Column: Politics
We Need Better Words to Describe Monsters Like the Holocaust Museum Killer
No Republican I know claims these terrorists. We shouldn't imply any association.By Jill Kuraitis, 6-11-09
We need new terminology for animals like James von Brunn, who murdered a guard at the National Holocaust Museum in D.C. on Tuesday. von Brunn, who is 88, has a revolting history of anti-Semitism which is well documented.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a long-established and highly respected nonprofit center which tracks extremist people and groups, there are about 100,000 people in the country who belong to racist and anti-Semitic hate groups. (According to the SPLC’s director of intelligence, Mark Potok, the number of groups the SPLC tracks has increased 50 percent since 2000.)
Idaho and Montana each have among the lowest number of groups in any state – seven and six, compared with 84 in California and 66 in Texas and even 24 in New York. But Idaho has acquired an inaccurate reputation as a state teeming with racists. Between the Aryan Nations, a tiny but loud group in North Idaho, and Randy Weaver, the racist target of a stunning, tragic bungle by the FBI and other agencies, Idaho has had its share of national publicity involving bigotry and anti-Semitism. Now we find that von Brunn lived in Idaho for a short time and was briefly associated with the Aryan Nations.
Not good for Idaho, but especially not good for the museum guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, and his family.
Though it’s academically accurate, according to standard political ideology scales, to call people like von Brunn “extreme right-wing” - the SLPC calls them “radical right” – I propose that we called them what they are: hate terrorists. Not only does the term emphasize their vile psychological makeup, it removes any hint of an association with very conservative Republicans. Unfortunately, many members of these radical groups identify themselves as Republicans, but no Republican I know claims them, and it’s a wildly unfair association which suggests an alliance with terrorists. It’s also unwarranted to help legitimize hate terrorist groups as some sort of generally-acknowledged political party. We should abandon the “right-wing” term in naming these monsters.
More than just unhelpful, insisting on wrongful terminology helps prolong our national disease of political hostility against each other - a crawling rash that seems to get angrier by the day. And promoting inaccurate associations is dishonest. It’s perception-management involving the groups themselves, the media, and all of us. We ought to cut it out.
Words aren’t “just words.” They have meaning and impact and the power to deceive. Let’s use them to be honest and true.
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Thumbs Up Jill frum De Colonel... We still live n a world where a lighted match from a soul of evil can make our souls realize dis is no heaven.
Giddup..
But, then you, yourself, admit that "Words aren’t 'just words.' They have meaning and impact and the power to deceive. Let’s use them, in this case, to be honest and true." What a crock; have you conveniently forgotten Pat Buchanan's famous RIGHT-WING "culture war" speech at the 1992 REPUBLICAN national convention, or the fact that both he and his twisted sister are still RIGHT-WING REPUBLICAN operatives, or have you forgotten Butch Otter's recent public statements on environmental issues ranging from wetlands protection to the ESA (yeah, I know; you have a crush on him and I'm not supposed to say bad things about his handsome degenerate self), or have you heard anything that either Rammell or Sali have had to say lately? These are RIGHT-WING REPUBLICANS from IDAHO.
But, you're right when you point out that words aren’t "just words" and that they have meaning and impact. The words of RIGHT-WING REPUBLICAN Tom Coburn and other RIGHT-WING REPUBLICANS like him, including people all over Idaho, have turned the NRA into a modern KKK with the clearly demonstrated power and intent to intimidate and incite hatred and violence. Have you listened to Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Laura Ingraham, or Sarah Palin lately? Do you want to try to defend that stuff? Is Newt Gingrich suddenly not a Republican? Have you heard his stuff lately?
...and no, even the worst leftist on the other side rarely comes close to the spiteful vitriol coming out of the, forgive me for making the point again, RIGHT-WING REPUBLICANS and it's all over the place, including Idaho. I use it to stiffen my side and even my stuff seldom comes close.
To come full circle, "No Republican I know claims these terrorists. We shouldn't imply any association." Yeah, my father used to remind me that, when he finally reached Germany at the end of the war in Europe, he couldn't find a single German who had been a Nazi. None of them claimed any part of that party nor any association with it. Don't just talk the talk and then deny the truth.
Jill, this smarmy article is just too much. It's inaccurate; it's a deep denial of the facts, a deep denial of the clear truth; it's dishonest and bluntly hypocritical. It would have been different if you had admitted the truth and written a piece urging a greater examination of extreme positions and their impact; but, you didn't. You used your words to deceive and not to be either honest or true.
To start up some long-lasting religion based on this man's distorted thoughts, which are themselves the result of a deteriorating brain, does a disservice to anything the holocaust museum represents.
You might as well start having parades and protests against tomato killers, because this man's brain may just as well chosen to hate red vegetables.
Don't read into this what's not there, and reinvigorate the confused noises from the past.
There is no better example of hate than Rev. Wright's infamous rantings in his church bellowing out "God *d* America!" and his more recent comments about "them Jews."
For the record:
1)The Nazi party was officially called The National Socialist German Workers Party; it was left-wing, not right.
2)Sen. Robert Byrd (D) was a Kleagle in the KKK.
...
"Monster" is the perfect label for those who visit violence upon the innocent.
A lesson imparted to my son at an early age (it matters none to me or my son what the Registered Sex Offenders in my area' malfunctions are).
Growing up in Brooklyn I saw daily testament to industrial monstrosity on the tattooed forearms of the men and women who survived slices of Hell like Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka.
Who, when they spoke of the likes of Hitler or his contemporaries, would use the word "Monster" with such loathing, fear, sadness or hate that it would wrack their bodies.
So venomous was the word that crossed their lips that I am at a loss to think of a better condemnation.
--
"Whoever teaches his son teaches not only his son but also his son's son, and so on to the end of generations." ~Hebrew Proverb
There are countless historical documents written by sociologists and experts that clearly show that the National Socialist Party in Nazi Germany were what many would consider far right wing. Joining religion and state, nationalism and fascism. The Socialism part of the name was a PR stunt in order to gain the support of the German Unions at the early start of the Third Reich. This is a common tactic of far right-wing ideologues to tar and feather their opposition with horrors of the past that rightfully stand as an example of extremist activities at the national level.
Back on topic, however, I disagree with Jill about using labels. The recent spate of eliminationist rhetoric that originates with the extremists on the right, such as Hal Turner and Sean Hannity, mixed with the actions of a few, and tossed in with the sudden spike in the activity of self-serving militias, you can't ignore the elephant in the room. While von-Brunn may or may not be a right wing ideologue (I don't think he is), he was most likely emboldened by the recent activities and terrorist acts of the right.
Oh, and Kitty, Reverend Wright is a Christian. Shall we label all Christians as anti-American because of that? Do you understand the contexts of his speeches? Evidently not. Simple minds like simple quotes.
The murderer of George Tiller had the phone number of a known terrorist in Operation Rescue on his dashboard. What would you two make of that?
I don't care if Rev. Wright is a Christian or not. It's a moot point when he spews his bile.
...
anti-Sodomy laws, anti-gay marriage, anti-workplace equality, anti-affirmative action, anti-habeas corpus, warrantless wiretapping, and so on and so forth. Your words ring hollow.
And you seem to think the political spectrum is a nice two-dimensional line. It isn't.
I agree with Sashkka!
"For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties. Whoever destroys His work wages war against God’s Creation and God’s Will."
For those that want to echo some of the nuttier things that are being said by the right-wing in defense of their ideologies in light of this murderer, you'd better cite the exact references to Darwin if you want to make that poor attachment to the left.
You are a "real" troll.
This von Brunn guy isn't either left or right, simply an antisemitic animal, a complete nut job. A firing squad is too good for him.
As for what the NSDAP really was, I am currently reading a three-inch thick biography of Hitler. The Nazi's weren't socialist. They were totalitarians, and would say and do anything to gain and keep totalitarian political power. Period.
Hitler got his start when he was assigned to giving anti-communist propaganda talks to Reichswehr troops. Propaganda was his only talent, and his was masterful, which is why the Hitler cult developed.
Nobody really can say when he settled on his anti-Jew psychosis, but elimination of Jewry is the only constant, and quite illogical in its applications. I mean, the leadership of the Soviet Union during the Nazi period was not Jewish, yet the Jews were running Communism. Factually wrong, completely illogical, given that both Communist and fascist regimes took steps to reduce or eliminate the role of religion in civic life in order to place the state on top as an arbiter of right and wrong.
Brunn was a nut job, pure and simple.
Go troll somewhere else.
Are you implying that what happened to Randy Weaver's family was okay because of his political beliefs?
Like maybe some would say it was okay to shoot Doctor Tiller because of his beliefs?
Or to blow up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon because Allah wills it?
Or to blow up the Murrah building because the ATF blew up and burnt down the Davidians because of THEIR political beliefs?
By definition, political murders are terrorism.
Hey, and Picayune, thanks for bringing up those tattoos in Brooklyn. I saw the same sorta deal in Washington Heights. Made an indelible impression, you betcha.
So do you support the other extremists that are trying to claim von Brunn was a liberal because he believed in "evolution?" Do you want to sit there and tell me liberals hate Jews like the other extremists on your side?
Or maybe you just want to lie like you have on other threads?
IN the course of a little over a week in Portland, Oregon, a town that prides itself on "being weird", (last night 1000 people rode bicycles around the city nude for a some political purpose), a woman threw her 7 year old daughter and a pre-school son off the Selwood bridge at midnight, the girls screaming heard by a couple having a cocktail on their houseboat. They found them, but the boy was dead. A day or so later, a man took his two adopted kids to the wetlands, shot them and killed himself. If that wasn't nutzoid enough, a few days later a woman lured a pregnant girl to her house on a Craig's list deal to trade baby clothes, but instead, the preggers gal got blunt instrument killed and the baby cut out of her, the police responding to a 911 found the butcher's boyfriend CPRing the fetus. So the public discussion is that the 8 and half month old fetus might have been killed in the butcher knife delivery, so since a fetus is not a human, she can only be charged with one aggravated murder. And if that wasn't enough to gag a maggot, a day later a female farm worker delivered a baby in the porta potty, and left her deposit with the night soils in the blue solution, dead of course when extracted by cops called by the next person to use the porta potty. I didn't find the 88 year old anomaly that much exciting to read about. And, there wasn't much said nationally, or by Pres. Obama about the soldier killed in Arkansas by the muslim convert the week before. Ho hum, just another faux jihadist killing whitey, no big deal. But he spoke publicly and soon about a black guard being killed doing his job, trying to stop the 88 year old white southern idiot anomaly.
So the question remains, who in the hell is looking out for the kids? A dead kid here, a dead fetus there, and pretty soon it looks like kids are fair game, a part of "keeping Portland weird."
The weird deal is nobody talks about the kids abused and killed daily, but one old man full of hate is something to hash over like he was really something. He wasn't. But a pattern of kids being killed by adults is, in my mind. One is an anomaly. Four or five in a little more than a week is not an anomaly. It is an indication that our secular society has some things to fix.
Jun 3rd: ""I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence against two brave young soldiers who were doing their part to strengthen our armed forces and keep our country safe," Obama said in a statement issued by the White House."
Not fast enough? At least he wasn't on vacation, fishing, while hundreds of Americans were dying.
Jason Eugene Bush, 34, Shawna Forde, 41, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, have been charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and other charges, said Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County, Ariz."
Right wing extremism on the rise.
Please comment on what the article or comments are ABOUT, not about the writer of the comment and their stupidity or intelligence. Discuss issues and ideas.
Let the RWC croke.
Their sense of purpose--and their self-images--will never recover from the last election. They have to vent or they'll probably blow something up too...