C-SPAN is known for giving politicians the opportunity to embarrass themselves without any prompting or spin necessary. Rep. Al Green (D-TX) obliged on Friday, in attempting to explain Critical Race Theory (CRT).
His arguments (and my commentaries/rebuttals):
1. CRT is about teaching what isn't taught about history, like the fact that slavery was unpleasant (does any school today teach otherwise?).
2. On the other hand, CRT is about teaching that today's country is beset by "systemic racism" (his examples are all fringe, like Nazis in Charlottesville).
3. We need a Department of Reconciliation, complete with a secretary and "undersecretaries" (wow, a massive patronage bureaucracy is the answer?).
Green notes that Africans sold fellow Africans into slavery, which is an unusual admission, but also completely irrelevant to CRT and the teaching thereof.
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
