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Tag Archive | "Southern Poverty Law Center"


Anti-Muslim Hearings: Republican Islamophobe, Rep. Peter King is Stoking Irrational Fears About Islam

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MediaMatters: Fox & Friends stated that there is a “double standard” applied to Rep. Peter King’s hearings on Muslim extremism and the Obama administration’s treatment of Muslim-Americans by claiming recent comments by Obama official Denis McDonough mirror those comments made by King. In fact, the Obama administration and McDonough have repeatedly reached out to the Muslim community and praised it for its efforts in combating domestic terrorism, while King has repeatedly falsely claimed there hasn’t been “sufficient cooperation” from the Muslim community. [ READ MORE ] [ DOMESTIC RIGHT-WING AMERICAN TERRORISTS ]

   Islamophobe & Anti-Immigrant Bigot Peter King(R-NY)

Fox Falsely Claims Obama Admin Is Saying “Exact Same Thing” About Muslim-Americans As King

Fox & Friends Co-Hosts Cheerlead For Rep. King’s Anti-Muslim Hearings, Dismiss Protesters

YOUTUBE PLAYLIST: Anti-Muslim Bigotry & Hate (Islamophobia)

Eugene Robinson Writes For The Washington Post:

   [By: Eugene Robinson]
Eugene RobinsonRep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is about to convene hearings whose premise offends our nation’s founding ideals and whose targets are law-abiding members of a religious minority. King has decided to investigate Islam.

A Republican from Long Island in his 10th term, King seems untroubled that the freedoms of religion and association are guaranteed by the Constitution. His public exercise in Islamophobia, scheduled to begin Thursday, can do no good – and much harm.

The legitimate-sounding goal of this exercise, King explained Sunday on CNN, is to investigate "self-radicalization going on within the Muslim community" and the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism. Who doesn’t want to uncover al-Qaeda sleeper cells? Who doesn’t want to do everything that is possible – and legal – to prevent terrorist attacks?

But King further alleges that Muslim Americans have failed to demonstrate "sufficient cooperation" with law enforcement in uncovering potential terrorist plots. With this libel, King casts doubt on the loyalties of millions of Americans solely because of their faith. This is religious persecution – and it’s un-American and wrong.

King says he wants only to root out potential terrorists and bears no animus toward the vast majority of Muslim Americans. But he once complained that "unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country," and on another occasion offered the ludicrous opinion that "80 to 85 percent of mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic undamentalists." His claim to be free of anti-Muslim bias lacks credibility.

The irony is that it would be perfectly appropriate for King and his committee to look into any and all potential sources of domestic terrorism, emphasis on any and all. Before the Sept. 11 attacks, people seem to forget, the deadliest single act of terrorism on U.S. soil had been perpetrated by a right-wing loser named Timothy McVeigh – who was not, as it happened, a follower of Islam. For more than a century, the most remorseless and violent terrorist organization in the nation was the Ku Klux Klan. Watchdogs such as the Southern Poverty Law Center would be happy to share with King voluminous information about heavily armed militia groups out in the backwoods, training for some imagined Armageddon.

But the fact is that the Sept. 11 atrocities were indeed committed by men who espouse a version of Islam – one that the vast majority of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims reject as warped and blasphemous. It’s also true that al-Qaeda and its affiliates continue to mount attacks against the United States and the West, and that jihadist ideology is a deadly weapon.

Some conservatives make a frank argument for ethnic and religious profiling as an anti-terrorism tool. They scoff that failing to single out Muslims for extra scrutiny is nothing but political correctness.

These self-styled "realists" are stoking irrational fears while ignoring rational ones. King offers no support for his insinuation that Muslim Americans are giving aid and comfort to terrorists; to the contrary, Muslim clerics and worshipers in this country have been vocal in their rejection of jihadist rhetoric and violence. And unless King believes Muslims are clairvoyant, why would he expect them to be any better than Christians, Jews or anyone else in identifying lone-wolf gunmen or bombers whose private torment becomes obvious only in retrospect?

Security hearings that focus exclusively on Muslim Americans serve only to amplify the rumblings of Islamophobia that seem to become louder and crazier by the day.

Bad enough is the ridiculous controversy over the proposed Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan that became known as the "Ground Zero mosque." This episode taught Muslim Americans that even a mainstream cleric, specifically bent on building an institution for interfaith outreach and understanding, is not welcome to enjoy the nation’s guarantee of religious freedom.

Worse is all the ugly noise – it doesn’t qualify as debate – about the imagined encroachment of Islamic sharia law. As a threat to the American way of life, the likelihood of our justice system being taken over by "creeping" sharia is less than that of Godzilla emerging from New York Harbor. Yet state legislatures are taking up actual legislation to guard against this imaginary Islamic threat.

The narrative that al-Qaeda uses to recruit suicide bombers is that the United States and the West are not fighting terrorism but trying to destroy Islam. Peter King, with his little hearings, is about to make it harder to refute the jihadists’ big lie.

   [Enlarge]
Eugene RobinsonAbout The Author: Eugene Robinson — is an Associate Editor and twice-weekly columnist for The Washington Post. His column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays.

In a 25-year career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper?s award-winning Style section. In 2005, he started writing a column for the Op-Ed page. He is the author of “Coal to Cream: A Black Man?s Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race” (1999) and “Last Dance in Havana” (2004).

Robinson is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and has received numerous journalism awards.

More Articles By Mr. Robinson: | Part 1 | Part 2 |

Coal to Cream: A Black Man's Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race

   Republican/Tea-Party’s Hateful Anti-Muslim, Anti-Obama Islamophobia
   [CLICK PLAYLIST FOR MENU]
References: | Republicans and the Art of Racism: Obama is Dealing With an Aggressive Covert and Fascist Operation in Congress, in The Media and On The Streets | Rise of The ‘Angry White Male’: Desperate & Insecure Whites See Years of Unfettered Privilege Slipping Away | Fear of An Intelligent Black Man: White Intimidation By Black Male Intelligence Still Exists To This Day | The Tea-Bag “Terrorist” Suckers Are The New “White Power Movement | Images of White Terrorism in America | Disguising Hate as Heritage: The Neo-Confederate Tradition Of Refighting The Civil War | Living Under Obama: White Male ‘Conservative’ Victimhood and The New Realities of ‘Black Privilege’ | The Pathology of White Privilege: What If The Tea Party ‘Tea-Baggers’ Were Black? | The Southern Strategy Lives at Fox News: White People!…. Be Afraid!…. Very Afraid of Black People! | What The Tea Partiers Really Want: A Whites ONLY Country …’Dang It |

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Let’s Get This Straight: There is No Leftist Equivalent to the Right’s Violent Rhetoric

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   By: Melissa McEwan
Melissa McEwan[Trigger warning for violent rhetoric of many different stripes.]

Both sides are, in fact, not “just as bad,” when it comes to institutionally sanctioned violent and eliminationist rhetoric. An anonymous commenter at Daily Kos and the last Republican vice presidential nominee are not equivalent, no matter how many ridiculously irresponsible members of the media would have us believe otherwise.

There is, demonstrably, no leftist equivalent to Sarah Palin, former veep candidate and presumed future presidential candidate, who uses gun imagery (rifle sights) and language (“Don’t Retreat, RELOAD“) to exhort her followers to action.

There is no leftist equivalent to the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a group which was created from the mailing list of the old white supremacist White Citizens Councils and has been noted as becoming increasingly “radical and racist” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which classifies the CCC as a hate group—and is nonetheless considered an acceptable association by prominent members of the Republican Party, including a a former senator and the last Republican presidential nominee.

There is no leftist equivalent to Glenn Beck, host of a long-running nationally syndicated radio show, former host of a show on CNN and current host of a show on Fox, best-selling author, DC rally organizer, and longtime user of eliminationist rhetoric, including equating universal healthcare to rape, joking about victims of forest fires being America-hating liberals, comparing Al Gore to Hitler, condoning the murder of Michael Moore, accusing Holocaust survivor George Soros of being a Nazi collaborator, joking about poisoning Nancy Pelosi, equating immigration reform with burning US citizens alive, publicly endorsing violent revolution, and winkingly telling his viewers not to get violent, all of which amounts to a speck on the tip of a very big iceberg.

Playlist: Glenn Beck – Fox News’ Fraudulent in-House Baboon

Playlist: Sarah ‘Death’ Palin — The ‘DISASTA’ From Alaska

There is no leftist equivalent to Ann Coulter, best-selling author and syndicated columnist, who has been a panelist on Fox’s Hannity 28 times and was on Hannity & Colmes an additional 18 times, who has been a guest multiple times on The O’Reilly Factor, Geraldo at Large, Larry King Live, Huckabee, Your World with Neil Cavuto, Hardball, and other cable news shows, has made appearances on The Tonight Show, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The Daily Show, and Real Time with Bill Maher, and has co-hosted The View, and has also said that a baseball bat is “the most effective way” to talk to liberals, as well as: “We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too.” And: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.” And: “In [Clinton's] recurring nightmare of a presidency, we have a national debate about whether he ‘did it,’ even though all sentient people know he did. Otherwise there would be debates only about whether to impeach or assassinate.”

Playlist: Ann Coulter — Compost Throwing Psycho-Talker

There is no leftist equivalent to Bill O’Reilly, Fox News television show host, nationally syndicated radio show host, and best-selling author, who has appeared on The Tonight Show eleven times, The Late Show with David Letterman six times, The Daily Show six times, Live with Regis and Kelly five times, The View four times, Good Morning America three times, and Real Time with Bill Maher twice, among other national shows, and has lied about and stalked his critics, said that progressive bloggers should be dealt with “with a hand grenade,” said Air America hosts were traitors and should be “put in chains,” as well as: “And if Al Qaeda comes [to San Francisco] and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.”

Playlist: Bill O’Reilly (Osama Bin O’Reilly)

There is no leftist equivalent to Rush “I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus—living fossils—so we will never forget what these people stood for” Limbaugh, nationally syndicated radio show host and invitee to the Bush White House.

Playlist: Rush ‘FAT’ Limbaugh

There is no leftist equivalent to Pat “Hitler’s success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path” Buchanan, a regular MSNBC contributor and syndicated columnist.

There is no leftist equivalent to Michelle “In Defense of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in World War II and the War on Terror” Malkin, a regular Fox panelist, best-selling author, and prominent conservative blogger.

There is no leftist equivalent to Pat “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians” Robertson, host of The 700 Club, who was a guest on Fox’s Hannity & Colmes five times.

There is no leftist equivalent to Michael “Howard Dean should be arrested and hung for treason or put in a hole until the end of the Iraq war” Reagan, or Michael “Smallpox in a blanket, which the U.S. Army gave to the Cherokee Indians on their long march to the West, was nothing compared to what I’d like to see done to these people” Savage, both nationally syndicated radio show hosts.

There is no leftist equivalent to the Minutemen and other radical and eliminationist-spewing anti-immigration groups, some of whom have been subcontracted to work the border by the US government.

Playlist: American Anti-Immigrant Xenophobia

There is no leftist equivalent to radical and eliminationist-spewing anti-choice groups, who openly target doctors and call for their assassinations—and had a success just last year in the murder of Dr. George Tiller—and whose leaders get featured in whitewashing profiles in the Washington Post.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

This is not an argument there is no hatred, no inappropriate and even violent rhetoric, among US leftists. There is.

This is evidence that, although violent rhetoric exists among US leftists, it is not remotely on the same scale, and, more importantly, not an institutionally endorsed tactic, as it is among US rightwingers.

This is a fact. It is not debatable.

And there is observably precious little integrity among conservatives in addressing this fact, in the wake of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Palin takes the absolute cake for audaciously asserting that her rifle sight imagery was really “a surveyor’s symbol,” and not even having the decency to sheepishly acquiesce that, even if that were true (and not evident bullshit), it’s understandable how a reasonable person could look at her “surveyor’s symbol” alongside the word “target” and get the wrong, ahem, idea. No, it’s all just a wall of total denial in the Palin camp, when she’s not whining about being a victim herself of people who have the temerity to actually hold her accountable for her carelessly casual violent rhetoric. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. And then it’s deny and play the martyr.

But it’s not like Palin’s ideological allies are covering themselves in glory, either. There’s no call for accountability, no call for reflection, not among conservatives. Just the usual game of deflection and projection, as they desperately try to find a way to make this liberals’ fault.

Bill Kristol took to the airwaves this morning to call criticism of Palin “a disgrace” and accuse liberals of “McCarthyism.” Commentators on Fox News, meanwhile, blame President Obama for not changing the tone in Washington, like he promised. Which would be hilarious, were that redirection of blame not a key part of conservatives’ strategy to dodge responsibility for the eliminationist rhetoric that certainly contributed to the tragic events of this weekend.

When, a few months ago, there was a spate of widely-publicized suicides of bullied teens, we had, briefly, a national conversation about the dangers of bullying. But in the wake of an ideologically-motivated assassination attempt of a sitting member of Congress, we aren’t having a national conversation about the dangers of violent rhetoric—because the conversation about bullying children was started by adults, and there are seemingly no responsible grown-ups to be found among conservatives anymore.

Faced with the overwhelming evidence of the violent rhetoric absolutely permeating the discourse emanating from their side of the aisle, conservatives adopt the approach of a petulant child—deny, obfuscate, and lash out defensively.

And engage in the most breathtaking disingenuous hypocrisy: Conservatives, who vociferously argue against the language and legislation of social justice, on the basis that it all “normalizes” marginalized people and their lives and cultures (it does!), are suddenly nothing but blinking, wide-eyed naïveté when it comes to their own violent rhetoric.

They have a great grasp of cultural anthropology when they want to complain about progressive ideas, inclusion, diversity, and equality. But when it comes to being accountable for their own ideas, their anthropological prowess magically disappears.

Only progressives “infect” the culture, but conservative hate speech exists in a void.

That’s what we’re meant to believe, anyway. But we know it is not true. This culture, this habit, of eliminationist rhetoric is not happening in a vacuum. It’s happening in a culture of widely-available guns (thanks to conservative policies), of underfunded and unavailable medical care, especially mental health care (thanks to conservative policies), of a widespread belief that government is the enemy of the people (thanks to conservative rhetoric), and of millions of increasingly desperate people (thanks to an economy totally fucked by conservative governance).

The shooting in Tucson was not an anomaly. It was an inevitability.

And as long as we continue to play this foolish game of “both sides are just as bad,” and rely on trusty old ablism to dismiss Jared Lee Loughner as a crackpot—dutifully ignoring that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators; carefully pretending that the existence of people with mental illness who are potentially dangerous somehow absolves us of responsibility for violent rhetoric, as opposed to serving to underline precisely why it’s irresponsible—it will be inevitable again.

Let’s get this straight: This shit doesn’t happen in a void. It happens in a culture rife with violent political rhetoric, and it’s time for conservatives to pull up their goddamn bootstraps and get to work doing the hard business of self-reflection.

This is one problem the invisible hand of the market can’t fix for them—unless, perhaps, it’s holding a mirror.

Playlist: Republican | Tea-Party Racism

[ More Playlists Here ]

Melissa McEwanAbout The Author(s): Melissa McEwan — is the founder and manager of the award-winning political and cultural group blog Shakesville, which she launched as Shakespeare’s Sister in October 2004 because George Bush was pissing her off. In addition to running Shakesville, she also contributes to The Guardian’s Comment is Free America and AlterNet. Melissa graduated from Loyola University Chicago with degrees in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology, with an emphasis on the political marginalization of gender-based groups. An active feminist and LGBTQI advocate, she has worked as a concept development and brand consultant and now writes full-time.

She lives just outside Chicago with three cats, one dog, and a Scotsman, with whom she shares a love of all things geekdom, from Lord of the Rings to Lost. When she’s not blogging, she can usually be found at her piano or dancing like no one is watching to a Smiths’ tune.

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Arizona’s ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Immigration Law Was Penned By The Hate Group — FAIR, The Federation For American Immigration Reform

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   By: Devona Walker
Devona WalkerWhy does the mainstream media ignore that when covering it? The immigration mess in this country is not a fake problem. But the debate surrounding how you solve it is completely artificial. Immigration reform has been the most politically divisive issue in this country for going on six years. That is insanely idiotic when you consider that both sides essentially agree on how to solve it. You cannot find one (unless you are talking to those racist nativists) anti-immigration groups that honestly believes this country can or should deport millions of illegal immigrants. Likewise, you cannot find one pro-immigrant advocate who believes we should not do more to enforce the rule of law and secure our borders.

It all boils down to who is going to blink first. Who is going to take up this fight, which is political suicide in the short-term for Democrats and in the long-term for Republicans?

And which one do you do first? Do you secure the borders first? Or do you start a legal process by which illegal immigrants currently in the country can begin a process of becoming a legal citizen? Yes, amnesty folks. Despite all the vitriol on the anti-immigrant side of things, there is not one expert among them who does not believe that “amnesty” in some form must be a part of solving our current immigration mess.

Yesterday a judge in Arizona temporarily shot down the most controversial parts of the state’s stringent immigration enforcement law. It should be noted that she would not have taken that step if she had not thought there was considerable merit in the federal case against the state of Arizona.

The truth is the law doesn’t have a chance of becoming law as it is written. It does not merely encourage, but requires racial profiling. But it also violates due process. It sets up a system in which the innocent can be indefinitely detained without any proof they are illegal. Validating someone’s immigration status at present takes several days and the Department of Homeland Security has already been sued several times for detaining legal citizens. If the federal government can’t get it right, with all the resources and training available to them, how do you think some small-town Arizona cops will fare?

But the really inexcusable thing about this whole immigration farce is that the folks penning these “enforcement-only” immigration statutes around the country, know these laws are not enforceable or legal.

The little-known secret behind this whole “anti-immigrant” movement is that the laws are not written by individual legislators, but the legislative arm of a far right anti-immigrant group called FAIR, that is the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Each bill serves as test legislation for future bills. They have built this movement entirely upon bias, fear and emotion and have no intention of actually helping resolve the immigration mess in this country. Their ultimate goal is to repeal the 14th amendment, which is citizenship by birthright. They want to create a situation where you are not necessarily a U.S. citizen simply be the act of being born in this country. They feel citizenship should be reserved onto to children born in this country and whose parents were also American citizens. They also feel admittedly that Latinos, not necessarily illegal immigrants, are a threat to our country.

It should be noted that in our last presidential election we had two choices, Sen. John McCain and Barack Obama. If these birthright folks had their way, neither would be eligible for U.S. citizenship. Obama’s father was Kenyan and McCain wasn’t actually born in this country.

It should also be noted that the far right folks fueling the anti-immgration debate and writing the immigration statutes are not at all in line with most Americans concerned about the rate of illegal immigration, the impact on social services, public schools, or necessarily the potential that exist for the Mexican drug war to spill over into U.S. cities. These folks are not even in line with groups like the conservative) Center for Immigration Studies, they are simply exploiting the immigration tensions that exist to further their nativist movement.

   American XENOPHOBIA: Anti-Immigrant FEAR, HATE and LOATHING
   [CLICK PLAYLIST FOR MENU]
References: | CNN’s Lou Dobbs – The Minister of ‘Propaganda and Enlightenment’ – An Anti-Immigrant Bigot. A Racist, Xenophobic Extortionist | “Burn the Mexican flag!”: A look back at the hateful anti-immigration rhetoric from 2006 |

The last 11 states that enacted immigration statutes had direct connections to FAIR. FAIR is a fairly controversial group. It has been listed since 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. It’s not necessarily immigration legislation that caused them to receive this distinction but because of its historical ties to a Eugenics Foundation (Eugenics is a pseudo-science founded in the late 1800s that deals with the improvement-as by control of human mating-of hereditary qualities of a race or breed).

SPLC has also investigated FAIR’s founder John Tanton, a guy who has been warning for years, not about illegal immigration, but a “Latino onslaught.”

“In a majority of the states where legislation has been proposed or discussed, the leading lawmakers behind the bills are associated with FAIR’s legislative arm, a group called State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI) that operates in at least 35 states,” it was reported in Colorlines.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, FAIR has received more than $1 million in grants from the Pioneer Fund, a group that promotes the notion that blacks and Latinos are inherently less intelligent than whites.

In at least seven of the 11 states where these “immigration enforcement” statutes have been proposed, there are legislators “drafting” them that are member’s of FAIR’s state legislator’s group and Arizona is no exception.

In South Carolina, it was Rep. Michael Pitts. Pitts is a listed as a member of SLLI. The language in the South Carolina bill is strikingly similar to the one in Arizona. In Missouri, SLLI member Rep. Brian Nieves signed on as a co-sponsor of a draconian anti-immigrant bill recently referred to a legislative committee. In five other states-Maryland, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah and Texas-the same is true.

Kris Kobach, a lawyer who works with the FAIR legal arm, IRLI, helped write Arizona’s SB 1070.

Why is Arizona any different?

Well, until now, FAIR’s strategy appears to be to have been to eat away at the rights of immigrants along the margins. That is, all the states up until this point, have not had significant immigrant populations or problems in terms of illegal immigration. Instead, FAIR chose conservative strongholds where they would be able to find legislators who found it politically advantageous to propose stringent immigration enforcement statutes. But in terms of really affecting the lives of immigrants, these bills were not that consequential — as those states do not have large populations of immigrants. This, of course, also meant there would be little resistance and pushback from Latino voters.

The difference in Arizona is that it does have a large Latino population. After Arizona, they will probably be emboldened enough to take on Florida, New York, Texas and California. Arizona is a very critical test case for the anti-immigration crowd. And this federal suit is equally critical when it comes to stopping the madness long enough to address the problem at hand.

   Sen. Jim Webb is preaching Civil Rights that don’t sound right

   Kill the Bush tax cuts, stop rewarding the rich during the recession

   Maureen Dowd misdiagnosed Obama’s race problem

   Why Aren’t More Black Musicians Boycotting Arizona?

Devona WalkerAbout The Author(s): Devona Walker is a veteran print journalist.

She has worked for The Associated Press and the New York Times company. Currently she is the senior political and finance reporter for theloop21.com.

She lives in Columbia, Missouri where she is working on a Master’s in Public Policy and her first novel. Follow her on Twitter. Find her on FaceBook. [ More Articles By Devona Walker ]

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Immigration & White Supremacy: ‘FAIR’ Founder (Dan Stein) and Author of AZ Law Argues For a ‘European-American’ Majority

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Southern Poverty Law Center: Arizona Immigration Law Violates Constitution, Guarantees Racial Profiling — Given the authors of this law, no one should be surprised about its intended targets. The law was drafted by a lawyer for the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), whose founder has warned of a “Latin onslaught” and complained about Latinos’ alleged low “educability.” FAIR has accepted $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund, a racist foundation that was set up by Nazi sympathizers to fund studies of eugenics, the science of selective breeding to produce a “better” race. The legislation was sponsored by state Senator Russell Pearce, who once e-mailed an anti-Semitic article from the neo-Nazi National Alliance website to supporters. [ READ MORE ]

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

[ Maddow Blog Postings on FAIR: Viewer scores Dan Stein of FAIR | Post-Show Factcheck: Dan Stein of FAIR ]

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Right-Wing Criminals: Active Hate and Extremist Groups in The United States

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The Southern Poverty Law Center

March 2, 2010
Dear Friend,

Today, we’re releasing our annual report on the number of active hate and extremist groups in our nation. The figures are alarming, and I’m deeply worried about what this means for our country.

This sign was photographed at a recent demonstration in Washington D.C.This sign was photographed at a recent demonstration in Washington D.C.

We’ve documented a 244 percent increase in the number of conspiracy–minded, anti–government “Patriot” groups in a single year. Militias — the paramilitary arm of the “Patriot” movement — were a major part of the increase. Like other extremists, “Patriot” groups have been fueled by anger over immigration, the troubled economy and an array of initiatives by President Obama.

This extraordinary growth is cause for real concern. During its 1990s heyday, the “Patriot” movement produced an enormous amount of violence, most dramatically the Oklahoma City bombing that left 168 people dead.

Racist hate groups are at record levels — rising from 926 in 2008 to 932 in 2009. The increase caps a decade in which the number of neo–Nazi, racist skinhead and other hate groups surged by more than 50 percent. We’ve also seen a sharp increase in “nativist extremist” groups — vigilante organizations that actually confront or harass suspected immigrants.

These three strands of the radical right — the hate groups, the “nativist extremist” groups, and the “Patriot” organizations — are the most volatile elements on the American political landscape. Taken together, their numbers increased by more than 40 percent, rising from 1,248 groups to 1,753.

There are already signs of a resurgence of radical–right violence like the kind we witnessed in the 1990s. Right–wing extremists have murdered six law enforcement officers since Obama’s inauguration. Racist skinheads and others have been arrested in alleged plots to assassinate the president. Most recently, a number of individuals with antigovernment, survivalist or racist views have been arrested in a series of bomb cases. And, tragically, a man furious with the government crashed his plane into an IRS building.

With your help, we’ll continue to track and expose these groups’ activities and provide law enforcement with the information they need to keep our communities safe. Thank you, once again, for your commitment to stand with us as we fight the hate that threatens to divide us.

Sincerely,


   Morris Dees
   Founder, Southern Poverty Law Center

P.S. SPLC President Richard Cohen and Intelligence Project Director Mark Potok will host an interactive webcast and take your questions on this and other SPLC work on March 17th. We’ll contact you soon with details. Also, please visit our updated Hate Map to find out what groups are active in your state.

You can donate to the Southern Poverty Law Center online.

   Follow SPLC on Twitter.
   Become our fan on Facebook.

We welcome your feedback.
Contact us online.

Or by mail:

Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104

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