One of the many horrifying images from the Jan. 6 rampage on the US Capitol shows a long-haired, long-bearded man wearing a black “Camp Auschwitz” T-shirt emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, and under it the phrase “work brings freedom” – an English translation of the Auschwitz concentration camp motto: “Arbeit macht frei.”
Another image, more subtle but no less incendiary, is of a different man whose T-shirt was emblazoned with the inscription “6MWE” above yellow symbols of Italian Fascism. “6MWE” is an acronym common among the far right standing for “6 Million Wasn’t Enough.” It refers to the Jews exterminated during the Nazi Holocaust and hints at the desire of the wearer to increase that number still further.
These and related images, captured on television and retweeted on social media, demonstrate that some of those who traveled to Washington to support President Donald Trump were engaged in much more than just a doomed effort to maintain their hero in power.
As their writings make clear to me as a scholar of American anti-Semitism, some among them also hoped to trigger what is known as the “Great Revolution,” based on a fictionalized account of a government takeover and race war, that, in its most extreme form, would exterminate Jews.
Extreme anti-Semitism
Calls to exterminate Jews are common in far-right and white nationalist circles. For example, the conspiracy theorists of QAnon, who hold “that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against Mr. Trump,” traffic in it regularly.
The anonymous “Q” – the group’s purported head who communicates in riddles and leaves clues on message boards – once approvingly retweeted the anti-Semitic image of a knife-wielding Jew wearing a Star of David necklace who stands knee-deep in the blood of Russians, Poles, Hungarians and Ukrainians and asks with feigned innocence, “Why do they persecute me so?”
Images of long-nosed Jews dripping with the blood of non-Jews whom they are falsely accused of murdering have a long and tragic history. Repeatedly, they have served as triggers for anti-Semitic violence.
More commonly, including in recent days, QAnon has targeted Jewish billionaire philanthropist and investor George Soros, whom it portrays as the primary figure shaping and controlling world events. A century ago, the Rothschilds, a family of Jewish bankers, was depicted in much the same way.
QAnon members also mark Jews with triple parentheses, a covert means of outing those whom they consider usurpers and outsiders, not true members of the white race.
‘White genocide’
Another website popular in white nationalist circles displayed photographs of Jewish women and men, downloaded from university websites, so as to help readers distinguish Jews from the “Aryan Master Race.” “Europeans are the children of God,” it proclaims. “(((They)))” – denominating Jews as other without even mentioning them – “are the children of Satan.”
The website justifies rabid anti-Semitism by linking Jews to the forces supposedly seeking to undermine racial hierarchies. “White genocide is (((their))) plan,” it declares, again marking Jews with triple parentheses, “counter-(((extermination))) is our response.”
Members of the Proud Boys, another group that sent members to Washington, likewise traffic in anti-Semitism. One of the group’s leaders, Kyle Chapman, recently promised to “confront the Zionist criminals who wish to destroy our civilization.” The West, he explained “was built by the White Race alone and we owe nothing to any other race.”
Chapman, like many of his peers, uses the term “white genocide” as a shorthand way of expressing the fear that the members of the white population of the United States, like themselves, will soon be overwhelmed by people of color. The popular 14-word white supremacist slogan, visible on signs outside the Capitol on Wednesday, reads “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
Composed by David Lane, one of the conspirators behind the 1984 assassination of Jewish radio host Alan Berg, this slogan originally formed part of a larger document entitled “The White Genocide Manifesto.” Its 14 planks insist that Jews are not white and actually endanger white civilization. “All Western nations are ruled by a Zionist conspiracy to mix, overrun and exterminate the White race,” the manifesto’s seventh plank reads.
While influenced by the infamous anti-Semitic forgery known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the document goes further, blaming members of what it euphemistically calls the “Zionist occupation governments of America” for homosexuality and abortion as well.
QAnon followers, the Proud Boys and the other far-right and alt-right groups that converged on Washington imagined that they were living out the great fantasy that underlies what many consider to be the bible of the white nationalism movement, a 1978 dystopian novel, “The Turner Diaries,” by William Luther Pierce.
The novel depicts the violent overthrow of the government of the United States, nuclear conflagration, race war and the ultimate extermination of nonwhites and “undesirable racial elements among the remaining White population.”
Symbolism outside the Capitol
As opinion writer Seyward Darby pointed out in The New York Times, the gallows erected in front of the Capitol recalls the novel’s depiction of “the day of the rope,” when so-called betrayers of their race were lynched. Unmentioned in The New York Times article is that the novel subsequently depicts “a war to the death with the Jew.”
The book warns Jews that their “day is coming.” When it does, at the novel’s conclusion, mass lynchings and a takeover of Washington set off a worldwide conflagration, and, within a few days “the throat of the last Jewish survivor in the last kibbutz and in the last, smoking ruin in Tel Aviv had been cut.”
“The Turner Diaries”’ denouement coupled with the anti-Semitic images from the Capitol on Wednesday serve as timely reminders of the precarious place Jews occupy in different corners of the United States. Even as some celebrate how Jews have become white and privileged, others dream of Jews’ ultimate extermination.
Originally published in The Conversation and republished here with permission.
That's it. A few days before, I wrote a sentence on a paper I conserv here visible at my desk, I also signed it, it's written the following (french then traduced to english) :Rather, I think it's better to try and retain a more formless hope - not a hope that one specific outcome will manifest, but simply a hope that whatever does happen will ultimately be for the good ... whether tomorrow, or next year, or a generation from now, or thousands of years in the future. This decouples hope from any one specific timeline, and shields hope from disappointment, keeping it alive when it is needed most - when things look really bad, as they currently do.
It's despite what has been said by some probably very important to stay with the programme - to keep on working to envision and to pour energy into the selection and creation of this positive future, and to not to get sucked into attachment and negativity. This is likely the means by which we choose the reality we create - 'with our minds we make the world'.
There of course in addition to this is the requirement to act in the world in accordance with our hearts/intuition depending on the situation we find ourselves in.
This might all sound a bit quaint, but the fact is that we're not in control, and cannot anyway know what is for the greatest good. Which is why failure to cultivate a reasonable degree of equanimity/becoming overly attached to any particular conception of what an optimal outcome might look like is unwise. It's stressful and wastes energy too since it ties us to an emotional roller coaster. Our task is to ground the energy and to when required act as guided, but it's for higher guidance and those they work with and through to decide what is for the greatest good.
The protesters damaged the federal property and interrupted legislative proceedings on the certification of the Electoral College results making Joe Biden as the next president.
“The top priority of independent insurance agents and brokers is and has always been keeping people and property safe and protected. Yesterday’s violence at the U.S. Capitol was appalling and inexcusable. The Big ‘I’ strongly condemns those who endangered lives and desecrated this powerful symbol of our democracy. We will continue to advocate for safety and security for all Americans and for adhering to the United States Constitution, as our country moves forward after this disturbing incident.”
“Insurers support the peaceful transition of power,” stated President and Chief Executive Officer David A. Sampson. “We are in the business of protecting American families, businesses, individuals, communities, and the larger economy. The actions taking place in Washington, D.C. today threaten the very pillars of our country.”
“A hallmark of our democracy is the peaceful transition of power. The attack on the United States Capitol was a shameful assault on that most sacred principle. In America, we settle our political disagreements with ballots, not with violence. We must never bend to those who traffic in fear and chaos. Let us come together to reaffirm our commitment to our democracy.”
Among the insurance industry signers of the letter were CEOs from AIG, Marsh & McLennan, MetLife, Equitable, Guardian, Swiss Re and Travelers.
- Brian Duperreault, Chief Executive Officer, American International Group
- Dan Glaser, President & CEO, Marsh & McLennan Companies
- Michel A. Khalaf, President & CEO, MetLife
- Andrew McMahon, President & CEO, The Guardian Life Insurance Company
- Mark Pearson, President & CEO, Equitable
- John Romeo, Managing Partner, Oliver Wyman
- Philip K. Ryan, Chairman, Swiss Re Americas
- Alan D. Schnitzer, Chairman & CEO, The Travelers Companies
Others signing the letter included leaders from Pfizer, CIT Group, Mastercard, National Grid, Con Edison, Edelman, Cushman & Wakefield, Moody’s, Lyft, BlackRock, The Carlyle Group, Boston Consulting, United Airlines, National Basketball Association, Deloitte, KPMG, Apollo Global Management. Etsy and other firms and organizations.
What does that mean? Sorry if that is obvious, but I cannot connect the dots...
Yes, this caught my attention, because Polish clairvoyant (that we are discussing in this thread) have seen in one of his visions, that the army will be deployed near Wrocław, Poland. So, the activity in that region is interesting in that regard.I don't know what it means or what could have been the background but we can see a C-5 Galaxy large military cargo plane making a roundtrip from Ramstein (Germany) to Budapest (Hungary) and returning without stop-over.
Parler has now been removed by Google, Apple and Amazon's AWS. I guess when the Cs said 'almost immediate slide into totalitarianism' they were pretty correct. Heck, it's starting before he's even taken office! (...)
That's one of your more cogently argued posts mbww. I don't wholly disagree... nor neither succumb to wholly agreeing. I sense there's something hidden in between the rain drops of your prose that disguises what you're really on about. I'm still striving to work out what your grift is... life is harsh, so deal with it. The future is open, so get ready for it. Life is actually a bed of roses, if you don't ever get involved with anything outside your control.. The future is always better than the past... so move along, move along, nothing to get excited about here...This is the best post I read on this forum in a while, thank you @Vajra2!
When hearing talk about new era, consciousness shift, etc and then facing grim reality of a disputed election, conflicts, there's the bewilderment: yeah, right... Then there's the tendency to ho back to the traditional way of thinking: black vs white, STS vs STO, Trump Cesar vs them, because that's how the mind works: tries to find a reason to resist, a justification, a messiah ultimately that will reveal "the plan". First thing when you embark on a new challenge, consciously or in a transition era, there's the regret or a challenge for something related to the past or past era... The pangs of the birth. The hero comes to a bridge...You step into the new year with great hopes and something wrong, petty matter happens: you get shortchanged at the store, which never happened before, or a scratch appears on your car. Wait a minute, what's this!? "Why did we have to leave Egypt, again"?
One argues: how can acceptance of a wrong, i.e. stolen election be something good for America? Next reaffirming that America is bad and has been long corrupted. So, why bother caring about the first thing anyway? If you can live with a stolen election and move on your life, isn't it a greater achievement than burning down the village because someone stole your cow? A perfect world simply cannot exist in this world, because it's the result of all living being's interactions, and it cannot be "ideal" the way an individual, group or even majority whishes for...yeah, free will is a bitch. Therefore, getting less attached to transient miseries and looking up to the future is the right way .If there is a good force that cares and guides us from the future, then reality that we experience is the best of all possible alternatives, and we should be grateful for it. Maybe Biden's choice for America was a better choice seen from the future through various timelines alternatives, even though it isn't obvious now. Think about How Trump's presidency has degraded only in the last two years. First half - enjoyable. Second half - miserable. From the perspective of you and me, it couldn't be more skewed at the moment - but it is what it is. As for practical philosophy of life: use your precious time you've got on this earth and in this moment for something good and positive.
Satyagraha combines two Sanskrit words—satya, meaning truth, and agraha, meaning firm adherence or insistence. As Gandhi later wrote in his work Satyagraha in South Africa: “Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement ‘Satyagraha’, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence.” (See ch. 12.) Elsewhere, he wrote: “Its root meaning is holding on to truth, hence truth-force. I have also called it love-force or soul-force.”[1] Thus, Gandhi and others began using the term satyagraha, rather than the term they had earlier employed—“passive resistance”—which seemed to imply weakness and an exclusively English derivation.
Indeed, it could be argued that satyagraha would entail, in a classic example, defensive just war to stop a genocidal, invasive regime such as Nazi Germany. George Orwell discusses some of these concerns in connection with Gandhi in his essay, “Reflections on Gandhi,” available here. A brief summary of just war principles can be found here.