Tuesday, June 12, 2007

The haters and Obama

-- by Dave

The outpouring of right-wing bile regarding Barack Obama and his presidential candidacy has probably already played a role in the Secret Service security detail he's already been given.

Unsurprisingly, the even more poisonous versions of that bile are inspiring white supremacists as well.

Fox News Chicago on Monday ran a report on the startling increase in hate groups across America that featured an interview with Ray Larsen, whose real name is Railston Loy (see more here on that), the Grand Wizard of the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan International. In it, Loy said this regarding Obama:
Well, I'm not going to have to worry about him, because somebody else down South is going to take him out. ... If that man is elected president, he’ll be shot sure as hell.

It's difficult to say how seriously the warning should be taken -- Klansmen have largely been all hood and no cattle for some time now. At the same time, as the story notes, it only takes one of these characters deciding to take action that can have devastating consequences.

It's also worth noting that Loy ascribes the recent spike in white-supremacist recruitment and activity to the immigration debate. Longtime readers of this blog, of course, are well aware that I've been observing that immigration has become a major recruitment tool for hate groups for the past couple of years. Loy's remark is not exactly confirmation, but it certainly is a bit of substantiating evidence.

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