Tag: Nazis

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At Large Opinion

Blood Simple

Photo: @itspastorcris on X

This is a story about nazis, the rock group Paramore, a folk singer, and the GOP members of the Tennessee State House. Bear with me. It all comes together in the end.

First, the nazis: Last Saturday afternoon, a group of 30 or so white men demonstrated on the grounds of the state capitol in Nashville. They carried nazi flags, wore face masks (naturally), and red T-shirts proclaiming that they were members of a group called “Blood Tribe.” They then walked in loose formation down Broadway, along sidewalks filled with tourists.

The march was videoed by dozens of people, including by one brave stalwart who walked alongside the group, screaming, “Cowards!! Cowards!! Show your faces!!” They didn’t because — duh — they’re cowards. That video was posted on X and went viral.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, Blood Tribe members exalt Hitler as a deity, a reincarnation of the Norse god Wotan. They are “a hard-core white supremacist group, that sees themselves as the last remaining bulwark against enemies of the white race and the only path to a white ethno-state.” Blood Tribe members “emphasize hyper-masculinity,” and the group does not allow female members.

Here’s my favorite part: Once accepted into the Blood Tribe, “members take part in an initiation ceremony during which they cut themselves using the group’s ceremonial spear and then rub their blood on the shaft of the spear.” Uh huh.

Also possibly notable is the fact that the group’s first public demonstration was in March 2023, when they protested a drag queen story hour in Wadsworth, Ohio. According to news reports, attendees “wore matching red sweaters, waved swastika flags, and held a banner that read, ‘There will be blood.’” No word on whether their shoes matched their outfits.

But there’s really nothing funny about nazis, no matter how un-self-aware they are, unless hyper-toxic masculinity and ignorant racism amuse you. These guys are evil thugs, even if they are afraid to show their faces.

Among many others catching the nazis on phone video last Saturday were state Representative Justin Pearson of Memphis and state Representative Justin Jones of Nashville — the two Black members of the “Tennessee Three” who were excommunicated from the state legislature last summer for advocating for gun reform in the House chamber. Pearson and Jones (who were reinstated by special elections) both denounced the Blood Tribe march and referenced their GOP colleagues in their X posts about the group.

Jones said: “This is exactly what my Republican colleagues’ hate speech is fostering and inviting.” Pearson said: “Tragically, [the Blood Tribe’s] views are shared by many who I serve alongside on the other side of the aisle.”

Too harsh, you say? This is where Paramore and the folk singer come in. The Nashville-based rock band won Grammys for Best Rock Album and Best Alternative Music Performance. The folksinger, also from Nashville, was Allison Russell, who won a Grammy for Best American Roots Performance. Jones made what is typically a perfunctory consent calendar resolution — noncontroversial motions that the legislature passes en masse — to honor both artists for their awards.

But, oops. Nope. GOP House Speaker Jeremy Faison removed the resolution honoring Russell from the consent calendar, saying he had been approached by other GOP members with questions about Russell “which made it appropriate for us to press pause on that particular resolution.”

What questions? He couldn’t say. Here’s a guess: Russell is Black. The members of Paramore are white. The GOP reps decided to “press pause” on the Black woman because as they have shown time and time again, they are country-ass, cousin-humpin’ racist tools. In a real democracy, you could put that resolution on the consent calendar and take it to the bank.

Too harsh? I’m pretty sure Faison doesn’t like it when people bring up the 2022 incident in which he ran onto a basketball court during a game (between two “Christian” academies, no less) and attempted to “de-pants a referee” because he disagreed with a call. Probably should have pressed pause on that move, Jeremy.

To their credit, the lead singer of Paramore said the group would decline the “honor” from the legislature unless Russell was also honored. Oh, and if you’re still wondering about that “press pause” business? Last year, Russell criticized GOP legislators for enacting legislation targeting LGBTQ rights and banning drag shows.

Huh. How did we nazi that one coming?

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News News Blog

Former SS Nazi Guard Deported by Memphis Judge

CREDIT: Holocaust Research Project


A Tennessee resident who was a former Nazi SS guard during WWII has been sent back to Germany by a U.S. immigration judge in Memphis.

U.S. Immigration Judge Rebecca Holt ruled that Friedrich Karl Berger, a German citizen, should be deported to Germany, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Though Berger’s two-day trial took place in Memphis, court documents did not include the Tennessee city where Berger resided.   

The court ruled that Berger was removable under the 1978 Holtzman Amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act because of Berger’s contribution to Nazi persecution and his “willing service as an armed guard of prisoners at a concentration camp where persecution took place.”

The court found that Berger served as guard at a Neuengamme concentration camp near Meppen, Germany, where prisoners were held in “atrocious conditions, exploited for outdoor forced labor, and working to the point of exhaustion and death.”

Further, Berger admitted to the court that he guarded prisoners to prevent them from escaping.

Holocaust Research Project

Guards and prisoners at a Neuengamme Concentration Camp.


In March 1945, when the Nazis abandoned Meppen, Berger was found to have guarded prisoners on a “forcible evacuation” to another camp. The evacuation was a nearly two-week trip, in which approximately 70 prisoners died, according to the court.

Finally, the court found that Berger is still receiving a pension from Germany for his “wartime service.”

Berger was part of the SS machinery of oppression that kept concentration camp prisoners in atrocious conditions of confinement,” said Brian Benczkowski, Assistant Attorney General for DOJ’s criminal division.”

According to the DOJ, since it began efforts to investigate and remove Nazi prosecutors in 1979, it has successfully removed 109 individuals from the country.

Categories
Intermission Impossible Theater

Tomorrow Belongs to Nazis — “Cabaret” Remains Stubbornly Relevant

“We are Americans, and the future belongs to us.” — POTUS.

Inspired by Christopher Isherwood’s story “Goodbye to Berlin” and the subsequent play I Am a Camera, the Kander & Ebb musical, Cabaret, shows three distinct snapshots of Germany during Hitler’s rise to power. First, there’s a sentimental Berlin, where a little old German landlady and a little old Jewish grocer might laugh and make loving, bawdy metaphors over a bowl of fruit. There’s also a decadent, enticing Berlin, where transvestites and taxi dancers guzzle gin and dance in a sleepless celebration of flesh. And then there’s the Berlin where Nazis multiply and metastasize like cancer cells. It’s the last snapshot I want to focus on.

Where did all those Nazis come from? Hitler took inspiration from many places, but was a particular fan of American Industrialist Henry Ford, who acquired a weekly periodical called The Dearborn Independent, transforming it into a vehicle for his virulent brand of anti-semitism. Indeed, the ceaseless, almost century-long campaign against “liberalism” in media — a complaint whose ubiquity has made it conventional wisdom, undermining virtually all trust in American information workers — is essentially a politically refined twin of Ford’s fear-mongering against, “the international Jew,” who controls the news and entertainment industry.

Tomorrow Belongs to Nazis — ‘Cabaret’ Remains Stubbornly Relevant

Ford’s anti-semitism wasn’t unique for the time but, as the man who created America’s automobile industry, he was uniquely credible and the power and influence he wielded was extraordinary. Before The Independent was shuttered amid lawsuits stemming from the paper’s relentless defamation, it had become the second-largest circulation periodical in America. Ford’s message about the threat of Jewish influence was carried forward by America’s own Nazis, the German American Bund who, in spite of having been highly active and organized in the run up to WWII, have been virtually wiped from the public memory. The Bund protested for pro-Nazi media and their rally at Madison Square Garden filled the house. In short, while few images define how America sees itself like Jack Kirby’s cartoon of Captain America punching Hitler in the face, the real story’s more like a comic book plot than the big cultural myth. Our Nazis went underground, and stayed undefeated. They didn’t have to reintegrate into the American fabric, because they were already part the American fabric. At some point it became impolite to make even the most appropriate Nazi comparisons, because the horror of the Holocaust was incomparable, a fact lending cover to the movement’s provenance and evolution.

As a side note, the famous image of Captain America punching Hitler came out a year before America entered into WWII. Not only was America not at war with Germany when Kirby drew the image, 75 percent of the the US opposed war with the Nazis.

Germans were devastated by WWI. Crippled by debt and a deadlocked parliament, the country was ripe for a despot like Hitler. In much the same way economic anxieties in the U.S. have been channeled into racial tension, creating a permanent American underclass, Germany was looking for somebody to blame for its struggles and disgrace. Decadent Weimar culture made an easy target, and Henry Ford’s international Jew made an easy scapegoat. While focusing on Berlin’s Kit Kat Club, and those inside the orbit of British singer and bon vivant Sally Bowles, Cabaret seeks to answer what have long been regarded as unanswerable questions: How could it happen? And where did the monsters come from?

Tomorrow Belongs to Nazis — ‘Cabaret’ Remains Stubbornly Relevant (3)

They didn’t come from anywhere, of course. They were already there, waiting for representation. They were waiting for a leader to say out loud the kinds of things they were already whispering to their children. America always had Nazis — lots of them! They didn’t come from anywhere, and they didn’t vanish when conscription made certain views seditious. They just went back to being good folks, if a little more conservative than most. All they’ve ever needed to activate was a little representation.

I haven’t seen Playhouse on the Square’s Cabaret revival yet, but plan to be in the audience opening night. Broadway’s book is different than Bob Fosse’s nearly perfect film, and how the material is interpreted and contextualized matters. Thematically, it couldn’t have arrived at a more appropriate time. Again.

Here’s a video preview created by Playhouse on the Square. Have a look. 

Tomorrow Belongs to Nazis — ‘Cabaret’ Remains Stubbornly Relevant (2)

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Trump and the Jews

While visiting Poland in 1976, I heard about a book. It was called Anti-Semitism Without Jews: Communist Eastern Europe, and it was mentioned to me because the Jews of Poland, once numerous, had almost entirely been murdered — yet the hatred of them persisted. The title of that book popped into my head in the aftermath of the slaughter of 11 Jews in Pittsburgh by an anti-Semite. President Trump, not to mention Republicans in general, denied any connection between the shooting and the president’s rhetoric. They are either historically ignorant or moral cowards.

First, their ignorance. They do not appreciate that, in both style and rhetoric, Trump’s anti-Semitism, like that of Eastern Europe’s, is “without Jews.” He himself lacks the prejudice. He was born and raised in the resplendently Jewish city of New York. His daughter converted to the religion, and his grandchildren are being raised as Jews. His associates — once Roy Cohn and later Michael Cohen — have been Jews, and he is supported by major Jewish donors such as Sheldon Adelson, whose wife, Miriam, lost family in the Holocaust. Trump is not a Jew hater.

But he has adopted or embraced the mind-set of an anti-Semite. He does not rebut the stereotype of the villainous rich Jew, that latter-day Rothschild, George Soros, who is seen as the deus ex machina funding the caravan of the desperate wending its way north from Honduras. In Soros’ native Hungary, where he escaped Adolf Eichmann’s roundup — more than 437,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz — Soros is literally the poster boy of all the standard anti-Semitic tropes, especially that of the amoral Jewish cosmopolite.

In the United States, the cliche of rootless amoral Jews has been replaced by a media with the same odious characteristics. Jews have long been associated with journalism — in 19th-century Vienna, the word “journalist” was analogous with Jew — and in 1941, Charles Lindbergh, a steadfast isolationist, made matters clear in a speech in Des Moines, Iowa. What he called “war agitators” consisted of three groups: “the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration.” These “agitators,” he added, are “only a small minority of our people; but they control a tremendous influence. Against the determination of the American people to stay out of war, they have marshaled the power of their propaganda, their money, their patronage.”

Only crackpots talk that way today. But the fundamentals remain. In Trump talk, the media remains the enemy of the American people. It lies. It lies because it is evil. It lies because it is un-American. Trump relies on the predicate for this belief, which was established years ago when the three television networks and some major newspapers were controlled by Jews — and if Trump does not know this, anti-Semites sure do. Jews no longer control, but stereotypical “Jewishness” endures.

In the belief system of Trump and his followers, the media account for so much that is wrong with America. It is false for the sake of being false, and it is false in sneaky, underhanded ways. This is nothing new, of course. President Richard M. Nixon went after the press in a similar way, and his vice president, Spiro Agnew, made it one of his themes. But no administration has made media-bashing a matter of policy — not merely a way of rebutting criticism but a way of governing, of disestablishing truth and facts.

This is a kind of fascism or, the economic program aside, communism. The ruling party doesn’t have opponents or critics, it has enemies — “enemies of the people,” in this case journalism. The rhetoric strips the opposition of any standing, any legitimacy. It is not a party in temporary opposition. It is a party in permanent sedition.

Trump had been frank about his intention. Lesley Stahl of CBS News told an audience in May that Trump told her he wants to “discredit” and “demean” the media “so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.” But it’s far less clear that he realizes what encouragement he offers to conspiracy believers, of which anti-Semitism is the most adaptable and durable.

I don’t necessarily see the homicidal act in Pittsburgh as proof of a resurgence of American anti-Semitism. A far more certain danger is the validation Trump has offered those who believe in all sorts of conspiracy theories. In spirit and in essence, this is anti-Semitism that so far lacks only Jews. History, though, warns that the vacuum will be filled. It’s up to Trump and his morally dormant Republican Party to ensure that Pittsburgh remains a spasm of the awful past — and not a harbinger of an even worse future.

Richard Cohen writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Many Sides: The Mantra of Evil

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke

We’re now all contestants in a reality show that we never asked to be part of. And it gets more real every day. The shameful and deadly episode that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, last week was a gathering of white nationalists, ostensibly to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a city park. But the torchlight parade, the attacks on clergy, the Nazi regalia, the Klan robes, and the Stars and Bars carried alongside swastika flags revealed the assembly for what it was: a collection of hate groups with various agendas and a new alliance between neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said, “It was the largest hate-gathering of its kind in decades.” The “Unite the Right” rally quickly descended into chants of anti-black, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBT slogans that were as vile as your imagination will allow you to conjure. The eruption of violence between the so-called “alt-right” and counter protesters caused 19 injuries, the deaths of two state troopers in a helicopter crash monitoring the scene, and a young woman crossing the street when a crazed true-believer rammed his car into a group of pedestrians. Whether this type of vehicular homicide occurs in Paris, London, or Charlottesville, it’s known by the same name: terrorism. In the ensuing chaos, the forgotten man was Robert E. Lee.

Donald Trump and David Duke

There is free speech, and then there is hate speech. Only one is protected by the Constitution. Yes, you can mount a platform and say, “Mexicans are rapists,” or “Criminal aliens … take a young, beautiful girl … and slice them and dice them.” You can even urge your supporters to punch someone in the face if you say it was just a humorous aside. But when your words initiate violence, you are responsible for the consequences.

From his New Jersey golf resort, Donald Trump read from a card, “We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides. On many sides.” You know someone else wrote it because Trump doesn’t know the meaning of the word “egregious.”

Before moving on to tout his achievements, (“We have companies pouring into our country.”), Trump brought Obama into the controversy, claiming there were also hate groups and hate speech during the previous administration. By doing so, Trump is, in effect, saying, “Don’t blame me.”

Since his rise to political prominence began by accusing Obama of being a foreigner and a secret Muslim, he has fed “his base” a constant barrage of inflammatory screeds against immigrants, the press, affirmative action, his predecessor, and particularly Hillary Clinton. On many sides? He forgets who the instigators are. Only one side chanted Nazi slogans like “Blood and soil.” Only one side chanted “Fuck you, faggot,” and the ever-popular, “Go back to Africa.” If this assembly was about preserving Confederate monuments, there were similar far-right demonstrations in Portland and Seattle, where there are no statues of Confederate generals.

Trump’s remarks drew criticism from all sides for his refusal to condemn the perpetrators of the violence, except from the white supremacists themselves. They loved it. Their popular web site, The Daily Stormer, posted that the president “refused to answer questions about White Nationalists supporting him. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him.”

There’s something grating about neo-Nazis invoking God. Why can’t the president say the words, “Radical, right-wing terrorism”? In his own admonition, you can’t fight a problem if you won’t name it. The “problem” was encapsulated by the words of former Klan Imperial Wizard and rally attendee, David Duke, who said to the cameras, “This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump, and that’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.”

After blistering remarks from members of his own party, Trump issued a lukewarm tweet condemning “all that hate stands for,” which, in turn, provoked a tweet from David Duke saying menacingly, “I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror and remember it was White Americans [sic] who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists.”

The Charlottesville rally was disgusting, but this clash between the emboldened neo-Nazis and those whose fathers and grandfathers lost their lives fighting the real Nazis is far from over. It has been suggested that if the counter-protesters just stayed away and ignored these racist rallies, there would be no violence, since that is the sort of narrative the alt-right seeks. Consequently, there would have been no press coverage, and no one would have died.

I’m sure some German Jews said the same thing in 1929. Fascism must be confronted or it metastasizes. On a personal note: My grandfather was the only member of his family to escape Eastern Europe. His parents, two brothers, a sister, their spouses, and nieces and nephews, some small children, were annihilated by the Nazis despite his desperate efforts to free them. I inherited his letters. They are heartbreaking. 

While in Israel some years ago, I visited Yad Vashem, the museum of the Holocaust. There is a register of names of Jews murdered by the Nazis, but there isn’t the slightest trace of my grandfather’s family. They just vanished. So, if some neo-Nazi yuppie in a Trump inspired uniform of khaki pants, white polo shirt, and a red “Make America Great Again” cap comes goose-stepping down my street waving a swastika, I’ll do my very best to hit him in the head with a tire iron. Then, the Teflon Don can once again talk about violence “from many sides.”

Randy Haspel writes the blog “Recycled Hippies.”

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Blind Trust

CREDIT: Reuters | Yuri Gripas

As Thanksgiving approaches, the country is still feeling the fallout from our recent national election. Around 25 percent of the country’s eligible voters are displeased with the results of the presidential race, while 25 percent are pleased. The other 50 percent of the voting pool declined to participate. Thanks, idiots.

For the second time in 16 years, the candidate who won the presidential popular vote lost the election, meaning the country as a whole is now as gerrymandered as most states are.

It isn’t going to change soon, not when the winning party has all the levers of power. There’s going to be a President Trump, for better or for worse, and we’re going to have to adjust to what promises to be a very challenging near-future.

As he demonstrated during his campaign, Trump has little regard for traditional political behavior. With this president-elect, everything is personal, and his skin is remarkably thin. We can only pray that his handlers — and Congress — can find the courage to restrain his more impulsive behavior.

The past two weeks have not been encouraging. Trump has complained relentlessly via Twitter about Saturday Night Live, the cast of Hamilton, and The New York Times all being “unfair.” He called in the top brass and on-air talent of all the major networks to Trump Tower, Monday, for an off-the-record meeting at which he called CNN “liars” and chastised NBC News for using an unflattering picture of him that Trump said made him appear as if he had multiple chins. Trump hasn’t held a press conference since July.

Meanwhile, in the federally owned Ronald Reagan building in Washington, D.C., Richard Spencer, the head of a white supremacist group calling itself the National Policy Institute, gave a speech in which he shouted, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail our victory!” (You know how to say “hail” in German, right?) He went on to call the media “lügenpresse,” the nazi name for press critics, and added several anti-Semitic comments. The speech ended with the audience applauding wildly and giving Spencer the one-armed Hitler salute. In a federal building.

Spencer calls his group “alt-right.” As a critic said this week, that’s like calling a pool of vomit “alt-brunch.” They are nazis, and, like the KKK, they feel it’s now safe to come into the light because of Trump’s victory.

Also problematical for Trump — and the Constitution — is his vast network of businesses around the globe, which present unprecedented risks of conflicts of interest for the new president, who will be dealing with many national leaders from countries where he has operations. In the past, presidents have put their financial interests in a blind trust, so as to avoid any possible appearance of self-interest while serving the country. Trump, on the other hand, has said he will leave the control of his business empire to his children, but he’s also made it clear his children will be involved in his administration, so we will have to blindly trust that he and his children will never discuss the family business. Sure.

It’s one thing to flout the traditional rules of campaigning — revealing your tax returns, for example — and quite another to flout the constitutional rules that restrain a president from accepting favors from a foreign government, which is classified as treason by the Constitution. The bottom line is that we will need to rely on what statesmen remain in the GOP to stand up for what’s right, arguably a thin reed to lean upon.

Still, at your Thanksgiving table, it might be prudent to say a little prayer for Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain and any other lawmakers who might find the courage to do the right thing when called upon. It’s either that or blind trust.

I miss the “war on Christmas” already.