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Wednesday • June 15, 1994
‘New’ Ku Klux
Klan denounces hate, still refuses to trust
U ntil Saturday I hadn’t listened to
“When the Saints Go Marching In”
since a jazz band played it at my
21st birthday party in New Orleans. Then
I heard it again at a rally of the Knights of
the Ku Klux Klan.
How ironic that such a song could
connect the French Quarter’s
cosmopolitan, laid-back revelry with
the ignorant intolerance that
stereotypes the KKK.
The Kdansmen looked like any mix of people,
except they all were white. A couple of teenage boys
and about 10 men and women made up the group.
They met at the town square in Athens, Texas,
where a massive brown brick courthouse with
columned porches sits among oak, magnolia and
sycamore trees which shade the entire lawn. The
place was no different from a hundred others. This
event could have happened anywhere.
On the morning before the rally, police
barricaded the street and put up crowd control
fences around the building’s front steps, where the
Klansmen would stand. A helicopter circled
overhead. Law officers carried tear gas and night
sticks and a dozen sheriffs deputies on horseback
inspected the area. As “high noon” approached, the
town prepared for the worst and I got ready to see
the Klan bring out the worst in the town.
My faith in
society’s progress
received a boost
when only 25 people
showed up to watch.
The Klan
members marched
out to “When the
Saints ...” and other
traditional tunes.
Four Klansmen
stood in a semicircle behind the microphone and
held the American, Confederate Texas and
Christian flags. Uniform shirts embroidered with
those three flags and a Klan symbol replaced the
hooded white cloaks. They recited the Pledge of
Allegiance and then the show started.
This “new” Klan calls itself a “white civil rights
organization.” It invites all white Christians to
join. Some of the comments during Saturdays
speeches supported that claim.
Bobbie Smith, an Exalted Cyclops of the Klan,
said, “Everyone should be proud of their race,
proud of their land,” and, “No matter what the
color of your skin, to be judged by the colorblind
would leave us all better off.”
The Grand Dragon of Texas, Michael Douglas
Lowe, spoke of the need for the “helping hand” of
temporary welfare and set a goal for this nation to
provide everyone with some kind of work.
All the speakers repeated the line, “We hate no
one,” until it became a refrain at each pause.
But not hating is only half the task of creating
social harmony and strength. The other half is
trust, which the Klan still lacks.
The Klan’s philosophy includes beliefs that
generate racial conflict, public fear and national
isolationism. These problems can lead to violence
and even war. The speeches were spiked
with comments like:
• “If you were
bom here, you
belong here.”
• “Immigrants are
invading America.
This is our homeland!
How much longer will
it be a homeland we
can call our own?”
• “Immigrants come
in to steal your jobs,
steal your homes.”
• “Let’s do for OUR people — to Hell with other
countries.”
Lowe also outlined an idea for controlling the
spread of AIDS. All HIV carriers would be interned
in “AIDS hospitals,” to receive care from other AIDS
victims — much like “lepers were separated from
the rest of the population” in Biblical accounts.
Apparently their rights die when they get infected.
True civil rights groups work to gain and protect
the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. Those
liberties include the right to freedom of speech,
religion and assembly; the right to bear arms; the
right to due process of law.
The Klan doesn’t
advocate civil rights. It
preaches a doctrine of „
social change. It
condemns modem
political changes and
wrongly turns to group;,
isolation as a solution/;
for problems faced by'
every race and nation.'-
At the end of the
rally I met Lowe and some of l
the other members. They invited everyone ;
attending or observing the rally to a “cross-lighting,”
as it’s now called, which symbolizes the Klan
“bringing truth and light to the country.”
If the present Klan’s “truth” is the light that’s
coming to shine on America, I’d much rather liv£
in the dark.
Jay Robbins is a senior English
and political science major
FRANK
STANFORD
Columnist
A s I attended my high school 10-year
reunion last weekend, I realized how
much can happen in a decade.
Yowww! What a shock. Although it must
be natural to revert to the adolescent
tendency of always noticing your peers’
appearance, I managed to sidestep
immature and shallow attitudes and see
only the inner beauty:
EVERYONE was fat. Of course that
was not entirely true — some looked even better — but the “10-
year spare tire” makes the “freshman 15” seem like nothing
more than padded clothing. The Slim-Fast company could have
stocked up on “before” pictures for sure. Everyone was bald, too
- even the former cheerleaders.
OK, so I’m on the road to bald-city and holding a little
grudge against those who will keep hair as thick as carpet their
whole lives. As you might notice in the mug shot, I used to have
hair and even own a comb. At the reunion,
however, it was obvious that I wasn’t the
only one of my classmates to be ankle deep
in shower water during the last 10 years. It
used to look like a dead blond mouse was
stuck in my drain all the time. Thanks to
seeing many bald school chums and the
ridiculously high price of Rogaine, I’m now
prouder than ever to be a member of the
hair-impaired. Speaking of impaired ..
Remember how mature col
lege boys used to seem to
teenage girls? And how col-
Everyone had kids. Kids! Now that might not seem like a big
deal to some. You might know couples in their late twenties or
even younger who have babies. But I’m speaking of children
who are old enough to add and subtract. However, these
“parents” who I was seeing again after 10 years were the same
individuals I shot spitballs with and at. Some of them cut class
regularly to drink beer at the beach. Or filled the main air
conditioning unit with detergent. Or blew up newspaper stands,
not to mention many other illegal and immoral activities. Now
they’re family men and women trying to teach junior how to
behave. How necessarily hypocritical. It really makes you
wonder how your own parents acted in high school. Some of you
might be sturmed (unless your parents are major goobers).
After being hit with the way everyone looks a decade later,
I was surprised how easily I slipped back into the memories
The Battalion
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Jay Robbins, Opinion Editor
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Nuclear danger
North Korea poses intolerable threat
uiXoM
Time’s quick passage hides aging
High school classmates at reunion look different but remain same
and conversation that trailed off at
graduation only to be picked right up
again. The time passed so quickly - and
now I’m old as the Appalachians.
My 10-year reunion may not mean
much to any of you, but it should. As I was
returning to College Station my mind was
full of all that’s associated with the
passage of time and aging. Since getting
older is something we all experience but
rarely notice or understand, it’s important to realize that aging
- or LIFE - is happening right now. Don’t just think of being in
school as an obstacle to graduation, or a menial job as a
stairstep to a better one ... to a better one ... Even though these
desires are normal and natural, the present is an enormous
part of your life - your aging (even flipping burgers).
Aging is something different for each one of us. It is
Polident and nursing homes, weakness and power. But it’s
never the age we are at the present.
We used to say the sixth-graders were
the “older kids” and college students were
ancient. Receiving a driver’s license was a
longed-for rite of passage into adulthood,
but now it’s for high school babies.
Remember how mature college boys used
Ic26 girls W6re REAL women? seem teenage girls? And how college
& ^ girls were REAL women? Hah! (regarding
the men only, of course) Because time is
North Korea’s withdrawal Monday
from the International Atomic Energy
Agency alarmed the world and showed
the need for strong economic and mili
tary action to prevent North Korea’s de
velopment of nuclear weapons power.
Allowing North Korea to develop a
nuclear weapons program would spell
disaster. North Korea quit the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty
in March 1993 and does
^ hot'abide by its mandates
or safety requirements.
Nuclear weapons on the
Korean Peninsula would
destabilize the region.
Japan and South Korea
would live under the
threat of a hostile nuclear
neighbor, which would
encourage their desires
for atomic bombs.
The United States,
along with other U.N.
members, has threat
ened an economic em
bargo against North Ko
rea in response to its ac
tions. Kim II Sung, the
aging North Korean dic
tator, proclaimed that sanctions are an
act of war and threatened to respond
in kind if they are imposed, but Kim
has already fired the first shots. Ignor
ing the mandates of the nonprolifera
tion treaty is a serious threat to the
international community that the
United States must confront.
The CIA claims that the odds are
“better than even” that North Korea
has already produced at least one
atomic bomb. Evidence indicates that
the Korean government may be gath
ering enough plutonium to build more.
By barring inspections, the North Ko
reans leave the international community
with no option but to assume the worst.;;
As an outlaw among the community
of nations, North Korea
might be willing to sell
uits weapons to any na
tion that could pay, in
cluding other interna
tional aggressors like
Libya and Iran.
In the words of former
Secretary of State
Lawrence Eagleburger,
“[North Korea’s policies]
ought to scare the pants
off everybody.” The rifek
of nuclear weapons
spreading to these Na
tions justifies a stern re
sponse from the United
States, including prepa
rations for war.
Hopefully, North Ko
rea will abide by the
treaty and stop its nuclear weapons
program even before sanctions are
needed. Any weapons they already
have must be destroyed. Kim II Surjg’s
rough, aggressive behavior resembles
Saddam Hussein before Iraq’s armies
rolled into Kuwait in 1990.
If North Korea’s pro-nuclear behavior
continues, it must be dealt with firmly.
passing every moment, we don’t have the opportunity to really
notice what is happening to us. We move from our parents’
homes to school, school to our own homes, and tax bracket to
tax bracket. These gradations are easy to mark.
A person however, is a very difficult movement to measure,
especially when you’re moving right along with them through
time. Just look at a picture of a parent or relative from five or
10 years ago. They don’t really seem different at all do they?
Aging doesn’t seem to change people that much. Oh,
sure, a little morphological differences here and there
(mostly there), but it’s certainly likely that those
individuals you know now will be the same people 10, 20 or
even 60 years from now.
Frank Stanford is a graduate philosophy student
rmammmmammmammmmmmmmmmmmmKmmmmBm
Mail
Call
Buddhism, Christianity teach
different forms of salvation
In regard to Julia Stavenhagen's June 14 col
umn: I do not want to comment on the validity of
the statements concerning Buddhism; however, I
would like to help the columnist and the readers
understand more about Christianity.
Many aspects of the views given pertaining to
Christianity are true, but there is a lot which
has been left out. Jesus Christ taught compas
sion way before Buddha was born. Jesus Christ,
as the incarnate son of God, performed many
miracles in the presence of hundreds of witness
es (Buddha did not). God does advocate love in
all circumstances, however the Bible includes
several stories about many killings initiated by
God for the purposes of fulfilling his promises
and to bring glory to himself.
The “lost through thousands of translations”
idea is a fallacy - I am not denying that the Bible
has been translated into many different lan
guages, but there are over 60,000 original copies
of the Bible * 25,000 of those are in the original
Greek. Jesus was not sent “to help people gain
happiness and enlightenment,” but was rather
sent to pay the penalty for the sin of mankind.
The fact that some “televangelists” have been
labeled as hypocritical does appear bad — how
ever, I myself, as a Bible-believing Christian, am
a hypocrite for the simple fact that I as a mere
sinful human being cannot go a day without sin
ning, and if there are any Christians who be
lieves they can go a day without sinning I believe
they have been deceived.
I especially like Stavenhagen’s reference to
the “good ideas” advocated by Jesus Christ. He
did have some good ideas. Some of his ideas were
salvation, eternal life, pure love, complete com
fort, complete security, absolute truth, and pure
joy, all of which could only be found by trusting
in him. I wonder what readers would say if they
knew that the teaching of salvation according to
the Buddhist religion is by self-effort only.
And the definitions of heaven and hell given
by Buddhism are far from the definitions given
within Christianity. Hell, from the Christian
point of view, is a place replete with eternal suf
fering, eternal damnation, eternal fire, continual
anguish and constant darkness, while heaven is
a place without any suffering, anguish, or dark
ness; its occupants are in complete communion
with God.
Please do not let this column discourage you
from looking into Christianity.
Brian Schneider
Class of. ! 95
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