Sanity Squad: Walk Softly and Carry a Toothpick

Thank you for putting into words what I have been fearing since Iran's president came on the scene. Our country is so consumed with having our troops come home that they can't see the wider picture that is right before us. The media is so focused on "Bush" and the terrible things he has done, they don't see what is happening in places like Lebenon. Can't we see the take over that is underway. Why can't the media show what the Syrians (read Iran) is doing in the area.
I do worry about how we are going to deal with this nuclear problem, but isn't there another problem? The axis has already formed. They visit each other. They share technology and they can come at us from an angle that would be very hard to defend ourselves from. If other countries start to fall from the combined influence of the Iranians, Koreans, Venezuelans and with the complicity of the Chinese and Russians and they use oil as their weapon, what will we do? Could you do a show on that topic. This is the first time I have been on this site. I somehow got your podcast but I would like to listen to you more. If you can reach out, please let me know how I can get your next podcast?

Thank you for what you are doing.

Jan 24, 2007 05:07 PM

The problem: for Israel's long term survival, Israeli policy needed to lead in the ME, lead across boundaries in development, health, education. But instead, supported by be US and the cold war, Israel lead with a posture of division. I fault the US for not having supported the more democratic ideas in Israel.

I lived in Washington for many years and had friends on the board of the Holocaust museum, and had many talks about showing in the museum non-Jewish examples of genocide. Each one, said he was in favor, but the rest of the board was afraid of the reaction of the supporting funders. The inability of many Jews to fail to identify with the broader threats to humanity is taken by some, I'd include myself, as a symptom of a narrow and dangerous view.

We are all now hostages to the way that reality has played out. The disagreements are deep and wide (this note an example).

After Lebanon my thought was, ok, the US supported that incursion, and it weakened, not strengthened, Israeli security. The US now, to help recover and advance security for Israel must do everything it can to get to a two-state viable solution.

The proposals in the webcast would further unite the world against Israel and the US, divide the US, lead to a serious impeachment move toward Bush.

My sense of the webcast is that the speakers seem, to my ear, to be more concerned about Israel than about the United States. Am I correct? If so, how would you hope that I as a non-Jew (but deeply affected in my development by being at times in the Jewish community and feeling at home, and learning about what home and family mean, by that participation.) would be thinking about all this?

Jan 25, 2007 09:59 AM

"My sense of the webcast is that the speakers seem, to my ear, to be more concerned about Israel than about the United States. Am I correct?"

No, you are incorrect- and in fact, why does an implied religious argument, enter into the equation? In point of fact, two Sanity Squad members are not Jewish.

Our identity as a nation is very closely tied to our support of Israel as a nation. We are defending and supporting a democracy that has been existentially threated from the day of inception- almost 60 years- by some of the most dysfunctional, racist, bigoted and failed regimes in the world.

Your remark that you 'fault the US for not having supported the more democratic ideas in Israel,' is absurd. Who should we support- the dysfunctional, racist and bigoted pigs that make their murderous intentions known, every day?

Now, as to the Holocaust Museum, who are you to propose what should and should not be shown in that museum?

If the idea of a more universal Holocaust Museum is so worthy, why have you not gone out and raised funds for such another institution? The world does indeed need to know about the oppression and slaughter that have been so much a part of the Islamic world as well as the indifference that led to massacres in Rwanda, Congo, Sierra Leonne, Algeria and a host of other places.

Certainly FGM and the exploitation of children in the Gulf needs to be publicized as well.

That there is no Museum that displays the atrocities that occur every day in so many parts of the world, is not the fault of the Jews on the board of the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

The fault that there is no Museum that displays the atrocities that occur every day in so many parts of the world, falls squarely in your lap.

Jan 25, 2007 11:50 AM

Just name calling.

Jan 25, 2007 02:12 PM