Posts Tagged ‘john tanton’
 
December 26, 2012 1

New “Environmentalist” Book, Life on the Brink, Features Anti-Immigrant Writers

Phil Cafaro

Life on the Brink: Envi­ron­men­tal­ists Con­front Over­pop­u­la­tion, a book released in Decem­ber 2012, fea­tures essay­ists that have strong ties to the anti-immigrant move­ment, a detail that is miss­ing from the authors’ bios.

Phil Cafaro, pres­i­dent of the DC-based anti-immigrant group Pro­gres­sives for Immi­gra­tion Reform (PFIR), and Eileen Crist, an envi­ron­men­tal sci­ences pro­fes­sor at Vir­ginia Tech, co-edited the book. It con­tains many essays that argue for reduc­ing immi­gra­tion for envi­ron­men­tal rea­sons. This argu­ment is one of the key themes pro­moted by the anti-immigrant move­ment in the United States.

Essay­ists in the book include:

Phil Cafaro – co-editor of the book and pres­i­dent of PFIR. Cafaro is a for­mer fel­low for the DC-based anti-immigrant group Cen­ter for Immi­gra­tion Stud­ies (CIS). In 2010, Cafaro wrote two blogs for the Vir­ginia based anti-immigrant group Num­ber­sUSA.

Al Bartlett – a Uni­ver­sity of Col­orado emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor and friend of John Tan­ton, the racist founder of the mod­ern day anti-immigrant move­ment. To date, Bartlett has pub­lished ten arti­cles, dat­ing back to 1995, in Tanton’s quar­terly jour­nal, The Social Con­tract (TSC). TSC has pub­lished the writ­ings of known white suprema­cists such as Sam Fran­cis and Jared Tay­lor.

Don Wee­den –head of the Wee­den Foun­da­tion, a group that has donated hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars to anti-immigrant groups through­out the years. Wee­den is also an “inde­pen­dent advi­sor” for Num­ber­sUSA. CIS has invited Wee­den to speak on many panel dis­cus­sions orga­nized by the group over the years.

Leon Kolankiewicz – a senior writ­ing fel­low for the Santa Barbara-based anti-immigrant group Cal­i­for­ni­ans for Pop­u­la­tion Sta­bi­liza­tion (CAPS). Over a half dozen arti­cles by Kolankiewicz appear in issues of TSC, dat­ing back to 2001. He has pub­lished numer­ous reports for both CIS and Num­ber­sUSA in the past. Kolankiewicz sits on the advi­sory boards of CAPS and PFIR and is also the for­mer vice-president of the anti-immigrant group Car­ry­ing Capac­ity Net­work, based in San Francisco.

Richard Lamm– the for­mer gov­er­nor of Col­orado and a for­mer mem­ber of Fed­er­a­tion for Amer­i­can Immi­gra­tion (FAIR)’s board. He cur­rently sits on   FAIR’s advi­sory board as well as the advi­sory boards of CAPS and PFIR. Lamm also co-edited a report for CIS in 2001 and is pub­lished in two issues of TSC. He is also a close friend of Tanton’s.

William Ryer­son – for­mer pres­i­dent of PFIR and for­mer advi­sory board mem­ber of CAPS. He cur­rently heads two pop­u­la­tion aware­ness groups, the Vermont-based Pop­u­la­tion Media Cen­ter and the DC-based Pop­u­la­tion Insti­tute. Ryer­son is also a con­trib­u­tor to TSC.

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November 20, 2012 1

Anti-Immigrant Group Circulates Blog From White Supremacist In Weekly Email

On Novem­ber 16, 2012, the DC-based anti-immigrant group Cen­ter for Immi­gra­tion Stud­ies (CIS) cir­cu­lated a blog post writ­ten by white suprema­cist Vir­ginia Aber­nethy to the group’s sup­port­ers as part of its weekly email con­tain­ing immi­gra­tion opin­ion pieces. The source of the Aber­nethy arti­cle was VDARE, a racist web­site known for pub­lish­ing the works of anti-Semites and white suprema­cists.  CIS reg­u­larly cir­cu­lates arti­cles from VDARE in its weekly email, but includ­ing an arti­cle from a well-known white suprema­cist is new for the group.

Abernethy’s arti­cle crit­i­cized GOP strate­gist Karl Rove for his views on immi­gra­tion, with Aber­nethy argu­ing that Rove and “those who advo­cate con­tin­ued mass immi­gra­tion choose the path of national suicide.”

Aber­nethy is closely tied to the anti-immigrant move­ment in the United States. She sits on the board of the anti-immigrant groups Population-Environment Bal­ance and the Car­ry­ing Capac­ity Net­work. In 2004 Aber­nethy became the chair of the national advi­sory board of the group Pro­tect Ari­zona Now (PAN), a group set up to help pass Propo­si­tion 200, an anti-immigrant bal­lot ini­tia­tive seek­ing to limit undoc­u­mented immi­grants’ access to pub­lic ben­e­fits and to require proof of cit­i­zen­ship to reg­is­ter to vote. Aber­nethy also pub­lished an arti­cle in the spring 1998 edi­tion of The Social Con­tract (TSC), an anti-immigrant jour­nal founded by racist John Tan­ton.

Abernethy’s white suprema­cist views and ties to white suprema­cist orga­ni­za­tions are well known. In the 2012 Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, Aber­nethy ran as a vice-presidential can­di­date for the white suprema­cist polit­i­cal party, Amer­i­can Third Posi­tion (A3P). Aber­nethy serves on the edi­to­r­ial advi­sory board of the white suprema­cist pub­li­ca­tion Occi­den­tal Quar­terly, edited by anti-Semitic pro­fes­sor Kevin Mac­Don­ald.  Aber­nethy has also addressed a white suprema­cist orga­ni­za­tion, the Coun­cil of Con­ser­v­a­tive Cit­i­zens (CofCC), on a num­ber of occa­sions. She has referred to her­self as an “eth­nic sep­a­ratist.” In a 2012 inter­view with The Ten­nessean, Aber­nethy stated, “Sep­a­ratism says, ‘Birds of a feather flock together.’ I say, ‘Let them.’ What I see is ram­pant racial dis­crim­i­na­tion against European-Americans. And I am not in favor of discrimination.”

CIS attempts to dis­tance itself from accu­sa­tions of racism and big­otry.  This week, how­ever, it pro­moted the writ­ings of a white supremacist.

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November 9, 2012 0

ProEnglish Recruits Controversial Signatories for Letter to House and Senate Leadership

The Virginia-based anti-immigrant group Pro­Eng­lish, founded by racist John Tan­ton, recently sent a letter to the lead­er­ship of the U.S. House and Sen­ate on the issue of Puerto Rican state­hood, which  fea­tured a num­ber of con­tro­ver­sial anti-immigrant activists as sig­na­to­ries. The coali­tion of 21 sig­na­to­ries included John Vin­son, of the Virginia-based anti-immigrant group Amer­i­cans for Immi­gra­tion Con­trol (AIC), Rick Olt­man, for­merly of the DC-based anti-immigrant group Federa­tion for Amer­i­can Immi­gra­tion Reform (FAIR), and Phil Kent, a Pro­Eng­lish board mem­ber. The let­ter they signed calls on the House and Sen­ate lead­er­ship to “include spe­cific Eng­lish lan­guage require­ments in any leg­is­la­tion to admit Puerto Rico as the 51st State.” Vot­ers in Puerto Rico voted on Novem­ber 6 in favor of becom­ing a U.S. state, in a non-binding referendum.

Phil Kent is a long­time anti-immigrant activist based in Geor­gia who once sug­gested that cit­i­zens should be wary of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, stat­ing, “What will be the val­ues and ideas of a mul­ti­cul­tural Amer­ica? What will it mean to be white after ‘white­ness’ no longer defines the cul­tural main­stream?” Kent also spoke at the 2009 Social Con­tract Press Writ­ers Work­shop, a group founded by Tan­ton. The work­shop is held annu­ally and often fea­tures racist speak­ers, includ­ing Peter Brimelow, the founder of the anti-immigrant web­site VDARE.

Rick Olt­man, a for­mer FAIR employee, addressed the 1997 con­fer­ence of the white suprema­cist group Coun­cil of Con­ser­v­a­tive Cit­i­zens (CofCC). When Olt­man spoke at an anti-immigrant rally in 1998 in Cull­man, Alabama, an ad for the rally pub­lished in the Spring 1998 edi­tion of CofCC’s newslet­ter, the Coun­cil Reporter, described Olt­man as a “mem­ber” of the orga­ni­za­tion. Olt­man also has had six arti­cles pub­lished in The Social Con­tract (TSC), an anti-immigrant jour­nal, pub­lished by Tanton’s Social Con­tract Press.

John Vin­son, the pres­i­dent of AIC, also has ties to CofCC.  Like Olt­man, Vin­son spoke at a CofCC con­fer­ence (in 1999) and has had many arti­cles pub­lished in TSC. In fact, Vin­son guest edited the sum­mer 1998 edi­tion of TSC titled, “Euro­pho­bia: The Hos­til­ity Toward European-Descended Amer­i­cans.” The issue fea­tured a num­ber of arti­cles writ­ten by white suprema­cists, such as Jared Tay­lor and Sam Francis.

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