A TRY TO FRY A BIG LIE

 "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on and he'll empty his pockets for you."

LBJ said those words in a limo along what was then the new I-40 interstate to the young Bill Moyers. The year was 1964.
It is also possible to substitute 'Arab or other Muslim' for 'white man' and 'Jew' for 'colored man' with at least as much truth. Before 1948, most Muslims regarded Jews about the same way as 'common n***ers' were looked on in the Jim Crow South and, indeed, much more of our country as well.
And I have no idea whether or not the legal abolition of 'untouchability' in India in 1950 caused adverse reactions from higher-caste individuals in any economic class, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
The great W. E. B. DuBois wrote at much greater length and in much greater detail about what he named 'the psychological wages of whiteness' than I ever have and, probably, ever will. In any case, my mind works better the other way: distilling the essence of whatever I write about. That is, what does it boil down to?
Right now, right here, methinks what I name the illusion of automatic or unearned superiority boils down to two things: first, it can, among those who have little and many, if not most, of whom, barely scrape by each day living paycheck to paycheck, drain plenty of what might be righteous rebellion against those who already have more than what's good for them--as seen by their continual and bottomless greed! I suspect their real greed, though, is for power rather than for money per se.
This happens because, once a hairless biped hath a group on which s/he is not only allowed but encouraged to look down, they can, at least to a point, shrug their shoulders and mutter, 'At least I'm still better than [fill in the blank}' and not rebel against those who have much more wealth and, thereby, actual coercive power. At least not after saying or thinking that, anyhow.
We cannot say often enough that such 'superiority' is illusory, counterfeit and only helps to keep the other 'rackets' (I think of such 'superiority' as a racket in and of itself) of the greedy going.
And now I turn unsympathetic eyes on that group. Let me be clear that I certainly don't mean that to be wealthy is to automatically be viciously greedy; I know some (at least) moderately wealthy folks who are quite generous. Some made it on their own and some inherited wealth, but suffice it to say none seek to be Supreme Rulers of the World.
And this is the second function of such fake and divisive 'superiority': as long as a ruling class, as a group, can keep those below them fighting each other, they can usually be sure of holding onto all the wealth and power which they enjoy and do not want to share with anyone else; be sure of that!
This is why, when those divisions appear to be weakening and the working classes are unifying themselves, the forces of the greedy and, usually, a government which listens to those greedies throw the kitchen sink at the efforts of the unifiers of the 'little people'. Read what that vicious old queen J. Edgar Hoover did against attempts to build a trans-racial coalition of working people. That was an unmentioned but large part of his COINTELPRO operations!
And look at what Rupert the Gnome and all his networks and publications are doing right now. Without Rupert the Gnome and Roger(Ailes) the Groper, no president Trump!
We cannot urge each other to 'follow the money' often enough. Not so much the campaign contributions (although keeping tabs on them is important) as who benefits from X, Y or Z. To put it classically, cui bono? It seems we can keep saying this ad nauseam before it sticks in the minds of enough of us but maybe these times, with Orange Julius Caesar hankering to be a real Caesar, are pressing that phrase into the minds and hearts of more, maybe many more, of us. Let us hope so!
Let's see if we can make LBJ to be mistaken this time and strengthen and extend democracy. We ain't finished yet, brothers and sisters!

LANCING A LIE & OTHER WEIGHTY MATTERS

 Not long ago, I read a post by someone I respect in which he seemed to think to have fallen for the lie that Israel is not only a 'white' country, but indeed 'ultra-white'. And that their Arab cousins are 'people of color'.
That doesn't make sense. Isaac and Ishmael were half-brothers, both sons of Abraham. Jacob, later known as Israel, was Ishmael's nephew.
How many people know that the Shoah happened because Nazis, many other Germans and their fellow-travellers from other European countries, hyped up on racial pseudo-science, decided that the Jews were essentially 'brown bastards' and that all their pathetic attempts to assimilate into Europe were actually a sinister plot to contaminate the Pure Aryan Blood of Blue-Eyed Nordics? 
And now Europe is faced with those same cousins, and their non-Arab fellow religionists who are apparently making far less of an attempt, if any, to assimilate to their new host cultures and some of whom have openly declared they mean to remake Europe into Eurabia! It's way above my pay grade to assert this, but I do at least wonder if having to deal with Muslim minorities is not a sort of judgment upon Europe, as if God has said: "OK, you didn't believe Israel really wanted to assimilate. Now, get a taste of these cousins of theirs, many of whom have no intent to assimilate! Like that better, do you?"
I know a woman, now in her nineties, who, when she was a wee lass starting school at P.S. 221 in Brooklyn in the 1930s, was not considered 'white' by many white so-called Christians right here on the North American continent. Canada, I'm looking at you too; I haven't forgotten what W.L. Mackenzie King had to say about Jews!
It is because of the 'civilized' nations of the world all shutting their doors to Jews frantically trying to escape certain death that too large of a segment of both Israel and the Diaspora can say, with too much truth, 'We have no real friends except our own people. It has always been this way and always will be this way, until Judgment. Almost all others hate us and they will hate us regardless of how much good or evil we do. So let us do whatever we need to protect ourselves, for no one else will.'
I think I should also point out that the Jews who have returned to Israel from elsewhere in the MENA region tend to vote Likud, and further right, more than do those Jews returning from Europe or the Americas. I must ask, what do they know about Arabs that the rest of us either don't know or refuse to acknowledge?
Even the liberal wing of both Israel and the Diaspora has somewhat switched gears in response to this. No longer do they speak of making friends among other peoples but they now ask (as I agree they should) what is right? Are not we as a people charged with pursuing justice? And how is it 'justice' to let little children starve, however bloodthirsty their parents might be against us? Remember Ezekiel 18:1-4. Tom Friedman does an excellent job of capsulizing this in his NYT column on July 30.
The right-wingers will say, with an unfortunate amount of truth, the minds of those children are already poisoned against us thanks to UNRWA and Hamas! And their mothers will tell them that we feed them because we're afraid of them. They will LIE to their children about us! Why should we help those who already want to murder us all?
So, what now? What shape can peace assume? I also want to forestall famine in Gaza and I frankly detest Bibi and his gang. I also want UNRWA disbanded and no more multigenerational refugee status (imagine if Germany had done that after WWII! I think it safe to say that all Four Powers--USA, UK, USSR and France--would not have allowed it!) and Hamas banished. 
Not sure about the PA; I think it might be a better deal if we put the dozen or so sheikhs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza in charge as a confederation as they are willing to recognize and work with Israel. Perhaps they might be under joint guidance from Israel, the UAE and maybe Jordan.
On a related matter, if the Druze of Syria are asking for Israeli protection, I say let them have it! The Druze have stood by Israel; let Israel reciprocate!
So much for what I think. I am not on the ground in Israel but far away across both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. But I stick to sources I know to care about the actual people--of all kinds--in that region.
If the 'civilized' world wants to show it's changed since 1940, one thing they can do is support those organizations which seek to build relationships between individuals of different communities and that seek to realize equal justice for all within Israel and Israeli jurisdiction. Maybe those Israelis on the no-friends-but-our-own side just might rethink their stance then. In any case, it's worth a try.


NB: for those unacquainted with Scripture, here is Ezekiel 18:1–4:
The word of the LORD came to me: ‘What do you mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel:
‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
As I live, says the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer repeat this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son — both alike belong to me. The soul that sins is the one who will die.