Brain Glutton doesn’t care about black people.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=722
Yeah, 'cause that’s not a jump.
Okay, so the article you quoted doesn’t contain any fact-based claims. Therefore I don’t see how Democracy Now! and its rather juvenile smears can be taken seriously.
Presenting an article that is not based on anything solid, and then, every time you get challenged to present some real data, referring back to a previous set of unsubstantiated allegations isn’t much of a basis for debate.
As you probably don’t know.
Regards,
Shodan
No, it did not present any quantified claims. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Return of the Militias” report is more in the nature of journalism than sociology or polysci. Journalists do not pretend to be social scientists, and it is both unreasonable and irrelevant to hold them to a scientific standard. That does not mean what they write, so far as it goes and based on such observations as journalists can make, is not “fact-based,” or should be discounted. The report in question presents a clear narrative in which American militia and “Patriot” activity peaked in the 1990s, went into a decline after the Oklahoma City bombing, and has been on the rise again – in a somewhat altered, more racialized, form – in the past couple of years. What is implausible about any of that? The Democracy Now! report is, likewise, journalism. As for the “White Power USA” documentary, that’s all vid clips and interviews; you can see it all for yourself and judge it all for yourself. It does present some quantified claims in giving estimated numbers for members and supporters of WN organizations, but emphasizes that these might be extremely lowballed; which is perfectly plausible for obvious reasons.
With slightly more objectivity than noted journalist Bill O’Reilly.
Slightly, yes.
And much more than slightly more respectful of the truth.
Frankly, I’ve always been dubious about nationalism as such, and the above is one of the reasons. Few nations on Earth can claim any “racial purity” anyway – maybe Japan and Iceland and that’s about it – but the temptation to define membership in the national ethnocultural community in “racial” terms is always there.
In any case, there’s not much parallel, is there, between America’s situation WRT immigrants from Mexico or anywhere else, and Israel’s WRT the Palestinians, or Tibet’s WRT the Chinese?
Actually, more along the lines of an opinion piece. I am sure that most people would claim that their opinions are based on facts. Which facts these are, in the case of your Democracy Now! piece, is not clear.
Okay, then - as I asked before, what facts is this based on, and how do we know they are facts? All we have are allegations from a less-than-objective source, and one which cannot produce any hard evidence that what they claim is true.
It is implausible because they are clearly attempting guilt by association, and have no facts to back up what their narrative alleges to be the case.
No, it clearly is not. Democracy Now! is a “progressive” advocacy group. This “report” is clearly part of their propaganda (in the technical sense of the term). As such, it behooves the rational person to ask what basis they have for their advocacy, or if this might be what I said earlier it was - a scare tactic to try to smear the other side.
Sorry, but “estimate” from so obviously non-objective a source as this are not quantified in any realistic sense of the term.
The figures could be lowballed. They could also be exaggerated, or simply made up on the spot, as (for instance) Mitch Snyder’s estimate of millions of homeless people in the US was back during the 80s. He had no hard data to back that up, either, and it persists to this day, despite the fact that it was made up out of whole cloth.
I am sure Democracy Now! would like to have the same success in their allegations about a rise in white nationalism, or the suggestion that anti-illegal immigration groups are actually closet racists. But I, for one, would like to know if this is anything more than something they made up.
Since they don’t seem to have any hard data for any of their allegations, the responsible thing to do is toss it on the heap of “unsubstantiated shit from a political pressure group”.
It’s a little surprising what people on a forum dedicated to skeptical thinking will buy, if it reinforces their prejudices.
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan, I have been unable to make the “Return of the Militias” link work for me. You describe it as an opinion piece, but do not point out what opinions are wrong and why. Certainly the Southern Poverty Law Center, the source of the report, has a sterling reputation in their reporting. Only the hate groups themselves offer any argument. The SPLC is about promoting tolerance. That has been their primary goal as long as I have been familiar with them, and that has been over twenty-four years now. I just can’t take your quibble seriously.
Ooh, have you ever opened a can there! 
Only in the sense that Fox News is a conservative advocacy group. Which does not, by itself, mean the Fox reporters and anchors (as opposed to the commentators and talk-segment hosts) do not deserve the name of “journalists.”
I readily concede a mainstream outlet like CNN or MSNBC or NPR or CBS News has and (usually) deserves more credibility than either. But, since the progressive side in America does not have its own big-deal mass media outlets, only marginal sources like Democracy Now! and Pacifica Network News and The Nation, giving those sources some play on a board like this one is no more than a necessary and highly inadequate corrective.
Another difference is that Democracy Now! generally does not make stuff up, it only shines its light on things otherwise ignored; whereas Fox is famously incompetent and/or dishonest even at simple things like identifying the correct party affiliation of the latest scandal-plagued politician.
:dubious: Now, waitaminnit. I get your point WRT Democracy Now!, but on what basis are you classifying the makers of the White Power USA documentary as an “obviously non-objective” source?
From the Big Noise Films homepage:
Regards,
Shodan
Satisfactory. I had suspicions you were basing your assessment on the documentary having been broadcast on al-Jazeera.
Bumping this thread because a new Southern Poverty Law Center report just came out:
Of course, a more useful measure would be a count of the number of persons involved rather than the number of groups; but that is probably a much harder thing to determine.
Here’s something interesting I just discovered: American Renaissance is now labelled a terrorist group. 
Since you’re using an article from the Southern Policy Law Center, do you agree with what they have to say about the Center for Immigration Studies–which you’ve used more than once?
These racists use more tasteful methods the obvious brownshirted thugs, of course…
This organisation started as a force for good, but has morphed into a bloated organisation seemingly dedicated to shutting down any debate on immigration.
Meh. In the case of extremist groups, the actual number of groups is less than useless. Apart from anything else, they’re always fracturing into splinter groups when Leader X decides that he does/doesn’t want to rob a bank, or whatever.
Plus much of the white supremacist movement has morphed into what they call leaderless resistance - no flags, no insignia, no hierarchy, no shared assets to lose when the SPLC sues the shit out of them.
How exactly has it “bloated”?
Also, the “Not for Publication” email all that is about is from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, not the SPLC – apparently it just cites SPLC’s research, apparently regarding the WN nature of three particular anti-immigration groups. Which, on SPLC’s part, has nothing at all to do with “shutting down any debate.”