The headline on this article may suprise some, who were under the impression that the Sons of Confederate Veterans always were a group of racist loons. Well, they weren't. Up until about five years ago at least, when a decades-long campaign by right-wingers came to a head...if any of this sequence sounds vaguely familiar, read on.

Short version: since the takeover membership in the SCV has fallen off a cliff. In the last year alone, according to the just-released Intelligence Report Fall '07 from the superb Southern Poverty Law Center, dues-paying membership has fallen from around 30,000 to 18,600. The people I defended all those years, the ones who lived up to the motto "Heritage Not Hate," were derided as "Grannies" by the neofascists one too many times and walked away.

And the guy who orchestrated this takeover, while remaining as far back in the shadows as he could manage, Read more…

Remeber that little tidbit about urban gangs sending members to Iraq for training? Seems they're not the only ones:

By Paul Kiel and Justin Rood - July 7, 2006, 7:40 AM
U.S. Exports Hate Groups to Iraq
"We've got Aryan Nations graffitti in Baghdad. . . that's a problem," a Defense Department investigator is quoted as saying in a new report. Neo-Nazi groups have long sought to place members in the U.S. armed forces, as a way to train them on the use of weapons and explosives for the "race war" they believe is imminent. Read more…