June 11, 2004
Well, we knew they were vile
Sure, a lot of gay and liberal commentators have been critical of Reagan's awful legacy of neglect and death around the world.
But by and large, they confine their criticisms to expressing opinions in appropriate places. They don't, for example, show up with banners at Reagan's funeral.
But that's exactly what the Phelps gang did:
A police officer salutes in front of pro and anti-Ronald Reagan groups near the National Cathedral in Washington Friday, June 11, 2004 prior to funeral services for the former president. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
As mentioned on their Web site, the Westboro Baptist Church [sic] believes that Reagan is in Hell (PDF flyer). and they've decided to show up and tell everyone this at his funeral.
Let's make sure everyone is aware that these "anti-Ronald Reagan groups" are not liberals, not Democrats, not gays. They're hate-filled right-wing extremist Christians who hate everyone.
June 10, 2004
Republican Congressman Admits War is Crusade Against Islam
While perusing recent news articles, I came across this June 1 story from The Californian:
Elsewhere in Oceanside, as the sun dipped toward the Pacific Ocean, World War II veteran Raymond Gastelum, of Oceanside, and his wife, Maria, quietly chatted in camp chairs beside the grave of their daughter, Leticia.
Around them, the crowd gathered for the 18th annual candlelight ceremony at Eternal Hills Memorial Park. Children played and people sang patriotic songs as the pianist played.
Gastelum, who saw two years of service in the South Pacific, said he thinks all wars are the same.
"They shouldn't start, but they do get started," he said. "And they cost a lot of lives."
A bell tolled during the reading of the names of 74 Marines from Camp Pendleton, Miramar and Twentynine Palms Marine bases who have died this year in Iraq. Before the reading, Congressman Darrell Issa, R-Vista, delivered a message.
"They died in the first step of what could be a very long war," said the former Army captain, born of Lebanese immigrants. "They are the heroes of a war to liberate more than a billion people."
Read that last sentence carefully and note the number.
There are not one billion people in Iraq. There's about 25 million or so.
There are not one billion people in Arab countries.
There are not one billion people in the entire Middle East.
There are however approximately one billion people who follow Islam. (Well, slightly higher.)
Conservative Christian Darrell Issa in describing a "very long war" to liberate "more than a billion people" is speaking of a Crusade Against Islam.
There's not really anything else he could be talking about. He surely doesn't mean, say, that we're going to invade China next. There's no war plan that goes Afghanistan → Iraq → China. Nor is he talking about freeing people who live under brutal regimes -- there's not a group of those that adds up to "more than a billion" that would include the invasion of Iraq.
No, he's talking about Afghanistan → Iraq → the rest of the Muslim world.
Despite the public lip service of the Bush administration and Bush Republicans like Issa that The War Against Terror is not a crusade, behind closed doors and to "safe" audiences -- like military audiences on Memorial Day -- the true agenda comes out.
The Bush war is an American crusade against Islam, pure and simple. The American people have been tricked (by our dear leader and his allies) into a religious Christian jihad targetting a belief system that the religious right opposes.
And even Darrell Issa admits it.
June 08, 2004
Local Conservative Openly Admires Nazi Indoctrination of Kids
It's rare to see open, honest statements from the extreme right-wing that admit they're a bunch of Nazi sympathizers. Which is why it's astonishing to see Bill Hoover, a local conservative from Sun City, do exactly that in the Wednesday letters page of The Californian:
Criticism of Young Marines uncalled for
Robert Newhard's letter of June 6, denouncing the organization known as the Young Marines, I think was uncalled for. These boys are a great group of patriotic Americans, and the training they receive will benefit them all their lives.
If Mr. Newhard was a veteran of World War ll as he stated, he should have remembered the difference in training between the German youth and the French. While the German children were learning military tactics, pride in country and how to follow orders, the French children were stomping grapes and learning how to make pastries.
It took Germany just two days to walk unopposed into Paris.
BILL HOOVER
Sun City
Wow.
So Hoover admires the Nazi Hitler Youth program, and what's more, he believes that the Young Marines are the same kind of group -- one that instills "military tactics, price in country and how to follow orders."
You know, orders like "invade this country" or "gas that Jew over there."
"But sir! We were only following orders!"
Now, I don't know know if the Young Marines are anything like the Hitler Youth. That comparison was not made by Bob Newhard or by me, but by Bill Hoover, who appears to be a supporter of the Young Marines. Clearly, Hoover does believe they're doing the same thing, though, and what's more, he thinks that's a good thing.
Assuming the Young Marines are not a bunch of fascists-in-training, I think Mr. Hoover owes them a bigger apology than Mr. Newhard, who didn't compare them to Hitler Youth. With friends like Hoover, do the Young Marines really need critics?
June 06, 2004
Reinforcements
June 05, 2004
Blatant Self-Promotion
I realize that many people have given up on Shock and Awe since I'm not updating as much, but even so, there's higher readership here than on the Inland Anti-Empire blog, chiefly because that blog is locally focused.
This morning, I just want to call attention to two recent posts which I think are worth watching -- because the Inland Empire really is not some huge aberration, although we're definitely more conservative than most places. However, this kind of crap is happening all over in hundreds of cities and towns across America. Don't be fooled by the thought that "it can't happen here."
Here are the two articles; click the article title for the link.
Followup: Racially Motivated Attack at Elsinore High
Posted by Kynn on 02:45 AM, June 05, 2004
(Education · Equality for All · Justice and Crime · Lake Elsinore · Wildomar) -- More details emerge: The victim was black, the attackers displayed white supremacist symbols and shouted racial slurs, and the weapon was an ice pick. Black parents fear for their kids' safety, school superintendent calls for community effort, and white parents don't believe there's a problem. Oh yeah, and the Press-Enterprise reads my column.
Proto-Fascism in the Valley: Exhibit 1
Posted by Kynn on 02:06 AM, June 05, 2004
(Proto-Fascism in the Valley) -- Inspired by David Neiwert's excellent exegesis on American proto-fascism, I'm creating a public archive pointing out signs of proto-fascist ideology in our community. One of the most open forums -- and also one of the most "legitimizing" ones as well -- is the North County Times/Californian's letters page. This first installation of the PFitV series looks at Friday's letters.
Thanks for humoring my self-promotion...I'd say it won't happen again, but I'd be lying.
June 01, 2004
It's always nice to hear from the racists
My latest column for The Californian ran on Tuesday. Here's a teaser:
Is `City of hate` back?
By: KYNN BARTLETT - Commentary
Do we have a tolerance problem in Lake Elsinore? Over the last few weeks, the students, teachers and administrators of Temescal Canyon High School have been grappling the aftermath of two days of racially charged melees between white and Latino students.
As the cool kids say, read the whole thing.
I got two emailed responses to the column, besides some comments from friends local and distant. The first was from a fellow columnist who loved it, and said she'd have to come up with a new topic for her next column, since I "stole" her idea. :)
The second was from a friendly neighborhood racist down in Fallbrook. Fallbrook, if you don't know it, is a nice little community down I-15 from Lake Elsinore and Temecula. It's only got one problem, though: It's the home of Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance.
Now, I'm not saying that all of Fallbrook is racist, nor am I even saying that all racists from Fallbrook are W.A.R. types. But, geez, it's hard to avoid putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
I won't name today's racist, but I will quote him extensively. He didn't like my column, primarily because he sees white racism on the part of young white males as justifiable. (Emphasis in quoted sections below is mine.)
Read your commentary and found it only natural and consistant with other areas in Southern California. When our youth, who are not stupid see their way of life changing for the worse. They see neighborhoods once safe to play in suddenly turned into drug, gang infested barrios.
They see their summer vacation once used to work for extra money, jobs being filled by illegal aliens. They see their future as bleek and their way of life being threatened by the invasion from the south.
They feel like an immigrant in their own country because they no longer have the ability to communicate. Our kids are attracted to these so-called hate groups because nobody is listening to their concerns.
That old excuse that hate begins at home is a fallacy, hate begins in many ways, the home is just one place. Everyone wants to live in a utopia, but in Southern California that dream is shrinking fast and our youth can see that. I see the problem increasing nation wide.
In other words, it's okay for white kids to wear symbols of white dominance, walk through schools with flags bearing Nazi symbols, and pick fights with Latino kids for singing a song in Spanish -- because of the awful Invasion From The South!
Typical nativist racism, and exactly the kind of hateful bullshit which my column addresses -- hate that leads to violence in the schools, and ultimately may lead to violence in the community.
I thanked the gentleman for his response:
*grin* Thank you, [whoever]. You've made my point better than I could.
Peace,
--Kynn
He wrote back:
Your point? let's live in reality. Not Berkeley in the 60's. I have found in my 48 years of life that liberals make the best bigots. Tolerance is "acceptance under a barrel of a gun". A smart person understands that there are differences between the races, values, culture and values and to force a person to blindly accept only incites a negative response. you need the education and your proved my point regarding bleeding hearts, A typical.
This generation is the first to do far less than their parents.
In other words, trying to "force" people to treat Latinos with respect and equality is the root cause of bigots who beat up Latino schoolkids. Wow. Talk about blaming your victims.
This is the typical right-wing extremist response, though. Racial problems are only ever caused by "those" people (the dirty brown folks from across the border), which again was the point of my column.
Arguing with this fellow would do little good, so I just sent back a polite response:
Thanks for writing, [whoever]!
--Kynn
Somedays it just doesn't pay to be nice to the racists. He finally bothered to read my signature file, which refers to my role as online campaign manager for the Byron for Congress campaign. So he launches into that next. Apparently, Mike Byron is not qualified to be a congressman because ... he's too fat.
Until I received your response did I see your signatures, explains much. Do you think a fat porker would unseat Issa? think again. This district loves Issa, he got rid of Davis and eliminated perks for criminals, thank Issa for that. I used to be like you, a slave to the democratic party. Living in Chicago, I help elect (3) democratic mayors, a city where the dead vote, but I got smart and say the democratics for what they were,. The democratics have no policy besides robbing my wallet. Although I am a independent, but living your life conservatively, does not indicate a policy preference. The conservative lifestyle has been around longer than republicans. In 1964, than president Johnson passed the civil rights act. All that did was turn homes where you could sleep with your doors open into dead bolt communities. which college did you graduate from, me, University of Chicago. Let's call a spade a spade, our kids are not stupid, they see things as they are.
Isn't that lovely? A landmark piece of equality legislation, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, didn't accomplish anything except making it so you had to lock your door. No doubt from all those nasty blacks in the neighborhood. Why, we'd be better off had it never passed. As long as "we" means "whites," I guess.
I sent him back an identical friendly response, and all he did was refer me to the American Patrol web site. (I'm purposely not linking, but you can read about 'em at the SPLC site.
These kind of folks -- who go on about cultural superiority, imagine "invasions" from the south, and rant that anyone who speaks for racial tolerance is a bleeding heart liberal -- are absurdly out of touch with most Americans who are sane, reasonable people without ill will to those of different races.
However, in southwest Riverside county and surrounding communities, the bigots' extremist views are not only tolerated in polite company, they're openly promoted by vocal advocates and dominate the public discourse. The newspapers, the churches, the Republican party, the talk radio, the local Web sites, and the day-to-day chitchat are all filled with this kind of racist rhetoric, primarily directed against Latinos, but also (as seen with the comment about the Civil Rights Act) anyone who is different.
It's no wonder that the kids of our community think it's okay to be bigots. My racist email correspondent is exactly who I was talking about when I wrote my column.
May 31, 2004
Memory
May 31, 2004
The Slippery Slope in Action
In Short: It always happens. First you allow gays and lesbians to marry, and the next thing you know, ugly green ogre people are getting hitched: Can't someone DO something about this??!!??...
May 27, 2004
Weapons of Mass Destruction: Found!
In Short: Turns out they were on Johnston Atoll all this time: The U.S. Army and a contractor were fined nearly $52,000 for releasing a deadly chemical weapon on a wildlife sanctuary in the Pacific Ocean, federal environmental officials announced Wednesday....
May 25, 2004
Winning the Battle of Iraq, Losing the War against Terror
In Short: Bush is a friggin' moron. He hasn't made us any safer: LONDON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has more than 18,000 militants ready to strike and the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has accelerated recruitment to the ranks of Osama bin Laden...
May 23, 2004
Hatchet Job
In Short: Last month, ABC News reported that our soldiers are using tomahawks in Iraq: U.S. forces are using two types of tomahawks in Iraq: one, a high-tech cruise missile — the other, a bit more like the hatchet Mel Gibson used...
May 22, 2004
Images of Defiance
In Short: Nablus, Palestine: "Green Zone," Iraq: Fort Stewart, Georgia Fallujah, Iraq: London, England: Baghdad, Iraq: Jerusalem, Israel: Manama, Bahrain: Gaza, Palestine:...
