Politics

Cross-Post: Hatewatch’s Annual Smackdown Awards

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Originally posted by Hatewatch on December 20th 2011.

Another year, another horror. As we close out another 12 months of mayhem, criminal violence and just plain stupidity on the radical right, it’s time, once again, to compile our annual year-end roster of winners of Hatewatch’s Smackdown Awards. And this year’s been a doozy — from neo-Nazis trying to hide their past to irrepressible birthers and on to all manner of other hypocrites of the extreme right. So, without further ado and with apologies to Keith Olbermann, here are the awards as picked out by Hatewatch’s 5th Annual Smackdown Awards Committee.

10. Least Successful Name Change Award

Neo-Nazis always seem to be telling us about… Read more

Friday Media Recall (12.30.2011)

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Every Friday we want to offer a collection of media pieces that we’re finding provocative, vital, persuasive, prophetic, genius, infuriating, mind-blogging, and other adjectives that gesture at all things thought-provoking. Some of these posts will, of course, focus on immigration, but some will not. Some of these posts will represent the foreground of our national attention, but others will have sunk far into its background. Regardless, we hope to pass on a bit of what we’ve been reading, and what’s been capturing our attentions. If you’d like to pass on any media, please contact us at Imag2050@gmail.com. Enjoy!

    … Read more

    New Video a Window into Bigotry Behind Social Contract Press

    Written by Brian Schultz

    In October, we posted a blog on the 35th Writers Workshop for The Social Contract Press (TSCP); new materials on that event warrant an update.

    To recap, TSCP is a white nationalist publishing house established by John Tanton, the man credited as the architect of the contemporary anti-immigrant movement. The constellation of organizations that he founded and funded—organizations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Center for Immigration Studies (CIS)—have built a mainstream façade over the extremism generally associated with such nativist positions.

    The Social Contract Press, however, is Tanton’s project that flaunts its far right origins, publishing unapologetically white nationalist literature and a notorious quarterly journal, The Social… Read more

    The Tanton Network’s 10 Biggest Gaffes of 2011

    Written by Stephen Piggott

    As we reflect on the passing of another year, the John Tanton Network provides us with a number of gaffes which not only expose their nativist ties but also the Network’s relationships with the extreme far right, with anti-Semites and white nationalists among them. Here’s the list:

    10. Anti-immigrant lawyer Kris Kobach was given a $5000 fine for inaccurately reporting more than $75,000 in contributions and expenditures from his 2010 election cycle. Kobach is a lawyer for the anti-immigrant group Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), founded by white nationalist John Tanton. Instead of accepting the fine and admitting his mistakes, Kobach decided to go down the conspiratorial path, ranting about the… Read more

    Looking Ahead to Arizona’s Day in Supreme Court

    Written by Guest Blogger

    by Lindsey George

    Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear the Arizona v. United States case, which presents the question of whether Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB 1070 statute is preempted by federal immigration law and thereby unenforceable.

    Eight months earlier the Ninth Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction that prohibited enforcement of the law until the parties litigated the law’s constitutionality. The Supreme Court’s decision will ultimately determine the extent to which states can pass their own immigration measures.

    To be sure, the Supreme Court is not deciding whether the controversial measures in SB 1070 are constitutional; rather, it is determining the extent to which these measures conflict with federal law.… Read more

    Tis The Season to Give….

    Written by Amy Spicer

    Here’s a little holiday cheer, in the midst of hard times, according to an annual poll conducted by the International Charities Aid Foundation, Americans are both volunteering more and giving more to charity. And in a year that saw the 99% begin to gain its voice, it also saw the resilience and empathy of that 99% as the survey showed once again that the upper-class was undistinguished in their donations as opposed to those less fortunate who are strikingly generous.

    Nearly two-thirds of Americans said they had donated money to charity, more than 40% volunteered their time, and close to three-fourths said they had helped a stranger. Of those numbers households earning less… Read more

    Culture

    Cross-Post: The 10 Most Ridiculous Right-Wing Outrages of 2011

    Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

    Originally posted by AlterNet on December 19th.

    Call them nontroversies, poutrages or pseudo-scandals. Since the 2008 elections, the conservative media have peddled a seemingly endless series of trumped-up non-stories, pitched as scandals rivaling Watergate, to their loyal rubes in an attempt to paint liberals, the media, scientists, Democrats and Obama – and other enemies of the Wingnut State – as perfidious, dishonest or downright treasonous.

    A few of them have borne some remote resemblance to reality, but many of their pseudo-scandals featured no more substance than the bizarre right-wing emails your crazy uncle credulously forwards around to friends and family. Yet, with a dedicated conservative media headed by Fox News, many have been… Read more

    Culture

    Cross-Post: Groups Boycott Radio Show’s Advertisers After Hosts Target Immigrant Advocate

    Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

    Originally posted by Think Progress on December 22nd.

    Minority and immigrant rights groups have been pushing for John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, hosts of The John and Ken Show on the Clear Channel radio station KFI in California, to be taken off the air ever since the hosts targeted an immigrant advocate in a Sept. 1 show. On air, the hosts gave out the personal cell phone number of Jorge-Mario Cabrera of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).

    Cabrera received hundreds of hateful and threatening phone calls afterward. “These calls were intent to diminish me as a person,” Cabrera told the Los Angeles Times. The show’s hosts… Read more

    Friday Media Recall (12.23.2011)

    Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

    Every Friday we want to offer a collection of media pieces that we’re finding provocative, vital, persuasive, prophetic, genius, infuriating, mind-blogging, and other adjectives that gesture at all things thought-provoking. Some of these posts will, of course, focus on immigration, but some will not. Some of these posts will represent the foreground of our national attention, but others will have sunk far into its background. Regardless, we hope to pass on a bit of what we’ve been reading, and what’s been capturing our attentions. If you’d like to pass on any media, please contact us at Imag2050@gmail.com. Enjoy!

    … Read more

    CIS: No Water in the Desert? Blame Immigrants.

    Written by Guest Blogger

    by Nicole Loeffler-G​ladstone

    Kathleene Parker’s article, “Population, Immigration, and the Drying of the American Southwest,” which was published by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), is at first glance an article that might interest most progressive environmentalists.

    As a student of environmental science and resource politics and a native of California, I myself am particularly interested in water issues and how they impact these particular regions. Unfortunately, in true CIS form, the article scapegoats immigrants and does not address the root causes of environmental degradation.

    Parker begins her article with the important point that in the western United States water flows are too often directed where nature never intended, but rather where agriculture,… Read more