Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Hidden Agenda of the Southern Poverty Law Center
Townhall.com ^ | April 23, 2010 | Tom Tancredo

Posted on 04/23/2010 7:48:02 AM PDT by Kaslin

With the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, many liberals exploited the actions of one deranged individual to tar millions of patriotic Americans as extremists and potential terrorists.

Bill Clinton said that it was legitimate to draw "parallels to the time running up to Oklahoma City and a lot of the political discord that exists in our country today."

The mainstream media and liberal commentators are awash with news stories like “Hate: Antigovernment extremists are on the rise—and on the march” in Newsweek.

In an excellent piece “What's behind the anti-Tea Party hate narrative?” the Washington Examiner’s Chief Washington Correspondent Byron York notes that “Many of the claims that extremism is on the rise in America originate in research done by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based group that for nearly 40 years has tracked what it says is the growing threat of intolerance in the United States.”

The SPLC is not only taken seriously by the liberal media, but also by the Department of Homeland Security. When they issued their now infamous report on “Right Wing Extremists” that warned “disgruntled” military veterans will become potential terrorists, they quoted a SPLC report entitled "A Few Bad Men" that claims racists are infiltrating the military.

Coincidentally, "A Few Bad Men" appeared as the SPLC attacked the American Legion for its support of immigration enforcement, which they called "Legionnaires' Disease."

This is indicative of what the SPLC is really about. Instead of monitoring “hate” and “extremism,” they are concerned with tarring patriotic Americans who oppose their left wing agenda as haters and extremists.

As a vocal opponent of uncontrolled immigration, I am a frequent target of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Their website contains over 60 articles that attack me.

Last year, I spoke at a college in New York State. After my speech, a student handed me one of his text books entitled Understanding Human Differences: Multicultural Education in a Diverse America. Given the title, I didn’t expect sympathetic treatment.

However, I was still shocked to see myself quoted as saying, "illegal immigrants were 'coming to kill you and kill me and our families.'"

While illegal aliens disproportionately commit violent crimes, I would never make such a blanket assertion. I contacted the publisher who gave the source as the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hysterical smear piece against the immigration control movement creatively titled "The Nativists."

The SPLC purported that I said this at a 2004 speech in Illinois. What I actually said was that our open borders policies allow terrorists to sneak into our country. And yes, terrorists want to "kill you and kill me and our families." But the SPLC’s intentional misrepresentation is now repeated across the internet and even in college textbooks.

In an excellent report put out by the Center for Immigration Studies, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jerry Kammer detailed the smear tactics used by the Southern Poverty Law Center to silence those in the immigration debate.

Kammer shows that the SPLC’s attacks on immigration control organizations were carefully coordinated with the National Council of La Raza. La Raza means “The Race” in Spanish. The SPLC recklessly listed the Federation for American Immigration Reform as a hate group, just as La Raza began its “We Can Stop the Hate” campaign aimed at pushing FAIR from being quoted by the media or testifying at Congress. FAIR’s board of advisors includes such right-wing racists as former Democratic Governor of Colorado Richard Lamm and the former head of the Congressional Black Caucus foundation Frank Morris.

Kammer shows that the SPLC even sees racism in the Lord of the Rings, which one of their columnists called “little more than a glorified vision of white patriarchy” in which the heroes “are manly men who are whiter than white” and “are frequently framed in halos of blinding bright light and exude a heavenly aura of all that is Eurocentric and good.”

The SPLC not only sees no problems with left wing racists, they also have no problem with left wing terrorists. Their “Teaching Tolerance” magazine fawningly interviewed Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, who they described merely as a "civil rights organizer, radical anti-Vietnam War activist, teacher and author" who "has developed a rich vision of teaching that interweaves passion, responsibility and self-reflection." They did not mention that Ayers set off bombs in the US Capitol, the Pentagon, and the New York City Police Department. Unrepentant, he told the New York Times in 2000 "I don't regret setting bombs…I feel we didn't do enough."

Gabrielle Lyon, a fellow with the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance project co-edited a book with William Ayers and was director of his School Change Institute at the Small Schools Workshop.

That’s the SPLC in a nutshell. The Lord of the Rings is racist, but a group called “The Race” is not. Patriotic Tea Partiers are potential terrorists, but actual terrorists like Bill Ayers are civil rights organizers.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: immigration; laraza; leftists; propaganda; radicalleft; splc; tancredo
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-44 next last
To: SmokingJoe
There is nothing hidden about their agenda.

Not true. The overwhelming majority of Americans have no clue about their real agenda.

They are out and out, loony left crazies.

No, they aren't. They're executing a clever and dangerous plan to perfection. See post #18.

21 posted on 04/23/2010 8:17:02 AM PDT by tarheelswamprat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

This group has been communist since the beginning. We need a J. Edgar around to moniter these people. Can’t believe I said that.


22 posted on 04/23/2010 8:22:31 AM PDT by Terry Mross (Founding Fathers.....grave....rolling over.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TigerBait
SPLC officers and employees need to be targeted with respect to their personal behavior ~ which has frequently not lived up to the standards they demand of others.
23 posted on 04/23/2010 8:29:31 AM PDT by muawiyah ("Git Out The Way")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: TigerBait
Hypocritical liars in every way. "Southern" (these are East coast liberals using Alabama); "Poverty" (staff are paid hundreds of thousands of $$); "Law" (a total disregard for the Constitution of the USA); "Center" (you can't get more LEFT than these whackos) - all false!

As you point out, no poverty here. The six faces of 'Senior Program Staff' at their website (only one token "person of color"?) illustrate that this organization is nothing more than a front group of marxists who seek to destroy America as we know it. Talk about sedition!

One more example of liberals accusing others of doing what they are actually doing.

24 posted on 04/23/2010 8:29:40 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: tarheelswamprat
Not true. The overwhelming majority of Americans have no clue about their real agenda

They have not been watching this guy Mark Potok, the SPLC leader, on TV then. In every single TV appearance I have seen from this lunatic in the past year, he has spewed out loony left crazy talk.

No, they aren't. They're executing a clever and dangerous plan to perfection. See post #18”

Mark Potok isn't. His craziness shows whenever he opens his mouth. Hopefully, he will continue to appear on more TV and radio programs. The more people hear him, the more they are going to dismiss whatever the SPLC says out of hand.

25 posted on 04/23/2010 8:32:43 AM PDT by SmokingJoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
Go Gettum Tom!

Morris Dees and Bull Conner really are members of the same church. They just have different pews.

26 posted on 04/23/2010 8:42:25 AM PDT by Tupelo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

There’s nothing hidden at all. Their agenda is to molest young boys and that’s pretty out in the open these days.


27 posted on 04/23/2010 8:45:57 AM PDT by The Toll
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SmokingJoe

With respect, Joe, you’re projecting. You’re assuming that others perceive and evaluate “craziness” by the same criteria as you.


28 posted on 04/23/2010 8:50:03 AM PDT by tarheelswamprat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
It is difficult for me to put my contempt for this group into words. It is first and foremost a slick direct mail operation to pull in huge amounts of money from gullible liberals. Morris Dees is a very wealthy man who lives like a king off of his success at churning out emotional direct mail about how terrible the hate situation remains in the U.S.

Facts and fairness are irrelevant to these slimebags. They just make stuff up. For example, Kevin McDonald is a professor at Cal State who has written three academic books trying to explain Jewish support for various liberal causes. I happen to disagree with him rather vehemently. But SPLC's characterization of his work is crude and unfair-- way beyond hyperbole:

McDonald published a trilogy that supposedly "proves" that Jews are genetically driven to destroy Western societies.

These people think they are entitled to mouth off without doing their homework first. Apparently they will say anything to make a buck.

29 posted on 04/23/2010 9:10:09 AM PDT by freespirited (I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise. --Robert Frost)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

man...this outfit has been a joke since forever

they used to have their defenders even here...hard to fathom but true


30 posted on 04/23/2010 9:11:05 AM PDT by wardaddy (Will adobe ever fix shockwave to work consistently?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tupelo

except Bull Conner has been dead a long time


31 posted on 04/23/2010 9:12:38 AM PDT by wardaddy (Will adobe ever fix shockwave to work consistently?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Governor expected to sign SB1070, as statewide protests continue

http://www.examiner.com/x-27364-Tucson-Progressive-Examiner~y2010m4d23-Governor-expected-to-sign-SB1070-as-statewide-protests-continue

(Wow! I wonder if this is true!)


32 posted on 04/23/2010 9:46:44 AM PDT by rosettasister
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: tarheelswamprat
Well conservative talk radio is busy taking him apart and educating the public about this Potok slime-ball, as we speak, including Michael Savage in this clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPjGazvhDWk
33 posted on 04/23/2010 10:00:58 AM PDT by SmokingJoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: rosettasister

Governor rumored to be signing immigration bill TODAY


34 posted on 04/23/2010 10:01:48 AM PDT by rosettasister
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: rosettasister

Link:

http://www.abc15.com/content/news/phoenixmetro/central/story/Governor-rumored-to-be-signing-immigration-bill/VNapFEWhCUKmnwrI1RAh3Q.cspx


35 posted on 04/23/2010 10:02:57 AM PDT by rosettasister
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: rosettasister

Open Letter to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer: Sign Arizona Bill SB 1070

http://www.borderfirereport.net/john-w.-lillpop/open-letter-to-arizona-governor-jan-brewer-sign-arizona-bill-sb-1070.php


36 posted on 04/23/2010 10:05:39 AM PDT by rosettasister
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

SPLC = Socialist Pimps Lobbying for Cash.

The biggest hate group of them all.

They hate America, patriots, the military, whites, those who believe in national sovereignty and border control, and Christians.


37 posted on 04/23/2010 10:07:01 AM PDT by SharpRightTurn (White, black, and red all over--America's affirmative action, metrosexual president.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Nothing “hidden” about these vicious, utterly dishonest black-enslaving Marxists.

Frederick Douglas and the Black Republicans would go aften these vermin with a vengence.


38 posted on 04/23/2010 10:09:04 AM PDT by FormerACLUmember (If you don't send money to Conservative/Libertarian candidates, Obama will just steal it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: freespirited
Actually it isn't. MAcDonald is a ignorant hack who believes that there is a Jewish survival strategy of destroying Christian societies. Taht this is actally liberalism, is less than 200 years old, and disproportionately hurts Jews and Judaism is as irrelevent to the hack as differences between Jewish groups he knows nothing about.
The nicest thing I can say about MacDonald is that he is too stupid to realize that his theory combined with his attacks on Israel are annihilationist antisemitism.
39 posted on 04/23/2010 10:42:25 AM PDT by rmlew (There is no such thing as a Blue Dog Democrat; just liberals who lie.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: rmlew

Have you actually read his papers and books?

As I said, I vehemently disagree with his hypothesis about Jews, but he is a serious academic and to describe him as stupid is ridiculous.

He has also done good research on other topics in psychology and on that basis alone can hardly be described as ignorant.


40 posted on 04/23/2010 11:04:50 AM PDT by freespirited (I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise. --Robert Frost)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-44 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson