Post Scripts

by Jack

The nation was rocked once again by back to back mass shootings.  Why haven’t we done a better job to prevent these mass killings?  Is it even possible?  I think so, but we’re going to have to work together and not settle for knee jerk fixes like we’ve done in the past.

First step – identifying the problem.  The National Institute of Justice has recently completed a study that includes interviewing incarcerated perpetrators, their friends, their family, first responders, the media, social media, they read manifestos, suicide notes  and interviewed a host of psychiatric experts.   After this extensive study they concluded there was strong commonality among almost all the killers and I’ve listed them below.

There are four common denominators in the personal profile of virtually every killer.

1.  Severe, long term early childhood trauma and exposure to violence, this included sexual assault, severe bullying, parents that committed suicide and this was often a precursors to mental health issues that frequently resulted in extreme depression, anxiety, thought disorders and or suicidal thoughts.
2.  There was a crisis point or crisis trigger in the weeks or months preceding their rampage.  They become angry and despondent because of a specific grievance.  This could have been a parent that died, relationship rejection or loss, fired from the job, change in job status or kicked out of school, and this left them with a crisis trigger, something they could rationalize as justifiable cause for their rampage.  This was communicated to others by a marked change in behavior, suicidal plans or talking about specific acts of violence.   In almost all cases there was a period of weeks to months where these people could have been identified if those around them were paying attention to the symptoms.
3.  Notoriety, validation and education.  They wanted the world to know their hurt and anger.  The thought of leaving behind a legacy the world would remember was a strong incentive. They studied the actions of other mass shooters.  They noticed there were scripts to be followed that would guarantee them notoriety, even in death.  So they modeled their attack after previous attacks.   The news media becomes an important part of the plan.  Without the news media speaking their name and showing their pictures every hour, the study concluded it could have drastically compromised their motivation to follow though with the killings.  This is why mass shootings always tend to come in clusters; such violence becomes socially contagious.   Note: Many are radicalized online in their search for validation.
4. Access to weapon or the instrument of injury.  Once a person has come to the conclusion that once their life is no longer worth living and that murder is a proper revenge only means and opportunity stand in their way.   In over 80% of cases the weapon was obtained in some way from their friends or family.   In less than 5% of the cases was the weapon obtained completely lawfully.

Without the publicity, mass killings would lack one of the key reasons motivating the killer.  However, for the media to cut back on coverage runs contrary to everything they  have been taught to do.  They want the whole story, they have been conditioned to publicize the name and face of the killer and to do background stories on them because this is what sells.  In a free society like ours I’m not sure how we would ever get the cooperation of the news media, but if we did it would save hundreds of lives, that I have no doubt.

Additional background checks on gun sales may be near worthless.  Background checks are nearly universal now, even at gun shows.  There’s no evidence to show how expanding the current system would be helpful.  But, if the background check included a psychiatric check, that could be helpful in keeping guns out of the hands of some mentally ill persons, not all, but some.   Currently we have no way of knowing the psychiatric history because it is difficult to access without a court order.  Probation, prisons, child protective services, county jail, psychiatric facilities, parole, courts, law enforcement often operate without sharing valuable case history.   We definitely could improve on this through a common data entry point.

Restricting a magazine capacity for a semi-automatic rifle is too simplistic and it diverts our attention away from real solutions – solutions that would identify a problem before it blows up in our face.   This is not an easy fix, pass a law and it goes away kind of thing. We’re going to be required to up our game, starting in Congress.  In the case of the media, its going to take a monumental effort to reverse what they are currently doing, which is to provide the killer with motivation.  We will then find out what is the most important to the media, a juicy story or lives.

by Jack

Retired Admiral William McRaven has once again grabbed liberal press headlines by calling into question Trump’s account of averting an air strike against Iran.   But, why?  Well, first let’s take a look at who McRaven is.  McRaven was Obama’s go to guy in the Pentagon.  He often gushed praises of Obama while he was President.  McRaven surfaced shortly after Trump took office, when Trump started pulling security clearances of those insiders  involved in the “resistance” movement to derail Trump.   Those folks were acting out of pure partisanship and they were vehemently opposed to anything Trump.

McRaven said, “I would consider it an honor if Trump revoked my security clearance” and of course this made headlines too.

So, now he (McRaven) calls into question the Iran story, but why?   It will do us absolutely no good to know whether or not it happened exactly as Trump said.  Besides, presidents are allowed to posture or say things from time to time in order to gain leverage when dealing with rogue nations.  They’ve all done it to a certain extent.

For example, was Obama lying or bluffing when he warned Syria of a strong military response if they employed poison gas in the battlefield?  Technically he lied, but we know why he said what he did and unfortunately it didn’t work out.   Syria had Obama all figured out ahead of his threat, so they called his bluff.   However, Iran’s doesn’t know what Trump will do and neither does anyone else, that’s a good thing.   Trump was in effect playing poker when he said he cancelled the airstrike to avert Iranian deaths.   Now, we don’t need to know if there was or wasn’t an airstrike about to happen!   That part is not relevant, unless McRaven is trying to flip Trump’s cards over after he won the hand and that’s a real serious offense in poker.

However, apparently Admiral McDumbell doesn’t play poker nor does the Lamestream media that ran with this partisan story.   McRaven does knows a lot about progressives dirty tricks and I strongly suspect this was just pure partisan politics.   What a loser.

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House.

One is from New Jersey, another is from Kentucky, and the third is from New Orleans.  All three go with a White House official to examine the fence.

The New Orleans contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil.

“Well,” he says, “I figure the job will run about $9,000. That’s $4,000 for materials, $4,000 for my crew and $1,000 profit for me.”

The Kentucky contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, “I can do this job for $7,000. That’s $3,000 for materials, $3,000 for my crew and $1,000 profit for me.”

The JERSEY contractor doesn’t measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, “$27,000.”

The official, incredulous, says, “You didn’t even measure like the other guys. How did you come up with such a high figure?   ? 

“The New Jersey contractor whispers back, “$10,000 for me, $10,000 for you, and we hire the guy from Kentucky to fix the fence.”

“Done!” replies the government official.

And that, my friends, is how the Government Stimulus plan worked.

Remember… Four boxes keep us free: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box.

“I love my country; it’s the government I’m afraid of!”

The other day I was in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county and someone asked me a rhetorical question:

 ’Why didn’t we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?’

  I replied that I had a drug problem when I was young:

  I was drug to church on Sunday morning.

  I was drug to church for weddings and funerals.

  I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather.  I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults.

 I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn’t put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.

I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profanity.

I was drug out to pull weeds in the garden and flower beds. I was drug to the homes of neighbors to help mow the yard, repair the clothesline, and if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, my dad would have drug me back to the woodshed.

Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, or think.

 If today’s children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place.

God bless the parents who drugged us.

by Jack

Let’s say my ancestors once lived in a cave and outside the cave was a huge volcano.  Every now and then the volcano would erupt, spewing lava and doing what volcanos normally do.  But, back then a volcano was the scariest thing around.  My ancestors had no concept of what caused it to erupt because, well, they lived in a cave…what could you expect?  They knew almost nothing about how the world or much of anything for that matter.

Because of fear from this powerful force, they finally came upon an idea, they would make a deal with the volcano.  The Chief went to the witchdoctor and together they reasoned,  maybe if we offered it some fish or some nice colored rocks or something it would like us and not throw lava at us?  Logic said, we would like those things and so the volcano would probably like them too.

And it worked!  From 3508 BC through 3479 BC the volcano was quiet.  And guess what? A scientific theory on how to control volcanos came to be!

But, in late 3479 it started to rumble again and the people were once again afraid.  The tribes witchdoctor thought, maybe fish, grains and colored rocks were not enough?  So, improved offerings, trial and error, and a few more eruption, the offerings were up to human sacrifices!  Ah, finally they found just the right combination, it was 23 maidens to be tossed into the volcano along with 500 pounds of dried fish, 6 really good songs and some drum beating once every year.   The volcano was quiet and under control once again!

Over the course of centuries the volcano evolved into being a sacred volcano with lots of good stories to be taught each generation.  Oh, and there were rules about how to treat the sacred volcano during the non-sacrificing season!   The locals were comforted by the fact the volcano now sleep peacefully.  Over time the human sacrifices slowed to a stop.

The people erected a sacred totem next to a sacred path that led to the top of the sacred volcano… rim.  And all along the way there were sacred rest stops and sacred places to urinate and poop.  All to be done according to tribal law and following the sacred rules as determined by their best scientist, the Witchdoctor/  He was now looked upon as a sacred witchdoctor and he who wore lots of sacred things to let everyone know how sacred he was, but I digress.

Eons passed and other people arrived to share their knowledge with my ancestors.  Some of it was good, some not, but things began to change.  Change sacred people and the locals had clashes with the new arrivals, but the new arrivals were clever and they carried guns which somehow defeated the sacred warriors with sacred clubs.

Churches were built, schools were built and soon came shopping centers too.

The sacred volcano just sat there watching all this unfold.  The sacred path was paved with asphalt, so hikers could reach the top easier.  The rest stops had outhouses maintained by Parks and Rec.  A highway allowed lots of tourists to visit in rental cars.  Then somebody thought it would be a good idea to build an observatory on top of the volcano because the air up there was so perfect.

Why not?  The volcano deemed dormant.  It had not erupted for over 2000 years and there was no good reason why a great observatory should not be put up there to explore the night sky and add to our knowledge, except for one thing.    This was a sacred Volcano, did you forget?  So the locals reasoned that since the Goddess of their Imabitkookoo tribe lived inside the volcano, she might be offended if a telescope was built next to her domain.

And so it was that the graduates from many colleges and other wise and learned people joined with the Imabitkookoo tribe and protested the construction.  They blocked development in every way they could and this got a lot of media attention.  People from New York came to help them protest and they all sang songs and hugged and just felt so good about honoring and respecting the ancient beliefs of the Imabitkookoo tribe.

Now maybe you are thinking, this sure sounds a lot like what’s happening in Hawaii?  No, if you thought that, you would be wrong.  This is just a made up story and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact my two kids are over there protesting with a bunch of Hawaiians to stop the building of an observatory.   That would be purely coincidental.    Doesn’t bother me one bit if they are.  Nope… not one bit.  Real proud of them.  Smart girls they are, real credit to the family.  Yup… noooo doubt about it.

Imagine our if our textbooks preached hate, murder and bigotry like the Palestinian Muslims.  Be thankful you live in America.

by Ken Cohen

There was great hope and anticipation several years ago when the Palestinian Authority announced that it was completely replacing its K-12 school textbooks. But new editions merely confirm obsessive Palestinian hatred of Jews and rejection of peace with Israel.

The older Palestinian textbooks had been filled with ugly anti-Zionist—and anti-Semitic—propaganda. Shockingly, this pervasive spirit of distortion and hate wasn’t only employed in history textbooks, but also dominated language, math and even science lessons.

The original PA textbooks had been in use for about twenty years, having been published following the Oslo Accords. (Prior to that, Palestinian schools had continued to use the Jordanian textbooks that were published before the 1967 Six-Day War.)

Over the past three years, the PA has released the full set of new textbooks, and they are even worse than the old ones in teaching Jew-hatred, a fictionalized narrative of history, and a profound glorification of martyrdom, terrorism and hate. Though Western liberals continue to place the onus of peace-making on Israel, these materials make clear that the Palestinians continue to wage war.

Recently, the organization Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) has published its reports on the textbooks—replete with examples—that demonstrate the horrific indoctrination being inflicted on Palestinian youth by their educators.

Geography, of course, is taught without reference to Israel’s borders—or even the State of Israel’s existence. All of the maps and exercises are predicated on a state of Palestine with its borders extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and from Lebanon to Egypt. Israel is completely obliterated throughout the textbooks, although the Palestinian textbooks are rife with references to “Zionist occupiers” and “Zionist-Jews.”

The Israeli city of Haifa is treated as “occupied territory”—every bit as “occupied” as the disputed areas of Judea and Samaria which fell under Israeli control in June of 1967. So while much of the world considers the issue of the eventual disposition of “the West Bank” to be the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, yet another generation of Palestinian kids in PA-administered schools are being indoctrinated to believe that the only satisfactory resolution of the situation is the total overthrow and expulsion of the “Zionist usurpers” from every square inch of “Palestine.”

In 2^nd-grade Language, the children learn this:

I am a lion cub, I’m a flower/we gave our spirits to the revolution
Our grandfathers built houses/for us in our free country
I am a lion cub, I’m a flower/we carried the revolution’s flame
To Haifa, to Jaffa / to Al-Aqsa / to Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock.

But the perfidious nature of the Palestinian textbooks extends well beyond geography or even a history that is largely fictional. Throughout the math and science textbooks, problems and exercises are structured around the purported evils of the “Zionist occupation,” including even first- and second-grade math textbooks. Math exercises include comparing the number of “martyrs” in the first and second intifadas, and what percentage of those shot by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza uprisings were elevated to “martyrdom.”

Consider this excerpt from the 4^th-grade Mathematics textbook:

The number of martyrs of the First Intifada (the Intifada of Rocks) is 2026 martyrs, and the number of martyrs of the Al-Aqsa Intifada is 5,050. The number of martyrs in the two intifadas is _________ martyrs.

Newton’s laws of gravity are illustrated in science textbooks using the functioning and lethality of slingshots used by would-be “martyrs.” Anatomy and the functions of different organs are described in terms of the happy adrenalin surge experienced by martyrs in their last moments. The effects of “Zionist oppressor” bullets on various body parts are thoroughly explored.

Here is a lesson from the new 7^th-grade Science textbook:

Newton’s Second Law:

During the first Palestinian uprising, Palestinian youths used slingshots to confront the soldiers of the Zionist Occupation and defend themselves from their treacherous bullets.

What is the relationship between the elongation of the slingshot’s rubber and the tensile strength affecting it? What are the forces that influence the stone after its release from the slingshot? What safety precautions should be taken into account when using the slingshot?

The essential thrust of the Literature and Language Palestinian textbooks is the glorification of martyrdom and jihad as unqualified virtues. Poetry extolling the virtues of suicide bombers and homicidal terrorists are frequent. This is from the 3^rd-grade text, which is entitled “Our Beautiful Language”:

We sing and remember: The Land of the Generous

I vow I shall sacrifice my blood, to saturate the land of the generous and will eliminate the usurper from my country, and will annihilate the remnants of the foreigners . Oh the land of Al-Aqsa and the Haram, oh cradle of chivalry and generosity Patient, be patient as victory is ours, dawn is emerging from the oppression.

Dalal al-Mughrabi, the homicidal woman who orchestrated the 1978 Coastal Road massacre that murdered 38 Israelis—including a dozen Jewish children—is a highlighted heroine in a number of Palestinian textbooks, including this 5^th-grade Language textbook:

Our Palestinian history is brimming with names of martyrs who have given their lives to the homeland, including the martyr Dalal al-Mughrabi. Her struggle portrays challenge and heroism, making her memory immortal in our hearts and minds.

The same textbook includes a list of Palestinian heroes to emulate and worship. All of them are terrorists. The list includes no scientists, no doctors, no engineers, no singers, no athletes, nor any artists .

In what one might grimly consider a feminist virtue of the new Palestinian textbooks, girls are called to participate fully in the jihad, and not to hesitate in making themselves into “holy martyrs.”

But these teaching materials do not merely present a perverse political philosophy, they also convey blanket falsehoods to erase Jewish history and support exclusive Palestinian claims to all of the Holy Land.

Thus, Jewish culture and history in “Palestine” are, not surprisingly, completely expunged. According to the Palestinian textbooks, any Jewish presence in the area has existed only in the last century, when synagogues were first built by the Zionist invaders, and the al-Buraq wall—built by Arabs in honor of the Prophet Muhammad’s horse—was renamed and co-opted by Zionists as “the Wailing Wall.”

Since—according to the Palestinian textbooks—there were never any Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, the Western Wall is clearly another Zionist-Jewish invention of recent vintage.

The Palestinian “phased plan” to eliminate the Zionist cancer from Palestine—which is still in the PLO charter—is diligently taught throughout the curriculum.

Yet the primary concern of the PA’s Minister of Education, Sabri Saidam is that Israel refuses to use these Palestinian textbooks in Arab-majority schools in Israel or the disputed territories, particularly in Jerusalem. Saidam insists that Israel’s use of versions of the Israeli curriculum for Arab-Israeli kids is “an ugly crime of counterfeit” perpetrated by the “Zionist oppressors.”

Great Britain and the European Union have contributed hundreds of millions to the development and propagation of the Palestinian textbooks and curriculum, but that may be drawing to a close: Both polities are doing their own reviews of the Palestinian textbooks. Each has laws outlawing aid in furtherance of terrorism, incitement, violence and hatred. Their reports are due later this year, and by all rights should spell the end of UK and EU furtherance of this despicable educational charade.

Those who doubt any imminent resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict need look no further than these Palestinian textbooks to become even more pessimistic about a new Palestinian generation leading the way—at long last—to a peaceful future for Arabs and Jews alike. These unfortunate children are being brainwashed by their elders to seek no compromise, but to continue on the suicidal path of terror, hate and ignorance so well established by past generations of Palestinian Arabs and their leaders.

As you discuss Israel’s prospects for peace with their Palestinian Arab neighbors in the Middle East, I urge you to emphasize that peace requires two partners—and the Palestinians clearly show more inclination to make wat than peace. Make your associates aware of the travesty of the PA’s education system, and ensure that they understand that the Palestinian Arab leadership has opted to propagate a dreadful, blood-soaked future for its youth.

One other urgent issue for pro-Israel activists: This week the House of Representatives is scheduled to consider a bipartisan resolution (HR 246) to oppose BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions). Please call your Representative to push for a vote supporting this resolution, which puts Congress on record opposing the anti-Israel—and anti-Semitic—BDS campaign.

Please take a minute right now, while you have this phone number in front of you: Call (212) 224-3121 and ask for your Representative’s office. Here’s a sample script: “I’m calling to urge the Representative to push for a vote to support the bipartisan anti-BDS House resolution 246 when it comes to the floor this week. I oppose discrimination against the Jewish state.”

In addition to supporting this anti-BDS measure, I hope you’ll also take a minute, while you have this material front and center, to visit FLAME’s lively new Facebook page and review the P.S. immediately below. It describes FLAME’s new hasbarah campaign—a refutation of the myth of “Palestinian territories.”

Best regards,

Ken Cohen
Editor, Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME)