The Politics of "Home"

By now we have all seen the disturbing video of Helen Thomas telling the Israelis to "Go Home".

(Disclosure: Like most Americans, I support Israel's right to exist. That does not mean I that like everything Israel does, any more than I like everything the U.S. government does. Neither does it mean that I am Jewish (I was raised Catholic and would define myself as Unitarian, my wife is from Asia and was raised Buddhist and cannot fathom this whole anti-semitism thing, and the closet thing we have to a family clergyman is an Orthodox Rabbi that was one of my closest confidants long before he became a Rabbi... go figure) nor a fundamentalist Christian supporting Israel for religious reasons (I am fairly secular). I support Israel because of the unique set of circumstances Jews faced at and just prior to Israel's founding - the world had failed them in their time of need and the surviving Jews of that time and place took matters into their own hands - just as the Founding Fathers of the U.S. had in their time. I guess it also does not hurt that Israel has been a staunch ally of the U.S.)

Stay with me... I am going to weave some disparate threads together for this post.

Telling Jews to go "home" or telling blacks to go "home" to Africa is very much the same thing as telling Europeans to go "home" - leave America to its "native" peoples, themselves immigrants from Asia - or tell Mexicans to "go home" from Texas or California... or tell whites in South Africa to go "home" to... oh, wait... they have live in South Africa for over 4 centuries...

Sometimes, cultures clash. They do so for a variety of reasons. When you figure out how to do that in a perfect way... you let me know. I found it strange that in exchanges with 2 guys I met on FaceBook, both avowed Socialists/Communists, that both of them brought up what they viewed as the subjugation of the "Native American" by the European settlers as a primary reason to despise the U.S. and end capitalism. My bet is they want the "Jews to go home", too. Certainly the whites in South Africa... but not the Mexican's in the U.S.

Not terribly consistent, to say the least! (nor terribly well informed. They should read "Scourge" on the history of Small Pox to understand what happened in the America's. I am pretty sure man did not create Small Pox, had little control over its spread, and given our history on the politics of HIV would be unwilling to quarantine large portions of population for being "Small Pox Positive").

I have no idea how to solve the culture clashes of this sort. Clearly, neither does Helen Thomas. I do kinda like my whole non-violence/sanctity of life position. When all else fails it gives folks a fall back position that keeps them from killing one another (when practiced). I also like assimilation, but what can be done with groups that adamantly refuse to assimilate? Some how forced breeding and murder seems to come up a bit short as a solution. Who are we to tell people how to assemble?

Given the FACT that between 4% and 5% of the population sends the wrong guy Father's Day cards because women cheat as much as men (Who do you think the cheating husband is sleeping with? Or who all those dirty politicians are cheating with? Somebody else's spouse (wife). People having sex get pregnant. Simple. Like. That. Before DNA testing came along there was an old saying: "Mama's baby; Papa's? Maybe."), and given the statement:

"When strange peoples meet - first they fight, then they fornicate."

well, we all know that many of these mortal enemies are actually reasonably closely related.

Don't tell them that, though... they are too busy hating and killing each other.