Vote John Kerry on November 2

I am an American. I take my right to vote very seriously. Tomorrow when I go to my local polling place and register my vote I will be voting for John Kerry for President of the United States. I encourage every American visitor to my website to do the same.

George Bush is demonstrably the worst President of the United States in modern history. To add up the list of ills that have emanated from the Bush White House could run hundreds of pages, but I will just bring up a few of particular importance to me:

President Bush has an appalling record on the environment. His administration has not made a single environmental decision that, on balance, did not leave our environment in worse shape.

President Bush has turned an enormous federal budget surplus into the largest budget deficit in history. He has done this in two ways: one, through enormous tax cuts to America's ultra-rich, and two, by a massive increase in spending, particularly to fund a poorly-conceived war.

President Bush has led us into a terrible war. 100,000 Iraqis dead. 1,000 Americans Dead. 200 billion dollars spent. An Iraq that has become a haven and breeding ground for Islamic terrorists. A world that is infinitely less safe.

I have listened to Senator John Kerry's proposals about each of these areas of importance to me and it is clear that he both shares my concerns and will address them in manner much different than President Bush.

But if you came to my website to learn about terrorism, please consider this: President Bush has made America much more vulnerable to terrorism. He has done a terrible job of waging his "war."

This week Osama bin Laden admitted what we've all known since September 11, 2001: he is responsible for the deaths of 3000 people in New York City, Washington DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Seeing his newly released video also served to remind us that he is still alive, still running loose, and still not in the hands of America. If we are fighting a War on Terror, why aren't we spending those 200 billion dollars on capturing Osama bin Laden?

The reason that the war in Iraq is going so poorly is because it is fundamentally illegitimate in origin. We know it, every Western democracy knows it, the Iraqi people know it, and every Islamic fundamentalist knows it. We absolutely cannot "win" this war because our justification for war was so clearly flawed.

Compare the war in Iraq to the war in Afghanistan. Despite having let bin Laden fall through our grasp, America has done a relatively successful job in Afghanistan. Why? Because we went to war against a state that harbored, financed, and supported a terrorist that killed 3000 people. Afghanistan had the blood of September 11 on its hands and Afghanistan paid the price.

Generally the world supported these actions. Had the US stopped after Afghanistan the world would be a different place, and possibly I would be encouraging you to vote for President Bush.
Anti-American terrorists once targeted my father for death. They also came close to killing my mother. I am appalled by ANY action that encourages further terrorist violence against Americans. Yet through his illegitimate war against Iraq, President George Bush has undoubtedly given rise to untold numbers of new terrorists, isolated America to an unprecedented degree, and made the world a much less safe place.

Please vote John Kerry November 2.

For my UK friends

I put Amazon.co.uk links this week to as many items as possible on my store page. Quick reminder; I really, truly, honestly don't make any money on my efforts. I've spent about 30,000 dollars over the years researching the subject and producing the web site. I've made at most about $1,500 selling a few things in my store. So.... if my site has been helpful for you, consider buying a poster in my store, or buying something from Germany, American, or UK Amazon stores linked on my site. Thanks!

It's been a while...

Well it's been a while since my last post. That's what getting job does to you...
If you haven't noticed on the "special stuff" link on my home page, I had my millionth visitor this month. I'm not sure if I'm proud or scared of the fact that a million people have sought out info about the Baader-Meinhof era from my site.

We get letters, we get stacks and stacks of letters...

Got an e-mail today:

I am an intellectual fascist, so I won't attempt to engage you on a violent level, although leftist fools like you deserve such.

You, and all Europeans who are on the extreme left, are total fools. You are instruments of the Zionist and you don't even know it. Everything around me screams murder against our great and noble race and here I see anti-survivalistic fools like you contributing to your own demise. You are like hyenas who have relinquished control to the lions, seemingly lost in the stupid thought, that the lions are you friends.

It would take a year, or two, to deprogram a totally brainwashed instrument like you. I wasn't a Neo Nazi when I was young, but the darkening world around me has shown me that this is not a situation to be neither egalitarian nor weak...this current dilema, we face as a race, calls for total revolution and rebellious sedition. The more I see the enemy act, the more I come to the clear notion that Hitler was right. About everything.

I wish I could write in German to make this more personable. You are a disgrace to your once great country.

Alles Fur Deuscthland. Viva Franco! Viva Mussolini! Viva Hitler!

PSD

Hmmmm. How to respond? How to respond? Should I correct him on the basic factual mistakes that he made? (I'm an American; last time I lived in German Willy Brandt was running the country). Should I get indignant that the guy confuses the subject matter's politics (radical socialist anarchism) with the author's politics (unstated, but basically middle of the road to left-leaning)? Should I get angry at the pathetic racism? (contrary to his comments, I am FULLY aware of my "instrument of the Zionists"-status; I get paid quite handsomely for my critical role in keeping the global Jewish cabal-conspiracy quietly chugging under the surface). Should I assume that it's a satire? (it has all the hallmarks of a classic satirical essay).
I should probably just ignore the whole letter.
Wait; too late.

Weather Underground Doc

Apparently there's a new documentary out about the Weather Underground; who in most ways were the American group most similar to the Baader-Meinhof Group. I haven't seen it, but the slate review linked above makes it sound pretty compelling. Have you seen it? Go to the Baader-Meinhof discussion board and let us know what you thought of it!

Oops

Man, you take a short vacation and all hell breaks loose.

My domain has now been re-registered and the site is back up. No, it wasn't "the government" who took it down.

Thanks for the patience.

Question of the Day

Q. Was German foreign minister Joschka Fischer a member of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, as that proud and alway accurate American Rush Limbaugh claims?
A. Uh, no. Rush Limbaugh, however, WAS a moron, and remains one to this day. Admittedly, by writing the words: 'Michael Kelly reported in the Washington Post, [Fischer] "was a member of the evil Baader-Meinhof Gang (or Red Army Faction),"' Rush Limbaugh (or whomever wrote the non-signed article on his site) would lead one to the conclusion that Michael Kelly did, in fact, report of Fischer's BM Gang membership, and, in fact, used the phrase ""was a member of the evil Baader-Meinhof Gang (or Red Army Faction)," somewhere in his article. By these exemplery journalistic standards, I am pleased to point out that Michael Kelly also wrote that "Rush Limbaugh was a member of the the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society, the Confederate Army, and the Greater Springfield Sewing Circle."

Red Army Faction Communiques and other documents

I found an excellent site devoted to exposing different forms of extremism: www.extremismus.com. The site has a collection of communique's and source documents that is even more complete than my collection (though all are in German). Included is the infamous "Burn, Warehouse (store), Burn" flyer released by Kommune I. This was the document that supposedly influenced Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and two friends to burn two Frankfurt department stores in April 1968. In many ways this could be considered the "true" beginning of the Baader-Meinhof Gang/Red Army Faction.