Monday, July 17, 2006

Lawrence (Larry) Kudlow, CNBC host, columnist, and an editorial advisor at Pisspoor Media, is a Catholic convert who credits his faith with helping him achieve and maintain sobriety. But his Catholicism has limits, especially when it conflicts with a higher creed--the neoconservative agenda.

"Israel is doing the Lord’s work," he proclaimed today, a sentiment of which the Vatican would hardly approve, and which makes some of us non-believers want to hurl, preferably in his direction. "They are defending their own homeland and very existence," Kudlow continues, "but they are also defending America’s homeland as our frontline democratic ally in the Middle East." So when Israel bombs the Beirut airport or hits a viaduct, it's really looking out for us--I mean, U.S.

"When the dust clears the world will applaud Israel for its courage. Sensible freedom-loving people everywhere will realize that Israel’s furious response in the face of senseless terrorist attacks will have made the world a better place.

"In fact, we are all Israelis now."

You know what, I don't want to be an Israeli. Include me out. Pardon me for not wanting to be conscripted into the Israeli division of the 101st Fighting Wankers. I'm an American, a New Yorker, and a world citizen, and I don't see why empathy is supposed to reside exclusively on the Israeli side when Lebanese civilians are suffering so. Why I should identity with the humanity of those fleeing Haifa and not with those fleeing Beirut? Is this supposed to make me want to become an honorary Israeli?

We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.