Countering Extremists

I am shocked and dismayed by your coverage of the June 6 rally against the white supremacist Nationalist Movement at the Simi Valley courthouse. The Nationalists had planned a march from City Hall to the courthouse in support of the acquittal of LAPD officers.

Although 700 people held a loud, peaceful, disciplined counterdemonstration on the courthouse plaza, your reporters chose to focus on the physical confrontation at City Hall. There, about 50 supporters of the International Committee Against Racism threw rocks and bottles at the seven white supremacists and at the police.

In order to keep groups like the Nationalist Movement from growing and spreading their hateful politics, we must confront them with large, disciplined, militant counterdemonstrations. We know what happened about 60 years ago when there was insufficient opposition to the growing Nazi movement in Germany. Let’s not repeat that mistake.

ROBERT PRICE

Berkeley