The Ku Klux Klan is Growing Again. Great!

[leftyladyfrommo]

As a response to the immegration issue. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/06/klan.report.ap/index.html

It just seems like the Klan will never die. And the report on CNN is saying that other White Supremist organizations are doing well membershipwise as well.

Funny, I was just thinking about this. We still have a lot of really racist people here in the midwest. There isn't overt racism much anymore. People know better. But underneath the feelings are still very strong against certain things: like immigration problems - I've been hearing a lot about that lately. And interracial dating and marriage is still a really hot topic here. Oh, and bad feelings toward certain racial groups because people feel like they get unfair access to all kinds of social programs. I hear a lot about that one.

[HughBeaumont]

1. The Era Of Bewsh is all about dumbing down, meanness and hatred.

Continuous war. Racial Profiling. Demonizing foreign peoples. Gay-bashing. Hate groups proliferating again. Popular television and musical content at an all-time low. Mean spirited humor. Commercials about a laid-off robot on the road to ruin and suicide being passed off as humor. More money for war war war and not enough money for health care.

Once the Fucktard In Cheat stole the office in 2000, it ushered in an era of corporate-elite-favoring, "I got mine and fuck you" way of life. People stopped smiling, started worrying and haven't stopped since.

[TlalocW]

2. Membership ebbs and flows

Racism will never totally go away. When times get tough economically, certain people are going to look for scapegoats (other races) instead of the real cause (Bush in this case), and they're going to join up with like-minded people. In 1991, I was a senior in high school, and my senior research project was why white supremacist memberships had been growing in the last few years (pre-1991), and if you think back, the economy hadn't been that great back then either.

I've made the argument against my conservative friends that as much as they want things to change (abortion, crime, etc.) based on America suddenly getting spiritual, how well the economy does is more likely to have an effect - under Clinton, we had a good economy - it allowed us to put more cops on the street, and real unemployment went down - resulting in the ability to prevent and respond to crime (cops) and less of a need to commit crime (low unemployment). Teen pregnancy and abortion rates also went down considerably. I maintain that reasons related to the economy can be given credit - 1. The low unemployment rate meant more jobs for teens, keeping them busy. 2. Educational opportunities were greater due to our being able to fund them, and it's possible that given these opportunities, teens didn't want to mess up what looked like a good future by getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant and either abstained or used birth control, which they could afford thanks to their jobs and 3. Funding programs like Midnight Basketball where the participants had to learn skills like how to make a resume, handle oneself in an interview, etc. to participate helped out with people that might have fallen through the cracks if there had been no programs.

If my line of thinking is even somewhat valid, that would explain why membership is spiking during the Bush years and didn't during Clinton. Sure, Bubba is going to not like seeing a white woman out with a black guy, but if he's on his way to a good job in a nice pick-up truck that he's able to afford the payments on and is looking forward to watching the big game on his new TV, it's going to be a lot harder to get him pissed off enough to join a white supremacist group.

TlalocW

[Kingshakabobo]

3. Just wait till the Dems are totally in control after 2008.....

The wackos will feel totally disenfranchised when then don't have their own mass murderer(s) running the show.

Look out - federal buildings, gay bars, and abortion clinics etc.

[nam78_two]

4. ...

:kick:

[BayCityProgressive]

5. I am a member of various

progressive and socialist groups...Far right wing and left wing groups are growing..I know some of the socialist groups I have worked with have experienced rapid growth as well. I think th elines are really beggining to be drawn in the sand in this country...

[nam78_two]

6. I read something about that on the SPLC web-site

Its frightening...

[jsamuel]

7. This is a problem (xenophobia) when people (Dobbs) with a few valid points take it too far and don't

qualify what they are saying. Some things Dobbs says is true, but a lot is bull and is causing fear and inaccuracies to flourish.

[leftyladyfrommo]

8. It's kind of like the disenfranchised need someone to blame

for all their woes.

Right now its easy to blame the illegals - even tho our economy would really flounder without their labor.

But the underlying racism really bothers me - its so hard to tell who really believes what because they have learned to be silent.

I would rather people were open about it just so I knew right where they stood on these issues.