S.P.L.C. Intelligence Report

[H2O Man]

The Southern Poverty Law Center's fall edition of Intelligence Report has fascinating reports on the extreme right wing of the republican party. In "God's Own Spoilers," Bob Moser details some of the "teachings" that Bush is too liberal and has sold out the right. (!) They wanted Judge Roy Moore to run for president this year. The report has plenty of other great articles about the relationship between some of our moral leaders in the republican parties and the hate groups they court. See the SPLC's web sites at: www.intelligenceproject.org ; ww.splcenter.org ; www.tolerance.org ; and www.teachingtolerance.org .

[murielm99]

1. Thank you.

I was there just yesterday.

Someone here had posted about the Christian Identity movement.

SPLC has info on them, of course.

[H2O Man]

3. That's great ...

that you were at their site! They do a great job monitoring the various hate groups, and an even better job of educating children on tolerance. They just sent me their film "Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks." I watched it with my 10-year old daughter, and now she has a new hero and role model. I'll make copies of the film for local schools.

[murielm99]

8. My brother made me aware of them several years ago.

He has them as a beneficiary in his will.

We were having some skinhead problems in our community when I was the librarian here. I did not feel that our school district was handling it adequately, so I made quite a bit of noise about it.

I even contacted people in Billings, Montana, about how they had handled their problem there a few years ago. Their story became quite famous. Then, on my brother's advice, I used the resources of SPLC.

I found out that we had a junior gang of skinhead wannabees in our town, and a family of Klansmen. This is in Northern Illinois! And the kids were beating up on other kids who had interracial groups of friends. The skinheads had even called the sheriff and made claims that the other kids had weapons, so their cars were searched.

I bought copies of a children's book about the Billings story, and I donated them to all the school libraries in town. I wrote letters to the newspaper, and helped organize a town meeting. We had the city council, the police, the school board and principal there. At the meeting, quite a few parents and kids spoke out about what was happening in town.

Since I was the one who started the noisemaking, I had to give a speech, too, and I was quite nervous.

We got agreements from the school personnel about banning unacceptable insignia and clothing at school. We got the principal to put all the books about Nazi Germany in a section that was available by request only. (That is a tough thing for a librarian to do, but it had become an issue. I did not do this at the public library, but I kept a close watch on skinhead behavior in the library).

We got the police to be more aware of the situation, and to behave more sensitively. Our police chief was actually very well trained on such matters, and was very cooperative with the community.

I thought our high school principal was the only one who remained somewhat boneheaded about the situation, but most of the teachers responded well.

My kids were in school here at that time. I have a big mouth, so I got quite a bit of newspaper publicity. They were worried that our house would end up with swastikas painted all over it, but nothing happened beyond a few prank phone calls. Believe me, the police responded well. The sheriff's policeman who investigated had been at the meeting, and he could not do enough for me.

This was a community effort. This community would not have gotten behind the effort and handled things so successfully without the help of Teaching Tolerance.

We have a good police department here, too. We are a rural community, and have different problems than urban areas. And we have sheriffs for the country, and police in town who have to work together. After these incidents, our police chief ran some workshops about how rural gangs operate. So far, we have been able to keep the gangs out of our community.

All this was about eight years ago. I am not working in the community now, and my children are adults. But we seem to have healed since then.

[H2O Man]

10. My nephew was assaulted

by a skinhead-type gang years ago. He had led his highschool basketball team to a state title, and was getting a lot of media attention. The gang didn't like a brown-skinned person getting the attention. A group of 16 men assaulted him in a dark parking lot, and left him for dead. He lived, but has lost the hearing in one ear, and had damage to the muscles in his neck and shoulder. He was unabled to take advantage of the sports scholarships he had won.(He has graduated from college, and works with youth.)

It makes a huge difference for a family to have the support of outside people and groups at these times. Because you don't necessarily get it from "the system." The gang leader, who kicked and punched my unconscious nephew a dozen times as he laid on the ground, was fined $50 by the court, for having an open beer at the time of the assault.

[merh]

2. Interesting links, thanks for posting these.

The article on the CCC is so depressing as it discussing my state's representatives and gov. How sad!

And to think, * was too liberal for the right! How :scared: is that!

[H2O Man]

4. Hi, Merh!

"The extreme right was furious with Bush for invading Iraq, holding a Ramadan service in the White House, proposing amnesty for illegal immigrants, appointing 'sodomites' to federal posts, running up the national dept, and allowing the assault-weapons ban to stand."

I think that SPLC does a heck of a job keeping track of these groups.

[merh]

6. How are you doing H2O? I hope all is well with you & yours.

I am going to put these links in my favorites, I definitely want to keep up with the SPLC since it has done such a fine job of keeping up with the special interests of my elected officials. I will be sharing this site with many folks. :hi: Thanks again.

[hippiechick]

5. We should advise them to write Roy Moore in for Prez ...

Yeah, that'll get him elected (snicker)

Anything to detract votes from Cokeboy, at this point.


:hippie:

[H2O Man]

7. I think that a number of people

have been doing exactly that. The group that was trying to get him to run has 340,000 members, and while that is a bad thing, it'd be great if they did write-in the their judge Roy Moore.

[bobbieinok]

9. M Dees was on many TV programs after the OKC bombing

He's always been a target of hate group members, but apparently his getting more intense national attention really freaked out many.

Some time afterward (a year?) he spoke in Tulsa; I heard he was heavily protected and people going to hear him speak were carefully checked.

[H2O Man]

11. He's a brave man.

It takes great courage to face hatred and evil, and he does it every day. Darkness hates the light.