The Vanguard of America’s Anti – Immigration Movement Comes to Flat Rock

This is an excerpt of a fairly long post. To read the entire post, follow this link.

{KKK pic}

The 450-seat Thomas Auditorium on the campus of Blue Ridge Community College’s Flat Rock campus was at least 3/4 full. White people from all over came to hear white people talk about how to have fewer brown people in our country. The two-hour “Immigration Town Hall Meeting” was paid for with your tax dollars, and I didn’t hear a voice of dissent all night long. The Taylor for Congress team was there shooting footage for advertisements both during and after the event – call it government subsidized campaigning.

Press Secretary Deborah Potter came up to me, and though we’d never met, said, “Screwy, how are you. You lambasted me…”. Ms. Potter was very nice, some might say flirtatious. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of me for the first half-hour of the show, and she later told me, “behave yourself” after giggling at the famed Hooligan wit. See this dramatized video capture of Ms. Potter striding into the meeting.

Due to security concerns, Hooligans were unable to videotape the public meeting. There were no real security concerns, of course, but if you want to get this crowd to do what you want, appeal to their fears. There were nametags and sign-in sheets and fancy handouts from Asheville’s own Action Club, which I’ll intersperse through this post in italics. The head of a group called Americans for Legal Immigration, William Gheen, introduced the Congressman Tancredo and Congressman Taylor by whipping the crowd up into an anti-immigrant frenzy, giving his heartfelt thanks for their service to the cause, and attacking the “aggressive, unscrupulous opposition”.

“Article IV of the U.S. Constitution requires the federal government to protect us from invasion. Sadly, President Bush and many Congressmen have chosen to ignore the invasion across our southern border and open the doors to more reconquista-minded illegal aliens.”

Everyone attending was encouraged to write their name, address, phone number, email address, and a question on a slip of paper. The information went into the cardboard box marked “Questions”. An ivory-coated “Legislative Aide” named Larry went through the questions and offered his choices to the moderator, a local talk radio personality. Call-in questions were also allowed, and people were phoned at their homes to ask if they wanted to ask a question. The phone-in questions were also read by the moderator.

For an idea of what kinds of questions were allowed, here’s a sampling:
“Why should immigrants get free health care?”
“What can we do to stop illegal immigration?”
“Why don’t public entities turn in illegals?”
“Wouldn’t it solve the problem just to let more people in legally?”
“Is it likely we’ll see any immigration reform before the election?”
“We take the right to vote away from felons, so why can’t we take away the right to vote for people who hire illegal aliens?”
“Would you deputize the Minutemen?”
“Why do so many people come and break immigration laws?”

My question was not answered. But we were assured that all the questions would be answered by email or letter. Here’s the question I asked, “Tom Tancredo is endorsed by Stormfront, The Ku Klux Klan, and Vanguard for President in 2008. Why do so many white supremacists agree with your shared position on immigration reform?”

Read the rest of this post here.