Is the Southern Poverty Law Center ONLY concerned with WHITE domestic terrorists? What about the BLACK domestic terrorists?
I am no fan of the Southern Poverty Law Center as they appear to be just another political front group for international socialism. A racist group that does not protect the public against all forms of domestic terrorism, but only those which appear to involve white supremacists.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; its legal representation for victims of hate groups; its monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and its educational programs that promote tolerance. The SPLC classifies as hate groups organizations that it considers to denigrate or assault entire groups of people, typically for attributes that are beyond their control.
SPLC Letter to DOJ & DHS …
J. Richard Cohen
President & CEOMarch 5, 2013
Attorney General Eric Holder Secretary Janet Napolitano
U.S. Department of Justice Department of Homeland Security
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20530-0001 Washington, D.C. 20528Dear General Holder and Secretary Napolitano:
On October 25, 1994, six months before the Oklahoma City bombing, we wrote Attorney General Janet Reno about the growing threat of domestic terrorism. Today, we write to express similar concerns. In the last four years, we have seen a tremendous increase in the number of conspiracy-minded, antigovernment groups as well as in the number of domestic terrorist plots. As in the period before the Oklahoma City bombing, we now also are seeing ominous threats from those who believe that the government is poised to take their guns. Because of the looming dangers, we urge you to establish an interagency task force to assess the adequacy of the resources devoted to responding to the growing threat of non-Islamic domestic terrorism.
Today, we are releasing our latest report on the state of hate and extremism in the nation. The report documents that the number of militias and radical antigovernment groups grew from 149 in 2008 to 1,360 in 2012. This latest count exceeds the high-water mark of the 1990s by more than 500. During that decade, the growth in the radical antigovernment movement was fueled in large part by anger over the passage of the Brady Bill in 1993 and the enactment of the assault weapons ban in 1994. Now that gun control is again being hotly debated, we are seeing a repeat of that anger, and it is likely to continue to swell the ranks of antigovernment groups.
In January, for example, a former Tennessee police chief who conducts weapons training for law enforcement officials threatened in a video posted on YouTube to “start killing people” if President Obama uses his executive power to enact gun control measures. Similarly, an antigovernment movement leader in Montana said he was “prepared to become an outlaw” over the gun issue. When U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette proposed a ban on high-capacity magazines, a well-known neo-Nazi posted her address, along with photos of her and her husband, on a racist Internet forum. Although individuals who make incendiary public statements may not act on them, their rhetoric is a barometer of the rage that is building in certain quarters.
Our report also documents that hate groups remain at record highs. The expansion of hate groups began not in 2008 but in 2000 as a reaction to the country’s changing demographics. Now that comprehensive immigration reform is poised in the view of some to legitimize those demographic changes, the backlash that we’ve seen over the last decade may accelerate as well. A recent study sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security, it should be noted, found that criminal violence was associated with a significant percentage of far-right hate groups. See Steven M. Chermak, Joshua D. Freilich, Michael Suttmoeller, The Organizational Dynamics of Far-Right Hate Groups in the United States at 2, DHS, Dec. 2011.
Our data as well as that of independent researchers reflects that the country has seen an increase in right-wing domestic terrorism as the number of hate and antigovernment groups has increased in recent years. A new study by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, for example, found that right-wing violence in the 2000-2011 period surpassed that of the 1990s by a factor of four. See Arie Perliger, Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right, Combating Terrorism Center, Jan. 15, 2013. A report by the Congressional Research Service found that domestic terrorists have orchestrated more than two-dozen incidents since 9/11. See Jerome P. Bjelopera, The Domestic Terrorist Threat: Background and Issues for Congress, CRS, May 15, 2012. The data we’ve collected reflects a significant uptick in racist crimes and terrorist plots in the last four years. See SPLC, Terror from the Right: Plots, Conspiracies and Racist Rampages since Oklahoma City (2013).
The resources devoted to countering domestic hate and radical antigovernment groups and those they may inspire do not appear commensurate with the threat. A 2006-07 survey of state police agencies sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security found that more states reported the presence of far-right antigovernment, neo-Nazi, and racist skinhead groups than Islamic extremists. Joshua D. Freilich, Steven M. Chermak, Joseph Simone, Jr., Surveying American State Police Agencies and Terrorism Threats, Terrorism Sources, and Terrorism Definitions, Terrorism and Political Violence 21:3 at 461-63 (2009). Since that survey was conducted, the number of far-right antigovernment groups has exploded and the number of neo-Nazi and racist skinhead groups has remained at a high level. At the same time, serious questions have been raised about the level of resources that are now being devoted to assessing the threat of non-Islamic terrorism. See, e.g., Hate Crimes and the Threat of Domestic Extremism: Before the S. Subcomm. on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights of the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 112th Cong. (2012) (statement of Daryl Johnson): R. Jeffrey Smith, Homeland Security Department Curtails Home-Grown Terror Analysis, Washington Post, June 7, 2011. In light of these questions and the disturbing trends we have described in this letter, we believe it is time to take a fresh look at the issue.
Please feel free to contact us if we can be of any assistance.
Sincerely yours,
J. Richard Cohen
<Source: SPLC Letter to DOJ & DHS | Southern Poverty Law Center>
Are they acting in the public’s best interests?
In published reports, it is alleged that the SLPC may have had pre-knowledge of the Oklahoma bombing of the Murrah Federal Building and may have had informants within the group. One might ask, did they purposely let the bombing occur to bolster their media efforts.
A recently declassified FBI memo obtained by an Oklahoma newspaper contains several revelations concerning the Oklahoma City bombing investigation that could give attorneys for co-conspirator Terry Nichols ammunition to argue in his next trial in March that there were more than just two people involved in the crime.
The memo, transmitted electronically, was sent to the OKBOMB investigation task force and a select group of FBI offices around the nation eight months after the devastating 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, reports the McCurtain Daily Gazette.
One of the revelations was the involvement of civil-rights attorney Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center in an informant operation. According to the memo, the SPLC was involved in monitoring subjects for the FBI believed to be linked to now-executed bomber Timothy McVeigh, the neo-Nazi compound at Elohim City and the mysterious German national Andreas Carl Strassmeir.
The Daily Gazette says the memo, dated Jan. 4, 1996, was heavily redacted. It mentions individuals the FBI believed were involved in two cases – OKBOMB, the probe of the OKC bombing, and BOMBROB, which involved a wide-ranging search for a group of neo-Nazi bank robbers in the mid-1990s.
The involvement of the SPLC is mentioned in the following quote from the memo:
“(Name redacted) telephone call from (name redacted) on or about 4/17/95, two days prior to the OKBOMB attack, when (name redacted) of the SPLC, was in the white supremacist compound at (redacted), Oklahoma, notes the director.”
The Daily Gazette reports, “References to an informant working for the SPLC at Elohim City on the eve of the Oklahoma City bombing raises serious questions as to what the SPLC might know about McVeigh’s activities during the final hours before the fuse was lit in Oklahoma City – but which the SPLC has failed to disclose publicly.”
Dees confirmed the presence of an informant at Elohim City at a recent press conference, the paper reported. “If I told you what we were doing there, I would have to kill you,” Dees replied when asked to explain.
Dees has been critical of the so-called right-wing militia movement in the U.S., having written books and articles about the subject. His critics believe the attacks have been exploitive and designed to raise donations for his tax-exempt foundation. “A lot of hate groups don’t like me,” Dees said. “I’ll tell you … when you put them out of business and take their double-wides (mobile homes), they don’t like it. We’ve sued a lot of these vicious hate groups over the years.”
Which brings me to ask a very serious question. Did the SPLC and the FBI have prior knowledge of the planned attack and did they fail to deter it for purposes of pursuing their own agenda? I would hate to think that an American governmental institution was involved in such a conspiracy of silence, but then again, almost all of the alleged attacks by so-called Islamic terrorists appear to have an “official” component who supplied the means and opportunity to capitalize on the motives of the alleged terrorists.
Bottom line …
Call me what you will, but I believe that the government should detect and deter all forms of domestic terrorism. And, if the SLPC was an honest broker for the people it purports to protect, they have failed their mission as no militia or white supremacist group has caused more death and destruction in the Black community than the gangs associated with the Bloods and the Crips. Whether it is criminal activity involving drugs or other crimes, turf wars or simply demanding respect at the point of a gun, Black gangs represent a clear and present danger to the Black community that greatly outweighs the so-called “hate” groups the SPLC purports to track and fight. Let the SPLC stand up and call for the prosecution of these evil gangs as the domestic terrorists they appear to be.
But, don’t hold your breath – the SPLC seems to be as impartial and selective in its efforts as that other progressive “rights” organization, the ACLU; taking just enough cases to justify their apparent intent to promote international socialism and disadvantage America.
-- steve
“Nullius in verba.”-- take nobody's word for it!
“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.”-- George Bernard Shaw
“Progressive, liberal, Socialist, Marxist, Democratic Socialist -- they are all COMMUNISTS.”
“The key to fighting the craziness of the progressives is to hold them responsible for their actions, not their intentions.” – OCS "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius “A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves, and traitors are not victims... but accomplices” -- George Orwell “Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt." (The people gladly believe what they wish to.) ~Julius Caesar “Describing the problem is quite different from knowing the solution. Except in politics." ~ OCS