News of fraud charges and accusations of funding the very extremism it was designed to combat spell the probable doom of the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) as the American Department of Justice turned the screws on the once brawny organisation.
Acting more of a rogue smear machine and ad hoc intelligence agency the Trumpian DoJ alleges the SPLC directed north of $3 million to informant networks since 2014 alone with any matter of dirty tricks slowly being aired.
In a sprawling indictment announced last week including six counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering as well as effectively bankrolling various far right organisations to justify its expanding remit, the SPLC’s inner workings were laid (partially) bare.
The business model of the SPLC was cynical as it was an open secret on both sides of the political aisle. Plough funds keeping afloat crank Neo-Nazi organisations and other bad actors afloat. Cultivate informants, sell intelligence to the FBI in exchange for influence. Reap the political dividends of the chaos primed to destabilise the wider American Right.
Mission creep it appears was the ultimate downfall of the SPLC in the aftermath of January 6th with the pursuit of mainstream MAGA conservatives and religious conservatives crossing lines that the more tactful ADL would never cross.
While the reverberations of the SPLC indictment is felt across the American political spectrum The Burkean was surprised to see the organisation’s effective international wing the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) platformed in the Irish Independent no less let lose to launder narratives on far right extremism under the bed.
Breaking records for the quickest retraction in the Irish press for their absurd list of far right extremists syndicated in the Irish press back in 2022, GPAHE is staffed by the SPLC’s former CEO Heidi Beirich and many former luminaries from the soon to be busted anti-racist syndicate.
Specialising in combatting the international far right (zionism is a natural exception for GPAHE) Beirich presumably met the business end of multiple legal letters for her group’s obscene 2022 listing on the Irish far right, placing largely irreverent Neo-Nazi organisations on par with the Iona Institute and trans critical feminists.
Less than a week as their effective mother organisation is put against the wall by the U.S. DoJ and FBI Ali Bracken at the Sunday Indo provided ample print space for GPAHE, documenting the supposed threat of active clubs to Irish democracy.
Running comment by former SPLC head of comms Wendy Via, no mention of the SPLC’s U.S troubles were mentioned in the piece as Via with about as much understanding of Irish politics and history as one could expect an Alabana housewife thanked Ireland for its historic lack of “extremist political activity.”
Bracken fleshed out the article by platforming London’s ISD representative and part time Tehran hawk Ciaran O’Connor. Prior to this GPAHE featured an article smearing fuel protestors in Athlone as harbingers for the Fourth Reich indicative of their attempts to bring US-style tactics to our shores.
For Ireland, long famed for producing both saints and scholars, now appears also to produce extremism of such a refined and invisible variety that it can only be detected at considerable distance, preferably from Washington, D.C. and with the aid of a generous research grant.
In the end, what ought to trouble the Irish press reader is not merely the quality of the GPAHE claims, but the ease with which they are entertained. The Irish press and left’s liasons with British Zionist intelligence organisation and occasional anti-fascist charity Hope Not Hate is well known, as is the media’s humouring of their Irish branch. Treating GRPAHE and any SPLC offshoot with such creedence to merit page 6 of the Sunday Independent is another level of absurdity.
When Irish media outlets lend uncritical space to organisations whose research is, at best, selectively substantiated, they risk becoming participants in a curious self-sustaining loop.
It is a neat arrangement (almost elegant in its circularity) but one that depends less on evidence than on repetition. Treating an SPLC offshoot as a neutral observer, while its parent faces serious scrutiny, is less balance than selective blindness.
We implore Bracken to try better next time.
Good, thought-provoking article. Official Ireland has a big stake in their status quo and universities are good exemplars of that, with PBP and other fake groups always ensuring students are barking not biting to order. Not so long ago, they impeached the UCDSU Presdient because she was campaigning to get accommodation for students and other issues that got up PBP’s nose.
The much-emasculated trade union movement still funds the Labour Party which is fronted by a trust find babe, whose grandfather was a major Nazi colaborator.
Democracy depends on a large and enlightened electorate. The job of these front groups (PBP, Labour Party etc) is to ensure the electorate is packed and is not enlightened, gerrymandered just as in the North where the DUP and the equally sectarian Sinn Fein divvy up the Mercs & perks between themselves.
☘️☘️☘️
Always Gossiping about the neighbours
The hypocrits in glass houses.
When will the focus be on NGOV IRELAND.
…it averages out over 1,000 ngos per county
The Irish Establishment are masters at corruption and any revelations to their sordid
ngo activity will be bigger than Epstein files
Good to see a spotlight on SPLC connections here.
Is that Ali Bracken lady any relation to Brendan Bracken, Churchill’s close aide and a party to his shenanigans?
It must be possible to get these anti-extremism people to a public debate.
Dear ISD, We have legitimate concerns about Irish immigration policy and Israeli genocide policy. We are especially concerned about Israeli genociders profiting from mass immigration to Ireland.
Can you give us some guidelines on how we can express concern about these issues without you accusing us of extremism?
The quote below is from the extremist Irish Times newspaper of 30 December 2001. She is a relation of Brendan and his da, the GAA founder (convoluted story there) but her own da’s story is equally revealing. I wodner why sdhe wentto Ballyfermot College with all her NUIG degrees. Oh well, never mind. She is on a good earner now.
As regards an open debate, forget about that. They don[‘t do debate. They do narraitve enforcement.
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Respected Irish public relations executive Brendan Bracken has died after a long illness. He was 72.
Mr Bracken worked in the IDA Ireland press office before joining life and pensions provider Irish Life, where he spent more than 17 years, latterly as public relations manager. He left in 1991 to establish his own agency, Bracken PR.
His clients included CIÉ, the University of Limerick, Waterford Institute of Technology, Fás, and the Institute of Bankers.
However, he is perhaps best known among Irish journalists for his work over many years with Bank of Scotland, who quit the market here post the 2008 financial crash. He won an award in 2004 for his work on managing Bank of Scotland’s entry into the Irish mortgage market.
Mr Bracken retired in 2018 and the agency was dissolved. Hailing from Connemara, he went to school at the Cistercian College in Roscrea, and forged his career in Dublin, where he lived with his family.
He was an occasional contributor to The Irish Times on hillwalking, and his daughter Ali worked at the newspaper for a period before joining the Sunday Tribune and subsequently the Daily Mail.
Mr Bracken was a grandson of JK Bracken, a co-founder of the GAA, and a nephew of Brendan Bracken, a former Conservative party MP who was minister for information in Winston Churchill’s government during the second World War.