With the advent of the World Wide Web, the ability to reach a worldwide audience has become so easy – that one can do it without even leaving their home. Take my columns for example. I type them from my desk at home, my desk at work – and wherever I am when I find inspiration. Yet, I have readers from as close as Brooklyn, New York and as far away as London, England that I would never have had without the advent of the Internet.

Despite this history making and life altering invention – there is however – a downside. While the Internet has enabled writers like myself, companies that sell products, and artists that want their music distributed to reach people they never could have before – the Internet has also allowed another type of “product” to reach people that it never could have otherwise reached – causing an outbreak worse then Cancer or the HIV Virus – hate.

With the simple click of a mouse from the privacy of my own home – I can learn how to make my own pipe bomb, learn why “niggers” are inferior and should be killed – and order a copy of The Turner Diaries – a fictional book about a race war that was the blueprint for two of the most heinous acts ever committed on American soil – the dragging death of 49-year-old African American James Byrd – and the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Personally – I find the groups on the Internet that profess this type of hate as annoying, disgusting – and unnecessary as cockroaches. Just like the insects, they have crawled into the World Wide Web and occasionally surface, infecting the user with their disease of hate, anger – and senseless violence.

Before the Internet was a household word, hate mongers used literature and speeches to recruit new “members” – now – all they have to do is sit back and count the hits of the new sickos that log on to their sites of sin.

The problem with these hate sites is that they fuel the fire of the world’s rebellious, angry teens that are looking for a way to release the hatred that boils within them – like 20-year-old Ben Smith, who while one day surfing the web, found the site run by the World Church of the Creator, led by 29-year-old Matt Hale. Hale, an Illinois resident and proud White Supremacist, passed the Illinois Bar Exam but was denied a license to practice because of his racist beliefs. After announcing to his “disciples” that he was denied his license, Ben Smith decided to seek vengeance for “Reverend Hale’s Injustice” and went on a three-state shooting spree that injured seven people and cost the lives of 26-year-old Asian American Won Joon Yoon and Northwestern Basketball Coach Ricky Byrdsong. After the senseless shooting spree, Smith committed suicide when he realized he would be captured – proving his cowardice and pronouncing his own form of justice. When learning of the death of Smith and the acts he committed, Hale simply said that, “there are far to few of these good people to lose this way” and when asked about the deaths of Yoon and Byrdsong, he replied, “when a white person dies, we are upset – but if a non-white dies – we don’t care.” My only statement about the acts committed by Smith is this – if the website run by the World Church of the Creator never existed – then maybe Won Joon Yoon and Ricky Byrdsong still would.

Although the web is now the main tool for distributing hate and recruiting new members – it is also used to sell more conventional items that deliver the same evil message. William Pierce, is a well-known White Supremacist and author of The Turner Diaries, which tells the fictional tale of a race war in America – is one of the hottest selling books on the web – and believe it or not – is even available on Amazon.com. While millions of people all over the world have shelled out money for this two hundred and eleven page book of hate – some people read too deeply into it and saw not a fictional novel – but a blueprint for an act that they must commit in the name of the white race – one of these people was Timothy McVeigh.

In the book, a chapter describes a man helping another man mix chemicals with fertilizer, driving it in front of a building – and feeling the ground shake below them as they drove away, only to watch images on the news of innocent people’s shocked and bloody faces try and understand why they were victims of a senseless act of violence. McVeigh read this chapter and the book as a whole – and did just that on April 19, 1995 at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. When the book’s author found out about McVeigh’s act and heard on the news that authorities found a copy of his book in McVeigh’s car – he responded with the following statement – “If the Government did what they did to Waco [Texas at the Branch Dividian Compound] – then you can’t expect people to strike back.” I wonder what he would have thought if McVeigh chose, instead of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building – the home of Pierce’s family to seek his vengeance.

Another horrible act of racist violence that can be attributed to The Turner Diaries was committed by three white males – Lawrence Brewer, Shawn Berry, and Bill King, who after reading the book – tied 49-year-old James Byrd to the back of their pickup truck after beating him senselessly and drove at over eighty miles an hour – dragging him for over a mile until his head and shoulder were ripped from his body – after which they continued to drag the lifeless body for an additional mile until disposing of it in front of a black cemetery. The part of this act that amazes me the most is that Byrd’s three killers did not know his name, his family or the kind of person he was – all they knew was that he was black.

My personal favorite website of hate is the first one to ever “grace” the Internet. It is called Stormfront and is run by a man named Don who is a proud white supremacist and even encouraged his eleven year old son to start his own site, “Stormfront For Kids”. The site encourages killing minorities, procreating to “preserve” the White race – and resorting to violence against “kikes” “niggers” and “gooks”. Forgetting the ridiculousness of the statements of the website – I find it ironic that Don, the creator of the website’s last name – is Black.

Some people don’t need to run websites to commit acts of violence – they just need to read them. Take Joseph Paul Franklin for instance. Currently in jail for committing 18 murders – he has been declared a “hero” by the White Supremacist movement because he murdered interracial couples and those who even thought of interracial sex as “ok”. In his own words, he described picking up two hitchhiking females because – ironically – he did not want them to get raped or murdered by “niggers”. After driving them toward their destination, he asked them if they ever dated or had sex with “niggers” – when they said yes – he killed them. These two murders and the sixteen others he committed had “inspired” The Turner Diaries author William Pierce write a second book entitled Hunter dedicated to Franklin for his “efforts” in promoting White Supremacy.

As the “race war” continued in this country and around the world – the color of one’s skin or the religion of one’s choice was no longer a reason to take one’s life. Now – one’s sexual orientation is also a reason to persecute innocent victims.

In July of 1999, Matthew and Tyler Williams decided that homosexual couple Gary Madson and Winford Mowder were committing a sin by being homosexual lovers – so they decided to kill them. When interviewed in prison, the Williams brothers claim that Madson and Mowder were, “completely responsible for their own deaths.” And killing them was, “rewards for their gross sins.” What did these two men do but find love in each other that they kept to themselves – and why would two brothers want to spend the rest of their lives in jail just so they could say they killed two “faggots”?

Despite all of the different types of hate that are available for a simple free click – they are all hate nonetheless. No matter if the hate mongers target their victims because of the color of their skin, the religion they choose – or their sexual orientation – the fact that these hate mongers take action against strangers who don’t share their sick views is the same.

I think what is worse then all of these horrible, senseless – and unnecessary acts of hate is the fact that these websites are out there right now just waiting for a new crop of youngsters to log on – and act out.