The term “genocide” conjures images of World War II concentration camps, Soviet Gulags, gulags, the violence and rioting in 1994 Rwanda or the ISIS purging of Syrian and Iraqi Christians.
But Salon contributors Max Pensky and Nadia Rubaii believe “genocidal violence can happen in the U.S. It has happened.” So what should individuals do? Look to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for guidance, of course!
The writers found it “encouraging” that “individuals and groups are following the recommendations for action presented in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s guide to combating hate in supporting victims, speaking up, pressuring leaders and staying engaged.”
While they in fact admitted that no potential U.S. genocide would be quite on the scale of Rwanda, the two directors for the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University tried to argue that with Trump in office, and after Charlottesville, anything can happen.
They then enumerated the steps that supposedly will lead to a genocide, according to an analysis of the actions that led to the holocaust in Nazi Germany. These steps included classification, symbolization, discrimination, dehumanization, organization, and the last step before violence, polarization. In their argument, Trump has done all of these steps, with Charlottesville as polarization.
In their words, they asked, “Do Trump’s implied claims of a moral equivalence between neo-Nazis and counter-protesters in Charlottesville move us close to the stage of polarization?”
The real question is why are they ignoring the fact that the violent left-wing group Antifa was also present at Charlottesville? And why are they encouraging people to follow the SPLC, which has condemned such mainstream free speech institutions such as the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defending Freedom as hate groups?
The Wall Street Journal argued that the SPLC “arguably contributes to the climate of hate it abhors.” In essence, the SPLC has engaged in the preliminary steps for violence as laid out by Pensky and Rubaii. They’ve classified and symbolized conservative groups and organizations as hate groups. That is more than Trump has done. After all, even Pensky and Rubaii admit, Trump has only “implied” moral equivalence.
Not to mention that the SPLC’s actions have been linked to violence. In 2012, an act of domestic terror was enacted by Floyd Lee Corkins against the Family Research Center, who was inspired by the “hate map” of the SPLC.
CNN recently published the SPLC’s controversial “hate map,” almost as if they were partnering with the organization. One wonders if the rest of the liberal media will follow suit, as Salon seems to have done.
