global spread to other islamist extremism but it's real and i want to assure the american people from ricin as chairman of the senate, and security your government is taking this malicious threat seriously, the fbi is on top of this and that's why some good work and informants would they stop to this group before the had a chance to do it. they wanted to do it to attack law-enforcement officers to try to break down -- >> host: mark potok of the southern poverty law center, is the political extremes we are seeing these days in the u.s., is that driving up an escalation of militia groups in the u.s. on both sides left and right? >> guest: well, i'm not sure what you mean by left and right on the militia groups. >> host: extremist groups. >> guest: yes the short answer is, yes,. i think the polarized incredibly

incendiary often very defamatory discourse that we have sunk to in the public square is very much both a reflection of anger out there and how they can drive a word of the radicalization of a lot of individuals and groups. we put out a steady the middle of last month which found an explosive growth not only of militias and other anti-government pager groups but also very hard line anti-immigration groups. this is in addition to the broader political scene. we are not talking about, for instance the tea party. that is another formation that contains a lot of people that are very angry, frustrated, and in many cases, afraid. host: of first call comes from lynchburg, virginia.

caller: good morning. i would like to make a statement. i am noticing that mark potok and a lot of these lower-level interest groups would prefer to identify the kirch -- the christians and the extremists on the right side, but i hope that your organization works as wel >> caller: i hope this organization works well at green peace and other organizations and extremist islamics as well. let's remember people are anti-immigration, we're against people who come into this country illegally. if you come in illegally, you are just as guilty. >> host: i'm sorry for cutting you off. mark potok, go ahead. >> guest: there isn't much of an extreme left. our focus has been on the radical right.

really around the 14th amendment, and equality and for the law. that said, we do cover and have covered the -- a bit of the extreme left that does exist. that is the ecoterrorist. that may not be the best description. i'm talking about the animal liberation, earth liberation front. we've written a lot about those groups. those groups increasingly engage with violent action and they will kill somebody one of these days. members of groups are followers of ideology, have doing things in fire bomb houses in so-called animal oppressors and so on. all of that said, it's a very smart part of the extremist in the united states. there are tiny anarchist groups here and there. it's tiny.

the anti-immigrant and minutemen, what we focus on are not groups of high levels of immigration or enforcement of border law and so on. what we focus is those groups that go out and confront and harass individuals who they suspect are undocumented immigrants or people trying to hire undocumented immigrants. these are goings like the san diego minutemen who have been known to snap blue lights and pretend to be cops and chase people down the road in order to scare would-be employs of the undocumented off. >> host: let's take a call out of mississippi. >> caller: hello, sir. i'm a former member of the organization, as you know, it was a very active --

>> host: charles. all right. let's move on to christine in west virginia. >> caller: hello. i have a question. you mention the tea parties earlier and some people on the extreme right that really haven't crossed over yet into the direct oppression and whatnot. do you think these people, you know, are at risk of becoming a member of the extreme right? >> guest: i think we're seeing a great deal of mixing of these groups and cross pollination. yeah, i think when you look at the tea party phenomenon, what you can't say is this is uniformly radical right-wing. i think that's false. that said, you look at them and there are many streaks or kind of veins of conspiracy theories,

of racial feelings, sometimes real racist feelings and other kind of propaganda that have been absorbed from other groups. what i'm saying is for instance, the tea party, many people with absorbed the conspiracy theory that originated in radical anti-immigration that mexico is secretly planning to reinvade and conquer the american southwest. another in mesh lib sha groups, the idea the united states is secretly building a set of concentration camps into which it puts in all free-loving americans. that idea has made its way into certain parts of the tea party movement. i'm suggesting some of them are present, not uniformly present, i would not describe the tea party has uniformly racist or anything like that. but there are these elements. and i think, you know, a big

hunk of the tea party movement and very possibility the majority of it are people who have been terrified, people who have been frightened, usually the absolutely false statement of media and political statement. when sarah palin not that she objects to proposed health care reform but that the president is setting up death ammos to decide whether our grandparents will live or die to save the government $5, the effect of that kind of propaganda, it is entirely false propaganda can be is to terrify people. there are many people in the tea party world who feel that armageddon is around the corner. they have been frightened by a number of people out there in positions where they ought to know better. >> let's take the call from michigan. brian on the line from the republicans go ahead. >> caller: all right. thank you. i'm certainly not going to stick up for violence.

i doubt that most people in the tea parties or whatever are frightened. what think are trying to do is stand up for their rights. you look recently at eminent domain, they pay attention to those things, most americans don't. it is easy to take people's right. the use of national guard -- not securing the boarder with the national guard but yet turning them into a fighting machines and sending them with our regular troops, that goes against the grain. i can close pretty quick. if you look at -- if your going to use the nafta model for future treaties when we see that all of our middle-class union jobs are gone, chevrolet is making 60% of their cars overseas and not here. i can see why people have had enough and why they go too far. you call it extremism.

i think when it gets to violence and too much swear words and thicks like that, i do agree with you. you have to understand the frustration, when people try to get ahold of their senators and the congressman and they really don't get a good response, i see why people get mad. i'll close on this. most americans, if they've spent time in europe, feel that the european model is a complacent model. in other words, they don't get with it like true americans do to want to solve problems and reach out and for the greater good. we don't want to become like europe. i hate the word socialism. we're not looking for a complacent society. we're looking for a society that lives hard and plays hard. thank you. >> host: thanks for your call, brian. mr. poe tack, go ahead. >> caller: i can't really disagree with a thing the caller said. all of those things are real. there are real complaints about

them. one thing that is not explained is why now? all of those things were true in the bush and many of them were true earlier in the clinton administration. we've seen the enormous explosion in what looks like very serious anger out there. and it seems very broad. broader to me, who lived through the militia movement in the 1990s and lived through it. i call after the 1995 oklahoma city bombing, "usa today" real a poll that 39% of the americans agreed that the federal government is eminent threat to their civil liberty. that poll was run and the number had risen to 51%. so there's enormous anger out there. what i'm suggesting is that a great deal of is it real wpm, is related to real things.

democracy change, globalization, the loss of jobs that the caller talked about, anger over things like the multi-million bonuses to bankers who arguably destroyed of economy. all that have is real. but it is being pumped up by as i tried to suggest earlier certain mainstream politicians and media who have been acting essentially as a conveyer belt of completely false ideas that really do emanate on the radical right. they've been pumping this into the mainstream. it's not nearly the government is too big or the patriot act is too intrusive. it's the government is building concentration camps. it's not nearly that some might feel that health care ought to be handled entirely privately, it's the idea that the president is going to have our grandparents murdered. it's not merely disagreement with obama's general policy, but

as congresswoman michelle bachman has claimed the president setting up camps. >> host: >> host: this comes from the southern poverty law center. if you want to read more, find is on their web site splcenter.org. back to the phones. atlanta, georgia, derek on our line for democrats. welcome to the washington journal. thanks for waiting. is this correct yes, what i would like to say as the history

of this, this is -- everything is causing obama to get staged. they bring up the other issues. everything is designed already. i'm from the south. times have been difficult down here. the klu klux klan. they went to segregated school, they were taught they were better. they are talking about the situation. we've been living in the situation has underclass. even the immigration and the immigrants coming up now, they are stepping up above the blacks in america. what you have is with obama, all of these businesses, it's the race is coming through, what he's doing, most of the people ought to deal with their own medicaid, social security, they get all of the aid and stuff plus the government. ask those people do they want their social security checks and

medicaid cut out? >> host: thanks for your call. mark potok, go ahead. >> guest: well, what the caller is saying very similar to what jimmy carter said and was very criticized for which was behind all of the anger stands race. i think that's not particular literally true, there is a lot of truth in it. i do think that a very great number of people in america are very uncomfortable with the fact that we are changing and changing in a fairly radical way demographically. the census bureau has predicted in 2050, white americans will lose chair majority. whites will be below 50% of the population. that kind of change, very real change which we see all over the country occurring, it is very much representative of kind of in the election of obama, of a black man living in the white house. so i do think there's a great

deal do that. i think a lot of is it not perhaps open white supremacist feeling, but worries and fears among many people who feel wrongly. but i think in any event, they feel this is not the country our christian-like forefathers built. that kind of idea. the reality is we are for the very first time in our history become a genuinely multiracial democracy in which no one group dominated and so on. it is a bit of a brave new world. and these changes will be reflected in some ways in the politics of our states and of our country. >> let's take this call -- >> host: let's take this call from tim in clarksburg, west virginia. good morning. >> caller: thanks for taking my call. i'd like to find out why you're going up kevin mcdonald

because he's written articles about now the jewish neocons got us into the war in israel. seems like you are designs the front trying to get the truth like mr. mcdonald gives. have you read that article? >> guest: i've all of his work. you're characterizing him very poorly. it's not a description of jewish neocons, it is attack on the jews. mr. mcdonald is a raving anti- semimite and is well known. he is theorizing this is professor mcdonald, he theorizes that jews have a collective kind of evolutionary strategy that because jews generally live in societies in which they are outnumbered, that what they do collectively through some sort of get this

from the clouds, this idea, they work collectively and secretly to undermine the white christian societies that are host for it. in other words, the idea is that jews urge other people to intermarry. jews try to weaken christianity, jews try to weaken the interest of white people in general. and the whole listen for this according to the good professor is that white society will be weakened in order that the jews will not be attacked and so on. your friend, kevin mcdonald has suggested such things as places taxes, special taxes on jews in order to bring them down to the level, i guess, of the rest of us. so, you know, that is part of the reason that we have been critical of kevin mcdonald. >> host: let's move on to chesterfield, mississippi. barb bra, you're on the washington journal. >> caller: good morning. >> host: good morning.

>> caller: i get nervous. give me a moment to get my comments out please. do you want to -- my report comes out and when it came out, it was painting everybody who is a christian, who's returning military, to you have your comments about these groups asking with extremist. then you have people who come right out and say that like dick morris that all of this conspiracy theory what they have been saying all along is right. then you have 400 united nations troops in america right now. you have all of these things going on that have the american people frightened. we're not extremist groups. we're not racist. you are trying to paint us off. all of this week they are going to bring up timothy mcveigh and put them in a category like we are all terrorist like him. what you are doing is spreading it, you are making it worse for everybody. that's what you are doing. >> host: barbara, where the 400 troops from the united

nations in the united states. >> caller: look at -- another thing is you have every president -- >> host: no, no. barbara, the united nations troops, where are they stationed in the united states? > caller: they are all across. training exercise missions. all across the country. you have the training. >> host: have they been dispatched? >> caller: work issue with the federal government. >> host: mark potok, anything to what black bra had to say? >> the whole idea of united nations and troops are being prepared, this is a part of the idea they are going to help impose marshal law and so on. the caller referred to something that came out of mississippi fusion center, this is the state, local troop that worry about domestic terrorism and so on. the report actually, most people

like the caller have never read the report. what the report was very similar to the dhs, department of homeland security report that was leaked last spring. it was assessing the kind of resumption of the radical light. it had a couple of statements in it that were written. they said things like you might want to watch out for people with certain kinds of bumper sticks. ron paul was mentioned. those kinds of ideas. you know, similar kind of uproar, much bigger one really. it was generated by the release of the report, the leak of the rather dhs report are last spring. that was the tellist in the tea cup. that report did not do anything that was accused of. american legion attacked it as characterizing all returns vets as potential timothy mcveighs.

they wouldn't do anything that. it was known in janet napolitano in political characterization. >> host: there are programs in the u.s. military where troops from various countries come over here to train with u.s. troops. but they are not actually deployed here, are they? >> guest: no, that's absolutely right. but these kinds of fears have ended in criminal violence a number of times. i remember back in 1997 when i am not mistaken two men were arrested who had been principals in the militia movement, they were arrested as they were about to invade fort food -- fort hood to kill as many people as they could, because they believed foreign troops were being trained there. so there is ultimately where these kinds of conspiracy

theories are. of course, there are eu pilots and other military officials who are trained over here as part of various cooperations programs. that's not a secret. that doesn't mean that we are running concentrations camps or nick like that. >> host: let's take the call from don. >> caller: thank you. may i call you mark? >> guest: absolutely. >> caller: okay. thank you. anyways, since the '90s we've set s.w.a.t. team of 4 to 5,000. we have about 50,000s.w.a.t. team, the bottom line is what i want to get to. obama said how unjust that was when he was not the president. then low and below, when he's president, he keep it is all in tact, the policy. what bothers me the most is that we slowly -- our term as terrorism or extremist have been going on, against the people --

the patriot act because it was passed, it wasn't going to be -- when they passed it, obama, you know, bush and cheney, they had a terrorist alert. they weren't going to hold on it. they wanted to go home with some presentation that they had. anyways, that's what bothers me the most about this. you have to be honest. that's what bothers me. it's turning terrorism against american people. why they are hanging on to the patriot act, when they are going to use it against us? >> host: leave it there. any truth what don had to say, there's been an increased in extremist activity as a result of the creation of the patriot act? >> guest: well, i don't know if that's led to increase in the extremetist activity. i think what he was getting at is true. there is some truth to the idea that police in this country have been increasingly essentially

militarized, there are more heavy equipment. to speak in defense of law enforcement to some extent, the threat they are facing is more and more well armed. and i'm talking about domestically. some the groups that have been -- have run into trouble over various criminal matters and so on have been unbelievably well armed. it's not that uncommon for the atf to turn up catches that include large amounts of explosive materials, along with .50 caliber machine funs and that kind of things. i'm no fan of the patriot act, it's a bit disappointing some of it hasn't been rolled back a little quicker. as i said, there is something to the go ahead of increasing militarization, but i think that's countered by a threat. >>

>> guest: well, there is a similarity, of course, to the first it ration. the first wave in the 1990s, which occurred, of course, during another relatively liberal democratic administration, the clinton administration. so i think there is some relationship to that. however, the time is very different in other ways. the '90s after the '91 recession was relatively good economic time. that's obviously very untrue now. i think the very bad economy is making the situation worse out there, frankly, than it was in the mid '90s. so there's similarities and differences. but i think one could argue that the anger seems to be border and deeper this time around. >> regarding domestic terror plots, the splc.

>> host: measure information from the southern poverty law center. we're talking with mark potok of the southern poverty law center. he's their director. our next call from florida. john. go ahead on the line for independents. >> caller: yeah, good morning, i think your guest and the southern poverty law center is probably one of the most corrupt and racist and dangerous organizations in the country. they attempt to define patriots as terrorists and militias by the way, are not unconstitutional. >> host: mr. poe -- potok? >> i don't think we're spreading racism at all. i think we're trying to call it as we see it.

call it as it really is out there. i would note the same kind of anger from the caller is often directed at law enforcement agencies like the department of homeland security. you know, i only bring that up to suggest that look, what everyone thinks of our analysis is clearly shared. certainly in its broad outlines, the people who really are contact with the movement and do the work. you know, i think that we've seen an enormous amount of violence or planned violence with the rise of power of obama. let's not forget. since obama became a nominee, we have seen two racist skin head fax to assassinate him. we have seen the radioactive elements that were plan to set off the inauguration. we've seen the day off he was

inaugurating, the particular man storm out of his house and begin murdering black people as he told police officer later, he had been reading white supremist and decided they were being subjected to a genocide. there was a church burn by three white men on a black church. we had an enormous more mainstream reaction, you know, -- the story of which i will never forget being those second and third graders in idaho chanting assassinate obama on the way to school. i don't mean to suggest that the entire country is in the sort of racist state of mind. i think that's not true. i think as a whole we are moving forward as a country without any question at all. but we're in the middle of a backlash. lots going on in the world. the world is changing economically. this country is changing racially and in many other ways. the economy is in the pits. and there's a result. we see a lot of anger. a lot of demonizing of certain

individuals, in particular the obama administration. i think what we are seeing out there is very real. >> host: james on the line for republican out of michigan. >> caller: hey. how are you doing? i want to say thanks for letting me talk on the program. there is a lot of anger out there. and i am a military man, and what i wanted too say is regarded with obama or somebody else coming into the presidency, there would have been a lot of backlash for any president coming in right now due to the economy and the way it's sitting and the over states and cities are. there's a lot of people out of work. there's a lot of anger. not just that one particular group, but everyone due to the fact that we are all in the same boat. we don't know where the next boat comes from. >> is t