Dealing with xenophobia

The Know-Nothings are at it again. A perfectly peaceful mosque in Tennessee has begun to be attacked by racist idiots.

This has to stop, now.

I have some experience with this kind of stupidity. Living in Sander's County, Montana from 1986 to 1990, put me accidentally in the furor over the white supremacist group, the Aryan Nations. These very nasty characters moved into old ranches and new home-builts that were just a few miles of forest road across the Little Bitteroot Mountains from the main compounds in Idaho.

The Montana compounds were strategically picked to provide cover for a bolt hole across the hills from Idaho.

I worked at the mill, the Vinson Cedar mill, and we had one black employee. He had a wife and family. He received death threats, and his house was fired, and after a few more weeks of fear decided to move. A Forest Service seasonal ranger had her cabin broke into and her dog killed, after she caught one of the racists stealing firewood from the National Forest. Other nasty incidents occurred in bars and the local grocery.

Eventually, of course, the FBI and the Idaho State Police went after the Idaho compound for various crimes. But on the Montana side we had instead a local civic response. A group was organized, meetings were held, and a rally, in which this tiny Montana's county's population was able to turn out several hundred people for civil rights and against race violence. Emboldened by this support, the Sheriff's Department became more vigilant. After examining their own conscience more deeply, most of the officers decided to honor their constitutional oath. Eventually they succeeded, with some help from the FBI, in arresting some of the racists on various crimes.

I was extremely proud of that small effort. I also remember the massive turn-out a few years ago in Lewiston, Maine, when no less than several thousand Mainers turned out to support our Somali immigrants and to oppose a tiny white supremacist rally. When ordinary people stand up, this kind of behavior crawls back into its hole.

So what is needed here, other than the right-wing chattering classes beginning to see the kind of violence they're encouraging with the stupid and illiberal nonsense over the so-called "ground zero mosque," and ending their own silly, self-aggrandizing behavior, is a good old-fashioned community response.

We need to stand up and be counted and say that American moslems are as American as any other generation of immigrants.

Remember, the original Know Nothings targeted Irish Catholics.

What is this to do with sustainability?

A lot, actually, because we need to have some notion of the kind of good society we might wish to sustain.

Remember the words of Pastor Niemöller?

"They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

More practically, I also have another 15 first year trainee Conservation Law Enforcement candidates in my introductory map reading class, and many more third years in my required sustainability class. As long as I'm partly responsible for training future Peace Officers, young men and women that will put on their country's uniform and take an oath to protect the constitution, they're going to hear about stories like this, and they're going to be made to think about what kind of country they actually want to protect.