Hate Groups Top 1000

In the near-recent past

If your hatred was vast

You could sit there and plot in your basement

You were perfectly free

Where nobody could see

You, and ask what the look on your face meant.

You would sit there and stew

As you muddled things through

And get caught up in impotent rages

You could hiss, you could vent;

Though it’s not their intent,

Still, basements make pretty good cages

You could keep to yourself

As you fill up your shelf

With the books that would fuel your conspiracy

But you’re only one man

And your beautiful plan

You keep hidden so no one will hear or see

But technology changed

So the warped and deranged

With a desktop computer and modem

Could now easily find

Those who write the same kind

Of conspiracy screeds and upload ’em

And they soon became lords

Of their bulletin boards

Or their chatrooms or newsgroups or forums

Where they found one another

And brother to brother

They gathered together in quorums

Now these like-minded chaps

With their keyboards in laps

Found a comfort, a sort of community

When they set to their tasks

Anonymity masks

Them, and blather they will, with impunity

Their connection is fast

So their knowledge is vast

In the internet age, they’re in heaven

With definitive proof

Of the moon-landing spoof

And how Bush was behind 9/11

Or how giving vaccines

To the populace, means

That the government’s playing the villain

They’re in league with Big Pharma,

So sound the alarm, a

Concern since they “found” penicillin

And the Kennedy plot

With a gunman who shot,

In a story that’s kept from the masses

Just a C.I.A. lackey

They think it was Jackie,

Who’s free now to marry Onassis

And the people all laughed

When an alien craft

Was a weather balloon, though a nifty one

But a cover-up works

Now they look like they’re jerks

When they talk about area fifty-one

But this corkscrewing ride

Has a sinister side

When the groups may be formed around hatred

Where their heads are all filled

With a view that’s distilled

Cos they read all the stuff that their mate read

Now there’s one group of hacks

Who are blaming the blacks

For the changes they see in society

While another sees gays

And their sodomite ways

As a blow to the nation’s propriety

Yet another will frown

If a person is brown

Whether wetback or Ay-rab, you lose

And additional groups

Hate the government’s troops

Or the faithful old standby, the Jews.

Now you’ve written a site

Where you post what you write

Of the citizenship of Obama

And there’s hate in your views

And the language you use

You would never repeat to your mamma

You are joined by your friends

And the fun never ends

As you’re lost in the thrill of debating

You’re exchanging your views

And deciding on who’s

Is the group most deserving of hating

If you needed a clue

I could point back to you

As I’m reaching the end of this ditty

I’ll admit the appeal,

But the way that I feel?

It’s not so much hatred… as pity.

NPR reports on a new study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which finds the number of hate groups in the US has topped 1000, for the first time.  This is a sobering study (direct link), finding huge climbs in some sorts of hate groups (including a 60% rise in antigovenment "Patriot" groups), and listing known terrorist actions taken by some members of these groups.

As my silly little (?) verse indicates, I think a substantial part of this is simply that the internet makes it so much easier for the lone voice to join with other lone voices.  It's hard to escape noticing, though, that the leap in some sorts of hate groups corresponds with the election of a president of an unapproved skin color.  I'd have written about that, but it was too depressing.

Oh, and if you are wondering... yes, the Nightmare Song, from Iolanthe.  Not exactly, but inspired by.