University Lumps Tea Parties in With Nazis

This is NOT a parody.  It’s not a poster put up by some kooky student or lone Left-Wing agitator. This is an official poster for an official, school-sponsored symposium at Brandeis University.

The symposium will be a look at the American Right from a “neo-Nazi” perspective. And when Brandeis says “Neo-Nazis,” they mean “tea partiers.”  Think I exaggerate? Check out the webpage for the event.

Getting the message, Tea Partiers?  A “related link” to this symposium on “Right-Wing Radicalism” is a link to OUR Tea Party event on Boston Common.  Heil Palin!

Not disgusted enough yet? Here’s a quote from the description of the symposium:

When 88-year-old James W. von Brunn Right [sic] gunned down security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. in June 2009 wing extremist groups in the US, too, received renewed attention. Racially-motivated arson attacks on churches in Texas are the latest in a string of right wing violence since President Obama became the first black president.

Does it matter that von Brunn was targeting conservative magazine The Weekly Standard? Of course not.  Facts, schmacts: He’s a Jew-hating nut, so he must be a right-winger! Read more here.

From Brandeis University's website:

The U.S. Perspective

Moderator: David Cunningham, Associate Professor of Sociology, Brandeis University

4:15 Kathleen Blee, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh: "Which Comes First:  Thinking Like a Racist or Acting Like a Racist?"

4:25 Pete Simi, Associate Professor, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska, Omaha: "Cycles of Right-Wing Terror"

4:35 Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst, Political Research Associates, Boston: "From Tea Parties to Armed Militias"

Background info:

The German neonazi scene has received renewed attention at home and abroad since German unification in 1990. Xenophobic attacks on predominantly dark-skinned foreigners and desecrations of Jewish cemeteries regularly make headlines especially but not exclusively in East German cities and towns. Skinhead and neonazi movements, although deeply anti-international in their ideology, are also organizing across borders in both Eastern and Western Europe, as recent developments in Scandinavia and former communist countries have shown.

While promoting anti-semitic symbols and nazi emblems is illegal in Germany, the internet provides free access to plenty of propaganda material available on US websites. Indeed, anti-semitic films from the Nazi era are exclusively advertised there. When 88-year-old James W. von Brunn Right gunned down security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. in June 2009 wing extremist groups in the US, too, received renewed attention. Racially-motivated arson attacks on churches in Texas are the latest in a string of right wing violence since President Obama became the first black president.

The Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis is convening European and American scholars who have studied these movements. Panelists will address questions about the most recent developments in the organizations' demographics, their ideological framework, and the role of different free speech laws vis-a-vis the groups' media/internet presence and activities both here in the US and in Europe.

For more information, please contact Sabine von Mering at vonmering@brandeis.edu or Heidi McAllister at cgees@brandeis.edu.