#my evidence for this being being naming his jewish child fucking

[praxieserver]

no new content tonight but i think eli and menorah should kiss gn

[traegorn]

Seriously why do you entertain zionist perspectives? Why dont you treat them like terfs like they should be?

Okay, I suspected there was a second one of you since the grammar got better -- but maybe I'm wrong, blocked the wrong person, and you're just one person.

Don't care.

This is what my inbox has looked like. This is the constant barrage of asks I've been getting, and this is just a sample. There's more. I'll put it under the cut because shit is going to get LONG.

And if we recall, all I have ever said was: Lilith is a figure from Jewish folklore, and as many Jewish people have said she is closed, non-Jewish witches probably shouldn't work with her. If you choose to, I think you're being an asshole.

Somehow... SOMEHOW that makes me antisemitic according to this weirdo? And now apparently it makes me a supporter of the Israeli government? I genuinely don't know how we got here.

I've redacted the names of folks who are supposedly "Zionists" in the messages, because I've literally found zero evidence on any of their blogs to support this. They all appear to be Jewish, but that isn't the same fucking thing.

Mind you, I shouldn't have to look because I hadn't even heard of most of them. One of them interacted with a post of mine, but... like... you get that I have thousands of followers, right? I don't research them. I don't look them up. I have a job and a life.

I think we're missing something more important though.

What is your goal here? Is your goal to try to change my mind? Is it to get me to agree with you? Because you'd have to be as dumb as a pile of broken doorknobs to think this was an effective strategy to change anyone's mind. Constant harassment does not ever achieve that.

If your goal is to just bully me off of social media, that isn't going to work either. You don't know me that well if you ever thought that would work. Even a surface googling of me would tell you that I spent seven years fighting a lawsuit (and winning) that someone tried to use to silence me online.

But then there's the stuff I don't talk about.

I have had a man who lives thirty minutes away from me threaten to come to my home and shoot me with a shotgun because I wrote an article exposing his brother as a convicted child molester working conventions. I have had a man who literally lives three blocks from me threaten to beat me to death in a nearby park I regularly walk through because he (erroneously) thought I stole a blue lives matter flag from a local restaurant.

You want to sell me on any of this? You want me to believe you're anything but a liar willing to say whatever they can think of to insult me? Bring receipts. Bring evidence. Bring proof. You want to accuse [random tumblr user] of something? Show me. Show me what they've done and/or said. Build an argument.

Because at no point has anyone done that. At no point has anyone built an actual, credible argument for any of this bullshit. All that seems to happen is that if someone doesn't agree with you, you call them antisemitic (or I guess now a Zionist).

I'm done with you, coward.

[fromchaostocosmos]

So every now I see things about if Elon Musk is Jewish or not and I’m sure it will come up now since he is being publicly being shitty.

For the record don’t think I and other Jewish people don’t notice that whenever a well known rich person is being a total garbage person that all magically there is speculation if they are Jewish or not. We see it and we know it for what it is.

To answer if Elon is Jewish or not the answer is no, he is not Jewish.

Now some people will try to claim he is because: 

1. His name Elon, is a Hebrew name that means Oak Tree in English. But Elon is named after his Great-Grandfather John Elon Haldeman who was born in Minnesota (starts 2:28 - ends 2:43) 

2. Apparently at some point when he lived in South Africa he attended a Jewish school (though I could not find out which school or for how long). The argument made by the people (who they themselves are not Jewish) trying to claim Elon Musk is Jewish point to this as evidence that he must be Jewish because why else would he go to a Jewish school.

Except in South Africa it actually not that uncommon for non-Jewish children to attend Jewish schools. For example I know that in Johannesburg their is a school called King David and from what I was told by people who live in the Jewish community there that there is a decent amount of student who they themselves are not Jewish, but their parents have sent them to the school because they feel that their child(ren) will get a better education there. (some of the non-Jewish students are Afrikaners like Elon Musk and some of the students are indigenous Black South Africans)

(This is just a little side note the South African Jewish community is a small one and I’m fairly certain if Elon Musk was Jewish they would know.)

But like I said the evidence used to prop up the claims that he is Jewish don’t hold up. Also the most important backings for why he is not Jewish. 1. He is not religiously Jewish 2. He is not ethnically Jewish so that is that.

Though while doing my research I did find a quora of if he was Jewish or not and it was full of antisemitism which I link so I can share the misery (they are not all bad, but it not good)

One person instead of attempting to answer the question compared Jewish people to purebred dogs and that both are bad and inbreeding is dangerous and then did victim blaming for medical issues Jewish people have while also attributing health conditions to Jewish people that we don’t have, but they are conditions caused by inbreeding oh and claimed that autism and schizophrenia also come from inbreeding. They also basically compared Jewish people wanting to stick together to Nazi and their Master Race and then said we need to get rid of religion. So fun (sarcasm)

A different person answered and said no and then went down the Rothschild hole and then said that because Elon Musk is rich that Jews would welcome his conversion and then went with the philo-semitism route of liking Jewish people because of antisemitic tropes about us and money so like yay I guess and and they claimed that there are 23 million of us world wide when nope only 14 million and claimed that hold onto 4% of the world wealth which what the fuck. 

*Ring Ring* Hashem can you come pick me up now I don’t like here and there are way too many antisemites  

[cownoseray]

Prayer | Umbrella Academy

Several years in the past, Klaus and his company arrive in a bustling Vietnamese city after a long journey. Klaus has his first semi-religious experience.

You can also read it on my Archive down below.

—

'Bạn đã mất một ai đó?

You lost someone?

Băn khoăn hay lạc lối?

Disturbed or astray?

Kitô hữu vào bên trong.

Christians come in.'

Well, it was better than nothing.

Klaus approached the dilapidated church on the corner, less than excited to enter this "holy" building. Whether it was something to behold before or just as mediocre, the Ho Minha congregational church had seen better days. There was no bell hung in the bell tower; The roof had a few cracked or wholly absent shingles; the stained glass windows were dirty, dusty, turning Jesus' family portrait into a caricature of life in the Dust Bowl. Door hinges squealed age-old protests as he stepped through the door.

The inside was a little neater: pews in careful arrays and a podium up front, with risers just behind that might have been for the choir. Reginald was a stickler about church for a while, forced the siblings to go, so the whole thing wasn't entirely foreign. The familiarity was just too distant to touch. Bad memories had pushed it from Klaus's mind, like a kite with it's string spooled all the way out.

Klaus felt the briefest chill skitter along his spine.

He felt a little uncomfortable just standing. His sleeveless jacket showed his many tattoos to, for all he knew, some Buddhist God or Monk that curated the church. He was doing a shit job if there was, and the scruffy little man got the feeling it still wasn't the case.

Klaus ran a callused finger along the back of a pew. His pad came back dusty. Was it a Vietnamese rule to not clean anything more than twice a year? Klaus rubbed his finger and thumb to dispell the muck and walked on to the very first pew. Somewhere in the surrounding halls, music echoed, muted, like the sound of solemn chimes playing in tandem.

"Ya'aseh shalom...ya'aseh shalom..."

Gee.

What had Klaus come here for? He almost forgot. With the whole lack of sanctity and the almost complete lack of people (excluding the Vietnamese woman who very clearly avoided being in the same room with him).

"Oseh shalom bim' romav....aleinu, v'al kol yisrael..."

It sounded something like Hindu or Hebrew, whatever that language was called. Jewish folk occupied one-half of the Christian Church, apparently. Fuck it. It was Vietnam. The fact that this temple had been converted to a Christian hideaway meant it was an act found by coercion. Any and all churches they found along the war path would probably have the same origins. Klaus might've questioned the morality of the whole thing, but he only recognized that prayer because he had spent more than a few nights in the shelter of church arches and stoops, listening to the sermons or prayers or hymns while trying to sleep. They typically went in one ear, out the other, disappearing in the air like curls of smoke from his nose.

Klaus found it soothing despite himself. He took a seat in one dusty pew, hunched over. A sigh rattled around the confines of his ribcage. Why had he even come here? What was this supposed to achieve?

Need something?

Probably, Klaus thought. Mentally, he replaced the wall between him and the ghosts hovering in the back of his mind. Then a shadow fell over his shoulders, his legs, and the dark man twitched his head up to see what had caused it.

"Need something?" A short woman with fire red hair repeated in a gentle tone, reaching tentatively for Klaus's shoulder. Concern lit up the brown of her eyes into something like brushed gold.

"No, no, just uh...thiiiinking." Klaus let the last syllable drawl out as his train of thought briefly derailed. The nurse just smiled, placating, smoothing her scrub skirt with dried stains on it; she sat a foot away from the stranger on the pew. Klaus never flinched at blood, but something about the skirt made his throat close up. The gore she must've just saw to end up with such marks. There were splatters, and splotches like someone with bloodied hands had grabbed her, or--

"I'm a nurse."

Klaus jumped. "Pa-pardon?"

"The blood. I'm a nurse. MASH unit one-oh-nine." Her smile fell. Klaus waited for further explanation. She didn't give it.

"I'm just a soldier," Klaus hummed. "I think..33rd. Y'know, the whole war would be a lot more tolerable without all the 5-mile marches."

The nurse giggled at that, giving Klaus room to relax as much as he physically could. She had no reason to believe he didn't belong here. Or that a briefcase mistakenly brought him from New York, 2017 to Saigon, 1964. "I'm Klaus."

"Bonnie."

The silence went on for a while after that. The Jewish hymns petered out, started up again; the praying Buddhists spoke in hushed whispers with their foreheads pressed to points at the foot of a bronze statue. Bonnie fidgeted, sniffled, then suddenly plucked a hymn book from the back of the pew. She moved closer. "Sing with me, Klaus?"

Klaus hissed through clenched teeth. Should've known. God damned southern Jesus freaks.

"I don't, um, remember many hymns." Seeing her face fall, he rushed to finish with, "But it would help me if you sang it. Y'know, so I can, um, pray."

Bonnie nodded, and Klaus didn't miss the change in demeanor. Suddenly a determined, motherly woman replaced the trembling girl who just didn't want to be here, trying to save lives that were already gone. Gone before they hit the operating table.

"You go 'head and think about someone--someone you want to keep safe. Could be here or back stateside."

Dave.

Klaus mumbled assent and ducked his head. Bonnie quirked a brow, noting the fleeting look of love in his eye, but said nothing. She eased into a gentle song as Klaus studied his feet, feeling rather useless, dumb, childish, all the colors of the rainbow of shame.

"Make me a channel of your peace...When there's despair in life let me bring hope..."

Very steadily, Klaus could feel the presence of the intangible, forming ranks around the two of them. Furtively, he glanced through his lashes at the air. Blue smoke, the shapes of bodies slowly shaping themselves. Klaus swallowed back a lump, quiet horror filling his chest like tar.

A Vietnamese boy with his leg missing at the hip, nothing but a strange blue wisp where his stump was. A middle-aged soldier, forehead split, some exposed skull in fragments just beneath, with the hardest eyes he'd ever seen. An Asian woman in elegant wear stood right beside him, caked in dried red paste, gripping the dainty hand of a child in her own. All of them, he noticed, stared straight at Bonnie. Unwavering. Intense.

Some of their auras were bright, some fading, evidence they had been dead for some time. The "fresh" auras had similarly fresh wounds, some still dropping coagulated clumps of blood around them; Some of them had clothes a size too small, namely the little ones, all of whom were not fresh and bore little to no outward wounds on clear, wood brown skin, standing with mothers and fathers who most certainly died violently. The implications of that were almost too much for Klaus to handle.

"...Where there is darkness, holy light...and where there's sadness, ever joy..."

Bonnie ran through two more verses. The song faded, as did the echo, but the ghosts remained, though their light flickered perilously. Tears threatening to fall finally dried on his cheeks. Klaus hid a sniffle with the creaking of the seat when he sat up.

"Do you think we're doing okay?" Bonnie broke the painful silence with a whisper, a quaver in her voice. "Here, I mean. Are we doing good for the people here? Should we even be here?"

Standing right behind Bonnie, hands on her shoulders, a young man, smiling so softly Klaus thought it wasn't there at all. He couldn't have been more than 19 or 20. The beginnings of gory lacerations peeked from over the pew, disappeared beneath it, much to his relief. He was making noise, unintentionally, like water dropping on the ground below. Strangely, his blue aura was strong, not wavery or faint like the other's. Fresh. Recent?

Bonnie couldn't feel the touch, couldn't see the ring of people around them, but Klaus met the eyes of the apparition. It nodded. Slowly, sadly, he nodded back.

"Yes." Bonnie turned her head, taken aback, as though she hadn't expected him to answer.

"Yes," Klaus rasped, his breath taken from him because he honestly hadn't expected an answer himself. "Yes, I think we are doing good here. One of us is."

[buzzdixonwriter]

You Don’t Say

For me, one of the unforeseen benefits of Facebook and other social media is that it gives me a chance to do rough drafts of ideas, assembling my thoughts and getting feedback before committing to more permanent form.

And sometimes, like asteroids colliding in space, two separate ideas / posts slam into one another and either create something new and unexpected, or else shatter themselves and reveal interesting aspects of their nature heretofore hidden from view.

That happened recently with a pair of Facebook posts I made on Dennis Prager and Harlan Ellison.

Let’s get the turd out of our mouth first.

. . .

Dennis Prager is a purveyor of herpetology lubricants admired by many on the right-leaning-nazi side of the spectrum, primarily because he keeps his mouth closed when chewing.  Half of what he says is repackaged self-evident truths of the “Don’t eat the yellow snow” variety, a quarter is opinions that if not startling original are at least not genuinely harmful, and the remain quarter is egregious bullshit for which he deserves a public pants down spanking.

Hmm, what?  Oh, yes; purely metaphorically, of course.

I long since wrote off Prager as a. utterer of inanities, but recently his turdmongering was forced on my attention by someone who posted a link to Prager’s argument that the “left” (i.e., basically anybody who thinks Auschwitz was a Bad Idea) is inflicting harm on both the American body politic and the universe at large by denying people like Prager the right to drop the N-bomb whenever they feel like it.

As some of you no doubt already knew, Prager is a member of what polite bigots used to refer to as “those of the Hebrew persuasion”.

That a person from an ethnicity that historically suffered hatred so vicious and specifically targeted that a special word had to be created for it (“anti-Semitism” because the original word -- “Jew-hatred” -- was too damned ugly even for bigots to use) now has his knickers in a twist because he’s “not allowed” to use the only other word of equal or greater impact -- also coined specifically by oppressors for expressing unrestrained hate and contempt against those oppressed -- is so rich in irony that all I can do is swipe a phrase from Jim Wright over at Stonekettle Station and say Dennis Prager has “all the self-awareness of a dog licking its own asshole in the middle of the street”.

First off, he’s lying: Neither the “left” nor American law prevents him from dropping the N-bomb whenever he feels like it and I invite him to go down to the intersection of Normandie and Florence in South Central and drop it at the top of his lungs for as long as he is able and please make sure to take plenty of video recorders along because I really wanna see what happens next.

Second, why the fuck would you want to say that? Seriously, other than in an evidentiary context (a cop giving testimony in court, a journalist reporting what some bigoted politician says, etc.), who today gains anything from repeating the word other than inflicting unjustified distress on people who have done nothing to deserve it?

(This is the point where a bunch of alt-right trolls are gonna jump up and say “but whatabout all the times when black people say it?” and to those trolls I’m gonna say STFU & STFD; if you can’t grasp the difference in context then you’re too damned stupid to be allowed out in public except at the end of a leash and with a ball gag in your mouth.)

It’s a word specifically created and designed to be used to brutally oppress people who did nothing to deserve that brutal oppression.  Why would anybody outside that group use it except to participate in that brutal oppression?

. . .

Least there sit any in the cheap seats who presume the above rant was targeted at Dennis Prager simply because he was Jewish, guess again, ya yutzes.

Few writers enjoyed as brilliant and as incendiary a career as Harlan Ellison, and I count myself privileged to have been one of his friends.

Ellison, as many of you know, also was Jewish, a damned tough little bastard, singled out for hatred and abuse as the only Jewish child in his backwater Ohio school, growing up with nerves & balls of chromium, a bona fide Army Ranger, and a writer so honest and fearless that when he wrote about juvenile delinquency in the 1950s he did so by infiltrating and joining a street gang to get first hand experience and insight on the kids who ran in that crowd (and as icing on the cake, James Caan played him in the TV version!).

Top that, Dennis.

Harlan’s electric eclectic career features many highpoints, but the one I want to focus on is his brief 4-year run as TV critic for the legendary Los Angeles Free Press (a.k.a. The Freep) from 1968 to 1972.  

What’s interesting is that Harlan did this while at the same time at the height of his demand as a TV writer.

You got any idea how hard it is to make a living while you’re gnawing on the hand that feeds you?

Harlan may have been crazy, but damn it, he was honest.

Back to the issue at hand.

Recently I’ve been re-reading his TV criticism columns, collected in two volumes, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat.

The depressing thing is that all the evil we see today was in place back in those days, and the same smug pious frauds and their dimbulb marks kept congratulating themselves how wonderful they were as things continued to spiral out of control.

Oh, we've had good moments when we made changes that improved the lot of people who'd previously been marginalized, but the core cancer is still there. Harlan was no cock-eyed sentimentalist -- he was often filled with anger and could vent it spectacularly at deserving targets -- but he did have hope that somehow we could keep nudging the ball further towards the goal lines.

The columns make fascinating reading; they are nowhere near as dated as one might suspect. Sometimes they offer diamond-like brilliant dissections of a particular instant in the cultural gestalt, other times they examine the unseen (well, to most audiences, that is) tides of Hollywood that shape our media, sometimes he turns his attention to bear on seemingly insignificant and forgotten local programming only to show with McLuhan-esque clarity how that tiny piece of seemingly insignificant fluff is symptomatic of a much wider, much vaster, and far more serious problem.

One entry caught my eye in particular, the March 7, 1969 column on a failed ABC pilot called Those Were The Days.

Harlan sat in the studio audience watching the taping of that pilot, and his column praised the courage and insight of producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin, the brilliant performances of Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton, and the raw honesty of the pilot’s sharp comedy and writing.

Those of you not in the cheap seats have already realized this was the second failed pilot for what would eventually become All In The Family over at CBS (there was an even earlier original pilot called Justice For All back when Archie and Edith’s last name was Justice, not Bunker.)

I remember the hoopla when All In The Family finally aired in January of 1971 as a mid-season replacement.

You might count Archie Bunker as the white Dolemite insofar as the comedy sprang from the shock of all the crude and vulgar things he said.

Lear and Yorkin were mocking that mindset, belittling bigotry, exposing the Babbittry of millions of “good” Americans who lacked either the self-awareness or the courage to take a long introspective look at themselves and realize how badly they were failing as citizens of this country.

Audiences weren’t supposed to like Archie Bunker.

And that’s where Lear and Yorkin made their fatal mistake.

No, audiences didn’t like Archie.

They loved him.

. . .

Asteroids collide, and sometimes they form new planets, and sometimes they shatter and expose what lies beneath.

Prager’s modern day Babbittry crashed into Harlan’s half-century old anti-Babbittry, and from the explosion a stark truth revealed itself.

It’s almost impossible to make an outlaw a villain in popular media.

No matter how many banks they rob, stages they hold up, sheriffs they shoot, the mere fact that somebody wrote a song / dime novel / movie about ‘em makes them into heroes.

Demi-gods.

People to be admired.

Emulated.

Professional wrestling knows this.

You can never be so big a heel that you won’t have a legion of followers.

And you can turn a heel into a baby face in the blink of an eye and none of the fans will remember the despicable acts the wrassler did just last week.

You put an Archie Bunker on TV, you do not get millions of people to recognize themselves in his hateful / hurtful behavior and change their ways.

Oh, hell no; you get millions of people to applaud him for saying and doing what they say and do in private.

And now that it’s all big and bold and brassy on TV, why it becomes even easier to say it in the privacy of your own home, then over the fence with the neighbors, then in the bar down the street, then on the street itself, and then against people who have done you no harm, who have committed no sin other than the heinous crime of not being exactly like you.

I remember watching and liking All In The Family when it first came on because I, like millions of other Americans, got the joke:  Archie was no hero.

But it wasn’t long before the voices cheering Archie began to drown out the voices laughing at him.

Lear and Yorkin tried undoing their damage with Maude and The Jeffersons and Good Times and other spinoff shows, but the bigot was out of the bottle.

Archie Bunker, even though written in a way to ridicule his use of bigotry and stereotypes, became a champion and defender of those who clung to said bigotry and stereotypes.

So tell me again why you want to drop that N-bomb, Dennis.

Explain to me -- even while you talk out of both sides of your mouth and claim even if everybody can use they word maybe they shouldn’t use the word -- how that does anything to help anybody…

…other than bigots and hate mongers.

Your argument is as circular as the thumb and forefinger gesture white supremacists use to signal one another, a gesture deliberately chosen because it lets them transgress openly by lying about the truth meaning of their gesture.

And Harlan, you were right about Those Were The Days as it began evolving into All In The Family.  Absolutely brilliant -- but absolutely deadly.

Not airing All In The Family wouldn’t have eliminated racial / ethnic / sexual prejudice in the United States…

…but it would have denied those ideas a voice.

The narcissist always proclaims, “I don’t care what they say about me so long as they spell my name right.”

Well, that’s what we got with Archie Bunker.

None of the bigots cared if we made fun of their ideas…

…just so long as they got their ideas out there.

Because ideas are made legitimate by their presence.

Now clearly, this is a bade that cuts both ways.

Ideas once unthinkable -- liberty and justice for all in the form of racial and gender equality, f’r instance -- need to be championed in public.

But we need to shout down and stamp out the bad ideas.

The United States took their foot off the neck of the defeated white racists after the end of the Civil War, and as a result jim crow came roaring back, and things did not change for millions of Americans for another entire century.

We allowed bigots and hate mongers and slavers to be whitewashed and glorified and forgiven for their crimes against humanity…

…and in the process we allowed them to continue victimizing African-Americans more and more.

Every song about the Ol’ South, every novel glorifying plantation life, every movie showing happy field hands, every statue commemorating murderous traitors as men of honor and principle, every single iteration of that idea made millions of people’s suffering not just possible but inevitable.

. . .

Now this is the point where the alt-right trolls are gonna jump up and ask “did you ever drop the N-word?”

Not in casual conversation, no.

I was born and raised in the South (Appalachia, mostly); my father’s side of the family were almost all Southerners.

Almost all.

My paternal grandmother was born and raised in New Jersey and met my grandfather when both served in the U.S. Army medical corps in WWI.  When my grandfather died in his 40s, my grandmother originally moved back to New Jersey, but her three children (dad and two aunts) felt heartbroken at having to leave their Southern cousins and friends behind so even though she carried no particular love for the South, my grandmother moved her family back and stayed there for the most of her life (she and one of my aunts moved out to California to be near us, but that’s another story for another post).

One thing my grandmother absolutely refused to tolerate was use of the N-bomb anywhere near her, especially under her roof or in the homes of her children.

This included both the -er and -ra variants, because Southern racists who didn’t want to appear as uncultured and as boorish and as bigoted as their backwoods cousins preferred the second pronunciation because they could claim they were actually speaking respectfully about “colored people”.

So I grew up in the rare white Southern home where the N-bomb merely wasn’t used, it was actually denounced as wrong.

Now, don’t go thinking my grandmother was some great paragon of virtue; she wasn’t (she was hell on wheels, in fact, but that’s another story for another post).

But she did recognize there was something wrong with the use of the N-bomb, and whether she demanded her children never use it in any form to keep them from appearing to be boorish, bigoted louts, or whether she just thought it was simple good manners of the golden rule variety not to use it, I dunno.

But I do know we never used it, and when my parents heard our neighbors or schoolmates use it, we were reminded in no uncertain terms that we were never to use it.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t used it.

A couple of decades ago I wrote a screenplay based on the life of Robert Smalls, in particular his incredible escape from Civil War Charleston by hijacking a Confederate gunboat and sailing it right past Ft. Sumter to join the Union fleet, bringing his wife and several other escaping African-Americans with him.

As a skilled harbor pilot, Smalls enjoyed certain privileges other enslaved African-Americans didn’t.

For example, he was allowed to go about the streets of Charleston unescorted…

…provided he wore a big diamond shaped brass tag around his neck.

Like a dog.

The tag indicated to slave catcher patrols that he was one of the “good” ones, that he could be trusted because he was helping his masters in their struggle against the Union by guiding blockade runners into the safety of Charleston harbor.

But knowing Southerners the way I do, and knowing the kind of low class good ol’ boy types they recruited for such jobs, I couldn’t imagine the slave catcher patrols being particularly courteous to him, even when they knew they had to let him pass because clearly he had the protection of some high positioned muckamuck.  

And I could easily imagine them flinging the N-bomb at him with great glee, taunting him, daring him to act “uppity” so they could beat the crap out of him and teach him some manners and remind him of his place.

So I used the word in their dialog in my script.

Would I use that word today?

Probably not.

It’s not that crucial to the story, and if the viewer doesn’t grasp the concept that these are bigoted bully scum from their actions and attitude, then I’ve failed my job as a writer.

Have I ever quoted people who dropped the N-bomb?

Yeah, I have, in the past.

I’ve quoted Richard Pryor and Blazing Saddles and Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

I would excuse it then as the aforementioned evidentiary context but ya know what?  I don’t quote those lines anymore.

I still think Pryor is hilarious and will recommend his routines to anyone I think might be interested, but he as a member of the African-American community at large (because like any other ethnic group, African-Americans have numerous sub-cultures and sub-communities among them), he could say things in a way neither I nor any other white person could say them.

(And, yeah, there’s a big debate going on to this very day among African-Americans about the appropriateness of that word and you know what?  Whatever decision African-Americans reach for themselves is their business and should not involve any input whatsoever from we white folk; we not only can’t use the word, we can’t even comment on how they choose to use it.  Period.  Full stop.)

Blazing Saddles when it came out used the N-bomb to be deliberately transgressive, to make a sympathetic point re how unfairly African-Americans were treated.

All well and good.

But nine years earlier there had been a movie called A Patch Of Blue and while it wasn’t a raucous comedy like Blazing Saddles it tried making a point about race relations in America and it was a really. Really good movie and it made some important points but today is virtually unwatchable not because of any flaws in it but because the times have changed.

Ditto Blazing Saddles.

We don’t need to approach the problem that way any more.

Quentin Tarantino?  I really like what he does as a director and a screenwriter but his use of the N-bomb to show us how transgressive his characters are is really shallow.  I have a strong feeling his movies are going to be considered embarrassingly passé’ in a generation or two, much the same way as benign-yet-stereotypical characters in 1940s movies render many of them passé’ today.  

Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction lose nothing by changing the N-word to something else.  

Maybe an argument could be made for its use in Django Unchained or The Hateful 8 but even there I think substituting another word wouldn’t significantly change the tenor or tone of either movie.

So I stop quoting those lines from Tarantino’s films, at least not fully.

I can admire his skill / talent / craft without signing off on his problematic elements.

Let me offer an analogy: If a creator can get the same dramatic effect by pretending to shoot somebody but not actually blasting them with a gun, then they can get the same dramatic effect by using something evocative of the N-bomb without actually dropping it.

(By the way, for those who may be curious, my mother was from Naples and a bona fide card carrying member of Mussolini’s Fascist Youth Brigade, but that’s another story for another post.)

. . .

We are plunging into a new cultural conflict -- and while I think there will be violence, I don’t see it being violence on the scale or level of political organization as the Civil War -- and we can only win by refusing to let the bigots and the hate mongers spew their bullshit in the marketplace of ideas.

There is no compromise with an oppressor.

Stand up to it every time you encounter it.

Make it unthinkable, never acceptable. 

  © Buzz Dixon

[urfavmurtad]

It’s Ramadan.... what a blessed time to celebrate Mohammed’s own family getting repeatedly fucked over by the caliphate. Let us continue The Death of Crazy Mo.

CHAPTER 2: FAMILY MATTERS

There are three intertwining subplots at this point in the story. The first is the ongoing Islamic conquests, which are still happening but have been somewhat interrupted by the second subplot: not everyone brought into the loving embrace of Islam by Mohammed’s men wants to remain within its fold. There is a real possibility of the caliphate breaking apart before it even expands outside of Arabia. Actually, it’s not a “possibility”–it’s already happening.

Ibn Ishaq’s sira, written around 750 AD and the oldest text of Islamic history available to us, concludes with Mohammed’s death. It ends with two mourning poems, prefaced by this ominous note:

“I was told that the last injunction the apostle gave was in his words, ‘Let not two religions be left in the Arabian peninsula’. Aisha used to say: ‘When the apostle died, the Arabs apostatized and Christianity and Judaism raised their heads and disaffection appeared. The Muslims became as sheep exposed to rain on a winter’s night through the loss of their prophet until God united them under Abu Bakr.’"

These incidents of mass apostasy will come to be known as the Ridda (apostasy) Wars, and Abu Bakr will spend most of his time as caliph trying to get the lost sheep back in line. It is the first warning sign that the early caliphs will not actually enjoy their jobs very much.

The final subplot, bubbling under the surface, is the still-unresolved issue with the Banu Hashim. When we left our heroes, Abu Bakr had just been declared the caliph and Mohammed had been buried, in that order. So how do Ali & Friends feel about all this?

Well… not too happy, is the obvious answer. Upon learning that the issue of Mohammed’s succession has been resolved without their input, the Banu Hashim are rather sulky. A hadith describes Ali indicating his displeasure with the whole process to Abu Bakr a few months after this:

“We know well your superiority and what Allah has given you, and we are not jealous of the good what Allah has bestowed upon you, but you did not consult us in the question of the rule and we thought that we have got a right in it because of our near relationship to [Mohammed]."

The same hadith says that Ali “had not given the oath of allegiance” to Abu Bakr for six months following Mohammed’s death, and another hadith states that the rest of the Banu Hashim also avoided pledging fealty to Abu Bakr. They weren’t openly agitating against his rule, but they also weren’t sanctioning it by giving an oath of fealty. The message was clear: Ali and the rest of the Banu Hashim felt  robbed of their rights. Even if being related to Mohammed wasn’t enough to confer the right to rule, it at least conferred the right to decide on the ruler, in their eyes. And Abu Bakr and Umar denied them even that.

Given the delicate nature of the situation, Abu Bakr decides that it’s preferable to just leave the Banu Hashim alone to sulk, so long as they’re not openly opposing him. He knows that engaging in a PR battle (or worse: an actual battle) with Mohammed’s extended family literally immediately after his death is unlikely to positively impact his image. Abu Bakr does, however, feel entitled to the support of his own extended family. Nearly all of them support him already, but there are two holdouts named Talha and Zubayr, with the former being a member of Abu Bakr’s clan and the latter being Abu Bakr’s dumbass son-in-law via his other daughter, Asma. Al-Tabari’s account describes them neglecting to pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr and instead visiting Ali’s house, presumably to grumble about recent events for whatever reason. (As we will later see, both of these guys were opportunists–they weren’t loyal to Ali, but they were happy to ally with him if they thought they would get something out of it.) Umar responds to the situation with his usual tact and grace.

Talhah, al-Zubayr, and some of the [others were] in the house (with Ali). 'Umar cried out, "By God, either you come out to render the oath of allegiance [to Abu Bakr], or l will set the house on fire.” Al-Zubayr came out with his sword drawn. As he stumbled [upon something], the sword fell from his hand, so they jumped over him and seized him.

This story is highly dramatized by many sources, in which Umar actually does set the house on fire, or barges into the house and hurts Fatima in the process, or something similarly outrageous. Those accounts aren’t reliable, but the event itself is mentioned by authors who had no real reason to depict either Abu Bakr or Umar as evil, and Zubayr aligning himself with Ali is something found in strongly-sourced reports. So this may well have actually happened, and if it did, it certainly did not make the Banu Hashim any happier with the way things were going in the caliphate.

Another, more minor problem adds to the Banu Hashim’s  sense of victimhood. Mohammed had owned many pieces of property, and now that he’s dead, his relatives want to inherit those lands. The properties are located in multiple different areas, but the prime land is in a Jewish-majority cluster of cities that had been conquered by the Muslims a few years earlier. It’s rich agricultural land, and it’s extremely valuable in Arabia’s desert climate. Some of Mo’s widows ask Abu Bakr for it, and their requests are denied. Both Fatima and Abbas also request a share of the inheritance. Abu Bakr rejects their petitions.

Fatima and Al-`Abbas came to Abu Bakr, claiming their inheritance of the Prophet’s land of Fadak and his share from Khaibar. Abu Bakr said, “I heard the Prophet (ﷺ) saying, 'Our property is not inherited, and whatever we leave is to be given in charity. But the family of Muhammad can take their sustenance from this property.’ By Allah, I would love to do good to the Kith and kin of Allah’s Apostle rather than to my own Kith and kin.”

“So....” says Fatima.

“So,” agrees Abu Bakr.

“My father is dead.”

“It would seem thus.”

“It says here that when someone’s parents die, their children should inherit a significant portion of their wealth.”

“And?”

“And I am my father’s only surviving child?”

“...and?”

“........and I should inherit from him because of that??”

“Oooooh! Lol sorry I didn’t get where you were going with this. Look, that’s what it says in the Quran, you’re right. But the Amendments to the Quran state--”

“The... the fucking what? The Quran was supposed to have been created before humanity, and it has amendments?”

“Ma’am, I don’t make the rules. As I was saying, the Amendments to the Quran state that these rules actually do not apply if one’s father was a prophet. All the wealth and property owned by prophets is transferred to the state after their deaths, according to clause 5633§26. See?”

Fatima squints at Abu Bakr’s copy of An Idiot’s Guide to the Stuff Allah Forgot to Put in the Quran. In green crayon, someone has written “moe’s agricultural land belongs to the caliphate now -allah”.

This is evidently news to the Banu Hashim, and many of them plainly do not believe that this is what Mohammed actually would have wanted. Now they feel robbed in a political sense and in an economic sense.

On the face of it, this seems way less contentious than the whole succession thing, and it mostly is. But there is one detail that inflates its importance. Fatima is genuinely pissed off at Abu Bakr for rebuffing her, to the point that she holds a grudge against him and doesn’t even speak to him for the rest of her life.

So she became angry with Abu Bakr and kept away from him, and did not [talk] to him till she died.

This is not, as it turns out, a long period of time. Fatima dies around six months after Mohammed, probably of the same infection that killed him. Stress and a lack of self-care due to grief are sometimes also said to be the cause of her death, while some Shia traditions attribute it to miscarriage-related complications or (more dubiously) violence at the hands of Umar. No one really knows for sure, but the last of Mohammed’s children is now dead.

This might surprise non-Muslims, but the reality is that very little is said about any of Mohammed’s daughters in reputable sources. His middle daughters Roqaya and Umm Kulthum might as well not even exist for how little they’re mentioned; his oldest daughter Zaynab has a biography totaling perhaps two paragraphs. Even Fatima, the youngest and the only one who outlived him, is mentioned in only four or five anecdotes over the entire course of her life in reputable sources, one of which is the inheritance incident. They presumably played some important role in early Islam, at least among young Muslim women, but that’s never actually said.

But it is at least clear that Fatima was held in high honor by the Muslim community after Mohammed’s death, being his only surviving child and all. Also, Mohammed had specifically told people to never make her angry. (Funnily enough, this was prompted by something Ali did–he was considering taking a second wife and Mo said no because he didn’t want to upset Fatima, making poor Ali the only Muslim man forced into monogamy! ...well, ignoring his sex slaves, so... a-anyway...)

Fatima is a part of me, and he who makes her angry, makes me angry.

If you’re a Muslim who believes that everything Mohammed said was true, and you know that Abu Bakr made Fatima upset, then how can you avoid the conclusion that this situation would displease Mohammed? And by extension, how could you avoid thinking that something in the new caliphate’s milk ain’t clean? Even if you think Abu Bakr is the rightful caliph, and even if you’ve never really given any thought to the Banu Hashim’s temper tantrum, this still might give you pause. That perhaps explains why Fatima and the Banu Hashim’s refusal to swear loyalty to the empire’s new leader in a time of war–which is ordinarily insubordination, if not worse–was something that many people frowned at, but ultimately let slide.

But the sympathy train can’t last forever. And now that Fatima is dead, the Banu Hashim have lost their prophet-approved excuse for holding out on Abu Bakr. They have to rethink their strategy, and fast.

So after she dies, a clearly pissed-off Ali buries her by himself, without Abu Bakr’s involvement. It’s hard to tell that snub was due to Fatima’s own wishes or Ali’s. Regardless, keeping the caliph away from the funeral of the prophet’s kid is A Choice.

When she died, her husband `Ali buried her at night without informing Abu Bakr and he said the funeral prayer by himself.

This was essentially the end of an era for Ali. The day he put Fatima in her grave was the last day he could get away with feuding with the caliph, and he knew it. The above hadith continues:

When Fatima was alive, the people used to respect `Ali much, but after her death, `Ali noticed a change in the people’s attitude towards him.

Times are tense in Medina: the Ridda Wars are ongoing at this point, the caliphate has fallen apart, and this feud is no longer cute in the people’s eyes. The general population may have looked the other way when Fatima was alive, owing to Mohammed’s own instructions, but now she’s dead and people think it’s time for the Banu Hashim to grow the fuck up. The negative change in people’s attitudes is evidently immediate, so the Banu Hashim, deprived of what little support they had, effectively surrender.

So `Ali sought reconciliation with Abu Bakr and gave him an oath of allegiance. `Ali had not given the oath of allegiance during those months (i.e. the period between the Prophet’s death and Fatima’s death). `Ali sent someone to Abu Bakr … So Abu Bakr entered upon them

Ali explains why he’d delayed swearing allegiance for so long and tells Abu Bakr how aggrieved the Banu Hashim have been feeling over everything that’s happened. Abu Bakr doesn’t apologize, but strikes a conciliatory tone, letting bygones be bygones.

And when Abu Bakr spoke, he said, “By Him in Whose Hand my soul is to keep good relations with the relatives of Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) is dearer to me than to keep good relations with my own relatives. But as for the trouble which arose between me and you about his property, I will do my best to spend it according to what is good”

Later that day, Ali finally publicly swears allegiance to Abu Bakr, ending the feud. The rest of the Banu Hashim follow him, and the people of Medina stop giving them the cold shoulder.

On that `Ali said to Abu Bakr, "I promise to give you the oath of allegiance in this after noon.” So when Abu Bakr had offered the Zuhr prayer, he ascended the pulpit and uttered the Tashah-hud and then mentioned the story of `Ali and his failure to give the oath of allegiance, and excused him, accepting what excuses he had offered; Then `Ali (got up) [and] praised Abu Bakr’s right …

On that all the Muslims became happy and said, “You have done the right thing.” The Muslims then became friendly with `Ali as he returned to what the people had done (i.e. giving the oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr).

This is the end of the drama between the Banu Hashim and Abu Bakr. It is not the end of the drama regarding the Banu Hashim in general, and while they may have publicly forgiven Abu Bakr for “usurping” their rights, they certainly have not forgotten it. Ali himself may be playing nice for now, but he and Abu Bakr aren’t friends, and Ali isn’t friends with anyone in Abu Bakr’s circle, either. Especially not Aisha, who has loathed him ever since his involvement in a romance subplot straight out of a shitty show on The CW. These issues will all come to a head later on. The true beginning of the Shia-Sunni split, you see, didn’t happen right after Mohammed died. It happened years later, and it was an absolute disaster involving civil war, assassinations, and lots of tears. We will shortly see that the real Miracle Of Islam is that these people’s empire didn’t disintegrate due to their headassery.

Relatedly, you may have noticed that some of the people I listed in the cast of characters last time, namely the Banu Umayya, have been awfully quiet throughout all this inter-Quraysh drama. Where are they? Well… they’re around. Watching.

But for the moment, there are bigger issues, namely a bunch of people who have declared themselves prophets and amassed large groups of armed followers. What a bunch of lunatics, who would even think of such a thing??

[collecting-stories]

Compromise | Alfie Solomons

Can you write something where the reader (fem reader)is dating Alfie and is super excited about Christmas and can't wait to celebrate and decorate with him but since Alfie is Jewish he doesn't really believe in the holiday? And maybe they kind of argue about which holiday to do but in the end they both compromise and add little things from both holidays to make the other happy and it's pretty fluffy? 🙂

Compromise |  Alfie Solomons

Ollie had warned him when he first started seeing you that going with someone who wasn't Jewish was a bad idea. Eventually, he predicted, something about their differing traditions and religious practices would cause a riff between the two of you. And Ollie was right because as the season progressed you expressed your excitement for Christmas and Alfie was less than enthusiastic.

"At least a tree Alf." You'd commented, following him through the hallway to the front door on his way out the door.  

"I've already said no." Alfie replied, pulling his coat on. "I told you we'll put a menorah in the window and that's the end of it."

"Why do we get to celebrate your holiday and not mine? It's not fair Alfie, I've told you how important Christmas is to me and I want to share that with you." You complained, standing in front of the door so that he couldn't get around you.  

The first time you had brought up the holiday season was a few weeks ago as you and Alfie were walking home from the bakery. You had walked passed a lot that was selling Christmas trees and you'd stopped to admire the evergreen. There were wreaths and swag and you had pulled at Alfie's sleeve like an excited child, asking him if you could purchase a tree for the house. He'd looked, only to appease you, before quickly telling you that no, you could not put a tree in his house under any circumstances.  

After that it had been clear that Alfie was not going to budge on the idea of Christmas and celebrating the way you intended to celebrate. But you weren't giving up on the holiday.

"Cause it's my fucking house so we celebrate my holiday." Alfie replied, he put his hands on your upper arms and gave a light squeeze, "now move before I move you."

"Your boys at the bakery might be scared of you but I'm not. And I'm not budging on Christmas either!" You stated.  

"Alright then." Alfie huffed. He let go of your upper arms and grabbed your waist, effectively throwing you over his shoulder and walking you into the living room where he tossed you down on the sofa.

"Alfie!" You protested, laughing as you hit the sofa. You quickly darted back up to your feet, taking off for the front door again. Alfie grabbed you around the waist again, pulling your back flush against his chest and pretending to bite at your shoulder.

"Fucking stay here." He grumbled, placing you on the sofa again.  

You slumped in the sofa and watched Alfie walk out of the house, a pout etched on your face. You stayed in that position for a couple more minutes, contemplating what you should do about Christmas. It felt wrong not to decorate. You had decorated the house every year with your parents and now that they were gone to America you had no other family but Alfie to celebrate with.  

It wasn't that you wanted to ignore his holidays. You'd celebrated Rosh Hashanah and observed Yom Kippur with him because you were interested in his traditions. But you had assumed that he would be as receptive to celebrating what was important to you as you had been for him.  

Knowing that it wasn't the best idea you’d ever had you got dressed and headed to the Christmas Tree lot you'd see days earlier. You were going to decorate, maybe if everything was decorated than you would have an easier time convincing Alfie to celebrate with you. There was still a box of your parents ornaments in the house you shared with him and you got that down from the spare room.  

By the time Alfie got home in the evening you had fixed a tree in the living room, right in front of the picture window and had hung swag around the doorframes and up the banister. The whole house looked ready for Christmas. But you had also laid his mother's prayer shawl over the mirror where he always hung it for holidays and Shabbat, and placed a menorah in the window for everyone to see.  

"You can't follow one fucking direction can you?" Alfie shouted from the doorway in the front hall. His loud voice carried through into the kitchen where you were baking cookies.  

"What d'ya mean?" You called back.  

Alfie kicked off his shoes and threw his coat over the swag that was wrapping up the bannister. He came into the kitchen, glancing up at the mistletoe you'd hung in the doorway. "I said no Christmas shit."  

"There's a menorah in that front window." You mentioned, motioning the wooden rolling pin in your hand toward the living room.  

"Yeah a fucking massive tree right behind it." He replied.

"Christmas is important to me and I observe every fucking holiday that you consider important to you so can we just celebrate Christmas? I'm not asking you to go fucking carolling through the streets Alfie Solomons but you could at least let the decorations stick around until the new year!" You shouted.  

"I already told you I don't do Christmas."  

"You think I know anything about Chanukah or any other holy days you celebrate? When we went to Ollie's mum's for Shabbat I had no fucking idea what was happening but I went because it was important to you. And I'll celebrate Chanukah all eight fucking days the way I'm meant to because it's important to you. So why can't you do this one thing that's important to me?" You dropped the rolling pin into the sink and shoved passed him to go up the stairs.  

Alfie shouted after you but you didn't listen, running up the stairs and slamming the bedroom door shut. You knew that decorating while he was at work would result in an argument but you had hoped that seeing everything would make him more welcome to the idea. Instead it had the adverse effect and he was angrier than he had been in the morning.  

You eventually fell asleep, waking hours later when it was already well into the evening. You felt like it was midnight as you quickly changed into your nightclothes before walking downstairs. There was a nagging feeling that maybe Alfie had gone back out, it wasn't unlike him to leave during an argument and come back the next day when he'd had to calm down. You hated when he left though because you didn't like being left in the house by yourself overnight.  

"Alfie?" You called his name quietly as you walked through the hallway into the kitchen. Sitting on the top of the kitchen counter and the small island were cookies, all set out to cool. You had forgotten that you left them in the oven when you stomped upstairs. You nabbed an especially chocolatey looking one and walked back into the living room.  

Alfie was there, slumped on the sofa with his feet up on the table, sound asleep. You felt bad instantly, knowing the position wasn't good for his back. Carefully you rounded the table and crawled onto the sofa beside him, running a hand gently through his hair to get him to wake up.  

"Hey, love." You whispered, kissing his cheek and then his shoulder. Alfie started to stir slowly, pulling himself up to sit straight and letting out a groan as his back stretched.

"What time is it?" He asked, sleep evident in his voice.

"Just passed ten," You replied, still combing his hair with your fingers, "did you finish the cookies for me?" You knew it was him but you asked anyway.

"Thought about what you said, about Christmas and it being important to you and I think we should celebrate." He replied, leaning his head back against the couch.

"Really?" You asked, unable to hide the small bit of excitement in your voice at the thought of Alfie celebrating Christmas with you.

"I know with your parents away that it's hard for you and doing Christmas is the least I can give you to make it easier. Besides, getting to eat those cookies everyday is not something I'm opposed to."

"Only if you make lots of those doughnuts this year." You teased.

"Will do." Alfie wrapped his arm around your shoulders and pulled you in against him, kissing the top of your head. "Now lets get upstairs, this sofa is killing my back."

Feedback is always welcome!

[militant-holy-knight]

Using Tragedy For Political Gain For the Nth Time.

I am torn as to whether or not I should have written a personal take on this so soon. When I woke up in Friday morning to see the news about the Christchurch terrorist attack I was alarmed. Yes, I saw the footage and yes, I read his manifesto - it was nothing short of absolutely grotesque and degenerate. Plain and simple. Make no mistake, this was an racist attack whose perpetrator is indeed a terrorist. In fact, I won’t even dignify him by referring to his name - he will simply be called henceforth the NZ terrorist. On Tumblr I shared a few articles and reblogged a few posts calling for moderation. But as I see the events further develop I can’t help but address this situation which I believe will make things worse unless if we talk about them anyway.

We don’t often get the luxury of having a mass murderer explain himself such as the Las Vegas shooter (whose motivations are still a mystery to this day and will never be explained). And while the NZ wrote an extensive manifesto and made it clear what his positions are. I’ve struggled (and I still do) on whether or not saying his manifesto should be read by people so that people can draw their own conclusions, but I’ve questioned how much he is a point he would have when the doc is filled with so much misdirection, shitposting and trolling. I’ve questioned if he really is world-traveled as he claims he is since his manifesto drips with the words of someone who never left his parents’ home and decided to go on a shooting because of death... Until I saw there is evidence he visited at least Pakistan, with video and passport to confirm it.

As far as we know, his manifesto was made to misdirect with only one thing for certain that we can assess: he wants to further cause division between the left and right and escalate the culture war. Unfortunately, many individuals have either mindlessly fallen into his trap and started heaping the blame on the wrong kind of individuals for allegedly “radicalizing” this criminal or even more insidiously, forming some sort of unholy ideological alliance with the terrorist because he knows his crimes will play into a certain course of action that he hopes they will take and they are grateful that someone did actually did it so he could use the tragedy as an convenient excuse.

A good example that comes to mind is the dictator of Turkey, Reccep Tayip Erdogan, (who is name dropped in the manifesto and who the terrorist calls for his death) blamed the attack on the “rise of Islamophobia” and went on to say the Hagia Sophia will never be a church again so long as there are Turkish people. Very typical behavior from him and to say so no surprise, but this time he is surely alarmed because the terrorist dared to paint a target on him. He is in pure hostility mode because that is how he operates. He is overly emotional, engages in divide and conquer tactics like the terrorist and makes no bones about how much he hates not just his political rivals, but also his allies too. He earns to revive the Ottoman caliphate so that he can take over the West and the Arab world. He is an absolute PR nightmare for anyone who wants to show an example of a liberal Muslim government, which Turkey used to be held up as the example the MENA countries should follow, but now is hardly any better. The only time I remembered he tried to present himself as a paragon compared - which is hard to do when you are jailing journalists and critics - except during the Jamal Khashoggi affair. For one, trying to pretend like you are a better human rights example than Saudi Arabia really isn’t that hard to achieve since they are just Islamic North Korea. For another, people have rightfully pointed out that he is full of shit and he was merely using that for personal agenda.

But Erdogan is a dictator so of course he wants his critics silenced and his opinions don’t earn any serious merit in the discussion. What really is concerning is the kind of discourse we will see in the Western world. Journalists have either consciously or not laid the blame at the feet of Donald Trump, Candace Owens, Pewdiepie, Christians, Jews, memelords, guns and others for supposedly radicalizing this individual. It’s ironic he said denounces Trump and conservatism in his manifesto, but since the public will be discouraged from reading it out of fear of radicalizing themselves, it creates an convenient opportunity they can paint a monster that must be put down.

This is dangerous not only because it validates the far-right’s concerns but also helps no one but further alienate those outside of the fight politically. Lets consider who will be marginalized if the far-left engages in a literal crusade to defend Islam by any means necessary. The first ones to get silenced would be the online memelords that post harmless memes simply because the terrorist used a lot of memes like the Remove Kebab song in his massacre footage, which has been deleted from Youtube as we speak.

Then there are historians like Iniciativa Condor, Real Crusades History and myself that are personally fascinated by the Crusades, the Reconquista and the Great Turkish War. Because the terrorist now used several references like the Battle of Tours, the Battle of Vienna, Skanderbeg, the Russo-Turkish War and many others (though ironically not Vlad the Impaler), I imagined we will be ostracized when discussing such subjects in the open out of fear of another Christchurch. In fact, I’ve been warned by personal relatives that I shouldn’t be vocal about it anymore.

And then on a more serious scale... There are critics of Islam as a religion, specially of Muslim background. Regardless if atheistic or religious, these people were already under enough scrutiny in their home countries who do everything to suppress criticism of Islam even secular societies like Indonesia and Turkey, the former in particular exploits its law Article 301 about “insulting Turkishness” which is misused to arrest dissidents. There is a former Muslim Youtuber I am subscribed, the Apostate Prophet who while deeply denouncing the attack, received messages asking if he was happy about Muslims being killed. What kind of fucked up perspective is this where criticism of Islam is equated with sanctioning the death of Muslims?

Now on the worst case of all. Consider that there is an actual epidemic of rape that liberals have turned an blind eye on Europe because it means tackling a very uncomfortable topic which goes contrary to what works in their agenda.

If what happens on Europe is bad, then its infinitely worse what is happening around the world, specially in the Middle-East where Christians are facing an actual genocide by jihadists and fundamentalists which has been going on for years now, but we have only started paying attention now that the Middle-East began to spill into the West. Furthermore, this attack will certainly result in retaliation since they have found less excuse for. Remember the Regensburg lecture by Pope Benedict when he quoted the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Palailogos for criticizing Muhammed and the entire Islamic world went apeshit with Iraq in particular killing Assyrians in retaliation as if they had anything to do with it. Just because of an controversial statement by the Pope.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not leaving the alt-righters celebrating this atrocity in their echo chambers off the hook either. I’ve seen how static /pol/ users were at seeing the footage of him shooting up innocents, advocating for more terrorist attacks to be called out, trolling users who said innocents shouldn’t be targeted or those accusing the terrorist of being a Mossad agent or a Shia Muslim. Its somewhat surprising you see: /pol/ hates Muslims too they think Jewish people are much, much worse (something which the shooter didn’t do). Hell I heard the Saudi Royal Family is in fact Jewish behind close doors. Consider these are the kind of people who are also in love with Bashar al Assad who portrays himself as the secular side of the Syrian Civil War that protects minorities when in fact this is also a ruse.

Similarly, for all their bitching about Western civilization falling, they are unsympathetic to the plight of Christians around the world because they are non-white and follow a “Semitic religion”. Not a single word about Asia Bibi being on death row, the persecution of Copts in Egypt or explosion of churches in  They have trivialized the word of genocide by comparing low birth-rates with actual fucking persecution, exiling, destruction of heritage that minorities suffer in the Middle-East. Also speaking as a Brazilian even one fascinated with Western heritage, they’d still advocate my death because I am non-white (I hate using the term “POC” because its patronizing) and they’d want us to stay in their shitty lane.

Its frustrating enough that the far-left has a monopoly on social media and journalism (this isn’t up for debate, the purge of NPC memes is evidence of that) and the internet is basically owned by them. Now imagine if they push down even harder? Or Erdogan’s comments will end up pushing someone to actually try to assassinate him (unlikely considering Kurds haven’t been pushed hard enough to consider assassinating him despite all the things they have done to their people, a foreigner will likely have even less motivation for doing so), but I don’t think that man will go down peacefully as he expects. The whole point of this massacre was to literally divide the world into left-wing and right-wing, with the shooter expecting that whites begin genociding foreigners regardless of religion (he simply chose a mosque because it was too obvious, he denounces Latinos and Indians who are majority Catholic and Hindu respectively). I’d argue that in addition to being a national socialist and a fascist, I think he is an anarchist too - because for a guy committed to such a cause, he did a lot of harm to it by killing children and filming it. Nobody sane will advocate for this, only the tiny, tiny minority in /pol/ that agree with his actions, and even they don’t have a back bone to follow his footsteps.

Everything the terrorist wanted he is getting because of the emotionally driven responses that people are making as such I call for moderation, quit the dick measuring game that you call a culture war and try to find a common ground before anything else. 

[mychristopherstokes66world]

We incarnate in this day and age for this very specific reason. Now is our time to shine brothers. Now is the time to lift the veil. LET THE TRUTH BE TOLD FOR ALL TO SEE It'll happen, but they all need to be exposed before it happens. Let them be seen for the foul child molesting demon cretins they are, and then the world will finally be in unison towards the like problem. No more sacrifices for Babylon dinosaurs that should've been destroyed eons ago.  They use ritual when they spill blood. I say we do the same.

WITH EPSTEIN SON from Daytona Beach to NYC. Let me tell you (((THEY))) are everywhere right now spinning the Trump is a pedo bullshit. Cernovich trying to determine if his name is written down anywhere? "On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled certain records in a defamation lawsuit filed by accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre against Epstein’s alleged madam, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, should be made public record. " THIS IS HOW YOU KNOW EPSTEIN IS AN IMPORTANT MARKER >normies and redpilled alike will be drawn into this story, either because of Pizzagate or because of ORANGE MAN BAD >left and right outlets will both report on this, either to nail Clinton and Epstein or to nail POTUS >celebrity entanglement ensures even the normiest of gossip outlets will have to touch this  THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING

>this is the story that draws the normies into Pizzagate  >this is the story that will be watched by all sides of the fractured populace >this is the story that baits the anti-Trump crowd into redpilling themselves  POTUS' "INVOLVEMENT" IS A 4D TRAP THOSE WHO TUNE IN TO SEE TRUMP GET RIPPED UP WILL WIND UP WATCHING THE SWAMP DESTROYED  TRUMP MARCHED INTO THE RAT'S NEST AND CALLED IN A TACTICAL NUKE ON HIS OWN POSITION

 From a 2010 deposition of Jeffrey Epstein: “Q. Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18? “A: Though I'd like to answer that question, at least today I'm going to have to assert my Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, sir.”

Is that Rachel C(hild)handler? https://rachelchandlerparty.tumblr.com/archive Epstein Victim's Lawyer on Trump >https://youtu.be/Yqb59n69Z80 [Embed] News Links/Other >https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-12/fusion-gps-tried-and-failed-link-trump-jeffrey-epstein >https://www.foxnews.com/us/billionaire-sex-offender-epstein-once-claimed-he-co-founded-clinton-foundation >https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3679023/Billionaire-sex-offender-Jeffrey-Epstein-claimed-helped-Clinton-Foundation-touted-close-relationship-former-president-plea-bargain-negotiations.html >https://pagesix.com/2017/07/08/trump-was-the-boring-guy-at-studio-54/ >https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7138901/Trump-went-FBI-undercover-proposal-fully-cooperate-1980s.html >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vh0AklSXkU [Embed] >http://www.socialmediamorning.com/jeffrey-epstein-complete-flight-logs-of-the-lolita-express-and-you-should-see-the-names/ >https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/07/prosecutor-in-2009-epstein-case-said-donald-trump-was-the-only-one-who-helped-him/

clowns United are the beaters of truth. Worship them. Worship kek

https://www.bitchute.com/video/TKbkXiwa3Hhl/

>"There is no debate over what happened," Edwards told VICE news. "I served Mr. Trump with a subpoena for deposition in 2009. He talked to me voluntarily, and consequently we withdrew the subpoena in light of his voluntarily providing information…. I can't imagine there being any dispute of any of this."

>Edwards also said that it is "obvious" Trump himself was not involved in any of Epstein's illicit activity.

>Maxwell fled the United States on the eve of her deposition and never testified in Epstein's case. In fact, several of the Jane Doe lawyers, who spoke off the record because the case is ongoing, said that every key person investigators wanted to interview — especially those with potential knowledge of what took place on St. James Island — eluded subpoenas on technical grounds.

>There was one exception: Donald Trump.

>Edwards, the lawyer for Roberts and about 10 other Jane Does, said that after he served Trump with the subpoena in 2009, Trump immediately contacted him.

>"During the conversation, Mr. Trump was open and forthright," Edwards said. "I cannot discuss the substance of the conversation. But I will say that it was obvious to me that he was in no way involved in any untoward activity."

>On October 15, 2007, the New York Post reported that Mar-A-Lago had barred Epstein because he hit on a masseuse at the club. Epstein denied to the the Post that he had been banned. One of the Jane Doe attorneys told VICE News a slightly different account, saying that he had been told Trump broke ties with Epstein after Epstein tried to pick up the underage daughter of a Mar-A-Lago club member.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/j59vm8/the-salacious-ammo-even-donald-trump-wont-use-in-a-fight-against-hillary-clinton-bill-clinton

Acosta wasnt even the lead prosecutor on the case. Acosta said he disliked how that whole thing turned out and would be open to starting it back up. Now that hes in the trump DOJ it has started back up. Why do you shills act like that it was only acosta? That group got what they could out of it and actually ended up getting epstein registered as a sex offender.

You cant simultaneously say acosta let epstein off the hook AND acosta just had epstein arrested and the case opened up again

I don't even know, I won't jump on the Trump is a pedo or Trump is draining the swamp now bandwagon. All the people involved in this are really close to Trump's admin and social circles, from Alex Acosta, to Clintons, to celebs, It's fucking crazy how these same people are recycled and kept in positions of power especially when they knew of pedo-island. The automatic response would be to distance yourself, yet a person like Alex Acosta responsible for giving Epstein a slap on the wrist plea deal is promoted to Trump's Sec. of Labor. It's just too hard to come to and judgement until more comes out..IF more comes out.

Acosta was the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida during the prosecution. He likely wasn't prosecuting the case, but he was the boss and nothing gets done (or not done) without his say so. Even the Deputy Attorney General got involved

And Acosta isn't even at DoJ anymore. He's Secretary of Labor for Trump

Acosta was recommended by White House Counsel Don McGahn. Typically you just nominate who you're suggested to nominate because a nominee not getting confirmed is embarrassing and that's time wasted you could've used to confirm someone else (like shit tons of judges, shaping the judiciary for decades to come). Especially with how uncooperative the Democrats in the Senate are, you can't waste time.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/16/trump-mcgahn-white-house-cleanup-238410

>McGahn handpicked Alexander Acosta as the next labor secretary after Trump’s first selection, Andy Puzder, withdrew from the process following allegations of domestic abuse.

Pic related trump with confirmed Mossad agent

Ghislaine Maxwell is the daughter of late British parliamentarian and media magnate Robert Maxwell, also a Jewish Mossad 

prior to his assassination on November 5, 1991. Ghislaine Maxwell is not only a personal friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton but, apparently, also of Donald Trump (the two have been spotted together on several occasions). Although never charged, it was revealed in U.S. courts that Ghislaine procured young girls for her Jewish billionaire boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein and his friends and associates. Maxwell was given immunity in the secret plea-bargain, non-prosecution agreement and Epstein’s White House-connected Jewish lawyer Jay Lefkowitz managed to arrange it so that Epstein served only 13 months house arrest for a reduced conviction of soliciting a minor for prostitution and soliciting prostitution, despite that authorities had evidence that he abused up to 40 young girls. Epstein has made 17 out-of-court settlements. The more one looks into it, the more it looks like Maxwell and Epstein were running an international blackmail operation, extending from North America to Eastern Europe. What’s more, testimony from the victims revealed that Ghislaine might have been responsible for setting up the recording of the sexual abuse of the girls, complete with hidden cameras, for blackmail purposes. She is alleged to have even participated in the abuse of young girls herself.

“Epstein instructed Jane Doe 3 that she was to give the Prince [Andrew] whatever he demanded and required Jane Doe 3 to report back to him on the details of the sexual abuse,” according to court documents lodged by Epstein sex slave Virginia Roberts late in 2014.

Roberts claims it was Epstein who paid her $15,000 for subjecting herself to the 41-year-old Prince. “Jeffrey always took care of paying me after I ‘entertained’ his friends.”

A former employee at the Epstein Palm Beach estate claimed in a sworn deposition that Epstein and Trump had a much closer relationship than what Trump has admitted to. Juan Alessi claimed that Trump had been for dinner at the Epstein estate at least once, while Epstein’s brother Mark stated that he flew with both Jeff and Trump on Epstein’s private plane

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1508967-deposition-excerpts.html#document/p73/a263754

In 2002, while Epstein was using child-sex slaves at his various homes in New York, Palm Beach, and in the Virgin Islands, Trump told New York Magazine that Epstein, his friend of 15 years, was a “terrific guy”.

“He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Trump continued. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Epstein’s defense deposition stated the following as to whether Trump was involved in the non-stop Epstein orgy.

Q. “Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18?”

A: “Though I’d like to answer that question, at least today I’m going to have to assert my Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, sir.”

Trump had nothing to do with Acosta, the plea deal Epstein got was 8 years before Trump was elected.

This has been going on as a story and a Fed investigation years before Trump even thought about running for political office.

Trump is an asshole, but he's not involved in this one, except peripherally. This pedo rubbed elbows with all of the rich and famous, all over the world. He knew EVERYBODY, that was part of his power, he trolled the upper elites for customers. He threw big parties on his island, to seek out the pedos who might want some "extras". 

but just because someone knew Epstein, that doesn't make them a pedo. Some of them were, and hopefully will be exposed, arrested, and jailed. But a lot of them, who just went to his island for free coke and getting wasted with no paps around, are gonne get dragged into it, like they did when he was busted in Florida.

https://ift.tt/2xCx4Fr

Like the Franklin case of old...yet another pedo sex trafficking case was thrown under the rug despite links to a spy ring that compromised national security: blackmail of politicians, business men and celebrities.

Ever wonder why movies and politics are so fucked? here is the answer: pic related

Acosta offered a plea deal to the biggest pedo/spy in American history: Jerry Epstein. Epstein ran what was considered one of the biggest pedo/spy sex rings to get dirt on top members of the American elite.

Epstein's plea deal got him 1 yr in prison and covered the ass of two big players: Trump and G. Maxwell. 

Who is cunt Maxwell? Jerry Epstein's recruiter of underage girls in the pedo ring. Although Trump did ban Jerry from Mar-o-Lago, Ghisele was never banned. She was the person who recruited a 15 year old employee from Trump's resort. Ghisele also visited Epstein 60+ times while he was incarcerated.

Alex Acosta...now working with Trump's administration was the one that offered a never before seen plea deal to Epstein. By offering said plea deal, Donald Trump and G. Maxwell were protected from prosecution. (although Trump was to be a witness and charged for raping a 13 year old girl)

Acosta didn't say that, he defended the plea deal, and welcomed an investigation into it, when he was nominated for Labor Sec. And, he's not in the DOJ, at all, he's a cabinet member, he's Secretary of Labor. And, he was the DA overseeing the Epstein case, his signature was REQUIRED on the plea deal - which was done in secret, and smelled so bad the DOJ is still currently investigating it. 

And, right after he signed off on that plea deal, he retires and gets hired as a dean at a law school in Florida. I'd bet if you were able to look at the school's endowments back then, a big bag of money from Epstein was delivered, with a note "Pls hire Acosta, thnx, love Jeffrey The Kid Fucker". 

Acosta has strong ties to the Bush family and that wing of the Republican party, the old school Skull and Bones crowd. He has a veneer of sleaze just from that.

His presence in Trump's cabinet is the part of this story that keeps me from going all in on Trump being clean. I think he is, but Acosta sitting in his cabinet stinks to high heaven. 

Now, if Acosta quietly announced he's retiring to spend time with his family in the next couple of weeks...I'll be more on the Trump being clean side.

Still bothers me. If Trump is so anti-pedo as everyone makes him out to be, why would he allow this guy to sit in his cabinet? He knew who Epstein was, and according to a lot of people, barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago when something went down with him. 

That either points to Trump allowing his staff to make horrific choices for important slots in the administration...or Trump is okay with the plea deal. 

Or, this still has nothing to do with Trump, this is a decade long investigation finally acting and arresting Epstein, and Barr saw no reason to stop it when he came onboard. 

And, most of the "Trump is pedo herrrrrrrr" is just the usual faggotry from the retards here, and the media, because let's ignore that a pedo billionaire is arrested and might take down the titans of entertainment, business, and politics with him, no, that doesn't matter, "Trump REEEEEEEEEEEEEE" does. Or that one of the more active visitors to Child Rape Island was an ex-President.

OR

You will do anything to twist his jewish bloodline via Johann & Katherina (((Kober)))

You all want to hide the fact that he has taken $160,000,000 from Soros, owned 93% of voting stock in a rothschild/rockefeller company formerly tied to the CIA

Trumps grandpa, born to a female jew, moved to the us with his sisters who also married kikes, then moved to a kike neighborhood in new york. the church they attended at the time has since been bought and repurposed by JEWS

Trumps grandpa had a son, Fred, who has won countless awards from the kikes

Trumps kids are all marrying jews, Yael even converted already and renamed herself "Yael"(like Ibex, aka Baphomet)

Trump has an important Jewish National Fund award as his main office centerpiece in the center of his office wall

All of Trumps business partners are jewish, he barely surrounds himself with non jews and even then they are probably just like Donald

SO WHO TO BELIEVE ?

John Kelly - DHS nominee for Trump, advisor for DynCorp

Financial disclosure proving it: 

https://extapps2.oge.gov/201/Presiden.nsf/PAS+Index/14D3115B8C40E407852580A400591F25/$FILE/Kelly,%20John%20F.%20final278.pdf

Stephen Feinberg - Top financial adviser to Trump, CEO of DynCorp 

DynCorp website proving it: 

http://ir.dyn-intl.com/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1140361-10-17159&cik= 

Feinberg is listed as the CEO of Cerberus Capital Management on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Feinberg

Cerberus Capital Management is the parent company of DynCorp: 

https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/cerberus-to-buy-dyncorp-for-1-5-billion/

DynCorp and sex trafficking:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-isenberg/its-dj-vu-for-dyncorp-all_b_792394.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-0512270176dec27-story.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hey-dyncorp-two-words-about-your-dancing-afghan-boy-problem-damage-control/

http://www.voxfux.com/features/dynacorp_child_sexual_slavery.html

More: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/wikileaks-reveals-that-mi_n_793816

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/9041974/What-the-UN-Doesnt-Want-You-to-Know.html

http://mssparky.com/2009/11/kbr-and-prostitution-in-iraq/

http://rense.com/general28/dyn.htm

https://nacla.org/news/dyncorp%E2%80%99s-tentacles-puerto-rico-mexican-border

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2003/08/17/16356311.php

DynCorp also has ties with Jeffery Epstein: 

http://imgur.com/a/Nfp4s

Really shouldn't be a surprise. 

Hillary Clinton ties to DynCorp:

Leaked email:

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/15526

Cerberus donating to Hillary:

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000021907&cycle=2016

You can read about Frederick's mother Katherina and their home in Kallstadt, a city nearby Frankfurt where the Rothschilds are from, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Trump#Early_life

If what I told you about him already wasn't enough, his sister Katharina also married an Ashkenazim man, Fred Schuster, and the three of them immigrated to the US together where they lived on Forsyth st. for several years. This neighborhood has had a sizeable German Jewish population since the 1800's.

Here's some info about the Ashkenazim surname Kober: http://names.mooseroots.com/l/23093/Kober

There is a reason that Trump's dad and Trump himself lied about their ancestry and pretended to be Swedish for decades.

Here's the info about his financial dealings:

160 million from Soros: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/02/trump-pals-around-with-george-soros

Owning 93% of the voting stock of a Rothschild/Rockefeller corporation: http://americanfreepress.net/who-towers-behind-trump/?print=print

Bailed out of debt by a combo of prince of Saudi and a Chinese investor: http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/12/business/trump-is-selling-plaza-hotel-to-saudi-and-asian-investors.html

His mentor Roy: http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/03/what-roy-cohn-taught-donald-trump/ and Cohn's pedophilia: http://www.behindthepinecurtain.com/wordpress/organized-pedophilia-and-the-criminal-exploitation-of-children/

Trump's relationship with Epstein: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/30/the-billionaire-pedophile-who-could-bring-down-donald-trump-and-hillary-clinton.html

Trump's father's grandma was a jew herself..Katherina Kober, daughter of Johann Jakob Kober, kober is of course a ashkenazi last name

Friedrich Drumpf, Donald's great-grandfather.. Two of his sisters are listed as

Elisabetha Freund and Syblia Schuster. both jewish last names

all of trumps kids are married to jews as well

trump went to a jewish academy as a kid and his parents died in the NYC jewish hospital

trump's office is filled with jewish(not isrealite streaight up kabbalistic satanic babylon crap) memorabilia and all his business partners are jews

>inbf "keep your friends close, enemies closer"

thats what he is doing to you dumb goys right now.

http://forward.com/the-assimilator/327135/donald-trumps-jewish-doctor-has-out-trumped-him/

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/donald-trump-got-a-clean-bill-of-health-from-a-physician-who-sounds-remarkably-like-donald-trump/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=tw&utm_campaign=20160829Feed-Trump-doctor

“I am proud to share this report, written by the highly respected Dr. Jacob Bornstein of Lenox Hill Hospital, stating that I am in excellent health,” Trump wrote, confusing his doctor with his previous physician, Jacob Bornstein, who died in 2010. Jacob was Harold’s father

its obvious they want a president that they can blackmail into going to war or doing other shit, fact here we dont know to which extent Trump may or may not be a degenerate or to which extent he has some other motivations and other people helping him survive, if anything, any president that loses all allies get JFKd or simply resign to save himself and his family, Trump may either have other powers helping him or been told to wait for a specific moment to resign after reelection or is actually just another jew pupet, fact is we will never actually know because we are all just browsing a website and have no actual power or connections

Epstein was a member of the Sayanim. His whole pedo island was rigged for audio and video surveillance. Anything he shared with the FBI was probably a small fraction of what he gave to the MOSSAD. Israeli intelligence uses this material to blackmail powerful people, such as DC politicians and other VIP's who visited Epstein's compound. This explains why Dershowitz was able to get such a sweetheart sentence for Epstein's many crimes. Had it been Joe Sixpack from Anytown USA, he would never again see the light of day.

https://thedevilman666.blogspot.com/https://www.facebook.com/groups/qanonreports https://twitter.com/CIACLOWN1 https://www.bitchute.com/channel/ciaclown16661/

[realestate63141]

The Great Degeneration

When it comes to aging, we're all amateurs but are nonetheless expected to take it on like seasoned professionals. Lately, I find myself passionately debating with friends, like Lincoln and Douglas, over who has the worst pain. We Baby Boomers were raised by the "Great" generation whose one true goal, it seems, was to sacrifice everything they had, not unlike the Giving Tree of Shel Silverstein fame---which personally is a book I have long despised because the lesson is so boneheaded wrong. In fact, the whole thing is ass backward. You should not give away every inch of the real estate of your being in order to parent well. You should prosper and replenish yourself until you have a bountiful of fruit and shade to offer your kids. You needed to be rooted and as confident as a mighty elm to get through it all, especially when it comes to dealing with teenagers. Stump my ass. Here boy, go screw yourself. My folks toiled the blue collar concrete fields of New York from dawn to dusk until the only discernible, lingering scent that was left in their wake were the sorrowful fumes of pure exhaustion. Every day they started out, optimistic and cheerful, and neither rain nor sleet nor heat nor gloom of suburban night stayed those couriers from the not so swift completion of their appointed rounds. My dad was Willy Loman, quite literally a salesman, who banked on his natural ease, cheeky charm and congenial warmth in order to pay the rent. My mom was June Cleaver if June Cleaver was Jewish and from Brooklyn. We lived in a tiny, two-bedroom garden apartment in Hollis, Queens which is known for not being known for anything. In fact, Hollis was the name of an erudite Brit who had nothing whatsoever to do with my little town which was really strange given that there was plenty of American Revolution landmarks and statues all over town. So, we were named after the bad guys? Although we were not as well off as virtually all of my friends, somehow my parents managed to cobble together one hell of a childhood for me and my sister. Thanks to my dad's clever bartering system with his other Loman buddies in the clothing business, he traded high-end, deerskin and mink-lined gloves for say, cashmere and mohair sweaters for us. I went to summer camp too. For 13 years. I'm guessing that my folks paid it off week by week, day by day, not only without complaint but without us ever knowing how they managed to pull that off. We went on family vacations to Washington D.C. and through all the New England states. Sure, my friends had their own bedrooms, fancy cars, and even fancier parents. But we were a solid clan who actually had a secret whistle that we performed whenever one of us was approaching the gathered troops. My sister and I got measled and mumpsed and it seemed like we could out-puke your average just docked Navy vessel. But here is how it went: We got sick, our local pediatrician/smiling mortician house called on by to both simultaneously diagnose and terrify us (while smoking a long-ashed Lucky Strike), we took our medicine, we sailor-puked some more and then we went to school, sometimes still spotted like someone just did a spit take on our face and we lived our lives fully until we got sick all over again, which frankly, we did so often, that our house could easily have been mistaken for a Charlotte Bronte orphanage bursting with consumption. Now fast-forward to today and here I am, a parent times two, who is now faced with all kinds of aches and pains. Evidently, the disks in my neck and lower back enjoy telling me to go fuck myself by the minute and lately I've developed a mean case of radial tunnel syndrome which is probably from doing what I am doing right now. Ow. Ow. Ow. Almost done. Now my inner child, my little David, is still very much alive and kicking and I sense that no one has informed him that both my parents, Murray and Ina, have died, by virtue of the fact that I can feel him yearning for them. In fact, I often hear him calling for them in the darkness of his own night. Personally, I think this is the simple story of our lives: Right out the mom shoot, we freak out over the sudden detachment, then, as hormones rain down on us like WWII blitz bombs over Britain, we get FURIOUS at the attachment and then once we become orphaned, we find ourselves aching for that attachment all over again, hoping that we can find maybe find a Match.com mate who is more or less our mommy or daddy avatar. I know that I often find myself secretly staring longingly at older people in airports or in department stores if they have even a passing resemblance to my mom and dad. One time I thought a statue of Buddha looked so much like my dad, I bought just so I could take it home and ask it if I can borrow the car. The hardest thing for me is not my diminishing return hearing, but rather the not being able to remember how my parents actually sounded. I can hear, ever so faintly, a few of their octaves and the long ago dispersed notes and pitches that they sang and whispered to me. But I can no longer hear a complete song. I love older doctors because they feel so parental. Frankly, the younger ones make me feel like they are the kids so I feel obligated to take care of them. When it comes to all this age-related discomfort, the best I can do, I suppose, is remember the selfless acts of my great generation parents, and simply get on with it, while quietly chanting my mom's oft-repeated refrain: "This too shall pass." Or as I like to call it: Omama Care.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2j1FGN4