Creating Lists Of Political Dissidents: Good Enough For The Nazis, Good Enough For the SPLC

Hitlist links mainline political activists with violent extremist minority groups

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

With the publication of a “Patriot Hitlist”, the Southern Poverty Law Center has once again proven itself to be anything but a “civil rights” organisation, as it continues to act in its role as an intolerant and belligerent slander outfit, almost exclusively targeting legitimate, peaceful, grassroots political and social dissent.

The SLPC makes millions every year off the back of attacking libertarians and conservatives and anyone in between who doesn’t share their own myopic political outlook.

It has a nasty habit of labeling “extremist” and “radical” any group or person that it merely disagrees with, lumping them in with white supremacists and right wing militias, all the while preaching that it is committed to “Fighting Hate, Teaching Tolerance, Seeking Justice”.

Perusing their website and published materials for just a short time will lead any rational and discerning person to identify the SPLC for what it is – an über leftist outfit of control freaks with an axe to grind. However, the U.S. government, under both Republican and Democratic administrations – and by proxy the corporate mainstream media – has chosen to elevate the SPLC to the level of revered research group.

Most infamously last year, the SPLC was cited as a primary research source in the highly inflammatory Missouri Information Analysis Center report, a federally funded “fusion center” document that equated Ron Paul supporters, people who display bumper stickers, people who own gold, or even people who fly a U.S. flag with radical race hate groups and terrorists.

Along with the ADL, another group that just loves to compile lists of political enemies, the SPLC was also a prominent source for the leaked Department of Homeland Security “Rightwing Extremism” report. The sources for the document, which equated veterans and gun owners with violent terrorists, were revealed following a freedom of information act request from the group Americans for Limited Government. Along with the SPLC and the ADL, other sources included a number of news articles, some of which also cited the SPLC, and a scattering of web posts from highly dubious sources. No statistical analysis was found to have been undertaken by the DHS – they just took the opinions of the SPLC and threw in a few internet posts as an afterthought.

The disgusting irony of the whole sorry affair came with the fact that the SPLC immediately jumped on the DHS report when it was leaked, using it to justify their materials and agendas.

In the months that followed, the SPLC returned to the report again and again to tie it in with incidents such as the tragic shooting at the Holocaust museum in Washington DC.

The SPLC has continued its sustained effort, with the establishment media in tow, to float the talking point that worried gun owners are growing in the United States and that this could portend a violent act of domestic terror.

With it’s latest defamatory output, entitled Meet the ‘Patriots’, the SPLC has compiled and profiled a top forty of targets it associates with the phrases “antigovernment”, “radical right”, “conspiracy theories” and “militias”.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul is in at number 40 – Of course, the SPLC couldn’t resist another pop at Paul, dredging up long debunked claims that the Congressman was responsible for the publication of racist comments in newsletters in the 1990s.

The piece labels Paul, along with Andrew Napolitano, Michele Bachmann and Glen Beck as anti-government patriot movement “enablers”. As Infowars’ Kurt Nimmo points out, if anyone is an enabler of extremism it is the SPLC, as it continues to propagandize for the miniscule and completely irrelevant white supremacist movement in order to magnify the ludicrous threat it claims these fringe groups pose.

Other notables to make the hitlist (see below) are Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change, Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, Larry Pratt of Gun Owners For America, former Phoenix police officer Jack McLamb and former IRS special agent Joe Banister – a who’s who of regular guests on the Alex Jones show, who is of course, also included on the list.

Alex is quoted in the piece as saying “The entire planet is being enslaved by global, dominant corporations.” If that’s the classification of what an radical extremist believes then the SPLC better prepare to compile a much larger list.

The list is an extension of last month’s smear attack by the SPLC that seamlessly blended fringe minority groups, racist skinheads and Timothy McViegh with political activists who have never advocated violence against anyone. Mentioning the OKC bombing and warning that there are “Signs of similar violence emanating from the radical right”, The SPLC provided a “hate group” map, where political activists and groups such as We Are Change were displayed alongside the KKK and neo-Nazis.

The SPLC are always desperate to throw in their mainstream political opponents with killers and mass murderers, no matter how ludicrous the notion. Last year the group attempted to link Infowars and Alex Jones with Pittsburgh cop killer Richard Poplawski because Poplawski had left comments on Jones’ websites. Cursory inspection of the comments revealed that Poplawski was attacking Jones, however that did not stop the SPLC ’s ridiculous smear attempt extending to elements of the media that later had to issue retractions. What made the entire issue even more ludicrous was the fact that comments left on the SPLC’s own website four months previously had called for Alex Jones to be executed for his political views.

Writer Devvy Kid and Radio Broadcaster Chuck Baldwin, also on the SPLC’s latest hitlist, have already penned their own devastating responses, firmly outlining the organisation’s place as a back pocketed establishment mouthpiece.

While the SPLC claims to rail against hate, it seems to have taken a page out of the book of the most hateful regimes in the history of the human race by compiling a list of “enemies of the state”.

Perhaps the most famous illustration can be derived from an evening dubbed “The Night Of The Long Knives” when in June 1934 Hitler took out his political enemies, based on a prepared list drawn up by Goering and Himmler, later known as the Reich List of Unwanted Persons.

Hitler’s list of enemies then extended beyond political grievances. Suffice to say, political enemies lists have somewhat of a bad rap. But I guess what’s good for Hitler is good for the SPLC.

Here is the SPLC’s patriot hitlist in full:

1. Chuck Baldwin, Pastor, Radio Broadcaster, Syndicated Columnist, 2008 Constitution Party Presidential nominee.
2. Joe Banister, former IRS special agent, tax protester.
3. Martin “Red” Beckman, tax protester
4. Catherine Bleish, head of the Liberty Restoration Project.
5. Chris Broughton, Second Amendment advocate, member of “We The People” group.
6. Bob Campbell, head of American Grand Jury.
7. Robert Crooks, Army veteran, retired commercial fisherman, anti-illegal immigration proponent.
8. Joseph Farah, CEO of World Net Daily
9. Gary Franchi, producer of “Camp FEMA: American Lockdown,” national director of RestoreTheRepublic.com.
10. Al Garza, head of the Patriot’s Coalition, an anti-illegal immigration group.
11. Ted Gunderson, retired FBI agent.
12. John Hassey, “The public face of Alabama’s militia movement in the late 1990s,” says SPLC.
13. Alex Jones, Radio Talk Show host.
14. Devvy Kidd, “prolific columnist, blogger, and public speaker.”
15. Larry Kilgore, telecommunications consultant, former US Senate candidate from Texas, pro-secession advocate.
16. Cliff Kincaid, syndicated columnist and author, editor of AIM Report (Accuracy in Media’s publication), founder and president of America’s Survival, Inc., a UN watchdog group.
17. Mark Koernke, associated with the now-defunct Michigan Militia.
18. Richard Mack, former Graham County, Arizona, Sheriff, author, and public speaker.
19. Jack McLamb, former Phoenix, Arizona, police officer, author, and public speaker.
20. John McManus, former member of the US Marine Corps, president of the John Birch Society.
21. Daniel New, father of Michael New (the Army medic who refused to wear a UN uniform), author, public speaker.
22. Norm Olson, founder of the now-defunct Michigan Militia.
23. Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America.
24. Stewart Rhodes, Army veteran and Yale Law School graduate, founder of Oath Keepers.
25. Jon Roland, computer specialist, founder of the Constitution Society.
26. Luke Rudkowski, founder We Are Change.
27. Robert “Bob” Schultz, founder of We The People.
28. Joel Skousen, editor, World Affairs Brief.
29. Jim Stachowiak, Radio Talk Show host, “Longtime militia organizer,” claims SPLC.
30. John Stadtmiller, founder, Republic Broadcasting Network.
31. Orly Taitz, California attorney, a leader in the push to make President Obama disclose his US birth certificate.
32. Amanda Teegarden, executive director of Oklahomans for Sovereignty and Free Enterprise.
33. Mike Vanderboegh, anti-Obama health care activist.
34. Paul Venable, former candidate for the Idaho House of Representatives.
35. Edwin Vieira, Jr., attorney, author, proponent of constitutional State militias, lecturer.
36. Michele Bachmann, US Representative from Minnesota.
37. Glenn Beck, Fox News Channel TV host.
38. Paul Broun, medical doctor, US Representative from Georgia.
39. Andrew Napolitano, attorney, former State judge in New Jersey, Fox News Channel legal analyist, lecturer.
40. Ron Paul, former member of the US Air Force, medical doctor, US Representative from Texas, 2008 Republican candidate for President.