On the rising plague of right-wing violence.

[Oniya]

Scratch that - he's been removed from Quillette's page.

[Oniya]

If we're counting 'would have been, but they got stopped', we have these 'fine people' in Vegas:

https://www.ktnv.com/news/crime/2-men-arrested-for-allegedly-threatening-to-shoot-up-wynn-las-vegas-nightclub

Before they were arrested, they shouted 'White privilege, white power, we are white supremacists!'

[Tolvo]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-soldier-arrested-jarrett-william-smith-allegedly-shared-bomb-making-instructions-and-discussed-killing-beto/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-arrest-army-soldier-who-allegedly-discussed-attacks-u-s-n1057701

https://www.thekansan.com/news/20190923/fort-riley-soldier-charged-with-providing-bomb-making-info-to-target-politicians-antifa-news-network/1

https://www.kalw.org/post/kansas-soldier-charged-teaching-bomb-making-far-right-extremists

A US Soldier has been arrested, he was caught explaining to others how to create bombs and how to carry out terrorist attacks in the USA. The targets he designated and wanted to see killed that are known are anti-fascist protestors, and bombing an unnamed major news network and Beto O'rourke. He was caught when an undercover FBI agent on an app called out seeking individuals in Texas who would be good targets to kill and he responded. He detailed online various instructions on how to get materials to make and how to build bombs and had planned car bombings. The soldier was working with other far right extremists and was openly discussing such things and doing so in private with others on Telegram. He mentioned he was working to set up networks for people like him and was seeking to join others that already existed. He was also considering going to Ukraine to fight in a far right paramilitary group. He had apparently been doing these things while in the army and prior to enlisting and had been under the watch of the FBI for a little while.

[SINless]

Wasn't there also a story recently about a black police officer who went undercover and infiltrated the KKK?  I think it was all done online.

Yeah, Bad Boys 2 proved doing that face to face is really hard.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/22/the-black-man-in-the-ku-klux-klan  Ron Stallworth

[Skynet]

And where has this rising plague got us?

January 6th, 2021. So much has been said that cannot fit into a single post, but this link and the resulting pages' worth of content and reports speak for themselves.

[Praxis]

Veks.

I am extremely proud of you and your team who tirelessly work to make things better in your corner of the internet.

Staying silent and hoping these misanthropic and willfully ignorant people will somehow magically get better is simply not a solution.

I support you and your team's policies and I commend you for the effort.

[Skynet]

While it does not take the form of terrorism, assassinations, or other such direct violence where victim and perpetrator are both humans, right-wing ideology has also contributed to an unacceptable death toll for the past year.

I will not repeat myself post-wise when I said as much in other threads, but as of the final day of Trump's presidency 402,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus. Even if he was a stellar President the past four years, his willful defiance and unwillingness to halt the spread would ruin his legacy. This was not just incompetence, but maliciousness, for he knew from experts it would be deadly, but sought not to do anything and even went to war against his own doctors such as Fauci and others for reporting accurately on the situation.

The Republicans who go about without masks, defy lockdown and make no changes to their personal lives, who think the virus is a hoax or are willing to risk spreading it for some ill-defined "freedom," have contributed just as much to pain and suffering as the man they revere. They may not be as bloody-minded as the white nationalist or domestic terrorist who has murder in their hearts, but all the same they put innocent lives at risk.

[Missy]

I don't find any reedemable quality in Trump, but I'm not sure it was Malice really, just plum laziness. I think the truth is he didn't want to put forth the effort, it was easier to just get support for being lazy by politicizing the issue than it would have been to do the right thing, so the heartless narccissist was lazy.

[Boltox]

Hi! I relize Im late to this discussion but found it interesting.

I really mean to bring no disrespect to this sensitive subject but I want to bring up some points worth considering.

I read the ADL report and I didn´t find where they got the number of 74% of hate crimes being right wing between 2007-2016. They never account for these numbers or give reference to the crimes. So we have no way of knowing how they conclude what is a right-wing hate crime and what is a left-wing ect.

Also their data does not focus on trans killings. All these murders are just for hate crimes generally. So it´s not that trans people are specifically targeted.

The reason 2016 is the highest amount killings because of the large Orlando shooting done by an Islamist. He killed 49 of the 69 hate killings that happened that year. By their own data they say that for the year 2016 islamists was responsible for 71% of hate murders (49/69=0,71). Right wing only 10% even black nationalists was higher at 12%.

I also know that ADL are very poor at judging who is a right-winger or not. For example they labeled Majiid Nawaz as an alt-right/anti-islamic extremists and put him on a list together with Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and I think they went after Pewdiepie as well. Which shows how out of touch they are. Majiid even suited them successfully for deformation so they had to retract their statments about him

I wanted to bring this because they way you brought this up made it seem like there is an epidemic of hate crime murders specifically targeting trans people. As well as brining up that your source ADL isn´t nearly as good as it used to be. In the past it was the gold standard for this kind of stuff but have really lost the plot in later years. Therefore I really question how they decide what is a right-wing hate muder. Because if Sam Harris would commit a murder, they would label it as a right wing hate crime. Even if Sam never have voted republican and was one of the most vocal opponents to trump. How can we be sure they aren´t blinded by their own biases?

One final intersting thing I saw in the report was the most deadly domestic attacks on US soil. 3 where left wing 6 right wing and 4 islamist. However if you discount attacks before 2000s: 0 left-wing attacks, 2 right-wing attacks (1 happened 2001 so quiet long ago) and 4 islamists. I bring this up to show that recently it isn´t right-wing that does causes the largest attacks.

[Skynet]

Sam Harris is considered alt-right because he repeatedly shills for a pseudo-scientific book called the Bell Curve which claimed that there was a direct correlation between IQ rates and race and that such differences were genetically determined as opposed to things such as environment, nutrition, etc.

It's a rather long video, but there's a good debunking of the Bell Curve which is well-sourced from various academic citations and other information resources. Among other things, the writers of the Bell Curve intentionally cited bad data and misrepresented statistics in order to come to their conclusions, and still maintain this stance decades later even as conventional science further departs from their findings.

As far as I'm aware, Sam Harris hasn't walked back on his promotion of the book, which is why a lot of people place him alongside white supremacists and other hatemongers. I cannot speak as much about Nawaz or Harris' views on Islam, but I am well-acquainted with the toxicity behind the Bell Curve.

I also talked about PewDiePie specifically in a much older post here.

And here.

As for leftwing/rightwing/Islamist terrorism specifically in the US, in the big picture right-wing non-Islamist terrorism, specifically white nationalism and anti-abortion, have the highest rate of violence. This isn't just the ADL, but various federal agencies have come to the same conclusion.

The Department of Homeland Security, for instance.

And one of the most well-regarded national security think tanks has also agreed that right-wing domestic terrorism has eclipsed left-wing terrorism in the US by leaps and bounds.

The ADL does actually have biases and has been deceptive, albeit not in regards to right-wing extremism. Unfortunately, a lot of their members are prejudiced against Arabs and Muslims, Palestinians specifically, and have defended the Israeli government's war crimes. This is a rather significant conflict of interest that has caused them to be viewed poorly by a growing segment of leftist groups.

For example, in their own words they've railed against claims that the Israeli government engages in apartheid,¹ but in another breath claimed that a non-Jewish majority in Israel would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state, with the implications of such a demographic change being a bad thing. The idea of Israel as a multiethnic democracy that can guarantee rights regardless of demographics isn't something that can be considered or is viewed as an ideal goal.

¹ A claim that many South African civil rights leaders who lived through the worst decades of apartheid would agree on. For instance, Desmond Tutu.

And they’ve also funded US police visits to train with Israeli police in occupied territories, which is counter-productive to decreasing systemic racism and police brutality in both countries.

It should be noted that the ADL has done good work, and in regards to denouncing white supremacy they have been consistent in this regard. Unfortunately they do have their own blind spots, and in some cases malicious spots, where they don't extend their progressive values to certain minority groups. The ADL isn't the only one who has, or continues to, do this. Look at tanky Marxists who defend the USSR's and China's human rights records while claiming to be pro-POC and pro-LGBT. Or second-wave and British feminists who are incredibly transphobic. Or US liberals who ignore legitimate criticism of Democratic politicians who haven’t practiced what they preached. Liberal and leftist groups can still be accurate in certain findings and advocate for worthy causes while still being imperfect and even bigoted in other places.

For a US-based organization that does a good job of tracking and reporting on hate and extremism, the Southern Poverty Law Center has a lot less baggage. I'd recommend them over the ADL.

[Oniya]

For a US-based organization that does a good job of tracking and reporting on hate and extremism, the Southern Poverty Law Center has a lot less baggage. I'd recommend them over the ADL.

Turns out they've released an in-depth report on the Hate and Extremism in 2020. 

[Rinzler]

I also know that ADL are very poor at judging who is a right-winger or not. For example they labeled Majiid Nawaz as an alt-right/anti-islamic extremists [...] Majiid even suited them successfully for deformation so they had to retract their statments about him

That wasn't the ADL. Majiid Nawaz successfully sued the SPLC for falsely claiming that he was an anti-muslim extremist.

[Boltox]

That wasn't the ADL. Majiid Nawaz successfully sued the SPLC for falsely claiming that he was an anti-muslim extremist.

Aaah right, sorry for mixing them up and thanks for the correction!

[Skynet]

After half a year's worth of investigation and research, the New York Times released an in-depth overview of the events that led to the January 6th insurrection and details of what took place. It shows how not only was this violent assault and murder attempts planned out ahead of time, but also footage of how individuals such as the Oathkeepers and Proud Boys coordinated efforts to compromise and breach security for the rest of the mob. Furthermore, the Republican mainstream is doing their part to downplay the deadliness of that day's events or twist things around to blame uninvolved parties, even coming from the mouths of Congress members who themselves were targeted and at risk.

I'll note a content warning around 28:27 to 28:43. This portion of footage shows the death of Ashli Babbitt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWJVMoe7OY0

[Haibane]

In Tibilisi, Georgia, far right protesters break into an office and destroy LGBT banners, flags and other equipment. A planned LGBT march has been cancelled.

Right-wing protestors also assaulted journalists.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-57727887

[Haibane]

Britain bans a fifth neo-nazi group under UK terror laws.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57806800

[Skynet]

Haven't had the time to watch the whole thing, but NBC aired over 3 hours of footage of of the House Committee Hearings on the January 6th insurrection.

Also available on C-SPAN.

Can't confirm ages so making it a link rather than a direct video.

[Azy]

I've heard it argued that racism was always there, always part of our country, and saying that Trump somehow incited it to get worse is just rhetoric.  This coming from my white Republican mother and uncle.  On the other hand, my Hispanic gay best friend has said that yes, he's dealt with some racist idiots all his life.  But since Trump was elected, it has gotten worse.  It's not that racism and hate itself got worse.  It's that the people who think that way were emboldened.  People used to think it and feel it, but didn't display it for the whole world to see.  Then a man comes along calling people animals because of the color of their skin, and he becomes the president.  Who should one believe?  The people who are repeating statistics and rhetoric they've heard where they choose to get their information, or the person who pepper sprayed 2 guys who were in his face informing him of how he's going to hell for his sexuality, and doing so in a way that made him afraid for his own safety? 

[Oniya]

It has been here since the first explorers from Europe - but having a guy in the Oval expressing it made it all come to the surface again.  The sentiment has been here - the expression has gotten worse to the point where even someone the color of garlic powder (*waves*) can see it happening and be horrified by it.  The people who have always been racist now believe it's okay to threaten someone based on their skin color.  The people who have always been homophobic or transphobic believe it's okay to threaten someone because of their sexuality or gender identity.  Why?  Because the people in power have said it's okay to do that.

It's bad enough that they have been thinking that way.  It's levels of magnitude worse that they're now acting that way and don't give a fuck who sees it.

[Azy]

I see it too.  It was kind of always there, but the dark underbelly of the country.  Now people are posting all kinds of disgusting crap on social media, putting the sign for white power on their car bumpers....  I don't like it. 

[Skynet]

Newly released taps of police radio recordings demonstrate that participants in the January 6th insurrection have been fighting and overwhelming police hours before the storming of the Capitol.

House committee issued supoenas to 11 individuals involved in the insurrection.

More evidence showing domestic terrorists planned to bring caches of firearms to DC to use during the insurrection.

[Skynet]

An exclusive by Rolling Stone shown that several of the insurrection organizers revealed that they participated in dozens of planned meetings with White House staff and members of Congress.

And Gosar, who has been one of the most prominent defenders of the Jan. 6 rioters, allegedly took things a step further. Both sources say he dangled the possibility of a “blanket pardon” in an unrelated ongoing investigation to encourage them to plan the protests.

“Our impression was that it was a done deal,” the organizer says, “that he’d spoken to the president about it in the Oval … in a meeting about pardons and that our names came up. They were working on submitting the paperwork and getting members of the House Freedom Caucus to sign on as a show of support.”

The organizer claims the pair received “several assurances” about the “blanket pardon” from Gosar.

“I was just going over the list of pardons and we just wanted to tell you guys how much we appreciate all the hard work you’ve been doing,” Gosar said, according to the organizer.

The rally planner describes the pardon as being offered while “encouraging” the staging of protests against the election. While the organizer says they did not get involved in planning the rallies solely due to the pardon, they were upset that it ultimately did not materialize.

Both sources also describe Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as someone who played a major role in the conversations surrounding the protests on Jan. 6. Among other things, they both say concerns were raised to Meadows about Alexander’s protest at the Capitol and the potential that it could spark violence. Meadows was subpoenaed by the committee last month as part of a group of four people “with close ties to the former President who were working in or had communications with the White House on or in the days leading up to the January 6th insurrection.”

“Meadows was 100 percent made aware of what was going on,” says the organizer. “He’s also like a regular figure in these really tiny groups of national organizers.”

[Skynet]

The FBI received highly specific tips about violence that would occur on January 6th, but declined to act.

A sprawling new investigation by the Washington Post into the events leading up to the Capitol insurrection has revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigations received numerous and highly-detailed tips on the potential for serious violence by followers of then-president Donald Trump on January 6. And, despite the specificity and volume of reports, the FBI largely dismissed the warnings.

The fact that law enforcement of all stripes reportedly underestimated the likelihood of violence on Jan. 6 has already been widely reported. But the Post’s massive project—started last spring and based on interviews of more than 230 people—describes in excruciating detail just how much was ignored.

[Oniya]

I was able to get to the Post's investigation without getting prompted to subscribe - it is indeed massive, and lays things out very clearly.

[TheVillain]

Just noticed this. Excuse me, "Rising" plague?

Fun Fact - One thing the FBI, the CIA, the DHS, and pretty much every expert on Terrorism and Political Violence agrees on is that White Conservative/Rightwing Extremists are responsible for about 75% of all Political Violence and/or Acts of Terrorism that occur on US soil. And another roughly 18% are still religiously motivated. And as far as they can tell it's *always* been responsible for at least 2/3rds of it. [If, granted, the data and a few definitions get a bit fuzzy before the 50's.]