How Soon They Forget (If They Ever Knew)

Adam Sewer of TAPPED delivers a comedy classic:

WHAT IF VON BRUNN HAD BEEN A MUSLIM?

I think Paul Campos' response to the shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum yesterday is worth pondering.

If radical Muslims had carried out terrorist attacks in Kansas and Washington DC over the past five days, we might be trying to pass legislation giving the president the legal authority to place people in preventive detention, and Daniel Pipes would be implying that we need to round up Arab-Americans (correction: Muslims) and put them in relocation camps.

But it was only a couple of old white guys, so our civil liberties remain unthreatened.

...

Campos' post implies an unsettling question. How much of the call for "extraordinary measures" in fighting terrorism has to do with the unique challenges of fighting global terrorism, and how much of it has to do with an irrational, orientalist fear of all things Arab and Muslim?

-- A. Serwer

Oh, so deep.  Well, even paranoid orientalists have real enemies - Islamic terrorism seems to be much more mainstream worldwide than the sort of white supremacists kookery represented by Von Brunn.

But why wonder about how the US would respond to a Muslim crime wave?  Let's try to imagine a world in which four Muslims were arrested after plotting to blow up a synagogue and another Muslim gunned down some soldiers at a recruiting station as part of his personal jihad against the West.  It's a stretch, I know, but look around - in response to the inevitable anti-Muslim backlash in the US and in the media, would the President get on television and push for preventive detention, or deliver a Muslim outreach speech in Cairo?

Reality - evidently not for the reality-based.

RAMBLE ON:  In anticipation of the response that the four would-be bombers were pathetic losers rather than real terrorists, I would note that Von Brunn, although a Mensa drop-out, would also fit most "loser" profiles.

JOINING THE DASH TO DUMB:  Steve Benen finds deep meanings in Sewer's embarrassingly factual counter-factual:

Imagine if James Von Brunn, Scott Roeder, Poplawski, and Adkisson were all Muslims.

What would the rhetoric be like? What kind of legislation might congressional Republicans offer? How many special reports about the "epidemic" of domestic Muslim violence would Sean Hannity host?

How willing would the public be to give up civil liberties to respond to the attacks? How loud would the laughter be from conservative leaders when liberals warned against racial profiling?

Maybe I can help.  But then again...

Comments

[clarice]

You made me laugh out loud with this one, TM..Talk about not suffering fools...

[MeTooThen]

Your post begs the question, "What will it take to change their minds?"

If 9-11 did not do so, and after years of jihad directed at infidels in Israel, Europe, The Philippines, Russia, and elsewhere, and even in NY City (remember the first WTC bombing), what will change their minds?

Or will it always be the fault of the USA, the Jews, Israel, George Walker Bush, etc?

If Israel were to lose its existence at this very moment, and each and every Jew in the world was at the same time removed from the world, would the jihad stop?

D'ya' think?

And if not, why not? And would the next excuse be "past grievances?"

There will be no end to the jihad until it is defeated militarily, culturally, and economically, probably in that order.

Good luck with that.

Mr. Serwer is not really anti-war. In many ways (tacit and explicit) he's for the other side.

Just sayin'.

[clarice]

Mr SEWER--His name matches his intellectual level.

[Tom Bowler]

Reading farther down in A. Sewer's post we encounter:

There's been a startling trend of fringe right violence recently, from Richard Poplawski to Scott Roeder and now James Von Brunn. But we view these instances of violence as the acts of deranged individuals rather than of groups because they are white men. (my emphasis)

Oh lord, Al Qaeda are only misunderstood. Conservatives are the real enemy. According to A. Sewer we're not talking about "deranged individuals. The first reports of the murder labeled Von Brunn "right-wing." It's a chip-shot as slurs go. The media have been doing it for decades, so it can hardly be a surprise when the "reality-based community" pick it up and embellish it.

[verner]

Let's just add TM, the links between Islamists and Nazis like Von Brunn are long lasting and extremely well documented. It's no accident that >90% of the Arab Street is holocaust denying.

If you ask me, instead of targeting US vets, prolifers, conservatives and old white guys in general, they should be going after the 911truther/anti-war community. It's where the Carlos Bledsoes and the James Von Brunns of the world meet.

And really, nothing new there--just look at the cozy relationship between the Arabs and the Nazis, begun under Hitler, and enduring to this day--in spite of the um, racial differences.

[verner]

And another thing--they really need to make up their stupid minds. I thought the problem with the conservatives was that they were Israel's lap dogs. If that's the case, why would a "conservative" shoot up the Holocaust Museum?

Don't ask em, it will make their heads explode.

[narciso]

Like that fellow Aribert Heim, who moved to Egypt, took up an Arabic name, and lived until his death in 1992. Or Alois Brunner, who lived in Damascus as Georg Fischer also supposedly to his death in 1992, training the Mukharabat (I saw that in a footnote, ina biography of Darquier de Pellepoix, Vichy commissar)

[verner]

Narciso, remember Spotlight magazine? Institute for Historical Review? I did some research on those jokers years ago, and found that they were very cozy with the Arabs, and even getting money from them.

There's nothing "rightwing" about those Kooks--there are nothing but racists who are obsessed with conspiracy theory--mainly centered on JOOOS.

[FPR]

TM: You're not kidding Von Brunn would also fit most "loser" profiles - he had a journalism degree.

[Ranger]

Well, this will fade quickly now. It appears that the Weekly Standard was on the shooter's hit list.

So, the guy was an anti-Bush 9/11 truther who hated jews and wanted to shoot up a conservative magazine. Sounds more like a Democratic Undergrounder with every passing hour.

[Neo]

The suggestion that the [Weekly] Standard may have been a target complicates any view of the racist shooter in contemporary left-right terms. Von Brunn's white supremacist roots put him under the rubric of a "right-wing extremist," but the substance of his views -- which included everything from believing that President Bush may have been in on the September 11 attacks to denying that President Obama is an American citizen -- are too far on the fringe to fit into conventional political classification.

[clarice]

You beat me to it, Neo.

[inmypajamas]

What about the media response to the Muslim who shot six people, killing one, at the Jewish Federation in Seattle in 2006? Same type of crime as Von Brunn but not anywhere near the media hoopla.

[Neo]

I always wondered how the "Left" could disown a founding member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

But who really wants somebody like Lyndon LaRouche
holding their banner ?

The guy is a "radical". Nobody on the Left wants to call him a member of the "radical Left" and nobody on the Right wants to call him a member of the "Radical Right". The guy is a non-adjectived "radical".

[fdcol63]

" ... So, the guy was an anti-Bush 9/11 truther who hated jews and wanted to shoot up a conservative magazine. Sounds more like a Democratic Undergrounder with every passing hour. ..."

Or a Ron Paul voter.

[Pofarmer]

Man, I just saw the Shep Smith Segment on Fox where he can't understand why folks are writing in Upset that Obama never had to show his birth certificate. Then, at the end, he says "and it appears more and more frequently, they're going for their guns."

Sweet Jesus, how big of a moron is this guy? He's not the least bit curious about the birth certificate issue? He's not the least bit curious about the Obama Campaigns clearly illegal fundraising? What a bunch of fucking IDIOTS. And, to top it off, now the left is using his little speechifying on other blogs to tar conservatives. The left wants conservatives to shut up, period, and I think Shep is end with that crowd. "Just shut your eyes and think of the queen."

[Pofarmer]

I wonder, where was Shep when the left was attacking Sarah Palin?

[Neo]

Before the Progressive blogs get themselves in too deep, consider that with the simple juxtaposition of "white" and "black" in the resume of von Brunn, it reads much like former Georgian Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's resume.

[Pofarmer]

Oh, yeah, and Nancy Pelosi is still the Speaker of the House. She ain't goin' nowhere.

Anybody else feel like the elevator to hell is accelerating?

We. Are. So. Screwed.

[Extraneus]

I wonder, where was Shep when the left was attacking Sarah Palin?

Looking in a makeup mirror like that John Edwards video.

[glasater]

Po~

You can send an email message to:

[email protected]

And let them know what you think of Shep's reporting. He's another reporter that needs more email messages to whine about.

[Neo]

This seems to return with the regularity of an unwanted season ...
Microsoft to Sell Windows in E.U. Without Browser

This seems soooo yesterday

[Dagpotter]

Wouldn't it be Occidentalist not Orientalist? I am not even sure what that means.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

An Occidentalist is a graduate of Occidental College, where Ogabe went to school before he mysteriously transferred to Columbia. A little known fact is that Ogabe thought he would be going to school in Bogota where the dope was cheap.

[Terry Gain]

Why do liberals think they are so smart when they can't distinguish between a handfull of extremists and extremists who are the doctrinally true and faithful representatives of a religion allegedly practiced by 1.5 billion people?

How many terrorist acts have the von brunists carried out in the last 8 years compared with Islamists?

[Neo]

What if von Brunn had beem a member of ACORN ?

[SteveMG]

Goddamn (sorry), they can't be this stupid?

The analogy is so bankrupt that it leaves one breathless.

A phenonmenon that crosses four continents and has support among a dozen or so states is comparable to a group of racial supremacists who hold their meetings in school auditoriums?

Yeah, that'll work.

[Topsecretk9]

So, the guy was an anti-Bush 9/11 truther who hated jews and wanted to shoot up a conservative magazine. Sounds more like a Democratic Undergrounder with every passing hour.

You forgot he hated christians too and a journalism major. Why does Andrew Sullivan come to mind?

[Topsecretk9]

Hilary and Obama are scary...

" North Korea plans to test a third nuclear bomb in response to a United Nations Security Council resolution due to be passed this week punishing the communist nation for its atomic test last month, Fox News said, citing officials it didn’t identify.

The Central Intelligence Agency obtained information that North Korea will start reprocessing all of its spent plutonium fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium and test a Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile about the same time, Fox said."

[Original MikeS]

An irrational disregard for reality is a liberal trait. Almost always found with that trait is the trait of selective amnesia.

These two disabilities are synergistic and codependent. Once a person is overcome by this malady, they rarely return to sanity.

[fdcol63]

" ... they rarely return to sanity ..."

Well, this assumes that a prior state of sanity actually existed.

I'm not so sure. LOL

[PaulV]

Did NK use the reactors that Clinton gave them to produce the plutonium?

[John Thacker]

I see that Esquire is re-linking to their article why white supremacists support Obama over McCain. They found that three out of four anti-Semitic white supremacists supported Obama over McCain because they hated neocons and the Iraq War (and their supposed relations to evil Jews) more. And McCain's immigration stances.

[Pofarmer]

Did NK use the reactors that Clinton gave them to produce the plutonium?

Does a bear shit in the woods?

[Neo]

But after some research it appears the shooter, James Von Brunn is in fact - despite the protestations of the Kos Kids - a registered democrat from Maryland.

[Xenocrates]

There are many fine brands of decaffeinated coffee now available on the market. Or you can keep listening to Rush and Hannity, and just go completely off the deep end. You just can't take the fact the Obama won...please get over it. Von Brunn was yet another crazy white guy who you feel honor-bound to disassociate from your "movement." He's all yours, pal...don't blame the Left for this nut job.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

well, pedant, Von Brunn tends to elicit a rather common response from most democrats (small d)because the flip coin of National Socialism is Communism. As did the Nazis, the Soviets discriminated against Jews; as did the Nazi's, the Soviets imprisoned those with whom they disagreed.As did the Nazis, the Soviets had a dictator who promoted the cult of personality. Frankly, there is very little difference. Around here, we dislike Nazis and Communists about equally.

[Stephanie]

Von Brunn was yet another crazy white guy who you feel honor-bound to disassociate from your "movement."

He seems to have self selected with yours... he is a registered democrat. No disassociation necessary from our point of view; however, I understand your haste to attempt to disassociate from him. I am also amused at the democrat need to lay their problems at other's feet. Seems Xeno is taking notes from the Owebama playbook. Sorry dude, no sale..

[Xenocrates]

Ah geez, you're right. Now that I've looked outside my little bubble to get some actual facts, I see that James von Brunn is a melanin-deficient equivalent of Obama's spiritual advisor :(

* Former veteran
* Racist
* Anti-semite
* Democrat
* Anti-U.S. government
* Pro-socialist
* Rails against Bill O'Reilly, Fox News, and other right-wing media
* Anti-"neocon"
* Anti-"zionist"
* Decades-long history of spewing raving lunacy to any audience that will listen

On the bright side, after Obama's recent throw them Jews Israel under the bus speech the Rev. Wright limited himself to complaining about how them Jews "Zionists" were controlling access to Obama, and did not join von Brunn in his shooting spree.

[Ignatz]

--Von Brunn was yet another crazy white guy who you feel honor-bound to disassociate from your "movement.--

Yeah, honor. Quite a concept, huh?
Considering not only your "movement's" failure to disassociate from the likes of William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jane Fonda, Todd Gitlin, Tom Hayden (the list could go on for miles), but the fact that they are well respected by the left, perhaps you and your movement ought to get a clue and feel honor-bound about something....anything.
Besides coveting your neighbors paycheck I mean.

[glasater]

I'm sure that with Rahm Emmanuel being the keeper of the gates--so to speak--Rev Wright might be justified in his opinion of a Jew controlling access to Zero.