Tuesday, February 21, 2017

#IWSG CHECK IN SEPTEMBER 2020 – AMERICAN NAZI (REPOST)




NOTE: I started this on August 13, 2012 and for some reason never finished it; it needs to be told now, as all we seem to be lacking are the snappy jackboots, parades, and apparently, we don't even need someone who can hold an audience in his thrall for seven hours or chew rugs. . . yet.


One of my fascinations has always been history and current events; I've been wanting to blog about it. Just about any history will do. The unfortunate fact that I am starting with White Supremacy, American Style has a LOT to do with Charlottesville three years ago and my own uncomfortable experience several years ago, when Hartline #2 and #18 took me to the Doctor, while I still lived in Tampa. I was one of the few white people around, and I found myself looking at the day’s TBT, Tampa Bay Times**, a rather fine, free bird-cage liner, with that Wade Page shooter and a Swastika emblazoned on the article itself. Since I couldn’t very well stuff it in my mouth and didn’t have my backpack and a only a very small purse, I had to proudly carry it. I hate that kind of shit. As if, possession of a newspaper with a swastika implies that I, a fair-haired, blue-eyed person somehow approves of such goings on. Racial guilt.
** I recommend reading this article for a quick who's who, and what's what.

courtesy:nytimes.com      

Shooting outside Sikh mosque on August 7, 2012. 

Anyway, my headlong immersion into history began with a bath in the events leading up to WWII, via my own father, who lived some of them; but he himself was quite the armchair historian and we didn't make shit up; we verified. All events, starting with the end of WWI, right on through Viet Nam (“Robert McNamara, that son-of-a-bitch!”, I heard my father growl every morning, as he shaved. I can also attest to the fact that directly after Charlottesville, I climbed up out of a sick bed, after having been in the hospital for a week with bradycardia and a low bp (I was probably dying, but was too stupid and stubborn to realize that), I got up and went on a protest march, were we listened to some very inspired rhetoric given by members of the Islamic-American community, The Tampa Communist Maoist Collective and #BLM, along with the Tampa Police Department. We were all one and we all marched and sat in several downtown intersections, snarling up traffic, while people honked in, what I hope, was solidarity. 

I've had quite an eduma-ca-tion. I would be intellectually deceitful if I said there wasn’t a powerful fascination in trying to understand why one group, race, nationality could so coldly, precisely and methodically shovel another group, race, nationality into ovens like so much coal, based on a RELIGION(?).  I am sad to say, that after 30 years of trying to figure out from so many different angles, artistically, culturally, economically and historically I still don’t. But ahh… there’s that nasty bete noire, religion. God, what nightmares. If some superior being were ever to show itself, we would be cinders. Seriously. We would be deemed unfit to continue our existence. But I went back to study and learn, because the roots of such deviant behavior don’t just spring up; there is a reason. Turns out I had to go all the way back to the Diaspora.

This is not getting to the bus and my embarrassment. I talk to everyone; and had a good time with the usual folks. I am a rarity here; a white person. I am very comfortable with this. My parents, being from Scotland, were completely color-blind. My Grandfather Wallace, with his kids in the old flivver, saved a man from a lynching during the Depression. His kids had no idea what was up. The man was on the back roads of Michigan looking for a job. Grandpa Wallace took him back for a meal and a helper for a few weeks. My folks never understood that fuss.

I worked, went to school and lived in the equivalent of the UN. I had an Egyptian neighbor. He would be taking his daughter for a walk. I’d say, “hi, how are you?” He’d say, “We are just only sleep-walking.” One night, there’s pounding on my door. It’s the Iranians from across the hall. “Can you come look at this, please?” they ask. I look. “Is this supposed to be funny?” It’s the 3 Stooges. “Trust me, it’s hilarious.” I say. The next morning, I am called to prayers. Well, actually the muezzin blows his tinny little horn on his portable tape deck. I watch as the men bow and pray, bow and pray.

At the teaching hospital, where I pretended to work, but just asked a lot of questions, because the docs there love to teach, Indian Dr. Das, the Head of Cardiology stopped me. “”You are good with sounds, you play viola.” Since when, but okay. He’s babbling at Dr. Stepniewski, who’s Polish; another Cardiologist. I’m like, “you guys need a translator, you're going to kill a patient”. I ended up translating their conversation; the patient survived; I just hope she didn't end up with two left arms, or something.

This is all leading up to this: the "otherness" and how white supremacists play to that. There are approximately 100 to 150 active to semi-active bands, such as Panzerfaust Records(now defunct, but follow the link; those assholes need to be put out of business too) that promote hate music. They will actively try to recruit junior and senior high kids as they are the easiest of targets. The thing I found interesting is that they are using music to inculcate these hate values into people, particularly the young. Death metal particularly. I love music, the harder, the more metal the better. Despite the fact I am a classically trained violist means nothing. Beethoven is my god. Were he alive today, he’d be writing and playing metal. Beethoven also believed in the brotherhood of man. Think very carefully about that.

There are other groups of skinheads who are diametrically opposed to these ideals and should be promoted. They refer to themselves as SHARPs, or Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice. I love music. The fact that it is being used by people like Wayne Page, now deceased and his ilk is anathema to me. Peter Simi, who is associate professor of criminology at the University of Nebraska met Page in 2001 in California. Professor Simi’s specialty is hate crime and hate groups and I’m paraphrasing.

What is most alarming is the rising rate of proponents of white supremacy in the military. Because of lower recruitment rates, standards were lowered and white supremacists were allowed to join. Evil begets evil. I know from several people who have been in prison, done hard time that white supremacy abounds there. It should also be stated in the interest if fairness that an equal number of Latino and Gang Bangers reside there as well.

Here the original post ends, but I think that the gangs in prisons, by and large, exist as protection (see the wonderful “OZ” if you have not done so. It fully explores this subject.) and once out, most people who are NOT career criminals – and I can speak with authority -- having been housed with felons, leave that life behind. They return to normalcy.


Yet, today, we have one of the most anti-semitic, and if not yet, we will see, jew-baiting, hating Presidents as a Leader of the Free World. We might expect something like this from someone like Vladimir Putin, but guess what? Putin is above all, a statesman and he will not stoop to this sort of rhetoric. I am NOT a Putin apologist, by any means, but, BUT, when you have a Holocaust Memorial Day and do NOT mention the Jews, you are not far from calling out the the SS, the SA, and getting the ovens ready. I am inflammatory and I mean to be. Bring your shit on, Trump. 306 electoral votes my ass! YOU are our American Nazi!


God Bless anyone who has read this far, and I truly hope you have, because what I have to say next is said out of fear and hope. I'm going to provide two links that talk about the recent RNC and the events in Kenosha, WI. I see a country running dangerously close to the tipping point of madness. If, IF we wish to have an election come November 3rd, and a fair one, which seems to be less and less likely for a myriad of reasons -- USPS being sabotaged; Trump deciding he will not accept the terms; Law Enforcement, not including Military, stupidly getting involved; Barr's gang of ne'er-do-wells showing up uninvited and shooting random people; any number of any other things, not to mention Dems deciding "we've got this; may as well stay home!", we ALL really need to collect ourselves, be calm and do ... NOTHING! Stay home! Don't protest. Don't go out and do something that will provoke the authorities. 

I admit, there's much to be changed, up and down the line, but RIGHT NOW, sixty-four days prior to the election, we need to NOT give Trump an excuse to declare some bloviation of an excuse to declare Martial Law and keep his fat ass in the White House. We need for an orderly (as much as possible) election, and as fair as one as possible to occur, so we can get him OUT. The damage he's already caused is immense, and we need no more! I'm going to stop talking now; I think you're all smart enough to understand the danger our Republic is in and that we ALL need to unite and take a deep breath. Let's worry about fixing messes and addressing wrongs, after this election. If we don't settle down, 2016, may have been our last Presidential election. Have a great #IWSG! Here come the links! 





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