The State of Hate in Arizona

by Pa Rock
Social Observer

Remember William Kostric, the moron who showed up at President Obama’s town hall meeting in New Hampshire this week packing a pistol? He carried a sign with a thinly veiled death threat that read: “It is time to water the tree of liberty.” Kostric wondered aloud to Chris Matthews on Hardball why more good Americans, like him, weren’t showing up armed at these events?

My first thought regarding this evolutionary throwback was that he would fit right into the cultural landscape of Arizona. Imagine my lack of surprise when I learned later that he had recently relocated to New Hampshire from Scottsdale, Arizona!

To say that Arizona has its fair share of dangerous and demented nut jobs would be gross understatement. The state is rife with hate – and damned proud of it!

This week Dr. Heidi Beirich, a representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center, spoke in Phoenix and gave a public presentation on the increase of hate group activity in Arizona. She listed the three primary reasons for the rise of extremist activity in the state as being the election of a black President, the weak economy, and the nativist uproar over illegal immigration from Mexico. Arizona, due primarily to its long border with Mexico, seems to go especially berserk whenever it appears that anyone with brown skin is being treated fairly or humanely.

Dr. Beirich had particularly pointed remarks concerning Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, and state senator Russell Pearce, both of whom she sees as pandering toward members of these groups and thus empowering them with a sense of legitimacy.

The Southern Poverty Law Center recognizes nineteen distinct hate groups currently operating in Arizona. Three are classified as Racist Skinhead organizations: the Western Hammerskins (statewide), Vinlanders Social Club (Mesa), and Volksfront (Phoenix). The term "Skinheads" refers to young thugs with shaved heads and plenty of tattoos who get off on drugs and violence. The group had its origins in Great Britain fifty years ago. It later split into two distinct factions - the racists and the anti-racists - and both varieties crossed the Atlantic Ocean where they were able to infest America. And lucky Arizona - we got the "racist" version of these vermin!

Ten of the hate groups are Neo-Nazi: the White Knights of America (statewide), White Revolution (statewide), National Socialist Movement – NSM (Apache Junction), American Thule Society (Black Canyon City), National Socialist Movement (Cochise County), Aryan Nations (Goodyear – an All-American City!), American National Socialist Workers Party (Phoenix), Aryan Nations (Phoenix), and National Socialist Movement – NSM (Phoenix). The Neo-Nazis profess a love of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, and they are stridently vocal in their hatred of Jews. (Didn't we fight a big war against this type of scum?)

The remaining hate groups with Arizona chapters include: the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (General Hate – Colorado City), Remnant Outreach Ministries (Christian Identity – Cottonwood), Arizona White Pride (White Nationalist – Maricopa County), Nation of Islam (Black Separatist – Phoenix), American Border Patrol (Anti-Immigrant – Sierra Vista), and the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK – Tempe).

Other reported hate groups in Arizona include the National Organization for European American Rights, World Church of the Creator (Florence and Tucson), Hammerskin Nation (Glendale and Mesa), and the National Alliance (Phoenix).

Arizona is truly blessed to have this many organized ways to hate. What could be sadder than a racist, moronic, gun-toting Neanderthal without a support group? New Hampshire must be a deep pit of putrefying prejudice to lure William Kostric away from this scorpion and rattlesnake-riddled, fascist nirvana!

Let us prey.

One final note: The President of the United States and Mrs. Obama - and their little girls - will be in Arizona this Sunday and Monday. So far his town hall meetings on health care have been polite and productive. That ain't gonna happen here. Tread with care, Mr. President. These bastards are seriously scary.

Murder on the Loop 101 (A Tale of Escalating Passions)

by Pa Rock
Enraged Citizen

The Valley of Hell is a strange place indeed. Most of the two-legged creatures who inhabit this craven place pride themselves on their ignorance. As an example, a local reporter covering last week's hate-fueled tea-bagger party at the state capitol interviewed a man who was advocating that all socialists should be killed. He further stated his belief that the President of the United States is a socialist. When the reporter asked for the man's name, the big talker declined to provide it. Unfortunately for society, the reporter also did not get a picture of this knuckle-dragger.

This is also a gun culture where sexually inadequate morons try to make up for their shortcomings by owning enough weaponry to storm a third world country. It is those guns that ensure their virility and independence - you betcha! And who is their enemy? Why, government, of course.

Add to that strange brew the fact that The East Valley Tribune recently ran a five-part series on how criminal activity is being ignored by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office because our sheriff, Joe Arapio, the self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff in America" is focused on immigration enforcement because 'those people' are easy marks and that's where the fame is. (BTW, The East Valley Tribune learned today that they received the Pulitzer Prize for local news for that series on Arpaio and crime in the valley.)

And then, just for good measure, take into consideration the yelling and screaming that a certain group of locals have been engaging in regarding the speed enforcement cameras that have gone up in the valley over the last few years. Libertarians, and Paulies, and gun crazies have been foaming at the mouth over that infringement of their "rights." John Law just ain't playing fair if he can catch them without a high speed chase!

Enter, stage right, Thomas De Stories. The cantankerous 68-year-old is the owner of a local adventure company that takes tourists on jeep tours of the Sonoran Desert. Last night, around 8 p.m., Mr. De Stories pulled up to a fully marked photo radar van on the busy Loop 101 near 7th Street and fired several shots into the van killing the operator, Doug Georgianni. Unbelievably, the arrogant murderer was driving one of his easily recognizable company vehicles!

Radar speed enforcement has now been suspended across the valley. Republican State Representative Sam Crump, a vocal opponent of the cameras, said he is aware of speculation that the murder resulted from "escalating passions" surrounding the public debate over speed cameras.

Ya think?

Welcome to Arizona, the land of cactus and scorpions and sand, the place where if you can't get your way through legal means, you always have the option of changing things through gun fire. It worked last night. Thomas De Stories is in jail, but the cameras are no longer interfering with the God-given rights of the local white trash to drive as fast as they want.

And it won't end there. As long as the radio loudmouths keep spewing their hate, as long as Fox "News" keeps sloshing their gas on the overheated yokels, as long as the NRA keeps encouraging everyone to buy more and more guns, as long as law enforcement officials worry more about their public image than they do about combating real crime, as long as fundamentalist preachers keep using fear to whip their congregations into a frenzy - as long as America stays crazy, we are all in deep, deep trouble.

God help and watch over Barack Obama.

Arizona Votes

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I telephoned the Elections Office in Maricopa County today to ask if there was a way that I could determine if my mail-in ballot had been received and tallied. After ten minutes of listening to recordings and pressing numbers, I finally reached a human. I told the young man that I had mailed in my ballot three weeks ago. Would there be, I asked, a list of voters who had actually voted posted somewhere after the election so that I could ensure that my ballot had been received? "What is your name, sir?" he asked politely. After I told him, there was a pause for a few minutes, and then he came back on the line and told me that my ballot had been received and counted. Mail-in voting is so easy and so convenient!

Estimates are that one-third of the national electorate may have already voted by election day. Thirty states have some sort of early voting process, and I suspect that they will have fewer problems on election day than those states that cram all of their voters into one twelve-hour period. There certainly should be less waiting and hassle in places where citizens have been allowed to vote early. Who knows, election day might be one of the two or three days a year that we have rain in Arizona!

The Obama campaign began doing television advertising in Arizona today, after most polls moved the race from "solid McBush" to "lean McBush." John McBush has homes in several states, and some of the locals feel that he is more transfixed on life in Washington DC than he is on life in Arizona. Some wags refer to Arizona's Senator Kyl as our "workhorse" and McBush as our "showhorse." So long-story-short, McBush is losing ground in his home state and Obama is going to give him a run for Arizona's ten electoral votes. It's about damned time!

MSNBC reported tonight that McBush has a one-point lead in the polls in Arizona, and that Obama is twelve points ahead of McBush in the state's early voting. My call to Maricopa County today ensures that I am part of that twelve-point lead.

John McBush is up for re-election to the US Senate in two years. If he chooses to run again, Arizona's most popular politician, Governor Janet Napolitano, will send him to Sun City for a long-overdue retirement!

I am hoping for a surprise Obama visit to Arizona over the weekend. It's a shame that he doesn't have time to visit Alaska as well!