Aboard the Good Ship Rachel Corrie

[JM]

One fine Jewish Gent hath done said . . .

> It is that the leftists have forgotten the lesson of NEVER AGAIN.

Worse than forgetting it, they are "tired" of it. And there are many
on the Right who are no different, such as the ilk of Reagan's old
buddy, James Baker--albeit I can think of few, if any Jews on the
Right of which this could be said. I can stand to be corrected on that
as I begin to think of one so-called 'conservative' Jewish PBS talking
head and journalist, "David" somebody or other, whose surname I
mercifully forget.

> That means that while we will use the courts and the legal system, we
> also have to be willing to use force.  That is why there are Jews who
> are gun owners, who have experience in the US military.

Well sure! Look at Mickey Cohen, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, and Abe
Bernstein's "Purple Gang". Whether you got your Jewish gun in the
Army or on the Brownsville streets of Brooklyn--what's the diff?

Jews can get their guns, too!

> There are times that if we wait for the police then we will be dead.
> The one big curse of the left is that they have so bought into the
> idea of pacifism.

Then they must be buying into it at a White Sale or down in the
bargain basement of the wrong department store because it would appear
not to be the authentic item, not the same pacifism that was owned by
Einstein and Gandhi, both of whom saw very clearly that there are
certain limitations to pacifist action which are determined by the
nature of the adversary, depending whether they be civilized or
savage.

Passive resistance worked against the British Empire in India, and
against a Judeo-Christian society in the American South. Where there
is a civilized conscience in the adversary, pacifism can be the
greatest weapon of political strategy known to man. Were the
Palestinians to get hip to this fact, Israel would have a real battle
on its hands.

But this won't happen, because it is essential that the pacifist
herself or himself be civilized, and that takes it off the table for
the jihad-aiding "activists" on those ships with their clubs and
knives. By the same token, for both Gandhi and Einstein it was clear
that against Hitler, pacifism was a dead duck. So it goes aboard
those ships, when Israel comes pacifically armed with paint-ball guns
against an "activist" who holds up the dagger as a holy means to a
holy end.

>That the only way to be a leftist is to be
> emasculated.  That any show of strength is being a "cowboy".

Believe it or not, ol' Shmendrik here, no different than my 60s
homeboy Horowitz, was once a full bore anti-war pacifist who devotedly
subscribed to Ramparts, David's way radical left magazine of the time,
and to other "Jewish" Yippie broadsheets like Paul Krassner's
"Realist". And the odd thing is, I haven't really changed. Liberalism
has changed. I don't own guns and I'm still a pacifist whenever
humanly possible.

But I know you can't fight Hitler, dueling against a sword with a
joint of marijuana, a daisy or a guitar string--and so it goes with
the Islamic Jihad. You wind up pushing up the daisies with David
Pearl. And I really hate hearing myself say things like, "those
fascists on that Ship of Fools deserved every bullet they got." I
truly HATE hearing myself say such a thing, just as Einstein and
Gandhi hated having to say they could see no other way against Fascism
than the gun. It really killed them to see it revealed that their
pacifism could not be absolute and universal.

Fascism calls the shots against pacifism and names the rules of the
game. You see that ugly, hairy face coming at you with that big curvy
dagger and what are you going to do? You have to blow that creature
away with every bullet it "deserves". You'll want to plant 4 of those
slugs into that ugly screaming face. That is not a civilized man
you're dealing with, it's a savage whose religion is in that blade and
all it can do to remove your head for you. He's a headhunter from the
jungle and nothing on earth disgusts him more than if you should stand
there with your paint-gun whistling, "Give Peace a Chance." He'll show
you his morality teaches the opposite, "Give my curvy dagger a
chance."

Will someone say that most of the "activists" on those Love Boats are
non-violent pacifists? But then how can a non-violent pacifist be
speaking in chorus with Rachel Corrie to say, as she did say, that she
can fully sympathize with those who take up arms and strap bombs to
themselves in warfare against Israel? Non-violence CANNOT come into
alliance with violence. That IS absolute and universal.

You name your ship after that ________(fill in the blank) and you
board that scow (see how this could rhyme?) and you are NO
"pacifist", not by definition of the pacifism that gained freedom for
the American Negro and Independence for the people of India. Rachel
Corrie KNEW that her actions, had they been successful, would have
brought death to Israeli babies. She knew that. She was no "pacifist."
A pancake, most deservedly, yes. Pacifist, no.
--
JM