My wife and I vacation in Arkansas to enjoy the outdoors (the mountains and lakes are incredible) and because of the relatively cheap prices at national parks, hotels, and restaurants. The wine is better than stuff from California, also ;)

It was a pretty effective video, and a little scary. One would wonder, though, whether the rise in "hate crimes" may have increased due to increased reporting/categorizing, or changes in what is defined as a "hate crime" (i.e., Texas in 2001 made special legislation for "hate crimes"). Hopefully, those bastards that beat the guy to death will enjoy the same punishment as those who dragged Byrd to death behind their pickup in Jasper, TX, namely 2 death sentences and life in prison, verdicts and sentences achieved before the creation of "hate crimes".

While the video was effective, I wonder whether or not framing "hate crimes" with a "Whites Only" sign is helpful in the discussion of near-militant racism, and whether singling out AK and AL as racist hotbeds is genuinely accurate, what with the gang (race) wars fought among rival groups in many urban areas.

The point of the video, however: that fragmented, patchwork groups of hateful racists are exploiting the debate over what to do with/about 12 million foreign nationals occupying this country, is very well presented.

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although I believe the #1 target of hate crimes is gay people. The perpetrators? Stupid people. Education and interaction to all kinds of people are the answer, but most people do not want to interact with those who look or act different than they do. That is the reason why people home school-to keep their "angels" narrow minded and sheltered from "Those" kinds of ideologies and thoughts.

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Please visit Morris Dees' Southern Poverty Law Center for some truly frightening statistics on the numbers of hate groups in this country. They have maps and numbers for every state in the union. Look yours up.

It's typical for these groups to rear their ugly heads during times of economic hardship. They are pushing the hate-crimes against hispanic people (under the guise of them being "illegals") and are who make up the border-militia groups. Hate groups have also infiltrated the military in large numbers in order to get weapons/explosives training in a war setting in order to... bring it back home to us.

People who don't take these groups seriously do so at their own (and this nation's) peril. They are building up steam, and they are being armed and trained by the US military - which means we are paying for this.

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People in any marginalised group will find themselves the target of hate. Several examples come to mind including the murder of a homeless man by two army reservists in Toronto.

People who experience poverty or have low incomes also experience hate from wealthy and well-to-do people. And, it doesn't just involve physical violence. Livelihoods, education and housing situations are threatened, too.

When media fan the flames of hatred, viewers/listeners/readers ought to demand correctives.

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Hannity, Beck, CNN et al should be tried as accessories to the murder of the Latino in Arkansas. And where is the FBI in all this? Hate groups such as KKK used to be considered enemies of the state. Of course if you have an administration winking it's eye at torture, what can you expect?

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The life for an average American will get worse with every rise in the population because resources are drying up while demand grows. One sees that ythey will not have the life their parents had and they become angry. Immigrants lower the qaulity of life exponetialy because in addition to adding the burden of themselves on diminishing resources they have a much higher fertity rates.

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Neo Nazis, these guys are a barrel of laughs. Hate uses a lot of wasted energy and another thing NO ONE IS GOING ANYWHERE! We all live on the same small planet and there is no where to go.I would like to have a nice healthy planet to live on including the people and animals that live on it. It's a great place to live and I would like it to get better.Make love not war, DAMN IT! Yeah sometimes things do piss us off but it is usually caused by us as individuals not a specific group of people. So everyone join the human race with the rest of us. We'll be waiting for you and we'll keep the light on.

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You've got to know where you've been to see where you're going. Hard economic times give rise to hate groups, in large part because people feel powerless. Being part of the group makes them feel empowered. Those who don't understand the complex policies that caused them to lose their jobs and homes, everything they've worked for, band together to strike out at the enemy, and the enemy is anyone who fails/refuses to march in lockstep with the group. Inevitably, they will strike out only at those who are (perceived as) weak, not at the powers that caused their hardships in the first place. This phenomenon is as old as the human race.

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To answer your question: fear.

Many Americans are terrified.

And for good reason. The American empire is gradually being eclipsed by Asia. Our jobs are leaving. Government is warning us to be scared and acting scary itself, with its spying, secrecy, torture, ignoring law and the Constitution. We're running out of oil, and the cost of living - I'm not talking about the official inflation stats, those are rigged - is going through the roof. Industrial food is poisonous, it's making us sick. Health care has become an efficient system for extracting wealth; there's no compassion left in it. People are losing their homes. The nation is so deep in debt, sunshine is a century away. Scientists warn that global warming could make the Earth inhospitable to life as we know it. Forests are disappearing. Droughts and water rationing are becoming more frequent. Stability is gone. Families don't have roots. Foreigners hate us - not because they hate our vanishing freedoms, as Bush would have it, but because we've acted irresponsibly, unilaterally, and brutally, with scorn for anyone who disagrees. The police are militarizing with automatic weapons and armored vehicles. Justice is what you can afford, not what you deserve. Minorities are becoming the majority. Our very identities are at risk of being stolen. Mainstream media lies to us. Women want to redefine gender roles, and men can't quite visualize how they'll excel and be appreciated in the new order. We're afraid of strangers, afraid of authority, afraid of ourselves, afraid of what we're becoming.

Hate - and violence, of course - is what you get when you back someone into a corner and terrify the hell out of him.

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