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Words Do Matter

This post is personal, not political.

I am an American Jew.  Not a Jewish-American, but an American Jew. 

I am a 2^nd-generation American.  This country welcomed my grandparents more than 100 years ago when they came to Ellis Island in New York Harbor, fleeing pogroms and terrorism against Jews in Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.   

This country enabled my grandparents and my parents to raise their families in peace, with each generation moving up the financial and education ladder.  I was the first in my family to graduate from college.

As a kid, I sometimes felt isolated because of my religion – mostly around Christmastime when so many friends and neighbors put up decorations and trees and we sang Christmas carols in school.   Outside of the house or synagogue, I rarely heard any mention or acknowledgement of Chanukah.

By the time my children were in school, things were very different and people – at least here in the New York area – acknowledged that some of us held beliefs other than Christianity, and the shared values as well as the differences were celebrated.

I’ve been fortunate that, except for some stupid incidents when I was about 10 or 11, I haven’t faced anti-Semitism directly.  And even at 10 when I and some mostly Jewish friends were chased off a neighborhood ballfield by some Catholic school kids who threw rocks at us and called us Christ-killers, I held no grudge, since I had so many Catholic friends and neighbors who I knew would never condone such behavior and who always treated me and my family with affection and respect.

Despite feeling a part of this great nation, I’ve always had a nagging fear – way down deep – that what happened in Germany in the 1930s could happen here.  The Jews in Germany were assimilated, like Jews are here, and they were a vital part of that nation’s cultural and economic life.  Most of them felt what eventually happened there could never happen to them.

That’s how many of us Jews here in America feel.  We love this country and we cherish the freedoms it affords.  But we can’t ignore history and as much as I couldn’t imagine discrimination or worse for Jews here in America, deep down is the knowledge that to some, we are different and perhaps viewed with suspicion or even hatred.  Usually, I feel secure because civility and the law will protect me and my loved ones from anti-Semitism that might turn violent.

Now here’s the part that may look political, but I’m just speaking honestly…  The rhetoric that we’ve seen from the president over the past 3+ years has alarmed me.  If he talks hatred against Latinos and Blacks, we know what eventually follows… the Jews.  And in his rallies, he has made some statements that could be seen as dog-whistles for anti-Semites. 

The Anti-Defamation League has documented a startling increase in hate crimes against Jews in America over the past 2 years  -- up almost 60 percent in 2017.  Part of it is attributed to the tenor of the president’s talk. Words do matter.

Many people in public life and in government, including many Republicans, have called him out for talk that might encourage prejudice.  The nut-job who shot up a synagogue in Pittsburgh Saturday didn’t take direction from the president, but he may have been emboldened to act by the hateful rhetoric, just as we’ve seen an alarming increase in violence against black people brought on by the rhetoric about “taking our country back.”  Back from who? 

I’m pretty sure we’ll feel comforted by an outpouring of sympathy and support from most Americans over these next few days.  The vast majority of Americans are horrified by prejudice and violence toward minorities.  (And yes, we Jews are a minority.)  But the sympathy and support and brotherhood must also come from our nation’s top leaders, and it must be honest support rather than hollow words mandated by the situation.

I’m an American Jew.  I would hope I and my loved ones will never be made to feel isolated from the mainstream because of our religious beliefs.  I would like to think it could never ever happen here in America.  But that’s something we all have to continuously work toward – all of us, from the top down.

 

Real Fake News

 

USA Today has been both praised and criticized for running the fact-deprived op ed by the president last week, where he talked about Medicare.

Some criticized the paper running it, since, as The Washington Post's fact-checkers said, virtually every sentence contained inaccuracies, exaggerations or straight-out fallacies.  Others criticized the paper for including links to fact-checking sites.

I understand that reputable papers usually fact-check op ed submissions when statements are presented as facts rather than opinion and if they are off base, the piece would be rejected or returned to the writer for corrections.

The editors at USA Today faced a tricky choice.  They had in their hands a piece by the president of the United States.  But they knew it was full of lies or errors. 

Do they refuse to run it?  Do they give it back and insist the White House correct it?  Or run it, with lies exposed and corrected?

I think the paper did the right thing by running it, with links to other reports that showed the real facts.  It let readers see the president's words while exposing them for the lies that they are.  False statements side-by-side with clear facts.  Let readers make their own judgement as to what's fake news.

Leslie Stahl also came under criticism from the right for her interview with the president, which aired on "60 Minutes" last night. 

 

From what I saw, she was doing her job as an objective journalist, trying to get at the truth.  She asked the president some tough and direct questions and didn't let him squirm out of them by changing the subject or throwing more falsehoods into the mix.  But now there's meme going around on Facebook saying how slanted the interview was.  "FOX & Friends" whined that the president was "peppered endlessly with questions" during the interview, as if Stahl  was doing something bad by asking questions and repeating or following up on them when they weren't directly answered.

When the fake news comes from the president, whether as an op ed or in answer to interview questions on TV, it should be called out for what it is -- lies.

Finally, the media is doing that.  Good for them and good for us.

 

Fighting Back in the War on the Press

 

Media people, as well as all Americans who cherish our freedoms and our democracy, have been troubled by the president’s ongoing war on the media.  His tweets and his rants at his rallies about the media being “the enemy of the people” raise fears among many of us that he is trying to move this country toward a fascist dictatorship.   A free and unfettered press is a key element in keeping a democracy a democracy.

The Boston Globe has launched a campaign to battle those destructive words from the White House.  It is urging other papers nationwide to run editorials on Aug. 16 that condemns the president’s anti-media rhetoric.   So far, more than 100 papers have joined the effort, including major market dailies like The Miami Herald, The Denver Post, The Houston Chronicle and The Star-Tribune in Minneapolis.  Small town papers are also joining.

Marjorie Pritchard, the editorial page editor at The Globe said it’s not a political move.  “It’s not about being a Democrat. It’s not about being a Republican.  It’s about the importance of a free press, enshrined in the Constitution.  It’s something we should all get behind.”

In an editorial yesterday, The Globe reminded readers about a 1974 book by political theorist Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism.”   “A people that can no longer believe anything cannot make up its mind,” Arendt was quoted.  “It is deprived…of its capacity to think and judge.  And with such a people, a leader can do what you please.”    

Thus, the editorial continues, an ill-informed, frightened public is precisely the audience an authoritarian president hopes to cultivate.  Losing public trust in a free press leaves unprincipled leaders with unprecedented powers and control.

Does anyone still not understand the importance of a free press here in the U.S.? 

Bad Policy, Bad PR

 

The president's statement announcing plans to withdraw the United States from the worldwide Paris Climate Accord was a bad move for this country on many fronts, including PR.

It's ironic that, in making his statement, he said the world has been laughing at us for this "bad deal, but they won't be laughing at us anymore."

Actually, it’s just the opposite, as leaders and citizens here and abroad are scratching their heads in despair and laughing at the utter stupidity and arrogance of the man whom less than the majority of us elected last November.  (Click here for a Washington Post fact-check of his speech Thursday.)

His arrogant dealings with EU and G7 leaders last week and his grand proclamation Thursday regarding the Paris Accord have quickly moved us from a position of world leadership and world respect to the back of the pack.  In the process, the former “leader of the free world” is making himself irrelevant on the global stage.

Despite his misguided rationale, based on flat-out wrong thinking on both climate change and economics, those who do understand the importance of global attempts to slow mankind’s destruction of our planet are taking action on their own and in concert with each other – ignoring the U.S. government’s official position.

It is encouraging to see so many coming together to say that despite the official edict of the Administration, they will continue their efforts to adhere to green initiatives set out in the Paris Accord.  As of this morning, less than 24 hours after the president’s grand reveal of his decision, which seemed more like the crowing of a new Apprentice or The Bachelorette winner, more than 90 major city mayors, governors of three of our largest states, and countless captains of industry have rejected the president’s position and made it clear they intend to work together toward lessening our carbon footprint.  Proof that the president has made himself irrelevant on this important issue.

At the same time, the chorus of disappointment and rejection by so many world leaders, including our closest allies, points out that our Administration stands alone on this crucial issue.   

The president said his decision was based on the need to put America first.  Unfortunately, this move threatens to hurt American business, not to mention the health of future generations of Americans.  Government support of alternative energy efforts could have created tens of thousands of new and lasting jobs here, instead of a few hundred low-paying and dangerous jobs at a coal mine the president said his efforts will soon open.

China just announced major plans to expand its alternative energy initiatives, which it estimates will add hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing jobs and bring in something like $300 billion for the Chinese economy.  Even if those numbers are exaggerated, it’s still a lot of jobs and money that could have been helping our economy right here at home.

This is bad policy that is creating very bad PR for the United States.  I hope the bad PR will be temporary, just as the bad policy will be minimized by the grass-roots efforts of state and local governments and companies who intend to ignore the president’s edict.  Good PR will return eventually, with a new Administration that will set this bad policy and other negatives straight so that U.S. can again be “great again” in the eyes of the world.

 

 

 

Does “America First” mean Americans last?

 

The administration’s motto of “America First” may have brought in votes, but what sort of message has it been sending to other nations, especially our allies around the world? Are they seeing us pulling back from the global stage, where we’ve long been the leader – both in terms of military might and in terms of moral right.

The proposed budget – which admittedly is only a proposal at this point – seems to give a mixed picture. Upping the defense budget by ten percent positions us to be an even bigger power in terms of sheer military strength. Do we really need to bolster that might? We’re already big and strong. And at what cost do we need to be even stronger?

The discretionary part of the budget is relatively small compared to the over budget which has spending that can’t be touched – interest payments, money for Social Security, etc. But the cuts proposed, although a very small part of the total we spend, will undo or seriously harm many programs that help make this country great – from programs that feed some of us who need help, to others that help our teachers do a better job to programs that bring art and culture to all of us and not just to those who have access to major cultural institutions.

The proposed budget seems to put many Americans last. Much attention has been given to the cuts to Meals on Wheels, for instance, a program that helps many older people with food and human interaction. But other cuts to the Dept. of Housing will impact the poorer among us who rely on subsidies to keep a roof over their heads.

Cuts to the Dept. of Education threaten programs that provide ongoing training for our nation’s teachers.  Money may be diverted to charter and private schools, which do offer alternatives for some people, but at what cost?  Remember, some charter schools are operated by for-profit companies, which means some of the money goes into the corporate till and back to shareholders.

The arts are one of the things that makes America great. Destroying the National Endowment for the Arts will put a severe strain on many cultural institutions, especially in smaller cities and towns that don’t have a large donor base to draw from. It will also harm our public broadcasting systems – PBS and NPR -- which provide informative and cultural programming that would be difficult to thrive on commercial channels.

One of the core principles of this great nation is our answer to the Biblical question – Am I my brother’s keeper?  Historically, the answer to that has always been “Yes” in how we as a whole pay for programs that help the less fortunate among us. But maybe the “America First” vision of the new administration doesn’t consider those Americans who need a hand. They are not the Americans of power and wealth who, it seems, will be helped “bigly” by tax cuts and changes to the health care system. Ironically, many of those who will be hurt by these changes were conned into voting for the new president last November with his promises to drain the swamp and bring back jobs.

Are we bringing back jobs by cutting 3,200 jobs in just one Federal department – the State Department? Rather than drain any swamp, it may, in fact, risk getting us into quicksand. Top generals have been warning us that the “soft” work of diplomacy very often saves us from the “hard” work of the military that ends up costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

Destroying the Environmental Protection Agency and halting research on climate, space and other areas of science is simply short-sighted. And it puts at risk future generations, here and worldwide. Remember, 96 percent of the world’s experts say climate change is real and that it will eventually come back to bite us in the ass if we ignore it.

Cutting wasteful spending is a way to trim budgets. We’ve all heard stories about the $500 hammers the military buys. More money could be found for legitimate military spending by getting a handle on the military’s purchasing procedures.

So with all those cuts, the president still wants to spend $30 billion on his wall, which the Mexicans will NOT pay for. That’s $30 billion that could go to education, food and shelter for the needy, and with maybe a little left for the arts.

The proposed budget, in my opinion, will not make us safer from foreign threats. It will not make life better for most of us in the middle and lower economic classes. It will not help keep us healthy and free from worry about having good healthcare. It will not keep us as the beacon of freedom and moral leadership that we have traditionally been.  And it will not make America great.

Life goes on ...

 

The election certainly did not turn out the way I had hoped and, honestly, I am still trying to get myself out from under the strange haze that's enveloped me since late Tuesday night.

 

But the sun rose as usual this morning. 

I woke up and l'm still breathing.

 

I was heartened to see that Hillary won the popular vote, which just points up the idea that the Electoral College system, which was initially designed to preserve power for the less populous southern states where slave-power fueled the agrarian system, needs to be changed.  But that's a battle for another time.

 

For now, I have to have faith in our system.  As much as I can't stand him on a personal and business level, Trump will be the president, hopefully for all of us, as he pledged yesterday.  I have to hope that much of his nasty and hateful rhetoric was an act in order to gain attention.  I have to hope that his advisors and Congress, including the many decent Republicans, will calm him and make him behave in a manner that won't shame us in the eyes of the world. 

 

Hopefully he will reach out and try to hear those he demeaned in his campaign rants.  Of course, we cannot forget what he has said and done over the years, and we will need to remain vigilant that he doesn't try to repeat some of that terrible behavior while in office.  Hopefully Congress and the court system, if necessary, will act as a check...hopefully.

 

I will probably find it difficult over these next few months to watch the news on TV without the remote in my hand, ready to flip the channel so I don't have to hear his voice.  I will rely on newspaper reporting, and if I see a headline that scares or disgusts me, I can avoid or delay reading that story.  I certainly won't be watching the inauguration in January.

 

I know...it's burying my head in the sand, but that's how I feel I must cope for now. 

 

And, above all, I will continue to hope that good triumphs over evil and that love ...and decency...trumps hate.

That is how I expect to get through these next few months and the coming four years.

Over the Top

 

I suppose it should not be a surprise, but Trump's attacks on the media have gone over the top.

His attacks on the media and on individual reporters at a news conference earlier this week emphasize how unfit he is to be President.

Calling a reporter a ‘sleazebag’ because he pressed the candidate on his donations to veterans groups takes him to a new low.. if that's possible.  The media are doing their job when they ask tough questions and continue to hammer when all they get are non-answers or tangential responses aimed at distracting from the initial line of questioning.  They do it to all the candidates and others who are in office.

When asked by a reporter if this is how he would behave if he made it to the White House, he said yes.  Earlier in his campaign, he said as President, he’d sue reporters and media who don’t report “fairly,” leaving the definition of “fair” to his own discretion.

Major Garrett, who reports for CBS News, said on CBS This Morning that for reporters who have been covering his campaign, this behavior is not a surprise.  It's fairly normal for this candidate, he said.

This candidate is hardly the only politician who lashes out at the media when reporting doesn’t go exactly as they would want it.  Sarah Palin, the candidate’s partner in grime and also a name-caller, refers to the media as the “lamestream media.” 

This behavior in the White House would be totally unacceptable and against the idea of a fairly transparent government.  I'm not saying every President, including our current one, has never blurred the truth or evaded some lines of questioning.  But civility in government is crucial to maintaining dialogue that can lead to resolution of conflict and building of trust among leaders and the citizenry.  Imagine name-calling and nastiness on the floor of the Senate and the House.  We know some of them can’t stand each other, but they remain civil and engage in discussion which, before obstructionism, would lead to compromise and things getting done.

The presumptive Republican nominee demonstrates none of that civility.  His thin skin causes him to attack --  often childishly -- anyone he feels has treated him ‘unfairly.’  As President – heaven forbid – would he spend precious time and attention on name-calling reporters who report the truth as they see it, or who ask the probing questions they are supposed to if they are doing their jobs? 

As President, it seems like he’d ignore the Constitution’s very first Amendment – the one guaranteeing Freedom of the Press.   That seems to be in step with his calls for action that would ignore other amendments like Freedom of Religion as well as Civil Rights laws passed 40 and 50 years ago.

I know the media will continue, as they should, asking tough questions and probing… not only of Trump, but of Clinton, Sanders and others in offices high and low. 

Right from the early days of this nation, our founding fathers recognized the importance of a free press as a way to inform the public about what our elected leaders – people we pay with our tax dollars – are doing on our behalf.  That’s the role of the media, even if some candidates don’t like it.  

Weekend Thoughts -- Travel back in time

 

I happened across a post on Facebook yesterday that asked "If you could visit a place in time, where would you go?"

An interesting idea, and the person said the 1950's.  With the post was a link to a site that has an assortment of photos from various decades.

It was fun to look through the pix.  Many had those beautiful cars of the time...attempting to look futuristic but now looking classic.  There were pictures of people at the beach, people enjoying Coca-Cola in the classic Coke bottle, teen girls in gaudy sunglasses that were the style back then.  Pictures of families having a roadside picnic.  Old-fashioned buses.  Gas stations where the attendant actually came out to pump your gas and wash the windshield.  Shoveling out of a snowstorm.  Quiet small-town streets lined with mom & pop stores and no shopping malls and Walmarts.

The 50's were a good time to be a kid.  Not much to worry about. 

Would I trade it for 2016?

No.

It would be nice to go back for a visit so I could again see people in my family who are long gone.  It would be so sweet to hear my grandfather, in his Russian/Yiddish accent, ask me if I'd like another bowl of his home-made split pea soup, so thick that the spoon would stand upright.  It would be so nice to see my parents, as I saw them when I was young, dancing in the living room to Ella Fitzgerald or Frank Sinatra on the radio.  Or playing a seemingly endless game of ringoleevio in the back yard of the apartment building with Ben and Mel and Tommy and Jimmy and Carol and my sister Shari.  The family picnics on Sundays, literally surrounded by aunts, uncles and tons of cousins now either gone or moved to faraway places.

Lucky us, we had no worries.

Looking at the photos from the 1950's, though, I see a skewed version of reality.  Only one out of 77 pictures showed a black person, and no Latinos or Asians at all.  No Jews, either. 

I enjoy the diversity of today.  It makes life much more interesting on so many fronts.  Today's technology enables us to be in touch constantly and instantly, pretty much anywhere in the world.  We can get answers to just about anything just a few finger-touches away.  And we can drive anywhere without having to stop for a map or to get directions.  With jet travel a routine thing, it's no big deal to visit other coasts...of these United States or foreign shores.

Life is pretty good here in 2016. 

We have our challenges, for sure.  War and hatred, poverty, prejudice are still rampant.  But we've come so far, accepting others for who they are and not hating or being suspicious because they don't look or love or pray like us.

One troubling thing today is the tone of our presidential campaigns.  They are bringing out the worst in us, showing that there are many among us who would like to go back to the 1950's, but not for reasons I mentioned above.  Instead, they'd like to take us back to a time where Jews, blacks, Asians and Latinos were marginalized, where  America was lilly-white and people of color -- black or brown -- were kept "in their place," and we all pretty much had to think and act alike. 

That's not a time I'd like to revisit, and I hope our leaders and future leaders don't try to take us back there.

 

 

Debates or Reality TV?

 

An article on the Opinion pages of Monday's Wall Street Journal is headlined "We Need Better Presidential Debates."

I couldn't agree more.

The writers, head of debate organization Intelligence Squared U.S. and an ABC News correspondent, make the case for us to use the standards of the classic Oxford-style debate, where the debaters have more time.  They say this format would expose candidates who only use carefully canned responses, and it would force them to be more knowledgeable on issues.

I think I know why the current short-response format is used.  Very simply... it makes for better TV.

Longer responses, which should bring more depth to what is being said, can test viewers' attention spans.  So the current format, with its loose and unenforced rules, becomes a great reality TV show rather than a forum to inform and persuade voters.  The Republican debates drew big audiences not so much for what was being said as for the potential spectacle of seeing candidates, particularly Trump, name-call, mug and make outrageous statements designed to be perfect attention-stealing sound bites.  What have we learned, other than this one's a loser and that one's low-energy?

The WSJ article suggests the debates begin with each candidate having a 7-minute opening statement.  With the initial field of seven or eight candidates, the Republican debates would have spent nearly an hour just on opening statements -- a surefire recipe for tune-outs.  The networks carrying the debates sell commercial time, so they need the huge audiences in order to get good ad rates.

So 7-minute opening statements will never fly on commercial TV.

But here's a solution -- air all the debates on C-SPAN and public TV, where audiences and ad rates don't matter.

The other way to improve the debates in the future is to set ground-rules and stick by them.  Candidates should be told in advance that they will have a 15-second overtime limit.  When the bell signals time is up, they must know that their microphone will be turned off exactly 15 seconds later -- mid-sentence or not.  And the mic should not be turned on again until it is their turn to respond. This will prevent interruptions by whoever is the loudest or rudest.

Ground-rules for behavior should also be set and enforced.  No personal name-calling -- it belittles the candidates and the process.  Each candidate can get one "pass" for bad behavior, but after a warning by the moderator, if a candidate violates the rules of decency and decorum, he or she should have their mic shut off and be asked to leave the stage.

Maybe then the candidates will be able to stick to a real discussion of the issues at hand, rather than forcing us to endure stupidity like a candidate calling another a loser, ugly or fat, or a mamma's boy. 

Candidates can do and say whatever they like in their stump speeches and various campaign appearances.  But the debates are supposed to be a chance for we, the voters, to size up the candidates, see where they stand on issues, and get an idea of their depth of knowledge and how they handle the verbal and mental challenges of a proper debate discussion.

Is that too much too ask?

 

 

UN General Assembly Week in New York

 

 

The police and city officials hardly had a chance to breathe a sigh of relief after the Pope departed for Philadelphia last Friday.  They still have to protect and transport some 170 heads of state here for the annual General Assembly Week at the U.N.

Yesterday and today President Obama is in town and speaks to the General Assembly.  Russia's Putin and dozens of others -- friends and not so friendly -- will have their say at the General Assembly podium down the street from my office.

We New Yorkers are used to traffic, congested sidewalks and the seemingly constant shrill of sirens from police, fire and EMS vehicles.  It's just part of living in this wonderful city that we love.

But it all ramps up during General Assembly Week.  First Avenue and the cross streets in the east 40's have become parking lots.  Some blocks, like East 44th Street, are barricaded, with police and bomb-sniffing dogs checking vehicles heading East toward the UN.  Pedestrians aren't exempt from the inconveniences, often having to wait several minutes to cross a street as official caravans with foreign delegations drive past, preceded and followed by police cars and big SUVs with dark windows, with lights flashing. 

People throughout the world will be seeing stories with the dateline UNITED NATIONS, New York, and photos from General Assembly proceedings will be beamed globally on TV.

With all its faults, I still believe the UN serves an important purpose.  It's a place where nations, who often have very different and opposing interests, can sit down across from each other and hash it out, raising voices sometimes, but not raising arms. 

The diplomacy doesn't always stop the fighting or the abuses of power or the denials of personal freedoms around the world.  But sometimes it does.  And the annual meeting here in New York puts the world's focus on not only the differences and disagreements, but also on the honest attempts to find ways toward peace and dignity.  And for those fleeting times when it does work, the UN is worth it after all.