol. 6, pp. 119–20)

"The deceptive cry of mock patriotism." You couldn't put it much better than that, especially as contrasted with "the watchword of true patriotism." And underlying that "mock patriotism" we have "false pride," "dangerous ambitions," and "selfish schemes." Already in 1899 Schurz saw the "modern" American Right full-blown, not to mention its media sponsor and overlord, Fox Noise.

"Our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: 'Our country -- when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.' "

It's a shame that we have to keep coming back to the truth and true significance of Schurz's "deceptive cry of mock patriotism." But it's essential that we continue doing so, because it appears that there will always be dishonest, dangerously ambitious, and selfishly scheming people using this mock-patriotic rhetoric to hornswoggle people they consider too stupid to know better.

My friend Leo passed on a timely blogpost on the perversions of the Israeli counterparts of our own right-wing liars and sociopaths by Haaretz's Bradley Burston. I want to pass Burston's piece on in its entirely, and because it's important to know who we're hearing from, here's his online bio:

Bradley Burston is a Haaretz columnist and Senior Editor of Haaretz.com which publishes his blog, "A Special Place in Hell."

During the first Palestinian uprising, Burston served as Gaza correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, and was the paper's military correspondent in the 1991 Gulf War.

In the mid-1990s he covered Israeli-Arab peace talks for Reuters. In 2006, he received the Eliav-Sartawi Award for Mideast Journalism, presented at the United Nations.

A native of Los Angeles, Burston moved to Israel after graduation from Berkeley. He was part of a group which established Kibbutz Gezer, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Burston served in the IDF as a combat medic, later studying medicine in Be'er Sheva for two years before turning to journalism. He is married and has two daughters.

Now here's the post from Buston's "A Special Place in Hell" blog. (In the original you'll find abundant links, including citations for virtually everything factual.)

Targeting Stephen Hawking and Dustin Hoffman: Right-wing 'pro-Israel' advocacy as hate speech

Increasingly, the rabid far-right 'pro-Israel' camp is carrying out repulsive, hate-filled attacks on Jews whose most cherished wish is to see a stronger, more democratic Israel. It is time to take a stand.

By Bradley Burston | May 09, 2013 | 6:21 PM

Professor Steven Plaut teaches business finance and economics at the University of Haifa. He also writes articles, pamphlets and blog posts intended to defend Israel.

This is what he offered in defense of Israel this week, in response to physicist Stephen Hawking's decision to boycott next month's Presidential Conference in Jerusalem, over Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

"I have a suggestion," Plaut wrote on Wednesday, in a reference to the wheelchair-bound noted scientist, and to a 1985 incident in which Palestinian gunmen commandeered an Italian cruise ship, murdering a disabled American Jewish passenger and throwing his body overboard:

"I suggest that the people of Israel send Hawking for a free trip on the Achille Lauro!!"

Plaut's argument, that the proper punishment for boycotting Israel should be execution, was only slightly more obscene than that of attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Shurat Hadin-Israel Law Center Organization, a right-wing pro-Israel not-for-profit whose stated primary goals include "defending human rights" and conducting a "civil war" in court against global terror.

In a statement, Darshan-Leitner alluded to the fact that Hawking is almost entirely paralyzed and communicates through a speech generating device:

"His whole computer-based communication system runs on a chip designed by Israel’s Intel team. I suggest that if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet.”

For years, prominent voices on the ostensibly pro-Israel far-right have been competing to see who can be the most outrageous in cruelty, the most childish in bullying, while pursuing a career in what they call Israel advocacy.

Just last week, the New York-based Jewish Press, which describes itself as "the largest independent weekly Jewish newspaper in the United States" and "a tireless advocate for the state of Israel," published a news article that used classic anti-Semitic imagery in the service of a right-wing polemic on Israel.

Taking actor Dustin Hoffman to task for accepting the Muslim Public Affairs Council's invitation to present an award to the Academy Award-nominated film "Five Broken Cameras," Jewish Press correspondent Lori Lowenthal Marcus wrote:

"Hoffman is someone whose Jewishness seems to have played very little role in his life other than as a trigger to anti-Semitic bullies, and the fact that his height, his nose, his nasal voice and his plucky, outsider roles are all stereotypically Jewish."

Later, Marcus, who also serves as president of the far-right Z Street Israel advocacy organization, concludes:

"So, in the end, Dustin Hoffman with his honking nasal voice and Semitic nose may be emulating the pattern of the mindless good-looking movie stars against whom he rose as the iconic non-handsome, non-sexy male movie star of the counter-culture years."

Increasingly, the rabid "Pro-Israel" far-right has taken on as principal targets Jews whose most cherished wish is to see Israel become a stronger, more democratic, more livable society.

Commentator and media personality Pamela Geller, whose bread and butter "pro-Israel" tack is hatred of Muslims, has branched out to target writer and editor Peter Beinart as "vomit-inducing kapo."

Geller, at times borrowing her writing style from Stormfront, has also called the Daily Beast's Beinart "the pet Jew turncoat" of Newsweek/Daily Beast Editor-In-Chief Tina Brown.

Of columnist Jeffrey Goldberg, Geller writes: "Jihad Jeff Goldberg, from one Jew to another, go to hell. Cuz it's foe shizzle you are going to rot there."

It has to stop. It has to stop here and now. When self-styled pro-Israel advocates on the far-right practice incitement and repulsive bullying to further their cause, when hate speech becomes the go-to tool in their belt, it is time for people who care about Israel's future to take a stand, call them out, shut them down, fight their smirking, obscene, proudly bigoted pronouncements.

The "pro-Israel" far right takes full advantage of -- even while scorning -- its liberal opponents' beliefs in freedom of expression and tolerance for democracy's sake. Their vile views regularly grace newspaper columns and are granted platforms by synagogues and Jewish organizations.

And it's only getting worse. It may have been anger over the realization that most Western Jews disagree with them, it may have been input from the high-IQ snots of Im Tirtzu, it may have been the sense that their beloved settlers have won a final and permanent victory in Israel, but of late, something terrible and growing is infecting far-right "pro-Israel advocacy."

It has to stop. We have to stop meekly putting up with it. Otherwise, as we've seen a number of times recently, if smartly dressed thugs of the right can disrupt a serious debate on Israel's future by booing and delegitimizing a two-state solution as being anti-Israel, the way forward is clear.

If the bigots, the fanatics, the Apartheid apologists, the velveteen fascists of the pro-Israel far-right are freely granted platforms as respected "experts" on Israel, no one who hates Israel as bigoted, fanatic, Apartheid-ruled and fascistic -- no one who wants to see Israel ostracized to death -- will ever need to say another word.

The Plauts, the Gellers, and a host of others will have already done their work for them.

One of the little things I love in this post is Burston's insistence on putting "pro-Israel" in quotation marks as applied to the "velveteen fascists" of the Israeli Right. As he says of the "something terrible and growing" that of late "is infecting 'pro-Israel advocacy":

"It has to stop. We have to stop meekly putting up with it."

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Chris Ware shares the thinking behind his lovely "two moms" Mothers' Day cover for this week's "New Yorker"

"[L]aughing at [Archie Bunker] allowed one to take the first step towards changing one's own biases, whether one knew it or not. . . . Fortunately, we humans are incessant editors, never happy with the first draft of anything."

-- Chris Ware, writing about his "two moms" New Yorker cover

by Ken

This exceedingly cool Mothers' Day cover is the work of graphic novelist and longtime New Yorker cartoonist-artist Chris Ware. Evidently Chris has been thinking about the way we humans "edit" the stuff we think, as he notes in the "Cover Story" he posted on the magazine's "Culture Desk" blog:

As a kid, my grandparents, and millions of other viewers rarely missed an episode of the television program "All in the Family." For those too young to know, Norman Lear's aboriginal must-see TV hilariously highlighted the friction between the nineteen-sixties' "progressive" generation and their parents via the bigoted, but strangely lovable, character of Archie Bunker. I suspect most of its viewers shared more in common with Archie's prejudices than they wanted to admit, but laughing at him allowed one to take the first step towards changing one's own biases, whether one knew it or not.

I like to imagine that my grandparents were always progressive, tolerant people in favor of things we now take for granted, but I know that's probably wishful thinking. I'm not even sure about myself in this regard. Fortunately, we humans are incessant editors, never happy with the first draft of anything. This tendency towards revision can cause problems, though. For example, most memories I have of my daughter as a baby have been systematically and irrationally replaced by a mental image of how she appears now -- an eight-year-old -- because I simply can't believe she was ever so small. In fact, when she was born, one of my friends, while cradling her fragile seven pounds, couldn't believe it then, saying, "God, why don't we just die the second we're born? We're so delicate and vulnerable!" My wife's mother, who was visiting, didn't miss a beat: "It's mothers, honey. It's our job to make sure that never happens." Well, score one for Moms, I thought.

Now that the numbers are in on same-sex marriage, many Republicans are falling like dominos all over themselves to express their support for something that only a few months ago they steadfastly claimed to stand against. They'll probably soon claim that this is how they felt all along, and they were simply too hamstrung by politics to be able to say what they really meant. Well, okay. In the spirit of openheartedness and what life is really all about, I'll go so far as to say that the fear of others may mask some deep-seated desire to understand, and maybe even to love. Because really, what is there to be afraid of? Few people today don't know -- or have in their families -- at least one loving couple who are raising children, same-sex or not. And it's really just the loving part that matters. That same-sex marriage could go from its preliminary draft of "diagnosable" to the final edit of "so what?" must indicate some positive evolution on the part of the larger human consciousness. My wife, being a biology teacher, puts it even more succinctly: "Why are all these people so worried about who everybody else is sleeping with, anyway?" (Score two for Moms.)

So, a final draft: happy Mothers' Day, moms. We are grateful to, and love, you all.

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