Ethnic Studies: Teaching Class Division

“Class consciousness is knowing which side of the fence you’re on.

Class analysis is knowing who is there with you.”

America has finally developed a movement for social change that seems conscious of political economic divisions that transcend race, sex or other very serious but sometimes overstressed problems. That movement offers the only solution to the inequality which grows more glaring and unjust. Calls for the 99% to take control from the 1% at the top of the financial pyramid are threatening to that ruling minority , its agents from the upper levels of the 99%, and the totally misinformed from the bottom. But those upper level agents represent the beneficiaries of divisive social policies that have brought personal gains for some, always at serious social costs to others. This is according to the dictates of profit and loss hardly free market capitalism. These agents often stand in strong support of socially divisive policies because those policies are good for “their” people. More often, those policies are good for “their” political and economic security.

Affirmative Action programs have enabled many previously shut out of the system to make progress and gain footholds within it, achieving professional, corporate and government positions that tend to make the upper strata look diverse, at least according to the limited definition that word has taken on in American culture. Almost always overlooked are the shortcomings of AA programs which have set groups and individuals farther apart when action of an affirmative nature for some creates, as should be expected, action of a negative nature for those on the other side of the ledger. A system which creates profits on one side must always create loss on the other; there can be no profit without loss, as eloquently explained to his clients by a former great hero of finance capitalism, Bernie Madoff. This basic structural truth of the system still escapes most because it is supposed to, having been taught out of reality by an education business that serves the production of individual consumers without social consciousness. This helps strengthen the competitive drive to personally consume while  gulling us into thinking as first person singular egos only identifying with groups when they are minorities, and thus powerless.

Though women and other minorities have benefited far more from them, the old criticism of AA programs when they were supposedly focused on so called blacks  still resonates:

Send one to Yale and send ten to jail.

While the college population of African Americans is considerably higher than it was before AA programs, the population of black Americans in prison has skyrocketed far beyond that. Note also that the new upper and middle class members are called African American – despite the fact that they have been native to the USA  far longer than many if not most European descended people who are no longer identified with hyphenated labels unless they adopt minority status and defensive postures  – while ghetto and project dwellers of the working and poorer class are still seen as “black”. Both labels are among many used to disguise commonality among humans. They all serve to keep the divisions within society strong, even to separate alleged members of the same group ethnicity by class. The programs originated to do exactly what they have done; maintain , protect and strengthen consumer private capitalism by rewarding a minority at the expense of the majority.

 We are presently seeing a struggle around Ethnic Studies programs at colleges and universities which relates to the same maintenance of minority power of the 1% over a divided 99%. What passes for academic diversity, cultural education and histories of  subjugated and neglected people often turns out to  be branding labels for cultural and ethnic marketing. It has served to keep groups divided into sub categories in order to prevent them from ever threatening minority power of the 1% on top. Much neglected reality is confronted in Ethnic Studies courses, but the consumers of these studies are tracked into and out of programs as minorities, slated never to become anything more. By having previously unknown pains and joys of their groups preached to them they will hopefully strive to be just what their rulers want them to be: happy, proud, diverse identity groups who support the status quo by believing they are different from everyone else who lives under the same regime but can acquire professional class status within it and thus help their families and communities. In other words, stay divided from fellow citizens not seen as members of their own ethnic, racial, sexual or intellectual groups and remain democratically powerless in a class, not ethnic society.

And so we have programs in the marketplace to reward some members of some groups at the expense of most members of most groups with supposed meritocracy strengthened by success achievers allowed to rise to the upper middle strata: affirmative action. And in academia, the teaching of American history in balkanized form, with various groups ghettoized into special studies that make them separate from – but equal to, in some warped return to past racist policies ? – the great majority. Rather than teach American history as a subject in equal parts  concerning settlers, invasions, discoveries, exploration, land theft, slavery, fights for survival, massacres of indigenous people and more, these become special areas only studied in special classes aimed at special groups. Result?  Warped, balkanized views of American history, divided groups and sects among Americans, and a stronger control by the 1% ruling class and its agent servants of the upper levels of the 99%.

American groups identified as minorities by virtue of their not being direct descendants of Europeans have been tracked into patterns of discrimination no longer officially acceptable. But alleged social changes that only transform certain individual members of an ethnic or other identity group and leave larger populations still operating as second class citizens while being manipulated into showing pride in the fact that they are hyphenated and not whole Americans is hardly social progress.

Ethnic studies classes were introduced as a means to allow “out’ groups to learn “their” culture and soon become “in” by having increased knowledge, pride and general academic acceptance that could lead to further affirmation, as long as action continued along officially prescribed system enforcing lines. America’s professional class and upper middle strata has become a more diverse group in the look, sex and ethnic makeup of its component parts, but members of groups still identified as “minorities”  suffer many of the same injustices the ethnic studies classes teach them about, while instilling resentment to the society that commits the injustices and grossly mis-identifying the sources and power groups that profit from them. Which is exactly what they are supposed to do. Thus we have “racial” animosities growing as supposed “diversity” increases, and this along class lines that do nothing to increase community, social cohesiveness and solidarity among Americans, but simply create more division, individualism and hostility that maintains and expands animosity among the 99%.

While it is admirable to connect with sometimes ancestral cultures and often those merely a generation or two away, it can become a socially compulsive disorder to be forced into boxes of ethnic and alleged racial difference while a nation claims diversity and democracy as its credo, all the while infantilizing the first while making the second impossible. Of course, electing a Chicano, or gay, or white, or black or Asian, or Jewish, member of congress, the city council or the presidency, can seem wonderful when reduced to minority consciousness. But from the standpoint of majority good, continuing the system of private profits accruing to ever smaller minorities at the expense of the great majority can only be seen as progress by a the dim witted, the ignorant, the misinformed, or those who gather the profits; the 1%. And their agents, however racially, sexually, ethnically or intellectually diverse they may think themselves.

MLK, Mayans and Another World

The celebration of MLK day hopefully reminded us that his dream of a better world involved not only racial justice but:

"the masterfully cooperative venture of persons in which they realize the solidarity of the human family by assuming responsibility for one another."

Hardly the  present dog eat dog reality which has many depressed souls interpreting a Mayan prophecy as a sign of the end of the world in 2012. But the ancients were probably foreseeing a beginning as well. They were not limited by the conjoined twins of western  civilization - individualism and capitalism - and so tended to see life as cooperative and cyclical, with beginnings and endings that continued beyond personal experience.

Present conditions are so bleak they could  be forecasting the end of civilization, especially from the dim view of either/or dualism. But a broader perspective might perceive a  giant step forward for humanity by our casting off shackles of ignorance that have imprisoned us for generations and the liberation of age old demands for freedom through real democracy, as opposed to the sham we have inherited.

Minority controlled politics is facing its end as people become aware of the dangers to nature and the lies that set a majority against itself. A world dominated by financial minorities which amass personal wealth at the expense of billions of humans cannot continue. But it won’t stop because of legendary prophecy or contemporary dreams. Without democratic action it wont take place at all. And given the sorry state of our global condition it’s easy to see environmental destruction and humanity‘s fraying bonds as signs of the end of life itself. That is what the 1% at the top puts into the minds of the 99% through its political and media servants: despair , defeatism and division among the majority that guarantees minority  control of almost everything. We need the opposite and it’s likely the Mayan, as well as other ancient prophecies, are  about visioning solidarity and success for humanity rather than division and failure, just as Martin Luther King.

The ravages of a perverse economy robbing the earth’s support system and an entire race to accumulate private profits for a small class is a problem calling for united material confrontation and not just faith in prophecy . But religious and social prophecy can help motivate that confrontation; it only impairs when controlled by shaman-agents of the 1% who manipulate parishioners into acting against their own interests.

In much of the world radical change is being violently resisted by minority dominators. Even without violent suppression, American elections in 2012 will accomplish nothing if the electorate continues accepting candidates bought and paid for by the 1% rulers. We may face the  Mayan prophecy seen as an ending. But a series of democracy demanding uprisings are signs of a beginning. Not yet enough to bring national democratic change, but that will come, and globally as well, if people stress cooperation that promotes the common good , true equality, and an end to the bloody wars that bring profits for the few and murder, debt and poverty for the many.

The next American election promises to be the most expensive and possibly most useless in recent history. With the exception of Ron Paul, a host of status quo zealots are poised to replace the most hopeless excuse for an agent of change the nation has ever seen. Of course , if change is simply a matter of identity politics, the USA is the most radical nation in the world. Its ruling parties and corporations are composed of women, people of color, people of no color, gays, lesbians, every hyphenated American sub-group known to the market and practitioners and prosecutors of hate speech, dumb speech and suppressed speech. The 1% have hired an affirmative action team to simultaneously screw itself, a majority of Americans, and large sectors of the global community, in order to wear the shiniest economic chains in the history of political economic slavery. Democracy?

What passes for liberalism has provoked balkanized divisiveness which has conservative fakers appealing to groups and ideals it has neglected: American workers , social values, political economics and more. Thus we have survival-of-the-fittest individualism stronger than ever because political forces work to divide the nation into controllable minorities and in the process keep them from becoming the democratic majority. Our elections involve agents of the 1% calling themselves Americans against agents of the 1% calling themselves hyphenated Americans and whichever side wins, America loses.

But people now see alternatives to divisive ego-capitalism and  the damaging aspects of class inequality. And that movement of minds is being transferred into a movement of bodies rising to demand the changes necessary for another kind of world to be born as the older one ends. And that old order threatens new bloodshed in Iran, Syria, Palestine, Venezuela, Bolivia and even Russia and China if the 1%, their agents and hired mercenaries have their way. The ancient Mayans could not have predicted the details of our plight and even MLK could not have foreseen what we face, but the threat to end all lives on the planet is real and has nothing to do with prophecy. If the people do not create another world, that old one could destroy us all. The spirit necessary to bring such change was articulated by Martin Luther King whose prophetic words inspired everyone demanding justice for black people in racist America, but they are even more important now to help end injustice, inequality and war for all of the human race. To close with his words, again:

"Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world." 

1968: Memphis

Portrait of a Dangerous Man

The Reverend Martin Luther King preaches against the Vietnam War. He protests that twice as many blacks as whites are dying there, cannon fodder for an imperial adventure comparable to the Nazi crimes. The poisoning of water and land, the destruction of people and harvests are part of a plan of extermination. Of the million Vietnamese dead, says the preacher, the majority are children. The United States, he claims, is suffering from an infection of the soul; and any autopsy would show that the name of that infection is Vietnam.

Six years ago the FBI put this man in Section A of the Reserved List, among those dangerous individuals who must be watched and jailed in case of emergency. Since then the police hound him, spying on him day and night, threatening and provoking him.

Martin Luther King collapses on the balcony of a Memphis hotel. A bullet full in the face puts an end to this nuisance.

-----Eduardo Galeano, Memory of Fire, Vol. 3, Century of the Wind

Happy New Year: Down With Fuzzy Liberalism

Here in Marin County, California we are surrounded by affluent liberals who can't see the political forest for the trees. A case in point is John H. Howard, a self-described "retired international banker" whose New Year's Day editorial in the Marin Voice, "Occupy puts focus on disparities," is a classic of fuzzy liberal analysis and "we're all responsible" psychologizing.

Howard defines our central problem as income "disparity" between the 1% and the 99%, not the one percent's class power to make the rest of us work for them and vote for their ideas. On this crucial point, Howard assumes "inequalities" are the result of mismanagement, rather than systemic features of class hierarchy and centralized power.

Although the lopsided maldistribution of wealth has rarely, if ever, been worse than it is right now, the problem is not really income "disparity" but private control of social wealth, which is illegitimate in principle. For the relationship between plundering bankers and the rest of us is parasitic, not unequal, and we had best get that clear right from the start. Would we say that a fungus and the blighted potato on which it grows have an unequal relationship? Or does common sense compel us to conclude that the fungus simply prevents the potato from being healthy at all? Logic favors the latter conclusion, but liberals love to call for "balance" between insanity and reason, as though there could be such.

Here are more examples of fuzzy thinking from Howard's column.

1. More government oversight, not less, might have prevented the Great Recession.

But government financed by Wall Street has no interest in reigning in private capital, which will destroy any politician reckless enough to challenge it. The point is that speculation simply cannot be brought under control when finance capital owns the government and orchestrates capital flight from any region of the world that shows the slightest sign of populist revolt. Private control over public resources must be directly challenged and overcome, not fine-tuned with regulations that are routinely re-written or ignored when profit is at stake.

2. "I am not among the 1 percent . . . [but]I share the good fortune that has permitted the extreme wealth enjoyed by the 1 percent: High expectations from our parents, a solid education, and coming of age when employment prospects were favorable, a functioning democracy — the result is a fixed income from Social Security and two modest pensions, no debt, adequate government medical insurance, and a nice nest egg that allows a comfortable life style."

Old age pensions, the ideal of full-employment, universal education, and democratic politics are not gifts from capitalism of a more benign era, but rather, are the product of bitter class warfare over many generations, in which working people were routinely blacklisted, beaten, trampled, jailed, and killed by capital, in hopes that such social democratic features of modern life would never come to exist. Now that they do exist, liberals want to forget the bloody history that bequeathed them to us. But delusions of a benign capitalism can only lead us astray.

Social Security, for one, did not come from parental expectations, good education, better economic times, or the established political system. It is a watered down version of socialism's call for a guaranteed income for all. It came into being because of massive popular upheaval in protest against capitalism. FDR used popular indignation at capitalist exploitation to political advantage, but he remained steadfast in saying that he had saved capitalism for the wealthy few who dominated it (and who loathed him for helping usher in social democratic protections that kept the system from collapsing).

And just why were employment prospects "more favorable" a few decades ago? Wasn't it to a considerable extent because Washington and Wall Street felt themselves to be in competition with the Communist world for the loyalty of workers, so that wages and benefits were higher, unemployment lower, and unions far more common than they are today? Are liberals now prepared to praise Communism and unionization for their historic role in forging a middle class? If not, why not?

3. I agree with the 99 percent that the conditions that favored the 1 percent and me are no longer available for millions of Americans. . . .The Great Recession is partly to blame, but there are new barriers to success . . . the absolute corruption of politics by big money; the lack of political will to effectively regulate industry, especially finance; the absence of people of good will from the country's power structure; and most critically, our willingness to "let someone else do it" — fight our wars, pay our debts, raise our children, lend a hand down the street.

"Corruption" is something of a misnomer, since capitalism is designed to be "corrupt," i.e., to reward the highest bidder. Under capitalism, therefore, politics is not so much "corrupted" by big money as it is defined by it. Private centers of wealth inevitably translate into political power, and there is hardly a need for a quid pro quo between politician and financial donor for this to be the case. As long as massive accumulations of private wealth are allowed to exist, we will be beholden to them.

The "lack of political will to effectively regulate industry" correlates perfectly with the massive accumulations of capital that reward people handsomely for their moral indifference. And isn't it precisely the point of a profit-maximizing oligarchy to replace moral values with acquisitive values? So why should we expect "people of good will" to ascend to positions of power? In fact, we should expect the opposite.

As for "our willingness to 'let someone else do it' — fight our wars, pay our debts, raise our children, lend a hand down the street," wouldn't it make more sense to give us a moral leg to stand on before asking us to act morally? Is it really morally contemptible for parents to try to have their children sent to Stanford rather than Afghanistan? And is it our fault that corporate America prefers to enslave us with debt rather than give salary increases in a time of rising productivity? Finally, can parents really "raise their children properly," and "lend a hand down the street," when financial necessity routinely requires they be absent from the home 50-60 hours a week, and burdened with unfinished work when they are at home?

In any event, Howard's focus on "success" is the problem, not the solution. We need to think in terms of evolutionary success, not personal financial success. If we continue to define profit as the superordinate goal of social life, to which all else must be subordinated, the human species will soon cease to exist. Worldwide environmental crisis obviously cannot be solved by tinkering with market incentives. We need a new system, a real society, not just the cash-nexus of the marketplace.

4. Medicare is an entirely appropriate entitlement for all citizens, and its cost can be controlled through the some means testing, full implementation of health care reform, and newly vigilant oversight.

If it's truly an entitlement, i.e., something everyone gets, then it shouldn't be means tested. Means testing social insurance is the first step towards its abolition. And Obama's health care "reform" leaves the HMO profiteers in charge, unlike in every other industrial democracy, where they have been removed from medical systems so that human health, not private profit, can come first.

5. "We have lost the sense that we are all in this together, all riding the same planet, and that we as a society succeed or fail by what we do or don't do together."

There is plenty of this sentiment remaining in the U.S., especially in the Occupy movement. But people are beaten, gassed, and arrested for expressing it - at the behest of the 1%.

Source:

John H. Howard, "Occupy puts focus on disparities", Marin Voice, January 1, 2012

"Occupy" and nonviolence

_,_._,___ There may be a time in future when violence will be necessary to combat the state power of capital in the usa, but without meaning sarcasm there may also be a time when foreign intervention is necessary to liberate America from that power...all things are possible but neither is likely, and the first is even less likely than the second...  the world has changed and is changing more rapidly than any of us can keep up with, and those changes not only involve the power of the state to kill more people but also the power of the people to democratically take control of the state...that situation has never before existed and it offers far more hope than trying to organize an army to fight the state, when it is more likely and hopeful that we can disarm that state with democratic power... I’m not advocating that we should all join hands and sing in the face of an attacking army, but if we have not organized an army in our defense we might as well sing as we die since physical resistance under such circumstances would be meaningless...an organized military force will slaughter us unless we can counter it with our own organized military force...this is not to imply support for a non violent philosophy according to the old reality but to suggest that philosophy makes far more sense and offers far more possibility of success in the newly emerging world… past non violence that never fought back physically but accepted vicious attacks with passive resistance swayed many of those watching on film or TV but guaranteed those taking the abuse certain physical pain and possible death...it may seem romantic but thus far it has not worked… despite myths and legends about Gandhi and Martin Luther King,  India still suffers appalling poverty and black men are crowding America’s prisons in greater numbers than ever before...and militantly violent opposition brought about by the failure of passive resistance has also failed, leading many to die or waste away in prison at trying to confront massive military force with relatively egotistical, if sincere tactics of killing some policemen and soldiers, taking some temporary territory that the state doesn’t want or need for the moment, or robbing banks… and let’s not forget that both heroic passive figures, Gandhi and MLK, were violently murdered...however, this is a different time and place and it should be remembered and meditated on, if necessary, that the entire world is seeing uprisings of a kind never before imagined, with democratic power possibilities and communications across borders and barriers that can no longer  permit the state power to separate , isolate, divide and conquer peoples with the ease in which it could in the past... while our anger may provoke us to wish to strike back at an ugly force of armed representatives of the antidemocratic state, we had better be prepared to counter such force with equal force of our own or forget about it...and organizing an armed, revolutionary uprising in the USA at this time seems as likely as hoping for a messiah to return or show up for the first time…the desperation among the people necessary for such to happen would mean a chaotic situation of near total social breakdown had taken over, and given the tremendous task of trying to create democracy now, that task would seem a more positive endeavor to work on than trying to counter , say, nuclear arms with more nuclear arms, rather than gaining control of nuclear stockpiles and destroying them…the first is hopeless but the second is possible… much better to follow the lead of places like Venezuela and Bolivia, where previous attempts at military coupes , armed uprisings and over throwing governments failed but democratic efforts are showing signs of turning  entire nations and areas of the globe around via organized political and economic and not necessarily military power...that kind of force exercised by the people of the west, whose nations have plundered and savaged for generations and continue to do so under control of tiny anti-democratic minorities, would not only ease burdens in places like Venezuela and Bolivia, but create a balanced movement in the west operating in the same democratic, non-violent fashion and offering hope for the global community itself, and not just one or another nation …and doing so with an army of humanity militantly demanding and exercising its rights as a majority against which no minority would have a chance….

More Thoughts On the Occupy Movement

The Occupy movement has dramatically and wonderfully seized the political moment, putting Wall Street and its mass media lapdogs on the defensive where they belong.

Predictably, Occupy critics decry the inconvenience of protest, as though protest were not already synonymous with inconvenience. Such antagonists would do well to recall that Martin Luther King was also denounced by his critics for illegal and allegedly immoral behavior. The civil rights movement in its day was every bit as inconvenient as Occupy Wall Street is today, blocking public streets, shutting down department stores, swamping local jails, forcing their unwanted anti-lynching philosophy on an unwilling public. Nevertheless, equipped with the benefit of hindsight, we now know the civil rights protesters were right.

Having said that, the free speech issues would be stark and more compelling if Occupiers were to occupy the major media corporations - NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, - since they monopolize the public airwaves with propaganda on behalf of the 1%. The 99% is flatly excluded from access to large audiences, in spite of the fact that such audiences are composed almost completely of the 99%. This cannot be justified on rational grounds.

Those who don't like public space being occupied ought to ask themselves this: Why can't we engage in real political debate (i.e., not just Democrat vs. Republican) over the public airwaves? Because the private owners of the economy won't let us. We cannot hear social democrats, libertarians, communists, socialists, anarchists, white nationalists, black nationalists, or any other popular grouping engaged in uncensored debate before mass audiences in the United States. Until that changes, public space will continue to be occupied, because that is the only means of bringing the views of popular constituencies before a mass audience.

For those who almost plaintively ask why the Occupy protesters don't express their discontent through the electoral system, one can only say this. How do you target the 1%, (actually probably more like one-tenth of one percent), who own the "private" economy? You can't do it by resorting to electoral politics, as the 1% owns the politicians.

True, a Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, or Ron Paul can run a third party campaign, but the 1% routinely deprives them of media time on the basis that they are merely "vanity" candidates. You can't get elected if you are not seen daily in the mass media, and the mass media is literally owned by the 1%. The last time around Ron Paul finished second in Nevada primaries, a result which was not even announced in the corporate media. The first place and third place finishers were announced, but not the second place finisher. Why? Because Paul is not under the control of the 1%. No populist candidate, whether of the right or the left, can be elected or taken seriously nationally. That's why there's an occupy movement.

Let's stop kidding ourselves about our "democracy." Under capitalism, the business cycle (presided over by the one percent) causes recessions, depressions, panics, and break-downs on a regular basis, after which the perpetrators demand huge public bailouts on the basis that the swindling class is "too big to fail." Only by going well beyond the electoral arena can we do anything about this, i.e., by organized protest.

Was slavery ended at the ballot box? Was child labor? Elections played some role, but a subordinate one, and well after organized protest had re-shaped electoral options (and in slavery's case, the entire society). That's what Occupy Wall Street is trying to do today. All history shows that progress is dependent on popular protest, which is not to say that everything a protest movement does is right. But it is always the midwife of social advancement.

Occupying public space is not the same as destroying it, as occupy critics are prone to claim. Furthermore, we should keep in mind that the Black Bloc has a predilection for trashing, but they are not the entire Occupy movement, far from it. We should also recall that those who shout the loudest for smashing and destroying are routinely found to be working for U.S. intelligence when government documents are published years after the damage has been done. The COINTELPRO documents from the 1960s protests are very revealing as to who the real criminals are, and no thinking person ought to be surprised.

To reiterate, Dr. King was subject to very similar criticisms for "violence" and "inconvenience to working people." But it's now clear he was right and the critics were wrong. While popular movements should try to minimize inconvenience to the public, critics should recognize that faulting protesters for inconvenience is the same as faulting all protest. There is no progress without inconvenience.

Wiesenthal Center names top 10 anti-Semitic slurs

not from the garlic!

December 13, 2011 

 NEW YORK (JTA) – A comment by Mahmoud Abbas referring to Palestine as the “holy land” placed first in the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Top 10 Anti-Israel/Anti-Semitic Slurs of 2011.

The Palestinian Authority president made the remark at the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 23.
“I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and the birthplace of Jesus Christ peace be upon him, to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people,” he said.

The Wiesenthal Center said it did not consider statements by terrorist organizations, the Iranian government or “the lunatic fringe."

Other remarks that made the Top 10 list included Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's accusation that "hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were killed" by Israel; Christian Dior fashion designer John Galliano's rant about his love of Hitler; and director Lars Von Trier, who said he sympathizes a bit with Hitler and that "Israel is a pain in the ass."

“These 10 examples constitute a fraud alert from people who should know better who have crossed the line,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center.
For the 2012 list, the Wiesenthal Center is collecting suggestions from members of the public at slurs2012@wiesenthal.com.

from the garlic:

Early submissions include:

Mrs Grundy, Herbie Weintraub just farted.

Is that Temple Beth Midler or a White Castle?

If a Jew owns a bank is he a Jewish Banker?