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Latest Right-Wing Meme: Von Brunn's A Lefty
It's hardly been 24 hours since James Von Brunn allegedly walked into the Holocaust Museum and shot museum guard Stephen Johns. But already conservatives from Rush Limbaugh to Red State have started advancing their latest up-is-down meme: Von Brunn -- a white supremacist consumed by hatred of Jews and blacks, who has called for President Obama to release his birth certificate -- isn't really a right-winger -- in fact, he's a lefty.
Let's count off the examples:
Yesterday, a guest from the "Ayn Rand Institute" argued to Fox News's Glenn Beck that because Von Brunn is a racist, he must of course be "a phenomenon of the left." In response, Beck accepted that logic, and wondered: "How did it happen that you look at people that are Nazis and you say that those are right wing? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever!"
Yes, it's totally baffling.
Not to be outdone, Rush Limbaugh too declared Von Brunn "has more in common with the marchers and protesters we see at left-wing rallies," according to video just aired on MSNBC.
But it's conservative bloggers that have really taken this idea and run with it, though. Yesterday, Eric Erickson of Red State tweeted:
holocaust shooter, like left wing bloggers hates Bush, Israel, the war, Christains, capitalism. the list goes on and on.On his site, Erickson wrote:
It is the leftists like Kos's acolytes that perpetuate anti-Semitism under the guise of "if only we wouldn't defend Israel this wouldn't happen." Nazism, like Communism, and the neo-nazis disease that stems from the former, share the common foundation of socialism that these same leftists now agitate for....
Kos and the lunatic gunman today and the lunatic gunman who killed Pvt. Long share more in common that the rest of us -- their world view is centered on contempt for what this nation stands for and are consumed with an abiding hatred of George W. Bush and the "neocons."
And Michelle Malkin -- playing defense after blowing a gasket about that DHS report warning of right-wing extremist, only to see the report's predictions borne out over the last week -- declares, "Shooter wasn't "left" or "right," just plain loony," while linking approvingly to another writer who says no, he was a lefty.
Malkin also points to the fact that police found the address of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine in Von Brunn's car -- the implication somehow being, we suppose, that it's impossible to be a right-winger if you also hate magazines that advocate a neoconservative foreign policy.
And of course, as Josh noted earlier, Andy McCarthy of National Review wrote:
So what does that leave us with? A lunatic who killed an abortion doctor (and was vigorously condemned by conservatives for doing so), and an 88-year-old white supremacist of the Nazi bent (which somehow makes him a right-wing savage -- a paradox Jonah has written a book about) who killed a guard with a shotgun at the Holocaust Museum.That is not a wave of domestic terrorism, much less right-wing extremism.
Right. Nothing to do with right-wing extremism. How silly of us.
Late Update: Reader JD points out that conservatives are indulging here in what's known as the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, advanced by the British philosopher Antony Flew, by redefining the meaning of a term in order to make a desired assertion about it true.
In Thinking About Thinking, Or: Do I Sincerely Want To Be Right?, Flew, an Englishman, wrote, a bit xenophobically:
Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the "Brighton Sex Maniac Strikes Again." Hamish is shocked and declares that "No Scotsman would do such a thing." The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again and this time finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, "No true Scotsman would do such a thing."
So are all those racist screeds on Free Republic are from lefties? And does that make communists and trade unionists Right Wing now, since they were enemies of the Nazis? I'm so confused.
June 11, 2009 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
What this means is that the RW trolls and cockroaches learned their propaganda lessons from the Bush years well.
The Bushies read Orwell, and thought it was a swell idea.
June 12, 2009 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
You didn't hear? "Free Republic" is LEFT wing -- hiding behind the convincing far-RIGHT lunatic fringe label "Fascist" in order to hide that fact -- and to underhandedly discredit being an actual upstanding Fascist.
That's why the posts by the freedom-loving wingnuts posted on "Free Republic" are always deleted: so the far-left users aren't exposed to anything which might pollute their precious bodily fluids.
Um -- wait, let me reread that . . .
Never mind.
June 12, 2009 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Ron Paul is...a socialist?
June 11, 2009 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep. Along with his mentor Ayn Rand.
June 12, 2009 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
One thing that does seem to confuse with wing-nuts is Israel. Old school far right wingers tend to be antisemitic. But some newer far right wingers are really anti-muslim first, so they tend to kind of like Israel. Plus, to like Israel is to really piss off the whiny liberals who sympathize with the Palestinians. It all leads to much confusion.
June 11, 2009 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Plus to complicate things more you have to throw in the modern evangelicals who are fervent supporters of Israel - because then Jerusalem will be completely Jewish, the Temple rebuilt, and the Iranian-Israel war will fulfill the prophecies of Revelations, and bring about the Apocalypse etc. So they support Israel because it has to become strong before it is eventually consumed by hellfire.
June 11, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. They love us Jews and want us all to return to Israel so that the Rapture can happen and then we can all be sent to hell.
June 12, 2009 12:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
And U.S. foreign policy perpetuates religious mythology by continuing to claim Israels sovereignty - which begs the question, if a nation cannot fund and provide its own defense - is it really sovereign?
Economics trumps lines drawn on a map, and civil society trumps religiosity - eventually.
Yes, I pretty much mean I would rather that Jesus NOT come back in my lifetime. I like my life, I'd really rather it didn't end in hellfire. In addition, I'd really like my children to experience a full and progressive life, and so on and so on.
June 12, 2009 1:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
if a nation cannot fund and provide its own defense - is it really sovereign?
Sure, lots of them do. It's why there are such things as defense alliances, things like NATO, the U.N., etc. I have no problem with helping Israel defend itself. But if they're going to take our money, then they have to be willing to accept our position on a Palestinian state as well.
June 12, 2009 2:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
well put. thank you.
June 12, 2009 3:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I love is how the right takes a colloquial identification (Nazi) and conflates is with National Socialism. In America, one is a Nazi if you believe in white supremacy and all the wonderful quirks that accompany that. Clearly, this is a far right worldview. But Beck and his lot say, if you're a Nazi here, you must believe in socialism, like the Nazis in Germany, so ipso facto, you're a leftist. The best part is they actually expect normal people to be fooled by this.
June 11, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Over the past couple years I've noticed a tendency by conservatives to muddy the waters when it comes to fairly clear political classifications. For example, during the campaign last year, conservatives to varying degrees called Obama a liberal and a terrorist-supporting Muslim when, in all practicality, the two groups are mutually exclusive.
Likewise, conservatives are now trying to paint Obama as a communist, a socialist, a fascist, and a Nazi, even though, again in all practicality, the first two and the last two are mutually exclusive.
It is a strategy the rightwing uses in an attempt to get every negative epithet to be associated with its political enemies. If conservatives can get people to associate liberals with Muslim terrorists, and Nazis, and socialists, etc., there will be no epithets left for them to be called. Introducing such uncertainty into American political discourse is a ploy of the rightwing to make itself seem reasonable and centrist without ever having to do anything reasonable or centrist.
I can think of no such parallel from the left when it comes to references to the right. I've never heard any liberal say of George Bush, for example, "he has fundamentalist Christian beliefs ... and he's an atheist!"
June 11, 2009 11:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Note also that the Nazis in Germany were also not really Socialists, so it's doubly ridiculous.
June 12, 2009 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is no difference between the Nazis here and those of WW II Germany.
Hitler took over a party called "National Socialist". Hitler was not a socialist, as demonstrated by his "To Be Hated" list, and his demonization and execution of "Communists" -- leftists -- Socialists -- leftists -- liberals -- leftists -- and trade unionists -- leftists.
The Nazis simply assert that Hitler was a LEFT-winger in effort to distance themselves from the fact that he was far-RIGHT lunatic fringe. There tactics -- and loudly communicated intents -- are exactly the same as those of Hitler.
And then there're those rallies at which arm-banded Nazis preach against the left, and "Commies," etc.
June 12, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Trying to project this guy's warped universe onto one of two dimensions seems like a waste of everybody's attention.
June 11, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
THANK YOU. This idiot Von Brunn also raged against GW Bush, Bill O'Reilly and the neo-cons--in addition to (and sometimes side by side with) his screeds agains Jews, African-Americans and Barack Obama.
It's no feather in our cap, nor productive in any sense that I can see, to try and pigeonhole him simply as "on the right."
June 11, 2009 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you're OK with him being pigeonholed on the left?
By the way - where would you "pigeonhole" Pat Buchanan? He was also against the neocons, and thought Bush made a terrible error going into Iraq. He's also no friend to Israel, or the jews:
Writing of "group fantasies of martyrdom," Buchanan challenged the historical record that thousands of Jews were gassed to death by diesel exhaust at Treblinka: "Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody." (New Republic, 10/22/90) Buchanan's columns have run in the Liberty Lobby's Spotlight, the German-American National PAC newsletter and other publications that claim Nazi death camps are a Zionist concoction.
Buchanan called for closing the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, which prosecuted Nazi war criminals, because it was "running down 70-year-old camp guards." (New York Times, 4/21/87)
Buchanan was vehement in pushing President Reagan -- despite protests -- to visit Germany's Bitburg cemetery, where Nazi SS troops were buried. At a White House meeting, Buchanan reportedly reminded Jewish leaders that they were "Americans first" -- and repeatedly scrawled the phrase "Succumbing to the pressure of the Jews" in his notebook. Buchanan was credited with crafting Ronald Reagan's line that the SS troops buried at Bitburg were "victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." (New York Times, 5/16/85; New Republic, 1/22/96)
After Cardinal O'Connor criticized anti-Semitism during the controversy over construction of a convent near Auschwitz, Buchanan wrote: "If U.S. Jewry takes the clucking appeasement of the Catholic cardinalate as indicative of our submission, it is mistaken. When Cardinal O'Connor of New York seeks to soothe the always irate Elie Wiesel by reassuring him 'there are many Catholics who are anti-Semitic'...he speaks for himself. Be not afraid, Your Eminence; just step aside, there are bishops and priests ready to assume the role of defender of the faith." (New Republic, 10/22/90)
And on and on and on...
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2553
June 11, 2009 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not interested in pigeon-holing von Brunn's views as either left OR right.
The attempts we've seen over that last 24 hours to tar the other side with this brush veer too close unseemly wishful thinking for my taste. My sense is that it's a fool's mission to align this berserker with a stable political point-of-view--and a waste of time to boot.
June 11, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree. I think it's important to push back against this bullshit Jonah-Goldbergian notion that all the evils traditionally associated with right-wing extremism are actually products of moderate liberalism.
June 11, 2009 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
And I think it's important to push back against simplistic analysis, undertaken for short-term news cycle gain, in the wake of tragic murders.
June 11, 2009 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Simplistic analysis"? Brunn spewed far-RIGHT lunatic fringe views -- and there are far-right lunatic fringers who oppose Neo-Cons (Jews), as much as they oppose Zog (Jews), and "One World Eggheads" (liberals -- and doubtless Jews).
One doesn't leave stupidities standing uncritiqued because:
SILENCE IS ASSENT.
June 12, 2009 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the deal though - Jonah points to something that's true (but being the idiot that he is, he cannot make anything out of it - hence the 3 years of writing and editing). I mean fascism (and nazism) share a common root with the other revolutionary side. This is meaning of the great Heidegger vs Lukacs debate : the question of superseeding modernity, understood as capitalism (for Lukacs, Marx et. al.) or inauthentic existence (for Heidegger). So in a sense fascism (which came out of anarcho-syndicalism and Sorel) is neither right nor left - it is revolutionary. And so is communism in all its incarnations, and so is Nazism. What Goldberg did not understand is that right or left, or liberal vs conservative, are not really relevant idioms to understand fascism. In fact, conservative thought is ultimately subsumed under bourgeois liberalism - it's kind of bourgeois liberalism with a 100 years lag - conservatives today are slowly working themselves towards accepting John Stuart Mill... But eventually they do come around. The deliberative, democratic, individualistic bourgeois tradition is precisely the inauthentic modern life as described by Heidegger, or false (or class-) consciousness according to Lukacs. The fault line lies between revolutionary thouhgt vs. liberal tradition. And within revolutionary thought, you have the pessimistic, irrational, racialist heideggerian side vs the historical-materialist side. Jonah, in his dimwitted hysterical screed conflated revolutionary thought with liberalism. No wonder he was confused.
OK I've said my piece.
June 11, 2009 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
And I should add: according to that typology, Pinochet was not a fascist stricto sensu, but Peron definitely was one. And Von Brunn is a revolutionary of the Heideggerian flavor (he doesn't know it and doesn't understand it himself in these terms, but that's what he is). Barack Obama - definitely not a revolutionary. Glenn Beck? the jury's still out. Although his defense of private enterprise, however incoherent, definitely makes him a partisan of the status quo - so more a paleo-reactionary. Pat Buchanan is definitely a Heideggerian. It's interesting that no rational/materialist revolutionary is given the same kind of tribune and space in the MSM as Heideggerian fascists such as Pat Buchanan. I wonder why...
June 11, 2009 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
What you said.
June 11, 2009 11:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Word. Someday I'm gonna find the time to read all of those guys, to see if my half-assed understanding of all that theorizin' is anywhere near correct.
June 12, 2009 2:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I as well don't even get what you're saying. The guy is a super-right-winger, period, it doesn't matter how we feel about that.
June 11, 2009 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's intriguing to me how vitally important it seems to be for many folks on the right and the left to associate the views of this murderer with their political opponents.
June 11, 2009 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Intriguing to you or otherwise, he is a super-right winger.
June 12, 2009 2:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of those sides is correct. The other is not. Sorry you can't see that simple fact.
June 12, 2009 2:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Santa Monica wrote that fascism and communism share a common root with the revolutionary impulse--and and that neither should be considered right nor left. Santa Monica correctly notes "that right or left, or liberal vs conservative, are not really relevant idioms to understand fascism."
To Santa Monica's posting you replied, "Word," suggesting your agreement and approval.
So, you can only understand my point if it's dressed up in Germany theory you haven't read yet?
June 12, 2009 7:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Apples and oranges. Santa Monica's comment was not about von Brunn, but about Jonah Goldberg's conflation of liberalism with all of the evil totalitarian tendencies of the 20th century:
Which, to me, is the central problem: this attempt by those on the right to conflate left-liberalism with fascism, Nazism and every other form of totalitarianism is rapidly taking hold, not only in conservative-pundit-world, but in mainstream media as well.
There is a concerted effort being made to make von Brunn out to be a leftist, by conservatives who are unwilling to address the fact that this man held many of the same beliefs that permeate the right-wing blogosphere. I am willing to call bullshit on that, and I think it's important to do so. You are free to continue with your false equivalencies all you wish.
June 12, 2009 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate that both you and Scarlet have called bullshit on conservatives who try to align von Brunt with the left. It's idiocy, of course, and should be understood as such.
Listen here if you want a laugh: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/12/741639/-Breitbarts-Gawker-voicemail-rant:-Shooter-was-like-a-leftwing-lesbian-multicultural-studies-major
Thank you for doing this.
As I said elsewhere, what surprised me was the extent of your anger--and free time--in that you railed repeatedly at someone who merely offered a critique of the reflexive urge to pinpoint Von Brunt as a leftist or a rightist.
Von Brunt strikes me and other posters here as revolutionary (of the "pessimistic, irrational, racialist heideggerian" revolutionaries) and it is in this context that the description as "left" or "right" misses the point. And it is here that you may have missed the critique of your own argument (imbedded in the critique of Goldberg's) in SM's post.
Anyway, it's good to see things getting more analytical and less "do your homework." Happy Trails, Paul
June 12, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I must say I'm completely baffled by the fact that this meme is taking hold. I guess that's good agitprop on the part of the right. Because it does serve the Republican party to conflate liberalism with fascism. It's vile and stupid as a rhetorical move, but hey, whatever works. THat being said, there are real differences between Heideggerians and materialists. I don't believe in the moral equivalence between Nazism and Stalinism - even though Stalin was pretty out there as fare as despotism goes.
June 12, 2009 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
You forget that those on the radical right do not like GWB because he wasn't conservative ENOUGH. They don't like that Medicare prescription drug coverage, they don't like No Child Left Behind, and they don't think he cut taxes as much as he should have.
June 11, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm aware of this. My point is simple: based on the reported contents of von Brunn's automobile, hard-drive, court documents from his kidnap arrest, and his 40 years of collected written ravings, he is harder to pinpoint ideologically than someone like Scott Roeder. Efforts to align him along a left/right spectrum, 24 hours after his arrest, don't appear (to this reader) to be good-faith efforts based on careful analysis of the entirety of the record.
June 11, 2009 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I can pinpoint this pretty easily:
HITLER’S WORST MISTAKE:HE DIDN’T GAS THE JEWS.by James von Brunn
Remember, the un-Constitutional Federal Reserve Act (1913) gave JEWS control of America’s MONEY. Followed by control of America’s principal sources of information . Early on, during the war-torn 20th Century, the only broadcast networks : ABC, CBS, and NBC — were JEW owned. Today, JEWS control ALL important sources of information (the major networks, Newspapers, Magazines, Book-publishing, Tin-Pan Alley, Music & Recording Industry, Hollywood, Encyclopedia Britannica, Public schools and Universities, the Catholic Church, etc.). Bit by bit Liberalism ascended. Bit by bit the Constitution was re-interpreted. Bit by bit government institutions and Congressmen fell into JEW hands — then U.S. diplomacy, businesses, resources and manpower came under JEW control. White men sat on their collective asses and did NOTHING — NOTHING BUT TALK. Never before in World history has a great Nation been conquered so completely, while offering NO physical resistance ! White talkers LOVE their Enemies. Today, on the World stage, White men are LAUGHED AT, their women taken, raped, and bred by stronger men. And America ? America is a Third-World racial garbage-dump — stupid, ignorant, dead-broke, and terminal.
Prepare to die, White America — you deserve it.
Heil Hitler ! James von Brunn
http://adamholland.blogspot.com/2009/06/holocaust-museum-shooter-was-ron-paul.html
As posted on the Ron Paul for President website.
Oh, wait, I see - this is only one posting from the man, so one would have to reserve judgment on him until one saw "The entirety of the record." My bad.
June 12, 2009 2:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's not so much about reserving judgment as it is about weaning yourself away from simplistic political frameworks that serve only to confirm your own pre-conceptions. Please do what you suggested you would in an earlier post: read up, friend. Never to late to leave your comforting intellectual crutches behind.
June 12, 2009 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately, "simplistic political frameworks" is the currency of political discourse. If you want to surrender the rhetorical field to amoral authoritarians, be my guest. Just don't expect anyone who wants to win the struggle for American hearts and minds to give a rat's ass what you think.
June 12, 2009 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Um, looks like you not only cared but took the time to comment my friend. :)
June 12, 2009 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fuck off.
June 12, 2009 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought you didn't give a rat's ass? Why are you still posting if that's the case?
June 12, 2009 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
What part of "Fuck off" did you fail to understand, nimrod?
June 13, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Telling someone to "read up" is about as arrogant as it gets. And it doesn't help that you're stretching abstract foreign political theory to satisfy your own up-is-down conclusion that this guy can't be classified in the American political system. It's really pretty straightforward, and anyone who recognizes the spectrum of US politics knows where he fits. He's a birther for Christ's sake. His complaints about Bush came from the right. Now quit this holier-than-thou, above-politics bullshit with which you're masquerading your wignuttery.
June 12, 2009 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, I do have to wonder why it's so difficult for so many commenters to even entertain the notion that our well-worn Left/Right model might be inadequate in this instance.
Scarlet doesn't sound like a wingnut to me. He's asking about the reflexive embrace of the above model by both the left and the right--and suggests, plausibly, that it's being deployed therapeutically, as a kind of pat, no-fuss substitute for deeper analysis.
"Yes the killer goes in this category here, the logical extension on the views I disagree with." This is our inner Jonah Goldberg speaking, and it behooves us to do better than this if our goal is to do more than simply win the day's news cycle.
June 12, 2009 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
You don't have to understand Heidegger or Luckacs or John Stuart Mill (hell, I don't, either) to see that placing every facet of societal behavior on a "left-right" axis is: [a] something the right always does (see Limbaugh, yesterday, re von Brunn), and; [b] ultimately benefits the right, when those people who are oblivious to the nuances of political ideology are able to assimilate easily the McNuggets of misinformation that the right dishes out, when one places every last player on the board on the "left" or on the "right".
This axis, thanks to the R noise machine, has encompassed every topic of public discourse, especially in the compliant MSM, for the last 30 years. It doesn't matter if it's valid or not; no subject is ever raised, anymore, without a "whose side are you on?" backdrop.
June 12, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate your comment very much. And believe me I'm not clear how to pronounce either Gyorgy or Lukacs. :)
And I understand how in the context of making news nuggets, winning the daily cycle and offsetting the GOP message machine it IS important for Josh to do a headline blaring "Von Brunt was a Birther." That info will filter to talking heads like Lawrence O'Donnell and Katrina Vanden Heuvel who can fight that machine weeknights and Sunday mornings. So maybe that's the 'sausage making' side of politics.
I have always considered the comments section a place where we can debate first principles, question our preconceptions, talk philosophy, and generally do more intellectual heavy lifting and less back slapping. That's why I was surprised to see the real anger (and dare I say Jonah Goldbergian self-certainty) that greeted cpt scarlet's provocative but by no means wingnuttian posting. Anyway, thank you for writing something substantial and thought-provoking. It is appreciated.
June 12, 2009 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your concern is noted.
June 12, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry but I tend to "pigeon-hole" gun fetish racist militia loving lunatics as right wing. It's a weakness I have.
June 11, 2009 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know if it's a weakness; it does seem like to make this claim is comforting to you and others.
Evidently there's a great deal of satisfaction to be found in performing a two-stage maneuver of this sort.
A heinous act is committed and it is firstly important to declare:
(1) The perpetrator is NOT like us.
(2) The perpetrator IS like our opponents.
June 11, 2009 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Comforting"? Yeah, it's really comforting to think that there are scads of heavily armed lunatics out there across the country ready to exact their perverted sense of vengeance against people who think like me. I couldn't sleep at night without that salve to calm my soul. Jeez.
Then again, I have to note there's always some handful of commenters on threads like this who seem to derive comfort from being contrarian for its own sake.
June 12, 2009 12:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Or perhaps we jsut don't agree that there are "scads" of people like this guy, no matter what label you choose to hang on him.
He was going to the National Review after the Holocaust Museum, so perhaps the situation isn't as black and white as one might think. If that is the case, then perhaps this whole left-right framing that both parties engage in might not be as good a fit as everyone assumes.
Hell, if we start thinking for ourselves, who knows what might happen?
June 15, 2009 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been following far-right lunatic fringers -- and going eyeball-to-eyeball with them -- for over twenty years. I've yet to hear ANY of Brunn's views which ARE NOT far-right lunatic fringe.
You're expecting a rational and orderly intellectual classification of views by such as Brunn. He and his don't do that because they can't do that because they are mentally disordered. Their underlying rationale for grasping ANY view is twisted; thus everything they spew as their view is by transformation if not defintion far-RIGHT lunatic fringe.
All the pseudo-intellectual superficiality and name-dropping notwithstanding.
June 12, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
If von Brunn's views aren't rightwing, I'd like all of these wingnuts to disavow his comments about immigration, race, Muslims, and Jews.
To be fair, the majority of Conservatives do not share these extremist right wing views. Nonetheless, Conservatives are too chicken shit to disown these comments and admonish right wing extremists because they're scared this might cost them votes in future elections. The truth is the modern Republican party needs crazy people if they are to continue to be a viable party. So don't expect Michelle Bachmann, Michael Steele, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly or Fox News to tamp down on their rhetoric anytime soon or to stop going to hate sites like stormfront and freerepublic.
June 11, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the crazies are what is killing the modern republican party, which makes it all the more ironic. It's a suicide pact as far as I can tell between the right's lunatic fringe and the so-called party leaders. The only way it will ever regain some semblance of relevancy in today's America is to reach further back than Nixon for its identity and ideals.
June 15, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Two right-wing domestic terrorist attacks on law-abiding innocent Americans in one week.
Thanks to Limbaugh, Beck, Savage, Coulter, etc... these domestic terrorists did just what you told them to do.
It must feel good to know that at least one American actually believes in your message.
June 11, 2009 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
What goes off here as right wing talking points is really more akin to open=brain surgery on some very sick minds. When bold facts intrude on the right wing fantasy world they just make up new definitions of words to rebalance their sick thoughts. The real question is always does Beck or Goldberg REALLY believe this new bullshit flipflop or are they just completely cynical hucksters? I think they cannot REALLY separate the hand that feeds them from the one that wipes their ass. I think they are sick fucks who gave up a long time ago trying to make sense of the world and now just pump out any bullshit that makes them money. Coulter is the best example of someone who is just an attention whore who knows controversy sells books and lets greed win out over decency every time.
Like the Palins trying to make it look like Letterman was talking about their 14 year old daughter when EVERYONE knows it was about their 18 year old single mom/daughter. Do the Palins take any responsibility for putting the idea of "raping a 14 year old" out in the media to score cheap points? Of course not!
June 11, 2009 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Except of course Willow was the one visiting the city, all the writers knew that fact, and Letterman forgot to say it was Bristol in his joke.
They let the ambiguity make the punchline edgier and missed the mark by a wide margin that has offended both side of the political spectrum. Not saying Palin hasn't played it for all its worth, but no matter which daughter the dude was talking about, she had every right to call Letterman out for what he said.
Like Imus, Letterman should have simply apologized and left it at that.
June 15, 2009 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
> Malkin also points to the fact that police
> found the address of the conservative Weekly
> Standard magazine in Von Brunn's car -- the
> implication somehow being, we suppose, that
> it's impossible to be a right-winger if you
> also hate magazines that advocate a
> neoconservative foreign policy.
Maybe he was going to apply for a job there.
June 11, 2009 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
BULLETIN! BULLETIN!
Sean Hannity declares "WORLD IS FLAT"!
2 million wingnuts nail feet to floor in fear of sliding off!
June 11, 2009 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just the fact that Fox News is hardly even aknowledging this murder is all the evidence you need to know that he is in fact a right-wing lunatic.
BTW, having an address of Weekly Standard is car means NOTHING
June 11, 2009 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Fox, Limbaugh and the rest of you right wing-bags..no matter how you try to spin and twist out of it - James Von Brunn is the very epitome of the right. He's one of you.
C
June 11, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Right Wing and the Far Far Right Wing and the so called Conservatives always hated Israel until Falwell and Robertson and the red heifer lunatics pointed out that they had mutual interests. Which of course is the delusional belief that the bible is literal fact and their belief in a prophesy that Jesus will only come back after a third temple is constructed in Jerusalem which, for some reason only the loonies understand, is the appearance of a completely red heifer in Israel. Once that crazy convergence happened they starting talking big support of Israel. Buchanan who is merely Roman Catholic and not one of the chosen cow worshipers is still blatantly anti semitic as was his campaign. Some of which was in code and some was not. Reverend Wright who is so far Left he is Right again belongs to the Church of Farrakhan by way of Baptists.
June 11, 2009 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's a line that says only a red heifer without blemish can be sacrificed at the temple. People claim that the breed is extinct and are trying to re-create it, and that there's no point in rebuilding the temple until that happens. I see plenty of red cows around though; it seems like Highland cattle would do. Maybe it depends on your definition of "red".
June 11, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aren't Herefords red, too? I mean, not like FIRE ENGINE red, but red as in red-head.
June 11, 2009 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, you had me until the display of false equivalency there at the end. Wright is not a black separatist, regardless of what the right may have spewed about him during the campaign. He is a garden-variety, left-leaning black pastor of a Christian church, and nowhere near the demagogue that is Farrakhan.
Have you even seen or read the "God Damn America" speech, in context? I find nothing in it that is blatantly false:
“When it came to putting the citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters. Put them on auction blocks. Put them in cotton fields. Put them in inferior schools. Put them in substandard housing. Put them scientific experiments. Put them in the lower paying jobs. Put them outside the equal protection of the law. Kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education, and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness.
“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law and then wants us to sing God Bless America. Naw, naw, naw. Not God Bless America. God Damn America! That’s in the Bible. For killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating us citizens as less than human. God Damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is Supreme.
“The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent. Think about this. Think about this. For every one Oprah, a billionaire, you’ve got 5 million blacks that are out of work. For every one Colin Powell, a millionaire, you’ve got 10 million blacks who cannot read. For every one Condi-Skeezer Rice, you’ve got 1 million in prison. For every one Tiger Woods, who needs to get beat at the Masters, with his Cablanasian hips, playing on a course that discriminates against women, God has this way of bringing you up short when you get to big for your Cablanasian britches. For every one Tiger Woods, we’ve got 10,000 black kids who will never see a golf course. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent.”
http://essence.typepad.com/news/2008/03/the-full-story.html
June 11, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then again, it does appear that the Rev. has anti-semitic tendencies, so there's that ("I wasn't talking about all the jews...just the Zionists." Yeah, right).
June 12, 2009 3:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, and I by the way, the left-wing anti-capitalism shtick that turns into anti-semitism (ie ascribing the dysfunctions of an enonomic system not so much to the economic system itself but to some fantastical, all-powerful nefarious minority - usually the Jews) - that's actually fascism in my book. The racist misdirection into magical thinking.
June 12, 2009 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
and the left-wing anticapitalist antisemitism shtick sounds very much like the rightwing anticapitalist antisemitism shtick. seeing trees for the forest and running with it. it's kind of miserable, not to mention incoherent, to see Zionist conspiracies everywhere. Many pretend- and real radicals indulge in that kind of idiocy. Most of them can't let go of the paranoia, because it is so deeply ingrained in their political praxis (you know, the small cell, us-vs-the world, I'm right-and-nobody-listens, blah blah blah). Besides, if I can explain the world without resorting to Zionist conspiracies and paranoia, and if it turns out to be a much more nimble and expedient description of why things are the way they are - then what a guy like von Brunn will do? I can only guess - it's almost impossible to let go of neurosis, esp. when it comes to politics.
June 12, 2009 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm going to Antarctica for a summer vacation in July! Bring your swimsuits kids,...it's gonna be hot,...really hot!
June 11, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just saw the little snippet on ABC where von Brunn's "white separatist" friend said that one of the reasons that Brunn went nuts was that his SS payments were slashed. I guess it's safe to assume that he wasn't a teabagger.
Plus, of course, the election of a black man as president "provoked" him, as it would provoke any normal white person. Although I'm sure that von Brunn would have been fine if only Obama had produced the vault copy of his birth certificate.
June 11, 2009 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, don't ya dig it!? Brunn is anti-gum'mint, anti-liberal -- but pro-Social Security.
Brunn is nonetheless a far-RIGHT lunatic fringer.
June 12, 2009 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excuse me, I'm wanted back on Planet Earth.
June 11, 2009 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. It's about time we start using the No true Scotsman fallacy as an argument against these freedom (from reality) fighters.
June 11, 2009 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nobody is saying that von Brunn's views were MODERATE conserviatve. These are clearly EXTREMIST views, so I don't understand why all these moderate and normal conservatives have to get so defensive -- unless, of course you actually harbor the same racist views.
As a liberal, I can understand when people say that ecoterrorists hold extremist liberal views, but I take that for what it is -- they have taken liberal values to the extreme, and as a liberal I disavow their actions.
I'm just more surprised that more on the right are coming to this guy's defense.
June 11, 2009 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
The next thing you know, racists around the world will start saying that von Brunn was not one of them. And white supremecists will start coming out to disavow his actions.
Words have consequences and when people like Jon Voight can compare Obama to Julius Caesar (code word for "assassinate him") and Rush Limbaugh continue with his racists screeds, there are going to be consequences.
June 11, 2009 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I mean he is a rabid crazy right-winger but so what. He also hated Bill O, Obama,Jews, Karl Marzx..............everyone that wasn't him or thought like him.
June 11, 2009 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can we please now just declare that the right wingers are insane?
And I want to hear the Lump, the Newt, and Republican lawmakers apologize to Janet Napaletano.
June 11, 2009 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh and just a note, Keith Olbermann totally destroyed that meme in about 5 minutes.
June 11, 2009 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is just another example of you liberuls going and having a hissy fit without doing your homework to know what you are talking about. If you recall, "Nazi" is short for National Socialist. See? Now bow down before the clarity and power of right-wing logic.
June 11, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ooh, good point! And, since Saddam Hussein's elite military units were called the Republican Guard, that means that George W. Bush was a Democrat, because he invaded Iraq so our troops could defeat the Republican Guard.
Yup, that's some powerful right-wing logic there.
June 11, 2009 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ohmigod! There has to be a pill for this. I think I'm starting to spin for the right wingers.
I wanted to refute the stupid assertion about Nazis being socialists, even though Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, but then I predicted the response. When the Nazis were sending the socialists to the death camps, they were actually sending the ones who were not true socialists. The true socialists remained members of the Nazi Party.
It seems to me this notion that we should recognize "the clarity and power of right-wing logic" is to gleefully and with determination depart from reality. Unless, of course I'm wrong and the Soviets were on the same side as the Nazis, but we airliftend them munitions throughout the war just to keep the war going.
The purpose of these unfounded declarations of fact is to sway the ignorant who will hld to their party line regardless of what it is. Seriously, the people who would perpetuate this disinformation have no idea what the facts are and have no interest in them in the first place. Party uber alles!!!
June 12, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh damn, now where did my moral clarity go?
June 12, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
So where does he hate Bush come from? The guy clearly stated he hates Obama, just like Rush
June 11, 2009 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
two words:
SOUTHERN STRATEGY
June 11, 2009 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess Von Brunn will merit a chapter, perhaps the cover, of Jonah Goldberg's next chapter on Librul Fascism.
June 11, 2009 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Help me out with this, righties. According to you guys:
1. Democrats/liberals are socialists and/or communists, right? And von Brunn is supposed to be a "lefty", by which you must mean a Democrat or liberal. So, is von Brunn a socialist? Is he trying to turn this into a socialist country? That's what you've been accusing Democrats of.
2. Democrats/liberals hate guns and want to take everyone's guns away. So, does that mean von Brunn is for gun control? Is he an anti-gun wimp?
3. Democrats/liberals are accused of wanting to go easy on Islamic terrorists. Are you saying that von Brunn...
Oh forget it. I could go on for pages and pages with the incongruities. There is nobody on god's green earth, not even--especially not even--the assholes peddling this crap, who believes that von Brunn belongs on the left side of the political spectrum in any respect whatsoever.
Violent gun-lover? Check. Hates government? Check. Virulent racist? Check. Hell, at the rate of the GOP's declining numbers and imminent implosion, this guy isn't that far off from being just an average member of their base.
June 11, 2009 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's his roommate commenting on his rhetoric, per cnn.com:
It wasn't just ethnic groups that von Brunn apparently did not like. "He said the government was not for us, they were against us, and that a man trying to make a living and trying to get ahead in life is never going to get ahead in life because of the government," Aulbach said.
Yeah, this guy is REALLY left-wing. I just hear liberals talking like that all day long.
June 11, 2009 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, he did claim that his Social Security benefits had been cut, and that was one of the things that drove him over the edge, so maybe he really was upset that the government tit was no longer there for him.
June 12, 2009 3:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
haha
June 12, 2009 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you're gonna be a revolutionary, you're not going to find paying employment as that. So, while working on the revolution, because ya gotta eat, ya compromise your moral principles.
June 12, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I'll assign Orwell to my sons' summer reading program. I just didn't think they'd be exposed to it as a realistic possibility vs. cautionary tale.
The disdain for dissent is fucking scary amongst the Rapture Republicans.
They've grafted the "no questions asked" policies of their authoritarian churches onto public policy.
June 12, 2009 2:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well said and disturbing to consider.
June 12, 2009 2:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly correct. It's ALL faith based brain dead.
June 12, 2009 5:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
It has nothing to do with faith as intelligent. It is not "faith-based" -- which is deceitful substitute for the correct word, "religion," in effort to sneak the latter into gov't and public schools.
It is religionutism.
June 12, 2009 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, this "confusion" is no laughing matter and should not be taken lightly. The RW is attempting here to control the debate by altering definitions (thereby altering history), and unfortunately, young audiences today may not have as full a grasp of the meanings of Fascism or Naziism as some of us older folks, other than that they are "dirty words" somehow. Someone who doesn't know might easily accept the labeling of liberals as such. The fact that "Nazi" is short for "national socialist" helps them in this (as evidenced in one trollish comment above).
It's as bad as Holocaust revisionism! I think it's time for a major educational effort to counter this assault on history!
June 12, 2009 2:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
YES!!! We need to be sure the people are educated. The RW IS changing history with their distortions, but since for many this is the first they ever heard of this concept and they have no historical experience actually reading or understanding it, they accept this as fact. It's an uphill battle from there to get them to change their minds, especially if the disagreement with these absurd propositions does not come for the Republicans.
June 12, 2009 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I mean fascism (and nazism) share a common root with the other revolutionary side."
You might as well argue that since reptiles share some significant attributes with mammals, they're basically the same thing. After all, both are bilaterally symmetrical, both have hearts, blood, lungs, muscles, nervous systems, live in a variety of ecosystems ranging from aquatic to arid desert, and as invertebrates share a common ancestor. Regardless, that shouldn't obscure some pretty fundamental differences between the two, although I guess if you believe that dinosaurs were in the Garden of Eden anything is possible.
The notion that fascism/nazism are somehow "similar" very conveniently ignores the most glaringly obvious difference between the two systems in the real world: in the former, privately-owned property, businesses and corporations were allowed to exist, even flourish; the fascist national governments did not universally expropriate private property as a matter of overall policy, aside from selective actions against Jews and other minorities. In this, the contrast with revolutionary communist governments all over the world could not be more stark. Alleging some sort of "similarity" between Nazism and socialism/communism also ignores actual historical reality: to the Nazis, especially Hitler, the hatred and loathing of the Jews was perhaps equaled by their hatred of socialism and communism. Indeed, Hitler believed that Operation Barbarossa was to be the other final solution: ridding the civilized world of the evils of socialism and communism.
To assert some sort of similarity between von Brunn and "leftists" also ignores the reality of post-WWII leftist politics in the United States, which has been to consistently champion the rights of minorities in the U.S. American leftists, whatever their faults, have NEVER advocated white supremacist ideologies in this country, while white supremacist views have long been a hallmark of the extreme end of the right side of the ideological spectrum for decades.
To allege that people like von Brunn are somehow "leftist" also ignores, again, the fundamental difference between right and left in this country vis-a-vis the degree of government control of private property. Leftists everywhere, including in the United States, advocate for greater government involvement in, if not outright control of, the vast range of activities that capitalist societies regard as belonging solely in the private sphere. Conservative right-wingers in this country, by great contrast, have agitated for many decades against virtually all involvement of the federal government in private affairs. That is one of the very defining characteristics of right-wing groups from the John Birch Society to the Liberty Lobby to the Michigan Militia and all the other related organizations and movements that have sprung up more recently.
The argument that von Brunn is somehow a "leftist" has nothing to do with American leftism per se, since true leftism in this country has virtually no real political power or influence. What this effort by Limbaugh and Goldberg and Beck is all about has to do with mainstream, more-or-less non-ideological Americans who are the electoral prize for both Republicans and Democrats. Boiled down to its essential parts, this is what Rush and his ilk have been saying: von Brunn = leftists = Obama = liberals = Democrats = America-hating traitors = opponents of the Republican Party. If you swallow this string of equivalencies, the only logical conclusion is to vote for and contribute to the Republican Party, and buying Rush's books doesn't hurt, either. Anyone who thinks that the real issue here is anything else is a fool.
June 12, 2009 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
no argument from me here - in theory, fascism started out on the left (Benito meets George Sorel etc). But these fine points of historiography are not very relevant, I guess, when you have to debate trolls and right-wing idiots. I'm just merely saying that romantic (Heideggerian) anticapitalism was a response to Marx-inspired historical materialism. Both sides were trying to supercede capitalism and modernity writ large. That's all.
June 12, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Should have written:
The notion that fascism/nazism are somehow "similar" to leftism/socialism/communism...
June 12, 2009 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Captain Scarlet:
I would classify Brunn's ideology as reactionary, a reaction against perceived radicalism in favor of an authoritarian superstate led by a charismatic despot. He adheres to Hobbes' view of state as organism and views other races and cultures as diseases and parasites afflicting a pure white body politic.
So yes, his thinking is markedly right wing. Left wing is inclusionary. The extreme radical end is an equality regardless of hereditary or caste considerations. A black doctor is no better or different than an Eskimo mechanic in terms of their needs or liberties. It is this inclusionary trend (miscegenation) that Brunn reacts against.
This makes him right wing. You can't judge a reactionary by what he or she is FOR, it is what he or she is AGAINST.
June 12, 2009 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Firstly, if you spend much time in left circles in Europe, you will hear tons of anti-Semitism. It doesn't take much historical research to see that simply saying "Left wing is inclusionary" is in no way a working definition, as much as we might hope it would/can be.
June 12, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think you read what I wrote... inclusionary is not necessarily tolerant. There is plenty of anti-semitism to go around, it is the root of the anti-semitism and how it operates in one's political worldview. Fear of JEW BANKERS and JEW HOLLYWOOD is often seen as an irrational fear that there is a racial conspiracy that is preventing X political conclusoion.
June 12, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clue: the US is not Europe.
The details about US -- got that? US right and left is accurate.
June 12, 2009 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I would classify Brunn's ideology as reactionary, a reaction against perceived radicalism in favor of an authoritarian superstate led by a charismatic despot."
And I guarantee that this despot, however von Brunn or his supporters would conceive of him, would naturally celebrate and venerate the concept of privately-owned property, especially land. No left revolutionary would take this view, ever.
June 12, 2009 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't it somewhat irrelevant what Beck, Limbaugh and company say? There are very few, if any, people that listen to them who don't already hold those views. And there's nothing Rush can say that would change my views.
June 12, 2009 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did anyone see this post on this blog talking about how Fox is may be using race to dictate what they cover. Pretty interesting stuff.
Check it out:
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=1714
June 12, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
From the link, "Is this as newsworthy as Private Long?"
Well, let's see. A recruiting station has a drive by, gangland-style, shooting in some town some where. A guy walks into a Smithsonian museum on the National Plaza within sight of the Capitol Building where there are thousands of tourists every day and shoots somebody. Yeah, I guess it does depend on what your crtieria for newsworthy is. Me? I'm going with nation's capital, global tourist attraction over drive-by at teh shopping plaza. Although I do not onsider one death a greater loss then the other.
June 12, 2009 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hindrocket is also parroting the meme:
Be prepared for a full-on Mighty Winger Wurlitzer attack pushing this line, and look for it to be pure fail.
The rest of the world looks at their message, compares it with von Brunn's, and says,"Eh,pretty much the same."
June 12, 2009 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
'Be prepared for a full-on Mighty Winger Wurlitzer attack pushing this line, and look for it to be pure fail."
Er, I'll bet that David Gregory and others of his ilk use it to attack Democrat if rightwing violence is a topic on their programs.
June 12, 2009 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
didn't read all the comments, so this has probably been said already. it doesn't matter if he is a right or a left winger -- what matters is that it was right wingers who put this crazy fuck up to it.
you know how "they" just love that "guns don't kill people; people kill people" bullshit about their weapons?
well totally batshit-crazy 90 year-old neonazis don't kill people, hate-spewing right wing bloggers/pundits kill people.
innocent people are reaping what hate-speakers like palin and mccain (remember the campaign?), hannity, o'reilly, limbaugh, et al. are sowing. sorry, but to me, every time they open their mouths, they appear to be advocating the violent overthrow/destruction of this country.
June 12, 2009 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ben Smith at Politico got this started--unintentionally, I hope--by reporting on Von Brunn's supposed "target" of the Weekly Standard offices without providing appropriate context. A note with the Weekly Standard address was found in Von Brunn's car, along with writings indicating his frustrations with NeoCons (not virulent enough for Von Brunn, apparently) and Smith made the leap to these entities being "targets." The comments from the right-wingers on Smith's article were a unique glimpse into the delusional state most of these folks live in and I don't say that as lefty rhetoric, there is seriously an issue with alienation from reality going on.
What frustrates me is that these comments from the right go virtually unchallenged in any mainstream public forum, indirectly lending them credibility with the shallow thinkers and socially ignorant who form the base of the extreme right. Let's be brutally honest, here, that description also aptly describes the majority of average Americans, who, with no simple, clear alternative viewpoint to digest, will simply accept what the loudmouths say. If we can't come up with a way to efficiently fill that void, we risk the successful rejuvenation of the rightwing noise machine.
June 12, 2009 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. Leave their declarations unchalleneged and they will become reality.
June 12, 2009 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I LOVE the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. It explains how Bush II could say with a straight face, "America doesn't torture." What he meant to say was "no true American would torture."
June 12, 2009 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Latest (and best) freakout is Andrew Breitbart - a profanity-laced rant against Gawker.
June 12, 2009 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am furious about this! Jonah Goldberg wrote a book based on the lousiest analysis ever, and now everything wrong with the right is left.
Are they all freaking nutters? Not just the von Brunns and the Poplawskis of the world, but those paid to talk responsibly?
June 12, 2009 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes.
This has been another edition of...
June 12, 2009 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great discusion. I enjoyed reading comments and especially enjoyed responses to right winger typical rhetoric.
June 12, 2009 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
So let me get this right...someone who fumed about a conspiracy where people involved answered to their 'communist handlers' is actually a leftist? Puuuuullllllease...
Even though von Brunn might not have been a part of the conservative political movement doesn't mean he isn't a right wing extremist and was motivated by hate speech from the political right.
June 12, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
"This is a dubious characterization, to say the least: anti-Semitism is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of the Left in today's world,"
Uh-huh. Except when it's a phenomenon of every right-wing movement from America to Spain to France to England to Germany to Russia.
The willful historical ignorance of the idiots at Powerline and Red State is awesome to behold. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of American leftism and so-called progressivism would know that Jewish Americans have played an extremely prominent role in them from the very beginning.
Right-wing Jewish Americans like Kristol and Krauthammer have been equating any criticism of policies of the Israeli state with anti-Semitism for more than two decades, but repetition doesn't make it true any more now than it was back in 1989.
June 12, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's the significance of TPM repeatedly using a 30 year old picture of this guy?
Why not use one that shows the 88 year old geriatric that he was?
June 12, 2009 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since 2001, we've been in "Big Lie" Country.
Read up on it. As a propaganda device, when practiced by an accomplished propaganda faculty, it is damned near unbeatable.
Any LIE--the bigger the better--becomes 'truthy', as Colbert called it, upon frequent enough repetition by figures august enough to command the media's attention. THe SHEER size of the lies, as well as their ubiquity, are designed to alienate a 'people' from their 'truths,' by making them all equivocal. The Pukes, with their faithful stenographic lap-dogs in the SoCalledUnbiased Media (SCUM), are past masters of the art...
June 12, 2009 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
the particular shameless quality of the lie also lends to its acceptance.
June 12, 2009 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice discussion of Left/Right, etc. Can we also allow for the possibility that Von Brunn is a paranoid schizophrenic for all practical purposes?
And that his ideology was the rationalization of, not the reason for his paranoia? It isn't too hard to find conspiracies to support your delusions once you start looking.
June 12, 2009 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
good point.
didn't some little old lady just get out of prison for shooting at President Ford?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Jane_Moore
crazy just walks around looking for excuses.
my question is: is blind hatred a mental defect?
June 12, 2009 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Best comment on this thread. Why do we need to label lunacy in order to guard against it?
June 15, 2009 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have witnessed one aspect of this before-- a lot of right-wingers don't actually KNOW the right vs. left spectrum, they assume "democracy/capitalism" is "right" and everything else is "left." Of course a lot of them don't know anything about what Communism or capitalism, or democracy or fascism actually entail, so not surprising.
June 12, 2009 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
IMHO most of these people replaced their dictionary with the bible.
I think they have an "us vs. them" mentality. If you disagreed with Palin giving out a billion dollars to Alaska residents - you were called a lefty here. If you thought giving 1/2 billion dollars to a Canadian company as a bribe to build a gas pipeline was not "keeping it Alaskan" you were called a lefty here.
Intellectual dishonesty is a coveted skill amongst the Rapture Republicans - how do you think they keep their congregations so compliant?
Once Obama won the election I have much more hope that the celebrated stupidity of some in the Republican Party is self limiting. Before his election I was pretty sure we were all doomed to Idiocracy.
June 12, 2009 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why hasn't anyone pointed out that so many of the ideas that von Brunn was spouting are congruent with what comes out of Alex Jones' mouth? Specifically Obama as pretender Federal Reserve as evil conspiracy. Von Brunn with his belief that everything is controlled by shadowy commie jews is much more in line with what's coming from Libertarians than Republicans, but it's still right wing.
The American left does have a pro-Palestinian bent more than they're anti-Semitic. It seems a lot of the "Kos disciples" the right is referencing actually do hold the point of view Wright claims, that is they are anti-Zionist but have not problem with Jews in general. Some seem to hold their points of view based on the opposite of what the gov't is doing at the time. To say that "A segment of the left favors the Palestinians irrationally" equates with "All anti-Semites are left-wing" is the typical kindergarten "thinking" advocated by Faux News.
June 12, 2009 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I consider myself pro-Palestinian in that I think apartheid is evil and wasteful.
It's my understanding that the overwhelming majority of "settlers" are American Jews who moved there because they firmly believe they are more entitled to occupy the "Holy Land" than any Muslims are who may have resided there for generations.
Doesn't mean I wish for harm to come to Israelis, Jewish Israelis or otherwise. It certainly doesn't make me anti-Semitic. That would be to hate Jews just for being Jewish. Disagreeing with a Religious State over their willingness to bring down my country in order to further their religious agenda is not hate.
99% of people don't understand what the currently accepted definition of "Zionism" is. I've met many with wide opinions on its meaning - and I'm not sure there is one definition per se.
To me, Zionism is a political movement intended to usher in a religious prophecy, i.e. the defeat of Muslims in Israel so that the Jewish population controls all which triggers the 2nd coming of Christ and the Rapture, enter AIPAC - (where non-converted Jews and all non-Christians go to hell while the Born Agains all get an express ride to heaven). Born Again Christians in the U.S. have aligned themselves politically with Zionist Jews because the Jewish lobby is one of, if not THE most powerful. The Rapture Republicans want power, power to tell everyone how to live and especially the power to conduct WAR that they hope to escalate into the 2nd coming of Christ.
Zionism is an Evangelical Christian bent in my opinion. Pat Robertson was smiling his ass off (on location in Israel) on the 700 Club and cumming in his pants when Israel was bombing Lebanon - smiling that innocent people were being killed on the "other side".
Israel good, (in theory). Zionism bad, very very bad for the entire world.
Jews, Muslims or Christians are all equal in my eyes - complicit in the corruptive power of their organizations but with a wide range of involvement in all. Some people take their religious life to new lows, others to new highs. But, by remaining a member of a corrupted organization it makes one corrupt by association. It's why I chose to raise my children as Atheists instead of Catholics.
June 13, 2009 3:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
June 13, 2009 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_to_Zion
"The Return to Zion (Hebrew: שיבת ציון, Shivat Tzion, or שבי ציון, Shavei Tzion, lit. Zion Returnees) is a term that refers to the event in which the Jews returned to the Land of Israel from the Babylonian exile following the decree by the Persian King Cyrus, the conqueror of the Babylonian empire in 538 BC, also known as Cyrus's Declaration.
The term was first coined, after the Destruction of the Second Temple (mentioned in the Song of Degrees [1]), and afterwards was attributed to the event of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile, after the destruction of the first temple, to the Land of Israel following the decree of Cyrus the Great."
The return of Jews to the Land of Israel triggers the 2nd coming of Christ. Modern Jews and/or Israelis are not the "zionists" per se, but their Evangelical Christian brothers very much want to see a return of Jews to Israel because they believe the geopolitical forces will force the 2nd coming of Christ.
To summarize my point, the Evangelical nutjobs have sublimated zionism in an effort to use the goal of a Jewish State to bring about the 2nd coming of Christ. By that prophecy Jews who do not convert to Christianity will burn in hellfire on earth, i.e. "left behind".
That entire fictional series "Left Behind" is based on this.
Even if there is NO historical basis in my version of Zionism - doesn't mean it isn't being used to gain support for escalating war in the Middle East.
I should correct myself on this: I do not support a relgious state in Israel. MY country was founded on religious freedom and a religious state is antithetical to that - you cannot have a religiously sponsored state and expect anyone not of that religion to be treated fairly and equally, especially not in the Middle East.
June 14, 2009 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
see also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism
June 14, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zionsim refers to the Jewish national movement founded in the late 19th century by Theodor Herzl (a bourgeois, atheist, assimilated Jew from Vienna who dabbled in journalism and poetry). He called the whole enterprise 'Zionism' to appeal to what he believed were the uneducated Jewish masses of Central Europe who still lived under the yoke of religious superstition.
To make it short: no Zionist who actually mattered (both on the left and on the right) believed at any moment in any kind of god or whatever. When Ben Gurion famously sai