When I observe what is happening to America—the country in which I grew up, in which I was educated, and that I served in the U.S. Army—I am appalled. Anarchy, violence, looting. This is NOT the country I know and love. This is an aberration, a disfigurement of our Republic.
America’s past is a checkered one. No doubt about it. Slavery, discrimination, lynching. They are stains on our history; blemishes on an imperfect nation. Yet, America remains the only country where people can strive freely for a more perfect union, where they are free to speak their minds, to protest, to worship as they wish, to be individuals, to pursue happiness, and to hold elected officials accountable without fear of retribution.
Today, some want to rip our nation apart and divide us into belligerent tribes based on race, religion, ethnicity, wealth, poverty, achievement, failure, livelihood, and political power. As a firm believer in America’s motto: E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One), I will oppose the tribalists to my last breath.
For the next several days, I am reposting commentaries from Americans of all races and occupations. They are as concerned as I am about this attempt to obliterate our country from within. I hope you will find them as illuminating and significant as I have.
The Protests Have Been Hijacked
For two days, November 9–10, 1938, the Jewish people underwent a seminal moment in their glorious but often tragic history. During these two nights, unaffectionately dubbed Kristallnacht or “Night of Broken Glass,” Nazis in Germany torched synagogues; vandalized Jewish homes, schools, and businesses; and killed close to 100 Jews.
Two days prior, a 17-year-old Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan heard that his parents had been deported by the Nazis to Poland. Seeking retribution, Grynszpan tracked down Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat in Paris and assassinated him. It turned out to be just the pretense Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was seeking to incite anti-Semitic riots throughout Germany. Nazi officials ordered German police officers and firemen to do nothing as the riots raged and buildings burned. Sound familiar?
Fast-forward 82 years to the murder of George Floyd.
What started out as a peaceful protest against the death of this unfortunate man has likewise spawned unprecedented, widespread violence and destruction throughout the United States. This mayhem has thus far taken the lives of at least 11 people, many of whom are black Americans. Hundreds of others have been injured in the chaos, with police officers getting shot and protesters struck with rubber bullets.
As the carnage, looting, arson, and assaults have been allowed to continue in Democrat-controlled states and municipalities, it has become undeniably evident that the wrongful death of George Floyd has morphed into anarchism. As lives, businesses, and personal property have been driven asunder, the criminal perpetrators are buoyed by pusillanimous Democrat politicians too timid to take back their own streets. Whether it be Crown Heights, August 1991; Rodney King, May 1992; Ferguson Missouri, August 2014; Baltimore, April 2015; or one of many others, the script has remained the same. In concordance with fawning state and local officials, a legitimate protest is hijacked by a throng of anarchists.
In doing so, the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, is branded by Democrats as the party of racist policies. Barry Shaw, the international public diplomacy director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, had this to say in an article entitled “America’s Race Problems: An Outsider’s Perspective”:
The media went in search of white incitement to make a case against Republicans but found instead, white inciters were members of the far-left nihilist group, Antifa. They support and vote Democrat and that imported agitators, looters and arsonists were predominantly black.
According to Wikipedia, Antifa, which ironically stands for “anti-fascist,” comprises autonomous groups “that aim to achieve their objectives through the use of both non-violent and violent action rather than through policy reform.” No hidden agenda there. The article goes on to state: “Antifa’s political activists engage in protest tactics involving property damage, physical violence, and harassment,” ostensibly against fascists, racists, and those on the far right. Tell that to black and other business-owners whose life’s work has gone up in flames.
Poignantly, the article concludes: “Individuals involved in the movement tend to hold anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist views, subscribing to a range of left wing ideologies such as anarchism, communism, Marxism, social democracy and socialism.” Irrespective of color, creed, or origin, these are not exactly ideologies most Americans have grown up following.
Seemingly forgotten in all this turmoil are the advances black Americans have witnessed during the Trump years. Since taking office, the president has created over a million jobs for that constituency. Prior to the recent pandemic, national black unemployment hit an all-time low of 5.5 percent — even lower for black women at 4.4 percent.
Several months ago, Pastor Darrell Scott, a member of President Donald Trump’s executive transition team, and co-founder of the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, penned an article entitled “Black Communities Thriving Thanks to President Trump.”
The pastor states: “That focus on expanding economic opportunity for minorities has been a major priority for the Trump Administration and by eliminating the sentencing disparities caused by the horrendous Clinton-era crime bill, African American inmates, sentenced unfairly were given a second chance at the American Dream.” He concludes: “After all the progress African-Americans have made under Mr. Trump, it’s difficult to even imagine going back to the Democrats’ failed, big-government policies that have held us back for so long.”
Words such as these are anathema to the race-baiters and insurrectionist elements in the aforementioned states whose sole goals are discord, dissolution, and anarchy, not social justice. As they burn police precincts, pillage property, and illegally occupy large swathes of cities, they are emboldened by state, local, and federal Democrats who acquiesce to their every wish and whim, no matter how absurd — the latest being to defund the police.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, representing Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, is in the vanguard of this movement. She’s quoted saying: “The Minneapolis Police Department is rotten to the root and so when we dismantle it, we get rid of that cancer and we allow for something beautiful to rise.” The only beautiful thing to rise without a viable police force can be seen occurring today in Seattle.
In an interview on FOX News, Omar’s opponent in November, Republican Lacy Lee Johnson, recognizing the imbecility of dismantling the police department, had this to say about Omar and the Minneapolis City Council. “We have a reckless city council making reckless decisions about the safety and health of our community by passing this law to disband and stop funding the police. They are putting our community at risk.” Admonitions such as this have so far fallen upon deaf ears in other Democrat-run states such as Washington, particularly in the once beautiful city of Seattle.
This past week, going by the acronym CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone), a cabal of far-left adolescents directed by Antifa and Black Lives Matter affiliates occupied a seven-square-block portion of that city. Breaking through police barricades, protesters attacked police with bricks, bottles, rocks, and improvised explosive devices, sending some officers to the hospital. Abandoned by a feckless mayor, Jenny Durkan; a city council of equal irrelevance; and an ineffectual governor, Jay Inslee, police withdrew from the area, in effect relinquishing control of an American city to mob rule.
In a matter of days, unelected, self-proclaimed “warlords” created a hardened border and a rudimentary form of government based on principles of intersectional representation. “Rather than enforce the law, Seattle’s progressive political class capitulated to the mob and will likely make massive concessions over the next few months. This will embolden the Antifa coalition, and further, undermine the rule of law in American cities.”
Witnessing their success in Seattle, there can be little doubt that other U.S. cities under Democrat administration will soon follow suit and fall sway to instigation and violence by the likes of Antifa; Black Lives Matter; other insurrectionists and anti-American organizations.
Jerrold L. Sobel is a retired History teacher from New York who has resided in Naples, Florida since 2001. He writes a newsletter called The Israeli Advocate, which defends Israel and the Jewish people. He has been the President of the Zionist Organization of America/Southwest Florida Chapter since 2009
