On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 11:42 AM, plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com> wrote:
Hate Group Count Tops 1,000---
say the jews ... and only the jews
most Americans consider the SPLC a hate group
> More:http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2011/02/23/new-report-splc-hate-group-c...
On Mar 29, 10:36 am, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> SPLC Hate Group Count Tops 1,000 as Radical Right Expansion Continues
> Posted in 'Patriot' Groups, Editor's Pick, Hate Groups, Nativist
> Extremist by Mark Potok on February 23, 2011
>
> Print This Post
> Editor's Note: The Southern Poverty Law Center is today releasing its
> annual count of groups on the American radical right and analysis.
> What follows is the main essay from the new issue of the Intelligence
> Report, the SPLC's investigative magazine. In the story, you'll find
> links to our new hate group map and additional lists of antigovernment
> "Patriot" groups and nativist vigilante organizations. The issue also
> contains my editorial and stories on Cliff Kincaid, a homophobic
> propagandist at the far-right Accuracy in Media group; the adoption of
> an Oklahoma law forbidding the use of Shariah law; a racist group's
> funding of two Mississippi private academies; a white supremacist's
> new novel targeting the SPLC; the National Center for Constitutional
> Studies and its extremist version of American history; candidates with
> extreme-right ideas who ran in last year's elections; an interview
> with a former "esoteric Nazi," and more. The new issue's table of
> contents is here.
>
> For the second year in a row, the radical right in America expanded
> explosively in 2010, driven by resentment over the changing racial
> demographics of the country, frustration over the government's
> handling of the economy, and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories
> and other demonizing propaganda aimed at various minorities. For many
> on the radical right, anger is focusing on President Obama, who is
> seen as embodying everything that's wrong with the country.
>
> Hate groups topped 1,000 for the first time since the Southern Poverty
> Law Center began counting such groups in the 1980s. Anti-immigrant
> vigilante groups, despite having some of the political wind taken out
> of their sails by the adoption of hard-line anti-immigration laws
> around the country, continued to rise slowly. But by far the most
> dramatic growth came in the antigovernment "Patriot" movement —
> conspiracy-minded organizations that see the federal government as
> their primary enemy — which gained more than 300 new groups, a jump of
> over 60%.
>
> Taken together, these three strands of the radical right — the
> hatemongers, the nativists and the antigovernment zealots — increased
> from 1,753 groups in 2009 to 2,145 in 2010, a 22% rise. That followed
> a 2008-2009 increase of 40%.
>
> What may be most remarkable is that this growth of right-wing
> extremism came even as politicians around the country, blown by gusts
> from the Tea Parties and other conservative formations, tacked hard to
> the right, co-opting many of the issues important to extremists. Last
> April, for instance, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed S.B. 1070, the
> harshest anti-immigrant law in memory, setting off a tsunami of
> proposals for similar laws across the country. Continuing growth of
> the radical right could be curtailed as a result of this shift,
> especially since Republicans, many of them highly conservative,
> recaptured the U.S. House last fall.
>
> But despite those historic Republican gains, the early signs suggest
> that even as the more mainstream political right strengthens, the
> radical right has remained highly energized. In an 11-day period this
> January, a neo-Nazi was arrested headed for the Arizona border with a
> dozen homemade grenades; a terrorist bomb attack on a Martin Luther
> King Jr. Day parade in Spokane, Wash., was averted after police
> dismantled a sophisticated anti-personnel weapon; and a man who
> officials said had a long history of antigovernment activities was
> arrested outside a packed mosque in Dearborn, Mich., and charged with
> possessing explosives with unlawful intent. That's in addition, the
> same month, to the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in
> Arizona, an attack that left six dead and may have had a political
> dimension.
>
> It's also clear that other kinds of radical activity are on the rise.
> Since the murder last May 20 of two West Memphis, Ark., police
> officers by two members of the so-called "sovereign citizens"
> movement, police from around the country have contacted the Southern
> Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to report what one detective in Kentucky
> described as a "dramatic increase" in sovereign activity. Sovereign
> citizens, who, like militias, are part of the larger Patriot movement,
> believe that the federal government has no right to tax or regulate
> them and, as a result, often come into conflict with police and tax
> authorities. Another sign of their increased activity came early this
> year, when the Treasury Department, in a report assessing what the IRS
> faces in 2011, said its biggest challenge will be the "attacks and
> threats against IRS employees and facilities [that] have risen
> steadily in recent years."
>
> Extremist ideas have not been limited to the radical right; already
> this year, state legislators have offered up a raft of proposals
> influenced by such ideas. In Arizona, the author of the S.B. 1070 law
> — a man who just became Senate president on the basis of his harshly
> nativist rhetoric — proposed a law this January that would allow his
> state to refuse to obey any federal law or regulation it cared to. In
> Virginia, a state legislator wants to pass a law aimed at creating an
> alternative currency "in the event of the destruction of the Federal
> Reserve System's currency" — a longstanding fear of right-wing
> extremists. And in Montana, a state senator is working to pass a
> statute called the "Sheriffs First Act" that would require federal law
> enforcement to ask local sheriffs' permission to act in their counties
> or face jail. All three laws are almost certainly unconstitutional,
> legal experts say, and they all originate in ideas that first came
> from ideologues of the radical right.
>
> There also are new attempts by nativist forces to roll back birthright
> citizenship, which makes all children born in the U.S. citizens. Such
> laws have been introduced this year in Congress, and a coalition of
> state legislators is promising to do the same in their states. And
> then there's Oklahoma, where 70% of voters last November approved a
> measure to forbid judges to consider Islamic law in the state's
> courtrooms (see related story) — a completely groundless fear, but one
> pushed nonetheless by Islamophobes. Since then, lawmakers have
> promised to pass similar laws in Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, South
> Carolina, Tennessee and Utah.
>
> After the Giffords assassination attempt, a kind of national dialogue
> began about the political vitriol that increasingly passes for
> "mainstream" political debate. But it didn't seem to get very far.
> Four days after the shooting, a campaign called the Civility Project —
> a two-year effort led by an evangelical conservative tied to top
> Republicans — said it was shutting down because of a lack of interest
> and furious opposition. "The worst E-mails I received about the
> Civility Project were from conservatives with just unbelievable
> language about communists and some words I wouldn't use in this phone
> call," director Mark DeMoss told The New York Times. "This political
> divide has become so sharp that everything is black and white, and too
> many conservatives can see no redeeming value in any" opponent.
>
> A Washington Post/ABC News poll this January captured the atmosphere
> well. It found that 82% of Americans saw their country's political
> discourse as "negative." Even more remarkably, the poll determined
> that 49% thought that negative tone could or already had encouraged
> political violence.
>
> Last year's rise in hate groups (see map) was the latest in a trend
> stretching all the way back to the year 2000, when the SPLC counted
> 602 such groups. Since then, they have risen steadily, mainly on the
> basis of exploiting the issue of undocumented immigration from Mexico
> and Central America. Last year, the number of hate groups rose to
> 1,002 from 932, a 7.5% increase over the previous year and a 66% rise
> since 2000.
>
> At the same time, what the SPLC defines as "nativist extremist" groups
> — organizations that go beyond mere advocacy of restrictive
> immigration policy to actually confront or harass suspected immigrants
> or their employers — rose slightly, despite the fact that most of
> their key issues had been taken up by mainstream politicians (see
> story and list). There were 319 such groups in 2010, up 3% from 309 in
> 2009.
>
> But like the year before, it was the antigovernment Patriot groups
> that grew most dramatically (see list), at least partly on the basis
> of furious rhetoric from the right aimed at the nation's first black
> president — a man who has come to represent to at least some Americans
> ongoing changes in the racial makeup of the country. The Patriot
> groups, which had risen and fallen once before during the militia
> movement of the 1990s, first came roaring back in 2009, when they rose
> 244% to 512 from 149 a year earlier. In 2010, they rose again sharply,
> adding 312 new groups to reach 824, a 61% increase. The highest prior
> count of Patriot groups came in 1996, when the SPLC found 858.
>
> It's hard to predict where this volatile situation will lead.
> Conservatives last November made great gains and some of them are
> championing a surprising number of the issues pushed by the radical
> right — a fact that could help deflate some of the even more extreme
> political forces. But those GOP electoral advances also left the
> Congress divided and increasingly lined up against the Democratic
> president, which is likely to paralyze the country on such key issues
> as immigration reform.
>
> What seems certain is that President Obama will continue to serve as a
> lightning rod for many on the political right, a man who represents
> both the federal government and the fact that the racial make-up of
> the United States is changing, something that upsets a significant
> number of white Americans. And that suggests that the polarized
> politics of this country could get worse before they get better.
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
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