It’s been a very long time coming. Living in LA for 30 years, a gentile amongst Jews, watching the left move from Social Democrats, to Democratic Socialists, to full-on Marxists, to Bolsheviks, to straight up Fascists. Driven by social and legacy media. All in 25 years. With no questioning. No debate. No one wondering if it was all going a bit too far. Largely with the full support of “Progressive” Jews. Truly frightening.
I'm not sure I would bet on this "mass awakening" quite yet Bari & Oliver. Once the IDF is done dealing with Hamas, and the body count is tallied, the progressives will double down and say 'look at the brutality of the Israeli government!'. My money is that progressives will take an even more radical position against Israel and the west in general. In no time, academic administrators, corporate media and politicians will begin showing their support for Palestine again, cloaked of course, in their false virtue of justice & peace. If there's one thing that I've learned in the past 5-6 years is that there's almost no changing the minds of social justice/woke progressives.....even in the face of overwhelming evidence. They are simply too captured by the mind virus that is progressivism. Just my 2 cents (which is way over valued).
That’s how I explained my voting for Trump to the tone policers in my life: I didn’t love the man but I agreed with the message. The bigger problem that will remain is the generation of young people who have been marinating in the woke nonsense for so long. How can we deprogram an entire generation?
A couple of years ago the the pronoun police moved into my home and essentially turned my reality upside down. I could see that the social justice movement valorized anyone they viewed as “oppressed” but when this landed in my living room and ripped apart my family it took me by surprise. I was an avid cnn fan- covid rule follower, a liberal democrat. In hindsight I see these ideas creeping in to my life and my children’s schools but at the time I was a believer in “kindness”. My head was in the sand. The FPs reporting helped to lift the veil for me. Although I’m “politically homeless” I am now a single issue voter. It’s red down the line for me as democrats have gone off the rails in gutting women’s rights and endangering the safety of our kids by promoting and encouraging them to change their “gender” and misalign themselves with their own bodies through harmful experimental treatments and surgeries. I used to think that was a conspiracy theory- but have come to know it is not and now I question everything. Seeing these same people cheering on the slaughter of innocent Jews is still a shock- it truly should wake us all up. There is no justification for it and no moral equivalence there. What’s to stop them from justifying the slaughter of those they don’t agree with on “trans rights” (they have all the rights and more...), climate change, etc? Nothing.
OMG, Bari-- I have felt so marginalized in Seattle over the last three years-- as a lifelong “liberal”. My teenage daughter, just yesterday, was prohibited from selling cupcakes at her “woke” private school that encourages kids to form race-based “affinity groups” (which I opposed from day 1, invoking the supposedly racist words of MLK-- how dare I, as a cis-hetero white Jewish power-adjacent male?). Cupcakes: to benefit Israelis in their time of need, opposed by the school administration because one word in their email communication to announce the benefit (“soldiers”) didn’t pass the woke language police. Or is cupcake-gate indicative of “soft” antisemitism? Who knows anymore? I firmly believe that the woke mind virus has got to go the way of the dodo bird. I suppose this makes me a racist. Or a Trumper. Or a right wing conspiracy theorist. So be it. Meanwhile, I invite my rainbow sign “in this home...” posting, still masked neighbors (regardless of race or religion or gender, etc.) to enjoy some free cupcakes and discussion at my house. But I’m guessing I’ll be eating alone.
Now that we're asking obvious questions that weren't allowed before:
1. Palestinians are represented by two governments: Hamas in Gaza and the PA in the West Bank. In what way are they disenfranchised? They don't have tanks? Do we think they should? Some of their movements are restricted, but that could be solved if they'd just admit that killing Jews is wrong.
2. Has Israel been "oppressing" them, or are the "humiliating" checkpoints more like TSA lines?
3. Is there any value to the '67 lines, other than allowing the Arabs to pretend they didn't lose their wars? If international law really says Israel has to move back to them despite the fact that it wasn't the aggressor (doubtful), does that actually make sense? Shouldn't the aggressor pay a price for aggression?
4. On that topic, what has been demanded of the Arabs for a century of killing Jews, other than that they agree to stop? Is this really the way we want world affairs to go?
This has been forever obvious to me. The hypocrisy of the progressocialistatists is so self-evident that I have always found it hard to believe that intelligent people refuse to spot it. Anyone who bought into Hope & Change or Build Back Better was indeed shooting himself or herself in the foot.
A WSJ editorial makes similar points about what “decolonization” actually means. Hatred of everything Western. A will to destroy it all. This is what college kids have been taught.
Douglas Murray wrote an article in the Spectator says 'Sometimes a flare goes up, and you see exactly where everyone is.' Those of us who have known things are bad suddenly realised that things unimaginably dreadful. Any intellectual or moral substance to the nonsense that is being churned out by the DEI machines, the ever so sensitive thought leaders and the 'activist' class is revealed to be worthless crap (excuse the term).
I was watching CBS Sunday Morning yesterday, their woke bias had been getting on my nerves for a while now, but I really liked their feel-good stories. Yesterday, however, they just went too far. I wrote to them and told them that this was the CBS version of "there are very fine people on both sides" and noted that, to my knowledgem "the very fine people" at Charlottesville did not commit mass murder and behead babies. I ended my email thanking them for showing us who they were. And we believe them.
1. The Left betrayed everything they supposedly support to align with everything they’re ‘against’ in order to condemn Israel/display their anti-Semitism. They CELEBRATED a patriarchal, theocratic, authoritarian regime that hates women, would imprison or kill LGBTQ+, oppresses the Palestinians, hates the West, deprives people of freedom, on and on.
2. The Left supposedly supports minorities - but not the 1 Jewish nation that sits among 20+ Arab nations, many of which wouldn’t mind seeing an end to that 1 minority nation. The Left must now love majority oppressors.
3. Artifacts prove Israelis have been in that region for forever - much longer than the Left has been on Manhattan. Why aren’t these Non-Native New Yorkers working as hard to return Manhattan back to Natives but focusing all their efforts on this fake Israel Apartheid outrage? Does the Left not care about Natives anymore?
4. Conversations are frequent about how the Ivy Leagues are a joke, BLM is corrupt, and how Leftists are purely there to manipulate folks into feeling morally inferior so they’ll do every dance in the book to reclaim a place of good moral standing. It has always been a power grab. But as you said, people are seeing it clearly for the first time.
I have friends who watched CNN for years now say they turned over to Fox because they can’t believe the way CNN is covering this. People who have been Democrats their entire lives refuse to vote for Biden. And the best, “If Trump were President this wouldn’t be happening.” And that’s not coming from the Republicans.
It’s tragic that the hard check came in the form of 10/7. Why did it have to take an atrocity? What comes next?
I had been a lifelong reader of The NY Times. It was the paper of record. If they wrote it, it was true (generally). While my politics are right of center, I respected and trusted the paper. Then Covid happened. DiBlasio send the police in to the outdoor memorial for a Hasidic rabbi who died in Brooklyn. The gathering was dangerous to the spread of Covid, and needed to be broken up, he said. Then, Floyd died. And the dramatically larger marches in his memory were allowed by DiBlasio to go forward. I made a comment in the Times that this may be evidence of antisemitism. The Times curator allowed the comment and it got immediate likes. It then got deleted, and I was permanently banned from ever making comments again. Needless to say, I cancelled my subscription.
It’s been a very long time coming. Living in LA for 30 years, a gentile amongst Jews, watching the left move from Social Democrats, to Democratic Socialists, to full-on Marxists, to Bolsheviks, to straight up Fascists. Driven by social and legacy media. All in 25 years. With no questioning. No debate. No one wondering if it was all going a bit too far. Largely with the full support of “Progressive” Jews. Truly frightening.
I'm not sure I would bet on this "mass awakening" quite yet Bari & Oliver. Once the IDF is done dealing with Hamas, and the body count is tallied, the progressives will double down and say 'look at the brutality of the Israeli government!'. My money is that progressives will take an even more radical position against Israel and the west in general. In no time, academic administrators, corporate media and politicians will begin showing their support for Palestine again, cloaked of course, in their false virtue of justice & peace. If there's one thing that I've learned in the past 5-6 years is that there's almost no changing the minds of social justice/woke progressives.....even in the face of overwhelming evidence. They are simply too captured by the mind virus that is progressivism. Just my 2 cents (which is way over valued).
That’s how I explained my voting for Trump to the tone policers in my life: I didn’t love the man but I agreed with the message. The bigger problem that will remain is the generation of young people who have been marinating in the woke nonsense for so long. How can we deprogram an entire generation?
I say welcome to those who are reassessing some of their thinking.
I’ve felt for a long time that at some point people would wake up and say “wait a minute, why is the emperor naked in the street ?”
It’s too bad that it took 10/7 to bring it about.
A couple of years ago the the pronoun police moved into my home and essentially turned my reality upside down. I could see that the social justice movement valorized anyone they viewed as “oppressed” but when this landed in my living room and ripped apart my family it took me by surprise. I was an avid cnn fan- covid rule follower, a liberal democrat. In hindsight I see these ideas creeping in to my life and my children’s schools but at the time I was a believer in “kindness”. My head was in the sand. The FPs reporting helped to lift the veil for me. Although I’m “politically homeless” I am now a single issue voter. It’s red down the line for me as democrats have gone off the rails in gutting women’s rights and endangering the safety of our kids by promoting and encouraging them to change their “gender” and misalign themselves with their own bodies through harmful experimental treatments and surgeries. I used to think that was a conspiracy theory- but have come to know it is not and now I question everything. Seeing these same people cheering on the slaughter of innocent Jews is still a shock- it truly should wake us all up. There is no justification for it and no moral equivalence there. What’s to stop them from justifying the slaughter of those they don’t agree with on “trans rights” (they have all the rights and more...), climate change, etc? Nothing.
OMG, Bari-- I have felt so marginalized in Seattle over the last three years-- as a lifelong “liberal”. My teenage daughter, just yesterday, was prohibited from selling cupcakes at her “woke” private school that encourages kids to form race-based “affinity groups” (which I opposed from day 1, invoking the supposedly racist words of MLK-- how dare I, as a cis-hetero white Jewish power-adjacent male?). Cupcakes: to benefit Israelis in their time of need, opposed by the school administration because one word in their email communication to announce the benefit (“soldiers”) didn’t pass the woke language police. Or is cupcake-gate indicative of “soft” antisemitism? Who knows anymore? I firmly believe that the woke mind virus has got to go the way of the dodo bird. I suppose this makes me a racist. Or a Trumper. Or a right wing conspiracy theorist. So be it. Meanwhile, I invite my rainbow sign “in this home...” posting, still masked neighbors (regardless of race or religion or gender, etc.) to enjoy some free cupcakes and discussion at my house. But I’m guessing I’ll be eating alone.
Now that we're asking obvious questions that weren't allowed before:
1. Palestinians are represented by two governments: Hamas in Gaza and the PA in the West Bank. In what way are they disenfranchised? They don't have tanks? Do we think they should? Some of their movements are restricted, but that could be solved if they'd just admit that killing Jews is wrong.
2. Has Israel been "oppressing" them, or are the "humiliating" checkpoints more like TSA lines?
3. Is there any value to the '67 lines, other than allowing the Arabs to pretend they didn't lose their wars? If international law really says Israel has to move back to them despite the fact that it wasn't the aggressor (doubtful), does that actually make sense? Shouldn't the aggressor pay a price for aggression?
4. On that topic, what has been demanded of the Arabs for a century of killing Jews, other than that they agree to stop? Is this really the way we want world affairs to go?
This has been forever obvious to me. The hypocrisy of the progressocialistatists is so self-evident that I have always found it hard to believe that intelligent people refuse to spot it. Anyone who bought into Hope & Change or Build Back Better was indeed shooting himself or herself in the foot.
Did I change my mind? Yeah, about 45 years ago.
A WSJ editorial makes similar points about what “decolonization” actually means. Hatred of everything Western. A will to destroy it all. This is what college kids have been taught.
And replace it with what? Well, well, now we see.
A list of beliefs that must change now.
1. America is fundamentally a bad country
2. West civilization is morally bankrupt.
3. The achievements and wealth of America and Western civilization have only been realized by oppressing people of color nations.
4. Whites are inherently racist, POC cannot be racist.
5. Mankind is perfectable and we can achieve perfect fairness for all.
How do we deprogram two generations of Americans and Europeans from believing this nonsense?
Douglas Murray wrote an article in the Spectator says 'Sometimes a flare goes up, and you see exactly where everyone is.' Those of us who have known things are bad suddenly realised that things unimaginably dreadful. Any intellectual or moral substance to the nonsense that is being churned out by the DEI machines, the ever so sensitive thought leaders and the 'activist' class is revealed to be worthless crap (excuse the term).
I was watching CBS Sunday Morning yesterday, their woke bias had been getting on my nerves for a while now, but I really liked their feel-good stories. Yesterday, however, they just went too far. I wrote to them and told them that this was the CBS version of "there are very fine people on both sides" and noted that, to my knowledgem "the very fine people" at Charlottesville did not commit mass murder and behead babies. I ended my email thanking them for showing us who they were. And we believe them.
I’ve noticed a shift as well.
1. The Left betrayed everything they supposedly support to align with everything they’re ‘against’ in order to condemn Israel/display their anti-Semitism. They CELEBRATED a patriarchal, theocratic, authoritarian regime that hates women, would imprison or kill LGBTQ+, oppresses the Palestinians, hates the West, deprives people of freedom, on and on.
2. The Left supposedly supports minorities - but not the 1 Jewish nation that sits among 20+ Arab nations, many of which wouldn’t mind seeing an end to that 1 minority nation. The Left must now love majority oppressors.
3. Artifacts prove Israelis have been in that region for forever - much longer than the Left has been on Manhattan. Why aren’t these Non-Native New Yorkers working as hard to return Manhattan back to Natives but focusing all their efforts on this fake Israel Apartheid outrage? Does the Left not care about Natives anymore?
4. Conversations are frequent about how the Ivy Leagues are a joke, BLM is corrupt, and how Leftists are purely there to manipulate folks into feeling morally inferior so they’ll do every dance in the book to reclaim a place of good moral standing. It has always been a power grab. But as you said, people are seeing it clearly for the first time.
I have friends who watched CNN for years now say they turned over to Fox because they can’t believe the way CNN is covering this. People who have been Democrats their entire lives refuse to vote for Biden. And the best, “If Trump were President this wouldn’t be happening.” And that’s not coming from the Republicans.
It’s tragic that the hard check came in the form of 10/7. Why did it have to take an atrocity? What comes next?
Never forget that endless piles of tens of millions of dead human bodies did not turn the left off from Marxism.
I had been a lifelong reader of The NY Times. It was the paper of record. If they wrote it, it was true (generally). While my politics are right of center, I respected and trusted the paper. Then Covid happened. DiBlasio send the police in to the outdoor memorial for a Hasidic rabbi who died in Brooklyn. The gathering was dangerous to the spread of Covid, and needed to be broken up, he said. Then, Floyd died. And the dramatically larger marches in his memory were allowed by DiBlasio to go forward. I made a comment in the Times that this may be evidence of antisemitism. The Times curator allowed the comment and it got immediate likes. It then got deleted, and I was permanently banned from ever making comments again. Needless to say, I cancelled my subscription.