NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19/NN_1992_19.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/6132

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Subject: WARNING (II): Spotlight et al: Expose by Chip Berlet
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[Via misc.activism.progressive from PeaceNet's gen.media]
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Topic 137       "Radio Free America" = ???      Response  2 of  2
cberlet
media    8:52 pm  Aug 27, 1992
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Radio Free America is a syndicated program of Liberty Lobby,
a quasi-Nazi outfit that specializes in using
radical-sounding "populist" rhetoric to attract an
audience. They have managed to fool a lot of people by
avoiding overtly racist language. They are quite skilled
at this deception.

According to an order list for audiotapes from Liberty Lobby's
syndicated Radio Free America 2-hour daily radio talk-show,
on September 5, the program was an interview with Fred
Leuchter, who falsely claimed to be an engineer and
published a pseudo-scientific study alleging that he had proved
that there were no homicidal gas chambers at "Auschwitz, Mydanek
and Birkenau."

Along with interviews with Populist Party candidates and David
Duke supporters, here are some other featured guests:

On June 21, 1990 the guest was "Alyn Denham, former mercenary
from Rhodesia, talks about the problems of South Africa."

On July 26 1990 the guest was Samuel Blumenfeld, long an ally of
the John Birch Society, talking on his "stand against socialistic
control of education" by the National Education Association.

On July 12, the issue was October Surprise with Barbara Honegger.

June 14, Bo Gritz "continues his fight against narco-corruption
in high places."

May 22, 1990 "Liberty Lobby founder and treasurer Willis A.
Carto."

May 24, 1990 "Dr. Paul Cameron, director/founder of Family
Research Institute of Washington, discusses dangers posed to
society by militant homosexuality."

February 21--"A self-confessed FBI hit man tells how he rubbed
out one of the shooters in the JFK assassination."

January 23, 1991 "Was Bush's War actually a "Secret Team"
operation? Col. Fletcher Prouty, expert on this government within
a government, argues that it has all the earmarks."

August 29, 1990 the program was "Former Rep. David Bowen (D-
Miss.), executive director of the Center for the National
Interest, talks about the power of the Israel lobby and how it
has to be curbed."


David Duke has this to say:

   " 'Spotlight' started Radio Free America...I think it's a
fantastic project. It's one more chink in the armor of the enemy.
I think it will enable us to penetrate and reach more and more
people in this country.
   "I must say this: there are Jews that I respect like Alfred
Lilienthal who works against Zionism. But, I don't have respect
for Zionism, and frankly, I do not have respect for Judaism.
Because it is a very vile, anti-Christian faith."


- Liberty Lobby -

Among the most influential ultra-right groups in
the U.S. is the virulently anti-Jewish Liberty
Lobby. With its newspaper <Spotlight>, Liberty
Lobby spreads racialism across the U.S., and
serves as a bridge to the paramilitary and
neo-Nazi right. The <Washington Post> has
described <Spotlight> as a "newspaper containing
orthodox conservative political articles
interspersed with anti-Zionist tracts and
classified advertisements for Ku Klux Klan
T-shirts, swastika-marked German coins and
cassette tapes of Nazi marching songs." That
description is actually mild.

<Spotlight> claims it is neither anti-Jewish nor
pro-Nazi, but one article referred to the Waffen
SS, the elite corps of ideological Nazis, as a
"multinational anti-communist mass movement,
which was, in fact, the largest all-volunteer
army in history." The <Spotlight> also celebrates
neo-Nazi skinheads and the apartheid government
of South Africa.

Liberty Lobby, <Spotlight>, the International
Revisionist Conference, the Institute for
Historical Review (IHR), Noontide Press, and
IHR's <Journal of Historical Review> are all
projects of Willis Carto, one of America's most
influential racial theorists. Carto is described
by the London-based anti-fascist magazine
<Searchlight> as the "leading U.S. publisher of
anti-semitic, racist and pro-nazi material."

Carto and Liberty Lobby were influential in
creating the racialist Populist Party and were
primarily responsible for elevating David Duke to
national attention as an electoral candidate. In
the spring of 1985 the Populist Party held a
major meeting in Chicago where the armed and
confrontational activities of racist and
anti-Jewish groups in rural America were saluted
as "heroic," according to persons who attended
the meeting. One group of rural farm activists
from the midwest left the meeting after
complaining that too many of the attendees were
obsessed with Jews. (A series of political and
financial schisms has ended the relationship
between Liberty Lobby and the Populist Party,
although both groups still share many of the
fundamental anti-Jewish and racist theories.)

The pseudo-scholarly Institute for Historical
Review is a "revisionist" research center and
publishing house that popularizes the calumny
that the historical account of the Nazi Holocaust
is a Jewish hoax, an idea central to Carto's
worldview. According to researcher Russ Bellant,
early in his career Willis Carto produced the
magazine <Western Destiny>, which grew out of
the Nordicist <Northern World> and a vociferously
anti-Jewish magazine called <Right>. <Right>
recommended support for the American Nazi Party
and was edited by E. L. Anderson who was
associate editor of <Western Destiny>. Critics
and co-workers of Carto claim E. L. Anderson was
a pseudonym for Willis Carto.

Liberty Lobby staff and supporters helped stage
the 1978 meeting of the World Anti-Communist
League, a group that networks fascist movements
around the globe. According to the <Washington
Post>, Liberty Lobby workers distributed
publications including <Spotlight> at the WACL
meeting. A few years later, after a change of
leadership and some mostly-cosmetic housecleaning
to oust a few ardent Nazi groups, WACL came under
the leadership of retired General John "Jack"
Singlaub. Singlaub used WACL to raise money and
support for the Contras, and Singlaub and WACL
were implicated in the Iran-Contra hearings for
having served as a cover and money laundry for
the activities of Oliver North.

While the John Birch Society trumpets jingoistic
patriotism laced with conspiracy theories,
according to scholar John Mintz, the Liberty
Lobby voices "racist and anti-Semitic beliefs in
addition to conspiracism."

Mintz explains:

"Structurally, the Lobby was a most unusual
umbrella organization catering to constituencies
spanning the fringes of Neo-Nazism to the John
Birch Society and the radical right. It was not
truly paramilitary, in the manner of the Ku Klux
Klan and Nazis, but was more accurately an
intermediary between racist paramilitary factions
and the recent right. "

Former staffers at both the Liberty Lobby and
LaRouche's group claim both outfits have
cooperated closely on several projects. In the
March 2, 1981 issue of its newspaper <Spotlight>,
Liberty Lobby cynically defended the relationship
this way:

"It is mystifying why so many anti-communists and
`conservatives' oppose the USLP [U.S. Labor
Party--LaRouche's original electoral arm, ed.].
No group has done so much to confuse, disorient,
and disunify the Left as they have...the USLP
should be encouraged, as should all similar
breakaway groups from the Left, for this is the
only way that the Left can be weakened and
broken. More recently, <Spotlight> has distanced
itself and Liberty Lobby from the LaRouchians
over the issue of the LaRouchians' questionable
and illegal fundraising activities. "


 * * *

For more information see the
Peacenet Conference "Publiceye"
Topic: Right Woos Left

-Chip Berlet