Immigration patriots had a number of reasons to be distressed at the news that, at the remarkably advanced age of 88 and armed with a curiously light .22-caliber rifle, James von Brunn attacked the Washington D.C. Holocaust Museum on June 10.
They knew that, as Patrick Cleburne has subsequently confirmed, the Mainstream Media would immediately try to use the story to help ram through the federal "Hate Crimes Prevention Bill". This had run into so much opposition that its Democratic sponsors apparently decided it must be smuggled through as an undebateable, unamendable rider to some unrelated "must pass" budget bill—after which, of course, it will immediately metastasize into a general attack on free speech about, among other things, immigration.
I did not feel like that. I knew, from long study of the leftist mindset, that in response to this incident the Hate Bill's advocates would be quite unable to restrain themselves from revealing their true agenda: the suppression of political dissent. And so it has proved.
After all, shooting security guards (and for that matter carrying a gun) is already a crime in the District of Columbia. The law needs no enhancement—let alone federal enhancement.
For example, here's somebody called Brian Levin (email him) of something called the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino (your tax dollars at work!) pontificating to Newsweek's credulous Eve Conant (June 10):
"Was this an isolated incident?"
"It's isolated in the sense that this guy was a lone wolf, certainly in that he acted alone, but he's part of a movement of anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers. He lists major Holocaust-denier groups on his Web site and how there is going to be a major Holocaust-denial conference on July 25 in Orange County, Calif. He may have acted like a lone wolf, but he is part of a movement….
"Why do you think Von Brunn chose to act now?"
"There are several things to bear in mind about why this happened now. You have this Holocaust-denial conference coming up. You also had the big commemoration of D-Day and Buchenwald this [past] weekend, in particular the statements by Elie Wiesel and Obama. This guy [Von Brunn] is a big Holocaust denier. He looks for evidence of Jewish and Zionist control of everything. He went to the Federal Reserve with a shotgun [and was sentenced to four years in prison].
"This also comes at a time when the hate-crimes bill is coming forward. And in the white-supremacist world, the hate-crimes bill is viewed as an attempt by Jews to muzzle criticism of Jews, Israel and discussion of the Holocaust."
In this Orwellian exercise of doublethink, Professor Levin manages to evade the fact the von Brunn acted alone and instead blame his favorite enemies, specifically opponents of the Hate Crimes bill.
Clearly, they must be suppressed!
In case anyone missed the point, Newsweek headlined the interview: Really A Lone Wolf? James Von Brunn may have acted on his own, but he's hardly alone.
Another example: Homegrown hate groups increase in number: Watchdog group blames recession, election of first black president, by Mara Schiavocampo (who doesn't look very Italian), MSNBC, June 10, 2009.
The "watchdog group", of course, is our old friend the Southern Poverty Law Center—or, as we more truthfully call it, the $PLC. Schiavocampo parrots the SPLC's claim that "926 hate groups are currently operating in the U.S., an all-time high".
I have personal experience of the mendacity of this claim. Last year, I was contacted by Alexandra Bogdanovic, a silly girl reporter from the Fauquier Times Democrat, who wanted to regurgitate in the usual way the $PLC press release claim that three "hate groups" were operating in Virginia's Fauquier County (eeek!). One of them was the VDARE Foundation which, whether it's a "hate group" or not, has never been based in Fauquier County. One of them was the Center For American Unity, whose hateful activities consist of filing erudite amicus briefs in court cases. The third was a post office box registered in the name of a Klan group, no other evidence apparently available (or at least discovered by Bogdanovic). Needless to say, Bogdanovic (email her) went ahead and wrote her shock-horror story anyway.
MSNBC's Schiavocampo began with a detailed description (supplied by whom?) of what seems to have been a genuine neo-Nazi rally attended by a whole 85 supporters in Missouri. This of course contradicts the MSM meme that "hate" has donned suits and gone respectable.
Then she went on: "As shocking as those views are, groups like this are more popular than ever."
And, guess what, "experts say it is the immigration debate that is most significantly contributing to the rise of hate groups, an issue that is exacerbated by the shaky economy."
It's simple! Immigration debaters = neo-Nazis! What is Congress waiting for?
Then there's Holocaust Museum shooting: A spike in domestic extremism?, By Patrik Jonsson, Christian Science Monitor, June 10, 2009.
This masterpiece of agitprop actually argues it is precisely the fact that von Brunn acted alone that proves he had organized support:
" 'If you go back to the original leaderless-resistance ideology ... the idea is you have two separate worlds, where above ground you have the organs of information that provide motivation and radicalization, but it has no direct contact at all with the guys doing illegal activity,' says Scott Stewart, an analyst with STRATFOR, a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas.
"'The idea is to operate within the confines of the First Amendment and use those freedoms to radicalize and point the illegal actors in the second camp,' he adds."
The CSM's Jonsson concludes:
"….The problem is understanding the radicalization process and at what point ideology clicks to spawn an actual operation, counterterrorism experts say. Isolating the 'organs of information' that spark violent behavior is a complex task that is extremely difficult in a society governed by the First Amendment and civil liberty protections."
It's just too bad about that pesky First Amendment! And those darn "civil liberty protections"!
Of course, all this is utter hypocrisy. The flagrant fact is that the Hate Crimes Horde doesn't give a hoot about "hate" or the lives of innocents. What it wants is to do to proscribe its enemies—and those enemies are defined by religion and race.
The black guard who died at the Holocaust Museum, Stephen Tyrone Johns, is being promoted as a multicultural hero,
I have sad news for his grieving family.
They don't care about you—any more than they cared about the victims of 9/11.
They just want to promote their agenda.
The real question about the Holocaust Museum shootings: what drove James von Brunn, by all accounts an intelligent man who served his country honorably in World War II, to this terrible end?
Don't expect to read the answer—or even the question—in the MSM any time soon.
Peter Brimelow (email him) is editor of VDARE.COM and author of the much-denounced Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster, (Random House - 1995) and The Worm in the Apple (HarperCollins - 2003)
