Scary

I was flipping through the channels last night and heard this headline, but paid it no attention. Then today, I come in to work and everyone it talking about it. In a short time, its gathered national attention. Many have thought the Klan had disintegrated, well according to this article, that's not the case.

Eight people have been arrested in connection with the slaying Sunday of a Tulsa, Okla., woman who tried to back out of a weekend Ku Klux Klan initiation at a remote campsite in northeastern St. Tammany Parish, authorities said.

Raymond “Chuck” Foster, 44, of Bogalusa, who authorities said is a high-ranking Klan member, is accused of shooting the unidentified white woman with a .40-caliber handgun during an argument Sunday afternoon about her intention to leave the initiation, authorities said Tuesday.

Foster and the seven other white men and women implicated in the case tried to cover up the slaying, St. Tammany and Washington Parish sheriff’s deputies said.

Someone had removed the bullet from the woman’s body, investigators determined. The woman’s clothing, other personal effects and the campsite next to a sandbar in the Pearl River Navigation Canal were set afire, said Capt. George Bonnett, St. Tammany Parish sheriff’s spokesman.

The canal, a waterway which gives marine traffic access to the Pearl River and is next to the Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge, is a popular area for boating, fishing and camping, Washington Parish authorities said.

Foster, booked Monday with second-degree murder, was being held without bond at St. Tammany Parish Prison in Covington, deputies said.

Bonnett said the seven others, all of whom are from the Bogalusa area and are believed to be Klan members, were booked Monday and Tuesday with obstruction of justice and remained in St. Tammany Parish Prison on $500,000 bonds.

Deputies identified the seven as Shane Foster, 20; Frank Stafford, 21; Timothy Michael Watkins, 30; Alicia M. Watkins, 23; Andrew Yates, 20; Random Hines, 27; and Danielle Jones, 23.

The shooting victim, whose identity has not been confirmed, was recruited over the Internet and was supposed to return to Oklahoma after joining the KKK in Louisiana to start recruiting new members, St. Tammany Parish sheriff’s deputies said in a statement.

The woman arrived by bus last week in Slidell, met two people, and during the weekend was taken to the campsite, deputies said.

Washington Parish sheriff’s investigators became aware of her death early Monday morning after getting an anonymous tip about two men turning up at a Circle K convenience store near Bogalusa with bloodstains on their clothes, said Shannon Lyons, deputy chief of the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office Criminal Division.

Frank Stafford and Shane Foster, who is Chuck Foster’s son, went into the store north of the intersection of La. 16 and La. 21 and asked the store clerk how to get bloodstains out of their clothing, Bonnett said.

Once alerted, investigators found the woman’s body Monday a few miles south of the campsite under loose brush at the end of Lock No. 3 Road near the village of Sun, deputies said.

Later Monday, deputies said, they found the campsite along with a number of items, including weapons, several flags and six Klan uniforms — five white and one black.

Bonnett noted that the Klan members moved the woman’s body from a wooded, remote campsite only accessible by boat to a roadside accessible to the public.

Lyons said investigators believe Frank Stafford, Shane Foster and Chuck Foster had intended to dispose of the body but that plan went “haywire.”

By telephone Monday, deputies were able to persuade the five others still hiding in the woods and Chuck Foster, who ended up elsewhere in the woods, to surrender. All but Foster were being held on $500,000 bonds, deputies said.

Bonnett said the FBI has been contacted about the shooting. An FBI spokeswoman deferred comment Tuesday to the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Though tales of Klan activity may seem like a throwback to another era, experts say the Klan has chapters in Louisiana as well as 5,000 to 6,000 members nationally.

It was unclear Tuesday exactly how Chuck Foster and the Bogalusa Klan chapter deputies say he headed fit into the Klan’s regularly changing hierarchy.

At a news conference Tuesday, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain identified Chuck Foster as an “imperial wizard” who headed the Dixie Brotherhood of the Ku Klux Klan, Bonnett said.

Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which tracks hate groups, said the descriptions he has been given of the patches that the Louisiana Klansmen were wearing seem to be similar to the insignias used by the Dixie Rangers Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Dixie Rangers is headquartered in Walker and has another chapter in Shreveport, Potok said.

Also, a Web site entry for a white supremacist ministry shows that a Chuck Foster held a high-level position with the Southern White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 2001, identifying that man as “Imperial Wizard Rev. Chuck Foster.”

The experts who study such matters say KKK organizations frequently dissolve and splinter into different factions, making them difficult to track.

“The Klan has splintered into a lot of small groups with a range of leadership from sophisticated to pathetic,” said Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates in Boston who has studied and written extensively about white supremacist organizations and hate groups.

“Its history is as a white terrorist organization that preaches violence,” Berlet said. “People who join it should not be surprised when violence is used to deal with struggles within the group itself.”

Potok said five other Klan chapters are known to exist in Louisiana in addition to the Dixie Rangers chapters. The Bayou Knights of the Ku Klux Klan has chapters in Homer, Shreveport, St. Amant and Walker. The National Aryan Knights of the Ku Klux Klan has a chapter in Winnsboro, he said.

Nationally, there are 34 Klan organizations divided into 155 chapters, Potok said.

Many of my colleagues raised the question if this sudden resurgence in the Klan is due to them not being happy about a black president. I'm sure that has something to do with it. It's kind of like they were just waiting for the right time, and with all the negativity people still have for the election coupled, they may be capitalizing on the hate. I hope that I'm wrong, but I fear that I'm not.

What is it about a person's skin color that makes people hate them so? If you want to hate a person, then that's your God-given right, but there is no reason to start or join a group whose main purpose is to eradicate an entire race of people just because they are different.

Sometimes one mus wonder what kind of world we are living in when these kind of things can happen. Even more so, the fact that they kill their own! No one is safe when it comes to hate groups. If there is anyone that needs to be eradicated it is them...not by murder, but by some other more peaceful means. Although personally, I wouldn't mind going medieval on each and every one of them for the pain they have caused their victims and their families over the years.

Hate and assasination

In my relatively short amount of time on this Earth, I have witnessed varying acts of dislike, distaste, and distrust. Hate has happened, but it's never been malicious, unforgivable hatred. Now, I have stated before, and will say it again, this is not a political blog, and I plan to keep it that way. There are plenty of those out there already. However, I can't sit by and let this pass without some type of acknowledgement.

This election has definitely brought about some of the underlying issues we have in this country that have never been addressed before now. One must wonder, if Hillary would have been running instead of Obama, if issues pertaining to gender would have arisen.

The candidates both promised to run a clean campaign when they unofficially won their nominations this summer. However, since then that has not been the case. As a matter of fact, McCain has run almost all negative ads since then. CNN had a chart up yesterday and it was like 61% negative ads to Obamas 41% (don't quote me on those numbers).

I understand that you want to make your opponent seem unfit to win this election and whatnot, but some of the tactics McCain has been using have caused what can only be described as a scary turn in people.

Don't believe me? Read this article by Frank Schaeffer (a Republican, btw):

John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.

At a Sarah Palin rally, someone called out, "Kill him!" At one of your rallies, someone called out, "Terrorist!" Neither was answered or denounced by you or your running mate, as the crowd laughed and cheered. At your campaign event Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa., the crowd was seething with hatred for the Democratic nominee - an attitude encouraged in speeches there by you, your running mate, your wife and the local Republican chairman.

Shame!

John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain.

You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate.

John McCain, you are no fool, and you understand the depths of hatred that surround the issue of race in this country. You also know that, post-9/11, to call someone a friend of a terrorist is a very serious matter. You also know we are a bitterly divided country on many other issues. You know that, sadly, in America, violence is always just a moment away. You know that there are plenty of crazy people out there.

Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs.

John McCain, you're walking a perilous line. If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters when they scream out "Terrorist" or "Kill him," history will hold you responsible for all that follows.

John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations.

Change the atmosphere of your campaign. Talk about the issues at hand. Make your case. But stop stirring up the lunatic fringe of haters, or risk suffering the judgment of history and the loathing of the American people - forever.

We will hold you responsible.

I'm not writing this to tell you to vote for Obama, or to denounce McCain. My sole purpose is to get my feelings about how his negative campaign has brought out the worst in people.

On top of all this, a friend of mine brought about an interesting point. Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, John F. and Robert Kennedy all were involved with getting all people civil rights. Now, Obama isn't exactly a civil rights activist or anything, but he is a black man, and we know that there is someone out there plotting to assassinate him, especially if he wins.

Scary part about what my friend said is that he may be right. Shh...don't tell him I said that, though. Hopefully though, that won't happen.

Well, thanks to all of you that have read this. Sometimes, even I have to make a political statement.