June 10, 2006
Republikan values
Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Guantanamo, Antietam... business as usual in Bush’s Amerika:
Members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups rallied Saturday at the Antietam National Battlefield, the first time a group has been given permission to demonstrate at the site of the bloodiest day of the Civil War.
About 30 people, some attired in the Klan’s white robes and others wearing the military-style clothing and swastika armbands of the National Socialist Movement of America, stood next to a farmhouse on the battlefield. Some delivered speeches attacking immigrants, blacks and other minority groups.
About 200 officers from the National Park Service, U.S. Park Police, Maryland State Police and the Washington County Sheriff’s office were present to make sure the demonstration remained peaceful and to act as a buffer between the Klan and counter-demonstrators, who were kept about 200 feet away.
… The demonstration was believed to be the first at the park, which was established as a national park in 1890, said superintendent John Howard. About 90 permits are issued each year, but most are for more mundane events like weddings and road races, he said.
The Klan permit is the first to be granted on the grounds of free speech, according to Howard. The group, known for burning crosses, was prohibited from lighting any fires.
The protest was the third by extremist groups at national parks in the past three years. Two years ago, the National Socialist Movement demonstrated at Valley Forge, Pa., and the same group held a rally last year at Colonial Park in Williamsburg, Va.
“The Supreme Court has ruled consistently that national parks in particular are places of freedom of expression,” Howard said.
… Helania Hinson, 42, said she drove all night from her hometown of Benson, N.C., for the counter-demonstration. Dressed in a Confederate-style gray wool outfit and black cap, she said she wanted to show that the Confederacy was not about white power.
“These people claim they represent Southern heritage. They do not, and we want people to know that,” Hinson said.
Union and Confederate forces clashed at Antietam on September 17th, 1862, during Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North. More than 23,000 soldiers were killed—the largest single-day toll in American wartime history.
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