"Some groups opposing immigration reform, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), and NumbersUSA, have portrayed immigrants as responsible for numerous societal ills, often using stereotypes and outright bigotry. While these groups, and other similar organizations, have strived to position themselves as legitimate, mainstream advocates against illegal immigration in America, a closer look at the public record reveals that some of these organizations have disturbing links to or relationships with extremists in the anti-Immigration movement.
These seemingly "legitimate" advocates against illegal immigration are frequently quoted in the mainstream media, have been called to testify before Congress, and often hold meetings with lawmakers and other public figures.
This is one of the most disturbing developments of the past few years: the legitimization and mainstreaming of virulently anti-immigrant rhetoric that veers dangerously close to — and too often crosses the line beyond civil discourse over contentious immigration policy issues."
Quote From Civil Rights .org
NOTE: Video For Educational Purposes - disturbing & offensive
Comparing NAZI propaganda to the propaganda techniques employed by those who are fueling hatred & fear & hysteria about illegal immigration in the United States. Propaganda as Politics by other means. So this applies to any issue even it is legitimate but it becomes something else when it becomes just another issue for the propagandists who's motives may not be clear.
The white supremacist or nativist will use whatever arguments they can if this will advance their own agenda . Their hatred of others knows no bounds & their ideas ironically can spread like a contagion sweeping up a whole society as it did in NAZI Germany as it did in Rwanda & Bosnia . One hopes that facts & truth are the antidote but once individuals or groups or an entire society gets beyond a certain point when they have been steeped in racist propaganda they become "true Believers" who are almost impossible to dissuade . At that point the propaganda techniques used have become successful and they targeted people have internalized the myths & conspiracy theories & the lies & exaggerations about the group which has been demonized & dehumanized.
CNN's Lou Dobbs Illegal-Immigration Nazi Propaganda &
the Eternal Jew
from Impious Digest. com Feb. 24, 2009
CNN Plays Nazi Leprosy Card
"Juxtaposed against a Nazi-era propaganda film called "The Eternal Jew" we see a story aired by CNN's Lou Dobbs. Both use false leprosy claims to condemn both Jewish and Hispanic immigrants respectively. Included in the video insert of the Dobbs' clip is the late Madeline Cosman, whom Dobbs and his reporter Christine Roman falsely describe as Dr. Cosman but which even Cosman doesn't do, because she isn't one."
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Compare NAZI propaganda to Dobbs & others propaganda about illegal-immigrants who supposedly bring disease & crime & immorality to America & will eventually destroy American society. In the same the NAZI propaganda aimed at Jews claimed that the Jews were at the core of what had gone wrong in German society. The Germans lost the first world war because of the Jews. The economic melt-down in Germany after the war was a direct result of the actions of the Jews.
The video in part shows how the Jews who were the victims of centuries of anti-semitism were themselves to blame. Because the reasoning goes that why would this hatred have lasted if it wasn't justified. Torturous reasoning & twisted upside down logic as it were for sure. And the argument is that generation after generation of Christians were taught that the Jews had murdered Christ & that the Jews evil and attended the "Synagogue of Satan" and were therefore hostile to Christianity.Jews were seen as an alien race which had invaded or infiltrated European society .
Just because millions of otherwise decent people hated the Jewish people does not mean that the Jews deserved to be hated or mistrusted. The motives , logic, & psychology behind or under pining such racism is complex but in the end it is irrational & dangerous & at times lethal to the victims.
In the clip below the so-called "expert" on communicable diseases Madeleine Cosman alleges that Mexicans & other illegals are bringing diseases into America - diseases which she says were all but eradicated.
Reminds one of NAZI propaganda against the Jewish people-The NAZI claimed the Jews were a dirty people who lived in their own filth and were therefore carriers of various disease & they had transmitted diseases to Europe when they migrated from the Middle East etc. This was just part of the NAZI propaganda to justify denying German Jews their rights & eventually exterminating them.
It is easier to deny rights to a group of people once you demonize them & begin talking about them in terms of disease & having other negative characteristics which makes them sound bestial & therefore less than completely human. The White Supremacist & those who are Eurocentric tend to categorize non-Europeans or those not of European ancestry & or those who are not white as "other" as "alien" therefore to be feared shunned & hated .As "other" they are categorized as being uncivilized & barbaric having values which are completely alien to White America or at least to those brought up in America. Once you add the "disease" component these people are seen as if they themselves were "vermin" like fleas, rats or cockroaches which need to be eliminated in order to restore health to one's society.
It is therefore disturbing that the right wing & their media commentators & pundits in the united States are using similar propaganda to that used by the NAZIs in order to fuel hysteria & hate over illegal immigrants from Mexico & from other Latino countries.
Illegals and their Diseases
Dr. Madeline Cosman alleges that illegal immigration is creating a serious health problem or crisis in the United States. Cosman argues there has been a dramatic increase of infectious diseases over the past decade in the US and these diseases are being brought into the country by illegal immigrants who are not screened.
When these so called experts appear on various TV shows such as Lou Dobbs or Bill O'Reilly whether it is CNN or Fox News if at all possible we should look into their credentials , background & affiliations and then decide if they are speaking as real experts or as someone merely pushing an agenda ie anti-immigration, racism, Or conspiracy theories ie Aztlan conspiracy or North American Union Conspiracy or Fema Concentration Camps ( see Alex Jones & Glenn Beck)or Obama's so called new style Hitler Youth Movement or Hysteria over the New World Order( a conspiracy supported by leftist & right wingers) or an alien Lizard race secretly taking over the world(David Icke)
Cosman was not an MD nor was she considered an expert in the field of modern medicine. Her interests was in the area of diseases & their impact in Medieval times.
The Nativists Intelligence Report at Southern Poverty law Center winter 2005
MADELEINE COSMAN
AGE: 68
SAN DIEGO, CALIF.
Speaking at major anti-immigration events like those in Chicago and Las Vegas in 2005, the late Madeleine Cosman rattled off a list of scary illnesses, each allegedly brought to this country by what she called "deadly time bombs" -- illegal aliens. She talked about how the undocumented spit out "anchor babies," children who automatically are U.S. citizens because they are born here and who can then form the basis of an appeal for legalization of their parents under family unification policies. And she claimed that these parents prefer sick babies to healthy ones, presumably because they're able to get public benefits for which they'd otherwise be ineligible.
Though she talked endlessly about disease, Cosman, who died in early 2006, was not a doctor. She was a wealthy lawyer who advised physicians on how to sell their medical practices; a former Renaissance Fair queen; a devotée of hard-line libertarian Ayn Rand; and a member of the far-right Jews for the Preservation of Firearms. She was also a contributor to the conspiracy-minded "News With Views" website, where she offered up fare like "Violent Sexual Predators Who Are Illegal Aliens" and "Bird Flu and Illegal Aliens," wherein she theorized that a Muslim terrorist could "create his own weapon of mass destruction" by smuggling an infected person across the border.
Cosman said she'd written more than a dozen books. Her most successful, she said, was Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony, a 1976 volume that she claimed was "nominated" for both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award (these claims are repeated on the book's back cover). But Pulitzer officials say that there were no official "nominees" for the prize until 1980; before then, there were only "submissions" from writers or publishers. In the case of the National Book Award, prize publicist Camille McDuffie sent the Report complete lists of all past nominees and winners of the award; neither Cosman's name nor that of her book is anywhere on those lists. Immigrant-bashing, it appears, was not the only field in which Madeleine Cosman was prone to exaggeration.
also see on Cosman Pro-Immigrant blog, May 22,2007
Cosman also exaggerates the number of sexual predators to be found among illegal & legal immigrants especially from Mexico or other Latino countries.
Racist & Faux Medical Expert Madeleine Cosman, Mexican predators-May 10,2007
Madeleine Cosman, solutions to keep Immigrants out-Equates illegal Immigrants to disease, immorality, laziness, low IQ, uncivilized barbaric etc.
Lou Dobbs more interested in fear mongering about illegal immigrants than he is in truth. He claims that if he reports something it is therefore an incontrovertible fact. He claimed there were 7,000 cases of leprosy in the US in the past three years but according to CDC there have been 7,000 cases over the past 30 years . Dobbs uninterested in facts or being shown that he made a mistake claims everybody is lying but him & his trusted Faux Experts. So even after being informed that his numbers were off Dobbs & CNN continues to use these numbers.
Fact-checking Lou Dobbs
also see: Truth in Immigration
Truth In Immigration
Following a report on illegal immigrants carrying diseases into the U.S., one of the correspondents on his show, Christine Romans, told Dobbs that there have been 7,000 cases of leprosy in the U.S. in the past three years. 60 Minutes checked that and found a report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying that 7,000 is the number of leprosy cases over the last 30 years, not the past three. The report also says that nobody knows how many of those cases involve illegal immigrants.
"We went to try and check that number, 7,000. We can't...," Stahl says.
"Well, I can tell you this. If we reported it, it's a fact," Dobbs replies.
"You can't tell me that. You did report it," Stahl says.
"I just did," Dobbs says.
"How can you guarantee that to me?" Stahl asks.
Says Dobbs, "Because I'm the managing editor. And that's the way we do business. We don't make up numbers, Lesley, do we?"
On Dobbs see: Dobbs Minimizes Impact of Hate Crimes, Bashes Immigrant Rights Groups by Heidi beirich, at Hate Watch Southern Poverty Law Center,nov.25, 2008
This isn’t the first time Dobbs has had trouble with facts. In what has now become a rather infamous incident, in 2007 Dobbs relied on Madeleine Cosman, a woman who repeatedly ranted about Latino men raping boys, girls and nuns, to argue that immigrants were largely responsible for some 7,000 cases of leprosy that had been reported in the United States in a recent three-year period. The numbers were utterly false, resulting in a New York Times column that said Dobbs has “a somewhat flexible relationship with reality.”
Lou Dobbs like other right-wingers in the media tends to have guests on his show who are questionable as to their expertise, their ideology & their affiliations with extremists organizations.He does not tell his audience the complete truth about his guests ignores facts which might undermine their "expert opinion".
also see: Errors and Extremist Sources on Lou Dobbs Tonight at Southern Poverty law Center
Robert Rector, a senior research fellow from the Heritage Foundation
Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minuteman Project and a top anti-immigration leader, has appeared some 20 times on Dobbs' show. But Dobbs has never reported that Simcox says he has seen the Chinese army secretly maneuvering along the U.S.-Mexico border or that he is a member of the speakers' bureau of the extreme-right John Birch Society.
• Glenn Spencer, head of the American Patrol – regarded as a hate group by the Center – has been interviewed on the Dobbs show at least twice, on Jan. 7 and June 4, 2004. Spencer promotes the idea that the Mexican government is involved in a secret plot to take over the Southwest. He has also predicted that "thousands will die" in a forthcoming Mexican invasion. Dobbs did not mention the criticism of Spencer's group, the fact that he has spoken at other hate group gatherings or his actions in shooting up a neighbor's garage.
ADL: AntiDefamation League:Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream,
Anti-immigrant rhetoric in media and politics
The hateful rhetoric around the immigration debate has gone beyond the rallies, lobbying, and media appearances by anti-immigration advocates. A number of media personalities in television and radio, as well as political leaders, have adopted the same language when discussing immigration issues in this country. From national TV correspondent Lou Dobbs to more extreme political commentator Patrick Buchanan to local radio personalities to members of Congress such as Tom Tancredo and Steve King, the use of anti-immigrant rhetoric has permeated the culture in our country.
An individual who influenced several of these figures is the late Madeleine Cosman, a self-described “medical lawyer” and propagandist who routinely demonized immigrants as a diseased, criminal element. Mainstream media commentators and politicians have utilized Cosman’s “research” to validate false allegations that immigrants coming to the U.S. carry a number of deadly and harmful diseases. In spite of her questionable data, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons published one of Cosman’s articles in its Spring 2005 issue. Her mainstream exposure added a veneer of legitimacy to her anti-immigrant arguments.
Lou Dobbs
Under the guise of delivering news and commentary, Lou Dobbs, host of Lou Dobbs Tonight, a weekday show on CNN, broadcasts an anti-immigrant message and supports the views and activities of other anti-immigrant activists. Dobbs’ reach has recently spread beyond television, however. In March 2008, he began to host a nightly, three-hour weekday radio program, syndicated throughout the country, to which he has invited a number of anti-immigrant figures for interviews. In June 2008, he invited Rosanna Pulido, the head of the Illinois Minuteman Project, the Illinois spokesperson of You Don’t Speak for Me, and a Field Representative for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, on his show. During the interview, he called her an “outstanding community leader.” Other recent invited guests have included Ira Mehlman, the Media Director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a WashingtonD.C.-based anti-immigrant group; Peter Brimelow, who runs VDare, a Website that publishes racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant articles; William Gheen, the head of the anti-immigrant Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee group who has branded undocumented immigrants as murderous criminals infecting Americans with diseases; and Joe Vento, a Philadelphia restaurant owner who made national news by refusing to serve anyone who does not speak English.
In addition to inviting anti-immigrant activists, Dobbs has gone on the offensive against organizations that seek to expose him as a purveyor of demonizing anti-immigrant sentiment. In a February 2008 interview with National Council of La Raza (NCLR) President Janet Murguia on his syndicated TV show, Dobbs mischaracterized his own previous statements regarding the immigration issue and about the nature of the anti-immigrant advocates he hosts on CNN.
also see " Truth, Fiction and Lou Dobbs" by David Leonhardt at new York Times, May 30, 2007
... To sort through all this, I called James L. Krahenbuhl, the director of the National Hansen’s Disease Program, an arm of the federal government. Leprosy in the United States is indeed largely a disease of immigrants who have come from Asia and Latin America. And the official leprosy statistics do show about 7,000 diagnosed cases — but that’s over the last 30 years, not the last three.
The peak year was 1983, when there were 456 cases. After that, reported cases dropped steadily, falling to just 76 in 2000. Last year, there were 137.
“It is not a public health problem — that’s the bottom line,” Mr. Krahenbuhl told me. “You’ve got a country of 300 million people. This is not something for the public to get alarmed about.” Much about the disease remains unknown, but researchers think people get it through prolonged close contact with someone who already has it.
What about the increase over the last six years, to 137 cases from 76? Is that significant?
“No,” Mr. Krahenbuhl said. It could be a statistical fluctuation, or it could be a result of better data collection in recent years. In any event, the 137 reported cases last year were fewer than in any year from 1975 to 1996.
Of course, he has never acknowledged on the air that his program presented false information twice. Instead, he lambasted the officials from the law center for saying he had. Even yesterday, he spent much of our conversation emphasizing that there really were 7,000 cases in the leprosy registry, the government’s 30-year database. Mr. Dobbs is trying to have it both ways.
... For one thing, Mr. Dobbs has a somewhat flexible relationship with reality. He has said, for example, that one-third of the inmates in the federal prison system are illegal immigrants. That’s wrong, too. According to the Justice Department, 6 percent of prisoners in this country are noncitizens (compared with 7 percent of the population). For a variety of reasons, the crime rate is actually lower among immigrants than natives.
Second, Mr. Dobbs really does give airtime to white supremacy sympathizers. Ms. Cosman, who is now deceased, was a lawyer and Renaissance studies scholar, never a medical doctor or a leprosy expert. She gave speeches in which she said that Mexican immigrants had a habit of molesting children. Back in their home villages, she would explain, rape was not as serious a crime as cow stealing. The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps a list of other such guests from “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”
Finally, Mr. Dobbs is fond of darkly hinting that this country is under attack. He suggested last week that the new immigration bill in Congress could be the first step toward a new nation — a “North American union” — that combines the United States, Canada and Mexico. On other occasions, his program has described a supposed Mexican plot to reclaim the Southwest. In one such report, one of his correspondents referred to a Utah visit by Vicente Fox, then Mexico’s president, as a “Mexican military incursion.”
...The problem with Mr. Dobbs is that he mixes opinion and untruths. He is the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as a weapon against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans.
There is no denying that this country’s immigration system is broken. But it defies belief — and a whole lot of economic research — to suggest that the problems of the middle class stem from illegal immigrants. Those immigrants, remember, are largely non-English speakers without a high school diploma. They have probably hurt the wages of native-born high school dropouts and made everyone else better off.
Does Dobbs fear being arrested for preaching hate against Latinos or being sued for his lies , fabrications & his belief in the Aztlan conspiracy theory. He doesn't care about truth but rather increasing his ratins.
Lou Dobbs distorts hate-crimes- Dobbs lies-Nov. 29, 2008
Racist hatred is no longer a matter of extremist Hate groups but has been taken up by racist groups which try in public to appear reasonable & that they have legitimate concerns over issues such as immigration . But they are the same old racists but have toned down their language & rhetoric & in doing so are able to get time in the mainstream media to preach their hate speech in a more coded language.
" Rebranding Hate in the Age of Obama" by Eve Conant at Newsweek.com April 25, 2009
With an African-American president and the economy in bad shape, extremist groups are trying to enter the mainstream—and they're having some success.
...Don Black, a 56-year-old former KKK grand wizard, says he no longer has any formal affiliation with the Klan because "it just got so demonized and attracted the wrong people; it just got to be impossible." But that doesn't mean he's given up the struggle. As the founder of Stormfront.org, he has the white-supremacist world at his fingertips, all from the comfort of his West Palm Beach, Fla., home. Last spring Black made it a policy for the site to "have no swastikas and Third Reich symbols to turn off first-time visitors."
Black had to upgrade his server after it crashed Nov. 5 along with another white-supremacist site, the Council of Conservative Citizens, according to the SPLC. "I knew we'd get a surge in interest [after the election], but I didn't expect so much; we couldn't handle it," says Black. In the 24 hours following Obama's victory, he says, 2,800 new users signed up. He claims 150,000 registered users and says he gets about 50,000 unique visits a day. (It's impossible to confirm the figures independently; the SPLC thinks the numbers are slightly higher, but civil-rights groups may also have an interest in exaggerating the phenomenon.) Stormfront has some 50 active forums, including venues for dating, financial advice, gardening and homemaking. Black has 65 volunteer moderators and three administrators.
...The ADL's Mark Pitcavage says it is very difficult to track hate-group numbers because the organizations often splinter. What he tries to track is anger levels, and those, he warns, are rising—despite any superficial sweet talk: "The white-supremacist movement has been at red-hot anger levels for a long time. When I get concerned is when they get to white hot, where you see large bomb plots or talk about race wars. Right now we're at very red hot, and are concerned we might reach white hot again." He points to the MySpace account of "88Charles88" as an example of what he's seeing (88 is code for "Heil, Hitler" in the white-power world). "Charles" attacks Obama and says, "Now it's time to fight." "There is a lot of anger out there," says Pitcavage, "and these groups are trying to stoke it, to get someone like 88Charles88 to take the next step. What we're seeing is not a softening, but a hardening of attitude."
and here's more on how these anti-immigration organizations "have strived to position themselves as legitimate, mainstream advocates against illegal immigration in America, a closer look at the public record reveals that some of these organizations have disturbing links to or relationships with extremists in the anti-Immigration movement." as we see in this article at CivilRights.org.
" The State of Hate: Escalating Hate Violence Against Immigrants" at Civilrights.org
The Role of Extremist Anti-Immigration Groups
Some groups opposing immigration reform, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), and NumbersUSA, have portrayed immigrants as responsible for numerous societal ills, often using stereotypes and outright bigotry. While these groups, and other similar organizations, have strived to position themselves as legitimate, mainstream advocates against illegal immigration in America, a closer look at the public record reveals that some of these organizations have disturbing links to or relationships with extremists in the anti-Immigration movement. These seemingly "legitimate" advocates against illegal immigration are frequently quoted in the mainstream media, have been called to testify before Congress, and often hold meetings with lawmakers and other public figures. This is one of the most disturbing developments of the past few years: the legitimization and mainstreaming of virulently anti-immigrant rhetoric that veers dangerously close to — and too often crosses the line beyond civil discourse over contentious immigration policy issues.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) have become increasingly concerned about the virulent anti-immigrant and anti-Latino rhetoric employed by a handful of groups and coalitions that have tried to position themselves as legitimate, mainstream advocates against illegal immigration in America.
...The Infiltration of Mainstream Media
The increasing number of shrill anti-Immigration reform commentaries from high profile national media personalities, including CNN's Lou Dobbs and Talk Show Network's The Savage Nation host Michael Savage, correlates closely with the increase in hate crimes against Hispanics. There is a direct connection between the tenor of this rhetoric and the daily lives of immigrants, and many fear that the unintended consequence of media celebrities vilifying immigrants will be an atmosphere in which some people will act on these demonizing screeds, violently targeting immigrants and those perceived to be immigrants.
The frequent appearance of extremist groups such as FAIR on mainstream media programs and even at Congressional hearings is extremely worrisome. After reviewing FAIR's virulent rhetoric, SPLC found:
None of this — or any other material evidencing the bigotry and racism that courses through the group — seems to have affected FAIR's media standing. In 2008, the group was quoted in mainstream media outlets nearly 500 times. FAIR staff have been featured several times on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," along with countless appearances on other television news shows. Dobbs even ran his radio program from a FAIR event in Washington, D.C. this past September. And, perhaps most remarkably of all, FAIR has been taken seriously by Congress, claiming on its home page that it has been asked to testify on immigration bills "more than any other organization in America."
As Alex Nogales, President and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) has noted, "We are very respectful of the First Amendment and free speech, but the hateful rhetoric, particularly against the immigrant minority communities, espoused by irresponsible TV and radio talk show hosts on American airwaves needs to be addressed." NHMC has undertaken a study to quantify hate speech in commercial radio, petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to open an inquiry into hate speech on the nation's airwaves, and requested that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) update its 1993 report, The Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crime.7 In that report, NTIA found "deeply troubling" examples where "telecommunications has been used to advocate or encourage the commission of hate crimes." But the report concluded that "the extent to which such messages (of hate) actually lead to the commission of crimes is unclear."8
On July 5, 2007, Michael Savage suggested America would be a better place if students staging a hunger strike in the hope of securing immigration reform legislation starved to death:
SAVAGE: Then there's the story of college students who are fasting out here in the Bay Area. They're illegal aliens and they want green cards simply because they're students. I don't understand what — how this two and two adds up. I would say, let them fast until they starve to death, then that solves the problem. Because then we won't have a problem about giving them green cards because they're illegal aliens; they don't belong here to begin with. They broke into the country; they're criminals.9
Like Savage, Lou Dobbs has also stated on his CNN show, Lou Dobbs Tonight, "illegal aliens are criminals." (Lou Dobbs Tonight transcript, 4/6/05). As NCLR has pointed out, illegal immigrants are not considered criminals under current U.S. law. NCLR has chronicled many of Lou Dobbs's other comments made on CNN about immigrants and immigration reform...
also see:
Lou Dobbs: Making up racist shit by
David Neiwert at Orcinus Friday, May 11, 2007
and more right wing hysteria see for example:
WHEN ILLEGALS GO BERSERK WILL YOUR STATE BE PREPARED? by Dewy Kidd at News With Views.com, March 27, 2006
and so it goes,
GORD.
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