Great post - I always love the number of links you include. I do feel betrayed by gabor. How can people be so ignorant and so blind is one question. But how can Jewish people? I can’t fathom it. I had a discussion with a friends daughter back around May in Israel/Palestine and I was so shocked by her comments - which are now parroted everywhere. Clearly I was living under a rock. I’m not sure what has shocked me more - my initial conversation with her or learning that millions of people believe such simplistic crap that is so obviously nonsensical. TFP has a interesting graph up in their tgif post of how opinion has swung on social media since 7-Oct.
Thank you! I, too, rue choices I made earlier on in the education of my daughter. I sent her to an activist (smug) school. Thank goodness she paid less attention than most.
For me, the blinders came off as the kids all around me fell to Trans cult.
Thanks for this recommendation, this is a great article that should be shared far and wide. If you don't have an Atlantic subscription and can't read the whole article, here is an archived link:
It is all of a piece.. the destruction of the enlightened west. Transgenderism, environmentalism, anti-colonialism, antisemitism are all about tearing down successful civilizations and relationships. Time to put up the American flag, be a proud supporter of marriage, the nuclear family and the free market. Those are the actual rebellious and righteous causes now. Oppose tyranny in all of its forms.
I haven't had time to check out all your hyperlinks so not sure if you heard it too--the most recent Heterodorx with a rabbi is interesting and illuminating. They dove into Israel in a few episodes.
I pray for your son. Honestly amongst young males this leftist stuff is on the way out, a no go for most teenage dudes at this point. Theres a pretty high correlation between self-doubt/self-hate and embracing leftism (as a guy). So perhaps if he found a group of friends that made him feel secure and cool. Or if he joined a semi-masculine activity (which naturally leads to jocular patterns of male joking, logical debates, and emotional bluntness) then he would kind of snap out of it. Male Leftism is a niche thats filled by guys who perceive themself to be on the outside, who then want a lens thru which they can view the socially-embraced guys as being “wannabes, meatheads, misogynists, etc”. In reality men love the fellowship of other men.
Maybe this doesnt apply to him at all! But something to think about. Not hating on him if he does feel a lack of male social acceptance. Thats always hard and teenage guys cope with it in different ways. 🙏
You've provided some excellent links here—that Fathom piece is genuinely helpful history, as are some of those one star Amazon reviews of the revisionist "historians" (novelists? ;-). I've thought of you often in these past few weeks of horror and upheaval. It is clear our world is destabilizing—the liberal order we all assumed was a fixture of the West is crumbling beneath us. And it's the way Jews are treated, openly and unabashedly, that is the signal. It's surreal.
If you don't subscribe to Rod Dreher (he's a politically homeless, conservative Orthodox Christian journalist now living as an ex-pat in Budapest), you might want to check him out. He writes prolifically on cultural and political topics anyway, but since October 7 he's been on fire in regard to the antisemitic uprising across the West. He has his own Substack (mostly paywalled), but he also writes for the European Conservative (free). I think you might appreciate his work. Here are a couple recent ones available to all:
Thanks for the links Leah! Will def check it out. Maybe move to Budapest? I mean... thanks also for noticing the links to the one star Amazon reviews. I soothe myself with thoughtful one star reviews often.
Rod has been writing recently about the number of Europeans, mostly Brits, who are traveling to Budapest looking to buy property exactly because of the way the Britain and other European governments have failed to manage the masses of unassimilated, anti-West Muslims to whom they threw open their doors over the past decade or two. The fruits of that ill-considered immigration policy has set up a clash of cultures that is now beginning to play out on their streets, and to date the British government in particular is siding with those masses against their own people. Take a look at this thread, which shows video taken the same weekend as 100,000 pro-Palestine protestors were in the streets and surrounding Parliament, shouting "Allahu Akbar" while the Metropolitan police stood by and watched.
All of this craziness in our country is going to end in one of four ways:
• Triumph of the Trads. Traditionalists take back our country. I think most of us here hope for this. Hispanics would play an important role in this. Compared to the other scenarios, our kids - even the LGBTQABCD... - end up better off.
• Revenge of the Woke. The "Empire," i.e., the Establishment, take away whatever victories the Trads have won, and the US becomes even more like Canada under Trudeau. The CCP succeeds in brainwashing our kids and so we become hyper-isolationist. The Common Man and Woman are faced with head-spinning changes depending on who's being paid by whom. Our kids aren't reading - but are living - 1984.
Muddling Through. We stay poised on a knife's edge, "a bug looking for a windshield" (HT John Mauldin) but never finding it. No one really wins.
War and Recession. We're way too close for comfort to this. Our depleted arsenals, our Woke military, and flabby (both physically and mentally) youth mean that a loss (e.g., to China) would be too likely. Our unpayable debt will continue to eat up an increasing portion of our tax revenue. And the American Dream becomes something of a nightmare. Our kids get to relive the Depression like their Great Grandparents did. Social Justice Warriors starve along with the rest of us.
Uggghh I can't imagine number 1 happening, which leaves us with three shitty outcomes. No wonder assisted suicide is gaining traction in the top hat 🎩 aka Canada. Time is nothing but a circle. Serenity now!
True, but the least shitty - muddling through - is by far the most likely. And, in an odd way, it may not be all that shitty. It leaves the burden where it's always been - on our backs as parents. It increases the degree of difficulty of parenting, but that makes our successes just that much sweeter. To sail on smooth waters is nice; to overcome the wind and waves is scarier, but more satisfying.
That’s quite a confession. I had given up listening to Ben- redundancy of topics, talking points, points of view discussed or offered- which is not to say that I disagreed with him. But his coverage of all of the events in Israel since Oct 7 have meant that In checking in on him again.
Did you see Eli Lake’s piece for TFP this week on Frantz Fanon? I’d never heard of Fanon, but it sounds like something we’ll both need to look into while we’re preparing to have those successful dialogues one day.
You can lie to yourself all u want, but it’s Likudnik supporters like you who put Israel in this position.
Congressman Andy Levin loves Israel, wanted peace for Israel, and AIPAC spent 2.5 million to defeat him. He was president of the oldest temple in Michigan, nephew to the great Senator Carl Levin. What AIPAC did was truly anti-Semitic and you are the one who is truly self-hating.
Peter Beinart or Max Blumenthal would destroy Itamar Ben Shapiro in any legitimate debate. Read Jewish Currents. Read Miko Peled’s book “The General’s Son.” Stop hating the educated Jewish left in America and Israel.
For the first time in my life I am not lying to myself, because the truth is that the oppressor/oppressed narrative does not describe every injustice in the world. I listened to your boy Miko and find it spectacularly hypocritical that you call me self-hating when Miko witnessed the murder of his neice at the hands of a terrorist and then became an anti-Zionist pro-Palestine supporter and called his father, an Israeli soldier, a terrorist for the “evil apartheid occupying oppressor” Israel. He says that October 7 was a military operation that hamas had nothing to do with and that included no civilian murders, mutilations or rapes. Astounding. I’ve never been prouder to be a Jew than I am now. We will not agree and that’s just the way of it.
1400 dead in October, 2023. In Israel. The worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. It should never have happened! This cycle of violence continues because thickheaded tribal fools refuse to consider a new path. Refuse compromise. Refuse peace. Rabin was killed by an evil selfish idiot. Bibi should be in jail, not on Bill Maher's show. Read Israeli historian Ilan Pappe's books. Or Gabor Mate's books on generational trauma. Open your mind.
PS: Miko grew up in Jerusalem. He spent 3 years in the IDF. He lost his niece to terrorism. He understands more than you ever will.
I know where Miko grew up. Great for him. Give him a medal. Use your passion to talk with someone who will be swayed by your weak arguments and propaganda. It's not happening here. I used to be a woke sheep like you. Good riddance to trash philosophies that cause nothing but harm and trouble.
Great post - I always love the number of links you include. I do feel betrayed by gabor. How can people be so ignorant and so blind is one question. But how can Jewish people? I can’t fathom it. I had a discussion with a friends daughter back around May in Israel/Palestine and I was so shocked by her comments - which are now parroted everywhere. Clearly I was living under a rock. I’m not sure what has shocked me more - my initial conversation with her or learning that millions of people believe such simplistic crap that is so obviously nonsensical. TFP has a interesting graph up in their tgif post of how opinion has swung on social media since 7-Oct.
congrats on days sober - well done!!!!!
Can we please be friends?
Done!
After I read this article, I too felt a major girl-crush coming on. 😊
I'm here for it! 😍
Thank you! I, too, rue choices I made earlier on in the education of my daughter. I sent her to an activist (smug) school. Thank goodness she paid less attention than most.
For me, the blinders came off as the kids all around me fell to Trans cult.
Have opened most of your links. Apologies if you linked to this and I missed it. A great article: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/decolonization-narrative-dangerous-and-false/675799/
We're birds of a feather with our awakening moments. Did not link that so thank you! Will read!
Thanks for this recommendation, this is a great article that should be shared far and wide. If you don't have an Atlantic subscription and can't read the whole article, here is an archived link:
https://archive.ph/6badY
It is all of a piece.. the destruction of the enlightened west. Transgenderism, environmentalism, anti-colonialism, antisemitism are all about tearing down successful civilizations and relationships. Time to put up the American flag, be a proud supporter of marriage, the nuclear family and the free market. Those are the actual rebellious and righteous causes now. Oppose tyranny in all of its forms.
We're the real punk rockers! 🤘🏼
I haven't had time to check out all your hyperlinks so not sure if you heard it too--the most recent Heterodorx with a rabbi is interesting and illuminating. They dove into Israel in a few episodes.
https://www.heterodorx.com/podcast/episode-116-ask-a-zionist-with-rabbi-jonathan-greenberg/
Thanks Elizabeth! Will check it out.
Pancake face, ozempic face and the other one...mensches they are NOT.
Congrats on 41 days.
The other one lol
I pray for your son. Honestly amongst young males this leftist stuff is on the way out, a no go for most teenage dudes at this point. Theres a pretty high correlation between self-doubt/self-hate and embracing leftism (as a guy). So perhaps if he found a group of friends that made him feel secure and cool. Or if he joined a semi-masculine activity (which naturally leads to jocular patterns of male joking, logical debates, and emotional bluntness) then he would kind of snap out of it. Male Leftism is a niche thats filled by guys who perceive themself to be on the outside, who then want a lens thru which they can view the socially-embraced guys as being “wannabes, meatheads, misogynists, etc”. In reality men love the fellowship of other men.
Maybe this doesnt apply to him at all! But something to think about. Not hating on him if he does feel a lack of male social acceptance. Thats always hard and teenage guys cope with it in different ways. 🙏
Congrats on 41 days!
Thank you Kim!
You've provided some excellent links here—that Fathom piece is genuinely helpful history, as are some of those one star Amazon reviews of the revisionist "historians" (novelists? ;-). I've thought of you often in these past few weeks of horror and upheaval. It is clear our world is destabilizing—the liberal order we all assumed was a fixture of the West is crumbling beneath us. And it's the way Jews are treated, openly and unabashedly, that is the signal. It's surreal.
If you don't subscribe to Rod Dreher (he's a politically homeless, conservative Orthodox Christian journalist now living as an ex-pat in Budapest), you might want to check him out. He writes prolifically on cultural and political topics anyway, but since October 7 he's been on fire in regard to the antisemitic uprising across the West. He has his own Substack (mostly paywalled), but he also writes for the European Conservative (free). I think you might appreciate his work. Here are a couple recent ones available to all:
https://roddreher.substack.com/p/the-axis-of-the-human-heart
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/dreher/the-lost-territories-of-the-west-how-our-cities-all-became-parisian-suburbs/
Thanks for the links Leah! Will def check it out. Maybe move to Budapest? I mean... thanks also for noticing the links to the one star Amazon reviews. I soothe myself with thoughtful one star reviews often.
Rod has been writing recently about the number of Europeans, mostly Brits, who are traveling to Budapest looking to buy property exactly because of the way the Britain and other European governments have failed to manage the masses of unassimilated, anti-West Muslims to whom they threw open their doors over the past decade or two. The fruits of that ill-considered immigration policy has set up a clash of cultures that is now beginning to play out on their streets, and to date the British government in particular is siding with those masses against their own people. Take a look at this thread, which shows video taken the same weekend as 100,000 pro-Palestine protestors were in the streets and surrounding Parliament, shouting "Allahu Akbar" while the Metropolitan police stood by and watched.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1719509199162413334
All of this craziness in our country is going to end in one of four ways:
• Triumph of the Trads. Traditionalists take back our country. I think most of us here hope for this. Hispanics would play an important role in this. Compared to the other scenarios, our kids - even the LGBTQABCD... - end up better off.
• Revenge of the Woke. The "Empire," i.e., the Establishment, take away whatever victories the Trads have won, and the US becomes even more like Canada under Trudeau. The CCP succeeds in brainwashing our kids and so we become hyper-isolationist. The Common Man and Woman are faced with head-spinning changes depending on who's being paid by whom. Our kids aren't reading - but are living - 1984.
Muddling Through. We stay poised on a knife's edge, "a bug looking for a windshield" (HT John Mauldin) but never finding it. No one really wins.
War and Recession. We're way too close for comfort to this. Our depleted arsenals, our Woke military, and flabby (both physically and mentally) youth mean that a loss (e.g., to China) would be too likely. Our unpayable debt will continue to eat up an increasing portion of our tax revenue. And the American Dream becomes something of a nightmare. Our kids get to relive the Depression like their Great Grandparents did. Social Justice Warriors starve along with the rest of us.
Uggghh I can't imagine number 1 happening, which leaves us with three shitty outcomes. No wonder assisted suicide is gaining traction in the top hat 🎩 aka Canada. Time is nothing but a circle. Serenity now!
True, but the least shitty - muddling through - is by far the most likely. And, in an odd way, it may not be all that shitty. It leaves the burden where it's always been - on our backs as parents. It increases the degree of difficulty of parenting, but that makes our successes just that much sweeter. To sail on smooth waters is nice; to overcome the wind and waves is scarier, but more satisfying.
I'll go with that!
That’s quite a confession. I had given up listening to Ben- redundancy of topics, talking points, points of view discussed or offered- which is not to say that I disagreed with him. But his coverage of all of the events in Israel since Oct 7 have meant that In checking in on him again.
Did you see Eli Lake’s piece for TFP this week on Frantz Fanon? I’d never heard of Fanon, but it sounds like something we’ll both need to look into while we’re preparing to have those successful dialogues one day.
Ooh I missed that one but can't wait to dive in, thanks Becky!
You can lie to yourself all u want, but it’s Likudnik supporters like you who put Israel in this position.
Congressman Andy Levin loves Israel, wanted peace for Israel, and AIPAC spent 2.5 million to defeat him. He was president of the oldest temple in Michigan, nephew to the great Senator Carl Levin. What AIPAC did was truly anti-Semitic and you are the one who is truly self-hating.
Peter Beinart or Max Blumenthal would destroy Itamar Ben Shapiro in any legitimate debate. Read Jewish Currents. Read Miko Peled’s book “The General’s Son.” Stop hating the educated Jewish left in America and Israel.
For the first time in my life I am not lying to myself, because the truth is that the oppressor/oppressed narrative does not describe every injustice in the world. I listened to your boy Miko and find it spectacularly hypocritical that you call me self-hating when Miko witnessed the murder of his neice at the hands of a terrorist and then became an anti-Zionist pro-Palestine supporter and called his father, an Israeli soldier, a terrorist for the “evil apartheid occupying oppressor” Israel. He says that October 7 was a military operation that hamas had nothing to do with and that included no civilian murders, mutilations or rapes. Astounding. I’ve never been prouder to be a Jew than I am now. We will not agree and that’s just the way of it.
1400 dead in October, 2023. In Israel. The worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. It should never have happened! This cycle of violence continues because thickheaded tribal fools refuse to consider a new path. Refuse compromise. Refuse peace. Rabin was killed by an evil selfish idiot. Bibi should be in jail, not on Bill Maher's show. Read Israeli historian Ilan Pappe's books. Or Gabor Mate's books on generational trauma. Open your mind.
PS: Miko grew up in Jerusalem. He spent 3 years in the IDF. He lost his niece to terrorism. He understands more than you ever will.
I know where Miko grew up. Great for him. Give him a medal. Use your passion to talk with someone who will be swayed by your weak arguments and propaganda. It's not happening here. I used to be a woke sheep like you. Good riddance to trash philosophies that cause nothing but harm and trouble.
I'd go with Hamas-exclusionary rational Zionist... [edit: or "reasonable"]