Hate Groups Decline

One problem with our society was the growth of hate groups like KKK, neo-Nazis, Proud Boys, etc during Donny’s first term and his mash-up to his second term….but since his re-election there seems to be a decline in the hate groups…..that could be good news but I do not believe that it is all that good.

Why?

The number of white nationalist, hate, and anti-government groups around the US dropped slightly in 2024—not due to shrinking influence, but rather the opposite. In its annual “Year in Hate and Extremism” report, released Thursday, the Southern Poverty Law Center said it counted 1,371 hate and extremist groups, a 5% decline from the previous year, per the AP. In 2023, “record numbers” of white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ groups were found.

Hate groups: Last year, there were 533 active hate groups in the US. These include groups who express views that are anti-LBGTQ+, anti-immigrant, antisemitic, and anti-Muslim. This number has been steadily declining since reaching a historic high of 1,021 in 2018.

Anti-government groups: Last year, they totaled 838, an increase from recent years, according to the law center based in Montgomery, Alabama. These groups see the federal government as “tyrannical” and include militias and self-described sovereign citizens.

A rising influence: Male supremacy continues to gain influence as well. The SPLC documented seven new male supremacist hate groups, making the total 16. Their rhetoric espouses misogyny and strict gender roles. “I’m not sure it’s a direct result of the candidacy of Kamala Harris,” says Rachel Carroll Rivas, interim director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. However, SPLC researchers went into white supremacist chatrooms during the election and found “intense vilification, the claiming of demonization of Harris, as well as just the pushing of the idea falsely that women would not be qualified” to run for president.

‘White Christian’ angle: Some people on the far right have also pushed a belief that white Christian culture is being threatened by a “demographic crisis,” including fewer births.

Why the downtick? The SPLC attributes the decline in the number of hate groups to a lesser sense of urgency to organize, as the groups’ beliefs have infiltrated politics, education, and society in general. Some of the ways they’ve achieved this are through pushing for bans on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and book bans, the report says.

No need to join if your biases and hatreds are being addressed by the leader of the not so free world.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–29Oct21

As you know this country is becoming more and more divided…..and the rise of hate groups is also a growing problem.

But which state has the highest number of haters?

That would be Montana.

The Southern Poverty Law Center releases data each year on hate groups across America. The 2020 figure was 838. One of the factors in the analysis is that hate groups are divided into groups that range from neo-Nazis to racist skinheads to anti-migrant groups. The study also shows where the groups are located based on years of observation.

The state with the most hate groups is Montana. Here are the details:

Hate groups in 2020: 5.55 per million people (six total)
Percentage of population identifying as white: 85.8 (fifth highest)
Percentage of population foreign-born: 2.3 (third lowest)
Median household income: $57,153 (11th lowest)
Largest hate group headquartered in the state: Last Chance Patriots

What is a hate group according to the study? The study included this definition:

This Is the State With the Most Hate Groups

My state, Mississippi, is number 16…..(I would have thought it would be higher on the list)……

For me this whole division thing is very disturbing…..I am an old fart so I fear that this country will not heal in my lifetime for that reason I fear for my granddaughter in the future.

Please any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Feeding Hate

We all are well aware that Donald the Orange fed the hate and bias of many Americans……basically he was so popular not because of the presidency but rather he punished those that he hated…..

This is why the country loved Trump…..

Atlantic columnist Adam Serwer writes that there’s a simple reason the GOP base still loves Trump despite being ousted from office after just one term: They saw him as a punishment for all the people in America whom they hate.

“Trump was not a successful president,” Serwer contends. “But as a form of punishment, he was everything conservatives dreamed of, and they loved him for it.

Serwer goes on to documents some of the ways conservatives relished seeing Trump punish their foes.

“Early in his administration, Trump banned travelers from several Muslim-majority countries, barred federal grants to so-called sanctuary cities, and sought to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were in the U.S. on temporary protected status,” he writes. “Almost all of his accomplishments were punitive.”

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-failed/

Some say that this was a once in a lifetime event….not so.

The US has a long history of blaming minorities……the recent violence targeting Asian-Americans is a prime example of this……

The instinct to vilify minority groups, especially during times of crisis, has a long-standing history in the U.S., rooted in the country’s relationship to white supremacy or fear that white people might become less powerful, said Sherry Wang, a professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University. Wang explained that the U.S. has often promoted racist myths to portray different groups of people as either inferior, dirty or dangerous to white people. For Asian Americans in particular, she said, there’s the “Yellow Peril” stereotype, a fear that emerged in the late-19th century, after an increase in immigration to the U.S. from China — and after the West realized that Asians were strong enough as a political, economic and military threat to surpass the U.S. “When the West realized Asia was very big and could take over, they wanted to paint Asians, especially East Asians, as dangerous outsiders but not so threatening that they were superior,” she said. “They were seen as threatening to the white, Western way of life.”

The U.S. Has A Long-Standing History Of Vilifying Minority Groups During Times Of Crisis

The use of social media has made the feeding of hatred to become an art form….the spread of hatred flies around the globe at light speed.

After the insurrection of 06 January the hate groups are seemingly gain speed….

Some members have left extremist groups in the wake of the Jan. 6 violence. The members who remain, and the new members they are attracting, are increasing the radicalization of far-right groups. As the less committed members abandon these far-right groups, only the more devout remain. Such a shift is going to alter the subculture of these groups, driving them farther to the right. We expect this polarization will only accelerate the reactionary behaviors and extremist tendencies of these far-right groups.

https://www.juancole.com/2021/03/insurrection-americas-extreme.html

I foresee danger ahead!

This must cease….a way to counter the feeding of hatred especially with lies and misinformation needs to be found and a solution needs a home.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

QAnon–Making Of A Cult?

There has been lots of airtime devoted to the fringe group calling themselves, QAnon……I even tried to educate my readers about the group…..https://lobotero.com/2020/08/28/qanon-wtf-is-qanon/

So there is more about this group of (insert an adjective you like here)……even the president of the United States seems to have a connection to this group……

Vice President Mike Pence and top officials from President Trump’s campaign are slated to attend a Montana fundraiser next week hosted by a couple who have expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to an event invitation obtained by the AP and a review of social media postings. The hosts of the fundraiser, Caryn and Michael Borland, have shared QAnon memes and retweeted posts from QAnon accounts, their social media activity shows. The baseless conspiracy theory posits that Trump is fighting entrenched enemies in the government and also involves satanism and child sex trafficking. Beyond Pence, the Sept. 14 fundraiser in Bozeman, Montana, is expected to draw influential figures in the president’s orbit.

They include Kimberly Guilfoyle, a top Trump fundraising official who is dating Donald Trump Jr., GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Republican National Committee finance chairman Todd Ricketts and RNC co-chairman Tommy Hicks Jr., the event invitation shows. While many Republicans have dismissed QAnon, the fundraiser is another sign of how the conspiracy theory is gaining a foothold in the party. Trump has hailed Georgia congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene, another QAnon supporter, as a “future Republican star.” The president has refused to condemn QAnon, recently telling reporters that the conspiracy theory is “gaining in popularity” and that its supporters “like me very much.”

This is nothing surprising…we have known for many years about Trump’s embracing of the radical Right (for lack of a good title)…..

Is this group, QAnon, moving from fringe group to a full blown cult?

A secret cabal is taking over the world. They kidnap children, slaughter, and eat them to gain power from their blood. They control high positions in government, banks, international finance, the news media, and the church. They want to disarm the police. They promote homosexuality and pedophilia. They plan to mongrelize the white race so it will lose its essential power.

Does this conspiracy theory sound familiar? It is. The same narrative has been repackaged by QAnon.

I have studied and worked to prevent genocide for forty years. Genocide Watch and the Alliance Against Genocide, the first international anti-genocide coalition, see such hate-filled conspiracy theories as early warning signs of deadly genocidal violence.

QAnon is a Nazi Cult, Rebranded

I worry that groups like this are getting too much attention which gives them more power than they deserve.

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–26Sep19

Neo-Nazis and Osama—-are unlikely allies?

Since the little fascist hate anyone with brown skin it is interesting that they have found common ground with Osama…

As the threat of militant neo-Nazi groups expands and gains the attentions of federal authorities, their online propaganda tactics are taking a page out of an unlikely playbook: well-known jihadist groups.

Two neo-Nazi terror groups in particular, both revealed to be under investigation by the FBI in a recent indictment of an alleged bomber who was a member of both organizations, have recently demonstrated that they’re learning from online propaganda created by ISIS and al Qaeda.

In a late May post, European neo-Nazi group Feuerkrieg Division (FKD) published a propaganda image to its now-defunct Gab page. The image featured a stylized, yet unmistakable, screengrab from an infamous ISIS how-to video promoting homemade explosives with the caption, “It’s easier than you think.”

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjwv4a/neo-nazis-are-glorifying-osama-bin-laden

Censorship By Any Other Name

The truth is I despise the hateful, insulting crap that comes out of the mouths and off the fingers of many on the Right…..but I also believe they have the right to express themselves as they wish….short of any violence.

I have written on our 1st amendment here on IST…….https://lobotero.com/2017/02/13/will-there-be-freedom-of-the-press/

But recently a couple of the so-called “social media” sites have taken up the idea of deleting and banning some of their users….

This week, internet giants like Facebook, Youtube, Spotify and others banned the notorious Alex Jones and InfoWars from their platforms, and the purge is enjoying widespread support among the left, which has made a reputation for itself as intolerant of differing opinions (last year, for example, a group of Antifa protesters beat one of our own Anti-Media reporters and destroyed his camera equipment at a rally simply because he was filming).

In Jones’ case, Facebook cited hate speech, though this stance seems inconsistent considering the platform has caught flack for allowing anti-semitic content. This lack of principle doesn’t matter to many left-wing partisans, though, as long as someone they find reprehensible is silenced — even as others with far better reputations are banned from other platforms (to clarify, Anti-Media does not endorse Infowars in any way, nor do we consider them to be a legitimate news outlet).

https://theantimedia.com/americans-end-free-speech/

I understand why the “Zuck” did this…he was trying to divert attention from his past transgressions that are not going away as he had said they would.

But I do not think that these a/holes should be banned….that is as bad as people that called for me to be banned back in the days of my youth because I had a more socialist leaning in those days.

All the “fake news” tomes on the web are just that on the web…..a person must choose to search for the facts and the truth or believe whatever they are told by pundits who are paid to stir the pot….after all most are propagandists paid to deceive.

I have used this reference before in an attempt to get Americans thinking for themselves…..

Fake news is nothing new. But bogus stories can reach more people more quickly via social media than what good old-fashioned viral emails could accomplish in years past.

Concern about the phenomenon led Facebook and Google to announce that they’ll crack down on fake news sites, restricting their ability to garner ad revenue. Perhaps that could dissipate the amount of malarkey online, though news consumers themselves are the best defense against the spread of misinformation.

https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/

You have the link…now USE IT!

So I Have Written!

Turn The Page!

Terrorists Are No Longer Needed

There was a time when the Islamophobes needed a terrorist attack or the threat there of for them to spread their hatred to the rest of the Americans that fear whatever it is they fear.

Those days are gone!

The Right Wing has sanctuary cities to demonize……and still have immigrants to hate…..without an attack somewhere they hit all the old stand-bys…..

Fearless Fosdick decided to retweet some racist bullshit….. President Donald Trump’s decision to retweet a series of anti-Muslim videos from a British far-right account. Then afterward his press secretary defended the president saying……”Whether it is a real video, the threat is real,” Sanders told a small group of reporters after appearing on Fox News. “That is what the President is talking about, that is what the President is focused on is dealing with those real threats, and those are real no matter how you look at it.”

When pressed on whether it matters if the video is real, Sanders said reporters were “focusing on the wrong thing.”

“The threat is real,” she said, later adding that “the threat needs to be addressed. The threat has to be talked about and that is what the President is doing in bringing that up.”

So you see terrorists are no longer needed in this country to help drive the Islamophobia……but in case you still cannot see it……

When asked by reporters on Wednesday about President Trump’s retweets of anti-Muslim videos, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “what the President is talking about is the need for national security, the need for military spending.”

Her talking points are out of date. The videos are not about “national security” at all. The first supposedly depicts a Muslim migrant beating up a Dutch boy on crutches. (The assailant may have been neither a migrant nor Muslim). The second supposedly shows a Muslim man destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary. It appears to have been filmed in Syria. The third apparently shows an “Islamist mob” pushing “a teenage boy off a roof.” It comes from Egypt. None involves terrorism against the United States or even Europe. None could have been prevented by more “military spending.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-new-islamophobia/547130/

As disgusting as Fearless Fosdick was by retweet these worthless turds of lies…. the outrage was greater in the UK than it was here in the US. Did you hear anyone from Congress criticize….from the GOP that is?

That is just so sad on so many levels.

WE live in the so-called “Digital Age” and social media is very conducive for the spread of lies and hate….and NO one does it better than Fearless Fosdick……

For many Americans who woke up to President Trump’s tweets Wednesday morning, these videos seemed unduly hateful, and in the case of the video of the boy on the crutches, even fraudulent. (According to Dutch authorities, the assailant was born and raised in The Netherlands.) But for researchers of propaganda, the historical parallels within the videos were more chilling than anything else. There are, they say, just two differences between the German caricatures and the President’s tweets. First, the social media age has given Trump more readers on Twitter than the Der Stürmer or Der Untermensch ever had. And second, we have no way of knowing how this chapter in history will end

https://www.wired.com/story/historians-see-terrifying-echoes-in-trumps-anti-muslim-tweets/

Don’t let yourself be fooled by these types of people and their followers……and anyone that retweets their crap is a follower…..they spew nothing but hate…..every word they utter are lies and every thought is hateful.

“Stupid Is As Stupid Does”

There are times when you just shake your head at the amount of stupidity that invades our society…..like on the 4th when NPR Tweeted out the DoI, 140 characters at a time and then the push back from people that did not know it was the DoI……

NPR marked the Fourth of July by tweeting the entire Declaration of Independence, but it seems some Twitter users didn’t recognize what they were reading. The AP reports the broadcaster tweeted out the words of the declaration line-by-line Tuesday. Some of the founders’ criticisms of King George III were met with angry responses from supporters of President Trump, who seemed to believe the tweets were a reference to his presidency. One tweet read, “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” Another said: “and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.”

A Twitter user accused NPR of condoning violence while trying to sound patriotic. The user apologized after the misunderstanding was pointed out. Another asked if the tweet was talking about the US’ current foreign agenda, asking if Americans were the tyrants. Others were under the impression NPR was trying to provoke Trump with the tweets and praised the outlet for doing so. Many, recognizing it was the Declaration of Independence, said how history is repeating itself. NPR broadcast its annual reading of the declaration for the 29th straight year on Independence Day. This is the first year the tradition has been extended to Twitter. A spokesperson says the tweets were shared by thousands of people and generated “a lively conversation.”

The Tweets fired at NPR are just amazing……read some of them for yourself…….some of the replies will just amaze you……

Source: NPR tweeted the Declaration of Independence. Some people got angry

Apparently the DoI is no longer required reading in school…..how many of those that attacked consider themselves a “Proud American” and “Patriotic”?

Seriously?

Monthly “Assie” Award–March 2017

It is the last Sunday of the month and time to announce the monthly winner of the IST Asshat “Assie” Award.

March was a tough month for it was full of morons rattling off the most anal statements I have heard in awhile. But after much deliberation we have chosen the winner.

(Drum roll….trumpets flair…..and the peasants dance)

IN SANER TOUGHT

ASSHAT “ASSIE” AWARD FOR THE MONTH OF MARCH 2017

US REPRESENTATIVE STEVE KING (R-IA)

His history of the spoken word says that he intended to say just what he said and it meant just what it means……it can be spun any way one desires but the fact is he is a typical racist bigot from the heartland.

He just could not hold his tongue…he opened that mouth and out fell a load of manure.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has long been a friend to the European far right.

King embraced language that is incendiary even by his corroded standards. In a tweet once again supporting Wilders — who is in the final days of his latest bid to become prime minister of the Netherlands — King said: “Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”

It wasn’t immediately clear who King meant by “somebody else’s babies,” but white nationalists have used similar language to suggest that America needs more white people of European descent, and fewer Muslim and Latino immigrants.

Congrats Rep. King for your award….an email of this post will be sent to his office in Washington.

Keep in mind that there will be 11 monthly winners and in December I will ask my readers to pick the annual winner….hopefully all will join in the fun.

Remember if you see or read something that would fit into this award please let me know and I will give my reader credit for its discovery. I would like this to be an IST readers award….please help out if you can.

Thanx everyone for your participation and hope to see you guys next week…..please have a great Sunday and enjoy your day.

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Tag: Hate Groups

Closing Thought–29Oct21

Feeding Hate

QAnon–Making Of A Cult?

Closing Thought–26Sep19

Terrorists Are No Longer Needed

Monthly “Assie” Award–March 2017