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So Sorry To hear About Your Split…Not.

I’ve often wondered when a politically well-placed rightwing Jewish-American would finally say “Enough”. Looks as though that time has come, according to Alternet:

A Split In the Racist Right

By Heidi Beirich and Mark Potok, Intelligence Report. Posted August 16, 2006.

A rift has opened between those who see blacks, Hispanics and Muslims as the primary enemy, and those who blame Jews for every evil.

For a gathering of people devoted to denouncing the inferiority of blacks and sounding the alarm about civilization-threatening Muslims, the biannual conferences thrown by the New Century Foundation, publisher of the racist newsletter American Renaissance, are decidedly genteel affairs. Men dress in suits and ties, women in formal business attire, and there are no uniformed skinheads or Klansmen to be seen. Large plasma television screens, Starbucks coffee spreads and fancy linens adorn the hotel meeting hall. Epithets have no place here.

Or at least they didn’t. At the latest edition of the conferences that began in 1994, held this February at the Hyatt Dulles hotel, a nasty spat broke out that upset the gathering’s decorum — and may even shape the future of the radical right.

It began when David Duke, the former Klan leader and author of Jewish Supremacism, strode to a microphone after French author Guillaume Faye wrapped up a talk vilifying Muslims entitled “The Threat to the West.” Duke thanked Faye for remarks that “touched my genes.” But then he went one further.

“There is a power in the world that dominates our media, influences our government and that has led to the internal destruction of our will and spirit,” Duke said, according to an undisputed account in The Forward newspaper.

“Tell us, tell us,” someone in the back yelled.

“I’m not going to say it,” Duke replied. Laughter began to fill the room, until a short, angry man leaped from his seat, walked up to Duke and began to curse.

“You fucking Nazi, you’ve disgraced this meeting!” he said.

And with that, Michael Hart, a Jewish astrophysicist and long-time attendee at American Renaissance conferences, headed for the door. As many as 50 people at the conference began to jeer and point at the rapidly disappearing Hart.

This extraordinary incident marked the beginning of an open rift between those on the radical right who see blacks, Hispanics and Muslims as the primary enemy, and those who say “the Jews” are ultimately behind every evil — a split that has usually stayed just below the surface but now threatens a leading institution of American extremism. While in the past he has managed to bridge this divide mainly by ignoring it, American Renaissance founder Jared Taylor now must finally come to terms with the split. His dilemma boils down to this: Throw out the anti-Semites and try to build a larger movement with electoral possibilities like those increasingly seen in Britain and Germany; or openly join hands with the very energetic neo-Nazis, even though that means the loss of any remaining shred of respectability.

“These are the makings of a major schism,” wrote Shawn Mercer, co-founder and moderator of American Renaissance’s AR List, an E-mail group. “If American Renaissance ultimately fails as a result of this donnybrook at the convention, it will be a sad, possibly fatal turn of events for the future of whites.”

[My emphasis]

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There’s an opportunity for the progressive movement here, if only they choose to take it. There appear to be many Jewish-americans and moderate Republicans who’ve been trying to have their cake and eat it; they want to be able to espouse radical rightwing economic and foreign policy views while closing their eyes to exactly who it is they’re consorting with on that radical rightwing. I suppose thinking you can pick and choose from elements of an ideology is a quintessentially consumerist American point of view, but you can’t be just a little bit neofascist. They’ll give you free samples, but eventually you have to buy the whole package and that includes Holocaust denial, ZOG and the Protocols of The Elders of Zion. After all, wasn’t it the Glorious Leader himself who said ‘You’re either with us or against us”?

It’s way past time for a lot of people to decide what side they’re on, even if it’s only out of personal self-interest and fear for their own skin. The reality-based community welcomes new members.

Read more Neofascism, Judaism, Progressive US Politics, Radical Right

Trip,Trap,Trip,Trap…

From The Independent comes this fascinating article analysing US media coverage of the attack on Lebanon, The writer, Andrew Gumbel, pulls no punches:

[…]

As the conflict has gone on, the media interpretation of it has only hardened. Essentially, the line touted by cable news hosts and their correspondents – closely adhering to the line adopted by the Bush administration and its neoconservative supporters – is that Hizbollah is part of a giant anti-Israeli and anti-American terror network that also includes Hamas, al-Qa’ida, the governments of Syria and Iran, and the insurgents in Iraq. Little effort is made to distinguish between these groups, or explain what their goals might be. The conflict is presented as a straight fight between good and evil, in which US interests and Israeli interests intersect almost completely. Anyone who suggests otherwise is likely to be pounced on and ripped to shreds.

When John Dingell, a Democratic congressman from Michigan with a large Arab American population in his constituency, gave an interview suggesting it was wrong for the US to take sides instead of pushing for an end to violence, he was quickly – and loudly – accused of being a Hizbollah apologist. Newt Gingrich, the Republican former House speaker, accused him of failing to draw any moral distinction between Hizbollah and Israel. Rush Limbaugh, the popular conservative talk-show host, piled into him, as did the conservative newspaper The Washington Times. The Times was later forced to admit it had quoted Dingell out of context and reprinted his full words, including: ” I condemn Hizbollah, as does everyone else, for the violence.”

The hysteria has extended into the realm of domestic politics, especially since this is a congressional election year. Republican have sought to depict last week’s primary defeat of the Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, one of the loudest cheerleaders for the Iraq war, as some sort of wacko extremist anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli stand that risks undermining national security. Vice-President Dick Cheney said Lieberman’s defeat would encourage “al-Qa’ida types” to think they can break the will of Americans. The fact that the man who beat Lieberman, Ned Lamont, is an old-fashioned East Coast Wasp who was a registered Republican for much of his life is something Mr Cheney chose to overlook.

Part of the Republican strategy this year is to attack any media that either attacks them or has the temerity to report facts that contradict the official party line. Thus, when Reuters was forced to withdraw a photograph of Beirut under bombardment because one of its stringers had doctored the image to increase the black smoke, it was a chance to rip into the news agency over its efforts to be even-handed. In a typical riposte, Michelle Malkin denounced Reuters as “a news service that seems to have made its mark rubber-stamping pro-Hizbollah propaganda”.

[…]

No doubt this article, having as it does the temerity to contradict the Republican party line, will be similarly attacked by the Right’s 21st century version of the flying picket, the flying paid trolls, who’re warming up their keyboards and synchronising their talking points even as we speak.

US Media, Dearborn Michigan, US Moslems. Fox-TV News, Reuters, Wingnutosphere

BIG Bada-Boom

I’ve been feeling very homesick lately, a feeling not helped by a spate of recent BBC programmes about the rural beauties of Cornwall, Devon and Plymouth. But what’s done it most of all is that tonight this year’s annual National Firework Competition starts again on Plymouth Hoe, and the competitors’re going to try and break the world record for most rockets set off at any one time.

Ooooh.

Over 55,000 rockets will take to the sky in a breathtaking display by University of Plymouth ?Rocket Man? Roy Lowry next month when he attempts to break the Guinness World Record? of the most rockets ever launched simultaneously.

Roy Lowry is confident he can beat the current record of 39,210 rockets as his attempt will be made possible ? thanks to funding from Plymouth City Council – by the use of fifteen specially constructed frames laced with pyrotechnic fuse that will be ignited electrically. The rockets have been kindly donated by Black Cat Fireworks, in Huddersfield, and the launch frames and fusing were provided by Luton-based Fantastic Fireworks.

The exciting display is due to take place at 9.30pm on Wednesday 16 August when the public will be able to take up their usual vantage points on the Hoe and across Plymouth Sound in a warm-up for the annual UK Fireworks Championships (which is in it?s tenth year), organised by Plymouth City Council and TESA.

It’s always been an absolutely spectacular treat to sit in the balmy night air on the grassy battlements of the Citadel on the Hoe, beer in hand, ooh-ing and aah-ing as thousands upon thousands of incredible fireworks light up the sky and the waters of Plymouth Sound. Families, couples and groups all have a fantastic time, and best of all, it’s free. I haven’t a lot of good to say for Plymouth City Council generally , but whoever had the idea of hosting the national fireworks competition deserves a medal.

There’re 3 displays per night, all set off from barges on the sea, and you see amazing fireworks you’ll never see anywhere else; hearts within hearts, little ringed planets, gorgeous, subtly coloured falling stars and great golden chrysanthemum heads the size of moons. There seem to be yearly trends in firework colours too, one year it was lemon yellow and lime green, the next a delicate shade of lilac, another a particularly pretty salmon pink and gold.

I wonder what this year’s’ll be? Oh, how I wish I could be there to find out.

UPDATE: Woohah, 56,000 got let off. It still has to be validated by the Guiness bods, but the record looks secure for my hometown and alma mater.

Pyrotechnics, Fireworks, Devon, Plymouth, Competition

Heh.

And indeed…

Racism, George Felix Allen, US Elections, Campaigns

Michelle Malkin, Queen Of Comedy

I see the La Pasionara of the genocide set has once again proven that her cultural aspirations are greater than her reach – now she’s attempting to take on Armando Ianucci by encouraging Fox’s learning-disabled audience to email the BBC and complain about his new BBC2 show Time Trumpet.

Chase Me Ladies’ Harry Hutton tells the story in his own very special way:

[…]

I don?t mind being hectored about the Middle East by people who have never been within 500 miles of it ?that?s what blogs are all about- but now this hellish woman is attacking our comedy shows as well, and this cannot be borne. It seems she’s in a foaming rage about Armando Iannucci?s new programme on BBC 2, among several hundred other things that she’s furious about.

Jesus, woman, calm down. You?re like a bear with a sore head. I don?t think I?ve ever been as enraged about anything as she is about everything. ?When did 9/11 become a laughing matter?? she asks, as if anyone were laughing about it, and as if she were able to tell the difference between award-winning comedy and a poke in the eye with a burnt stick.

You?ve got to realise the kind of people we?re dealing with here. Malkin doesn?t just take life seriously; she actually takes Hugh Hewitt seriously. Such a person is simply not qualified to have an opinion on what is, and what is not, ?a laughing matter?, since a sense of humour calls for a sense of proportion, which in her case she has not got. Almost any attempt to make jokes that rises above the level of a fat man falling over is going to confuse and upset her and her readers, but that?s just something the BBC is going to have to live with. She wasn?t the target audience anyway.

Given that they neither pay the licence fee, watch the shows, nor live in the stinking country, it doesn?t matter how many cretins join your email campaign. The BBC should tell them all to knob off.

I myself am inclined to be somewhat more emphatic. We worship Armando as a minor ( albeit pockmarked and confusingly Scots/Italian) comedy god in this house. Malkin isn’t intellectually or morally fit to lick his doorstep clean. or any other. Not even Bernard Manning’s.

Oh, do be quiet, you silly heifer. Go back to your gusset-typing and concentration camp guard fantasies and leave us non-hysterical non-USAnians to have fun in our own way – taking the piss out of vicous neurotics like you.

Oddly enough, one of the things that really really pisses me off about Malkin is not the screaming racist hyperbole and genocidal tendencies so much as that every time I see her name I get earwormed with a Christmas song.

“Anchor baby, hurry down the chimney tonight…”

Quick! Someone sing The Macacarena! Oops, I see somebody already did.

Comedy, BBC, Fox News, TV, Michelle Malkin, Armando Ianucci, Time Trumpet.