I did a post with a Biblical theme a few months back. I thought that the Bible story of Israel’s fight against Amalek was a good analogy for our fight against COVID-19: “Remember the evil of Amalek and eradicate it from the face of the earth.”

The Amalek story happens after Israel has crossed the split sea and escaped the Egyptians. The splitting of the sea is all Gd’s handiwork but now Israel must fend for itself. Amalek is its first major test. Having survived this challenge, Israel now moves forward and is camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Moses goes up the mountain to receive the ten commandments from Gd. Before leaving he explains that he will be 40 days on the mountain. Unfortunately, it takes a little longer than planned and Moses returns after 41 days.

How trivial this difference seems. However, Israel is a nation of recently freed slaves who are unused to their freedom and its responsibilities. When Moses doesn’t appear on time, the Israelites assume he has died on the mountain. They lose all hope. A small cadre of unbelievers take advantage of this and lure the people into worshiping their old gods of Egypt. They demand that the leadership, Aaron and Hur, make a golden calf idol so they can properly worship this Egyptian god. Hur intervenes and tries to convince them against doing this. The hysterical mob murders Hur. Aaron, seeing what the mob is capable of, appeases them, and has gold collected so the golden calf idol can be made. Aaron conducts this blasphemous service in hopes it will stall the mob long enough for Moses to return.

Amalek was a direct physical threat to Israel that required the nation to act in concert together. Although they were clumsy and halting at first they managed to meet the challenge and drive Amalek off. What happens with the Golden Calf is very different. This is the first purely psychological test for Israel. Up until this time, they have invested all of their trust in their leader Moses. As long as he is there they have confidence. However, the moment Moses isn’t available they lose their sense of mission and their identity itself unravels. They cease to act as a nation and are now just a mob of frightened people.

Moses comes down the mountain with the two tablets of the law. He sees the golden calf worship service in progress. Moses smashes the tablets. He does this not out of anger but to save the people of Israel from Gd’s wrath. The covenant has not been set yet so the Israelites are not bound by it. Moses then stands at the gateway to the camp and says, “Whoever is for HaShem, join me!” Those who did not join, the small cadre of unbelievers, were then dealt with harshly.

This event is always referred to as The Sin of the Golden Calf. Jewish theology considers this one of the two most grievous sins of the entire Torah. If not for The Sin of the Golden Calf, the elaborate service, the elaborate vestments of the Kohanim, and the Temple itself would not have been necessary. One could have worshiped Gd wherever and whenever one pleased. The Sin of the Golden Calf proved that this would not work. That the people would not stay together and the Nation would collapse. Since Vietnam, we have been on a coarse of rebellion against our own Creed, that Creed is Western Civilization’s adherence to the value of freedom through the institution of the rule of law. The Torah is telling us that no nation can fight against its own essence, worshiping a golden calf, and expect to survive. The perpetrators of the sin must be singled out and dealt with.

Amalek now seems like a minor test compared to this and it is. The whole Black Lives Matter narrative is a very dangerous lie. In the midst of the confusing chaos caused by the COVID-19 panic, a small cadre of unbelievers has convinced the people that they must bow down to an alien ideology that rejects both the principle of freedom and the rule of law itself. This is a grievous sin committed against the whole nation with malice.

The perpetrators of this sin must be singled out and dealt with. Those who have bowed down to the idol can be forgiven if they move away from the cadre and to the side of HaShem. Those who do not must be dealt with harshly. Moses is coming down the mountain now. Hur is in his grave and Aaron will always feel regret for his actions even though he could see no other course to follow. Israel has learned a tough lesson but it has come through the Sin of the Golden Calf and is stronger and clearer in its understanding than before. The nation must learn. The forces of evil are patient and they wait for their opportunity to strike.

What has just happened in America? This was no protest. This was a planned brutal attack on our civil way of life.

Their motive seems obscure but that is only because we underestimate the fact that the cadre lacks any moral foundation whatsoever. Listen closely and they will reveal themselves.

There is another side to the story. If the message can get out.

We must not be poisoned by the cadre’s doctrine into paralyzed inaction. One way or another there will be a reckoning.

Throw the book at them.

For six weeks, the Chinese Marxist government lied to the world about the virus. They claimed the virus wasn’t communicable from person to person. During these six weeks, the Chinese restricted travel to and from Wuhan from the rest of China. During those same six weeks, the Chinese allowed travel between Wuhan and the rest of the world. This amounts to an act of war.

Nikki Haley knows how to handle the Chinese.

“China’s Communist government needs to be held accountable for their role in lying about the Coronavirus pandemic, and the U.S. Congress needs to respond – now. Join us in our fight to stop China from gaining influence in America and around the world. Sign this petition and please share with your friends.”

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On NRO right now is a piece by Allen C. Guelzo, Senior Research Scholar in the Humanities Council at Princeton University. He takes the 1619 Project’s foundational premises apart and exposes the absurdity. This piece isn’t that long and well worth your time to read. This is the response of a real historian to this malignant Marxist wishful thinking contrivance called the 1619 Project.

1619 and the Narrative of Despair

On August 14, 2019, the New York Times Magazine dropped something of a historical bombshell on its readers. It was not some new conspiracy theory about the Kennedy assassination or some breathtaking revelation of the secret life of Millard Fillmore. It was much more dramatic. It was called “The 1619 Project,” and it consumed an entire special 100-page issue of the magazine. It also aimed at nothing less than a complete overhaul of how we understand American history. It did not, however, meet with entire agreement by American historians: At least two very diverse groups of American historians and political scientists, one headed by myself (and including eleven others) and another by my Princeton colleague Sean Wilentz, wrote letters to Jake Silverstein, the editor of the New York Times Magazine, to question a host of gaffes and misstatements in The 1619 Project. All of these were summarily waved away, and last week, The 1619 Project’s lead essay sailed merrily to a Pulitzer Prize for commentary — although if “sailed” is the right metaphor, the ship in question resembles the Bounty more than the Cutty Sark.

Mr. Guelzo point by point lays bare the corrupt nature of this pseudo-history. He also makes clear the size of the threat it poses.

… Already, 3,500 classrooms and five major urban school systems (including Buffalo, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.) have adopted The 1619 Project for their history curricula. As they do this, the results will be that we teach schoolchildren that:

• capitalism is a form of totalitarianism . . . so that we may then think kindly of socialism.
• we should pay reparations for slavery (and Hannah-Jones has stated frankly that “the project is an argument for reparations”), as though, to reverse Lincoln’s formula in his Second Inaugural Address, every drop of blood drawn by the lash had not been paid for by one drawn by the sword.
• history is nothing more than a web of narratives and interpretations, so that any connection of history to historical fact can be ignored. As one enthusiastic backer of The 1619 Project confessed, “often reading straight history doesn’t get us deep into emotion and perspective and feeling,” and as we all surely believe, “emotion and perspective and feeling” are infinitely more important than truth.
• the America that Lincoln described as the world’s “last, best hope” becomes a swamp of guilt, resentment, accusation, and lethal mistrust.

The 1619 Project is false, sick, and evaluated by its real intentions just plain evil. The Goofy Woke New New Left is very very dangerous and needs to be stopped.

My favorite little Canadian bulldog can be oh so effective. He can deliver a complex story clearly and cleanly so you really get it. Watch his historical piece to the very end. You won’t have wasted your time.

Have things changed so much in the years since 1720? If there is enough money involved there will always be people who will put others at risk. The Australians have poked the Chinese dragon and it is breathing fire on my good Aussie friends.

Money makes the world go round. We already knew that and we are capitalists so we approve. However, when some try to cloak their financial motives with virtue-signaling nonsense, a very dangerous scenario is set in motion. A scenario that could do immense damage to the whole world.

Jonas Salk didn’t patent his vaccine but gave it to the government. Is Bill Gates willing to announce today that he will do the same if by some accident of fate he ends up holding the patent for the vaccine against COVID-19? I think if Gates would openly announce this he would allay any fears. If he won’t, I think there may be more than China that needs investigating.

The Australians should not be forced to face this extortionate dragon alone. Help is on the way.

The tough get going. The State of Israel came into existence in such a situation of extreme crisis that responding to a crisis is second nature to it. Here are two good examples of such.

Israeli Medical Volunteers Release Ventilator Blueprints Using Off-the-shelf Parts

An Israeli volunteer group released blueprints for ventilators made from commercially available components, and the Israel division of Medtronic released its proprietary ventilator blueprints for free.

Israeli Hospital Pilots Virus-neutralizing Sticker for Masks to Combat Corona

In bid to protect medical staff during coronavirus outbreak, Galilee Medical Center pilots a facemask sticker to catch and kill virus nanoparticles.

Remember, now is not the time either to assign blame or give credit. Now is the time to rise to the occasion and kill this evil virus before it kills us.

In the next two weeks, we will see the virus death toll peak. Facilities and supplies will be stressed to the max. Nearly everyone across the world is locked down. To the extent that social distancing can ease the problem, it has been done to the max.

In the movie High Noon, the human killers are coming to town on the noon train, not a pandemic virus creeping up on us unseen. The town’s marshal has struggled to prepare with little time but now it’s coming down to the crunch. The marshal will face whatever is to be, alone if necessary.

What makes High Noon, the movie, so interesting is that the town doesn’t pull together but rather refuses to support the marshal. Even those closest to the marshal won’t stand behind him in this crisis. Their explanations are elaborate but the results, deserting both their town and marshal at the moment of greatest need, are the end result. In this defining moment, we find out what people are really all about.

‘Last Night We Had a Bizarre Conversation over Dinner’

I am a retired health care worker. Thirteen years working in a Detroit area ER, and sixteen years working in the organ donation/transplantation field. My wife [who I met at work!] is a thirty-five year nursing veteran. She currently works in SE MI’s Covid19 hot spot in Oakland County. As of today, they are seeing 20 deaths per day due to the pandemic, and that number will climb, horrendously. And now her co-workers and friends are dying.

Last night we had a bizarre conversation over dinner, as she prepared to go back in to work. We actually made arrangements concerning our dog and cat if and when she brought the Covid19 home, and the high likelihood of my death, and possibly hers, too. Those kids out there who call this pandemic the “Boomer Remover” can have a laugh at my expense, then, I won’t mind…

So, if and when we get a handle on the current pandemic crisis, and when the death toll at large, and amongst health care workers is finally tallied, and things “get back to normal,” I only hope that the current respect for those that go into harm’s way won’t dry up and blow away.

Each of us has, over the course of years spent in this field, memories, good, bad and horrific. One stands out for me. The night of a trailer fire. We got all four patients in via ambulance in less than ten minutes. An adult, followed by three babies, the oldest five years of age. I remember carrying them one at a time, wrapped in white plastic, to the morgue. We were all taking it hard. I had to go to our closet/break room to hang my head and cry a little bit, when our ER doctor put her arm around my shoulder and whispered “at least these kids had someone to make an effort to save them. We were here.” They still are. But now they’re dying. And still they serve.

It’s not “all for nothing.”

Coronavirus relief: Photo of health care workers on Southwest flight goes viral

The skies aren’t looking gray with help on the way.

A spirited image of health care professionals, flight crew and passengers on a recent Southwest Airlines flight from Georgia, to help with the coronavirus outbreak in New York, has gone viral on social media.

On March 27, a group of medical professionals traveled from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to LaGuardia Airport to pitch in on the front lines during the COVID-19 pandemic, a spokesperson for Southwest told Fox News. Just before takeoff, an airline employee snapped a shot of the travelers – some wearing face masks and gloves – throwing up their hands in the shape of a heart from their seats on the plane.

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Even with the good news, the Cuomo brothers seem to be stumbling over each other like the two stooges.

Andrew Cuomo: Brother Chris Cuomo Could Have Infected My Mother Matilda with Coronavirus

Andrew said that his mother, age 88, was at Chris’s house two weeks ago.

“I said, ‘That was a mistake,’” the governor recalled during his press conference Tuesday. “I said, ‘Chris, you can’t have mom at the house,’ and he said, ‘No, no, no. Mom is lonely. She wants to be at the house. I feel bad she’s cooped up in the apartment.’”

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NYC should know that as bad as it is, this too shall pass. For some reason, I have been referring to my family in recent posts. My parents were a mixed marriage, my father was a Litvak from Brooklyn and my mother was a Galitzianer from the Bronx. FYI, Litvaks have a reputation for dour seriousness. My father, although on any given day might display a good sense of humor, could also be a bit overbearing, truly a Litvak. My Mother, though not very demonstrative herself, mentioned a relative or two that definitely couldn’t be Litvaks, definitely Galitzianers. One of which was my Great Uncle Jules.

I think that I should show you some of Great Uncle Jules’ work as it could cheer up NYC a little. Even during WWII, there were USO shows to help the troops moral. This virus thing will be over and New York will be New York again. In this clip, Great Uncle Jules is singing and dancing with two other guys in NYC. Those were the days. They’ll be back.

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Dr. David Berlinski has a new book out “Human Nature.” It is a series of interesting essays on what might be called the intellectual geography of our time. He leads off with an essay that I consider sublime. It is a discussion of the causes of WWI. More importantly, it is a criticism of the standard banal take on WWI that satisfies so many but not Dr. Berlinski (nor I). It would be wrong to place the entire text of the piece here on my post (however tempting that is). I have left the Amazon link and there is an inexpensive Kindle version you can read on your phone if necessary (I did). Instead, I will take a few quotes that I find very interesting.

The First World War was a catastrophe for European civilization because it destroyed its moral structure. The war demonstrated to European statesmen and their military leaders that they had misjudged, and misjudged profoundly, the ground over which they were walking. They had imagined that their system was so conceived as to be continuous in its fundamental aspect and that a general European war among all of the great powers would be like a local European war among some of them. They were mistaken.

…None of the Great Powers were compelled to go to war. They could have walked away. If these considerations are admitted, the causal chain that was designed to explain the outbreak of war is less a chain than a series of unconnected links. None of them are properly causes because each could have occurred without effect, depending on how they were described or what the various actors believed.

…Richardson persuaded several generations of political scientists that his was a scientific attitude toward war. The research that has resulted has the very great merit of having occupied many political scientists in an undertaking that is as innocent as it is irrelevant. Nothing has been discovered about the onset and seriousness of war that was previously hidden from common sense.

Men go to war when they think that they can get away with murder.

Berlinski gives detailed arguments to back up his claims. Even employing his skills as a professional mathematician. However, I have chosen these particular quotes not just to tantalize you into reading his whole book but to present a little thought of my own. If you take the four sentences in bold out of context reading them one after another a hypothesis comes to my mind.

What if WWI didn’t destroy the moral structure of European civilization but rather the moral structure had already been destroyed not by war but by an intellectual erosion of values from a new nihilism? This new nihilism coming into vogue in the late 19th century and early 20th century undermined not only religious values but all secular ethical values also. Whether it was the elegant Positivists and their symbolic logical conclusion that the concepts of morality had no objective meaning (they were only emotion-charged words) or it was the wildly romantic Nietzsche, convinced that Judeo-Christian morality itself was the cause (not the cure) for societies problems or still the pretentious claims of the new sciences Darwinism, Marxism, Freudianism, Jungianism,etc., by 1914 the intellectual underpinnings of European civilization’s moral structure had been torn to shreds. Thus the minds & consciences of the European statesmen and military leaders had been anesthetized to paralysis. They could have walked away if their brains and their souls had been functioning as normal. My hypothesis is that they were already neutralized by the new nihilism into accepting what should have been unacceptable. 

Now Dr. Berlinski demonstrates his range and switches gears. From the sublime to the ridiculous. He is after a very big fish. A fish as big as Moby Dick but Dr. Berlinski is no Ahab. Ahab had no sense of humor. In this wildly sarcastic piece, he deconstructs a prime American Deconstructionist, Stanley Fish. Here are a few quotes.

…In reading Fish, skepticism starts early and it never flags. If literal meanings go in one essay, transcendent truths disappear in another. Whatever they are, these truths “would not speak to any particular condition or be identified with any historical production, or be formulated in terms of any ethnic, racial, economic, or class traditions.” Lacking these identifying caste marks, they would be humanely (but not divinely) inaccessible. Yet if there are no transcendent truths, there are nevertheless transcendent statements— those that fail to mention history, class, race, and gender, and of these, there are many.

…“There is no such thing as literal meaning,” he buoyantly affirms, “a meaning that because it is prior to interpretation can serve as a constraint on interpretation.”

…Might Fish have been a seal in another time or place? Under what other circumstances? It is again a contingent fact that cats do not have pink fur and lack the capacity to play the oboe, but not a contingent fact that cats are mammals rather than reptiles or amphibians. It is a part of the essence of literary criticism that it is not dentistry. Whatever a critic’s position on essentialism, and the issue is yet vexed and has long been vexed, the distinctions embodied by these commonly made and intuitively plausible judgments need either to be enforced, or, if rejected, explained convincingly as artifacts. This Fish does not do.

…Expatiating on this theme, Fish remarks that “it is no longer taken for granted,” and surely not taken for granted by him, that “molecules and quarks come first,” in the scheme of things, “and scientists’ models of molecules and quarks come second.” These theses taken literally, it follows that so far as sociologists of science are concerned, a speech act such as “Arise, Dumbo” could bring an elephant into being; and that molecules, and so the materials they compose, did not exist before the molecular theory of matter, the Cathedral at Chartres thus acquiring, on Fish’s account, its molecular structure eight hundred years after its construction. This is not a conclusion that inspires confidence.

…The requirement that words be used assertively means that uttering a specific form of words on a particular occasion is never sufficient for the charge of speech crime. The argument just given implies that uttering a specific form of words on a particular occasion is never necessary for speech crime either. And if uttering a specific form of words is neither necessary nor sufficient for speech crime, it is hard to see that any independent content remains to the concept.

…Had Stanley Fish really been rejected for some senior position in favor of a less-qualified woman or black, he would not have yielded gracefully in the name of remedial affirmative action. Strong illness, strong remedy? Not a bit of it. He would have been outraged.

I have left out some of the more pungent harpoons with which Dr. Berlinski skewers the great fish. You must read the book to enjoy these. Not to be a spoiler of some really good sarcastic wit, I would come back to my own theme. I propose that it was nihilism that undermined European Civilization before WWI. The new big fish represents more than just a modern nihilistic triumph of the inane. However absurd, we should realize just how dangerous such ideas are if they go unchecked. Luckily we have Dr. Berlinski to do the checking.

Enjoy the book.