Yep, that's what someone said to me this evening.
How..... friggin'..... dare he!
To understand why that particularly got my goat, there are three things that you must know. All three add up to a composite that is toxic in combination with the phrase "go back where you came from".
1. I've heard that phrase far too many times. Usually it is uttered by some moron who takes offense at the way I speak English, and assumes that I "don't belong here". I have been back in the US for nearly thirty years, but I still have an accent. We went to the Netherlands when I was two, I lived there till I returned as an adult in 1978. Yep, I talk funny. Deal with it.
2. My father's family have been in the US for nearly four centuries, my mother's family have been here for slightly over three centuries. My bloodline has been here since the time of Peter Minuit - heck, my ancestor sold him ale! So, 'back where I came from' is right here.
While living in the Netherlands I was always told to go back where I came from - and I have indeed done so. What's the F*^^&%G problem?
3. I was told to go back where I came from by an anti-Israel demonstrant.
The phrase, in addition to being offensively bigoted, racist, and stupid in every possible context, also has connotations that are particularly insulting when said during a pro-Israel manifestation by someone who is anti-Israel. Arabs have yelled it across the street at us outside the consulate, neo-Nazis have shouted it at us during protests, and the Stalinists have mouthed it contemptuously during "peace-marches". Dumbass rednecks think it, and along with "ah dinnut do it, offsar", it is the most complete sentence of which they are capable,
We are all were we belong. Punkt.
I gave the harrumphacker who said it an earfull. The police asked him to back off. A minor victory.
Had the police not been so very close, he would not have gotten an earfull. He would've gotten a bloody ear. He got my goat - and I want it back.
I'm still steaming. Dammit, I want to punch someone.
Showing posts with label Street Zionism 2007. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Street Zionism 2007. Show all posts
Monday, December 17, 2007
Monday, November 05, 2007
APPARENTLY I'M A SCREAMING LIBERAL
I have been informed that reacting badly to two Republican yutzes who made our counterdemo seem like a 'pro-Iraq war yay Bush rah rah boomdee yay fest' will frighten away the poor gentle love-filled Republicans who otherwise would flock to our standard like happy little moths to a bright attractive light, and that we are becoming extremist lefties who scare people.
We are now repellent to dear little children, Republicans, small puppies, Republicans, girl scouts, Republicans, elderly women, and Republicans. We are like an overly perfumed pipe-tobacco, in other words.
Let me explain that a little.
On Saturday the twenty-seventh of October, about sixty or seventy people counter-demonstrated International Answer's alleged peace rally.
We, the San Francisco Branch of the vast intergalactic Zionist conspiracy, were there with signs and flyers making it clear that we objected to International Answer's anti-Israel and anti-Semitic agenda. We also made it clear that as a group we had no position on the Iraq war and were not demonstrating against the peace movement or the idea of peace, but were there only and entirely to protest against International Answer. One single and very simple issue.
This proved too complicated for the teevee reporters, who instead chose to feature sound-bytes from two simple very pro-war people who may have been Republicans.
The televised shots of the counter-demonstration showed tons of Israeli flags, but did not explain why there were any Israeli flags there. The talking neanderthals in front of that backdrop instead spoke lovingly of Bush and the Iraq war. Which effectively made it seem that all of us were there as pro-war slope brows.
I really do not like when our message is hijacked by Republicans. If the Democrats or the greens had tried it, I would be just as angry. But it was Republicans who did it. They were not there as supporters of Israel objecting to International Answer's anti-Semitism, they were not there in support of Israel - they were there purely to cheer for the war.
Because of that, I suggested to the group that we should in future avoid Republicans like the plague - the ones who show up to counter-demo tend to be mush-mouthed morons and no-neck inbreds. And I was being very charitable and full of sheer buckets of love when I said that.
But saying that apparently makes me a dangerous radical lefty - because I do not look with a kindly eye on Republicans going off message when they join us.
I have been informed that there are tons and tons of Republicans in the Bay Area who would join us and protest for Israel if only we didn't chase them away with our Marxist rhetoric and hate.
Sorry, no.
There aren't tons of timid pro-Israel Republican butterflies out there, sister.
This is the Bay Area. Eighty percent plus of the population votes for the Democrats. Being pro-Israel in the Bay Area is already considered ultra-rightwing by some people in any case. We have an uphill battle against popular perception. If those timid Republicans are frightened by our not taking a stand on the war, they are frightened of everything. They are frightened of bright lights, cheese that doesn't come in slices, and their own quivering shadows.
They probably check under their beds for democrats before they go to sleep at night.
Boo, gentle Republican butterflies, boo!
And we aren't radical lefties either. I already bend over backward to keep from scaring away rational potential supporters with my extremist pro-settlement sentiments. I have not once said that if the Arabs cannot stop firing rockets the response should be devastating and final. I have never even mentioned to querulous strangers that I consider the European left, with their wussy pandering to every anti-American and anti-Israeli cause in the world, the greatest possible danger to civilization. I have studiously avoided expressing points of view which could be misinterpreted as extremist far-right Zionist here in the rather liberal Bay Area.
Because I love lucid and sane supporters of Israel, I'm already doing my bit not to frighten the mainstream. So the very least the hypothetically pro-Israel Republicans who might stand with us can do is not piss all over that.
Do NOT hijack the message.
At this point, I'm perfectly willing to mace the next person who brings a pro-war or pro-Bush sign to a counterdemo which is ONLY supposed to be pro-Israel.
If that makes me a screaming liberal, so be it.
We are now repellent to dear little children, Republicans, small puppies, Republicans, girl scouts, Republicans, elderly women, and Republicans. We are like an overly perfumed pipe-tobacco, in other words.
Let me explain that a little.
On Saturday the twenty-seventh of October, about sixty or seventy people counter-demonstrated International Answer's alleged peace rally.
We, the San Francisco Branch of the vast intergalactic Zionist conspiracy, were there with signs and flyers making it clear that we objected to International Answer's anti-Israel and anti-Semitic agenda. We also made it clear that as a group we had no position on the Iraq war and were not demonstrating against the peace movement or the idea of peace, but were there only and entirely to protest against International Answer. One single and very simple issue.
This proved too complicated for the teevee reporters, who instead chose to feature sound-bytes from two simple very pro-war people who may have been Republicans.
The televised shots of the counter-demonstration showed tons of Israeli flags, but did not explain why there were any Israeli flags there. The talking neanderthals in front of that backdrop instead spoke lovingly of Bush and the Iraq war. Which effectively made it seem that all of us were there as pro-war slope brows.
I really do not like when our message is hijacked by Republicans. If the Democrats or the greens had tried it, I would be just as angry. But it was Republicans who did it. They were not there as supporters of Israel objecting to International Answer's anti-Semitism, they were not there in support of Israel - they were there purely to cheer for the war.
Because of that, I suggested to the group that we should in future avoid Republicans like the plague - the ones who show up to counter-demo tend to be mush-mouthed morons and no-neck inbreds. And I was being very charitable and full of sheer buckets of love when I said that.
But saying that apparently makes me a dangerous radical lefty - because I do not look with a kindly eye on Republicans going off message when they join us.
I have been informed that there are tons and tons of Republicans in the Bay Area who would join us and protest for Israel if only we didn't chase them away with our Marxist rhetoric and hate.
Sorry, no.
There aren't tons of timid pro-Israel Republican butterflies out there, sister.
This is the Bay Area. Eighty percent plus of the population votes for the Democrats. Being pro-Israel in the Bay Area is already considered ultra-rightwing by some people in any case. We have an uphill battle against popular perception. If those timid Republicans are frightened by our not taking a stand on the war, they are frightened of everything. They are frightened of bright lights, cheese that doesn't come in slices, and their own quivering shadows.
They probably check under their beds for democrats before they go to sleep at night.
Boo, gentle Republican butterflies, boo!
And we aren't radical lefties either. I already bend over backward to keep from scaring away rational potential supporters with my extremist pro-settlement sentiments. I have not once said that if the Arabs cannot stop firing rockets the response should be devastating and final. I have never even mentioned to querulous strangers that I consider the European left, with their wussy pandering to every anti-American and anti-Israeli cause in the world, the greatest possible danger to civilization. I have studiously avoided expressing points of view which could be misinterpreted as extremist far-right Zionist here in the rather liberal Bay Area.
Because I love lucid and sane supporters of Israel, I'm already doing my bit not to frighten the mainstream. So the very least the hypothetically pro-Israel Republicans who might stand with us can do is not piss all over that.
Do NOT hijack the message.
At this point, I'm perfectly willing to mace the next person who brings a pro-war or pro-Bush sign to a counterdemo which is ONLY supposed to be pro-Israel.
If that makes me a screaming liberal, so be it.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
SATURDAY AMONG THE CANNIBALS
Firstly, let me say that I am ever so glad I do not look Jewish. In any way. And that there should be brocha for that.
I spent all day Saturday at the Sabeel conference at Saint John's Presbyterian Church over in Berkeley. I'm Goyish enough that I can do so.
Secondly, I wish to also clarify that the gap between the Dutch Reformed and the Presbyterians is not just doctrinal. Presbyterians are, from the point of view of Shtrenge Dutch Calvinistim, a bunch of wussies and quislings. They've never had to fight for the life of their creed against a superpower. For them, being sneeringly disapproving is a luxury they take for granted.
SABEEL
This is an organization that claims that it is " an international peace movement initiated by Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land who seek a just peace based on two states-Palestine and Israel-as defined by international law and existing United Nations resolutions". Which means that they seek the destruction of Israel by appealing to the cotton wool between the ears of many ignorant Christians.
The conference I attended, advertised as "Breaking Down The Wall Of Silence: Voices We Need To Hear - a Sabeel Conference to inform and stimulate thoughtful action toward a just resolution to the Palestine-Israel conflict", was organized by Friends of Sabeel.
It turned out to be a rather unsubtle attempt at brainwashing. And, in the case of many of those sweet little old Presbies, it probably succeeded.
THE MORNING
Self-praising pro-Pal speeches by several people, including one by a smirking Roman Catholic priest from San Francisco.
[I mentioned to a priggish female sitting next to me that my ancestors had fled Brabant five centuries ago to get away from Catholics and their violent self-righteousness, and here I was actually listening to one of those people pontificate! She looked daggers at me, moved several seats away, and avoided me for the rest of the day. And I feel good about that.]
High-minded jibber-jabber. Chris Brown draws several comparisons with Apartheid - like many South Africans, he acts like he owns the word. The Apartheid theme will be repeated ad-nauseum throughout the day, by every speaker, in every possible way.
He fought apartheid, now he's fighting Jewheid.
We're supposed to feel admiring yet sorry for him, or something.
Huwaida Arraf talks about going back to her parents land, and how her people are suffering. Emotions, emotions.... are we supposed to feel sorry again?
[I think this was the woman who at previous hate-fests wailed that she couldn't go back to the town where she was born, until someone pointed out that she was from Cleveland....]
Nearly an hour of horrific images, including a short film of a demonstration being teargassed, with weeping children and wailing women, and charges by riot police in an orchard. Heavily edited, and without background information. Precisely calculated to draw gasps and condemnation from the audience. Who now feel indignant, and sorry.
This is followed by a passionate rant by Anna Baltzer, in which she states that settlements are colonies of the evil occupying population, whose inhabitants are impoverished Israelis, paid to reside illegally on land stolen from the Arabs. Subtle hint that the other Israelis don't want those poor folks too close, and in any case real people prefer to live in Tel Aviv. Asserts that the overwhelming majority of the settlers moved to the West-Bank for financial reasons (having been paid to do so), and that a lot of the settlements were founded as outposts on seized Palestinian land by violence-prone extremists.
Quotes: "Civilian settlers carrying around these HUGE weapons - a weird power dynamic". -- "Palestinians (forced to) abandon their ancestral homeland". -- "A very violent settler attack".
She also discourses about Zionists pillaging Palestinian villages and committing mayhem. The term she uses, if I remember correctly, is 'massacre'.
The gist is that settlers are violent Jewish brutes who outnumber and bully poor sensitive Palestinians.
She assures us that she is a good Jew, not like the others.
THE AFTERNOON
All of the themes above were raised again during the keynote speech after lunch, by Phyllis Bennis, who, almost obscenely relishing the accusation, spoke about the "massacre in Jenin", asserting that the refugee camp was wiped off the map. She also accused Israel of trying to create an ethnically pure Jewish state - framing it in such a way as to draw a subconscious link with another such attempt at ethnic purity.
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS....
Nearly every speaker tried to convince us that they had nothing against Jews, many of their friends were Jewish, they loved Jews oh boy did they ever and what a pity that some of them refused to see the how right the Palestinians were and how wrong the Zionists but what else can you really expect from those people and in any case they themselves only speak to the sympathetic apologetic pro-Pally Jews nowadays, which is the Zionist Jews' fault, they started it and they are heartless, cruel, and calculating.
Subtle suggestions of Jewish plots, and too much Jewish influence in the halls of power, and in Christian churches. The Jewish establishment. The Jewish lobby. The Jewish censorship.
Subtle, in this case, means fairly blatant.
No mention, of course, of the Sfardic / Mizrahi exodus from the Muslim world. No mention of the barrage of Qassams. No mention of the unceasing attempts to kill Jews. No mention of anything that would provide context or perspective. Just an unceasing flow of anti-Israel rhetoric, from eight-thirty in the morning till lunch-time, and then for another hour afterwards, before the workshops on practical anti-Semitism and how to propagate hate...... oops, I mean the workshops on "Why Divestment Is the Best Method to End the Occupation" (by Fahad Abu-Akel, room 2005, from 2:15 PM to 3:15), and "Christian Zionism in Mainstream Churches" (by Rosemary Radford Reuther, room 200, from 3:30 to 4:30).
There were many other workshops. It was a veritable smorgasbord of love.
PROTESTERS IN FRONT
A singular bright spot was seeing the Oakland Women In Black silently protesting in front, as people were entering the grounds. At some point, a livid troll ran past screaming that he needed a felt-tip pen, he was going to make a sign warning people about the Oakland Women In Black, because they weren't REAL Women in Black (correct, some of them had beards), they..... were..... EVIL ZIONISTS!!!
He never did get his warning-sign made. I wonder what he would've put on it. Perhaps "warning, may cause awareness of reality".
BREAKS
I may have made a few intolerant Protestantish noises during the various breaks. It depends upon your point of view - if you were a Lutheran, I probably offended you. Not sorry.
And if you were the Anglican, you are probably still sick to the pit of your stomach. Again, not sorry.
I didn't notice any Baptists or Eastern Orthodox, so I'm not sorry there either. And as for the Methodists, not sorry, I'm sure you've got a sense of humour. How on earth could y'all still be Methodists otherwise? Well?
Once again, not sorry.
Y'all can be as sorry a bunch as y'wanna be. Not me.
During one of the breaks, as I was grabbing all the free literature that I could get my hands on off one of the tables, I made a snarky reference to that famous line by Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel......
"The world is founded upon FREE things.....".
ATTENDEES, ACTIVISTS, ATTITUDES
Despite many of the attendees being clearly trusting and uncritical subjects for indoctrination (who, after all, really wants to believe that the passionate and friendly speaker is utterly evil?), there were some who were not pleased at the one-sided Israel bashing. A number of them left early. Perhaps the rough treatment they received from Palestinians dressed as IDF border guards acting out the checkpoints on the lunch-queue also got to them.
There were also enough pro-Palestinian activists floating around that critical comments were quickly and firmly dealt with. Enough true-believers that skeptics knew how unwelcome a realistic point of view would be. Room for only two kinds of attendees - the already convinced, and the going-to-be-convinced.
Much of the conference was a lot of hot-air about non-violent resistance, with an implied (and at least twice plainly stated) justification of the use of violence, because, after all, it's also a valid form of resistance. Non-violence is better public relations than an exploded bus.
But let us please not mention the bus. Or the pizza parlour.
I left at five o'clock, foregoing the last hour of indoctrination. I had been spotted by too many known elements of the other side at that point, and nearly ten hours of being the black man at a KKK convention was starting to wear a bit. Let's just say I needed to lift the sheet and get some fresh air. Plus, not having partaken of the lunch that was included in the admission fee, I had a screaming head-ache and a horrible attitude.
Well actually, I had the horrible attitude from the moment I got to Berkeley. Who am I kidding?
-------------------------------
Oh, I nearly forgot! Cindy and Craig Corrie spoke tear-jerkingly about their daughter. What agony, what heartbreak, oh sniff. Who can forget the outrage generated by Rachel's unfortunate filmed accident? Just like that little fella hit in the crossfire that the French press showed the entire world, Rachel Corrie's demise has been the one story that more than any other (and there are always SO many others) proves conclusively how evil the Jews are and how virtuous the concerned pro-Pally side. As, I'm sure, they have already told you many times. Such selfless martyrs.
I spent all day Saturday at the Sabeel conference at Saint John's Presbyterian Church over in Berkeley. I'm Goyish enough that I can do so.
Secondly, I wish to also clarify that the gap between the Dutch Reformed and the Presbyterians is not just doctrinal. Presbyterians are, from the point of view of Shtrenge Dutch Calvinistim, a bunch of wussies and quislings. They've never had to fight for the life of their creed against a superpower. For them, being sneeringly disapproving is a luxury they take for granted.
SABEEL
This is an organization that claims that it is " an international peace movement initiated by Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land who seek a just peace based on two states-Palestine and Israel-as defined by international law and existing United Nations resolutions". Which means that they seek the destruction of Israel by appealing to the cotton wool between the ears of many ignorant Christians.
The conference I attended, advertised as "Breaking Down The Wall Of Silence: Voices We Need To Hear - a Sabeel Conference to inform and stimulate thoughtful action toward a just resolution to the Palestine-Israel conflict", was organized by Friends of Sabeel.
It turned out to be a rather unsubtle attempt at brainwashing. And, in the case of many of those sweet little old Presbies, it probably succeeded.
THE MORNING
Self-praising pro-Pal speeches by several people, including one by a smirking Roman Catholic priest from San Francisco.
[I mentioned to a priggish female sitting next to me that my ancestors had fled Brabant five centuries ago to get away from Catholics and their violent self-righteousness, and here I was actually listening to one of those people pontificate! She looked daggers at me, moved several seats away, and avoided me for the rest of the day. And I feel good about that.]
High-minded jibber-jabber. Chris Brown draws several comparisons with Apartheid - like many South Africans, he acts like he owns the word. The Apartheid theme will be repeated ad-nauseum throughout the day, by every speaker, in every possible way.
He fought apartheid, now he's fighting Jewheid.
We're supposed to feel admiring yet sorry for him, or something.
Huwaida Arraf talks about going back to her parents land, and how her people are suffering. Emotions, emotions.... are we supposed to feel sorry again?
[I think this was the woman who at previous hate-fests wailed that she couldn't go back to the town where she was born, until someone pointed out that she was from Cleveland....]
Nearly an hour of horrific images, including a short film of a demonstration being teargassed, with weeping children and wailing women, and charges by riot police in an orchard. Heavily edited, and without background information. Precisely calculated to draw gasps and condemnation from the audience. Who now feel indignant, and sorry.
This is followed by a passionate rant by Anna Baltzer, in which she states that settlements are colonies of the evil occupying population, whose inhabitants are impoverished Israelis, paid to reside illegally on land stolen from the Arabs. Subtle hint that the other Israelis don't want those poor folks too close, and in any case real people prefer to live in Tel Aviv. Asserts that the overwhelming majority of the settlers moved to the West-Bank for financial reasons (having been paid to do so), and that a lot of the settlements were founded as outposts on seized Palestinian land by violence-prone extremists.
Quotes: "Civilian settlers carrying around these HUGE weapons - a weird power dynamic". -- "Palestinians (forced to) abandon their ancestral homeland". -- "A very violent settler attack".
She also discourses about Zionists pillaging Palestinian villages and committing mayhem. The term she uses, if I remember correctly, is 'massacre'.
The gist is that settlers are violent Jewish brutes who outnumber and bully poor sensitive Palestinians.
She assures us that she is a good Jew, not like the others.
THE AFTERNOON
All of the themes above were raised again during the keynote speech after lunch, by Phyllis Bennis, who, almost obscenely relishing the accusation, spoke about the "massacre in Jenin", asserting that the refugee camp was wiped off the map. She also accused Israel of trying to create an ethnically pure Jewish state - framing it in such a way as to draw a subconscious link with another such attempt at ethnic purity.
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS....
Nearly every speaker tried to convince us that they had nothing against Jews, many of their friends were Jewish, they loved Jews oh boy did they ever and what a pity that some of them refused to see the how right the Palestinians were and how wrong the Zionists but what else can you really expect from those people and in any case they themselves only speak to the sympathetic apologetic pro-Pally Jews nowadays, which is the Zionist Jews' fault, they started it and they are heartless, cruel, and calculating.
Subtle suggestions of Jewish plots, and too much Jewish influence in the halls of power, and in Christian churches. The Jewish establishment. The Jewish lobby. The Jewish censorship.
Subtle, in this case, means fairly blatant.
No mention, of course, of the Sfardic / Mizrahi exodus from the Muslim world. No mention of the barrage of Qassams. No mention of the unceasing attempts to kill Jews. No mention of anything that would provide context or perspective. Just an unceasing flow of anti-Israel rhetoric, from eight-thirty in the morning till lunch-time, and then for another hour afterwards, before the workshops on practical anti-Semitism and how to propagate hate...... oops, I mean the workshops on "Why Divestment Is the Best Method to End the Occupation" (by Fahad Abu-Akel, room 2005, from 2:15 PM to 3:15), and "Christian Zionism in Mainstream Churches" (by Rosemary Radford Reuther, room 200, from 3:30 to 4:30).
There were many other workshops. It was a veritable smorgasbord of love.
PROTESTERS IN FRONT
A singular bright spot was seeing the Oakland Women In Black silently protesting in front, as people were entering the grounds. At some point, a livid troll ran past screaming that he needed a felt-tip pen, he was going to make a sign warning people about the Oakland Women In Black, because they weren't REAL Women in Black (correct, some of them had beards), they..... were..... EVIL ZIONISTS!!!
He never did get his warning-sign made. I wonder what he would've put on it. Perhaps "warning, may cause awareness of reality".
BREAKS
I may have made a few intolerant Protestantish noises during the various breaks. It depends upon your point of view - if you were a Lutheran, I probably offended you. Not sorry.
And if you were the Anglican, you are probably still sick to the pit of your stomach. Again, not sorry.
I didn't notice any Baptists or Eastern Orthodox, so I'm not sorry there either. And as for the Methodists, not sorry, I'm sure you've got a sense of humour. How on earth could y'all still be Methodists otherwise? Well?
Once again, not sorry.
Y'all can be as sorry a bunch as y'wanna be. Not me.
During one of the breaks, as I was grabbing all the free literature that I could get my hands on off one of the tables, I made a snarky reference to that famous line by Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel......
"The world is founded upon FREE things.....".
ATTENDEES, ACTIVISTS, ATTITUDES
Despite many of the attendees being clearly trusting and uncritical subjects for indoctrination (who, after all, really wants to believe that the passionate and friendly speaker is utterly evil?), there were some who were not pleased at the one-sided Israel bashing. A number of them left early. Perhaps the rough treatment they received from Palestinians dressed as IDF border guards acting out the checkpoints on the lunch-queue also got to them.
There were also enough pro-Palestinian activists floating around that critical comments were quickly and firmly dealt with. Enough true-believers that skeptics knew how unwelcome a realistic point of view would be. Room for only two kinds of attendees - the already convinced, and the going-to-be-convinced.
Much of the conference was a lot of hot-air about non-violent resistance, with an implied (and at least twice plainly stated) justification of the use of violence, because, after all, it's also a valid form of resistance. Non-violence is better public relations than an exploded bus.
But let us please not mention the bus. Or the pizza parlour.
I left at five o'clock, foregoing the last hour of indoctrination. I had been spotted by too many known elements of the other side at that point, and nearly ten hours of being the black man at a KKK convention was starting to wear a bit. Let's just say I needed to lift the sheet and get some fresh air. Plus, not having partaken of the lunch that was included in the admission fee, I had a screaming head-ache and a horrible attitude.
Well actually, I had the horrible attitude from the moment I got to Berkeley. Who am I kidding?
-------------------------------
Oh, I nearly forgot! Cindy and Craig Corrie spoke tear-jerkingly about their daughter. What agony, what heartbreak, oh sniff. Who can forget the outrage generated by Rachel's unfortunate filmed accident? Just like that little fella hit in the crossfire that the French press showed the entire world, Rachel Corrie's demise has been the one story that more than any other (and there are always SO many others) proves conclusively how evil the Jews are and how virtuous the concerned pro-Pally side. As, I'm sure, they have already told you many times. Such selfless martyrs.
Monday, June 11, 2007
HAMAS MUST BE DESTROYED
That's what my sign this past weekend said.
I thought it was a nice middle-of-the-road slogan that everybody could get behind.
But I was wrong. In the Bay Area, a sentiment supportive of eliminating a murderous gang of thugs who have sworn to wipe Israel off the map and impose an Islamic dictatorship is too extreme.
Apparently Hamas is considered moderate and reasonable by the standards of some people here.
And my sign advocating erasing them is extremist.
I already knew that some of my thinking was out of step with some of my fellow citizens here in the heartland of the urban and coastal enlightened crust (as contrasted with the interior of the country, which is stark-raving trailertrash bonkers, according to many). I just did not know how far out of step my thinking was. I've been told that I should not publicly say that Hamas must be destroyed. Because it offends some people.
So I'll keep that sign in reserve for whenever we are angrily screaming across the barricades at Amelek in front of the consulate, which is bound to happen again sometime this summer. And use kinder, gentler signs for when we're trying to persuade the good people of Oakland, who are marvelously enlightened and unignorant besides, to cast away at least a modicum of their praeconceptions about Israel and the Middle-East. We're in this to hearts-and-minds them, and should not assume that they have a clue. I keep forgetting that. They are very blissful.
Major difference between Americans and Europeans: Americans are not very well informed, Europeans are sometimes too opinionated. And this is a balanced and deliberately inoffensive way of expressing this opinion. Understated. Middle-of-the-road, in fact.
I thought it was a nice middle-of-the-road slogan that everybody could get behind.
But I was wrong. In the Bay Area, a sentiment supportive of eliminating a murderous gang of thugs who have sworn to wipe Israel off the map and impose an Islamic dictatorship is too extreme.
Apparently Hamas is considered moderate and reasonable by the standards of some people here.
And my sign advocating erasing them is extremist.
I already knew that some of my thinking was out of step with some of my fellow citizens here in the heartland of the urban and coastal enlightened crust (as contrasted with the interior of the country, which is stark-raving trailertrash bonkers, according to many). I just did not know how far out of step my thinking was. I've been told that I should not publicly say that Hamas must be destroyed. Because it offends some people.
So I'll keep that sign in reserve for whenever we are angrily screaming across the barricades at Amelek in front of the consulate, which is bound to happen again sometime this summer. And use kinder, gentler signs for when we're trying to persuade the good people of Oakland, who are marvelously enlightened and unignorant besides, to cast away at least a modicum of their praeconceptions about Israel and the Middle-East. We're in this to hearts-and-minds them, and should not assume that they have a clue. I keep forgetting that. They are very blissful.
Major difference between Americans and Europeans: Americans are not very well informed, Europeans are sometimes too opinionated. And this is a balanced and deliberately inoffensive way of expressing this opinion. Understated. Middle-of-the-road, in fact.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
KEEP BORAT AWAY FROM THE MEGAPHONE!
That should be rule number one. Our side's rather crappy slogans become infinitesimally worse when Borat has good volume and yells something strange and unintelligible.
Once one finally figgers out what the heck he's hollering, one wonders what the heck is in his mind, oy I'm telling you.
[This posting, in case you're already baffled, is about the anti-Israel demonstration in front of the Federal Building mentioned in my previous post, and about our pro-Israel counter-demonstration.]
Rule number two should be that if the other side can't give more than two-days' notice of their intent to publicly demand the destruction of Israel, we probably shouldn't show up.
For several reasons.
With only 24 hours advance notice they themselves will not have a significant presence - two dozen angry hairy people simply look rather silly, and will not really influence anybody who hasn't already been lost to civilization.
Another reason is that when we have to organize a counter-protest that rapidly, we will not have a significant presence, and we'll only irritate the cops. That is not a good thing.
Additionally, with less than a dozen people, we don't have enough rhetorical cohesion to keep on the same message, and some of our more extreme partisans may vocalize statements which leave some of us shaking our heads in despair.
Personally I'd rather have the eccentric hollering coming from the other side. Their extremism and spiteful hate can make us look good. Loud crazy bloodlust can be their worst advertising.
A third reason why we should perhaps let the other side's spur-of-the-moment actions slide is that if there are not a lot of people on either side, the SFPD will not be out in force. There are some sonei-Yisroel among the ranks, who at these smaller events tend to throw their blue-garbed weight around, and clearly adhere to a double standard, whereas when there are at least two dozen cops present, there are enough of them who are either neutral or on our side to ensure that the excesses of the pro-Palestine radicals will be dealt with, and the treatment of the pro-Israel side will not be blatantly biased.
Enough senior officers and potential witnesses to ensure a diplomatic even-handedness in any case.
SO, WHAT HAPPENED?
I got there before everyone else, and wondered if I had the right time and place. Our sanest member showed up shortly after, followed by two or three other sane people. Soon we were augmented by two or three Borat, and a few others who were in between balanced and utterly Boratic. By three o'clock we had swollen to a mass of maybe ten people (Borat quotient: 30%).
The anti-Israel side by that time consisted of about twenty-five people milling about before the Federal Building and blocking the entrance, where they proceeded to unfurl banners and speechify.
We went over and stood next to them.
At this point, Boratic slogans were shouted, and their camera-toters swung into action. One young lady, possessed of both arrogant self-righteousness and impressive brazenness, came and took close-up photos of all of us. Some of the other photographers on their side were more particular about taking pictures of us from a few yards away, though clearly not because of any sense of bashfulness or good taste; one of them hissed at one of our members that he would be put on a death list.
We also took a number of pictures of them, even following the young lady with the impressive brazenness around and trying to get a picture of her face...... hard to do, because she really did not want to be photographed.
[Other than that repulsive smirking sneer on her face, she really was well worth photographing. But man, that brazenness! Impressive! Kudos, bitch, kudos!]
By three-thirty the police showed up, and insisted that both groups get off the plaza and onto the public sidewalk. It became apparent that the men in blue were more concerned about riling up the pro-Pals than about offending our sensibilities - the numbers and cameras may have had something to do with that, as well as the lack of diplomacy of our various Borat.
[We really have to be more in charge of our several Borat - they go off half-cocked at times.]
Both groups continued their respective actions on the sidewalk in front of the building, under orders from the police to keep to their assigned areas. Which, effectively, gave the advantage to the sonei-Yisroel. And while some of the police were polite, friendly and extremely reasonable, they were eventually joined by one officer who every time he passed by our group barked that we should not block the sidewalk. When we pointed out that the other side was allowed to block their entire corner, he snapped that they weren't blocking the sidewalk, we were.
[The other officers chilled somewhat towards us after his arrival. Group solidarity or something. It did not help that two or three of our Borat made snide remarks about double-standards and attempts to push Jews back into the Ghettoes. While those may have been the operative principles, most policemen will not break down and say 'sorry' when confronted with 'attitude', and many of them probably do not automatically think of the Jewish context of the word 'ghetto'.]
By four thirty we decided to "declare victory and go home". Sang Hatikvah, sounded the shofar, furled our banners and packed our signs, and headed off.
As I explained to a friend who was there, our task is merely to irritate the other side by our presence, and make sure that we are visible - no actual dialogue takes place, no minds are changed, no worthwhile rhetorical battles won. Especially if there is no news media present.
This will not be in the paper, though it may show up on the usual Israel-hating websites.
Probably just as well. The local news media do not report these events accurately and tend to blandly blather about both sides making their point blah blah blah. Even when the other side is screaming for the death of Jews, the Chronicle will at best merely state that passions were evident, while the ten o'clock news will show a reporter saying something inane against a background of inoffensive milling about in the distance and Frank Chiu maneuvring his twelve galaxies sign into camera range in mid-view.
----------------------------------------
Final note I: "Al mawt al Hezbullah, al mawt al Hamas", while being excellent slogans, are largely useless, as many of the Bay Area Israel haters do not speak Arabic, even if some of them have parents who do.
[Translation: "Death to Hezbullah, death to Hamas". I must thank Sheikh Nasrallah and his folks for the pattern of those slogans - if it weren't for video of his Shiites screaming similar stuff in Beirut last summer, I would not have thought to construct these phrases. My Arabic is not good enough to do more than hijack their rhetoric.]
Final note II: The area around the Federal Building has few pedestrians, and is a ghastly wind-tunnel besides. If we do any more of these 'one-day forewarning' actions, let's only do it if the bastards are going to be in front of the consulate or at Montgomery Street Bart Station. That way more of us can show up, and we can effectively hand out our flyers and engage passers-by in discussion, even if there are the usual Israel-hating ultra-left bigots among the pedestrians. The IHULBs tend to be less loud in their hate when there are more people around.
Once one finally figgers out what the heck he's hollering, one wonders what the heck is in his mind, oy I'm telling you.
[This posting, in case you're already baffled, is about the anti-Israel demonstration in front of the Federal Building mentioned in my previous post, and about our pro-Israel counter-demonstration.]
Rule number two should be that if the other side can't give more than two-days' notice of their intent to publicly demand the destruction of Israel, we probably shouldn't show up.
For several reasons.
With only 24 hours advance notice they themselves will not have a significant presence - two dozen angry hairy people simply look rather silly, and will not really influence anybody who hasn't already been lost to civilization.
Another reason is that when we have to organize a counter-protest that rapidly, we will not have a significant presence, and we'll only irritate the cops. That is not a good thing.
Additionally, with less than a dozen people, we don't have enough rhetorical cohesion to keep on the same message, and some of our more extreme partisans may vocalize statements which leave some of us shaking our heads in despair.
Personally I'd rather have the eccentric hollering coming from the other side. Their extremism and spiteful hate can make us look good. Loud crazy bloodlust can be their worst advertising.
A third reason why we should perhaps let the other side's spur-of-the-moment actions slide is that if there are not a lot of people on either side, the SFPD will not be out in force. There are some sonei-Yisroel among the ranks, who at these smaller events tend to throw their blue-garbed weight around, and clearly adhere to a double standard, whereas when there are at least two dozen cops present, there are enough of them who are either neutral or on our side to ensure that the excesses of the pro-Palestine radicals will be dealt with, and the treatment of the pro-Israel side will not be blatantly biased.
Enough senior officers and potential witnesses to ensure a diplomatic even-handedness in any case.
SO, WHAT HAPPENED?
I got there before everyone else, and wondered if I had the right time and place. Our sanest member showed up shortly after, followed by two or three other sane people. Soon we were augmented by two or three Borat, and a few others who were in between balanced and utterly Boratic. By three o'clock we had swollen to a mass of maybe ten people (Borat quotient: 30%).
The anti-Israel side by that time consisted of about twenty-five people milling about before the Federal Building and blocking the entrance, where they proceeded to unfurl banners and speechify.
We went over and stood next to them.
At this point, Boratic slogans were shouted, and their camera-toters swung into action. One young lady, possessed of both arrogant self-righteousness and impressive brazenness, came and took close-up photos of all of us. Some of the other photographers on their side were more particular about taking pictures of us from a few yards away, though clearly not because of any sense of bashfulness or good taste; one of them hissed at one of our members that he would be put on a death list.
We also took a number of pictures of them, even following the young lady with the impressive brazenness around and trying to get a picture of her face...... hard to do, because she really did not want to be photographed.
[Other than that repulsive smirking sneer on her face, she really was well worth photographing. But man, that brazenness! Impressive! Kudos, bitch, kudos!]
By three-thirty the police showed up, and insisted that both groups get off the plaza and onto the public sidewalk. It became apparent that the men in blue were more concerned about riling up the pro-Pals than about offending our sensibilities - the numbers and cameras may have had something to do with that, as well as the lack of diplomacy of our various Borat.
[We really have to be more in charge of our several Borat - they go off half-cocked at times.]
Both groups continued their respective actions on the sidewalk in front of the building, under orders from the police to keep to their assigned areas. Which, effectively, gave the advantage to the sonei-Yisroel. And while some of the police were polite, friendly and extremely reasonable, they were eventually joined by one officer who every time he passed by our group barked that we should not block the sidewalk. When we pointed out that the other side was allowed to block their entire corner, he snapped that they weren't blocking the sidewalk, we were.
[The other officers chilled somewhat towards us after his arrival. Group solidarity or something. It did not help that two or three of our Borat made snide remarks about double-standards and attempts to push Jews back into the Ghettoes. While those may have been the operative principles, most policemen will not break down and say 'sorry' when confronted with 'attitude', and many of them probably do not automatically think of the Jewish context of the word 'ghetto'.]
By four thirty we decided to "declare victory and go home". Sang Hatikvah, sounded the shofar, furled our banners and packed our signs, and headed off.
As I explained to a friend who was there, our task is merely to irritate the other side by our presence, and make sure that we are visible - no actual dialogue takes place, no minds are changed, no worthwhile rhetorical battles won. Especially if there is no news media present.
This will not be in the paper, though it may show up on the usual Israel-hating websites.
Probably just as well. The local news media do not report these events accurately and tend to blandly blather about both sides making their point blah blah blah. Even when the other side is screaming for the death of Jews, the Chronicle will at best merely state that passions were evident, while the ten o'clock news will show a reporter saying something inane against a background of inoffensive milling about in the distance and Frank Chiu maneuvring his twelve galaxies sign into camera range in mid-view.
----------------------------------------
Final note I: "Al mawt al Hezbullah, al mawt al Hamas", while being excellent slogans, are largely useless, as many of the Bay Area Israel haters do not speak Arabic, even if some of them have parents who do.
[Translation: "Death to Hezbullah, death to Hamas". I must thank Sheikh Nasrallah and his folks for the pattern of those slogans - if it weren't for video of his Shiites screaming similar stuff in Beirut last summer, I would not have thought to construct these phrases. My Arabic is not good enough to do more than hijack their rhetoric.]
Final note II: The area around the Federal Building has few pedestrians, and is a ghastly wind-tunnel besides. If we do any more of these 'one-day forewarning' actions, let's only do it if the bastards are going to be in front of the consulate or at Montgomery Street Bart Station. That way more of us can show up, and we can effectively hand out our flyers and engage passers-by in discussion, even if there are the usual Israel-hating ultra-left bigots among the pedestrians. The IHULBs tend to be less loud in their hate when there are more people around.
Monday, June 04, 2007
ISRAEL IN THE GARDENS RECAP 06/04/2007
Two hours of symbolic stand-off with the sonei-Yisroel, half a day of loud music, some street theatre, a spinach and cheese pirogy, a vegetable boreka. Plus a mediocre caffeinated beverage.
No event is complete without a Russian screaming something unintelligible in English, and no fair is perfect without a new book (another translation of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch).
THE ENEMY AT THE GATES
We had been told that JVP would not be allowed into the event, nor would they be allowed to use the sidewalk in front, because in previous years attendees had been taunted and threatened by anti-Israel activists at similar events. The SFPD and event-organizers, we were informed, were determined to limit the anti-Israel protests to the other side of the street.
Determined, perhaps.
But too darn wussy to do anything about it.
SFPD and event-staff did squat-all when JVP-protestors lined the entrance and formed an obnoxious gauntlet for attendees. One of their organizers had had a discussion with one of SF’s finest shortly before they arrived, and it was soon evident that the SFPD looked upon the JVP with considerably more kindliness than they regarded SF For Israel. That particular officer even threatened to charge one of our sanest members with assault and arrest her, because her flag was either frightening one of the Jayveepee-folk or had actually touched one of them. Throughout the counter-protest the other side evinced paranoia about the flags. It was a constant - I’m afraid several of our flags actually did touch the Jayveepeeleite, and we may have to have them dry-cleaned.
The police did not bother or interfere with the JVP, but in order to not get arrested SF For Israel had to keep marching back and forth.
[The Unaffiliated Rogue Element (Anarcho-Zionist) did not march, but stood sullenly opposite some harpies. We don't take orders, and we do whatever we darn well please. Glowering was what we pleased.]
THE ENEMY WITHIN THE GATES
Later we discovered that Brit Tzedek ve Shalom was disseminating JVP literature at their booth.
The head-honcho of Brit Tzedek is the former president of JVP and Brit Tzedek jointly organized a program with JVP at least once, with Bay Area Women in Black at least twice. The same individual is the founder of BAWIB and a signatory of the petition for the Palestinian Right of Return. Yet the pretense which everyone is buying into is that Brit Tzedek has nothing to do with JVP, and that BAWIB is equally independent and unaffiliated.
Their assertion of differentiation is beginning to look somewhat like multiple personality disorder. Disingenuous and dysfunctional in any case.
Given that the event-organizers seemed to want to be utterly non-confrontational, and that rigidly timid neutrality seems to be a dominant ideology among the more mainstream and establishment elements, I think there is scope for pushing back much harder in the future – they cave in so easily.
Next time, we should definitely have the bullhorns with us on the line, if for no other reason than to threaten to use them. It will give the anti-Zionists something else to worry about besides catching cooties from Israeli flags.
------------------------------------
On a different note: one of the members of the Unaffiliated Rogue Element (Anarcho-Zionist) had a lengthy conversation with an elderly gentleman about the four questions.
[No, not those four questions. These four questions: "Where's my wife? When is she getting here? When do we sit? Where do we sit?" ]
His wife had dropped him off in front of me, then went to park the car. Either he was focusing single-mindedly on the ideal answers to the questions, or he had a short-term memory issue. But he was very pleasant about it, so it did not actually seem like the longest forty-five minutes of my entire life.
No event is complete without a Russian screaming something unintelligible in English, and no fair is perfect without a new book (another translation of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch).
THE ENEMY AT THE GATES
We had been told that JVP would not be allowed into the event, nor would they be allowed to use the sidewalk in front, because in previous years attendees had been taunted and threatened by anti-Israel activists at similar events. The SFPD and event-organizers, we were informed, were determined to limit the anti-Israel protests to the other side of the street.
Determined, perhaps.
But too darn wussy to do anything about it.
SFPD and event-staff did squat-all when JVP-protestors lined the entrance and formed an obnoxious gauntlet for attendees. One of their organizers had had a discussion with one of SF’s finest shortly before they arrived, and it was soon evident that the SFPD looked upon the JVP with considerably more kindliness than they regarded SF For Israel. That particular officer even threatened to charge one of our sanest members with assault and arrest her, because her flag was either frightening one of the Jayveepee-folk or had actually touched one of them. Throughout the counter-protest the other side evinced paranoia about the flags. It was a constant - I’m afraid several of our flags actually did touch the Jayveepeeleite, and we may have to have them dry-cleaned.
The police did not bother or interfere with the JVP, but in order to not get arrested SF For Israel had to keep marching back and forth.
[The Unaffiliated Rogue Element (Anarcho-Zionist) did not march, but stood sullenly opposite some harpies. We don't take orders, and we do whatever we darn well please. Glowering was what we pleased.]
THE ENEMY WITHIN THE GATES
Later we discovered that Brit Tzedek ve Shalom was disseminating JVP literature at their booth.
The head-honcho of Brit Tzedek is the former president of JVP and Brit Tzedek jointly organized a program with JVP at least once, with Bay Area Women in Black at least twice. The same individual is the founder of BAWIB and a signatory of the petition for the Palestinian Right of Return. Yet the pretense which everyone is buying into is that Brit Tzedek has nothing to do with JVP, and that BAWIB is equally independent and unaffiliated.
Their assertion of differentiation is beginning to look somewhat like multiple personality disorder. Disingenuous and dysfunctional in any case.
Given that the event-organizers seemed to want to be utterly non-confrontational, and that rigidly timid neutrality seems to be a dominant ideology among the more mainstream and establishment elements, I think there is scope for pushing back much harder in the future – they cave in so easily.
Next time, we should definitely have the bullhorns with us on the line, if for no other reason than to threaten to use them. It will give the anti-Zionists something else to worry about besides catching cooties from Israeli flags.
------------------------------------
On a different note: one of the members of the Unaffiliated Rogue Element (Anarcho-Zionist) had a lengthy conversation with an elderly gentleman about the four questions.
[No, not those four questions. These four questions: "Where's my wife? When is she getting here? When do we sit? Where do we sit?" ]
His wife had dropped him off in front of me, then went to park the car. Either he was focusing single-mindedly on the ideal answers to the questions, or he had a short-term memory issue. But he was very pleasant about it, so it did not actually seem like the longest forty-five minutes of my entire life.
Friday, May 11, 2007
WHAT HAPPENED IN FRONT OF THE CONSULATE AND HOW DID THE COUNTER-DEMO GO?
Call it a victory and gloat.
Neener... neener... neener.
We arrived at the area in front of the Israeli consulate between two o'clock and two thirty - one by one, trickling in from different directions. By quarter to three we were wondering when Amalek would finally get there.
[Note: Amalek is the most apposite term - we found out that this was a radical Islamic spin-off from Al Awda. And Al Awda is a nasty bunch to begin with.]
CANCELLED
Shortly after three o'clock, the police told us it wouldn't be happening, and started clearing away the barriers and orange cones.
The group that organized the event had gotten a permit for eight hundred people. That may have been wishful thinking, or in fact insane optimism. What they ended up with was only about twenty participants while down at Civic Center, and then they heard that we were in front of the consulate to counter-demo them.
Our being prepared may have been the last straw.
[Maybe they didn't want to face us, or perhaps they heard a boiling ibriq with some cardamom coffee beckon.......... ('Umm al 'Qahwa' is a harsh mistress).]
They called it off. They decided not to hike that last mile for a screamfest with less than two dozen people on their side. As one of our people put it, "ten counterprotestors standing in front of the consulate looks pretty good, but an angry protest march with only twenty people just looks silly".
All of it must have been just too much for them (as well as not being enough).
So we declared victory and left.
It was the best possible outcome for a pro-Israel counter-demo clobbered together at the last moment.
Still, I would've gladly welcomed those twenty or so radical Muslims; I was prepared to take off a shoe and wave it at 'em.
It would've been so nice seeing their wee little mob wearily turn the corner only to find us waiting. From Civic Center to Montgomery and California is not a short march, and I guess ten Zionists could scare anybody.
Note: It isn't that there aren't eight hundred extremists in San Francisco - there are several times that number. But getting even a few hundred of them all on the same page is undoubtedly a daunting organizational slog. Keeping them united long enought to riot purposefully, without them starting to go for each others' throats, is probably well-nigh impossible. Even if they do all belong to the same mosque.
Neener... neener... neener.
We arrived at the area in front of the Israeli consulate between two o'clock and two thirty - one by one, trickling in from different directions. By quarter to three we were wondering when Amalek would finally get there.
[Note: Amalek is the most apposite term - we found out that this was a radical Islamic spin-off from Al Awda. And Al Awda is a nasty bunch to begin with.]
CANCELLED
Shortly after three o'clock, the police told us it wouldn't be happening, and started clearing away the barriers and orange cones.
The group that organized the event had gotten a permit for eight hundred people. That may have been wishful thinking, or in fact insane optimism. What they ended up with was only about twenty participants while down at Civic Center, and then they heard that we were in front of the consulate to counter-demo them.
Our being prepared may have been the last straw.
[Maybe they didn't want to face us, or perhaps they heard a boiling ibriq with some cardamom coffee beckon.......... ('Umm al 'Qahwa' is a harsh mistress).]
They called it off. They decided not to hike that last mile for a screamfest with less than two dozen people on their side. As one of our people put it, "ten counterprotestors standing in front of the consulate looks pretty good, but an angry protest march with only twenty people just looks silly".
All of it must have been just too much for them (as well as not being enough).
So we declared victory and left.
It was the best possible outcome for a pro-Israel counter-demo clobbered together at the last moment.
Still, I would've gladly welcomed those twenty or so radical Muslims; I was prepared to take off a shoe and wave it at 'em.
It would've been so nice seeing their wee little mob wearily turn the corner only to find us waiting. From Civic Center to Montgomery and California is not a short march, and I guess ten Zionists could scare anybody.
Note: It isn't that there aren't eight hundred extremists in San Francisco - there are several times that number. But getting even a few hundred of them all on the same page is undoubtedly a daunting organizational slog. Keeping them united long enought to riot purposefully, without them starting to go for each others' throats, is probably well-nigh impossible. Even if they do all belong to the same mosque.
Monday, April 23, 2007
WHY SOME DAYS SEEM SO UTTERLY SUNNY
This past Saturday, like previous Saturdays, Women In Black demonstrated against the war, against Israel, against US aid to Israel, and against Jewish statehood, in front of the Grandlake Theater in Oakland.
[WIB has promoted speakers who deny Israel's right to exist, and stood with activists who have demanded the destruction of Israel. Women In Black can be described as a peace group pretty much the same way Kahane Chai can be described as a peace group. But the question is: which of those two would you rather have on your side? If you had to choose?]
And so, like previous Saturdays, I headed across the bay with my protest sign and bad attitude to counter protest them. Every Saturday we've been gathering opposite Women In Black to prove that their hateful attitude is not uncontested, that their anti-Israel point of view is not without opposition, and that their silent vigil is naught more than a fig-leaf for terrorism.
Normally their number and our number do not differ very much. They get approving honks from passing cars, we get approving honks from passing cars.
[And from Sikh busdrivers - good man, sat sri akal, ji]
This Saturday, despite the low temperatures and gloomy overcast, the sun shone brightly, and warmth enrobed our endeavor.
We were joined by over five dozen congregants from Beth Abraham. Who stood with us singing Hebrew songs and holding banners and pro-Israel signs. As their rabbi said: "this is our community, and we will not allow it to be taken over". More or less. His exact phrasing escapes me at the moment (I'm still in a happy daze, as I'm sure you understand).
The best retrospective term for this weekend is from German: Schadenfreude.
Imagine the expression on the face of someone who just bit into a giant fewmet - a particularly ripe and juicy one at that. Imagine how appalled and disconcerted, nay, repulsed and disgusted even, that face would look.
Precisely that expression was on the sour faces of the fifteen or so Women In Black when they saw Rabbi Bloom and his congregation marching down the hill. They were so disturbed that they even placed a call to the Oakland Police Department, perhaps fearing for their lives.
[So, after Rabbi Bloom and his sanhedrion of congregants had departed, the local constabulary cruised by a few times, did not see any bloodshed or mayhem, and eventually casually inquired about events. It is possible that the phrase "panicky weasels" may have shown up on the report that was eventually filed. I sure hope so.]
Certainly the mental health of the Wibbies was under siege, but their physical health was never in any danger from our side. We were too busy grinning from ear to ear. It was good. It was refreshing. It was the most encouraging thing to happen in a while.
Despite the chill and overcast, it was the sunniest of Spring days. Even after nightfall, when the rain was bucketing down, it was sunny and springlike.
Kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell.
And neener, neener, neener.
Thank you, Rabbi Bloom, for making my day. I know I speak for all of us when I say that you have made us very happy. We appreciate the support. And we very much look forward to this next Saturday.
-------------------------------------
In other news, Jimmy Carter will be at Zellerbach Hall on the UC campus next week. His coming here is not without controversy. If I weren't such an utter cheapskate, I would burn his most recent book in the middle of Sproul Plaza. I bought the damn thing, it was my money, I can do with it whatever the divvil I want.
But again, I'm a bit of a cheapy. So I'll probably settle for a less pyromaniac expression of disgust.
[WIB has promoted speakers who deny Israel's right to exist, and stood with activists who have demanded the destruction of Israel. Women In Black can be described as a peace group pretty much the same way Kahane Chai can be described as a peace group. But the question is: which of those two would you rather have on your side? If you had to choose?]
And so, like previous Saturdays, I headed across the bay with my protest sign and bad attitude to counter protest them. Every Saturday we've been gathering opposite Women In Black to prove that their hateful attitude is not uncontested, that their anti-Israel point of view is not without opposition, and that their silent vigil is naught more than a fig-leaf for terrorism.
Normally their number and our number do not differ very much. They get approving honks from passing cars, we get approving honks from passing cars.
[And from Sikh busdrivers - good man, sat sri akal, ji]
This Saturday, despite the low temperatures and gloomy overcast, the sun shone brightly, and warmth enrobed our endeavor.
We were joined by over five dozen congregants from Beth Abraham. Who stood with us singing Hebrew songs and holding banners and pro-Israel signs. As their rabbi said: "this is our community, and we will not allow it to be taken over". More or less. His exact phrasing escapes me at the moment (I'm still in a happy daze, as I'm sure you understand).
The best retrospective term for this weekend is from German: Schadenfreude.
Imagine the expression on the face of someone who just bit into a giant fewmet - a particularly ripe and juicy one at that. Imagine how appalled and disconcerted, nay, repulsed and disgusted even, that face would look.
Precisely that expression was on the sour faces of the fifteen or so Women In Black when they saw Rabbi Bloom and his congregation marching down the hill. They were so disturbed that they even placed a call to the Oakland Police Department, perhaps fearing for their lives.
[So, after Rabbi Bloom and his sanhedrion of congregants had departed, the local constabulary cruised by a few times, did not see any bloodshed or mayhem, and eventually casually inquired about events. It is possible that the phrase "panicky weasels" may have shown up on the report that was eventually filed. I sure hope so.]
Certainly the mental health of the Wibbies was under siege, but their physical health was never in any danger from our side. We were too busy grinning from ear to ear. It was good. It was refreshing. It was the most encouraging thing to happen in a while.
Despite the chill and overcast, it was the sunniest of Spring days. Even after nightfall, when the rain was bucketing down, it was sunny and springlike.
Kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell, kvell.
And neener, neener, neener.
Thank you, Rabbi Bloom, for making my day. I know I speak for all of us when I say that you have made us very happy. We appreciate the support. And we very much look forward to this next Saturday.
-------------------------------------
In other news, Jimmy Carter will be at Zellerbach Hall on the UC campus next week. His coming here is not without controversy. If I weren't such an utter cheapskate, I would burn his most recent book in the middle of Sproul Plaza. I bought the damn thing, it was my money, I can do with it whatever the divvil I want.
But again, I'm a bit of a cheapy. So I'll probably settle for a less pyromaniac expression of disgust.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
PROTESTS: SUNDAY, MONDAY
SUNDAY
International Answer Anti-War Protest.
When I arrived shortly after eleven, one of our people was standing with an Israeli flag blocking a pro-Palestinian banner. Confronting her with an angry stare was a person with spiky punked hair and wearing a studded leather jacket. I thought the stud-jacket person was female, one of our other members, however, remains equally convinced that it was male.
We shall never know, for I have no intention of finding out.
Let us call it a troll, and move on.
The very first speech, in almost the very first sentence, made reference to Palestine. Which was perhaps inappropriate for a protest against the Irak war. A number of the other speakers also brought up Palestine. In addition to the third-world working classes, political murders in the Philippines, Native Americans, Hugo Chavez, Haiti......
California political hack Carole Migden, sounding shrill and evincing scant control of logic or eloquence, yelled and woofed her way through a pandering to the rads speech.
I noticed a slow trickle of people leaving the Justin Herman area - perhaps the agenda items and angry lectures about matters which had no connection to the actual war told them that there were strings attached to the event. The stridently extremist presence may also have disquieted some.
Too many sellers of revolutionary newspapers. The sneer about Barak Obama went over like a wet firecracker.
The response of the crowd to non-war related harangues was anaemic at best.
The slogan about 'occupation' got a half-hearted response.
It is likely that many of the people there did not listen to the speakers with any great interest - tolerated the preaching only because of their opposition to the war.
Did not see more than a dozen actual anti-Israel or anti-Semitic signs, though one middle-aged couple made a crack about AIPAC as they walked past. There were one or two vitriolic confrontations, but nowhere near the level of previous International Answer rallies.
The young doofus republican near me tried to get into a debate with some people about the human rights situation in Cuba - they changed the discussion to East Palo Alto and the disproportionate representation of blacks among the incarcerated.
Some attendees may have been revisiting their youth - Jerry Garcia, tie-dye, and bongo drums.
We didn't have a presence down at Civic Center, towards which the marchers eventually headed. But the most revolutionary rhetoric was evidently saved for the end. On the way home I passed by - it resembled an outdoor party, most people paying as little attention to the speakers as they had at Justin Herman. Party on, stop the war, and pass the spliff.
The news media did not mention any of the rhetoric, or our little group, but merely reported that about three thousand people demonstrated for peace on a sunny day.
If the anti-war protests can only bring three thousand people out, then their message is neither straightforward enough nor focused.
MONDAY
Die-ins on Market Street.
Montgomery and Market after twelve: speechifying, people lying down and pulling bed sheets over themselves. Cops calm. No anti-Israel signs in evidence. Participants consisted of the youthful and the elderly.
Powell and Market at 3:15: "This crosswalk is closed until further notice!" - this from a police bullhorn. Mass of youngsters in various stages of highly individualistic clothing choices. Man ranting into a speaker, not particularly intelligibly. Some chanting, and the sounds of a tuba. Cops looking bored, irritated, tense. Onlookers gawking.
There had been arrests earlier. About fifty people.
On the way back to the office saw Shawkat and a friend of his on the other side of the street. Shawkat is the young Arab rabble-rouser who screamed himself hoarse last summer at Justin Herman, one of the ringleaders of the intifadistas in the Bay Area. I'm sure y'all remember him from all the confrontations in front of the consulate. What was he doing in this area? He was only three blocks away from the consulate.........
He was pointing something out on Market Street to a fellow Edomite. He looked angry - I decided not to yell "Ya Shawki, keyf-ak hal?" He seemed preoccupied. It might not have been the right moment.
International Answer Anti-War Protest.
When I arrived shortly after eleven, one of our people was standing with an Israeli flag blocking a pro-Palestinian banner. Confronting her with an angry stare was a person with spiky punked hair and wearing a studded leather jacket. I thought the stud-jacket person was female, one of our other members, however, remains equally convinced that it was male.
We shall never know, for I have no intention of finding out.
Let us call it a troll, and move on.
The very first speech, in almost the very first sentence, made reference to Palestine. Which was perhaps inappropriate for a protest against the Irak war. A number of the other speakers also brought up Palestine. In addition to the third-world working classes, political murders in the Philippines, Native Americans, Hugo Chavez, Haiti......
California political hack Carole Migden, sounding shrill and evincing scant control of logic or eloquence, yelled and woofed her way through a pandering to the rads speech.
I noticed a slow trickle of people leaving the Justin Herman area - perhaps the agenda items and angry lectures about matters which had no connection to the actual war told them that there were strings attached to the event. The stridently extremist presence may also have disquieted some.
Too many sellers of revolutionary newspapers. The sneer about Barak Obama went over like a wet firecracker.
The response of the crowd to non-war related harangues was anaemic at best.
The slogan about 'occupation' got a half-hearted response.
It is likely that many of the people there did not listen to the speakers with any great interest - tolerated the preaching only because of their opposition to the war.
Did not see more than a dozen actual anti-Israel or anti-Semitic signs, though one middle-aged couple made a crack about AIPAC as they walked past. There were one or two vitriolic confrontations, but nowhere near the level of previous International Answer rallies.
The young doofus republican near me tried to get into a debate with some people about the human rights situation in Cuba - they changed the discussion to East Palo Alto and the disproportionate representation of blacks among the incarcerated.
Some attendees may have been revisiting their youth - Jerry Garcia, tie-dye, and bongo drums.
We didn't have a presence down at Civic Center, towards which the marchers eventually headed. But the most revolutionary rhetoric was evidently saved for the end. On the way home I passed by - it resembled an outdoor party, most people paying as little attention to the speakers as they had at Justin Herman. Party on, stop the war, and pass the spliff.
The news media did not mention any of the rhetoric, or our little group, but merely reported that about three thousand people demonstrated for peace on a sunny day.
If the anti-war protests can only bring three thousand people out, then their message is neither straightforward enough nor focused.
MONDAY
Die-ins on Market Street.
Montgomery and Market after twelve: speechifying, people lying down and pulling bed sheets over themselves. Cops calm. No anti-Israel signs in evidence. Participants consisted of the youthful and the elderly.
Powell and Market at 3:15: "This crosswalk is closed until further notice!" - this from a police bullhorn. Mass of youngsters in various stages of highly individualistic clothing choices. Man ranting into a speaker, not particularly intelligibly. Some chanting, and the sounds of a tuba. Cops looking bored, irritated, tense. Onlookers gawking.
There had been arrests earlier. About fifty people.
On the way back to the office saw Shawkat and a friend of his on the other side of the street. Shawkat is the young Arab rabble-rouser who screamed himself hoarse last summer at Justin Herman, one of the ringleaders of the intifadistas in the Bay Area. I'm sure y'all remember him from all the confrontations in front of the consulate. What was he doing in this area? He was only three blocks away from the consulate.........
He was pointing something out on Market Street to a fellow Edomite. He looked angry - I decided not to yell "Ya Shawki, keyf-ak hal?" He seemed preoccupied. It might not have been the right moment.
Monday, January 29, 2007
DRINKING TEQUILA WITH A GIANT RABBIT
ANTI-WAR PROTEST, SATURDAY JANUARY 27TH.
Saturday's protest against the Iraq war, President Bush's troop surge, the era of globalization, the Israeli occupation of certain territories, and the union busting actions of Hornblower Yachts was attended by around two-thousand people.
Not including the dozen or so who showed up to protest the regular daemonization of Israel by the two organizations behind the protest: ISO and Int'l ANSWER.
Both organizations have long called for the eradication of Israel.
Most people who attended did so because of the anti-war thing. And were happily unaware of the antecedents and other agendas of the organizers. Even though a little research would've turned up some surprising stuff, which very well could've persuaded them to look elsewhere for ultra-progressive thrills. Anti-Semitism, support for terrorist groups, advocacy of the violent overthrow of the government, ethnic irredentism, and a number of other hairy things.
Go ahead, put my contention to the test. Look up the name Snehal Shingavi (a grand poobah of ISO in Berkeley and Oakland). You will find out that the gentleman in question, one of the key organizers of Saturday's little rant-fest, has quite a chequered history. Formerly a nice quiet Jain from Houston (where his father is a successful Indo-American businessman fast approaching retirement age), he has developed into a well-known radical Berkeleyite nuisance and fringe-anti-Semite. Probably a prolonged rebellion against parental mores. A squawk of teenage rebellion, if you will.
[He has not been a teenager for a decade. A different person would've gotten it out of his system by now. Therapy would help.]
I do not know the names of many other remarkable people who attended the love-fest.
So I'll describe them.
The first one is the decrepit old anti-Semite who always gives us the finger. Sometimes he gibbers and shouts, or foams at the mouth with trails of sputum flowing from the corners of a permanently slackened jaw, but this time he had taken his medication. Or maybe he can no longer formulate his usual broken sentences. He just stood there holding his sign, gape-mouthed, looking vacant. Occasionally mono-digiting in our direction. He is no longer as near-functional as he was a few years ago. I do hope that by the time he fouls himself they won't let him out any more. It's sad.
Near him was a hyper-stimulated young man who screamed and swore at us from his perch on the bus-island. Who angrily put on and removed his greenish knit cap repeatedly to mark his rhetorical flourishes. The police finally warned him to calm down and stop foaming when he moved in to bite.
A plump sixteen year old Edomite temptress, shaking and yelling. Oh yeah baby, oh yeah.
[I know she was sixteen because I heard her yell so. No, I didn't go up and ask.]
An anarcho-syndicalist. Or rather, a happy ignoramus with an anarcho-syndicalist flag. With the benefit of hindsight, resisting generalissimo Francisco Franco was indeed a darn fine idea. I think most of us would agree with that, so I'm not quite clear what his beef with us was. Neither was he.
A hippy speed-freak with a talent for loudly, repetitively, irritatingly, and at great length oversimplifying everything. The cops warned him a few times too.
A hateful old woman who told me that the wall killed people and I was responsible.
[I'm not sure I followed her logic, but honestly, I wasn't trying.]
An elderly gentleman who told me that he was ashamed, ashamed to have once supported Israel. We were worse than the Nazis. And he knew Nazis.
[I'm sure he did. He struck me as the type. He may have even courted one, when he was still compos mentes - a nice blond with a pert tuchus and a tan.]
But the star of the show was the snake-hipped young man wearing a two-foot tall drum-major fur hat, a tight little mesh shirt that left his stomach bare, and teensy hot-pants, who did an amazing revolutionary peace and love bump-and-grind all the way down Market Street. When I saw him later amid a crowd across the Embarcadero in front of pier 31, I could tell by the fur hat thingy sticking up over the mass of heads that he was working up a sweat. Either that or having a fit, but I think it was a sweat, because the fur hat thingy gyrated and wobbled for over forty minutes to oompah music. If it was a fit, they would've gotten the paramedics, surely?
What's a protest in San Francisco without some senility and mis-guided sexuality?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
You're wondering about the title of this post?
Well, a friend mentioned that there's a pet rabbit in the house. Which datum does have a connection with my standing there among the pro-Israel signs and Israeli flags, counterprotesting. Much more of a connection to the event than many of the signs at this event, and certainly a more valid connection than the anti-Israel agenda espoused by several of the 'anti-war' protestors.
A house rabbit. Some people are disconcerted by a rabbit.
I, however, once spent from eight in the evening to six in the morning at a "Jim and Tammy Faye Appreciation party" lying on the couch drinking tequila with a giant rabbit on my stomach, watching Clockwork Orange on permanent loop. I will consequently not be disconcerted by the rabbit.
Urban rabbits are way cool.
Saturday's protest against the Iraq war, President Bush's troop surge, the era of globalization, the Israeli occupation of certain territories, and the union busting actions of Hornblower Yachts was attended by around two-thousand people.
Not including the dozen or so who showed up to protest the regular daemonization of Israel by the two organizations behind the protest: ISO and Int'l ANSWER.
Both organizations have long called for the eradication of Israel.
Most people who attended did so because of the anti-war thing. And were happily unaware of the antecedents and other agendas of the organizers. Even though a little research would've turned up some surprising stuff, which very well could've persuaded them to look elsewhere for ultra-progressive thrills. Anti-Semitism, support for terrorist groups, advocacy of the violent overthrow of the government, ethnic irredentism, and a number of other hairy things.
Go ahead, put my contention to the test. Look up the name Snehal Shingavi (a grand poobah of ISO in Berkeley and Oakland). You will find out that the gentleman in question, one of the key organizers of Saturday's little rant-fest, has quite a chequered history. Formerly a nice quiet Jain from Houston (where his father is a successful Indo-American businessman fast approaching retirement age), he has developed into a well-known radical Berkeleyite nuisance and fringe-anti-Semite. Probably a prolonged rebellion against parental mores. A squawk of teenage rebellion, if you will.
[He has not been a teenager for a decade. A different person would've gotten it out of his system by now. Therapy would help.]
I do not know the names of many other remarkable people who attended the love-fest.
So I'll describe them.
The first one is the decrepit old anti-Semite who always gives us the finger. Sometimes he gibbers and shouts, or foams at the mouth with trails of sputum flowing from the corners of a permanently slackened jaw, but this time he had taken his medication. Or maybe he can no longer formulate his usual broken sentences. He just stood there holding his sign, gape-mouthed, looking vacant. Occasionally mono-digiting in our direction. He is no longer as near-functional as he was a few years ago. I do hope that by the time he fouls himself they won't let him out any more. It's sad.
Near him was a hyper-stimulated young man who screamed and swore at us from his perch on the bus-island. Who angrily put on and removed his greenish knit cap repeatedly to mark his rhetorical flourishes. The police finally warned him to calm down and stop foaming when he moved in to bite.
A plump sixteen year old Edomite temptress, shaking and yelling. Oh yeah baby, oh yeah.
[I know she was sixteen because I heard her yell so. No, I didn't go up and ask.]
An anarcho-syndicalist. Or rather, a happy ignoramus with an anarcho-syndicalist flag. With the benefit of hindsight, resisting generalissimo Francisco Franco was indeed a darn fine idea. I think most of us would agree with that, so I'm not quite clear what his beef with us was. Neither was he.
A hippy speed-freak with a talent for loudly, repetitively, irritatingly, and at great length oversimplifying everything. The cops warned him a few times too.
A hateful old woman who told me that the wall killed people and I was responsible.
[I'm not sure I followed her logic, but honestly, I wasn't trying.]
An elderly gentleman who told me that he was ashamed, ashamed to have once supported Israel. We were worse than the Nazis. And he knew Nazis.
[I'm sure he did. He struck me as the type. He may have even courted one, when he was still compos mentes - a nice blond with a pert tuchus and a tan.]
But the star of the show was the snake-hipped young man wearing a two-foot tall drum-major fur hat, a tight little mesh shirt that left his stomach bare, and teensy hot-pants, who did an amazing revolutionary peace and love bump-and-grind all the way down Market Street. When I saw him later amid a crowd across the Embarcadero in front of pier 31, I could tell by the fur hat thingy sticking up over the mass of heads that he was working up a sweat. Either that or having a fit, but I think it was a sweat, because the fur hat thingy gyrated and wobbled for over forty minutes to oompah music. If it was a fit, they would've gotten the paramedics, surely?
What's a protest in San Francisco without some senility and mis-guided sexuality?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
You're wondering about the title of this post?
Well, a friend mentioned that there's a pet rabbit in the house. Which datum does have a connection with my standing there among the pro-Israel signs and Israeli flags, counterprotesting. Much more of a connection to the event than many of the signs at this event, and certainly a more valid connection than the anti-Israel agenda espoused by several of the 'anti-war' protestors.
A house rabbit. Some people are disconcerted by a rabbit.
I, however, once spent from eight in the evening to six in the morning at a "Jim and Tammy Faye Appreciation party" lying on the couch drinking tequila with a giant rabbit on my stomach, watching Clockwork Orange on permanent loop. I will consequently not be disconcerted by the rabbit.
Urban rabbits are way cool.
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GRITS AND TOFU
Like most Americans, I have a list of people who should be peacefully retired from public service and thereafter kept away from their desks,...
