Media Matters to Klein: Dobbs represents "ongoing threat"; Prime-time host's appearance at anti-immigration rally on Capitol Hill causes further problems for CNN's credibility
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, August 28, 2009 |
CONTACT Jessica Levin (202) 772-8162 |
Washington, D.C. -- Today, Media Matters for America President Eric Burns issued an open letter to CNN President Jonathan Klein regarding prime-time anchor Lou Dobbs' scheduled appearance on September 15 and 16 at the "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" legislative advocacy event and rally sponsored by the anti-immigration organization Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR, an organization that has been designated a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center and that has been sharply criticized for its racially-tinged ads, was founded by John Tanton, who has a long history of making racist statements and espousing racist beliefs.
A FAIR press release announced that Dobbs will broadcast his show from the rally and will be joined by 47 conservative talk radio hosts.
Burns writes, in part:
"Mr. Dobbs represents an ongoing threat to CNN's credibility as a serious news organization, in no small part because of his polemical coverage of immigration issues and his continued use of his CNN show to lend prominence to groups such as FAIR. The attention and legitimacy he gave to the "birther" movement -- and CNN's condoning of his actions -- did real damage to that credibility. His participation in the upcoming FAIR rally would do further, serious damage. We urge you to finally acknowledge that Mr. Dobbs' actions in this and other contexts are inconsistent with the reputation that CNN strives to maintain."
The complete text of the letter reads:
August 28, 2009
Dear Mr. Klein:
On September 15 and 16, Lou Dobbs is scheduled to broadcast from Capitol Hill as a leading voice of the annual "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" two-day legislative advocacy conference and rally sponsored by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Including Mr. Dobbs, the event will feature 47 conservative talk radio hosts from around the country. We write to urge you to prohibit Mr. Dobbs from participating in this event.
FAIR is a rabidly anti-immigrant organization founded by an unrepentant racist, who remains on its board. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated FAIR a "hate group." Mr. Dobbs' participation -- and, inextricably, CNN's -- would bestow legitimacy on the rally and on FAIR, as the group itself recognizes and touts. In announcing its 2008 "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" conference (from which Mr. Dobbs was allowed to broadcast his CNN television show), the FAIR Congressional Task Force boasted in a press release that Mr. Dobbs' "prominence will add to the visibility and stature of an event that has already had an enormous impact on the national debate about immigration policy." FAIR's website approvingly stated that in 2007, "talk radio and cable news programs such as Dobbs' " helped turn the public against immigration reform efforts, which it labels as "amnesty." The press release announcing this year's rally notes that it will be "led by Roger Hedgecock ... and Lou Dobbs." In addition, the group has given Mr. Dobbs its "People's Voice Award" for "his continued efforts in leading the immigration reform movement through both his talk radio show and his television show."
CNN's association with FAIR through Mr. Dobbs is nothing less than a stain on an organization that calls itself "The Most Trusted Name in News." FAIR was founded by John Tanton, who still sits on the organization's board of directors. Tanton has a long history of making racist statements, espousing racist beliefs, and funding racist organizations. In 1986, Tanton reportedly wrote: "As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night?" In 1993, he reportedly wrote: "I've come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that." In 1997, Tanton was quoted by the Detroit Free Press as saying that without a reduction in immigration levels, the United States will be overwhelmed by people "defecating and creating garbage and looking for jobs." In 2001, Tanton reportedly praised the work of John Trevor, a notorious Nazi sympathizer, saying his work should form "a guidepost to what we must follow again this time." Tanton is not a relic of FAIR's past: In the organization's 2004 annual report, chairman of the board of directors Nancy Anthony wrote that Tanton's "visionary qualities have not waned one bit. He stills floods us with more ideas than we can possibly absorb."
In March, Dobbs' CNN show reported that FAIR "supports a temporary moratorium on immigration." FAIR executive director Dan Stein has been quoted saying the following: "Many [immigrants] hate America, hate everything the United States stands for. Talk to some of these Central Americans."
FAIR has been sharply criticized in the media for racially tinged ads. A 2000 campaign ad the group ran against former Sen. Spencer Abraham, a Lebanese-American, attacked his support for making more visas available for foreign workers and accused him of "trying to make it easier for terrorists like Osama bin Laden to export their way of terror to any city street in America." In 2004, a group of FAIR-backed ads targeting former Texas Democrat Martin Frost and former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel featured dark-skinned men loitering on street corners and running from the police. The Dallas Morning News denounced the ads in an April 2004 editorial, calling them "as racially tinged as those Willie Horton ads the late Mr. [Lee] Atwater put together for the first President Bush during his 1988 White House bid." In an April 24, 2004, editorial, the Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star called the ads "trash" that "incite hate," "play upon stereotypical racial fears," and "are full of half-truths and lies.'"
And yet, rather than denouncing the group, Mr. Dobbs' CNN show has cited FAIR as a credible source on immigration issues no fewer than six times in the last year while also routinely failing to disclose his close association with the group.
There should be no doubt concerning the content of the upcoming rally. It will give a platform to precisely the type of radio host you, Mr. Klein, reportedly said would no longer be invited on CNN. Speakers last year included Les Kinsolving, a WorldNetDaily.com columnist who asked Robert Gibbs at a White House press briefing why the president won't release his "long-form birth certificate." Another speaker from last year, South Florida radio host Joyce Kaufman, has reportedly said of undocumented immigrants: "If you commit a crime while you're here, we should hang you and send your body back to where you came from, and your family should pay for it." Also on the roster last year was Steve Gill, a Nashville radio host who has said of President Obama: "This man, and his evil minions, really do hate this country." Jeff Katz, while a radio host in Sacramento, reportedly "said motorists should be awarded a sombrero-shaped bumper sticker for every illegal immigrant hit while attempting to cross the border from Mexico," adding, in the words of the Sacramento Bee, that "[f]or every 10 bumper stickers ... a motorist would earn a free drink or meal at Taco Bell."
As Media Matters has highlighted repeatedly, Mr. Dobbs represents an ongoing threat to CNN's credibility as a serious news organization, in no small part because of his polemical coverage of immigration issues and his continued use of his CNN show to lend prominence to groups such as FAIR. The attention and legitimacy he gave to the "birther" movement -- and CNN's condoning of his actions -- did real damage to that credibility. His participation in the upcoming FAIR rally would do further, serious damage. We urge you to finally acknowledge that Mr. Dobbs' actions in this and other contexts are inconsistent with the reputation that CNN strives to maintain.
We await your response.
Sincerely,
Eric Burns
President
Media Matters for America
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FAIR has never been designated a hate group by any independent government agency, and the SPLC doesn't count, either. MMFA says they are a hate group as if it's a documented fact, where in reality, they are only a hate group according to a partisan source. Remember, Ad Hominem is a logical fallacy!
Also, before you accuse me of being an ignorant hick (gotta love that Ad Hominem, eh MMFA?) I am not anti-immigration at all. I am pro-rule of law. If someone wants to immigrate here legally, from Mexico or otherwise, by all means let them. What I am opposed to is illegal immigrants crossing our borders and essentially giving a slap in the face to those who took the time to immigrate here legally and do things the right way.
Are there people who are opposed to immigration in any form on racial grounds? Of course. Are there Hispanics who want a better life in a better country? Absolutely. Does that mean the US should open their borders completely? In my opinion, absolutely not.
That's not xenophobic, ignorant, or racist at all. That's the law.
Meanwhile, we let people take jobs and provide fake social security numbers without verification.
In other words, the law is a complete joke. It ignores the basic economics of a region filled with unskilled workers, right next to a nation that needs about twenty million unskilled workers - and I believe in free markets, do you?, because illegal immigration is the free market trumping government.
Oh, and please go and find for me some legal immigrants who are outraged that others came here illegally, because I've never met a single one. In my experience, the only people up in arms about illegal immigration are the ones who suffer no direct harm from said illegals, and are benefiting from the cheap labor when they buy food, dine in many restuarants, stay in many hotels, etc.
You like people to obey the law? Me too. I also like the law to make sense, and some laws are just unbelievably stupid. I'm not going to drive 55 on a stretch of freeway where everybody is going 70, and I'm not going to expect people who see good paying (by their standards) jobs readily available, with no law enforcement stopping the employer from hiring them, when they are very poor and need the work to feed their family. I guess they could respect our law, even though we ourselves are hypocrites about it (enforcement is a joke), and they could starve, on principle.
But that's expecting a little much, don't you think? Since we need the workers, we employ the workers, and have for decades, how about we change the law to reflect reality? Create a guest worker program similar to the old bracero program (but without the corruption).
Or we could just keep complaining about these darn law breakers, while we keep hiring them and enjoying the fruits of our labor. The law as it is, is a farce. You don't have to be racist to be upset about illegal immigrants and wanting the current laws obeyed, but you do have to be a hypocrite.
"As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?"
---John Tanton, founder of FAIR
"Should we subsidizing people with low IQs to have as many children as possible?"
----Dan Stein, FAIR President
"New cultures [in the U.S. are] diluting what we are and who we are."
----Richard Lamm, former Colorado governor and former FAIR advisory board chairman
----Richard Lamm, former Colorado governor and former FAIR advisory board chairman
Please explain to me how this is a bad thing? Blacks have Black History Month (except at McDonalds where they now have 365black.com), and they cling to their culture, one another, and their African roots by way of their preferred handle: African Americans. Hispanics also have a month dedicated to them and they have La Raza and other Hispanic-only groups to preserve their culture. How can it be wrong, then, for 6th, 7th, and 8th generation white Americans to seek to preserve their culture from being eliminated and a thing of the past? It is asking TOO much. Just as Reverend Wright's church espoused that they are unashamedly proud of their black African heritage, so too am I unashamedly proud of my white American heritage.
The whole point of the letter is that FAIR is a racially motivated organization. It would be the same if Dobbs went to speak at a Farrakhan rally against Israel. The stench of racism is unmistakable. And Dobbs brings CNN with him wether CNN approves or not.
You don't seem to understand the defintion of "ad homien". If and organization is racist and it's goals stem DIRECTLY from that racism, it is not ad homien. It's a simple fact.
Are you an immigrant? Do you know any? I know lots and not one of them care a whit about illegals. Mostly they're glad that others could make it here and work for a better life. Not one feels "slapped in the face." Your argument does not hold up terribly well.
Keep trolling, though.
Yet, our illegal immigrant issue is a problem BECAUSE the gov't has been so hands-off business in allowing them to hire illegals, which created this market and the conditions for Mexicans to want to come here for these jobs.
Businesses certainly COULD have followed the law, insisted on proving citizenship, etc. But Dobbs and all of this "libertarian" mind of convenience are completely bassackwards on this one ...
Reagan policy #2: give all the room you possibly can to cultural groups that will cause the most trouble to liberalism. The religious right, the freedom to be bigots again, and anti-immigrant feelings. We saw the big explosion with Bush: he suggested a bill that would have served the business community perfectly well. The wacko right in his party defeated it, in an operation that was remarkably like Operation Kill Healthcare.
Authoritarian followers, which you appear to be, have been studied intensively. There now exists a large body of evidence detailing a cognitive style that is very troubling to those who believe in making society more livable for all. Because we now know that RWAs seem resigned to a belief that life is cruel, that it will always be that way, and so the only practical thing to do about it is to do whatever it takes to to see that they come out on top of the pile. They are also more fearful than others in general, more aggressive, quicker to use violence and show less empathy than others.
Then there's a rather curious need to simplify even complex matters down to simplistic black & white, good / evil, us and them type terms. A "need to know" or 'fear of ambiguity' is also central to the RWA personality.
At a basic, cognitive level they unconsciously shut out new info not in agreement with any preconceptions on matters. Many beliefs were adopted in childhood, taught them by parents who -- very often it turns out, had a very rigid parental style. And this appears to somehow retard a child's social/intellectual development at a critical stage, one that includes the development of some very important cognitive and reasoning skills that would otherwise develop normally. Children such as these are now highly predisposed to adopting politically conservative rhetoric later in life. Their affinity for laws, rules and order; the stunning amount of deference or wholesale acceptance of flimsy excuses given them by their leaders is really nothing more than a surviving remnant of that same parent/child dynamic nature hardwired into our infant brain.
And so....Since they lack the cognitive and integrative complexity to do the mental gymnastics required by those who prefer to think for themselves, they must adopt and rely heavily (as this guy has done) on laws for their ideas on what is 'right and wrong'. Military and LE careers also provide the rules and paths someone like them needs to function in society, hence the vastly disproportionate number of conservatives who flock into these institutions.
Likewise for rhetoric such as "my country right or wrong" or "the law's the law" etc. These quips function to relieve them of responsibility to think over whether what they are doing "for God and country" is, in fact, really an ethical thing to do to other people.
AND YET WE STILL ELECT THEM FOR LEADERS OF ENTIRE COUNTRIES. This must stop!
you decide:
The Founder: Early Hints
For decades, John Tanton has operated a nativist empire out of his U.S. Inc. foundation's headquarters in Petoskey, Mich. Even as he simultaneously runs his own hate group — The Social Contract Press, listed for many years by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of its anti-Latino and white supremacist writings — Tanton has remained the house intellectual for FAIR. In fact, U.S. Inc. bankrolls much of FAIR's lobbying activity and, at least until 2005, Tanton ran its Research and Publications Committee, the group that fashions and then disseminates FAIR's position papers. In its 2004 annual report, FAIR highlighted its own main ideologue, singing Tanton's praises for "visionary qualities that have not waned one bit."
But what, exactly, is Tanton's vision?
As long ago as 1988, when a series of internal 1986 documents known as the WITAN memos were leaked to the press, Tanton's bigoted attitudes have been known. In the memos, written to colleagues on the staff of FAIR, Tanton warned of a coming "Latin onslaught" and worried that high Latino birth rates would lead "the present majority to hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile." Tanton repeatedly demeaned Latinos in the memos, asking whether they would "bring with them the tradition of the mordida [bribe], the lack of involvement in public affairs" and also questioning Latinos' "educability."
Echoing his 19th-century nativist forebears who feared Catholic immigrants from Italy and Ireland, Tanton has often attacked Catholics in terms not so different from those used by the Klan and the Know-Nothing Party of the 1840s. In the WITAN memos, for instance, he worried that Latino immigrants would endanger the separation of church and state and undermine support for public schooling. Never one to miss a threatening and fertile Catholic, Tanton even reminded his colleagues, "Keep in mind that many of the Vietnamese coming in are also Catholic."
The leaked memos caused an uproar. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Walter Cronkite quit the board of a group Tanton headed, U.S. English, after the memos became public in 1988. U.S. English Executive Director Linda Chavez — a former Reagan Administration official and, later, a conservative commentator — also left, calling Tanton's views "anti-Hispanic, anti-Catholic and not excusable."
In 1994, Tanton's Social Contract Press republished an openly racist French book, The Camp of the Saints, with Tanton writing that he was "honored" to republish the race war novel. What Tanton called a "prescient" book describes the takeover of France by "swarthy hordes" of Indians, "grotesque little beggars from the streets of Calcutta," who arrive in a desperate refugee flotilla. It attacks white liberals who, rather than turn the Indians away, "empty out all our hospital beds so that cholera-ridden and leprous wretches could sprawl between white sheets … and cram our nurseries full of monster children." It explains how, after the Indians take over France, white women are sent to a "whorehouse for Hindus." In an afterword special to Tanton's edition of the novel, author Jean Raspail wrote about his fears that "the proliferation of other races dooms our race, my race, to extinction."
Tanton's view of the book he published? "We are indebted to Jean Raspail for his insights into the human condition, and for being 20 years ahead of this time. History will judge him more kindly than have some of his contemporaries."
Tanton has repeatedly suggested that racial conflict will be the outcome of immigration, saying in the WITAN memos that "an explosion" could be the result of whites' declining "power and control over their lives." More than a decade later, in 1998, he made a similar point in an interview with a reporter, suggesting that whites would inevitably develop a racial consciousness because "most people don't want to disappear into the dustbin of history." Tanton added that once whites did become racially conscious, the result would be "the war of each against all."
In 1997, Tanton spelled out his views on the inevitability of immigration overwhelming American whites. "In the bacteriology lab, we have culture plates," he explained. "You put a bug in there and it starts growing and gets bigger and bigger. And it grows until it finally fills the whole plate. And it crashes and dies."
The Founder's Friends
It's no surprise that Tanton employs people with similar views. His long-time deputy, for example, is Wayne Lutton, who works out of Tanton's Petoskey offices and edits the journal, The Social Contract, published by Tanton's press. Lutton is not just linked to white supremacist ideas, many of which he publishes in his journal — he has actually held leadership positions in four white nationalist hate groups: the Council of Conservative Citizens, the National Policy Institute, and The Occidental Quarterly and American Renaissance, both racist publications. Lutton has written for the Journal of Historical Review, which specializes in Holocaust denial. Early on, Lutton and Tanton collaborated on The Immigration Invasion, a nativist screed that has been seized by Canadian border officials as hateful contraband.
Although it's linked on in the article I'll paste the site here again. It's well worth the read. Particularly in light of our defenders of FAIR on this blog.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=846
The article is 3 pages long and well researched
The Southern Poverty Law Center is one of the most respected civil rights organizations in the country, in fact they are international recognized for thier civil rights leadership.
Besides it's many education programs and continued fight for justice through civil rights cases against white- supremicists they are widely know to have the most comprehensive program for identifying and tracking Hate Groups. So yeah, it counts.
Do you realize you are supporting cultural slavery? YOU are enjoying the benifit of the low wages paid illegals.
Sure, it could be a family looking for a new life in a better country, which in itself is not morally wrong. But what if we substituted that family for, say, drug cartels, gangbangers, or even Moslem extremists? This happens every day, and being ignorant to this fact is only going to endanger the future of our nation. That is precisely why we need to increase border patrols, not send unarmed volunteers.
Also, I am not a hypocrite for wanting the law to be enforced. The reason that American families are struggling right now is because they cannot find a job. If I wanted to go get a job at, say, McDonalds, and I applied and was rejected because an illegal immigrant was going to work for a ridiculously low amount of money, I'd be fairly livid.
Lest I give more examples, I will simply say that, yes, we should have some sort of guest-worker program. But it should be one that does not reject American workers who are struggling to find a job. It should be one that is fair to both sides and not simply catering to one.
Hopefully we can agree on both of these things.
On the other hand kridge has provided these quotes from members of FAIR:
"As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?"
---John Tanton, founder of FAIR
"Should we subsidizing people with low IQs to have as many children as possible?"
----Dan Stein, FAIR President
"New cultures [in the U.S. are] diluting what we are and who we are."
----Richard Lamm, former Colorado governor and former FAIR advisory board chairman
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...you get my point!
Now back to my question or back into your hole troll!
Monitoring Hate and Extremist Activity
The Intelligence Project monitors hate groups and extremist activities throughout the U.S. and publishes the Center's award-winning Intelligence Report.
It also offers training to help law enforcement officials and human rights groups combat organized racism, including an online hate crime training course for law enforcement professionals.
Under the name Klanwatch, the Project began monitoring hate activity in 1981. In 1994, after uncovering links between white supremacist organizations and the emerging antigovernment "Patriot" movement, the Center expanded its monitoring operation to include militias and other extremist groups.
Today, the Project tracks more than 800 hate groups around the nation. The quarterly Intelligence Report provides comprehensive updates to law enforcement agencies, the media and the general public.
Read more about the Intelligence Project in our history section.
Just because you share some or all the beliefs of FAIR or any other hate group doesn't diminish their hate or destructiveness. You keep parsing the difference between a bigot and racist. Hey can someone be a bigoted racist.
It is now in the same category as Faux News.
Nice job guys!
But I guess all the names with "freedom" in them were already taken.
This illegal immigration issue has alienated law-minded citizens and eaten away at any remaining "pride" for the USA. Why is is hard to understand that immigration needs to be controlled? Remember saying the "Pledge of Allegiance to the flag/USA"? All citizens of a country should commit their allegiance to their country. Simple right? Apparently not in the USA...
As for Dobbs/CNN, they're swirling down the toilet w/Fox.
Illegal immigration is the crime and we should stand up against it! All citizens should defend their country!