In The Face Of White Supremacist Threats Nation Seems Disintrested

In the 2006 bul­letin, the FBI detailed the threat of white nation­al­ists and skin­heads infil­trat­ing police to dis­rupt inves­ti­ga­tions against fel­low mem­bers and recruit oth­er suprema­cists. The bul­letin was released dur­ing a peri­od of scan­dal for many law enforce­ment agen­cies through­out the coun­try, includ­ing a neo-Nazi gang formed by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department mem­bers who harassed black and Latino com­mu­ni­ties. Similar inves­ti­ga­tions revealed offi­cers and entire agen­cies with hate group ties in Illinois, Ohio, and Texas. Reported NPR​.ORG.
But the rise of white suprema­cist groups has been noth­ing new, even as far back as 2006 when the FBI final­ly decid­ed to warn the nation about their infil­tra­tion into law enforce­ment agencies.
At the time, the then FBI direc­tor James Comey’s agency was warn­ing about the threat describ­ing it as a nation­al secu­ri­ty threat; Comey him­self was telling a gath­er­ing of police chiefs that “because of insuf­fi­cient data on the use of force, Americans actu­al­ly have no idea” whether racial bias in polic­ing is real­ly an epi­dem­ic.”
Pointing to pub­lic out­rage over police killings of African-Americans, Comey said “the absence of good infor­ma­tion” and data has aid­ed the grow­ing belief that police offi­cers tar­get par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ties.
With those utter­ances and oth­ers, includ­ing telling the same gath­er­ing that police offi­cers across the coun­try were afraid to do their jobs because of what he char­ac­ter­ized as the ‘Ferguson effect, in ref­er­ence to the polic­ing killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, James Comey iden­ti­fied him­self as part of the prob­lem with law enforce­ment in America.
By the time Donald Trump fired James Comey, he had already done even more dam­age, includ­ing cost­ing Hillary Clinton the pres­i­den­cy when he, in unprece­dent­ed fash­ion, took it upon him­self to announce crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions of sec­re­tary Clinton mere weeks before the elections.
Threats against President Obama rose to lev­els pre­vi­ous­ly unseen against pres­i­dents pre­ced­ing him. All pre­vi­ous pres­i­dents were white men.
But the threats posed by white suprema­cists infil­trat­ing law enforce­ment were not con­fined to police depart­ments. There are cred­i­ble reports after the January 6^th insur­rec­tion at the US capi­tol by right-wing sedi­tion­ists that the FBI itself is a hotbed of Trumpism and anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic support.
Many of the sedi­tion­ists who attacked the capi­tol a full two years ago today were serv­ing mem­bers of law enforce­ment, the US mil­i­tary, and past mem­bers of both. Some have already been con­vict­ed for the crimes they com­mit­ted that day two years ago.
If the American peo­ple who believe in democ­ra­cy can­not trust and depend on the peo­ple, they pay to pro­tect the nation from coup d’e. tat attempts like what hap­pened on January 6^th, 2021, because they are part of the prob­lem, how much con­fi­dence should they have in the future?
Many experts now acknowl­edge that the grow­ing threat posed by white Christian nation­al­ism is America’s great­est nation­al secu­ri­ty threat. But they have all been a day late and a dol­lar short. Who did not see this was a fes­ter­ing sit­u­a­tion that was being ignored because of who the per­pe­tra­tors were?
In September 2020, the Department Of Homeland Security, in a draft Memo, acknowl­edged the gravest ter­ror threat to the United States was from white Supremacists.
According to Politico, Two lat­er draft ver­sions of the same doc­u­ment describe the threat from white suprema­cists in a slight­ly dif­fer­ent lan­guage. But all three drafts describe the threat from white suprema­cists as the dead­liest domes­tic ter­ror threat fac­ing the U.S., list­ed above the imme­di­ate dan­ger from for­eign ter­ror­ist groups.
The inci­dents of armed mili­tia mem­bers show­ing up at state capi­tols and dis­rupt­ing gov­ern­ment pro­ceed­ings lead­ing up to the January 6^th attack may only be a pre­cur­sor to big­ger things. Yet there is no indi­ca­tion that the United States Government has done any­thing sub­stan­tive to stamp out the bur­geon­ing threat of white home­grown ter­ror­ism threat­en­ing the repub­lic’s very existence.
There is no evi­dence of any threat posed by peo­ple on the polit­i­cal left, con­trary to what Rupert Murdoch’s organs of dis­in­for­ma­tion would have you believe.
It was not ANTIFA that attacked the cap­i­tal; it was right-wing white suprema­cists who sup­port­ed Donald Trump. The acronym ANTIFA is short for anti-fas­cist; anti-fas­cists can­not be fas­cists simultaneously…
In recent times there have been attacks on pow­er sta­tions in sev­er­al states across the country.
USA Today reported:

Since September 2022, attacks or poten­tial attacks have been report­ed on at least 18 addi­tion­al sub­sta­tions and one pow­er plant in Florida, Oregon, Washington, and the Carolinas. Several involved firearms.

• In Florida: Six “intru­sion events” occurred at Duke Energy sub­sta­tions in September, result­ing in at least one brief pow­er out­age, accord­ing to the News Nation tele­vi­sion net­work, which cit­ed a report the util­i­ty sent to the Energy Department. Duke Energy spokesper­son Ana Gibbs con­firmed a relat­ed arrest, but the com­pa­ny declined to com­ment further.
• In Oregon and Washington state: Substations were attacked at least six times in November and December, with firearms used in some cas­es, local news out­lets report­ed. On Christmas Day, four addi­tion­al sub­sta­tions were van­dal­ized in Washington State, cut­ting pow­er to more than 14,000 customers.
• In North Carolina: A sub­sta­tion in Maysville was van­dal­ized on Nov. 11. On Dec. 3, shoot­ings that author­i­ties called a “tar­get­ed attack” dam­aged two pow­er sub­sta­tions in Moore County, leav­ing tens of thou­sands with­out pow­er amid freez­ing temperatures.
• In South Carolina: Days lat­er, gun­fire was report­ed near a hydropow­er plant, but police said the shoot­ing was a “ran­dom act.”

According to the same report, the Federal Bureau Of Investigations has not said a word about the inves­ti­ga­tions into these inci­dents or even if an inves­ti­ga­tion is happening.
But why would any­one be sur­prised by this when there are serv­ing mem­bers of the FBI, paid with tax­pay­er’s dol­lars, who refused to par­tic­i­pate in inves­ti­gat­ing the sedi­tion­ists who invad­ed the capi­tol two years ago?
The larg­er ques­tion, how­ev­er, is, what exact­ly are these attacks on the pow­er grids a pre­cur­sor to?
There is a litany of secu­ri­ty agen­cies in the United States, so many Americans do not even know some of them exist even though their tax dol­lars are pay­ing for them.
There is no short­age of secu­ri­ty agen­cies in the United States; the fol­low­ing is a list of some of those agencies

Intelligence Community Member Agencies

• Office of the Director of National Intelligence
• Central Intelligence Agency
• National Security Agency/​Central Security Service
• Defense Intelligence Agency
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
• National Reconnaissance Office
• Department of State
• Department of Defense
• Department of Justice
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Drug Enforcement Administration
• Department of Homeland Security
• Department of Treasury
• Department of Energy — Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
• Army Intelligence
• Air Force Intelligence
• U.S. Navy, Naval Intelligence
• U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Intelligence Activity
• Coast Guard Intelligence

On and on it goes; in addi­tion to those agen­cies, there are 18,000 law enforce­ment agen­cies across the coun­try. According to sta​tista​.com, there are cur­rent­ly 660,288 full-time law enforce­ment offi­cers employed in the United States.
Yet, not a sin­gle agency fore­saw or did any­thing to pre­vent the MAGA horde that descend­ed on the Capitol on January 6^th, 2021. Not a sin­gle agency lift­ed a fin­ger to stop it.
Imagine the blood­bath if the horde attacked the capi­tol that day were black peo­ple. Imagine the bod­ies strewn across the steps and the lawn as far as the eyes can see.
There is prece­dent for that kind of blood­bath against blacks in Philadelphia by the Police, even when black cit­i­zens had not even com­mit­ted any act near­ly as egre­gious as what hap­pened two years ago in Washington, DC.
But it isn’t just about attacks on the Capitol and on pow­er grids or kid­nap­ping threats against a gov­er­nor they hate; they are now engaged in shoot­ing up the homes and offices of Democratic politi­cians, and the main­stream media is com­plic­i­ty silent as it happens.
Today HuffPost report­ed the homes or offices of five elect­ed Democratic offi­cials in New Mexico, includ­ing the new attor­ney gen­er­al, have been hit by gun­fire over the past month.
The attacks come amid a sharp rise in threats to mem­bers of Congress and two years after sup­port­ers of Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol and sent law­mak­ers run­ning for their lives. Local school board mem­bers and elec­tion work­ers across the coun­try have also endured harass­ment, intim­i­da­tion, and threats of violence.
Despite these seri­ous threats and more, the bulk of the nation’s 660,288 full-time law enforce­ment offi­cers seems to be more inter­est­ed in over-polic­ing black neigh­bor­hoods, writ­ing tick­ets and mur­der­ing black cit­i­zens over bro­ken tail­lights and for turn­ing with­out signaling.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.