The Southern Poverty Law Center has been around for a long time. As noted previously, the SPLC is a non-profit organization headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama. Its mission, according to its website, was to be a “catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people.”
Like the United Nations, they may have done good work in the distant past. Morris Dees, the founder of the SPLC, led the organization for many years. The original organization did an admirable job fighting hate in this country 40-50 years ago.
What happened? The country evolved away from the segregation and discrimination that had been part and parcel of living in some areas of the country. This was particularly true in the South which had seen a vast migration of blacks to the North during the middle of the twentieth century. Late in the century saw a bit of a reverse migration take place as racial barriers came down.
Somewhere along the way, idealism gave way to greed. The SPLC had a problem, racism was fading and not what it had been back when they got started. In fact, prior to the Light Bringer’s election, most Americans believed that the country was becoming color blind and was getting pretty close to MLK’s dream that all would be judged by their character and not the color of their skin. Of course, the Light Bringer ended that dream.
So like NATO after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the people at SPLC needed a way to keep their jobs. Of course, this included continuing to line their pockets with the donations of those who they could guilt into sending them money. A way to do this was to funnel money to actual hate groups to drum up fear. This would “prove” that their mission was still badly needed so donors would cough up their cash to them.
As FBI Director Kash Patel noted, “They lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups – even utilizing the funds to have these groups facilitate the commission of state and federal crimes.”
To say that the allegations are explosive may be the understatement of the decade. Jeff Childers notes:
“Explosive” is a versatile word that could be applied to bad diarrhea. But this unexpected political development requires more vivid descriptors, maybe like thermonuclear or supernova.
The SPLC was manufacturing racism to justify its own existence. It generously funded “informants” in a variety of racist hate groups —actual ones— like the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and the National Alliance. In one example, the SPLC paid $270,000 to a notorious racist who helped plan and organize the infamous 2017 Charlottesville rally in Virginia. This culminated with one participant ramming his car into a group of counter protesters, killing a woman and leaving at least 19 others injured.”
The chart below demonstrates the organizational structure at work.
This indictment is very serious. Probably the SPLC does not survive this case as an organization. It would be easier for the Democrats to start over from scratch.
But there’s 800 million reasons they will fight to save the SPLC.
Jeff Childers:
$800 million. Sitting in a bank account owned by the SPLC, waiting to be deployed during the midterm elections. That’s $800 million presumably flowing from progressive donors who didn’t know about all the SPLC’s sketchy funny-business, like paying Charlottesville neo-nazis a cool quarter-million —in normal-sized, pre-pandemic dollars— to hold a hateful riot that got people killed.
A criminal indictment from a grand jury directed at persons allows the government to hold them in custody until trial, unless the judge sets bail. But they can’t lock up a non-profit corporation.
(snip)
But what federal law does allow under a criminal indictment is freezing fraudulently obtained assets pending forfeiture. In other words, the DOJ can now freeze some or all of the SPLC’s $800 million political war chest. Six months out from the midterm elections.
Hmmm. Lots going on here. I think this explains why the Atlantic recently launched a badly sourced, zero-evidence hit job alleging FBI Director Kash Patel was a drunk. The timing strongly suggests they were trying to get ahead of the SPLC story. They had 800 million reasons to do something. Patel is only suing for $250 million.
If we see movement against ActBlue in the courts, we will know that the action is real for cleaning up the swamp.