Welcome To Weimar...?

Congressman Moran has said something unflattering about AIPAC. Steny Hoyer has condemned the congressman's remarks, apparently believing that not only does the State of Israel need a big brother to fight its fight for it, but the AIPAC lobby needs a big brother to fight its fights. Now pay close attention: someone was called "Hitler" and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was mentioned. You have no idea how unsettling it can be to be in the midst of a good afternoon's cup of tea and have one launched back in time to 70 years ago ( "La Jetee"-ish). I mean, Hitler. And Streicher. And Brownshirts. Just how long does an historical period last...after all the principals are dead? Now, if I were to say "I really detested Meir Kahane." would I be liable to the claim that I fully supported the Kristallnacht? Would I be actually claiming to believe with all my heart that Van der Lubbe started the Reichstag fire, not Goering? If I were to say "I really liked Yitzhak Rabin." would I also be claiming that I loved all the productions of the Jewish Theater that starred Molly Picon? I suppose life is a cabaret, old chum. Then, after this bit of nonsense has passed through, sweeping all sense of decorum after it, I was at the computer with the TV blatting behind me and Mr. Bush was speaking. Now correct me if I am wrong - and I wasn't exactly listening directly to the TV - but I heard something like "Where is Mandela?" ...and I thought "Mandela? Winnie Mandela? Nelson? Why is South Africa in the news? Are they finally going to look into the Stompy Stompie incident?" ...then ( from behind me ) I heard "Mandela's dead....Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas." I do not know how it is with you, but my cranium usually tries like heck to make sense out of what I am hearing. I immediately repeated the notice of Mandela's death - issued by Mr. Bush-and cast in into a Joseph Conrad form, "Mistah Mandela, he dead!". Then some nonsense like "where have all the Mandelas gone?...long time pa-a-a-ssing...". Then, since Saddam Hussein was, for all practical purposes, dead himself, I was startled and sweat burst out on my forehead at the picture of the long hand of Saddam Hussein reaching from beyond the grave and cutting down Nelson Mandela. Now, at this point one had to make a hard decision: have we actually slipped dimensions and entered some parallel brane-universe where all this made some sense, or had Mr. Bush-or myself-entered into a state of dementia praecox? It was later offered to me as a potential explanation that Mr. Bush was speaking allegorically. He had meant to use Mr. Mandela ( or Winnie, or both. It really had not been made clear.) as an allegory for something: 1) race relations? No. There was no substantial African population in Iraq since the Zanj wars. 2)imprisonment? Mr. Mandela had been imprisoned. However, Mr. Hussein did not kill all the prison population. 3)a political leader who, after years of trial and hardship, comes forth to lead his country. This last one made a certain amount of good sense, even though to achieve this level of understanding, the original statement would have to be seriously restructured into something like" " all the potential Mandelas were killed by Mr. Hussein." However, even this interpretation is dubious. I mean, how would Mr. Bush know? If our intelligence cannot keep track of things like Weapons of Mass Destruction...things which are rather large and hard to miss...how do they keep track of potential Mandelas? Furthermore, I am sure both Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney would have been and are much more congenial with Roelof "PIK" Botha than with Nelson Mandela. In fact, if we were to go back and check the record, I am sure that we would find more allegorical support for apartheid than for the ANC. Of course, Mistah Pik, he dead; couple years or so. However, as I mentioned, the mere brute fact of death does not seem to inconvenience us too much anymore when there is a political allegorical point to be made. So, what did that statement mean? Even a cabaret has to make sense, admittedly an disco-testosterone-frenetic-dancing-oligical sense, but sense. Perhaps das Leben ist nicht ein Kabaret?