The Center for New Community, a national civil right organization, today released a report titled, Apply the Brakes: Anti-immigrant Co-optation of the Environmental Movement. The Center's report explicitly reveals how anti-immigrant forces have corrupted the dialogue on population and the environment.

In 2009, an article in the Population Special Issue of the Earth Island Journal mentioned a new organization and website named Apply the Brakes (ATB). A few months later, the Center for Immigration Studies -- an anti-immigrant organization group founded by white nationalist John Tanton -- cited ATB in a memorandum denouncing Sierra Club leadership for not addressing the issue of immigration.

These and other signals illustrate ATB's mission to legitimize discussions about "domestic population growth" that have a pronounced anti-immigration focus. ATB and Center for Immigration Studies, along with other organizations such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), NumbersUSA, Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR), Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), Carrying Capacity Network, and Negative Population Growth (NPG), are scapegoating immigrants for rising pollution and urban sprawl as a way to build support for repressive anti-immigrant legislation.

This report seeks to help the environmental community fully understand the ATB network's detrimental philosophy and the histories of its key participants. Population is a topic clearly tied to concerns about the environment, and cannot be underplayed. However, racism and nativist arguments that blame immigrants for population problems have absolutely no place in this discussion, and should be rejected without hesitation by environmental activists.

The full report can be viewed at:  http://www.newcomm.org/content/view/2138/117/

While Apply the Brakes leaders argue that their concerns are based solely on the ecological impacts of a growing population, some of the group's political alignments and associations with nativists and white nationalists suggest otherwise. It is indeed time to apply the brakes to this group.

Memorial Day, a chance for families and friends to camp, drag out the grill, and take that long anticipated fishing trip. For others the holiday is an opportunity to spend an additional night on the town clubbing and Monday buying out the Mall. For most of us Memorial Day holiday is simply a rare and deserved 3-day respite from work that occurs between the long winter and Labor Day in September.

At least that's how I used to see Memorial Day up until two years ago. Back in 2007 I found myself in Portland, Oregon browsing for books at Powell's Books. It's one of those bookstores where, if you are a book lover, you don't dare take your credit card. I was on the hunt for a book on the Abolitionist Movement in the United States. I had been making the argument in presentations that those working both to secure immigrant rights in the United States and defeat the anti-immigrant movement were the descendants of the early Abolition Movement.

The Abolitionist Movement was made up of Blacks being held as chattel slaves, Blacks who had escaped, free Blacks, and whites who were committed to overturning what was called the "Peculiar Institution" of chattel slavery. I was curious what lessons the book Bound for Canaan might offer to us today and I know that Powell's would be sure to have it.

It was in the Civil War section of Powell's that I learned another important lesson. While perusing books I found that Memorial Day was a holiday celebrated first by African Americans and only later did it become a national holiday. The celebration called "Dedication Day" eventually became known as Memorial Day. It is significant history that would be lost if not for the work of Professor David W. Bright of Yale University.

The first Memorial Day was celebrated by newly freed Africans in Charleston, South Carolina in 1865. Over 10,000 Blacks came together to give a proper funeral to those Union soldiers who gave their lives to the destruction of slavery in the United States. The actions of the newly freed Africans (not yet citizens) was profound in that they were willing to risk their emerging power by honoring those who fought and died for a common goal. For those celebrating the first Memorial Day these Union soldiers represented all who worked for emancipation. Their stories needed to be honored.

One hundred and forty-four years after the first Memorial Day I hope that those of us working to strengthen civil rights and democracy by defending the dignity of immigrants and refugees take the time to remember our stories of bravery as well.

It could be the story of Barbara, an African American woman, who came to the aid of immigrant workers in Laurel, Mississippi after a processing plant was raided by Immigration Custom and Enforcement. Barbara didn't speak Spanish but knew that she had to open her doors to defend the soul of her community. Or perhaps it is the story of Tom from Greeley, Colorado who lost his position as Mayor because he dared to speak up publicly against the ripping apart of families when federal enforcement officers detained 262 residents of his community.

On this day I can't help but to think of Robert who, responding to an immigrant raid in Bedford, New Haven, spent $200,000 of his personal money to provide bail to immigrants in his community who had been arrested and moved far away to Houston, Texas. Part of that money was used to help the families with rent and food. Barbara, Tom and Robert represent the stories of thousands of immigrants and non-immigrants around the United States who choose not to remain silent in the face of adversity and intolerance.

What makes each of them special is that each of them stood up neither for reward nor fear of punishment. They choose to stand against inequality because it's the right thing to do. Today, let's remember them. This is after all the essence of Memorial Day.

The anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA and its executive director Roy Beck just can't seem to steer clear of controversy.

The Center for New Community reports that on June 4 Beck will address an event organized by the Maryland-based Institute of the Constitution. In 2004 the civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center named Institute co-founder Michael Peroutka as a member of the League of the South, a racist organization that seeks to create its own nation in the American south.

Peroutka personally accepted a national endorsement from the League of the South as the Presidential nominee for the far right Constitution Party in 2004. Peroutka's vice-presidential running mate was Chuck Baldwin who wrote that the pro-slavery Southern Confederacy was right and that he didn't "believe that the leaders of the old Confederacy were racists."

Peroutka also agreed to be a participant on Political Cesspool, a radio show which borrows its mission statement from the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group formed by leaders of white citizens' council of the segregated south. Instead of denouncing the radio shows outright racism, Peroutka instead referred to Political Cesspool as "a great blessing for our cause."

While Peroutka's flirtation with racism should be cause enough for alarm, it is his religious views that are of concern as well. Embracing a religious philosophy so extreme that it was publicly condemned by leaders of America's Christian Right, the Institute of the Constitution belief system argues that the United States should be run as a religious theocracy.

Known as Christian Reconstructionism this radical theology argues that the American public should be forced to live under "Old Testament" laws such as the stoning to death of gays and those condemned as adulterers. In short an American version of the Taliban.

Popularized by R.J. Rushdoony, Christian Reconstructionism teaches that civil law should be "derived from and limited by biblical law." Chalcedon, an organization founded by Rushdoony, is prominently featured on the Institute of the Constitution website. In addition John Lofton, a monthly contributor to the Chalcedon Report, is the regular co-host of the Institute's radio show American View.

Beck and NumbersUSA's decision to speak to the Institute of the Constitution is merely another example of irresponsible behavior. From Beck's speaking appearance in front of a white nationalist organization to allowing its supporters spew racist rhetoric without challenge, NumbersUSA seems to only regret its "mistakes" afterwards.

From the arrest of Beck's "bodyguard" at a D.C. immigrant rights rally on the charge of assault to suddenly withdrawing as a sponsor of an upcoming Arizona anti-immigrant march in Arizona after controversy arose surrounding the organizers ties to racial extremism, the laundry list simply grows longer.

Roy Beck and his NumbersUSA have been working overtime trying to convince the American public that it is a responsible organization, free from bigotry. With his latest speaking engagement Beck proves once again that he is attracted to political extremism like a moth attracted to the flame. The only difference in the case of Beck is that in the end it's the American public who gets burned.

Having already created a national political environment fueled by racism, FAIR is now asking that armed quasi-governmental paramilitary organizations be added to the mix. Barely a week before the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Oklahoma City federal building FAIR's legal front group, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), produced a paper justifying the creation of what it calls "well regulated militias."

In language reminiscent of the Fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the papers state that the real purpose of the 2nd Amendment is for the State "to set forth a system where men would train together in the Art of War and an espirit de corps would flourish." Mussolini once stated that, "It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity."

Authored by IRLI staff attorney Patrick J. Charles, The Constitutional Significance of a 'Well-Regulated Militia' Asserted and Proven with Commentary on the Future of Second Amendment Jurisprudence directly attacks guns rights advocates, particularly hunters, for their belief that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms.

Mocking the arguments of traditional gun rights organizations Charles writes, "how the individual exercise of arms for self-defense and hunting creates common virtù and an espirit de corps is difficult to ascertain." Indeed IRLI argues in the paper that for ordinary citizens ". . . allegiance to government and the laws has always been the key to arms bearing" and being part of a [well-regulated militias] is a principal badge of citizenship.

And in case one is wondering who gets to be a "citizen" Charles goes out of his way to remind readers that ". . . it is a historical fact that the majority of late eighteenth century militias consisted of all white male freeholders between the ages of sixteen and forty-five years of age." The racist Christian Patriot movement of the 1990s that gave birth to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh used a similar definition of citizens. The militia groups that arose under Christian Patriotism and its acts of intimidation and threats of violence had a chilling effect on democracy in communities throughout the country.

IRLI is no stranger to treading on civil and individual liberties. A decade before writing Arizona's new unconstitutional racial profiling law SB-1070, IRLI's lead counsel Kris Kobach, a Professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law (UMKC), was a senior official at the Department of Justice during the passage of the Patriot Act.

In light of its recent role in Arizona, the Federation for American Immigration Reform's (FAIR) recent published paper calling for the creation of armed paramilitary groups is a warning that the group's intentions go far beyond just attacking immigrants and that they seek to undermine America's multiracial democracy. The leadership of FAIR is holding up the Constitution with one hand while crushing it with the other.

I've received a lot of questions about FAIR and The Tanton Network the last couple of days and their connection to the new anti-immigrant law in Arizona, SB1070. So here is a video that will give you all the facts on The Tanton Network and its anti-immigrant and white nationalist agenda. Share the video with three friends. Arizona is too great to hate!

View video at www.youtube.com/nativismwatchtv

The anti-immigrant law just signed into effect in Arizona was introduced by Arizona republican Russell Pearce (shown here hugging a neo-nazi) and written by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (a designated hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center).  With this winning combination, it's no wonder that the law has garnered national attention.

On a recent episode of the Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow blasts the writers of the law and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer for signing it.  The law gives sweeping power to local law enforcement to racially profile residents and makes it a misdemeanor to lack proper paperwork in Arizona. It also requires police officers to attempt to determine a person's immigration status if they form a "reasonable suspicion" that someone is undocumented.

Click here to watch the clip and see Gov. Brewer try to answer the impossible question, "What does an illegal alien look like?"

The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) wrote the draconian law.  IRLI is the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, better known by its acronym FAIR, which was founded in 1979 by retired Michigan ophthalmologist John Tanton.  As the litigation arm of the John Tanton Network, IRLI's primary purpose is to push legal causes that unfairly target immigrant communities.

Click here to read IRLI gloat about writing the language for the law.

In Oklahoma City, on the morning of April 19, 1995, far right activist Timothy McVeigh detonated an explosive device beneath the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building murdering 168 people and injuring 680. Fifteen years later the lesson of Oklahoma City is disregarded, leaving a multiracial democracy at risk.

Americans responded with horror as news emerged that the explosion at the federal building was an act of terrorism. The majority of pundits speculated that the perpetrators must be foreign terrorists and Muslim, only reluctantly dropping the news angle after the arrest of Timothy McVeigh four days later. Since that time the public has tried to come to terms with the fact that the originator of one of the largest single acts of terror in the United States was not an "other" but an American who considered himself a "patriot."

What America couldn't accept was that rather than an isolated incident the bombing of the federal building was simply the latest eruption of a growing political movement opposed to a multiracial America built on the principles of a democratic republic.

For months leading up to the bombing this patriot movement had engaged in a war against the United States by threatening judges, county clerks, local law enforcement, civil rights activists, and environmentalists. In "A Force Upon the Plain" Kenneth Stern writes that "despite early warnings from the nation's civil rights organizations the American public and its leaders chose to ignore what was occurring right in front of its eyes."

While the "patriot" movement stated publicly that it was made up of "constitutionalists" opposed to "out of control federal spending," "taxes," and so-called "minority special interests," the real goal was to undermine any move by the American government to truly represent all of its citizens regardless of race, religions, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Instead of being "anti-government" as the media and elected officials like to label them, these "patriots" simply sought through intimidation and electoral activity to pick and choose parts of the law that would allow them to be treated as "white males" with special privileges.

Fifteen years later some things haven't changed. The so called "Tea Party" activists sever gas lines, physically intimidate public officials, and call for armed insurrection. The American public and its elected leadership lull itself to sleep by trying to believe that this uproar really is just about opposition to health care and taxes instead of outright rebellion against the idea of a black president. Today, elements of the tea party movement claim to be "patriots," but there is nothing patriotic about racism and bigotry. It's time for us to say so--both loudly and clearly.

McVeigh wrote that "There are most likely many lessons in my story. Americans have the choice to try to learn from me or they can choose to remain ignorant, and suffer the consequences."

McVeigh knew that what made the patriot movement of the 90's successful was not its violent actions but the silence and inaction of those who opposed it.

The controversial anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA is still having a difficult time being completely above board with the American public. Over the last year the organization has been busy spinning its connections with white nationalists and its organizational stance on reproductive rights. This week it appears that NumbersUSA is adding fundraising to the list.

Last week Imagine2050 blogger Stephen Piggott wrote about a NumbersUSA Action email solicitation that asked individuals to donate money. NumbersUSA Action is one of the three interlocking organizations under the umbrella of NumbersUSA.

In the email NumbersUSA Action suggests to its donors that, unlike its opponents, it receives no monies from government or foundation sources. The email does not inform supporters that its research and education arm has no problem taking millions of dollars from the right-wing Sarah Scaife Foundation and the population control oriented Colcom foundation.

Last week NumbersUSA Executive Director Roy Beck wrote to Imagine2050 saying "Our grassroots lobbying organization relies 100% on the small donations of concerned Americans." According to its 990s (government tax records) that's not exactly true either. In 2006 and 2007 alone NumbersUSA transferred nearly a million dollars from its research and education arm to NumbersUSA Action.

While it is perfectly legal for the organization to transfer these funds, to turn around and say that it "relies 100% on the small donations of concerned Americans" comes across as misleading. Something that NumbersUSA appears to be growing extremely comfortable with of late.

Last year, in response to concerns about its relationship to hate groups, Beck wrote that "NumbersUSA has never had connections with white supremacists -- not in the past, not in the present, not in the future." Once a picture surfaced of Beck speaking at a 1997 white supremacist event he simply explained "I have never denied having spoken to the Council of Conservative Citizens on my book tour in 1997.

Having, at least in his own mind, explained why he spoke to an organization that was formed by those who defended racial segregation, Beck chooses to ignore why he and his organization continue to find themselves in similar predicaments seventeen years later. Until 2005 Beck continued to regularly publish in the The Social Contract Press. The journal is edited by Wayne Lutton a longtime leader in the white nationalist movement and a board member of the anti-Semitic Charles Martel Society.

But it is not just the past. This year NumbersUSA joined in a project with two notorious anti-immigrant organizations, Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and U.S. Inc.

CAPS is headed up by Rick Oltman a purported member of the Council of Conservative Citizens who was removed from a Republican Party post in 1996 for supporting physical attacks on undocumented immigrants. The other organization, U.S. Inc., is run by white nationalist John Tanton who wrote that hate crime laws in Europe were pushed by "Jewish interests" and revealed to the American public that immigration was simply "a skirmish in a wider war."

Instead of accepting responsibility for its actions, NumbersUSA seeks to satisfy its critics with excuses, omissions, and political spin. Recently, while giving a workshop at a national Tea Party gathering Roy Beck was confronted about NumbersUSA's alleged support of abortion and population control. Beck responded by telling the tea party activists that these were not NumbersUSA issues.

Again Roy Beck wasn't being quite as truthful as he could have been. I guess he somehow forgot to mention that he and Leon Kolankiewicz released a history of the U.S. Population Stabilization (1970-1998) in 2000 available on its website. Abortion and contraceptive are key components of population stabilization the essay argues.

I'm sure that NumbersUSA will shortly deliver up to twenty more excuses to explain its inability to be transparent with the American public. If excuses truly come a dime a dozen, NumbersUSA won't ever have to worry about fundraising again.

Over the next several days our nation's political leaders and media pundits will spend countless hours dissecting the actions of American suicide bomber Joseph Stack. On Thursday Stack deliberately flew a small aircraft into an office building housing federal offices killing one person and wounding over a dozen individuals.

The media spectacle will go something like this. Conservative leaders, who have, since the election of the first Black president, stoked the flames of political paranoia, have all but abandoned a semblance of civil society will be quick to explain Stack's crime as the act of a "lone lunatic".

Tea Party factions will quickly distance themselves from the action at the same time attempting to justify this act of domestic terrorism as proof of an "out of control" Federal Government. Tea Party leaders will work overtime to claim that Stack's suicide note proves that he was a "rabid left winger." They will point to Stacks' quoting of communist philosopher Karl Marx in his suicide note as proof.

Of course we can't forget Democratic and progressive leadership who will be quick to condemn the actions of Joseph Stack, make fun of the "extremism" of tea baggers, and finish up by taking some well-deserved political jabs at the Republican Party.

All of this ignores what Stack represents for the future of our nation. Progressives in the coming days would do better to turn off MSNBC and spend some time reading a book published nearly forty years ago. The book discusses the rise of the Middle American Radical (MAR) and Stack's suicide note reflects the MARs worldview with all of its contradictions.

In 1973, the late Donald Warren released the seminal study The Radical Center: Middle Americans and the Politics of Alienation. In the book Warren analyzes a demographic of the American public that he refers to as Middle American Radicals (MAR). Warren argues that these American's don't fit the classic political definitions of "left" or "right" but instead are a group "made up of a distinct set of views which, briefly stated, focus upon the individual as caught between threats to his way of life from the wealthy and the powerful, on the one hand, and militant, organized minorities on the other."

Warren states that the MARs demographic perceives itself as alienated from American life and is not easily swayed by speeches from religious leaders, union officials, and/or public officials. It is disconnected from traditional institutions such as mainstream churches, labor unions, and political parties. It is a demographic that speaks of jobs, taxes, and the economy as code words for a deeper discussion on American identity and who (and who doesn't) belong.

Despite their wariness of demographic changes and challenges to structural racism, Middle American Radicals are not just fodder for racial extremists. One can find MARs joining political attacks on minority communities while in other situations defending them.

In 2004, the State of Arizona passed a ballot initiative to deny non-emergency services to any individual unable to provide proof of their legal status. While some Middle American Radicals supported this attack on immigrants, exit polls suggest that the majority of them voted against the anti-immigrant measure.

For over twenty years white nationalists have attempted to organize this group for its "racial holy war", conservatives have given it lip service when votes were needed, and progressive democrats have either ignored MARs or deemed them worthy of only "bread and butter discussions". This move by progressives ignores that Middle American Radicals want to debate "who is an American and what will America look like?" It is a debate that occurs on the historic terrain of race, belonging, and national identity. Progressive have not shown themselves to be ready for this type of debate and the results have been disastrous.

The continued push by progressives to ignore this debate by sticking to "economic issues" has only served to send Middle American Radicals into further isolation or into the folds of white nationalist, anti-immigrant and tea party organizations ready to organize them. Discussions with Middle American Radicals on policy issues such as health care, immigration, and education should not ignore or attempt to downplay the issue of race in America.

Middle American Radicals should be seen as a crucial part of strengthening a multiracial democracy. Progressive democrats should see MARs as a valuable constituency that should be engaged and organized around social issues that expand opportunity for all.

Janet Napolitano, the head of The Department of Homeland Security should stop the harassment of immigrant workers and students and focus on real threats. Searchlight Magazine, an anti-racist European monthly, has alerted civil rights organizations in the United States to the arrival of Nick Griffin. Griffin is the leader of the British National Party (BNP), a racial extremist political organization based in the United Kingdom.

Griffin, scheduled to speak at the now canceled white nationalist American Renaissance conference, will be appearing February 18 at Michigan State University. The student group sponsoring the event, Sons of Liberty, also states in its media release that Griffin "is expected to make an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington D.C."

Despite the public overhaul of the BNP over the last decade, Griffin has been clear that his public distancing from overt racism and bigotry is nothing more than a façade, telling a group of U.S. neo-Nazis in 2001 that "My politics have not changed".

Griffin became an organizer for the National Front, a neo-Nazi organization, in 1978 and in the 1980s traveled to Libya as a guest of Muammar al-Gaddafi in order to seek funding for the organization. In the 80's Griffin hired Roberto Fiore. Fiore was convicted in 1985 for being a member of an Italian far right terror organization that was involved in a train bombing that killed eighty- five people.

According to the website Stop the BNP, several leaders and members of the British National Party have been convicted of assaulting a police officer, hate violence, armed robbery, gang rape, and illegal weapons possession. Tony Lecomber, the BNP's Group Development Officer, was sentenced to three years under the Explosives Act. Lecomber was sentenced to another three years in prison on the charge of "unlawful wounding" which occurred during an attack on a Jewish school teacher."

Unsurprisingly, Griffin, no stranger to racism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism, was himself convicted in 1998 for inciting racial hatred. A recent comment posted by "BNP Security" to the white nationalist website American Renaissance alarmingly asks volunteers to simply just show up as "security" for Griffin's talk. With this history one has to wonder why The Department of Homeland Security is allowing Griffin into the country. Perhaps it is too busy deporting America's brightest and smartest.

A new documentary called Papers: the Movie tells the story of undocumented youth and the challenges they face as they turn 18 without legal status. One of these students, Monica, should be worrying about which college she'll attend and preparing to add to our nation's brain trust, but instead she faces deportation thanks to the mixed up priorities of Homeland Security.

If you think it's time for the Department of Homeland Security to get its priorities straight call Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), the Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security at (202) 226-2616 and let him know. For other members of the Committee on Homeland Security click here.

Janet Napolitano should listen to the American public. A recent poll shows that the majority of Texas residents oppose deportation of undocumented immigrants. Allowing neo-Nazi's with Griffin's history into the country while terrorizing young students like Monica only make a mockery of the Department of Homeland Security.

I suspect that Lady Liberty would be laughing at the irony. If she wasn't so busy crying.

There is an old folk tale about a noble lord and his coach driver who threw the lord's new bride to the wolves chasing them in order to survive. The lord and driver reasoned that the bride was less valuable. Madison Avenue, with the permission of CBS, did something similar to women last Sunday.

On Sunday evening about thirty minutes before the Super Bowl game began I decided to place a message in my Facebook update status. The message was simple. "Super Bowl Sunday is the day with the highest incidences of domestic violence against women." I urged my friends to "check themselves" and break the cycle. My friend Ken D. pointed out that increased violence on Super Bowl Sunday is a myth and that women face domestic violence at a higher rate on Christmas and Thanksgiving days. We both reiterated that Super Sunday was still an important day to speak up and speak out.

As I settled into my well worn couch with my snacks at the ready I was dismayed to learn that Sunday's attempt to dehumanize women would come from the minds and focus groups of advertisers on Madison Avenue. So we are clear. Commercials have always degraded women for profit and Super Bowl commercials especially. With that said, let me state unequivocally that in my 44 years of existence (yes, I am as old as the Super Bowl itself) I've never witnessed the level of hatred of women that occurred in between plays on the field this past weekend.

Let's start from the beginning. Before the game begins Snickers tells us that the only way to stop friends from saying we play football like an 88 year-old woman (played by Betty White) is to stuff ourselves with refined white sugar covered in chocolate. Yeah, in the new decade pummeling elderly women to the ground while on a sugar high is the hilarious new way to "man up".

Without a break the next commercial takes the stage. Now we get to view the controversial Focus On the Family ad that not only subtly attacks a women's right to control her own body but gives us the added bonus of being able to watch Heisman Trophy-winning American football quarterback "Tim" Tebow viciously knock his mother to the ground. I'd like to know from Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family when hitting your mother became a family value?

GoDaddy.com's selling of women's bodies in some attempt at soft-core porn is nothing compared to what comes in the second quarter of the game. Dockers tells us that it's time for men "to wear the pants" again and they are even willing to send us a free pair to make it happen. I guess Dockers Brand at Levi Strauss would know a thing or two about keeping women in their place considering that their boards of directors, along with most corporations in the United States, are still made up of a majority of white males rather than reflecting the racial and gender composition of our country.

As the second quarter is well under way I hear myself mutter "don't get me started on the Dove commercial." It was a mutter that only I heard as my partner Jessica had long abandoned the Super Bowl in disgust. As I start praying for the Super Bowl Half Time show to bring some sanity back to CBS, my absolute amazement with these commercials turns to sheer anger.

The Dodge Charger ad appears telling me that treating my girlfriend with basic decency is just "too damn much" for her to ask and that if I don't want to be emasculated by basic good manners I better draw the line when it comes to my car.

Flo TV comes a few minutes afterwards with an ad suggesting that men who spend time with their partners must be "spineless" and "wear skirts." I mean what man would actually want to spend time with their wife/girlfriend/lover when they could be watching commercials debasing them during Super Bowl? Yeah Flo TV, it was difficult to watch you demean the women we love. "I hope whoever made this ad gets an infestation of bedbugs" I said to myself when half time thankfully arrived.

Whatever happened after half time is still a blur. Sometime during the third quarter an ad by Bridgestone ended Super Bowl Sunday. The commercial is about a man sometime in the future who, in a decision over parting with his life or hisBridgestone tires, decides that his wife is much less valuable than either.

At this point Super Bowl Sunday had long stopped being something fun and entertaining and turned both alarming and telling. My good friend Dan P. put it bluntly toBridgestone in a letter to the company. "My wife and I buy Bridgestone tires primarily to keep our family safe on the road. How can you possibly think than an ad so fundamentally demeaning to women conveys anything but contempt for your customers?" said Dan. "You should be ashamed. I will have to think long and hard before ever again purchasingBridgestone products," he continued. As for me, you can tell Bridgestone that I will never buy another of its tires.

Violence against women is at an all time high. Three women are murdered each day in the United States and one-third of those by their intimate partners according to the National Organization of Women. It should not go unnoticed that the majority of victims in mass killings over the last several years have been women. What drives violence against women is a myth perpetrated by society that woman are less than human and that's exactly the message that these commercials drove home to millions on Super Bowl Sunday.

I wish these ads had been some orchestrated campaign by political extremists seeking to undermine the equality of women. At least then we'd have an organized target for our anger. There was no conspiracy against women occurring on Super Bowl Sunday; rather, each commercial was created individually by men unconnected with one another. I find that even more frightening. So should you.

Back in 1963, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream where . . . "little black boys and black girls" would "be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers." I'm fairly sure Dr. King wasn't envisioning Leah Durant, executive director of Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR) joining group shots with prominent leaders tied to the American white nationalist movement.

For nearly a year Leah Durant has been working overtime in an attempt to convince the public that PFIR is a legitimate progressive organization concerned about the issue of immigration. Recently in a discussion on AlterNet Durant argued that the fact that she was African American should be proof enough of PFIR's progressive bona fides. Ironically Durant makes this statement after arguing that her organization was not "concerned with race."

PFIR is the latest front group of the anti-immigrant John Tanton Network. Before assuming her present assignment Durant was a staff attorney for the Tanton Network's Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). In 2007 FAIR was listed alongside klan and neo-Nazi organizations as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A recent photo of Leah Durant is yet another example highlighting that PFIR politics are progressive in name only. The photo is a group shot of Leah Durant (right) with PeterGemma (center) and Wayne Lutton (left). Durant, Gemma, and Lutton were attending the 33rd Writers Workshop put on by The Social Contract Press (TSCP) an organization founded by John Tanton. TSCP is well known for its peddling of racist publications and writers.

Wayne Lutton is the editor of Social Contract Press. Lutton got his start at the homophobic Summit Ministries based in Colorado. Lutton was also active with the anti-Black magazine American Renaissance and the flagship publication of the Council of Conservative Citizens. The Council of Conservative Citizens is the lineal descendant of the white citizens' council organization that opposed Dr. King in the South during the 1960s. Lutton now writes for the anti-Semitic journal The Occidental Quarterly.

Peter Gemma, like Lutton, also writes for the anti-Semitic Occidental Quarterly. Gemma who interviewed Durant in the pages of TSCP in the summer of 2009 writes for Middle American News (MAN). MAN's earliest leadership included white nationalist Samuel Francis (now deceased). Gemma participated with the extremist Council for National Policy and spoke at a white nationalist event alongside the famous neo-Nazi David Duke. In 2003 Gemma spoke at a Council of Conservative Citizens event addressing "The Attack on White Culture." Other presentations at the event included defending Mississippi symbol of the Southern Confederacy. Gemma regularly posts at the website VDARE named after the first alleged white child born in North America.

Lutton, Gemma, and The Social Contract Press have nothing in common with progressive politics. If one is known by the company they keep the same probably goes for Leah Durant and Progressives for Immigration Reform. PFIR is nothing more than a cheap attempt at dressing up anti-immigrant bigotry in the garb of progressive politics. Durant's activities don't resemble The Dream of Dr. King rather the nightmare of racist bigotry that he stood against.

I guess at the end of the day one could still consider Progressives for Immigration Reform "progressive." If you're a Nazi that is.

Blacks in the United States have long been a guiding conscience in our nation. Unlike many social movements which focus on narrow policy goals, the social gains that Blacks struggle for tend to be broad-minded and expansive. The 1960s Civil Rights Movement for instance lifted many Americans of various races, ethnicities and nationalities up out of poverty and stifling segregation. It was this very Civil Rights Movement that strengthened, at least for a time, the social safety net that provided publicly funded pre-school and breakfast programs for our most vulnerable youth.

It is with this in mind that I've always found insightful the writings of the Baha'i Faith that compare Black folk to the black pupil of the eye ". . . the revealer of the contingent world" and ". . . reflects that which is before it and from it the light of the spirit shines forth." While only my opinion and not official interpretation, it mirrors the recent activities of sixty Black leaders from around the United States.

An advertisement appears in today's edition of The Arizona Republic newspaper comparing Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to the infamous 1960s Birmingham public safety commissioner Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor. The strongly worded statement was sponsored by the Center for New Community and signed by sixty prominent Black leaders from twenty-three states. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a renegade country Sheriff who has turned Maricopa County, Arizona into his own personal fiefdom steeped in anti-immigrant bigotry, intimidation, and harassment.

"Regardless of our diverse views on immigration," said Center for New Community staff James Johnson, "we stand on the side of justice in the treatment of people and we are putting the country on notice that we will not be silent when confronted by the abuse of the law to terrorize people." For over a year people from throughout Arizona bravely stood up to Arpaio's terror. The same can't be said of the Director of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, who has sat on her hands and allowed Arpaio free reign to intimidate political opponents and dehumanize suspects based on their national origin. Napolitano could stop Arpaio with the stroke of a pen at any time.

Luckily for us Napolitano's continued inaction has not stopped people from fighting a political cancer in Arizona. This weekend thousands will march in the streets of Maricopa County in defiance of Arpaio and Black leaders have chosen this time to send a very clear message to federal officials - it's time to show the country that this is not Arpaio's America. K.L. Shannon, the Police Accountability Chair with the NAACP in Seattle, Washington, said that "Sheriff Arpaio is beginning to resemble arch-segregationist Bull Connor and that should send a chill through each of our hearts"

Like Johnson and Shannon, I too find the willingness of federal officials to coddle Sheriff Joe Arpaio disturbing. It's good to know that I'm not alone. The fact that African American and Black leaders nationwide are stepping into this matter--related primarily to the denial of rights to Latinos and immigrants--is a very powerful message that should not go unheard.

Black America is telling the nation to pay attention to Arizona. Will you listen before it's too late?

What happens when one county in a nation of thousands is crippled by hatred? Is it merely an unfortunate reality in a city far far away? Or is it a prelude, a symptom of something more sinister that affects us all?

The response to Sheriff Joe Arpaio's intensifying oppression in Maricopa County has been inconsistent, disjointed, and ineffective. There is plenty of blame to go around, but that doesn't matter any more. Regardless of where we now stand, we must put divisions and petty disagreements aside. We must form a united front in opposition to Sheriff Joe and his anti-immigrant hatred.

The years of avoiding unconventional forms of resistance must come to an end. It is time to embrace new methods in this struggle, and accept a diversity of tactics that resist Arpaio.

What we do or don't do will reverberate across the country. After all, Arizona is not alone. People from every region of the nation are facing ever more oppressive anti-immigrant influences and legislation on the local level.

Arizona is ground zero and the rest of America should be fearful that their towns are not far behind. There is a movement afoot which seeks to dislodge immigrants, American families of color, and refugees from any sense of security. Now is the time to build a united front to counter it, and Arizona is where it must start. All of these communities will suffer if we do not respond.

Activists on the ground in Arizona need to pull together. Activists around the country need to do their part and support them in any way we can. Although we embrace diverse and opposing tactics for fighting bigotry in Maricopa County, we must also be singularly committed to defeating Arpaio.

Did you hear the one about the white nationalist network traveling to Washington D.C. to participate in a Congressional hearing?

Sadly, it's not a joke.

The U.S. House of Representatives' Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism Subcommittee headed by Chairwoman, Rep. Loretta Sanchez has extended an invitation to Mark Krikorian to testify today, Thursday, December 10th at 10 a.m. Krikorian and his organization the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) are part of a national network created by white nationalist John Tanton. John Tanton says of CIS "We actually donated several of our board members and donors to the Center for Immigration Studies, as it was called..."

The subcommittee hearing titled "Moving Toward More Effective Immigration Detention Management" will feature Krikorian alongside actual experts such as Dora Schriro, commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections; Christopher Crane, vice president for detention and removal operations at the American Federation of Government Employees National ICE Council - 118; Donald Kerwin Jr., vice president for programs at the Migration Policy Institute; and Brittney Nystrom, senior legal advisor for the National Immigration Forum.

When CIS's Krikorian arrives in Washington D.C. this morning, instead of asking about his opinion on detention, U.S. Congressional members should be asking why the organization continues to brazenly associate with white nationalist leaders and organizations.

Here are some issues that Congress should be exploring about Krikorian and CIS at today's subcommittee hearing:

1. The August 31st edition of American Free Press (AFP) features Steven Camarota, CIS's Director of Research. It appears that CIS gave permission for the article to be published. American Free Press, formerly known as The Spotlight was set up by white nationalist and Holocaust denier Willis Carto who is still active with AFP.

2. Over the last year CIS has distributed nearly fifty articles to its members and supporters from the website VDARE. VDARE is a white nationalist website that is named after Virginia Dare, the first alleged child born in North America.

3. CIS seems unable or unwilling to distance itself from white nationalists. According to correspondence, James Edwards, author of the latest report by the Center for Immigration Studies and a CIS Fellow, appears to have been a paid lobbyist for white nationalist John Tanton. Mark Krikorian, James Edwards, and former Chairman of the Board David Simcox all write for the white nationalist publication The Social Contract Press.

Across the country religious, labor, and civil rights organizations are holding the John Tanton Network accountable for its ties to white nationalism and extremism.

Rather than seek advice from bigots, it's time for Congressional leaders to put CIS's feet to the fire.

Rosa Parks was well respected in Montgomery's segregated world of black and white. Nearly fifty-five years ago today she chose to represent those who faced the daily indignities of being treated as a second class citizen by refusing to give her bus seat up to a white passenger. To be clear, the struggle to secure full civil and human rights continues to exist today.

Discrimination continues to deny many equal access to employment, housing, education, and health care--opportunities no person should be unfairly denied. It is clear that what made a defiant Rosa Parks successful was a movement which had come to realize that no one, from the most powerful clergy to the lowliest sharecropper, could be left behind.

Immigrants fighting for human dignity reached a similar understanding on November 23, 2009. Led by The National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), immigrant communities came together in San Francisco and Washington D.C. to expose the unequal treatment of immigrants in proposed federal health reform bills. Leading up to November 23, over 6,000 petitions were signed in support. Watch the video here.

Rather than a distraction, the Rosa Parks struggle against segregation in Montgomery, Alabama was a crucial stepping stone in securing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Immigration Reform Act of 1965. These distinct laws form the pillars of modern civil rights - each one crucial in its own right.

The fight to ensure the inclusion of immigrants in health care reform should be seen in the same light. It is one photo in the larger collage that is immigrant rights. Simply put, immigration reform won't help immigrants see a doctor when they are sick.

Already legal immigrants face a five-year waiting period to apply for Medicaid. The proposed Senate bill irrationally denies undocumented immigrants from purchasing insurance at full cost (without subsidies) with their own money through the newly created exchanges.

If this doesn't make sense, it's because bigotry never does. Excluding documented and undocumented immigrants from health care reform ends up costing the system more money. Preventive care - rather than expensive trips to the emergency room - would save taxpayers' money in the long run, despite the ill wishes of anti-immigrant zealots.

In the days to come we would do well to heed the lesson taught to us by Mrs. Parks and those she symbolized. The time has come to confront the racism and insert some common humanity back into health reform.