Are Dixiecrats Making A Comeback In North Carolina?

[mmonk]

Taking a xenophobic page from today's Republican Party, The North Carolina Democratic Party has paid for flyers which tout "Bringing the Arizona immigration crack down to North Carolina" on behalf of the NC Senate race of David Redwine of Shallotte. In mentioning Arizona and immigration crack down in the same breath, the NC Democratic Party has entered the sewer of race baiting politics which has been the domain of the Republican Party since the days of Nixon's southern strategy. The southern strategy was designed to take advantage of white disenchantment in the south with the Democratic Party following passage of the Civil Rights Act under Johnson. By invoking Arizona's controversial and partly unconstitutional SB 1070 (due to the supremacy clause of the Constitution) through this wording, the party is likely facing a backlash to come from many of its donors from urban and university areas of the state.

The Racist Underpinnings of Arizona's SB 1070

The person that introduced Arizona's SB 1070 was Republican state senator Russell Pearce. Mr. Pearce is famous in Arizona for an email sent to supporters that had a white nationalist bent. It accused the media of pushing a view of "a world in which every voice proclaims the equality of the races, the inerrant nature of the Jewish 'Holocaust' tale, the wickedness of attempting to halt the flood of non-White aliens pouring across our borders". He was also caught on tape hugging a neo-Nazi. The person taking credit for writing the law is Republican Kris Kobach who is running for Kansas Secretary of State and is a birther. He is also an attorney for the Immigration Reform Law Institute. That is the legal arm of the immigration group FAIR (Federation For American Immigration Reform) which the Southern Poverty Law Center has noted for it's racist attitudes along with its founder John Tanton. In a Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report on Tanton and FAIR called, "Where Anti-Immigrant Zealots Like Lou Dobbs Get Their 'Facts'" FAIR (founded by John Tanton in 1979) has been marked by

anti-Latino and anti-Catholic attitudes. It has mixed this bigotry with a fondness for eugenics, the idea of breeding better humans discredited by its Nazi Associations. It has accepted $1.2 million from an infamous, racist eugenics foundation. It has employed officials in key positions who are also members of white supremacist groups.

It goes on to mention that it has recently pushed racist conspiracy theories concerning Mexican take over designs on states in the southwest and mentions that current FAIR President Dan Stein had sought some advice from a racist political party in Belgium. Also mentioned is some internal documents named WITAN which were leaked to the press where Tanton warned of a "Latin onslaught" and their birth rates would force "the present majority to hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile." He also was demeaning by saying they would "bring with them the tradition of the mordida (bribe), the lack of involvement in public affairs" and questioned their "educability".

The Intricate Web Of Hatred, Money, And Political Power

In another report by the Southern Poverty Law Center titled, "The Puppeteer" which concerns Tanton and the intricate web of organizational funding of anti-immigrant groups, one can trace the money from right wing billionaires to organizations linked to Tanton, to the Republican Party and the seats of government power. It mentions that

the vast majority of American anti-immigration groups — more than a dozen in all — were either formed, led, or in other ways made possible through Tanton’s efforts.

It goes on to cite that a major funding arm

U.S. Inc., is a Tanton creation, and millions of dollars in financing comes from just a few of his allies, far-right foundations like those controlled by the family of Richard Mellon Scaife. ...

Also it mentions that many of these politically connected activists are moving increasingly into groups such as the Council of Conservative Citizens which has around 15,000 members whose website recently described African Americans as

a retrograde species of humanity.” ...

But what is most disturbing for anyone that has studied the rise of fascism in Europe in the 20's and 30's as well as the US in the 20's is the increasing connection to government these groups have. Many of the Constitutional protections put into the Constitution as a protection from tyranny have been removed since September 11th, 2001 and have not been restored even with the election of Obama and Democratic Party majorities. We still have prisons outside the rule of law where people are taken without charge or trial and are tortured or worse, extraordinary rendition, wiretapping without warrants, targeted killings, and "prolonged detention". Following the post-9/11 sweeps of Arab American communities which resulted in indefinite detention of more than a thousand or two persons, many of these groups called for wider dragnets of Hispanic American communities. And in the wake of the plane attacks, there was rapid growth of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus led by right wing extremist (now former) Rep. Tom Tancredo (R), of Colorado. FAIR is considered legitimate to many members of the caucus.

About The Aforementioned Racist Eugenics Foundation

The eugenics foundation that gave $1.2 million dollars to FAIR is called The Pioneer Fund. It has links to sterilization efforts based on race and disability in America's past as well as the eugenics effort in Nazi Germany. This background can be examined in the piece by Barry Mehler of the Southern Poverty Law Center titled "Race and 'Reason' Academic ideas a pillar of racist thought". The founder of the Pioneer Fund was one Wickliffe P. Draper. In 1935, he traveled to Nazi Germany with an associate, Dr. Clarence Campbell, to attend the International Congress for the Scientific Investigation of Population Problems. In 1937, he founded the Pioneer Fund which was to fund race scientists and scholarships. It was headed by eugenicist Harry L. Laughlin, an advocate for restrictive immigration laws and compulsary sterilization of the mentally ill and mentally retarded. In 1938, he paid for and disseminated a book titled, "White America" written by white supremacist Earnest Servier Cox and sent a copy to Wilhelm Frick, the German Minister of the Interior. In later years, the fund has been intertwined in American politics and movements (beyond FAIR). As noted in the Southern Poverty Law Center report, Pioneer leaders such as Harry Weyher and Thomas F. Ellis have been part of an interlocking association of groups linked to the late former Senator Jesse Helms (R) NC. In fact, Ellis served as chairman of both the National Congressional Club and the Coalition For Freedom and he was a co-founder of Fairness In Media. So does the NC Democratic Party want to be associated with the legacy of Republican Jesse Helms?

A Great Tool For Further Republican Voter Suppression Of Minority Voters

Investigative reporter Greg Palast recently pursued a political angle to Arizona'a SB 1070 in a report titled, "Behind the Arizona Immigration Law: GOP Game to Swipe the November Election" where he gives his experiences in investigating suppression of Hispanic voters in Arizona. He wrote in the report that following the 2004 elections under Secretary of State Jan Brewer (now governor), at least 100,000 voters were blocked from registering to vote and that in 2005, the first year of the "Great Brown Out" one in three voters in Phoenix had their registrations rejected. Since a non-citizen attempting to register to vote is a crime punishable by jail time and turning over to immigration authorities, Palast sought out these 100,000 people but found none were sent to jail or handed over to authorities. It would be appear 100,000 Hispanic citizens were being denied the right to vote. This is similar to what happened in Florida in 2000 when Afican American voters were purged before the vote count was stopped and a Republican Supreme Court appointed G.W. Bush president.

No Self Respecting NC Democrat would want to be associated with such a flyer or the legacy of Jesse Helms. An attempt to contact Andrew Whalen, Executive Director of the North Carolina Democratic Party for a response before writing this failed. The flyer can be viewed at the right wing think tank charged with resegregating Wake County Public Schools into "community school zones" following the "tea party" takeover of that school board, http://www.civitasreview.com/politicians/nc-democratic-party-supports-arizona-immigration-law/">The Civitas Institute's website.


http://americancommentary.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/are-dixiecrats-making-a-comeback-in-north-carolina-nc-democratic-party-pays-for-mailers-for-nc-senate-candidate-that-touts-bringing-the-arizona-immigration-crack-down-to-north-carolina/">Original

[mmonk]

1. Any NC Democrats that would like to complain about

your donation going to printing such an ad, contact the following people:

David Young
Chair
[e-mail]


Andrew Whalen
Executive Director
[e-mail]


Tell them if Redwine wants to invoke Arizona's law, he should do it at his own campaign's expense as we have Hispanic voters in our party and would like to keep them.