(Posted originally on Facebook)
The other day, I, like many other people, learned of the tragic shooting at the Holocaust Museum by self-identified Neo-Nazi James Von Brunn. It was yet another example of how prevalent bigotry, prejudice, and racism are in the world today.
However, this post is not about how horrible Van Brunn's actions are. I think it's pretty much universally agreed, so I'm not going to wax poetic about it. If you haven't been living underwater, you are well aware that racism in America, and the world, has not gone away, and continues to plague our society. So I'll move on to my central point.
I tend to look at political blogs....a lot. I tend to read DailyKos, as it fits my lefty position, along with other progressive blogs. But I also tend to check out some of the right-wing sites like RedState and FreeRepublic....generally just to check out what the wackjobs on those sites are posting, and for the feeling of schadenfreude I get (hey, I'm only human) when I see them despondent because progressive thought has achieved some major victories since 2006 (not as much as I'd like...but hey, I'll take what I can get). Now I'll admit that when I began looking at these sites, I found a lot of the crazier posts funny...but recently I've begun to find them much more infuriating, and sometimes frightening.
While there are many intelligent conservatives out there, obviously, as there are intelligent progressives and people of all political stripes, and armed nutjobs can come from all across the political spectrum, recently it has appeared as if only the know-nothing element of the American Right has been asserting its presence.
The strongest example of this is the politicization of the Holocaust Museum killing, and the assertion that self-identified Neo-Nazi James von Brunn was some sort of liberal, socialist, or leftist. This assertion has been based upon falsifications, misunderstandings of history so large that they would have to be intentional, and ideas that simply defy logic. Let me explain.
First, I've read (and heard) assertions that Nazis, by definition, are left-wing, rather than right wing...this idea has been extended to Fascists as well. Somehow, this assertion is based entirely upon the fact that the Nazi Party was officially the "National Socialist" party. Somehow, these right-wing bloggers and their messiah, Rush Limbaugh, have failed to realize that among the first people the Nazis imprisoned and killed during their genocide were socialists and communists. The Nazis were forcefully anti-left. The one commonality that they shared with socialists was an emphasis on the worker. However, while socialists and communists appealed to class, encouraging the working classes to fight the oligarchy, Nazis appealed to nationalism and racialism, blaming problems not on the wealthy classes, but on minority groups and other populations they deemed "undesirable." Individuals have also stated that Mussolini, and other Fascists, were socialists because they regulated business. But this is a great oversimplification, as these fascists merely conspired with big business to preserve government power and enrich those in power, rather than regulating and controlling business for the purposes of worker protection/benefit. A classic example of fascism is Pinochet's Chile. In that totalitarian environment, big business thrived.
While German Nazis, Italian Fascists (officially right-wing) and Russian and Chinese Communists (both officially left-wing) killed millions of people, this has less to do with a shared ideology than shared methods. The fact is, the commonality between Stalin and Hitler is their brutality and their totalitarianism, as opposed to their goals.
Right-wing bloggers have also asserted that von Brunn, like many Nazis, hated Christianity. They have somehow tied this to the secular Left, claiming that those of us on the left are implicitly anti-religious and anti-Christian. First, the idea that the entire left is against all religion is so preposterous that I won't even address it. Second, these bloggers have failed to realize that the Nazi Party was anti-Christian because it instead emphasized pre-Christian Germanic religious beliefs, which they distorted and morphed to fit their racist/genocidal ideology. Further, they neglect to address the fact that fascist dictators, including Franco, Mussolini, and Pinochet, emphasized religion in their respective societies, through manipulation of or alliances with the Catholic Church.
The most ludicrous point I've heard (and you can find it on Gawker) was asserted by arch-conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, when he somehow called von Brunn (mind you, a guy who wrote foaming-at-the-mouth rants regarding Black people and Jews) a "liberal" and a "multiculturalist." Right. Just let that marinate for a moment.
So, just to sum up...despite the fact that self-identified arch-conservative Pat Buchanan has minimized the Holocaust, the fact that self-identified conservative organizations such as the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens promote neo-Confederate, separatist and racist beliefs, the fact that Neo-Nazi and Klan groups are recruiting new members based upon anti-immigrant arguments made by so-called conservatives, right-wing extremist racists are actually left wing! Who knew?
While we on the left have our own extremists, and while the far right does not have a complete monopoly on racism and bigotry, let's not bullshit ourselves. The bloggers asserting that von Brunn, and the Nazis, are secret liberals are simply making themselves and their movement look like assholes. And that's fine by me.
But I'd rather have a discussion, or a debate, based on facts, and based on reality.