During the comparable time in the '90's, I was working at my brother's junkyard, right smack dab in the heart of the area up here that houses the Grand Gekko of Racial Hatred or whatever the KKK calls their top asswipe. I remember not understanding some of the conversations that I heard coming out of what I thought were just normal men. Things about "survival camps" in Michigan, stories about gun training and always veiled dog whistle comments. Guys you wouldn't look at twice in the grocery store or sports bars, but radical, racist, potential terrorists just the same.
WASHINGTON - Militia groups with gripes against the government are regrouping across the country and could grow rapidly, according to an organization that tracks such trends.
The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says. Conspiracy theories about a secret Mexican plan to reclaim the Southwest are also growing amid the public debate about illegal immigration.
Bart McEntire, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told SPLC researchers that this is the most growth he's seen in more than a decade.
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While anti-government sentiment has been on the rise over the last two years, there aren't as many threats and violent acts at this point as there were in the 1990s, according to the report. That movement bore the likes of Timothy McVeigh, who in 1995 blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 people.
But McEntire fears it's only a matter of time.
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