Another run in with neo-Nazis

And I feel good.

As I said, this wasn't my first since I had run ins with the Front National and Vlaams Blok when I lived in Belgium ("you really shouldn't speak another language since we are really stupid people").   Maybe they didn't bother me since the languages I was also speaking were English and Russian (as well as the other community's language).

Once again, speaking another language, in this case Dutch, was nearly as much fun, but not as up close and personal as dealing face to face with members of the Front National or Vlaams Blok.

Anyway, posting that they were assholes who would have been killed under the Nazi's action T4 (killing the mentally ill) along with the fact that their Latin is wrong ("Europe's Sword" is "Europae Gladium" or "Gladium Europae") in Dutch earned me an immediate ban from "Gladius Europa" (sic).

I'm sure my draft dodging great-grandfather (from Bismarck's Army) would have been proud.  I wish I knew his sister since I know that she went through both World Wars and Communism (if you know a Lena Fuchs or her family from Meerane...).

My mother was in Berlin when the wall came down (and I was sitting in England waiting for the knock that would have said "your country needs you.").

Let's face it, I consider myself European since I am first generation (being born here) American on my dad's side and my mother has a long heritage of European nationalities (mostly English and German with some "French").  I fit in when I lived in Belgium.

Anyway, I couldn't deliver my coup de grace of:

Je bent juist over de genocide van de Europese bevolking en cultuur. We moeten uitroeien van deze plaag beginnen te raken door het bij de bron: De Verenigde Staten.

While posting this picture:

to make the point that real Europeans want fuck all to do with this nonsense.  We've been there and done that.

So, where is JFPO with their posturing when there are real Neo-nazis out there?

Anyway, given my background, I am probably much better at fighting these people without a gun than JFPO is with them.

Anyway, if you know a European language (besides English) and want to have a giggle: the "Gladius Europa" Facebook page is a fun playground.

They don't like real Europeans telling them that they are fucked up: especially if it is in a real European language.

Keep this in mind the next time you watch a WWII film.

Most of the early resistance came from the left: in particular Socialist and Communist groups.

In Germany,  Gestapo records reveal that approximately 800,000 Germans in a population of more than 66 million were jailed for active resistance during the Reich's 12-year reign. Indeed, the first concentration camps, notably Dachau, built near Munich in 1933, were meant for left-wing dissidents. In 1936, a typical year, 11,687 Germans were arrested for illegal socialist activity,

For your honor and conscience! Against Bolshevism the Waffen SS calls you.

according to Peter Hoffmann's standard 1977 study, ''The History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945.''

A. J. P. Taylor, the respected British historian,  declared in the 1960's that German resistance to the Nazis was a myth, his was a widely held view. Even today many people in Germany and elsewhere believe there was little internal opposition to Hitler.  Archives from Eastern European state security agencies which have been disproving this belief.

France during occupation was in the words of Charles Maurras, the theorist of reactionary France, the 'triumph of the true France' over Socialists, Communists, Jews, Freemasons and all parliamentary, democratic traditions which were roundly accused not just of precipitating defeat but of leading France to decadence and catastrophe.

Initially almost all Resistance was urban-based: it was there that the German presence was strongest; it was there that printing facilities were available for tracts and newspapers, and it was there that the traditions of working-class solidarity, revolutionary politics, and the educational liberalisms of lycees and universities were most pronounced. 

The movement was originally driven by an ideological opposition to Nazism and Fascism, which brought individual Communists, Socialists and left-wing Catholics and Protestants into the ranks of the 'dissidents', as Resisters were initially known. They all felt they had to do something, however small or impractical, to mark their opposition to the inertia of Petainism which advised the French to return to their private lives and leave the big decisions to Petain and Laval.

The cold war left out the role of the Socialists and Communists in the fight against Fascism, but recent scholarship is beginning to put it back in its rightful place in the study of World War II resistance movements.

At Last, Recognition and Praise for the Resistance in Nazi Germany - New York Times
The Resistance in France | History Today

Fascism USA

Don't be fooled: not all fascism looks like Adolph Hitler.



Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of the United States democratic system, said "I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it's [sic] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country".

Project for a New American Century: www.newamericancentury.org

Banned Books Week

The American Library Association celebrates the last week of September each year as Banned Books Week.


BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.


By glancing at the list of the most frequently challenged books of 2007, it seems that some don't agree. Crooks and Liars has a post which includes a video about the controversy in 2006 in which a Texas school attempted to ban Fahrenheit 451. Now how's that for irony?

What's your opinion? How far do we go with the old First Amendment? Is there nothing that should be banned?

More About Fascism

I realize it's old news at this point, but after viewing this video, I thought it deserves another look. (thanks to Patrick) Amy Goodman talks about her arrest at the 2008 Republican National Convention. It's a frightening and ominous picture she draws.

The L.A. Times reports that the charges have been dropped.

Goodman was charged with obstruction of a legal process and interference with a peace officer after, she said, she inquired about the status of two of her colleagues, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, following their arrest. The pair, like most journalists arrested, were [sic] held on rioting charges.

St. Paul City Attorney John Choi, in a release issued last Friday, asserted that the arrests of the journalists were not improper. But the decision to not press ahead with prosecutions "reflects the values we have in St. Paul to protect and promote our 1st Amendment rights to freedom of the press," he said.

I think the City Attorney must have had one of those Bill O'Reilly smirks on his face when he said that. This episode makes me seriously concerned for the future of the US of A. Fortunately, there's a good chance of changing the direction we've been heading in for far too long.

What do you think about the direction of America? Can we become the land of the free and the home of the brave once again?

Mick Jagger Knew about it in 1974

Fingerprint File - The Rolling Stones
M. Jagger/K. Richards)

Fingerprint file, you get me down
You keep me running Know my way around.
Yes, you do, child Fingerprint file, you bring me down
Keep me running
You keep me on the ground
Know my moves
Way ahead of time Listening to me
On your satellite
Feeling followed
Feeling tagged
Crossing water
Trying to wipe my tracks
And there's some little jerk in the FBI
A keepin' papers on me six feet high
It gets me down, it gets me down, it gets me down
You better watch out
On your telephone
Wrong number
They know you ain't home
And there's some little jerk in the FBI
A keepin' papers on me six feet high
It gets me down, it gets me down, it gets me down
Who's the man on the corner; that corner over there I don't know.
Well, you better lay low.
Watch out
Keep on the look out
Electric eyes
Rats on the sell out
Who gonna testify
You know my habits
Way a head of time
Listening to me
On your satellite
And there's some little jerk in the FBI
A keepin' papers on me six feet high
It gets me down, it gets me down, it gets me down
It gets me down
Hello, baby, mm-hmm
Ah, yeah, you know we ain't, we ain't talkin' alone
Who's listening?
Well I don't really know
But you better tell the SIS to keep out of sight
'Cause I know they takin' pictures on the ultraviolet light
Yes, uh huh, yeah, but these days it's all secrecy; no privacy
Shoot first, that' s right... you know
Bye bye.
Right now somebody is listening to...... you
Keeping their eyes peeled...... on you
Mmm, mmm, what a price, what a price to pay
All right.
Good night, sleep tight

Is Fascism Coming to the United States?

According to Naomi Wolf it's already here, almost. In a thought-provoking article the Star News Online describes the dire situation as Wolf sees it. (h/t to Patrick in California)

Comparing coups from the Nazis' rise to power in Germany to the Pinochet regime in Chile, Wolf identified key 10 steps in the fall of democracy. Among these: the invoking of a terrifying external threat, the creation of secret prisons, a rise in domestic surveillance, the harassment of citizens' groups, a crackdown on the press and the treating of dissent as treason.

It would certainly be hard to deny the signals she cites, but does that mean we're headed down the path to the kind of government control described so forcefully in George Orwell's 1984? Even folks who break no laws and have never suffered harassment of any kind have noticed the frightening and ever-increasing video surveillance.

The first video talks about The List which is ostensibly maintained for airport security. The second video describes how Blackwater has been mandated for domestic security work.

Watching these from the vantage point of Europe makes me wonder if I should come home to the US, change my stance on personal weapons and prepare for the upcoming fight or if perhaps I should move even farther away. What would you do if you were me? Do you think this is paranoia? Isn't there too much money invested in America's capitalism to allow something like the government taking over? Is it a valid comparison to say the US today is like the Germany of 1931?