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aegon · 4 years

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I never understand when people say Bernie is some revolutionary. It’s usually non Americans that say that because of his very successful ad campaigns and loud supporters. He’s the definition of establishment. He’s worked in the government for soooo long and literally done nothing but rename a post office. That’s it. Why do people think he’d do anything as president, when he didn’t do anything when he was a politician with power for decades? Sucks that even the left obsess over mediocre men

I mean...Google is free. It literally took me half a minute to find a list of Bernie’s numerous accomplishments over his decades-long career but sure, let the non-American tell you what your own politicians are up to.

And because my own country fell a few days ago to the ignorance the masses, I even found other sources to back-up the facts of (some of) Bernie’s most remarkable feats:

Bernie is one of the hardest working politicians in the States, being dubbed “the amendment king” for passing more roll-call amendments than anyone else.

I like how you mentioned the post office naming and totally ignored the fact he introduced and passed a bill that increased veterans’ disability compensations

“The definition of establishment,” you say. When more than half of the States and most of your politicians wanted your army to invade Iraq, Bernie said no. He didn’t need to wait seventeen years and a million innocent casualties to make his mind up. Actually, Bernie’s been consistently anti-war throughout his life and again, that’s fucking impressive when more than half of America, at one point, wanted people like me to be blown up. A good egg.

“The definition of establishment,” you say. The American government has systematically supported the Israeli oppression of Palestinians from the very beginning. Anyone who dare say anything against it is deemed anti-Semitic. Bernie, a Jewish man, is one of the only politicians I’ve seen from your side that has enough of a spine to say something about it. Now you might not think it’s much, but an American politician that isn’t Netanyahu’s bitch should be celebrated. It’s that rare.

“The definition of establishment,” you say. Bernie’s been protesting for civil rights and standing up for justice for fifty goddamn years. Damn, what kind of rose-tinged glasses are you wearing that you think someone like that is the fucking establishment???

He couldn’t get nearly as much as he wanted done because you have such rotten shits in office. Like remember when he actively wanted to protect your privacy rights post-9/11 because he didn’t want your basic freedoms to be exploited by the NSA who wanted to read all your emails and listen to your calls without your consent? Wow what a mediocre shit wanting you to not be watched by the state like it’s 1984 lmao

The free credit report you’re entitled to every year? That was Bernie.

Actually reached across the aisle to work with Republican Charles Grassley to introduce the ‘Employ America act’ that stopped major firms firing American employees and hiring cheap foreign workers. That’s called bi-partisanship and y’all need that in your government. Mediocre men don’t negotiate with the opposition for the rights of people.

The first ever audit of the Federal Reserve that revealed how trillions were paid (with no interest) to big banks and businesses? Bernie.

He fought to get community health centres into the ACA

His very first bill that became law was the National Program of Cancer Registries that helps researchers gain valuable information in their fight against cancer. Called “the cancer weapon American needs most.”

Bernie also passed an amendment to prevent the Bush administration from working to overturn a federal district court ruling that IBM’s pension cuts violated age discrimination laws. This amendment helped 130,000 IBM workers regain $320 million in pension benefits that had been taken away from them.

In the late 1990s, dairy farmers were being forced to sell off their lands to big corporations. Due to an amendment by Bernie, a law passed that provided $350 million to help struggling dairy farmers survive.

Bernie’s tried passing so many climate change bills and sadly, most have been blocked by shit stains in your government but he did manage to pass an energy bill that secured $3.2 billion to fund the grants that reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. The program to date has funded upgrades for more than 86,000 buildings, installed more than 9,500 solar energy systems and, in the process, created or saved thousands of good-paying jobs.

He has campaigned NON-STOP to give y’all the right not to die from student debt or to pay thousands for like breaking a finger, but ok yes not a revolutionary at all lmao

It’s nice of you to demean him to just naming a post office when he’s been fighting to save thousands of jobs in the postal service, despite the Republicans shutting him down whenever he tries.

So I could go on and on because it turns out, this Bernie fella has done a lot in his time as a politician. He’s introduced over 300 bills whose sole purpose is to help the average American like yourself. It’s so easy to sit on your sofa and call him mediocre when you haven’t fought a percent of the battles that he has to make your life easier.

You don’t have to like Bernie. You don’t have to support his policies. But to trivialise a man who has worked hard and dedicated his life to serving his people speaks volumes of your own ignorance.

Who becomes your President isn’t really my concern. Quite frankly, I’m not affected by whether you can afford to see a doctor or if you’re forcibly drafted into your next war.

However - you are. I suggest getting off your high-horse and spending more than half a minute to learn about who your politicians are and what they’ve been doing in their careers. You can’t always rely on a Brit across the pond to do your damn work for you.

#anonymous #answered #bernie sanders #us politics #thank u next #bernie is a damn inspiration #thank u and good night

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schraubd · 5 years

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Collected Thoughts on Excluding Omar and Tlaib

I've got another kidney stone. It struck on Monday, and then I felt pain Tuesday, Wednesday, and today. Thursday was my only pain-free day this week, and I have to assume that was the universe balancing the scales and recognizing that the Israeli government's truly terrible decision to exclude Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) from the country was plenty enough aggravation on its own. I went on a pretty vigorous tweet storm all through yesterday. Below I bullet point most of what I expressed on that site (which, as you may know, I've taken "private"), but my main takeaway is this: There's no serious case that either Congresswoman present a security threat to Israel (I've seen some people insinuate that they might incite a riot at the Temple Mount which -- I'm not sure I can physically roll my eyes hard enough). In practice, the "risk" Omar and Tlaib present is simply that they will hear mean things about Israel and then say their own mean things about Israel. That's the locus of the complaint about the "balance" of the trip; that's the locus of the accusation that they merely want to rabble-rouse. What people are concerned about is they will go to the West Bank, hear people saying mean things about Israel, and repeat those mean things back to American audiences. But -- and I mean this in all earnestness -- so what? So what if that's what happens? To be clear: I don't think Omar and Tlaib were coming just to say mean things about Israel. But even if they were -- there's no security threat. The state will survive (how pathetic would it be if it crumbled?). It'd be speech. It'd be discourse. That's the price of living in a liberal, free society. Sometimes people say mean things about you. Sometimes those mean things are unfair. Sometimes those mean things are entirely fair. Whatever. It comes with the territory (pun initially not intended, but I'll own it now). It's not a valid basis for a travel ban. It used to be that Israel was emphatic that "come see us and you'll think better of us". Now Israel is terrified that if people come see them--at least, see them unchaperoned, without a constant guiding hand ensuring they see only the choice parts--they'll think of worse of them. That's the sign of a society in decay. To be sure, I think Omar and Tlaib probably would come away from their visit with a rather grim appraisal of Israel's treatment of Palestinians. But then, there's ample basis to appraise that treatment grimly--there's no inherent foul there. People can come to the West Bank and be honestly appalled by what they see. Only police states confuse "people saying mean things" with security threats. A free society can survive--and perhaps even learn from--critics giving it grim appraisals. People talk a huge game about how Omar and Tlaib could "learn" from their trip to Israel and Palestine -- and no doubt they could. But the flip side is that Israel, too, can learn from the testimony of Palestinians laboring under occupation, and from efforts to bring that testimony to the fore. It is wrong -- not to mention insulting -- to treat discourse about Israel/Palestine as if it were a one-way street, where wise, omniscient Israeli/Jewish teachers dribble knowledge onto benighted, ignorant Muslims and Arabs. Below is a recap of my other collected thoughts on the matter (many but not all of which were on Twitter):

This was a terrible and unjustified decision. Let's lead off with that and give it its own bullet point all to itself.

There is no reason to think that this decision was "what Omar and Tlaib wanted" since it made Israel look authoritarian and repressive. That is projection, to avoid speaking the more uncomfortable conclusion that "Omar and Tlaib might have had a point" in suggesting Israel acts in an authoritarian and repressive fashion.

I neither think this decision was solely Trump's doing -- Israel "caving" to his pressure -- nor do I think he played no role in the decision. I think he successfully convinced Netanyahu to do something that he already kind of wanted to do in the first place, even knowing it probably was a bad idea. Trump was like the frat boy friend egging his buddy into doing another shot flight. That Bibi was probably dimly aware it wasn't the wisest decision in the world doesn't mean that he wasn't ultimately fulfilling his own desires. Ultimately, this was a decision of Israel's right-wing government and they deserve to take the full brunt of punishment for it.

I understand why everyone is calling this "counterproductive" from Israel, since it will undoubtedly give a huge boost to the BDS movement. But, as I wrote in the Lara Alqasem case, that really depends on what Israel is trying to "produce". In many ways, Bibi benefits from an ascendant BDS movement, just as they benefit from him; and he likewise benefits from a world divided between conservatives who love everything he does and liberals who loathe him. So the fact that this decision puts wind in the sails of BDS, while further lashing Israel to a purely right-wing mast and alienating it from erstwhile progressive allies, is not necessarily a miscalculation -- it's the intended and desired effect.

On that note, remember the other day when 21 Israeli MKs wrote to Congress and said that a two-state solution was "more dangerous" than BDS? Well, if you ever wanted an example of what it looks like to trade "increased BDS support" for "kneecapping two-state solution support", this was it (even though Tlaib isn't a two-stater -- Omar is -- this act was aimed like a laser at the most prominent base of support for two-stateism in America: that is, Democrats).

On the other hand, shouldn't these right-wing Israelis be more excited to welcome Tlaib than most other Congresspeople? After all, she opposes the "dangerous" two-state solution! Oh wait, I forgot: in her one-state world, everyone gets to vote. That won't do at all, will it?

I love Emma Goldberg description of how Israel will slide away from liberal democracy via Hemingway's description of how he went bankrupt: "Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly." And by love, I mean it gives me a sick feeling of recognition in my stomach.

Justifying the ban on the grounds that Omar and Tlaib's visit wasn't "balanced" because they weren't meeting with Israeli or Palestinian government figures, only NGOs, and these are bad NGOs -- spare me. To tell visiting U.S. politicians "you can come, but only if you speak with the 'right' people/visit the 'right' sites/speak the 'correct' words" sounds like something you'd hear from the North Korean embassy. Omar and Tlaib should be entitled to visit with whomever they want to visit, and come to whatever conclusions they end up coming to. If those conclusions are unfair, we should trust the ability to defeat them with more speech, not enforced silence. But again: we can't conflate "unfair" with "critical". It's entirely feasible that a fair-minded individual hearing testimony from West Bank Palestinians will come to a sharply critical conclusion.

Some of the attacks on the NGOs Omar and Tlaib were scheduled to meet with are the usual chad gadya (has a leader who's linked to a group which kicked the dog ....) nonsense, but there are some groups with some genuinely bad history. I've consequently seen people suggest that we need to also hold Omar and Tlaib accountable for their part in this fiasco for meeting with members of those groups. Fair enough: I'm happy to hold them accountable, weighted and prioritized in proportion to their relative culpability. In keeping with that metric, I might get around to returning to criticizing their draft itinerary sometime in 2035.

Fine, one more thing on the itinerary: Am I correct in reading it as taking Omar and Tlaib either solely or primarily to the West Bank and East Jerusalem? If so, it's entirely understandable why they'd refer to those locales as "Palestine".

Rep. Tlaib initially applied for a humanitarian waiver to visit her family, which was approved, but then she backed out given the conditions the Israeli government was going to impose on the visit (basically, not engaging in "boycott activities"). The usual suspects are crowing: she cares less about her family than she does about boycotting! I say (a) Rep. Tlaib is well within her rights to not prostrate herself to the dictates of a foreign government seeking to humiliate her, and (b) what about the past few days gives anyone the confidence in the Israeli government's ability to fairly adjudge what qualifies as a "boycott activity"?

The argument that Israel, as a sovereign state, has a "right" to exclude whomever it wants substitutes a juridical argument for an ethical (and practical) one. Sovereign states are formally empowered to do all sorts of terrible and/or stupid things. This was one of them. Hearing nominal anti-BDS folks make this claim -- which could as easily be applied to "universities and academics have the right to collaborate (or not) with whomever they want to" is probably causing another kidney stone to develop as we speak.

The other thing is that Israel is proving itself completely incapable of exercising this "right" in a reasonable manner that distinguishes between genuine threats to national security and unhappiness that people sometimes come to Israel and then say mean things. One of the reasons we liberals seek to limit unchecked government power is precisely because of the suspicion that it won't be exercised responsibly or non-arbitrarily.

Of course, the fact that Israel also exercises the practical authority to exclude people not just from Israel-proper, but the West Bank as well, gives lie to the notion that Palestinians even conceptually could have their right to self-determination vindicated solely by voting in PA elections.

Silver lining: pretty much the entirety of the American Jewish establishment -- AIPAC, AJC, ADL, J Street, Simon Wiesenthal Center -- came out against this decision. Huzzah for that.

Tarnish on even that silver lining: the Conference of President's weak-sauce statement on the matter. "Many of the organizations expressed disagreement with the government’s decision", but "Ultimately, the government of Israel made its assessment of the countervailing arguments and acted upon their conclusion." Really, that's what you're giving us? It's amazing how the Conference doesn't care about the "consensus" of the Jewish community when that consensus is a progressive one.

When a prominent member of or institution associated with an outgroup does something awful, it is natural for members of that outgroup to feel acutely vulnerable. In part, that's because they know that this awfulness will be wielded against them; in part, that's because frequently they have feelings for or connections to the target person and institution, and it is painful to see them act in such a terrible fashion. Of course, that feeling of vulnerability needn't and shouldn't be the primary story as compared to those directly victimized by the awful behavior. But it is not per se wrong, or "centering", to acknowledge and validate the existence of the sentiment; nor is such an acknowledgment necessarily one that stands in competition with recognizing the direct damage of the instigating act.

The next time a Democrat occupies the Oval Office, I have to wonder what sort of penance is going to be demanded from the Israeli government for years upon years of insult and humiliation. It's not going to be back to as it was before. It's not even going to back as it was in the Obama administration. Democrats will -- rightfully -- insist that Israel pay a price for what it's been doing these past four (if not twelve) years. The flipside of recognizing the importance of preserving Israel as a bipartisan issue is that Israel aligning itself fully and completely with the Republican Party is going to come at a cost. It will be interesting to consider what that cost will be.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2ZcVv85

#Ilhan Omar #Israel #Palestine #Rashida Tlaib

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rmacleod772 · 2 years

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Political Landscape

Pictured above is the Israeli newspaper that is a main way of spreading crucial information.

History of Isreal

The complex political history of Isreal dates back to a period of time with the early Zionists. Zionists are those who believed in creating and protecting the Jewish nation which is now, Isreal. Zionists were the first political figures of Isreal who had the intentions of creating a home and safe place for Jewish people where the same values and history were shared among the community (Zionism and Israel). Since the beginning of Israel, Jewish identity has been a crucial marker of citizenship and has shaped populist politics throughout Israel. Religion has a large influence on Israel populism and has shaped the political views and opinions of Israelis. Another shaping factor of populism and the Israeli people is the reputation Israel obtained with wars and terrorism. (Cambridge University Press)

Since this creation of the Isreal land, there have been many wars that have impacted the Israeli and Palestinian lives and function of the government. Israel can easily be defined by the wars and terrorist attacks that have taken place in the homeland of many, but Isreal also has many positive contributions to the world. May of 1948, Israel declared its independence but shortly after was invaded, forcing Israel to defend its power. This war quickly became known as Israel’s War of Independence, a war that first shaped and started the Israeli government. (The State of Israel)

Israel Politics

Isreal is a Middle Eastern country on the Mediterranean sea, most commonly known for being home to the Jewish community and being the Holy Land. Jews, Christians, and Muslims view Isreal as the biblical Holy Land due to the birth, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. These three main religions build up a community that is based on parliamentary democracy. Israel was founded in 1948 as a Jewish and democratic state. The Prime Minister of Isreal, Naftali Bennett, is the head of the government and leader of the Israel political system. The executive branch consists of the government known as the cabinet. Legislative power is part of the Knesset. The Knesset is a unicameral legislature of Isreal and has complete control of all of the Israeli government. The Knesset was created with 120 seats, each political party has a list of candidates, if a party gets ten percent of the votes, it gets ten percent of the seats where the first twelve candidates on the list get a seat in Knesset. The judiciary branch is independent of the executive and legislative branches. Israel's political system does not have a constitution but is followed by its main principles seen in the eleven Basic Laws. (Political Structure)

Israel Politics and Populism Today

Israel’s Declaration of Independence states that there will be ensured equality of social and political rights for all citizens. This law is a part of the eleven Basic Laws of Israel but has recently been questioned due to challenges with the right-based democracy. Israel has been one of the United States' closest allies due to previous President Trump's peace agreements with Palestinians in 2017. Currently, President Biden has been putting pressure on Israel to create peace and stop wars but Israel is struggling to pursue their laws reflecting right-based views and policies. Israel has been pursuing strong anti-democratic tendencies and political action by attempting to silence the people, abolish the right to protest, and take away the power of the supreme court. The recent anti-democratic policies are an outcome of the tension from the Jewish religious laws and the relationship they have with democratic values.

(Challenges to Democracy and Social Cohesion)

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theliberaltony · 6 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll of the week

President Trump’s tweets often dominate news coverage, particularly on cable news. But let’s be honest: We here at FiveThirtyEight have occasionally written about them too. What is more, well, newsworthy than the words of the chief executive of one of the world’s most powerful nations? And since politicians are known for boring, repetitive, long-winded speeches, what could be a better political platform than one that literally forbids using more than 280 characters at a time? Twitter seems good for Trump, too: As his allies often say, it gives the president a way to speak directly to the American electorate, getting around the media’s filter. Trump’s Twitter account is followed by 52 million people, not that far off from the nearly 63 million who voted for him in 2016.

But some data released this week should give Trump and his supporters pause about the power of his Twitter account in directly reaching American voters — and push the media to think carefully about its coverage of Trump’s tweets. Only 8 percent of U.S. adults say they follow Trump’s Twitter account (@realDonaldTrump), and only 4 percent say they follow his account and regularly read the president’s tweets, according to a new Gallup poll. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 250 million Americans are age 18 or older. So Trump’s Twitter followers, based on the Gallup data, are about 20 million Americans of voting age. And the real consumers of his tweets are about 10 million.

Twenty million people isn’t nothing. Neither is 10 million. It’s more people than read FiveThirtyEight most days or watch any of the network news programs. But it’s nowhere close to the 52 million followers Twitter says he has. And it’s a small share of the roughly 325 million people who live in the U.S. or even the more than 137 million people who voted in the 2016 presidential election.

Of course, the Gallup number is just one poll, but it makes for a more realistic estimate of Trump’s Twitter audience than his official follower count. Twitter estimates that it has more than 69 million total users in the U.S., but we know that many Twitter accounts, particularly those who follow celebrities like Trump, are bots or otherwise fake. Also, remember that people of all ages and people outside of the U.S. can use Twitter. So Trump’s 52 million followers surely include some American teenagers, as well as, say, Brazilian or Japanese citizens who care about his decisions. Third, Gallup’s estimate that 26 percent of American adults have Twitter accounts is fairly close to the results of a 2016 Pew Research Center poll that found 21 percent of U.S. adults were Twitter users.

In any case, here’s why this data matters: If Trump is really speaking to 10 or 20 million American adults with his tweets, then they’re not really a means of directly reaching the American electorate at large. (Gallup estimates that just 15 percent of Republicans follow Trump on Twitter, so he’s not even directly reaching much of his base.) This data argues for treating Trump’s tweets more like presidential statements to elites, the press and other fairly politically engaged people.1

Such statements may still be important. But Trump is not really getting around the media filter via Twitter if so few voters are actually seeing his messages on the platform itself.

The Gallup report makes me think that Trump’s tweets should be covered more — not less — carefully by the press. If Trump’s tweets were just appeals to his political base, one that we know is susceptible to believing falsehoods like the claim that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S., that might argue that the tweets should be taken, well, seriously but not literally. If, on the other hand, these tweets are reaching a fairly small actual audience but are heavily influencing media coverage, that would suggest the actual messages in the tweets matter more. When I covered Obama as a White House reporter for The Washington Post, I was more interested in what he told small, elite audiences (Democratic congressional leaders, for example) than what he told crowds at rallies, as he was usually more candid and described his political strategy in more detail in the former settings.

It’s worth considering whether we think of Twitter as Trump’s megaphone and bully pulpit but it’s really his inside voice — Trump’s version of the off-record meetings with influential journalists that past presidents used to shape the views of other insiders.

Other Polling Nuggets

A poll from the Pew Research Center found that 71 percent of Americans support direct negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea over the latter’s nuclear program. That includes 85 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats. About half of Americans, however, believe that North Korea’s leadership is not serious about addressing concerns about its program.

The Associated Press, working with Fox News, is launching an interesting new exit poll project for the 2018 midterms: AP VoteCast. Basically, the idea is to get away from the traditional in-person method of surveying voters by adding in opt-in online surveys.

Americans are split on whether they favor or oppose using torture to obtain information from terrorism suspects. According to a YouGov poll from this week, 32 percent are in favor, 36 percent are opposed and 32 percent are not sure. The poll also shows a partisan split, with Republicans more likely to support using torture on terrorism suspects and Democrats more likely to oppose it.

According to the same YouGov poll, 46 percent of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling North Korea. That’s up about 9 percentage points from last December.

Harris Poll conducted a survey of over 1,000 mothers aged 25-39 with infants, toddlers or preschoolers and found that 87 percent believe that maternal and child health care in the U.S. needs immediate improvement; 89 percent of the moms interviewed agreed that access to quality prenatal and child health care should be a right, not a privilege.

Polling nerds unite! This weekend is the annual conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. If you’d like to get nerdy about polling, you can follow #AAPOR on Twitter and see what your favorite pollsters are up to.

SurveyMonkey took a closer look this week at Trump’s improving job approval numbers. They found that the number of Americans who perceive him as someone who “can get things done” is up 10 percentage points since its low in November 2017 and is back at levels previously seen at the start of his term.

A poll of Jewish Israelis conducted by the University of Maryland this month found that 73 percent support Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an additional 20 percent believe he should have waited to move the embassy in the context of a peace plan, and only 5 percent oppose it altogether. A poll conducted in August of last year by the polling firm SSRS showed much more division over the issue among Jewish Americans, with 44 percent opposing the move.

A Gallup poll found that even if driverless cars were common on the roads, 75 percent of Americans would opt for a human-operated car. Just over half of Americans said they would never want to use a self-driving car even if they were certified by government auto-safety regulators.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins this week. A YouGov poll of residents of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt commissioned by Netflix showed that TV viewership increases 78 percent during Ramadan. That’s an average of three extra hours a day of watching TV shows or movies!

Trump approval rating

On Monday of this week, Trump’s approval rating hit 42.4 percent, the highest level since last May, before the firing of then-FBI Director James Comey. It had slipped slightly by the end of this week, to 42.3 percent. On May 7, about two weeks ago, Trump’s disapproval rating was below 52 percent for the first time since last May. It is now up to 52.3 percent.

Generic ballot

The Democrats are at 45.3 percent in the generic congressional ballot, their lowest standing since last June. But they remain about 6 points ahead of the Republicans, who are at 39.5 percent. Polls suggest that about 15 percent of voters are undecided on which party they will back in the midterms, and that bloc is looking increasingly important.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Perry Bacon Jr. and Dhrumil Mehta

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xtruss · 4 years

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East Asia

The South China Sea: What’s Really at Issue

— Modern Diplomacy | September 13, 2020 | By Eric Zuesse

The South China Sea is basically China’s export waterway to Africa and to Europe (among other markets), but in order for China’s enemy (aspiring conqueror), America, to harm and weaken China maximally, and to use the United Nations assisting in that aggression, America and its allies have cast this vital trade-waterway as being instead basically just an area to be exploited for oil and gas, and minerals, and fishing. The American Government’s aggression — its effort to strangulate China’s international commerce — thus becomes ignored by the U.N., which is consequently handling the entire issue under its law which pertains to a nation’s (China’s) rights to exploit the natural resources of and under a given waterway.

The international legal issue, which is being applied, is therefore the 1982 U.N. Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This treaty (law) has been ratified, or at least signed, by all countries except the United States, whose hold-out for 12 years had blocked the Convention even from coming into effect. Then, finally (when Guyana, on 16 November 1993, did, after so much delay, become the requisite 60th country to ratify the Convention, so as to bring it into actual effect), the U.S., on 29 July 1994, went through the mere formality of signing the Agreement, because Part XI of the Convention (“to authorize seabed exploration and mining and collect and distribute the seabed mining royalty”) had, by this time, become modified, to the satisfaction of Exxon and other U.S. oil-and-gas corporations, so that U.S. President Bill Clinton had UNCLOS signed by the U.S. — but not sufficiently satisfied to have it ratified by the U.S., which nation therefore still remains the lone holdout amongst the 179 U.N. member nations that had been invited to join it. (Some countries are entirely landlocked.) So, ironically, the lone holdout-nation, U.S., is now militarily threatening China (one of the Convention’s actual member-nations), for its allegedly violating that Convention, in regard to what is, in fact, China’s essential exportation (and importation) waterway, even more important to China than its being a potential Chinese natural-resource asset.

Furthermore, China has long wanted to reduce much of its need to ship through the South China Sea, by means of building what for China would be equivalent to what the Panama Canal is for the U.S., but this new canal would be located in Thailand, which America conquered in its 1948 coup — the CIA’s first. If built, this Thai Canal would significantly reduce China’s costs of importing oil from Iran and Arabia, as well as its costs of exporting goods to India, and to Europe and Africa. Therefore, the U.S. regime is willing to pay whatever the cost might be in order to bribe Thai leaders to continue saying no to that canal-proposal. (But, will China ultimately outbid America? There is a tug-of-war in Thailand about whether to participate in China’s proposal.)

The U.S. thus blocks China, both via the UNCLOS, and via China’s main potential method of avoiding its need to rely so heavily upon its usage of the South China Sea — the Thai Canal.

This is consequently a good example of how the imperialistic U.S. Government, which is uniquely hostile toward the United Nations, nonetheless exploits the U.N., and yet still receives deferential treatment from it — so that the U.S. can actually use the U.N. as a tool to advance its own imperialistic objectives of conquering yet more territory, additional vassal-nations or ‘allies’.

The U.N. is, furthermore, exceptionally proud of its achievement in having finally passed UNCLOS into international law. As it says, “‘Possibly the most significant legal instrument of this century’ is how the United Nations Secretary-General described the treaty after its signing.”

None of this can be understood outside the context of international law itself, which is tragically corrupt, as a result of the following history, the backstory here:

Though the U.N. was invented and even named by America’s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), he died just before it started, and his successor Harry S. Truman shaped it by modifying FDR’s plan, so that the U.N. would gradually fail, and, instead, the U.S. Government would itself emerge effectively as being the global government over all other governments — America’s Government would become a global dictatorship over nations, instead of the U.N. coming into existence as the global democratic republic of nations (FDR’s U.N.) that FDR had aimed for it to be, controlling international relations after World War II, in such a manner as to prevent a WW III.

We thus live in Truman’s post-WW-II world, definitely not in FDR’s.

After World War II (in which the U.S. and UK were allied with the U.S.S.R. against the fascist powers that had invaded countries which had not even been threatening them), America soon launched a string of coups and invasions — overthrowing and replacing governments that hadn’t even posed any threat, at all, to America’s national security — and the world thereby became increasingly accustomed to the fact that America’s military and CIA are, in fact, the world’s new invading military force, replacing Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and the Emperor’s Japan, in that capacity, as international dictators. (That’s something which FDR had been planning to prevent any nation from being.) The first four U.S. coups were against Thailand in 1948, Syria in 1949, Iran in 1953, and Guatemala in 1954; and each American coup replaced a moderate leader with a brutal fascist regime, crushing democracy there. (The U.S. takeover in Syria lasted only a few years.) America also engaged in numerous outright military invasions, many of them using hired proxy forces (U.S.-funded mercenaries), instead of using U.S. soldiers, as being the U.S. regime’s “boots on the ground,” to do the actual killing and dying. America thereby became the invading country throughout the world, which is what the fascist powers had been in World War II.

The post-WW-II America thus emerged as standing above international law, ever since the 1945 end of WW II. In effect, America’s Government has internationally become the world’s government — by force of arms. Other countries are subject to international law, but the U.S. is not. The U.S. has emerged as the international empire, taking over, and dominating, in more and more countries, until it now openly demands compliance from all countries, and even threatens Iraq’s Government, that if Iraq tries to expel the U.S. occupying forces, the U.S. will permanently destroy Iraq.

America’s imperialist fascism has become so bold, for so long, so that news-media don’t even report it. If one lays a WW II ideological template over the world’s nations today, then today’s U.S. and its allies are much more fitting the mold and form of the Axis powers, than of the Allied powers; but, this time, instead of there being Germany and its allies as the imperialistic fascists, we today have America and its allies, as constituting the imperialistic fascist nations. America assumed this role gradually, first as that role was ‘justified’ supposedly as being an ideological contest between democracy versus communism (which, on the U.S. side, was merely an excuse, not an authentic explanation); but, then, increasingly, without any such ideological excuse, as being, simply, America’s alleged ‘superiority’ (such as the recent U.S. President, Barack Obama, repeatedly asserted, that “The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation,” which means that every other nation is “dispensable”; only America is not). It is now as flagrant with America as it had been with Hitler’s Germany (“Deutschland über alles,” etc.). The gloves have finally been taken off, by today’s U.S. imperialist fascist regime. The U.S. even has the world’s highest percentage of its own population being in prisons, a higher imprisonment-rate than that of any other country. This is very appropriate for the world’s most totalitarian country. So, the dictatorship isn’t only international — it is even intranational, inside the U.S. And it very much is in control over the nation’s news media. It’s a two-Party dictatorship.

When U.S. President FDR died as WW II was ending, his dream for the future was that America and its allies in WW II would create a democratic super-nation controlled by all nations, a United Nations that would have the military force throughout the world to enforce international laws, which would be made democratically by the U.N., through its Security Council and General Assembly. But, nowadays, instead, the U.S. and its allies are free to invade anywhere they wish, and — unlike what happened to the fascist leaders during WW II — the U.S.-and-allied leaders get away with it, and they aren’t even charged by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. They stand above international law: precisely the sort of situation that FDR had aimed to prohibit.

For example, one of America’s allies — and thus immune to international law — is Israel; and, on September 3rd, the international news site South Front headlined “Israeli Forces Rain Down Missiles on Syria”, and reported that:

The Israeli Air Force conducted a second round of missiles strikes on Syria in less than a week.

Late on September 2, Israeli warplanes launched missiles at the T4 airport in the province of Homs. According to Syria’s state media, the strikes were conducted from the direction of the US-controlled zone of al-Tanf on the Syrian-Iraqi border. Syrian pro-government sources claimed that a large part of the missiles was intercepted. …

The most recent previous Israeli strike on Syria took place on August 31 targeting the countryside of Damascus city and the province of Daraa.

Syria does not invade Israel, but Israel routinely invades Syria, and long has done so — and yet Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is not being strung up and executed by an international criminal court, like the leaders of Germany and Japan were supposed to have been, after WW II. That Judgment at Nuremberg, and similar trials against some of Japan’s leaders, were actually only victors’ ‘justice’ against some of Germany’s and Japan’s leaders, but (at the time) the victorious Allies claimed it to be the start of international justice, and to be the enforcement of international law — even though the trials were held only against Germany’s and Japan’s leaders, but not also against Italy’s. (Italy had signed with the Allies the Armistice of Cassabile surrendering on 8 September 1943, and this was part of that deal — Italy’s Government wasn’t quite as horrific as the other two, which held out till the bitter end.) These trials were prosecuting against “aggressive war”: the charge was that the imperialistic fascists had invaded countries that hadn’t invaded them — exactly what the U.S. and its allies constantly and now routinely do, after WW II (overthrowing and replacing governments that had not even so much as threatened the U.S. and its allies).

The U.S. and its allies are today’s imperialistic fascists, and the U.N. can do nothing against them. The U.N. can do nothing against the leaders of America and its allies for doing what had been done by the leaders of Germany and Japan during WW II.

Hitler’s and Hirohito’s spirits thus now rule in the self-styled (but now only formally) ‘democratic’ countries, whose rulers reign with far nicer rhetoric — far more hypocrisy — than their 1930s fascist predecessors had done. And the U.N. is dead, because it became created by Harry S. Truman, instead of by FDR.

Consequently, let’s consider, in more depth here, the example of China:

China is a communist country, but its communism is drastically changed from the time when Mao Tse Tung founded it, and its Marxism is unrecognizable, no longer a “dictatorship by the proletariat,” but instead one-Party rule by a Party that anyone, of any economic class, is invited to join, and which is widely considered by the Chinese people to be a “democracy.” (A far larger percentage of Chinese consider their Government to be a “democracy” than the percentage of Americans who consider America’s Government to be a “democracy.” Chinese don’t consider the number of political parties to be any indication of whether the nation is a democracy as opposed to a dictatorship. They are correct in that. In fact: America’s own Founders had aimed to be creating a nation which would have no parties at all.)

FDR made a clear distinction between a national democracy and an international democracy. He believed that international relations should be an international democracy of independent nations that deal with each other on a cooperative instead of coercive basis, and that international laws should govern this, coming from and being enforced by the United Nations. By contrast, national democracy was to be a choice that only the people within a given nation should determine, and the U.N. should have no relevance to, or control over, that. “Human rights” are individuals’ rights, and are an internal matter within each nation, whereas the rights of nations are very different, and are the purview exclusively of the U.N., as FDR was planning it. This was how he planned for there to be a post-WW-II world which would have no World War III.

By contrast, today’s U.S. regime claims, for example, the authority to dictate what countries should control which international waterways. This is clearly infringing on the U.N.’s area of authority; and, so, Truman’s U.N. has no control over the matter, though it does have vague laws which pertain to it. Today’s U.N.’s laws ignore one cardinal position — a cardinal geostrategic principle, the Westphalian principle — that FDR and the Soviet Union’s dictator, Joseph Stalin, agreed upon and which Winston Churchill opposed: the view that each of the major world powers should be allowed to intervene in the internal affairs of a foreign nation only if that foreign nation is on its borders or at least nearby (which was undefined). This was the Westphalian system, but enhanced so as to be explicitly anti-imperialistic, because both FDR and Stalin believed that both World Wars had resulted from imperialism. Both leaders rejected imperialism but accepted that there exists a distinction between major and minor powers, such that the nearby surrounds of a major power need to be entirely nations that are allied with that major power, or, at least not hostile toward it — not allied with any major power that is hostile toward itself. In other words: both men rejected Churchill’s demand that empires be allowed, which could extend beyond a major world power’s own “neighborhood.” Churchill wanted to continue the British Empire. Truman accepted Churchill’s view, and rejected the view of both FDR and Stalin. Consequently, Truman and Churchill agreed together to move forward toward an all-encompassing U.S.-UK Empire. (Though, nominally, the Westphalian principle had already become a part of the U.N.’s subsequent Charter — because of FDR — as being Chapter 1, Article 2, Paragraph 7, it was ignored from the outset, and the U.N. organization itself became set up so as to hide the entire Charter from the public. The numerous deficiencies in the Charter — such as its failure to include any clause describing a process by which the Charter could be amended — thus have likewise been hidden from the public, and not debated, nor discussed; and, thereby, the U.S. and UK have been able to have their way: the system for future global dictatorship was thus born.)

Consequently, geostrategic issues were prohibited by the U.S. regime from being subjects of international law. Though international law allowed vague references to “aggressive war,” simply because FDR’s U.S. had already established the system to pursue and hang German and Japanese leaders for their having done that, the concept of “aggression” became smudged in international law, instead of defined; and, so, aggression is practically absent as a topic of international law as it currently exists. This is how the South China Sea issue came to be treated only as being an issue of natural-resource rights. The U.N.’s Charter is essentially irrelevant to what is the most important. (Even its Westphalian clause — which is only the original, weaker, empire-accepting, form of Westphalianism — is irrelevant, since it’s ignored.)

China’s ability to ship its products westward via the South China Sea is crucial to China’s economy. Consequently, the imperialist fascist regime and its allies are trying to reduce that ability. Because this is Truman’s, instead of FDR’s, post-WW-II world, the existing relevant international laws lack sufficient clarity, and the U.S. and its allies can, under existing law, gradually choke-off China’s exports.

Katherine Morton’s 20 July 2016 article, “China’s ambition in the South China Sea”, in the journal International Affairs, argues that China’s ambition in the South China Sea is primarily driven by China’s thousands-of-years-old commercial policy, of being a maritime nation, a nation whose economy is based upon international trade. This is not imperialistic, but it instead concerns international rights that every nation ought to have. (Until 1912, China was ruled by imperialistic Emperors, but afterwards it was no longer imperialistic and has instead been defending itself against imperialistic powers.) Morton argues that China’s objective is not any grand design to achieve maritime hegemony — such as the U.S. regime has, and such as England, Holland, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, and Japan, previously had done. It’s not imperial rule over countries that aren’t in their own neighborhood. It’s not conquest; it is instead self-defense. America and its allies do the coups, invasions, and international economic sanctions (economic blockades, even), but China does not. That, basically, is Morton’s argument (though she doesn’t put it in those clear terms). She says that China’s “attention is primarily focused upon demonstrating political resolve to defend China’s maritime periphery. Yet conclusive evidence that the Chinese leadership is intent upon dominating the South China Sea for the broader purpose of building a Sino‐centric maritime order in east Asia is difficult to find.” (The obtuseness — if not self-contradictoriness — of her writing might be due to her desire not to offend the U.S. regime’s own imperialistic sensibilities. Such a style is common amongst international-affairs scholars in the U.S.-and-allied world.)

However, the U.S. regime claims that China, instead of America, is the imperialistic power. The U.S. regime, as usual, claims to have the international right to enforce its will in international affairs anywhere on the planet. Sometimes, today’s U.N.-based international laws are in favor of outcomes that the U.S. regime wants. Thus, we have the matter of the South China Sea, where the U.N. body, UNCLOS, ruled on 12 July 2016 that the only relevant question is which nation is the nearest to a given part of a waterway (so as to have the right to explore and exploit there). The international laws by today’s U.N. ignore geostrategic issues, such as both FDR and Stalin wanted to include in them, but Churchill and Truman wanted international laws to ignore such matters so that UK and now U.S. could jointly pursue world-conquest. Since the UNCLOS ruling in 2016 opposed China’s claims, by ignoring its major-power concerns about its self-defense, the U.S., under the hyper-aggressive ruler, Donald Trump, recently came out publicly committed to enforcing that 2016 ruling by the U.N. body. On September 1st, Reuters headlined “Special Report: Pentagon’s latest salvo against China’s growing might — Cold War bombers”, and reported that:

On July 21, two U.S Air Force B-1B bombers took off from Guam and headed west over the Pacific Ocean to the hotly contested South China Sea. The sleek jets made a low-level pass over the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its escorting fleet, which was exercising nearby in the Philippines Sea, according to images released by the U.S. military. The operation was part of the Trump administration’s intensifying challenge to China’s ruling Communist Party and its sweeping territorial claims over one of the world’s most important strategic waterways. While senior Trump officials launch diplomatic and rhetorical broadsides at Beijing, the U.S. Defense Department is turning to the firepower of its heavily armed, long-range bombers as it seeks to counter Beijing’s bid to control the seas off the Chinese coast. …

The U.S. Army also intends to spread forces through the first island chain and other outposts in the Western Pacific. It is planning a series of major exercises this year and next where troops would deploy to islands in the region, according to senior commanders and top Pentagon officials.

The U.S. regime is using, as its excuse, its backing the territorial claims of what it claims to be its ‘allies’ against China — such as Vietnam. Meanwhile, the regime is applying diplomacy and other means, in order to encourage those ‘allies’ to insist upon, and not to compromise or weaken, those claims. Vietnam quickly responded to America’s active backing, by “Vietnam Threatens China with Litigation over the South China Sea”.

What’s at issue there is underwater oil-and-gas exploration-and-development rights of the various nations’ corporations. If China truly does not place its corporations’ commercial interests above the Chinese nation’s self-defense interests, then it will sacrifice the former for the latter, and it will cede those other nations’ rights to exploit that oil and gas, and will settle with its neighbors, for an agreement by all of America’s ‘allies’ to support and endorse China’s rights to traverse unimpeded through those waterways.

If the U.S. regime then would continue its heavy military fortifications surrounding China, then China would (in accord with its agreements that it will have reached with Vietnam and those other neighboring nations) be receiving, from those nations’ endorsements of China’s rights in that regard (for China’s self-defense), and from those nations’ public requests for U.S. forces to depart from their region, support for China’s shipping rights, which would be at least as valuable to China as whatever the natural resources there are worth.

In regards to the 12 July 2016 ruling by UNCLOS, it concerned specifically the case between China and the Philippines, and it presented the Philippines’ challenging China’s claims, which claims were/are based on arguments such as (regarding “Scarborough Shoal”) that “Since the Yuan Dynasty, the Chinese people have never stopped developing and exploiting Huangyan Island and its surrounding waters and the Chinese government has exercised effective management and jurisdiction over their activities all these years.” The ruling replied to that assertion by saying, “The Tribunal’s conclusions with respect to” that area are “independent of the question of sovereignty.” But, whatever the ruling was based upon, what’s relevant here is that the U.S. Government has no right to be sending its warships and other weapons into the South China Sea in order to ‘enforce’ UNCLOS’s ruling. And whatever China’s claims are or were in this matter, they cover(ed) a very large area, which encompasses almost all of the South China Sea — it encompasses the area that’s within the “nine-dash line”, which is shown here in green. Although UNCLOS (actually the U.N.-authorized body that administers it, the International Seabed Authority) is legitimately involved in this matter; the U.S. Government is the opposite: it is instead an international-law violator and has no right to be involved, at all, and is illegally throwing its weight around where it doesn’t belong and should be expelled — and would be expelled if this were FDR’s U.N., instead of Truman’s U.N.

Another way that Truman’s U.N. helps the U.S. regime geostrategically against China is the issue of Hong Kong — an internal Chinese matter, which wouldn’t even be a U.N. concern if the U.N. had been created instead by the U.N.’s inventor, FDR. (Even the original, weaker, form of the Westphalian principle — the version that’s in the U.N.’s Charter — would prohibit outside involvement in this matter.) As Reuters headlined on September 3rd, “U.N. experts decry Hong Kong security law in open letter to China”. Any U.N. that gets involved in any nation’s internal affairs, and in such things as ‘human rights’, should be simply dissolved, because it is advancing imperialism, instead of preventing it.

Basically, today’s U.N. is just a talking-forum, a PR vehicle for its member-nations; but, actually, at the deepest level, it’s a propaganda-agency for imperialism. That’s what it was designed for.

If China can win the support of its neighbors in the region to kick America out, then the sacrifice of such assets as oil and gas there would be a relatively inconsequential price for China to pay. Unfortunately, today’s U.N. must be eliminated and replaced by one that builds upon FDR’s intentions, because today’s U.N. — Truman’s U.N. — is exactly the opposite.

America’s having its weaponry and forces on and near China’s borders is even worse than when in 1962 the Soviet Union placed its forces in Cuba — and nearly precipitated WW III. America has no right to be there. And today’s U.N. has no justification to continue its existence — a replacement of it is direly needed.

Details of the existing U.N.’s deficiency in the present situation will here be summarily stated: UNCLOS asserts: “Every State has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles.” That’s the outermost limit of any coastal nation’s “sovereignty.” Furthermore: “Non-compliance by warships with the laws and regulations of the coastal State. If any warship does not comply with the laws and regulations of the coastal State concerning passage through the territorial sea and disregards any request for compliance therewith which is made to it, the coastal State may require it to leave the territorial sea immediately.” But Truman’s U.N. possesses no military force of its own and therefore that “coastal State” is provided no protection by today’s U.N. Furthermore: UNCLOS even allows an enemy nation’s naval vessels into that 12-mile limit, but “submarines and other underwater vehicles are required to navigate on the surface and to show their flag.” There is no limit upon how near the shore an enemy’s warships are allowed to come. Yet the U.S. violates UNCLOS routinely. What military force exists against its doing so? What legal tribunal exists that covers this? Furthermore: The agreement by FDR and Stalin, that any major world power needs to have some sort of right to veto or block any nearby nation from coordinating with any other major power that is hostile toward that given major world power, is entirely absent from the existing U.N. — existing international law. Consequently, for example: The U.S., under JFK in 1962, was acting in violation of the subsequent 1982 UNCLOS, when he ordered the Soviet military to depart from Cuba — that was beyond the 12-mile limit. Existing international law has to be replaced. It ignores essential geostrategic concerns to prohibit imperialism and to minimize any likelihood of a WW III. It needs to be replaced.

And that’s not the only reason why the current system of international laws needs to be replaced. The existing international dictatorship, which is the U.S. regime, is even more conservative than is Truman’s U.N. For example: As of October 2019, there are 37 “Treaties Pending in the Senate” (the U.S. Senate). These U.N.-backed treaties all are of a progressive nature, asserting the rights of workers and obligations of employers, etc.; and, in fact, the first three of these treaties deal specifically with workers’ rights. The earliest of them, activated in 1949, is the “International Labor Organization Convention No. 87 Concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize, adopted by the International Labor Conference at its 31st Session held at San Francisco, June 17 – July 10, 1948 (Treaty Doc.: Ex. S, 81st Cong., 1st Sess.); submitted to Senate August 27, 1949.” President Truman could not get Republicans to back it, because they opposed workers’ rights. They still do, and the Treaty still isn’t joined by the U.S. regime. Indeed, as Roncevert Ganan Almond noted, in his 24 May 2017 article in support of “U.S. Ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention”, “Even treaties that flow from American leadership, in areas like protecting rights for persons with disabilities, are rejected.” They’re always being rejected by Senate Republicans. (Truman, of course, was a Democrat; and, on most issues, the leadership of that Party is less conservative than is the leadership of the Republican Party.) Thus, though Truman’s U.N. is conservative, it isn’t as conservative as is the U.S. regime itself, which is even more conservative than Truman himself was. Physically, Hitler and Hirohito lost WW II; but, spiritually, they turned out to have won it. The reason is that FDR tragically died too early.

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rambling-russ · 5 years

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Indian Newsletter 5

5th June 2019

Hi folks,

What have you been doing since my last blog.

For about five weeks I was preaching in churches & going to schools to give teacher talks (I'm certainly not an authority) but because of my age & experience people here thought I would have some "pearls of wisdom" something useful. The talks were always well received & I was often given a monetary gift from churches and other presents from schools all unexpectedly of course. My luggage weight therefore has increased. The teachers were often shy & difficult to draw out into discussion. Most wouldn't have had direct contact with a westerner before.

An Indian friend has said, "Who can really get to know India as every 200 kilometres, the culture changes." For instance, in some areas, the son will bring his wife to live permanently with him in his parents home. In other area, the daughter will bring her husband into her family home. Some areas people eat with their hands instead of a knife & fork. In some areas, beef is eaten whilst in others, the cow is sacred. Then there is a language difference as-well-as a clan difference etc. Dress and maybe most foods seem to be unform throughout the subcontinent.

Westerners have different standard of hygiene - at a large function, a bowl of cold water is provided to wash hands but no soap. Soap is provided after the hand-eaten meal.

The toilet is often a squat one and no paper or soap is provided. Sometimes a bidet spray is available.

Meat is unrefrigerated & uncovered on tables in dusty streets.

For some meat eaters, the fat on pork is cooked & eaten.

Of course rice being the staple food and can be eaten three times a day.

Indian drivers are the worst in the world so an Indian woman said within my hearing. I would have to agree. The continual overtaking right on blind curves & bends even on mountain roads & with such speed is nerve racking. No space is left between the car infront & there is much impatience when in traffic sometimes resulting in the blowing of horns even when the vehicle ahead cannot possibly move - maybe just frustration. High beam is often left on! Besides that, the roads are narrow & unmaintained. The good thing is they don't have the road-rage we have in the West!

In India, all children need to be in school uniform even 3 & 4 year olds.

As previously mentioned, Manipur, the state, where my very experienced educator friend wants to start a school for the poor farming community, is controlled by insurgents who want independence from India. The locals generally agree with separation similar to one or two already autonomous Indian states. The inhabitants consider they are basically from Chinese origins - their looks & skin colour is certainly not Indian. However, the insurgents are now holding the state to ransom & preventing much needed development. Money from the federal government for roads etc is being intercepted & misappropriated by the rebel group & corrupt government officials. For about ten years the movement for separation was a peaceful one but the original members are gone and a lot of rabble rousers and unemployed etc have taken over & are using force, guns & stand-over tactics to obtain what they want. I have been told by people outside that state that there is no way I would get permission to work in Manipur in spite of wanting to help in educating the needy.

After Manipur, I visited and stayed with a contact (Kitbok who became a friend) in Shillong, Meghalaya (another N.E. Indian state to the west of Manipur).

Whilst in Shillong I developed a contagious skin infection between the top of my buttocks which started to weep a bit possibly exabitated by some flexibility exercises I do. Kitbok, his grandson & I were going to visit his wife who was in hospital for a couple of days. I informed Kitbox's of my condition & before seeing his wife we all called into the office of the doctor and owner of the hospital. The doctor had the same surname as and Kitbok said it was his brother. Kitbok then informed his relative of my condition. The doctor called in a nurse and told me he wanted to do an inspection. I thought this is going to be interesting infront of four people. However, he just had me loosen my trousers then lie down on his couch, the nurse covered me with a sheet and the doctor discreetly rolled down the top of my jeans!

People here often refer to others as brothers or cousins when in fact they are in the same clan.

Kitbok suggested I go further north to the picturesque and pleasant climate of Gangtok the capital of Sikkim. As that state borders Napal, China (Tibet) & Bhutan it is a sensitive area. The military has a large contingent in that state so I needed a special entry permit even though I already had a visa for India.

Gantok is high up & many Indians go there from all over the country to enjoy the cooler climate and to escape 47+ degree heat in the south.

From Shillong, Meghalaya I needed to return to Guwahati (Assam) airport to go to New Jalpaiguri (NJP) N.E. Bengal to reach Gangtok.

There was a hand grenade cowardly thrown in the city of Guwathati a day or two after I had left there the first time. Now I was returning via there to get to Gangtok!

At a popular Gantok outdoor shopping/walking area, as I was looking for a particular coffee shop, I noticed a tall western well-built male exiting a government tourist information centre. The street had very few westerners so he was conspicuous. I was walking in the opposite direction to the info' centre when I was tapped on the shoulder & asked by this same man if I spoke English to which I replied, "A little". The man (Yariv) is a Jew, from Israel working for an Israeli digital hardware company. He had brought a group of eight Indians from Delhi, who were part of his company, to Gangtok for R.R.R (rest & relaxation as-well-as a reward for performance). Yariv had arranged to take the team up north in the state to Changu Lake only 40 kilometres away, 3780 metres above sea level but which would take 1 and 1/2 hours because of the winding, steep, road conditions. A government regulation required two non Indians to travel with the group of eight out-of-state Indians. An Israeli colleague of Yariv's had unexpectedly been unable to make the trip to join the group. Yariv therefore asked me if I would accompany the group, free of charge, otherwise the trip would have to cancelled so I agreed. I had previously seen the lake mentioned on a travel brochure but I had thought it was too far, too expensive & not interesting enough for a day trip. I needed yet another permit to visit this area because we were getting even closer to the border areas.

The lake was large but the weather wet and cold. There was not a lot to see or do except a yak ride or a partial walk around the lake.

Coffee in India and Napal is either all milk or all black. Milk coffee and ground coffee beans are boiled together so hot that it takes some time to drink & not as flavoursome. If one wants a little milk, it completely throws (confuses) them. Consequently one will get a cup of black coffee with a separate cup of hot milk. One can't possibly put cold milk into hot coffee!

Well that's all for now people.

Kind regards,

Russ

Read my travel blog: rambling-russ.tumblr.com

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dailyaudiobible · 5 years

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05/09/2019 DAB Transcript

1 Samuel 5:1-7:17, John 6:1-21, Psalms 106:13-31, Proverbs 14:32-33

Today is the 9th day of May. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is a pleasure to be here with you to take the next step forward on our journey through this week and through this month and through this year and through the Bible. And in the Old Testament, we are taking our steps through the book of first Samuel and getting to understand who Samuel was and what was going on when he came onto the scene and we have experienced the loss of the Ark of the Covenant in battle to the Philistines. And, so, we’ll pick up the story today. First Samuel chapters 5, 6, and 7. And we’re reading from the New English Translation this week.

Commentary:

Alright. We have quite a dramatic story beginning to unfold in front of us as we roll out first Samuel and work our way through it. So, the ark of the covenant, this symbol of the people had been lost in battle to the Philistines. The Philistines had certainly brought it rejoicing back to their Capital Cities. It first began it's moving around in the city of Ashdod. And Ashdod is a place that I've been many times. Ashdod is the place that we normally begin our pilgrimage when we go to the holy land. It's our first night. And, so, it's a place that exists. And when the ark of the covenant was captured it was taken to Ashdod. But, I mean, as demoralizing as losing the ark of the covenant would've been for the children of Israel, the Philistines, they didn't have the celebration that they were looking for. And, you know, at first it seemed like the Philistines god, Dagon, had defeated the God of the Hebrews, Yahweh, right? And, so, they got the ark, they got the symbol and they’re transporting it back to Dagon's temple but then Dagon falls over, right, for two consecutive days and the second day his heads broke off and his hands are broken off and then like skin tumors begin breaking out on the people. And, so, in fear for their lives they decide to move the ark inland away from the coast to the city of Gath, another one of their capital cities. And Gath was the home city of the giant Goliath and it also exists today. Actually, it’s still very much an active archaeological site where many things are being discovered about the Philistine people. But anyway, I mean, the people of Gath experienced the same thing the people of Ashdod experienced, this plague, this outbreak against them. And, so, then the ark was taken north to Ekron, which is a Philistine city I haven't been…I’ve tried to get there. We have tried to film Ekron twice and it's not an easy place to get to at all. It’s like not a place…you have to…you have to access it by four-wheel-drive and we've been stuck…I mean you have to cross fields and everything. So, we’ve been stuck in mud two different times in an attempt but it's there and eventually…eventually we’re getting gonna get there. But anyway, the ark of the covenant is on his way to Ekron and the people are freaking out about what Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews might do to them. And, so, they begin bagging that the ark should probably back to the Hebrew people before the Philistine people are destroyed and that's what happened. So, the Philistines prepare this guilt offering, right? So, golden images of their tumors, golden rat, basically just acknowledging the plagues that have broken out and then they loaded the ark onto an ox cart and sent it away. And they thought, like, if the cattle know where to go, like if the cattle just wander away aimlessly then we’ll know this wasn't the God of Israel doing this, but if they follow the road, if they just…if they know where to go, then we’ll know it was the God of Israel. And the cows go straight back into Israeli territory ending at Beth Shemesh, which is also in existence today as a modern developing settlement but also as ancient ruins. I’ve been there many times, filmed there many times as well. I was shocked this past year at how much new discoveries were happening in Beth Shemesh that aren't even open to the public. There just on the side of the road, you can see them, and I was shocked. So, yeah, Beth Shemesh where the ark of the covenant returned is also an active archaeological site today. So, obviously, as the ark of the covenant came back to Beth Shemesh the people are overjoyed, the national treasure has returned, the emblem of their heritage has come back. The power of the Lord, the presence of the Lord they feel has come back but after they sacrifice and worship the Lord and some people try to look inside the ark, which is supremely forbidden, and they died. And, so, yeah. So, I mean, the ark of the covenant out in the wild, people are trying to figure out the secret of the mystery and it's just not working well. And, so, they’re like, “who is able to stand in the presence of the Lord?” So, as interesting and intriguing and dramatic as the situation was for the Philistines and then for the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh, this entire episode solidified Samuel's leadership clearly. And as we read toward the end of our reading in the Old Testament because of that leadership the false idol worship was cleansed from Israel and the Philistines were subdued and the children of Israel had once again returned to the God who had called them out of Egypt and planted them in their homeland.

Now in our reading from Proverbs today we’re told that our hearts are the resting place for wisdom. Some translations even use like shrine language like wisdom is enshrined in the heart. So, in other words, an understanding heart is a resting place, a revered, sought after place for wisdom. And, so, we have to wonder. We have to allow the penetrating question. Are we actively seeking out wisdom in our lives? Is it an important enough thing that we have it enshrined in our heart, that it's a resting place, that it has a place to rest within us or is the chaos of life just leading us to be reactionary and all we’re doing is running in circles just trying to keep all the balls up in the air or have we carved out some sacred place for wisdom to find rest within us? Because like everything that's good and valuable in life, gaining wisdom isn't going to just happen to us. Like, It's not in default. Wisdom is something that we have to seek and treasure and cultivate and create space for it to rest, for it to be enshrined in our hearts. And all that's done by the choices that we make. The choices that we make today in our thoughts and in our words and in our deeds are either going to be creating a place, a revered sacred space for wisdom to rest or not. We’ll fill that sacred space with other things.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit, we invite You into that because we’re not going to get anywhere without becoming continually more and more wise. And that's not going to happen by experience alone. We need Your guidance because we don't know all that's going on. As much as we like to think that we have a handle on reality, we don't. There’s much more going on than we are ever aware of. You are fully aware and have invited us into a collaboration of life. And one of the ways that we build a collaboration is through cultivating an ear for wisdom. So, come Holy Spirit and give us eyes to see and ears to hear we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

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Also, man, we just like…we keep encountering places that are real places in the Bible. And if you want to see some of these places for yourself you can check that out at dailyaudiobible.com for our 2020 pilgrimage. All the details can be found in the Initiatives section at dailyaudiobible.com. Just look for Israel 2020 and all your questions can be answered there. These tours, they all fill up and they all fill up well in advance. And, so, this one's well on its way to being full. So, you may want to check into that if it's kind of on your list, something that's been in the back of your mind.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link, it lives on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. I humbly and with a heart of gratitude thank…thank you for clicking that link. If you're using the daily by app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Springhill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that is it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Greetings everyone, this is Tony from Germany and I just want to share something neat. I guess I’d call this a praise report. I was on a trip. I’m in two southern, no, pardon me, northern Italy and it was a bus tour with some government staff, some military that work here in the area. And at any rate, there was this one woman, her name was Pam or PJ and she was behind a lot of the coordination of the trip. And, so, we had met right away and chatted a little bit and this trip by the way it was only a two day fast-paced kind of situation, a lot of time on the bus. And then the second day we were visiting a vineyard and I was standing in line to partake in one of the tours and suddenly here comes up Pam, she comes up to me and she said something to the effect that of I want to give you a hug and she gave me a hug and hello dear I think she said, I don’t remember, I wish I remembered exactly what she said. And she said I am a DABber also and I was in shock, I was in shock. And Pam has been listening to DAB for 14 years. She was there when it started. So, I asked her to ask me how I was doing, and she did, and I said I am maintaining. And, so, I must say I was in shock, it was just…it was so beautiful. At any rate I think it would be a great idea if Brian or Jill or China would come out here to Europe, so we can have a reunion of the European DABbers. Planting the seed. Have a great day everyone. Love you. Bye.

Good morning DAB I just wanted to reach out to the anonymous nursing students. My friends you are so close, and I know how hard it is. I’ve been there, I am a nurse for 22 years and I have a daughter that just graduated last year, and I walked through that with her. You will shed tears. It is so hard. People just don’t know how hard it is; however you are almost there, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I just will pray that you will have peace and comfort and remember that all of this book knowledge is fabulous; however the core of being a nurse is having compassion and mercy and advocating for your patients. And if you have those things you have won the battle. So, keep the faith keep my friends, keep studying, keep working. It will be worth it in the end. I also want to give a shout out real quick to some people that helped me yesterday. I wish I knew their names, I don’t but I was driving down __ Ritchie highway in Brooklyn Park Maryland and saw __. It was a busy street and we got out and a couple other people came upon and helped and we got him out of the street and onto the sidewalk and I just praise the Lord for His timing and for these people. God bless everyone. This is Carrie signing off.

Hi, good morning Daily Audio Bible, my name is Angela and I’m calling from Louisiana. It’s been a very long time since I’ve called, and I’m returning. I started listening again. Thank God for that. It’s been awesome listening again. I want to ask for a prayer request, excuse me, for my daughter Brean. She’s in nursing school, she’s overcome a lot. She’s having finals this week and I’m just asking that…for prayer for her. She’s in RN school. So, please pray for her that she does well and for her college courses and on her exams please. I’m also having an exam for a promotion at work. So, I’m asking for your prayer that I passed that exam, so I can be promoted to the next level. I want to congratulate China and Ben. My gosh, the last time I heard from China she was a little girl. So, that’s how long I’ve been gone. But praise God that I’m back. And I love, and I miss hearing from everyone. Thank you so much and thank God for Brian and Jill and the whole community. Have a blessed day. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Marilyn from New Hampshire calling on Tuesday, May 7

. I just listened to Brian and I was really moved by the word today. About the blind man next to the pool in Bethesda. We were just there in Israel a couple months ago. And how Jesus said to the blind man, “Get up. Take your mat and get up.” And then at the end of the prayer today this amazing man said who…you know…he was talking…he didn’t say his name, but he said, “hey you, hey you” a couple times very slowly and obviously he got my attention and then he said, “why are you worrying?” And that really spoke to me today because I worry about my daughters Kate and Grace and I can’t do that anymore. I gotta trust God. I gotta give them to Him. And I’m almost 66 and I don’t want to live my life this way anymore. I want to trust God. __ and I don’t want to worry anymore. I want to live my life of joy and pleasing God and I guess I pray this for other people too that struggle with their children and holding onto them and worrying about them and I get a text from Kate. I go, “I don’t know”. She’s almost 39 and I just got to give her to God and live my life. So, Father God I ask for Your forgiveness God for just keep getting back on the __ train and I ask for Your forgiveness. And Father God help me with this Lord, help all of us God. Thank you, Brian and Jill for this amazing family. Community family, we love you and thank you God. Have a great day. Bye-bye.

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belladib123-blog · 4 years

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Jewish Communities during Coronavirus

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, gatherings have been put on pause, including congregating for religious purposes. However some religious communities have taken this harder than others. Some rabbis in the Jewish communities around the United States and Israel neglected to adopt social distancing measures up through March. This slow response time in places like New York was due to their continuing of collective study and prayer while defying government regulations. While others may be frustrated by this, there are deeper implications than just defiance to explain why some Jewish communities adopted national policies later than others. For one, Ultra-Orthodox, also known as Haredi Jewish communities sometimes are instructed by rabbis to restrict internet access, television broadcasts, and certain cellphone operations in order to have no distractions and grow closer to God. This would explain why some Jewish communities were not exposed to news regarding the spread of Covid-19 in February and March.

As we learned in class, studying the Torah in conjunction with prayer is a large part of the Jewish community and how they show devotion to God. Cancelling this act has thrown many strict followers off balance. In Israel, synagogues and places of worship were shut down, causing riots and disruptions. In the U.S., a Holocaust survivor even related the stay-at-home order to her days hiding from German soldiers. In class, we watched the documentary “Knocking” which highlighted a former Jew who converted to Jehovah’s Witness after the Holocaust. He questioned his faith and wondered why this was happening to him and his community. He lost his faith during that time but regained it through the Jehovah’s Witnesses. During this time where individuals are being restricted with their faith, it’s important to not lose hope. As stated in the article, “One who engages in Torah study also protects the entire world,” and, “without Torah the world falls.” For many Orthodox-jews, this time can be filled with despair. Some students at Jewish seminaries who sometimes spent 18 hours a day studying the Torah together are now stripped of that religious right. The article also discloses what one Israeli rabbi states as, “canceling Torah study is more dangerous than the coronavirus.”

The main take away from this article was that during these times, it is important to think about how others may be affected by quarantine. The right to worship and practice religious freedom is a basic human right which is being severely impacted in some people’s lives. While the coronavirus is impacting us all, certain communities’ ways of life are being severely impacted. For the Jewish community and in particular the Haredim, the Torah worship and study is a way of life. Having politics disrupt that order could have larger impacts on their community. Though I am not Jewish myself, I feel for this community. Many of us have had to compromise pieces of our life during this pandemic which has been filled with suffering. However hopefully all of us, especially communities most affected, can return to normalcy soon enough.

https://www.phillytrib.com/religion/history-explains-why-some-jewish-communities-defy-coronavirus-restrictions/article_74cc156b-9d59-5ce9-98ad-7d974ffbdcf8.html

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thewebofslime · 5 years

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e wanted to run for the Knesset in the previous election, but we couldn’t, due to procedural obstacles,” say A., one of the wives of Daniel Ambash, the leader of a cult who was convicted of sadistic abuse of his family members in 2013 and sentenced to 26 years in prison for holding them in slavery conditions. “When we heard that another round of national elections would take place, we decided that we just had to run. We owe it to our fellow citizens. Because of what we’ve gone through, we want to help all the women and men who’ve ever been wronged or had their rights trampled upon.” Despite the fact that Ambash has been convicted, and is currently in prison serving time, four out of his six wives still support him. At the beginning of the summer, these women officially registered their new political party known as Kama (Advancing Individual Rights). “We don’t care what people think about us,” claims A. “We have an obligation to our thousands of supporters to fix our crippled society. We’ve been greatly mistreated by the Israel police, by the prosecutor’s office and by the courts. We’ve seen firsthand the corruption in these organizations, how they mistreat simple citizens who have no power when they come up against these powerful institutions. They have no chance of winning. We are religious women, true believers who are asking that God helps us to bring about a change and help the Israeli people achieve the civil liberties they deserve.” A., 37, met Ambash when she was only 19 and became his third wife, living side-by-side with the other wives. “Since I was a very young girl, I’d been looking for an alternative family lifestyle,” says A., who realized after their appeal to the Israel Supreme Court was denied that the only solution was to change the law. “Our goal is to protect Israeli citizens’ most basic human rights and the right of individuals to live in any family structure that they choose,” says B., 46, another one of Ambash’s wives, who grew up in the national-religious community. “I identify with the Breslov community now, I’m a follower of Rabbi Nachman,” says B. “I used to be a teacher. Since our lives were ruined, I’ve been engaging in social activity in an effort to restore justice and my right to live however I want, without having to worry that the state will intervene and invade my privacy. We created the Kama political party so that we could help other women and prevent them from suffering as we have. We are channeling our distress and energy in an effort to counteract the distortion of law, to prevent the government and Israel’s legal system from interfering in our lives. We must be allowed to live however we choose.” One of the wives, G., 35, who grew up in a secular home, studied education and became religious 10 years ago. She joined the Ambash family as the sixth wife. “We began writing and performing skits, kind of like a traveling theater, and slowly over time I realized that this had become my family. Up until that point, I’d never wanted to get married. That type of life had never attracted me. But then I found a family that suited me. The other women became my best friends and Daniel became my lover. It didn’t bother me that he had other wives. In fact, the opposite was true – I felt we all complemented each other really well.” Currently, four of the wives still live together in Jerusalem. “Daniel was married to I., his first wife, and we all joined later as common-law wives, as friends for life,” explains B. “Each one of us joined at our own will, at different times. We are not a polygamous family – we all love each other very much.” Don’t the wives get jealous of each other? “Of course there’s jealousy, I mean we are human,” B. says. “But it’s kind of like jealousy between siblings, and we’ve found ways to deal with it by talking about the issues and solving problems as adults. We all have a great sense of humor and we don’t let arguments get out of proportion.” Doesn’t it bother you that the man that you love sleeps with other women, too? “The opposite is true,” explains B. “This competition adds spice to our sex life. And we’re not going against any halachic ruling – we’ve checked everything. We are all God-fearing individuals who believe that the Torah offers freedom of choice to people. The State of Israel has no right to take away this right of people to choose how they want to live.” The man you and your sister-wives love was convicted of very serious offenses. “Not one ounce of the claims brought against Daniel are true,” continues B. “He’s never ever abused any of us. It was all a big setup. The judges acted in a paternalistic fashion and decided that we women have no will of our own. In their eyes, women are inferior. And that’s why we are fighting for women’s rights, and the rights of every individual to live the way they choose, without the state being able to come in and ruin their lives. We’ve met with religious freedom scholars from many countries around the world, and each one came to the conclusion that our Daniel was used as a scapegoat by Israeli society.” “The court decided that we were abused women, when that is so far from the truth,” claims G. “We chose a certain lifestyle, and because the state doesn’t agree with our choice, they created a false storyline that allowed them to arrest Daniel, and then prevented our voices from being heard. So now, we are fighting for our right to be heard and to live the way we choose.” So you do not accept the court’s ruling? “There’s no better way to fight against this phenomenon than to push for legislative change,” says G. “We are working for the greater good, so that other women won’t have to suffer as we have.” “Their claims that we were abused are absurd,” claims M. “Why would we lie about this? Our lives have been ruined. We were happy people, living in a happy family before Daniel was arrested. We feel like we live in North Korea.” Have you seen Daniel since he was convicted? “They won’t let us,” says B. “They haven’t allowed any conjugal visits either. We used to live in separate houses in the same compound, but they’ve sealed off our homes. We worked so hard to build harmony between all of us and we love each other so much. The state tried to make us appear as a group of women who worship Daniel, but that’s never how it was. We never believed he had any special powers, we just all love each other. And no government has the right to intervene in a loving relationship between adults.” The four remaining wives are currently making a living by telling their story. “We’ve taken lots of loans, and have been living extremely frugally,” says G. “We are also trying to sell our book, which is a recounting of our struggle. Our goal is to achieve justice, and to let people know the truth,” explains B. “Daniel is only in his 60s, and he has so many years left to serve. They wanted to set an example with his conviction, and claim that we are a cult. But we believe in our way of life, and I believe that if we win seats in the Knesset, we’ll have a chance to change the law and thereby give people the freedom to choose how they want to live.” “We have many supporters, and many concerned citizens have approached us and agree with us that change must come,” says G. “There’s a good chance we will succeed,” adds M. “I love a good challenge, and I will spend the rest of my life fighting for our rights.”

#TheWebOfSlime

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schraubd · 6 years

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The Problem of "Centering" and the Jews

Note: I wrote this piece quite a few months ago, shopping around to the usual Jewish media outlets. None were interested, and I ended up letting it slide. But it popped back into my mind -- this Sophie Ellman-Golan article helped -- and so I decided to post it here. While I have updated it, some of the references are a bit dated (at least on an internet time scale). Nonetheless, I continue to think a critical look at how the idea of "centering" interacts with and can easily instantiate antisemitic tropes is deeply important. * * * In the early 2000s, Rosa Pegueros, a Salvadoran Jew, was a member of the listserv for contributors to the book This Bridge We Call Home, sequel to the tremendously influential volume This Bridge Called My Back. Another member of the listserv had written to the group with "an almost apologetic post mentioning that she is Jewish, implying that some of the members might not be comfortable with her presence for that reason." She had guessed she was the only Jewish contributor to the volume, so Pegueros wrote back, identifying herself as a Jew as a well and recounting a recent experience she perceived as antisemitic. Almost immediately, Peugeros wrote, another third contributor jumped into the conversation. "I can no longer sit back," she wrote, "and watch this list turn into another place where Jewishness is reduced to a site of oppression and victimization, rather than a complex site of both oppression and privilege—particularly in relationship to POC." Pegueros was stunned. At the time of this reply, there had been a grand total of two messages referencing Jewishness on the entire listserv. And yet, it seemed, that was too much -- it symbolized yet "another place" where discourse about oppression had become "a forum for Jews." This story has always stuck with me. And I thought of it when reading Jews for Racial and Economic Justice's guidebook to understanding antisemitism from a left-wing perspective. Among their final pieces of advice for Jews participating in anti-racism groups was to make antisemitism and Jewish issues "central, but not centered". It's good advice. Jewish issues are an important and indispensable part of anti-racist work. That said, we are not alone, and it is important to recognize that in many circumstances our discrete problems ought not to take center stage. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be heard. It just means they should not be given disproportionate attention such that they prevent other important questions and campaigns from proceeding. Ideally, "central, but not centered" in the anti-racism community means that Jewish issues should neither overwhelm the conversation nor be shunted aside and ignored outright.

Yet it also overlooks an important caveat. Too often, any discussion of Jewish issues is enough to be considered "centering" it. There is virtually no gap between spaces where Jews are silenced and spaces where Jews are accused of "centering". And so the reasonable request not to "center" Jewish issues easily can, and often does, become yet another tool enforcing Jewish silence. Pegueros' account is one striking example. I'll give another: several years ago, I was invited to a Jewish-run feminist blog to host a series of posts on antisemitism. Midway through the series, the blog's editors were challenged on the grounds that it was taking oxygen away from more pressing matters of racism. At the time, the blog had more posts on "racism" than "antisemitism" by an 8:1 margin (and, in my experience, that is uncommonly attentive to antisemitism on a feminist site -- Feministing, for example, has a grand total of two posts with the "anti-Semitism" tag in its entire history). No matter: the fact that Jewish feminists on a Jewish blog were discussing Jewish issues at all was viewed as excessive and self-centered.

Or consider Raphael Magarik's reply to Yishai Schwartz's essay contending that Cornel West has "a Jewish problem".

Schwartz's column takes issue with West's decision to situate his critique of fellow Black intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates by reference to "the neoliberal establishment that rewards silences on issues such as Wall Street greed or Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and people." Magarik's reply accuses Schwartz of making the West/Coates dispute fundamentally "about the Jews", exhibiting the "the moral narcissism in thinking that everything is about you, in reading arguments between Black intellectuals about the future of the American left and asking: How can I make this about the Jews?" Now, Magarik is surely correct that the Jewish angle of West's critique of Coates is a rather small element that should not become the "center of attention" and thereby obscure "the focus [on] Black struggles for liberation." But there is something quite baffling about his suggestion that a single column that was a drop in the bucket of commentary produced in the wake of the West/Coates exchange could suffice to make it the "center of attention". If Magarik believes Schwartz overreacted to some stray mentions of Jewish issues in an otherwise intramural African-American dispute, surely Magarik equally brought a howitzer to a knife fight by claiming that one article in Ha'aretz single-handedly recentered the conversation about the West/Coates feud onto the Jews.

What's going on here? How is it that the "centering" label -- certainly a valid concern in concept -- seems to routinely and pervasively attach itself to Jews at even the slightest intervention in policy debates?

The answer, as you might have guessed, relates to antisemitism.

As a social phenomenon, antisemitism is very frequently the trafficking in tropes about Jewish hyperpower, the sense that we either have or are on the cusp of taking over anything and everything. Frantz Fanon described antisemitism as follows: "Jews are feared because of their potential to appropriate. ‘They’ are everywhere. The banks, the stock exchanges, and the government are infested with them. They control everything. Soon the country will belong to them.” If we have an abstract understanding of Jews as omnipotent and omnipresent, no wonder that specific instances of Jewish social participation -- no matter how narrow the contribution might be -- are understood as a complete and total colonization of the space. What are the Jews, other than those who are already "everywhere"?

Sadly, the JFREJ pamphlet does not address this issue at all. When "central" crosses into "centering" will often be a matter of judgment, but while the JFREJ has much to say about Jews making "demands for attention" or paying heed to "how much oxygen they can suck out of the room", it does not grapple with how the structure of antisemitism mentalities often renders simply being Jewish (without a concurrent vow of monastic silence) enough to trigger these complaints. It doesn't seem to realize how this entire line of discourse itself can be and often is deeply interlaced with antisemitism. JFREJ's omission is particularly unfortunate since Jews have begun to internalize this sensibility. It's not that Jewish issues should predominate, or always be at the center of every conversation. It's the nagging sense that any discussion of Jewish issues -- no matter how it is prefaced, cabined, or hedged -- is an act of "centering", of taking over, of making it "about us." When the baseline of what counts as "centering" is so low, I know from personal experience that even the simplest asks for inclusion are agonizing. As early as 1982, the radical lesbian feminist Irene Klepfisz identified this propensity as a core part of both internalized and externalized antisemitism. She instructed activists -- Jewish and non-Jewish alike -- to ask themselves a series of questions, including whether they feel that dealing with antisemitism "drain[s] the movement of precious energy", whether they believe antisemitism "has been discussed too much already," and whether Jews "draw too much attention to themselves." Contemporary activists, including many Jews, could do worse than asking Klepfisz's questions. For example, when Jews and non-Jews in the queer community rallied against the effort by some activists to expel Jewish and Israeli LGBTQ organizations from LGBT conference "Creating Change", Mordechai Levovitz fretted that they had "promoted the much more nefarious anti-Semitic trope that Jews wield disproportionate power to get what we want." Levovitz didn't support the expulsion campaign. Still, he fretted that even the most basic demand of inclusion -- don't kick queer Jews out of the room -- was potentially flexing too much Jewish muscle. In this way, the distinction between "central" and "centering" collapses -- indeed, even the most tertiary questions are "centering" if Jews are the ones asking them. This is bad enough in a world where, we are told, oppressions are inextricably connected (you can tell whose perspective is and isn't valued in these communities based on whose attempts to speak are taken to be remedying an oversight and whose are viewed as self-centered derailing). But it verges on Kafka-esque when persons demand Jews "show up" and then get mad that they have a voice in the room; or proactively decide to put Jewish issues on their agenda and yet still demand Jews keep silent about them. Magarik says, for example, that Jews "were not the story" when the Movement for Black Lives included in its platform an accusation that Israel was creating genocide; we shouldn't have made it "about us". He's right, in the sense that this language should not have caused Jews to withdraw from the fight against police violence against communities of color. He's wrong in suggesting that Jews therefore needed to stop "wringing our hands" about how issues that cut deep to the core of our existence as a people were treated in the document. Jews didn't demand that the Movement for Black Lives talk about Jews, but once they elected to do so Jews were not obliged to choose between the right's silence of shunning and the left's silence of acquiescence. To say that Jews ought not "center" ourselves is not to say that there is no place for critical commentary at all. We are legitimate contributors to the discourse over our own lives. I'm not particularly interested in the substantive debate regarding whether Cornel West has a "Jewish problem" -- though Magarik's defense of West (that he "has a good reason for focusing on Palestine" because it "demarcates the difference between liberalism and radicalism") seems like it is worthy of some remark (of all the differences between liberals and "radicals", this is the issue that is the line of demarcation? And that doesn't exhibit some sign of centrality that Jews might have valid grounds to comment on, not the least of which could be wondering how it is a small country half a globe away came to occupy such pride of place?). The larger issue is the metadebate about whether it's valid to even ask the question; or more accurately, whether it is possible -- in any context, with any amount of disclaimers about relative prioritization -- to ask the question without it being read as "centering". The cleverest part of the whole play, after all, is that the very act of challenging this deliberative structure whereby any and all Jewish contributions suffice to center is that the challenge itself easily can become proof of our centrality.

But clever as it is, it can't and shouldn't be a satisfactory retort. There needs to be a lot more introspection about whether and how supposed allies of the Jews are willing to acknowledge the possibility that their instincts about when Jews are "centered" and when we're silenced are out-of-whack, without it becoming yet another basis of resentment for how we're making it all about us. And if we can't do that, then there is an antisemitism problem that really does need to be addressed. When discussing their struggles, members of other marginalized communities need not talk about Jews all the time, or most of the time, or even all that frequently. But what cannot stand is a claimed right to talk about Jews without having to talk with Jews. The idea that even the exploration of potential bias or prejudice lurking within our political movements represents a deliberative party foul is flatly incompatible with everything the left claims to believe about how to talk about matters of oppression. West decided to bring up the Jewish state in his Jeremiad against Coates. It was not a central part of his argument, and so it should not be a central part of the ensuing public discussion. But having put it on the table, it cannot be the case that Jews are forbidden entirely from offering critical commentary. One might say that a column or two in a few Jewish-oriented newspapers, lying at the tertiary edges of the overall debate, is precisely the right amount of attention that should have been given. If that's viewed as too much, then maybe the right question isn't about whether Jews are "centering" the discussion, but rather whether our presence really is a "central" part of anti-racism movements at all.

Drawing the line between "central" and "centering" is difficult, and requires work. There are situations where Jews demand too much attention, and there are times we are too self-effacing. But surely it takes more than a single solitary column to move from the latter to the former. More broadly, we're not going to get an accurate picture of how to mediate between "central" and "centering" unless we're willing to discuss how ingrained patterns of antisemitism condition our evaluations of Jewish political participation across the board.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2MjQd84

#anti-semitism #Jews #leftists

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battybat-boss · 6 years

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Do Bullies Always Win?

Trump's bullying worked with Canada, has half-worked with Iran and North Korea, but has had nothing but malign impact on Israeli-Palestinian relations.

The news that Canada has caved on trade has me depressed. The glee with which Donald Trump has announced his latest “victory” is galling. Sure, he didn't force Mexico and Canada to do everything he wanted in the replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). But he certainly can claim a public-relations coup. And his supporters in Congress are milking the moment for all it's worth.

“While many in Washington claimed it could not be done, President Trump worked tirelessly to bring Canada to the table and negotiate a new trade deal that is better for American workers and consumers,” said Republican Representative Steve Scalise.

Yes, yes, I know: The arc of the moral universe is long and it bends toward justice. The problem is, how long is the arc and how big is the universe? In the shorter term, such as the span of a human lifetime, injustice seems more likely the norm.

I would like to believe that Trump's game of chicken on foreign trade is simply not going to work. But what if it does? What if China blinks? What if the European Union buckles? The game of trade is not simply won by those who can negotiate the longest or write the most detailed treaties. It's often won by those who use crude displays of power.

Geopolitics is not a game for the faint of heart. It's the perfect playground for bullies.

Bullies were on the ascendant even before America's top tyrant won the presidency in 2016. Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Daniel Ortega: These leaders all believe that their might makes right.

But Trump brings it to another level. Russia, Turkey, Nicaragua and the Philippines all have rich histories of strong men imposing their wills on resistant populations. The United States lacks that tradition. The rule of law is supposed to keep the bullies in check.

Now Trump is bringing into government a whole club of likeminded pugilists. John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are running foreign policy. The god-awful Jeff Sessions is rewriting the rules of law. And now Trump wants to stuff the Supreme Court with frat boys like Brett Kavanaugh, someone who has never known the difference between right and wrong and, in his most recent testimony, tried to bully Congress into confirming his nomination simply because he's, well, entitled to it. Ruthlessness got him this far in his career - why shouldn't he stick with this tactic?

It reminds me of my first day in middle school, when an older boy picked me out of the crowd of incoming sixth graders to punch my arm, a display of power that he enjoyed so much that he turned it into a daily ritual. But the current situation is much worse than that. It's like going to school and discovering that not only is that gang of jerks that hates you still controlling the hallways during breaks. Not only are they still extorting lunch money from the weak at lunch. Not only that, but they've taken over the classrooms and the administration, they decide who gets into what courses and what colleges, and they want to make your entire day a living hell.

Bullying Tactics

Bullies are often, though not always, scared of a real fight. They pick on the weak and the easily intimidated. They talk big. Donald Trump has always talked big. And he seems never to shy away from a fight. But those are verbal battles - in the press or in the courtroom. As for actual fighting, he notoriously avoided the Vietnam War, not for moral reasons but because of supposed bone spurs in his heels.

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Like most chickenhawks, Trump talks big about blowing up other countries and taking out their leaders. So far, however, he has only attacked some usual suspects - a few targets in Syria, a widespread bombing campaign in one of the poorest countries on earth (Afghanistan), and a continuation of the US drone program.

True, Trump might be gearing up for a war with Iran. He's being pushed in that direction by people inside his administration (like Bolton and Pompeo) as well as neocon hawks like Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (who recently called Trump a “Twitter tiger”).

But I suspect that Trump wants simply to bully Iran into submission. He has hit the country with the sanctions that the previous administration had removed as a result of the nuclear deal. Already, Iran's oil exports have dropped steeply by 870,000 barrels a day since April. The Trump administration has threatened to penalize any country that imports Iranian oil with secondary sanctions. As a result, South Korea and Japan have already stopped their orders. Meanwhile, US oil exports have gone up, in part to fill the gap.

Of course, not everyone has gone along with Trump. China in particular will continue to purchase Iranian products. And Europeans are openly defying Trump by crafting a deal with Tehran to preserve the nuclear deal and keep open trade and investment links. And oil prices are on the rise, which means more discontent at the pump in the US, particularly among Trump's carbon-guzzling supporters.

Trump says he wants a new nuclear deal. But really the end game is regime change in Tehran. For all but the craziest of neocons, the Iraq War has created a new kind of syndrome: maximum pressure, minimum military involvement. It's what some observers have cannily described as “regime change on the cheap.” So far, thanks to some powerful allies, Iran is hanging tough.

Big Stick, Then Talk

Perhaps if Kim Jong-un were Muslim or didn't have nuclear weapons or had made the supreme mistake of being nice to Barack Obama, Trump wouldn't be interested in sitting down to talk with him. As it was, Trump ratcheted up the rhetoric against North Korea in the first year of his term. Then he pivoted, against the advice of many in his administration, toward negotiations. The result was the Singapore summit in June, the first time a sitting American president met with a North Korean leader.

There have been a few interesting changes in the US-North Korea dynamic. The Pentagon agreed to suspend war games with South Korea last summer. Pyongyang has continued a moratorium on nuclear and missile testing as well as dismantled some non-essential parts of the nuclear complex. But the key problem remains the same. Who will make the first bold move?

Meanwhile, North and South Korea aren't waiting for Trump to get off the dime. They've already begun removing landmines from the Demilitarized Zone. At the last inter-Korean summit, North and South agreed to significant de-escalation, from a no-fly zone over the border to a transformation of the DMZ into a peace park. That's bold, and it's happening now.

As for Trump and Kim? They are apparently enjoying those early days in a romance when men's thoughts turn constantly to love. As Trump said at a recent rally in West Virginia: “I was really being tough and so was he. And we would go back and forth. And then we fell in love, ok? No really. He wrote me beautiful letters. And they're great letters. And then we fell in love.”

So, the two bullies have hit it off. No surprise there. But as in Romeo and Juliet, today's Montagues and Capulets haven't yet ended their generational conflict despite the love of the two principals. Such love affairs usually don't end well.

But let's say that it does, and the mutual bullying works. In reality, the détente between Washington and Pyongyang will have more to do with the patient negotiations of the quintessential anti-bully, South Korea President Moon Jae-in.

Stomping on the Palestinians

Trump has promised a brand new deal for Middle East peace. That's the fraudulent businessman at work. He's slapped a “new and improved” sticker on a product that is demonstrably inferior to its previous versions, and somehow he thinks the world will buy it.

The Trump administration has put maximum pressure on Palestinians to negotiate from a progressively weaker position and minimum pressure on Israel to make any concessions at all. Trump has moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem (a major Israeli demand), zeroed out $200 million in bilateral assistance for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, cut US financial support for a UN agency that has long helped Palestinian refugees, and closed down the Palestinians' de facto embassy in Washington, DC.

The proper response to this bullying is, of course, to tell the Trump administration to shove its “deal of the century” right up its Foggy Bottom.

And it's not just Palestinians and liberal American Jews who feel this way. Here's what former Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner has to say: “While it is Trump's prerogative to pick and choose whom to support, and how to support them, the ramifications of these abrupt steps will only empower the radicals. The deal of the century can't be made with Israel alone, and hardballing the Palestinians into submission is likely to blow up on Israel's doorstep.”

It's one thing bullying Iran and North Korea. These countries might be backed up against a wall, but they have choices. The Palestinians, after losing so much and then losing even more under Trump, basically have nothing left to lose - except their dignity. Why should they come to the negotiating table to trade this last resource for a manifestly unfair deal?

So, in the four examples cited, bullying worked with Canada, has half-worked with Iran and North Korea, and has had nothing but malign impact on Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Unfortunately, for Trump and his minions, bullying isn't just a tactic, it's a way of life.

The Comeuppance?

If life imitated Hollywood, the bullies would either experience a life-affirming conversion or get their just desserts.

Let's forget about the first option. Donald Trump, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo: These guys are not going to pull a David Brock and suddenly realize the many errors of their ways. Then what about option two? I'd love to see Trump and his crew escorted from the federal government to the federal penitentiary. But how many members of the George W. Bush administration faced prison time for the mishandling of the Iraq War, the torture policy and the other disasters of US foreign policy? Only one: Lewis Libby, for his role in the Valerie Plame affair. And how many members of the financial community went to prison for their role in the banking crisis of 2008? Again, only one.

It may turn out that a couple more Trumpsters have to face jail time as a result of the Mueller probe. Maybe even the president himself will be Caponed over his myriad tax scams. But I have my doubts that the aftermath of the 2020 elections will provide us with the grand spectacle of a mass perp walk from the White House.

Unfortunately, the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 election disproved the adage that “cheaters never prosper.” Indeed, his whole life stands testament to the grim truth that cheaters, if they cheat on a truly grand scale, can get away with it. The same, alas, applies to bullies.

But not always. The #MeToo movement is only the latest reminder that organized resistance can bring down very powerful bullies. It's not exactly a Hollywood ending - not until they make a movie about Harvey Weinstein's rise and fall - but it's a whole lot better than suffering in silence. As for the Trump administration, well, I don't know about you but I'd like to shorten the arc of the moral universe and bend it a lot more acutely toward justice.

*[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer's editorial policy.

The post Do Bullies Always Win? appeared first on Fair Observer.

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disc-golf · 6 years

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Startup Success Stories: How Ari & Elle is Revolutionizing Gift Giving

The energetic, remarkably well-spoken, 26-year-old Shai Eisenman is nothing short of a prodigy. She finished college at the age of 18, managed an international company before the age of 20, and founded gift-giving company Ari & Elle in August 2017.

She’s also the wife of a driven entrepreneur and mother of a very lucky daughter.

How has she managed such success before the age of 30?

We had the same question, so we invited her to sit down with us to talk about her entrepreneurial journey, and how her newest venture, Ari & Elle, is changing the gift-giving industry as we know it.

Let’s start with a bit of personal background. You accomplished an impressive number of things before you turned 25. What all did you do?

Well, I won’t go back all the way, but I started college at age 15 and finished when I was 18. I was already working fulltime at that point so I had quite the hectic life as a teenager.

I’ll bet. What was the job?

I was managing a bullet-proof plate company—the kind used by a lot of security firms. I was in sales mostly, which meant I was flying all over the world, talking to military organizations and governments.

How on earth did you get into that line of work?

It’s actually a family business. I was running my dad’s company.

And then you transitioned into your first CEO position at age 20, is that right?

Well, I volunteered with the Israeli military for a year first. But then, I started working for a company called Babylon as a business development manager. I was promoted very quickly, and ended up as head of compliance before moving on to another job as a manager of several companies for an Israeli tech billionaire.

It’s hard to imagine that kind of success by your early 20s. It was also during this time that you met your now life partner, right?

I actually met him at a security conference when I was only 18. He was—and still is—a very career-driven entrepreneur with his own company, so the relationship moved slowly. We actually didn’t think anything lasting could come of it, but it did. And after six years together, we decided to have a child.

How do you manage parenting and a demanding work life?

My partner and I both understand each other and we work very hard. He understands that my travel and schedules keep me working until 2 a.m. and I understand the crazy demands of his work life.

Long ago, we decided that we would combine our careers and our parenting—not keep them separate. We look at it this way: Our daughter fits into our lives, not the other way around. That means we’re not changing our careers to accommodate her, but that we work together as a family to make our lives a success together.

To make that possible, she travels with us, goes to sleep very late sometimes, and works within our schedules. But we also make sure she gets three hours with us every day.

Have you faced any prejudice or disadvantage in your career because you’re a woman and a mother?

Oh, yes. When I was 8 months pregnant, I started attending investor meetings. At one point, one of the Indian investors said, “Whatever you tell me, I’m not going to buy it. I’m just not going to help you because the moment your daughter is born, you’re not going to want to do anything but spend time with her.”

I’ll admit—without shame or apology—that my daughter is the most important thing to me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to fulfill my career dreams and goals.

When I first heard this kind of feedback, I wanted to apologize. In fact, I wanted to keep all of my private life away from work. But at some point, I realized that if the person I’m working with doesn’t understand how committed I am to my career and what I’m willing to do to make it a huge success, then it’s not someone I want invested in the company.

We need more role models like that, I think. Hats off to you for taking that stand. And that’s a good transition, too, because it’s your commitment and vision that ultimately led to the creation of Ari & Elle. When did that launch?

The company was started in August 2017, but we launched the website and app in June 2018.

Ari & Elle’s AI-driven application

Oh wow—quite a new venture!

Yeah, and it’s so much fun because we’re now starting to experience some customer love. That’s amazing to me, because in all of my time running companies, there wasn’t a lot of gratification from people you were helping. What I love about Ari & Elle is that it’s all pure good—all we do is make people happy.

Can you briefly talk about the concept?

Sure. The whole idea behind Ari & Elle is to create a special, curated gift-giving experience that matches people’s personalities. It just makes the gift-giving (and receiving) so much richer.

How did you determine that this was a good business idea?

When I was living in London several years ago, I bought everything I needed online. At one point, I was shopping around for presents for a cousin and a friend. My cousin loved comic books, but I had no idea what I could get him that would fit that mold. And my cousin had just had a baby. I didn’t know what to get her either.

That’s when I thought: “What if there were a service that knows what kind of gifts to get certain people?”

I researched it, but couldn’t find anything. So, I decided to build the company myself—a gift-giving business designed around personalized gifts packaged in a very attractive way.

That sounds like a huge win for a lot of people who don’t have time to put together thoughtful gifts. But how exactly do you figure out what fits the recipient?

We have two different channels that we use—our website and our app. Both incorporate a very unique AI engine that asks questions to capture the gift recipient’s personality. Basically, it’s an avatar/bot that asks questions in a messaging format (“Ari” for male gift recipients and “Elle” for female). They’ll ask things like, “What does the recipient like to do for fun? Are they into a luxury lifestyle? Are they a free spirit?”

Based on the answers, the engine will then suggest several gift collections fitted to the personality the customer has defined.

Do you have enough gift collections to match all of the possible personalities?

I think we’re hitting most of them, and our selection is always growing. Right now, we have more than 800 different collections of more than 6,000 individual products.

What kind of market research did you do to determine what you would offer and how you would deliver it?

We went through a broad-scope research process at the outset, and determined that 45% of the gifting market is taken up by holidays and 55% by occasional gifting—for birthdays, anniversaries, and so on.

After we discovered this, we dug into the various occasions that might be important to customers. We knew that a house-warming gift, for example, is given in a very different context than, say, a get-well gift. So we wanted to see what has historically been successful for each occasion.

This research inspired our gift collections, and we continued researching and building the collections until we felt we had enough to launch the business.

Why is it necessary to create gift collections instead of single gifts?

We want to tell a story. So, for example, we have a box called “Take Me to the Movies.” It includes a small projector, an inflatable couch, and a Bluetooth speaker. It’s a cinema in a box and offers a complete experience to the recipient.

How did you land on price point? I noticed that many of the collections are $100+, which might be a bit steep for a casual thank-you or get-well gift.

We’re still working on that. We definitely want to add more collections in the $70-80 range, because we know that some people are not going to want to spend more than that on a friend or colleague they’re not all that close to.

You’ve also mentioned that you offer a picture of the final package to the gift purchaser before shipping. Why?

The first impression is important, and we know that places like Amazon don’t let you know what a gift will look like once it’s shipped. We want customers to feel confident in the gifts they’re giving—both how they’re displayed and what’s inside.

What kind of marketing are you doing to promote Ari & Elle?

We’re advertising on most of the platforms you’d expect—Good AdWords, Facebook, and so on. But we’re going to be focusing a lot more on influencer marketing in the coming weeks and months.

Part of the reason for this is that a landing page is a hard space to explain our service. But an influencer can show an audience how our service works and what you get. Their photos and videos can capture the unique elements of Ari & Elle.

Are there any lessons you’ve learned in the development process that you can share with other entrepreneurs?

Our industry is getting very digitally sophisticated. The data that’s available allows companies to find out exactly who is using their products and what their demographic information is. Because our products are so personal, we’ve tried to use that to create very targeted campaigns.

I would recommend more companies do this. It’s more work, but the conversions are higher quality.

Also, as you begin your company formation, seek out once-were founders who have become successful to help guide you through the process of building your own company. Thankfully, I did that and was able to avoid a lot of mistakes because of it.

Lastly, don’t be in a rush to launch. In retrospect, I would have spent more time marketing and fine-tuning the user interface on the site and app. The small problems we saw in beta testing didn’t seem like a big deal, but they became a big deal when we went to market.

And how do you keep happy customers coming back? What kind of ongoing communication do you have with them?

Since we’re learning about our customers as they chat with our AI engine, we can reach out and ask specific questions about searches they’ve done without purchasing a gift collection. And even when they do, we offer coupons inside gifts to encourage potential new customers to sign up with us. We also offer discounts to customers who post unboxing videos on Instagram and other social media platforms.

And, of course, we encourage feedback from customers if they have ideas on new gifts we can include.

How do you plan to grow Ari & Elle over the next 5-10 years?

We’re going to be focusing on two things: technology and merchandising.

We want to continue to improve our AI engine so users can tell us exactly what they want. That will be an ongoing process.

On the merchandise side, we’d like to round out our offerings with something that fits with almost every personality out there. As part of that, I hope to bring on a bigger team of researchers—experts who know specific careers, jobs, and industries inside and out. That will help us dig deeper into the diverse interests of our growing customer base and create the prefect gift collections for them.

For more information about Ari & Elle, and to snag the perfect gift for an upcoming holiday or special occasion, visit ari-elle.com.

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The post Startup Success Stories: How Ari & Elle is Revolutionizing Gift Giving appeared first on Early To Rise.

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