Is this USA in 2006? (#230, Topic A)

I always enjoy Courland Milloy's column in the Washington Post -- well written, informative, trail-blazing, and unafraid to take a stand when needed. Today's column, however, is more disturbing than a lot of other readings I have had in a long time -- and I consider myself well-read. Entitled "Hate Is Always in Style At a Gathering of the Klan," he began with a concise historical summary: "the KKK was infamous for rallying in the light of a burning cross, then heading off to burn your home, bomb your church, drag you from your bed for a lynching. All with impunity. Klansmen were once powerful as well as ruthless, killers by night who melded into the ranks of upstanding ... citizens by day. Among them were judges and police officers." Presumably, this was then. Then he continued: "And they were still rallying into the 21st century." How so? How did Milloy know? Well, last Saturday, he attended a KKK rally at Harper's Ferry "to celebrate [the 147th anniversary of abolitionist John] Brown's being captured and hanged 'by his greasy neck', as one Klansman put it." So that was the occasion and this is how Milloy knew. After commenting on "'white power' graffiti found this year in Charles County" (#226), he quoted the head of the World Knights as saying, at Saturday's rally, "'All white people know that there is not a black person on earth who is equal to them.'" So, is this USA in 2006? With this first-hand account of such events, which take "Tens of thousands of dollars in taxpaper money" to mount (to guard the safety of these Klansmen "in white sheets and pointy hoods" as well as to loop off "a huge swath [of public land] off-limits to the public"), one is forced to answer it in the affirmative.