As a university police chief in Washington State in the eighties, we were seeing white supremacist terror activity everywhere. I was shocked to learn there was a Tacoma KKK and activities at our university came up on their recorded message line regularly, raging at the race-mixing going on at our historically Scandinavian Lutheran college, at one point encouraging terror attacks on the campus to halt our "Racial Unity Week Dance." PLU had become a popular college for wealthy Muslim families in the Middle East and Malaysia to send their children. The KKK was particularly incensed that the first two hundred names in the student directory of our Lutheran College began with "Al-."
Some of you may recall the foiled attack on the Seattle federal courthouse during a white supremacist trial in the eighties. The state trooper who foiled that attack, Michael Turcott, had been one of my student security guards at the college. He had been a State Police Explorer in high school. When I trained him to do passenger side approaches on stopped vehicles he complained, "That isn't how the Washington State Patrol teaches it. " I said, "You work for me, not the WASP."
Mike dropped out as a junior, joined the Washington State Patrol, and his first assignment, as with most rookies, was the I-90 from the Ritzville station, a lonely stretch of highway with no lighting, light traffic, and little law enforcement coverage. One night Officer Turcott pulled over a van with a burned out license plate light and began to approach the driver side, but at the last minute he says he heard my voice saying, "That's what the bad guys expect you to do." He approached from the passenger side and got the drop on a driver with a TEC-9 in his hand. The van was full of automatic weapons and RPGs to be used in an attack on the courthouse planned for the height of the trial. The plotters were arrested and Mike's reward for that bust was a brand new Camaro pursuit vehicle. He picked me up in his hot new patrol car and took me to lunch as a thank you that he didn't bleed out on a dark highway.
Lt. Michael Turcott, father of two, returned to PLU and completed his BA in Sociology, and joined the university swim team, competing successfully in the NCAA. He retired after 25 years in the State Patrol in 2010, after running the Washington State Patrol Explorer's program, and having been an instructor at the State Patrol Academy for fourteen years, where I hope he taught "passenger side approach."
Going off topic here to return to class topic of 'reflexive control'. On Greg Sargent's podcast this morning, term of 'privileging the lie'. Example: Haitians eating cats and dogs - media debunks but then spends entire article on issue of impact of Haitian immigrants, focusing on topic Vance and TFT want. Did T/V Campaign really backwards engineer this? Also, better response - spend article on T/V campaigns history of lying so as to not privilege their new lie.
Thanks Asha. Your statement… “The rise of white supremacist ideology globally illustrates that we have not made the progress we have needed to over the last century to effectively combat racially-motivated extremism, partly because there are too many people who sympathize with it” is on the mark. Thankfully you help to keep us informed.
What occurred in Tulsa should be taught in classrooms. I had never heard about in my [redacted] years of school, casual reading, or in discussions. When I caught a black gentleman discussing the horrors, initially I thought it was some conspiracy theorist.....I was horribly mistaken. Maybe there has been the feeling of "we need to move on from this", but what I have noticed from this attitude is that we do not learn from the past. And what do we get? Our current situation where racism / white supremacy / Christian Nationalist and all sorts of domination power play attempts occur again by those who refuse to play by the "Marquess of Queensbury" rules. He may have been no good himself, except for implementing rules of good sportsmanship. But I am confident that Good Triumphs Over Evil in the end, and as Rep Ted Lieu observed, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." Glad that the uncomfortable truth about racism and extremism has come into the open. Some thanks can go to the evil little gremlin in the Kremlin Vladimir Putin as he tries to fuel dysfunction in the West.
Pure Nazi ideology. As somebody who was born in Germany in 1946 and grew up asking "How could you let this happen? How was this possible?", and never getting satisfying answers, I finally have some ideas. Best described with Hannah Arendt's "Banality of Evil", plus people's stupidity. Needless to say, I never thought I'd find the serious threat of white supremacism in the U.S. Or anywhere, for that matter -- it's certainly gaining strength in Europe as well. But I still don't understand, really.
Hi, Jessica. I was born in July 1945 in England so our countries were at war. Weird that we were a country of mostly white people at the time but Hitler didn’t think we were Aryan enough I guess. Thank goodness the Nazi ideology was repugnant to most and the odious leader defeated. England became much more of a melting pot once the people from “the Empire” began settling in the mother country. And then the European Union brought us together—until the unfortunate Brexit. Eternal vigilance required globally to assure humanity is granted to all.
Thank you, Katherine. When I read "our countries were at war" it totally hit me on the head -- how utterly crazy this is. Countries = soldiers, people -- fighting each other, killing each other -- because of some stupid ideas. Instigated by psychopaths. And driven by money -- "the military-industrial complex". And I'm so sorry about Brexit.
Yes, Jessica, I personally think it was a big mistake. Especially because I was thrilled when the Chunnel was completed and Mum and I were able to take a day trip to Paris. I took her back to England a few times before her Alzheimer’s got more advanced.
Trump-Putin crime syndicate/mob have opened a window onto the vast extent of cultural rot & corruption in the USA, from enemies foreign & domestic, terror & sedition operatives, disinformation & psy-war agents, ye oolde kkk & neo-nazi Xtian supremacists. Plot it all out on a giant wall chart, make endless documentaries, expose the "deep derangement" from the police guilds to the Supreme Court & their billionaire pals, from the local education board to Murdoch Musk & their global hate industry. Clearly we have seen repeatedly that Trump & co get the free reign of law-breaking, even "immunity", while being protected, escorted, conceded to, by agencies who pledged to defend the Consitution & law. Average Americans can no longer feel confident in the System, from DOJ to FBI, Congress, SCOTUS, State governments, police, border patrol, all seems compromised.
Those who've been dealing with Putin & his kgb tactics are familiar with this systemic corruption & intentional collapse of community, trust & reality. Expose putin's puppets, trump, bannon, flynn, et al.
VOTE Trump for Prison 2024, take back democracy before it's too late. A reminder, that this is also a global smash & grab of epic proportions, by criminal syndicates & mobsters. The environmental & industrial issues regarding profiteering from fossil fuels & weapons underly the whole festering mess. https://vote.org
..<><>.. very detailed and informative Ms.Asha @AshaRangappa the more attention put on the racially bias and bigoted, which is obvious to Me... is a very strong majority of MAGA Trump supporters.as well those who have a curtain they hide behind!!! wAc
Considering that Black people also take delight in white supremacy and racial violence, and also considering that Rod Rosenstein, Robert Hur, and Vanita Gupta -together- were investigating such acts https://x.com/eklund_matthew/status/1692229030068511004?s=46 it’s probably safe to assume that a candidate doesn’t matter. The Justice Department will continue its aggressive posture of irreparable corruption and incompetence regardless
A police group just recently endorsed Trump.. here in our county in the sheriff break room the tv is always tuned to fox.. the culture is trumpism.. scary..this info cane to me from a person who had to resign from that department. They had prayer meetings in the morning.. seems at odds doesn't it?
I have been a strong First Amendment advocate my entire life, including agreeing with the Skokie decision. But our courts, and us, are really have to do some serious thinking about what restrictions on free speech rights should be enlarged, and why. I'd support a modification to the Brandenburg rule, not requiring the "imminent" in cases where the speech can be proven to actually inspire a violent act. In the days of shooters posting manifestos about why they are acting before they do, this proof wouldn't be impossible in certain cases. I'd also have a requirement that the speech involved be widely spread by the speaker---as in posts on the internet or other media, including interstate mailings--as opposed to just spoken at a rally.
Another approach would be a private right of action by victims or relatives of victims of such speech inspired acts--with the same restrictions and penalties for nuisance suits, but with punitive damages if the speaker is found liable.
At one point hate speech was local, mostly, at rallies and such, or in publications such as Rachel Madow describes in her book Prelude. Again, there it was a limited range. We have to consider ways to at least provide a disincentive to spread it far and wide.
As a university police chief in Washington State in the eighties, we were seeing white supremacist terror activity everywhere. I was shocked to learn there was a Tacoma KKK and activities at our university came up on their recorded message line regularly, raging at the race-mixing going on at our historically Scandinavian Lutheran college, at one point encouraging terror attacks on the campus to halt our "Racial Unity Week Dance." PLU had become a popular college for wealthy Muslim families in the Middle East and Malaysia to send their children. The KKK was particularly incensed that the first two hundred names in the student directory of our Lutheran College began with "Al-."
Some of you may recall the foiled attack on the Seattle federal courthouse during a white supremacist trial in the eighties. The state trooper who foiled that attack, Michael Turcott, had been one of my student security guards at the college. He had been a State Police Explorer in high school. When I trained him to do passenger side approaches on stopped vehicles he complained, "That isn't how the Washington State Patrol teaches it. " I said, "You work for me, not the WASP."
Mike dropped out as a junior, joined the Washington State Patrol, and his first assignment, as with most rookies, was the I-90 from the Ritzville station, a lonely stretch of highway with no lighting, light traffic, and little law enforcement coverage. One night Officer Turcott pulled over a van with a burned out license plate light and began to approach the driver side, but at the last minute he says he heard my voice saying, "That's what the bad guys expect you to do." He approached from the passenger side and got the drop on a driver with a TEC-9 in his hand. The van was full of automatic weapons and RPGs to be used in an attack on the courthouse planned for the height of the trial. The plotters were arrested and Mike's reward for that bust was a brand new Camaro pursuit vehicle. He picked me up in his hot new patrol car and took me to lunch as a thank you that he didn't bleed out on a dark highway.
Lt. Michael Turcott, father of two, returned to PLU and completed his BA in Sociology, and joined the university swim team, competing successfully in the NCAA. He retired after 25 years in the State Patrol in 2010, after running the Washington State Patrol Explorer's program, and having been an instructor at the State Patrol Academy for fourteen years, where I hope he taught "passenger side approach."
Going off topic here to return to class topic of 'reflexive control'. On Greg Sargent's podcast this morning, term of 'privileging the lie'. Example: Haitians eating cats and dogs - media debunks but then spends entire article on issue of impact of Haitian immigrants, focusing on topic Vance and TFT want. Did T/V Campaign really backwards engineer this? Also, better response - spend article on T/V campaigns history of lying so as to not privilege their new lie.
Excellent observation!
Thanks Asha. Your statement… “The rise of white supremacist ideology globally illustrates that we have not made the progress we have needed to over the last century to effectively combat racially-motivated extremism, partly because there are too many people who sympathize with it” is on the mark. Thankfully you help to keep us informed.
What occurred in Tulsa should be taught in classrooms. I had never heard about in my [redacted] years of school, casual reading, or in discussions. When I caught a black gentleman discussing the horrors, initially I thought it was some conspiracy theorist.....I was horribly mistaken. Maybe there has been the feeling of "we need to move on from this", but what I have noticed from this attitude is that we do not learn from the past. And what do we get? Our current situation where racism / white supremacy / Christian Nationalist and all sorts of domination power play attempts occur again by those who refuse to play by the "Marquess of Queensbury" rules. He may have been no good himself, except for implementing rules of good sportsmanship. But I am confident that Good Triumphs Over Evil in the end, and as Rep Ted Lieu observed, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." Glad that the uncomfortable truth about racism and extremism has come into the open. Some thanks can go to the evil little gremlin in the Kremlin Vladimir Putin as he tries to fuel dysfunction in the West.
Pure Nazi ideology. As somebody who was born in Germany in 1946 and grew up asking "How could you let this happen? How was this possible?", and never getting satisfying answers, I finally have some ideas. Best described with Hannah Arendt's "Banality of Evil", plus people's stupidity. Needless to say, I never thought I'd find the serious threat of white supremacism in the U.S. Or anywhere, for that matter -- it's certainly gaining strength in Europe as well. But I still don't understand, really.
Hi, Jessica. I was born in July 1945 in England so our countries were at war. Weird that we were a country of mostly white people at the time but Hitler didn’t think we were Aryan enough I guess. Thank goodness the Nazi ideology was repugnant to most and the odious leader defeated. England became much more of a melting pot once the people from “the Empire” began settling in the mother country. And then the European Union brought us together—until the unfortunate Brexit. Eternal vigilance required globally to assure humanity is granted to all.
Thank you, Katherine. When I read "our countries were at war" it totally hit me on the head -- how utterly crazy this is. Countries = soldiers, people -- fighting each other, killing each other -- because of some stupid ideas. Instigated by psychopaths. And driven by money -- "the military-industrial complex". And I'm so sorry about Brexit.
Yes, Jessica, I personally think it was a big mistake. Especially because I was thrilled when the Chunnel was completed and Mum and I were able to take a day trip to Paris. I took her back to England a few times before her Alzheimer’s got more advanced.
Trump-Putin crime syndicate/mob have opened a window onto the vast extent of cultural rot & corruption in the USA, from enemies foreign & domestic, terror & sedition operatives, disinformation & psy-war agents, ye oolde kkk & neo-nazi Xtian supremacists. Plot it all out on a giant wall chart, make endless documentaries, expose the "deep derangement" from the police guilds to the Supreme Court & their billionaire pals, from the local education board to Murdoch Musk & their global hate industry. Clearly we have seen repeatedly that Trump & co get the free reign of law-breaking, even "immunity", while being protected, escorted, conceded to, by agencies who pledged to defend the Consitution & law. Average Americans can no longer feel confident in the System, from DOJ to FBI, Congress, SCOTUS, State governments, police, border patrol, all seems compromised.
Those who've been dealing with Putin & his kgb tactics are familiar with this systemic corruption & intentional collapse of community, trust & reality. Expose putin's puppets, trump, bannon, flynn, et al.
VOTE Trump for Prison 2024, take back democracy before it's too late. A reminder, that this is also a global smash & grab of epic proportions, by criminal syndicates & mobsters. The environmental & industrial issues regarding profiteering from fossil fuels & weapons underly the whole festering mess. https://vote.org
..<><>.. Ms.Asha @AshaRangappa
" (violence) here in America", i believe is "smoldering" amongst the ranks of many chapters of all.. "stand back....an stand by" foot soldiers.
wAc @CrowBwell9
Birth of a Nation and, don’t forget (more damaging), Gone With The Wind. Led the revival of Lost Cause, KKK, America First, etc. between the WWs.
..<><>.. very detailed and informative Ms.Asha @AshaRangappa the more attention put on the racially bias and bigoted, which is obvious to Me... is a very strong majority of MAGA Trump supporters.as well those who have a curtain they hide behind!!! wAc
@CrowBwell9
Considering that Black people also take delight in white supremacy and racial violence, and also considering that Rod Rosenstein, Robert Hur, and Vanita Gupta -together- were investigating such acts https://x.com/eklund_matthew/status/1692229030068511004?s=46 it’s probably safe to assume that a candidate doesn’t matter. The Justice Department will continue its aggressive posture of irreparable corruption and incompetence regardless
A police group just recently endorsed Trump.. here in our county in the sheriff break room the tv is always tuned to fox.. the culture is trumpism.. scary..this info cane to me from a person who had to resign from that department. They had prayer meetings in the morning.. seems at odds doesn't it?
I have been a strong First Amendment advocate my entire life, including agreeing with the Skokie decision. But our courts, and us, are really have to do some serious thinking about what restrictions on free speech rights should be enlarged, and why. I'd support a modification to the Brandenburg rule, not requiring the "imminent" in cases where the speech can be proven to actually inspire a violent act. In the days of shooters posting manifestos about why they are acting before they do, this proof wouldn't be impossible in certain cases. I'd also have a requirement that the speech involved be widely spread by the speaker---as in posts on the internet or other media, including interstate mailings--as opposed to just spoken at a rally.
Another approach would be a private right of action by victims or relatives of victims of such speech inspired acts--with the same restrictions and penalties for nuisance suits, but with punitive damages if the speaker is found liable.
At one point hate speech was local, mostly, at rallies and such, or in publications such as Rachel Madow describes in her book Prelude. Again, there it was a limited range. We have to consider ways to at least provide a disincentive to spread it far and wide.