I've been rooting around in the mire of hate groups on the Internet. The great majority of them are simply nuts. These folks, however, the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens, might fool unaware people into believing that they're something they're not. What they are is white supremacy groups. They're a lot slicker than the Klan, and they don't say anything about violence--well, not much. They do recommend that "European-Americans" should carry guns or other weapons just in case, well, you know what them big black bucks all want to do to our sweet little white girls.

I would take these guys semi-seriously. They're 25,000 people between the two of them, which is not a lot, but is enough to bring them to public attention. There is a photo of Haley Barbour at a CCC barbecue on the homepage of the Council of Conservative Citizens' website. I would suggest that Mr. Barbour immediately disassociate himself from these people, or that the Republican Party should immediately disassociate itself from him.

Note that both sites openly support Maurice, the racist barbecue guy from South Carolina, in his battle against Wal-Mart. Maurice didn't integrate his restaurants until the Supreme Court made him in 1976.

Please, all you foreigners, don't assume that these guys are typical of either conservatives or Southerners. They're not. There are still some unpleasant racist white people left in the South (some of them are related to me; hear that, Larry, you goddamn redneck from Lufkin)--and everywhere else--but they're dying out slowly but surely. Racism is still alive and ugly, as these websites show in a slightly slicked-up way. But it ain't what it used to be.