26 anti-Muslim groups gained over $100 million from charitable organizations in America

Originally published at: 26 anti-Muslim groups gained over $100 million from charitable organizations in America | Boing Boing

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How the fuck is that even charity? If it’s not anti-hunger or anti-poverty, they have no right calling that any kind of “charity.”

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https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Islamophobia

I’d say that the surge in Islamophobia started even before Trump was running, with big money backers. Also, after the Syrian Arab Spring dissolved into civil and proxy war, Russian disinformation groups echoed and amplified western groups to cause maximum fear and panic over Syrian refugees.

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As long as it’s a non-profit they get to claim that tax status. Worse, the heads of these hate groups make big salaries spreading their poison. The only way to shut them down would be strong hate speech laws similar to those in other Western countries. The U.S. doesn’t do that because right-wingers use the First Amendment (which they otherwise despise in practise) to shut down any attempt to implement such laws.

It’s the usual mess resulting from the American right’s mix of bad faith, greed, and bigotry.

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Ugh, by that logic, NAMBLA could call itself a “charity” as well.

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NAMBLA seems to be one of those things where there is plenty of evidence of opposition to it, but virtually none of its existence.

But yes, even neo nazi groups like Center for Immigration Studies and Family Research Center are legal non profit organizations.

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Bryan Cranston Reaction GIF

Well, yeah. Even before 9/11 super-charged it…

I remember that right after Oklahoma City, before they caught up with McVeigh, there was a shitload of speculation that it was an Islamist, probably because it had only been 2 years since the 1993 bombing of the WTC (and also, because Americans are often like John Goodman in that sketch).

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So we got a top 5 (6 if you read the next panel) groups donating to anti-Muslim organizations. Some of them seem like names you would see at the end of a Nova episode.

But we only get one name of the anti-Muslim organizations. Who are the others and what do they do?

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100 million dollars? How much of that fell into pro-tRump camp?

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That was because it was a fertiliser bomb and the production of them at that scale was a technology transferred from NI to the PLO, FARC, and not many other people.

Don’t ask me how I know! (I have nothing to do with bombing anyone, ever, and never will)

McVeigh learnt how to do it from the US government.

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True enough, but part of the speculation was from people who were probably not familiar with that fact. It was even part of the discussion before we were even sure what kind of bomb was used, if I’m remembering correctly.

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I’m sure you are right. I just know that it wasn’t immediately seen as a domestic terrorist act by investigators (despite the circumstantial evidence) as the bomb itself pointed elsewhere.

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Oh, no doubt.

What really gets my goat is that even after this, and it was uncovered who did it, and the connections he had, and the fact that McVeigh had PAGES FROM THE FUCKING TURNER DIARIES ON HIM, that we still kept ignoring the white supremacist groups and the militias!!! How different things would be now, if we had been taking these fuckers as seriously from OKC onward… We could have disrupted their networks and taken down their leaders and we’d be in a much better place, I think if we had.

Frustrated Come On GIF by Saturday Night Live

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The US Army used to publish a training manual as to how to create improvised explosives such as fertilizer bombs. It was readily available to the public. McVeigh had easy access to it.

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I should have said resurgence. It’s been around for ages, as you say.

I think that is backwards. I think Islamophobia caused Trump’s presidency. It was the perfect wedge issue to sideline mainstream Republicans, who’d be wishy-washy, so they riled up the KnowNothings before the Primaries … and then Trump stomped all over Ted Cruz to capture them as his base.

Once he had them, naturally he amplified it.

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He had a little more than that from my sources. Quite substantially more than that.

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I wouldn’t even say that… I would say it’s been a steady drumbeat, that’s just been getting louder and increasing in volume. I mean, go back to the reaction to Malcolm X and NOI back in the day.

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I enjoyed (for certain values of that word that allow for horror) the Bundyville podcast a couple of years ago.

I think maybe it was a break from some of the horror going on around me to the horror going on around you.

https://choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org/podcasts/606441988/bundyville

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True. But my point was the know-how wasn’t exactly a top secret. Something that only a limited group of would have known about.

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