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TechnoratiWhite Extremists Lash Out Over Election of First Black President
The Ku Klux Klan is emerging from decades of disorganization and obscurity, and the turnaround is acutely evident -- more than 200 hate-related incidents have been reported since the Nov. 4 election.
Bogalusa, Louisiana - Barely three weeks since America elected its first black president, noose hangings, racist graffiti and death threats have struck dozens of towns across the country.
![[A 2005 photo of Cynthia Lynch, 43, who was shot and killed Nov. 9, 2008, in St. Tammany Parish, La., after attempting to back out of a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony.
(Associated Press)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/kkk.jpg "kkk.jpg")
More than 200 such incidents -- including cross burnings, assassination betting pools and effigies of President-elect Barack Obama -- have been reported, according to law enforcement authorities and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.
Racist websites have been boasting that their servers have been crashing because of an exponential increase in traffic.
And America's most potent symbol of racial hatred, the Ku Klux Klan, is reasserting itself in a spate of recent violence, after decades of disorganization and obscurity.
Nearly two weeks ago, the leader of a cell based in Bogalusa, La. -- a backwoods town once known as the Klan capital -- was charged with second-degree murder in the shooting of a woman who allegedly sought to become a member but then changed her mind.
Late last month, two men with ties to a notoriously violent Klan chapter in Kentucky were charged in a bizarre plot to kill 88 black students and then decapitate an additional 14 students -- and then assassinate Obama by shooting him from a speeding car while wearing white tuxedos and top hats.
"We've seen everything from cross burnings on lawns of interracial couples to effigies of Obama hanging from nooses to unpleasant exchanges in schoolyards," said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Ala. "I think we're in a worrying situation right now, a perfect storm of conditions coming together that could easily favor the continued growth of these groups."
Experts attribute the racist activity to factors including the rapidly worsening economic crisis; trends indicating that within a generation whites will not comprise a U.S. majority; and the impending arrival of a black family in the White House.
The FBI is investigating whether the recent Klan-related incidents involve conspiracies. And the Secret Service is monitoring the racist activity "to try to stay ahead of any emerging threats," according to spokesman Darrin Blackford.
One white supremacist leader, describing himself as moderate, professes alarm.
"There is a tremendous backlash" to Obama's election, said Richard Barrett, the leader of the Nationalist Movement in Learned, Miss. "My focus is to try to keep it peaceful. But many people look at the flag of the Republic of New Africa that will be hoisted over the White House as an act of war."
The FBI has no hate-crime statistics yet for 2008.
But based on local media reports, some experts are calling the rise in hate incidents surprising and unprecedented.
"The rhetoric right now is just about out of control," said Brian Levin, director of Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. "When you get this depth of hatred, it usually is the smoke before the fire."
In the small Louisiana town of Angie, 58-year-old Judy Robinson put an Obama sign outside her home a few weeks before the Nov. 4 presidential election. The morning after Halloween, she awoke to find the words "KKK" and "white power" spray-painted around her yard.
"I thought all that KKK stuff was in the past," said Robinson, who is black. "But now I look at people and think, 'Could he be Klan?' Suddenly I'm feeling like my town is hostile territory."
Experts say modern Klan chapters remain isolated and small, with perhaps 6,000 members nationwide -- a shadow of the group's membership of 4 million in the early 1900s.
Bogalusa, a lumber and paper mill town of about 13,000, is just down the road from Angie.
In the 1960s, historians say, the Ku Klux Klan so dominated Bogalusa's commerce, politics and law enforcement that the group once held a public meeting to debate which black church to burn down next.
Several Bogalusa Klan members were long suspected of shooting two black sheriff's deputies in a 1965 ambush, killing one. No one was ever brought to trial.
"To this day, most white people in Bogalusa know who the killers were, and they were never brought to justice," said Lance Hill, a Tulane University law professor and Klan expert.
That past now seems less distant.
On Nov. 10, local law enforcement authorities arrested Raymond "Chuck" Foster, 44, the leader of a Bogalusa Klan chapter called the Sons of Dixie, and seven other Klan members in connection with the shooting death of a Tulsa, Okla., woman who went to the group's remote campsite in St. Tammany Parish for an initiation ceremony.
Authorities say Foster shot the woman when she tried to change her mind about joining the group. He has been charged with second-degree murder; the other Klan members, including Foster's 20-year-old son, have been charged with obstruction of justice.
City officials say they had no idea that Bogalusa has Klan cells.
"I've been here 13 years, and this was a complete surprise to me that there was Klan here," said Police Chief Jerry Agnew.
Yet members of the town's black community say they have been reporting Klan sightings to the police for more than a year. About 40% of residents are black.
In October 2007, residents of one black neighborhood reported white-hooded Klan members riding horses through the streets.
And in March, Klan members openly handed out fliers advertising the second annual Sons of Dixie Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Craw Fish Boil -- held at the house on Louisiana Avenue that Foster was renting from a Bogalusa deputy sheriff.
"The city leaders want to make it look like this is just some small fringe group," said former City Councilman Marvin Austin, 61, who once belonged to the Deacons for Defense, a black group that formed in the 1960s to defend black residents from the Klan.
"But the Klan still has a lot of sympathizers here."
Witt writes for the Chicago Tribune.
66 Comments so far
Show AllIf the kkk trash start moonlite riding they better carry their own body bags.
They will be wearing the bags back home.
I thought these KKK idiots had been shamed out of existence by now. And leave the body bag talk to those who live in hatred of themselves first and then the "Other".
"I've been here 13 years, and this was a complete surprise to me that there was Klan here," said Police Chief Jerry Agnew.
Wow, talk about someone who's either lying or completely out of touch with his community.
Why is al Queda regarded as a terrorist enemy of America and the KKK isn't? Let's leave Guantanamo open and fill it with KKKlanners. These guys do way more to bismirch the USA's reputation than any foreigners.
RJW
Here we go again! No! Why would it be OK to hold domestic terrorists without habeas corpus in Gitmo, but not OK to do the same with foreign terrorists? I'm starting to believe the right-wingnuts' argument that we progressives have hearts that bleed for radical Islamist terrorists.
More overstated hatred. If Obama had been defeated, then you would have been reading articles about Black "incidents"
Thomas More: Hi. (Not sure you've seen other replies,other articles,me re yours.) I think this article is about just one "slice" of what's out there. Please see my previous comments on this article, if you can/care to.
Thanks "Global Family"-- "Pacific" and "Poet" for your great posts ...!!!
My concern also rests in this new "racism" being used as a cover for
violence directed at the new administration --
That's one of the things they did to Jimmy Carter to pressure him to
move from his liberal positions -- constantly reporting "news" of threats,
violence ans assdassination attempts against him --
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
A lot of us knew if Obama was elected this is what would happen! All the hate groups would start coming out of the woodwork in droves! They thrive on hating someone be they a Jew, Black or Hispanic. The fact Obama is half white makes these nut cases hate him more. Because his race goes against all their Aryan teachings. No doubt a lot of this is also being fueled by the Limbaugh's of the right wing hate pundit airwaves too. Because that bunch is no better than the Klan. They are so riddled with hate it's unbelievable people actually enjoy this nonsense. It's sad, but people who listen to this drivel daily are damaged people. I never could understand why people enjoyed listening to that sort of venom daily. Why they enjoyed getting worked into a frenzy over imagined wrongs these people suck out of their thumbs! It warps ones personality after a while. But, my husband and I both voted for Obama anyway. Even knowing full well all the racial hate of the past would spring to life again. Because he was the only decent candidate running. McCain was more of the same mess we have had for 30 years now. There was no way either one of us would vote for him.
Talk about "getting worked into a frenzy over imagined wrongs". The biggest "hate group" "coming out of the woodwork in droves" appears to be progressives, as demonstrated in this forum.
And why not vote for Nader, instead of helping to propagate the corporate state?
No one has mentioned the influence of right-wing talk radio & TV yet. Bill Moyers did an excellent show on this just two months ago. Transcript here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09122008/transcript1.html. The influence of dangerous nut cases such as Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage, whose show alone reaches more than eight and a quarter million listeners a week, gets greatly underestimated.
These people actually incite their followers to violence. Check out this quote by Savage from Moyers Journal: "Liberalism is, in essence, the HIV virus, and it weakens the defense cells of a nation. What are the defense cells of a nation? Well, the church. They've attacked particularly the Catholic Church for 30 straight years. The police, attacked for the last 50 straight years by the ACLU viruses. And the military, attacked for the last 50 years by the Barbara Boxer viruses on our planet."
And a lot of these conservative talk show hosts are nothing but a mouthpiece for the Republican Party, which holds "summits" for right-wing radio talk show hosts right in the White House. Even the NY Times reported on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/us/politics/17radio.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1:
"Strategists. . . agree that the (Republican) party’s greatest hope for holding control of Congress now rests with its ability to get core Republicans to vote, and that talk radio, which reaches millions of them, is crucial to the task."
Perhaps we should censor them?
What are the knuckle-draggers all up in arms about?! Obama's mother was white; he developed in a Caucasian womb and was raised by his white grandparents.
In Sarah Palin's home of Alaska, the teenagers are making all kinds of racist remarks about Obama. That's backward, red, Republican Alaska for you.
Hoytdouglas - Mr. Obama is not bi-racial, instead he may be a multi-racial American. He was right about being a mutt.
Sounds like anti-American domestic terrorists that are very likely plotting to assassinate the President of the United States. During this very serious, dangerous "War on Terror", the President rightly has vast new powers to "render" such domestic 'enemy combatants' to our foreign torturing bases, to see how deeply this conspiracy has grown and to save lives.
Now that 'torture' has been legalized, I'm sure a couple years in Guantanamo or Abu Graib or one of our many East European hell-holes will get the necessary information out of these terrorists.
Good thing Bush and Cheney gave us a unitary President, now Obama can use all these new powers to round up these 'good ole boys' before we have more domestic terrorism like the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing.
Better safe than sorry: round up and 'harshly interrogate'.
It's the American Way.
Herodotus,
I really hope your post was meant to be facetious. I can just see all the right-wingnuts using this to justify the assertion that liberals or progressives hate America:
Progressives want to revoke the Patriot act, ban torture, and close Gitmo because it treats badly the foreigners who hate America and want to kill us. These same progressives think it would be great to use the Patriot Act, torture, Gitmo, and rendition against American citizens with different idealogies! Why do they hate America so much? Country First! Palin '12!!
Using these abuses of power developed by Bush/Cheney would make Obama just as wrong. He needs to revoke these measures and return American civil liberties to pre-2000 status.
The jury is still out as to whether McViegh and Nicols actually caused the Kansas City bombing.
An Air Force general who was an expert in explosive yield staed categoricly that the damage cause at the Murrah Federal Building could not have been caused by a low explosive like ANFO. HE stated on the record that the damage was consistant with high explosive blast signatures.
And then there were the survivor eye witness testimony that they saw bomb disposal techs pulling unexploded pre-placed demolition charges from the walls and support columns after the blast.
The charges that white supremist domestic terrorists were behind the act always sounded a little fishy, especially because the first culprits blamed by the government at the time and the media were 'Middle Eastern Terrorists'.
Does the US government have a history of commiting acts of terrorism on it's own soil and then using a patsy to blame it on?
Ask yourself this... is Bush a lying sack of fertilizer?
Walk in peace.
One aspect of the history of racism in the US not really discussed in the posts is that of profits.
The heads of these groups are always making money from the havoc they incite.From the robes,hoods,and insignia,to the literature and CDs-all a bit of filthy lucre.But the big bucks come from the continued division of the races while suppressing unions.They flatter the yokels who feel empowered by harming others,all the while squashing the economic prospects of their white stooges.
There is a fertile elephant in this discussion that makes me pessimistic for real progress.There are just far too many people in the US now and the surplus of labor makes it all but impossible for ideal conditions.And that's if political leadership would be progressive for at least a generation.
Well,well,well we have a little thing called the Patriot Act and if Obama lists these hate group, wackos as domestic terrorists wouldn't that be poetic justice! What goes around comes around!
Racism is really about self-hatred.
Let's face it, especially with what we now know from science and religious studies: Research over the past decade in anthropology, DNA, archaeology, linguistics, religion is showing us that modern humans, Homo Sapiens evolved in East Africa about 200,000 years ago. A small group of these people left equatorial Africa and began migrating to other parts of the world about 100,000 to 50,000 years ago ("Out of Africa" theory with the Y-chromosome "Adam" and mitochondrial-DNA "Eve" research); 30,000 years ago. modern humans reached what we now call Europe, after the glaciers had receded from the region and about 15,000 years ago, reaching what we call North and South America. The greatest genetic diversity exists on the continent of Africa; the least genetic diversity is in East Asia and the Americas.
Anyone who finds this news utterly amazing and fascinating sees a familial connection that unites us all around the world, and deeply into our human history for hundreds of thousands of years. To recognize this is to implicitly accept that it means that our ancestors were black and they were African and they existed for at least 150,000 years before any whites existed.
To not accept these origins, means one is in denial of their connection of the collective history of the human race around the world. Being racist is fundamentally about isolation and disconnection from this global family and collective history extending deep into millennia.
I find it fascinating to realize that there is an "intelligent design" in evolution, a lesson that seems to match that of Adam and Eve's biblical banishment from the Garden of Eden. Here in the 21st century we know so much about our world (we can see the miracle of life in documentaries, know our place in the universe, and yet have created so many weapons of mass destruction to end all life as we know it). It is as if we have collective god-like knowledge, and we have yet collectively to use that wisdom.
I would rather choose to love all on the planet as a family around the globe and across cultures, a family tree that extends hundreds of thousands of years deeply into history, than to try to rip out this incredibly profound connection which is at the center of my soul -- not just mine, but everyone on this earth.
That is why racism is not just about hate, but is, in reality, about SELF HATRED.
Nice anthroplogical take on this.
Yes, we are all biologically the same, basically with genius and mendacity spread throughout our societies. Some emphasize one side of the spectrum more than the other, but that is the culture of the society, not the race.
They truly do not know where they came from and MUST find scapegoats for their feeling of helplessness.
The Right, just plays it up. Everywhere.
And the so-called "left," the dilute brand of liberalism that feeds obamaclintonrama, closes its eyes and ears, won't ruffle feathers and leave us all so vulnerable and unprepared (morally, legally, institutionally) to deal with these crazies. Let's all hold hands, they tell us. Right. That's why there is no Fairness Doctrine anymore, why we're flooded with right-wing nutcases all over the dial. And Dems...? Total denial. Not a word about it. With friends like that....we're screwed.
If good folks were to rise up and fight back any escalation of this racist madness, why Bush's Executive Order could just fire up the combat troops to keep "them agitators" in line. Bull Conner 2008, anyone?
Mr. Obama is not black or
African American. He is bi-racial.
gnken
I lived in Louisiana in 1979/80. L.E.O.'s were known to lie even when they didnt have to. If you were in there town and you blinked wrong they could make things very inconvient for you. I dont like the L.E. Operations in Louisiana. They are known to be corrupt and to have a Police Chief lie and say he was taken by surprise of any KKK Activity in his town. There may be a time when liberals will have to take on redneck morons from the south.
Dafoe
What do you expect from a pig but a grunt? Some country, there are times when we should give it back to the original inhabitents, they are a damned site better than the present lot of scaberous honkies that have so little self confidence they have to have someone to look down on unfortunately they don't realize they are looking up. "States rights" means they are being nurtured in those most southern of states and being protected. If I was black with the kind of crap that is being allowed in this country I would be organizing a little protection of my own as the law and order boys aren't doing it, in fact most seem to side with the dip wits. Look for a little church burning by the cowards. I am disgusted.
I'm gonna tell all you fascists
You may be surprised
The people all over this world
Are getting organized
You're bound to loose
You fascists are bound to loose
Race hatred cannot stop us
This one thing I know
Your poll tax and Jim Crow and greed
Have got to go
You're bound to loose
You fascists are bound to loose
All you fascists bound to loose
You fascists are bound to loose
You fascists are bound to loose
You're bound to loose
You fascists are bound to loose
People of every color
Marching side by side
Marching 'cross these fields
Where a million fascists died
You're bound to loose
You fascists are bound to loose
I'm going into this battle
Take my union gun
We'll end this world of slavery
Before this battle's won
You're bound to loose
You fascists are bound to loose
All you fascists bound to loose
You fascists are bound to loose
You fascists are bound to loose
You're bound to loose
You fascists are bound to loose
-Woody Guthrie, 1942
As to the southern racists - We whupped em before and we can do it again!
Sam Abrams
mas.smarba@gmail.com
May they be healed, along with the rest of us. An enlightened society is still some way off. It will require mindful work, every day, from each and every one of us.
The irony of this article just makes me crack up. Here we have a notorious hate group with a history, the local police, FBI, homeland security, etc look the other way. Yet, just yesterday there was an article about police spying/wiretapping/infiltration about a group working to combat climate change.
Dur.
It's likely that the current administration, WHO IS STILL IN POWER, won't mobilize Homeland Security and the FBI against racist white American terrorists. The irony is that President Obama can use the Bush administration's expanded wiretapping and security powers to crack down after the inauguration.
Yeah...I dig that!!!!Some of us get it.
Yeah, that's the same line of malarky used by torture appologists to validate such a policy againat "Islamofascist terrorists"at first and then gradually expanded to include more and more "enemies".
There is no irony here--either you live by your principles (Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Magna Carta by implication) or you surrender your mind to become like those whom, you have identified as "the enemy" and prove that they were right sfter all.
If the American system had any nobility at all it was to the extent that it fought criminals and outlaws and enemies without becoming as they were. Somehow we managed to survive 200+ years of attacks and assaults (including a civil and two world wars).
This has largly been lost in the past 8 years and not just becasue of Bush and Cheney. Like Hitler and his inner circle, our Fuhrers needed a whole lot of help from the "good Germans" who make up our Congress, Senate, and courts as well as the academics who comprise all the "think tanks" who formulate such perverse theories of governance (AEI, Heritage Foundation, and Cato Institute being three chief examples).
Like Nixon in '68 this cast of 5th columnists spent a long time getting ready for their blitzkreig on what was left of the American system of law and order. Carpe Diem! The greatest test of the coming Obama adminstration will be less what it does and more what it undoes--so far based upon his appointments the initial prognosis does not look very good. I wonder if a domestic Cuban missle crisis type of event will be needed to accellerate Barack's learning curve.
Poet
"...President Obama can use the Bush administration's expanded wiretapping and security powers..."
That the rub, it's like a deal with the devil and the temptation is strong to look the other way; but, he shouldn't do it. Return to our constitutional values and let the system work as intended.
Hoover used his power against the Kennedys.
Who will be spying on whom in the Obama Administration?
Violence did not simply "go away" from the civil rights fights. It's gone underground, that's all, ready at any moment for a come back.
In a Lincolnesque gesture - this sort of town is precisely the perfect target for an Obama administration Green Energy type project. Think about it - the centering of advanced technology within the community - think Van Jones and Green Collar jobs - surround them with strategic development - many possibilities...
All the hate backlash is no surprise to me. My mother's folks were from Georgia and I was raised in a partially southern home. I learned to stop calling Negroes niggers, then to stop calling Blacks Negroes, and finally when I was grown and away from home I learned to call people from other ethnic backgrounds what they wanted to be called. My mother finally stopped using the n word several decades ago. My family never believed in hate, they were not poor white trash, but they did believe that everyone had their place. But I was exposed to people who hated, and who let that hate eat them up. That's not going to go away in a hurry. In a way I'm glad there is so much backlash. Lets get it out into the open so it can be dealt with. This country has been simmering with racial hatred for much too long. I can hardly wait for the day when a female gay muslim is inaugurated into the White House!
I think that kid in the picture has issues.
I am sorry that some members of the USA do not feel they can be adequately represented by a black president... Then again, fuck 'em 'f they can't take a joke.
Nietsche: You're a sick excuse for a human being.
BTW: That "kid" in the picture was a 43 year-old woman. Too dumb to read the caption?
I get that a lot Dave, but I'm sorry you feel that way.
If all the local sheriff's departments, police forces, and FBI infiltrators were withdrawn from the Klu Klux Klowns and neonazi groups they wouldn't exist. This is just so much bait to try to help encourage the wackos in our midst to channel their inner fascist or bigot. By creating these situations law enforcement has new problems to $olve.
During the civil rights era of the 50's and 60's the FBI had infiltrators who outnumbered actual Klan members in various chapters. They were reporting on each other's activities and of course available for provoking such things as the murders of Medgar Evers and Fred Hampton as well as many other lesser known leaders. After those dirty deeds get done, expect illegal drugs to flood the inner cities. The more things change the more they stay the same.
Poet
Poet: There were many Klan members inside the police forces in the towns in the 1950s and 1960s, who were NOT FBI informers or infiltrators, but real Klan members. That is why there was such difficulty, in part, in getting people arrested for "hate"/race crimes in the 1950s and 60s, as well as getting convictions (in addition to the white nature of the juries,who were in sympathy with their peers who committed crimes or were afraid of the racists and KKK). The author needed more sources, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center. The FBI was not particularly interested in pursuing the cases at the time, either and "let" some murders happen, such as Viola Liouso. I am old enough to remember and I spent a couple of years in the South during the civil rights movement.
May I suggest you read Howard Zinn's "You Can't Be Neutral on A Moving Train", Boston:Beacon Press, 2003 edition has a great introduction. The book (my favorite book)is an autobio,often called memoir, of Zinn's early life and goes up through and into his teaching at Spellman College in Atlanta, when students were active in the civil rights movement. He also recorded observations he made visiting places. It also discusses his involvement in the AntiVietnam War movement. ( One of his students at Spellman College was Alice Walker.)
I was stationed in Montgomery AL in the summer of '65 (when Selma and the Viola Liouso murder took place)and having originally grown up in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia PA it was like being on another planet.
For instance, the yellow pages would have a listing like "restaurant", "barber shop", "hotel", "electrician", "plumber", or whatever. This would be immediately followed by the heading "colored" and the rest of the classification listing.
I was never so glad to leave a place than when I left Montgopmery AL (and I am not African-American either) and from what I hear the place is still as backwardly reactionary today as it was them (less overtly racist--they are a little more discreet in hiding their bigotry).
Poet
Poet:Hi. Your reply is interesting. I was in LA at the time. I am fascinated that you remember reading the yellow pages. Some folks are more discreet in hiding their bigotry, especially if they think they're going to get "called out" on it. This article doesn't mention the White Citizens Councils, I don't think, which was part of the "dressing up" racism in the 1970s. I was happy to come back north near the end of the 60s, but the police brutality towards African-Americans in the 60s made me take notice of police brutality in NYC when I got back. I think Abner Louima was attacked in a precinct house near where I grew up in Brooklyn and the police brutality didn't start with attacking Louima. I am not African-American, so I didn't experience it growing up. The press still underplays police brutality in NYC. Sources: NY Civil Liberties Union website www.nyclu.org and October 22 Coalition Against Police Brutality website: www.october22.org .
Yes indeed, White Citizen's Council lilterature was prominently displayed in bookstores and newstands just like the latest novels by the likes of Grisham or Stephen King might be today. George Wallace was Governor and racism was uptown and respectable in the capital of Alabama back then.
The same kind of cops who killed or britalized people of color back then killed Shawn Bell with enough bullets to have fought a war-zone battle. The press underplays police malfeasence for the same reason most of the Washington press corps looked the other way when Bushco waged their wars of aggression 6-7 years ago: they have been bought off by promises of access and their employers have been bought off by threats of no revenue by advertisers.
That's why it is so important to support Common Dreams and other independent news sources.
Poet
Poet: Your comments are in "a groove" on this topic. One small correction as we near the anniversary of Sean Bell's murder by NYPD...it's Sean. Another Shawn was killed by NYPD. See October 22 Coalition to stop Police Brutality www.october22.org His family has a website,too, www.justiceforsean.net/
Poet: Your comments are in "a groove" on this topic. One small correction as we near the anniversary of Sean Bell's murder by NYPD...it's Sean. Another Shawn was killed by NYPD. See October 22 Coalition to stop Police Brutality www.october22.org His family has a website,too.
"The 'slightly to the left of Pinochet' remark is not only absurd, it's vile. ... It's just too bad that a small circle of pretend-prophets want to remain The Voice in the Wilderness rather than celebrating the tremendous changes that will be sweeping the country from below while Obama removes the barriers that have kept back the changes for the past 15 years."
Oh yeah. Good thinking. Instead of working to hold Obama to his promises by giving him the support he needs to resist the pressure to move to the suppposed "center," which is nothing but a convenient fiction created by well-heeled mainsrteam media stenographers who work for huge corporations, let's all praise Obama's appointments of Clinton-era hawks and hacks and celebrate something that hasn't happened yet. That'll show 'em.
Well, if ever there was time that warrant less surviellance and community watch spy groups were really needed its now.
We have a nation wide spy network that can do its duty in protecting
America and its elected officials by helping to identify people who belong to these real militant terrorist groups like the KKK.
Instead of following and wire tapping innocent Americans without warrants, for the purpose of individual elitists on a county by county basis building spy networks to advance or maintain right wing agendas, lets catch some real bad guys.
Of course I am assuming that the spy nation has not been infiltrated by these really bad guys.
Or, that the elitists that run our spy agencys are not the really bad guys.
BornFreeMen
I agree with BornFreeMen.
After all the years of Bush abusing of civil rights, we forget that under the right leadership relinquishing certain rights will actually benefit our security. In other words, it's not that the PATRIOT ACT was bad, it's that Bush misused it. Obama knows how to wield power responsibly.
Power corrupts. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It is there to protect us all and perhaps most to protect good leaders from their darker angels. These organizations have been delt with lawfully before but they rise from the slime every generation or so and must be delt with anew.
I'm reluctant to demean anybody, but from my experience most of the serious 'white-supremacists' I've seen are lucky to qualify for the species let alone the cream of the crop. Is that harsh? Any more harsh than chaining a black guy behind a pickup truck then dragging him until his flesh sloughs from his bones simply because he's black? Any harsher than wiping out millions of folks simply because some ideology to which one mindlessly subcribes posits that because they're different they're inferior? I don't think so.
Tirebiter (love your tag! We are about to adopt a new family member of the Border Collie race...they love to bite lawnmower tires, collect tennis balls, golf balls...not just a few but by the hundreds:) you aren't demeaning anybody. Unfortunately, there are still those who judge a person's worth by the color of their skin, these (um...can't call them people so I will simply refer to them as the long sought "missing link" still thrive, but not anywhere nearly to the degree that they used to. Actually, Vidor, Tx. (the town where the black person was dragged to death) is about 90 miles south of where I live. The people of that town were just as disgusted, hurt, and as ashamed as the rest of the nation. That said, the same type of hate crime can, and does happen anywhere in the nation (remember the gay college student that was beaten then tied to a barbed wire fence in to freeze to death Wyoming?) Fortunately, there are as many people in this area (maybe even more) that detest the KKK. They still exist, but...so does the Mickey Mouse Club, and their membership ranks seem to be in about the same league. Their ideology is dying quickly. I remember growing up in Houston during the early 1960's and if you could see the contrast between the way people of one race view people of other races (remember, racism isn't limited to whites versus other races...there is plenty of racism between other races also, for example hispanics and blacks, you would be able to see the stark contrast between the attitudes of then vs now.
Interestingly, my family and I went to Chicago several years back, and I saw more open racism (I saw several people yelling "stupid ni@#*r at a black couple several times in a gas station) there than what I see now here and in other parts of the deep south (by deep south I mean eastern Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Florida.) The small city I live in here in E. Texas, I see very little open racism, and in fact, most groups I see chatting and visiting as friends are multiracial and are true friends, not just trying to prove their open mindedness.
I do worry about President Obama. Though the hatred between the races has diminished to a point I wasn't sure I would ever live to see (see what Captain Kirk and Leutinent O'Hura (sp?) accomplished with that very first interracial kiss on "Star Trek") there is still enough hatred out there to pose a threat. Although Obama wan't my first choie as the leader of the country, I believe he is a very intelligent man and deserves a fair shot at doing his job witout having to fear that some racist nut cuts his chances short before he even gets to try his ideas. Who knows...we may have the next Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy just waiting to take office!!! Of course, we could also have the next Bu$h (nah!!! just kiddin')
My only warning to you about the south is, on that very first bowl of gumbo, just go a tad easy on the Tabasco, but just a tad mind you:-) Oh, one more thing, take the shuck off of the tamale' before you eat it.
Aussidawg, Big cities like Chicago and New York are bound to have a few racists. But remember that Illinois and New York state voted for Obama. Your state, Texas, didn't and neither did Louisiana and most of the former Southern Confederacy.
Border Collies are great dogs but serious control freaks with a 'herding' instinct (often displayed through biting one's ankles), unlimited energy, and more independence and intelligence than some of my neighbors. I know all this because, save for the herding/control freak part I am actually a Border Collie who learned to type. I exaggerate a bit. I learned a lot of it from the shepherds I know - really, I know some shepherds and have helped at numerous shearings.
My experience suggests that people are pretty much the same wherever you go - there are a few 'saints' (or so I've heard), a lot of decent and caring folks who make no trouble and just get on with their lives, and a small but loud percentage of - what shall I call them - assholes. I was born and raised in Chicago before I escaped and saw a lot of things that made me question just how we've come as a species. But we have a lot of Oneidas and Hmong where I live now and see the same kind of hatred you observed in Chicago against black folks. It is not pretty but it is not unique. Not having such feelings, I don't understand those who do.
I share your observations about Mister Obama and fully expect at least one attempt on his life before his term in office ends. But then, Castro survived 638 assassination attempts on his life - the last count I'm aware of. The danger to Mister Obama comes as much from the 'ideological' nuts as 'racist' nuts in what Greg Palast calls our 'Armed Madhouse'. More's the pity.
I like Tabasco and I always shuck the tamale before I eat it.
Late last month, two men with ties to a notoriously violent Klan chapter in Kentucky were charged in a bizarre plot to kill 88 black students and then decapitate an additional 14 students -- and then assassinate Obama by shooting him from a speeding car while wearing white tuxedos and top hats.
Obviously, these people used to work in the "Justice" Department under Alberto Gonzales. The white tuxedos and top hats are what gives it away. You can just hear Fredo jumping to his feet and shouting, "What a great fucking idea that is!"
"two men with ties to a notoriously violent Klan chapter in Kentucky were charged in a bizarre plot to kill 88 black students and then decapitate an additional 14 students -- and then assassinate Obama by shooting him from a speeding car while wearing white tuxedos and top hats"
It's sad what too much inbreeding and meth can do to one's mind...
Why doesn't "Homeland Security" stop spying on Climate Change Awareness groups, and start investigating THESE crackers?
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Not because they are white--because they arent after economic interests.
Lots of whities in environmental and animal rights groups--they get the heat. Simply because they challenge money interests.
The KKK doesnt. Racism is secondary to money.
The KKK doesn't even merit discussion of what they stand for, what they believe, aor for that matter anything. There is one thing that really puzzles me though. How does one get the letters "KKK" from white trash?
Racism is secondary to money.
Great point.
Terrorism:
The systematic use of violence to achieve political or ideological ends;
To intimidate or coerce a government or the civilian population or any segment thereof;
The unlawful use of -- or threatened use of -- force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives.
---
By those definitions - and all others - the KKK and their twisted ilk are all terrorists. Period.
So where the hell is the Dept. of Homeland Security when ya need them? Why haven't these racist lunatic terrorists been rounded up and dropped into Guantanamo without council or charge for an indefinite period of time? How come the CIA isn't rendering these sick bastards over to Syria for some enhanced interrogations?
Oh - right, sorry. Because they're white?
Sioux Rose
FRANK: Prescient observation.
Precisely because they are white.
The only reason Obama was elected was because folks were more fearful of the economic ruin than of a black man in the White House.
Now the folks who said they voted for him because he was a liberal are finding out he is just slightly left of Pinochet, and the rednecks still are not living in rusted out cars, so they are now more afraid of the black man in the White House.
And he hasn't even taken office yet....
The 'slightly to the left of Pinochet remark is not only absurd, it's vile. The first president to declare that healthcare is a RIGHT will be inaugurated in under two months now, just weeks before the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. He's the first president in recent memory who believes that job creation originates from the lower strata, from working men & women and from small businesses, rather than from the top. He isn't a doctrinaire neo-liberal economically any more than he's a neocon politlically.
Some invaluable books have appeared recently on Lincoln, primarily the volume edited by Eric Foner, "Our Lincoln". His left critics right now are like Lincoln's radical critics at the outset of his administration, for whom fiery jargon & direct conflict are preferable to actual consolidation.
The racists & the theocrats & the fascists of various stripes all know that Obama is their opponent, and that the American people in the majority oppose them as well. It's just too bad that a small circle of pretend-prophets want to remain The Voice in the Wilderness rather than celebrating the tremendous changes that will be sweeping the country from below while Obama removes the barriers that have kept back the changes for the past 15 years.
I am not at all sure when Obama became the reincarnation of Lincoln. Somehow I missed that. Please explain.