The folks at <http://hatewatch.org> commonly known as "Hatewatch", are pulling in their tails and slinking off into the cyber yonder.
:)
Known as one of the more obnoxious Jewish outfits on the Net, "Hatewatch" was notorious for pirating politically incorrect people's pictures and text from their websites, calling their robbery "hate", and otherwise making the customary noises that go with the liberal agenda.
For cyber-activists, however, their website was a veritable treasure trove, for it summarized and catalogued all new politically incorrect websites and made them available to all and sundry in a most convenient form.
It shall be missed. It shall be sorely missed!
I can't count the many times that someone wrote to me and said: "Gee whiz! And here I thought I'd find some hateful people! You've got some pretty interesting documents!"
In no small measure, Revisionists owe their success to outfits like Nizkor and Hatewatch and the constant media interest created by the name-calling of the Wiesenthalers and the ADL and such - and isn't that a hoot!
Now one of them is packing up - and our revisionist websites are stronger than ever, enjoying skyrocketing visitor counts and international attention and success. If you don't think that's true, go ask the Wiesenthalers!
Here is "Hatewatch's" swan song, for the record, replete with some references some of our cyber friends might want to inspect further:
Dear Friends of HateWatch:
Six years ago, I created a Web page called HateWatch, concerning the subject of online hate groups. Although having evolved into one of the Web's best-known civil rights resources, HateWatch is going offline. While we on the HateWatch staff understand that this decision may evoke mixed reactions, we believe that we have succeeded in fulfilling the mission we set for ourselves: to educate the online community about bigotry on the Web, and to provide tools for combating it.
In 1995, when HateWatch first began examining the issue of online hate, popular thought suggested that the Internet would provide an enormous boost to hate groups seeking to recruit new followers. From the beginning, these organization's self-proclaimed desire to create a digital "white revolution" was carefully monitored and documented by civil rights organizations, HateWatch among them. The standard and often repeated quote was that the "Internet is the greatest thing to happen to hate." Much to our joy, it has in fact been one of the worst.
As essayist Logan Pearsall Smith wisely observed in a statement that has served as HateWatch's motto since its inception, "How it infuriates a bigot, when he is forced to drag out his dark convictions." We quickly learned that while hate groups, who once thrived and created fear in the shadows, wither and hid from the public scrutiny of the Internet. What these groups didn't count on was that forcing their way into people's homes via the Web would have the effect of mobilizing ordinary people to join in the fight against them. Far from persuading a supposed "silent white majority" of angry Aryans to join their ranks, these self proclaimed white warriors, made moms and dads into determined anti-hate activists.
Now, in 2001, the news is much more encouraging than any of us expected. Hate groups have done an extremely poor job of using the Internet to increase their membership. They have utterly failed to gain widespread acceptance for their belief that bigotry, hate and violence are viable responses to human diversity. This is not to say that we no longer have cause for concern. The advent of the "lone wolf" gunman whose hatred may be fed by hate group propaganda, bigoted organizations who use e-commerce to support their hateful enterprises, and the newly emerging racist cyberterrorist, all will continue to present great challenges to law enforcement and online civil rights. And with this, the struggle continues.
It has been an amazing journey for me, and one that will continue with my new project www.Paragraph175.org. I would like to thank the staff at HateWatch and all those who have assisted in our work for their generosity and dedication. I am honored to have worked with some of today's most committed and courageous civil rights activists. But there is still work to be done. It is my hope that others may be inspired by HateWatch's example and to continue the fight against bigotry in all its forms, working toward ensuring civil rights for all.
David Goldman goldman@hatewatch.org
Executive Director, HateWatch
January 16, 2001 ____________
For civil rights resources that may be of interest, please visit the following:
*Paragraph175.org* A new project from David Goldman, HateWatch's founder and executive director, Paragraph175.org is a civil rights resource for those concerned about ensuring equality for all. The major feature of this site will be a weekly, news and information update concerning bigotry and tolerance from around the world. www.paragraph175.org
(Zundelsite comment here: For the uninitiated reader, Paragraph 175 was the anti-homosexual paragraph in the German criminal code during Hitler times. To this day, Germans refer to homosexuals as "Hundertfünfundsiebzier" - meaning "175-ers". Whom is Mr. Goldman signaling? What? And what for?)
*Political Research Associates* Political Research Associates is an independent, not-for-profit research center that monitors and analyzes organizations, leaders, ideas, and activities of the US political right that undermine democracy and diversity. www.publiceye.org
*Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism* The Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino is a nonpartisan domestic research and policy center that examines how bigotry, advocacy of extreme methods, and terrorism threaten people's human rights on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. www.hatemonitor.org
*Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)* GLAAD is dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate, and inclusive representation of individuals and events in all media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. www.glaad.org
*American Jewish Committee* The American Jewish Committee is dedicated to safeguarding the welfare and security of Jews in the United States, in Israel, and throughout the world; strengthening the basic principle of pluralism as the best defense against anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry; and enhancing the quality of American Jewish life by helping to ensure Jewish continuity and facilitate deeper ties between American and Israeli Jews. www.ajc.org
*The Next Movement* Denise Clay hosts a weekly one hour live web-interview show looking at civil rights from a variety of perspectives. You can hear The Next Movement, each Thursday at 9:00 p.m. EST on www.img2.com
Thought for the Day:
"The easiest person to deceive is one's own self."
(Edward Bulwer Lytton)