organization:new america foundation

  • National Security Pros, It’s Time to Talk About Right-Wing Extremism

    Ask any of us who works in national security what to do about ISIS, and we’d have no problem pitching you ideas. Even if we lack expertise in the topic or don’t work directly on it, we’d still have opinions and thoughts, because we’ve been swimming in a sea of articles, op-eds, books, hearings, programs, and overall research and debate for years. But ask us about right-wing extremism, a violent ideology that’s killed more Americans than ISIS in the last decade, and most of us would pause — either because we were unaware of the problem or, worse, we were afraid to speak openly about it.

    So let’s talk about it now.

    Over the last decade, individuals and groups fueled by this virulent ideology have committed 71 percent of the known politically or religiously inspired killings in our country — that is, 274 of the 387 Americans murdered by extremists. Reports now indicate it was part of the recent murder of 17 school children and teachers in Florida, just as it was part of mass shootings that have happened everywhere from California to Charleston. It has not just hit inside the US, but has struck many of our closest allies, both causing near-tragedies and horrible massacres. It is not a new threat; it has killed hundreds of Americans in past decades. But it is growing in power and influence, worrisomely being stoked by foreign nations like Russia that wish our nation harm. It is a clear, present, and proven danger to the United States. Yet we find it awkward to talk about.

    There are many reasons why we have a hard time acknowledging the deadly threat from the cluster of groups that gather inside our country under the hateful flags of white nationalism, white supremacy, anti-government militia, and Neo-Nazism. One reason is to avoid appearing too partisan, a desire to be even-handed. There is irony in that we seek to avoid appearing biased, even when the threat espouses bias to the point of justifying hating and even killing their fellow Americans. So, after each episode of right-wing violence, we avoid talking about it, even to the point of reaching in the opposite direction. For instance, after these groups united to march on Charlottesville, culminating in the killing of a young woman, major U.S. papers ran more op-eds condemning the counter-protesters, who have yet to commit a mass killing, than those who committed the crime.

    I must pause here to pre-empt the inevitable “what-aboutism” — the kind of attempts to change the conversation that wouldn’t happen in an article on a group like ISIS. Yes, far-left violence is bad. (See how easy it is to write that? There’s no need to caveat violent extremists of any flag as “very fine people.”) But over the last decade, 3 percent of extremist killings in the U.S. have been committed by members of far left-wing groups — a fraction of the 71 percent by right-wing extremists and 26 percent by Islamic extremists. Those figures are the ADL’s, which documents them case by case. If you don’t like the ADL’s categorization, you could use the data gathered by colleagues of mine at the New America Foundation, which drew on the statements of law enforcement officials to determine motivation in the various attacks. That dataset shows that attacks by right-wing extremists outnumber those by left-wing groups more than 17 to one. Or you could use the one compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which since the rise of the “alt-right” in 2014, has documented 43 people killed and more than 60 injured by young men whose social media use evinced a similar ideology — and often a “lone-wolf” style familiar from other forms of terrorism. And this was before Parkland. In short, from a standpoint of scale, trends, and impact, we have a problem that shouldn’t require what-aboutism or ignoring the bulk of the problem. Nor is the “alt-left,” or “violent left,” a viable political movement. Certainly, it has not bled into the broader mainstream of party politics and key media outlets, nor held multiple armed standoffs after seizing government facilities, nor even paralyzed entire American cities in fear.

    We also have to admit that we are quiet about right-wing extremist violence out of calculation. The cost-vs.-gain equations that shape our choices are simply different from other topics. Compare the professional benefits to the potential risks of publishing an article, creating a college course, writing a book or dissertation, organizing a conference, hosting a speech, creating a university or thinktank project, funding a foundation program, etc., on right-wing extremism. It is not just that there is no great profit in it. It is that every one of these endeavors would be far more difficult, and would likely create far more headaches for us and our bosses, than a similar project on pretty much any other topic in our field.

    This isn’t to say there aren’t fantastic researchers on this topic; there are many, who have valuably shaped much of what we know about the issue. But we in the rest of the field must acknowledge that they’ve chosen a more professionally risky path than most of us, even though the very object of their study has killed more Americans over the last few years than essentially any other problem we are working on.

    The same problem plagues government. For an elected official, or, worse, a U.S. government employee, to speak about this threat carries proven political and professional risks; doing so has literally cost people their jobs. And that was before we had the first president in the modern era to express sympathy for and be celebrated by these groups.

    The result is that far-right extremism mirrors that of Islamic extremism in its forms, spread, and goals. The head of counter-terrorism policing in the U.K., which broke up four planned far-right terrorist attacks in just the last year, says both groups “create intolerance, exploit grievances, and generate distrust of state institutions.” But the politics of doing something about these two dangers are directly opposite. In America, it is politically savvy to talk strongly and repeatedly about terrorism and extremism, except the version of it that has killed the largest number of our fellow citizens over the last decade.

    Finally, we avoid talking about right-wing extremism because to do so invites personal risks and annoyances that, generally speaking, don’t much afflict other areas of security studies. These range from online harassment (via social networks that have become a breeding ground for it) to physical stalking and violence.

    I don’t have all the answers about what to do about the plague of violence fueled by right-wing hate groups. But I do know we’ll never find them as long as those of us interested in national security downplay and avoid it. It is long past time to start talking about a threat that is regularly killing our fellow citizens.


    https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2018/02/national-security-pros-its-time-talk-about-right-wing-extremism/146319
    #sécurité #sécurité_nationale #USA #Etats-Unis #extrême_droite #extrémisme #massacres #violence

    Over the last decade, individuals and groups fueled by this virulent ideology have committed 71 percent of the known politically or religiously inspired killings in our country — that is, 274 of the 387 Americans murdered by extremists.

  • Sans titre
    http://02mydafsoup-01.soup.io/post/631302452

    Must-Read: Best thing I have seen so far on Google, Open Markets, and the New America Foundation:

    Ben Thompson: Google and The New America Foundation, Google’s Monopoly, Google’s Stupidity: "From the New York Times... https://stratechery.com/2017/google-and-the-new-america-foundation-googles-monopoly-googles-stupidit

    ...The New America Foundation has received more than $21 million from Google; its parent company’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt; and his family’s foundation... helped to establish New America as an elite voice in policy debates on the American left and helped Google shape those debates. But not long after one of New America’s scholars posted a statement on the think tank’s website praising the European Union’s penalty against Google, Mr. Schmidt, who had been (...)

    #regular #snth01

  • We Said #Google Was Dangerously Powerful, Then Google Proved Us Right
    https://www.buzzfeed.com/mattstoller2/google-tried-to-shut-us-down

    The reason American governance is dysfunctional is simple: We have turned much of our sovereignty over to private interests in the form of monopolies. So while our politicians can discuss important social questions, the structure of our political economy lies outside the realm of our democratic debate.

    This became obvious yet again today when the New York Times revealed that a team of anti-monopoly researchers had been fired from the New America Foundation, an influential Google-funded think tank in Washington, after the researchers pointed out that Google misused its power.

    Monopoly, it turns out, is the power of which we dare not speak.

    I am a member of the team that was let go, the Open Markets program. We research monopoly power not because business is bad, but because democracy is good. We try to understand our corporate and banking institutions not because we oppose commerce, but because we support commerce in open markets. Business is good, commerce is good, freedom, democracy is good. And monopolies are an enemy to all of these things.

    #monopole #démocratie

  • Report: NSA metadata program had “no discernible impact on preventing” terrorism
    http://pando.com/news/report-nsa-metadata-program-had-no-discernible-impact-on-preventing-terrorism

    President Obama’s own NSA panel has already reported that the programs disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden have not stopped terrorist attacks. Now, a comprehensive new study of 225 terrorism cases by the New America Foundation http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/do_nsas_bulk_surveillance_programs_stop_terrorists has concluded that the programs have “had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism.”

  • After Tahrir : New Poll Findings from Egypt | Middle East Institute
    http://www.mei.edu/events/after-tahrir-new-poll-findings-egypt

    Une étude sur une opinion publique profondément divisée en Egypte, à la veille des manifestations du 30 juin qui marqueront le premier anniversaire de la présidence de Mohammed Morsi

    The Middle East Institute is pleased to welcome Dr. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute and founder of Zogby Research Services (ZRS), Steve Clemons of The Atlantic and the New America Foundation, and MEI Scholar Amb. Edward Walker for a discussion about the findings of a recent poll on Egyptian attitudes towards the Muslim Brotherhood. Between April 4th and May 12th, Zogby Research Services conducted an extensive face-to-face poll of over 5,000 Egyptians. With more than two years having passed since the downfall of the Mubarak government and almost one year into the presidency of Mohamed Morsi, the poll sought to learn how Egyptians view their current situation; the level of confidence they have in the Morsi government; the country’s main political groupings; and its major institutions. What emerges from the findings is a portrait of a deeply fractured country in which a substantial majority of the electorate is dissatisfied with the performance of the government and losing confidence in the prospects for change. At the same time, the ZRS poll finds that while the government enjoys the support of a minority of Egyptians, the opposition, which has a potentially larger base, is divided and seen as lacking clear leadership. Dr. Zogby will elaborate on the findings of the poll and Clemons and Walker will discuss their larger implications for Egypt’s political process and the upcoming parliamentary elections.

  • How Colleges Are Selling Out the Poor to Court the Rich
    http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/how-colleges-are-selling-out-the-poor-to-court-the-rich/275725

    For proof, see the demoralizing report released this week by Stephen Burd of the New America Foundation on the state of financial aid in higher ed. It documents the obscene prices some of the poorest undergraduates are asked to pay at hundreds of educational institutions across the country, even as these same schools lavish discounts on the children of wealthier families in order to lure them onto campus.

    And here’s the key bit: Many colleges, he argues, appear to be playing an “elaborate shell game,” relying on federal grants to cover the costs of needy students while using their own resources to furnish aid to richer undergrads.

  • Killer #drones and the fog of war: Report documents low-balling of civilian deaths in Pakistan
    http://mondoweiss.net/2012/10/killer-drones-and-the-fog-of-war-report-documents-low-balling-of-civilia

    The Columbia report, authored by Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Clinic, finds that the drone strike numbers provided by New America Foundation and the Long War Journal “significantly and consistently underestimated the potential number of civilians killed in Pakistan during the year 2011.” The authors of the report undertook their own count of civilians killed in Pakistan by drone strikes, and their numbers were close to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s, a London based organization. The bureau estimates that between 68 and 157 civilians were killed by U.S. drones in Pakistan last year, with the Columbia report estimating between 72 and 155. In contrast, the New America Foundation claimed that just 3 to 9 civilians died. The Long War Journal claimed that 30 civilians died.

  • The ethics of warfare: Drones and the man | The Economist
    http://www.economist.com/node/21524876

    Claims in Pakistan that American drone attacks have killed thousands of civilians are undermined by research (see article) carried out at the New America Foundation, a think-tank, suggesting that in the seven years since 2004, 80% of the fatalities have been militants and that last year (thanks in part to intelligence provided by the Pakistanis themselves) fully 95% of them were. The increasing accuracy of these attacks and the evidence that they have helped to weaken al-Qaeda encourage some to believe (not least in the White House) that counter-terrorist campaigns in the future can be waged without the sacrifice of blood and treasure that goes with putting thousands of boots on the ground.


    #armement #guerre

    • Je suis en général méfiant envers les travaux des think tank qui sous une apparente neutralité scientifique cachent souvent des parti-pris idéologiques.
      L’étude citée sur le taux d’erreur semble basée sur l’analyse des articles de presse. On a connu plus approfondi.
      L’article part du principe qu’il est légitime (voire légal) d’aller bombarder des supposés terroristes dans un pays avec lequel il n’y a pas de guerre déclarée. Ça mérite discussion.
      Globalement, il me semble que l’idée que l’on puisse mener une guerre propre sans employer de combattants au sol dans ce type de conflit asymétrique est au mieux une manière grossière de vendre ces conflits aux opinions publiques occidentales.

    • oui, c’est aussi une façon de vendre de la promesse technologique (et donc des budgets militaires pour les firmes de high-tech)