It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Washington, DC
United States
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Remarks as prepared for delivery
Thank you, Lorenzo [Vidino], for that kind introduction.
It is an honor to be at this event, co-hosted by the George Washington University’s new Program on Extremism and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
It is an honor to be at this event, co-hosted by the George Washington University’s new Program on Extremism and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The partnership between SPLC and GW serves as a reminder that violent extremism is neither a new phenomenon, nor one that is limited to any single population, region or ideology.
Since its creation in 1971, SPLC has been an important voice on the wide range of extremist groups throughout this country. And over the past four decades, the existence of hate, violence and extremism has remained unfortunately all too constant. Earlier this year, we honored and remembered the victims of the horrific Oklahoma City bombing on the 20th anniversary of that devastating attack. Less than two months after the anniversary, we again saw unimaginable violence motivated by hate. A young man killed nine African-American men and women attending a bible class in Charleston, South Carolina. A senseless, racist act. The list goes on, past and present.
But as we gather today, new and disturbing trends loom over the horizon – trends we must understand to defeat.
New initiatives, like GW’s program, which focus on empirical research and analysis, are critical to policymakers and the interested public alike.
...
Ron Paul’s New Organization Reportedly Stacked with Extremists
by Ryan Lenz
April 26, 2013
Ron Paul, the libertarian former Texas congressman whose hard-line views are widely admired on the radical right but who claims to reject racism, [bhas started a new organization stacked with a hodgepodge of far-right extremists.
As The Daily Beast reported yesterday, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is ostensibly designed to promote a discourse about U.S. foreign policy. But its advisory board is stacked with what writer James Kirchik characterized as “a bevy of conspiracy theorists, cranks, and apologists for some of the worst regimes on the planet.”
And just who are the far-right luminaries helping guide Paul’s new endeavor?
One is Lew Rockwell, Paul’s former congressional chief of staff who now heads the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an Auburn, Ala., think tank with deep ties to the neo-Confederate movement. There’s Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News and journalist Eric Margolis, both 9/11 “truthers” who suspect that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks may have been orchestrated by the government.
And alongside them sits Butler Shaffer, a Southwestern Law School professor who similarly once asked: “In light of the lies, forgeries, cover-ups, and other deceptions leading to a ‘war’ in Iraq, how can any intellectually honest person categorically deny the possibility of the involvement of American political interest in 9/11?”
...
Lew Rockwell
Llewellyn Harrison "Lew" Rockwell, Jr. (born July 1, 1944) is an American libertarian author and editor, self-professed anarcho-capitalist,[1] a promoter of the Austrian School of economics, and founder and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
...
...
CNSNews.com asked Beirich about their designation of the Family Research Council as a hate group.
“I think there’s a common misunderstanding about the way you get on our Hate List. We post groups on the basis of ideology, not whether they’re violent or not,” she replied.
...
DOJ Creates New Domestic Terror Position
by Pete Williams
The Justice Department has created a new position to put more emphasis on countering domestic terrorism.
The domestic terrorism counsel will assist federal prosecutors nationwide who are working on domestic terrorism cases, according to John Carlin, in charge of DOJ's national security division. He says the counsel will "help shape our strategy and analyze legal gaps or enhancements required to ensure we can combat these threats."
In the past few years, more people in the U.S. have died in attacks committed by domestic extremists than in attacks associated with international terrorist groups, according to a study cited by Carlin, speaking Wednesday to a seminar on terrorism at George Washington University.
...
West Point center cites dangers of ‘far right’ in U.S.
By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times - Thursday, January 17, 2013
A West Point think tank has issued a paper warning America about “far right” groups such as the “anti-federalist” movement, which supports “civil activism, individual freedoms and self-government.”
The report issued this week by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., is titled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right.”
The center — part of the institution where men and women are molded into Army officers — posted the report Tuesday. It lumps limited government activists with three movements it identifies as “a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement."
...
The report also draws a link between the mainstream conservative movement and the violent “far right,” and describes liberals as “future oriented” and conservatives as living in the past.
“While liberal worldviews are future- or progressive -oriented, conservative perspectives are more past-oriented, and in general, are interested in preserving the status quo.” the report says. “The far right represents a more extreme version of conservatism, as its political vision is usually justified by the aspiration to restore or preserve values and practices that are part of the idealized historical heritage of the nation or ethnic community.”
...
Federal Lawsuit Filed Against Janet Napolitano Over Homeland Security’s Rightwing Extremism Policy
...
The Report specifically mentions the following political beliefs that law enforcement should use to determine whether someone is a “rightwing extremist”:
· Opposes restrictions on firearms
· Opposes lax immigration
· Opposes the policies of President Obama regarding immigration, citizenship and the expansion of social programs
· Opposes continuation of free trade agreements
· Opposes same-sex marriage
· Has paranoia of foreign regimes
· Fear of Communist regimes
· Opposes one world government
· Bemoans the decline of U.S. stature in the world.
· Upset with loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China and India
· . . . and the list goes on
The Law Center is asking the court to declare that the DHS policy violates the First and Fifth Amendments, to permanently enjoin the Policy and its application to the plaintiffs’ speech and other activities, and to award the plaintiffs their reasonable attorney’s fees and costs for having to bring the lawsuit.
originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
And there are people treating this as if it was something normal. Could you imagine the outrage if the same thing was done to liberals and left wingers in general?
If the government, and government institutions came out to say that being a progressive, or leaning to the left in politics is a threat to the nation, and these people could be possible extremists, and possible terrorists while being labeled so even when they were not violent. What do you think people in the left would do?
originally posted by: ketsuko
...
Where is the justification for all the moves which is where I go back to passive aggressive. They're ready, so what are they waiting for? Are they trying to push a response?
originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
a reply to: yuppa
And there are people treating this as if it was something normal. Could you imagine the outrage if the same thing was done to liberals and left wingers in general?
If the government, and government institutions came out to say that being a progressive, or leaning to the left in politics is a threat to the nation, and these people could be possible extremists, and possible terrorists while being labeled so even when they were not violent. What do you think people in the left would do?
Heck, quite a few people who lean to the left believe in one or another "conspiracy theory" involving 9/11 etc.