Information about hate and extremist groups has been on my own personal radar for about 20 years. What with our recent guests, I've been compiling some good resources I know of and hunting down more. For my own sanity I'm organizing things on a blog at this point titled Olympia Against Hate.

My goal is for this to be a useful database of hate and extremist activity, along with resources. I already have a decent link section up.
Right now I'm fascinated by what I am learning about the Ghost Skins, at least one of our visitors practices the art:

The life of the Ghost Skin is the facist path of stealth.
As undercover White power Warriors our goal is to act like braindead Sheepeople; but in reality we only follow Hitler.
Ghost Skins don't shave their heads, wear boots, braces or anything else that can visually identify them as Nazis. We strive to blend into society to be unrecognizable by the jewish enemy.
When it serves our purposes we gladly act politically correct.
We are at war and we use the weapon of deception to deny the enemy intelligence they could use against us.

Dave Neiwert from Orcinus weighs in on the issue of whether to counterprotest or not. Dave has a lot of experience with these groups, and is active in tracking their rhetoric and activities. Here's his take:

The counter-protest in Olympia featured some insult exchanges and some ugly but minor interactions with the members of the NSM who came out to rally. From all the accounts I could examine, however, it's clear that the vast majority of the protesters were peaceful and well behaved.

More to the point, their presence sent an unmistakable message: That this kind of hatemongering will go neither unheeded nor unconfronted. The NSM organizers were clearly unprepared for this kind of response and shut their rally down sooner than they had intended.

Sending this message is vital, because the quiet approach -- simply pretending they don't exist, and perhaps they'll go away -- doesn't work. People like those who join the neo-Nazi movement believe they're standing up for white society's unspoken wishes, and they see this kind of silence as tacit approval. It encourages them to ratchet things up, particularly recruitment and violence.

Now, if the NSM were to try to make this kind of rally an annual event a la Coeur d'Alene, it would make sense to simply organize a counter-event elsewhere. But when they first go poking their heads out of their holes, it's absolutely vital to let them know the community isn't going to just pretend they're not there.

The counter-protesters, I think, could have done a better job of reining in those inclined to verbal abuse. But they did the right thing, most of all, by showing up and letting the haters know the challenge they represent would not go unmet.

I disagree with the tactics used by the Nazi protestors just as much as I disagree with the Nazis. That being said, I've been thinking of things we can do should they return. Rumor has it they might be coming back for a larger event at the capital on July 4th. We had a Bread & Roses staff meeting this morning and the Nazi subject came up. One of my fellow staffers suggested having a pledge drive throughout the community where people would "sponsor a Nazi". The more Nazis show up, the more money is collected. My thought is that the money raised could be used to have some kind of community event where everyone is invited and diversity is celebrated.

Does this sound like a plausible idea to anyone?

Shockingly enough, The Fire has other interests beyond politics. Being a member of Netflix has allowed me to enjoy a great deal of movies which I might otherwise have not seen.

When you go to Blockbuster (or Video Gallery, Tumwater Video, Safeway, etc., etc.) you're usually pretty reserved on which movie you want to rent. I mean, if you're going to spend $4 to see a film, you better make sure it's something you think you'll enjoy. I know that's how I was when I still went to the video store.

At any rate, with Netflix (I'm on the $20/month, 3-DVDs at a time/unlimited program) I rent movies which I know I won't like but I do it to see them anyway. Like House of Wax.

So I figured that every now and then I'll post on a movie I've recently watched. Not a synopsis or review but just whether or not it's worth spending the 2 hours of your life.

Last weekend I watched The Notebook. Let me tell you one thing: If you have an ounce of testosterone in your blood, you won't like this movie. The story is good enough, a little sappy, and way too predictable as far as what's going to end up happening but if you need something besides Gladiator for the millionth time (and really, who can't get enough of Maximus?) with the girlfriend/spouse, you could do a lot worse than The Notebook. Other than that, chuck it under the "Never" category.

Oh, and just to make it official, Solaris was the worst movie I've ever seen in my life.

And we thought the expansion of power here in the US was broad.

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, is facing an onslaught over the Government's anti-terror laws after figures showed nearly 36,000 people were stopped and searched under the emergency powers last year. The number of people stopped and searched each year has soared since the Act came into force in 2001, when 10,200 people were stopped. It rose to 33,800 in 2003-04.

Continued

From the Olympian legals:

PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS for THURSTON COUNTY

PURPOSE: The Board of County Commissioners will hold a public hearing to consider an amendment to the Thurston County Code Chapter 2.02.020, to change the meeting time of the first Monday of the month regular Board meeting from beginning at 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m.

DATE: Monday, February 13, 2006 TIME: 9:30 a.m. (or as soon thereafter as the matter may be heard)

PLACE: Thurston County Courthouse 2000 Lakeridge Drive SW - Building One, Room 280 Olympia, WA 98502

From what I know if this situation, one meeting a month was changed to evening after several folks requested that the board make it easier for people to attend. Almost every city council I've come across holds evening meetings (except some sub-committees of city councils), but every county council or board has day meetings.

National Socialist Movement rally photos taken by David Lynn here in Oly, most likely copies of them taken from a site I hastily put together, or Dave Lynn's own site, were grabbed and used by the NSM on their Overthrow site and their Nationalist88 site  (scroll down to Jan 23 entry).

They did not properly credit David Lynn as photographer.

More on the flip...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: January 24, 2005

Contact: Katy Fogg, SKMFogg@netscape.net or 360/402-6601 c

Olympia stage hands plan informational picket January 28, Saturday evening, 7 pm, Washington Center.

After more than a year of negotiations, the stage hands at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts in Olympia are still far from an agreement on a labor contract between management and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 15.

Frustrated by management's lack of progress during the negotiations, the stage hands are letting the public know why the venue, owned by the City of Olympia and partly funded with city tax money, is not an equitable place to work. On Saturday, January 28, the stage hands will conduct an informational picket for the "Blues Night Out" concert at the Washington Center.

Seeking to improve their working conditions, the stage hands voted in August 2004 to establish a collective bargaining unit and have I.A.T.S.E., Local 15, as their representative. They unanimously rejected management's final contract proposal in October 2005. In December, a meeting with Federal mediators failed to bring the parties any closer on an agreement, and a second meeting was scheduled for January 12, 2006. On January 9, management postponed that meeting until after CenterFest, the Washington Center?s annual black-tie gala fundraiser.

"That rescheduling is fairly revealing of management's intentions during this entire negotiating process," stage hand Nick Shellman told the Olympia City Council last week. While the city contracts with the Washington Center to manage the facility, the stage hands do not have the protections and job securities that are enjoyed by city employees under their union contracts. The Washington Center leases its building from the city for an annual fee of one dollar and received $238,000 in lodging tax money last year.