Calling out DHS on their total bullshit about right-wing extremism/violence

[tpsbmam]

There is a HuffPo article today following the Norway tragedy on the Feds monitoring homegrown right-wing groups. I'm calling total bullshit on the Feds claims they're on the job, as well as their claims about right-wing groups staying level with previous years.

The bombing and shooting spree in Norway on Friday has raised questions about whether federal law enforcement agencies in the United States are devoting enough resources and attention to the threat posed by right-wing extremists here. On the alert for such threats posed by white supremacists and members of a sovereign citizen movement that rejects government authority and militias, law enforcement officials around the country have reportedly asked for budget increases to handle the task.(HuffPo)

DHS officials "insist" that the level of radical right extremists has remained at a steady level over the past few years. I call total bullshit!

In fact, although the antigovernment “patriot,” or militia, movement did wane in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it has come roaring back, from 149 groups in 2008 to 824 in 2010, even as the number of hate groups reached more than 1,000 for the first time since the Southern Poverty Law Center began counting them in the 1980s.



This resurgence has been accompanied by a proliferation of domestic terror plots directed at police officers, judicial officials, Latino and Muslim immigrants, and others. Although most of these plots were stopped before anyone was harmed, they have included, just since last year, alleged attempts by the Hutaree Militia and the Alaska Peacemakers Militia to murder police officers; an attempted mass murder of Martin Luther King Jr. Day marchers in Spokane, Wash.; and the killings of two police officers
in West Memphis, Ark. -- some 30 plots in all since mid-2008.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has documented the significant rise in violent right-wing groups through a series of reports:

The Second Wave: Return of the Militias, 2009

Rage on the Right, 2010

Hate groups stayed at record levels — almost 1,000 — despite the total collapse of the second largest neo-Nazi group in America. Furious anti-immigrant vigilante groups soared by nearly 80%, adding some 136 new groups during 2009. And, most remarkably of all, so-called "Patriot" groups — militias and other organizations that see the federal government as part of a plot to impose “one-world government” on liberty-loving Americans — came roaring back after years out of the limelight.

The anger seething across the American political landscape — over racial changes in the population, soaring public debt and the terrible economy, the bailouts of bankers and other elites, and an array of initiatives by the relatively liberal Obama Administration that are seen as "socialist" or even "fascist" — goes beyond the radical right. The "tea parties" and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism.

“We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in United States history,” Chip Berlet, a veteran analyst of the American radical right, wrote earlier this year. "We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people angry, resentful, and full of anxiety. They are raging against the machinery of the federal bureaucracy and liberal government programs and policies including health care, reform of immigration and labor laws, abortion, and gay marriage."

<snip>

But last year, as noted in the SPLC’s August report, "The Second Wave: Return of the Militias," a dramatic resurgence in the Patriot movement and its paramilitary wing, the militias, began. Now, the latest SPLC count finds that an astonishing 363 new Patriot groups appeared in 2009, with the totals going from 149 groups (including 42 militias) to 512 (127 of them militias) — a 244% jump.

Jihad Against Islam, 2011

Rarely has the United States seen a more reckless and bare-knuckled campaign to vilify a distinct class of people and compromise their fundamental civil and human rights than the recent rhetoric against Muslims.

It would also be hard to imagine a more successful campaign. In the span of the two years since the start of Barack Obama's presidency in early 2009, an astonishing number of people have turned into a kind of political wolf pack, convinced that 0.6% of the U.S. population is on the verge of trampling the Constitution and imposing an Islamic, Shariah-guided caliphate in its place. Like the communists that an earlier generation believed to be hiding behind every rock, infiltrated "Islamist" operatives today are said to be diabolically preparing for a forcible takeover.

<snip>

And that bigotry has consequences. Recent news reports strongly suggest a spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes. In May 2010, for example, a bomb exploded at an Islamic center in Jacksonville, Fla. In August, a man slashed the neck and face of a New York taxi driver after finding out he was a Muslim. Four days later, someone set fire to construction equipment at the future site of an Islamic center in Murfreesboro, Tenn. This March, a radical Christian pastor burned a Koran in Gainesville, Fla., leading to deadly riots in Afghanistan that left at least 20 people dead. Hate crime statistics for 2010 won't be released by the FBI until the fall, but it appears certain they will show increasing violence against Muslims.

<snip>

Currently, there are 1,002 known hate groups operating across the country, including neo-Nazis, Klansmen, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, black separatists, border vigilantes and others.

And their numbers are growing.

<snip>

. This surge has been fueled by fears of Latino immigration and, more recently, by the election of the country’s first African-American president and the economic crisis.

This growth in extremism has been aided by mainstream media figures and politicians who have used their platforms to legitimize false propaganda about immigrants and other minorities and spread the kind of paranoid conspiracy theories on which militia groups thrive.

(HuffPo) Department of Homeland Security officials insist that the level of activity by such groups has remained consistent over the past few years and that the agency is focused on the menace posed by such groups.

B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T.!!!

Inside the DHS: Former Top Analyst Says Agency Bowed to Political Pressure

Below are excerpts of an SPLC interview with Daryl Johnson, expert in domestic terrorism and former DHS senior domestic terrorism analyst. As most of us will remember, the right-wing went ballistic when the report was leaked (it was originally intended just for law-enforcement release) and DHS cowered like little babies, withdrawing the report and apologizing all over the place -- it was disgusting. Fortunately, the SPLC still has a copy of the report online: Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.

When the right-wing report was leaked and people politicized it, my management got scared and thought DHS would be scaled back. It created an environment where my analysts and I couldn't get our work done. DHS stopped all of our work and instituted restrictive policies. Eventually, they ended up gutting my unit. All of this happened within six to nine months after the furor over the report. Analysts then began leaving DHS. One analyst went to ICE , another to the FBI, a third went to the U.S. Marshals, and so on. There is just one person there today who is still a "domestic terrorism" analyst.

And, Johnson says in his HuffPo interview, the one analyst is inexperienced. Oh, and there's one contractor.

Since our report was leaked, DHS has not released a single report of its own on this topic. Not anything dealing with non-Islamic domestic extremism—whether it's anti-abortion extremists, white supremacists, "sovereign citizens," eco-terrorists, the whole gamut.

That imbalance in law-enforcement resources persists despite the preponderance of right-wing attacks and access to weapons, Johnson says, noting that "there were more firearms possessed by the Hutaree militia than by all 200 Muslim extremists arrested in the U.S. since 9/11.

Johnson, a lifelong Republican, says that the two main threats in the US are "Islamic jihadists and right-wing extremists," but he rightly points out that the media only cover the former.

"In just the last month, there was a police shootout with a sovereign citizen in Texas, the trial of a heavily-armed militia in Alaska which was allegedly targeting judges and state troopers, a sovereign citizen on trial in New York and the death-row sentencing of white supremacist Richard Poplawski who killed three cops," he explained. "None of these were major stories -- if they had been Islamists, that would have been a big headline."

DHS, of course, denies all of this and claims they have more analysts on the job. Yet they underreport the nature of right-wing extremism to such a huge degree, I have difficulty believing them. Oh hell, I have difficulty believing them anyway -- as I repeat often, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. With their reaction to right-wing outrage in response to the 2009 report, I have little doubt that Wayne Johnson is closer to the truth.

[KansDem]

1. Is it just me, or does that dip in the number of hate groups coincide with the Bush years?

Could that also be a factor?

High during Clinton's years, drops off quite noticeably during W's years, then way back up again after Obama is elected.

Just an observation...

[bainz]

3. Napolotano Caved to the pubs and reduced

the Domestic Terroism "unit" to one person. I heard that today a couple of times on this site.

[CJCRANE]

4. Indeed, most of the "black helicopter"

militia crowd decided to sit out the Bush years. A few of them became Truthers but the rest decided to wait a decade for the Birther conspiracy theory to come along.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. They got everything they wanted ... no need to organize with "their guy" in office. nt

[fredamae]

Napolotano Caved to the pubs and reduced

the Domestic Terroism "unit" to one person. I heard that today on Thom Hartmann.

[fredamae]

2. Napolitano Caved to the pubs and reduced

the Domestic Terrorism "unit" to one person. I heard that today on Thom Hartmann.

[hifiguy]

5. I am vastly more concerned with reichwing loons

than fundamentalist Muslims as a potential source of terrorism in this country. As is anyone who is thinking clearly.