Like Greta Thunberg, I don’t like to hear officials mouthing “empty words”. Here’s a recent example of an expression that is all too common in my view: “something bad has no place here”. A governor whose own house was torched by a pro-Hamas Jew-hater says “Hate and antisemitism have no place in our Commonwealth”:
Why are empty words like this problematic? The first step in any 12-step program is admitting that you have a problem. Mx. Shapiro here denies that Pennsylvania and his/her/zir/their fellow Democrats contain any Jew-haters (“hate has no place”). Failure to admit that the problem exists will inevitably lead to a failure to take effective action.
Admittedly, it is unclear what effective action American elected officials could take, other than halting immigration from countries where Jew-hatred is the norm. A negative obsession with the world’s one majority-Jewish country seems to be a path to electoral success in the U.S. now, just as it has been a path to obtaining and holding high office at the United Nations (“António Guterres has posted about Gaza and the Palestinians 262 times since October 7, 2023. Eleven other major crises, combined: 185.” (X, October 26, 2026)). If they were willing to sacrifice some votes, Democrats could simply expel progressives from their party, I guess.
Where is today’s place for hate in Pennsylvania? Rittenhouse Square, Filthadelphia, according to the organizers. It’s not officially a “Jew-hate” rally, but rather hate for “Zionists”, except that the only businesses being boycotted are those owned by Jews (at least one of whom was apparently born in raised in the Philadelphia suburbs). Businesses owned by non-Jews who’ve expressed support for Israel’s existence aren’t being targeted. They’re going to “roll” in 5 minutes, fortunately not in violation of the sacred “I don’t roll on Shabbos” rule.
Phil, this post reminds me of many others by you recently. You seem surprised by current events. I’m surprised you are surprised!
I’m guessing you’ve read Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four? Have a refresher read of it. I think it might help you make sense of the current state of the world.
And, I’m pretty sure that were he here now, Orwell would say that things are going to get much worse (depending on your point of view) before they get better. Dystopian is the word of the day going forward.
He [George Martin] chuckled awhile, and then grew serious again. “I laugh, but it’s damn serious. The country is going straight to hell if something doesn’t happen. … It’s all these foreign ideas! I call it gall if nothing else, that they should come over here from Europe,” he roared, “and get themselves jobs and then turn around and tell American citizens who they should vote for and how they should spend their money, and on top of that do their damnedest to change our form of government and economy after they themselves lived for centuries like beggars in the old countries. Why the hell do they think we all fought all our wars — for the fun of fighting? Or just so *they* could come here and bring Europe back again?”
— Jack Kerouac, The Town and the City, 1950