BEWARE THE Center for New Community. They are Liars.

[newcomm]

#3 The data you are citing from our campaign reports is many months out of date and no longer accurate. You originally said that the lady you are pestering did not say she wrote those comments. Even if she did, it's a free country and she can say and do as she likes. I'm not that familiar with White Nationalist sites and it is not my job to research them. It is my job to tell them they are not welcome and that is what I have done and what I do.

Dear Mr. Gheen:

First, let's address the issue of your campaign reports.

As we’ve stated several times now, the report was based upon ALL the available data at the time the report was written, not just the first report. In fact, it was based on ALL SEVEN reports available at the FEC as of June 2005. This is a simple thing to prove. Just take a look at the filing dates on the FEC website - http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00405878 .

You should really stop making this argument. It makes you look downright foolish, as it is so easily proven wrong (over and over again).

Next, let's examine the issue of your largest donor.

As I mentioned in my reply, we have confirmed that your largest contributor is someone who has participated with a white nationalist group, made disparaging ethnic remarks, and supported internment camps.

Your statement, “it’s a free country and she can say and do as she likes,� contradicts with your statement that it’s your job to “to tell them they are not welcome.� I’m afraid you can’t have it both ways.

Accepting money from white nationalists emphatically says that they are welcome in your organization.

Actions speak louder than words, Mr. Gheen.

Let’s be clear – you’re willing to go on the record and say that you’re comfortable taking money from a white nationalist?

I just want to be sure, so that you can’t say I haven’t given you an opportunity to respond before our next report on ALI-PAC comes out.

I wonder how the candidates you plan on supporting financially are going to feel when they learn about ALI-PACs largest donor, AND that you refused to give back the money when alerted to the problem.

Don’t worry, just in case you plan on deleting this discussion thread, we’ll make sure to let people know. I’m sure campaigns on all sides will be interested in learning about this news.

To recap:

Your single largest supporter for 2005 (larger than all the other itemized contributors combined) was Kathryn K. Bell of Irving, Texas. She contributed $1500.00 on April 25, 2005. The same Kathryn Bell, "An Angry Old Lady in TX" as she describes herself, is a participant on the website of white nationalist group, American Renaissance.

At the American Renaissance website on June 27, 2005, Bell criticized Canadian MP Steven Fletcher for apologizing after he referred to Japanese soldiers from the World War II as "Japs" and "bastards." Bell not only agreed with Fletcher’s original statement, she went so far as to defend the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. This is the same person who contributed to ALI-PAC.

This is the third time now that you’ve been alerted to white nationalism amongst your donors.

By my math, that means that roughly 17% of your 2005 budget (as of the last FEC filing date) comes from someone who has participated with a white nationalist group, made disparaging ethnic remarks, and supported internment camps. Are you sure you’re still comfortable with that?

Sincerely,

Devin Burghart
Director, Building Democracy Initiative
Center for New Community
http://www.buildingdemocracy.org

[newcomm]

#4 Your credibility is so low in my book, I would not trust you if you told me it was raining outside. Don't even pretend to be doing us a favor by screening our donors. If helping good groups avoid White Nationalists were your goal, you would have contacted me or my executive officers before ever flinging some propaganda hit piece "Report" out in a press release.

Dear Mr. Gheen:

How you gauge our credibility is not our concern. Unlike you, we’re able to provide ample supporting evidence to back our claims.

You have now been alerted several times to a number of issues relating to white nationalism and ALI-PAC: your largest contributor, your allowing your byline to appear on the V-DARE website, the use of the racist "reconquista" conspiracy theory on your website, etc. Yet each time you're alerted, you try and change the subject or attack the messenger.

If you don't want to take action on these issues, that's your choice. The public, however, deserves to know about the choice you make.

We're not concerned about doing you a favor, we're concerned about doing the public a favor. That way, they can make up their own minds when presented with the all the facts. That's the beauty of democracy.

Sincerely,

Devin Burghart
Director, Building Democracy Initiative
Center for New Community
http://www.buildingdemocracy.org

[newcomm]

#5. Your request to see our membership list may indicate some mental deficits on your part. I hope you were joking. Please read our privacy statement. Many of our supporters are police officers, teachers, government employees, health care pros etc... The last thing we want is for them to be hounded by left wing fringe groups like yours.

Dear Mr. Gheen:

Well yes, I was half-joking.

But unless you’re prepared to make the lists of all donors available, along with a racial/ethnic breakdown of each of the contributors, then there is no way to substantiate your claim. You can claim it all you want, but you can’t prove it. Given that your credibility is has been harmed so much by your other exaggerated claims (size of membership, national profile, etc), unless you can provide some proof, your claim is meaningless.

You're refusing to make your donor information available? Wonder how the FEC would feel about that? What is it that you're trying to hide?

Again, your statement about the diversity of your donors is completely irrelevant to your claim of defamation. You wrote me because you claimed you were defamed, so why not stick to the subject? It is a transparent attempt to try and divert attention away from the substance of our report by injecting a completely different subject.

Sincerely,

Devin Burghart
Director, Building Democracy Initiative
Center for New Community
http://www.buildingdemocracy.org

[newcomm]

#6 One of the reasons I do not worry about your attacks that much is because they are so constantly flawed. True, we do not ask if someone is a LEGAL immigrant when people sign up as a volunteer or contribute. This may be news to you but several LEGAL immigrants encouraged me to start ALIPAC and have supported us from the beginning. Since that time I have heard from many of our supporters via these Discussion Groups, e-mail, and phone calls. I feel I am very in touch with their feelings and opinions considering the amount of contact I've had with them. Many of our financial supporters have contacted me to express that they are LEGAL immigrants and they are very upset about illegal immigration.

Dear Mr. Gheen:

Again you assert that our attacks are “constantly flawed,� and yet you fail to show even a single way that our contentions are incorrect.

Your contention that immigrants encouraged you to start ALI-PAC is a nice myth, but can you prove it? What are their names? How can we contact them? If you’re not willing to provide this data, your little story is nothing but a myth.

Besides, it’s completely irrelevant to the question at hand.

As we’ve already stated, your organization has taken multiple positions in opposition to ALL immigration (immigration “time out,� English as the official language, etc.). I’d be happy to refer you back to the earlier threads if you’d like.

In return, I thank them for their participation and ask them to help me keep an eye out for anything that would be discouraging to LEGAL immigrants in our organization.

So you’re suggesting that this warning only takes place behind the scenes, and that there is no way to prove that you’ve actually ever made this declaration. You really expect us to believe that?

If that’s the case, your requests seem to have fallen upon deaf ears. Your participants don’t appear to be listening to you. We've compiled a lengthy list of instances where no distinction has been made. We'll be making it available in the near future.

Sincerely,

Devin Burghart
Director, Building Democracy Initiative
Center for New Community
http://www.buildingdemocracy.org

[newcomm]

#7 Your report is defamatory because it fails to mention that LEGAL immigrants support our organization although we clearly publicize that fact. You have zero evidence to the contrary. Im certain some of our legal immigrants would be willing to speak for us if I asked them to.

Dear Mr. Gheen:

I would first refer you back to my previous posts. They have already answered your charge. You have failed to respond to any of the contentions made in that post.

Just for the record, let’s review:

1. Actually, we do address your issue in the report.

Once again, please allow me to direct your attention to page 3 of our report. It states,

“By emphasizing ‘illegal’ immigration to the United States, both in name and mission, ALI-PAC seeks to associate itself with order, security, and the rule of law. But even the organization’s name is something of a misnomer. A version of the organization’s platform, available until June 2005 on its website, states that ‘ALIPAC supports those that legally immigrate, but we also support a ‘time out’ or reduction of legal immigration levels until our borders are secured.’�

That makes you wrong again, Mr. Gheen.

2. The issue is irrelevant. ALI-PAC is concerned not only with undocumented immigrants but all immigrants.

While it may be a cute euphemism, calling for an immigration “time out� is a plea for the end of ALL immigration (for the foreseeable future). Your platform would “take issue� with them by eliminating them. If ALI-PACs platform, as stated when we wrote the report, was adopted today, there would be NO new immigrants. Period. That makes you anti-immigration. You can’t have it both ways.

Your latest “platform� also states that many of your supporters believe that, “Congress should make English the official language of America!� This has absolutely nothing to do with the documentation status of immigrants. It has everything to do with making government less accessible to those who don’t speak English – including documented immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, etc. Or is it that you’re suggesting that you stand for “legal immigrants as long as they speak English?� Are you planning on changing the name of the organization to “Americans for Legal English-Speaking Immigration PAC?�

3. Many of the articles posted to your website fail to distinguish between documented and undocumented immigrants. Articles posted on your website blame “immigrants� for crime, drugs, gangs, disease, economic problems, etc. Furthermore, many of the articles posted on your site call the people mentioned in the article “illegals,� even though their documentation status is not clear. In other instances, “illegals� is problematically used as a synonym for Latinos.

4. It is possible for an organization to take xenophobic positions no matter what the composition of the membership. Many of the articles and other posts on your website often fail to distinguish between documented and undocumented immigrants. There are a multitude of expressions of xenophobia on your website.

5. Your argument is based on faulty logic. The Nazis got support from even a few Jews, but that didn’t make them any less anti-Semitic. There were some slaves that actually fought on the side of the Confederacy, but that didn't make the defense of the institution of slavery any less morally reprehensible.

6. I’ll ask you again to prove it. Even if we accept the premise of your assertion, (which we don’t) let’s see what level of support you have different groups. I’ve asked you to provide numbers once before, so I’ll ask you again. Could you please provide supporting evidence for this assertion?

7. Let me get this straight – you want me to prove a negative? It's also an impossibility. Sounds familiar, though… like asking weapons inspectors to prove that there are no WMDs in a certain country.

Sincerely,

Devin Burghart
Director, Building Democracy Initiative
Center for New Community
http://www.buildingdemocracy.org

[newcomm]

##8 Your report is further defamatory because the main focus of your organization has been racism and for you to even imply that we are thus motivated is both false and an insult.

Dear Mr. Gheen:

This is a regurgitation of your previous assertion. You have no argument here.

As our materials indicate, the Center’s Building Democracy Initiative deals with emerging threats to civil and human rights – that includes racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, nativism, xenophobia, and other forms of bigotry. The Center has been responding to anti-immigrant activity far longer than ALI-PAC has been in existence. In fact, our first workshop on anti-immigrant sentiment was conducted all the way back in 1997.

As to your re-asserted claim of defamation:

1. I will refer you back to my first post.

“Defamation� is a severe charge with very specific legal guidelines. If you seriously think that our report defamed you, let’s drop the posturing and get on with the legal proceedings. Have your attorney contact ours.

Your statements make it clear that you’re not serious about this charge. Since you’re not serious, I suggest you stop throwing around such idle threats. It’s not good for your credibility.

2. Nowhere do we claim to know your motivations. We are reporting your actions and your statements. We don’t state your motivations, or reference them, or imply them. Therefore, your argument is again proven false.

3. As for the issue of you being insulted, let’s not forget that you and your supporters have called me and the Center for New Community, “liars,� “idiots,� “goons,� etc. If it’s anyone who should be insulted it should be us.

Sincerely,

Devin Burghart
Director, Building Democracy Initiative
Center for New Community
http://www.buildingdemocracy.org

[newcomm]

#9 citing our first finance reports as evidence of our organization being small without mentioning to your readers that we had been in operation less than 3 months is an omission lie. You willfully exclude information that would counter the defamatory points you are trying to make.

Dear Mr. Gheen:

Again with this canard, I see. Here are a few points for you to consider:

1. As we’ve stated several times now, the report was based upon all the available data at the time the report was written, not just the first report. In fact, it was based on all seven reports available at the FEC as of June 2005. This is a simple thing to prove. Just take a look at the publication date of our report (June 2005) and filing dates on the FEC website - http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00405878 .

2. The report clearly states on page 2 that ALI-PAC was just formed in September 2004. In fact, it states it in the third sentence of the report. We excluded nothing.

3. You, yourself, just admitted that ALI-PAC is a small organization. (See your previous post).

4. Our report credits ALI-PAC with over 800 website participants. That is far more than the approximately 300 supporters you confessed to earlier.

Did we defame you by suggesting that you have too much support? Do you want us to run a correction that states that ALI-PAC has fewer members than we estimated?

Sincerely,

Devin Burghart
Director, Building Democracy Initiative
Center for New Community
http://www.buildingdemocracy.org

[Charlesoakisland]

I'll bet you want in God We Trust taken off our money and to call Christmas tress "holiday tress" Are you some kind of communists ?

[newcomm]

#10 I do not see gay rights listed as one of your supported agendas and I'd like to know why you are taking issue with our lobbyists wife's father's comments that he does not like the show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"

Dear Mr. Gheen:

As our website states clearly, our Building Democracy Initiative is dedicated to defending civil and human rights from emerging threats – that includes racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, nativism, etc.

Your statement that the Center for New Community is “taking issue with our lobbyists wife's father's comments that he does not like the show ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy� is both inaccurate and entirely misses the point of that section of our report.

We took issue because the ALI-PAC hired lobbyist has close ties to the least tolerant, most overtly theocratic organizations of the Christian Right. The report notes that your lobbyist, James Lafferty is also a paid lobbyist for the so-called Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), “the most active anti-gay group there is.�

Yes, James Lafferty is the son-in-law of TVC founder Louis Sheldon. Our report was not critiquing him for his father-in-law’s statements. It was pointing to the fact that the organization which gives him a paycheck (2, actually), is divisive, intolerant, and outside the mainstream.


The “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy� reference was just one example of the intolerance promoted by the TVC. I’d be happy to provide many more examples if you say you’ll defend them.

Here’s what the report actually said, just for reference:

Given ALI-PAC’s support for border vigilantes, racist conspiracy theorists, and destructive public policy, it might come as no surprise that the person hired by the organization as its lobbyist, James Lafferty, has close ties to one of the least tolerant, most blatantly theocratic organizations of the so-called Christian Right, Louis Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition (TVC).32

TVC has been described by the ACLU as “the most active anti-gay group there is.�33 An example of Sheldon’s rhetoric is his comment that the BRAVO television network, which airs the popular “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,� should “consider airing a series called AIDS Hospice ... [that would] far more accurately portray the end results of homosexual sodomy.�34

How close is Laffertyâ€â€

[ALIPAC]

Poor Mr. Burghart:

You are such a very confused man.

The reason I've taken no action against you or New Community is that your attempted attack was so flawed, so feeble, and so ignored that I chose not to even respond.

Ive responded months later for a little personal enjoyment pointing out how incredulous your work is.

I froze this thread because it was THANKSGIVING. I was not regrouping as your fantastical imagination would have it.

If you want to call me eating turkey, spending time with friends and family, sleeping late, and traveling as "regrouping" then don't let me stop you.

I have very serious DOUBTS ABOUT YOUR MENTAL STABILITY Mr. Burghart. You seem to be convinced that you are some form of researcher or watchdog yet you seek to apply false labels to people and organizations where they don't belong.

You did not answer my question about your associations with Communist propogandists.

I don't answer questions for communists and those that work with Communists.

You and your organization attacked me and ALIPAC in the very same time frame MIMNOTES aka Maoist International Movement attacked.

So far, we have only been attacked by two groups New Community and Maoist International. People are sending me information where they claim you have worked with and written articles with known communists.

I will not answer another attack or question of your Mr. Burghart till you explain this.

I do not respond to fringe group communists. Neither will I allow moderate and mainstream Americans that are concerned about illegal immigration to be hampered or bothered by the same.

You can file all the reports you like on your low traffic website. If it ever becomes anything more than an annoyance or it costs us anything then you will be open to a wide range of responses that you will not like.

Try as you may Mr. Burghart you can't change the facts.

I am not a white nationalist. ALIPAC is not a white nationalist organization. We have kicked white nationalists of our boards before and none of our executive officers are or are affiliated with white nationalists.

Furthermore, our official releases and statements have illustrated our desire to have more LEGAL immigrants and racially diverse supporters. This has been illustrated countless documented times.

It would be pretty stupid for me to go on the radio encouraging people of different races to enjoin the cause a white nationalist organization.

We have already proven ourselves on this matter countless times and your fantasies do not change the facts.

I am white and I do love my country but that does not equate to being a racist or xenophobe as you would like people to believe.

Your plans will fail and backfire because you are a liar.

W

PS: Yes, I can prove the multi-ethnic makeup of my contributors and the legal immigrants in our organization will stand with us if necessary. That should be enough to completely sink your organization to the bottom of the river for good if it becomes necessary.