Saturday, May 30, 2020

Exposing the Invisible Empire

Klansmen Gather in the woods in Stone Mountain
AFTER A WHITE SUPREMACIST gunned down nine black worshippers at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, last June, reporters at The Post and Courier, where I work, filed hundreds of stories on the shooting and its aftermath. One of my pieces, about questionable financial dealings by the church’s interim pastor, elicited a threatening email. As I scanned it on my laptop at home, one line chilled me: “If you’re reading this tomorrow morning it’s probably too late.”
My kitchen table sits next to a bay window that overlooks a wooded easement. It has no curtains. I’d never needed any here in Charleston, a famously charming city that is home to some of the country’s best restaurants and most beautiful people, according to organizations that rate those sorts of things. But now the darkness beyond felt ominous. I stepped away from the window and called my editors.
I was reminded of that moment recently as I read about W. Horace Carter, the 29-year-old founder of the Tabor City Tribune, who watched a line of cars cruise down the main drag of his North Carolina town one hot July night in 1950. His newspaper covered a border area with South Carolina, and back in Carter’s day, Jim Crow notions of segregation ran especially thick and deep in both states. The motorcade carried 100 white-robed, hooded, armed men who tossed out pamphlets before rumbling down a dirt road toward the town’s black community.
Carter bent to pick up a leaflet. “Beware of association with the niggers, Jews and Catholics in this community,” it read. “God didn’t mean for all men to be equal.”
Four days later, the native North Carolinian published “An Editorial: No Excuse for KKK.” It was the first of many in which Carter challenged the Klan’s habit of meting out vigilante justice to whomever they thought deserved it, sans judge or jury. “In every sense of the word, they are endeavoring to force their domination upon those whom they consider worthy of punishment,” Carter wrote. “It is not for a band of hoodlums to decide whether you or I need chastising.”
A fearless and wiry war veteran who had nearly become a Christian missionary, Carter also publicly doubted that KKK members who espoused religious orthodoxy to justify their violence actually practiced the faith they preached. “If you had church attendance slips for those persons, it’s our opinion that not five percent of them entered any church of any denomination on Sunday morning,” Carter wrote.
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Willard Cole, a newspaper editor in Lumberton, North Carolina, types at his desk. Cole, who won a Pulitzer for his crusade against the KKK, could only type with his right arm after a stroke in 1961, so he made alterations to his typewriter so he could type one-handed, 1964. (Associated Press )  

He and his family awoke the morning after tha first editorial was published to a threatening note stuck under one of Carter’s windshield wipers. Two more waited under the door to his newspaper office, says Utah State University journalism professor Thomas C. Terry, who has researched Carter for more than a decade.
Soon after, a larger Klan motorcade hit Myrtle Beach and Atlantic Beach. This time, its members shot at a popular black nightclub and savagely beat its owner. And as Carter’s newspaper wrote more than 100 editorials and stories over the next three years, the local grand dragon visited twice to warn him that the KKK would put his newspaper out of business. He received more than 1,000 death threats. His dog was kidnapped. His 4-year-old son asked: “The Klan gonna come and get you, Daddy?”
They didn’t. Instead, the words of Carter and a friend and colleague named Willard Cole, editor of the much larger Whiteville News Reporter nearby, prompted action. In 1952, the FBI arrested 10 KKK members, triggering a tide of other arrests. Eventually, almost 100 Klansmen were tried and convicted. The two newspapers shared the public service Pulitzer in 1953 for their campaign, “waged on their own doorstep at the risk of economic loss and personal danger.”
“He acknowledged being scared, especially for his family,” Carter’s son Russell later told The New York Times. “But he was a newspaperman.”
These days, we tend to think that even those who tackle the most sensitive public service journalism in the US are mostly safe from physical harm. That isn’t always the case, but the author of the threatening email I got last year surely hadn’t infiltrated my local police department. He probably didn’t live next door, or run businesses I frequent. I doubt he worked for the mayor or city council. The challenges journalists face exposing race and hate crimes today generally—though not always—pale beside the ongoing terror editors like Carter and those before him felt while challenging the KKK, whose insidious tendrils reached far deeper into the communities where they lived than hate groups do today.
Despite those risks, a spate of Jim Crow-era newspaper campaigns exposed racists like accused Emanuel AME shooter Dylann Storm Roof, albeit shrouded in white hoods back then. Their coverage of racial injustice also shaped and molded the public service Prize, the most revered journalism award today.
The pattern of awarding Pulitzers for Klan coverage began almost immediately after the gold medal’s birth in 1918. Several exposés and editorials challenging the KKK won Pulitzers throughout the 1920s, when the secretive group enjoyed a revival, and again in the 1950s, when the seeds of the Civil Rights movement rooted in the South.
That winning journalism, with its enormous risks and impact, embodied what Joseph Pulitzer intended to celebrate when he created the awards, and what his awards have come to honor a century later: courage, persistence, empowering the powerless. It also had a lasting impact on race relations in America, as individual journalists like Carter risked the fury of their communities to fight for change.
JOSEPH PULITZER ADVOCATED for quality newspapers. However, his name once was most closely associated with the yellow journalism of the 1890s, spouted from his own New York World in an effort to trump fellow New York newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst.
A key motivation for creating his Pulitzer Prizes? “To put that era behind him,” says Roy J. Harris Jr., who has chronicled all 100 years of the public service awards in his book Pulitzer’s Gold: A Century of Public Service Journalism.
Shortly before creating the Prizes, Pulitzer crafted a platform that still could guide the best J-schools and newsrooms. It’s a lot to jam onto a conference room whiteboard today, but Pulitzer declared his newspapers would “never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.”

Carter received more than 1,000 death threats. His dog was kidnapped. His 4-year-old son asked: “The Klan gonna come and get you, Daddy?” They didn’t.

During his last decade of life, Pulitzer came up with an idea that would push these ideals of public service beyond his own newsrooms. He planned a series of prizes aimed at elevating journalism to one of the great intellectual professions, a status it didn’t enjoy at the time. As the notion gelled, he decided to bequeath $500,000 to Columbia University for the Prizes as part of his $2 million endowment to fund a journalism program at the school.
Pulitzer died in 1911, and six years later, his Prizes were born. No public service Prize was given in 1917, the Pulitzers’ inaugural year. Instead, the gold made its debut the following year, when The New York Times won for its coverage of World War I.
But what exactly did “public service” mean back then? Newspaper journalists didn’t have much to go on, says Harris. “There really had not been a model for this in 1917 when they were first handed out.” That quickly changed.
THE FIRST MAJOR EXPOSÉ outing the Invisible Empire, as the KKK was known, sprang from the pages of Pulitzer’s own New York World, then an industry powerhouse whose staff worked out of the planet’s tallest building. Pulitzer felt strongly that journalists had a duty to victims and underdogs, “and clearly that would apply in the case of blacks being tortured and lynched,” Harris says.
Beginning on Sept. 6, 1921, the World’s newsroom embarked on a 21-day series that revealed the inner workings of the hate group, which had been enjoying a largely unencumbered resurgence. Klansmen had revived their ranks during World War I using new recruitment tactics—like adding Jews and Catholics to their targets—and attracted hundreds of thousands of new members. They infiltrated state and local governments across the country and set their sights on other powerful institutions, including the Army and Navy.
After a three-month investigation, the World’s reporters did what good reporters routinely do today: They challenged the hate group and gave a voice to its victims.
The first story appeared with an all-caps, 1A headline whose size might make today’s copy editors cringe: “SECRETS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN EXPOSED BY THE WORLD; MENACE OF THIS GROWING LAW-DEFYING ORGANIZATION PROVED BY ITS RITUAL AND THE RECORD OF ITS ACTIVITIES.”
A front-page photo showed two men standing in the woods shaking hands in front of a cross and an American flag. One wore the KKK’s telltale white robe, mask, and pointy hood. The other man’s face wasn’t covered, and the caption named him: Col. William Joseph Simmons, emperor of the Invisible Empire, though after this series it wouldn’t be invisible any longer.
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Hooded members of the KKK meet for a demonstration in Baltimore, Maryland, 1923. (Transcendental Graphics / Getty Images)
After months of investigation, “in the performance of what it sincerely believes to be a public service,” the newspaper promised to dig deep into “as extraordinary a movement as is to be found in recent history,” the opening story avowed.
Tapping documents and insider sources, including dozens of former KKK members, the World exposed everything from the Klan’s money-making schemes to its secret oaths and terrifying violence, including floggings and tar-and-feather terrorism. “Oath-bound secrecy, bolstered with the trumpery device of a ghostly sheet and pillow slip regalia, is the very lifeblood of Ku Klux, Inc.,” one story said.
When the predictable threats arrived, the World responded by reprinting letters that called its journalists “nigger lovers,” and one that warned: “You will have the pleasure to receive the necessary punishment for the publication of your series of articles regarding the secrets of our powerful and holy order.”
Eighteen other newspapers nationwide ran the World’s series, including such titans as the St. Louis Post-DispatchThe Boston Globe, the Times-Picayune, the Houston Chronicle, and The Milwaukee Journal. The series drew two million readers nationwide. New Yorkers stood in line for copies. And the Justice Department and several congressmen promised to investigate the group, all reactions journalists hope to see today from our own work.
The World won the public service Prize in 1922, the fourth year it was given. At the time, the Prize “for the most disinterested and meritorious public service rendered” came with a gold medal worth $500.
IN THE EARLY 1920S, the Pulitzer Prizes weren’t the top-dog awards they are today. After Pulitzer died, his two sons’ longtime service on the board ensured their father’s principles would guide the Prizes—and in turn, American journalism. But they faced an arguably self-imposed hurdle to attracting top journalists: Pulitzer’s own papers fared quite well, perhaps too well, in the early competitions. During the 1920s, the Pulitzer-owned World won the public service Prize alone three times.
“The board members—and especially the Pulitzer brothers—certainly had not intended for the Prizes to favor the Pulitzer newspapers,” Harris writes in Pulitzer’s Gold. But perceived favoritism threatened their goals. So, the brothers withheld entries from their newspapers in 1930, 1931, and perhaps other years as well, Harris says.
Still, the long-term impact of those early Prizes remains clear.
“For all the perceived questions about favoritism, the Public Service Prize had at least been defined in the 1920s,” Harris writes. The Prizes demonstrated the critical need for courageous coverage, giving voice to victims, and a willingness to take on those in power. Pulitzer board members “knew that racial hatred was a national scourge of the kind Joseph Pulitzer hated.” They wanted to keep the issue prominent.
The fight against the KKK didn’t stop—couldn’t stop—in New York. The mantle was passed to local journalists in KKK-laden states who would suffer the brunt of retaliation for taking on Klan members, some of whom held high posts in their communities, and had deep advertising pockets.
The next major anti-KKK campaign was launched from the southern city of Memphis, where Klan recruiters had arrived in 1921 and quickly boasted 10,000 members. A year after the World’s series won the Pulitzer, The Commercial Appeal launched a two-pronged attack against the hooded order’s alarming local influence.
The KKK had expanded beyond promoting racial and religious hatred. It had become a sort of moral police force that . . . doled out violent punishments as its members saw fit.

By then, the KKK had expanded beyond promoting racial and religious hatred. It had become a sort of moral police force that singled out alleged drunks, adulterers, bootleggers, and the like, and doled out violent punishments as its members saw fit. The Commercial Appeal’s 1923 crusade was as much a battle against the Klan’s attempt to mete out vigilante justice and control local elections as an effort to support racial equality.
Indeed, the newspaper hadn’t always been known as a crusader for the fair treatment of black residents. Just six years earlier it had published the scheduled lynching time of Ell Persons, a black man accused of raping and killing a white teenager. Thousands of people turned out to watch a man who hadn’t been convicted be burned alive and dismembered.
But now, the newspaper’s editor, C.P.J. Mooney, condemned the Invisible Empire, dubbing it a money-making scam that was terrorizing residents. He took particular offense to Klansmen meting out their own version of religious and criminal justice.
“The law is the soul of the nation,” Mooney wrote, arguing the group had no right to assume the role of the police and court system.
His newsroom didn’t rely on words alone. Cartoonist J.P. Alley crafted searing front-page depictions that ridiculed the KKK as cowards behind bed sheets. One portrayed a man lashing a woman across her back and proclaimed: “His ‘noble work,’ done in the dark!” When KKK members sent Alley threats, he used them as fodder for more cartoons.
The newspaper’s drubbing of the Klan escalated until it became central to the 1923 municipal elections. After the city’s mayor refused to join the KKK, the hooded order supported opposing candidates for mayor and city commission. In an effort to intimidate its journalistic opponents, Klansmen set up their campaign headquarters right across the street from the newspaper’s building and invited national KKK leaders to visit, American University journalism professor Rodger Streitmatter writes in Defying the Ku Klux Klan.
The Commercial Appeal hammered on. Tension built to Election Day. As voting ended, 400 Klan members demanded the ballots be counted in public.
They were defeated easily. When the mayor paraded triumphantly through town, he stopped at the newspaper building “and directed the band to serenade the newspaper in honor of its decisive role in the election,” Streitmatter writes.
The year after the World won for its KKK coverage, the Memphis paper won “for its courageous attitude in the publication of cartoons and the handling of news in reference to the operations of the Ku Klux Klan.”
THE JOURNALISTIC BATTLE soon spread to other cities in the South where Klansmen freely roamed halls of power. In 1925, two years after The Commercial Appeal’s Pulitzer win, the brutal murder of a mentally ill black man sent an irate Georgia newspaper owner to hammer on his typewriter. Julian LaRose Harris, a WWI veteran and son of writer Joel Chandler Harris (of African-American folklore’s Uncle Remus fame), had purchased a controlling interest in the Enquirer-Sun and become its general manager.
When he moved to town, the local Klan met on the second floor of the police station “with the tacit support of city officials,” Gregory C. Lisby wrote in his 1988 article, “Julian Harris and the Columbus Enquirer-Sun: The Consequences of Winning the Pulitzer Prize,” published in the industry journal Journalism Monographs.
On Sept. 24, 1925, the front page headline in the Enquirer-Sun read: “Lynching a Lunatic the Latest Infamy Added to Georgia’s Long List of Disgraces.”
“The human mind cannot conceive of a crime more malicious, more despicable, or more inhuman than that of the cruel and cowardly group of Georgians who lynched this negro lunatic—a poor, mindless creature who, before the law, stood on the same plane with an infant!” the story declared. It went on to describe how the mob “beat the miserable lunatic’s head to a jelly with the pick-axe handle which he used in his insanity to strike down his victim.”
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An FBI agent drives along a North Carolina road during an investigation into KKK members, who were accused of abducting and flogging residents, both Caucasian and African American, 1952. (Robert W. Kelley / Getty Images)
It wasn’t what most readers in the state where the KKK launched its resurgence expected to read in their hometown Bible Belt paper—not that they didn’t have warning. Harris had been one of the few southern newspaper editors to run the World’s initial series exposing the Klan. He had wanted to print it so badly he’d begged to use the content for free because he couldn’t afford to pay for it. Although he was born in Savannah, Harris was a progressive who ran a box in his newspaper promising that it “seeks to reflect the best thought and sentiment of the public but will not cater to passing public opinion.”
On Dec. 31, 1925, to wrap up the year, Harris asked on his front page: “Is it great to be a Georgian?” The article condemned those who supported “a cowardly hooded order,” including the state’s governor and other officials.
The consequences for Harris and his newspaper were swift. The Enquirer-Sun’s machinery was vandalized. It lost 20 percent of its circulation—about 1,000 subscribers—after KKK members demanded a boycott, Lisby wrote.
Yet Harris never changed his four-block path home at night. And a few fellow southern newspapers supported him. Alabama’s Montgomery Advertiser called Harris “one of the two or three most useful Georgians living.”
The Pulitzer Board agreed. His newspaper won the 1926 gold medal for “its brave and energetic fight against the Ku Klux Klan.” It was only the second southern newspaper—and the first small daily—to win the prize. H.L. Mencken called it “the most intelligent award the committee has yet made.”
Sadly, national accolades didn’t pay Harris’ bills. In 1929, he sold the newspaper and, saddled with debt, left the city.
But Harris didn’t leave his ideals behind in his newsroom. He joined the Pulitzer Prize Advisory Board and later The New York Times staff.
Several years later, in 1928, the Indianapolis Times also received the public service Prize for an anti-corruption crusade that exposed public officials, including the state’s governor and former treasurer, for their KKK ties. “Both the governor and former treasurer were indicted, in part because of what the Times wrote,” Pulitzer Prize historian Roy Harris says.
It was the fourth gold medal awarded for Klan coverage in the 1920s alone, and this time, the Pulitzer Board overruled jurors who had recommended awarding the Prize to a campaign to improve farming methods.
THE PULITZER BOARD’S SELECTION of so many anti-Klan crusades set a bar for public service journalism, which was now expected to battle injustice and uphold the rights of its victims, regardless of risk.
“Recognizing the importance of these stories so early on in the ’20s into the ’50s was truly remarkable,” Pulitzer historian Harris says. “You always had the Pulitzer family looking out for their benefactor’s original plan and his philosophy. The Pulitzer Prizes helped guide journalism in the direction of public service.”
Had newspapers not exposed the Invisible Empire early in the 20th century, KKK ranks might be considerably more robust than they are today. Editors like Carter in the Carolinas changed their hometowns. “He drove the Klan out, the FBI came in, and the largest mass trial in North Carolina history was held,” says Terry, the Utah State University journalism professor. “He was a leader in it, a pioneer.”
The Klan remains a stubborn threat. 892 hate groups were active in 2015, up from 784 the previous year. Boosts among KKK sects fueled that surge. They numbered 190, up from 72 in 2014.

Yet even today, with the 100th Pulitzer Prizes just awarded, racial hatred persists.
Look no further than Emanuel AME Church. Accused killer Dylann Roof didn’t belong to an organized hate group like the Klan. Police have dubbed him a “lone wolf” killer, today’s more alarming threats because they form hate-filled ideologies by reading online rants rather than joining organized groups that can be tracked and monitored.
The Klan, too, remains a stubborn threat. In recent months, the Southern Poverty Law Center released its latest analysis of hate groups and found 892 were active in 2015, up from 784 the previous year. Boosts among KKK sects fueled that surge. They numbered 190, up from 72 in 2014.
Klan ranks grew after South Carolina lawmakers removed the Confederate battle flag from their statehouse grounds last summer in response to the Emanuel church shooting. Klan and like-minded groups then held at least 364 pro-Confederate flag rallies in 26 states and Washington, DC, last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center report says.
That might not be as alarming as it sounds. One of those rallies, held at the South Carolina Statehouse last July, drew about 50 members of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Tempers predictably flared when counter-protesters arrived. Yet the worst threat that day turned out to be the suffocating midsummer heat, and one of the most memorable moments came not from violence, but from a gesture of human kindness captured in a news photo.
It shows South Carolina’s black director of public safety, clad in his police uniform, gently helping a wrinkled and frail neo-Nazi suffering from heat exhaustion into an air-conditioned building.


KKK has long history in southern Minnesota, historians say

By WILLIAM MORRIS 

wmorris@owatonna.com
Aug 25, 2017


Ku Klux Klan members march through downtown Owatonna during one of their Konklaves in the 1920s. (Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society)



Klan members and their cars dressed up in full KKK regalia on the Steele County Fairgrounds during one of the group’s Konklaves of the 1920s. (Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society)

Steele County KKK artifacts

Coins, membership receipts, a “Constitution of the Women of the Ku Klux Klan” and a white hood are among the local KKK artifacts librarian Nancy Vaillancourt has gathered in more than 15 years of research into the history of the Klan in Steele County. (William Morris/People’s Press)

OWATONNA — Years ago, when a library patron asked Nancy Vaillancourt for information about the history of the Ku Klux Klan in Steele County, her supervisor at the time told her, “you won’t find much because they were a secret society.”

In a folder labeled “Ku Klux Klan” at the Steele County Historical Society, she found a solitary newspaper clipping, a meeting notice for a Klan group at an Ellendale church. But as she continued digging, she found that the Klan in Steele County wasn’t actually a secret at all.

“It’s uncomfortable,” said Vaillancourt, now Blooming Prairie branch librarian. “It’s uncomfortable to think maybe their ancestors, their family members were involved. I’ve had people ask me, ‘Have you found my family name yet?’”

In fact, as laid out in a 2010 Minnesota History Magazine article co-authored by Vaillancourt in 2010, the Klan had a robust presence in Steele County, and Minnesota as a whole, in the 1920s. Owatonna in particular was the site of several statewide KKK rallies that drew hundreds of white-hooded marchers through downtown and to rallies in Central Park and at the Steele County Fairgrounds. And as she watched the news last week of protests and marchers from the Ku Klux Klan in Charlottesville, Virginia, last week, Vaillancourt said she felt a sense of disbelief that such organizations as the Klan are trying to make a revival.

“People want to deny that it happened,” she said. “There are people who say, well that never happened here. I think we’ve proven that it has.”

Different Klan for different states


The wave of Klan activity that grew in Minnesota in the 1920s was part of a broader national revival for the organization, driven, Vaillancourt said, by social upheaval after World War I and the popular movie “The Birth of a Nation” in 1915. Although first reformed in Georgia, the Klan flourished especially in the west and Midwest. Relatively few instances of open violence in Minnesota are attributed to the Klan, although several perpetrators of the 1920 Duluth lynchings were later found on Klan rosters, but it was anything but secretive about its beliefs.

“The Klan had different faces in different parts of the country,” Vaillancourt said. “In the South, it was against blacks. In our area, where there weren’t as many blacks, it was against Jews, and especially, in our area, against Catholics.”


Owatonna at the time had three Catholic parishes, as well as St. Mary’s School, and there were several other parishes around the county. They were the primary local targets of the Klan.

“The rationalization was, the Klan was against Catholics because they were influenced by a foreign power, the Pope,” Vaillancourt said. “They were being 100 percent American, that was the motto they had, and the people who were Catholic weren’t, obviously, because they listened to someone who was a foreigner.”

In addition to public meetings and rallies, the Klan engaged in more direct forms of intimidation. Sisters Jean and Edith Zamboni, both 92 and lifelong members of St. Joseph’s Parish, were very young children when the Klan burned a cross down the block from their home on University Street, outside St. Mary’s School.

“I don’t really remember any of that, but our folks would have,” Jean Zamboni said. “I just remember people were afraid, and we had a neighbor that my mother wondered if he was part of that. Of course, we never asked him.”

It wasn’t just in Owatonna. In his 2003 book “Hamlet on the Straight River,” local historian John Gross records a 1923 newspaper article about a very public demonstration in Medford.

“The residents of this village were startled from their slumbers about eleven o’clock Monday evening by a terrific explosion and on rushing to windows or doors beheld a huge flaming cross on the hill east of town,” writes the Journal-Chronicle newspaper on Sept. 1, 1923. “From reports it seems that the cross was erected on the hill (east of school) and then a heavy charge of dynamite exploded nearby to attract attention to this spectacle.”

While the Klan didn’t directly claim credit for that incident, by the following year, they were openly taking part in civic life, with robed members making a dramatic entrance to a benefit event to present a $20 gold piece to help cover a resident’s medical expenses. On another memorable occasion, a Klan member in full regalia galloped through Medford on horseback bearing a flaming cross.

“My impression has always been it was more, I think, just something to do to gain attention,” Gross said. “I don’t think they were violent, in my mind, although they did burn a cross here in Medford. There was never anyone brutalized or whipped here to my knowledge. It was just more the symbolism.”

Vaillancourt’s 2010 article also cites Klan demonstrations in Bixby, Hope and Ellendale, but it was in Owatonna that the Klan attained its highest profile in the region.

Owatonna KonklavesThe first references to the Klan in Owatonna date to 1923, and in 1925, Owatonna was the site of the group’s second annual statewide Konklave. Delegations from all over the state arrived for music, games, speeches, a triple wedding, dinner served by the ladies of Trinity English Lutheran Church, and of course a parade. Organizers predicted 10,000 marchers, and while actual numbers fell well short of that, the Daily People’s Press counted a still-substantial 1,055 participants in the parade.

The Klan held another Konklave in Owatonna in 1926, this time on a tract of land the group purchased on the east side of town that became known and was recorded on city maps as Klan Park. A third Konklave was scheduled for 1927, but midway through, the city was hit by drenching rain, and the parade and evening activities were cancelled.

All of its events were drenched in patriotic and Christian symbolism, Vaillancourt said.

“A typical konklave would be a parade, often silent, walking down the street,” she said. “They often would have floats in it, and the most eerie for me is a woman sitting by a cross, and there are 4 Klan members around her with their swords drawn crossed over her, singing Onward Christian Soldiers.”

The Klan’s influence waned sharply in the latter years of the 1920s, as scandals around the country dirtied the snowy sheen of the Klan’s public image. Klan Park was sold in 1945 and today is slated to become a children’s soccer complex, and the “klavern” structure once built on it is no longer standing. The Holding Company of the Ku Klux Klan of Steele County remained on the books until it was dissolved in 1997 by the Minnesota Secretary of State for failure to register as a nonprofit by a 1990 deadline.

But for a time, the Klan was a dominant force in the region, and as she researched it, Vaillancourt met many families who had old Klan placards or medallions or hoods tucked away in forgotten boxes.

“I don’t think people were aware of how big it was, how many people were involved, and I think there was a hope that we can just forget about it, that that’s not how we want to be defined, as a place where the Klan was active,” she said. “In fact, it was people from outside the community coming and asking questions that kind of got me started doing research.”

And while the Klan, in its various modern manifestations, has no known footholds in the area, Vaillancourt said it’s important people acknowledge that the organization has a local history.

“The reason I’ve done the research is to show, it can happen here, it did happen here, and if we aren’t careful, it could happen again,” she said.


William Morris is a reporter for the Owatonna People’s Press.  

https://www.southernminn.com/owatonna_peoples_press/news/article_326115e2-f0e2-545f-81ba-60887df37e7a.html




New book documents proliferation of second-wave Ku Klux Klan as political, social group in southern MN


By Amanda Dyslin adyslin@mankatofreepress.com
The Mankato Free Press
Nov 7, 2013 

The Ku Klux Klan on parade in 1926 in Washington, D.C. A new book by author and historian Elizabeth Dorsey Hatle explores the KKK's history in Minnesota.
Wikimedia photo
The Mankato Free Press

Elizabeth Dorsey
The Mankato Free Press


"The Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota" was recently released by The History Press.
The Mankato Free Press


NOTE: This story appeared in the Nov. 3 edition of The Free Press, but was mistakenly not posted online.

The words Ku Klux Klan are synonymous with Civil War-era and Civil Rights-era racial hatred, violence and terrorism, especially in the South.

But those were the first and third waves, set 100 years apart in American history. The second wave was a nationwide movement, which took on the same white hooded costumes and lingo as the first, and there wasn’t a single county in Minnesota that didn’t have a presence.


In fact, St. James and Fairmont had two of the largest factions in the state, and both cities have KKK robes and numerous newspaper articles in their historical society collections to prove it.

Besides the sheer presence of the group this far north, author and historian Elizabeth Dorsey Hatle said the mission and purpose of the 1920s KKK also aren’t widely understood today. She herself learned a great deal while researching her recently released book, “The Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota,” published by The History Press.

“The second wave was more of a political movement,” said Hatle, a history teacher in Minneapolis. “In Minnesota, we just didn’t have many black people.”



KKK book [Duplicate]


Who was the KKK?

The politically conservative Klan was opposed to unions, Catholics, immigrants and alcohol. They were pro-white and in favor of protesting the groundswell of change that the “roaring ‘20s” was bringing about.

The second wave is responsible for introducing cross burning as a symbol of intimidation and a representation of its pro-Christian message. Lighting one was often accompanied with prayers and hymns.

The Klan was also fairly successful during that era, she said. They had large membership numbers and were able to get members into political offices, such as on school boards and commissions.

“There was a lot of change that was going on in the 1920s with the automobile and people moving to the cities,” she said. “They wanted to keep the immigrant population down. They were very anti-Catholic and (opposed to people) who were seen as not being good American citizens.”

Area historical societies said, for the most part, the Klan gathered to socialize.

Wilma Wolner, director of the Watonwan County Historical Society, said the county’s KKK chapter seemed to have one main purpose: “partying.”

“They did burn a cross in St. James,” Wolner said. “(But mostly) it was a social club.”

The Midwest’s last KKK grand dragon was the mayor of St. James, Clyde E. McNaught. He was a World War I veteran, a Mason and a doctor in St. James who opened a 12-bed hospital. Tom Anderson, president of the Watonwan County Historical Society-St. James Chapter, said the local sheriff also was a KKK member.

Anderson said he started digging more into the county’s KKK history when a resident donated a white robe that had been in their family. (The regalia is on display at the Watonwan County Historical Society-St. James Chapter.) He said he too learned that the second wave was more politically and socially motivated, not violent.

“It was kind of a little bit different organization then,” he said. “It was more of a patriotic organization that kind of sprang out of World War I. … A lot of folks are going into this with a present-day attitude (about KKK violence and terrorism), and it really at the time probably wasn’t that.”

21,000 attend KKK event

The St. James chapter also was connected with Fairmont’s, which had a big delegation. In July 1926, 21,000 people attended a Klan celebration at Interlaken Park, which is about twice the size of the city’s current population.

The Fairmont Sentinel reported there wasn’t a single instance of disorderly conduct or trace of alcohol observed.

A passage in Hatle’s book states: “Also at the July weekend, there was a ‘living cross’ at the event composed of 250 robed Klansmen, each holding a red torch. The voices of several hundred Klanswomen, set aside from the crowd a quarter of a mile away, could be heard singing to the crowd in perfect pitch and harmony to their large audience.”

Mankato also had a KKK presence, with passages in the book indicating cross-burnings and Klan initiation ceremonies. Mankato Daily Free Press reports seemed supportive of the KKK presence, stating the group advocated the tenants of Christianity, white supremacy, protection of “pure womanhood” and the upholding of the Constitution of the United States, Hatle said.

Jessica Potter, executive director of the Blue Earth County Historical Society, said she has touched every artifact in the society’s collection, and there are no KKK photos or artifacts. When she first learned of the KKK presence here, she said she was surprised.

“You look them up today and you say, ‘They did what?’” Potter said, adding that, at the time, the group truly believed they were promoting what was right and just.

The broader context of the era shows there were actually numerous fraternal organizations, not just the KKK, Potter said. Just like the rest of the country, groups such as the Odd Fellows and numerous others were very popular during the 1920s era in southern Minnesota, brought about by Women’s Suffrage, urbanization, the “Jazz Age,” prohibition and other societal changes.

“Secret societies go back to before the turn of the century and long before that,” she said. “It’s just a different generation, and it’s how that generation thought they should act. … It’s a very different time, and it was a very active part of culture.”

Book began with Duluth memorial

Hatle’s interest in the KKK was piqued when she was writing an editorial in advance of the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial in Duluth, which was dedicated to the memory of three black men who were beaten, tortured and hanged in downtown Duluth for a crime they didn’t commit. In Hatle’s research of the June 15, 1920, event, she came across photographs of floats from Klan parades in Minnesota, and it led her down a rabbit hole.

She conducted a great deal of research at historical societies and in newspapers for an article for Minnesota History Magazine, and then numerous families began contacting her saying they had ancestors who were KKK members and offered their stories.

That’s when Hatle knew she had a book in the works.

“If newspapers put anything in (about the Klan), that usually meant they supported it,” Hatle said.

The KKK’s presence in Minnesota was predominately from 1920-1925, but it existed until about 1930, with the Great Depression putting a period on the second-wave movement.

“The Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota” can be purchased at historypress.net and amazon.com.


‘MAGA Loves The Black People’ Trump Says Of Supporters He’s Summoned To White House


WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 30: U.S. President Donald Trump talks to the media outside the White House as he heads to the SpaceX launch in Florida on May 30, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump warned that protesters outside the White House Friday night could have been "greeted" with "vicious dogs" and "ominous weapons" if they had breached the fence, and praised the Secret Service for their response to the demonstrations. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
By Matt Shuham TPM
May 30, 2020 2:08 p.m.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that supporters of his he’d essentially summoned to the White House Saturday night “love black people.”

In rambling remarks to press before taking off on a flight to Florida — in hopes of witnessing the Falcon 9 rocket launch — Trump was asked about his tweets that disparaged the protesters outside the White House Friday night.

The protesters, demonstrating against the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, were ultimately forced away from the White House in the early morning hours after a series of scuffles with Secret Service personnel.

Trump subsequently tweeted Saturday morning, without proof, that the protesters had been “professionally organized,” and “professionally managed.” He added: “Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???”


The professionally managed so-called “protesters” at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd. They were just there to cause trouble. The @SecretService handled them easily. Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2020


A reporter Saturday afternoon asked Trump if the comment could “be stoking more racial violence or more racial discord.”

“No, not at all,” Trump responded. “MAGA says ‘Make America Great Again.’ These are people that love our country. I have no idea if they’re going to be here. I was just asking.”

“By the way,” he added, “they love African-American people. They love black people. MAGA loves the black people.”

Trump said he didn’t know if his supporters would be at the White House, but that “they love our country.”

Pressed by a reporter on whether he wasn’t “calling on them to hold a counter-protest,” Trump stopped himself mid-answer.

“No, I don’t– I don’t care, I mean, I don’t care,” he said.

Trump also urged authorities in Minnesota to “get tougher” on rioters there, before referring to Floyd, whose killing in police custody has set of a wave of protests nationwide.

“By being tougher, they will be honoring his memory,” Trump said.


Trump: "They love African-American people. They love black people. MAGA loves the black people." pic.twitter.com/XFqoF0EK3D
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 30, 2020






Authorities Speculate About Outside Groups’ Role In Minnesota Turmoil, With Little Proof
TOPSHOT - A protester throws a fire extinguisher in a burning building during a demonstration in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 29, 2020, over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white policeman 

By Matt Shuham TPM
May 30, 2020 

As protests over the police killing of George Floyd rock Minnesota and the nation, authorities in the state and around the country have speculated about potential ties to extremist groups among pockets of rioters.

Particularly where Floyd was killed, in Minneapolis — but also in isolated cases elsewhere around the country — peaceful protests have regressed into destruction of property, looting and arson.

But aside from anecdotal information, there’s been little substantive evidence presented to conclusively tie the destruction to an organized ideological or criminal effort.

Nationally, President Donald Trump and his administration and reelection campaign have assigned blamed predictably: “It’s ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don’t lay the blame on others!” Trump exclaimed on Twitter. “Antifa,” his campaign spokesperson agreed a few hours later.

Attorney General Bill Barr, in brief remarks to press Saturday, was a little wordier, but still presented no evidence.

“In many places, it appears the violence is planned, organized and driven by anarchic and left extremist groups– far-left extremist groups using antifa-like tactics, many of whom travel from outside the state to promote the violence,” Barr said.


Officials in Minnesota described rioters who appeared organized and prepared. Authorities have been shot at, they say, and face improvised explosive devices. Attorney General Keith Ellison at one point described “evil elements” that had blended with demonstrators “to destroy and cause arson.”

At a press conference in the early morning hours Saturday, Minnesota’s Gov. Tim Walz (D) was asked whether there were white supremacists causing destruction in the state.

“The unconfirmed reports, and again we’re trying to get that, but we’ve got intel from all the different agencies. Of course, this is where the federal government helps us with some of this. I certainly can’t confirm personally on this. My suspicions and what I’ve seen on this? Yes.”

Walz added that he’d heard reports of drug cartels “trying to take advantage of the chaos that’s there, too.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey offered a similar take later Saturday.



We are now confronting white supremacists, members of organized crime, out of state instigators, and possibly even foreign actors to destroy and destabilize our city and our region.

— Mayor Jacob Frey (@MayorFrey) May 30, 2020



John Harrington, the state’s Department of Public Safety commissioner, said that while “we’ve got intel reports that have been confirmed, I cannot say that we have confirmed observations” of white supremacist activity.

Harrington separately compared the effort to trace arrested rioters’ affiliations to “contact tracing,” the practice used by public health officials to trace COVID-19 through interpersonal contacts. But he offered no conclusions about what had been determined.

“It’s contact tracing,” Harrington said. “Who are they associated with? What platforms are they advocating for? And we have seen things like white supremacist organizers who have posted things on platforms about coming to Minnesota. We are checking to see, do the folks that we have made arrests on, and that we have made information — are they connected to those platforms?”

The intelligence effort — for which state officials said they were receiving federal help, including from the military and the National Security Agency — comes as the state has mobilized its largest civilian law enforcement response in history.

“Over the last 72 hours, these people have brought more destruction and more terror to Minnesota than anybody in our history,” Waltz said Saturday.

Minnesota officials also asserted Saturday that many of the arrests made in recent days have been of residents of other states, who presumably traveled to participate in the unrest. However, jail data to support that point has been lacking.

Based on a few dozen jail intake records from Friday and Saturday, local station KARE 11 reported that the vast majority of those detained were from Minnesota.

The outlet cautioned that the data was not conclusive and that the sample size was small. Also, a police spokesperson said he believed some who were arrested gave false addresses.

On top of all that uncertainty, KARE noted, “many of those responsible for the worst destruction escaped apprehension.”

Matt Shuham (@mattshuham) is a reporter in TPM’s New York office covering corruption, extremism and other beats. Prior to joining TPM, he was associate editor of The National Memo and an editorial intern at Rolling Stone.

The Rise of the News Aggregator: Legal Implications and Best Practices

Abstract
During the past decade, the Internet has become an important news source for the majority of Americans. According to a study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, as of January 2010, nearly 61% of Americans got at least some of their news online in a typical day. This increased reliance on the Internet as a source of news has coincided with declining profits in the traditional media and the shuttering of newsrooms in communities across the country. Some commentators look at this confluence of events and assert that, in this case, correlation equals causation – the Internet is harming the news business.One explanation for the decline of the traditional media that some, including News Corporation owner Rupert Murdoch and Associated Press Chairman Dean Singleton, have seized upon is the rise of the news aggregator. According to this theory, news aggregators from Google News to The Huffington Post are free-riding, reselling and profiting from the factual information gathered by traditional media organizations at great cost. Murdoch has gone so far as to call Google’s aggregation and display of newspaper headlines and ledes “theft.” As the traditional media are quick to point out, the legality of a business model built around the monetization of third-party content isn’t merely an academic question – it’s big business. Revenues generated from online advertising totaled $23.4 billion in 2008 alone.But for all of the heated rhetoric blaming news aggregators for the decline of journalism, many are still left asking the question: are news aggregators violating current law?This white paper attempts to answer that question by examining the hot news misappropriation and copyright infringement claims that are often asserted against aggregators, and to provide news aggregators with some "best practices" for making use of third-party content.

News aggregator websites play critical role in driving readers to media outlet websites

news
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
News aggregators help to simplify consumers' search for news stories by gathering content based on viewing history or other factors. Commonly used aggregators include Google News, Yahoo! News, and others. They offer links to news stories published by news outlets and save consumers considerable time and effort in finding news.
New research in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science examined the relationship between the two, specifically data compiled after the shutdown of 'Google News' in Spain in December 2014. The study, "What do news aggregators do? Evidence from 'Google News' in Spain and Germany," was conducted by Joan Calzada of the University of Barcelona and Ricard Gil of Queen's University. It found daily visits to Spanish  dropped between 8 and 14%, relative to news outlets in France and Italy where Google News remained active.
"Amidst the growing importance of online platforms, news aggregators are one of the most successful new players in the Internet's new era, quickly rising to occupy top positions in audience rankings," said Calzada, a professor in the Department of Economics and BEAT at the University of Barcelona.
News outlets can opt out of aggregators by using software that blocks the links to the content, but most publishers want to be indexed even without receiving economic compensation for the use of their content.
Despite initial turmoil and initiative to impose indexing fees on news aggregators, traditional news outlets around the world have been silent about aggregators' indexing practices because of their potential effects on consumers' browsing behavior, and in conjunction, advertising revenues.
The research suggests measurable consequences of website activity without aggregators. News aggregators increase consumers' awareness of news outlet content, thereby increasing their number of visits.
"Aggregators create a market expansion effect by bringing visitors to news outlets, but they can also generate a substitution effect if some visitors switch from the news outlets to the aggregators," continued Calzada.
The data from the shutdown period showed sports and regional outlets were affected the most, while having a lower effect on national outlets and no significant effect on business outlets. The evidence suggests that smaller and geographically local outlets benefit the most from . The study also shows that the shutdown decreased online advertising revenue and advertising intensity at  outlets.
Spain: Google News vanishes amid 'Google Tax' spat

More information: Joan Calzada et al, What Do News Aggregators Do? Evidence from Google News in Spain and Germany, Marketing Science (2019). DOI: 10.1287/mksc.2019.1150
Journal information: Marketing Science 

From 9/11 to COVID-19: The United State[s] of Emergency
Its time Americans stop waiting for political saviors to fix what is wrong with this country. 

by John Whitehead
May 27th, 2020

CHARLOTTESVILLE (Rutherford) –– Don’t pity this year’s crop of graduates because this COVID-19 pandemic caused them to miss out on the antics of their senior year and the pomp and circumstance of graduation.

Pity them because they have spent their entire lives in a state of emergency.

They were born in the wake of the 9/11 attacks; raised without any expectation of privacy in a technologically-driven, mass surveillance state; educated in schools that teach conformity and compliance; saddled with a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion; made vulnerable by the blowback from a military empire constantly waging war against shadowy enemies; policed by government agents armed to the teeth ready and able to lock down the country at a moment’s notice, and forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences.

It’s a dismal start to life, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, we who should have known better failed to maintain our freedoms or provide our young people with the tools necessary to survive, let alone succeed, in the impersonal jungle that is modern America.

We brought them into homes fractured by divorce, distracted by mindless entertainment, and obsessed with the pursuit of materialism. We institutionalized them in daycares and afterschool programs, substituting time with teachers and childcare workers for parental involvement. We turned them into test-takers instead of thinkers and automatons instead of activists.

We allowed them to languish in schools that not only look like prisons but function like prisons, as well—where conformity is the rule and freedom is the exception. We made them easy prey for our corporate overlords while instilling in them the values of a celebrity-obsessed, technology-driven culture devoid of any true spirituality. And we taught them to believe that the pursuit of their own personal happiness trumped all other virtues, including any empathy whatsoever for their fellow human beings

No, we haven’t done this generation any favors.

Given the current political climate and nationwide lockdown, things could only get worse.

For those coming of age today (and for the rest of us who are muddling along through this dystopian nightmare), here are a few bits of advice that will hopefully help as we navigate the perils ahead.

Be an individual. For all of its claims to champion the individual, American culture advocates a stark conformity which, as John F. Kennedy warned, is “the jailer of freedom, and the enemy of growth.” Worry less about fitting in with the rest of the world and instead, as Henry David Thoreau urged, become “a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.”

Learn your rights. We’re losing our freedoms for one simple reason: most of us don’t know anything about our freedoms. At a minimum, anyone who has graduated from high school, let alone college, should know the Bill of Rights backward and forwards. However, the average young person, let alone citizen, has very little knowledge of their rights for the simple reason that the schools no longer teach them. So grab a copy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and study them at home. And when the time comes, stand up for your rights before it’s too late.

Speak truth to power. Don’t be naive about those in positions of authority. As James Madison, who wrote our Bill of Rights, observed, “All men having power ought to be distrusted.” We must learn the lessons of history. People in power, more often than not, abuse that power. To maintain our freedoms, this will mean challenging government officials whenever they exceed the bounds of their office.

Resist all things that numb you. Don’t measure your worth by what you own or earn. Likewise, don’t become mindless consumers unaware of the world around you. Resist all things that numb you, put you to sleep or help you “cope” with so-called reality. Those who establish the rules and laws that govern society’s actions desire compliant subjects. However, as George Orwell warned, “Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they rebelled, they cannot become conscious.” It is these conscious individuals who change the world for the better.


Minneapolis riot police deploy to disperse protesters gathered for George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020. Richard Tsong-Taatarii | Star Tribune via AP
Don’t let technology turn you into zombies. Technology anesthetizes us to the all-too-real tragedies that surround us. Techno-gadgets are merely distractions from what’s really going on in America and around the world. As a result, we’ve begun mimicking the inhuman technology that surrounds us and have lost our humanity. We’ve become sleepwalkers. If you’re going to make a difference in the world, you’re going to have to pull the earbuds out, turn off the cell phones and spend much less time viewing screens.

Help others. We all have a calling in life. And I believe it boils down to one thing: You are here on this planet to help other people. In fact, none of us can exist very long without help from others. If we’re going to see any positive change for freedom, then we must change our view of what it means to be human and regain a sense of what it means to love and help one another. That will mean gaining the courage to stand up for the oppressed.

Refuse to remain silent in the face of evil. Throughout history, individuals or groups of individuals have risen up to challenge the injustices of their age. Nazi Germany had its Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The gulags of the Soviet Union were challenged by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. America had its color-coded system of racial segregation and warmongering called out for what it was, blatant discrimination and profiteering, by Martin Luther King Jr. And then there was Jesus Christ, an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day—namely, the Roman Empire—but provided a blueprint for civil disobedience that would be followed by those, religious and otherwise, who came after him. What we lack today and so desperately need are those with moral courage who will risk their freedoms and lives in order to speak out against evil in its many forms.

Cultivate spirituality, reject materialism and put people first. When the things that matter most have been subordinated to materialism, we have lost our moral compass. We must change our values to reflect something more meaningful than technology, materialism and politics. Standing at the pulpit of the Riverside Church in New York City in April 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. urged his listeners:


[W]e as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motive and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

Pitch in and do your part to make the world a better place. Don’t rely on someone else to do the heavy lifting for you. Don’t wait around for someone else to fix what ails you, your community or nation. As Mahatma Gandhi urged: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Stop waiting for political saviors to fix what is wrong with this country. Stop waiting for some political savior to swoop in and fix all that’s wrong with this country. Stop allowing yourselves to be drawn into divisive party politics. Stop thinking of yourselves as members of a particular political party, as opposed to citizens of the United States. Most of all, stop looking away from the injustices and cruelties and endless acts of tyranny that have become hallmarks of American police state. Be vigilant and do your part to recalibrate the balance of power in favor of “we the people.”

Say no to war. Addressing the graduates at Binghampton Central High School in 1968, at a time when the country was waging war “on different fields, on different levels, and with different weapons,” Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling declared:

Too many wars are fought almost as if by rote. Too many wars are fought out of sloganry, out of battle hymns, out of aged, musty appeals to patriotism that went out with knighthood and moats. Love your country because it is eminently worthy of your affection. Respect it because it deserves your respect. Be loyal to it because it cannot survive without your loyalty. But do not accept the shedding of blood as a natural function or a prescribed way of history—even if history points this up by its repetition. That men die for causes does not necessarily sanctify that cause. And that men are maimed and torn to pieces every fifteen and twenty years does not immortalize or deify the act of war… find another means that does not come with the killing of your fellow-man.

Finally, prepare yourselves for what lies ahead. The demons of our age—some of whom disguise themselves as politicians—delight in fomenting violence, sowing distrust and prejudice, and persuading the public to support tyranny disguised as patriotism. Overcoming the evils of our age will require more than intellect and activism. It will require decency, morality, goodness, truth and toughness. As Serling concluded in his remarks to the graduating class of 1968:

Toughness is the singular quality most required of you… we have left you a world far more botched than the one that was left to us… Part of your challenge is to seek out truth, to come up with a point of view not dictated to you by anyone, be he a congressman, even a minister… Are you tough enough to take the divisiveness of this land of ours, the fact that everything is polarized, black and white, this or that, absolutely right or absolutely wrong. This is one of the challenges. Be prepared to seek out the middle ground … that wondrous and very difficult-to-find Valhalla where man can look to both sides and see the errant truths that exist on both sides. If you must swing left or you must swing right—respect the other side. Honor the motives that come from the other side. Argue, debate, rebut—but don’t close those wondrous minds of yours to opposition. In their eyes, you’re the opposition. And ultimately … ultimately—you end divisiveness by compromise. And so long as men walk and breathe—there must be compromise…

Are you tough enough to face one of the uglier stains upon the fabric of our democracy—prejudice? It’s the basic root of most evil. It’s a part of the sickness of man. And it’s a part of man’s admission, his constant sick admission, that to exist he must find a scapegoat. To explain away his own deficiencies—he must try to find someone who he believes more deficient… Make your judgment of your fellow-man on what he says and what he believes and the way he acts. Be tough enough, please, to live with prejudice and give battle to it. It warps, it poisons, it distorts and it is self-destructive. It has fallout worse than a bomb … and worst of all it cheapens and demeans anyone who permits himself the luxury of hating.”

The only way we’ll ever achieve change in this country is for people to finally say “enough is enough” and fight for the things that truly matter.

It doesn’t matter how old you are or what your political ideology is: wake up, stand up, speak up, and make your citizenship count for something more than just voting.

Pandemic or not, don’t allow your freedoms to be curtailed and your voice to be muzzled.

It’s our civic duty to make the government hear us—and heed us—using every nonviolent means available to us: picket, protest, march, boycott, speak up, sound off and reclaim control over the narrative about what is really going on in this country.

Mind you, the government doesn’t want to hear us. It doesn’t even want us to speak. In fact, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the government has done a diabolically good job of establishing roadblocks to prevent us from exercising our First Amendment right to speech and assembly and protest.

Still we must persist.

So get active, get outraged, and get going: there’s work to be done.

Feature photo | Minneapolis police launch tear gas and flash-bang grenades at protesters gathered for George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020. Richard Tsong-Taatarii | Star Tribune via AP

John W. Whitehead is a constitutional attorney, author and founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.
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PALESTINE/ISRAEL
US Senate Quietly Approves $38 Billion for Israel Amid Historic Economic Downturn

S.3176 was passed without being named, debated, or even discussed, even though it would set into law the largest such aid package in US history


 THE FIFTY FIRST STATE OF THE USA

by Alison Weir
May 22nd, 2020

Menifee, CA (IAK) — The Senate Foreign Relations Committee quietly passed a bill yesterday to give Israel a minimum of $38 billion over the next ten years despite the ongoing devastation to the U.S. economy caused by the coronavirus.

The bill – S.3176 – will now go before the full Senate. Since the legislation has already been passed by the House of Representatives, if the Senate passes the bill, it will then go to the president to be signed into law.

The bill was passed by the committee under two unusual circumstances and with almost no public awareness.

First, Senate Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) refused to allow a live stream of the meeting, despite the fact that the Senate Rules panel had recommended that extra efforts be taken to ensure public transparency while the Capitol is closed to the public and the presence of reporters is severely limited. The Senate’s Press Gallery Standing Committee of Correspondents had objected strongly to Risch’s decision.

Second, the bill was passed without being named, debated, or even discussed, even though it would set into law the largest such aid package in U.S. history. There has been no mention of the bill by most media in the United States.

The massive package is particularly noteworthy in light of the current devastation to the American taxpayers who will be footing the bill – over $10 million per day. In recent months approximately 30 million Americans have lost jobs, 100,000 small businesses have already closed forever, and over seven million are at risk of doing so.

The bill was voted on as part of a package of 15 bills that were voted on “en bloc” (all together).

After Senator Kaine said he didn’t know what the list contained, Risch responded: “I’m not trying to pull anything here… this was circulated among the staff.”

Risch then rapidly listed the numbers but did not give the titles. There was then a voice vote and the motion passed unanimously.

Democratic members of the committee had voiced strong objections to blocking a live stream of the meeting because of a different agenda item. After the meeting, Committee Ranking Member Robert Menendez (D-NJ) released a video of the meeting.

None, however, voiced any concern for giving a massive aid package to a country widely documented as a major violator of human rights.

Neither did any Democrats on the committee object to requiring American taxpayers to give Israel what amounts to over $7,000 per minute when many Americans are suffering catastrophic financial difficulties.

Democratic committee members Menendez, Ben Cardin, Cory Booker, and Chris Coons, like many of the Republican members, are particularly known for being under the influence of AIPAC and the Israel lobby and receiving pro-Israel campaign donations. Many of the members are co-sponsors of the bill.

The bill, entitled “United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2020,” expands and sets into law a memorandum of understanding agreement signed by the Obama administration with Israel in 2016. This agreement is nonbinding and not required by law. It also set the $38 billion as a ceiling.

The legislation just passed by the committee would make this disbursal legally required, and, in addition, it would make the $38 billion a floor rather than a ceiling. In other words, the amount of money could legally go even higher.

Given the power of the pro-Israel lobby, combined with the fact that U.S. media are not informing Americans of this use of their tax money, the likelihood is that U.S. money to Israel will go up in the future – possibly even this year.)

Most Americans say they feel the U.S. is giving Israel too much money. Israel has received more U.S. tax money than any other country – on average, about 7,000 times more per capita than others around the world.

The Council for the National Interest has posted a petition against this year’s installment, $3.8 billion. So far, it has been signed by close to 2,000 people.

Feature photo | Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, right, listens to an aide before the start of a hearing with Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 13, 2017. Jacquelyn Martin | AP

Alison Weir is an author and activist. Her book, Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel is an Amazon best-seller and has been called a “must-read for all Americans.” Learn more about it here.

Stories published in our Daily Digests section are chosen based on the interest of our readers. They are republished from a number of sources, and are not produced by MintPress News. The views expressed in these articles are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.
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GAME OVER
Wayback Machine Latest Victim of Big Tech Consolidation and Censorship

The promise of an internet modeled around democratized access to information is quickly eroding before our very eyes as the Wayback Machine falls prey to censorship creep and major tech sector consolidations take us to the point of no return

OH NO I AM A SUPPORTER AND USER OF THEIR ARCHIVE.ORG SITE AS REGULAR READERS WILL KNOW AND MY BLOGS ARE LOCATED IN THE WAYBACK MACHINE 



by Raul Diego
May 22nd, 2020

In what is turning out to be something of a latter-day dot com bust, many small to medium-sized tech startups are teetering on the edge of oblivion as the deliberate economic shutdown eats away at their capitalization and opens the door for the biggest fish in the tech space and others to pick the ripest fruit from the tech start up tree.

As opposed to the original, this start up bust is accompanied by a very precise view of market opportunities for interested buyers and investors, brought on by an equally deliberate reshaping of workplace conditions and societal interactions which are driving companies like Microsoft to “aggregate capabilities” in “cloud computing, collaboration, access management, and other business continuity tools that saw a surge in demand during regional lockdowns.”

The ride-share behemoth, Uber, for example, is reportedly in talks to acquire Grubhub and expand its food-delivery operations, while Microsoft just completed its purchase of robotic automation company, Softomotive. One global research and advisory firm that focuses on IT and finance has even put out a guide “on how tech startups can best prepare for being acquired by a larger company,” revealing that just 13 companies accounted for a full 60 percent of the $150 billion raised by tech startups between March and April.

Signs that yet another massive wave of consolidation in the technology sector is on the horizon and is already raising concerns throughout the industry, but the fact that it is occurring in tandem with a larger push by outfits like Twitter, Facebook and other huge tech players to stifle freedom of online expression and association should make us pay closer attention to the dynamics at play.


Censorship creep

Under the guise of facilitating conversation, Twitter unveiled changes to the reply feature that ostensibly gives users more control, but in reality, it broadens the ability to censor content. The new format, still in testing mode, will allow users to select who can and cannot reply to their tweets. This, of course, presents a serious problem from the vantage point of free flowing interaction and gives even more power to the most popular accounts to stifle undesirable feedback, leaving their viewpoints publicly unchallenged.

Another seemingly innocuous development in the last few days was the announcement made by popular podcaster Joe Rogan on his move to Spotify. The comedian and UFC commentator’s immensely popular podcast has been freely available on YouTube and other platforms since its inception, but his multi-million-dollar exclusive licensing deal with the music platform will further cloister content behind a single outfit and likely diminish its reach and propagation.

Perhaps the most concerning, however, are the changes taking place at one of the most important research tools on the Internet and, up to now, a venerable tool for online transparency: The Wayback Machine.


Misplaced century

In the campy 1970s futuristic movie “Rollerball,” starring a young James Caan as a superstar athlete at the twilight of his celebrated career, there is a curious scene in which his character, Jonathan E, visits an archive where the entire knowledge base of humanity is stored. The man in charge of the quantum computer-like machine mentions, in passing, that due to some unknown glitch, the records containing the whole of the thirteenth century have been lost.

Such a predicament is, no doubt, much closer to becoming a real possibility as more and more of humanity’s knowledge is accumulated in massive digital repositories. The danger is not only in the outright loss of stored data as a result of technical malfunctions but also in the greater ability to execute historical revisionism and misrepresenting facts to future generations. Wikipedia – a widely consulted online encyclopedia – is already guilty of this. But, now the Wayback Internet archive is trending down this slippery slope with its recently implemented labeling of snapshot results as potential disinformation.

As a former editor, Elliot Leavy, warns in an article addressing the changes at the Wayback Machine site, “if we continue to censor the past, attaching intent to some but not to others, we will be unable to evaluate anything at all.” Indeed, the new measures instituted at the behest of MIT’s Technology Review over worries of COVID-19 hoaxes do not bode well for the survival of historical accuracy and a discerning populace.

The promise of the internet as an “information superhighway” modeled around democratized access to information is quickly eroding before our very eyes, as the measures are taken to curb the COVID-19 pandemic are being used to restrict unfettered knowledge. Together with the swift consolidation of tech companies that own the means to distribute and create the platforms we are obliged to use, we might soon find ourselves feeling like Jonathan E did when he realized that his once greatest supporters and benefactors were only looking to push him out the door and find a more pliable and less curious superstar.

Feature photo | The homepage of Internet Archive is displayed on a PC. Sharaf Maksumov | Shuttershock

Raul Diego is a MintPress News Staff Writer, independent photojournalist, researcher, writer and documentary filmmaker.
COVID-19 is Laying Bare How Big Ag is Taking America’s Small Farmers to Slaughter

As the door for greater consolidation across industries opens wider, entrenched transnational food interests are feeling the heat from American farmers and ranchers to curb their monopolistic dreams.

by Raul Diego
May 27th, 2020

There is a bottleneck in the nation’s food supply chain. Specifically in the meatpacking operations of the country’s “big four”: Tyson Foods, National Beef, Cargill, and Brazilian giant JBS – the world’s largest processor of beef and pork products. The logjam has been exacerbated by a slew of coronavirus outbreaks in Iowa meatpacking plants and several other plants across the United States, but the real problem seems to lie with big ag’s penchant for unfair antitrust practices and monopolistic designs.

In a protracted battle against the powerful industry that dates back a hundred years, the latest salvo emerged out of Kentucky last week when that state’s Commissioner of Agriculture, Ryan Quarles and Attorney General Daniel Cameron called for the Justice Department to “undertake and investigation into the potentially illegal anticompetitive practices by some meatpackers in the cattle industry.” Their jointly issued letter to the DOJ was motivated by grievances from Kentucky cattle farmers who claim the price they are being paid for their animals has dropped between 30 and 40 percent as the pandemic-induced shortfalls in production send beef prices sky-high.

Some economists, like Kansas State University’s Ted Schroeder, believe the current problem is the logical result of supply and demand forces, saying that there is “plenty of cattle” to go around and that challenges lie in getting them “through the system.” This position is, of course, shared by the companies that are under fire, like Tyson Foods, which published an open letter in the Washington Post and the New York Times back in April, warning that the shuttering of production facilities due to COVID-19 would severely impair the ability of farmers to sell their livestock.

The reality though is that these economic causalities are inextricably tied to the stranglehold of these enormous corporations, which control over 85 percent of U.S. beef production, resulting in a growing chorus calling for the break-up of these massive corporations.

Election-year lip service

In early May, a bipartisan group of eleven state’s attorney generals (AGs) authored a letter addressed to the Department of Justice warning of the threat of “increasing consolidation” in the beef industry and warned that the main players like Tyson, Cargill, and JBS are able to “artificially” lower the prices they pay suppliers, while simultaneously gouging consumers.

The AGs stopped short of actually calling for a formal investigation, but did recommend reviewing “regulatory strategies” that would “promote competition.” It is unclear, nevertheless, how committed legislators really are to changing the status quo and despite an executive order issued by President Trump the day after John Tyson’s open letter to keep beef processing plants open via the Defense Protection Act, the virtual monopoly currently enjoyed by the big four continues to be largely unchallenged.

Only in states like Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri, where a significant portion of the voter base works in farms, does there seem to be any kind of political will to address the issue. Following Trump’s order, Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) asked the Federal Trade Commission to open an antitrust investigation “into the meatpacking industry and its potential to cause significant disruptions in the food supply chain.” But, just how consequential such actions will be in the end remain to be seen. Considering the long-drawn-out history of the problem, the sudden concern by politicians might just be election-year lip service.

Out to the slaughterhouse

A lawsuit filed by the Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF) and others in April of 2019 accused Tyson, Cargill, National Beef Packing Co., and JBS of conspiring to fix beef prices and manipulate the futures market since 2015. The class-action suit accused the beef processors of “collectively reducing their slaughter volumes and purchases of cattle… manipulating the cash cattle trade” among other egregious forms of market manipulation and sabotage.

The plaintiffs claim that the big four colluded to make selling cattle “an unmanageable nightmare” thereby increasing their “collective leverage over producers.” In addition, the claimants accused the large companies of purposely blocking market access to domestic ranchers by flooding the U.S. with foreign cattle from Mexico and Canada and using loopholes in the law to label foreign beef a “Product of the USA,” a move which has seriously affected the grass-fed cattle industry in the country.

American ranchers and farmers have lost patience with the legislative and executive branches of government, who they see as not heeding their requests to curtail the big corporations’ monopolistic practices, which also extend to other sectors, such as the packaged seafood industry. They hope to take their fight to the third branch of government in hopes that the judiciary will help shift the balance of power. But, as the COVID-19-driven shutdowns continue to open the door for greater consolidation across industries, it is a battle that may have already been led to the slaughterhouse by well-entrenched transnational interests.

Feature photo | Workers leave the Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Logansport, Ind., May 7, 2020. Michael Conroy | AP

Raul Diego is a MintPress News Staff Writer, independent photojournalist, researcher, writer and documentary filmmaker.
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