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Let’s AllPredict the future at: http://click.topica.com/aaaaoWbz8SnrbAjwjxa/EducationAd12 ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________________________________________________ The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 23 May 2000 Vol. 4, Number 43 (#424) __________________________________________________________________________ The Criminal Right In the News: Reuters, "Two Accused of Murder in 1963 Alabama Church Blast," 13 May 00 Dallas Mark Wrolstad (The Dallas Morning News), "Bombing suspect lived a quiet life: Neighbors think of ex-Alabaman as model citizen in town near," 19 May 00 Kansas City Star (mixed reports), "Leader of radical religious sect faces abduction charges," 18 May 00 Tim Richardson (The Capital-Journal), "ACLU threatens legal action against county treasurer," 19 May 00 Rightwing Quote of the Week: Ax Curtis (Nationalist Observer), "My Killers, or Yours?," 28 Apr 00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CRIMINAL RIGHT IN THE NEWS: Two Accused of Murder in 1963 Alabama Church Blast Reuters 13 May 00 BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Two former members of the Ku Klux Klan surrendered on Wednesday to face murder charges in the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, church that killed four black girls and galvanized the U.S. civil rights movement. Thomas Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry, among four suspects named by the FBI in its original investigation, were charged with eight counts each of murder, U.S. Attorney Doug Jones said at a news conference. The two turned themselves in to police on Wednesday and were being held without bail in a Birmingham jail. They had been under a cloud of suspicion for the past few days as a special grand jury heard evidence in the case. "The state grand jury has returned the indictment. We have no idea at this point when the case will be set for trial," Jones said. He added that he did not think it would be a problem to try a case almost 40 years old. Jones, who noted that U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno had supported continued investigation of the bombing -- the case was reopened several times in the 1970s and 1980s -- declined to discuss the evidence against Blanton or Cherry. Of the eight murder counts filed against each man, four cover "intentional murder" and four involve "universal malice," referring to the possibility of the bomb's killing a large number of people. The suspects previously denied any involvement in the bombing. Their lawyers were not immediately available for comment on Wednesday. Baptist Church Was In Central Birmingham Blanton and Cherry are believed to have been among a group of hard-core members of the white supremacist Klan who planted a bomb that exploded on Sept. 15, 1963, outside the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in downtown Birmingham. The blast demolished a wall, killing Denise McNair, 11, and three 14-year- olds, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins, who were all in the basement of the church. The bombing shocked the nation and prodded many moderate whites into giving active support to a campaign led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to win blacks equal rights in Southern states, including Alabama. A federal investigation at the time of the bombing did not result in any charges, although the FBI named Blanton, Cherry and two other Klansmen as suspects. The Klan had waged a campaign of terror against civil rights workers and blacks in the South. An investigation in the 1970s led to the murder conviction of one suspect, Robert Edward Chambliss, who died in prison in 1985 while serving a life term. The fourth suspect, Herman Cash, is dead. The arrests are part of a growing wave of current prosecutions of white suspects believed responsible for attacks on blacks in Alabama, Mississippi and other Southern states in the 1960s. Many hate crimes in the South went unpunished in the 1960s because of the willingness of local law-enforcement officials to turn a blind eye to attacks on blacks and the reluctance of all-white juries to convict white defendants for such crimes. Mississippi is now investigating the case of three civil rights workers killed in 1964 while registering black voters in Neshoba County. Seven men were convicted of conspiracy for the crime, but none served time for the killings. In 1994, the state convicted Klan member Byron de la Beckwith of the murder of Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist in Mississippi, 31 years earlier. - - - - - Bombing suspect lived a quiet life: Neighbors think of ex-Alabaman as model citizen in town near Dallas Mark Wrolstad (The Dallas Morning News) 19 May 00 PAYNE SPRINGS, Texas -- The eventual arrest of an aging Bobby Cherry reached back half his lifetime to a horrifying attack against the country's early civil-rights movement. Arrests generate trust But among those who know the former Alabaman here on the edge of East Texas - and those who don't - the murder charges finally arising from a 37-year-old church bombing that killed four black girls caused less of a stir than Thursday's strong south winds. The investigation that ultimately led to the arrests of Mr. Cherry, 69, and a fellow former Ku Klux Klansman was, like the wind, unrelenting. "It was no real surprise," said Roy Miller, 70, a Henderson County road- maintenance worker who has known Mr. Cherry as "Cowboy" during the suspect's retirement at a mobile-home community along Cedar Creek Lake, about 65 miles southeast of Dallas. "I think he knew that in time they'd probably pick him up. He may be guilty as sin. I wasn't there when he did it or didn't do it. But I'll tell you, there's no more model a citizen around here." Mr. Miller said he has heard Mr. Cherry swear he had nothing to do with the killings, and "the way he'd say it, you just had to believe he didn't." Richard Matthews, a neighbor of four years, said he can't believe the accusations against his good friend. "Everybody's got to be punished for what they do, but I don't see anything in the guy that could do that kind of violence," said Mr. Matthews, 40. "There wouldn't be nothing I wouldn't trust him with. "Everybody likes Bob." Despite those kind appraisals, few people in the area seem to have heard of Bobby Frank Cherry, a one-time truck driver and welder who retired to a quiet life along a winding lakeside road more than a decade ago. He and Thomas E. Blanton Jr., 61, of Birmingham, Ala., were charged Wednesday with participating in the infamous bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963. The Sunday morning explosion, caused by dynamite apparently hidden beneath the church steps the previous night, triggered nationwide revulsion and is credited with spurring the effort to enact federal civil rights legislation. The four victims - three 14-year-olds and an 11-year-old - were in the church basement getting ready for an annual youth service. Their bodies were found dressed in white garments. Although four admitted members of a Birmingham group known as Klavern 13, including Mr. Cherry, were long suspected of having plotted the bombing, only one man stood trial and was convicted - 14 years after the crime. "Why would it take 37 years to come up with the evidence against him?" Mr. Matthews asked, standing just down the lane from his friend's now-vacant home. "They're real slow at their work, I guess." Mr. Cherry survived several incarnations of federal and state investigations, eventually retiring with his wife, Myrtle, to a community that mixes modest and ramshackle dwellings. His two sons, Tom and Herman, live on the same road. The bombing case was reopened again in 1996, prompting Mr. Cherry to repeatedly profess his innocence. A federal grand jury indicted the two men this week, and they surrendered to authorities Wednesday. Mr. Cherry was already in Birmingham to face charges that he sexually molested a stepdaughter 29 years ago. Federal officials have not specified what new information led to the break in the bombing investigation. But four current or former relatives, including a former wife and a granddaughter, have said publicly that Mr. Cherry over the years has bragged about taking part in the bombing and has said "the worst part" was that the church wasn't filled. Mr. Matthews, taking a break from his tree-cutting job, surmised that greedy relatives have spotted an opportunity to sell lies to tabloids about a failing man with heart problems. "They figure he's not going to be around for long, so the hell with him, and we'll have money when he's gone," Mr. Matthews said. Bobby Cherry is known as a friendly neighbor who tends his yard and keeps to himself. "It looks to me like, after all this time, if they'd done their job they would have done something before now," said John Stephens, 76, who owns the well-manicured shoreline lot in front of Mr. Cherry's. The Cherry residence is 13 miles across rolling ranchland from Mabank, where some of the 1,700 residents obviously regret their town's connection with the accused racist bomber. Mabank often is identified as his adopted hometown, because that's the mailing address for all 30,000 residents surrounding the large lake. "You understand he did not live in Mabank," City Secretary Louann Confer said. "It's a bad reflection on the city." Retiree Rosie Powers, who said she is one of the few black residents of Mabank, wasn't sure what might be gained from the newest prosecutions - or talking about them. "I don't know anything about it, so I don't want to get involved in it," she said. Mr. Cherry wasn't a lunchtime conversation topic at the Pitt Grill until a table of regulars was asked about the case. "If they got away with it this long, whether they did it or not, they ought to leave 'em alone," said one customer, Ronnie Tacker. But what if the men are guilty? "If they're guilty," he said, "hang 'em." - - - - Leader of radical religious sect faces abduction charges Kansas City Star (mixed reports) 18 May 00 GAINESVILLE, Mo. -- The leader of a religious sect was charged Thursday with abducting six of his grandchildren from North Dakota in the mid-1990s and hiding them at his farmhouse for at least five years. Meanwhile, the six children, ages 9 through 16, refused to leave the farmhouse and remained in a standoff with authorities for the second day at the property a few miles from the Arkansas border. "None of our officers have been in the house. Our approach is not to push this," Missouri Highway Patrol spokesman Lou Wehmer said. "We just want to get them back home in the least destructive means." Authorities arrested the Rev. Gordon Winrod and two of his adult children Wednesday morning outside his home on a 300-acre tract about five miles east of Gainesville. But Winrod's grandchildren ran inside and have refused to come back out, Wehmer said. Winrod, 73, is pastor of Our Savior's Church, which sits atop a hill on the same property. Authorities have linked the church to the Christian Identity movement, which considers white Christians superior to nonwhites and Jews. Winrod, his son Steven Winrod, 33, and his daughter Carol Winrod, 27, were charged with six counts of child abduction, according to Ozark County prosecutor Tom Cline. They were being held in the county jail on $500,000 bail apiece. They are accused of kidnapping the six children from the youngsters' fathers -- Winrod's former sons-in-law -- in North Dakota and hiding them on the Missouri farm. Three are the children of Joel Leppert and three belong to his brother, Tim Leppert. The Leppert brothers had been married to two of Winrod's daughters, Quinta Leppert and Sharon Leppert. Both marriages ended in 1992. Eight children in all were kidnapped in 1994 and 1995 after the fathers were awarded sole custody, Cline said. Two of the children recently were returned to their homes in North Dakota. Quinta Leppert and Sharon Leppert have been convicted in North Dakota on abduction-related charges and remain held in that state, Cline said. As pastor of Our Savior's Church, Winrod has sent out thousands of newsletters around the country each year, often calling for the killing of Jews. Winrod is the son of the late Rev. Gerald Winrod of Kansas, whose anti-Semitic activities during the 1930s and 1940s earned him the nickname of the "Jayhawk Nazi." Betty Stanley, editor of the weekly Ozark County Times, said Gordon Winrod came to Gainesville from Kansas in the early 1970s because land was cheap and offered a secluded setting. He keeps to himself and doesn't bother his neighbors, she said. His anti-Semitic newsletters are largely ignored by the community, Stanley said, though the tracts did generate complaints to the Missouri attorney general's office in the early 1990s. About that time, four of Winrod's sons were charged in Alaska with stealing federal and private timber worth at least $70,000 from 1988 to 1990. One son had started a branch of the church in southeast Alaska. Winrod responded by sending his newsletter into the region. It generated about 100 complaints to postal authorities. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation determined that the writing was protected by the First Amendment. Stanley said Winrod is a literate, articulate man, but "he has studied nothing but (anti-Semitic literature) his whole life." "He follows an ideology of hatred," Stanley said. "It is based on the belief that Jews are responsible for all the ills of the world. And if you're in the media, banking, law enforcement or government, then you're controlled by Jews." The Missouri attorney general's office and Highway Patrol for years have tracked Christian Identity churches in the state, primarily located in southwest Missouri. Attorney General Jay Nixon has called the loose collection of churches "cauldrons of hate." Missouri, especially the Ozarks region, has become a hotbed for the movement. Of the 102 Christian Identity affiliates operating in 35 states nationwide, 14 are based in Missouri and five ain Illinois, officials say. - - - - - ACLU threatens legal action against county treasurer Tim Richardson (The Capital-Journal) 19 May 00 The American Civil Liberties Union will decide Saturday whether to take legal action against Shawnee County treasurer Rita Cline for a poster in the Courthouse treasurer's office and White Lakes Mall annex. The organization charges that Cline had religious motives for hanging the posters, which are inscribed with the words "In God We Trust." Dick Kurtenbach, executive director of the organization's office in Kansas City, said he knows why the posters were hung. "There is no doubt that Rita Cline put that poster up to promote her religious beliefs," he said. "She is a government official and it is on government property. There is no doubt why she put it up there." A complaint to the ACLU was filed by Mary Lou Schmidt, of Topeka. Schmidt originally called Cline in April to ask that an 11-inch-by-14-inch framed poster be removed from the motor vehicle annex office at White Lakes Mall. Schmidt could not be reached for comment. Cline said the posters do not infringe on anyone's constitutional rights and only states the country's national motto. She said the county counselor's office agrees the posters are in good taste. "If they want to sue me, they are suing the wrong person," she said. "They would have to sue the United States or Congress." Kurtenbach said he was angered by Cline's written response to Schmidt's telephone call. In a letter to Schmidt, the treasurer wrote, "I understood you to say you are a Pagan, do not believe in God, and refuse to recognize or honor the American flag and our National Motto, all while claiming to be an American citizen. Your statements surprised me and caused me to question your patriotism and wonder just how much of an American you really are." Kurtenbach said the treasurer's actions were inappropriate. "I was outraged by it," he said. "She has no business as a public official passing judgment on others' religious beliefs." If a legal battle were to begin, Kurtenbach said the ACLU must show Cline used religious motives in hanging the posters. He said the best solution would be to have them removed. "I hope Miss Cline uses good judgment and that would be to remove the sign," he said. "Act like a public official and not a religious crusader." Cline said the next step belongs to the ACLU. "I am going to sit back. The ball is in their court," she said. "I would welcome a challenge on this issue. Let's see if they are going to take the action." Cline said she is merely posting the national motto and not pushing her religious beliefs. She said any legal action brought by the ACLU will result in a countersuit. "It will probably just go away," she said. "Otherwise, if they want a legal battle -- come on. It's an issue they can't win." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- RIGHTWING QUOTE OF THE WEEK: For those who believe that fascism is only a thing of the past My Killers, or Yours? Ax Curtis (Nationalist Observer) 28 Apr 00 I often find it hilarious when blacks or others that scream anytime police show up at the Housing Project to stop a shrieking murder-in-progress will praise the FBI and ATF assault teams. It makes you wonder how stupid these ape and apesses actually are, knowing that the same mercenary forces can also be used against them. Do they really believe that the killers who happen to be on their side at this moment would remain if offered $1 million direct deposit in the Cayman Islands to turn and slit the throats of their ostensible masters? It reminds me of the absurd position so many Americans still take on World War II. "Oh, OUR butchers were fine lads, NOT like those evil Nazzi or Nip bastids!" "Our" lads who, when on commando assignments, would kill ANYONE they ran into and torture them for info w/o mercy. Our boys who would turn over surrendered Japs to the Australians who always used them as landfill. I wonder what the "liberals" in "our" society think about Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris AND American "flyboys" dropping fire bombs on German babies, hospitals, schools, and nurseries? Harris claimed his sole intent was to "burn, twist and torture the souls and spirit of German CIVILIANS to the breaking point". He later claimed he gave all Germans what they deserved. Hmmm, if the Germans had won, they would have said they gave the criminal Jews what THEY deserved. So, what's the diff? If an ATF agent burns a family alive in Waco, is that any different than one of us one day burning HIS family alive? Based on what? There is an old Hassidic story that says God doesn't care if you want to rape your neighbor's wife and kill him, just as long as you don't do it....but what about your enemy's wife? Irreconciable human difference is called "WAR". Unless one side agrees to commit suicide, as the White Sheeple are doing now, war is inevitable AND inherently logical. War, then, is about killing. We take ordinary, well-adjusted young people, teach, train and encourage them to be killers. It is NOTHING to be ashamed of. You train your peoples' killers, we'll train ours. You can be thrilled about those Commie boys who "liberated" Auschwitz. I'll be thrilled about the gas chamber operators. You can be thrilled about "your" boys at Dachau lining up hundreds of SS, summarily executing them by firing squad without any trial, and then graffiti-ing the bodies with slogans of contempt. I'll be equally thrilled when some of my soldiers "lower" the roof on one of your Yeshiva schools and wave some "extra" arms around! Do you think the Japs enjoyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki any more than you'll enjoy a cloud of bio-agent? The Allies would have taken a million casualties at least invading Japan's mainland. The Germans killed the Jews as an act of national survival. What's the f'in difference? You insist the term "20th Century Genocide" be limited to the Jews. I'll go for that - 30 million white American babies alone were murdered by Jewish abortionists during the late 20th Century Genocide of the White Race. Go ahead, you fight your "good war" against "divisive racists". We'll fight ours against every divershitty of pervershitty, deviancy, and allowing "human" animals to walk the earth freely and commit whatever atrocity they wish. Hmmm, is it evil for you to have evil thoughts about evil racists, or do you simply pay others to do that for you? Would it be anymore evil for us to think about watching black smoke arise from a pool of your blood? Is each and every boychile capable of being turned into a survival-of-the-fittest killer-on-command, "food-chain" murderer, serial killer, or mass-murderin' terrorist?... One can only hope. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT'S WORTH CHECKING stories via <ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/story6/> * * * * * In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. __________________________________________________________________________ FASCISM: We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget. (No permission required for noncommercial reproduction) - - - - - back issues archived via: <ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/tinaf/> --- Sponsor's Message -------------------------------------- FREE digital photo album software. FlipAlbum organizes digital photos/graphics into 3D page-flipping photo albums. You can play music while viewing them, email them & run slide shows. 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