Tea Party Protesters Are "Neo-Nazis, Militias, Secessionists and Racists"
Friday, April 17, 2009
Yikes! Secessionists? Like William Wallace? George Washington? Thomas Jefferson?
Pretty scary, huh?
So, who’s using such defamatory language to discredit the Tea Party protests against socialism and unbearable tax burdens? Sounds like something our friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center would say. But that’s not who’s saying this — it’s leaders in the Democratic Party:
Other House Democratic leaders took a different tack: One senior aide has been circulating a document to the media that debunks the effort as one driven by corporate lobbyists and attended by neo-Nazis…
In addition, the tea parties are “not really all about average citizens,” the document continues, saying neo-Nazis, militias, secessionists and racists are attending them. The tea parties are also not peaceful, since reporters in Cincinnati had to seek “police protection” during one of the events, it states.
The point, of course, is to de-legitimize the opposition. So where did this idea come from that opposing the Federal government makes you a bad person?
Clearly, this is an area where the SPLC shines. It’s what they do. Take this SPLC smear piece, for example, with the revealing title, "Hate Groups and Nativist Extremists Crashing ‘Tea Parties’." And the recent government reports maligning conservative activists as potential terrorists had the SPLC’s thumbprints all over it. Immigration activist William Gheen called the SPLC on this after Missouri law enforcement recycled SPLC accusations. Naturally, the SPLC retorted with their one of their typical "What? Little ol’ us?" releases:
When Missouri law enforcement officers prepared a controversial report linking some right-wing organizations to the growing militia movement, anti-illegal immigration activist William Gheen knew just who to blame: The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). …
And what do SPLC and the ADL have to do with all of this? The SPLC was cited as among the sources from which the Missouri report drew conclusions. In his advisory, Gheen wrote that “we felt that the false connections, pseudo research and political attacks found in these documents could have been penned by the SPLC and ADL.”
But in fact, SPLC did not “pen” any part of the report. “The SPLC was not involved in any way in the preparation of this report,” said Mark Potok, director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project.
Got that? Why, the SPLC didn’t "pen" the report — they were only "cited as among the sources." Cute, eh?
On The Web: www.dixienet.org/rebellion/2009/04/tea-party-protesters-are-neo-nazis.html