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Man, I am just a posting-on-other-sites-but-not-my-own MACHINE today!  Here’s my Jewschool post on Glenn Beck’s equation of social justice with Nazism.

I just can’t seem to stop writing about Israeli Apartheid Week.  Here’s another one.

I’ve got a new post at Jewschool, in which I examine an article Alan Dershowitz wrote about Israel Apartheid Week.

Jessica Arons has written a fabulous piece for The Nation, explaining just how moronic the thinking behind the Stupak amendment is (and thus reminding me of how glad I am it won’t be part of the final reform bill):

No transaction in our modern society is completely free of government involvement. The food we eat costs less because of farm subsidies. Students attend private universities with the help of Pell Grants and Stafford loans. Our churches and temples can afford to operate in part because they are tax-exempt. And employers who offer health insurance do so because of tax incentives. Stupak’s reasoning, taken to its logical extreme, would mean that virtually every activity in which we engage is government funded, regardless of whether it is condoned or condemned.

As I see it, the extension of her argument is that in supporting, for example, transportation subsidies, a person makes a judgment that the good derived from the availability of public transportation outweighs the harm done by freeing up citizens’ personal money to be used for an abortion.  Thus, opposing insurance premium subsidies is a judgment that the benefits of providing people with health insurance are less important than preventing those people from having abortions.

Simultaneously opposing insurance premium subsidies on abortion grounds while also supporting other federal subsidies shows that you prioritize your own religious or social beliefs over someone else’s health.  While this isn’t a logical inconsistency, I’d say it demonstrates a severe lack of empathy and a healthy dose of self-righteousness.

But then, those are all in a day’s work for congressional opponents of health care reform.

Too often in conflicts we don’t hear stories.  We don’t know what other people have experienced.  This, I believe, is the root of many social problems.

Political realities are ultimately inseparable from the individual experiences that give rise to them.  We can make generalizations about societal states of understanding, political theories, and large social constructs, but these must ultimately be grounded in a deep understanding of the individual, human nature of the issue.

At its heart, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a failure of understanding.  Yes, we can and do identify policies, tactics, and manners of thought that continue it, but we cannot forget their inalienably human attributes.  Applying the analytical tools of anthropology and other social sciences can tell us much about why the conflict has evolved the way it has.  Why, for instance, does the Israeli government continue to lend tacit, if not explicit, support in most cases, to settlers who are actively violating international law and soiling Israel’s credibility?  Why have Palestinian civilians been so easily represented by the few who decide to blow themselves up?

These are questions of understanding.  I have strong disagreements with many people involved in the conflict, but there comes a time when I have to admit that I just don’t understand their point of view.  I haven’t been to Israel or Palestine, I haven’t sat down across the table with these people and tried to understand what makes them tick.

I don’t think this makes me less capable of making strong and accurate judgments on the issue, but it does impart on me a responsibility to seek out such stories and incorporate them into my thought.  In fact, I would argue that no one is exempt from this responsibility.  Divorced as I am from the on-the-ground realities of the conflict, it’s easy for me to say that my priority is understanding.  For an Israeli in Sderot who’s lived through rocket attacks and seen their children traumatized and suffering from PTSD, or for a Palestinian in Gaza who’s lived through massive Israeli air raids, destruction of vital infrastructure, and a continuing blockade, it must be incredibly hard to understand the other.

But there are those who do.  There are those who put aside their own experiences, and, given the opportunity to do so without sacrificing basic needs, seek out the other’s perspective.  And the fact that those people exist means that we should not just expect others to do the same, but we should strive for circumstances where they can.

Both in his attempts to understand and his attempts to empower others to do the same, Avi Schaefer was one of those people dedicated to understanding.  After graduating high school in Santa Barbara, he joined the IDF and spent several years as a counterterrorism instructor.  To a naive American Jewish boy like me who’s never held a gun, it’s hard to comprehend his motivations.  But it was crystal clear to me from the moment I met him up until the last conversation I had with him that he wanted me to, and he wanted to comprehend mine.  Avi was in many ways extremely oxymoronic; but then, he existed almost for the purpose of defying those same oxymorons.  Before I met him, I would never have guessed that an American Jew who became an Israeli citizen in order to join the IDF would be more dedicated to peace than arguably any other person I have ever met.  But what Avi has taught me was that that doesn’t have to be a contradiction.  That the only thing standing between us and a deeper personal understanding of the other is our assumptions.  If we come to a discussion with an open mind and no assumptions, we inevitably walk away stronger and smarter.

Avi Schaefer was killed in the early morning of February 12th by a drunk driver on the streets of Providence.  Who Avi was doesn’t make his death more tragic than if it had been someone else, but the people he touched, the good he did in his short time with us, and the taste that is left on our tongues, will linger.  In Avi, a man of incredible virtue and dignity walked among us.

“An enemy is someone whose story we have not yet heard.”  Avi attributed this quote to his father, Rabbi Arthur Gross-Schaefer.

Avi Schaefer, 1988-2010.  Z”L.  May his memory be for a blessing.

Here’s my Jewschool post about it.  Links to informational and opinion sources are included.

Are we obligated to be politically involved?  Does being a citizen of a republic impart on me an ethical obligation to vote, to be politically informed, and to communicate with others about such topics?  Certainly public awareness and discourse is improved by that kind of activity, but the question is whether it’s ethical to impose it on other people.

This is a particularly relevant question right now because of the mass political ignorance we see around issues like health care.  The BBC has a great article on this, explaining some of the psychological reasons that the Democratic strategy hasn’t worked:

If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them.

They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best.

Of course, the current reform proposals do not presume to know what’s best for every individual person.  That’s why they leave open the option of choosing where you buy your insurance plan from, something that I believe to be ultimately wrong.  I see the purpose of health care reform to be laying the stage for an eventual progression towards single-payer.

But that’s neither here nor there.  Where I disagree with the article is in what the ultimate problem is.  It’s an uninformed electorate.  In a healthy, functioning democracy, people have every right to disagree with the government, and to vote it out of office.  In fact, that’s what we did in 2006 and 2008.  Overwhelmingly, voters in this country voted out the Republican ideas that had run the country straight downhill.  And if in 2010 they want to do the same thing for Democrats, they will.  That’s how democracy functions.

Of course, it becomes more complicated, when you have a GOP propaganda machine busy undeducating everyone as fast as possible.  The equation’s different when the minority party is deliberately lying to the public about what it is they’re opposing (and why they’re doing so).  Frankly, given the Democrat’s historical and current inability to accurately and clearly explain their stances to voters, it’s even more amazing that we won so decisively in the last two elections.  People must have been really fed up.

But go back a second.  What’s the real issue here?  I argue that it’s the nature of Democrats’ stances that they can’t be easily explained.  And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  Yes, we’re losing the message war.  That’s because economic stimulus is complicated and “five-year across-the-board spending freeze” is easy.  ”Free market” is easy and the subtleties that make it inapplicable to health care are complicated.  “Soft on terror” is easy and criminal law is complicated.

So what do we do?  Do we dumb down to face the increasingly ignorant electorate?  No.  We pass something that has tangible, immediate benefits, and we campaign on it.  Because what does the country see right now?  They see Democrats with a giant majority still not getting anything done.  If we can break that view, we’re golden.  In the political free market, political capital is allocated to whoever shows than use it to get results.

And that’s as it should be.  We can decry public ignorance all we want, but ultimately, a voter shouldn’t have to have intimate knowledge of congressional politics in order to hold an opinion.  I’m not condoning total ignorance of the way the government functions, but if we apply some kind of moral standard for what constitutes “enough” knowledge to be involved in politics, we’re setting a risky precedent.  Remember poll taxes and literacy tests?  That’s what happens when the government makes a decision on who deserves to be involved in the democratic process.

Political ignorance is a constitutionally protected right.  But that doesn’t mean we have to assume it is a necessity of the political system.  We need to be fighting two battles at once.  One, to get our legislation passed, so we have something to campaign on.  Two, an agressive information campaign in the form of TV ads and public speaking engagements.  The fact that Democrats have been completely disconnected from voters has harmed us.  We’ve seemed like aloof liberals who know nothing about the plight of ordinary people.  We need to show the public that we are the party with their interests in mind.  In other words, show people why our proposals will help them.  ”Oh, you’re having trouble getting insurance because you have a pre-existing condition?  The legislation we’re passing will prohibit that.  And you know what?  The GOP used to agree with us, but they’re voting against it now to score political points.  You can’t afford your premiums?  Let me tell you about how our legislation will help you.  And you guessed it, Republicans are against that too.”

We’re losing the information war right now, but that doesn’t mean we should dumb down.  Yes, the bill is ridiculously long.  For crying out loud, it’s federal policy.  This is not simple stuff.  Let’s not capitulate to the GOP’s dumbed-down message.  We should be speaking to voters as equals, not pretending that we’re dumb and confused like congressional Republicans are doing.  It’s stupid, degrading, and ultimately unproductive.

If the GOP wants to win elections, they’re on the right track.  If Democrats want to, we need to change course.  And we can’t pass health care without winning elections.

I wrote a new post for Jewschool!  Predictably, it is about political debate, or lack thereof.  Check it out.

It’s been a day and a half since we learned about the arson attacks here that killed two people here.  All but one of the attacks were in Ward 3, my neighborhood.

This case has prompted me to take a long look at some of the ways we as society, and as individuals, handle events that push us to the extreme.  Arguably, crime is inevitable in any society, and given this, the issue becomes how we minimize it and respond to it.  In a case like this one, with an individual who clearly is in need of psychological attention (the fires don’t appear to be targeted in any way, it really seems like it’s the work of a serious psychopath), there’s probably not much we can do except find the person and get them in an institution where they can’t cause any more harm, and can be rehabilitated, ideally.  Could better social services and publicly available health care, for example, have prevented this?  Maybe.  But we should remember that someone will always slip through the cracks.  It sounds defeatist, but it’s true: we can’t identify every single criminal before they commit their special crime (h/t Arlo Guthrie).

So in a way, it’s useless to obsess over the systems that may or may not have failed, the people that should or should not have known, and things that should or shouldn’t have happened as a result of those.  The Northampton Fire and Police Departments responded well, with the help of many others from the surrounding area.  Yes, we had the first fire deaths in over a decade.  Yes, there is huge property damage.  Yes, the arsonist was in fact still setting fires while emergency personnel were being dispatched, just one step ahead, but we have also, as a community, made some amazing progress.  There’s been an outpouring of donations of all kinds for victims, the Facebook group continues to be extremely active, and the Ward 3 Association is holding a meeting tomorrow night to discuss what we can do as a community.

I firmly believe that the person or persons responsible for this terrible crime will be caught.  My hope is that, as our mayor Mary Clare Higgins said at yesterday’s press conference, we come together as a community, and help those in need.  I also hope that that spirit continues, that we don’t just give our donations and feel good about ourselves, or do our volunteering and stroke our own egos, that we continue to work together in the future, even past the resolution of this crime.

It can be hard to separate our own personal aggrandizement from work on legitimate causes and actually giving selflessly.  I find myself treading that line all the time, and over the past day-and-a-half, I’ve had to stop many times and reevaluate, think to myself about if what I’m doing is really helpful.  The feelings of insecurity and fear that all of us are experiencing are no excuse for not putting the victims first.

I’m proud to be a part of the effort to respond to this crisis.  I know others are too.  But it’s important not to let that pride detract from the cause.

I’ve written before about how futile I see components of our “justice” system to be.  If what Northampton gets from these attacks is just another crazy person in jail, we will have missed the point.  If we act the way the property owner I talked to early yesterday morning, standing in front of the smoking house on Fair St. where a father and son had burned to death hours before, saying “I hope they light the prick who did this on fire”, we will have regressed, not progressed.  You know what truly could have stopped this?  If for every angry, reserved, and crazy citizen, there were five other concerned ones, getting them psychological help, donating food or money, and so on.  American hyper-self-sufficiency is largely to blame for the fact that someone capable of causing this much damage could go unnoticed for so long.

If it turns out I’m wrong, and this is someone who had been treated before, or was under scrutiny and somehow wasn’t detected, then I willingly stand corrected.  If it turns out I’m drawing conclusions far too broad given the scope of our existing knowledge, then I welcome further information.  But an event like this one really does cause me to profoundly question the way we perceive each other as individuals within a societal framework largely created by the government, at least in terms of social infrastructure.  And when your government is consistently lacking in funds and political capital to sufficiently finance such social infrastructure, things fall by the wayside.  Sorry to so blatantly politicize such a tragic event, but I can’t help but think “this wouldn’t have happened if we’d been spending the money we’ve spent on Iraq and Afghanistan on health care and subsidized housing”.  There it is.

What do we do now?  We rebuild, we restore, and we comfort.  We work together, and we make sure that this never, ever, happens again.

Paul Yeskie, Sr., and Paul Yeskie, Jr., rest in peace.

I promise I’ll write a blog post here soon.  In the meantime, check out my newest post at Jewschool.  It was just too good a topic to miss.