White Nationalism
Tea Partiers Should Reject Racists Who Recruit from their Ranks
originally posted by Alexander Zaitchik for Hatewatch | Southern Poverty Law Center [click here]
Jul 27th
Are the organizations that make up the Tea Party movement fundamentally racist? If not, are they too lackadaisical about addressing hard racist elements among their overwhelmingly white memberships?
Controversy over these questions was recently sparked anew when Ben Jealous of the NAACP accused Tea Party leaders of not sufficiently repudiating bigoted rhetoric and imagery in Tea Party events and online forums. As if to prove Jealous’ point, Mark Williams, the bilious former leader of Tea Party Express, popped up to post an online missive that fit his habit of throwing racially charged insults (he once called Barack Obama an “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug”). Williams’ rebuttal to Jealous’ challenge, posted to his personal blog, marktalks.com, took the form of a fictional letter to Abraham Lincoln sent from “the Coloreds,” in which the latter claim to “have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing.”
To its credit, the National Tea Party Federation, the movement’s umbrella group, responded quickly by expelling Williams. But this welcome move does not settle the matter of Tea Party racism. Williams remains active in the Tea Party Express, one of the nation’s largest Tea Party groups, and the diffuse nature of the movement makes it difficult if not impossible to gauge Williams’ support among the grassroots that has over the last year heartily welcomed Williams to dozens of Tea Party events around the country.
Whatever Williams’ official expulsion signifies—a genuine sign that Tea Party leaders will no longer tolerate bigotry from activists who work under the Tea Party banner, or simply a realization that it has an image problem on its hands—the fact remains that the Williams kerfuffle was hardly the first instance of racist rhetoric emanating from Tea Parties. From homemade signage to racist email blasts, there has been plenty to condemn dating back to April of 2009. Much more often than not, this racist behavior has generally been met by Tea Party activists with either silence or denial.
The most notable example of this silence and denial is the complete lack of recognition that white supremacist groups increasingly view Tea Parties as rich recruiting grounds. The average Tea Partier may not be interested in joining a hate group, but hate groups have not been shy about their interest in the average Tea Partier. For over a year, racist groups have lurked on the periphery of the Tea Party scene seeking to exploit the fact that, as MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan recently noted with satisfaction, “For the first time in our lifetimes, outside the South, white racial consciousness has visibly begun to rise.”
Take, for example, the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC). The descendant of the pro-segregation Citizens Councils of the 1950s, the CCC is a proudly racist organization. Its literature and website on occasion still display its original motto: “States Rights. Racial Integrity.” Its newspaper and website trade loudly in crude racist tropes, inveigh against interracial marriage and immigration, and make common cause with far-right, virulently anti-immigrant political parties around the world.
Because the group is so blatantly racist, it is hard to imagine any movement that claims mainstream credibility—one representing the concerns of “everyday Americans”—having any tolerance for the CCC. One would expect such a respectable movement to chase the CCC out of its events. Its message of hate is, after all, at odds with the Tea Party’s professed inclusive message of deficit reduction and smaller government.
And yet, at a Tea Party attended by this reporter last January in Inverness, Fla., the CCC set up a prominent information booth from which it handed out literature for more than three hours. At no point did a single attendee of the rally, which featured a line-up of state-level GOP candidates and politicians, challenge the presence or ideology of the CCC. The following day, the organization had good reason to be pleased with its reception and deemed the event a success. According to the CCC blog, the organization’s representatives “passed out 2 boxes of THE CITIZENS INFORMER newspaper, and 250 Council business cards.” No arguments ensued.
The Inverness event was not the first time a Florida chapter of the CCC had worked a Tea Party event and later boasted of its easy reception. “[Council] receives warm welcome in Crystal River, Florida,” declared the CCC site following its presence at a Tea Party on Sept. 12, 2009. “Council members distributed 3 boxes of The Citizens Informer and applications,” the site explained without mentioning any conflict or opposition from the gathered.
Tolerating the presence of the Council of Conservative Citizens does not mean that everyone at these events is a racist. But the lack of opposition to the presence of CCC recruiters suggests that the NAACP is correct: the Tea Parties are, at best, far too tolerant of extremist groups in their midst. At worst, there is an unspoken ideological affinity. Whatever the case, the presence of the CCC highlights how explicitly racist hate groups like the CCC seek to exploit the Tea Party movement to expand their own white nationalist movement.
This strategy is no secret. Jamie Kelso of American Third Position (A3P), a white nationalist group that describes itself as “a political party for white Americans,” has even discussed its intricacies with Hatewatch. According to Kelso, groups like A3P and CCC work off the assumption of a symbiotic relationship between Tea Party groups that are “implicitly white” — defined as a group that has almost entirely white memberships but does not openly discuss race — and more marginal groups that openly discuss race and thus are “explicitly white.”
Early on, Kelso developed an upbeat take on the Tea Parties’ susceptibility to the white nationalist message. After a May 16, 2009, rally in Southern California, he wrote in a blog post: “Every time I yelled ‘We want our country back!’, I am sure that 99% of the 99% White crowd that responded so enthusiastically to that chant UNDERSTOOD that the ‘we’ and the ‘our’ in ‘we want our country back!’ was (and is) our White people. … I’m also sure that this army of Minutemen had some very good implicit (and explicit) understanding of WHO stole their country from them and their children.’”
“Everyone accepted our literature and we received enthusiastic responses from most takers,” an A3P organizer wrote of another event, adding, “It is crucial that we network at implicitly white activities such as Tea Parties and Euro festivals.”
The challenge, as Kelso sees it, is to get Tea Partiers to make the leap from attending a Tea Party event to joining a full-fledged hate group. That’s where the conversations and free literature come into play. “The word is bridge,” Kelso told Hatewatch. “I’m a bridger. That’s what I’ve been doing all along.”
The expulsion of Mark Williams was a good start to cleaning the Tea Party house. But it will be up to Tea Party leaders and activists to keep up the work. Unless the Tea Party leadership and grassroots begin to take much stronger—and regular—stands against haters who aim to recruit from, or infiltrate, their ranks, their denials of racism will ring even more hollow than they already do.
Former Wheaties Spokesman Said to Back Racist Party
originally posted by Larry Keller for Hatewatch | Southern Poverty Law Center [click here]
Jul 15th
There was a time when former Olympic athlete Bob Richards seemed the personification of the all-American man: A two-time gold medal winner in the pole vault, he was the first jock to appear on the front of boxes of Wheaties — “the breakfast of champions” — as well as the first spokesman for the cereal.
But for some, Richards is the all-American white gentile man. In a message posted on the website of the white supremacist American Third Position — the A3P — chairman William Daniel Johnson says that he met recently with Richards at the latter’s sprawling ranch west of Dallas. “Bob Richards has joined our cause,” Johnson proclaimed. Hatewatch’s calls to Richards’ ranch yesterday seeking comment were not returned.
That A3P’s cause is to “represent the political interests of White Americans,” according to its mission statement. The California-based organization hopes to unite disaffected racists and field candidates for political offices across the United States.
Whether A3P’s overwhelmingly young male members and sympathizers have even heard of or care about an octogenarian whose popularity waned decades ago remains to be seen.
The A3P became active in January and has recruited some of the leading lights of the contemporary radical right. One of its directors is Kevin MacDonald, a psychology professor at California State University, Long Beach, who has written a trilogy of anti-Semitic books. Another is James Edwards, host of the racist Tennessee radio program, “The Political Cesspool.” As for Johnson, the chairman, he’s a veteran white supremacist who has been cozy with Klansmen and neo-Nazis. The Los Angeles lawyer has advocated stripping the citizenship of and deporting millions of non-whites — indeed, anyone with a “discernible trace of Negro blood” — from America.
That Richards, 84, apparently is sympathetic to the A3P isn’t all that surprising, despite the squeaky clean image he enjoyed as a gold medal athlete (1952 and 1956), Wheaties icon, reverend in the conservative Church of the Brethren and motivational speaker. In 1984, he was the presidential candidate of the newly formed U.S. Populist Party created by Willis Carto, a racist, Holocaust-denying publisher. Richards and his running mate received 66,324 votes out of more than 92 million cast. The Populist Party’s presidential standard-bearer four years later, in 1988, was ex-Klansmen and anti-Semite David Duke; in 1992, it was onetime Green Beret James “Bo” Gritz, an antigovernment zealot who has fretted about gays, feminism and Jews. The Populist Party folded before it could field a candidate for the 1996 election.
Johnson says he wrote to Richards to tell him about the A3P and its plans to make a short video “on the decay of Western Civilization and what can be done to stop this decline.” He asked if Richards would consent to an interview for the video, which he said will be posted on the A3P website and on YouTube. Richards called him, Johnson said, and the men met at Richards’ ranch last Saturday.
Richards and his wife support Johnson’s goal of a pro-white political party, Johnson wrote. Near the end of a three-hour conversation, the men reportedly agreed that they would try to organize a forum at a “pro-free speech university” to be overseen by the League of Women Voters and sponsored by the A3P at which the importance of third political parties would be the topic. Johnson and Richards would speak about the A3P at the forum, Johnson said.
The plan calls for Richards to personally invite “heavy hitters” with third-party ties to the proposed event, including Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Bill Moyers, Alan Keyes, Colin Powell and Ron Paul. Just one problem, according to Johnson: While Richards “knows the heavy hitters … he does not have regular contact with them, so it will really be a cold call on his part. We must find the contact numbers for them.”
Johnson proposed that the forum be held six months from now. Richards’ response, according to Johnson: “Heck. Our country is dying. Six months is way too long. Let’s do it right away.”
The FAIR Files: Attacks On Multiculturalism Will Help
originally posted by Heidi Beirich for Hatewatch | Southern Poverty Law Center [click here]
Jul 14th
In 1991, Dan Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) sent a report to his board of directors under the subject line: “The Defenders of American culture Rise to the Call to Arms.” In the memo, which is archived at George Washington University’s Gelman Library, Stein, who was then FAIR’s executive director and today is the organization’s president, celebrated a new “disdain” in the media and among intellectuals for “the political agenda of those who openly attack the contributions of Western Civilization.” He was particularly happy that “multicultural and Politically Correct” school curricula had come under criticism.
Stein’s report expressed the hope that mounting criticism of multiculturalism would eventually lead to attacks on the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended years of racist immigration policy (under a national origins quota system heavily skewed against non-whites and even darker-skinned Europeans) and initiated a wave of non-white immigration to the U.S. For Stein, the 1965 Act was “a key mistake in national policy” and a “source of error.”
Stein is not the only key FAIR leader concerned that today’s immigrants are harmful to Western civilization. FAIR founder and board member John Tanton has repeatedly made the argument that a declining white population will end in American cultural ruin. In a Dec. 10, 1993, letter to Garrett Hardin, a controversial ecology professor, he said: “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.” On Jan. 26, 1996, he wrote Roy Beck, head of the immigration-restrictionist group NumbersUSA (and then an employee of Tanton’s foundation U.S. Inc.), questioning whether Latinos were capable of governing California. Referring to the changing demographics in California’s public schools, Tanton wondered “whether the minorities who are going to inherit California (85% of the lower-grade school children are now ‘minorities’ — demography is destiny) can run an advanced society?”
Tanton went so far as to propose creating a “League for European-American Defense, Education and Research” or, to use Tanton’s acronym, LEADERs. LEADERs would defend “ourselves and our tradition against attacks,” counter “the denigration of Western culture” which Tanton wrote is “under siege,” and stop the “reduction of the European-American demographic and cultural majority to minority status.”
The way back to that promised land, apparently, is to erase the legacy of the 1965 Act. As shown in Tanton’s correspondence, which is stored at the Bentley Historical Library at University of Michigan, the FAIR founder is a big fan of the Immigration Act of 1924, which kept the vast majority of non-whites from immigration to the U.S. In a Nov. 3, 1995, memo to Stein and the entire FAIR board of advisers, Tanton mocked the idea that the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese immigration to the U.S. and ultimately was subsumed into the 1924 Act, was racist. He also defended the infamous “White Australia” policy that restricted non-white immigration into that country from 1901 to 1973, saying it was not racist, but intended to protect native-born labor. The Australians disagreed, passing the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act to outlaw racially based immigration quotas in the island nation.
Tanton has long lionized a principal architect of the 1924 Act, John B. Trevor Sr., a man with a seriously unsavory past. In the pre-World War II period, Trevor distributed pro-Nazi propaganda, drew up plans to crush uprisings of “Jewish subversives,” and warned shrilly of “diabolical Jewish control” of America. In addition to founding the anti-immigrant American Coalition of Patriotic Societies, Trevor was an adviser to the extreme-right, anti-Catholic Christian Crusade of Billy James Hargis, who regularly referred to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as Communist documents.
No matter. Tanton has sent Trevor’s unpublished autobiography about his efforts to pass the 1924 Act to numerous friends, including, on Nov. 21, 2001, FAIR board member Donald Collins, who posts frequently on the racist website VDARE.com. In a cover letter, Tanton told Collins that the work of Trevor should serve FAIR as “a guidepost to what we must follow again this time.”
One FAIR principal who wasn’t as optimistic as Stein in believing that attacks on multiculturalism signaled the beginning of the end for the 1965 law was Otis Graham Jr., who helped Tanton establish FAIR and now serves on the board of the Center for Immigration Studies, which was once part of FAIR. In a letter dated “97-98” in the Gelman archives, Graham told the FAIR board: “[W]e must remember history. The first immigration reform movement grew out of the 1880s and thus took 40 years to achieve success. And even with much agitation and publication and many groups, the reform movement still needed outside, ‘divine’ help,” which Otis identified as a world war, the Russian Revolution, and labor unrest.
What disasters does Graham suggest it will take this time? “Whatever FAIR does, we need help: an economic downturn or depression, disease from abroad, terrorist attacks on the U.S., Chinese or Haitian boats on the beaches, and much more.” Bring on the apocalypse.
Hate Groups Donate to Arizona Law’s Defense
originally posted by Heidi Beirich for Hatewatch | Southern Poverty Law Center [click here]
Jul 13th
This morning, the white supremacist political party American Third Position (A3P) proudly announced its donation to the fund recently established by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to defend that state’s controversial new immigration law. “The American Third Position has just made a triple-digit donation to Arizona’s Border Security and Immigration Legal Defense Fund,” the group announced in an E-mail alert. In describing its own mission, A3P says it “exists to represent the political interests of White Americans.”
The statute that Brewer signed into law in April, commonly known as SB 1070, is a harsh anti-immigration ordinance that would make the failure of non-citizens to carry immigration documents a crime and that obligates police to check the immigration status of those people they come into lawful contact with if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are undocumented immigrants. Last week, the Department of Justice announced that it would sue Arizona to block the law, saying it would encourage illegal racial profiling and also interfere with federal control over immigration policy. The new defense fund, which will help cover the state’s legal fees in the DOJ lawsuit, already has collected nearly $1 million, according to Brewer’s Facebook page.
Brewer claims SB 1070 will not target persons based on their skin color. But A3P begs to differ, seeing SB 1070 as a tool for the reinstatement of white political control. “We support all constructive endeavors by private citizens, businesses, local governments — or in this case a sovereign state — to stem and reverse the browning of America,” the A3P’s E-mail said. “Arizona’s enforcement statute represents the best current opportunity to reduce [brown-skinned immigration]. From its inception, A3P has been disseminating the nightmarish facts regarding the financial, social and demographic consequences of the unprecedented invasion from the south.”
The defense fund is also being pushed on Stormfront.org, the largest and oldest white nationalist forum on the Web. Under the headline “Jan Brewer Sets Up SB1070 Defense Fund,” “Adolf Hitlist” admonishes his fellow extremists, “Money where your mouth is time!”
Adolf’s fellow forum users have responded enthusiastically to his call for donations. “I’m going to send them 50 fat bucks,” writes “Mishko Novosel.” “[T]his might encourage Arizona to leave the Union, and this is why I’ll back them because something good will come of this.” “Axeman” celebrated the fund’s rapid increase: “Wow! At 1:30pm yesterday, AZ’s defense fund was roughly $163k, at 9am this morning it was $363k. Keep it up!” “KuKluxKlan—SoCal” chimed in with, “Donated.”
It’s not surprising that these racists and extremists are enthusiastic about SB 1070. After all, the law originated with the hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform, whose founder John Tanton has written, “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.” That is exactly what A3P believes.
White Nationalist Website VDARE in Trouble, Loses Big Funder
Apr 16th
The white nationalist website VDARE.com is in financial trouble — and its founder says that more mainstream anti-immigration groups may be responsible.
“If VDARE.com is to survive [the] latest threat, it must have your help now,” writes the website’s founder, Peter Brimelow, in a lengthy letter published on its homepage.
The latest threat, according to Brimelow, is that a big benefactor recently cut off funding for the website, which regularly publishes articles by white supremacists and anti-Semites. The “major foundation,” which Brimelow doesn’t name, helped finance the website since its inception in 1999. “ We’ve lost close to a third of our budget and we’ve been plunged into an immediate cash crisis,” writes Brimelow, a leading anti-immigration activist and author of the best-selling Alien Nation. “Of course, I’m still trying to find out what happened. One explanation I’ve been given is that the Washington D.C. ‘Beltway immigration reform groups’ lobbied against us, claiming that they would be tainted through guilt by association if our donor gave to us as well as them, because of our willingness to take risks and push the Political Correctness envelope.” (Brimelow doesn’t identify the “Beltway immigration reform groups,” but an April 7 VDARE.com column by Alexander Hart states that the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA are the “best-funded and most visible Beltway organizations in the patriotic immigration reform movement.” The SPLC identifies FAIR as a hate group because of its ties to white supremacists.)
Though Brimelow has denied that VDARE.com is white nationalist, his site features articles by extremists such as Jared Taylor, editor of the racist American Renaissance magazine; Kevin MacDonald, a psychology professor at the California State University, Long Beach, who argues that Jews are genetically driven to undermine the power of whites; and the late Sam Francis, who edited the newspaper of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens. Brimelow says he heard that the “Beltway immigration reform groups” especially objected to VDARE.com columnist and blogger Steve Sailer, who founded a neo-eugenics organization called the Human Biodiversity Institute. In a Feb. 7 column, Sailer wrote that murder “is for whites, and for anyone else who gets in the way of minorities that are clearly systematically prone to criminality.” He has repeatedly blamed the 2008 economic crash on a government push for minority home ownership. In a March 8 column complaining about Jewish support for immigration, he asserted that “American Jews should realize that, like the Protestant elite of yore, their privileged position as a de facto leadership caste bestows upon themselves corresponding duties to conserve the long-term well-being of the United States — rather than to indulge in personal and ethnic profit and power maximization.”
Brimelow, formerly a mainstream journalist at Forbes magazine and the National Review, explains that “supporting Steve is one of our main expenses” and laments that, “if VDARE.com fails, Steve Sailer will have no other outlets for his path-breaking work.” He also emphasizes the importance of paying VDARE.com’s other contributors, saying it’s critical to the website’s long-term health. Because operating expenses are low, he writes, “Essentially everything you give goes to pay writers and editors.”
Actually, quite a lot goes to paying Brimelow, who chairs the board of directors of the Connecticut-based VDARE Foundation, which manages the website. In 2007, Brimelow received $378,418, which accounted for nearly three-quarters of the foundation’s expenses. (Just $134,000 went toward paying freelance writers.) In 2006, Brimelow got $205,000; John Brimelow, Peter’s brother and fellow board member, was paid $45,020. That year, the compensation for both Brimelows amounted to more than half the foundation’s spending.
But VDARE.com wasn’t as personally lucrative for Brimelow in 2008, the last year for which tax forms are available. He received $115,000 — just over a quarter of the foundation’s spending for the year. Most of the remaining expenses consisted of fees paid to independent contractors.
Center for Immigration Studies vs. The Truth
Apr 6th
On a recent public radio program in Wisconsin, Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies was confronted about his controversial organization by a local organizer.
Rather than address the concerns being raised, Camarota instead implied that the organizer had a “deep hatred of American workers.”
For more information on CIS go here, here, here or here.
Anti-Immigration Group Calls Immigrants ‘Third-World Gold Diggers’
originally posted by Imagine 2050 Editors for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Mar 20th
This post by Erin Rosa at Campus Progress describes the agenda of anti-immigrant groups that are attempting to disparage civil rights organizations.
Embattled by numerous reports of its ties to white nationalists, The Center For Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington D.C.-based think thank that strongly opposes immigration reform, lashed out today against advocacy groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the National Council of La Raza for participating in “smear” attacks and “manipulating the press” on the immigration issue.
But in the end, it was CIS executive director Mark Krikorian who justified his own smears, defending his groups’ labeling of immigrants as “third-world gold diggers” by calling such rhetoric “colorful language that was too colorful.”
The CIS event, held this morning in Washington, was organized to premiere CIS’s newest report, “Immigration and the SPLC,” a quasi-investigative look at the watchdog group’s research and financial records.
It’s no secret why CIS had dedicated a 27-page report to disparage the SPLC and other entities like the NCLR, a Latino advocacy organization. Both of the targeted organizations have been steadfastly producing research that ties the Center and other anti-immigration groups to white nationalism and racist rhetoric.
But rather than actually responding to anything said about CIS, the report focuses on times when SPLC allegedly took quotes from other anti-immigration groups out of context. The report also blames the media for being too “cooperative” when citing SPLC, and questions the objectivity of the watchdog group for working with pro-immigration groups like the NCLR.
In an effort to get to the bottom of some of these claims, I asked Krikorian a question, about an instance, cited by SPLC, where one of CIS’s reports (no longer on the Web site) referred to immigrants as “third-world gold diggers.”
To read the article in its entirety, click here.
Anti-Immigration Group Calls Immigrants ‘Third-World Gold Diggers’
originally posted by Imagine 2050 Editors for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Mar 20th
This post by Erin Rosa at Campus Progress describes the agenda of anti-immigrant groups that are attempting to disparage civil rights organizations.
Embattled by numerous reports of its ties to white nationalists, The Center For Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington D.C.-based think thank that strongly opposes immigration reform, lashed out today against advocacy groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the National Council of La Raza for participating in “smear” attacks and “manipulating the press” on the immigration issue.
But in the end, it was CIS executive director Mark Krikorian who justified his own smears, defending his groups’ labeling of immigrants as “third-world gold diggers” by calling such rhetoric “colorful language that was too colorful.”
The CIS event, held this morning in Washington, was organized to premiere CIS’s newest report, “Immigration and the SPLC,” a quasi-investigative look at the watchdog group’s research and financial records.
It’s no secret why CIS had dedicated a 27-page report to disparage the SPLC and other entities like the NCLR, a Latino advocacy organization. Both of the targeted organizations have been steadfastly producing research that ties the Center and other anti-immigration groups to white nationalism and racist rhetoric.
But rather than actually responding to anything said about CIS, the report focuses on times when SPLC allegedly took quotes from other anti-immigration groups out of context. The report also blames the media for being too “cooperative” when citing SPLC, and questions the objectivity of the watchdog group for working with pro-immigration groups like the NCLR.
In an effort to get to the bottom of some of these claims, I asked Krikorian a question, about an instance, cited by SPLC, where one of CIS’s reports (no longer on the Web site) referred to immigrants as “third-world gold diggers.”
To read the article in its entirety, click here.
The Implied Bigotry of NumbersUSA
originally posted by Jill Garvey for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Mar 17th
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.
Peter Brimelow Starts New Anti-immigrant/White Nationalist Website
originally posted by Stephen Piggott for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Mar 4th
Peter Brimelow
On March 1, a new white nationalist online magazine, AlternativeRight.com was launched. Peter Brimelow announced the move at VDARE.com where he stated that “Alternative Right is currently a project of the VDARE Foundation and donations are tax-deductible.”
This marks an attempt to forge a new right-wing publication that is a direct challenge to the more intellectual magazines out there such as the anti-Semitic Occidental Dissent, white nationalist Chronicles, and The American Conservative, a magazine founded by white nationalists.
AlternativeRight.com’s ‘about us’ page states that it is “an online magazine of radical traditionalism.” The website features blogs, videos, radio interviews, the magazine itself, and even an online store. It is obvious that the website’s content is weightier and more academic than VDARE or Chronicles.
When you look at the list of senior editors, there are some very interesting names that stick out. Richard B. Spencer, the executive editor, has previously written for The American Conservative and The American Spectator, he recently left Takimag, a publication run by former Chronicles contributing editor Taki Theodoracopulos.
Peter Brimelow and Paul Gottfried, AlternativeRight.com’s senior contributing editors, have strong connections to white nationalist and anti-immigrant groups. Brimelow is the founder of VDARE the white nationalist website that is named for Virginia Dare, allegedly the first white child born in the United States. VDARE received funding in 2008 from John Tanton, the founder of the modern day anti-immigrant movement. Brimelow also writes for Marketwatch, a financial website where he recently collaborated with Edwin S. Rubenstein, a fellow VDARE contributor. Gottfried is a regular contributor to The Social Contract a quarterly journal published by John Tanton. He is also president of the H.L. Mencken Club and a regular speaker at American Renaissance conferences.
The contributing editors of AlternativeRight.com also have strong ties to white nationalist and anti-immigrant groups. Richard Hoste is an author for the white nationalist journal, The Occidental Quarterly. Srdja Trifkovic is a regular contributor and Center for International Affairs and foreign-affairs editor to the white nationalist publication Chronicles. Derek Turner is a contributor to The Social Contract and attended the 2006 American Renaissance Conference. Robert Weissberg is a contributing editor for Family Secure Matters and attended the 2000 American Renaissance Conference. Christian Kopff has written for both The Occidental Quarterly and The Social Contract. Thomas E. Woods Jr. is a contributing editor for The American Conservative.
Greg Johnson, over at the The Occidental Quarterly Online, praised Richard Spencer for launching the site and gives us some hints as to what to expect from the website in the future. He states,
“Hoste’s article “Why an Alternative Right is Necessary” indicates that acknowledgment of Human Biodiversity (biological race and sex differences) have an important and secure place at Alternative Right. Steve Sailer’s article on “The Dispossessed Elite” indicates that Alternative Right will broach the Jewish question (having resolved my questions, I prefer to call it the Jewish problem). These are important advances on Taki’s Magazine (which, by the way, I still read regularly and enjoy).
The presence of articles by Robert Weissberg and Paul Gottfried indicates that Alternative Right is not a clone of TOQ or The Occidental Observer. (Not that anybody expected that, although some might applaud it.) But that is fine with me. It is more important to have a forum where our ideas interface with the mainstream that to have another Occidental something-or-other.com.”
Richard Hoste’s article on AlternativeRight titled “Why an Alternative Right Is Necessary” gives an indication as to why Brimelow decided to create this new publication. In the article, Hoste bashes Dick Cheney, who won the “Conservative of the Year” award from Human Events in 2009. Hoste argues “My point here isn’t to argue that the former vice-president is wrong when he advocates torture of Al-Qaida leaders, though I believe he is. It’s to show how intellectually hollow the modern day conservative movement is.”
With the amount of editors that have strong connections to anti-immigrant groups, we are bound to see lots of anti-immigrant articles on this magazine. Hoste’s article also gives us an indication of that when he states “For example, low-IQ Mexican immigration is the greatest threat to America.” Hoste’s article also has some disgusting examples of white nationalism, for example when he states “And not only do whites have nothing to feel guilty about, they are the best thing to ever happen to blacks.”
After reading the new SPLC report which indicated that there are now nearly 1000 hate groups in the United States and that anti-immigrant groups have risen by almost 80% in the past year, it is not surprising that websites such as AlternativeRight.com are forming.