Southern Poverty Law Center Promotes Y2K Race War |
On June 16th the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a stark warning of an impending race war. In a statement carried by Reuters news service spokesman Mark Potok, it was declared that some "hate groups" believe that Biblical Armageddon will be fought in the year 2000 by white Christians against blacks and Jews.(1) Potok's remarks coincided with the release of a SPLC Intelligence Project report which indicated that even though the number of such groups has fallen off recently, a "leaner, harder Patriot movement ... hardened in the forge of the Christian Identity religion has emerged, producing terrorist conspiracies and crimes on a level not seen in decades." (2)
In his customary fashion, Mark Potok crudely lashed out against the religious sect of Christian Identity. "You don't hate your cow, but you sure as hell don't sleep with it," he told Reuters, referring to the ideal of racial separation held by many Identity believers. "It [Christian Identity] is incredibly anti-Semitic, and it is racist because [members believe] blacks are not human," he said. Potok failed to explain the SPLC's position that the prenatal human is not human either. (3)
The Southern Poverty Law Center is again beating the war drum of racist agitation, evidently alarmed at the declining number of Patriot type groups included in its catalog of stigmatization. After the decline of the Ku Klux Klan the Patriot movement became the bogeyman used by the SPLC to convince contributors that they should continue sending in large checks. Add one measure of Christian Identity with some sensational sound bite and you have a "leaner, harder Patriot" threat to sell -- another illusion that remains the sole product of the "hate industrial complex." These subversive tactics have successfully netted the SPLC a large endowment worth many millions of tax-free dollars.
As the Southern Poverty Law Center profiteered on the Oklahoma City bombing and pumped the militia threat for all it could gain from it, a courageous member of that organization's leadership council protested to Morris Dees, SPLC director and founder, in a letter that is by now well known in Patriot circles. In that letter he stated:
I have, until recently, been a contributing member to SPLC for several years, and until recently, I have been proud of that association... But rather than seek justice for those so abused, the Center has chosen to exploit sensationalist journalism, to which the SPLC itself has contributed heavily, inducing largely irrational fears to fight against the so-called "Patriot Movement" and its related "Militias". In the SPLC campaign, this heterogeneous group is painted with broad strokes in threatening ways which are very unfair to the great majority of those in the movement... If we in the SPLC are truly concerned with the threat presented by these groups, we should be looking for ways to constructively address their legitimate concerns, rather than seek to blindly discredit and destroy the entire movement. -- excerpts from a letter by David H. Stern, M.D. dated May 8, 1996.
Evidently, Dr. Stern's lucid appeal was ignored by the SPLC, which has continued its hate-mongering and sensationalist smear campaign against non-conformist groups. The SPLC pays a good salary to a scurrilous loose cannon like Mark Potok who disparages and ridicules these groups, confirming their suspicions and widening the social divide. The SPLC has perfected the Orwellian example of perpetuating the curse from which they claim to be saving us.
The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded by Morris Dees in 1971 with the stated purpose of seeking justice for poor Southerners, including victims of government abuse. As time went on, it became evident to many that the SPLC was motivated by a political agenda. Critics claim that the SPLC is hostile to white, middle American values and Christianity while countenancing with their silence the draconian abuses of the federal government. Their bias in this regard has caused Southern conservatives and others to accuse the SPLC of climbing into bed with the federal government and its constituents. The SPLC's evident duplicity has fostered an atmosphere of fear, hatred and division. This is a result, some claim, of their effort to enrich their organization and implement the agenda of their financial and ideological sponsors.
One newspaper editor said of Morris Dees:
Voluminous records and testimony reveal that everything Dees purports to despise... HE IS! And now, he is being judged by his own judgments. His Southern Poverty Law Center is not Southern, is a long way from the Poverty bracket and has nothing to do (really) with Law. In reality his organization is better identified as the Center of Hate. (4)
The editor went on to cite figures reported in the Montgomery Advertiser which revealed that the Southern Poverty Law Center raised $4.2 million in donations per lawsuit filed in the five years preceding December 28, 1994, a scandalous amount of money that reveals how profitable hate can be. This same source revealed the presence of racism within the hallowed halls of the Center itself, as one black intern reported being nicknamed "little girl" by her white supervisor who also told her they "don't need black people telling them how to handle black issues." Other interns said that the Center was run like a "plantation." (4)
The SPLC's June 16th media blitz was a continuation of their sordid tradition, with a sharpening focus on the Christian Identity religious sect which they predict will provide the ideological impetus for increased terrorist activity in the future. The Center's Intelligence Report claims that:
Anyone who is familiar with Identity beliefs knows that these assertions are a collection of broad characterizations, innuendos and some outright lies. Identity believers are not anti-Semitic and the SPLC knows this. Semites are the descendants of Shem, and Identity believers claim to be the true descendants of Shem, thus regarding themselves as very pro-Semite. This doctrine has brought upon Identity believers the wrath of the U.S. governing elite who want to destroy them for questioning culturally ingrained dogma. God will be the ultimate judge of Identity doctrines, but we should see that the SPLC's intensifying hate speech against Identity believers is directed as much at their fervently held beliefs as their guns.
As repugnant as some may find Christian Identity beliefs to be, all must recognize that Identity believers are free to believe whatever they want without harassment and persecution by the governing regime. Many Identity believers are protesting the way they have been associated to bombings and robberies because some accused of such acts hold beliefs that are similar. We must be acutely aware of the media machine's concerted effort to influence public sentiments against all Identity believers, regardless of their differences, a campaign of slander and misrepresentation that may well result in a Stalinist type purge of all those holding unpopular ideology.
On April 24, CNN's Linda Pattillo filed a report in which she warned, "The conspiratorial, anti-government doctrines of Christian Identity are slowly working their way into some fundamentalist churches, according to some observers." These "observers", of course, are the Southern Poverty Law Center-led cabal of hate groups that have mounted a concerted attack on Christianity. "Hate" is spreading in the sense that the SPLC is expanding its definition of it. Fundamentalist churches are the next target and, as this culture war continues, more and more believers will find themselves targets of slander and persecution. Their aim is to destroy all true faith and conviction, rendering all people as timid and helpless as barnyard animals.
Professed Christians everywhere are seeing themselves under attack by the global cultural elite and many are recognizing the unfolding struggle to be the Biblical Armageddon foretold in scripture. In the tactics used by the federal government, in the hypocrisy and lying subterfuge of the Southern Poverty Law Center and kindred hate groups, in the arrogant oppression of religious minorities by thought police, we may see the spirit of the great Beast of the Apocalypse at work. It reads in the Apocalypse:
Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war ... And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who sits upon the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur. And the rest were slain by the sword of him who sits upon the horse, the sword that issues from his mouth and all the birds were gorged with their flesh. Revelation 19:11,19-21 RSV. (6)
It would seem this battle has begun.
FOOTNOTES:
Written 06/21/98
Follow Up Article:
Christian Identity Minister Speaks Out Against Religious Persecution
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