Numbersusa
Tanton Memo of the Month – The Promotion of Eugenics
originally posted by Sarah Viets for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Mar 26th
This month’s Tanton Memo of the Month focuses on John Tanton’s eugenics project, Society for the Advancement of Genetics Education (SAGE).
In the mid 1990s, John Tanton, the founder of a host of anti-immigrant organizations, including NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies, decided to develop a platform to educate the public on eugenics without using the term “eugenics.”
Eugenics was used to justify slavery in the U.S. and Nazi Germany’s crimes against Jews, and Tanton recognized that the American public had come to reject pseudo-scientific arguments that certain racial or ethnic groups were inferior to others.
To hide his promotion of eugenics, Tanton decided to use the word “genetics” instead of “eugenics,” and to focus on plant life as a gateway topic to promote his belief in inherent biological IQ differences. These racialized arguments are still popular in many of today’s white nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations.
In a letter to Dr. Robert K. Graham of the Foundation for the Advancement of Man, Tanton said the project would emphasize:
“mankind’s use of eugenic principles on plants and the lower animals as a way to condition the public to the idea of genetic manipulation, and raise the question of its application to the human race. In fact, we report on ways it is currently being done, but under the term genetics rather than eugenics.”
Graham is the founder of the controversial project, “Repository for Germinal Choice,” a sperm bank which gained infamy by trying to only recruit Nobel Prize winners as donors. Only one Noble Prize winner ever admitted to donating his sperm and that was William Shockley, who was outspoken about his belief that American Blacks were of low intelligence. All of Graham’s donors were white.
Tanton’s activism with regard to racial eugenics is based on the disturbing belief that those identified as the most productive “gene pool of the human stock” should be the ones with access to and control over scarce resources.
The same American eugenics movement of the early 20th century that informed Nazi Germany’s practices also advocated against immigration in the 1920s. It is believed that eugenicists helped pass laws that ranked immigrants based on ethnicity – at the time Nordic and Anglo Europeans being the most desirable and Asian immigrants the least. Eugenics movements have found genetic fault with nearly every physical trait and ethnic group outside of the “Nordic race”. These have been considered the “undesirable” immigrant masses over the past 100 years.
Today’s anti-immigrant movement focuses on criminalizing, detaining and deporting primarily non-white immigrants.
While it’s hard to find anything left of SAGE’s website, www.genetics-ed.org, the goals and objectives were clear. The project would start “formally as a membership organization, doubtless with a self-perpetuating board to help guarantee that it stays on course” and would attempt “to reach the young, the well-educated, and the affluent.”
Tanton’s obsession with eugenics shines a light on his motivations for associating with white nationalists and controversial anti-immigrant views.
*The John Tanton letters and memos are a public collection at the Bentley Historical Library.
Hardcore Racists Flock to NumbersUSA’s Campaign
originally posted by Chris Bober for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Mar 22nd
NumbersUSA deployed its counter-action to the immigration reform march in Washington D.C over the weekend. The plan, S.T.O.P Amnesty in four days, contained carefully crafted talking points that tea party and hard-core, anti-immigrant activists used to lobby state and federal lawmakers. NumbersUSA’s anti-immigrant rhetoric was used once again to demonize immigrants and create the illusion that Americans are strongly opposed to immigration reform.
In order to facilitate its efforts, NumbersUSA re-tooled its home page to include webcasts, detailed action alerts, and a social media feed. Not surprisingly, its attempt to create a web-based community backfired as its action alerts and website brought out racists, bigots, and the worst of the anti-immigrant movement. Even though NumbersUSA and the John Tanton Network claim its anti-immigrant agenda does not fuel hateful rhetoric, here are some recent examples of how NumbersUSA’s message once again created an environment where individuals and groups have felt comfortable using hate speech.
Near the end of last week, a disturbing tweet was seen on the NumbersUSA web-site. The tweet read, “Thanks@NumbersUSA we need somebody to stand up for the rights of white people. JUST SAY NO TO DIVERSITY.” This tweet echoes a common message found in the white nationalist community which claims that diversity and multiculturalism is the root of all our nation’s problems. NumbersUSA removed this tweet from its feed but failed to publically disavow the message.
In a members-only section of its website that evaluates members of Congress, NumbersUSA assigned Senator Dick Durbin an F and Senator Roland Burris an F minus on their immigration record. Under a picture of Illinois Congressman Roland Burris, a NumbersUSA member wrote, “You have disgraced yourself and the (sic) all the people of IL, especially the Black citizens. We should welcome you home with Tar and Feathers.” Another member wrote, “Only when the people show up to REMOVE these treasonous crooks will justice be served! Bring back the rope!” Despite the fact that Roland Burris is African-American and the history lynching and torture has played in our country, these horrible threats remained on NumbersUSA’s website for nearly a month before being removed.
NumbersUSA seems to be popular throughout the white nationalist and skinhead communities. At the beginning of the week NumbersUSA’s campaign was promoted by white nationalist David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. On Vinlanders Social Club, NumbersUSA is promoted on the home page with a direct link to its website. Vinlanders Social Club is a midwest coalition of racist skinhead groups with a history of violence against members of the black community.
On Stormfront, in a thread entitled, “Obama Begins Immigration Reform and Amnesty” a posting which reads like a NumbersUSA advertisement cites the details of the S.T.O.P Amnesty campaign and directs Stormfront members to the NumbersUSA website. Stormfront is the leading white nationalist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and skinhead social networking forum. The website was started by former Ku Klux Klan leader, Don Black, in 1995. NumbersUSA’s campaign was promoted on Stormfront the same week that a member of Stormfront wrote of his plans to carry a concealed weapon to a similar immigration reform rally in Utah.
Although NumbersUSA has actively tried to distance itself from the extreme far right, its message stills resonates deeply with these communities. Even the group’s own Executive Director, Roy Beck, has spoken to a white supremacist organization, the Council of Conservative Citizens in the past. Therefore, until NumbersUSA strongly condemns the comments made on its web-site and the promotion of its messaging on skinhead and white nationalist sites, they are not a credible voice on the important issues surrounding immigration in our country.
Controversial Anti-immigrant Group Attends Immigrant Rights March
originally posted by Stephen Piggott for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Mar 21st
Today in Washington D.C., Roy Beck, the executive director of the anti-immigrant organization NumbersUSA will be on the National Mall debating with immigration reform marchers who are flooding to the capital from all across the country.
NumbersUSA will be streaming the event live on its website as part of a four day anti-immigrant hate campaign which began on Friday. NumbersUSA’s campaign has so far failed to live up to its own high expectations with less than one percent of its alleged 900,000 members signing its most recent “anti-amnesty” petition, a key part of the four day campaign.
Throughout the campaign, NumbersUSA has updated its twitter page constantly. On many of the tweets there is the term “#AFIRE.” This term refers to Americans for Immigration Control and Enforcement, a “National DC based office in conjunction with Americans for Immigration Reform and Enforcement (AFIRE) made up of FAIR and Numbers USA.” According to this statement on the Utah chapter of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), we can see that NumbersUSA and FAIR are actively working together. This is just another example of two John Tanton Network groups teaming up to bash immigrants.
NumbersUSA’s finances and ties to white nationalists are very disturbing. Roy Beck, the group’s executive director spoke at a 1997 Council of Conservative Citizens conference, something that has haunted Beck ever since. Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC) is a white supremacist hate group. Its conferences have hosted a who’s who of the white nationalist hierarchy over the years, including Jared Taylor, founder of American Renaissance.
Beck is paid a colossal amount of money each year by NumbersUSA to spew anti-immigrant rhetoric. Beck was compensated a whopping $274,500 in 2007 alone, Beck’s paycheck is more than five times the net income of an average American.
Beck has also begun to think about the future of NumbersUSA and who will replace him at the helm when he finally retires. One of Beck’s right hand men at NumbersUSA is Chad MacDonald, the Director of Social Media Marketing for NumbersUSA. Chad recently spoke with Roy Beck and Tom Tancredo at the National Tea Party Convention, telling the crowd that each tea party group should have an “immigration expert.”
MacDonald has been busy in recent weeks in preparing for the four day anti-immigrant campaign. He has appeared in many videos, on both NumbersUSA’s website and YouTube page, discussing the immigration reform march and NumbersUSA’s anti-immigrant response to it. MacDonald is a much younger and more likable alternative to Beck, making him an ideal candidate to be the new face of NumbersUSA.
Tanton Network Uses E-verify to Terrorize Immigrant Communities
originally posted by Jill Garvey for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Mar 5th
The John Tanton Network is more interested in terrorizing immigrant communities than helping employers.
Nothing else can explain its recent response to a comprehensive report on the failure of E-verify. Rather than accept the program’s failures and promote more effective ways to fix the immigration system, the network of anti-immigrant groups led by John Tanton is attacking the report and trying to discredit hard facts. The anti-immigrant trifecta of the Tanton Network – FAIR, Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA – came out swinging against the report which effectively debunks their data on E-verify.
Mark Krikorian of Center for Immigration Studies said, “Nevertheless, it’s certainly true that E-Verify isn’t tight enough yet, but in a glass-half-full sense, this isn’t really bad news,” and “…we know perfectly well what the problems are, and they don’t have much to with with the E-Verify system itself.”
We do indeed know perfectly well what the problems are. The problems are anti-immigrant groups with ties to racist organizations injecting themselves into a mainstream debate and distorting data.
Here is the truth: E-verify encourages discrimination in hiring. The harder it is for employers to properly utilize the system (and it sounds nearly impossible), the more potential employees they will pass over. Don’t be surprised to one day hear reports of employers who admit to resorting to racial profiling because it was easier than E-verify. Anti-immigrant leaders like Krikorian know this. They know that applying for a job while brown is hell and E-verify just makes it worse.
Putting aside undocumented immigrants for a moment, this has serious implications for all workers of color. Think unemployment among communities of color is bad now? Just wait.
Just as the anti-immigrant movement has tried to turn landlords, local law enforcement, and ordinary citizens into the federal immigration police, so too would it like to turn employers into immigration snitches.
We can’t afford it. America is in economic trouble, and lawmakers and employers can’t afford to spend their time tracking down and reporting every single potentially undocumented immigrant. It’s a waste of precious resources and will hurt American businesses.
When anti-immigrant groups make their motives clear, when they renounce all associations with white nationalist organizations, then we can talk about E-verify. Until then, their opinions on the matter simply aren’t valid.
The John Tanton Network Brings Hate to African American Community in Maryland
originally posted by Stephen Piggott for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Feb 25th
Tonight in Glenarden, Maryland, a townhall meeting is taking place entitled, “Understanding the Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Citizens of Prince George’s County and the State of Maryland.” The event features three groups connected to the John Tanton Network: Help Save Maryland, a group that is listed as a state contact on FAIR’s website; NumbersUSA, a project of the John Tanton Network; and Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), another project of the Tanton Network. The discussion’s moderator is Sandy Pruitt of People for Change. Leo Alexander, a candidate for mayor of Washington DC and Paulette Faulkner, a former State of Maryland employee are also speaking.
When I first read about this event the immediate question that came to mind was, ‘why is the John Tanton Network, a network of organizations with strong ties to white nationalists, coming into a town that is 95% black and holding a discussion on immigration?’
On the surface, it looks as if the John Tanton Network is reaching out to African Americans, but this is not the case. It is instead trying to divide the African American community over the issue of immigration. In recent months, the Tanton Network has used a populist method to attempt to divide religious leaders from constituents, and business and union leaders from workers over the issue of Immigration. For African Americans, this is a civil rights issue, not an immigration issue. The fact that the Tanton Network has the audacity to come into an African American community and attempt to divide it is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated. The fact is the Tanton Network does not care about the African American community, they are merely using it for political gain.
This impudent attempt by the John Tanton Network to divide the African American community will not end after the discussion in Glenarden tonight. Roy Beck of NumbersUSA will go back to Virginia and Monique A. Miles of IRLI will return to Washington DC, but one group, Help Save Maryland will remain. This group has been extremely active over the past year and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. This group is a danger not only to the African American and immigrant communities, but to all residents of Maryland. Until Marylander’s take a strong stand against it, Help Save Maryland will continue to divide communities at the local level just as the national organizations of the John Tanton Network are attempting to divide both nationally and locally.
Anti-immigrant Leader Admits Using Climate Change for Political Gain
originally posted by Guest Blogger for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Feb 23rd
by Rebecca Poswolsky and Dave M.
The anti-immigrant movement has long capitalized on environmental concerns to attack America’s immigrant communities. This tactic was on full display at the Conservative Political Action Conference this past weekend in Washington D.C.
While most people were listening to Newt Gingrich speak on Saturday, about 75 people assembled in one of the smaller rooms to hear a discussion entitled “Immigration: The Defining Issue for the Republican Party,” sponsored by American Council for Immigration Reform. The panel’s four speakers included: Robert E. Rector, Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation; Mark Krikorian, Executive Director, Center for Immigration Studies (CIS); James G. Gimpel, Professor of Government, University of Maryland; and Rep. Steve King from Iowa. Each speaker had 20 minutes to speak, followed by a question and answer session. The audience boasted a whole host of anti-immigrant individuals including Chad McDonald from NumbersUSA; Wayne Lutton, editor of The Social Contract; Howard Wooldridge, younger brother of anti-immigrant activist Frosty Wooldridge; and James Russell of Catholics for a Moral Immigration Policy.
A number of alarming comments were made by the panelists throughout the session. Rep. Steve King stated that he “sympathized” with the man who crashed his plane into the IRS building in Texas this past weekend. When asked later in the Q&A session about his comments, King did not take them back and instead launched into a rant against the IRS for targeting him in his pre-political days.
Mark Krikorian, a man known for his outlandish comments, stated that immigrants are “19th century rural peasant workers” who are coming to 21st century America.
The discussion’s most alarming comment came during the Q&A session when a young man asked Mark Krikorian why CIS published articles that supported the theory of global warming on its website. The man also asked Krikorian to explain his and CIS’s connections to John Tanton whom he referred to as a man that “favors population control.”
Krikorian nonchalantly answered the first question by stating that CIS publishes articles that are in favor of global warming to force a wedge between different people on the Left. Krikorian argued that people on the Left cannot be in favor of both open borders and taking care of the environment.
Assertions such as Krikorian’s – that non-draconian border policy is a prominent cause of eco-ruin – have little stock with serious environmental thinkers, which of course does not prevent Center for Immigration Studies from producing slanted reports on the topic. What is surprising is Krikorian’s candor about his organization’s true goal – to strategically deploy pseudo-environmental rhetoric to split its opposition.
His comments at the Conservative Political Action Conference also suggest that Krikorian’s veneer of environmental concern is so thin, that common work with global warming deniers and anti-environmentalists is not beneath him. Maybe this is unsurprising for someone whose career involves promoting white nationalist ideas while adamantly claiming that he is not a racist – a phenomenon we’ve also seen with Roy Beck of NumbersUSA, who co-authored a 2003 report for CIS. Both NumbersUSA and Center for Immigration Studies were established by John Tanton as front groups for his anti-immigrant network.
Aiding in Krikorian’s enviro-wedging strategy are characters such as Phillip Cafaro, of the misnamed “Progressives for Immigration Reform” (PFIR, which is also part the Tanton Network.) Cafaro and PFIR exist as an element of the “wedging” strategy explained by Krikorian at last week’s conservative gathering. Phil Cafaro also participates in the Weeden Foundation-funded “Apply the Brakes” project, which gives an anti-immigrant spin to concerns about human population levels. Cafaro’s level of commitment to “progressive” causes was recently demonstrated by his linking, on January 12 of this year, from the PFIR blog that he maintains to the white nationalist Social Contract Press website.
Coincidentally, Social Contract’s editor, Wayne Lutton, was at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C. this past Friday to cheer on his anti-immigrant associates. In addition to releasing racist publications, Lutton is also active with the overtly racist magazine American Renaissance and the flagship publication of the Council of Conservative Citizens. The Council of Conservative Citizens is the reconstituted, segregationist White Citizens’ Councils.
It is clear that Krikorian and the rest of the Tanton Network don’t care one bit about the environment. They only use climate change concerns to widen an anti-immigrant platform.
Racism, Anti-immigrant Sentiment, White Nationalism and Islamophobia, is this the GOP’s future?
originally posted by Imagine 2050 Editors for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Feb 19th
The 37th annual Conservative Political Action Conference kicked off today in Washington DC. This year’s event is featuring big players in the conservative movement, but more concerning, the extreme right are also prominent. During my first eight hours at the event I heard examples of Islamophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-Semitism and some flat out racist and extremist comments coming from both speakers and attendees.
The first session I attended was entitled “Student Activist Workshop” was sponsored by the Leadership Institute and the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that defends students freedom on college campuses. The discussion centered around students’ concerns about religious and conservative groups being targeted on college campuses. As the discussion came to an end, the main speaker, Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund, finished his remarks with a bizarre Islamophobic rant – warning students that if they aren’t careful the United States will be taken over by Muslims like Western Europe has. While still trying to wrap my head around Lorence ’s bizarre statements, I headed to “They Want Us to Shut Up: Saving Freedom and the First Amendment,” a discussion featuring Dr. Kevin Roberts, Ronald Kessier, J.D. Hayworth and Doug Giles. Giles’s remarks during his part of the discussion were the most disturbing. He boasted about his two children and praised daughter Hannah Giles, who collaborated with James O’Keefe’s attacks on ACORN.
After praising his daughter, he turned his attention to Keith Olbermann, telling the crowd that Olbermann was a “bachelor for life” while using his fingers to make quotation marks, which brought loud cheers and fits of laughter from the crowd. Before ending his speech, Giles again implied that Olbermann is a homosexual by repeating his “bachelor for life” comment which brought even more laughter from the crowd. Instead of using his allotted time to rant about immigrants, J.D. Hayworth instead attacked his opponent in the upcoming Senate race, John McCain. Hayworth did bring up immigration at the end of the panel discussion when Chad McDonald, Director of Social Media Marketing for the anti-immigrant organization NumbersUSA asked a question directly to Hayworth about the border. Hayworth said something to the affect of “our borders are about as secure as we are close to finding another galaxy.”
I headed over to the main ballroom to see a very interesting speech by house minority leader John Boehner. After speaking about jobs and attacking Obama, Boehner moved onto a very interesting subject, the tea partiers. He urged his listeners in the room to listen to the tea partiers, embrace them and to stand amongst them. This call to stand with the tea partiers comes one day after the Huffington Post reported on a tea party event in Washington where one speaker called for the hanging of Sen. Patty Murray. After leaving this event I ran into Hannah Giles and the now infamous James O’Keefe, who was arrested recently for attempting to wiretap Sen. Landrieu’s phone. After his arrest, reports surfaced about O’Keefe attending a white nationalist forum in 2006, featuring Jared Taylor, the head of white nationalist organization American Renaissance. After brushing past O’Keefe and Giles, I headed back to the main ballroom to listen to a speech by Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA. LaPierre, who has previously been published in the anti-Semitic newspaper American Free Press used his speech to attack Bill Clinton and boast about the ever increasing number of NRA members throughout the country.
The final workshop of the evening I attended was perhaps the most disturbing. It was a screening of the film Border War which looks at immigration on the southern United Sates border. J.D. Hayworth introduced the film in which he plays a major role before promptly leaving as the movie started. About 5 minutes in the film showed some undocumented immigrants attempting to cross the border. As this scene went on, a man sitting to my left said “shoot them” loud enough for the people around him to hear. Instead of eliciting condemnation or shock, the other attendees merely continued to watch the film. If this had happened just once I would have given the other attendees the benefit of the doubt of not hearing him, but the man went on to say it two more times during the film!
As someone who has come to the Conservative Political Action Conference to observe the current and possible trends of the conservative moment, I am extremely alarmed by what I witnessed on day one. It seems as if the right is moving closer and closer to the extreme right, something that clearly doesn’t seem to bother the Republican leadership or rank-and-file conservatives.
Palin’s 100k Speech Fails to Unite Teabaggers
originally posted by Imagine 2050 Editors for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Feb 7th
Question: Was Sarah Palin paid $100,000 to rehash a speech from her 2008 vice-presidential campaign?
Answer: You betcha!
On the final night of the National Tea Party Convention, Sarah Palin wooed the audience with some of her trademark one-liners but failed to give the audience anything of substance to take home. Her speech, which was hurried and directionless, did manage to articulate a conservative message which carried across Tea Party and Republican lines.
Sarah hammered on time-worn issues such as upholding the constitution, fiscal responsibility, and reducing taxes. She stayed away from social issues like immigration and preserving Judeo-Christian culture and values. She did this to the chagrin of the die-hard teabaggers who had spent the last two days pushing anti-immigrant rhetoric and praying to God to help them defeat their enemies.
Palin also stated she would not be gaining financially from this event. Something many speakers were quick to point out during the three day convention. Sarah went on to say she was going to put her speaker fees back into the movement. Of course, this was a popular with the audience.
In the end, Sarah did not lay out much of a future for the Tea Party movement other than to say she would be endorsing some candidates who followed the movement’s “ideals”. Way to make a commitment, Sarah!
Before the banquet, during the first part of the day, the convention’s focus was on discussing the future of the movement. A panel about this featured Amy Kremer of the Tea Party Express and two men who might have been vying for the award of most self-absorbed and egotistical, Mark Skoda of the Memphis Tea Party and Dave DeGerolamo of NC Freedom. While Mark and Amy were in agreement that the party should endorse specific candidates for office, Dave was not afraid to voice his opposition to this idea. He was concerned that Tea Party members would not take the time to research candidates that shared their views but would instead let others do the choosing. He went so far as to say that if you weren’t willing to take a closer look at a candidate’s position on issues than you shouldn’t even vote.
Mr. Skoda kept pressing that a tea party member’s vote was the most important tool they had in their fight to take back Washington. During the discussion panel both men shamelessly plugged their break-out sessions which were to take place within the next hour. Clearly outlining divisions in the movement, Skoda’s session was a candidate meet-and-greet while DeGerolamo’s session bragged about what great things NC Freedom was up to next.
And what of Roy Beck? Well, apparently Mr. Beck’s flight back to D.C. yesterday was canceled which left him stranded with the teabaggers. For the next two days, Mr. Beck was spotted wandering the convention aimlessly looking for others with which to share his anti-immigrant message. He found one listener in Mark Skoda who was seen conversing with Beck for an extended period of time. Later that evening, a clearly disinterested Beck left during Palin’s speech. One wonders if Mr. Beck left because Sarah Palin didn’t talk about immigration or because he’d heard the same speech during the McCain campaign two years ago? The answer ]may never be known.
In the end, it wasn’t just Sarah Palin who didn’t give much for the audience to take home, it was the convention itself that failed to articulate a unified next step for the movement. The two main themes that most people were forced to take away from the event were lessons on internet usage and complicated get-out-the-vote strategies. While important to some in attendance, this should have never come with a $558 dollar price tag.
So much for fiscal responsibility.
Tea Party Convention Loses Steam
originally posted by Imagine 2050 Editors for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Feb 6th
Day two of the tea party convention can be summed up in two words: confusion and disunity.
The day began at 8:00am when the continental breakfast quickly ran out of coffee – much to the dismay of many sleepy tea partiers. One of the first speakers of the day was the founder of the Memphis Tea Party, Mark Skoda. Skoda’s speech was passionate and rousing, a badly needed pick-me-up after the dreary end to the previous night. Instead of the day continuing on an energizing note, however, it turned to bickering and confusion. The rest of the day was broken into five sets of breakout sessions. The first session I attended was conducted by the Leadership Institute. The session didn’t have an official title but I would call it “facebook and twitter for dummies.”
After that snooze-fest I moved on to “5 easy fixes to the high cost of mass immigration” put on by anti-immigrant group, NumbersUSA. Roy Beck and Tom Tancredo. The presentation about the “dangers of mass immigration” was well received by the crowd, but the Q&A session altered the mood significantly. When someone asked if Roy Beck and NumbersUSA were pro-abortion and sterilization the mood of the crowd changed to nervous murmurs about NumbersUSA’s pro-choice stance.
The final session I attended was by far the most telling about what is going on in the “movement.” The session was a speech by David DeGerolamo the founder of NC Freedom a tea party umbrella group in North Carolina. DeGerolamo’s speech was soon interrupted by members in the crowd who vented their frustrations about how the movement was divided and little could be done to help it. People voiced their anger about each session and meal not starting with a prayer, something that has clearly disturbed and isolated many attendees. DeGerolamo begrudgingly agreed with the crowd, stating that he was disappointed at the event’s lack of accomplishment and unity.
For me, many of the breakout sessions were fillers that took up time and taught little. After all of the high profile pullouts, it was clear that the Phillips family and other organizers had no “plan B” which resulted in at least four of the sessions turning into technology classes for the mainly internet-illiterate crowd. Mark Skoda, a man who clearly likes to hear the sound of his own voice, seemed to luck out from the pullouts, scoring two breakout sessions back to back. Another obvious “filler” session was an Emergency Preparedness session sponsored by Bass Pro Shops. The crowd was told many important survival tips, such as “cotton balls make good kindling” and “you’ll need a percolator if you wanna make coffee.” Someone in the audience chimed in (I’m not joking here) to say that if you put your cell phone in a microwave, it will protect it from electromagnegitic pulse damage.
The night ended with a speech by Angela McGlowan, only the second African American I have seen during two days at the convention. McGlowan announced that she is planning to run for one of Mississippi’s house seats which brought the crowd to its feet.
As I left the second day of the event, I saw a movement that is going nowhere. I witnessed workshops teaching fifty-somethings about using the internet, sessions where the crowd took over with their complaints, and a complete lack of diversity and unity. Many of the people I talked to today had no idea who the leading tea party organizers or groups were around the country, let alone at the convention. The sense of optimism that was present at Tom Tancredo’s speech last night has definitely diminished. It remains to be seen if Sarah Palin can pull something out of the bag tomorrow, and even if she can, it will be tough to demonstrate that this event was a success.
Tancredo Kicks Off Tea Party Convention with Racist Comments
originally posted by Imagine 2050 Editors for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Feb 5th
Posted by Imagine 2050 Editors in Anti Immigration
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The registration room was an open hallway lined with media on one side and sponsors’ booths on the other. Sponsors included Judicial Watch, Jensen Apparel, Leadership Institute, and Surge USA. At 7:00pm attendees were ushered inside the grand ballroom, which had about 30 small tables for four and 400 seats surrounding an elaborate stage. Before taking seats, the masses were treated to hors’dourves of coconut shrimp and pulled pork canapé while the event’s organizer, Judson Phillips, took to the stage. Forgetting his notes didn’t help him remember the long list of sponsors he was supposed to thank, and after several awkward flubs Phillips collected himself enough to introduce former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo to the stage to a standing ovation. Tancredo stood smiling at the crowd and waving before starting off his speech with “I’m Tom Tancredo and I drive a Harley!” He quickly moved on from the topic of motorcycles, however, to get to his main target: immigrants.
He stated that many of the people who voted Obama into office “can’t even spell the word vote or even speak English,” which brought loud applause from the crowd. He said that it was a good thing that McCain didn’t win the election otherwise we would be see him and Rep. Gutierrez receive awards from NCLR for introducing and implementing an amnesty bill. He went on to talk about the “cult of multiculturalism” which is “aided by leftists.”
He issued a warning to the crowd that “our culture is at stake” and that our culture “is based on Judeo-Christian values whether people like it or not!” Near the end of his speech Tancredo announced to the crowd that he was going to be working with Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA (an anti-immigrant group with strong ties to white nationalists) at their breakout session on Friday. He encouraged people to attend the session and thanked Roy Beck and NumbersUSA for all their good work.
It is obvious that Beck and Tancredo are trying to push the issue of immigration to the forefront of the tea party movement, something that was explicitly clear during Tancredo’s speech. The acts that followed paled in comparison to Tancredo, who definitely stole the first night spotlight of the three day event. Tancredo was followed by two musical acts and a prayer led by Dr. Rick Scarborough before the movie, Tea Party, A Documentary was screened.
Stay tuned to Imagine2050 for more updates on the first ever Tea Party National Convention.