Guest Post by Kevin Lynn
We recently found ourselves once again attacked and maligned by the hobgoblins at the Southern Policy Law Center (SPLC). The funny thing is the last time they attacked us and devoted a page on their website to PFIR and our programs, they insinuated our then and long-serving Executive Director, Leah Durant, was a racist. After taking a little bit of time to bask in the SPLC’s attention, Ms. Durant sent them an email informing them she was a black American and had over the course of her life experienced real racism as opposed to the synthetic kind conjured up by the SPLC and its minions. Although they did not issue an apology, they did pull from their website all references to PFIR.
Having been involved in this movement for some time, I can tell you I used to find it strange the kind of organizations that have come together to stymie our good efforts. They include diverse groups such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, the National Association of Software and Services Companies, The Business Roundtable, fwd.us and the SPLC to name a few.
Strange as it may appear at first glance, upon closer examination they all share the common guiding principal of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism has nothing to do with classical liberalism in much the same way neoconservatism has nothing to do with being conservative. Neoliberalism is the belief that money and people should be able to move unfettered across borders with the goal of maximizing profits.
Last week, the SPLC attacked us in an article posted to their website with the title, Workers Organization Shares Staff, Cash With Anti-Immigrant Groups. The “workers organization” they were referring to is U.S. Tech Workers, a project of PFIR. In 2018, we created U.S. Tech Workers to help us better focus on the impact employment visa abuse has on the nation’s skilled workers. In the poorly researched and reasoned article, they made note of my being the Executive Director of Progressives for Immigration Reform which they view as an anti-immigrant group.
As the son of an immigrant, I always found it peculiar that the SPLC would view my organization as anti-immigrant. But anyone looking to restrict immigration so that it works in the interests of the citizens is, in the plank-filled eyes of the SPLC, anti-immigrant. In addition, they deviously color the object of their scorn using the “association” propaganda technique. They use it by projecting negative qualities (blame) of a person, entity, object or value onto another to discredit them. This technique evokes an emotional response, which stimulates the target audience to identify with any authority type figure or organization.
For instance, they use it to attack PFIR by saying that Colcom Foundation, an organization that has been very generous to us over the years, has an association with John Tanton. So, it is more than just association. It is an association, with an association that is associated with…. Or rather, degrees of association.
They also attacked me in the article because I was on a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) panel with someone they regarded as a “hater” and for praising the research of CIS. Well, let me tell you, we should all be singing the praises of CIS. Below are just a few of the scholarly products they have created to inform the public and lawmakers on how employment visa abuse is hurting tech workers:
- Untold Stories: American Workers Replaced by H-1Bs
- There Is No ‘Labor Shortage’
- Fact Sheet on HR 1044, Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act
- Senate Action on Big Tech Green Card Bill S.386
- A Conversation with USCIS Director Cissna
In fairness, I was contacted by an “investigative” reporter for an organization I did not recognize, with an SPLC email address. I chose not to respond for several reasons. First, the 
SPLC is biased against us in the extreme, with an agenda, and nothing I could say would in any way change what they would eventually print. Second, I want nothing to do with an organization that was founded and run by Morris Dees.
Morris Dees, along with SPLC’s COO and inhouse counsel, stepped down for unspecified reasons last year. Based on the writings of actual investigative reporters, Dees had a reputation for hitting on the young ladies in his organization and for not living up to the values the group espoused when it came to workplace diversity. Since 2008, I have had numerous conversations with people who have been maligned by the organization and others who were at one time card-carrying members and donors to the SPLC. I learned from them Morris Dees was a scumbag. If you believe that the leader of an organization is its psychic center and the leader’s thoughts are the most important in that respect, it easy to see why the SPLC has been conducting itself in such a shameful and deceptive manner. How’s that for “association?”
Perhaps Bob Mosher, an author and journalist who wrote an article in The New Yorker about Dees’ firing, stated it best:
“The firing of Dees has flushed up all the uncomfortable questions again. Were we complicit, by taking our paychecks and staying silent, in ripping off donors on behalf of an organization that never lived up to the values it espoused? Did we enable racial discrimination and sexual harassment by failing to speak out? ‘Of course we did,’ a former colleague told me, as we parsed the news over the phone. ‘It’s shameful, but when you’re there you kind of end up accepting things. I never even considered speaking out when things happened to me! It doesn’t feel good to recognize that. I was so into the work, and so motivated by it, I kind of shrugged off what was going on.’ A couple of days later, she texted me: ‘I’m having SPLC nightmares.’ Aren’t we all, I thought.”
It would appear that those still at the SPLC continue to carry the same tainted water and partake in ripping off donors on behalf of an organization that could care less about the working men and women of America. I understand the organization has a new Executive Director, a Margaret Huang. Let’s hope she is prepared to begin the task of reforming this dung heap of an organization.
I am unfazed by the shoddy hit piece because for an organization that claims to have hundreds of thousands of donors as the SPLC does, our PFIR and U.S. Tech Workers websites experienced no spike in visitors. You would think that someone reading their article might have googled us. It would have probably helped if the hyperlinks in the article actually took them to the PFIR and USTW websites. But no, the reader was taken to a page on the SPLC website where they characterized and painted us with their ugly bias. Imagine the horror if one their followers would actually go to our websites and had the opportunity to take in a well-reasoned argument. But a megalomaniacal organization such as the SPLC insists on being seen as the sole authority and fears a dissenting opinion.
Despite that, what is up are the number of people following us on the U.S. Tech Workers’ Twitter page, as well as donations. So, thank you for that SPLC!
In closing, I think it is safe to say that everyone who follows us understands at a fundamental level that the numbers matter when it comes to preserving the ecosystems on which we rely for our survival and how supply and demand when it comes to labor impacts wages, job security and social mobility. We can control the numbers with immigration policy. In the end, we are not calling for anything radical. What we are calling for is enforcement of existing laws and policies that put the interests of the citizenry over those of corporations and ethnic lobbies. Again, we are undeterred and unfazed by attacks from organizations such as the SPLC. Moreover, I would welcome a debate with their new executive director on immigration policy.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
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Did the SPLC ever do anything positive in its history or was it always a grifter organization pushing collectivism playing the anti-semitism card?
I would add “anti-White”.
Otherwise, you’re right on.
“Did the SPLC ever do anything positive in its history”
in the beginning it probably did. same as most organizations that become over-active.
I got a good chuckle out of this article.
One bullshit organization calling another bullshit organization a bullshit organization. Priceless!
Anyone that gives money to one of these rights organizations needs their head examined. These money taking concerns have absolutely zero incentive to change the status quo. Their motivation is to attract as much money from dupes as possible so that the higher ups in the organization can take a hefty salary for accomplishing exactly nothing.
If they accomplished their stated goal, they would all be out of a cushy job. Therefore the survival instinct says that they will do squat to change things while propagandizing their ‘members’ for more and more funds so management can have a good life at members expense.
These are all headed up by con artists and staffed by people that ‘want to believe’ in the stated mission, again, while drawing a nice salary.
There’s a sucker born every minute.
“If they accomplished their stated goal, they would all be out of a cushy job.”
bingo. or … their stated mission is not their actual mission.
When money material possessions rule your life, you will do anything, pledge allegiance to any idea or ruler to keep the material flow running. This is the way it is at SPLC, a great many NGO’s (like Doctors without Borders), all (without exception) the international organizations (UN, ASEAN, EU, and all the rest), too many (not all)of the organized religious sects, too many (not all) of the private charities, all of the alphabet agencies of the US and most of the governments and their police (not your police!) from township to nation all over the world.
When one is on their payroll, the distasteful tasks start small, mostly witnessing what the higher-ups do rather than what they say. If you don’t quit the moment you realize what is going on, you become a part of the dirty game. The longer you are there, the deeper you go. Pretty soon you are as dependent on the lies and deception as a heroin addict is on smack. And remember that most heroin addicts are ok with their addiction and depravity. They might not really love it, but is is what they are in the habit of doing, and will keep doing it until the sand runs out.
So to all of you well intentioned folks working for all these organizations, beware. When the time comes (and it will not be that long. Not tomorrow, and not next year, but not long) that all your pensions and special perks (which is why most of you stay at your miserable positions) are gone, and the mask is off the totalitarian despots you work for, YOU are going to be held responsible, in the street and on the job, for what your organization does and represents. Oh the George Soros and Mo Dees will stay out of the line of fire, but you won’t. It will be ugly and unjust. And you will lose.
The time for all men of goodwill to stop serving the despotic (really, all of them are despotic) “leaders” and governments is now. Stop forging the bars and chains that you will be ordered to use on your fellow citizens, because they will be used on you next.
doctors without borders is a front for France’s DGSE (their version of CIA)
All NGO’s are fronts for spying activity of the host country,
there is no such thing as “nice people doing nice things, in a different country”
Just look at their nefarious activities in early 90’s Rwanda to confirm your suspicions.
“too many (not all)of the organized religious sects”
which ones are not?
Rationalizing seems to work with groups like SPLC and other leftists.
GLWT.
the splc is a subversive anti-american op.
#FuckTheSPLC
You lost me at “Progressive.” Really don’t care how much your organization is hurt by anyone.