May I take the opportunity to insanely rant? As a US citizen, I have to express my unbridled joy and relief at the thought of Democratic Party candidate Barak Obama becoming the next US President after nearly a decade of one of the worst, anti-democratic sorry-ass excuses for a Presidency the United States has ever seen, and this list includes include such luminaries as Andrew Jackson (illiterate, genocidal racist) and Millard Fillmore (literate, racist) and Richard Nixon (anti-literate, racist.) The present Republican campaign has degenerated into little more than a fatalistic racist tantrum that looks to split the Republican Party in the near future into two wings: one representing the old Eisenhower/Goldwater/Reagan branch of conservatives, and the other following the highly disturbing trend led by lead right wing asshat Sarah Palin of courting extreme right wing support among closet US neo-nazis, militia sympathizers, and Christian Identity Movement supporters. Palin is now really taking the “maverick” approach, departing from the daily Republican party talking points and branding the democratic party – almost assured of victory – as terrorist supporters and communists.
Branding your enemy as a communist has a long history, but as somebody who actually lived for a while under the rule of a communist state and had my rather antic run-ins with a few of those last true believers in the late 1980s, it rings hollow to hear people who never met a communist in their life ranting against the specter of a Red Menace. As somebody who has watched Hungarian politics since the late 1980s, Commie-baiting is one of the trends that defines neo-con campaigning in the 21st century – in a society without any real commies. Why? Because middle aged geezers usually run election campaigns, and these guys are still responding to the great threat of their childhood nightmares: the Commies.
I was raised during the Cold War, and the Commies played as big a role in my early childhood nightmares as did Godzilla, the Crawling Eye, and Frankenstein. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis: my family packed the car to evacuate New York and all I could take was my toy Tonka dump truck. I remember watching the Barry Goldwater Republican campaign TV ad in 1964 in which atomic mushroom clouds greet a Democratic election victory. I visited Hungary as a kid in the 1960s. I remember the Russian tanks tooling around civilian roadways in Veszprém, the secret police following our family to dinner, and the twice weekly nighttime artillery practice bombardments the Russians used to exercise in the skies over Veszprém until well into the 1970s. On the other hand, I also remember the visits from the FBI agents to our home in the Bronx when my Aunt from Budapest came to see my Mom after twentyfive years of separation. And who would forget the Radio Free Europe TV ads showing a huge Red Army soldier crashing into people’s homes with an axe yelling “NYET!” to the huddled family listening to Elvis on the shortwave. Communists were scary.
But guess what? It is 2008, and the communists are gone. Sure, there is North Korea, and Cuba, and in some strange, perverted way we can include China as still having something vaguely resembling a communist system. Absolutely none of these societies would be familiar to Marx, Lenin, George Lukács, or even Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks. The generation born after 1975 grew up in a world that was seeped in anti-communist rhetoric, but lacked any commies to aim at. Communism was already a dead system by 1990. Yugoslavia proved it. China confirms it. Cuba is not a threat. Hugo Chavez – a parody of Latin American anti-imperialist bravado, but no, not a Communist. North Korea? Let’s not even go there.
The most dangerous ideological trends in the world today are not Communism but instead those that mix racist, negative nationalism with religious fervor in pursuit of a mythically determined future state populated by a mythically “pure” group: “real” Americans, “real” Serbs, “real” Magyars, “real” Jews, “real” anything. Anyone familiar with anthropology will tell you: there ain’t no real anything, anywhere. “Race” is not an accepted anthropological concept: it is a culturally and historically defined social construct. We are all mixed. We all in this soup together, bra. Nobody is pure anything. 
This is why the number 88 bothers me this week. What is really nasty is the rise of neo-Nazi ideology in the background of right wing radical groups in the world – in the US as in Hungary. Neo-Nazis are well organized, and have utilized the internet to attain an ideological unity that crossed national bounds. The growing Hungarian Garda are featured on the pages of the American Nazi party web site as a proud example, while cagily denying any Nazi connections to the domestic press at home.
And if you see an 88 spray painted on a wall, take note: these fracking bastids are in our area. Last week Hungary celebrated the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, an occasion that has become a annual street riot for radical Hungarian nationalists and neo-nazis in Budapest. This year the police managed to keep order, but at night on October 23, the cops took discovered a car parked by Nyugati train station loaded with three home made petrol bombs linked to timers. They arrested the owner, a former Hungarian Olympic contender with links (his parents, no less) to the radical neo-nazi group Lelkiismeret 88 (Self Conscience 88.) This group has been identified as a major role player in street disturbance in Budapest for over ten years. The 88 stands for an internet code used to denote the eighth letter in the alphabet: H. 88=HH, as in Heil Hitler. The corollary is that AP news ran a story today that: Law enforcement agents have broken up a plot by two neo-Nazi skinheads to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 88 black people, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives said Monday. In court records unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn., federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school in a murder spree that was to begin in Tennessee. 88 Americans. 88. Who should we be afraid of? Who should we be putting behind very strong cold iron bars? Unknown Towelheads? Immigrants? Nonexistant Commies? Or Neo Nazis? The most dangerous problems that face Hungary and the USA and the rest of the world are not simply problems with radical muslim extremists, but with extremists of any stripe. Osama bin Laden lives in a frigging cave in Pakistan. Hopefully, with a new President, he will be dead meat within a year. The newer real enemy is closer to us. Neo-Nazis. Whether in Hungary or the US, it is time to be rid of them. It doesn’t matter whether they are incompetent or laughable. Someday they will not be. Someday their bombs may go off, just as one did in Oklahoma City in 1995.
It is time for the courts in Hungary and the US and Europe and all over the world to define them as a terror threat and deal with them as such. We are about to see some real change in America: and the radical right seems to see things in the same way.
88. It means Neo-Nazis. They are a worldwide problem. As the New York subway signs say: If you see something, say something.
Next week: Folk dancing and langos recipes....
Branding your enemy as a communist has a long history, but as somebody who actually lived for a while under the rule of a communist state and had my rather antic run-ins with a few of those last true believers in the late 1980s, it rings hollow to hear people who never met a communist in their life ranting against the specter of a Red Menace. As somebody who has watched Hungarian politics since the late 1980s, Commie-baiting is one of the trends that defines neo-con campaigning in the 21st century – in a society without any real commies. Why? Because middle aged geezers usually run election campaigns, and these guys are still responding to the great threat of their childhood nightmares: the Commies.I was raised during the Cold War, and the Commies played as big a role in my early childhood nightmares as did Godzilla, the Crawling Eye, and Frankenstein. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis: my family packed the car to evacuate New York and all I could take was my toy Tonka dump truck. I remember watching the Barry Goldwater Republican campaign TV ad in 1964 in which atomic mushroom clouds greet a Democratic election victory. I visited Hungary as a kid in the 1960s. I remember the Russian tanks tooling around civilian roadways in Veszprém, the secret police following our family to dinner, and the twice weekly nighttime artillery practice bombardments the Russians used to exercise in the skies over Veszprém until well into the 1970s. On the other hand, I also remember the visits from the FBI agents to our home in the Bronx when my Aunt from Budapest came to see my Mom after twentyfive years of separation. And who would forget the Radio Free Europe TV ads showing a huge Red Army soldier crashing into people’s homes with an axe yelling “NYET!” to the huddled family listening to Elvis on the shortwave. Communists were scary.But guess what? It is 2008, and the communists are gone. Sure, there is North Korea, and Cuba, and in some strange, perverted way we can include China as still having something vaguely resembling a communist system. Absolutely none of these societies would be familiar to Marx, Lenin, George Lukács, or even Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks. The generation born after 1975 grew up in a world that was seeped in anti-communist rhetoric, but lacked any commies to aim at. Communism was already a dead system by 1990. Yugoslavia proved it. China confirms it. Cuba is not a threat. Hugo Chavez – a parody of Latin American anti-imperialist bravado, but no, not a Communist. North Korea? Let’s not even go there.The most dangerous ideological trends in the world today are not Communism but instead those that mix racist, negative nationalism with religious fervor in pursuit of a mythically determined future state populated by a mythically “pure” group: “real” Americans, “real” Serbs, “real” Magyars, “real” Jews, “real” anything. Anyone familiar with anthropology will tell you: there ain’t no real anything, anywhere. “Race” is not an accepted anthropological concept: it is a culturally and historically defined social construct. We are all mixed. We all in this soup together, bra. Nobody is pure anything. This is why the number 88 bothers me this week. What is really nasty is the rise of neo-Nazi ideology in the background of right wing radical groups in the world – in the US as in Hungary. Neo-Nazis are well organized, and have utilized the internet to attain an ideological unity that crossed national bounds. The growing Hungarian Garda are featured on the pages of the American Nazi party web site as a proud example, while cagily denying any Nazi connections to the domestic press at home.
And if you see an 88 spray painted on a wall, take note: these fracking bastids are in our area. Last week Hungary celebrated the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, an occasion that has become a annual street riot for radical Hungarian nationalists and neo-nazis in Budapest. This year the police managed to keep order, but at night on October 23, the cops took discovered a car parked by Nyugati train station loaded with three home made petrol bombs linked to timers. They arrested the owner, a former Hungarian Olympic contender with links (his parents, no less) to the radical neo-nazi group Lelkiismeret 88 (Self Conscience 88.) This group has been identified as a major role player in street disturbance in Budapest for over ten years. The 88 stands for an internet code used to denote the eighth letter in the alphabet: H. 88=HH, as in Heil Hitler. The corollary is that AP news ran a story today that: Law enforcement agents have broken up a plot by two neo-Nazi skinheads to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 88 black people, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives said Monday. In court records unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn., federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school in a murder spree that was to begin in Tennessee. 88 Americans. 88. Who should we be afraid of? Who should we be putting behind very strong cold iron bars? Unknown Towelheads? Immigrants? Nonexistant Commies? Or Neo Nazis? The most dangerous problems that face Hungary and the USA and the rest of the world are not simply problems with radical muslim extremists, but with extremists of any stripe. Osama bin Laden lives in a frigging cave in Pakistan. Hopefully, with a new President, he will be dead meat within a year. The newer real enemy is closer to us. Neo-Nazis. Whether in Hungary or the US, it is time to be rid of them. It doesn’t matter whether they are incompetent or laughable. Someday they will not be. Someday their bombs may go off, just as one did in Oklahoma City in 1995.It is time for the courts in Hungary and the US and Europe and all over the world to define them as a terror threat and deal with them as such. We are about to see some real change in America: and the radical right seems to see things in the same way.88. It means Neo-Nazis. They are a worldwide problem. As the New York subway signs say: If you see something, say something.Next week: Folk dancing and langos recipes....
Great post, but until the left rise to these issues with the same passion of the fascists, the tide will turn their way. When was the last time somebody rioted for civil rights (be it gay, Roma, whatever)? Way too long ago.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post, but it was actually democratic candidate Johnson who ran the famous "Daisy" ad with the mushroom cloud. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_(television_commercial) Fear is and was always used in political ads, it seems to work. Wouldn't it be better to teach people about the truth? And @mokus: fighting violent ignorants with riots is bullshit, what is needed are mass demonstrations by the democratic forces of a country.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this post taught me a lot, as per usual. I've yet to see any fascist activities here in Romania, though when it Italy this summer I mistakenly walked into a bar that was a shrine to Mussolini. Scary.
ReplyDelete"Lelkiismeret" is just plain "conscience" (no "self")
ReplyDelete-jim
If you believe Obama's empty rhetoric and not bothered by his questionable associations, the personality cult formed around him, his elitist, racist and narcissistic character, I feel sorry for you.
ReplyDeleteA change for the worse you can count on! After all, he voted for the bailout, the Patriot act, and is not against the war. Mark my word, he will lead the US straight into fascism, which won't matter to you because you will take refuge in Hungary.