I spent so long building all this trust up only to have it fall down

[sovay]

I was going to make a post complaining about something in my writing life, but then I saw that the man in the White House plans to sign an executive order interpreting Judaism as a nationality and, oh, just for starters, when has defining Jews as a race of their own ever gone wrong before?

Fuck Christian Zionism. Fuck the pretext of one marginalized group's civil rights as an excuse to deny another marginalized group theirs. I don't dispute that the levels of anti-Semitism in this country are unignorably, escalatingly, lethally high. I don't dispute that they can be seen on college campuses, which take the pulse of the country as much as subway graffiti and its multiplying swastikas. But the man in the White House raised this firestorm for his own gratification; he is the last person I trust to put it down. He doesn't care about protecting American Jews. We don't vote for him. We could burn for all he cares. (He doesn't even believe we're American.) He just wants his special relationship with his fellow authoritarians in power in Israel. This is protection like a protection racket. And Armageddon for all.

[edited 2019-12-12 04:44 am (UTC)] It seems that the text of the executive order does not support the definition reported by the New York Times and therefore by me.

I believe the rest of this post remains valid.

Comments

[cynthia1960]

Absolutely. 45 is all about working with his fellow authoritarians to fuck everyone else over. And look at Modi in India denying naturalization to Muslims.

[dewline]

Oh, Modi's on the List too along with DT-45 and Netanyahu. And Orban. And Putin. And Duterte. And maybe Ford or Kenney or Bernier if things go wrongly enough in Canada.

[sovay]

And maybe Ford or Kenney or Bernier if things go wrongly enough in Canada.

Good luck in Canada, then.

[conuly]

Don't forget Erdogan.

[dewline]

Nor Xi Jinping either.

[cynthia1960]

All of them in orange jumpsuits.

[dewline]

Works for me.

[sovay]

45 is all about working with his fellow authoritarians to fuck everyone else over.

It is a beautiful signal to his white nationalist base.

[dewline]

When I first read about that crap he was spouting at that one "not nice people at all" speech, I was thinking simultaneously "The frakkin' HELL‽‽‽‽" and "Here he goes yet again, dammit!"

You're absolutely right that he's whipping all this bad crazy up for his own sick and twisted amusement and benefit. Just like his father taught him to want. Damn him and his straight to either Leavenworth, Pelican Bay or the basement of the Hague. Whichever of the three works to hold them apart from civilized humans.

[cynthia1960]

Pelican Bay is an option if the crime is just in California. I would love to see the whole regime (along with all the others) in Den Haag, but probably Leavenworth or that federal Supermax in Colorado if we get lucky.

[dewline]

I take the point about Pelican Bay under strong advisement. I remembered the place from a profile on CBS' 60 Minutes.

[vass]

Fuck it all.

[gwynnega]

Exactly.

[yhlee]

F***.

[conuly]

WHAT.

[conuly]

Sorry, trying to get past that first paragraph again. No, can't do it. What!?

[sovay]

Sorry, trying to get past that first paragraph again. No, can't do it. What!?

"The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students . . . Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the department can withhold funding from any college or educational program that discriminates 'on the ground of race, color, or national origin.' Religion was not included among the protected categories, so Mr. Trump's order will have the effect of embracing an argument that Jews are a people or a race with a collective national origin in the Middle East, like Italian Americans or Polish Americans."

The article alludes to concerns that the executive order will stifle free speech. My concerns are more on the order of statelessness and violence.

[conuly]

I meant your first paragraph! I was feeling too nauseated by it to click the link!

[sovay]

I meant your first paragraph! I was feeling too nauseated by it to click the link!

I saw it as a Twitter headline and my heart started racketing.

[drwex]

This.

Of all the shit that has rained down, this is the most frightening. I have no idea where to go, but I feel the need to go.

[conuly]

Ugh I want out of this country. No, I want out of this entire universe and into some other one, one without the far right and also without bad climate change.

[sovay]

No, I want out of this entire universe and into some other one, one without the far right and also without bad climate change.

I am not enjoying many aspects of this timeline.

[cynthia1960]

We are in the Bad Place.

[cmcmck]

And we now have anti Semitic socialists here.

Sound familiar?

Sigh :o(

[troisoiseaux]

I feel like the past three years have been an endless and dizzying cycle of "he can't do that! can he do that? no... he's, uh... he's doin... oh, hell, he's done it."

[kore]

Yeah, with a side order of:

TRUMP: //wants to do something outrageous

GEN POP: WTFFFFF you racist fuckwit, time to protest! demonstrate! sue! march in the streets!

TIME: //passes

TRUMP: //does something even worse that makes the first outrageous thing look like small potatoes

[cynthia1960]

Pretty much this.

[oracne]

BURN IT ALL DOWN.

[kenjari]

This is making me yet again wish that descriptions of Trump and his regime as a dumpster fire were more literal and less metaphorical.

[cynthia1960]

Yes

[choco_frosh]

Yeah, that.

[kore]

I'm sure this has TOTES NOTHING to do with Jared Kushner's "Middle East foreign policy" (good God, who the fuck thought he would be doing diplomacy for this administration) or the criticism he just got for saying "Jews are driven by money and insufficiently loyal to Israel" and the fucking "Trump Heights" settlement idea!

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a liberal Israel advocacy group, said the president’s order was a cynical effort to crack down on critics, not to defend Jews from bias. “It is particularly outrageous and absurd for President Trump to pretend to care about anti-Semitism during the same week in which he once again publicly spouted anti-Semitic tropes about Jews and money,” he said in a statement.

Fucking seriously.

[sovay]

I'm sure this has TOTES NOTHING to do with Jared Kushner's "Middle East foreign policy"

"The Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors, Mr. Kushner embraced the idea, which also had been explored over the past year by the president's domestic policy aides. With Mr. Kushner's support, the White House drafted the order and Mr. Trump agreed to sign it."

Jared was bad enough when he was failing his own family's memory on the front of compassion to others. Now I'm trying to figure out how he thinks that the legal tools that nearly murdered his family are the ones he want to set in place to save his skin.

[dewline]

I was just listening to a J-Street rep, Logan Bayroff, on CBC Radio's As It Happens a few minutes ago.

https://twitter.com/cbcasithappens/status/1204888967839174658

[sovay]

I was just listening to a J-Street rep, Logan Bayroff, on CBC Radio's As It Happens a few minutes ago.

I am sure this adminstration will get any foot it can in the door to silence its critics. I remain concerned that this particular door will kill a lot more people than it just shuts up. [edit] Just to be clear, I am aware that more than one bad thing can happen at once. I don't want them to.

[dewline]

Agreed on that last point.

[radiantfracture]

Well this is awful.