Stop Me Before I Vote Again

SPLC is not conspiracist, and like ADL, they turn up some useful research, usually backgrounding some dangerous folks. But also like ADL, they are perpetually prone to hyperbole for marketing. Three years ago this week, I wrote about SPLC here http://skookumgeoduck.blogspot.com/2007/03/let-chips-fall.html

As you can see by the comments, it's probably better on the whole that they exist than not, but that doesn't make their hyperbole less problematic. Indeed, as soon as I saw the word extremist in your article, I knew it would lead to them and their satellite colleagues.

While we're rounding up the usual suspects of hyperbole, I also wrote about the early warning signs of red-baiting by progressives http://skookumgeoduck.blogspot.com/2006/08/fervent-fear-factor.html who've jumped on the extremism bandwagon. Not surprisingly, they're part of the SPLC milieu.

Don't forget--"libertarian" is a word used by conservatives who don't want to admit they're Republicans.

I second Jay's assessment of the SPLC. Useful info on certain groups, but with hyperbolic tendencies.

I agree with your assessment that current state violence of the liberal persuasion (ie. they talk nicer about it) is more of a present problem than potential violence of the extreme right wing persuasion. (Here I'm using extreme to connote distance from center, no more).

That said, must you be so glib about it? I don't know how likely it is, but it's certainly plausible that a fascist type movement could develop, if the economy remains dismal. Chris Hedges, who you just linked to, is certainly worried about it. He even wrote a book about it, American Fascists.

And the Tony judt article that was the source of one of the links in the thermidorean post expressed similar fears (near the end), that as America's liberal class has become dumber and more ineffectual, this is a sign of the death of the republic, leading to....something worse

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n18/tony-judt/bushs-useful-idiots

Much like on climate change, I think it's quite possible to mock "progressives" who use such things for partisan purposes (elect us, or those scary guys will win!), while also being aware of a larger reality.

I'm not saying I think America will succumb to a fascist movement, but as a concerned foreigner, it's on the list of possibilities I keep myself aware of.

As far as I'm concerned, Alexander Cockburn had the last word on Morris Dees and his direct mail marketing scam.

And yes, the SPLC does do the conspiracist bullshit, but merely not to the same extent as the ADL. However, they first crossed my radar by claiming that the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle were the sign of a resurgent fascist movement called "third position" fascism. As the author of the article points out, such a crude smear would have been merely laughed off if it had been seen to directly originate from the pigs, but since it came from the trusted and approved SPLC, the charge gained traction. It was even approvingly cited by a far-right racist website because it affirmed the lies they've been telling their prospective recruits about their opposition to globalization.

I'm a little more tolerant of the term "progressive" than you, though, because some people use it to indicate that they have a commitment to things like gay rights and other causes that transcend what merely procedural liberalism can justify. Nevertheless, even though they are marginally closer to left political thought than liberals, the "progressives" in this sense usually just end up voting for whatever Donkeycrat functionary wins the primaries. They fully deserve the term bestowed on them by Chris Clarke, environmentalist and nature writer: the Progressive Marshmallow Consensus.

When you know the professionals are distorting research for the purpose of marketing, the only choice left is to do it http://skookumgeoduck.blogspot.com/2005/06/research-as-organizing-tool.html yourself.

While waiting for my last post to get fished out from spam filtration, I'd also like to reflect on the meaning of "extremist", which was also inspired by OP's thread "The Song Remains the Same", where he quotes from a guy named Jimmy Kwak called Obama's three probable Fed appointments "centrist". Central to this "centrism" is the "central banking orthodoxy of putting inflation control over economic growth, and who oppose tighter regulation of banks".

That, to me, is not centrist but overwhelmingly and narrowly ideological. Thus, whenever I see the term "extremist" thrown around, it's almost always being used by someone who wants to limit consideration of an idea to an attenuated range of "acceptable" opinions. Americans are conditioned to believe in the virtue of being "unbiased" and that the truth of everything lies in the "middle", so every dubious ideology flies under the false colors of being "centrist".

Interesting Quiz at:

How Progressive Are You?

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/progressive_quiz.html

Seems you actually have to do the quiz to see the overall scores for various groups, but some results are, on a scale of 0 to 400:

1. Liberal Dems 247.1
2. Obama voters 244.0
3. Liberals 242.3
4. Progressives 237.6
5. Average 209.5
6. Conservatives 177.9
7. Cons Repubs 160.6

I don't put much value in quizzes like this, as they don't allow for sufficient nuance in the questions, but it is interesting that Obama voters and liberals are slightly more progressive than "progressives" though the difference is slight. I scored 355, which I suppose makes me a "progressive extremist."

I don't have a particular problem with the term "progressive" though I agree it is often used as a cop out by those who don't want to admit to those nasty "liberal" views. Though I wonder what is to be said for those like me who use the term "leftist" for the same reason, though usually due to the perception that liberals aren't lefty enuff.

Nullifidian, I think Kwak might be a fan of George Lakoff. You know, "framing" the spectrum so that "centrist" is used for policies and directions that are clearly fascist. Frame totalitarian profiteering for corporate advantage as "centrist" and suddenly a real "centrist" looks like Chairman Mao.

'"relatively liberal" Obama Administration'

The Obama Administration is relatively liberal?

Who knew? I'd have never guessed. I placed them solidly in the Republican camp myself.

The Obama administration strikes me as "relatively" fascist.

Incidentally, a couple days ago a liberal, Obama thumping coworker of mine declared me an "extremist" on facebook for pointing out the plain fact the war on Afghanistan is an imperialist operation.

"progressive or fascist?"
choose one

sounds like a good squeeze play
voids the center
while shifting the spectrum right

confusing popular reaction as a motion of the jobbled masses with fascism is an infantile disorder

nativism scape goating bellicosity these are features... no ???

the contempt for congress is not anti democratic
i see no fueher principle in sarah pallin..
or scott brown

these are repug painted birds
much like donkey dark obama
is a painted bird of pwogress

we hardly need to consolidate the struggle behind
the system's structural ability to reform itself

weimar brack down is not our future

one needs to be dogmatic here

look to britain not germany
for historic parallels if you must

the fascist cry is too optimistic
it implies system crisis
odd acts of desperate lethal idiocy
and vicious street rumpus scape goating
we have a long tradition of lynch law
without producing a hitler

talk radio commuter rebellions
lead to honking horns and road rage

and
sturm und drang in a beer mug
rolling
across the taverns of amerika
leads to gashed foreheads
and bed wetting

one notes the blooming of the klan and the american legion in the 20's

we got nothin' so large as that today

tea baggers ???

please
they go in tea pots don't they ???

beatle mania was more of a menace to order

conjuring with words can be folly

but populist and progressive
still tumble over each other
to fruitful result i think

insipid and banal
foolishly comforting even
like peanut butter and jelly
and stand alone each is but one hand
unable to make noise

brought sharply together however
the two are broadly resonant

What I'd like to know is why SPLC includes the word "poverty" in it moniker. Surely, the historical legacy of 350 years of chattel slavery and apartheid is the main cause of "southern poverty." Surely mainstream whites' everyday unspoken assumptions about the topic are the second most important source of "southern poverty."

Neo-Nazis and Klan 3.0 rate a far-distant third, at best. So , WTF?

Sean writes:
I don't put much value in quizzes like this, as they don't allow for sufficient nuance in the questions, but it is interesting that Obama voters and liberals are slightly more progressive than "progressives" though the difference is slight. I scored 355, which I suppose makes me a "progressive extremist."

Insufficient nuances? There's the understatement of the year. Where does that leave anarchists -- or, in my case, someone whose beliefs and values have, over the course of several decades' experience with Liberals, the Party system and the State, ended up defaulting to "anarchist"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gEvxw9XKzo

Through the best of times,
Through the worst of times,
Through Nixon and through Bush,
Do you remember '36?
We went our separate ways.
You fought for Stalin.
I fought for freedom.

(chorus)
'Cause baby, I'm an anarchist,
You're a spineless liberal.
We marched together for the eight-hour day
And held hands in the streets of Seattle,
But when it came time to throw bricks
Through that Starbucks window,
You left me all alone!

Against Me: Baby, I'm An Anarchist

I don't know from "extremism" these days, but what I do know is that after having seen this report -- complete with some truly awesome fotos -- I'm actually jealous of the Indonesians right now, not so much for the situation they're in, but for their having the cajones to hit the streets and rip it up for what the State and Capital have inflicted on them -- and hitting the streets entirely without the benefit of parade permits, Steering Committees or Executive Directors.

You go, Indonesians! And you go, Greeks, too, while I'm at it...

Peter Ward writes:
Incidentally, a couple days ago a liberal, Obama thumping coworker of mine declared me an "extremist" on facebook for pointing out the plain fact the war on Afghanistan is an imperialist operation.

Dude! Good for you! Be fuckin' proud, man -- as proud as I was on the morning of Election Day 2004 (I was still voting back then) when I told my Liberal wife that I was voting for Nader and telling all my friends to vote for him as well, and she responded by getting all pissy and calling me a "subversive". ALRIIIIGHT, YEAH.

"You fought for Stalin.
I fought for freedom"

this line pair preens at a cracked mirror