"There is no 'cure' for a nation's hate"-Southern Poverty Law Center & Leonard Pitts (Miami Herald)

[pampango]

Interesting take on the growth of hate groups since 2000, how Obama's presidency further aggravates them, and the role they played in the debate on illegal immigration.

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard-pitts/story/966216.html

"There are now 926 hate groups in this country (per Southern Poverty Law Center (splcenter.org) . Take a second and consider that number. It represents an increase of more than 50 percent since 2000. And by ''hate groups,'' I don't mean guys in their bathrobes who go online and pretend their followers are legion. No, I mean actual Klan cells, Neo-Nazi sects, gay-bashing ''churches,'' cliques of black separatists, white nationalists, nativists, racist skinheads and other merchants of venom who meet, plot and recruit in all 48 contiguous states (Alaska and Hawaii have no known hate groups). Nine hundred twenty-six of them. The number is a record."

"And maybe you wonder how this can be. How can hate enjoy such phenomenal growth in a nation where a Jew serves as senator from Connecticut, a Muslim serves as representative from Minnesota, a Hispanic is governor of New Mexico and a black man is president? The answer is that we are a nation where a Jew serves as senator from Connecticut, a Muslim serves as representative from Minnesota, a Hispanic is governor of New Mexico and a black man is president. Because if those things strike you as signs of progress, well, they are signs of apocalypse to those who believe only white, male Christians are fit to lead. "

"But that's not the only reason for the increase. SPLC also cites the debate over illegal immigration that has dominated much of this decade and was drowned out by demagogic extremists competing to see which could most effectively scapegoat undocumented workers . They, too, bear responsibility here."

"Finally, there is the economy. When things get tough, people become more receptive to the idea that their miseries are all the fault of some alien other. So the stock market, too, is implicated. Hate rises when the Dow falls. In a nation so deeply riven by culture, race and religion, there is always a temptation to hate somebody, to blame some group of others for the job you lost , the crime committed against you, the fear and uncertainty you feel. There is a simplicity and a seductiveness to it that are all too easily mistaken for righteousness.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Wonder if any anti-wealthy Wall-Street banker groups will form in the near future?

[pampango]

2. I'd be suprised if that isn't already happening. There's probably an easy tie-in with

anti-Semitic and anti-intellectual groups that already exist.

As Pitts said, "When things get tough, people become more receptive to the idea that their miseries are all the fault of some alien other (wealthy Wall Street bankers?). So the stock market, too, is implicated. Hate rises when the Dow falls."

[jmondine]

3. It's not just a temptation to hate another random group...

... it's also convenient if that group is politically and/or financially powerless. It makes much more sense, and is much more realistic, to hate opportunistic, greedy corporate elitists who have bled the country dry. But fighting them is a lot harder than fighting a minority group, especially one like illegal immigrants, who have no wealth, political influence, or even legal protections.

Gee, when put that way, it makes bigotry seem rather cowardly, doesn't it? Hmm...

[Hannah Bell]

4. "There is no 'cure' for a nation's hate" - bull. but it's a moneymaking line for morris dees.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. You said it. And he makes a lot of money. nt

[MedleyMisty]

11. I looked him up

The Wikipedia article is interesting.

What is the cure for hate and how do we go about achieving that cure?

[Hannah Bell]

13. The cure for hate is to stop doing hateful things to people.

Like, e.g., lying to them, taking away their livelihoods to make a buck, & pumping up scapegoats for them to displace their anger onto.


Morris Dees *sells* hate.

[MedleyMisty]

16. I don't do hateful things to people

And I'm not disagreeing with you about Morris Dees - I don't know anything about him beyond a quick look at the wikipedia page, which seemed to support your view. And based on your posts that I've read before, I know that your opinions are generally considered and thoughtful and based in reality. So I have no reason to argue with your opinion of him.

Believe me, I'm not as smug and prejudiced myself as I think I sound in this post as I read over it - I've had some bad experiences lately with sharing my political/social views and I think I'm trying to word things in a way that's not natural to me so as to try to avoid that. Anyway....

Understanding prejudice is one of my passions - I've researched it as much as someone who only has access to the freely available to everyone parts of the internet (I can't tell you how many times I've clicked on an interesting search result to only see that I have to pay or be a member of some organization to read it), corporate bookstores, and the local libraries can research anything.

I know that some people think that social equality is the cure for prejudice, but I've never quite understood how you go about getting social equality from prejudiced people. I mean, I can see how there would probably be a lot less prejudice in an equal society since it seems like a fair bit of prejudice is based on economic exploitation and perceptions of economic competition. But okay - like my mother used to work in a sock mill before and a bit after NAFTA. Her fellow workers were prejudiced against people from Mexico because immigrants were working in the mill and also later on the company closed the mill and moved operations to Mexico.

How do you get large numbers of people to put the blame on the corporations and capitalism and the whole free market thing and all of that and to see their fellow workers as humans just like them? Especially when many of them see talking about that as offending their social identity and preferring the target of their frustation to them and wanting them to not have jobs?

How do you overthrow the capitalist system and replace it with an equal non-exploitative one that doesn't encourage bigotry?

[kiranon]

12. Thank heavens for Morris Dees and his lawsuits to end Neo Nazi groups and other hate groups.

[roody]

17. How much does he make?

[Hannah Bell]

19. The church of Morris Dees: How the Southern Poverty Law Center profits from intolerance

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2000/11/0068709

...Cofounded in 1971 by civil rights lawyer cum direct-marketing millionaire Morris Dees, a leading critic of "hate groups" and a man so beatific that he was the subject of a made-for-TV movie, the SPLC spent much of its early years defending prisoners who faced the death penalty and suing to desegregate all-white institutions like Alabama's highway patrol.

That was then. Today, the SPLC spends most of its time--and money--on a relentless fund-raising campaign, peddling memberships in the church of tolerance with all the zeal of a circuit rider passing the collection plate. "He's the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of the civil rights movement," renowned anti-death-penalty lawyer Millard Farmer says of Dees, his former associate, "though I don't mean to malign Jim and Tammy Faye."

The center earned $44 million last year alone--$27 million from fund-raising and $17 million from stocks and other investments--but spent only $13 million on civil rights programs, making it one of the most profitable charities in the country...

Morris Dees doesn't need your financial support. The SPLC is already the wealthiest civil rights group in America, though this letter quite naturally omits that fact. Other solicitations have been more flagrantly misleading. One pitch, sent out in 1995--when the center had more than $60 million in reserves--informed would-be donors that the "strain on our current operating budget is the greatest in our 25-year history."

Back in 1978, when the center had less than $10 million, Dees promised that his organization would quit fund-raising and live off interest as soon as its endowment hit $55 million. But as it approached that figure, the SPLC upped the bar to $100 million, a sum that, one 1989 newsletter promised, would allow the center "to cease the costly and often unreliable task of fundraising."

Today, the SPLC's treasury bulges with $120 million, and it spends twice as much on fund-raising--$5.76 million last year--as it does on legal services for victims of civil rights abuses. The American Institute of Philanthropy gives the center one of the worst ratings of any group it monitors, estimating that the SPLC could operate for 4.6 years without making another tax-exempt nickel from its investments or raising another tax-deductible cent from well-meaning "people like you."


This article was written in 2000. If one is to believe Charity Navigator, Dees cleaned up his act a bit since.

[roody]

25. I'm glad that they are doing well. They have built a beautiful

museum in Montgomery.

[Hannah Bell]

28. wall street built some nice buildings too. so what? doesn't mean they're not thieves.

[roody]

29. I don't think too much fundraising amounts to stealing.

[Hannah Bell]

32. you ask for money when you've got 50 million in the bank drawing interest, then spend

most of the donations on salaries & overhead?

sure it's theft. big non-profits are fonts of theft.

dee's donation base dropped after his scam got some bad publicity & he cleaned up his act (& his books) a bit.

the guy was never in the thick of the civil rights movement, he was always about "for-profit".

[Elwood P Dowd]

33. Morris Dees and his cronies have a nice little business venture that's rewarded them handsomely.

I stopped sending them money years ago. That's all I will say on this subject.

[moondust]

31. Oh yeah, the nutjobs he monitors and prosecutes would love to kill him

any day of the week and shut down his anti-hate/"Teaching Tolerance" operation altogether but what, that just comes with the territory when you're in it for the big bucks?

A big Lou Dobbs fan, are ya? Perhaps a member of one of the northwest's famed hate groups yourself? Know some people from northern Idaho maybe?

[Hannah Bell]

35. 1. check out the % of fbi in some of those "hate groups"

2. people don't stop hating because they took some bullshit class. if he thinks hate can't be cured, what's he selling bullshit classes for anyway?

3. the attempt to smear the poster exemplifies the tactics by which hate *is* fostered. he has a different opinion than you, so immediately you labeled him a neo-nazi. standing up for progressive values, what?

dees is in it for the money. he started out in mass marketing. he was never in the civil rights movement. he attached himself to it. he's a businessman who saw a profit opportunity.

[aikoaiko]

5. In a large diverse country, I think its almost impossible to not have so called "hate groups"

Diversity is our strength, but it also makes for internal conflict.

[pampango]

7. True. It's ironic that as women, ethnic and religious minorities gain increased measures of

power and visibility, the haters, rather than realizing their mistake when the minorities prove they are as good or bad as the white, male Christians, go off the deep end and direct their anger at people like illegal immigrants who are still largely invisible and powerless.

[roguevalley]

6. well, finally Alaska gets it right. *gulp*

[EFerrari]

20. But, isn't the AK Independence Party

a white supremacist type group?

[roguevalley]

26. yeah. actually, i am surprised they aren't listed. perhaps they aren't

extreme enough. yet.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. The rise in anti-immigrant sentiment can be partially attributed

To the fact that pro-immigrant groups are in bed with the Chamber of Commerce cheap labor lobby. This leaves a perfect void for demagogues like Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan (and worse) to take up the populist banner, leading to more ugly racism and scapegoating. Immigrant rights activists need to smarten up and stop dismissing working class Americans' concerns with wage suppression and the cost of social services. They're literally some of the most politically tonedeaf people I've ever encountered.

[pampango]

14. Pro-immigrant progressives aren't "in bed" with the Chamber of Commerce any more than

anti-immigrant progressives are "in bed" with right wing hate groups.

Perhaps one defense against demagogues is to preemptively agree with them, thus taking away their issues. There are not many progressive issues for which I would recommend that approach.

[Hello_Kitty]

15. Yes they are.

Many immigrant rights groups get their funding by big corporations that hire a lot of undocumented workers. That's why they focus on the experience of undocumented immigrants with law enforcement but rarely, if ever, on their working conditions. Why aren't pro-immigrant activists protesting meatpacking plants, produce farms, and Wal-Mart for their unsafe conditions and the way they mistreat workers and often cheat them out of wages? Because they are getting money from them, that's why.

[EFerrari]

21. But there are always people who see a situation like this as an opportunity

to rum a scam as Bev Harris does with election fraud.

And, the better frame for the very real abuses you talk about isn't really as an immigrant issue but a workers' issue because you want to fold in as big a constituency as possible.

[Hello_Kitty]

24. But that's the point! Immigration IS primarily a worker's issue

Which is why pro-immigrant groups need to wean themselves off Chamber of Commerce and Wal-Mart money. I was active in some local organizations protesting law enforcement abuse here in Phoenix and when I saw who was giving them money I was disgusted and quit. Having low wage employers funding immigration rights groups is rather like having and organization to help prostitutes and getting funded by pimps.

[pampango]

22. By that logic, anti-immigrant liberals are "in bed with" RW nativists and racists, like Limbaugh and

Dobbs, who provided the media muscle and political power to shoot down immigration reform. Anti-immigrant demonstrations and direct action, like the Minutemen, are populated by RW'ers. You won't find conservatives at pro-immigrant demonstrations or direct action, like providing sanctuary. That doesn't meant that anti-immigrant liberals are xenophobes or racists, any more than pro-immigrant liberals are "cheap labor" proponents. Individual belief and motivation matters, even when we don't agree with each other.

[Hello_Kitty]

23. Who's this group of 'anti-immigrant' liberals?

And are they getting funding from the Minute Men and Lou Dobbs? Or it it some strawman that you pulled out of your ass?

[pampango]

27. I suspect you know there are liberals who oppose immigration. You know I made no claim

about funding, so don't make up a strawman by claiming that I'm making up a strawman.

If your point is that these anti-immigrant liberals haven't formed a group which, since it doesn't exist, can't receive funds from Rush or Lou or the Minutemen, point taken. (I would like to think that one reason that they have not formed a group is that, as liberals, they would be embarrassed to be known as anti-immigrant.)

Pro-immigrant liberals should feel uncomfortable about any coincidence of interests with the Chamber of Commerce. Anti-immigrant liberals should feel uncomfortable about any coincidence of interests with RW hate groups. But where does that get us? It does us no good to accuse each other of having embarrassing "coincidence of interests" with groups we would rather disparage.

It would be better if we stuck to discussing opinions and rationals, but I suppose it's inevitable that at DU we'll continue with the names and labels: "racist", "cheap labor fan", "xenophobe", "slave labor enabler" labels that are so easy to sling around, but I'll try to remember that throwing an insult or label is what we do when we run out of rational arguments.

[Hello_Kitty]

30. Pro-immigration liberals are NOT embarassed by their Chamber of Commerce connections

And that's the problem. They willingly take money from big business low wage exploiters and spout their propaganda while claiming to be for "human rights".

[pampango]

34. Perhaps some are not. Are anti-immigration liberals embarrassed by their connection,

"coincidence of interests", with RW hate groups and the Dobbs, Limbaughs and Minutemen of the world? Or is "tainted" money all that matters to you, not "tainted" support from RW media demagogues and "tainted" political support from the repub party "base" to achieve your goals?

I'm not pro-immigration because of any Chamber of Commerce connections and those liberals on the other side of the debate are not anti-immigration because they are sympathetic to RW hate groups. It may be true that if I achieve my goal, the Chamber might be happy. It might equally be true that if anti-immigration liberals achieve their goal, RW hate groups might be happy. AT DU we can accuse each other of guilt by association all day long. What good does that do?

[Uncle Joe]

10. Either you or the Miami Herald altered this paragraph.

"But that's not the only reason for the increase. SPLC also cites the debate over illegal immigration that has dominated much of this decade. Though former President George W. Bush offered thoughtful, moderate leadership on the issue, he was drowned out by demagogic extremists competing to see which could most effectively scapegoat undocumented workers. They, too, bear responsibility here."

I totally disagree with the premise, George W.Bush never offered thoughtful, moderate leadership either in his method of obtaining power, by disenfranchising the people of Florida and by the extension the United States or in his corrupt wielding of power.

As for just a few examples, he abandoned a devastated region until political imperative demanded otherwise, he enabled torture, he took away basic human dignity, this is fertile ground for hate to grow from.

[roody]

18. The apartheid US/Mexico wall started under Bush junior.