The Crazies in Our Midst

With the advent of a black Democrat in the White House, the right wing Limbaughs, Becks, Coulters, O'Reillys, etc., which the White Supremacist racist types listen to for guidance in their hatred, have become louder in their propagandizing of fear and paranoia. And the results are there for all to see: the crazies are on the loose, believing they are justified and supported in their murders of innocent people.

Neo-Nazis are nothing new on the American scene
By Ed Tant

EXCERPT: Back in 1950, nearly 60 years before the Department of Homeland Security would infuriate conservative TV talkers and online right-wing squawkers with warnings of terrorism from the reactionary wing of politics, journalist George Seldes was prescient and correct when he wrote, "The main threat to democracy comes not from the extreme left but from the extreme right, which is able to buy huge sections of the press and radio, and wages a constant campaign to smear and discredit every progressive and humanitarian measure."

He was an American naval officer who became an American Nazi. He claimed to regret having "fought on the wrong side" in World War II. His hatred for Jews, black people and anyone else who was not part of his "Aryan America" brought shame and sadness to his family members, who also were victims of his mad obsession.

He was George Lincoln Rockwell, and until he was gunned down by one of his own men in 1967 he served as the model, template and evil inspiration for later American Nazis such as James von Brunn, who fatally shot a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington earlier this month.

Like Rockwell, von Brunn is a former military man who hates blacks and Jews and embraces the deadly doctrines of the Third Reich. Like Rockwell, von Brunn's militant madness claimed family members as its first victims. Rockwell's parents had been vaudeville performers with many Jewish friends in the entertainment world, including Groucho Marx. They were heartbroken by their son's hatred. Von Brunn's murderous hatred caused emotional distress and embarrassment for his long-suffering wife and son.

Commander Rockwell, as he liked to be called, began his neo-Nazi crusade in the America of the late 1950s. He railed against the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement and, despite the laughably small size of his American Nazi Party, Rockwell had a vaudevillian's ability to garner publicity with speeches and appearances on television, radio and college campuses.

In "American Fuehrer," his biography of Rockwell, author Frederick James Simonelli says the neo-Nazi "never commanded more than a few hundred loyalists and never rose above the status of a curiosity to most Americans. Yet his influence on the racist right in American politics is lasting and profound. ... Within the racist right, Rockwell holds a place of honor and homage." Though he was deservedly disdained by the vast majority of Americans during his life, today he is championed by racists and reactionaries such as James von Brunn, who have gone even more crazy than usual now that a black man resides in the White House.

Nazis are nothing new in America. Two decades before Rockwell agitated for an Aryan America, the German-American Bund gained thousands of members during the Great Depression. The Bund packed New York City's Madison Square Garden with a throng of thousands who rallied for homegrown Hitlerism here in the land of the free that is fertile soil for the growth of fascism during uncertain economic times.

In 1984, members of a neo-Nazi group called The Order shot and killed Alan Berg, a liberal, Jewish radio host whose talk show broadcast from Denver reached listeners in more than 30 states. Several years before right-wing radio's Rush Limbaugh had a national stage, Berg was informing and entertaining large and growing audiences with liberal lambastings of the reactionary right-wingers until he was killed by the cowardly curs and neo-Nazi nutcases of The Order.

Today, such hate groups as American Nazis are once again at work sowing their poison seeds of domestic terrorism and discord. One does not have to look far to read sentiments like those voiced by James von Brunn and his ilk who howl that President Obama is a Muslim or a socialist who was not born in America.

Back in 1950, nearly 60 years before the Department of Homeland Security would infuriate conservative TV talkers and online right-wing squawkers with warnings of terrorism from the reactionary wing of politics, journalist George Seldes was prescient and correct when he wrote, "The main threat to democracy comes not from the extreme left but from the extreme right, which is able to buy huge sections of the press and radio, and wages a constant campaign to smear and discredit every progressive and humanitarian measure."