A New Direction for a Troubled Nation: Head North … or escape to Bali

A New Direction for a Troubled Nation: Head North … or escape to Bali Horace advised youth to head West to find a new beginning. Perhaps that can be modified to head North, perhaps to Greeley, Colorado … perhaps to escape Hurricane Ida … or perhaps to escape rabbel rousing rebels and trumplicans seeking to resurrect a lost war, a lost election and return to a time of sedition and slavery. Those were the days, my friend. But then the one road we have traveled since 1619 has shattered and split. There are actually some who are advocating for every American adult to own and carry a gun … as if that will reduce gun deaths in the country with one of the worst gun violence records on the planet – the worst among developed nations. Go NRA. Give me an AR-15 or give me death … be sure to include an unhealthy supply of bullets … preferably at least 1000 rounds of 5.56x45mm M193 NATO certified 55 grain bullets. Head North – take your friends and family – a house divided against itself cannot stand. All those from whom I am fleeing are allegedly followers of Abraham Lincoln and give some recognition to the original Abraham as well, who heard “get thee up and go to a far place” and he went. I want to escape the nonsense, the hatred, the racism, the false patriotic venom, but I stumble on as do most – “Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship, My senses have been stripped, My hands can't feel to grip, My toes too numb to step, Wait only for my boot heels to be wandering.” A song to pass the time … a dream to avoid the ugliness … but hurricanes come and go at an increasing and intensifying rate … large scale human tragedies continue unabated … no large scale solution seems on the horizon … education for all? A dream .. critical thinking development for youth … another dream … echoes of the choruses from the rock stick in my mind - “Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” What can one small and old person do to improve the human condition … the answer is simple – “When you see your neighbor carrying something, help him with his load, and don’t go mistaking paradise for that home across the road.” Or, according to Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, a devout Jew, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” … the wealthy and privileged few … Or, according to Rabbi Hillel, “if one is not for oneself, then who will be, but then if one is only for oneself [like so many wealthy and privileged people I happen to know] then what is one, and if not now, then when?” And, there is the lesson my father, Rabbi Joseph Spector, left me when I decided not to take a rabbinical fellowship and break the long line of rabbis in my family dating back at least to Rabbi Yitshak Elkahan Spektor – my father’s advice “was to be the voice that encourages, the ear that listens, the eye that reflects the hand that guides, the face that does not turn way … be a teacher.” “With one hand waving free” … “a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas” … mike spector

Life as Usual

Life as Usual The advice I keep getting is to ignore what is happening around the world and in this troubled country and just focus on your family and your job. Such advice sounds reasonable, and, if followed, might well lead to reduced stress and less anguish. However, I find such advice impossible to follow. I am living in a state where the governor wants to outlaw mask mandates and punish organizations that impose such mandates. I live in a state of denial. It is not a person’s individual right to endanger others, or so I was taught. Those who knowingly endanger others are acting irresponsibly and if others die as a result of that irresponsibility, then those persons are guilty of murder… in the highest degree and in the court of human kindness and understanding. The defense at the Nuremburg trials that “I was just following orders” did not exonerate anyone. Following orders that result in avoidable and unnecessary death is being an accomplice to murder. How can I ignore such stupidity in my own country? Elsewhere, we seem to be saving our own but putting our allies in Afghanistan at high risk. I used to be an Air Force officer, an intelligence officer who was not especially intelligent about keeping my views to myself, but I think we have obligations to those who have helped us in the past. Is that not what friends and allies do? Pointing fingers at others is no excuse for poor performance. But … why were we there and what were we fighting for? A few of us thought we should have left long ago or should never have gone … but memories and images of 9-11 are hard to ignore. Meanwhile, acts of random violence seem to be increasing. But the acts are not so random. They are aimed at those least able to defend themselves. Minorities continue to be oppressed in this land of the free and home of the brave. Immigrants are no longer welcomed as tired, and poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free … they are accused without evidence of being criminals and carriers of COVID-19 … while the wealthy white class continues to denigrate the non-wealthy and non-white people who do the daily work and provide the daily bread for us all. Life cannot be as usual for me anymore. I see nonsense and stupidity all around. Mike Spector A disappointed citizen

Meanwhile …

While the earth is on fire … while storms are increasingly ravaging the planet … while seas are rising … while hopes are falling ... while people are starving and dying … Meanwhile, the big lie continues to thrive and Trumplicans are inciting hate and vitriol … meanwhile, we sit back and watch in disbelief as democracy is dying … while people are lying … while people are vying for power and profits … while the real thieves are not wearing masks … meanwhile … In the time it took me to write this short note, about 50 persons in the USA were killed by guns, about half that number died needlessly from COVID-19 in the USA, countless children are starving and separated from their families at the border, meanwhile, we sit back and watch … “it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” ((https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56964/speech-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow)… How could Shakespeare have known?

Faith or Fate?

Faith or Fate? I am Jewish and was raised to believe that “The lord our G-d is one.” So why is there evil and suffering? Much evil and suffering is recorded in the Five Books of Moses. I asked my father, rest his soul, about this apparent paradox many times growing up in East Tennessee. His answer was a variation of this: It is up to us to make this a better world. That reminds me of T. S. Eliot’s remark that the “good man is the builder if he builds what is good.” Still, I wonder why G-d would create such wondrous creatures as elephants, buffalos, and whales to have them slaughtered for their tusks, skins and oil? Why would G-d create magnificent mountains and forests to have them burned and butchered for lumber and ore. Why would G-d create great rivers to have them polluted by uncaring people? Why would G-d create such diverse people to have them kill each other in senseless combat and hatred. I have wondered about such things for more than 60 years, and I have no better insight than what my father provided. “I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” Is it about gathering as much for yourself while those in nearby neighborhoods have no jobs, no food, and little prospects for living and thriving in the promised land? How much is enough? Why do people who profess deep religious faith care so little for others … for the poor and starving … for the planet? How much is enough? How much is too much? Ask the billionaire class. What is good? What good will last from what we do now and in the future? I have no clue. The future is unknown … and it seems particularly dark these days in the midst of a pandemic, pandemic deniers and the big lie that won’t die. There are some … many … who have managed to bring out the worst in people. I imagine that each of us can name a few. My father’s message was simple … your job as a human being is to bring out the best in others. Why did he leave me with such an impossible task?

Just heard from a friend

I just got an unexpected call from a friend who lives half a world away … in India. He called just to say hello and ask how I was doing. It is hard to estimate how much that call lifted my spirits … in the midst of a pandemic in which his country is not doing well, in the midst of pandemic stupidity in this country, in the midst of so much hate and vitriol, in the midst of so much suffering and so little empathy, in the midst ... of the big lie (fact check - he lost). My advice … call a friend just to say hello … call a friend just to say I care … and then get back to the business of making this a better world for all … not just for those who have it all. Call a friend. It is highly unlikely that the limits of your imagination conform to reality ... nor mine. "I'd rather be a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas" - from T. E. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-with-us)... and this from William Wordsworth's "The World Is Too Much Us" - "... late and soon, getting andspending, we lay waster our powers ... little we see in nature that is ours" - see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-with-us.