The American tradition of home grown 'white' right-wing terrorists

'The fact of the matter is that more people have been killed domestically by radical right extremists than Islamic extremists since 9/11'
Heidi Beirich
Southern Poverty Law Centre

Frazier Glenn Miller (Cross) is a former Klu-Klux Klan leader accused of killing three people outside Jewish community centres in Kansas City in the US.  

Cross is a Vietnam War veteran and notorious white supremacist, with a long history in the movement, including founding the Carolina Knights of the KKK.  He ran for the U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010, each time espousing a white-power platform, with a campaign steeped in race hate and anti-Antisemitism. Miller has also been an FBI informant.

This segment from Democracy Now provides further information on Miller and the shootings.

As Amy Goodman notes,  murderous rampages by right-wingers like Miller are dismissed as 'lone wolf' attacks by deranged and damaged individuals, rather than as organised terrorist attacks. 

In recent years, there has been a pattern of similar terrorist attacks, including murders and bombings by far right white supremacist groups. One example was the murder of seven people by a white supremacist at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin in 2012. Many mass shootings in the US have been perpetrated by people with extreme right-wing sensibilities and attitudes.

There is also the epidemic of violence directed at reproductive health and abortion clinics by religious fundamentalist and right-wing groups, which has included killings, shootings, bomb-blasts, arson attacks, acid attacks and violence.

In this segment Rachel Maddow documents the long and growing threat presented by right- wing terrorist groups in the USA and explores the ways that threat is being ignored.

Miller is another example of the terrorist threat that is largely ignored by US authorities- the terrorist threat from right-wing hate groups and white supremacist groups

The FBI claims that eco-terrorists are the number one domestic terror threat to the USA. The US Department of Homeland Security gutted the unit that was supposed to investigate home grown non-Islamic terrorists after pressure from the right-wing over a leaked report that highlighted the risk of former US servicemen joining right-wing hate groups and white supremacist groups

Efforts by civil society groups and human rights organisations to expose such home grown right-wing and white supremacist terrorist groups are ignored, or actively undermined by US law enforcement and security agencies, who remain focused on Muslim groups, environmental activists and animal rights activists all of whom are labeled as terrorists. 

A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Centre found that the murders of almost 100 people can be linked to a single far-right website.

Amy Goodman writes

While law-abiding Muslims are forced to hide in their homes, and animal-rights activists are labeled as terrorists for undercover filming of abusive treatment at factory farms, right-wing hate groups are free to organize, parade, arm themselves to the hilt and murder with chilling regularity. It’s time for our society to confront this very real threat.

And here is Juan Cole on US attitudes to 'white terrorism' and the main differences between white terrorists and others

"1. White terrorists are called “gunmen.” What does that even mean? A person with a gun? Wouldn’t that be, like, everyone in the US? Other terrorists are called, like, “terrorists.” 

2. White terrorists are “troubled loners.” Other terrorists are always suspected of being part of a global plot, even when they are obviously troubled loners. 

3. Doing a study on the danger of white terrorists at the Department of Homeland Security will get you sidelined by angry white Congressmen. Doing studies on other kinds of terrorists is a guaranteed promotion. 

4. The family of a white terrorist is interviewed, weeping as they wonder where he went wrong. The families of other terrorists are almost never interviewed. 

5. White terrorists are part of a “fringe.” Other terrorists are apparently mainstream. 

6. White terrorists are random events, like tornadoes. Other terrorists are long-running conspiracies. 

7. White terrorists are never called “white.” But other terrorists are given ethnic affiliations. 

8. Nobody thinks white terrorists are typical of white people. But other terrorists are considered paragons of their societies.9. White terrorists are alcoholics, addicts or mentally ill. Other terrorists are apparently clean-living and perfectly sane. 

10. There is nothing you can do about white terrorists. Gun control won’t stop them. No policy you could make, no government program, could possibly have an impact on them. But hundreds of billions of dollars must be spent on police and on the Department of Defense, and on TSA, which must virtually strip search 60 million people a year, to deal with other terrorists."