Today’s one great thing is required viewing if you really want to understand what’s going on today in the Middle East.
To my Jewish readers, I want you to do a thought experiment.
Over the past year, I’ve made no secret about my support for Palestinian freedom and against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, not to mention the apartheid regime, in general.
Many people, especially Israel supporters, have asked me this question:
Marc, why are you so obsessed with Palestine?
When the people you love most,
And who love you the most,
In the whole world
Below is the text of an open letter I sent to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian on April 12, 2024. The image above comes from a New York Times article called The Schoolyard.
In his celebrated dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell introduced the concept of Newspeak, which illustated how language can be used to control thought and behavior.
Many people assert that answering this question in the affirmative is antisemitic. Let’s take a closer look…
Let’s start with a definition:
Zionism. / (ˈzaɪəˌnɪzəm) / noun. a political movement for the establishment and support of a national homeland for Jews in Palestine, now concerned chiefly with the development of the modern state of Israel. a policy or movement for Jews to return to Palestine from the Diaspora.
In the darkness of night
When the world feels askew
I scroll through the news
And I’m outraged anew
I was a young child during the US War in Vietnam. I wasn’t old enough to fully understand what was going on. But something amazing was happening then. And it’s happening again today.
Here’s a list of things that some people consider antisemitic, but actually are not (according to me):
The phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” has been declared antisemitic by supporters of Israel. It’s been claimed that the phrase calls for the eradication of the state of Israel.
Soldiers on tiktok,
Dancing on death
With glee celebrate
A baby’s last breath
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
Those are the words they taught me to sing.
I grew up in a Jewish household. Both my parents were Jewish. Both of their parents were Jewish. And on and on as far back as you can go. How do I know that? According to 23andme, my DNA is 99.7% Eastern European Jew. I’d really love to know more about that .3%!
Depending on your news sources, you may not be fully aware of the industrial level of death and destruction Israel has wrought on Gaza. Here is a summary of the horrifying statistics, courtesy of The Guardian.
Some people see the situation in Gaza as a religious war. Some see it as a territorial dispute. Others see it as Israel’s right to defend itself. But it’s really much simpler than that.
I’ve hesitated to write about this tragedy, because I know this article is going to offend some people. But I’ve decided that staying silent about injustice makes me part of the problem.
Beginning around 2040, the US will experience a sudden jump in the crime rate, especially so in the red states.
An open letter to my employer…
There seems to be a widely held opinion that this election was close.
In my last article, I predicted the outcome for Nevada based on 86% of votes counted so far. In this article, I’m giving the same treatment to Arizona, based on 86% of its votes reported as of the time of this writing.
Nevada has 86% of its votes reported and won’t announce additional results until later today. But it’s pretty easy to crunch the numbers because it has only 22 counties.
This is a great read from the Washington Post in case you ever wondered what it might be like to challenge a conspiracy mongering, hate spewing, xenophobic candidate for US Congress.
This is a great read from the Washington Post in case you ever wondered what it might be like to challenge a conspiracy mongering, hate spewing, xenophobic candidate for US Congress.
Check out this excellent piece of video journalism from the New York Times, explaining exactly how and why America failed the pandemic test so badly.
In what now seems a particularly prescient piece of journalism, back in April, fivethirtyeight.com asked the question “What Happens If A Presidential Nominee Can No Longer Run For Office?".
