Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles
Population Control
Negative Population Growth and the Tanton Network’s Obsession with Population Control
01 year ago
Negative Population Growth, an anti-immigrant group financed by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) recently published its latest forum paper titled “Haiti’s Problems, and their Lessons” by Walter Youngquist. The two page paper essentially argues that the one of the root causes of Haiti’s problems is its population growth.
This is not the first attack on Haiti by the John Tanton Network since the horrific earthquake that ravaged the country earlier this year.
In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, FAIR called the Obama Administration’s plan to give Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals “reckless and overboard.” The John Tanton Network continued its lack of sympathy for the Haitian disaster when Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies stated in his blog on the National Review Online that “My guess is that Haiti’s so screwed up because it wasn’t colonized long enough.”
The attacks on Haiti, a country that is 95% black, by the John Tanton Network are not surprising considering its long history of ties to white nationalist leaders and organizations. What is also not surprising is the fact that Haiti has been criticized by the John Tanton Network for its population size. The Tanton Network is absolutely obsessed with population control, and more specifically who of that population has access and control over resources.
The Tanton Network boasts many groups whose sole purpose is to argue for population stabilization, including Negative Population Growth and America’s Leadership Team for Long Range Population-Immigration-Resource Planning.
Donald Mann, the head of Negative Population Growth once stated, “We should give incentives to low-income people who agree to sterilization.”
The Tanton Network collaborates with groups that also falsely blame immigrants for population growth and environmental problems. Groups like Californians for Population Stabilization and Alliance for a Sustainable USA, just to name a few.
The Tanton Network’s preoccupation with population control is quite frightening considering its disregard for human suffering and dignity. Walter Youngquist’s first sentence in the NPG forum paper is “Few people have as much sympathy as I do for the people of Haiti, especially for the children, for I saw their desperate plight years before the earthquake.”
But his “sympathy” is soon thrown aside as he launches into a tirade against Haiti’s high population.
Krikorian’s comment on Haiti is even worse, but this type of rhetoric has sadly become commonplace from the organizations and individuals who make up the John Tanton Network.
The Implied Bigotry of NumbersUSA
01 year ago
by Jill Garvey
in Americans For Better Immigration, Californians For Population Stabilization, Council for Conservative Citizens, David Duke, Grassroots Organization, Immigration, Immigration Reform, John Tanton, Numbersusa Action, NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, Politics, Population Control, Roy Beck, White Nationalism
Beck at a CofCC event
NumbersUSA operates at the nerve center of the most influential anti-immigrant network in the country.
This network, created by John Tanton, consists of over two dozen lobby, legal, legislative, and environmental groups that have penetrated mainstream social and political discourse. Of late, no group has been more successful than NumbersUSA, which is leading a vicious campaign against immigration reform advocates. NumbersUSA was founded in 1997 under the financial umbrella of Tanton’s U.S., Inc.
Unlike Tanton’s other groups, NumbersUSA strategically avoids overt white nationalist rhetoric in favor of emphasizing the alleged negative economic and environmental impacts of immigrants. Based in Arlington, VA, NumbersUSA presently consists of three legally distinct but financially intertwined organizations: NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, NumbersUSA Action, Inc., and Americans for Better Immigration.
Roy Beck is the executive director of NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, NumbersUSA Action, Inc., and chairman of Americans for Better Immigration. Looking at Form 990s from each group, Beck is listed as a paid employee at all three. Compensated a whopping $274,500 in 2007 alone, Beck’s paycheck is more than five times the net income of an average American. Not bad for a gig at a “grassroots” organization.
Last week Beck laid bare his plot, called “S.T.O.P. Amnesty” to defeat a powerful march for immigration reform. NumbersUSA’s troops of choice are tea partiers and hard-core anti-immigrant activists. Beck all but ordered fractured tea partiers to fall in line behind his anti-immigrant agenda on a conference call last week. As evidenced at the national tea party convention, beating up on immigrants appeals to many tea party members; however, one has to wonder if they would be so enthusiastic were they to know about Beck’s views on population control.
Just in case the tea partiers don’t stick to the anti-immigrant talking points, Roy Beck is using his environmental background and population growth “expertise” to push anti-immigrant sentiment among the conservation crowd.
Under a coalition called America’s Leadership Team for Long Range Population Immigration-Resource Planning, NumbersUSA is partnering with the American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF). AICF president John Vinson regularly writes for the white supremacist organization Council of Conservative Citizens. Vinson is also a founding member of the racist League of the South.
This year NumbersUSA released a report with Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS). Rick Oltman, the media director of CAPS, was listed as a member by the Council of Conservative Citizens. Oltman also lost a Republican Party post in California after he supported physical attacks on undocumented immigrants.
While population growth is certainly a legitimate issue to address, just based on its ties to white nationalism as outlined above, NumbersUSA should be excluded from the discussion.
NumbersUSA supporters argue that the organization is merely a grassroots operation trying to protect American workers, but they conveniently ignore its ties to organized bigotry and murky financial structure. At the beginning of the week NumbersUSA’s campaign was heartily promoted by white nationalist David Duke. Nothing conveys “tolerance” quite like a pat on the back from a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
And what should be made of yesterday’s alert on NumbersUSA’s website that stated, “Organizers for the Amnesty March are providing transportation for marchers and have a website dedicated to helping marchers organize before Sunday. Immigration Equality is also providing transportation for the LGBT community, encouraging them to take part in the Amnesty March.”
It sounds as if NumbersUSA is pushing the buttons of some of its say, more extreme supporters, who may be into both gay and immigrant bashing.
Whether it’s in far-right conservative, working-class, or environmental communities, NumbersUSA, along with a host of related anti-immigrant groups, is trying to stir up trouble, not find solutions.
The answers to immigration issues will not be found through NumbersUSA’s brand of political extremism, but rather a vision that includes immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens working together to achieve a better life for all Americans.
NumbersUSA’s Excuses are a Dime a Dozen
01 year ago
The controversial anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA is still having a difficult time being completely above board with the American public. Over the last year the organization has been busy spinning its connections with white nationalists and its organizational stance on reproductive rights. This week it appears that NumbersUSA is adding fundraising to the list.
Last week Imagine2050 blogger Stephen Piggott wrote about a NumbersUSA Action email solicitation that asked individuals to donate money. NumbersUSA Action is one of the three interlocking organizations under the umbrella of NumbersUSA.
In the email NumbersUSA Action suggests to its donors that, unlike its opponents, it receives no monies from government or foundation sources. The email does not inform supporters that its research and education arm has no problem taking millions of dollars from the right-wing Sarah Scaife Foundation and the population control oriented Colcom foundation.
Last week NumbersUSA Executive Director Roy Beck wrote to Imagine2050 saying “Our grassroots lobbying organization relies 100% on the small donations of concerned Americans.” According to its 990s (government tax records) that’s not exactly true either. In 2006 and 2007 alone NumbersUSA transferred nearly a million dollars from its research and education arm to NumbersUSA Action.
While it is perfectly legal for the organization to transfer these funds, to turn around and say that it “relies 100% on the small donations of concerned Americans” comes across as misleading. Something that NumbersUSA appears to be growing extremely comfortable with of late.
Last year, in response to concerns about its relationship to hate groups, Beck wrote that “NumbersUSA has never had connections with white supremacists — not in the past, not in the present, not in the future.” Once a picture surfaced of Beck speaking at a 1997 white supremacist event he simply explained “I have never denied having spoken to the Council of Conservative Citizens on my book tour in 1997.
Having, at least in his own mind, explained why he spoke to an organization that was formed by those who defended racial segregation, Beck chooses to ignore why he and his organization continue to find themselves in similar predicaments seventeen years later. Until 2005 Beck continued to regularly publish in the The Social Contract Press. The journal is edited by Wayne Lutton a longtime leader in the white nationalist movement and a board member of the anti-Semitic Charles Martel Society.
But it is not just the past. This year NumbersUSA joined in a project with two notorious anti-immigrant organizations, Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and U.S. Inc.
CAPS is headed up by Rick Oltman a purported member of the Council of Conservative Citizens who was removed from a Republican Party post in 1996 for supporting physical attacks on undocumented immigrants. The other organization, U.S. Inc., is run by white nationalist John Tanton who wrote that hate crime laws in Europe were pushed by “Jewish interests” and revealed to the American public that immigration was simply “a skirmish in a wider war.”
Instead of accepting responsibility for its actions, NumbersUSA seeks to satisfy its critics with excuses, omissions, and political spin. Recently, while giving a workshop at a national Tea Party gathering Roy Beck was confronted about NumbersUSA’s alleged support of abortion and population control. Beck responded by telling the tea party activists that these were not NumbersUSA issues.
Again Roy Beck wasn’t being quite as truthful as he could have been. I guess he somehow forgot to mention that he and Leon Kolankiewicz released a history of the U.S. Population Stabilization (1970-1998) in 2000 available on its website. Abortion and contraceptive are key components of population stabilization the essay argues.
I’m sure that NumbersUSA will shortly deliver up to twenty more excuses to explain its inability to be transparent with the American public. If excuses truly come a dime a dozen, NumbersUSA won’t ever have to worry about fundraising again.