New Article: Richard DeVos and the Brooklyn Sephardic Community: Inspiration and Kindness!
David Shasha
Richard DeVos and the Brooklyn Sephardic Community: Inspiration and Kindness!
A few months ago I discovered a very interesting project called Life Vest created by a young member of the Brooklyn Sephardic community.
The corporation functions as a mindless New Age self-help deal, the sort of thing that in our Dr. Phil/Oprah world has become quite common as a moneymaking operation.
It is all sweetness and light.
Be kind to others and all that.
You know the drill.
The founder of the project is the very ambitious Orly Wahba, a former teacher at the Yeshivah of Flatbush elementary school:
http://www.lifevestinside.com/about-us/founder/
I was particularly struck by the following Life Vest “Daily Kind” post which features words of inspiration from none other than Amway founder and radical Right Wing Republican financier Richard DeVos:
http://www.lifevestinside.com/the-daily-kindness-digest-270/?mc_cid=8c2491af1e&mc_eid=6025c9bfd2
Here are his inspirational words of “Kindness”:
Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push.
For those who might not be familiar with DeVos and his family, here is their Forbes profile:
https://www.forbes.com/profile/richard-devos/
His daughter-in-law Betsy is now Trump’s Education Secretary:
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a8580091/betsy-devos-trump-administration-education-secretary/
She has a long history of malicious intervention in our public education system:
The Orthodox Jews appear to be enchanted with her as she pushes for government funding of parochial schools through the school voucher program:
We should keep that point in mind when we see the name “DeVos” being deployed by an apparatchik of the Orthodox Jewish community, as it has a very different resonance for such Jews than it might for those who see school privatization as a threat to the integrity of the American educational system as presently constructed.
The Jews have thus gladly embraced the Radical Right in order to fund their schools and help resolve the much-discussed “Tuition Crisis”:
http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/the-tuition-crisis-at-20-what-now/
Citing Richard DeVos in the Orthodox Jewish community would surely be seen as a net positive if you are in the fundraising business.
And let us not forget Mrs. DeVos’ brother, the notorious Erik Prince, founder of the military company Blackwater, a shadowy and dangerous group that has been involved in all sorts of malfeasance and shenanigans since Bush 43’s Iraq debacle:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/erik-prince/
https://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/25/erik_prince_in_the_hot_seat
Prince worked along with the DeVos family and other extremist Republicans to help get Trump elected:
We have just learned that he too has been part of the Trump Russia conspiracy:
According to a Washington Post report predictably denied by the White House, Prince acted as a representative of Trump working to create a back-channel to Putin and his kleptocracy.
The complex ties between Trump and the DeVos family touch on many of the most troubling issues of the day, as we continue to try to figure out Trumpworld’s connections to the Russian criminal cabal led by the vile Putin.
There are indeed many layers of intrigue in this relationship which speaks to the tenuous legal posture of the White House and its violation of standard presidential protocols and ethical norms. It is a relationship firmly rooted in the most extreme faction of contemporary Republican politics.
Here is how the Politico article describes the far-reaching political power of the DeVos family:
… the DeVos family, with Dick and Betsy at the helm, has emerged as a political force without comparison in Michigan. Their politics are profoundly Christian and conservative—“God, America, Free Enterprise,” to borrow the subtitle of family patriarch Richard DeVos’ 1975 book, Believe!—and their vast resources (the family’s cumulative net worth is estimated at well over $5 billion) assure that they can steamroll their way to victory on issues ranging from education reform to workers’ rights. “At the federal level, when GOP candidates are looking for big donors to back them, they have options,” says Craig Mauger, executive director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. “If you don’t get Sheldon Adelson, you can go to the Koch brothers, and so on. In Michigan, the DeVos family is a class of donor all by themselves.”
And so it is that Richard DeVos is an excellent model for the Brooklyn Sephardic community, a group that I have called “Pious Degenerates”:
The community has no respect for its precious cultural heritage and has embraced Ashkenazi Orthodoxy in a way that makes them look like fools in the larger Jewish world:
The quote from Richard DeVos, founder of one of the most profitable pyramid schemes in the history of American business, speaks to us in the language of “Positivity” and “Power”; two critical values for the “Idiot Sephardim”:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4375477/ns/dateline_nbc-consumer_alert/t/pursuit-almighty-dollar/
It is little wonder that both Amway and the SYs prize secrecy above all else; they all have a good deal to hide.
“Positivity” thus means to ignore malfeasance and go with the crowd wherever it might lead you, just as long as you can make plenty of money along the way.
For all the blather about “Kindness,” it is clear that the Brooklyn Syrian Jewish community is all about the Benjamins, and “Positive” energy is just a smokescreen for the ability to fundraise.
In this duplicitous context to be “Negative” is a very bad thing which would serve to expose wrongdoing and undermine the power of the leadership. It would put a monkey wrench into the gears of the rich autocrats.
The connections with Trumpworld are pretty obvious.
Indeed, since the time of its iconic leader Isaac Shalom, the SY community has been run in an autocratic manner that is very much redolent of the Trump management style.
Questioning authority is not allowed.
Secrecy is paramount.
Cruelty is of the essence.
More than this, it is important to understand that economic advancement is predicated on remaining loyal to the corrupt system that has been set into place by the autocrats.
It was Isaac Shalom, the SY Trump, who cut down the great Hakham Matloub Abadi, and put into place a corrupt Ashkenazi Orthodox pedagogical system that continues to wreak havoc with our traditional culture and moral values.
And so it is that a member of the SY community serves up the “wisdom” of Richard DeVos who exalts the worship of material things, providing a tantalizing whiff of what power is all about, and instructs us in how we should all bow before the oligarchs and masters of our society.
It teaches us that cheating and scamming others pays off handsomely in the long run.
The presentation of the quote thus becomes a very subtle device to “inspire” us to affirm the corruption of Trumpworld and in the process elevate our socio-economic standing in these troubled times.
It is a very valuable lesson that our young people need to learn!
And if you want to know how profitable it can be to serve the political elites, look no further than the following report from The New York Times which details the cash bonanza generated by members of the Trump White House as they serve their wealthy political masters:
Rather than attack the New Fascism and the endemic corruption and barbarism of Trumpworld, the idea is to go along with the crowd and collect your financial reward.
This is indeed what “success” means to the SY community and how it has so coldly and callously embraced the current political corruption in a way that serves to ensure its access to the elites and their malignant power.
It is also a stern warning to those who would be foolhardy enough to fight such power.
So be careful who is pushing you, and where you might land.
In the end, as our president never tires of saying, it is all about winning and not losing.
David Shasha