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KON4M 99
September 1999
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Beast of the Month - September 1999
Matt Hale, Hate Group Superstar
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
Beast of the Year Jerry Springer, to Hale on his show.
Hate is but a click away.
On August 10, 1999, five people (three of whom were children) were wounded and a postal worker was killed during a crazed shoot-out at the North Valley Jewish Community Center near Los Angeles, California. Allegedly, the shooting spree was the work of a deranged lone gunman named Buford Furrow, a neo-Nazi who has supposedly confessed to the crime. The shooting spree follows that of Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, a member of a white-supremacist organization himself, who over the Fourth of July weekend, allegedly injured nine people and killed two others before committing suicide. (It also follows the tragedy in Littleton, Colorado, where Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were alleged to have spouted Nazi sympathies while going postal themselves.)
Immediately the usual suspects came out of the woodwork, demanding new restrictions on the Second Amendment and giving the FBI more powers to spy on "hate groups." Never mind that the FBI already fully knew who Buford Furrow was: though the authoritarian chorus was screaming for giving the feds more spying powers, the FBI did have at least one informant in the Aryan Nations compound that knew exactly who Furrow was. Of course, identifying Furrow wouldn't have been difficult: having been married to Debbie Matthews, the widow of neo-Nazi terrorist leader Robert Matthews, he was a man who had chosen a higher profile for himself. Consider the following as well: in October of 1998, Furrow checked into a mental hospital near Seattle and threatened the hospital staff with a knife. He told them he had been feeling suicidal and thinking about doing a mass public shooting. Rather than give Furrow treatment, he served 165 days in prison: a probation officer would later discover on Furrow a membership card to the Aryan Nations. (Apparently, membership in a violent white supremacist organization isn't considered as menacing to authorities as if they found a joint on him.) All of which suggests that if Furrow is indeed guilty of the crimes he is accused of, there were at best terrible lapses of judgment which would have happened even if stricter gun laws and FBI spying powers had been in place: indeed, authorities were clearly so negligent in their dealings with Furrow, they arguably should be held legally liable for his actions.
Such points are naturally left unpointed at by the korporate media, who instead kept the drumbeat rolling for more gun control and beefing up FBI powers. Along the way, the tragedy was used by some to argue for restrictions on free speech on the internet. Leading the way were spokesmen for organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. At best, these organizations (who have many members that join for noble reasons) are having their decent values perverted for ultimately dangerous ends. At worst, the organizations, having been infiltrated by operatives for government agencies, are part of a scheme to make fascism appear more palatable by having it aligned with "progressive" organizations.
If such a scheme does exist (and we at The Konformist have little doubt that it does), there certainly are other conspirators to the plot: namely, groups that deserve the classification as "white hate groups" for their promotion of violent and destructive ideologies, many of which have a strong presence on the internet. Whether these organizations are witting conspirators to the plot doesn't matter in the end, for if they were, they wouldn't behave any differently. According to Rabbi Abraham Cooper (associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center), over 1,400 Web sites spread racist propaganda and promote violence via the net. "For racists and bigots," Cooper says, "this is a gift they couldn't have invented."
Two of the more notable groups are rather established names:
* The Ku Klux Klan: The granddaddy of American racist organizations, formed in 1865 by 33rd Degree Freemason Albert Pike. Among its most notable leaders of recent years is David Duke, who would later transform his racist values into code words that turned him into a semi-mainstream politician.
* Aryan Nations: Furrow was a member of this group, formed by Richard Butler as an offshoot to Wesley Swift's Church of Jesus Christ Christians (both of whom were former KKK members.) The Aryan Nations headquarters is located in Hayden Lake, Idaho, where Furrow once worked as a security guard. As most members are part of the Christian Identity movement, Aryan Nations mixes white supremacy with religious dogma, proclaiming themselves to be God's chosen people. Among its more notable members was Robert Matthews, the late founder of the violent Order and first husband of Furrow's ex-wife. Butler was the minister of Furrow's wedding.
Then there are neo-Nazi groups, including those who follow National Alliance founder (and author of hate-blueprint The Turner Diaries) William Pierce, as well as the violent hoodlums in the Nazi skinhead underground. There is also the Phineas Priests, a lesser known Christian Identity group that Furrow is alleged to be involved with which has links to Elohim City (the same compound Timothy McVeigh was known to visit regularly.)
Yet, for pure hype, the hot hate group in the USA is the World Church of the Creator, founded by Matt Hale, our Beast of the Month. Until recently, Mr. Hale's "church" was best known for his appearance on Jerry Springer's trash talk-show. The Benjamin Smith shooting gave it a greater profile, as Smith was a member of Hale's group. No evidence directly linked the World Church of the Creator to Smith's shooting, but that hardly mattered, as soon a semi-media sensation was born.
The World Church of the Creator has more than 40 chapters across the country and has built up its membership online. The rallying cry of the WCC is "Rahowa," short for "Racial Holy War." (One wonders if three white supremacist were yelling this during June 1998, while brutally dragging a 49 year-old African-American to death as he was chained to a pickup truck in Jasper County, Texas.)
Having said that, the WCC is mainly a media creation. Though it has a hardcore following that Smith was apparently part of, the organization remains fairly small in numbers and dollars. Indeed, as far as Beasts go, Hale is a rather pathetic fellow, as the 27-year-old still lives with his parents in East Peoria, Illinois.
That he is still living at home would probably disqualify him as an agent provocateur (if he is, he's quite underpaid.) Still, that the white supremacist movement is loaded with operatives is undeniable. There is widespread mistrust of David Duke in the racist underground, as many believe he was a CIA plant in the movement: indeed, Patsy Sims (in her book The Klan) and Louisiana police long have suspected that is the case. (For the record, Duke has claimed to have served in Laos in 1971, when the CIA's secret war - heroin smuggling operation was in full effect, and has boasted of teaching English to anti-Communist officers for the U.S. AID program, a noted CIA front. He was also involved in an aborted neo-Nazi coup attempt of Dominica, which Duke claims had the full support of the CIA.) Then there's the supposed death of Order leader Robert Matthews: in what is at worst a fascinating urban legend, there are rumors circulating (backed with evidence of "bungling" by Matthews in robberies, which suggests his complicity) that Matthews was an FBI provocateur from moment one, and that even his fiery death is a faked hoax. Finally, there is the Elohim City compound, whose involvement with feds likely includes McVeigh pals Andreas Strassmeier and Michael Brescia, ATF informant Carol Howe, and (some would convincingly argue) Timothy McVeigh himself, among others.
These are but examples, for the wholesale involvement of the intelligence apparatus hand in the neo-Nazi right is too long to chronicle. A little critical thinking could make aware how obvious the connection is: why are groups of violent, hate-filled thugs allowed to thrive when so many other dissident groups have been suppressed? Clearly, they exist because they serve some useful purpose for the establishment. No surprise there: racist organizations promote social stratification by dividing people in the name of bigotry, keeping people busy in battles which are preferable to elites than debates on their concentration of wealth and power (hence the promotion of Nation of Islam mouthpiece Louis Farrakhan by the korporate press.)
All of which makes Hale even worse: not only is he engaging in destructive, hate-filled rhetoric that serves elitist interests, he's apparently doing it for free. More than likely, Hale is what is termed as a "useful idiot," the same term The Konformist applied to Reverend Fred Phelps last year when he was named November's Beast of the Month. Like Phelps, Hale is very useful, and very idiotic.
Apparently. he will continue to be both. There's nothing more useful than a useful idiot, and in Hale, they've hit jackpot. Though most have only begun hearing about Hale and his church, he should soon join that very elite list that is a regular on the talk show scene. He is the perfect poster boy for internet restrictions, restrictions that ultimately (in a predictable bait and switch) would not be targeted at sites like Hale's. The irony is that Hale's message hardly needs to be persecuted by the law to be discredited, as his ideology is so absurd it discredits itself. The best way to fight groups like the WCC is to expose their beliefs and the obvious flaws that are within their positions. There is no need for authorities to get involved in stopping the supposed dangers of hate groups setting up websites (and who decides what constitutes a "hate site" in the first place?) In fact, by trumping up the menacing threat of sites such as Hale's, authorities only encourage visitors to such site by giving it free promotion (which a cynical person would argue is precisely what they want.)
In any case, we salute Matt Hale as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Matt!!!
World Church of the Creator ( http://www.creator.org )
The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror, David Hoffman
Blood in the Face, James Ridgeway
The Klan, Patsy Sims
The Education of Alice, Art Levine
Salon Magazine ( http:www.salon.com )
Furrow a Respected Aryan Guard
Bill Morlin, The Spokesman-Review
Post Office Box 24825
Los Angeles, California 90024-0825
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