Tag: apology

By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Ethics in Government, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,

What irony! Donald thinks Rep. Ilhan Omar should resign over tweets he says are antisemitic.

Effigy of "the Donald," photographed by Shel Horowitz at the Climate March, April 2017, Washington, DC
Effigy of “the Donald,” photographed by Shel Horowitz at the Climate March, April 2017, Washington, DC

Just for the record, I am a Jew and I was not offended by her tweet “It’s all about the Benjamins,” about AIPAC’s support for the Israeli government and its frequent mistreatment of its minorities. Criticism of Israel, or of Israeli influence in US politics, is not antisemitism any more than criticism of any US president is antiamericanism. However, I can see where some people would read into it a “trope” that reinforces stereotypes. I don’t agree with them, but I see their point—and so does Rep. Omar, who apologized quickly and meaningfully.

But Donald has tweeted, spoken, and written hundreds of insults against Muslims, Arabs, Mexicans, disabled people, women, journalists, refugees…and that’s not a complete list. Donald has also been very quick to defend white supremacists and Nazi sympathizers, from his pardon of Joe Arpaio to his claim that there were “very fine people on both sides” when a white supremacist deliberately drove into a crowd at a rally in Charlottesville, killing one person and injuring several others. It’s worth pointing out that Donald has repeatedly trashed and stereotyped Jews—with multiple examples in this article, and that doesn’t even mention the infamous incident about only trusting short men in yarmulkes to count his money (smearing blacks as not trustworthy AND reinforcing anti-Jewish stereotypes in a single three-sentence remark).

So here’s my question to Donald: If you think Omar should resign over a single ambiguous remark, why haven’t you resigned after a lifetime of hate speech?

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, language, Politics Tagged with , , , , , ,

In the 1970 movie, “Love Story,” Oliver has the famous line, “Love means never having to say you‘re sorry.” It was bad advice then and it’s still bad advice.

When you do something wrong, the right response is to apologize, sincerely and without a lot of waffly “but” language or excuses. Maybe you even do something to make it up to the wronged party. Unlike Oliver, I apologize to my wife when I’ve been wrong about something or behaved badly, and she does the same to me when she’s the one who screwed up. And I apologize to other people if I’ve done something that inadvertently hurt them.

Will someone please tell Newt Gingrich that this is how mature people, and mature countries, behave? Gingrich is upset that President Obama apologized because the military in Afghanistan accidentally caught up some Korans in a batch of papers they were incinerating.

I’m betting Gingrich would stridently demand an apology if someone of another religion burned copies of the New Testament. Why does’t he see the need for an apology when someone else’s holy book is destroyed.

Or does being Republican now mean “never having to say you’re sorry”?Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail