Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Look Sir, the Earth's flat and I got the Proof

Let me say at the outset that I don't believe the Earth is flat, and I have no proof to this effect. What I have are several true stories which, in this day and age, sound as amazing as someone saying the Earth is flat.

It was sometime in the mid-1960s when I loved to read a print magazine (no internet then) called Popular Mechanics. One day, I bought the newest edition, and there was a long article in it under a title which said something to the effect that the Soviet space achievements were fake. In a well written and elegant article, its writer pointed out, in meticulous details, why that view was correct. But in time, the view proved false.

Decades later, I was teaching in my own school when a student approached me to say I was missing something. I asked what it might be, and he said his uncle wrote a book, and I ought to read it. The title of the self-published book said something like the Earth was flat. From reading the first few paragraphs, I determined it was not a metaphor, but that the writer had set out to earnestly prove the Earth was not a sphere but a flat expanse.

I stopped reading the book but glanced through the rest of it to see how someone would go about making such an argument. Well, like the guy that said the Russian space program was fake, this one too set out to explain in meticulous details –– though a less elegant style –– why everything that gave the impression the Earth was a sphere, was actually an optical illusion.

It is with this in mind that I sat down to read the 2,100-word essay written by Stella Morabito which came under the title: “Why Rashida Tlaib's Holocaust Comments Were Propaganda,” and the subtitle: “How might Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib's comments about the Holocaust play into a campaign against Israel in particular or the Jewish people in general?” It was published on May 20, 2019 in The Federalist.

The opening paragraph in Morabito's article contains the highest-ranking trope in the Fascist playbook. It says that the free expression of the people's opinions creates divisions among the masses. Applied to America, this is how Stella Morabito expressed that thought: “elites have created dangerous divisions among Americans.” When you probe deep into what the Jews and their gentile lackeys mean by that, you'll find it to be that Jewish and Israeli causes must always enjoy bipartisan support in America.

If you ask for an explanation, you're told that any “daylight” between the Jewish demands and the American assent to them, is dangerous for the Jews and for Israel. Thus, what Stella Morabito did, was to begin her article by arguing that if you're going to talk about something Jewish or Israeli, you must find out what is valid at this time and parrot it, or keep your mouth shut.

That's because what is valid in one conversation may be that A is true whereas B is false. An hour later, in another conversation, the same B might be true whereas the A might be false. To be safe, therefore, don't argue at all. But if you must join the conversation, say you agree (even if you don't) with everything Jewish and Israeli because Jews and Israelis are perfect in every way. Benito Mussolini, the father of fascism, would have loved to be a Jew under these conditions.

If you, my friend, find this Jewish style reasoning to be as primitive, backward and ignorant as to say that the Earth is flat, or that American astronauts are taken to the space station on fake Russian rockets, you'll find that when Stella Morabito defends the view which says the free expression of opinions creates divisions among the masses –– she replicates the argument that said the Soviet space achievements were fake; also replicates the argument that said the Earth was flat. Here is a sample of how she spun what Representative Rashida Tlaib had expressed:

“It's the shock effect of Tlaib's preface that gets our attention. It also gets her claim circulating in public discourse. That's how an 'availability cascade' works. According to Cass Sunstein's and Timur Kuran's wonkish definition, an availability cascade 'is a self-reinforcing process of collective belief formation by which an expressed perception triggers a chain reaction that gives the perception of increasing plausibility through its rising availability in public discourse.'” Huh!

All that Rashida Tlaib did to merit that mumbo-jumbo gibberish being thrown at her, is that she said she found a soothing kind of solace in the fact that the tragedy which befell her people was not in vain, given that it helped rescue another people from the clutches of the Nazis. It is just that they happened to be the Jews who never say thank you even when you rescue them from certain death.

As to the noble sentiment that Rashida Tlaib has expressed, let it be known that she was not the first to express it. In fact, it was detected long ago, and given the name Stockholm Syndrome.

It came about when bank robbers in the city of Stockholm took hostages. While negotiations were ongoing with the police to free the hostages, the latter came to understand the desperation of the robbers, and began to sympathize with them. After their release, the hostages surprised everyone by refusing to testify against their captors.

What some Palestinians, such as Rashida Tlaib, have developed is a version of that syndrome. Tlaib voiced what she felt, and the Jews saw anti-Semitism hidden inside it. The task now is to find a name for the syndrome that's afflicting the Jews.