Right-Wing Extremism Is Left-Wing Extremism?
In the comments to another post of mine, a reader pointed out a claim made by a right-wing blogger that James von Brunn is a registered Democrat. This was news to me (the blogger’s claim, that is), but looking at some of the articles in blogtopia today, it appears that this claim may be part of a new direction being taken by some on the right — away from denying any connection between von Brunn (and Dr. Tiller’s murderer) and right-wing extremism, and toward actually connecting violent far right extremists to the left, as noted in a post by Steve Benen:
The conservative drive to connect violent right-wing extremist James von Brunn, who murdered a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum this week, to the American left continues to confound. Dave Weigel had a terrific report on this yesterday, including this gem:
“From what I can tell,” explained Jonah Goldberg, the author of the 2008 bestseller “Liberal Fascism” and a writer for National Review, “his hatreds echoed the kind of stuff we hear from the Kos crowd, Chris Matthews, Andrew Sullivan et al.” Goldberg called Von Brunn “objectively crazy,” but argued that “his hatreds would be easier to find at an ANSWER rally than at CPAC.”
Even by Goldberg standards, this is remarkable. Adam Serwer responded, “That’s right. A neo-nazi who hates blacks, Jews, and thinks Obama wasn’t born in the United States is going to be more at home with a group called ‘ACT NOW TO STOP WAR AND END RACISM’ rather than the political convention where they’re selling Obama Waffles and conservative figures get applause for questioning Obama’s citizenship.”
Read those two linked pieces, as well. They are very informative.
19 Responses to “Right-Wing Extremism Is Left-Wing Extremism?”
Blah blah blah…… The guy's a loon and the only people who care if he is right or left are those who put partisan BS in front of reality.
Kathy,
You need to give your right-wing hate a rest on this case.
Von Brunn was a nutcase, pure and simple. As much as you would like to hold him up as a mainstream conservative who was only doing what Rush Limbaugh told him to do, he was just as much identifiable with left.
When a person condemns capitalism and says that “socialism is the world’s only hope” you might have a hard time making him into a poster boy for the right.
The man hated everyone. He was crazy. Let it go.
Agree EEllis. It's sad either side tries to use this to score partisan points.
So I'm the guilty one who made the suggestion on the other thread, but I really couldn't care less what party the guy belongs to. He can be from the Left, Right, Middle, from another country, or even some alien being from another country. I don't care, this nut killed someone. But if you want to continue this political football blame game, the original blog I cited has this reaction.
So can we just quit it with the finger pointing? What is the solution? This partisan shouting match has been going on and on, and I suppose what you believe depends on what camp you fit into. What are the proper steps to be taken to prevent this sort of madness from taking place again?
I have to say that the efforts of conservatives to link this nutcase to the left weakens the case that he was just a nutcase. If that's so you don't need to link him to the left, just say he's crazy and leave it at that. The whole exercise (left right linking) gives his BS way to much credence.
Ah Jwest, thank you for being such a non-partisan luminary in these trying times.
This is what “moderation” seems to mean for you, a scabbed over piece moral high ground, a “safety zone” where partisans like you can race over to and pretend to be above it all.
Two points: it seems to me, that “nutcases” are white. If your skin is a different color, whoa nelly! Whole new ball game.
Also, I agree with all the above comments that it's sad tragedy is used to score political points. That's why no one used 9-11 or the threat of terrorism has a bludgeon to get their way in the past. Nope, we Americans were simply better than that.
Another reason I wish the Obama admin. had never sent out that report on Right-Wing extremism. The educated already knew they existed and it should not be a surprise when they become more irritated by the election of a black man. But now some racial zealot kills a black security guard at a jewish memorial site and the expected happens: some on the right falsely paints the guy as a leftist and some on the left claim that all right-wingers are racist and homicidal to jews, blacks, ect.
What I find irritating is that TMV decided to use a quote by Goldberg of all people. I have little respect for the person to begin with (painting fascists as liberals because you get tired of being called a fascist for your beliefs, seems childish to me) and this quote only proves to me that Goldberg really does have a one-sided mind-set with little to no thought to what the opposition or middle believes. Fascism rose to prominence because it was used as a shield against the socialist movement. Oh, and fascists see no problem with contradictions either, case in point, Goldberg’s quote about the right-wing von Brunn. I find that hilarious and making such a foolish point does nothing but turn more people off from conservatism when it comes from a so-called conservative intellectual. At a time when conservatives need more moderates no less.
So a right-winger killed a nice black man at the Holocaust Memorial/Museum, most Americans aren't going to turn into a lynch mob searching for conservatives because they happen to be right of center. Greenpeace kills whalers to save freaking animals. This man does not speak for all conservatives, and anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant. Same applies for people on the right who falsely paint this guy as a leftist just to distance themselves from them, for whatever reason (pride maybe?).
The longer conservatives try to falsely paint this guy as “leftists” the more it will hurt them. Better just to call him a crazy person (which can come from anywhere on the political spectrum) and move on rather than distance themselves from him when it isn’t necessary. We know the Democrats want to use this to demonize the right. Let them make the false accusations and then wait for them to pay for their stupidity as more and more people realize it as well.
jchem, the “solution,” in my view (at least as regards the argument here and elsewhere online over political affiliations, will begin when people like ellis and dagoat and jwest (and maybe you, I'm not as sure of your feeling on this) finally come to understand that there actually is a logical reason for the federal government to issue warnings to local law enforcement personnel that certain extreme viewpoints are on the rise among violent, unstable individuals. There really, actually are people out there in this country who hold very extreme versions of mainstream conservative views and they are dangerous, as we have seen. James van Brunn and Scott Roeder are more than simply one-off nutcases. They are nutcases, yes, but they also share an identifiable set of ideological beliefs and can be found on the fringes of otherwise mainstream political movements. This concept is not at all difficult for some commenters here to grasp if the ideology is left-wing. But somehow if it's right-wing, we're just talking about “lone wolves” or garden variety nondiscriminatory haters. James von Brunn and Scott Roeder and Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh are all nutcases, but that does not mean they do not all fit a specific demographic and ideological profile. They do. And I for one do not appreciate having the reality of violence coming from individuals holding extreme views dismissed just because those views are right-wing rather than left-wing. I don't want synagogues and Holocaust musuems being attacked because no one takes the reality of neo-Nazi ideology seriously. Do you take extreme Islamist ideology seriously? If you do, but you don't take white supremacist or neo-Nazi or other extreme ideologies about immigrants and abortion, etc., seriously, then you are part of the problem. In my view, of course.
Kathy you are creating the circumstances. If those on the left wouldn't use the lone wackos against normal conservatives then normal conservatives wouldn't throw all this political garbage around. Don't try and portray republicans as KKK and you will not have people complaining when you talk about the KKK. Stop playing junior high politics!! Conservatives need to stop treated these knee-jerk reactions as important. Stop getting defensive and overreacting. Stop acting like kids just because the other side does it.
And for gods sake no one is ignoring the threats. Go to almost any museum you can think of, the guards you see are not armed. The ones at the Holocaust museum were and it's no accident.
“Greenpeace kills whalers to save freaking animals.”
BS. Give us the source for this statement, or admit you're full of it.
Charles Johnson over at LGF does a pretty good job de-bunking the whole “Von Brunn is a lefty” crap:
Von Brunn: Leftist?
While there is no doubt he is a deranged individual, and I have always taken the position that under moist circumstances you cannot lay actions of the deranged at the feet of the organizations they are members of or the people they read and listen to, there is no doubting Von Brunn is, as LGF put it, a creature of the Right.
chem, the “solution,” in my view (at least as regards the argument here and elsewhere online over political affiliations), will begin when people like ellis and dagoat and jwest (and maybe you, I'm not as sure of your feeling on this) finally come to understand that there actually is a logical reason for the federal government to issue warnings to local law enforcement personnel that certain extreme viewpoints are on the rise among violent, unstable individuals.
If you're talking about the DHS report I don't have a major problem with that. Where I have problems is with people taking the actions of a radical and trying to extrapolate them to a group in order to score political points. This would apply both to you and Goldberg.
EEllis, “Don't try and portray republicans as KKK and you will not have people complaining when you talk about the KKK.”
I don't think that Republicans are KKK, but I do think that most KKK are Republicans (remember David Duke?)
However the actions and statements of Republican leaders (including Limbaugh- the Republicans themselves tend to follow him and Republican elected officials have to pass Limbaugh's sniff test) are more bigoted and hateful than the actions and statements of Democratic leaders. Though that doesn't make Republicans KKK members….
As far as ANYONE being registered to one party or another…. that doesn't mean anything. Last year Limbaugh himself urged people to register Democratic and vote for Hillary in order to spoil Obama. Other people may legitimately choose to switch parties because they want to support a particular candidate in a primary. At the end of the day, regardless of which party we belong to we can vote for any candidate in the general election. So what is more important than in which party one is registered to vote is one's fundamental beliefs.
And most Communist and/or Socialist would be Democrats then also. This is the kind of BS partisanship that does no good and hurts the process.
“are more bigoted and hateful than the actions and statements of Democratic leaders”
Do you want me to run down a quick list of crap said by Dems? Is there any doubt that I can find hateful things one for one?
What seems to be confusing to some is that anti-Semitism, antiblack feelings and other racist attitudes are not solely connected to any one side of the political spectrum. (I’ve included a link with a pretty good illustration of the political spectrum.)
http://www.thoughtsaloud.com/blog/wp-content/up…
The most famous racist government in our remembered history is Nazi Germany, which was a fascist state (right-wing on the political spectrum) which incorporated a racial bias into its governing model.
Because of this, many people today see no distinction between racism and fascism and therefore believe that the large majority of racists have right-wing political beliefs.
In the instance of von Brunn, his writings point out that he believes socialism is the governing model that should be used as a tool to “cleanse” the true race from contaminates (he means other races).
This is an interesting lesson in that each side of the political spectrum can use their preferred political model to facilitate their ingrained ethical/moral beliefs, including racist beliefs.
In my view, what is more important than leaning left or right (as illustrated on the political spectrum link) is the amount of governmental control the individual deems necessary to push an agenda through. The less government, the more freedom. Period.
Here is a small except of Van Brunn’s writing which I found at the following link:
“Yockey, in his suppressed book Imperium, notes that MARXISM is seriously flawed because MARX, being a JEW, could not understand the real differences between CAPITALISM and SOCIALISM, which emanated from the WESTERN CULTURE-ORGANISM. Capitalism and Socialism are how a Nation (Family, People, Race) feels, thinks, and lives, and secondarily are ECONOMIC CONCEPTS. One [capitalism] is past history; the other, WESTERN SOCIALISM, represents the future of the West, and the end of JEWRY on Western soil.”
http://www.loveforlife.com.au/node/6054
Check out (http://contemporaryantisemitism.blogspot.com/) for extensive background on this story and James Von Brunn
If those on the left wouldn't use the lone wackos against normal conservatives then normal conservatives wouldn't throw all this political garbage around.
No one on the left has used any “lone wackos” against “normal conservatives.” That is exactly the point, ellis. The “normal conservatives” are the ones who started screaming bloody murder when the DHS report came out, with absolutely no justification except that apparently they thought that the violent anti-abortion extremists, survivalist anti-government types, white supremacists, and stockpilers of guns and other weapons were themselves. Nobody else thought that such individuals were synonymous with “normal conservatives” — except, apparently, the “normal conservatives” themselves.
Tell me, ellis: Why the defensiveness among “normal conservatives” that a report warning local police departments about white supremacists and people who blow up abortion clinics and kill health care providers is referring to them?
Where I have problems is with people taking the actions of a radical and trying to extrapolate them to a group in order to score political points. This would apply both to you and Goldberg.
Actually, DaGoat, I have not extrapolated the actions of violent right-wing extremists to conservative bloggers. I do agree that Jonah Goldberg has extrapolated the actions of violent right-wing extremists to liberal bloggers — weirdly. But then that's Jonah Goldberg.
Don't try and portray republicans as KKK and you will not have people complaining when you talk about the KKK. Stop playing junior high politics!! Conservatives need to stop treated these knee-jerk reactions as important.
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