[JP] As we noted, the Pesach Haggadah begins by emphasizing that a Jew can only be considered free when he or she lives in the Land of Israel, as it says: "This year, we are here; next year, in the Land of Israel. This year, we are slaves; next year, free people."
Many Jews in the Diaspora don't understand the meaning of this statement. They think it is talking about some other time and place in history, and not about today. For example, take all of the Jews living in America - they think that they are already free. But as we pointed out in our previous article, they are enslaved in the foreign, gentile culture which surrounds them. This cultural enslavement and identification with the foreign country they live in is so deeply ingrained in their psyches, it is almost like a cerebral lobotomy.
In order to illustrate this widespread amnesia, allow me to give a few examples of the difference between a Jew who grows up in Israel and his counterpart who grows up in America:
The Jewish youth who grows up in Israel learns Hebrew in school, while the Jewish youth who grows up in America learns English. Interestingly, Rashi teaches that if parent doesn’t speak to his child in Hebrew, it is "as if he buries the child" (Devarim, 11:19.)
The Jewish youth who grows up in Israel learns about the history of the Jewish People and Israel, while the Jewish youth who grows up in America learns about the history of America.
The Jewish youth who grows up in Israel learns that Abraham was the founding father of his nation, while the Jewish youth who grows up in America learns that George Washington was the founding father of his nation.
For the Jewish youth who grows up in Israel, the school year follows the Jewish calendar and its Jewish holidays, while for the Jewish youth who grows up in America, the school years follows the American calendar and America's gentile holidays.
The Jewish youth who grows up in Israel sings the "HaTikvah" at the conclusion of important school and national events, while the Jewish youth who grows up in America sings "The Star Spangled Banner."
When a Jewish youth in Israel watches the news on TV it's all about Israel, while when a Jewish youth in America watches the news it's all about America.
When a Jewish youth in Israel celebrates the Jewish holidays, he or she celebrates them in the Holy Land where the holidays are meant to be observed, while when a Jewish youth in America celebrates the Jewish holidays, he or she celebrates them in an impure and gentile land.
h/t Instapundit
To pinched-nostril commentators in the West, Vladimir Putin, Czar of all the Russias, is a boorish clown destined for ultimate failure. To me, he's a genius.
I don't like the guy one bit. But I have to respect his abilities.
The last time a minor power played its hand as well as Putin has played Russia's was in 1203. Venice hijacked the Fourth Crusade to sack Christian Constantinople, leaving Venice wealthy and empowered. It also wrecked Europe's bulwark against Islam, leading to seven centuries of jihad (resuming now, after a brief timeout).
Putin's power plays won't end well for Europe, either. But, like medieval Venice, he's good at what he does. Personally, I believe that the Church of Transnational Progressivism---centered in EU, is the biggest danger to humankind ever. Especially after it took over USA and turned NATO into its arm militant.
...Of course, the DC establishment's last-ditch defense of the "wisdom" of our feckless response to Putin is to conjure the spirits of economic disaster, the insistence that, while Putin's a pain, the Russian economy's tanking and he won't be able to sustain his mischief much longer.
Well, Putin's economy took a body blow, thanks largely to the drop in oil prices and partly because of (now wobbling) Western sanctions. But the ruble and Russia's foreign reserves have stabilized. Import substitution is progressing. The oil price is inching back up.
Russians are much better off financially than they were before Putin appeared, and -- most important of all -- Russians expect life to stink. Deprivations that would shock Americans don't even register. And Putin's stage management of the economic downturn has been masterful. His popularity rating remains higher than Hillary Clinton's and Donald Trump's combined.
Unlike our leaders, Putin knows his people. He came from the streets, not from Harvard. And Russians have, for centuries, cherished the "myth of the good czar," expressed, in the face of perfidy and corruption, by the peasant's sigh of, "If the czar only knew . . ."
Putin put that myth on TV and online. His four-hour "audiences" are brilliant theater. He takes calls and e-mails complaining of Russia's immemorial problems: bad roads here, corrupt bosses there, unpaid wages in a cannery. With barely a hand wave, the people's woes go away.
Our elites spent the last decade mocking Putin. He spent those years enriching his country, reviving its military, expanding its territory -- and humiliating the United States of America. Personally, given the quarter-century experience of monopolar world behind us, I prefer a bi-polar world. However, the question must be asked: "Can restored Russia cause USA to take it's collective head out of its collective ass?" Judging by the ongoing elections, the answer is not optimistic.
[Wash Times] The Republican Party is in trouble, or so goes the conventional wisdom. Certainly, the party is passing through a painful and difficult transition. But in the broad context of history, it’s a necessary transition -- from the politics of old reflecting a world that no longer exists to a new brand of politics reflecting the world as it is. One reason this election season is so raucous and unpredictable is that the voters know this transition is necessary but can’t seem to get the attention of the political elites.
But in the broad context of history, the Democratic Party is in far worse shape than the Republicans. Declining even to try addressing the politics of today, it’s stuck in yesterday, where no political party can survive.
The biggest difference between the two parties is Donald Trump. Conventional wisdom proclaims this difference disastrous for the Republican Party, but in the long term it will disadvantage the Democrats far more. Consider the big national and global developments of our time.
One is the disintegration of "globalization" -- the idea that the free exchange of money, goods, ideas and peoples across national borders would produce a grand, new era of prosperity and harmony. Tom Friedman’s Lexus wins, and we all win. The olive tree dies, and who cares? We’ll be too rich and contented to notice.
#1
People forget Ricardo's Law of Rent at their peril.
Free trade is subsidy free.
Open borders is a subsidy to landowners (which is why establishments LOVE it).
This is the sort of thing that happens in Mel Brooks movies, but not‐at least until now‐in geopolitics: Turkey’s claim upon the support of Western Europe comes from its own propensity to collapse. If it does so, the Europeans fear, the refugee stream that inundated Europe during 2015 will acquire another zero. That is why West Germany is willing to humiliate itself in order to prop up the regime of Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Europe is paying Erdogan to stop the flow of refugees, which Erdogan has threatened to accelerate if his demands are not met. Erdogan’s negotiating stance recalls Brooks’ 1974 comedy "Blazing Saddles," where a black sheriff turns back a lynch mob by putting a gun to his own head and threatening to pull the trigger.
[Breitbart] Cruz, Kasich join forces to stop Trump. I wish they wanted to stop Hillary and much as they did the Republican who is beating both of them.
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So, opposing trump means they dont want to stop Hillary? Not so fast there $uckabee. Trump has yet been projected to beat Hillary, whereas Cruz has several times, and Kasich has consistently. They are allying because they believe Trump will lose, based on polls, etc. A lot of people make that case and have been doing so in good faith for a while.
So anyone that opposes Trump is automatically an enemy - and automatically considered to not oppose the real opponent? Nice. Goebbels would have loved your line of reasoning. $uckabee is just another big government loving talking head representative of the beltway media.
Gotta call out these idiots and thoroughly discredit them.
As for the trolling, if thats what you call presenting you with facts that you are uncomfortable with, well too bad. Go stand with the SJWs, they're your kind.
Posted by: Big Stalin9042 ||
04/26/2016 21:24 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
