A few days ago  white supremacist James Leshkevich smashed his wife’s face in several times, strangled her, suffocated her and then hung himself.
His last rambling entry on his blog  gives a glimpse into hatred, rage, entitlement, paranoia, pain, depression and ownership. 
The head of the National Alliance, the largest US white supremacist neo-nazi group were quick to distance their organization.

Erich Gliebe, the chairman of the group, based in Hillsboro, W.Va.
…said he suspected Leshkevich was not a true racist and that his hateful  proclamations about Jews, immigrants and blacks were meant only to gain attention for himself.

It is all about them, that’s the pot calling a kettle black. 
In comment threads on media sites, his racist friends eulogize him.
Deborah Leshkevich did not deserve to be mistreated, hurt, battered, abused.
She did not deserve to be murdered. 

Mary-Sue D’Orazio, a friend of the victim, described Mrs. Leshkevich as a battered woman.

“I don’t know about physically, but mentally, spiritually and psychologically, I think she was absolutely abused,” D’Orazio said.

Angela Greener, another friend, said: “I believe she was starting to get to the point where she wanted out now that her children were grown. This is what escalated the situation.

“Deep down, I knew this would happen,” Greener said.

Brian Vallee who is known for his strong reporting on domestic violence has just released a new book with a forward by Stephen Lewis. From Vallee’s site:

In the seven years from 2000 to 2006, 2,697 American soldiers were killed by hostile forces, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another 726 died there accidentally in “non-hostile” incidents. At home, 611 American law enforcement officers were “feloniously killed” in the line of duty (including 72 in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001). Another 554 officers died on the job from traffic accidents, heart attacks, accidental shootings, suicide, and other “non-hostile” incidents.

So, in those seven years, the total number of front-line military and law enforcement deaths was 4,588.

In that same period, 44 Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, including four who died in accidents and six killed by “friendly fire.” At home, 16 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty, while another 41 died from “non-hostile” causes (including 16 in car accidents, seven in aircraft accidents and three in motorcycle accidents).

The combined total of all Canadian military and law enforcement deaths for that seven-year period was 101.

We pay tribute to these fallen men and women, often with national television, newspaper, and magazine coverage.

Whenever a police officer is shot or otherwise feloniously killed in the line of duty, hundreds of police officers from all over North America gather for the funeral. In June 2006, all of Canada mourned the death in Afghanistan of Capt. Nicola Goddard, the first Canadian female combat soldier to be killed in battle, and watched live national media coverage of her funeral and subsequent burial with full military honours at Ottawa’s National Military Cemetery.

In the United States, the Public Broadcasting Service has run a silent roll call of those killed overseas, and other networks periodically air similar tributes. And at the federal level in both countries, public ceremonies honour both war and law enforcement dead.

There is another war – largely overlooked but even more deadly – with far more victims killed by “hostiles.” But these dead are not labelled heroes, nor are they honoured in the national media or in formal ceremonies. From time to time, they may attract a spate of publicity as the result of a high-profile trial or an inquest that will likely conclude that society let them down once again and recommend changes to prevent future deaths, though these recommendations will be mostly ignored. This war is the War on Women.

Compare the raw numbers. In the same seven-year period when 4,588 U.S. soldiers and police officers were killed by hostiles or by accident, more than 8,000 women – nearly twice as many – were shot, stabbed, strangled, or beaten to death by the intimate males in their lives. In Canada, compared to the 101 Canadian soldiers and police officers killed, more than 500 women – nearly five times as many – met the same fate.

Those are the deaths. Then there are the wounded. In the same period, about 24,000 U.S. military were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, while about 80 Canadians were wounded in Afghanistan.

In the United States, it’s conservatively estimated that in addition to the 1,200 to 1,300 women killed each year by intimate partners, another 5.3 million, age 18 and older, are victims of non-lethal domestic abuse.

Based on those numbers, the violence costs the country more than $5.8 billion annually – nearly $4.1 billion in direct medical and mental health care, and $1.8 billion in lost productivity and lost earnings due to homicide.

These numbers are believed to underestimate the problem for several reasons, and additional efforts are needed to determine more accurately the full cost of intimate-partner victimization of women in the United States.

In Canada, the federal government estimates the annual cost of violence against women at $1.1 billion in direct medical costs alone. That figure rises to more than $4 billion a year when social services, lost productivity, lost earnings, and police, court, and prison costs are factored in.

Wars usually produce large numbers of refugees: witness the United Nations camps scattered around the world. And the War on Women has its own refugee camps, in the form of the 2,500 or so shelters for battered women and their children across North America.

In the United States, more than 300,000 women and children seek safety in shelters each year. In Canada, the number is between 90,000 and 100,000.

Excerpt from War on Women by Brian Vallee.
He is known for his books Life with Billy, Life After Billy, and Life and Death with Billy.
I was in the Maritimes when Jane Hurshman killed herself, worn out from being the poster child for domestic violence. Domestic violence workers could not accept her death was a suicide. She’d worked so hard, come so far and just couldn’t do anymore.  I knew police directly involved in the  case, the neighbours, reporters. Their lives, as was mine were forever changed.  I was an extra in the movie, perhaps out of guilt that I’d burned out on such courageous people.

I was worn down and haunted covering funding stories for women’s shelters every three months. I’m not proud of that. You honour women willing to tell their story and write, focused on goals of raising knowledge and pushing the government to put the funding through.  Our priorites can be sincere and so screwed up.

via: Religion News Blog and The Galloping Beaver