So is Ron Paul a racist, or what?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

If his long history of bigotry doesn't sway you, including those racist newsletters, how about the fact that white supremacists thought he was "one of us":

Ron Paul was a hot topic this week on the talk radio show hosted by prominent white supremacist Don Black and his son Derek. Mr. Black said he received Mr. Paul's controversial newsletters when they were first published about two decades ago and described how the publications were perceived by members of the white supremacist movement. Former KKK Grand Wizard and Louisiana Congressman David Duke also phoned in to explain why he’s voting for Mr. Paul.

"Everybody, all of us back in the 80's and 90's, felt Ron Paul was, you know, unusual in that he had actually been a Congressman, that he was one of us and now, of course, that he has this broad demographic -- broad base of support," Mr. Black said on his broadcast yesterday.

Mr. Black is a former Klansman and member of the American Nazi Party who founded the "white nationalist" website Stormfront in 1995. He donated to Mr. Paul in 2007 and has been photographed with the candidate. Mr. Paul has vocal supporters in Stormfront's online forum. Mr. Black has repeatedly said he doesn't currently think Mr. Paul is a "white nationalist."

Mr. Paul's newsletters contained threats of a "coming race war," worries about America's "disappearing white majority" and warning [sic] against "the federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS." He has since denied writing the newsletters, which appeared under his own name.

"I didn't write them, I disavow them, that's it," Mr. Paul said in a tense CNN interview.

On Monday, Mr. Black said he originally believed the newsletters were written by Mr. Paul.

"They went out under his name in the first person and most people receiving these newsletters, including me, thought he really did write them," Mr. Black said.

Ba-zoom. (Or, as they say in the tennis world: game... set... match.)

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Lesson for today:

Not all bigots come dancing around a burning cross wearing silly white hoods or marching down the Champs-Elysees waving swastika flags. Some of them are leading figures in the Republican Party, enjoying long and successful political careers, poised to do extremely well in Iowa (whether the GOP "mainstream" likes it or not).

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For more on Paul's bigotry and conspiracy-theorizing craziness, see this piece by James Kirchick (who wrote the first piece linked above) at the Times.

Another version of "Don't Ask Don't Tell"

By Mustang Bobby

You still can't be openly gay and serve in the United States armed forces, but according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, if you're a white supremacist, no problem.

Evidence continues to mount that current Pentagon policies are inadequate to prevent racial extremists from joining and serving in the armed forces. In recent months, we have found dozens of personal profiles listing “military” as an occupation on a neo-Nazi website. Because the presence of extremists in the armed forces is a serious threat to the safety of the American public, we believe Congressional action is warranted.

This isn't new; as long ago as 2005 the Department of Defense knew that because of low volunteer rates, they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel in order to fill the ranks.

Additionally, as seen in Appendix A, the relatively larger number of message board postings warning new recruits from revealing their extremist group associations exemplifies the presence of both military policy and action to disallow such activities in the Armed Forces. Effectively, the military has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy pertaining to extremism. If individuals can perform satisfactorily, without making their extremist opinions overt through words or actions that violate policy, reflect poorly on the Armed Forces, or disrupt the effectiveness and order of their units, they are likely to be able to complete their contracts.

As Amanda Terkel points out at Think Progress, "the right wing was apoplectic over the recent Department of Homeland Security report that warned extremists may 'attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans.' This doesn’t mean that all members of the military are racist or likely to sign up with extremist groups. But with more than 12,500 valuable service members discharged since 1994 for nothing more than their sexual orientation, it seems that the military is kicking out the wrong people."

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Racism first: Pat Buchanan, the Republican Party, and the new (white nationalist) majority

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, it's quite amusing that (white nativist) Pat Buchanan and "white nationalist" Peter Brimelow spewed their bigotry and ignorance beneath a banner that misspelled the word "conference" -- it was spelled "conferenece," with an extra 'e' (for eugenics?) -- but what's rather more serious, if not genuinely disturbing, is that this sort of bigotry and ignorance still plays so well on the right and throughout much of America. Indeed, the point of the confereneece (I'll add in an extra 'e' for evil) was to revive racism in the Republican Party in hopes of winning over "working class white Democrats" and "building the new majority." (Of course, there's already more than enough racism both in the GOP and in Buchanan's right-wing nativist circles to feed off and build upon, so I'll assume it's a work-in-progress -- or, rather, a work-in-regress.)

As you might expect, one target of the white-first, English-only bigots was Sonia Sotomayor, whom both men ridiculed, as well as Obama, who supposed will require Americans to speak Spanish -- not that that's true, of course, but the truth hardly matters here, and what's the problem with bilingualism anyway? (Well, it's a huge, huge problem for the bigots, of course, because it threatens their English-only linguistic hegemony, and, what's more, Spanish is spoken by Mexicans, among others, whom they regard, as they regard all "colored" folk, as dirty and less than human.

But who am I to protest? This is the new majority! This is the future of the Republican Party!

If this is what the GOP wants, if this is what the GOP really is, then, sure, by all means, let it show us all its true colors. (So to speak.)

I'm sure Pitchfork Pat will lead his party to the promised land. It's just a matter of time.

Holocaust

By Capt. Fogg

When James von Brunn was sentenced to jail for the armed kidnap attempt of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors it was only because the Judge was a Jew and the jury was black. No doubt about it. He's been raging about Jews and Black people since most of you were children and he sees something called the Aryan race as victims of such inferior groups.

It's tempting, as a person who despises the growing culture of hate and defamation in the US, to tie this man and his hundreds of thousands of supporters to the hate shouters we're all too familiar with, but in good conscience, I cannot. Even so their endless derision of fabricated scapegoats has inured us to the danger of the terrorists out there among us. Their hate talk legitimizes and breeds more hate talk and we become habituated to it. Those standard scapegoats tend to include Jews, Blacks, and the Federal Reserve Bank, all of which are also targets of people like James von Brunn.

Von Brunn has written that the "Holocaust Religion" is destroying Western (by which he means White) culture. It's common amongst people who would like to re-invent themselves as victims of relentless persecution to resent those who have actually been victims and so it's not surprising that the elderly hatemonger chose the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC for what was surely intended to be a suicide attack.

I'm probably less surprised about this than my Christian countrymen, since I've been listening to all the old calumnies and fantasies about baby-eating, blood-drinking, Christ-killing, warmongering, bank-controlling Jews all my life while many of them are just now beginning to accept that the vilification of Jews has been, if not the very backbone, at least a major buttress of Christianity. Certainly not all however and certainly they are not the only ones. Muslim vilification of the Jews in all their fantastic stereotypes is second to none and many of them consider the Jews to be in control of the United States, if not Europe, Canada, and Australia as well.

There is a lesson here and it is that we have not only tolerated such people, but made heroes of some of them to a degree: men who will stand up to a government we blame for all our own excesses and deficiencies. They are not and their acts of terrorism are warnings that we should examine our own angers and stop blaming a host of straw men for having messed up our country.