|
RACE HATE DANGEROUS FRINGE
8/31/00
by the Charleston Gazette Editorial Staff
ONLY a few nuts occupy the ultra-extreme right wing of society, a realm
of armed fanatics.
But those few can cause deadly problems, as proved by the Oklahoma City
bombing, the shooting of Jewish kindergarten children, the murder of
abortion clinic workers and many other belief-driven crimes.
The reality of this dangerous fringe was underscored this week as
federal agents arrested a fugitive German "skinhead" murderer who had
been living at a white supremacy compound in Pocanontas County.
Hendrick Moebus, 24, was imprisoned in Germany in 1994 for luring a
"non-Ayran" teen-ager into an apartment and strangling him. Moebus was
paroled in 1998 and resumed his hate-mongering. He boasted of the racial
murder, made extremist comments about his victim and gave the Nazi
salute at fascist assemblies. He told news reporters he planned to flee
to America - and he did, violating his parole.
Authorities think he entered the United States through Seattle and
received help from hate groups as he traveled across America. For
several months, he lived at the 200-acre mountain retreat of William
Pierce, head of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (which former Ku Klux
Klan leader David Duke recently joined).
Pierce, a onetime physics professor, is a guru of white supremacy. His
crude novel, The Turner Diaries - about a white Christian uprising
against blacks, Jews, gays and liberals - has become a classic among
far-right extremists such as Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
Hidden U.S. agents have been "staking out" the Pierce compound. They
watched Moebus there for two weeks, and nabbed him when he left the
retreat in a car and went to a Lewisburg restaurant. He'll probably be
sent back to a German prison. Hurrah. That's one less extremist to worry
about.
America's fascist fringe is a fever swamp containing many different
bogs. The "Christian Identity" movement teaches that blacks are "mud
people" and Jews are offspring of Satan. Various "militias" vow to fight
off a U.N. invasion and save America from a takeover by the New World
Order. "Army of God" adherents kill abortion doctors and nurses. Some
"Church of the Creator" members shoot Jews, blacks, Asians and
Hispanics. Armed survivalists are ready for war against ZOG, the Zionist
Occupational Government. Etc., etc.
Mainstream Americans may laugh at oddballs like Pierce and his West
Virginia compound - but there's nothing funny about zealots who strangle
teen-agers for being "non-Aryan."
All contents copyright © 2000 Charleston Gazette
|