Thread: Hate groups: Where's the love?

More BS from the Tucson Citizen:
Hate groups: Where's the love?
Despite Obama win, spread of hate groups last year shows racism isn't fading in the U.S.

March 03, 2009, 7:25 a.m.
BILLIE STANTON
Tucson Citizen

With the election of President Obama and the slowed trickle of illegal immigration, you'd think racism would be fading away.

You'd think wrong, though. Hate never sleeps. And it spread like a cancer in 2008, with 926 hate groups active in the United States, up from 888 in 2007, reports the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Project.

Arizona has 19 hate groups, including 10 organizations of neo-Nazis, such as the National Socialist Movement in Cochise County, the SPLC found.

These groups hate Jews, gays, other minorities and sometimes Christians.

Three Arizona groups, such as the Western Hammerskins, qualify as racist skinheads, a particularly violent kind of white supremacists.

Not too surprisingly, the SPLC also has identified 19 "nativist extremist" groups in Arizona - those that target immigrants - in addition to the 19 hate groups.

Tucson has three such groups: the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, the Truth In Action/US Constitution Enforcement and Warden Burns Mexican Flags, the ragtag group that follows Roy Warden.

Still, Arizona doesn't rank among the nation's 20 worst states for hate. California, for example, has 84 hate groups.

New Mexico has only one, the National Socialist Movement.

Arizona also is home to that white-skinned group, whose National Socialist magazine cover in September depicted Obama in the cross hairs with the headline, "Kill This N-----?"

Even black supremacists in the Hebrew Israelite movement despise Obama, calling him a puppet of Israel. But the president is almost an afterthought for these anti-Semites, who preach that "evil Jews" are solely responsible for the recession.

The economy's crash is a large part of the reason for the surge in hate groups, says Mark Potok of the Intelligence Project.

It has spurred deeper animosity toward illegal immigrants, whom many wrongly blame for the mortgage crisis and the recession.

Obama's election and the election failures of anti-immigrant candidates also have wrought more rage, Potok says.

Yet the new SPLC report still seems counterintuitive.

After all, if American voters can elect an African-American president for the first time in history, how racist and hate-riddled can we be?

Very hateful, actually. The enmity and hostility identified by the SPLC don't surprise those of us in the media, whose trash cans and Web comment sections overflow with racist hate comments every week.

Alas, ignorant and insecure Americans still turn to xenophobia, nativism and racism as some bizarre source of comfort for what ails them.

But they're a dangerous and sometimes deadly lot. And that's no comfort to the rest of us.

Reach Billie Stanton at 573-4664 and bstanton@tucsoncitizen.com.

Read All Comments » 7 TOTAL COMMENTS
DonM
16 minutes ago
Incredible! Most of the so-called hate groups you mentioned are small, marginal and not taken seriously by most white people. Their impact is next to nothing.

I noticed you didn't mention La Raza nor NAACP, both virulent hate groups, who do have a significant impact on our society.

Even ACLU and the National Democrat Party, Daily Kos, Huffington Post, etc. are very damaging hate groups. You have a very limited definition of a hate group.
chuckie69
31 minutes ago
We are comparing apples to oranges here. I am a sixties person I remember the HATE groups and what they were capable of Church bombings, Murder of the Civil Rights, Voters Rights, Freedom Riders and the list go's on, with a Verdict of NOT guilty!
What is going on in the United States now is 180 degrees different! President Obama was supported and elected by a majority of America pure and simple. His election is a statement in itself, content of character and intellect, not the color of his skin. He is taking this Nation in a different direction, decent and disagreement should be expected and appreciated it is the American way!

I have so many conflicting thoughts on the over 20 Million Men, Women and the Children living in the United States of America undocumented! In 1986 I helped those who qualified under The Immigration Reform and Control Act, Simpson-Mazzoli legalize their status. I am the child of Immigrants and it was debt of Honor I was happy and willing to pay without question or reservation. To see the look in their faces when they received their provisional green cards is beyond words. Americans were made promises at that time as well there would be Border enforcement and Employer Sanctions by our Federal Government, Teddy Kennedy and Company gutted it, stripped the funding.

Twenty-five plus years, and Fifteen Million later were is Enforcement and Security Americans were promised? As many Americans, I expect laws to be enforced we are a Nation of Laws that defines us the little people any way, not AIG or our Golden Parachute crowd.

Thank you,
wadress
44 minutes ago
why does this surprise you? hate groups are a direct response to the government lying to poor whites by telling them minorities are ruining the country. poor whites have been treated just like minorities, and they just found that to be true. if you are poor, no matter what color, the powers that be dont give a damn about any of us..wake up,its a class struggle, not race struggle..wake up

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/local/111425.php

I just posted to the comment section at source link:

Jeeze Billie, I live in NYC and constantly see Illegal Aliens from all over the world. I want the current immigration laws enforced on each and every group of them deported. Irish, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Eastern Europeans and yes Hispanics. Now please explain to me how I am a racist for desiring law enforcement? Oh and I am of Polish descent and still believe any Poles that entered America illegally should be sent back.

I am also a Union construction worker, have been for 33 years. I see what is happening to our industry by allowing cheap illegal workers to prosper here. My standard of living has been directly impacted. What impact has illegal immigration had on your circumstances? I suspect absolutely NONE.

As a member of alipac I suppose you feel that in and of itself makes me a "Hater' well I call BS!

Pathetic Propaganda!!! The FBI said their is no proof that HATE crimes or groups have risen in the U.S., get a life you are wasting our time.

Those slimeballs at the SPLC are now equating groups like ALIPAC to neo Nazi skinheads? They need to have their azz sued for slander and collecting donations using false information.

The main source of hatred and lies I see these days is coming from groups like the SPLC.

The SPLC can't raise much money fighting the small remnants of the KKK anymore so they are going after the Mexican big donors now and showing they are willing to lie and distort.

W

Insane degrees. What's that called.....a self-fulling prophecy. The real racists and hate groups are causing an environment where they are going to get exactly what they have been falsly accusing people of. Get accused enough and you might as well give them something to complain about. Some assistance to finally understand the difference between, hate and I don't agree with you, hate and I don't like your music, hate and would you just please abide by the same laws that the rest of us do. Right now just bump into someone and it's a hate crime.

Originally Posted by crazybird

Insane degrees. What's that called.....a self-fulling prophecy. The real racists and hate groups are causing an environment where they are going to get exactly what they have been falsly accusing people of.

YES, you are exactly right

Everyone in the Government and media turns a blind eye to the many millions of LaRaza racists, and when the American people complain about the very special treatment for "the bronze race" they are called racists and haters!! It's just like 1984 and Newspeak has come to pass, those fighting against racism are called racists and haters.

That's why the SPLC supports illegal immigration, so that more "hate groups" form, then they use that to increase their illicit donations.

Originally Posted by Bowman

It's just like 1984 and Newspeak has come to pass, those fighting against racism are called racists and haters.

If Orwell had forseen PC's he would have been 100% on target!

A for instance :

The law center's report contends there is a link between anti-immigrant activism and the significant rise in hate crimes against Latinos in recent years. According to the latest FBI statistics, 819 people were victimized by anti-Latino hate crimes in 2006, compared with 595 in 2003.

However, on the same day as the SPLC's report was issued, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) offered this press release:

When examined responsibly, the FBI hate crime data show a dramatically different story than the one the SPLC portrays. First, in order to suggest an artificially large increase in the raw number of hate crimes, the SPLC selects 2003 as its base year, one of lowest years on record for hate crimes against Hispanics. If one compares the number of hate crimes between 1995 (the earliest report available on the FBI's website) and 2006 (the most recent statistical year available), one would see that the number of hate crimes has increased only 17 percent... But even this is not the whole story. The SPLC conveniently forgets to index the raw hate crime data with the population, a step always taken by the FBI to more accurately depict an increase or decrease in crime. Thus, when one indexes a 17 percent increase in hate crimes against Hispanics with a 67 percent increase in the Hispanic population between 1995 and 2006, it becomes clear that the rate of hate crimes against Hispanics has in fact dropped dramatically -- by about 40 percent.

http://24ahead.com/blog/archives/007591.html

Again I wrote another letter to our fine writer:

Billy Stanton
If that is truely your real name. You ought to try and write about another topic. One that you actually know something about. And as far as hate or racist remarks you can read them on Youtube articles as well. And some do not mean squat and probably just from some disgruntled persons with no meaning behind them. Or persons just being mean spirited!

Most of the groups you talk of as "hate groups" are of no threat. You call the many Americans that want our laws of immigration enforced "racists"?

In your words:"Alas, ignorant and insecure Americans still turn to xenophobia, nativism and racism as some bizarre source of comfort for what ails them. "

What really WORRIES ME is people like yourself. Who will let crimes go unpunished by millions of "ILLEGAL ALIENS". And you then try to criticize or tie the hands of our law enforcement officers. Ones that lay down their very lives for your protection.

You really do have the nerve! I think you are the racist as well as immature and out of touch. To not realize what is truely and actually happening in the USA today.

Thank You
Have a Nice Day