The friends of John Lott
Part I: Meet Bill Regnery
John Lott, Jr., gun 'fancier' in more ways than one, is now published by a company with ties to the white supremacist Right. The Southern Poverty Law Center observed in its Intelligence Report for Spring 2003.
Academic racists also added a new and important organization to their ranks. The Charles Martel Society, with its journal Occidental Quarterly, has an editorial board stacked with leaders of anti-immigrant organizations and hate groups like Taylor's New Century Foundation and the Council of Conservative Citizens. The society, which plans research on how government programs negatively affect white families, is partly funded by William Regnery II, heir to a publishing fortune.
It has added the Charles Martel Society to its list of hate groups.
In the summer of 2002, the SPLC noted.
The recently created society puts out a slick, academic-looking journal called The Occidental Quarterly, edited by a Who's Who of the radical right and bankrolled by William H. Regnery II, the reclusive Chicago millionaire who is heir to the Regnery publishing fortune.
The tables of contents for The Occidental Quarterly confirm that. The list of longterm racists on it includes Enoch Powell, Sam Francis and discredited academic Chris Brand. Regnery himself kicks off the inaugural volume with an essay that makes no pretense in belief in racial equality, "For Our Children's Children." In it, the then 60-year-old elitist elaborates on why he supports secession from the United States by most, if not all, white Americans.
I am for the United States ceding territory to Prime Number states drawn from the existing North American population that are indivisible by reason of race, religion or mutual interests and want to form a more perfect union than that in which they now live. These sovereign entities at their discretion could form a confederacy of equals to facilitate trade and secure their borders.
Puerto Rico would become a free state. Native Hawaiians might be granted an island or two. Blacks would get a separate homeland and economic support from Israel, apparently premised on a belief African-Americans are incapable of self-support and somehow the responsibility of Jews. Some arrangement not described would be made for Native Americans.
The Occidental Quarterly's editorial advisory board is also a roll call of well-known racists.
The publication has not waded into advocacy of gun ownership, though it is part of its supporters' constellation of beliefs. Brother white supremacist voices, including American Renaissance, Chronicles, The Patriotist and groups such as the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens have taken up that drumbeat, instead.
Bill Regnery's brother, Alfred, is in charge of the operation of Regnery Publishing, Inc. Though he is less loose with his tongue, he does not appear to be less Right Wing. Regnery publishes a collection of far Right voices. John Lott. Jr., fits right in. I would not be surprised to learn that his contacts with other reactionaries, perhaps Robert Stacy McCain or Ann Coulter, led to his relationship with Regnery.
This entry is the first in what I expect to be a three-part series. The goal of the triune will be to place Lott in context with other enablers of the far Right. My positions are:
• Lott moves in far Right circles in which sexism and racism are the norm.
• His 'research' has been used by persons who are radically anti-democratic.
I realize that by writing about Lott in context I risk being criticized. Perhaps I will hear from an Australian who thinks he knows more about racism in the United States than I do. In fact, I, an American writer, have already been filled in on American publishing by him. I suspect I just might know a little something about the Regnerys he doesn't.
Or, maybe conservative blogger Chris of Flyover Country will drop me a line to say I have totally misinterpreted the Charles Martel Society -- that it is actually a group interested in horticulture. Such are the risks of blogging.
