Southern Poverty Law Center propoganda treated like news again

On Oct. 20, Sweetness & Light pointed out a Boston Globe article on how the Secret Service was dealing with unprecedented threats on President-elect Obama and stretched too thin. Not-so-true, but the UK Guardian is running it again.

The problem is the “news” was really research from the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center headed by Mark Potok within his “Intelligence Project.”

Potok continues the theme that radical hate groups are growing in popularity across the United States and he clearly has an agenda, even though the Secret Service notes the spike in threats to President Obama around the inauguration has returned to normal levels.

I hate to use the term normal levels since threats to any president must be dealt with in a proactive way, but the Secret Service themselves also noted they were not stretched to thin and could handle the tasks assigned.

The original Boston Globe article, highlighted by Steve Gilbert at Sweetness & Light read like an assassination movie plot, where the Secret Service was overburdened and understaffed specifically due to the fact the president-elect was a black man, targeted by … who else but crazy right-wing militia members with high powered rifles and camouflage clothing in their closets.

But after the Secret Service rebuttal Gilbert’s efforts to refute the so-called research by Potok, the UK Guardian runs an almost identical article this morning.

The Southern Poverty Law Center began life in 1971 as a tiny law firm specialising in civil rights cases. It took on the might of the Ku Klux Klan, and was duly rewarded by having its offices razed and its senior lawyers targeted for assassination. But it kept on going and grew to be one of the most respected monitoring groups of rightwing extremism in America today.

Recently it brought out a report called Terror From the Right, which identifies, in chronological order, the serious home-grown plots, conspiracies and racist rampages that have been cooked up in America since the Oklahoma City bomb in 1995. The list runs to 10 pages of closely printed type and itemises 75 domestic terrorism events, from plans to bomb government buildings to attempts to kill judges and politicians.

Each of the incidents aimed to change the political face of America through violence, courtesy of groups with such titles as Aryan People’s Republic, The New Order and The Hated. But in the summer of 2008 the chronology takes on a sharp change of tack. Entries, which had been running at one or two per year, start coming faster. And instead of a variety of different targets, one name crops up time and time again: Barack Obama.

Goodness grief does this group get a lot of press. Talk about news recycling. American Thinker had a good post back in August about SPLC. It seems as though the SPLC – which does not seem to have much to say about poverty in their report – certainly seems to be hoping for some incident to point at so they can yell out “I told you so!”

Hat tip to Pamela Gellar at Atlas Shrugs.

Violence is the very tactic that the left is prepared for. The Southern Poverty Law Center released a report several days ago indicating that right-wing militias and hate groups are on the rise and threatening insurrection. This is essentially a recycled article that is trotted out by the SPLC with each new presidential administration, citing many of the same tired anecdotal examples such as Ruby Ridge and Waco’s Branch Davidians as evidence of growing violence.

The only thing new in the piece is blaming the supposed increase in extremist activity on alleged racism toward a black president. No evidence to support this contention was presented, however. Nonetheless, many news outlets, including Associated Press and CBS News, picked up the story and sensationalized it. A quote from the article states, “All it’s lacking is a spark”. All that is missing in this leftist wishful fantasy is another Timothy McVeigh. If he doesn’t show up on his own, someone may create him. They would love nothing better than capturing a group of violent “right-wing crazies” on video committing some atrocity.

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

1 Comment

  1. Dimsdale on March 8, 2010 at 6:48 am

    Saying one is "prepared for extremist activity" and "insurrection" is just a way of implying that the government sees it as a real problem.  Which it isn't, if the Tea Parties are any indication.  Yet if you look at the rioting students in Cali, and the anarchists that appear at every G8 etc., meeting (with the help of the socialists and communists), you see that the true violence is the tactic of the lefties.

     

    "But it kept on going and grew to be one of the most respected monitoring groups of rightwing extremism in America today."    Fine, but who is watching leftwing extremism (in and out of the government), and particularly, who is watching the Southern Poverty Law Center (better to call it "Socialist poverty lawless center" for accuracy)?



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