Traficant to testify for Demjanjuk; working for neo-fascist website

Reposted here: http://adamholland.blogspot.com/2009/11/traficant-to-testify-for-demjanjuk_04.html

Hungarian MP: Jews taking over Hungary and the world

I have said in the past that there is no brick wall between Hungary's center right and far-right. Here is more evidence.

from Yehuda Lahav at Haaretz: Hungarian MP: Jews want to take over the world

A member of Hungary's main opposition party has accused the Jews of trying to take over the country.

"I'm a Hungarian nationalist. I love my homeland, love the Hungarians and give primacy to Hungarian interests over those of global capital - Jewish capital, if you like - which wants to devour the entire world, especially Hungary," Oszkar Molnar, a member of parliament, said in a television interview earlier this month.

As proof of his assertion that Jews are plotting to take over Hungary, Molnar claimed to have discovered that the language of instruction in Jerusalem's schools is Hungarian, and when asked why, students said they were "learning their future homeland's language."

The statement sparked an outcry among Hungarian politicians, with protests coming from ... the ruling Socialist Party, the youth wing of the Alliance of Free Democrats, and a group of intellectuals known as the Democratic Network, as well as the Jewish community.

But Molnar's party, Fidesz, has not condemned his statement - and Fidesz, according to the polls, is likely to take power when elections are held this spring. Party leader Viktor Orban did term the statement "embarrassing," but declined to denounce it. He said he would not even consider ousting Molnar from his party or parliamentary faction, as the remark "did not violate the party's bylaws."

Rumors of a mass Jewish return to Hungary have been floating around the country for some time. But until now, they have been confined to marginal, far-right web sites.

I would love to hear back from those who, in the past, have complained in comments to this blog that Fidesz is not associated with bigotry against Jews and Roma.

Hungarians to protest neo-Nazi violence

The website Engage has posted the following announcement of an anti-fascist, anti-racist demonstration to take place this Saturday in Hungary: Protest Against Neo-Nazis Converging On Budapest. (More information here: www.antirasszista.eoldal.hu.)

Citizens Against the Far Right (Civilek a Szélsőjobb Ellen Mozgalom)
International Day of Peaceful Protest Against the Far Right

Saturday 15 August 2009, 5.30-10 pm
Budapest (5th district), Városház park

The Citizens Against the Far Right movement was born when the Hungarian Leftwing Feminist Network held a peaceful demonstration on 15 August 2000.

To date, 54 civic groups, including anti-Fascists, Jewish organizations, Roma organizations, gay rights groups, green organizations and humanists, have come together under the umbrella of Citizens against the Far Right, to protest against the racism and anti-Semitism that is increasingly widespread in Hungarian society.

The two pressing reasons for our demonstration now are the following:

First, neo-Nazi groups from across Europe plan to come in their thousands to Hungary on 15 August 2009 to commemorate the death of Rudolph Hess (Hitler’s deputy). Numerous neo-Nazi organizations and their supporters plan to occupy popular public squares across Budapest.

Second, in the past few days, Hungary has witnessed yet another racially-motivated fatal shooting of a 45-year-old Roma woman, and the critical wounding of her 13-year-old daughter, now in a medically-induced coma to help her survive her gunshot wounds. Racially-motivated violent crimes have become an everyday occurrence from the smallest village to the streets of the capital city.

Citizens Against the Far Right welcomes all those who reject hatred, homophobia, anti-Semitism, who want to fight against national fundamentalist, national socialist ideas, who reject exclusion, racism and violence to take part in an International Day of Peaceful Protest Against the Far Right, on Saturday, 15 August 2009, in Budapest (5th district), Városház park (City Hall Park, near Deák tér Metro), from 5.30 to 10 pm.

An anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, and racist minority that openly advocates political terrorism is running rampant in Hungary today.

They openly proclaim their violent nationalist-fundamentalist, militant, hateful slogans, favoring discrimination against ethnic groups and alternative lifestyles. The results of the 2009 European Parliamentary elections show that Hungarian society is not willing to accept cultural differences, nor to accept that all ethnic groups have an equal place in contemporary Hungary.

Radical Far Right groups are offering easy solutions to that layer of Hungarian society which is frustrated with the political culture, and seeks security in the face of economic crisis. They use twisted logic and historical falsification to mislead the frustrated masses with the promise of a ‘better future’. We can see through their efforts to glorify the perpetrators of crimes against humanity in twentieth-century Europe. Their actions are destroying the international reputation of our country, and creating fear in the hearts and minds of our democratic citizens.

Under these circumstances, we, the Citizens Against the Far Right – with the support of international democratic forces – are committed to fighting against the violent politics and program of the Far Right.

We can only fight barbarism with humanism!

Local politicians have not been invited to lead the demonstration; rather, we have invited a number of prominent public figures to speak, including the philosopher Miklós Gáspár Tamás, poet András Simon, writer Ákos Kertész, and feminist historian Andrea Alföldi. The demonstration will also welcome a number of musicians and groups on stage.

International communities and activists are standing together to fight the recent rise of the Far Right.

Citizens Against the Far Right (Civilek a Szélsőjobb Ellen Mozgalom)
antiracismmovement@gmail.com

(Hat tip: Carol Novack)

Member organisations to date:

• Humanist Movement
• Hungarian Democratic Charter
• Solidarity Against Violence
• National Roma Civil Rights Movement
• Leftwing Feminist Network
• Civil Parliament
• Roma Civil Rights Foundation
• Respect for All
• Movement for Social Democracy
• Hungarians Against the Nazis
• MEASZ Unity for Democracy
• Unemployed and Jobseekers' Association
• Romédia Foundation
• Green Left
• Families Civic Association
• Kurt Lewin Foundation
• Hungarian Antifascist League
• United Hungarian Left
• Attac
• Imre Nay Society, Budapest
• Civil Forum
• Danube Circle
• Symposium Association
• Hungarian Children’s Movement
• In Children’s Interests, Hungary
• Élettér Advice Service
• National Gypsy Self-Government
• Pallas Páholy Club Network
• Hungarian Antiracist Foundation
• Centre for Cultures
• Young Humanists
• Hungarian Social Forum Foundation
• Phralipe Independent Gypsy Organization
• PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) First Gay and Lesbian Centre
• Street Population Volunteer Network
• Union of Left Youth
• European Feminist Initiative
• Liberal Club

OUTRAGE! Roma woman shot dead in Hungary. Fascists advocate similar violence in Slovakia.

The story's here from the Roma Rights Network:

A 45 year-old Roma woman was shot dead, her 13 year-old daughter severely wounded by unknown attackers in Kisléta during the night of Sunday/Monday. (Kisléta, with its 1 900-strong population, lies 60 km from Tiszalök and 30 km east from Nyíregyháza). Following the murder, Hungarian National Police High Commissioner József Bencze doubled the reward offered for information about the identity of the criminals involved in attacks against Roma, stated the Hungarian National Police. The 100 million Hungarian Forint reward is the highest in the history of Hungarian criminology (the reward was upped for the last time on April 25th by the High Commissioner, to 50 million Hungarian Forint). The National Investigation Office took over the investigation of the crime committed in Kisléta on Monday at dawn.

The woman was shot by pellet gun in one of the last houses of a street lying at the edge of the village. The bullets hit her on her chest, head and arm. Her daughter was wounded on the neck and arm and was transported to András Jósa Hospital in Nyíregyháza.

The 13 year-old girl’s condition has been stabilized and is satisfactory but serious and life-threatening, said Pál Felföldi, lead traumatologist. (…) Since there are no eyewitnesses in the case, police are watching over the girl outside the intensive care unit where she is currently treated, because she might be in possession of important information about the attackers.

There might have been two of them

The crime scene investigation, the gathering of evidence and the search for and questioning of eventual witnesses went on until early afternoon in Bocskai Street, at the edge of the village, behind which lies a corn field. A dirt road nearby leads towards Nyírbogát, which the attackers probably used for their escape.

According to the Hungarian Press Agency (MTI), shots were fired from two hunting guns on the family, meaning that there were at least two attackers. The police found cartridge cases coming from the pellet guns. They were given to the National Investigation Office experts for examination in Budapest.

According to the Hungarian Press Agency (MTI), the examination ascertained that similar firearms had been used in several attacks against Roma. According to the police, several details of the attack fit with the pattern of the successive attacks on Roma. This is why the investigation was taken over by the National Investigation Office, which opened an inquiry for murder attempted against several persons.

Three-four shots were heard

Mayor Sándor Pénzes told Index that the neighbors had heard three of four shots on Sunday between 11.30 p.m. and 12 p.m. The attacker or attackers kicked the entrance door in and started firing at once. The victims were found by family members. The girl has not yet been questioned as she is still in a state of shock. Her wounds are serious, she is currently in the intensive care unit, there is no precise information as to her condition.

According to Sándor Pénzes, relations between Hungarians and Roma in the village are very good. „The victim was a hard-working woman. She was raising her daughter alone, amidst clean and healthy conditions.” – said the mayor. Mária B. was a widow and had two daughters. The family works regularly and gets social welfare as well. „The whole village is astonished about this execution. We don’t know what could have motivated the murderers.” – said the mayor to the Hungarian Press Agency.

and here from Amnesty International USA:

A Romani woman was shot dead in the village of Kisléta in Eastern Hungary, early Monday morning (August 3, 2009). The 45-year-old woman's 13-year-old daughter was also seriously injured in the attack.

Initial police reports suggest that the incident is related to a series of attacks targeting Romani communities in Hungary. Amnesty International has voiced concern about the growing number of attacks against the Romani community in Hungary and the failure of the police to investigate effectively.

The organization said that it welcomed the decision that the killing and its apparent racial motive will be investigated by the Hungarian National Bureau of Investigation. The agency was established specifically to investigate serious crimes.

Between January 2008 and June 2009, the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) documented 39 attacks against Roma and their property. Eight people have died in these attacks.

27-year-old Róbert Csorba and his five-year-old son were killed whilst fleeing their house which was set on fire in a suspected arson attack in Tatárszentgyörgy in February. Jenõ Kóka, a 54-year-old Romani man, was shot dead as he left his home to make his way to the nightshift in the local chemical factory where he worked in Tiszalök on 22 April.

Last November, a man and woman were shot after their house was petrol bombed in Nagycsécs, a village in north eastern Hungary. The increasing number of attacks against Romani individuals and their homes has created a climate of fear and intimidation.

"The Hungarian Government has firmly condemned the attacks against members of the Romani community," said Nicola Duckworth, Director of the Europe and Central Asia Programme of Amnesty International. "This is a welcome move, but what is most urgently required is an effective police investigation.”

In the Tatárszentgyörgy case, the head of the local criminal department violated the rules of the investigation, according to a report issued by ERRC, the Legal Defence Bureau for National and Ethnic Minorities (NEKI) and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ). (That report is available here in pdf.)

Amnesty International has voiced concern that there might be more cases of attacks that remain unreported and is urging the Hungarian authorities to take positive action to address underlying prejudices against the Romani community.

In its 2009 Report on Hungary, the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance noted that the "victims of such acts may often be reluctant to report the racist elements of violent offences against the person, whether owing to a sense of shame, due to fear of retribution, or because they feel it is unlikely that serious follow-up will be given to this aspect of a crime."

The report cited above had some very interesting information about February's murders in Tatárszentgyörgy. The medics who responded to the emergency call in that case found a wounded five-year-old child, but left the scene for 20 minutes before returning to treat him. He died. Local police who responded told the surviving family members that there had been no shooting; that the victims had been injured in an explosion accidentally started by a fire. When the family members later called the police back to the scene to point out shell cartridges on the ground near the house, the police accused them of planting the cartridges. The police continued to refuse to investigate the murders even after family members pointed out that buckshot had been found in the victims' clothing. It actually took the intervention of Viktória Mohácsi, a Member of the European Parliament, to get the police to secure the area and begin an investigation. If not for her intervention, the police would have continued to cover up the crime. Even after her intervention, police failed to interview numerous witnesses and made no attempt to trace a suspicious Mercedes Benz which had been parked outside the house before the attack.

With respect to Monday's murderous attack, according to new reports, forensics have determined that the gun used has been used in two previous attacks against Roma. (Read here.)

FBI agents are assisting with the investigation of the crime. (Read here.) The virulently anti-Roma militia Magyar Garda (associated with the fascist Jobbik party) are threatening to send a motorcycle gang to patrol the village, whose residents are all Roma. (Read here.) The proposal for biker gang patrols arose after the right-wing television channel Hir-TV and right-wing newspaper Magyar Hirlap reported the murders as being motivated by something other than racism, seemingly to shift blame to the Roma themselves. (A poorly translated incidence of this is available here. Magyar Hirlap baselessly claims in that piece that only a dark-skinned person could have passed unnoticed through the village to commit the crime. More accurate accounts are available here and here and here.)

Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai has called on the leadership of the national police to act to prevent further attacks on Roma. (Read here.) Details about what actions police will take to protect Roma are scanty. According to some reports (read here) a special police network will act as a task force to react to anti-Roma violence, presumably to prevent a replay of the sort of police cooperation with racist murderers evidenced in Tatárszentgyörgy.

Meanwhile, gangs of skinheads associated with the fascist Jobbik party have been coducting rallies featuring heavy metal concerts in and around Budapest. These gangs, clad in shirts bearing the slogan"White Hungary", have beaten up a number of Roma, including a pregnant woman and a young boy, and chanting that they will "kill every Roma in Hungary". (Read here.)

Hungary's Defence Bureau for National and Ethnic Minorities (NEKI) is online here. That group is associated with the Open Society Justice Initiative. The European Centre for Roma Rights is online here.

Meanwhile, over the border in Slovakia, the fascist party called Slovenská pospolitosť (Slovak Brotherhood) is following the example of Jobbik and attempting to mobilize anti-Roma violence there as well. (Read here for an example of this.) Local human rights groups are calling for authorities to to ban the Slovenská pospolitosť to prevent anti-Roma violence from taking root . (Read here and here and here.) Prime Minister Robert Fico responded yesterday that he will have the Interior Ministry move to have the group banned. (Read here.)



Slovenská pospolitosť fascist militia

Deja vu: Neo-nazis back Ron Paul's son for Senate

The neo-Nazis at Stormfront are backing the senatorial candidacy of Ron Paul's son Rand. Jamie Kelso, who goes by the screen name "Charles A. Lindbergh", has posted video of a Rand Paul fundraising speech on the Nazi website.

View a cached version of their forum, featuring their Odin's Cross logo, an advertisement for an "Iron Cross Polo Shirt", and YouTube video of Rand Paul speaking, here: Rand Paul's first fundraiser, July 23, 2009 in Bowling Green, KY.


UPDATE August 2, 2009 1:00 pm

Watch the Ron Paul Forum watching us here.

UPDATE August 3, 2009 12:30 am

It looks like Stormfront has been pretty active in supporting Rand Paul. It wasn't just a single post. A google search of the Stormfront website for the term "Rand Paul" gets 367 hits, which can be viewed here. A search of the terms "Rand Paul" + senate yields 64 hits, which can be viewed here. Some of these hits are posts supporting Rand Paul's candidacy or actually organizing on his behalf.

This piece has received a lot of traffic, largely from Ron and Rand Paul supporters. Although some of the comments from Paul supporters disavow racism, a majority of comments have expressed the view that racist organizing on behalf of Rand Paul is unimportant. It is not enough, however, to state that, because Rand Paul does not endorse racism, he can wash his hands of what his supporters do. Racists have a history of using campaigns such as those of Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul as opportunities to recruit new followers. They participate in these campaign precisely because a connection to mainstream politics confers an undeserved air of legitimacy. It seems very clear to me both why it is important for candidates to clearly disavow such support and why it is difficult for some to do so. In spite of what his base of supporters say, I hope that Rand Paul does the right thing and explicitly condemns Stormfront and other racist organizations, disavows their support and returns their contributions. I am not at all optimistic that he will do this; his father did not, when faced with the same situation.

I would also like to address a message to those of his supporters who have posted on the Ron Paul Forum (which is working as a major part of the Rand Paul campaign) comments to the effect that, because my blog's recommended websites area has links to the ADL and SPLC, my motives are somehow suspect. (Read here.) Your form of advocacy on behalf of your candidate tends to create the very fears about his candidacy that you intend to counter.

Regarding an unpleasant aspect of the response this post has received: I have a message for those who think that posting obscene or threatening comments is clever. It isn't. Those comments won't be published here. Neither will any comments that refer in any way to my family. Don't bother trying. The fact that you post these comments anonymously leads me to believe that even you understand that your behavior is shameful. Why not act on that feeling?


UPDATE August 6, 2009 11:00 am

Following up on Roland Dodds' comment that racists support Ron and Rand Paul because their version of federalism would allow local governments the freedom to be racist:

Ron Paul opposes all federal civil rights legislation. He opposes the Civil Rights Act. His advocacy of states' rights is so extreme it includes the right of states to secede from the union. He has testified in court on behalf of secessionists who believe that they aren't legally bound to pay federal tax. He expressed support for New Hampshire militia types who refused to pay a huge tax bill and holed themselves up in their house armed to the teeth.

Ron Paul also pushes the sort of isolationist conpiracy theories the racists do concerning a purported plan for a North American Union, international bankers, Israel lobby, one-world government, etc. -- a sort of post-Cold War version of the old John Birch Society paranoia. He recently reveled that he would support an investigation of the 9/11 truth conspiracy theories but didn't have the time to do it or the stomach for the controversy.

You wonder why these racist groups would support someone like Ron Paul even though he's stopped publishing his racist newsletter columns? Maybe because, in so many other areas, they're in complete agreement.

With repsect to Rand Paul, he seems to be running as a Ron Paul clone. I don't know where he stands on these issues -- maybe you can tell me. It would appear that, at least for Stormfront, they're happy enough with Rand to support his fundraising efforts and offer him a platform to campaign. That seems to me at least to be a warning sign that Rand Paul's views on these issues require close scrutiny.

All You Fascists Bound To Lose

Woody Guthrie

Lithuania's selective amnesia

The Third Estate has an interesting piece by one of their writers who's currently travelling in Lithuania. He's visited the so-called "Museum of Genocide Victims" in Vilnius and has noted that through some oversight, certain years have been excluded from its historical record. These reflect Lithuanians' selective memory concerning their history since 1939.

"(M)any different myths (have been) created. The myth of the Workers’ State and the fabulous development it promised, the myth of the proud ethnic Lithuanians against the degenerate Jews and Gypsies or the cunning Russian occupiers, the myth of the salvation of the free market from state planned paralysis, and many others. But what is of particular interest, and particular concern, is the creation of the post 1991 national myth. If the stories the country’s museums tell is anything to go by, there is a deeply problematic story being told.

"‘Museum of Genocide Victims’ in Vilnius is a clear example of it. This is a museum housed in a former KGB building, which offers an account of the history of the period 1940-91 which is as exaggerated as it is incomplete. For a start you would expect something called the ‘Museum of Genocide Victims’ to have something to say about Genocide; but there is nothing. The museum’s story begins in 1939, has a brief gap from 41-44, and starts again in 1944. During this period, 300,000 Lithuanians, 200,000 of them Jews, were executed by death squads or in camps. This accounted for 94% of Lithuania’s Jewish population. These figures are acknowledged, but despite the fact that they dwarf the numbers imprisoned, executed or deported by the KGB the story of the holocaust in that country is not told"

The author notes in passing that this obliteration of memory is related to a resurgence of fascism. In every instance, fascism requires the creation of false history. This is true for several reasons: to create a false golden age which must be reattained, to create false demons which must be fought, and to erase the fascists' own bloody fingerprints.

Lithuania has been a victim both of Nazi and Soviet occupation. About that, there can be no dispute. The question is whether those who choose only to remember the crimes of the Soviets will succeed in resuscitating the demons of the right.

Read the rest here: Lithuania – New Myths and Old. (Hat tip: Harry's Place)

On a personal note: I once met an Estonian woman who claimed about her homeland "we were very accommodating to our Jews". (It actually sounded more like "vee vurr werry accommodating...") I found her view surprising considering that Estonia's Jews were completely wiped out -- for the most part killed by local militias. She went on to tell me at great length how difficult it was for her to leave Estonia and flee to Germany to escape the Soviets.

Did I mention that my grandfather came to the U.S. from Estonia? That's what started that particular conversation. I noticed that this woman's last name had an odd blend of vowels. I asked what kind of name it was. Estonian. I said my granddad came from there. "Oh. What's the family name?" "Chasan." "That doesn't sound Estonian." "It's Jewish." "Oh. Vee vurr werry accommodating to our Jews."

Fascist follies in the European Parliament

Csanád Szegedi (pictured at right), one of three newly elected Hungarian members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from the fascist Jobbik party, came to the parliament's July 14 opening session wearing the uniform of the party's illegal Magyar Garda militia. (Read here, and here, in an article auto-translated from Slovak. Background here in an article in French.) This uniform is based on that of Hungary's Arrow Cross, a pro-Nazi party which committed mass murders of Jews during the Holocaust. (Read here.) A ruling declaring the Magyar Garda illegal was affirmed by a Hungarian appeals court on July 3. The original ban followed a rising tide of anti-Roma violence, in which the paramilitary conducted several pogroms culminating in the murder of a Roma man and his young son.

Szegedi's two fellow Jobbik MEPs, Krisztina Morvai and Zoltán Balczó (pictured below on an earlier occasion), came to the EP opening session attired in 19th Century Hungarian military uniforms. Jobbik advocates returning Hungary to what they regard as its "golden age" by expanding its borders to include Slovakia, Transylvania, Ruthenia, and other areas it lost after World War I. That sort of populist nationalism tends to appeal to the far-right. It bypasses the brain and goes straight to the gut. It even reaches across the Atlantic and appeals to American neo-Nazis at Stormfront (here) and the Ron Paul crowd (here).

After the Hungarian fascists had their costume party, a MEP representing Hungary's ruling Socialist Party moved that the EP ban the wearing of paramilitary uniforms in parliament sessions. (Read here.)

Meanwhile the two British National Party (BNP) representatives, Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, were assigned seats in the back of the room. Another British non-aligned party MEP refused to be seated next to them. (Read here.)

When Krisztina Morvai gave her first speech to the parliament, she first identified herself as a "human rights attorney" (her usual shtik), then argued against a proposal that the EP study what action to take with respect to Iran. She claimed that Hungary's human rights record was worse than that of Iran, and that any look at the crimes of the Iranian dictatorship must be preceded by a study of Hungary's treatment of its far-right.

Nick Griffin later rose to support Morvai's argument, parroting her speech and taking it a bit further. Griffin claimed that the west focused on Iranian human rights violations and not on Hungary's purported suppression of its fascists because of a shadowy international conspiracy. He went on to claim that, if the EP studied the Iran question, British soldiers would soon be returning from a war with Iran with horrific injuries. (He also indicated that British soldiers live on the banks of picturesque rivers.) Based on his concern for British young people, Griffin demanded an inquiry into Hungary's suppression of its fascist militias.

Watch them here:

With respect to the Magyar Garda uniform's similarity to that of the Arrow Cross, as a point of reference, pictured below are Arrow Cross militiamen circa 1944-1945 wearing their winter uniforms. You may be interested to know the current views of an Arrow Cross leader who escaped justice in Australia. Read about that here.

Arrow Cross militia receiving machine guns from German Consular employee, 10 Pasar�ti avenue, Budpest (Source: Hungarian National Museum)

Magyar Garda demonstration

Hungarian fascists redux

Embedded below is a TV news report on the fascist British National Party (BNP) making common cause with the Hungarian fascist party Jobbik. (Hat tip: Edmund Standing at Harry's Place.) Both parties gained seats in the European Parliament in the June 4, 2009 election, to the shame of both countries.






(By way of background to that video and to the following report, you can read my earlier post concerning the Magyar Gárda, Jobbik's paramilitary wing, here. Harry's Place followed up with this post on Jobbik focusing on MEP Krizstina Morvai, who was featured in the video above. As the video mentioned, Morvai recently got in a bit of hot water for referring to Jews with obscenities in a public internet forum. Read here. In response, a former foreign minister wrote that Morvai's gross language was a step down from previous Hungarian fascist politicians, writing that "this tone and style astonish, unworthy of Hungarian traditions and a woman. All decent Hungarian people can only condemn this contribution. Such words were not written even by Csurka".)

The racist far-right has been taking advantage of the world financial crisis and the disarray of the liberal left and mainstream conservatives to make inroads among voters disenchanted with mainstream parties. They have been able to bring their extremist message into the mainstream. As reported in the video above, even to a greater degree than was the case with the BNP, Jobbik took a huge leap forward with their success in the European Parliamentary elections. They also scored a political victory when a Hungarian police union representing 10% of the nation's police announced that they were officially affiliated with Jobbik and published the following in their newsletter (read here and here and here):

"Given our current situation, anti-Semitism is not just our right, but it is the duty of every Hungarian homeland lover, and we must prepare for armed battle against the Jews."

...and...

"A crumbling country, torn apart by Hungarian-Gypsy civil war, could easily be claimed by the rich Jews . . . That is why we should expect a Hungarian-Gypsy civil war, fomented by Jews as they rub their hands together with pleasure."

The editor of that newsletter, and the person behind the union, is police Lt. Colonel Judit Szima (pictured below). In addition to running the racist police union, she ran for the European Parliament on the Jobbik list.

Not all the news has been good for Jobbik. Recently, a Hungarian appeals court ruled their militia, the Magyar Gárda, to be illegal. (Read here.) This ruling affirmed a lower court ruling which came after the Magyar Gárda conducted a series of violent anti-Roma rallies (including one outside an integrated public high school in Budapest and several in the integrated town of Tatarszetgyorgy) which culminated in the murder of a Roma man and his young son by fascist thugs. That was soon followed by the sudden enlistment of 400 new recruits. (Read here.) Subsequent to an appeals court affirming a lower court's ban on the Magyar Gárda, Gabor Szabo, one of Jobbik's leaders (pictured below, on the right), announced that the party would not comply with the court order and would, in fact, retain their militia. (Read here.) Jobbik organized a protest (described below) which took place 8 days ago. Another one occured yesterday.

The website Politics.hu (read here) has the following report on last week's Jobbik demonstration in central Budapest's Erszebet Square, which is adjacent to the historic Jewish ghetto (read here). Among those wearing Magyar Gárda uniforms at the demonstration were Hungary's former defense minister Lajos Fur, Jobbik chairman Gabor Vona and Jobbik MEPs (members of the European Parliament) Krisztina Morvai and Csanad Szegedi. The demonstration including other fascist groups such as the 64 Counties Youth Movement, which advocates Hungary's expanding to what it claims are its historic borders. Demonstrators were also demanding the release of Gyorgy Budahazy, who is affiliated with the 64 Counties Group. He is being tried on terrorism charges in connection with several bombings. (Read here and here.) The police broke up the demonstration when it turned violent, with demonstrators throwing rocks and bottles at police and calling them "dirty Jews". Gabor Vona was arrested (pictured in two photos below).

(Many more photos of the demonstration are available here.)

From Politics.hu:

"Police clashed in downtown Erzsébet tér on Saturday afternoon with a few hundred demonstrators who gathered to protest at Thursday’s court ruling dissolving the Magyar Gárda paramilitary group.

One of the 216 detained was Gábor Vona, head of the Gárda and its affiliated radical right-wing party Jobbik. He was released early Sunday morning. Most of those detained were released Saturday evening.

Police had banned the demonstration, as well as similar planned protests in other parts of Budapest.

Police used teargas to disperse the gathering after some protesters threw beer bottles and other missiles at them, as several Magyar Gárda members and supporters attacked the police. Most of the demonstrators were taken away individually, rather then driven off en masse.

Police later launched criminal proceedings against four people and charged others with hooliganism and disobedience, said spokeswoman Éva Tafferner. One of those arrested had attacked police so crudely that the prosecutor’s office kept him in detention. Another of the detainees was on a police top ten wanted list.

Some 17 people were injured, while a HírTV staff member was hit on the head by a bottle and a correspondent of the Index website was kicked, Népszabadság reports. Calm returned to the square by 8 p.m.

After his release, Vona told reporters “we shall defend the national camp from being smashed and Hungarians who swore to be Gárda members from the terror of those in power. We shall not allow a Socialist Party hurtling towards collapse and the Free Democrats an annihilated horde who betrayed the nation to intimidate the Gárda which has broken no law. We expect Viktor Orbán and Fidesz to make a statement on the current situation.”

During the night MEP Krisztina Morvai and extreme right Calvinist pastor Lóránt Hegedûs Jr. visited Vona and Gárda members at the jail on Buda’s Gyorskocsi utca."

According to news reports, Lorant Hegedus, a Calvinist pastor, not only visited the jailed Jobbik yobs, he also donned the paramilitary uniform of their Magyar Garda for this demonstation. (Read more about him below.)

It seems that Viktor Orban and his right-wing Fidesz party, apparently the big winners in Hungary's European Parliament elections having won 14 of the nation's 22 seats, are actually being hoisted on their own petard. According to reports, over one million of their voters didn't vote on election day, whereas Jobbik voters came out in force. Fidesz for years has capitalized on the same anti-Roma bigotry as overtly fascist parties do, and has offered support to the fascist party MIÉP. That may have seemed like a good move as MIÉP disappeared from the Hungarian Parliament and Fidesz gained seats. Now that Jobbik is presenting them with competition, and pushing them to support more overt violence, racism and challenges to the rule of law, that strategy isn't looking quite so clever. (Read the Economist's take on this here, and the Hungarian Spectrum's take here and here.)

Yesterday, the Magyar Garda defied the courts to hold two more rallies in Budapest, one week after the first one. (Read here. See photo below.) According to the Budapest Times report:

"(Gábor) Vona told the crowd that Jobbik was 'preparing to govern' and its deputies, if in the next parliament, would be wearing Guard (i.e. Magyar Gárda) uniforms at its first session. He added that his party would continue its fight against the ban on the Guard. It is not the Guard, but 'Gypsy criminals, drug users, multi-national companies, Israeli acquisitions in the country and the government itself that the people find terrifying'."

For those who want to watch some very boring Jobbik propaganda, embedded below is a video they posted on YouTube featuring a brief but tedious interview with Gábor Vona, along with dull rock music and the usual Attention Deficit Disorder camera work and editing. As is typical of neo-fascists, Vona portrays his party as the last, best hope to preserve Hungarian national identity in particular, and Christianity in general, from the barbarian horde (i.e. Jews and Roma).





I briefly mentioned Lóránt Hegedüs Jr. above. Read more about him here and here and here. You can read about how he hosted David Irving's several visits to Hungary here. That post points to a connection between Fidesz and the group which hosted Irving's 2008 lecture at a Hungarian church in New York City.

Hegedüs is both a minister of the Hungarian National Synod of the Calvinist Church (or Hungarian Reformed Church), and a senior deputy of the far-right MIÉP party. In August 2001, while a member of Parliament, he published an infamous article (read pdf here at page 25) in which he wrote:

"The Christian Hungarian state would have warded off the [ill effects] of the Compromise of 1867 had not an army of Galician vagabonds arrived who had been gnawing away at the country which, despite everything, again and again, had always been able to resurrect from its ruins the bones of its heroes. If their Zion of the Old Testament was lost due to their sins and rebellions against God, let the most promising height of the New Testament's way of life, the Hungarian Zion, be lost as well.... Since it is impossible to smoke out every Palestinian from the banks of the Jordan using Fascist methods that often imitate the Nazis themselves, they are returning to the banks of the Danube, now in the shape of internationalists, now in jingoistic form, now as cosmopolitans, in order to give the Hungarians another kick just because they feel like doing so...

"So hear, Hungarians, the message of the 1,000th year of the Christian Hungarian state, based on 1,000 ancient rights and legal continuity, the only one leading you to life: EXCLUDE THEM! BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T, THEY WILL DO IT TO YOU."

That call for expelling Hungary's Jews was condemned by many Hungarians, but not all did so right away. Karl Pfeiffer argues persuasively (here) that, the Hungarian Reformed Church, which had chosen to ignore Hegedus fascist and racist activism for years, was finally forced by the attention of foreign media to take some action. In response, they issued an order for their clergy to stay out of partisan politics. In connection with the article, Hegedus was indicted by federal prosecutors for incitement. He accepted a plea bargain in which he agreed to resign from his seat in Parliament and received an 18 month suspended sentence., however, this verdict was annulled in 2003. His article ended up eliciting wide support both from his own party and from many others on the right, such as the supposedly mainstream right-wing party Fidesz. In fact, Fidesz subsequently emerged as a not very secret "secret ally" of MIÉP, and even pushed to have MIÉP removed from the European Parliament's list of banned parties. (Read here.) Lorant Hegedus' article went on to be broadcast repeatedly by a radio station called Pannon Radio and supported in every detail on state-run Kossuth Radio's weekly Sunday talk show "Vasarnapi Ujsag" (Sunday News), which is associated with Fidesz.

Riding on this celebrity, and on the assistance of Fidesz, Hegedüs(unsuccessfully) headed the MIÉP list in the 2004 European Parliament elections.

This Hungarian Spectrum piece is full of valuable information on the connections between the supposedly mainstream Fidesz and the overtly fascist MIÉP, Jobbik and Magyar Garda.


************************************************************

As an aside, the Hungarian Spectrum post about David Irving's New York lecture elicited a number of commenters who found the website via Irving's blog. Irving actually posts a comprehensive list of links to webpages which mention him, which is both kind of sad and kind of amusing. His loyal followers follow these links and leave the sort of comments you'd imagine that they'd leave.

The Hungarian Spectrum recieved a number of comments endorsing David Irving's Holocaust denial (from people such as internet hate literature monger and David Irving's NYC advance man Michael Santomauro,and Danish hate blogger Balder). Interestingly, the blog also recieved a comment supporting David Irving's claim that the post-war Hungarian Communist regime was led by Jews, and that 1956 Hungarian uprising was a fight of Christians against Jewish oppressors. They chose the wrong place to try that one.

The commenter wrote:

It should also be noted that David Irving also wrote an excellent book on the 1956 Hungarian uprising, called 'Uprising - One Nation's Nightmare: Hungary 1956' which was described by Ferenc Kunszabo, editor, Hunnia magazine. Budapest, as 'the best work on the 1956 uprising in the English language'.

The Hungarian Spectrum's Eva S. Belogh, had this to say:

The only problem with this book review (is) that it appeared in a far-right magazine and that the book in question is useless. I who took part in that revolution can attest from personal experience that it was not a revolution against the Jews as Irving claims. It tells a lot about Kunszabo that he finds this the best book on the revolution. Trash it is.

Check out the comments here. Eva later posted this article to further debunk the specious claims by Irving and his fascist friends concerning Jewish culpability for communist crimes.

Remember that one way MIEP gained support was by attempting to rehabilitate the collaborationist wartime Prime Minister, László Bárdossy(read here). The fight against fascists who would distort history in the interest of a current agenda of hate continues.

*McKinney on hate radio again

I recently wrote about former U.S. Representative and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney having been interviewed on a radio program largely devoted to hate speech against Jews. (Read here.) That interview, conducted by someone calling himself "Ognir", included an allegation that Rahm Emanuel, who was described as being of "Jew nationality and Jew loyalties", actually controlled President Obama on behalf of an international "Zionist" conspiracy. During the interview, "Zionists" were also blamed for promoting illegal drugs, medical marijuana and homosexual marriage in order to weaken American society and make it more malleable to their evil designs. McKinney cheerfully allowed her host to make these claims without disagreeing, responding only with her allegations that "Zionist" spies had infiltrated her campaign for congress (comparing herself to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King in the process) and agreeing with the host, at great length, that "Zionists" control the president and congress. McKinney enjoyed this hourlong interview so much, she returned for a second one.

To get further insight into the character of that program, read the post I wrote about it. It includes extensive quotes. That program is done by a group associated with a website called InfoUnderground. You can see for yourself who they are by reading their forum here. The member with the "Deathflag" website -- the one sometimes featuring a death's head banner, sometimes a mushroom cloud -- posted some hate-filled comments on this blog, all the while protesting that he's an "anti-racist". After a forum member named "Shiksa Rage" posted that she "bet dollars to doughnuts that this guy is one of the Self Chosen masquerading under a WASPish name", InfoUnderground conducted an investigation into whether my name been changed to hide a Jewish identity. That's here. One of them went so far as to search a website called avotaynu.com and found 20 Jewish names related to "Holland". Who knew? Based on that, I was found out as a "Zionist agent". Read here. I thought it was the Star of David hood ornament on my Aston Martin that gave me away.

Now McKinney has done several more interviews on another racist radio show with far-right links -- this time with a better-known, and much more widely read, internet hate monger called Daryl Bradford Smith. You can read an archived version of his website's homepage here: Zionism Research - The French Connection - Fighting Criminal Zionism. (Has McKinney read it? How did she find these people?) This webpage, on which recordings of the programs featuring McKinney can be found, features a banner headline endorsing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It reads:

The Protocols are sometimes criticized as containing nothing that had not been said previously by philosophers or statesmen; but even if that were true, it would detract little from their interest. For their importance does not lie in the aim, world domination, nor in the theory by which it is attained, exploitation of man's baser instincts, but in the extraordinary astuteness with which the practical application of the plan has been suited to existing conditions.

Smith's homepage links to other pages on his website devoted to the works of infamous bigots such as Charles Coughlin, Denis Fahey, Nesta Webster, and Douglas Reed. The page devoted to Fahey deals with what Smith calls the "Judeo-Bolshevist plot against Christianity". (Read here.) In fact, the vast majority of the authors published by Smith on his website come from the extreme far-right of the political spectrum, and promote, as did the Nazis, the view that communism was a Jewish conspiracy. However, Smith's website also promotes the Stalinist Doctors' Plot myth. It seems that Smith is happy to cross ideological lines and promote myths of czarist, fascist or Stalinist origin, so long as they support his anti-Jewish agenda. Now he's interviewed Cynthia McKinney and added her socialism of fools to the mix.

The mp3 of a June 16 interview posted on Smith's website starts with McKinney waiting on the line as Smith gives a disjointed, grammar-defying introduction to a hate-fest.

"How (is it that) organizations affiliated with a single group of people -- this is important stuff -- we have to define terms. The people we'll be discussing tonight, have, in my view and in the view of research, been involved in activities that are against the republic of the United States and, in many instances, of the world at large. Now they -- many of them -- come from the Jewish community -- not all of them. And many of them are declared Jews -- not all of them. The conspiracy itself -- at the top -- is predominantly a Zionist political ideology. It is important to make these distinction because all Jews are not involved in this . . . The people that are doing this are powerful enough to silence the world's press . . ."

Having thus clarified that he and McKinney will discuss an powerful, international Jewish conspiracy in which not all Jews are culpable, Smith gives the bill of particulars of the crimes of this imaginary conspiracy (i.e. the "crimes against the republic ... and the world"): the Lavon Affair, the U.S.S. Liberty attack, 9/11, and the campaign against McKinney's reelection to congress.

With that, Smith asks McKinney's impressions of the wonderful hospitality she encountered in Gaza. McKinney replies that "has to make a correction". By this she doesn't refer to her host's conspiracy theories connecting Jews to 9/11 or any of the rest of it. She just let's him know that she never actually made it to Gaza.

Smith goes on to compare Israel's accidental attack on the U.S.S. Liberty in 1967 to the interception of a boat on which McKinney attempted to travel from Cyprus to Gaza as part of a propaganda campaign against Israel's blockade. McKinney alleges that the Israelis and the international news media lied about what happened. She goes on to agree with Smith's comparison of her attempted Gaza voyage to the Liberty incident, claiming that the Liberty attack was deliberate and that Israel lied about it.

"The Israelis will lie to cover up an action they carry out which they deem to be in their national interest. It's nothing new . . . The case of the U.S.S. Liberty -- the Israelis were murdering people in Egypt. So they were afraid there were going to be some witnesses to the murder . . . The leaders of Israel have, for the most part, been war criminals."

Smith replies by blaming this on an attitude of Israeli superiority based on a belief that they are "God's chosen people", a biblical phrase which clearly refers not to Israelis, but to Jews in general. (Note: this English translation of a biblical phrase clearly does not refer to a political doctrine of superiority, but to a religious belief connecting Jews to God. I have literally never heard this phrase used in support of Zionism, only against it.)

At this point in his exchange with McKinney, Smith unloads a string of conspiracy theories which may set the record for the most attempts to blame Jews for 9/11 in the least amount of time. McKinney's response is instructive.

Smith: "Mr. (Ron) Lauder -- he donated lots of money for the founding of the Mossad University in Herzliya -- a very important spy center. He was also very important in getting the head of the Port Authority, Lewis Eisenberg, to make the sale to Mr. Lowy and Mr. Silverstein. What about the collusion between these groups? But it doesn't stop there. It goes on to a companies that are watching our airports in Boston and Newark, named ICTS Company International (and) owned by former Mossad active spies -- by the children of the founder of Mossad -- a woman . . . It goes on to Daniel Lewin, Jules Carl (?), and Jerome Hauer, Indigo Systems, and Goldman Sachs making money on it. In other words, we can go down the list of one thing after another. Mohamed Atta -- his apartment in Florida -- both sides had Israelis living in it. The moving company with bombs inside its vans. How about the three Israelis who go back to Israel -- the dancing Israelis -- that they were there to document the event. How did they know that there would be an event to document? And go on and on and on -- and we find people like Dov Zakeheim, a Chabad Lubavitch rabbi, and Ari Fleischer, and Faith Wurmser (Douglas Feith and David Wurmser?). All of these people are actually a fifth column that has invaded our control structure of our government. And they are involved in strong-arming Congress, and they are in complete control of the Executive Branch. Now, how do we get this kind of crime gang from unclenching from their control?"

McKinney: "Well... people have to stand up! One of the things you said -- I do have to say -- I heard an extraordinary (speech) given by Lord Levy, who is, I believe, in the U.K. House of Lords. And the language that he used was absolutely incredible! Basically he said that only 3% of the Israeli people voted for peace and . . . he called Israel an indefensible state . . . Being in the United States, we don't hear that kind of talk at all. It was a Jewish member of the House of Lords who was saying this."

This follows McKinney's pattern of allowing her interviewers make extremist, bigoted comments for her. She then offers her tacit agreement, saying nothing to correct the record. Instead, she launches into an attack on Israel and finds a Jewish ally for her attack. As the comments to this blog have proven, this is good enough for her supporters to defend her from charges of anti-Semitism, and to argue that she does not claim that Israel was behind 9/11. As should be clear by the above exchange, she gives precisely those views her support with her response to Smith's outrageous charges. If she disagreed with him, she would have said so. Anyone with knowledge of the facts and an ounce of decency would have responded by telling Smith exactly what he is.

A litte background

In case you haven't been following McKinney's career of late, she's become a professional anti-Zionist, travelling the world to attend several conferences sponsored by the foundation led by Malaysia's former Prime Minister Mahathir. Mahathir has been spreading some money around to burnish his claims to be a leader of an international anti-Zionist movement: sponsoring several conferences and funding anti-Israel groups. He has also made a point of very publicly linking himself to Ahmadinejad and the Iranian dictatorship. Considering that Mahathir, his chief advisor Matthias Chang and Cynthia McKinney (like Ahmadinejad) all promote anti-Zionism as a form of anti-globalization, maybe I should refer to their ideology as the anti-globalization of fools.

Speaking of Ahmadinejad and Iran, on the night that much of the world were glued to news channels watching the power of the Iranian people risking their lives to voice their outrage at having their votes stolen, viewers of Iran's English-language propaganda channel, Press TV, were treated to several hours of Cynthia McKinney hosting a talk show on racism and the failure of democracy in Obama's America. (Read here . Video of program here.) The timing of that pathetic spectacle does not seem at all coincidental.

McKinney broadcasting on Press TV the night of Iran's elections

Also in June, McKinney announced her founding a political party seemingly modeled after one founded in the U.K. by George Galloway. (Read here or here.) Galloway's was called "Respect"; McKinney's is called "Dignity". Galloway and McKinney have much in common. Galloway, like McKinney, went from serving as a legislator with a major party, to a career devoted to endless self-promotion on the political fringes. Like Galloway before her, McKinney seeks to bring together an anti-Israel coalition of the far-left and Muslim communities. Like Galloway, she appears ready to do business with those who oppose democratic values in their own countries while decrying Israel and the U.S. as undemocratic.

Armed with mailing lists most fringe politicians would envy, McKinney is hoping to draw supporters for her party from the anti-Zionist far-left and far-right and to build a sort of coalition of extremes. Remember that she raised a lot of money for her failed congressional bid in 2006, largely based on anti-Israel fundraising. That built up her mailing list considerably. She presumably has the mailing lists from the several "9/11 truth" groups she' s led. Having been the 2008 Green Party presidential candidate, she must have their mailing list as well. For that reason alone, however absurd her statements and her affiliations are, she is still worth watching. She seems intent on maintaining her position as the United States' most vocal opponent of Israel. As odd and apparently self-destructive as her decision to work with the far-right appears, it may be part of a deliberate strategy to attract attention. She may be banking on the idea that there's no such thing as bad anti-Israel publicity.

As for Daryl Bradford Smith, he has had extensive connections with the Holocaust-denial publication American Free Press, although he appears to have burned his bridges with them by claiming that they too are somehow part of the international "Zionist" conspiracy. (Read here.) In response, some of his former friends have claimed that he is a "Zionist agent", a crypto-Jew or even a"Talmudist". (Read here and here and here and here and here and here.) Like many in the U.S. neo-fascist far-right, Smith spends as much time fighting fellow fascists as he does Jews and other supposed enemies.

My previous posts about McKinney's affiliations with the far-right are available here. Harry's Place covered this story here, the anti-conspiracy theory website Screw Loose Change here, JTA covered it here, Little Green Footballs here and History News Network reposted my one of my posts on McKinney here.

And while I'm on the subject of McKinney's supporters on the extreme right, there's this odd fellow.

The following links go straight to mp3's of McKinney's interviews posted on Smith's website. The first of these interviews, done on June 16, is available here. The second, done June 17, is here. The third, done on June 24, is here. A fourth, done on June 25, is here. I intend to continue digesting these interviews in the upcoming days in order to to continue to put McKinney's ties to the far-right on the record. Stay tuned.

As always, if anyone wishes to correct any factual errors in this or any other post, feel free to post a comment. Also feel free to offer your opinions. I am debating whether to allow the sort of hostile invective previous posts about McKinney have elicited from her supporters, including gross obscenities, bigotry, misogyny, and threats of and allusions to acts of violence. While it's useful to see exactly who is supporting McKinney, I hate to expose readers to that sort of material. McKinney supporters: when commenting, remember that readers are judging your views by how you choose to express yourself.

UPDATE: Is Ron Paul's son Rand Paul, candidate for U.S. Senate from Kentucky, really a Facebook friend of McKinney? Search her name here.

* Cynthia McKinney and the extreme right: her return to racist radio, her ties to Mahathir

Those who read this blog regularly know that former Democratic Congressman and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney has made common cause with members of the extreme far-right who share her opposition to Israel. I have reported on Cynthia McKinney's connections to conspiracy mongers, bigots and fascists such as Matthias Chang and David Pidcock (read here and here). I also reported on her interview on an internet radio program devoted to promoting anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and conspiracy theories (read here).

During that interview, McKinney got along swimmingly with her interviewer (who calls himself "Ognir") as he claimed in a bizarre, rambling manner that the president was somehow under the thumb of Rahm Emanuel. McKinney did not object when "Ognir" described Emanuel as having "Jew nationality and Jew loyalties". She didn't raise a peep as the host condemned a "Zionist" conspiracy for promoting gay marriage and medical marijuana to weaken the world's moral fiber. McKinney, in turn, talked in similarly paranoid (if less quirky) terms. She compared herself to Rosa Parks and declared herself a civil rights martyr. She also claimed that her campaign had been infiltrated by a "Zionist" spy whom she refused to name.

The meeting of the minds that was the first McKinney/"Ognir" interview lasted for more than an hour. Apparently, that didn't give McKinney a chance to fully explore these issues with Ognir, so she's done a second interview on the program, which is available on the hate speech website wakeupfromyourslumber.com (here).

This interview is of a piece with the first. Notably, for the first time, McKinney talks explicitly about her links to the far-right, recounting how her father worked with "members of the far-right and members of the far-left" to protest a meeting between Ariel Sharon and the governor of Georgia. (She seems to have an inflated view of her importance, somehow connecting Sharon's visit to Georgia with her failure to be reelected to Congress.)

She also briefly mentions her connection to former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad. Mahathir seems to have taken a liking to McKinney, having sponsored her attendance at several of his foundation's conferences in Kuala Lumpur and London devoted to anti-Israel activism. I'm not certain what McKinney is doing for a living these days, but the speaking fees from these events must be helpful. By the way, domestic Malysian oppostion to aspects of Mahatir's corruption, authoritarianism and promotion of racial dischord are discussed in a very well-written article by Ian Baruma in a recent New Yorker. (Read here. Subscription required.)

In that article, Baruma describes the central role that anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda plays in Mahathir's politics, in spite of there being virtually no Jews in Malaysia and no connection to the Middle East conflict. Mahathir's anti-Israel rallies come across as a sort of ritual hate of the sort Orwell described in 1984. Mahathir and his close advisor Matthias Chang have made anti-Semitic conspiracy theories the focus of a pseudo-reform movement in reaction to the failure of Malaysia's currency and several of its banks in 1997's Asian finacial meltdown. Mahathir bailed out the banks owned by his family members and cronies and blamed the whole thing on George Soros and "Zionists".

When Anwar Ibrahim, the key opposition politician in Malaysia, began to get traction with a push for real reform and transparency, Mahathir had him thrown in jail on outrageous trumped up sodomy charges. Mahathir also smeared Anwar, of course, as an agent of the Jews. After Anwar's arrest, Mahathir called a cabinet meeting in order to justify the unjust. He presented a slide show consisting of current and former U.S. officials all of whom happened to be Jews.

Matthias Chang, Mahathir's long-time advisor, whose conspiracy theories regarding "money-lenders" McKinney touts (read here), is published in the U.S. by Willis Carto's neo-Nazi publishing house The Barnes Review/American Free Press. Mahathir and Chang have connections to the neo-fascist writer Michael Collins Piper, who, like McKinney, has participated in several of their conferences. (Read here.) Chang, in turn, provided a supportive statement to be read by Piper at a Barnes Review Holocaust denial conference. Chang's statement praised a list of American neo-fascists in the strongest terms.

Michael Collins Piper and Mahathir

Yvonne Ridley, Piper and Mahathir

Mahathir and his minions have enough of the characteristics of fascism to deserve that title: authoritarianism, anti-communism, anti-capitalism, cronyism, traditionalist religiosity, racial bigotry, anti-Semitism, anti-feminism, homophobia, nativism, idealistic propaganda shielding cynical opportunism, rhetoric concerning restoration of purity, opposition to imaginary traitorous conspiracies, etc. They also have opened extensive contacts both with Islamists and neo-fascists, specifically concerning the promotion of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Cynthia McKinney really needs to explain how a purported leftist like herself can justify making common cause with the racist, neo-fascist far right.