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| Mamdani |
George Bernard Shaw, the wily old Fabian Socialist, once said about patriotism, with a wily old Fabian Socialist sneer, “Patriotism if you must, but please – no parades.” Of course, Shaw knew very well that patriotism is a parade, among other things.
The history of the word “patriot” itself shows some
antagonistic stretchmarks. It was used as an insult by British patriots of
uppity American anti-British revolutionists during the prospectively successful
American Revolution. But, as Americans often do, they assigned a new positive
meaning to the word -- and held parades during which, as John Adams tells us in
post-revolutionary days, flags were flown, martial arms were displayed, the sky
burst into patriotic flames, and everyone went home with smiles on their faces.
The war on the American flag – just a piece of cloth – and
patriotism, and Christopher Columbus statues, is a relatively recent phenomenon
celebrated by anti-American patriots, though not, Shaw would be pleased, in
unseemly parades. Modern day Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) celebrate
their deviations from tradition and history in exuberant socialist/communist manifestoes.
The Democrat Socialists of America manifesto
abolishes the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Senate, but it bursts – like John
Adams’ night sky -- with what might be called anti-historical fireworks. The
manifesto reduces the perceived platitudes of the U.S. Constitution – just a
piece of paper -- to sentiments no more binding than easily changeable statutory
laws. An early progressive, the
incurable academic President Woodrow Wilson, thought the same of the U.S.
Constitution, but he liked parades. The DSA needs an activist political arm, an
overpowering central state, to usher in its impractical, anti-democratic
utopia, but to do so Constitutional impediments first must be swept away, along
with the Constitutional architecture of a republican government.
Socialist Mayor of New York City (Wall Street?) Zohran
Mamdani does not like Columbus; he does not like an ordered liberty that has
not been ordered by progressive socialists like himself, but apparently he
likes public gatherings and parades.
A few day ago Mamdani was disinvited to a 9/11 memorial
gathering in which victim families assembled to remember fondly the 2,977
people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks across the United States,
among them heroic firefighters, who were incinerated when two civilian
airplanes were designedly steered by aggrieved foreign members of the Muslim
Brotherhood into two World Trade Center towers. Cutting across the nerves and
memories of the wounded participants in the memorial event, Mamdani perversely
attended the event. Mamdani’s political brother-in-arms, Hasan Piker, earlier
had said, “America deserved 9/11.”
Some attendees, family members and friends of the 9/11 victims,
could not help but notice Mamdani’s appearance on the campaign trail with leftist
commentator Piker, a self-proclaimed socialist whose view on Islamic terrorists
cannot be considered frigid. Piker’s 2019 comment had been widely reported. Mamdani
belatedly disavowed Picker’s comment, though he has taken great care not to
tread too heavily on its author. Few of
the leftist Democrats who acknowledge Piker’s remarks as objectionable have
stepped forward to denounce or disassociate themselves from Piker himself.
Mamdani is a member in good standing of the DSA, a group that has discounted
entirely the sensible admonition of their mothers – “You are judged by the
company you keep.”
There is a profound difference between patriots, however one
defines the word, and anti-patriots who are card carrying members of the DSA.
It should be relatively easy for the mayor of Wall Street to denounce
convincingly the ideological destructors-elect of Wall Street or others whose
past public representations are too easily dismissed by their fervent
supporters in a once contrarian legacy media. How hard can it be to defend a
besieged U. S. Constitution from ideological marauders with socialist knives in
their teeth?
It would take Mamdani minimal searching to discover that the
city has the largest population of Italian Americans in the United States. Many Italians, a Google search tells us,
“live in enclaves in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island.
New York is home to the third largest Italian population outside of Italy,
behind Buenos Aires, Argentina (first) and São Paulo, Brazil (second). Over 2.6
million Italians and Italian-Americans live in the greater New York metro area,
with about 800,000 living within one of the five New York City boroughs. This
makes Italian Americans the largest ethnic group in the New York metro area.”
New York City Italians, according to recent news reports – Fury erupts over Mamdani parade invite as
old Columbus insult resurfaces: ‘Are you kidding me’ – have now
registered their collective well founded disapproval of Mamdani.
Mamdani’s cultural and political orientation causes painful
friction among Jews, Italians and Black Americans with memories longer than the
life of fireflies. New York Jews are especially tender on the matter of
anti-Zionism, attempts to destroy the state of Israel, and anti-Semitism,
attempts to destroy Jews as Jews. It is no secret that Shia Iran along with its
political mafia – Iranian inspired terrorists in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen – hope
to be able to “push Israel into the sea,” a verbal construction that amounts to
the kind of genocide practiced by Hitler’s Nazis. We know this because of the
signs featured in every “Palestinian” protest march charging Israel, determined
to frustrate every attempt at genocide, with genocide.
But what about the Italians in New York City? Is the
alienation of Italians in New York City a problem for Mamdani?
In recent days, Mayor Mamdani was disinvited to a memorial
for 9/11 victims and their family members. He attended the event. He was
reportedly booed at a New York City police event he attended.
Now this: “The Columbus Citizens Foundation, which is
responsible for holding the [New York City
Columbus Day] parade, invited Mamdani in the hopes of fostering a better
relationship between City Hall and the Italian-American community, the New York
Post reported. Mamdani’s past criticism of Italian explorer Christopher
Columbus, however, has sparked backlash among Italians who feel inviting the
mayor is in poor taste… ‘Are you kidding me? This is a WEAK and FECKLESS move
by the organizers,’ Italian American Civil Rights League president Mike Crispi wrote
on X. "Zohran has showed contempt for our people and kissing a** won’t
change his true feelings. Italian Americans need to wake up and get tough. It’s
the only way to preserve our culture.’ … Crispi’s criticism was a reference to
a 2020 social media post where Mamdani posted a photo of himself brandishing
his middle finger at a statue of Columbus with the caption ‘take it
down.’"
And, heaping insult upon injury, “Little Italy in Manhattan
was omitted from New York City's immigrant enclave map, prompting backlash
before Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the neighborhood would be added.”
It was indigent Italian immigrant workers who dug the
tunnels in New York City that later became the city’s elaborate subway system.
These were lower class workers clawing their way into the middle class,
certainly not lords of Wall Street. In New Orleans about the same time, a mob
of enraged citizens broke into a holding pen. The mob dragged off and hanged eleven
men presumed to be Italian anarchists, although a court had, previous to the
hangings, found them innocent of anarchy as charged. The hangings represented
the largest batch of men hanged in a single incident in U .S. history.
Following the lynchings in 1892, President Benjamin Harrison
declared Columbus Day as a one-time national celebration, responsible stewards
of history tell us, “to placate Italian Americans in New York and other cities
and ease diplomatic tensions with Italy. During the anniversary in 1892,
teachers, preachers, poets, and politicians used rituals to teach ideals of
patriotism. These rituals took themes such as citizenship boundaries, the
importance of loyalty to the nation, and the celebration of social progress;
included among them was the Pledge of Allegiance by Francis Bellamy.”
Patriotism was erupting everywhere. The quote above was
taken from Wikipedia, available to the most slumberous politicians. Mamdani was
giving the finger to more than mute statues.
This writer has lived his whole life with Italians, and he
knows this: Italians everywhere can,
yielding to Christian precepts, generously choose to forgive an insult. But they do not forget.
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