Liberal Hate Groups Don't Exist

[otohara]

I was watching Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project this AM, discussing the new report about the rise in "right-wing hate groups" since 2009 and it got me thinking.

As much as we despised Bush, his stolen election, illegal wars, stupidity - we didn't go out and form militias, much less shoot anyone. like these twisted freaks.

One more reason, I'm proud to be a LIBERAL!

February 23, 2011

A new study by the Southern Poverty Law Center describes a big rise in hate groups across the country.

By its count, there are now more than 1,000 active extremist groups in the U.S. Experts say the largest increase comes from militias that consider the federal government their enemy.

Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the law center, has been studying hate groups for a long time. But Potok says even he was surprised when he started counting extremists for his annual report.

"We have absolutely explosive growth of these groups in 2009," Potok says. "And what we have now found is that that growth continued through 2010. We have a higher hate group count than we've ever had."http://www.npr.org/2011/02/23/133970226/new-report-higher-hate-group-count-than-ever

[booley]

1. But the right will say we do anyway

Hell I've heard them call the SPLC a hate group. Not to mention unions and Acorn and planned parenthood. IF it's considered left of centre in nay way, you will find someone on the right calling it a hate group and claiming it advocates violence.

Why? Because they need to. Because if we are violent then it justifies violence against us.

The right has been gorging itself on fear for years. You cant' be afraid if your 'enemy" isn't really your enemy.

[glinda]

3. I will take this a step further. Texas' push for guns at centers of Higher

Education will ensure the further promotion of hate Groups or actions by individuals against those Professors or educators that they see as "opposing their conservative and extreme viewpoint". This will further the "fear" of academic teaching. It will push the public even more into being fearful and/or acting out on their "hate".
Which brings up the point that how do you actually tell then if someone has the intention of a shooting if they are all carrying guns. Stupid. Just creates a paranoid environment.

[wiggs]

32. Important. This is at the heart of the political dynamic we see today yet

it is allowed to stand. SO much misinformation comes from the right. The merits of issues are not debated, really...issues are decided on political positions defined by lies and perception which are in turn created by 24/7 media blitz by the RW.

The left is correct on the issues (poll after poll will reflect this...on individual issues, the public generally stands with the progressive position). The right defeats that advantage by lying, smearing, polarization, hate.

[booley]

36. yes but what are we going to do about it?

Yes the right lies and misleads. A lot of people I have found who call themselves conservatives actually hold liberal beliefs.

The issue we face is how do we get them to realize that.

We can't lie ourselves. It only hurts our cause.

Ironically even if we were to advocate violence, it would strengthen the conservative mind set and again we would lose.

So what do we do?

[Prophet 451]

37. Of course they will

It's the same thing as how they've rewritten history so they can believe (and they really do believe it) that the left was as bad or worse to Bush as the right is being to Obama. The entire conservative movement no longer lives in reality, they live in a self-manufactured bubble of self-justifying lies.

[RandomThoughts]

2. That was posted on before.

The group is scattered, it is not bigger.

Basically the 'hate group' had a firm hierarchical structure with some actions, both private and public, the current effects is from the scattering of the top of that group, it broke them into many smaller groups.

They were always there, they were just supporting through a hierarchy, now some are forming other smaller groups.

I would say they are smaller in totality and capability, even if their are more groups.

[steve2470]

4. You are very correct. Not even the Communists, to my knowledge, advocate violence nt

[Shagbark Hickory]

17. Communists advocate equality. By definition, there is no hate groups.

Don't confuse communists with an evil dictator.
And do not confuse communism with nazism as they are very very very different.

[steve2470]

19. very correct

Hitler (fascist) was very right-wing. Communism is defined as "left wing".

[Shagbark Hickory]

22. So if you looked at a kind of scale of who hates the most...

least hateful <--+communists+-------+democrats+--+republicans--------+nazis+--> most hateful

[steve2470]

23. I would agree with that, yes nt

[stillwaiting]

41. Yes. Since Hitler killed communists, socialists, trade unionists, etc. it seems impossible

that anyone could possibly think that the Nazi's were anything but fascists.

RW'ers live in a world of their own making, and it's certainly not based in reality.

[Shagbark Hickory]

44. Wellll.,Technically...

Nazi= National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

SOME socialist policies but still with wealthy & powerful at the top.

[stillwaiting]

46. That's like saying the Clean Air Act actually promotes clean air.

Or, the Healthy Forests Initiative promotes healthy forests. Or, the Patriot Act is patriotic. It's a name and a label that powerful individuals often use to hoodwink the masses.

Hitler clearly used the "Socialist"/"Worker" part of the party's name to gain the trust of the people.

The fact that he DID round up and kill actual socialists and trade unionists kind of exposes Hitler's true worldview I'd think. Many socialists were killed in the Nazi camps simply because they were socialists. The Holocaust Museum in D.C. does a wonderful job recounting this history.

N'est-ce pas?

[steve2470]

48. + 1 nt

[Shagbark Hickory]

53. Right, I'm not saying hitler didn't do that.

My point was that name is how people could think the nazis where something other than fascists.

Maybe I went back a little earlier in time to make that point.

[Very_Boring_Name]

56. It was a misnomer. There was nothing socialist about Nazism.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Pacifist Patriot]

12. Are you kidding?

[JVS]

20. Come on, we all know the SPLC is all about the money.

;-)

[tpsbmam]

18. Oy. Where have I heard this thinking before. Ahhhhh, I remember. BecKKK. Ta! nt

[arbusto_baboso]

24. Yep, the freeptards are thick here, lately.

[gratuitous]

25. Do you have a source that will gainsay the SPLC?

I'd be anxious to hear about any liberal-identified groups that parallel the gun-toting "blood of the patriots" whackos that were in such open attendance at Tea Bagger rallies over the last couple of years. Certainly any number of anti-war groups were infiltrated by stool pigeons and police plants, many arrests were made, but oddly very few people went to jail except on trespassing or similarly non-violent charges.

I eagerly await your detailed response, Metryguy.

[gratuitous]

38. Gone without a trace

Oh well, I think he cracked double figures in posts, which has to count for something in his sad little world. Cheetohs up, everyone!

[JoePhilly]

27. Consider the source .... bwhahahahahaha!!

Yes, the SPLC is evil!!!

:rofl:

[nomb]

6. My reading of the title made me think I'd finally see one listed! n't

[dkofos]

7. At least not since bush left office.

[otohara]

31. Code Pink?

who else?

[eridani]

47. Has Code Pink ever advocated shooting anyone? n/t

[NoPasaran]

8. This just makes me think that liberals have poor organizational skills

I read some pretty hateful things on DU and other left sites. But it doesn't seem to have graduated from theory to practice.

[librechik]

39. Organizing is too much like authoritarianism--liberals have an instinct to reject

authority, which you would have to seize or at least fake in oeder to organize. I think we can get over it, but it would be counter-instinctive, and rather difficult. When the motivation is there, we'll do it. Like Wisconsin.

[el_bryanto]

9. One monkey wrench - some environmental groups have done sabotage

Bryant

[Pacifist Patriot]

13. Can sabotage on the part of an environmentalist group render them a hate group though?

[el_bryanto]

26. Depends on definition of hate group and the degree of the sabotage

I would generally say no, now that i think about it

[tpsbmam]

34. The SPLC does list some environmental & animal rights groups.

And they're right to do so. These are the groups that have destroyed labs, set fire to buildings, etc. No better if you're doing it for a cause on the left than it is a right-wing cause.

Edited to add this from the SPLC:

A draft internal document from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that was obtained this spring by The Congressional Quarterly lists the only serious domestic terrorist threats as radical animal rights and environmental groups like the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front. But for all the property damage they have wreaked, eco-radicals have killed no one — something that most definitely cannot be said of the white supremacists and others who people the American radical right.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2005/summer/terror-from-the-right-0

(emphasis mine)

[Raine]

54. True. Those groups have killed NO ONE and the intent

has NEVER been to kill anyone, something that the RW can't truthfully ever say. The RW nutz always threaten people with the intent to not just harm but to actually kill them (main target ... liberals).

[pampango]

10. If we believe in multiculturalism, at whom would we target a hate group?

:)

[Pacifist Patriot]

14. Fair point!

[Robb]

33. Nailed it. nt

[peopleb4money]

45. Yah, liberals are either pc, pussy pacifists or they're violent extremists

They need to make up their minds

[steve2470]

50. enjoy your stay here nt

[pampango]

57. If you don't believe in multiculturalism, just say so. What's with the stereotyping?

Are you a pro-"monoculturalism" liberal? Isn't that a rather small club?

[BrklynLiberal]

11. True. And the RWingnuts know exactly how to take advantage of that..and

how to harness the RWingnut hate groups to do their dirty work for them.

[JVS]

15. Maybe we need some.

Tap into the primal emotion that is hate.

[JCMach1]

35. Anger is an energy!

[JoePhilly]

16. In their minds, when you disagree with them, by definition, you hate them.

That's how they see the world.

[arbusto_baboso]

21. Parts of the Radical Right consider the SPLC a "liberal hate group".

They're complete full of liquefied pig shit, of course, but it's what they will say.

[otohara]

28. After This Report

there will be death threats to SPLC!

They went fucking nuts over the report that Bush ordered, but came out when Obama took over and said the same thing.

[arbusto_baboso]

29. I fear you are correct.

And it may not end with threats to the SPLC, either. The violent right is becoming bolder and more brazen.

[stillwaiting]

42. Many of them discount them and think they're discredited simply because they have access to funds.

They think that you have to be dirt poor to advocate for the poor or else you're a hypocrite.

All I can do is shake my head in wonder and amazement at them.

[madamesilverspurs]

30. And what remarkable irony

that progressives/liberals/democrats are routinely called "haters" on rightwing blogs. Apparently, their dictionary defines a hater as 'anyone who disagrees with us, especially if that person is smarter than we are.'


-

[Jmaxfie1]

40. To be fair, White Aryan Resistance considers itself Left. n/t

[tabasco]

49. Source?

Thanks!

Standing by.

[Jmaxfie1]

51. here's a few hope it helps

"See, I’m a leftist. I’m not a rightist. I hate the transnational corporations far more than any black person.” - Tom Metzger (founder of WAR)


http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3447100157.html">Article: White Aryan Resistance (WAR)


http://books.google.com/books?id=dDOW75aJMR8C&pg=PA519&lpg=PA519&dq=tom+metzger+left-wing&source=bl&ots=st6HuM7fCm&sig=5WIzLieGd0MCkvIUvkUj3bZ0tb4&hl=en&ei=R8NlTc6jLMGBlAfUtqDdBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=tom%20metzger%20left-wing&f=false">book

list of some nazi's favorite shows and his descriptions

[tabasco]

58. LOL! Awesome links.

Now explain to me what liberal policies this group espouses?

Equality?
Liberal democracy?
Fair elections?
Rule of law?

Standing by.

[Jmaxfie1]

52. But your right, there are no liberal hate groups, only some loony toon racist left hate groups

That's what make liberalism such a great thing!

[steve2470]

59. ???? nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

43. Is this one of the reasons that rightwing hate groups are emboldened? n/t

[old mark]

55. YES! I see this frequently - The right thinks they will have a violent overthrow

of the government in maybe a week or so, and kill "liberals" while we stand by and wring our hands in despair. The right seems to think they are the only ones capable of anger and that none of us will fight back otner than verbally...

I have seen several RW posts stating people took note of those "liberals" who dared to have Democratic political signs on their property or on their cars, so when their "big day" comes they will know where to go to start killing us.

I really believe it is time we started to get together and fight them rather than each other...We can go back to name calling and disparraging other leftists after we win...but we have to take those people seriously.


mark