Sikh Temple Shooting Focuses Attention on Rise of Racist Groups

The NBC News site has a lengthy piece tonight on Wade Page's ties to what must be a new name to 99% of American today, the racist skinhead group "the Hammerskins."  But also there's this warning from Jim Pitcavage, director of research for the Anti-Defamation League: "Since 2009, the United States has been in the middle of a 'huge resurgence' of right-wing extremism largely split into two spheres: an anti-government extremist one, such as the militia movement, and white supremacists, Pitcavage said. The number of militia groups has quintupled in the past three years and there have been many arrests of white supremacists over the same time for acts of violence, he said.

"The election of a non-white president and the struggling economy were the triggers, Pitcavage said. 'It’s just a huge number of incidents from the extreme right since 2009. It’s the biggest resurgence of right-wing extremist activity since the mid-1990s and the Oklahoma City bombing (in 1995), and it’s causing problems all around the country,' he added."  Mark Potok, whose center had tracked Page, with this chilling assertion:  Page was nothing special, just "one of thousands."