April 22, 2010

The Numbers - from a credible source

Byron York writes at The Washington Examiner:
What's behind the anti-Tea Party hate narrative?
There's a new narrative taking hold in the wake of the recent Tea Party protests and the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing: The Tea Partiers' intense opposition to the Obama administration has led to overheated political rhetoric, which could in turn lead to violence, perhaps as devastating as Oklahoma City.

Former President Clinton is the leading voice of this new narrative. In newspaper interviews, television appearances and a widely discussed speech Friday, Clinton said it's "legitimate" to draw "parallels to the time running up to Oklahoma City and a lot of the political discord that exists in our country today."

"Watch your words," warned ABC News, reporting that Clinton "weighed in on the angry anti-government rhetoric, ringing out from talk radio to Tea Party rallies."

The reports dovetailed with earlier media stories depicting Tea Party gatherings as angry mobs, accusing protesters of throwing racial epithets at black lawmakers and of making threats of violence. The implication was that all this could be part of a nationwide trend. "Just this month, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that it had tracked an explosion in extremist anti-government patriot groups fueled, in large part, by anger over the economy and Barack Obama's presidency," NBC's David Gregory said on "Meet the Press" in early April. "In this highly charged political atmosphere, where you've got so much passion, so much disagreement, this takes it, of course, to a different level."
Ahhh - the old Southern Poverty Law Center. A true bastion of honor and truthfulness. An agency with no agenda and no political bent. And what does the SPLC have to say about the TEA Party violence - Byron again:
In 1989, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of skinheads, saying, "Not since the height of Klan activity during the civil rights era has there been a white supremacist group so obsessed with violence. ..."

In 1992, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of other white supremacist groups, which it claimed had grown by 27 percent from the year before.

In 1995, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of right-wing militias.

In 1998, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of Internet-based hate groups, which according to one press account had "created the biggest surge in hate in America in years."

In 1999, the SPLC warned that the growing threat of Web-based hate groups was growing even more, with a 60 percent increase from the year before.

In 2002, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of post-Sept. 11 hate groups, which it said had grown 12 percent between 2000 and 2001.

In 2004, the SPLC warned (again) of the growing threat of skinhead groups, whose numbers it said had doubled in the previous year.

In 2008, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of hate groups overall, whose number it said increased 48 percent since 2000.

And in 2010, just a few weeks ago, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of "patriot" groups, which it said increased by 244 percent in 2009.
Snork at The Blogmocracy has this to say:
Man, that’s what I call growth. With numbers like that, 387% of every American man, woman, and child, white, black, yellow, red, and other, gay, and straight are violent white supremacists.

With them as a “credible source”, it’s no wonder the left is wetting their pants at all the white supremacists hiding in the McDonald’s bathroom, and neighbor’s dog house.
To get a better idea of what the Southern Poverty Law Center is all about, check with Discover The Networks -- one example:
Southern Poverty Law Center: Activities, Agendas, and Worldview
By Jacob Laksin
Discover The Networks -- 2005

The Southern Poverty Law Center is characterizing critics of last week’s pro-open borders rallies (held in several U.S. cities) as “anti-immigration extremists” who have made “open calls for terrorist violence, including truck bombs, machine gun attacks, and assassinations of U.S. senators and members of Congress.” To make the point, the SPLC website quotes extremist New Jersey radio host Hal Turner, who said, “I advocate using extreme violence against illegal aliens. Clean your guns. Have plenty of ammunition. Find out where the largest gathering of illegal aliens will be near you. Go to the area well in advance, scope out several places to position yourself and then do what has to be done."

To further buttress its condemnatory portrayal of those who oppose amnesty and open borders, SPLC quotes several anonymous individuals who recently posted similarly incendiary comments on various Internet websites. For example, it cites the comments of “a neo-Nazi using the pseudonym ‘Mr. 88’ … in a post on the white supremacist website Stormfront.” Said Mr. 88: “We are headed for civil war, folks. Are you ready? We have to start killing in massive numbers so that the savages of the world have fear of the almighty white man again! Killing is the only way to cure these ills!" SPLC also quotes what it called an “anti-immigration hardliner” identifying himself (or herself) as "GoHomeIllegals," who, in a post on the "Close Borders" Yahoo user group, advocated running over young protesters with automobiles. Moreover, SPLC notes that another Closed Borders user wrote: “When violent responses occur, the amount of support they receive will amaze you. Furthermore, when people see how utterly unable to stop them the government is, it will incite further acts, and so, until it snowballs into a full-scale shooting war. Picture every major city within 500 miles of Mexico turned into Beirut in 1983. All that's missing is the spark, and it won't be long in coming.”
And the SPLC's founder:
Morris Seligman Dees is the founder and chief trial lawyer of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
And:
Dees has represented SPLC in a number of high-profile legal victories against hate and extremist groups, propelling the organization into the national spotlight. These included lawsuits against the Ku Klux Klan, the United Klans of America, and the White Aryan Resistance.

Dees is known to be the architect of one of SPLC's most effective—and most controversial—tactics: exaggerating the prevalence and capabilities of racist and extremist rightwing groups operating in the United States in order to frighten supporters into donating money to SPLC.

Many critics charge that this fundraising revenue, instead of bankrolling SPLC's civil rights work, is funneled disproportionately into the coffers of SPLC officers like Dees. Several studies conducted in the 1990s indicated that the Dees and other top SPLC figures earned significantly higher salaries than the leaders of most non-profit organizations.

Because SPLC perennially disburses twice as much on fundraising as it does on legal services (while skimming off substantial amounts of revenue for its own endowment), Dees' income has provoked accusations of fraud. Stephen Bright, a director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, a leftwing Atlanta-based group that opposes the death penalty, put it bluntly in a 1996 letter to Dees, in which he denounced the latter as a "a fraud and a conman," and upbraided Dees because "you spend so much, accomplish so little, and promote yourself shamelessly."

Similarly, leftwing journalist Alexander Cockburn accused Dees of raising funds “by frightening elderly liberals that the heirs of Adolf Hitler are about to march down Main Street.”

The accusations against Dees have also come from some of the people closest to him. As Dees’ onetime business partner Millard Fuller once said: “Morris and I ... shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money. We were not particular about how we did it; we just wanted to be independently rich.”
Just a wonderful bunch of people... Posted by DaveH at April 22, 2010 7:47 PM | TrackBack
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