Yesterday I received a call from Ted Morris, a reporter for the Sierra Vista Herald (
See today's report). He wanted to get my reaction to accusations made by the SPLC that I was aligned with hate groups. He mentioned the Council for Conservative Citizens and American Renaissance. SPLC said I had spoken before both groups. Without agreeing that these are hate groups, whatever that means, let me explain.
First, let me say that then Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga) and then Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott had spoken beforethe Council of Conservative Citizens just prior to my appearance in July of 1999. I knew nothing of the CCC when I received an invitation to speak before the group. The invitation included a round-trip airline ticket and a list of speakers that included Professor Virginia Abernathy of Vanderbilt University and other notables. I accepted the invitation. Following my speech (
here is a transcript) the panel took questions from the floor. At one point a member of the audience accused the Jewish community of advocating illegal immigration. I volunteered to respond. I did so by pointing out that the founder of my organization (Voice of Citizens Together), Shirley Lertzman, was Jewish as were many others with whom I worked, including demographer
B. Meredith Burke, Ph.D. I said it was wrong to generalize about the Jewish community. (The CCC meeting was aired on C-SPAN so anyone interested in doing so can verify this.)
I was disturbed by this question and decided to not again appear at the CCC despite invitations to do so.
But this isn't enough for the SPLC. They have labeled the CCC as a hate group and attached that same label to me by association.
The same situation applies to my appearance at the American Renaissance meeting in 2002. Here are some of the speakers at the meeting:
John Philippe Rushton - psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario, Canada
Samuel Francis - Francis received the Distinguished Writing Award for Editorial Writing of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) in both 1989 and 1990.
Nicholas John "Nick" Griffin. Since 1999 he has been the National Chairman of the British National Party (BNP).
Jared Taylor - Born to missionary parents in Japan, Taylor lived in that country until he was 16 years old. He graduated from Yale University in 1973 with a BA in Philosophy, and graduated from
Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) in 1978 with a MA in International economics. Taylor speaks fluent English, Japanese and French.
These are not exactly a bunch of skinheads.
The meeting was entitled
"In Defense of Western Man" -- noble goal in my judgment. My speech dealt with the threat that Mexico represents to the United States of America. ( Interestingly the threat of a Mexican takeover of the Southwest reared its ugly head just this week [
click here to listen to audio clip from the March 15, 2008 Roger Hedgecock Show].
Once again, this was my only appearance before this group and had no contact with them before or since.
I am not agreeing to labels that SPLC wishes to place on American Renaissance, only that a single speech at a meeting where very respectable intellectuals speak their minds should not be condemned by fair-minded Americans
After a number of speeches on Long Island for which I was attacked by the
SPLC, New York Newsday sent a reporter and photographer to my home in Sherman Oaks to meet with me and people who work with me. Knowing there would be a reporter and photographer at the meeting the following agreed to participate:
Yeh Ling Ling (Chinese)
Head of Diversity Alliance
Terry Anderson (Black)
The Terry Anderson Show
Dr. Ben Zuckerman (Jewish)
Professor of astrophysics, UCLA
Ezola Foster (Black)
Pat Buchanan's running mate in 2000.
The entire meeting was taped and a copy is available.
Now I ask you, who would be the best judge of whether I am a loyal American concerned with the future of our nation, or a hate monger, the SPLC or Dr. Ben Zuckerman? Or Ezola Foster? Or Terry Anderson? Or Yeh Ling Ling?
Although the people mentioned above are fairly high-profile, somehow the SPLC has failed to tag them as haters, even though they have been closely associated with me for years. Why?
The fact is that the SPLC has targeted me because I am white and I am effective. They'll try to silence me but dare not tread on minorities. Could it be that the SPLC hates white people?
From 1978 to 1985 I had a close relationship with Indian tribes in the northern plains. In fact, I was VP/General Manager of Arrowstar, Inc., a geophysical company that was the second largest employer of American Indians in the U.S. The president of the company was Carl Fourstar, now
Chairman of the Fort Peck Tribes in Montana, a 2.1 million acre Indian Reservation. If the SPLC wanted the truth, Carl will tell them that when we needed someone to head up our geophysical operation I recruited John Aguilar, a Mexican-American. He will also tell them that I worked to advance opportunist and education of American Indians,
I am not a racist, nor do I hate the Mexican people, But when
Mario Obledo, co-founder of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund said "California is gong to be a Hispanic state and anyone who doesn't like it should leave," the SPLC is right, I hate that.
The Southern Poverty Law Center makes its money off of
frightening people, particularly Jewish people, into giving them money to fight dangerous groups. They started with the KKK, but when they ran out of KKK members they had to create new monsters to keep the freight and money flow alive. This led to the designation of "hate groups."
In creating their new monsters, the SPLC will stop at nothing, including fabricating stories, such as those repeated by
USA Today. When the mainstream media signs on to their lies, the result is that people like me are kept off the major airways. This means we find it difficult to gain public support for our efforts. This is by design.
But I will continue to speak the truth as I see it, no matter what. This is a nation built on the principle of free speech, an idea that has turned antithetical to the interests of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
