I don't think it is just wrong when white folks do it. Which doesn't excuse it if white folks do it. I haven't seen the CAIR ads yet, but when I do I'm sure they'll be criticized, as CAIR frequently is.
Posted on 02/13/2005 9:07:36 AM PST by SJackson
St. Louis -- White-supremacist groups around the country are moving aggressively to recruit new members by promoting their violent, racist ideologies on billboards, in radio commercials and in leaflets tossed on suburban driveways.
Watching with mounting alarm, civil rights monitors say these tactics stake out a much bolder, more public role for many hate groups, which are trying to shed their image as shadowy extremists and claim more mainstream support.
Watchdog groups fear increased violence from these organizations as they grow. But perhaps an even greater fear is that the new public relations strategy will let neo-Nazis recast themselves as just another voice on the political spectrum -- even when that voice might be advocating genocide.
"The concern is that this will bring them new members and money, and that they will get some real traction in mainstream politics," said Mark Potok, who tracks hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center. "We are completely in favor of the First Amendment. (But) they poison the public discourse with ideas like 'Jews are behind it all and need killing.' "
The National Alliance, which calls for ridding the land of minorities, has led the drive to raise the profile of white supremacists.
The local chapter spent $1,500 on MetroLink ads in St. Louis last month, plastering nearly every commuter train car in the city with a blue-and-white placard declaring "The Future belongs to us!" and listing the group's Web site and phone number. The same chapter bought airtime on local talk radio last fall, urging whites to unite and fight for the survival of "white America."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Chanan Tigay
Special to the Jewish Times
Jewish officials are angered by the use of a Web site to create online hate
communities, but they are taking different approaches on how to confront the issue. Orkut.com is one of several social-networking services available on the Internet.
Created and run by Google, it offers users the opportunity to join communities where topics of shared interest are discussed.
In addition to groups celebrating the rap artist Eminem, tequila or McDonald's, for example, some users have developed groups for people who share a distaste for particular races, ethnic groups or sexual orientations.
One such community, called the "Jewish Problem," asks users: "Why are Jews hated so much? Well here is the place to tell the people why. They own entire industries, the media, and even America itself. They have TOO much 'behind the scenes' influence and it needs to stop now."
The number of people who join the hate communities is relatively small. Whereas the Eminem group has 45,308 members, the Jewish Problem -- whose logo is a stick figure throwing a Star of David into a trash can -- has 14 members.
Brian Marcus, director of Internet monitoring for the Anti-Defamation League, said the organization plans to call Google about the Orkut hate communities. But he also said that singling out Google, the Internet's most popular search engine, when so much hate speech is available elsewhere on the Internet is not necessarily productive.
"Looking at the broad world of hate on the Internet, focusing on just this small section of it somewhat diminishes the impact of so many other large organized Web sites" supporting "hate groups and even terrorist groups that are using the Internet," Marcus said.
But David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, said such instances of hatred must be dealt with one by one.
"What choice do we have?" asked Harris, whose group sent a letter to Google recently demanding that the company enforce its own terms of service, which forbid hate speech.
Lauren Gelman, associate director of Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, said that according to U.S. law, Google would not be held accountable for the behavior of those who use its services. But both Harris and Marcus, like other Jewish officials interviewed for this story, urged the company to enforce its own rules about the proliferation of hate speech through its site.
For its part, Google says that when users violate its service terms "we take the necessary steps, which can include removing the content."
"There are instances when Orkut users misuse it, but it is a very, very small number compared to everyone who uses it," Google spokesman Steve Langdon said. Many of Orkut's hate sites are written in Portuguese. Indeed, a Brazilian prosecutor reportedly has launched an investigation into some of the most troubling communities.
Orkut users must be invited to join the site by another member.
Marc Stern, general counsel for the American Jewish Congress, said the Orkut case highlights the fact that the Internet has rendered old models of responding to hate speech obsolete.
In the past, responses were made "on the assumption that there wasn't a high distribution" of the hate speech "and that it was easily countered by other speech, by exposure," he said. "The trouble with this is that neither of those criteria continues to apply. It's not visible, it's not subject to exposure and it's not easy to counter with your own speech. And so that requires some rethinking."
Last year, after Web users discovered that the anti-Semitic site jewwatch.com showed up in the top position when they searched Google for the word "Jew," an online petition campaign was launched demanding that the company bump the site.
Though Google said it does not tamper with search results, it did post a disclaimer calling the site "disturbing" and explaining how it might have emerged in the top slot, where it remains.
Also in 2004, a French court ordered Yahoo, another Internet search engine, to "dissuade and render impossible" access to Nazi artifacts that had been put up for auction.
But the auction of such memorabilia is legal in the United States and raised the complex issue of whether foreign countries whose laws differ from those in America can sue American-based Internet providers whose content is not limited by borders.
Reversing the decision of a lower court in the case, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. District Court lacked jurisdiction in the matter, essentially leaving the larger issue unresolved.
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
I read the first line, and just KNEW 'Southern Poverty Law Center' was going to appear in the text of the story sooner or later. I wasn't disappointed.
The National Alliance, the topic of the article, is certainly racist. If you're saying there are groups out there that espouse "whiteness" which aren't racists, that's fine, even to us non-whites.
Every once in a while they're right.
Racist groups like the NAACP, Rainbow Coalition, United Negro College Fund, and the DNC have a corner on the market and want to keep their edge on the competition.
Yes, the SPLC and Morris Dees who consider anything to the right of the ACLU a hate group.
IMHO, there are TWO types of extremists that push this vile, racist, neo-nazi bullcrap:
Both groups are despicable.
Wouldn*t it be nice if our government would spend some of our tax dollars solving the problems in America BEFORE trying to solve the problems in the world? Can you imagine how fast our government would act if these idiots were advocating the killing of Muslims? They need to put these groups out of business.
There are also those that benefit from it like the ACLU. It's hard to rank which is worse for society. Emotionally I think all extremist organization should be banned. But practically that is a bucket of snake worse than allowing them to exist. I fear the law of unintended consequences.
Intellectually I think they should be allowed to exist and society should give them a good old fashioned Amish shunning. It's the racebaiters and the ACLU types that give these radicals the access to the media and gives them a voice to a wider audiance.
That's what makes it so profitable, no product costs.
The home based Internet industry has replaced the radio and direct mail fundraising businesses. There's less start up costs, lower overhead and no product costs.
Look for more niche websites like the one that specializes in reposting news accounts of rapes by one particular group on women of another group. If the article doesn't doesn't specify the race of the rapist the website says it has "reason to believe" that the rapist was a _____. The theory being that if the rapist was a white man the article would have said so.
Nothing more than an ADL & SPLC press release to raise money for socialist candidates in 2006 elections, more "hate crime" and gun-banning laws, and shared projects with their NLG & ACLU comrades.
Meanwhile, the biggest threat to Jews worldwide, islam, is unmentioned.
All but unmentioned are the alarming rise in REAL attacks against Jews in EUrope.
Why is this sort of behavior only wrong if white folks do it ?
Name some
SPLC is right every now and then. The group was ultimately responsible for bringing to justice several corrupt jailers and police officers in Sabine County Texas, after a black man was beaten to death in the jail in 1987.
To give (a woman) in marriage.
To give one's loyalty or support to (a cause, for example); adopt.
Seems like, if one "espouse(s) whiteness", then yes, that would make one a racist. If race trumps nationality, their focus is on the wrong thing.
I don't think it is just wrong when white folks do it. Which doesn't excuse it if white folks do it. I haven't seen the CAIR ads yet, but when I do I'm sure they'll be criticized, as CAIR frequently is.
It certainly has expanded beyond exchanges of scientific data, hasn't it.
I advocate genocide. All liberals must die.
And then we make beef jerky out of them.
I do so love beef jerky.
Don't know enough about it...that's why I asked a question.
Regarding #2, original source was LA Times, which requires excerpting.
The internet gives these groups a broad based vehicle to network with like minded people. I don't think it will bring them a massive number of new converts.
Jews Outraged By Google-Run Hate Site
Chanan Tigay
Special to the Jewish Times
Jewish officials are angered by the use of a Web site to create online hate communities, but they are taking different approaches on how to confront the issue. Orkut.com is one of several social-networking services available on the Internet.
Created and run by Google, it offers users the opportunity to join communities where topics of shared interest are discussed.
In addition to groups celebrating the rap artist Eminem, tequila or McDonald's, for example, some users have developed groups for people who share a distaste for particular races, ethnic groups or sexual orientations.
One such community, called the "Jewish Problem," asks users: "Why are Jews hated so much? Well here is the place to tell the people why. They own entire industries, the media, and even America itself. They have TOO much 'behind the scenes' influence and it needs to stop now."
The number of people who join the hate communities is relatively small. Whereas the Eminem group has 45,308 members, the Jewish Problem -- whose logo is a stick figure throwing a Star of David into a trash can -- has 14 members.
And turkey jerky sucks.
Yes, the pluralism idea is running wild. Should there be limits to expression anyway?
I can imagine TOFU jerky.
Why is this (bold print) hate speech when "white supremacists" say it but not when Islamists say it?
___________________________________________________
Excellent point! I despise these Aryan nation type groups, but frankly, islam is more widespread, more accepted, better funded and is tolerated and even supported by the left and its well-funded institutions.
And the message is the SAME.
Ditto for the Nation of Islam. Why is it that white hate groups are censured but black and islamic ones can spill the same jew hatred word for word and we hear no or little objections from the insipid left.
3. Those who don't believe it, but push it anyways to further to concept of "class struggle". Pitting Americans against each other to illuminate a percieved wrong and widen the dependence on the state.
Yes, but lines must be drawn at encouraging people to maim and murder others. And our laws already take care of this, so no new govt intrusion is required. I just wish they were enforced, especially when it comes to certain mosques, where PC sentiments have put us all in danger.
Our gov't is far from collapsing through pluralism like the Weimar Republic. German reaction to pluralism was extreme, and we might consider whether moderation of pluralism as in Europe is in the spirit of America.
You're right. the logical next step in this is to associate neo-nazis with Republicans. Its an old Clintonista tactic. Get the minorities scared.
Where is the outcry of Communists recasting themselves as just another (liberal Democrat) voice on the political spectrum. Communism, during WWII, after and continuing, has slaughtered tens of millions more than Nazis ever did, yet they are accepted and tolerated with deference. Go figure.
Meanwhile, assorted other racial groups are free to spew their message of racial separateness, hatred, and superiority through music, tv, cinema, corporate "diversity training", and academia.
Any group that espouses "racial pride" will not go far in life. Ever notice how those people who take part in ethnic/racial pride political movements tend to be the least successful members of our society. SUCCESSFUL people don't care about such crap.
Willie, you nailed it in post #11.
SPLC..
ugh....
Bingo. Anyone who is proud of the color of his or her skin invariably has nothing else to be proud of.
and Hitler made the trains run on time.
no flame intended.
Of course, they could also join the Irish Republican Army, the Scottish National Party, the Plaid Cymru, the ETA, the Cornish or Breton nationalists, etc. Then they could be "white nationalists" and politically correct at the same time!
White supremacist groups are small, poor and basically impotent and therefor an easy soft target for the media. On the other hand, islam-a-nazis have a current track record of murdering media types that dare to speak the truth about islam. If you want to really see some hate speech get a copy of the koran and sit down and read it. Now there's hate.
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