Three Plans to Solve Vexing Issues

I’ve got three game-changing plans to solve vexing issues of the day. They require some tweaking before implementation, but I have every confidence they would be successful.

Plan 1—Control the incendiary impact of social media on politics.

No one can seriously dispute the fact that social media has been infiltrated by agents hoping to sabotage our free and open elections (as well as those in other democratic countries). The challenge is how to contain the spread of misinformation and disinformation. 

Israel, for example, stops all television political advertising 24-48 hours before citizens vote. 

We could and should do better. 

We should impose a 30-day (or longer) pre-election moratorium on any electronic political advertising, commentary, or tweeting punishable by a mandatory 90-day jail sentence for offenders, even presidents.  

Also, companies that have Internet platforms would face double scrutiny and punishment—all their C-level executives would face jail time for any infractions. A company itself would be fined $1 million for a first infraction; fines would double for each subsequent violation. 

These penalties surely would get the attention of corporate officers. 

Yes, First Amendment zealots would condemn this restraint on speech, but the future of our democracy depends on keeping our political dialogue honest and domestic. 

Plan 2—Simplify the democratic socialism vs. capitalism debate.

Trumpers say Democrats are trying to impose socialism on our country, even as they carry signs that warn politicians to keep their hands off their Social Security checks. 

My plan is a simple one: For those who fear socialism, let them opt out of the services and benefits government provides, such as the aforementioned Social Security, or Medicare, Medicaid, municipal water and sewer systems, public schools, emergency medical and safety services, and public parks and recreational facilities, to name a handful. 

If citizens choose to defer on building their own wells, let them pay exorbitant rates for the convenience of turning on the water tap in their homes. If they call 911, emergency services would first advise them of the cost of sending a police car, ambulance or fire truck to their assistance. Credit card payment upfront before any help would be dispatched. 

I, for one, am tired of hearing people badmouth democratic socialism. It has worked in Scandinavian countries. It can work here. 

The question becomes at what point do people shift from a totally capitalist mentality to one that embraces the ideal that it is in the common good and welfare for all of our residents (yes, illegals as well) to be healthy and capable of contributing to society and paying taxes (which many illegals do. BTW, I am not advocating for illegal immigration, but am just recognizing the reality of their presence).

Anti-democratic socialists fear rich citizens and corporations would have to give up some of their wealth. I know, it would be a burden on billionaires and mega-millionaires to own only two or three mansions and yachts. But I am confident they would find the moxie to live through any discomfort. Similarly, corporations should lose the ability to earn millions without having to pay federal taxes. They are, after all, availing themselves of the benefits our government is providing, such as safe and secure borders. 

Plan 3—Contain anti-Semitism and BDS activists.

Anti-Semitism has been around for more than 2,000 years. Whether it be fueled by religious intolerance, economic insecurity, scapegoating, fear of the different or just plain old fashioned ignorance, anti-Semitism is like the cockroach—it resists eradication. 

BDS is a cancer. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is but another manifestation of anti-Semitism, cloaked in an anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian manifesto. 

My solution (incapable of being implemented but I can dream) is that people who are anti-Semites or who support BDS should not be able to benefit from any invention or other product/idea that originated from a Jewish mind or in Israel. Inventions such as the Salk polio vaccine or the Waze GPS-based navigation app. Or pill-cam colonoscopy screening. 

The list is too exhaustive to reproduce here, but suffice to say everyday life would be far different without the contributions of Jews. And that extends to the arts and entertainment, as well.

Authoritarianism Threatens Our Democracy

I’m beholden to my friend Cathy Hotka for posting a most troubling but illuminating article on the implications and ramifications of Donald Trump’s rise to prominency in the Republican presidential race. The article from Vox.com analyzed the rise in authoritarianism, its acceptance as a political force not only as it pertains to the United States but also in other countries now and beyond 2016.

I can’t find a link that easily directs you to the article, so you’ll have to work a little to find it. But it will be well worth your time and effort if you care at all about the future. So here’s the drill: go to Vox.com and in its search function type in “The rise in American authoritarianism.”

 It is a long article but disturbingly pertinent to the convulsions emanating from the political hustings this year and perhaps for years to come as our country, and others, try to cope with social, demographic and economic changes and military/terrorist threats from outside and even inside our borders.

With each passing day Trump and his supporters seem to channel behavior last seen in Italy and Germany more than 75 years ago. Could it possibly be that people under 40 don’t truly understand the evil of the Hitler-Mussolini era? My generation grew up watching World War II-based  movies. Many of our fathers and uncles served in the armed forces. We knew why we fought fascism. Today’s young voters grew up on Star Wars. The evil empire was bad but it was a sci-fi abstraction, even if it was a stand-in for totalitarianism. 

Regrettably, too many young voters have little understanding of how life was different before women reached the level of achievement they currently enjoy. Even young women see nothing historic in electing a woman president. They don’t appreciate what it was like to live during a time when seeking an abortion, for whatever reason, was a crime. Many young people have little understanding of how different life was for Afro-Americans before the Civil Rights era (unfortunately, the Supreme Court apparently believes racism has been vanquished, leaving no need for a vigorous defense of the Voting Rights Act). Too many lack perspective on the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian conflict. 

As the Vox.com article explains, Trump’s appeal is not just to the uneducated. Take the time to read the article.

Living With Tension Along a Troubled Border

They are flying Sunday night back to their homes 6,000 miles away, both literally and figuratively, home from the two-week respite they have enjoyed in America to their tension-filled existence living next to people who would like nothing better than to see them and their families breathe no more.

They will be returning to Israel, to kibbutzim and moshavim in the Eshkol region adjacent to the Gaza Strip where every day includes the unknown. Will a rocket be fired at them? Will terrorists emerge from an as yet undiscovered tunnel? And, the newest concern, will a sniper snuff out a life from a distant, camouflaged perch?

Each year for the past six, Westchester-based Shalom Yisrael has brought to America eight women engaged in first responder trauma care activities from the settlements near Gaza (for 23 prior years wounded veterans of the Israeli Defense Force and injured civilians were guests of the program). As with the previous five groups, this year’s crop of valiant women possess no extraordinary powers. Except, maybe, a determination to withstand the pressure and tension of living in a free-fire war zone simply because…it is their home. They are no more stoic about it than the residents of the canyons around Los Angeles who endure mudslides and fires only to rebuild. Or those along our shorelines who clean up after hurricanes ravage the coastlines they love. Or the hearty Plains people of tornado alley who emerge from underground shelters to resurrect their lives. It is their homes, and though Mother Nature might be the bane of most American disasters, fellow human beings traumatize the Israelis.

A two-year-old study on post traumatic stress disorder, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that Israelis, in general, recover from catastrophic events much quicker and easier than other nationalities, most likely because every day they are confronted by terror, or, at the very least, the thought of terror. If so, then the Shalom Yisrael guests would be at the top of the charts.

Fifteen seconds. If they are fortunate that is how long they have to seek shelter once an alarm sounds, if it sounds at all, before a deadly rocket lands. Some can run to government-funded safe rooms in their homes. Others, those living more than four and a half kilometers from Gaza, have safe rooms only if they paid for them on their own, at a cost of roughly $10,000. In those areas, the only government-provided security is a shelter for kindergarten children.

The Eshkol district, home to some 14,000 residents in 32 communities, important to Israel as the provider of 60% of the country’s produce, has suffered more rocket attacks than any other region. The vaunted Iron Dome defense system cannot protect them. They are too close to Gaza. Eshkol shares a 24-mile border with the Gaza Strip and a seven-mile border with Egypt.

And yet, like those before them, this year’s Shalom Yisrael guests would welcome a return to the pre-Hamas status of Gaza, a time when commerce and people flowed more freely across the border, when Palestinians worked in their fields, when they visited the beaches along the Mediterranean. They are less strident than the Israeli government and its leadership. 

It’s warm in the Middle East. As the climate heats up so often do cross-border tensions. Shortly after the 2014 Israeli women returned to their communities along the Gaza Strip all hell broke loose. Missiles and rockets dropped from the sky. From beneath the dirt of their farmlands terrorists emerged from tunnels. Among the visitors from Eshkol this year was the widow of one of the last two Israelis to die in the 2014 conflict, casualties of a rocket barrage one hour before the cease fire was to go into effect. Pain is still evident within her. But she perseveres. As does Israel. 

The links below are to previous posts about visits sponsored by Shalom Yisrael and Gilda’s and my visit in 2011 to the Sha’ar Hanegev region along the northern edge of the Gaza Strip: 

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2014/05/ordinary-lives-lived-by-extraordinary.html

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2013/05/building-community-in-eshkol.html

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2012/05/rocket-women.html

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/07/gazing-over-gaza.html

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/05/well-deserved-rest-relaxation.html 

Ordinary Lives Lived by Extraordinary Women

They live ordinary lives. Three are special education teachers, one an elementary school instructor. Another practices Chinese medicine. One’s a retired nurse. A seventh a midwife. The eighth is an occupational therapist. They are women of modest professions, living modest, ordinary lives.

And then an airplane or a helicopter flies overhead and they wonder if an attack is imminent. Or they hear, make that feel, an explosion that rattles the foundation of their homes. Was it a rocket or the vibrations from a powerful Egyptian charge meant to destroy an underground Palestinian tunnel from the Gaza Strip into the Sinai?

They're home now, back on the kibbutzim delicately nesting next to the southern tip of Gaza, on the border with Egypt. For the two weeks spanning the end of April and the beginning of May, these eight women came to America as guests of Shalom Yisrael. Why? For some well-deserved rest and relaxation, for aside from their ordinary day jobs, they are trauma care first responders when the ordinary lives of their fellow kibbutzniks become anything but ordinary when bombs and rockets hail from across the border. 

Most everyone who met them, including Congresswoman Nita Lowey, wanted to know why they lived on the edge of peril, why not in a more secure spot in Israel. The Eshkol Regional Council from which they come is the most targeted land area in Israel. When rockets are launched from Gaza, they have perhaps 15 seconds to seek shelter, assuming an alert is sounded. They are too close to Gaza to be protected by the Iron Dome missile defense system. Houses are being retrofitted with safe rooms. 

Yet, they do not dream of leaving. Their response echoed what we have heard time and again from people in our own country. Their choice is no different than that made by Americans living in tornado alley or along the Gulf Coast ravaged annually by hurricanes or the Rockies that even in the second week of May was treated by Mother Nature to globs of snow. Or those who warily watch waters rise above levies each year to wash away homes. They live there because it is their home, whether they grew up there or recently relocated. It is beautiful, they said. With a real sense of community. That helps explain why the population of the Eshkol region has grown 35% over the past five years. 

The region is important agriculturally. Sixty percent of Israel’s produce is grown in the 32 communities of the council that shares a 24-mile border with the Gaza Strip and a seven-mile border with Egypt. They live 90 minutes south of Tel Aviv but don’t lack for culture. Within the 190,000 acres of the Eshkol Regional Council, its 14,000 residents enjoy 10 art galleries and museums, nature and heritage sites, youth and elderly recreation centers, and a 930-seat cultural hall. 

They strive to live a normal life in an abnormal place. Sometimes, neighbors hear voices from under their homes. Quickly they call the military. Tunnels from the Gaza Strip are a constant concern. It took a few days, but the women soon acclimated to the sounds most Americans take for granted. They realized they didn’t have to look up when a jet streaked overhead, though, to be honest, even Americans twist their heads at the whop-whop whirring of helicopter blades. 

For five years I have been involved with Shalom Yisrael, a volunteer organization that for 29 years has hosted Israelis during the spring, at first soldiers and victims of terror, but for half a decade ladies such as these, women of valor and determination who leave their families when danger erupts to tend to the needs of their community. 

And yet, of the 40 women I have met, I can think of none who does not crave peace and friendship with their Palestinian neighbors, who does not want a return to the time before Hamas seized control of Gaza and put an end to commerce between the two peoples, to visits to beaches reputedly among the most beautiful in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Living as they do on the precipice of conflict, as targets of terror, they are nevertheless dovish citizens of Israel. Not for them are Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s and his cohorts’ hawkish demeanor. They don’t have a solution. They just hope one can be found. 

The ladies returned to Israel last Sunday, Mother’s Day. Normalcy has returned to my routine. What passes for normalcy in the Eshkol Regional Council awaited them. 

The addresses below are links to previous posts about the visits sponsored by Shalom Yisrael and my visit in 2011 to the Sha’ar Hanegev region just north of the Eshkol region: 

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/05/well-deserved-rest-relaxation.html 

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/07/gazing-over-gaza.html 

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2012/05/rocket-women.html

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2013/05/building-community-in-eshkol.html

Bizarre and Bazaar Turn of Events

I made Gilda promise me that when the time came, and I’ll explain shortly why that time seems to be rapidly approaching, she’ll place me in a nice, nearby facility for the memory challenged, one that she’ll visit at least weekly, a home with good looking attendants, for after all, I might become forgetful but I would hope I would retain my appreciation of the finer things of life. 

I told her Sunday morning I had found the missing white sheet. 

“Where was it?, she asked. 

“On the bed,” I sheepishly replied.

“You mean we were sleeping on it all this time?”

“Yes, and no.” Thinking the white sheet was a cover for the new Sleep Number mattress, I had somehow placed the next sheet set on top of it. It was only when I went to plug in our heated mattress pad that I discovered my mistake. 

Now, if I could only find that missing dryer ball ...

My initial optimism about a negotiated settlement for the removal and destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stash has dissipated. We've now entered what may be called the “Arab suk” phase, and the bizarre twists and turns Assad has begun to play would make any bazaar merchant proud. He's trying to impose conditions on President Obama, not the reverse, despite the deal the U.S. and Russia seemingly reached. 

So let’s just employ the age-old tactic of walking away. If Assad doesn't capitulate and live up to the schedule in the Russo-American deal, strike. Don't wait for Congress or the United Nations to act. The “consequences” Secretary of State John Kerry said would rain down on Syria will never force Assad’s hand. Only action will. 

I'm reminded of when I sold one of my cars, a Buick, to a young man in Yonkers back in 1982. Not in any way comparable in importance to negotiations on chemical weapons, but instructive, nevertheless, on the give and take (mostly take) tactics of the Middle Eastern mind. 

The young man in question was a Palestinian student. I met him in Yonkers. His uncle represented him. He told me how much he liked Buicks. Solid, reliable cars. Still, his nephew was not rich. He couldn’t afford the $2,000 price tag. We haggled. The give and take was fun, but we reached an impasse. I wanted $1,600. He was stuck at $1,550. We didn’t split the difference. I said I was going home. 

Would I mind driving his nephew home as it was on my way to the parkway? No problem. When we arrived in front of his building, he asked if I would like to come up for tea. Recognizing this as a further attempt to negotiate the price down, I declined. Twenty minutes later I walked into our home. Just as I finished telling Gilda I should have accepted the lower price as the $50 difference would be eaten up by another newspaper ad (yes, these were pre-Craig’s List days; newspapers actually carried classified ads), the phone rang. The uncle called to say they’d pay $1,600.  

I don’t normally advocate military action. But this is an exceptional situation, one that Assad will play out. In the end, I doubt he will comply with any of the deadlines set in the agreement. We must be prepared to act. And act quickly.

Public Relations and Omens

Three of a Kind: What do Planned Parenthood, Barack Obama and Israel have in common?

Ineffective public relations.

A mere 3% of its services are abortion-related, yet Planned Parenthood has allowed its foes to tar the organization as a baby-killer rather than a provider of health care and family services that has saved millions of lives.

In the recent Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation brouhaha over funding for Planned Parenthood, it struck me as ironic that an organization (Komen) dedicated to saving lives affected by breast cancer would suggest one of the main conduits of breast cancer testing for the needy would be denied funding. It’s sad that Planned Parenthood’s overall mission could be darkened by its abortion services which comprise such a small percentage of its practice. I have no problem with Komen disagreeing with Planned Parenthood’s abortion services. But it would have been misguided to cut off support for a group that benefits so many who would otherwise not be able to obtain affordable breast cancer screening.

The reality of Barack Obama’s presidency is a far cry from public perception. He has failed to paint his own narrative, allowing Republicans to depict health care reform as a disaster, the bailout of the auto industry as a travesty of capitalism, the wind-down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a foreign relations tragedy, the killing of Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda terrorists as inconsequential, his support of Israel as non-existent, his championing of higher taxes on the wealthiest as class warfare, and on and on. Three years of constant bombardment by the GOP will be hard to overcome, no matter how many hundreds of millions the Obama campaign spends on advertising in the coming months.

Perhaps that’s a lesson Andrew Cuomo learned and is the reason the first-term New York governor already has broadcast commercials touting his successes almost three years before his re-election comes up.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, but it has permitted itself to be labeled an oppressor state.

Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) cults have degraded Israel’s dedication to equality and religious tolerance. Their mean-spirited interpretation of religious law and customs threatens to cleave the country in two. Religious extremists (non Haredi) in the West Bank also threaten to undermine any hope of a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli two-state option.

For sure, I am not absolving the extremists within the Palestinian community. But I hold the Israeli government and its more Westernized citizenry to a higher standard, a standard that respects the rule of law and also imbues its own tragic history into treatment of Palestinians under its control.

The narrative and legitimacy of Israel’s existence have been attacked on college campuses throughout America and Europe.

Israel has a powerful story to tell in many fields—the arts, science, health care, education, technology, agriculture, philanthropy, commerce. Sadly, too many, Jews among them, define Israel by its treatment of Palestinians, and by its internecine religious warfare. From time to time Israel embarks on an advertising campaign to stimulate more visits to the country. It’s time it paid more attention to traditional public relations positioning and less time promoting tourism.


Which omen to believe? A day before tonight’s Super Bowl, a bus containing members of the New York Giants broke down on its way to the squad’s final pre-game practice. Does it portend a Giants loss to the New England Patriots, or just signify the team will get off to a slow start in the game?

Or, does an inadvertent and embarrassing posting Saturday of a National Football League screen shot on the Giants’ Web site proclaiming “The Giants are Super Bowl CHAMPIONS” suggest the final outcome?

Ninety more minutes before we begin to know the answer.