We should be on guard against those who ridicule the notion of radical right wing hate groups

wyldwolf

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Wed Apr-15-09 07:44 AM
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We should be on guard against those who ridicule the notion of radical right wing hate groups

Edited on Wed Apr-15-09 07:51 AM by wyldwolf

I'm seeing multiple mainstream media outlets looking at the Dept. of Homeland Security's report on the growing dangers of radical right wing groups with a hint of disbelief. But the reality of these groups became very apparent to me last spring (May, to be exact) with this cover of a local paper where I live:

The article itself, which reported on Georgia white supremest groups and their reaction to the (then) possibility of a black president, has been removed from the newspaper's website:

http://www.beaconcast.com/articles/20080521_1

But... a Georgia blogger has the entire piece:

http://rptrcub.blogspot.com/2008/05/article-that-corresponds-to-image-of.html

(bold, emphasis, and parenthesis mine)

White Supremacy Groups Threatened by Obama Candidacy

By Alan Sverdlik / STAFF

This is not the conversation one might expect in Barack Obama�s colorblind America. Especially on the outskirts of North Fulton County.

�Daddy, why does his dream make you so mad?� asks Kimberly, nine, as she and a hulking man in camouflage step over fallen pine logs on a raw, damp afternoon in western Forsyth County, about 30 minutes north of Milton.

�Sweetie, it�s science fiction, like the comic books you read,� Thomas Stevenson replies in a gentle, fatherly tone.

Steadying Kimberly�s shoulders as they approach another slab of deadwood, Stevenson notices the bewilderment in his fourth grader�s gaze, so he tries again to put her curiosity to rest. �The dream is that everybody is the same,� he says. �In other words, if you get a potato, I get a potato. If I get a loaf of bread, you get a loaf of bread. If you live in a mansion, then I should too.�

Later that Saturday, coming in from the drizzle and settling in at the computer, the 38-year-old carpenter clicks on several white supremacist sites to catch up on the chatter, particularly as it pertains to U.S. Senator Barack Obama.

Thomas Stevenson stands in the woods in Forsyth Coutny near where a radical right group meets
regularly.

�Some idiot out there�s going to put a bullet in that silver-tongued devil,� he says, �and then there�ll be a race war. There are some in our movement who are preparing for war, even praying for it.�

Until homegrown terrorists incinerated the federal building in Oklahoma City and detonated a bomb during the Atlanta Olympics, civil rights groups and law enforcement authorities had long doubted that fringe movements could carry out such bold attacks. But today, as the Democrat Party prepares to nominate a formidable African-American as their candidate for President, federal, state and local watchdog organizations that track racist cells have issued numerous terror alerts. This has already prompted the U.S. Secret Service to bend longstanding policy and assign the Illinois Senator an around-the-clock detail. And if Obama prevails at his party�s Denver convention, unprecedented security measures are likely to continue.

�With the selection of Barack Obama as the first black Democrat nominee for President seeming more possible by the day, racists and white supremacists are posting increasingly ugly and threatening remarks on the Internet,� says Mark Potok, resident expert on the radical right at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., the arch-nemesis of the Ku Klux Klan and its allies.

He adds, �The most heated anti-Obama talk appears on sites that allow people to post messages anonymously. The so-called white nationalists who inhabit these sites are deeply concerned that their comments are being monitored by law enforcement for any criminal threat relating to the presidential race.�

And of course they are.

One of the viler sites contains a running commentary that seamlessly conjoins Obama with the N-word, but no name � not even a pseudonym � appears above or below the blog or, for that matter, anywhere in the URL. Potok cites two other unsigned snippets from cyberspace. �I�m hoping someone will do his public duty and put a bullet through Obama�s head,� says one. Another announces, �The deep south is making plans.�

A self-described associate of David Duke, perhaps America�s most notorious hatemonger, sees a subtext in the Obama campaign mantra �Si, se puede,�� literally �Yes you can� but figuratively a call for racial unity � and exposes it in his latest blog.

�Somehow they interpret it as a code for: kill all the whites,� says Potok.

These paranoid rants, and the rationalizations that underlie them, are familiar to many in the criminal justice system.

By taking responsibility for the safety of Obama and his family before he formally receives his party�s nomination, the Secret Service, while never quite stating it, evidently believes a racially-motivated plot is possible. The Anti-Defamation League of B�nai B�rith, the dean of watchdogs, has elevated its terror alerts as has the Atlanta-based Center for Democratic Renewal, founded by an associate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Despite the �hate and discontent� on the web, members of sects that espouse bigotry �don�t see themselves as terrorists. They see themselves as freedom fighters, as patriots,� says veteran Roswell Police Detective Ken Kraus, who once kept tabs on Posse Comitatus, an extremist paramilitary network with chapters in Georgia. �Do we think that anything is going to happen to Obama here in Georgia? No. Are we watching local hate groups carefully? Oh, yeah.�

Some research, however, seems to suggest that the alerts are overkill, considering that Obama has done such a good job allaying the grievances of the white, working-class electorate over affirmative action, minority entitlements and other emotional issues. Emory University behavioral scientist Drew Westen, author of �The Political Brain,� says, �The number of whites who, in their heart of hearts, would never vote for a black man is small, 10 or 12 percent.�

The closest Roswell ever came to an act of political violence occurred in 1996, when a homemade incendiary device blew up at an abortion clinic just across the city limits in Sandy Springs, spraying nails and sharpened metal scraps. After his arrest for planting the bomb in Centennial Park during the Olympics, Eric Rudolph took credit for the clinic attack and an explosion at a gay nightclub in northeast Atlanta. He adhered to �Identity�, an obscure theology which preaches that dark-skinned people are descended from mud.

A decade earlier, Duke and his followers, seeking to intimidate African-Americans from moving into Forsyth County, pelted black marchers with rocks as they arrived in Cumming, 15 minutes from Alpharetta.

With 42 active white power cells, Georgia ranks fourth in the country behind California, Texas and South Carolina, according to the Montgomery center, whose investigative arm, KlanWatch, supplies intelligence to state and federal law enforcement agencies. Ironically, their map shows a concentration in metro Atlanta, with sprinklings in the state�s northeast and northwest. The League of the South, described as neo-Confederate, and The Council of Conservative Citizens, deemed white nationalist, operate on the periphery of the North Fulton suburbs.

�Are blacks becoming more hostile to whites?� inquires a recent entry posted on a link to The Council of Conservative Citizens homepage. �The success of the Obama campaign may be emboldening blacks to be aggressive to us on a national scale.�

Naturally, there isn�t an African-American in sight as Kimberly and her father trudge past the makeshift gate of fallen logs into a hollow that looks as if it�s been clawed out of the Appalachians. Then again, short of a visitor�s nudging and probing, the subject of race and presidential politics doesn�t immediately enter the banter as 30-odd people arrive for barbecued chicken and ribs, assuming the coals stay dry.

As two young men in fatigues take visitors� names and license plates, however, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary bash. The sharp reports of bullets make Kimberly cover her ears.

�Libertarians, gun nuts, conspiracy theorists, leftovers from the militias, and yes, some who are petrified by Obama and what he represents. That�s the group we�ve got here,� says Mack Reynolds, a rare coin dealer. �We stay in touch by computer, fax and shortwave radio and have a little get-together every month. I�d say that 95 percent of them are good, honest, hardworking people.�

Down a worn path through the brush, uniformed men, some with protruding bellies, others with faces painted green and black, crouched in wet grass as they practiced reconnaissance, ambushes and self-defense. As they attempted an obstacle course, their grunts and groans brought smirks to the faces of some of the women.

�They�re practicing military maneuvers which, evidently, many of them have forgotten,� says Reynolds, smiling himself as he turns over a slab of pork.

Toting Kimberly over a patch of mud, Stevenson introduces a retired North Fulton County firefighter, here for the first time, to the regulars.

Stevenson doesn�t let on that he likens Obama�s election to the apocalypse, but asks the first-timer to hold forth on the candidate.

�Obama caught my eye at the beginning,� the man, identifying himself as Kenneth, says. �He seemed to be a bright, young fellow with something going on.�

However, Kenneth was ultimately put off by revelations that Obama was a longtime worshipper at a church whose pastor charged the U.S. government with complicity in the the September 11th attacks and blamed whites for the AIDS and crack cocaine epidemics, among other tragedies that affected African-Americans.

�He shot himself in the foot with me when his true colors came out,� Kenneth says. �He strikes me as a reverse racist.�

Although fear may have brought everyone together, even those with the darkest views of the future seemed to have fun for a while, including Stevenson, who frolicked with his daughter in the soaked ground. Once the pleasantries subside and the grill fizzles in a gathering like this one, however, the sense of acute alienation, evidenced by theories that government seeks tyrannical control over its citizens and will crush any who resist, becomes clear.

But does that mean there�s an assassin or terrorist on the grounds?

Like other speakers over the course of several hours, Reynolds urges the crowd to obey the law and vote � �for Obama,� he says, getting a roar.

Kimberly, again looking mystified, exchanges a glance with her father.

�We should remember to be law abiding,� Reynolds goes on, �but we will remember that what they won�t allow at the ballot box can be won at the bullet box.�

He halts a moment and says, �Keep your powder dry.�

Here are a few points I take away from this piece:

1. It was published in a Conservative newspaper owned by a http://newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?city=ROSWELL&st=GA&last=Fredericks&first=John">Republican.

2. Under a Republican administration, the secret service took responsibility for Obama's safety obviously based on real or implied threats.

3. Federal, state and local watchdog organizations that track racist cells have issued numerous terror alerts as of May, 2008.

(Full disclosure: I wrote four articles for this paper as the Democratic half of a "Debate" Column in 2006. The feature was canceled after ~~local Republicans complained~~ it was determined they no longer had the budget for the extra page.)