You've heard the old expression: "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."
Well, at least one organization has figured out how to throw stones while living in a glass house and parlay it into hundreds of millions of dollars.
It's called the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Guess what? It turns out there's a fortune to be made by hurling epithets like that.
SPLC made a name for itself by suing the Ku Klux Klan. After taking out this repulsive organization, and making millions in the process, it seems SPLC had to find new bogeymen to keep its crusading leadership in caviar.
The group is still playing the race card – linking anyone to the right of Arlen Specter with racism, extremism, militarism, hate, anti-immigrant vigilantism and, perhaps worst of all on the Morris Dees scale, "so-called patriot groups."
The latest report singles out heroic conservative Republican Rep. Michelle Bachmann for promoting "anti-government ideas" – yeah, just like Ronald Reagan did.
It also takes on Gun Owners of America Director Larry Pratt for, imagine this, supporting the Second Amendment.
I'm only disappointed I wasn't named along with these fine upstanding Americans. I will have to try much harder to make the enemies list of the SPLC next time.
But it's not like these people don't have wealthy, influential and powerful friends listening to them. More than a few noted the striking similarities between the over-the-top rhetoric of SPLC and that infamous Department of Homeland Security report last year that warned about how pro-lifers and returning veterans represented threats to the republic.
It's not surprising the group seized on the tea-party movement, the most potent grass-roots political uprising in my lifetime. Fear-mongering is what the SPLC is all about – and turning it into a profit center.
SPLC finds it alarming that only one-fourth of Americans think the government can be trusted and that more of them see the tea-party movement in favorable terms than they do either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.
Skepticism about government is as American as apple pie. It's in our genetic makeup. It's what the founders were counting on to keep us free.
So where's the big payoff for all the name-calling?
After all, even many on the left side of the political spectrum have criticized SPLC for a bark much worse than its bite. Only a tiny percentage of its huge bank account ever goes to filing litigation. More goes to fundraising.
Yet, that hasn't deterred some pretty big names in the world of left-leaning foundations from opening up their coffers with generous grants. They include:
- the Arcus Foundation;
- the Baltimore Community Foundation;
- the Cisco Systems Foundation;
- the Cleveland Foundation,
- the Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation;
- the Columbus Foundation and Affiliated Organizations;
- the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan;
- the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region;
- Community Foundation (Silicon Valley);
- the Cushman Family Foundation;
- the Dibner Fund;
- the Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation;
- the Ford Foundation;
- the Edward and Verna Gerbic Family Foundation;
- the Jackson and Irene Golden 1989 Charitable Trust;Â
- the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund;
- the Grove Foundation;
- the J.M. Kaplan Fund;
- the J.P Morgan Chase Foundation;
- the Kaplen Foundation;
- George Soros' Open Society Institute;
- the Albert Parvin Foundation;
- the Picower Foundation;
- the Jay Pritzker Foundation;
- the Louis and Harold Price Foundation;
- the Public Welfare Foundation;
- the Raine and Stanley Silverstein Family Foundation;
- the Spiegel Foundation;
- the State Street Foundation;Â
- the Steinberg Charitable Trust;
- the Vanguard Public Foundation.
If you're reading this, chances are good the Southern Poverty Law Center sees you as a racist, militant, extremist, gun-toting, hate-mongering, anti-government patriot.
But, don't worry. Look who's doing the name-calling.