Please Don’t Vote for a Democratic Socialist

Posted on November 5, 2018 by First.One.Through

There are a number of candidates on the ballot across the country with extremist views. On the far-left, are people who refer to themselves as “Democratic Socialists.” They include:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Julia Salazar in New York
Sarah Smith in Washington
Rashida Tlaib in Michigan
James Thompson in Kansas
Summer Lee and Sara Innamorato both unseated longtime Democratic incumbents, and Elizabeth Fiedler and Kristin Seale.

Two of the alarming extremist views held by the Democratic Socialists are their desires to destroy America’s free market economy and to destroy the Jewish State of Israel.

Attack on Capitalism

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), explain their view of the economy very clearly:

“We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own and control them.”

The goal of the DSA is to move the role of companies from one of profit to one which is for the betterment of society. Under the DSA, companies will become unionized, just in time for technology and globalization to sweep America back into the 1800’s.

The DSA does not want private shareholders to decide the direction of companies; it demands that companies’ workers and consumers make those decisions. Corporate workers get to do this by getting free shares in their employer, taken from current shareholders. A beautiful wealth transference akin to highway robbery.

Somehow, the DSA imagines that companies and shareholders have no regard for their workers, customers or society. It is as if companies today do not operate in a competitive landscape for customers and workers. The DSA’s naive view of corporate America makes a James Bond villain look tame.

This is no exaggeration. More from the DSA website:

“In the short term we can’t eliminate private corporations, but we can bring them under greater democratic control.“

In the near-term, the DSA wants to regulate private companies as much as possible; more and more government oversight, demands and regulations. A near-term goal may be to close the “pay gap” between the highest and lowest paid employee in a company to be capped (if an entry-level job pays $30,000, then the Socialists will cap the CEO pay at say 50x of that level, or $1.5 million). In the longer term, the Socialists will take over the companies completely.

“a long-term goal of socialism is to eliminate all but the most enjoyable kinds of labor, we recognize that unappealing jobs will long remain. These tasks would be spread among as many people as possible rather than distributed on the basis of class, race, ethnicity, or gender, as they are under capitalism.”

The DSA view of the future is the forced allocation of unpopular jobs to everyone. A check-out clerk at Walmart would no longer be someone without a high school diploma or finite skills, but will include college graduates who must “volunteer” their time behind the cash register. Makes perfect sense… only to a socialist.

The DSA is about government control of all elements of the economy via a government and worker takeover of the private companies:

“Multinational corporations must be brought under democratic controls, and workers’ organizing efforts must reach across borders.”

In their own words, the Democratic Socialists are seeking a government takeover of private enterprises and a reallocation of work to meet their own view of equality and justice.

Further, the socialists want to institute an immediate wealth transfer from those people who are viewed as either too wealthy or too seedy (or both). Here’s a quote from the website of Sarah Smith:

“make public universities tuition free, paid for with a tax on Wall Street speculators.”

If free tuition is a societal benefit, why not make everyone pay for it? See the socialist manifesto above.

Moving such radical viewpoints into positions of power would be destructive to the American economy and impact every American.

Against Israel, the Only Liberal Democracy in the Middle East

The Democratic Socialist politicians stand against Israel.

Rashida Tlaib from Michigan is a promoter of the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) movement against Israel.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said that Israel occupies Palestinian land, “massacres” Palestinian protesters.
Sarah Smith believes that Israel should not be allowed to curtail Hamas’s import of weapons into Gaza.
Khader El-Yateem, who ran for City Council in New York was also vocal advocate of the BDS movement.

This should come as no surprise, as the movement stands together with Palestinian Arabs that attack Israelis and in favor of BDS:

“We unequivocally stand in solidarity with Ahed Tamimi [attacker of IDF personnel] and all those struggling for the liberation of the Palestinian people in Occupied Palestine. We also stand with the 63 Israeli youth who recently wrote a letter saying they won’t serve in the IDF. We recognize our government’s active collaboration with the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people and we are against it, as evidenced by DSA’s 2017 national convention passing a resolution in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.”

The DSA’s 2017 resolution was as follow:

“1. Democratic Socialists of America declares itself in solidarity with Palestinian civil society’s nonviolent struggle against apartheid, colonialism, military occupation and for equality, human rights, and self-determination.
2. Democratic Socialists of America responds to Palestinian Civil Society’s call by fully supporting BDS.”

The platform did not speak about any other country – not Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey or North Korea.

The entire DSA movement is infected with an anti-Israel animus. It even gets into college campuses.

On November 8, 2018, the Democratic Socialists of City College in New York City will be partnering with Students for Justice in Palestine, a noted hate group. Together, they are sponsoring a talk by vocal anti-Zionist Norman Finkelstein.

Poster of event promoted by Democratic Socialists and
Students for Justice in Palestine, SJP

SJP doesn’t just dislike Israeli policies. They don’t only want to see the destruction of the Jewish State. They want to see Jews and Israelis killed.

Selection of posts from social media from SJP members
calling for people to kill Jews and Zionists

Members of SJP should be arrested and charged with hate crimes and incitement. But the members of the DSA are actively associating with it.

The Democratic Socialists are the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party. Should they be elected, it will begin the unwinding of the greatest countries in modern times.

Related First.One.Through Articles:

This July 4, I am Leaving the Democratic Party that Left Me Long Ago

Bernie Sanders is the Worst U.S. Presidential Candidate for Israel Ever

Fake Definitions: Pluralism and Progressive / Liberalism

A Country Divided

In The Margins

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The Cave of the Jewish Matriarch and Arab Cultural Appropriation

Posted on November 1, 2018 by First.One.Through

This weekend, Jews around the world will read the weekly portion of Chayai Sarah, the Lives of Sarah.

The story is told in Genesis chapter 23 of Abraham buying a plot of land in Kiryat Arba (Hebron) to bury his wife Sarah. Verses 10 through 20 relay the story of Abraham’s negotiation to buy the land from Ephron the Hittite. The transaction represents the first purchase of land recorded in the Bible, cementing God’s earlier promise of the holy land to Abraham in hard fact.

Sarah is a particular and divisive character in the Bible. In her attempt to protect her only son Isaac, Sarah demanded that Abraham send away his first son Ishmael whom he had with another woman. God tells Abraham that the familial divide is a good idea, to follow Sarah’s suggestion and send Ishmael away, and that each son will grow to become a great nation. Sarah’s son Isaac would have progeny who would become the Jews, and Ishmael’s children would become the Arab nation.

Abraham would ultimately be buried next to his wife Sarah in the Cave of Machpelah which he bought for her, as would Isaac and his wife, and Abraham’s grandson Jacob and three of his four wives/ maidens. The family burial chamber became one of the holiest locations for Jews (second only to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem).

Medallion of Cave of Machpelah on the roof of the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem
(photo: First.One.Through)

Roughly 1,700 years after the Jewish matriarchs and patriarchs were buried, King Herod built a large building on top of the cave (around 2,000 years ago). The building remains very similar to the structure he built at that time.

But Jews would ultimately lose control of their holy site. When the Arabs invaded the holy land in the 7th and 8th century in their wave of bringing Islam to the world, they took over Herod’s edifice. While all of the people buried in the location were Jews, the Arabs claimed the entirety of the site due to their connection to Abraham. The Arabs barred any Jew from entering the building for over 1,000 years.

That changed in 1967.

After Jordan illegally annexed the city of Hebron/Kiryat Arba in 1950, they attacked Israel and lost the city in 1967. With the Jewish State assuming control of the city, it allowed Jews – and all faiths – to return to the building to visit and worship.

The Cave of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs is the site of the very first Jewish burial. It contains the remains of six of the seven original Jews (the seventh is located in the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem). It has been a pilgrimage site for Jews for thousands of years.

But the Arab and Muslim invasion stole that legacy. Over their thousand plus-years of control, the Muslim Arabs attempted to strip the site of its Jewish heritage and turned the building into a mosque. The capstone of their cultural appropriation was banning all Jews from the site.

That is now in the past.

The Torah portion of Chayei Sarah will be read by thousands of Jews in Kiryat Arba this weekend, in a celebration reclaiming history, land, holy site and Jewish rights which had been robbed from Jews for generations.

Related First.One.Through articles:

It is Time to Insert “Jewish” into the Names of the Holy Sites

Joint Prayer: The Cave of the Patriarchs and the Temple Mount

The Journeys of Abraham and Ownership of the Holy Land

The United Nations and Holy Sites in the Holy Land

Shabbat Hagadol at the Third Hurva Synagogue, 2010

The Cancer in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Squeezing Zionism

The Long History of Dictating Where Jews Can Live Continues

The New York Times will Keep on Telling You: Jews are not Native to Israel

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Don Lemon, Here are Some Uncomfortable Facts about Hate Crimes in America

Posted on November 1, 2018 by First.One.Through

In the immediate aftermath of the antisemitic massacre of Jews in Pittsburgh in October 2018, CNN went through an effort to explain to its audience the nature of hatred. In truth, it just revealed the nature of its own biases.

Don Lemon, a ubiquitous talking head for CNN made the following comment in an exchange with Chris Cuomo, another anchor:

“So, we have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them. There is no travel ban on them. There is no ban on — you know, they had the Muslim ban. There is no white guy ban”

Let’s put aside the racist comment on its face for a moment, something that could have emerged from the mouth of Louis Farrakhan. Let’s simply examine the data as compiled every year by the FBI regarding hate crimes in the USA.

Factual Review

The FBI tracks who commits crimes by race and ethnicity, and white people did commit more crimes than any other racial group in 2016. But there are also many more white people than other racial groups, so the absolute comparison needs context. As there are roughly 5.7 times more white people than black people, one would expect 5.7 times more black offenders as well.

Hate Crimes Against a Person, 2016

	Population	Offender	Frequency
White	248,484,663	2,197	113,102
Black	42,975,891	1,117	38,474
Hispanic	57,516,606	214	268,769

According to the FBI, 2,197 white people in America committed a hate crime and 1,117 black people committed a hate crime, almost twice the number of attacks. However, when accounting for the size of each group, the numbers conclude that an average black person was three times more likely to commit a hateful attack against a person than a white person (one hate crime attack for every 38,000 black people and one attack for every 113,000 white people).

Overall, violent crime in the United States has been in a decline for over a decade according to the FBI. The exceptions were spikes in violent crime in 2012, 2015 and 2016. This would seemingly undermine the accusation that Donald Trump is the reason for more violence in America, as violent crime actually declined in 2017.

Change in Number of Violent Crimes

Years	Change
2016/17	-0.8%
2015/16	5.3%
2014/15	1.7%
2013/14	-4.6%
2012/13	-5.4%
2011/12	1.9%
2010/11	-6.4%
2009/10	-6.2%
2008/09	-4.4%
2007/08	-3.5%

As it relates, to Jews, many of the alt-left progressive wing have charged that Jews are part of the white privileged class. The likes of Linda Sarsour and Melissa Harris-Perry defend Louis Farrakhan’s antisemitism because they don’t believe that Farrakhan has any power or influence so his comments are therefore innocuous against a privileged group of Jews.

But the facts tell a different story.

Hate Crimes Against Different Groups, 2016

	Population	Victims	Frequency
White	248,484,663	909	273,360
Black	42,975,891	2,220	19,359
Hispanic	57,516,606	483	119,082
Jewish	5,300,000	862	6,148
Muslim	3,450,000	388	8,892
LGBT	10,000,000	1,386	7,215

An average Jew is the most likely to experience a hate crime than any other group – more than blacks, Muslims or the LGBT community. Even more telling, an average Jew is 45 times more likely to experience a hate crime than an average white person.

Jews are clearly not experiencing America like most white Americans.

Coming back to the initial charge of Don Lemon about white men being terrorists on the back of the antisemitic massacre in Pittsburgh, it is useful to look at the perpetrators of antisemitic crimes through the years.

Antisemitic Attacks by Race of Attacker

Year	Incidents	White	Black	White	Black
2016	834	389	118	47%	14%
2015	695	121	31	17%	4%
2014	635	87	20	14%	3%
2013	689	143	35	21%	5%
2012	696	101	20	15%	3%
2011	820	139	16	17%	2%
2010	922	134	25	15%	3%
2009
2008	1055	176	20	17%	2%

The table above is compiled from several FBI reports about hate crimes through the years. A few trends are important to review:

Crimes against Jews are increasing since 2015. After many years of seeing a decline in the number of antisemitic crimes (no data was released in 2009), attacks inched up in 2015 and spiked much higher in 2016. (2017 data is not yet published by the FBI).
An average black person has become much more likely to be the attacker against a Jew. Until 2012, the ratio of antisemitic attacks from whites and blacks were roughly what would be expected. That began to change in 2013 when black assailants began to overtake whites at a statistically significant level. In 2016, the proportion of black attackers spiked again by almost double.
More antisemitic attacks against persons. Through 2015, roughly 30% of attacks against Jews were against their person, while 70% were against property. In 2016, the percentage jumped to 37% of personal attacks. As there were more personal attacks, the identity of the attacker became apparent.

To summarize, the number of antisemitic attacks has indeed been increasing, but more and more of the attacks are coming from blacks, not whites. That is also true generally about all hate attacks, that black people are much more likely to be the assailant. Lastly, violent crimes against Jews have definitely spiked since 2015, (perhaps correlated with Donald Trump’s run for the presidency), but overall, hate crimes have not.

Opinion Review

The progressive media has been hiring greater numbers of minorities who harbor anti-white attitudes. Don Lemon’s comments are not unique.

The New York Times hired a noted racist Sarah Jeong who has proudly posted tweets “White men are bullshit,” “#CancelWhitePeople,” “white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants” and “Oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.” The New York Times was unperturbed. It claimed she was just mimicking the attacks against her and she apologized.

Marc Lamont Hill, another commentator on CNN often makes disparaging comments about Israel (saying that the country has no right to exist). Hill, Lemon, Sarsour and others are all part of a left-wing movement which believes that racism can only exist when it is coupled with institutional power. Therefore, any minority – especially those that are under-represented in positions of power like blacks and Muslims in the United States – cannot be considered racist. As the minority, they stand in the position of the oppressed. Any violent actions which they commit are simply “punching up,” trying to level the unfair playing field, which is a primary goal of progressives.

The pairing of the argument that no black person can be racist, is that all white people benefit from white privilege and inherently take advantage of a racist American society. For blacks and Muslims which view Jews as whites – and very powerful ones at that, controlling the banks and media – Jews can never be truly seen as victims.

So Jews are murdered. Again. The neo-Nazis are taking aim at Jews. Again.

And now, for the first time, blacks in America are broadly taking aim at Jews as well, with the smug support of alt-left progressives.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Between Right-Wing and Left-Wing Antisemitism

Farrakhan’s Democrats

Covering Racism

What Kind of Hate Kills?

CNN’s Politicization of Antisemitic Murder

NY Times, NY Times, What Do You See? It Sees Rich White Males

Where’s the March Against Anti-Semitism?

Politicians React to Vile and Vulgar Palestinian Hatred

Fact Check Your Assumptions on American Racism