Mashed Potato
Weltner's tired fascist innuendo: Rebutting the "Crotch Potato"'s unspeakably bigoted attack on the Anti-Defamation League's Karen Aroesty in your letters section is like trying to plug Niagara Falls with a cork ["Vituperation Watch," January 21]. The outrageous bile that spills from this wacko's letter has more holes than Krispy Kreme -- and exponentially less redeeming value.
Let's begin with the truths in Spud's article. Okay. Now, let's move on.
The ADL is a noble organization whose mission is to protect all of us -- not just the Jews -- from the kind of mean-spirited and misinformed bigotry and hatred exemplified in Weltner's attack. He is the self-proclaimed poster boy for small-minded, small-town, small-world, self-indulgent bigotry. This guy hosts a Web site titled Jew Watch and purports to intimidate a minority segment of the population to simply "sit down and be quiet" or the big, bad Couch Potato will come after them. If this mook weren't such a caricature, he'd be dangerous. But he's not. He's laughable.
I mean, "Couch Potato?" That's Mr. Potato Head without any legs! Does that image really strike fear in anybody' heart? The worst this guy could do is aim his remote control at you. The Jews kill giants with slingshots, Frank. They haven't got a spitball small enough to waste on you.
We've all heard Weltner's brand of fascist innuendo before -- that Jews control the banks, the media, Hollywood, Wall Street, fashion, government, mass transit, auto parts, refuse collection, paper clips, home furnishings, greeting cards, whatever -- all because somebody's mother or second cousin on his father's side was Jewish. Give it a rest, Frank. It's tired!
You hit below the belt -- barely legal and far from clean. And hard? You gotta have substance to hit hard, Frank. That tripe in your letter is just a hollow echo.
Don Ferman
Wildwood
A man in need of serious rehabilitation: I have just finished reading with amazement the anti-Semitic diatribe by Frank Weltner, the "Couch Potato." I am not sure if this is a real person or not, or maybe someone simply hallucinating. I am surprised that the Riverfront Times would print this garbage. Normally, I would respond in kind to these accusations, but the contents are so gross that they appear to come from a deranged mind, and therefore this drivel is useless to discuss. I hope WGNU (920 AM) has a good health plan, because it appears to me that Weltner is in need of serious psychotic rehabilitation in an institution for a long time.
Isaac E. Young
Olivette
Historical ignorance + gall = Weltner: Frank Weltner's letter to the editor is a gross insult that cannot pass unremarked. By what conceivable justification can he claim that an official of the Anti-Defamation League "seems to have forgotten her place in America; considering her Jewish group's scant 1 to 2 percent of the population, she and her relatives should simply sit down and be quiet and not cause trouble"?
First of all, "her place in America," anyone's place in America, is wherever she wants it to be, without fear of being bullied or silenced by the likes of Mr. Weltner. That's one of the major reasons people bothered coming to America in the first place. You know that little "land of the free, home of the brave" line, Mr. Weltner? Well, some of us take it literally, thank you very much, and I'm having a really hard time squaring it with your vision of a nation in which minorities of any kind are denied our precious, God-given right -- consecrated by the blood of soldiers, demonstrators and various hard-truth tellers throughout our history -- to stand up, be heard and cause the forces of repression and bigotry as much trouble as humanly possible. (Surely Lizz Brown has made this case already to Mr. Weltner, her colleague at WGNU?)
Second, it takes a lot of gall -- and a lot of historical ignorance -- to somehow pin the blame for Stalin's atrocities on Judaism, as Mr. Weltner tries to do later in his screed. Stalin and the Soviet regime were deeply anti-Semitic, and the notion that they were going to allow Jews (whom they dismissed as capitalists and cosmopolitans) to manipulate the levers of murderous Soviet power is a delusion worthy of Hitler, Goebbels or Osama bin Laden. If Jews really had such immense pull in the old USSR, Mr. Weltner, why were so many of them so desperate to leave at all costs?
Third and finally, Mr. Weltner enjoys righteously invoking the name of Christians and Christianity, referring to the ADL as "a dastardly anti-Christian hate group" and to the humble, downtrodden Ted Turner as "a mere Christian" hounded by "the Jews running AOL Time Warner." I try to live as a Christian myself, Mr. Weltner, and I do not understand why you aspire to set Christianity against its mother faith, the faith that established the belief in One God and produced the extraordinary example of Jesus Christ, a devout Jew who instructed all of us to overcome hatred and love our neighbors as ourselves.
Mark Ribbing
St. Louis
Even more ridiculous than the usual letters-section crap! I have read some unbelievably dumb feedback in the Riverfront Times, but Frank Weltner has actually taken the grand prize (by far) for being the most ridiculous load of crap I have ever read.
Weltner stated: "The Jewish Anti-Defamation League, a well-known association with many Zionists, Bolsheviks and Jewish Mafia characters...is a dastardly anti-Christian hate group." I didn't know there were Bolsheviks anymore! If there are still Bolsheviks, what are they doing in bed with Zionists and the so-called Jewish Mob?
Moreover, Weltner cited "the Jewish role in killing 65 million Christians in the Jewish-controlled Soviet Union.... Jewish blood relatives did indeed start communism and run the Christian-killing apparatus of the Soviet Union."
Huh? Yes, Stalin and others murdered quite a few Russians, including many Christians as well as Jews like Leon Trotsky and others. However, most of the ethnic minorities Solzhenitsyn described in The Gulag Archipelago were non-Christians, such as Central Asians and/or secular political opponents.
I could go on and on, but I think I'm going to fix myself a vodka-tonic instead. One more thing, Frank -- you might want to stop palming your meds; it makes you appear to be a paranoid schizophrenic rather than just a total dumb redneck.
Don't like the real truth, eh? Come fight me in person if you get out of your institution anytime soon. Maybe I will have a few of my Jewish friends over to watch me embarrass your white-trash ass!
Dexter Zaring
St. Louis
Who said we were "reputable"? Frank Weltner's anti-Semitic tirade takes the cake. Who let him off the Aryan Nation compound? The ADL an anti-Christian Zionist hate group? Mr. Weltner, I am an evangelical Christian who is a third-generation Zionist. Does that make me anti-Christian too?
Mr. Weltner has a definite lack in the history department. Yes, there were Jews involved in the development of communism, but there were more non-Jews involved. Regarding the killing of "innocent" Arabs in Israel: Very few have been "innocent." Israel only targets terrorists, versus the Hamas and its ilk who specifically target innocent Israeli civilians. Also, as I recall, AOL's largest stockholder is an Arab.
Why would a "reputable" paper allow such hate speech to be printed? Gosh, for a follow-up to Mr. Weltner, you might want to include a few articles from the Nazi Der Stuermer. This is one of the worst cases of racism I've seen, short of the Aryan Nation and Christian Identity Web sites. Mr.Weltner is a very dangerous man!
Monica McMillen
Fort Worth, Texas
Joseph Marchbein answers his own question: It is incredible that in 2004 there is a person such as Mr. Weltner who thinks the ADL is a "dastardly anti-Christian hate group," has members who are Bolsheviks and "is an assassination agency," and who believes that the Jewish people had a role in killing 65 million Christians in the Jewish-controlled Soviet Union, etc. His list of alleged Jewish atrocities is so full of lies and falsehoods that they would be laughable, if not for the hatred and plain stupidity and ignorance shown by the comments.
The distortions of Mr. Weltner show why the ADL is needed. Why would you print such rubbish? What is the point?
Joseph Marchbein
St. Louis
Of Bleating and Mongering
And now, back to Holt and Baum: I'm tired of the bleating and mongering against groups like the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC) [Letters, January 14]. They have as much right to speak on behalf of white people as blacks have a right to speak on their behalf. In fact, whites have a right to speak on their behalf. Period. Karen Aroesty speaks of "defamation." What can be any more defamatory than some of the talk I've heard blacks say against whites? And when you get into real secret black conversations, you hear words like "kill," "overthrow," "tear down," "destroy." But the news media have become so blinded by the black tyranny that they sacrifice society at large and throw women and children in to boot, to save their own sorry ass. We are not just dumbing down but "tearing down" our society, and we are doing it with a smile; or, fear.
How many blacks would allow Jules Summerville-type humor against blacks as the Riverfront Times allows against whites [Unreal, "Shine On You Crazy Comedian," January 14]? If a white person were to taunt blacks as Summerville has whites, they'd find a lawsuit at their doorstep, if not a victim of arson or worse.
A man told the South City Journal about his son and two girls: Two black thugs threatened them [with] death and stole all their possessions. The thugs told police they target whites and Asians because "they would be unarmed and more shocked by the violence....." They said they would never rob blacks. Talk about hate crimes, racial profiling -- a hidden agenda!
Gordon Lee Baum has every right to speak out about crime statistics, who is involved, why and what he feels should be done about it. Our "great society" is being destroyed from "within," and we have become a nation of sheep.
Steve Erdmann Sr.
St. Louis
