Michele Bachmann, conspiracy theories, militias and hate

Tonight I was listening to As It Happens, a Canadian news broadcast carried here in the Twin Cities area by public radio(FM 91.1) They did a story on the resurgence in right wing hate groups--and guess whose name came up?

The guest was Mark Potok, representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC monitors hate groups and hate crimes in the United States. Potok is the co-author of the latest SPLC report, which cites the resurgence of right wing militia movements since the election of Barack Obama. The SPLC reports that more than fifty new militia groups have surfaced in just the last few months.

What constitutes a militia group, according to Potok and SPLC? They are groups that believe in "extreme anti-government theories animated by conspiracy theories."

Excerpt:
HOST: We've heard some reports in recent days that President Obama has received more death threats this year than any previous president, something like 400% more than George Bush ever got, what's the, somebody showed up at one of those health care town halls he was at with a gun, what's the relationship between what you found and that kind of incidence of threat?

POTOK: Well, I think it ranges-I think that very many of the people who have threatened President Obama or those who have been arrested in assassination plots and so on since his election are probably in most cases not actually involved in militias or patriot groups directly, but have very much adopted at least some of the conspiracy theories and ideology of these groups.

So, you know, we see a guy for instance in Tuscaloosa Florida, who murdered allegedly two sheriff's deputies there, and it turns out that he was a guy who was interested in joining a militia and engage in paramilitary training according to the sheriff down there. We're seeing that these people are strongly influenced by these ideas. I would argue, for instance, that even the birthers are related to this movement in the sense that certainly militia groups, patriot groups, very widely they also believe that Obama is not a legitimate president and so on.

And they go on to adopt other theories, often theories that are propounded by people in the mainstream. For instance, you know, Michele Bachmann, the congresswoman from Minnesota who has said that she believes, you know, that Obama is preparing political re-education camps for our children.

HOST: Right.

POTOK: You know, when Glenn Beck goes on Fox News and says something similar, that FEMA is perhaps running a string of concentration camps in which to imprison American patriots--you know, this stuff is right out of the militia movement of the nineties, in particular the FEMA theory.

HOST: Right.

POTOK: --which was a major animating theory in the movement.

Potok says there are two big spurs to the resurgence of the conspiracy nuts: 1) the fact of a black president, and 2) the fact of a liberal White House. He also says that the real concern in terms of criminal violence is not so much the organized groups as "lone wolf" types on the fringes of these groups.

If you want to know where "The Boy Most Likely to Assassinate the President" is going to come from, you should listen to this interview. You can listen on this web page (Make sure it's the August 12, 2009 broadcast of "As It Happens." Click on the link that says "Listen to Part 1 of As It Happens." You can skip ahead to the segment on the resurgence of the militia movement; it begins at about 9:10. The section mentioning Bachmann I transcribed above begins at 12:05.