Pallitics

Historians have said many of McLeroy's assertions are dubious and have worried about politicization of such classroom staples as the Revolutionary War and the civil rights movement.

-WaPo

By all means, disagree with his assertions, but, um, "such classroom staples as the Revolutionary War and the civil rights movement" were explicitly political events. Oh, I suppose it is easier to consign them to "history," to denude them of context and controversy, to elide all disagreement on their meaning and ramifications, to pin their pretty wings to the velvet and cover them in glass, but it is also false. Look, I do not think that the United States was founded on "biblical principles," just one of the above-mentioned dubious assertions--I think "biblical principles" is an almost entirely hollow phrase, signifying very little. At the same time, yahoos like McLeroy do us a favor if they at least force us to look backwards with a moderately critical eye, to consider that wars, revolutions, and social movements aren't the passage of a breeze over grass, but are real, palpable, and catastrophic, even if we ultimately deem the end results to be salutory.

I too find it offensive to listen to white people making barely cryptoracist arguments about the Great Society causing the "destruction of the black family", but at the same time, the civil rights movement did not consist solely of a few marches and sit-ins culminating in a big speech at the Lincoln Memorial. That's a false telling. The civil rights era was a wrenching, traumatic time, full of death and conflict, and although I do not think that the disintegration of Jim Crow in the south is the proximate cause of epidemic black single parenthood, I do think that the question of how urban industrialization provided an economic foundation and context for civic struggle and understanding how subsequent de-industrialization has undercut some of those earlier gains is not only a legitimate topic of inquiry, but a necessary one.

See, shit is fucked, and although it sort of sucks that some kids are being taught incorrect reasons for shit being fucked, having their minds exposed to the fact of the shit-fuckery makes them a lot more open to unofficial counternarratives than panegyrical tales of the American Cincinnatus and Honest Abe and a sanctified and deracinated MLK.

A Dick!

Friedman is totally nuts, totally self-involved of course. Only a crazed American can look at Karzai's inviting the elected (or semi-elected, or sort-of elected) leader (or semi-leader, or sort-of leader) of the large, populous, regionally influential nation that shares its, and Afghanistan's, third longest land border solely and singularly as a bit of political theater directed at us and only us. I am not naive; plainly thumbing his nose at the American administration that so recently thumbed its nose at him was part of the point, but by our enterprising columnist's own admission, Karzai is a man with a scandalous and questionable electoral mandate, a weak security apparatus, and a fraglie coalition, ruling precariously over an ad-hoc city-state in the middle of a rugged country caunght between various insurgencies, rebels, and competing claimants, the American death machine, and the machinations of other-neighbor Pakistan's own government, insurgencies, intelligence, and security apparatus. One side against the other, in bed with everyone . . . fabulous stuff, man.

From Moses to Sandy Koufax

Okay, so, basically, a lot of Jews don't know very much about Judaism. Which is fine. Most Christains know shit about Christianity, and so on and so forth. Passover is a fine time to point this out. The liberation story of your basic Haggadah bears about as much resemblance to the actual text of Exodus, in which the insane pre-monotheistic tribe-god of the marooned Israelites goes stone-cold on the Egyptians . . . among many other truly whacky hijinks in the greater Middle East, as . . . ah, shit. I mean, your family Haggadah, Mr. Yglesias, probably doesn't mention that Pharoah's own wizards went man-to-God with the Sky Guy on the first several plagues and matched him parlor-trick-for-parlor-trick, nor yet that Pharoah's hard-hearted stubborness was not his own, but rather was fomented in his Pharaonic breast by Yaweh Hisself, because His Mightiness wasn't all about demonstrating his power to the Egyptians--who, after all, weren't his people--but rather about scaring the bejesus, you'll pardon the expression, out of his own rancorous, unhappy, kibbitzing, and unfaithful Hebrews. Deep breath. But what really gets me, I mean, what really gets me, is that nobody seems to know what L'shanah haba'ah b'Yerushalayim really means! Yglesias:

But what about Jerusalem? Obviously as a historical matter this phrase enters our passover ceremonies before the creation of the State of Israel and is meant to suggest a hazy aspiration rather than a specific plan. But for the modern-day American Jew it’s a bit of a problem. After all, nothing is stopping us from taking a Passover trip to Israel or, indeed, from moving to Israel. But I would actually be pretty upset if President Obama expressed the view that in his opinion the meaning of Passover is that Jews should all leave America and go move to Israel. Which is why, obviously, he’s not going to say anything like that. But there’s clearly a tension inside present-day diaspora Zionism. Nobody in my family, including its members who are quite a bit more conventionally pro-Israel than I am, has any intention of moving to a Hebrew-speaking Middle Eastern country.

No, no, no you goddamn moron. It isn't about moving your fat ass to Israel. It's about the coming of the goddamn Moshiach, the rebuilding of the Temple, and the arrival of the Messianic age. Which has its own attendent conundrums, you know, obviously, but not the one's you're talking about.