Kyle Rittenhouse is the Horst Wessel of American Fascists

(This is the Horst Wessel Lied, or the Horst Wessel song.)

Sordid political movements often gain popularity by adorning their poisonous platforms with images of cherubic, sweet-faced youngsters.  The American Fascist movement has done this with Kyle Rittenhouse, that baby-faced little brat who cries on cue like a cute kid on “The Brady Bunch.”  The Nazis did it with Horst Wessel, an “angelic Aryan” who was killed by the big bad communists.      

Horst Wessel, the son of a right-wing pastor, went to a bar, frequented by communists, and maimed several workers.  A few months later, some communists allegedly killed Horst Wessel.  The Nazis dedicated a song to Horst Wessel, and that song, combined with “Deutschland Uber Alles” (Germany over all), was the German national anthem during the Nazi years.    

Of course, there’s a big difference between Horst Wessel and the contemporary American version of that Poltergeist.  Horst Wessel was killed. Rittenhouse, by contrast, not only was acquitted but is being congratulated for killing two people and nearly killing a third.  

American rightists and crypto Nazis are glad he killed Joseph Rosenbaum, that “crazy Jew,” and Rittenhouse’s attorney told the Jury, shortly before they began their deliberations, that the liquidation of Rosenbaum was good for the community.   They are applauding Rittenhouse’s win even though he so obviously went to Kenosha to get his macho rocks off by killing some “Niggers,” whether they be white or black. 

He falsely said that he had emergency medical credentials and was there to help the wounded when in fact he was there to wound if not kill.   He has been portrayed as a man dedicated to defending his community even though he was a member of the “Proud Boys,” a white supremacist organization which was active in the January 6 Neo-Nazi putsch.    He said he wanted to defend a business that he allegedly had ties to when in fact that business did not want his help, and he did not know where that business was.  He lied to get a gun he was not entitled to possess.   

The Judge reminded me of the movie “Judgment at Nurenberg,” where a Nazi judge admits that he decided to sentence a Jew to death, for the crime of having sex with a gentile woman, before the trial had even begun.  

The Judge castigated the Prosecutor in front of the jury to broadcast his support for Rittenhouse.  The Judge couldn’t even begin to conceal his racism as evidenced by his remark, to the effect that he hoped he would not have to put up with “boat people,” when he had been advised that some people in the courtroom had ordered Asian food.   When the prosecutor wanted to introduce as evidence a photograph which enlarged an image already shown to the jurors, the Judge attempted to create the impression that the enlarged photo was a distorted and doctored photo.   Also, the Court treated Rittenhouse as an honored guest as it allowed him to pick balls, out of a bowl of sorts, to help the Court select jurors.  Finally, the Court insisted that the activists on the street should all be referred to as looters and rioters.    Supposedly, our system of “justice” prides itself on its impassioned search for the truth, but this judge had already decided that anyone who wanted to challenge the status quo was a rioter and that anyone who wanted to murder an activist was an upstanding citizen.            

So far, there have been no violent demonstrations since the acquittal of the Nazi bum.  I suppose I should applaud the Left’s restraint.   Although I am generally not in favor of violence (Of course, on public posts I must affect distaste for violence.   But of course, the public discourse is always chock full of prettified untruths:  Nixon said he abhorred violence, and he was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians.), we need to do something drastic and, for once, effective.

Sometimes, the Civil Rights Movement had embarked on tactics which were DRASTIC, NON-VIOLENT AND VERY EFFECTIVE. 

I am thinking about boycotts.   For example, to aid nurses on strike in Charleston, South Carolina, in or around 1970, black people throughout Charleston stopped shopping at any of the major department stores which contributed heavily to leading politicians.   And let’s not forget the Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which a boycott forced a bus service to desegregate.

I don’t know if a boycott would be workable to effect criminal justice reform.   But I do know that if we are ever going to have any semblance of justice, we need to devise more potent and effective means of dissent.