And here's the asshole who attacked Orthodox Jews on the final night of Chanukah this year:
What do they have in common? Color? No, stupidity. Bias. The warped idea that scapegoating one race solves all their petty and paranoid problems. As if any one person can wipe out a race of people. Even Hitler couldn't do it. But we're talking about mental cases, who don't even seem to care that they will spend the rest of their lives penned up in a cage like the animals they are.
Today's news, in the wake of the Monsey incident, is to blame...oh, let's see...LIBERALS. Yes, the New York Post had a columnist insist that the problem is that Liberals (like DeBlasio, aka De Lousio) are too soft on anti-Semitism.
Others blamed it on anti-Zionism and pro-Palestinian rhetoric, the kind of thing that comes from Roger Waters, Patti Smith, Desmond "Dizzy Desi the Toot" Tutu and Peter Gabriel.
Still others took this incident as a welcome sign that White KKK-neo Nazi idiots shouldn't be scapegoated because, hey hey hey, let's look at angry "people of color," and the latest group of nuts to fall from the tree, the Black Hebrew Israelites.
So, WHO'S killing the JEWS?
Listen to Tom Lehrer's song about National Brotherhood Week:
Oh the protestants hate the catholics
and the catholics hate the protestants
and the hindus hate the muslims
and everybody hates the jews
So, WHO'S killing the JEWS?
EVERYBODY.
Tom's line got a big laugh some 50 years ago, and we still laugh because it's the truth, but, you know, it ain't THAT funny.
But why the JEWS?
You could read thousands upon thousands of articles on anti-Semitism and find theories. Mine is pretty simple:
You pick on somebody who is not going to be able to do much about it.
The jerk who shot up the synagogue picked on unarmed Jews. So did the jerk who knifed five people in Monsey. So did the crazed duo who blasted a New Jersey deli with their automatic weapons.
Pick on people who have a stereotypical reputation for being weak. In the case of the Orthodox Jews, who make for the most obvious target, it's frankly a lot of very pale and emaciated-looking people. "Let's be honest," as Jackie Mason still says, if you saw three blacks walking down the street, or three Orthodox Jews, who would you be more afraid of?
There's no longer a JDL, is there? The guy who founded that group got shot.
What do the average non-Jew SCHMUCKS know about Jews, as opposed to Muslims? They know that the Orthodox Jew's outfit and the Burqa are both outlandish, but one group will blow your fucking house up if you mess with them. They know that if you laugh at Moses, it's ok, but if you cartoon Mohamed, you're fucking house will blow up. They know that all Jews will do is bury their dead and be solemn, but the Muslims might very well start knifing anyone they see and declare a Fatwa or something. (I'm talking about how SCHMUCKS think. And they don't THINK too clearly, do they? But this is their LOGIC. Jews are the easy target).
Racism is fueled by what people see and hear. If people heard nothing but GOOD things about a group of people, instead of scapegoating, maybe the hates would be less prone to hate. Instead, with anti-Semitism, there's the tough-looking nasty neo-Nazi bunch that knuckleheads admire. There's the perverse glee of seeing Holocaust footage — and the fact that when it comes to watching brutal "Ilsa" movies or the real thing and photos of naked people heaped in piles — the racists suddenly aren't denying the Holocaust but hoping to get in on a revival of it.
It doesn't help matters when an idiot like Tyson Fury starts repeating ancient lies about Jews owning everything, or Rep. Ilhan Omar shouting "it's about the BENJAMINS" and being the first elected Muslim to openly scapegoat Jews. News reports that treat swastika graffiti and sucker-punching as somehow cool, are also a problem. It's a tough line when it comes to reporting something correctly, but in such a way that it isn't glorified. Some idiots see an anonymous act of vandalism and want to copy it so they can enjoy being feared and made famous while safely concealing their identity -- the same twisted logic that fuels graffiti artists who spray their mindless "tags" even if nobody actually knows what these tags mean or who sprayed them.
The only Jews who are considered tough, as a group, are the Israelis, and Israel as far, far away from the kind of bullies who overturn tombstones, terrorize shopkeepers in Paris, torment doctors in Sweden, punch little children in Germany, or try to murder prayerful people in Pittsburgh and Monsey.
Perhaps the NRA would suggest that all Jews carry guns — and take after the mythical Ben Cartwright and Joe Cartwright (Lorne Greene and Michael Landon) who were Jewish, but played Western tough guys on "Bonanza."
Perhaps an answer is to remind everyone that you are not going to obliterate or intimidate ANY race of people, whatever their color or religion.
I remember, when I was only 8 years old, reading about this thing called "prejudice." There were pictures of what they called "Negroes," hanging from trees. If they weren't being killed, they were being shunned; not allowed to eat at a "whites only" restaurant, or use a bathroom. Even famous blacks who were playing baseball, were being subjected to obnoxious curses from the stands. Famous and respected black entertainers were denied the chance to be on TV or in movies.
And I thought, what is WRONG with these prejudiced people? They'd want to lynch The Coasters? The Marcels?
Although I didn't know it at the time, Lenny Bruce was asking a question in nightclub: would you want to sleep with a BLACK BLACK woman or a WHITE WHITE woman...if the black woman is Lena Horne, and the white woman is KATE SMITH?
An irony was that back then, violence against blacks was much more in the news than violence against Jews. Violence against Jews, the kind we read about NOW, was fairly rare. Mostly, we were told about The Holocaust, and "Never Again," and were led to believe that it really WAS "Never Again."
Now, as the Weisenthal Center newsletters would tell you, and the news will tell you, anti-Semitism is very much a factor ALL over the world. Jews, ever since the Pharoah, ever since the pogroms, have been the most targeted group of all time. Let's put it this way, half of America didn't fight a Civil War to make sure Jews could live in peace.
You'd think, since sex is the most powerful impulse, and males are usually the ones spouting anti-Semtism, that one might reason with them by saying...you'd kill THESE babes??
Do you suppose the nutjob who shot people at the Pittsburgh synagogue would've NOT done this if he was told: CAPTAIN KIRK is JEWISH. MR. SPOCK is JEWISH.
Didn't he ever watch Shatner and Nimoy on "Star Trek??"
How about Jonas Salk. How about Einstein. How about Bob Dylan. How about Leiber & Stoller. How about THE THREE STOOGES? You want to exterminate the Jews, and kill Kirk Douglas and Scarlett Johansson and I guess, cut in half Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe? Need I mention a few hundred names of Jews who have made the world a better, more amusing, funnier, safer place? This includes Jews who wrote a hell of a lot of favorite Christmas songs?
Sadly, the answer is the guy who shot up the Pittsburgh synagogue didn't even give a crap that HIS life was saved by a Jewish doctor who tended to his bullet wounds.
The bottom line is that you can't reason with CRAZY.
All you can do is try and prevent crazy people from fixating on a particular group, keep an eye on them, and try and underline to those only HALF crazy, that the answer to their gripes and grumbles is not to take it out on blacks, gays, Jews, Asians, or any other bunch of people, but to try and better themselves. Don't blame somebody else or some other group when the problem is very likely your own, and something you can work on by positive self-motivation and education. These assholes who have killed, tried to kill, or just knocked over some tombstones or painted swastikas for kicks: how did it improve THEIR fucking lives?
No comments:
Post a Comment