Yesterday, I wrote a piece titled Manichean Morans about the ridiculous attempts to pretend that von Brunn was a “leftist.” I might have to retitle that piece after reading this outburst from Rick Moran:
This is getting annoying as hell.
Conservatives trying to make the case that the Holocaust Museum shooter James von Brunn is some kind of liberal or leftist sympathizer are tilting at windmills…
But this guy was identified by the FBI two decades ago as a far right whacko. The idea that he’s changed his stripes in the intervening years is ridiculous and only makes those who are trying to hit back against leftist smears of all conservatives by trying to mis-identify where this guy is coming from ideologically do no service to the truth or to conservatives.
I will freely grant this this guy is a man of the extreme right. To posit the notion, as many on the left have been doing the last few days, that this guy has any connection whatsoever either in his philosophy or ideology with mainstream conservatism is ludicrous. It is equally fanciful to blame “right wing hate speech” emanating supposedly from mainstream conservative media outlets for this guy’s actions. The idea that von Brunn needed any motivation at all beyond his sick, twisted, personal extremist ideology and whatever demons possessed him ignores reality – about what we’ve come to expect from the “reality based community.”
We can argue the extent to which folks like Glenn Beck are guilty of fanning the flames and motivating lunatics like von Brunn, but the notion that he is an adherent to left-wing ideology is ludicrous. Again from the SPLC:
Von Brunn is said by police to have entered the Holocaust Museum Wednesday afternoon, where he shot the security guard, and then was shot and critically wounded by other guards. Police say they found a notebook in von Brunn’s car with a list of possible other targets, including the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the National Cathedral and The Washington Post. According to myfoxdc.com, witnesses said he was wearing a confederate soldier’s cap and a long coat, which he may have worn to conceal what police describe as an early-1900s rifle.
***Conservatives were all talk and no action, according to von Brunn. On his website he complained, “The American Right-wing with few exceptions is totally Pacifist. The [right wing] does NOTHING BUT TALK. MORAL: America dies for want of men.”
Because when I think of a neo-nazi white supremacist shooting a black guy in the Holocaust museum while wearing a confederate flag cap and a duster, the first thing that pops into my head is “liberal.”
There is room for disagreement with Rick on some points, but he and I both agree that von Brunn is neither a liberal nor what I consider a real conservative, but a right-wing extremist. Those who can’t deal with that simple fact want to rewrite history.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Fxd.
It doesn’t even rise to the level of re-writing history, unless you want to say anything that happened more than a second ago is history. Now, given the attention span of your average fRighty it may SEEM like history, but it ain’t.
ACK
You have so perfected the art of blending snark with dead-on analysis and this is just one more example.
Joshua Norton
I don’t know where they got this brain dead idea that “liberals” are antisemitic. Anyone who watches a rerun of “All in the Family” gets to see a true working class right winger. Archie Bunker was always going on a tirade about “the jews”, or “the coloreds” or “the fags” or “the micks” or “the chinks” etc, etc, etc. (not to mention the Catholics and the pope). This loser was Archie Bunker on meth – and he’s all theirs.
They just recently jumped on the Zionist band wagon because of their whacked out loony tune religion about Jesus coming back to Israel. The Jews know the wingnuts are still antisemitic, but now they’re playing them for all they’re worth.
Tonal Crow
When conservatives become serious, the rest of us will treat them seriously.
JL
Judith Warner’s column today in the NYTimes discussed hate crimes. Although most readers praised her column there were a few who said that she was biased because she did not mention the left wing Muslim who shot the soldier in Arkansas. During the 2001 election, the majority of Muslim Americans voted for Republicans. We were attacked on 9/11 by extremists who not only killed 3000 Americans but also caused great harm to Muslims living in our country.
beltane
You are making way too much sense. After all, hasn’t it been proven that the Nazis were really proto-granolas who introduced the Volkswagens which would later be festooned with peace signs and flowers? When will Jonah Goldberg comment upon the obvious similarity between a Dead show and a Nazi rally? Peace, love and tolerance=killing people because of their race.
Comrade Stuck
Which really is the relevant argument in this case. So whether or not, (likely not) right wingers are purposely deflecting us with “he was a leftist” nonsense away from the dog whistle effect of their incindiary rhetoric, the effect is the same.
Of course this guy is not representative of mainstream GOP, conservative, or even wingnut ideology, at least with his actions expressing that ideology.
It’s kind of a good strategy, even if unintended from bumbling idjits. Now a sensible conservative can write stuff like Moran focusing on the wingnuttiness, while dismissing the substance, and we move on to the next act of political violence.
Now I have another headache from thinking about what makes wingnuts tick.
Bootlegger
The Turner Diaries describe political conservatives the exact same way that Von Brunn did, ideologically correct but feckless pussies. So if Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al. would prefer that label….
Scott
Moran is right — von Drumm has nothing whatsoever to do with mainstream conservatives. He was hard-right, fringe-right, flying-monkey-right.
The attempt to re-label him as a liberal, however, is coming from people who aren’t mainstream conservatives either. I don’t think there’s that much daylight between von Drumm’s beliefs and O’Reilly’s, Limbaugh’s, Malkin’s, or Beck’s. That’s why they’re in such a panic about him.
demimondian
Now, if you want an interesting case of an association which *does* make not sense, why would the left be at all involved in the behavior of a genuine, honest-to-Allah, Islamic fascist here in the United States? He’d be yet another creation of the extreme American right — just not the extreme American self-styled *Christian* right.
Hume's Ghost
Didn’t you see Glenn Beck’s take on this? Von Brunn’s shooting confirmed for Beck that the liberal fascists are coming. First they’ll come for the Jews, said Beck, and then they’ll come for the conservatives. Un-friggin’-believable.
http://dailydoubt.blogspot.com/2009/06/fascism-doesnt-have-happy-face.html
IndieTarheel
It’s good that someone finally put this in print. Maybe, just maybe, people will start waking up…
Svensker
Are these the far right extremists that the DHS was warning about and the “conservatives” had a fit about? Yes? Oh.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Hume’s Ghost: Yep. Eva Von Brunn was just warming up by shooting an African-American first.
ItAintEazy
Wonder when I get to be paid my $400 million over eight years to spew such patently ridiculous fuckshittery?
Onihanzo
That’s no real surprise. See Jonah Goldberg for chrissakes.
Up-is-downism is their modus operandi.
Laertes
It’s a recent thing, but it comes down to sympathy for Palestinians, largely but not entirely a cause of the left.
It’s true that throughout history, anti-semitism has been found mostly on the right. I think that’s mostly because the Right is, at bottom, about defending existing power structures, and the Left is (generally) about tearing down those existing power structures.
Simplest way to put it is: Where Jews are an oppressed minority, their critics will be found on the Right, which is always and everywhere hostile to oppressed minorities. But when Jews have their own state, and become ass-kickers and occupiers themselves, then they become more palatable to the Right, and the Left moves on to feeling sympathy for whoever they’re occupying.
And of course you have the extra element of PMD whack-jobs who have cast Jews in a red-shirt role in their end-of-days fantasy. They’re all pro-Jew in the sense that they’d like for Jews to hang around long enough to face their own special judgment after the faithful have been raptured away. “Thanks for the assist, Jesus-killers. Watch out for the locusts!”
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Joshua Norton: I don’t know where they got this brain dead idea that “liberals” are antisemitic.
It’s because a lot of liberals make fun of Joe Lieberman.
…You think I’m joking, don’t you?
Comrade Stuck
@Laertes:
This is what is utterly fascinating to me. Where the fundies are pro-jew and Israel thing from the bibles “chosen people” and real estate agent for holy land ownership. But then turn around and say, but of course they’re basically heretics bound for hell, unless they accept Jesus as personal savior, the one they reportedly killed.
Laertes
Death is scary. The Rapture is awesome. You’ll feel a lot of gratitude toward anyone who’s playing a part in helping you skip the former and enjoy the latter. The rest is bygones.
Martin
There is some anti-semitism on the left, but it tends to be of a different form. On the left, it tends to be opposition to Israeli policies, particularly what is viewed as superiority and bullying toward their neighbors (as Laertes notes), and applying that trait to Jews individually. It’s pretty uncommon in my experience, but it is there.
Overall, I think Laertes has it dead-on.
nitpicker
For the record, von Brunn’s nickname on the whackjob “birther” forum was Rush is Right. I plan to enjoy the twisted logic of conservatives who would attempt to suggest that a clear Limbaugh supporter is really a lefty.
jrg
Shorter von Nutso: “Glenn Beck is a pussy. Hopefully if I shoot a NegraJoo, everyone else will know that Glenn Beck is a pussy, too”.
demimondian
@Martin: I think that overly generous to the left. I hear a lot of dog-whistle code words in the discussions of PNAC, for instance, and I have heard a lot of talk about “America’s foreign policy being subjugated to Israel’s” and the like when lefties have talked about the Occupied Territories. The former of those often sounded a lot like the “Joos are taking over America’s government”, and the latter sounded to me as if they were based in a generalized resentment of Israel and Zionism.
Qbert
If Rightwing rhetoric were actually not vicariously culpable, there would be more Rick Morans. But the vehemence of their efforts to fob von Brunn off on the Left itself damns them. No one on the Left felt the need to saddle the Right with that Islamic nut who shot those soldiers, and only laughed at the attempts by the Right to pin him on liberalism. At root the Right knows what they are breeding (and may, in the case of Roeder, secretly approve of) but they can’t admit it. So they project, like they always do, and the closer to home, the more rabid the projection.
PGE
@Martin: Opposition to Israeli policies is NOT the same as anti-semitism. If it were you’d have to classify a sizable minority of Israeli jews as anti-semites.
nitpicker
Martin,
Opposing the policies of Israel doesn’t make one anti-Semitic anymore than opposing the war under Bush or opposing the policies of Obama makes one anti-American.
Comrade Stuck
This is something I have wondered about from numerous heated arguments with anti-Israel liberals. At times, it has seemed the high degree of anti-Israeli vitriol from some on the left has to be more than just sympathy for Palestinians, but have decided it is likely not rank anti-semitism, since I do also have at times a lot of sympathy for Palestinians when Israel uses draconian tactics.
demimondian
@nitpicker: It’s a matter of *how* one opposes those policies, just as it is a matter of how (and why) one opposes the proposals of the PNAC.
Since PNAC is easier to explain, let me talk about it, OK?
I think every American should oppose the current “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” policies of the PNAC — but there’s no relationship between that and the fact that those policies also happen to currently be the same as those of the State of Israel. Lots of groups want the US to get into a “let’s you and him fight” with one or another actor (think Al Qaeda, for one), but nobody accuses them of undue influence in the US.
That, I think, is the point at which criticism becomes tainted with antisemitism.
Surabaya Stew
Yeah, Rick Moran can be good like that. While I don’t always agree with what he writes, he’s a (more or less) honest conservative — something that is sounding like an oxymoron these days!
SpotWeld
I think a distinction here needs to be drawn.
von Brunn thought the right wing talk too much , and that meant they never did enough of what he thought “needed to be done.”
Linbaugh, O’Reily, Hannity, Coulter, Cpt Ed, etc….. seem to think the right-wing talks to much and that means they aren’t spending enough time listening to them (and keeping the ratings up)
Glenn Beck, with his Tea Parties and 9/12ageddon-ation is starting to sounds more and more like the first while Fox seems to be banking on him being the second.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Projection.
sapper
I love how they say he is a leftist because he hates Bush, Neocons and the Weekly Standard. Spend some time on Free Republic or listen to talk radio. Freepers will tell you outright that Bush was a RINO and neo-cons aren’t “true conservatives”.
I guess the entire conservative movement is actually leftist.
InflatableCommenter
I don’t like Rick the Moran, and I don’t respect him, never have, going back to my first encounters with him on these very pages 4 years ago.
Moran says this:
That is just pure, unadulterated horseshit. The mainstream right sat by and let the Republican presidential ticket associate Barack Obama with terrorism and socialism … blatant lies, cynically designed to sweep up votes as close to the door of the insane asylum as they thought they could go without getting caught.
The knock on the right is not that it is responsible for the von Brunns of the world. It is that it gives them cover, it courts the people who are just an inch short of the their crazy and violent and confused ideas, and does this while winking at the truth and demagoguing every sensitive issue that comes down the road.
When I see Moran distance himself from that, and renounce it, I will trust him. Until then, as far as I am concerned, fuck him and the horse he rode in on.
Splitting Image
I agree with Moran’s take on Von Brunn, but he’s only got about half of it right. The thing is that real conservatives aren’t “right-wing” at all. Real conservatives occupy the centre of the political spectrum and aren’t generally strident on very many issues at all. That’s what makes them conservatives.
To take it a little further, you can argue that there is no difference between a “left-winger” and a “right-winger” at all, except to the extent that they oppose each other. Their extremism on both sides is built the degree to which they believe radical top-down change is necessary to create the society they want to live in.
The conservative is the guy in the middle saying “Guys? Uh, guys? Maybe we should wait a bit before deciding what to do about this? We don’t want to make the problem worse.”
The Republican party has spent decades arguing that resistance to the changes that “leftists” have imposed over the previous few decades and support for a new round of massive, radical changes that “leftists” happen to oppose are basically the same thing. They aren’t. They fooled a lot of people into believing that they were, which is how you get people who think the U.S. should continue its policy of avoiding foreign entanglements in the same party as people who think the U.S. should throw a small country against a wall every few years to keep the world in line.
Von Brunn is only a “conservative” in the sense that he wants to turn the clock back a few decades to a period he finds more amenable. But he’s prepared to use any kind of radical ideology or method that it takes to achieve that. That is a very unconservative way of acting. He’s also similar to a Bible literalist in the sense that he’ll insist that his view of “the way things were” is the only correct one and that “real conservatives” are bound to agree with him. All the while he is picking and choosing which aspects of history he chooses to believe in.
Long story short: Von Brunn isn’t conservative, but neither are most self-described “right-wingers”. The similarities between him and them don’t disappear by proving he is not conservative.
PGE
@demimondian: I think the notion of “undue influence” comes from believing that supporting Israel, regardless of their policies, is not in America’s own interest, at least not always. (As opposed, to use your example, going after Al Qaeda.) And one can believe the undue influence is not due to any sort of jewish conspiracy, just an effectiveness as lobbyists that is unhealthly for the country; and no different than the effectiveness of many business groups, in that sense.
Silver Owl
The whole world has yet to learn that when one is on the “right” one is absolutely perfect and there are no flaws nor problems. All problems and issues are the direct result of the icky others. If one becomes a problem one is not of the right but of the icky. The right has no humans only gods.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Conservatism can’t fail, it can only be failed. If someone fails the conservative movement (say, by becoming an embarrassment to it after murdering a guard at the Holocaust Museum), then that just means they aren’t a true conservative. They never have been, and they never were. They are retroactively drummed out of the movement they failed, as if a Stalinist non-personing ceremony had taken place.
It doesn’t matter if this guy liked Rush Limbaugh. He embarrassed conservatism. That means he never was a real conservative. That means he was always a liberal, whether he knew it or not, because if you’re not with the conservatives, you’re against them.
QED.
demimondian
@PGE: But, you see, if you’ve read the PNAC’s position papers, *they don’t argue for supporting Israel’s policies, no matter what*. They argue for a set of imperial adventures in the middle East, as well as aggressively supporting an ally against a set of threats which they list. They define this aggressive support in ways which would inevitably lead to us continuing to support the Occupation in perpetuity.
They argue that these policies are in *our* best interests, not Israel’s. The jump to say that reflects undue influence of Israel…it’s a huge stretch. It may be true, but you’d need better evidence (such as sudden policy shifts to track Israeli policy shifts) to make that claim. I don’t think you’ll find it.
The PNAC are thugs and hooligans. Their policies are repulsive and regressive, and were in line with modern thinking in the late nineteenth century. That doesn’t mean that Israel should enter into the discussion at all, except as an object of those policies.
Xenos
Antisemitism is a strange accusation for critics of Israel’s settlement policy, as the Palestinians are Semites too. While it might be difficult, at this point, to distinguish between the anti-Zionists and the Jew-haters among the Palestinian population, there is very little overlap between these groups in the American left.
maryQ
Well, now of course he is a leftist and the Confederate cap just proves it. After all, the southerners were Democrats, and these Democrats hated blacks and Jews, and rebelled against the Republicans. So by wearing the Confederate cap, the shooter clearly stated his allegiance to the Democratic party, the party that hates blacks and Jews, and his hatred of the Party of Lincoln, the party of freedom, and the party of all that is good in America.
That’s wasn’t hard.
Shygetz
@demimondian: I’m sorry, demi, are you suggesting that we take the PNAC’s arguments at face value? I’m disappointed in you. How about PNAC’s very close ties with JINSA?
Don’t get me wrong…I don’t think PNAC was SOLELY comprised of people who put Israel’s well-being equal to or higher than America’s, but I do think it’s pretty obvious that they made common cause with such people, and almost certainly had some such people as signatories.
demimondian
@Shygetz: Now stop and think. You just accused the PNAC signatories of disloyalty. That’s a pretty heavy charge — and, no, I’m sorry, you don’t have good enough evidence to support it.
Look at the names of people who contributed to or signed significant PNAC documents: Steve Forbes. Francis Fukayama. Jean Kirkpatrick. Don Rumsfeld. You’ve got a heck of a hill to climb to prove your thesis.
Martin
I wasn’t suggesting that it was. I was suggesting that when you take the perceived characteristics of Israeli politics as being bullying and superior, and then extend those characteristics to all Jews, that’s anti-semitic by prejudicing an entire class of people.
Jon H
@demimondian: “They argue that these policies are in our best interests, not Israel’s. The jump to say that reflects undue influence of Israel…it’s a huge stretch.”
“Of Israel” is a stretch, because there are various factions there, but it’s not a stretch to say it’s emblematic of undue influence of a faction of influential Israelis.
It’s no coincidence that the hawkish faction at Brookings, who so strenuously cheerled the Iraq war, is funded by an Israeli-American billionaire.
I refer you to the recent memo sent around with signatures of hundreds of Congress members. They didn’t change the name of the file, which was something like “AIPAC MEMO”.
As far as the PNAC goes, I think it’s clear that the signatories likely came from a few different factions. A “we think we know what’s best for Israel” faction, a “we want the oil” faction, a “we want lots of money spent on the military” faction.
Redhand
Priceless!
bob h
Presumably Mitch McConnell will introduce legislation making it legal for visitors to National Museums to carry concealed weapons, so they can protect themselves in the future?
Anonymous Academic
More than what position he occupies on the political spectrum, I wonder why last week did he feel the compulsion to go out and shoot up the Holocaust Museum. I don’t care that much about the scholasticism about his political affiliations (even though it seems pretty obvious he’s on the far right from back thirty years ago before the emergence of the neocons and the pearl-clutching about Israel), but I am concerned about what events triggered this lunatic after all this time. Or could it just be some f—ked up, angry old man hell-bent on leaving a mark while he still had the faculties to do so?
Some Guy
Moran’s point about rightwing media inflaming extremists is one of those questions. It is very difficult to prove causal links between media and action, and by that I mean direct links. Correlative data here is not of much use because of the giant noise machine of the media. You have way to many influences to try and weed out. That said, I am of the mind that rightwing exhortation to “rebellion” contributes to a volatile atmosphere but that with someone like von Brunn, yeah. That guy is not going to set his watch by what Limbaugh says. No doubt Limbaugh is too left for him.
PGE
@Martin:
Well, while not denying it’s existence completely, I see very little evidence of this on the left. I think that, more often, people hear “Israel” or “neo-con” as codewords for “Jews” when, in fact, the speaker is using them at face value.
WereBear
According to this article at the Huffington Post, Von Brunn found it difficult to make ends meet when his Social Security got cut.
And the right wing deals another mortal blow to Irony.
Fulcanelli
“To the extent”?
No John, we can’t. Or better yet, we shouldn’t. To get down in the mud and honestly try to debate the merits of such obvious nonsense with someone who’s thinking is warped and twisted enough to believe it is a complete waste of time. They are fanning the flames. Period.
Secondly, debating it serves to legitimize that which you know as well as we all do is pure undistilled bullshit whose only purpose is to muddy the water and in turn, blur the debate. This serves to only push the window of what is and isn’t acceptable, reasonable thinking more in the wrong direction.
Some of us are a little longer in the tooth than you are, and we’ve been watching and fighting against this this distortion of reality and common sense that’s infected this country’s public discourse that’s been moving glacier-like, pushing this country to the insane, extreme right for a fucking generation.
We’re to the point where we’re expected to politely debate the unthinkable, like “is torture, like, OK?”, with barely sane, xenophobic authoritarians in all seriousness as though there is more than one right answer. Beck is a lunatic, and back when Reagan was president he would have been taken off the air and hospitalized after his first screed.
At the rate the fRight is going, I’d bet this blog would have been shut down or somebody hurt within a few years if McCain was elected in 2008, and we’d all be getting visits from the NSA in the middle of the night.
Teh Left had it’s own version of Rush Limbaugh back in the mid-1980’s. Anyone remember Alan Berg? He was as an offensive and outrageous whack job on the Left as Limbaugh is on the Right. Murdered in his driveway by right wing extremists in 1985. Berg was killed and Limbaugh is a household name recently anointed by polls as the defacto head of the Republican party. The party you used to belong to and support.
You’ve got the bully pulpit on this blog, you’re a smart guy and lots of people respect your abandoning of the Dark Side, your writing, and your now reasonable point of view. Me included. But don’t ever think you can sensibly debate a point with violent, ill people who would take away your rights and slit your throat in your sleep. This is a fight for survival, nothing less.
BTW, how’s Lily?
Notorious P.A.T.
How–how–how DARE someone suggest that a racist white-supremacist would be more at home in the Republican side? ! ? ! ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
Notorious P.A.T.
You sure about that? Is Jonah Goldberg really that far out of the mainstream? He edits National Review Online.
Notorious P.A.T.
That is NOT anti-semitism.
So if someone opposes PNAC, which gave us our great Iraq war, they must be actually using coded language to hate Jews? Does that make sense?
Richard S
Since hate speach and the incitement of violence are now OK with the mainstream, shouldn’t we invite Osama bin Laden to come in from the cave for a cup of coffee? After all, he’s no longer responsible for anything by wingnut standards.
Fr33d0m
The difference in the discourse whether in tone, volume or frequency between the right and the left is stark. Failure to see this as one factor that dislodged this nut from the right-wing nut-bag is either ignorant or self serving.
Sure extremists exist on both sides and these talking heads know they exist. They get letters and voice-mails from these people. Remember that whenever you hear someone excusing them for their role in these things.
BTW, when is the last time a lefty shot a righty in this country for doing something he didn’t believe in? One of these things is not like the other.
Notorious P.A.T.
Grrrrrr.
Llelldorin
@Notorious P.A.T.:
The important clause in his original statement was “and applying that trait to Jews individually.” Opposing Israel’s incredibly self-destructive policies in the West Bank doesn’t make you anti-semetic. Eliding the difference between individual Jews and the Israeli government does. It’s rare–most liberals are well aware of the difference between the Israeli government and, say, Mr. Cohen the 11th grade math teacher–but you do encounter the occasional liberal anti-semite who can’t seem to work out the distinction.
All that is neither here nor there when it comes to a Bircher-type like von Brunn. When your problem with the Jews starts with an conspiracy theory involving control of the banks and the government, you’re a right-wing extremist.
JackieBinAZ
I’m just wondering how many and what kinds of attacks it will take for even left-of-center Americans to start demanding Bush-era measures to “keep us all safe.”
Charles
If Rush Limbaugh (or many other media personalities) is a mainstream conservative, then there is a connection between conservatism and murder. Mainstream conservatives have been calling their opposition traitors and enemies of the state for 60 years, ever since McCarthy. David Duke sold his mailing list to the Republican candidate for governor, Mike Foster. The last Republican vice-presidential candidate is closely associated, if not actually a member of, a secessionist group… as is the current Republican governor of Texas. The John Birch Society has all but merged with the, eh, mainstream Ron Paul for President movement.
It’s wonderful that a few conservatives have spoken against the madness. But conservatism nowadays is very, very extreme.
Brachiator
@Some Guy:
There’s no need to get fancy and statistical. Conservative pundits regularly flirt with racism, although they try to limit it to what they believe is a genteel racism that would only consign nonwhites to the back of the bus. A few, like Michael Savage, are more overt in their racism, especially when it comes to beating up on Muslims or Latinos.
Apart from explicitly inciting violence, the sense of white resentment and entitlement is much the same as the stuff that you find on extremist web sites.
But here is the larger problem. The Republican Party and conservative pundits have a big problem when they can’t simply and solidly condemn murderous crackpots, but instead fall back on the weasel position of declaring that somebody like von Brunn is not a rightwing crackpot or denying the appeal of their commentary to rightwing nutjobs.
It’s telling that conservative pundits can’t simply tell racists to fuck off. They don’t want to alienate their base.
The situation is even more acute for non-white and Jewish conservative pundits. To continue to carry the banner for an ideology that insists on the primacy of “white Christian values” is suicidal.
Brachiator
@Brachiator:
The last sentence in my previous post should read:
The situation is even more acute for non-white and Jewish conservative pundits. To continue to carry the banner for an ideology that insists on the primacy of “white Christian values” — and to deny the connection between the worst conservative punditry and rightwing extremism — is suicidal.
Dave
Here in the UK, the new anti-semitism is almost wholly a product of the left (leaving aside the odious unreconstructed fascism (and their attendant anti-semitism) of the BNP for a moment). For example, Ken Livingstone, Jenny Tonge and Tam Dayell are three well known liberal/left politicians who have came out (repeatedly in some cases) with outright anti-semitic statements. Plus the two main liberal newspapers in the UK the Guardian and the Independent have repeatedly ran anti-semitic imagery and editorials.
As ever good websites for keeping uptodate on antisemitism in the UK are (themselves the left of centre) Harry’s Place, Engage or Normblog.
Oh, and the gentleman above who claims he can’t be antisemitic because “Palestinians are semites as well?” Pull the other one. This is a formulation (nay, an excuse really) used a lot by anti-semites in the UK – the dictionary and pratical definition of antisemitism in the last century refers solely to hatred and hostility towards Jews exclusively.