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POPSBeneath the color, there’s not a bit of difference Of course, his recent comments that made the news were pushed out of the forefront by the actions of another hateful old man: James Wenneker von Brunn, another pre-World War II anti-Semite, who served in the Navy, made inflammatory statements, opposed Bush and McCain, and is a conspiracy nut. The difference between them is as stark as black and white. But no deeper than color. Beneath the color, there’s not a bit of difference.
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POPSRight-wing media and the fringe: A growing history of violence (and denial)
While right-wing media are certainly not legally culpable for any recent attacks, they are responsible for promoting a culture of fear, paranoia, and violence that is anti-government in the extreme -- a culture in which extremists, including von Brunn and Richard Poplawski, who fatally shot three Pittsburgh police officers, were apparently immersed. Poplawski was convinced that the Obama administration was going to take away his guns. Even though no evidence of such a policy exists, right-wing commentators and news organizations made the claim repeatedly before the shooting and have continued to do so since. Predictably, conservative media figures responded to the museum shooting by attempting to shift attention away from themselves and onto political liberals and even President Obama himself. On June 10, the day of the museum shooting, financial analyst and radio host Jim Lacamp said on Fox News that "we have an administration that's really done a lot of class warfare, a lot of cla
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POPS A Suspect's Long History of Hate, and Signs of Strain
"He felt it was the direct result of someone in Washington looking at his Web site." In one of his e-mail blasts expressing his white supremacist views, the man police sources say shot and killed a security guard yesterday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum told readers that they shouldn't expect to hear from him again. Von Brunn was shot and critically wounded by museum guards. He was about to give away his computer, his primary connection to the fringe world of radical racists. He was living hand to mouth. The e-mails were getting violent in tone: "It's time to kill all the Jews." Von Brunn, who lives in Annapolis, was known for decades to fellow white supremacists who read his elaborate conspiracy theories on his Web site and met him through a network of radical racist groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, has kept an eye on him since 1981. Lately, it has focused on his Web site, www.holywesternempire.org.
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POPSWhite Supremacist Guns Down Guard at Holocaust Museum When the smoke cleared, von Brunn was critically wounded. "Two other . . . armed security officers opened fire with their service revolvers," the company said. "The intruder was hit at once" and wounded. Johns died at George Washington University Hospital. "There are no words to express our grief and shock over these events," the museum said in a statement, describing Johns as "an outstanding colleague who greeted us every day with a smile." Johns, a 1988 graduate of Crosslands High School in Temple Hills, lived in an apartment in the Temple Hills area. Friends said he had a son. "It's a heavy loss," said Assane Faye, the Washington district director of the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America. Faye said that during contract negotiations with Wackenhut two years ago, the union pressed for company-issued protective vests. Although Wackenhut seemed open to the idea, vests have not been issued, Faye said.
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