>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Silverstein on Dees
>Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 13:57:02 -0500
>
>Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
>>This is a reason to run a campaign against Dees? Silverstein and
>>Cockburn are full of shit. Dees does good work shutting down the
>>Klan.
>
>Justin, did you actually read Ken's words? Let me recount some
>highlights in case you missed them the first time through.
>
>>"He's the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of the civil rights movement,"
>>renowned anti-death-penalty lawyer Millard Farmer says of Dees, his
>>former associate, "though I don't mean to malign Jim and Tammy Faye."
>
>> The center earned $44 million last year alone- $27 million from
>>fund-raising and $17 million from stocks and other investments - but
>>spent only $13 million on civil rights programs, making it one of
>>the most profitable charities in the country.
>
>>The Ku Klux Klan, the SPLC's most lucrative nemesis, has shrunk from
>>4 million members in the 1920s to an estimated 2,000 today, as many
>>as 10 percent of whom are thought to he FBI informants.
>
>
>>More than 95 percent of all "hate crimes," including most of the
>>incidents SPLC letters cite (bombings, church burnings, school
>>shootings), are perpetrated by "lone wolves."
>
>>Today, the SPLC's treasury bulges with $120 million, and it spends
>>twice as much on fund-raising - $5.76 million last year-as it does
>>on legal services for victims of civil rights abuses. The American
>>Institute of Philanthropy gives the center one of the worst ratings
>>of any group it monitors, estimating that the SPLC could operate for
>>4.6 years without making another tax-exempt nickel from its
>>investments or raising another tax-deductible cent from well-meaning
>>"people like you."
>
>>In 1986, the center's entire legal staff quit in protest of Dees's
>>refusal to address issues-such as homelessness, voter registration,
>>and affirmative action-that they considered far more pertinent to
>>poor minorities, if far less marketable to affluent benefactors,
>>than fighting the KKK. Another lawyer, Gloria Browne, who resigned a
>>few years later, told reporters that the center's programs were
>>calculated to cash in on "black pain and white guilt." Asked in 1994
>>if the SPLC itself, whose leadership consists almost entirely of
>>white men, was in need of an affirmative action policy, Dees replied
>>that "probably the most discriminated people in America today are
>>white men when it comes to jobs."
>
>>According to tax documents, of the $10.8 million in educational
>>spending the SPLC reported in 1999, $4 million went to
>>solicitations. Another $2.4 million paid for stamps.
>
>>Dees's compensation alone amounts to one quarter the annual budget
>>of the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights, which handles
>>several dozen death-penalty cases a year. "You are a fraud and a
>>conman," the Southern Center's director, Stephen Bright, wrote in a
>>1996 letter to Dees, and proceeded to list his many reasons for
>>thinking so, which included "your failure to respond to the most
>>desperate needs of the poor and powerless despite your millions upon
>>millions, your fund-raising techniques, the fact that you spend so
>>much, accomplish so tittle, and promote yourself so shamelessly."
>
>Evidently the shameless self-promotion works, even on people who've
>read the truth.
>
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