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→SPLC: excerpt
:::Are you familiar with the Wilcox Report? Wilcox, who publishes an annual guide to the Extreme Left aqnd Right [http://www.questia.com/library/book/nazis-communists-klansmen-and-others-on-the-fringe-political-extremism-in-america-by-john-george-laird-wilcox.jsp] claims SPLC grossly inflates the number of Klan groups for fundraising, and mainstream sources do not question thier figures. I can send you a copy of it if you'd like. [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 23:45, 9 November 2009 (EST)
:::Are you familiar with the Wilcox Report? Wilcox, who publishes an annual guide to the Extreme Left aqnd Right [http://www.questia.com/library/book/nazis-communists-klansmen-and-others-on-the-fringe-political-extremism-in-america-by-john-george-laird-wilcox.jsp] claims SPLC grossly inflates the number of Klan groups for fundraising, and mainstream sources do not question thier figures. I can send you a copy of it if you'd like. [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 23:45, 9 November 2009 (EST)
::thanks for the tip, I'll check it out. What it does well is give a very useful digest of news reports of all KKK activities.[[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 00:09, 10 November 2009 (EST)
::thanks for the tip, I'll check it out. What it does well is give a very useful digest of news reports of all KKK activities.[[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 00:09, 10 November 2009 (EST)
Here's an excerpt from the intro to the SPLC section:
:In February 1992 ''USA Today'' reported that ''Klanwatch'', a division of Morris Dees' Southern Poverty Law Center, had identified a total of "346 white supremacy groups operating in the USA, up an alarming 27% from the past year." Included were 97 Ku Klux Klan and 203 alleged neo-Nazi groups.
:What ''Klanwatch'' apparently did was list any group they could find mention of, including groups only rumored to exist. These included the large number of "post office box chapters" maintained by Klan and skinhead organizations. Some Christian Identity "ministries" consist only one person and a mailing list and many "patriot groups" consist of but three or four friends. They also listed many groups whose actual affiliation is neither KKK nor neo-Nazi'and who would argue with the designation of "white supremacy." In short, they misleadingly padded their list. When the SPLC releases their list, either in print or on the internet, it fails to contain actual addresses that might be checked by journalists or researchers. Several listings refer to "unknown group" and the name of a city or town.
:This writer publishes an annual directory (with addresses) of the American Righh as well as a companion directory of the American Left, and can attest to this irresponsible inflation of figures by ''Klanwatch''. In terms of viable groups, i.e., groups that are objectively significant, are actually functioning and have more than a handful of real members - not post office box "groups" or two man local chapters, the actual figure is about 50 -a far cry from 346!
:It's not atypical for a couple of guys to begin a "new" Ku Klux Klan by photocopying some flyers and renting PO boxes in several cities to create the image of a viable movement. Most inquiries to these PO boxes go unanswered or are returned when the rent expires. In point of fact, a large number of "groups" in both Klanwatch files and my directories are either unconfirmed or they consist of a single individual.
:One example is the Farmer's Liberation Army which received considerable press after the [[Oklahoma City bombing]]. Subsequent news accounts established that this "army" was the creation of one man -Keith Shive - and had no other "members." The SPLC still lists it as a "hate group." Unfortunately, this kind of exaggeration is typical.
:A good example of SPLC disinformation occurred in June 1998 when SPLC spokesman Mark Potok responded to a newspaper request for background information on three accused cop killers. According to news reports
::'Alan "Monte" Pilon, one of the men suspected of killing a Cortez police officer and wounding three other officers, is a member of a local militia group linked to an extreme right-wing religion, a militia expert said Thursday.
::Pilon, 30, of Dove Creek, is a member of the Four Corners Patriots, according to Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that monitors hate groups: The Four Cotners Patriots is an underground militia linked to the Christian Identity religion, a faith Potok described as "viciously racist and anti-Semitic.
:Potok further claimed to have been tracking the group since 1995 and estimated the group had 25 members. These claims, along with this detailed information, clearly gives the impression that the SPLC knows what it's talking about. Potok's claims were, picked up by wire services and repeated nationwide, including ''NBC Nightly News'' with Tom Brokaw One small problem: There apparently is no "Four Corners Patriots" organization. It doesn't exist. Nobody in the broader militia and patriot movement had ever heard of them. My own efforts to pin down the organization were "without success. Even local law enforcement couldn't vouch for their existence and no evidence has developed that any of the suspects ever belonged to a militia organization.
:The interplay between the SPLC and the media that depends upon them for information is complex and corrupt. Potok, a former writer for USA Todlly,was a consistent public relations agent for the SPLC during his tenure at the newspaper. Apparently pleased by Potok's performance, SPLC recruited him into their direct employ where he engages in an endless litany of "linking and tying" people with one infamous doctrine or another.
:Dees is the classic example of an opportunist waging a holy war against unpopular foes and profiting from it, both financially and ideologically. His primary talents have always been in the area of fundraising and promotion. According to a 1989 article in the Atlanta Constitution:
::In 1972, he raised $24 million as George McGovern's finance director, then used the campaign's donor list of 700,000 liberals for the law center. (He also recommended Richard Viguerie, the conservative direct-mail whiz, to friends in the Wallace campaign.) The law center now raises more than $5 million a year and has a $34 million endowment [in 1989]...
:The harshest critic is Millard Farmer, the Atlanta death penalty lawyer who teamed up with Mr. Dees before ending their relationship with a lawsuit. "It's a Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker operation," he says flatly. "You read his letters and you'd think he's on his last penny." The article also quoted a former employee to the effect that Morris Dees marketed social consciousness in the same detached way that he once marketed cakes. "The Center is something he
can sell. People want to contribute something to relieve their conscience."
'''Comment''': given the record of this organization, and the [[MSM]]'s role as dupes in these scams, why should CP perpetuate myths about it? [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 00:50, 10 November 2009 (EST)
== I was wrong about the 1920s KKK ==
== I was wrong about the 1920s KKK ==