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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPhotos surface of Andrew Breitbart, James O'Keefe partying with white nationalists
Photographs published this week by an anti-racist website show the late Andrew Breitbart, a leading figurehead among mainstream conservatives, and his onetime protégé James OKeefe whose undercover videos are credited with causing the demise of the community organizing group ACORN rubbing elbows with young white nationalists at two different right-wing conferences.
The pictures are noteworthy because Breitbart, who died of a heart attack in March 2012, and OKeefe had been adamant that they had nothing to do with the conference attendees and vocally attacked anyone who suggested otherwise.
Instead, the photos published by the anti-racist organization One Peoples Project showed OKeefe posing with numerous members of the white-nationalist group Youth for Western Civilization at a forum organized by the Robert Taft Club. Another shot shows Breitbart hobnobbing with YWC leader Matthew Heimbach, who has recently came out as a full-fledged Nazi, at an Americans for Prosperity gathering.
The Robert Taft Club held the Race and Conservatism forum in August, 2006 and was headed at the time by anti-immigration activist Marcus Epstein, who later pleaded guilty to assaulting an African-American woman in 2007. It featured a discussion between two noted far-right figures, academic racist Jared Taylor and pundit John Derbyshire of the National Review (since fired for writing racist articles). The forum had been forced to change its venue after the original sponsor a conservative campus outfit called the Leadership Institute, which employed both Epstein and OKeefe pulled out when the Southern Poverty Law Center voiced concern.
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2014/02/14/old-photos-surface-showing-breitbart-okeefe-hobnobbing-with-white-nationalists/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Aww, racist right wing authoritarian friends for life.
uponit7771
(90,370 posts)Ohio Joe
(21,776 posts)heh, there is a real surprise
What the hell is Youth for Western Civilization?
Every once in a while, I read an article and click on one of those sites. It always makes my skin crawl.
ck4829
(35,096 posts)SQUEE
(1,315 posts).. Something in that name just screams condescension and arrogance.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Seriously the only time it lacks a racist context is when some poor schmuck has scooped up the term unaware.
Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)It's a bunch of upper-middle class white kids who somehow think they are being screwed in life because of feminists, immigrants, and gays. I can somewhat understand why a white men living in gut wrenching poverty in Appalachia might blame his shitty lot in life on others, because he actually has a shitty lot in life. But these are people who are privileged in every way whatsoever but somehow think they're being screwed by those who aren't.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)Here's the link to One People's Project: http://onepeoplesproject.com/index.php/rogues-gallery/15-o/201-james-okeefe
Neo-Nazi Matthew Heimbach with Andrew Breitbart, who by the way was Jewish but apparently that didn't matter to either of them for some reason. Still, it sure gives us a little insight as to why the Breitbart folks didn't want people to delve too much into the people James O'Keefe was hanging out with.
Flanking James O'Keefe (center) is members of the White Supremacist group Youth for Western Civilization. Christine Rousselle is on the left and Timothy Dionisopoulos is on the right wearing the YWC T-Shirt.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,352 posts)The guy looked like a walking heart attack. How's that greasy cocaine enlarged heart treating you now, Andy?
And O'Keefe looks like an old time inbred klan member in a cheap suit.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)He also might be hiding some minority genetic heritage in his background too. Maybe he has a little Jewish, native American or African something going on. Bigots are often deeply ashamed of that and compensate by going whole NAZI on us.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Because, well... that's not actually how it works. I've spent time spying over on places like stormfront, and they're a little more practica, less reactionary than you might think. Just because they dislike Jews in general doesn't mean they'll turn their nose up at a Jewish guy who not only shares their views of Jews, but helps further promulgate hatred and fear of Muslims and Arabs. same deal with blacks - White nationalists don't like black people, buth tye respect and appreciate the philosophies and efforts of black separatists... and the sentiment is oftne returned.
There is an organized, connected, and ironically multiethnic racist culture in the US (and elsewhere, of course) - a bunch of people united in the twin beleifs that they can't stand each other and "the integrationists" want to force them to do so.
libodem
(19,288 posts)Not one little bit. Fascists. Seriously.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)kysrsoze
(6,025 posts)Tommy_Carcetti
(43,227 posts)MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]
mzmolly
(51,018 posts)alp227
(32,073 posts)but nowadays Breitbart.com attracts the filthiest closet Nazi wannabes to its comments sections. what the actual ****
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)seriously, even if we ignore the ideological crossroads there, the reality is that Israel provides a very helpful anchor for the deployment of anti-Arab and Islamophobic bigotry.
alp227
(32,073 posts)I thought for White Nationalist/Heimbach types, a Semite is a Semite whether those imaginary Jews controlling Hollywood and the American economy and the US government to the True Jews(TM) of Israel whose existence defends America.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)They see Israel as "putting them Arabs / Muslims in their place." The English Defense League, for instance.
And I hate to sound like I'm defending these nuts - I'm not - but they're a little more nuanced than the lampooned version you have going there. I suppose that's to be expected of ideologies that don't worry about cognitive dissonances, though. Point is, you can hate Jews and still love Israel.
Walk away
(9,494 posts)dead body and named it Ted Cruz.
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)malaise
(269,263 posts)ProudToBeBlueInRhody
(16,399 posts)sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)and a Korean mother. Ironically, it seems that multiculturalism has finally arrived at the white supremacist movement.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)of the RW tendency to rail against the very thing that they are. It's like hypocrisy but more than that.
We see it when it comes to race, age, class, gender, sexuality and other areas of life.
It's like they think "I'm okay, it's just those other ones we need to keep down".
Maybe the first step in helping a RWer is to help them to accept themselves...
ck4829
(35,096 posts)And it leads to a lot of interesting things, such as this time I had a 'discussion' of sorts with a guy who thought waterboarding was justified and doing the whole 'ticking time bomb' scenario.
One thing I noticed with this scenario is that it's always SOMEONE ELSE who is the suspected ticking time bomber, and I said just that and said something to the effect "What happens if the police bust down YOUR door in the middle of the night and say 'Hey, there's the guy with the ticking time bomb, let's get him and waterboard him to get the TRUTH out!'?"
You could literally hear and feel the static in his head as he was trying to think of something, anything, to say in response to that. Eventually he just said I wanted the terrorists to win and then walked off.
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)Perhaps they all headed out for Retsina and Soutzoukakia after their little hatefest.
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)Breitbart and O'Keefe are nazis, so is the tea party. So are the American Taliban/religious right.
Country club rethugs just play at it. They are Randian cultists.
The whole bunch are traitors to America.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)or they will get fired and their boss will grovel to zombie Breitbart for forgiveness.
Faryn Balyncd
(5,125 posts)"The logo of the YWC, which is in black and white, features a hand gripping an object. According to the group, the object is a hammer carried by Charles Martel, the man who stopped the impending Islamic expansion into Europe during its early years. However, the logo has also drawn criticism from those who feel it too closely resembles a fasces."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_for_Western_Civilization
"The illegitimate son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Heristal and a noblewoman named Alpaida, Martel successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul. In foreign wars, Martel subjugated Bavaria, Alemannia, and Frisia, vanquished the pagan Saxons, and halted the Islamic advance into Western Europe at the Battle of Tours.[6]
"Martel is considered to be the founding figure of the European Middle Ages. Skilled as an administrator and warrior, he is often credited with a seminal role in the development of feudalism and knighthood....."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Martel
Interesting that these folks choose as a symbol the founder of feudalism.
ck4829
(35,096 posts)Maybe they were trying to go for a twofer, advocate feudal fascism?
Response to Faryn Balyncd (Reply #21)
CJCRANE This message was self-deleted by its author.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)They're just better, by their own estimation...
Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection
Edwin Black
SFGate.com, Published 4:00 am, Sunday, November 9, 2003
Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a so-called Master Race.
But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little-known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.
Eugenics was the pseudoscience aimed at "improving" the human race. In its extreme, racist form, this meant wiping away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in 27 states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.
California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the 20th century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little-known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles Goethe, as well as members of the California state Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.
Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists from such prestigious universities as Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims.
Stanford President David Starr Jordan originated the notion of "race and blood" in his 1902 racial epistle "Blood of a Nation," in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood.
In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. From Cold Spring Harbor, eugenics advocates agitated in the legislatures of America, as well as the nation's social service agencies and associations.
The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, confinement or forced sterilization.
The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.
Much of the spiritual guidance and political agitation for the American eugenics movement came from California's quasi-autonomous eugenic societies, such as Pasadena's Human Betterment Foundation and the California branch of the American Eugenics Society, which coordinated much of their activity with the Eugenics Research Society in Long Island. These organizations -- which functioned as part of a closely-knit network -- published racist eugenic newsletters and pseudoscientific journals, such as Eugenical News and Eugenics, and propagandized for the Nazis.
CONTINUED...
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php
...and in their own minds.
Personally, and as a Democrat, I believe all people are created as equals under the law.
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]All things in moderation, including moderation.[/center][/font][hr]
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)No hammer ever looked like that, at least until Dungeons and Dragons came along. That's an axe. Though to be somewhat fair, the axe was actually the weapon the Franks - and thus Chuckie M. - preferred.
And yeah, the white nationalists love the notion of feudalism. They're all about caste systems and meritocracies... thus, well, fascism.
PosterChild
(1,307 posts)...hierarchy, not meritocracy. Meritocracy is a modern, not a feudal, concept.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,511 posts)elzenmahn
(904 posts)....the Keefey O'Freak and Breitbart gettin' cozy with the Seik Heil crowd.
rdharma
(6,057 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)the photo of breitbart (G.H.D.) and heimbach IS likely photo-shopped. Look at breitbart's suit's right shoulder in relation to his hand on heimbach's should ... the suit isn't laying right to be on heimbach's should. And, look at heimbach's left arm, not a natural look.
ck4829
(35,096 posts)And there was a suspicion that Heimbach photoshopped it.
"One Peoples Project also published a photograph of Breitbart posing with Matthew Heimbach, taken from Heimbachs Facebook page. In the comments accompanying that photo, Heimbachs friends accused him of Photoshopping the picture; in reply, he informed them it was taken at an Americans for Prosperity gathering, and responded that his critics should attend more conservative conferences."
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)who this guys pal around with ... they all think the same stuff. F'em All!
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Claiming this is proof the SPLC is racist.
...for posting this.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Not.
Mister Ed
(5,946 posts)one_voice
(20,043 posts)wait..no I'm not.
DallasNE
(7,404 posts)The Taft family have been prominent in Republican politics for over 100 years. Robert Taft himself was favored to wing the Republican nomination for President in 1952 but northeastern Republicans recruited General Dwight Eisenhower to run and Eisenhower narrowly beat Taft before going on to be twice elected President. A Taft was recently Governor of Ohio. The Taft's dominate Cincinnati politics, home of John Boehner. This Club could not be more mainstream Republican and they are in bed with white-nationalist groups?
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)a big surprise. Do you mean to say that James O'Keefe and Breitbart hung out with white supremacists?
I'm SHOCKED. Shocked I tell you that there is gambling going on in here.
Where is my fainting couch?
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)the pearls right off of my neck!
Rex
(65,616 posts)White nationalists...I figured they were just cheap political hacks. Racist right wing authoritarians indeed.
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)I can see that our vitriol was well-justified!
If I were religious, I'd express my hopes that Hell was hot enough for Breitbart.
marble falls
(57,447 posts)with racists and did racist stunts themselves,
nikto
(3,284 posts)Rotten, truly rotten.