(no subject)
A new 24-page report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, entitled "The Second Wave: Return of the Militias," notes that once-popular militia conspiracy theories are making the rounds again, this time accompanied by nativist theories about secret Mexican plans to "reconquer" the American Southwest.
The report warns that while the so-called "Patriot" movement may not have the white-hot fury that it did in the 1990s, it "clearly is growing again," and that Americans -- particularly law-enforcement agencies -- "need to take the dangers it presents seriously."
SPLC REPORT BACKS UP APRIL WARNING BY HOMELAND SECURITY
The SPLC's warning comes on the heels of an similarly alarming report released in April by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that warned that "The consequences of a prolonged economic downturn" -- combined with the election last November of Barack Obama as the nation's first African-American president -- "could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities. . ."
Homeland Security's April warning was roundly attacked by conservative politicians and media pundits. Then came the attack in June by James von Brunn, a heavily-armed white supremacist, at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington. Von Brunn went on a shooting rampage that killed a black security guard and sent hundreds of tourists fleeing for cover before he was shot and wounded by police...
The SPLC report doesn't shy away from naming names. It cites Ted Gunderson, a retired FBI agent, as telling a gathering of anti-government militiamen in Pensacola, Florida that the federal government "has set up 1,000 internment camps across the country and is storing 30,000 guillotines and a half-million caskets in Atlanta."
The report says that Gunderson told the militiamen that the materiel is being gathered by the government for the day it declares martial law and moves in to round up or kill its opponents. "They’re [the Feds] going to keep track of all of us, folks!" Gunderson is quoted as saying.
Outside Atlanta, a so-called "American Grand Jury" has issued an "indictment" of Obama for fraud and treason because he wasn’t born in the United States and is illegally occupying the presidency, the report says, with other self-appointed "grand juries" across the country -- none of them convened by any court of law -- quickly following suit...
In fact, threats and violence from the radical right already are accelerating, the SPLC report noted, including a spate of high-profile murders committed by white men "with anti-government, racist, anti-Semitic or pro-militia views," including the killings of three Pittsburgh police officers by a white man who had been stockpiling weapons in fear that the Obama administration would push for new gun-control laws.
In Maine, another white man, believed by authorities to be a neo-Nazi "very upset" with Obama's election, was stockpiling materials in his home to make a radioactive "dirty bomb" in what police believe was a possible plot to assassinate the president. But the man, identified as James Cummings, never got the chance to finish making his bomb -- he was shot and killed in February by his estranged wife.
In Tennessee, two neo-Nazi skinheads were arrested by federal agents last October on charges of plotting to assassinate then-candidate Obama as part of a killing spree, shooting or decapitating more than 80 other African-Americans.
Two months earlier, law-enforcement officers arrested two other white men in a suburb of Denver in an alleged plot to assassinate Obama while he delivered his acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium at the conclusion of the Democratic Convention.
REPORT BLASTS RIGHT-WING POLITICOS, PUNDITS
The SPLC report also blamed right-wing politicians and media pundits for contributing to the rise in anti-government militancy. It singled out Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, for raising the prospect of his state seceding from the Union "several months after Obama’s inauguration," a notion that was first brought up a decade earlier by the militia group Republic of Texas following the Banch Davidian debacle at Waco.
The report also blasted Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) for her highly controversial comment that she feared Obama was planning "re-education camps for young people" reminiscent of those established by China during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s; and Representative Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama), for "evoking memories of the discredited communist-hunter Senator Joseph McCarthy," who in the 1950s warned of 17 "socialists" in Congress.
CNN’s Lou Dobbs came under sharp criticism in the report for "treating the so-called Aztlan conspiracy" -- secret Mexican plans to "reconquer" the American Southwest -- as a bona fide concern and for giving airtime to "Birther" conspiracy theorists who adamantly insist that Obama is not a native-born U.S. citizen, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary -- and even his own network’s definitive debunking of the "Birthers'" claims.
Fox News host Glenn Beck -- whose show has become the target of an advertiser boycott after he called Obama a "racist" who "hates white people" -- was cited by the SPLC for having also called the president "a fascist, a Nazi and a Marxist" -- even giving airtime to militia conspiracy theories alleging a secret network of "government-run concentration camps."
While the SPLC report did not make any detailed recommendations on how to deal with rising far-right militancy, it did make clear the need for increased vigilance. The movement, the report said, "clearly is growing again," and that Americans -- particularly law-enforcement agencies -- "need to take the dangers it presents seriously."
The report warns that while the so-called "Patriot" movement may not have the white-hot fury that it did in the 1990s, it "clearly is growing again," and that Americans -- particularly law-enforcement agencies -- "need to take the dangers it presents seriously."
SPLC REPORT BACKS UP APRIL WARNING BY HOMELAND SECURITY
The SPLC's warning comes on the heels of an similarly alarming report released in April by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that warned that "The consequences of a prolonged economic downturn" -- combined with the election last November of Barack Obama as the nation's first African-American president -- "could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities. . ."
Homeland Security's April warning was roundly attacked by conservative politicians and media pundits. Then came the attack in June by James von Brunn, a heavily-armed white supremacist, at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington. Von Brunn went on a shooting rampage that killed a black security guard and sent hundreds of tourists fleeing for cover before he was shot and wounded by police...
The SPLC report doesn't shy away from naming names. It cites Ted Gunderson, a retired FBI agent, as telling a gathering of anti-government militiamen in Pensacola, Florida that the federal government "has set up 1,000 internment camps across the country and is storing 30,000 guillotines and a half-million caskets in Atlanta."
The report says that Gunderson told the militiamen that the materiel is being gathered by the government for the day it declares martial law and moves in to round up or kill its opponents. "They’re [the Feds] going to keep track of all of us, folks!" Gunderson is quoted as saying.
Outside Atlanta, a so-called "American Grand Jury" has issued an "indictment" of Obama for fraud and treason because he wasn’t born in the United States and is illegally occupying the presidency, the report says, with other self-appointed "grand juries" across the country -- none of them convened by any court of law -- quickly following suit...
In fact, threats and violence from the radical right already are accelerating, the SPLC report noted, including a spate of high-profile murders committed by white men "with anti-government, racist, anti-Semitic or pro-militia views," including the killings of three Pittsburgh police officers by a white man who had been stockpiling weapons in fear that the Obama administration would push for new gun-control laws.
In Maine, another white man, believed by authorities to be a neo-Nazi "very upset" with Obama's election, was stockpiling materials in his home to make a radioactive "dirty bomb" in what police believe was a possible plot to assassinate the president. But the man, identified as James Cummings, never got the chance to finish making his bomb -- he was shot and killed in February by his estranged wife.
In Tennessee, two neo-Nazi skinheads were arrested by federal agents last October on charges of plotting to assassinate then-candidate Obama as part of a killing spree, shooting or decapitating more than 80 other African-Americans.
Two months earlier, law-enforcement officers arrested two other white men in a suburb of Denver in an alleged plot to assassinate Obama while he delivered his acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium at the conclusion of the Democratic Convention.
REPORT BLASTS RIGHT-WING POLITICOS, PUNDITS
The SPLC report also blamed right-wing politicians and media pundits for contributing to the rise in anti-government militancy. It singled out Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, for raising the prospect of his state seceding from the Union "several months after Obama’s inauguration," a notion that was first brought up a decade earlier by the militia group Republic of Texas following the Banch Davidian debacle at Waco.
The report also blasted Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) for her highly controversial comment that she feared Obama was planning "re-education camps for young people" reminiscent of those established by China during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s; and Representative Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama), for "evoking memories of the discredited communist-hunter Senator Joseph McCarthy," who in the 1950s warned of 17 "socialists" in Congress.
CNN’s Lou Dobbs came under sharp criticism in the report for "treating the so-called Aztlan conspiracy" -- secret Mexican plans to "reconquer" the American Southwest -- as a bona fide concern and for giving airtime to "Birther" conspiracy theorists who adamantly insist that Obama is not a native-born U.S. citizen, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary -- and even his own network’s definitive debunking of the "Birthers'" claims.
Fox News host Glenn Beck -- whose show has become the target of an advertiser boycott after he called Obama a "racist" who "hates white people" -- was cited by the SPLC for having also called the president "a fascist, a Nazi and a Marxist" -- even giving airtime to militia conspiracy theories alleging a secret network of "government-run concentration camps."
While the SPLC report did not make any detailed recommendations on how to deal with rising far-right militancy, it did make clear the need for increased vigilance. The movement, the report said, "clearly is growing again," and that Americans -- particularly law-enforcement agencies -- "need to take the dangers it presents seriously."