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Obsession: Separatists, Supremacists and HatemongersBy Tom GellerBe sure to see the related sidebar on:Let's face it: the force that keeps people from expressing unpopular opinions is fear. Not altruism, not reason, not community spirit; it's the fear that they'll get their faces punched in that keeps most racists, gay-bashers and others with fringe opinions from expressing their hatred openly. But in the cyberworld, this fear is removed, as the angry mob that you're attacking is dissipated throughout the globe -- and usually thousands of miles away. As long as you've not listed any personal information in your signature (such as a phone number), the worst retribution you have to fear is a flood of hate mail. But even that is easy to avoid: anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of UNIX can insert a fake "Sent from" address in offensive postings, or they can be made through the popular anonymous posting service (for info, write help@anon.penet.fi). In either case, the poster has an electronic "soapbox" through which anything can be said -- without fear of dissent or retaliation. So what is said? Plenty. And a lot of it isn't pretty.
Nasty NewsgroupsIt's easy to post untraceable messages to Usenet newsgroups; it takes quite a bit of technical knowledge to set up a newsgroup yourself. As a result, there are only a few openly racist and anti-gay areas among the 10,000+ newsgroups. A search for "hate" retrieves only list.unix-haters, "anti" selects irrelevant groups (mostly about antiques), and "race" comes up empty. Groups that have made it on, however, include alt.politics.nationalism.white, alt.politics.white-power, alt.revisionism and alt.revolution.counter.In lieu of specific newsgroups for supremacists, vicious messages are liberally salted throughout the groups, with the worst of the bile being borne by those concerned with religion and progressive issues. Of 50 message threads on alt.christnet, for example, more than ten of them were concerned with the "sinfulness" of homosexuality. talk.rape and alt.feminism are regularly visited by misogynists looking to shake things up with statements like "women deserve to be raped" and "women who have abortions deserve to die." And every now and again, the gay group soc.motss (motss = "Members Of The Same Sex") is the playing field for threatening and abusive talk, often cross-posted from religious groups.
Expelling the Jews and the Heathens, Once AgainIt takes a good deal more audacity to establish a World Wide Web site than to fire random salvos in newsgroups. Well, members of supremacist groups are nothing if not headstrong, and the most visible of their sites is the ironically-named Don Black's site, "Stormfront" (http://stormfront.wat.com/stormfront). It's a clearinghouse for information on the philosophies of White Nationalism (the belief that North America should be reserved for whites), Christian Identity (similar, but for "Christians") and Revisionism (whose proponents revisit World War II and reinterpret it in a manner sympathetic to the Nazis).The site is remarkably well done, especially considering the paucity and instability of linked sites: when I first visited it, several of the links refused my connection. But what remains is pretty strong stuff. The Christian Identity section, for example, echoes old saws about Jewish conspiracies to dominate America. Witness a poem by Thelen Paulk (ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/SF/SFA/Preachers_poem) which begins: Preachers of America, don't you understand, We were a Christian Nation, till some envisioned goal,
The World-Wide White-Only WebIn the White Nationalism camp, there is a FAQ (http://stormfront.wat.com/stormfront/whitenat.htm) explaining what white Nationalism is -- and what it isn't. Their purpose, according to the FAQ, is to "avoid exploitation" such as they experience in today's U.S. On this note, they propose that the U.S. become a white-only country, as "We are a majority. We do not have to move back [to Europe]. We can resolve to defend ourselves against this onslaught [of non-white domination]."Throughout these sites, references are found to William Pierce, Chairman of the aforementioned National Alliance and a frequent speaker on why White Nationalism. His writing encapsulates the twin movements of White Nationalism and Christian Identity; in an article on the bombing in Oklahoma City (http://stormfront.wat.com/stormfront/adv-okc.htm), he writes: This may come as a surprise to some citizens, but, believe me, there are many, many Americans who have come to consider the U.S. government their worst enemy.. Foremost among these are the media people themselves -- not just the Jewish media bosses, but all of those who have their snouts in the media trough, including the commentators. And, of course, there are the politicians and the bureaucrats. And the homosexuals and the career women. And the minorities. The Clinton constituency.. They can't imagine why anyone would want to go back to the bad, old days when this was a White country, and men were men, and women were women, and the freaks stayed in the closet, and everyone worked for his living. The Good NewsSo -- has this walk through the dark side of the 'net convinced you that it's a cesspool of all that's wrong with the world? I hope not: because opposition to these anti-progressive ideas is far larger than the factions that represent them.For every slanderous news posting, there are dozens to refute it, whether it appears in alt.transgendered or alt.society.conservatism; for every Stormfront site on the World-Wide Web, there are dozens with resources for anti-racist action. Some good places to start include Spamily's Politics Page (http://www.io.org/~spamily/SocPolEnv.html) and The Progressive Directory (http://www.wald.com). If these resources don't re-ignite your faith in the goodness of humanity, consider this: in preparing this report, it took me more than ten hours to find the examples contained herein, whereas tolerance, decency, and equality greeted me at every turn. Moderation and equality, it seems, are alive and well on the 'net.
This page was last updated on Thursday, January 05, 2012 at 6:17pm CST. All contents copyright 2005 by Tom Geller.
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