Is That An Olive Branch Or A Gun

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “Is That An Olive Branch Or A Gun.”

Our adversaries have become adept at terrorizing with one hand and painting themselves as victims with the other….The subterfuge of calling for peace, but seeking to murder has been going on for decades. The PLO charter that calls for the “liberation of Palestine” and the destruction of Israel was supposedly changed in the Oslo Accords, but it was never ratified. And the terrorist tactic of gaining ground (Gaza, West Bank, etc.) to further their strategic aim to attack and destroy Israel is well understood. Arafat became a master of this chicanery already decades ago when he came to the United Nations in 1974 with a “freedom fighters gun” on his hip and an “olive branch” in his offering. Today, the run of the mill terrorist continues this duplicity having become proficient at holding human shields (women and children) in one hand, and a gun or bomb to attack in the other. Similarly, organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah have cunningly split their missions of terrorism and murder of Israelis on one hand with social welfare and political cause for Palestinians on the other. They raise sympathy and seek to gain immunity at the same time as they continue to delegitimize Israel and conduct economic warfare and rampaging killing sprees.

In this regard, I wanted to share two sayings about not letting down our guard when it comes to the safety and security of Israel and our people. One, from the Romans, “If you wish for peace, prepare for war” also known as “peace through strength.” The second saying from former President Ronald Reagan, “Trust but verify” also know as “respect them but suspect them.”

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Victory Or Defeat

I was reading Vladimir Jabotinsky’s “Story of My Life.”

And there is this quote that I really like attributed to Kipling in it:

Victory or defeat: learn to accept both with equanimity since both are deceptions.

I just thought this is profound.  

We never really fully win or lose. 

Everything is on a spectrum. 

And where we think we are on that spectrum is often not even nearly correct. 

You think you won that one, but guess what someone else has outsmarted you and you don’t even know it yet. 

Also, wins can be easily followed by loses and vice versa.

Things can turn on a dime and who’s up becomes who’s down–as the wheel of life turns and turns again. 

Recognize that you don’t control everything–actually, the only thing you do control is how you react and behave.

Everything else is a test to teach you and help you grow. 

And as I heard from a speaker yesterday, “you can’t make up in space, what you have lost in time.”

Victory or defeat, both are deceptions. 

Only how you choose to act is the real win or lose. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

A Half Truth

So everyone is always playing with the truth. 

They don’t want people to really know the truth, but they don’t want to call it a real lie.

Hence the saying:

“It’s just a white lie!”

A white lie is usually taken as in “pure” or “righteous”–in other words, there is a good reason (like to prevent someone from getting hurt) for lying, .

Yes, sure there is (LOL).

Sometimes people lie to themselves:

“What you don’t know can’t harm you!”

Most often, people tell what they call half truths.

This is commonly referred to as:

“Beating around the bush!”

However, don’t tell anyone:

A half truth is a lie!

And just like beating around the bush arouses the birds to fly and get caught in a net–that’s what telling half truths do too. 

Why is it so hard to tell the whole truth, because that would make most people look pretty bad. 

If people only knew.

But someday, of course, they will. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Floppy Disk Earrings

So this was an interesting technology fashion statement.

This lady in Washington, D.C. has earrings that are floppy disks. 

One full diskette on each ear!

I guess not only can she wear them, but she can plug them into her computer at work and save or transfer files (that is if you can still find a computer that actually uses these). 

It makes you think though, from a cybersecurity perspective, what other devices can people “wear” to work and use for good or malicious purposes. 

Another scary thought came to mind, how suicide/homicide bombers strap vests with explosives to their bodies too–do terrorists also adhere to a certain “style” even for murdering people? 

Anyway, fashion can be almost anything apparently…if you can find a way to put it on you body. 😉

(Source Photo: Dannielle Blumenthal)

Why Can’t People Be Genuine

Why all the phonies, users, shysters, and scammers out there?

It starts perhaps with that big, warm smile.

Maybe a handshake and hug. 

Perhaps, you even get a kiss or two (it’s cultural, I think, LOL).

Colleagues, friends, you’re just like family.

Sometimes it’s real and you truly found something valuable in your life.

There are good people of soul and conscience out there. 

But other times it’s an act, a sham, deception, you’re the fool. 

The other person wants something–cash, control, connections.

Oh by the way, can I ask you for just a “little” favor?

You wouldn’t mind if…?

Just do XYZ for me, I got your back. 

I see you know so and so, would you introduce me?

I have a great investment opportunity for you, let me tell you all about it.

Sure it’s okay and actually wonderful in a real relationship for people to be there for each other and help each others…“that’s what [real] friends are for!”

The problem is where the friendship is only about the ask for the benefit of the other and no care for you as a person. 

Then the smile isn’t a genuine collegial or friendship one of happiness and outreach. but rather it’s upside down to get you to do something legit or illegit for the person pressing their lips up and out into that smile you already know is all about the ask. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Iran–and Obama–Lied

The Iranian Nuclear Deal has been definitively proven to be based on lies and deception. 

G-d has once again helped Israel achieve a miraculous intelligence coup against Axis of Evil, Iran!

Iran has a clear path to nukes, and they have been working feverishly towards this maniacal end for decades!

This has put Western Civilization at grave risk at the hands of the fanatical Mullahs who endessly call for death to America, Israel, and even Sunni civilization. 

The only thing the Iranian deal was good for was as a deceptive political ploy by Obama to gain a fake win and to support dangerous Iranian global terrorism, extremism, human rights violations, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. 

Now we know the real reason certain people couldn’t say the words “Islamic Terrorism.”

Iran lied, but so did Obama. 

I can hear our bombers revving their engines and see the smart bombs being loaded into their bays.

It’s well past time to make things right and conduct the necessary preemptive strike to foil their evil plans and destroy their wicked weapons of mass destruction before they can use them on you know who. 😉

Good Face, Ugly Mask

So many faces, so much phoniness. 

Why can’t we just deal with genuine people?

Not like the dummies in this picture. 

Everyone seems to put on a face. 

One person comes in the room, puts on a big smile and then drops it like you do your pants in the bathroom (excuse the comparison).

But it’s just so wax!

Another person is talking it up, but you can see just under the thin veneer, they are a boiling powder keg ready to go off. 

Faces are for expression–to feel and to share. 

However, they are used to deceive and fool the world around them.  

Is it a face or a mask.

What’s behind it–good or evil?

If you don’t look past the superficial then you are the real dummy.  😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

You Are The Working Class

So I like to speak with people about their lives.

Today at breakfast, there was a gentlemen working the egg bar making omelettes for people.

Recognizing him, I said “You’ve been here a number of years?”

He responds, “Yeah, but I want to leave here!”

I was sort of taken aback at his bluntness, and inquired further, “Why, is everything okay?”

He goes, “Not really. They’ll only give me work 6 to 7 hours a day, and I can’t make a living on 32 hours a week!”

I asked innocently, “Do you have a second job or something?”

He says, “No, this is it,” and proceeded to make the next person’s omelette.

Feeling sort of shitty bad for him…

Another lady who works the tables says to us: “I won’t be seeing you.”

I ask, “Why–are you off the next few days?”

She says, “No, I don’t come back until next Saturday–I only work the weekends here, and somewhere else on weekdays.”

Wondering about this, I say: “So you work 7 days a week?”

She answers, “Yes, year-round!”

After we said goodbye until next time, I looked at my wife grimacing that this women has to work 7 days a week, 365 days a year, just to earn a basic living.

I’ll tell you the system is broken.

Shareholders and corporate chieftains squeeze profits and earnings per share out of their companies while the workers can barely get by.

The workers are not part of the companies they labor for–they are merely hired hands who will be replaced in a moment by another minimum wage worker if they but open their mouths to protest one word.

Slavery did not end in building the Great Pyramids of Egypt or in the plantations of the South–the average worker is still just a slave.

Employee engagement and development and “Human Capital” are terms organizations use to make themselves and their workers believe that there is real caring and unity going on.

But we know the truth by how people are treated with harshness, disrespect, disdain, and even abuse–sexual and otherwise!

Yeah, are you really valued or are you a wage slave showered with empty platitudes of unity and caring.

Real leadership is genuine compassion, empathy, and helping people both inside and outside the organization–not just a guise, disguise, mask for making just another dollar cracking the whip on the backs of the underclass.

All people are important.

All people deserve a living wage.

All people are entitled to work with dignity and respect.

All people need to be apart of a system that is fair and equitable.

Care for your brothers and sisters for one day you will be called before them in the court of Heaven and they will speak the final truth to power. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

The Fine Line Between Fantasy and Reality

So I’ve started to realize that there are at times a (very) thin line between fantasy and reality. 

In some cases, people hear some facts or some truth, and then in their mind, they concoct entire stories of fantasy or full-fledged conspiracy around it.

But more than that, the fantasy in their minds, because it starts with a real fact or two then becomes entirely perceived as reality itself. 

We saw plenty of this in the last election cycle and even today, with one political side or the other purchasing phony dossiers or making up stories about the opposition–and they may even have some underlying facts associated with it. 

But around these facts, entire scripts and stories are concocted through inductive reasoning or highly imaginative thinking, whether for example, of deep Russian conspiracies reminiscent of the era of McCarthyism or the Salem Witch Trails of yesteryear. 

Again, I’m not saying that nothing is there, but the question is whether there is real truth then to the whole conspiracy that has been drawn from fantastical minds of opposition agents, reporters, and others gainfully benefiting and perhaps running amuck with these grandiose versions of alternate reality?

What I am coming to believe is that it’s not so much that people are willfully making up these stories (although there can certainly be plenty of biases, exaggerations, and agendas at work as well), but that in their mind, they create these bombastic versions of what seems like truth to them and then they pawn it off and sell it to others who are only to happy to latch unto some juicy new gossip or theory of “what’s really going on.”

Similarly, some people who get very mad may actually take albeit a genuine fight with another person and pour layer upon layer of evil doings and manipulations on them until by the time their mind is done, the other person has become the devil themselves–and the fantasy for a short time seems like it is the reality–until such time that cooler heads prevail and reality replaces the mind’s fantasy or it’s ultimate fears. 

In short, there is a very fine line between fantasy and reality–our minds can get carried away with facts or notions of the moment and build those into full-fledged conspiracy theories of “who done it” and “why didn’t we see it all along.”

Certainly, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t some very good pretenders out there who truly are doing very bad things and covering their tracks, and it’s for the gifted and detective minds out there to perceive those and prove them as being the greater reality.

But we have to be careful in accusing people–until such time that the facts are all there and the perception or fantasy of our mind’s eye is shown to be the reality indeed. 

We need good investigative journalism, excellent law enforcement and intelligence, and clarity of mind to know what’s real and what’s fake in life and in our fantastical minds. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Fake News CNN and Failing NYT

The Failing New York Times and Fake News CNN…

Have become virtually unwatchable. 

Aside from their relentless bias, they are so endlessly the negative Nellies and depressing!

How about reporting the news instead of trying to direct it?  

On the positive side of things, I heard that FOX news is turning even more mainstream.

And a new conservative network news channel is in the making to balance out the other news lineup already out there. 

Thank G-d, we have choices and they can be more truthful, more fair and balanced, and more spirited and enjoyable to read and watch. 

It doesn’t matter what your political leaning is–we value them all as long as we respect everyone and have a honest debate of ideas–and not 24/7 mind control and a media brainwashing session over the masses. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)