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.
“There is plenty of racism on free republic. I don’t think that is a secret. The question is how to the mods deal with it. I read crap on here on a regular basis that I feel is am embarrassment to the site and to those reading the site.”
And how much of that crap is posted by trolls trying to make FR look bad? Alot, I imgine.
More than leaning toward slander, imo. FR should demand an apology/retraction/correction. Public.
Piffle ...
Those expecting to see racism will find it ... if you say that a white woman looks like "a crack whore", that's a description; to say the same thing about a black woman is racist (at least according to the players of the racism card). If you label a white guy as a dumb ape or stupid halfwit, it's a description; the same thing about a black guy is racist.
Racism card twaddle ...
Did you ever notice how old the people on stage of an NAACP event look? They are a bunch of geezers. They are the ones dying out trying to hold onto power. The young have moved on.
The last, desparate gasps of a long ago irrelevant organization, losing the power they’ve held over a captive audience is coming to an end.
I hope FR takes them to court.
I thought they claimed to have proof. All I see here is more accusation. In the school of Non-Rational Persuasion, that’s known as ‘begging the question’.
The NAACP has led African Americans into misery. They have betrayed the people they represent.
I am proud of the sentiments I see expressed about race on Free Republic. We believe in the Founding Fathers vision of a constitutional republic where “all men are created equal.” We believe in Martin Luther King’s dream of an America where men will be judged by their character not their color.
Its the NAACP that rejects that dream for tribalism in the pursuit of petty greed and power politics.
I doubt that anyone but race pimps give two sh*ts about what the NAACP says anymore, anyway. No worries, IMHO.
Burghart looks like a Morris Dees wannabe. This is the first I have heard of him.
The above is an interesting expose' of Zeskind as a purveyor of lefty "ritual defamation" for political purposes.
"...One methodology of choice is that old Stalinist standby, "ritual defamation." Says Wilcox bluntly, "The primary purpose of Watchdog organizations seems to be to call people names in the hope of defaming, discrediting, stigmatizing or neutralizing them."
As to Zeskind, he has imagined an impending "white Christian nation" that somehow manages to accomodate both anti-statist Christians and pagan Nazi socialists. He and his acolytes have made this oxymoron work in the public mind by routinely linking what he calls "the God, guts and guns crowd" with racists and fascists..."
Looks like the NAACP hired some minor league hack race pimp "researchers" to pound out some screed. This kind of material doesn't work like it used to. Primarily it is for the benefit of NAACP donors who can say to themselves that the NAACP is, "doing something".
Good post...
Thanks!
Word.
This sort of defense presumes there is some objective standard of moral behavior that applies equally to everyone. However, such a presumption is itself considered evidence of "racism" since no media-designated oppressor class is ever allowed to be the moral equal of any media-designated victim class.
That is why Bush never did anything about the border problem except to denounce conservative activists as "vigilantes." Bush knew the rules.
The only response that will earn atonement for FR eyes of polite society would be abject admission and apology combined with adoption of a Bush-like policy on immigration and related matters.
Another option would be to renounce the media-imposed moral doctrine altogether.
I won’t get nasty unless they turn violent. For the most part they brought their own misery on themselves.
Go you one better, whiskers ..... early voters Wednesday in Texas Cong. Dist. 30 found that the guy running against incumbent Eddie Bernice Johnson wasn't even on the ballot -- he got bumped off somehow!
How'd that happen, Eddie Bernice?
And this just a few weeks after a warehouse fire of extremely suspicious origins burned up over 10,000 E-Slate voting machines in Houston.
And now the Texas Democratic Party is suing hell out of a Tea Party group that was sending poll-watchers to the Houston early balloting locations -- the allegations of "harassment" sound very much like the shrill screaming and yelling in the NAACP report. Oh, and they're suing individuals, too, who are politically active -- a Colorado-style SLAPP suit, funded with Soros money.
Some of the "ethics complaints" are cookie-cutter stuff that Rahm's Netroots tried to do to Sarah Palin last year.
Making Houston-area FReepers wonder if there isn't an attempt to steal the election underway. Redisticting next year -- lots riding on this election!
The NAACP is a racist organization. By virtue of its exclusion of all other races other than Black.
The NAACP should disavow racism, and include members of ALL races to prove it.
Anyone going to hold their breath on that one? Yea, me neither.
Lawsuit pending? Will the NAACP be contributing to the FReepathons, soon?
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