…and this is a 
The rats really are scuttling out of the woodwork: last week, it's a right-wing anti-abortion hater gunning down a doctor, and this week, we get a white supremacist opening fire in the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Fortunately, no one has died in this incident, but a security guard and the gunman were wounded.
They really are afraid and desperate, and violence is all they have left.
(via Greg Laden)
In case you're wondering about the motives behind this attack, they're rather obvious.
The suspect in Wednesday's shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is James von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist from Maryland, two law enforcement officials told CNN.
Von Brunn served six years in prison on federal attempted kidnapping, assault and firearms charges after what he called a "legal, nonviolent citizens arrest" of members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
On his Web site, "Holy Western Empire," von Brunn said he was "convicted by a Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys, and sentenced to prison for eleven years by a Jew judge."
It's about time the US law enforcement agencies recognized that the real terrorist groups in this country aren't populated by people with funny arabic names: they're homegrown, and they've got European names like von Brunn and McVeigh and Roeder…and even Terry and O'Reilly.
The guard who was shot, Stephen T. Johns, has died, making von Brunn a murderer.
Comments
Posted by: Ferrous Patella
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June 10, 2009 4:19 PM
"They really are afraid and desperate, and violence is all they have left."
Was it Randal Terry who was saying essentially this on NPR this morning?
Posted by: tom | June 10, 2009 4:19 PM
The guard died.
Posted by: Alverant | June 10, 2009 4:19 PM
Has anything been confirmed as to his political or religious affiliation? I think we can safely assume he's conservative, but hatred of Jews, to the point of violence, comes from many religions/beliefs.
Another domestic conservative terrorist attack on US soil. Some people will do anything to drag this country down.
Posted by: Greg B | June 10, 2009 4:20 PM
This is probably the worst thing to ever happen concerning the Holocaust Museum... no wait...
Posted by: janeothejungle | June 10, 2009 4:20 PM
An 88 year old? Is this like Custer's last stand?
Posted by: Rodger T NZ
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June 10, 2009 4:20 PM
Security guard has died of his wounds .
The god of love strikes again.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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June 10, 2009 4:22 PM
The guard died? Crap. These scumbags who decide that guns are the solution are really a blight on this country.
Posted by: Paul Lundgren | June 10, 2009 4:23 PM
Anybody besides me feel an urge to call the White House and ask when we can expect FBI raids on these operations? I'd personally like to see Operation Rescue in orange jumpsuits en masse.
Posted by: Rodger T NZ
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June 10, 2009 4:23 PM
Wtf have they got against the museum ?
Posted by: Raze
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June 10, 2009 4:26 PM
"An 88 year old? Is this like Custer's last stand?"
88 = HH = Heil Hitler. Neo-nazis have all this stupid code since they know they'll get their ass kicked if they put their bigoted beliefs out in the open too much.
Posted by: H. | June 10, 2009 4:28 PM
Has anything been confirmed as to his political or religious affiliation?
If this profile is at all accurate, he's been a shrieking nazi, internet crazy and advocate of terrorism half his life. Check out his previous convictions ...
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | June 10, 2009 4:28 PM
Here's what's known about the murderous asshole:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/10/dc.museum.shooting.suspect/index.html?iref=werecommend
Holocaust denier, anti-Catholic/Christian, Aryan-goofball nutcase fucking shitpile.
Posted by: Victor
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June 10, 2009 4:28 PM
Looks like this guy had a history of weird violent acts. In 1983 he attempted to kidnap some board members of the Federal Reserve.
Posted by: HenryS
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June 10, 2009 4:29 PM
he rats really are scuttling out of the woodwork
********
And then there is Wright..He's back!! The Rev. talking about the Pres.
""He made mistakes. He made bad choices. I've got kids who listen to their friends. He listened to those around him. I did not disown him."
Asked if he had spoken to the president, Wright said: "Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office. ...
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_wright_0610jun10,0,7603283.story
Posted by: dean | June 10, 2009 4:30 PM
"James W. von Brunn holds a BachSci Journalism degree from a mid-Western university where he was president of SAE and played varsity football.
During WWII he served as PT-Boat captain, Lt. USNR, receiving a Commendation and four battle stars. For twenty years he was an advertising executive and film-producer in New York City. He is a member of Mensa, the high-IQ society."
"Hitler's worst mistake is that he did NOT gas the Jews. --James von Braunn, HolyWesternEmpire.org"
I think the second quote pretty much says all we need to know about this scumbag.
Posted by: H. | June 10, 2009 4:33 PM
Anyone else starting to get the distinct feeling they should start keeping a very sharp eye on their own favourite right-wing/gun-loving/anti-government internet crazies?
Posted by: Arnold T Pants | June 10, 2009 4:36 PM
This is a sad example of why it doesn't work to rely on racial profiling at security checkpoints. People always complain about "my 60 year old grandfather was at the airport..."
Posted by: Jerry Coyne | June 10, 2009 4:36 PM
The security man is dead. This is awful.
Posted by: Thomas | June 10, 2009 4:37 PM
"Terrorism" has never been more than a loaded word in the US.
If it were, at some point during The War Against Terror[TM], we'd have bombed Belfast.
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 4:39 PM
They really are afraid and desperate, and violence is all they have left.
The same could be said of a number of so-called "anti-fascist" groups.
My condolences to the family of the slain security guard.
Posted by: Thomas | June 10, 2009 4:39 PM
"Terrorism" has never been more than a loaded word in the US.
If it were, at some point during The War Against Terror[TM], we'd have bombed Belfast.
Posted by: Chayanov | June 10, 2009 4:40 PM
Aren't we supposedly fighting a "war on terror"? Our government needs to stop this fixation on Middle Easterners and focus on the terrorism perpetrated by our own white, Christian citizens.
Posted by: Wehaf | June 10, 2009 4:40 PM
But I thought that recent report from the DHS, warning that the risk of violent acts by right-wing extremists, was totally wrong!
Posted by: Alyson Miers | June 10, 2009 4:41 PM
*looks at profile on TPM*
*low-whistle*
It takes a special kind of crazy to come up with shit like that.
Posted by: Cut and Paste | June 10, 2009 4:44 PM
Here's a sample of his nuttery. I'm guessing he's not a christian, or least not the conventional type.
http://www.antichrist.net/vonbrunn.html
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 4:45 PM
Don't forget the man who killed the Army Recruiters and there have been a few other police / sheriff officers also killed by extremists in the last few months.
Posted by: ihedenius | June 10, 2009 4:46 PM
It's about time the US law enforcement agencies recognized that the real terrorist groups in this country aren't populated by people with funny arabic names: they're homegrown, and they've got European names like von Brunn and McVeigh and Roeder…and even Terry and O'Reilly.
>
Both need to be watched.
Posted by: Aquaria | June 10, 2009 4:48 PM
Shit. That poor guard's family....
Sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with me that I can't understand why people do these things. I can hear about all the psychology, sociology, whatever--and I still can't grasp being so worked up about something that I could take a gun and shoot up a place to somehow make things "better" or "right" or whatever the concept is here.
Posted by: Andrew Dunn | June 10, 2009 4:48 PM
PZ, the gun carried by the nut was not a good solution, but the guns carried by the guards sure were. I do hope the nut makes a full recovery. A long and painful, full recovery...
Posted by: Tulse | June 10, 2009 4:50 PM
So much for Conservlam being an "ideology of peace". When are all those allegedly moderate Conservlims going to denounce this kind of terrorism? When are we going to hear from the mullahs of the national Conservlic movement vigorously distancing themselves from these actions? Until they do, they are enabling this kind of fundamentalist terrorism, and should be held accountable just as much as those who carry out such heinous deeds. Unless the leaders of the American Conservlic community denounce these actions, they should be considered possible traitors.
Right?
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 4:53 PM
Aren't we supposedly fighting a "war on terror"? Our government needs to stop this fixation on Middle Easterners and focus on the terrorism perpetrated by our own white, Christian citizens.
Our focus should be on whoever is statistically most likely to engage in a terrorist act. We shouldn't rely on individual instances to dictate policy. This applies as much to the 9/11 attack as much as it does the anti-abortion vigilantes and violent National Socialists.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 4:55 PM
Oh an PZ, cheers on the new "error" message after posting.
Maybe the shortened length people will actually READ IT.
It's a shocking idea, I know.
Posted by: Alverant | June 10, 2009 4:55 PM
Nazis weren't conventional christians, but they were still christians. They did believe in god but twisted the bible even more than a televangelist caught with a gay hooker. The fact his website is HOLYwesternempire shows he is a theist of some sort.
Posted by: TechSkeptic
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June 10, 2009 4:55 PM
So i don't get it
"A posting attributed to von Brunn on another Web site, antichrist.net, calls both Christianity and the Holocaust "hoaxes.""
We finally fo rthe first time have an atheist terrorist? Check out his website
http://www.antichrist.net/
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | June 10, 2009 4:56 PM
I can hear about all the psychology, sociology, whatever--and I still can't grasp being so worked up about something that I could take a gun and shoot up a place to somehow make things "better" or "right" or whatever the concept is here.
Right there with ya.
Posted by: Matt H.
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June 10, 2009 4:57 PM
It is a real shame the security guard was so badly injured. It would be tragic if he died and it was found he was killed by his colleagues when they missed the gunman.
By the way PZ, I wish you would stop saying 'right-wing' next to these psychopaths names. What does being right-wing have to do with it? They are nutcases, pure and simple.
As for your little dig at the end, Myers is a European name too is it not?
Posted by: TechSkeptic
|
June 10, 2009 4:57 PM
So i don't get it
"A posting attributed to von Brunn on another Web site, antichrist.net, calls both Christianity and the Holocaust "hoaxes.""
We finally fo rthe first time have an atheist terrorist? Check out his website
http://www.antichrist.net/
I feel like saying he "isn't a REAL atheist"
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 4:57 PM
Oh no, please not another Nazi are Christians / Nazi aren't Christians thread.
and that should have read "Oh and PZ"
Posted by: Brett McCoy | June 10, 2009 4:58 PM
Latest news is that one of the guards died in the hospital.
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=1693510
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 4:59 PM
So much for Conservlam being an "ideology of peace". When are all those allegedly moderate Conservlims going to denounce this kind of terrorism? When are we going to hear from the mullahs of the national Conservlic movement vigorously distancing themselves from these actions? Until they do, they are enabling this kind of fundamentalist terrorism, and should be held accountable just as much as those who carry out such heinous deeds. Unless the leaders of the American Conservlic community denounce these actions, they should be considered possible traitors.
What a retarded attempt at a parody. James Brunn was a National Socialist, not a conservative. The (neo-)conservatives that have been running this country for the previous 8 years were all committed Zionists too.
Posted by: kestrien | June 10, 2009 5:01 PM
Suggestion: Donate to the Holocaust Museum right now. http://tiny.cc/gfV68
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 5:01 PM
Not sure how you get that from your quote?
Though the site you linked won't load so i can't get the rest or context.
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 5:03 PM
Nazis weren't conventional christians, but they were still christians. They did believe in god but twisted the bible even more than a televangelist caught with a gay hooker. The fact his website is HOLYwesternempire shows he is a theist of some sort.
The Nazi's in the Third Reich were not uniform in religious belief. They were pagans, atheists and Christians. Pretty much any religion was tolerated as long as it didn't contradict National Socialist ideology and Hitler-worship.
The Nazi that committed this act was clearly anti-Christian as this article he wrote here indicates.
Posted by: Victor
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June 10, 2009 5:04 PM
This guy is seriously mentally ill. Law enforcement needs to do more than throw these people in a cell for a couple of years. They need serious mental evaluation. Everything about this guy sends up red flags.
Posted by: TechSkeptic
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June 10, 2009 5:06 PM
Sorry guys,
this guy is as atheist as can be...
Some quote from his website http://www.antichrist.net/:
"One of my greatest mentors was the late Dr. Carl Sagan. "
"I have always maintained that it is far better to grasp Life, Human Existence, and the Universe as it really is
than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring that delusion may be."
"I personally see religions as a crutch. The crippled use crutches towalk, otherwise they fall down. Religions are used the same way by the weak people in our society, and I can accept that. I personally do not have nor need any religion(s) because I am not crippled."
"I won't preach to you about the joys of atheism, there aren't any. Having a god to blame or credit things to, makes life easier. To chock things up to random chance makes you feel weak, and vulnerable, and AT RISK!"
Here is the funny part
" I strive to be a decent person because it's the RIGHT thing to do!"
WTF?
Posted by: TechSkeptic
|
June 10, 2009 5:08 PM
Rev #42
I quoted some stuff off the site above. You need to reload the page a few times to get through. I can only assume the letter to a christian written by "james" is the very same James we are talking about here.
Posted by: Zar | June 10, 2009 5:09 PM
Can we start taking right-wing extremism seriously now?
Posted by: Ron Gove | June 10, 2009 5:09 PM
The guard died.
Posted by: Cut and Paste | June 10, 2009 5:12 PM
http://www.antichrist.net/vonbrunn.html
Text from above site since it's seemingly down.
CHRISTIANITY and the HOLOCAUST.
by James W. von Brunn
As duped Aryan sheep begin to understand the "Holocaust" they also begin to better understand Christianity. Both have similar origins. Both have identical objectives.
Saul of Tarsus, after helping friends stone to death a disciple of Jesus Christ, set forth toward Damascus. As he trudged the dusty road a blinding, excruciating light suddenly crashed his brain. The world whirled into a crimson vortex. He heard his own scream, far away. Then there was quiet. When he awoke he was lying on the road. He looked up. A man in a white cloak was standing there his hands outstretched. His hands bore deep scars. Saul trembled with fright. Then Jesus smiled, pulling Saul upright, saying, "Fear not, Saul of Tarsus, I come to you from our Father." It was a miracle.
Saul and Jesus earnestly, fervently, joyously conversed with one another. Arm in arm they tarried there. Jesus told Saul he was his own. Jesus was loving, loving, forgiving, forgiving. Saul became his disciple there and then -- struck by the Holy Spirit. Finally, following Saul's vows of fidelity, love, and obedience, the visitation ended when, before Saul's wondering awe-struck eyes, Jesus to Heaven in a halo did rise. It was a miracle.
We are told that this extra-sensory experience, somewhat like an epileptic fit, suddenly changed the hateful, murderer Saul (later, St. Paul) from a hater of Jesus into a Jesus lover. Really?
Saul, ten years younger, had not met The Master vis a vis before Jesus' crucifixion. Had they met earlier Saul probably would have crushed Christ's head with a rock. Saul, and most Israelis, detested Jesus and his blasphemous ideology almost as much as they detested Romans; more even than they detested Greeks, Babylonians, Assyrians, Canaanites, Egyptians, Persians, et al. In truth, as bigoted Judeophobes know, God's "Chosen People" hated their God's only Son.
Matthew emphatically states that Israelis so hated Jesus Christ that THEY crucified him (Pope John Paul II, Zionist, said that Matthew is wrong! What's that? "The Word of God" is wrong?).
ACTUALLY, on the road to Damascus -- brooding about Rome, relishing the bloody image of the disciple he had stoned to death; sweaty, sore footed, thinking of the blasphemous ravings of the Nazarene -- Saul had an incredible, earthshaking IDEA. A light-bulb inspiration. He, Saul -- a Roman citizen -- suddenly realized how he could destroy Rome! Saul trembled uncontrollably with fear and joy. He would simply promulgate the insane teachings of Jesus! What better way to destroy a Nation -- any Nation -- than to undermine her hubris; her gods, ethics, mores, history, her gene-pool -- in short, Saul would DESTROY ROMAN CULTURE. Then, as night follows day, with her foundations rotted, the Roman Empire would FALL. Saul decided to begin the HOAX by inventing a miraculous encounter on the road to Damascus with the reincarnated Jesus the Christ!
Toward that end -- no different than Hollywood script-writers today -- Saul created a bogus a la Spielberg docu-drama stuffed with lies, miracles, guilt trips, betrayal, virgin birth, eternal damnation, salvation -- a scenario appealing to the superstitious, vulnerable, ignorant yearning sheep -- he named his hoax "Christianity."
The New Testament was written in Greek. Paul - who believed the World was flat, that Joshua made the sun stand still, and Jehovah spoke from a burning bush -- wrote one-third of it, perhaps more. The events described in the 24 Books are often contradictory, fail the time-line, defy both archaeology's and nature's immutable laws, and are suicidal if practiced. Nevertheless, the shamans bought it, taught it, and the illiterate public was coerced, brainwashed, threatened, tortured, murdered, and enthralled. The Encyclopedia Britannica states that over 6,000 major redactions exist between the Septuagint (translation of Aramaic into Greek) and its St. James biblical translation.
The Gospels profess that only Christians may enter Yahweh's Kingdom of Heaven. To qualify, among other demands, Christians must LOVE THEIR ENEMIES (Jews); give away their personal belongings; eschew knowledge; judge not, despise nature, abandon earthly pleasures, acknowledge that all YHWH's children are equal; and above all else worship YHWH, the jealous, wrathful, vengeful, unforgiving, genocidal, anthropomorphic tribal god (Jesus' father) created by Hebrews in their image and likeness. Omnipotent, omniscient YHWH promises Hebrews that they alone shall inherit the earth, that it is commendable to steal from Gentiles, better yet -- kill them. Whereas Gentiles, if they fail to worship YHWH, are transported straight to Hell. And it is written, "A little child shall lead them."
These dangerous, imbecilic, concepts, tenets, and teachings, often treasonous, DESTROYED the Roman Empire and drenched the soil of Europe with Aryan blood for almost 2000 years!
The Big Lie technique, employed by Paul to create the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, also was used to create the HOLOCAUST RELIGION ... CHRISTIANITY AND THE HOLOCAUST are HOAXES.
"Christianity" destroyed Roman Civilization. The "Holocaust" Religion is destroying Western Civilization. The Aryan gene-pool dies, "unwept, unhonored and unsung."
jvb
"Kill the Best Gentiles!"
(Talmud)
www.holywesternempire.org
#33 Right on, 3rd Reich was all over the place when it came to religon.
Same with all our home grown (neo)Nazis
Posted by: DrCogSci | June 10, 2009 5:15 PM
It's terrible whenever something like this happens. Have to echo Andrew Dunn above in being glad the guards were armed too, though.
I can't bear to think of what might have happened if the crazy had been allowed free reign until police arrived.
Posted by: TechSkeptic
|
June 10, 2009 5:16 PM
Well cue the fundies... From James' page:
"Basically, I live my life as though there is nobody watching over me."
"To me, life has no purpose..."
"Given all these, Science is the preferred "religion" to follow. "
WTF happened to this guy?
Posted by: justlurking | June 10, 2009 5:17 PM
You mean there are terrorists who are white and not from other countries? I'm shocked!!!
Posted by: TechSkeptic
|
June 10, 2009 5:18 PM
and yes I totally quote mined that page (on purpose). But its weird reading it.
Posted by: raven | June 10, 2009 5:19 PM
Last week Lou Engle called for Xian Martyrs while two Theothuglican leaders looked on. Well, here is another one.
Posted by: Cut and Paste | June 10, 2009 5:20 PM
#49 Sorry PZ, on second thought, please edit this trash out if you wish, I just posted it here to mirror a potential article of interest, not spread this idiots crazed rantings further.
Posted by: Chayanov | June 10, 2009 5:21 PM
Brown people with funny names are statistically more likely to be terrorists? Why is there so little emphasis on White Supremacist gun nuts?
Posted by: TechSkeptic
|
June 10, 2009 5:24 PM
This site is totally weird to read knowing the outcome.
"Other than that, I live pretty much like a typical christian might. I play heavy metal guitar, and like to listen to Deth Metal music..."
Is it possible that we have a case of mistaken identity? I don't see many 88 year old guys at death metal concerts.
Posted by: AdamK | June 10, 2009 5:24 PM
tl;dr
But just because someone rants against Christianity doesn't mean they're an atheist, obviously.
Posted by: Noadi | June 10, 2009 5:25 PM
I'm wondering if these are the same two people. That site does not read like it was written by a man in his 80s at all. Maybe it's maintained by a relative with the same name who is equally as vile.
This in particular: "I play heavy metal guitar, and like to listen to Deth Metal music" how many of you have grandparents who listen to metal or any sort?
Posted by: Noadi | June 10, 2009 5:28 PM
I'm wondering if these are the same two people. That site does not read like it was written by a man in his 80s at all. Maybe it's maintained by a relative with the same name who is equally as vile.
This in particular: "I play heavy metal guitar, and like to listen to Deth Metal music" how many of you have grandparents who listen to metal or any sort? Also the language doesn't read like an 80 year old would write but more like a younger person in the language used.
Posted by: Mold | June 10, 2009 5:28 PM
What you are seeing is the losers of our society attempting to impose their idiocy on others...like the Talibani.
Do what Moronicus orders...or he will shoot you.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 5:33 PM
Oh boy how many idiots blaming his apparent atheism on this and not his white supremacist beliefs will we get?
Posted by: kamaka | June 10, 2009 5:39 PM
Oh boy how many idiots blaming his apparent atheism on this and not his white supremacist beliefs will we get?
And White Supremacist = Darwinist too, I'm guessing.
Posted by: littlejohn | June 10, 2009 5:39 PM
I also kind of doubt the heavy metal fan is also the shooter. The groups van Brunn is associated with normally belong to a nominally Christian sect called "Identity." And Carl Sagan inspires him? Does he know that Sagan is a Jewish name?
As for guns, I'm glad the guard had one. He died of his injuries, but not until he winged von Brunn. In the nuts, ideally.
Here's what I hope for most of all: That the doctor who saves this scumball's life is a pious Jew -- beard, sidecurls, hat, the whole nine yards.
Posted by: Daft Greg | June 10, 2009 5:43 PM
Just because http://www.antichrist.net/ appears to be run run by somebody named James and there is a separate posting by a James W. von Brunn does not mean they're the same person. It appears that Mr. von Brunn just posted his rantings anywhere he thought he could find an audience.
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 5:44 PM
Oh boy how many idiots blaming his apparent atheism on this and not his white supremacist beliefs will we get?
Probably about the same as we do from idiots who were unaware that von Brunn was not Christian at all, but preemptively assumed as such because of what he did.
Posted by: TechSkeptic
|
June 10, 2009 5:44 PM
You think some idiot journalist just googled "James Von Brunn" and got the antichrist site without actually checking if it is the same guy?
totally possible.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 5:45 PM
No doubt.
And I can't wait until the Communists comments start flying. Which will be particularly funny when talking about a Neo Nazi.
Posted by: Elwood Herring | June 10, 2009 5:45 PM
What we all need is a "weapon" that can only be used defensively. I keep hearing from Americans (especially) that they need their guns "to protect myself". So, invent a non-lethal defensive device. Even something like the Star Trek "phasers on stun" would be better than the totally over the top and incredibly lethal guns that are apparently sold legally there. (And I'm not talking about tasers either - they have been proved to be lethal too, and even when not they are still incredibly painful.)
But maybe I'm being naive, and if something was invented tomorrow that could safely and painlessly incapacitate an intruder, it would never be as desirable to the general American Public as an couple of handfuls of heavy metal mass destruction.
Posted by: Noadi | June 10, 2009 5:48 PM
This is the website von Brunn is confirmed as running: http://www.holywesternempire.org/
Just a quick read shows there's no way the anti-christ site was written by the same person. "Holy western empire" reads much more like an 88 year old, exactly the type of language I'd expect from someone that age.
Hint to jouranlists: do better research, this is your job not mine.
Posted by: Chayanov | June 10, 2009 5:48 PM
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 5:53 PM
This is the website von Brunn is confirmed as running:
It keeps going on and offline. People would have better luck if they just browse through the archive.org version of the site.
Posted by: Daft Greg | June 10, 2009 5:55 PM
@Noadi (#70):
von Brunn did post this page http://www.antichrist.net/vonbrunn.html. At the bottom of the page is a link to his site. He is almost certainly not the James described as "The First Apostle of the Antichrist", though.
Posted by: WTF | June 10, 2009 5:56 PM
He is also, like Richard Dawkins and yourself, a eugenicist.
Posted by: Cut and Paste | June 10, 2009 5:56 PM
This site is probably unrelated
http://www.antichrist.net/, except for this branch http://www.antichrist.net/vonbrunn.html
Where the author of "http://www.antichrist.net/" has created a page with von Brunn's article, including reffering back to http://www.holywesternempire.org/, von Brunn's confirmed site.
Please don't confuse
http://www.antichrist.net/
with
http://www.antichrist.net/vonbrunn.html
Posted by: Daft Greg | June 10, 2009 5:57 PM
@Noadi (#70):
von Brunn did post this page http://www.antichrist.net/vonbrunn.html. At the bottom of the page is a link to his site. He is almost certainly not the James described as "The First Apostle of the Antichrist", though.
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 5:58 PM
You know this for a fact, or is von Brunn not a "true" Christian, as defined by you?
I know this because James W. von Brunn stated that Christianity is "dangerous", "imbecilic", "often treasonous" and that it "DESTROYED the Roman Empire". Learn to read.
Posted by: WTF | June 10, 2009 6:01 PM
From Von Brunn's writing:
" Darwin, Spencer, Carlyle, Hitler refer to
culling the gene-pool as necessary to "survival of the species." "
Posted by: TechSkeptic
|
June 10, 2009 6:01 PM
Naodi #70
While I agree with you. The antichrist site isn't all that great either. Its got a lot of positive atheism on it, sprinkled with holocaust denial.
and in fact he (death metal james) links to the 88 year olds article.
Its all very confusing.
Posted by: JDP | June 10, 2009 6:07 PM
I think we need to start promoting the idea that these Neonazi fuckers belong to a Hitlerist sect of Christianity. This absolutely is a religious sect of Christianity that is concerned with re-envisioning Christ as some sort of Great White Warrior and subsequent modifications (e.g. mainstream catholicism, and moderate Christianity) as being Jewish perversions of the original Christian message.
Posted by: Sastra
|
June 10, 2009 6:08 PM
If the shooter's site is the one at 'Holy Western Empire,' then he is not claiming to be atheist, but Christian. His webpages are peppered with the phrase "White Christian America."
I do not take him to represent Christianity in general, of course -- it's a bizarre offshoot. But I am somewhat relieved that the death metal "Antichrist Atheist" site is some other kook. The media and public are less likely to blame this as "the natural and expected result of atheism." Since he's an avowed Christian, the focus will be on his oddness.
Posted by: druidbros
|
June 10, 2009 6:10 PM
It remind me of the oriental story of two men who are arguing vehemently about some dispute they have against each other. Two bystanders are watching and one bystander says to the other "Why dont they come to blows"? The Other one replies " Because it would prove their ideas have failed and violence is all they had left".
Posted by: Watchman | June 10, 2009 6:10 PM
Wow, Matt - way to miss the point.
Posted by: Zarathustra | June 10, 2009 6:11 PM
How the hell did this thread become a debate over whether the guy was a "theist" or an "atheist?" I hardly think those are the relevant categories to discuss concerning this tragedy. Seriously, that is so F'ing trivial to the tragedy it's just not f'ing important. There are, after all, issues where religion is not the primary culprit, despite the tendency of religion to co-opt other "evils."
This guy is hardly the first "atheist terrorist." Now show me a secular humanist terrorist, and I'll give you a gold star.
Posted by: Noadi | June 10, 2009 6:12 PM
If you read my previous comments you'll see I said the person who runs the anti-christ site is just as vile and von Brunn. I just dislike sloppy research by journalists, it should have taken them 5 minutes to figure out the bits they were quoting were not his writings.
Posted by: WTF | June 10, 2009 6:14 PM
"Now show me a secular humanist terrorist, and I'll give you a gold star."
Ever hear of the Weather Underground?
Posted by: Elin | June 10, 2009 6:17 PM
Unfortunately, it appears that the security guard who was shot has died.
Posted by: TechSkeptic
|
June 10, 2009 6:17 PM
Well this is a fun read
Actual belief in illuminati
Psychotic fear of communism (certainly NOT the james from antichrist)
Eugenicist
Strange capitalization we often see here in the comments (and this was written before the internet)
Psychotic fear of liberalism (always capitalized)
Antisemitism (duh)
Posted by: luna1580 | June 10, 2009 6:18 PM
hmm, it's unclear if this guy believes in some kind of divinity.
the "Steve J. Quest's antichrist.net" is not his site, he just posted there. if you want to read what he wrote google "http://www.antichrist.net/vonbrunn.html" and view it in cache.
now, if you're feeling very brave, you can pop over and browse the pdf of the first half of von brunn's book here:
http://www.holywesternempire.org/tob_shebbe_goyim_harog_first6.pdf
i did not know it was literally possible for a human to be that anti-semitic.
i skimmed the first 2 chapters, and it is blindingly clear that this man rejects and HATES the jewish version of god, as this is also the christian version of god he hates and rejects that too. but then he goes and names his actual website "holy western empire" and proudly slaps this quote on the front-page:
and he lovingly dedicates his book to the guy who said it.
all i know for sure is he's a bat-shit insane racist.
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 6:18 PM
If the shooter's site is the one at 'Holy Western Empire,' then he is not claiming to be atheist, but Christian. His webpages are peppered with the phrase "White Christian America."
That is a quote by "REAR ADMIRAL John G. Crommelin" in a letter the admiral wrote in October 17, 1983. Brunn may have converted since then or possibly the Admiral wasn't aware of his religious affiliation and merely assumed.
James von Brunn did indeed write that article on antichrist.net as it indicates he is the author by full name and also hyperlinks to the Holy Western Empire website as well. He probably isn't the administrator of the website though, who is some other James. The Antichrist website seems to have numerous contributors.
Posted by: Janus | June 10, 2009 6:22 PM
Lolllllll... Some of this murderer's quotes could have been copy/pasted directly from PZ's posts. Awesome.
Posted by: littlejohn | June 10, 2009 6:22 PM
It was bound to happen. Glenn Beck on Fox just called von Brunn a "liberal."
Posted by: Cath the Canberra Cook | June 10, 2009 6:23 PM
Maybe Death Metal Music James is Death Metal Gunner James' grandson? Both Nazis, same name, a guest post - a family connection seems pretty likely.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 6:25 PM
Yes and because Hitler liked dogs anyone saying the same thing about dogs should be lumped in.
You're an idiot.
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 6:25 PM
There is a Wikipedia article on John G. Crommelin which indicates that he was a white nationalist of the Christian variety, which explains the compliment that Crommelin payed to Brunn.
Someone has already added the fact that Crommelin complimented Brunn to the article. Those Wikipedians work fast.
Posted by: Loc | June 10, 2009 6:28 PM
The article I read, linked by PZ, never accredited the antichrist.net site to the shooter. That would be you TechSkeptic, who mistakenly attributed the website to the shooter.
Posted by: Janus | June 10, 2009 6:28 PM
Hitler's love of dogs wasn't a central part of his ideology. This guy's atheism and anti-theism clearly is.
Posted by: Zarathustra | June 10, 2009 6:28 PM
@ JDP (#79)-
Whoah there. It's angry Zarathustra lecture time. Isn't that kind of like when Christians say that everything non-Christian is Satanic? Seriously, I'm a f*cking militant atheist. I f*cking get in the faces of new age mystics and Creationists alike. But to conflate all the world's ills with my particular focus is just unwarranted self importance. People like you, JDP, make me embarrassed to even be posting on the same site as you, and if I didn't think that most of the readers here are intelligent enough to realize how futile, pointless, demonizing and frankly fundamentalist is your notion of considering all Neo-Nazis "
Christian" for the purpose of making Christianity look even worse than it makes itself look. Yes, Nazism used perverted Christianity more than the average televangelist, but not every Nazi was a Christian. If anything, fascism is a SYNCRETIC IDEOLOGY. Look it up on wikipedia if you don't know what it means. Ideologies like fascism are successful because they tolerate internal contradictions, for example pride in the ancient pagan deities of the German people and a professed faith in Christ as the savior of humanity, combined with 19th/early 20th century scientific racism. Functionally speaking, fascism is a religion, but it is no more Christian than it is pagan or for that matter, anti-pagan or anti-Christian. Fascism is anti-whatever scapegoat is most convenient for any particular instance of fascism, whether that's Jews as in Germany, blacks as in apartheid, or financial and cultural elites as in many third-world dictatorships.
I'm not defending religion. I just feel it's necessary to speak out against stupid people, religious or not, and I'm sorry to make all these ad hominems but JDP- you are stupid for conflating Christianity or religion with just anything that (rightfully) offends you, such as murderous racism. However, what you suggest by lumping every one of these nutballs into the same ideological (and religious) category.
Now go think about why what you said was stupid, and own up to it. Even if you don't admit it here, at least stand in front of a mirror and admit it to yourself.
Posted by: TechSkeptic
|
June 10, 2009 6:29 PM
Littlejohn,
I betits becuase he read the antichrist site and not the holywesternempire site. Von Brunn is very clear about his hatred of liberals!
Posted by: David | June 10, 2009 6:30 PM
So Obama was right about Bibles and Guns.
Posted by: Zarathustra | June 10, 2009 6:31 PM
@ WTF (#85)
Point taken, WTF. Thanks.
Posted by: Noadi | June 10, 2009 6:34 PM
Zarathustra: I applaud you. You put that incredibly well.
Whether this guy was a Christian or an Atheist is secondary to his white supremacy. This guy killed out of anti-semitism and hatred not religious belief.
Now I have my issues with religion and when the religious do things which are hateful and disgusting because they think God wants them too (like the Westboro Baptist Church) then they deserve every bit of criticism lobbed at them. However not every bit of human evil can be traced to religious belief, and this is one of those cases.
However I'm still not lettign the journalists off for being sloppy. There's no excuse for that.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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June 10, 2009 6:38 PM
Fuck.
Just...fuck.
I'm gonna go veg. Bye.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
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June 10, 2009 6:42 PM
I'm 61 and I listen to metal, punk and indie rock.
Posted by: ambulocetus | June 10, 2009 6:43 PM
Another example of why I am offering FREE martial arts lessons to Secular Progressives in the Gary/East Chicago area. Sorry to Spam, but it's important we learn how to protect ourselves. Click on my name to contact me. It's the good stuff; I could charge a bunch for lessons, but it's not about the money for me.
Posted by: Rick | June 10, 2009 6:44 PM
From what I've gathered trying to research this fuckball over the last few hours, it seems that he is a christian. That article seems to be more anti-catholic than anti-christianity. And it also says this:
In truth, as bigoted Judeophobes know, God's "Chosen People" hated their God's only Son.
Would a neo-nazi use the term "bigoted judeophobe", being a bigoted judeophobe himself?
Posted by: Zarathustra | June 10, 2009 6:44 PM
Thank Noadi. Also, sorry for all the unfinished sentences in my post. I've been drinking heavily since 2 AM. :(
Posted by: Qwerty
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June 10, 2009 6:49 PM
I went to his website. He appears to be a weird right-wing wack job from reading just a little of his book which is out there because I doubt if anyone but other wackjobs would buy it. The work JEW appears and always in uppercase after anyone's name who is Jewish. Hmmmm... I remember a discussion about how wackjobs and trolls LOVE using uppercase.
An excerpt from his book on his website:
"Steven Spielberg, JEW, pusillanimous Hollywood director,
paid $22-million to Kate Capshaw, enterprising White
hustler, before she would commit to the marriage bed (Vanity
Fair, Oct. 1997). She then dutifully bore him two future
candiates for America's booming nose-job industry."
One wonders what he thinks of right-wing apologists of Jewish descent like the odious Micheal Medved?
Posted by: raven | June 10, 2009 6:51 PM
Just skimmed this article. It seems confusing whether he is a xian or not. I guess it will all shake out in the near future.
What is clear is that he was a white supremacists and a right wing extremist.. That is 2/3 of the way to fundie xian right there. They hate Catholics too. OTOH, they hate just about everybody so it sort of dilutes the honor.
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 6:53 PM
From what I've gathered trying to research this fuckball over the last few hours, it seems that he is a christian. That article seems to be more anti-catholic than anti-christianity. And it also says this:
In truth, as bigoted Judeophobes know, God's "Chosen People" hated their God's only Son.
It is amazing the lengths people will go to in order to deny the obvious. What part of: "Christianity destroyed Roman Civilization " don't you understand? If his beef was merely with Catholics, he would of said so.
Posted by: PharmDude | June 10, 2009 6:56 PM
Good article here by Frank Schaeffer. A must read.
Posted by: Zarathustra | June 10, 2009 7:00 PM
I will never put it past a fascist to simultaneously consider him or herself a Christian, a Pagan, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Ba'hai, an Atheist... I could go on. What do some people NOT get about fascism being a syncretic ideology that tolerates internal contradictions with ease. Arguably it has to tolerate internal contradictions, fascism has always been a reactionary movement to modernistic, Enlightenment values, and to paraphrase Umberto Eco, modernism makes distinctions, and fascism eliminates distinctions. At the same time that fascism is a reaction against enlightenment thought, fascists seek to co-opt the achievements of the enlightenment, including science, (rennaisance/early enlightenment) religious humanism, and positive atheism, among other enlightenment legacies. To brush off fascism by comparing it functionally to a religion undermines both the struggles against fascism more broadly and the struggle against the choke hold that the public fascination with religion, supernaturalism and other b*llshit has on society. There is more than one "front" to the culture war. Don't confuse them.
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 7:05 PM
One wonders what he thinks of right-wing apologists of Jewish descent like the odious Micheal Medved?
The right/left political dichotomy is one of the most incoherent concepts I have ever heard. Medved is a neo-conservative, Brunn is a National Socialist. Why those 2 ideologies belong on the same wing, I don't know. To the extant that National Socialists acknowledge their place on the political spectrum, they always perceived themselves as a "third way", neither left or right.
National Socialists and paleo-conservative white nationalists always hated the neo-conservatives as they saw them as Zionists doing the bidding of Israel. They believe the Iraq war was primarily the result of Jewish influence on Washington that attempted to portray an enemy of Israel as an enemy of the United States, so the U.S would do the dirty work for Israel.
Posted by: Sastra
|
June 10, 2009 7:07 PM
B.B. #109 wrote:
Yes, it seems that this guy wasn't Christian -- at least, not in any traditional sense. At the same time, one of his beefs about Freud was that he stripped the "spiritual significance" from men and did not/could not understand that mind diseases originated in the SOUL OF MAN. Whatever that means. He does refer to evolution, in advocating eugenics.
Frankly, reading through his site trying to discern any coherent, rational philosophy is rather painful. The only regular thread is anti-semitism.
Posted by: raven | June 10, 2009 7:15 PM
Anyone who talks about spiritual significance and the Soul of Man isn't an atheist. He might be an off beat xian. With 32,000 sects and more every day, there is a huge specturm of xians. Some very like himself, the Xian Identity movement.
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 7:25 PM
Yes, it seems that this guy wasn't Christian -- at least, not in any traditional sense. At the same time, one of his beefs about Freud was that he stripped the "spiritual significance" from men and did not/could not understand that mind diseases originated in the SOUL OF MAN.
I think you are reading him to literally. Reading what he wrote in context, he was talking about nature vs nurture. He was criticizing Marx, Engels, Boas, Freud, etc for denying the inherent nature of people, instead claiming that everyone is only a product of their environment.
Posted by: BlueIndependent
|
June 10, 2009 7:25 PM
I'm waiting for the press conference where Napolitano says:
"A couple months ago I made public a normal intelligence report on the extremism of groups inside the US. At that time conservatives in the country expressed concern that the report was illegitimately targeting people of their political persuasion. A hullabaloo erupted in the press over this portion of the report.
With recent events, especially those of the last two weeks with an abortion clinic murder and now the shootings at the National Holocaust Museum, I'm here to tell the conservatives of America: Shove it up your ass."
Oh wait, Napolitano has no intention of making such a statement? Pity.
Posted by: St. Tabby Lavalamp | June 10, 2009 7:30 PM
Remember when conservatives were recently frothing at their mouths over the report on right-wing extremists?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/14/homeland-security-warns-rise-right-wing-extremism/
Yes, I linked to Fox because they were amongst the most outraged. OUTRAGED! There's left-wing extremists too!
Those were the good old days when we didn't have unfortunate examples to point to.
Posted by: B.B. | June 10, 2009 7:37 PM
I'm waiting for the press conference where Napolitano says:
"A couple months ago I made public a normal intelligence report on the extremism of groups inside the US. At that time conservatives in the country expressed concern that the report was illegitimately targeting people of their political persuasion. A hullabaloo erupted in the press over this portion of the report./
With recent events, especially those of the last two weeks with an abortion clinic murder and now the shootings at the National Holocaust Museum, I'm here to tell the conservatives of America: Shove it up your ass."
Oh wait, Napolitano has no intention of making such a statement? Pity.
People were entirely justified in criticizing that report because it unfairly associated legitimate non-violent political movements with terrorism.
Posted by: Mena | June 10, 2009 7:57 PM
Whoa, Debbie Schlussel, the High Queen of Insanity, blames, OMG, the Muslims! I wonder if she is talking about actual Muslims or those atheist potential Muslims. Apparently Muslims and white supremacists hate Jews so much that the crazy white guys will overlook working with the crazy brown guys just to do stuff like this. Or something like that. Like I said, she's craaaaazy.
Posted by: Colugo | June 10, 2009 8:01 PM
I found an online copy of his book Kill The Best Gentiles. It has a Library of Congress number!?? I will not link to the website that hosts it. (Caps in the original.)
Von Brunn on Jesus: "Jesus Christ WAS NOT A JEW. He was a rabbi (teacher) who worshipped the Mosaic Law and despised the Pharisaical Oral Law (Talmud). Jesus (if he did exist) was born in Galilee ("Unclean Land of the Gentiles"). He may have been Semitic but he could just as easily have been Aryan. The New Testament conflicts on his lineage. One thing is certain, he was NOT a JEW (Khazar). It is also erroneous and deliberately deceptive, to apply the word “JEW” to Hebrews/Israelis (Semitics)."
On race-mixing: "As with ALL LIBERAL ideologies, miscegenation is totally inconsistent with Natural Law: the species are improved through in-breeding, natural selection and mutation. Only the strong survive. Cross-breeding Whites with species lower on the evolutionary scale diminishes the White gene-pool while increasing the number of physiologically, psychologically and behaviorally deprived mongrels."
My note: Of course the above pseudoscience is complete garbage.
On the Hebrew conspiracy: "There is a conspiracy, working at this moment, to destroy Western Civilization and the Aryan Nation that created it. This is not a new conspiracy. It began over 3000-years ago as spoken tribal legends, which eventually were collected in the Torah (c. 900 B.C.), a tapestry of myths and tales plagiarized, largely, from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Greece. ... Into this rich tapestry the Hebrews wove threads of their own history as they believed it to be, or desired it to be — the modus operandi of Hollywood scriptwriters today. The fictitious protagonist of these self-serving tales is Yahweh (Adonai, Jehovah, God): a jealous, vengeful, wrathful, genocidal, anthropomorphic tribal god, created in the image and likeness of the Hebrews who created him. Naturally, this BIG HEBREW in the sky LOVES the HEBREWS. All other nations are considered cattle to be used, milked and exterminated."
Posted by: africangenesis | June 10, 2009 8:12 PM
It appears that the perpetrator had an extreme form of that dangerous human tendency to adopt a collective identity.
"It's about time the US law enforcement agencies recognized that the real terrorist groups in this country aren't populated by people with funny arabic names: they're homegrown, and they've got European names like von Brunn and McVeigh and Roeder…and even Terry and O'Reilly."
The tendency to strong collective identities is hardly a Euroopean invention, although I've often wondered if that was tendency was the foundation of the "innovation" that spread out of africa. Even in the US identity politics is across board and seems to becoming more intense. It involves the demonization and dehumanization of others. The use of it to justify incivility and to resort to emotionalism instead of rational discourse.
BTW, O'Reilly is a reactionary populist, firmly in the center, not a right winger, and Abdulhakim Muhammed, may be home grown, but he is not European and does have a funny arabic name.
Posted by: frog | June 10, 2009 8:31 PM
MattH: What does being right-wing have to do with it? They are nutcases, pure and simple.
Yeah, ideologies have nothing to do with the crazies who act in it's name. The crazy Nazi's had nothing to do with Nazism -- but were just crazy, and the crazy Stalinists had nothing to do with Stalinism -- but were just crazy.
I just wonder where all the crazy Satyagraha folks are shootin' up folks? They must be somewhere.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 10, 2009 8:35 PM
Speaking identity politics, where does the black community get its anti-semitism from? Reverend Wright is not the first. Jessie Jackson was also caught making anti-semitic remarks.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/06/10/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5079069.shtml
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
|
June 10, 2009 8:35 PM
africangenesis #121
Thanks, AG, for proving once again that you're a clueless fuckwit. Anyone who thinks that O'Reilly isn't hard right is either stupid or ignorant. (These two categories are not mutually exclusive, as AG has shown on numerous occasions.)
Posted by: tim | June 10, 2009 8:37 PM
unfortunately, a security was killed. Source, globeandmail.com, updated at 7:17 pm.
Posted by: rick | June 10, 2009 8:43 PM
O'Reilly is a reactionary populist, firmly in the center, not a right winger
Yeah, because the way he goes after labor unions is really, really populist.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 10, 2009 8:44 PM
Tis Himself,
"Anyone who thinks that O'Reilly isn't hard right is either stupid or ignorant."
False dichotomy. You forgot, in your arrogant emotional burst of incivility, to consider the possibility that you might be wrong. That risk is increased when your opinions are not evidence based. O'Reilly is a knee jerk advocate of government regulation to solve nearly every problem and the use of the military in violation of posse commitatus and is extremly ignorant of free market economics. It takes more than a pro-life stance to be right wing. There has be a little understanding of constitutionally limiting the government.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
|
June 10, 2009 8:49 PM
Okay, AG, you're saying that you looneytarians are right wing. Thanks for finally admitting it.
In real life (i.e., not in looneytarian fantasyland), O'Reilly is about as conservative as you can get without being a fascist or a looneytarian.
Posted by: Colugo | June 10, 2009 8:52 PM
Responses to various assertions made in these threads:
While very early in its history fascists were themselves unsure of whether they were left, right, or "in front" (see Italian national syndicalism, Sorelians, German national bolshevism, Mosley etc.), soon enough they became allied and identified with the extreme right and still are today.
That said, to conflate this Nazi with the likes of Michael Medved - no matter what anyone think of Medved, or Fox News, or whoever - is like lumping in Wellstone voters with the Khmer Rouge. It's ridiculous.
Nazis - including even Hitler's inner circle - never ceased internal disagreement on Jesus, God, and the occult, much less economic policy, holism vs reductionism in biology and so on. (Some matters were settled by Hitler, such as Goebbels favor for some Expressionists being squelched by Hitler's abhorrence of many forms of modern art.) Before Nazi rule, non-Nazi German fascists disagreed on whether Jewishness was spiritual or biological in nature or whether Germans should subjugate the Slavs or interbreed with them. Lots of flavors of Nazis and fascists.
Why do we have to choose between extreme rightists and Islamic militants as the "real" terrorists in the US? The United States government has the ability and the will to go after all kinds of terrorists.
Posted by: TheVirginian | June 10, 2009 8:54 PM
You cannot understand what the Nazis and other right-wing movements in Europe - whether you consider them to be fascist or not - said and did without examining the deep and broad role of Christianity's history and beliefs in these movements. Antisemitism and racism in the West are both specifically Christian in origin - racism originated as anti-paganism directed at dark-skinned pagans. When the concept of race was developed in the later 18th century, it was retroactively applied to "explain" why dark pagans resisted conversion - they had to be an inferior race!
Antisemitism came out of early Christian anger and theology, in that Jews supposedly chose Satan and immorality over God and morality by rejecting conversion. All of the measures the Nazis adopted against Jews originated in Christianity. The yellow star, for example, goes back to the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, which was unhappy because Christians were unknowingly having sex with Jews and Muslims, which put Christians at risk of moral contamination, even damnation. These belief/fear ultimately goes back to Paul's letters.
Similarly, the white supremacist movement is riddled with Christian beliefs; some of the earliest go back to the 19th century British-Israel movement; others stem from the Bible-based "Phineas Priesthood" movement. The militia movement belief that Jews are inferior draws on the creation stories of Genesis. Even when white supremacists attack Christianity, it usually arises from a belief within Christianity about Jews supposedly malevolent influence on Christianity, making it "too Jewish."
The Aryanism of Hitler and other Nazis, who overwhelmingly self-identified as Christians, many of them church-goers (about two-thirds Protestant, one-third Catholic, with a sprinkling of paganists), was based on a belief that Jesus could not be a Jew, as they were too inferior, so he had to be an Aryan. Aryanists, unless they had gone so far as to reject Christianity, generally believed that only the Aryans were capable of true religion and the real Christian spirit. This led to a belief, echoed by similar racial beliefs in other countries, such as Hungary, that only Aryans could be good citizens of a Christian nation, so non-Christian or un-Christian influences (particularly atheism) had to be eliminated. The Holocaust had deep roots in this idea.
I don't have time for a longer posting, but claims that Christianity did not have a large, probably dominant role, in the beliefs and actions of Nazism and other right-wing movements acrosss pre-WWII Europe are all versions of the "real Christians wouldn't do such and such." Real Christians have slaughtered countless millions of pagans, Jews and even Christians for either not being Christians or being the "wrong" kind of Christian.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 10, 2009 9:01 PM
Tis Himself,
" O'Reilly is about as conservative as you can get without being a fascist or a looneytarian."
Wow, the rigor of you argument is compelling. At least two thirds of the Republican caucus, probably more since many RINOS were lost in the last election, are to the right of him. He'd have to be a bigger supporter of Obama's corporatism to be a liberal fascist, but he was for the regulation and the limiting of salaries. He has the makings of an Obama-esque czar. I'll grant that he is socially conservative and a traditional Catholic in his fighting of the culture wars, but if you don't think that is also firmly in the center, you haven't been following the elections or the ratings.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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June 10, 2009 9:09 PM
On Billdo O'Really, I'm afraid I side with AG. He's neither right nor left. He's simply a media whore. He'd be as comfortable spouting left-wing loonie talking points if it made hime more money.
So, AG, enjoy this. It may be the only time I agree with you.
But wait! Why confine or political stereotypes to a single axis:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
It's at least a different way of looking at our political divide.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
|
June 10, 2009 9:10 PM
Social conservativism is in the center? What have you been smoking, AG? Oh never mind, I forgot, you're a looneytarian. Reality and looneytarianism don't even have a nodding acquaintance.One thing you might consider, AG, and I realize that this has to do with reality so you're not predisposed to accept it, but who does O'Reilly work for? Hint, it ain't Air America.
Posted by: frog | June 10, 2009 9:14 PM
AG: It takes more than a pro-life stance to be right wing. There has be a little understanding of constitutionally limiting the government.
So know O'Reilly is Not A True Rightists! You want to distance yourself, and define the right as anything you like.
Well, you don't get to do that. Talk about arrogance and incivility. See, AG, calling you an asshole is only a very mild form of incivility -- playing disingenuous games rather than carefully defining your terms is the height of in-civil-ity, since we have no substance to discuss when you reduce it to a childish propaganda game.
It's a common right-wing characteristic to avoid the substance and float on processes. It's deeply pseudo-intellectual -- it's clever, but just a shell game.
You could have argued that O'Reilly belongs to a different rightist sect than you -- that's fair enough. And distinguishing between your sects would actually be a substantiative discussion -- see Colugo for that.
But to essentially call O'Reilly a leftist ("He'd have to be a bigger supporter of Obama's corporatism to be a liberal fascist") is exactly the nonsense game of saying that the Nazi's were leftists because they had socialist in their name.
It only makes you look like a worthless propagandist.
Posted by: raven | June 10, 2009 9:15 PM
Von Gunn's writing is confusing enough that figuring out whether he is a xian and what kind is likely to be a long process if it is even doable. He doesn't seem to be an atheist, maybe some flavor of Xian Identity which considers jesus to be Aryan not Jewish.
Doesn't really matter. He is practically a fundie xian anyway.
White Supremacist Check
Antisemitic Check
Right Wing Extremist, Hates liberals Check
Theist ???????
Well, he is at least 3/4 fundie xian, close enough.
.
Posted by: Colugo | June 10, 2009 9:22 PM
O'Reilly is a huge a-hole, but in a number of respects it is true that he is not as conservative or knee-jerk GOP as, say, Hannity. Who cares. He is also an anti-abortion loon. ("60,000 fetuses who will never become Americans," or whatever the hell he babbled last week about the Tiller murder.)
Arguing that degree of government intervention in the economy maps directly onto a left-right scale or is the be-all of understanding ideology is something peculiar to American right libertarians. (Of course, libertarianism means something very different in Europe. So does liberalism.)
Actually, africangenesis, I think Pinochet is a prime example of a liberal fascist, if we use "liberal" in its social science, especially economic, meaning. And sure, there are lots of kinds of antisemites, some of them quite virulent. The Holocaust museum shooter is a far right antisemite. I would just call him a Nazi.
All that aside, obviously between this and the Tiller assassination we have a situation in which far right maniacs are rampaging. As are extremist Islamic maniacs, as we saw in the army recruiting center shooting last week.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 10, 2009 9:25 PM
frog,
"So know O'Reilly is Not A True Rightists! You want to distance yourself, and define the right as anything you like."
You are jumping to conclusions. I like Hannity even less than O'Reilly, but, easily admit, he is far more firmly in the "right" of american politics. It is nothing about distancing, it is just about preserving some meaning for the words we are using to communicate.
Your incivility is no substitute for reasoning.
Posted by: frog | June 10, 2009 9:30 PM
Colugo: Arguing that degree of government intervention in the economy maps directly onto a left-right scale or is the be-all of understanding ideology is something peculiar to American right libertarians
It's essential to the ideology -- the central article of faith of the Libs is that the only thing that is of consequence is formal government action.
It's like the Marxists with class -- it's class this, class that, over and over again ad nauseum, the entire world jammed into this single, simple-minded analytical tool. Of course, they judge the entire political spectrum in terms of class -- it's the only thing that exists in their pointy little heads. The doctrinaire Libs just remind me so much of Marxists pre-WWI -- I expect that their physical construction of "freedom" if they actually managed to dominate a country will be as pleasant as the Soviet implementation.
Posted by: David Klinghoffer | June 10, 2009 9:37 PM
There's one element to his thinking that you predictably leave out, PZ: the evolutionary one, as he writes himself in his manifesto. See my Beliefnet blog entry on same.
Posted by: frog | June 10, 2009 9:43 PM
AG: It is nothing about distancing, it is just about preserving some meaning for the words we are using to communicate.
And the words mean nothing more, and nothing less, than a social distance metric.
Your incivility is no substitute for reasoning.
Do you even know what incivility means? Calling you a flaming sob is only mildly uncivil -- but polluting the discussion with meaningless propaganda in place of actual substantiative thought is the height of disruption of the civil space.
Calling someone "uncivil" for using naughty words on the internets has to have some kind of Godwin-like rule eliminating one from the conversation. It's like going to a bar and loudly declaiming the drunken behavior.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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June 10, 2009 9:43 PM
I leave it out because von Brunn was not an evolutionary biologist and has about the same goofy misconceptions about evolution that you creationists share.
Posted by: Ichthyic | June 10, 2009 9:47 PM
At least two thirds of the Republican caucus, probably more since many RINOS were lost in the last election, are to the right of him.
scarily, judging by the current republican party's embrace of Limbaugh and Palin as "representative", I have to agree with AG here.
Does that make ORLY a liberal?
fuck no.
It means that that there is a section of the republican party that is going even FARTHER right, off the fucking cliff, than ORLY ever even considered.
What's interesting is considering the possibility that there will be an actual split within the republican party, into two distinct political parties, and the US will end up with potentially a 3 party system.
Frankly, if that happened it would be a good thing, IMO, because while the immediate effect might be to reduce progressive politics, in the end the inevitable marginalization of the "far right" party further and further would effectively eliminate their ability to influence political decisions.
I rather think McCain was pushing for something like this with much of his commentary on the religious right wing of the party in 2000.
IMO, if the republican party does NOT split, either it will be doomed, or the US itself will be.
Posted by: Swimmy | June 10, 2009 9:49 PM
Update: The guard who was wounded has died.
Since I live near DC, I think I'll visit the Holocaust Museum soon in his honor, and make a donation when I can.
Posted by: Ichthyic | June 10, 2009 9:57 PM
Calling someone "uncivil" for using naughty words on the internets has to have some kind of Godwin-like rule eliminating one from the conversation.
fuck yes.
especially after AG has been here as long (WAY TOO LONG) as he has, he should know better than to spout that crap.
Not that I have love for the guy, mind you, but fuck me, is there any way he can get MORE irritating?
...wait, forget I mentioned it; he's actually smart enough to indeed figure out ways of being even more irritating, and I'd hate to have everyone blame me for inciting him to do so.
Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 10, 2009 10:01 PM
David Klinghoffer:
Posted by: KingM | June 10, 2009 10:01 PM
Come on, there may be Christian terrorists out there, but there are still guys with names like Mohammed Atta who have made their presence known from time to time.
If you haven't read Infidel yet, I highly recommend it.
Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 10, 2009 10:03 PM
In case there is any doubt, the words in Comic Sans are Klinghoffer's.
Posted by: Silver Fox | June 10, 2009 10:16 PM
#117
"denying the inherent nature of people, instead claiming that everyone is only a product of their environment."
A product of their environment?
I would suggest that this man is working in the English tradition of John Locke, i.e. English Empiricism. He may well be responding to the Cartesian challenge.
Sensations play a controlling role in the acquisition of knowledge. He should be questioned as to whether he repudiates all innate ideas or if he denies that the mind can know anything without first inquiring into the material world and going through the senses, i.e. Tabula Rasa. Of course Locke did have a concept of secondary properties, e.g. size, color, etc. which were imposed on the objects by the perceiver. But this would not appear to impact his basic sense of reality which would essentially be materialistic.
I would like to engage this gentleman in a colloquey.
Posted by: Colugo | June 10, 2009 10:24 PM
frog: Agreed.
Lisa Simpson on The Fountainhead:
"Mom, isn't that book the Bible of right-wing losers?
Klinghoffer is just full of it. We even cited some of the same passages but have quite different conclusions.
Von Brunn cited bullcrap, archaic, garbled pseudo-biology as additional "scientific" rationale for his insane hatred, rather than citing the Bible or space aliens or implants in his head. But this pseudobiology was not the source of his hatred.
Similarly, Hitler imbibed from a lot of sources, including secondhand Social Darwinism that was a lot more popular and mainstream in his time than it is in ours. But this was not the source nor the core of Hitler's hatred, either in terms of personal psychology or ideology. Rather, this was the "scientific" authority that Hitler cited as additional justification, along with the economic, political, and spiritual "authoritative" sources that Hitler used. It's also noteworthy that even within the norms of the international eugenics community, Hitlerian ideology was extremely antisemitic. A case could be made that the master race portion of Hitler's ideology was largely fueled by eugenics and social Darwinism (in addition to Theosophical and other mystical nonsense) but his antisemitism, while having some streams from pseudoscientific sources, had more potent wellsprings in anti-Jewish religious, political, and economic arguments. (Note to self: what's with the water metaphors?) To be sure, Hitler's biologicization of these proved to be quite virulent.
Aside: Watching Olbermann. It seems that he, like many on the right, have forgotten that law enforcement agencies under even the Bush administration including Dept of Homeland Security, like the current administration, warned about right wing extremists. The DHS report was really not that novel. The reaction was, however, and mostly due to conservative paranoia from being out of power.
Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 10, 2009 10:29 PM
You can depend on the silly old goat to spout out inane bullshit. Why the fuck was he not booted off during Survivor: Pharyngula?
Posted by: Scott from Oregon | June 10, 2009 10:30 PM
Oh lordy!
Conflating a crazy, deranged, lunatic with politics...
I'm embarrassed for you PZ.
Tell me you're not an educator for real...?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 10:32 PM
Silver Fox you still haven't completed your assignment.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 10, 2009 10:39 PM
Ichthyic,
"What's interesting is considering the possibility that there will be an actual split within the republican party, into two distinct political parties, and the US will end up with potentially a 3 party system."
Such a crisis might hopefully represent an opportunity for reform. The current system of gerrymandered geographical districts disenfrancises too many people. Many in the house of representatives, only "represent" 5x% of the people. Replacing that with a subscription system indepdent of of geographical boundaries, would mean that every "representitive", in a sense, represents all the people who selected him. This would result in proportional representation, where minorities have real political power. The culture supporting the constitution has eroded so much that minorities can no longer rely upon it for protection.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 10:42 PM
Good job watching the point sail over your head. Just because he misapplies it doesn't condemn those who actually understand it.
That's about as idiotic an assessment of the situation as were likely to hear.
/clap clap
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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June 10, 2009 10:43 PM
If we had gone another round or two, Bye-bye SF. The question was really who would go first, the Silver Faux or the Rookie. Since the Rookie is now gone, SF is high on most peoples list.Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 10, 2009 10:44 PM
Because being a white supremest and an anti-semite is not a political position.
Because a "legal, non-violent citizens arrest" of Federal Reserve board members is not a political action.
Because there is no political ramification to being a Holocaust denier.
Because the mind boggles.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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June 10, 2009 10:48 PM
Yeah, both Silver Fox and African Genesis have rather worn out their welcome lately.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 10:49 PM
If boring and annoying are categories, yes.
I still want SF to finish his homework
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 10:52 PM
All that boggling has done some damage.
Posted by: raven | June 10, 2009 10:53 PM
Von Gunns's main motivation was Jew hatred, antisemitism.
Antisemitism predates Darwin by almost 2,000 years. The most notorious German antisemite before the Nazis (and Darwin) was Martin Luther. He called for killing the Jews and even drew up a Final Solution in his book, Lies of the Jews. At Niremberg, some Nazis cited him as an inspiration. The pogromists and the Spanist Inquisition never heard of Darwin either.
Hitler was a Catholic and his willing henchmen were all Catholics and Protestants. God and jesus is mentioned 32 times in Mein Kampf. Darwin and evolution are mentioned zero times.
As several have noted such as the Virginian, western antisemitism has its roots deep in Xianity, as the Jews are accused of killing Jesus and not converting afterwards. Whether Von Gunn was Xian or not, his main ideology has its roots in Xianity and not Darwinism.
Incidently, as David Klinghoffer would know if he bothered to think rather than lie, evolutionary biology is taught and researched in Israel. They even have their own journal, IIRC, The Israeli Journal of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Most Jews exept those associated with the Xian Dominionist DI dumbtank, don't buy the Darwindidit lie.
.
Posted by: luna1580 | June 10, 2009 10:57 PM
PZ, will you be correcting the main post to reflect that the guard did die?
it seems a bit disrespectful of the memory of Stephen T. Johns to not correct it.
i have to wonder if the racist piece-o-shit shooter aimed at johns particularly, as he was both black and working at the museum, or if it was just chance that he was killed. he apparently was shot in the chest before he even had a chance to draw his own weapon.
Posted by: Justin
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June 10, 2009 11:01 PM
The right-wing trolls are out in force today... I wonder if they're feeling nervous..
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 10, 2009 11:04 PM
They're always nervous.
What with all those jews and negros creeping around stealin' their paychecks and sexin' their daughters.
Posted by: Ichthyic | June 10, 2009 11:07 PM
The current system of gerrymandered geographical districts disenfrancises too many people.
agreed, but:
Replacing that with a subscription system indepdent of of geographical boundaries, would mean that every "representitive", in a sense, represents all the people who selected him. This would result in proportional representation, where minorities have real political power.
I disagree with that. IIRC, one of the reasons districting took the course it did was to be INCLUSIVE, not exclusive (otherwise large cities have disproportionate influence over the areas that surround them, which have much different interests, but much lower numbers). I think it's rather more that the process has been abused, by both parties, via gerrymandering than it is that the process itself doesn't have merit.
How to fix that?
over my head, frankly.
short of something draconian like requiring a 2/3 approval vote of those that would be affected by a redistricting effort.
there simply can't be a representative that reflects the values of every specific area within a large state at the federal level. Imagine how large the HoR would be?
Would it even work at the State level for large, diverse states like CA?
Posted by: Justin
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June 10, 2009 11:09 PM
I would be nervous too if I realized that all the rights that I campaigned to have stripped from the American public would wind up biting me in the ass.
Hence the overtime to try and convince someone anyone that the shooter was anything but a freeper skinhead.
Posted by: Rorschach | June 10, 2009 11:09 PM
Let me get this straight,some deluded right-wing nazi supremacist shoots around at the Holocaust museum,kills a guard,and Klinghoffer comes out and says that clearly,the guy must have been an evil evolutionist?
Do these DI guys have absolutely no integrity at all?
*Rhetorical question*
Posted by: Md | June 10, 2009 11:13 PM
I'm confused. At some points this man sounds like Nietzsche:
That Christianity destroyed the great civilizations of Greece and Rome....and then he makes a statement about the Jewish Luciferian influence. Not too many Atheists I know believe in Lucifer any more than they believe in a god. Perhaps he's against organized Christianity and Catholicism?
I know it's a fine point, but I do think that somehow it ties in with what others have said about Aryanists.
Posted by: raven | June 10, 2009 11:24 PM
Or against Xianity that is too Jewish and not Aryan enough? The Xian Identity cults all claim jesus was an Aryan.
You have to be a xian to believe in satan or the antichrist. To atheists these are just supernatural spooks as real as the Easter Bunny or Mithras.
.
Posted by: Colugo | June 10, 2009 11:42 PM
Let's face it, some of you are trying to shoehorn this Nazi bastard into the same category as your favorite contemporary domestic political adversaries as much as possible. And engaging in some serious mental and rhetorical gymnastics to do so. (Not too far removed from Klinghoffer and Darwinism.) Hence the insistence on his supposed Christianity. (To be sure, I agree with the points that The Virgnian made about the role of Christian antisemitism in Nazism.) Or that he's not just right wing (agreed) but somehow in the same camp of the right wingers you tangle with the most, or just a somewhat more zealous variant. Well, he hates neocons and Bush, if that's helpful.
As with Bin Laden or Ted Bundy, understand von Brunn for what he actually is, not what will score the most political points against your usual nemeses.
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | June 10, 2009 11:44 PM
Integrity makes baby Jesus cry.
Posted by: Md | June 10, 2009 11:47 PM
I think that could be true, Raven. I've been looking at the Christian identity cult which seems to tie in with both white supremacist thought and a dislike for Christianity stemming from Judaism.
Posted by: Md | June 11, 2009 12:00 AM
Well Colugo, I doubt very seriously that you know my particular motivations politically...I didn't know it was off limits to be curious about particular human motivations. Hope you don't mind if I continue my inquiry.
Posted by: James F | June 11, 2009 12:07 AM
PZWNED.
Posted by: luna1580 | June 11, 2009 12:18 AM
what matters most is von brunn is a crazed racist murderer, not what his religious beliefs may or may not be, unless we find out that his particular brand of deadly racism was directly inspired by his faith or lack thereof.
if you've looked at his book on his site, it's pretty clear he is not sane, if his hatred for "non-aryans" is the cause or the effect of his madness seems hard to tell.
that said, the concepts in the thing (if you can ferret any out of all the crazy) do seem to make him a very good fit for the "christian identity movement." he expresses beliefs that christ was aryan and that today's "jews" are really "khazars" and that all "non-aryan" people are really a different species which isn't truly human and they are trying by interbreeding and a billion political conspiracies to destroy the aryan people. all of that fits with a "christian identity" view of the world, perfectly.
Posted by: Colugo | June 11, 2009 12:30 AM
"all of that fits with a "christian identity" view of the world, perfectly."
Yes, and it also fits in the White Aryan Resistance and Creativity movement, neither of which is Christian nor theistic in any ordinary sense. WAR's leader Tom Metzger is explicitly atheistic. Because Christian Identity is a Christianist variant of Nazi white supremacism. There are atheist, pantheist, Mormon, Christian Identity, and Satanist variants of neo-Nazism. They often overlook these differences between each other in service of their primary issues, white supremacy and antisemitism.
Md: "Hope you don't mind if I continue my inquiry."
Not at all.
Posted by: Colugo | June 11, 2009 12:36 AM
As for the "christ was aryan" bit: according to his own words, von Brunn is not even sure if Christ existed. And an atheist can still profess to view Christ as admirable.
Posted by: luna1580 | June 11, 2009 12:56 AM
well Colugo, it seems your knowledge of the types and history of white supremacy movements far exceeds my own.
at this point we don't know the murder's true beliefs about god, and this whole discussion boils down to the fact that neither the theists nor atheists want him revealed as "one of ours" because then some on the other side will use this in arguments over who is more "evil and wrong."
i'm getting tired of that whole argument. i do care if hate speech -from either side- leads to people being murdered, because i'd like to find a way to prevent those murders, that's all.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 11, 2009 12:58 AM
ichthyic,
"there simply can't be a representative that reflects the values of every specific area within a large state at the federal level. Imagine how large the HoR would be?"
I didn't make it clear. There would be no state level involvement. It could easily be limited to the 450 representatives or less. Just whomever gets the 400,000 or so subscriber/voters gets a seat, regardless of state or geography. The actual figure would be tuned to the managable number of seats in the house. Some minorities, like libertarians or anarchists, who have significant numbers, but aren't a majority in any district, would get some representatives. The chomskyites might get 5%, the libertarians 10 to 15%, etc. They wouldn't have control, but they might have to power to have to be bargained with. The senate would stay as it is, since it is the compromise that glues together the states, along with the electorial college. Since there won't be representatives per state to determine the allocation of electorial votes for the presidency, perhaps the presidency could go to a popular vote, just with the votes of the less populous states weighted the appropriate amount more to incentivise them to stay in the union.
You are right that sometimes all the opposition party gets stuffed into districts where they overwelmingly predominate, but that is so that the dominant party can control as many seats as possible with a bare, but solid majority. Any more than 53 to 55% is wasted, because the excess could have been used to control another district.
Posted by: anonymouroboros | June 11, 2009 1:01 AM
@Md
It sounds like Nietzsche because the passage from (http://www.antichrist.net/vonbrunn.html) about Saul and the fall of Rome is almost exactly what Nietzsche said in his book, The Dawn. I recognized it as the two passages were phrased somewhat similarly. The passage on the website seems to be a combination of aphorism 68 (titled "The First Christian") and 71 (titled "The Christian Vengeance Against Rome") if anyone cares. There may be a passage I missed, but this is where he got most of his ideas from.
It is ironic, though, that the self-proclaimed "anti-antisemite" is still being used to back up antisemitic rants from insane people. My guess is that people like this choose to ignore any passages that do not support their ideas or assertions.
Posted by: Joker | June 11, 2009 1:12 AM
The main problem is that just like anything else people are a lot less willing to call for wide reaching sanctions against those who look like them or act like them. Right Wing terrorism is often treated as something different and when there are people called to look for it the Republicans scream persecution at the top of their lungs. If someone blew up a building or murdered in the name of fat people I know that I'm probably going to be checked when I go into buildings or try to get on an airplane. I don't like it but I understand why. The issue is that so many of the wingnuts out there think it's only discrimination when it happens to them and that when the people who they dislike are brought under observation or are seen as monsters by the media they think it's perfectly fine.
Posted by: BlueIndependent
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June 11, 2009 1:21 AM
DailyKos has a rec'd diary up right now with links to and quotes samples from that tireless bastion of right-wing paranoia and fascist fantasy, FreeRepublic. If one ever needs (I know, there's plenty of examples) definitive proof the Republican Party is overrun with authoritarian sado-masochists that love guns and hate anything and everything not on their menu, it this James von Brunn shooting. They are saying and spinning every little detail to turn it into the fault of Democrats and liberals. They say the guy is in cahoots with "muzzies" (Muslims); that he votes for Senator Bird (under the assumption that Bird is still an actual white supremacist) even though Brunn is from Maryland; they blame Obama for basically being president and for people hating him and causing violence; you name it. Oh, and one of them actually sees clearly for a second and points out the obvious: That the DHS report that included the section on right-wing extremism that Republicans lost their collective piss over was right. He doesn't say it that way but he realizes Brunn's actions do nothing but confirm the report's details.
With every passing day I find it stultifyingly ghastly that anyone would continue to vote for a party that harbors so many malcontents that think they know everything and are willing at the drop of a hat to intentionally sow distrust to make their projections come true.
Posted by: Colugo | June 11, 2009 1:38 AM
Dave Neiwart reports that Von Brunn was affiliated with the sovereign citizen movement.
So was Tiller's assassin Scott Roeder.
Posted by: Ichthyic | June 11, 2009 2:03 AM
Just whomever gets the 400,000 or so subscriber/voters gets a seat, regardless of state or geography.
I'll have to think about that more, but my first response is to think that the US isn't so homogeneous that this would work well.
plus, wouldn't it tend to over-represent areas with high population centers?
ends up becoming a tyranny of the majority thing.
The Senate only balances out the House to a limited degree on that already.
Posted by: TheVirginian | June 11, 2009 2:35 AM
First, I want to express my condolences for the family of the guard, Stephen Johns.
Second, I want to clarify my earlier post. I suspect the alleged killer is mentally ill, and as such his religion, political beliefs, etc. are probably irrelevant. He apparently served this country honorably in World War II, but some years ago went off the deep end. If he's guilty and not insane, he's a murderer. If he's insane, then he's a victim of an illness, just as if he had swine flu. (So is the poor guard.)
Third, a key point that gets overlooked in some of the debate on this thread is that there exists a collection of right-wing movements in this country that draw upon a complex set of sources of ideas and older movements. Christianity plays a major part in this, directly and indirectly, but other inspirations - including what is called Social Darwinism - are a factor.
None of these ideas are valid, but they inspire people who are paranoid by nature (I think that one's obvious) and authoritarian, and their concept of who are their enemies - who are the threats to themselves, their beliefs, their community - are drawn from this mishmash. Christianity is to blame to the extent that it inspire(d)(s) racism, antisemitism, sexism, homophobia, and an authoritarian worldview (Jesus is the king of kings, lord of lords; obey your bishop as if he were god; etc.) that can drive people who have paranoid tendencies deeper into delusion and fear.
I would also blame cynical politicians and media figures who might or might not believe what they say but find it useful to take advantage of people's natural concerns about the directions of their individual lives and their country and amplify those fears, as well as some people's hatreds. Reagan declared his support for segregation ("States' rights") in Philadelphia, Miss., and won over the angry segregationists, and he often said in speeches that if the U.S. abandoned God - specifically by the government not forcing all public schoolchildren to pay to God - then God would abandon the U.S. and allow us to be punished. This is the same belief that Falwell and Robertson declared after the Sept. 11 attacks, but Reagan said these in speeches in the early 1980s. As for Rush, O'Reilly, Fox News, etc., they throw gasoline on every right-wing fire blazing in the country. Blood is on their hands.
So maybe the alleged killer, if he's guilty, would have targeted the Holocaust Museum, no matter what. But if he hadn't heard so much screaming from the right, whether Christian or atheist or whatever, about the evil Jews, blacks, etc., maybe he would not have been so violently paranoid. Maybe Dr. Tiller would also be alive, and maybe the nation could be free to focus its time, energy and resources onto dealing with serious problems, such as the world's slowly dwindling oil supply, global warming, growing threats of epidemic diseases (particularly tropical ones spreading via global warming), religious/ideological extremism elsewhere, etc., instead of constantly fighting with people who believe that if you're not a white, male, publicly heterosexual Christian, you have no rights, no role in the government and should just sit in the back of the bus and keep your mouth shut, except to say "Yassuh" when a wmphC gives you an order.
Posted by: DLC | June 11, 2009 2:36 AM
Unfortunately this is just the latest nut to try his hand at a shooting rampage. I express my condolences to the family of the security guard killed by this sick fascist fuck.
As for his politics, I remind people who think he isn't a right-wing fanatic that you're using the No True Scotsman gambit. I don't like extremists of any variety or political leanings. You're not allowed to kill for the cause and get away with it in this country, and when it's a leftist-extremist doing the shooting I'll be saying the same thing.
Posted by: Katrina | June 11, 2009 3:00 AM
My head hurts from trying to read his pdf (Kill the Best Gentiles First) but it sounds like he was heavily into the Protocols of the Elders of Zion stuff.
He vacillates between admiring the Jews ability to remain racially "pure" while secretly improving their gene pool by marrying "trophy Aryan wives" - his words - and referring to them as the parasites of the human race. ugh.
He condemns Christians, as he condemns ancient Rome, for being too "soft"on the Jews. He quotemines everyone, from Cicero to Roosevelt. I don't think he was so much atheist as anti-everyone, if that makes any sense.
OK, time for a cup of coffee before my brain asplodes.
Posted by: raven | June 11, 2009 3:36 AM
FreeRepublic is a sandbox for the crazy to play in.
Lou Engle is a garden variety right wing xian terrorist wannabe. No big deal except Newt, Huckster, and Palin associate with him. If any of those 3 had an ounce of common sense and what used to be called "xian decency", rather than grovel to him, they should have called the FBI.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 11, 2009 3:42 AM
Ichthyic,
"I'll have to think about that more, but my first response is to think that the US isn't so homogeneous that this would work well."
The idea is to represent the heterogeneity, the house would be required to act more like a parliament, with many parties, and no party having a majority. Minorities become more powerful, by being needed to forge a majority. Hopefully it is so fractionated that different issues require the forging of different majorities. What I hope is that compromise will forcing government to become more moderate. That the elections bring less total swings, because they will not be so "winner take all", like they are in a two party system. Also that, since minorities are needed, they will be more tolerated. The larger parties will have to give up some of their intolerance in order to make progress on the issues they consider most central.
Perhaps readers with experience of a many party parliament can describe how it sometimes works in practice. But the US would not be all the way their, because the senate and the executive would not be the products of the coalitions that the house would have to form. Something needs to be done, because this society is so intolerant of minority positions.
Posted by: Ichthyic | June 11, 2009 3:48 AM
I think this topic is interesting, but so far OT for this thread you might want to move it to the "thread that never dies".
I'll think about it some more if it starts up again there.
Posted by: luna1580 | June 11, 2009 4:20 AM
so that website, "holy western empire" was owned by von brunn until 2001 (or maybe just last march, reports differ) but is currently owned by a michigan man named steve reimink. it has also been taken down.
all anyone seems to know about him is:
Phone and e-mail messages seeking comment also were left for Reimink.
Reimink neighbor Jo TenBrink defended him Wednesday night.
"He is a great neighbor and a nice man," TenBrink told The Grand Rapid Press. "He comes from a very Christian family and is very helpful. We wouldn't be talking with him if we believed he had any part of this. I don't believe he has anything to do with" von Brunn."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-us-holocaustmuseum-m,0,5074151.story
and the guy shares an address and phone number with a woman who was local ron paul campaign coordinator, and he is thought to be a big ron paul guy too. does that mean anything? i'm sure we will learn more about him soon.
Posted by: luna1580 | June 11, 2009 4:23 AM
forgive the bad blockquote please.
Posted by: strange gods before me | June 11, 2009 5:12 AM
A man was murdered in a message crime intended to terrorize Jewish people, black people, anyone not allied with the growing white supremacist movement.
There are many appropriate responses to such a murder, among them to remind ourselves that murderous hatred is not an artifact of history that we can safely ignore today.
There are many confused but understandable responses, like wondering whether the murderer was a theist or an atheist and whether this will be used as another excuse to scapegoat us.
And then there is the response of africangenesis, who simplistically blames "collective identities," which regular readers of this blog recognize as one of his standard indictments of all that is not right and proper libertarianism. A corpse is just another convenient segue to libertarian advocacy.
As though Jewish people in general don't have any specific threats to protect themselves from. As though black people in general aren't likely to be the targets of white supremacy. If only they'd surrender their collective identities, the Holocaust museum wouldn't exist and Stephen Tyrone Johns wouldn't be dead. If only we would listen to reason, and all give ourselves over to libertarianism before it's too late. And hey aren't you all forgetting that the important thing here is Jesse Jackson, known liberal and probably a licentious gerrymanderer?
So another black victim of white supremacist terrorism is dead, but that's not an inappropriate, indecent, loathsome reason to hijack yet another thread in the service of libertarian ideology. Opportunism in defense of gliberty is no vice. No, taking advantage of this man's death was the only decent thing to do.
Posted by: maddyhatter
|
June 11, 2009 5:40 AM
This guy's beliefs confuse the hell out of me because he posted to Free Republic about "praying in Jesus Christ Name" ...regardless, it does not appear relevant. He did what he did because he was a fucking Nazi.
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 11, 2009 6:22 AM
Speaking identity politics, where does the black community get its anti-semitism from? - africangenesis
Ah, so because Wright and Jackson have made antisemitic remarks, "the black community" is antisemitic? If anyone were to make a similar claim about "the white community", AG would be jumping up and down screaming accusations of racism at them. So I think we know just where he's really coming from.
Posted by: Citizen of the Cosmos
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June 11, 2009 6:23 AM
I wonder if I will hear at least one person online go "You liberals are just as bad" because that is something I hear now and then for no good reason.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 11, 2009 6:54 AM
strange gods before us,
"And then there is the response of africangenesis, who simplistically blames "collective identities," which regular readers of this blog recognize as one of his standard indictments of all that is not right and proper libertarianism."
You are mischaracterizing again. You can't get where you are going in your attempt to demonize from this statement of mine:
"It appears that the perpetrator had an extreme form of that dangerous human tendency to adopt a collective identity."
I am indicting all of humanity. I pointed out that even in recent news blacks and muslims with arabic names were also engaged in anti-semitism and terrorist attacks. Libertarians were not exempted from being vulnerable to colective identities. Like all others they must exercise discipline to avoid the seductive embrace of collective identity. Whether nationalism, racism, religious sectarianism, or idealism collect identities have been used to justify much of the destruction of the past and present. All have claimed the right to lives of individuals from taking those lives in conflict to, slavery, conscription, and human sacrifice. The collective may be a massless fiction of the human mind, but that doesn't make the human biological tendency to identify with them any less real or dangerous.
By denying the humanity you share with those who implemented the final solution, you are in danger of forgetting the insidious vulnerability and tendency we all share to demonize and dehumanize those we disagree with. Just look at the sense of entitlement you felt in mischaracterizing and demonizing and the confidence you felt that even such uncivil behavior would meet with approval from the mob.
Lets return to the subject of biology, and focus not just on whether the perpetrator was "one of them", but on the fact that he is "one of us", and such behavior is all to common in this animal we call "homo sapiens". He is but an extreme manifestation of natural and latent tendencies in all of us. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 11, 2009 7:06 AM
Knockgoats,
"Ah, so because Wright and Jackson have made antisemitic remarks, "the black community" is antisemitic?"
You are kidding yourself, if you think you can dismiss Wright and Jackson as extremists. As has been made clear in multiple news reports, Obama's church and the preaching of Wright were not that untypical of black liberation theology. It shouldn't be surprising that racist comments are more common in the public lives of minorities, because our society is more tolerant of them. Look and the spin and excuses being made for the outrageous comments of Sonia Sotomayor.
Posted by: TX CHL Instructor | June 11, 2009 7:48 AM
"Can we start taking right-wing extremism seriously now?"
Donchaknow that all Right-Wingers are fundy xtians?
This was a case of ATHEIST extremism.
This was a nutjob. And he was just as anti-religion as most of the commenters here. But the knee-jerk Libtard reaction is to 1) assume he must be a Conservative, and 2) paint all conservatives with the same brush. (Oh, and let's completely ignore the Muslim nutjob that murdered the recruiter a few days ago; that doesn't resonate with our bias)
This nutjob was an ATHEIST. Oh, look how violent ATHEISTS can be!!!
Whoopie shit. BTW, I'm an atheist. I'm just not a knee-jerk Libtard.
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 11, 2009 8:02 AM
Africangenesis,
So you're not backing off from your claim that "the black community" is antisemitic. All your preaching about not judging individuals by the behaviour of others who happen to belong to the same group goes right out of the window when you see an opportunity to have a go at "the black community", or any other disadvantaged ethnic grouping. As we've seen before, you only get exercised about racism when you can claim that some privileged group is being subjected to it. You are, not to put to fine a point on it, a racist hypocrite.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 11, 2009 8:13 AM
Knockgoats,
"So you're not backing off from your claim that "the black community" is antisemitic"
I do hereby back off of it. The question I really meant to pose, is why is there anti-semitism in the black community, rather than imply that the community itself it anti-semitic. The jews actually seem to be well represented in the civil rights community, and white racism is associated somewhat with antisemitism, so what in the black history or experience accounts for its prevalence there?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 11, 2009 8:16 AM
Are you serious?
Why not just ask "Why is their prejudice in any community?"
Posted by: SC, OM | June 11, 2009 8:23 AM
I've only read the segment here so far, but this book appears to provide an interesting history of an important event in changing Jewish-black relations in one city:
http://yalepress.yale.edu/YupBooks/pdf/0300081227.pdf
There are several historical accounts (books and articles) that respond to your question. Would you like me to put together a reading list?
Posted by: africangenesis | June 11, 2009 8:30 AM
BigDumbChimp,
"Why not just ask "Why is their prejudice in any community?""
Of course, except some prejudice requires more explanation. If a newly discovered tribe in the Amazon jungle was anti-semitic, one would wonder why? Where did their paths in history cross?
European, at least, has a religious history that demonized the jews, made them scapegoats at various times, a resentment of their involvement in banking and jewelry, and a superstitious suspicion of them because they were different.
I just don't see where the jewish and black histories crossed, where they relationship wasn't positive. Jews were probably well represented in the civil rights movement because they identified with another oppressed and discriminated against minority. I just don't know why the feeling wouldn't be mutual. I am truly curious. If there are other interesting and mysterious prejudices out there, I'm happy to be curious about them too.
Posted by: Matt H.
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June 11, 2009 8:31 AM
It's really pathetic how Pharyngula commenters (and even PZ himself) demonises the entire right-wing based on a few nutcases. That's like demonising the left-wing because of Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Again, it's pathetic. Teenage politics.
Posted by: SC, OM | June 11, 2009 8:34 AM
On a broader scale, the Israeli government's relations with the apartheid government (and SA and linked "security" forces) from the 1970s on may, um, also have played a role.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 11, 2009 8:39 AM
Well there was this whole slavery thing in Europe and the US as well as colonization.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 11, 2009 8:41 AM
Thanx SC, I can't tell just from the introduction, but this looks interesting and relevant.
Posted by: NewEnglandBob
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June 11, 2009 8:43 AM
I wonder what it is like to be so deluded like africangenesis and live in a world that does not touch reality in any way.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 11, 2009 8:43 AM
Not to mention the conversion to Christianity that many in the African American community underwent as a result of their slavery and the long tradition of Christian antisemitism.
Finding reasons, places and times for transference of antisemitism leading to some of what we see in parts of the AA community isn't really that hard.
Posted by: GilbertNSullivan
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June 11, 2009 8:51 AM
Right... so the shooter kills a black man in the Holocaust Museum because of his atheism, rather than his white supremacism. I get it. Are you sure you don't mean you're a white supremacist? You seem to be confused about the distinction. knee-jerk Libtard... Two of those three words certainly do not apply to you.Posted by: J | June 11, 2009 8:57 AM
This is a tragedy.
But while we're on the topic, allow me to hijack the thread just a little and ask, "Why does the United States even *have* a Holocaust Museum, much less one that's federally funded (it's part of the Smithsonian, didn't you know?)?"
That is, why do we have an enormous memorial to something that did not happen in America and was not done either by or to Americans.
Would it not strike us as being a little "off" if Germany had an "American slave trade" or "Native American dispossession" history museum?
Posted by: africangenesis | June 11, 2009 9:00 AM
NewEnglandBob,
"I wonder what it is like to be so deluded like africangenesis and live in a world that does not touch reality in any way"
Just imagine a world where you pop in and make a snarky comment without any substance, and you'll kind of get the idea.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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June 11, 2009 9:03 AM
Germany might well recognize it as appropriate to have a Native American dispossession museum if large numbers of Native Americans had fled the frontier massacres to settle in Germany, and if the Germans had sent troops over here to fight and die against the bigots who were murdering Native Americans.
Posted by: No BS | June 11, 2009 9:05 AM
Man created god in his image. I mean we have to blame our disappointments and perceived failures on something or someone, right?
Posted by: DaveL | June 11, 2009 9:08 AM
There is no reason to believe the shooter was an atheist. An anti-christian rant does not an atheist make. Indeed, as catalogued above there are a host of statements in his writings regarding "souls" and "spirituality" that would be very odd coming from an atheist. Why would an atheist post his manifesto on "holywesternempire.org"?
Nobody is assuming he's a conservative. He rails in his writings against liberals and Marxists. Half of his screeching is nothing you wouldn't hear on conservative talk radio.
Now, it would be just as wrong to tar all conservatives as terrorists as it would be to generalize about Muslims in the same way. In the same vein, however, it makes no more sense to ignore the terrorism coming out of conservative ideology than it would be to pretend there's no such thing as Islamic extremism (who are, I might add, also conservative extremists within their own cultural context). Therefore, while we shouldn't blame conservatives in general for the shootings of the last two weeks, it's long past time for the public discourse in America to acknowledge home-grown conservative terrorism as a real phenomenon in the same way Islamic terrorism is, rather than treating each case as an isolated incident.
Posted by: J | June 11, 2009 9:13 AM
*Germany might well recognize it as appropriate to have a Native American dispossession museum if large numbers of Native Americans had fled the frontier massacres to settle in Germany, and if the Germans had sent troops over here to fight and die against the bigots who were murdering Native Americans.*
Maybe. But neither of those things is treated significantly at the USHMM.
I must admit I asked the question rhetorically. I have an answer in mind already and it's this: Holocaust-worship is on it's way to being a minor religion. Not a philosophy or a political viewpoint but an honest-to-goodness *religion*, with a small group of old men in charge (take one guess who's the Pope of Holocaustism), tenets that are not allowed to be questioned (and I don't mean kookism like Holocaust denial; I mean more abstruse and flinty things like, "The Holocaust is unique"* and the whole human-skin-lamp anecdote), and mantras like "Never again"**, it's own holidays, etc.
In 50 or 100 years, when Holocaust-worship comes out of the closet as a full-blown religion (albeit one compatible with observance of other faiths, including Judaism and Christianity), we'll take the USHMM to court and cut the federal funding as a violation of the Establishment Clause.
*Which is always code for "No one's suffering was, is or ever will be as bad as ours. And so no one's suffering is really worth paying attention to except ours."
**What does "never again" even *mean*? "Never again will an attempt be made to wipe minority out of existence?" Too late by far for that
Posted by: SC, OM | June 11, 2009 9:16 AM
I'm still trying to figure out the link between these two sentences...
Posted by: J | June 11, 2009 9:19 AM
*This was a case of ATHEIST extremism.*
No it wasn't.
Posted by: J | June 11, 2009 9:23 AM
Seriously, is *anything* more boring and sad than competitive victimism? Even when it's done politely, it seems INCHES away from children saying to each other "Nu-UGH! MY people had it WAY worse."
The most cringe-inducing thing I ever heard was a young American Jewish woman and an young Cuban-American woman--both my friends, actually--going on civilly but with barely concealed one-upsmanship about whose people had it worse under their respective dictators. I was across the room on a computer and it was one of those situations where you're eavesdropping but not wanting to, so I was typing louder and louder and humming to try to drown them out when what I really wanted to say was, "Shut UP! Both of you! It was more than sufficiently bad for BOTH of your damn "people" but the fact is both of you were born in friggin' MIAMI so why don't you CALM DOWN and eat a vegetable or something?"
Posted by: Joseph | June 11, 2009 9:25 AM
No mention of the Muslim who shot those soldiers at the recruiting station? *tsk*
Posted by: O.P.E | June 11, 2009 9:27 AM
I'm usually a dedicated lurker but I just had to post this. MSNBC quoted an acquaintance of the shooter, John De Nugent, "The responsible white separatist community condemns this," he said. "It makes us look bad." I had no idea they needed help looking bad.
Posted by: SC, OM | June 11, 2009 9:36 AM
http://www.ushmm.org/genocide/
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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June 11, 2009 9:42 AM
J., Have you been to the Holocaust Museum? If you have, I would suggest that you missed one of its most important messages--that it could happen here. In many ways, the Jews are unique, because there are a minority that is present EVERYWHERE. And everywhere they have encountered misunderstanding, hatred, fear and stereotyping. The thing you seem to fail to comprehend is that far from being condemned, such prejudice was tolerated if not encouraged as providing an outlet for popular discontent and promoting social cohesion. Henry Ford's screed "The International Jew" was only slightly less scurilous than "Mein Kampf" or "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." The message of the holocaust is that it could happen here--to the Jews, to Muslims, to Atheists, to Native Americans... to anyone the majority defines as "other".
I recommend that you take a field trip to the Holocaust Museum with open eyes and ears. Allow yourself to feel empathy. Then ponder what you have seen and how it relates to the tragedies of the Tutsi in Rwanda, the Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia, to both Jews and Palestinians in Israel/Palestine and to Muslims and Jews and Blacks and Native Americans and other minorities here. The message of the Holocaust is that as long as there are minorities, it is never too late to declare as forcefully as we can, "Never Again!"
Posted by: J | June 11, 2009 9:50 AM
*If you have, I would suggest that you missed one of its most important messages--that it could happen here.*
Okay, so why isn't it the *Genocide* Museum?
Posted by: SC, OM | June 11, 2009 10:00 AM
Because it's the Holocaust Museum. That event is of sufficient historical significance to warrant a museum. But the point is that I've linked to the page describing their broader concerns with, and activities related to, genocide and a_ray_in_dilbert_space has explained to you that a central message of the museum is that this was not a unique event and we have to be dedicated to preventing it everywhere. So fuck off with your "holocaust worship" and "competitive victimism" bullshit hijack attempts.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | June 11, 2009 10:00 AM
J:
Others (in particular, PZ and a_ray_in_dilbert_space) have already responded effectively (and your replies about "Holocaust worship" are troubling in tone, even though there might be a hint of some reasonable questions embedded in them), but I wanted to make a more broad-based response to this:
Since when did we conclude that world history is irrelevant to Americans? Even ignoring (as if it were possible) all the Jews who resettled here after fleeing the Nazis, the same political movement that led to the Holocaust also led to a global war that substatially shaped the sociopolitical environment we currently live in. Why would we not have a museum/memorial dedicated to such a seminal historical event?1
The very sort of American exceptionalism that leads people like you to say things like "what does that have to do with us?" is part of the reason we've been cowboying around the world the way we have over the previous 8 years (and for most of the last three decades, if not most of the post-WWII period)... and it's part of the reason Barack Obama has to spend so much time trying to mend fences with the rest of the world.
1 I know it's problematical to call the Holocaust an "event," given that it was so extended in time... but this is a comment, not a history paper, and I can't sit on it for a few days to come up with the precisely appropriate word.
Posted by: J | June 11, 2009 10:05 AM
*The very sort of American exceptionalism that leads people like you to say things like "what does that have to do with us?" is part of the reason we've been cowboying around the world the way we have over the previous 8 years...*
I dunno; maybe if we asked that question MORE rather than less, we wouldn't have done so much 'cowboying'. I.e. if enough people had said, "No, I don't particularly give a shit about Saddam Hussein. Let's just trade with Iraq, chide them about human rights and get on with our lives."
But no. Righteous fucks that we are, we needed to start a war we have no way of ending.
Posted by: SC, OM | June 11, 2009 10:11 AM
Yeah, righteousness motivated the invasion of Iraq.
*eyeroll*
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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June 11, 2009 10:15 AM
J, Again, you seem to have missed the point. The experience of the Jews is unique in that their experience of anti-semitism is not localized to any particular country or region, but rather is global. It shows that it can happen anywhere, and to any group perceived as "other". It shows that prejudice and hatred are not unique to the Hutus or the Germans or the Russians or the Americans. They are human traits and they are traits we must guard against lest we descend onto the maelstrom that hatred creates. IF you haven't learned that, you haven't learned the lesson of the Holocaust.
Look at it this way: We can look at the Rwandan Genocide and say, "Oh, well, that's all tribal violence," and relax. We can look at the Armenian genocide and say, "Oh, well that was a reaction of the Turks to their humiliation in WWI," and relax. We can similarly dismiss treatment of ethnic Albanians, ethnic Serbs... in the former Yugoslavia. However, if we look at what happened to the Jews in Germany from the 1920s onward and compare it to the paralles thought that was going on in the US, England, France, Russia...we can only conclude that there but for luck we could also have gone. Not all Germans were Nazis, and yet they allowed Kristalnacht to happen. They allowed Jews to be deprived of faculty positions. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." Cassius in Julius Caeser
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | June 11, 2009 10:15 AM
There's a (fairly obvious) qualitative difference between understanding (on the one hand) that what happens in the rest of the world affects us and thinking we ought to impose our will on the rest of the world. If we take others around the world seriously as people... and that includes acknowledging their struggles and tragedies... we are, it seems to me, less likely, not more, to push them around like pieces on a Risk board.
And if you can't (or don't choose to) see that, I don't have anything more to talk with you about.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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June 11, 2009 10:25 AM
Uh, J, what makes you think that Bush's decision to invade Iraq had anything to do with his deep and abiding concern about the suffering of the poor Iraqi people?
Iraq was an attempt by a failed leader to rescue his failing Presidency, of a son to show he was better than his father, of the US to get rid of a troublesome PR issue (e.g. slow starvation of the Iraqis under "Oil for Food", of Ronald Dumsfeld to demonstrate his "Shock and Awe" Army, and of idiots with no understanding of the Middle East to cut the Gordian Knot of Middle-East politics. That it accomplished none of these things and sucked us into a military, political, moral and diplomatic quagmire is merely a cautionary tale whose moral is, "Don't let Junior have the keys to the country."
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 11, 2009 10:25 AM
J,
If you really think the invasion of Iraq was motivated by humanitarian concern, you're an idiot.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 11, 2009 10:54 AM
Slight problem with this analysis: The guy in question wrote in defense of socialism. Also, he was fanatically anti-Christian; the point about National Socialism is that it's exactly what it sounds like.
Anyway, this is frankly unworthy of Prof. Myers intellect:
HAMAS has chapters in forty states. The main terrorist gangs happen to have "funny arabic names" for a very good reason, even if these chaps started out with names like Terry and so forth. The reason is that on conversion to Islam, they adopt said "funny arabic names". As a point of comparison, just this week, there have been forty-nine Jihad attacks, 175 killed, 184 wounded. That's pretty much par for the course. Meanwhile, in Iran those nukes are getting ready to fly, and, given that Obama has pretty much told Netanyahu not to do anything so gauche as fight back, it appears that soon the Mullahs will do to the Jewish people what the Romulans do to the Vulcans in that new Star Trek film.
Oh, for the record, that figure doesn't include the ongoing genocide in the Sudan. You know, those evil neocons wanted to put a stop to that. But they weren't listened to, were they? The multilateral route was opted for. I hope everyone is really happy how thats worked out.
a_ray, I get the feeling you haven't got the memo. Practically no one cares about genocide. I mean really cares, as in cares enough to do something or even to vote to get something done. You may remember how, back during those happy Clinton years, the West sat on its fat ass while eight hundred thousand Tutsis were hacked to death with machetes, and the response of the UN and the French and the usual suspects was to send lots of aid to the Interahamwe. Fewer still care when it's directed against the Jews. Oh, to be sure, if you're one of these disaffected white losers and you want to kill Jews, people react badly. On the other hand, if you are, say, an Imam of Stockholm's major mosque and you say you want to kill the Jews, or you're a mob in London promising the next Holocaust, or another mob in Amsterdam leading people in chants of "Hamas, Hamas! Send the Jews / to the gas!" that's perfectly fine with 90%+ of our commentariat.
"Never again" my left foot.
Posted by: Jonathan Bohbot | June 11, 2009 10:56 AM
"US law enforcement agencies recognized that the real terrorist groups in this country aren't populated by people with funny arabic names".
Is this denial or delusional? Last week, an american muslim convert (Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad) shot and killed a military recruit in Arkansas for religious reasons. While there are terrorists coming from all walks of life, I would expect PZ to report all types of terrorist activities and not choose to restrict them to the minority coming from the anglo-saxon community.
Posted by: africangenesis | June 11, 2009 11:12 AM
SC#204,
Thanx again for that book reference, unfortunately the online segment ends at page 20. However, I found this link which provides a good retrospective 40 years later:
http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i33/33b00701.htm
Your hypothesis that this strike contributed to the prevalence of anti-semitism in the black community seems plausible. In fact, this statement from the retrospective article seems naive:
"While the more extreme tactics of the Black Power movement in Ocean Hill-Brownsville — like the embrace of anti-Semitism — fortunately proved not to have much staying power,..."
The issues raised are still alive today, with teachers unions working to deny blacks in Washington D.C. the option of a voucher program, and with a case involving discrimination against white firefighters going to the supreme court.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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June 11, 2009 11:22 AM
David Klinghoffer blamed evolution. Which is of little consequence, he's usually pretty ridiculous. What's interesting is that at Comedy Central they took note and laughed.
David thinks it's not funny, which is close enough to the truth, as it's so hard to parody such nonsense.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Posted by: raven | June 11, 2009 11:37 AM
Bad lie. Von Gunn hated liberals, Democrats, Marxists and bought into every right wing extremist cult there was. Obama had no birth certificate, white Supremacist, antisemitic, libertarian, Ron Paulism, Soverign Citizen, Militia, and on and on.
He posted at FreeRepublic, the sandbox for insane right wing lunatics.
He's your murderous nutcase and no one elses.
Posted by: SC, OM | June 11, 2009 11:40 AM
Sigh. I should know better than to try to engage with you honestly. Although it may not have been completely clear, that was not my hypothesis, and you have demonstrated no such "prevalence." You asked a general question based on admitted historical ignorance, and I was merely attempting to point out that the history of relations between these two groups in the US and elsewhere has been complex and that local histories and struggles (as well as broader issues like the Israeli state's warm relationship with apartheid SA) are important to understanding alliances and tensions and that there exists a historical literature addressing these questions. Moreover, the idea that hostilities would form and then persist over decades on their own steam is completely contrary to my view. Don't try to rope my citation (which neither of us have read in full) to your stupid ideological agenda.
Incidentally, you may be interested in this:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030217/staub
Posted by: Steven Sullivan | June 11, 2009 11:40 AM
"On the other hand, if you are, say, an Imam of Stockholm's major mosque and you say you want to kill the Jews, or you're a mob in London promising the next Holocaust, or another mob in Amsterdam leading people in chants of "Hamas, Hamas! Send the Jews / to the gas!" that's perfectly fine with 90%+ of our commentariat."
Prove it, sparky. Show me that '90% of our commentariat' is perfectly fine with anyone promoting antisemitic genocidal agendas.
And that sure was some clumsy jujitsu there, pivoting from PZ's point about terrorists in *this* country, to Sudan and Iran and Israel and England.
As for making a case for the US lack of caring about the fate of Jews, there's those pesky billions of military and economic aid we've provided Israel to keep it afloat, to consider. I'm pretty sure that genocide directed against the Jews would *not* be met with the shameful dithering that greeted the Rwandan massacres.
Your worldview seems to be: they hate the Jews, so the Jews should hate them back, and may the best hater with the most weapons win, and fuck what the rest of the world thinks, it hates the Jews too. That's a winner for sure...for Israel AND the the USA.
As for the Holocaust Memorial shooter, he was batshit crazy and was able to obtain a gun. What he believed about god, Jews, blacks, or evolution, kinda pales beside that.
Posted by: raven | June 11, 2009 11:43 AM
Bad lie. Von Gunn hated liberals, Democrats, Marxists and bought into every right wing extremist cult there was. Obama had no birth certificate, white Supremacist, antisemitic, libertarian, Ron Paulism, Soverign Citizen, Militia, and on and on.
He posted at FreeRepublic, the sandbox for insane right wing lunatics.
He's your murderous nutcase and no one elses.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 11, 2009 11:49 AM
raven, I take it that the remainder of my points are uncontested by you, is that right?
Now, if you care to read what I wrote, I said that he wrote in defense of socialism. In his self-published "book" he wrote that the future for the "white race" was socialism - and also that all wars were started by "Jewish capitalists". I wrote that he was anti-Christian; he seems to take the hardline Nazi view that Christianity is a Jewish plot.
You're not wrong, btw, in what else he hated. Nazism strikes me closer to a total mental pathology than any coherent philosophy; the new Islam, as Jung described it.
I find it interesting that you infer from my post that I'm "right wing". I made no comments about political ideology, my comments were ones of observable fact.
I assume, since you haven't tried to refute any of the other points, that they stand. So, thank you for your courtesy.
Posted by: J | June 11, 2009 12:02 PM
*Meanwhile, in Iran those nukes are getting ready to fly...*
1.) No they aren't.
2.) I don't care if they are. I aggressively arrogate the right not to Give a Shit about things happening on the opposite side of the planet if I don't want to. I'm not Israeli. I'm not Persian. Therefore, I have the right not to care. And pragmatism backs me up completely: How are our CURRENT land wars in Asia going these days?
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 11, 2009 12:15 PM
Steven Sullivan, do you care to read the point about the forty chapters of HAMAS? You might also want to look up Freed House's reports on Wahabi literature in American mosques. Incidentally, I find it - shall I say revealing? - that your concern is less for what happens to us poor furrin' folk overseas.
As regards my comments about 90%+ of the commentariat, can I get a brief show of hands? How many heard about the Amsterdam chants? Or about the aforementioned report which mentioned the number of mosques that have literature saying apostates should be killed? And so on and so forth. I'm very clear about this when I say they have "no problem"; it isn't that they are in favour of genocide; that would require more guts than they have. It's that they'll sit back, and close their eyes, and do nothing whatsoever while it happens.
Case in point. I was listening to Christopher Hitchens on Chris Matthews, who opined that "You're okay if you have the French on your side". Well, the French were on the side of the Interahamwe. They detonate nukes next to inhabited islands. And so on. And so on. Is anyone going to bring this up? Does anyone care?
Here's another example: how many here think that the UN's peacekeepers are, basically, a good thing? Well, in the Congo, these chaps spend half their time raping eight year old girls and the other half keeping Hutu killers fed and funded. How many know? How many care?
For the record, I like the Tutsis. They're a hard, tough people, the Israelis of Africa, who know no one's gonna help them, so they do it themselves. They're pretty saintly about it, to, given what I would have done to the Hutus if it had been my kith and kin who'd been subjected to that.
If it matters, the US dishes out huge sums also to places like Pakistan and Egypt and so on which want to kill lots and lots and lots of Jews, and reduce the ones they leave alive to the status of dhimmi. As regards US aid, Obama has made it pretty clear that he isn't going to do anything about those centrifuges in Iran. Anyone who's not living under a rock knows what they want those damn things for.
Incidentally, hating those who want to kill you and your family, and enslave your children is both right and just.
Posted by: raven | June 11, 2009 12:18 PM
Naw. It isn't worth mine or anyone else's time reading or posting to a delusional right wing moron. Go back to FreeRepublic and babble with the loons.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 11, 2009 12:24 PM
J, my thanks for making my point perfectly. The Iranian regime is planning to finish what Hitler started, and this chap doesn't care. Do I need any more proof?
Posted by: Colugo | June 11, 2009 12:25 PM
More insight into von Brunn's mentality, criticizing a far right conspiracy nut.
http://www.911blogger.com/node/11963
James von Brunn:
"Captain May expresses good, not so good, and bad concepts: He defends the U.S. Constitution, and vigorously fights those who threaten it (Neocons, Mossad, Money); he confuses Bolshevism with Fascism; he denies the importance of Race.
The Constitution is a product of Westernman for Westernman.
Fascism (one for all and all for one) is Nationalism (Racialism), wherein one race occupies its own territory (Patriotism). Bolshevism is Globalism (Zionism/Catholicism).
DNA = Race; RACE = Culture; CULTURE = CIVILIZATION. ( Disraeli:"Race is everything!").
I believe Captain May is an honorable and talented man. His courageous (perhaps fatal to his health) fight against enemies of the Constitution is highly commended. However, because of his serious conceptual flaws, Captain May's right to an Aryan Leadership role must be denied."
Aisde: Cimourdain, you're correct about whose side the French were on in the Rwanda genocide and the chronic problem of sex abuse by UN Peacekeepers, but I fail to see what this has to do with the topic of this thread.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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June 11, 2009 12:25 PM
Cimourdian says, "Incidentally, hating those who want to kill you and your family, and enslave your children is both right and just."
Nope! Hating them just blinds you to their own (albeit limited) rationality and so makes you more vulnerable. You are right and just in defending yourself and your family against such monsters. Hating them is counterproductive and in the eyes of bystanders merely leads to questions of who started hating who first. What you want to avoid is the rest of the world washing their hands and saying "A plague on both your houses!"
Posted by: No BS | June 11, 2009 12:29 PM
I'm confused...
What is the difference between hardcore conservatism, political islam, zionism, fascism, and extreme marxism again?
"This is my stuff."
"No it's my stuff because (insert dogma here)"
Bang.....
Who ever dies the most loses.
Dem homo sapiens sho iz crazy...
(It's all about stealing folks)
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 11, 2009 12:34 PM
Cologu, not disagreeing with the "conspiracy nut" bit, but I'd just like some light on this subject. The guys an Aryan Nations nutter, the group that advocates amongst other things:
Promote and preserve the industry and livelihood of the citizens.
[E]liminate the current practice of damaging and poisoning life and environment.
Provide honest aid to farmers and other business people, and shall restore to all citizens rightful land ownership.
Make the necessary provisions for the aged, who have been impoverished by fraud (inflation).
Confiscate all unearned wealth, stolen by fraud or usury and that which is gain from war.
Nationalize all monopolies and multi-national interest[s].
Immediately bring about land reform
And so forth. These guys are Nationalist and Socialists.
BS, if you want to get a quick demonstration of the difference, march around with a sign denouncing zionism for a day. Then do that with one condemning marxism. Then one denouncing fascism. Then one denouncing Islam. We'll have your next-of-kin mention how that went.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 11, 2009 12:40 PM
a_ray you give me the feeling that you have never had to look at genuine evil. I'm happy for you if that's the case, but I think you owe it to yourself to find out a bit more. May I recommend a book? Machete Season about the Rwandan genocide; I think you'll stop sounding so equivocal if you read it.
Steven Sullivan, am I right then, given that you are against the hideous dithering of the Rwandan genocide, that you would have been in favor of America being a bit unilateralist and imperial then?
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 11, 2009 12:45 PM
the point about National Socialism is that it's exactly what it sounds like. - Cimourdain
No, it's not - this is just one of the favourite lies of the right. "National socialism" was no more socialist than the eastern European "peoples' democracies" were democratic. Wealth in Nazi Germany remained overwhelmingly in private hands, income differentials remained large, labour unions and collective bargaining were suppressed, socialists were persecuted along with Jews, gypsies, gays, etc. Unless they were Jewish, or openly anti-Nazi, capitalists had nothing to fear from him, and indeed many profited greatly from his regime - until he started losing the war. In his rise to power, Hitler's political allies, at home and abroad, came almost exclusively from the right, including many "respectable" conservatives. While it is easy to find quotes in which he defines himself as "socialist" or "anti-capitalist", he also spoke in favour of the "right" of capitalists to the wealth they had gained through competition - he was nothing if not inconsistent in his declarations, and his actions speak louder than his words. Of course he was not a "free-marketeer", but his hatred of equality and commitment to the "rights of the strong" place him firmly on the right, and in opposition to socialism.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | June 11, 2009 12:48 PM
Cimourdain:
So? How many terrorist actions have U.S.-based HAMAS chapters carried out on U.S. soil? According to the FBI and the Department of Justice (admittedly wikipedia is not a great source, but I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of these quotes), HAMAS has so far "not acted outside Israel," and "it would be a major strategic shift for HAMAS" to carry out attacks in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the single biggest act of U.S. domestic terrorism was carried out by white guys named Timothy and Terry, and the ongoing campaign of terroristic attacks against abortion providers (including numerous bombings and murders, as we've recently been reminded) continues under the instigation (if not actual direction) of yet another white guy (sur)named Terry.
Where's your evidence that the "main terrorist gangs" responsible for U.S. domestic terrorism are Islamist organizations? It seems to me that, based on actual operations, the "main terrorist gangs" are white supremicists and radical anti-choice activists... and that they are, in fact, mostly made up of white folks with Anglo-European names, and often (though clearly not always) professing Christians.
I don't mean to put words in PZ's mouth, but I don't think he's saying — and I know I'm not — that we should be blind to the dangers of Islamist terrorism around the world. But we should also not let our kneejerk xenophobia about scary brown heathen foreigners with funny names blind us to the very real dangers posed by some of our "good" white Christian neighbors.
Oh, BTW, this...
...is purest, extra-virgin bat crap! This is a fucking conversation, not a high-school debate tournament. Try making sense for a change, instead of just keeping score.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
|
June 11, 2009 12:48 PM
Cimourdian, I have lived in places where they were fishing bodies out of the lagoon on a daily basis, where people were hacked to death with machetes. I have pulled people to safety out of the hands of mobs and received my share of blows in doing so (and yes, somebody else had to pull me out). I've walked through the slums of Calcutta and Jakarta. I've seen people shooting up brown sugar in Delhi. I have friends who were whisked out of Liberia as refugees from Charles Taylor
My point is that one can oppose evil--indeed more effectively--without hating. Is it natural, no. I have to really work at not wanting to see Charls Taylor dangling from a meathook. There is nothing equivocal about opposing evil--and there is nothing that demands one hate to oppose evil.
Posted by: B.B. | June 11, 2009 12:53 PM
Brunn also posted on the truthaction.org forums under the name cassia. He contributed a total of 173 posts.
Posted by: B.B. | June 11, 2009 12:58 PM
Brunn also posted on the truthaction.org forums under the name cassia. He contributed a total of 173 posts.
On 2nd thought, I am wrong. casseia appears to be someone else.
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 11, 2009 1:04 PM
Cimourdain takes us on a kind of "Gish gallop" around points which are a mix of true, doubtful and false, but few of which have anything to do with the political views and hangouts of James von Brunn. The reason being, of course, that these are too close to his own for comfort.
Posted by: Colugo | June 11, 2009 1:04 PM
Cimourdain: That's from the NSDAP's 25 point plan. The Nazis did not fully realize it, due to Hitler's compromises with the business establishment. The Strasserite wing of the Nazi party, including much of the SA (and originally Goebbels) were more hardline socialists, leading to the Night of the Long Knives in which they were eradicated.
But the Nazis were indeed socialists. (Variously, "blood socialists," "true socialists" etc.) They were also right wing. To be sure, some of its founders had backgrounds in the German Social Democratic movement and before coming to power Nazis sometimes cooperated with communists as well as cracking their heads. (See the Schlageter Line promoted by Karl Radek, the 1932 Munich transportation strike.) But none of this places them on the left.
Few political concepts are as generic as socialism. The USSR, the Baath Socialist Party, the NSDAP, and the UK Labour Party are all "socialist." We're all socialists to some degree at this point, unless we are hardcore libertarians. True, there are many similarities between the economic programs of Nazism, Italian fascism and postwar social democracy. (In fact, some of these were retained in the postwar period.) But Nazi welfare policies are not the essence of Nazism.
Nazi did not agree among themselves on economics. This is even more true in the case of fascists in general. One of the turning points in the evolution of fascism from its origins in Italian revolutionary syndicalism was moving the locus of revolution from class to nation. After that, capitalism and socialism were subordinate to the corporate state. (Note: The "corporate state" refers to a state organized by economic sector rather than region as in our federal system, and has nothing to do with rule by business organizations, like many not familiar with these social science terms assume that it does.)
If you happen to have a copy of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism on hand, throw it in the trash because it is an unscholarly and polemical piece of hunk. Instead, read Sheri Berman's Primacy of Politics or Roger Griffin's Modernism and Fascism.
The fact is that if you keep looking into the rightward fringe, past the fever swamps of more mainstream paleoconservatives (including paleolibertarianism, quite distinct from the Reason magazine or Randian variety) eventually you will run into militia types and sovereign citizens. Keep poking around and you will bump into 'genteel' white nationalists. And finally in the networks of these types you will find blatant Nazis and other fascists. That's the nature of the contemporary ideological landscape. Nazis do not reside next to, say, Sean Hannity on the political spectrum. Rather, they are way past the neocons, then the paleocons, then the slightly less rabid white nationalists. But there they are, on the extreme ultraright.
As I noted earlier, degree of government intervention in the economy is not the sole determinant of ideological affinity.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 11, 2009 1:12 PM
Fair enough a_ray, and I congratulate you on doing so. However, you must then surely agree that guys like Charles Taylor and the Interahamwe must be destroyed? We can leave hatred out of the equation, but that's what's necessary. These monsters simply cannot
Bill, I wouldn't want to put words in P.Z.'s mouth - or in his fingertips, as the case may be. I have to say, however, that I find your view that basically says "Who cares what happens outside the US?" somewhat parochial and myopic. If you think that the presence of HAMAS cells and so forth are of no concern, I submit you are being fatally short termist.
I'm also really sorry that you seem to think of Jihadists, by definition, "scary brown heathen foreigners with funny names". I dunno whether you've seen pictures of Adam Gadahn, Abdul Aziz ibn Myatt, and so forth; they;re even paler than I am. Whole bunch of Talibs with cockney accents, also. Again, I can't help how you view them, but that's really not my concern.
Now, P.Z. Myers does not strike me as so myopic as to only care about terrorist attacks on US soil; he says that the "real terrorist groups in this country" aren't guys with Arabic names. Well, that's just not true. It may be true that HAMAS is mainly active oversees, and it mainly kills foreigners and Jews, but it's still a "real terrorist" group, and the most major one.
Incidentally, I do regard the abortionist-shooting that comes around every few years as, I'm sorry to say, chump change against what the Jihad keeps doing. It's tragic, but it's nothing like the relentless murder that goes on every single day. Now these happen most to them thar furrin' folk, but my internationalism and solidarity does, in fact, extend to them.
Oh, for the record, the Aryan Nations is in open alliance with Islam. That's no surprise to anyone who knows about Hajj Ami Al-Hussayni.
Posted by: osteoguru | June 11, 2009 1:19 PM
This guy is blaming this attack on Darwin!
http://blog.beliefnet.com/kingdomofpriests/2009/06/james-von-brunn-evolutionist.html
Set your phasers to stun!
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 11, 2009 1:21 PM
Cologu,
First off, a big thank you. That's an excellent post. I don't disagree with this:
WAY ahead of you. I've written an in-depth critique of the book myself.
Well, I don't disagree, but I'd ask the following: if the paleoconservatives are "right", then how do you characterize the Objectivists and the libertarians? The terminology strikes me as a bit useless. I mean, the paleocons were all opposed to the Iraq venture, as were chaps like Kissinger. Yet everyone calls the Iraq venture "right wing". Does this mean Buchanan and Kissinger are lefties now? I can't figure it out.
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 11, 2009 1:21 PM
Colugo,
I don't disagree with much of your analysis, but you are diluting the meaning of "socialism" to an absurd degree. Leaving the Nazis aside, the UK Labour Party is most certainly not socialist (although some socialists are still members), and has not been so since Blair became leader and pushed through the abolition of "Clause 4", subsequently continuing Thatcher's privatization programme with an enthusiasm at least equal to hers. I challenge you to find an example of the leadership giving even lip service to socialism since then. Socialism implies a political commitment to permanent common ownership of at least the key means of production.
Posted by: osteoguru | June 11, 2009 1:22 PM
This guy is blaming this attack on Darwin!
http://blog.beliefnet.com/kingdomofpriests/2009/06/james-von-brunn-evolutionist.html
Set your phasers to stun!
Posted by: No BS | June 11, 2009 1:25 PM
Quote;
"BS, if you want to get a quick demonstration of the difference, march around with a sign denouncing zionism for a day. Then do that with one condemning marxism. Then one denouncing fascism. Then one denouncing Islam. We'll have your next-of-kin mention how that went."
Well that would depend which part of the planet I was standing on:
Denouncing zionism.... Iran.
Denouncing marxism... any place in Texas.
Denouncing fascism... San Francisco.
Denouncing islam.... In a kibbutz.
T-shirt saying I'm an atheist... Sweden.
Oddly enough I can use my Visa card in most of these places.
Posted by: Colugo | June 11, 2009 1:25 PM
"Oh, for the record, the Aryan Nations is in open alliance with Islam. That's no surprise to anyone who knows about Hajj Ami Al-Hussayni."
I know about Hitler's Mufti, the Bosnian Muslim Hanjar division of the SS, and Nazi appeals to anticolonialism around the Third World. (Including in India with fanatical nationalist Hindus, who are murderously anti-Muslim ... the world is a messy place)
Fascists are extremely opportunistic. After 9/11, their strategy bifurcated, with the more hardcore and underground professing an alliance with radical Islam against global Zionism, an updated form of postwar fascist Third Positionism. Fascists pursuing an electoral strategy, in contrast, promote themselves as stalwart antijihadists protecting Europe from the Islamic onslaught. In fact, the BNP (enjoying recent electoral success) is so intent on broadening its base that it now allows Jews as its MPs.
Posted by: Janine, OMnivore | June 11, 2009 1:28 PM
Osteoguru, that is old news. Klinghoffer left a little note about his missive last night. A few people have ready had some words about it.
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 11, 2009 1:28 PM
Oh, for the record, the Aryan Nations is in open alliance with Islam. That's no surprise to anyone who knows about Hajj Ami Al-Hussayni. - Cimourdain
Who was of course just one of the idiots (most prevalent in eastern Europe, but Subhas Chandra Bose is another example) who saw Hitler as a potential liberator.
Posted by: Colugo | June 11, 2009 1:49 PM
Knockgoats, I agree with much of what you wrote.
"you are diluting the meaning of "socialism" to an absurd degree."
That's a fair criticism. But if we remove Nazis from socialism, then we also must disallow a number of watered-down social democratic states and parties, even before Blair's Third Way. And at the very least Nazism had some socialist roots and ideals. My primary point, in regard to Cimourdain's suggestion, is that socialism is not necessarily left wing (much less Marxist) in nature. There have been many socialisms, especially in its early modern history before it became identified mainly with Marxism and social democracy. The relationship of guild socialism and revolutionary syndicalism to corporatism, which has fascist as well as left wing (including democratic) varieties is relevant to understanding the evolution of 20th c European politics and economics.
Cimourdain: "The terminology strikes me as a bit useless."
I think that "left" and "right" are starting points, rather than conclusions, when it comes to analyzing political phenomena, including terrible events like this one. Some ideologues think is sufficient to observe that the Khmer Rouge are left wing in order to explain their atrocities, or that noting that the Holocaust Museum terrorist is right wing as being sufficient for comprehending this outrage. These left-right distinctions, crude and broad as they are, are entry points to further elaboration and discussion of why these extremists believed and acted as they did. They are other broad dichotomous categories that are also valid and useful: democratic vs antidemocratic, tolerant vs eliminationist etc.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
|
June 11, 2009 2:00 PM
Cimourdian, I would say that folks like Charles Taylor have to be neutralized. That does not necessarily mean "rubbed out". It could mean incarcerated, exposed, and maybe in some rare cases even reformed. Even Gandhi did not disdain the killing of a madman running amok. In opposing evil, how we oppose it is almost as important as the fact of our opposition.
Edmund Burke said, "...all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Of course evil also triumphs if good men act stupid or ineffectively.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | June 11, 2009 2:37 PM
Cimourdain:
I don't know whether you're being deliberately disingenuous in your responses or you're simply stupid; either way, I'm almost out of patience with you.
Regarding...
??? Did you read my response to J earlier in this thread? Your characterization of my position is precisely 180 degrees out of phase with my actual position: I have been arguing specifically for greater concern for and understanding of global issues (including global threats like international terrorism) on the part of Americans.
However, the particular quote of PZ's that you chose to pick on was specifically about domestic terrorism (note the phrase "in this country")... and while it's obviously not completely unconnected to international terrorism, domestic terrorism is arguably a distinct phenomenon, in its roots, its effects, and its solutions. Being disciplined about acknowledging the distinction is a matter of intellectual clarity; it does not imply a lack of concern for other issues.
Nobody said HAMAS was "of no concern"; it just wasn't the concern we happened to be talking about at that moment. Recall that the predicate news story for this post was about an elderly white whackjob individual terrorist who seems to have no more connection to HAMAS than shared anti-semitism (and no, not all anti-semites are brothers in Jihad)... and the most recent previous example of U.S. domestic terrorism we've discussed here also had nothing to do with HAMAS or Jihad.
This is part-and-parcel with your previously expressed notion that any of points you vomit out that have not been specifically refuted must have been agreed to: You seem to think there's some requirement to talk about every aspect of every issue all the time; some of the rest of us have evolved the ability to focus on one frikkin' thing, Mr. Bigglesworth!
Nice. You take my snarkio ad absurdum caricature of others' xenophobic attitudes and attribute it to me as if it were my own position.
Idiocy or slander? We report, you decide!®
But yes, I understand that HAMAS has organizations in the U.S., and yes, I understand that some U.S. HAMAS members are white American converts... but you have in no way demonstrated that [a] HAMAS in particular or Jihadists in general pose the major domestic terrorist threat in the U.S. or [b] white converts constitute any significant fraction of HAMAS's organizational strength either in the U.S. or abroad. Your contention was that "the main terrorist gangs" in the U.S. were made up of people who "happen to have 'funny arabic names'" because they're converts to Islam. I say the evidence of domestic terrorism indicates otherwise; you have yet to successfully dispute that notion.
Well, I'm sure Dr. Tiller's friends and loved ones understand that your limited supply of compassion is already spoken for elsewhere.
But this conversation is about more than individual tragedies, regardless of their number: Recall that terrorism is, by definition, a political act; without meaning to seem callous, the political risk is even more important than the (certainly heartbreaking) body count. International Jihadist terrorism poses all sorts of threats to all sorts of people, but domestic anti-abortion terrorism has as its goal the creation, by small steps achieved through brutal violence, of a Christian theocracy in my home nation... and the anti-government radicals like McVeigh, et seq., have as their goal the utter destruction of the institutions that define my home society. If either group succeeds, the precise number of people they've killed along the way will pale in importance compared to the impact of their success.
My approach is decidedly internationalist, and your suggestions to the contrary are defamatory... but nobody need apologize for considering the threat to his/her own home first, and I will not do so, either. The safety instructions on airliners always tell passengers to put their own masks on first, before attempting to assist others. This is not out of selfishness or cowardice, but because you can't help anyone else unless you keep yourself alive.
Posted by: SC, OM | June 11, 2009 3:20 PM
Just to be clear about things here:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchism/writers/anarcho/anarchism/italianfascism.html
Posted by: Blackbart | June 11, 2009 3:37 PM
"The guard died? Crap. These scumbags who decide that guns are the solution are really a blight on this country."
I wonder how the Scumbag White Supremacist got shot.
Nevermind according to you they both probably had it coming.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 11, 2009 3:42 PM
Huh?
Posted by: frog | June 11, 2009 3:58 PM
Cimourdian: if the paleoconservatives are "right", then how do you characterize the Objectivists and the libertarians?
I agree, a single axis for ideology proper is an absurd over-simplification. But it is useful as a metric for social space -- the network of alliances, or at least tendencies to create alliances, is surprisingly simple, and fairly well described by just a few axes.
I guess the nature of political fights is to coalesce alliances across just one or two planes.
It's obvious that the paleoconservatives group with Randians, even if their ideologies are very different.It creates the particularly funny effect of Libertarians, for example, trying to rationalize policies that are obviously incompatible with their ideology -- like trying to invent some convoluted anti-choice position so that they can bring their policies into agreement, or being pro-militarism.
Posted by: frog | June 11, 2009 4:06 PM
SC: Yeah, righteousness motivated the invasion of Iraq.
*eyeroll*
No, but self-righteousness oiled the propaganda machine. That's what makes exceptionalism exceptionally dangerous: it's a ready-made tool for leaders to claim righteousness in defense of aggressive acts, and thereby hide the reality of their thievery.
Posted by: J | June 11, 2009 4:47 PM
*The Iranian regime is planning to finish what Hitler started...*
No it isn't.
Posted by: Ryogam | June 11, 2009 4:51 PM
Brunn's "Suicide" Note, found in his car:
"You want my weapons -- this is how you'll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America's money. Jews control the mass media."
Clearly, he's a liberal Democrat. He probably favors single-payer as well. (sarc)
Posted by: J | June 11, 2009 4:55 PM
*Edmund Burke said, "...all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Mmmm, no, evil seems to just as easily result from good men running around, wringing their hands, panicking, shrieking, "We've got to DO something!!!"
Posted by: luna1580 | June 11, 2009 6:37 PM
i support many forms of gun control.
but the shooter here was a convicted felon not permitted to buy or carry a firearm anyway, so he's a clear example of the "criminals who don't care about the government's rule of law are always going to find a way to get an illegal gun anyway" reality.
and when this twisted racist man went to trial for attempting to kidnap the federal reserve board while heavily armed, he plead in court that he had broken no laws as he was acting as a "sovereign citizen", so he also plainly never planned to respect any laws about him and possessing weapons. if anything, aren't "freeman" and "sovereign citizen" types more like the libertarians/anarchists than like the left or the liberals? think hard, that's not a trick question.
and the guard he killed was widely respected as being kind, polite, friendly to all, and soft-spoken. he actually died opening the door to offer assistance to what appeared to be just another nearly-90 year old man, and was thanked with a bullet to the chest.
that is what matters. not everyone's pet ideology in this discussion.
Posted by: a lurker | June 11, 2009 6:45 PM
If one really wants to see an scary document, that is rambling, hateful, repetitive, and written at what appears to be middle-school level with loads of quote mining, assertions without any evidence, and ALL-CAPS then check out the first half of the murder's book “KILL THE BEST GENTILES!”. Here is an archive of it (PDF via archive.org).
If I had seen this document before today, it would have been surprised that author had not yet murdered anyone. Now he has. The antisemitism is shameless. There is extensive discussion of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And given his ideas about bankers, the FED, etc. being Jewish conspiracies to bring us down, it is shocking that the current economic crisis which has been widely blamed on the financial industry his actions should be unsurprising.
Those who combat creationist quote mining might want to look at to see that quote mining can support any stupid belief system that one can imagine. This is an example of just how worthless quote mining is.
Posted by: frog | June 11, 2009 7:42 PM
SC: http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchism/writers/anarcho/anarchism/italianfascism.html
Thanks for the link. I find the relation of alliances to ideologies interesting. That's probably a good example of that -- of how the networks linking nominal leftists, rightists, anarchists etc, can really confuse the matter of ideology, practice and alliance, particularly when the relationship of groups is in flux.
I think we argued over this once before -- that link though clarifies quite a bit the connection between nominally syndicalist language and left and right groups.
Posted by: J | June 11, 2009 10:39 PM
I am truly sorry for any harm or offense I have caused. I will go now.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 12, 2009 3:20 AM
Bill,
Well, I'm sorry, but every member of the anti-Jihad movement I've spoken with is well aware that the Jihad isn't just populated with dark skinned foreigners with "funny names", in the main because many of the greatest anti-Jihadists are foreigners with "funny names": Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Wafa Sultan, Raymond Ibrahim... You're the first person I've met to describe them as "scary brown heathen foreigners with funny names". You also seem to have a bit of an odd obsession with the percentage of HAMAS that's "white", but whatever.
As I said, I'm sorry about the prejudices you have about the Jihad & the anti-Jihad, but it's not my fault and not my business.
To remind you, the quotation in question is:
As you seem to have conceded, this turns out to be factually inaccurate, right? By any estimate HAMAS is a "real terrorist organization", it is also populated by people with "funny arabic names", and it is located "in this country".
Again, I'm really sorry if you don't care that HAMAS likes killing innocents as long as those innocents aren't on your home soil; that does strike me as very parochial and paleoconservative. In any case, from what I read there, you concede that HAMAS is the major terrorist organization in the US, even if it hasn't attacked the US on its home soil. Yet. Don't worry, tho'. In ten years or so, especially if the Second Amendment gets revoked, you'll have caught up with Europe and Oz, with murdered gays and Jews and Hindus and no free speech and lots of gang-rape.
I don't expect them to give a damn what I said, any more than I give a damn what they did or didn't say about the attacks on my own family, or, for that matter, about the ongoing killings in the Congo. As I said, it's tragic, but that's the extent it goes. Anyway, someone who doesn't care about the continual slaughter carried out by the Jihad as long as it only happens to foreigners really shouldn't be opening that door.
For the record, I'm reasonable with people who address me reasonably. I also read your linked comment, but I really don't see how that's changes what you've written here.
----------------------------------------------
Cologu, the entry-point idea is a good one.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 12, 2009 3:25 AM
Bill, in seriousness, I agree with Christopher Hitchens. The Christian Right isn't going anywhere; they have never recovered from their two great victories: prohibition and banning evolution. There is just too much of an opposition to their nonsense. They won't manage to rise to real power - barring a transformative catastrophe.
And guess who's likely to supply that? May I recommend the following article by Sam Harris:
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-end-of-liberalism/
However, I figure that a good deal of Europe will be Nigeria-fied within the next ten to twenty years. Not total rule by Shariah, but various types of accommodation with it. We've already got those damn courts operating in Britain de jure, and it's de facto elsewhere.
Posted by: Colugo | June 12, 2009 4:04 AM
Cimourdain, I don't believe that there is an antijihadist movement; that is, a unified movement against militant Islamism. The Johnson-Geller blogwar and their correlates in the larger world of punditry and politicians illustrates this state of affairs.
There are actually three movements, but some of the players have realized this only recently. There is an anti-totalitarian movement (e.g. Hitchens), an anti-Muslim movement (e.g. Geert Wilders), and a fascist movement that has glommed onto the banner of antijihadism (e.g. Nick Griffin).
But this is not the thread to discuss this side issue.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 12, 2009 4:07 AM
As regards my comments that few really care about genocide, well, try the following two tidbits on for size. I get the feeling that I'm talking to a whole lot of Obama supporters, so square this detail:
Charming.
Second tidbit, Jimmy Carter says that there's no Mideastpeace without HAMAS.
Incidentally, just to get back to someone's silly comments about Zionism, I'm a Zionist for the simple reason that I realize that the Jews only hope of survival is if they have their own state, and are able to fight for themselves. Relying on the "world community" has done nothing for them. Just like the Tutsis. I don't know what the Tutsi equivalent of Zionist is, but I'm that too.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 12, 2009 4:20 AM
Cologu, the parallel that I would invoke is that of the Enlightenment. There wasn't really a "united front" there either; I'd recommend to you Peter Gay's excellent two volume history of the same. There's a really broad spectrum of views that stretches from Sam Harris way over on one wing to Walid Shoebat way over on the other. The key point that unifies them is that they all get it about Islam.
Incidentally, I'd classify Johnson as the "Rousseau" here.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | June 12, 2009 12:16 PM
Cimourdain:
How very curious: You give ample evidence of being thoughtful and of being well read (or is that just empty namedropping?), yet your responses to me (and through me, to PZ's OP) suggest deep and abiding failures in basic comprehension. Since you seem capable of understanding written English, why should I not attribute your failure to do so in my case to ill will and intellectual dishonesty?
Whatever. One more attempt, and then I'm really most sincerely done with you.
Well, I have no idea who or what this anti-Jihad movement, which you write of as if they had membership cards and annual conventions, might be, and I can only take your word for whom you might have spoken with... but in any case that's not what I was talking about. When I refer to "others' xenophobic attitudes," I'm not talking about some (possibly imaginary) elite international Jihad-fighting organization; instead, I'm talking about American voters (esp. middle-class centrists and conservatives) upon whose fears and basest instincts our nefarious neocon "leaders" prey by portraying terrorists as people not like us (e.g., brown skin and "funny" names versus the predominantly white, European-named American middle class) who live over there. In this way, the Bushes, Cheneys, Rumsfelds, Wolfowitzes, Negropontes, Boltons, et al., managed to convert peoples' perfectly natural concerns for their own safety into full-blown xenophobia, which in turn they used to justify their global geopolitical military ambitions, to our enduring shame.
Actually, it seems to me that you are the one who's been focused on what percentage of HAMAS in particular and the Jihadist community in general is non-Arab (or, perhaps more accurately, non-Middle-Eastern, since Iranians aren't Arab). PZ only mentioned "funny arabic names," not ethnicity; you were the one who started quibbling over the ethnic origins of some of the folks with those funny names. I used the terms brown and white in the context of criticizing the invidious us vs. them meme being promoted by right-wing cheerleaders for the War on Terror™; not to promote any sort of racial or ethnic stereotypes in my own voice.
I don't really think I've been unclear about that... but apparently it suits your purpose to "misunderstand" me.
BTW, notwithstanding your private inside info from the elites of the Global Anti-Jihad Movement™, I suspect that the majority of Jihadist terrorists are, in fact, indigenous members of Islamic nations, rather than converted "fellow travelers" from non-Muslim cultures... but whether I'm right about this or you are is entirely immaterial to the point I (and, I believe, PZ) was trying to make about the willfull blindness of American political culture to the threat from homegrown terrorists who have no connection to Jihad or Islam, and only passing connection to the geopolitics of the Middle East.
Because it has suited our (thankfully former) right-wing administration to frame the terrorism debate entirely in terms of a struggle against foreigners who are not like us we've been unfortunately trained not to easily think of people who are "like us" (e.g., mostly white, mostly of European extraction, mostly Christian...) as terrorists, no matter who well their behavior fits that term.
With particular reference to Christian groups (e.g., anti-abortion thugs), this is yet another instance of the undeserved deference give to religious people in general and Christians in very strong particular in American political culture, and it's of special concern to those of us who are dedicated to secularism. I'm happy for you that you're so confident that Christian extremism will fail of its own accord; I hope you'll forgive some of the rest of us if we're not quite so sanguine on the matter.
Concede is a loaded word, but I certainly don't dispute that HAMAS exists, and that it is a terrorist organization (though as an aside, it's not just a terrorist organization, but also a political party and a social services provider... it would probably disambiguate things if they would split into separate political and military wings, a la Sinn Fein and the IRA), and that it has a presence in the U.S., and nobody's even tried to dispute the existence of "funny arabic names." But none of that amounts to a concession that "HAMAS is the major terrorist organization in the US." You haven't presented any evidence that HAMAS has more U.S.-based members than the other domestic terrorist movements we're talking about, and the evidence is overwhelming that HAMAS is not major in terms of U.S. domestic terrorist actions, of which it has to date committed precisely none.
Your deconstruction of PZ's quote fundamentally misrepresents his point (deliberately, I suspect), which is clear from context, and from the nature of the predicate news item: He's not (IMHO) taking about who might be the largest international terrorist group that might happen to have a U.S. presence, but rather the domestic terrorists of greatest concern (and I might personally add that concern has to do with the total threat to our way of life, and can't be measured in body count alone). All your nattering on about how many U.S. states HAMAS has chapters in, and about the ethnic origins of the members of those chapters, simply misses the point entirely.
It seems to be important to you to imagine that anyone who's worried about very real threats to the safety and political integrity of their own home country must necessarily be an uncaring "parochial" bastard, unconcerned about the suffering of others around the world. I can tell you that characterization is the polar opposite of my own position.
I can tell you that, but of course I can't prove it. How happy for me, then, that I really don't need to prove anything to you. I'm doing my part to fight global Jihad by trying as hard as I can to make my country a better, more responsible, global citizen (and part of that is fighting against our own homegrown versions of religious extremism). If that's not good enough to suit your lofty ideals, well you can fuck the hell off.
Posted by: Steven Sullivan | June 12, 2009 2:18 PM
"As regards my comments that few really care about genocide, well, try the following two tidbits on for size. I get the feeling that I'm talking to a whole lot of Obama supporters, so square this detail"
Sparky,
has it occurred to you that the US may not want to express an official preference for a winner of the Iranian elections, because it might actually *hurt* their chances of being elected? And you're calling *us* naive?
"I'm a Zionist for the simple reason that I realize that the Jews only hope of survival is if they have their own state, and are able to fight for themselves. Relying on the "world community" has done nothing for them. Just like the Tutsis. I don't know what the Tutsi equivalent of Zionist is, but I'm that too."
You're right, it is a 'simple' reason. Simple-minded. Granted, there is a history of vicious anti-semitism and vicious anti-semites still exist. But Jews TODAY, and Israel, don't exactly lack for powerful allies on the world stage, allies the didn't have before WWII. The USA today has about as many Jews as Israel does. Jews as a group are highly politically active on both the left and right in the USA. So do you seriously think Jews are in mortal danger of total eradication? The Jews are not the fucking Tutsis, OK? Not historically, not politically, not geographically, not economically.
Enacting idea that every conflicting ethnic/religious/cultural group gets its own country, would lead to a whole world of Japans. Is that your ideal? Mine is one where countries can be diverse AND peaceful. (Actually my ultimate ideal is more utopian still -- no countries, one world, and no political respect for the fucking religious nonsense that animates both the "Eretz Israel" assholes and the 'virgins await me in heaven, praise Allah' assholes that keep the Mideast cauldron boiling)
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 12, 2009 2:33 PM
Second tidbit, Jimmy Carter says that there's no Mideastpeace without HAMAS. Cimourdain
He is, of course, right. Just as there was, and could have been, no peace in northern Ireland without the Provisional IRA. Hamas, whether you or I or anyone else likes it or not, has a large constituency of support among the Palestinians.
But of course such facts don't matter to you.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 12, 2009 2:42 PM
Cimourdain of course subscribing to the failed idea that you don't have to talk with people to come to an agreement.
I wonder how he plans to deal with Hamas when they are left out of the negotiations?
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 12, 2009 7:01 PM
That's a good point; I really hadn't thought of that. However, I'd take more comfort if Obama hadn't okayed Iran's nuclear tech "for peaceful ends". And also if I couldn't think of three or four genocides in my lifetime that . I've seen this before somewhere..
Rev, it's not that you don't have to talk to some people, it's that you can't talk to some people. Let me make this easy: Anyone here ever convinced a creationist? I mean really convinced? Okay, now imagine that your life depends on the creationist using reason. Now imagine what it's like trying to talk to HAMAS.
See what I'm getting at?
That's what's wrong with Steve's comments. Do you guys know about Theodore Herzl? He was an extremely liberal, progressive Jew who believed that the answer to what was called "the Jewish question" was just the dissolving of the jewish people in the ocean of humanity, as he put it.
Then the Dreyfuss affair happened. He tried to reason with them, but the mob howled back "kill the Jew!". As a matter of fact, he hadn't thought of himself as a Jew, but he learned that that didn't matter. It wasn't how he saw himself, or how he saws others, it was how others saw him. That's why he became a Zionist.
That's the endless problem: how do you deal with those for whom reason isn't a value?
Posted by: strange gods before me | June 12, 2009 7:25 PM
it's not that you don't have to talk to some people, it's that you can't talk to some people. Let me make this easy: Anyone here ever convinced a creationist? I mean really convinced? Okay, now imagine that your life depends on the creationist using reason. Now imagine what it's like trying to talk to Likud.
And yet, Likud is elected, so we have no choice but to talk to them.
It appears there's a great deal you really haven't thought of. And yet you want to talk about topics where you are blatantly ignorant. Between this and equating Nazism with socialism, it's astonishing that you expect to be taken seriously. No, wait, it's not astonishing at all.
"The West has offered Iran diplomatic and economic incentives to suspend uranium enrichment and to support a civilian nuclear power program, Bush said in a speech he planned to give to the Saban Forum later on December 5 [2008]."
Stupid, stupid Cimourdain. You no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
|
June 12, 2009 7:39 PM
Any country (actually any corporation or other organization) that can build an oil refinery has the capability of building nuclear weapons. If North Korea, about as technologically poor a country as can exist without being totally agrarian, can build nuclear weapons, then a considerably more technically sophisticated country like Iran can. Hand wringing, whining, and wishful thinking won't change this.
In this particular instance, the Obama administration is accepting reality and trying to put as good a gloss on it as possible.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 12, 2009 7:42 PM
First of all, there is some difference between Likud and HAMAS. To equate the two is to declare bankruptcy in terms of moral judgement.
Incidentally, I don't know what you think you're proving by citing Bush except that Obama is turning into Bush Lite. Wonderful.
There's a very disturbing trend going around where people seem to organize their thinking around whether or not George Bush agreed or disagreed. This is worrying for those of us who don't require someone else's permission.
Incidentally, since this whole thing was that there were no domestic terrorists with "funny arabic names", does the name Naveed Azfal Haq ring any bells? Or what about Omeed Aziz Popal? Wael W. Kalash? Want me to continue in this vein?
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
|
June 12, 2009 7:53 PM
Okay, we got it. Timmy McVey was just a peaceful demonstrator, Eric Rudolph was disgruntled about something or other, and Scott Roeder thought that George Tiller was overcharging his patients. These guys were just exercising their Constitutionally protected right of protest. Nothing terrorist about any of their activities. BUT THEM MOOZLEMS, WEE GOTTA WATCH OUT FOR THEM! They'll rape your dog if you give them an inch. Ship them all back to
RussiaIraq or Syria or wherever they came from.Posted by: Cimourdain | June 12, 2009 7:57 PM
'Tis Himself, may I make a straight offer - which is open to anyone else, btw. You're addressing me reasonably, and for as long as you do so and don't descend into some of what's been thrown at me, I will treat you with the same courtesy.
That's certainly true. Nothing short of war will - and Obama isn't going to go for that. Nothing short of war would have stopped Rwanda or Darfur, too. Of course, that means almost certainly a nuclear war in the Middle East soon, and hence my point.
Posted by: strange gods before me | June 12, 2009 8:02 PM
So you admit you're ignorant about Likud's flagrant violations of international law as well.
Dumbfuck, it was your assertion that indifference to Iran's nuclear weapons program was a feature of "Obama supporters." In actual fact, Obama is continuing one of Bush's smarter policies. If any nation has the right to civilian nuclear power plants, then Iran has the right to civilian nuclear power plants. And if Iranian voters understand that the United States does not want to interfere in their civilian energy policy, then that opens up a political space for a candidate like Mousavi to say that Ahmadinejad's belligerence on nuclear weapons is bad policy that alienates the United States as a potential ally.
You can't keep up with the big kids, Cimmy. Go home.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 13, 2009 9:05 AM
Well, I must say I'm sorry. I forgot that you belong to a generation that doesn't read and considers scholarship superfluous, that has no notion of rational judgement, or serious learning.
Iran's leadership is quite clear that they want to kill all the Jews in the world - but what matters that to you? As I said, people don't care about genocide, and still less when it's directed toward the Jews.
Thanks for proving me right.
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 14, 2009 8:33 AM
First of all, there is some difference between Likud and HAMAS. To equate the two is to declare bankruptcy in terms of moral judgement. Cimourdain
Well, I concede that Likud has killed a lot more innocent people, but still, they are both terrorist organisations that also have considerable popular support, as proved in elections.
Iran's leadership is quite clear that they want to kill all the Jews in the world
Exactly where, when and how have they made this "quite clear"? There is, of course, a Jewish community in Iran, and explicit protection for Jews in the Iranian constitution. And before you start your self-righteous yowling, I detest and despise the Iranian theocrats.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 14, 2009 11:50 AM
- Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah and Iranian proxy.Professor Heshmatollah Qanbari calls the Jews "satanic" and "anti-human".
Al Manar airs programs based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion containing the blood libel.
Hardly unique in the Muslim world. Try the following from Egypt:
al-Akhbar, Egypt's second largest newspaper.
The demonstrations in Iran using mushroom clouds as their symbols. Promises of death to Israel and death to America are routine. How can you know so little about this subject at this late date?
Know what the law in Iran is for a Jew who goes out in the rain?
Incidentally, the reason for civilian deaths amongst the Palestinians is that HAMAS routinely uses human shields such as nurseries, schools and ambulances.
As I said, people don't care about genocide, certainly not towards the Jews.
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 14, 2009 12:18 PM
Cimourdain,
So as I thought, you cannot cite anywhere Iran's leadership have made it clear they want to kill all Jews. So, not to put too fine a point on it, you're a liar.
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 14, 2009 12:26 PM
Cimourdain,
I was intrigued by your:
"Know what the law in Iran is for a Jew who goes out in the rain?"
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Iran Jews were indeed not allowed to go out in rain or snow during the Safavid and Qajar dynasties. However, the Pahlavis abolished such restrictions. Do you have evidence that they have been reinstated under the Islamic Republic?
Posted by: SC, OM | June 14, 2009 12:42 PM
I've no idea what you're on about. And your mention of "the evolution of fascism from its origins in Italian revolutionary syndicalism" is most misleading. You need to start arguing from concrete history.
Well, we argued over a closely-related topic.
?
Posted by: strange gods before me | June 14, 2009 1:14 PM
We have proof that the Israeli army deliberately seeks out Palestinian children as targets.
Why? Partly because the Israeli army is increasingly being taken over by religious fundamentalists who view the Palestinians as subhuman.
Posted by: Cimourdain | June 18, 2009 5:38 AM
Reviewed my accounts of the punishment of "Jews in the rain" and found the last case from the 1970s.
Oh, I should concede another point: there were a bunch of people going on about the dangers of "brown skinned people with funny Arabic names", namely the collection of Democrats, media airheads like Chris Matthews and so forth who participated in the screaming that "Bush is letting Ay-rabs run the ports" during that Dubai business. Those of us who are free of this idiotic prejudice, and who actually know something about the Jihad, were aware that the country managing the ports before hand - Great Britain - has furnished more Jihadists and members of Al Qaeda than Dubai.
Of course, this is the kind of thing that you get when you are obsessed with race. Again, not my business.
My points about Israel rest on a great deal of knowledge about how, exactly, the Muslim
Arabs - rebranded as "Palestinians" since the 1960s for propaganda purposes - treated the Jews and the Christians and the Yezidi and so on for over a millennium when they could get away with it.
Posted by: Kai | July 17, 2009 11:37 AM
Just an FYI, b/c I haven't seen this noted anywhere else & it was being questioned... I used to know the person who created/runs http://www.antichrist.net/ and he is not the same person, nor is he related to, the aforementioned killer. He is indeed significantly younger than the killer, but is an adult himself. He's actually quite brilliant & does much more with his time, energy, & money than just listening to "deth metal" and running said website. The whole apostle thing in question (if I recall correctly) is, at its core, basically other Atheists that connected online & created an Atheist version of the bible's apostles. They're (somewhat, given the situation at hand) like-minded members of that network/site & as such, have their own 'branched-off' pages therein. Hence, James Von Brunn having a page. I honestly don't think Steve (the site owner) would have thought James would go on a shooting spree and I don't believe he was involved in any way (other than the noted web page he hosted). Granted, you can never REALLY know someone, especially in an online-only 'relationship' (I use the term in the general sense), but it's my opinion, from what I know of him, that the extremity of James' views are not shared by the main-site's owner. Hope this clarifies any remaining questions about those sites & the posters' identities.