Fish tacos and a bad merlot (2002)

After the disaster of 9/11 I went through a period where I asked myself if we would continue to talk about the Jewish Holocaust story, and talk and talk about it, the way we had before 9/11. After 9/11 and the declaration of war against "terrorism," the war in Afghanistan, and then the preemptive war against Iraq, what relevance could the six-decade-old Jewish Holocaust story still have for Americans? Or for anyone else who was not profiting from it?

Remarkably, nothing changed. As a Jewish writer in "The New York Press" remarked, the U.S./Israeli alliance cannot be discussed rationally because every conversation on the matter ends up in "the ovens of Auschwitz." Exactly. So long as the U.S./Israeli alliance remains in tact, every such conversation will end up in the "ovens of Auschwitz." It is the expression of a deep cultural neurosis. Real men and women would get over it, then get back to their quiche.

Arguing for an open debate on the Jewish Holocaust question inevitably leads to the argument for an open debate regarding the wisdom (foolishness?) of the U.S./Israeli Alliance . The Holocaust story is a contrivance that was used to "morally legitimate" Jewish claims to Arab land in Palestine , against the wishes of the people who were living on it. Wogs. It remains the instrument used to morally justify the ongoing colonization of Palestinian Arab land by Jewish settlers from Europe , North America , and other countries around the world.

It's the professors. I am beguiled by the behavior of this class of folk, which considers itself to be the guardian of the great ideal of the university in Western culture-the ideal of intellectual freedom-while at the same time it routinely argues that while they themselves should always be allowed it, folk like me should always be denied it. If you believe what the professors, and the Holocaust Industry which they front for, tell you about the Jewish Holocaust story, you can write what you want. If you are skeptical of what the professors tell you about the story, you are routinely slandered and blacklisted. Cut and dried.

The professorial class, which I am tempted to describe as the pizza mavens of North America, operates on the presumption that intellectual freedom can be sliced up like a pizza and doled out to those who believe what the professors themselves believe, while those who are skeptical are left to go hungry. It's outrageous-but at the same time so richly comic that I have to forgive these pizza pie academics. The truth is, I love those guys. How could I not?

It isn't complicated. Maybe that's the reason the intellectuals prefer to not understand it. I do not believe in taboos against intellectual freedom. I do not believe it is a thought crime to express skepticism about the "gas chamber" stories. I do not believe it is a thought crime to question U.S. support for Israel and its brutal and foolish policies toward Palestinians. Condemn me, slander me, do what you will. I roll easily with the punches.

I do not believe it is a thought crime to argue that the U.S. Congress should stop funding the Israeli military, "the only democracy in the Middle East ." Tens of billions of U.S. dollars to those folk but it didn't stop 9/11. As a matter of fact, it can be argued that channeling tens of billions of dollars to the Israeli military over half a century played a key role in the decision of Muslim radicals to attack New York City and Washington . I may be wrong, but in my book being wrong is not a "thought crime."

So here it is, Friday afternoon in Baja, and Alicia and I are at a fish taco stand sitting in the sun in white plastic chairs in the dirt and the tourists are beginning to arrive for the weekend. The sun is hot but a fine breeze is blowing off the ocean and we're okay.

"My book has been printed," I say in Spanish. "Finally. After all the problems. I feel good."

"I am glad to hear that, Gordo," Alicia says. "I hope this one makes a profit. Maybe we can paint the house. Or put handles on the closet doors."

"We are going to be rich and famous."

"Of course."

"You do not believe me."

"I used to think that you were serious when you told me that you were going to be rich and famous. It took me years to understand that you are joking. It is all right, Gordo. You can count on me. I am used to living like this."

I decide the best thing to do is to drop the joke about becoming rich and famous. It's a fine afternoon. The sunlight, the air, the book is published. Very nice. But I want to talk about the book.

"I have a question," I say carefully in Spanish. "If you did not know me and you saw the cover of my book with my photograph on it for the first time, would you want to read it?"

"I think I would," she says soberly.

"Why?"

"The title," she says soberly. "And the photograph."

"What do you mean?"

"The title makes me curious. And then the photograph, well, the photograph makes me want to know what the old fool is getting at."

Now she's laughing.

"I see," I say. "It is all right for you to make a little joke."

With my wife you have to be able to take a joke or you'll go crazy. She doesn't follow my work on campus partly because she can't read much English, and partly on principle. She's an evangelical Christian and is suspicious of anyone who writes anything that is critical of Israel or Jews.

She says: "You understand. That is how I would feel if I did not know you."

"I see. But what if you did know me?"

"I do know you, Gordo. I have known you for thirty years. That is the problem."

I remain quiet for a moment. I'm thinking.

"Okay," I decide to say. "If you saw the cover to my book for the first time, would you want to read it even though you do know me?"

"It makes me curious to think about reading it," she says soberly.

"What is it about the cover that makes you curious?"

She says, "I look at that photograph of you and it just makes me wonder -- what is that old fool getting at?"

And then she's laughing again, the big laugh that always surprises me exploding as it does from such a small woman.

"But I am being serious."

"Gordo, it is too late for that. If you had wanted to be serious you would have found a way to make us a living twenty-five years ago. You are a dreamer. That is your weakness. "

I reply with a snappy, if obvious, comeback.

"Maybe I am a serious dreamer."

"I do not think so. You dream about birds flying through the sky. You have a family, Gordo. Your obligation is to dream about having a bird in the hand. But it is too late for us. I know that."

I remain quiet. We've had this conversation before. At first it's funny for both of us. After a while, sometimes it's not so funny for me. We reach a certain point where I'm not certain how much of what she says is joking and how much is something else.

The truth about dreams, however, is that I don't believe in dreams. I do not believe that there is a dream waiting for me in the future, ready to be fulfilled. I think this is it. The sunlight. The wonderful air coming in off the top of the ocean. The wife who likes to burlesque her husband but who is a very good wife. It's fine. Just the way it is.

I admit it. All my adult life I believed everything I heard about the Holocaust story. I believed in the "unique monstrosity" of the Germans. I believed in the universal "innocence" of the Jews. I believed the Americans did "only what they had to do" in that war. I was like a child that way. May the gods forgive me.

When you see people doing what you know is wrong, do you want to blow the whistle on them? I do. I think most of us do. When we find people who are deliberately making false accusations against others, most of us want to blow the whistle on the slanderers. When we see people cheating, or stealing, or deliberately hurting others, we want to do what we can to stop that. And when we see others covering up for such people, we want to blow the whistle on them too.

Holocaust revisionists are whistle blowers. Revisionism blows the whistle on the fraud surrounding the Holocaust story that started during World War II and continues to this day. Look. Germans did not employ homicidal gassing chambers to murder millions of Jews in an "industrial" setting. It simply cannot be demonstrated that the fabled homicidal gassing chambers ever existed. I don't believe they did. I should be able to argue for an open debate on the matter without being slandered and blacklisted.

And how crazy can we be anyhow? Exploiting the Holocaust story, the core of which is a false accusation of unique monstrosity against Germans, European Jews were encouraged to move en masse to the Middle East after World War II and take Arab land for themselves, against the will of the people living on it.

The moral "logic" of this scenario is that I can take what I want from you because -- in another place, at another time -- someone else mugged me. You don't like that brainless logic? You "hate" me. Give me a break!

There's a scene in a movie titled "The Shootist" that I have never forgotten. John Wayne is an aging professional gunfighter and he's been talked into having a quick-draw contest with a teenage wannabe gunfighter. In the event, the kid beats John Wayne to the draw. The kid is ecstatic. He's beaten a professional gunfighter, a man who is his hero. He pauses to reflect. How can someone who can be outdrawn by an inexperienced kid like himself, become a famous gunfighter?

The John Wayne character responds with a profound insight ( Hollywood is not a complete loss to the human endeavor - it only appears to be so most of the time).

"It's not how fast ya are, Son," the Shootist drawls. "Ya gotta be willin."

You have to be willing!

There's the key to this Holocaust-Israel-radical Muslim-9/11- Afghanistan and maybe Iraq thread of blood that keeps stitching, stitching its way through our lives. We have to be willing to see, to really see, -- which is to confront -- what actually is.

I haven't given up with my wife. I walk to a liquor store and buy a bottle of merlot and take it back to our table at the taco stand. It's against the law to drink alcohol at this stand but there is an understanding agreed to by all including the police that if you do not take the bottle out of the paper bag, if you do not pour the beverage into a cup or glass that is transparent, it's okay. It's illegal but it's okay. Mexico!

The merlot is not very good. I'm drinking it anyhow. The sun is still hot, the breeze is still coming in off the top of the sea. Half a dozen "pochos" walk by shouting and laughing. Pocho is how Mexicans refer to Mexican-Americans. These pochos are big and strong and have shaved heads and tattooed arms. You know right away they're Americans. You're impressed.

Alicia doesn't drink. Evangelicals believe drinking alcohol is a worthless and dangerous crutch for men with weak characters. When she's annoyed with me, when she's very annoyed, she goes to my liquor cabinet, takes out the bottles and empties them in the kitchen sink. I understand and accept that. I'm an accepting kind of guy. Usually, so is my wife. That's how we have made it work for thirty years.

"I am going to tell you about a few things that are in the book and then you will be able to tell me in a more serious way if you would want to read it or not."

"You have spilled wine on your shirt."

"Oh?"

"Give me your handkerchief and I will clean you."

"Okay. Do not make theater of it."

"Hold still. I have been cleaning your shirts for how many years now? I know how to do this."

I am aware of how the breeze continues its movement across my face and arms and Alicia's freshly washed hair on inland toward the brown hills. How the warm sun is settling down toward the top of the ocean. How the tourists continue to arrive laughing and shouting. How the merlot is no better than it was when I first tasted it. Without really thinking about it, I am aware of how the book is published finally, how expertly my wife is cleaning my shirt, and how everything is just about the way it should be considering the weaknesses in my character and the difficulties of the work I do.

I am aware too, sitting here in the breeze and the sunlight and the company of my wife of the probability that I am going to fail at the work. And I'm aware of the astounding yet interesting fact that I will soon disappear from all this, that I will disappear from the face of the earth itself. Incredible. If only the merlot were a good one.

End

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