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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Ben Stein's Diary


Ben Stein is a great writer and comic. (Loved him in Ferris Beuhl's Day Off.)  In this posting he really hits the nail on the head when it comes to the events of the past week. A clever and insightful article and worth the time to read.

Conservative Tom


Description: Ben Stein's Diary


By Ben Stein on 9.14.12 @ 6:09AM
There is that feeling in the air.
ThursdayStrange day.
I awakened to a text from a close friend who is a devout Christian and who was so angry at the elite media that she could not sleep. "I am so frikkin' sick of the media telling us that Islam is a 'religion of peace,'" she said. "Look, people make fun of Jesus all of the time and I mean ALL of the time and we don't kill them or harm them. But do anything at all that offends any Muslim and they start killing Christians and Jews -- and then Obama apologizes for it. How long can this go on? The times of Tribulation are at hand."
I got up, walked out on the deck and looked out at the perfect fall day over Lake Pendoreille. An absolutely perfect Fall day, blue skies, light breeze, just a slight chill in the air.
At breakfast, my wife suddenly said, "And then I beheld a red horse ridden by a man with a great sword...."
"What is that?" I asked her.
"It's Revelation," she said.
"I know, but where does that come from?"
"I just feel as if something big is about to happen," she said. "Something feels like we're about to live in a totally changed world. It feels like end times. Why are we apologizing to the Muslims? They're killing and expelling their Christians and we don't say a word. End times."
I nodded. There is that feeling in the air.
I got another text from my very devout Christian friend. "Don't tell me Obama isn't a Muslim," she said. "I don't care what he calls himself, he's a Muslim. That's why he's always apologizing to the Muslims."
I think she's bit off the mark here. If Obama says he's a Christian, he's a Christian.
I slept for a long time while listening to Mozart and the trains. Then I went to the mail box and got the latest news from the Obama/Biden campaign -- oops, meant to say, "The New York Times." Naturally, it was filled with rage against Mitt Romney There was very little vitriol against the killers in Libya, but plenty against Gov. Romney.
I sure hope that the people at the Romney campaign don't read The NY Times. It is just endless propaganda against Republicans. Nonstop. We Republicans should campaign on our own issues. Mr. Obama's idiot foreign policy is such an issue.
I went off to do my errands in Sandpoint. A visit to a super pleasant post office. A helpful clerk was patient with my terrible handwriting. Then a visit to the Alpine Shop to see my pal, Tim Farmin, who looked happy but told me my boat needed a new battery. Then, a visit to Ivano's to pick up some grub for tonight.
At Ivano's, I talked to a man who seethed with rage against Mr. Obama. He simply could not believe that Mr. Obama would make time to be among his Hollywood big shots but not make time to see Benjamin Netanyahu. "These are getting to be Biblical days," he said. "The final days."
A trip to the art framer, then to the drug store, then to the Safeway to buy a cake. The woman in the bakery told me that the days of tribulation and the dictatorship were upon us. She is looking to move to the mountains "to find refuge..."
"Be careful," I said. "That's what Vicki Weaver was looking for and it didn't work so well. Our refuge is in The Lord."
(I am up on Vicki Weaver because I am reading an astonishingly good book about the federal killings at Ruby Ridge called Ruby Ridge by a writer of unique talent by the name of Jess Walter. It is terrifying.)
Back to Ivano's to pick up my grub. Then back home to read the latest about the murder of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three of his staff.
Apparently word had been out for months that the most extreme of the anti-Qaddafi rebels were working with al Qaeda for 9/11. The State Department and the Defense Department had done nothing meaningful to protect the Ambassador. When the killers attacked the U.S. compound, they were heavily armed with anti-aircraft automatic cannon (a very deadly weapon) and RPG's. They were a recognizably violent group connected with al Qaeda.
It's amazing that Qaddafi kept saying that the people fighting against him were al Qaeda and we kept helping them -- and sure enough, they turned out to be al Qaeda. And Qaddafi, who had become our friend -- although a cruel and vile man -- was killed by the rebels so now Libya is in large measure in the hands of al Qaeda.
Same with Egypt. Mubarak was no one's idea of a great guy, but he was our pal. He kept the peace with Israel. He suppressed the terrorists. So, naturally, we stabbed him in the back. Now, we have worked to create an "Arab Spring" that has given us a fantastically more anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-al Qaeda Middle East.
But incredibly, Mr. Obama considers this an achievement. An achievement? To help al Qaeda and its pals, the Muslim Brotherhood, take power in the most populous Arab state? To help al Qaeda take over in oil rich Libya? What are they talking about?
I hope Mr. Romney will not let himself get pushed around by the Obama smear machine. I see that at a rally today in Virginia, his speech was derailed by a lone Obama heckler asking, "Why are you politicizing Libya?" That apparently rattled Gov. Romney badly.
The answer, should it come up again, is, "Because this is a democracy. We debate big points of foreign and domestic policy, especially during election campaigns. The failure of the administration to stand up to Muslim thugs is a big issue. Apologizing to terrorists is a big issue. The failure to protect our diplomats is a big issue. The failure to stand up for free speech is a huge issue. We are supposed to debate those things. If you don't like that, move back to Iran or wherever you came from."
Meanwhile, time for Mr. Romney to go back to attack mode. Why did the State Department not protect our Ambassador in Benghazi? Why isn't Mrs. Clinton resigning over this? Why isn't Secretary of Defense Panetta apologizing and resigning? There was a colossal failure here. The President is accountable. Why isn't he taking some responsibility here?
The Obama smear machine is making much of the supposed time line of this week. That supposedly the worst attacks came after Mr. Romney criticized The State Department for apologizing to the Muslims for an anti-Muslim film. But of course, they are missing the point totally and on purpose.
Why should we have been apologizing as a nation to Muslims for one person making a cartoon? We didn't apologize to the Russians when people in the USA made anti-Communist remarks. We didn't apologize to Hitler when people in America made anti-Nazi remarks. Why do the Muslims get this special apology treatment? What's up with that? We respect all religions, but we are not going to apologize to anyone as a people for what one guy does in his garage.
What is with Mr. Obama's special deference to the terrorists? I am well aware that he's done a darned fine job using drones to kill them and God bless him for it. But then why apologize to groups of people we feel are so terrible that we kill some of them without a trial or a declaration of war?
Let's get it straight, once again: We live by the first amendment and the Constitution. Our people have freedom of speech. Even the nutty ones. We do not apologize for our Constitution.
Well, enough of that. It is time for a quiet dinner listening to the lake and the trains. For now, it is paradise. The time of tribulation has not yet come for us all, and God bless that brave Ambassador, Christopher Stevens, who was murdered and had his body dragged through the streets by people we put in power. God help us when Judgment Day comes

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The Brits Understand What We Are Facing


How come the Brits can tell what’s going on over here, and it seems like nobody here can see it???
 Interesting that the British easily see what our News Media seems blind to...
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Cartoons are getting tough in Europe 
BUT NOT IN THE USA !!! 
Funny that foreign newspapers will print what our media will not.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Repeat of A Great Speech


We repeat one of the most viewed Conservative Musings posts. It still is appropriate and in light of  the recent events in Libya, maybe more pertinent.

  Conservative Tom

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010

Rabbi Schlomo Lewis Rosh Hashanah Speech

For those of you who are not aware of the holiday, Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year and starts the ten days of reflection to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. These two days are called the High Holidays and are the two that most Jews celebrate. Sermons given by the Rabbi differ in tone and topic depending upon the Rabbi and the times. Some are feel good and some are earth shaking.

This past September, Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta delivered one of those earth shaking sermons. It has been posted on several blogs and has been forwarded by others. Whether you have read it before or were lucky enough to have hear it first hand, a second read (for most of us) is definitely recommended. I have attached a copy of the sermon and would suggest that it should be forwarded again to your entire email list.

I agree with the Rabbi. We are facing a threat not seen since WWII. A threat that does not care who you are, what good you have done, how much or little your net worth is, or what your religion is. If you are not one of them, you are the enemy and must be destroyed. Radical Islam must be stopped, however, it will not be unless "regular work-a-day" Muslims speak up and take back their religion. Will that happen, I doubt it.

You see, humans are funny people. Most of us just want to go along and get along. We don't want to ruffle any feathers and don't want to fight city hall or in this case, the radicals. I must assume that most Muslims are just regular people as were the Germans in WWII. They want the same things that all average people want. However, the Radicals are not different. They don't care what you or their fellow Muslims think, they have an agenda and that is world domination. Nothing is going to deter them from making every effort to reach their goal. If it means they give up family and fortune, so be it. If it means they have to kill and maim (even other Muslims who get in the way), so be it.

Why would a moderate Muslim want to risk all he/she has built here (or anywhere else in the world) to take on these people? Why would he risk his/her family's security? The answer is, he/she would not. To date, the moderates have not felt no pressure to speak out against those who have hijacked their religion. In fact, CARE has said that any comment against Islam is Islamaphobia. It is a handy excuse not to address the core issue. When, and if, Muslims do feel the pressure to speak their mind, most will not. Only a brave few will call out the radicals and they will soon be marginalized or worse. So to expect moderate Muslims to take any action against those who are our enemies is a fools hope.

If the moderates are not going to correct the problem, then we must speak out loudly against those who would take everything we hold dear. Are you one of those, I am. Can I count on you?





EHR KUMT
First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010
Many years ago a Chasid used to
>travel from shtetl to shtetl selling holy books. On one occasion he came to a wealthy
>land owner and banker and asked if he would like to purchase a book of Torah teachings.
>The banker agreed and not only purchased the book, but paid for it with a hundred
>ruble note.
He then began to chat with the
>Chassid and offered him a cigar, taking one also for himself. The Chassid noticed
>that the banker proceeded to rip a page from the holy book he had just bought and
>holding it to the open flame on the stove, used the page to light his cigar. The
>Chassid said not a word but simply drew out from his pocket the 100 ruble note he
>had just received from the banker, held it over the stove as well and used it to
>light his cigar.
This simple, little tale reflects
>a profound divergence of values. Our sympathy clearly and instinctively is not with
>the banker but with the pious Chassid. None of us would come to the defense of the
>banker. None of us would claim moral supremacy for the banker. None of us would
>justify his boorish deed. As the sages of the Talmud would say – “Pshita – It is
>so obvious.”
Sadly though our planet is immersed
>in perversity where morality is not so manifest – where the book burner is a hero
>and the pious one, a villain.
I thought long and I thought hard
>on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily
>out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our
>brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred – but not
>too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much. We want to be provoked
>but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have
>a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and
>what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard. And so, I am guided
>not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express. I am guided not by
>the frivolous but by the serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with
>an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know
>it from our behavior. During WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters.
>We didn’t call the Gestapo, militants. We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant
>Marine as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our
>fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to
>abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people. We did not apologize
>for 
Dresden , nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein , nor for D-Day.
Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable,
>evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite
>understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the 
Sudetenland , not just Tobruk, not just Vienna , not justCasablanca . It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly
>close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis – most
>were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting
>a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked
>away, too many cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.” Too many were silent.
>Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility
>and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the
>goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.
In WWII we won because we got
>it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional
>and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis.
>We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks
>and battleships and went to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence. We are
>at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces together and
>refuse to identify the evil doers.
We are circumspect and disgracefully
>politically correct. Let me mince no words in saying that from 
Fort Hoodto Bali , from Times Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 toGaza , the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists. To camouflage their
>identity is sedition.. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions
>is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal,
>spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only
>remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for
>38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for
>the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel
>in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos.. At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to
>me. “Shalom,” he said. “Your abba told me you just came back from
Lithuania .” “Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.”
“Did you visit the Choral Synagogue
>in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?”
“Yes, I did. In fact, we helped
>them make minyon.”

>
His eyes opened wide in joy at
>our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned.
>“Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was
>where I davened as a child.”
He paused for a moment and once
>again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember
>one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was Menachim
>Begin’s mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics
>were to the far right.) Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash
>on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears.. He climbed
>up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire
>and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming. Jews abandon
>your city.’ ”
We thought we were safe in Lithuaniafrom the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years
>but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”
We are not in Lithuania . It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the
>coast of 
long Island . No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack
>– our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.
Now before some folks roll their
>eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably – I have
>no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside.
>I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all
>humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t
>worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred
>for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable
>obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam
>but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators
>who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number
>of Muslims want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen
>TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims
>have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have
>avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims
>must sponsor rallies in 
Times Square, in Trafalgar Square , in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, inMecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent.
>Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must
>buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in
>Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter
>of the innocent – thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish
>Islam and define it.
Brutal acts of commission and
>yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.
I recall a conversation with my
>father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken
>is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion.
>Knowing he had little time left he shared the following – “Shal. I am ready to leave
>this earth. Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but
>truthfully, I’ve had it. I’m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon
>because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.”
This startling admission of moral
>exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust,
>WWII, Communist Triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. – Yet his twilight
>observation was – “The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out. I am convinced
>that it was not his age speaking but his heart.
I share my father’s angst and
>fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront
>the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah .
Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill
>pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You’re sounding like Glen Beck. It’s not
>that bad. It’s not that real.” But I am here to tell you – “It is.” Ask the member
>of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the 
Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the
>members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown 
Paris , fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration.
>Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target
>– pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if
>this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole.
Ask them, ask all of them – ask
>the American GI’s we sit next to on planes who are here for a brief respite while
>we fly off on our Delta vacation package. Ask them if it’s bad. Ask them if it’s
>real. Not a perfect parallel but did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what
Europe would look like in the 1940’s. Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses
>of 
Berlin or in the opera halls ofVienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture? Did anyone think that
>a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of 
Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade? Did Jews pack
>their bags and leave 
Warsaw , Vilna, Athens , Paris , Bialystok ,Minsk , knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau andAuschwitz ?

>
The sages teach – “Aizehu chacham
>– haroeh et hanolad – Who is a wise person – he who sees into the future.” We dare
>not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security.
>We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of 
Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes
>our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of
>offending the offenders. Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out
>from every mountain top. From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of
>our stunning decency and moral resilience.
Immediately after 9/11 how many
>mosques were destroyed in 
America ? None. After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America ? None.. After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America? None. And yet, we apologize.
>We grovel. We beg forgiveness. The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues.
Should there be a shul in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs at noonday
>prayers? Should there be a museum praising the 
U.S. Calvary on the site ofWounded Knee ? Should there be a German cultural center in Auschwitz? Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims? Should there be a thirteen
>story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero?

>
Despsite all the rhetoric, the
>essence of the matter can be distilled quite easily. The Muslim community has the
>absolute, constitutional right to build their building wherever they wish. I don’t
>buy the argument – “When we can build a church or a synagogue in
Mecca they can build a mosque here.”America is greater than Saudi Arabia . And New York is greater than Mecca .. Democracy and freedom must prevail.
Can they build? Certainly. May
>they build? Certainly. But should they build at that site? No -- but that decision
>must come from them, not from us. Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in
>feet or yards or in blocks. One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does
>not.If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, tolerant Muslims, as they
>claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning permits and build elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying,
>card carrying member of the ACLU, yet from start of finish, I find this sorry episode
>disturbing to say the least.
William Burroughs, the novelist
>and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After one look at this planet, any visitor from
>outer space would say – “I want to see the manager.”
Let us understand that the radical
>Islamist assaults all over the globe are but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious
>decoys. Christ and the anti-Christ. Gog U’Magog. The Sons of Light and the Sons
>of Darkness; the bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border
>between 
Lebanon and Israel . It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the West Bank . It is
>on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned 
mall of Ben Yehuda Street . It is in the underground schools of Sderot and on the bullet-proofed inner-city
>buses. It is in every school yard, hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater –
>in every place of innocence and purity. 
Israel is the laboratory – the test market.
Every death, every explosion,
>every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy. It is a calculated, strategic
>probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West. In the Six Day 
WarIsraelwas the proxy of Western values and strategy while the Arab alliance was the
>proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and strategy. Today too, it is a confrontation of
>proxies, but the stakes are greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank . Israel
>in her struggle represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda,
>Iran , Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.
As Israel , imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western World have
>lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not understanding, for 
Israel ’s galling plight, but downright hostility and contempt. Without moral clarity,
>we are doomed because 
Israel ’s galling plight ultimately will be ours. Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins
>of Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew..
>We are the trial balloon. The canary in the coal mine. If the Jew/Israel is permitted
>to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny snickers and pushes forward
>with its agenda.
Moral confusion is a deadly weakness
>and it has reached epic proportions in the West; from the Oval Office to the UN,
>from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC, from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university
>campuses to British teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty
International, from Goldstone
>to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the Archbishop of 
Canterbury.
There is a message sent and consequences
>when our president visits 
Turkey andEgypt and Saudi Arabia , and notIsrael .
There is a message sent and consequences
>when free speech on campus is only for those championing Palestinian rights.
There is a message sent and consequences
>when the media deliberately doctors and edits film clips to demonize 
Israel .
There is a message sent and consequences
>when the UN blasts 
Israelrelentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran ,Sudan , Venezuela , North Korea ,China and other noxious states.
There is a message sent and consequences
>when liberal churches are motivated by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy.
There is a message sent and consequences
>when murderers and terrorists are defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s
>terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy
>is the only evil that walks invisible.”
A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant happened past my office, glanced
>in and asked in a friendly tone –
“Rabbi. How’re y’ doing?”
I looked up, sort of smiled and
>replied – “I’ve had better days.”
“What’s the matter? Is there anything
>I can do to cheer you up?” he inquired.
“Thank you for the offer but I’m
>just bummed out today and I showed him a newspaper article I was reading.
Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.” I explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent
>from Tel Aviv was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because
>the mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.”
The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is Israel . The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay pride parade, is Israel . The only country in theMiddle East that has gay neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel .
Gays in the Gaza would be strung
>up, executed by Hamas if they came out and yet 
Israel is vilified and ostracized. Disinvited to the parade – by moral morons.
Looking for logic? Looking
>for reason? Looking for sanity?
Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest
>day could not keep up with this bizarre spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander
>and fawn over cutthroats, sinking deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy
>laughs all the way to the West Bank and beyond.
It is exhausting and dispiriting.
>We live in an age that is redefining righteousness where those with moral clarity
>are an endangered, beleaguered specie.
Isaiah warned us thousands of
>years ago – “Oye Lehem Sheh-Korim Layome, Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who
>call the day, night and the night, day.” We live on a planet that is both Chelm
>and
Sodom . It is a frightening and maddening place to be. How do we convince the
>world and many of our own, that this is not just anti-Semitism, that this is not
>just anti-Zionism but a full throttled attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything
>that is morally precious to us?
How do we convince the world and
>many of our own that conciliation is not an option, that compromise is not a choice?
Everything we are. Everything
>we believe. Everything we treasure, is at risk.
The threat is so unbelievably
>clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless how anyone in their right mind doesn’t
>get it is baffling. Let’s try an analogy. If someone contracted a life-threatening
>infection and we not only scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the
>bacteria had a right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading
>infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop spreading
>Anyone buy that medical advice? Well, folks, that’s our approach to the radical
>Islamist bacteria. It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread unless it is
>eradicated. – There is no negotiating. Appeasement is death.
I was no great fan of George Bush
>– didn’t vote for him. (By the way, I’m still a registered Democrat.) I disagreed
>with many of his policies but one thing he had right. His moral clarity was flawless
>when it came to the War on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror. There was
>no middle ground – either you were friend or foe. There was no place in Bush’s world
>for 
Switzerland . He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M., not the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the
>Phillies, but a deadly serious war, winner take all. Blink and you lose. Underestimate,
>and you get crushed.
I know that there are those sitting
>here today who have turned me off. But I also know that many turned off their rabbis
>seventy five years ago in 
Warsaw ,Riga , Berlin , Amsterdam , Cracow , Vilna. I get no satisfaction from that knowledge, only a bitter sense that
>there is nothing new under the sun.
Enough rhetoric – how about a
>little “show and tell?” A few weeks ago on the cover of Time magazine was a horrific
>picture with a horrific story. The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman,
>Bibi Aisha, who fled her abusive husband and his abusive family. Days later the
>Taliban found her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty
>of violating Sharia Law. Her punishment was immediate. She was pinned to the ground
>by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut off her nose.
That is the enemy. If nothing
>else stirs us. If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s mutilated face be
>the face of Islamic radicalism. Let her face shake up even the most complacent and
>naïve among us. In the holy crusade against this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi
>Aisha’s disfigurement should be displayed on billboards, along every highway from
>Route 66 to the Autobahn, to the
Transarabian Highway . Her picture should be posted on every lobby wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio . On every network, at every commercial break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear
>with the caption – “Radical Islamic savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad
>was approved by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,
>by Islamic Jihad, by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by
>Ahmanijad, by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The
>Muslim Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”
“The moral sentiment is the drop
>that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, my friends, the sea is woefully
>out of balance and we could easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political
>correctness.
We peer up into the heavens sending
>probes to distant galaxies. We peer down into quarks discovering particles that
>would astonish Einstein. We create computers that rival the mind, technologies that
>surpass science fiction. What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real.
>If we dream it, it does, indeed, come. And yet, we are at a critical point in the
>history of this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that
>would make the Neanderthal blush with shame.
Our parents and grandparents saw
>the swastika and recoiled, understood the threat and destroyed the Nazis. We see
>the banner of Radical Islam and can do no less.
A rabbi was once asked by his
>students….“Rebbi. Why are your sermons so stern?” Replied the rabbi, “If a house
>is on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing their
>sleep, would that be love?” Kinderlach, ‘ di hoyz brent ..’ Children our house is
>on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.”
During WWII and the Holocaust
>was it business as usual for priests, ministers, rabbis? Did they deliver benign
>homilies and lovely sermons as
Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, asNorth Africa fell, as theMideast andSouth America tottered, as Englandbled? Did they ignore the demonic juggernaut and the foul breath of evil?
>They did not. There was clarity, courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and
>we were victorious. Today it must be our finest hour as well. We dare not retreat
>into the banality of our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good
>guys will prevail.
Democracies don’t always win.
>Tyrannies don’t always lose.
My friends – the world is on fire
>and we must awake from our slumber. “EHR KUMT.”