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Last week, an unknown left-wing propagandist slipped dozens of tabloid-size fliers into WW newspaper boxes in inner Southeast Portland.
Illustrated by a grainy photograph of Osama bin Laden, the flier accuses the U.S. government of a familiar litany of crimes, ranging from the genocide of Native Americans to the invasion of Grenada to the deliberate creation of poverty in the U.S.
"Create your own Jihad, take immediate action, and destroy the greatest evil on the planet...the U.S. Government," the flier concludes. "FIGHT THE REAL ENEMY BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!"
Five weeks ago, these sentiments would have hardly raised an eyebrow. In the wake of Sept. 11, they seem disturbing--almost perverse.
In an effort to track down the pamphleteer(s), WW entered the phrase "Wake Up Amerikkka" into our favorite search engine. We got 31 hits, perhaps the most interesting of which was an open letter written in February 1991 by radical feminist Nikki Craft, opposing the Gulf War. "Wake up Amerikkka and smell the blood on your hands!" Craft wrote, exhorting her readers to heed the words of Malcolm X: "By any means necessary."
Craft denies any connection to the fliers. "Nothing whatsoever to do with it," she told WW. "I'm too busy at the moment to do fliers, plus you can reach lots more people on the Internet."
