AOC vs Jack Kemp - Tibetans vs Soviet Jews
A weaponized immigrant mashup.
Yasha Levine
Mar 13
I came across a short speech that AOC gave on the House Floor this week in
support of Tibetan freedom from China, and it reminded me of the speeches
American politicians gave back in the 1970s and 1980s in support of Jewish
liberation from the Soviet Union.
So I decided to do a quick mashup for comparison: AOC vs Jack Kemp.
Kemp was a New York Congressman, supply-sider, and an anticommunist who
played a not-so-small role in the weaponization of Jews for America's long
war against the Soviet Union. Here he is giving a speech at the "Freedom
Rally for Soviet Jews" in December 1987, where supposedly 200,000 people
gathered to denounce communist barbarism - an event that had a live band and
was headlined by Vice President (and former head of the CIA) George Bush
himself.
Watching the two side-by-side, I gotta say that Jack Kemp does a much better
job. Even though AOC clearly feels the need to play to her weaponized
immigrant base, she just does not seem to have her heart in it. And I guess
that's a good thing - maybe she's reluctant to take part in the US tradition
of cynically and selectively using human rights concerns as a tool of
empire. But I don't want to be too optimistic here.
I mean, she did comically vote (along with Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio) for a
law that would deploy earthly American sanctions to meddle in the heavenly
reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. No joke!
"I was also proud to vote in support of the Tibet Policy and Support Act of
2019, which would establish as U.S. policy that the reincarnation of the
Dalai Lama is a religious matter that should be decided solely by Tibetan
Buddhists; specify that Chinese officials who interfere in the Dalai Lama's
succession process will be subject to Global Magnitsky sanctions; mandate
that China cannot establish any new consulates in the U.S. until a U.S.
consulate is established in Tibet; and authorize State Department programs
for Tibetan cultural and environmental conservation," she wrote in a
statement released on the birthday of the Dalai Lama, a rent-a-saint who'll
work with and bless anyone - be they pathetic sex cults or oligarchic death
lobbies - for a bit of cash.
The United States is a nation of weaponized immigrants. And so for AOC -
like for many other politicians - domestic politics flow naturally into
international politics. Is there really a line? The important questions is:
What are AOC's international politics?
-Yasha Levine
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