All posts by Dr. ESP

Let My People Be

Politics, Religion

Welcome to Part II of National Governors Association Week at Deprogramming101.  In Part I, I shared my respect for the GOP governors and their staffs with whom I worked during my tenure at the association.  There were, of course, exceptions.  I share the following personal experience to provide context for today’s post.

In the mid-1990s, I attended an off-camera working session on proposed national education goals chaired by then NGA chair Carroll Campbell, the Republican governor of South Carolina.  Campbell made this topic the primary focus of his year as leader of the bi-partisan organization.  During the discussion, Republican Mississippi governor Kirk Fordice said he hoped the final version would be consistent with Christian values.  Campbell asked his colleague if a more inclusive approach would be to refer to traditional Judeo-Christian values.  Fordice replied, “If that’s what I meant, that is what I would have said.”  I was reminded of this episode watching an excerpt from Donald Trump’s infomercial for “God Bless America” Bibles.  Having been excluded from this Fordice-inspired grift, I decided it was time for my tribe to get a piece of the action.

The following are excerpts from an infomercial for the “God Save Democracy (GSD)” Haggadah, available at most temple gift stores and on-line booksellers for 60 shekels ($16.32 USD).

Do you wish your Passover seder was more relevant to the issues of the day yet still contained many of the traditional symbols and familiar passages associated with the exodus from Egypt?  Now you can have both.  This year, conduct your Passover celebration using the new “God Save Democracy” Haggadah.  Draw parallels between the Israelites’ deliverance from Pharaoh and our efforts to loosen the grip of an equally enraged, cruel tyrant who opposes all who do not pledge fealty to his every whim, without jettisoning the joy of reading prayers, singing songs and retelling of the story of Moses and the flight from Egypt. 

How does the GSD Haggadah do that?  By meshing the ancient with the modern.  Here are three examples. 

First, the seder plate where each item depicts an aspect of the exodus in years past and the challenges of present day.

  • Celery/Symbolizes how Donald Trump “stalks” women.
  • HORSEradish/Trump’s recommended treatment for Covid if ivermectin is unavailable.
  • Charoset/A reminder of the mishmash that comes out of Trump’s mouth.
  • Egg/In remembrance of days not so long ago when no one called this a human being.
  • Salt Water/Crocodile tears shed by “poor, victim me.”
  • Shankbone/Commemorating Trump’s golf strokes that landed in a penalty zone and miraculously appeared in the middle of a fairway.

Then, of course, there are the Four Questions.

Why is this candidate different from all other candidates?

    • All other candidates accept the outcome of elections.  Why does this candidate accept only elections he wins?
    • All other candidates salute the American flag to demonstrate their allegiance to America?  Why does this candidate salute convicted felons who stormed the U.S. Capitol and beat up policemen?
    • All other candidates promise to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.  Why does this candidate promise to suspend it when it serves his interests?
    • All other candidates understand global alliances are essential to national security.  Why does this candidate prefer alliances with our adversaries instead of our friends?

And finally, even in celebration of the end of the Israelites’ enslavement, we acknowledge the suffering of everyday Egyptians in imposed on them by the actions of an arrogant and stubborn Pharaoh.  So too must we acknowledge the suffering of all Americans under Trump’s policies and practices.  That is why we spill a drop of wine for each of 10 plagues every American faced during his reign.

  • Charlottesville
  • Obstruction of Justice in the Russia Investigation
  • Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett
  • Emoluments Clause Violations
  • Covid Response
  • Voter Suppression
  • Eight Trillion Dollars Added to the National Debt
  • January 6 Insurrection
  • Mishandling Classified Documents
  • The Dobbs Decision

Want an updated holiday experience that brings the hardship and agony under tyrants in days of old and new into your home yet is optimistic  about an eventual victory by the resistance?  Don’t wait.  Order your “God Save Democracy” Haggadah today.

חג שמח
Happy Holiday!

Disclaimer:  All proceeds from the sale of each and every “God Save Democracy” Haggadah go to the Making Attempts at Theocracy Zero Opportunity (MATZO)   PAC.  Think of each contribution as “unleavened dough,” financing the fight to educate those who cannot read or do not understand the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

Top of the Pyramid

Religion

Friends and readers of this blog often ask me, “Why, first thing every morning, do you watch Joe Scarborough?”  The answer is quite simple.  Joe reminds me of the relationship I used to have with Republican governors and their staffs during my time at the National Governors Association (NGA), some with whom I remained friends long after I left the confines of the D.C. political scene.  Those relationships evolved while working on policy issues on which we often held what sometimes appeared to be diametrically opposed positions.  The interaction, however, made me a better analyst and advocate for two reasons.  First, there was a legitimate conservative viewpoint on most topics, and since any official NGA position required the support of two-thirds of the chief executives of the nation’s states and territories, that conservative bent needed accommodation.  Second, and perhaps more importantly, any disagreement in direction forced me to develop a compelling argument that a more liberal approach did not necessarily violate core conservative principles.  And in the end, though this may sound trite, I would realize we had more in common than we had differences.

This morning I found myself metaphorically back in my NGA office in the Hall of the States when Scarborough explained the difference between his world view and that of the MAGA dominated Republican party.  He compared his personal value system to a pyramid in which his priorities began at the top.  He ticked them off.  God.  Country.  The Constitution. Politics and Party.  He then suggested the current iteration of the GOP was a totally inverted pyramid with Donald Trump at the top and God at the bottom. 

It reminded me of the 1964 song “Barry’s Boys” by the original Chad Mitchell Trio which began, “We’re the bright young men who wanna go back to 1910, we’re Barry’s boys,” referring to GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater.  It was the closing which captured the tenor of that era and ours today.  Chad Mitchell would mimic a Goldwater supporter, “I’m an American first and a politician second.”  Mike Kobluk’s bass voice would respond, “Spoken like a true American politician.”  But I digress.

Scarborough’s primary allegiance to a divine presence is no surprise.  He is an unapologetic evangelical Southern Baptist.  Which raised the question, “What would a devout agnostic, like me, put at the top of my pyramid?”  The second segment of “Morning Joe” provided the answer.  The topic was the terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall in which 137 (to date) audience members were killed and more than 120 others wounded.  Marc Polymeropolous, former senior intelligence analyst at the CIA, described how the CIA had alerted Russia to that very possibility two weeks before the attack and had issued a warning to U.S. personnel stationed there.  Scarborough jumped in.  He reminded viewers the U.S. had done the same thing before an ISIS terrorist attack in Iran on January 4, 2024.

He then went into a typical Joe Scarborough rant.  These are people who shout, “Death to America” or commit war crimes against civilians in Ukraine.  Yet we still shared intelligence about an imminent terrorist attack.  Why?  Because it was the right thing to do.  It was what Americans do.  It was then I realized where Joe’s and my world view came together.  His moral compass gravitates toward God, Jesus Christ and the words of the Gospel.  I attribute mine simply to the fact that I am a member of the human race.  How we got there makes no difference.  I could now draw my pyramid.  Therefore, at the top of my pyramid is “humanity” followed by country, the Constitution and last, like Joe, party.

Listening to Joe Scarborough did not change my world view.  It did, however, help me clarify it.  And made me realize I share the road on which I travel with many kindred spirits.  The only difference being our choice of vehicles and the north star which guides our journey.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

The Fringe on Top

Culture

The ghost of Yogi Berra spoke to me this morning.  “It’s déjà vu all over again,”  he said.  He was referring to the student protests on college campuses in support of a ceasefire in the Israel/Hamas war.  He continued, “I’m surprised, you of all people, have not made this connection.  You were there.”

Berra was, of course, reminding me of the student protests against the war in Vietnam at my alma mater, the University of Virginia.  Not only was I there, I was an active participant.  My fraternity brother Jeffrey Kirsch summed it up best in a 50th anniversary retrospective in Virginia Magazine. “It was like a cultural train running through the University.  There was this awaking and outpouring of emotions and progressive instincts.”

The early days of the anti-movement at UVA were peaceful.  They consisted of teach-ins and student gathering, including a concert in the Old Cabell Hall lecture room, the same 850 seat auditorium where I attended Economics 101.  I helped organized the concert and even performed, choosing two songs I hoped would generate dialogue about a misguided policy in Southeast Asia.  “The Age of Aquarius” from the musical Hair and Simon and Garfunkel’s “A Poem on the Underground Wall.”

Protest movements are never  monolithic.  For every Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Council there is a Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers.  In 1969, UVA students who favored a more militant approach to opposing the war formed the Radical Student Union.  In hopes of stemming a shift he feared might become more extreme and even violent, another one of my fraternity brothers Robert Rosen led what became known as the Student Coalition, bringing together liberals, antiwar radicals and fraternity leaders.  A third fraternity brother Joel Gardner, who today is among the most conservative advocates of the free speech movement at UVA, writes in his memoir about the effort to keep the more extreme elements of the antiwar movement from hi-jacking growing sentiment against the war and other progressive causes including the lack of racial diversity on campus.

The key was to forcefully demonstrate that the forthcoming actions of the coalition did not represent the ideas of wide-eyed radicals and agitators, and that support for stronger actions to address the issues at the University was widespread.

Two events demonstrated how quickly the complexion of a peaceful protest movement can change.  First, President Richard Nixon’s announcement U.S. troops had been deployed in Cambodia followed by the killing of four students and wounding of nine others by Ohio National Guard troops at Kent State University.  Kirsch, who now served as a president of the Virginia Progressive Party, organized a fundraiser featuring Chicago Seven defendant Jerry Rubin and his attorney William Kunstler.  What Kirsch originally envisioned as a “classroom sized presentation,” was moved to University Hall, the indoor athletic arena, to accommodate the 9,000 students from UVA and surrounding universities who came to hear them speak.

Even Kirsch, who introduced Rubin and Kunstler, remembers his own trepidation as both speakers urged the audience to “liberate the president’s house.”  Immediately following their remarks, Kirsch rushed to Carr’s Hill, the president’s residence, to warn Edgar Shannon of what was about to happen.  In the 50th anniversary retrospective, Ernie Gates writes:

Out front, Kirsch faced the mob he had unintentionally helped to create. “People were inflamed,” he says. “I felt like it was my fault. It was my event.” A megaphone amplifying his words, Kirsch addressed the crowd. “I said, ‘This is not the right tactic. We should be going after a target that is more associated with the war effort—we should take the Navy ROTC building.’ I didn’t want to burn down Maury Hall—I was trying to protect Shannon and his family.”

And to the ROTC building they went, occupying it again and declaring it “Freedom Hall.” A photo from that night shows a scorched mattress that had been dragged from the building’s basement, possibly a remnant of an attempt to follow through on the cries of “Burn it down.” The smoke, however, eventually forced the protesters to abandon the building.

The next morning, all the news reports and images focused on the incident at the Navy ROTC building.  In a New York minute, the extremist fringe of the anti-war movement fractured a coalition, three years in the making.

I share this story in such detail because the same forces seem to be at play on college campuses today.  When I see peaceful student protests calling for a ceasefire in the Israel/Hama conflict and humanitarian aid to civilians, I do not believe the overwhelming majority are calling for the destruction of Israel nor do I believe they hold American Jews responsible for what strike so many as counterproductive policies of the Netanyahu government.  At UVA, a majority of students voted in favor of a resolution demanding the university divest its endowment funds in companies doing business with Israel.  The text is similar to a 1987 resolution in response to apartheid in South Africa.  The resolution did not include antisemitic language or call for the dissolution of Israel.  It only addressed government policies believed to be contrary to the rights and aspirations of Palestinians.

Unfortunately, there is an extreme fringe of the pro-Palestinian movement on campus that has threatened Jewish students and vandalized property.  Concerned parents of Jewish students believe President James Ryan has not done enough to protect their children.  Some are demanding he resign.  And once again, when the fringe elements of a social movement, regardless of the cause, make the headlines (i.e. get top billing), it only detracts from the greater purpose.

Which begs the question, where are leaders of the pro-Palestinian student movement, who like Jeffrey Kirsch acknowledge their role, even if unintentional, in creating a hostile atmosphere and say, “This is not the right tactic.”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Wrestling with Bibi

Politics, Religion

Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves.

~Donald J. Trump/March 18, 2024

What precipitated Trump’s comments during an interview with his former advisor Sebastian Gorka on the latter’s podcast “America First with Sebastian Gorka?”  March 14, 2024 remarks by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.  Schumer’s offense?  According to the Associated Press:

Schumer, the first Jewish majority leader in the Senate and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S., strongly criticized Netanyahu in a 40-minute speech Thursday morning on the Senate floor. Schumer said the prime minister has put himself in a coalition of far-right extremists and “as a result, he has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.”

This is one more indication the Trump/MAGA version of the GOP is no longer “your father’s Republican Party.”  Even far-right antisemites cannot figure out which side they are on.  In January 2023, the Anti-Defamation League with assistance from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago (NORC) conducted a year-long research project to explore the roots of the increase in antisemitic rhetoric and incidents in the United States.  The project included interviews with more than 4,000 random individuals conducted in the fall of 2022.  When presented with the statement, “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to America,” 39 percent responded this antisemitic trope was either mostly or somewhat true.  Fourteen months later, Donald Trump is now accusing Jewish-Americans of not being loyal enough.

Chuck Schumer does not hate Israel or Judaism.  In fact, his remarks are consistent with long-standing Jewish tradition going back to biblical times.  One would think, Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and their evangelical supporters who claim the Old Testament is the literal word of God (when it is convenient to do so), would be the first to come to Schumer’s defense.  I am, of course, referring to Genesis 32:25-29 in which Jacob seeks God’s blessing despite having deprived his older brother Esau of his birthright.

25 Jacob was left alone. And a figure wrestled with him until the break of dawn.
26 When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him.
27 Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”
28 Said the other, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.”

29 Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.”

The phrase “you have striven with beings divine” led to this biblical passage being referred to as “Jacob wrestling with God,” the central message being even a supreme being does not expect his believers to follow blindly.  One might say, this is God telling his followers, “We are not a cult.  It is okay to challenge me.  You will not be punished.  And on occasion, as did Jacob, you might even prevail.”

Not only did Jacob go unpunished, God reaffirms the commitment he originally made to Abraham that his descendants would become a great nation.  Why then would anyone believe Schumer’s questioning the policies of a mere mortal such as Bibi Netanyahu signals hatred of his religion or Israel? He is acting in accordance with one of God’s earliest directives.  If there is a compassionate God, I have no doubt he would welcome, maybe even applaud, Schumer’s efforts to question whether an Israeli government led by Bibi Netanyahu is acting in the best interest of his “children,” whether Jewish or Muslim.

The only thing missing in this narrative is Michael Buffer and his catchphrase, “Let’s get ready to rumble!!!”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Political Plagiarism

Politics

Merriam-Webster defines “plagiarism” as a transitive verb meaning “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own : use (another’s production) without crediting the source.”  During my time as a professor at Miami University, I always made a distinction between “words” and “ideas”.  Two people, with similar observations and experiences, can independently come up with similar ideas.  I often joke with my wife, “They must have seen yesterday’s blog,” when a Post or Times editorial or op-ed makes the same point I covered before they did.  However, I know two people independently reaching the same conclusion is not a crime.

That is why I always focused on the second definition.  I expected any student who wrote about entrepreneurship as “creative destruction” to credit Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter with coining the phrase.  Knowledge is built on the shoulders of those who came before us.  We need not agree with everything they said or did, but we have a sole obligation to recognize their contribution.

We now have a new kind of plagiarism under the second definition, political plagiarism, which President Biden pointed out during his State of the Union Address.

And thanks — and thanks to our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 46,000 new projects have been announced all across your communities.

And, by the way, I noticed some of you who’ve strongly voted against it are there cheering on that money coming in. And I like it. I’m with you. I’m with you.

My congressman Aaron Bean must have been napping at this point because just four days later he issued a press release about a $147 million federal grant to Jacksonville which included the following.

I’m excited to have worked with Congressman Rutherford to help secure over $147 million in direct grant funding to support the City of Jacksonville and Jacksonville Transportation Authority’s master plan to transform 14 historic neighborhoods and downtown into the Emerald Trail.

Where did the money come from?  It was one of 143 projects funded through the Reconnecting Communities Program authorized as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law by President Biden on November 15, 2021.  Bean was not elected to Congress until November 2022, so we do not know how he would have voted on House Bill 3684.  But we do know how John Rutherford, our congressman before redistricting, voted.  He was one of the 201 (out of 203) House Republicans who voted “NAY.”

Now Bean could argue, “If I’d been there, I might have voted for the bill.”  But unlikely, since taking office, he has followed the GOP house leadership on virtually every bill and resolution. But that is speculation.  Therefore, if ever asked, he can honestly say, “I did not vote against HB 3684.”  You know, just like President Bone Spurs claimed he would have come to the rescue of students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, “Even if I didn’t have a weapon, and I think most of the people in this room (a meeting at the White House) would have done the same.”

But honesty is not only about what we do.  It also takes into account what we do not do, which brings us back to definition #2 of plagiarism.  Let me repeat it.  “Use (another’s production) without crediting the source.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)  As we know, the Biden administration worked tirelessly with both Republicans as well as members of their own party to “produce” a filibuster-proof bill that would eventually pass 69-30 in the Senate.  [NOTE:  Florida’s two senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio were among the 30 nays.]  What better example of two congressmen committing political plagiarism than Bean and Rutherford taking credit for something that would not have happened if they and their colleagues had their way.

If they do not want this to be an issue in the 2024 election, they can file a motion with Judge Aileen Cannon claiming Article I of the Constitution is too vague to allow citizens to chastise members of Congress for taking credit for things which they opposed.  I’m sure she would hold a hearing on their motion sometime in December.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP