Text 262, 119 rader
Skriven 2006-05-02 19:56:00 av ROSS SAUER (1:123/140)
Ärende: The GOP's base
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Looks like the current GOP is pandering to their "base."

The GOP's Racist 'Big Tent'

By Susy Buchanan, Intelligence Report

Posted on May 1, 2006, Printed on May 2, 2006

For eight years, a major direct-mail firm "specializing in the Christian 
and conservative markets" has been selling lists of the readers of 
America's leading anti-Semitic newspaper and, since about 2001, its 
successor publication.

Response Unlimited, based in Waynesboro, Va., and headed by Christian 
Right activist Philip Zodhiates, charges $100 for the rental of every 
1,000 names of subscribers to the now-defunct Spotlight newspaper. 
Founded by veteran anti-Semite Willis Carto, The Spotlight carried anti-
Zionist, anti-Semitic and wildly conspiracist articles interspersed with 
ads for Klan, neo-Nazi and related hate groups.

Zodhiates also peddles lists of subscribers to the American Free Press, 
which replaced The Spotlight when that tabloid was shut down amid legal 
and financial troubles surrounding Carto. The Free Press began 
immediately after The Spotlight fizzled in 2001 and picked up many of 
its predecessor paper's propagandists.

Today, the Free Press carries stories on Zionism, secret "New World 
Order" conspiracies, American Jews and Israel. Mixed in are 
advertisements for outfits like Pete Peter's Scriptures for America and 
Kingdom Identity Ministries -- practitioners of Christian Identity, a 
theology that claims that Jews are the literal descendants of Satan.

Zodhiates did not respond to E-mail and telephone requests for comment 
from the Intelligence Report. But it's clear that the lists have sold 
well, especially to political groups on the right. According to Response 
Unlimited's website, Spotlight list purchasers have included the 
Republican Governors Association; the National Right to Work Foundation; 
the Mountain States Legal Foundation; U.S. English, an English-only 
group; and the hard-right Washington Times newspaper.

Schindler's list

Response Unlimited's sales of lists of extreme right-wingers is not the 
first time that Zodhiates' firm has engaged in controversial business 
practices.

In March 2005, The New York Times reported that Response Unlimited had 
cut a deal with Bob Schindler, the father of Terri Schiavo, a woman in a 
persistent vegetative state who was dying after a court authorized 
removal of her feeding tube. In return for the list of people who had 
donated money to Schindler, Zodhiates' firm agreed to send out an E-mail 
soliciting further donations for the Schindlers, who had battled 
Schiavo's husband over whether or not to retain the feeding tube.

Many found the list deal, made even before Schiavo finally died two days 
after the Times article appeared on March 29, ghoulish. One unpaid 
Schindler family spokesman, apparently unaware that Bob Schindler had 
authorized the deal, even told the paper it was "possibly the most 
distasteful thing I have ever seen."

According to the Times, Schindler cut his deal with Phil Sheldon, who is 
an officer of Response Unlimited. Sheldon is the son of the Rev. Lou 
Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, a group that also 
sent out appeals for support for Schiavo, who many Christian Right 
groups mistakenly believed was semi-conscious. Phil Sheldon is also 
partner with Zodhiates in a Web-based firm called Conservative Petitions 
that specializes in creating electronic petitions for right-wing causes.

Schindler's list, which Response Unlimited had hawked as passionately 
pro-life, disappeared from its website within a day of the Times story's 
publication.

Overcoming scruples

Response Unlimited describes itself as the "best and most comprehensive 
source of mailing lists for conservative and Christian mailers and 
telemarketers," and, indeed, it has hundreds of lists for sale. The 
lists are dominated by right-wing causes, but also include a handful of 
lists of donors to liberal groups.

Other lists offered by Response Unlimited include donors to the 
Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a group described by President Bush as 
"vigilantes" that has sent armed civilians to the border to guard 
against illegal immigration; Gun Owners of America, whose founder Larry 
Pratt has written for anti-Semitic publications and who was ejected from 
Pat Buchanan's presidential campaign for alleged ties to white 
supremacists; and American Border Patrol, led by Glenn Spencer, whose 
vitriolic web site has long specialized in pillorying Latinos and 
especially Mexicans.

In the case of The Spotlight, Zodhiates acquired its lists in the spring 
of 1998, according to Todd Blodgett, a Washington operative who 
specializes in direct mail lists and once worked for Spotlight founder 
Willis Carto. Blodgett, who says he was in the business to make money 
and little else, said he approached Zodhiates with Carto's approval. 
Blodgett said Zodhiates was originally apprehensive because he'd heard 
that "some Spotlight readers had a reputation for being anti-Semitic."

But Blodgett managed to convince Zodhiates not to worry, he says now. He 
says he told Zodhiates that "anti-Zionism is not necessarily anti-
Semitism." He also noted that the attorney for Carto's main anti-Semitic 
organization, Liberty Lobby, was Mark Lane, who is Jewish. (Lane is also 
a prominent theorist of a conspiracy in the assassination of President 
Kennedy.) That was enough for Zodhiates.

The list, which Response Unlimited says "works phenomenally well for 
products of all types, subscription offers, hard-money and other 
investment offers," was successful right away, Blodgett said. He said 
the list immediately began earning Carto some $8,000 to $9,000 a month. 
According to Blodgett, Zodhiates got an additional 35% in broker and 
management fees, or some $3,000 a month. 

© 2006 Independent Media Institute

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