Stable Population Party 'green-washing' racism

Americans meddling in Australia's domestic affairs in the lead up to an election is of serious concern but more troubling is William Bourke's comment on The Conversation on 29 May, that he had never heard of the Social Contract Press, of John Tanton (a former employer of Becks) or any foreign anti-population/anti-immigration group (italics are mine).

"I have never heard of the USA groups/people you mention, let alone have "links" with them. In fact the ASPP has no links to ANY group anywhere, including in Australia - we are completely independent, at my insistence, from day one," said Bourke.

But he'd only met Beck a few months prior. Why did he deny it? Exactly what is the relationship of the SPP with the anti-immigration movement in America? I appreciated the up-front honesty of Canberra SPP Senate candidate and poet Mark O'Connor,who was an associate of John Tanton's, when he commented on one of my articles on OLO:

"John Tanton is a bit right wing but neither a racist nor eugenicist. He stayed with his wife and daughter in my (left wing) house for several days some years ago and, indeed, I went to Washington in 1991 at his expense to work in the FAIR office… I attended the writing workshops sponsored by the Social Contract in 2010 and 2011 in Washington and while they were a bit right wing for me (anti-Obama and pro-Republican), they nevertheless had a lot to offer."

In 2011, The New York Times profiled Tanton. He wrote to a large donor and said, "One of my prime concerns is about the decline of folks who look like you and me." He warned a friend that, "for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that." One presumes a clear, white Republican majority.

The Washington Post on (February 13, 2013) reported that even Republicans have had enough of these anti-immigration groups. They accuse Numbers USA, the Center for Immigration Studies(CIS), and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), of masquerading as conservatives while "pressing an unorthodox agenda of strict population control that also has included backing for abortion, sterilization and other policies at odds with conservative ideology."

The anti-population movement has a chequered past. Students of reproductive history know that between 1960-1980 more than 20 million people in developing nations were cajoled or forced into having IUD implants, hysterectomies or vasectomies, at the behest of the Population Control lobby in America.

They convinced foreign governments in India, Ceylon, Africa and Asia with the line, 'we will give you less mouths to feed while making the next generation stronger and smarter.' What Third World leader could resist?

The critical flaw was a lack of post-procedural care. Infection was rife. Women post partum were vulnerable and easy targets for those pushing sterilization. But the real problem – and one shared by their contemporary Australian colleagues – was the objectification of the people they were trying to help. They were seen as statistics rather than living, feeling human beings.

By the late 1970s the evangelical fervor of the Third World anti-population push of the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Trust and Robert McNamara (remember Vietnam?), had failed to make a dent in population growth. For all of their scientific studies, propaganda, research and the millions of dollars spent, population control simply didn't work.

Why? Contraception was only one factor in a web of variables in the life of a woman living in the developing world. It was important but not as important as earning money, providing her children with clean drinking water and healthy food and giving them a good education. Population control was far more complex than implanting IUDs, injecting people with Depo Provera or offering them cash to be sterilized. It required a holistic approach, which is what we see in Africa today.

The UN learned that to reduce population, they had assist in nation building projects, especially in Africa, and not totally focus on women. There are numerous NGOs working at the local level across a raft of programs. But there are no quick fixes.