John Vinson | |
|---|---|
 John Vinson | |
| Home Base | Monterey, VA |
| Published By | One Peoples Project |
| Published On | Sunday, 14 March 2004 |
From the Center for New Community
John Vinson heads the American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF). Founded in 1983, AICF specializes in sensationalist "polls," and "surveys" which appear to be thinly disguised direct mall appeals, often with a xenophobic edge. One such poll, reportedly distributed to more than 500,000 voters in 1997 queried readers in part: "Which of the problems associated with illegal aliens are the most personally disturbing to you? (check all that apply)" Among the choices were: "Terrorism... Taxpayer cost ... Bilingual public education ... Social Security fraud ... Bring in diseases like AIDS ... Welfare fraud ... Aliens voting in U.S. elections... Loss of jobs for American citizens ... Drug trafficking, crime and riots... Other." (AICF Mailing, ?U.S. Citizen Opinion Poll on America's Illegal Alien Crisis, circa April 1997).
AICF has also positioned itself as an important national forum for a circle of intellectuals including Chilton Williamson, who sits on AICF's advisory board; Peter Brimelow, Lawrence Auster, Brent Nelson, who sits on AICF?s Board of Directors; and Wayne Lutton, all of whom ground their defense of fortress America in the hard scrabble rock of racism and biological determinism. Other notable AICF officials include Sam Francis, who also served as editor of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens' publication, the Citizens Informer. (AICF also sells Francis' book, Revolution from the Middle). (Editor's Note: Francis is now doing his thing somewhere is the depths of Hell - OPP)
Like several of the other scheduled speakers at the Sachem Quality of life Conference, John Vinson has also worked closely with white supremacist organizations. Vinson has been a columnist for the CofCC's Citizens Informer since the Fall of 1996, where he wrote a column called "Creating the Illusion of Immigration Reform" in which he criticized the 1996 Immigration Reform Bill for following the 14th Amendment and continuing to allow children born to undocumented immigrants to become U.S. citizens. In December 1999, Vinson officially became a "contributing writer" to the racist publication. That month, he wrote an article entitled "Jim Jones Clones Death Wish" comparing liberal immigration advocates to Jim Jones. "The multi-cult[ural] Kool-Aid is now being served. If most Americans drink, America will self-destruct - a Jonestown on a national scale."
He has also spoken at several CofCC events. He first appeared at a CofCC conference on May 30-31, 1997 on the panel "Has Multi-Racialism Failed?", alongside Sam Dickson, Jared Taylor, and Wayne Lutton of the Social Contract Press. He was also at the November 1997 conference on the "Immigration ? Are We Being Overrun?" panel with Virginia Abernethy and Rick Oltman of FAIR. He was at the July 9-10, 1999 CofCC conference on the panel "Immigration: Is The Debate Over?" with Glenn Spencer, Abernethy, and Lutton.
The organization has also received funds from a dubious source. According to the Institute for the Study of Academic Racism, between 1984 and 1996, AICF received $183,000 in from the Pioneer Fund, a foundation established in the 1930s in support of Hitler's Nazi regime which has continued to fund "race science" and efforts at "eugenics" betterment. Pioneer Fund President Harry Weyher has acknowledged that "the foundation supports the AICF because the group's political aims coincide with the Fund's ideology."
John Vinson's ideas on immigration are spelled out in most detail in the 1992 AICF booklet Immigration Out of Control: The Interests Against America. The ominous tone of Vinson's views is set forth in the booklets opening sentence, where he writes, that, "During the next few years, American will have to make a choice: either reduce our current rate of immigration or witness the passing and death of America as waves of foreign people and cultures submerge our land" (p.1).
As the following pages make clear, the America that Vinson makes his concern is a white one. First and foremost on Vinson?s list of problems with immigration are changing racial makeup of the country and the perceived thereat to the dominant place of ?Anglo-European values:?
"Before the 1960s, America was a confident land which insisted on unquestioned standards of assimilation: use of English language and adoption of the Anglo-European values that were the foundation of the country... Today, for better or worse, the rise of racial and ethnic pride and changing values among our citizens have made the standards of assimilation less certain... Immigrants today, more than 90 percent from Latin America, Asian, and other Third World regions, are far more racially and culturally diverse... Within 50 to 60 years, 'Anglo-American'... will become a minority of slightly less than 50 percent of the population... [A] country with multiple cultures will be as confused as a psychologically disturbed person with multiple personalities." (p. 14-17).
For Vinson, the threat to Anglo-American "values" in the United States, stems from two primary sources. First, arguing that the English language is "essential for American society," he writes that "The biblical story of the Tower of Babel is an ancient warning about divisions of language and the confusion that follows loss of a common tongue" (p. 18). Second, Vison takes aim at "multiculturalism," a phenomenon that for him extends beyond the general meaning of paying respect and educating citizens about the many cultures that have contributed to American society. Vinson writes,
"[W]ith multiculturalism gaining strength in higher education and law schools, a small but growing number of advocates are pushing for ?hate laws? to restrict what Americans can say. . . When people share common values, they can work out the differences without resorting to lawyers and courts. As multiculturalism increases differences, however, people will turn to government as a referee to settle disputes width court rulings, bureaucratic edicts, and civil rights laws. One example is affirmative action ?guidelines? for private employers and government agencies" (p.20).
For Vinson, then, tearing at the fabric of Anglo-America are laws against racially-motivated harassment and violence, civil rights laws and attempts to address institutional racism through affirmative action.
To understand where Vinson wishes immigration policy to go, it is useful to examine where he thinks it has been. In a recounting of the history of immigration policy, Vinson remakes periods of egregious racism into benign efforts to uphold the "European character of our country." In white nationalist fashion, the period of vicious anti-Chinese racism and violence leading to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1884 Check is summed by the statement that, "Congress stopped Chinese immigration in the belief that large numbers of Asian immigrants would be difficult to assimilate into the mainly. European character of our country."
Meanwhile, of the period that saw the rise of "nativism" of white Protestant nationalism targeting "foreigners" the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan as a mass organization and ally of immigration restriction organizations, and the passage in the of immigration quota laws favoring Northern Europeans, Vinson concludes,
"[Republicans and Democrats] tired to discredit the grown control movement by smearing it with the term 'nativism'. These 'nativists', however, were simply the majority of mainstream Americans who wanted to steer their country away from serious problems...This reform measure [Immigration Act of 1924], based on the provisions of the 1921 emergency law, established numerical and national quotas on immigration. To minimize ethnic conflict and preserve the nation s essential character, this legislation set immigration quotas proportional to the ethnic background of Americans as shown by the 1890 Census" (p.5-7).
The problem in immigration law, Vinson argues, was the passage of the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act which ended racial quotas and during which the "nation abandoned wisdom and prudence" (p.7). The solution, for Vinson, is a return to the days of racial quotas:
"To encourage assimilation further, the racial and religious makeup of immigrations should be proportionate to the country's existing mix. Such features in past laws have been denounced as racist. But with America more diverse today than ever before, we must be careful that immigration does not upset the existing status quo and the stakes different groups have in it" (p.48).
In another pamphlet, titled Immigration and Nation, a Biblical View, Vinson seeks to craft a "Christian" response to immigration. Here Vinson argues that ?the Scripture makes plain that division and nationality are part of God's plan for humanity" (p.2). Vinson goes on to argue that "As God is the author of nationhood, the ethnic make-up of a nation is not an arbitrary human choice, but a reflection of divine providence" (p.19). Making this connection between divine providence and ethnic nationalism, Vinson elaborates on a view that comes close to the white supremacist argument for racial separation and inequality:
"They [nations] are not arbitrary human creations, but divinely ordained entities, not just in this present age... And, in contrast to the 'multi culturalism' so fashionable today. God does not view all nations and their respective cultures as equal. The Bible states that God regarded Israel above other nations... God forbade Israel to dilute her national character, or as we would say today, to practice multiculturalism. In Deuteronomy God commands here not to intermarry and blend her faith with the surrounding nations. To help prevent this likelihood, He commands all-out warfare against those nations, and their destruction... Truly distance entities can never be equal. To make them equal is to destroy their identity and basically make them one and the same... The general principle of biblical nationhood apply to the American nations as well as any other... Along with the biblical heritage, the American nation formed around the nucleus of a European population derived mainly from the British Isles and a general European culture rooted in ancient Greece and Rome... As the American nation grew, it reaped the blessings of obedience to God's laws"(p.8).
Vinson is also the author of the pamphlet Immigration and Nation, a Biblical View, which lays out a ?biblical understanding of immigration,? using racial and cultural arguments rooted in a Christian nationalist fundamentalist interpretation of the bible. Vinson?s biblical exegesis results in a decidedly intolerant tautology:
"From the book of Genesis onward, the Scripture makes plain that division and nationality are part of God's plan for humanity" (p. 2) "Current U.S. immigration policy promotes multiculturalism and is 'balkanizing' America Therefore, [c]urrent U.S. immigration policies are unbiblical and destructive." (p. 20).
Vinson's cultural critique of multiculturalism extends to assimilation as well. In a letter to the editor (Courier-Journal, Nov. 27, 1995), Vinson argues that today's immigrants are different in important ways from immigrants of previous decades, and that such differences make the goal of assimilation impossible. Elsewhere Vinson argues continued immigration will force the white majority to become second-class citizens.
"Several recent studies suggest that assimilation is not working in areas of high immigration. Population researcher William Frey of the University of Michigan says immigrants and their cultures are beginning to dominate entire cities and regions. If your editorialist doubts this point, a tour of Los Angeles, Miami, or New York will quickly set him straight... The nation desperately needs a timeout from massive immigration. The notion of turning America into a balkanized Third World society is a truly insane idea"
Vinson even argues that Third World immigration dilutes an otherwise pure essence of 'Americaness' In 1992, he told Newsday, "I feel if we don't draw the line and limit the number of immigrants we allow in, we're going to be overwhelmed, we're committing national suicide... .All the early immigrants were from the same background. These current immigrants are so diverse that it could lead to a nation where no one will know what it is to be American." (Newsday, October 25, 1992).
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