America Sees Red
By Israel Shamir
There is a Jewish
tale, in which a man is
promised that he will be granted any wish he chooses, so
long as his neighbour will get twice as much. After some
thought he states his wish: please put me out one of my
eyes! This is a very American attitude. An American refuses
to get free medical care, if the condition is that others
will get it, too. This we learned from the rallies against
Obama’s health reform. The slogans and ideas of the
demonstrators were just too weird!
A little girl asks how she will pay the
bill for the reformed health services. This little girl --
or rather, her parents – did not go out and ask how she was
going to pay off the bills for the Iraqi and Afghani wars,
how she was going to pay for the US involvement in
Palestine, how she would repay the trillions given away to
the bankers. Up until now, Big Government was good. It
provided billions for AIG - ok. Billions for a new fighter
jets - great. Billions to Blackwater to kill more Afghanis
and Pakistanis - fine. Billions to Israel - perfect. But
funding for health? What a communist notion!
The US health insurance problem is
something we foreigners can’t understand. All of us, whether
in England or Russia or Israel or France, have a national
health service; we regret only that it is not as good as it
used to be. But how can normal people prefer turning their
health into a commodity and making it dependent on their
bank accounts? This strange attitude is rooted in America’s
older ills.
The US is an experimental ‘project’ – to
see what would happen when a rather empty space is colonized
by people of diverse backgrounds, ethnicities and
affiliations, all moved by the desire to get rich and
knowing no moral inhibitions but the Smith and Wesson. At
first, they destroy the natives and the neighbours,
afterwards they turn to cannibalism. If the Americans do
not eat each other, it is only because they have found
somebody else to eat together.
America was informed by love of profit
and by hatred of communism. Her anticommunism is visceral,
brutal, basic, inherent. The United States was created as
the supreme sheriff, as the bastion of staunch
individualism, of ‘homo homini lupus est’, of rejection of
the notions of solidarity and mutual help. This was the plan
of project designers.
Human nature being what it is, this
satanic plan was partly upset by the inherent goodness of
men and women. There are many wonderful Americans, rebels
against crass materialism and unbridled greed, but they are
isolated in their milieu; the best American characters are
living and fighting alone. Such is Thoreau in his Walden.
Such is Ishmael aboard the Pequod. Such is the Old Man at
the Sea. Solidarity – togetherness – is conspicuous by its
absence from American literature.
Every
European state, from England to Russia, has its National
Health, for every nation considers self a living body, and
every member of the nation is as valued as a body part. All
these nations are or were Christian and solidarist. Their
citizens were embraced by one church. The US is different
because of the anti-solidarist and anti-Christian spirit of
her founders. Her Manifest Destiny did not connect to the
faith. The US founders openly denied she was a Christian
nation when concluding the
Tripoli treaty, and their
denial was sincere, because solidarity is a basic tenet of
the Christian faith.
Every part of American society – Left,
Right, churches, parties - are touched by this lack of
compassion magnified by envy. The US Right is obsessed with
anticommunism. This goes without saying for the imperialist
Right of Ronald Reagan and George Bushes Junior and Senior.
What is upsetting is that even the traditional
anti-imperialist, nationalist American Right (the “paleocons”)
are equally anti-communist and anti-Christian. I, for one,
hoped they would understand their mistakes of yesteryear and
become allies of other anti-imperialist forces including
China, Russia and Iran. Alas, while they do not like neocons,
and this is all to the good, they are no better themselves:
Instead of fighting Arabs, they would rather kill Russians.
In a recent
essay, Patrick Buchanan
glorifies Adolf Hitler’s Germany and vilifies Communist
Russia. He is sorry that the US allied with the Russians
against the Germans, and not vice versa. Though Russia is no
longer Communist, he would like to fight it anyway.
Mind you, I do not need smelling salts
every time Hitler’s name is mentioned. I do not think
everyone has to hate Hitler. I am at peace with people who
admire Hitler for sentimental reasons: they like his
solidarism, or German greatness or his vegetarianism, or his
treatment of banks and bankers or unification of German
lands. But there is a red line: people who admire Hitler
because he attacked Russia and/or massacred civilians are my
enemies too. In the battle of Stalingrad, I know which side
I am on. And Buchanan is on the other side.
Similar anti-communist and anti-Russian
notes prevail in other
far-right white-nationalist
writings. Be on the look out for the telling word “hordes”.
For neocons, there are
Muslim hordes, for the
white-nationalists, these are Russian hordes, as in Patrick
Buchanan: “By May 1945, Red Army
hordes occupied all the great capitals of Central Europe:
Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin”. He forgot to explain that
this happened because the people of these great capitals had
decided to try their luck in Moscow under Hitler’s banners,
and it may well happen again if this lesson is forgotten.
Our erstwhile friend
Tom Sunic came from his search for a New Right to the
Old Hitlerism: “The last shot in the European capital of
Berlin was fired by a drunken Soviet soldier, killing the
young French Waffen SS volunteer.” Well, God bless the
Soviet soldier, drunken or sober, for his steady mark, and
to hell with the SS-man, young or middle-aged, especially if
he volunteered to do that butcher job.
Buchanan writes of “the most barbarous
tyranny in history: the Bolshevik regime of the greatest
terrorist of them all, Joseph Stalin”. Hatred of Stalin, the
man who stopped Hitler, created modern Russia and
resurrected the Russian Church after the Trotskyite
excesses, is the common ground of these anticommunists. If
they care at all about the Russian people as they pretend
they do, they can ask them and find out that despite decades
of anticommunist propaganda, Stalin is much loved by
Russians. In the huge recent poll run by the Russian TV,
Stalin was chosen ‘the most important personality in the
whole history of Russia’ next to St Alexander Nevsky. The
Russians remember that Stalin became the leader of an
illiterate country devastated by civil war – a country of no
industry, of dying agriculture, of no money and of plenty of
debts, surrounded by enemies. He created industry, built
housing and roads, created full free health care and
comprehensive free education for all; he made Russia the
best educated country in the world.
Unprejudiced Americans may find Stalin’s
simple attitude to life and business rather to their liking.
He’d have solved the current financial crisis by dispatching
the bankers to chop wood somewhere deep in Oregon and by
canceling all debts. The automobile plants of Detroit would
be saved. When Stalin discovered a Zionist Lobby in his
country, he smashed it on the spot instead of surrendering
to them, while ordinary Jews who were loyal to Russia
retained their positions. That is why his name is besmirched
by anticommunists.
This is neither the time nor the place to
deal with impossible exaggerations of alleged Soviet crimes.
It is enough to state that they are fantastic. Nobody, even
Stalin, could have killed one hundred million people out of
one hundred sixty million, won a war and yet found himself
with two hundred fifty million at the end of it.
This sick hatred of communism pours out
of a column by another anti-imperialist right-winger, Chuck
Baldwin. This “alternative candidate”
fumed against the Chinese national flag, which is red,
being hoisted at the White House’s South Lawn for an
anniversary of the Chinese national holiday. He speaks of
“the extreme offensiveness of flying the Communist Chinese
flag”. This is “unbelievable, unreal, horrific, obscene,
even traitorous… for the communist leaders of Mao's China
are the Butchers of Beijing, and this proves …
the communist leanings of President
Barack Obama”.
Further, Baldwin spreads the
heart-rending story of the Chinese people’s suffering under
the cruel leadership of Mao. If Communist leadership is so
bad, how come the US is indebted to China to the tune of a
few trillions? Before Mao, China was an impoverished
semi-colony of the West, ‘the Chinese and dogs were not
allowed’ into some parts of Shanghai, famines were annual,
and Anglo-American navies studiously supplied the people
with opium when they weren’t busy burning Beijing Palace.
Now, after so many years of Communist tyranny, the Chinese
are a shining example for the rest of the world.
In any case, flying the Chinese national
flag at such events is not a proclamation of Communism as
state doctrine, it is just a normal sign of courtesy.
Likewise, flying the Israeli flag over the same lawn was not
considered by the sane as a sign of submission to the Elders
of Zion, nor flying the British flag as cancellation of
Declaration of Independence. It is pity that the Obama
administration allegedly got cold feet and decided to cancel
the event. This suppleness of Obama’s back is not a good
sign, as we have already learned in the Middle East.
The US Left is afraid of communism as
well. In many, many articles and responses to the anti-Obama
rallies, left-wing authors invariably stress the racism of
the demonstrators.
William Rivers Pitt called the
“white, middle-aged, overweight, pissed-off right-wingers… a
Klan rally minus the bedsheets and torches.”
Susie Day pretends that the
rallies were formed by those whites upset by Obama’s
mouthing off to a white cop.
I am not a great believer in racism.
Reputation of this sin is largely overblown, to the best of
my knowledge. The Russians, who are supposed to be racists,
loved Stalin, a Georgian. The French and the Germans,
presumably also racist, had a Jewish prime minister and a
foreign minister respectively in the last century. The
Americans had no problem electing the black Obama. So much
for racism. The American leftists who explain everything by
racism are barking up the wrong tree, and they know it – but
they dare not speak about the real problems.
This sick fear of human solidarity is
American society’s knee-jerk reaction. It was activated by
the Lobby in order to undermine President Obama. Because he
spoke against Israeli expansion, because he mentioned
Palestinian rights and sorrows, they fight against him on
every possible occasion – even on the issue of national
health. If Obama would just do everything they want in the
Middle East, his domestic initiatives would pass as easily
as a steamer through the Golden Gate.
Obama is attacked at every step. Look at
the Middle East: Israel wants to bomb Iran. The President
refused Netanyahu’s pleas to attack Tehran, but the Lobby
doesn’t take no for an answer. In the Voice of the Lobby,
a.k.a. The Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens
impossibly claims:
Obama Is Pushing Israel Toward War.
How? Obama’s refusal to attack Iran is “pushing Israel
toward a pre-emptive military strike on Iran”. The Voice of
the Lobby does not hide the fact that such a strike could
well usher in a “price of oil at $300 a barrel, a Middle
East war, and American servicemen caught in between.” For a
normal reader, the conclusion is clear: that’s why Obama
forbade the Israelis to attack Iran. But the Lobby’s sophist
offers another solution: let Obama’s America attack Iran
instead of Israel. Obama’s refusal to interfere with Iran is
presented as “Obama's pushing Israel toward war”. Begorrah!
While the enemy is active, no friends are
forthcoming to help the embattled American President. Many
of us received and forwarded an email claiming that Obama
supported the coup d’etat in Honduras. But much less
attention was paid when Obama actually
cut off US aid to Honduras in
response to the coup.
Sensing this loneliness of the President,
Netanyahu ridicules his mild and limited demands. There is
no other word for Israel’s response – that they will freeze
some settlements’ construction work for a few months. Such a
response is only marginally better than “shove it”. This was
followed by an announcement that some five hundred new
Jewish homes will be built in the teeth of Obama’s demand.
Obama does not dare to push intransigent Israel any more,
for Congress and the Senate are in the Jewish pocket, and
these powerful Jews prefer Zionism to Communism.
What a pity! Once upon a time, the Jews
were all for Communism and none for Zionism, and the human
lot markedly improved. In a remarkable
article, Winston Churchill
wrote in 1920s: the Jews are choosing between Communism and
Zionism, let us direct them towards Zionism so they will
isolate themselves and stop bothering us. His plan was
realised: Jews were seduced by the Zionist idea, parted with
communism and became its enemies. The result was quite sad:
the positive contribution of Israeli Jews to mankind’s
welfare is next to zero, unless you count the development of
new torture and surveillance techniques. Jews elsewhere
waste their abilities and time on the same rotten Zionist
project, instead of helping their fellow countrymen to
improve their lives. Winston Churchill lit a candle, and its
light attracts the butterflies who die in its flames. The
daring report of Judge Richard Goldstone is a first
harbinger of a weather change: despite his
pro-Israel sympathies he
condemned the recent Zionist atrocities in Gaza.
Now it is time for Obama to move forward
fearlessly. He should listen to his fellow- Americans. If
they are so upset and worried by immigration, stop
immigration completely. Send away illegal aliens, or
legalise those who have lived long enough in America. Show
people that you care about them.
Proceed with the health care. This field
is ripe for revolution. Only in a time of crisis can a great
leader enact radical reforms:
·
Borrow the
script from Illich’s
Medical Nemesis, and
minimise the cost of medical care. Do it the Cuban way.
·
Treat health care
like fire brigades – human bodies are no less important than
buildings. Nobody is amazed that the fire brigades are not
private. Turn health care into a public service, and make
all doctors public employees.
·
Ban private
medical care.
·
Provide medical
help for everyone, at the state’s expense.
·
Stop expensive
live-saving, life-supporting devices. No transplantations,
no complicated infertility treatments, no reproductive
technology, no heart-and-brain operations, no abortions.
·
Cut down
research. Let incurable diseases remain incurable.
·
Allow people to
get born and to die; this is
normal, as opposed to this morbid fear of death.
·
While he's at it,
nationalise pharmaceutical companies. Let them sell medicine
to the national health service at the cost of production.
Thus the national health system will
become good, simple, comprehensive and inexpensive.
Communism? Yes!
Good for you? Yes, unless you are a
wealthy gynecologist. And Comrade Stalin would approve of
it!
J