Friday Fuck You: American Girl in Italy, "PUMA is the new Jew"

Belledame at Fetch Me My Axe calls our attention to this piece. Yikes. Talk about your bad analogies! (I've cleaned up the punctuation a bit.)

"I started this post with the intent of trying to better understand the current Israel/Hamas conflict, by creating *what if’s*. I thought if I brought the concepts *home* I might be able to better understand the anger and outrage coming from both sides. The process, and research led me to thinking about the hate directed towards one group for holding beliefs different than the majority, which brings me to the comment, ["]is puma the new [J]ew[?"]"

Maybe if you're working solely on the persecution complex... however, Jews have actually been persecuted (for thousands of years -- although, to be fair, we've done our share of persecution too; the Torah has as many stories about Jews persecuting and driving others off their land because "God said this is ours!" "Who's God?" "YOU DIE NOW!" That's how religions get started... but I digress), PUMAs... not so much. I think you would be hard-pressed to find one of these Party Unity My Ass folks who has been killed because they don't support Obama.

"Anyway, from there, I started thinking about Jewish people in Israel, and how they live in such a small country surrounded by countries that hate them. And I was, as I said above, trying to figure out the reasons why. I know it has been written about, blogged about, talked about, to death, but I like to simplify things so I understand them."

But in order to do that, you end up simplifying it so much that it no longer means anything. Good job. I'm just guessing here, but this gal doesn't get it. In fact, judging from comments that have not made it out of moderation on this blog (and other comments elsewhere where I have been called naive for thinking that the violence ends when there's no more violence), most people don't get it. The Israel/Everyone-else-in-the-Middle-East conflict is complicated and cannot be summed up or justified by quoting a tiny passage from the Hamas charter -- nor can it simply be stated "well, if you're against the governmental actions of the nation-state of Israel, then you're an antisemite" (because if that was true, the Knesset is full of antisemites).

After wandering for a couple of paragraphs (and gratuitous use of the word "anyway", American Girl in Italy finally gets to her point:

"The divide in the Dem party grew and grew, with Hillary supporters frustration and anger growing as the primary went on, and the hatred spewing from the Obama supporters worsening. Hillary supporters (and yes, not all are perfect. There were some racist comments made by a small group of people, and yes, some even got nasty, but I think as a whole, people just believed that Hillary was the best candidate - and there were some who were for Edwards in the beginning, and when he dropped out, they preferred Hillary over Obama) were, dare I say, victimized because they weren’t buying into the One."

(Emphasis mine.) First of all, the people supported Obama. That's why he won the primary battle. That you're still carrying out this battle is stupid, especially when you take into account the fact that even Hillary and Barack have made up and she's going to be Secretary of State in his administration. But getting to the analogy here: Hillary supporters were "victimized" (just like the Jewish people!!!) because they "weren't buying into the One", carrying on this whole Obama=Messiah complex that everyone who isn't an Obama supporter seems to be thinking.

Let me clarify something. Barack Obama is Superman, not Jesus. I don't understand why people have such a hard time getting this distinction. Chicago is Metropolis, not Jerusalem. Hawaii is Krypton, not Bethlehem. Obama's now-deceased father is Jor-El, not somebody's invisible excuse for getting pregnant out of wedlock. And while it is very possible that both his mother and grandmother were saints, he's still not Jesus. Can we PLEASE move on from this Obama=Jesus comparisson? It's getting really annoying. I'm pretty sure the President (in 11 days) thinks it's pretty stupid too.

"Now, this brings me all the way back to my beginning, ["]is puma the new [J]ew["]. A people persecuted for their beliefs, and eventually for their failure to fall in line, and follow the chosen one.

To bring Judaism into modern times, the last 2000 years, Jews rejected Jesus as the son of God, which was a major turning point in western history. Jesus was a major game changer in our history. The acceptance of Jesus changed things politically and religiously."

Obviously this significant piece of moron doesn't understand how offensive these two paragraphs are, even if she does preface the entire piece with "I know PUMAs haven't experienced anything near as bad as the Holocaust and stuff". Forget the "chosen one" talk. Forget the serious omission of the fact that what changed the politics of the Western World was that an Emperor of Rome saw his Empire losing power 300 or so years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth (which, for the sake of argument here, I assume actually happened), and decided to convert everyone to Christianity in order to maintain that power (and the Catholic Church really was just a continuation of the Roman Empire, that's a big reason Martin Luther split off from Catholicism a thousand years later). Forget the motherfucking Holocaust, this person doesn't even understand fucking history. The persecution of Jews goes back thousands of years, and it's not just because they didn't accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior.

It was because they were different. During the Plague years (the Plague, the Black Death), Jews were blamed for "cursing" the rest of a given village because the rest of the village was getting sick, but the Jewish section of the community was not. This was for a couple of reasons: first of all, Judaism, involves ritual cleaning. Washing your hands, as we all know now, reduces a person's risk of getting sick. The other main reason was that the Jewish section of town was always separated from the rest of the section of town (because medieval law in Europe mandated it), and that separation reduced the risk of rats getting in and transmitting the Bubonic Plague to the people in that smaller section which had less food and more cats (because we Jews love cats, I don't know why). Make no mistake, the Plague did get into the Jewish part of town, but because it was affecting Jews disproportionately, the rest of the Christian village blamed them and violence was committed. Actual violence. Murders. Christian villagers would grab Jewish men and beat them to death.

Not only have Hillary supports not been erroneously blamed for the deaths of 1/3rd of the population of Europe between 700 and 1400 CE (although, I'm starting to believe it), none of those people who stubbornly supported Hillary even after she had thrown her support to Barack Obama has been beaten to death by the devout followers of Barack Obama. We're fucking Democrats. We don't do that. That's neo-anarchist riot shit.

"But, whatever the reason, they did not accept that Jesus was the savior. They didn’t believe or accept that he was The Chosen One, or sent down from God, as his son, and they have paid for their beliefs ever since.

But wasn’t that their right? To reject an idea or belief of someone else? To reject someone who claims to be the *chosen one* the *one we have been waiting for*? If you don’t believe that this one, is the one, is that not your right?"

First of all, what's with the gratuitous misuse of the asterisk? That's not how you emphasize something. Secondly, because of your undereducated, overChristianized version of things, this statement comes off as "but they didn't accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior... but isn't the right of the Jewish people to choose to go to Hell?". Now, no Hillary supporter has ever been murdered for refusing to accept Barack Obama as the Democratic Party nominee for President, denying them their right to dissent. When he takes office in 11 days, not one person who still stubbornly supports Hillary as the better Dem for the job will be denied their right to think or even say that publically. But you know what, as someone who has faced actual antisemetism (and for some reason racism against Arab people -- I was called a "sandmonkey" once... I think I had a tan or something), I can tell you that for essentially the scope of Western history, Jewish people have actively been denied their right to believe what they believed, as well as their right to actually live, despite well-intentioned-but-stupidly-naive assertions of little Christian girls who say Jews have the right to go to Hell.

There will be no rounding up of Hillary supporters. There hasn't been. As I've already said, Hillary Clinton is going to be the Secretary of State in the Obama administration, and Obama supporters like myself are enthusiastic about this decision (some aren't, but whatever). That's about as far from buring the PUMAs at the stake, stuffing them in gas chambers by the hundreds, or invading their land and claiming it for England or Germany or Spain as you can get.

"So, for all the haters who will want to jump on me, and say that I am comparing/putting on a level playing field, the hatred towards pumas to the persecution of Jews, calm down. I’m not.

But, I did garner a bit of understanding into what it must feel like [to be] Jewish person..."

(Emphasis mine.) Priceless. Fucking priceless. You did a terrible job of not comparing the persecution of Jews to the imaginary persecution of PUMAs -- in that you did exactly what you're claiming you didn't. Which makes you at the very least stupid, but also possibly a liar.

This last bit I say as someone who actually does kinda know what it feels like to, "as a Jewish person... be hated for it" : Fuck you American Girl in Italy.

And I still love Hillary.