Pelosi is the good kind of scary
1/ Note for those who think she's been going easy on Trump (ym'sh): literalists, i.e. surface thinkers, believe that only what they see is truth/reality
This is solipsism and its folly & fallacy
This mentality isn't new but the internet proliferates its damages.
This is solipsism and its folly & fallacy
This mentality isn't new but the internet proliferates its damages.
2/ How it applies to the #TrumpCrisis: Combat, whether with fists or ideas, isn't a Rocky style exchange of punches to the face (a movie made for literalists). There's feints & bluffs.
Only fools tell you exactly what they're doing, yet that's how Pelosi critics are judging her
Only fools tell you exactly what they're doing, yet that's how Pelosi critics are judging her
3/ Chess as a metaphor is overwrought so I use the Rocky movies. I'm no boxing expert, but I know about reality and nobody boxes like that b/c you'd die!
It's just face punch after face punch, no defense. Yet that's what literalists believe combat looks like in all forms
It's just face punch after face punch, no defense. Yet that's what literalists believe combat looks like in all forms
4/ Real boxers protect themselves with their movement, keeping hands up, getting in jabs. Literalists only know and believe in cartoonish life of Rocky combat
I'm hoping there's a way to teach people about feints, bluffs, and (above all) strategy
I'm hoping there's a way to teach people about feints, bluffs, and (above all) strategy
5/ Note, this is part of the weird 'ethical' debate about Moshe's interactions with Pharaoh. Literalists expect that Moshe is supposed to negotiate Rocky Style with a genocidal tyrant
How? Why? Yes, it's complicated, but it's a large theme: see Yaakov & Lavan
How? Why? Yes, it's complicated, but it's a large theme: see Yaakov & Lavan
6/ Tyrants can be lied to, if that's what it will take to combat their evil. Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks says that the stories of deception (Abe & Yitzhak abt their wives etc) are to teach that w/o freedom there's no truth
Tyrants punish truth, so they don't get any in return
Tyrants punish truth, so they don't get any in return
7/ Even though there was another reason for the Moshe deception (Rabbi Liebtag explains it was to get Pharaoh to forcibly expel the Jews b/c otherwise they wouldn't have left on their own) the morality is the same: tyrants don't deserve truth
8/ While I'm at it, another key lesson from the parshiyot to our day is in Va'era: that the Jews wouldn't listen to Moshe b/c of 'kotzer ruach' - embittered spirit [from] the crushing labor' (Ex 6:9)
See? The plagues weren't for Egypt, rather to help the Jews' get free minds
See? The plagues weren't for Egypt, rather to help the Jews' get free minds
9/ Tyrants (like Pharaoh & the current GOP) know they need to exhaust and demoralize their enemies/subjects (@Teri_Kanefield is great at explaining these things). The slavery was there to crush spirits, the plagues were to stop the labor & to humiliate Egypt's power
10/ Trump (ym'sh) uses the 'firehose of falsehood' to demoralize us. McConnell rigs a sham trial to make us doubt our institutions and say 'all politicians are corrupt' This is 'kotzer ruach'! It's what our enemies want
When Speaker Pelosi rips up a speech, it breaks the spell
When Speaker Pelosi rips up a speech, it breaks the spell
