The Southern Poverty Center's Mark Potok joined MSNBC's Cenk Uygur to discuss Rep. Peter King's upcoming hearings on radical Islam and whether they're being motivated by King's well known bigotry against the Muslim community. As Cenk noted it's caused outrage from the Muslim community and their supporters who demonstrated in New York City's Times Square against the hearings.
As was pointed out during the segment, the Muslim community has been cooperating with the Justice Department to try to weed out radicals among their ranks, and in the mean time there's been an explosion of hate groups within the U.S. such as the Klan, Neo-Nazis, Black Separatists, White Nationalists, racist skinheads and Neo-Confederate groups. As this report by the SPLC shows, U.S. Hate Groups now top 1000:
The number of active hate groups in the United States topped 1,000 for the first time and the antigovernment “Patriot” movement expanded dramatically for the second straight year as the radical right showed continued explosive growth in 2010.
Several factors fueled the growth: resentment over the changing racial demographics of the country, frustration over the lagging economy, and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and other demonizing propaganda aimed at minorities and the government.
The report is in the Spring 2011 issue of the SPLC’s quarterly investigative journal Intelligence Report. The Hate Map also contains a comprehensive, state-by-state listing of hate groups and their locations. Read on...
Rep. King seems determined to single out the Muslim churches to attack for political gain while ignoring the threat from these other groups. I guess that's not too surprising from someone who doesn't seem to mind "palling around with terrorists" himself as long as they're Irish Catholics.
