So a White, Male Neo-Nazi Kills Guard at the Holocaust Museum. . .
By Mona
.
. . .and one of the nuttiest of the wingnuts still determines it is all the fault of the Islmaocommiefascists. Also, that Neo-Nazis are indistinguishable from Muslims. About the shooting today at the Holocaust Museum, the sagacious Debbie Schlussel informs us thus:
Make no mistake. Muslims created this atmosphere where hatred of the Jews is okay and must be “tolerated” as a legitimate point of view. The shooting today is just yet another manifestation emanating from that viewpoint–another manifestation of the welcome mat that Muslims rolled out for fellow anti-Semites of all stripes to no longer be afraid to come out of the closet.
Moreover, not only do White supremacists and neo-Nazis work with Muslims in many, many documented cases and investigations [ed.note by Mona: note lack of links]. But they are basically one and the same. The only difference is that one guy is named James and the other guy is named Ahmed.
What can one even say about such demented bullsh1t?
Comment by Keith —
June 10, 2009 @ 7:28 pm
They are spinning furiously to avoid admitting that this Neo-Nazi, like the guy who shot Dr. Tiller, was one of their own. Unfortunately, they’ve spent the better part of a decade pointing at brown people and shouting “Islamofascist!” so that it’s now become the default. Nevermind that their argument now boils down to Nazi=Muslim.
Comment by alec —
June 10, 2009 @ 8:25 pm
Listen, you’ve obviously been indoctrinated and educated by the liberal media — hundreds of years of anti-Semitism in Europe, culminating in the Holocaust, obviously stems from the Muslims. I’m sorry, you can’t argue with it. 9/11. Etc.
ps sarcasm
Comment by dhex —
June 10, 2009 @ 9:18 pm
aren’t you playing the same game they are?
the folks spinning these narratives are completely full of nonsense, but i’d be curious as to what the actual connections between neo-nazism and even neoconservatives really are, at least as you see it.
Comment by John Markley —
June 10, 2009 @ 9:28 pm
“Basically one and the same?” Yes, I can just see a bunch of octogenarian white supremacists fuming with rage over all the Iraqi children who starved to death during the Bush-Clinton-Bush embargo and plotting to avenge the defeat of the Umayyads at the battle of Tours.
Now that I think of it, I think Michael Medved did occasionally use the term “Islamo-Nazis” a few years back.
Comment by Mona —
June 10, 2009 @ 9:29 pm
You didn’t ask me, dhex, but permit my reply: damned little. Neocons are frequently either Americans who are End of Times Christians, or Jews. They are often overly protective to the point of anti-Muslim, war-mongering irrationality where Israel is concerned.
Neo-Nazis, like the alleged shooter under discussion, despise Jews. (As well as blacks and others.)
Comment by dhex —
June 10, 2009 @ 10:59 pm
well, yeah…if you want to be obvious about it i guess those would be some incredibly stark differences.
more seriously, i remember reading about neo-nazi hopefulness in the wake of 9/11 in terms of destroying israel and all that fun stuff, but that’s about as tenuous a connection between the marginal great white hopes and the far larger brotherhood of the exploding fellah as you can actually make. schlussel (who should sue her graphic designer for defamation of character, btw) can’t even get the origins of the truthers right. alex jones was on that shit from minute one, brohams.
no one gets between the pt barnum of the paranoid fringe and a good meal ticket.
Comment by josephdietrich —
June 11, 2009 @ 8:24 am
What can one even say about such demented bullsh1t?
Nothing. You can only shake your head sadly and wonder if her caretakers are giving her the proper amount of medication to deal with her schizophrenia.
Trackback by Prose Before Hos —
June 11, 2009 @ 9:12 am
Debbie Schlussel Is A Fucking Moron…
“Make no mistake. Muslims created this atmosphere where hatred of the Jews is okay and must be “tolerated” as a legitimate point of view. The shooting today is just yet another manifestation emanating from that viewpoint–another…
Comment by mds —
June 11, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
Well, apparently Opera 10 eats UO comments. Let’s see if I can make my original screed even longer, and more rambling:
I’m not sure I’d categorize the End Times crowd as “neoconservatives,” which is more associated with historically-recent converts to the conservative cause.
And even Jews for Jesus (I know, I know) has commented on the rise of a new version of “Christian Zionism” which largely dispenses with evangelism, and instead focuses on supporting Jewish emigration to Israel in order to precipitate the End Times and the eventual slaughter of the majority of the world’s Jews. In addition, the new crowd’s “pro-Israel” foreign policy view is based on provoking an apparently unstoppable multilateral invasion of Israel. God’s miraculous intervention to thwart the overwhelming attack will signal that the Rapture is imminent. Neither of these views actually strikes me as particularly pro-Jewish, especially coming from those who are still known to decry left-wing Jewish influences in Hollywood and the banking world. Heck, the fundamentalist denominations that are so rah-rah Israel nowadays for religious reasons were big into the Protocols back in the day. (Sorry to rehash all this, but it’s one of my personal hot buttons. “We love Israel, you money-grubbing atheist Jew. Can we help you move there, so you can be buddy-buddy with the Antichrist until God virtually wipes you out?”)
It depends on who Keith meant by “they.” Again, neoconservative newcomers like Bill Kristol probably aren’t particularly anti-Semitic. But did you see some of the people supporting Goldwater in ‘64? There’s still a definite contingent of the “Impeach Earl Warren” crowd around, and their branch of conservatism has a noticeable old-school racism component (as distinct from neoconservative “Exterminate the Islamist brutes.”) Sometimes Patrick Buchanan talks sense, and sometimes he lets the racism shine through. And I don’t have the link handy, but it wasn’t too long ago that they were composing paeans to Mr. von Brunn at Free Republic. So explicitly neo-Nazi might be out of the mainstream, but there’s certainly been a ratcheting-up of some pretty violent racial feelings lately.
Now, all that said, in a vacuum I would probably dismiss this guy as an isolated crank, “birther” proponent or no. But it follows fast on the heels of numerous lectures on how we dare not link Scott Roeder to the violent movement he’s actually linked to. So I do need to be wary of a kneejerk response, looking to blame the crowd urging gun hoarding because we have a socialist Muslim Negro president.
Then again, the feds never apologized for and walked back the earlier report outlining the dangers of left-wing domestic terrorism, despite the fact that PETA supporters haven’t been shooting people at steakhouses. Recently.
Anyway, Ward Churchill was still worse.
Comment by fyodor —
June 11, 2009 @ 12:45 pm
I completely take Mona’s word for it that there’s essentially no connections whatsoever between this Debbie Schlussel (of whom I knew not a thing till now) and Neo-Nazis.
Still, as far as attempting to explain her nonsense goes, it’s not out of bounds to suggest that simply belonging to the same very general side of the political spectrum can trigger the kind of defensive mechanism and cognitive dissonance that can lead to someone desperately trying to point at “them” to prove it’s not “us”.
Please note again, though, that I am NOT suggesting any connection between them myself, only suggesting that the FEAR of that connection being made, unconsciously even, could possibly be a factor in Ms. Schlussel ludicrous analysis. Just cause that’s my read on human nature, that people get defensive about others who can be seen to be on the same general “side”, however tenuously.
And then again, Ms. Schlussel may just out of her fricken mind.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
June 11, 2009 @ 1:47 pm
I agree with Mona and with dhex’s point–these days, murderous anti-semites are distinctly different from what one could call the mainstream far right. The mainstream far right is Islamophobic, not anti-semitic like the Holocaust Museum killer. I’ve got a friend (normal outside of politics) who watches Fox News, reads Brigitte Gabriel’s Act for America, forwards messages to me from Frank Gaffney warning about Obama’s sellout on June 4, etc and by their own lights, they are philosemites who support Israel in everything it does–of course, for the Christian Zionists, all this is as a prelude to Armageddon, but until the Rapture occurs they think they should march in lockstep with the Israeli far right. I suppose they have one or two crackpot ideas in common with the Holocaust museum murderer, and there’s a certain fact-free ambience about the cognitive realm they inhabit, but the details of their crazed worldviews are quite different, I think.
Comment by Barry —
June 11, 2009 @ 2:04 pm
“What can one even say about such demented bullsh1t?”
The most important thing is that it’s not bullsh*t; it’s deliberate lies.
Comment by Dr. Psycho —
June 11, 2009 @ 2:11 pm
The “lone nut” was a birther, there’s a connection right there.
Comment by Barry —
June 11, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
Debbie’s Wikipedia entry does not paint a flattering picture, sort of a Detroit-local Ann Coulter wannabe.
Comment by Patrick D —
June 11, 2009 @ 2:33 pm
WTF??
I thought islamo-fascists were in league with the political left! They seem to switch horses every time a member of the mindless right starts typing! They’re never going to get anywhere with that kind of flip-flopping.
Comment by MFA —
June 11, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
It seems to me the connection between the NeoNazis and NeoCons is a bedrock belief in the superiority of their in-group. Adherence to the belief is a prerequisite for membership in the group; and the belief is used to 1) identify those “others” who are to blame for keeping “us” from achieving a better world and 2) therefore justify the subjugation/elimination of those groups in the name of a cause. With the NeoNazis, the in-group identity is racial; with the NeoCons, it’s cultural (though that often touches on race indirectly). But it’s really the same mechanism.
Comment by mds —
June 11, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
As I noted, though, supporting Likud doesn’t translate completely into liking Jews. Plenty of Christian Zionists had no problem with Mel Gibson’s portrayal of the Pharisees. I have also previously heard from the Christian Zionist in my family that Jews really “talk up” the Holocaust all the time, even though Stalin killed lots more people. So there’s definite cognitive dissonance there, at the seam where the resurgence of End Times eschatology has been grafted on to the older fundamentalist antisemitism.
Well, that one has wide circulation in all kinds of fringey reaches. Weren’t even some PUMAs going there? The Free Republic angle is a little more significant, though they’re not “mainstream” by any normal definition, either. Then again, in a climate where various outlets are already blaming Obama for encouraging this with his “anti-Israel” policies, I don’t really see the harm in pointing out that far-right militias exist. Especially since “no true Scotsman” is getting a bit ragged around the edges.
Of course, this is all moot, since neo-Nazis are liberals. As Jonah has pointed out (and Andy McCarthy has already taken the opportunity to remind us), they weren’t called National Socialists for nothing.
Comment by somedude —
June 11, 2009 @ 3:19 pm
Neo-Cons, believe in the uber-cultural values of Euro-Americans who colonized the Americas and Palestine. Thus, a real racial/cultural component of “Judeo-Christianâ€
While Neo-Nazis believe Jews were never purely white and were a cancer in Europe and America.
Comment by Hicedic Warcrime —
June 11, 2009 @ 3:20 pm
We are all casualties of an invisible war waged by hicedic and orthodox jews. We are infact, whether we see or not, their sheep. THEIR sheep. To call the killing of the guard a “homicide” is blasphemy and again the hicedic-run media trying to paint a sympathy story for the guard they couldnt care less about. The guard had to die because he the was first line of defense of that propaganda museum. He is a casualty of war and does have my sympathy because he was most likely under-paid as a guard of the facility much like all of us who are underpaid as part of the hicedic invisible slavery we all find ourselves in.
Comment by Thoreau —
June 11, 2009 @ 3:22 pm
Ah, glad to see that Stormfront has arrived!
Comment by Dr. Psycho —
June 11, 2009 @ 3:56 pm
“It seems to me the connection between the NeoNazis and NeoCons is a bedrock belief in the superiority of their in-group.”
Said in-group being white males. NeoCons would also specify “from affluent, preferably old-line families, with either no religion or some familiar sort of Christian and maybe some Jews”, and NeoNazis would exclude Jews and tolerate recent immigrants, but the overlap is significant.
Comment by dhex —
June 11, 2009 @ 4:18 pm
that’s not even close to hacidic, aryan duder! holy fucking shit you’re a sad example of superior breeding.
“It seems to me the connection between the NeoNazis and NeoCons is a bedrock belief in the superiority of their in-group.â€
have you ever met a group that doesn’t share that to some degree? that’s about as broad as “radical muslims hate jews; neo-nazis hate jews; therefore, radical muslims caused neo-nazis” or whatever affront to reason debbie was actually pushing in that post above.
it’s a bit close to
Comment by Jennifer —
June 11, 2009 @ 4:20 pm
Jews have less than one half of one percent of the world population. If they really are secretly in control of the world’s monetary, military and media systems with such a tiny fraction of the population, I figure this proves their racial superiority over white folks.
Stormfronters, however, do not figure the same way.
Comment by fyodor —
June 11, 2009 @ 4:28 pm
Ditto dhex on the in-group pride thing. It’s “us versus them, and we’re better” just about everywhere you look.
Comment by James F —
June 11, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
FWIW, y’all, it is spelled “Hasidic”. And, by the way, if the half million Hasidic Jews in the world could run the media (which is a new one to me – I’d always assumed that the media control plot was one which incorporated all of us Jews), that would be a true marvel of efficiency.
Comment by Mona —
June 11, 2009 @ 4:35 pm
Well, to some degree they, or peoeple like them, do. That Matt Hale nutjub — leader of former World Church of the Creator — wrote at their defunct website that the reason Jews are so “dangerous” is because they tend to be so smart. This facilitated their purported nefariousness.
Matt is now in the Colorado Super-Max.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
June 11, 2009 @ 4:41 pm
People whose ideas are considered okay and must be “tolerated†as a legitimate point of view don’t shoot up museums. Such actions are the behavior of marginalized extremists. Strike one.
Political Islam is absolute poison in American political discourse. If Islamists began singing the praises of apple pie and baseball, we’d all start eating baklava and playing futball. The idea that political Islam could roll out our society’s welcome matt is the height of implausibility. Strike two.
Actual neo-Nazis are happy to kill people who are named Ahmed, while, as Debbie herself has often told us, Islamists are happy to kill people named James. The idea that the divergence of cultural backgrounds between neo-Nazis and Islamists is a minor matter to either group is utterly moronic. Strike three.
But other than that, Schlussel makes a really convincing argument.
Comment by MFA —
June 11, 2009 @ 4:51 pm
dhex, fyodor –
The other part of the connection followed, namely: “Adherence to the belief is a prerequisite for membership in the group; and the belief is used to 1) identify those “others†who are to blame for keeping “us†from achieving a better world and 2) therefore justify the subjugation/elimination of those groups in the name of a cause”
We are all members of various in-groups, but most of those groups (Kiwanis, redheads, Trekkies,) do not advocate the elimination/subjucation of non-members. Most in-groups settle for exclusion from the group. The commonality of the two groups in question is their willingness to predicate the success of their worldview on actual harm to non-group members.
Comment by Mona —
June 11, 2009 @ 4:52 pm
Just FYI y’all — Debbie is Jewish.
Comment by fyodor —
June 11, 2009 @ 5:35 pm
MFA,
Sigh.
So what’s your point about this “connection,” anyway? Are you actually supporting Keith in his contention that Ms. Schlussel is trying to distance her group and herself from her “own”? Or are you describing what you see as a *similarity* in how you view Neocons and Neo-Nazis that does not actually “connect” them functionally or idealogically? You make somewhat of a point for the latter, since I would agree (with what seems to be your point) that Neocons favor violence, in the form of strategic war, too easily for my taste (and I guess yours too).
Actually, all groups favor violence against their perceived enemies when the latter are perceived as a mortal threat. What constitutes said threat is where, as you correctly point out, groups may differ radically.
Still, “connecting” Neocons to Neo-Nazis on such a basis is very much the stretch.
Comment by dr ngo —
June 11, 2009 @ 7:53 pm
For anyone interested in exploring – rather than pre-emptively dismissing – the long-run connections between the nominally respectable right and the “eliminationists,” the locus classicus is Orcinus.
The bloggers there haven’t yet commented on this latest tragedy, but a trawl through their archives will provide plenty of detailed evidence for the general connection.
Comment by Mona —
June 11, 2009 @ 8:06 pm
dr ngo: I’m well familiar with Orcinus, and while that site posts much valuable info and insight, I do not always agree with them.
That said, I’d be interested to read any analysis they have to offer in light of recent domestic terrorism.
Comment by Joshua Holmes —
June 11, 2009 @ 9:27 pm
I thought islamo-fascists were in league with the political left! They seem to switch horses every time a member of the mindless right starts typing! They’re never going to get anywhere with that kind of flip-flopping.
Dude, they’re a valuable swing constituency
Comment by dhex —
June 11, 2009 @ 10:23 pm
1) identify those “others†who are to blame for keeping “us†from achieving a better world and 2) therefore justify the subjugation/elimination of those groups in the name of a cause—
from mr. ngo’s helpful link:
Comment by Barry —
June 11, 2009 @ 10:39 pm
mds: “As I noted, though, supporting Likud doesn’t translate completely into liking Jews. Plenty of Christian Zionists had no problem with Mel Gibson’s portrayal of the Pharisees. I have also previously heard from the Christian Zionist in my family that Jews really “talk up†the Holocaust all the time, even though Stalin killed lots more people. So there’s definite cognitive dissonance there, at the seam where the resurgence of End Times eschatology has been grafted on to the older fundamentalist antisemitism.”
I realized that the standard premillenial dispensationalist theory involves the *final* Final Solution to the ‘Jewish problem’. When Jesus comes back, all jews will either (a) accept Jesus or (b) be sent immediately to Hell. Earth will be Jew free, forever.
Comment by Mona —
June 11, 2009 @ 10:57 pm
mds writes:
I’m conflicted on that argument. Stalin and his successors did kill more people, but I rarely make that argument in any context that would undermine the viciousness of Hitler. Stalin and his comrades did not remotely transcend traditional Russian anti-Semitism, and among that lot of folks they killed or sent to gulags, were Jews.
Comment by Dayne —
June 11, 2009 @ 10:58 pm
Debbie Schlussel is a nutjob. I always wonder when this woman will ever stop. It’s like she is obsessed with whatever she believes in. It’s really scary. I hear that she’s seen as a joke amongst the local Detroit media. Newsflash to the nutjobs like her: Neo-Nazis really have nothing to do with muslims. They hate muslims – even more than the Jews cause they are brown! This Von Braun guy has written countless things against “brown” people. On the other hand, Schlussel is probably the closest to being a Nazi. She routinely attacks minorities (African Americans, Latinos, and of course Middle Easterners).
Comment by Mona —
June 11, 2009 @ 11:32 pm
True. Yet she somewhat often shows up as an interviewee on TeeVee. That is what we are dealing with here. Not Stormfront.
Comment by dr ngo —
June 12, 2009 @ 12:46 am
Mona: Sometime today after I commented above, Sara at Orcinus posted a lengthy analysis of the current right-wing violence. You might want to see it. (Like you, I don’t always agree with Orcinus, but it’s always worth reading.)
Comment by dhex —
June 12, 2009 @ 9:36 am
a larger downside to all of this is that this is the same cultural stew that gave us patriot act 1.
Comment by mds —
June 12, 2009 @ 11:11 am
“Colorado Super-Max”? Mona, are you telling me that Matt Hale is practically wandering free on the streets of America?
Well, despite cherry-picking quotes from Orcinus, I don’t really see much evidence of a legislative rush to detain or execute right-wingers who threaten the nation’s vital bodily fluids. In fact, if history is any guide, MoveOn and Senator Durbin will probably get denounced again.
Meanwhile, Glenn Beck, being Glenn:
Yeah, white supremacists just love making common cause with swarthy Semites, especially ones that take advantage of our porous southern border.
Beck’s guest from the Ayn Rand Institute:
Hey, how about a Patriot Act 2 that targets anyone who earnestly parrots Jonah Goldberg’s “argument”? (Kidding!) I know that “racism is a phenomenon of the left” is straight from Ayn’s pen, but seriously? In this country, racism is exclusively left-wing? Shit, that means my side has just had Tom Tancredo foisted on us. I hope someone saved the receipt.
Comment by MFA —
June 12, 2009 @ 12:54 pm
dhex,
sniffle.
“…’connecting’ Neocons to Neo-Nazis on such a basis is very much the stretch.”
We appear to agree that the two groups share a pathology. I see that as an important connection, because it suggests psychological if not physiological similarities. Root cause and all that rot.
But if by “connection” you mean an overlap of membership lists, then I would grant that no such connection exists.
Comment by dhex —
June 12, 2009 @ 1:27 pm
mfa,
i still think your “root causes” are really broad and shared by far too many groups to be that useful a filter.
now, if the category is “assholes i don’t want to live near” then i am completely on board.
as a side note, what does “sniffle” mean? i’m not up on stuff, in the general.
Well, despite cherry-picking quotes from Orcinus, I don’t really see much evidence of a legislative rush to detain or execute right-wingers who threaten the nation’s vital bodily fluids.
that quote just fit really, really well with the topic at hand, if not in the ways originally intended.
i realize that stuff is written in the heat of a deeply emotional moment, and more to the point, i have no problem with self defense. they should arm themselves, even if only to make themselves feel somewhat safer (and help roll back gun control by proxy, perhaps). i’ve never read the blog before so i presume stuff like that is an outlier.
obviously, i am seriously dubious toward the chances of that becoming a thing – i don’t think we’ll see running abortion battles anytime soon, much less with firearms. i don’t think we’re going to see a pro-abortion lone gunman shoot up an operation rescue meeting or anything along those lines. it’s not impossible to imagine, but imagination is most likely where it will stay. the anti-abortion folks lost the war, even if they don’t realize it yet.
and this does – in some ways – resemble the cultural stew in the mid 90s. remember when the militias were going to fuck everyone over with a race war and make us all buy guns and pickup trucks and whatnot? i do. it wasn’t that long ago, but 10-15 years is long enough for a new cover of an old tune to really hit the spot.
like with patriot act 2, it only takes one big incident to get the ball rolling, and once it’s rolling it’s very, very, very hard – if not impossible – to stop.
finally, i know “the other side” is being douchey, and i agree that the glen beckian fucknuttery is so filled up with sports bar diplomacy as to be either tragicomic or just another indication that medications need to be adjusted, but that’s the natural of dualism. it’s just one of many reasons not to watch glenn beck and related partisan shoutypants types. it’s not my idea of theater.*
*note: i don’t really care for theater. i prefer immediacy to mediation.
Comment by mds —
June 12, 2009 @ 2:02 pm
It’s not an outlier; you are just misconstruing what Sara Robinson was saying. She was riffing off of Gandhi to note that violence against liberals was on the upswing, and liberals need to brace themselves for more casualties. She was not urging her peers to start throwing actual bombs themselves, but telling them to keep the faith even in the face of violent intimidation. The cherry picking I referred to was that if one isn’t previously familiar with Ms. Robinson’s work, that particular passage removed from its surrounding “Gandhi” context could easily be misinterpreted.
I actually think she’s a bit naive about a battle royal where one side hoards guns and ammos and the other side joins hands and sings “We shall overcome,” but that’s where she’s coming from.
Yup. Dr. Tiller’s clinic is now closed, there’s a total of one or two physicians left in the US offering these late-term procedures, and Kansans have to drive to Kansas City to obtain any of the other services Dr. Tiller provided. His murderer isn’t facing the most stringent penalty possible under Kansas law, nor the slate of “terror” charges directed against the recruitment office shooter. And I can hardly turn on a television without the privilege of hearing Randall Terry expostulate. The anti-choice folks are definitely on the run on this one. Though in the longer term, I hope you’re right.
Comment by dhex —
June 12, 2009 @ 2:27 pm
“She was not urging her peers to start throwing actual bombs themselves, but telling them to keep the faith even in the face of violent intimidation.”
from the 2nd post mr. ngo linked:
that’s not entirely ghandi-esque. in fact, its kinda apocalyptic. which, again, i can appreciate given the circumstances. but it’s also in the context of “starting a civil war” which strikes me as kinda overblown, all told.
(and yet again touches back to this rhetorical obsession with linking abortion to slavery, by accident or intent, from all sorts of people across the broad dividing line.)
anyway, when i said they “lost the war” i mean that the other 99% of kinds of abortions in this country are generally going to keep on keeping on. the overall war, rather than this particular battle, has been lost to them, much like they lost the whole gay marriage thing.
of course, the usual caveats about the future and whatnot apply.
Comment by dhex —
June 12, 2009 @ 2:33 pm
anyway, the broader issue is that human beings imagine their enemies to be broad, powerful and deadly.
islamists in turkey and rebels in the phillipines become joined at the hip, poised to madrassa the shit out of our children; similarly neo-nazis and anti-abortion foes are now aligned in one giant plot against all that is holy and good in the united states. (and can be stopped by mainstream republicans being nice to obama, no less)
they even get martyrs and everything! hoo-rah for that old tyme religion.
hell, there are plenty of libertoids going on about how they’re surrounded by statists intent on destroying everything, like a suicidal death spiral coated in a slippery fiat money cover that degrades the very paper it is printed on like an untouchable fingering the robes of gold brahmani.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
June 12, 2009 @ 2:40 pm
I’m just going to mildly note that the idea that all members of one side of a political issue have benefited from a murder is generally shared by two particular groups: the relatively few psychos on that political side who’d actually support or want to commit such a murder…and the other side.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
June 12, 2009 @ 2:41 pm
But we are.
Comment by mds —
June 12, 2009 @ 3:52 pm
Okay, that “plenty of progressives who will oblige you” part was overheated and somewhat out-of-character. In half-assed defense, I will note that neither Greg McKendry nor Stephen Johns are actual examples of returning fire. So on balance, she still leans toward “noble self-sacrifice.” Usually too much, as I suggested above. Though there is a sense where co-opting the right-wing media’s civil war rhetoric only legitimizes it.
And yes, “Dear Conservatives” is much too broad a brush. The denunciations will continue until morale improves, or something. But if the counterbalance to all the “Liberals are the enemy, and the President just might be a foreign-born Muslim usurper” on Fox News 24×7 is some frustrated posts on the Internet and people who march with puppets, well, a pox on both their houses when one side only has a cardboard box is bending over backwards a tiny bit far for “fair and balanced.” What, you think Republican members of Congress are going to start publicly giving Operation Rescue the cold shoulder, despite Randall Terry’s transparent gloating? “Relatively few” is relative.
Besides, conservatives just need to think “Ward Churchill” and “Bill Ayers,” and suck it up.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
June 12, 2009 @ 4:59 pm
Jonah Goldberg’s “argument:”
You know who else liked dogs?
You know who else built highways?
Comment by dhex —
June 15, 2009 @ 11:18 am
“And yes, “Dear Conservatives†is much too broad a brush.”
it’s more than that – it’s fucking absurd. it’s absurd like blaming john walker lindh on hollywood movies/american music not being patriotic enough was absurd.
everyone is far too quick to plant a flag in the bodies of the dead. i’m pretty sure that security guard was there for a paycheck, not to die in some left-wing/right-wing civil war. perhaps i’m wrong, and every day he woke up and thought “today is as good a day as any to die” on his way to the holocaust museum, but i doubt it.
“Though there is a sense where co-opting the right-wing media’s civil war rhetoric only legitimizes it.”
i go much farther than you on this point, oddly enough – that kind of rhetoric is central to this kind of sports bar diplomacy. it’s not enough to be in conflict with a group of people, known and unknown; it’s always a holy war for some folk. it’s necessary, like eating or drinking.
it’s not like narratives of martyrdom or victimization are unique to right-wing or left-wing medias or the msm or even the livejournals of anime fandom. it’s how you keep groups coherent, it’s how you rally troops and it’s how you identify the other that needs to be defeated.
it’s just that the narratives we find more appealing seem less didactic, absurd and insane than those we don’t. personally, i’m not into victimization scripts to much, so the entire routine seems a bit gauche to me.
Comment by Abe —
June 20, 2009 @ 10:02 pm
DAVID LETTERMAN’S HATE, ETC. !
David Letterman’s hate is as old as some ancient Hebrew prophets.
Speaking of anti-Semitism, it’s Jerry Falwell and other fundy leaders who’ve gleefully predicted that in the future EVERY nation will be against Israel (an international first?) and that TWO-THIRDS of all Jews will be killed, right?
Wrong! It’s the ancient Hebrew prophet Zechariah who predicted all this in the 13th and 14th chapters of his book! The last prophet, Malachi, explains the reason for this future Holocaust that’ll outdo even Hitler’s by stating that “Judah hath dealt treacherously” and “the Lord will cut off the man that doeth this” and asks “Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother?”
Haven’t evangelicals generally been the best friends of Israel and persons perceived to be Jewish? Then please explain the recent filthy, hate-filled, back-stabbing tirades by David Letterman (and Sandra Bernhard and Kathy Griffin) against a leading evangelical named Sarah Palin, and explain why most Jewish leaders have seemingly condoned Palin’s continuing “crucifixion”!
While David, Sandra, and Kathy are tragically turning comedy into tragedy, they are also helping to speed up and fulfill the Final Holocaust a la Zechariah and Malachi, thus helping to make the Bible even more believable!
(For even more stunning information, visit MSN and type in “Separation of Raunch and State” and “Bible Verses Obama Avoids.”)