JBS: Fanning the Flames of a Race War ?

(This is adapted from an e-mail I sent to a number of friends and professional acquaintances; for links and other supporting documentation, see earlier installments of this blog. -- WNG)

Are the people running the JBS actually EAGER to see a race war erupt?

They've been peddling reheated alarmist nonsense about the Mexican Peril for years They continue to do so now, even though both immigration and violent crime are sharply DOWN from five years ago. But it's an election year, and -- just as in 2006 -- the GOP is cynically trying to stir up an electoral wave with the immigration issue.

The pathetic fools in JBS upper management (as distinct from the membership and field staff) are hoping to ride that wave, because they have neither the character nor creativity to make waves of their own.

Sampling the comment threads on thenewamerican.com leaves the impression that the message being sent by TNA and the JBS isn't about the need for a change in policy regarding "border security" or welfare, but rather the need to perceive Mexicans as an internal enemy that must be expelled or exterminated. I can't say that this leaves me perplexed, given that TNA's treatment of immigration issues habitually depicts the "enemy" as poor brown people -- rather than members of the Power Elite of whatever background.

"In only 25 years Whites will be a minority, not only here in the USA but almost in all the White Countries," fretted one recent commenter. "There is no time to loose [sic] for decisive action. No more `christian' [sic] love. Arizona should be the starting point for our total liberation. It's either get rid of 95% of the non-White masses and the subjugation to our laws and our will of those 5% allowed to stay or our painful disappearance from this planet."

One commenter appears convinced that every Mexican residing in the U.S. is a sleeper agent of the Reconquista, just waiting the signal to rise up and slay the Gringos:

"Judging from the general attitude of Hispanics I encounter in the course of everyday business it is becoming evident that they feel as though they already own America. To say that they are acting like unwelcome guests is an understatement. The general feeling of US citizens in my area is that they are just waiting for a signal of some sort to embark on a physical takeover."

Even Mexicans who aren't militant are a plague, according to another contributor to a TNA comment thread:

"Living in New Mexico, I have watched this develop over the last 10 yrs. At first there were few Mexicans around, now they are everywhere. I hate to go to Walmart, it is full of them.... I have seen lots of young females with their `anchor babies' at Walmart.......just really disgusting."

"Mark my words," warned yet another, "if this comes down to an internal war, I am willing to fight tooth and nail to defend my country against this scourge."

Of course, the authors of those sentiments -- not TNA or JBS -- are primarily responsible for them. But TNA does filter out "offensive" content from its comment threads (the first was initially approved, but removed only after I had made an issue of it on my blog and in e-mails to people associated with TNA).

My username was blocked by TNA because of substantive criticisms I had posted regarding specific articles on the website. THAT sort of thing just can't be tolerated! But unfiltered bigotry and unabashed promotion of inter-ethnic conflict? Why, sure -- bring it on!

This is the kind of stuff I saw coming back in 2006, and my complaints about TNA's handling of this issue probably had a lot to do with the decision to throw me under the bus. I warned that the immigration issue was being exploited to build the Homeland Security State, boost the GOP's political fortunes, and inflame ethnic hostilities that could erupt into outright inter-ethnic violence as the economy collapses.

Four years ago,when JBS upper management rebuked me for publishing that warning, I asked them to tell me what I had gotten wrong. "Shut up!" they explained, a few weeks before I was fired. Now they seem content to let the comment section of The New American degenerate into a passable imitation of what we can find at NewSaxon.org.

It's Not What Is Said -- It's Who Said It That Matters

 From the Birch Blog, July 9, 2006 (and republished here):

"Unless your Congressman is named Ron Paul, he doesn't deserve to be re-elected.

On at least one occasion during the last congressional term, every member of the House of Representatives – Dr. Paul being the sole exception – violated his oath of office by voting in favor of unconstitutional legislation; this is documented by the most recent installment of The New American's Conservative Index (CI)."

 From The New American on-line, July 23, 2010 (and republished from here):

 "[T]he 2,000-plus people attending this year’s FreedomFest crowd made it clear what they wanted: less government, less spending, lower taxes, fewer bureaucrats and no deficits. And they also want every incumbent running for office defeated this year… with the possible exception of Ron Paul."


The instrument has yet to be invented that can identify a substantive difference between those two statements. The second was written by Chip Wood, a former news editor for Review of the News, a forerunner to The New American.

The first was written by Yours Truly, a former Senior Editor at The New American -- in a blog post that was taken down a few hours after it had been published, but not before I endured a barrage of angry e-mails complaining that the post ran afoul of the "corporate consensus" that it was necessary to ride the Republican wave in order for the JBS to survive and prosper.

My insistence that Republicans revealed to be incorrigible collectivists by their Conservative Index scores was a significant example of what Art Thompson, the stentorian suck-up who swans about calling himself the Society's CEO, would later call an unacceptable "nuance." Once that nuance was "rejected," Thompson would insist, publication of it constituted a firing offense, but only of limited application: As far as I can tell, that was a category of "offense" specially created to justify firing one TNA employee.

Three years later, Chip Wood is not only free to write such things on his own blog (hey, wait a second -- you mean he doesn't have to pre-vet what he writes in his own webspace?), but they are welcome at TNA as well. (The other guy, incidentally, is blocked from so much as posting on comment threads below articles on the TNA website.)

Of course, there is an important difference here, at least where the wave-riders in Appleton are concerned: When I wrote that Ron Paul was the only incumbent (of either party) who deserved to be re-elected, there was a Republican in the White House and a Republican congressional majority. Now there's a Democratic president and Democrat-controlled Congress. Apparently that makes all the difference. Well, that and the fact that nobody in Appleton is trolling for excuses to get rid of Chip Wood.

   White Nationalists Welcome on TNA Comment Threads...

... but banished TNA Senior Editors? Not so much.


In today's (July 23) editor of TNA on-line, there is yet another press release-generated missive in support of Arizona's "arrested for driving while brown" ordinance. The first two comments posted in reply are from a fellow calling himself "Allisio Rex," an individual whose views are quite akin to those of a former JBS member who has been in the news recently.

Here are Mr. "Rex"'s contributions, with emphasis on some particularly noteworthy passages:

Allisio Rex said:

States Rights ans Arizona Immigration Law Nothing in the U.S. Constitution says that enforcement of Immigration Laws or other Federal Laws is the exclusive responsibility of the federal Government. Furthermore, Amendment 10 of the same Constitution don't expressly prohibit any State from doing so and should be left alone to pass,within their States, any laws necessary to maintain law and order. This admimistration is anti-Whites and anti-America and its aim is to destroy Western Civilization. States very soon,regardless of who is in power,whether Republicans or Democrats, will have to withdraw their allegiance (secede),not from the other States but from the Federal Government if we want to continue to exist as civilized people. And all third-world immigration,including the Muslims, must stop.

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July 23, 2010
Votes: +1

Allisio Rex said:

... In only 25 years Whites will be a minority, not only here in the USA but almost in all the White Countries. There is no time to loose for decisive action. No more "christian" love. Arizona should be the starting point for our total liberation. It's either get rid of 95% of the non-White masses and the subjugation to our laws and our will of those 5% allowed to stay or our painful disappearance from this planet .Read Pat Buchanan on this subject. By the way, of course, I fully agree with the above well-written article.

(End of comments.)

Granted, no website or blog can be held accountable for opinions expressed in comment threads.The problem here, of course, is that TNA is willing to provide a forum for the expression of proto-genocidal views about immigration, while maintaining a barricade against comments written by the Banished One (that would be, once again, Yours Truly).

In reaction to an earlier piece promoting the impending pogrom in Arizona, I wrote the following comment, only to be informed by the screening program that my "username had been blocked":

Bad premises and hyperbole

The state's central defense against the federal complaint is that it is not usurping federal authority, rather it is reluctantly filling a void caused by years of federal disregard to the hordes of invaders (armed and unarmed) swarming across the desert and into the private land of Arizona’s ranchers.  [/i]

Regulation of immigration is not among the "few and defined" federal powers, but part of the "numerous and indefinite" police powers reserved to the states, as Joseph Baldacchino documents in a tightly-reasoned essay published by the National Humanities Institute:

http://www.nhinet.org/epistulae10.htm

Is the point here to defend Arizona's reserved powers, or to pressure the Feds into exercising supposed "authority" nowhere delegated to them? Or is TNA too busy seeking to ride an election-year "wave" being churned up by the GOP to think such matters through?

It is rank and childish hyperbole to refer to the "geometric expansion of illegal immigrants throughout the country," given that immigration -- both legal and illegal -- have tapered off since 2007.

Readers interested in a treatment of immigration that doesn't traffic in facile sloganeering about "hordes of invaders" (good grief -- did someone recently reissue the Know-Nothing manual?) or bad constitutional premises should check out Butler Shafer's recent essay at LewRockwell.com:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer221.html

(End of comment.)

It was only the stalwart vigilance of the people running TNA that spared their readers from exposure to such shocking sentiments. Meanwhile, all that stuff about beginning the genocidal "liberation" of the white race by expelling all non-white from the country, beginning in Arizona? It whistled right through. Good to know the heroes in Appleton have some standards....

UPDATE, 11:54 July 23 --

After "Allisio Rex's" comments were republished here, TNA deleted the second, more overtly proto-Nazi posting while leaving the other one on the thread. 

UPDATE, July 24 --  Here's another specimen of permissible commentary at thenewamerican.com:

Jimmythewelder said:

Things are out of hand Judging from the general attitude of Hispanics I encounter in the course of everyday business it is becoming evident that they feel as though they already own America. Open contempt for our laws, our way of life and Americans in general manifests itself in every facet of their behavior. To say that they are acting like unwelcome guests is an understatement. The general feeling of US citizens in my area is that they are just waiting for a signal of some sort to embark on a physical takeover. The fact that the president of the US and his administration seem ready and willing to give this signal is most disturbing.

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July 24, 2010
Votes: +6

OOOOOOoooooohhhh -- Beware the Brown Peril! They're EVERYWHERE! They're beheading people in the vast, trackless Arizona desert, and just waiting for the signal from the White House to rise up and slay Whitey!


And another example-- this one should be entitled: "Ooh, Ick - Mexicans!":

I will help out... Living in New Mexico, I have watched this develop over the last 10 yrs. At first there were few Mexicans around, now they are everywhere. I hate to go to Walmart, it is full of them. I call it "The Peoples Store". I have seen lots of young females with their "anchor babies" at Walmart.......just really disgusting. New Mexico, is a "sanctuary state" for Mexicans. We even give them drivers licences. I am hoping that this November, we can elect a conservative government and make wholesale changes here.

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July 24, 2010
Votes: +4

I don't know how I missed this offering:

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Valerie said:

Compliance with the law is NOT OPTIONAL Looking at these photos I have to wonder if our journalists aren't doing their best to inflame this issue even more than it already is. The open defiance and hostility of these NON citizens of this country is ASTONISHING!!!!!!~ Who in the world would welcome foreigners who not only are not here legally but are stating that they will not comply with any law that says that they MUST GO?? Mark my words.......if this comes down to an internal war, I am willing to fight tooth and nail to defend my country against this scourge. The other day my daughter in law told me that two hissspanic girls threatened her as she walked by the photo dept. saying "what the f--- are you looking at bit--?" This is becoming and ugly turf war and guess who is going to lose in the end? Yes businesses may suffer at first, but this will pass and the end result will be that this country can begin to recover from what the influx of Mexico's poor has done to us. I live in SC where illegal aliens are all over. Either something is done now or forget about it, this country WILL BE LOST FOREVER. Hang in there my fellow Americans and don't forget to VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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July 24, 2010
Votes: +13

I simply have to ask: Are Art Thompson and Jack "Torquemada" McManus deliberately sabotaging the JBS, or is the organization drifting into overt racialism because of some combination of stupidity, timidity, and opportunism on the part of upper management? 

"Correction, Please!" Redux

Item:

In a brief essay that did little more than repackage a press release from the Pinal County, Arizona Sheriff's Department, The New American reported on July 8 that Sheriff Paul Babeu has bravely declined a personal security detail despite threats on his life "from the Mexican Drug Cartel and Drug Cartel members." Those alleged threats, which are deemed "credible," were provoked by Sheriff Babeu's bold efforts "to secure the United States border," readers were told.

Correction, Please!

Perhaps this should be described in terms of a correction made necessary by subsequent developments that impeach the credibility of Paul Babeu and his department, at least where gathering and assessing "intelligence" is concerned. 

After former* JBS member, unabashed neo-Nazi, and accused federal provocateur J.T. Ready assembled a militia-like group to patrol Pinal County in search of illegal immigrants, Sheriff Babeu told the press that he neither encouraged nor invited Ready and his chums to act as a law enforcement auxiliary. He mentioned the possibility that Ready's little knot of knuckleheads "may have gotten the attention of the Los Zetas drug cartel in Mexico," reported Arizona's KPHO-TV, a CBS affiliate. 

Babeu referred to an article supposedly written by "Michael Webster, [a]columnist with the LA Times," describing a sit-down meeting with a member of Los Zetas. "During the interview," reports KPHO, "the cartel member specially mentioned Babeu."

"`We're going to hold Sheriff Paul Babeu personally responsible,' Babeu said quoting the article," recounted KPHO. "I've never seen threats made publicly, using our media to make threats south of the border to us," the sheriff concluded, emphasizing that "the threat will not intimidate his department."

One problem here is that Michael Webster doesn't write for the Los Angeles Times, and never has. No article of the sort referred to above was ever published by that paper. Mr. Webster, who describes himself as a "syndicated investigative journalist" -- and who may, indeed, so some worthwhile reporting -- publishes most of his work through an on-line news aggregator called U.S. Border Fire Report.

Webster's essay refers to a conversation he claims to have had with "One of my informants that I have called Juan" in which the 35-year-old man, "who claimed to be an officer in the Los Zetas drug cartel organization," criticized Babeu for not properly investigating the killings of drug couriers, which were supposedly committed by vigilantes.

"The Los Zetas officer said `I believe there is a cover-up by sheriff Paul Babeu by protecting the Americans who did the killings. If the true facts of this case are not revealed publicly and the guilty ones are not brought to justice I will hold the sheriff personally responsible."

Taking this account at face value, it's difficult to discern an actual death threat, as Sheriff Babeu clearly intends. But there is nothing about this story to elevate it above the status of printed rumor: While we may be justified in accepting Webster's claim to have met and spoken with "Juan," we're given no reason to believe that this man was what he reportedly claimed to be. 

The Zetas presumably know enough about operational security, and have sufficient organizational discipline, to deny their cadres the luxury of mouthing off in detail to bloggers regarding their malign designs against U.S. law enforcement officials.  

Babeu or his office misrepresented Webster as a columnist with the Los Angeles Times, and repackaged his intriguing but dubious account as legitimate intelligence regarding a plausible threat against the sheriff.

Obviously, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office has pretty emancipated standards of "credibility" when it comes to assessing supposed threats to Sheriff Babeu's life.TNA would be wise to run a clarification or retraction of its earlier PR story about Babeu, but it won't.

Santayana famously said that "skepticism is the chastity of the intellect." When it comes to assessing sensational claims made by opportunistic Republicans seeking to exploit nativist impulses, The New American's editorial "leadership" is a pushover. This is the sort of thing we'd expect from people content to repackage "news" from undisguised tabloids like the Globe -- assuming that the "news" item resonates with the narrative being written by the GOP-aligned media apparat regarding the evil deeds of the foreign-born usurper Barack Obama. (Mr. Obama, I hasten to point out, is at least as despicable as his Republican predecessor, whose policies he has continued with almost perfect fidelity.)

Back in the 1960s, when the Feds through COINTELPRO and other initiatives were creating the conditions for violent racial conflict, the JBS used what influence it could to put out or contain the fire.Today, the weak-willed opportunists running things in Appleton are helping to spread accelerant. 

As recently as  1996, when TNA was still in the business of investigative journalism and the management of the JBS was burdened with principles of some kind, the organization actually exposed cynical efforts to pit Americans against each other through engineered racial conflict (see, if you can find it, the July 22, 1996 cover story "Behind the Burnings: There is More than Racism at Work"). Of course, that was about a decade before the organization fell into the hands of people content to ride waves because they were too timid to make them.

*Ready claims that he wasn't expelled by the JBS, which has a black-letter policy forbidding members to be active in white supremacist organizations. By his account, Ready simply allowed his membership to expire. 

They Just Don't Care, Do They? (Updated and expanded, 7/13)

(See additional update below)

Correction, Please!

Mexican Anschluss in Arizona?

Item: 

In a June 29 essay burdened with the alarmist title "Eighty Mile Swath of Arizona Surrendered to Cartels," The New American addressed what it called "the menacing terror of drug traffickers and human smugglers that have all but taken adverse possession of the region."

"Eighty miles from the border with Mexico in Arizona, the federal government has posted signs warning Americans not to approach any closer to the border, as it is a region of `active drug and human smuggling' and that those that ignore the warning may “encounter armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed,'" wrote TNA contributor Joe Wolverton II.

Those warning signs, he insisted, are "white flags of surrender flying 80 miles within the border of the United States of America. Is [sic] such examples of federal contempt of the border crisis enough to convince those who scoff at cries of treason and invasion?"

Correction:

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that any territory in Arizona has been surrendered to Mexico, or to narcotics gangs operating out of Mexico. A Border Patrol agent stationed in the supposedly surrendered territory responded to a question about this supposed cession by dismissing it as "false information." 

The claim that the Obama administration turned over the territory to Mexico originated with Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, a publicity-fixated Republican neo-con and ally of John McCain. Babeu's jurisdiction does not abut the border with Mexico. Clarence Dupnink, sheriff of neighboring Pima County, which does share a border with Mexico, insists that border violence has actually decreased in recent years. 

Drug smuggling and related violence -- which are unavoidable bi-products of the demented "war on drugs," an unconstitutional and counterproductive effort to regulate the bloodstream of Americans -- are a problem for Arizona (albeit a smaller one now that it was several years ago). The same is true for sections of Los Angeles, Chicago, Milwaukee, and elsewhere.

Many crime-ridden urban neighborhoods are controlled by drug-dealing ethnic gangs; for example, some neighborhoods in Philadelphia are run by the Dominican mafia. Does this mean that parts of Philadelphia have been surrendered to the Dominican Republic? Do the depredations of the Russian mob in Brighton Beach mean that Brooklyn's "Little Odessa" is now an island of Russian sovereignty?

Keep an eye peeled for an upcoming TNA piece retailing Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's latest bombshell disclosure -- the sudden surge in beheadings committed by illegal immigrants in the Arizona desert!

The Obama Administration Running Legal Interference for New Black Panthers? 

Item:

"The New Black Panther Party has been a controversial subject for a number of reasons," wrote GOP stenographer Raven Clabough a July 10 posting on the TNA website. "On Election Day 2008, Black Panther member King Samir Shabazz and national chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz were caught on video bearing billyclubs outside of a Philadelphia polling center. An investigation was launched and charges of voter intimidation were made, but the Department of Justice, under the leadership of Eric Holder, elected to dismiss the case."

Correction:

The New Black Panther Party -- a less-than-fearsome group that is equal parts comic opera and street theater -- is a pretty loathsome outfit, and neither they nor anybody else should be permitted to intimidate voters for any reason. The Justice Department examined the behavior of NBBP cadres and decided to drop the criminal probe.


That was the Bush-Mukasey Justice Department, not the Obama-Holder Justice Department. 

The decision was made three months before either Obama or Holder had anything to do with the matter. 


J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department attorney-turned-GOP activist, claims that under Obama and Holder the voting rights section of the Justice Department repeatedly showed "hostility" toward prosecuting intimidation cases involving "black defendants and white victims," and said that its dismissal of the NBBP case illustrates this institutionalized bigotry. 




Thomas J. Perrelli, identified by Adams as the one who ordered the dismissal of the case against the NBPP, wasn't confirmed until three months after the Bush administration dropped the criminal complaint.

Deputy Assitant AG Julie Fernandes, who per Adams' version ordered subordinates not to prosecute minority voter intimidation cases, didn't start at her post until six months after the criminal case was dismissed.

Why wasn't Adams outraged when the Bush-Mukasey Justice Department dropped the criminal probe of the NBPP? Why is he trying to give the Obama-Holder Justice Department all of the blame for this, when, at most, they were simply building on the decisions of their predecessors?


The Obama administration won the civil case against the NBBP by default. It didn't pursue an injunction against the entire organization -- which was the department's original approach -- focusing instead on the one individual whose actions, captured on tape, were clearly illegal.

What Adams describes as "reverse discrimination" has been referred to by others involved in the decision as a disagreement over strategy and priorities among "career people" in the department. This seems entirely plausible, pending corroboration from Adams of his alarming accusations of official misconduct that, if true, would be grounds not only for impeachment but criminal prosecution.  

UPDATE --

While the people in charge of TNA are pandering to the Fox-aligned demographic by retailing breathless accounts of Afro-Militarism, an Arizona offshoot of the National Socialist Movement -- led by former JBS member, Hitler fanboy, and likely federal asset J.T. Ready -- are actually taking people hostage at gunpoint.

The New Black Panther Party's alleged "voter intimidation" involved one NBBP goofball -- roughly one-eighth of the group's entire membership -- making faces and saying offensive things. The NSM's "border patrols" are quite likely to get someone killed.



Obama's a foreign-born usurper -- we read it in the check-out line!

Item:

"Globe magazine has jumped into the citizenship controversy with a July 12 cover story that states, `Obama was not born in the U.S.,' writes Raven Clabough, who appears to be TNA's liaison to the Hannitized. "The supermarket tabloid may not have the best track record for accurate reporting among mainstream publications, but it does have a large circulation and its voice and what it has to say will undoubtedly bring the issue of Obama's citizenship to the attention of a lot more people and cause them to consider seriously if there is anything to it."

Correction:

Actually, there's nothing to correct here, because there's no story -- at least none that The New American would have bothered with back when those producing it aspired to provide credible news and thought-provoking commentary. 

To the extent that there is "news" here, the substance of it would appear to be this: Whether or not Obama's an illegitimate president owing to foreign birth, a large-circulation tabloid has lent its support to that theory, and this will have an impact on the opinions of its readers (make that "browsers"). 

This isn't reporting. It's not even blogging. It is pure, undisguised pandering of the worst and most transparent variety. And it is an all-sufficient indictment of the abysmal standards that prevail at what was once an exceptional publication. 

Oh, If Only We Had a Military Dictator....

Item:


In a paean to "Operation Wetback," the paramilitary Border Patrol operation that rounded up and deported millions of Mexican laborers, Dr. Roger McGrath extols the "bold, decisive, and forceful leader" who presided over it: General Dwight Eisenhower (who was president at the time), and Lt. General Joe Swing, Director of the INS. 

"It took a military man, who thought that national borders should mean something" in order to defeat the "unholy alliance of agribusinessmen and other employers," in concert with perfidious Mexicans, to subvert the border and undermine the labor market in the southwest, writes McGrath. 

The problem began during World War II, when, "with so many Americans in the service — and fighting and dying overseas — Mexicans illegally entered the United States to take advantage of employment opportunities, especially as agricultural laborers."

Fortunately, Eisenhower and Swing were willing to employ military means to beat back this invasion, offering an example we would be wise to follow, concludes Dr. McGrath.


Correction:


First of all, it's notable to see Eisenhower -- not Robert Welch's favorite public figure -- being extolled as not only a hero, but as something akin to the savior of the republic, in the pages of The New American. Perhaps the TNA editorial staff decided it was acceptable -- in this one instance -- to traffic in "nuances" that differ from Mr. Welch's views. (Of course, publicly differing in "nuance" from the incumbent JBS management is a firing offense, or at least it was in one specific instance.)


Of greater significance is the omission from Dr. McGrath's essay of any mention of the 1942 "Bracero" treaty between the U.S. and Mexico. 

McGrath depicts Mexican laborers as "taking advantage" of dislocations in the labor market caused by the war socialist economy of WWII. In fact, it was the FDR regime that invited those laborers into the country through the 1942 Bracero Treaty, which didn't expire until 1963. Through that agreement, the U.S. government imported millions of Mexicans to labor as "guest workers" in fields, factories, and other productive roles left vacant because of mobilization for the war. 

Mexico at the time was in the midst of its own depression, which was even deeper and more tragic than ours. So it's not surprising that millions of Mexicans -- in some cases, literally entire villages -- migrated northward in search of the promised wage of 30 cents an hour (which was specified in the treaty). Nor is it surprising that the northward migration didn't flow tidily in government-established channels. 

"Operation Wetback" was not the first time Mexican laborers who had come north to fill jobs left vacant in wartime were rounded up and expelled. During Woodrow Wilson's War, as well, fan informal Bracero-style agreement was reached with Mexico that permitted laborers to come north with their families. Many English-speaking American citizens born in this country pursuant to that agreement were among those eventually rounded up and summarily expelled at gunpoint.

None of this is mentioned or even alluded to in Dr. McGrath's homily regarding the supposed virtues iron-handed military rule.

By omitting "Bracero" from this discussion, McGrath produces a caricature: The villains are insidious Mexicans "stealing" jobs from American draftees, and conniving businessmen bereft of civic virtue. 

The "heroes," by way of contrast, are "decisive, forceful" military leaders in positions of political authority -- guys like Lt. Gen. Swing, whom McGrath describes as "[h]andsome and square-jawed with sparkling blue eyes, white hair, and a bearing that suggested strength and decisiveness...." Yes, someone like that is just the hero to beat back the Brown Peril, isn't he?

Mini-clarification, July 18: In the photo caption on page 37 in the print edition of TNA's July 19 issue, there is a fleeting reference to the "Bracero Agreement" as providing to Mexican laborers "a legal way to enter the United States and work." This truncated, inadequate description is the only mention of Bracero in the entire article.

Observations:

The TNA stories examined above display the superficiality, selective credulity, and opportunism that have come to characterize the publication since -- oh, let's pick a date purely at random; how about October 2006? Dr. McGrath's story, produced by a capable writer and long-established academic figure, represents something worse: Deliberate omission in an effort to promote an ideological agenda.

There was a time, not long ago, when TNA would take the time and invest the effort to examine and report on issues responsibly, rather than simply retailing whatever resonates with the Republican-wedded, Fox "News" and Talk Radio-obsessed sub-population. 

They're too busy riding the wave in Appleton to take the time and care to find out if part of Arizona really is under the rule of throat-slitting Mexican narcotics lords, or if the Holder-era Justice Department really is a festering pit of Afro-racist corruption. 

But this would require actual reporting, and it might complicate the effort to pander to the lowest common denominator -- and in the cases discussed above, that denominator runs right along one of the fault-lines Robert Welch warned about.

 

        "The Cressbeckler Stance": JBS-TV's New Star Attraction?

Why bother watching Art Thompson stumble through the latest installment of "cranky old reactionary reads the newspaper"? Joad Cressbeckler offers pretty much the same content in a much more entertaining way: