[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [sf-core] Rise in Right-Wing Extremism

[Stuart Levy]

On Sun, Mar 07, 2010 at 03:08:09PM -0600, C. G. ESTABROOK wrote:
> You can't be associating SPLC with ACORN.  We all know of good work done by 
> ACORN over 40 years; but anyone who cares to look can see that SPLC is a 
> con.
>
> We can't be so stampeded by fear of the Right (as the liberal establishment 
> so wants us to be) that, just because a group declares itself liberal, we 
> must therefore support it, regardless of what it does. --CGE

Of course.  I'd agree with that, as far as it goes, but that isn't far.

There are worrisome things about SPLC.  I hadn't heard about their link
with the ADL before -- if for some of their actions they're taking cues from the
ADL, that's not good, as the ADL seems to be on the wrong side of every issue they take
these days.  And, I was disturbed to see in one SPLC news item last fall,
in supporting their description of one right-wing character, the mention that his
car bore an "End the Fed" bumper sticker.  Is that supposed to imply he's liable to
be a violent extremist?  That's wrong, and the SPLC deserves criticism for it.

But, look at other things the SPLC does.  They have for years opposed the flood of
racist anti-immigrant feeling -- not only from marginal extremist groups
(who are important), and from media celebrities especially Lou Dobbs (more important),
but also from law enforcement, and from employers.   One of their current front-page
issues is the winning of a wage-theft lawsuit against an employer who was cheating
foreign workers.  Many other such legal cases are on their docket. 

The bulk of their published reports over the last couple of years have been
immigration-related, too.

I don't claim they're perfect, but you'd need better evidence than Alexander Cockburn's
article before saying that SPLC is a con.  

Cockburn could be a better journalist if his writing used a higher ratio of
factual argument to innuendo.


> Belden Fields wrote:
>> Great.  We've done in ACORN, now SPLC, how many more human and civil right
>> groups can we do in at the glee of the Right?  Let's try to crucify the
>> Center for Constitutional Rights.  They surely must exaggerate rights
>> threats, and they PAY money to their lawyers as well!
>> Belden
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>> *From: *"C. G. ESTABROOK" <cge at shout.net <mailto:cge at shout.net>> *Date:
>>> *March 7, 2010 1:20:22 AM CST *To: *Socialist Forum
>>> <sf-core at yahoogroups.com <mailto:sf-core at yahoogroups.com>> *Subject: 
>>> **Re:
>>> [sf-core] Rise in Right-Wing Extremism*
>>> Mort--
>>> In fact the fraudulent nature of SPLC has been a matter of public record
>>> for some time now. See notably Ken Silverstein, "How the Southern Poverty 
>>> Law Center profits from intolerance," Harper's Magazine, November 2000
>>> (note the date; Silverstein published a follow-up in Harper's in 2007).
>>> As early as 1994 the Montgomery Advertiser ran a series alleging the SPLC
>>> was financially mismanaged and employed misleading fundraising practices. 
>>> The series was a finalist for but did not win a 1995 Pulitzer Prize in
>>> Explanatory Journalism. In 1996 USA Today called the SPLC "the nation's
>>> richest civil rights organization," with $68 million in assets at the 
>>> time.
>>> In 2008 the American Institute of Philanthropy's Charity Ratings Guide 
>>> gave
>>> the SPLC an "F" rating for "excessive" reserves.  Hate has been very good 
>>> to them.
>>> As to "whether there is any threat from the fascist right, hate, or 
>>> militarist groups/militias in the USA," all those Republicans and 
>>> Democrats
>>> who check under the bed each night for tea-partiers do indeed have
>>> something to worry about - an aroused public, who might realize that 
>>> their
>>> interests are not only different from but diametrically opposed to those 
>>> of
>>> the American elite, for whom both parties toil.
>>> Doug Henwood of the excellent Left Business Observer seems to me to have 
>>> it
>>> just right here:
>>> "I'm still mystified by the curiosity about - I'm deliberately not saying 
>>> obsession with - the risks of incipient fascism in the U.S. I have two 
>>> questions I'd love some clarification on:
>>> "(1) How is today's threat a significant departure from more than a 
>>> century
>>> of American political violence? To say that the Klan is some kind of 
>>> incipient fascist movement is to drain the term of any specific meaning.
>>> But over the last 100-150 years, we've had savage repression of labor
>>> through public and private means, like national guard units, cops, and
>>> Pinkertons. We had lynching. We had serious suppression of civil 
>>> liberties
>>> during and just after World War I. The Panthers were essentially wiped 
>>> out
>>> with death squads. I can understand why mainstream liberals don't want to
>>> admit that U.S. history is full of repressive crimes, and want to see
>>> George W. Bush or Sarah Palin as some kind of scary departures, but that
>>> doesn't characterize [intelligent liberals], does it?
>>> "(2) Why should we worry more about the fascist threat than some real, 
>>> imminent dangers like (a) a turn to fiscal and monetary tightening 
>>> (Obama's
>>> deficit commission, which could give him cover to cut Medicare and SS; 
>>> the
>>> Fed's signaling that it's ready to begin withdrawing its extraordinary 
>>> stimulus) that could sink us back into recession; (b) Obama's 
>>> friendliness
>>> towards offshore drilling and nuclear power; (c) the incapacity of the 
>>> U.S.
>>> political system to do anything at all about climate change, even 
>>> something
>>> as corp-friendly as c&t; (d) escalation in Afghanistan, and with it an
>>> enormous increase in civilian deaths; and (e) tightening the screws on
>>> Iran, possibly leading to some sort of utterly mad military strike. These
>>> are all initiatives either led or supported by a Democrat president and
>>> Congress, not some scary possibilities that some possible future 
>>> Republican
>>> president and/or Congress could perpetrate. Doesn't all the worrying
>>> distract from those realities?"
>>> In fact, the best thing that's happened to the clapped-out Democratic 
>>> party
>>> & Obama administration is the tea-party movement. Screaming "Danger on 
>>> the
>>> Right"; "Fascism on the horizon!" is they hope all that they will need to 
>>> cover their transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, and their
>>> escalation of imperialist murder.
>>> You say AC is "over the top" but then you admit the essentials of his 
>>> case:
>>> --the SPLC exaggerates the dangers of hate groups in order to make money;
>>> and
>>> --one should distrust their antisemitism warnings & links with ADL; so
>>> --don't send them any money.
>>> Once again, we agree...  --CGE
>>> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>>>> This Cockburn report is typical over-the-top Cockburn. The only "meat" 
>>>> in
>>>> his commentary is that the Dees outfit makes too much money out of its 
>>>> operations and solicitations. Hence a scam. Otherwise, he flays Dees for
>>>> not making America better in all the ways it could be better. And he
>>>> discounts or ignores whether there is any threat from the fascist right,
>>>> hate, or militarist groups/militias in the USA. The Tea Party would seem
>>>> to indicate a level of hate among many of its "constituants" that could
>>>> be dangerous to the general welfare.
>>>> It would have been more useful if Cockburn outright refuted Dees claims
>>>> with contradictory information. He only touches on that by saying that
>>>> Dees' outfit does not give us the number of people involved in militias,
>>>> etc.
>>>> It may be true that the SPLC exagerates the dangers of hate groups in 
>>>> order to make money and sustain and promote its existence. It may also 
>>>> be
>>>>  true that the SPLC does get some things right and may have a useful
>>>> function to warn against "extremist" hate groups of the right.
>>>> Let's try to see things clearly and accurately.
>>>> --mkb
>>>> P.S. I have been solicited by the SPLC, but reject their pleas for 
>>>> funds.
>>>> One should distrust their antisemitism warnings or links (?) with 
>>>> outfits
>>>>  like the ADL.
>>>> On Mar 6, 2010, at 5:42 PM, C. G. ESTABROOK wrote:
>>>>> [Barbara-- SPLC seems to be largely a scam.  Regards, Carl]
>>>>> King of the Hate Business By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
>>>>> What is the arch-salesman of hate-mongering, Mr. Morris Dees of the 
>>>>> Southern Poverty Law Center doing now? He’s saying that the election 
>>>>> of
>>>>> a black president proves his point. Hate is on the rise! Send money!
>>>>> Without skipping a beat, the mailshot moguls, who year after year make 
>>>>> money selling the notion there’s been a right resurgence out there in
>>>>> the hinterland with massed legions of haters, have used the election of
>>>>>  a black president to say that, yes, hate is on the rise and America
>>>>> ready to burst apart at the seams, with millions of extremists primed
>>>>> to march down Main Street draped in Klan robes, a copy of Mein Kampf
>>>>> tucked under one arm and a Bible under the other, available for sneak
>>>>> photographs from minions of Chip Berlet, another salesman of the
>>>>> Christian menace,  ripely endowed with millions to battle the legions
>>>>> of the cross.
>>>>> Ever since 1971 US Postal Service mailbags have bulged with Dees’ 
>>>>> fundraising letters, scaring dollars out of the pockets of trembling 
>>>>> liberals aghast at his lurid depictions of hate-sodden America, in dire
>>>>>  need of legal confrontation by the SPLC. Nine years ago Ken
>>>>> Silverstein wrote a devastating commentary on Dees and the SPLC in
>>>>> Harpers, dissecting a typical swatch of Dees’ solicitations. At that
>>>>> time, as Silverstein pointed out, the SPLC was “the wealthiest civil
>>>>> rights group in America,” with $120 million in assets.
>>>>> As of October 2008 the net assets of the SPLC were $170,240,129, The 
>>>>> merchant of hate himself, Mr. Dees, was paid an annual $273,132 as
>>>>> chief trial counsel, and the SPLC’s president and CEO, Richard Cohen, 
>>>>> $290,193. Total revenue in 2007 was $44,727,257 and program expenses 
>>>>> $20,804,536. In other words, the Southern Poverty Law Center was
>>>>> raising twice as much as it was spending on its proclaimed mission.
>>>>> Fund-raising and administrative expenses accounted for $9 million,
>>>>> leaving $14 million to be put in the center’s vast asset portfolio.
>>>>> The 990 non profit tax record for the SPLC indicates that the assets 
>>>>> fell by about $50 million last year, meaning that like almost all non
>>>>> profits the SPLC took a bath in the stock crash. So what was thr end
>>>>> result of all that relentless hoarding down the year, as people of
>>>>> modest means, scared by Dees, sent him their contributions. Were they
>>>>> put to good use? It doesn’t seem so. They vanished in an electronic
>>>>> blip.
>>>>> But where are the haters? That hardy old stand-by, the KKK, despite the
>>>>>  SPLC’s predictable howls about an uptick in its chapters, is a 
>>>>> moth-eaten and depleted troupe, at least 10 per cent of them on the
>>>>> government payroll as informants for the FBI. As Noel Ignatiev once
>>>>> remarked in his book Race Traitor, there isn’t a public school in any
>>>>> county in the USA that doesn’t represent a menace to blacks a 
>>>>> thousand
>>>>> times more potent than that offered by the KKK, just as there aren’t
>>>>> many such schools that probably haven’t been propositioned by Dees to
>>>>> buy one of the SPLC’s “tolerance” programs. What school is going 
>>>>> to go
>>>>> on record rejecting Dees-sponsored tolerance?
>>>>> Dees and his hate-seekers scour the landscape for hate like the arms 
>>>>> manufacturers inventing new threats and for the same reason: it’s 
>>>>> their
>>>>>  staple.
>>>>> The SPLC’s latest “Year in Hate” report claims that “in 2008 
>>>>> the number
>>>>> of hate groups rose to 926, up 4 per cent from 2007, and 54 per cent
>>>>> since 2000.” The SPLC doesn’t measure the number of members in the
>>>>> groups, meaning they probably missed me. Change that total to 927. 
>>>>> I’m
>>>>> a hate group, meaning in Dees-speak, “one with beliefs or practices
>>>>> that attack or malign an entire class of people,” starting with Dick
>>>>> Cheney. I love to dream of him being water-boarded, subjected to loops
>>>>> of Schonberg played at top volume, locked up naked in a meat locker.
>>>>> But the nation’s haters are mostly like me, enjoying their
>>>>> (increasingly circumscribed) constitutionally guaranteed right to hate,
>>>>> solitary, disorganized, prone to sickening relapses into love, or at
>>>>> least the sort of amiable tolerance for All Mankind experienced when
>>>>> looking at photos of Carla Bruni and Princess Letizia of Spain kissing.
>>>>> The effective haters are big, powerful easily identifiable entities. 
>>>>> Why is Dees fingering militia men in a potato field in Idaho when we
>>>>> have identifiable, well-organized groups which the SPLC could take on.
>>>>> To cite reports from the Urban League, and United for a Fair Economy,
>>>>> minorities are more than three times as likely to hold high-cost
>>>>> subprime loans, foisted on them by predatory lenders, meaning the big
>>>>> banks; “all black and latino subprime borrowers could stand to lose
>>>>> between $164 billion and $213 billion for loans taken during the past
>>>>> eight years.”
>>>>> Get those bankers and big mortgage touts into court, chief counsel
>>>>> Dees! How about helping workers fired by people who hate anyone trying
>>>>> to organize a union? What about defending immigrants rounded up in ICE
>>>>>  raids? How about attacking the roots of southern poverty, and the
>>>>> system that sustains that poverty as expressed in the endless prisons
>>>>> and Death Rows across the south, disproportionately crammed with blacks
>>>>> and Hispanics?
>>>>> You fight theatrically, the Dees way, or you fight substantively, like 
>>>>> Stephen Bright, who makes only $11,000 as president and senior counsel
>>>>> of the Southern Center for Human Rights. The center’s director makes 
>>>>> less than $50,000. It has net assets of a bit over $4.5 million and
>>>>> allocates about $1.6 million a year for expenses, 77 percent of its
>>>>> annual revenue. Bright’s outfit is basically dedicated to two things:
>>>>> prison litigation and the death penalty. He fights the system, case by
>>>>> case. Not the phony targets mostly tilted at by Dees but the effective,
>>>>> bipartisan, functional system of oppression, far more deadly and
>>>>> determined than the SPLC’s tin-pot hate groups. Tear up your check to
>>>>> Dees and send it to Bright,( http://www.schr.org
>>>>> <http://www.schr.org>/) or to the Institute for Southern Studies 
>>>>> (http://www.southernstudies.org.html 
>>>>> <http://www.southernstudies.org.html>) run by Chris Kromm, which has 
>>>>> been doing brilliant spadework on the economy, on poverty and on 
>>>>> exploitation in the south for four decades.
>>>>> http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05152009.html 
>>>>> <http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05152009.html>
>>>>> Barbara kessel wrote:
>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>> "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.
>>>>>> Potok said he blames some public personalities and conservative 
>>>>>> politicians for inciting fear.
>>>>>> Potok cited talk-show host Glenn Beck for stoking fears that the 
>>>>>> Federal Emergency Management Agency is running concentration camps,
>>>>>> former CNN host Lou Dobbs for incurring fears about supposed Mexican
>>>>>> plots to take over the southwestern U.S., Rep. Michele Bachmann,
>>>>>> R-Minn., for making statements about secret political reeducation
>>>>>> camps, and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin for
>>>>>> referring to Obama "death panels" during the health care debate.
>>>>>> Bachmann and Beck are also cited by name in the SPLC's report, but
>>>>>> Dobbs and Palin are not.
>>>>>> "These people help to bring completely groundless conspiracy theories
>>>>>>  from the margins into the mainstream," said Potok.
>>>>>> In a phone interview, Dobbs scoffed at the report. "It's sad that Mr.
>>>>>>  Potok insists upon maintaining his paranoia, and I hope that he 
>>>>>> recovers."
>>>>>> "Beyond that, I have nothing to say about the man," said Dobbs.
>>>>>> 'Another Oklahoma City Is Very Much a Possibility'
>>>>>> A spokesperson for Beck declined comment. Spokespersons for Bachmann
>>>>>> and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin did not respond by press time
>>>>>> to requests for comment.
>>>>>> Bachmann and Beck are discussed in the report itself as possible 
>>>>>> sources of anger, while Potok cited Palin and Dobbs in separate
>>>>>> articles accompanying the report.
>>>>>> The latest annual SPLC report, "Rage on the Right," claims there has
>>>>>> been a startling rise in numbers of extremist groups, particularly in
>>>>>> the Patriot movement and militias, the paramilitary branches of these
>>>>>>  Patriot groups. Patriot groups see the federal government as their
>>>>>> primary enemy and adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines,
>>>>>> frequently believing in groundless conspiracy theories.
>>>>>> According to the SPLC's figures, the number of active Patriot groups
>>>>>> grew from 149 to 512, an increase of 363 groups (244 percent) in
>>>>>> 2009, and the number of militia groups grew from 42 to 127, an
>>>>>> increase of 85 groups (200 percent) in 2009. The number of nativist
>>>>>> vigilante organizations that go beyond advocating strict immigration
>>>>>> policy and actually confront or harass suspected immigrants grew from
>>>>>> 173 to 309, an increase 136 groups (almost 80 percent) in 2009, the
>>>>>> report said.
>>>>>> The number of hate groups based on racism, anti-Semitism and anti-gay
>>>>>>  sentiment grew from 926 to 932 in 2009. SPLC said this increase caps
>>>>>> a decade in which the number of hate groups surged by 55 percent from
>>>>>>  2000 to 2009 (602 groups to 932).
>>>>>> Potok says the expansion of hate groups in 2009 would have been much 
>>>>>> greater if not for the demise of the American National Socialist 
>>>>>> Workers Party, a key neo-Nazi group whose founder, Bill White, was
>>>>>> arrested in October 2008. The group had 35 chapters.
>>>>>> Taken together, these three radical strands -- antigovernment Patriot
>>>>>>  groups, nativist extremist groups and hate groups -- increased their
>>>>>>  numbers by approximately 40 percent in 2009, according to Potok.
>>>>>> Potok said one of the main fears is that these radical groups are 
>>>>>> infiltrating mainstream groups like the Tea Party movement because of
>>>>>>  cross pollination of individuals who attend radical group meetings
>>>>>> and more mainstream gatherings.
>>>>>> Potok said he thinks that the climate today matches that of the
>>>>>> 'white hot' tension among anti-government groups prior to the
>>>>>> Oklahoma City bombing that killed 150 people in 1995.
>>>>>> "Another Oklahoma City is very much a possibility," said Potok.
>>>>>> Copyright © 2010 ABC News Internet Ventures
>
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