January 1, 2003

DECONSTRUCTING AMERICA



This time of year usually leads one to look back as well as forward. We want to know how we got where we are and what the likely near future will be. But Americans tend to have a short memory. This is why George Bush I, for instance, could confidently talk about creating a "New World Order," a course which his son is now eagerly pursuing, because Dad had supposedly left the job unfinished. Only those of my generation who have lived in Europe know and remember that Neue Ordnung was the slogan under which Hitler fought his WWII and pursued the extermination of Jews. He was actually more modest than Bush father and son, because he limited his announced efforts to Europe. Europeans who have experienced the disaster which Wilson's evangelism has foisted on the world are also highly dubious of the results the new Wilsonianism, which currently emanates from Washington, will bring.

When I look back at the country I came to in the late summer of 1950 and compare it with the winter of 2002-2003 I hardly recognize it now. Nobody forced me to come; I did so exercising my free will and volunteered to become a U.S. citizen. I saw goodness, a spirit of cooperation, willingness to help and kindness to the stranger. That was the country I wanted to live in. But I also saw New York. Although the skyscrapers were imposing so were the drunks sleeping on the sidewalk right off 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. The jostling and rudeness of the pedestrians and cab drivers, the filth of certain sections of Brooklyn and the Bronx also made me wonder what was going on and Goethe's words, "Wo viel Licht ist, ist viel Schatten" came to mind. Indeed where there is a great deal of light there is also deep darkness. It wasn't that city life itself repelled me, because I had come from a big city, but it was the arrogance of "we are the biggest and the best" by some of its inhabitants who thought that when they went across the Hudson into New Jersey they had gone slumming.

Just as I had to leave Stalin behind in Vienna there was the determination this is not for me, there had to be a better place. I found it first on Staten Island because, although a borough of NYC, it had a semi-rural character in those days. The real America, however, was in Minnesota and the rest of this vast country where people didn't throw insults at each other but lived in peace with their families and neighbors. There was the opportunity to grow and develop. As the Mayo brothers, who had stamped out a world renowned medical center in the cornfields had said, "Here is an opportunity, what you do with it is up to you." That was the spirit and the challenge. You had a chance and no one else to blame for your under achievements. We had different opinions on a variety of subjects but didn't insist that our own was the only correct one. We addressed strangers by Mr., Mrs. and Miss. or whenever appropriate by our academic titles. It wasn't snobbishness but in so doing we showed good manners and respect for each other. "Every Tom, Dick and Harry" was a byword if one wanted to refer to uneducated or nasty people. God was a reality in people's lives and honesty a virtue. People knew what the word "shame" meant. When Senator McCarthy started slandering people his career was finished with one sentence by the defense counsel, "Senator have you no sense of decency left?"

Little did I know in 1950-51 that in New York I had seen the future and that there was no escaping from it. The "elites" of the crooked axis: New York, Washington and California have imposed their stamp on the country and now the rest of the world is supposed to followed suit. But what does this Western civilization, which we are defending really look like? Yes, I can still write and say what I do but one wonders how long? The Homeland Security Act and the Patriot Act may soon regard opinions which dissent from the "party line," and there is no doubt that we have one, treasonous. People are already afraid to openly discuss certain taboo subjects. You can revile God, slander the Catholic Church, teach sex in school rather than religion, question whether or not we ever did go to the moon, but there is one subject which remains holy and that is the Holocaust and the safety of the state of Israel. These have become inextricably linked. It wasn't always so.

I have two editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The full 24 volume set of the 1960 edition and a CD ROM of 1999. A comparison is instructive. In the full set neither the word Holocaust nor Auschwitz appears as a subject. The persecution and destruction of European Jewry is covered in one paragraph under Hitler where it says, " in German-occupied Europe between 4,500.000 and 5,500.000 had been killed by the end of the war as the only solution in Hitler's view to the Jewish 'problem.'(This approximate total is a compromise between the 6,000.000 quoted during the Nuremberg trials and the 4,500.000 later admitted by German sources). The sufferings of other races were only less when measured in numbers killed. Such barbarism was indiscriminate, even where, as in the Ukraine, Hitler might have encouraged nationalist feelings to his own advantage." The 1999 CD reports in a long article devoted to the Holocaust that 5,700.000 were killed and there was no longer any reference to the suffering which had been inflicted on "other races." In the Auschwitz article the world is now told that in this particular concentration camp estimates of death "from all causes vary greatly, usually cited as between 1,000.000 and 2,500.000 but sometimes reaching 4,000.000." Yet, the November 25, 1947 edition of The New York Times stated in a report on the Cracow trial of Auschwitz KZ guards and officials that they had been responsible for the deaths of 300,000 prisoners.

Does it matter how many people were "really" killed? No, but what does matter is that the more time elapses the larger the figures grow. What is more important, however, for people who live in a democracy and believe in the freedom to investigate historical events as objectively as possible is that the Holocaust is off-limits. In Europe there are laws against it and one loses not only one's reputation but can be sent to jail even if one simply wants to scientifically examine the methods which were used in the perpetration of this crime. One may now say: Well, that's Europe. But how long will it be before such a law is being passed here? The leaders of the Jewish community seem to believe that by elevating and magnifying the Holocaust, and by stifling all dissent, the people of the world will develop more compassion for Jews. This is unrealistic because the policies of the current government of the state of Israel produce hatred rather than pity. America is seen as aiding and abetting these policies and, therefore, European anti-Jewish sentiments will inevitably arise here also. The current issue of Foreign Affairs shows a picture of an antiwar demonstration in Paris from October 2002 where a somewhat morose looking young lady holds up a placard. It has a picture of Hitler, with his familiar bullet proof uniform cap, in the top center who says "grâce à Sharon & Bush ma reléve est assurée!" This sentiment that "thanks to Sharon and Bush my revival is assured" is unfortunately not a fantasy and appeals to the Holocaust, or law suits will not prevent it.

The extent to which the Bush administration is beholden to the Sharon government is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that Bush's "road map to peace," which he touted during the fall, is being kept secret and was not released to the press when Sharon expressed his displeasure. This does not go unnoticed by the rest of the world and it is only a matter of time till anti-Jewish sentiments will spill over onto our shores. The policies of our administration make it inevitable. This is a tragedy and I am especially disappointed because I had put such high hopes on the Bush administration. I had voted for the man and was delighted when he was finally confirmed by the famous single vote of the Supreme Court. I had been deeply disenchanted with Clinton's performance in office and breathed a sigh of relief that now honesty and sanity seemed to be returning to Washington. I wrote and distributed Whither Zionism? in the assumption that our politicians might benefit from a brief history lesson on the Middle East which was obviously the powder keg about to explode further. It was ignored and events proceeded from bad to worse. Prior to 9/11 our president seemed singularly disinterested in foreign policy, until the wake-up call came. On September 11 he was confronted with a choice between vengeance and justice. He chose vengeance and we have not yet seen the outcome of that decision. Let there be no doubt, Bush's reaction to Osama's challenge was not foreordained. It was a deliberate, conscious, but possibly impulsive choice. He announced that war had been declared on the United States and the rattlesnake motto, "don't tread on me" was invoked. Bush would show the world whom they were dealing with. Are we rattlesnakes, or human beings? When one considers the size of our country and its economy, the 9/11 tragedy can be compared to a mosquito bite. Bush has elevated it into blood poisoning with an ever increasing drain on lives and resources.

In last month's installment I mentioned Bob Woodward's statement that Bush characterized himself as a "gut player." This assessment was repeated in the current issue of Time magazine. In the article "Double-Edged Sword" the relationship between Bush and his Vice President is discussed. "Bush had the zeal to make the war on terrorism his mission; Cheney provided the theology. 'With Bush, it's all gut; its visceral,'a White House official says.'He hates Saddam. He's an evil guy who tried to assassinate his dad, and he's gonna get him... '" Do we have a Captain Ahab at the helm of our ship of state who will go after his white whale, come hell or high water? This surely is a chilling thought. His crew of Cheney, Rumsfeld and their supporters keep cheering him on and there is only the lonesome General Powell who is likely to be swept aside in the events of the next month.

Barring divine intervention the war with Iraq seems all but inevitable. Obviously the Lord has a number of options which range from helping Iraqi colonels assassinate Saddam, a massive devastating earthquake that levels the center of Washington and gets rid of all politicians, an invasion by space aliens and the like. But apart from the first one these seem rather unlikely and fate will take its course. At some point in the next 6 weeks the inspectors are likely to be ordered out of Iraq, regardless of what they do or don't find, just as happened in 1998 when Clinton sent a few rockets. This time it won't be just rockets but boots will follow. This is inevitable because one cannot possibly assemble such a vast invasion force in the Gulf States, as we are doing now, and then tell the troops, "Thanks for coming, but it's time to go home!" This is so preposterous that it need not be discussed further.

The only question is the date when the sky over Baghdad will be raining bombs again. Our president may have to coordinate this with his "good friend" Ariel. Sharon has an election coming up on January 28 and is likely to win. His opponent the well-meaning mayor of Haifa, who runs on the sensible platform of disengagement from the occupied territories, will probably get beaten. Sanity is not in demand; neither here nor in Israel. Once Sharon is firm in the saddle again there is nothing that can stop the war because the map of the Middle East needs to be redrawn in Israel's favor. There are already rumblings from Jerusalem that Sharon is not happy about the Lebanese who had the audacity to drill a well in their own country which diverts water from the Jordan river upon which Israel depends. They also tolerate Hizbollah which intermittently sends some rockets into Galilee, and since they wouldn't do so without Syrian support this state which "harbors terrorists" will also have to be democratized by military means. Furthermore, this could be finally the opportunity to get rid of the Palestinians who can be expelled into Jordan and this country will likewise become a democracy under joint Israeli-U.S. protection. Then the dream of a Greater Israel, some Zionists had longed for since the establishment of the state, will have been realized. This is not total fantasy because we have been told that the U.S. and Israeli Chiefs of Staff are coordinating their plans for the upcoming war.

There is no doubt that all of this is militarily feasible because the mentioned states are simply no match for our "precision weapons" with their "depleted" uranium war heads which smash through whatever is in their way and subsequently leave it as a radioactive health hazard for ever and ever more. That this is a fact of life is testified to by the remainder of Iraqi and Serbian tanks in their respective battlefields. All right, we have achieved our military objective, now what? We are going home and let the rest of the world clean up the mess we have left behind? This seems to be the thinking of our planners. But Mars has a nasty habit that once his door has been opened he enjoys himself to such an extent that he is loath to go back and have the door shut on him again. The above painted scenario assumes that after we've "democratized" the mentioned states we are free to go after the junior partner of the axis of evil, Kim Jong Il, get rid of his bomb and then liberate the Iranians from their ayatollahs. Oil will flow in abundance, the economy will boom and re-election is in the bag. The Wilsonian dream has been achieved, the world is safe for democracy, the messianic kingdom has arrived and will endure as Pax Americana forever. Is this really how the people who are responsible for our future see the world?

The fly in the ointment is those nasty Muslim extremists who are supposed to stay quiet and keep Musharraf, as well as all our other clients in the area, in office. They may not be inclined to do so and are bound to extract their price from us by continued terror attacks. Regardless how many laws and restrictions are being passed there is simply no way to make us "safe." Again, Israel is the model and the warning. They went this route since 1967 and are currently worse off than they were before that war. This is a lesson one doesn't want to hear about and will, therefore, have to be relearned.

But back to the title of this essay and Deconstructionism because this is what our leadership and intellectuals are engaged in. The word did not exist as a concept in the 1960 Encyclopedia Britannica but it does show up on the mentioned CD ROM. When I looked for it, the article on Nietzsche appeared. He was the father with his Umwertung aller Werte, transvaluation of all values, which his as well as Freud's disciples put into practice. The phenomenal irony is that Nietzsche's evil genius was released by microscopic worms, spirochetes, which slowly but surely ate up his brain. We have to thank a prostitute for this gift to the world. Had he not lost, due to syphilis, the function of parts of his frontal lobes, he would not have shown this phenomenal lack of inhibition and he would not have produced the books he became famous for. Die Geburt der Tragoedie, Morgenroete , Froehliche Wissenschaft and whatever else he had published prior to 1883 wouldn't have made a ripple among intellectuals. It was Zarathustra and what followed thereafter, written in a manic state, which cemented his fame.

It surely makes one wonder what runs this world. Maybe Empedocles had the answer twenty four hundred years ago. He posited the cyclical dominance of one of two forces: Love and Strife. While Love is constructive, Strife tears apart. In the nineteen-fifties we still had Love in this country, it degenerated into Lust and now Strife rules. How long will it be before Love has a chance to return?
 
 
 
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