I received this email from an AP reporter in Montgomery this morning:
Mike: This is Bob Johnson at the Associated Press in Montgomery. The Southern Poverty Law Center is at 11 a.m. issuing their annual report on dangerous groups and militias. I wante to see if maybe I could get some comments from you when it comes out. Looking for someone who can give the other side for the SPLC.Bob Johnson
Here is the resulting story.
Now I had difficulty finding the report at first and asked Johnson to send it to me, He sent me a rough draft of his story. My responses are interspersed throughout.
-----Original Message-----From: Johnson, Bob bjohnson@ap.orgTo: GeorgeMason1776 GeorgeMason1776@aol.comSent: Tue, Mar 5, 2013 12:40 pmSubject: Emailing story: BC-US--Extremist Groups, 1st Ld-WritethruHere’s what we already have on the wire about the SPLC report. Please send me your comments and how you would like to be referred to in the story.Researchers report dramatic rise in ‘patriot’ groups after school shooting sparks gun debateBy BOB JOHNSON, Associated PressDateline: MONTGOMERY, Ala.President Barack Obama's administration and the gun control debate after the Connecticut school shooting have led to surging numbers of anti-government “patriot” groups, according to a civil rights group that tracks extremist groups.
The language used -- "anti-government 'patriot' groups -- is itself a lie. Only the wildest of anarchists are "anti-government." The Constitutional militia movement, of which I have been a leader for more than twenty years, is not "anti-government." We are pro-government, of the sort that the Founders would recognize -- small, of limited powers, reflecting the sentiments of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights that merely secure and codify natural, inalienable and God-given rights. In our view the present administration and its supporters inhabit a fundamentally alien world view to that of the Founders and ourselves -- they believe that the people serve the government whereas we believe that the government should serve the people. To the extent that the present administration continues to exhibit appetites for our liberty, property and lives we certainly oppose them, and organize with an eye to confront them if forced to, but we are NOT "anti-government." What we seek is not to coerce anyone to our point of view but merely to be left alone. Since the growing tyrannical appetites of the Obama administration (and others before it) as demonstrated by the so-called "Obamacare" law and the current rush to disarm the citizenry are evident for all to see, it is hardly an accident that people who they seek to victimize would object and organize themselves to resist.The second part of the lie is to characterize a grab-bag of groups with contradictory aims and methods (even groups that consider each other as philosophical enemies) -- into one so-called movement. By conflating people and groups together as "extremists" with an alleged common purpose, SPLC gets to exaggerate, for the purposes of fund-raising, a threat which does not exist.
The Southern Poverty Law Center reported the rising numbers on Tuesday in its annual report on extremist groups.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. For the reasons set out above, there certainly is a rise in self-defense militias around the country, but the SPLC hasn't got a single clue as to how deep and broad that movement is because no one with any sense, after the experiences of the 1990s, is using the old paradigm of publicly-announced militia formations. Today's groups are small, quiet, made up of friends, relatives and neighbors on a local, even neighborhood, basis, and thus are immune to federal snitches, agents provocateur and even knowledge of the FBI or of SPLC. Actually, SPLC knows this but since it does not fit with their fund-raising strategy, they pretend an omniscience that simply does not exist.
The number of anti-government patriot groups, one category tracked by the center, rose dramatically over the past four years, from 149 groups in 2008 to 1,360 today, researchers reported. That was up about 7 percent from the 1,274 active in 2011.
This is a wild under-estimation.
The election and re-election of the nation's first black president and the rugged economy have fueled their growth, said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the SPLC. “The anger, angst, frustration, fear surrounding the economy have very much poured fuel on this fire,” Potok said.
This fits with the collectivist sociology theories of SPLC and its intellectual brethren but how does it explain the growth of black self-defense militias? There is certainly concern that the present untenable government spending and printing of money will collapse into social chaos, but Obama being half-black has nothing to do with the growth of the armed citizenry. This is one more example of how present-day so-called progressives are reflexively obsessed themselves with race (and why they feel it necessary to conflate true racist terrorist groups like the Klan and NeoNazis with groups like ourselves who believe that the Constitution extends to everyone regardless of race, creed, color or religion). In their obsession with race, SPLC and others would put a 1930s Nazi gauleiter of Lower Swabia in the shade. It is their ultimate weapon, when out-argued, to cry racism and point fingers.
On gun control, the debate following the Newtown, Conn., mass murder of schoolchildren has led to “a kind of white-hot rage unleashed on both the radical right and also within more mainstream political circles,” he said.
"White-hot rage"? I don't see it. The administration has declared its appetite for more of our property and liberty. It is natural to oppose this grab but we cannot afford "white-hot rage." We're lining up to flout their new laws with carefully considered armed civil disobedience. If we were motivated into a "white hot rage" professional liars like Potok could not walk the streets of Montgomery in safety.
In the week following the Dec. 14 school shooting, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it conducted more background checks for firearms sales and permits to carry than it has in any other one-week period since 1998.
Yes, certainly. And what do you conclude from this fact? Do the advocates of citizen disarmament believe that we are buying all these weapons and billions of rounds of ammunition merely to turn them in with the passage of the next law? We are not.
Some critics believe the SPLC is too broad in labeling hate and extremist groups, to the point of including legitimate political organizations that oppose illegal immigration, gun control, gay rights and other issues. The center's researchers say they use a variety of methods to track anti-government groups and compile their list from field reports, patriot publications, law enforcement sources and news reports. Potok said only active groups are included. “We are not just looking at one man and a computer,” he said.
The SPLC's symbiotic relationship with the militarized federal police agencies is a matter of record -- and it is a relationship which they profit from by numerous so-called "hate group seminars" that propagandize their world view to federal, state and local law enforcement. You may recall that SPLC defended the ATF at the time of the "Good O' Boys Roundup" scandal, when Alabama militia exposed their racist get-togethers which involved disgusting conduct such as the issuance of "nigger hunting licenses" and skits like one entitled "The Birth of the Black Race" which involved the "magical" appearance of a black baby doll from inside a watermelon. Disgusting stuff, but Morris Dee, in a story by Fox Butterfield in the New York Times, alleged that the Gadsden Minutemen's videotape was a forgery. It wasn't, as later proven by the FBI lab, but it WAS proof that SPLC is a willing handmaiden to government racists when it suits their agenda. Pretty ironic, huh?
The report states: “Generally, Patriot groups define themselves as opposed to the 'New World Order,' engage in groundless conspiracy theorizing, or advocate or adhere to extreme anti-government doctrines.”
"Groundless conspiracy theorizing" such as the Fast and Furious scandal, for example? Under the SPLC definition of "extreme anti-government doctrines," the Founders would have made their list.
The FBI defines military extremists as anti-government groups often organized into paramilitary groups that follow a military-style rank hierarchy and typically engage in wilderness, survival, or other paramilitary training, according to a September 2011 FBI report on domestic terrorism.
Yeah, well under that definition local search and rescue teams are "military extremists."
Along with the rise of extremist groups, Potok said there have been several home-grown terrorist plots against government buildings and leaders in recent months. He compared the climate to time leading up to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
The propaganda of collectivists like SPLC is certainly the same, as is the government's militarized police actions, brought to fever pitch by the last three administrations and the so-called "war on terror." The only difference this time is that there will be no more free Wacos. SPLC and the administration know this and they are counting on SPLC's lying narrative to prepare the battlefield of a civil war they are apparently seeking in national and world opinion. The SPLC thus remains one of the most faithful lapdogs of federal tyranny.
The report cites several cases, including one centered on a Georgia Army base involving a group known as F.E.A.R. (Forever Enduring Always Ready). Federal prosecutors maintain that F.E.A.R. was led by active-duty soldiers at Ft. Stewart who also plotted bomb attacks in Savannah and aimed to poison apple crops in Washington state.
So far I haven't seen an updated story with my reaction in it.
