The Sounds of Silence #270
By Hank Silverberg
I am reading an interesting book titled "1861, The Civil War Awakening."
It centers on the years leading up to the Civil War, the people who failed to prevent it, both north and south, and why they couldn't stop it.
The author, with the interesting name-- Adam Goodheart--focuses on the personalities involved, but also on a general acknowledgement by many historians: the Civil War was inevitable because slavery was not dealt with by our Founding Fathers.
That was a price the United States paid for the compromise they made that lead to our independence, and it has haunted us ever since. Racism exists in America.
If you ask your family, friends or most people on the street, they will say they are not racist. But not being a racist is not enough.
I just don't understand why a substantial number of people can actively support a presidential candidate who openly expresses his hatred for immigrants or those not like him. And how they can actually cheer him on. That may not be racist, but they support someone who uses race and religion as a political tool for his own egotistical quest for power.
I also can't fathom why another form of racism-- antisemitism--continues to spike in this country.
There are approximately eight million people who identify as Jewish in the U.S. That's about 2.5% of the U.S. population, and it is the largest Jewish population in any country in the world. Israel has only seven million. Worldwide, Jews number about 15.3 million.
Jews are certainly a minority, though that is rarely acknowledged. We have been singled out as a scapegoat throughout world history simply because our culture and religion is different from the majority. That is one of the reasons American Jews have joined with other minority groups for decades to eradicate discrimination and racism here.
Yet now, when the homeland that our brethren resurrected just 75 years ago is under attack once again simply because it exists, some Americans seem oblivious to the barbaric October 7th assault on Israel. They look at the war with Hamas without context and see only the horrific impact of that war on the Palestinian civilians caught in the middle of it.
Many Jews have always had sympathy for the Palestinians who have been manipulated, abused, used as cannon fodder and even murdered by their own leaders and their Arab and Persian neighbors for decades. This was true even before there was an Israel.
There have been many long books and official studies of Middle East politics. But anyone with an open mind will tell you it is not a simple "Us vs. Them" conflict. But those who blame Israel or world Jewry for the current brutal war are simply wrong on the facts and just looking for a scapegoat to justify the mass murder of innocent Jewish women and children.
Please don't misinterpret this. The deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinians is a tragedy. But put the blame where it lies, with Hamas and the countries that financed Hamas and support them.
If you are not speaking out about this issue, then you are part of the problem and not the solution.
PEACE in that region is not going to be easy. It has been elusive for 80 years. But the antisemitism we have seen on college campuses and elsewhere is not the answer. It only breeds more hate.
Fly Me to The Moon--Again!
"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
John F Kennedy-- Sept 12, 1962
The United States achieved President Kennedy's objective in July of 1969 when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface. But NASA's very successful space program, which put 12 men on the Moon over several missions, was cancelled because of the price tag. In December of 1972, American Gene Cernan became the last man on the moon on the Apollo 17 mission.
President Kennedy was right, though. Going to the Moon was hard and it has taken 50 years for humans to get back to exploring the Final Frontier.
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| (Gene Cernan on Lunar surface 1972. NASA/GSFC/ASU) |
There have been several soft landings on the lunar surface since 2013 by several countries, but the latest missions preparing for man's return have been troublesome.
This week, Japan became the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the Moon (USA,USSR, China, India, Japan). But like the private American project from late last year, Japan's unmanned "Moon Sniper" has run into some power trouble. The solar generator used to recharge the batteries is apparently not working correctly. The Japanese effort though, may still have moved things forward. This craft was aimed to land within 100 meters of a location near the Shioli Crater, and it apparently did so. In space talk, it was a pinpoint landing. And technicians are trying to fix the generator problem.
Earlier this month, a private unmanned United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket was launched, and was supposed to land on the Moon next month. But the mission failed because of a fuel leak in space, and the failure of a solar panel to open properly.
The Moon is a target again now because of planned missions to Mars over the next two decades. The Moon would be used as a refueling stop on the way to Mars, which is the closest planet to Earth.
The United States has moved back the Artemis 2 mission originally set for later this year, which would include four astronauts. It is a test flight for an eventual manned Moon landing set for 2026. But NASA has now announced Artemis 2 will be delayed until next year because of a battery issue and "some challenges with a circuit component responsible for air ventilation and temperature control."
It is somewhat disappointing for those of us in the Baby Boomer generation who watched the early spaceflights of the 1960's with stars in our eyes.
These latest missions are about more than just science, or even the cold war which produced the space race of the 1960's and 70's. Scientists and entrepreneurs believe nearby planets may be rich in some resources that are slowly running out here on Earth.
https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/slim-japans-precision-lunar-lander
On Target
Here's something that makes total sense, but is liable to arouse the anger of the gun lobby.
The Federal Bureau of Land Management is looking at a drastic cutback of the area open to target shooting inside the Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona. The desert area is being set aside for future generations in an effort to preserve history and balance the planet's ecosystem. It's more than 485,000 acres.
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| (Courtesy National Park Service) |
BLM wants to allow target shooting on only 5,295 acres and ban it on the remaining 480,496. The park, near Phoenix, was established in 2001, but before that it was pretty much open to anybody for anything.
Critics of how the land has been managed say target shooting has damaged some of the cultural and natural resources the monument was designed to protect, including saguaro cactus and some prehistoric Native American rock carvings.
Apparently, those objects have been used as targets often.
The entire area is set aside for camping, hiking, horse back riding and archeology, among other things.
The rule change won't be official until after a 60 day comment period.
https://www.blm.gov/visit/sonoran-desert-national-monument
Dumbest Quote of The Week!
This week's Dumb Quote, comes from Republican presidential Candidate Nikki Haley, who has already shown her ignorance of history by not naming slavery as THE cause of the Civil War.
This past week she said something even dumber. In Haley's world, where she has said she grew up with people calling her names because of her Indian heritage, America has never been a racist country. In an interview with Fox News, the host asked her if she was involved in a "racist party." She said:
"We have never been a racist country."
She went on to talk about an imperfect world and how things are better now than it was when she was growing up. But her opening comment negated all she had to say about uniting people. When she was asked to clarify her statement on CNN, she cited The Declaration of Independence and "all men are created equal." But the damage was done. America has a long history of racism. Yes, it is better now than it was in 1776 or 1861. But slavery, based on race, was the law of the land for the country's first 89 years. And the country was officially segregated by race for the 100 years after that with both of those legacies still playing a role in our world today.
That racism is still here in some forms. Just ask her opponent Donald J. Trump, who keeps making fun of Haley's first name, "Nimarata" and disparaging her Asian heritage.
As I wrote in my opening paragraphs of this blog, racism comes in many forms and is hard to eradicate.
(Your comments and suggestions are welcome)
My recent book "The Campaign" can be purchased at the links below. Or you can buy a copy by emailing me at:
HankSilverberg@gmail.com for instructions on how to get a copy at a reduced price and with my signature)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084Q7K6M5/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-campaign-hank-silverberg/1126429796
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