Is It Me, Or Has The Western World Gone Nuts?

Consider The Slut Walk.  It's a parade, a demonstration, if you will, of women parading in sexually provocative dress.  The idea, if I understand it correctly, is that what a woman looks like should make no difference in how men, and, perhaps, people in general, respond to a woman's dress.  It should most certainly give men no idea that it's okay to rape them.

But, it also seems like people demonstrating for one cause often feel strongly about other causes.  Women who demonstrate for Black Lives Matter will often demonstrate against homophobia, or Islamophobia.  And, women, who are found to be on a Slut Walk, may have a love for Israel.

But, here's what happened in Chicago on a Slut Walk.  Women were told they could not carry LGBT flags with a Star of David superimposed on it.  And, why not?  Because, they were told that Israel was a nation that Slut Walkers hated.  It was a country that mistreated Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular.

Really?  One is tempted to wish that such misguided demonstrators try organizing a Slut Walk in Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or Jordan, or Indonesia, or the west bank, or any Muslim country.  It must be troubling to such Jew-haters that Israel is to be found among the nations that actually hold their own (believe it or not) Slut Walks.

Putin: The Puppet Master

Putin surveyed his opponents.  Clinton (Slick Willy) looked Teflon coated.  He could go to Moscow, have the Russians pay him a half a million for a 30-minute speech, yet stir up very little controversy.  He had the media in his hip pocket.  But, his two terms were up.  Putin would now face new American contenders.

Hillary at first glance seemed much the same as her husband.  She got America to slip him 20% of their uranium reserves via a Canadian cutout.  And, again, she managed  this with minimal hullabaloo in the American media.  But, Putin saw something ruthless in her manner and felt she might not be such a great president from a Russian point of view.  Reducing her chances for the presidency proved easy.  Her arrogance made her blind to Russian cyber capabilities.  She observed no caution and disregarded proper cyber practices leaving vulnerable her emails and her server.  For Putin she proved to be an easy mark.

With Obama, Putin could take a nap.  Obama was a nothing.  He led from behind in Libya.  He hobbled his military in Syria and Iraq.  He gave the store away to Iran.  Putin figured, let Obama do what Obama does best; namely, alienate his country's true allies and reward America's enemies.

Trump was a puzzle.  At first glance, Trump looked like some kind of nut.  The far left would have been best for him, thought Putin.  They would have hollowed out the US economically.  But, this weird new guy seemed to have managed to build an important following.  Who could guess that he would become the next president?  But, was he going to be good for Russia?  Trump's initial remarks suggested that he might work out fairly well for Russia.

But then things happened.  It was not what Trump said, but rather what happened in real time.  First there were the guys Trump picked to head the military.  Putin had a thick dossier on Gen. Mattis.  From a Russian point of view, it didn't read well.  Second, when Bashar Assad, the man Russia decided to make one of their own, dropped poison gas on his people, Trump's people fired rockets on the air field from which Assad had launched those attacks.  Trump had never mentioned "red lines," except in a nebulous sort of way.  But, here he was, pounding his Russian buddy's air field.  And, then when forces allied with Russia's moved eastward in a direction that would soon have them confronting American backed forces, Trump's planes blasted the crap out of Russia's friends.  It stopped them dead in their tracks.  It was becoming clear that this guy, Trump, was likely to become a much bigger headache than Putin had anticipated.  It was time to put some moves on Trump.

Lack of experience in the Trump political camp made this easier than it should have been.  Putin got one of his agents, a Russian lawyer admitted into the U.S. by the Obama administration, to set up a meeting with Bannon and the Trump kids.  The purpose of the meeting was to share some dirt with the Trump people about the Democrats.  Putin's agent had no intention of doing this.  The whole thing was set up simply to create bad optics for Trump.  Americans would now see Trump people colluding with the Russians.  It went off like clockwork.  The Democrats and their friends in the press jumped on this "nothing" meeting and worked it for all it was worth.

Putin's gambit worked.  But it would also show Trump a thing or two.  First, Steve Bannon was, supposedly, a professional political operative.  He should never have let this meeting happen.  Then there's Donald Trump Jr., who is clearly wet behind the ears.  Expressing his glee at the possibilities of getting dirt on the Democrats in an email was childish.  Kushner got roped into this nonsense too.  But, unlike the others, he quickly saw what was happening and promptly left.

To sum up -- and you won't hear it from either the Democrats nor from the Trump camp -- this was a learning experience for the Trump camp.  A painful one, but one that did it no real harm.  They'll learn.

Who's A Jew?

How to define a Jew?  I say that if it looks like a Jew, walks like a Jews, behaves like a Jew, and claims to be a Jew, it's a Jew.  But how does a Jew behave?  What does a Jew look like?

Theologically, a Jew is anyone with a Jewish mother.  Or, someone who's been converted to Judaism by an Orthodox rabbi.  Clearly that leaves out a whole lot of people who think they're Jewish and are accepted as Jewish by their community.  Clearly, Hitler had a more expansive picture as to who was a Jew.

The Orthodox claim they're being so persnickety, because otherwise the boundaries of Judaism and what truly constitutes Judaism would be lost.  What they don't understand is that for better or worse, they, the Orthodox, are in a poor position to lay claim to being the ultimate deciders as to is and who is not a Jew.

Let's look at a few items that would seem to tell who's Jewish and who isn't.  Can a Jew have more than one wife?  Roughly a thousand years ago. Rabbi Gershom banned the practice of polygamy.  Before that, it had been perfectly acceptable for a Jew to have more than one wife.  But then Gershom comes along and says, no.  It's not acceptable.  So is that Judaism?  Nothing more, nothing less than the opinion of a noted rabbi?  We should also point out that Rabbi Gershom's ban of polygamy applied only to Ashkenazi Jews.  Sephardic Jews continued to practice polygamy up until the State of Israel emerged.  But, again, it was not a theological decision, but rather a political one; a decision  that better resonated with modern ethics.

Then too there is the matter of Jewish prayer.  At the time of the Temple in Jerusalem, Jews showed their devotion to God by bringing sacrifices to the Temple.  They might bring a pidgin, or a lamb, or some barley.  What they brought depended on their wealth and their fervor.  Then came the  expulsion of Jews to Babylonia.  No more temple to which to bring sacrifices.  What to do?  They decided to substitute prayer for sacrifice.

A problem arose when King Cyrus ended their expulsion and allowed those who wished to return to Israel.  Those Jews who had avoided expulsion, the Sadducees, continued the practice of animal sacrifice.  The returnees from Babylonia, the Pharisees, showed their devotion through prayer.  The split between the Pharisees and the Sadducees ended with the final destruction of the Temple by the Romans.  No more Temple, no more sacrifices, no more Sadducees.

The point is that Judaism, is a religion that has evolved, as have so many other religions.  But some subdivisions try to keep to their peculiar beliefs.  An example that springs to mind are the Neturei Karta.  As they see it, there should be no State of Israel.  A Jewish nation should arise only upon the return of the Messiah.  He clearly hasn't returned and so Israel is something that shouldn't be.  Quite odd, but that's the way it goes in the land of Orthodoxy.

As to the Chief Rabbis of Israel, one Ashkenasie, the other Sephardic, they issue their that only the Haredi have any faith in.  The more secular Jews, the ones that do the heavy lifting, militarily, in order to protect their fellow Jews, find that their thoughts are never weighed by the poobahs in Jerusalem.

A New Vision Of America's Place Upsets Liberals

Most countries have some sort of self image; a conceptual identity of who they are, and where they're going.  It's an image of themselves that connects them to the world outside and how they fit into this world.  I dare say that America's self image has been changing, and not all Americans are comfortable with the change.  Indeed, it's at the heart of a great deal of political controversy we see evident in our politics.

Let's quickly review past self images.  In 1776, we started out as the new kid on the block.  To the Europeans, we were upstarts.  Indeed, we had a great deal to work out, i.e. states' rights, the need for a central bank, etc.  We were largely (80% of GDP) an agricultural nation, which made us somewhat different from Europe.  But we did have a society where the people wanted to do better, to get ahead.  And, where it didn't much matter who your parents were.  Okay, it's a pretty, broad brush description of who we were.  Like other plantation nations, e.g.  Brazil and Caribbean nations, we had slavery.  Also, the Protestants, didn't care much for Jews, and women couldn't vote.  But what we did have was a pretty good constitution and a background in law that was taken from Great Britain.

In this brief review, let us turn to "America's destiny."  It was an expansionist vision.  We were to become an American nation from sea to sea.  We then added Alaska through a purchase from the Russians.  Parts of the south were taken from Mexico.  Our borders with Canada became finalized.  Industrialization followed pretty much as it had in Europe.  Our advantage lay in our wealth of natural resources.  Oh, did I skip slavery?  Yep, we had a Civil War.  We weren't quite home yet.  Slavery ended, but was followed by Jim Crow.  We haven't yet solved all our racial problems, but we've gone a great distance and we've done a pretty good job of it.  It is, however, something we've got to keep working at.

Two world wars established the U.S. as a major force on the globe.  The Second World War, pretty much made our country the go-to country.  Our main competitor was the Soviet Union.  It was to be a contest between two economic models, communism and capitalism and capitalism won out.  With the Soviet Union's collapse the U.S. became the defender of all nations threatened by communism.  The results are clear.  Capitalism may be far from perfect, but communism is clearly a failure.  (Consider Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia.)  Things don't resolve themselves perfectly.  Russia is still one of our major opponents.  But, it's strength does not lie in its economy, but rather in it's possession of huge stores of oil and it's belligerent military posture.

China is a country we have yet to figure out.  It wants to enjoy the fruits of capitalism, but want to do this with a single-party political system.  Is this even possible?  No one really knows.

The U.S. finds itself in a number of quandaries.  Our earlier visions no longer seem to fit.  We find that in confronting Russia it becomes a matter of playing military chicken.  It may end quite badly.  In China, we have a country that has claimed an entire stretch of sea through which major shipping lanes travel.  How can such claims be accepted?

The U.S. must also fashion a policy to contain North Korea, a country whose only economic initiative seems to rely on developing intercontinental missiles.

Another challenge we face today is a religious one.  We pride ourself in extending to all religions freedom of expression.  But, Islam is something quite new; and something different from our previous experiences with religious beliefs.  Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Mormonism and even Scientology are belief systems with which we, as a country, have been able to co-exist.  We've  have had to accept some new ways of looking at these religions.  Catholics were once suspect because it was felt that their loyalty was divided between this country and the Vatican.  This matter was resolved with the election of JFK.  Then too, with new pope, the Vatican appeared ready to modify some of its beliefs.  Mormons were once hounded by fellow Americans.  That's changed and Mormons ended their practice of polygamy.

With Islam however we face something quite different.  One one hand, we find that 95, or maybe 98 percent, of Muslims fit right into the American way.  But, as with most religions, we find that the Muslims also have their orthodox followers, otherwise known as Salafists.  But with Muslims, this difference between fundamentalist views and more secular views has never been properly bridged.  Most Catholics accept the religious views expressed by the Vatican.  But generally they disregard those teachings with which they disagree.  Birth control and abortion are two issues that come to mind.  In Europe different branches of Protestantism once found themselves in fierce conflict with one another.   In America, however, each branch of Protestantism simply went its own way.  We see the same thing with the Jews and their Orthodox, and Conservative and Reform movements.

With Muslims we see something different.  In countries where Muslims are strongest, their national laws and practices generally favor their Muslim population over their other citizens.  That's quite different from nonIslamic nations.  Italy, for example, is generally seen as a Catholic nation.  And yet in Italy we find one of the strongest communist movements to be seen anywhere in Europe.

In Iran and Saudi Arabia, for example, we find strong antipathy to people, who, in the case of Iran, are Sunni and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, are not Sunnis.  In Pakistan, we find the national attitude toward those citizens who are not Sunni to be extremely hostile.  In Indonesia we find an Islamic nation where citizens can still be charged with blasphemy for speaking against the Quran.

In Europe, where there has been a large influx of Muslims, we see neighborhood acceding to Muslim demands for "modesty patrols."  And also find other major differences when viewing Muslims.  The fundamentalists have no hesitation to use muscle against their coreligionists, should they fail to accede to fundamentalist demands.  Forceful persuasion can not be easily applied where Muslims are relatively few in number.  But it can be carried out in communities where Muslims are concentrated.  This behavior is now challenging the American dream.  We have yet to respond.



  

Medical Care -- The Dems And the Republicans Both Have It Wrong

It's not that the Democrats want to provide health care for all and that the Republicans want to give tax breaks to the rich and deny health care to the poor.  Rather it is that American healthcare, which is several times more expensive than that of other counties such as Canada, Germany, and Great Britain, is entirely out of control.

Obama's health plan mislabeled the Affordable Health Care Act reduced the charges to people on Medicaid and raised it to most everyone else.  I can't read Obama's mind, but my guess is that as the huge costs of his plan became apparent those costs would be transferred the the government; in other words, to you and me through taxation.  It would become a national plan.

The Republican approach to health care pursues a different avenue.  They try to create a plan that falls within budgetary constraints.  These's only one problem.  It's impossible to devise such a plan where many of our poor would find themselves, either without coverage, or with inadequate coverage.

What neither party is willing to do is tackle the real problem; namely, the galloping increases in the cost of healthcare.  The Sage of Omaha himself, Warren Buffett, pointed out that that in most areas we've been able to reduce costs.  TV's don't cost what they once did.  Cars are now made at lower cost than was once possible.  (We keep adding new items to cars, e.g. back cameras, navigational devices, blind spot indicators, etc.  These add to a car's cost and yet we've managed to keep the vehicle's cost within the consumer's budget.)

So let's consider for a moment what is contributing to our mushrooming medical costs.  Not necessarily in order of importance, but one of the first things that occurs to me is our refusal to accept death.  Diabetes was once a death sentence.  The only treatment was slow starvation.  But, then insulin was discovered and diabetes was no longer a death sentence.  Despite the discovery of insulin, this disease still requires a patient to follow a prescribed diet.  Failure to follow the prescribed diet will lead to debilitating and, ultimately, fatal symptoms.

Doctor-prescribed diets must be followed if illness is to be held in check.  Restricting salt intake for a patient suffering from high blood pressure is an example.  Smoking, careless use of alcohol, and the use of drugs are other examples.  But, now we come to the area defined by addiction, which unquestionably leads to increased medical costs.

Other areas of high costs are those associated with the start of life and the end of life.  If a baby had two hearts or some other serious malady, death followed.  It was accepted.  Now heroic efforts are made to save the new-born regardless of how premature or misshapen that baby might be.  There are religious issues that enter this discussion but they must be taken up separately.  Much the same can be said for dementia that afflicts many old people.

Then there is the cost of treatment of our wounded servicemen and women.  The cost of such treatment should not be rolled into the cost of healthcare.  It should be a separate item of our military spending.

There are many other aspects to healthcare that make this such a difficult area to cost.  Despite the high administrative cost of our hospitals, examples abound of patients that fail to get a medication prescribed by his doctor, or nurses who administer the wrong medicine or the wrong dosage to a patient.

Then there is the balance between a patient's rights to legal counsel and protection of the medical system against excessive litigation.  Equally important is that the standards met by doctors be monitored.  When such standards fail to be met, doctors must be subject to being fired.

It can also be argued that the medial industry has been far too slow to adopt newly developed but currently available technology with the potential for cost reduction.

It's a big area, but the Democratic idea of a single payor system doesn't necessarily get you to where you want to go.  But, then I don't see the Republican approach working either.  We may find that just as charter schools breaks up the hide bound methodology of the our public schools, a similar approach to medicine might do the same.