[Vision2020] More on Dees/SPLC
Tim Lohrmann
timlohr@yahoo.com
Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:22:20 -0800 (PST)
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Visionaries,
It was amusing to see one post-er's comment that "despite the drivel on this list," one or the other SPLC spokespersons are recognized as authorities on hate.
Sure the SPLC is widely recognized as an authority.
Cheney and Rumsfield are recognized by some as authorities on international policy too.
Does that mean that those who question their motives and their conclusions are guilty of being drooling authors of "drivel?"
Alexander Cockburn, a mainstay of left/liberal journalism, contributor to THE NATION, and one of the editors of COUNTERPUNCH may be many things. But guilty of writing "drivel?"
I don't think so. Cockburn's take on Dees' empire is included below this message.
I was particularly interested in Dees' allegation of dangerous racists in those who protested the WTO in Seattle. And not only that, he apparently used this "finding" in, what else, his relentless fundraising appeals.
TL
The Dees Money Machine
by Alexander Cockburn
from "Wild Justice," The New York Press
I've long regarded Morris Dees and his Southern Poverty Law Center as
collectively one of the greatest frauds in American life. The reasons: a
relentless fundraising machine devoted to terrifying its mostly low-income
contributors into unbeltiing ill-spared dollars year after year to an
organization that now has an endowment of more than $100 million, with very
little to show for it beyond hysterical bulletins designed to raise money on
the proposition that only the SPLC can stop Nazism and the KKK from seizing
power.
Gloria Browne, a lawyer who's worked with Dees' outfit, once told the
Montgomery Advertiser that the Southern Poverty Law Center trades in "black
pain and white guilt." He's the Jim and Tammy Faye Baker of the civil
rights movement.
In fact, Dees began the 1960's as an attorney in Montgomery, representing a
Ku Klux Klan sympathizer, Claude Henley, who had led an attack on Freedom
Riders at the local bus station. Dees has denied he was ever personally
supportive of the Klan or Henley, but his former partner, Millard Farmer,
has said, "We expressed openly our sympathies and support for what happened
at the bus station." For the rest of the 1960s Dees sat on the sidelines
and got rich from marketing "Famous Recipe" cookbooks with Farmer; he built
a tennis court, pool, high-quality stables and got a Rolls-Royce.
He founded the SPLC in 1971. In the end Dees and Farmer fell out, with
Farmer (who later gave away most of his money and started Habitat for
Humanity) saying bitterly, "If an issue isn't bringing in money, he's off to
the woods. He may believe [in civil rights] but he'll quit doing the work
if it doesn't make money." Farmer says of the Southern Poverty Law Center
that it's "little more than a 900 number."
Dees has always been alert to the paranoias of the hour. The center's
entire legal staff resigned in the late 1980s, in part because Dees was
reluctant to take up legal issues of real importance to poor people. His
obsession was the Klanwatch Project, a cash cow for the SPLC. Literature
from the SPLC portrayed the Klan as poised to take over American and embark
on an orgy of burning and lynching. This was at a time when the major
danger to poor people was going to be welfare reform , a collusive project
between the Gingrich Republicans and Clinton liberals, among the latter
being many fervent supporters of Dees. Dees sits on a mountain of cash, but
his courtroom forays are not profuse. In the early 1990s, when the center's
reserves were about half what they are today- $52 million in 1993- the
center (between 1989 and 1994) filed only a dozen suits.
Recently Jim Reddin and Cletus Nelson sent CounterPunch, the newsletter I
coedit with Jeffrey St. Clair, and interesting account of Dees' latest twist
in moneygrubbing. In its most recent Intelligence Report newsletter, the
SPLC -in a "Special Report"- puts forth the preposterous theory that far
from being a glorious renaissance of the radical spirit in American
political life, the protest against the World Trade Organization, most in
evidence in Seattle and in Washington, DC, at the start of last week, have
been the nexus for a far-flung crypto-facist conspiracy comprised of white
supremacists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and other shock troops of the
far right. The SPLC's anonymous writer confidently states that the
anarchists, socialists, environmentalists and other left-wing dissidents who
gathered in Seattle at the start of last December were secretly infiltrated
by European-style "Third Position" fascists who mix racism with
environmentalism. "Right alongside the progressive groups that demonstrated
in Seattle- mostly peaceful defenders of labor, the environment, animal
rights and similar causes- were the hard-edged soldiers of neofascism," the
newsletter excitedly warns.
No documentation is offered to substantiate this allegation. The newsletter
doesn't name a single right-winger who has infiltrated Direct Action, Food
Not Bombs, Greenpeace or any of the other groups that organized the Seattle
protests. Dees' pretense is that he stands for civil rights, but of course
the newsletter entirely ignores the civil rights abuses committed by the
Seattle police against the protesters, even though the ACLU has filed a
civil rights suit over the "no protest" zone" declared by city officials.
The attack on the anti-globalization movement marks a significant shift in
the SPLC's policies, suggesting to us that Dees sees material opportunity in
attacking a popular radical cause. As part of its scourched-earth policy,
the organization has declared war against grassroots environmental
activists. "They pine for nations of peasant-like folk tied closely to the
land and to their neighbors," the newsletter observes disdainfully.
Some who've followed the FBI's recent disastrous predictions about Y2K
terror attacks from right-wing militias suspect that both the SPLC and the
Anti-Defamation League (which helped fuel the FBI"s Y2K predictions) are
hauling water for the bureau, essentially acting as subcontractors
performing tasks of defamation that in the old COINTELPRO days would have
been performed by the bureau itself. The worrying fact for fundraisers like
Dees is that there is a distinct shortage of terrifying specters with which
to coax the money out of the pockets of the suckers. How long can you raise
the alarm about a fascist takeover, when the legions of the ultra-right are
a few beleaguered platoons camped around Hayden Lake, ID?
The Nation, Mother Jones, and kindred liberal publications have the same
problem. If the fascist/Gingrichian bogey isn't out there in the darkness,
prowling round the campfire, maybe people will start concluding that real
enemy is all too unidentifiably roosting in Washington in the two-party
system. So the new strategy of the Dees crowd, the SPLC and ADL, is to
point tremulously to such signs of realignment as the Antiwar.com
conference, "Beyond Left and Right," about which I reported a couple of
weeks ago, and raise the alarm, saying -as the Dees Intelligence Report
does- that the left is being duped and captured by the far right and that
realignment is a neo-fascist strategy. And of course they're strains in the
anti-globalist, anti-free trade movement that can buttress such a charge.
It's not hard to go to a gun show and scoop up a pamphlet attacking the New
World Order along with the UN, the big banks, and the WTO.
American, populist culture has crank patches, as do all political cultures.
In American environmentalism there's a Malthusian element that goes back to
the racist speculations of Harvard professors a century ago. One task for
us left greens has always been to identify this element and attack it.
Going "beyond left and right" doesn't mean abandoning basic positions on
racism, Malthusianism and the like, it means trying to forge alliances on
issues such as U.S. Interventions and wars, or on the Bill of Rights - and
keeping one's powder dry. The attack from Dees on the anti-WTO forces won't
be the last.
---------------------------------
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<DIV>Visionaries,</DIV>
<DIV> It was amusing to see one post-er's comment that "despite the drivel on this list," one or the other SPLC spokespersons are recognized as authorities on hate. </DIV>
<DIV> Sure the SPLC is widely recognized as an authority.</DIV>
<DIV> Cheney and Rumsfield are recognized by some as authorities on international policy too. </DIV>
<DIV> Does that mean that those who question their motives and their conclusions are guilty of being drooling authors of "drivel?" </DIV>
<DIV> Alexander Cockburn, a mainstay of left/liberal journalism, contributor to THE NATION, and one of the editors of COUNTERPUNCH may be many things. But guilty of writing "drivel?" </DIV>
<DIV> I don't think so. Cockburn's take on Dees' empire is included below this message.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I was particularly interested in Dees' allegation of dangerous racists in those who protested the WTO in Seattle. And not only that, he apparently used this "finding" in, what else, his relentless fundraising appeals. </DIV>
<DIV> TL</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The Dees Money Machine<BR>by Alexander Cockburn<BR><BR>from "Wild Justice," The New York Press<BR><BR>I've long regarded Morris Dees and his Southern Poverty Law Center as<BR>collectively one of the greatest frauds in American life. The reasons: a<BR>relentless fundraising machine devoted to terrifying its mostly low-income<BR>contributors into unbeltiing ill-spared dollars year after year to an<BR>organization that now has an endowment of more than $100 million, with very<BR>little to show for it beyond hysterical bulletins designed to raise money on<BR>the proposition that only the SPLC can stop Nazism and the KKK from seizing<BR>power.<BR><BR>Gloria Browne, a lawyer who's worked with Dees' outfit, once told the<BR>Montgomery Advertiser that the Southern Poverty Law Center trades in "black<BR>pain and white guilt." He's the Jim and Tammy Faye Baker of the civil<BR>rights movement.<BR><BR>In fact, Dees began the 1960's as an attorney in Montgomery, represen!
ting
a<BR>Ku Klux Klan sympathizer, Claude Henley, who had led an attack on Freedom<BR>Riders at the local bus station. Dees has denied he was ever personally<BR>supportive of the Klan or Henley, but his former partner, Millard Farmer,<BR>has said, "We expressed openly our sympathies and support for what happened<BR>at the bus station." For the rest of the 1960s Dees sat on the sidelines<BR>and got rich from marketing "Famous Recipe" cookbooks with Farmer; he built<BR>a tennis court, pool, high-quality stables and got a Rolls-Royce.<BR><BR>He founded the SPLC in 1971. In the end Dees and Farmer fell out, with<BR>Farmer (who later gave away most of his money and started Habitat for<BR>Humanity) saying bitterly, "If an issue isn't bringing in money, he's off to<BR>the woods. He may believe [in civil rights] but he'll quit doing the work<BR>if it doesn't make money." Farmer says of the Southern Poverty Law Center<BR>that it's "little more than a 900
number."<BR><BR>Dees has always been alert to the paranoias of the hour. The center's<BR>entire legal staff resigned in the late 1980s, in part because Dees was<BR>reluctant to take up legal issues of real importance to poor people. His<BR>obsession was the Klanwatch Project, a cash cow for the SPLC. Literature<BR>from the SPLC portrayed the Klan as poised to take over American and embark<BR>on an orgy of burning and lynching. This was at a time when the major<BR>danger to poor people was going to be welfare reform , a collusive project<BR>between the Gingrich Republicans and Clinton liberals, among the latter<BR>being many fervent supporters of Dees. Dees sits on a mountain of cash, but<BR>his courtroom forays are not profuse. In the early 1990s, when the center's<BR>reserves were about half what they are today- $52 million in 1993- the<BR>center (between 1989 and 1994) filed only a dozen suits.<BR><BR>Recently Jim Reddin and Cletus Nels!
on sent
CounterPunch, the newsletter I<BR>coedit with Jeffrey St. Clair, and interesting account of Dees' latest twist<BR>in moneygrubbing. In its most recent Intelligence Report newsletter, the<BR>SPLC -in a "Special Report"- puts forth the preposterous theory that far<BR>from being a glorious renaissance of the radical spirit in American<BR>political life, the protest against the World Trade Organization, most in<BR>evidence in Seattle and in Washington, DC, at the start of last week, have<BR>been the nexus for a far-flung crypto-facist conspiracy comprised of white<BR>supremacists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and other shock troops of the<BR>far right. The SPLC's anonymous writer confidently states that the<BR>anarchists, socialists, environmentalists and other left-wing dissidents who<BR>gathered in Seattle at the start of last December were secretly infiltrated<BR>by European-style "Third Position" fascists who mix racism with<BR>environmentalism. "Right !
alongside
the progressive groups that demonstrated<BR>in Seattle- mostly peaceful defenders of labor, the environment, animal<BR>rights and similar causes- were the hard-edged soldiers of neofascism," the<BR>newsletter excitedly warns.<BR><BR>No documentation is offered to substantiate this allegation. The newsletter<BR>doesn't name a single right-winger who has infiltrated Direct Action, Food<BR>Not Bombs, Greenpeace or any of the other groups that organized the Seattle<BR>protests. Dees' pretense is that he stands for civil rights, but of course<BR>the newsletter entirely ignores the civil rights abuses committed by the<BR>Seattle police against the protesters, even though the ACLU has filed a<BR>civil rights suit over the "no protest" zone" declared by city officials.<BR><BR>The attack on the anti-globalization movement marks a significant shift in<BR>the SPLC's policies, suggesting to us that Dees sees material opportunity in<BR>attacking a popular radical cause. !
; As part
of its scourched-earth policy,<BR>the organization has declared war against grassroots environmental<BR>activists. "They pine for nations of peasant-like folk tied closely to the<BR>land and to their neighbors," the newsletter observes disdainfully.<BR><BR>Some who've followed the FBI's recent disastrous predictions about Y2K<BR>terror attacks from right-wing militias suspect that both the SPLC and the<BR>Anti-Defamation League (which helped fuel the FBI"s Y2K predictions) are<BR>hauling water for the bureau, essentially acting as subcontractors<BR>performing tasks of defamation that in the old COINTELPRO days would have<BR>been performed by the bureau itself. The worrying fact for fundraisers like<BR>Dees is that there is a distinct shortage of terrifying specters with which<BR>to coax the money out of the pockets of the suckers. How long can you raise<BR>the alarm about a fascist takeover, when the legions of the ultra-right are<BR>a few beleaguered plat!
oons
camped around Hayden Lake, ID?<BR><BR>The Nation, Mother Jones, and kindred liberal publications have the same<BR>problem. If the fascist/Gingrichian bogey isn't out there in the darkness,<BR>prowling round the campfire, maybe people will start concluding that real<BR>enemy is all too unidentifiably roosting in Washington in the two-party<BR>system. So the new strategy of the Dees crowd, the SPLC and ADL, is to<BR>point tremulously to such signs of realignment as the Antiwar.com<BR>conference, "Beyond Left and Right," about which I reported a couple of<BR>weeks ago, and raise the alarm, saying -as the Dees Intelligence Report<BR>does- that the left is being duped and captured by the far right and that<BR>realignment is a neo-fascist strategy. And of course they're strains in the<BR>anti-globalist, anti-free trade movement that can buttress such a charge.<BR>It's not hard to go to a gun show and scoop up a pamphlet attacking the New<BR>World Order along wit!
h the UN,
the big banks, and the WTO.<BR><BR>American, populist culture has crank patches, as do all political cultures.<BR>In American environmentalism there's a Malthusian element that goes back to<BR>the racist speculations of Harvard professors a century ago. One task for<BR>us left greens has always been to identify this element and attack it.<BR>Going "beyond left and right" doesn't mean abandoning basic positions on<BR>racism, Malthusianism and the like, it means trying to forge alliances on<BR>issues such as U.S. Interventions and wars, or on the Bill of Rights - and<BR>keeping one's powder dry. The attack from Dees on the anti-WTO forces won't<BR>be the last.<BR><BR></DIV><p><hr SIZE=1>
Do you Yahoo!?<br>
Exclusive Video Premiere - <a href="http://launch.yahoo.com/video/?1093432&fs=1&redirectURL=http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/">Britney Spears</a>
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