I wrote on June 3 about the murder of Dr. George Tiller in a Lutheran church in Wichita, Kansas. This week another right-wing terrorist – a notorious hater revered in places like Free Republic and Red State but labeled far too extremist by the neo-nazi group Stormfront – walked into the Holocaust Museum in the nation’s capital and opened fire, killing a security guard. In April of this year a younger neo-nazi wingnut hater killed three Pittsburgh police officers in a suicidal shoot-out because he was afraid Barack Obama was going to take away his guns.

Right wing domestic terrorism is all too familiar in this country. Timothy McVeigh was the most notable in terms of body count, but certainly was not the first or last of his ilk. The problem is present at all times, but the most deadly attacks happen more frequently when there’s a Democrat in the White House. The right wing propaganda machine (a.k.a. FoxNews) provides the verbal incitement, the loyal-but-stupid wannabe Rambos among Fox’s white sheet and dunce cap fan base do the shooting and bombing.

Also back in April the Department of Homeland Security [DHS] issued a report on the rising danger of right wing extremism/terrorism, drawing predictable outcries of persecution from the Fox talking heads and conspiracy theorists. Despite the now obvious to everyone correctness of the DHS intelligence assessment. As if law enforcement suddenly remembered that there actually ARE laws in this country against yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, neo-nazi hate radio icon Hal Turner was arrested last week in New Jersey for issuing assassination orders to his fan base against two Connecticut lawmakers and a state official. Turner, who was exposed as a paid FBI informant and agent provocateur in 2007, was arrested by the NJ Capitol police and held for extradition, apparently because the FBI that has actual jurisdiction in crimes that cross state lines was reluctant to rein in their puppet.

What the hell is going on here? When will we see the familiar ugly mugs of Rupert Murdoch’s pro-terror spin machine frog marched off to prison where they belong for their roles in inciting murder? How long is it going to take to turn the law enforcement machinery in this country back to enforcing the laws? How many more innocent people have to die because Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh or any of a dozen other hate-mongers don’t like their skin color or their religion or their birth place or their politics?

America has always been a violent place. Mass murder and genocide have always been the tools of state and law for the purpose of taking and holding the territory. Enforced social and economic inequalities, brutal slavery, indentured servitude and a serious lack of opportunity for at least a third of the population have been endemic from the beginning. And whole bodies of research in sociology and psychology have amply demonstrated for a full century that those inequalities are what lead to this nation’s reputation as Murder Capitol of the World. It is becoming perfectly clear that none of this will change under the Democratic leadership now firmly in control even as the world faces at least a decade of major economic depression. Something’s gotta blow, it’s going to blow soon, and it’s not going to be pretty.

So I’m going to say it right now, even though I don’t have a wingnut fan base or any reason to light the fuse on this overloaded powder keg – it’s not just fascistic neo-nazi FoxBots who value the second amendment and exercise it with responsible gun ownership. We lefty-type ’socialists’ are as likely to be armed as anyone else, we just aren’t famous for using those weapons against innocent people for no apparent reason. If the paranoid right-wing groupies really want to start something, there are plenty on this side of the barricades who can finish it.

So unless the machine that is our erstwhile government starts doing its job of protecting and defending We the People (of the US, not Dubai or Saudi Arabia), it’s going to find itself smashed into pieces so numerous and so tiny that it’ll never be whole again. Perhaps that it’s karmic due for being as corrupt as it is and has always been, but it’s not something the vast majority of us ever really want to see happen.

So wake up, America! Rupert Murdoch isn’t even a citizen of this country, he should not be allowed to control the propaganda or foment armed insurrection 24-7 on his cable network or in his big city newspapers. His puppets on Fox and Clear Channel radio need to be retired post haste to whatever off-shore haven they’ve banked their millions.

Because despite the violence endemic to our national nature and the sleight of mind distractions designed to keep the population cowering in abject terror of terror organized against us (this is called “state-sponsored terrorism,” like when the FBI pays people such as Turner to incite murder), some of us have NOT forgotten that this was once not just the land of the free, but also the home of the brave.

And we are not afraid.

“We will never forget, we will never hide, and we will never stop asking ourselves every morning what we must do to prevent what happened to ever repeat itself.”

So said Israeli President Shimon Peres at the main ceremony marking Holocaust Memorial Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned his audience that anti-semitism is on the rise across the world today, and that insidious forms of Holocaust denial were asserting themselves even in nations that have every reason to remember with circumspection what occurred in Europe 63 years ago.

Iran’s quixotic dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims the Holocaust is a “myth,” and hosted a revisionist Holocaust conference in 2006. Given that Israel and Iran are currently at a heightened state of tensions – complete with bravado from Hillary Clinton about “nuclear umbrellas” and US defense of Israel (which has plenty of its own nuclear weapons) – it’s worthwhile for those who weren’t born when this horror occurred to take a long, hard look at reality.

Yet in Britain, Muslims have joined in commemoration events, which is a step forward, at least for those Muslims who have chosen to participate in the modern world by immigrating to countries like Britain.

A documentary film entitled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was released just two weeks ago purporting to examine the censorship and discrimination in American academia against biologists and other scientists who criticize the Neodarwinian model of biological evolution. The never-ending Evolution vs. Creationism debates aside, a disturbing focus of the film are images linking Darwinism to Eugenics, and Eugenics to the Holocaust. This has resulted in the explosion of a very strange form of Holocaust denial coming from the ranks of science and academia that is a bit shocking.

Despite the ebbs and flows of partisan politics and election campaigns and candidates who will say or do anything to get themselves elected to power, today is a very good day to stop for a moment and asses our overall sociopolitical situation. We are at war on two fronts (again), and the costs are now coming due in increasing poverty and rising prices for every necessity of life. Will we again stoop to blaming the poor? Will we once again single out the religious for persecution and ‘elimination’? Will we allow the so-called “intellectual elite” to deny the lessons of real history in order to justify a renewed eugenics aimed (as always) at those they see as ‘lesser’ humans?

That seems a serious question to me. The quadrennial international convention of the United Methodist Church meeting on this day in Fort Worth, Texas, issued a historic and detailed resolution deploring the legacy of eugenics in the 20th century, apologizing for Methodist support of eugenic policies in America in the first half of the 20th century, and warning about a resurgence of eugenics in the 21st century. They are the first Christian denomination to issue such a resolution and apology, in recognition of the Holocaust such policies were used to justify.

Perhaps someday we’ll see a similar resolution from some organization of influence in biological/evolutionary science apologizing for the corruption of Darwin’s theory that was used to justify forced sterilization and miscegenation laws in this country and in Europe, and which did in fact get further corrupted by Hitler in his quest for “racial purity.” That too would be a step forward after more than 6 decades. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.

Links:

Marking annual Holocaust Memorial Day
Holocaust Memorial Day
Israel marks Holocaust Memorial Day
Eugenics Apologies

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that a NYC Subway Attack Possible Hate Crime. Seems a group of overage juvenile delinquents decided to attack two men and two women in a subway car, apparently for being Jewish.

The criminal types doing the attacking have been described as your basic cowardly hoodlums. One was awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last year to “attempted robbery as a hate crime” for yelling racial epithets while assaulting two black teens in Brooklyn. This time they yelled anti-Semitic remarks at their targets, who had the tumerity to respond “Happy Chanukah” to their assailant’s greeting of “Merry Christmas.”

The victims were helped by ‘A Hero’ named Hassan Askari, a Muslim student at Berkeley College in Manhattan. Askari was also punched and beaten.

The attackers numbered eight men and two women (that’s 10 people against 4 plus one good Samaritan). They have all pled not guilty to assault, menacing and other charges, while prosecutors say the charges could be upgraded to hate crimes.

I’m sure Bill O’Reilly will be tickled with this evidence that his “War on Christmas” has finally gone publicly violent. And I don’t suppose Bill-O has the cognitive capacity to learn anything about the real Pagan roots of the Christmas holiday and all its many trappings – Yule logs, holly wreaths, adorned evergreen trees, etc. The Pagan holiday is Solstice, taking place during the week of December 19-25, a.k.a. ‘Yule’ or ‘Saturnalia’. The traditional African holiday is Kwanzaa, a.k.a. ‘Second Christmas’ in some parts of southern slave states. The Jewish holiday is Chanukah, the ‘Festival of Lights’. In Islam there is the Hajj and Eid-ul-Adha (Festival of the Sacrifice). Buddhism celebrates Bodhi Day in December (‘Enlightenment’ Day). Seems like just about every culture has a solstice celebration or festival of light couched in their own traditional religious terms but with clear roots to prehistoric reliance on the cycle of seasons.

Isn’t it about time Christians figured out that they don’t own the Solstice or control anybody else’s celebrations of it?

Links:

Winter Solstice Celebrations

Subway Attack; Skirmish from the War On/For Christmas?

Helper ‘A Hero’ in NYC Subway Attack

NYC Subway Attack Possible Hate Crime