Monday, December 19, 2011

Newt the Impaler

By Jeff Huber

Newt circa 1465.
President Newt Gingrich (shudder) is likely to have a foreign policy as draconian as his domestic policies were during his reign of terror as House Speaker.  Newt’s cockamamie “Contract with America” that, if successful, would have impaled the nation’s middle and poor working classes ala Vlad Tepes, the real life model for Bram Stokers Dracula, long before young Messrs. Bush and Obama ever got a chance to.  While Newt’s domestic agenda channels Marie Antoinette’s infamous “Let the eat cake” decree, his attitude toward the rest of the planet can be best summarized as “Let them eat shrapnel”—the “them” in that statement being people who are Muslim and living anywhere within a B-2 bomber’s combat range of Jerusalem or American Israel Public Affair Committee (AIPAC) headquarters on H Street in Washington D.C., which pretty much includes all people who are Muslim.    

At the top of Newt’s wrong-color, wrong-creed, wrong-color target list are the Palestinians, who Newt claims are an “invented people.”

When criticized by his fellow GOP presidential hopefuls for his remark, Newt responded that what he said was “historically true” and “factually correct.”  That’s only the case if we view the term “true” in the context of Steven Colbert’s “truthiness” rubric, and if by “factually correct” we’re referring to the kinds of fabricated facts that conform to the sort of political correctness that resonates with Newt’s prospective rabid right voter base whose “conservative values” are rooted in cherished traditions like cross burnings and lynchings. (I'm in persistent wonderment at how American bigots who once hated Jews became I-Stand-with-Israelites once they were programmed to hate Muslims instead.)

The “invented people” meme was invented by AIPAC bull feather merchants to refute Palestinian claims of a right to a homeland.  AIPAC’s tank thinkers haven’t bothered to clarify who exactly they think invented the Palestinian people.  I’m guessing it wasn’t Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein or Mel Brooks’ either.  

It doesn’t take a historian, either a real one or a fake one like Newt, to realize that the people who invented the Palestinian people were other Palestinian people, and that Palestinian people have been making replicas of themselves since before the days of old testament references to Palestine.  If ever there were an invented people, it would be Americans like Newt whose ancestors, at the time that Old Testament Palestinians were making babies in Palestine, were making babies somewhere other than in America. 

Speaker Newt seduces an intern.
But that kind of clear thinking doesn’t interest a phony intellectual like Newt, who dedicates his acumen not to the acquisition of truth but to the acquisition of power.  And one of the best ways for Newt to acquire the kind of power he’s running for now is to align himself with whatever malignant purposes Israel would have him pursue, and to appeal to a fearful and hateful voter base.  

In that light, Newt’s stance toward Iran is hardly surprising.  Newt says we face a protracted ideological struggle with the Muslim world that will resemble he Cold War, and he casts Iran in the role of the old Soviet Union. 

Just shuck my jive, will you Newt?  Newt reminds me of a hard drinking retired Vietnam era Army veteran of my acquaintance who we’ll call Johnny Shiloh.  About seven Budweisers into lunch not long ago, the subject of refusing to hold diplomatic talks with Iran came up, and well, Johnny came to life and said the best story he ever heard on that there situation was about the hunter who ran into a bear in the woods.

The bear says, hey, don’t shoot, now.  All I want is a full stomach and all you want is a bear coat.  So why don’t you put that gun down and we’ll talk, and I’m sure we can come up with a solution that will give us both what we want.

So sure enough, Johnny said, the hunter put his gun down and the bear got a full belly and the hunter got a bear coat.  Johnny slapped his knee, and said, “Yep, best story on that subject I ever heard,” several times.

I said, “Johnny, in your story, the hunter is the United States and the bear is Iran, right?”

Johnny, taking a slug of Bud, shook his head hesitantly, figuring I was maybe about to shoot his allegory full of large caliber holes.  “Now Iran’s military budget is less than one percent the size of ours," I continued.  "In fact, our total defense related expenditures exceed Iran’s entire Gross Domestic Product.  Iran can’t project conventional power more than a stone’s throw from its borders and regardless of what Israel and its UN Stoogette Susan Rice bullied the International Atomic Energy Agency into saying in its latest report, Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program. 
Newt's lighter side.

So if Iran is the bear in this story, I told, Johnny, it’s not even a teddy bear.  It’s more of a gummy bear.  And how on earth, I asked Johnny to explain, did the hunter manage to get himself swallowed by a gummy bear?

Johnny took another slurp of Bud suds and said, “Best story I heard yet on the subject.”

By comparing Iran to the Soviet Bear, Newt is crafting a comparison every bit as asinine as Johnny Shiloh’s metaphor.  Yet people throughout the country are taking Newt seriously. 

It may be that America is finally ready for the Full Newt Monty.  He brings out the very worst in the very worst element of the American body politic.

So there’s an excellent chance he’ll win the GOP nomination. 

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) is author of the critically lauded novel Bathtub Admirals, a lampoon on America’s rise to global dominance. 

19 comments:

  1. A gummy bear, huh?

    A gummy bear with nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles is certainly a threat to someone. After all, a group with NO land, few weapons, etc., managed to bring down the World Trade Center.

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  2. Ah, James. What nuclear weapons are you talking about? The ones they don't have except in the imaginations of folks like you who accept whatever Israel says without proof?

    As for the group that brought down the World Trade Center: the hunter, specifically the CIA, the FBI and the FAA, were asleep at the wheel when that happened.

    You appear to have grown used to winning all your arguments by echoing "nukes" and "9/11." You might wish to try that elsewhere. Nobody here buys it.

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  3. That's actually an old meme on the Right, the idea that Palestinians are really Jordanians, and that Jordan won't allow them to come "home" because they're too useful to the project of undermining Israel. Newt's just giving the idea his own twisted spin with the "invented" line.

    I'm sure that Professor Newt knows full well that the reason Palestinians don't want to go "back home" is because they're already there. I'm equally sure that he'll say anything to get elected. I wouldn't assume, though, that he has automatic appeal on the Right. He's certainly odious enough for their taste, but they don't like intellectuals (even fake ones who tell them what they want to hear).

    It's too bad we can't tell which one of these idiots would really light the fire. That's really the only live issue in this election, whether or not the U.S. will start WW III to placate Israel's paranoid megalomania. And while I don't think Obama wants war with Iran, I do think he's more than capable of starting one if he thinks it's his only chance for reelection.

    Every thing else is pretty much a given no matter who gets elected; more debt, more police state, more military money laundering, more pissed off people in the streets, etc.

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  4. For a succinct summary of conservative values, check this out by Charlie Allen, singing “Grandpa’s Recipe” http://www.charlieallenmusic.com/index.htm

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  5. Nuclear non-proliferation has been American policy for decades. True, Iran does not have them. YET. The point is that this is an application of longstanding American policy. You seem to doubt Iran's own leader's statements that it seeks to obtain them. The question is, why?

    And one doesn't have to "accept whatever Israel says" to know that. However, one probably has to be an anti-Semite to conclude that anyone who takes Ahmedenijad at his word is "accept[ing] whatever Israel says without proof."

    And BTW, Gingrich has a professional credential --- a Ph.D. --- in history. I guess since it's a doctorate (whereas yours is only a master's degree), belittlement is pretty much your primary means of criticism. I wonder what Josh Hick's credentials are which permit him to speak as an authority on academic credentials? And, of course, when compared to President Barry's, Newt's credentials as an historian far outweigh Barry's as a "constitutional law professor." Having actually spoken to someone who had him (Barry) at the University of Chicago, it's readily apparent that his are inflated.

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  6. I think that you've wandered into a conversation a bit above your capacity, Mr Young. Your cheap resort to the ad hominem "anti-semite" slur alone disqualifies you from participation. Your other comments merit even less consideration. As an irritated Condoleeza Rice once said to Doug Feith (whom General Tommy Franks called "the stupidest fucking man on planet earth"): "If we want the Israeli position, we'll call in their ambassador."

    When the Apartheid Zionist Entity signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as Iran has, then please come back and join the discussion here. Perhaps then you'll have something factual and interesting to add.

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  7. Oh, yes. One other thing. America never signed any "contract" with Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party. In fact, Gingrich and his gang took out a contract ON America, which led to the edifying spectacle of the serial adulterer Newt impeaching President Bill Clinton for getting a blowjob. And this discredited, defrocked demagogue wants to expound upon government and its policies? Not likely to play, even in Peoria.

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  8. James, non-proliferation is not an issue if Iran isn't procreating, and they aren't. They don't have them YET. Neither does Somalia. Neither does Canada. You're making too many loopy assumptions. Come back with good arguments.

    Deb,

    That may be a succinct statement of what conservatives would like the rest of us to believe their values are. Maybe they'd like to believe those are their values as well. But they're blowing smoke.

    Mike,

    Nice point about the contract.

    J

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  9. JP,

    I never sell Newt or the rabid right short when it comes to how rock bottom their bottom is. I suspect they don't have one. In a sane country, Newt would have been laughed off the stage years ago. In fact he was, wasn't he.


    Well. He's baaaaaaaaaack!

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  10. Speaking of Republicans and their affinity for the bottom: after Newt's fellow crooks in the House forced him from their ranks, his erstwhile successor, Representative Bob Livingston, tendered his own resignation -- on the same day the Republican House voted impeachment articles against President Clinton. The reason: Hustler Magazine's publisher, Larry Flynt, had threatened to make public Livingston's own adulterous relationship with a female lobbyist.

    After resigning before even starting the job, Livingston called Flynt a "bottom feeder." Replied Flynt: "Sure, I'm a bottom feeder, but look what I found when I got down there."

    No one needs to find the bottom of Republican hypocrisy when the rabid reactionaries insist on dredging up Newt Gingrich from the bottom of Washington's corrupt cesspool all by themselves. Wherever Newt goes, he brings the bottom right along with him.

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  11. "It may be that America is finally ready for the Full Newt Monty."

    roflmao...

    omg, nevermind, brain bleach please.

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  12. I wonder that nobody else challenged James Young's regurgitation of the loopy assertion "You seem to doubt Iran's own leader's statements that it seeks to obtain them." given the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's fatwa and statements against weapons of mass destruction e.g. " The discussion of nuclear weapons is not in Iran. Our officials have said it, the people have accepted it, governments have said it, and I have repeatedly said we are not after nuclear weapons" (http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/ayatollah-ali-khamenei/), and their President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated statements to the same effect, e.g. "We have said numerous times and say it over and again: we have no atomic bomb, we want no atomic bomb and we need no atomic bomb" (http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/ahmadinejad-iran-does-not-want-a-nuclear-bomb-1.397301). If, unlikely as it seems, James Young has a scintilla of evidence for his assertion, it would be very good to see it put on the table, else, like this balance of the testable assertions in his diatribes, I call BS.

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  13. Hi, Hermit. Sorry it took me so long to get around to moderating this comment. I'll do better next time. I don't like filtering posts, but if I don't we'll have spam from here to Siam.

    Jeff

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  14. "I'm in persistent wonderment at how American bigots who once hated Jews became I-Stand-with-Israelites once they were programmed to hate Muslims instead."

    Persistent wonderment can be dangerous but in this case the answer is easy--the grand coalition was engineered by the Neo-Cons and consists of:

    (1) Neo-Cons

    (2) Fundamentalist Christians

    (3) Corporations and Financials

    (4) The Military Industrial Complex.


    Not to say there is not a great deal of overlap.

    The Neo-Cons, from ex-Trotskyites to Cheney, are of course all Zionists, whatever their religion or ethnicity and the Fundamentalist anti-Semites, like Reverend Hagee, were quickly brought up to speed and became Zionists too, loving Jews, especially if they are Neo-Cons or Right Wing Israelis. But, you see, "Semite" is ambiguous, since it includes Arabs, who are also Semitic. That made the transfer of hatred easy--you know, like pork, "the other white meat". Also the Protestants have never had a Crusade, so here was their chance, right? They are certain they will do better than the Roman Catholics, just as the Americans showed the French how much more expensively in blood and treasure the US could lose in Vietnam.

    Thus the attack on Iraq. Iraq, you say--how did that serve any of these interests?

    That's easy too:

    (1) the Neo-Cons aimed at an Iraq in shambles, for the benefit of Israel, which is what they have got, right? So Bremer's brilliance and the rest, including the sudden appearance of "Al Qaeda" in Iraq and a subtext of conflict between Sunni and Shi'a, which continues.

    (2) the Fundamentalists wanted the end of the world, which is apparently required for the second coming of the Messiah (review your millennialism and double it). And they are getting closer every day, eh?

    (3) the Corporations and the Financials wanted a return to unrestricted Capitalism, circa Britain 1860, which they have managed to do--almost anyway.

    (4) the Military Industrial Complex wanted war, which after all is their business and where the money is. They got what they wanted too. You don't think these Milo Minderbinders care who wins, do you? The profit is in the war not victory or defeat.

    So--all happy campers, more or less, in the midst of a worldwide economic collapse brought on by, well--a US run by 1, 2, 3, & 4 above.

    But, hey, look how much Americans sacrificed to help the Russians win World War II in Europe and defeat Japan for the Communist Chinese.

    So stop bellyaching and wandering around in persistent wonderment.

    Meanwhile, of course, 1 through 4 had the legacy of Nixon, which is a mercenary army. Not mercenary you say but poor people looking for a paycheck for their families and all? Well, that is also the story of Outfit hitmen, except they work for more extended families, mostly don't kill civilians, and get paid a lot more for their services.

    Then suddenly Obama, which was a kind of American Color revolution you see, on the model of Colin Powell really. Hadn't you realized, for example, that Obama's mother and stepfather were connected to the CIA in Indonesia where millions of "Communists" were murdered, and that was why he went to Pakistan, and also how as a young lawyer in New York he worked on Company contracts? So Gates & Company get to stay, the Financials continue to get their welfare, the wars continue and expand, Israel and the Neo-Cons still run US foreign policy, and the Christian Fundamentalists get their crusade and closer and closer to the finale of Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove.

    Is it all beginning to crystallize, for you, Commander?

    But that only scratches the surface. Coming up--what Libya is all about, why the attack on Pakistan border troops, the U-2 incident with Iran, and Obama as a kind of virtual and temporary FDR toward a second term and the Capitalist neo-colonization of Africa that follows.

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  15. I see little about your argument to argue with, Eugene. My "wonderment" comment merely reflects my fairly long-term (as a kid growing up in a pre-Limbaugh conservative town in the 60s) observation of the DNA-level animus right-wing Christ-O-Holics have for Jews, and how easily the neocons/Likudniks and their bull feather merchant marines were able to redirect all that racial hatred.

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  16. @ Eugene Costa
    are you the same poster who used to post on the antiwar.com website as E. A. Costa? I hope you are.

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  17. Regarding the easy transference of racial hatred [or love], George Orwell dissected that phenomenon at length in his classic essay, Notes on Nationalism. To cite only a few key observations:

    "What remains constant in the nationalist is his state of mind: the object of his feelings is changeable, and may be imaginary."

    "Transferred nationalism, like the use of scapegoats, is a way of attaining salvation without altering one's conduct."

    In other words, Christian anti-Semites can assuage their historic guilt for persecuting Jewish Semites by persecuting Arab Semites (and associated Persian Muslims) on behalf of Jewish Semites. This particular form of American Apartheid Zionism will likely persist among the rabid Christian fundamentalists until it becomes clear to them that the Jewish Semites have played them for suckers and have no intention of moving to Palestine so that Jesus can come back to either convert them or fry them in Hell for not seeing the light -- again. When that happens ...

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  18. There's actually a positive story about Newt in the news right now:

    Gingrich and Perry fail to qualify for Virginia primary

    I mean positive for the human race, not for Newt. Could not have happened to a nicer guy, in my opinion.

    We'll probably be hearing soon about how Virginians were an invented people, put here to make Newt's life difficult.

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  19. So, Michael, it's "cheap resort" to identify as anti-Semitic dismissal of an argument as "accept[ing] whatever Israel says without proof"? Wow. I'd respond to that characterization as intellectual contortionism (kind of like citing what [some] Iranians SAY over what Iran is DOING), but there would first have to be evidence of the predicate. I suspect you don't like "neo-Con" ideas in foreign policy, either. Why don't you just drop all pretense, and just say "Jew"? After all, it was not I who introduced Israel into the conversation. And it seems to me to be reasonable surmise to discern anti-Semitism in those who dismiss policies which happen to coincide with Israeli policy/interests as "accept[ing] whatever Israel says." Of course, you drop all pretense of YOUR anti-Semitism with the comment about the "Apartheid Zionist Entity."

    And it's certainly bold of you to declare me "disqualifie[d] ... from participation" and having engaged in "ad hominem." As for the latter, you mean like your attack on Newt Gingrich as a "serial adulterer"? Clearly, on the subject of "ad hominem," you know from whence you speak. You demonstrate your visceral and irrational far-Left credentials by your smears against the "Contract WITH America," and your misrepresentation of the reason for the Great Prevaricator's impeachment, which was for obstruction of justices and perjury, not for "getting a blowjob." Perhaps that's all of you on the far Left cared about at the time, but that would merely be consistent with the far Left's disinterest in the rule of law, devotion to destruction of traditional moral values, and fetish for sex.

    As for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran's participation makes me feel soooo much better. I'll bet you would have been a BIG fan of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1925 (?), which did soooo much to prevent another European conflagration. After all, that they have signed is so much more important than actual COMPLIANCE, and it's irrelevant that IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei reported that Iran had repeatedly and over an extended period failed to meet its safeguards obligations, including by failing to declare its uranium enrichment program, a predicate for the acquisition of fissile material.

    And Jeff, of course you're right that Iran is PRECISELY like Somalia and Canada. You know, except for the fact that the former doesn't have a uranium enrichment program (probably not even a nuclear reactor), and Canada obviously does not have the political incentive (i.e., commitment to the destruction of one of its neighbors; a hostile nuclear power as a neighbor) to have such a program. Oh, yeah, and participation in NATO, with two nuclear powers committed to mutual defense.

    As with anything else in foreign policy, the confluence of capabilities AND intentions are what governs the development of opposing policy, and it is the latter which are often more difficult to ascertain. Iran, however, has made its intentions clear. It is its capabilities which are cloaked in mystery, and it is only responsible, when this is the case --- as it often is with a closed society --- to cast a skeptical eye towards Iran's protestations of innocence.

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