Monday, July 05, 2004

Building a Militia - in America

Boing Boing: Thousands volunteer to spy on fellow citizens

Time has good news for nosy, racist jerks: the Dept. of Homeland Security is enlisting 400,000 people to report on suspicious behavior in public areas.
After the [training] session in Little Rock, two newly initiated Highway Watch members sat down for the catered barbecue lunch. The truckers, who haul hazardous material across 48 states, explained how easy it is to spot 'Islamics' on the road: just look for their turbans. Quite a few of them are truck drivers, says William Westfall of Van Buren, Ark. 'I'll be honest. They know they're not welcome at truck stops. There's still a lot of animosity toward Islamics.' Eddie Dean of Fort Smith, Ark., also has little doubt about his ability to identify Muslims: 'You can tell where they're from. You can hear their accents. They're not real clean people.
That kind of prejudice is hard to undo, but it's a shame Beatty's slide show did not mention that in the U.S., it's almost always Sikhs who wear turbans, not Muslims. Last year a Sikh truck driver who was wearing a turban was shot twice while standing near his tractor trailer in Phoenix, Ariz. He survived the attack, which police are investigating as a hate crime.

Blackshirts, Red Brigadiers, Klansmen ... they'd recognize this program. It's how you build a militia. In this case, one that votes Republican.

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