If A Kristallnacht Event Occurred in the U.S. Would Anyone Recognize It?

Kurt Braun, former Hitler Youth,  showing scenes of 1930s Nazi rampages in 1978

Kurt Braun, a late good German friend of wifey and myself (originally of Janice, from a skiing trip to the Austrian alps in 1960 when she met Kurt and his gf Ute) had amassed an archive from footage of Nazi depredations by the time we saw him in Frankfurt-Am-Main in 1978. One night, he asked if we'd like to see some of his films and we said 'yes' then sat spellbound as we watched the horrors of the Reichstag Fire, then Kristallnacht and assorted scenes of Jews as well as Marxists being dragged from their homes and beaten mercilessly in the streets of assorted towns and cities.

Kristillnacht - which anniversary was marked yesterday, occurred in 1938 and saw Nazis, mainly their S.S. thugs, smashing Jewish Synagogues  (the shattered glass from the windows giving the event its name) then desecrating them and setting them on fire- as they beat the Jews that escaped nearly to death. Even the re-screening caused uneasiness in Kurt, who was forced to join the Hitler Youth under threat of rape to his mother, but he wanted us to see the events unedited as they unfolded. Not after they'd been sanitized in a media presentation.

The thing that stood out in the film was how the Jews were singled out and then persecuted for their beliefs as well as for erroneous beliefs cast upon them, i.e. that they were "vermin".Later, based on misshapen Nazi dogmas they were rounded up, bungled onto transports to concentration camps, and slaughtered in gas chambers.

Might the same happen in the U.S. at some future date?

In his alarming Wall Street Journal piece, 'From Kristallnacht to the Kindertrasnport to Finally, America', Kristallnacht survivor John H. Lang believes we should all be on our guard. He is clearly one of those who subscribes to George Santayana's warning: "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it".

But, interestingly, his worry is not for any victim subset in America but for Christians in the Middle East when he writes:

"In the shadow of the Kristallnacht anniversary I see that the Christian communities of the Middle East are being savaged by Islamic terrorists"

He then describes the beheadings, women "condemned to acts of depravity" and churches burned, all of which ought to raise alarms.  But what about closer to home? Might we not have a "subclass" right here in the U.S. earmarked for methodical extermination?

The idea was first brought out in an obscure 1992 Playboy magazine article when contributing writer Joe Bageant described an evangelical conference that approved of using gas chambers to kill all the anti-Christian "vermin" fouling the U.S. including atheists, pornographers, gays and others. The article received little attention because most believed Bageant was exaggerating. Christians, famous for professing love of God and fellow man, couldn't possibly attempt such vile acts!

Then, last night, Rachel Maddow revealed a conference held by extremist Christians featuring speeches and discussions with strategies to murder gays. The confab (National Religious Liberties Conference) included methods on the best way to do it, e.g. throwing off cliffs, stoning, shooting etc. The instigator was a bug-eyed religious freak from Colorado named Kevin Swanson who went on a minutes -long harangue of how it was justified - quoting the Bible, of course. I swear it was as painful to watch as Kurt's films of Nazis throttling and killing Jews.

Swanson invoked Leviticus 20:13 ("it says we can kill homosexuals, not my words but God's") as well as Romans 1, where we're told Paul gave Xtians special dispensation to stone them to death. However, the putz was generous enough to say "we don't need to kill the gays now" since "we will give them time to repent". Cheeze, that's damned gracious of you, asshole! How about atheists, will you give us time to repent too?

Note that this knuckledragging turkey isn't even aware that homosexuality is a result of epigenetic changes not a personal choice. Epigenetics constitute  heritable changes caused by factors other than DNA. Instead of traits getting passed down through the genes, epigenetic change happens because of the way genes are regulated, or turned on and off

Hence, according to a recent paper in the Quarterly Review of Biology  homosexuality arises from heritable changes and consequent epigenetic changes leading to the action of so-called "epi-marks". (If a gene is a blueprint, the epi-mark is the construction foreman who makes sure the product gets built.)

 Thus, if an epi-mark that keeps a mother from getting exposed to high testosterone in development gets passed on to her son — the opposite sex — it could desensitize him to testosterone, contributing to his sexual preference for men. These findings  explain why twin studies show that homosexuality runs in families, but no "gay gene" has been found.

In other words, this demented fucktard Swanson is demanding gays "repent" for some biological, epigenetic influence not under their control. It would almost be like demanding a short man "repent" and become tall. (I guess he could if he finds the right elevator shoes!)

The goofball then welcomed the three Presidential candidates in attendance to the stage: Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal.

He's then seen asking Cruz how a President ought to act each day and Cruz responds :"He ought to start each day on his knees".   Er, no, Cruz,we don't want any Christian Mullahs.

Needless to say, Cruz, Jindal and Huckabee ought to be disqualified for high government office just on the basis of attending this "religious liberties" confab. The irony of the name surely lost on the 1700 attending Jacobins hell bent to kill gays born with an epigenetic divergence.

Back to the point:  Given this Conference on killing gays convened in plain sight in Dubuque, will Americans pay any attention if the day comes when gays are dragged from their homes and sent off  to their deaths like the Jews?  Will any respond to help, or will they merely watch like impotent Germans did 78 years ago in Kristillnacht? When gays are dispatched to "Bible-based retribution camps" will Americans go after the self-righteous killers, or allow gays' bodies to be piled up like cord wood as we saw happen to Jews, e.g. at Mauthausen and Auschwitz?

That is the sixty four dollar question and let's hope we never reach the stage we have to provide an answer.

See also:

http://republic-of-gilead.blogspot.com/2015/11/freedom-2015-kevin-swanson-comes-unglued.html

Traumatized By Your Past? You May Have A ‘Methylated’ DNA Personality

Think of how many supposed  "psychos" go off in assorted incidents, especially those of violent shootings, knifings etc. where no clear mental health issues had been visible. What might have provoked these outbursts? Beyond that, why is it that some personalities evolve to be so paranoid, given to negativity or lashing out at others in sociopathic ways? According to the budding science of Epigenetics these behaviors may have origins in methyl groups attaching to our DNA – especially following traumatic events, incidents in one’s past- or one’s ancestors’ past.


According to this Epigenetic theory (see, e.g. DISCOVER, May, pp. 50-55)any traumatic experience – even in the genetic past- is capable of leaving molecular “scars” adhering to our DNA. The form and kind of trauma can run the gamut: Jews with great grandparents confined to Auschwitz – who survived, Chinese Gen X’s whose grandparents lived through Mao’s horrific cultural revolution, immigrants from the Congo or Rwanda whose grandparents survived massacres- genocide, or adults of every ethnicity who grew up with alcoholic or emotionally-physically abusive parents. In each case, more than just toxic memories are in play which hamper future psycho-social development.

Like muck that gums up the cogs of a finely tuned machine, these past nasty events accumulate via chemical additions – methyl groups- as a molecular residue clinging to our DNA. While the DNA itself is unchanged, behavioral alterations are imposed by the addition of the chemical interloper. More to the point, these alterations can be genetically passed on. Hence, you might have not only inherited your grandpa’s knobby knees but also his predisposition to depression or negative outlook, or even paranoia. Maybe this was caused by the neglect he suffered as a newborn, but the addition of methyl groups resulting leaves its mark – to be passed on.


However, this is not a foregone conclusion. Maybe at some subsequent stage your grandpa was adopted by nurturing parents, in which case the adverse effects of the methyl groups from the original trauma were neutralized. In this case, grandpa grew up to be epigenetically sound - no methyl contamination-  with a healthy and outgoing personality, positive social tendencies. You are then the beneficiary of this, and thereby capable of passing the benefits on to your own offspring. The point is, the mechanisms of behavioral epigenetics underlie not only deficits, weaknesses but also strengths, resiliencies.


What model do we come away with here? Basically that there exists not only a genome but also epigenome. The first embodies the basic blueprint for life, but the matter is more akin to life’s ‘etch-a-sketch’ – altering in response to any external influences be they positive or negative. Ideally, mitigating methyl groups results in more positive, healthy personalities – but how can it be assured?


First, what is a methyl group? It’s basically an organic compound consisting of one carbon atom bonded to three hydrogen atoms, i.e. CH3. When such a methyl group becomes attached to the nucleotide base cytosine, then the DNA is said to be methylated. These methyl groups can then attach to DNA for life, effectively changing the activity of any gene involved. The behavioral traits then associated with those genes are changed and transmitted across generations.


Experiments done using mice, pups raised by bad mothers and good ones, disclose the rank effects of methylation. In the case of the bad mouse mothers, that is inattentive or detached ones, one finds the pups affected by methylation. In particular, the genes regulating the production of glucocorticoid receptors – which regulate sensitivity to stress hormones – are highly methylated resulting in pups that are highly agitated, skittish and asocial or anti-social. In the opposite case, the pups disclosed high levels of glucocorticoid receptors which enabled the pups to display calmness, outgoing and brave behavior. Most fascinating, in tweaks of these experiments - methylated mouse pups put in the care of good mouse mothers saw their deficient glucocorticoid receptors improve,  methyl attachments diminish and negative behaviors abate, while the opposite was observed in the case of the non-methylated mouse pups put in the care of inattentive mouse mothers.


Application to humans? Yes, we have the documentation too from the human experiments cited by Harvey A. Hornstein in his terrific book Cruelty and Kindness: A New Look at Aggression and Altruism, Prentice-Hall, 1976, 'We and They', p.13. He recounts and describes assorted mother-child alienation episodes-experiments, such as performed by John Bowlby with detached human mothers. These expose how chronic indifference by such mothers, say in caring for their newborns,  can generate socially alienated, skittish, easily suspicious and emotionally aroused people. Undoubtedly, if the mouse experiments are a reasonable guide, alienated humans are also saddled with methyl groups that deform behavior toward negative, anti-social ends.

In the case of the mice, the injection of trichostatin A into the brain removed the methyl groups and the behavioral deficits. It was almost like rebooting a computer that had seized up. While a pharmaceutical solution sounds ideal, it isn’t clear that injections of trichostatin A into the brain can be as efficacious as for mice, or as harmless. No wonder then that many pharmaceutical firms are diligently searching for compounds to remove methylation and deliver more integrated, healthy personalities. If they succeed, and that’s still a big if, one could theoretically be liberated from all the negativity of one’s past or one’s ancestors’ pasts. Instead of being an asocial, schizoid personality untrusting of nearly everyone, one might then have a much richer life with broader social connections and satisfaction.