Dobbs, Beck, Palin, Bachmann Share Blame For Rise in Right-Wing Extremism, Says

[Ptarmigan]

Dobbs, Beck, Palin, Bachmann Share Blame For Rise in Right-Wing Extremism, Says Activist Group
Southern Poverty Law Center Cites Violent Incidents; Lou Dobbs Calls SPLC Director 'Paranoid'
By ANNA SCHECTER
March 3, 2010

Anti-government sentiments in the U.S. have reached levels so high they could result in another attack like the Oklahoma City bombing, according to a report released Tuesday by an organization that tracks right-wing extremists – and the authors of the report place part of the blame on Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin.

In a statement to ABC News, Lou Dobbs hit back at the director of the group that prepared the report, calling him "paranoid."

A host of recent attacks on law enforcement, plots against President Obama, and a shooting at Washington, D.C.'s Holocaust museum are "signs of the times," said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit group that monitors militias, white supremacists, and other extremist activity. Potok made his comments during a teleconference with reporters to promote the SPLC's latest annual report on hate-group activity.

ABC News-Dobbs, Beck, Palin, Bachmann Share Blame For Rise in Right-Wing Extremism, Says Activist Group

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It is the left's own fault for causing the sentiment.

[Airwolf]

Whatever. This Meme was old back in the 90's and its only getting play with the MSLSDNBC crowd.

[thundley4]

"We've seen more threats and actual attacks in the past 18 months than we've seen at any given period over the past 15 years," claimed Potok.

They must have accidentally slipped up and forgot to mention the Fort Hood attack, the Nutty Professor, and Wrongway Feldman flying into the IRS building.  I'm certain that those were mere oversights on their part.

[Alpha Mare]

  the SPLC.

To illustrate how dangerous these groups are, the Center cites some recent arrests of right-wing figures for planning or carrying out violent attacks. But it doesn't demonstrate that any of the arrestees were a part of the Patriot milieu, and indeed it includes some cases involving racist skinheads, who are another movement entirely.

But what really interests me is that alleged 244 percent jump. The American Spectator notes that many of the groups in the SPLC's count are basically innocuous, and that's certainly a point worth making. But there's another important question: To what extent does this increase in groups represent an actual increase in activists? Given the past year's surge in right-wing protest, I would expect the Patriot milieu to grow along with everything else. But I'd also expect a lot of those new bodies to get involved in more than one organization simultaneously.

A group seriously interested in tracking the size and shape of these movements would take all those issues into account. But then, that would require you to have a goal more lofty than compiling your next scaremongering direct-mail campaign.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/03/fearmongering-at-the-splc

Other examples of violence as a consequence of “right-wing extremism” cited in the report are thin on the ground, but the scope of the hit piece is not about exploring actual facts, its almost exclusively about tarring increasing opposition to big government as a portend of domestic terror.

The intent is clear – when a domestic terror attack does take place – which from all indications is unfortunately inevitable – those smeared in the same breath as the perpetrators will be blamed for instigating the violence, which will lead to more laws and more restrictions on free speech and political activism.

The fact that the SPLC is going to such lengths as to equate a sitting Congresswoman with mass murdering terrorists reveals the true purpose of the smear – another advancement of the effort to silence political opposition by demonizing peaceful political adversaries as violent extremists.

The SPLC couldn’t give a damn about preventing domestic terrorism, indeed, their funding and prestige will only increase if such attacks were to take place. The SPLC is begging for an incident that can be blamed on their political opposition which they will then exploit to silence dissent, so don’t be surprised if such an attack is dutifully provided by the network of federal government provocateurs who are routinely caught steering rag-tag terror groups in every major case.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/splc-report-heavy-on-smear-thin-on-facts.html

The SPLC understands the importance of language. It fights what it labels “hate,” “intolerance” and “discrimination,” but it defines those terms very differently than most Americans would. To the center, you practice “hate” whenever you fail to genuflect with politically correct reverence before every human difference.

In the SPLC’s world, armies of the night are forever on the march. Cross-burnings, lynchings and rampant racial discrimination are omnipresent. Those who question the SPLC’s approach to race are blacklisted as contemptible bigots.

Reporters found the center had accumulated a huge surplus. “It was $50-something million at that time; it’s now approaching $100 million, but they’ve never spent more than 31% of the money they were bringing in on programs, and sometimes they spent as little as 18%. Most nonprofits spend about 75% on programs,” Tharpe said. SPLC donors had no idea how financially secure the center was, he said. “The charity watchdog groups, the few that are in existence, had consistently criticized the center, even though nobody had reported that.”

Reporters also uncovered that what is arguably the nation’s wealthiest civil rights group—which contends that racism pervades all of American society—had no blacks in top management positions. “Twelve out of the 13 black current and former employees we contacted cited racism at the center, which was a shocker to me. As of 1995, the center had hired only two black attorneys in its entire history,” Tharpe said.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18403

Southern Poverty Law Center Tries To ‘Alinsky’ The Tea Party Movement

In the eyes of the SPLC, the average American citizen is

“shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism.”

The report identifies “Tenth Amendment Resolutions based on the constitutional provision” as signs of growing radicalization. Wow. It’s now radical to uphold the Constitution. Ironically America’s Founding Fathers were radicals in their day when they wrote the Constitution.

As it echoes themes from the Department of Homeland Security report last year on right-wing extremism the report provides no background support for its accusations and fails to acknowledge the wide variety of left wing extremism. Clearly its author Mark Potok missed the recent news about violent left wing extremists  Joseph Stack and Amy Bishop. I think it’s about time to ‘Alinsky’ the Alinskyites.

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/03/03/southern-poverty-law-center-tries-to-alinsky-the-tea-party-movement/

[Chris]

I usually ignore anything from the SPLC, but...

"We've seen more threats and actual attacks in the past 18 months than we've seen at any given period over the past 15 years," claimed Potok.

what is this jackass smoking?  Oh, and he forgot Little Liberal Loonie, she of the denied tenure that shot six co-workers.

[DumbAss Tanker]

You'd think if the publicity whores at SPLC were correct, someone would have blown their asses up by now.

[Ralph Wiggum]

No offense to Michelle Bachman, mostly because I like her and her stances on issues.  But I bet 99% of the American public couldn't pick her out of a lineup, and maybe 98% have never heard of her.  She's just a convenient boogey-woman for the left.

[Alpha Mare]

Guardian Runs Pic of KKK Cross Burning Over Story About Glenn Beck, Tea Party, CPAC

It's off the main page now, but DCBrent (and several others) was kind enough to grab a screenshot for me:



The picture brings you to the article which has a giant head shot of Glenn Beck at the very top. It goes on to describe the supposedly radical and racist roots of the Tea Party, the incitement and paranoia of Glenn Beck and other "rightwing media" figures, and the infiltration of CPAC by radical agents.

The source of these claims is the credibility-challenged Southern Poverty Law Center.

http://minx.cc/?post=299008

h/t Ace of Spades

[jinxmchue]

http://minx.cc/?post=299008

h/t Ace of Spades

I'm sure that was "just a coincidence."


(FYI, I don't believe in coincidences.)

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

My mole had an interesting dialogue with a "fellow" DUer recently. My interlocutor was very eager to share the SPLC report with my mole and those who were observing the conversation lapped-up every line of the narrative.

It's only a matter of time before they start acting out.

[jinxmchue]

So exactly how many of the recent extremists have been right-wing.












Yeah, I'm having trouble coming up with an answer, too.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

So exactly how many of the recent extremists have been right-wing.

They may have been leftists at heart but it was RW extremism that drove them to violence.[/liberal]

[JohnnyReb]

BOY! I wish I had had a top that would spin like that when I was a kid.

[SVPete]

The Klan In Rhode Island? SPLC Exaggerates Again
William A. Jacobson
Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion
Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Southern Poverty Law Center has issued its latest screaming report: “Patriot” Groups, Militias Surge in Number in Past Year.

Unfortunately, the hype surrounding the SPLC report is just another indication that SPLC has lost its way and has become a primary source to smear anyone who is against the liberal dogma of big government.

As Robert Stacy McCain documents, the portion of the SPLC report dealing with "patriot militias" is both exaggerated in numbers (for example, if one group has 50 state branches, that counts as 50 groups in the report) and in scope (standard libertarian groups without any "militias" are included).

I pointed out last October the depths to which SPLC goes to smear political opponents, when SPLC falsely accused a black female law professor of being an "apologist for white supremacists."
...
But there was one aspect of the report which really caught my eye. SPLC's report lists Rhode Island as having three hate groups, but the SPLC "hate map" indicates only a single Ku Klux Klan chapter in Rhode Island.

Even that seemed strange to me, because in the 17 years I have lived in Rhode Island ...

Of course, the MSM wouldn't bother to fact-check the novella of that sacred organization of leeches, aka the SPLC.

[Pat]

My mole had an interesting dialogue with a "fellow" DUer recently. My interlocutor was very eager to share the SPLC report with my mole and those who were observing the conversation lapped-up every line of the narrative.

It's only a matter of time before they start acting out.

let's party