Glenn Beck's solution to Holocaust Museum
terrorist: We all need to "shoot straight" with each other

Seriously. He really is a big scared angry child with a camera. Of course, he was even better last night than that little quote. Glenn Beck's guest last night, with Beck seemingly in agreement, argued that the Holocaust denying, racist, Jew hating, government hating, Obama hating, Free Republic frequenting guy who shot up the Holocaust Museum was actually a liberal. Proof? Hitler was a liberal. (He had the word "socialist" in his party name. Seriously.)

Yes, which party does this describe more closely:

National Socialism was similar in many respects to Italian fascism (see Fascism). The roots of National Socialism, however, were peculiarly German, grounded, for example, in the Prussian tradition of military authoritarianism and expansion; in the German romantic tradition of hostility to rationalism, liberalism, and democracy; in various racist doctrines according to which the Nordic peoples, as so-called pure Aryans, were not only physically superior to other races, but were the carriers of a superior morality and culture; and in certain philosophical traditions that idealized the state or exalted the superior individual and exempted such a person from conventional restraints.

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

The Blumenthal video does show hate, but the
response shows hope

I want to offer my response to the Feeling the Hate In Jerusalem on Eve of Obama's Cairo Address video. Phil was in Gaza when the video came in and I was editing Mondoweiss by myself. I'll admit the first time I watched it I felt shock, revulsion and then panic. I didn't want to post it. I found the language and attitude so disturbing that I hesitated before putting it out in the world (although admittedly it was already up on youtube). I paused and thought, why post it? Is it newsworthy? I then decided to post it after realizing one thing - the anxiety I felt was in part out of recognition. I knew those people in the video, I grew up with them. And like them I was steeped in the pervasive nationalism, entitlement, and chauvinism of the Jewish community. I realized this video stood as an exposed Jewish id, displaying it for the world.

For my response I feel a need to separate out the video itself, and the response it has received. Like Phil, I agree that the video "reveals an essential component of Israeli and Zionist society that has largely been covered up," but I'd like to take it farther. There has been much debate as to whether the people in the video were Israeli or American, and to my thinking this misses the point - they were Jewish. I don't say that to say that they shouldn't have been saying those things as Jews, but to say that the incredible fear, entitlement, rage and aggression on display in the video is a large part of what it means to be Jewish today in the shadow of Israel and Zionism. The uproar over the video shows that there is currently a struggle within the community over whether this is still acceptable.

First, what the video shows. Jewish writers both in Israel and the US have responded to the video by saying they recognize what they see. One interesting response came from Joshua Frazer writing on a blog for the National Jewish Democratic Council. Frazer recognizes that "One young man in the video used further racial stereotypes when discussing the President, drawing on "fried chicken..and watermelon", using the word, "n**ger" as well. This line may have gotten a laugh out of his friends in the video, but this is the type of racial insensitivity that has festered within the Jewish community." Village Voice writer Allison Benedikt responded to the video by sharing her own experience visiting Israel on a teen tour and training with the IDF! (an experience many other people I know have shared). Benedikt writes, "But for the purposes of this blog, all I want to say is: Send a kid from Youngstown, Ohio to Israel for the summer to connect more with her Jewish identity and put a gun in her hand, and you know what you get? The Max Blumenthal video." And finally, Ha'aretz writer Bradley Burston expands it a bit to place the video in a broader context. He wrote about it in a thoughtful column "Loving Israel by hating Obama." Drawing from examples in Israel and the US Burston writes, "We live at a time when an avowed Kahanist is a serving MK, when overtly anti-Arab Knesset bills blacken Israel's name the world over, and Jewish talkbackers and bloggers think nothing of denigrating Islam and African-Americans in the name of some cockeyed personal battle against world anti-Semitism."

The video reminded me of Avraham Burg's writing on the Holocaust. One of the most important parts of the video to me is when one guy recites the numbers in his grandmother's Holocaust tattoo. This amazing response is simply in reaction to President Obama applying the most subtle oratorical pressure on Israel to simply freeze illegal settlement building. And yet, I don't blame the guy for responding this way. This is the way the entire organized Jewish community responds to the slightest challenge. Iran has become Amalek, and Obama the new Pharoah. As I said earlier I recognized this response, because I had once felt it myself. Growing up in the suburbs outside Philadelphia, in a conservative Jewish synagogue, I learned of a Jewish community perpetually under attack and outnumbered. And the response to this was always militarism and brute force. Tony Karon wrote about a similar experience on his blog last year in the exceptional post "Healing Israel's Birth Scar." In it he recounts a story about the effect visiting Yad Vashem had on him:

I was no dignitary, but just as every politician visiting Israel is still taken first to the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem, so do did my own official trip begin there in the winter of 1978 -- as part of a Habonim leadership training program. The horrors memorialized at Yad Vashem pressed all the intended buttons in my 17-year-old mind, I realized a few months later, as a freshman student at the University of Cape Town, when I came very close to having the crap beaten out of me in a fight that I almost provoked when confronting Muslim students handing out leaflets marking Al-Quds day. I have had little appetite for physical confrontation since age 12, but I did not hestitate to grab the leaflets of a student named Ashraf, and throw them to the ground. He jumped at me, cursing. "You're trying to deny my existence, you scum!" I screamed. "What about Dir Yassein?" he yelled, as he leaped towards me, restrained by his buddies as mine hustled me away, admonishing me for my provocative behavior. In truth, I hadn't even recognized myself in that moment; it was all adrenal rage, a channeling of the "Never Again!" Warsaw Ghetto spirit unleashed in me by what I had seen at Yad Vashem.

I believe this is the spirit on display in the video, and people are shocked by what it looks like.

The response to the video, and what this rage looks like, should be separated from the video itself. While the video might display the fear and aggression of the community, the response shows that things may be changing. In his second post on the video, the JTA's Ron Kampeas points to the "separate and unequal" nature of Israeli society and admits that the response to the video is a reflection of a move within a younger generation of Jews who reject Israeli apartheid out of a belief for equal rights for all. The fact that Kampeas wrote a second post on the video is a sign in and of itself. His first simply tried to dismiss it but the second shows that he had to give it more serious consideration after seeing the debate it spawned. He writes:

Just as the TV crews made their way to the obscenely racist old Boer in covering the old South Africa, and abjured the thoughtful Wits professor; just as Radovan Karadzic's insane musings about the non-Serbian psyche preoccupied some journalists more than the privations of ethnic Serbs in Krajina; the Max Blumenthals of the world are going to seek out the neanderthals, and this will become Israel's image.

The obscene rantings of a few drunken frat boys, however unfair and unrepresentative, would not be getting this oxygen without the reality of unequal treatment. And the fact that Max is Jewish, I think, is also significant, just as it has been with Jon Stewart's satirical treatment of Israel. The cognitive dissonance is not going to play with a younger generation of Jews that expects equality for all, that spends time and money calling for protections of minorities in Sudan and China.

This is a tide, and one that won't be turned away by better Hasbara.

Whether in Israel or the US, the Jewish community has become absorbed by the militaristic mission to sustain a Jewish state by any means necessary. In the past, even recently, this mission has short circuited almost all critical thinking - whether it means defending the indefensible in Gaza, getting apoplectic when Obama suggests the settlements are not feasible, or defending the fact of special and exclusive rights for Jews in a Jewish state. The revulsion to the video may signal that our critical responses are returning to us, and not only is this mission not worth dehumanizing others to accomplish, it is not worth dehumanizing ourselves in order to carry it out.

**
Read Mondoweiss here.

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Why the CIA Would Want to Hide May 2002 from
Judge Hellerstein (and the ACLU)

I've had a couple of really weedy posts examining the CIA's response to the torture FOIA (Cherry-Pick One, Cherry-Pick Two, FOIA Exemptions). And I wanted to pull back a bit, and explain what I think they might mean.We're getting all these documents[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/06/11/why-the-cia-would-want-to-hide-may-2
002-from-judge-hellerstein-and-the-aclu/

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Falling For Your Own Spin

It is certainly true that what white supremacists and neo-Nazis believe is not simply a more advanced or extreme articulation of what mainstream Republicans or conservatives believe. But it is half bizarre and half comic that in the bubble of the[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/talking-points-memo/~3/xcNC5In59bY/falling_for_you
r_own_spin.php

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Conservatives link Obama's purported "class
warfare," positioning "America against the Jewish state" to Holocaust Museum shooting

In their reactions to the June 10 shooting at the Holocaust Museum, several conservatives in the media have criticized President Obama for creating an "environment" and "climate" that helped foster the shooting. For instance, financial analyst and radio host Jim Lacamp said on Fox News that "we have an administration that's really done a lot of class warfare, a lot of class-baiting. And so, it sets the stage for social unrest"; syndicated radio host Tammy Bruce repeatedly claimed that the Obama administration's "increasing anti-Israel rhetoric and the pandering to the Jew-hating world Arab world ... encourages all the beasts among us"; and Newsmax.com posted a column claiming that "[i]t is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state."

During the June 10 edition of Fox News' Your World, Lacamp said that the Obama administration has engaged in "class warfare" and in "a lot of class-baiting," which he said he's "very concerned about moving forward":

CAVUTO: Well, and also we should say, the last terror attack -- but not this was not a terror attack, I got to stress that, and nor do authorities think it was -- but it occurred in Washington and it occurred in New York, and do you think, then, Jim, had this been in any other city -- take nothing away from a Wichita or a Macon, Georgia -- that it would've gotten the attention or gripped Wall Street the way this did?

LACAMP: New York and Washington, D.C., those are the two hubs, and anywhere else it would not have had the same impact. It does highlight something that I'm very concerned about economically, and that's social unrest. You have a lot of people losing their jobs; you have a lot of people losing their homes -- they're angry. And as interest rates go up, foreclosures accelerate, and we're going to have a lot of resets over the next two years. The same time, municipalities are cutting back on their police forces, and we have an administration that's really done a lot of class warfare, a lot of class-baiting. And so, it sets the stage for social unrest, and that's one of the things that I'm very concerned about moving forward.

CAVUTO: Although we're not making political views on this --

LACAMP: Right.

CAVUTO: I know where you're coming from.

Later during the program, Bob Newman -- a Colorado radio host whom Cavuto presented as a "terror expert" -- raised questions about whether Obama's recent visit to a concentration camp or his statement about Israeli settlements were factors in the shooting:

CAVUTO: But, Bob, normally when you're in tough economic times, it does bring out the sort of -- the home-grown loonies. And I wonder whether that's what we have to worry about, or we should be not forgetting. What do you think?

NEWMAN: That is oftentimes one of what is called the lead-up catalyst -- what led to this particular act that was mentioned just a few moments ago? What was the president of the United States doing last week? He was visiting a Holocaust site in Germany with Chancellor [Angela] Merkel. And a day or two before that, he was mentioning some things about the Jews in regards to the settlements in the West Bank. Were those factors here? Well, we don't know. That's what the investigation is for. Remember, simply because something might seem obvious upfront -- this has to be it -- not necessarily.

CAVUTO: Very true.

NEWMAN: And that's where the FBI will come in. They'll get to the bottom of it.

As Media Matters for America noted, Newman has a history of anti-Obama and anti-Muslim statements.

During her June 10 program, Bruce repeatedly claimed that Obama -- whom she refers to as "Urkel" -- "encourages" terrorist attacks and helped create the "environment" for attacks such as the Holocaust Museum shooting. While speculating about the identity of the shooter, who she said could be named "Muhammad," Bruce said:

BRUCE: We have this development, as I've noted.

One of the more important positions of the president is to send a message to people everywhere about what's going on, and the message of this president is: Israel does not deserve support. We are the bad guys. We have been wrong. We must pander to Islamists. We are grabbing our ankles. And what does that manifest as?

It is no coincidence that in the first -- that it takes the first six months of this man's dawn of a new era, Americans are taken hostage by foreign tyrants and Muslims, who happen to be American, are planning to try and have murdered people in this country. This is the environment that has been created by the American left.

Bruce later claimed: "On a day when his spiritual mentor and father figure, and a man who considers him his son, complained about 'them Jews.' A few days after B. Hussein Obama speaks to Islamists in Egypt, pandering and apologizing and grabbing his ankles."

Bruce also said: "Bottom line: The increasing anti-Israel rhetoric and the pandering to the Jew-hating world Arab world by the Urkel administration encourages all the beasts among us. ... When beasts among us get a sense that there is no leadership or you have a pantywaist in the White House, and there are no repercussions to what you do, and that this nation is bad, those kinds of people tell themselves they have permission to be crazy, to do want they want to do. Welcome to Urkel world." She further stated: "[W]hen you go exclusively to the Jew-haters and pander, you encourage beasts like this. Suddenly, beasts like this guy believe that they've been in the right."

Echoing her radio comments, Bruce wrote on Twitter: "Whomever the shooter is, there is no doubt the increasing anti-Israel rhetoric by the Urkel admim [sic] inflames and encourages beasts among us."

Hours after the shooting, Newsmax.com published a column by Rabbi Dr. Morton H. Pomerantz, a chaplain for the State of New York, headlined, "Obama Breeds Climate of Hate Against Jews." Pomerantz wrote: "Our new president did not tell a virulent anti-Semite to travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to kill Jews, but he is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us. It is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state." From Pomerantz's column:

Our new president did not tell a virulent anti-Semite to travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to kill Jews, but he is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us.

It is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state.

[...]

While Obama acknowledged that "six million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today" -- his discussion about the Holocaust was followed by this statement: "On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland."

"On the other hand ... "?

Obama's clever construct comparing the mass genocide of six million Jews to the Palestinian struggle will not be lost on the estimated 100 million Muslims who tuned into to hear him.

Perhaps it was not lost on James W. von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist identified as the alleged attacker Wednesday at the Holocaust Museum. He apparently felt that he could easily take retribution against the Jews for the atrocities Obama implies they are guilty of.

From the June 10 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:

CAVUTO: Jim, I'm always interested in how, you know, Wall Street follows this, too --

LACAMP: Right.

CAVUTO: -- because there were a lot of things to worry about with the economy.

LACAMP: Sure.

CAVUTO: But I've got to tell you, to a man and woman I talked to in the business world, they all tell me, "Neil, what's going on in Washington, the shooting?" Even though we have a pay czar controversy over, you know, how much money we're doling out, this -- I always feel this is sort of the unaddressed scab for Wall Street, that they're not quite over this, and maybe after 9-11, they never will be. What do you make of it?

LACAMP: I think you're absolutely right. I think we've lost a generation of buy-and-hold investors. Now, keep in mind, the market, if you go back 13 years, isn't any higher than it was 13 years ago.

CAVUTO: That's true.

LACAMP: People lost a lot of money in 2000 to 2002 --

CAVUTO: And they don't need much to get off the buying pot, do they?

LACAMP: They sure don't. And they lost a lot of money in those three years, then they lost a lot of money in 2008. They're still hearing all this economic news. The housing market has not gotten any better, so I think there's a lot of skepticism about the health of the economy and the stock market as a result. And so, people are still very leery of the stock market, and you can throw Washington and Wall Street into that mix because they're still leery about people on Washington and Wall Street.

CAVUTO: Well, and also we should say, the last terror attack -- but not this was not a terror attack, I got to stress that, and nor do authorities think it was -- but it occurred in Washington and it occurred in New York, and do you think, then, Jim, had this been in any other city -- take nothing away from a Wichita or a Macon, Georgia -- that it would've gotten the attention or gripped Wall Street the way this did?

LACAMP: New York and Washington, D.C., those are the two hubs, and anywhere else it would not have had the same impact. It does highlight something that I'm very concerned about economically, and that's social unrest. You have a lot of people losing their jobs; you have a lot of people losing their homes -- they're angry. And as interest rates go up, foreclosures accelerate, and we're going to have a lot of resets over the next two years. The same time, municipalities are cutting back on their police forces, and we have an administration that's really done a lot of class warfare, a lot of class-baiting. And so, it sets the stage for social unrest, and that's one of the things that I'm very concerned about moving forward.

CAVUTO: Although we're not making political views on this --

LACAMP: Right.

CAVUTO: I know where you're coming from.

From the June 10 broadcast of Talk Radio Network's The Tammy Bruce Show:

BRUCE: All right, Tom, we'll move on from this. The basic news is that the suspect is in custody. We don't know if he is shot. We still don't know how this transpired; some of the early news I heard was that the shooter went in shooting.

We, of course, do not have a name, or if the word Muhammad is in the name. What we do know already is that for the first time since September 11th, we have incidences of American Muslims -- Barack Hussein Obama is in office for six months -- for the first time since September 11th, 2001, we have had incidences of American Muslims planning attacks on Jews and infidels, or, in the instance of our recruiter, Private William Long -- may God bless his soul, may he rest in peace -- being shot dead by an American Muslim who had plotted and planned a variety of attacks, including against Jews. We have this development, as I've noted.

One of the more important positions of the president is to send a message to people everywhere about what's going on, and the message of this president is: Israel does not deserve support. We are the bad guys. We have been wrong. We must pander to Islamists. We are grabbing our ankles. And what does that manifest as?

It is no coincidence that in the first -- that it takes the first six months of this man's dawn of a new era, Americans are taken hostage by foreign tyrants and Muslims, who happen to be American, are planning to try and have murdered people in this country. This is the environment that has been created by the American left.

[...]

BRUCE: Whether it is an Islamist or not, somebody chose to take a rifle into the Holocaust Museum six months into the B. Hussein Obama administration. On a day when his spiritual mentor and father figure, and a man who considers him his son, complained about "them Jews." A few days after B. Hussein Obama speaks to Islamists in Egypt, pandering and apologizing and grabbing his ankles.

[...]

BRUCE: Bottom line: The increasing anti-Israel rhetoric and the pandering to the Jew-hating world Arab world by the Urkel administration encourages all the beasts among us. When there is also a seemingly -- a seeming lack of leadership and chaos -- there is a quiet chaos going on in this country right now, enough quiet chaos to where 1.2 million conservatives organize themselves on tax day.

So, you have the anti-abortion guy murdering Tiller. You've got the Islamists murdering a troop. You've got more American Islamists trying to plan, and planning, trying to implement the murder of Jews and infidels -- this is the Bronx group -- of course those two Islamist plans are ignored by the media. Big headline, now, out quickly: "white supremacist" -- as opposed to, of course, the fact that that means Jew hater. You got to make this be about race, even though it's about hating the Jews.

[...]

BRUCE: Bob in Miami says Obama's politics with the Islamic terrorists fomented this attack today at the Holocaust museum. Look, there is a reason why the Arab Islamists during World War II aligned with Hitler, because they had one thing in common: They wanted the Jews gone.

And this is just -- every dynamic, whether it is the murder of an abortion doctor, the murder of a troop, the murder of Jews, the shooting of tourists, here's what we can tell you: When beasts among us get a sense that there is no leadership or you have a pantywaist in the White House, and there are no repercussions to what you do, and that this nation is bad, those kinds of people tell themselves they have permission to be crazy, to do want they want to do. Welcome to Urkel world. This is what it is.

[...]

BRUCE: The people who are shooting people include those who are encouraged by the positions of B. Hussein Obama, including, of course, the troops -- look, when you say you're not going to release detainee photos because it's going to make people hate the troops, you're saying our troops have done horrible things. And then, oh my gosh, an Islamist -- an American Islamist murders a troop. What a shocker.

When you tell the world America's the bad guy, we will -- we're never going to defend ourselves again and we're just going to go negotiate with you, you get hostages taken. You get women hostages taken. And when you send a message to the world that Israel is a problem, Israel is committing genocide, that the so-called Palestinians have been put upon and deserve their own land, even though they had it and they used it as a terrorist man pad; when you go exclusively to the Jew-haters and pander, you encourage beasts like this. Suddenly, beasts like this guy believe that they've been in the right.

Why do you think an airplane falls from the sky? Because the enemy and beasts have been aided and comforted by a new world order that says you've been right, we deserve to be punished. Do it.

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Conservatives link Obama's purported "class
warfare," "positioning America against the Jewish state" to Holocaust Museum shooting

In their reactions to the June 10 shooting at the Holocaust Museum, several conservatives in the media have criticized President Obama for creating an "environment" and "climate" that helped foster the shooting. For instance, financial analyst and radio host Jim Lacamp said on Fox News that "we have an administration that's really done a lot of class warfare, a lot of class-baiting. And so, it sets the stage for social unrest"; syndicated radio host Tammy Bruce repeatedly claimed that the Obama administration's "increasing anti-Israel rhetoric and the pandering to the Jew-hating world Arab world ... encourages all the beasts among us"; and Newsmax.com posted a column claiming that "[i]t is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state."

During the June 10 edition of Fox News' Your World, Lacamp said that the Obama administration has engaged in "class warfare" and in "a lot of class-baiting," which he said he's "very concerned about moving forward":

CAVUTO: Well, and also we should say, the last terror attack -- but not this was not a terror attack, I got to stress that, and nor do authorities think it was -- but it occurred in Washington and it occurred in New York, and do you think, then, Jim, had this been in any other city -- take nothing away from a Wichita or a Macon, Georgia -- that it would've gotten the attention or gripped Wall Street the way this did?

LACAMP: New York and Washington, D.C., those are the two hubs, and anywhere else it would not have had the same impact. It does highlight something that I'm very concerned about economically, and that's social unrest. You have a lot of people losing their jobs; you have a lot of people losing their homes -- they're angry. And as interest rates go up, foreclosures accelerate, and we're going to have a lot of resets over the next two years. The same time, municipalities are cutting back on their police forces, and we have an administration that's really done a lot of class warfare, a lot of class-baiting. And so, it sets the stage for social unrest, and that's one of the things that I'm very concerned about moving forward.

CAVUTO: Although we're not making political views on this --

LACAMP: Right.

CAVUTO: I know where you're coming from.

Later during the program, Bob Newman -- a Colorado radio host whom Cavuto presented as a "terror expert" -- raised questions about whether Obama's recent visit to a concentration camp or his statement about Israeli settlements were factors in the shooting:

CAVUTO: But, Bob, normally when you're in tough economic times, it does bring out the sort of -- the home-grown loonies. And I wonder whether that's what we have to worry about, or we should be not forgetting. What do you think?

NEWMAN: That is oftentimes one of what is called the lead-up catalyst -- what led to this particular act that was mentioned just a few moments ago? What was the president of the United States doing last week? He was visiting a Holocaust site in Germany with Chancellor [Angela] Merkel. And a day or two before that, he was mentioning some things about the Jews in regards to the settlements in the West Bank. Were those factors here? Well, we don't know. That's what the investigation is for. Remember, simply because something might seem obvious upfront -- this has to be it -- not necessarily.

CAVUTO: Very true.

NEWMAN: And that's where the FBI will come in. They'll get to the bottom of it.

As Media Matters for America noted, Newman has a history of anti-Obama and anti-Muslim statements.

During her June 10 program, Bruce repeatedly claimed that Obama -- whom she refers to as "Urkel" -- "encourages" terrorist attacks and helped create the "environment" for attacks such as the Holocaust Museum shooting. While speculating about the identity of the shooter, who she said could be named "Muhammad," Bruce said:

BRUCE: We have this development, as I've noted.

One of the more important positions of the president is to send a message to people everywhere about what's going on, and the message of this president is: Israel does not deserve support. We are the bad guys. We have been wrong. We must pander to Islamists. We are grabbing our ankles. And what does that manifest as?

It is no coincidence that in the first -- that it takes the first six months of this man's dawn of a new era, Americans are taken hostage by foreign tyrants and Muslims, who happen to be American, are planning to try and have murdered people in this country. This is the environment that has been created by the American left.

Bruce later claimed: "On a day when his spiritual mentor and father figure, and a man who considers him his son, complained about 'them Jews.' A few days after B. Hussein Obama speaks to Islamists in Egypt, pandering and apologizing and grabbing his ankles."

Bruce also said: "Bottom line: The increasing anti-Israel rhetoric and the pandering to the Jew-hating world Arab world by the Urkel administration encourages all the beasts among us. ... When beasts among us get a sense that there is no leadership or you have a pantywaist in the White House, and there are no repercussions to what you do, and that this nation is bad, those kinds of people tell themselves they have permission to be crazy, to do want they want to do. Welcome to Urkel world." She further stated: "[W]hen you go exclusively to the Jew-haters and pander, you encourage beasts like this. Suddenly, beasts like this guy believe that they've been in the right."

Echoing her radio comments, Bruce wrote on Twitter: "Whomever the shooter is, there is no doubt the increasing anti-Israel rhetoric by the Urkel admim [sic] inflames and encourages beasts among us."

Hours after the shooting, Newsmax.com published a column by Rabbi Dr. Morton H. Pomerantz, a chaplain for the State of New York, headlined, "Obama Breeds Climate of Hate Against Jews." Pomerantz wrote: "Our new president did not tell a virulent anti-Semite to travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to kill Jews, but he is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us. It is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state." From Pomerantz's column:

Our new president did not tell a virulent anti-Semite to travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to kill Jews, but he is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us.

It is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state.

[...]

While Obama acknowledged that "six million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today" -- his discussion about the Holocaust was followed by this statement: "On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland."

"On the other hand ... "?

Obama's clever construct comparing the mass genocide of six million Jews to the Palestinian struggle will not be lost on the estimated 100 million Muslims who tuned into to hear him.

Perhaps it was not lost on James W. von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist identified as the alleged attacker Wednesday at the Holocaust Museum. He apparently felt that he could easily take retribution against the Jews for the atrocities Obama implies they are guilty of.

From the June 10 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:

CAVUTO: Jim, I'm always interested in how, you know, Wall Street follows this, too --

LACAMP: Right.

CAVUTO: -- because there were a lot of things to worry about with the economy.

LACAMP: Sure.

CAVUTO: But I've got to tell you, to a man and woman I talked to in the business world, they all tell me, "Neil, what's going on in Washington, the shooting?" Even though we have a pay czar controversy over, you know, how much money we're doling out, this -- I always feel this is sort of the unaddressed scab for Wall Street, that they're not quite over this, and maybe after 9-11, they never will be. What do you make of it?

LACAMP: I think you're absolutely right. I think we've lost a generation of buy-and-hold investors. Now, keep in mind, the market, if you go back 13 years, isn't any higher than it was 13 years ago.

CAVUTO: That's true.

LACAMP: People lost a lot of money in 2000 to 2002 --

CAVUTO: And they don't need much to get off the buying pot, do they?

LACAMP: They sure don't. And they lost a lot of money in those three years, then they lost a lot of money in 2008. They're still hearing all this economic news. The housing market has not gotten any better, so I think there's a lot of skepticism about the health of the economy and the stock market as a result. And so, people are still very leery of the stock market, and you can throw Washington and Wall Street into that mix because they're still leery about people on Washington and Wall Street.

CAVUTO: Well, and also we should say, the last terror attack -- but not this was not a terror attack, I got to stress that, and nor do authorities think it was -- but it occurred in Washington and it occurred in New York, and do you think, then, Jim, had this been in any other city -- take nothing away from a Wichita or a Macon, Georgia -- that it would've gotten the attention or gripped Wall Street the way this did?

LACAMP: New York and Washington, D.C., those are the two hubs, and anywhere else it would not have had the same impact. It does highlight something that I'm very concerned about economically, and that's social unrest. You have a lot of people losing their jobs; you have a lot of people losing their homes -- they're angry. And as interest rates go up, foreclosures accelerate, and we're going to have a lot of resets over the next two years. The same time, municipalities are cutting back on their police forces, and we have an administration that's really done a lot of class warfare, a lot of class-baiting. And so, it sets the stage for social unrest, and that's one of the things that I'm very concerned about moving forward.

CAVUTO: Although we're not making political views on this --

LACAMP: Right.

CAVUTO: I know where you're coming from.

From the June 10 broadcast of Talk Radio Network's The Tammy Bruce Show:

BRUCE: All right, Tom, we'll move on from this. The basic news is that the suspect is in custody. We don't know if he is shot. We still don't know how this transpired; some of the early news I heard was that the shooter went in shooting.

We, of course, do not have a name, or if the word Muhammad is in the name. What we do know already is that for the first time since September 11th, we have incidences of American Muslims -- Barack Hussein Obama is in office for six months -- for the first time since September 11th, 2001, we have had incidences of American Muslims planning attacks on Jews and infidels, or, in the instance of our recruiter, Private William Long -- may God bless his soul, may he rest in peace -- being shot dead by an American Muslim who had plotted and planned a variety of attacks, including against Jews. We have this development, as I've noted.

One of the more important positions of the president is to send a message to people everywhere about what's going on, and the message of this president is: Israel does not deserve support. We are the bad guys. We have been wrong. We must pander to Islamists. We are grabbing our ankles. And what does that manifest as?

It is no coincidence that in the first -- that it takes the first six months of this man's dawn of a new era, Americans are taken hostage by foreign tyrants and Muslims, who happen to be American, are planning to try and have murdered people in this country. This is the environment that has been created by the American left.

[...]

BRUCE: Whether it is an Islamist or not, somebody chose to take a rifle into the Holocaust Museum six months into the B. Hussein Obama administration. On a day when his spiritual mentor and father figure, and a man who considers him his son, complained about "them Jews." A few days after B. Hussein Obama speaks to Islamists in Egypt, pandering and apologizing and grabbing his ankles.

[...]

BRUCE: Bottom line: The increasing anti-Israel rhetoric and the pandering to the Jew-hating world Arab world by the Urkel administration encourages all the beasts among us. When there is also a seemingly -- a seeming lack of leadership and chaos -- there is a quiet chaos going on in this country right now, enough quiet chaos to where 1.2 million conservatives organize themselves on tax day.

So, you have the anti-abortion guy murdering Tiller. You've got the Islamists murdering a troop. You've got more American Islamists trying to plan, and planning, trying to implement the murder of Jews and infidels -- this is the Bronx group -- of course those two Islamist plans are ignored by the media. Big headline, now, out quickly: "white supremacist" -- as opposed to, of course, the fact that that means Jew hater. You got to make this be about race, even though it's about hating the Jews.

[...]

BRUCE: Bob in Miami says Obama's politics with the Islamic terrorists fomented this attack today at the Holocaust museum. Look, there is a reason why the Arab Islamists during World War II aligned with Hitler, because they had one thing in common: They wanted the Jews gone.

And this is just -- every dynamic, whether it is the murder of an abortion doctor, the murder of a troop, the murder of Jews, the shooting of tourists, here's what we can tell you: When beasts among us get a sense that there is no leadership or you have a pantywaist in the White House, and there are no repercussions to what you do, and that this nation is bad, those kinds of people tell themselves they have permission to be crazy, to do want they want to do. Welcome to Urkel world. This is what it is.

[...]

BRUCE: The people who are shooting people include those who are encouraged by the positions of B. Hussein Obama, including, of course, the troops -- look, when you say you're not going to release detainee photos because it's going to make people hate the troops, you're saying our troops have done horrible things. And then, oh my gosh, an Islamist -- an American Islamist murders a troop. What a shocker.

When you tell the world America's the bad guy, we will -- we're never going to defend ourselves again and we're just going to go negotiate with you, you get hostages taken. You get women hostages taken. And when you send a message to the world that Israel is a problem, Israel is committing genocide, that the so-called Palestinians have been put upon and deserve their own land, even though they had it and they used it as a terrorist man pad; when you go exclusively to the Jew-haters and pander, you encourage beasts like this. Suddenly, beasts like this guy believe that they've been in the right.

Why do you think an airplane falls from the sky? Because the enemy and beasts have been aided and comforted by a new world order that says you've been right, we deserve to be punished. Do it.

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

From Newt To Canute To Hardicanute

Yesterday, Markos wrote about the National Republican Senatorial Committee's pride in their candidate recruitment for the 1020 Anno Domini cycle. Heads must have rolled over at the NRSC (NB: heads removed via blunt ax, as the guillotine won't be invented for another 750 years or so), because they quickly changed the date in their press release to reflect the cycle that they're actually out to win:

1010.

Democracts are in trouble, now that the Republicans have used Mitch McConnell's unique Reagan Edition DeLorean (the origins of which are obscure and convoluted, but which tie together US support for the Contras, Christopher Lloyd's "lost year," and John DeLorean's 1982 coke-trafficking conviction) to temporally relocate America from the scandalous Roaring 20s back into the austere Tubercular Teens. I, for one, am worried about the hard-hitting negative ads we're likely to see:

"It won't happen today, or next year, or maybe not even for 25 years -- but is Obama preparing our grandchildren for The Coming Norman Invasion?"

"Why does Russ Feingold deny that CanNewt can command the waves and the tides?"

&c.

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

O’Reilly Ignores Holocaust Museum Shooting,
Wonders Whether It’s Even ‘Newsworthy’

Last week, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly went on a tirade against CNN for supposedly failing to cover the shooting of Pvt. William Long, an Army recruiter in Arkansas. Of course, O’Reilly’s claims were blatantly false — but that didn’t stop him from claiming to be “shocked” that he “can’t find any information about” the shooting in the mainstream media.

Exactly one week later, after a white supremacist shot and killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, O’Reilly never covered the shooting on his show. In fact, the only mention of the act of domestic terrorism came in a segment that, ironically, decried the media’s inadequate coverage of Long’s death:

O’REILLY: But the central question remains according to a new Pew study, the American media spent far more time on the murder of Tiller than on the murder of Private Long. … 10 to 1 the Pew study which was released yesterday, 10 to 1 more coverage. I mean, come on, come on.

[...]

O’REILLY: All right. Now, we had a murder today at the Holocaust Museum in D.C.

HENICAN: That was an awful case. Awful.

O’REILLY: Now, this is an 89-year-old anti-Semite bigot kills an innocent guy in the Holocaust Museum. OK? Now, what about the newsworthiness of this? … Is it as newsworthy as Private Long?

Watch it:
video details and more

Sean Hannity, whose show follows O’Reilly’s, never once mentioned the Holocaust Museum shooting — though he did discuss Miss California’s firing and played host to Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, and a star of “Miami Ink.”

O’Reilly slammed Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson for having “ignored” Long’s murder, which he said was an ideological decision:

O’REILLY: Look, Katie Couric didn’t cover Private Long. Charles Gibson ignored Private Long. Ignored it. Didn’t — didn’t say a word about it. … It’s a news decision, and our news decision is based on what is important. Their news decision is based on ideology.

If O’Reilly bases his coverage “on what is important” and not ideology, why did he fail to “say a word about” the single largest news story of the day?

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Right Wing Media Freaking Out Over DHS Report

From Media Matters:Does anybody remember when Glenn Beck said this about the recente Pittsburgh killing-spree?It didn’t take long before they immediately started jumping on the bandwagon that it was — this guy was a conservative, and his outrage, the reason why he was shooting was because of me. Now, I haven’t followed this part of [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://fruitfly.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/right-wing-media-freaking-out-over-dhs-r
eport/

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Why Max Blumenthal's video is important

Tons of people have commented on Max Blumenthal's video from Jerusalem. It's about time that Adam Horowitz and I, who run Mondoweiss, offer our views of the matter. My response is bound to be positive, because it created more traffic for our site than anything in our history (certainly anything I've posted!). That said, here is why his video is important journalism: because it reveals an essential component of Israeli and Zionist society that has largely been covered up.

You can argue about Blumenthal's method all night long. I won't be there for that argument. Is the video somewhat sensational? Of course. But the views expressed are shocking, and, while they are obviously cherrypicked, they are representative of a real current in Israeli society; and a journalist who is on to something important should have the freedom to highlight shocking stuff. That's how journalism works. You don't show readers your out-takes.

Does drunkenness matter? Not really. It didn't exonerate Mel Gibson. And as to the comparison to the frat boys that Sacha Baran Cohen set up on his bus in Borat, plying them with liquor, imagine if Cohen had been touring the south during the days of segregation and had produced such film, would anyone have objected? Of course not. Jim Crow needed to be explained by exploring the underlying racist attitudes. The cruel Israeli occupation, which is so utterly contemptuous of Palestinian existence, must also be explained; and these attitudes explain it.

As to the revelation, Americans have been in denial about Israel's character for decades now. Bob Simon pulled the veil back in his 60 Minutes report on the hateful occupation earlier this year; and of course Gaza demonstrated utter disdain for Palestinian life on the part of the Israeli military. Blumenthal has now done his part to show that murderous racism is a real current in Israeli society, and among the American Zionists who rally to Israel. The shocking quality of his video may be a rhetorical necessity: in bringing the news home to Americans in a way that so many reasonable blogposts have failed to do. Blumenthal may even be a game-changer.

The rage at the video is evidence of the denial about Israeli extremism that has pervaded the American discourse forever. I am reading Benny Morris's One State, Two State, published by Yale Press. It includes endless descriptions of Arab violence, Arab assassinations. The fact that a rightwing settler killed Yitzhak Rabin, amid a festival of threats toward Rabin from the right, is glossed; and while Chaim Arlosoroff, an early Zionist, is cited by Morris for his binationalism, the author declines to say that Arlosoroff was murdered by rightwing Zionists. As he fails to say that the Stern Gang took out UN negotiator Folke Bernadotte in 1948. Or that rightwingers killed Jacob de Haan, a Dutch anti-Zionist who met with Arabs.

So the murderous feelings in Blumenthal's video have a long pedigree.

A friend objected that these are kids from West Orange and Bethesda. I don't see the point. Zionism has always depended on Americans; and if you look at Netanyahu's braintrust, there are many Americans who were called to Israel: Ron Dermer, Dore Gold, and Michael Oren. And who are these Americans who are called to Israel? They are Americans who don't especially believe in minority rights, but like Oren, speak of the demographic threat that Arabs pose to the Jewish majority in Israel. They are Jewish nationalists.

That seems to me the largest point of the video. Who is Israel calling to in the age of Obama? To creeps. Watching this video, even I have sympathy for Israel. We're a long way from '67, when idealistic Jews were mobilized by Israel. Now it's purely the ethnocentric. A Jewish anti-Zionist friend of mine says he has a policy, No Jew left behind. He means that even as he opposes Israeli policies, he wants to look out for the Jews. I feel the same kind of tribal loyalty. Jews have made a terrible error in Israel by fostering racist policies; and it will require the vigorous efforts of enlightened American Jews to save them. Blumenthal's video is a wake-up call.

**
Read Mondoweiss here.

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!