The Politics of the Personal: Over the Edge

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



The Politics of the Personal: Over the Edge
Submitted by David Neiwert on November 12, 2007 - 11:30am.


Part 3 of a five-part series.

One of the other things about growing up in a place like Idaho is that, yes Virginia, there are racists. Neo-Nazis. White supremacists. Conspiracy-mongering survivalists. Militiamen.

You name it, we’ve got ‘em. Not very many of ‘em, mind you. Their numbers are really quite small, but they’ve been coming in numbers (mostly from California and Arizona) large enough to shift the political demographics in the state. And they come because the nearly all-white cultural landscape is a comfortable one.

Whatever name you want to give them, they all fit the description of being genuine American proto-fascists. Some of them -- the Aryan Nations folks in particular -- are quite unapologetic about it. Others, like the militiamen, are specifically geared, strategically speaking, to make inroads into the mainstream, and so they do their utmost to disguise it -- but inevitably it emerges, when you probe just a little into the belief systems they promote.

Idaho’s national image has taken a real beating as a haven for racists because of these folks, and for the most part the image is a gross distortion of the reality. Most Idahoans are deeply embarrassed by them and will find nearly anything else to talk about – as I say, they really are only a tiny faction, and most people think it’s unfair to judge the rest of the state by them, which is fair enough as far as it goes. What they seem slow to acknowledge is that the presence of such people poses special challenges that can’t be dealt with by running away from them.

I’ve had some personal experience with this. When I was the editor the Daily Bee up in Sandpoint in the late 1970s, we were faced with the tough decision of how to handle the increasing visibility of Richard Butler’s neo-Nazi Church of Jesus Christ Christian, based at the Aryan Nations compound some 30 miles down the road in Hayden Lake. After much hand-wringing, we decided it was best not to give them any coverage, since publicity was what they craved, and it would only encourage their radicalism.

What we didn’t understand was that the silence was (as it always is with hyper-nationalistic hate groups) interpreted as consent. And so, over the next several years, the Idaho Panhandle was inundated with a spate of hate crimes -- enough so that Idaho became one of the first states to pass a bias-crime law -- as well as a flood of extraordinary violence, ranging from the multi-state rampage of murder and robbery by the neo-Nazi sect called The Order to the pipe-bombing campaigns planned by their successors. All of these acts emanated from the Aryan Nations.

By then I had moved on to other papers, but the Bee changed its policies vis a vis the Aryan Nations in fairly short order, as did most other newsrooms in the area that had taken similar approaches. I certainly never forgot the mistake.

In the ensuing years, I had various occasions to deal with these extremists as a journalist, especially in the 1990s when I began writing about the “Christian Patriot” movement, better known in the media as the “militia movement.” During that time, I had the chance to meet and talk with a substantial number of these far-right True Believers, and it was eye-opening. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/politics_personal_over_edge?tx=3

[murielm99]

1. Thanks for posting this.

I printed it, and I am going to pass it around to friends and family.

I'm trying to remember another time in history like this one, where the extreme became so acceptable. I think McCarthy was stopped more quickly. I don't know about the red scare, because I was not alive then.