Following the recent shooting at the Holocaust Museum in DC, the news reporter referenced the Intelligence Project findings published by the Southern Poverty Law Center. This study features a nationwide mapping of 926 supposedly active “hate groups” throughout the United States.
This posting will not debate the accuracy of this “study” ... although in compiling “hate group” activities the SPLC has included a very wide range of activities including criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting and publishing. They are careful to include a disclaimer that “listing here does not imply a group advocates or engages in violence or other criminal activity.” Personally, I am skeptical of a listing of hate groups that includes the Ku Klux Klan, The Christian Guard and the Nation of Islam on the same list. Somehow I think it is probably more detrimental to not make a stronger distinction between groups that advocate and carry out violent actions and those that adhere to separatist views. (To be fair, each group is labeled on the list. The whole thing is still troubling.) I want to believe that there is a working distinction between hate and difference and that the two properly require vastly different handling from law enforcement. I hope that I am not being naive.
To say it more plainly, there are groups that I sincerely hope the law enforcement agencies are watching, and it would not do well to have their effectiveness watered-down because they are also trying to keep track of groups that are simply trying to adhere to the belief system of a population segment.
What does floor me, is the fact that people respond with genuine surprise to shootings like this. The horrific occurrence at the Holocaust Museum appears to be the work of one man who is apparently affiliated with a hate group. Why is this a surprise? Weren’t people listening to that HBO Special that featured the sentiments of people all over the country who were responding to Obama’s inauguration?
As I listened to that feature, solely as an illustration of sentiments that I already acknowledge as prevalent out there, I could easily hear waves hatred and anger that HBO had no problem broadcasting across the airwaves. How could you not anticipate that such polarizing feelings will typically erupt into bloodshed?
Frankly, this is evidence of the complete ineffectiveness of domestic security agencies that are supposedly treating terrorism on American soil as their highest priority. Because it is not the direct result of Middle-Eastern influence is no excuse and when the news media publishes studies and reports like this, I do not feel safer. I feel like the people that are supposed to have real intelligence about such things are asleep at the switch.
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Comments
This DOES deserve and EP, harp.
This is a well-written & thought-provoking post!
My primary point is the existence of terrorist actions on multiple fronts and our need to pay attention to the kind of hate that is not included in such studies like the SPLC example. The kind of hate that I identified from the HBO special is akin to the hatred you identified from people like Limbaugh in your post.
I thought your post was excellent AJ.
RonPo1... Thank you.
Zuma... Oddly enough, on the occasions when I have run into racial idiocy.. .I always found that I was dealing with a person, a fool who didn't know better. I am sure the groups are out there, but it was single man who pulled the trigger in DC.
Mr. Mustard... reason seems to have already failed my friend.
Catrouche... If only we could wake up the people that truly need to wake up. I feel like they are so focused on looking overseas....
Suzie... yes we certainly dropped the ball back then. If McVey wasn't a shining example of cancer within our own culture... what was it??
Owl... my fear is that the media will turn to the popl that have the information... as will the gatekeepers. I am not quite naive enough to expect classified information published on the Internet... but they didn't report on the incident as if anyone had matters in hand. We still react with shock and amazement.
We too,have occasional unrest,but certainly not on a scale that you,and AJ Calhoun describe.
I sometimes think the enormous quantity of beer we consume
keeps the population docile and meek.:)
McVeigh was executed in a show of stupidity and the childish/immature act of revenge that set the stage for so much that the Cheney/Bush administration did. To hell with the idea that there were others involved. Bah! He became a martyr to many in the sick fringes of our society and we will never know the extent of that support for what he and Nichols did... I was so pissed that Bush killed him. I fear that the story hadn't been told...
Like the frogs in his past, Tim McVeigh died too soon, and possibly for a reason.
Peter… Mass quantities of beer as a political platform… you know, there are places here where that would play!!!
Gonzoid… We will have to agree to disagree on the fate of Timothy McVeigh. He deserved to die and I hope he left with as much pain as could be legally administered. If anyone deserved it he did. As to your point about the things we could have, should have learned from him…. We do not disagree on this point. Frankly, I don’t know what we learned or how much. I can only hope that we took the opportunity while we fast-tracked this man out of here.
Lea… Excellent point and I could not agree more.
Havlin... however, I would advise you take a look at AJCalhoun's post "Storm Warning." He does at least have a suggestion.
Thank you both for coming and reading my post.
I live in Oregon and I have never even heard of any of the "hate groups" listed in this state. One of them appears to be nothing more than a web site.
The end of all discussions comes down to 'who decides'. Who decides what is 'racist' or 'sexist' or 'puerile'?
I feel that, if this keeps getting out of hand, some 'rights' will have to be reduced.
'Free speech' isn't free when it begins to cause death and mayhem but I wouldn't want a hard right ideologue to decide what is and what isn't 'protected speech'. (We don't need a return to 'Cointelpro')
I don't see how repeatedly labeling someone a murderer and calling for him to be 'sent to his maker' is defensible at any level. I also feel that any religious leader that claims to 'pray that Obama is killed' has forfeit their 'right' to freely walk amongst us. Heck, Poppy (Bush 41) got a man jailed for life for talking about a 'burning bush' in a Texas bar after it became a 'threat to the president's life'...
I'd like to see Bill O'Reilly and a few others frogmarched into prison for inciting murder and public mayhem and Fox News closed as the leading outlet for public misinformation and outright lies.
Black separatists can be bigots, but don't have the power to be racist.
I, too, am an Oregonian and know none of these groups. However, back in 1988, Mulugeta Seraw was killed by three racist skinheads who were members of White Aryan Resistance. The SCLC, along with the Anti-Defamation League, won a case against Tom Metzger, head of WAR, for $12.5 million.
Where you here then, Mishima?
I am troubled by your suggestion that some "groups that are simply trying to adhere to the belief system of a population segment". If that belief system includes separatist teachings, that is usually a warning side. Groups that preach Us and Them prepare a fertile ground for hate, and those among their number who are most paranoid too often act on that hate with violence against the Other.
Hello Tom, it’s been a long time. The unfortunate reality is that there are, and have been, warning signs everywhere to the extent that we likely breath a sign of relief when the expected warning signs we’ve come to anticipate are not present. When I see true and comfortable inter-racial co-mingling within any forum, I tend to exhale… because the default is usually a single racial group with a few examples who are allowed in, invited in, or who happen to wander in and find a foothold. Separatist teaching is typically found in groups with no power, striving to find or reinforce a group identity. Is it a “fertile ground for hate?” Sometimes it is. Sometimes resentment, anger and pain will bubble up into hate… but please do not believe that it always has to be that way. When truly benign separatist groups are lumped in with true hate groups… it can be the basis for unfortunate actions on both sides.
Don’t be troubled. My observations tend to leave lots of room for the opinions of others.