9/2/2024

Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

Happy Labor Day!

            I hope your visit to PA with KDH & the gang has the desired effect. Evan Robinson-Johnson writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette opines you are “courting a complicated union vote…. (due to) a conflict between the radical greens & the hard hat jobs for working people.” Good luck with that.

            Thanks for calling out Bibi for not doing enough to secure a hostage deal. I’m not sure if you, or the thousands of Israelis striking today, will be able to convince him, but at least he can’t pretend that everyone agrees with him. The media says the strikers aim to shut down or disrupt major sectors of the economy, including banking, health care, & the country’s main airport. Do you agree with expert Nomi Bar-Yaacov that this is “an earthquake…(not) just one more step in the war?” I hope Hamas & Bibi come to agreement about the Philadelphi corridor & end the conflict.

            WINTA

            I find it paradoxical that people who have endured attempts to extinguish their group are trying to extinguish another group. I would hope they would see the moral implications of that logic. In addition, I would hope they see the impossibility of the endeavor. Bibi says, he won’t end the war until he has eliminated Hamas. Recent attempts to do that to the Taliban to show the futility of such efforts.

            WINTA

            I’m afraid striking to end military conflict is rarely effective either. Just ask the people of Burma. They have been having silent strikes off & on for 3-years & the junta is still around.

            Our challenge is to find ways to live together. It might start with accepting imperfections & resisting the urge to tell others how to think, feel & live. Yielding when possible. Asserting when necessary. Pausing, breathing, silencing our constant self-centered brain chatter to allow our better, loving selves to prevail.

            BYBS,