[Peace-discuss] Empty signifier

Tue Dec 29 20:18:59 CST 2009

	Ben Stein Says Ron Paul Uses “Anti-Semitic Arguments"
	Written by Thomas R. Eddlem
	Tuesday, 29 December 2009 10:52

Former actor-turned-economic and political advisor Ben Stein claimed Ron Paul 
was using an “anti-Semitic argument” when Congressman Paul argued the United 
States should refrain from bombing Yemen in a December 28 interview on CNN's 
Larry King Live.

Rep. Paul, a Republican from Texas, has argued for removing U.S. soldiers from 
the Middle East because the American presence there is increasingly seen by many 
Muslims as a foreign occupation force. Responding to Rep. Paul's argument that 
Americans should mind their own business and not become the policeman of the 
world, Stein argued: “No, we're not occupiers. That's the same anti-Semitic 
argument we've heard over and over again. That's the same anti-Semitic argument 
we've heard over and over again.”

Rep. Paul responded by saying, “That is a vicious attack,” and Stein defended 
his statement by saying, “Look, that is not a vicious attack.”

The argument began when Dr. Paul noted that American foreign policy experts make 
bombing decisions while “never asking the question: What is the motive?” He went 
on to explain that the most recent would-be airline hijacker “said why he did 
it. He said because we bombed Yemen two weeks ago. That was his motive.” Dr. 
Paul then went on to explain that the United States is falling into the 
interventionist trap:

Osama bin Laden said that he has a plan for America. First, he wants to bog us 
down in the Middle East in a no-win war. He wants to bankrupt this country, 
demoralize us, as well as have us do things that motivate people to join his 
radical movement. It seems like we have fallen into his trap.

Dr. Paul (he's an obstetrician as well as a Congressman) noted that the 
occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, now in their seventh and ninth years 
respectively, have spurred terrorist attacks from Muslims who want the foreign 
troops out of their countries. Ben Stein responded to Dr. Paul by saying, “I 
never heard anything quite like that in my whole life. What he's basically 
saying is that we are doing something wrong by defending ourselves. Look, if 
these terrorists are trying to kill the government of Yemen, we've got to help 
defend them. They are our friends.”

That was an odd retort, since it leaves the question of who the “ourselves” is 
in Stein's sentence. While the question of whether Yemen is a government that 
ranks among “our friends” is debatable at best (it's a corrupt pseudo-democracy 
with a horrible human-rights record), it hardly stands to reason that defending 
a rather insignificant and corrupt government on the other end of the planet is 
equivalent to defending U.S. soil.

Asked again why terrorists were targeting the United States rather than other 
free countries, Stein replied, “They're terrorists and murderers because they 
are psychos. They're terrorists and murderers because they are psychos, same as 
all terrorists and murderers.” But, of course, if they are “psychos,” then they 
don't act with any reason. And if they don't act with any reason, then there's 
no reason to believe they would target the United States more than any other 
country. In fact, if they are indeed insane as Ben Stein suggests, there's less 
chance of them attacking the United States than the country where they are 
currently living because attacking the United States requires the kind of travel 
and planning that the insane rarely undertake.

Stein's attack on Dr. Paul is only the latest gaffe by the former movie actor. 
Stein served as a frequent financial advisor on CNBC in 2007, where he doled out 
terrible predictions in a debate with Euro-Pacific Capital President Peter 
Schiff. Faced with dire warnings about the coming housing market crash from 
Schiff, Stein predicted a healthy housing market. “Sub-prime is tiny. Sub-prime 
is a tiny, tiny blip,” Stein stressed, adding:

The financials, as I keep saying, are just super-bargains. I predict that, like, 
Merrill Lynch which is an astonishingly well-run company. Did you know that a 
couple of days ago it was trading at barely more than seven times earnings? 
Financials typically trade at a low P-E [price to earnings ratio], but this is a 
joke. This stock, they might as well be giving it away in cereal boxes and 
giving it away, that's how cheap it is.

Ben Stein made that investment advice when Merrill Lynch was selling at $76.04 
per share. That value quickly sunk to $21 per share and the firm only avoided 
bankruptcy after a 2008 Bank of America merger that nearly bankrupted the 
banking giant (Bank of America is the largest bank in the United States). Stein 
also predicted the stock market would continue to climb during the August 2007 
CNBC show. “I think stocks will be a heck of a lot higher a year from now than 
they are now,” Stein announced confidently. When he made this prediction on 
August 18, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was bouncing between 13,000 
and 14,000, but within a year and a half, the DJIA had sunk to less than 7,000.

Throughout the heated debate, Stein never even tried to explain why Paul's 
contention that the United States should not be the policeman of the world is 
anti-Semitic. Ben Stein's accusation of “anti-Semitic argument” is clearly as 
accurate as his financial predictions several years ago. Perhaps that's why some 
Ron Paul supporters have started a “Win Ben Stein's Apology” page on Facebook, a 
play on the former actor's old game show Win Ben Stein's Money. Larry King 
announced that he would invite both people back onto the show December 29 to 
continue the heated conversation.

C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> [The late Claude Lévi-Strauss coined this term "to represent an 
> undetermined quantity of signification, in itself void of meaning and 
> thus apt to receive any meaning". Such "floating siginifiers" may "mean 
> whatever their interpreters want them to mean" and so can "allow 
> symbolic thought to operate despite the contradiction inherent in it".  
> Here's a leading contemporary example. --CGE]
> 
>     Ben Stein Says Ron Paul Is Antisemitic for Calling US ‘Occupiers’
>     Eric Garris, December 29, 2009
> 
> On Larry King, Ben Stein said that Ron Paul calling the US “occupiers” 
> was “using the same antisemitic argument we’ve heard over and over.”
> 
> Former game show host and economist Ben Stein first came into prominence 
> when he worked for notorious antisemite Richard Nixon.
> 
> http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2009/12/29/ben-stein-calls-ron-paul-antisemitic-for-calling-us-occupiers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AWCBlog+%28Antiwar.com+Blog%29 
> 
> 
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