Hate fliers surfacing on driveways(Eugene,Oregon)

[RedEarth]

A flurry of racist hate fliers found in Eugene neighborhoods has prompted denouncements by the city manager, the police chief and the Human Rights Commission.
The fliers, denigrating gays, Jews, immigrants and others, have appeared in at least three neighborhoods in the past week. The fliers are the product of "cowards and bullies" and are not welcome in Eugene, City Manager Dennis Taylor said in a written statement.

Some of the fliers are identical to those appearing on the Web site of a Portland-based white supremacist group called the Tualatin Valley Skins. The fliers were found in driveways wrapped in plastic bags that also contained gravel - a method of distribution recommended on the Web site.

City officials said the fliers may be part of a larger increase in hate activity. State law enforcement reported 21 incidents of alleged hate crimes in Eugene in the three-month period ending Sept. 30 - the highest number in recent memory, said Greg Rikhoff, the city's human rights manager.

The incidents included 13 involving possible bias crimes based on race, color or national origin, five based on sexual orientation, four based on religion and one based on political affiliation. Some incidents included more than one basis for discrimination

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/12/09/d1.cr.hateflier.1209.html

[bullimiami]

1. can you feel the love rolling down from the administration

to the churches to the streets.


Bushco. Changing the Tone.

[Left Brain]

11. Eugene Oregon

is not the most liberal of towns in this beautiful state of mine. I have a friend who worked in as an engineer there in the early 90's. As long as they didn't know her sexual orientation, her employer thought she was brilliant. As soon as they found out she was a lesbian, they canned her.

The ignorants in Eugene now have a green light to carry out their acts of discrimination and hatred.

[TahitiNut]

22. Eugene/Springfield seem to be bipolar, to me.

I've found that Eugene is very liberal and friendly while the environs and Springfield are reactionary conservative. I've visited and stayed overnight downtown over a dozen times in the last 10 years, and have always enjoyed the experience with the residents, the merchants, and other visitors.

[GregW]

47. Well ... as someone who actually LIVES in Eugene ...

My take is that it is an extremely liberal town. In my neighborhood for example, KE04 signs outnumbered BC04 by about 50-1.

Eugene is also the home of the famous Soromundi Lesbian Chorus ... we embrace GLBT lifestyles here and shun intolerance.

Now ... our sister-city Springfield is another matter ... an ex-logging town separated from us by I-5, make me think of the old PC game Redneck Rampage every time I visit.

[BOSSHOG]

2. Christian Terrorists and member of bush's base

Their ignorance on display. I just wonder if they hate themselves more than they hate others.

[KingChicken]

3. America is changing..... nt

[vpigrad]

4. *is* changing?

I thought it changed long ago. I can remember the hate spewing forth from the whites and repukes during the 60's wrt civil rights. They haven't changed. They're still the same, but more bold now.

[buff2]

5. Freeper demons hard at work.....

Spreading their hatred,rascist,bigotry.Intolerance is their mantra. :puke:

[SnowGoose]

6. Clinton's fault!

Bill or Hillary, take your pick, doesn't matter. All his (or her) fault! Damn him (or her).

[hobbit709]

7. I remember

A friend of mind getting a visit from the KKK about 30 years ago. He was living in a rural area in Texas and the klowns were upset about him living with a white woman. His response was "In my two tours in Nam I learned how to shoot straight. And wearing them sheets and carrying those torches you make such nice neat targets in the dark."

[wordout]

8. right method, wrong message

skinheads, jehovas witnessess,.. these groups are getting their message out there. they got publicity on DU too. i'm envious.

i wonder.. if i printed off some info from Demopedia.. bundled up, walked with some friends to walmart dec 26...

[montana_hazeleyes]

16. Wait a minute here

wordout. Why in the world are you including Jehovahs Witnesses in with skinheads or these horrible deeds?

I've seen witnesses bashed on DU before but this is just wrong. I know some witnesses and they would never condone or participate in such things.

I've kept quiet about this witness bashing on DU before but not now!

I love DU. Been here a long time,participate,donate,have gotten to care very much about many posters here but if this starts any more unwarranted bashing of Jehovahs Witnesses, I'm gone.

[wordout]

32. awww shit.

i should've included mormons too. MY POINT IS that these groups are visibly and ~successfully~ getting their message out there in a big way. i do admire them for that. i can apppreciate the skinheads stealth delivery method and was musing about doing something similar.

i suppose the reason i mentioned jw's is because i've been visited by them more than any other religious cult members. and thats just my opinion of all door to door religious peddlers. they're cultists. but it was NOT my intent to offend (in this case)anyone by grouping skinheads with jw's. at least consciously anyway..

[Angelique]

38. I've kept quiet about this witness bashing on DU before but not now!

I have to agree, I was a roommate with a witness sister who basically minded her own business. She did pray a bunch, but it was done in her own quiet way.. She and her friends were sweet, and wouldn't harm a fly.. So cut them a bit of slack.. please.

[TheDebbieDee]

18. Jehovah's Witnesses don't have a hate message at all....

and it would never occur to any of them to do anything resembling skinhead behavior or harrassment of any kind.

It MUST be some other church that goes door-to-door that you're thinking of.

[ikojo]

23. Jehovah's Witnesses are among the MOST integrated of churches

Most JW's I see handing out literature here in St Louis are neither aggressive nor white. They simply ask you if you want something to read and a simple no will suffice.

[George_S]

9. What? No mentally ill?

Maybe that's not that important and is part of "others."

[insane_cratic_gal]

10. Nice Moral values

hate everyone one and thing but your own kind.

Nazi is really begining to shape up this admin and it's followers.

[VegasWolf]

12. It's hard, hard work being a freeper moran. n/t

[Nevernose]

13. They "specialize in Graphic design .. White Power TV production"

Their homepage is lovely, and their leader's first name is apparently Jimbo.

Personally, even if I were a Nazi, I'd have serious problems taking my orders from a guy named Jimbo.

[Nevernose]

14. They have wonderful advice for aspiring Nazis, too

"When your group is competent and effective, appear incompetent and ineffective. When you are strong appear weak. This will leave the enemy misdirected, confused and ripe for attack."

Ahhh, so THAT's why white power groups always appear to consist of ignorant, inbred hillbillies -- it's all an elaborate ruse designed to lull us into a false sense of security. Good to know.

[RedEarth]

20. Actually, not hillbillies at all.....according to Morris Dees looks like

most of the hate groups come from the bigger cities and recently from suburban areas.

"In another demographic shift, the bulk of hate activity now bubbles up in the suburbs — among reasonably well-off youth. "Twenty years ago, big cities were hotbeds of hate," says Jack Levin, director of Northeastern University's Brudnick Center and co-author of the new book Why We Hate.

"But as more and more minority families have moved into suburban areas, the prevalence of hate attacks has also increased there. These kids aren't prepared for people who are different. They see them as a threat. They come home in the afternoon to their empty houses, log onto the Internet, visit hate sites, chat rooms, bulletin boards and get ideas."

A special summer issue of the Center's Intelligence Report profiled neo-Nazi outfits like the National Socialist Movement and Aryan Nations, which still work hard to recruit youngsters into the fold.

But since much of the new racist activity is springing up from the grassroots, the issue also reported on start-up groups like the Connecticut White Wolves and Agnostic Neo-Nazis, both of which drew their inspiration from Internet hate sites — and ran with it.

"I don't know what's more frightening," says Ward, "kids joining organized hate groups, or the way hate is rising up spontaneously among kids who feel it's OK to terrorize and assault people because of their race or religion or sexual orientation. What does that say about where our society's headed."



http://www.splcenter.org/center/splcreport/article.jsp?aid=99

[Nevernose]

31. I didn't mean "hillbilly" literally

For further explantion, please read my apology on post #25 of this thread.

[fleabert]

39. I've seen in my own family, disgusted as I am to admit that...

My 18 yr. old cousin almost made me throw up when I overheard him talking with his friends about 'the blacks', 'the fags', and 'the spics'. when confronted, he touted his experience in high school with 'reverse racism' and that racism against African Americans does not exist and 'ask my black friend, he agrees with me'.

I was so upset this upper middle class white kid from a suburban city was spewing hate and not ashamed about it. He claims that he can say these things because his 'best friends' are black, white, chinese, and mexican. I asked him if he talked like that to them and he said yes. They think he's funny according to him. Whatever. He is one of the assholes who believes that if he meets a gay man, that man will want to have sex with him, and that is why he hates gay men. WTF? I don't know where this shit comes from but it makes me sick to my stomach.

I was so blindsided, my family raised me to be open and tolerant. I am in a biracial marriage! (my dh was not in town when this convo occurred). I don't know what the hell happened with this kid, but he scared me. (he voted for Bush, as if you didn't know, and taunts me with 'Four More Years' every time he gets the chance, which isn't often thank god.)

[rhyfeddu]

25. I am SO frustrated by this constant characterization of hillbillies on DU

I'm what you would call a hillbilly - both my parents are from the hills of Kentucky. My grandparents lived there all their lives. We are neither ignorant, inbred, toothless, racist or whatever else the popular adjectives of the day are.

And, please, don't say, "Oh, we were talking about those OTHER silly hillbillys"...

PLEASE everybody, stop with the damn 'Deliverance' cracks every time an APPALACHIAN person is mentioned on this board. Some were quick to come to the defense of Jehovah's Witnesses on this thread - I wish someone, ANYone else would do the same for rural people. This makes me feel so unwelcome, and so insulted on nearly a daily basis on DU, and why I've not committed myself as a donor-member...

Its just a thoughtless stereotype, and one very accepted in "tolerant" liberal circles, I guess....:mad:

[RedEarth]

26. "This makes me feel so unwelcome, and so insulted.. on DU ....."

Unfortunately, you better get used to it, it's almost become the norm here on this "tolerant" liberal site.....bigotry is alive and well here at DU.

[rhyfeddu]

28. That's funny, to "hear" from you...

...I was just over at the "Fuck the South" thread, and thanked you and CarolinaYellowDog for your sane comments over there...
THANK YOU.

I'm glad you're still here to call them on it, but I really don't think I can deal with it for much longer. Or maybe I'm having a particularly bad day...:shrug:

It's just very disheartening...

[RedEarth]

29. oh, rhyfeddu you don't feel the love.....

the "big tent" DU love....believe me, you're not alone. The bigotry that's shown here is one of the reasons several people I know no longer come to DU....and I'm sure there are many more that are just as fed up with it. It's interesting how much hate there is on DU.

[QC]

35. "It's interesting how much hate there is on DU."

People always become what they hate. Many here have invested so much emotion in hating freepers that they have become freepers themselves.

[Nevernose]

30. Please accept my apologies

I just read that you were over at yet another "Fuck the South" DU flamefest. I've learned to avoid them. If you'll notice, my orginal username was Argumentus, chosen largely because I wanted to defend the South and its inhabitants from the rampant, unwarranted defamation.

The "hillbillies" thing was just a crack, a joke I didn't even realize could be in bad taste (though I've ade plenty of them), and I didn't even know that the word was offensive.

In other parts of the country (I now live in the West), it has no negative connotation towards rural Appalachia whatsoever. I think for me, and for a lot of people on DU, it has less to do with rural people than as a euphamism for poorly educated, conservative white people -- wherever they live and whatever their income. I say this as one who comes from a long. long line of sharecroppers; my family reunions are generally filled with what most would term "hillbillies," "rednecks," and "hicks."

I think the people I was making fun of were from suburban California, unless I read something wrong. I'll apologize for offending you, but I ain't gonna apologize for making fun of Nazis.

[rhyfeddu]

33. Apology accepted.

Thanks for taking the time for a considered response.

I know too well that "hillbilly", by itself, is not necessarily offensive. We cheerfully call ourselves that in my family. But people within a group can call themselves something, and it can mean something completely different coming from the "outside".

The only way I can explain it is: I'm gay, too. I can call myself "queer". But if I'm walking down the street, holding my partner's hand, and someone passing sneers "Queer!" - it ain't the same thing.

But I guarantee that putting "inbred" before any group description, and it won't be taken well....

And its precisely because hillbilly etc. has become an OK shorthand for any repulsive-acting rural white, that I can usually safely assume its meant to be an insult. I can't help but picture this stuff spewed at my own grandparents, when I hear/see it. And to be fair to you, my reaction is from an accumulative load of thoughtless bashing, here and otherwise.

Yes, there are mountain people who fit the stereotypes, just as there are in any group (ie: lazy blacks, greedy Jewish people, etc.). Stereotypes can always be justified by those they can find "who fit the mold". But, that's sloppy, unfair thinking. And plain wrong.

People should always be regarded for who they are as individuals, and what their individual actions are. Which is why you could and should always nail Nazis, neo, and otherwise, whenever they poke their heads out of the sewers.

Excuse the mini-lecture. Its not all even about your post, to be sure. It's just been building up. :eyes:

Peace

[Seldona]

36. I have experianced it as well.

I have even left DU for weeks or months at a time because of it, but keep coming back because it IS a greaet resource as far as LBN and such.

And it is not just here at DU.

It is an 'acceptable' prejudice for most urban dwellers.

Sad, but true.

[rhyfeddu]

44. So do you agitate for change from within?

Or let it go, 'cause life's too damn short? I'm still working on that, myself...I don't really want to be the self-appointed rural defamation police around here, running around putting out fires of unthinking comments. Not what I signed up for.

The MOST disappointing thing, is the official stamp of approval this mindset gets, by the moderator's allowing it. Insensitive people come and go, but that seems to be a silent assent from the folks who run this place.

Sorry you've had to deal with it , too...:-(

[QC]

37. Rhyfeddu, class is the American Left's dirty little secret.

The constant, unthinking references to hillbillies, trash, and rednecks that you read on this site are symptomatic of a larger problem that has made the Left all but irrelevant in this country.

The truth is, we are the only country that comes to mind that has an almost entirely bourgeois Left, and bourgeois lefties are generally bourgeois first and leftist second. They tend to have all the class prejudices of the comfortable, privileged middle class from which they come. Thus they throw around careless remarks about trashy poor people without any idea of why some of us might find them offensive. Call anyone on it around here and more often than not you'll be told that you're way too sensitive, or the bit you point out about how they're really talking about those other people.

This privileged cluelessness has real political effects--it has allowed the Republicans to sell themselves as the real populist party, and that has been devastating to us. I can't tell you how many times I have had someone say to me that he or she doesn't like the way the Republicans look after the rich, but "the Democrats look down on people like me."

And when people say that, I don't have a good reply, because a lot of Democrats truly do look down on people like us. Then they wonder why people they dismiss at every opportunity as sister-fucking genetic throwbacks responsible for every social ill in the country won't vote with them.

It's dumb, dumb, dumb. And I don't see any signs of it changing around here. I've been at DU since not long after the place opened, and this used to be a place where I learned a lot and found the kind of solidarity among fellow progressives that I could not find in real life in Alabama, Mississippi, and the Florida panhandle, the places where I have spent most of my life. But lately, I find that DU is a more and more dominated by stupid and hateful voices.

[RedEarth]

41. Excellent post.....

and the Republicans are laughing all the way to the bank...literally.

[QC]

42. Thanks--I appreciate that. n/t

[rhyfeddu]

43. I'm a bobble-head, I'm nodding so much!

Yes, it seems just plain urban-centric, to me. That all that is good and decent and worthwhile is metro, and all that is useless and backwards and evil is country/rural.

I really believe that some of these folks think they'll REALLY be forced to "squeal like a pig", if they set one foot in the mountains! Are there crazy, dangerous mountain people? Sure. There are nutjobs EVERYWHERE. The crazys shouldn't define a region or a people. If there is ever a mugging in NYC, does that mean the whole joint IS a dangerous, degenerate war zone? If the attacker is a black male, does that justify thinking all black men are "out to rape your wives"? Its ALL just foolish generalizations based on stereotypes....It's lazy thinking. And its all prejudice.

All they've ever seen in the media about us is a cartoon version. Many progressives seem to dismiss the rural labor and rights movements that people have DIED for, with this thinking (I've in mind the organizing in the coal industry) - but that's the "good" hicks, I guess...

People in the mountains CAN be toothless and ignorant - its called POVERTY, people! Hearts that (rightfully) bleed for every disadvantaged soul across the ocean, comfortably mock malnourished, uneducated, abandoned people in their own country. Alot of Liberals are aggressively multi-culti, unless the culture includes banjos!

People (myself included) object vociferously when Dems are called "elitist" - but I'm beginning to wonder. Your point about people not willing to vote for a party that looks down on them, is EXACTLY why my decent, caring Mom voted for Bush. She didn't trusts Kerry with a ten-foot pole, to protect her - painfully ironic. We make fun of Bush's put-on "good ol' boy" act, but it works for a reason. Until we Dems DEAL with that, beyond mocking, we are one sunk ship.

BTW, thanks for all the supportive comments, everyone. When I first came aboard DU, and objected to this, I was swinging in the wind alone, and met with hostility and "fuck you, TOO" comments. No matter if I stick around or not - I'm glad there are other voices out there, with thicker skins ;)...

THANKS :loveya:

EDIT: for clarification

[QC]

46. Thanks! n/t

[UncleSepp]

27. Isn't that from Sun Tzu's Art of War?

[RedCon1]

45. That quote is straight out of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"

Interesting.

[Anakin Skywalker]

24. Jimbo? Isn't that

the name of FreepyLand's esteemed dictator? We call him RimJob, of course.

[genieroze]

15. Cowards site.

http://www.nukeisrael.com/

[RedEarth]

19. That is one CREEPY site.......

[eauclaireliberal]

21. RE:"Cowards site."

Disgusting.

Even more so because these are part of Dumb-Dub's voting base. Maybe not in '04, but they were instrumental in putting him there in 2000, and making AM radio such a hot commodity during the Clinton years. What a shock it must have been for them when the apartheid ruler that W would ally the U.S. is a JEW! GASP! SHUDDER!

Let's not forget that most of the RW'ers used to call up Rushbo and whine about how the holocaust never happened. Seems like these pre-pubescent clowns on bombisrael.com are true believers, even if the BFEE isn't.

They should rename their site disappointeddickheads.com

[bluedonkey]

40. scary shit

but they know how to distribute flyers!I took some notes for my own flyer fest.We need to get the word out,somehow, if our media doesn't

[Sara Beverley]

17. The tone is set at the top (WH). It is now in vogue to be a rabid hater.

That makes you one of the red state heros.

[bunny planet]

34. We had something similar distributed in my town in NJ last year, left on

doorsteps and driveways, on one occasion handed to a kid playing outside. It made our local paper in this heavily democratic town and then thankfully hasn't happened again. But scary as hell. These subhumans are definitely feeling empowered by the second faux selection of the Crusader in Chief.:scared:

[bitchkitty]

48. The web site for the Tualitan Valley Skins

is fucking pathetic. If I didn't know better I would say that it's performance art. They are a caricature of every low life white trash loser who ever appeared on the Jerry Springer show.