Chris Temple On Line

Just one Example of Morris Dees’ “Intelligence”

            In part through his Southern Poverty Law Center’s publication called the Intelligence Report, Montgomery, Alabama-based lawyer and direct mail promoter Morris Dees has for many years waged war against those he accuses of intolerance and “hate” towards others.  On the surface, there’s nothing wrong or unusual about this; his is only one of countless publications seeking to promote an agenda.

            However, inasmuch as many—including the allegedly conservative Justice Department under John Ashcroft and others in government—take anything Dees dispenses as the gospel truth, it’s important to look more closely at the man’s very radical political and social agenda.  Further, especially if (as in my case) the pronouncements of Dees and his assorted allies who have the same agenda are going to be considered as FACT, they must also be viewed as to their truthfulness.

A BRIEF OVERVIEW

            Groups such as the SPLC, the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, the Center for Democratic Renewal, Montana Human Rights Network, the Coalition for Human Dignity and others all have relatively innocuous, even attractive, names.  As millions of Americans already know, however, the agendas of all these outfits overlap considerably; in short, most anyone who is a conservative Christian, a libertarian or otherwise believes in core American values is, or is potentially, a target of these people.  Further, for all their talk of “tolerance,” these groups have no use for anyone who disagrees with them; and will use all manner of insinuations, guilt-by-association and more in their attempts to ruin or silence their political opponents.

            In the recent past, Dees’ favorite targets were former Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore of Alabama, and the Rev. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries in Florida.  As most readers here remember, Judge Moore was fighting what ended up being an ill-fated battle to keep a monument including the Ten Commandments located in the rotunda of the state’s main judicial building.  Dees’ SPLC worked on behalf of those trying to have it removed.  But as usual, Dees’ antics and his Intelligence Report’s  coverage of them characteristically oozed with hatred and disdain; not only for Moore and Dr. Kennedy, but for anyone who dared question the justness of the SPLC’s cause in the matter.

            Many others have been targeted over time by Dees and his allies.  If you home school your children or send them to private school, you are “intolerant.”  Even if you send your children to government-run schools, you should never question things done by your school or school board that you find objectionable.  In one particularly incredible example of the intolerance of these groups (which purport to promote tolerance) the Montana Human Rights Network—one of the many groups similar to and allied with  Dees’ SPLC—once smeared parents in Bozeman, Montana as “Christian extremists,” and, in the end, no less dangerous to society than skinheads.  Their crime?  They had the nerve to attend a school board meeting and object to 1) elements of the school’s curriculum they found objectionable, and 2) a substantial increase in their school taxes.

            You might also be a target of Dees and his ilk if you:

            Object to America’s suicidal “open borders” immigration policy.

            Complain about American jobs being outsourced, primarily to Third-World nations.

            Believe that America was, is or should be a Christian nation.

            Believe that marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman.

            Believe that the Second Amendment protects your right to own firearms.

            Are or have been a member or supporter of conservative Christian leaders or their organizations (Dr. James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Dr. Kennedy and others.)

            Believe or teach that the Federal Reserve is both unconstitutional and unscriptural.

            And, in general (and forgive me if I’ve left anyone out) if you in any way deviate from Dees’ own world view.

“I AM VERY MUCH A NATIONAL SOCIALIST”

            Dees and his allies have become very accomplished at putting everyone and any organizations which become their targets in pretty much the same “box.”  They go through all kinds of contortions in practicing their own unique brand of “McCarthyism;” billing as journalism and intelligence-gathering all manner of misleading diatribes, guilt-by-association, truth stretching and more in their attempts to demonize anyone who challenges their own extreme political/social agenda.

            In the case of Yours Truly, for instance, you’d never know in reading their material that—for over 20 years now—I have been a speaker and writer on many subjects (though mostly ones dealing with the markets and economics.) You’d never know that—while I have always accepted any invitation or opportunity to speak to any kind of organization on issues and subjects of my choosing—the number of times I’ve delivered any message to groups on Dees’ list of “hate” organizations is dwarfed by those in which I’ve participated in other venues. 

            But given that I have long been a target of Mr. Dees and various of his allies (and never hesitate to tell people how proud I am of that) it’s natural that these folks come after me at various times.  As some have already done over time, though, if you take a closer look at Dees’ and other similar “hit pieces” against me, they quickly reveal themselves for what they are.

            One of my favorite examples has been articles about me published by Dees’ magazine (which simply parrot claims that similar groups have made, revealing—in part—the shabby nature of Dees’ reporting and “intelligence gathering” which don’t even pass the lowest standards of legitimate investigative journalism) quoting me as having once said that “I am very much a national socialist.”  Taking this quote completely out of its context, the picture Dees and others proceed to paint is that 1)  I am therefore a “neo-Nazi,” 2) I am a “hater,” 3) I goose-step in my sleep, 4) I want to herd gypsies, Jews, homosexuals and others into concentration camps or gas chambers, and all the rest.

            Now, as Paul Harvey would say, here’s the rest of the story. . .

            Before moving to Wisconsin in the late Summer of 1998, I was invited for several semesters running to be a guest lecturer at the University of Montana, in Missoula.  The class dealt with political science and social movements; and, as you can imagine (being in the Pacific Northwest) spent a fair amount of time looking into the various “extremist” groups that disproportionately inhabit that part of America.

            In the classes I did, I gave my perspective on the various conservative, “right-wing,” white supremacist/separatist, constitutionalist and similar groups.  Having always been an investigator and “free thinker” myself (something which, under Morris Dees’ view of the First Amendment, is something to be demonized and punished for) I have always enjoyed the opportunity to learn about anyone and everyone (though here again, as far as Dees and the federal government/courts are concerned, the only groups I’ve ever “associated” with are Aryan Nations, etc.)

            In my presentation, I gave a panoramic overview of most of the organizations which—fairly or unfairly—have been labeled as on the “extreme right.”  This included those like the Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, the John Birch Society on the one “end” of the spectrum, to groups like the Ku Klux Klan (or what’s left of it,) skinheads, Aryan Nations and similar ones on the other end. 

            As the students in this college classroom as well as their professor were interested in getting underneath both the media and “human rights” groups usually superficial (and often misleading or, at best, incomplete) pictures of all these kinds of groups, I was there to fill in the pieces.  What do these various groups really believe?  What motivates them and their members?  How “dangerous” are they?  Could there possibly be anything some of them or their adherents believe in that is not “hate?”  As anyone who listened to this presentation (or similar ones) determined, I gave an overview that was 1) based on far more fact than are Morris Dees’ musings, 2) gave some insight as to what motivates people in these various circles and 3) was highly critical of those who truly are motivated by “hate” or any other unproductive mindset.  In fact, poking some fun at how seriously those like Dees take the vestiges of the KKK these days, I also quipped that it seems to me that virtually all of the remaining handful of members of the KKK are drunks, wife beaters and FBI agents (or informants) – and you can tell the FBI “assets” from the rest because they’re the only ones who pay their dues on time.

            Within this presentation (and specifically, the version I gave at the U of M in April, 1997, from whence the quote cited by Dees and others comes) I spent a fair amount of the time talking about the moniker “Nazi” that is thrown around very freely these days.  Rush Limbaugh refers to the National Organization for Women as “feminazis.”  Some refer to members of the Sierra Club and related groups as “environmental Nazis.”  Many civil libertarians—looking at the increasing speed with which he’s suspending civil liberties—refer to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft as a “Nazi.”  And so on…even to a recent extreme where one member of Israel’s Knesset referred to one of his fellow legislators there as a “Nazi” in an argument over Israel’s policies in the West Bank.

            I urged the students to understand what is meant by throwing the “Nazi” canard in these lame and intellectually lazy contexts; nothing more, in my opinion, than as indication that the “thrower” is unwilling or unable to actually debate much of anything.  Further, I reminded them that the term “Nazi” used to be merely a slang term used for those who believed in or practiced the economic and other tenets of national socialism; even though the “Nazi” term for whatever reasons was usually never extended to Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain or Roosevelt’s America.

            Borrowing liberally from academic and other thoughtful works—most notably, an old documentary series entitled “Between the Wars” narrated by the well-known late CBS newsman Eric Sevareid—I spoke of the economic and social justice components of national socialism.  Among other things, it was in an attempt to make the point that most people—including most Americans—if they looked at these tenets and knew nothing of any negative connotation that has been ascribed to it over the years, would embrace the definition of being a national socialist.  I also put myself in that category.

            Naturally, Dees and others who have quoted me leave out all this.  One of the reasons is that they really are not interested in the truth; instead, they are seeking to actually further their chosen “industry” by making sure there are sufficient numbers of people whom THEY have identified as “haters,” “Nazis” or what-have-you.  By so doing, they can keep their direct mail apparatuses in high gear by creating and then profiting from a purported “danger” to America from its own citizens (who happen to disagree with the Morris Dees world view) which, at best, is wildly exaggerated. 

In a November 9, 1998 column in The Nation, commentator Alex Cockburn wrote (in a piece entitled “The Conscience Industry”) about how the old political/progressive “left” was in such disarray and so directionless that, “fake politics have taken over.”  Moving on to describe how Dees has thus created a sham “industry” for himself, Cockburn wrote, “Morris Dees has raised an endowment of close to $100 million, with which he’s done little, by frightening elderly liberals that the heirs of Adolf Hitler are about to march down Main Street, lynching blacks and putting Jews into ovens.  The fundraising of Dees and the richly rewarded efforts of terrormongers like Leonard Zeskind offer a dreadfully distorted view of American political realities.  As Noel Ignatiev of Race Traitor likes to say, there isn’t a public school in any county of the United States that doesn’t represent a menace to blacks a thousand times more potent than what remains of the KKK.”

That such a charlatan as Dees—together with his own very clear and truly extreme agenda—is taken seriously by many reveals, among other things, how shallow and fairly meaningless what passes for legitimate discourse and political debate have become in today’s America.  That Dees’ “intelligence” is accepted as the Gospel truth by federal officials, including judges, is chilling.

Welcome to George Orwell’s America.