An anti-immigration movement is spreading like wildfire

Around the country, an anti-immigration movement is spreading like wildfire. An array of activists is fanning the flames.

when fear is used to drive intolerance, bigotry, xenophobia and hatred, violence is rarely far behind... i've posted several times on illegal immigration, the minutemen (here, here and here, among others) and american renaissance... i'm also taking note of how often that disgusting, sleazebag congressman from colorado, tom tancredo, is appearing in the news of late... the southern poverty law center has always done a good job keeping track of intolerance and hate and has a good report on some of the vicious, foaming individuals behind the anti-immigration movement... it's long, well-researched and readable... here's a taste...

One of them says he'd like to bring nuclear weapons to the border. Another vows to stop the alleged Mexican invasion of Idaho. Several have links to white supremacist hate groups; others are given to dire warnings of horrible diseases, "barbaric" practices, and secret Latino conspiracies to "reconquer" the American Southwest. These are the nativists -- the new crop of activists who are driving the movement that exploded last spring with the Minuteman Project in Arizona, a month-long effort by armed civilians to seal the border with Mexico.

[...]

Some of them, like Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist, have made attempts to win high political office. Others have contented themselves with trying to build a mass movement. Not all those who have joined the movement are extremists -- many are legitimately concerned about the ability of the nation to absorb large numbers of immigrants, particularly the undocumented. But one thing seems clear: A dangerous mix of nativist intolerance, armed and untrained civilians, and wild-eyed conspiracy theories could easily explode into violence.

i'm always both astounded and vastly amused when i hear whites, descended from northern european stock, call for returning the united states to the white christians who founded it... it just seems to me that going by those who got there first, particularly when you're calling yourselves "nativists," is a very slippery slope... i know a few native american tribes who could make a pretty legitimate case for tossing those cheeky whiteys out on their collective asses...

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