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Listening to them speak was like reading the civil rights movement on a photographic negative: All I had to do was switch the word "black" to the word "white."

A recent article posted on the Aryan Nations Web site reads: "Hate Comes to Northern Idaho, but it didn't wear a swastika." The article goes on to describe the protestors who blockaded the parade route for the July 10 Aryan Nations rally, thus denying the Nazis free speech. The Nazis are getting more adept at victimology, and no doubt they'll find a way to make themselves victims of Furrow's rampage, too.

Of course, the Nazis liked me a whole lot less after my article appeared. If you ever piss off a Nazi, expect a lot of e-mail. First, they claimed betrayal -- they thought I was nice. Then they called me a liar and threatened to sue. Finally, they just sent e-mails that read, "Hail White Victory in Christ."

Here's what they did not do: They did not threaten to follow me home, to bomb my office or shoot me on the street. They knew that if they did, I would call the FBI, and the FBI would take me seriously, because their threats have been serious before.

But I understood the Nazis' upset at finding that I wasn't a sympathizer, though I appeared sympathetic; that I wasn't one of them. Because if I hadn't known I was talking to Nazis, I might not have known that they weren't just like us.

The other kind of hate mail I received after I wrote the article on the Nazis did not come from the Nazis. It came from the Jewish Defense League. They said that to portray monsters as human was a form of exoneration. I say it's a form of defense -- know your enemy. The most frightening thing about Nazis is not that they are monsters. It's that many of them are not -- at least not visibly.

How can you spot Buford Furrow, the guy who fired on three schoolchildren under the age of 10? He's the same one who, neighbors say, ran across the busy street to get the mail for them.
salon.com | August 12, 1999

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