Only a dumb fish would complain if a man were to say: “I never eat fish, and I do not intend to eat fish”. Only the dumbest fish would condemn the man as a bigot: “What! He does not like us!” And yet, our Muslim American friends apparently emulate the stupid fish when speaking of Donald Trump.
I spoke well of Trump. My Radical Muslim American friend screamed on a list serve: “And what about his racist remarks about Muslims that are akin to those made about Jews not all that long ago? Shall we accept him on that basis as well as his sick stand on overweight women? Do we overlook all that???????????????????!!!!!”
He referred to Trump’s idea to ban Muslims from migrating to the US. Indeed this sounds awful, and the comparison with Jews has been made often.
However, I’ll tell you: if Trump would promise to ban the Russians (instead of Muslims) from migrating to the US, these sensible people would applaud him vigorously instead of calling him a bigot. If he were to send back home all the Russians who migrated since 1990, they would name streets after him. For two reasons:
1) Migration to the US is a serious brain-drain and a problem for Russia – and for all other nations as well. Well-educated specialists, doctors and engineers, technicians and accountants leave their home countries and bring their precious human capital to the US.
2) What’s worse, many important Russians prepare to leave for the US, and whatever they do at home is done for the good of the US, rather than for the good of their own country.
Look, for instance, at Mr Andrei Kozyrev, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and now a happy burgher of Florida. He was a predecessor of mighty Sergey Lavrov and a successor to the iron man Andrei Gromyko, “Mr Nyet”, but he could be called “Mr Da”, Da being Yes in Russian.
A full paid and owned CIA agent in his position would never be able to wreck as much damage to Russia as Mr Kozyrev did. He was the man who brought NATO eastwards, all the way to Russian border. He was the man who withdrew the Russian Army from Germany without any strings attached. He said that national interests (of Russia) are of no importance next to human (read: Western) values. He supported sanctions and the tribunal on Serbia, he stopped Cuban trade and almost destroyed Cuba. He sold his country down the river, and now he lives in the US and advisesthe government how can they overthrow Mr Putin and institute “regime change”.
It would be nice if Mr Trump were to deport Mr Kozyrev and his ilk back to his Mother Russia. This would teach present-day-Kozyrevs to remain loyal to their country. Russians would applaud the blessed bigotry of the new American president.
What is true regarding the Russians, is also true regarding the Muslims, and all the rest. Immigration is a way to accept turncoats and to pick brains. A good Muslim doctor moves to the US: this means a Muslim country will have to do without a doctor. A Muslim politician moves to the US: this means the man worked for the US benefit for many years.
You know immigration is bad for the receiving country’s workers, but immigration is bad for the donor countries, as well. If I were an American Muslim (and I am neither), I’d vote for Mr Trump because of his promise to ban Muslim immigration. If I care for Mexico, I’d vote for Mr Trump because of his promise to build the wall between the states. Via this porous border the US sucks out most dynamic men and women from Mexico.
Yes, but what about comparison with the Jews? Indeed, the US would be much better off with less Jewish immigration, as well. There would be fewer Nulands and Kagans, fewer neo-cons, fewer AIPAC activists and ADL enforcers. Can you imagine the US without Abe Foxman’s influence? The Hollywood without Holocaust films? The US without the Iraq war, the US without its Israel Lobby? Isn’t it a dream? Isn’t it worth to overlook bigotry for such a goal?
Anyway, bigotry is a new-fangled offence, an offence our fathers were blissfully unaware of. It is an invention of our days. Indeed old sunburned British colonels in India were described as “bigots”, but it was not a strong epithet, rather on the level of “buffoon”. The Jews never are bigots: they do not allow Palestinians even to use the same highways the Jews use in their Jewish state, but they are no bigots, oh no. This social offence is a mortal sin for Gentiles only, for if today a man would refer to a Muslim or a Black as such, tomorrow he may call a Jew – “Jew”, God save us from such eventuality.
There is no harm to be described as a Black, or an Anglo, or a Jew. These are old venerable communities, alas, disintegrating now under the onslaught of mass migration and neoliberal robbery. Each one of them supplied their best sons and daughters for the common good, while their worst sons tried to pinch what they could for their own benefit. Only a silly man would act on cue the moment he hears his community is referred to in less than flattering terms.
I was impressed by Trump hesitating to condemn David Duke, the man whose condemnation is de rigeur because some forty years ago he was a card-carrying member of the Ku-Klux-Klan. Forty years is a very long time, but David Duke is forever barred from participation in discourse for he was a KKK leader, but Yossi Halevy, an ex-member of the Kahane Gang (equally racist) writes for the New Republic . Amitai Etzioni, a tenured professor at George Washington University, called for nuclear world war. David Duke never reached this level of bestiality, but he is excluded from discourse while they are not. Trump is really a strong brave man if he dared to hesitate a second before condemning Duke. Now he can swallow poisonous snakes and drink liquid fire.
Trump said the Muslims danced for joy on 9/11. Well, not only Muslims but all the World outside of the US was pleased with the fall of the Twin Towers. The French thinker Baudrillard penned “We all wanted it.” I wrote about 9/11:
They [the perpetrators] could be practically anybody: American Nationalists, American Communists, American Fundamentalist Christians, American Anarchists, anybody who rejects the twin gods of the dollar and the M-16, who hates the stock market and interventions overseas, who dreams of America for Americans, who does not want to support the drive for world domination. They could be Native Americans returning to Manhattan, or Afro-Americans who still have not received compensation for slavery.
They could be foreigners of practically any extraction, as Wall Street and the Pentagon ruined many lives of people all over the globe. Germans can remember the fiery holocaust of Dresden with its hundreds of thousands of peaceful refugees incinerated by the US Air Force. Japanese will not forget the nuclear holocaust of Hiroshima. The Arab world still feels the creeping holocaust of Iraq and Palestine. Russians and East Europeans feel the shame of Belgrade avenged. Latin Americans think of American invasions of Panama and Granada, of destroyed Nicaragua and defoliated Colombia. Asians count their dead of Vietnam war, Cambodia bombings, Laos CIA operations in millions. Even a pro-American, Russian TV broadcaster could not refrain from saying, ‘now Americans begin to understand the feelings of Baghdad and Belgrade’.
They could be anybody who lost his house to the bank, who was squeezed from his work and made permanently unemployed, who was declared an Untermensch by the new Herrenvolk . They could be Russians, Malaysians, Mexicans, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Congolese, Brazilians, Vietnamese, as their economy was destroyed by the duo of Wall Street and the Pentagon. They could be anybody, and they are everybody. Their identity is quite irrelevant as their message is more important than their personalities, and their message is read loud and clear in the choice of targets.
So Mr Trump was not wrong, after all: millions of Muslims, among others, were happy at that day. Surely not all, but he never said all.
If I were a self-conscious American Muslim, one who cares for Islam, I’d say to myself: which candidate, if elected, will do less harm to the Ummah, to the Muslim world? Should I support the lady who was so beastly joyous at watching the horrible brutal death of a Muslim ruler, Muammar Gadhafi? Should I support the lady who will do this week her star appearance at AIPAC conference, pledging to do Israel’s bidding for the next four years? Or, for that matter, should I support Ted Cruz who takes his orders in Tel Aviv, or should I rather support the man whom Cruz accused of being an enemy of Israel?
Surely this was a wrongful accusation; Trump has Jewish sons-in-law; but still, nobody yet accused other candidates of ever failing to do Israel’s will.
In my view, the faults usually ascribed to Mr Trump are really minor. Buffoon? Narcissus? Bigot? Who cares. The next you’ll say his personal hygiene is nor perfect. That he farts in public. Such accusations would be of value while picking a guest to stay over weekend.
We are in front of two huge trials of totally different magnitude. Dirty nails and loud farting do not come close to that. And the next US president will have to deal with that.
The Pentagon asks for a cool trillion dollars to create a brand new generation of nuclear weapons. They call it “upgrading”, but experts say these are new weapon systems, more deadly, more precise and more likely to be used. This is a new Hiroshima in making, and this time perhaps the Russian bodies will flay in the nuclear heat, while the Americans will be incinerated by the new generation of Russian missiles. President Obama, God bless him, did not authorise it yet. We – and I mean the world, not the squeamish scribes – need to stop this program dead. Donald Trump is likely to avoid this folly. For this price, he can call me a kike all day long, if it suits him.
The US administration initiated three programs: TISA, TPP, TTIP ; if completed, they will enslave mankind and kill the vestiges of democracy we enjoy. Obama’s Democrats are pushing for it. This is really even more dangerous than the nuclear weapons of new generation. This monster has to be stopped. Donald Trump is likely to do it, for these programs are the epitome of whatever he fought against.
These two items are most urgent and more important than any complaint against Trump. He does not like obese women? Who cares? Let the obese women manage without Mr. Trump’s adoration, if he will stop these evil designs.
President Trump is not likely to continue with the manoeuvres in South Korea, this touchy trigger of a nuclear war. Now tens of thousands of US troops are exercising in South Korea how to kill the president of North Korea. I do not joke and I do not exaggerate. This is the described aim of the manoeuvres, and they drive the North Korea president mad. Coming after the Sony-made and the State Department influenced film describing assassination of him, this is not surprising. If Trump will forget about North Korea, he will be the president I like.
Trump said he will not tear up the Iran nuclear agreement; he will not fight till the last Syrian to remove Bashar Assad. If he will, let him say what he wants about fat women, even the most upsetting things. My aunt, a doctor, used to say there were no fat women in concentration camps, so it can’t be a disease. This is probably sufficiently bad taste.
I am not sure whether any argument will work against billions of dollars the US super-rich spend on their ads against Trump. However, give it a thought: these nasty super-rich are not known for their benevolence. If they are ready to spend so much money to stop Trump, perhaps we need to support Trump?
In any case, we shall be disappointed. Marry, and you will regret it; do not marry, you will regret it, – said the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard. So you can marry, and yes, you can vote for Trump – even if you will be disappointed. Because if you vote for Clinton (or God preserve us, Cruz) you will head into nuclear disaster and enslavement of mankind. Trump is a long shot for sanity, but it is better than a sure disaster.
Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net
This article has been first published on The Unz Review