Wolff cries lack of political involvement

Adam Lidgett

For Former U.S. Congressman Lester Wolff, the country’s population can be divided into three —  “hawks,” “doves” and “ostriches.”  

The ostrich, Wolff said, is someone who pays no attention at all to what is happening in the world, citizens who metaphorically have their heads in the sand, detached from the world.

“We know who the hawks and the doves are, but no one has identified who the ostriches are,” said Wolff, a Congressional Gold Medal recipient. “These are the 67 percent of people who don’t vote.  They comment about what’s wrong with the government and feel changes should be made, but they don’t exercise a very strong right given to them.”

Wolff will elaborate on his theory behind hawks, doves and ostriches at a talk to be held June 5 at Temple Emanuel. The event was originally scheduled for earlier in the year but cancelled due to heavy snow.

In an interview with Blank Slate Media, Wolff described U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as one of the “hawks.”

“McCain came out and said we need another 10,000 troops in the Middle East to train Iraqis,” Wolff said of McCain’s February statement about his proposal to battle the terror group ISIS. “That’s a ridiculous proposal. We had years and spent billions of dollars before and it didn’t work.”

He described U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as a “dove” – someone, as Wolff said, “Isolates herself from anything going on overseas.”

Wolff, who lived in the Village of Kensington from about 1950 to 2000 and now lives in Muttontown, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1965 to 1980 as a Democrat. He was the chairman of the Asian and Pacific Affairs Committee while in Congress, in which he headed diplomatic talks between the U.S. and China. He was given the Congressional Gold Medal in December for his service in the Civil Air Patrol in World War II

 Wolff, who is the host of “Ask Congress,” a program where he interviews congressional leaders, said the country has yet to revise its spending priorities to reflect the advent of social media and changes in technology.

“I’m a 96-year-old guy but we have to recognize the changes that have taken place and perhaps discard some things we have done in the past,” Wolff said. “We have immediate reaction through the use of social networks to situations that used to take days, weeks, months or years to respond to.”

Wolff pointed out the important role social media played in the Arab Spring uprisings that occurred between 2010 and 2011 in various parts of the Arab world including Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, in which the effective use of platforms like Twitter and Facebook some have said helped organize awareness for the protests.

An example of the way in which warfare has changed, Wolff said,  are drone strikes in the Middle East.

“The idea of warfare — we’re building weapons that are really outmoded in the modern scheme of things when we consider what the drone has done to the weaponry that is used in modern warfare,” he said.

Wolff said he is also concerned with anti-Semitism and how it still permeates society.

“The fact is that anti-Semitism has existed for centuries and it’s going to continue,” Wolff said. “The answer to it is not just merely confrontation but education.”

Wolff’s presentation will take place at 7:30 p.m. at Temple Emanuel, which is located at 150 Hicks Lane. The event is free and open to the public.

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