And you think we’ve got conservatives over here?
This is the 88th anniversary of the assassination/execution of Czar Nicholas II and his family by the Bolsheviks. I’ve always thought it was one of history’s most horrible moments — smaller in scale than France’s Reign of Terror, perhaps, but hardly less barbaric.
It’s a good thing to dwell on whenever we begin to forget how lucky we are as Americans. This event was, on a moral level, roughly equivalent to the crime Truman Capote chronicled in In Cold Blood. Only in Kansas, that was committed by a couple of deviant drifters. In Russia, it was just a way to change governments. We’ve been doing that without bloodshed over here ever since the election of 1800. We should thank God for that every day.
Back to the topic at hand — it was horrible, but it did happen quite a while back. Nevertheless, these
guys in Moscow are apparently as ticked about it as if it had happened this morning. We have some of that in this country as well, but if you saw a bunch of guys who looked like this in the streets of Columbia, you’d assume they were bikers demonstrating against a proposed helmet law.
What these folks want, though, is to restore the monarchy. As we watch Russia rise again in economic and geopolitical influence, it is of relevant interest to consider all the things that can bubble back up after several generations of repression.
Check the ascetic pallor. Emaciated limbs. Hollow cheeks. Deep, fanatic eyes. You get the impression that these very guys have been sitting in a garret somewhere writing feverish manifestos for the past nine decades?
They’re really barking up the wrong tree. Don’t they know that Russia already has a czar? His name is Vladimir.
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Holy crap! Alert SHIELD! The Red Skull has apparently restored the Master Race.
(Did I beat Dave to the punch? If so, holy super crap!)
“We’ve been doing that without bloodshed over here ever since the election of 1800. We should thank God for that every day.”
Well, we have had four Presidents assassinated, which works out to about 10% of our Presidents being gunned down. True, the in-power party retained the reins of government in each case, but the course of American history was profoundly altered each time as a result of the new President taking power…except perhaps for Chester Arthur succeeding James Garfield.
Yes, we have a lot of homicides in this country, and that has hit the presidency.
But no one has used killing the president as their means of seizing power. Jefferson didn’t have to line up John and Abigail and the kids and whack them to take office, and John Wilkes Booth got nothing for his trouble but an ignominious death.
You see my point, right?
Even if conspiracy theorists are right, if there WAS a viable political move behind these assassinations, the plotters had to hide their hands — and succeeded (no one has credibly nailed either President Johnson with culpability for the deaths of Lincoln and JFK).
Shooting the opposition remains a political liability in this country, not a successful campaign strategy.
Capital A – you went right over my head with that one. Actually I thought Brad published a photo of Michael Moore AFTER he finished his one day hunger strike to protest the Iraq war. I bet when the clock struck midnight on his one day of fasting he was like a hog at the trough. heeeeeeeeheeeeeeeee
The assassination of Robert Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan was perhaps the first act of Muslim terrorism in the US, later followed by many more. He likely would have been elected president.
Dave, let’s go through this one more time. “Palestinian” is not the same as “Muslim.” There are many Palestinians who are Christian, and—guess what? Sirhan Sirhan is one such Palestinian Christian.
Phillip – Sirhan was Arab and Muslim in every way except for a formal conversion. He was educated in Muslim schools and believed in the violence that is brainwashed into every young mind. This is an excerpt from Crime Magazine: Sirhan had been aware that Palestinian organizations were beginning to carry out terrorist acts in the 1960s. In conversations Sirhan held with his friend, Walter Crowe, the two politically aware young men discussed Arab nationalism. Crowe told Sirhan that the Arab cause was a fight for national liberation. Echoing sentiments held by many left-wing radicals of the time, Crowe said the conflict in Palestine was an internal struggle by Palestinians who were oppressed by the Israelis. Crowe believed Al Fatah’s terrorist acts were justified and that Palestinian terrorists had gained the respect of the Arab world. Sirhan agreed and spoke of “total commitment” to the cause. Sirhan was for “…violence whenever, as long as its needed.” Crowe said that Sirhan, “…could have seen himself as a fighter,” and believed that Sirhan saw himself as a committed revolutionary willing to undertake revolutionary action. Later Crowe would come to feel guilt about the part he may have played in putting ideas of terrorist acts into Sirhan’s head and reinforcing Sirhan’s resolve.
The excerpt you quote above speaks about the Palestinian nationalist cause. It mentions nothing about Islam or Christianity. Setting to the side for the moment the mad acts of Sirhan or other terrorists, the Palestinian nationalist cause has been also espoused by peaceloving Palestinians, and the international community to an extent that our own President endorses the two-state solution.
The Palestinian cause crosses religious lines. Many Israelis themselves have opposed their own government’s approach to the issue in the past. And, once again, I must point out that Palestinians themselves, while majority Islamic, include other religions in the population, with a significant Christian population.
Sirhan was a Christian, Dave. Deal with it.
Who needs a gun to seize power when you can get your bubba to steal the election for ya.
Phillip – Sirhan walked like a Muslim, talked like one, was trained by them, grew up with them, hung out with them, identified with them, on and on ad nauseum. Yet, because he was born to Christian parents, you will forever insist he is a Catholic. You need to deal with your illusionary thinking. The man even thinks he is a legendary hero to Muslims.
Bud, you forgot the Supreme Court too, and Diebold. You go, guy!!!!!!!!!
Sirhan Sirhan wasn’t a Catholic for God’s sake. If anything his family is Coptic.
Is that a fact based on knowledge of his particular bio, or an assumption? I say that because most of the Lebanese people I have known in this country ARE Catholic — the Sheheens, for instance. Sirhan could well have been of some other sect, but a quick Google check makes me think he was Catholic.
In any case, if he were Coptic, he’d be unusual. Catholics are the third-largest group of Christians in Lebanon. The Maronites and Greek Orthodox are the two largest.
This is a brief summary from the Wikepedia concerning Sirhan’s religous convictions.
Sirhan was born to Palestinian parents in Jerusalem. Though he is incorrectly thought to be a Muslim, he is a Christian. However, in his adult years he frequently changed his religious thoughts, to Baptist, Seventh-day Adventist, and Rosicrucianism.[1]
Sorry Dave, religious fanatacism is not limited to Muslims.
I’m a Russian-American and came across you page entirely by accident. I’m bit disturbed and puzzled by what you wrote. I don’t understand why you needlessly take such a condescending tone towards Russian history. I think that we as Americans do not need to look down on other countries or cultures to feel good about our own political system. Seems to me doing so ultimately only belittles us as a country.
Sirhan Sirhan was born to a Greek Orthodox Christian family (his family hails from the Christian Arab village of Taybe, but he was born in Jerusalem). You people know nothing about him…you can’t even get the Christian denomination right. Let me guess, your main source is FOX TV…”fair and balanced” with its numerous inaccuracies regarding the history and politics of the Middle East.
Knew Sirhan about as well as Crowe did for many years, My parents church (Nazarene) helped sponser his family coming here. He was in no way a Muslim, but he was a total fish out of water. I’m sure the only female companionship he ever had (if he did) would have been a prostitute because he was totally clueless how to talk to or even be around women. He expressed his bitterness over this subject as often as he did over Palestine. He was a total failure at every job he tried to hold and always blamed racism or something related (people who had it “in for him”). From roughly 16 years old on he became monolithic in his rants about destroying somebody/anybody/something that was to blame for his condition. To say he was generally disregarded or laughted at wouldn’t begin to cover the situation. His insane hatred of Jews extended to lengthy theories about anyone who disagreed with him on any subject actually being Jewish agents out to thwart him. Once (as a “joke” ) an acquaintance of both of ours told him I was Jewish (I’m not) to get a rise out of him. After not speaking to me deliberately for about two months (which was plenty o.k. by me) I asked him how come and he rained Jewish insults on me. After laughing at him I told him I was not Jewish to which he replied, oh, he had known that all along when it was obvious from his demeanor he had not. In my early teens myself and friends often visited his family (a few meals among other things) where I can easily state there was never any mention of Allah/Muslim religion but plenty of Christian references abounding. The one constant in his family discussions was the endless evil and power of the Jews, how they controlled everything, how even now they were spying on the Sirhans and trying to make their lives miserable. When the movie “Lawrence of Arabia” was released I vividly remember a family discussion heated up when I laughed out loud at the revelation that Lawrence was really a Jew in disguise. The endless conspiratorial chain these people constantly unwound was exhausting in its complexity. I recently laughed even harder reading some dimwits suppositions that somehow Sirhan was involved with the CIA. Sirhan was a not very bright self-possesed bigot who had literally no friends (only political acquaintances who tolerated him) and was totally incapable of rational social behavior in almost any setting. The word “muslim’ let alone the thought was hardly ever in his lexicon. As I told the FBI when interviewed Sirhan would have killed Mickey Mouse if he had been given the opportunity. I’m sure for every scribbled “RFK” must die he wrote there were just as many other ludicrous death sentences delivered over the years. The tragedy is in the non-existent security RFK had which such a bean brain could penetrate.And believe me,he was a bean-brain who couldn’t accept that no one was interested in him- not even his “pals’ in the Arab Student League at PCC, who found him far too strident to be seen or heard in public with (he also drove the ladies away with incredible ease). SO, to sum up- not a Muslim (at least before the shooting) and (hee-haw) not a CIA agent (hell he couldnt run a chicken fryer). Mostly a rage-filled dumbfuck with no idea where to aim the rage most of the time. I wish I could add totally ineffectual but somehow he managed (through mostly dumb luck) to make the name for himself he always thought he deserved. Thank God they’ll never let the ranting idiot out- he’d march off to show everybody again just what a big man he is.