Hare Krishna Nazis (yes) strike in Los Angeles

nazi krishna

So, a banner with the phrase “THE JEWS WANT A RACE WAR”Ā was hung from an overpass aboveĀ the heavily trafficked Interstate 405 in Los AngelesĀ on Aug. 22. As JTA reports, an accompanying banner plugged the perpetrators’ website, GoyimTV.com. The site prominently displays a video of their followers standing on the overpass with the banners. Verbiage on the site also reads: “All members of the community and wider society should be treated as equals with the same rights, regardless of their race, age, sex, religion, political beliefs, or any other immutable attribute or self assigned designation UNLESS YOU’RE A JEW or THE SHABBOS EQUIVALENT.” This appears to be a reference to the phrase “Shabbos goy,” originally meaningĀ a non-Jew who carries out certain tasksĀ that religious Jews are barredĀ from doing on the Sabbath, but now taken up the radical right to mean a dupe of the Jews.

This would appear to be standard run-of-the-mill neo-Nazi bullshit of the kind much in evidence today. Note that the G in “Goyim” on the site’sĀ masthead is stylized to look like a swastika. Jewish News of Northern CaliforniaĀ identifies the main perp as a Marin County man,Ā Jon Minadeo Jr of the “Goyim Defense League,” who goes by the online handle ofĀ Handsome Truth.

But the especially surreal twist is the evident involvement of some renegade Hare Krishna devotees. The site heavily promotes the vloggery of oneĀ Mukunda Dasa, who has videos with names like “Why A Powerful National Socialistic Movement Will Arise In America” andĀ “Hitler Fought For The Man To Come. He Fought For The One. He Fought For Prabhupada“ā€”this last one portraying theĀ FĆ¼hrer as a kind of paraclete of the late Hare Krishna movement founder Swami Prabhupada. Another, “HITLER A GOOD MAN & JEWISH HOLOHOAX,” purports to include an audio clip byĀ Swami Prabhupada casting doubt on the veracity of the Holocaust.

Mukunda Dasa also has his own website, apparently based in Britain (his accent also indicates this), calledĀ Prabhupada Truth, a weird amalgam of Hare Krishna and Nazi propaganda and imagery. You can see more such at his Twitter account. (He should not be confused with anotherĀ Mukunda Dasa, better known asĀ Mukunda Goswami, who is of farĀ greater provenance in the Hare Krishna movement. They are both white guys who converted to Krishna, but the elderĀ Mukunda Dasa is from Oregon, and untainted by Nazism. This newbie is seemingly British, and an unabashed balls-out Nazi.)

This creepy convergence is not as strange as it may superficially seem, given the Hindu fascism of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modiā€”which has been embraced by others influenced by the Hare Krishna movement, such as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. Now happily primaried out, Tulsi is objectively pro-Trump despite her pseudo-left pretensions, and has been probably the best friend on Capitol Hill of both Narendra Modi and Syria’s genocidal dictator Bashar Assad. A particularly slippery exponent of the odious phenomenon of hippie fascism. The kind that might take root in places likeĀ Marin County…

But while the totallyĀ ongepotchket types likeĀ Mukunda Dasa are doubtless attracted by the undertones of Aryan supremacy in Modi’s “Hindutva,” the reign of terror it has unleashed on Muslims, secularists and “untouchables,” the xenophobic police state and moves toward a concentration camp system in India… they presumably balk at Modi’s embrace of Israel as an ally against the Muslim menace…

Photo via JTA