Musings …

Author: Ghoh

  • What is Ted Cruz Up To?

    He wants the Senate showdown, but what about the price the Republican Party will pay if he wins it?  What price will he pay?  His play is NOT to win this showdown, but to win big in the future.  The Presidency!

    In his article in CQ, Ted Cruz: The Distinguished Wacko Bird from Texas, Jason Zengerle describes how Cruz won his Senate seat in Texas:

    … He’d been out of government for two years and was looking for a way back in, this time via election. The only real opening in Texas, though, was a U.S. Senate seat—an impossible reach for Cruz, who’d never even held elected office.

    … he met someone who had pulled off that exact feat: Utah senator-elect Mike Lee… he rode the Tea Party wave of 2010 into the Senate, ousting an incumbent Republican by running to his right…

    Cruz launched his insurgent Senate campaign the following January, zeroing in on the GOP front-runner, David Dewhurst, who as Texas lieutenant governor had the party and business establishments lined up behind him… In classic Tea Party fashion, Cruz went after him from the right… With an influx of cash from national conservative groups and rousing speeches to whip up the grass-roots, Cruz came out of nowhere to force a primary runoff with Dewhurst. He then trounced Dewhurst by fourteen points and cruised past his token Democratic opponent in the general election.

    And that is Cruz’s plan for squishy GOP Senators who have no credible competition from Democrats, and allow the House spending bill to get through the Senate without defunding Obamacare.  Generate more ammo for Tea Party right flanks to challenge these incumbents in their primary races and win some seats for themselves.  A not lose – big win proposition.  The worst that could happen would be to reelect some squishy Republicans.  The best would be to elect more of his own ilk.  Mitch McConnell is terrified!

    But what of Senate seats to be lost in general elections to competitive Democrats by Tea Party Republicans who unseated squishy incumbents in their primaries?  This is not a novel result!  Why allow it?  This seems to be a question that pundits and commentators keep on asking even after the answer has long been obvious.  Sometimes it even seems that they know the answer but have trouble connecting it to the question.  It should certainly be clear now, even if not so clear on November 6, 2009, long after “Bill” Owens became the first Democrat to represent New York’s 23rd Congressional District since 1873.  No one could fathom why the Tea Party would forfeit the Republican Party a seat.  And so the practice of intimidation by threatening primary challenges began in Congress!

    The key is that losing these seats is not collateral loss, but intentional gain!   The threat of losing their seats by attacks from the right is the chain the Tea Party holds around the necks of squishy Republicans.  It is the engine of the Tea Party’s program to take over the Party.   Cruz and his Tea Party backers intend this, and caring about the present health of the Republican Party would only delay or shut down the program.  They are not interested in empowering the Republican Party now, but in taking it over in the future, wholly and with their own people.

    The Tea Party now controls their Party and the Congress, that is, keeps them from getting anything done, not by the force of their numbers, but by intimidating more responsible and sensible Republicans and vulnerable Democrats.  The long-term plan is to increase those numbers until, hopefully, they control the Republican Party by their numbers alone, and then get done what they want done!  Their hope, Cruz’s and their backers’, is that their Republican Party will eventually be viable and competitive on the national stage.

    Cruz, who is 42, has lots of time for this to happen and to get past all the bad baggage he is collecting.

  • “Who is Asher Lev?”

    Last night we saw “My Name is Asher Lev” at the off Broadway Westside Theatre Upstairs.  The play was beautifully scripted and acted, and raises critical questions about the conflict created when the personal calling of a member of an orthodox religious Jewish community, in this case the Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, goes beyond the traditional scope of the community.  My question: “Does beyond the scope mean outside the bounds of the community?”

    Telecharge Overview:  …It tells the powerful story of a boy prodigy who must be an artist at any cost — against the will of family, community and tradition…

    The play gave the impression to my family, and I am sure to many others, that Asher must leave the community because he could not answer his calling to paint and coexist within the community.  In fact, when you contrast the positions taken by the Rebbe and Asher’s father, and therefore appreciate that the conflict portrayed is exclusively between the father and the son, not the community or tradition, you realize that the play does not address conflicts with community or tradition.

    What follows gives away more details than you might want to know if you intend to see the play or read Chaim Potok’s famous book.  I have not read the book, so my comments are not about the book and reflect only my responses to the play as carefully crafted by its author, Aaron Posner.

    Just what the tradition is, is held in the mind of each individual member of a community, but the Rebbe represents the community.  Asher’s father represents tradition here since any representations of tradition in his conflict with his son come from him.  The Rebbe has nothing to say directly about tradition and we must infer his attitude from his wisdom and behavior.  Traditions of the art community are represented by Jacob Kahn, Asher’s teacher, introduced to him by the Rebbe, whose prejudices and Red Shoes attitude pervert Asher and muddy the simpler issues at hand.

    Asher’s father is dead set against Asher’s following his calling, and never respects Asher enough, that is not at all, to ever hear him out.  This is made crystal clear in his conversation with Asher, where he actually disrespects Asher, asking him to help him to understand Asher’s need to paint nudes.  He goes to Asher allegedly seeking this understanding, but parries every utterance by Asher with Sophistic responses whose exclusive purpose is to get Asher to accept his position!

    We need to realize that the key conflict in this story is between Asher’s father’s attitude and the Rebbe’s.  The Rebbe has given Asher his blessing every step of the way, so we must conclude that the Rebbe sees Asher’s situation from a greater perspective.  We must take for granted that just as the Rebbe is in communication with Asher, he must be in communication with Asher’s father, as Asher’s father works directly for him.  Asher’s father must know that the Rebbe has blessed Asher, and while not blessing what Asher is doing, is blessing Asher nevertheless.  If Asher’s father’s behavior reflected the will of the community, that is the will of the Rebbe, he might not be capable of blessing Asher for what he was doing, but could and should bless Asher nevertheless.

    If Asher’s father’s had respected the Rebbe’s example, it is not clear how far out of, if at all, Asher would have needed to leave the community.  Except for the intrusive art teacher, there are no representations in this play of specific conflicts between tradition and the will of the community that would necessitate Asher’s exclusion.

  • Why do they hate Hollywood? 42, Elysium, and now, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, must drive them wild!

    They hate because they are enraged by the good!

    They know that they are in the wrong, not just before decent people who stand for what’s really right, but before God!

    How enraging it must be to know that the history they wished never happened, that they wish they could forget – no, not President Obama, of course, that too  –  was there to assault them on the big screen to renew and stoke their hatred again for Jackie Robinson.   Probably not brave enough to go see 42 themselves, they cannot but resent and even despise the good people who are getting well deserved validation for being on the good side when it counted.  Good people who rightly judged them then, and still do now, for their hatred and vicious behavior.

    How enraging it must be to go to see a film, a summer spectacular sci-fi thriller they wanted to see, to find that it is not just an endorsement of Obamacare, but of the full blown single payer health care system.   Or, if knowing in advance what the movie is really about, can’t go for the same cowardly reasons that kept them away from 42. Witnessing the right thing!

    They can’t really hate Obamacare for what it is, but must hate him, and hate him with a vengeance, because failing to stop or destroy Obamacare, they suffer what for them is a fate worse than death:  To live in a world in which they may have to thank a Black man for saving their lives!

    And then comes Lee Daniels’ The Butler! – 42 in spades!  Not only must they relive the history of a single person who took away part of their world, but the history of the people and their struggles that have brought us to this better place.  This place where not just a part of their world is gone, but the whole of it!

    So in times like this, when nasty people in their desperation are strutting their stuff and doing a lot of damage, Hollywood is there to help us all out, and we thank them for that, but we must also realize that Hollywood is making them even angrier and more dangerous. Just have to live with that!

  • Leviticus and Deuteronomy in Action by Union Carbide at their World Headquarters in New York City!

    Once upon a time when my office was in the Union Carbide building in NYC there was a large rectangular shallow pool that people threw coins into. For whatever reason, and it would be nice if the reason was respect for the scriptures, but respect for simple decency would be enough, the Company left money in the pool overnight.

    I often worked so late in the evening that there could be no doubt that Union Carbide intentionally left some coins for whoever might need them.  This was the way it was for years. Since the fountain was never empty, I knew that no one was cleaning it out just for themselves. Actually, I never saw anyone take from the pool.

    I said to myself, this was done for anyone who might have need for a few coins. Perhaps for me if, long before Metrocard, I needed subway fare, or for the Chairman, finding himself short of funds, needed some coins for a cup of coffee or early edition paper while waiting for his limo.

    Torah: Leviticus 19:9-10
    And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and stranger; I am the Lord your God.

    Torah: Deuteronomy 4:19-22
    When you cut down your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go again to fetch it; it shall be for the stranger, for the orphan, and for the widow; that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands…

  • “Lunch Pail” and Angry Republicans: If You’re Unwilling to Vote for Democrats – You’re Out of Luck!

    Unfortunately, I am afraid that a vast proportion of these Lunch Pail Republicans will fail to support the Democratic Party, which truly avows to and actually does support labor. They will not only stay home on Election Day to withhold their votes from the party that no longer stands for them, even against them, but will actually give them their votes. Why is this? Why is it so hard for people to vote for the other party, in this case, the Democratic Party?

    Tribalism

    They have always voted Republican as their parents had before them.  Would voting against them now repudiate their support given in the past?  Would they have to swallow the bitter pill that they and their parents have been wrong all along and have to live with that! No! The Republicans of today are not the Republicans of yesterday!

    The party has changed. NOT YOU!

    If you are a Lunch Pail Republican, your very own website eloquently expresses your appreciation of this painfully obvious truth.  See the comprehensive and beautiful survey in Yahoo Thom’s post: GOP betrayal of the Middle Class White Guy! – How the GOP betrayed the “Lunch Pail” Republicans…  So if you really want to send your party a message that they will really “hear,” vote Democratic and they will have to fight to get your vote back, and stop taking you for granted, and worse, act against your interests. That is, YOU!

    The immediate satisfaction of myopic hatred and anger!

    When people are angry, and the Lunch Pail Republicans for sure are, their hatred and anger blinders them and prevents them from seeing anything else.  Expressing that anger and hatred is satisfying in a sick way. You don’t have to wait for it. It is immediately satisfying. It is there whenever you feel it.  It gets in the way of everything else, even what really matters: Who the enemy really is and what really matters to survival.

    It has been the policy and program of the Republican Party since the Southern Strategy, and even much earlier also, to appeal to racism and later on in the seventies with the now called wedge issues. And the Republican Party, that has been stoking these angers and the resulting hatreds, has been so successful at it that they have birthed their very own Frankenstein Monster, the Tea Party.

    The wedge issues and the anger and hatred they evoke is their stock and trade and they have been so successful that their constituents see only anger and the satisfaction, and more likely, the fantasy of taking that anger out on trumped up enemies. The real enemy is their party, the Republican Party that has manipulated and used them.

    Real Republicans should please realize this and repudiate the party that is no longer their parents party and their party, but now stands in stark opposition to the party they held dear.

    It is time for the Lunch Pail Republicans and all sympathetic to them and their concerns to vote for Democrats. It is time to support the party that stands with them, despite its support for some things that they oppose, rather than commit suicide.

  • Elysium is an endorsement of Obamacare.

    Even better than that, but to say more would give away too much.
    Support Obamacare!  See Elysium!  Support Obamacare!

  • When rubbish is spoken about someone else’s religion? What to do.

    My son told me that last Saturday in Torah study a participant made a stupid and ignorant remark about Christianity. My son didn’t say what it was, only that he considered walking out, but did not.

    My immediate response was that if he were to leave he should first wait to see if any of the other participants spoke out. We talked about that a little until we realized that he should have spoken up immediately himself. The hope would be that the speaker would realize their mistake and withdraw the remark or engage in discussion and then withdraw the remark.

    In the absence of that we would expect that one, if not some, if not all of the participants would support the objection.

    If none did they would all be complicit and we would know more about them than we wanted to. That would be the time to leave!

  • The Republican Platform-SIZE DOES MATTER! The GOP VIAGRA?

    A must read!

  • God’s cleansing is not thoroughly. It is squeaky. There is no process since it is instantaneous!

    Wash Me Thruly

  • It would be wrong to say “gop” instead of GOP.

    It is wrong to intentionally mispronounce anyone’s name.  It is just a matter of simple respect!

    Many years ago when I was taking a private bus to work, I was the first passenger and was alone to chat with the driver for several minutes every day.  He may have been a Black Muslim since it seemed by his way of talking about it that he might be.  Be that as it may, one day, with my world saving answer at the ready, I asked, “What is the most fundamental principle by which people should get along?” His instantaneous answer was RESPECT!

    YES!!!

    My answer, whatever it was, was immediately swept away.  RESPECT is the “most fundamental principle by which people should get along” and beyond that, to the limit of the beyond:

    RESPECT for every thing and in every sense is the ultimate principle of LIFE!!!

    I would love to say, “gop” instead of GOP, but aren’t there so many things that we might want to do, but don’t because we know they are wrong to do.

    In this narrow case it is only the simplest respect to call people how they choose to call themselves and want to be called.

    The shoe of this particular subject is on the other foot when Democratic is intentionally and meanly mispronounced.

    We should all honor and respect RESPECT!