I just read an essay published on Medium a month ago and written by one Jonathan Rosenblum, about Katie Wilson. It’s an illuminating insight into the mind of hardcore leftists, especially when it comes to the fantasies driving their policies.
Wilson is the Seattle mayoral candidate whose platform includes a promise to “Trump-proof” her city. Her lead in the polls seems to be increasing every day, and she has been called, particularly by John Burbank (described by Rosenblum as “one of my movement colleagues”), “the Zohran Mamdani of Seattle.”
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Should you be inclined to make any assumptions, based on the name “Rosenblum,” about his position on various issues, you might be disappointed, as I was. I don’t know if Rosenblum even considers himself Jewish, but if he does, he’s as much a JINO as George Soros, Bernie Sanders, or Chuck Schumer. Or even Karl Marx.
The first indication of this is the very title of the essay in question:
If Katie Wilson wants to be like Zohran Mamdani, she should fight for $30/hour, free transit, free childcare, and free Palestine
Rosenblum laments that Katie Wilson comes up short in comparison to Zohran Mamdani, the so-called Democratic Socialist [Read: Communist, America-hater and Islamo-supremacist] who seems to be on track to be the next mayor of The Big Apple.
Rosenblum seems not only in thrall to Mamdani and his “bold, concrete working-class demands,” things such as city-owned grocery stores, a rent freeze, free transit and free childcare, and a $30 per hour minimum wage, but he also heaps praise on Mamdani for speaking out so “ardently and consistently for Palestine and against the Israeli genocide.”
Did you get that, Folks? Rosenblum speaks of “Palestine” and “the Israeli genocide” as if they actually exist!
Now, even though I, personally, in my own writing, always try to call them the “so-called ‘Palestinians’,” if someone wants to refer to the populations of Gaza and the West Bank, “displaced” persons who actually belong, respectively, to Egypt and to Jordan, as constituting the “nation” of “Palestine,” we can reluctantly accept that as a term of convenience. That’s because, even though such populations are perpetuated (and not absorbed by the Arab world) for the purpose of maintaining political and military pressure on Israel, at least everyone knows to whom the term “Palestinian” refers, even if it is based on a lie.
But to refer so matter-of-factly to “the Israeli genocide” (without any qualifier like “so-called,” “purported” or “alleged”) presumes it to be true; it’s tantamount to referring to Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or the Tooth Fairy as if their existence has been proven and everybody knows it, when in reality believing that there is an “Israeli genocide,” that Israel is perpetrating genocide against “Palestine,” rates the same credibility level as believing that the moon is made of green cheese.
But that doesn’t faze Jonathan Rosenblum, because he believes it, just as he believes that Mamdani is New York City’s savior and that other mayoral aspirants around the country, especially in Seattle, should strive to be more like the Ugandan-born privileged son of a Columbia prof and a Bollywood filmmaker.
And among the areas in which Rosenblum finds Katie Wilson wanting is her silence on “the foremost moral justice issue of our generation, Palestine.” This is an example of what one of my favorite writers (and fellow American Thinker contributor), Jack Cashill, calls “ABETTO,” a blind eye to the obvious. By my reckoning, there is no shortage of moral justice issues that take precedence over the alleged plight of the allegedly oppressed so-called “Palestinians,” who desire nothing more than to be free from those warmongering, genocidal Israelis!
Allow me to insert an autobiographical note: I have lived in Seattle, a city that in many ways reminded me of my native NYC. Seattle is a city of distinct, sometimes insular neighborhoods, and I lived and worked in several, including Capitol Hill, the U. District (where I slung burgers and omelets in a 24-hr. hash house, The Hasty-Tasty), and Fremont (where l slung pizzas and omelets at a hippie/biker pizza joint, The Great Green Society).
I also lived on the Olympic Peninsula, on Shi-Shi Beach just off the Makah reservation at Neah Bay, and at my little cedar shake-covered cabin on ten acres in the “banana belt” between Port Angeles and Port Townsend. And I’ve also lived in Oregon. I loved the Pacific Northwest, spent quite a few years there, and it breaks my heart to see what has become of that region, just as it breaks my heart to see what has become of New York City; I have no desire to return.
Anyway, Mr. Jonathan Rosenblum, as if his true colors and loyalties were not already evident, reveals them in the title of a book that he proudly announces is scheduled for publication in September: “We’re Coming For You and Your Rotten System: How Socialists Beat Amazon and Upended Big-City Politics”!
Need I say any more?
Stu Tarlowe has been contributing to American Thinker since 2010. Most of his work for AT may be viewed here. He also wrote for the now-defunct KCNewswatch.com and Paw Prints, the Magazine. He writes on a wider range of topics on Stu’s Stack o’ Stuff, to which subscriptions are currently free. For more than a decade he was the personal editor to the late author and talk radio icon, Barry Farber. Stu is still for hire as a columnist, proofreader, copyeditor and re-write specialist.