Testament

Richard Snowden has won the CHCA Election. The CHBA believed his Psychotic reasoning. The Local will be cleansed. Greg Welsh, in his Local piece, didn't mention that every ad for the Positively Slate was paid for by Richard. Greg's history lesson included Lincoln and Darwin.
He didn't mention Judas. He has made an alliance for his own profit that will doom others. He doesn't care. He'll have a new neighbor across the street and ten pieces of silver.

Once upon a time, people like Greg had ideals. Then the bills came and then the rationalizations, and then the lying.

I asked Greg about all of this and he changed the subject.

It's hard to take, but I guess I should be used to it by now. In the past, Greg has agreed with me about Richard's sickness. Now he works for him.

That a Jew with Greg's purported knowledge of history would lie and betray others for profit is simultaneously an irony of Biblical proportions and the reason for our reputation.

There is a phrase in Yiddish, which I will not attempt to phoneticize here. Translated it means "Shame on you for embarrassing us in front of the Christians." For so long, in all of the lands in which we have lived, we were an oppressed and endangered minority, and every action by each one of us reflected on all of us. When any of us acted shamefully, they brought shame on all of us, and endangered all of us. We were always mindful of that.

In America, over the last century, our ethical principles shifted to feel protective not only to those of our blood, but to those who shared the" kinship of experience," those for whom justice was denied, as it was denied us for so long, in so many places.

It explains our presence on the Mall behind Dr King. It explains Jewish Socialism and the Blacklist. It also explains my stand on Palestine.

For as the world turns, our alliances must also turn - from ones governed by pre-enlightenment concepts of tribalism to those of this new kinship, formed through a combination of the freedom and security America provided and the choices that security allowed us to make.

But it is also part of our tradition - Every Man a Rabbi. If you've ever eaten with us, you know what that means. We don't defer. Opinions are part of who we are. We argue about everything, because we have the right to. That, for so long, we were not allowed to speak up in so many public squares made our voices, in private, even more strident.

This tradition, this necessity of intellectual freedom has done more to diminish the numbers of believers in the shared mythology of our past than any tyrant. It is a tradition more important than the mythology. Parables are the way to teach children. It's the fish. Reasoning is the ability to fish.

And so we reason. And investigate. And if we come to a conclusion contrary to the one
accepted by the majority, then who's hewing to tradition more purely?

So when I see a mechanism that does not allow for the free airing of contrary views, I anger.
Calling it "Positive" doesn't change that. The people who stifle this freedom must be called what they are, traitors to to the First Amendment. And if one of my blood betrays those for whom I now feel a more binding kinship than that of blood, I call him traitor also.

Greg's choice was different from mine. His choice feeds into the worst stereotype from which our people suffer.

Congratulations Richard, money well spent; cheaper than Donna Reed Miller.

Goodbye, Pete, and Good Luck.

Shame on you, Greg

Ed (I ain't through yet) Feldman