How fitting that on the day a supposed sighting of the KKK at Oberlin College was revealed to be nothing more than a woman wrapped in a blanket, the Southern Poverty Law Center released its latest scare tool, New Report: Radical antigovernment movement continues explosive growth:
The number of conspiracy-minded antigovernment “Patriot” groups on the American radical right reached an all-time high in 2012, the fourth consecutive year of powerful growth by a movement that is becoming increasingly militant as President Obama enters his second term and Congress debates gun control measures, according to a report issued today by the SPLC…
“As in the period before the Oklahoma City bombing, we now are seeing ominous threats from those who believe that the government is poised to take their guns,” wrote SPLC President Richard Cohen, a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Violent Extremism Working Group. In October 1994, the SPLC wrote to then-Attorney General Janet Reno about the growing threat of domestic extremism; the Oklahoma City federal building was bombed six months later in the country’s deadliest act of domestic terrorism.
This is the same nonsense SPLC peddles every year at this time. Sooner or later, like a ghoulish broken clock, one of SPLC’s predictions will come true, but in the meantime, the SPLC still has not made amends for its “hate map” being used by the guy who shot up the Family Research Council to acquire targets.
The SPLC count is grossly exaggerated. If there’s a Neo-Nazi website which lists branches in every state, SPLC counts that as 50 groups, even if the groups are only names on a website.
The SPLC has upped the number of “hate groups” in my home State of Rhode Island to 4, including the same supposed neo-Nazi and Klan groups which we repeatedly have pointed out do not exist.
In 2011, SPLC listed just one hate group (the non-existent neo-Nazi group):
But now SPLC lists 4 groups, putting the non-existent Klan group back on the map:
The SPLC also lists some other groups in Rhode Island that have no obvious existence.
OMG, hate groups in RI have quadrupled! Send money!
I did a radio interview for ABC News today. I can’t find the clip, but Sam at The Last Tradition heard it and emailed:
I heard you on WABC news update putting the Southern Poverty Law center in its place. Way to go!
Critic says with new report, @splcenter is “trying to essentially justify their continued existence.” Hear about it next hour @abcnewsradio
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) March 5, 2013
Southern Pov Law Ctr’s Potok calls anti-govt fervor “reminiscent of the run up to Oklahoma City.” Critic says that’s “highly irresponsible.”
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) March 5, 2013
One of the many other problems with the SPLC analysis is that it merges political opposition to Obama and support for constitutional 2nd Amendment rights with Timothy McVeigh-type violent groups, and thereby smears law abiding citizens because SPLC doesn’t like their politics.
The SPLC pulled this ploy with Sarah Palin, Southern Poverty Law Center Completes Its Descent Into Madness.
From the archives:
- Saturday Night Card Game (It must be fundraising time at SPLC)
- Neo-Nazis in Rhode Island? SPLC exaggerates again
- SPLC’s hatewatch gives cover to hate
- SPLC Demonizes Supporters of Traditional Marriage
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Comments
Gallows Tree Wotansvolk Alliance has got to be the best ever name .
They sit around under a tree fashioned into a gallow & speak gutturally but definitively about Jungian themes. On Rhode Island no less.
Das ist gut night wahr?
The Hated .. that would be anybody.
Which reminds me I should go & watch some Damned vids. That guy still looks great.
I’m not joking– I’m pretty sure “The Hated” is a group from the MMO video game “The Secret World.”
They do a lot of “Altered Reality Game” things that involve making fake websites for folks to “research”– it’s possible that one of those got nabbed.
I’m surprised they haven’t tossed every Tea Party group in the country on their list.
Obama and friends are just setting up the next Reichstag fire. That one really did the trick in 1933.
The 1.6 billion rounds of handgun ammo, the 2,100 bombproof armored vehicles the DHS has just staged throughout the United States as well as a bunch of FEMA camps are standing by.
Also there is the slander of comparing anyone worried about government overreach with racists, nazis, radical ‘right wingers’ et cetera.
Believe in the second amendment? Must be a nazi.
Worried about the viability of the currency with the current debt and deficit levels? Must be in Klan.
Worried there might be some social disorder if the currency collapses (re: like happens in every country where the currency collapses)? Future federal building bomber / mass murder / terrorist
Harder to argue since they’ll play this very game of trying to make you into a nut for being worried… but a lot of sane non nazi, klan, wing nut people are worried and happen to think having a rifle and some ammo is a smart thing to have…
SPLC will make heydey out of the recent “Spat of KKK” at ND High School and Oberlin.
What? That’s been 2 sightings of purported KKK in the last 40 years? And one of them may have been a woman wearing a blanket to keep warm, and the other may be just a bunch of high school students who were not aware of the significance of their “Wear white” (A hockey game tradition) mistake?
Maybe we should be more on the look out for closet communists who go around persecuting thought crime?
‘Patriot’ groups and 2nd amendment activists.
So they’re counting the Tea Party?
Dees and SPLC (which IS Dees, he controls all the money himself) have been shaking down guilty white liberals for so long they have it down to a science. Every few years they throw a few new scary-sounding groups into the mix of “threats” – most either never existed at all or never did the things Dees claims.
Putting a few such groups in every state, including the Deep Blue states, is his way of reminding those donors they are just a noose away from lynching themselves.
I don’t begrudge the man a penny, though. His idiot donors would be giving the money to other leftist causes and candidates, which might actually have a real-world effect. Better they keep Dees in Porsches.
Pretty high “Ah” count from this SPLC spokesperson. A high “ah” count usually indicates either a lack of truthfulness on the part of the speaker or a lack of sincerity in what the spokesperson is saying. In the case of this person, my analysis is that he is not speaking truth to power, rather his opinion in the hope of having that become well accepted as a “truth!’
Keep that analysis of “ah” and “um” counts to yourself since they, those wicked purveyors of Socialism seldom, if ever, speak the truth about anything.
…and of course, the SPLC has the backing of the entire mainstream media…
The SPLC is is so far out on the left fringe with the hate map of groups that don’t exist, a huge bank account much of which is in offshore accounts, a long history of fund raising without actually spending the money on “the cause” and a leader with a history of some weird personal quirks that donators would not appreciate. I do not think the support from the left leaning media would be that deep. The SPLC is ripe for “greenmail” by another leftist group looking for money or exposure for being greedy leftist con artists/scammers.
This guy says “uh” as often as our President says”I”. Oh wait…is that a racist hate-filled statement for me to make.
SPLC is a bigger joke than Code Pink. That’s pretty sad.
The SPLC “jumped the shark” for me when the put Malik Zulu Malik Zulu Shabazz on their list of “Radical Right” figures. The NBPP may be radical and it may be a nationalist movement, but it certainly isn’t “Right,” in the common sense of the term.
Shoot, President Obama appeared and marched with members of the New Black Panther Party as he campaigned for President in Selma, Ala., in March 2007.
http://www.wnd.com/2011/10/351545/#scbvcFcFCo4TCAcg.99
What wussies.
They are scared to list THE oldest, biggest, most aggressive, intolerant, violent, rapist, misogynist, murderous, racist, global hate group. (YKWIM)
The point of SPLC and I think the biggest reason we lost the last presidential election is that many people want to stick it to the white man. Think Eric Holder and home-schoolers. (Couldn’t this also be why Liz Warren pretends to be non-white – an Indian?)
The message of bigotry disguised in the sheep’s clothes of “tolerance” is reinforced in colleges and universities across the land. The race card is also played over and over again by the MSM and by groups like SPLC. They feed off each other hoping to get another notch in their hate watch belt.
[…] William Jacobson touches on the possible similarities between the Southern Poverty Law Center’s strategy of increasing […]
I’m not a media hound, so my exposure is at best random and sporadic. But it seems like there is almost a coordination from the left to increase the rhetoric about critics of Obama, the government and its actions, etc. Examples include statements from the usual progressive talking heads, like Potok, Robert Reich, “fill-in-the-blank” from MSNBC, etc. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it has the feeling of practically being a taunt – especially the words from SPLC. You could imagine they see the pressure from the administration, the constant babble from politicos about “the extremists” in Washington, and are amping up their language, too.
Amazingly enough, comments and ratings aren’t allowed on the SPLC video’s Youtube page.
Huh.
Wow – all those Occupiers who were setting up bombs for bridges didn’t make the list…. those must be freedom fighters?