Hate Groups

Here's a story about our past and our present. I can't claim that it means a great deal, but this story intrigues me because it involves a certain recurrent pathology. A pathology that, as far as I know, is peculiar to Southern California. It begins with Manzanar, the Japanese-American relocation center that held 10,000 internees during World War II. Several weeks ago, we discussed in this space the likelihood that Manzanar would become a National Historic Site.

Clean or dirty, energy has costs Re "Green won't be easy for Brown," Dec. 2 I was disappointed that the analysis of Jerry Brown's clean-energy plan didn't take into account the costs of doing nothing. For example, most Angelenos probably aren't aware that Los Angeles gets 39% of its electricity from coal-fired power plants in Arizona and Utah. These plants are among the worst stationary sources of pollution in the country, discharging huge amounts of hazardous pollutants, which cause a variety of dangerous health problems.

EBay Inc. said it has begun banning the sale of items that promote hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nation on its online auction site, in response to concerns from many EBay users. Hate group-related items that were already up for sale on the site will not be removed in midauction, a company spokesman said. Listings on EBay typically stay up for about a week before they expire.

Reporting from Hemet and Los Angeles Residents in Hemet have long known that there is a skinhead element in their city. They said they have occasionally seen groups of tattooed young men with shaved heads in combat boots and fatigues protesting against illegal immigration. But authorities now are investigating something far more serious: whether white supremacists are behind a series of attacks on Police Department facilities in the Riverside County city. More than 150 law enforcement officials raided various sites in the area Tuesday, arresting 23 people.

Chapman University on Monday presented its Albert Schweitzer Award of Excellence to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based organization that monitors hate groups. Jim Carnes, director of the Center's Teaching Tolerance Project and editor of Teaching Tolerance magazine, accepted the award in a ceremony on campus. The award is the highest service honor Chapman gives.

The Army announced plans Thursday to tighten its regulations for dealing with extremist activities in its ranks in order to make it easier for officers and sergeants to stop soldiers from wearing hate-group emblems and hanging Nazi flags in their barracks. The move, part of a package of new measures ordered by Secretary of the Army Togo West Jr., followed the recommendations of an emergency panel that studied the situation after two soldiers were charged in the murder of a black couple near Ft.

The Army, shocked by last week's arrest of two openly white-supremacist paratroopers in the murder of a black couple near Ft. Bragg, N.C., launched a new inquiry Tuesday to determine the extent to which soldiers are participating in hate groups. The investigation, to be conducted by the Army inspector general, was announced by Army Secretary Togo D. West Jr. after he conferred with Defense Secretary William J. Perry and Gen. Dennis J. Reimer, the Army chief of staff.

A broad spectrum of civil rights organizations, alarmed by the deadly bombings in the South, has gone on a heightened state of alert amid speculation that hate groups may be responsible for the wave of violence, officials said Tuesday. Representatives of the groups, including the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'Rith and the Center for Democratic Renewal, joined judges and other court employees in taking extra precautions while opening mail and other packages.

Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan suspended one of his campaign co-chairmen on Thursday after learning of charges that the official had appeared at gatherings of militant hate groups. Buchanan put Larry Pratt, president of Gun Owners of America, on leave after a liberal-leaning Washington research group reported that Pratt had spoken at meetings attended by members of the racist Aryan Nation and armed militia groups.

Bowing to pressure from anti-hate activists around the world, online auction site EBay Inc. on Thursday said it will ban the sale of items associated with Nazi Germany, hate groups and murderers. The ban followed a similar move by Internet portal Yahoo Inc., which pulled memorabilia associated with hate groups earlier this year after a storm of controversy and a legal battle.

The economic downturn and the election of the nation's first black president are contributing to a resurgence of right-wing extremist groups, which had been on the wane since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment distributed to state and local authorities last week.

An Oklahoma woman invited to a rural Louisiana campsite for a Ku Klux Klan initiation ritual was shot and killed after she asked to leave, the sheriff of a New Orleans suburb said Tuesday. Eight people were arrested after authorities found the woman's body hidden under some brush several miles from the remote campsite. Investigators found weapons, several flags and six Klan robes at the site, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain said in a news release.

Two white supremacists accused of plotting to assassinate Barack Obama are on lockdown in their Tennessee jail cell for their protection. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Daniel Cowart, 20, and Paul Schlesseman, 18, were separated from other inmates at the request of federal authorities. The men have pleaded not guilty to weapons charges and threatening a presidential candidate.

German authorities carried out raids nationwide at offices and homes of about 100 people as part of an investigation of a youth group accused of indoctrinating children and teenagers with neo-Nazi ideals. The Interior Ministry said there were no arrests but authorities sought evidence against the Homeland-Faithful German Youth, or HDJ, loosely linked to the far-right National Democratic Party. Police confiscated documents, computers, digital storage devices and other objects. "An anti-Semitic and racist tenor can be seen in HDJ publications," the Interior Ministry said after the raids.

Anti-immigrant sentiment is fueling nationwide increases in the number of hate groups and the number of hate crimes targeting Latinos, according to a watchdog group. The Southern Poverty Law Center, in a report being released today titled "The Year in Hate," said it counted 888 hate groups in its latest tally, up from 844 in 2006 and 602 in 2000. The most prominent of the organizations added to the list, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, vehemently rejected the "hate group" label and questioned the law center's motives.

Russian ultranationalists chanting slogans against foreign immigrants and Jews marched through a deserted area of the capital Sunday in a carefully controlled display that managed to avoid the violence and arrests of last year's National Unity Day observance.

The Anti-Defamation League has launched an online database of extremist symbols, allowing users to scan a menu of racist images and learn about their use by hate groups. "We are giving parents, educators, community leaders and law enforcement instant access to a wealth of information on hate symbols with the goal of raising awareness to these potential warning signs," Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director, said Wednesday. The database, accessible at www.adl.

Civil rights groups are racing to secure Internet address names that contain some of the most racist words in the English language in order to keep them away from hate groups. The NAACP has registered several address variations on anti-black slurs. Likewise, the Anti-Defamation League has purchased rights to numerous addresses that contain anti-Semitic epithets. It is another reminder that the World Wide Web is a hotbed for seaminess as well as opportunity.

houston -- No sooner did thousands of African American demonstrators depart the racially tense town of Jena, La., last week after protesting perceived injustices than white supremacists started calling for violence.

A member of the white supremacist gang Public Enemy Number One was convicted Monday of conspiracy to commit murder in the 2002 execution-style killing of a gang founder who had disclosed the organization's secrets on a television news program. Michael Lamb also was found guilty of possessing a firearm used in the attempted shooting of an Anaheim police officer.