Give Us A Hand

While access to our archives is free, keeping them online isn't. If you'd like to help us stay online, please make a donation.

As you can see in What's New, we've been busy, and we have some projects pending that our followers will find useful in applying their research. Without donations, expenses for our forthcoming ebook Communications in Conflict and Special Reports come out of our personal pockets. Since we're all volunteer, that means making sacrifices we can't always afford.

By all means continue to enjoy our informative publications at Public Good Project, but give us a hand if you can.

Anti-Democratic Movement in Washington State

In my recent article White Power on the Salish Sea, I take a look at the Wall Street/Tea Party convergence against treaty rights in Washington state. As a lethal threat to both endangered species and human rights, this bipartisan, anti-democratic movement targeting Indian tribes should be roundly opposed by moral authorities and organizations devoted to defending democracy.

White Supremacy Factions

There are two major threads to white supremacy: revolutionary and mainstream. The skinheads, neonazis and Klan are revolutionaries. That is the smallest faction. The mainstreamers are far more numerous and their rhetoric is strongly reflected in the Minutemen (anti-immigrant groups) and Tea Parties. The main difference between the two factions is their approach to electoral politics.

The revolutionaries reject electoral politics and the mainstreamers embrace it.

Zeskind's book, Blood and Politics is framed around an analysis of the revolutionary/mainstreamer factions.

There is a third faction, the separatist anti-government survivalists known as the Christian Patriots. They propose withdrawal from society and creation of isolated areas under their own law and authority. These were the groups behind the militia violence of the 1990s. They draw on a mixture of revolutionary and mainstream propaganda and ideology. The hard core of the Christian Patriots are racist Christian Identity believers who rejected the overtly revolutionary approach of Aryan Nations under Richard Butler. John Trochmann of Montana, now a fairly obscure character, was the paradigmatic leader of Christian Patriot militias in the 1990s. Pat Buchanan's political persona was a fusion of mainstreamer and Christian Patriot influences.

All three groups have adopted a core ideology of white racialist nationalism. The core to this is an idea of distinct racial classes to citizenship and the separation of races by both law and custom.

The sunlight v shunning debate is an old one. Every time there has been a crisis, the sunlight approach wins. The key to defeating reactionary racist politics is education and exposure. They work mostly by deception, infiltration and subversion and these tactics are impossible when they are subject to scrutiny and exposure leading to confrontation and rejection. Shunning them actually give them additional cover.

The worst setbacks to the Tea Party have been due to exposure, not people trying to ignore them.
--Paul de Armond, MetaFilter, October 1, 2010

We Carry On

With Paul de Armond's passing one week ago, colleagues and friends of his have inquired, what now? In short, we carry on--recruiting, training and nurturing researchers, analysts and activists in defending democracy. When Paul retired as Public Good Project research director in 2007 due to declining health, we began looking at how to mentor a new generation in the skills we knew they would need to carry on as we ourselves did fewer investigations and more teaching. Since Paul retired, he remained an advisor, and indeed three of our most noteworthy interventions and consults -- two in California and one in Washington -- happened since then.

As Paul's partner at Public Good Project for the last eighteen years, I know he would have been very pleased with the kind and thoughtful remarks of his peers and colleagues on his untimely passing, but I also know the last thing he would have wanted is for those of us who remain to discontinue doing what needs to be done, just because he is no longer with us. Continuity and mentoring were, and are, top priorities for us, and passing on the lessons we've learned are part of why we maintain archives of our special reports.

While we are not often in the news, we advise thought leaders in media and academia on a daily basis. In fact, in the last few months, we have been busier than ever.

Since 1996, we have shared research on the anti-Indian movement with the Center for World
Indigenous Studies, and since January 2012, we have had a working relationship with Intercontinental Cry (IC) magazine, exposing threats to the world indigenous peoples movement. Published in Canada, IC is the leading indigenous peoples magazine in the world. And, like Public Good Project, it is all volunteer run, which means we don't kowtow to foundations or corporate sponsors like many do. As the banner at IC notes, we are independent, uncompromising and authentic.

Most recently, Public Good and IC published an exclusive news article on the national offensive to
terminate tribal sovereignty, launched at a regional conference in Bellingham WA on April 6. Our forthcoming ebook Communications in Conflict -- a collaboration with IC and Wrong Kind of Green -- focuses on networks and netwar, and includes lessons learned by Public Good operatives and colleagues over the last two decades.

The collaborating and mentoring Paul initiated in 1994 now extends throughout Canada and the US, with occasional consults in bodies like the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations.

While we still do original research and analysis, we no longer conduct field investigations, but someday that could change. For now, we mentor and consult, and adapt to social circumstances as needed. After all, that's what networks and netwar are all about.

Hate For Hire

In Take These Tribes Down, Charles Tanner Jr exposes the entrepreneurial wing of the anti-Indian movement in the US, and their current campaign to mobilize resentment against tribal governments. Following on the heels of my April 10 article at Intercontinental Cry magazine, as well as the devastating April 16 editorial at Cascadia Weekly, Tanner's report on the national anti-Indian hate campaign, launched on April 6 in Washington state, leaves no room for doubt about either the strategy or motivations behind hate for hire.

Honoring Paul de Armond

In Paul de Armond Remembered, Albion Monitor editor Jeff Elliott remarked that it was criminal Paul didn't receive a MacArthur award. For those unfamiliar with the award, it is a prize given by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to geniuses in the arts and sciences who hold promise for making great and lasting contributions to American society. Jane Kramer at The New Yorker made a pitch to MacArthur on Paul's behalf back in 1995.

The award at the time was, I think, half a million dollars, dispensed over five years. It is perhaps an understatement to say it would have changed Paul's life. And mine. Had our work been funded, Paul could have assumed his rightful place among America's top luminaries and distinguished scholars. I could have established the Public Good Project national learning center for teaching investigative research and communication to promising researchers, analysts and activists from around the country.

Paul, however, accepted the unfairness of life with aplomb, remaining focused on developing the tools future generations of upright good citizens would need in exercising social prophylaxis against anti-democratic movements, financed in large part by fraud. Pro-democracy, anti-fraud; had there been a motto for our work, that would have been it.

Accepting our fate as what Paul called "the dog faces" -- those who fight in the trenches, while charlatans, opportunists and pious poseurs parade in shiny uniforms -- we went about this task of recruiting, training and nurturing a network of individuals to join us in this thankless but vital task. Applying The Public Health Model to social conflict, we have been successful in helping those who rise to the occasion to organize effectively against hate campaigns. In Washington, California, Texas and Montana, our proteges and colleagues have made us proud. Today, our most active proteges are in Canada.

While heroic figures like Paul de Armond are treasured by those who know them, their tragic fate in societies such as ours is unfortunately ordained. Until America rewards rather than marginalizes its greatest citizens, the need for our work will continue. As such, we will mourn Paul's passing, then honor him for putting his Life on the Line by organizing.

A Giant Passes Through

Tim Johnson, editor of Cascadia Weekly, eulogizes Paul de Armond in this week's issue. The eulogy, A Giant Passes Through, is a fitting and powerful tribute. We thank all those who were part of Paul's vital work.