Posted on 06/19/2018 4:50:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Antifa" is to violence what the Southern Poverty Law Center is to words. In short, it is a hate group on the left.
The SPLC smears individuals and groups it differs with by labeling them as some form of "hater": "racist," "white supremacist," "extremist" and the like. That it is cited and even relied upon by The New York Times, Facebook, Amazon, Google, CNN and others, and that Apple gave the organization a million dollars, is testimony to the moral state of mainstream media and corporate culture in America today.
Were the SPLC not quoted and used as a source, there would be no reason to pay it any attention. All the SPLC does is politicize, and thereby trivialize, the fight against racism and other evils.
Any organization that labels Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- the extraordinary Somali-American woman who devotes her life to fighting for oppressed women, especially in the Islamic world -- an "extremist," as the SPLC has done, is not a moral organization. No wonder it just agreed to pay Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz $3.4 million and issued a retraction for smearing him as an "anti-Muslim extremist."
This kind of behavior should surprise no one. Since Stalin labeled Trotsky, the ideological leader of Soviet communism, a "fascist," the left (not liberals, to whom the left is as opposed as it is conservatives) has libeled its opponents. Without lying about its opponents, there would be no left.
Now the SPLC has placed an article about PragerU (https://www.splc.org/hatewatch/2018/06/07prageru's-influence) on its "Hatewatch" blog. It never actually accuses PragerU of "hate" because even it can't substantiate such a charge. In over 300 videos, it could not find a single sentence countenancing hate or bigotry, so it simply describes two articles by outsiders about PragerU, knowing the dirty work will be accomplished via implication.
The article is about two PragerU critics, Kevin M. Kruse, a Princeton history professor who sought to rebut a PragerU video in a Twitter thread, and a self-described sociologist named Francesca Tripodi, who wrote an article (https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Data_Society_Searching-for-Alternative-Facts.pdf) examining PragerU's reach.
Professor Kruse tweeted a series of disagreements with a PragerU video (https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/996386257109508096) by former Princeton University and Vanderbilt University professor Dr. Carol Swain, a black scholar, on the subject of the Republican Party and the "Southern Strategy."
Now, professor Kruse may be right, and professor Swain may be wrong. But that has nothing to do with hate. Nor does Kruse imply that it does. So, the SPLC citation of Kruse is just deceitful.
The SPLC article goes on to charge that "more than a few" PragerU videos "function as dog whistles to the extreme right."
And how does PragerU blow these "dog whistles"?
The article uses Tripodi to make its case.
Here is the essence of her argument, as described by the SPLC: "Tripodi says she discovered several elements tied to PragerU's presenters and its online marketing that paint the brief videos watched more than a billion times in a troublesome light."
And what are those "several elements?"
"To start with," the article says, "when one visits the PragerU channel on YouTube, there is a column of 'Related Channels' with links to other outlets PragerU's audience may find interesting: Fox News seems to be a no-brainer, as does The Daily Wire, given its founder Ben Shapiro's relationship as a presenter for PragerU. But alongside those you also can find the channel of Stefan Molyneux, an extremist who espouses pseudo-scientific 'race realism' propaganda.
"'(PragerU) ... is very blatantly algorithmically connected' to the extreme right content found on YouTube, Tripodi explains."
Only a very careful reader will discern that PragerU has never had any connection whatsoever to Molyneux or any "extreme right content." All Tripodi and the SPLC could write is that Google has "algorithmically connected" PragerU to such content.
Needless to say, PragerU has no power over how Google algorithmically connects anything.
Then the SPLC writes, "More troubling, Tripodi discovered, are the connections some PragerU presenters have with white nationalist thinkers."
Again, only a very careful reader will realize PragerU has no connections whatsoever to white nationalist thinkers. Rather, "some PragerU presenters" do.
And who might they be?
Tripodi and the SPLC give one example: Dave Rubin. Dave Rubin made a video for PragerU titled "Why I Left the Left." He is a very popular liberal video podcaster, and the fact that he is a gay Jewish liberal who left the left disturbs the SPLC.
Now, do you know any gay Jewish liberals who support white nationalists? I doubt it.
So, on what grounds is Rubin smeared in this way? Not because of any views he espouses but because he has interviewed the aforementioned Stefan Molyneux.
As it happens, I differ with some of the admittedly little I have seen of Molyneux's views (for example, I believe the entire race and IQ issue is utterly pointless and, on occasion, racist). But how does the fact that one PragerU presenter interviewed someone he disagrees with in any way impugn him -- let alone PragerU?
Of course, it doesn't. But that doesn't stop the SPLC hate site from drawing such tenuous "connections" to smear fine people.
Would George Will, Bret Stephens, Charles Krauthammer -- all Pulitzer Prize winners -- Alan Dershowitz (a lifelong Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter), Arthur Brooks, Jonah Goldberg, Bjorn Lomborg, UCLA psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Marmer, former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino and Rabbi Joseph Telushkin (one of the most prolific living writers on Judaism), to name just some of our presenters, participate in a white supremacist endeavor? The implication is absurd -- and libelous.
In addition to videos on current political issues, history and economics, PragerU brings goodness and kindness into millions of people's lives. It produces videos on forgiveness, refraining from gossip, raising grateful and kind children, remaining attracted to one's spouse, God and suffering, happiness and the importance of gratitude, along with many other life-enhancing subjects. And these have been viewed by tens of millions of people -- most of them under age 35.
On any given day, PragerU increases goodness and kindness on Earth while the Southern Poverty Law Center increases anger and resentment.
That's why the SPLC hates PragerU. The bad hate the good. It's a rule of life.
Therefor, they try to ruin it.
The IQ Problem | Jordan Peterson & Stefan Molyneux
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF8F7tjmy_U
Hmmm... Doesn't sound particularly racist to me. Actually quite the opposite.
Then sue them! Eventually they will either run out of money or change their stance. Hope for the latter but pursue the former.
SPLC ironically expresses their hatred by throwing around the label “haters”. They are hatists.
The fact is that their 'add process' is frequently based upon initial 'news reports' that have, with some frequency, been found, upon followup investigation, to be misinterpreted at best or outright lies at worst.
The bad thing about this is that even the staff at the SPLC admit to being more of an aggrandizer of these reports than an edited and scrutinized reporter of facts. Their claims of expense and insufficient staffing for such followups ring rather false in light of their known funding. A more logical answer is that they like doing 'business' the way that they are doing it now and see no reason to change as it meets both their goals and is profitable to boot!
Yet the SPLC remains a priority card in the rolodex of the LEFTist MSM for validation of the LEFT 'group think' about anyone and any group that is not part of their movement. They, themselves, are the 'dog whistle' of the left. Their actions and reports are self-justification of the LEFT bias and antagonisms. Thus their funding from the LEFT remains as does their immunity from logic as in this jeremiad against PragerU!
Back during Dubya’s pro-amnesty administration we had a faction here at FR that routinely posted SPLC material accusing every major immigration control group of being haters, neo-Nazis, racists, all the usual garbage that the Left and their GOPe collaborators love to spew.
Dennis can be counted on to return to 60s liberal dogma whenever a discussion touches on race, no matter how peripherally. That’s something he will never give up.
One classic Dennis wish is that every marriage in the US would be interracial. It never occurs to him that he might be overly preoccupied with race.
Bad is bad even when everybody is doing it, good is good even when nobody is doing it.
Just like those who throw around the Nazi label, these haters are merely projecting themselves.
“I believe the entire race and IQ issue is utterly pointless and, on occasion, racist).”
Why does Mr. Prager believe it’s pointless? It’s a well documented scientific fact. Maybe this particular set of facts don’t matter to him.
If that’s the case I find it disturbing.
L
Agreed, how trustworthy can someone be when they knowingly lie to themselves and everyone else on a single issue that they don’t have the stomach for.
Molynuex isn’t remotely resist.
What does Stefan Molyneux say that the SPLC doesn’t like?
What are the tenets of the ideology that the article calls race realism?
EXCERPT---No fewer than 60 organizations branded "hate groups" or otherwise attacked by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are considering legal action against the left-wing smear factory, a Christian legal nonprofit leader confirmed to PJ Media on Tuesday. He suggested that the $3 million settlement and apology the SPLC gave to Maajid Nawaz and his Quilliam Foundation on Monday would encourage further legal action. "We haven't filed anything against the SPLC, but I think a number of organizations have been considering filing lawsuits against the SPLC, because they have been doing to a lot of organizations exactly what they did to Maajid Nawaz that's part of the settlement," Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, told PJ Media on Tuesday. Liberty Counsel filed a lawsuit against the charity navigation organization GuideStar for defamation, after GuideStar adopted the SPLC's "hate group" list. That lawsuit is ongoing.
In 2016, the SPLC published its "Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists," listing Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz, a practicing Muslim, as one such extremist. The left-wing group listed various reasons for including him, changing the reasons every so often, and even at one point mentioning that he had gone to a strip club for his bachelor party. On Monday, SPLC President Richard Cohen extended his group's "sincerest apologies to Mr. Nawaz, Quilliam, and our readers for the error, and we wish Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam all the best." In settling the suit, the SPLC paid Nawaz's organization $3.375 million. "This is a significant settlement," Staver told PJ Media. "3.375 million dollars, and it did not even go to litigation; it was a result of a demand letter."
Importantly, "the allegations that were at issue here were very similar to the allegations against the other groups," the Liberty Counsel chairman explained. "The SPLC promotes false propaganda, demonizes and labels groups they disagree with, and that labeling has economic as well as physical consequences." ,p.The SPLC started as a group to oppose racist terrorism, and its first legal action targeted the Ku Klux Klan. In recent decades, the organization has begun marking mainstream organizations as "hate groups" on par with the KKK. Last year, 47 nonprofit leaders denounced the SPLC's "hate list" in an open letter to the media. The SPLC has admitted that its "hate group" list is based on "opinion." Staver insisted that the settlement with Nawaz "will encourage further legal action." He suggested that the settlement "helps our lawsuit against GuideStar" and may encourage organizations that were considering suing the SPLC to actually file the paperwork.
Furthermore, many of the "hate groups" attacked by the SPLC do not encourage hate or violence, but merely disagree with the left-wing organization's political views. Many — like the Family Research Council (FRC), the Ruth Institute, and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) — merely stand for marriage as between one man and one woman. The SPLC has twisted 30-year-old arguments to smear these groups, and in one egregious case the group actually quoted as hateful The Catechism of the Catholic Church.--SNIP--rest on FR
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