Political Discussion

Some evidence of the money and its political ties funding white supremacist groups.
 
Some evidence of the money and its political ties funding white supremacist groups.
I remember when the SPLC was a legitimate organization that did quality work before its business model shifted to scaring money out of well heeled liberal donors. Those were good days.
 
I remember when the SPLC was a legitimate organization that did quality work before its business model shifted to scaring money out of well heeled liberal donors. Those were good days.

If your contention is that the hate group work by the SPLC is simply a ploy to fund the organization then I'm not sure how to respond.

The SPLC has a workplace culture issue and I don't doubt that rounding-up funds and sales is part of the business model as it is for any organization, but I disagree the notion that completely de-legitimizes the org. or the work that they do.

Do you disagree with the report and/or the notion that these groups labeled as white supremacists or nationalists are just that?
 
If your contention is that the hate group work by the SPLC is simply a ploy to fund the organization then I'm not sure how to respond.

The SPLC has a workplace culture issue and I don't doubt that rounding-up funds and sales is part of the business model as it is for any organization, but I disagree the notion that completely de-legitimizes the org. or the work that they do.

Do you disagree with the report and/or the notion that these groups labeled as white supremacists or nationalists are just that?
The SPLC has developed a track record of applying the label of “white supremacist” to organizations that aren’t over the last 20 years or so. To the point of having the nickname of “Southern Preposterous Lie Center” in the circles I’ve been in. They took a bad turn during the Bush years and ramped up to full speed during the Obama years went into light speed when Trump showed up.

I’ve been associated in the past with groups they have labeled as such that while definitely strongly anti-government, were not even remotely racist in nature. They’re a joke to the point that I don’t even bother reading anything they publish anymore. Which honestly I find sad. Much like the ACLU they went from pursuing a very clearly defined and quite important non partisan agenda to being an fairly explicitly leftist organization. These are losses to everyone.
 
The SPLC has developed a track record of applying the label of “white supremacist” to organizations that aren’t over the last 20 years or so. To the point of having the nickname of “Southern Preposterous Lie Center” in the circles I’ve been in. They took a bad turn during the Bush years and ramped up to full speed during the Obama years went into light speed when Trump showed up.

I’ve been associated in the past with groups they have labeled as such that while definitely strongly anti-government, were not even remotely racist in nature. They’re a joke to the point that I don’t even bother reading anything they publish anymore. Which honestly I find sad. Much like the ACLU they went from pursuing a very clearly defined and quite important non partisan agenda to being an fairly explicitly leftist organization. These are losses to everyone.
Can you provide examples of the groups they've mislabeled? Genuinely curious.

Edit: I have read this Has a Civil Rights Stalwart Lost Its Way?
 
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Can you provide examples of the groups they've mislabeled? Genuinely curious.

Edit: I have read this Has a Civil Rights Stalwart Lost Its Way?
My disillusionment centered around their fairly wholesale labeling of militia groups (such as the Three Percent movement) as being white nationalists. Just because a bunch of rednecks get together in the woods to train doesn’t mean they’re trying to set up some sort of ethnostate. Not that you would know that if you believe what the SPLC writes.

That article lays out a lot of my beefs with them much more eloquently than I could but the basic premise is the same. They have found that scaring donors by exaggerating the amount of white supremacist out there to be an extremely lucrative business model.
 
My disillusionment centered around their fairly wholesale labeling of militia groups (such as the Three Percent movement) as being white nationalists. Just because a bunch of rednecks get together in the woods to train doesn’t mean they’re trying to set up some sort of ethnostate. Not that you would know that if you believe what the SPLC writes.

That article lays out a lot of my beefs with them much more eloquently than I could but the basic premise is the same. They have found that scaring donors by exaggerating the amount of white supremacist out there to be an extremely lucrative business model.
Is this an accurate description of the 3% movement to you? Three Percenters
 
Is this an accurate description of the 3% movement to you? Three Percenters
My involvement with threepers ended around the time MVB passed away as I was already moving from believing that there was any value in restoring the Republic to seeing it as lost cause and a fool’s errand. That said, the description given of its origin and ideology up until that point is generally correct in broad swaths, if debatable in its details.

Though I do notice that they leave out an important detail in that MVB and another blogger David Codrea were instrumental in breaking the story of the Fast & Furious debacle by Obama’s ATF. I followed that story in real time as it was broken revealing the lie of the “iron pipeline” narrative that was being pushed at the time. If it seems to be unrelated, it isn’t because that reporting had a great deal to do with the popularity of the SSI blog leading to the spread of threeper ideas.
 
While this devolved into something about the organization, the original point of linking to the SLPC report was to provide an example about political actors and their $ manipulating/playing on the fears of people,who are open to (even easily accept) the notion that race and ethnicity are to blame for their disenfranchisement (real or perceived).
 
While this devolved into something about the organization, the original point of linking to the SLPC report was to provide an example about political actors and their $ manipulating/playing on the fears of people,who are open to (even easily accept) the notion that race and ethnicity are to blame for their disenfranchisement (real or perceived).
And my larger point regarding the SPLC is to view what they write with critical eye because they are full of shit now and then. The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is a common thing folks fall victim to. So when someone/something proves themselves to be untrustworthy view everything they produce ever after with an extremely critical eye. The SPLC falls fully into that category.

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
Michael Crichton (1942-2008)
 
And my larger point regarding the SPLC is to view what they write with critical eye because they are full of shit now and then. The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is a common thing folks fall victim to. So when someone/something proves themselves to be untrustworthy view everything they produce ever after with an

I don't think I see things nearly as definitively as you seem to. I view all outlets with some degree of skepticism. I'm no less or more angry with a particular media outlet than another. I'm a patterns and paper trail person . Who own's you?, how does that influence what you do?, and why? I'm also a busy person who is too cynical and tired to give that much of a shit. So I'm no less skeptical of the local fox news as I am their NBC affiliate.

I also don't think that individual agendas, however they may permeate orgs., necessarily spoils the bunch and resent every teacher that ever stopped me from having recess because some other asshole broke some rule. Otherwise, I would be arguing with you about the choices individual 3%r groups or individuals make to support certain politicians or provide their "services" to certain groups and I don't really care. I have my judgements about all of that, but I'm trying to be careful of lumping everybody into one or the other group or side. You know what I mean? Likewise, whatever the agenda of the SPLC is doesn't make their hate map or group identification any less valid to me. I'm familiar enough with the groups in my state to say that the description is accurate. What does hate mean? What does white nationalism and supremacy mean? The SPLC has published definitions for those by which they are making their decisions? I tend to agree with those definitions but again I don't hold hard and fast to any of it.

One thing that does confound me tho is what I see as a willingness of those involved in various groups to say that they as individuals or that their individual chapter or whatever isn't part of the bad-stuff so they're not hypocrites, and therefore they don't need to reject the whole group or org. To me this is the same excuse white-folk have been making for ever to justify not acting or advocating for the shit they say they believe in (liberal or conservative, red or blue, whatever). I don't understand how anyone can look at the U.S. and not see a state founded on white supremacy, but obviously not everybody does or doesn't see it as the problem I do.

I'm really disinterested in people pointing out the flaws of the other side or whatever and not simultaneously acknowledging those of their own. That's useless dialogue to me and is an immediate conversation stopper. If we are so entrenched in beliefs that we refuse to hear what other people think and understand where they come from then why do we talk about any of this at all?
 
Another nudge towards greater awareness of what is shaping up to be the greatest atrocity of this nascent century and towards our lack of awareness and general disinterest of it in the west.

For all of the miles of column inches devoted to the forever wars in the Middle East, I believe that in time we will come to understand that the single most destructive act of that era was the granting of PNTR to China and the granting of admission to the WTO.
 
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