On Newt Gingrich, Goldberg, and Rosenberg

Today, I offer a brief reflection on three authors – Jeffrey Goldberg, Joel C. Rosenberg, and Newt Gingrich. In the first case, we have a de facto lobbyist trying to finesse the US into doing a very dirty deed for Israel. In the second case, we have a de facto Jew for Jesus trying to paint a picture of how dangerous would be a nuclear Iran under a charismatic leader (the Twelfth Imam or at least an imposter). Case three: A shameless self-promoter aiming to become US President someday.

Jeffrey Goldberg

“Israel is getting ready to bomb Iran” – so claims the cover story in the September 2010 issue of The Atlantic. However, this lengthy article by Jeffrey Goldberg doesn’t mention Russia even once. As in: What might Russia do if Israel were to bomb Iran’s nuke sites?

You remember Russia, don’t you? Former superpower, which has nukes of its own. Don’t be too surprised if the Russians were to hit the Israeli nuke facility at Dimona in retaliation. Russia would be lionized throughout the entire Muslim world for doing this, and what could the US do? Really, what?

Goldberg’s article is good for a laugh for a number of reasons, that is – if you can laugh at intellectual dishonesty. For instance, he tries to tell us:

QUOTE: (One of Netanyahu’s Knesset allies told me, indelicately, though perhaps not inaccurately, that the chance for movement toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state will come only after Ben-Zion’s death. “Bibi could not withdraw from more of Judea and Samaria”—the biblical names for the West Bank—“and still look into his father’s eyes.”): UNQUOTE.

So, that’s it? Goldberg is trying to say, that only after Netanyahu’s father dies would he move toward Palestinian independence? He’s saying, Netanyahu is such a hypocrite and coward, he fears the wrath/disapproval of his living father – but would spit on the old man’s grave by so radically reversing Israeli policy?

Goldberg must think we’re pretty stupid but…you know what they say about telling a Big Lie.

Joel C. Rosenberg

True confession: I did not read Rosenberg’s novel, The Twelfth Imam, which came out in 2010.

Truer confession: I won’t read it – I absolutely refuse to waste my time on this type of crap. I happened to leaf through this novel while in a local bookstore, as I was drinking a coffee which I did pay for. This book, I would not pay for.

We’re supposed to believe the following (page 210): “And he [US President Jackson] has signed an Executive Order declaring that the U.S. will never use nuclear weapons against any other nation – even if attacked first.” Why didn’t Rosenberg write this instead: “… – not even in response to a nuclear strike against the U.S.” [sigh] I hate sloppy writing, though Rosenberg’s defenders will surely insist that his meaning was “… – under any circumstances.”

Now that interpretation would even bar US testing of nuclear weapons, for a “test” could be considered an act of intimidation (that is, in effect, a using of “nuclear weapons against”). For why would we test, if we never intend to use such weapons? The most cynical among us would point out, “But the Executive Order, as offered by Rosenberg, would not prevent the US from ‘loaning’ some of its nukes to an ally, who would launch them on our behalf.”

So, given all this, why wouldn’t I be intrigued to read this book so as to understand the rhyme or reason POTUS would issue such an Order? It’s simple (though there are other reasons): POTUS would never issue such an Order, for there could conceivably arise situations in which tactical nukes could be (reasonably) used.

I can’t imagine this novel would go on to say that, in light of this order, the US would proceed to dismantle all of its nukes. If the US won’t use these weapons, then why keep them stockpiled? Why not scrap them? If POTUS tried to scrap or had even issued such a Rosenbergian Executive Order, he would have been impeached. That is, we’re expected to believe POTUS would knowingly commit political suicide.

Since there could be no conceivable reason for POTUS to behave so oddly, not even in a mediocre novel, why would I want to read a bad one?

My other reasons: I did say there were “other reasons” why I won’t read this book.

·       Rush Limbaugh’s glowing review appears on the dust jacket.

·       Fundamental Christians are falling over themselves, going gaga over this guy.

·       Rosenberg is the toast of the town, being praised and highly sought after for interviews by a wide variety of media. That alone makes me highly suspicious.

·       Rosenberg became an Evangelical Christian, though his father came from an Orthodox Jewish background. He paints a plausible picture on his website as to how his conversion started and his faith deepened (at http://www.joelrosenberg.com/). However, all I see is a man immersed/drowning in the Abrahamic tradition – who knows nothing about Buddhism. For if he had such knowledge, he could never (as he did on his site) make this claim: “…He is who He says He is: the only way to heaven.”  Any good Buddhist knows that his own path to Enlightenment (“heaven,” if you must call it that) is based on the strength of his own personal commitment to spiritual practice, and not on any need for a Savior.

·       “Even though a U.S. News & World Report did a story dubbing me a ‘modern Nostradamus’” – according to his website – we should definitely take Rosenberg at his own word when he writes (on that same site): “I concede it’s uncanny that my novels have a way of seeming to come true in some way, shape, or form. But I’m not a psychic. I’m not a clairvoyant.” As far as I’m concerned, that ends the matter.

·       People who fervently believe in the End of Days are dangerous, simply because their actions could lead to a cataclysm, perhaps even to an end of life on this planet. But…the rest of the universe would carry on quite nicely without us, by which I mean to include the untold trillions of beings on untold billions of planets. Only our own arrogance makes us think the universe must end, simply because all life on earth gets wiped out in anticipation of some Savior (who Himself is working diligently on His own enlightenment/salvation).

On to Newt Gingrich

I will soon post an essay I’d written about another doomsayer, Newt Gingrich, who wrote the foreword to a book by William Forstchen called One Second After. I leave you with this quote from that essay:

QUOTE:

Basically, this novel details the struggle for survival which starts one second after a nuclear weapon is detonated at high altitude over each of three different states: Utah, Kansas, and Ohio. One second after these detonations, the entire continental United States no longer has access to its electrical power grid or any devices with EMP-sensitive circuits which were “fried” by the sudden surge of energy released by these weapons.

I want to be very clear about this: We’re being lead to believe that three low-yield nuclear weapons could serve to knock out the technological underpinnings of our modern way of life. No computers. No phones. Few operable automobiles and trucks. No planes, no refrigeration or heating units. No manufacturing, dependent on electrical power. Even portable power generators are rendered useless by this attack.

So of course my bullshit detector went into high alert.

:UNQUOTE.

Steven Searle for US President in 2012

“I very much judge men by the company they keep, and by those who embrace them.”