CPAC 2012 OCCUPIED & THAT WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING!

It was only a matter of time, although we are amazed it took this long, that the nonsense coming from the right at the Conservative Political Action Conference would get the attention of those that have just about had enough of this crap.

One People’s Project

WASHINGTON, DC – For the first time in the entire 39-year history of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a major protest, spearheaded by the Occupy movement, was held in opposition to the event being held at the Marriot Wardman Hotel, which has been plagued with a low morale among attendees and the embracing of open white supremacists who organized and participated in workshop alongside Republican elected officials as well as served as CPAC co-sponsors. It is a marked development for an event that over the past four years has increasingly the go-to event for the conservative sensationalists and hatemongers that threaten the growth of the Republican Party and conservatism overall.

The protests held on Friday came on the day that three of the four remaining Republican presidential candidates were scheduled to speak. They were a continuation of the call for economic justice that has been pushed by the Occupy movement, but this protest was particularly sparked by the inane and callous remarks by the Republican candidates against the poor and working class over the course of the Presidential election season. One of those remarks came out from Newt Gingrich during his speech at CPAC on Friday when he took a swipe at those who were “sitting at home” on unemployment for 99 weeks, as many people have due to the financial crisis over the past four years, saying allowing them to do so was “fundamentally wrong, and a violation of the Declaration of Independence commitment that we have the right to pursue happiness.”

In addition, for the fourth year in a row, CPAC has allowed a forum to open white supremacists, providing them via an organization founded by white nationalist John Tanton called ProEnglish the opportunity on Thursday to hold a workshop titled “The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity” Prior to the beginning of CPAC, progressive organizations such as People for the American Way have called on CPAC attendees, particularly Presidential candidates, to denounce the workshop’s inclusion of white supremacist Peter Brimelow, the editor of the white nationalist website VDARE and a CPAC regular. Later, other groups took issue with ProEnglish Executive Director Robert Vandervoort, who at one time, according to the Institute for Historical Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR) was a onetime organizer for the Chicagoland Friends of American Renaissance, a support group for the newsletter published by Jared Taylor’s New Century Foundation.

Over the past two years American Renaissance-sponsored conference have been cancelled in Washington DC and Charlotte, NC when hotels refused to host them after calls of outrage, but they plan to hold one March 16-18 somewhere near Nashville, NC in what they would only refer to as a government owned facility.

The workshop featured two other notables associated with white supremacist circles. Serge Trifkovic is the foreign affairs editor for the paloconservative Chronicles magazine, which routinely publishes articles from notables within those circles like Virginia Abernethy and Samuel Francis, and National Review’s John Derbyshire works often with Jared Taylor and National Policy Institute’s Dick Spencer. It also had the surprise inclusion of Rep. Steve King (R-IA). King has a long history of racist rhetoric and campaigns, often directed at President Barack Obama from considering it “bizarre” that he would use his middle name during his 2009 swearing-in, to promoting the “birther” notion that he wasn’t born in the United States. This however was the first time he directly connected himself to the white supremacist crowd, as he took the podium to promote a bill to make English the official language in the United States. He also had glowing remarks for Brimelow and his work and also shook his hand. “I’ve read your book, I just hadn’t met you,” he said, going on to say that went on to say that Brimelow “eloquently wrote about the balkanization of America.” Later, he told various reporters that he wasn’t familiar with Brimelow’s work.

The white supremacist student group Youth for Western Civilization, who had its inaugural event at CPAC in 2009 was a co-sponsor of the conference. One member, Tim Dionisopoulos who currently works at the Leadership Institute, was among those CPAC attendees who watched the protest take place outside the Marriott, but ran when a camera came out to take his picture.

The anger of the presence of white supremacists was compounded by the fact that the pro-gay GOProud was kicked out of the conference this year after homophobic CPAC attendees and groups complained about their presence last year. This was something that was mentioned in several articles and in a discussion about the workshop on Al Sharpton’s PoliticsNation. Bloggers and attendees tweeted articles and made statements about the situation, one calling it “professional grade hypocrisy”. It even came up when conservative blogger Michelle Malkin tweeted an article she wrote about Planned Parenthood where she termed them the “real racists” because of her belief that Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger promoted eugenics almost a century ago. She did not respond when Alexander Nowrasteh of the CPAC co-sponsor Competitive Enterprise Institute tweeted, “@michellemalkin Agree w/ u on PP. Vandervoort seems to be involved with American Renaissance in Chicago. Doesn’t that make him racist too?” Malkin has also been a contributor to Peter Brimelow’s website VDARE, ironic given that Brimelow himself, whom she called a friend in an article she once wrote hailing t
he eugenics-promoting paleoconservative Steve Sailer, also promotes eugenics.

It was in this climate that people came from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh New York, Baltimore and other cities to join with activists in Washington to oppose the conference. At one point during the protest, the participants walked up to the hotel in an attempt to register for the conference. When they were rebuffed a brief shouting and chanting match took place as CPAC attendees came out to either watch or videotape the scene. One of those attendees was Brandon Darby a co-founder of the New Orleans-based group Common Ground, who switched sides and as an FBI informant infiltrated organizations protesting against the 2008 Republican National Conference. Two activists out of a group of eight who actually served or are serving jail time after being accused by Darby of planning to make Molotov Cocktails, although it has been charged that Darby himself was the one who taught them how to do so, a charge Darby denies. Darby was wearing a CPAC press pass that indicated he works for right-wing propagandist Andrew Breitbart.

Police at the time was attempting to keep any disturbances from occurring on hotel property and were warning protesters to remain on the sidewalk. They also threatened CPAC attendees with arrest if they engaged protestors at one point. As of Friday only one arrest – that of an Alexandria Times reporter – was reported.

There were also protests inside, particularly when Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney gave his remarks. According to one report, the protesters moved to the front of an overflow room where attendees were watching Romney’s speech on a television screen, taped their mouths with a 99% label, and revealed T-shirts that read, “If money is speech, then poverty is silence.” They were quickly escorted out by security.

Earlier, Fox News ambush reporter Griff Jenkins wandered into the crowd as they approached the hotel – sans the microphone ID block identifying him as a Fox News reporter – and interviewed a farmer about his reasons for being there. “I grow these people’s food, and they want to make fun of that,” Barry Knight of Occupy DC told him. “They like to make fun of people that grow their food while they sit home behind computer screens stealing money and forcing people out of their homes (with) the big banks forging foreclosure documents and perjuring themselves before Congress. They’re the criminals.”

The demo unnerved an already demoralized congregation of CPAC attendees. Just prior to the start of the conference, the Heritage Foundation warned in an article that protestors were planning to commit illegal acts and possibly violence against attendees. On Friday, there was nothing of the sort that was reported and many of the CPAC attendees who came out to view the protest had solid discussions with those who protested them. Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist was among those that engaged the protestors in discussion. Curiously, in that discussion, despite the numerous times that Peter Brimelow promoted his efforts in VDARE, and the fact that Gilchrist himself has written to the website in 2011 denied even knowing him when he saw his name in the CPAC program. “I recognize his name, I don’t know who he is,” he told One People’s Project.

The protests continued on for the duration of CPAC.