Ron Paul Opens Michigan Office; Progressives Shouldn’t Be Fooled

Blogging for Michigan has reported that Ron Paul–a candidate for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination–has opened a new Michigan office in Flint. The Flint office will be joined by a Detroit office on Saturday. This comes on top Paul’s breaking his own fundraising record set back in November, raising almost $6 million in 24 hours earlier this month.

Perhaps more than any other candidate, Ron Paul has generated considerable excitement on the Internet. Paul’s supporters and many election observers have attributed this to Paul’s opposition to the Iraq War. Indeed, Paul has made opposition to the Iraq War a central aspect of his campaign. Unlike the majority of the Democratic Party candidates claiming to be “antiwar“, Paul voted against the war in 2002 and states clearly on his website:

“The war in Iraq was sold to us with false information. The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it. We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies, the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them. This war has cost more than 3,000 American lives, thousands of seriously wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Moreover, Paul’s supporters have actively mobilized at recent antiwar protests, notably at the regional antiwar march held in October in Chigao where the Paul campaign had a large presence.

Due in large part to his opposition to the Iraq War as well as the fact that he is seen as “outside the system” in many ways because of his willingness to take stands without regard to their political consequences-unlike the scripted actions of the majority of the major party candidates-Paul has gotten some support from both the antiwar movement and the larger progressive and left movements. Joshua Frank, an editor of Dissident Voice, typifies this left-leaning support of Paul, arguing in “An Open Letter to the Antiwar Left” that the left should make common cause with Paul and support him due to his position against the war. Frank argues that Paul’s success in fundraising-now with millions in his campaign fund-would be an invaluable asset to the antiwar left.

However, supporting Paul would come at a price for the antiwar movement-Paul’s grassroots populism is reactionary and largely antithetical to the values and goals of the left. While Frank does acknowledge this, stating, “whether we agree or disagree with Paul’s libertarian solution to every problem, we cannot disregard that his campaign is exploding owing to a broad coalition of people who oppose the war on terror.” He minimizes the extent to which Paul’s political goals are most certainly not of the left. Unfortunately, Frank is not the only one doing this-the so-called progressives and leftists that are supporting Paul because of his antiwar stance have failed to look deeper into Paul’s politics.

On trade, progressives might see more to like in Paul, as he calls for the United States to “withdraw from any organizations and trade deals that infringe upon the freedom and independence of the United States of America” including neoliberal trade agreements from CAFTA to the WTO arguing that they “transfer power from our government to unelected foreign elites.” Progressives might not agree with his opposition to the United Nations or the International Criminal Court (ICC), but his opposition to neoliberal trade agreements is refreshing. He also opposes the USA PATRIOT Act, a position taken by many progressives.

However, looking at other issues makes Paul a very unappealing candidate. On immigration, Paul advocates a militarized border, arguing, “we must do whatever it takes to control entry into our country” before any discussion of immigration reform is considered. He further opposes any form of “welfare”-from healthcare to education-for “illegal aliens” and calls for an end to “birthright citizenship.”

Paul also calls for significant reductions in taxes, which would apparently be paid for by cutting spending-most likely social services. He supports strong support for home schools. Similarly, he calls for a more competitive health care system and seeks less government intervention in health-related matters. So-called free market solutions would also be applied to the environment with Paul arguing that polluters would not pollute because it would not make financial sense under such a system. Finally, on abortion, Paul is pro-life and supports legislation defining life as beginning at conception and negating the effects of Roe vs. Wade.

Paul’s views on “racism” are equally disturbing. Paul argues that racism stems from society’s hostility towards individualism and that it originates from “bigotry”–a “problem of the heart”-which “we cannot change… by passing more laws and regulations.” He states that:

“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than as individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism.

The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence – not skin color, gender, or ethnicity.”

The idea that free-market capitalism is the solution to racism ignores the history and reality of racism in the United States, but it’s typical of the solutions that Paul offers on a host of issues. He is essentially arguing that people of oppressed groups must pull themselves up by their bootstraps-as the saying goes-and succeed regardless of their skin color. In a racist society, that simply will not work (and has not in the past).

Further complicating Paul’s views on race are his associations with the racist right. Paul’s campaign has been endorsed by a variety of white supremacists involved with Stormfront.org and the National Alliance. Some have actively organized support for Ron Paul’s candidacy, while Don Black, the founder of the white supremacist Stormfront.org, has donated $500 to the Ron Paul campaign which the campaign has refused to return. Recently, a photograph surfaced showing Ron Paul with Stormfront.org founder Don Black:

While Paul cannot control who endorses his campaign, racist quotes attributed to Paul have circulated for some years and make the involvement of white supremacists even more troublesome. In a 1992 Ron Paul newsletter, an article attributed to Paul contained the following quotes:

“…our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists — and they can be identified by the color of their skin.”

“Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action…. Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the “criminal justice system,” I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”

“We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.”

In a 1996 article in the Houston Chronicle, Paul was also quoted saying:

“We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.”

“If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.”

Paul has attempted deny the quotes, stating:

“They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn’t come from me directly, but they campaign aides said that’s too confusing. ‘It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.’”

Unfortunately, Paul has failed to respond to the other connections to white supremacy in his campaign. For this reason, and his political positions, it should be clear that Paul is no friend of the antiwar, progressive, or left movements in this country. To be sure, we should take his candidacy seriously and attempt to understand the reasons for his popularity, but we must not embrace his reactionary candidacy. Instead, we should counter his appeal by offering progressive/left solutions to the issues on which Paul’s positions are appealing.

Tags: elections2008, michigan, racists, republicans, rightwing

Ford Media Coverage Redux

Two prominent West Michigan media outlets–the Grand Rapids Press and WOOD TV 8–ran stories on the 26th commemorating the one-year anniversary of President Gerald R. Ford’s death. As with the media’s coverage last year, the stories featured relatively little about what Ford actually did as President or as a member of Congress. Instead, they focus on Ford as a person; the Press recalls Ford’s “blunt honesty” and WOOD TV 8 focused on an increase in attendance at the Ford Museum in downtown Grand Rapids, relating that story to people who were personally touched by Ford. One of their bloggers asserts that pundits have said that “what this country needs is another thoroughly decent man like Jerry Ford to be president again.” As if this praise was not enough, WOOD TV 8 plans to run a retrospective of the Ford funeral on Sunday.

As a counter to these stories, folks might want to read two pieces published by Media Mouse last year:

Sanitizing the Death of Ford, What the Media Isn’t Telling Us

Independent Press Offers Alternative Views of President Gerald R. Ford

These two pieces contain a wealth of material–from Ford’s “green light” for the East Timor genocide and opposition to busing as a means of ending segregation–that you likely won’t find in the local media’s commemorations of Ford’s death.

Tags: grand rapids, history, media, michigan

Student Group Hosting Racist Speaker at MSU

The Michigan State University (MSU) chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) has announced that it will be hosting a lecture by Jared Taylor in March. Taylor, who is not particularly well-known in the mainstream, is a prominent racist who’s New Century Foundation and American Renaissance publication are devoted to pursuing “scientific” justifications for racism.

If Jared Taylor’s speech happens as planned on March 19, 2008, it will be at least the second time that Taylor has spoken in Michigan. In August, Taylor spoke at a meeting organized by the Michigan chapter of the racist Council of Conservative Citizens. It is also the second time in recent months that MSU-YAF has booked an overtly racist speaker. In October, the group hosted British racist and fascist Nick Griffin whose speech was attended by at least three racist activists. In the past, MSU-YAF has brought speakers who hold what can ultimately be considered racist views–such as Chris Simcox of the Minutemen and Congressman Tom Tancredo–but it is only recently that they have begun to bring speakers that are overtly racist.

While Jared Taylor, and to a lesser extent Nick Griffin, can attempt-however unsuccessfully-to mask their racism by using academic language or casting themselves as “racialists” or “separatists,” MSU-YAF is no doubt aware of their views and the fact that they are racists. Instead of admitting this, in their description of the event YAF emphasizes that Taylor will speak on “multiculturalism” and how it “poses as a threat to Western civilization.” Like the racism of the Council of Conservative Citizens and other racist groups that attempt to work within the “mainstream,” these are just code words aimed at masking their racism.

While Taylor regularly attacks “multiculturalism” and espouses racist beliefs, he has shunned the more crass forms of white supremacy. He has rejected Nazism and anti-Semitism, arguing that there is room for Jewish people in the white nationalist movement. Despite this, Taylor has not shied away from associating with a broad cross-section of the racist movement. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Taylor’s writing was published in 1992 in a journal associated with the British National Party and has also been published by the Holocaust denial Journal of Historical Review. He also spoke at the 1995 conference of the Populist Party (which ran David Duke as its presidential candidate in 1988) along with Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis. The founder of the racist Stormfront online community Don Black has also reportedly visited Taylor’s home.

Taylor’s New Century Foundation was founded in 1994 “to study immigration and race relations so as to better understand the consequences of America’s increasing diversity.” It funds the publications of books and hosts an annual conference that has been attended by members of racist groups including the Council of Conservative Citizens and the National Alliance. It is also the principle force behind the American Renaissance a monthly newspaper and website maintained by Taylor. American Renaissance summarizes its beliefs:

“Race is an important aspect of individual and group identity. Of all the fault lines that divide society-language, religion, class, ideology-it is the most prominent and divisive. Race and racial conflict are at the heart of the most serious challenges the Western World faces in the 21st century.

The problems of race cannot be solved without adequate understanding. Attempts to gloss over the significance of race or even to deny its reality only make problems worse. Progress requires the study of all aspects of race, whether historical, cultural, or biological.”

In practical terms, this has meant white supremacy, albeit of a more “sophisticated” variety than that practiced by the Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazi groups. American Renaissance uses “facts” and so-called “scientific studies” to come to its racist conclusions, avoiding the more crass racial stereotypes founded elsewhere in the racist movement. In this way, Taylor’s racism appears more “credible,” although anyone giving more than a cursory thought to its publications can spot the undeniable racism. At any given time, their website features a number of articles reprinted–and often selectively excerpted–to allegedly prove that people of color have higher instances of crime and disease and that people should therefore be separated by race. For example, today there were reprinted articles asserting that Whites are better at surviving cancer than other races, that immigrants are ruining the Midwest, and that black students are suspended at a far greater rate than white students (thereby “supporting” the idea that blacks are inherently criminal). The website features-written by Taylor himself-denunciations of the “barbaric behavior” of New Orleans’ black population after Hurricane Katrina and culminating in the assertion that “When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization-any kind of civilization-disappears,” that Rosa Parks was an inconsequential figure and that “the adulation of Rosa Parks is just another chapter in the lemming-like rush to destruction whites everywhere appear to have joined,” and that the Jena 6 case is a “fraud.”

There are also “Reports” that claim to be impartial statistical evaluations of crime amongst populations of color. This includes a report titled “Hispanics: A Statistical Portrait” that claims that “Hispanics” are poorer than whites, commit more crimes, are less intelligent, and lack allegiance to the United States. The report cites a number of sources, including government sources, Wikipedia, and the far right anti-immigration group FAIR. The site also makes available for free “The Color of Crime: Race, Crime, and Justice” a report that concludes African-Americans are more likely to commit crimes than whites. While the report asserts that it “takes no position on causes of group differences in crime rates,” it asserts, “the ones that are most commonly proposed-poverty, unemployment, lack of education-are not satisfactory.” It gives little proof for this and completely ignores the existence of racism and institutional racism in the United States. The anti-racists One People’s Project criticizes Taylor for “selection bias,” arguing that he focused only on race. Also for sale are various other publications, including Taylor’s Paved with Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America which according to the Southern Poverty Law Center endorsing a biological conception of race and racial hierarchy. It has published authors active in the white supremacist movement, often those who are active in its more “mainstream” or “academic” wings. For example, American Renaissance has published items by Arthur Jensen, Michael Levin, and Philippe Rushton–all of whom have received funding from the racist Pioneer Fund. Residents of Michigan might be particularly interested in American Renaissance’s coverage of a few issues pertaining to Michigan, notably Proposal 2. In its January 2007 issue, American Renaissance supported eliminating affirmative action in Michigan but criticized the failure of whites to take their “survival” into “their own hands” by letting the movement be led by the African-American Ward Connerly. In 1991, American Renaissance ran a feature on Detroit declaring that “black rule has not been a success” for the city and blaming Detroit’s problems entirely on the percentage of African-Americans living in the city.

American Renaissance is a project of a registered non-profit organization headed by Jared Taylor called the New Century Foundation. In its IRS filing, the New Century Foundation’s trustees were listed as Samuel Francis (a now deceased former editor of the Council of Conservative Citizens’ newspaper), George Resch, Wayne Lutton of Petoskey, Michigan (runs The Social Contract Press a racist publishing house and is associated with the Council of Conservative Citizens), and C. Hubert Kennedy. Taylor’s New Century Foundation has $502,045 in assets according to its 2006. In that same filing, it says it spent $42,905 on a “newsletter read by approximately 6,000 people” along with the sale of educational books and tapes to 2,000 people, spent $40,000 on its website “visited by at least 100,000″ people each month, and spent $17,260 on its conference attended by 300 people. Additionally, it awarded a $5,000 grant to the Charles Martel Society for the publication of Race and the American Prospect by Samuel Francis, a former trustee of the Foundation and associate of the Council of Conservative Citizens. In 2005, its form said, “all recipients of grants must be personally known to the president and trustees of the New Century Foundation.”

Jared Taylor is on the board of the Charles Martel Society, along with others who are involved in the racist right including Sam G. Dickson (a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens), the Petoskey, Michigan-based Wayne Lutton who is involved with the Social Contract Press and the Council of Conservative Citizens, George McDaniel, and Kevin Lamb. The Charles Martel Society’s primary project is publishing The Occidental Quarterly; a journal that has published articles defending eugenics and devoted to the idea that “race informs culture.” Like American Renaissance, it attempts to articulate a scientific argument in support of racism. Its editorial board includes the Council of Conservative Citizens, the anti-Semitic author member of the Council of Conservative Citizens and advisor to the American Immigration Control Foundation.

In 2005, the Charles Martel Society gave $389,944 to the National Policy Institute of Augusta, Georgia, which is a prominent “academic” racist group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In the past, its board has overlapped with the Charles Martel Society and its board has included Jared Taylor according to a 2005 IRS filing. Taylor is also listed on the National Policy Institute’s website as a member of its board of directors. The National Policy Institute “promotes the American majority’s unique historical, cultural, and biological inheritance-and advances policies that, without prejudicing the legitimate rights of others, fearlessly defends our rights… our heritage” according to its website. The Institute has several publications available for download which attack affirmative action as giving “preference” to “under qualified” African-Americans over whites, advocating deportation of undocumented immigrants who are taking jobs from U.S. citizens, highlighting the “racial” differences in how African-Americans and White Americans responded to Hurricane Katrina (African-American behavior is made out to be barbaric, complete with a reference to the racist novel Camp of the Saints), and arguing that “White America” (and by extension “America”) has been under steady attack since the civil rights movement.

When Taylor comes to Lansing in March, there will no doubt be some–particularly from MSU-YAF–who will defend him and say that he is not a racist. However, his record and work is clear-Taylor is a part of the racist movement.

Tags: lansing, michigan, msu, racism, racists, yaf

Noteworthy Articles

The following articles of interest were published elsewhere on the web today:

• Looking for Bill Clinton in Columbus Junction: Reflections on Class War, Corporate (Neo-) Liberalism, and the Dysfunctionality of Colonial Timetables
  Categories: hillaryclinton elections2008
• Brad Stine’s ‘GodMen’: Promise Keepers on steroids
  Categories: religiousright religion christianity
• Leaking Michigan nuke plant isn’t Entergy’s only problem
  Categories: nuclear energy corporations michigan
• Kucinich peace plan gains support in Michigan
  Categories: kucinich antiwar michigan
• Michigan gets U.S. cash for abstinence programs that studies show don’t work
  Categories: education government michigan
• GAO Report on Conscientious Objectors Missing the Mark
  Categories: congress military
• Public Opinion Snapshot: Military Families Are Fed Up
  Categories: military iraq
• Chicago Airport Separates ‘Undocumented’ from ‘Documented’
  Categories: immigration
• Acid-Mining Michigan
  Categories: michigan mining environment
• Zapatista Code Red!
  Categories: zapatistas mexico
• Announcing the 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes
  Categories: media
• Sexual Violence: An Occupational Hazard — In Iraq and at Home
  Categories: women patriarchy sexism violence
• Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2007
  Categories: iraq media
• The Surge: Illusion & Reality
  Categories: iraq
• Iraq government backs amnesty law
  Categories: iraq
• Ron Paul’s Photo-Op with Stormfront
  Categories: ronpaul republicans elections2008 racism racists
• Demolishing Disaster Capitalism: Resistance against public housing demolitions in New Orleans
  Categories: capitalism development katrina neworleans
• Virgin or Slut: Pick One
  Categories: abstinence feminism sex education culture women
• The FCC’s Christmas Gift to Big Media
  Categories: media fcc
• Climate Change Gives Rise to New World Order
  Categories: globalwarming environment
• ‘Awakening’ Forces Arouse New Conflicts
  Categories: iraq
• The 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Crises
  Categories: media health
• U.S. Soldiers Stage Mutiny, Refuse Orders in Iraq Fearing They Would Commit Massacre in Revenge for IED Attack
  Categories: iraq military

Previously archived links are available on the news links page or on Media Mouse’s del.icio.us page. To recommend links, tag them with “mediamouserecommended” on del.icio.us or contact us via email.