| August
21 , 2006
The Flying Faker
Mayor Bloomberg Goes
to "Post-Catholic" Ireland
By LENNI
BRENNER
It’s
on! Michael Bloomberg, New York’s Mayor, is going to Ireland.
He will fly into West International Airport on August 22 in a private
plane. About 200 people plus TV crews are coming with him.
An
8:00 a.m. breakfast at Sligo Town Hall opens his public day. Then
he will give an 11:00 a.m. speech at the dedication ceremony for
an “Ireland National Monument to the Fighting 69th Infantry
Regiment, New York National Guard,” in Ballymote Town Park,
Sligo. There will be a reception after the monument unveiling.
That
“legendary Irish Brigade,” was founded in 1851 by immigrants.
“Our city takes enormous pride in the Fighting 69th, and there
is no more fitting tribute to those who have marched under its green
flag than a monument on Irish soil.” Except that today’s
69th, part of the occupying army in Iraq, is no more Irish than
any other US regiment.
What
else will he discuss? In his 1997 memoir he mused that he’d
make a great “mayor, governor or president.” Recently
New York newspapers have carried stories about him running for President
in 2008. To say the least, most journalists were surprised. None
had ever considered him as qualified for the post.
But
NY’s weekly Irish Voice reports that “The trip to Ireland,
to remote Co. Sligo, no less, is an interesting step by the mayor
who, it is hinted, might want to spend up to $500 million of his
fortune on a presidential run as a third party candidate.”
The
Minister of Foreign Affairs recently spent $37,000 lobbying US politicians
on behalf of the McCain-Kennedy immigration law reform bill, benefiting
an estimated 60,000 Irish illegals. Bloomberg just testified in
favor of reform.
He
will be happy if the press asks about it. In any case be certain
that he will let Irish-American voters know about his passion for
rights for illegal Irish immigrants. Yes, the minute he saw recent
massive New York illegal immigrant rights demos, he woke from the
dead and leaped onto the popular bandwagon.
Will
he also announce an investment in Ireland? Or hail it as a great
place for others to invest? Or encourage Irish capital to invest
in his city, home of so many Irish? No one should be “shocked,
shocked” if any of these happened.
With
$5.1 billion, he is the 40th richest American. Bloomberg LP data
terminals are world wide and the 7/18 New York Times reported that
“20% of American foreign investment is now committed to Ireland.”
What
won’t he discuss? The words “legalize marijuana,’
widely used in New York and Ireland, will not exactly leap from
his mouth. But that’s not to say that he doesn’t have
an opinion. According to the 4/16/01 issue of New York magazine,
“Ask him if he ever smoked a joint in the past, and he replies,
‘You bet I did, and I enjoyed it.’”
That
helped him win that year’s mayoral election. In modern America,
if a politician says he never smoked pot, media folks, who all did
or do puff away, hold him in contempt. Admitting to having smoked
it establishes your credentials as ‘a regular guy,’
who of course gave it up and is now serious. Sure enough, when he
took office he announced that “We should enforce the laws
as they are, and the Police Department will do so vigorously.”
Hypocrisy?
Certainly. But that’s a synonym for US politics, now his game.
In 2001 the magazine also asked how much he was going to spend on
getting elected. He refused “to say how much he’ll spend,
but the numbers that have been floating around go as high as $30
million. That’s TOO high, he says, ‘At some point, you
start to look obscene.’” Then he spent $74 million that
year and $84 million in 2005.
Obscenities
come forth nonstop from him. In 1995, before he thought of running
for public office, he was interviewed by Jerusalem Report, an Israeli
magazine. It informed its readers that he had “no particular
desire to visit Israel.” He “had a bar mitzvah in a
Conservative synagogue; is currently a member of one temple in Westchester
and one in Manhattan.” But, he proudly announced, “’I’m
not terribly religious .... I don’t spend time davening [praying
– LB]. If I don’t call God, he won’t call me.’
But he does have firm views on Israel, and on Jewish philanthropy:
‘I won’t give too much money to the U[nited] J[ewish]
A[ppeal],’ he says, ‘because of the hold the religious
have on Israel. I have one wish: Shoot all the clerics.’”
At
13, religious Jewish boys celebrate their bar mitzvah. They become
adult members of synagogues. The Conservative Judaic sect upholds
most doctrines of Orthodoxy, Israel’s state religion, except
where they conflict with modern life. Conservatives go along with
biblical bans on pork, shrimp, lobster. But Orthodoxy says no riding
on the Sabbath day of rest, while Conservative suburbanites drive
cars to their synagogues, often many miles from their homes.
Bloomberg
moved on from his family’s Conservativism. “Temple”
is what the Reform sect, America’s largest Judaic group, calls
a synagogue. They are a zillion miles from Orthodoxy. They and the
Conservatives have women rabbis. But they pride themselves on their
gay rabbis, while Conservatives fight over ordaining them. However,
beyond temple membership, there isn’t evidence that he believes
in any theology.
He
is the ultimate joiner. The Jewish mayor proudly says that, as a
teenager, he was “an Eagle Scout, and sold more Christmas
wreaths than anyone.” When he grew up and became rich he joined
endless charities, a few Jewish, most secular, because that’s
what rich Americans are supposed to do. His political ambitions
started when he’d call on other rich for donations. Give to
his charity and he’d give to your favorite politician’s
campaign. He was then a Democrat yet he’d fund Republican
snakes, Democratic rats, whoever you wanted. He has no serious principles
in religion or politics.
Whatever
his theology or lack thereof, he knew that Conservatives and Reform
are not recognized by Israel. They are allowed synagogues there,
but the state doesn’t recognize marriages or divorces solemnized
by their rabbis. So 1995 Bloomberg, nonpolitical businessman, denounced
Israel for denying equality before the law to his sect.
In
2001, he openly said he became a Republican only because it was
easier that year to win that party’s nomination. He then did
what every major New York capitalist political player does. The
city is 8 per cent Jewish, so during his campaign he went, for the
1st time, to the Israel he despised.
After
his election, he went back again with Rudy Giuliani, to show that
his 1st visit wasn’t just about votes. The confidence game
turned into one of the low points of his life.
The
ultimate electronic capitalist got sucked into a classic Israeli
photo-op. On 12/9/01 he had to follow Orthodox custom. He put a
paper prayer to God into a crack in the Wailing Wall. Its what remains
of Herod’s Temple of Jerusalem. ‘I feel your pain’
is today’s America’s most hackneyed cliche. But even
his enemies will cry over his anguish, unspoken but all over his
gloomy face.
That
was then. Capitalist politicians learn to do what capitalist politicians
must do. Soon he was off to Albania to visit Mother Teresa’s
birthplace. That excited Albanian Catholics, major players in NY
real estate. There are 150 nationalities in NY. US capitalist politics
as she is played has degenerated into an endless shuffle from nationality
parades to religious shrines and back.
Marching
in St. Patrick’s Day parades is a must. Five percent of the
city is Irish. But there are two rival parades. The Catholic church
controls the 5th Avenue event. Gay group banners are banned. They
march elsewhere. Bloomberg eventually had to come out for gay marriage
as gays are now a major element in the town. So he marches in the
Irish gay parade and also hikes up the avenue with the ever dwindling
followers of the hierarchy.
Keep
at it, you get good at anything. He showed up again in Jerusalem,
8/31/03, wearing a red, white and blue skullcap, and kissed the
Wailing Wall. No one is obliged to kiss it. Average American Reform
visitors certainly don’t. And I’ve never seen a Jew
in America wearing a red, white and blue skullcap. After all, who
wants to be mistaken for a shameless politician hustling votes?
He
traveled to Israel yet again in 2005. But the 3/17/05 New York Times
reported that the Mayor “acknowledged feeling uncomfortable
wearing his religion on his sleeve. In fact, he said, while he is
proud of his heritage ... he simply is not that religious. He said
he rarely went to temple except on major holidays .... ‘I’ve
always believed that God will, No. 1, look at you based on what
you did, not whether you follow a set of ceremonies laid down by
somebody else .... Religion, I’m not comfortable in talking
about .... It may be good politics, but it’s not me.’”
Still,
“Bloomberg’s aides seemed buoyant about his visit here.
It gave him ... a chance to show reform Jews like himself as well
as the city’s Orthodox Jews his emphatic support for Israel.
He made many statements that will certainly please that constituency.”
Bloomberg
differs from most American politicians, Democrat or Republican,
in only one aspect. These creatures would swim across vast oceans
of snot, stark naked, to get campaign contributions from rich pro-Zionist
Jews. He doesn’t have to. But Orthodox Zionists are an increasingly
important part of the New York Republican Party’s vote. If
he doesn’t give them what they want, they will take their
votes and money to the Democrats, who would support Israel even
if it murdered their moms. So now he proclaims that
“I
have always believed that the fate of Israel and the future of
New York a re deeply connected .... A strong Israel means a strong
America and a strong New York .... I have said time and again
that you cannot negotiate when there is a gun to your head.”
Soldiers
die for their country. Politicians lie for it. Certainly the guy
who wished that he could “shoot all the clerics,” AKA
Israel’s rabbis, didn’t “always” believe
that “the fate of Israel and the future of New York are deeply
connected.”
His support for Israel’s drive into Lebanon caused Sligo County
Council member Declan Bree to propose canceling his visit.
Security
will be super tight for the faker’s visit. The US is providing
special vehicles which will be escorted by the Gardai, the police.
Roads will be closed off and there will be random searches. But
antiwar activists should go to his events. Peacefully confront him
with his own words. Challenge Irish politicians who meet him to
comment on them. Send them to every radio and TV commentator, to
every newspaper in Ireland. If the Irish government said that Israel’s
military onslaught was “harsh and disproportionate,”
we can be sure that many media folks are even more outraged at Zionism’s
latest crime.
Politically
literate Irish know British politicians ‘play the orange card,’
demagogically pandering to Ulster Protestant fanatics. They won’t
have the slightest difficulty in seeing Bloomberg as likewise playing
the Zionist card to hustle the most fanatic of his country’s
Jews.
In
1787, America’s founding constitutional convention debated
giving the vote to the poor. James Madison, the historians’
“father of the constitution,” gave the decisive argument
in favor. Poor whites had the vote in some states.
They
would have been outraged if it was denied to them in federal elections.
But Madison realized that giving it to them had enormous potentials:
“In future times a great majority of the people will not only
be without landed, but any other sort of property. These will either
combine under the influence of their common situation; in which
case, the right of property and the public liberty will not be secure
in their hands; or which is more probable, they will become the
tools of opulence and ambition, in which case there will be equal
danger on another side.”
Bloomberg
made his fortune. But no matter how great your wealth, you only
know what you know. When the billionaire self-funder entered onto
the political stage he didn’t have enough historical knowledge
to understand that he automatically cast himself as the villain
in a play scripted by none less than Madison. His ignorance re American
history also produced a total lack of principle re the relationship
of religion and politics. This led him to demagogically jump onto
Zionism’s bandwagon, even as it marches into ever increasing
isolation, among Jews and gentiles alike. But now the Irish antiwar
movement can teach him a lesson, the 1st of many that he, America
and Ireland will never forget.
Lenni
Brenner co-founded the National Association for Irish Justice,
the American affiliate of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.
He is the editor of 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the
Nazis, and Jefferson & Madison On Separation of Church and State:
Writings on Religion and Secularism. He can be reached at BrennerL21@aol.com.
.
|