US facing surge in rightwing extremists and militias

The Guardian

• Civil rights report shows 250% rise in 'patriot' groups
• Economy and media conspiracy theories fuel growth


The US is facing a surge in anti-government extremist groups and armed militias, driven by deepening hostility on the right to Barack Obama, anger over the economy, and the increasing propagation of conspiracy theories by parts of the mass media such as Fox News.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre, the US's most prominent civil rights group focused on hate organisations, said in a report that extremist "patriot" groups "came roaring back to life" last year as their number jumped nearly 250% to more than 500 with deepening ties to conservative mainstream politics.

The SPLC report, called Rage on the Right, said the rise in extremist groups was "a cause for grave concern" given their propensity to use violence during their heyday in the 90s, most notably with the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. It added that the issues driving support for such groups were increasingly populist and that "signs of growing radicalisation are everywhere".

"Patriot groups have been fuelled by anger over the changing demographics of the country, the soaring public debt, the troubled economy and an array of initiatives by President Obama that have been branded "socialist" or even "fascist" by his political opponents," the report said.

"Already there are signs of … violence emanating from the radical right. Since the installation of Barack Obama, rightwing extremists have murdered six law enforcement officers. Racist skinheads and others have been arrested in alleged plots to assassinate the nation's first black president. One man from Brockton, Massachusetts – who told police he had learned on white supremacist websites that a genocide was under way against whites – is charged with murdering two black people and planning to kill as many Jews as possible on the day after Obama's inauguration. Most recently, a rash of individuals with anti-government, survivalist or racist views have been arrested in a series of bomb cases."

The report says the patriot movement has "made significant inroads into the conservative political scene" in part driven by a growing view of the US administration "as part of a plot to impose 'one-world government' on liberty-loving Americans".

"The Tea Parties and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism," the report says.

The SPLC notes that the rise comes as part of a deepening disillusionment with government in which just one quarter of Americans think government can be trusted. It said that a recent poll found that the anti-tax Tea Party movement is viewed in more positive terms than the Democratic or Republican parties.

"The signs of growing radicalisation are everywhere. Armed men have come to Obama speeches bearing signs suggesting that the 'tree of liberty' needs to be 'watered' with 'the blood of tyrants'. The Conservative Political Action Conference held this February was co-sponsored by groups like the John Birch Society, which believes President Eisenhower was a communist agent, and Oath Keepers, a patriot outfit formed last year that suggests, in thinly veiled language, that the government has secret plans to declare martial law and intern patriotic Americans in concentration camps," the SPLC said.

The report says that, unlike during the 1990s, the patriot movement's core ideas are more widely propagated and accepted by prominent politicians and some in the mass media, such as the Fox News presenter Glenn Beck.

"As the movement has exploded, so has the reach of its ideas, aided and abetted by commentators and politicians in the ostensible mainstream," said the report. "Beck, for instance, reinvigorated a key patriot conspiracy theory – the charge that the federal emergency management agency is secretly running concentration camps – before finally 'debunking' it."

How far such language is now part of the mainstream political discourse was confirmed by Politico today, which reported that it had obtained a Republican national committee document detailing plans to raise election funds with "an aggressive campaign capitalising on 'fear' of President Barack Obama" and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism".

In the presentation, the administration is portrayed as "the Evil Empire", and Obama as the Joker in Batman.

Patriot groups and militias are planning a march on Washington next month ostensibly in defence of the right to carry guns.
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Most of this would make absolutely zero sense to Europeans imo. I suspect most Europeans really wouldn't understand it - at all. It's like reading about some strange cult from S Korea, or something.

To those familiar with these people, the patriot movement, the far-right and its populist expression in Alex Jones etc this is all too familiar territory. The "surge" is also completely obvious.....in part as reaction to further defeat against democratic forces - led by a black guy, of all things!

The Guardian successfully lists the factors though it notably omits the anti-semitism underlying most of the conspiracy theories. I'm grateful that the mainstream is waking up to the problem somewhat - SPLC reports in the Guardian? But we know already what the response from crazies like Larry Simons and Alex Jones will be.....howls of rage. Doubtless they are working on some convoluted, bizarro rejection of the entire SPLC report, just as they did with the last report which said much the same thing. "Standing for the constitution is extremist right wing?", they'll mock. Yes, it is, when you're stood with a load of jew-hating crazies with Swaztikas printed through them like Brighton Rock. These people want war, revolution, terror. They want fascism - pangenetic populist ultra-nationalism. [Pangenetic = phoenix-like rebirth of the "nation"]

We can easily place crackpots like Poplawski, Von Brunn, Alex Jones and Mike Rivero in this camp. And Larry Simons too. Most dangerously, these people either deny it, or are ignorant of their own far-right extremism: Obama is denounced simultaneously for being socialist and fascist - by people whom condemn the public as "sheeple" and their political and intellectual class as "zionists"/jews. As ever, I see frightening similarities with 1930s Germany - and the steady erosion, to the point of crisis, of public confidence in the government. Could it happen again? Of course not, everyone says......

---Update - sure enough, just today a 911 Troofer has attempted murder at the Pentagon. HE opened fire wounding two police officers before being killed by returning fire. Prisonplanet writes:

Just two days after we warned of false flag domestic attacks that would be blamed on the federal government’s political adversaries were all but inevitable, a Californian man attacked the Pentagon last night in a shooting that wounded two police officers and has since been blamed on the John Patrick Bedell’s advocacy for 9/11 truth.

Amazing. Notice how they say "just two days after we warned of false-flag domestic attacks"......when in reality it is just two days after the SPLC warned of the rise of far-right extremism, fuelled by 911 Troof, etc.