A Shining Suit and More

Dearest Izzy, I did not mean to demean your suit--only to suggest in my writerly way that your life has not been easy but like your stubborn donkey, you refuse to give up the struggle for respect and more. You looked wonderful in your suit.


While there is much I want to say about our time here--and will--I must reflect on the courage of the people in the streets, the round abouts of Libya, Bahrain, Cairo still, Iran and in Gaza and the West Bank. The brutal hypocrisies of my first country, America, and much of the rest of the West, supporting the dictators and ruling families so its military bases and oil interest will be protected, while mouthing platitudes about democracy, chastising the political cultures of many Arab countries--so inferior to the "democratic" impulses of Israel, they say, while making sure the sufferings of the people are never addressed, and now the people have left these governments behind, taking to the streets with a courage the politicians of America have never shown, the people are out distancing all the back room deals and cynical handshakes, the trades of power for power, facing down the guns, the tanks so often supplied by American arms dealers. Convince the American people that Palestinians are barbaric, that Arabs do not understand the more developed political and cultural thinking of the West, and we can continue do whatever it takes to get from corrupt regimes what we need, continue to turn our backs on the desperate situation of the Palestinians and the national arrogances of Israel--this is the American way, and sadly, I say as a Jew, so many American Jews have applauded this cold blooded determination to leave a people to suffer decade after decade in the name of protecting "the only true democracy in the Middle East." Now this myth is crumbling; I sit here in our flat in London, and read that America cast the only vote against a Security Council censure of the Israeli Settlement movement and I think which is the backward culture--Obama and Clinton were supposed to be the best we could hope for in progressive American electoral politics and they do not have the desire or the courage to do what must be done. Behind them is the Tea Party madness, nothing better only worse. Courage is in the streets of towns and cities so many of us have never heard off, and in Washington cowardice and a terrible kind of moral and political stupidity struts its stuff. Empty pants for the future. The body, the real human body, willing to risk all to change history, walks down different streets.


You see I am tender about many things and I still feel the wonder of Brighton on my back; my anger is reserved for the mis use until death of political power, of national delight in tormenting those considered in the way of one hold on history, the self-serving one. Dearest Izzy and your beautiful lover, your suit shines with all the beauty of your lives.