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SPLC: 888 hate groups in U.S.

The Southern Poverty Law Center released its annual "Year in Hate" report this week, and it wasn't good news. From the news release:

Led by three states on the southern border, the number of hate groups operating in America has swelled by 48 percent since 2000, a staggering increase mainly attributable to the anti-immigrant fervor sweeping the country ...

... The latest annual count by the SPLC found the number of hate groups operating in America rose to 888 last year, up 5 percent from the 844 groups in 2006 and far above the 602 groups documented in 2000.

At the same time, new FBI statistics suggest a 35 percent rise in hate crimes against Latinos between 2003 and 2006. Experts believe that such crimes are typically carried out by people who think they are attacking immigrants.

"Hate groups continue to successfully exploit the immigration debate to their advantage, even though the immigration issue has largely disappeared from the presidential debate," said Mark Potok, editor of the SPLC's Intelligence Report, an investigative journal that monitors the radical right. "The fact is that they've been aided and abetted by mainstream pundits and politicians who give these haters a platform for their propaganda."

Other hate groups continue to target blacks, gays, and immigrants. Read the full release here.

Everyday Democracy - formerly the Study Circles Resource Center - has resources for communities that want to hold large-scale, inclusive dialogues on sensitive issues including immigration and racial equity. One community - Springfield, Illinois - used its dialogues in part to counter a visit from a white supremacist. Another community - New Haven, Connecticut - will focus on immigration as it takes part in Everyday Democracy's  new Communities Creating Racial Equity project.

Friday digest-open thread 10/26/07

Welcome to this week's round-up of news and views. Your comments and additions are welcome!

Two weeks ago tomorrow, presidential candidate John Edwards called for a new Citizens Congress that would engage American in discussions of major issues. But young Americans aren't waiting: They're seizing opportunities to have their say now, including the Democracy 2.0 Declaration drafted by 47 youth leaders convened by Mobilize.org in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. You can read the declaration and sign on in support here. Thanks to Sandy from NCDD for passing along word of the petition.

Speaking of Edwards' proposal, Mica Stark published an op-ed in the Manchester (New Hampshire) Union Leader this week. Stark noted that although the war in Iraq, health care, the environment, and education are key issues in the 2008 elections, Edwards' call for a Citizens Congress ranks among "the more important speeches of the cycle thus far on the health and state of our democracy. ... While the merits of Edwards' proposal need to be debated, the issue of how the public can be more involved in policymaking and governance should be front and center during the primary, and voters should be pressing all the candidates, on both sides, for their specific ideas in how they see citizens participating and partnering with the next administration in solving our collective problems. ... After election day, most citizens are left on the sidelines as spectators with little opportunity to shape the decisions being made on their behalf." Read the full essay here.

As noted on the Study Circles Resource Center website today, a schools action team that grew out of study circles in the Mundelein, Illinois, area, is exploring ways - including blogs - to improve communication between the local schools and residents. Student study circles are planned soon, too. Read more here, and click here to see how your community can use study circles to work on education and other issues.

At least 1,800 Southern California homes have been destroyed in the wildfires that have swept across the state this month. Against that backdrop, it's some comfort to know that Habitat for Humanity's annual Jimmy Carter Work Project is in Southern California this year. Next week, thousands of volunteers - including former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn - will build 30 news houses and repair 70 more in an event designed to call attention to the 1.6 billion people worldwide who need affordable housing. Here are stories from some of the families involved in next week's build.

The Georgia Supreme Court today ordered that Genarlow Wilson be released from prison, ruling 4-3 that his sentence of up to 10 years in prison on a teen sex conviction was cruel and unusual punishment. In a highly publicized case, Wilson, an African-American, was convicted in 2005 of aggravated child molestation for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. He's now 21. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported today that when Wilson was sentenced, his crime "carried a mandatory 10-year sentence with no parole. However, the law was changed in 2006 to make Wilson's crime a misdemeanor with a maximum 1-year sentence."

Here's an interesting essay by writer, researcher, and civic strategist Brad Rourke, who had the recent misfortune to send an email to an unintended recipient. Rourke raises intriguing questions about the balance between immediacy and accuracy in both private (emailed) and public (blogs and the like) online communication. Thanks to Molly for the tip on this.

And with that, this blogger hits the publish button on today's digest, hoping that everything here is fair and accurate - and knowing that one or more readers will let us know if it is not. 

Explore the next form of democracy

In his new book The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule is Giving Way to Shared Governance - and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same, Matt Leighninger writes: "When you strategize with public officials about how they can engage citizens, they sometimes give you an unusually revealing assessment of their constituents. To them, ordinary people seem more capable, confident, and skeptical than ever before. Citizens may have less time for public life, but they bring more knowledge and skills to the table ... They have more to contribute to the solving of public problems, and less patience for those situations where they feel shut out by public officials. They are less connected to community affairs, and yet they seem better able to find the information, allies, and resources they need to affect an issue or decision they care about."

Leighninger will explore this shifting landscape between government and the governed in a book talk set for 5:30 p.m. this Thursday, September 27, at the Loyola University Law School in Chicago. The talk will be in the Rubloff Reception Room on the first floor of 25 E. Pearson St. (at Wabash). Leighninger says that his book "draws heavily from my experiences working with study circle programs over the last 14 years. It describes the challenges and accomplishments of these programs, and other similar experiments in democratic governance."

A longtime senior associate of the Study Circles Resource Center, Leighninger also is executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium. His book will be available at the Chicago event, or you can order it via the Vanderbilt University Press or your favorite bookseller.

In the news: NH and IL

Check out these new stories posted on the Study Circles Resource Center website:

Citizens in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, have used study circles to address a wide variety of issues, including the city's master plan. Now, residents are getting set to start a new round of circles on sustainable living.

Quincy, Illinois, held its first Quincy Cultural Festival this past weekend to showcase the contributions made by Quincy blacks at the local, state and national level. The festival grew out of Quincy's study circles, which one participant called "a life-changing event."

Official blogging

Two weeks ago, the central Idaho communities of Sun Valley and Ketchum were under siege by the Castle Rock fire. Some residents had to evacuate, and others were watching warily as the flames crept closer. Through it all, Nils Ribi - a member of the Sun Valley City Council - basically "live blogged" the fire, packing his blog with news updates, reports from community briefings, road and trail closure information, and lots of dramatic photos.

Ribi is one of a small but growing number of public officials who use blogs to communicate with their constituents. The DemocracySpace "Public Officials' Blogs" blogroll at right shows seven such sites, ranging from those written by local officials to a blog recently launched by Mike Leavitt, U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services - the first cabinet-level blogger in U.S. history. (Leavitt's blog is an outgrowth of a two-month pandemic flu blog that he and other flu experts convened earlier this year. HHS has a history of seeking citizen input into its policies; the Centers for Disease Control worked with the Study Circles Resource Center to produce the Public Engagement Pilot Project on Pandemic Influenza, or PEPPI.)

Of the seven blogs listed here, five accept comments. (A recent post on bridge and road safety by Portland (OR) City Commissioner Sam Adams generated more than 60 comments.) All offer insights into the daily work and concerns of government; Bill Gentes - the "blogging mayor of Round Lake" - made posts this week about home foreclosures and mosquito spraying.

DemocracySpace is eager to know about and feature other blogs written by public officials from all levels of government. If you know of one, please mention it in the comments below or email the blog address (URL) to us.