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In reply to the discussion: Gun Activists Warn Obama is Raising a Private Black Army to Massacre White Americans [View all]highplainsdem
(49,004 posts)77. Exactly. Pratt has ties to white supremacists. Despite which he's also influential in ALEC.
From Time magazine in 2001:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,94912,00.html
Nearly three years ago, as Sen. John Ashcroft was considering a run for the presidency, he composed a hand-written thank-you note to a man many politicians would run from. Neatly inscribed on Ashcroft's Senate stationery, the letter went to Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, a firearms lobbying group considered extremist even by many conservatives.
-snip-
At the time Ashcroft wrote to Pratt, the Virginia-based activist was already branded as a pariah even by those considered to the right of the GOP: Two years earlier, he had been forced to step aside as co-chairman of Pat Buchanan's presidential campaign after news reports of his association with leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations and militias.
-snip-
From ThinkProgress last year:
As the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) works to distance itself from the NRA-bill it backed as a model adopted in dozens of states, it may be hoping that people will not continue to dig into the damage done by its long love affair with gun groups, like the gun-industry funded NRA and fringe groups with ties to white supremacists like Gun Owners of America (GOA).
GOAs Executive Director is Larry Pratt. In the early 1980s, Pratt and the GOA were outspoken supporters of the white rulers in South Africa during apartheid, calling a press conference in 1984 to present evidence that allegedly tied Bishop Desmond Tutu to an effort to violently overthrow the white minority regime in the country. In 1990, Pratt wrote a book titled Armed People Victorious based on his study of death squads in Guatemala and the Philippines, and advocated for similar citizen defense patrols in the United States. The idea reportedly caught on in 1992, when Pratt addressed a three-day meeting of neo-Nazis and Christian Adherents organized by white supremacist Pete Peters. He shared the stage with a former Ku Klux Klan leader and an Aryan Nation official.
Pratt also held leadership roles in ALEC for many years. His relationship with ALEC began in 1978, when ALEC began an effort to oppose a constitutional amendment giving the District of Columbia full voting rights in Congress. When Pratt was elected to the Virginia State Legislature in 1981, he took a leadership position in ALEC. He sat on ALECs board even after he left the legislature, serving as its treasurer into the 1990s.
Meanwhile, the organization Pratt helped lead shared his passion for relaxing guns laws. For decades, ALEC quietly helped advance key parts of the gun agenda, including not only bills that may protect vigilante shooters but that also lead to more armed people on the streets who may cite laws like Florida¹s so-called Stand Your Ground or Kill at Will bill. ALECs agenda is detailed at the Center for Media and Democracys ALECexposed.org. Even though GOA left ALEC years ago, it was a long-time member and leader. GOA leapt to the defense of Floridas law, ratified by ALEC, in the wake of the shooting of unarmed high school student Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.
-snip-
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Gun Activists Warn Obama is Raising a Private Black Army to Massacre White Americans [View all]
SpartanDem
Feb 2013
OP
It should be one hell of a fight with himself. Your right. These nutjobs are projecting. I hope
southernyankeebelle
Feb 2013
#12
This has to be one of the stupidest things I've read in awhile, which is saying a lot
Rhiannon12866
Mar 2013
#107
OMG this is so very funny. Thanks for the good laugh. Your right what a hell of a fight.
southernyankeebelle
Mar 2013
#108
This is a group of marginalised nutbags. Taking them seriously and propagating their
geckosfeet
Feb 2013
#64
Anxiety. Checking how high the water in the swamp is prevents becoming gator food.
freshwest
Feb 2013
#97
The GOA Is For Those Who Think The NRA Is Too Liberal On Gun Rights. Really. (nt)
Paladin
Feb 2013
#6
Correct! 'Teh dronz r comin' Infowars crowd sez the NRA is FOR gun confiscation.
freshwest
Feb 2013
#41
Every right-wingery must have a group like that. Anti-choice has Army of God. Homophobia has the WBC
2ndAmForComputers
Feb 2013
#73
I used to not mind these groups so much, I figured they could all fight it out amongst themselves.
freshwest
Mar 2013
#121
Hard to know who you're talking to here. I've friends from Mexico who say words that aren't PC.
freshwest
Mar 2013
#114
WAIT! The Democratic Party is paying for Twitter posts to smear the wingnuts? Sign me up now!
freshwest
Feb 2013
#43
That's exactly why these psychos scare the shit out of me more than any terrorist cell could.
Initech
Feb 2013
#18
Pratt is just like Charles Manson that way. Wasn't this the exact idea behind "helter skelter?" nt.
Squinch
Feb 2013
#30
And the Nazis always promote race war as the chance for chaos and taking over the government.
freshwest
Feb 2013
#45
Yup, you're on 'race traitor' list now. Only tough in a group. Divide their IQ by the numbers.
freshwest
Mar 2013
#116
Exactly. Pratt has ties to white supremacists. Despite which he's also influential in ALEC.
highplainsdem
Feb 2013
#77
One of the scariest things about starting to do radio was the realization of how many of these
stevenleser
Feb 2013
#49
It got in full gear earlier with Nixon's lies, but started even earlier with small beginnings. nt
Bernardo de La Paz
Feb 2013
#55
When I was a teen, I somehow got ahold of the local NAZI party phone message number
n2doc
Feb 2013
#56
Are these nincompoops still spewing their bullcrap.Please send them to school,Afghanistan,somewhere
judesedit
Feb 2013
#58
Haven't we seen this scenario proposed before, by an equally unbalanced source?
NBachers
Feb 2013
#60
"...we were healing quite well as a nation on racial issues until Obama came along..."
magellan
Feb 2013
#61
These people need to be put in a mental institution and the key thrown away.
LiberalFighter
Feb 2013
#74
I think you nailed it, these people can not stand the idea of a black man being president
SpartanDem
Feb 2013
#105