When Progressives Make You Conservative…SQ

Playing in the background: Final Ascent
There is something wrong when a group of fifty something year old men talk about the need to visit college campuses and teach fellow members of the tribe how to fight.

There is something wrong when the first thought is doing that with our fists and feet and the second part is with our wits.

But that is some of what I am hearing about, thoughts about how to establish deterrence and then restore the lines of dignity.

People say it sounds ridiculous because we have much to lose and then we talk about stories we heard from survivors and those who faced antisemitism head on in their youth in ways we never had to.

The conversation says we come from a generation that didn’t hide behind keyboards and how do we protect our children. What sort of examples do we lead by.

These conversations should be ridiculous and stuck in the past with hyperbolic tales of remember when you were 20 and you had that fight.

Instead there is this narishkeit in which we say we can still give as good as we get and our kids deserve better.

When Progressives Make You Conservative…SQ

I haven’t ever been a fan of the progressive wing of the democrat party. I appreciate what some of them want to do but it is not based in reality.

As time has passed I have seen it evolve into something that I see as a negative for Jewish people and others. The pendulum can swing too far and this has.

The Squad has become roughly equivalent to me to the wack jobs on the right like MTG and Boebert. None of them have any sense and they are all determined to drag others to their position while claiming to be noble.

I am much more of a centrist. I believe there is value in being a moderate and that our world is better that way.

When I see how some of these progressives are causing chaos on college campuses I shake my head and think about how progressives make you conservative.

Except I can’t really align myself with most conservatives I see today, not when they push Christian nationalism and support a guy who was indicted 91 times.

Can’t see myself supporting people who think it is ok for kids on college campuses to be intimidated and harassed because of something a government 10,000 miles away is doing either.

So I remain the independent I have been for years and vote by issue and not by party. Not my preference but it seems to be the most practical.

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It is almost 50 years since the last Pesach my Zaide was at. I wonder what he would say about what is going on and if it would look far too familiar to him.

He came to the US more than a 100 years ago get away from the antisemitism he faced in the old country. He was a tailor who wasn’t afraid to mix it up with cops or anyone else or so the stories went.

I remember him, but I didn’t hear those stories from him. They came from my grandfather and father and other family members.

It is not quite 40 years since the last seder my great grandmother joined us at, her I remember well. I was 17 when Grandma Sadie died.

She made my middle sister and I laugh when she talked about getting shikkered (drunk) on the grape juice she drank.

Grandma would have had some stories from the old country too. She also came here more than a 100 years ago for a better life.

I can go on and tell stories about other great grandparents, some who were born not long after the Civil War and got here in the 19th century.

We have been here long enough to have seen and experienced a few things. Long enough to have benefited from the gifts this country gave us.

That is not nothing, it’s something and I am not about to just let it go. These people who are coming for us haven’t learned their history or figured out we’re built for the storm and we always come out the other side.

This will be no different.

So now it is our time to take a stand and work on righting the ship. We’ll do it and it will happen but we won’t forget who stood by us and who didn’t.

This Is Not My First Rodeo

It’s a cliche but it is appropriate, I have seen a few things myself. I have been up against it and wondered how the hell I was going to get out of some tight spaces.

There were moments that were painful. I spent all of Passover 2017 by myself. Didn’t go to a seder because I didn’t want to ask to be invited.

I didn’t want to be included out of pity and I didn’t have the cash to just fly home nor the inclination to drive 50 miles to a few places where I knew there was a standing invite.

That was a hard time but I needed to work through it and I did.

Two weeks ago someone told me they were impressed by how calm I am and how I never seem to panic. I thanked them and laughed.

“I am like a duck paddling like hell underwater. You might not see it, but it is there.”

Told the kids a while back my secret is getting up each day and moving forward. I have a vision in my head of what I want to do and I just do it.

It is not a perfect solution nor do things always come out like I hope and plan, though sometimes they do.

Wandered into the kingdom the other day and said “you ought to take my damn hand for a moment and see what happens” and then listened for the bells.

For a long while I thought they had gone silent and that the fire was out but then I felt something and wondered. Turned my head and smirked, maybe, just maybe I am dancing in the fire again.

Or maybe not.

I can do more than one thing at a time and be successful.

There is much going on and the outcome is going to be pretty damn interesting.