OK, so maybe this is a list I can't really totally stand behind because, seriously, do I even remember what my Top 10 Videos of All Time are? Probably not. But still, it might be fun to try to put one together based on what I do remember, based on what has stuck in my mind despite all those years of heavy drug use. You know how it is. Also, as a background point - I will not include the video of myself doing my monologue. I feel like that's a cop-out, although the rap video I appear in...it might just make an appearance. You might also be wondering what inspired me to work on this? I admit - it was the video put up on Gawker of the end to the NYU "protest" about everything/nothing that happened last week. Because it's just so freaking good, I'll put it at the end, as something that's both current and amazing, and so that you can look forward to it. So this list, it isn't in any particular order:
Apple: Think Different
OK, so technically this is an ad, but it doesn't make it any less awesome. Years later, I still get goosebumps when I see this thing and hear the commanding voice of Richard Dreyfus narrating in the background.
Shoes
One of the greatest YouTube videos of all time. I became a little obsessed with the creator of it for like two weeks but then realized the rest of his stuff just couldn't live up to it. It's just so freaking campy and random. In three syllables - a...ma...zing.
Japanese Prank Show
Oh those crazy Japanese people with their unabashedly embarrassing prank shows. No one tops the Japanese when it comes to pranks...and digital cameras. This one I've watched at least ten times and still cry everytime. Please be patient and sit through the whole thing because the build-up to the final few minutes is what makes the final few minutes that much funnier.
Light 'Em Up
It helps that I was in this video, but independent of that, I just think it was an awesome song. Yeah, fine, I admit, being part of the process makes it cooler in my mind.
Amazing Guitar
I've watched this one at least ten times also. I don't know how he does it.
Romance of the Jedi
There was this relatively short-lived period of time in my life when I became obsessed with spoof movie trailers. This one started the obsession and remains my favorite.
Best Monologue Ever
From "Scent of a Woman." Best monologue ever (at least in any film I've seen). Everytime a certain someone I'm related to catches this on TV, he starts crying. That's when I start laughing. What can I say? We're an emotional people.
Where the Hell is Matt
The original came out a few years ago, but ever since that self-made Internet hit, Matt Harding has made a living out of travelling around the world and doing a stupid dance in exotic locales (and in the process, making us all freaking jealous of the fact that we spend most of our lives sitting in front of computer screens). This is the latest one he's done, which might just be his best (in no small part thanks to the near-perfect soundtrack that accompanies the clips).
Charlie Bit Me
Just because.
NYU Occupation!
A bunch of rich kids got bored and took over the 3rd floor of the NYU student center. Hilarity ensued.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
It's That Magical Place, Far Far Away, The One I Call "Iran"
I'm a progressive guy, at least I like to think I am. This whole Iranian thing, them being crazy and them building missles and them wanting to kill everybody, I of course take it all with a grain of skepticism. I'm the first to jump on the "but look at their Western loving students!" bandwagon. "Look at them! They wear blue jeans and listen to Britney Spears!" I'm the first to recognize that they have their own complex and proud Persian (not Arab) history that colors their actions and their existence. I'm the first to want to believe that despite everything Ahmadinejad says, despite what the Ayatollah spouts to chanting masses, that Iranians are a people who can see past the rhetoric of lunatics and war-mongers. But at the same time, I'm a realist, and you can write all the lovey-dovey articles you want about the place - the fact is still that for all that Iran has which is hopeful, for everything that makes me pray that some sort of student-led revolution against the Islamic Revolution is brewing in some illegal bar circuit somewhere in Tehran, I remain relatively uneasy about what is going down in Iran.
I have a confession to make - I have a subscription string on the "New York Times" website which connects me to articles that reference "Jew," "Jewish" (although I guess that one ends up being redundant), and "Israel." This is a relatively new thing I started doing about 2 years ago when I became totally obsessed with Jewish/Israel news because, sometimes, it seems that's all the world wants to talk about anyway. Yes, sometimes I'm a follower. This morning I get a link to Roger Cohen's article on Iranian Jews. According to Cohen - and this is me simplifying - everything is just peachy for the crew of 30-40 thousand Jews that remain in Islamicized Iran. Cohen goes ahead and interviews a couple of shop keepers, cites the basic fact that the Jews who remain in Iran have been relatively unharassed since 1979, and just shows us that Iran's not all that bad when it comes to their Jewish citizens - in stark contract to how it feels about the Zionist scourge of Israel.
And so it seems Cohen is very willing to accept his seemingly obvious conclusion - Iran can hate Israel, but it doesn't have to hate it's Jews. Well, of course not. I mean, consider some of the facts he also mentions - "I know, if many Jews left Iran, it was for a reason. Hostility exists. The trumped-up charges of spying for Israel against a group of Shiraz Jews in 1999 showed the regime at its worst. Jews elect one representative to Parliament, but can vote for a Muslim if they prefer. A Muslim, however, cannot vote for a Jew."
Jews, in an Islamicized society that is not democratic, are a marginal, ineffectual group of nobodies who the Iranian regime doesn't even bother with (except to the extent they need to toss a few on trial for spying for Israel every now and then, just to keep them in check). Consider the pre-Iranian population of 100,000 Jews, most of which left. The ones that left were the ones who had money, who were, for the most part, the educated, the elite, the successful. The ones who stayed were, for the most part, the day laborers, the poor, the ones who couldn't get out or didn't have the wherewithal to get out in the face of a country that was turning from a Western-backed Shah (granted, not the nicest of men in his own right) to an ass-backwards fundamentalist regime. I don't disown these Jews, I don't discount the tranquility with which most have probably led their lives in otherwise domestically peaceful Iran. But this, by no means, shows me that Iran means no harm to the Jews or to the West, that it is not as much fire and brimstone as Iran's leaders, themselves, seem to project.
Like I said, I'm a progressive, and so I know that Iranian society is filled with cosmopolitan people who don't like the regime, who don't like the Ayatollah or Ahmadinejad or any of this "we need nuclear fuel because we really need nuclear power plants" bullshit that any of them is spouting, who love the West and everything the West still continues to mean to dark parts of the world - freedom of expression and freedom of existence. But this does not discount the fact that the place is run by people who, whether we like it or not, are the ones that are still in power and who still control the country's direction and who still have it on a collision course with the West and with Israel and, yes, even with "Jews."
Even if you take a very brief step back from the obvious Jewish-Israel association and simply say "well, they don't like Israel, but they don't mind Jews," a quick visit to a site like MemriTV shows you what a nice selection of anti-Semitic propoganda still appears on primetime Iranian TV. I mean, books like the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is still a top seller in Iran, "Mein Kampf" is freaking mainstream reading. The fact that some no-name, limited-rights Jews who don't talk too loudly, aren't bothered too badly, and are left alone so they can sell their dusty antiques in narrow alleys and go pray in their little synagogues, doesn't say anything about Iran's regime and the regime's intentions for the future. The chants of "Death to Israel," the claims of wiping Israel off the map, all of these are excused and forgotten because, well, Iran is good to its Jews! There we have the true face!
It's BS and we all know it. I give Iran's Jews a total of 30 seconds of safety if Iran ever gets into a real war with Israel and you have to be a fool to think otherwise. I'm all about saying that you're criticizing Israel and that your separating your political criticism of a political entity from the hatred of the people who make up a vast majority of that entity. That's all well and good. But then maybe we should be fair about this, right? Iran is just out to protect the world's Muslims, right? Which explains why there's so much animosity towards Israel because, shit, I mean if you look at how awful they are and what they did in Gaza, then you know that we have to hate Israel for that. So let's stage rallies and call for jihad and hate them because they deserved to be hated. But wait, so what happened to the rallies against deaths in Iraq? Where are the anti-Taliban rallies? Where is the cry of injustice against the Serbs and the Russians for their military actions? When will Iran stop supplying weapons to the terrorists around the world who kill the more Muslims than anybody else?
Sorry, maybe I just spoke out of turn, but I still find it a little odd, this seemingly "justifiable" rhetoric that is downplayed by people as not such a big deal, as just some silly displeasure with all things West. The point is that Iran's regime doesn't just criticize Israel - it calls for its annihilation. This to me is a step in the genocidal direction, the same way that if I said I wanted to wipe Iran off the map, that would be me saying "I want to kill most of the world's Persians." But hey, no one would tolerate that, would they? But hey, there are no double-standards in this world, are there?
As an oft-quoted Holocaust survivor once said - "One thing I've learned is that if someone tells you they want to kill you, you should believe them."
I have a confession to make - I have a subscription string on the "New York Times" website which connects me to articles that reference "Jew," "Jewish" (although I guess that one ends up being redundant), and "Israel." This is a relatively new thing I started doing about 2 years ago when I became totally obsessed with Jewish/Israel news because, sometimes, it seems that's all the world wants to talk about anyway. Yes, sometimes I'm a follower. This morning I get a link to Roger Cohen's article on Iranian Jews. According to Cohen - and this is me simplifying - everything is just peachy for the crew of 30-40 thousand Jews that remain in Islamicized Iran. Cohen goes ahead and interviews a couple of shop keepers, cites the basic fact that the Jews who remain in Iran have been relatively unharassed since 1979, and just shows us that Iran's not all that bad when it comes to their Jewish citizens - in stark contract to how it feels about the Zionist scourge of Israel.
And so it seems Cohen is very willing to accept his seemingly obvious conclusion - Iran can hate Israel, but it doesn't have to hate it's Jews. Well, of course not. I mean, consider some of the facts he also mentions - "I know, if many Jews left Iran, it was for a reason. Hostility exists. The trumped-up charges of spying for Israel against a group of Shiraz Jews in 1999 showed the regime at its worst. Jews elect one representative to Parliament, but can vote for a Muslim if they prefer. A Muslim, however, cannot vote for a Jew."
Jews, in an Islamicized society that is not democratic, are a marginal, ineffectual group of nobodies who the Iranian regime doesn't even bother with (except to the extent they need to toss a few on trial for spying for Israel every now and then, just to keep them in check). Consider the pre-Iranian population of 100,000 Jews, most of which left. The ones that left were the ones who had money, who were, for the most part, the educated, the elite, the successful. The ones who stayed were, for the most part, the day laborers, the poor, the ones who couldn't get out or didn't have the wherewithal to get out in the face of a country that was turning from a Western-backed Shah (granted, not the nicest of men in his own right) to an ass-backwards fundamentalist regime. I don't disown these Jews, I don't discount the tranquility with which most have probably led their lives in otherwise domestically peaceful Iran. But this, by no means, shows me that Iran means no harm to the Jews or to the West, that it is not as much fire and brimstone as Iran's leaders, themselves, seem to project.
Like I said, I'm a progressive, and so I know that Iranian society is filled with cosmopolitan people who don't like the regime, who don't like the Ayatollah or Ahmadinejad or any of this "we need nuclear fuel because we really need nuclear power plants" bullshit that any of them is spouting, who love the West and everything the West still continues to mean to dark parts of the world - freedom of expression and freedom of existence. But this does not discount the fact that the place is run by people who, whether we like it or not, are the ones that are still in power and who still control the country's direction and who still have it on a collision course with the West and with Israel and, yes, even with "Jews."
Even if you take a very brief step back from the obvious Jewish-Israel association and simply say "well, they don't like Israel, but they don't mind Jews," a quick visit to a site like MemriTV shows you what a nice selection of anti-Semitic propoganda still appears on primetime Iranian TV. I mean, books like the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is still a top seller in Iran, "Mein Kampf" is freaking mainstream reading. The fact that some no-name, limited-rights Jews who don't talk too loudly, aren't bothered too badly, and are left alone so they can sell their dusty antiques in narrow alleys and go pray in their little synagogues, doesn't say anything about Iran's regime and the regime's intentions for the future. The chants of "Death to Israel," the claims of wiping Israel off the map, all of these are excused and forgotten because, well, Iran is good to its Jews! There we have the true face!
It's BS and we all know it. I give Iran's Jews a total of 30 seconds of safety if Iran ever gets into a real war with Israel and you have to be a fool to think otherwise. I'm all about saying that you're criticizing Israel and that your separating your political criticism of a political entity from the hatred of the people who make up a vast majority of that entity. That's all well and good. But then maybe we should be fair about this, right? Iran is just out to protect the world's Muslims, right? Which explains why there's so much animosity towards Israel because, shit, I mean if you look at how awful they are and what they did in Gaza, then you know that we have to hate Israel for that. So let's stage rallies and call for jihad and hate them because they deserved to be hated. But wait, so what happened to the rallies against deaths in Iraq? Where are the anti-Taliban rallies? Where is the cry of injustice against the Serbs and the Russians for their military actions? When will Iran stop supplying weapons to the terrorists around the world who kill the more Muslims than anybody else?
Sorry, maybe I just spoke out of turn, but I still find it a little odd, this seemingly "justifiable" rhetoric that is downplayed by people as not such a big deal, as just some silly displeasure with all things West. The point is that Iran's regime doesn't just criticize Israel - it calls for its annihilation. This to me is a step in the genocidal direction, the same way that if I said I wanted to wipe Iran off the map, that would be me saying "I want to kill most of the world's Persians." But hey, no one would tolerate that, would they? But hey, there are no double-standards in this world, are there?
As an oft-quoted Holocaust survivor once said - "One thing I've learned is that if someone tells you they want to kill you, you should believe them."
Monday, February 16, 2009
Dry
Look at me - I haven't had anything to say since February 6th? Doesn't seem right. I mean, hear I am, 2:30 in the morning, and I have a hell of a lot to say, but for whatever reason, I haven't been saying it. And it's not just because it's been 10 days. If you look back over the last two months you'll see...that there's been very little word from me. Yes that rhymes, and no, it was not intentional, and yes that absolutely means that I have mad poetic skills.
I think about what it is that makes my writing dry out. Well, first, I can blame the fact that a lot of stuff has been happening, stuff that keeps me away from my keyboard and the opportunity to wonder about the rest of society.
Second, and this maybe makes it a little sick even - things haven't been that bad. I hate to admit it but being a little down, having stuff going on that makes you upset or angry or, for me, contemplative in a brooding sort of way, makes you write more. And better. Shit! Yes! Better too. At least that's how it works for me. I know that it totally sucks, that you have to be suffering or tortured in some way in order to express yourself better, but I can't help that it's true. There's something terribly wrong with that. Or maybe I'm just having a little cause-effect mix-up here; perhaps because things are OK/good, I probably end up spending less time at home and in front of the keyboard, which means I write less, and so, in a way, the writing less is directly effected by the lack of keyboard-access time rather than by the emotional state of my psyche.
Whatever, maybe it doesn't matter either way, but what does matter is that whenever I write less I get PISSED OFF. It's the strangest thing. It's not like I'm a prolific writer anyway. It's not like this is my job and I've been published and now without a steady stream of content I'm suddenly broke or have a reason to get depressed because my life-blood is sapped. But at the same time, it's important enough to me that when I do it less I feel crappy about it. I wonder - where is that Ruvym I know and love who has so much to say about so little? I don't know! I don't know! Bring him back! And then when I finally do get the chance to sit down and work on something then I have the next stage of having to deal with the quality of what I produce. I was talking about this earlier today, but it's like writing, more than anything else in the world, has the ability to bring me rally high and to drop me really low. If I put time and effort into something and after a few hours I look at it and think it's crap, I feel totally awful, like a complete failure, like I'll never write anything decent ever again. But then if I manage to create something that's not too bad, that I'm kind of happy with, then I get this crazy feeling of having conquered the world, all from some silly little short story or scene I wrote. The extremes sort of don't really make sense to me, but that's just how it is.
I really don't know what that says about me. Maybe that I'm neurotic? Or I'm bipolar? Maybe both. Maybe neither. But rest assured, I don't have nearly as extreme a set of feelings when it comes to blog writing. I just think this strange Internet place is detached enough for me that I'm able to just have a good time with it and not judge myself based on whether or not I like what I wrote. For that, I appreciate this space. That still doesn't address my "problem" of not having the time/desire to write, but I just thought I should put it all on the table.
I think about what it is that makes my writing dry out. Well, first, I can blame the fact that a lot of stuff has been happening, stuff that keeps me away from my keyboard and the opportunity to wonder about the rest of society.
Second, and this maybe makes it a little sick even - things haven't been that bad. I hate to admit it but being a little down, having stuff going on that makes you upset or angry or, for me, contemplative in a brooding sort of way, makes you write more. And better. Shit! Yes! Better too. At least that's how it works for me. I know that it totally sucks, that you have to be suffering or tortured in some way in order to express yourself better, but I can't help that it's true. There's something terribly wrong with that. Or maybe I'm just having a little cause-effect mix-up here; perhaps because things are OK/good, I probably end up spending less time at home and in front of the keyboard, which means I write less, and so, in a way, the writing less is directly effected by the lack of keyboard-access time rather than by the emotional state of my psyche.
Whatever, maybe it doesn't matter either way, but what does matter is that whenever I write less I get PISSED OFF. It's the strangest thing. It's not like I'm a prolific writer anyway. It's not like this is my job and I've been published and now without a steady stream of content I'm suddenly broke or have a reason to get depressed because my life-blood is sapped. But at the same time, it's important enough to me that when I do it less I feel crappy about it. I wonder - where is that Ruvym I know and love who has so much to say about so little? I don't know! I don't know! Bring him back! And then when I finally do get the chance to sit down and work on something then I have the next stage of having to deal with the quality of what I produce. I was talking about this earlier today, but it's like writing, more than anything else in the world, has the ability to bring me rally high and to drop me really low. If I put time and effort into something and after a few hours I look at it and think it's crap, I feel totally awful, like a complete failure, like I'll never write anything decent ever again. But then if I manage to create something that's not too bad, that I'm kind of happy with, then I get this crazy feeling of having conquered the world, all from some silly little short story or scene I wrote. The extremes sort of don't really make sense to me, but that's just how it is.
I really don't know what that says about me. Maybe that I'm neurotic? Or I'm bipolar? Maybe both. Maybe neither. But rest assured, I don't have nearly as extreme a set of feelings when it comes to blog writing. I just think this strange Internet place is detached enough for me that I'm able to just have a good time with it and not judge myself based on whether or not I like what I wrote. For that, I appreciate this space. That still doesn't address my "problem" of not having the time/desire to write, but I just thought I should put it all on the table.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Copyrighting Obama
You might have read this story about how the artist who created the now "iconic" HOPE poster with Obama sort of, kind of, maybe took the photo from an AP archive and never asked anybody for permission to use it. As soon as I saw it, my law school days as a lad seriously interested in all things copyright came bubbling back to the surface, and I found, contrary to my belief for a while now, that there were still aspects of legal analysis that I actually care about.
So my copyright memory is beginning to fade, but I think that legally, the artist has a hard case to make. I mean he took this photo, in its entirety, and changed it into a multi-hued, art deco thing, really only switching the colors and adding the word "HOPE" to the bottom. That changed it around, changed the context somewhat, but the underlying photo is still a photo and its still exactly as it was. Additionally he's making money off this thing, maybe not directly but the use is definitely commercial. The thing with commercial/non-commercial is that if it's commercial, it hurts you, but if it's non-commercial, it doesn't help you all that much if you've otherwise taken an image in its entirety, and not tranformed its use in any way.
There's more to it, but those are the very general basics. What'll probably end up happening is that he'll pay out a license fee or royalties and that'll be the end of it. AP will not want to be associated with enjoining all use of what has become a pop-culture phenomenon. At the same time, you look at something like this and you think that he probably should be allowed to do what he did with it, legality aside. I have major issues with copyright law, and what exactly it protects. I mean here you have a news photo that's relatively unremarkable and happens to be one of probably thousands of photos of Obama taken on just one day. An artist grabbed it and changed it into something that's more than just a news photo, albeit without altering the photo in any way. I mean, I wonder how many other photos taken that same day, taken any day, have Obama in pretty much the same contemplative pose but from a slightly different angle or different lighting. What are we protecting here? Maybe it's one thing if someone took the photo and started showing it as-is and saying its their photo. That's obviously bullshit. But this guy took an otherwise unremarkable photo from a massive archive of photos and made it into something more and maybe he should be allowed to do something like that without having to secure licensing rights.
The news aspect of copyright is another issue. Imagine you have an event that occurs and only one news station is there to capture the event. Technically they own the copyright to the footage and if they choose never to show it to anyone, they technically have that right (unless it needs to be subpoenaed in court or something). But is this proper? I mean on the one hand we want to encourage news stations to take photos and film and to be able to own the rights to their stuff. But can we comfortably say that this filming of news should garner the same level of protection as, say, a film developed out of the creativity of a group of people? Is there a creative element that comes into play if someone is standing at the right place and at the right time with a camera that he uses to capture something?
Food for thought.
So my copyright memory is beginning to fade, but I think that legally, the artist has a hard case to make. I mean he took this photo, in its entirety, and changed it into a multi-hued, art deco thing, really only switching the colors and adding the word "HOPE" to the bottom. That changed it around, changed the context somewhat, but the underlying photo is still a photo and its still exactly as it was. Additionally he's making money off this thing, maybe not directly but the use is definitely commercial. The thing with commercial/non-commercial is that if it's commercial, it hurts you, but if it's non-commercial, it doesn't help you all that much if you've otherwise taken an image in its entirety, and not tranformed its use in any way.
There's more to it, but those are the very general basics. What'll probably end up happening is that he'll pay out a license fee or royalties and that'll be the end of it. AP will not want to be associated with enjoining all use of what has become a pop-culture phenomenon. At the same time, you look at something like this and you think that he probably should be allowed to do what he did with it, legality aside. I have major issues with copyright law, and what exactly it protects. I mean here you have a news photo that's relatively unremarkable and happens to be one of probably thousands of photos of Obama taken on just one day. An artist grabbed it and changed it into something that's more than just a news photo, albeit without altering the photo in any way. I mean, I wonder how many other photos taken that same day, taken any day, have Obama in pretty much the same contemplative pose but from a slightly different angle or different lighting. What are we protecting here? Maybe it's one thing if someone took the photo and started showing it as-is and saying its their photo. That's obviously bullshit. But this guy took an otherwise unremarkable photo from a massive archive of photos and made it into something more and maybe he should be allowed to do something like that without having to secure licensing rights.
The news aspect of copyright is another issue. Imagine you have an event that occurs and only one news station is there to capture the event. Technically they own the copyright to the footage and if they choose never to show it to anyone, they technically have that right (unless it needs to be subpoenaed in court or something). But is this proper? I mean on the one hand we want to encourage news stations to take photos and film and to be able to own the rights to their stuff. But can we comfortably say that this filming of news should garner the same level of protection as, say, a film developed out of the creativity of a group of people? Is there a creative element that comes into play if someone is standing at the right place and at the right time with a camera that he uses to capture something?
Food for thought.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Venezuela Seethes
A couple of days ago armed men in Venezuela entered a major synagogue and vandalized the place, spray-painting the walls and breaking religious relics. A friend of mine sent me some of the aftermath pictures, and while it's not as bad as it could have been (i.e. it doesn't look like they destroyed the torahs), it's a scary sign of what seems to be brewing in many parts of the world, especially following Israel's Gaza campaign. I mean this kind of stuff always happens when tensions rise in Israel, but I don't ever remember it getting this bad. And it's not just Venezuela. All over South America and Europe, Antisemitism has seen a sharp rise. Part of it is most definitely related to better hate-crime identification and reporting, but part of it is just the continued global dislike of Jews. If we're honest with ourselves, we know that people pointing at Israel and expressing their outrage as being "directed towards Israel, but not towards Jews" as total bullshit. I would never say that being critical of Israel automatically makes you an Antisemite, but the kind of criticism of Israel that's brewing out there crosses the line into clear Antisemitism. Attend any of these "Pro-Palestinian" rallies and you'll see plenty of signs and many expressed opinions that repeat the same refrain - "Death to the Jews," "Liberate Palestine," "Jews Back to the Ovens." It happened during the Lebanon campaign of 2006 and its happening again now. And don't mistake the otherwise "innocuous" line to "Liberate Palestine" or to "End the Occupation" as just some political opinion expressed regarding Israel's continued presence in the West Bank and, now to a larger extent again, Gaza. While some are clearly concerned only about these areas and seek a lasting peace with a two-state (or whatever) solution, a lot of these people who speak of "liberation" and "occupation" seek the total liberation of Palestine, via a Hamas-esque rhetoric, that says that Israel has no right to exist and that its presence anywhere in the Middle East constitutes an occupation. It's not about peace or compromise or finding a way to live together. It's about any sort of continued Jewish/Western presence in that area of the world.
Now what do any of these douchbags in Venezuela have to do with any of this? Are they really concerned about their Palestinian brothers in Gaza? As hateful and Antisemetic as I think "Pro-Palestinian" rallies get, this is yet another step removed, the expression of pure Antisemitism devoid of any viable claim to be supporting Palestinians or angry at Israel "just as a state." When Israel does something that involves people dying, or when the "Jewish-controlled" financial systems of the world teeter, this is high-time for world's trash to come out and to blame the Jews. The Jewish community in Venezuela has nothing to do with the state of Israel other than probably seeing it as a homeland for the Jews and having respect for the state, believing in its continued right to exist. And yet they're no safer in Venezuela, halfway across the world from Israel, because of the fact that they are and always will be Jews. The Jew is the problem to all of these people, not Israel, not the suffering of the Palestinian people, not any sense of alleged justice or morality or ethics that infuses the anti-Israel propoganda that circulates around the world.
Now what do any of these douchbags in Venezuela have to do with any of this? Are they really concerned about their Palestinian brothers in Gaza? As hateful and Antisemetic as I think "Pro-Palestinian" rallies get, this is yet another step removed, the expression of pure Antisemitism devoid of any viable claim to be supporting Palestinians or angry at Israel "just as a state." When Israel does something that involves people dying, or when the "Jewish-controlled" financial systems of the world teeter, this is high-time for world's trash to come out and to blame the Jews. The Jewish community in Venezuela has nothing to do with the state of Israel other than probably seeing it as a homeland for the Jews and having respect for the state, believing in its continued right to exist. And yet they're no safer in Venezuela, halfway across the world from Israel, because of the fact that they are and always will be Jews. The Jew is the problem to all of these people, not Israel, not the suffering of the Palestinian people, not any sense of alleged justice or morality or ethics that infuses the anti-Israel propoganda that circulates around the world.
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