Extremism
WDET, ethnic media partner on sharpening state's
focus on hate and paramilitary groups in state.
WDET's Mikel Elicessor
Robert Sklar
Editor
I
JN's Arthur Horwitz
"When people of
responsibility
and power in
government and the
media incite others
to express their
displeasure through
violence, slander
and intimidation,
they have to be
called out."
- Arthur Horwitz,
JN publisher
ADL's Betsy Kellman
10
April 8 • 2010
n the wake of a heightening threat
from right-wing extremists, WDET-
FM, the Detroit public radio station
owned and operated by Wayne State
University, is piloting a thought-provok-
ing, issue-oriented collaboration with
four of Metro Detroit's most-read inde-
pendent ethnic newspapers: the Jewish
News, the Arab-American News, the
Michigan Chronicle and Latino.
The five media entities have devel-
oped a partnership to spotlight the
growth of radical right-wing move-
ments in Michigan and nationwide. The
partnership's centerpiece is an enlighten-
ing essay by the Southern Poverty Law
Center (SPLC), a Montgomery, Ala.-based
nonprofit civil rights organization and
one of America's research authorities in
the areas of hate groups, discrimination
and exploitation.
"The explosive growth of three distinct
groups — the Tea Party Movement, the
Patriot Movement with the militias as
their paramilitary arms, and the nativ-
ist anti-immigration movement — has
been under way for the past year:' says
Mikel Ellcessor, WDET's general man-
ager. "While these distinct movements
have their own animus, there is a well-
documented and rising level of extreme
rhetoric coming from all three groups.
This rhetoric has contributed to an envi-
ronment that is fostering violence from
the extreme right and multiple instances
of domestic terrorism.
"This editorial project is designed to
raise awareness of this issue and to chal-
lenge the people of Michigan to ask hard
questions of their politicians and the
media;' he added. "Because of Michigan's
unique relationship with the militia
movement, we encourage every citizen
to understand the ways extreme rhetoric
laced with violent imagery has perme-
ated our society"
On March 27-30, the FBI arrested nine
members of Hutaree, a right-wing extrem-
ist group of alleged Christian fanatics hop-
ing to incite an uprising against the U.S.
government that would lead to the biblical
"end of times:' according to the U.S. Justice
Department. The raids were in Michigan,
Ohio and Indiana.
Michigan Militias Rejuvenated
Montgomery, Ala.
A
fter more than a decade out
of the spotlight, militias have
come roaring back to life across
the country. Michigan, once again, is a
hotbed of militia activity.
As citizen militias formed around the
U.S. during the 1990s, few states were
closer to the heart of the antigovernment
extremist movement than the Great Lake
State.
Intense fears of a federal government
trampling civil liberties, disarming citi-
zens and imposing martial law turned
the state into a hotbed of militia activity.
Citizens armed themselves, joined the
movement and prepared for the worst.
It was a phenomenon that would
rage in the U.S. until 1995, when the
Oklahoma City bombing took the lives
of 168 men, women and children. This
stunning act of mass murder — along
with beefed-up federal investigations
— helped to extinguish interest in the
movement, but not before Michigan
received another major round of news
media attention. That came after reports
surfaced that the bombing conspira-
tors had attended militia meetings in
Michigan.
The Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC) recently documented 34 mili-
tia groups in this state — a staggering
number when one considers that a year
earlier the SPLC found only 42 militias in
the entire country.
As of 2009, there were 127 militias in
the United States — an increase of more
than 200 percent.
This nationwide growth has been
fueled by anger over the changing racial
demographics of the country, the soar-
ing public debt, the troubled economy
and an array of initiatives by President
Barack Obama that have been branded as
"socialist" or even "fascist" by his politi-
cal opponents.
A key difference between the militia
movement today and in the 1990s is that
the federal government is now headed by a
black man. That fact, coupled with high lev-
els of non-white immigration, has helped
infuse much of the movement with a strong
element of racial animus, which was not
the primary motivation in the past.
The resurgence of these groups
remarkably parallels the origins of the
movement in the 1990s. The modern
militia movement was partly shaped at a
meeting of radical leaders in Estes Park,
Colo., in 1992. At this gathering, known
as the "Rocky Mountain Rendezvous:'
a cross section of extremist leaders put
aside doctrinal differences to focus on a
common enemy: the federal government
which, in their minds, overtaxed, wrong-
fully imprisoned and even murdered its
citizens.
Today's militias have eerily similar
roots, right down to a summit that
helped midwife a shared ideology. In May