On Monday at the Daily Kos, H. Scott Prosterman slammed House Minority Leader Eric Cantor as he praised Rep. Steve Cohen, the man who suggested the Republican argument on health care used the "Big Lie," just like Nazi propaganda specialist Josef Goebbels enabled the Holocaust. Cohen earned a few brickbats from media liberals, but kept up the Nazi analogies on MSNBC even as he insincerely apologized. While Cantor was the kind of Jew who survived in the South by being agreeable -- for example the kind that "looked the other way when lynchings occurred" to save their own skin -- Cohen was Prosterman's hero:
Why pull punches? Steve Cohen (D-TN) has been my political hero for a long time, and I have never been more proud of Steve Cohen. Steve has the balls and spine to call out the fact that Republicans are engaging in the SAME tactics that the Nazis did in Europe - taking a big lie, and repeating it over and over, louder and louder, until people believe it. Meanwhile, Eric Cantor keeps enabling the lie of the "birthers", by not calling it a lie. Cantor's career as a Republican apologist goes back to when his daddy was Reagan's State Campaign Treasurer in 1980...
Steve Cohen has been wrongfully vilified for speaking a truth, which the American media has avoided facing since 1980: that the Republican Party does indeed employ the tactics of the Nazi Party, by repeating big lies as gospel. I was disappointed that Jon Stewart took Cohen to task for this. After all, Cohen only summarized what Stewart has been saying 4 nights a week for the past 10 years. You go Steve. Eric - SHUT UP!
*Acknowledgement and perhaps apologies are due to Sam Greenlee, the author of the great book, "The Spook Who Sat by the Door." I recommend that book to Eric Cantor.
According to Wikipedia, "The title refers to a practice in the early days of affirmative action, when the first Black person hired by a company or agency would be seated close to the office entrance, so that all who came and went could see that the company was racially mixed. The word "Spook" in the title has a dual meaning: it has been used as a racial slur against Blacks, as well as a slang term for a spy." Prosterman apparently loves this book because the black man who gets CIA training uses his knowledge to start a guerrilla race war in Chicago.
In any case, this is not the first time Prosterman has attacked Cantor for beinig anti-Jewish by supporting Tom DeLay, supporter of Israel. In the well-named Ethical Spectacle in 2005, Prosterman accuses Christians of "genocide," with Cantor assisting:
Now those guys are running the country and doing their best to finish off the agenda they started in high school. President George W. Bush and Sen. Bill Frist are leading the way. Tom DeLay is trying to coat-tail it for his own political survival.
Eric Cantor (R-VA,) is a Jewish “moderate Republican” from Richmond. He is majority whip in the house and one of many young Republicans in Congress who owe political chits to Tom DeLay. How does DeLay hang on, despite calls for his resignation from colleagues, newspapers, websites and columnist across the spectrum? Everybody else owes him. Republicans contribute richly to one another’s campaigns and “legal defense funds”.
Between Delay’s support for most Republicans and his support for Israel, Cantor and other Jewish Republicans not only feel beholden to him, but have bought into his hubris. They believe he is politically indestructible, and that any criticism of him would be a bad career move.
But grandstanding about the evangelical mission of the Terry Schiavo crusade is hardly “good for the Jews.” Rather, it promotes the very notion of this disingenuous political quid pro quo. Attacking judges and the judiciary for their intent to uphold the Constitutional balance of powers, and separation of church and state is definitely not “good for the Jews.” The “faith based” agenda of allowing churches to receive federal money to further their goals is really not “good for the Jews.” Ultimately, the “faith based” agenda brings the focus back to making Christianity the official state religion of the United States. To their way of thinking, it would prompt all the Jews to move to Israel and be a real sign that “the Apocalypse is upon us.” But this use of the phrase would not be the punch line of a joke.
During my arguments with Jesus Freaks and their parents in high school, I was often re-assured, “We LOVE the Jewish people. Jesus was a Jew and we HONOR Judaism. We want to help ALL of you get back to Israel where you really want to be.”
Tom DeLay LOVES the Jewish people. So does Bill Frist. They want to help ALL of us get back to Israel so they can get on with their Apocalypse. DeLay was recently an honored guest at a convention of Texas Evangelicals; indeed he is the political face of their movement, and a Jewish Congressman from Virginia has bought into it.
Eric Cantor is a naïve and willing stooge in this Congressional passion play...
[Hat tip: What Would Barak Think?]
