The Ku Klux Klan

[Nationalist]

What do you think of the Ku Klux Klan? Note that the North was acting as an imperialist power capitalizing upon the poor Southern farmers. The North did not want to abolish slavery to be good, but rather to capitalize and destroy the South so that it would succumb to the Imperialist North.The North had most of the Industry and since the South would not comply with its demands, it rightfully seceded. The Ku Klux Klan was fighting against this Imperialism. It was fighting against the corrupt Republican Government that was being installed in the South.It fought against the capitalist Carpetbaggers. It also fought to revive the pre-Civil War society of the South. And remember, Slavery would have eventually faded due to the changing gloablized industrialized economy, so don't base your opinon solely on that.

[Gerald Krasner]

dude, the Ku Klux Klan raped and tortured countless poverty stricken black americans, who had already been through the unbearable ordeal of slavery. Under no circumstances can we make any concessions to this kind of ideology, no matter how oppressed the white farmers, as it can only play a revoltingly reactionary role by 1.killing poverty stricken black americans, 2.dividing the poor South, furthering the economic and political hegemony of the imperialist north.

[P.O.U.M]

The KKK was a terrorist organization. Its creation was to intimidate and threaten whoever they despised, which was pretty much anyone who was not a WASP. After the KKK's return to the American stage in 1915 once again, it reached its height preaching rascism, anti-catholicism, anti-communism, nativism, ant-semitism.

You also say the KKK wanted to revive the pre-war society in the South. Which was a backwards agrarian slave economy run by an oligarchy. Yet, you also say slavery would have FADED away? How would it have faded away? When the whole of the Southern economy was based on slave labor. You say a changing globalized industrial economy would have swept it away. But the South had a very, very weak industry. How would that fade slavery out? Not to mention, racism was so ingrained into Southern society that slavery would never have disapperead without a fight. Why let free an inferior race? Who were privilaged to have employment, shelter, and food.

Not to mention, what the hell about the moral grounds for abolishing slavery?

[Universal]

The KKKwas a group of individuals who were very racist and hated everyone and everything that did not agree with them. So stating that the KKK was good is setting yourself up for failure.

[Christopher Hill]

The KKK is a terrorist organization, not dissimilar to Al-Qaida, The US Government, or other Fundamentalist Christians, On a related note, what do we know of the facts behind Michael Moore's suggestion that the KKK founded the NRA?

[Joshua Purcell]

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the KKK had something to do with the creation of the NRA, but that doesn't mean that the NRA represents the KKK. I think the support for the NRA is actually a good indication of the type of beliefs that are very much in line with many leftist movements, yet have somehow managed to be adopted by sections of people who consider themselves on the right in relatively recent years. The conservative scene in the US is full of contradictions; many people who call themselves libertarian or conservative are fighting tooth and nail for keeping power in the hands of big business by the simple fact that they only consider the government a threat to their liberty and freedom. They are blinded by their focus on the very real problems of our current form of government so that they don't see the cause of those problems. Some mantras of the right are that 'power corrupts' and 'smaller government', but they only apply this to government... not the capitalist hands that are pulling the stings in both government and big business.

So I'm in favor of people retaining the ability or right to rise up against their government, but I'm also just as much in favor of people retaining the right to rise up against other forms of oppression as well. And I could really care less if that is written in the Constitution or given to me in some law handed down from where ever. If it comes to it I'll apply that law to myself as needed. If people feel the need to latch on to the NRA for this same reason then I'm ok with that, although for completely different reasons I'm not a member or a fan of the NRA. By in large the political type of people who flock to the NRA consider themselves conservative and in my mind want to protect the status quo. They see the same problems as we see, but they know that, all things considered, they've made it out fairly well due to our capitalist system. They want to protect their ability to continue prospering at the expense of so many others, and only time will show them that in order to have a sustainable situation there has to be balance, and in order to have balance they will have to apply their very heartfelt resentment of oppression to all organizations who weld such power, government and big business alike.

EDIT: I'm mostly responding to Chris Hill and other responses to this thread, not the original post. I don't know what the hell he is trying to say, but with a name like Nationalist and the perceived approach of taking the side of a group like the KKK (and attempting to back this up by topics that in no way confirms the South's right to be racist) leaves me to believe that I don't much to say to him.

[Joshua Purcell]

I should add that I don't think most people join the NRA because they want the government to be fearful of the public. Some give lip service to this idea, but the reality is that the vast majority of people join because they believe adding more guns into the equation can actually help to solve our country's crime problems. Another much smaller percentage believe they should have the right to kill animals and go hunting. Another group of people join because its the popular thing to do among conservatives in general, so part of protecting the status quo is going along with the conservative movement. There's probably one or two people who actually joined the NRA because they believe the government should fear its people instead of the other way around. This is largely a symbolic idea, since our pea shooters aren't going to do much against the government, but it's worthy nonetheless. The thing is that nobody needs the NRA or the government to know that it's ok to do this. If things get to the point of an armed overthrow of our government (and we aren't anywhere even remotely close to it), people aren't going to check the laws before deciding if what they are doing is ok or not.

This makes me wonder about the idea of a leftist infiltration of the NRA. If anyone knows of some information on this I'd be interested to have some links.

[Christopher Hill]

I agree on all counts, I myself support gun ownership (Why should responsible people not be able to have weapons for hunting, recreational shooting, etc or for their own defense from oppression or from crime?) I merely disagree with much of the reasoning which the right wing uses to justify these things.

[yubaixin19]

Valuable information.