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

[C. G. ESTABROOK]

Silverstein's stuff goes back 10 years; & see the other accounts quoted below.


Stuart Levy wrote:
> 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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