Bob Schwartz

Category: Politics

October 21, 2015

Netanyahu Scapegoats the Palestinians for Holocaust

The Jews killed Jesus. The Palestinians started the Holocaust. So who’s the scapegoat now?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that in the early days leading up to World War II, Hitler visited the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and it was that Palestinian leader who came up with the idea of the Final Solution:

“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’ ‘So what should I do with them?’ he asked. He said, ‘Burn them.’

Historians have already weighed in heavily on how historically bogus this is, given that, among other things, Hitler published Mein Kampf three years before that meeting. The assertion has been described as “jaw-dropping”, with even friendly politicians “agog” at this dark nonsense.

Just when you thought it was the Jews who have for centuries been scurrilously blamed for every terrible thing, Netanyahu goes and turns the tables and scapegoats somebody else. Not just any somebody else. The enemy within and on the borders, the one that you could happily live without.

It appears that the very unpopular Prime Minister is trying to take lessons from Donald Trump, with whom he shares the kinship of attending Wharton. The strategy: Demonize those unwanted immigrants and/or natives. Say anything, no matter how incendiary, explosive, ridiculous or unrelated to fact about the enemies within, and people will love it. And you.

Just one glitch. Trump doesn’t lead a nation at the center of global conflict; actually he doesn’t lead any nation at all. And if America has a history of scapegoating, which it does (take your pick among religious, cultural, political and ethnic groups), it doesn’t compare in long-term viciousness to what the Jews have endured.

Starting, of course, with the big one. In fact, if you look closely at Netanyahu’s indictment, it is not that the Palestinians actually ran the death camps. They just planted the idea, whispering in the ear of an emperor, who was happy to carry out the deed. This time a German emperor, instead of Roman one.

Who’s the scapegoat now?

Leave a comment
October 19, 2015

No Refugees in the Democratic Debate

Adding insult to their injury, Syrian refugees were missing from last week’s Democratic debate.

There were some other important issues mentioned, often presented in sound bites, but many more conspicuous by their absence. But you would think the party that considers itself the more progressive, caring, humane and globally sensitive would take the opportunity to at least mention to the 15 million viewers that we are experiencing one of the biggest humanitarian crises since the end of World War II. The same goes, maybe goes double, for the individual candidates who had the floor and could have just once brought it up.

(Note: Jim Webb did raise refugees while talking about his wife, who is a refugee from Vietnam. But that was not in the context of the current crisis.)

The explanation of this is simple and typical, though not particularly happy. Raising questions you can’t answer, or can’t answer with some vague, equivocal, pointless comment is to be avoided. Either voters will realize that you have no answer, or if you do answer from your conscience and heart, you just might lose votes. Either way, as a candidate, you’re screwed.

This isn’t a Democratic purview. When Republicans get together in their overstuffed debate scrum, there isn’t much to be said about the refugee crisis, except that it is an obvious ruse to allow Islamic terrorists to enter our country. It does seem like an elaborate scheme—displacing millions of men, women, and children just to get a chance to disrupt American stability—but you know how tricky those people can be.

And so, the next time a Democratic candidate wants to tell one of those rise from adversity stories that is a sure fire way to seem human and humane, maybe he or she can mention the shared and horrific adversity that won’t just go away—even if he or she has some magic plan to “fix” Syria (which he or she doesn’t). Maybe the next time, at the podium or on a debate stage. Those refugees will certainly still be there, in an increasing hell on earth.

Leave a comment
October 16, 2015

Afghanistan Without End. Amen.

It is time to stop expecting American leadership in either party, at any level, to reasonably articulate an achievable goal in Afghanistan. Either the conclusion they’ve reached is that there is none or it is too hard to tell us the inconvenient truth they have concluded.

So we are just going to have to take on the role of citizen policy analysts and do it ourselves.

We are unlikely to ever help establish an Afghan military capable or willing to hold back whatever insurgent force mortally threatens stability and national integrity.

We are unlikely to see the establishment of a stable semi-permanent semi-democracy in Afghanistan.

We are never going to “defeat” the Taliban or other similar threats in Afghanistan, in the sense of forever eliminating and precluding such evil developments.

That leaves one possibility. We are keeping troops in Afghanistan to help keep things from getting worse.

It’s a problem to admit that. First, because a military mission of stopping things from getting worse seems unending, which it well might be. Entropy tells us that things fall apart naturally unless acted upon otherwise. In Afghanistan that otherwise is us. It’s also hard to tell those who serve that the point of their sacrifice is to keep things from getting worse, rather than seeing a genuinely better future and having a defined endpoint.

But at least it would be honest. And on top of the war without end, that is an equally big problem. From the Vietnam War to today, there has been a lot of official and political obfuscation. Well, let’s call it lying. It isn’t that the policy makers don’t have noble principles in mind, such as freedom, self-determination, and the like. It’s just that the plans they put in place—very expensive plans—have practically no chance of fulfilling any of those principles.

Leave a comment
October 9, 2015

The Sad Politics of Realism

Besides the politics of pessimism being peddled by Republicans, we have a new wrinkle courtesy of some of Hillary supporters. The sad politics of realism.

While most advise being gentle with Bernie Sanders in the upcoming debate to avoid alienating his supporters, others are pushing her to take him on as promoting unrealistic ideas that are “pie in the sky.” According to Politico:

“I think she needs to show that she isn’t taking the nomination for granted and that Bernie’s ideas are not realistic,” a Nevada Democrat said….

Added a New Hampshire Democrat, “His pie in the sky policy ideas, while wonderful, have received very little scrutiny by the press. It’s about time they did.

The sibling of realism is expedience. Not quite twins, but very close, sharing much of the same DNA.

Optimism and aspiration are never out of place in politics. Without them, all you’ve got left is the past and the present, and a future that looks like some version of that. Of course for some, the idea of redux, of say, another Clinton White House, is an outcome worthy of killing dreams, interesting ideas and hope, unrealistic fables appropriate only for children. Grownups know what it takes to win the real prizes, unpretty and sad as the path may be.

Suddenly the politics of pessimism doesn’t look so bad, or at least won’t be so lonely in the company of its companion, the politics of realism. Please put down that pie in the sky. You just might get ideas.

3 Comments
October 5, 2015

Collateral Damage in Afghanistan

In the vocabulary of war, no term is darker or more chilling than “collateral damage.”

There was last week collateral damage in our war in Afghanistan, where a Doctors Without Borders hospital was the target of aggressive American airstrikes. A number were killed and injured, including children, and the hospital was destroyed.

The few facts, besides the destruction, are these.

Collateral damage is unavoidable, though it can and should be minimized.

The Taliban has overtaken the area, though not the hospital.

We are engaged in supporting the Afghan fight against the Taliban, by, for example, air strikes.

Hospital personnel contacted the U.S. military after the barrage began, but it continued anyway.

Now for the rest of the story, which the Pentagon tried to correct this morning.

Early reports were that the U.S. itself called for the air strikes.

Not so, says the Pentagon. It was the Afghans who identified the target as a Taliban position, and then we conducted the airstrikes.

Don’t you see the difference? The difference, of course, being some sort of operational and moral distinction, being entirely responsible for a tragic and avoidable error versus being only mostly responsible for a tragic and avoidable error. Now we see.

It isn’t really about the particulars anyway. It’s about the need for unceasing realization that if you choose war, you choose its worst impacts. The calculus can’t just include the big win and big benefits—assuming there are any—so that those cancel out the ill you do. It doesn’t work that way. So when and if we choose war, it is never illegitimate to keep the costs constantly in mind. In fact, it is always immoral and ill-advised not to.

Otherwise, you might end up with millions of underserved and nearly abandoned veterans. Or a badly damaged economy. Or a dispirited and skeptical nation. Or some of the world’s most selfless health workers in one of the world’s most needy countries watching as their patients and their hospital die and burn.

Leave a comment
October 3, 2015

Bill Is Houdini, Hillary Is Not

Bill Clinton is an escape artist. It is fact, not conjecture, that he has gotten away with things that would crush other politicians and public figures.

Hillary Clinton helped enable and engineer some of those escapes, some might say against her best interest and integrity. But doing that, she may have drawn a skewed conclusion. She may overvalue those escapes as feats of engineering and scheming, and undervalue the essential role of Bill being Bill.

Bill Clinton is sui generis in American political history, one of a kind, maybe more so even than Barack Obama. The qualities are hard to describe; charm and charisma fail to completely capture it. He is special, the bad boy who is not really bad, just a little naughty, and no matter what you discover or discover he has hidden, it is nearly always alright. At least alright enough to move on.

Hillary is absolutely sui generis too. But she is no Bill and she is no Houdini. And while it is true that Houdini’s escapes were technical wonders, meticulously planned, that is not what made him the star he was. It was the personality and drama he brought to the stage that enthralled people, so much so that audiences actually wanted him to get into big trouble because they wanted him to get out of it—they needed him to get out of it. In that respect, Hillary is no Houdini. Nor is she Bill.

Leave a comment
October 1, 2015

Oregon College Shooting: Republican Debate to Move to Umpqua Community College

How many shot dead today in Roseburg, Oregon? How many more injured?

We will soon have an exact body count. But while we wait for the numbers, here’s another big question: What is wrong with us?

I now hear that certain Second Amendment-loving, NRA-fearing presidential candidates are tweeting messages of sympathy for the community and for the families of those affected.

So here’s the next questions: Are you kidding me?

The answer is not better mental health oversight, treatment and identification, although that would be nice. The answer is not more guns, guns for everyone, so that the supposedly mentally ill shooters will rationally think twice about being gunned down themselves by a teacher or other student.

The answer is as few guns as we can manage to get along with, day after day. Which should be a lot fewer than we have, according to practically every other civilized country in the world. (Of course, those are ordinary countries, as opposed to exceptional America. Exceptionally absurd numbers of mass shootings, that is.)

The answer is to moderate a gun culture that is out of control. One way to do that is to…reduce the number of guns. Anyone who thinks that the current number of guns is a good idea, or that even more guns would be better, because that is what our Constitutional fathers wanted, is not mentally ill. They are historically, politically, and morally ill.

I am not going to cast too broad a net by suggesting that all the current Republican presidential candidates are strong and unconditional supporters of the NRA. But I think that may be true. In that case, I suggest that instead of holding the next Republican debate at the University of Colorado, they move it to Umpqua Community College. There they will be free to peddle all their NRA talking points nonsense to an audience filled with hundreds, thousands of people who understand all too well what the Second Amendment really and tragically means.

2 Comments
October 1, 2015

Hillary Campaign Aims Preemptive Threats at Joe: We Will Allow You To Go Out With Respect and Esteem

From the New York Times:

This week, David Brock, who created the pro-Clinton group Correct the Record, which is coordinating with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, told Chicago Magazine his “gut” told him Mr. Biden would not run because “he’ll realize that at this point in his career, he can go out with everyone’s respect and esteem.”

Only the most naïve would not recognize this as a threat. Choose not to run and you “can go out with everyone’s respect and esteem.” Choose to run and…well, we can’t be responsible for what might happen in the heat of an aggressive campaign.

This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has paid attention to politics. Politics is hardball, and the Clintons play major league hardball. Just because Joe is one of the most beloved and sympathetic figures in current politics doesn’t give him immunity. From any attacks, including from a candidate who was bitterly denied her first shot at superstardom.

Ultimately this is what Joe’s still-pending decision is all about. Beau’s death is only one part of a bigger life picture. As for Hillary, the only thing more dangerous than a healthy behemoth is a wounded one. The circumstances of the Democratic nomination are far from as clear as they were just months ago. What is clear is the Clinton vow, this time, to win. High-minded, low-minded, pretty or ugly. If, as promised, it is going to get ugly, Joe must be asking himself whether he wants to be in the middle of it all. Or whether he’d rather enjoy his retirement, untouched by relentless and vicious attacks. Who can blame him, whatever he decides.

Still, as Americans, we don’t appreciate threats, political or otherwise. My guess is that Joe and his millions of supporters and admirers don’t appreciate it either.

Leave a comment
September 30, 2015

Pope Francis, Kim Davis and Caesar

Caesar Coin

Pope Francis tried very hard in his U.S. visit to watch the line between moral guidance that has political effect and politics itself. He appears, maybe unwittingly, to have crossed the line. In a big way.

His visit with Kim Davis belies a misunderstanding of who she is and what she represents. It’s not that freedom of religious conscience is not an important issue. It’s that Kim Davis is the wrong poster person.

It appears from the context that he may have seen her in the line of great conscientious objectors. He reportedly thanked her for her courage and told her to be strong.

Kim Davis does have a religious conscience. And she does object to authorizing same-sex marriages. But there are two problems.

First, unlike true conscientious objectors, she doesn’t really want to suffer for her beliefs. Civil disobedients and conscientious objectors expect to be punished; sometimes they welcome it. But Kim Davis wants to have it both ways. Martin Luther King Jr. did not write in his letter from a Birmingham jail: For God’s sake, let me out of here. As far as we know, Kim Davis didn’t write any letters from her jail, at least not ones that will be in literary anthologies for the next fifty years.

The second problem is that her objection, at its heart, is that the Constitution and the Supreme Court are wrong, and that’s why she gets to keep her job and perform her duties as she sees fit. As a public servant, she is either explicitly by oath or implicitly by understanding sworn to uphold the Constitution. If she chooses not to, she has no privilege to hold that job, nor is she privileged to be free of sanction. That’s it.

Pope Francis, who I have expressed admiration for, may not understand that or the background of the Kim Davis saga. In that event, he should have followed the advice of Jesus in these situations:

‘Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’

Matthew 22:17-21 (NRSV)

Leave a comment
September 19, 2015

What Are Donald Trump’s Moral Obligations?

Donald Trump has indirectly raised an interesting question: What exactly are his moral obligations?

Trump’s failure to correct a supporter’s mistaken and vituperative views about President Obama have been at the center of a controversy.

After a few attempts to answer criticism, Trump tried again today:

Washington (CNN) Donald Trump on Saturday said it is not his job to correct supporters’ claims about the President, defending his decision not to take issue with a man who disparaged Muslims and said President Barack Obama is not an American.

Trump did not dispute the man’s allegations made at a town hall event this week, and added that if someone criticized him to Obama, there would be “no chance” the President would come to his defense.

“Am I morally obligated to defend the president every time somebody says something bad or controversial about him? I don’t think so!” he tweeted Saturday morning.

Am I morally obligated to defend the president every time somebody says something bad or controversial about him? I don’t think so!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 19, 2015

Now that we know one of the things that is not Trump’s moral obligation, it begs the question: What does he consider his moral obligations to be?

I wish and hope that somebody—maybe a member of the press—would ask him.

Leave a comment