The Terror of New York Values
By
Eric Margolis in Common Dreams
New
York values, claimed Cruz, are socially liberal, pro-abortion, pro-gay
marriage, and a focus on money and media.
What
Americans outside of New York in the heartland really heard was: “you are from
Sodom and Gomorrah, a cesspool of perversion and depravity, where oligarchs and
money changers rule the temple and the Antichrist lives in a Park Avenue
cooperative apartment and vacations in wicked France and drinks wine.
The
same rural prejudices animated America’s prohibition movement in the 1920’s.
As
a Manhattan-born native New Yorker, I must say that I agree with Cruz. New
Yorkers are horrid and their values are an abomination. If the heartland is not
careful, it could end up overrun by Muslims, gay honeymooners, pickpockets and
assorted deviants. I love the city.
Those vile New Yorkers even have the audacity to call
the United States between New Jersey and California, “fly over country,” as if
there was nothing of value or interest below. They have no idea of the
intellectual renaissance in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Clearly,
a lot of Americans do not love New Yorkers.
Each
summer I was sent off to camp in New Hampshire to escape polio epidemics in New
York.
Around the jolly old campfire, my fellow camp-mates would sing, for the
benefit of the few New Yorkers (who were all assumed to be Jewish), “all you
guys with long, long noses, come and join the fight for Moses, fight, fight,
fight for Palestine.”
When
I was in the US Army (unlike the fire-breathing Trump or Cruz) one risked being
beaten up at night if exposed as a New Yorker. When getting tropical shots for
Vietnam, I was asked by a sergeant, “where are you from, son.”
Foolishly,
I replied, “New York City.” Bad move. The sergeant yelled out, “hey, we got one
those rich bastards from New York.” Twenty medics attacked my arms with
needles, leaving them bleeding.
Sen.
Cruz, New Yorkers are nasty people. They would kill for a taxi, never hold
doors, are always in a rush (the famed “New York minute,”) and unfailingly rude
and pushy. They don’t attend church or join Rotary or Lions Clubs, and eat
French and Italian food. New York’s kamikaze taxis are piloted by Muslims,
Sikhs and Sri Lankans.
Like
the phony cowpoke George W. Bush, Cruz pretends to be a rough and tough Texan.
In fact, he is the product of top Eastern schools. Last week, it was revealed
that a lot of his campaign finance came from Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street
money lenders who are the incarnation of the rapacious New York money-changers
denounced by Cruz.
Unlike
the faux Texan cowboy Cruz, Trump is indeed a real New Yorker. When I was a
boy, Manhattan had tough German gangs on the East Side. One knew not to go east
of Third Avenue.
In fact, New York was once a great German city – the world’s
biggest after Berlin and Hamburg –until two world wars submerged America’s
German identity. German Yorkville with its boisterous beer halls and the
wonderful “Luchows” German restaurant are sadly long gone.
Trump
came from this milieu. His family moved to Queens which, with New York’s
borough Brooklyn, are more populous than primary states Iowa and New Hampshire
put together. Trump sounds and acts like he came from very middle-class Queens.
Firing
back at Cruz, Trump orated about New York and 9/11, taking credit for the
city’s resistance and rebound. But he blew it when he told Cruz to “go back to
Canada” as if it were some sort of northern Cuba.
The
United States would do well to be a bit more like Canada. Canadians are
famously polite, genteel, helpful and non-violent. As the wonderful actor Peter
Ustinov once quipped when asked what he thought of Toronto, Canada, he replied:
“New York City….run by the Swiss!”
That
would be a fine goal for both candidates rather than more guns and foreign
wars.
Columnist and
author Eric Margolis is
a veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East, Margolis recently was featured
in a special appearance on Britain’s Sky News TV as “the man who got it right”
in his predictions about the dangerous risks and entanglements the US would
face in Iraq. His latest book is American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the
Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World