New Warning of Terror Campaign By Far-Right Extremists

[Joanne98]

New Report by Southern Poverty Law Center Backs Up Homeland Security's Warning That Anti-Government Militias Driven by Racism and Xenophobia Are Joining Forces With White-Supremacist and Neo-Nazi Groups for a Campaign of Harassment and Intimidation That Could Escalate into Hate-Motivated Terror Attacks Across the Country

SkeeterVT's diary :: :: (Posted 5:00 a.m. EDT Monday, August 24, 2009)

By SKEETER SANDERS

After nearly a decade of "flying under the radar" of public scrutiny, far-right-wing militia groups, income-tax resisters and self-identified "Patriots" are once again making headlines.

But this time, they've found common ground with avowed white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups and appear to be engaging in a campaign of harassment and intimidation that potentially could lead to a wave of deadly domestic terrorism, according to a newly-released report by a prominent anti-hate watchdog organization.

The 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.

Investigators found a list in von Brunn's car of numerous places in and around the nation's capital that they believe the gunman also intended to attack -- including the White House, The Washington Post building and the Washington bureau of Fox News.

The SPLC's report cites law-enforcement officials across the country reporting a "worrying uptick" in so-called "Patriot" movement activities and propaganda. "This is the most significant growth we've seen in 10 to 12 years," the report quotes one official as saying. "All it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you'll see threats and violence."

MOVEMENT RADICALIZED BY AMERICA'S CHANGING RACIAL MAKEUP

Most disturbing, the SPLC report says, is that the all-white and nearly all-male "Patriot" movement -- long known for its anti-government militancy -- has been radicalized by the fact that the federal government is now headed by a black man, in the person of President Obama.

Combined with high levels of non-white immigration, both legal and illegal, and a steady erosion in the white percentage of the U.S. population -- to the point that whites will lose their majority by the middle of the century, according to the Census Bureau -- the "Patriot" movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by racial hatred, has found common ground with white-supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, the SPLC report says.

Many white supremacists see Obama's election as the first clear evidence of the decline of the white population's majority in the U.S. -- and with it, their hold on the levers of power and authority. The result has been a significant increase in racially-motivated incidents in the past year after it became clear that Obama would win the Democratic presidential nomination and the November general election.

The SPLC report also blames right-wing politicians and media pundits for having "helped to spread 'Patriot' and related propaganda, from conspiracy theories about a secret network of U.S. concentration camps to wholly unsubstantiated claims about the president's country of birth."

REPORT: EX-FBI AGENT TELLS MILITANTS OF GOVERNMENT 'INTERNMENT CAMPS'

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 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.

Even in the overwhelmingly Democratic Northeast -- where Obama racked up the greatest electoral landslide of any Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 -- die-hard right-wing opponents of the president are nonetheless organizing against him, the SPLC report said.

In Massachusetts, for example, members of Oath Keepers, a newly-formed group of law enforcement officers, military personnel and veterans, gathered on April 19 -- the anniversary of the 1993 Branch Davidian disaster in Waco, Texas and the Oklahoma City bombing two years later -- to reaffirm their pledge to "defend the U.S. Constitution" against what the group sees is an "illegitimate" administration in Washington.

Continued>>>
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/24/771538/-New-Warning-of-Terror-Campaign-By-Far-Right-Extremists

[intheflow]

1. K&R since the CM probably won't report it. n/t

[Seldona]

2. That last sentence is chilling.

-In Massachusetts, for example, members of Oath Keepers, a newly-formed group of law enforcement officers, military personnel and veterans, gathered on April 19 -- the anniversary of the 1993 Branch Davidian disaster in Waco, Texas and the Oklahoma City bombing two years later -- to reaffirm their pledge to "defend the U.S. Constitution" against what the group sees is an "illegitimate" administration in Washington.-

:crazy:

[nashville_brook]

3. KandR

[mudplanet]

4. It's true. We do have a thousand internment camps set up.

They're called prisons. And they're where these people belong.

[TankLV]

5. "Funny" how all these people ignored the 2000 Selection and all the ILLEGAL REPUKE crap

that WE'VE now have to deal with from the past TWELVE YEARS or more...

[formercia]

6. Gunderson has been a provocateur for a long time.

"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 going to keep track of all of us, folks!" Gunderson is quoted as saying."

[Shallah Kali]

7. SPLC article up - link

The Second Wave
Evidence Grows of Far-Right Militia Resurgence
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=1092

Almost 10 years after it seemed to disappear from American life, there are unmistakable signs of a revival of what in the 1990s was commonly called the militia movement. From Idaho to New Jersey and Michigan to Florida, men in khaki and camouflage are back in the woods, gathering to practice the paramilitary skills they believe will be needed to fend off the socialistic troops of the "New World Order."

One big difference from the militia movement of the 1990s is that the face of the federal government — the enemy that almost all parts of the extreme right see as the primary threat to freedom — is now black. And the fact that the president is an African American has injected a strong racial element into even those parts of the radical right, like the militias, that in the past were not primarily motivated by race hate. Contributing to the racial animus have been fears on the far right about the consequences of Latino immigration.

Militia rhetoric is being heard widely once more, often from a second generation of ideologues, and conspiracy theories are being energetically revived or invented anew. "Paper terrorism" — the use of property liens, bogus legal documents and "citizens' grand juries" to attack enemies and, sometimes, reap illegal fortunes — is again proliferating, to the point where the government has set up special efforts to rein in so-called "tax defiers" and to track threats against judges. What's more, Patriot fears about the government are being amplified by a loud new group of ostensibly mainstream media commentators and politicians.



It's not 1996 all over again, or 1997 or 1998. Although there has been a remarkable rash of domestic terrorist incidents since Obama's election in November, it has not reached the level of criminal violence, attempted terrorist attacks and white-hot language that marked the militia movement at its peak. But militia training events, huge numbers of which are now viewable on YouTube videos, are spreading. One federal agency estimates that 50 new militia training groups have sprung up in less than two years. Sales of guns and ammunition have skyrocketed amid fears of new gun control laws, much as they did in the 1990s.

The situation has many authorities worried. Militiamen, white supremacists, anti-Semites, nativists, tax protesters and a range of other activists of the radical right are cross-pollinating and may even be coalescing. In the words of a February report from law enforcement officials in Missouri, a variety of factors have combined recently to create "a lush environment for militia activity."

[yurbud]

8. KKKick

[kimmerspixelated]

9. OMFG!

So it's much worse than I thought. God help us all! Keep Obama safe, and the nutcases in jail!

[AllentownJake]

10. Guillotines?

I would think if the Government was planning a mass extermination of its opponents it would look to the Nazi's for techniques and Caskets?

If your planning a mass murder you don't give your enemy a proper a burial.