If, post-Charlottesville, the establishment media and the Left are going to embark upon a full-scale jihad (I wouldn’t want to offend Leftists by calling it a “crusade”) against neo-Nazis and white supremacists, they’re going to catch in their net a great many legitimate groups if they rely on the SPLC to direct them to the “hate groups.” My latest in PJ Media:
Charlottesville was a huge victory for the hard-Left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). And that’s not good for anyone who loves freedom.
The driver of the car who plowed into a crowd of Leftist demonstrators in Charlottesville Saturday was a neo-Nazi, and on Monday President Trump denounced the Ku Klux Klan, “neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups,” which he rightly said were “repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
Leftist media outlets are making all they can out of this opportunity to stigmatize and marginalize definitively all “hate groups,” using the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) list of such groups. There’s just one problem: the SPLC’s “hate group” list is an irresponsible and libelous mélange of real hate groups with organizations that simply oppose the SPLC’s hard-Left agenda.
The mainstream media has for years conferred an aura of legitimacy on the SPLC, treating this cynical gang of profiteers as if it were a neutral and reliable arbiter of what constitutes a “hate group” and what does not. Charlotte Allen wrote in The Weekly Standard last March:
It’s hard to say what’s worse: the outrageousness of the Southern Poverty Law Center in pinning the label “white nationalist” and “extremist” on anyone who bucks the prevailing politically correct narrative, or the credulity of the mainstream media in treating the SPLC as a neutral source.
Yet CNN did it again Monday in a story about how GoDaddy had revoked the account of a site called Daily Stormer in the wake of Charlottesville:
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “the Daily Stormer is dedicated to spreading anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, and white nationalism, primarily through guttural hyperbole and epithet-laden stories about topics like alleged Jewish world control and black-on-white crime.” The SPLC, which tracks hate groups, says the unapologetic hatred on the Daily Stormer — which also takes aim at African-Americans and opponents of President Donald Trump, for example — is a catalyst for division.
Meanwhile, the Huffington Post reminded us:
There are 917 hate groups currently operating across the U.S., according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And that’s where the SPLC’s hate group listing becomes insidious. If, post-Charlottesville, the establishment media and the Left are going to embark upon a full-scale jihad (I wouldn’t want to offend Leftists by calling it a “crusade”) against neo-Nazis and white supremacists, they’re going to catch in their net a great many legitimate groups if they rely on the SPLC to direct them to the “hate groups.”
Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) wrote in the Washington Post in March:
Since 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center has methodically added mainstream organizations critical of current immigration policy to its blacklist of “hate groups,” including the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Immigration Reform Law Institute and Californians for Population Stabilization, among others. In February, my own organization, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), got its turn.
The wickedness of the SPLC’s blacklist lies in the fact that it conflates groups that really do preach hatred, such as the Ku Klux Klan and Nation of Islam, with ones that simply do not share the SPLC’s political preferences. The obvious goal is to marginalize the organizations in this second category by bullying reporters into avoiding them, scaring away writers and researchers from working for them, and limiting invitations for them to discuss their work.
Indeed. That is certainly the objective behind this hard-Left moneymaking and incitement machine’s latest dossier on “Islamophobes,” which says:
Before you book a spokesperson from an anti-Muslim extremist group or quote them in a story, research their background — detailed in this in-depth guide to 15 of the most visible anti-Muslim activists — and consider the consequences of giving them a platform.
They wish to silence those who speak honestly about the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, blaming us for a supposed rise in “Islamophobia.” If they really want to stamp out suspicion of Islam, of course, they will move against not us, but the likes of Omar Mateen, Syed Rizwan Farook, Tashfeen Malik, Nidal Malik Hasan, Mohammed Abdulazeez, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and the myriad other Muslims who commit violence in the name of Islam and justify it by reference to Islamic teachings.
In constructing this illusory edifice, the SPLC labeled me and fourteen others “anti-Muslim extremists.”
We are, of course, no more “anti-Muslim” than foes of the Nazis were anti-German, but note the word “extremists.” In what way are we “extremists”? Has anyone on the SPLC’s hit list (and given the SPLC’s track record of inciting violence against its targets, that is exactly what it is) ever blown anything or anyone up? Beheaded anyone? Boasted of our imminent conquest of any territory and the massacre of or enslavement of its people?
No, all we have done is speak critically about jihad terror and Sharia oppression. The SPLC is trying to further the libel that we are the other side of the coin, the non-Muslim bin Ladens and Awlakis. Until we commit any terror attacks or conspire with others to do so, however, the SPLC’s libel is only that: a libel….
Read the rest here.
Richie says
Although many in ANTIFA claim to be anarchists, from what I have seen most of them are actually Stalinist Communists They want the full might of authoritarian rule behind them to crush their enemies, and in their desires to kill their enemies. Communists have killed over 100 million people in the past century-
as vile as Neo Nazis are, the Communists are worse- and the Soviet Hammer and Sickle is as offensive if not moreso than the Nazi swastika. BLM is a full Communist movement, their solution to all of society’s ills is for the government to seize private property and redistribute wealth to those who didnt earn it.
ElderlyZionist says
Here is a history of the Antifa movement. It’s on a commie website, but it seems well informed. It confirms that the American Antifa are destructive fringe agitators. I am disturbed that so many on the progressive-left tacitly support Antifa, due to Trump Derangement Syndrome.
ElderlyZionist says
Um, meant to post this link:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/antifascist-movements-hitler-nazis-kpd-spd-germany-cold-war
Bezelel says
Thanks for the link, Now to add some more to the insanity http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-14/report-%E2%80%98unite-right%E2%80%99-organizer-jason-kessler-was-occupy-movement-obama-supporter-8-m I could not understand how such an event had actual nazi’s attending. It was not any way to garner support to be sure.
Dwayne Austin says
Antifa is destroying ‘offensive’ statues; funny how they skipped a statue of mass murderer, and former Soviet ruler, Vladimir Illych Lenin in Seattle.
http://www.bizpacreview.com/2017/08/15/antifa-destroying-offensive-statues-funny-skipped-one-seattle-525814
Michael Casmer says
Yeah Dwayne. I don’t understand. I used to live in Seattle. Glad I don’t live there anymore. Now they want to take down the statue of Frank Rizzo, former mayor of Philadelphia. Before that, he was Police Commissionar. They accuse him of arresting too many blacks. But he added blacks as police captains in the late 50’s. Do you’re damned, don’t you’re damned.
vyx says
There are a few goals here- most importantly remove Donald Trump from office.
The other is to completely subjugate ALL non-minorities and non-victim groups so that the Left is free to do whatever they want. The latter is already happening; conservatives protesting peacefully are harassed, while Leftists who are violent can do what they want with no jail time.
Once all dissent is crushed, will we become the USSA.
gravenimage says
True.
underbed cat says
More like Saudi Arabia, Iran and the freedom slayers who follow sharia laws…Every single media clip or event that the left reconfigures to be racist, nazism the left will use against the President with the their goal is to remove President Trump, who is aware of the dangers of sharia. But the left completely ignores the subversive goal of sharia, so the only conclusion is that they don’t care about the constitution…as long as they have power, which sharia would remove once they get established.
underbed cat says
reconfigures
Richard Paulsen says
Who are the nazis? ” O you who have believed do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. Allah guides not the wrongdoing people. ” (Quran 5:51)
Muslims fighting together with the nazis during WW2. Osttürkischer Waffen Verbände der SS for example. Thousands.
Tours 686. Wienna 1683.
What is being preached in thousands of mosques in USA and Europa and all the Western world?
Seems as if mainstream media is not aware of history and reality,
https://quran.com/5/51
Westman says
If one looked up the word “cancer” at Charity Navigator, there are over 60,000 charities associated with cancer. The largest( intake $862 Million) has a CEO salary of $863,000 and only spends 59% of funds on actual services, 34% on fundraising, and 6% on administration.
Each of these cancer charities of any real size has an administrative paid CEO, lawyers, etc. With 60,000 charities one would think that cancer is now cured and that folks are no longer bankrupted by high pharma costs of little benefit, expensive surgeries, ridiculously gouging charges from hospitals, and shortened lives.
It doesn’t take long when investigating charities to discover that too many charities whose envelopes arrive in the mail are actually in the business of staying in business or a front for making administrative salaries.
The SPLC seems to be one of those whose laudable beginning objectives have changed to stay in business; creeping into other movement’s territory to keep the money coming in.
The SPLC is a $50 million business that pays its CEO and top lawyer $333,000, and $337,000, respectively. It gobbles up a whopping 13.4% ($6,700,000) for administrative costs(salaries) and spends 21% on fundraising. It spends 22 cents for every dollar of solicited money. It has a 80% CN financial rating, which is not very good for a charity, due to the 21% expense for professional fundraising and the high percentage of administrative costs.
It’s a business, plain and simple, with an agenda to stay in business. It has appropriated a position of moral authority by feeding the itching ears of the sensation-inclined leftist media. In its process of denigrating conservatives for concern about Islamic Jihad, the South, and anyone who thinks the South should keep their history, perhaps it should remove the word, “Southern”, from its name.
Robeaver says
So funding is from the public? I am asking for info here.
My great conspiracy theory is that billions are spend by Saudi and friends to destabilise the west, whether support of caIR or building thousands of mosques workdwide. Any group left right or low, gets money to advance this agenda. Look at the left/right antipathy in the West, for example. Jihad by money and disruption, by court challenges, by actual physical attack, by news and Internet sites, by National News (BBC, cbc, ABC, etc).
The west is at war.
Westman says
20% could come from Soros, no one would know. There are no limitations about who or how much can be donated, unlike political donations. Someone with money could “buy” influence.
Half the charities in the US are likely political influence machines, scams, or, organized to support its “administration”.
Here is an interesting organization: Feeding America, located in Chicago. It is a “granting” organization; meaning that it does not provide services, but rather grants money to other charity organizations that actually do work, a kind of “charity foundation” using OPM. Of course, for their determining which actual charities get the money, the upper management get salaries that make your eyes water. It is a highly rated “charity” because those eye-watering salaries are such a small part of $2 Billion that passes through and most of the money goes out to charities that have their own expense breakdown.
This idea of being a “charity foundation” funded by donations is brilliant. If one had a pet cause, this is the way to go.
gravenimage says
Rob, my understanding is that the SPLC does not receive public funds. Soros is a big contributor, though.
underbed cat says
I think, I know the difference between hindu’s and muslims whose doctrine is jihad, I have read the Quran it has verses which are commands to slay Christians, Jews and any non believers who refuse to convert.. or pay a tax to survive, and ran the slave trade business out of northern Africa…..The muslim organization have deceived many with their peaceful declarations and demands to silence speech so that they can continue their invasion. Know that they are required to fulfill or support thru sakat to fund jihad and pay families of martyrs who die for collateral damage. Hindu’s are peaceful and have been victims of jihad terror. Iran a muslim country, calls for death to Israel and the U.S., nearly every Friday. Saudi Arabia ,also uses terror to secure their doctrine so that the warfare doctrine does not get revealed…and accuses slander to those who speak the truth. Iranian scholars use “rage” demands to silence the truth, use language with alternate meanings, guess they even fooled the Pope. So if Nazi groups are going to be restricted of their free speech, even if I do not agree with their beliefs, where is the outrage over muslims who call for violence and hatred toward Jews? So is this a case of whose gives out the big money and can threaten businesses to stay silent? Charlottsville became a mess when the left/dems and uninformed Republicans, got involved to protest freedom of speech, that advertised the event so the antifa hate groups heard the call,came with hate and clubs at an event with little police protection, the press can get their fame and fortune. and next left candidate…I am sick of this. Three people died, some injured and of course they blame Trump, but leave out the contribution of bad decisions, so they can proceed with unfounded attacks on Trump. The businesses that left the group…..better get smart and read the doctrine….you just supported another hate group.
Dwight hogg says
Those who are determined to shut down free speech, as Mark Steyn says, are also fascists. He and Ezra Levant only use words and only reveal the statements and actions of Muslims in their writings but to the pc lefties this is fascism and not the Imams in their mosques calling for the killing of Jews. Or the al Quds parade through Toronto with their faces contorted in blind hatred also calling for killing Jews. Our Human Rights commissions are silent when actual hate crimes by Muslims are committed.
Mockingjay says
“Punch more nazis”
Well – if they were going to try and “punch” REAL nazis, as in, those who self-identify as (neo)nazis, they would get punched back HARD.
– Instead, they determine that people can also be nazis simply because THEY say they are, and by doing so they create much easier targets to go after.
brane pilot says
Rule #1 of Fascism is to never allow an alternative view to be expressed in public.
Rule #2 of Fascism is to never debate an alternative view.
Rule #3 of Fascism is to attack all symbols of an alternative view.
Rule #4 of Fascism is that violence is always justified.
Rule #5 of Fascism is that media coverage of an alternative view must be limited to violent disruption of the view or destruction of its symbols.
Rule #6 of Fascism is that those whose view is violently disrupted are ‘Fascists’ guilty of ‘hate’.
They played this line by line, by the book, in Charlottesville.
It worked like a charm. Even the POTUS is on the ropes this is so effective.
Expect to see much, much more of this.
Yohanan says
Mr Robert Spencer, Sir, I disagree with part of your stand here,
1) I think the Daily Stormer which promotes political and genocidal violence should lose its net access. Their site is similar to salafist sites. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Stormer
2) I agree with you that the SPLC’s labeling of your JihadWatch site as racist and islamophobic is mistaken and wrong-headed. Your work focuses and reference Islamic religious sources to terror committed and supported by some Muslims. You provide a legitimate and important educational service. You condemn terrorists but not all Muslims. Your work provides important data and counter to mainstream interpretation of current events. It’s wrong, to label Jihad Watch together with such genocidal violence promoting, racist hate groups like Daily Stormer site.
3) However, to call the Southern Poverty Law Center hard left is like calling JihadWatch hard right. Off the mark of focus, whatever the auspices.
4) I know in the past the SPLC has done much good and scary work investigating murders of Jews, Afro-Americans and others in the US by lone wolf terrorist nazis where the police and authorities did not investigate but covered up murders. I can cite examples.
5) One of the rights US citizens enjoy is freedom of movement, right to emigrate. (This right is not a given in many dictatorships.) I used that right when I moved from US to Israel more than 36 years ago. Israel has many problems including weaknesses of democratic electoral system, government corruption, the protracted Arab-Israel conflict, religious turf war and growing disparity of rich-poor. However, Israel feels safer to me than USA where Nazis could parade in Skokie or demonstrate with assault guns, torches and clubs on a campus.
.
6) What are the limits to freedom of speech? I hope your new book addresses this difficult moral, political and constitutional question.
guest says
The SPLC’s “hate group” list contains libel against many ordinary groups. Why can’t SPLC be sued for this?
D Austin says
Communist Antifa planned the perfect place to attack America’s heritage! Charlottesville is the site of Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home, which sits just above the town, and his beloved University of Virginia. Just beyond Monticello is James Monroe’s Highland home place. To the north is Montpelier, home of our Constitution’s author, James Madison. To the west is Lexington, home of Washington and Lee University and Virginia Military Academy — and burial place of Virginia sons Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Northeast is George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and the home of George Mason. To the east are Richmond, Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown — the final battle site of the American Revolution.
Charlottesville is also lorded over by a disgraceful mayor, Mike Signer, and his Leftist city council — a group of Berkeley wannabes who have led local historical purges of Thomas Jefferson and Robert E. Lee.
Who is funding Communist Antifa, Black Lives Matter and all the other Marxist/black supremacist groups that have emerged since 2008? Judicial Watch is suing America-hating billionaire socialist Nazi GermanyI collaborator George Soros for his funding records of Leftist political groups.
The Marxist “progressive” use of violence to force the removal of historical monuments from public spaces should concern Americans of all political stripes. This extremely dangerous trend by Marxist Leftists, like those sitting on the city council of historical hub Charlottesville, smacks of socialist Soviet “airbrushing” and the Maoist “Cultural Revolution.”
“It is the manners and spirit of a people, which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.” —Thomas Jefferson (1787)
Gareth says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecMfU3910WY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9fa3HFR02E
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
The end of Rome..
How does an empire die?
Does it collapse in one terrible moment?
No..
No, but there comes a time when its people no longer believing in it.
Then, then, does an empire begin to die.
Fathers of Rome, I’ve lived under four great emperors..
Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius,
and during all those years, our Empire grew, changed…
The law of life is grow or die…..
And You the Senate, are the heart of Rome, it is through you that the people speak…
Speak up, let the world hear you…
Let the world know, that Rome will not die…
There are millions like them, waiting at our gates…
If we do not open these gates they will break them down and destroy us..
But instead, let us grow ever bigger, ever greater, let us take them them among us..
let the heart of the empire grow with us…
Honorable fathers…we have changed the world, can we not change ourselves?
gravenimage says
UK: Labour shadow minister resigns, apologizes for pointing out rape gangs are made up of Pakistanis
……………….
Important article.
gravenimage says
RCH, I stand with Hindus against Jihad.
gravenimage says
🙂
Wellington says
With gravenimage and you, RCH. In fact, I’ll add this: If EVERY Muslim woke up tomorrow a devout Hindu the world would be infinitely better off. No contest here.
Mark Swan says
Absolutely RCH, gravenimage and Wellington.
Matthieu Baudin says
“… No, all we have done is speak critically about jihad terror and Sharia oppression. The SPLC is trying to further the libel that we are the other side of the coin, the non-Muslim bin Ladens and Awlakis. Until we commit any terror attacks or conspire with others to do so, however, the SPLC’s libel is only that: a libel…”
Yes, yes, entirely accurate and very well put.
We care about the welfare of real people, of individuals and go out of our way to repudiate violence and prejudice. But this is not enough for these fanatical PC organisations; what they want is submission to, and compliance with, their social fixations and radical new left prejudices.
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
An interesting interview of Lee Stranahan by InfoWars that points out the similarities between Charlottesville and the demonstrations in the Ukraine that started the Ukrainian revolution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L58T2dl997A
D Austin says
And the Neo-Nazis Obama put into power running the Ukraine have sold North Korea ICBM rocket engines and the technology to build them.
North Korea’s Missile Success Is Linked to Ukrainian Plant, Investigators Say
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/north-korea-missiles-ukraine-factory.html
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
If you don’t have access to Stone’s “Ukraine on Fire” then here’s a documentary that’s not a bad summary of what happened and what is happening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Jme77Dfc4:
Wellington says
The great and bitter irony here is that the SPLC is itself a true hate group.
Joeyn says
I think one of the most important the difference between the alt-right and most on the right is that the alt-right believes that the white race is superior to all other races while most on the right renounce that idea and instead believe that the Western culture based on the Judeo-Christian culture is superior to all other cultures. The alt-righ’s belief is wrong and dangerous. It does not promote equality among the human race and seems to suggest hopelessness among the non-white races. Thus it buys into the left’s evil agenda which is to claim that non-white people are all victims. We can change our culture but thrre is no way we can our race.
Brian Hoff says
The Daily Stronger pub on they wedsite than artile that attack that woman who die Saturday in than slanderly way. Go Daddy tolate alot of the alt right material but this went to far for go daddy. It is hightly unlikely they will be on the wed anytime soon.
UNCLE VLADDI says
Re: “We are, of course, no more “anti-Muslim” than foes of the Nazis were anti-German” … I cringe whenever I see you cringe to such leftist PC extortion, Robert. Do your lawyers advise you to do this?!
“Muslim” (a term denoting crime-gang membership) is not equivalent to “German” (nationality or even ethnicity).
They proper equivalent *might* have been “Arab,” but then these days most muslims are NOT Arabs.
So the proper equivalent synonym for “muslim” would indeed have to be “Nazi” … and you know it!
😉
D Austin says
Nazi Germany was allied with Islam during WWII. At one point during the protest, the Nazi protesters were shouting, “White Sharia Now.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2Fm26GgIec