Right-wing extremism flourishes in the American South

[Questionable]

The Souther Poverty Law Center released a new report (http://www.splcenter.org/home/2012/spring/the-year-in-hate-and-extremism) on Tuesday finding that “the number of conspiracy-minded antigovernment ‘Patriot’ groups reached an all-time high of 1,360 in 2012″ and that the number of hate groups has remained at “near record levels” of more than 1,000. The group is calling on (http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/SPLC-letter-.pdf) the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to increase the amount of resources devoted to tracking and combatting domestic radical anti-government groups. The SPLC says the number of “Patriot” groups (of which, 321 are militia groups) is up 7 percent (http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/SPLC-report-.pdf) from 2011 and up an incredible 813 percent since 2009. (The SPLC defines Patriot groups being comprised of conspiracy theory-minded individuals who believe the federal government is run by secret “globalists” aimed at taking away American freedoms and establishing a global world order based on socialist principles; and defines a Militia group as a paramilitary wing of the former.)
“These numbers far exceed the movement’s peak in the 1990s, when militias were inflamed by the 1993 Brady Bill and the 1994 assault rifle ban,” an SPLC press release states (http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/SPLC-report-.pdf).
SPLC Senior Fellow and lead author of the report Mark Potok said there are two main reasons why the numbers of Patriot and militia groups have skyrocketed since 2009: the election of the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama (which includes the coinciding nation-wide (http://www.americanprogress.org/projects/progress-2050/view/) demographic changes (http://articles.cnn.com/2008-08-13/us/census.minorities_1_hispanic-population-census-bureau-white-population?_s=PM:US)) and fears compounded by the economic crisis and the mainstreaming (http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/24/743791/birther-convention/) of conspiracy (http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2007/summer/paranoid-style-redux) theories (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/15/523931/republican-party-officially-embraces-garbage-agenda-21-conspiracy-theories-as-its-national-platform/). Adding fuel to the fire, Potok said in a press call on Tuesday, is Obama’s reelection and the debate on gun regulation after the shooting massacre in Newtown, CT in January.
“This is the fourth straight year of really explosive growth of Patriot and militia groups,” Potok said. “We’ve never seen this kind of growth in any group that we cover.”
SPLC President J. Richard Cohen sent a letter (http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/SPLC-letter-.pdf) to Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking that their departments increase resources to combat the problem.
“In January,” the letter says, “a former Tennessee police chief who conducts weapons training for law enforcement threatened in a video posted on YouTube to ‘start killing people’ if President Obama uses his executive power to enact gun control measures.” Cohen adds that “the resources devoted to countering domestic hate and radical antigovernment groups and those they may inspire do not appear commensurate with the threat.”
Indeed, DHS stripped down (http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/27/280665/dhs-domestic-terrorism-right-wing-pressure/) its domestic terrorism unit after Napolitano ordered a 2009 report on domestic right-wing extremism withdrawn (http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/04/19/467384/chart-right-wing-extremism-terror-threat-oklahoma-city/) because of significant political backlash from mainstream conservatives.
Daryl Johnson, the 2009 DHS report’s lead author who subsequently wrote a book chronicling his experience at DHS and its lack of focus on domestic extremists, said on Tuesday in light of SPLC’s new report that he “can’t imagine what it will take for DHS to recognize this growing and dangerous threat within the homeland,” adding that the report “should raise a red flag and cause concern.”
“As in the period before the Oklahoma City bombing, we now are seeing ominous threats from those who believe that the government is poised to take their guns,” Cohen said in the SPLC’s press release, which adds: “In October 1994, the SPLC wrote to then-Attorney General Janet Reno about the growing threat of domestic extremism; the Okla- homa City federal building was bombed six months later in the country’s deadliest act of domestic terrorism.”


http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/03/05/1675441/splc-patriot-groups-all-time-high/

[RadioRaheem84]

Good lord, this sort of parallels the way radical political Islam swept the Middle East and South Asia. The US is just as much a religiously fanatic reactionary country. Not only believing in religious myths but also nationalist secular ones too, sometimes conflated together making the US a holy nation.

This is what happens when you marginalize, destroy and suppress the left in your country. You can thank COINTELPRO, the counter-counterculture of Reagan and the Clintonian New Democrats.

Now it seems the only thing associated with dissent and anti-establishment politics is going to be right wing conspiracy-laded zealousy.

....and why "socialist principles" ? I never understood that. Why would bankers, corporate elitist and politicians in their back pocket want "socialism"? How can they take all the freedom away and make serfs out of them but then redistribute the wealth? How can you be a homeless peasant ant with no freedoms if you will have free housing, free education, a right to a job, right to unionize, and higher wages?

I mean people please help me understand their mentality if you understand it. Please because I am at my wits end trying to get their logic. Even if it doesn't make sense just how is does it make sense to them? :blink:

[Questionable]

..and why "socialist principles" ? I never understood that. Why would bankers, corporate elitist and politicians in their back pocket want "socialism"? How can they take all the freedom away and make serfs out of them but then redistribute the wealth? How can you be a homeless peasant ant with no freedoms if you will have free housing, free education, a right to a job, right to unionize, and higher wages?

I mean people please help me understand their mentality if you understand it. Please because I am at my wits end trying to get their logic. Even if it doesn't make sense just how is does it make sense to them?

It's just a simple misunderstanding of socialism. To them it doesn't mean collective ownership of the means of production or the establishment of the proletarian state, it just means big government. And big government = bad because they take their guns away.

In a way I can understand the frustration. It is the natural reaction of the workers to the perceived corruption of the bourgeois state. However, resorting to fascism is, of course, totally wrong and will not solve any of their problems.

This whole thing is really quite frightening, especially to someone who lives in the Southern US like me. We need some kind of anti-fascist fighting force in America for when things become much more serious.

[$lim_$weezy]

I am originally from a town in the deep South with a huge libertarian (von Mises specifically) following. My god I am glad I got out of there.

And yeah, I've been around people calling Obama a socialist, even my high school econ teacher thought it. It's maddening.

Edit: I guess "even" gives high school econ teachers too much credit haha

[Questionable]

And yeah, I've been around people calling Obama a socialist, even my high school econ teacher thought it. It's maddening.

Edit: I guess "even" gives high school econ teachers too much credit haha

It's not just high school, even the economics department of the college I'm enrolled in heavily biased towards neoliberalism. Their official blog on the school website does nothing but criticize any bit of government regulation that exists, and the teachers themselves regularly talk about how unions aren't necessary anymore and how corporations can govern themselves without harming anyone.

[RadioRaheem84]

It's just a simple misunderstanding of socialism. To them it doesn't mean collective ownership of the means of production or the establishment of the proletarian state, it just means big government. And big government = bad because they take their guns away.

In a way I can understand the frustration. It is the natural reaction of the workers to the perceived corruption of the bourgeois state. However, resorting to fascism is, of course, totally wrong and will not solve any of their problems.

This whole thing is really quite frightening, especially to someone who lives in the Southern US like me. We need some kind of anti-fascist fighting force in America for when things become much more serious.

But that still doesn't make sense. They believe that "big government" constitutes free education, healthcare, higher wages, and unionization, etc. How will that make them paupers without freedom?

[Hexen]

Good lord, this sort of parallels the way radical political Islam swept the Middle East and South Asia. The US is just as much a religiously fanatic reactionary country. Not only believing in religious myths but also nationalist secular ones too, sometimes conflated together making the US a holy nation.

Shit....Does this mean that the US will devolve into a Christian Fascist Theocracy in the future? I hope this isn't the case but the parallels you gave terrifyingly drew a possible accurate picture of what the US is heading towards as if history is actually repeating itself of what happened in the Middle East is going to happen in the US and the scary part there is no left to counter them special thanks to what you have listed as if the capitalists actually wants to have a extreme right wing regime to their place which is of course what Fascism is which is why they destroyed the left to preserve their system with the Right Wing fascists being their 'backup'.

I guess it's pretty clear that the US is a Christian Pre-dominated society which it's Christian part is only dormant which would become full blown in the future like Islam did in the Middle East.


But that still doesn't make sense. They believe that "big government" constitutes free education, healthcare, higher wages, and unionization, etc. How will that make them paupers without freedom?

The main problem lies with the US is the "American Dream" or i.e. Individualism, "Making it to the top" which is embedded into USian psychology which is why they hate "Big Government" because it 'interferes with individual's goal of rising to the top'.

[Questionable]

But that still doesn't make sense. They believe that "big government" constitutes free education, healthcare, higher wages, and unionization, etc. How will that make them paupers without freedom?

The thing is, these people dont' know that socialism means free education, healthcare, better working conditions and the like. Take for example my grandmother, whom I love dearly, when I mentioned socialism to her she warned me that it was the system where "the government rules everything and can fire you whenever they want."

Socialism doesn't mean progress these people. It just means total state control. You can thank the USA's massive propaganda campaign against socialism during the Cold War for this legacy.

[Hexen]

The thing is, these people dont' know that socialism means free education, healthcare, better working conditions and the like. Take for example my grandmother, whom I love dearly, when I mentioned socialism to her she warned me that it was the system where "the government rules everything and can fire you whenever they want."

Socialism doesn't mean progress these people. It just means total state control. You can thank the USA's massive propaganda campaign against socialism during the Cold War for this legacy.

The main point from the USian psychology, they see themselves as Bourgeoisie and the their fears of "Big Government" "State control everything" reflects to the bourgeois fears of workers control from them (i.e. the "Individual") which is adopted by the lower classes in the US who see themselves as "Rising to the top" or the "Path of becoming Bourgeoisie".

[Questionable]

The main point from the USian psychology, they see themselves as Bourgeoisie and the their fears of "Big Government" "State control everything" reflects to the bourgeois fears of workers control from them (i.e. the "Individual") which is adopted by the lower classes in the US who see themselves as "Rising to the top" or the "Path of becoming Bourgeoisie".

I'm not sure if I agree with this. I honestly can't think of a single American worker who views his interests as identical to the bourgeoisie, except for a few Libertarians. Most workers I've met are aware that there is a difference between the haves and the have-nots in this country, they just don't know any channel with which to vent their frustrations. Socialism and communism aren't viewed as solutions because the massive ideological campaign waged by the US government against them has made most Americans associate the term with dictatorships, so they either cling to reformism, resign to defeat, or in this case, seek out the far-right, whose populist slogans appeal to frustrated workers during times of crisis.

[RadioRaheem84]

Then why do these Americans flip out at the thought of universal healthcare, free education and taxing the rich? Whenever someone proposes any of these measures the Tea Party crowd flips out!

How can people really have that skewed of a view of socialism? I mean even when I was a liberal my view of socialism wasn't this bad. It borders on real deal insanity. No joke. Any casual study of it will at least give you a positive view of it, even if you confuse it with social democracy.

I am thinking that people do not even have a basic foundation of history, politics or economics. That's scary :crying:! How can you reason with that level of deep ignorance?

[Os Cangaceiros]

The SPLC are a bunch of hysterics. For one, I don't believe that there are, on average, almost 30 anti-government militias or Patriot groups or whatever in every state in the USA ("up an incredible 813 percent since 2009!"). Number two, the whole notion of "calling on Homeland Security" to do anything really rubs me the wrong way.

[Green Girl]

It's just a simple misunderstanding of socialism.

I agree with this and almost everything you have said in this thread. The American people in general don't have a clue what REAL socialism is. Many I have talked to think that socialism is the state owning everything, paying the workers as little as possible and keeping the rest for the government bureaucrats, politicians, and their rich friends. They also believe that socialism is slavery, in that the state tells one what courses one takes in school, based on test results not interest. They believe the state will tell them what job they must work at. They believe that they will have to get permission from the state to move or even travel to another city. They believe there will be a curfew and that anyone on the street after curfew will be shot. Most of all they believe the state will take their guns. And why do they believe all of this? Because that is what they believed happened in the USSR, and some of it really did.

And worse yet is that many believe under communism that the state can kill anyone who doesn't produce enough at work, or complains about working conditions. Or kill anyone who talks against the state or any elected officials. Even after telling them the truth, most still have these beliefs about socialism, preferring the lies of their conservative leaders instead.

And this is the reason the right wing is afraid of "big government" as the false conservative created definition of "socialism" scares them to death, so they fight every government program even if it is beneficial to them. There have been Tea Party marches with signs saying "Don't socialize my Medicare." Since Medicare is a social program that further proves that the right wing have no clue what socialism is.

In the USA both the words Socialism and Communism have been heavily tarnished. I don't think either term will bring a workers revolution. That is why I like the Venus Project's (http://www.thevenusproject.com/) Resource based economy that does away with money and provides abundance for all of Earth's inhabitants. Communism by another name that I believe would be positively embraced by most Americans.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think the growth of the right-wing is mearly part of greater polarization in the US due to the economic instability. I think if you look at consiousness, you'd probably find a growth in more radical left ideas as well. Historically this happens in times of social or economic crisis.

I'm not sure if I agree with this. I honestly can't think of a single American worker who views his interests as identical to the bourgeoisie, except for a few Libertarians. Most workers I've met are aware that there is a difference between the haves and the have-nots in this country, they just don't know any channel with which to vent their frustrations. Socialism and communism aren't viewed as solutions because the massive ideological campaign waged by the US government against them has made most Americans associate the term with dictatorships, so they either cling to reformism, resign to defeat, or in this case, seek out the far-right, whose populist slogans appeal to frustrated workers during times of crisis.

Yeah I really think a lot of these views of an overwhelmingly conservative population are over-represented by both the right and the left. Really it's that the people who supported the "New Right" buy into the idea that they are the "real americans" and the other 80% of the country have also come to believe this! But IMO it's not the actual numbers and views of the population that make one side louder and more confident than the other, it's that the right feels bold and is encouraged to demand a sort of reactionary "maximum program" while the left is always encouraged by the Dems to "moderate" and "compromise". It is also, and fundamentally, a difference in organizational abilities. The right has spent the entire time since the 1960s creating structures and organizations that mobilize people and create propaganda. Since the New Left got pushed back and most fell back into the orbit of the Democratic party, it's been the opposite, Left groups have de-organized, de-emphazied grassroots organizing, and focused on lobbying not propaganda or mobilizations. The unions de-empahsize shop-floor intiatives and power to negotiate behind closed doors with the bosses, meanhwhile the right has been popularizing anti-union ideas and building a base of support for their elitist and undemocratic project.

If the supporters of UNIVERSAL healthcare all spit at once, they could drown all the tea-party supporters. Or, a real example: while the Tea-Party was represneted in the media as the "voice of the people" in the US and unionists as anrchaic pariahs, the Tea Party even with the support of a TV network couldn't muster a counter-protest in Wisconsin when union supporters occupied - the tea partiers were chased out and drown out.

So the far-right is loud, but is only "dominant" because of a lack of independant organization by workers on the left. I think Occupy and Wisconsin show that if people become more confident and can organize something around these much more numerically popular concerns and politics, then a movement can build and spread rapidly... and without funding from the Koch brothers.

[Hexen]

In the USA both the words Socialism and Communism have been heavily tarnished. I don't think either term will bring a workers revolution. That is why I like the Venus Project's (http://www.thevenusproject.com/) Resource based economy that does away with money and provides abundance for all of Earth's inhabitants. Communism by another name that I believe would be positively embraced by most Americans.

Of course trying to come up with a another name for socialism/communism would be like telling someone what they're really eating which they'll gag and throw up meaning they'll send into a panic and "Change it back the way it was". It's best to be honest and educate people.

[Thelonious]

There is one thing that has always been able to unite every right-wing southern cracker: Good Old Fashioned American Racism. I believe the one true reason for the rise in "conspiracy-minded antigovernment Patriot groups'" (sic) is because there is a black president. Sure, some of them are worked up over proposed ant-gun legislation; some of them are cringing over Obama's healthcare plan; but the one thing they all have in common is that they are people who have had racism passed down to them through the generations. Racism is not natural. It has to be learned. Racism does not spring from a vacuum.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Of course trying to come up with a another name for socialism/communism would be like telling someone what they're really eating which they'll gag and throw up meaning they'll send into a panic and "Change it back the way it was". It's best to be honest and educate people.No to mention that ANY name we give it would then just become as tarnished if the Psudonym-ist movement gained any ground.

Until there are new movements, we'll probably always have Stalinism and the failures of Social-Democracy as a shaddow over our efforts to some degree. But really I think the negative connotations are a mile wide and an inch thick. The type of propaganda they use only works as well as it does because no one (in the US anyway) has much familiarity with what a workers movement based on these ideas would actually be like. It's like with Islamophobic propaganda: they can get away with these rediculous racist myths of people acting like "savages" with "no culture" only because most Americans are kept pretty ignorent of people in the rest of the world.

[Hexen]

I'm not sure if I agree with this. I honestly can't think of a single American worker who views his interests as identical to the bourgeoisie, except for a few Libertarians. Most workers I've met are aware that there is a difference between the haves and the have-nots in this country, they just don't know any channel with which to vent their frustrations. Socialism and communism aren't viewed as solutions because the massive ideological campaign waged by the US government against them has made most Americans associate the term with dictatorships, so they either cling to reformism, resign to defeat, or in this case, seek out the far-right, whose populist slogans appeal to frustrated workers during times of crisis.

Well I explained before what the "American Dream" was which is about the goal of rising to the top which is embedded in USian psychology hence they tend to see themselves as either future bourgeoisie-to-be to be or "failures" as in them ending up in poverty.

[RadioRaheem84]

The SPLC are a bunch of hysterics. For one, I don't believe that there are, on average, almost 30 anti-government militias or Patriot groups or whatever in every state in the USA ("up an incredible 813 percent since 2009!"). Number two, the whole notion of "calling on Homeland Security" to do anything really rubs me the wrong way.

I agree that the SPLC has a tendency to overstate certain trends among right wing America and call on the government to quash them right away. I dislike this tendency in this group.

[Questionable]

Well I explained before what the "American Dream" was which is about the goal of rising to the top which is embedded in USian psychology hence they tend to see themselves as either future bourgeoisie-to-be to be or "failures" as in them ending up in poverty.

I know you explained it. I just don't think it's true that the majority of American workers possess bourgeois conciousness. Many of them possess basic, unrefined class consciousness which at its underdeveloped state can easily be snatched up by far-right movements, which is why we need to be mobilizing now.

[Winkers Fons]

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say there are 30 militias in every southern state. They may not be very large, but they exist. For example, I know of at least one in my city. Funnily enough, I was asked to join because a friend of mine is in it and he knows that I am a radical (though he doesn't understand the specifics of my viewpoints). I've talked to a few of the members and they are mostly Christian patriot types. They say "we are not anti-government, we just don't like the one in office at the moment". Judging by their facebook page, there are certainly some racists in the group.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

7 percent from 2011 and up an incredible 813 percent since 2009

:ohmy:

Only goes to show that economic collapses like 2009 radicalize the working class in reactionary and non-rational ways. Now that growth has merely stagnating the last 2 and 1/2 years there hasn't been such a dramatic increase. We can only hope that the Euro crisis will not reach a heightened stage and that the Euro remains as a unified currency. Luckily, so far all four southern EU Depression Countries have had elections within the last year that have all created governments that will keep up the status quo (Italy not so sure, but highly likely).

This means that the Communists in Europe (and globally) most likely have at least three years of Euro continuity and political crisis "stability", to successfully form one United Workers' Party in their countries. Three years to serve the rest of the stably-stagnating-but-not-crisis advanced capitalist world as a practical showcase and theoretical instrument with which the Left can be united in the not-yet-crisis countries.

[RadioRaheem84]

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say there are 30 militias in every southern state. They may not be very large, but they exist. For example, I know of at least one in my city. Funnily enough, I was asked to join because a friend of mine is in it and he knows that I am a radical (though he doesn't understand the specifics of my viewpoints). I've talked to a few of the members and they are mostly Christian patriot types. They say "we are not anti-government, we just don't like the one in office at the moment". Judging by their facebook page, there are certainly some racists in the group.

What a bunch of hypocrites then. Under Bush two wars were started and all the new executive orders were unleashed under the Patriot Act. Where were they then? Their racism toward Obama can be just too transparent.

[Sea]

The SPLC are a bunch of hysterics. For one, I don't believe that there are, on average, almost 30 anti-government militias or Patriot groups or whatever in every state in the USA ("up an incredible 813 percent since 2009!"). Number two, the whole notion of "calling on Homeland Security" to do anything really rubs me the wrong way.They could be splintering like mad, or maybe I'm just an optimist.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

I am originally from a town in the deep South with a huge libertarian (von Mises specifically) following. My god I am glad I got out of there.

And yeah, I've been around people calling Obama a socialist, even my high school econ teacher thought it. It's maddening.

Edit: I guess "even" gives high school econ teachers too much credit haha
Yeah I'm pretty sure I know where you're talking about, and it's a shit hole.



I know you explained it. I just don't think it's true that the majority of American workers possess bourgeois conciousness. Many of them possess basic, unrefined class consciousness which at its underdeveloped state can easily be snatched up by far-right movements, which is why we need to be mobilizing now.
This is my experience. Most of the people I've worked with, mostly the older folks who've been struggling their whole lives but younger ones, too, they seem to understand that there's a fundamental conflict of interest between the workers and the boss, the rich and the poor. I don't really recall meeting anyone in my entire working career who believed they would be rich one day ... I have met a handful of people who believe that the interests of the rich are of utmost importance, because they believe that will somehow benefit everyone else. I blame Reagan.

[TomHPMc]

Thank god I live in England, atleast our fanatics don't have guns!