2004-07-04

Editorial

Lest We Forget

As a scientist, I have always strived for consistency in my work. That is, I don't think that a scientist can run a series of research inquiries over the years and have them be contradictory in their formulation, unless, of course, you tell people at some point that you have learned or discovered something that makes it imperative for you to change your course, and, hence, you admit that you have been inconsistent. However, having changed your course, you must attempt to be consistent in the new inquiries that you pursue. Inconsistency is a no-no in science and being made aware that you have been inconsistent can be very painful.

Switching my focus as I now have from the rigors of science to the rather "mushy" areas of world news and politics has rather overwhelmed my senses. Perhaps it's just that trying to be consistent over 40 years of scientific work has made me more sensitive to the inconsistencies of others. Whatever the cause, I am now more amazed than ever at what the human brain can do to avoid having its owner face up to living with himself.

I don't think it used to be quite this way. I'm old enough to remember that sometime in the past a large majority of humans seemed to have consciences. It was one's conscience that helped prevent inconsistencies and, sometimes, stupid acts. Inconsistencies of thought were threatening to ones' ego ... to oneself. To have one of your thought processes pointed out as being "inconsistent" made you want to go and hide for being so imperceptive.

Something has changed along the way. I'm not sure precisely when the trend began, but being consistent seems be becoming irrelevant to human discourse. The ability to perceive inconsistencies seems to be disappearing as fewer and fewer people apparently possess the mental tools necessary to handle continuous complex inputs of information and parse it for consistency. This trend can be interpreted as either a cause or an effect of an accompanying disappearance of conscience.

My point is illustrated by the recent vote of nearly all members of the Democratic Party in the Congress of the United States for a Republican sponsored (by right-winger Tom DeLay) resolution (Concurrent Resolution 460) that gives their unwavering support to Israel's Right Wing Sharon government in its bid to take over nearly the entire Palestinian territory and make it part of Israel.

Progressive Democrats such as Kennedy, Frank, Feingold, Waxman and Pelosi, who should know better, have allied themselves with the likes of George Bush and his right wing Jewish Mafia (Wolfowitz, Feith et al.) in favor of what can only be described as an ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

The vote for Resolution 460 in the House was 407 in favor and only 9 opposed [The Senate supported the Resolution 95-3]. So extreme was the felt need to support Sharon apparently, that Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, refused to support a resolution sponsored by congressman Pete Stark that praised Israeli and Palestinian peace groups that are working together to come up with serious plans for achieving peace and that encouraged leaders of both Israel and Palestine to work with those groups toward peace. Apparently peace in Israel/Palestine is not a goal of the Democrat contingent in Washington.

A day after this voting fiasco, Reuters News Agency reported that U.S. lawmakers told army generals that Israeli-made bullets bought by the U.S. army to plug a shortfall should be used for training only, not to fight Muslim guerillas in Iraq and Afghanistan. "By no means, under any circumstances should a round (from Israel) be utilized," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, top Democrat on House Armed Services subcommittee. Rep. Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania remarked that although the army should not have to worry about political correctness, Abercrombie was making a valid point about the propaganda pitfalls of using Israeli rounds in the U.S. declared war on terror. "There's a sensitivity that I think all of us recognize," said Weldon. Both Abercrombie and Weldon voted for House Resolution 460.

Apparently dead in this House of Ill Repute is a sensitivity regarding using Israeli ammunition and weapons paid for by U.S. taxpayers to kill Palestinians.

I'm very well aware that according to the Jewish lobby "spin" in Washington these days, if you are Jewish and you oppose what Sharon and the rest of the right-wing gang of bandits are doing in Israel, you are a self-hating Jew. If you are not Jewish and you oppose, you are anti-Semitic. It's a Carl Rove-like spin in which the other guy, the one who disagrees with you, is always the loser

Well, I am Jewish, but if I have any hate for myself, it surely isn't for being Jewish. If I hate myself at all, it's because I was a rather timid kid who was a damned good first baseman who probably could have played professional ball if I were braver.

Being for peace in Israel and against Ariel Sharon is not a matter of hating oneself. Rather, its a matter of consistency. I'm simply being a consistent Jew who was taught at an early age that Jewish people are kind, understanding, warm and tolerant and peace loving, that they had been persecuted for years, underwent a Holocaust during World War Two and who emerged with the bold mission of carrying forward an everlasting message of "Never Again." The Mission of every Jew was, I thought, to make the saying "Lest We Forget" have meaning to others.

To be a consistent Jew, religious or not, you must live "lest we forget." You must be kind, understanding, warm, tolerant and peace loving. You must teach peace not war. Above all, you must be a mensch. In Yiddish, a mensch is a person of great integrity and compassion. A mensch listens to you, attempts to understand you, empathizes with you, tries to help you. Being a mensch is full-time, not part-time. You don't select the circumstances for being a mensch nor the company you are in for turning on your menschness.

There are very few menschen in the Congress of the United States of America. Perhaps about the same number as in Israel's Knesset. I say this directly to the Russ Feingolds, Barney Franks and the other Jewish members of Congress, all of whom voted against "Never Again," and "Lest We Forget." You have become swallowed up in an inconsistency of huge proportions. Your brains are conscience free apparently; you have no trouble being Jews, descendents of the Holocaust on the one hand and voting for the ethnic cleansing of Arabs on the other. You apparently can only think defensively about there being another holocaust instigated by Arabs against Jews and not about there never being one again anywhere. You, representing the United States of America, have the responsibility, because of your Jewish heritage, of saying "Never Again" to mass killing and of being in the forefront of the fight for peace. You have made a grave error. I hope more people don't have to die because of it.

And to the Christian members of the Democratic party who voted for Sharon, you have revealed your own lack of conscience. Your vote will come back to haunt you in the same way that the votes of those of you who voted for the war in Iraq should have come back to haunt you . . . if you had consciences. You made a huge error in supporting Bush in Iraq and now you have made the same mistake again. Yet you continue to spout banal patriotic blather about this great country of ours and silly crap about the sensitivity of not using Israeli made bullets to kill Muslims. You continually voice democracy and patriotism and motherhood and apple pie and "for the people," yet you vote for dictators, ethic cleansers and other parasites when it suits your purposes and you support using American made bullets to kill Muslims.

Consistency, where are you?

Conscience, where are you?

Finally, I need to say that I am unqualifiedly opposed to Palestinian bombing of Israel and to all of the obstructionist strategies and tactics that have been used by Arafat and his henchmen. Arafat and Sharon both have failed miserably. Lest we forget, Palestinians and Israelis are both Semitic people, yet many of them hate one another. In a sense, in hating one another, they are hating themselves. That is the true anti-semitism.

There seems to be an inexorable drive toward self-annihilation these days throughout the world. Like lemmings, stupid people seemingly fight to get in line to follow their leaders over the edge of a cliff. Words of bluff and bluster pour out of the constantly flapping mouths of leaders who are devoid of conscience, sense of humanity or consistency of purpose and into the ears of followers who cling to the lies and deceptions, basically acting as reservoirs of mis- and dis-information, unable to sort through it to detect the flaws and inconsistencies therein.

It's a long way back up from the bottom of a cliff. Think about it before you follow and make the big leap. Education, knowledge, understanding and caring about others - being a "mensch"- are your only tools. Questioning authority is your main way of using those tools. "Lest We Forget" and "Never Again" are your motivation. Now go fight for principles of decency. Go. Go. Go.