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G21 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Over the course of three days in early July 1999, Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, a former member of the white supremacist World Church of the Creator, drove through two states on a shooting spree targeting ethnic minorities, killing two men and wounding seven others before taking his own life while fleeing from police.
By the time authorities and media representatives focused their attention on Matthew Hale, the 28-year-old "Pontifex Maximus" of the Church had served as the leader of four hate-groups, beginning with the National Socialist White Americans' Party, which he founded in 1992. While a student at Bradley University, he formed the American White Supremacist Party, dissolving that group sometime later to open a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of White People. After an unsuccessful bid for an East Peoria City Council seat, Hale became active in the Church of the Creator, then faltering after the first-degree murder conviction of COTC reverend George Loeb and the subsequent suicide of Church founder Ben Klassen. On 27 July 1996, at the age of 24, he was appointed to that organization's highest position. G21 spoke to Hale by phone from the East Peoria home he shares with his father, a retired police officer. Over the course of the two-day interview, he retained the careful and composed speech of someone accustomed to the kind of clinical questioning he has received in the wake of the shootings, most recently from FBI and Skokie police representatives, who visited him on 9 July.
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 On 22 July, 1999, The World's Magazine polled our readers on our failure to cover the John F. Kennedy, Jr., accident while every other media organ in the world was focusing upon it. Had we made a mistake, we asked, or been tasteful?
What resulted was a dialogue on the Kennedy family tragedy, commentary on the nature of our hunger for celebrities to add meaning to our lives, a take on the nature of the media, and some pointers for making the GENERATOR 21 a richer resource. In this installment of G21 NEWS we'll share with all our readers what those who have opted to be part of our Mailing and Survey list had to say, and reflect on iconography and modern journalism. FROM RIC WILLIAMS, Austin, Texas: Well, I was surprised there wasn't some mention. Undeserved or not, the man had mucho cultural cachet. He was a classic wealthy liberal. He lived up to the myth his family built--almost effortlessly. The power of a family myth has rarely been so displayed on such a grand scale. But humor? Best to avoid it as a humor issue though who would you vote for--a dead John John or a breathing Bush? Is there a difference? Both sons of the privileged, M. Ali only considered one his friend and that says plenty to me. Bush is a lazy opportunist; John John was a low key human rights activist. Which myth do you advocate? He died giv[ing] a sister-in law a lift. One can't imagine a Bush lifting a finger to help anyone if there isn't money to be made. Tra la. Read the full Mailing List Commentary in G21 NEWS |
Our PubMan has an explanation for the new look and our new direction, too... (CONTINUED INSIDE.)
We mean to generate energy throughout the 21st Century.
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