http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/mbarber/100325
March 25, 2010
Southern Poverty Law Center officially declared "left-wing hate group"
By J. Matt Barber
Though always left of center, the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law
Center (SPLC) once had a reputation as a fairly objective civil rights
group. Founded by direct-marketing millionaire Morris Dees and partner
Joseph Levin Jr. in 1971, the SPLC made important and honorable
contributions to many of the historic civil rights gains of the 20th
Century. According to its own materials, the SPLC was "internationally
known for tracking and exposing the activities of hate groups."
Alas, "power corrupts," as it goes, and the SPLC, having amassed
tremendous power and wealth over the years, has regrettably become
corrupt to its core. By way of an ever-escalating wave of
"us-versus-them" money-grubbing schemes, Today's SPLC has morphed into
a far-left political activist outfit, famous for promoting a panoply
of extreme liberal causes.
Ken Silverstein, writing for Harper's Magazine, addressed this
untoward metamorphosis in 2000: "Today's SPLC spends most of its time
— and money — on a relentless fund-raising campaign, peddling
memberships in the church of tolerance with all the zeal of a circuit
rider passing the collection plate. 'He's the Jim and Tammy Faye
Bakker of the civil rights movement,' renowned anti-death-penalty
lawyer Millard Farmer says of Dees, his former associate, 'though I
don't mean to malign Jim and Tammy Faye.'
"The American Institute of Philanthropy gives the Center one of the
worst ratings of any group it monitors," continued Silverstein.
"Morris Dees doesn't need your financial support. The SPLC is already
the wealthiest civil rights group in America, though [its fundraising
literature] quite naturally omits that fact. ... 'Morris and
I...shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money,' recalls
Dees's business partner, a lawyer named Millard Fuller (not to be
confused with Millard Farmer). 'We were not particular about how we
did it; we just wanted to be independently rich.'" (You say Fuller. I
say Farmer. The two Millards say "call the whole thing off.")
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I can see where you're getting your fixation on white raaaaaacism.
Bill maher and the SPLC.
<giggle, snort>