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BlueWaveNeverEnd

(12,848 posts)
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 12:14 PM Dec 9

Here's who attended a white nationalist conference at a Tenn. state park

For years, the guest list for an annual white nationalist gathering at Tennessee’s Montgomery Bell State Park has been a closely guarded secret.

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Here's who attended a white nationalist conference at a Tenn. state park (Original Post) BlueWaveNeverEnd Dec 9 OP
Yikes. Ocelot II Dec 9 #1
Donald Trump poisons their minds Johnny2X2X Dec 9 #17
These kinds of guys have been around since before Trump. llmart Dec 9 #22
The hatred is basic. Codifer Dec 9 #30
Hatred is taught. Their parents and elders are teaching them to hate. Diamond_Dog Dec 9 #33
Their minds were poisoned because they were susceptible to poisoning. Ocelot II Dec 9 #26
Penis envy, small minds, and no souls. Joinfortmill Dec 9 #28
Good grief. Deuxcents Dec 9 #2
Renting a state park. Can't the state refuse? Or have some panthers reserve some cabins? cbabe Dec 9 #3
The state government is evolves Dec 9 #11
Various shades of pink and gray. multigraincracker Dec 9 #4
Good work on revealing these hate filled people. Can we get this info into the public domain? efhmc Dec 9 #5
Kick dalton99a Dec 9 #6
Freaking wow! malaise Dec 9 #7
Flakes of snow in TN lonely bird Dec 9 #8
Good for this being covered in Tennessee BaronChocula Dec 9 #9
Great share. What a brave reporter. 👏 littlemissmartypants Dec 9 #10
Woah, but not surprised. Disgusting! TY news channel, protesters and OP. electric_blue68 Dec 9 #12
I'll never understand it PatSeg Dec 9 #13
Here's proof that the white nationalist weirdos are everywhere, not just in Montana FakeNoose Dec 9 #14
This makes me sick. How far some have fallen. n/t Paper Roses Dec 9 #15
Simple solution: 70sEraVet Dec 9 #16
The good news is that's some fine local TV reporting nuxvomica Dec 9 #18
Definitely good to see. I've written off TV news - especially local news - but this was good reporting. chia Dec 9 #32
I have to watch a video to see a list? maxsolomon Dec 9 #19
It's pictures of their actual faces. Iggo Dec 9 #24
Yup... Joinfortmill Dec 9 #29
He is naming each one as they drive in, filming them in their cars BlueWaveNeverEnd Dec 9 #37
I'm surprised Drumph wasn't a keynote speaker. nt MustBeTheBooz Dec 9 #20
I'm surprised ICE didn't have a recruiting booth setup maxrandb Dec 9 #23
I'm not sure he wasn't. Iggo Dec 9 #25
Kick. N/T Upthevibe Dec 9 #21
SCUM Joinfortmill Dec 9 #27
I wish I'd been able to grow up with the illusion that these people didn't exist Warpy Dec 9 #31
The fact that... GiqueCee Dec 9 #34
Better to know they are around. So much hatred. Judi Lynn Dec 9 #35
That State Park is in TN Congressional District 7, the seat Van Epps just won. 70sEraVet Dec 9 #36
A long time ago.... Rafi Dec 9 #38
WOW! Quite a terrorizing moment for a child (for anybody, really) 70sEraVet Dec 9 #41
Woah, a gripping, disturbing story for anyone not aligned with them!... electric_blue68 Dec 9 #42
Watched the video, but yes, would B.See Dec 9 #39
transcript available on Youtube version BlueWaveNeverEnd Dec 9 #40
Thanks. B.See Dec 10 #43

llmart

(17,316 posts)
22. These kinds of guys have been around since before Trump.
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 02:43 PM
Dec 9

Sure, he eggs them on with his cowardly rhetoric, but in the 1990's we had the Michigan Militia and McVey and then the Bundys. The better question would be why are these youngish men so full of hatred? Some of them look like they're barely out of high school. That Huggins kid looks like he's a regular incel.

Codifer

(1,156 posts)
30. The hatred is basic.
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 03:29 PM
Dec 9

Rural radio focused on getting people to hate. Hate anything and everything no matter how vague the reasoning or false the story.

As a child and on family vacations in the west I was in awe of the beauty of the land and figured that to be lucky enough to live in places of such beauty and living free would be heaven. I was so naive but not entirely wrong.

But talk radio, unburdened by any obligation to fairness or truth, has managed to create hatred out of paradise. Once established and ingrained ,all that then need be done is to give it direction. Hate John Kerry, hate Hillary, hate Obama, hate books and professors who make it so dang hard for a decent white working man to feed his litter. Hatred is the base and a valuable commodity.

Then comes Tulsa and Krystalnacht and Kent State and Mai Lai and Oklahoma City and January sixth and tsf with all his sad carnival.

Ocelot II

(129,076 posts)
26. Their minds were poisoned because they were susceptible to poisoning.
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 02:52 PM
Dec 9

That's a much bigger and older question than just Trump and Fox - it's why people think that way or allow themselves to be influenced to think that way. Why were there Nazis 80 years ago? Why was there slavery? Why did the Ku Klux Klan exist? Why are some people so horrible to other people? Kind of a big, cosmic, ancient question. For awhile I was naive enough to think maybe we as a country would never go back to that sort of thing, but I guess some of us are just as evil as ever.

cbabe

(6,196 posts)
3. Renting a state park. Can't the state refuse? Or have some panthers reserve some cabins?
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 12:45 PM
Dec 9

montgomerybellpark.com
https://montgomerybellpark.com

Montgomery Bell State Park - A natural retreat just outside of Nashville

Montgomery Bell State Park is located in Burns, Tennessee, approximately 40 minutes west of Nashville. To reach the park, visitors can follow …

electric_blue68

(25,924 posts)
12. Woah, but not surprised. Disgusting! TY news channel, protesters and OP.
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 01:36 PM
Dec 9

Having paid some attention to these hate filled bigots off, and on for decades it's kind of still shocking, but not surprising to me.
😑 😬 😟

I guess holding a meeting by Stone Mountain would be too conspicuous!

That would be Stone Mountain, GA by Atlanta. Features largest bas-relief carving of Confederate "heroes" on it's side. Oh, and birthplace of the modern KKK. (oh, "yippie!" )
😑 😬😬 😟

I saw it from a distance decades back visiting a friend in GA.

70sEraVet

(5,227 posts)
16. Simple solution:
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 01:58 PM
Dec 9

A law that requires any group that rents a state park (a park that belongs to the taxpayers!) to host a private event, MUST reveal the names of all attendees.
The video made it apparent that many of the attendees would rather not be outed as white supremacists.

chia

(2,751 posts)
32. Definitely good to see. I've written off TV news - especially local news - but this was good reporting.
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 03:48 PM
Dec 9

BlueWaveNeverEnd

(12,848 posts)
37. He is naming each one as they drive in, filming them in their cars
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 06:32 PM
Dec 9

One is lawyer for the clan
Another celebrates the guy who drove his car into the protestor
Another celebrates the mass killer who gunned down 85 children in Sweden(?) Or Norway(?)

Warpy

(114,389 posts)
31. I wish I'd been able to grow up with the illusion that these people didn't exist
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 03:32 PM
Dec 9

in numbers large enough to hold hate conventions to justify doing violence to their neighbors, but mystupid parents moved to the south during a local Klan resurgence and I started getting lessons in human stupidity and depravity and I learned how much of it came from their churches.

It's just hard to realize that after 60 years of slow integration and finding out we're all human that his kind of hate has so many people still managing to cling to it.

I guess some people just live to hate and we'll always be stuc with them.

GiqueCee

(3,410 posts)
34. The fact that...
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 04:05 PM
Dec 9

... filth like these diseased monsters dare to call themselves Americans enrages me beyond words. It's amazing that they cannot see that their poisonous diatribes highlight an inbred weakness of character, not strength. I'd give a cockroach on my dinner plate more consideration than I would afford one of these assholes.

Judi Lynn

(164,049 posts)
35. Better to know they are around. So much hatred.
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 04:47 PM
Dec 9

Du'ers, please take care.

Thanks for the information.

70sEraVet

(5,227 posts)
36. That State Park is in TN Congressional District 7, the seat Van Epps just won.
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 05:03 PM
Dec 9

I wonder what he will have to say about this. He ran on NO issues, other than to say that he will vote to pass trump's ideas.
So I guess on the subject of the white supremacist conference in his District, he will say that 'there are very fine people on both sides'.

Rafi

(265 posts)
38. A long time ago....
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 07:12 PM
Dec 9

An event, that literally scared the hell out of me for many months, happened one summer evening in the 1950’s. I guess I was six or seven, because I was just old enough to be out at dusk riding my bike on my own. I was pedaling a few blocks from home towards downtown Decatur. As I approached the city square and the old, granite (quarried from Stone Mountain, birthplace of the resurrected Klan) courthouse, I could tell something out of the ordinary was going on. I heard a loud voice speaking through either a microphone or megaphone and there was an unusual glow in the leaves of the huge, old, oak trees and the night sky around the courthouse. When I got within thirty yards or so, I got off my bike, crept closer and hid in some bushes across the street from the courthouse. Like most kids my age I loved spying on folks from hidden places, especially if you thought you might see something you aren’t supposed to see.

When I was close enough to get a good look, the sight chilled me to the bone and to this day the memory stirs dark feelings in my soul. A huge cross, maybe twenty feet tall, was burning on the Decatur courthouse lawn (Decatur is the county seat of Dekalb County). There was a figure on the front steps of the courthouse dressed in what looked like a Halloween ghosts costume, except much more sinister. It was swathed in a flowing white robe, but on its head with holes poked in an old sheet to see out of. This figure had a pointed hood on its head that looked like an evil wizard’s hood from a scary, fairytale. He was shouting and gesturing, and some of the crowd, which must have been a couple of hundred people, were howling and cheering his words. Huge, dark, ominous shadows were cast upon the old, three story, solid granite building. Other hooded horrors were leaning out of windows shouting and waving wildly. I was terrified, but transfixed, afraid if I moved a muscle someone would see me. I couldn’t stand the thought of being brought close to one of those nightmare apparitions. I must have crouched in the bushes for thirty minutes or so, though it seemed like hours. Finally, the cross was extinguished and the crowd began to disperse. I made my way through the bushes and back to my bike. As I raced home, my heart was pounding so hard in my chest I could scarcely catch my breath. When I got to the house I ran inside and went straight to my room. My mom came in and asked where I’d been so late because I was always to be home before dark. I said I was very sorry, that some guys had chased me and I had to take a long way home. She could tell I was scared, but had no idea why, other than being out late.

Later, alone in my room, I tried to imagine what it was that I had witnessed, but I had no reference in my experience for an explanation. I only knew I had seen something evil. As I thought about that event, over the next few days, I wondered if I had noticed any adults I knew in the crowd at the courthouse. But, it had been dark and I was so intent on the robed figures I couldn’t remember. And for that I was damned glad. Years after that night, as I began to understand what had taken place, I would wonder again if any of the men I knew, who worked at the filling stations, hardware store, dry cleaners or drugstores in Decatur, had hidden their true identities behind those hoods. The frightening feeling I got, when I thought about it, was similar to the panicked paranoia of the townsfolk in the classic sci-fi thriller “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. Those poor people never knew when their friends, neighbors, or even family members, would turn out to be one of the space creatures hatched from an alien seedpod. Truly, the creature walked among us.

70sEraVet

(5,227 posts)
41. WOW! Quite a terrorizing moment for a child (for anybody, really)
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 08:05 PM
Dec 9

I grew up in the North, so I had no real notion of what was going on in the South -- except for the evening news.
I currently live in a rural county in middle Tennessee, and I have been learning from folks about life under Jim Crow. My best friend here went to a one-room schoolhouse for his eight years of grade school, with no running water (outhouses in the back) and an old coal furnace that required two boys to get to school early so they could shovel the coal and get it going before school started. The large white school was 100 yards down the road. What startled me the most was realizing that my friend was the SAME AGE AS ME!
Oh, and the county didn't bother to build a high school for the black kids.
I found my own small way of making things right. I take care of the black folks who are buried here. It's not much, I know. But the living relatives appreciate it.

electric_blue68

(25,924 posts)
42. Woah, a gripping, disturbing story for anyone not aligned with them!...
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 11:13 PM
Dec 9

And, later wondering who you might have known who as part of that then, and currently (at that time) a KKK'r, or supportive.
(As soon as you mentioned "unusual glow", I thought 'uh, oh, there probably going be a burning cross'. Yikes!)

Always a NYC'r but my mom in part being around her more taught me, pointed racism out to me up here in The North when I was pretty young; even if it was often worse in The South. Dad was against racism, too. They both eventually as I acquired them - welcomed my friends from all races to our home starting from around age 11.

B.See

(7,774 posts)
39. Watched the video, but yes, would
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 07:26 PM
Dec 9

be nice to see a list or transcript of the broadcast.

At the end of the piece however they did mention their online site that (a quick looksee reveals) has been covering a whole LOT of hate in Tennessee. So SOME at least are on the ball:

newschannel5.com/hate

BlueWaveNeverEnd

(12,848 posts)
40. transcript available on Youtube version
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 07:57 PM
Dec 9

Transcript


0:05
>> ON THIS MONDAY WE'RE
0:06
GETTING BRAND-NEW INSIGHT
0:07
ABOUT THE GUEST LIST FOR AN
0:09
ANNUAL HATE CONFERENCE AT A
0:10
STATE PARK RIGHT HERE IN
0:12
MIDDLE TENNESSEE. AND WE'VE
0:13
NOW DISCOVERED AND INCLUDES

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