Posted on 10/20/2010 8:50:32 PM PDT by kristinn
In a report released today entitled, Tea Party Nationalism, the NAACP falsely accuses Free Republic of being "an important space for...racist(sic)" and of having as a member the Holocaust Museum shooter James Von Brunn.
In falsely accusing Free Republic of being a haven for racists, the NAACP report notes Free Republic's front page promotes the Tea Party Express. However, the report fails to note the front page also includes several statements warning that racism and violence are not welcome on Free Republic:
"Please enjoy our forum, but also please remember to use common courtesy when posting and refrain from posting personal attacks, profanity, vulgarity, threats, racial or religious bigotry, or any other materials offensive or otherwise inappropriate for a conservative family audience."
And
"Free Republic does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government. Free Republic advocates a return to constitutionally limited government, reserving all government powers not expressly delegated by the constitution to the United States to the States respectively, or the people, emphasizing sovereign state governments, local government, self-government and self-rule, while restricting government powers to only those enumerated in the constitution and maximizing individual rights and liberty as originally envisioned and established by our Founding Fathers and secured and defended by the blood of patriots and statesmen for over two hundred years."
With regard to Von Brunn, he was not a member of Free Republic. The article authored by him was posted by another poster. The article did not contain racism, however the article was pulled when the moderators became aware that Von Brunn was a racist. Articles by known racists are not tolerated on Free Republic (unless the articles are authored by racist Democrats like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Vice President Joe Biden or the late Sen. Robert Byrd.) To say that Von Brunn was a poster at Free Republic, or that the site is "an important space for...racists" is false and a correction will be demanded.
From page #53 of the section on the Tea Party Express in the NAACP report:
One of the official partners of the Tea Party Express is Free Republic, which identifies itself as “an online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web.”173 It is an important space for the birthers and racist. One of those posting material on Free Republic claiming that President Obama had no birth certificate was James von Brunn, the white supremacist who killed the guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., on June 10, 2009.174 This website has also posted racist attacks on the Obama family. In July 2009, after Obama’s elevenyear- old daughter Malia was photographed wearing a t-shirt with the peace symbol, a Free Republic thread featured racially charged comments about President Obama’s wife and children, using racist epithets and terms like “Ghetto street trash.” The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured that caption, “To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make Monkey sounds.”175
On the front page of its website, Free Republic advertised the Tea Party Express Bus Tour. (The Free Republic web page also features links to Tea Party Patriots and ResistNet). Free Republic’s Kristinn Taylor serves as a bridge between Free Republic and the folks behind the Tea Party Express.176 He has also worked for the anti-immigrant vigilante group Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, and has spoken at Florida Tea Party events.177 He does not get along particularly well with factions other that Tea Party Express, however. In a March 22, 2010 article entitled “Freedom Works Willing to Throw Tea Party Under the Bus to Appease Democrats, Media” on Free Republic, Taylor wrote: “Freedom Works...latched onto the Tea Party movement last year is now threatening to abandon the grassroots movement in the face of a propaganda onslaught by the Democrat party and the media.”178
The mention of the offensive comments about the Obama family is regretfully correct, but the report fails to note that the offensive comments were made by a handful of posters out of over 300,000 registered user and that the thread was pulled by Free Republic moderators when it was brought to their attention.
Freeper Gary Dunn was quoted today in The Guardian about the report:
Gary Dunn, a contributor to the Free Republic website, said it had a policy of always removing racist comments as quickly as possible.
It uses up to eight moderators to filter offensive posts, and repeat offenders were had their access withdrawn, he said.
As for my affiliation with the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, I was a media consultant for several months. The group was not anti-immigrant and not vigilante.
The NAACP report is not just meant to smear the Tea Party movement, it is also meant to show participants and organizers that they will be investigated and held in a bad light to the public just for being in the movement. For example, others mentioned in the report have their financial situations highlighted.
I will not be intimidated by the racist NAACP, nor, I know, will Freepers.
NAACP report footnotes:
173 . Free Republic website, http://www.freerepublic.com.
174 . James W. Von Brunn, “Obama is missing!” Free Republic website, taken down by Free Republic after the shooting, cache of the post available here, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:niXSYG-nVO8J:www. freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2141655/posts+http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2141655/posts&cd
88 | Tea Party Nationalism — A Special Report of the IREHR
=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a.
175 . Chris Parry, “Conservative Free Republic blog in free speech flap after racial slurs directed at Obama children,” The Vancouver Sun, July 12, 2009, http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Conservative+Free+Republic+blog+free+speech+flap+after+racial+slurs+directed+Obama+children/1782375/story.html.
176 . Kristinn Taylor is a spokesperson for Free Republic and also works with Move America Forward, whose leadership is also behind Our Country Deserves Better PAC. See, Kristinn Taylor, “Author page” Big Government website, undated, accessed August 1, 2010, http://biggovernment.com/author/ktaylor/.
177 . Our Country Deserves Better PAC is the creation of the principles in the PR firm of Russo Marsh & Rogers. Russo Marsh & Rogers was the driving force behind Move America Forward, the pro-war, pro-torture group known best for harassing anti-war activists. In fact, Our Country Deserves Better and Move America Forward share several staff members. Howard Kaloogian chairs OCDB and is the founder and former chair of MAF. Sal Russo serves as chief strategist for both groups. Joe Wierzbicki, a principal in Russo Marsh & Rogers serves as grassroots coordinator for MAF and coordinator of OCDB. Deborah Johns is MAF’s director of military relations and, until recently, an OCDB spokesperson.
178 . Kristinn Taylor, “Freedom Works Willing to Throw Tea Party Under the Bus to Appease Democrats, Media,” Free Republic Website, March 22, 2010, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2477257/posts.
Frak the NAACP.
This is because: (1) They are all postal supervisors in a downtown postal facility, (2) You are more dangerous than they are, or (3) There is safety in groups!
‘I urge anyone who has any sympathy to the NAACP of the past to read more about its early days and those involved with its creation (including Oswald Garrison Villard and Florence Kelley). The NAACP is now and has always been a stain on America.’
Well, it wasn’t so bad when Barry Goldwater helped found the Phoenix branch, before he was elected to the city council there.
I’m thinking there’s a lawsuit here somewhere.
This is because: (1) They are all postal supervisors in a downtown postal facility, (2) You are more dangerous than they are, or (3) There is safety in groups!
(4) They're buying! :-)
CQ DX.
Ping
Sign me - FReeper since 1998
Barry Goldwater is a hero of mine. I still fondly remember my "AuH20" sticker from the 1964 campaign. Interestingly, I just re-read Conscience of a Conservative a week or so ago. He did quit the NAACP (just as I did when I realized what a corrupt outfit it was).
I would surmise that some of Goldwater's views may not have been embraced by the NAACP:
"It may be just or wise or expedient for Negro children to attend the same schools as white children, but they do not have a civil right to do so which is protected by the Federal Constitution or which is enforceable by the Federal Government." He subscribes to the "objectives" of the Supreme Court's 1954 desegregation decision, Goldwater says, but "I am not prepared to impose that judgment of mine on the people of Mississippi or South Carolina."
I don't have his book handy at present but I believe those quotes (taken from a Time magazine article on line) are what I recall from the "Civil Rights" chapter of the book.
Sign me - n00b, rookie, neophyte, wet-behind-the-ears. :-)
At my advancing age (with white hair), I'll embrace any of those terms since they make me feel so young. (I just had to ping onyx on this since she knows about me, an old fuddy-duddy). Heh, heh, heh.
Thank you-—great post!
I say we ignore the NAACP like anything else that has passed into obsolescence.
I thought your comment read the magic horn has come off their unicorn. I guess that works just as well.
‘I don’t have his book handy at present but I believe those quotes (taken from a Time magazine article on line) are what I recall from the “Civil Rights” chapter of the book.’
Well ‘The Conscience of a Conservative’ was in large part written by William F Buckley, Jr. and Brent Bozell, Jr. and published in 1960. I get the impression that the quote you cited was likely written to explain Barry’s vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, or possibly written in anticipation of such a bill.
And without your ping, I would have otherwise missed your stupendous post!
YOU SAID IT ALL, ELOQUENTLY!!!!
I voted for Carter in 1976...my last gasp of sorta liberalism though i did not think of it that way
Just like Obama.
If it WERE racism, we'd have voted for Carter just because he was white, and against Obama, just because he was black.
BTW -- "Barack Obama is Kenyan for Jimmy Carter".
Cheers!
Yeah. I’m not sure his kind belong on FR! :P
We've never met, I've been around here long enough to know you from you writings and you activism in representing Free Republic and fellow Conservatives.
As it is my right to call you anything I want, let me just say...
“Thank you for being a true American Patriot”.
I am proud to be a Freeper and stand, unashamedly as such with all my fellow Freepers. I wear the scorn of the lefties, the commies, the whole America hating lot of ‘em, as a badge of honor.
While I don't give one whit what the naacp thinks, they have besmirched your HONOR, and by extension, the honor of ALL Freepers. Please sue the bas**rds, as long as that wouldn't waste too much of the precious time you devote to the cause.
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