Paul J. Balles

Here’s a story to think about:

A bouncer at a night club doesn’t like the looks of one of the customers. What makes matter worse is that the customer is loud-mouthed and vilifying night club bouncers, saying that they are the ones who should be kicked out of the club.

The bouncer takes a night stick that he has for just such an occasion, walks over to the table where the noisy customer is ranting and raving.

Then, without further warning, the bouncer bashes the noisy customer’s head with the night stick. The customer falls to the floor, dead.

People who see what had happened ask the bouncer why he beat the customer to death.

“Shut up,” shouts the bouncer, “He was armed, and I had to stop him before he destroyed us.”

“Why didn’t you stop him at the door if you thought he was a danger?” asks one of the club’s patrons?

“I did,” argues the bouncer. “When I accused him of having a weapon, he denied it.”

The patron is flummoxed. “Why didn’t you search him?”

The bouncer, becoming impatient with the sceptical crowd, proclaims, “I told him to prove he didn’t have a weapon.”

“Eh?” questions another patron, “You asked him to prove that he didn’t have what he didn’t have?”

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Paul J. Balles

Gilad Atzmon, scholar, prolific writer and leading jazz saxophonist has authored the book The Wandering Who? In it he astutely explores the identity crisis he himself experienced and one faced by many Jews.

Gilad struggled with the conflict between his early experiences as an Israeli Zionist and his awakening as a humanist.

His book reveals an innate ability to switch between the qualities of a down-to-earth artist (the successful sax player and word-smith) and the knowledgeable philosopher.

Without doubt, The Wandering Who? will awaken many readers– pleasing some and disturbing others.

The pleased will include those who have experienced similar awakenings or resolved identity crises by continuously asking questions.

The book will also find welcome readers among those who have sought honest answers to the many contentious issues involving Jewish identity, Jewish politics and Israel.

The disturbed will include those Gilad might refer to as “separatist Jews…kind of a bizarre mixture of an SS commander and a Biblical Moses.”

Gilad will also face threats and complaints from those he calls “pro-war Zionist Islamophobes.”

He will undoubtedly find rejection from those who want “to stop proud, self-hating Jews (like Atzmon) from blowing the whistle.”

The Wandering Who? navigates between thought-provoking personal experiences, historical and philosophical issues.

In the forward, Gilad tells the most remarkable story of his Jewish upbringing and the challenging questions raised by his early experiences as an Israeli Zionist.

In the chapters that follow, Gilad remarks that

“Israel is the Jewish state and Jewishness is an ethno-centric ideology driven by exclusiveness, exceptionalism, racial supremacy and a deep inherent inclination toward segregation.”

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Paul J. Balles
Redress

Paul J. Balles debunks false arguments of “national security” expounded by the likes of Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post to bludgeon the whistleblower website WikiLeaks and argues that, rather than damaging legitimate US national interests, WikiLeaks is exposing matters of legitimate public interest.

That Afghanistan is corrupt is not news. Just how corrupt is news.

According to a report by Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins of the New York Times, WikiLeaks exposes how,

"From hundreds of diplomatic cables, Afghanistan emerges as a looking-glass land where bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the norm and the honest man is a distinct outlier."

The New York Times report reveals how

...the collection of confidential diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of publications, offers a fresh sense of its pervasive nature, its overwhelming scale and the dispiriting challenge it poses to American officials who have made shoring up support for the Afghan government a cornerstone of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Several commentators have complained of the embarrassment engendered by the WikiLeaks exposure. Washington Post commentator Charles Krauthammer claims that WikiLeaks have caused more problems than embarrassment.

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