Have the Klu Klux Klan been quiet a while?

[Fire Walk With Me]

It seems to me, and I'm asking as I'm unable to recall any recent news items, that the KKK have been rather quiet lately.

Considering that the racist agenda is being carried out by the government itself.

"One and the same"??

I've been wondering about the links between whatever religion Bush buys into, their agenda (racist? Pickles looked quite uncomfortable at the King funeral, really lemon-sucking), and the good old boy's agenda of the "South".

Looking at the thinly-veiled anti-Black actions of the government, I'm wondering if it all ties up together (only excepting the corporate aspect). Perhaps they aren't using law to force African-Americans to the back of the bus or to separate drinking fountains, but the effects of their inactions, both before and after Katrina, are loathsome.

Didn't a 1960s civil-rights criminal get out of jail free last year or so? I posted about it as it was one of those 'lost in the weekend news bin' items.

Adding it up...if the "South" wants another civil war (if they're part of the King George Korporate Kristian Kabal we're seeing), then they certainly have started out by taking names and addresses before acting. And as they're running the government, they are starting out with all of the guns and soldiers and surveillance. Cowards.

And things always go with a continued squeeze, not a smash-bang "we're bad" declaration of war. Civil rights will continue eroding, support for the non-elite will continue to diminish, we can end up in another dust bowl or worse over the next decade without anything resembling a straight-out declaration of war. Maybe they'll round up a certain level of critics/protesters at some point, etc., but get away with it as it doesn't effect everyone equally, at once.

Just rambling, what do you think about the next decade? Instant ugly, or a continual squeeze into The Company Store? (Not that Exxon etc. aren't already living The Company Store.)

(BTW, the other side of this is beautiful.. As our needs as people remain not only unmet, but stolen, by the government we'd hoped to elect, we will turn toward methods of helping ourselves, and analyzing exactly what we need as people to be happy, and how to attain them for everyone. The Nurses in California, hot off of the Arnold campaigns, are looking into health care, etc. It's all good, and will continue past the coming crisis with the BushCo agenda, which is inevitable, as they obviously are shooting for themselves to be the only ones in power, and for the rest of us to make great pets.)

Ramble off.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. The KKK is unnecessary; we have the Republican Party...

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. That's what I'm asking. "One and the same", literally?

A special interest group remaining quiet would indicate some satisfaction of their agenda, current or upcoming.

[benburch]

5. At times they are one in the same...

look at the state government of Indiana for much of the 20th century!

Right now, though, they are simply an interest group served by the GOP in return for votes and money, and who will be cast aside as soon as expedience requires it.

[Punkingal]

3. I have always thought...

Most all of the southern Republican Senators look like Grand Wizards, especially Trent Lott.

[lvx35]

4. have they?

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18099420%255E2703,00.html

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. Ah, so... Thanks for that. We'll be seeing more of the same, I'll bet.

[Maddy McCall]

6. That was Edgar Ray Killen...

who killed the Philadelphia three. Edit to add: He wasn't "let off." He was let out of jail while his appeal is considered. Don't you think that his conviction, by Mississippi jurors, speaks volumes for the fact that Mississippi doesn't tolerate violence against minorities?

Actually, the KKK is dead in the south. There are sporadic organizations, but the membership of each is either single-digit or in the teens. Funny story: the kluckers marched in my hometown a couple of years ago--all six of them. EVERYONE who turned up to watch the march did so to protest them. Even funnier--when the march was over, one of the kluckers got in his truck and it wouldn't start, so a black cop jumped him off--as the huge crowd ridiculed him.

Why are you ripping "the South" for "wanting another civil war?" That's just insane--I know NO ONE who wants another civil war.

Also, race-hate groups exist ALL over the United States, as do Bush voters.

[Fire Walk With Me]

9. Thanks, that was him. Nothing was done to right this recent wrong,

was there? Odd. Who got him off and why?

And the "South", per Union/Confederacy dynamic. Which can be fulfilled across America, as you'd mentioned. The sentiment is the same, and just as ugly. They kept people as pets, Bush treats people as pets.

[Maddy McCall]

11. Read my edit.

You must have been replying while I was editing.

Killen was released until his appeal is finished. What'll happen is that his appeal will be turned down (I attended the whole trial--can't think of any reason that his appeal would be successful), and he'll be sent to prison to live out the rest of his life.

He's an old fucker, but he's physically fit, even though he was wheeled into and out of the courthouse every day during the trial, and even though he had an oxygen tank with him...it was all an act. I talked to people in the courthouse who had seen him push-mowing his yard the week before the trial.

He's an arrogant old fuck, and he'll get what's coming to him.

[babylonsister]

8. My answer is short and rambling.

Your KKK stuff sucks. Otherwise, I think your passion is wonderful!

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. Okay, glad that there is no racism in America anymore.

I'd missed the update ;-)

[raysr]

12. What about the church burnings,

sounds like the klan to me. Bush has already turned the clock back 40 years.

[Maddy McCall]

13. Nah...

I don't think so. Like I said before, the Klan is dead in the south. One church-burning asshole does not the Klan make.

Another question, though. Why would the Klan burn white churches? The overwhelming majority of the recent churches burned in Alabama were white churches.

The Klan of today is NOT the Klan of yesteryear. Today, there are very few Klan groups in the south, and their membership numbers are very, very low.

The groups to fear these days are the "Council of Conservative Citizens," and other groups modeled after the old "White Citizens Councils. Their form of racism can be found nationwide, and it's more about removing access to economic equality than it is about violent retribution for whatever imaginary infraction the Klan used to punish blacks for. Look at the push for poll taxes, voter ID, and to end affirmative action. You are seeing the "new," covert racism, and it all is grounded in the 1950s-originated White Citizens Council.

[RoyGBiv]

14. The KKK is an archetype ...

It is also a distraction, particularly when this stuff is blamed on the KKK. Initially, aside from Muslim groups, the OKC bombings were blamed on the KKK, and as counter-intuitive as it sounds, people breathed a collective sigh of relief at the thought ... oh, them. Nothing serious ... the modern KKK barely even exists as an actually organization. Far more nefarious groups do exist and a perfectly happy letting the KKK take the fall.

The bastards pulling off this shit today could teach the Klan about terror.

[TheWraith]

15. True. The Klan doesn't really exist anymore.

They long ago shattered into a handful of splinter organizations, none of whom have much operational capacity.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tom Bombadil]

17. You clearly haven't

spent much time at DU if you think we all agree with each other. There is a huge amount of disagreement around here.