Yesterday Jihad Watch reported that the Department of Defense had dropped the SPLC after for some time using its materials on “extremism.” It’s about time. So many upstanding counter-terrorism experts and organizations (including Jihad Watch) have been demonized and called “hate groups” by this “demagogic bully” organization that won’t classify Antifa as a hate group.
It was because of the unjust “hate smear” by the SPLC that Jihad Watch was briefly banned by PayPal. Robert Spencer pointed out earlier this month:
The problem is not so much that the Southern Poverty Law Center libels and defames me and others who are calling attention to the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat. The problem is that the establishment media uniformly acts as if the SPLC were an impartial and reliable arbiter of what constitutes a “hate group” and what does not. Yet there is no evidence whatsoever that the SPLC is anything but a smear machine in service of a hard-Left, pro-jihad agenda.
We hope that more organizations will come to recognize the level of gross politicking by the SPLC and distance themselves from this group, as the DOD has done, as well as the FBI.
Recently, D. James Kennedy Ministries filed a defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center. Best wishes to D. James Kennedy Ministries. The SPLC can certainly afford to pay out some compensation, given its extraordinary wealth. It was discovered that in 2015, SPLC spent $20 million on salaries, but only $61,000 on legal services, “despite boasting of a staff of 75 lawyers for the purpose of litigating on behalf of ‘children’s rights, economic justice, immigrant justice, LGBT rights, and criminal justice reform.’”
“EXCLUSIVE: DOD Drops SPLC From Extremism Training Materials”, by Jonah Bennett, The Daily Caller, October 2, 2017:
The Pentagon has officially severed all ties to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) after previously relying on the group’s training materials on extremism.
Brian J. Field, assistant U.S. attorney from the Civil Division, stated that the Department of Defense (DOD) Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity removed any and all references to the SPLC in training materials used by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI), in an email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation from the Department of Justice.
The DEOMI is a DOD school founded to fight segregation and inequality that teaches courses in racial, gender and religious equality, among other subject areas like equal opportunity and pluralism. The courses are available to DOD civilians and service members……..
Interestingly, DEOMI still makes use of materials on “Hate Symbols” from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a group similar to the SPLC.
Students at DEOMI use the Hate Symbols reference on the ADL site to “learn more about gang colors or clothing; hate group tattoos and body markings associated with such gangs.”
As a matter of policy, the DOD does not have an official list of hate groups.
In early 2014, the Pentagon told CNS Newsthat while it would remove information on hate groups provided by the SPLC, it would continue to rely on SPLC data in “non-federal reference material” for DEOMI. It appears that the DOD’s DEOMI has now decided to sever ties with the SPLC, as DEOMI is the only sub-branch of the Pentagon with any records of SPLC materials.
The Pentagon’s decision to terminate its relationship with the SPLC comes at a time when the group has under major fire from conservative organizations, particularly in the form of lawsuits.
D. James Kennedy Ministries, a Christian ministry from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., recently sued the SPLC after being labeled a hate group. The SPLC has also faced criticism from liberals. In late August, anti-Muslim extremism activist and feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali argued in The New York Times that “the S.P.L.C. is an organization that has lost its way, smearing people who are fighting for liberty and turning a blind eye to an ideology and political movement that has much in common with Nazism.”
For Ali, corporations and donors in Hollywood “need to find more trustworthy and deserving partners to work with than the SPLC.”
Notably, the Pentagon is not the only federal agency to drop the SPLC.
In February, The Daily Caller News Foundation published an exclusive piece indicating that the FBI, which formerly used the SPLC as a “hate crimes resource,” has also been distancing itself from the group.
The SPLC did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation by press time.
Ricky says
They are worthy adversaries the Marxist march against our country rolls on
mortimer says
SPLC is a purveyor of colorful adjectives, unfounded slanders and opinions.
The Department of Defense, on the other hand, cannot operate on the basis of unfounded slanders. They must have solid researched facts as the basis for sound government policies.
SPLC is a postmodernist political thinktank shovelling what the Frankfurt School (of cultural Marxism) termed the CRITICAL THEORY. That claptrap is not a valid ‘THEORY’ at all, but a TECHNIQUE of SLANDERING opponents of Marxism to discount any valid and rational things they might have to say in order to stop the public from listening to them.
Military doctrine is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS if it is based on SUBJECTIVES IDEAS such as the so-called ‘critical theory’ which in fact is simply ‘CRITICISM OF NON-MARXISTS’, and nothing besides that.
The SPLC should be sued by all the people and institutions they have slandered.
WorkingClassPost says
So their list of users is getting shorter, at last.
But they’re not too bothered, because they still have their prized list of ‘hate groups’, and their even more highly prized list of financial donors.
gravenimage says
Department of Defense’s booting of the SPLC is long overdue
……………………..
God knows, this is true. Glad to see it now, though.
Valkyrie Ziege says
; Ah, some sanity has entered the Department of Defence,
may it spread to the entire world.
Valkyrie Ziege says
; Ooops, I meant “defense”.
This place needs an “edit” option.
Rob says
WOW!!!! Proof that at least one person in the U.S. federal government still possess a functioning brain cell! Better delayed than never at all.
Mike says
Didn’t I read somewhere that SPLC was started, or is run by a person of the Jewish persuasion. And their front is “helping” our black people! Come on…really?