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Monday, March 19, 2012
Music I Love (Particularly Today)
...hopefully you will too...randomly and variously {of course}
Chopin Nocturne Op.9 No.2 (Arthur Rubinstein)
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Tesla's Model X
GRAND PERFORMANCE
Tesla Motors Model X Smokes $40 Million In A Day
by Steve Duda
Tesla says its new Model X crossover SUV is faster than a Porsche Carrera. The seven-seater is said to clock a 0-to-60 time of 4.4 seconds. That’s a pretty quick mover and according to a recent release from the company, it’s not the only thing that’s moving fast.
According to the statement, one day after the company unveiled the Model X in a splashy webcast, advance sales of the all-electric crossover SUV exceeded $40 million. Not bad for a ride that won’t even go into production until the end of 2013 and won’t show up in showrooms until early 2014.
image via Tesla
The debut created a load of media attention for Tesla and resulted in the Model X being the third most searched term on Google. On the night of the debut, traffic to teslamotors.com increased 2800 percent. Two-thirds of all visitors were new to the website.
But not all that attention went to the Model X. Tesla says that reservations for the company’snew Model S sedan were also up 30 percent.
Tesla envisions the Model X as direct competition for other luxury SUVs — and not just electricor hybrids. The Tesla, expected to retail for between $60,000 and $85,000, could go head to head with models such as the BMW Mercedes-Benz R-Class, the BMW X5 and the Lexus RX 450.
image via Tesla
The most impressive feature of the Model X is what Tesla is calling its falcon-wing rear doors. These doors, which allow access to the car’s second and third row of seating, rise up and over the car like a gull wing. Since the doors are articulated and hinged in the middle, they lift perpendicular to the ground making access in tight parking spots easy.
Tesla will offer the Model X with three drivetrain options—rear-wheel drive only; dual motor, all-wheel drive; and a dual motor, all-wheel drive performance option. Tesla will also offer the option of two battery packs—the standard 60-kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery or a larger 85-kWh version. Because the Model X is heavier than the Model S, expect its range to be a bit lower, topping out somewhere in the area of 270 miles.
Posted on February 17th, 2012
The Soul of Every TeslaModel X is a family vehicle with performance roots. The Tesla Vehicle Platform enables Model X to perform in ways never expected from a car of its size. With a center of gravity lower than any other SUV, you’ll notice nimble reflexes at every turn. The electric powertrain delivers instant torque for confident lane changes, even when loaded with seven adults and all their gear.
Dual Motor All-Wheel DriveModel X is offered with optional Dual Motor All-Wheel Drive. The second motor enables more than all-weather, all-road capabilities: it increases torque by 50%. When outfitted with AWD, Model X Performance accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in less than 5 seconds, outperforming the fastest SUVs and many sports cars.
WHOA.
Falcon Wings. Calling them doors would be an understatement. While earning serious style points, they’re functional first. Falcon Wings open up and out of the way, in even the narrowest of parking spots. You easily step, not climb, into Model X.
EASY SEATING
Third-row access is finally easy. Even with child seats installed, the second-row seats slide all the way forward. Open Falcon Wings let you stand all the way up as you get in and out. Kids no longer leap and tumble over the second row, and adults find the third-row seats as accessible as the passenger seat.
THIS SEAT IS FOR YOU
In the driver’s seat, you’ll find a stylish combination of premium interior surfaces and panoramic glass. Set in the futuristic dash is the Tesla Touchscreen, providing access to information and entertainment while on the go.
MODEL CITIZEN, MEET MODEL X
Model X doesn’t use a drop of gasoline. You can finally live a big-car lifestyle without living at the pump. And, by replacing your big gas guzzler with a Tesla, you’re playing a significant role in reducing emissions. Incredible driving range, powered by a 60 or 85 kWh battery, is yours for the taking.
WHAT'S NEXT?
We unveiled the Model X Design prototype on February 9, 2012. It represents our current vision for this groundbreaking vehicle. We expect to begin production of Model X in late 2013, ramping up deliveries in early 2014. Model X will be priced comparable to a similarly equipped Model S. More details will be announced as production nears.
Here are the vehicle configurations we plan to offer:
Battery Options
Model X will be offered with a 60 or 85 kWh battery.
Drivetrain Options
Model X will be offered with the following drivetrain configurations:
by Steve Duda
Tesla says its new Model X crossover SUV is faster than a Porsche Carrera. The seven-seater is said to clock a 0-to-60 time of 4.4 seconds. That’s a pretty quick mover and according to a recent release from the company, it’s not the only thing that’s moving fast.
According to the statement, one day after the company unveiled the Model X in a splashy webcast, advance sales of the all-electric crossover SUV exceeded $40 million. Not bad for a ride that won’t even go into production until the end of 2013 and won’t show up in showrooms until early 2014.
image via Tesla
The debut created a load of media attention for Tesla and resulted in the Model X being the third most searched term on Google. On the night of the debut, traffic to teslamotors.com increased 2800 percent. Two-thirds of all visitors were new to the website.
But not all that attention went to the Model X. Tesla says that reservations for the company’snew Model S sedan were also up 30 percent.
Tesla envisions the Model X as direct competition for other luxury SUVs — and not just electricor hybrids. The Tesla, expected to retail for between $60,000 and $85,000, could go head to head with models such as the BMW Mercedes-Benz R-Class, the BMW X5 and the Lexus RX 450.
image via Tesla
The most impressive feature of the Model X is what Tesla is calling its falcon-wing rear doors. These doors, which allow access to the car’s second and third row of seating, rise up and over the car like a gull wing. Since the doors are articulated and hinged in the middle, they lift perpendicular to the ground making access in tight parking spots easy.
Tesla will offer the Model X with three drivetrain options—rear-wheel drive only; dual motor, all-wheel drive; and a dual motor, all-wheel drive performance option. Tesla will also offer the option of two battery packs—the standard 60-kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery or a larger 85-kWh version. Because the Model X is heavier than the Model S, expect its range to be a bit lower, topping out somewhere in the area of 270 miles.
Posted on February 17th, 2012
Meet Gerhard Richter: The Top Selling Living Artist In The World
2006 Interview With Gerhard Richter (2009 Posted)
Art Critic Jonathan Jones (From the UK Guardian) On Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter - Large Abstracts
Richter's Cage Paintings @Tate Modern
Gerhard Richter: A Life In Painting (Adapted from the book)
'One of the most important works of second half of the 20th century'
Art-as-Asset: Citibank's Investment Recommendations
For Making Money Through Art Portfolios
Last year at auction, German painter Gerhard Richter outsold Monet, Giacometti and Rothko—combined. A case study of an artist's rise. Will it last?By KELLY CROW
In the early 1980s, German artist Gerhard Richter painted 24 views of flickering white candles, and not a single one sold. When one of those "Candle" canvases came up at Christie's in London this past fall, it sold for $16.5 million.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A visitor at the blockbuster retrospective 'Gerhard Richter: Panorama' at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie; it will travel to Paris in June.
Few people can pinpoint the moment when an artist becomes iconic in the way of Pablo Picasso or Andy Warhol, but right now the art world is trying to anoint Mr. Richter. Last year, his works sold at auction for a total of $200 million, according to auction tracker Artnet—more than any other living artist and topping last year's auction totals for Claude Monet, Alberto Giacometti and Mark Rothko combined. At Mr. Richter's gallery in New York, the waiting list for one of his new works, which can sell for $3 million apiece, is several dozen names long.
In November at Sotheby's, London collector Lily Safra paid $20.8 million for Mr. Richter's 1997 eggplant-colored "Abstract Painting," an auction record for the artist. Other artists have sold individual works at higher prices—Jeff Koons, for example—but in terms of volume at auction, Mr. Richter currently tops the market.
The artist's ascent is being driven by market demands as much as curatorial merit: Auction houses and museums, eager for new masters to canonize, are showcasing Mr. Richter's works around the world at an ever-increasing clip. An influx of international collectors and dealers are also seizing the moment to buy or sell his pieces at a profit—including art-world tastemakers such as Russian industrialist Roman Abramovich, French luxury-goods executive Bernard Arnault, dealer Larry Gagosian, Taiwanese electronics mogul Pierre Chen and New York hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen.
Germany's Gerhard Richter's artworks sold at auction last year for a total of $176 million, more than any other living artist. Kelly Crow has a profile of Richter and his work on Lunch Break. Photo: Sotheby's
View Slideshow
A visitor at the blockbuster retrospective 'Gerhard Richter: Panorama' at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie; it will travel to Paris in June.
Few people can pinpoint the moment when an artist becomes iconic in the way of Pablo Picasso or Andy Warhol, but right now the art world is trying to anoint Mr. Richter. Last year, his works sold at auction for a total of $200 million, according to auction tracker Artnet—more than any other living artist and topping last year's auction totals for Claude Monet, Alberto Giacometti and Mark Rothko combined. At Mr. Richter's gallery in New York, the waiting list for one of his new works, which can sell for $3 million apiece, is several dozen names long.
In November at Sotheby's, London collector Lily Safra paid $20.8 million for Mr. Richter's 1997 eggplant-colored "Abstract Painting," an auction record for the artist. Other artists have sold individual works at higher prices—Jeff Koons, for example—but in terms of volume at auction, Mr. Richter currently tops the market.
The artist's ascent is being driven by market demands as much as curatorial merit: Auction houses and museums, eager for new masters to canonize, are showcasing Mr. Richter's works around the world at an ever-increasing clip. An influx of international collectors and dealers are also seizing the moment to buy or sell his pieces at a profit—including art-world tastemakers such as Russian industrialist Roman Abramovich, French luxury-goods executive Bernard Arnault, dealer Larry Gagosian, Taiwanese electronics mogul Pierre Chen and New York hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen.
Germany's Gerhard Richter's artworks sold at auction last year for a total of $176 million, more than any other living artist. Kelly Crow has a profile of Richter and his work on Lunch Break. Photo: Sotheby's
View Slideshow
Getty Images
German artist Gerhard Richter.
Mr. Richter's work is uniquely suited to the tastes of the current art market. Like Picasso, he paints in a number of different styles—from rainbow-hued abstracts to poignant family portraits—giving collectors plenty of choice. Like Warhol, he is prolific, which ensures a steady volume of his works in the marketplace—yet enough of his works are in museum collections that he has avoided a glut. And ever since the deaths last year of painters Cy Twombly and Lucian Freud, collectors searching for another senior statesman have started giving his work a closer look.
Collectors are paying a particular premium for Mr. Richter's larger abstracts from the late 1980s, which have all the visual impact of a work by Francis Bacon or Mr. Rothko, artists whose prices spiked before the recession. These abstracts are also immediately identifiable as being Mr. Richter's creations, making them easy status symbols. San Francisco dealer Anthony Meier says, "Collectors want an iconic work in a format that everyone recognizes. Monkey see, monkey do."
Related Video
The tiny, oil-rich country of Qatar recently rocked the art world by paying more than $250 million dollars for a Cezanne, the highest price ever for a work of art at auction. And while eye-popping numbers like that might get you thinking about investing in art, it is certainly not for everyone. Kelsey Hubbard asks Christie's art expert Lydia Fenet about art as an investment.
Mr. Richter, 80 years old, isn't a household name in the U.S. yet, but he's revered in Europe. Born in Dresden, he fled the former East Germany months before the Berlin Wall went up. He has spent the past six decades experimenting with ways to refresh traditional painting categories like the still life. He's best known for haunting family portraits that evoke smudged newspaper clippings—a wry response to Pop that won him a pre-eminent spot among Europe's postwar painters. He also uses an oversized squeegee the size of a car bumper to create layered abstracts. That he flits between several painting styles, rather than sticking to one signature look, has always confounded some audiences, yet the toggling is actually his calling card, the painter as polymath.
A blockbuster retrospective, "Gerhard Richter: Panorama," has been crisscrossing the art capitals of Europe, having just traveled from London's Tate Modern to Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, where it will show through May 13. So far, the show has drawn large crowds; it heads to Paris's Centre Pompidou in June.
For his part, Mr. Richter seems a reluctant commodity. At a time when superstar artists typically have a different dealer for every continent, he funnels nearly all his new works through New York dealer Marian Goodman. Both are soft-spoken and rarely attend high-profile auctions. The pair has declined lucrative licensing deals and private commissions. For years, their combined efforts have helped his price levels retain an air of integrity. Ms. Goodman, speaking on behalf of the artist, who declined to be interviewed himself, said, "He has an honest market."
German artist Gerhard Richter.
Mr. Richter's work is uniquely suited to the tastes of the current art market. Like Picasso, he paints in a number of different styles—from rainbow-hued abstracts to poignant family portraits—giving collectors plenty of choice. Like Warhol, he is prolific, which ensures a steady volume of his works in the marketplace—yet enough of his works are in museum collections that he has avoided a glut. And ever since the deaths last year of painters Cy Twombly and Lucian Freud, collectors searching for another senior statesman have started giving his work a closer look.
Collectors are paying a particular premium for Mr. Richter's larger abstracts from the late 1980s, which have all the visual impact of a work by Francis Bacon or Mr. Rothko, artists whose prices spiked before the recession. These abstracts are also immediately identifiable as being Mr. Richter's creations, making them easy status symbols. San Francisco dealer Anthony Meier says, "Collectors want an iconic work in a format that everyone recognizes. Monkey see, monkey do."
Related Video
The tiny, oil-rich country of Qatar recently rocked the art world by paying more than $250 million dollars for a Cezanne, the highest price ever for a work of art at auction. And while eye-popping numbers like that might get you thinking about investing in art, it is certainly not for everyone. Kelsey Hubbard asks Christie's art expert Lydia Fenet about art as an investment.
Mr. Richter, 80 years old, isn't a household name in the U.S. yet, but he's revered in Europe. Born in Dresden, he fled the former East Germany months before the Berlin Wall went up. He has spent the past six decades experimenting with ways to refresh traditional painting categories like the still life. He's best known for haunting family portraits that evoke smudged newspaper clippings—a wry response to Pop that won him a pre-eminent spot among Europe's postwar painters. He also uses an oversized squeegee the size of a car bumper to create layered abstracts. That he flits between several painting styles, rather than sticking to one signature look, has always confounded some audiences, yet the toggling is actually his calling card, the painter as polymath.
A blockbuster retrospective, "Gerhard Richter: Panorama," has been crisscrossing the art capitals of Europe, having just traveled from London's Tate Modern to Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, where it will show through May 13. So far, the show has drawn large crowds; it heads to Paris's Centre Pompidou in June.
For his part, Mr. Richter seems a reluctant commodity. At a time when superstar artists typically have a different dealer for every continent, he funnels nearly all his new works through New York dealer Marian Goodman. Both are soft-spoken and rarely attend high-profile auctions. The pair has declined lucrative licensing deals and private commissions. For years, their combined efforts have helped his price levels retain an air of integrity. Ms. Goodman, speaking on behalf of the artist, who declined to be interviewed himself, said, "He has an honest market."
Ol auf Holz Museum Ludwig, Koln;ln/Privatsammlung © Gerhard Richter 2012
Mr. Richter has created more than 3,000 paintings, but nearly 40% of them (including 'Betty,' pictured here) are in museum collections, which has prevented a market glut.
Not everyone is ready to bet on Mr. Richter. Jose Mugrabi and David Nahmad, major dealers in Warhol and Picasso, respectively, said they don't think Mr. Richter has enough heft to compete with the market presence of those modern masters. Mr. Mugrabi said Mr. Richter's art is more fashionable now than it used to be, but not more important.
Trends in contemporary art, as in fashion, can also change quickly, so it's unclear whether Mr. Richter's prices will keep climbing or drop again over the long run. In the late 1980s, prices for Frank Stella's geometric paintings rose quickly to nearly $4 million before reaching a plateau in 1989 that he hasn't matched at auction since. Mr. Rothko's abstract paintings also soared to $72.8 million during the market's last peak in 2007, but nothing by him has sold for half as much in the past couple of years. Art adviser Nicolai Frahm says he's counseling his collector clients to hold off seeking Mr. Richter's works "until his prices equalize."
Mr. Richter has created more than 3,000 paintings, but nearly 40% of them (including 'Betty,' pictured here) are in museum collections, which has prevented a market glut.
Not everyone is ready to bet on Mr. Richter. Jose Mugrabi and David Nahmad, major dealers in Warhol and Picasso, respectively, said they don't think Mr. Richter has enough heft to compete with the market presence of those modern masters. Mr. Mugrabi said Mr. Richter's art is more fashionable now than it used to be, but not more important.
Trends in contemporary art, as in fashion, can also change quickly, so it's unclear whether Mr. Richter's prices will keep climbing or drop again over the long run. In the late 1980s, prices for Frank Stella's geometric paintings rose quickly to nearly $4 million before reaching a plateau in 1989 that he hasn't matched at auction since. Mr. Rothko's abstract paintings also soared to $72.8 million during the market's last peak in 2007, but nothing by him has sold for half as much in the past couple of years. Art adviser Nicolai Frahm says he's counseling his collector clients to hold off seeking Mr. Richter's works "until his prices equalize."
Sotheby's
Russian industrialist Roman Abramovich is among the influential collectors who have helped to make Mr. Richter's market. Mr. Abramovich paid $15.1 million for Mr. Richter's 1990 'Abstract Painting' at Sotheby's.
Robert Storr, dean of the Yale School of Art, said he thinks such lofty comparisons to Picasso and Warhol will hold up, though. "Richter doesn't want to be the next king, but he has taken painting farther than just about anyone else," he said.
Richter's Rise
Mr. Richter works out of a pair of pristine studios in Cologne, including one attached by a garden path to the home he shares with his third wife, Sabine, and their young son, Moritz. Mr. Richter suffered a stroke a few years ago, but he remains fit and moves easily, his face framed by a jaunty pair of translucent eyeglasses.
The son of a Dresden schoolteacher, Mr. Richter grew up in communist East Germany, steeped in the academic rigors of Soviet Realism. Some of his first jobs included painting murals of cheery workers for the state. In 1959, he saw Western contemporary art for the first time at an exhibition called Documenta in the German town of Kassel; afterward, he told friends he would have to rethink what he knew about art after seeing Jackson Pollock's drippy splatters and Lucio Fontana's punctured canvases.
Russian industrialist Roman Abramovich is among the influential collectors who have helped to make Mr. Richter's market. Mr. Abramovich paid $15.1 million for Mr. Richter's 1990 'Abstract Painting' at Sotheby's.
Robert Storr, dean of the Yale School of Art, said he thinks such lofty comparisons to Picasso and Warhol will hold up, though. "Richter doesn't want to be the next king, but he has taken painting farther than just about anyone else," he said.
Richter's Rise
Mr. Richter works out of a pair of pristine studios in Cologne, including one attached by a garden path to the home he shares with his third wife, Sabine, and their young son, Moritz. Mr. Richter suffered a stroke a few years ago, but he remains fit and moves easily, his face framed by a jaunty pair of translucent eyeglasses.
The son of a Dresden schoolteacher, Mr. Richter grew up in communist East Germany, steeped in the academic rigors of Soviet Realism. Some of his first jobs included painting murals of cheery workers for the state. In 1959, he saw Western contemporary art for the first time at an exhibition called Documenta in the German town of Kassel; afterward, he told friends he would have to rethink what he knew about art after seeing Jackson Pollock's drippy splatters and Lucio Fontana's punctured canvases.
Sotheby's
Part of Mr. Richter's appeal to collectors: He paints in a wide range of styles, from colorful abstracts to hazy portraits. His 'Sailors' sold for $13.2 million at Sotheby's.
Two years later, he and his wife, Ema, enlisted a friend to sneak them by car into West Berlin so he could study art without political constraint. The couple moved to Düsseldorf, and by the end of the summer the Berlin Wall had gone up. He never saw his parents again.
Over the next decade, the artist grappled with occasional homesickness—and the legacy of his country's role in the war—by painting portraits of his relatives that looked like black-and-white photographs, only hazy. The subjects included his "Aunt Marianne," who was exterminated by the Nazis because she was mentally ill, and his "Uncle Rudi," a Nazi soldier who died fighting in the war.
Rudolf Zwirner, one of the artist's earliest dealers, was impressed when he saw the work in 1962; few German artists were addressing such disquieting topics. For years after the war, wealthy American collectors who were championing Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol considered German art "taboo," Mr. Zwirner said, so he and other dealers cultivated collectors for Mr. Richter nearby. Their prices rarely topped $1,000. "I sold Richters to my physician, my neighbors, my brother—anybody I could convince," he said. To this day, it's not unusual for bourgeois families in the region to own dozens of works by the artist; one collector in Munich owns 70 works. By the time Mr. Richter was invited to represent Germany in the 1972 Venice Biennale, his pool of countrymen collectors was deep.
Part of Mr. Richter's appeal to collectors: He paints in a wide range of styles, from colorful abstracts to hazy portraits. His 'Sailors' sold for $13.2 million at Sotheby's.
Two years later, he and his wife, Ema, enlisted a friend to sneak them by car into West Berlin so he could study art without political constraint. The couple moved to Düsseldorf, and by the end of the summer the Berlin Wall had gone up. He never saw his parents again.
Over the next decade, the artist grappled with occasional homesickness—and the legacy of his country's role in the war—by painting portraits of his relatives that looked like black-and-white photographs, only hazy. The subjects included his "Aunt Marianne," who was exterminated by the Nazis because she was mentally ill, and his "Uncle Rudi," a Nazi soldier who died fighting in the war.
Rudolf Zwirner, one of the artist's earliest dealers, was impressed when he saw the work in 1962; few German artists were addressing such disquieting topics. For years after the war, wealthy American collectors who were championing Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol considered German art "taboo," Mr. Zwirner said, so he and other dealers cultivated collectors for Mr. Richter nearby. Their prices rarely topped $1,000. "I sold Richters to my physician, my neighbors, my brother—anybody I could convince," he said. To this day, it's not unusual for bourgeois families in the region to own dozens of works by the artist; one collector in Munich owns 70 works. By the time Mr. Richter was invited to represent Germany in the 1972 Venice Biennale, his pool of countrymen collectors was deep.
Christie's Mr. Richter's 1982 'Candle' painting sold in October at Christie's for $16.5 million.
In the years that followed, Mr. Richter churned through several different series—like those candles—which didn't sell as well as the angst-ridden paintings of his German contemporaries like Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz. But in the mid-1980s, he began making brightly colored abstracts, and collectors pounced. San Francisco collectors Donald and Doris Fisher, who founded the Gap retail chain, bought several of these works.
The real turning point for Mr. Richter came in 1995 when New York's Museum of Modern Art paid $3 million for a suite of 15 grisaille paintings called "Oct. 18, 1977." The artist painted this cycle in 1988 as a response to the arrest, trial and grisly death in 1977 of a group of young German anarchists-turned-terrorists. Mr. Storr, the Yale dean who then served as the museum's senior curator of painting and sculpture, began planning a major survey of Mr. Richter's work for the museum.
As soon as word leaked about the museum show, Mr. Zwirner said his phone started ringing with American collectors seeking Richters. A year later, in 1996, Sotheby's in London put a Richter on the cover of one of its sale catalogs. Back in Germany, longtime collectors started getting letters from auction houses: Did they care to sell a Richter?
MoMA's long-awaited survey opened six years later, in 2001, and suddenly series that had seemed random when they debuted, like his "Candle" works, seemed relevant, said Sotheby's specialist Cheyenne Westphal. Three months after the exhibit opened, the auction house sold his "Three Candles" for $5.3 million.
In the years that followed, Mr. Richter churned through several different series—like those candles—which didn't sell as well as the angst-ridden paintings of his German contemporaries like Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz. But in the mid-1980s, he began making brightly colored abstracts, and collectors pounced. San Francisco collectors Donald and Doris Fisher, who founded the Gap retail chain, bought several of these works.
The real turning point for Mr. Richter came in 1995 when New York's Museum of Modern Art paid $3 million for a suite of 15 grisaille paintings called "Oct. 18, 1977." The artist painted this cycle in 1988 as a response to the arrest, trial and grisly death in 1977 of a group of young German anarchists-turned-terrorists. Mr. Storr, the Yale dean who then served as the museum's senior curator of painting and sculpture, began planning a major survey of Mr. Richter's work for the museum.
As soon as word leaked about the museum show, Mr. Zwirner said his phone started ringing with American collectors seeking Richters. A year later, in 1996, Sotheby's in London put a Richter on the cover of one of its sale catalogs. Back in Germany, longtime collectors started getting letters from auction houses: Did they care to sell a Richter?
MoMA's long-awaited survey opened six years later, in 2001, and suddenly series that had seemed random when they debuted, like his "Candle" works, seemed relevant, said Sotheby's specialist Cheyenne Westphal. Three months after the exhibit opened, the auction house sold his "Three Candles" for $5.3 million.
Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris
Mr. Richter with his longtime dealer, Marian Goodman
Two years after that, a lawyer and collector based in Zurich named Joe Hage began gathering auction prices and exhibit details about the works in Mr. Richter's oeuvre. He started a website, gerhard-richter.com, and began posting the results online.
For newer, Internet-savvy collectors, Mr. Hage's site has proved popular because of all that its tallying has revealed. Mr. Richter has created 3,000 paintings—fewer than Warhol's 8,000 silk-screens but considerably more than Salvador DalÃ's 1,200 works. He's also heavily traded, with more than 200 of his works turning up at auction every year, which provides buyers with a regular stream of price points to analyze. Museums own roughly 38% of his works, though, including half of his most coveted works, those large squeegee abstracts.
By 2006, an influx of newly wealthy collectors began competing hard for contemporary art, spiking values for dozens of artists including Mr. Richter. Sotheby's began shipping its top Richters to Hong Kong so potential bidders there could see his works. In May 2006, a bidder at Berlin's Villa Griesbach auction house paid $1 million for Mr. Richter's 1971 portrait of "Mao." The following summer, the same painting came up for bid at Christie's in London and sold for $2.5 million.
Then came the snowball: In February 2008, the artist's eldest daughter, Betty, sold her 1983 "Candle" for $15.8 million, triple the high estimate, at Sotheby's. Three months later, Mr. Abramovich dropped $15.1 million for Mr. Richter's green-gray "Abstract Painting" from 1990. It was only priced to sell for up to $7 million. With that, collectors recalibrated Mr. Richter's high bar to $15 million or more.
© Gerhard Richter, Courtesy The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Mr. Richter's 1997 'Abstract Painting,' which Lily Safra bought for $20.8 million at Sotheby's.
During the recession that followed, potential sellers of Mr. Richter's masterworks largely sat on the sidelines, but by late 2010, as the market perked up again, a fresh set of collectors began embellishing their collections with Richters. That November, Sotheby's got $13.2 million for his 1966 "Sailors," a work that spent years in the New Museum Weserburg in Bremen. The buyers were Houston hedge-fund manager John Arnold and his wife, Laura.
A pivotal sale four months ago sealed the deal. At Sotheby's in New York, London collectors Marc and Victoria Sursock offered up eight Richter abstracts; all sold for well over their asking prices, including the abstract that went to Ms. Safra for $20.8 million. Last month in London, collectors came back for more: Christie's got $15.5 million for a green Richter abstract, while Sotheby's sold a creamy abstract to a former Zurich nightclub owner, Carl Hirschmann, for $4.8 million.
Mr. Richter has told friends he thinks his recent auction records are "absurd." But for his longtime collectors, they're paying dividends.
A few years ago, as Berlin endocrinologist Thomas Olbricht was constructing a five-story museum to showcase his art collection, he realized he was running low on cash. So he sold a blue-orange Richter abstract. Mr. Olbricht had paid about $287,000 for it in 1996; Christie's sold it for him in 2008 for $14.8 million.
Today, the museum, called the Me Collectors Room, rises from a narrow street in Berlin's bustling Mitte neighborhood. "I still wish I'd been able to keep that painting," Mr. Olbricht said. "Today, it would be worth $20 million."
Write to Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared Mar. 9, 2012, on page D1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Top-Selling Living Artist.
Mr. Richter with his longtime dealer, Marian Goodman
Two years after that, a lawyer and collector based in Zurich named Joe Hage began gathering auction prices and exhibit details about the works in Mr. Richter's oeuvre. He started a website, gerhard-richter.com, and began posting the results online.
For newer, Internet-savvy collectors, Mr. Hage's site has proved popular because of all that its tallying has revealed. Mr. Richter has created 3,000 paintings—fewer than Warhol's 8,000 silk-screens but considerably more than Salvador DalÃ's 1,200 works. He's also heavily traded, with more than 200 of his works turning up at auction every year, which provides buyers with a regular stream of price points to analyze. Museums own roughly 38% of his works, though, including half of his most coveted works, those large squeegee abstracts.
By 2006, an influx of newly wealthy collectors began competing hard for contemporary art, spiking values for dozens of artists including Mr. Richter. Sotheby's began shipping its top Richters to Hong Kong so potential bidders there could see his works. In May 2006, a bidder at Berlin's Villa Griesbach auction house paid $1 million for Mr. Richter's 1971 portrait of "Mao." The following summer, the same painting came up for bid at Christie's in London and sold for $2.5 million.
Then came the snowball: In February 2008, the artist's eldest daughter, Betty, sold her 1983 "Candle" for $15.8 million, triple the high estimate, at Sotheby's. Three months later, Mr. Abramovich dropped $15.1 million for Mr. Richter's green-gray "Abstract Painting" from 1990. It was only priced to sell for up to $7 million. With that, collectors recalibrated Mr. Richter's high bar to $15 million or more.
© Gerhard Richter, Courtesy The Israel Museum, JerusalemMr. Richter's 1997 'Abstract Painting,' which Lily Safra bought for $20.8 million at Sotheby's.
During the recession that followed, potential sellers of Mr. Richter's masterworks largely sat on the sidelines, but by late 2010, as the market perked up again, a fresh set of collectors began embellishing their collections with Richters. That November, Sotheby's got $13.2 million for his 1966 "Sailors," a work that spent years in the New Museum Weserburg in Bremen. The buyers were Houston hedge-fund manager John Arnold and his wife, Laura.
A pivotal sale four months ago sealed the deal. At Sotheby's in New York, London collectors Marc and Victoria Sursock offered up eight Richter abstracts; all sold for well over their asking prices, including the abstract that went to Ms. Safra for $20.8 million. Last month in London, collectors came back for more: Christie's got $15.5 million for a green Richter abstract, while Sotheby's sold a creamy abstract to a former Zurich nightclub owner, Carl Hirschmann, for $4.8 million.
Mr. Richter has told friends he thinks his recent auction records are "absurd." But for his longtime collectors, they're paying dividends.
A few years ago, as Berlin endocrinologist Thomas Olbricht was constructing a five-story museum to showcase his art collection, he realized he was running low on cash. So he sold a blue-orange Richter abstract. Mr. Olbricht had paid about $287,000 for it in 1996; Christie's sold it for him in 2008 for $14.8 million.
Today, the museum, called the Me Collectors Room, rises from a narrow street in Berlin's bustling Mitte neighborhood. "I still wish I'd been able to keep that painting," Mr. Olbricht said. "Today, it would be worth $20 million."
Write to Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared Mar. 9, 2012, on page D1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Top-Selling Living Artist.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Hating In America: By the SPLC's count there 1,274 Hate Groups In America
Apparently America is populated with a sizable number, one thousand two hundred and seventy four to be exact, of Anti-Gay, Anti-Muslim, Black Separtist, Christan Identity Groups, KKKs, Nativist Extremist Groups, Neo-Confederates, Racist Skinheads, White Nationalists & Radical Environmentalist. And what these groups share in common is that they are all 'haters' (of one kind or another) and that they are featured in the SPLC's new annual report which tracks 'hate groups' in America.
If you weren't thinking about this phenomenon before reading these sentences you'll find the report, the press release which introduced it and the three newspaper articles that have interpreted what's important in the report to be random and various
or not
When the visit the sources for the report and press release in particular, you might want to take a look at the "Hate Map" a google powered map which allows you to look on a state by state basis and drill down to your home county or town and find the hate groups at work in your neighbor hood.
When the visit the sources for the report and press release in particular, you might want to take a look at the "Hate Map" a google powered map which allows you to look on a state by state basis and drill down to your home county or town and find the hate groups at work in your neighbor hood.
By Mark Potok, Senior Fellow
The radical right grew explosively in 2011, the third such dramatic expansion in as many years. The growth was fueled by superheated fears generated by economic dislocation, a proliferation of demonizing conspiracy theories, the changing racial makeup of America, and the prospect of four more years under a black president who many on the far right view as an enemy to their country.
The number of hate groups counted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) last year reached a total of 1,018, up slightly from the year before but continuing a trend of significant growth that is now more than a decade old. The truly stunning growth came in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement — conspiracy-minded groups that see the federal government as their primary enemy.
The Patriot movement first emerged in 1994, a response to what was seen as violent government repression of dissident groups at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and near Waco, Texas, in 1993, along with anger at gun control and the Democratic Clinton Administration in general. It peaked in 1996, a year after the Oklahoma City bombing, with 858 groups, then began to fade. By the turn of the millennium, the Patriot movement was reduced to fewer than 150 relatively inactive groups.
But the movement came roaring back beginning in late 2008, just as the economy went south with the subprime collapse and, more importantly, as Barack Obama appeared on the political scene as the Democratic nominee and, ultimately, the president-elect. Even as most of the nation cheered the election of the first black president that November, an angry backlash developed that included several plots to murder Obama. Many Americans, infused with populist fury over bank and auto bailouts and a feeling that they had lost their country, joined Patriot groups.
The swelling of the Patriot movement since that time has been astounding. From 149 groups in 2008, the number of Patriot organizations skyrocketed to 512 in 2009, shot up again in 2010 to 824, and then, last year, jumped to 1,274. That works out to a staggering 755% growth in the three years ending last Dec. 31. Last year’s total was more than 400 groups higher than the prior all-time high, in 1996.
Meanwhile, the SPLC counted 1,018 hate groups operating in the United States last year, up from 1,002 in 2010. That was the latest in a string of annual increases going all the way back to 2000, when there were 602 hate groups. The long-running rise seemed for most of that time to be a product of hate groups’ very successful exploitation of the issue of non-white immigration. Obama’s election and the crashing economy have played a key role in the last three years.
At the same time, a third strand of the radical right — what the SPLC designates as “nativist extremist” groups, meaning organizations that go beyond normal political activism to harass individuals they suspect of being undocumented immigrants — shrank radically. After five years of sustained growth, these vigilante groups plummeted last year to 184 from 319 in 2010, a one-year drop of 42%. The decrease appears to be a product of bad press, internecine quarrels, and the co-optation of the immigration issue by state legislatures around the country passing draconian nativist laws like Alabama’s H.B. 56.
Patriot and Militia Groups 1995-2011
The radical right grew explosively in 2011, the third such dramatic expansion in as many years. The growth was fueled by superheated fears generated by economic dislocation, a proliferation of demonizing conspiracy theories, the changing racial makeup of America, and the prospect of four more years under a black president who many on the far right view as an enemy to their country.
The number of hate groups counted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) last year reached a total of 1,018, up slightly from the year before but continuing a trend of significant growth that is now more than a decade old. The truly stunning growth came in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement — conspiracy-minded groups that see the federal government as their primary enemy.
The Patriot movement first emerged in 1994, a response to what was seen as violent government repression of dissident groups at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and near Waco, Texas, in 1993, along with anger at gun control and the Democratic Clinton Administration in general. It peaked in 1996, a year after the Oklahoma City bombing, with 858 groups, then began to fade. By the turn of the millennium, the Patriot movement was reduced to fewer than 150 relatively inactive groups.
But the movement came roaring back beginning in late 2008, just as the economy went south with the subprime collapse and, more importantly, as Barack Obama appeared on the political scene as the Democratic nominee and, ultimately, the president-elect. Even as most of the nation cheered the election of the first black president that November, an angry backlash developed that included several plots to murder Obama. Many Americans, infused with populist fury over bank and auto bailouts and a feeling that they had lost their country, joined Patriot groups.
The swelling of the Patriot movement since that time has been astounding. From 149 groups in 2008, the number of Patriot organizations skyrocketed to 512 in 2009, shot up again in 2010 to 824, and then, last year, jumped to 1,274. That works out to a staggering 755% growth in the three years ending last Dec. 31. Last year’s total was more than 400 groups higher than the prior all-time high, in 1996.
Meanwhile, the SPLC counted 1,018 hate groups operating in the United States last year, up from 1,002 in 2010. That was the latest in a string of annual increases going all the way back to 2000, when there were 602 hate groups. The long-running rise seemed for most of that time to be a product of hate groups’ very successful exploitation of the issue of non-white immigration. Obama’s election and the crashing economy have played a key role in the last three years.
At the same time, a third strand of the radical right — what the SPLC designates as “nativist extremist” groups, meaning organizations that go beyond normal political activism to harass individuals they suspect of being undocumented immigrants — shrank radically. After five years of sustained growth, these vigilante groups plummeted last year to 184 from 319 in 2010, a one-year drop of 42%. The decrease appears to be a product of bad press, internecine quarrels, and the co-optation of the immigration issue by state legislatures around the country passing draconian nativist laws like Alabama’s H.B. 56.
Patriot and Militia Groups 1995-2011
In some ways, it was surprising that the same deflating effect did not hit the Patriot and hate groups, as 2011 also saw many politicians and other public figures attacking Muslims, LGBT people and other minorities, effectively taking on some of the issues dear to the radical right. But there was enough of a far-right wind to fill the sails of politicians, hate and Patriot groups, and Tea Parties alike, very likely the result, in large part, of a view of Obama as a dire threat to the country. (An IBOPE Zogby survey last year found that 30% of all voters did not believe that Obama was born in the U.S. even after the release of his long-form birth certificate.)
It’s hard to know how all this will play out, given the unsettled nature of the presidential campaign and, in particular, the GOP primaries. The animus toward Obama and the government may be as much rooted in economic as racial anger.
In May 2011, a scholarly study published in Perspectives on Psychological Science found that white Americans believe that progress in race relations since the 1950s has come at their expense, with bias against whites more of a social problem in the last decade than bias against blacks. (This comes against the backdrop of the Census Bureau’s prediction that non-Hispanic whites will lose their majority, falling to under 50% of the population, by 2050.) But a Pew Research Center study this January suggested that income inequality may be even more important. The survey found that some two-thirds of Americans believe that there are “strong conflicts” between rich and poor, about a 50% increase since a 2009 survey. That sensibility also was apparent in both the Tea Parties and the Occupy Wall Street movement.
And so it is with many extremist groups.
August Kreis, a longtime neo-Nazi who in January stepped down as leader of an Aryan Nations faction after being convicted of fraud related to his veteran’s benefits, told the Intelligence Report that it was all about income inequality.
“The worse the economy gets, the more the groups are going to grow,” he said. “White people are arming themselves — and black people, too. I believe eventually it’s going to come down to civil war. It’s going to be an economic war, the rich versus the poor. We’re being divided along economic lines.”
At the most macro level, the growth of right-wing radicalization — a phenomenon that is plainly evident in Europe as well as the United States — is related directly to political and, especially, economic globalization. As the nation-state has diminished in importance since the end of the Cold War, Western economies have opened up, not only to capital from abroad but also to labor. In concrete terms, that has meant major immigration flows, many of which have drastically altered the demographics of formerly fairly homogenous populations. In Europe and the U.S. both, white-dominated countries have become less so. At the same time, globalization has caused major economic dislocations in the West as certain industries and kinds of production move to less developed countries.
The sorry U.S. economy also may offer the best single explanation for the huge expansion in the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement, a subset of the larger Patriot movement. Although the size of the sovereign movement is hard to gauge — sovereigns tend to operate as individuals rather than in organized groups — law enforcement officials around the country have reported encounters. The SPLC, for its part, has estimated that some 300,000 Americans are involved.
Sovereign citizens, whose ideology first developed in white supremacist groups, generally do not believe they are obliged to pay federal taxes, follow most laws, or comply with requirements for driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations. They also typically believe that filing certain documents can relieve them of debt or bankruptcy proceedings, or even bring them millions of dollars from secret government accounts. The claims are bogus, of course, but they have attracted thousands into the movement at a time of real financial hardship.
Hate Groups 200-2011
Sovereigns’ focus on their supposed right to drive “upon the land” without any regulation has brought them into regular conflict with law enforcement officials. That was seen most dramatically on May 20, 2010, when a father-son team of sovereigns murdered two West Memphis, Ark., officers during a traffic stop, but officials have had other encounters. Just this January, a sovereign accused of trying to shoot a police officer during a traffic stop in Hurst, Texas, went on trial.
“There is a contingent of malcontents out there who are exceedingly hostile,” Rich Roberts, a spokesman for the International Union of Police Associations, told the Christian Science Monitor for an article last year on the rising number of shooting deaths of police officers. “It’s a really complex phenomenon in that it’s a whole combination of factors where on one end you’ve got people like sovereign citizens, who are actually deliberately targeting police, as opposed to your garden-variety bad guy who’s carrying a gun and will not hesitate to use it.”
The FBI agrees. Last September, it issued a bulletin to law enforcement officials entitled “Sovereign Citizens: A Growing Domestic Threat to Law Enforcement” that describes the movement as “domestic terrorist.” The bulletin notes that sovereigns have killed six law enforcement officers since 2000 and that Terry Nichols, convicted in the Oklahoma City bombing, was a sovereign.
The largest group of organized sovereigns, the Alabama-based Republic for the united States of America (RuSA), last year took a new step toward organizing a kind of government-in-waiting by adding a “Congress” with voting representatives in 49 states. The group says it is in the process of “reinhabiting” the government.
Although it can sound threatening, RuSA has not engaged in any known violence. But that’s not true of all other Patriot groups, two of which are alleged to have engendered major terrorist plots aimed at police and others last year.
In March 2011, Alaska Peacemakers Militia leader Schaeffer Cox and four followers were arrested on weapons and conspiracy charges related to an alleged plan to kill Alaska state troopers and a judge. A state court later ruled that hundreds of hours of secret recordings made by informants would not be admissible, leading to the freeing of one of Cox’s followers. But Cox and the other three still faced federal weapons charges and, this January, a superseding federal indictment again charged them with conspiracy to murder. In a related development, a woman who was the militia’s secretary was arrested trying to enter Canada when officials found a pistol and information about pipe bombs and the ricin toxin in her truck.
Then, last November, federal officials arrested four members of a Georgia militia. The four elderly men were accused of plotting to assassinate public officials, bomb federal buildings, and carry out mass murders in four U.S. cities by dispersing deadly ricin dust from the windows of speeding cars. Like Cox and his comrades, the Georgia men are to be tried this year.
One of the factors apparently driving the expansion of the radical right has been the spread of conspiracy theories and demonizing falsehoods. Tall tales about secret government concentration camps, for instance, have spread beyond Patriot groups into nativist organizations and others. Equally preposterous stories of plots to impose Islamic Shariah law and to “recruit” schoolchildren into homosexuality have been plugged around the country, often by well-known public figures. It seems clear that this kind of propaganda boosts membership in conspiracy-minded groups.
But what may end up affecting the American radical right more than any other single factor in the coming year is President Obama and the presidential election campaign. If the primaries generate more attacks on the nation’s first black president based on complete falsehoods — that he is a secret Muslim, a Kenyan, a radical leftist bent on destroying America — it’s likely that the poison will spread. And if he wins reelection next fall, the reaction of the extreme right, already angry and on the defensive as the white population diminishes, could be truly frightening.
ANTI-GAY GROUPS
The LGBT community made significant advances in 2011, with the repeal of the “Don’t Act, Don’t Tell” policy on gay men and lesbians in the military, the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage by Americans and the legalization of such bonds in New York state. But it was precisely these advances that seemed to set off a furious rage on the religious right, with renewed efforts to ban or repeal marriage equality and what seemed to be an intensification of anti-gay propaganda in certain quarters. American Family Association official Bryan Fischer, for instance, said that “gays are Nazis,” claimed that HIV does not cause AIDS but gay men do, and, for good measure, criticized black welfare recipients who “rut like animals.” In another development, most of the religious right groups that started out opposing abortion but moved on to attacking LGBT people have recently begun to adopt anti-Muslim propaganda en masse. The gay-bashing Traditional Values Coalition, for instance, last year redesigned its website to emphasize a new section entitled “Islam vs. the Constitution,” published a report on Shariah law, and joined anti-Shariah conferences. Overall, the number of anti-gay hate groups in the United States rose markedly, going from 17 in 2010 to 27 last year.
ANTI-MUSLIM GROUPS
The number of anti-Muslim groups tripled in 2011, jumping from 10 groups in 2010 to 30 last year. That rapid growth in Islamophobia, marked by the vilification of Muslims by opportunistic politicians and anti-Muslim activists, began in August 2010, when controversy over a planned Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan reached a fever pitch. Things got worse later in the year, when Oklahoma residents voted to amend the state constitution to forbid the use of Islamic Shariah law in state courts — a completely unnecessary change, given that the U.S. Constitution rules that out. The overheated atmosphere generated by these events also helped spur a 50% jump in the FBI’s count of anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2010. Then, in March 2011, U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) held hearings on the radicalization of U.S. Muslims that seemed meant to demonize them. At the same time, there was a swelling of truly vicious propaganda like this remarkable Jan. 14, 2011, comment from columnist Debbie Schlussel: “They are animals, yes, but a lower form than the dog, as they won’t learn to change their behavior for a carrot or a reward.”
BLACK SEPARATIST GROUPS
The most remarkable development among radical black groups and individuals last year was the continuing spread of so-called “sovereign citizen” ideology, a set of ideas that originated in white supremacist groups of the 1970s and 1980s but has nevertheless taken off among African Americans. Sovereigns’ conspiratorial beliefs generally include the claim that Americans are not subject to most tax and criminal laws, including statutes requiring driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations. In the case of the black adherents, who make up only a sliver of the larger sovereign citizens movement, these ideas have been melded with selective interpretations of early black nationalists like Noble Drew Ali. Black sovereigns, like white ones, have engaged in a series of criminal acts, drawing up bogus financial instruments, harassing enemies with unjustified court filings, and even illegally seizing houses they do not own. Another noteworthy development among radical black groups was the Nation of Islam’s furious defense of Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi, a sometimes Nation benefactor who was killed in an uprising later in the year. Nation leader Louis Farrakhan said that U.S. involvement in Libya would hasten the apocalypse. Malik Zulu Shabazz, head of the New Black Panther Party, went further, calling President Obama a “nigger police chief” leading the attack on a “black man … on the run, named Qaddafi.”
CHRISTIAN IDENTITY GROUPS
Christian Identity, a radical theology that describes Jews as biologically descended from Satan and people of color as soulless “mud people,” has been declining in recent years, largely because its arcane, Bible-based doctrines seem to hold little interest for young racists. But last year that trend reversed itself, as a new Identity group, Crusaders for Yahweh, appeared with 30 chapters. The group is based in Chillicothe, Ohio, and led by Paul Mullet, a former member of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations (whose members generally practice Christian Identity) who left that group in 2010. That year, Mullet briefly formed an organization he called the American National Socialist Party, but he has now moved on to Crusaders for Yahweh, which appears to be tied institutionally to Aryan Nations. Also last year, Identity lost one of its best-known proponents with the death at 64 of Peter John “Pete” Peters, pastor of the LaPorte (Colo.) Church of Christ. Peters, who ran an Internet and radio ministry called Scriptures for America, had inspired extremists for some four decades.
KU KLUX KLAN GROUPS
Overall, the number of Klan chapters last year fell to 152 from 221 in 2010, and the various Klan groupings were relatively quiet. But the year brought major changes in the Klan formations, with some large groups disappearing while others popped up or added large numbers of new chapters. Most notably, the second largest Klan group in America — the Marion, Ohio-based Brotherhood of Klans, with 38 chapters in almost as many states — folded when its leader, Jeremy Parker, joined the leading Aryan Nations faction. At the same time, however, the Rebel Brigade Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, based in Martinsville, Va., and inactive for several years, came back to life under leader Stan Martin with 19 chapters. The United Knights of Tennessee Ku Klux Klan, meanwhile, shot up from a single chapter in Morristown, Tenn., to 19. Two others, the True Invisible Empire Knights based in Pulaski, Tenn., and the Traditional American Knights of Potosi, Mo., merged to form the Potosi-based True Invisible Empire Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
NATIVIST EXTREMIST’ GROUPS
The contemporary movement of “nativist extremist” groups — organizations that go beyond lobbying and other political activities meant to restrict immigration, and instead harass and confront individuals they suspect are undocumented immigrants —began in 2005, with the appearance of the first Minuteman groups. (The SPLC does not list nativist extremist groups as hate groups; only a handful of the most extreme anti-immigrant groups are listed that way.) For its first five years, the movement expanded rapidly, reaching a high point of 319 groups in 2010. Last year, that number plummeted by more than 40%, falling to just 184, for reasons that are both internal and external. Internally, the movement was disrupted by internecine quarrels and the negative publicity that was generated by a Minuteman leader’s murder of a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter in Arizona, a case that resulted in the leader’s being sentenced to death last year. But what may have been even more important is the way that the movement was co-opted as state legislatures began passing draconian legislation meant to punish undocumented immigrants, effectively stealing the issue away from the nativist groups.
NEO-CONFEDERATE GROUPS
The neo-Confederate movement, whose heart is the Alabama-based League of the South (LOS), grew both smaller and more radical last year as its political efforts to organize a second Southern secession seemed to fall on bare ground. Founded in 1994 by former university professor Michael Hill, the LOS, which opposes racial intermarriage and seeks a society marked by “general European cultural hegemony,” had 42 chapters in 2010, but saw that number fall to 32 last year. The drop-off came as Hill’s rhetoric grew more belligerent than ever before. Last July, at his Abbeville, S.C., annual conference, Hill told LOS members that “we are already at war” and, earlier, he urged them to buy AK-47s, hollow-point bullets and tools to derail trains. Some 60 people at the conference learned how to draw down on an enemy, and Hill asked in a speech, “What would it take to get you to fight?” Meanwhile, the group’s relatively strong Alabama chapter, based in Wetumpka, almost finished work on a 4,000-square-foot building that it intends to use for international conferences.
RACIST SKINHEAD GROUPS
Last March, David Lynch, leader of the Sacramento, Calif.-based American Front and one of the best-known racist skinheads on the international scene, was shot to death in his Citrus Heights home; his girlfriend was shot in the leg. Within days, police were questioning Charles Gilbert Demar III, a Lynch associate also known as “Charlie Boots” who was the lead singer of the Stormtroop 16 band, as a “person of interest.” Demar was arrested when officials found crystal methamphetamine and a meth manufacturing setup in his apartment, but as of press time he had not been charged in connection with Lynch’s death. Another significant event on the skinhead scene took place last June, when the decade-old Vinlanders Social Club, one of the most violent racist skinhead groups, held its first white power concert. More than 50 people came to the event in Columbus, Ohio, including Richie Meyer, president of the Confederate Hammerskins, and Forrest Fogarty, a musician and one of Meyer’s more prominent followers. Their presence and friendly association with Vinlanders at the event reflected the success of a truce between the two groups that was reached in 2007, ending what had been described as a “blood feud” between them.
WHITE NATIONALIST GROUPS
Three large groups form the core of the white nationalist movement in the United States: the Council of Conservative Citizens, an outgrowth of the old White Citizens Councils, that fights against school integration and racial intermarriage; American Renaissance, a journal that justifies white nationalism by attacking the intelligence and mental health of black people; and the American Third Position (A3P), a racist party with electoral ambitions in many states and the nation at large. Of these, it has been A3P, which only started up in 2009, that has been growing the most rapidly. It also has attracted most of the best-known white nationalists in America to its cause. Last year, Virginia Abernethy, an emeritus professor of psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt Medical School, joined the A3P board of directors, as did Tomas Sunic, an American-educated Croatian who has spoken at neo-Nazi events. Others who became A3P officials earlier include Kevin MacDonald, a deeply anti-Semitic professor at California State University, Long Beach; James Edwards, host of a racist radio show based in Memphis; Don Wassall, publisher of the anti-immigrant Nationalist Times; and Jamie Kelso, once an aide to former Klan boss David Duke. A3P is headed up by Los Angeles lawyer William Daniel Johnson, a man who once sought to deport every American with any “ascertainable trace of Negro blood.”
Source: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/the-year-in-hate-and-extremism
Article #1 SPLC'S Press Release For Their Report
New SPLC Report: ‘Patriot’ Movement Explodes
Posted in 'Patriot' Groups, Hate Groups, Intelligence Report, Year-End by Mark Potok on March 8, 2012
The number of antigovernment “Patriot” groups grew at an astounding pace last year, as it has in all three years of the Obama presidency, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) annual count of extremist groups, released today. The number of these groups rose from 824 in 2010 to 1,274 last year.
This dramatic expansion of the radical right was driven by fears related to economic dislocation, the country’s changing racial makeup, and the prospect of four more years under our first black president. The campaign season, with its vitriolic rhetoric, has also contributed to the overheated atmosphere that is fostering these groups. In addition, many politicians and other public figures increasingly have been pushing conspiracy theories and demonizing rhetoric into the political mainstream.
The report on SPLC’s annual count and review of the last year in American extremism may be found here. The table of contents for the entire new issue of the SPLC’s Intelligence Report is here. What follows are synopses of the major stories found in the new edition.
- Last year, little noticed by the mass media, a Massachusetts man burned himself to death to protest treatment of men by family courts. The death opened a window into a dark world, sometimes called the “manosphere,” of woman-hating “men’s rights” activists.
- The National Association for Research Therapy of Homosexuality, which promotes therapies that supposedly “cure” gay people, is seen by many as the preeminent source of “junk science” that demonizes homosexuality.
- The little-known Church at Kaweah in California boasts of a “militant Christian separatist worldview” and is training its congregants for armed combat against the “New World Order.
- Four members of a Georgia militia were in their late 60s and 70s, but officials say that didn’t stop them from planning assassinations, bombings and biological attacks.
- Floridian Camille Marino is the newest star on the radical animal rights scene, and she’s frightening. “If I have my way,”she says, “you’ll be praying to us for mercy.”
- Breaking a long silence, the son of the neo-Nazi who murdered a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum describes how his father ruined his life. Now, Erik von Brunn is just trying to survive.
- The United Nation’s Agenda 21 accord is a voluntary global sustainability initiative. But to hear antigovernment hardliners tell it, it’s the leading edge of one-world totalitarianism.
- Bad press, internecine quarrels and co-optation of their issue by state legislatures have almost halved the number of hard-line anti-immigration groups in America.
The New York Times ran a story this morning reprising the findings of the new SPLC Report. Another, longer story was prepared by MSNBC. CNN also weighed in.
Source:http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/03/08/explosive-growth-of-patriot-movement-revealed-in-new-splc-report/
Source:http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/03/08/explosive-growth-of-patriot-movement-revealed-in-new-splc-report/
Article #2 New York Times
Number of U.S. Hate Groups Is Rising, Report Says
By KIM SEVERSON
Published: March 7, 2012
ATLANTA — Fed by antagonism toward President Obama, resentment toward changing racial demographics and the economic rift between rich and poor, the number of so-called hate groups and antigovernment organizations in the nation has continued to grow, according to a report released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The center, which has kept track of such groups for 30 years, recorded 1,018 hate groups operating last year.
The number of groups whose ideology is organized against specific racial, religious, sexual or other characteristics has risen steadily since 2000, when 602 were identified, the center said. Antigay groups, for example, have risen to 27 from 17 in 2010.
The report also described a “stunning” rise in the number of groups it identifies as part of the so-called patriot and militia movements, whose ideologies include deep distrust of the federal government.
In 2011, the center tracked 1,274 of those groups, up from 824 the year before.
“They represent both a kind of right-wing populist rage and a left-wing populist rage that has gotten all mixed up in anger toward the government,” said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the author of the report.
The center, based in Montgomery, Ala., records only groups that are active, meaning that the groups are registering members, passing out fliers, protesting or showing other signs of activity beyond maintaining a Web site.
The Occupy movement is not on the list because its participants as a collective do not meet the center’s criteria for an extremist group, he said.
One of the groups that was moved from the “patriot” list to the hate group list this year is the Georgia Militia, some of whose members were indicted last year in a failed plot to blow up government buildings and spread poison along Atlanta freeways. They were reclassified because their speech includes anti-Semitism.
The far-right patriot movement gained steam in 1994 after the government used violence to shut down groups at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Tex. It peaked after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and began to fade. Its rise began anew in 2008, after the election of Mr. Obama and the beginning of the recession.
There have been declines in some hate groups, including native extremist groups like the Militiamen, which focused on illegal immigration. Chapters of the Ku Klux Klan fell to 152, from 221.
Among the states with the most active hate groups were California, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey and New York. The federal government does not focus on groups that engage in hate-based speech, but rather monitors paramilitary groups and others that have shown some indication of violence, said Daryl Johnson, a former senior domestic terrorism analyst for the Department of Homeland Security.
The Justice Department does not comment on the center’s annual report, but a spokeswoman said the agency had increased prosecution of hate crimes by 35 percent during the first three years of Mr. Obama’s presidency.
A version of this article appeared in print on March 8, 2012, on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Number of U.S. Hate Groups Is Rising, Report Says.
Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/us/number-of-us-hate-groups-on-the-rise-report-says.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper
Article #3 CNN
Report: Number of U.S. anti-government groups rises for third year
Growth fueled by rising tide against Obama, economy, immigration issuesUPDATED 7:19 AM PST Mar 08, 2012(CNN) -
The number of anti-government groups in the United States grew dramatically in 2011 for a third year, fueled by a rising tide against President Barack Obama, the struggling economy and illegal immigration, a report released Thursday finds.
The three-year trend amounts to an "astounding" 755 percent growth since 2008, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center report "The Year in Hate & Extremism: The Patriot Movement Explodes."
The report attributes the growth to "superheated fears generated by economic dislocation, the changing racial makeup of America, and the prospect of four more years under a black president who many on the far right view as an enemy to their country."
Since its start in 1994, the so-called Patriot Movement has fluctuated in size based on political events -- peaking in 1996 after the Oklahoma City bombing before fading to relative obscurity in 2000, according to the report. Its most recent rise can be traced to late 2008 -- the start of the economy's collapse and the election of Obama as president.
"Even as most of the nation cheered the election of the first black president that November, an angry backlash developed that included several plots to murder Obama," the report says. "Many Americans, infused with populist fury over bank and auto bailouts and a feeling that they had lost their country, joined Patriot groups."
The SPLC pointed out a particularly alarming rise in the "sovereign citizens movement," what it calls a subset of the Patriot Movement.
"Sovereign citizens, whose ideology first developed in white supremacist groups, generally do not believe they are obliged to pay federal taxes, follow most laws, or comply with requirements for driver's licenses and vehicle registrations," the report says. "They also typically believe that filing certain documents can relieve them of debt or bankruptcy proceedings or even bring them millions of dollars from secret government accounts."
High-profile arrests have been made in recent years to stop alleged plots against law enforcement officers from being carried out by suspected militia groups:
-- Nine members of the Michigan-based Hutaree militia were arrested and charged in March 2010 with seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, teaching the use of explosive materials and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence.
The government said alleged ringleader David Stone Sr.'s plan was to create his own country carved out of four Michigan counties, then defend that country against attack by the "One World Order" army. The group allegedly planned to incite that attack by making a false 911 complaint, shooting any police who responded and then attacking attendees at the funerals of those officers with improvised explosive devices.
-- An alleged plan by followers of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia to kill state troopers and a judge was thwarted in March, according to the SPLC.
-- Four men were arrested in November in an alleged plot to kill government workers and produce a deadly biotoxin to spread on highways in several major U.S. cities. FBI agents identified them as part of a fringe militia group.
In addition to the rise in anti-government groups, the number of hate groups operating in the United States also grew in 2011, though less dramatically, from 1,002 in 2010 to 1,018 last year.
Bucking that trend, however, was a substantial drop in the number of "nativist extremist" groups -- "organizations that go beyond normal political activist to harass individuals they suspect of being undocumented immigrants." That drop, the report says, can be attributed in part to an increase in hard-line anti-illegal immigration legislation in states such as Alabama and Arizona.
Still, the report warns that the American radical right movement could continue to grow if Obama is re-elected to a second term.
"If he wins re-election next fall, the reaction of the extreme right, already angry and on the defensive as the white population diminishes, could be truly frightening," the report concludes.
The Montgomery, Alabama-based SPLC is a nonprofit organization that works against racism and intolerance.
Source:http://www.ksbw.com/news/Report-Number-of-U-S-anti-government-groups-rises-for-third-year/-/1852/9258016/-/view/print/-/9p8gc6/-/index.html
Article #3 CNN
Report: Number of U.S. anti-government groups rises for third year
Growth fueled by rising tide against Obama, economy, immigration issuesUPDATED 7:19 AM PST Mar 08, 2012(CNN) -
The number of anti-government groups in the United States grew dramatically in 2011 for a third year, fueled by a rising tide against President Barack Obama, the struggling economy and illegal immigration, a report released Thursday finds.
The three-year trend amounts to an "astounding" 755 percent growth since 2008, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center report "The Year in Hate & Extremism: The Patriot Movement Explodes."
The report attributes the growth to "superheated fears generated by economic dislocation, the changing racial makeup of America, and the prospect of four more years under a black president who many on the far right view as an enemy to their country."
Since its start in 1994, the so-called Patriot Movement has fluctuated in size based on political events -- peaking in 1996 after the Oklahoma City bombing before fading to relative obscurity in 2000, according to the report. Its most recent rise can be traced to late 2008 -- the start of the economy's collapse and the election of Obama as president.
"Even as most of the nation cheered the election of the first black president that November, an angry backlash developed that included several plots to murder Obama," the report says. "Many Americans, infused with populist fury over bank and auto bailouts and a feeling that they had lost their country, joined Patriot groups."
The SPLC pointed out a particularly alarming rise in the "sovereign citizens movement," what it calls a subset of the Patriot Movement.
"Sovereign citizens, whose ideology first developed in white supremacist groups, generally do not believe they are obliged to pay federal taxes, follow most laws, or comply with requirements for driver's licenses and vehicle registrations," the report says. "They also typically believe that filing certain documents can relieve them of debt or bankruptcy proceedings or even bring them millions of dollars from secret government accounts."
High-profile arrests have been made in recent years to stop alleged plots against law enforcement officers from being carried out by suspected militia groups:
-- Nine members of the Michigan-based Hutaree militia were arrested and charged in March 2010 with seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, teaching the use of explosive materials and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence.
The government said alleged ringleader David Stone Sr.'s plan was to create his own country carved out of four Michigan counties, then defend that country against attack by the "One World Order" army. The group allegedly planned to incite that attack by making a false 911 complaint, shooting any police who responded and then attacking attendees at the funerals of those officers with improvised explosive devices.
-- An alleged plan by followers of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia to kill state troopers and a judge was thwarted in March, according to the SPLC.
-- Four men were arrested in November in an alleged plot to kill government workers and produce a deadly biotoxin to spread on highways in several major U.S. cities. FBI agents identified them as part of a fringe militia group.
In addition to the rise in anti-government groups, the number of hate groups operating in the United States also grew in 2011, though less dramatically, from 1,002 in 2010 to 1,018 last year.
Bucking that trend, however, was a substantial drop in the number of "nativist extremist" groups -- "organizations that go beyond normal political activist to harass individuals they suspect of being undocumented immigrants." That drop, the report says, can be attributed in part to an increase in hard-line anti-illegal immigration legislation in states such as Alabama and Arizona.
Still, the report warns that the American radical right movement could continue to grow if Obama is re-elected to a second term.
"If he wins re-election next fall, the reaction of the extreme right, already angry and on the defensive as the white population diminishes, could be truly frightening," the report concludes.
The Montgomery, Alabama-based SPLC is a nonprofit organization that works against racism and intolerance.
Source:http://www.ksbw.com/news/Report-Number-of-U-S-anti-government-groups-rises-for-third-year/-/1852/9258016/-/view/print/-/9p8gc6/-/index.html
Article #4 MSNBC
Election, economy spark explosive growth of militias
Hutaree.com via AP file
Screen shot from a training video used by the Christian militia group Hutaree in March 2010. The group was allegedly preparing for a battle with the Antichrist, whom they believed would be supported by local, state and federal officials. Nine were arrested and charged with conspiring to kill police officers, then kill scores more by attacking a funeral using homemade bombs.
By Stephanie Schendel, Murrow News Service
The election of President Barack Obama in 2008 triggered an explosion in the number of militias and so-called patriot groups in the United States, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported in its annual tally of such anti-government organizations.
There were 149 militias and patriot groups when Obama took office, compared to more than 1,200 today — an increase of 755 percent, the nonprofit civil rights organization reported.
"The increase has just been astounding," said Mark Potok, editor-in-chief of the SPLC report. "The reality is that many of these groups are becoming more and more fearful that Barack Obama will win the re-election. You can see the anger rising along with that fear."
The SPLC defines the "patriot" movement as made up of conspiracy-minded individuals who see the federal government as their primary enemy. The movement includes paramilitary militias as well as groups of "sovereign citizens," who believe they are not subject to federal or state laws, nor obligated to pay federal taxes, according to SPLC.
The center also reports a steady rise in the number of hate groups in America — from 604 in 2000, to more than 1,000 last year. Those include anti-gay groups, anti-Muslim groups, black separatists and "Christian Identity" groups, which hold racist and anti-Semitic views that overlap with neo-Nazi beliefs.
The spike in these groups can be attributed to a combination of factors, including the sluggish economy, radical propaganda and anxiety over the election of a black president, Potok said.
Potok said although many individuals involved in patriot militias are not criminals, a handful of these groups have been responsible for a significant amount of violence in recent years.
Government employees targeted
Hutaree.com via AP file
Screen shot from a training video used by the Christian militia group Hutaree in March 2010. The group was allegedly preparing for a battle with the Antichrist, whom they believed would be supported by local, state and federal officials. Nine were arrested and charged with conspiring to kill police officers, then kill scores more by attacking a funeral using homemade bombs.
By Stephanie Schendel, Murrow News Service
The election of President Barack Obama in 2008 triggered an explosion in the number of militias and so-called patriot groups in the United States, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported in its annual tally of such anti-government organizations.
There were 149 militias and patriot groups when Obama took office, compared to more than 1,200 today — an increase of 755 percent, the nonprofit civil rights organization reported.
"The increase has just been astounding," said Mark Potok, editor-in-chief of the SPLC report. "The reality is that many of these groups are becoming more and more fearful that Barack Obama will win the re-election. You can see the anger rising along with that fear."
The SPLC defines the "patriot" movement as made up of conspiracy-minded individuals who see the federal government as their primary enemy. The movement includes paramilitary militias as well as groups of "sovereign citizens," who believe they are not subject to federal or state laws, nor obligated to pay federal taxes, according to SPLC.
The center also reports a steady rise in the number of hate groups in America — from 604 in 2000, to more than 1,000 last year. Those include anti-gay groups, anti-Muslim groups, black separatists and "Christian Identity" groups, which hold racist and anti-Semitic views that overlap with neo-Nazi beliefs.
The spike in these groups can be attributed to a combination of factors, including the sluggish economy, radical propaganda and anxiety over the election of a black president, Potok said.
Potok said although many individuals involved in patriot militias are not criminals, a handful of these groups have been responsible for a significant amount of violence in recent years.
Government employees targeted
SPLC provides one of the few annual reports on militia or anti-government groups. The Federal Bureau of Investigation does not track militia groups unless they are alerted to violent or extremist activity, according to an agency spokesman.
"Some of these groups veer into violent extremism," said Frank Harrill, special agent in charge of the FBI’s office in Spokane, Wash., and spokesman for the Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force. "Where hate and ignorance and violence collide, that is where our interests lie."
Two militia groups have made headlines in recent years for allegedly hatching violent plots to target government employees.
Seven people from the Michigan-based Hutaree Christian militia are on trial for allegedly conspiring to ambush and kill a police officer. They allegedly plotted to follow up the ambush with an attack on the officer’s funeral procession in the hope of killing more officers, and thus sparking a revolt against the U.S. government. Recent evidence presented in trial included a recording made by an undercover FBI agent in which the militia’s leader, David Stone, 47, says he is going to "start huntin'" police soon. The seven have pleaded innocent, and argue that the "plot" was nothing but talk, protected by the First Amendment.
And in November four members of a Georgia-based militia, all in their 60s and 70s, were charged with plotting to buy explosives and the ingredients to make a deadly toxin to attack government officials. They are in custody awaiting trial.
But members of other militias say that exercising their constitutional right to bear arms does not mean they are committed to revolution.
Spokane-based militia member Ed LeStage, 59, denied that his group, the 63rd Battalion of Lightfoot Militia, which was listed on as an active militia group in the SPLC’s report, was a danger — unless, he said, "you're a communist or socialist who attacks us."
LeStage, a veteran to the patriot movement, said he believes the increased number of militias comes from U.S. citizens’ desire to restore the country to its constitutional roots. He also said that what he called President Obama’s intrusion on personal liberties also has driven growth in the movement.
"He’s been after our guns," LeStage said. "Obama’s been the best gun salesman there ever was."
From his home in eastern Washington, LeStage broadcasts weekly training videos to militia members across the country. Those videos — which include instruction on such things as drinking one’s own urine and scavenging for food — are meant to help members survive anarchy or economic collapse.
LeStage said he has been involved in militias and related groups for more than 20 years, including the Idaho Mountain Boys, a member of which was arrested in September 2002 for plotting to kill a federal judge and a police officer.
That member, Larry Raugust, served 77 months for possession and production of pipe bombs. Today, Raugust has a member profile on LeStage’s militia website, which has added more than 1,000 members since its launch last fall.
"(Raugust) is just a friend," LeStage said. "He doesn’t belong to our unit. He is a convicted felon."
LeStage explained that his militia requires each member to obtain a concealed weapons permit. As a felon, Raugust is not allowed to carry weapons, LeStage said.
The patriot movement first peaked in 1994, said Potok, the author of the SPLC report, in the aftermath of deadly confrontations at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and Waco, Texas in 1993, where anti-government groups came under siege by federal authorities.
Membership then dropped sharply during President George W. Bush’s two terms before rebounding in late 2008 after the election of Obama, which created a backlash that included "several plots to murder Obama," according to SPLC.
The numbers of those groups have continued to grow, jumping from 824 in 2010 to 1274 this year, the SPLC said.
'Sovereign citizen' movement
Spokane-based militia member Ed LeStage, 59, denied that his group, the 63rd Battalion of Lightfoot Militia, which was listed on as an active militia group in the SPLC’s report, was a danger — unless, he said, "you're a communist or socialist who attacks us."
LeStage, a veteran to the patriot movement, said he believes the increased number of militias comes from U.S. citizens’ desire to restore the country to its constitutional roots. He also said that what he called President Obama’s intrusion on personal liberties also has driven growth in the movement.
"He’s been after our guns," LeStage said. "Obama’s been the best gun salesman there ever was."
From his home in eastern Washington, LeStage broadcasts weekly training videos to militia members across the country. Those videos — which include instruction on such things as drinking one’s own urine and scavenging for food — are meant to help members survive anarchy or economic collapse.
LeStage said he has been involved in militias and related groups for more than 20 years, including the Idaho Mountain Boys, a member of which was arrested in September 2002 for plotting to kill a federal judge and a police officer.
That member, Larry Raugust, served 77 months for possession and production of pipe bombs. Today, Raugust has a member profile on LeStage’s militia website, which has added more than 1,000 members since its launch last fall.
"(Raugust) is just a friend," LeStage said. "He doesn’t belong to our unit. He is a convicted felon."
LeStage explained that his militia requires each member to obtain a concealed weapons permit. As a felon, Raugust is not allowed to carry weapons, LeStage said.
The patriot movement first peaked in 1994, said Potok, the author of the SPLC report, in the aftermath of deadly confrontations at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and Waco, Texas in 1993, where anti-government groups came under siege by federal authorities.
Membership then dropped sharply during President George W. Bush’s two terms before rebounding in late 2008 after the election of Obama, which created a backlash that included "several plots to murder Obama," according to SPLC.
The numbers of those groups have continued to grow, jumping from 824 in 2010 to 1274 this year, the SPLC said.
'Sovereign citizen' movement
The ailing economy also helped fuel a huge expansion in a subset of the larger Patriot movement — the so-called "sovereign citizens" movement. Followers generally believe they do not have to pay federal taxes or follow most laws. The SPLC estimates some 300,000 Americans are involved in the movement.
In September, the FBI issued a bulletin to law enforcement officials that called "sovereign citizens" a growing domestic threat due to some members’ belief that they can use armed force to resist police.
The bulletin noted that sovereigns have killed six law officers since 2000. In one of the more deadly clashes, a shootout in West Memphis, Ark., in 2010 left four people dead including two officers. Terry Nichols, convicted as a conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing, was a sovereign citizen.
In 2010, a shootout with a member of the group in West Memphis, Arkansas ended with four people dead, including two policemen.
Last month, a Texas man who said he was a sovereign citizen was sentenced to 35 years in prison for repeatedly firing at a police officer trying to arrest him.
A Washington state man, David R. Myrland, was sentenced in December to 40 months in prison for threatening to "arrest" the mayor of Kirkland and other local officials "with deadly force."
Investigators said Myrland sent an e-mail to the mayor warning that "50 or more concerned Citizens will enter your home and arrest you. Do not resist, as these Citizens will be heavily armed."
"As sovereign citizens' numbers grow, so do the chances of contact with law enforcement and, thus, the risks that incidents will end in violence," the FBI said at the time.
From LeStage’s point of view, though, the risk comes from the top of government.
If Obama is re-elected this year, "we will probably lose our republic," he said. "We will probably turn into another socialist country."
On his website www.modernmilitiamovement.com, some forum members have raised even more dire concerns about the fall's elections.
"Nov. the 8th should be the start of the next civil war," a member with the username "Thunder" wrote in January. "May GOD guide us safely."
The Murrow News Service is provides local, regional and statewide stories reported and written by journalism students at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. Msnbc.com’s James Eng and Kari Huus, and NBC's Pete Williams contributed to this report.
Source:http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/07/10602763-election-economy-spark-explosive-growth-of-militias
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