EXPLOITING TRAGEDY - NOTHING SACRED TO THE GOP

I'm about as fond of Michele Bachmann as I am of slimy okra and Sarah Palin, but today she and the rest of her cohorts might just have placed themselves at the very top of my all-time scumbags list.

While the issue of Health Care Reform was gaining a little momentum with a couple of key endorsements, a Bachmann led Tea-Party event was grabbing headlines in the country's Capitol. Joining her on the stage were other noted Republicans such as Minority Leader John Boehner (OH), Minority Whip Eric Cantor (VA), Roy Blunt (MO), Jeb Hensarling (TX), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Michele Bachmann (MN) Virginia Foxx (NC), Ginny Brown-Waite (FL), Jean Schmidt (OH), Sue Myrick (NC), and many more.

As these notables rubbed elbows with about 2,000 wingnuts the signs and flags were waving. Including this one:

From the Daily Kos.

Our elected officials...our governmental elite...sponsoring and rallying at such an event.

As if it isn't bad enough that Glenn Beck and FOX News sees fit to exploit the tragic events of September 11th to boost their own ratings we now have those straight from the halls of government participating with those who have no morality or integrity in the streets of Washington, D.C. and not one objection from any of them.

Bill White Supporter, Eric Hunt, Is Seeking Funds In A Most Peculiar Way

Everyone should remember this young man. His name is Eric Hunt and back in January or February of 2007, he was arrested for assaulting Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. He stalked him across the country and assaulted him in California. At the time, Bill White was claiming that he was a supporter of ANSWP. If you'll remember, after the assault he checked himself into some sort of mental facility. Well, it seems that Hunt has taken a new route...and I think he might need to check himself right back into that facility.

TO ORIGINAL STORY

Holocaust survivor sued in Fla. for memoir 'lies'
October 20, 2009 8:27 AM
The Associated Press
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The man who accosted Holocaust scholar Elie Weisel in 2007 has filed suit in Florida against an Auschwitz death camp survivor, alleging her memoir is full of lies.

Eric Hunt seeks damages in excess of $60 million, alleging Irene Weisberg Zisblatt should be punished “for tormenting Gentiles and instilling hatred in Jews.”

Zisblatt’s son-in-law, who is a lawyer, calls the lawsuit “absurd” but says he’s worried about the woman’s safety.

Hunt made headlines in 2007 for dragging Wiesel off a San Francisco hotel elevator. He said then he had mental problems and got “sucked into anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on the Internet.”

Hunt was sentenced to 4 years probation and ordered to undergo psychological treatment. He was released from a 2-year prison sentence for 1 year served during the proceedings.

According to a website dedicated to Ms. Zisblatt...

As a young prisoner in the camps, Irene witnessed and experienced unspeakable cruelty and brutality. She lost her whole family to the gas chambers. She was a "guinea pig" for Dr Josef Mengele, who performed inhumane experiments on her. The last mementoes of her family were the four diamonds given to her by her mother, that she had to keep swallowing over and over so they wouldn't be confiscated. She walked for two months on a death march while thousands of weakened prisoners dropped dead around her. Through it all, she held onto her hope and faith and, encouraged by the strength of her friend, Sabka, somehow she made it through one of humankind's darkest eras.

Although she swore to tell the world of the atrocities she'd seen, to be a voice for her friends and fellow prisoners, it took her fifty years to get over her fear and shame before she could do so. After taking part in the March of the Living, a walk through the camps culminating in Israel, she opened up and shared her story with the younger generation. She's been sharing it ever since, speaking around the world, testifying for the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and taking part in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning documentary, "The Last Days."

Of course there are those who attempt to convince the world that the Holocaust never happened and those who attempt to obfuscate or one-up the atrocity by citing other monsterous acts and it appears that Eric Hunt is one of those. But, one has to wonder just how effective that court-ordered psychiatric treatment has been.

This afternoon Tuesday June 10,James Von Brunn age 89 went on the attack, after a lifetime of nurturing ,promoting anti-Semitic ideas, Von Brunn a avowed racist decided to go out with a bang. A bang that has been heard around the world, the bang is called White Supremacy and it's rounds where aimed at the Washington DC Holocaust Museum,targeting the innocent people inside and assaulting the memory of 6 million people murdered.

Many American have been lulled into the belief that this type of hatred no longer exist in the country. We have convinced ourselves that with the election of President Obama neo Nazis, kkk were things of the past.

Von Brunn because of his age may be anomaly but the ideas of organized racism and lone wolf terror ta tics are the norm for many in the far right racist movement.

Just last week a notorious Internet racist broadcaster who has encouraged this type of racist violence for years, was finally arrested for threatening people with violence. Numerous times he would broadcast that "violence solves everything". Today we have seen that violence.

We at Citizens Against Hate believe this violence is just a beginning.
Floyd Cochran

PS. Nikki will be posting more info soon -

Once a Nazi Not Always A Nazi

TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE AND MORE PICTURES

Christer Mattson, Swedish Holocaust educator, is seen during a visit to the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Monday, June 2, 2008. They used to paint swastika graffiti, get into street fights with immigrants, distribute anti-Semitic propaganda. But after studying the cases of a few of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II, some former Swedish neo-Nazi teenagers came to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial to underline their new attitudes. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

Former neo-Nazis become Holocaust commemorators
By ARON HELLER – 2 days ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — They used to paint swastika graffiti, get into street fights with immigrants and distribute anti-Semitic propaganda.

But after studying the cases of a few of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II, some former Swedish neo-Nazi teenagers came to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial with new attitudes.

The teens, some of whom were active members of neo-Nazi groups, visited the memorial Monday to present the findings of their research into the stories of 16 Holocaust victims from their hometown of Karlstad, and add pages of testimony for the previously unknown dead.

The project is the initiative of Swedish Holocaust educator Christer Mattsson. The concept is to take troubled youths off the street, confront their prejudices and ignorance and slowly convert them into Holocaust educators themselves.

"The first time I took a neo-Nazi to Auschwitz, I didn't know what to expect," he said. "But after seeing it, after seeing where Jews used to live, he said: 'I can no longer deny it happened, or salute what happened.'"

The journey has been an arduous one. Of the 100 teenagers in his program, Mattsson said about five to eight are "hard-core neo-Nazis" — some completely reformed, others not. Those, some sporting Nazi tattoos, did not make the trip to Israel, either for fear of offending survivors or to remain anonymous for their own safety.

The only former active member who arrived, 17-year-old Joar, refused to be photographed and would be identified only by his first name for fear of retribution from his former friends.

The shy, blond Joar hid behind a baseball cap and a large pair of sunglasses. He would only say that he used to have "different opinions."

"I didn't know so much. I've learned a lot about the Holocaust," he said, through a translator. "I have a different perspective on life now."

Sweden remained neutral during World War II. It had a very small Jewish population and closed its gates to refugees. That policy began to change as the horrors of the Holocaust became apparent and Sweden began to lean toward the allies.

In 1944, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg began handing out papers to save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazi death camps. After the war, some 27,000 survivors arrived in Sweden.

In Karlstad, 16 Jewish women died shortly afterward, most from illness, and were buried in a Jewish cemetery. Mattsson took his students there to ask them if they still believed the Holocaust to be a myth. They, in turn, decided to investigate the women's stories. The result is a 100-page book that details their stories.

On Monday, they presented their findings to Israel's official Holocaust museum and memorial.

Yad Vashem spokeswoman Estee Yaari said it probably marked the first time it had ever dealt directly with neo-Nazis.

The teenagers toured the museum and met with Mirjam Akavia, a Holocaust survivor who fled to Sweden after the war.

She vividly described her childhood and how she was yanked out of school and sent to the camps, where only she and sister emerged while the rest of her family perished.

"When I was 12, it was the end of my beautiful childhood. It was the end of everything," she said.

The Swedish teenagers were not much older when they encountered their own local brand of anti-Semitism.

"The headmaster of my former school, who is here today, was beaten up by people I knew three years ago," said 17-year-old Jennifer Lindstrom, who said she joined Mattsson's group so she could have the tools to battle her classmates' rhetoric and actions.

"Maybe because I have been studying about the Holocaust and Nazism, maybe because I have been to Auschwitz and the empty shtetels (Jewish villages) in Poland or maybe because I got sick and fed up with racism and neo-Nazis — I could not remain silent."

Lindstrom's principal was assaulted because he tried to keep the neo-Nazi students out of his school. The two other teenagers in the group were Johanna Karlsson and Deken Izat, a Kurdish immigrant to Sweden who used to belong to a rival gang that battled with Joar's.

Lindstrom said that finding out what happened in her own backyard proved to be the best way for her and her new friends to counter racism.

"It is slightly unreal to be here today and handing over material that we have worked with for so long, knowing that it will be here at Yad Vashem for always," Lindstrom said.