Population Control Alarmist Attacks Discovery Channel Headquarters
James Lee
Today’s hostage situation at a Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, Maryland indicates an alarming re-emergence of racially-tinged population control arguments. The scene played out violently when a man stormed the Discovery Channel offices and took three hostages. Early news reports indicate that the attacker was killed when he was shot by law enforcement which caused an explosive device on his body to detonate.
A list of demands for the Discovery Channel was posted on the website SaveThePlanetProtest.com, which were reportedly written by the alleged attacker James Jay Lee. In the irate statement, Lee refers to human beings as “filth” and demands that the Discovery Channel “stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants.”
Demand number five states:
“Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH!”
Demand number seven on his list orders the Discovery Channel to:
“Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people’s brains until they get it!!” Read more
What’s Whale Wars Got To Do With Saving the Planet?
Animal Planet’s reality show, Whale Wars, featuring a ragtag group of activists trying to save the planet by attacking Japanese whalers, has as much credibility with environmentalists as Jon & Kate have with parenting experts. It’s the green community’s version of Jersey Shore if you will; so preposterous it’s hard to look away.
Paul Watson is the doughy captain and star of the show. To most viewers he’s nothing more than an eccentric animal rights activist. Most people probably consider him harmless (unless you’re hunting whales of course). But there’s a lot more lurking under the façade of this wacky eco-activist.
Watson is severely at odds with environmentalists striving for inclusive solutions to environmental problems.
The outlandish tactics exhibited on the show extend to Watson’s involvement in the environmental movement. As the chair of the Sierra Club from 2003-2006 and founder and president of the Sea Sheppard Conservation Society, Watson has wielded tremendous influence as an environmental leader. Read more
The Green War on Immigrants
Bigotry. That isn’t the first word that comes to mind when one thinks about environmentalism, but green bigotry is real and growing. A web of individuals, groups and funders who identify themselves as environmentalists are dividing the environmental movement and moving it away from solutions that are inclusive of diverse communities.
The good news is we can take a stand against the greening of hate. Read more
Faux Environmental Group Hosts Discussion on Immigration
Anti-immigrant group Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) is hosting an event today, August 25 called, ‘Where have all the orange trees gone? A discussion on Population, Biodiversity and Immigration,’ that will feature special guest Michael Tobias. According to CAPS’ newsletter, American Bigfoot, Dr. Tobias is also the newest addition to its advisory board.
This may sound like a good occasion to get versed on the immigration issue, but it’s quite the opposite.
CAPS is listed as a state contact on Federation for American Immigration Reform’s (FAIR) website, where it is misleadingly described as “an environmental activist organization that views immigration control as a key element of population stabilization.” Read more
US/Mexico Border Fence: Bad News from All Sides
As part of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, the government started building a 700 mile fence along the 2000 mile southern border of the United States. Supposedly this will halt unauthorized immigration from the South.
The 640 miles of fence that have been built to date took four years, an average of $4.5 million per mile of taxpayer money, and have not proven an effective form of border security. On the contrary, this fence has caused more problems than it has solved.
For starters, immigration has not stopped. The only thing this fence has done is force the foot traffic through the more dangerous parts of the desert, causing a staggering number of deaths – 150 so far this year. In the Arizona desert alone, 59 bodies were recovered in July 2010, the highest number since July 2005. Read more
Monsanto Puts Planet and People at Risk
Are workers as resistant as beets to Monsanto’s Roundup? Of course not!
Any of your parents talk about the classic Sci-Fi movies of the 50s and 60s? Those movies were filled with precautionary warnings of invasion, mutation, and diabolical circumstances that struck fear in the Baby Boomers as they watched outlandish plots, poor depictions of creatures in rubber suits, shiny gadgets, and doomsday predictions that always seemed to accompany the “exposure” factor to some deadly alien-driven chemical.
Well fast-forward to Earth 2010…not only are the exposure factors for earth dwellers all too real, but all Hell’s broken loose!
Modern history documents the manifestation of the Monsanto beast, which despite controversy, usually seeks to control any industry it’s invested in. The early 20th century agricultural picture in the United States clearly shows both complex and consistent patterns of the Machiavellian influence of Monsanto. The industry giant started with humble beginnings and swiftly grew to be an egregious negative contributor to America’s nutritional, environmental and political fabric and has steamrolled as it shaped a landscape filled with manipulation, debauchery, and self-indulgence. Read more
Anti-Immigrant Hidden Cameras & Neo-Nazi Patrols
The anti-immigrant group Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released its “hidden camera” documentary film this past July. A ten minute video titled, “Hidden Cameras on the Arizona Border 2: Drugs, Guns and 850 Illegal Aliens,” is the second “hidden camera” video from CIS in the past two years. CIS states that this film “focuses primarily on the environmental destruction caused by illegal activity on federal lands, highlighting in more detail waste and threat to wild animal life.”
This is not the first time CIS has attempted to reach out to environmentalists. Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) was founded in 1985 as a project directly under the control of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). CIS is part of a web of controversial anti-immigrant organizations orchestrated by John Tanton, who founded FAIR.
Groups like CIS, that use ungrounded arguments about ecological degradation for their anti-immigrant agenda, are now coming under harsh criticism from environmentalists. Read more
Imagine 2050 Releases Special Green Issue
Imagine 2050’s second anniversary magazine was released today with an entire issue devoted to ecology, politics, and national identity. The issue is available for download here and on Center for New Community’s website.
For two years the writers at Imagine 2050 have visited and revisited issues related to migration, race, and the environment. The newest issue of the magazine compiles our favorite “green” articles from the past year. The magazine includes in-depth commentary on topics such as the controversial activities of anti-immigrant groups from within the environmental movement, and the interconnectedness of climate change and structural racism.
Read more
New Report Exposes Nativists, Environmentalism & the Hypocrisy of Hate
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released a new report today titled, Greenwash: Nativists, Environmentalism & the Hypocrisy of Hate.
The report details decades-old attempts by anti-immigrant groups – all part of the John Tanton Network – to lure environmentalists and environmental groups into adopting their anti-immigrant agenda.
The SPLC report comes less than a week after a report released by the Center for New Community showed how anti-immigrant forces have corrupted the dialogue on population and the environment, called Apply The Brakes: Anti-immigrant Co-optation of the Environmental Movement.
At the heart of both reports is the Tanton Network and its efforts to avoid accusations of racism by cloaking its anti-immigrant agenda in environmental groups that are deemed “progressive.” This strategy was instigated by John Tanton, a Michigan ophthalmologist who is widely considered to be the founder of the modern-day anti-immigrant movement. Tanton believed that once his organizations and individuals under his guidance were imbedded into progressive organizations like the Sierra Club, they could implement an anti-immigrant agenda without coming under attack. Read more
Community Members Protest Weeden Foundation in New York
Community members in the Bronx are fed up with anti-immigrant bigotry. And today they are exposing a powerful New York foundation for funding the anti-immigrant movement.
The Weeden Foundation was confronted by over 100 community members in front of its Manhattan headquarters in a protest organized by the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC) and Sistas and Brothas United (SBU). According to the group’s press statement, members “protest the Weeden Foundation’s funding groups that scapegoat immigrants for ecological problems. Weeden has a history of attempting to inject 
anti-immigrant agendas into the environmental movement, and also supporting anti-immigrant hate groups…As representatives of diverse immigrant communities, Northwest Bronx community members instead call for an immigration reform that provides all immigrants with full civil rights and a humane pathway to legalization, and an end to racial profiling, raids, mass detentions, deportations, and government programs that criminalize immigrants.”
The Weeden Foundation was featured in a report released by the Center for New Community just last week. The report outlined how anti-immigrant groups have corrupted the dialogue on population and the environment over the last 14 years. Read more
A Real Turn-Off: Population, Borders, and Hidden Agendas
Population growth is a tricky topic in many a political sphere. Perhaps no more so than for progressives concerned about climate change. I myself have wrestled with how to reconcile a commitment to racial justice and civil rights and a desire to protect the planet from human inflicted havoc. A balanced, unbiased and, most importantly, effective approach to environmentalism is no easy feat. There are a few things I believe should be upheld in any movement I choose to support: equality for all, human dignity, and a commitment to oppose bigotry. However, some aspects of the environmental movement run afoul in these areas and create conflicts for like-minded individuals who genuinely wish to engage more deeply on environmental fronts.
In the environmental movement, agendas abound and many groups either avoid completely or run smack into the issue of explosive population growth. It’s easy to become alarmed by the sheer number of humans inhabiting the planet and just how quickly we’ve multiplied over the last three centuries. So easy in fact that some environmental groups devote themselves entirely to the topic. And while addressing the issue is necessary, it has, for decades, been plagued by sensational, often flawed claims about how population growth affects the ecosystem. Read more
Negative Population Growth Plants Anti-immigrant Advertisement in Washington Times
July brought another advertisement in the Washington Times by anti-immigrant group Negative Population Growth (NPG). NPG attacks immigrants in order to tap into the urgency of the environmental movement around the BP oil spill. This is just one more attempt to further the manipulative demand for U.S. Population Stabilization by white nationalists and anti-immigration groups.
NPG’s advertisement reads,
THE CRISIS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO IS ONLY THE BEGINNING…Without a national population policy America will face future environmental disasters on a regular basis!
The problem with NPG’s message is not that it’s concerned with the population growth of our planet; the main problem is who is behind this group, who they are connected to and why they link national immigration to world population. Read more
“Apply the Brakes:” Nativists and Naturalists Corrupt the Environment-Population Dialogue
Who would have thought that the renowned Lester Brown of Worldwatch Institute or Roderick Nash of the classic Wilderness and the American Mind would involve themselves in a portion of the environmental movement that dallies with nativists and white nationalists? Or that the Weeden Foundation, a mainstay funder of numerous environmental groups, might “steer the environmental movement toward a course fueled by bigotry and racism?”
With the release today of “Apply the Brakes: Anti-Immigrant Co-optation of the Environmental Movement,” the Center for New Community has laid these unseemly realities bare, and exposed yet another effort by anti-immigrant forces to corrupt the dialogue on the relationship of immigration to population growth to environmental degradation. As well, the report maps the ties between anti-immigrant interests and environmental groups nationwide.
Apply the Brakes (ATB) s a rather innocuous gathering of “long-time conservationists” committed to stopping “unsustainable U.S. population growth.” Having met in 2006 “to discuss the decade-long retreat of U.S. environmental organizations from addressing domestic population growth as a key issue in both domestic and global sustainability,“ the group determined to fill the population gap left by traditional environmental organizations. Flying low over the environment-population-immigration landscape ever since, Apply the Brakes is perhaps the most stealthy of anti-immigrant configurations, with long roots in The John Tanton Network and the contemporary nativist movement in the U.S. Read more
Despite Sullied Reputations, Anti-Immigrant Bigots Push Immigration & Oil Spill Argument
Imagine 2050 has received yet another communication from anti-immigrant leaders asking that we provide a platform for their politically extreme viewpoints. This one came from Philip Cafaro, a professor who works with anti-immigrant groups like Center for Immigration Studies and Progressives for Immigration Reform, as a response to an article I recently wrote.
Let’s set the record straight for Cafaro. Linking the BP oil spill to immigration and population growth – as he has done – is racist and bigoted. And the fact that he makes these arguments on behalf of controversial groups like Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) raises questions about his true agenda when it comes to the environment. Cafaro writes regularly for CIS, so far producing one report and four blogs for the organization. In addition to CIS, Cafaro is an advisory board member for Progressives for Immigration Reform. On January 12, he wrote a blog on PFIR’s website in which he lauded an article published by the white nationalist journal, The Social Contract. Progressives for Immigration Reform and CIS are both part of white nationalist John Tanton’s network of anti-immigrant groups. Read more
Anti-Immigrant Leader Defends Controversial Environmentalist
Durant posing with white nationalists Wayne Lutton & Peter Gemma
Imagine 2050 hit the nail on the head a nerve with anti-immigrant groups a few weeks ago when we posted an article about one of the anti-immigrant movement’s environmentalists-for-hire, Philip Cafaro.
Leah Durant, executive director of Progressives For Immigration Reform, sent us a rebuttal defending her friend (Cafaro) and attacking me. In her email she asked that we publish her lengthy response on our site. Normally, we would, but we have this policy about providing platforms for bigots - we just don’t do it.
However, I would like to share some of what she said in an effort to help the public get a feel for Durant’s connections to white nationalism and why the anti-immigrant movement is a danger to environmental causes.
Durant starts by saying, “Garvey’s piece deceptively frames the entire immigration reduction argument in the US as simply being a byproduct of right-wing, nativist and racist bigots.” Read more
The Anti-Immigrant Movement’s Environmental Mercenary
“Now, if we had time, I think I could show that every major environmental problem in the U.S. is made worse by population growth.”
-Philip Cafaro, anti-immigrant activist speaking on a panel titled, “Immigration, Population, and the Environment: Experts to Debate Impact of Current Policies.”
White nationalist John Tanton, driver of the most powerful anti-immigrant movement in America, has perfected the art of playing both sides against the middle.
Tanton’s array of organizations, from lobbyists to grassroots mobilizers, work closely with national tea party leaders one day and the next pander to left-leaning audiences through spin-off groups like Progressives for Immigration Reform. This is nothing new for the Network’s web of over two dozen organizations – meticulously nurtured for the last three decades by the same small circle of men.
When the Network’s seed group, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), wanted to appear pro-Latino a few years back, it recruited virulent minuteman leader and Mexican-American Rosanna Pulido to head up its You Don’t Speak for Me coalition – a front group that unsuccessfully tried to trick established Latino communities into thinking that immigrants were budging them in the line for the American dream. A similar tactic was tried when FAIR-created Choose Black America and recruited a few far right African-American representatives like Ted Hayes to bash immigrants. To this day, anti-immigrant groups exploit the false notion that immigrants and African-Americans must compete with one another for prosperity. Read more
Anti-Immigrant Groups Blame Immigrants for BP Oil Spill
Amidst an environmental crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, anti-immigrant groups in the John Tanton Network see the BP oil spill as an opportunity to – wait for it – blame immigrants.
BP can’t contain the oil spill and the anti-immigrant movement can’t control its tendency to blame immigrants for every bad thing in America. On the ground, people are cleaning up oil, protesting BP, and fighting to protect their communities. Anti-immigrant leaders associated with The John Tanton Network posit a different response all together.
Phillip Cafaro, a writer for think-tank Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and for Federation for American Immigration Reform (both founded by John Tanton), is suggesting that the BP oil spill is a result of immigrant populations. Cafaro’s blog article, written for CIS and titled “Oil Spills and Immigration Policy,” starts off by stating that it would be ridiculous to connect causality between immigration and the BP oil spill. Funny enough, Cafaro manages to do just that. Read more
EPA Has AgBiz Giants Run Farm Advisory Table
One has to wonder what the leaders of the Environmental Protection Agency were thinking when they invited the world’s agribusiness giants to sit at and run the agency’s gargantuan-named Farm, Ranch, and Rural Communities Federal Advisory Committee (FRRCC). Chaired by a representative of Del Monte Foods the “independent advisory committee” also includes the global giant, Syngenta (seeds), the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, and the multinational meat conglomerates, JBS (beef) and Smithfield (hogs). Perhaps the EPA didn’t get last November’s announcement about the U.S. Departments of Justice and Agriculture joint hearings on competition (or lack thereof) and regulatory issues in agriculture—hearings at which the agbiz giants are rightly and routinely taken to task by the farm and rural people and communities who pay the true cost of their control of agriculture.
The real irony of this little-known committee is the re-appointment of Smithfield’s “Vice President for Corporate Affairs and Chief Sustainability Officer,” charged with running the company “in a socially responsible and sustainable way.” Apparently the EPA’s “Office of the Agricultural Counselor to the Administrator” didn’t bother to look around his own agency to learn of Smithfield’s environmental record in the countryside, including its ongoing efforts to thwart the decade-old consent decree its PSF subsidiary entered to clean up its hog operations in Missouri. As well, the agency apparently chose to ignore the $11 million jury verdict the company incurred in March for the stench from its PSF operations—the largest monetary award ever in a hog “farm” odor nuisance case. Perhaps Smithfield’s VP will help the EPA Federal Advisory Committee develop strategies for skirting corporate environmental responsibility in the countryside. Read more
American Bigfoot: Immigration, Population Growth, and Racism
A California group persistently propagates the myth that immigrants are to blame for environmental problems. Leon Kolankiewicz, senior writing fellow with Californians for Population Stabilization, (CAPS) was featured in the CAPS spring newsletter with an article titled, American Bigfoot: Immigration, Population Growth, and our Oversized Ecological Footprint.
Californians for Population Stabilization is deeply entangled with the anti-immigrant John Tanton Network, which includes FAIR, the group behind Arizona’s S.B. 1070. CAPS yet again pretends to have ecological interests, but is exposed for continued attacks on communities of color including immigrant populations, its connections to white nationalists, and refusal to blame the real “American Bigfoot.” Read more
No One (White) is Responsible for Anything
The recent finger-pointing show put on by the BP oil spill execs from the three primary companies involved in that disaster has provided yet another narrative for contemporary America: no white person is responsible for anything, especially when it comes to corporate or government in/action. The blame-fixing political show still running in Arizona on SB1070 only confirms what the BP execs revealed—that white “leaders” only know how to use two fingers: the index to appoint blame and… well, you know, that big one in the middle to indicate how much they really care anyway.
On the economy, energy, race, or immigration white “leaders” are amazingly adept at shirking and ignoring their own culpability in creating and sustaining problems, at fomenting and taking advantage of crises, and, then, at shifting responsibility for those problems and crises to others. For generations whites have followed this pattern on race, having created and sustained slavery, fomented a war over it, nurtured a century of Jim Crow, and then blamed African Americans for their own plight to this very day. It worked so well on race that the pattern now seems to have application to countless other matters. Most everything is similarly racialized. Read more
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