Archive for the ‘politricks’
World Ideologies
FEUDALISM
You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
PURE SOCIALISM
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you a glass of milk.
BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM
Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you should need.
FASCISM
You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
PURE COMMUNISM
You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need". Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.
RUSSIAN COMMUNISM
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.
PERESTROIKA
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the "free" market.
CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
DICTATORSHIP
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
PURE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
BUREAUCRACY
You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
CAPITALISM
You don't have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don't have any cows to put up as collateral.
PURE ANARCHY
You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.
ANARCHO-CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
SURREALISM
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
OLYMPICS-ISM
You have two cows, one American, one Chinese. With the help of trilling violins and state-of-the-art montage photography, John Tesh narrates the moving tale of how the American cow overcame the agony of growing up in a suburb with (gasp) divorced parents, then mentions in passing that the Chinese cow was beaten every day by a tyrannical farmer and watched its parents butchered before its eyes. The American cow wins the competition, severely spraining an udder in a gritty performance, and gets a multi-million dollar contract to endorse Wheaties. The Chinese cow is led out of the arena and shot by Chinese government officials, though no one ever hears about it. McDonald's buys the meat and serves it hot and fast at its Beijing restaurant.
Why did chazal interject women into parshas korach?
Rabbi Frand on Parshas Korach
These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher Frand's Commuter Chavrusah Tapes on the weekly portion: Tape # 378 - Truth Telling to Patients. Good Shabbos!
The Brilliance of Common Sense
"Korach, son of Yitzhar, son of Kahas, son of Levi, separated himself with Dasan and Aviram, sons of Eliav, and O'ne son of Peles, the offspring of Reuvain" [Bamidbar 16:1]. On many occasions, we have quoted the Medrashic elaboration on Parshas Korach that contrasts two types of wives — the wife of Korach and the wife of O'ne ben Peles [Sanhedrin 109b]. Although O'ne ben Peles is listed prominently in the opening pasuk of the Parsha among the co- conspirators of Korach's rebellion, he did not die. Korach died. Dasan and Aviram died. But our Sages teach us that O'ne ben Peles's wife saved him.
According to the Talmud, Korach's wife goaded him on and encouraged him to stand up against Moshe and his family's nepotism. O'ne ben Peles' wife, on the other hand, counseled her husband to avoid the dispute. "Listen, O'ne, what are you going to get out of this? Whichever way things play out, you will still emerge as just a 'bit player'. Either Moshe will emerge as the unchallenged leader or Korach will emerge as the leader. In either case you will be nothing more that a 'second fiddle'! You stand to gain nothing by getting involved in this fight!"
The Talmud quotes the pasuk "Chochmas Nashim bansa baysah" [The wisdom of a wife can save a household] [Mishlei 14:1]. The Gemara explains that this refers to the wife of O'ne ben Peles. She exhibited tremendous wisdom by convincing her husband that there was nothing to be gained by getting involved in Korach's rebellion. Shlomo was alluding to this wisdom in the above quoted pasuk.
The question can be asked, however, where was the great wisdom here? It was a rather elementary conclusion that her husband would not be the leader either way. Where was the great brilliance? She did nothing more than point out an obvious fact to her husband.
Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz raises this question and explains that when most people are involved in disputes (machlokes), they 'lose their cool' and lose their common sense. The fire of machlokes — picking sides, getting involved, becoming part of it — is all-powerful. There is an over-riding tendency and evil inclination to throw away one's common sense and jump into the blinding dynamics of machlokes. It requires brilliance to overcome that tendency and instead use such a simple and down to earth approach. Maintaining common sense in moments of tension requires great wisdom.
This is the lesson of the Gemara. "The wisdom of a wife can save a household." Merely telling her husband a simple truth demonstrated great sagacity because most people would have 'gotten involved' and 'lost their cool'.
WELCOME BACK TO BABYLON YHOSEPHUS & IDIT!!!!!!!
Up through the ashes of Babylon, Cannibus Chassidus shall rise — Jah!
Since when is there a “religious requirement to study history?”
The emergence of criticism of death camp trips from the Religious Zionist camp - or, more accurately, from the right wing of this camp - comes as a surprise to many. Criticism until now has come almost exclusively from the left. Dovish critics have taken issue with the way such programs pair the Holocaust and Jews as victims with flag-waving Israeli nationalism.
The reasoning behind the unlikely convergence of opinion against the Poland trips between some on the left and some in the Religious Zionist camp could not be more divergent. The trips that some consider too Zionist are, for the rabbinic critics, the antithesis of Zionism.
In the run-up to Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day (April 21), Zalman Melamed, head of the Bet El yeshiva in the West Bank, published an opinion discouraging religious school students from going to Poland. He cited the Talmudic prohibition, echoed by Maimonides and other authorities in Jewish law, that those living in Israel are forbidden from leaving except to perform a religious act.
Until now, many Religious Zionists have argued that death camp visits do, in fact, have religious value and therefore merit leaving Israel. This is the view of the March of the Living's rabbi, Yochanan Fried, and of regular trip leader Yisrael Meir Lau, chairman of Israel's Yad Vashem's Holocaust Museum council, former chief rabbi of Israel and Holocaust survivor.
Fried said in an interview with the Forward that the trip can be seen as a fulfillment of the religious requirement to study history. The trip's educational content, he said, actually could be classified as "learning Torah." Fried also claimed that students on the trip fulfill the religious act of honoring the dead.
But those rabbis speaking out against death camp trips reject this logic. A year ago, Hebron and Kiryat Arba chief rabbi Dov Lior, who is regarded as the leading disciple of Religious Zionist icon Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, cited his teacher in arguing that a desire to honor the dead does not justify the trips.
The argument that the trips are valid as they involve historical study has been challenged by Aviner, who was born in Nazi-occupied France and now heads Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim, formerly Ateret Cohanim. "It is certainly a mitzvah to reflect on history," he wrote. "But the intent is not to study historical facts but to observe the hand of God which acts in the world. There is no mitzvah at all to see historical places."
"I do not see educational value in [the trips]," Lior wrote, arguing that people can read books, visit museums and take advantage of other resources available in Israel. He concluded, "To understand what is anti-Semitism and why they hate the Jewish nation there is no need to travel abroad."
Aviner believes that from a pedagogical viewpoint, Holocaust education should focus on content-based learning, not emotion.
Rev Billy vs. Bloomberg
OR IN THE REVERENDS WORDS "It's Bloomberg vs. New York City!" You guessed right - the holy Rev is running for mayor. This comes in from the NYT
“Even if you have 20 billion dollars, you’re not going to buy this election!” he shouted through a white bullhorn to a small gathering of supporters and reporters. “This campaign will be the revolt of the fabulous 500 neighborhoods, amen!”
Here is why you gatta vote for him (,one of the many reasons).
He did make it clear that he did not approve of Mr. Bloomberg’s pursuit of a third term. “We’re at a critical point in the city’s history right now,” he said. “The mayor’s trying to privatize Union Square. We’re surrounded by logos everywhere. We need to oppose that.”
Here is his web site, for the race, for mayor. And here's from an interview he had with the village voice
Let's imagine you've been elected Mayor. What do we call you? Mr. Mayor, or Mayor Billy, or Reverend Mayor –
Reverend Mayor! That's the way people are saying it. That's good, it's got the right hip-hop infection.
The Renaissance is bullshit
from www.rushkoff.com
The notion of a “dark ages” is really Renaissance disinformation. It’s an effort to make Renaissance innovations to banking, manufacturing, and corporate law look like modernity instead of the extraction of wealth by the few. It was only after the invention of monopoly centralized currency that the economy in Europe began to tank, common lands were fenced in, farming and grazing became impossible for peasants, sustainable land became speculative property, food supplies diminished, jobs required going to workshops in the city, health deteriorated and, you guessed it, the plague began.
That’s right: the plague didn’t happen during the Middle Ages - it was the direct result of centralized monetary and business policy in Europe at the beginning of the Renaissance. Once the plague killed off more than half of Europe, people got healthier and wealthier again, because the crippled, centralized economy could support that few.
Finally, retrieving technologies and ideas from the past doesn’t mean we have to go back to living the way they did in the ancient past. For example, we might choose to reinstate Sabbath - a day off - as a priority in our always-on culture. Turns out (I really promise) we can do this without all moving back to the desert and living in tents like they did in Bible when this idea first surfaced.
Douglas Rushkoff has been writing about this for a while, and I think it's an ongoing culmination to his theological, historical and ontological research and theorizing: a secular Shabbos is the great hope of the world, the only hope for rescuing man from the hostile priorities of exploitive Pharoahs
Likewise, we can reinstate some of the social and economic institutions outlawed during the Renaissance (and unrevived to this day) as a way forward rather than a leap backwards. To shun the lessons of history because they happened a long time ago is to remain always a baby.
b’chol dor v’dor…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/opinion/09iht-edcohen.html
the article says israel is crying wolf about the iranians getting nukes. now i'm of mixed minds about israel being blown off the face of the earth it's basically six of one, half-dozen of the other but to say that iran getting nukes and attacking israel is mere political posturing is absurd. if the NK kissing ahmedinejad isn't proof enough of their serious intent i don't know what is. yes, iran hasn't done it yet and North Korea can't get their missiles to fly straight but both regimes are bonkers. ok, don't listen to israeli propaganda but iran makes these threats proudly and openly they're doing israel's job for them. even pat buchanan takes them seriously. he may like the idea but he takes it seriously. the author's name is cohen but his mother must be a shiksa.
Judaism.com