Reference no: EM134031853

Assignment:

For each sentence, indicate if the sentence requires a reference with either "Yes" or "No". If "Yes" what is the reason? (e.g., there's a statistic, there's an appeal to an authority, etc.).

Source: "The American Patriot Movement: Who are these people?", by Dr. Panagos, (Unpublished draft).

1. In 1995, the Patriot movement entered into the collective consciousness of the American public as a result of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
2. The bombing, which resulted in the death of 168 people, is the most significant act of domestic terrorism on American soil.
3. Even though the terrorists were not actually members of any Patriot group, early media reports linked the bombing with the militia movement.
4. Confusion and misunderstanding have marked the American public's engagement with the Patriot movement ever since.
5. Over the decades that followed, the situation has not improved.
6. It seems like every time a white guy shows up at a protest focusing on an issue that leans to the political right, carrying a gun, the media can't help but speculate about the potential involvement of some militia group.
7. And so, the media has linked the militia movement with: white supremacists; farmers' protests; Social Conservative activism, especially around anti-abortion protests; the Tea Party; the gun-rights movement; anti-immigrant, nativist protesters; and more recently First Amendment rights groups.
8. My intent here is not to join the chorus of media-haters, who think journalists are incompetent - or worse corrupt - and so blame the fourth estate for all of society's problems.
9. (Indeed, my own view is that these sorts of criticisms of the media are generally the hallmark of two types of people: lazy, sloppy thinkers and their ill-informed, dishonest rabble-rousers.)
10. On the contrary, the media contribute to the on-going confusion because groups like the Patriots are difficult to "get to know".
11. On the whole, militia groups are distrustful of many mainstream institutions, including the media.
12. This makes Patriots warry of speaking to the press.
13. As a result, journalist are often left with limited sources of information for their stories.
14. And, the sources of information that do exist and make themselves available to the media, often contribute to the media's blurring of the lines between militias and other right wing groups.
15. Examining two common sources for information on militia and their related problems illustrates just how difficult it is for the media to get this right.
16. Frist, when Patriots make the headlines, the individuals who sometimes step forward to speak for the militia movement are people who are either current or past members of other groups on the extreme right.
17. This sort of overlapping or past group memberships can cause a great deal of confusion.
18. I'm thinking here of people like Louis Beam and John Trochmann.
19. Beam organized some important early Patriot get-togethers (e.g., Estes Park, Colorado meetup), and had also been a member of the KKK.
20. Trochmann testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the militia movement in 1995 and, some years before, attended and spoke at the 1990 Aryan Congress.
21. These individuals' other affiliations lead many journalists, as well as the public, to link Patriots with these other right-wing groups.
22. Second, unlike in many other countries where government and its various agencies take the lead when it comes to monitoring and reporting on groups on the extreme right (e.g., Germany and France), in the United States NGOs play a significant role.
23. This is especially true when the groups in question are groups that promote hate.
24. NGOs like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are really important on this score.
25. Employees of these organizations work hard to ensure that someone is keeping track of the activities and membership of hate groups, even when the government's attention and resources are devoted elsewhere.
26. According to these NGOs, militia groups are some of the many hate groups active in the United States.