THE HAMAS FIELD TRIP

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

The news media has reported numerous Pro-Palestine, Pro-Hamas, Anti-Israel protests on a wide variety of American college campuses. This is bizarre, and perhaps the student protestors (paid outside agitators notwithstanding) are a bit misinformed.

Some recent, undisputed history. As previously stated in a prior blog, on October 7 Hamas put on a freak show that would have embarrassed the Gestapo. Over 1200 Israelis were murdered. Yet, fast forward from what, historically, is the blink of an eye, college students are conducting protests for Hamas and against Israel. Also as previously blogged, Israel is in a moral quandary, having to kill innocent civilians (including children) in an attempt to survive (Israel has been attacked on 4 sides by terrorist organizations). Only a Solomon could figure this out. This is the torturous position in which Israel finds itself: do nothing and risk everything, or kill innocents in order to survive. But the mindless miscreants on college campuses, caught up in the latest frenzy, seem to have skipped that day in class on October 7, and have bought into the goading of the paid anarchists on various campuses. They began setting up encampments and shouting slogans based on an alternative reality and a need for expression reserved only for the emotionally over-stimulated, dim-witted neurotics all too present in past times of mass hysteria.

However, we may have a solution. There is an opportunity for these pseudo-radicalized college students who feel so strongly about Hamas, Palestine, Israel and America, to gain a bit of perspective on this troubling situation, and that is to go to the source. A Palestine field trip. Pack up and go, possibly funded by the SAVE AMERICA PAC, the Trump for President organization. They can learn first-hand what is really going in, from the ones doing the fighting and suffering. But the otherwise-coddled college students may have to toughen up a bit: no Starbucks, no lattes, no instant satisfaction, no Door Dash pizza deliveries, and no one to rub their tushies when they get a bit fussy. In Hamas-land, women do not fare particularly well, nor do protestors. Instant death seems to be the controlling technique, and we cannot be sure how these privileged Americans would fare under such circumstances with no First Amendment, no fawning student organizations, and no sympathetic, permissive, paranoid school administrators to crank out the excuses and rationalizations for their inexcusably irresponsible behavior.

One can only guess as to how many of these earnest but challenged protesting students would take advantage of such an offer, but we may surmise that the volunteers would not take up too much space on one of several open-minded international carriers (presumably El Al would not be a first choice). And many in this latte-dependent cohort may have to send less caffeine-reliant proxies in their stead. Those that brave the trip may learn more than they bargained for, as they involuntarily manifest into the next round of hostages, having to negotiate the tender surroundings of a Hamas tunnel some 80 meters below the streets of Rafah.

A HOUSE DIVIDED, OR IN THIS CASE QUARTERED

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

In the United States we have two political parties, but two major groups each within each of those two parties. The Republicans still have the mainstream, traditional GOPers, and also the Freedom Caucus-Trump nationalist types. The Democrats have their own mainstream, left of center group plus the progressive left wing. There are a scattered number of liberal Republicans (e.g., Sen. Susan Collins) and conservative Democrats (e.g., Joe Manchin) in Congress. Each party is thus divided, and therefore the country is divided. In Lincoln’s famous speech in 1858 he warned of such political divisions and feared for the country: “it will become all one thing, or all the other.” His way of saying be careful what you ask for.

Where does this leave voting Americans? There are still many who are unenrolled (note: we register to vote but enroll in a party) in a major party or have cast their lot with minor parties. The independent and minor party voters make up almost 40 percent of the electorate. But a Pew Research Center survey (2019) suggests that even among independents, most lean to one major party or another (see Political Independents: Who They Are, What They Think – Pew Research Center), but choose to remain officially unaligned. Why is this?

We may infer an inherent distrust of the two major parties among many independents as both have displayed a good deal of corruption in recent years. The duplicity and animated rhetoric test the tolerance of even the most loyal members outside the base of each party. The language is abhorrent, and the ethics are scandalous. Its win at any cost: say anything, do anything, just get and maintain power. Once in power each side investigates the other and weaponizes government institutions, the media and public policy, on a massive search and destroy mission of their opponents. They just can’t stand each other, and the American public suffers from an overload of bitter, vindictive rhetoric designed to damage each member of the other side to the maximum extent possible. Lincoln warned, in the same speech, of a such a “battle” in the political arena raging “under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy…”

Thus the two major political parties divide America as they themselves are also divided. It becomes a free-for-all in a rule or ruin atmosphere and a vulgar display of exactly how the founders did not want our government to work (“of the people, by the people….). The hot topics exacerbate the fight: abortion, the border, inflation, the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas war, and others. Each side leverages virtually anything to force the hand of, or better, to bury the other side. The outright lying is ridiculous and the media on both sides have become wholly owned subsidiaries of their political masters. Each party forces a different reality that excludes the other, and that reality is further parsed by the division within each party. And there is no end in sight as we are eight months away from the general election. There are many reasonable people in politics, yet the current conversation is dominated by shallow thinking, paranoid types like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Green.

The electorate needs to better educate itself on the issues as well as the candidates. The test for those who choose to vote is to resist the party label, to see beyond the ideological divide, and to vote for reason, thoughtfulness, and a better chance for a decent future.

THE IGNORABLE PAIN OF THE VOICELESS: ISRAEL’S MORAL QUANDARY IN GAZA

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

The butchery and torture that took place during the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, would have embarrassed the Gestapo. Israel immediately declared war and attacked Hamas in the Gaza strip, a small piece of land in the Middle East and one of the most densely inhabited areas in the world. The Jewish state is convinced that Hamas must be eliminated to ensure the survival of Israel, but unfortunately Hamas was, and is, deeply embedded in the Palestinian people. This is the deadly tactical issue, how can the IDF kill Hamas without killing innocent Palestinians. The answer: they can’t.

Reports (which vary) state that about 31,000 people have been killed in the war, including around 12,000 Hamas fighters and several hundred journalists and UN workers. This leaves about 18,000 or so Palestinian civilians killed. About 1,800 Israelis have died, including almost 600 IDF soldiers. Again, reports of these numbers vary. But if they are reasonably close, a lot of innocents have been killed, which has generated a great deal of protest and uproar. Much has been made of the IDF killing civilians, and this in a region where the fighting has a long history. Many have died on both sides over a long time thus October 7 cannot be viewed in isolation, but the sheer savagery of Hamas cannot be condoned in any historical frame. Israel means to destroy that organization once and for all, but not without severe collateral consequences. It has tried to minimize the casualties but are getting a lot of blame in the press and from around the world nonetheless. There is a partial defense for Israel in that attempting to not kill innocents, and actually killing innocents, are two different ethical constructs, but the damage has been done and the dilemma remains. Israel does not want to kill Palestinians but must kill them to accomplish its mission to eliminate what they firmly believe is an existential threat.

Palestinian children caught in the cross-hairs of a violent war are innocent in the baseline meaning of the word, and by any estimate thousands have been killed. This is the agonizing choice for the Israeli people, and a desperate moral quandary: are the deaths of innocent children necessary to the survival of the Israeli people? Supporting Israel and saving the innocent Gazans are not necessarily mutually excludable goals, thus the current attempt at a deal between the warring parties to exchange the remaining hostages in return for a 6 week pause in the fighting. But then Hamas resupplies and repositions, and how many more IDF soldiers would die as a result? How does Israel make such a decision? Innocents for soldiers. No good answer.

Not as many Americans are paying attention as there were in the early days of the war. How quickly these disasters fade in the rearview mirror, maybe a few new cycles. But the great moral issue remains.

SOCIALISM, SNICKERS AND SNARKINESS: THE HATE OF THE UNION SPEECH

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

Article II of the constitution requires the president to deliver “from time to time” “information” on the state of the union. In recent memory we heard the soaring rhetoric of Ronald Reagan, the eloquence of Barack Obama and the incisive words of Bill Clinton. Joe Biden’s speech on Thursday was none of that. Give-Em-Hell-Joey came out blazing in what amounted to more of a campaign rally pep talk than a state of the union address.

Was the raised voice approach evidence of some newfound energy, or a failure of anger management? He came across as a roboticized angry old man. His rant was more blame game than solution oriented as he referred to his “predecessor” 13 times. It was a polarizing, divisive speech that did nothing for independents. He was loud, contentious, confrontational, mawkishly pandering and unpretentiously partisan. It was a baseless attempt to appeal to the base in a transparent exercise to reset his campaign at the cost of reason and civility. After digesting this speech the American people needed a dose of philosophical Narcan. At times it seemed like an exercise class, how many times could the Democrats stand up? You could almost hear the Pointer Sisters in the background. The Jack-In-The-Box Democrats jumped up so often the House clerks almost had to send out for oxygen. It’s the kind of theatrical fawning that renders the political process as appearing spurious and self-serving.

In Biden’s imaginary America the only real problem is “my predecessor,” and his arguments are based on carefully parsed data and reality avoidance. It’s an election year, so he romances the left with a list of expensive giveaways (how all this is to be actually paid for no one knows, maybe “tax the rich” again) but with each promise one could see America’s future fading into the sunset under a growing mass of unpayable debt. Another check-the-box exercise in political manipulation, and he kept coughing as if even he didn’t believe his own jive. In a bizarre moment, he interjects a point about the great snack rip-off (so much for lofty rhetoric and the promise of the great American experiment), which went nowhere. He then perfunctorily proposes a two-state solution for the middle east. Which Israel is he supporting? He pandered to the left, heckled the hecklers on the right, and blew his response to a call to “say her name” with his Lincoln Riley faux pas. Then came they pedantic core values wrap up. Which core was he referring to? Then chants of “four more years” (meaning we want power). He closed with “I’ll always be the president for all Americans.” Really?

So the president uses the state of the union speech to re-launch his reelection bid, as he mumbles, fumbles and stumbles his way into the future. Unfortunately, the antidote to current President Biden is former President Trump, who has his own blizzard of problems. He attacks his friends as much as he attacks his enemies (basically he just attacks) in a desperate attempt to get back what he craves most, power.

It’s a race to the bottom in what we hope is the last of this tawdry exercise in how politics in America is not supposed to be.