The following article on the "nativist movement" that originally appeared, as far as I know, at Reader Supported News, was written by James Ridgeway, one of the writers I respect most in the world today. The more I think about it, the more important I think it is. Especially as the Occupy movement has developed in recent months, which must, I would assume, make nativists and others who are already agitated, more nervous (and thus more dangerous) than ever.
It is quite interesting, I think, to scan the comments after Ridgeway's piece and notice the range of commentators outside (and sometimes far outside) the box. Which is one of the reasons I'm re-posting it.
Sometimes, I get tired of scaring myself and others. I don't think it's always effective in moving people in the direction we need to be going. Nevertheless, it often seems to me that not to be scared at this juncture is to risk putting oneself in mortal danger. So what are we supposed to do?
Read on, that's what.
"The Threat of America's Nativist Far Right"
by James Ridgeway
As emerging reports would have it, Kevin William Harpham, 36, who is accused of setting a bomb to go off at the Martin Luther King Jr Day parade in Spokane, Washington, was yet another "lone wolf" terrorist, acting at his own behest and on his own behalf. Even groups on the racist, radical far right that so clearly inspired him are rushing to disown and denounce the indicted man. Regardless of whether he was a "member" of an organised group, there can yet be no doubt that Harpham saw himself as part of a movement – one that has an especially broad reach in the age of Obama, and roots as deep as American culture itself.
