Diaries at DKos from
progressivearlingtonian and from
Steven D have already shared about as much information about the founding, membership and activities of the secretive Council for National Policy (CNP) as anyone can possibly uncover. Justice Louis Brandeis said, "Sunshine is the best of disinfectants," and these posts deliver healthy doses of it. What I have to add are some of the other tactics that extremists have been using to infiltrate moderate/mainstream groups, and to haul one or two more of these "stealth" organizations out from the shadows. It's also an(other) indictment of media's role in mainstreaming right-wing groups.
Part 1 of 3: Tip of the Iceberg
You may remember this story. In 1999, a follower of a neo-nazi group went gunning for non-white people for three days in Illinois and Indiana as his contribution to a "racial holy war" called for by the leader of his "church". It felt close to home--I've been a Hoosier and am now an Illinoisan--so was not only horrified but compelled to pay attention. I mean really pay attention. Ever since then, through such organizations as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), I read the histories and track the activities of hate groups.
Does that mean I'm calling the CNP a hate group? You betcha'--in fact, that's my one gripe with "Steven D's" and "progressivearlingtonian's" diaries: neither one of them said the word. The CNP is full of members who are affiliated with organizations that have crossed the line into hate in speech and mission. Besides the Christian Reconstructionist/Christian Identity groups mentioned in previous posts, CNPers belong to the re-segregationist Council for Conservative Citizens (CCC; more on them below), the secessionist League of the South (LOS), even the hard-core (though recently deceased) neofascist American Friends of Britain National Party (AFBNP).
Sometimes the level of secrecy depends on how much money and political clout a group has. Thus, an anti-immigration racist (AKA nativist) with connections quietly joins the CNP and works behind the scenes to influence policy, while an ambitious nativist with no such luck hates the government as reflexively as a 1990s militiaman, joins a border-patrol vigilante group and proudly maintains a high profile.
I think we'd all agree that having a small secret group with a hidden agenda is dangerous, but it's also extremely troubling that the media are not even "outing" the extremist agenda of the public right-wing kooks. In the SPLC's Winter 2005 issue of The Intelligence Report, Mark Potok blasts CNN's Lou Dobbs for lies of omission in his "relentless" two-years-and-counting focus on immigration:
It's not so much that Dobbs says things that are untrue; it's that he has refused, even in the face of mounting evidence, to report on the anti-immigration movement and its leaders' ties to organized racism.
(When innocent people get shot at the border, Dobbs undoubtedly will say, "Nobody could have foreseen that the vigilantes might actually use their guns.")
In the same issue, Potok reports that the Time Warner publication Teen People almost published an issue glamorizing neo-Nazi teen singers by not mentioning their white supremacist beliefs:
In return for exclusive access to twin 13-year-old neo-Nazi singers from California, Teen People promised not to use the words "hate," "supremacist," or "Nazi." The thing is, Lynx and Lamb Gaede, daughters of long-time neo-Nazi activist April Gaede, really do embody those words. On a recent television news show, they wore smiley-face Hitler T-shirts, praised the Fuehrer, and suggested that the WWII Holocaust was an "exaggeration." But you wouldn't know that from the Web story Teen People put up in advance [of the planned magazine feature]. The story said only that these "aspiring musicians" were into "white pride."
The magazine story was killed after a protest in front of Time Warner's New York offices, the Web version after a complaint made by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust studies.
Teen People has a circulation of 1.5 million young people.
With the current media complicity/complacency, it's so easy just to, uh, lie.
White supremacist: Our group is a bunch of peace-lovin', law-abidin', tolerant people.
Reporter: OK.
Now, about that Council of Conservative Citizens. They are not a secret organization, but they have taken pains to position themselves as moderate even though they are the reincarnation of the White Citizens Councils of the 50s and 60s--in other words, made up of white supremacists who would repeal the Civil Rights Act and re-segregate if they ever got the chance. Motto:
Be a Nazi. Just don't use the word.
Why market the CCC as mainstream? Because close to 40 public office holders--around two dozen of them lawmakers--belong to this group at any given time and the CCC wants to protect them, especially "star" members like Trent Lott and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. The radioactive David Duke almost spoiled their "cover" once, but fortunately the media cooperated:
Gordon Lee Baum was having a bad day. Standing in a Jackson, Miss., hotel meeting room in November, the 58-year-old lawyer and leader of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) was doing his best to portray his organization as mainstream...But then David Duke, the former Klan leader and unrepentant racist, showed up and spoiled the party. "Hi, Gordon," Duke told Baum with a toothy smile.
"Damn you, Dave," Baum said, later threatening a local newspaper with a lawsuit if it reported that Duke was part of the CCC conference [emphasis mine]. "Don't say you're involved with us," Baum said. "The politicians won't show up..."
And how had the reporters known to show up? Who tipped the local black newspaper and others off that Duke had appeared at this "mainstream" gathering?
"One of the n-----s at the front desk," Baum fumed.
(Until the Abu Ghraib scandal unfolded, the CCC was a focus for some of my letters to the editor.)
This is getting long, so if you're still interested, I'm planning two more parts to put out in coming days.
Part 2: Some really hostile takeovers
Part 3: Superman to the rescue