UrbanSwirl.com - Lifestyles of Color

The Holocaust Museum Shooting has spit out debates and arguments that the shooter is driven by Extremism from the Left!
But first, can we all agree that Extremism from either side is abhorrent and completely unacceptable? Their deadly actions are cowardly, disgusting and should never be embraced by mainstream Americans. Both extremes lead to very unpleasant systems under which to live.

With that being said - lets focus on the shooter, James Von Brunn.

Boss Limbaugh and Fox News are trying to diffuse the shooter away from being a Right Wing Nut-Job to a madman coming from Left Wing Extremism.
To know and understand the Left, it is unbelievable to think that an anti-semite and someone who has pure, unadulterated HATRED for Blacks everywhere is coming from the Left.

But here is Rush trying to support this argument!


Here is Fox Noise Glenn Beck


Here's a blog from the Frugal Cafe:

A despicable act occurred today in Washington, DC. James von Brunn, an 88-year-old white, left-wing extremist with a hateful, anti-Semitic website, a white supremacist who has served time in prison, opened fire on people visiting the Holocaust Museum. Von Brunn’s extremist activities have been a matter of record since the 1980s. He has been a deranged, hateful man for decades. He was a lunatic with no value for human life.

There are extremist left-wingers in the blogosphere who are grasping at bizarre, hate-driven straws, and are now “angrily” hanging this act of domestic terrorism on mainstream conservatives. Say what? This is sick exploitation. And von Braunn hated Pres. Bush, John McCain, Christians, Jews, blacks, and other conservatives. Associating him with conservatives is pure nonsense, but left-wingers are desperate and don’t let pesky things like facts deter them from attacking the Right.

White Supremacy have always been in line with Right Wing ideology and not the Left. They include militant racial supremacists and religious extremists.
NOTE: I am not saying that all Conservative Right Wingers are for White Power - but White Supremist, Von Brunn's origins are a far cry from being anything stemming from the Left (as Limbaugh and Beck are trying to connect).

Von Brunn is a self-proclaimed white supremist who had palled-around with other white supremist and neo-nazi circles most of his adult life. He supports the Aryon Nation - a right-wing, white supremacist organization that advocates a white supremacist nation in North America. He hated Jews, Blacks and all non-White immigrants. He denys the Holocaust. He feels Obama was created and lead by his Jew owner. The Jews controls the mass media and captured America's money. Link
He strongly feels the non-White people are destroying the White Race of America - and they must be stopped!


Now lets define Left-Wing Extremism:

The term far left has been associated with ideologies such as communism, socialism, social anarchism, anarchist communism, left communism, anarcho-syndicalism, Marxism-Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, and some branches of feminism and green politics/environmentalism. Link

Left-wing extremism often has developed from working-class movements seeking in theory to eliminate, not preserve, class distinctions. Communism evolved from left-wing extremism.  Link

Although the current domestic terrorist threat within the United States is focused on right-wing extremists and white supremacists, left-wing extremists are alive and well and have several objectives. Some of these groups want to replace the government with a Marxist-Leninist system. Others want to carve out a new nation in the southeastern United States where the “national territory of Kush” would be established. Some of the leaders of these movements are currently political exiles living in Cuba, but new leaders are emerging within the United States as well.

... leftist extremism in the United States was at its peak during the 1960s and 1970s and that right-wing extremism then became the major threat. While the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and a number of other incidents attributed to right-wing  extremists indicate that the major threat is from the right, leftist extremism remains a concern within the United States.

Here are some examples of Left-Wing Extremist Groups here in the United States and abroad:
- the Black Liberation Army
- the Republic of New Africa (RNA)
- Weather Underground - this is the group who defiantly opposed the Vietnam War and are outraged with Racism in America
- Black Panthers
- The United Freedom Front (UFF) - a left-wing organization that strongly opposed US foreign policy in Central America and South African apartheid
- the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion National Puertorriquena (FMLN) - a Puerto Rican Separatist Group
- Farabundo Marti para le Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) - an El Salvador leftist guerrilla group

Do you notice some of the underlying themes with these Left-Extremist Groups?
Would the likes of Von Brunn be a member of any of these groups?

Well, here is the whole article about Left Wing Extremism: Link  Prepared by Karl A. Seger, Ph.D. - Center for Human Reliability Studies, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (Oak Ridge, TN) April 2001. It is an interesting read.

In this article, Karl Seger broke down the difference between Right and Left Wing Groups and their characteristics:

Demographic Characteristics	Left-Wing Groups	Right Wing Groups
Age	Average age at indictment: 35. Only 18% over age 40.	Average age at indictment: 39. 36% over age 40.
Sex	73% male 27% female	93% male 7% female
Race	29% White 71% minority	97% White 3% American Indian
Education	54% have college degrees. 12% have GED equivalent or less.	54% have college degrees. 12% have GED equivalent or less.
Occupation	Mixed, but many professional workers (e.g., physicians, attorneys, teachers, and social workers)	Also mixed, but a large number of unemployed or impoverished self-employed workers.
Place of Residence	Urban	Rural

The White Supremist: KKK and Skinheads do fall strongly in the Right Wing Group!
The US Department of Homeland Security defines right-wing extremism as hate groups who target racial, ethnic or religious minorities and may be dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

And yes - the man who murdered abortionist Dr. George Tilley is definitely a Right-Wing Extremist!

The Conservatives may yell and scream that Von Brunn is Not a Right-Wing Extremist - but calling him a Left-Wing Extremist or stemming from the Left is so outside the ball-park of being anything remotely close to factual.