Why the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Has Become Danger

READ THIS REPORT!

Long but important!


SPLC Report: Return of the Militias
http://www(dot)splcenter(dot)org/news/item.jsp?pid=414

Rush Limbaugh takes on Mark Potok and the SPLC:

Rush Limbaugh

White House Uses ABC News to Push Despicable Strategy Linking Rush to Threats Against Obama

August 14, 2009

Transcript

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/ ... guest.html

Hate, Hate Everywhere

By Mark Krikorian, October 28, 2009

I feel like taking a shower after writing about the Southern Poverty Law Center, but for some reason it's taken seriously by the media and even government agencies, so I can't avoid it. A couple examples this week of how ludicrous the SPLC's charges of "hate" are. James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal wrote "In Defense of Carol Swain" in reaction to the SPLC smear-meister Mark Potok's claim that "Carol Swain is an apologist for white supremacists." Taranto does a good job of assessing the issue at hand, especially remarkable from the WSJ given the fact that Carol is an immigration restrictionist, though that's not what was at issue. I'll add only that I know Carol, a black woman who went from being a teenage mom and high-school dropout to earning a PhD and teaching at Vanderbilt, and the very idea that she's an "apologist for white supremacists" is so outlandish, not to mention scurrilous, as to render whoever makes such a claim not credible on anything else. How can any self-respecting reporter ever quote Mark Potok again on anything?

And just yesterday I received an SPLC "Hatewatch" e-mail, alerting me to the prevalence of "hate" and "nativism" all over this broad land. One example was this, which highlighted the hateful and evil and nativist decision by the Nashville city council to continue to work with federal immigration authorities to screen for illegal aliens in the county jail. (See a new CIS report on this nationwide program, called 287(g), here.) So, the SPLC is so thoroughly part of the open-borders lobby that even identifying illegal alien criminals is beyond the pale — not to mention hateful and nativist. Unbelievable.

Oh and here's the logo for their "Hatewatch" feature:
(please go to source link below to view)

That creepy eye isn't Big Brother — it's them, the SPLC, "keeping an eye on the radical right." Oh, wait, it is Big Brother, and he's the one keeping an eye on the radical right. War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Dissent is Hate.

For more on the SPLC's sliminess, see this by FAIR, which, whatever its faults, is no more a "hate group" than I am Thomas the Tank Engine.

http://www.cis.org/node/1520
(There are several links within the original which may be accessed at the source link above.)


October 26, 2009

IN DEFENSE OF CAROL SWAIN

A black scholar gets smeared as "an apologist for white supremacists."

By JAMES TARANTO
"Carol Swain is an apologist for white supremacists," Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center tells the Tennessean. Carol Swain is also a friend of this column. To our mind the charge seemed awfully far-fetched, so we decided to get to the bottom of it.

Swain, who is black, is a professor of law and political science at Vanderbilt University. She is an expert on white supremacists, having written a book on the subject, "The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration," which was published in 2002 by Cambridge University Press and drew plaudits from scholars both liberal (Harvard's William Julius Wilson) and conservative (Princeton's Robert P. George).

Readers may remember that we criticized Swain back in June for a comment she made to the Washington Post. She contacted us through Facebook and told us we had misunderstood her intent. We offered her an opportunity to respond, which she accepted. We became Facebook friends and started keeping up with her writings. While we don't always agree with her (on immigration, for instance, her views are closer to Lou Dobbs's than to ours), we've been impressed by her integrity and independence of mind.

The current kerfuffle involves an hourlong documentary film, "A Conversation About Race," whose Web site prominently features a blurb from Swain: ". . . Outstanding . . . Meticulously done . . . I highly recommend this film . . ." Deeper in the site is the full review, which is more qualified:

This outstanding film provides an opening salvo for the long-awaited national debate on race. Meticulously done, it offers people of all races a rare opportunity to engage in cross-racial dialogue. I highly recommend this film for social science courses dealing with race, class, and ethnicity.
According to the Web site, the filmmaker, Craig Bodeker, "redefines the conventional wisdom on Race and Racism" by asking "a diverse group of Colorado residents" questions about their attitudes toward and experiences of racism.

The SPLC strongly disapproves of the film. Sonia Scherr, in an Oct. 8 entry on the organization's Hatewatch blog, describes it as "a hit among white supremacists looking for a smart-sounding defense of their beliefs" and takes issue with several of the arguments Bodeker made in the film. In an Oct. 9 Hatewatch entry Scherr makes a case against the filmmaker. A reader discovered Bodeker's comments on various YouTube pages, which, Scherr writes, "expose him for the bigot he is":

He repeatedly refers to blacks, including President Barack Obama, as "monkeys." In one post, he uses the anti-gay slur "fag"; in another, he suggests that Van Jones, the black White House advisor who resigned last month, should be lynched.
Scherr provides several specific quotes, and readers in the Hatewatch comment section post screen shots to these and others. For the record, Bodeker, in a post on the Web site of the National Policy Institute (which describes itself as "the right's answer to the Southern Poverty Law Center" and is described by the SPLC as "a racist think tank" and by the Associated Press as "a white-advocacy group"), issued this response:

[Scherr] relied upon an anonymous cyber-stalker to gather "quotes" attributed to me from the comments section of unrelated political videos from Youtube. She called this piece of journalism "A Peek Behind the Curtain: Views of a Racist Filmmaker . . ,"

Some pretty strong statements were quoted--as well as MIS-quoted, surgically and deceptively edited,, taken out of context, and even made up! And once again, these "quotes" that represent proof of my "racism," were found on the comments section of Youtube.

Have any readers ever been to the comments section on Youtube? Does anyone NOT KNOW what a mosh-pitt of "free expression" it is? There are, sometimes, actual screaming matches, even though they're conducted in written form. Sometimes people say harsh, mean things there, in that last remaining refuge of Free Speech. Am I to assume that the SPLS's Sonia Scherr has never made a sarcastic comment? Or even a distasteful one? Or that anyone who EVER has should be stereotyped, marginalized and disenfranchised? This seems to be what the SPLC suggests.

Bodeker does not disavow any specific quotes, and he acknowledges that some of them were accurate. No reasonable person can deny that the comments quoted were invidious. True, they are protected by the First Amendment (see our June 16 column for an exposition on hate speech and the Constitution). But freedom of expression does not mean freedom from criticism, and the SPLC is entirely within its rights to report on what Bodeker has written in a public forum.

Carol Swain wrote her review of "A Conversation on Race" in August, two months before Bodeker's YouTube comments surfaced. In a Puffington Host post on Oct. 12, Swain responded to the revelation:

The racist comments attributed to Mr. Bodeker are ugly and vile. Would I have reviewed his film and given it a positive endorsement had I known more about his background? With the knowledge I have today, I would recommend the film be shown along with background information about Mr. Bodeker's hostility towards racial and ethnic minorities.

Because we think highly of Swain, we decided to watch the film and draw our own conclusion. Our reaction was mixed: We found the interviews fascinating but Bodeker's narration disagreeable. We do, however, see Swain's point about the film's value in illuminating the subject of race in America.

In the interviews, with people who responded to a CraigsList ad, Bodeker makes a compelling case that much of what he calls the "conventional wisdom" about race consists of prejudice--not racial prejudice per se (although Bodeker attempts to frame it that way), but unthinking assumptions about the nature of American society and the racial attitudes of others.

Bodeker probes the interview subjects for contradictions, and finding them isn't hard. They agree that racism is pervasive, but are unable to give a clear definition of the term. He asks them to describe examples of racism in their own lives. They oblige--but their stories are ambiguous or innocuous. The most convincing anecdote turns out to be a case in which a white man describes overcoming his own prejudice. Lane, who looks to be around 40 and is originally from the South, describes a childhood episode in which a teacher warned him not to put his mouth on a water fountain because "black people do that." Years later he was a lieutenant in the Army, and a black fellow officer had run out of water. Lane remembered his teacher's admonition and hesitated to share his canteen. The black officer, noticing Lane's discomfort, offered to drink from a cup. "I said, 'No. You're my comrade in arms.' "

Later, the subjects readily answer in the affirmative when Bodeker asks them if blacks are better at basketball than whites. But when he asks why whites score better than blacks on standardized tests, they insist the tests are biased because they are written by whites. Then he asks why Asians do better than whites. This prompts the following exchange with an older unnamed man of indeterminate ethnicity:

Man: Well, first of all, Asians have 6,000 years of written, literate history behind them.

Bodeker: But you said the tests were made for whites.

Man: Well, they're made for people who think a certain way.

Bodeker: So Asians and whites think a different way than African-Americans do, and Latinos?

Man: (stammers) There are different ways of thinking. Different populations represent those ways of thought and cultural congruences different ways.

The man seems dangerously close to espousing a theory of racial essentialism.

Bodeker presents his interview subjects more sympathetically than he presents himself. Whereas they come across largely as good-natured but confused, he seems bitter and sarcastic. He makes clear that he nurses racial grievances--not necessarily against minorities but against social conventions that he sees as oppressive to whites.

He is angry about the imputation of historical guilt: "I can trace my earliest ancestors here in America to the 1870s, after our Civil War. No forefather of mine ever killed an Indian or owned another human being--ever."

But he also asserts that "America was founded as a white nation," and that "her founding principles, which separate America from all other nations, were also developed by white men, not by a multicultural rainbow." Actually, the founders were almost all British, and their principles drew heavily on British intellectual and legal traditions. But their claim was a universalist one: All men are created equal, not all Englishmen or colonists. In any case, how can Bodeker take racial pride in America's founding but deny racial guilt on the ground that his ancestors didn't arrive until a century later? To borrow one of his catch phrases, that's a large disconnect.

Bodeker seems to envy groups that enjoy an affirmative sense of identity: "Hispanics can be pro-Hispanic without being anti-anybody; Jews can be pro-Jewish without being anti-anybody; blacks can be pro-black without being anti-anybody. But with whites, it's different. White people cannot be pro-white without being anti-everybody-else."

This is a matter of historical contingency. We're hard-pressed to think of an example in American or European history in which the affirmation of a "white" identity, as distinct from a specific national, ethnic or religious identity, has meant anything other than being "anti-everybody-else." And there are plenty of white ethnic groups in America that take pride in their heritage--and that, in some cases, were at one time among the "everybody else" that the "whites" were "anti," their skin color notwithstanding.

One segment of the film is inflammatory and invidious. After asking his interview subjects about race and crime, Bodeker cites federal statistics showing that the number of reported rapes involving a black perpetrator and a white victim is vastly higher than the number involving a white perpetrator and a black victim. He then says, "If selecting people for discrimination based on their skin color is racism, and it's a bad thing . . . isn't selecting people for rape because of their skin color also a bad thing? In fact, isn't it a much worse thing?"

Bodeker's assumption of a racial motive has no basis in the data, as the SPLC's Sonia Scherr notes in her Oct. 8 post:

It's unclear how many, if any, of the black-on-white rapes were hate crimes--that is, motivated at least in part by racial bias. An offense isn't a hate crime simply because the victim and perpetrator are of different races.

So the film, while interesting, is seriously flawed. Yet its shortcomings as a persuasive vehicle may enhance its value as an object for study.

Bodeker makes a strong case that politically correct orthodoxy on race is vacuous, but by openly displaying his own resentments and prejudices, he shows that rejecting that orthodoxy does not necessarily yield a more enlightened and sensible view. He makes of himself an example of the phenomenon described in the publicity material for Carol Swain's "The New White Nationalism":

Hot-button issues including affirmative action, black-on-white crime and immigration policies are being exploited by the new white nationalists to woo mainstream whites into extremist movements. They exploit real racial and ethnic policy concerns which should be given a forum for intelligent discourse, says Swain. In fact, Swain goes so far as to say that if liberals and African American leaders don't start to address the legitimate concerns raised by the white nationalists on race matters, they risk being partly to blame for racial unrest in America.

This is a serious argument, and it deserves to be taken seriously, even by those, like the SPLC, that disagree. Criticizing Bodeker for the things he has said is entirely fair. But dismissing Swain as "an apologist for white supremacists" is the tactic of one who is trying to shut down, not encourage, debate.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 19022.html

Thursday, October 29, 2009
Southern Poverty Law Center a Hate Group

What a great strategy. Set up a phony organization that collects millions of dollars by labeling any effective voices dissenting from the far-left agenda as a "hate group". Lump the legitimate conservative organizations in with true hate groups (neo-Nazis, Fred Phelps -- assuming they're even "real" and not SPLC or Anti-Defamation League creations). Voila`: another bludgeon to hit us with.

That's all the Southern Poverty Law Center is. An empty shell filled with useful idiots, giving ammo to those who wish to bring this country down. The Left has used this smear tactic against us.

Their latest target is Lou Dobbs at CNN, whose sins are opposing illegal immigration and suggesting that Obama's birth status should be looked into... And now, Dobbs's very life is being threatened. WorldNetDaily reports today:

CNN's Lou Dobbs: Shot fired into my home

'We'd had threatening phone calls ... it's now become a way of life'

Opponents of Dobbs include the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti Defamation League, the National Council of La Raza, Internet media watchdog Media Matters and Fox News host Geraldo Rivera.

SPLC has called on CNN to fire Dobbs. We say that SPLC is inciting hate crimes, and should be taken to court.

For more background, see MassResistance's post from March 2009. Excerpt:

It's a common theme of the left, going back to the Saul Alinsky tactics in the 1930s, to demonize your enemies if they become effective. This was adopted by the homosexual movement. In their classic manifesto After the Ball, Marshall Kirk & Hunter Masden advised activists to compare people with traditional values to the Ku Klux Klan (which lynched blacks).

For the second year in a row, the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center(SPLC) has declared MassResistance, along with other pro-family / Christian / traditional values groups around the country, as "hate groups". In most cases, the "crime" is publicly disagreeing with the homosexual agenda. There are no specific reasons given, besides a general label.

Other groups include the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), Scott Lively's Abiding Truth Ministries, the Family Research Institute, and the Chalcedon Foundation. Along with MassResistance, SPLC's reason for declaring them hate groups is that they're "Anti-Gay".

(Actually, SPLC is angry because they're effective. MassResistance, IFI, Traditional Values Coalition, and the Chalcedon Foundation expose the homosexual agenda to a national audience. Family Research Institute does studies on the dangers of homosexual behavior. SPLC particularly despises Scott Lively's book, The Pink Swastika, which documents homosexuality in Nazi Germany.)

A number of other Christian ministries are listed, labeled as "General Hate". Several Catholic groups are labeled "Radical Traditionalist Catholic" and thus declared hate groups.

SPLC is also big in promoting and defending illegal immigration. Thus, illegal immigrant watchdog groups around the country are listed, labeled as "Anti-Immigrant." One of those is Concerned Citizens and Friends of Illegal Immigration Law Enforcement (CCFILE) located in Framingham. It's run by Jim and Joe Rizoli. We know them. They're decent guys, and it's a legitimate community group -- which liberals happen to dislike. For SPLC to do this is the worst type of slander.

Young Americans for Freedom at Michigan State University is listed under "General Hate", apparently because they hosted Rep.Tom Tancredo for a speech on illegal immigration. But as reported on The O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes, it was the fascist left that disrupted the event and assaulted participants. But none of the attacking groups apparently qualifies as a "hate group"....

What constitutes a "hate group"? We couldn't find it on the SPLC website. But in the MetroWest Daily News article referenced above, the SPLC spokesman told the reporter:

[A] hate group is one that "in its platforms or statements says that a whole other group of people is less by virtue . . . These are people who attack other groups of people based on their group characteristics."

But that's a rather exotic definition of "hate", certainly not found in any dictionary. This absurd use of the word "hate" makes the word essentially meaningless.

Suppose Republicans say that Democrats are "less by virtue" because of their liberal characteristics. Or smoking advocates who demean smokers. Or alcohol safety groups that demean drunk drivers. Does that make them "hate" groups? Don't people have the right to demean others who do bad or destructive things?...

http://massresistance.blogspot.com/2009 ... c3eca99591