UPDATED: Murder at U.S. Holocaust Museum

From WaPo:

A law enforcement source identified the gunman as James W. von Brunn, who is known to authorities as a white supremacist.

Seems like he was a very elderly man as well. Stormfront (the notable white supremacist website/magazine) has honored him as "White Racialist Treasure". Wow...

So basically a radical extremist (terrorist) succeeds in terrorizing. Terrible. Terrorism is terrorism. I hope he pays dearly.

This is at best a lone terrorist.

Shooting Suspect Convicted of Attempting to Kidnap Federal Reserve Board

An old article from The Post on the alleged suspect in the shooting, James Von Brunn:

N.H. Man Guilty in Incident at Fed
Thursday, March 3, 1983

A D.C. Superior Court jury yesterday convicted a New Hampshire man of attempting to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board, stemming from a 1981 incident in which the man was arrested at the board's headquarters carrying several weapons.

According to police, James Von Brunn, 61, of Lebanon, N.H., told them after his arrest that he wanted to take board members hostage to focus media attention on the board's responsibility for high interest rates and the nation's economic difficulties....

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/livecoverage/2...

MSNBC-TV just announced that the security guard has died.

Posted at 3:59 PM ET, 06/10/2009
CNN: Museum Guard Wounded in Shooting Dies

The museum guard wounded in the Holocaust Museum shooting has died, CNN reports.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/livecoverage/2...

Holocaust Museum Shooting: Racism and Reaction
Details on White Supremacist Suspect
Rabbi David Saperstein
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
Wednesday, June 10, 2009; 4:00 PM

Police are confirming that the suspect in the shooting today outside the Holocaust Museum in Washington is identified as 88-year-old James W. von Brunn, who decries Jews, blacks on rambling, racist and bitterly anti-semitic website.

Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism will be online Wednesday, June 10, at 4 p.m. ET to discuss racism, anti-Semitism and reaction to what happened in the nation's capital today.

Submit your questions and comments before or during today's discussion....

ONLINE NOW

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/di...

This is at best a lone terrorist.

I'm not sure what "This is at best a lone terrorist" means, but I'm pretty much shaking with anger right now at the response to this shooting on the right, both before and after the news broke that the gunman was an 89-year-old white supremacist with a German-sounding last name and an affinity for Nazi ideology.

The f**king racist idiot at Israel Matzav writes, "Anyone want to guess the gunman's religion? I'll bet it isn't Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist...."

WRONG, jerkface. But despite the fact this blogger is a racist scumbag, I would not be calling him that or saying any of this if he had acknowledged his error and apologized for it. Needless to say, he didn't. I feel thoroughly embarrassed by the fact I have to acknowledge this individual as a Jewish person. What a disgrace. My grandmother died in Hitler's ovens for this moron to assume that anti-semitism and Muslim are synonymous.

This jerk is far from alone, sad to say. Here is Jawa Report:

I'll just go ahead and lay the odds at 2:1 that the suspect's name will be something like Joe Smith, but then in 48 hours we'll learn that he recently changed his name to Ahmed al-Jihad. Yet we'll also be told that that authorities are perplexed at what possibly could have motivated him.

Any and all right-wing bloggers who did not explicitly jump to the conclusion that the shooter was an Islamist are now busy characterizing James von Brunn as a "deranged" lone wolf anomaly.

Donald Douglas, via Michelle Malkin:

“The spin on the left is that the suspect, James Von Brunn, is an agent of the GOP’s “Christian-fascist” base. The truth is, via Melissa Clouthier, this guy’s a deranged Holocaust denier. He represents no one on the conservative right - not me, nor any of those with whom I associate.”

Emphasis mine. "He represents no one on the conservative right," eh? But if he had had a Muslim name, then he would have been represented by all two billion Muslims in the entire world, right?

I am so mad. I am spitting mad.

It would not surprise me at all if Mr. Von Brunn were discovered to be working with Arab terrorists. Kathy, when it comes to terrorism, the Middle East or national security, I prefer the posts of Carl at Israel Matzav.

I saw what Israel Matzav and The Jawa Report wrote in the early stages, Kathy. I just shook my head. I used to be one of those "instant profilers" until I was DEAD WRONG about the Beltway Snipers (went with the conventional "white guys are serial killers" angle). Both of those bloggers, along with others, were dead wrong. But that's they way things are now. And unfortunately I feel you are right that if it was a Muslim, the entire Muslim World would have gotten lumped in.

And don't go read ol' Atlas Shrugs. Commenters are blaming President Obama. Blame Bush! Blame Obama! Two sides of the same sick coin.

A stormfront Islamist sympathizer? That'd be like Pope sponsored birth control.

Considering the 90s were filled with many attacks and fear about domestic right wing, sometimes racist militia terrorism, I'm not sure why people would be surprised that it's starting to pick up again.

Mikkel, there is plenty of evidence of contact between the Far Right (supremacists) and Arab terrorists. These creeps can work together when they hate somebody else (Jews) more.

mikkel's right that those groups come from the far extremes of either side of the political spectrum and would have little common ground, but antisemitism seems to be one of those nasty themes that closes the circle between right wing and left wing extremism. I don't know that I'd go as far as Holly in saying that those kinds of groups 'work together', but I do think they have common hatred of Jews.

And Hitler/Stalin had a non-aggression pact, while Al Qaeda elements have had contact with Shia oriented groups.

But all that is temporary and quickly falls apart as they hate each other. Grouping even Hezbollah and Hamas together, let alone generalizing across ideologies is a mistake because it makes it harder to react ot it.

White supremacists are loath of all non white blue eyed Aryans. The same happened when the Muir building was bombed. It couldn't be one of US, it had to be dirty smelly Arabs.

The irony being neglected is that this nut case fought against the German Nazis. Friends/fellow soldiers died at the hands of the Nazis. Yet for all his life this whack job embraced the sick thoughts of the enemy he fought 60 years ago. This nut case and Tim McVie weren't dirty smelly Arabs, just extreme misguided white men(WASP).

Didn't the FBI just say worry about right wing extremists? Seems the Michigan version of Beirut (Dearborn) is peacefull.

I have driven through Dearborn, Michigan and do not feel safe there at all.

C. Stanley -- I say there's a difference. Jewish Americans are in the mainstream, tending to be liberal and to be Democratic (a heritage of older US anti-Semitism; the Democrats are seen as the party of inclusive "refuge" and the GOP, an exclusionist "closed club" even though it's largely mythic). The Left isn't anti-Semitic but more seems precisely to be anti-Israel, not only because Israel has succeeded despite the evil attacks on it by its neighbors, and has been an ally of the USA and on its side (and largely vice versa), and also because the Soviet Union chose to oppose Israel and be on the Arabs' side in the Middle East. (Hence, so did the Left -- appeal of the Soviet Union, not only antagonism toward the USA)

"I have driven through Dearborn, Michigan and do not feel safe there at all."

Seems okay to me. Admittedly I've not been there during any Hizballah rallies.

As a center-left Democrat and Jewish liberal, I say that the Left is anti-Semitic.

1. It might be of interest to see if the guy was truly alone, worked with others on his politics, and if this was just coincidence, and if this is just an event bound to happen that just happened, or if it may be related to true, small fringe, extremist sentiment against Obama as some kind of demon (has he been claimed by anyone yet to be the Anti-Christ?), or if Obama's personality-celeb status is making him an object of resentment on which other resentment at, say, the Democrats in Congress are projected. This is true not only for these fringe racists but for the rare violent anti-abortion types, etc.. (Note that politically-driven acts of "protection" by the feds of the abortion providers risk backlash in the form of a small but likely definite increase in risk of more of the same.)

2. Well, the museum remains intact, so it's there for Ahmedinejad to visit sometime if he ever is so inclined.

Holly, I have to ask, are you here to troll your own post? Statements such as:

"As a center-left Democrat and Jewish liberal, I say that the Left is anti-Semitic."
and
"I have driven through Dearborn, Michigan and do not feel safe there at all."
and
"Mikkel, there is plenty of evidence of contact between the Far Right (supremacists) and Arab terrorists. These creeps can work together when they hate somebody else (Jews) more."

are doing nothing to advance the discussion related to the topic at hand, and instead seem designed to simply stir the pot.

This is so, so sad.

Can we please cut out the speculation here until we know more about what happened? We know this guy is a white supremacist, but there's certainly nothing to suggest that the Arab world had anything to do with this. I'm totally with Kathy on this. I know this is two high-profile murders within a week or so committed by people in right-wing extremist groups, and I understand the desire to hot-potato this to the brown scary people, but can we please get something besides total baseless speculation before we do so? I honestly don't even know what to make of "this is at best a lone terrorist." Obviously the guy is terrible and hateful, and he very likely was working alone, but what is the implication about what he was at worst?

Excuse me?

I stand by every word I've written above.

But all that is temporary and quickly falls apart as they hate each other.
That's exactly what I meant, mikkel- that the groups on each extreme seem to find common cause in hatred of Jews but I doubt there's actual collaboration (and if so, it would be a short lived marriage of convenience.)

roro- who here speculated that Arabs had anything to do with this? Holly makes the assertion that left wing hate groups work together with right wing white supremacists, but she also said she believes this was a nutcase working alone.

Holly--

In the absence of evidence or even an argument, there is no reason for your personal impressions to be meaningful, let alone persuasive.

DLS- I agree that the American left is less virulently antisemitic than the global left, and I presume that the point you make about the majority of American Jews being liberal/progressives might be part of the reason. But even in the US, antisemitic sentiment runs through the anti-globalization movement pretty strongly. And in mainstream leftwing politics, today there is a lot of antiZionism being expressed which isn't necessarily antisemitic but sometimes crosses that line IMO.

CStanley--

As to who speculated that Arabs had anything to do with this, here's a quote from Holly:

It would not surprise me at all if Mr. Von Brunn were discovered to be working with Arab terrorists.

It's right up above in the comments to this post.

Ah, sorry, I had missed that comment GS. I'm not sure how to reconcile that with Holly's other statement that she believes the shooter was a lone terrorist.

Apparently some of you need to re-read all of the comments, in order.

So the more I'm reading about this fellow, the more angry I'm getting that it's being connected to Muslims or that he was somehow a lefty anti-Zionist or whatever. Now, it's totally undeniable that there is a lot of virulent antisemitism in Muslim groups/countries, and it's also clear that the left has some deep soul searching to do wrt Israel and the related conflicts, but to imply that somehow this white power murderer is mixed up with either Muslims or has been informed in any way by left-leaning contingencies here in the states is pretty ludicrous. This guy is a right-wing self-proclaimed Christian. He's written articles at Free Republic on occasions, dealing primarily with Obama's birth certificate, his Muslim roots, and of course his blackness.

I've read your comments Holly. Very interesting. You first speculate a connection between the shooter and arab terrorists. Then you allege a link between white supremacists and arab terrorists, claiming plenty of evidence exists, but providing none. Then you go on to throw firebombs about driving through Dearborn and not feeling safe, and then further claiming that the mystical, all-powerful "Left" is anti-semitic.

These are not the comments of someone genuinely interested in dialog. They're reminiscent of trolling, and I'm simply asking if that's your intent.

Good to see some reasoned debate here.

Looking at the far left and far right sites, I'm amazed at the idiocy of some of the views there (which I assume you all can guess without my repeating the stupidity).

In what universe are Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) & Hizballah (Party of God) left wing parties?

Since when is a nationalist, religious, theocratic party a left wing party?

PS. There are plenty of reasons for people to hate Israel with out being anti-semites.

Trolls: Do your own research.

Ah ah ah Holly re: left = anti-Semites - we're going to have to arm wrestle over that - well, maybe thumb wrestle. I'm being installed on the AJC board tomorrow evening, Holly - I am definitely left of center - and I am not an anti-Semite.

Folks - let me just say - I never for a minute thought he was connected to nor would I think he's connected to ANYTHING Muslim. I've written before and I'll write again about a neighbor who is 86 who told me a few weeks ago, when I went around seeking sigs for a petition to run for city council and he asked me my faith before anything else and he told me, and my middle school child was there listening - that there are too many Jews in our town and he would not help me. He went on to lament how the current mayor would be the last Christian mayor and that the city is now 70% Jewish (it's not). The reality is, this man recalls when our town did in fact have restrictive covenants that kept out Jews and Blacks and in my part of town, there have only been Jews for about 15-20 years. Even people in their 70s to whom I've told this story cannot believe that such vehemence against Jews still exists in our town of less than 6000.

When I heard about this shooting and this man's age and his affiliation, I thought of my neighbor's generation and his context: they thought they'd never have to live in a place or be governed by people who weren't EXACTLY like them. It's all too much. They have no reason except that it's not what they think it should be - and what they're entitled to.

It is very, very sad but obviously very very motivating in the worst possible way.

@rudi--Didn't the FBI just say worry about right wing extremists

being that he was a 9/11 truther and a hater of neoconservatism....and Bush....your categorization of "right wing" is flawed at best.

I agree that the "trolls" who have made unsupported claims here should do their research.

And show their work.

Jillmz:

Thank you for finally bringing some sanity, calm and common sense into this thread

Dorian

I have driven through Dearborn, Michigan and do not feel safe there at all.
Racist statement. Sounds like a Little Debbie rant.
I would bet that Dearborn is safer than Dearborn Heights or Detroit, its neighbor to the east.

Holly, you're the Copy Editor of this news blog. I would THINK that you'd be willing to provide links that back up your assertions. I guess I'm mistaken.

It would not surprise me at all if Mr. Von Brunn were discovered to be working with Arab terrorists. ...

With all due respect, Holly, I think that's more a result of your own bias against the Arab/Muslim world than any actual evidence of such a connection.

I saw what Israel Matzav and The Jawa Report wrote in the early stages, Kathy. I just shook my head.

Right, exactly. But being Jewish and having grown up in a family of Holocaust survivors, I feel an even greater sense of outrage when someone who is Jewish (like Carl at Israel Matzav) demonizes and stereotypes and assumes the worst of an entire group of human beings based on their ethnicity and religion. I don't understand how Jews can do that. I know intellectually that the capacity for prejudice and unreasoning hatred exists in all human groupings, but on a heart level, it just upsets me a lot.

I have driven through Dearborn, Michigan and do not feel safe there at all.

But Holly, your feeling unsafe driving through Dearborn is not, in and of itself, evidence that Dearborn actually is unsafe for you because you are Jewish and Dearborn has a large Arab/Muslim population. Unless you can point to some kind of substantive, tangible evidence to show why you would have reason to feel unsafe, you're looking at an explanation that has more to do with the way you feel about Arabs and Muslims than with an objective danger.

Holly writes: As a center-left Democrat and Jewish liberal, I say that the Left is anti-Semitic.

I say: This statement is the perfect illustration of why political labels, in this country at least, are largely meaningless. I am a left-leaning Democrat and a Jewish liberal (very liberal). One would expect, this being the case, that I would feel some overlap between Holly's political views and mine. But on this issue at least, I don't.

roro- who here speculated that Arabs had anything to do with this?

Um, CStanley, Holly did. May I draw your attention to this sentence? "It would not surprise me at all if Mr. Von Brunn were discovered to be working with Arab terrorists."

Someone else already pointed out that comment that I had missed, Kathy, and I acknowledged it.

I know, Christine; I saw that after I posted my correction. I should have read all the comments first to see if anyone else pointed out Holly's comment before posting mine. I apologize.

I am so deeply embarrassed by my fellow Americans. how can we be in the land of the free and home of the brave and just keep categorizing people. We of all people should be more accepting of other religions that anyone in this world. but to place a label on a man who did such a terrible crime, that has no truth involved by no means, is truly a disgrace. How could you label him a Muslim and say he is a terrorist and he might be working with the Arab's. That is appalling! Just because someone is Muslim, it does not mean they are a terrorist. Just because someone is Arabian, it does not make them a terrorist. This man however is not a terrorist, he is an embarrassment, the lowest kind of person ever to walk American soil. No one deserves to be labeled. If someone walked around naming you names and calling you outside of your norm, you would not be happy. Muslims do not deserve that label, no more than a loyal priest deserves to be called a child molester. This white supremist and anti semitic is just that! Nothing more and nothing less.....America Does Not Need Racism, America is Beautiful because WE, People of all kinds are making it what it is and people like that do not deserve this soil.