Holocaust Museum shooter James Von Brunn's ex-wife says his racism 'ate him alive' (abusive drunk)

Source: NY Daily News

The ex-wife of the racist who stormed the U.S. Holocaust Museum described him as an abusive alcoholic whose hatred against Jews and blacks "ate him alive like a cancer."

"It's all he would talk about," the ex-wife said of James von Brunn, 89, who was wounded in a firefight with museum guards.

"When I questioned him, he would get very angry and abusive."

She married von Brunn in the mid-1960s and they divorced 10 years later. She said he sipped red wine all day and frequently lashed out with verbal assaults.

"He would talk about what the world would become in 20 or 30 years - that most of the country would be governed by black governors and that the Jewish people owned the media," the ex-wife said.




Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/06/10/2009-06-10_holocaust_museum_shooter_james_von_brunns_exwife_says_his_racism_ate_him_alive.html

They're all so consumed with hate and spend so much time blaming everyone else they never live their own lives.

and have found the elderly repubs I know are completely over the edge. Is it a generational thingn? My own father who is 93 refused to vote for Obama although he voted dem in every election in his life....thank gawd for Sarah Palin...that totally sent him to vote.

Maybe ought to clap him in irons "preventive detention", now that it is such a good (and legal) idea.

for a civil rights issue: he "Supported open-housing legislation, something generally unpopular in his district" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush. Strange but true. He was never a racist, just a really bad President.

Younger people often are unawares of how very much worse it was for African Americans, women, gays, and other minorities not all that long ago -- certainly within the living memory of a great many people. The 80-somethings are the last generation to reach adulthood (i.e., the formative years for most people's opinions) under 100% institutional segregation policies ("segregation" -- it's so innocuous sounding a word, like the biggest issue about it was separating whites and blacks-- but we don't have a single widely understood word for "brutal system of subservience enforced by violence which deprived people of their freedom, their potential, their dignity, and often their lives, in a slow-motion genocidal sort of way") , and it's hard for even many of the otherwise-decent whites (i.e, non-Nazis, not inclined towards violence or hate) of that generation to adapt to racial diversity.

Subsequent generations formed their opinions during the desegregation years, and, as one might expect, the younger you get, the fewer people buy into racist policies.By the time you get to Boomers the split is, maybe, 50-50, and by the time you get to the youngest generations to come of age, to whom segregation is just a word in a history book, with some exceptions, racism just looks bizarre and wrong. My hope is that in another few generations even the covert racism and noninstitutional segregation that still plagues our society will be just an item in the history books.

Rinse and repeat, changing the historical details, for women and gays and other minorities. Those in their 80s, with some exceptions, have the hardest time adapting to diversity, while the youngest by and large look at their elders as if they were nuts when it comes to bias.

on tours (he was musician and apalled she couldn't eat in same restuarants or sleep in same hotels as him)...yet he had difficulty voting for Obama...did drugs in Harlem with black jazz artists in the '30's....but he couldn't vote for Obama? Just friggin blew my mind.. so sort of understand the older generation that is not as worldly as him having a total meltdown.

he died last year at 89 and was so looking forward to and thrilled to be voting for Obama. Unfortunately he died in March of 08 and didn't make it to vote in the GE but he was able to cast an absentee vote for Obama in the primary. I want to add that he was a former Republican who had had enough of it when Raygun got in, after that he turned Democratic and never looked back. So often in the passed few months I think about how happy my father would be with Obama as his President.

Voted Dem his entire life but wouldn't vote for a black president. Still scratches MLK day off the calendar - eventhough his great-grandkids are mixed race. The hate and racism ran deep in the 'greatest generation'. Thankfully, it's going to the grave daily. Many of these people were the ones pointing and laughing in the old black & white lynching pictures.

Obama. SIGH. At least he isn't blood. :}

(and a birther, at the risk of being redundant) who loved Sarah Palin.

You can read more about that on Gryphen's blog-- which has the link to FR, but you don't have to go there (phew), as he has quoted von Brunn's deranged rant on his blog...

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/

edited to add a bit of his birther rant:

"Love him or hate him, we all remember how the press went to great lengths to find out every move that President Bush made … finally unable to come up with anything factual, so they created it! When their accusations were proven empty, they refused to retract one word of the fraud they perpetrated on the American people. Dan Rather lost his job over fraudulent documents, because common people like you & me reached out and ripped CBS to pieces.

They couldn't stand the loss of sponsors OR viewers! The same Media went to great lengths to scandalize & destroy Sarah Palin. She maintains a 91% approval rating among voters from all parties, thanks to the Internet and investigative journalists who don't work for the mainstream media.

NOW ------- The Supreme Court has scheduled a Conference for Dec 5th about Obama's U. S. Citizenship. STILL, not a word about any of this from the Media. If it were not for the Internet and talk radio, American citizens would become the servants of a dishonest & conspiratorial Media. "

if you look at their background almost none of them are normal guys with regular who you would never think would do this.

Also a great case for retroactive abortion.

What happened to Mr. Johns is a true tragedy! I won't speak badly against his murderer because I am not one to judge. If anything this incident can serve as an important reminder. Firstly, it reminds us that those who lived in a time when racism against non-whites was prevalent and a societal norm are still alive and are potentially dangerous, even in their old age. Racism in this country maybe aging but it isn't dead yet! Secondly, it reminds us that that generation is in they're 80s now and those after them in them are in they're 70s, 60s, and are getting closer and closer to the grave. And I say see ya later! The old and enlightened should strive to stay around because it is from them that we can learn some of what would surely be our most treasured lessons. As for the old and ignorant, they're time has come and gone. Maybe they should take the hint. If you won't die off then die down with all the nonsense! Let the rest of us progress past this country's shameful past even if you weren't so fortunate.

Read my political blog at <http://elletoday.com/

who are just as racist, mostly men, because they learned it from their parents. I'll wager a bet that most of the dittoheads are boomers, and by that I mean those who are about 60, 61, etc. not the ones who are 45. A lot of white males born right after WWII grew up with a extreme sense of entitlement just because they were white and male. Then along came the women's movement, the civil rights movement, and they had to share the spoils and actually compete for jobs for a change instead of getting them just because they were white males. This made for the angry white male syndrome of the early '90's.

like that. :-(