Tag Archives: neo-nazis

November 25, 2013 · 23:48

Anti Semite? You Have to Be Kidding

jPeOJ

I don’t like having to feel the need to respond to personal attacks on social media on this page.

However, yesterday I experienced a first. I was accused by an American gentile of being an “anti-Semite.” Over the years I have been called a “Jew lover” “Nigger lover” and other racist names by White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis, but I have never been called an anti-Semite. Actually that was kind of shocking to me. It took me aback. But then in today’s political climate maybe it shouldn’t have.

But the reason I was called this was because I dared to challenge this gentleman’s personal attacks on me on Twitter.  It was in an exchange where I was advocating giving diplomacy a chance in regard to the Iranian nuclear threat. It was something that was not at odds with the other people in the conversation, including nationally and internationally known diplomats.

However, the attacker, a financial and political adviser from New York to “conservatives” was a Twitter troll. He jumped me in the conversation which did not involve him. When I responded to his attacks he got personal. When I refuted his personal attacks on me he called me an “anti-Semite.”  I guess that is the new fall-back position  when when you have nothing else to say.

What really offended me about this man was that he was a total chicken-hawk. He has never served in the military, never been to war and never intends to. He then then dares to presume that he should be able to send other people and their children to fight wars that he is unwilling to fight, or for that matter fund because tax cuts for him matter more than actual national security. In comparison  I have served in the military for 32 years, done multiple combat tours and deployments and more advance military and national security education than this man ever will do, but somehow I am his enemy.

That astounded me, so I decided to do some internet searches. In the process I found out who he was, where he worked as well as some of his writings. In the man’s biography on his business website he referred to himself as a “brilliant debater” something that after sparring with him was a bit of an over estimate of his abilities. Good debaters actually use facts before they level an accusation so vile. But then the tendency to make such accusations is so common today, especially among those who live and die by conservative talk radio and Fox News it is scary.

My attacker was not a good debater. He is a rich and entitled bully, and I will not tolerate bullies. In fact if I was in a bar with this man and he said the things that he said about me I would have kicked his ass, no questions asked. I would them pick him up and buy him a beer.

Of course any reader of this website would know that such is not the case and I am not an anti-Semite. Simply take a look at my writings on the Holocaust, the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Europe and current Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists in the United States. Some of my harshest critics on this site have been White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis, some who have actually made threats on my life. So for me to be called an “anti-Semite” was a vile insult.

It seems to me that my critic wanted to use the term “anti-Semite” as a term to smear me because I did not agree with him and refused to role over to his personal attacks. Actually that is a great strategy. It really doesn’t matter what the facts are if you are losing call the person you disagree with an “anti-Semite” or something else, maybe a “racist,” or “socialist,” “anti-Christian” or whatever term. I may have had some bad experiences with dentists as a kid which could make me an “anti-dentite” (note Seinfeld reference) but I am not an anti-Semite.

When I read the man’s tweet I decided to do a web search and found out all I needed to know. The guy was a know it all who didn’t like being challenged especially when a military veteran of the Cold War, the Bosnia campaign and Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom called him on his bullshit.

The fact was that the man objected to someone having a different military and political view of the current situation regarding Iraq and had to cheapen the debate by calling me an “anti-Semite” despite not ever having read any of my writings or having any sort of relationship with me. In doing so he demeaned the Jews killed buy the Nazis and their other persecutors all to make a political point.

But then that has become a norm of some who oppose any kind of real negotiations with Iran or any other Islamic Country by some, mostly Evangelical Christians in the United States. The irony is that most of the Evangelicals that support Israel only do because in their millennial theology sacrifices almost all the living Jews to preserve a few when Jesus returns. Of course those surviving Jews all end up “accepting Jesus” after Armageddon. Personally I don’t see how that is not considered “anti-Semitic” but hey what do I know?

Since the man was a complete ass I simply decided to block him on Twitter. I could put his business website, Twitter and personal information up but I won’t. I don’t desire to ruin the man’s life.

That being said, it is funny to see how some people who troll about the internet thinking they are being anonymous by not identifying themselves leave enough information out there to track them down, read their writings, web-posts and find their business information. It is a mark of arrogance. That is why I am not anonymous on this site or any social media.

My personal feeling about men like this are that they are human slime. They make their money off of others, presume that they know all there is to foreign policy or national security issues and have never served a day in the Military or Foreign Service in harm’s way. They are hacks and warmongers willing to sacrifice thousands or even millions of lives to satisfy their lust for power and wealth. They are willing to slander people like me by calling us “anti-Semites” a term so loaded that the accusation alone is is enough to destroy careers and reputations.

However I won’t take that lying down. If He decides to push the issue, which because I presume that he will move along to a more easily intimidated target, I will sue him for defamation and win. A little bit of knowledge linked to a vast amount of ignorance is a dangerous thing. Likewise those that call others ‘anti-Semites’ simply because they disagree with their opinions on what foreign policy should be pursued in regards to Israel and the Middle East show just how shallow their thinking is. Personally I find that to be a greater tragedy. because people like this when entrusted with political power become despots.

Anyway. That is enough for tonight.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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April 15, 2013 · 23:35

A Bombing in Boston: Terror Returns to the United States

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The 117th Boston Marathon was drawing to an end as Boston celebrated Patriot Day. The winners had finished their races about two before and those men and women still on the course were those doing this for the simple fact of conquering a marathon, a famous marathon at that. At about 2:45 PM a large explosion went off near the finish line followed shortly by a second. Initial reports claimed dozens injured, some seriously and several deaths.

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When I first heard about the attacks I was waiting to board a flight from Chicago to Norfolk. My mind flashed back to 9-11-2011 and for a few minutes I wondered if something might also be going on with attacks on aircraft. I was glad to arrive home safely and as I heard the updated reports about the attack and was stunned. As I saw the video of the attacks I felt emotions that I had not felt since 9-11-2001. As I saw those images for the first time when we stopped for dinner felt tears come to my eyes.

We now know that 3 people were killed and around at least 113 wounded in today’s attack. It is the biggest terrorist attack in the United States since 9-11. Certainly it is not the most deadly in recent years, the mass murders at Virginia Tech, Aurora Colorado and Newtown Massachusetts took more lives but were not the result of a terrorist attack and each of those attacks were committed by lone gunmen with reported psychiatric problems.

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In the initial reports there was no indication of what had caused the explosions but all eyes focused on terrorism. Police are now reporting that small Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were used in the attack. Other reports state that police may have defused a number of other devices. Those reports are still unconfirmed.

No group has yet claimed responsibility but there are some reports that a “person of interest” has been taken into custody. Of course speculation runs rampant as to who or what group might have orchestrated this attack. My guest is some Islamic extremist group but I could also see a domestic terrorist group, possibly of the neo-Nazi type being behind the attack because of how international the event is in regard to the actual racers. Of course some conspiracy theory types, notably Alex Jones of the Prison Planet website believes it is an event orchestrated by the government. I think that Jones’ theory is the least credible. I believe that if the attackers are of an Islamic group that they will make a public announcement sooner rather than later, a domestic terror group will more than likely try to remain under the radar.

The possibility of a terrorist group attacking a sporting venue has long been on my mind. I have wondered why international or domestic terrorist groups have not attacked such venues simply because they are relatively soft targets where large numbers of people congregate. Attacks on aircraft, transportation and government buildings have been done but I think that many people almost assume that possibility now. What most people do not anticipate are attacks on sporting, entertainment, retail businesses like malls, educational facilities or even places of worship.

Ever since the 9-11-2001 attacks I have feared that terrorists, foreign and domestic would adjust their tactics to hit a major sporting event, but I did not believe that it would be a marathon, I expected a college or high school football game in the heartland of the country, far away from where most people expect terrorists to strike. A place that would show how vulnerable such events are and bring terror to people that have only known it through what they have seen on the news.

Such attacks if they do become the new normal for terrorist tactics could strike unimaginable fear across the country because these places a supposed to be safe. They are places where we can reasonably expect to take our families for enjoyment and recreation. One only has to remember the Washington DC Beltway sniper rampage in 2002 to see the kind of fear that such attacks provoked and how disruptive they were. Those attacks took place over a period of 23 days and sent an entire region into a state of shock and terror. In the 1980s while stationed in Germany we lived with the constant threat of terrorism conducted by the Baader-Meinhoff Gang/ Red Army Faction and State sponsored Islamic terrorists from Libya. On more than one occasion we just missed being at the sites of bombings at the Frankfurt PX and Airport in 1985.

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Red Army Faction Bombings in Germany

As we learn more about who or what group conducted this attack, the types of explosive devices used and the motivation and rational given for the attack we will be able to respond. Terrorists make their living by terrorizing people, breaking routine and destroying the feeling of security of those that they target. Even small attacks can disrupt open societies. Such attacks do not have to use explosives. Since weapons, including weapons that are military grade assault weapons are readily available a group willing do die for their cause could launch commando type attacks on public places where police and security officers, or even armed citizens would be badly outgunned until SWAT type units arrived. The attacks of Pakistani Taliban militants on an Indian Hotel in Mumbai a few years ago are indicative of the carnage that such attacks can inflict before the attackers are killed or captured.

It is quite possible that this could be the new normal for how terrorists attack the United States. If so we will have to learn how to best provide security without becoming a police state. I would hope that it is not, but I would not be surprised if it is. If it is the beginning of a new wave of terror we have to be ready.

I do hope that this is an isolated incident and that the perpetrators are found and swiftly brought to justice. Likewise I pray for the victims of this attack and their families and friends, people whose lives will not be the same after today. That being said it is very possible that these attacks are the opening salvo in a terror campaign that we have not experience before in the United States, but which has been common in Europe and the Middle East over the past 40 years.

Sometimes an event like this reminds me of just how isolated we are to this kind of terror. In Iraq today several dozen people were killed and close to 150 others wounded in terrorist attacks. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s the Irish Republican Army terrorized Britain, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s the Red Brigades and Baader Meinhoff Gang did the same in German. I remember the terror of the Baader Meinhoff Gang when I was stationed in Germany including just missing being at the site of a terrorist bombing. In the Moslem world there are varying reactions. The leader of a Jordanian terror group expressed no remorse while there’s prayed that the culprit would not be a Moslem.

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Pray and prepare because we do not know what will come next. President Obama has promised that the guilty will face justice. That being said, I do believe that the perpetrators will be found and brought to justice. Even so I wonder if there are others that will continue this kind of terror attack now that they know that it can be done.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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October 9, 2012 · 23:57

Tolerance versus Intolerance: I Despise Nazi Bullshit

American Nazi Party Rally at Wisconsin State Capital 2006

I am pretty much tolerant of people’s beliefs and practices but I find that there are a decent number of people especially conservative religious people that are not very tolerant of mine. On the other hand there are some people that I have lost all tolerance for, American Nazis, Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists are number one on the list.

My first encounter with the Neo-Nazis was in college when they and other Holocaust deniers went about spouting their poison. Then in 2000 when serving with a Marine Battalion a racial incident occurred involving a group of white Marines tattooing another with Nazi symbols. I had to research the Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist world as I was in charge of conducting briefings regarding the incident and I worked with one Marine who led the assault who recanted his views at his court martial when he saw the depth of the hatred of the Nazi leaders he was following.

If there is a literal hell I think that Nazis and their sympathizers have s special place in it.   Yesterday I took some incoming on this site from an East Tennessee Neo-Nazi who attempted to terrorize me a couple of years ago. Then he was menacing enough and specific enough in his threats via e-mail that I turned the information over to the FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center investigators.

This time I refused to approve the vile comments of this man and consigned them to the trash but they got to me and I am still a bit stirred up because I never did anything to this guy, and from his web history I see that he does this to others as well. He has a presence on a number of neo-Nazi, white supremacist and militia movement websites and claims to be a former “paratroop officer.” He goes by several internet monikers but all have the same or similar IP addresses and physical locations.

Neo Nazi Wade Michael Page of the Sikh Temple Massacre

To quote Patton “Nazis are the enemy.” There is nothing redeeming in the Nazi message or similar messages of American Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, Skinheads and those like them. And sadly these American Nazi bozos don’t even have the cool uniforms of the German Nazis, at least the actual Hitlerites got style points for cool uniforms.  I wish our Nazis wore their uniforms in public so we could see them in all of their thuggish buffoonery, especially their leaders, those same men that try to ingratiate themselves into the political mainstream and wear nice suits and ties. Since they try to blend in there are times I wish there was a real life Lt Aldo Raine out there giving them an insignia that they cannot remove.

David Duke

The numbers of these American Nazis are comparatively small, but growing and becoming both more violent as well as trying to worm their way by stealth into the fabric of the conservative movement, the Republican Party and some local Democrat party levels if they find an opening to run.  In the latter case a neo-Nazi did exactly that to win a Democrat race in East Tennessee because no one else was running. Last month the Neo-Nazi group Stormfront hosted a nationwide conference in the area of Sevierville Tennessee, the same place as my Nazi nemesis has his internet IP address. Heck they even had former KKK Grand Wizard and GOP Congressional Candidate from Louisiana David Duke do a nature walk with them in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park.

Naziism and its ideological cousins are a poisonous evil that thrives when its leaders can prey on the fears of people in difficult times. Now I don’t think that we are in danger of any kind of Nazi takeover but they are dangerous. Just ask the victims of the neo-Nazi at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin.

I will be tolerant of people but I will not be bullied by Nazi thugs nor will I be silent when I see them endangering others or threatening me.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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August 8, 2012 · 02:08

Wade Page Nazi Thug versus the Respectable Nazis

Wade Page, the gunman who walked into a Sikh temple in Oak Creek Wisconsin and opened fire killing 6 members of that community was a Nazi thug. A member of the “Hate” music scene Page was a virulent racist and anti-semite. Even some of the bigger Neo-Nazi groups condemned Page’s action. However, that does not mean that they disapproved of what happened, just that the blatantness of Page’s action embarrassed them.

Page and his thuggish brothers are much like the Brownshirts, the Nazi bullies that intimidated anyone who stood in their way prior to the Nazi seizure of power and in its immediate aftermath.  They were useful tools of smarter and more respectable Nazis but often proved an embarrassment to the party. When the Sturmabteilung, the SA Brownshirts became a political liability Hitler and the SS made an alliance to eliminate the SA leadership and sharply reduce that organization’s power in the Third Reich. Men like Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich who planned and executed the Holocaust  held such thugs in contempt.

Page has put Neo-Nazi leaders and sympathizers on the spot. While Neo-Nazi and others like them believe and preach White Supremacism, anti-Semitism, and racism they at least publicly distain murder of people at worship. It is very hard for them to defend him to do so would be to expose themselves. However, I wonder if the victims had been Moslems if they would have condemned the action at all.

Despite the brutal nature of Page’s massacre of the Sikhs, his type of White Supremacist or Neo-Nazi is less dangerous to society than the “respectable” Nazis. In the 1920s and 1930s the quiet and “respectable” Nazis remained in the background. The were lawyers, judges, economists, police officials, teachers, engineers and physicians. They mingled with the mainline conservatives, nationalists and even monarchists. They served as civil servants, education or in the private sector and remained in the background. They were the respectable front of National Socialism. Many kept their party membership hidden from colleagues even as Hitler built bridges with industrialists, bankers and brought their party to the forefront of the German political scene.

After the seizure of power they were the men that drafted the Nuremberg Laws and the Enabling Act. They wrote laws on forcible sterilization, they ran the political, economic and bureaucratic organizations that used slave labor to power their economic machine. They sat around a table at Wansee and dictated the Final Solution to the “Jewish problem”  They were the men that engineered the Holocaust. But unlike the Brownshirt “thugs” of the SA they were respectable and tried to keep their hands clean.  Without them Hitler could not have succeeded in gaining absolute power or keeping it.

It is the respectable Nazis who hold back their more virulent ideas for the time that they can use the political system that they despise to gain power and government agencies that they rail against to enforce their agenda. This is exactly what National Socialist Movement leader Brian Culpepper of Tennessee advocates. He said “We insert ourselves into the infrastructure of other established parties due to the bias against us and the difficulty of third parties getting ballot access….” and that “We have people working with the most recent incoming class of freshmen in the House,…And they don’t even know it.”

The Wade Page type of Neo-Nazi or White Supremacist is easy to spot and until they do something heinous like Page did in Oak Creek most of us don’t take them seriously. Covered in racist tattoos and playing in bad bands they hardly seem a credible threat until they are caught committing a serious crime or murder.

However, people that hold similar views but are more subtle in their methods and presentation are much more dangerous. Just as men like Wilhelm Frick, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Stuckart, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Otto Olhendorf were in the Third Reich these men and women are often well educated, come from good homes and mingle quite well. They lead think tanks, write commentary in national and local publications, websites and even provide commentary on cable news programs. They promote fear and pedal conspiracy theories involving those that they distain, accuse opponents of trying to destroy the country and refer to their opponents as liberals, socialists or communists or in league with radical Islamists. They publicly disavow violence but their ideology is that which those that commit violence use as justification for their acts.

Wade Page is a troubling figure but even more troubling those that hold the same views  and given the right circumstances have the money and political capital to bring them to fruition. One only has to look at the history of the Weimar Republic to see how easily this can happen.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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August 6, 2012 · 01:35

The Hatred of “the Other”: White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis, Politics and the Oak Creek Massacre

A Sikh man Cries outside the Temple in Oak Creek Wisconsin

We don’t know much yet but when we do my guess is that we will not like what we see.

Today a yet unnamed gunman who according to the FBI had White Supremacist tattoos on his body walked into the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek Wisconsin. The man killed 6 people and wounded many more who had simply come to worship. When police responded he shot and wounded an officer who returned fire and killed him.

Because of the tattoos FBI and police believe that the man may be White Supremacist of some sort. The have made no concrete announcements about the motive or if the man was a member of a White Supremacist or Neo-Nazi group but it appears that the investigators are looking strongly in that direction. We will find out more about him in the coming days but if the initial reports are accurate it paints a chilling picture of a movement that is becoming more widespread and more violent.

Sikhs are one of the earliest non-European immigrant groups to the United States. From the Punjab area of India they have frequently been attacked because they look different. Observant Sikh men do not cut their hair, keep a beard and wear a turban. As such they are often believed to be Moslems and since the September 11th 2001 attacks have suffered much abuse as well as been the victims of violence including murder.

Sikhs along those that they are commonly mistaken, Moslems and Arab Americans in general, as well as Indians, Pakistanis, and other non-European ethnicity Americans are often looked upon with suspicion, mistrust and hatred. This is fed by frequent attacks in right wing media demonizing them as “the enemy within” and the ravings of certain McCarthyesque politicians and pundits.

Sikhs, though peaceful and law abiding citizens often get caught in the Xenophobic hatred of “the other,” they are not “real Americans.” The fact is Sikhs look different. They are a very visible expression of ‘the other” that politicians, pundits and preachers of the American right wing love to demonize. It doesn’t matter that they are not Moslems and had no part in 9-11, they just wear turbans and loose fitting clothes and are a bit darker than most of us.

But going beyond the now normal xenophobia which is more driven by hate mongers that stir up fear and loathing is the absolute hatred for non-white minorities exhibited by White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis and Skinheads.

There are over well over 1000 known hate groups spanning ranging from traditional groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis to the Nation of Islam. The numbers, especially in White Supremacist groups has risen dramatically since 9-11, roughly 69% since then. Violence has been a long established tactic of these groups. When one takes the already existing hate group ideology and marries it to the xenophobic rantings of the Unholy Trinity of Politicians, Pundits and Preachers who rail against anyone who is not like them it is not surprising that attacks like this occur. I am just surprised that they don’t happen more often. But then again maybe this is just the beginning.

Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists are also beginning to make a push to get elected to local political offices and to grow their political power from “the ground up” according to Don Black, the  founder of the Neo-Nazi group Stormfront. Brian Culpepper of the National Socialist Movement in Tennessee claims that his group is entering the political process by stealth: “We insert ourselves into the infrastructure of other established parties due to the bias against us and the difficulty of third parties getting ballot access….” and that “We have people working with the most recent incoming class of freshmen in the House,…And they don’t even know it.” Black of Stormfront notes that many White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis followers are involved with the Tea Party movement but don’t feel that Tea Party leadership “is skittish when it comes to talking about racial realities.” He believes that this will mean that White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis may have to go it alone.

Today a lot of people, thankfully across the political spectrum are denouncing the brutal attack and murder of the members of the Oak Creek Sikh community. Hopefully it cause us to remember that words and ideology do have meaning and can bring people to do heinous crimes. We quite readily condemn the actions of Moslem extremists and terrorists. However we should condemn all that preach and practice the art of hate. The fact is that all hate groups and other terrorists regardless of their ideology are the same kind of animal. The sooner that we realize that the better.

Having been accosted and threatened by Neo-Nazis in the past I find this troubling. This is not an innocent movement. It grows by sowing fear and hatred. The Nazis in Germany singled out the Jews and linked them to every imaginable evil including Socialism and Communism. If you read the histories of the Nazi period, especially their political and propaganda campaigns in the 1920s and 1930s before they came to power one can see many similarities with the growing numbers of people taking part in or tacitly approving of the racist hate messages being spouted today.

Hopefully this will serve as a wake up call to those that have for whatever reason succumbed to the message of the hate mongers and help bring us back to a sense of shared American values of tolerance and community.

We will find out more in the coming days. Right now we know little about the man or his motivation for killing the Sikhs of Oak Creek.  But if the attacker was indeed a member of or sympathizer with a Neo-Nazi or White Supremacist as early reports suggest who is also linked to the mainstream political right it suggests a bigger problem than we want to think about.

There will be more on this to come I’m sure and I don’t think that we will like when we find out.

Peace

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May 7, 2012 · 23:59

Europe on the Edge: France and Greece Point to Dangerous Times Ahead

New French President Francois Hollande

The people of France and Greece have repudiated the European Union’s austerity mandate and Europe stands on the edge of chaos.  Maybe not immediate chaos but chaos that will engulf the continent as country after country elects for its own history, culture, tradition and economic freedom.

This is nothing new. In fact the situation in Europe resembles the period of the early 1930s as the Great Depression brought about the rise of political extremist on the Right and Left in very new and fragile democracies, as well as more established democracies.  Parallels can be found in many European nations. In France the election of Francois Hollande of the Socialist Party over Nicolas Sarkozy sent a shiver through the EU. Combined with the implosion of the conservative and liberal coalition in Greece in and results of other European elections the reality is that the European Union could be on the verge of breaking up. The Greek situation is especially foreboding as any coalition government will have to deal with the election of both hard line Communists and Neo-Nazis to parliament.

Greek Neo-Nazis

Now how it breaks up is not pre-determined, however it is obvious that the most strident voices in many European countries are people and parties that in good times are relegated to the political fringe. However social crisis driven by long term economic problems, especially high unemployment and reductions in support to those displaced by the economy are things that have historically brought about revolutions and dictatorships.

The European Union: Can it Survive?

Despite the Socialist win in France the trajectory of Europe is toward anti-democratic, ultra-nationalist and Xenophobic regimes.  Such will bode ill for the world economy as well as peace and the treatment of ethnic and religious minorities. Europe’s long term record on these issues is dreadful and the ghosts of that record seem to rise up almost every time that you think it is safe to go out in the water.

Germany under Chancellor Merkel and her allies in Brussels are attempting to hold together a creation that can only hold together when times are good and money easy.  When the hard times come, nations as well as individuals return to their basest and most primal concerns, not any utopian ideal.

The Hitler apologist and radical conservative pundit Pat Buchanan seems to think that this is a good thing in his latest column. He seems to revel in the potential collapse of the European Union. But then for a man that defend’s Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 and blames everybody but Hitler for the war this is not surprising.  While he may diagnose some of the problems inherent in the EU he also forgets that the EU held as its model the United States, the creation of a United States of Europe.

Nazi Election Poster

While I have always thought that the rush to admit nations to the EU in the 1990s and early 2000s was ill-conceived the threat posed by its break up is worse. This is simply because history shows us time and time again that such break ups are fraught with danger.

Likewise the same forces are at work in the United States. Long term economic difficulties are leading people to embrace extremes that in good times they would never consider.  We are not all that different from the Europeans in this. Looking back to the period before the Nazi takeover of Germany one observer told historian William Sheridan Allen that “Most of those that joined the Nazis did so because they wanted a radical answer to the economic problem. Then too, people wanted a hard, sharp, clear leadership- they were disgusted with the eternal political strife of parliamentary party politics.” (The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 Revised Edition, Franklin Watts Publishers, New York, London 1965, 1984 p.86)

These are dangerous times. It is not time to look to extremists of any stripe that promise simple and radical solutions to the solve the crisis. To do such is to make a deal with the devil.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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January 11, 2011 · 00:02

Loathe is Never Having to say You’re Sorry: Pundits and Politicians Point Fingers and Deny Responsibility for the Fruit of anything that they Say or the Climate that they create

Being a political hack means never having to say that you are sorry. Two days after the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the killing of 6 others including Federal Judge John Roll and the wounding of 13 others we are subjected to the incessant finger pointing and denial of responsibility by politicians but even more so by political pundits and talk show hosts. Partisans on both sides are pointing fingers at the other and attempting to place blame on others for the acts of a mentally disturbed individual who seems to have a rather eclectic set of influences.

Liberals have blamed the Tea Party and conservative talk show hosts without a clear connection between them and the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner. Conservatives immediately, like on Saturday jumped on a singular statement of a person that knew Loughner in high school who had not seen or talked to him since 2007 to label him a “dope smoking liberal” and even a “Democrat.”

Of course we know very little about Loughner other than to know that he is obviously quite disturbed with a diversity of political influences from the Communist Manifesto to Mein Kampf.  Loughner ranted almost incoherently vague references to the Constitution and unconstitutional Federal and State laws, the Gold Standard, illiteracy, distrust of the current government and government controlled currency as well as alleged government mind control.  In other words this angry and disturbed young man who also seems to come from a pretty strange family I might add does not fit your traditional liberal or conservative archetype.  In spite of this pundits and politicians of all stripes have made haven’t missed a beat in placing the blame on their political enemies. I don’t say their political opponents because they actually do hate each other and are intent on destroying each other and the country as we know it I might add.

I thought it unwise for Democrats to try to pin this on the Tea Party without evidence and I thought it was absurd and incendiary for those on the right to make hay of a singular statement by someone that hasn’t seen Loughner in 4 years that Loughner is a liberal Democrat.  For crying out loud both of these charges without conclusive evidence were blatant attempts to gain political leverage out of a tragedy by throwing out innuendo as if it were fact and then ignoring any repercussions.

There was a brief moment when many hoped that the vicious rhetoric would be toned down after the terrible evil perpetuated by Jared Lee Loughner in Tucson.   That is not the case and I said it would not be so. Like I have said before it seems that the extremists on both sides are willing to destroy the country in order to save it to borrow and slightly modify the phrase from the Vietnam War. It doesn’t matter if it is Keith Olberman or some Democrat Congressman on the left or Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neil Boortz, Michael Savage or Ann Coulter on the right there is simply no regard for truth. It is all about destroying the other side, demonizing them and finding some way to gain a political advantage from tragedy.

The political Left is guilty of some pretty crass and opportunistic behavior in many cases but the loudest and most heard voices are on the right particularly the “conservative” talk radio hosts. This is a fact as all of them proudly proclaim.  By their own proclamation they are the ones making the impact and who people are listening to and ratings show it.  For goodness sakes the Left has so little clout in this country it is not even funny despite claims of “media bias” so loudly chanted by the Right. Which is the most popular Cable News Channel? Fox News I think. Who gets the biggest radio rating? Limbaugh followed by Hannity, Savage and Boortz I think. Which are the most popular political websites? I think that internet traffic points to Worldnetdaily.com, Newsmax.com and Townhall.com.  For conservatives to complain about media bias is ludicrous now. They own the airwaves. Thanks to people like Dan Rather much of the “mainstream” media is discredited in the eyes of the American people.  Yet almost to a man those on the right keep crying about anyone who claims that they might be responsible on the intellectual level of people, both the sane and the insane who commit heinous acts which correspond with things that they preach.

In particular in the case of Congresswoman Giffords who protested outside her office? I think that it was the Tea Party. When was her office door shot out? I think that it was after she voted for the Health Care bill if I am correct. Who opposed the Health Care bill? I think it was conservatives. Who dropped a handgun at one of her rallies? Maybe it was a liberal supporter of the congresswoman? Not hardly. Which former Vice Presidential candidates PAC put a gun sight target over her district and left it up after the election? I think that was Sarah Palin. Whose Republican opponent urged his supports to come out with their M-16’s to support him? I think that it was Mike Kelly who ran against her in 2010. Need I say more?

Yes Jared Lee Loughner is a paranoid nutcase and probably will be ruled insane at some point. But people like him roam the streets easily influenced by extremists and radicals that stoke the fires of hatred. I don’t want to sound pessimistic but we are jumping headlong into the abyss and those of us moderates who want to see us back away from it are derided and in the case of Gabrielle Gifford shot in the head after repeated violent threats. I know what it is like to be threatened by violent deranged Neo Nazis on this website. It is frightening as hell to have people say that they will find you and harm you, hell I felt safer in Iraq than I do in this country. It is appalling yet the extremists don’t give a damn. They will destroy us all, even people that agree with them on some points.

I know something about the spirit of conservative talk radio. I was an avid listener from the mid-1990s until I returned from Iraq. I listened to Rush, Hannity, Boortz and Savage as often as I could and I can tell you that they are experts at manipulating facts and words to stir up the raw emotion of hatred of the left.  They all ask for hours of peoples time with good reason. When someone listens to the same message for hours on end eventually that is what they believe to be the truth.  When that is multiplied for 3, 6 or even 10-12 hours a day there is no other truth to believe.  From personal experience I can say that their tactics work well. They work their listeners into a rage against their political opponents creating anxiety and a sense of being victimized by the left wing media and political alliance.  I know I listened for years and my wife can attest to how angry I was.  When I came back from Iraq with a changed perspective I realized what had happened to me in those years. I have also listened to the left wing equivalents and with the exception of the invective of Keith Olberman they are little match for these guys. They command the airwaves and their internet presence is amazing and with a Republican-Tea Party controlled House they will not be silenced even if the left calls for the reinstatement of the so called fairness doctrine.

One of the last Chancellors of the Weimar Republic was General Kurt Von Schleicher. Von Schleicher who saw the dire threat posed by the extremes on the left represented by the Communists and the right by Hitler’s Nazi Party attempted to piece together a coalition of moderate parties which fell apart. Schleicher was then betrayed by conservative Franz Von Papen who then arranged for President Paul Von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor. After he took power Hitler swiftly eliminated opposition parties and during his purge of his own radical SA Brownshirts exacted his revenge of previous political opponents including Von Schleicher who was killed at his home along with his wife. So much for moderation, what good is it anyway?

The night before she was shot Gabrielle Giffords wrote this e-mail to her friend Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican, after he was named Director of Harvard University’s Institute of Politics:  “After you get settled, I would love to talk about what we can do to promote centrism and moderation, I am one of only 12 Dems left in a GOP district (the only woman) and think that we need to figure out how to tone our rhetoric and partisanship down.”

Von Schleicher was killed, Giffords grievously wounded. Unfortunately that is the fate of moderates in any country where extremists battle for power. That is history and the verbal bloodlust being perpetrated by the extremes but in particular the right which has been much more militant of late than the left which will destroy our Republic. Mark my words. If I’m wrong I will admit it and plead forgiveness, but I know from history where we are going and it will not be kind. God help us all.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

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August 30, 2010 · 23:22

I Hate Appalachian Nazis: A Response to “Briar Cavendish”

Elwood Blues: “Illinois Nazis?”

Jake Blues: “I hate Illinois Nazis”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EoOZKjAjlk

I think I can safely echo the thoughts of Jake and Elwood Blues about Illinois or any other type of Nazis that skulk about the dark recesses of the American heartland attempting to blend in with decent Americans while peddling their hate on the internet.

If you read my post from last night and early this morning about what can only be described as an online assault on me by someone that calls himself “Briar Cavendish” you know that it shook me pretty bad. But I also said that I would not back down.  The words and thoughts of this Cavendish fellow who is too cowardly to use his real name but a rather a nom d’guerre is obviously pretty disturbed. So will endeavor to disturb him more to hopefully cause him to slip up and identify himself.

You see last night I went to bed very upset and didn’t sleep well.  The only thing that got me through the early part of the day at work was one hellacious workout for morning PT but apart from that I was pretty wiped out and in a funk through most of the day. It was only tonight that I decided to fight back.  I researched all that I could about him and it seems that he is most likely according to his IP address from somewhere between Johnson City Tennessee and Abingdon Virginia as both cities came up as the location. I’m presuming that he is in a rural area and that his internet service provider alternates him between cities or hat he lives in one and works in the other.  I had thought that he might be in Knoxville Tennessee but think that my initial hypothesis was wrong as the owner of the business using the name “Briar Cavendish” appears to be legit and pretty busy with real life to go around doing such things. The fact also that the ISP address is not in Knoxville kind of confirmed that.

But tonight as I researched him I found a plethora of pathetic posts on numerous sites. Evidently my admirer “Briar” is rabid Appalachian Nazi; he posts this stuff all over the place and seems to be sought out by like-mindless people on some of these sites. What amazed me was not that he was posting but just how many people like him spew this hate on these sites. Some call themselves White Supremacists, others American Nazis and a host of other titles. But the common thread is a hatred of African Americans, other non-white people, Jews, Muslims, established political parties, Christians that disagree with them and by the way need I say President Barak Obama and the belief that they represent the true spirit of America.  The have affiliated sites that cater to veterans, stay at home moms and pseudo-intellectuals.  They often stand should to shoulder with alleged “patriot” groups who while not in total agreement with the Nazis echo many similar themes.  The thing that freaked me out about my admirer “Briar’s” comments were how close some of them regarding minorities, immigrants, political parties especially the Democrats and Barak Obama are to e-mail that I receive from older friends and relatives who spam out e-mails that are full of lies, distortions, wives tales and are easily identified as such by going to Snopes.com.

I guess what bothers me is that many of the themes of the Neo-Nazis are echoed by well meaning people who are simply upset about the direction of the country and have been whipped into frenzy by the 24 hour news cycle and nonstop talk radio.  I think from my study of history, especially the Weimar and Nazi era, which was a specialization in my Masters Degree that I know a few things about what happens when passions become this inflamed in a polarized body-politic that the result is seldom good. It simply takes a crisis be it political, economic or military to push well meaning people who have been pushed to the edge over the cliff into the abyss of civil war and chaos. I can still see the bullet holes in a school that I helped to paint in Rijeka Croatia and the devastation wrought by the Iraq insurgency the mass graves of Bergen-Belsen and Barracks and Gas Chambers of Dachau to see what can happen when this happens.  In fact I think that is what frightened me most about the attack on me last night is that we appear to be sitting on a tinderbox in a sea of gasoline with idiots all about playing with fire.

So anyway, Briar so go ahead. Take your best shot and if you are a man identify yourself and enter into dialogue. If you don’t I have to assume that you are you simply a Hillbilly Hitler with bad teeth, no real reasoning skills and no writing ability.  You make me long for Joey Goebbels, despite being a Nazi thug at least could write, speak and wasn’t afraid to identify himself.  From now on if you post on Padre Steve’s World it will be on my terms and I will shut you down you racist, homophobic Hillbilly Hitler with delusions of dictatorship.  You see Briar you and cowards like yourself skulk about in darkness using pseudonyms to post your pathetic hate filled drivel using the freedoms that I and millions like me have secured for you since our nation came into being.  You’re a pathetic excuse for an American.

Go ahead, make my day,

Padre Steve+

PS. I know that this was not a very “grace filled” post but people like this need to be called out or they will doom themselves and the rest of us to a fratricidal conflict that will make our Civil War look like child’s play.

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August 30, 2010 · 01:46

My God what have we Come To?

There are times like today when I think I felt safer in Iraq

In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me –
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Martin Niemoller

For the first time in my life I feel afraid in my own country and have a growing sense of despair concerning the state of our body-politic.  A number of months back I had a man comment using very racist and homophobic language on this site regarding a post that I did on World War II called “Can Anybody Spare a DIME: A Short Primer on Early Axis Success and how the Allies Won the Second World War” https://padresteve.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/can-anybody-spare-a-dime-a-short-primer-on-early-axis-success-and-how-the-allies-won-the-second-world-war/ He made the following comment at that time:

“You took a few well known history facts added some negroid glitz and glam, and arrogantly rest on your piss bucket of drivel as if you know something. You meinen Herr are a cretinous asshole of predictable disposition. I smell the ratty fumes of a Marxist lurking beneath your pebbled vskin.”

Today after coming home from church, a movie and a beer at Gordon Biersch the same person posted to this site regarding the following incredibly innocuous post: “Moves and Rumors of Moves…well not the Rumors Part…the Orioles and Tides make some Moves” https://padresteve.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/moves-and-rumors-of-moves…well-not-the-rumors-part-orioles-and-tides-make-some-moves/

This was the comment that he posted today:

“You are a mindless weasel, a coward who liks african ass for breakfast. You offal brained reject, worshiping sports as if you had the substance to believe in anything beyond homosexual masturbation. You get off on the dreadlocks and butts don’t you? The world is a mystery to disturbed imps like you. When they come to march your segment of drunks from stadium section f6, you will raise your piteous painted face and wiggle in your woman’s dress as you say. Wha hoppen? You are proof that shit floats.”

I parried Mr. Cavendish accusing him of being a racist and homophobe since I am very straight and white and warned him that he had posted to the site before and that I would ban him. I followed up with a one liner suggesting that he take a creative writing class.  I then received a long diatribe on what he called “New White Male Syndrome” and Wigger Syndrome (which I learned on “the Urban Dictionary is “A male caucasion, usually born and raised in the suburbs that displays a strong desire to emulate African American Hip Hop culture and style through “Bling” fashion and generally accepted “thug life” guiding principles”). This post which was laced with more racist language than I would dare to post as well as this final comment: “Your opinion are typical leftist knee jerk reactions. I see a spade, I call a spade and I do not bother to spell check. ass wipe”

I decided to do a search for him and came up with a Briar Cavendish that allegedly is the owner of “Outdoor Adventure” in Knoxville Tennessee.  He is also a contributor on the National Writers Syndicate http://nationalwriterssyndicate.com/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/ which appears to be a Mecca for the far right.

In posts to this site and others he seems unhinged and claims to have a Masters Degree in Psychology and to have almost completed his doctorate.  He even attacks House Republican leader John Boehner on his blog.  He refers to illegal immigrants as “parasite races” in comments to some group called the National Policy Institute in Augusta Georgia. This group makes the following claims:

  1. The West is a cultural compound of our Classical, Christian, and Germanic past.
  2. Race informs culture; it is the necessary precondition for cultural identity and integrity. In 1950 whites represented 28 percent of the world’s population. If current trends persist, this number will plummet to 9 percent by 2060. In the United States, whites are projected to become a minority of the national population in less than fifty years. The result will impoverish not only their descendants but the world in general and will jeopardize the civilization and free governments that whites have created.

This group while presenting itself as very “mainstream” appears to be a White Supremacist front organization and Mr. Cavendish seems quite at home there however he seems to attack other pretty right wing guys such as “The Conservative Guy” who he attacks saying “Conservative pride themselves in being to cowardly to be called “right wing extremists,” for example they are very careful to never criticize any racist activities of the black leadership of leftist groups and they are always searching for carnal leftist blacks, like colon powell, who will go along with them publicly, but sabotage them behind the scenes? Why? They desperately voice to need for “black inclusion” black leadership and just love a black telling them what to do. Intelligent people have only contempt for CONservatives, their ignorance, cowardice and extreme fear of blacks which they demonstrate by constant kow towing. Any person who is confident enough and intelligent enough to not care whether he is called right wing extremist or racist as he fights for justice, is a rare and admirable creature.”

Now some might just say that Mr. Cavendish is just an anomaly and not representative of much broader thought. But his sentiments are echoed by many people some of whom I see post on social media sites and some people that have left comments on this site.  I think that he is becoming less of an anomaly than any of us would like to think.

When I see the vitriolic anger in e-mails that are forwarded to me be my mother and people that I have known for years I get scared because this is the same kind of thought that consumed Germany in the years leading up to the Nazi takeover.  I know that some people who become as consumed by their hatred as Mr. Cavendish has become often go beyond the written word to physical violence I am concerned.  At the same time, despite admittedly being frightened by this movement I will not stop confronting such hatred and will fight it.

The attacks on me are disturbing because they involve such innocuous and non-ideological posts and to be called such things as Mr. Cavendish calls me is disconcerting at best.  Having been in combat and having seen things that Mr. Cavendish obviously is clueless about I wonder what is happening to the country that I love. I have seen the results of such ideology at Dachau and Bergen-Belsen, in the former Yugoslavia and in the Middle East.  Abraham Lincoln made the comment that “A house divided against itself cannot stand” in relation to slave and Free states in the same union. Now I wonder how long we have before the divide between the political extremes in our left and right grows to the point of actual physical violence, which actually has occurred in some locales around election time.  That violence has come from the left as well as the right and I wonder if it keeps escalating if we can survive as a nation.

I believe that Mr. Cavendish and those like him are dangerous and pose a real threat to the life and property of those that they hate. I do not believe that such ideology ends with the written word but with physical violence.  I know that some conservative readers will see this as an attack upon them. It is not by any means but a statement of fact that when hatred becomes established that it eventually has nowhere to go except to express itself in physical violence.  When I was growing up this was the prevue of the radical left which members of called me a Nazi for being in the military and who during the Vietnam era did terrible things to our veterans.  Now I don’t know what to think.

I have always been an optimist about the United States of America but when such things occur I doubt my optimism. How long until someone comes for me in the name of patriotism, conservatism, or even Christianity? I wonder if I will be like the officers in the German Army who stood for the Weimar Republic during the crisis even if they did not agree with all that it stood for who were then cashiered or in some cases killed by the Nazis after the takeover.  You see, when people become zealots and enraged even those that have served their country honorable in war become the enemy.  It is a sobering thought.  God help us as we seem to have lost the ability to help ourselves. Darkness is setting in America and we have no one but ourselves to blame.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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June 10, 2009 · 21:41

The Danger of Right Wing and Left Wing Extremism

“Let everyone regulate his conduct… by the golden rule of doing to others as in similar circumstances we would have them do to us, and the path of duty will be clear before him.”  William Wilberforce

The past two weeks have been a watershed in modern American History.  For the first time in memory we have had a series of ideological, political and religious murders committed by men who believed that their actions were justifiable homicide.  The first was the murder of a physician who had a fair amount of his practice devoted to abortions including late term abortions.  George Teller was killed by Scott Roeder a militant anti-government member of the Freemen and a fringe player in anti-abortion groups who was influenced by the militant anti-abortion group The Army of God which believes in justifiable homicide.  The murder was in Tiller’s church.  The clinic which Tiller operated is being shut down by his family.  Roeder believes it a victory but many in the pro-life movement are concerned that it will lead to crackdown on mainstream pro-lifers, and also that the closing of the Tiller clinic could lead to similar attacks by those emboldened by Roeder’s action.

The second killing was that of Army Pvt. William Long outside of a recruiting station in Little Rock.  The confessed murderer used an assault rifle to kill Pvt. Long and wound another soldier serving as home town recruiters prior to reporting to their unit following their initial entry training.  The suspects, an American convert to Islam named Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he didn’t consider the killing a murder because U.S. military action in the Middle East made the killing justified.  “I don’t think it was murder, because murder is when a person kills another person without justified reason.”  Mujahid Muhammad warned soldiers and their families in the US that they were also targets: “The battlefield is not just in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Muhammad says.  “A battlefield is anywhere we see you at.  And those people in the Army and those families of the people in the Army and the military and personnel all over the country, if you don’t want to die or get shot for this so called war on terrorism, war on Islam, then get out of the Army.  Get out of the Army and don’t walk, run.” This attack followed other attacks on recruiting stations including the bombing of the Armed Forces Recruiting station in Times Square last year.

The most recent attack occurred today as an 88 year old White Supremacist and Holocaust denier James Von Brunn walked into the Holocaust Memorial Museum killing a guard.  Von Brunn’s sites as well as other Neo-Nazi websites such as Stormfront prominently spew Von Brunn’s hatred toward minorities in the United States.   His book, “Kill The Best Gentiles,” embraces Adolf Hitler’s view that Jews concocted World War I as part of a scheme to stab Germany in the back — a myth the Nazis used to justify the Holocaust. He is called an “independent investigator by some and has issued statements on the citizenship controversy pushed by some on the far Right about President Obama’s eligibility to serve as President  and comments about the religion of then CENTCOM commander General Tommy Franks.

All three of these men evidently believe in justifiable homicide and are willing to kill for their ideological or religious beliefs.  What makes this sudden spike in assassination for ideological reasons significant is that the nation is polarized by the extreme Right and extreme Left which both see the world and their causes no matter what they are in black and white terms.  There is no intent by any extreme group to dialogue or find compromise with their opponents, even if such compromise would gain them at least part of what they want.  Instead, the rhetoric of the extremes has continued to increase and find airtime on supposedly “mainstream” media outlets both liberal and conservative.  This provides some manner of legitimacy to the extremist groups even as their more boisterous political and media supporters ratchet up the rhetoric.  This makes for an incredibly volatile situation which is fraught with danger for all as more and more people see violence, including justifiable homicide as a legitimate option to push their agenda.  In our country we cannot forget that John Brown, though right in his desire to end slavery engaged in tactics which helped push the country to civil war, a war that while freeing African-Americans from the yoke of slavery imposed a yoke nearly as heavy on them, know as Jim Crow laws that lasted until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King and the Voting Rights Act of 1964.  Even still racism is still a reality for many blacks and other minorities.  Brown’s desire to end slavery may have been righteous but he destroyed the political center which could have ended it peacefully in time just as William Wilberforce and his allies in Parliament had done in England.

The perilous situation that exists now is that which erodes the center on which all depend on to hold.  Neither Left Wing or Right Wing extremists give a damn about the majority who are somewhere in between.  As a passionate moderate I see this as a dangerous trend.  In Germany of the late 1920s and early 1930s both the Communists and Nazis polarized the nation.  The more moderate Social Democrats, Catholic Center Party and other smaller middle of the road parties were marginalized as time went on.  Eventually the Nazis won that power struggle with dire consequences which extended far beyond Germany.  As the rhetoric rises and those who justify violence be it against people, institutions or property are emboldened to act it will further fracture the middle.  It is imperative that the Center to hold, as Edmund Burke said: “All it needs for evil to prosper is for people of goodwill to do nothing.”

These actions could well be harbingers of things to come.  What is even more concerning as they take place at a time of worldwide economic crisis when we have hundreds of thousands of troops deployed to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Additionally, North Korea rattling sabers and several critical nations, some with nuclear weapons on the brink of collapse, failure or civil war.  I pray that men and women of goodwill and courage arise in the center and passionately advocate not for a particular party or cause, but the good of all.  People of faith need to pray not for a particular political resolution favorable to them, but for God’s peace and healing in our country.

Peace, Steve+

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