Thanks, I needed that!

Personally, I can't endorse anything w/Morris Dees at its heart.

Larry.. anybody who uses the courts to take down the White Aryan Risistance or the KKK is alright by me.
Whats your truck with Mr Dees?
You aren't one of THEM, I hope?

Think it was a reading of the book A Hundred Little Hitler's by former Nation writer Elinor Langer that got me to focus on the reality of the SPLC and Dees.

I'd advise anyone who cares about race and race politics to read it. Moreover, do a little digging on Dees and the SPLC. It doesn't take much to get past the PR. In fact, anymore I invariably take a SPLC endorsement to mean that I should support whatever/whomever it attacks. Same with the current day NAACP.

Life is not a cartoon (well, less often than we think it is). Reality is more complex and multifaceted.

I lived in N. Idaho for many years, indeed not far from the Aryan Nations Compound. I heard one of their bombs go off in my neighborhood when they tried to terrify the local priest who opposed their presence.

Tony Stewart, who, with the the priest (since dead and whose name I forget) really managed the the coalition of activists who opposed the Nations presence. Fellows earned the community the Raoul Wallenberg award. Anyway, Tony was my Pol-Sci instructor while I attended Sarah Palin's (the evil one) alma mater NIC.

I always thought that if the local community and the activists and educational institutions had tried to help the unemployed from the timber and mine shut downs they would have done a world more of lasting good.Instead, they prided themselves on race diversity efforts. Oh, I'm glad for the destruction of a criminal enterprise masquerading as a race purity group. But, it was a comparatively cheap and fast fix for an enduring problem.

I was clerking for a Multnomah County judge at the time of the trial. That was well before the courthouse had modern security (no metal detectors at the front, etc.); however, there was security everywhere for this trial (there were even snipers on the roof).