Un-shtetl-ing

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. This we know because Thomas Jefferson, we've pretended to decide, told us. It is also, I've found, the price of anti-shoplifting efforts and the best way to get the most out of poorly shot pornography. Sometimes you really have to lean in.

Like most American liberals, I am constantly on the lookout for something to be offended by. You show me a person who failed to vote for Obama--even after having two chances!--and I will eventually find a way to show you a racist. If all else fails, usually just by pointing and shouting.

And sometimes shit just falls into your lap, like this nonsense from a deeply un-magical place called Rialto, right here in my backyard. My dusty, smoggy, drought-y inland backyard: a middle school assigned their kids the "thought experiment" writing assignment with the open ended premise that maybe the Holocaust was a big fat lie.

Now, I went to graduate school. I'm a fan of both contrarianism and the critical thinking habits a good mind-wrestle can engender. I really had to dive deep into Karl Marx before I really understood, at the root level, what a blustery bellows-fueled trash-fire of impracticable nonsense it was. So I think I get the premise.

But the wording of the assignment is... eh.. well:

Students were asked in the 18-page assignment to research and write an argumentative essay about whether the Holocaust actually occurred or if it was "merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain wealth."

OK, so some interesting things about word choices there. 1. "scheme." And 2. "to... gain wealth."

I'm not sure more obvious dog-whistle anti-Semite trigger words could have been chosen. There have been hearings and public displays of disaffection and disavowal, but...

I think it shows how far we've come as a people. Seriously. Here we have this public outcry about a conspiracy to undermine the public order by inciting a population of decent people to anger and there are no Jews involved. In fact, the Jews themselves are both the target and the voices of reason. Think of all the other conspiracy theories you've ever heard in your life and tell me which ones don't eventually lead back to old European banking families and the Elders of Zion: 9/11. 7/7. The economic collapse of 2008. Sandy Hook. Shark attacks. I've experienced it myself. One time in 1985 I was on this street and this old Hasid guy drops his wallet. "Hey mister," I says, me being 11 years old and talking like a 1930s Bowery kid, as I did, "your billfold! Hey, your billfold, mister!" I says again. So he turns to me, looks me dead in the eye and says: "Hey, thanks, kid. You helped me, now I'm gonna help you: buy all the Coca-Cola you can. Do it right now." Then he winks at me and walks away. Next day? New Coke.

Note that the school superintendent in this case is a dude by the name of Mohammed Z. Islam. First of all: definitely not a Jewish name. Second, OK, so he's likely Semitic in some way as well, but think of our Muslim friends as a bridge between the pure anti-Semitism of your grandmother or your dad or your dad's half brother who did a 9 year stretch in Corcoran for stabbing a street magician in the neck with the pen he couldn't make disappear and the new attenuated anti-Semitism we aim at all non-Christian monotheists. It's a weaker strain. Remember, to make us all safe from smallpox, they had to first give us all cowpox. On purpose. By digging under our skin with unsterilized instruments. One day it will be totally worth it. One day only Jenny McCarthy's kids will get it.