No those weren't men dressed in KKK costumes on the lawn of a Warrenville, South Carolina home on a recent Saturday night, nor was any pre-Halloween chicanery on the agenda.The radical Tea Party's bank-rolling of perpetually pissed-off extremist candidates like New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is apparently bearing all kinds of fruit.
Dovetailing the movement's "us versus them" anger issues, the Augusta Chronicle reports the Warrenville Klan ceremony was the first KKK cross-burning made open to the public since 1985.
Newly anointed Duwayne Johnson celebrated his ascension as the new Grand Wizard of the All American Invisible Knights by welcoming three new members with a good ole' fashioned cross-burning.
Why bother reporting about a seemingly obscure branch of a fractured, decentralized bankrupt hate organization?
"We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people [who are] angry, resentful, and full of anxiety. They are raging against the machinery of the federal bureaucracy and liberal government programs and policies including health care, reform of immigration and labor laws, abortion, and gay marriage." according to Chip Berlet a veteran analyst of the radical right in the US.
Americans need to pay attention when cowards who put on hoods to conceal their identities while espousing hatred aren't scared to crawl out of the shadows. We need to remember this is the byproduct of divisive Tea Party rhetoric.
As millions prepare to dress up for Halloween parades and parties, it's important to be reminded that costumes like the ones pictured above ARE scary in terms of the dark legacy of murder, terrorism and racism they represent.
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