Re: burning of muslim school is another sign that America has an underlying racist problem

And of course there is the real underlying problem, that many people
refuse to even discuss.
That underlying problem is our apparent inability to accept other
people as our equal. We are unable to accept differences as being
equal to our own. We cannot accept the unfamiliar as being equal to
our own comfortable ways. We cannot live and let live.
If we are unable to resolve this flaw in our human nature, we are
condemned to extinction. My hope is that we will not take down all
known life in the process.
Oddly enough, despite my Agnosticism, many religions understand the
need to have a "new Nature". But sadly, most religions then turn
about and attempt to force their particular ways down the throats of
everyone around them.
And remember, I'm not attempting to change any minds. I merely
suggest that we each begin to use that stuff that lies between our
ears, and is mostly unused.

Carl Jarvis



On 2/15/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> From what I have been reading, there are levels of confusion and varying
> interpretations of what is wrong in Israel. The "liberal" in quotes,
> Zionists, generally believe that things began to go wrong either in 1968 or
> after the Yom Kippor war which, I think, was in 1974, because that is when
> Jews began settling in Palestinian areas, the West Bank or "Occupied
> Territories". This seems to be what Roger Cohen is describing in his book.
> But of course, the whole project of taking land that Palestinians had been
> living on for hundreds of years in 1947 and giving it to the Jews for a
> Jewish State and removing the Palestinians in order to do that, was the
> point at which things began going wrong. There are sseveral Israeli
> historians who have written honestly about what was done, but who believe
> that it was all justified because of the centuries of anti-semitism that
> Jews had experienced and because of the Holocaust. The Zionists always
> believed, and most American Jews were convinced after World War 2, that if
> Jews had their own country, then they would be safe from anti-semitism
> because there would be a nation to protect them. But although this is
> obviously untrue, they keep believing it. Anti-semitism continues, now
> complicated by anti-Zionism which is not the same thing. And Israel is not
> only unsafe because of its actions, but so is the whole Mideast. And Bin
> Ladin specifically referenced the existence of Israel as the main reason
> for
> the 9/11 attacks on us.
>
> Miriam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blind-Democracy [mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On
> Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2015 10:48 AM
> To: Blind Democracy Discussion List
> Subject: burning of muslim school is another sign that America has an
> underlying racist problem
>
> Of course, time as well as tons of misinformation muddy up my memories.
> Hardly a day goes by but what I discover another of my long held beliefs to
> be nothing but another Fairy Tale spread by my ever-loving Empire Media.
> From 1957 to early 1965, I worked for Bartmann and Bixer, a national
> drapery
> manufacturer. Better described as a drapery sweat shop.
> Among the workers were a scattering of Jewish folks who came from Germany
> prior to the Second World War.
> I became very close to a man nearly old enough to be my grandfather.
> Walter Kiksmann, dead these long 30 years, was born prior to the turn of
> the
> last century. Walter and his wife and her mother fled Germany in 1937,
> when
> it was becoming dangerous to stay, but equally dangerous to attempt to
> leave. They had many narrow escapes, but eventually ended up in Ecuador.
> It took them nearly fifteen years before they could enter the USA. Because
> Walter spoke five languages and was a connoisseur of classical music,
> always
> purchasing season tickets to the Seattle Symphony, and because he was well
> read, I had assumed he came from wealth. So I was quite surprised when
> Walter told me that he came from the Working Class in Germany.
> In the early 60's Germany offered a pension of some sort to Jewish citizens
> who had fled the country before the war. Walter and his wife decided that
> they would move back to Germany in order to bring her mother home for her
> last years. But "home" was not the same as it had been over 25 years since
> they had fled. So after his mother-in-law's death, they decided to settle
> in Israel. They lived for several years in a Kibbutz. One day, around
> 1972, I had a call from Walter. He and his wife had returned to Seattle
> and
> were once again living in the same apartment building they had left nearly
> ten years earlier.
> Walter told me that he and his wife discovered that the Germany they missed
> was lost in another time. He said their move to Israel was a mistake from
> the very beginning. He said that while it was a sparse living, what really
> decided them to return to America was the treatment of the Arabs by the new
> Jewish settlers.
> It had always been my intention to set down with Walter one day, and talk
> in
> depth about his experiences in Israel. But as it is, life draws us
> together
> and life pulls us apart. Walter and I talked on the phone from time to
> time, but after his wife's death, he was moved to a nursing home. We spoke
> one last time in 1984. I had planned to make the trip to the nursing home
> to visit Walter in person,but when I called to get directions I was
> informed
> that Walter had passed away just two days prior.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
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