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| Spencer Sunshine: Left Gatekeeper |
Below is the full text of a leaked letter sent by Spencer Sunshine of Political Research Associates to the Left Forum board. The letter, presumably along with pressure from Sunshine's powerful sponsors, resulted in the cancelation of three panels that had been scheduled for this year's Left Forum to be held June 2-4.
Here is the beginning of the email announcing the cancelation of the panels:
Unfortunately,
we are writing to inform you that your panels
A)
Panel Title: 9/11 Truth: Ground Zero for a Resistance Movement
B)
Panel Title: False Flags: Staged, Scripted, Mass Psy-Op Events
C)
Panel Title: "Terrorism": Fake Enemies, Fraudulent Wars
have not been selected as a part of this year's
Left Forum program....
Spencer Sunshine's letter to the Left Forum:
Dear Left Forum,
I am writing to you, on behalf of a group of NYC activists, to express
our objection to a number of antisemitic conspiracy theorists and Holocaust
deniers who appeared on the “Deep State” track” last year. The most well-known
of these speakers, Kevin Barrett, bragged on the Far Right website Veterans Today that they had tricked the
Left Forum into hosting their speakers.
We hope that these individuals, and those with similar views, will not
be invited back to the Left Forum, and we strongly encourage the conference to
develop a standardized criteria to hold speakers against and a process for
vetting them.
As a former Left Forum staff member, I know that conference organizers are very
busy. There are many speakers and vetting is a daunting task. However, as a
professional researcher of Far Right groups and an antifascist activist, I am
well aware of the damage these speakers can do to our movements if provided
with an audience and organizing base—as well as the media disaster this can
create for organizers of Left events. Those of us who have worked on this
research believe that the speakers flagged below should not be allowed to speak
on left-wing platforms—much less at a conference like the Left Forum, which presents
itself, at least in part, as an academic affair. It seriously damages your
credibility and is a time bomb waiting to happen.
As you may be aware, the appearance in the fall at the Brooklyn
Commons of a similar Far Right antisemitic conspiracy theorist, Christopher
Bollyn, resulted in international media coverage and led to a boycott of the
space. The connections between the 2016 Green Party VP candidate to Kevin
Barrett also led to a large amount of unwanted media attention. The Left Forum
has not had to contend with similar public attention so far—despite the fact
that Barrett himself spoke there.
After looking at the speaker on the Deep State track last year, we
have serious objections to four of them: Kevin Barrett, Jim Fetzer, Gearóid Ó
Colmáin, and Mauri Saalakhan. Track co-organizer Cathleen “Cat” McGuire also
has promoted antisemites and Holocaust deniers, including playing a major role
in the Christopher Bollyn incident at the Brooklyn Commons. Below are profiles
of these, and other, participants in the 2016 Left Forum.
I am happy to speak with conference organizers about this matter in greater
detail if needed.
Best,
Spencer Sunshine, PhD
transform6789@gmail.com
347-265-7874
[Note that different people worked on these profiles—hence the
difference in formats]
Kevin Barrett is the
most well-known of the group, and is an editor at the Far Right website Veterans Today, where he bragged how
“9/11 truth sneaks past gatekeepers into Left Forum.” These “gatekeepers”
include Soros, the CIA and the Trilateral Commission —all of which he accuse of
running the major left-wing media.
[www.veteranstoday.com/2016/05/20/leftforum-2]
The SPLC describes Veterans Today as
having moved from being merely antisemitc into being “squarely
in neo-Nazi territory.” [www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2013/01/10/veterans-today-editor-blames-newtown-tragedy-israel]
Barrett hits practically every antisemitic theme in his writing; for
example in one piece he says:
“…the US dollar is not the US dollar. It’s the Zionist dollar. The US dollar is
issued by the Federal Reserve, a private corporation owned by the biggest
‘American’ banks. But those banks are not really American. The leading
banksters who create American dollars out of nothing, backed by nothing, are
ethnically Jewish and primarily loyal to the state of Israel… The
Rothschild-led bankster cartel has been occupying Palestine since 1917. And it
has been occupying the USA since the Federal Reserve coup d’état of 1913. … The
Zionist bankster cartel that prints our currency out of thin air can easily
print enough money to buy up virtually all major Western
media. That’s why most Westerners have unconsciously accepted a pro-Israel
world-view…. The banksters also have enough money to buy as many politicians as
they need. That is why the US Congress and the White House
are Israeli-occupied territory.”
[www.veteranstoday.com/2012/11/12/now-its-payback-time-why-obama-should-bust-netanyahu-for-911]
Barrett believes that Israel is been behind 9/11 and the Charlie Hebdo
attacks. He is a loud supporter of Holocaust Deniers—claiming the real problem
are scholars who believe the Holocaust is real, calling this “Holocaust Denial
Denial.” Whatever his real beliefs on the matter are, he goes so far as to say
“I used to believe in ‘the Holocaust’,” and made a list of the “Top 10 Reasons
to Be a Holocaust Denier.”
[https://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/dr-kevin-barrett-holocaust-history-denial-a-clear-and-present-danger;
www.veteranstoday.com/2016/10/29/top10holo]
###
Jim Fetzer is a pretty straightforward
Holocaust Denier. He also believes that Mossad carried out the 9/11 attacks.
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-holocaust-narrative-politics-trumps.html
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2015/09/james-h-fetzer-mossad-played-crucial.html
###
Gearóid Ó Colmáin promotes
wide-ranging antisemitic conspiracies and narratives.
* Colmáin considers the Syrian war , ISIS, the
Charlie Hebdo attack, and the refugee crisis to be a Zionist plot. He says the
“manufactured refugee crisis” is “Coercive Engineered Migration: Zionism’s War
on Europe.” [www.veteranstodaylive.com/2016/01/27/gearoid]
* He calls
the refugees fleeing via sea to Europe come on “Rothschild’s “Slaughter Ships.”
Those who shelter them are the “tools and fools of imperialist
subversion.” [http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/01/rothschilds-slaughter-ships]
* He follows
traditional religious antisemitism in attacking Jews, writing that: “There is
nothing particularly shocking about the Rabbinical belief that Jews are a
master race for those who have studied Judaism’s ‘sacred’ book The Talmud. The
book has many references to the superiority of Jews over gentiles. In fact, the
Talmud even claims that Jews are, in some instances, superior to God!” [www.gearoidocolmain.org/red-star-over-bethlehem-politics-of-christmas]
*
Colmáin claims, “the real source of Jewish power in the world is the liberal
‘left’ media. Trump is currently at war with that establishment.” He adds that “The ‘war on terrorism’ has been about the
recruitment, training and funding of Jihadi forces to be used as false-flag
terror patsies and to fight proxy wars on behalf of Zionism,” and that Donald
Trump’s policies could spell the end of “Zionist world domination.” [www.gearoidocolmain.org/trump-killing-israel-kindness]
* He says
Amy Goodman at Democracy Now! is guided
by her interest in her “Jewish tribe,” comparing David Duke favorably to her. He
says Chabad, a Jewish religious group, is key in “in promoting Jewish supremacy and
talmudic dictatorship.” [www.gearoidocolmain.org/trump-question-fascism; http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/03/president-vladimir-putin-an-enigma]
###
Mauri
Saalakhan has a longstanding conspiratorial take on the
Jewish role in US politics and world events.
He told Press TV that: “most
political leaders in the United States” are “slaves” of the Zionist lobby. U.S.
presidential candidates “are going to say and do anything that they feel would
put them in favor of the very powerful lobby, Jewish organizations, [and]
Jewish leaders [and] institutes.”
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130501092313/http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/215088.html]
In his book Palestinian Holocaust,
Saalakhan writes, “the
Jewish-Zionist lobby has its inordinate influence” (p. 104). He continues,
“People are scared in this country [America] to say wrong is wrong, because the
Jewish lobby is powerful—very powerful.” (pp. 153–54). [www.alwilayah.info/thepalestiniansholocaust.pdf ]
In a 2012 article, Saalakhan specifically
lamented the influence of Jews on the left, as well as on
African-Americans: “How deeply entrenched Jewish/Zionist influence is in
civil liberties and human rights organizations in America (both large and
small), and how pervasive that influence also is in much of the
African-American leadership psyche!” [http://dailymuslims.com/2012/05/10/a-demonstration-for-peace-in-sudan]
###
Cathleen
“Cat” McGuire was a “Deep State” Track co-organizer and works as a palm reader in
Times Square. She does not have a history of publishing or speaking under her
own name. However, she apparently has access to some money, and is the listed
contact for a non-profit called “OraLora Fund” (DBA “The Institute for
Social Justice.”)
McGuire came to attention in fall 2016 when it was revealed that she had booked
Far Right antisemite and Holocaust Denier Christopher Bollyn at a church on the
Upper West Side, alongside Bollyn’s talk at the Brooklyn Commons, which she
attended. The church cancelled the event, but in her emails to the church, she
specifically said she approached them because she they were involved in
Palestine activism. [www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/1.740915]
Whatever her own politics are, McGuire is intentionally booking antisemites in
left-wing circles in NYC.
###
Cheryl Curtiss, the
other track organizer, is a 9/11 Truther. She does not have a history of making
bigoted statements, but obviously knows what is going on and has no problems
providing platforms for anti-Semites on her radio show “9/11 Wake-Up Call with
Cheryl”—or bringing them into the Left Forum.
####
There
are several other notable people who have appeared at the Left Forum in the last
two years. They include:
Richard Dolan also spoke
on the Deep State Track. Although he does not have a history of making bigoted
statements, he is famous believer in UFOs. I mention this to show how
ridiculous some of the speakers on this track are, and how foolish the Left
Forum looks in booking them. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_M._Dolan]
Wayne Madsen “revealed” that Obama
and Rahm Emanuel were “Members of Same Gay Bath House Club in Chicago,” and
that Emanuel was picked up as part of “Obama’s predatory gay sex activities.” [http://atlah.org/2010/06/10/wayne-madsen-special-report-obama-and-emanuel-members-of-same-gay-bath-house-club-in-chicago]
Dennis Speed, who spoke in 2015, put
in his bio that he works for the Executive
Intelligence Review, the publication of the LaRouchites. He is still
writing for the paper in 2017.
Along with this, Chip Berlet and I renew our objection to LaRouchite’s former “theorist” Webster Tarpley speaking. Tarpley
continues the same themes of the LaRouchites in his work.
I understand that last year the Left Forum justified Tarpley’s inclusion that
he has formally left the LaRouchite organization. While this may be true, in
the antifascist milieu we generally require “former” Far Right activists who
want to be involved in Left politics to publicly repudiate far right groups, and
apologize for their actions. In this case, Tarpley should also explain why his
views are different from the bigoted views of the LaRouchites.
Tarpley has done none of these things to my knowledge. I think if he wants to
be on a Left platform he needs to be held accountable for a variety of these statements,
including those about the “Homintern”—the supposed gay conspiracy that controls
the culture industry. The Left Forum is letting him off too easily by just
letting him quit the LaRouchites when there is no sign he’s quit their beliefs.
[www.researchforprogress.us/topic/8760]
**********
Kevin’s response to Sunshine accusations
April 3, 2017
Hello Marcus,
The accusations are slanderous.... Feel free to call me any time to discuss
this.
Best
Kevin
(contact info)
|
Hello ... Left Forum
organizers,
Since 2005 I have done
hundreds of speaking events in at least ten countries. Everywhere I go, organizers
of my events are harassed by gang-stalkers like “Spencer Sunshine” who hurl the
same standardized laundry-list of mindless insults, lies, and distortions in an
apparent attempt to waste both my time and that of the organizers. Of those
hundreds of speaking events, only one has ever been cancelled or postponed due
to the gang-stalkers’ accusations, and that decision is likely to be reversed,
and an apology offered, in the not-too-distant future. I will be happy to
discuss the details, just call me.
Hoping to keep this brief,
and thus deny “Sunshine” (and his handlers?) too much of the wasted time that
is their goal, I have interspersed some bold-face comments below.
Best
Kevin Barrett (call or
email me any time to discuss any of this)
(contact info)
------------------------------------------
Dear Left Forum,
I am writing to you, on
behalf of a group of NYC activists, to express our objection to a number of
antisemitic [mindless, libelous insult]
conspiracy theorists [equally mindless,
libelous insult] and Holocaust deniers [another
mindless, libelous insult][i]
who appeared on the “Deep State” track” last year. The most well-known of
these speakers, Kevin Barrett, bragged on the Far Right website Veterans Today that they had tricked the
Left Forum into hosting their speakers. [another
libelous lie – no evidence whatsoever offered to support this bizarre claim;
later he misleadingly cites a satirical, pointed joke]
We hope that these
individuals, and those with similar views, will not be invited back to the Left
Forum, and we strongly encourage the conference to develop a standardized
criteria to hold speakers against and a process for vetting them.
As a former Left Forum staff member, I know that conference organizers are very
busy. There are many speakers and vetting is a daunting task. However, as a
professional researcher of Far Right groups and an antifascist activist, I am
well aware of the damage these speakers can do to our movements if provided
with an audience and organizing base—as well as the media disaster this can
create for organizers of Left events. Those of us who have worked on this
research believe that the speakers flagged below should not be allowed to speak
on left-wing platforms—much less at a conference like the Left Forum, which presents
itself, at least in part, as an academic affair. It seriously damages your
credibility and is a time bomb waiting to happen.
As you may be aware, the
appearance in the fall at the Brooklyn Commons of a similar Far Right antisemitic
conspiracy theorist, Christopher Bollyn, [Bollyn,
a liberal Democrat, holds no racially-based views whatsoever, but occasionally
critiques aspects of Jewish identity politics and culture] resulted in
international media coverage and led to a boycott of the space. The connections
between the 2016 Green Party VP candidate to Kevin Barrett also led to a large
amount of unwanted media attention. [Right-wing
Zionist media launched a failed witch-hunt against Ajamu Baraka due to his
association with me; Baraka emerged completely unscathed.] The Left Forum
has not had to contend with similar public attention so far—despite the fact
that Barrett himself spoke there. [Media
witch-hunts against me have always failed miserably, beginning with the
Republican Party witch-hunt in 2006 spearheaded by Fox News and Lynn Cheney’s
ACTA; so it is unsurprising that the right-wing Zionist media does not want to
publicize my talks at the Left Forum.
Watch Sean Hannity unintentionally promote the 9/11 truth movement by
attacking me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzIzoD-MhIE ].
After looking at the
speaker on the Deep State track last year, we have serious objections to four
of them: Kevin Barrett, Jim Fetzer, Gearóid Ó Colmáin, and Mauri Saalakhan. Track
co-organizer Cathleen “Cat” McGuire also has promoted antisemites and Holocaust
deniers, including playing a major role in the Christopher Bollyn incident at
the Brooklyn Commons. Below are profiles of these, and other, participants in
the 2016 Left Forum.
I am happy to speak with conference organizers about this matter in greater
detail if needed.
Best,
Spencer Sunshine, PhD
transform6789@gmail.com
347-265-7874
[Note that different
people worked on these profiles—hence the difference in formats]
Kevin Barrett is the most well-known of the group, and is an editor at the Far
Right (?!) website Veterans Today, [For better or worse, Veterans Today is associated with the Democratic
Party, tendance Bernie Sanders; VT has been leading the attack on Trump since
more than a year before the election, and has scooped the rest of the media in
exposing Trump as a lifelong organized crime front-man] where he bragged
how “9/11 truth sneaks past gatekeepers into Left Forum.” [That was a joke! But jokes often contain an element of truth, and we
all know that certain sources of “left” funding don’t want critics of the 9/11
official story to be heard.] These
“gatekeepers” include Soros, the CIA and the Trilateral Commission —all of
which he accuse of running the major left-wing media.
[www.veteranstoday.com/2016/05/20/leftforum-2] [Soros and the CIA obviously do try
to steer left media, and the Trilateral Commission has provided the ideological
framework for such efforts with its de facto mission statement about pushing
back against the “excess of democracy” that afflicted the US in the 1960s. This
is uncontroversial, obvious, and almost universally understood by literate
members of the Left.]
The SPLC describes Veterans Today as
having moved from being merely antisemitc into being “squarely
in neo-Nazi territory.” [www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2013/01/10/veterans-today-editor-blames-newtown-tragedy-israel] [Absurd
accusation – VT is the leading alternative outlet pushing back against
“American Nazi” Bannon and his puppet Trump. See: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/03/30/bannon911/]
Barrett hits practically
every antisemitic theme in his writing; for example in one piece he says:
“…the US dollar is not the US dollar. It’s the Zionist dollar. The US dollar is
issued by the Federal Reserve, a private corporation owned by the biggest
‘American’ banks. But those banks are not really American. The leading
banksters who create American dollars out of nothing, backed by nothing, are
ethnically Jewish and primarily loyal to the state of Israel… The
Rothschild-led bankster cartel has been occupying Palestine since 1917. And it
has been occupying the USA since the Federal Reserve coup d’état of 1913. … The
Zionist bankster cartel that prints our currency out of thin air can easily
print enough money to buy up virtually all major Western media. That’s why most Westerners have unconsciously
accepted a pro-Israel world-view…. The banksters also have enough money to buy
as many politicians as they need. That is why the US Congress and the White House are Israeli-occupied territory.”
[www.veteranstoday.com/2012/11/12/now-its-payback-time-why-obama-should-bust-netanyahu-for-911]
[While obviously oversimplified, the above
statements have no racial animus whatsoever, and are true in their broad
outlines; I will be happy to debate anyone and cite evidence supporting them.]
Barrett believes that
Israel is been behind 9/11 and the Charlie Hebdo attacks. [No, I argue that a NATO program called Gladio B, in which Israeli
assets and allies in NATO countries participate, is behind these and other
false flag terror events.] He is a loud supporter of Holocaust
Deniers—claiming the real problem are scholars who believe the Holocaust is
real, calling this “Holocaust Denial Denial.” [I support the right of EVERYONE to debate and discuss historical
evidence; I myself believe the holocaust is real, but that those who contest
some of the details should not be persecuted or imprisoned for their efforts]. Whatever
his real beliefs on the matter are, he goes so far as to say “I used to believe
in ‘the Holocaust’,” and made a list of the “Top 10 Reasons to Be a Holocaust
Denier.” [https://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/dr-kevin-barrett-holocaust-history-denial-a-clear-and-present-danger;
www.veteranstoday.com/2016/10/29/top10holo] [Please click on the link and read the
story! It is SATIRE! Sunshine lacks either discernment or a sense of humor; or
he is intentionally attempting to deceive, by presenting a satirical piece with
a provocative headline as if it were a serious op-ed.]
###
[i]
All three terms – “anti-Semitic,” “conspiracy theorist,” and “holocaust denier”
– are mindless insults with little or no cognitive content. All three have been
ably deconstructed: The first in Ibrahim Soudy’s essay in my edited book
We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo; the second in
the first chapter of Lance deHaven-Smith’s
Conspiracy
Theory in America; and the third in Paul Viminitz’s “Holocaust Denial and
Anti-Semitism” (http://ahtribune.com/world/americas/academic-freedom/1580-holocaust-denial-anti-semitism.html).
Labels: 9/11 truth, censorship, false flag, gatekeeper, left forum, spencer sunshine