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Fact Check: Who Commits Domestic Terrorism?

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President Obama recently got into an off-the-cuff debate with Tea Party activists in Iowa. Most of this back-and-forth focused on Vice President Biden allegedly saying Tea Party Republicans “acted like terrorists” in holding the credit of the United States hostage during the debt deal. The video is below:

However, we’re going to focus in on another, brief point that was brought up by the female Tea Party activist around 47 seconds into the video.

She said this:

“You do realize that 90 percent of the domestic terrorist attacks are done by the left-wing environmental radicals and not people like me.”

The number — a whopping 90 percent — seemed a bit high. So I did some fact-checking. I do not know which source she is quoting (and would be interested to find out), but all evidence I’ve reviewed pointed to one conclusion. Namely:

Status: False, with bits of truth.

Before I begin, let me clarify my analysis of this claim as false: the woman that made this statement is right when she says terrorist attacks are not done by people like her. She seems to be a political activist (from what little I can tell from the video), not any sort of terrorist. I am not, in any way, implying that she or anyone in the Tea Party, are terrorists. I am not, in any way, equating right-wing terrorists with right-of-center ideals. Neither am I, in any way, equating left-wing terrorists with left-of-center ideals.

I am simply analyzing her claim that “90 percent of the domestic terrorist attacks are done by the left-wing environmental radicals.”

And while environmental radicals perpetrate a huge number of domestic terrorist incidents, I find no evidence to back up such a high estimate as 90 percent. Two other points provide necessary context that her assertion is lacking. The first is that right-wing terrorism has seen a marked rise in recent years. The other is that left-wing and environmental terrorist groups generally target property, while right-wing terrorism often targets human beings.

–DEFINING TERRORISM–

First, we should define terrorism, to make sure everyone is on the same page.

  • Terrorism

    U.S. law defines“domestic terrorism” according to several points. Domestic terrorist acts:(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
    (B) appear to be intended—
        (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
        (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
       (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
    (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

    The FBI provides a more succinct definition of terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

So, terrorism is an inherently political or ideological act. But let’s focus our definitions further, to differentiate different types of terrorism. We’ll use definitions found on the FBI’s website:

  • Left-Wing Terrorism

Generally profess a revolutionary socialist doctrine and view themselves as protectors of the people against the “dehumanizing effects” of capitalism and imperialism.

  • Right-Wing Terrorism

Primarily in the form of domestic militias and conservative special interest causes…Right-wing extremists champion a wide variety of causes, including racial supremacy, hatred and suspicion of the federal government, and fundamentalist Christianity.

  • Single Issue (Or “Special Interest”) Groups:

Single-issue extremists attack targets that embody distinct political issues like environmental degradation, abortion, genetic engineering, or animal abuse.

One problem is immediately evident. The woman in the video (Stacey Rogers) described “left-wing environmental radicals.” According to the FBI’s definitions, however, left-wing terrorists are distinct from single issue terrorist. We can probably safely assume that in her statement, “left-wing” is only a descriptor, and that the true focus is on the “environmental radicals” aspect.

But even so, special interest terrorism, as a category, seems to cut across ideological lines. It contains both left-wing single issue causes (environmentalism, animal rights) and right-wing (abortion). FBI classification lumps environmental terrorists in with other special interest terrorists, making it a little harder to isolate environmental terrorists from the other special interest terrorists in our analysis.

This would seem to suggest that the 90 percent claim is wrong on its face. After all, if environmental radicals were responsible for 90 percent of all domestic terror attacks, would they really be lumped into a category with several other terrorist causes? That would leave only 10 percent of all terrorist attacks to be divided not only among the various causes in the special interest category, but also among the two other categories the FBI lists alongside special interest terrorism.

–WHO COMMITS DOMESTIC TERRORISM?–

One of the initial difficulties we run into when fact checking this statement is that it doesn’t describe any particular period. And terrorism, like anything else, changes over time. For instance, an FBI report notes that right-wing terrorism dominated the interwar period:

In the period between World War I and World War II, the domestic threat primarily came from right-wing groups, like the Ku Klux Klan, which often adhered to principles of racial supremacy or embraced antigovernment and antiregulatory beliefs in favor of individual freedoms.

So it is important to observe, for the sake of context, that terrorism and terrorist ideas evolve and change along with the times. However, it is obvious that  Rogers is not describing the interwar period. Why would she? We can safely assume she is describing some sort of recent history — but what period should we include?

To provide context (and reach a more accurate conclusion) we will consider most of the post-war period (the late 1940s to today), with a concentration on the past decade. As we shall see, certain shifts have occurred in the targets and perpetrators of domestic terrorism.

According to an FBI report, left-wing terrorism generally dominated the post-war period, with such groups as the Weather Underground.

Beginning in the 1950s, the most serious domestic terrorist threat shifted to leftist-oriented extremist groups that generally professed a revolutionary socialist doctrine and viewed themselves as protectors of the people against the adverse effects of capitalism and U.S. foreign policies.

The decline of this type of left-wing terrorism seems to have been caused both by law enforcement and the collapse of the Soviet Union “depriv[ing] many of these groups of their ideological foundation and patronage,” according to that same report.

I use the term “this type of left-wing terrorism” because left-wing terrorism continued in the 1990s and 2000s, but in a different form.

With respect to domestic terrorism, left-wing political groups and special interest terrorism—that is, terrorism committed by extremists who use violence to compel society to change its attitudes about specific causes—asserted themselves during the 1990s… The majority of domestic terrorism incidents from 1993 to 2001 were attributable to the left-wing special interest movements the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF).

The vague statistics I’ve been able to dig up support this. Another FBI report breaks down the numbers of terrorism incidents from 1980 to 2001 (domestic and international).

Terrorism Statistics. Original chart found on the FBI website.

Terrorism by Group Class 1980 – 2001 Total 482

International 164

Left-Wing 130

Right-Wing 85

Special Interest 81

Individual 14

Unknown 8

If I’m reading this chart correctly, then the 318 terrorist incidents not classified as “International” are domestic. Now, we are trying to analyze what percentage of these terrorists are “environmental radicals.” Problem is, this is a sub-group within the special interest category, and we can’t separate them out. So, instead we’ll just take the percentage of special interest terrorism as a whole, knowing that it will include other categories like animal rights terrorism and anti-abortion terrorism.

About 25 percent of listed incidents from 1980-2001 were special interest terrorism incidents. And since this category contains various groups, the number for environmental terrorism incidents is surely less. That falls far short of 90 percent.

But Rogers did characterize these movements as “left-wing,” so let’s take a look at the left-wing numbers too. Left-wing terrorism made up about 41 percent of all domestic incidents (defined as incidents not labeled in the chart as “International”) from 1980-2001. Still short of 90 percent.

Combining both left-wing and special interest terrorism still only brings us up to about 66 percent. This is obviously a huge percentage. But only a portion of it includes environmental radicals. Furthermore, some right-wing groups are included in this 66 percent, like anti-abortion terrorists. And more importantly, it is 24 percentage points short of 90 percent.

And, significantly, these numbers are only through 2001. The 1990s, as noted, saw a rise in environmental terrorism. But have any notable shifts occurred since then?

An FBI report looking at the period between 2002 and 2005 said that 24 recorded terrorist incidents happened in this period, and 23 of them were domestic. Of these 23 incidents, all but one “were committed by special interest extremists active in the animal rights and environmental movements.” But, in the next paragraph, the report says that “eight of the 14 recorded terrorism preventions stemmed from right-wing extremism, and included disruptions to plotting by individuals involved with the militia, white supremacist, constitutionalist and tax protestor, and anti-abortion movements.”

So, even though almost all domestic terrorist attacks were perpetrated by environmental and animal activists, the slim majority (eight of 14) of all preventions were of right-wing terrorist threats.

Why is this? While I did not see any explanations in this report, allow me to offer a theory. The same report notes that although left-wing terrorism remains pervasive, right-wing terrorism is more dangerous. This seems counter-intuitive. All terrorism is dangerous, how can one be more dangerous than another. The answer to that is in what the two brands of terrorism target.

In short, left-wing terrorists tend to target “materials and facilities rather than persons.” Right-wing terrorists, however, often targets human beings. The report observes:

Right-wing extremism, however, primarily in the form of domestic militias and conservative special interest causes, began to overtake left-wing extremism as the most dangerous, if not the most prolific, domestic terrorist threat to the country during the 1990s. In contrast to the ALF and the ELF, which have pursued a philosophy that avoids physical violence in favor of acts of property damage that cause their victims economic harm, right-wing extremists pursued a qualitatively different method of operation by targeting people.

This shift of right-wing terrorism overtaking left-wing terrorism as the more dangerous extremism seems to have started in the 1990s, according to an FBI report from 2002.

A South Poverty Law Center report notes that right-wing terrorist threats in the form of militias seemed to die down during the early 2000s, but then began appearing again toward the late 2000s.

In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report warning about a resurgent right-wing terrorist threat, caused by racial tensions, economic hardship and the expansion of social programs.

–CONCLUSION–

I’m not quite sure where Rogers got her information. I certainly could not find any evidence to corroborate her claim that “90 percent of the domestic terrorist attacks are done by the left-wing environmental radicals.” The only information that even approached validating this statement was the report on terrorist activity between 2002 and 2005, which said that all but 1 of domestic terrorist attacks during that period were perpetrated by environmental and animal rights extremists.

But that ignores the fact that plotted incidents prevented by authorities were a majority right-wing. Furthermore, her claim is stripped of any and all context. Right-wing terrorism is, generally speaking, more dangerous to individuals than left-wing terrorism. That is because right-wing terrorism generally targets people, while left-wing terrorism mostly targets property and materials.

Finally, the comment implies an absolute, and ignores the fact that terrorism patterns shift. Such a shift seems to be upon us right now, with right-wing terrorism currently on the rise. The statement does not indicate any of this.

Her general point about the pervasiveness of left-wing — and, in particular, environment — terrorism is correct. It is the more pervasive form of domestic terrorism. Though, stripped of context, and using a number that seems (at best) misleading and (at worst) incorrect, I rate her claim false.

–SOURCES–

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/16/obama-tea-party-video_n_928025.html

http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/the-threat-of-eco-terrorism

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005

http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/the-terrorist-threat-confronting-the-united-states

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/splc-report-return-of-the-militias

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terror/terrorism-2000-2001

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/60421.html

http://www.fbi.gov/albuquerque/priorities

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2331.html


Beck Check: The Roaring Twenties

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Glenn Beck spent a portion of his show on February 9, 2010 discussing President Coolidge and the Roaring Twenties. I analyzed his claims about Coolidge in an earlier blog post, and have returned to fact check his points on the Roaring Twenties.

He begins by calling the Roaring Twenties “arguably the most prosperous 8 years this country has ever seen,” credits Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon’s tax cuts, and cites innovation as evidence of this prosperity.

In 1920, there were only 5,800 people who had ever flown on an airplane. By 1930, it was seventy times that amount. RCA changed the world with the radio. Along with the radio came another invention or another idea: advertising. Now you could hear Babe Ruth hitting home runs anywhere in the country while someone was telling you about a product. Thomas Edison brought us movies in 1880s. You know when they really started to take off? In the 20s the true modern era motion picture arrived.

And so on. But were the Roaring Twenties really all Beck makes them out to be?

First, let’s deal with length. Beck notes that the economic expansion of the 1920s lasted 8 years — how does that compare with other U.S. expansionary periods? Of course, this depends on who you ask. For instance, the Post World War II economy could last from 1945 to 1960 or until the early 1970s. The Reagan boom beginning in 1982 could last until 1990, or it could have been part of a much broader boom that included the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton economies, ending in 2001. James Pethokoukis, writing in the U.S. News and World Report, even goes so far as to proclaim that this expansion lasted from 1982 to 2007 — that’s 25 years!

Of course, these booms were not uninterrupted. There were recessions in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and again in the 80s, 90s, and 00s. Perhaps the 1920s were the United States’ longest uninterrupted boom? Not quite — there were recessions during the Roaring Twenties as well.

A peek at the National Bureau of Economic Research’s website, which has an excellent list of the U.S. economy’s expansions and contractions, shows that the U.S.’s longest uninterrupted expansion occurred from March 1991 to March 2001, from the end of the first Bush Administration through the Clinton years and into the beginning of the second Bush Administration. The second longest uninterrupted expansion occurred from February 1961 to December 1969 (the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon years), the third from November 1982 to July 1990 (the Reagan and Bush years), and so on. The longest uninterrupted expansion during the Roaring Twenties period lasted from July 1924 to October 1926 — not even in the top 10 for length of uninterrupted booms.

Clearly, the Roaring Twenties were not the longest boom in American history, but (as with all aspects of life) quantity and quality do not always correspond. So how about a comparison of content?

Let’s compare some indicators with similar ones from the three longest booms in American history (1991-2001, 1961-1969, and 1982-1990). First, we’ll look at the obvious — Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (the country’s economic output).

And the unemployment rates…

Thus, GDP growth was better in the three booms we’ve been examining than in the Roaring Twenties, while unemployment seems to have been lower in the Roaring Twenties. Ironically, the minimum wage may be to blame for at least part of the higher unemployment rates of the later three booms. The minimum wage was first established as part of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. It was then re-established in 1938.

One of the economic consequences of the minimum wage is to increase unemployment. Think of it this way: a business owner has a certain amount of money available to spend on employees. If the amount he must pay his employees rises, but the amount of money he has available to pay them does not, he must fire someone. This force was absent in the 1920s, perhaps partially accounting for the lower unemployment rate.

Another aspect of the booms is income inequality. One of the ways this is measured is known as the GINI Index. The Gini Coefficient measures income inequality on a scale of 0 to 1, with 0 being absolute equality and 1 being absolute inequality. The following graph displays Gini estimates for the 1920s to the 1990s.

Unfortunately, the late 1990s and 2000s are not included in this graph, but the data shows that the GINI Index for families continued to rise, and even reached its highest reported point yet in 2006 at 0.444. As the graph shows, GINI estimates for the 1920s start somewhere around 0.425 and then quickly rise throughout the decade, peaking at around 0.5 before relaxing to 0.45 and then rising again to about 0.475 to finish.

This high level of inequality stands in stark contrast to the much lower levels enjoyed during the 1961-1969 boom, where the GINI Coefficient began at 0.374 and finished at 0.349.  Indeed, the lowest reported level of income inequality ever occurred in 1968, at 0.348.

The 1982-1990 boom featured greater inequality than the 60s, but still lower than either the 20s. The GINI Coefficient began at 0.380 in 1982 and stayed in the high 0.3s for the duration. It peaked at 0.401 in 1989 and finished at 0.396 in 1990.

Family income inequality increased yet again during the 1991-2001 expansion, starting at 0.397 and climbing to 0.435 at the end, its highest year. This 2001 level is higher than estimates from the beginning of the 20s, but lower than most other years of the Roaring Twenties.

Emmanuel Saez examined the share of total income of top decile (that is, the top 10th) and also the top 0.01% of earners in his paper, “Striking It Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States.” As the graphs show below, he found that the top 10% of earners held almost 50% of total income in the United States by the end of the Roaring Twenties. This is almost matched by the high level of income held by the top 10% at the end of the 1991-2001 boom (and exceeded in 2007, as an aside). The 1960s boom seems to be the most equitable, followed by the 1982-1990 boom, which saw increasing inequality, but not at the levels of either the Roaring Twenties or the 1991-2001 boom. Examinations of the share of the top 0.01% yield similar conclusions.

One of the points Beck makes when discussing the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties is the innovation associated with the period. He appears to describe innovation in terms of something once great, now long lost. Yet innovation remains a strong part of our capitalist system. Beck awes his audience by telling them about the great leaps in technology that were made in the 1920s, and how the long-lost capitalism of Coolidge and Mellon made expensive technologies affordable.

But aren’t these processes still occurring today? Consider, for a moment, computers. In 1984, 8.2 percent of U.S. households had a computer. By 2000, 51 percent of households had computers. That’s an increase of a whopping 522 percent! This is how capitalism works — competition drives down prices. The Roaring Twenties do not hold a monopoly on innovation and advancements in technology.

Of course, other than simply listing the accomplishments of these various years (which are many) and the price drops as technology advances, how does one measure innovation? I’ve sorted through copyright registration and population figures to derive some glimpse at innovation in these various booms. The following graph lists the number of copyright registrations in the beginning and ending years of each boom, the populations of those years, and then the registration figures divided by the population (revealing how many copyrights were registered per person in the United States for those years).

Not only do the number of copyright registrations rise with each successive boom, but they also rise per person — a real increase. This is with the notable exception of the 1991-2001 boom, in which copyright registration figures actually decrease in per person terms, though they remain above figures for the Roaring Twenties and the 1961-1969 boom.

Productivity gains, too, may be some indicator of innovation, as new technologies make manufacturing more efficient.

These estimates show productivity gains in each of the four booms, with the average yearly percentage change in productivity in the Roaring Twenties and the 1990s booms being almost a full percentage point higher than those of the 60s and 80s booms.

Perhaps we can see, through these somewhat rudimentary lenses, the steady progression of innovation.

As far as comparing booms goes, a paper by economist Robert J. Gordon notes the similarities of the 1990s and 1920s booms:

Growth in real GDP, real GDP per capita, employment, and productivity were almost identical, the conventionally measured unemployment rate was identical in 1928 and 1999, inflation was negligible (1920s) or low (1990s), and the late-1920s stock market boom is the only such episode in the century that comes close to the stock market’s ebullience in the late 1990s. Like the 1990s, the 1920s witnessed prosperity, a productivity revival, low unemployment, and low inflation. Both decades featured an explosion of applications of a fundamental “General Purpose Technology,” electricity and the internal combustion engine in the 1920s and computer hardware, software, and networking communications technology in the 1990s. Both decades appear to mock the existence of a Phillips-curve tradeoff between inflation and unemployment.

Of course, these figures are limited in that they are solely economic indicators. Bobby Kennedy noted the inadequacy of such measurements in 1968:

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

To provide a broader picture of the four booms, I’ve examined three other indicators — life expectancy gains, 5 to 7 year old enrollment (in school) as a percentage of the 5 to 7 year old population, and high school graduation rates and gains.

As would be expected, steady gains were made over time in life expectancy. However, averages of yearly percentage change show that the greatest gains were made during the 1991-2001 boom (0.22%), and the worst gains were made during the 1961-1969 boom (0.05%). The averages show a decrease actually occurred during the Roaring Twenties (-0.52).

As seen from the graph, the lower levels of enrollment in the Roaring Twenties (about ten percentage points below the 1980s/1990s levels of enrollment) also provided greater room for improvement, and, indeed, the Roaring Twenties saw greater gains in 5 to 7 year old enrollment as a percentage of that population (1.27%, on average). The 1960s boom also saw a high level of improvement, on average, as did the 1980s (the data for the 1980s also shows the movements of the baby boom generation out of secondary school and into college). Finally, the 1991-2001 boom, although maintaining a high level of enrollment in the 97%-98% range, saw a decrease in the yearly percent change of enrollment, on average (-0.08%).

(Quick note — the rounding to one decimal place should account for the oddity that occurs in 1967-1968, when the percentage change is -0.05 while the graduates as a percentage of the 17 year old population appears to stay the same).

Again, the low levels of the Roaring Twenties (about 50 percentage points below 60s levels) provided a greater room for improvement (6.55% yearly percentage increase on average) — and it took advantage of that room, increasing the percentage of the 17 year old population that graduated from high school every year of the boom! Although the other booms saw higher levels of graduation, none of them can boast continuous improvement (the 1960s boom saw great gains, as well, but also some declines). In fact, the 1991-2001 boom saw a steady decline, before leveling out just below its beginning 1991 level.

So the picture, on a whole, is mixed. Perhaps the comparison itself is fundamentally flawed because of vast differences of the times. The Roaring Twenties were not the longest boom in American history, nor were they greatest, in terms of GDP and output. They saw the highest levels of income inequality out of the four booms we’ve examined (though the 1991-2001 boom comes close) but also a lower level of unemployment. The life expectancy retreated a bit, on average, though schooling enrollment and graduation made real gains. Productivity in the manufacturing sector, also, was high, though lower than the 1991-2001 boom, and copyright registrations were lower per person than in the three other booms.

The true picture is complicated, and for Beck to frame the Roaring Twenties as the high water mark of United States economic history (“arguably the most prosperous 8 years this country has ever seen”) is simplistic and dishonest. Nevertheless, the Roaring Twenties were a prosperous period in United States history that, according to the data examined, saw numerous gains in various aspects of life.