[JerryLove]

Originally Posted by ithomas1600

why are we not focusing equally on all the conflicts of similar nature going on closer to home?

I would say it's a mixture of psychology and politics.

Why did we care about Terri Schivo while ignoring Governor GW Bush signing a law that would remove life-support from those who could not pay for it, at the government's determination of salvagability, even against the express wishes of the (pre-coma) patient or their family?

Why do we follow kidnapping A, but not kidnapping B? Why do we focus so much attention on marriage by homosexuals and so little on adulterers... or, why did we focus so much on Clinton's adultery and so little on what he was doing with China? Why do we care the Saddam was killing Iraqis, and this dismiss us doing the same?

I can, sitting here, think of at least 4 entirely different essay-length (and indeed, needing that length to explain) answers to that question... our fondness for "us vs them", our desire for things we can view in black-and-white terms (generally ones we have no personal experience with), the desire to inflame passions with any example in order to manipulate people, etc.

And the KKK is far more than some cult that wandered around lynching people. If you look back to (say) the 1920s, they are a massive group representing a significant portion of the US population (in Indiana in 1922, 30% of white men were KKK), and capable of fielding successful congressional candidates and have-a-chance presidential candidates.

They were religious, they were political, and they supported terrorism... very much an American-Christian version of many of the current Muslim political organizations we have issue with overseas now.