POTUS Obama: Yes, you have "changed" things...for the worse.

A recent editorial in one of Israel’s largest online newspaper s, YNET, was pretty explicit in explaining the Israeli “consensus view” of recent U.S. security guarantees for Israel that Secretary of State Kerry failed to secure in his negotiated agreement with Iran - U. S. guarantees, at least under POTUS Obama, are worthless.

The Israelis weren’t always of this opinion under other U.S. administrations, but events of the past 4-5 years led to the inescapable conclusion that America’s word under President Obama’s means nothing.

1)     He abandoned Israel’s long-time ally, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak (without consultation) in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood.

2)     In 2009, when Iranians conducted massive street protests, instead of giving them minimal verbal support, he called it an internal Iranian issue. The demonstrators were quickly squashed with the brutality you would expect from the Republican Guard. 

3)     When Syria used chemical weapons, Obama’s “red-line” disappeared and it was nothing less than embarrassing to see our diplomats jump at the bogus lifeline thrown to them by Russia’s Putin that didn’t stop the killing and didn’t stop chemical assaults.

4)     When Ukraine was invaded by Russia – the U.S. security guarantees that convinced Ukraine to abandon their nuclear capability evaporated when the first shot was fired.

How on earth could the Israelis trust the Obama administration when they have not only made Iran a regional power a country that is Israel’s mortal enemy who has been in a constant state of war with Israel. Allowing Iran to receive nuclear arms and resume arms trading without any reciprocity regarding Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism against Israel and numerous Arab countries is traitorous to the alliance that WAS between the USA and Israel.  Thanks to Obama, the Israelis are now on a hair trigger and feeling attacked and abandoned. The Iranians and their surrogates Hamas and Hezbollah – seeing Israel without the USA as a patron are emboldened to step up their terrorism against anyone they choose. Arab countries are already planning to build reactors and nuclear weapons. War is now certain, thanks to the appeasement of the West, led by Obama to Iran.

Israel was birthed without the help of the USA government and they will survive and thrive without them for the immediate future. Other alliances will be established, and Israel will diversify its dependency on America. Maybe at the end of the day that is not such a bad outcome in the long term.

 More friendly US administrations will surely come into power, but the nuclear agreement will haunt future US government (and Israel) forever, as they now own it. More importantly, the odds of any country trusting the USA as a true ally are nil. Obama is lying in bed with Iran, and the odds are that America will wake up with fleas for decades.

Maybe the USA needs a dose of the same medicine as Greece!

Having just read the first releases on the “economic austerity plan” imposed by the EU on Greece, there was one reformation that caught my eye. The Greek government is required to raise the minimum wage rate significantly, while at the same time drastically reducing government welfare programs. The premise being that it will incentivize people to work and significantly reduce the cost of the welfare programs AND reduce dependency on the government. There will, of course, still be welfare for the most vulnerable in society, but this would mean the end of generational dependency on the Greek government.

As more details are released on this plan, I would assume that the government would offer incentives to businesses to expand with part of the savings from the reduction in welfare spending. The balance of the savings would go toward PAYING DOWN DEBT. This shift from government dependency to the private sector is a model that makes sense in my opinion, as the private sector is ALWAYS more productive with capital than government, no matter where in the world one lives. Maybe one of our Presidential candidates will go out on a limb and suggest something with economic teeth rather than vague, toothless slogans.

It’s good enough for Egypt’s borders, but not our border with Mexico?

The U.S. State Department has submitted an application for congressional approval for $100 million to fund the building and overseeing of 4,000km of mobile sensor towers and electronic fences in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Israel in a desperate bid to seal their borders off against the fast-moving ISIS.

The application states: “This procurement is intended for Egyptian Border Guard Forces, which currently lack any remote detection capability along unpatrolled areas of Egypt’s borders.” Libya, Sudan and Sinai are specified. The application goes on to explain: “The system would provide an early warning capability to allow for faster response times to mitigate threats to the border guards and the civilian population.”

Obviously, our government does not take America’s security as seriously as they do our allies in the Mideast. While we might not have ISIS on our back door, illegal immigration has serious negative implications in areas of national security, crime and jobs. While Donald Trump was definitively not politically correct in the manner in which he articulated the issue, wouldn’t it be better to be pro-active and seal OUR BORDERS now rather than wait till the problem has to be dealt with re-actively?

Mass Murders in the USA are not just a gun control issue President Obama.

The current “discussion” in the media about gun control that was initiated by President Obama’s response to the church shooting in Charleston seems more politically motivated rather than a sincere effort to analyze the issue of mass killings that the USA has experienced during President Obama’s 2 terms in office. There has been virtually ZERO discussion of the mental state of those who commit these heinous crimes.  I contend that a woefully inadequate mental health system – and the entire way our health and legal systems engage the issue around mental health is a major part of the problem.

If someone is 21 years old, but has not met the current “legal definition” to indicate they might be violent to themselves or others they cannot be forced to be institutionalized or take medication. In fact, the Charleston killer, from recent reports, WAS seeing a therapist who was aware of his fantasy to commit a mass killing, but didn’t feel it rose to the legal definition where if she disclosed it to authorities, she would be protected legally in civil court.  This has to be fixed.

Another issue in mental health is that government funding for separate mental health facilities for non-criminal patients as been re-allocated to the prison systems, where mental health issues are also intense. So basically, the mentally ill have to commit a crime before they can be institutionalized. This is why we see so many of the mentally ill on the streets today. They have nowhere to go to get help.

Of course, the third leg of this issue is the lack of the laws currently on the books to enforcement strict gun control.  How could the Charleston shooter get a permit to buy a gun if a proper background search was done on him? After the crime was committed, the media had no problem identifying him as a loose cannon ready to explode.

I realize that my analysis is simplistic analysis, and it would find a lot of resistance because the issues of “civil liberties” for the mentally ill would arise (and the definition of mentally ill would have to change) but this is a societal problem that needs to be properly addressed with something more than just “gun control”.

A Little Bit of Fargotstein Family History (and probably not 100% correct)

I am leaving this exchange in my blog as what the Fargotstein family may consider interesting tidbits about the history of the family. I may have some of the history wrong, and I am sure that someone will correct me, but this is better than nothing. Shep

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Letter from a University of North Carolina Graduate Student studying history of Jews in the South received by Shep Fargotstein on 05/27, 2015. He found the family through Molly via Facebook. (Josh.parshall@gmail.com)

Shep,

Thanks so much for getting back to me. I only have a couple questions right now, but more might come up as the project moves forward.

All of the below would be very helpful to know:

1. The hometown of Sam Fargotstein in E. Europe

2. Why/how the Fargotstein's initially settled in Galveston

3. When/why the Fargotstein's moved to Memphis (some stayed in TX, right?)

4. Whether members of the Fargotstein family were ever involved with the Memphis Workmen's Circle

In the text I was looking at last week, by a woman named Frieda Weiner, Sam Fargotstein is listed as a significant leader of the Galveston Workmen's Circle/Arbiter Ring: "My branch, 307 of Galveston, was the second [in the state] when it was founded in March 1912 by two intellectuals, Sam Fargotstein of Galveston and his friend Joseph Keeper from the nearby city of Houston." Weiner goes on to describe how Fargotstein was instrumental in helping the Weiner family move to Galveston after Frieda’s husband, Isaac was laid off from his job following a lengthy illness.

Really, any information on the family history and the various professional/social/religious paths of Sam's descendants would be interesting to know.

Best,

Josh

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May 27, 2015

Dear Josh:

The Fargotstein family came from Warsaw, Poland. Many of our family members are buried there in the Jewish Cemetery (Sec 59 row 12 plot 38 + section 74 row 23 plot 7). The name in Poland was Fargotstein, then Fargutzstajn. The story goes that my great, great, great grandfather – Mordechai Fargotshteyn – a grocery merchant - was killed by thugs one day simply for wearing a beard and Yarmulke. At the time he was married and had one son – Shalom, who married a woman named Perla. Shalom and Perla had 5 sons – David (my great grandfather a cigarette merchant) was one of the 5. The 5 sons left Poland, not sure when, but it was in the late 1800s. Here it gets a little fuzzy. My understanding is that they ended up in Mexico City hoping to make their way to the USA where they had connections that would help them get settled - everyone had a connection, even if it was a friend of a friend, and nobody entered illegally. After a period of time, they got antsy and one brother went to Argentina. One brother went to Australia. My grandfather, David and Shepsel his brother made it to the states eventually with them both settling in Galveston which geographically is near Mexico and had a port where they probably came on a ship legally.  The  other brother made settled in New York state.

Shepsel was a watchmaker and evidently he was close to my great-grandfather. I was told that once the boys (Sam and all) were old enough, David went back to Poland and died there. They owened a pawnshop in Galveston and my grandfather, Sam, ended up running and owning the store. Sam eventually married Sally, my grandmother –and they had 3 sons and a daughter. One of the sons was my father, Max. The others were Jack, Eddie and Becky. Sam had an opportunity in the early 1900s to move to Memphis to buy a watch parts company call J.H. Mednikow & Sons. He also had sinus issues and heard that Memphis didn’t have a lot of pollen and thought it would be healthier for him (we have lots of pollen). Eddie ended up staying in Galveston and ran the pawnshop until shortly before his death in the 1970s.

My father Max and Becky ended up running the family business that was renamed S. Fargotstein & Sons in Memphis for close to 50 years. It was extremely successful as a wholesale watch parts and then jewelry business. The company had a national customer base and was the first company in the jewelry/watch parts business to put in a toll-free 800 watts line. It would be the equivalent to being the first to market with a website. The business was sold around 1985, right before the wholesale industry nationwide went sour. The success of wholesalers was because they had the regional business cornered. Once the highway system was built their reach was extended and they made tons of money, but when businesses went nationwide in the 80s it harkened a new day. Federal Express and overnight mail made regional wholesalers obsolete. The Internet either killed the rest off or enabled them to prosper.  

It was not a surprise to me that Sam was considered an intellectual and a socialist/communist in his younger days.  I had heard that before, but never knew he was a leader in the Galveston Workman’s circle. With that said, he morphed into a capitalist in Memphis and became a reform Jew. To the best of my knowledge he was not involved in the Memphis Workman’s circle but I am going to ask the Temple archivist to check out the organization and see if the can come up with something. Sam is buried at Temple Israel Cemetery in Memphis along with his son – my father – Max Fargotstein.

I have a family tree on the Geni website. If you can get onto it you will see most of this. If you can’t access it I will give you my email and password but you have to keep it to yourself.

Shep Fargotstein

901-240-8102

smfargo1@gmail.com