Thread: Propaganda from the ADL.

Propaganda from the ADL.

Klan growing, fed by anti-immigrant feelings, report says
POSTED: 11:31 a.m. EST, February 6, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Ku Klux Klan has rebounded by exploiting current hot-button issues, especially immigration, according to a new report released by the Anti-Defamation League.

The Klan, and other white supremacist groups like skinheads and neo-Nazis, grew significantly more active in the past year, holding more rallies, distributing leaflets and increasing their presence on the Internet -- much of it focused on stirring anti-immigrant sentiment, according to the report.

"Extremist groups are good at seizing on whatever the hot button is of the day and twisting the message to get new members," Deborah M. Lauter, ADL Civil Rights director, said Monday. "This one seems to be taking hold with more of mainstream America than we'd like to see."

"Klan groups have witnessed a surprising and troubling resurgence by exploiting fears of an immigration explosion, and the debate over immigration has, in turn, helped to fuel an increase in Klan activity, with new groups sprouting in parts of the country that have not seen much activity," Lauter said.

Old Klan chapters have been revived and new ones started throughout the South, historically the heart of the group, and in other places such as Michigan, Iowa and New Jersey, says the report.

Last May in Alabama, an anti-immigration rally included slogans such as, "Let's get rid of the Mexicans!" according to the document, titled "Ku Klux Klan Rebounds."

"The Klan is increasingly cooperating with other extremist groups and Neo-Nazi groups," Lauter said. "That's a new phenomenon."

Between 2000 and 2005, hate groups mushroomed 33 percent and Klan chapters by 63 percent, according to Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes.

Precise data are difficult to pin down, but Potok's group counts as many as 150 Klan chapters with up to 8,000 members nationwide. More than 800 hate groups exist around the country, Southern Poverty research shows.

Hate groups were fading in 1990s

(Hate groups are groups that the ADL and the SPLC disagree with. This is why stopping "Hate Crimes" legislation is so important.

In the late 1990s, memberships in such groups was crumbling as they lost leaders and struggled to organize, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. Many hit bottom around 2000.

"Whenever you think the Klan is down and out, they find another way to reinvent themselves," he said of the recent resurgence.

Historically, the Klan's focus had been to terrorize African-Americans -- through race riots, lynchings and other killings -- but it reached peak membership at more than 4 million in the 1920s by focusing on immigration.

Newcomers from Ireland and Germany were portrayed as Catholic usurpers invading the United States, taking jobs from native-born Americans and undermining national fabric, Levin said.

Said Potok: "It's remarkable to look back at the nativist sentiments toward Catholics -- it's very similar to what we're seeing with Mexicans now."

Today, many white supremacists blame immigrants, particularly Hispanics, for crime, struggling schools or unemployment, for instance. With many Americans already divided on how to revamp laws and practices to address the nation's swelling immigrant communities, immigration "is an issue that works for hate groups," Potok said.

A burning cross on the front lawn
Many Latinos are feeling the effects firsthand. Last September, a Kentucky family originally from El Salvador found a wooden cross burning on their front lawn just weeks after they moved in.

Earlier last year, a Latino teenager in Houston was brutally beaten and sodomized while one attacker screamed "White Power!" The victim barely survived, and one attacker was sentenced to life in prison.

"I've been doing [Hispanic advocacy work] for a long, long time and the atmosphere has never been as poisonous as it has been in the last few years," said Lisa Navarrete, a vice president at the National Council of La Raza. "The level of vitriol is new."

Increasingly, fear permeates many Hispanic communities as individuals and businesses are targeted. Last year, La Raza held a workshop at its annual convention titled "Keeping Our Institutions Safe."

"It was very well attended, unfortunately," Navarrete said.



http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/06/klan.r ... index.html

Wonderful. As if LULAC, La Raza, and MEChA weren't bad enough. Now the Klan. That does not help the movement against illegal immigrants at all. Of course, La Raza will never acknowledge the fact that hispanic hate groups exist in the US, as well.

Wow! And again the ADL fails to mention all of the new anti-semitism sweeping the nation in the ranks of the millions of illegal aliens.

The KKK is almost non existent these days and while they may be growing in response to illegal immigration, it is clear that the ADL wants people to think that opposing illegal immigration makes you like the KKK.

Evil game the ADL is playing. That is why I, like many other Americans, no longer rush to save the flock when these little boys cry racist wolf!

By trying to associate illegal immigration with racial sensitivity, the ADL and others are diminishing public concern about race issues.

They are stretching that card too far!

W

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

it is clear that the ADL wants people to think that opposing illegal immigration makes you like the KKK.

They are stretching that card too far!

W

My take on it exactly!

Newcomers from Ireland and Germany were portrayed as Catholic usurpers invading the United States, taking jobs from native-born Americans and undermining national fabric, Levin said.

Said Potok: "It's remarkable to look back at the nativist sentiments toward Catholics -- it's very similar to what we're seeing with Mexicans now."

There is nothing similar about it. The newcomers from Ireland and Germany were legal. They never screamed in our faces to !get out! of our country as they were coming in. Nor did they claim the USA was stolen from them or have an agenda to run us over then run our country or demand we erase our borders. They assimilated and become part of our melting pot, big difference!

I never approved of the KKK, they've always scared me, scared me especially for my son-in-law and black grandchildren. I heard there was an active group of them in Indiana years ago and talked my daugher into not moving there. But I disapprove of LULAC, La Raza and MEChA even more because they hate all gringos, they make the KKK look like kitty cats. But I knew this was coming, I truly believe this is exactly what the powerful want to happen. They want anarchy, chaos, rioting and revolution so martial law can being.