Holocaust Museum Shooter: Christian-Hating Socialist
By: Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, June 11, 2009
On June 10, the nation tragically witnessed a memorial dedicated to commemorating an atrocity become the site of yet more death. Just before 1 p.m., longtime neo-Nazi James Wenneker Von Brunn entered the Holocaust Museum on the National Mall and opened fire in an attempt to complete the Final Solution his hero had left tentative, an omission Von Brunn dubbed “Hitler’s biggest mistake.” As former Defense Secretary Bill Cohen wandered the museum grounds, Von Brunn killed Stephen T. Johns, a black security officer, then was shot himself. As of this writing, the 88-year-old is in critical condition.
The white-wing fringe greeted the news with predictable joy. Its most popular website, Stormfront.org, saluted “White Racialist Treasure: James Von Brunn” in 2004; a thoughtful reader, seeing Von Brunn had backed up his recent threats with deadly action, wrote yesterday, “Definitely needs a bump today.” Another hoped the shooting would cause Americans to believe taking their children to Holocaust memorials is now “an insurance risk.”
Yet racists are not alone in their glee. Leftists have decided to exploit Von Brunn’s madness to engender fear of rampant conservative terrorism. They overlook one point: the shooter was not a conservative.
A review of his lengthy associations reveals Von Brunn hardly fits the stereotype of a Religious Right, GOP precinct captain. He denounced the Christian faith as a dastardly Jewish conspiracy, a “HOAX” invented by the Apostle Paul to “DESTROY ROMAN CULTURE” from within by undermining its pagan virility. (All screaming capitalization and grammatical errors in this piece appear in the original.) Like others on the racist fringe, the shooter proclaimed clearly: “SOCIALISM, represents the future of the West.”
Karl Rove, Glenn Beck, and Freepers Killed Stephen Johns?
Never apt to let facts get in the way of slander, the Left immediately branded Von Brunn a conservative – and found a way to tie his actions to their favorite demons: President Bush and Fox News. Upon learning of the tragedy, Huffington Post blogger Michelle Kraus wrote simply, “Thank you very much Karl Rove and your minions.” Fellow HuffenPuffer Joseph Palermo, – also, surprise, an Associate Professor of History at California State University-Sacramento – accused Fox News host Glenn Beck of “using the public airwaves to incite violence,” calling his program “a white reactionary tour de force – incendiary, stupid, and racist.” The usually staid Alan Colmes smeared the mainstream conservative website FreeRepublic.com, an attack quickly recycled by a ThinkProgress.org reader, who added this sterling political analysis: “There isn’t really a line drawn between the right wing ‘base’ and neo-Nazis any more. It’s a single continuum, and freepers is right there in that gray area.”
Meanwhile, more significant voices joined in. Michael Tomasky, editor of Guardian America, the U.S. affiliate of Britain’s widely read socialist newspaper The Guardian, immediately seized upon the shooting to bludgeon American conservatives. In a blog entitled, “Will They Call Him Terrorist?” Tomasky wrote: “So this is the second act of right-wing terror, the first being the murder of Dr. Tiller, in a mere three weeks. These are terrorists, as surely as Zawahiri is. Will Rush Limbaugh and the other demagogues like him call them that?” He went on to call Rush “Oxyboy” and closed: “All right my British friends. Your turn to sneer again. But let’s all say a prayer for the victims of this craziness and their loved ones first.”
The “mainstream” media quickly went into overload. CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who insisted: “This is a real movement out there. This is not just the fringe-of-the-fringe.” He did not square this with his assessment minutes earlier that there were, at best, 100-200,000 white supremacists in the country and only “a tiny slither” would commit violent acts.[1] MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann denounced “the environment” that produced “two acts of right-wing violence.”[2] (Another HuffPo blogger described a Black Muslim’s shooting of a military recruiter in Arkansas and a Muslim terror cell’s plot to blow up Bronx synagogues as “right-wing” phenomena.) Rachel Maddow insisted, “within two weeks we’ve seen two shootings…when the shooter was clearly motivated by extreme right-wing views.”
All have seized on the shooting in an attempt to salvage the reputation of Janet Napolitano, claiming the two (or four) eruptions confirm the Department of Homeland Security’s retracted assertion “that lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent right-wing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.” No one can deny Von Brunn’s danger, but neither should anyone be confused about his collectivist history and deeply held totalitarian ideology.
Von Brunn’s Letter to Jim Webb
Yesterday’s attack was Von Brunner’s second attempted strike. Police arrested him on December 7, 1981, after they found him prowling the Washington, D.C., offices of the Federal Reserve Bank posing as a journalist. Inside a bag slumped over his shoulder, they discovered a handgun, a shotgun, and a knife, which he claimed he would use to place then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker under citizens’ arrest.[3] After being convicted, he tried to obtain help by contacting then-Admiral Jim Webb, now a Democratic U.S. Senator from Virginia, but Von Brunn claimed the postmaster “purloined” the letter. The New York Daily News reports after his release in 1989, Von Brunner “worked at a bookstore run by a Holocaust-denying group called the Institute of Historical Review,” then lived in Hayden Lake, Idaho – then the headquarters of the Aryan Nations.[4]
At some point, he settled in the Maryland area and decided to jump into the publishing game himself.
His Own Words: Not Newsworthy
Von Brunn’s motivation leaps off every page of his self-published “book,” Kill the Best Gentiles, a title supposedly derived from secret Jewish instructions to slaughter the goyim. (You can download the first six chapters here.) Remarkably, his words have received little scrutiny, likely because of what they establish: the “right-wing terrorist” of the Holocaust Museum is an anti-religious socialist.
Somehow in its five-page excerpt of Von Brunn’s book, Salon did not find these quotations. I have chosen to reproduce enough of his writings to demonstrate they are not being taken out of context.
Hate Jews, Hate the Jewish Messiah
Although the hate crimes industry lumps neo-Nazis and White Nationalists in with the “Religious Right” – and occasionally, FrontPage Magazine, the better to smear you with – few Americans realize the true believers are not merely non-Christian but anti-Christian. Like their predecessors, they trace Aryan downfall to “culture distorters” (guess who?) – and among the largest “distortion” is the replacement of warlike Germanic gods with Jesus Christ, the Messiah promised by the Jewish Scriptures. Von Brunn dedicated Kill the Best Gentiles to the late professor Revilo P. Oliver. Typical of Nazis, past and present, Oliver branded Christianity a “Jewish cult” and “spiritual syphilis.” Brunn’s follows suit. He shuns the words of the Bible, exhorting his readers: “Remember, these delusions of grandeur were written by HEBREWS about themselves. Megalomaniacs of such magnitude generally are manic-depressives confined to insane asylums.” (p. 31.) His distaste for their Deity could hardly be more evident:
JEHOVAH, like Alley Oop, says whatever the scriptwriters print in the blurbs. Those who find it compelling to believe Yahweh created a flat earth, circa 5000 B.C., spoke from a burning bush, bared his buttocks, parted the Red Sea, and loves JEWS above all other nations, share a childish credulity with those who believe millions of JEWS died in German gas-chambers. It also confirms JEWISH conviction that Gentiles are stupid sheep. It makes one want to puke. (p. 32.)
Having vilified the Father, he turns his focus to the Son. “Jesus (if he did exist),” Von Brunn wrote, “was born in Galilee (‘Unclean Land of the Gentiles’).” (p. 57.) In a post on the appropriately named website Antichrist.net, Von Brunn expanded on the reason Saul of Tarsus, a former rabbi, would become the chief apostle of this religion to the Gentiles:
Saul — a Roman citizen — suddenly realized how he could destroy Rome! Saul trembled uncontrollably with fear and joy. He would simply promulgate the insane teachings of Jesus! What better way to destroy a Nation — any Nation — than to undermine her hubris; her gods, ethics, mores, history, her gene-pool — in short, Saul would DESTROY ROMAN CULTURE. Then, as night follows day, with her foundations rotted, the Roman Empire would FALL. Saul decided to begin the HOAX by inventing a miraculous encounter on the road to Damascus with the reincarnated Jesus the Christ!
Toward that end — no different than Hollywood script-writers today — Saul created a bogus a la Spielberg docu-drama stuffed with lies, miracles, guilt trips, betrayal, virgin birth, eternal damnation, salvation — a scenario appealing to the superstitious, vulnerable, ignorant yearning sheep — he named his hoax “Christianity.” …
The Gospels profess that only Christians may enter Yahweh’s Kingdom of Heaven. To qualify, among other demands, Christians must LOVE THEIR ENEMIES (Jews); give away their personal belongings; eschew knowledge; judge not, despise nature, abandon earthly pleasures, acknowledge that all YHWH’s children are equal; and above all else worship YHWH, the jealous, wrathful, vengeful, unforgiving, genocidal, anthropomorphic tribal god (Jesus’ father) created by Hebrews in their image and likeness….The Big Lie technique, employed by Paul to create the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, also was used to create the HOLOCAUST RELIGION … CHRISTIANITY AND THE HOLOCAUST are HOAXES.
“Christianity” destroyed Roman Civilization. The “Holocaust” Religion is destroying Western Civilization. The Aryan gene-pool dies, “unwept, unhonored and unsung.”
This assessment seems unlikely to stem from Rush Limbaugh (raised Lutheran), Glenn Beck (converted to Mormonism), or Karl Rove (a Presbyterian accused of agnosticism). So, too, are his unexamined statist economic beliefs.
Socialism: “The Future of the West”
If Von Brunn shared the anti-Christian hatred expressed by Revilo Oliver, he accepted the collectivist, socialist views of Francis Parker Yockey, a guiding light and philosopher of fascism unafraid of aligning with Third World socialists. Francis Parker Yockey’s magnum opus,the 600+ page Imperium, is among the books most beloved by Willis Carto – who founded the “bookstore” that employed Von Brunn following his prison release – and Carto continues to proffer it a foundational text for the philosophically pretentious fascist. Yockey wrote, “The 19th century was the age of Individualism; the 20th and 21st are the ages of Socialism.” Sounding like a Marxist determinist he wrote, “Destiny is irreversible, and the Spirit of Socialism, with its latent Resurgence of Authority and its youthful will-to-power moved steadily forward.” Yockey faulted “Capitalistic thinkers” who “found no ethical fault with destruction of groups and individuals” – that is, races – “by other groups and individuals, so long as the criminal law was not infringed.” In his mind, “The alternative to Socialism was not Capitalism, but chaos.”
Von Brunn proved in Kill the Best Gentiles that he learned well:
Yockey, in his suppressed book Imperium, notes that MARXISM is seriously flawed because MARX, being a JEW, could not understand the real differences between CAPITALISM and SOCIALISM, which emanated from the WESTERN CULTURE-ORGANISM. Capitalism and Socialism are how a Nation (Family, People, Race) feels, thinks, and lives, and secondarily are ECONOMIC CONCEPTS. One [capitalism] is past history; the other, WESTERN SOCIALISM, represents the future of the West, and the end of JEWRY on Western soil.
The Age of Reason produced CAPITALISM in the West, the IDEA of rugged individualism: “Every Man for Himself.” Freedom from authority: “Don’t tread on me!” At the same time, paradoxically, it was understood, that these rugged individuals should act in the best interest of the Nation-State. To the West ECONOMIC CAPITALISM meant: free trade, no personal income-tax, no state interference in money matters, private ownership, etc. USURY, however, was relegated outside the Pale, and proscribed. Capitalists found no fault with economically defeating, within the law, opposing economic groups. That was considered “healthy competition.” European States, goaded by Bankers, also competed with one another. Often with disastrous results. During WWI it became painfully clear that the IDEA of “rugged individualism” worked against the ARYAN NATION and its individual States.
WESTERN SOCIALISM, unlike Marxism/Communism and Capitalism, emanates not from Reason alone but from the ETHOS OF THE WEST. It expresses the instinctive and Intuitive feelings UNIQUE to the Aryan Nation. Its Idea is the Musketeers’ cry: “One for All and All for One!” The ingathering of the White Nation-States into ONE CULTURAL ORGANISM — its own territory and its own State in which to house, protect, and nurture the Nation — precludes Marxist inspired class warfare and hate-struggles between its component parts. The ECONOMY springs from the CULTURE. MONEY becomes merely a tool, a means of exchange, a storage of value — not an ILLUMINATI weapon.” (pp. 143-4). “No intelligent person took MARX seriously. His Old Testament idea that work is evil — and New Testament idea that men and races are equally endowed — opposes Nature and the very Soul of the West.” Marxists, Bolsheviks, Communists denounce “capitalist pigs.” While from behind the scenes — in the on-going battle to implement the PROTOCOLS OF ZION — all wars and revolutions are financed by JEW CAPITALISTS. (pp. 143-5.)
He, too, despised the freedom and potential decadence capitalism affords, insisting Jews were “exacerbating natural disputes between theWestern States and influencing the results in favor of Liberalism as opposed to Authority; that is, materialism, free trade and usury, as opposed to Western Socialism; Internationalism as opposed to Western unity. MONEY was their sword and buckler. Hate and revenge their motif.” (pp. 109-110.)
The nexus of this capitalist plot is…the Federal Reserve Board. Although his website is currently down, the shooter’s account of his 1981 arrest at the Fed states, “The U.S. President, with approval of the Senate, appoints the FED Board of Governors. The majority of them are Wall Street denizens…After all, the FED was designed by bankers for bankers.” (Emphasis in original.) Such sentiments could appear easily on DailyKos or CounterPunch.
That is not without reason. Von Brunn’s association with Willis Carto’s “bookstore” make it undeniable his anti-conservative views were influenced by the far-Left.
Nazis for Chomsky and Land Reform
The “bookstore” that employed the museum shooter was Noontide Press, the brainchild of Willis Carto, often named the most influential anti-Semite in the country. In addition to Holocaust denial material and conspiracy theories, the firm printed and peddled left-of-center volumes by more conspicuous figures, among them the most cited academic in the United States. In the 1980s, Noontide published Noam Chomsky’s book The Fateful Triangle. Chomsky became a hero of Jew-haters for his quasi-conspiratorial views of American society, his defense of Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, and his distaste for Israel. Noontide’s catalog once carried a number of Chomsky materials out of appreciation. Alongside the linguist on Noontide’s roster stood far-leftist Holly Sklar’s volume Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management and the lecture Palestinian writer and centenarian Sami Hadawi delivered to the IHR entitled, “Who Are the Palestinians?”[5] Noontide also publishes statist works of bygone days, including Gen. Smedley Butler’s “War is a Racket,” a Nye Commission-era screed blaming war on capitalist “war merchants.” One perusing its catalog may also find, for example, reprints works of Depression-era “radio priest” and Nazi plagiarist Fr. Charles Coughlin (whose rallying cry was “A Just and Living Wage”) and his contemporary, fascist theorist Lawrence Dennis (among whose works is Is Capitalism Doomed?).[6]
These writings could scarcely resemble the words of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or Karl Rove less.
Neither could his association with the Aryan Nations. As many authors have shown, fascism is a totalitarian ideology concentrating all power in the hands of the State and thus not a conservative ideology but a creature of the Left. This holds true in the present as well as the past. The AN’s “Platform for the Aryan National State” includes these collectivist provisions (all quoted):
- Promote and preserve the industry and livelihood of the citizens.
- [E]liminate the current practice of damaging and poisoning life and environment.
- Provide honest aid to farmers and other business people, and shall restore to all citizens rightful land ownership.
- Make the necessary provisions for the aged, who have been impoverished by fraud (inflation).
- Confiscate all unearned wealth, stolen by fraud or usury and that which is gain from war.
- Nationalize all monopolies and multi-national interest[s].
- Immediately bring about land reform….
The ideology of Von Brunn and his contemporaries does not comport in any way with conservatism. Yet the Left chose to exploit the death of a black man as a paraphrase of Rahm Emanuel’s dictum; they never let a tragedy go to waste. President Clinton blamed the Oklahoma City Bombing on Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich; leftists hinted George Bush caused Sen. Paul Wellstone’s plane crash; Cindy Sheehan become a momentary folk hero by championing a cause her slain son opposed; and some managed to muffle their glee over President Reagan’s affliction with Alzheimer’s Disease just long enough to call for public funding of embryonic stem cell research.
One can expect no more decency when a self-proclaimed socialist murders a minority in cold blood in a shrine to one of collectivism’s most shameful accomplishments.
ENDNOTES:
1. An exact count of potential White Nationalist terrorists, obviously impossible, is rendered more difficult by the concept of “leaderless resistance” propounded by Louis Beam, formerly one of the FBI’s ten most wanted.
2. Surprisingly, his guest, Jack Levin the author of Domestic Terrorism, discussed “the new anti-Semitism of the Progressive Left.”
3.The Fed fixation is common among conspiracy theorists, who believe the Jews control the U.S. economy through the machinations of this “privately owned” enterprise. They believe Woodrow Wilson privatized the Fed in 1913 and now wish to nationalize it, placing it directly under Congressional rule. Politicized money is hardly a conservative goal.
The Institute for Historical Review (IHR) was then run by reclusive anti-Semite Willis Carto, the founder of Liberty Lobby and publisher of the most widely circulated hate publication in the United States (originally call THE SPOTLIGHT since rebranded American Free Press). Carto, who briefly revived The Populist Party, is considered the most influential Jew-hater in the United States.
4. After losing a lawsuit, the Aryan Nations lost its land. Following the death of founder Richard Girnt Butler, the organization has split in two.
5. Contrary to the website, the IHR has offered the lecture for years. It is available for download here.
6. Lawrence Dennis is not without his admirers on the fringe today. Dennis “Justin” Raimondo wrote a glowing piece for TakiMag calling him a “prophetic voice” and another for Antiwar.com, saying “his legacy will enrich a conservative movement that is just beginning to rediscover its Old Right Heritage – and his example will inspire a new generation of the antiwar movement that sees itself as neither Left nor Right but plain and simply American.” Lawrence has also been the subject of a two-page write-up in THE SPOTLIGHT.
PastorBlastor 