He Came From the Future: White Nationalists Plot an Attack on President Barack Obama Using an "X-Ray Bomb"

Barack Obama is an inspiration. For his supporters, Obama was/is a black messiah. For his detractors, Obama is the anti-Christ. If you are a White Supremacist, Barack Obama is the embodiment of almost every nightmare come true--never mind that white folks are the most powerful, rich, wealthy, and influential group of people in the United States, if not the world.

The fact that Barack Obama is President has apparently motivated White domestic terrorists to grow their ranks, and to reach out to new members. The fact that a black man is President has also forced White Nationalists to evolve forward their techniques and technology for following through on their violent fantasies.

When I read the following story, I shook my head in a mix of surprise, disgust, and respect. As reported by ABC news, Glendon Scott Crawford has taken a leap forward in the weapons technologies that the White Right is using in their effort to cause harm to Barack Obama.

Hate is a powerful motivating factor for innovation:

In a June 2012 conversation, Crawford – described by the FBI as a member of the Ku Klux Klan – called his design "Hiroshima on a light switch," the affidavit said. And in August 2012, Crawford allegedly asked a high-ranking official in the KKK for money to fund his plot. The KKK official informed the FBI, and within weeks two undercover agents posing as KKK members were introduced to Crawford. 

Over the next several months, Crawford conducted extensive research for the design, at times expressing frustration over the slow pace of the team's progress, the FBI affidavit indicated. Ultimately, with help from the undercover agents, Crawford and Feight acquired the necessary parts and even tested the device that would remotely detonate the weapon, according to the FBI. It would all be powered through a truck's cigarette lighter, the FBI said.

White supremacists are on the losing side of history. The Black and Brown Freedom Struggles have forced American democracy to try to live up to the promise of its potential and creed. American democracy has been made more perfect because of those struggles.

One of the solutions for White Supremacists to this "problem", is to engage in fanciful dreaming.

As such, they have embraced science fiction films such as the original Planet of the Apes. To them, a tale where apes rule over white men is a cautionary one: white people should be terrified of a world where blacks--the apes in those films--are in control. Why? the same folks who often deny the wickedness of white racism are full of anxiety and fear over what could happen if the Other gets a chance to give them a whee bit of payback.

Classic science fiction is a genre that solved the race problem by eliminating people of color from the story, or alternatively writing them into it as robots, aliens, or monsters.

For example, H.G. Wells' The Time Machine depicted a future where innocent whites were eaten and enslaved by underground-dwelling black people.

Pushing this a bit harder, how would White Supremacists and their allies read race into stories about time travel?

We have a few options for our thought experiment.

What would they say about the Terminator films? There, a black man is responsible for the invention of Skynet. How would White Nationalists spin that movie's plot?

Looper? Are there black and brown folks who ruined the future and are now exploiting white people?

12 Monkeys? No comment.

Primer? Any thoughts?

Hot Tub Time Machine? There was a black guy in that movie. Did he do good or evil for the White Nationalist cause?

Back to the Future 2 offered up a city run down and destroyed by black leadership. I think the White Nationalist crowd would approve of that storyline.

Is Glendon Scott Crawford from the future? Or is he just a particularly well motivated relic of the past who is doing his evil work in the present?