I think you guys are talking past each other. The ADL’s mission is to report on anti-Semitism, and they’ve expanded this to include all racial/ethnic hatred since it tends to go hand-in-hand with anti-Semitism. Unless Hagee is a racist, they have no interest in condemning him (hateful though he may be about Catholics, Muslims, and lots of other people).
It’s long been my observation that some parties that disagree with people holding opposing viewpoints describe said opposition as “whack” and “biased” whether they are or are not. When you don’t have a factual rebuttal I guess that just leaves ad hominen attacks.
The SPLC does keep saying Americans are “racist,” when everyone knows racism in America ended in 2009.
The SPLC is a type of charity scam.They have raisedhuge amounts of money, spent relatively little on programs, and have amassed an endowment between 50 and 100 million dollars. They use misleading appeals to raise money and then use that money to enrich themselves while spending much less on programs than other charities.
Since their fundraising depends on the menace of hate groups they are always going to be alarmist and try to include as many groups as possible whether they are actual hate groups or not. Hereis an article about how they massage the numbers to try to mislead their donors. One example is they list the Nation of Islam as 105 hate groups instead of one group with 105 chapters.
How do you know any of the organization’s officers are getting rich off it?
It’s not a big mystery why one of the most influential left-wing Jew-bashing websiteshates the SPLC, but just to address one of the the specific ironies here: The reason the KKK in 2015 is the province of trailer-dwelling losers in Halloween costumes who are not a meaningful threat to anybody is precisely because of the SPLC’s 1980s strategy of filing civil suits against Klan groups for assaults and wrongful death. This bankrupted the leading KKK chapters and forced the rest to become perpetually independent. The “invisible empire” now goes to pains to keep the chapter in one county from having any formal links to the chapter in the next county over, because they are terrified of having all their assets seized if they are shown to work in concert. This effectively broke the power of the KKK in the U.S. To complain that the SPLC is focusing on a non-problem is tremendously ignorant of exactly how and why that problem was neutralized.
Neither of your cites have cites as to the numbers they list. Even if their numbers are right they don’t prove what you claim they do.
You give the Counterpunch article as a cite for your claim that they spent “relatively little on programs”, but it’s hard to tell from the article just how much they spent. It does claim that they spent $20 million on program expenses in 2007, which is not a little amount. How much of that was wisely spent isn’t stated one way or the other.
You then cite a Foreign Policy article and claim that it’s about how they “massage the numbers to try to mislead their donors”. The article says no such thing. It does point out that “number of hate groups” is a difficult number to pin down and whether to count some things and not others is very subjective and open to opinion. The bit about them intentionally misleading their donors is editorializing on your part and is not stated or implied in the article.
That’s kind of the issue right there.
If you’re a left-winger who regards virtually all right-wingers as “haters”, you naturally appreciate the SPLC for characterizing them as such. If you think these are legitimate viewpoints, then you naturally don’t appreciate the SPLC for suggesting they’re the equivalent of the KKK.
Not sure there’s much use in arguing about it.
But it’s not about regarding virtually all right-wingers as “haters”. I doubt the SPLC says much about groups that promote laissez-faire economics, or deny human caused climate change or attempt to end Social Security or Medicare. Those are all right-wing causes that have little or nothing to do with hate and, as far as I know, aren’t targeted by the SPLC. Focus on The Family, on the other hand, condemns homosexuals. They may say it’s not out of hate, but it can be reasonably argued that it is exactly that.
It can also be reasonably be argued that it’s not. But the real point is that it’s not remotely the same as groups like the KKK, and the SPLC grouping would give the impression that it is.
Of course. It can be argued either way.
But it’s not the case that they are the same as, for example, The American Enterprise Institute. The SPLC does not regard virtually all right-wingers as “haters”, which is what you claimed.
Sorry, I didn’t mean that the SPLC does that. I wrote “if you’re a left-winger who regards virtually all right-wingers as “haters” …”. I didn’t mean that the SPLC had done that. On looking back I see I wrote confusingly - my apologies.
I guess I kind of misread what you said. I will say though, that I think few left-wingers regard all right-wing groups as haters.
[quote=“BrainGlutton, post:1, topic:726314”]
I’ve always thought of the SPLC as a respectable and respected organization with a good track record for keeping tabs on hate groups. Somewhat similar to the Anti-Defamation League, though its roots are black rather than Jewish. But every once in a great while I come across this sort of thing:
(“CIS” is the Center for Immigration Studies.)
RationalWiki (the credibility of which may be debated in another thread) notes that some progressives have their own criticisms of the SPLC, but they’re fairly mild.
Does anyone care to make a case that the SPLC is one of the most biased, most wacky organizations to exist?[/QUOTE
Its roots aren’t black.
Morris Dees is a white guy.
I inferred he meant ‘SPLC’s roots are *protecting *black people.’
The SPLC currently has an endowment of 245 million dollars, it has nine board members that make over 150k per year and has a headquarters known locally as the poverty palace.
Do you have evidence that their money comes from the SPLC?
By “locally” you mean “on the websites of racists,” right? That seems to be what Google indicates.
Here is a link to their financial disclosure page. Since I can’t open pdf files at work, could someone else do the honors at find out how much the Board of Directors gets paid?