As IF Times

link Freed prisoners who return to te… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

I’m sure they’re all shaking in their sandals over the warning by Netanyahu to avoid causing trouble upon their recent release from Israeli prison.  As has been reported in the news, Israel has exchanged 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for the return of just 1 Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit. Talk about a one sided deal! 

Two obvious things pop out here.  First, the stark difference between how both sides of  the Israeli/Palestinian struggle view their citizens are displayed by this action.  Whereas the Israelis respect and honor the sanctity of every human life by striking such a lopsided bargain for even one soldier’s release, the other side cavalierly sends their young boys off to suicide missions as if they were drink coasters to be used as needed.  From the perspective of a westerner, it seems as if the preservation and sanctity of human life is what determines a society’s standing in the civilization scale.   The only instance that I know of in the animal world where creatures willingly commit suicide are lemmings.  That is certainly the exception.  Even rodents and insects try to nurture life.

Ironically for the released prisoners, it may only dawn upon them many days after their release that they were probably better off in Israeli prisons.  The food was likely better than what they were used to; it arrived on a regular basis; they were housed with buddies and most importantly, they were excused from having to go out on rock throwing, suicide missions.  They may all have even gained a pound or two.  For the Israelis’ part, they may have been happy to offload the expense of housing , feeding and clothing the 1,027 prisoners.  Even bread and water costs money. 

The second obvious thing that jumps out from this exchange is that it must be hugely insulting for each of the Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged by the train car load for just one measly Israeli.  Have they no sense of pride?  Using a sports analogy, it’s as if Tom Brady of the New England Patriots were traded away for the entire NFL!  They couldn’t have been of too much use to their own society since they were obviously expendable.  Imagine when they come back home to their families. 

“Oh, Ahmed, it’s you.  Yeah, hey listen, this is a little uncomfortable, but we didn’t expect you to come back.  We’ve replaced you with a coat rack.” 

In any event, there is no dis-incentive  on the part of these released prisoners to resume troublesome activities notwithstanding Netanyahu’s warnings.  What’s the worst that can happen?

D.C. marchers rally for jobs and justice – The Washington Post.

When Reverend Al gets into the fray, it generally confirms that whatever the cause he’s backing, it’s probably hysterical hyperbole.  Reverend Al, for those who are  unfamiliar with his career, sees racism in the most mundane things.  White lines on blacktop would arouse his keen sense of racial injustice if only he could convince anyone of its merit.   His affected indignation at anything involving perceived racial injustice to blacks is legendary and by now, he is essentially a comical caricature of himself, ironically taken seriously only by those in the white liberal media.  The media perpetuates Reverend Al’s influence by interviewing him whenever any issue involving blacks pops up.  As if Reverend Al is THE spokesman for a nation of 80 million blacks.  Imagine if something contentious was occurring with a white person and Charlie Sheen’s opinion was sought to get the white perspective.

We know he caters to a constituency of idiots or at least to those of very modest intelligence because of the way he frames his messages.  Rather than making articulate speeches, he prefers the classic nursery rhyme technique to drive home his compelling intellectual arguments.

Borrowing a page from the famous Johnnie Cochran of O.J. Simpson legal team fame, Reverend Al has taken the infamous ” if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit” tactic and adopted it as his own.  As the linked article details, his present campaign is ” if you don’t get jobs bill done in suite, we will get done in street”, in reference to both the recently nixed Obama jobs plan and the protests in the streets of New York.  It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but at least a few words rhyme, so for Reverend Al, it’s considered witty repartee.  He follows this with “this is not about Obama, it’s about my mama!”.  Pure gold.   It’s not exactly “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks”.  But this technique gets the job done.  His constituency can more easily remember his position if it can be repeated in rhyme than if it were articulated more prosaically.

It’s unclear to me why his followers wouldn’t be insulted by his condescending delivery, it’s as if he were addressing pre-adolescents.

Or maybe he’s just a master entertainer.

That would make sense since his entire shtick is part vaudeville, part church revival and part P.T. Barnum.  Like many of his other hypocritical colleagues in the liberal bleat-sphere, railing against poverty and oppression has, surprise, surprise,  made Reverend Al rich and famous.  This is like Al Gore bleating of global warming and living in a house the size of a community center or of  Michael Moore condemning capitalism while making millions off his delusional movies.

In the spirit of Reverend Al however, we’ve come up with some other slogans which are free to be used by any who may find them appropriate:

Give me a job, or I join a mob!

Given some time, what’s yours will be mine!

Give us da cash, or we gonna bash!

We want rights, we want justice, if we don’t get it, come and bust us!

And of course the most genuine chant:

Stop all greed, enough is enough, give us more money, give us more stuff!