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I am not surprised that the SteveScalise controversy is fading away pretty =
fast.This flared a few days ago, arising from revelations that the Louisian=
aCongressman spoke to one of Klan leader David Duke=E2=80=99s severalfront =
groups more than a decade ago as a state legislator hustling support forhis=
version of state tax policy.Initially, there were calls for Scalise to res=
ign his new post as Housemajority whip but those faded as cooler heads, som=
e of whom were Demos,prevailed.There is nothing in theScalise record to ind=
icate any advocacy for white supremacy, he comes throughas a relatively mod=
erate Republican, and has many friends among the Demos.
David Duke, from whom we=E2=80=99ve heardlittle for some years, is a sophis=
ticated guy, chameleon-like, who spins frontgroups faster than a hobo spide=
r builds webs. But, whatever his superficialface of the moment, Duke is a c=
lassic hardcore Klansman down and into his verybone marrow.
Mark Ptok of the Southern Poverty LawCenter surprised me in joining the ear=
ly calls for Scalise=E2=80=99s resignation asmajority whip. Ptok=E2=80=99s =
position, humanly understandable, does jeopardize SPLC=E2=80=99spresumed ne=
utrality in politics.Itcould also give the many critics of SPLC a peg on wh=
ich to hang a lawsuitchallenging the Center=E2=80=99s tax exempt status.Pto=
k stopped talking on the Scalise matter early on.
Around 1985, the Council ofConservative Citizens formed =E2=80=93 mostly in=
the South proper.The Southern Poverty Law Center, and somecivil rights spo=
kespersons who should have known better, immediately tagged itas the =E2=80=
=9Csuccessor=E2=80=9D to the infamous white Citizens Council movement which=
hadall but fallen apart by the 1970s.Therewas and is no comparison between=
the powerfully virulent White Council of yoreand the anemic Council of Con=
servative Citizens.Here is something I wrote on all of that in2002, updated=
in 2007:
Note byHunter Bear:
I'm posting this -- with its new commentary by me -- on two or three lists
where there might be some interest. I'm also, with this new material of
mine, sending it again to Redbadbear.
In another discussional context, the matter of the St. Louis-based Council =
of
Conservative Citizens has arisen. This outfit, which has claimed anational
membership of 15,000 [a figure I strongly suspect is greatlyinflated],
is, however poisonous, of not much account compared to the genuinely
dangerous adversaries confronting our Forces of Light. The CCC fighting
agenda which includes Defense of the Stars & Bars and combating an
ostensible PC attack on the Confederate Museum at New Orleans -- plus the
usual sniping at Martin King -- frankly doesn't seem to me to be exactly
what's going to take things swiftly and effectively back to 1861 -- oreven
1961. The apparently all-male aging and portly leadership in theirwebsite
photo wouldn't be able to follow me very far at all into the 'way back and
super-high ridges that rise immediately behind our up-on-the-far-edge Idaho
home and into which I go a few times each week in my Size 15 Vasque Mountai=
nBoots, sometimes for five or six very steep miles.
In late March, 1988, in the Deep South for several speaking engagements, I
and my oldest son, John, had dinner one evening at an excellent restaurant
on the outskirts of Jackson. Our host, Erle Johnston, a veteran
newspaperman, a much older person than I, had been, in the Old Days, a
shrewd, mortal and deadly adversary. A leading figure in the Ross Barnett
administration - public relations director of the State Sovereignty
Commission and then its head -- he came to see more clearly than anyone els=
e
in that whole camp the bloody abyss into which the Citizens Council movemen=
twas taking Mississippi. As early as 1962, calling himself "apractical segr=
egationist," he resigned from the Citizens Councilsand began to
criticize the Council leadership as "extremist."
And then, a bit later, in a truly extraordinary move given his surroundings=
,
he proceeded in two significant steps to cut off a long-standing state
government subsidy [interracial tax dollars] to the White Councils which
had been regularly channeled through the Sovereignty Commission. The fiery
national Council leader, Bill Simmons of Jackson, immediately called on
Barnett to fire Johnston -- but Barnett, loyal to his old friend,refused.
Johnston caught heavy flak but hung on. He was now calling Simmons"The
Rajah of Race."
Johnston, thus the very first moderate-of-sorts in the old Mississippi
segregationist camp, continued his own strange journey onward into the
surrealistic transitional administration of the new Governor [former Lt.
Governor], Paul B Johnson, Jr [1964-68] -- where Erle served increasingly a=
s
a kind of race-relations mediator in the then early-on and sometimes chaoti=
c
rapidly desegregating racial situation. He left state government in 1968, b=
y
then quietly convinced of the validity and necessity of racial integration,
to return to his newspaper, the Scott County Times. Years later, he ran for
mayor of his substantial town of Forest and won -- with virtually all of th=
e
many Black votes. [It is he, who as Mayor, desperately called me in North
Dakota for advice on how to deal with a heavy snowfall. I was, of course,
experienced with that problem and was quite helpful to him.]
Erle Johnston wrote a number of good books on Mississippi. His initialone,
Roll With Ross, was a study of Ross Barnett and that very turbulent
administration. I reviewed it, favorably, for the quarterly Journal of
Southern History [came out in November '81 along with a review of my own
book] -- and that's how Erle and I connected [1980] in Post-War Mississippi=
.
A later 1990 book of his, large and full and very honest, is Mississippi's
Defiant Years: 1953-1973: An Interpretive Documentary with Personal
Experiences.
It carries a an eloquent Foreword by his old friend, also from Grenada,
William F. "Bill" Winter. It is Bill Winter who, as MississippiState Tax
Collector in the Old Days, was the one significant public official at any
level who flatly refused to join the Citizens Councils. His own
gubernatorial administration, 1980-84, was one of the very best Mississippi
has ever had. In his Foreword to Defiant Years, Bill Winter wrote:"This is
a book about a time and place that will forever be etched in the memory of
those of us who lived in Mississippi in the 1950's and '60's."
Defiant Years [ which opens with a Tribute to long time Black civil rights
activists Aaron Henry and Charles Evers], carries a number of testimonials
from various persons of some prominence in the Mississippi milieu -- and th=
e
back book cover conspicuously features four of those: General William D.
McCain, president emeritus of University of Southern Mississippi; Hodding
Carter III, of many things -- including Secretary of State for Jimmy Carter=
;
myself [ then John R Salter, Jr]; and the noted American historianfrom
USM, Neil R. McMillen.
Only in Mississippi.
Richard Barrett, the arch-Nazi Nationalist Movement leader from Learned,
Mississippi [near Jackson] venomously attacked Erle Johnston [and myself an=
d
others] through this whole latter-day period. He was especially vitriolic
toward Erle who he consistently termed a "scalawag." Interestingly, Barrett
is a Dixie Convert -- originally from New Jersey [which, I'm sure, was glad
to see him leave long, long ago.]
As we ate that late March, 1988 evening, Erle and I and John were surrounde=
d
in the restaurant by a lively throng of high school students celebrating a
friend's birthday. The honoree was Black and the group very well mixed ona
Black / White basis. As this encouraging [but now long racially
commonplace] event proceeded, Erle, in response to a question from me,
talked about the status and health of the once huge and powerful Citizens
Councils -- no friends of his to the bitter end! He told us they'd moved
their "national headquarters" several times and were now in verymodest
quarters. He'd been over there to look over their extremely largelibrary.
"They sit each day at a long table and talk about the old days. Gota lot
of books in there and sometimes they just sit and read."
"Is my book there?" I asked.
"You bet it is," he grinned. "At least three copies."
"Bill Simmons, is he there?".
Erle nodded. "Faithfully, from what I hear."
"And Dr. Evans?" [Medford Evans, arch-ideologue and formercollege English
professor -- and the father of the Indianapolis Star-based national
conservative writer, M. Stanton Evans.]
"He, too," said Erle. "All the old guard."
Only a very few years after that, the Citizens Councils hung it up and
formally went out of business.
And this new thing -- the Council of Conservative Citizens?
Well, if I were a hot-eyed Reb, it wouldn't be my idea at all of the Ditch
for which to fight and perhaps die. I'd be riding Bigger Dragons -- which
is the point of my post which now follows.
And Erle? Erle died in 1995. I miss him.
Hunter [Hunter Bear]
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
From Hunter Bear:
I was in the very process of [personally] replying to M. W. -- when I saw
she'd posted. So I'll respond on our list.
I was discussing the old and venomous and virulent once-powerful and now
gone Citizens Council movement -- the White Councils -- that arose in
Mississippi in the wake of the 1954 Brown decision and spread out across
much of the South. The Councils -- committed to "States Rights andRacial
Integrity" -- dominated Mississippi for many bloody years and some other
Southern Never Lands as well. As the Civil Rights Movement proceeded
through the '60s, the Councils [and comparable groups] went into decline an=
d
then functionally collapsed. See my very recent post, "Mississippi
Stories -- then and now."
I mentioned in that post that a very small latter day outfit has arisen and
I characterized it in this fashion: "A much more recent and wistful
quasi-version, the pallid and not statistically significant Council of
Conservative Citizens, got a little press in the mid-Nineties but has never
amounted to much."
To respond to Ms W's post:
Trent Lott and John Ashcroft et al. have powerfully reactionary forces
behind them -- very long-standing ones -- that make the Council of
Conservative Citizens thing look piddly. That group may have gotten Lott
some votes in Mississippi -- probably not any he wouldn't have already
secured. Maybe it garnered Ashcroft a bit of support -- but I'd see
traditionally reactionary things like corporate capitalism and old/living
racist legacies and the Christian Right and Paranoia as the basic foundatio=
n
for those Poison Ivy Entities.
The CCC may have an impressive website-- but so do some groups I know whose=
membership has to reach high to hit the100 figure. I've never gotten the i=
mpression that its membership had anysignificant substance --
statistically or intellectually ! They sound like a bunch of Rebel Wannabes=
.
There is nothing there that even comes close to the people-strangling
magnitude of the old Citizens Council movement. The CCC has nothing
comparable to the driving fanaticism and perverted organizing skills of the
likes of Bill Simmons.
The CCC [like the residual John Birch Society] is the antithesis of
Health -- very negatively symptomatic -- but we certainly don't want to mis=
s
the reality of the really dangerous dragons -- corporate capitalismand
old and entrenched racism and the Christian Right etc et al. -- and the
necessity of combating them [and their progeny such as Lott and Ashcroft] a=
t
every point, right down to the wire.
We're going to win.
Solidarity - Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear]
Hunter Gray [ Hunter Bear ]
www.hunterbear.org ( strawberrysocialism )
Protected by Na=C2=B4shdo=C2=B4i=C2=B4ba=C2=B4i=C2=B4
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / St. Francis Abenaki / =
St. Regis Mohawk=20
Protected by Na=C2=B4shdo=C2=B4i=C2=B4ba=C2=B4i=C2=B4=20
and Ohkwari' . Check out our massive social justice website:=20
www.hunterbear.org
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO=20
Core dimensions of my Community Organizing course:
http://www.labornet.org/news/0000/hbear.htm
My expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"=20
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000=20
word introduction by me. Covers much of my=20
confrontational social justice organizing life to=20
date. Contains much how-to grassroots organizing=20
methodology: http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
See this for mini-bio, efforts to prevent JM=E2=80=99s appearance in
Mississippi, a wide range of its many reviews, and some
photos: http://www.amazon.com/John-R.-Salter/e/B001KMEHWY/ref=3Dntt_dp_epwb=
k_0
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:=20
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Photos)=20
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<html><body bgcolor=3D"#ffffff">
<div><font face=3D"Verdana" size=3D"2"></font></div>
<div><font face=3D"Verdana" size=3D"2"> <font face=3D"Times New Roman"=
size=3D"3">
</font></font></div><font face=3D"Verdana" size=3D"2"><p style=3D"margin: 0=
in 0in 8pt;"><b style=3D"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style=3D"line=
-height: 107%; font-size: 14pt;"><font face=3D"Calibri">I am not surprised =
that the Steve
Scalise controversy is fading away pretty fast.<span style=3D"mso-spacerun:=
yes;">
</span>This flared a few days ago, arising from revelations that the L=
ouisiana
Congressman spoke to one of Klan leader David Duke=E2=80=99s several
front groups more than a decade ago as a state legislator hustling support =
for
his version of state tax policy.<span style=3D"mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Initially, there were calls for Scalise to resign his new post as Ho=
use
majority whip but those faded as cooler heads, some of whom were Demos,
prevailed.<span style=3D"mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is nothing=
in the
Scalise record to indicate any advocacy for white supremacy, he comes throu=
gh
as a relatively moderate Republican, and has many friends among the Demos.<=
/font></span></b></p><div><font face=3D"Times New Roman" size=3D"3">
</font></div><p style=3D"margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><b style=3D"mso-bidi-font-we=
ight: normal;"><span style=3D"line-height: 107%; font-size: 14pt;"><font fa=
ce=3D"Calibri">David Duke, from whom we=E2=80=99ve heard
little for some years, is a sophisticated guy, chameleon-like, who spins fr=
ont
groups faster than a hobo spider builds webs. But, whatever his superficial
face of the moment, Duke is a classic hardcore Klansman down and into his v=
ery
bone marrow.</font></span></b></p><div><font face=3D"Times New Roman" size=
=3D"3">
</font></div><p style=3D"margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><b style=3D"mso-bidi-font-we=
ight: normal;"><span style=3D"line-height: 107%; font-size: 14pt;"><font fa=
ce=3D"Calibri">Mark Ptok of the Southern Poverty Law
Center surprised me in joining the early calls for Scalise=E2=80=99s resign=
ation as
majority whip. Ptok=E2=80=99s position, humanly understandable, does jeopar=
dize SPLC=E2=80=99s
presumed neutrality in politics.<span style=3D"mso-spacerun: yes;"> <=
/span>It
could also give the many critics of SPLC a peg on which to hang a lawsuit
challenging the Center=E2=80=99s tax exempt status.<span style=3D"mso-space=
run: yes;">
</span>Ptok stopped talking on the Scalise matter early on.</font></span></=
b></p><div><font face=3D"Times New Roman" size=3D"3">
</font></div><p style=3D"margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><b style=3D"mso-bidi-font-we=
ight: normal;"><span style=3D"line-height: 107%; font-size: 14pt;"><font fa=
ce=3D"Calibri">Around 1985, the Council of
Conservative Citizens formed =E2=80=93 mostly in the South proper.<span sty=
le=3D"mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Southern Poverty Law Center, an=
d some
civil rights spokespersons who should have known better, immediately tagged=
it
as the =E2=80=9Csuccessor=E2=80=9D to the infamous white Citizens Council m=
ovement which had
all but fallen apart by the 1970s.<span style=3D"mso-spacerun: yes;"> =
</span>There
was and is no comparison between the powerfully virulent White Council of y=
ore
and the anemic Council of Conservative Citizens.<span style=3D"mso-spacerun=
: yes;"> </span>Here is something I wrote on all of that in
2002, updated in 2007:</font></span></b></p><div><font face=3D"Times New Ro=
man" size=3D"3">
</font></div><p style=3D"margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><b><span style=3D"line-heigh=
t: 107%; font-size: 14pt;"><font face=3D"Calibri">Note by
Hunter Bear:<br>
<br>
I'm posting this -- with its new commentary by me -- on two or three lists<=
br>
where there might be some interest. I'm also, with this new material =
of<br>
mine, sending it again to Redbadbear.<br>
<br>
In another discussional context, the matter of the St. Louis-based Council =
of<br>
Conservative Citizens has arisen. This outfit, which has claimed a
national<br>
membership of 15,000 [a figure I strongly suspect is greatly
inflated],<br>
is, however poisonous, of not much account compared to the genuinely<br>
dangerous adversaries confronting our Forces of Light. The CCC fighti=
ng<br>
agenda which includes Defense of the Stars & Bars and combating an<br>
ostensible PC attack on the Confederate Museum at New Orleans -- plus the<b=
r>
usual sniping at Martin King -- frankly doesn't seem to me to be exactly<br=
>
what's going to take things swiftly and effectively back to 1861 -- o=
r
even<br>
1961. The apparently all-male aging and portly leadership in their
website<br>
photo wouldn't be able to follow me very far at all into the 'way back and<=
br>
super-high ridges that rise immediately behind our up-on-the-far-edge Idaho=
<br>
home and into which I go a few times each week in my Size 15 Vasque Mountai=
n
Boots, sometimes for five or six very steep miles.<br>
<br>
In late March, 1988, in the Deep South for several speaking engagements, I<=
br>
and my oldest son, John, had dinner one evening at an excellent restaurant<=
br>
on the outskirts of Jackson. Our host, Erle Johnston, a veteran<br>
newspaperman, a much older person than I, had been, in the Old Days, =
a<br>
shrewd, mortal and deadly adversary. A leading figure in the Ross Bar=
nett<br>
administration - public relations director of the State Sovereignty<b=
r>
Commission and then its head -- he came to see more clearly than anyone els=
e<br>
in that whole camp the bloody abyss into which the Citizens Council movemen=
t
was taking Mississippi. As early as 1962, calling himself "a
practical segregationist," he resigned from the Citizens Councils
and began to<br>
criticize the Council leadership as "extremist."<br>
<br>
And then, a bit later, in a truly extraordinary move given his surroundings=
,<br>
he proceeded in two significant steps to cut off a long-standing state<br>
government subsidy [interracial tax dollars] to the White Councils wh=
ich<br>
had been regularly channeled through the Sovereignty Commission. The =
fiery<br>
national Council leader, Bill Simmons of Jackson, immediately called on<br>
Barnett to fire Johnston -- but Barnett, loyal to his old friend,
refused.<br>
Johnston caught heavy flak but hung on. He was now calling Simmons
"The<br>
Rajah of Race."<br>
<br>
Johnston, thus the very first moderate-of-sorts in the old Mississippi<br>
segregationist camp, continued his own strange journey onward into the<br>
surrealistic transitional administration of the new Governor [former Lt.<br=
>
Governor], Paul B Johnson, Jr [1964-68] -- where Erle served increasingly a=
s<br>
a kind of race-relations mediator in the then early-on and sometimes chaoti=
c<br>
rapidly desegregating racial situation. He left state government in 1968, b=
y<br>
then quietly convinced of the validity and necessity of racial integration,=
<br>
to return to his newspaper, the Scott County Times. Years later, he ran for=
<br>
mayor of his substantial town of Forest and won -- with virtually all of th=
e<br>
many Black votes. [It is he, who as Mayor, desperately called me in N=
orth<br>
Dakota for advice on how to deal with a heavy snowfall. I was, of course,<b=
r>
experienced with that problem and was quite helpful to him.]<br>
<br>
Erle Johnston wrote a number of good books on Mississippi. His initia=
l
one,<br>
Roll With Ross, was a study of Ross Barnett and that very turbulent<br>
administration. I reviewed it, favorably, for the quarterly Journal o=
f<br>
Southern History [came out in November '81 along with a review of my own<br=
>
book] -- and that's how Erle and I connected [1980] in Post-War Mississippi=
.<br>
A later 1990 book of his, large and full and very honest, is Mississippi's<=
br>
Defiant Years: 1953-1973: An Interpretive Documentary with Personal<br>
Experiences.<br>
<br>
It carries a an eloquent Foreword by his old friend, also from Grenada,<br>
William F. "Bill" Winter. It is Bill Winter who, as Mississippi
State Tax<br>
Collector in the Old Days, was the one significant public official at any<b=
r>
level who flatly refused to join the Citizens Councils. His own<br>
gubernatorial administration, 1980-84, was one of the very best Mississippi=
<br>
has ever had. In his Foreword to Defiant Years, Bill Winter wrote:
"This is<br>
a book about a time and place that will forever be etched in the memory of<=
br>
those of us who lived in Mississippi in the 1950's and '60's."<br>
<br>
Defiant Years [ which opens with a Tribute to long time Black civil rights<=
br>
activists Aaron Henry and Charles Evers], carries a number of testimonials<=
br>
from various persons of some prominence in the Mississippi milieu -- and th=
e<br>
back book cover conspicuously features four of those: General William=
D.<br>
McCain, president emeritus of University of Southern Mississippi; Hodding<b=
r>
Carter III, of many things -- including Secretary of State for Jimmy Carter=
;<br>
myself [ then John R Salter, Jr]; and the noted American histor=
ian
from<br>
USM, Neil R. McMillen.<br>
<br>
Only in Mississippi.<br>
<br>
Richard Barrett, the arch-Nazi Nationalist Movement leader from Learned,<br=
>
Mississippi [near Jackson] venomously attacked Erle Johnston [and myself an=
d<br>
others] through this whole latter-day period. He was especially vitri=
olic<br>
toward Erle who he consistently termed a "scalawag."
Interestingly, Barrett<br>
is a Dixie Convert -- originally from New Jersey [which, I'm sure, was glad=
<br>
to see him leave long, long ago.]<br>
<br>
As we ate that late March, 1988 evening, Erle and I and John were surrounde=
d<br>
in the restaurant by a lively throng of high school students celebrating a<=
br>
friend's birthday. The honoree was Black and the group very well mixe=
d on
a<br>
Black / White basis. As this encouraging [but now long racially=
<br>
commonplace] event proceeded, Erle, in response to a question from me,<br>
talked about the status and health of the once huge and powerful Citizens<b=
r>
Councils -- no friends of his to the bitter end! He told us they'd mo=
ved<br>
their "national headquarters" several times and were now in very
modest<br>
quarters. He'd been over there to look over their extremely large
library.<br>
<br>
"They sit each day at a long table and talk about the old days. Got
a lot<br>
of books in there and sometimes they just sit and read."<br>
<br>
"Is my book there?" I asked.<br>
<br>
"You bet it is," he grinned. "At least three copies."<br>
<br>
"Bill Simmons, is he there?".<br>
<br>
Erle nodded. "Faithfully, from what I hear."<br>
<br>
"And Dr. Evans?" [Medford Evans, arch-ideologue and former
college English<br>
professor -- and the father of the Indianapolis Star-based national<b=
r>
conservative writer, M. Stanton Evans.]<br>
<br>
"He, too," said Erle. "All the old guard."<br>
<br>
Only a very few years after that, the Citizens Councils hung it up and<br>
formally went out of business.<br>
<br>
And this new thing -- the Council of Conservative Citizens?<br>
<br>
Well, if I were a hot-eyed Reb, it wouldn't be my idea at all of the Ditch<=
br>
for which to fight and perhaps die. I'd be riding Bigger Dragons -- w=
hich<br>
is the point of my post which now follows.<br>
<br>
And Erle? Erle died in 1995. I miss him.<br>
<br>
Hunter [Hunter Bear]<br>
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D<br>
<br>
<br>
From Hunter Bear:<br>
<br>
I was in the very process of [personally] replying to M. W. -- when I=
saw<br>
she'd posted. So I'll respond on our list.<br>
<br>
I was discussing the old and venomous and virulent once-powerful and now<br=
>
gone Citizens Council movement -- the White Councils -- that arose in<br>
Mississippi in the wake of the 1954 Brown decision and spread out across<br=
>
much of the South. The Councils -- committed to "States Rights and
Racial<br>
Integrity" -- dominated Mississippi for many bloody years and some other<br=
>
Southern Never Lands as well. As the Civil Rights Movement proceeded<=
br>
through the '60s, the Councils [and comparable groups] went into decline an=
d<br>
then functionally collapsed. See my very recent post, "Mississippi<br=
>
Stories -- then and now."<br>
<br>
I mentioned in that post that a very small latter day outfit has arisen and=
<br>
I characterized it in this fashion: "A much more recent and wistful<br>
quasi-version, the pallid and not statistically significant Council of<br>
Conservative Citizens, got a little press in the mid-Nineties but has never=
<br>
amounted to much."<br>
<br>
To respond to Ms W's post:<br>
<br>
Trent Lott and John Ashcroft et al. have powerfully reactionary forces<br>
behind them -- very long-standing ones -- that make the Council of<br>
Conservative Citizens thing look piddly. That group may have gotten L=
ott<br>
some votes in Mississippi -- probably not any he wouldn't have already<br>
secured. Maybe it garnered Ashcroft a bit of support -- but I'd see<br>
traditionally reactionary things like corporate capitalism and old/living<b=
r>
racist legacies and the Christian Right and Paranoia as the basic foundatio=
n<br>
for those Poison Ivy Entities.</font></span></b><b style=3D"mso-bidi-font-w=
eight: normal;"><span style=3D"line-height: 107%; font-size: 14pt;"><br><fo=
nt face=3D"Calibri">
<br>
</font><font face=3D"Calibri"><span style=3D"mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">T=
he CCC may have an impressive website
-- but so do some groups I know whose membership has to reach high to hit t=
he
100 figure. I've never gotten the impression that its membership had any
significant substance --<br>
statistically or intellectually ! They sound like a bunch of Rebel Wa=
nnabes.<br>
There is nothing there that even comes close to the people-strangling<br>
magnitude of the old Citizens Council movement. The CCC has nothing<b=
r>
comparable to the driving fanaticism and perverted organizing skills of the=
<br>
likes of Bill Simmons.<br>
<br>
The CCC [like the residual John Birch Society] is the antithesis of<br>
Health -- very negatively symptomatic -- but we certainly don't want to mis=
s<br>
the reality of the really dangerous dragons -- corporate capita=
lism
and<br>
old and entrenched racism and the Christian Right etc et al. -- and the<br>
necessity of combating them [and their progeny such as Lott and Ashcroft] a=
t<br>
every point, right down to the wire.<br>
<br>
We're going to win.<br>
<br>
Solidarity - Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear]</span><br>
<br>
</font><span style=3D"mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><font face=3D"Calibri">H=
unter Gray [ Hunter Bear ]<br>
</font><a href=3D"http://www.hunterbear.org/" mce_href=3D"http://www.hunter=
bear.org/"><font color=3D"#0563c1" face=3D"Calibri">www.hunterbear.org</fon=
t></a><font face=3D"Calibri"> ( strawberry
socialism )<br>
Protected by Na=C2=B4shdo=C2=B4i=C2=B4ba=C2=B4i=C2=B4<br style=3D"mso-speci=
al-character: line-break;">
<br style=3D"mso-special-character: line-break;">
</font></span></span></b></p></font><div><font face=3D"Verdana" size=3D"2">=
<font face=3D"Times New Roman" size=3D"3">
</font><font face=3D"Times New Roman" size=3D"3">
</font><font face=3D"Times New Roman" size=3D"3">
</font></font>HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / St. Fran=
cis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk=20
<br>
Protected by Na=C2=B4shdo=C2=B4i=C2=B4ba=C2=B4i=C2=B4=20
<br>
and Ohkwari' . Check out our massive social justice website:=20
<br>
<a href=3D"http://www.hunterbear.org" mce_href=3D"http://www.hunterbear.org=
">www.hunterbear.org</a>
<br>
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO=20
<br>
<br>
Core dimensions of my Community Organizing course:
<br>
<a href=3D"http://www.labornet.org/news/0000/hbear.htm" mce_href=3D"http://=
www.labornet.org/news/0000/hbear.htm">http://www.labornet.org/news/0000/hbe=
ar.htm</a>
<br>
<br>
My expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"=20
<br>
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000=20
<br>
word introduction by me. Covers much of my=20
<br>
confrontational social justice organizing life to=20
<br>
date. Contains much how-to grassroots organizing=20
<br>
methodology: <a href=3D"http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm" mce_href=3D"http=
://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm">http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm</a>
<br>
<br>
See this for mini-bio, efforts to prevent JM=E2=80=99s appearance in
<br>
Mississippi, a wide range of its many reviews, and some
<br>
photos: <a href=3D"http://www.amazon.com/John-R.-Salter/e/B001KMEHWY/ref=
=3Dntt_dp_epwbk_0" mce_href=3D"http://www.amazon.com/John-R.-Salter/e/B001K=
MEHWY/ref=3Dntt_dp_epwbk_0">http://www.amazon.com/John-R.-Salter/e/B001KMEH=
WY/ref=3Dntt_dp_epwbk_0</a></div><div>
<br>
<br>
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:=20
<br>
<a href=3D"http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm" mce_=
href=3D"http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm">http://=
hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm</a></div><div> =20
<br>
(Photos)=20
<br></div>
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Posted by: "Hunter Gray" <[email protected]=
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<tt>
"[C]apital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blo=
od and dirt."<BR>
--Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 31<BR>
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