Since 9/11, right-wing extremists including neo-Nazis and other white supremacists have been involved in 63 domestic terror plots.
By David Holthouse
The backpack bomb Hardham allegedly planted contained shrapnel dipped in rat poison. It was discovered just minutes before hundreds of MLK Day marchers arrived. Hardham appears to have a long track record of fantasizing about politically and racially motivated violence in various online extremist forums.
The attempted MLK Day bombing in Spokane was hardly an isolated incident. Right-wing domestic terrorist plots and extremist violence are on the rise in America. Earlier this year the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) released a report analyzing domestic terrorism statistics reported by the FBI and other crime agencies since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The MPAC report shows that since 9/11, right-wing extremists including neo-Nazis and other white supremacists have been involved in 63 domestic terror plots, while radical Muslims have been involved in 45.
Meanwhile, the number of hate groups tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) topped 1,000 this year for the first time since the SPLC began counting such groups in the mid 1980s, and the resurgent antigovernment militia movement is exploding, with more than 300 new groups forming in the last year alone.
SPLC Intelligence Project director Mark Potok attributes this dramatic increase in right-wing extremist activity to three factors: "Resentment over the changing racial demographics of the country, frustration over the government's handling of the economy, and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and other demonizing propaganda aimed at various minorities."
Fischer: Indians were thieves
Pro-tribal legislation spurs conservative threats
God good, Father Sky bad?
Tennessee teabaggers want to rewrite textbooks
A history of conservative hate speech
Ethnic studies ban in effect
Obama "witch doctor" is Papua New Guinean
Rothstein: Ethnic museums cry "Me!"
Obama's UN "coup" is "chilling"
Conservatives think they're "natives"
and right-wing racism in general?
Whites feel like a minority
Palin: Racism is a ploy
Tea Party Guide to American History
Culture war over who's American
Tea Party believes in taking
Angry white Christians want country back
Sherrod incident shows conservative tactics
White conservatives "angry about racism"
Why Americans hate welfare
Mentioning racism = dwelling on past?
Answer: Lots.
For more on our attitudes toward Islam, see Racists vs. Reformers on Islam and Islamophobia Just Like Stephen's.
OMG that makes scarey reading
ReplyDeleteso much hate, ignorance and violence
And the last major terrorist attack on American soil was the assassination attempt on Rep. Giffords. For being Jewish. The Jewish part doesn't mean that she was attacked by a white supremacist, of course; Islamic radicals do, after all, conflate Jews with Israel. But the assassin's postings to Above Top Secret seem to be more white supremacist, with the sprinkling of "just plain crazy" theories (grammar being a method of brainwashing, faked moon landings, 2012).
ReplyDeleteI was reading the article about Islam. I think part of it is the failure to understand what it means. Having an opposing view toward Islam (or Christianity or Judaism, for that matter) is fine, IF your reason for opposing that religion is applied equally to all religions with that same view. And of course, the religion can change; the young-earth creationist ontology, with all humans descended from Noah, born with the concept of original sin, and ashamed of their bodies (all within the story of Genesis), puts Indians deep in the uncanny valley, but few Christians, even those who reject evolution, feels that way today. So one can oppose Iran executing two teenage boys for masturbating together.
ReplyDeleteOf course, one needs to actually do the research. And with Islamophobes, I don't see that: Nothing about Islam is inherently antisemitic; Muslims have historically recognized their Jewish roots. (And of course, Islamophobes don't really care about oppression of women and homosexuals, or about slavery in Sudan. These are just casi belli.)
The concept of antisemitism is an interesting one. Ashley Montagu, the famed anthropologist who co-authored UNESCO's statement on race, was attacked as a Jew for his views on race ("man's most dangerous myth"); his views on circumcision ("an archaic ritual mutilation") led others to cast him as an antisemite.
The fact that there is no chance of Shari'a in America (due to the First Amendment) should lead one to question the motives behind any attempt to stop it. If you get enough people to tilt a windmill and declare (through some bizarre electoral system) that everyone near the windmill wants you to be king, you will be king.