The media distraction machine has been drowning its target audience in the dazzling bathos of the illustrious “freak,” Michael Jackson, a cynosure and epitome of modern genius and disease. A constructed person whose identity was a mélange of sentiment, desire, toxic trends and, perhaps, serious fiddling he was an avatar of postmodernism, an “idol of the theatre” in Bacon’s sense as well as literally. (more…)
About a decade ago an acquaintance began describing great power policy toward the heartland of Israel in terms of population control. Jews in effect, he wrote, were being told not to have children: to refrain from normal sexual relations (excuse the atavism), to load up on contraceptives, and to “fix” any failures in these systems by aborting the resulting ‘accidents.’ (more…)
Recently the hologram made a highly touted speech (the mass media virtually herded all the cattle into the electronic coliseum to watch and listen) in which the Koran was given pride of place, the Talmud second and the “Holy Bible” third: the Torah or Books of Moses were eclipsed. Implicit message: the Torah derives and is later than the Talmud and those other texts. Moreover, the suffering of the Jews dates to the holocaust and thus the suffering people sustained by the UN, the “Palestinians” should be seen as their equals. Thus, the Jews are equivalent to a virtual people invented by the press in the 1960s; Jewish history began in the 1940s and they have some texts from 1500 years ago. When they get out of their heartland there will be peace and justice for everyone. This is the age of reason. (more…)
In the remarkable, daunting, and hurried times in which we live, and which our parents and grandparents already lived and were startled by “the new”, the world must go “forward” and the past forgotten. We are told repeatedly that progress is a necessity, and that progress means conditioning ourselves to think, feel, and act in new and “better” ways, to adopt values and habits, constraints on our freedoms, and intrusions into our privacy that are not only different from what we once held permissible but the opposite of what we had been taught, and believed, often still do believe and feel, is good and true. Esau, he is progress… (more…)
“We will of course be careful in formulating a peace treaty. Our legal experts will craft the proper paragraphs to secure our rights under any contingency. We will touch our glasses with UN diplomat Jarring or whoever will replace him. And then will begin the retreat. In return for promises and securities we will rid ourselves of Judea and Samaria… But the Arabs will not be the same Arabs they were before the retreat, and the Jews will not be the same Jews.” (S.B. Bet Zvi, Zot Ha’Aretz, May 30, 1969) (more…)