Brain drain: The new Israeli diaspora
I recently went to a showing of an excellent British mini-series called "The Promise" http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-promise/articles/video-the-promise-trail. Filmed in Israel, it depicts the struggles of one brave English soldier at the end of the British Mandate period -- as he futilely tries to save the lives of his Palestinian friends and fellow-soldiers during the violent and pitiless 1948 takeover of the Holy Land by Zionist thugs.
During this movie, I cried a lot.
And after the film was over and refreshments were being served ("Never turn down free food," is my motto!), I had an interesting conversation with some guy who currently works down in Silicon Valley.
"You know," he said, "things are changing rapidly in Israel right now."
"You mean that it's no longer the same-old same-old there any more? With Israeli neo-cons trying to pass themselves off as pious Jews while happily committing mass murder and partying all night in Tel Aviv -- and Christians and Muslims constantly getting beat up and shot at for the crime of making olive oil while Palestinian?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq2MpG4gQgk
By this time I had become rather cynical about Israeli neo-con mercenaries and land-grabbers -- almost as cynical as I've become about the neo-con mercenaries and land-grabbers here in America too.
"Well, of course there's still that," the techie guy replied, "but something else is happening in Israel now as well. People have started to leave there en masse. And not just the usual ones either -- not just the poor abused Palestinians still trying to sneak over the border into Jordan or Egypt. And not the discriminated-against Sephardi Jews either, at the very bottom of the Israeli social pecking order, last hired and first fired, who you wouldn't want dating your daughter." http://www.mayacafe.com/forum/topic1sp.php3?tkey=1237163771
"Then who?"
"The technological elite in general are now leaving in large numbers. And formerly-Russian tech experts in particular are leaving as fast as they can." Interesting. Hmmm.
"Are you talking about the kind of people referred to in all those Israeli-sponsored subway ads," I replied, "bragging that Israelis have invented thus-and-so hot new gadget or found a cure for this or that horrendous disease? Those are the ones that are leaving?"
"Like rats from a sinking ship." I guess no one with any brains wants to keep living in a country where its leaders are always either declaring war, waging war or industriously hunting for a new war to declare.
"This new brain-drain is actually happening right now -- and pretty soon all the people who will be left living in Israel will be the hotel maids, the IDF hard-liners, the land-grabbing neo-cons and racists, haters and religious nuts." Good grief. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33005.htm
"You have to understand that much of the current Israeli scientific community had originally immigrated to Israel from Russia in order to get away from all the persecution, corruption, wars, lack of civil rights and poverty that existed there before, during and after the breakup of the old USSR." And from the winters of course.
"Many of these Russian immigrants were not even Jews. They were gentiles who just wanted to get out. And, once in Israel, they discovered that it wasn't the land of milk and honey that they had expected. And so now they are leaving Israel also, moving on."
"Where to?"
"Here."
PS: I'm currently in the middle of reading Jimmy Carter's fascinating memoir, "White House Diary". Good grief! If only we had elected Carter for another four years instead of that lying skunk Reagan, America would be in so much better shape right now. For instance, the whole world loved Jimmy for his heroic stands on civil rights, which gave the United States even more love, sympathy and cachet back then than we've ever had since, even on the day after 9-11 (before Bush bungled it).
And Carter didn't "give away" the Panama Canal either. He traded it for the whole world's good will and to make up for what Nixon, Kissinger and the CIA had done to Chile, Argentina, etc. Back then, Carter could go into almost any country on the planet and get a standing ovation -- while Nixon, Reagan and both Bushes only got rotten tomatoes.
Plus if we had listened to Carter back in the day, perhaps global warming, 9-11, Hurricane Sandy and Karl Rove also might have been avoided!
And if only we had listened to Carter back when he warned us again and again about how Israeli neo-cons spoke with forked-tongues. And they still do. And now we've got a whole new crop of neo-con serpents all of our own here in America as well! Plus now various neo-con Red States are actually threatening to secede. Ah, if only they WOULD. Just think of all the money the rest of us would save.
Can't you just picture Arkansas out spending billions of dollars on its 800-odd military bases around the world or dealing with the Benghazi crisis? Or Alabama supplying Israel with F16s, cluster bombs and white phosphorus? Or South Carolina scaring China into adjusting its trade deficit? Or oil-depleted Texas trying to intimidate OPEC, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, Venezuela and the Saudis? Or Tennessee happily trying to tell Putin or even North Korea to go to hell?
Now that I think about it, secession could actually be the final key to finally putting an end to America's "endless wars".
Maybe Lincoln should never have tried to save the Union after all -- except for perhaps New Orleans and Nashville.
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