Hate Crimes

Arson at Orangevale dry cleaners owned by Christian Palestinians investigated as hate crime, FBI says

By Stephen Magagnini
smagagnini@sacbee.com

The FBI is investigating the pre-dawn arson of an Orangevale dry cleaners - which included offensive graffiti and a swastika - as a hate crime. FBI spokesman Steve Dupre said Wednesday.

[...]

The federal ATF and the Sacramento Sheriff's Department have joined the investigation, Dupre said. The graffiti, painted in black on the wall outside the cleaners, included a swatiska and the words "f--- Arab."

One of the owners, Joe Kurt, said he and his sister are "very proud to say we're Arab Christians - Antiochian Orthodox - we have our icon in the middle of the story and many pictures of the holy Virgin Mary."

Sikhs in the Sacramento, California area will be gathering on the west steps of the State Capitol building on Wednesday April 13, 2011 from 11:00 AM to 1:30 PM to commemorate the first “American Sikh Day“:

American Sikh Day
A Celebration of this Nation and Religious Freedom

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011 11:00AM – 1:30PM
West Steps of the State Capitol (10th & Capitol Streets)

Come help us celebrate:
✓ Our Sikh faith
✓ Our history in California
✓ Our contributions to the community

This isn't the followup I wanted to do with this post, because what I have in mind is much more extensive than what's below. But if you have any relatives or friends who are still telling you the right-wingers aren't calling for, and encouraging violence ... I give you Exhibit A

Glenn Beck in June 2010: 'You're Gonna Have to Shoot Them in the Head'

Would-be assassin Byron Williams referred specifically to Beck's June 2010 shows where he had warned of 'communist' takeover in DC by Pelosi and other 'revolutionaries'...

But, of course, "both sides do it!"...sigh...[via Stephen Webster at RAW STORY]...

The video above was from June 10, 2010.

"You need to go back to June --- June of this year, 2010," said would-be mass murderer Byron Williams, referring to Glenn Beck in a jailhouse interview. Williams had been stopped by police in a San Francisco shoot out on his way to assassinate members of the ACLU and the progressive Tides Foundation in July of 2010. "Look at all his programs from June, and you'll see he's been breaking open some of the most hideous corruption," Williams, who viewed Beck as a "schoolteacher on TV," later said.

Fallujah: City of No Children

Bill Wilson
Scottish Left Review

The horror of the effects of depleted uranium deserve to be heard in Scotland, argues Bill Wilson

It was recently reported that doctors had advised women in Fallujah not to give birth. There are many medical reasons for infertility which might shatter the dreams of a young woman. It is not difficult to imagine how heartbreaking it must be for a woman who is advised that she can never bear children. But for the young women of an entire city - tens of thousands of them - to be advised not to give birth, how can one imagine such collective pain? But perhaps it does not matter - one life is a tragedy, a million a statistic? Certainly this episode attracted limited press attention. Media Lens highlighted an interesting contrast with the attention directed at the lady who chucked a cat into a bin - one cat confined for a few hours was a tragedy.

This year the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health published a study, "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005 - 2009" by Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi. The report concludes "results confirm the reported increases in cancer and infant mortality which are alarmingly high. The remarkable reduction in the sex ratio in the cohort born one year after the fighting in [Falluja] 2004 identifies that year as the time of the environmental contamination." It was this increase in the incidence of child cancer and deformities which resulted in women being advised not to give birth. Fallujah is not the only city witnessing skyrocketing rates of child cancer. "The rapidly soaring child cancer rate in the southern Iraqi province of Basra has prompted the officials in the country to open the country's first specialist cancer hospital for children in the province's capital. [...] Since 1993, Basra province has witnessed a sharp rise in the incidence of childhood cancer. 'Leukemia (a type of blood cancer) among children under 15 has increased by about four times,' said Dr. Janan Hasan of the hospital inaugurated on Thursday in the southern port city of Basra."

I want to do a blog on this subject this week that goes into much more depth ... because it is true.
Republicans have used fear and anger for years and years

UC Davis professor discusses swastika on Casspi mural

A Sacramento Kings mural featuring Omri Casspi at 16th and R Streets in midtown was recently vandalized with a swastika symbol and police are currently investigating the vandalism as a hate crime.

The mural’s artist has said this is the second time an incident like this has happened.

Omri Casspi told Sam Amick of Fanhouse that he is “not shocked” that it happened but that he is "hurt.”

Bleed Black and Purple spoke with UC Davis professor David Biale, who is part of the university's Jewish Studies program, about the incident. UC Davis experienced similar acts of vandalism earlier this year. In the spring semester, swastikas were drawn outside a Jewish students’ dorm room as well as on the social sciences building.

Biale is the chair of the department of history and is the Emanuel Ringelblum Professor of Jewish history. Last year Biale published a new book, Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians and has completed a draft of another book entitled Not in the Heavens: An Intellectual History of Jewish Secularism.

Below are his comments regarding the Casspi mural.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, November 11, 2009

ACLU-Sacramento condemns ‘hate crime' against Temple Beth Shalom, deplores violation of rights

SACRAMENTO – The ACLU of Sacramento released a comment Wednesday regarding the "hate crime" at Temple Beth Shalom in Sacramento. Jim Updegraff, Sacramento chair of the board of directors, commented:

"The Sacramento County Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union deplores and condemns the desecration of Temple Beth Shalom on Tuesday. This hate crime occurred on the 71st anniversary of the Kristallnacht program when Nazi thugs destroyed most all the synagogues and Jewish businesses in Germany and Austria, murdered Jews, and sent thousands of Jewish men to concentration camps.

[Related ...]

This is not only disgusting and vile, it's a federal crime

TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 245

(b) Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, by force or threat of force willfully injures, intimidates or interferes with, or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with--
(1)any person because he is or has been, or in order to intimidate such person or any other person or any class of persons from--
(A) voting or qualifying to vote, qualifying or campaigning as a candidate for elective office, or qualifying or acting as a poll watcher, or any legally authorized election official, in any primary, special, or general election; …..
shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned…

Screen grabs from the Sacramento Republican website

From thinkprogress.org

The chairman of the Sacramento County Republican party, Craig MacGlashan, told the Sacramento Bee on Tuesday, “Some people find it offensive, others do not. I cannot comment on how people interpret things.”

The chairman of the party is allegedly a lawyer; I'll take his word for it, but I'm thinking he finished last in his class at law school

[I hate to say it, because most of the time she appears to be nothing more than a partisan-reactionary-Republican-apologist, but I agree with her on this: there's no place for violence against those with whom you disagree. Especially lethal violence]

The story: Firebombs show new tactics of animal activists

The war on scientists in America

Imagine if a group of rabid creationists started fire-bombing the homes of University of California professors to prevent them from teaching evolution. Area politicians would be holding competing press conferences to assure the public that they would take on the violent zealots, who have declared war, not only on good academics and their families, but on science itself.

No need to imagine. Across California, a different group of zealots has done just that. True believers have distributed personal information on scientists and their families. They've placed firebombs in medical researchers' homes and cars. They've donned hoods on their heads and marched to the homes of professors, then banged on their doors. They've told children that their parents are evil murderers and chalked anonymous charges on sidewalks for the neighbors to see.

The difference is these zealots aren't fighting for religious fundamentalism. Extremist animal rights groups have organized anonymously to intimidate and terrorize medical researchers until they abandon their studies out of fear for their children's safety and their own peace of mind.

[...]

Listen to Andrew Bacevich, Geraldo Rivera, and James Bovard

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Antiwar Radio: Charles Goyette Interviews

Andrew Bacevich.

Andrew Bacevich discusses the president’s comparison of Iraq to Vietnam. Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of international relations at Boston University. A graduate of the U. S. Military Academy, he received his Ph. D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University. Before joining the faculty of Boston University in 1998, he taught at West Point and at Johns Hopkins University.

Duration 16:35

Sacramento Hate Crime on Thursday, 5/15/2008

At approximately 7 p.m. yesterday (Thursday, May 15), a 23-year-old gay man and his cousin were attacked and beaten by a group of men in the parking lot of a gas station near Richardson Road. The two victims received medical treatment at the scene but were not hospitalized. Sacramento police officers apprehended five suspects a short time later; the victims identified three of their attackers, who were arrested. One remains in custody.

So, I'm reading orcinus and run across an interesting post from Dave with some not very well known facts about the mindset of the people behind the killing of Satender Singh; he links to this article from Casey Sanchez of The Southern Poverty Law Center. I'm going to pick out a few paragraphs below which are relevant to Sacramento ...

The Latvian Connection

The Watchmen

Gay rights activists blame Singh's death on what they call "The West Coast connection" or the "U.S.-Latvia Axis of Hate," a reference to a virulent Latvian megachurch preacher who has become a central figure in the hard-line Slavic anti-gay movement in the West. And indeed, in early August, authorities announced that two Slavic men, one of whom had fled to Russia, were being charged in Singh's death, which they characterized as a hate crime.

A growing and ferocious anti-gay movement in the Sacramento Valley is centered among Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking immigrants. Many of them are members of an international extremist anti-gay movement whose adherents call themselves the Watchmen on the Walls. In Latvia, the Watchmen are popular among Christian fundamentalists and ethnic Russians, and are known for presiding over anti-gay rallies where gays and lesbians are pelted with bags of excrement. In the Western U.S., the Watchmen have a following among Russian-speaking evangelicals from the former Soviet Union. Members are increasingly active in several cities long known as gay-friendly enclaves, including Sacramento, Seattle and Portland, Ore.