Day: June 19, 2009

On Saturday, June 20, in McLean, Virginia, Hazleton Pennsylvania Mayor Louis J. Barletta is scheduled to appear at a conference of “The American Cause” with the leader of “white nationalist” website VDARE’s Peter Brimelow. Mayor Barletta is on a list of scheduled attendees published on “The American Cause” website right before Peter Brimelow,  the leader of the VDARE website listed by the Southern Poverty Leadership Center (SPLC) as a “white nationalist” “hate group.”

Peter Brimelow’s VDARE website currently publishes articles defending “white nationalism,” as well as praising a “white separatist” leader as someone who once would have been “called an American patriot.” Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) previously wrote about this meeting on June 17 where we summarized the background of VDARE.   In addition, we pointed out how VDARE’s Peter Brimelow wrote on June 11, 2009 that accused Holocaust Memorial Museum shooter Von Brunn was “an intelligent man” – the day after his alleged shooting and murder on June 10 of black security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns. In addition to Von Brunn’s links to Nazism, we now also learn that Von Brunn had child pornography on his computer as well.

Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) spoke with The American Cause organization and confirmed that the “Lou Barletta” listed on this scheduled list of speakers is in fact Pennsylvania Hazleton Mayor Louis Barletta.  R.E.A.L. repeatedly attempted to contact Mayor Barletta’s office by telephone and email for comment or clarification, but received no reply. R.E.A.L. also contacted Mary Ellen Lieb, Hazleton’s Acting Director of Administration (telephone 570-459-4961; fax 570-459-4992), who also confirmed that Mayor Barletta was going to be attending this conference.   In our telephone conversation, Ms. Lieb read off a list of attendees from a list she had of The American Cause attendees including Peter Brimelow.   R.E.A.L. asked Ms. Lieb if there was an alternative way to reach Mayor Barletta, but she stated that she also was unable to reach him.

We call on the responsible citizens of Hazleton, Pennsylvania to call (570-459-4910) or email (cherie@hazletoncity.org) Mayor Louis Barletta’s office  to demand that he does not embarrass their city by appearing with “white nationalist” VDARE’s Peter Brimelow on Saturday June 20.

The American Cause web site listing Louis Barletta as a scheduled speaker is at:
http://www.theamericancause.org/index.php?page=can-conservatism-survive

In the event that the web page “disappears” after this report is publicized:
— Click here for cached version of web page
— Click here for PDF version of web page

R.E.A.L. has more details about The American Cause conference on Saturday, June 20 at the McLean, Virginia Ritz-Carlton at our web page:
https://www.realcourage.org/2009/06/white-nationalist-mclean-0620/

America’s publicly elected officials must always represent all of the people, regardless of their race.  Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) finds it troubling that an elected mayor of an American city would be sharing the stage with an individual who leads a group labeled as a “white nationalist” “hate group,” who after the recent Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting of a black security guard in Washington DC called Von Brunn “an intelligent man.”

Racism and hate should never again be justified and legitimized by our society or its elected representatives.   The “majority” that The American Cause seeks to talk about at its June 20 conference already exists;  it is a majority, a consensus of American citizens who stand behind our inalienable human rights of equality and liberty for all individuals – the truths that we hold self-evident.

Those truths and our shared responsibility for equality and liberty are the REAL American cause.