I want to thank the Anchorage Press for the series that it has run on the status of immigration issues here in Alaska and for covering the burgeoning "anti-immigration" forces here in Alaska, particularly those involving the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
One need not scratch too deeply beneath the respectable veneer of FAIR to uncover its true nature.
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One such group, 9/11 Families for a Secure America, is a national coalition of family members of 9/11 victims and concerned Americans allegedly “…dedicated to exposing the problems in our immigration system that made 9/11 possible.” The meme promoted by this group is that immigrants are a threat to the security of the nation. As part of its fund-raising cachet, this group appeals to the worst and most isolationist instincts of Americans.
Another group is found at WeNeedAFence.com. This organization has a petition to Congress promoting the construction of a high-tech border fence. They also support Right-Wing militia and the militarization of our borders—presumably Canadian as well as Mexican. Here the meme being promoted is that immigration is a form of "invasion" and the fund-raising cachet is, again, based on fear and histrionics that appeal to the nativistic strain in isolationist Americans.
The American Resistance is yet another affiliate of FAIR. This is the "attack dog" of the FAIR affiliates. Its role is to attack individuals, groups and organizations who dare to question FAIR and its motives. TAR
attacks The Ford Foundation, The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, La Raza, The Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, among others. The TAR "Articles" tab features the screeds of Dan Stein, President of FAIR. So it is unsurprising that Mr. Stein often quotes himself when sourcing his attacks on the SPLC.
A sense of the fear and demagoguery of TAR can be gleaned from a 2005 statement entitled "The True Cost of Cheap Labor" in which TAR employs the worst kind of fear mongering; nothing as innocuous as being “politically incorrect,” a snarky term often employed by the Right to trivialize race-baiting or some other demeaning or dehumanizing attack. Let's be clear what motivates FAIR and TAR and other advocacy organizations: money. Keeping the stink-pot stirred is good business for them and for their bottom line. Alaska must seem to be a ripe venue for rubes willing to pay good money for this poison, so "North to Alaska" they have come. The fact that Paul Bauer, who lost his re-election bid largely because of his absurd effort to turn our local police into immigration enforcement officers, is apparently embracing the “hot button” immigration issue here in Alaska is unsurprising. What is surprising is that there has been so little media attention paid to this and the Anchorage Press deserves great credit for casting an investigative light on FAIR and Alaskans for a Legal Presence.
Elstun W. Lauesen
Comments
Richard Keefe wrote on Jan 3, 2010 3:03 AM:
Dees took the case, Henley walked out of court scott-free and Dees cashed the Klan's dirty check.
Dees meets his own organization's definition of a "Klan lawyer" and he has gotten more Klan thugs OUT of prison than he's ever sent there.
(http://wp.me/pCLYZ-F) "
Richard Keefe wrote on Jan 3, 2010 3:01 AM:
Picower, who was accused of pocketing over $7 BILLION from the swindle, donated
$2.9 million to Morris Dees’ SPLC.
If FAIR is somehow tainted by donations made 25 years ago by an entirely legal, private group, what does this say about the SPLC, which accepted twice as much money, since 2005, from people who swindled Holocaust survivors and Jewish philanthropies?
(http://wp.me/pCLYZ-1y) "
Bob wrote on Dec 31, 2009 5:05 AM:
Elstun W. Lauesen wrote on Dec 22, 2009 5:06 PM:
People with long memories recall that Mr. Bauer got censured 9-0 by the Municipal Assembly on which he served. His censure was based on a report by the city's Board of Ethics of an incident March, 2007. Bauer broke the law by calling a press conference to talk about an ethics violation claim he was filing against Mayor Mark Begich and handing out copies of his complaint. According to the conservative Voice of the Times:
"... Bauer's press conference was an egregious violation of the city's law against disclosure of the formal filing of ethics complaints. That law is meant to prevent people from filing beefs, with or without merit, then trying to capitalize on the filing to seek publicity...And Bauer went ahead with his press soirée even though he was warned ahead of time by City Clerk Barbara Gruenstein that it would be illegal."
The Voice of the Times concludes:
The facts of the case suggest Bauer fully deserved whatever humiliation he got from what is considered a rare "admonition." "
Paul Bauer wrote on Dec 22, 2009 8:33 AM:
It appears Mr. Elstun W. Lauesen in his diatribe on all immigration reform groups is seeing “black helicopters” flying over his apartment again. Everything, every group, everybody who has any notion of following the rule-of-law, the principles of these United States, and protecting the sovereign rights of one’s nation is a right-wing conspiracist. It seems that Mr. Lauesen would open his doors to anybody and anything without a process, without controls, and without security. Maybe Me Lauesen wouldn’t mind having an OPEN house at his place near downtown for a couple of weeks. But, now his attacks on 9/11 families goes a little too far for me and most real Americans.
I do want thank the Anchorage Press for adding to the sensationalizing and contributing to lies, racist innuendos, with lack of in-depth research in their ‘reporting’; no “dribbling”, on more anti-American, law-biding groups that support reform of our nations laws. The “Press” has demonstrated to this community, their inability to conduct good research, quote and report fair, accurately, and balanced.
When the “Press” blogger, Brendan Kelly called me up and asked me questions about what I knew about House Bill 3-requirements for driver’s licenses/ID, I was led to believe that the blogger was going to examine the facts and merits of upcoming legislation for this Legislative session. Instead the entertainment public got sensitivity training on what illegal aliens do in our State and joining with or instigating the likes of people like Mr Elstun W. Lauesen’s demagoguery.
Since the Press blogger seems to appear he has found some sort of secret organization in Alaska, I have yet to see an accurate investigation or research from him and THE “Press” on the goal and mission of groups like Alaskans for Legal Presence (ALP). The name in itself exemplifies the concept of following the LAW. "
Celia Harrison wrote on Dec 19, 2009 1:26 PM:
I used to live in New Mexico on the border. The Mexican town just next to where I lived had the mayor executed in daylight, several police shot and found buried, several people kidnapped and most ended up dead, and recently the dentist I went to in that town was kidnapped. I think I would be leaving too, illegal or not. This is all about drug cartels, fueled by the US use of drugs, which is facilitated by the activites of the military and CIA. "
Ali wrote on Dec 17, 2009 9:06 AM:
Ali wrote on Dec 17, 2009 9:03 AM:
As for the fence, Congress has already passed a law requiring the construction of the fence and is building it. What a radical idea! Fences such as the one around the White House actually work !
Next, take a look at the pro-illegal alien groups the author of this letter discusses, including LaRaza, Maldef, etc. Groups such as LaRaza do have an irredentist past, and groups such as the Ford Foundation make very clear their view of a "global" world in which the U.S. is secondary to supranational aims.
Finally, the cheap labor issue. Are we to believe that the laws of economics, which apply to the cost of labor as well as to the cost of goods, are irrelevant?
It's also a fact of life that illegal aliens are NOT contributing anywhere near the cost of the services they use. Here in the lower 48, one has only to look at the property tax bill for our local schools in "immigrant" heavy areas. "
Sananda wrote on Dec 17, 2009 6:19 AM:
need, so that the good citizens of all the nations of our
Americas can live, work, study and travel freely from
nation-to-nation within this new international Union, as
described at
http://www.combatingglobalization.com/articles/american_union.html "