Thursday, October 28, 2004
Divided we stand - some election observations
Divided we stand - some election observations
Is this really the election of a lifetime? Is security the overarching issue?An Israeli friend who comes to T&V country every year - most recently staying at the International Seamen's Mission Hotel, 16th Street and Irving Place, where a merchant mariner's card gives you a 30% discount off the reasonable $100 a night rates - provides some insight. Seeing the security guards electronically pat down the concertgoers at the Irving Plaza rock and roll emporium, across the street from the hotel, equates, to him, the US attitudes with those of Israel, where fear of terror is a daily concern and every restaurant and coffeeshop has searchers. He sees the US airport protection measures as even more severe than those of Israel, where ElAl security people interview the people standing in line, and let the grandmothers pass without the indignities that random number-driven search systems expose them to. Druze and Bedouin guards at border crossings screen Arab day laborers, and pick up suspicious language and behavior differences. Palestinians still cross every day to work for Israelis, the tension notwithstanding. All that interaction despite the fact that the Palestinian adherence to Hamas has grown from 20 to 60% since 2000. This leftwing Meretz party adherent himself has grown to accept the idea that peace is impossible and that the famous 20-foot fence is essential to minimizing terrorism. Although he thinks Carey will reduce the tension and facilitate some form of international cooperation and order in Iraq, his is not the majority opinion in Israel, where the thought that "Bush is good for us" prevails.
In our own country, the splits within the communities are bitter, beyond anything in one's recall. In the Jewish community, Jewish Week, a middle of the line weekly, reports that of American Jews (69 to 24% for Kerry), some 60% disapprove of Bush's handling of Iraq while within the 20% Russian émigré substrata (54 to 14 for Bush), most approve of it, 55 to 27%. Security above all is the issue. On withdrawal from Gaza the American vs. Russian Jewish approval ratios are 65 vs. 34%, on the issue of a Palestinian state 57 vs. 24%, on compromising over the status of Jerusalem 42 to 7%, on the fence 69 vs. 88%, and on the war on terrorism 42 to 88%. The undecided factions are major. Economic factors appear to be ignored: the Russian émigrés are poor people, 53 % unemployed, 67% reporting family incomes of $30,000 a year or less. Victor Topaller, Russian talk show host, is quoted as observing that Russian Jews, unlike their American brethren, feel Jewish first and American second. Alec Brook-Krasny, executive director of the Council of Jewish Émigré Community Organizations, believes that there is some ambivalence, and the community members, heavily dependent upon social benefits and American government services, may change their allegiances if such services are threatened.
Gary Rosenblatt, the editor and publisher of Jewish Week, keeps editorializing about being torn between the positions, finally declaring that preserving Israel will be the determinant factor in his voting. While Carey has a 100% pro-Israel record, it was Nixon who sent arms to defend the new Jewish homeland in the 1972 Yom Kippur war. Rosenblatt does not believe that his 1972 candidate, George McGovern, would have responded as positively.
And so it goes. The observer begins to wonder how many among us really stand for the best interests of the United Sates of America, who wants to work for the limiting of bloodshed, for the survival of civilization? The Evangelical Christians base their voting on Bush's religious convictions. The Rev Pat Robertson, while becrying the lies about minimal bloodshed, does not disapprove of the Bush way of warring. His partner in the Christian Coalition, the racist Rev Billy McCormack, just last week, on CNN, dubbed the Constitution-minded opponents of the Coalition's political activities as Antichrists, a severe accusation. The Republican leadership in Colorado Springs plan to call the casters of absentee ballots to come and vote anyway, just to confuse the issue, with "no intention of stealing." America, what has happened to us?
In T&V country the sentiments run deep. There are people who have gone to Pennsylvania for rallies, and are going to Ohio to call on Democrats, and to Florida, to help run phone banks bringing out voters, in cooperation with local van driving volunteers. What are the concerns, since Bush and Carey both has sworn to continue the war? The hope of a fresh start in negotiations and coalition building gives the war weary the impetus to press for Kerry, and the fear of a Republican Supreme Court and destruction of American principles drives the liberal-minded. Terror, a 9/11 reality for the East Coasters, is, curiously, the overwhelming issue in middle America, in the safe harbor red states.
This terrible, nearly 50-50 dichotomy bodes ill for a just and speedy election. Challenges will occur in a lot more states than just Florida, bringing a new delay and squabble factor into the elections, along with the concern that the Supreme Court may once more cast the deciding vote in selecting our President. Let us pray for a temporary return of sanity.
Is this really the election of a lifetime? Is security the overarching issue?An Israeli friend who comes to T&V country every year - most recently staying at the International Seamen's Mission Hotel, 16th Street and Irving Place, where a merchant mariner's card gives you a 30% discount off the reasonable $100 a night rates - provides some insight. Seeing the security guards electronically pat down the concertgoers at the Irving Plaza rock and roll emporium, across the street from the hotel, equates, to him, the US attitudes with those of Israel, where fear of terror is a daily concern and every restaurant and coffeeshop has searchers. He sees the US airport protection measures as even more severe than those of Israel, where ElAl security people interview the people standing in line, and let the grandmothers pass without the indignities that random number-driven search systems expose them to. Druze and Bedouin guards at border crossings screen Arab day laborers, and pick up suspicious language and behavior differences. Palestinians still cross every day to work for Israelis, the tension notwithstanding. All that interaction despite the fact that the Palestinian adherence to Hamas has grown from 20 to 60% since 2000. This leftwing Meretz party adherent himself has grown to accept the idea that peace is impossible and that the famous 20-foot fence is essential to minimizing terrorism. Although he thinks Carey will reduce the tension and facilitate some form of international cooperation and order in Iraq, his is not the majority opinion in Israel, where the thought that "Bush is good for us" prevails.
In our own country, the splits within the communities are bitter, beyond anything in one's recall. In the Jewish community, Jewish Week, a middle of the line weekly, reports that of American Jews (69 to 24% for Kerry), some 60% disapprove of Bush's handling of Iraq while within the 20% Russian émigré substrata (54 to 14 for Bush), most approve of it, 55 to 27%. Security above all is the issue. On withdrawal from Gaza the American vs. Russian Jewish approval ratios are 65 vs. 34%, on the issue of a Palestinian state 57 vs. 24%, on compromising over the status of Jerusalem 42 to 7%, on the fence 69 vs. 88%, and on the war on terrorism 42 to 88%. The undecided factions are major. Economic factors appear to be ignored: the Russian émigrés are poor people, 53 % unemployed, 67% reporting family incomes of $30,000 a year or less. Victor Topaller, Russian talk show host, is quoted as observing that Russian Jews, unlike their American brethren, feel Jewish first and American second. Alec Brook-Krasny, executive director of the Council of Jewish Émigré Community Organizations, believes that there is some ambivalence, and the community members, heavily dependent upon social benefits and American government services, may change their allegiances if such services are threatened.
Gary Rosenblatt, the editor and publisher of Jewish Week, keeps editorializing about being torn between the positions, finally declaring that preserving Israel will be the determinant factor in his voting. While Carey has a 100% pro-Israel record, it was Nixon who sent arms to defend the new Jewish homeland in the 1972 Yom Kippur war. Rosenblatt does not believe that his 1972 candidate, George McGovern, would have responded as positively.
And so it goes. The observer begins to wonder how many among us really stand for the best interests of the United Sates of America, who wants to work for the limiting of bloodshed, for the survival of civilization? The Evangelical Christians base their voting on Bush's religious convictions. The Rev Pat Robertson, while becrying the lies about minimal bloodshed, does not disapprove of the Bush way of warring. His partner in the Christian Coalition, the racist Rev Billy McCormack, just last week, on CNN, dubbed the Constitution-minded opponents of the Coalition's political activities as Antichrists, a severe accusation. The Republican leadership in Colorado Springs plan to call the casters of absentee ballots to come and vote anyway, just to confuse the issue, with "no intention of stealing." America, what has happened to us?
In T&V country the sentiments run deep. There are people who have gone to Pennsylvania for rallies, and are going to Ohio to call on Democrats, and to Florida, to help run phone banks bringing out voters, in cooperation with local van driving volunteers. What are the concerns, since Bush and Carey both has sworn to continue the war? The hope of a fresh start in negotiations and coalition building gives the war weary the impetus to press for Kerry, and the fear of a Republican Supreme Court and destruction of American principles drives the liberal-minded. Terror, a 9/11 reality for the East Coasters, is, curiously, the overwhelming issue in middle America, in the safe harbor red states.
This terrible, nearly 50-50 dichotomy bodes ill for a just and speedy election. Challenges will occur in a lot more states than just Florida, bringing a new delay and squabble factor into the elections, along with the concern that the Supreme Court may once more cast the deciding vote in selecting our President. Let us pray for a temporary return of sanity.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 11:58 AM 
