So I was visiting Pharyungula this morning and saw this:

Nearly choked on my tea. As it was, what was left in the cup went splooshing all over my desk. Had to rescue my (second) keyboard.

It was so funny that I had to do some tracking.

So Pharyngula got it from relevant to your interests who (probably) got it from the KKK website. It’s a news release on their site. “News!”

I can hardly imagine that there is anyone who isn’t familiar with the hateful silliness of the Westboro Baptist Church, its pastor Fred Phelps and his family/congregation. Their website address is http://www.godhatesfags.com/ That should tell you what you need to know about their minds.

The site appears to be down. I’d suspect some divine intervention if I could bring myself to believe in such things. However, I so suspect some “divine” messing around might be involved.  They do tend to garner some negative attention for themselves that results in enemies. If you’re interested there’s a documentary about the WBC family on youtube. There’s a particularly funny little vid where some enterprising young man took it upon himself to flirt with a WBC dude. Look around. There’s no shortage of funny stuff with the WBC at its center.

And then there’s the KKK. Their website seems to indicate that they are seeking to be seen as holding a more moderate position with respect to society than the one held by the Phelps clan. The Klan went so far as to post the news release above saying they don’t like the WBC. Man. You know you’re low down when…

I’d never had the occasion to visit the KKK site before. It’s actually kind of interesting.  The first paragraph reads:

For nearly 150 years there has been a Ku Klux Klan in America. It was born on the heels of desperate war in a time when most disagreements were still settled at gun point. Great and horrific battles were fought, brother against brother. Jesse James was robbing banks and trains. 1865 was a violent time and the now defeated south would feel the wrath of the industrial north in ways yet unimagined by the people of the south. Born in a desperate hour this humble fraternity, became the central driving force during Americas “Reconstruction”. It was not like the reconstruction that would later take place for the German and Japanese, after World War Two. It was not like the reconstruction taking place today in Iraq and Afghanistan. Southern reconstruction was punitive.

Their interpretation of history is fascinating. That they see themselves as a “central driving force” in the reconstruction of the South following the end of the civil war and simultaneously as a “humble fraternity” is interesting. Also of interest is the fact that they compare what the Southern US went through to the post-WWII reconstruction of Germany and Japan. I presume they are attempting to allude to Nagasaki and Hiroshima and thereby asserting that what was done in the Southern US by the Republicans during reconstruction was akin to a nuclear bomb blast. Well, I suppose taking away slavery as an economic strategy did have a powerful impact on a plantation-based civilization. As far as the punishment of Germany, I think they might have used the post-WWI example rather than the post-WWII because the cold war meant that the post-war punishment phase was considerably shorter following WWII than it was during WWI, but the KKK membership may not be sophisticated readers of history, so I suppose some latitude with respect to exemplars must be granted.

Agreed that southern reconstruction was not painless. If you’re interested in an account here’s the wikipedia entry. The argument between the Republican groups (Lincoln’s party) was over how hard to stomp on southern intent to secede and to keep their (slavery required) plantation economic system in place. The radicals won which meant harder stomping.

From wikipedia:

The Republican Congress established military districts in the South and used Army personnel to administer the region until new governments loyal to the Union could be established. While Congress temporarily suspended the ability to vote of approximately 10,000 to 15,000 white men who had been Confederate officials or senior officers, constitutional amendments gave full citizenship and suffrage to former slaves.

With the power to vote, freedmen started participating in politics. While many slaves were illiterate, educated blacks (including escaped slaves) moved down from the North to aid them, and natural leaders also stepped forward. They elected white and black men to represent them in constitutional conventions. A Republican coalition of freedmen, southerners supportive of the Union (derisively called scalawags by white Democrats), and northerners who had migrated to the South (derisively called carpetbaggers—some of whom were returning natives, but were mostly Union veterans), organized to create constitutional conventions. They created new state constitutions to set new directions for southern states.

It’s this that the KKK “humble fraternity” was created to oppose.

They still oppose it, although they also claim relevancy in today’s world. Today’s attempt at relevancy is based on their creation of an ideal of “white culture” which they then vigorously defend. (An interesting way to use the strawman argument.) It’s this attempt to maintain a toehold in today’s world that has them repudiating the Phelps family and the WBC attempts to purify America of all non-Phelpians.

Anyway, I suspect the KKK disclaimer is not really so much about disagreeing with WBC ideals as with their somewhat obvious methods. The KKK today is going for subtle.

What I’d like to know is what had the KKK posting the disclaimer.  That might be interesting to know. I suspect a secret conspiracy, agreed to with a secret WBC-KKK handshake.