Saturday, May 22, 2010

Ku Klux Klan (Tea Parties?)

The history channel had an excellent two hour program on the Klan yesterday. As the website below suggests, it went through a series of ups and downs and is still around: "The first Klan was founded in 1865 in Tennessee by veterans of the Confederate Army."

The original Klan was Protestant, anti-liberated slaves, Jews, and Catholics. Initially it was not violent but increasingly became so in some of its later versions. It would usually fade when leaders were found to have been stealing Klan funds or abusing young women. But it existed in every state in the U.S. in the early 1920s and had a 300,000 woman's unit with their own uniforms. (The grandfather for whom I am named opposed it in Hanover, NH.)

The scary thing about the Klan is that its racism (Catholics now can join) is so persistent -- Rand? And there are apparently now small armies training themselves with military stuff to stop the U.S. government from governing.

"On November 14, 2008, an all-white jury of seven men and seven women awarded $1.5 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages to plaintiff Jordan Gruver, represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center against the Imperial Klans of America.[113] The ruling found that five IKA members had savagely beaten Gruver, then 16 years old, at a Kentucky county fair in July 2006.[114]

"Current Klan splinter divisions have grown substantially since the 2008 election of U.S. President Barack Obama, the first African-American to hold the office;[116][117] The Klan has expanded its recruitment efforts to white supremacists at the international level.[118] Current membership estimates by the ADL hold at a national estimate of five thousand.[119] The SPLC continues to heavily monitor Klan activities."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]

1 Comments:

Blogger Belle said...

I just say a video on Facebook that said the Klan was first started by Democrats who didn't want slavery to stop and who voted against every civil rights bill. This was said by a Republican who intimated it was only the Republicans who helped the newly freed slaves. I don't know if any of this is true, but if it is then the Republicans and Democrats have each flipped to the opposite side of the question.
It is a terrible shame how some people have acted because our beloved President is African-American. I look at the tea-baggers and just see crazy people.

1:50 AM  

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