Breaking: Holocaust Museum Shooting, 2-3 hit

[Mayabird]

MENSA-membership? I hate it when people tout that as an accomplishment.

Or, you know, he might've just been lying about it, trying to impress people with how smart he supposedly is.
[line 2]

[Sea Skimmer]

Not that I'd call them 'lefty' but eco & animal rights terrorists are less dangerous in that they tend to go for property damage often seeking to avoid human casualties whereas far right groups set out to and do kill people.

You know we punish arson harshly for a good reason. It doesn’t matter what the hell you started a fire in, when you do that you force others to respond and risk their own lives to put the fire out before it spreads. That is completely unacceptable in a civilized society. Since eco terrorist arson attacks are also typically not lone wolf suicide attacks like this shooting, they also much more realistic to prevent and punish.

Furthermore the second most common kind of eco terrorism is hammering very long framing nails into trees. If a logger hits one with a chainsaw, his chain breaks. That might not have killed anyone yet, but it damn well has come close as a chain will easily cut to and into the bone of an arm or leg. The utter disregard for human live is apparent, and that is usually what motivates people who do shit like this. They are anti human in general.

[Darth Wong]

MENSA-membership? I hate it when people tout that as an accomplishment. I'd be a member of Mensa right now if I wanted to pay the annual dues. Its for smart people with low self esteem so they join a club where they can talk about how smart they are.

Ever been to a Mensa party? An opening line is 'what's your IQ?'

It's actually not surprising. A lot of high-IQ people are actually underachievers and don't generate nearly as much wealth as they expect to. The problem is that our society does not directly reward above-normal intelligence in any way; it rewards salesmanship, ruthlessness, ambition, charisma, and even good looks before it rewards above-normal intelligence.

Nobody really likes a very intelligent employee who doesn't also work hard, and high-IQ students often fail to develop a good work ethic as they move through the school system, because they don't need one. They can get good grades on sheer talent and minimal work. It's known as "gifted underachiever syndrome".

In any case, I think a lot of high-IQ people find themselves suffering from the low self-esteem which results from a gap between expectations and reality. I've spoken to quite a few managers who have jokingly remarked that they supervise people much smarter than themselves. This is often true, and for someone whose psychological strength is not as great as his intellect (again, surprisingly common), this can cause problems.

[Plekhanov]

You know we punish arson harshly for a good reason. It doesn’t matter what the hell you started a fire in, when you do that you force others to respond and risk their own lives to put the fire out before it spreads. That is completely unacceptable in a civilized society. Since eco terrorist arson attacks are also typically not lone wolf suicide attacks like this shooting, they also much more realistic to prevent and punish.

Furthermore the second most common kind of eco terrorism is hammering very long framing nails into trees. If a logger hits one with a chainsaw, his chain breaks. That might not have killed anyone yet, but it damn well has come close as a chain will easily cut to and into the bone of an arm or leg. The utter disregard for human live is apparent, and that is usually what motivates people who do shit like this. They are anti human in general.

I didn't say eco and animal rights terrorists aren't dangerous I contested Broomsticks claim that they are as dangerous as far right terrorists. Terrorists who engage in both property damage and deliberate attempts to kill people are obviously more dangerous than those who engage only in property damage.

[Coyote]

Modern eco-terrorism revolves mostly around property crime and vandalism, trespassing and the occasional theft of either vital machine parts or releasing animals that are deemed to be property. Most, but not all,modern eco-terrorists of note actively warn their followers and would-be imitators not to kill or harm any person in their acts.

That is a far cry from the loonies who openly say that God sent or blesses doctor-killers, or makes propaganda with doctors' heads on targets, publish 'hit lists' of humans beings, etc.

I'm not saying eco-terrorism is warm & fuzzy, but if I were a cop and got wind of information that there was going to be an eco-terrorist action and a white supremacist action at different places on the same night, I'd devote my time and resources to staking out the Nazis and give the hippies a pass.

[Kanastrous]

To whatever degree it's still relevant, my point was that it doesn't seem proper to label them as hate groups. Sure, they do criminal things that pose a risk to the safety of others. That might make them liable to description as 'terrorists' but it's still something of a different stripe than race/etc haters.

[Plekhanov]

To whatever degree it's still relevant, my point was that it doesn't seem proper to label them as hate groups. Sure, they do criminal things that pose a risk to the safety of others. That might make them liable to description as 'terrorists' but it's still something of a different stripe than race/etc haters.

Well they hate animal testing and what they regard as the abuse of the environment don't they?

Sure they aren't as obviously hate filled as KKK types but they certainly seem to love some things so much they hate humans they see as doing harm to them.

Whilst we're going in for semantics I've heard that the Christian fundie who shot the abortion providing doctor hasn't been charged with terrorist offences whereas the Muslim fundie who shot those soldiers outside the recruitment centre has been, when so far as I can tell they both killed people for political reasons they are both terrorists. If true this would seem a more significance than whether or not eco-terrorists are 'haters.

[Kanastrous]

Well they hate animal testing and what they regard as the abuse of the environment don't they?

Hate Group is usually understood to mean people who hate others based upon who those others are rather than what those others do.

Sure they aren't as obviously hate filled as KKK types but they certainly seem to love some things so much they hate humans they see as doing harm to them.

Again, that's hate felt towards others based upon those others' actions rather than those other's identity.

Whilst we're going in for semantics I've heard that the Christian fundie who shot the abortion providing doctor hasn't been charged with terrorist offences whereas the Muslim fundie who shot those soldiers outside the recruitment centre has been, when so far as I can tell they both killed people for political reasons they are both terrorists. If true this would seem a more significance than whether or not eco-terrorists are 'haters.

Yup. Welcome to Jesusland.

[Darth Wong]

I can't believe all of this wrangling and discussion are even necessary. Yes, it is a very bad thing if I'm one of these extremist Greenies and I sabotage a tree so that it breaks your chainsaw. It might even cause injury or (potentially) death if you happen to ignore my warnings, chainsaw the sabotaged tree, and catch a piece of chain in the wrong place. However, it takes a lot of sophistry to claim that this is just as murderous an intent as taking a rifle and shooting you in the head.

[Mayabird]

Blog off the Kansas City Star

Well, guess I was wrong about the lying. But anyway, more about this guy.

Holocaust shooter: A hothead waiting to explode

James W. von Brunn was growing despondent.

John de Nugent, an acquaintance who describes himself as a white separatist, noticed the change when they last spoke two weeks ago.

"He said his Social Security had been cut and that he was barely making it," de Nugent said. "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. He was smart enough to join Mensa, but even admirers considered him a loner, a hothead and a man consumed with hatred.

As an avowed white supremacist and anti-Semite, von Brunn was tracked by civil rights 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, http://www.holywesternempire.org. Von Brunn, 88, worked at Noontide Press, a California-based distributor of books on the "Jewish Question."

His book, "Kill the Best Gentiles," is a screed against the Talmud and is dedicated to Revilo Oliver, a well-known denier of the Holocaust. Von Brunn's writings condemning "Negroes" and Jews were prolific.

"We had multiple entries on this guy," said Heidi Beirich, the center's director of research.

Von Brunn's neighbors said yesterday that they invited him to their home for a drink recently. Apropos of nothing, they said, he raised his belief that the Holocaust did not occur.

Todd Blodgett, a former Reagan White House aide who later worked with several extremist groups, met regularly with von Brunn in the 1990s and early 2000s.

"Von Brunn is obsessed with Jewish people," Blodgett said. "He had equal contempt for both Jews and blacks, but if he had to pick one group to wipe out, he'd always say it would be Jews."

Blodgett was part-owner of Resistance Records, which distributed music by white racist groups, and worked for Willis Carto, the founder of Liberty Lobby, a radical right group.

According to Blodgett and a Washington lawyer who met with FBI and IRS agents who used Blodgett as an informant on white supremacist groups, Blodgett worked as a paid informer for federal investigators early this decade.

Von Brunn apparently supported himself through much of the 1980s and '90s by distributing copies of the Spotlight, the Liberty Lobby's racist newspaper. "A lot of people like Von Brunn made some good money taking those around to senior homes, restaurants, gun shows and places like that," Blodgett said.

Blodgett said that he never filed reports to the FBI specifically about Von Brunn but that "he was probably around when I was wired."

In his conversations with Von Brunn, "you'd get the impression that he was intelligent and a bit off. . . . He was much more adept at understanding the Internet than any other white supremacist of that generation," Blodgett said. "He was very, very interested in the potential for Resistance Records to bring in a new generation of supremacists who were a cut above the knuckle-dragger types."

Von Brunn sometimes spoke of having fought for the wrong side in World War II, Blodgett said, and the two men sometimes attended meetings in Arlington County of the American Friends of the British National Party, which raised funds for the British white supremacist group.

Blodgett said that von Brunn never spoke of violent action in their conversations but that "a lot of these people, when they get toward the end of life, they say they've wasted all these years hating, and they want to make a statement somehow."

Von Brunn's ex-wife said she divorced him about 30 years ago when she could no longer take his racist beliefs.

"When he talked about [race], he would get verbally abusive because I didn't really want to talk about it," said the 69-year-old woman, who lives in Florida and said she would speak to reporters if they would agree not to name her. "It was always against the Jews and the blacks."

The woman said she had not talked to authorities about the man she was married to for a decade.

"We absolutely detested his beliefs," she said. "I am disheartened the young guard was killed."

She said von Brunn once predicted that he would "go out with his boots on."

On Dec. 7, 1981, he walked into the Federal Reserve headquarters on Constitution Avenue NW with a handgun and threatened to take members of the Board of Governors, including then-Chairman Paul A. Volcker, hostage.

Police said he had an 11-page document, which he characterized as an exposé of an "international bankers' conspiracy to rule all nations from one central seat of government." Court records said he intended to place them under citizens arrest and charge them with treason.

At his trial, von Brunn said that his goal was to "deport all Jews and blacks from the white nations" and that statistics on IQs of black and white Americans "proved that there is one race that is better than another." He also testified that "Jews were the greatest liars that have ever afflicted mankind."

He was convicted of armed kidnapping, among other charges, and sentenced to a minimum of nearly four years up to a maximum of 11 years and three months at the Ray Brook federal prison in Upstate New York. The court also requested a psychological evaluation for Brunn while in prison.

After his release, von Brunn joined Mensa, the society for top scorers on intelligence tests. A Mensa official said von Brunn was dropped from membership for failure to pay dues.

De Nugent called von Brunn a genius but described the shooting as the act of "a loner and a hothead."

"The responsible white separatist community condemns this," he said. "It makes us look bad."

[Azazal]

"He said his Social Security had been cut and that he was barely making it," de Nugent said. "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.

Quoted from the article in Mayabird's post.

I'm wondering if being destitute drove him over the edge, and he decided that he would go out in a "blaze of glory", or did he figure that is he were to live through the attack and be captured alive, he could live the rest of his life on the tax-payer's dime.

[AMT]

Sure, some of their actions pose a threat. What I find objectionable is lumping them in the same category as race-hate groups. If the ELF or radical animal-rights types are 'hate groups,' against whom is their hate directed? The 'hate group' construction is not commonly understood to cover people who act out of convictions unrelated to race/ethnicity/religion/gender identity, is it?

It depends. For the ELF people, it's directed against scientists and industrialists, basically anyone who does sufficient production that goes past what they think is sustainable.

For the animal-rights types, again scientists and doctors who run animal testing.

For the most part, the groups they hate are consumers, industrialists, and scientists. Easily valid as a hate-group/terrorist group. I've read reports on them in a few magazines over the years (newsweek and the like) where they've given out bomb threats, death threats to scientists AND their family members. Just because they may have not crossed the line yet doesn't mean they won't, or that the threats and those behind them shouldn't be taken as seriously as a group that has crossed that line.

[AMT]

I can't believe all of this wrangling and discussion are even necessary. Yes, it is a very bad thing if I'm one of these extremist Greenies and I sabotage a tree so that it breaks your chainsaw. It might even cause injury or (potentially) death if you happen to ignore my warnings, chainsaw the sabotaged tree, and catch a piece of chain in the wrong place. However, it takes a lot of sophistry to claim that this is just as murderous an intent as taking a rifle and shooting you in the head.

Except that's not All they do. As stated before, some of the more wacko groups send death threats to peoples homes, stalk them, etc.

It's not just some greenie type planting nails into trees and breaking construction equipment.

[Coyote]

Except that's not All they do. As stated before, some of the more wacko groups send death threats to peoples homes, stalk them, etc.

It's not just some greenie type planting nails into trees and breaking construction equipment.

The violent, confrontational green groups are the exception rather than the norm. Greenpeace won't even talk to Sea Shepherd, because Sea Shepherd involves itself in acts of sabotage, trespassing and vandalism-- yet still maintains a strict policy of not harming anyone.

OTOH, the anti-abortion activist groups openly encourage, support, and cheer on the killers in their midst as part of their mainstream.

[Dark Hellion]

Jesus people. Amazingly lists like the Hate Group list can have varying magnitudes of groups included within them. If I list acids I would put both citric acid and sulfuric acid in the same group. One makes my Mountain Dew taste delicious, one would make my Mountain Dew burn out my esophagus. But amazingly the classification is correct regardless of the magnitude of harm they do.

Do people honestly think that there isn't prioritization within the Hate Groups list? Of course White Supremacists who advocate genocide are worse than some shitheads who sabotage logging. No one is claiming them the same. But both of them engage in terrorist activities against entire groups of people for ideological reasons; hence Hate Group.

Seriously, sometimes I think we like to argue a bit too much.

[Sea Skimmer]

I can't believe all of this wrangling and discussion are even necessary. Yes, it is a very bad thing if I'm one of these extremist Greenies and I sabotage a tree so that it breaks your chainsaw. It might even cause injury or (potentially) death if you happen to ignore my warnings, chainsaw the sabotaged tree, and catch a piece of chain in the wrong place.

They don’t fucking put warnings on the trees. They WANT them to be cut down because they fucking want them to be taken into a saw mill, so they can break the huge bandsaws the mills use and put them out of action.

However, it takes a lot of sophistry to claim that this is just as murderous an intent as taking a rifle and shooting you in the head.

Sorry that I fucking care more about systematically organized terrorist activity then the threat of lone nut job suicide shooters who cannot realistically be deterred or detected ahead of time. I do not care what the hell someones intent is, half these people are just doing it for kicks, the other half are stupid enough to think eco terrorisum accomplishes something and boy should no ones safety be based on assuming that people that stupid will plan well. You know Eta makes a point of only directing its car bombs against property too, so I guess that’s not so bad either? Fuck that, they should be treated the exact same way as anyone else, and in the current day we do not have such a dire shortage of resources that we need to pick and choose which terrorists to crush. That example of a cop faced with Neo Nazis and Eco Terrorist meeting the same day? Total false dilemma because the local cops would just call in the state police, and the FBI, and homeland security. The fact that eco terrorist attacks are almost always 100 % domestic, and generally far more numerous then other kind of terrorism are just icing on the cake to not consider it a lesser problem.

[FSTargetDrone]

Just a suggestion that the link to this fucker's site be broken? It's currently clickable a few posts up.

I wish newspapers would stop linking these sites directly. I see no benefit to it. If a reader wants to look for it, don't make it that much easier. I don't know, just a pet peeve.