Greenwash: Nativists, Environmentalism and the Hypocrisy of Hate - Southern Poverty Law Center

[bananas]

From the Southern Poverty Law Center two months ago:

http://www.splcenter.org/greenwash-nativists-environmentalism-and-the-hypocrisy-of-hate

07/2010
Sections
* The Hypocrisy of Hate: Nativists and Environmentalism
* The Foundations: Funding the Greenwashers
* The Greening of Hate: An Environmentalist's Essay
* An Early Battle: Defending the Sierra Club
* Nativists and Environmentalists: A Timeline
* Key Groups and Individuals

Greenwash: Nativists, Environmentalism and the Hypocrisy of Hate
By Mark Potok, Editor

A quarter of a century ago, John Tanton, a white nationalist who would go on to almost single-handedly construct the contemporary, hard-line anti-immigration movement, wrote about his secret desire to bring the Sierra Club, the nation's largest environmental organization, into the nativist fold. He spelled out his motive clearly: Using an organization perceived by the public as part of the liberal left would insulate nativists from charges of racism — charges that, given the explicitly pro-"European-American" advocacy of Tanton and many of his allies over the years, would likely otherwise stick.

In the ensuing decades, nativist forces followed Tanton's script, making several attempts to win over the Sierra Club and its hundreds of thousands of members. That effort culminated in 2004, when nativists mounted a serious effort to take over the Sierra Club's board of directors, an attempt that was beaten back only after a strenuous campaign by Sierra Club members and groups including the Southern Poverty Law Center. The attempt was a classic case of "greenwashing" — a cynical effort by nativist activists to seduce environmentalists to join their cause for purely strategic reasons.

Now, the greenwashers are back. In the last few years, right-wing groups have paid to run expensive advertisements in liberal publications that explicitly call on environmentalists and other "progressives" to join their anti-immigration cause. They've created an organization called Progressives for Immigration Reform that purports to represent liberals who believe immigration must be radically curtailed in order to preserve the American environment. They've constructed websites accusing immigrants of being responsible for urban sprawl, traffic congestion, overconsumption and a host of other environmental evils. Time and again, they have suggested that immigration is the most important issue for conservationists.

The hypocrisy of these come-ons can be astounding. The group headed by Roy Beck, one of the key activists leading the efforts, has given close to half a million dollars to a far-right news service that has described global warming as a hoax. Tanton's wife, who works hand in glove with her husband, runs an anti-immigration political action committee (PAC) that funds candidates with abysmal environmental voting records. The congressional allies of John Tanton, Beck and the other greenwashers are organized into an anti-immigration caucus whose members have even worse environmental voting records than the beneficiaries of Mary Lou Tanton's PAC. John Tanton's U.S. Inc., a foundation set up to fund nativist groups, spent about $150,000 on a highly conservative fundraising agency whose client list includes several major anti-environmental organizations.

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