shooting at DC Holocaust museum

[compared2what?]

It's called the ponerology of power [also a book worth checking out]; sociopaths are attracted to positions of power; some are event conscious of this and assist other sociopaths into entering their organizations.

jlaw172364, are you at all familiar with the work of Laura Knight Jadczyk?

[AlicetheKurious]

jlaw said:

Your relative probably recalls periods of unrest where Copts were scapegoated by Muslims to satiate the masses. Scapegoating minorities is a very common political occurrence and is as old as time. It was very common to trump up charges, place people in custody, and then confiscate their wealth. This has been done to Jews for centuries by both Christian and Muslim regimes.

My relative has 2000 years to choose from, to support his narrative of persecution. No matter what he was looking for, he'd likely find it. Moreover, with his paranoia ramped up as it is, a less-than-friendly look or a business-related conflict can easily become emotionally conflated with a bloody 'pogrom' that supposedly took place in some village during the 11th century. It's called confirmation bias.

What I find most peculiar is that in real life he doesn't seem to think much of his fellow Copts either (as opposed to the Platonic idea he nurtures, of the "bleeding Copt"). Though you'd think that was an aberration, I've found that most people who hold racist views about others tend to hold rather unflattering views of their "own kind" as well. In his case, I attribute that to unresolved emotional and psychological issues, but then he's not made a career out of stoking and profiting from the fears of his fellow Copts, as so many others, who are little more than con artists, have.

Partly, this is related to the fact that predators most often prey on "their own kind" with a greater expectation of getting away with it, which they frequently do because of the fear of airing 'our' dirty laundry or causing 'our enemies' to gloat.

With obvious differences, I see parallels between that sort of attitude and the deep contempt with which some zionist leaders view other Jews. These individuals make quite a name for themselves, and a fortune as well, promoting a siege mentality and issuing dark warnings of an imminent Holocaust, while, like foxes in the hen-house crying about the wolf at the door, callously rip off the same Jews whom they claim to want to protect from the anti-semitic world. Meir Kahane comes to mind, as does Ariel Sharon, among many others; stripped of their carefully-nurtured aura as Heroic Defenders of the Jews, their actions make it clear that they considered Jews as meat. It's no accident that both were prone to make extremely hostile generalizations and use ethnic slurs that wouldn't sound out of place coming out of the mouth of the most rabid anti-semite, at least (but not always) in private.

These people are dangerous, not only because they are ruthless opportunists and predators, but also because they help to create self-fulfilling prophecies. With regard to the Copts, I'm thinking of a certain Maurice Sadek, who's made a lucrative career for himself fabricating and/or vastly exaggerating incidents of religious persecution of Copts by Muslims in Egypt. In the U.S., he received refugee status and then citizenship based on such false claims; since then, he's made his fortune fabricating similar claims for Copts seeking a fast track to legal status in the U.S. -- for a hefty fee, naturally.

Maurice Sadek specializes in publicizing sensational accounts of Coptic persecution: Copts nailed to crosses, girls kidnapped, raped and forced to convert to Islam, massacres by Muslim mobs; no claim is too wild or baseless that it won't be picked up and spread by unscrupulous or gullible media and certain political elements. Coptic community and church leaders in Egypt protest in vain that these stories are false, and independent investigations by international human rights organizations which prove them to be serious distortions, are ignored.

His relentless campaign over the past few decades, picked up and propelled by fundamentalist Christian and other zionist elements, has fueled fears among some Egyptian Muslims of a global conspiracy against them, in which "the Copts" are suspected to be complicit, a sort of fifth column. In a move clearly calculated to fuel such dangerous ideas, a few years ago Sadek openly admitted, to an Egyptian tv audience of millions over the telephone from the States, that he'd sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (aka "the butcher"), begging him to "save" the Copts. I heard him with my own ears.

To me, Maurice Sadek is the very incarnation of zionism -- if he were a character in a novel, he'd be its archetype, cynically trying to provoke, promote and profit from the very persecution he claims to be fighting. Because of this background, I am confident that if I were Jewish, I would still despise the zionists as much as I currently despise and fear their Coptic counterparts, as a dangerous enemy disguised as a defender. Not surprisingly, there have been persistent rumors since the 1970s that some of these "Coptic zionists" are secretly plotting with their Jewish counterparts to divide Egypt into three mini-states, a Sunni one in the north, a Coptic one in the south, and a Nubian one in the deep south. Though they deny it strenuously, other individuals have reported that this is part of a long-term strategy that is being kept under wraps until circumstances make it more palatable for Copts in Egypt, perhaps in the wake of "a new Pearl Harbor", Egyptian-style or, more appropriately, "a Holocaust" just like the one that led to the creation of Israel. Such speculation was reinforced by the publication of an infamous essay in the journal of the World Zionist Organization in 1982, by an Israeli Foreign Ministry official, Oded Yinon, entitled "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s", which argued that such a division of Egypt would serve Israel's interests very well, and should be pursued.

In any case, while it is tempting for some to fight anti-semitism, anti-Coptism or any other kind of tribal-type 'racism' with its tribal mirror image, it is a highly malignant temptation, far more likely to lead to a spiral of hatred and violence that endangers all us chickens, and profits only the foxes. It is my personal experience, one which is borne out by my own forays into historical investigation, that perceptions of both "love" and "hate" tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies. Injustice can never be defeated by more injustice, but by devoting all our common mental and physical energy to the creation of mechanisms that can guarantee and enforce equal justice for all.

[OP ED]

Partly, this is related to the fact that predators most often prey on "their own kind" with a greater expectation of getting away with it, which they frequently do because of the fear of airing 'our' dirty laundry or causing 'our enemies' to gloat.

that's a better way of characterizing the drives of the tribalist mentalities of whatever form than any i've ever tried to contrive. thank you.

[American Dream]

AlicetheKurious wrote:

With obvious differences, I see parallels between that sort of attitude and the deep contempt with which some zionist leaders view other Jews. These individuals make quite a name for themselves, and a fortune as well, promoting a siege mentality and issuing dark warning of an imminent Holocaust, while, like foxes in the hen-house crying about the wolf at the door, callously rip off the same Jews whom they claim to want to protect from the anti-semitic world. Meir Kahane comes to mind, as does Ariel Sharon, among many others; stripped of their carefully-nurtured aura as Heroic Defenders of the Jews, their actions make it clear that they considered Jews as meat. It's no accident that both were prone to make extremely hostile generalizations and use ethnic slurs that wouldn't sound out of place coming out of the mouth of the most rabid anti-semite, at least (but not always) in private.

These people are dangerous, not only because they are ruthless opportunists and predators, but also because they help to create self-fulfilling prophecies.

You will certainly get no argument from me that figures like Sharon and Kahane are vile specimens of humanity, nor that they nurture the imagery of Jewish oppression towards their own ends. Of course, that is all true.

However, isn't there a broad spectrum of possibilities in between "anti-Semitism does not exist" and "anti-Semitism is the worst, and only, problem of our time?".

The challenge is in how to negotiate the nuance and complexity inherent in the world.

In the case of your uncle, Alice, who complains of anti-Copt oppression whilst enjoying the life of a multi-millionaire, the missing dimension suggested is class. The same with the tired old ideas of "Jewish bankers" and the like which still feature on so many patriot websites. Really what they are alluding to is the unequal distribution of money and hence power, though they are mistakenly equating that with Jewishness.

In North America, many Ashkenazi Jews have assimilated themselves now into the structures of "white" privilege and a significant number have found a niche in the managerial/professional class, if not the owning class. This does not mean that the owning class is fundamentally a Jewish group- it is not.

Here we are in this thread discussing a shooting perpetrated by a vicious racist who believed deeply in tropes of Jewish conspiracy- I don't think it would be credible to suggest that "anti-Semitism" doesn't exist or matter in these times. It certainly does, even if other forms of prejudice and oppression are much more acute, and even if false charges of "anti-Semitism" are indeed used to buttress support for Israel.

So, I think we're looking for that place where anti-Jewish sentiment fits into the larger picture of racism-in-general, and all of that is an element of a world structure that includes class, empire and all the rest.

The big problem with overstated and unsupported models of world Jewish conspiracy is not only that they stoke the fires of chauvinism and hatred, but also that they tend to profoundly confuse our sense of the problem at hand and hence, the solution.

[Nordic]

Partly, this is related to the fact that predators most often prey on "their own kind" with a greater expectation of getting away with it, which they frequently do because of the fear of airing 'our' dirty laundry or causing 'our enemies' to gloat.

that's a better way of characterizing the drives of the tribalist mentalities of whatever form than any i've ever tried to contrive. thank you.

Well, it's also sorta common sense. If you're a con man, you want to tell people "what they want to hear". That is far easier if you're "one of them".

It's also far easier to gain the "confidence" of people in a group of which you are a member.

Look at the Republicans. Classic example. They con the most money out of old white Christian Repubs. The Abramoff e-mails prove what they really think of those people.

[jlaw172364]

I am somewhat familiar with the work LKJ; the PoP book seems bolstered by Nietzsche's observations about the existence to two systems of morality (master/leader & slave/follower), and by Acton's maxim ". . . absolute power corrupts absolutely. All great men are bad."

I think that the leadership castes across any society, at least, in modern societies, are more or less the same in terms of ruthlessness and ability to act outside of moral constraints. They all seem to engage in similar strategies and tactics when placed in the same circumstances.

Aside from leadership positions attracting pathological types, one could also argue that the positions themselves place pressures on the position-holders to act in certain ways because suddenly, they act on behalf of, and affect the lives of millions of people.

@ Alice

Another part of Jewish aggression seen today arises from the victim shame of having not fought back, or at least not doing so sufficiently. So, they over-compensate by resorting to force at the slightest provocation. This phenomenon scales down to individuals too. Some people will take a punch to the face, and then still calmly try to reason with you. Other people with physically attack you if you give them a look vague enough to be misconstrued. I suppose one might also combine the legacy of having not worked the land due to bans on property ownership being another factor in the need to over-assert.

I think a subset of people who become racist do so because they have a couple of bad experiences with people of another race (I'm only using the term for convenience; I only subscribe to it as a social construct) and then it is confirmation bias from then on out. For example, on the "What Really Happened" website, every time an individual Jew does something egregious, they post a blog entry about it. Why not do the same, for say, a member of the Greek Orthodox Church? They probably have a Google News Alert set to send them stories with "Jew" "criminal" "prosecution" etc. Some of these stories are semi-legit in the sense that the individuals are prominent, but when taken in context of the rest of the website, it raises questions. One sees similar things on Stormfront.

[starviego]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... tml?sub=AR

Authorities say they found child pornography on a computer belonging to a white supremacist charged with shooting and killing a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

They are desperate to slander this guy. Next we'll hear he liked to kick puppies, too.

The FBI said in separate documents it found dozens of rounds of .22-caliber ammunition in a search of von Brunn's car.

They always find extra bombs, weapons, and ammo at the domicile and in the vehicle of the patsy. This is to close the "circle of guilt" in the public's mind.

They also found business cards advertising a Web site that claims the Navy's USS Liberty was "brutally attacked" by Israeli forces in 1967.

Wow. I didn't know that that attack didn't even happen.

[Jeff]

They are desperate to slander this guy. Next we'll hear he liked to kick puppies, too.

Oh, I think his "Holy Western Empire" website, Kill the Best Gentiles! and hostage taking attempt might have already done some damage to his good name.

And starviego, I've seen enough from you now on this subject to feel you deserve this: you're banned.

[jingofever]

And starviego, I've seen enough from you now on this subject to feel you deserve this: you're banned.

If you dig a little you will find this.

[Jeff]

And starviego, I've seen enough from you now on this subject to feel you deserve this: you're banned.

If you dig a little you will find this.

Thanks.

Anybody else want to go? I got my bannin' stick.

[nathan28]

And starviego, I've seen enough from you now on this subject to feel you deserve this: you're banned.

If you dig a little you will find this.

Thanks.

Anybody else want to go? I got my bannin' stick.

Oh, you know they'll just be back.

I hurd dere wuz no jooz in teh WTC!!111!1!

obama is teh jooz

At least Von Brunn had a real sense of national identity

...and with an army of sock puppets.

I do, though, wonder if there is any veracity to the kiddie porn claim, because that would ratchet this up from "constipated old white dude" to some serious malfeasance. Hell, maybe he actually was a sleeper.

on edit, "malfeasance" as in pedotrafficking networks which seem to have a remarkable ability to avoid the law (see David Asimov, Isaac Asimov's son, in the coincidence theorist's guide to RA), as opposed to the more vanilla murder-by-disgruntled-white-guy, something we've been conditioned to accept after wall-to-wall news coverage of every office shooting in America.

[American Dream]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rinku-sen ... 17306.html

The White Supremacist in Us
By Rinku Sen


Over the past two weeks, Americans struggled to make sense of tragic shootings that seemed disconnected at first glance. Anti-Semite James Von Brunn killed Stephen T. Johns, a black security guard at the Holocaust Museum. George Tiller's murder a few days earlier seemed to be about abortion, yet his shooter, Scott Roeder, also had roots in the racial purity movement. Yesterday, it was reported that the murders of Raul Flores and his daughter in Arizona were charged to three people with white supremacist ambitions.

There's been lots of discussion about why hate crimes are rising and how to prevent future tragedies, yet we've largely missed the relationship between extremist racism and the less obvious version that plays out in our political debates. These shooters all felt that people of color (along with women and Jews) have stolen the birthright of white men. In his book "Kill the Best Gentiles," Von Brunn rails against "the calculated destruction of the White Race." Roeder was a member of the Montana Freemen; commenters on white supremacist websites praised him for ensuring that Tiller would never "kill another White baby." Flores' alleged murderers appear to have been preparing for a white uprising.

Our discussion of these events has boiled down to the idea that racism is an intentional, violent act of a lone crazy white man. Underlying this idea, however, is the unspoken assumption that since we criminalized such hatred through civil rights laws, there's nothing else we can do as a country. Collectively, we bemoan the backwardness of "some" people before we move on, thinking of racism as isolated extremism.

But social psychologists who developed the Implicit Associations Test at Harvard and the Universities of Virginia and Washington in 1998 tell us that notions of the innate goodness of white people and the equally innate badness of people of color are so deeply embedded in our minds that we're totally unaware of making such judgments. Even I, a woman of color and racial justice activist for 25 years, have taken their online test with dismaying results. White supremacists speak their beliefs aloud, but we all have similar ideas and act on them in tiny ways that add up.

The notion that people of color get more than our share plays out again and again in our institutions and policies, expanding the racial divide. If we think that Black people manufactured the foreclosure crisis in order to get a handout, the law limits their ability to get relief. If we think that undocumented immigrants are leeching off the U.S., we will not pass an immigration reform that changes their status. If we think that children of color can't learn, we don't do what's needed to improve public schools.

As a nation, we are about to make critical decisions about all our systems. Unconscious biases already permeate these debates every time we ask who deserves how much of health care, education, jobs. Our discourse is heavily coded. There's no need to say that "illegal" equals Mexican, or that the "irresponsible" homeowner is black, or that "unqualified" means woman of color. Even if we don't rhetorically attach these ideas to particular groups of people, our brains have been conditioned to make the connections anyway.

There's particular danger in characterizing racism as isolated madness during the greatest recession in 60 years. We now have to rebuild our economy - will we continue with a model that includes stark inequality? That seems likely if we can't grapple honestly with the racial gap, since structural inequality will always make our economy more vulnerable to a crash. That inequality is also what keeps us apart, in separate neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. That distance makes it much easier for violent extremists to recruit struggling white people into their ranks.

As white communities, particularly men, face conditions that have been chronic in communities of color, their vulnerability to racist ideas could disrupt the possibility of working together for real solutions. The unemployment of white men has more than doubled over the past year, from 4.2 to 8.5 percent. They are shocked, angry, and ready to direct all that heat somewhere. The most productive place for that energy is in alliance with communities of color, so that together, we can focus on changing the policies that allowed elites to run off with all our assets.

It is possible to craft truly universal social and economic policy that can both generate racial equity and improve life for everyone, including unemployed white men. There were racially-fueled murders before last week, and there's every reason to think there will be more. As we grieve, the Obama Administration and Congress continue the immense task of rebuilding the economy and reforming immigration and healthcare. Something positive can emerge from these tragic events if our efforts to understand them led to policies that actually brought us together - in our lives, as well as in our minds.

[justdrew]

[Jeff]

I do, though, wonder if there is any veracity to the kiddie porn claim, because that would ratchet this up from "constipated old white dude" to some serious malfeasance. Hell, maybe he actually was a sleeper.

Reminds me of Kevin Strom and "Prussian Blue":

...

For her part, Elisha Strom spoke out on Vanguard News Network, a neo-Nazi web forum, saying she had not turned Strom in to authorities, had not divorced him, and had, in fact, "tried to get him help." Then she posted a remarkable document.

The paper, an apparently notarized "contract" between Elisha and Kevin that is dated Sept. 8, 2006, and signed by both, says that "pursuant to concerns relating to pedophilia," Strom promises to see a "qualified counselor" twice a month. Strom also allegedly promises that until he "has been declared free of pedophilia," Elisha has the right to inform any future wife of Strom's of his sexual proclivities.

One other woman spoke up, too. April Gaede, a long-time National Alliance activist who quit that group to help Strom form National Vanguard, told the VNN web forum that Strom had called her in March 2006, four months before he took his mysterious leave of absence. Strom "told me that [Elisha] had found some porn on his computer and that it was of adult females but that she freaked out and called him a pervert," Gaede wrote. "Then he told me that she had threatened to 'get even' with him and that he was afraid that she would plant something on his computer."

Unmentioned by Gaede was the role Strom has played recently as promoter at concert after concert of Prussian Blue -- the folk-singing, neo-Nazi duet comprised of Gaede's two daughters, pretty blonde twins who recently turned 15.

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/ite ... ite_area=1

[Hilda Martinez]

Jeff, maybe you should lock this thread now. We've probably learned and discussed everything by now anyway.

Please don't ban me for saying that! I don't want you to think I'm telling you what to do or anything