Wednesday, June 8, 2016

The Dennis Prager two-Cents worth of Advice

Dennis Prager wrote an article under the title: “Bernie Sanders, the Non-Jewish Jew and Non-American American,” but these are not the only categories he invented into which he confines the Left Wing Jews and/or Americans whom he despises.

He created a few more categories as you'll see in the article he published on June 7, 2016 in National Review Online. The odd thing is that Prager does not attempt to categorize the Right Wing Jews and/or Americans whom he never disparaged. Perhaps he views the people of the Right as specimen that are naturally resistant to confinement.

He begins the article by making the point that Bernie Sanders has become what he is because he chose to cut himself off from his Jewish roots and from his American roots. But then Prager generalizes the concept that being cut off from their Jewish or American roots, is why other prominent personalities grew up to resemble Bernie Sanders. Here too, the author neglects to say whether or not there are Right Wing Jews and/or Americans that cut themselves off from their roots. If yes, who are these people? Where are they? And why have they not become Lefties?

As to Sanders, the way to understand his strangeness, says Prager, is to know that having cut himself off from his roots, he became alienated … and wants other people to be alienated too. He knows all this, says our writer, because Sanders almost never mentions that he is Jewish, and never says anything good about America. It is only that he “laments American inequality, Wall Street corruption, and other American evils”.

Lest the readers become confused as to what it means to be a Jew either nationally or religiously, Dennis Prager offers this definition: “Judaism consists of a national and peoplehood identity, not only a religious one.” That ought to clarify things. But if you're still not clear, don't write to me, write to Dennis.

Reading the article, you get the sense that Prager believes the current situation is a messy one for Jews, and that he longs for a time when things were better. So you look in the article to see what happened that changed things, and find it in these words: “Once the walls of Jewish ghettos broke down and European Jews were allowed to leave Jewish enclaves, many Jews became non-Jewish Jews … some became radicalized. They loathed religion, traditional middle-class values and capitalism. They particularly hated Jewish religious and national identity.” Well? Does that mean he is advocating a return to the ghetto?

He mentions the names of prominent Jewish lefties such as Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Noam Chomsky and George Soros to say they cause much of the bad things we see in the world today – especially the bad things that happen to Jews. That's because these people reject their Jewishness, convert to being citizens of the world and make revolutions, says Prager. The result of their actions, he goes on to say, is that the Jew that's left behind is the one that pays the price for what the non-Jewish Jew has wrought.

That said, Prager returns to the subject of Bernie Sanders, and says that he seeks “to undermine the national and religious identities of others – in this case, the Jewish and American identities.” The trouble is that he gives not a single example as to how or when Sanders said something or did something that undermined the Jewish or American identity. 

Instead of offering specifics, Prager makes this generalization: “Non-Jewish Jews are far more likely to work to weaken Christianity than Jewish Jews. The same holds true for American non-Jews who have rejected Christianity: Many seek to weaken Christian influence and identity in America”.

He now brings together all the loose ends he created in the article, and offers this package: “Non-Jewish Jews are alienated from Jews who strongly identify as Jews, and from Christians who strongly identify as Christians. Non-American Americans are alienated from Americans who strongly identify as Americans. The radical non-Jewish Jew and the radical non-American American love humanity, but hurt real humans, especially Jews and Americans.” Did you get all that?

This is the silly season during which people seek clarifications that might help them make an informed decision as to how they should vote. And this is how Dennis Prager has added his two-cents worth to the debate.