Democracy Now: Rise of Right-Wing Extremism Linked to Recession
From Democracy Now April 24, 2009.
The Department of Homeland Security released a report last week that warned right-wing extremist groups are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the nation’s first black president. We speak with Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is facing calls for her ouster from a number of House Republicans in the wake of a department memo that warned of right-wing political extremism in the United States.
The report, which was released last week, warns that right-wing extremist groups are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the nation’s first black president. The report predicts a worsening economy will to lead more people joining militias and skinhead groups and carrying out individual acts modeled after Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
A handful of Republicans in the House are calling for Napolitano to step down in the wake of the report. House Minority Leader John Boehner said the report includes, quote, “about two-thirds of Americans who might go to church, who may have served in the military, who may be involved in community activities…I just don’t understand how our government can look at the American people and say, ‘You’re all potential terrorist threats.’”
Idaho has long been the center of white supremacist groups in the United States. Mark Potok is the director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. They recently released a report that finds the number of violent hate groups in the US has skyrocketed since 2000. He joins us via Democracy Now! stream from Alabama. Welcome to Democracy Now!
MARK POTOK: Well, thank you so much for having me.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Mark, your reaction to the controversy now and the calls for Janet Napolitano’s ouster?
MARK POTOK: I think it is completely a tempest in a teacup. You know, the things that Boehner and others have said are very hard to square with actually reading the report. You know, basically, the report has been accused of saying that all conservatives and all veterans are this huge suspect class, people who may, you know, take up arms and start blowing up federal buildings.
The reality is, is when you read the report, it doesn’t say anything remotely like that. You know, the reference to veterans is—what it really says is that white supremacists are interested in attempting to recruit returning veterans because of their skills. It does not say, in any sense, that these people are prone to joining the groups, that we should look at all veterans with a wary eye. And it certainly doesn’t make any suggestion like that with regard to conservatives.
You know, really, I think that this is an attempt to create a great big political storm over an essentially innocuous report. You know, there are a few, what I would characterize as, errors in the report. For instance, it describes the rise of militias in the 1990s as being essentially the result of a recession. Well, there really wasn’t a recession in the ’90s, and that really is not why the militias rose. But essentially, the conclusions, which are—which amount to the idea that we’re at a time when these groups are poised to continue growing, I think is obviously correct.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, your group has been charting the rise of hate groups in recent years. The issue of whether the election of Barack Obama has caused a new spur, a new growth in those groups?
MARK POTOK: Well, of course, that only begins to play about July of last year, when Obama actually wins the Democratic nomination. And initially, the reaction of the white supremacist movement is utter horror. Eventually, the leaders, such as they are, begin to say, “Well, maybe if Obama wins, it will be good for us.” David Duke famously wrote last year that if Obama won the election, it would be a, quote, “visual aid to white Americans.” In other words, people would wake up, realize their country had been robbed from them, and rush into these groups.
You know, what we know for a fact is that immediately after the election, on November 5th and 6th, in fact, we saw the servers of at least two major white supremacist groups crash, because they did get a major surge in interest. You know, whether that really translates into a significant growth of the groups or not, I think remains to be seen. But I think it’s quite likely.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Mark, I want to thank you very much, Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, for being with us.
Now he knows what it's like to be a Muslim-American.
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
Or a Quaker, or an anti-war activist, or anyone else the DHS was looking at during the Bush years. I didn't hear the wingnuts decrying any of that.
Boener never says what he means and never means what he says.
"I just don’t understand how our government can look at the American people and say, ‘You’re all potential terrorist threats.’” ..says the leader of the Republican Torture and Terror Party.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Do you really think comparing white supremacists to Muslims in America is such a good idea?
Do you really think that it's a good idea to compare muslims to groups of people who look down on other races as if they are less than human?
While, I admit, some muslim groups do in fact look down on other faiths as having members of inferior people (yes, they do that.), it's not a good idea to compare yourself to groups of people, whom by their very nature represent the worsts aspects of humanity.
Not such a good idea. You should have thought that through more carefully.
Or maybe, not. Better you show your way of thinking, so others could see it as well.
The white supremacists represent an evil cancer that has been festering in America for a long, long time. It does not deserve respect, and should be seen as a threat.
They're ignorant
I just don’t understand how our government can look at the American people and say, ‘You’re all potential terrorist threats.’” - Boener
And closing the TSA?
And restoring civil liberties?
And ceasing domestic spying>
Yeah, I thought so...
WaddafuckingDICK!™
Warrantless wiretapping, data sweeps, NSL's...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I read SNL instead of NSL and I was thinking to myself "what has Saturday Night Life done to deserve being bundled up with secretive erosion attempts on the bill of rights, other than the obvious bad acting and the atrocious timing and writing of their sketches..."
No d'uh Sherlock.
Remember in the aftermath of 9-11 they were encouraging us to spy on each other?
Usually the rise of militant groups are blamed on Depressions, and other unspecified economic emergencies. I think recessions would be covered by the latter.
During the Great Depression France had multiple right wing militia groups. They're Croix de Feur was the basis of the Wallstreet conspirators to overthrow the US government. In Italy and Germany, there was the rise of Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler.
During the Weimar Republic, German Cinema had two whole lines of movies on the dangerous moods of the time, Die Strasse and Stimmung.
But I prefer their Expressionist horror movies.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Obviously Busch and the Torture Party are still at it. I wonder what they have planned for us next. Perhaps cheney will lay it out for us in his latest orders to the CIA.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
People like Boehner being defensive about anyone being called right wing extremists is easy to understand, since what makes up the core of the Reublican party right now, what's left of it, is in fact right wing extremists. Rush Limbaugh is widely seen as the de facto head of the party, for Pete's sake.
Extremists never like being called extremists, that's how it works.
If Boehner and the others in Congress weren't extremists themselves, then why would they protest to the point of calling for heads to roll because a report said that right wing extremists are dangerous? No one said that all solders were extremists, only that they were prime targets for them. Republicans in Congress however, that's another story, I'd say most of them are pretty extreme these days.
No matter how extreme the views of the Right are (torture is good, Obama's a traitorous Muslim non- citizen) they believe their views to be mainstream.
And no matter how centrist an opposing view is, it is FAR-Leftist!
Without extremists there would be no Republican base.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
to be exact. Not just elected officials, but the people who influence the rank and file GOP. The only way they can get poor people to support tax cuts for the wealthy and tax hikes for themselves is to exploit their basest fears.
Dear Mr. Bone-head, please consider the following, and then resign:
People like Boehner being defensive about anyone being called right wing extremists is easy to understand, since what makes up the core of the Reublican party right now, what's left of it, is in fact right wing extremists
Thanks Bill.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Very correct. This has been an ongoing process within the GOP for sometime now, fueled by the same big money players who brought us ATR, AEI, Heritage and CATO. Look at how many GOP members of Congress had to sign one of Norquist's odious little "tax pledges." Over 80% in the House at one time during the early 2000's. If you have moderate GOP views, then ATR (or whomever) will support a fire-breather against you in the primary. They are boiling the GOP down to its essence - a viscous, smelly substance made up of fear mongering and big money grovellers.
That they win elections at all has been due to the vast amounts of money these bourgeois clans have poured into Public Relations. Our Miss Pfotenhauer for instance earned her chops working for the Koch brothers. PFAW have a good write up on their evil influence.
One of the things Marx certainly got right: all political struggles are class struggles.
if i'm correct this report was initiated during the BUSH administration. there have been rports like these
regarding liberals. this is boehner trying to rally the haters. the right leadership should be ashamed of
themselves to politicize this. calling for Napolitano to step down is ridiculous.
Also there was one released months ago about leftist extremists.
station ranting about this the other day, stating that there was no way the "right to life" folk could ever be a threat to 'Murika. I seriously thought their heads might explode live on the air.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Louisianna?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY-03vYYAjA
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I was flipping FM channels for some sort of talk station (antenna busted off, so no AM) and caught these goopers. Didn't catch their names. 'Scanners' did come to mind though...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
If you're the Bush Administration and you want to turn the country into a right-wing totalitarian state, what better way than to destroy the economy? Soon you've re-created the Weimar Republic!
"The Good and Great Must Ever Shun, That Reckless and Abandoned One
Who Stoops to Perpetrate a Pun," Lewis Carroll, 'The Three Voices.'
The Busch Torture Party doesn't care about the stinking economy. If it collapses then all the more for them compared to the rest of us. They still come out on top - even more so if they leverage the resession for profit and take it down all that much faster.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Exactly like the strategy the US has used against various countries that were moving in a leftward direction, like Allende's Chile. When Allende won the presidency there, the first part of the US strategy to force it to the right was to make the economy unworkable so that people would revolt, right-wingers particularly. "Make the economy scream" was Kissinger's summing up of it. It did cause an upsurge in right-wing violence but it didn't work fast enough, so the US helped instigate Pinochet's coup, from which Chileans got years and years of torture and repression, which also strengthened the country's right wing, both in Chile and in neighboring countries.
Collapsed economy was what laid down the ground work for the Nazis to take power.
American people were initially hopeful that Hitler could rein in some of the depravity of the Weimar years, characterized by the play and movie Cabaret.
Magazines like Time and Life ran propaganda photos on their covers and within their pages of "Aryan" youth at play in fields and beaches. It looked all so Southern Californian.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
returning military, they will have to outbid Blackwater, or whatever they call themselves now.
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/12/indicted-blac...
"The Associated Press
© December 7, 2008
WASHINGTON
"More than a year after the fatal shootings of 17 Iraqi civilians, five decorated military veterans who were Blackwater Worldwide security guards are headed to court in a case that strained diplomatic ties and raised the level of anti-Americanism in Baghdad."
If you need funds to pay for essentials, you have a revenue problem
If you need funds to pay for frivolity, you have a spending problem
I think they call themselves outed from the closet. Exposed.
All so very Southern California indeed.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
It was clear at the outset that this whole thing should have been a non-issue:
1. Report was ordered by Bush Ad.
2. There was a previous report on left-wing extremists groups.
3. Report was very clear on targeting extremists groups as desiring skills that ex-soldiers could bring to the group. Does not target former troops as right-wing extremists.
4. Do all conservatives think they are right-wing extremists?
FOX started the spin that this was a move targeting conservatives and former troops and the response from the MSM was pathetic, therefore, they snowball their spin and people hear it so much, they start to believe it. Even Bush knew that a lie repeated often enough is accepted as truth.
Ya, May FOX continue to indict the busch terror party.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
When our economy is in the shitter, wingnuts and some equally intellectually vulnerable people always need someone to blame and scapegoat. And there's no end the buffet of what and whom to hate.
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
He did normal things, too, but no one was threatened by those; it was just the murder and cannibalism part we didn't like. Maybe "extremists" go to church and carry guns, but we're not worried about that; we're worried about the threat of violence, and also *the safety of church goers and gun owners who are at risk of violence.*
Or is it?
"Let's talk dirty to the animals"
When I think of all the problems Howard Stern (for the pussy stuff he did in comparison) had with the FCC and these mofos can incite the moronic Repuke base to riot and in some cases (Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church) kill "lefties/socialists" and nothing happens.
The f*%#! FCC should start enforcing the regs re: broadcasting hate over public airwaves; gooooodbyyyye and good riddance to Fox in general and every reich-wing Repuke talking head. And don’t give me that 1st amendment bull; it doesn’t apply to spreading hate speech, which they are clearly doing.
If the Dems would have spewed anthing like this against Bush's first 100 days they would have been called traitors. I think it is time for the Dems to grow some and start pushing back, that's all the Repuke base undertsands in any case.
as any in government today, IMHO.
Protection from nipples and 4-letter words? YES.
Protection from hate speech? Not at all.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Liberals losing their lives due to hate speech ain't nearly as offensive as saying the word "fuck" on the airwaves, never mind any content remotely sexual which must be clearly the work of the devil. Think of the children!
talking about Boner, right wingers and intelligence in the same sentence...oooh the irony
The old demagoguery trick, say all American people are rightwing extremists. 28% who supported that thug bush might be. They need to be watched and I commend the president and Napolitano for waking the majority of us Americans up into keeping vigilance on these un-American traitorous bastards.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity. Albert Einstein
is a soak , he should be intervened upon before he makes any statements.
Will the Republics and the GOP in general ever stop being big cry babies? They need to start wearing big people pants and get over it. They simply refuse to accept the fact that there are adults in charge now. Their answer is to let these wack-a-moles like Beck, O'Reilly and Limbaugh go on with their militant rantings in the name of the GOP. If you act like rebellious teenagers raging against the machine...that is how you will be treated.
Government + the Federal Reserve = organized crime
had roosevelt not gone to the lengths he had during the depression, this country couldve easily fallen into fascism or anarchy
when people are scared, they get nuts
They turn gay?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Yesterday, I was pleased to read:
Former KKK leader detained in Prague
Former Klan leader David Duke has been detained by police in the Czech Republic on suspicion of denying the Holocaust.
...snip...
The denial is a crime that is punishable by up to three years in Czech prisons.
So I was saddened to read today:
Former KKK leader ordered to leave Czech Republic
Czech authorities have released former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke from detention and ordered him to leave the country.
Locking up Duke for 3 years would have been a good thing, and who pulled strings to get him released? He is obviously guilty, he wrote a book dening the Holocaust.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all
is so adept at passing the buck, eh?
After being lectured by these conservatads ad nauseam about how all those welfare queens and people going through a bad employment status need to "pull themselves by the bootstraps." Now these same conservatards are throwing a collective freak out when it is they who have to "pull themselves by the bootstraps."
Ironic, ain't it?
Obviously the crappy economy could not possibly be the fact that they supported *twice* the worst qualified president (and acting president after his first term) in the better part of over a century. No siree bob, it must be that new black educated and competent feller. Right? It is never their fault, isn't it...
since there is a black pres. now, that the wite wingers want them to pull on their boot straps, you know, the high type and start goose-stepping
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00...
it- whatever the rise is caused by
liberals/dems/democracy loving americans are not going to see real democracy until they break up the talk radio monopoly
Geez, right-wingers get crazy when it comes to pointing out Timothy McVeigh's associations. I still remember when, just after the Oklahoma City bombing, Rush Limbaugh was declaring that the culprit was a Muslim terrorist and that we should therefore commence bombing the Middle East, absent any evidence. Then, when it was found to be McVeigh, Limbaugh said something like, "Why, he's just an all-American boy! We should still bomb an Arab country, just to teach 'em not to mess with us!" Talk about an ignorance and bigotry impervious to facts.
rinse and recycle his brain and see if that helps? What a total idiot.
And this is who the "wing nuts" look up to. Geeeeesh, what a lying sack of shit. LOSER!
The rise of violent rightwing extremism now mirrors exactly the past rises of the Ku Klux Klowns, and for the same reasons.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/rise-and-fal...
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkkk.htm
http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery...
When 9/11 happened, they were all busy kissing Bush's ass and blowing up their idiotic paranoia by telling us to line the house with duct tape and pick through our Muslim neighbor's rubbish for clues.
Now that we are faced with a real threat, they bury the obvious links between extremists attacks and try to belittle the reports and people trying to protect us.
You'd think one Richard Poplawski shooting police because he hates blacks and thinks the government is out to get him would be enough to get some attention, but the majority of people think he killed the cops over dog pee. The media is oblivious.
were encouraging their kind to join the military as a way of honing their skills. It was known before there was any hint of an Obama Presidency. It's how white, right-wing extremist think.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/ar...
Hell, why do y'all think Pancho Villas' strategies have been studied in War College, ever since his guerilla tactics gave the expansionist Feds fits. He knew how they thought.
the media and government playing on americans' fear of iraq, iran, and muslims in general. what a free country we have.
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