KKK, Know Nothings, Teabaggers, Fascists... You Think There's A Difference? They're All At The Core Of Movement Conservatism

The far right has never been friendly territory for Jews

It's always a little jarring to watch the small but determined handful of befuddled Jews flirting-- for one reason or another-- with the right-wing elements that have been trying to exterminate them since Biblical times. There were even confused Jewish fascistswho supported Hitler and Mussolini (and wound up being killed by those they supported). Their political posterity in contemporary American politics is Eric Cantor (R-VA), Sheldon Adelson, Mel Sembler, Scooter Libby and a motley gaggle of neo-fascist hate talk media types from Irving and William Kristol to Mark Levin, Michael Savage and Michael Medved, as well as members of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

In 1981 the Ramones released their sixth album, Pleasant Dreams, which included The KKK Took My Baby Away, a song by Joey Ramone, who was Jewish and progressive, about the theft of his girlfriend by Johnny Ramone, who was non-Jewish and conservative. I was a dj in San Francisco at the time and was, at least in the beginning, reticent about playing it. Eventually, though, people started understanding that it wasn't supporting the KKK, and it became a big hit on our station. Something similar happened 5 years later when they released Bonzo Goes to Bitburg, commemorating Reagan's tribute to SS troops in Germany. It came out in the U.K. first, and Warner Bros was reluctant to even release it in America-- and waited a year!

Last night was the closing of a hugely successful play in L.A., a musical in fact, called Parade, which starred one of my neighbors, T.R. Knight. If you know him at all, you probably know him in his scrubs as Dr. George O'Malley from Grey's Anatomy, although he received spectacular reviews in the role of Leo Frank, a Jewish resident of Atlanta who was lynched by the KKK in 1915. Extreme right-wing Jews like Eric Cantor and Michael Savage should keep in mind the barely below-the-surface virulent anti-Semitism their "allies" in the conservative movement have always harbored.

In 1984 the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, still a viciously right-wing and thuggish outfit, denied Frank a posthumous pardon. I doubt too many teabaggers have joined that movement because they want to kill anyone; give them time. Here's a great video of the whole Leo Frank story and how the far right works: