Klu Klux Klan - Terrorist Organization?

Great Debates
1

This link describes the history of the KKK. Looking at their behavior over the years they are clearly a terrorist organization. Unfortunately they weren’t decimated in the way that the Black Panther Party was, primarily because they were White and had widespread support in law enforcement, since some other their members were involved in law enforcement and held high political offices.

I say the KKK is a terrorist organization and anyone still associated or that sympathizes with the organization is a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer. What say you?

2

I agree. They are at least as much a terrorist organization as any of the Muslim groups which have been harrassed domestically by the Bushies, but it is painfully obvious that the “war on terror” is really just a war on Islamic radicals. They clearly have no intention of going after the homegrown Timothy McVeigh/ Eric Rudolph brand of terrorism. I guess they don’t want to embarrass Trent Lott’s friends.

3

Anyone who sympathizes with s terrorist is a terrorist sympathizer? Well, duh!

4

Yes, the Ku Klux Klan is, imo, a terrorist organization. It is possible that they are no longer involved in church bombings, lynchings, and these types of activities. Then again, I would not be surprised. I think that they have fewer members, if any, in law enforcement or elected positions. I just googled Ku Klux Klan. It was pretty spooky. You can print an application and send them a photo +$20.00 to join. I would imagine these groups are being monitored by law enforcement. Possibly they are routinely infiltrated by plants.

5

You people are all far too quick to jump on the fingerpointing “oh, yeah, they’re terrorists all right” bandwagon. Let’s be logical about this. The official DoD definition of Terrorism.

http://www.terrorism.com/terrorism/bpart1.html

Now I dunno, for me it’s kind of a stretch to fit the KKK into that. I don’t see a “calculated use of violence designed to instill fear or coerce governments or societies” in their corporate behavior–I just see a group whose members have indulged in mob behavior.

But just because some members of a group performed acts of violence doesn’t mean that the group as a whole should be officially assumed to be advocating said violence. (See the Pit thread on Promise Keepers.)

I don’t see that the KKK is organized in terms of specific agendas of “stuff they want to change in U.S. society, and how exactly they’re going to go about implementing those changes with violence.”

Actually, if there’s anything in the KKK’s official credo that specifically advocates violence, I’d be very surprised to hear it. From their national website (watch out, it’s gonna play “My Country Tis Of thee” at you, which is very amusing, considering that it’s actually the tune to “God Save The King”.)

http://www.kukluxklan.org/whatis.htm

I don’t see anything there that would be inappropriate for any other American political party. “We’re gonna get out the vote and do community relations, change our government!”

And FTR, I sympathize with them the same way I sympathize with the Libertarian Party, or the Green Party, or the American Communist Party (assuming there is one somewhere :smiley: ), in other words, any other fringe political group (sorry, Lib :smiley: ) that doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting any of their agenda passed into Mainstream America.

6

There is no doubt that the KKK was a terrorist organization.

Is it still? Do they still advocate violence? I don’t know. I think the burden of proof is on the accuser. Are there recent examples of the KKK organizing and plotting (or executing) terrorist activities?

I’m not talking about random idiots acting on their own. What evidence is there that the KKK itself continues to actively pursue terrorist activities?

7

Beyond what DDG has pointed out, it should be noted that even with “terrorist” intents, the Klan is no longer an effective terrorist threat.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Klan probably should have been treated as terrorists (and, to a limited extent, it was). However, partly through the efforts of the SPLC to bankrupt several of their Kovens when they did engage in violence and mostly through the general disapproval of society since the acceptance (if grudging) of the Civil Rights movement, the Klan has become little more than a shelter for white guys, frightened by the world, to get together and commiserate with each other over the terrible way that the world treats white guys.

The Klan has a long and violent past, but even the acts for which the SPLC was able to sue them in the last 20 years tended to be sporadic events rather than planned campaigns of terror.

The National Alliance and the Aryan Brotherhood and similar groups actually recruit against the Klan as being ineffective. Unless some dynamic leader arises to galvanize the group to repeat the violence of their past, I don’t think we should be harrassing them and raising their level of paranoia.

Certainly, we should keep an eye on all such hate groups to be aware if they do turn to violence, but I cannot see that actions against the Klan are warranted at this time.

8

The KKK exactly fit into DDG quoted definition:

The KKK uses violence and the threat of violence to induce fear in a society (the society of African-Americans). The fact that the KKK’s website may say differently means nothing. Anyone with any knowledge of history knows what the KKK do - and it’s clearly terrorism based on the above definition.

9

Do you have any examples of recent terrorist acts by the Klan?

10

Timothy McVeigh is dead, having been put to death by the United States government. I suppose one could argue that they haven’t caught Eric Rudolph yet because they secretly don’t want to, but as far as I can tell it’s just a case of him successfully eluding capture. If they ever do catch him, I expect they’ll kill him too.

As for the Klan, I generally agree with Hickory6 and tomndebb–certainly there have been organizations in the past under that name which were blatantly terrorist organizations, and for a long time law enforcement in much of the country turned a blind eye to this or actively collaborated with the terrorists. But the KKK these days is fairly toothless; another point is that it’s far from unitary any more–the Secret White Invisible Hooded Empire of the Christian Knights of the Ku Klax Klan, Inc., may be a genuine terrorist organization, but the American Knights of the Fiery Cross of the Ku Klux Klan (U.S.A.) may just be a bunch of nitwits who get together to wear bedsheets, drink beer, set fire to lumber, and bitch about how their own lack of social, economic, or romantic opportunity is the fault of members of other racial, ethnic, or religious groups.

I’m pretty sure the FBI keeps an eye on all of these guys, which is as it should be. Other than that, what would anyone recommend?

11

Avumede: You’re missing the crucial modifier “calculated”. “Calculated” means the group’s organization sits down and plans a campaign of terror, specifically designed to strike fear and trembling into people’s hearts. Got any cite for the KKK doing that recently?

When I google “Klan violence”, all that comes up are cites referring to past historic violence, ending with the 1920s. When I google “kkk violence”, what comes up are references to demonstrations at rallies, not bombings and lynchings and arson.

http://www.jewishsf.com/bk001222/uskkkviolence.shtml

And the perps here are the demonstrators, not the KKK.

http://www.altered.com/dengue/kkk/events.htm

Throwing bricks at police is hardly “terrorism”.

12

I agree, they are not terrifying anymore. When they come here to demonstrate, nobody turns out to watch them march any more. Used to be, the black folks would turn out to show solidarity. Now they just ignore them. The media doesn’t even hardly show up anymore.

13

Who knows if they are doing it now, but they were clearly doing it then. Their actions, lynchings, bombings, cross burnings, are things that are clearly calculated with the intention to cause terror, fear and trembling in the hearts of Black americans. When did they get a clean bill of health with respect to being terrorist?

How about this?

14

What all three of those examples lack, conspicuously, is any kind of indication that they were organized, deliberately, by the national organization as a calculated attempt to further the KKK’s national political agenda. Which would have counted as “terrorism”. They didn’t do that. Therefore none of these acts count as “terrorism” and the KKK is still not proven to be a “terrorist” organization.

FTR, the only cite on the Web for the Gowanda cross-burning is just the one reference on your tryoung.com website.

The Klansmen who harassed the Vietnamese fishermen were tried for intimidation–and lost.

http://www.handsonenglish.com/curr/Aug98.html

http://www.dickgregory.com/dick/2_kukluxklan.html

http://www.splcenter.org/cgi-bin/goframe.pl?refname=/legalaction/la-2.html

You would have to show that this “terror campaign” was organized for the specific purpose of furthering a political agenda, and it wasn’t–it was solely aimed at intimidating a small group of people, the Vietnamese fishermen.

And as for the murderer of Michael Donald (not “McDonald”), he was executed a few years ago. And it says he was an “ex-Klansman”.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9706/06/briefs/klan.execution/index.html

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdonaldD.htm

This, however, was not a calculated attempt to further a political agenda, but was simply revenge and hostility.

Nobody’s arguing that the KKK isn’t nasty, that they aren’t a “hate group”, par excellence. But they aren’t “terrorists”.

Here’s the DoD definition of “terrorism” again.

*You said it yourself:

The KKK wasn’t trying to coerce or intimidate American government, or even American society–they were just trying to intimidate a small subset of that society–blacks. Black Americans do not constitute the American government, or even American society.

By the same token, Vietnamese fishermen do not constitute American government, or American society, therefore the actions of the Texas Klan cannot be taken to constitute “terrorism”.

The Mafia also carried out murders and bombings clearly calculated to cause terror, fear, and trembling in the hearts of certain people–but they weren’t doing it with a set political agenda, they were doing it for other reasons, like extortion or revenge. Therefore, the Mafia aren’t terrorists, either.

15

clearly, the klan WAS a terrorist organization.
can’t say for sure, anymore.

if you want the hilarious details of what the klan’s up to, nowadys, check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743227077/qid=1041828810/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-3667839-7674246

Them: Adventures with Extremists
by Jon Ronson

16

In Hazelgreen Alabama, just outside Huntsville. They acted like the Marx brothers dressed as Nazis; hateful while being clownishly stupid and totally ineffective. They seem able to cause a little mischief in a small and mean-spirited way but are seriously deficient in the terror department.

I don’t consider the Klan a terrorist organization, more of a joke and taking them seriously gives them more credit than they deserve.

Testy.

17

My freaky wierdo drug addict run high school actually had a Junior KKK group meeting in it every 3rd Wednesday or so. (this is 20 yrs ago in south Texas) It was full of the rejects from all the other cliques. I remember wondering how the Klan had managed to be so terrifying for so long if this is what they were. But, a dozen drunk “Bubbas” with baseball bats and no reasoning abilities can still wreak some major damage. My policy: If someone starts talking “Klan-ish,” I just leave. Why debate?

I think that some of the groups that are white supremists can be classed with those who commit terrorist acts. Just look at Timothy McVeigh and what he did. Of course, a big part of that was supposed to be political (anti-government) in nature and not neccesarily racist. But, (in news reports/rumors around here [OKC] anyways) he was rumored to have links to white supremists groups.

Is it reasonable to view the ultra right of rights groups like that as off shoots of the KKK? Or of KKK philosophies? Or was there/is there something even more basic that gave life to all these groups?

18

Duck Duck Goose

Nice try with the Department of Defense definition, this one, however is more appropriate:

19

What’s with the snotty “nice try”? The Department of Defense definition differs in no substantive way from the FBI’s. They both say the same thing: FBI in red, DoD in blue.

the unlawful use of force or violence
the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence

to intimidate or coerce a government,
intended to coerce or to intimidate governments
to inculcate fear;

against persons or property
the civilian population, or any segment thereof,
or societies

in furtherance of political or social objectives.
in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.

Now, in what way is the KKK using violence or the threat of violence “to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”? What are the KKK’s political and social objectives, anyway?

Their goal, as stated on their website, besides such vague demagoguery as, “take back America” and “White Rights”, is as follows:

That’s it. That’s their political goal–to get members of the KKK elected to public office. Now, in what way are they using violence and the threat of violence to further this goal? Are they using violence to frighten people into staying away from the polls? Are they using intimidation to discourage black candidates from running for office, or other what they would call “pro-black” candidates? That would be about the only way I could think of that they could accomplish this and thus qualify as “terrorists”, under both the DoD and the FBI’s definitions.

And in what way are they using the threat of violence to intimidate civilians to further their social objectives, which I suppose might be defined as “blacks who have no place in today’s society”? How do you go about doing something like that? What civilians do you know of that are being intimidated by the KKK, and to what purpose? And, is it organized, or is it just random assholery? If it’s just random assholery, it’s not “terrorism”. If it’s furthering a stated political or social agenda, then it’s terrorism.

I understand that you want very badly for this to be a thread all about how the KKK is so evil that they qualify as terrorists, but it ain’t gonna happen. If you just wanna slang on the KKK because they’re Evil, go ahead, that’s what the Pit is for. And I’ll be happy to join you there, because I agree 100% that they’re evil.

But they’re not “terrorists”, sorry.

20

According to the FBI they were

From the domestic terrorism section