A Kindler, Gentler Klan, and Their Boy on Capitol Hill

By now we've all seen this:



That's our Senator, George Felix Allen Jr., hanging out with some of the most despicable men our country has to offer.

This isn't some random photograph. Back in 1996, when the photo was taken, Allen knew exactly who the Council of Conservatice Citizens were and what their mission was.

From the Nation:
In 1996, when Governor Allen entered the Washington Hilton Hotel to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of conservative movement organizations, he strode to a booth at the entrance of the exhibition hall festooned with two large Confederate flags--a booth operated by the CCC, at the time a co-sponsor of CPAC. After speaking with CCC founder and former White Citizens Council organizer Gordon Lee Baum and two of his cohorts, Allen suggested that they pose for a photograph with then-National Rifle Association spokesman and actor Charlton Heston. The photo appeared in the Summer 1996 issue of the CCC's newsletter, the Citizens Informer.

According to Baum, Allen had not naively stumbled into a chance meeting with unfamiliar people. He knew exactly who and what the CCC was about and, from Baum's point of view, was engaged in a straightforward political transaction. "It helped us as much as it helped him," Baum told me. "We got our bona fides." And so did Allen.

And who are the Council of Conservative Citizens? What exactly do they believe? (I feel ashamed to have this website in my browser history, but here goes...)

From their "Statement of Principles..."

We believe that the United States derives from and is an integral part of European civilization and the European people and that the American people and government should remain European in their composition and character.

We therefore oppose the massive immigration on non-European and non-Western peoples into the United States that threatens to transform our nation into a non-European majority...

We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called 'affirmative action' and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the Heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.

[...]

We believe the United States is a constitutional republic... We support the abolition of those government agencies at the federal, state and local levels that have no constitutional foundation, including the U.S. Departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Energy, Health and Human Services, and similar agencies.

[...]

We oppose the presence of homosexuals and women in the military services and especially of women in combat roles.

The CCC is, very simply, a hate group. They are a group who pretends to fight for the will of the founding fathers, but instead supports their own agenda of hate. This is a group that should be rejected from Virginia, but yet has enjoyed the support of Senator Allen.

Both the Southern Policy Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League classify the CC as a hate group. From the ADL...

The roots of the CCC rest in white opposition to integration during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The group is a successor to the Citizens' Councils of America (originally configured as the White Citizens' Councils), an overtly racist organization formed in the 1950s in reaction to the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing school segregation. Trumpeting the "Southern way of life," the CCA used a traditionalist rhetoric that appealed to better-mannered, more discreet racists; while the Klan burned crosses, the CCA relied on political and economic pressure.

[...]

The beliefs of the CCC fall within the racially charged tradition of its predecessor but reflect the contemporary fears of its constituency. Instead of segregation, CCC members focus on issues like interracial marriage, which the group calls "mongrelization of the races"; black-on-white violence; and the demise of white Southern pride and culture, best exemplified in the debate about the Confederate flag. Additionally, in its heightened rhetoric about the expropriation of states' rights by the federal government and by an impending "New World Order," the CCC shares some of the conspiratorial fears of modern militia groups and other right-wing conspiracy theorists.

The CCC is part of the very worst Virginia has to offer. And George Allen has publicly embraced it. Virginia is better than George Allen. George Allen doesn't deserve to live in Virginia, much less represent it in the US Senate. Every day that he serves as our Senator is a day we embrace racism and hatred, and I, for one, am not willing to accept that. If Jim Webb is not our Senator-elect on November 7th, it will be a sad, sad day, and an even sadder six years for all Virginians.

Vote Jim Webb on November 7th.
Until then, donate or volunteer. Link on the right.