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Oh Nikita, You Will Never Know
Andrew Stuttaford and Rick Perlstein both link to a rollicking Time magazine report on Nikita Khrushchev's 1959 junket in the States. It's eye-opening: Not only did the Soviet premier sit down with journalists and get his rude on with Eleanor Roosevelt (who bought—quelle horreur!—a newspaper ad welcoming him), but he got a white tie dinner at 1600 Penn. Ave. Perlstein puts Ahmadinejad's visit in that context.
Had America suddenly succumbed to a fever of weak-kneed appeasement? Had the general running the country—the man who had faced down Hitler!—proven himself what the John Birch Society claimed he was: a conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy?
No. Nikita Khrushchev simply visited a nation that had character. That was mature, well-adjusted. A nation confident we were great.
We had our neuroses, to be sure—plenty of them. But look now what we have lost. Now when a bad guy crosses our threshhold, America becomes a pants-piddling mess.
Some companion reading: Ed Koch on why Columbia's invite was a terrible, horrible, no-good thing. He gives us the usual litany of Iranian badness then adds:
President Bollinger, as an encore, why not invite Hugo Chavez?
But Koch doesn't provide any reason for putting Chavez on Ahmadinejad's footing. He's not funding terorrists... he's not threatening Israel... he's not denying the Holocaust. None of that. It's a perfect example of Tyrant Creep, when a pundit gets into high dudgeon and starts looking for other enemies to be scared of.
Jesse Walker on Ahmadinejad right here.
Syloson of Samos|9.26.07 @ 3:13PM|#
The thing is that if Hitler had been invited to speak at Columbia the oppurtunity to make a laughingstock out of him would have been presented to those at the event.
Paul|9.26.07 @ 3:14PM|#
I'm not sure what the answer is on this one. It seems to me that
if a "bad man" appears on our shores, fifty special interest groups
on the you-know-what end of the political spectrum yell incessantly
that this "bad man" wasn't properly condemned. Then conservatives
got into the game and started shouting same.
My take: You can't please everyone.
|9.26.07 @ 3:19PM|#
My take: You can't please everyone.
Uhh, shouldn't that be "You can't please anyone."? ;-)
|9.26.07 @ 3:22PM|#
Exactly right. Letting giant douches expose their giant
doucheness is what makes this country great (or at least use to)
being able to point to the disparity between the way we let shit
sandwiches talk shit and the way other countries control what their
people hear and read, has always been a huge win for our
side.
Now that we've won the cold war, one of the most depressing things,
is watching how we're becoming just like our defeated foe.
TROLL|9.26.07 @ 3:22PM|#
Krushchev was a rational science-believing atheist who was
politely humbled by Richard Nixon trying to sell him potemkin
kichen appliances.
Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, a superstitious fanatic from the
irrational land of flying carpets and genie-filled bottles and
thinks he is going to hell if he doesn't wash his feet and bow
towards home 5 times a day like some sort of human compass.
Scop|9.26.07 @ 3:23PM|#
Here's a thought: the only reason Ahmedinejad was opposed by "normal" people and welcomed by Columbia is that he wants Jews dead.
|9.26.07 @ 3:24PM|#
Khruschev even got a tour of Disneyland in 1959. Remarkably, America survived this cowardly act of appeasement.
Episiarch|9.26.07 @ 3:24PM|#
I think the seeming contradiction here stems from the fact that
Khrushchev was the head of a (bigtime) serious opponent/enemy, and
also came from a quasi-european country with whom we shared a lot
of similar cultural norms like parley.
A-mad is from a relatively weak state, is something of a
mouthpiece, and is (gasp) a Muslim with very different cultural
traditions.
Putin's a shithead dictator, but you would never see this level of
outrage if he were to speak at Columbia (and get ripped a new one
too).
It's a combination of A-mad not being big enough to respect
combined with it being an excellent stick for the right to beat the
left with.
lunchstealer|9.26.07 @ 3:26PM|#
Meh, when Iran tests a gets nukes and intercontinental-range bombers, and has just joined us as the other slice of bread in a Hitler sandwich, then they get respect.
ed|9.26.07 @ 3:32PM|#
We have no diplomatic relations with Iran, so dinner and a movie at the White House is out of the question, of course. There is much prestige derived from official state invitations. He is undeserving of that boost. I have no problem with official Washington snubbing the little creep. And I have no problem with an elite lefty college inviting him to speak. There's a difference between the two venues that reasonable people should be able to identify.
|9.26.07 @ 3:44PM|#
I'll bet Eleanor got a sweet deal on that newspaper ad. Some enterprising journalist oughta look into that.
|9.26.07 @ 3:47PM|#
What ed said: Khrushchev was invited by President Eisenhower as an official guest of the U.S. government. Ahmadinejad invited himself. He's been happy to present himself as a bad boy who doesn't play by the rules. If his feelings are hurt, he can go back home and hang a few homosexuals until he feels well enough to hold another conference for Holocaust deniers. Excuse me, but aren't libertarians supposed to believe that bad behavior should have negative consequences?
JBinMO|9.26.07 @ 3:49PM|#
"A-mad is from a relatively weak state,"
Weak state? Arent we supposed to piss our pants everytime his name
is mentioned.
lunchstealer|9.26.07 @ 3:49PM|#
ed's got a point. A-mad represents a government that supported the violation of a US embassy and the unlawful imprisonment of the embassy diplomatic corps. The Soviets played fast-and-loose with international law sometimes, but they never took such an active step to destroy relations between the two countries.
dhex|9.26.07 @ 3:50PM|#
[quote]Here's a thought: the only reason Ahmedinejad was opposed
by "normal" people and welcomed by Columbia is that he wants Jews
dead.[/quote]
yeah totally man. in fact columbia's jew killing summer program was
totally full, despite being six weeks and only two credits. and
like 1600 a credit no less.
how the fuck else am i supposed to keep anti-semitic american jobs
in this great nation of ours if our institutions of higher learning
don't lead the way?
i mean fucking christ, c'mon.
|9.26.07 @ 3:52PM|#
Is "Tyrant Creep" anything like the "Kevin Bacon 6 Degrees of
Seperation"?
Could be a fun drinking game...
Paul|9.26.07 @ 3:53PM|#
bow towards home 5 times a day like some sort of human
compass.
We have a gal where I work who's muslim. Saw her prayin' the other
day. She was pointed north. I didn't have the heart...
shecky|9.26.07 @ 3:56PM|#
This has to be the first H&R post to mention Chavez without the associated Tyrant Creep.
JBinMO|9.26.07 @ 4:01PM|#
"Is "Tyrant Creep" anything like the "Kevin Bacon 6 Degrees of
Seperation"?"
Actually I got a case of tyrant creep from a prostitute. Penicillin
clears it right up.
Underzog|9.26.07 @ 4:05PM|#
Achmadinejad made a fool of the Bollinger with his phony attack
on him and the young Kosmonol audience which is not intellectually
equipped to deal with him because they buy the nonsense of the
phony Palestinian
cause, just as most of you Libertarian clowns do.
In honor of your praise of the midget Hitler's visit to
the U.S., I offer some new links in addition to the fine links you
Ernst Rhoekm wannabes know and love:
1. Let's
restore Medina to the Jews
2.
Ari Schaffir visits a mosque
3. Throw the
Arabs out of all of Israel (including the LIBERATED
terrotories)
4.
Amendment of ban Islam
Ode Kahane Chai
There's no need to fear. Underzog is here!"
Some James|9.26.07 @ 4:07PM|#
I enjoyed this tidbit:
"Khrushchev's face turned darker; he began to shake his head,
clench his fists, pound the table, as the audience looked on in
amazement. "But just now," he said, "I was told that I could not go
to Disneyland. I asked: 'Why not? What is it? Do you have
rocket-launching pads there? I do not know.'"
dhex|9.26.07 @ 4:08PM|#
oh underzog will you ever stop being convincing?
i think not!
also please stop eating christian babies.
Syloson of Samos|9.26.07 @ 4:11PM|#
Underzog,
Whatever else might be said of the conflict in the Levant, the
whole "the Palestinian people never existed" line has never made
much sense to me. Particularly since we live in a time of numerous
relatively newly concocted nationalities (many of them coming into
being since WWII). Indeed, the whole idea of a nation is a
concoction. It is an invented form of social organization.
Accordingly, there was no United States until some folks decided it
would be a good idea to have such a nationality.
JBinMO|9.26.07 @ 4:15PM|#
Did anyone think there was ever a palestinian country? I didn't. But just because they didn't have a recognized country, doesn't mean the land they lived on is not thiers.
Scooby|9.26.07 @ 4:15PM|#
Paul,
We have a gal where I work who's muslim. Saw her prayin' the
other day. She was pointed north. I didn't have the
heart...
You know what a great circle is? For much of the US, the shortest
distance to Mecca is more North than East. From Seattle, you would
point 17 degrees East of North.
Syloson of Samos|9.26.07 @ 4:15PM|#
Anyway, as I understand it, the notion of a particular Palestinian nationality had its genesis in the late 19th century and picked up steam after that. That was at the same time roughly as a number of other national identities took shape.
|9.26.07 @ 4:16PM|#
There's no need to fear. Underzog is here!
A living, breathing parody. After much ridicule, Lonewacko learned
to stop WritingLike ThiS, because it made him look like a raving
lunatic. What impression do you think your tagline leaves on
readers?
lunchstealer|9.26.07 @ 4:17PM|#
also please stop eating christian babies.
Yeah, they're totally not halal.
dhex|9.26.07 @ 4:19PM|#
or kosher really. figure they drink milk and are mostly made out
of bacon, so that's totally a no-no.
plus you *know* that motherfucker puts thick slices of cheese on
them shits.
|9.26.07 @ 4:21PM|#
also please stop eating christian babies.
UnderZOG - you have any recipes for making Christian babies in
Matzos? I've been meaning to try that with Hindu babies, as they
are supposed to be spicier.
|9.26.07 @ 4:24PM|#
Perlstein is dead right. Why are Americans wetting themselves
over the Lt Gov of a creaking theocracy with a Marxist economy,
that has to ration gasoline despite being one of the world's major
oil producers, which spent ten years locked in stalemate with an
army that the U.S. destroyed in three weeks?
Score one for Columbia: they provided a venue for Ahmadinejad to
make a dick of himself, and laughed at him to boot.
Minus one for Columbia: I thought Bollinger also made a dick of
himself and should have kept it short and terse. "Here's the
President of Iran. I don't agree with anything he stands for.
Listen and see what you think."
JBinMO|9.26.07 @ 4:24PM|#
Syloson, I could be wrong but I don'y think a lot of those groups were officially recognized as countries until after WWII.
|9.26.07 @ 4:32PM|#
I'd say that the People Who Call Themselves Palestinians have some legitimate gripes against the People Who Call Themselves Israelis. And vice versa. I tend to favor the latter because of their more Western outlook, though I think they're crazy, too. Still, it's hard to deny that the Palestinians got a raw deal. The Arab world hasn't treated them much better than Israel has, incidentally.
|9.26.07 @ 4:32PM|#
JBinMO -
Regarding recognition as countries -
What we define as "counties" today are actually nation-states with
defined territorial borders.
"Nations" of people have been around for centuries, as have
"states".
You can also have a "nation" of people that have no functioning
state or territory (the Roma of Europe come to mind, as were the
Jews before the establishment of Israel).
The idea of "Nation-states" (i.e. countries) is a fairly new
concept in the Middle East, more or less imposed upon it after the
break up of the Ottoman Empire.
|9.26.07 @ 4:33PM|#
One of my fellow old-farts just reminded me that Khruschev didn't actually get to go to Disneyland because of security concerns. But there was the famous ''kitchen debate'' between him and Nixon which was rather formal and gentlemanly. The point remains that in the decades since America has become in spirit a much smaller nation.
|9.26.07 @ 4:33PM|#
What next? Will prestigious Ivy League universities begin providing a platform to Noam Chomsky?
Underzog|9.26.07 @ 4:35PM|#
Bollinger was a real phony, bad mouthing Achmadinejad so the
alumni would not cut off monies to Columbia (which I hope they do
anyway).
This religious attachment of some of the hit and runners to the
phony palestinian cause is the real parody here.
Everyone knows that egyptian born Yassir Arafat is the rightful
owner of eretz Yisrael /sarc
"There's no need to fear. Underzog is here!"
|9.26.07 @ 4:39PM|#
What next? Will prestigious Ivy League universities begin
providing a platform to Noam Chomsky?
Ahmedinejad -> Chavez -> Chomsky -> Kevin Bacon!
4 degrees!
Everyone drink!
Some James|9.26.07 @ 4:42PM|#
So.....you're claiming NO ONE lived in present-day Israel before
the Jews moved there?
The entire concept of a nation is made up, really. Any American and
especially an Israeli or Israelophile should be sensitive to that
as concept of Israel itself is relatively recent, and Israeli
nationality is really some form of religious bind (though there are
Arabs that *mysteriously* ended up in the country) instead of an
ethnic one.
|9.26.07 @ 4:51PM|#
I've long advocated giving the entire region back to the Ottomans. Or, better still, to the Roman Empire. Or the Byzantine Empire. Really, to anyone but the people who actually live there.
JBinMO|9.26.07 @ 4:54PM|#
"Everyone knows that egyptian born Yassir Arafat is the rightful
owner of eretz Yisrael /sarc"
What do you mean "everyone knows"? I know more about Klingon
history than Isreal/palestine. But I do know that my tax dollars
age going to fund a turf war over the "holy land". It is none of
our countries business.
lunchstealer|9.26.07 @ 5:01PM|#
dhex,
wow.
I mean, "wow!"
how hateful can you be?
The answer is "hilariously hateful"
lunchstealer|9.26.07 @ 5:03PM|#
Oh, I made a mistake. Anyone but the people who live there
and anyone but us.
Oh, but not the French. Seriously, somehow they'd fuck the whole
thing up and then we'd send in 'advisors' and you know how well
that works out.
|9.26.07 @ 5:07PM|#
lunchstealer,
Yes, let's agree once and for all that we do not clean up any more
French colonial messes. I'm willing to maybe help out again when
Germany invades France (by way of the Low Countries), but that's
it.
Scop|9.26.07 @ 5:09PM|#
wow, I haven't read this much hate in a long time. I don't think there's anything "hilarious" about it.
Underzog|9.26.07 @ 5:10PM|#
If you know about Klingon history, then you probably understand
the Palestinians:
Klingons upon you, Rachel Corrie (Excerpt from the link)
By a poster called "Catepillar (sic) Pancake":
The Palestinians are a people with far less claim to historical
legitimacy than the Klingons. Idiots like Rachel Corrie are like
geeks who go to summer camp to learn to speak Klingon, but wind up
playing with live phaser guns. Note the Klingons were created by TV
scriptwriters 1966-67 as the alien nemesis to the Starship
Enterprise, a full TV season before scriptwriters at the Kremlin
invented the equally fictitious "Palestinians" right after the 1967
Israeli victory.
"There's no need to fear. Underzog is here!"
Some James|9.26.07 @ 5:16PM|#
So 60 years is long enough to claim a nationality, but 40 years
isn't?
Why was the Arab section of the partitioned land called Palestine?
What were the people who lived there to be called? How does Jordan
have a population that is 50% Palestinian if they don't exist? Can
they still be taxed?
|9.26.07 @ 5:32PM|#
"The entire concept of a nation is made up, really. "
well, yes. as are our religions, our systems of laws, our
languages, etc.
it doesn't make them any less important, or real, in the sense of
mutually agreed upon constructs that allow us to live above the
level of da animals. that's how societies work. see: hayek et
al
as for chavez vs. ahmadinejad, that IS tyrant creep. chavez is a
putz, but there is absolutely no comparison between him and
ahmadinejad. that's rhetoric on the ridiculous level, much like how
dorks at democraticunderground routinely compare bush to
hitler.
it's a similarly deranged pov.
lunchstealer|9.26.07 @ 5:44PM|#
Whit, if you consider the fact that A-mad is really just sort of
the Beeblebrox-style figurehead to a government that's really under
the control of a collection of bloodthirsty Ayatollahs, it's a
little easier to not take A-mad seriously.
If they'd actually had one of the Ayatollahs speak at Columbia, I'd
be less sanguine.
VM|9.26.07 @ 5:54PM|#
lunchstealer | September 26, 2007, 5:01pm | #
dhex,
wow.
I mean, "wow!"
how hateful can you be?
The answer is "hilariously hateful"
in this case, it seems to be "deliciously hateful".
mmmmm.
|9.26.07 @ 6:02PM|#
I just listened to the Teaching Company's United States and the Middle East: 1914 to 9/11, which was really informative, interesting, and eye-opening. I thought the presentation was quite balanced, and it seemed to be as fact-based as anything trying to deal with the region can be. My conclusion? They're all crazy there, and the United States should find a new hobby.
ed|9.26.07 @ 7:05PM|#
aren't libertarians supposed to believe that bad behavior
should have negative consequences?
No. Anything goes in the current libertarian regime as (loosely)
defined here. This is what happens when ideology is divorced from
philosophy. Without a consistent, defined philosophical framework,
libertarianism will continue to be viewed by most as crackpot
anarchism. And that's a shame, as a strong and vibrant
counter-culture of free thought supporting "free minds and markets"
is desperately needed in this country. When we go down, the world
will be doomed.
Paul|9.26.07 @ 7:48PM|#
You know what a great circle is? For much of the US, the
shortest distance to Mecca is more North than East. From Seattle,
you would point 17 degrees East of North.
Well, I guess this puts us into nitpick territory, but she wasn't
17 degrees east of north. She was maybe two or three.
Syloson of Samos|9.26.07 @ 8:02PM|#
JBinMO
No they weren't, but that doesn't mean that nationalist ideologies
weren't on the rise.
Pro Libertate,
Best that the Sassanid Empire be revived. ;)
|9.27.07 @ 2:22AM|#
I'd like to go on record as saying that if Ahmadinejad wishes to go to Disneyland, we should let him.
|9.27.07 @ 9:46AM|#
Incidentally, at almost the height of the Cold War, in 1949, Truman said he would welcome Stalin to Washington. (Stalin replied that he would love to visit America but his doctors said his health wasn't up to it...)
lunchstealer|9.27.07 @ 10:23AM|#
I'd like to go on record as saying that if Ahmadinejad
wishes to go to Disneyland, we should let him.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, you've just violated the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty! What are you going to do next?
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