Glenn Spencer, More Hateful by the Day, Drones On
Glenn Spencer, who heads the hate groups American Patrol and American Border Patrol, loves showing off the high-tech gizmos he uses to track 鈥渋llegal aliens.鈥� Last April, Spencer set up remote control Internet cameras controlled from his home along the Mexican border in southeastern Arizona 鈥� 鈥淥peration Virtual Vigilance,鈥� in the paramilitary parlance Spencer favors. At the time, he promised he would start sending unmanned aerial drones into the air to monitor border fence construction.
On Thursday, Spencer will trot out the results of his drone project, or what he calls Operation B.E.E.F. (Border Enforcement Evaluation First), at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. On his website, he says he鈥檚 been sending a drone up every two months along a route stretching 鈥渇rom Texas to the Pacific Ocean, documenting the construction of the border fence.鈥�
is no stranger to Hatewatch. For years, he鈥檚 peddled a that suggests that the Mexican government is purposely sending undocumented immigrants northward in order to 鈥渞econquer鈥� the American Southwest and, ultimately, transform it into a northern Mexican state to be called Aztlan. But in recent months, Spencer has expanded from his usual angry attacks on Latinos to furious, explicitly racist and anti-Semitic tirades that have caught the attention of many longtime Spencer observers. Consider:
鈥� Just before Christmas, Spencer issued a nearly hysterical Web posting entitled 鈥淥bama Threatens Nation,鈥� in which he described the incoming Obama Administration as 鈥減repared to make a frontal assault on the sovereignty of the United States.鈥� In fact, he said, 鈥淏arack Obama represents the greatest threat to the United States of America since the Civil War. Brainwashed Americans have just voted to commit national suicide.鈥�
鈥� The same month, Spencer wrote an article on his website with another provocative title: 鈥淚s Jew-Controlled Hollywood Brainwashing Americans?鈥� In it, he assured readers that he had Jewish friends but added: 鈥淚 fear, however, that this small handful of patriotic Americans are far outnumbered by liberal Jews who now have total control over our media.鈥� He linked his posting to a report by well-known anti-Semitic theorist , who Spencer has hosted as a guest on his radio show and whose work he recommends.
鈥� Last fall, Spencer lamented the falling birthrate for whites and contrasted that to soaring Latino birth rates. The title of his posting (which was accompanied by the cartoon below): 鈥淲hite America Commits Suicide: The Coming Disunited States of America.鈥�
It鈥檚 not like Spencer has been seen as calm and rational in the past. In fact, some of his neighbors and former allies have long been saying he鈥檚 out of control. In 2003, he was with four felonies after firing his .357 Magnum pistol into a neighbor鈥檚 garage because, he told police, he had heard noises that frightened him (later that year, the charges were reduced to a misdemeanor and a $2,500 fine). In 2002, Francis Williams, a director of Spencer鈥檚 own American Border Patrol, resigned, describing Spencer as 鈥渂orderline xenophobic.鈥�
That was hardly a revelation to many who knew Spencer. In a 1996 letter to the Los Angeles Times, Spencer wrote that 鈥淢exican culture is based on deceit鈥� and that 鈥淐hicanos and Mexicanos lie as a means of survival.鈥� In 1998, he in Cullman, Ala., at anti-immigrant rally hosted by the , a racist group that has called blacks 鈥渁 retrograde species of humanity.鈥� In 2001, he had Betina McCann, then fianc茅 of neo-Nazi Steven Barry, hand-deliver copies of his film 鈥淏onds of Our Nation鈥� to every member of Congress (the video largely rehashes his Aztlan conspiracy theory).
None of this has stopped Spencer from being featured in mainstream media venues. He鈥檚 appeared twice in recent years on CNN鈥檚 鈥淟ou Dobbs Tonight鈥� and last year he debuted his video, 鈥淏order Truth USA,鈥� at a three-day American Legion on illegal immigration (the Legion had earlier issued a on illegal immigration rife with falsehoods and defamatory statements). Spencer鈥檚 American Patrol (also known as Voice of Citizens Together) has also received at least $11,000 in grants () since 1994 from the (FAIR), a major nativist group that has angrily rejected the label of "hate group" applied by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
