It is tough to have a skeleton in a closet now days. Privacy has gone the way of the Dodo and the internet never deletes anything, or forgets. If you have even a whiff of a political aspiration, influence, or hold an office, someone is going track down that drunken post you made ten years ago on some bizarre fetish web site. Lets face it, if the head of the CIA can be brought down because of some risque emails no one is immune.
Take the case of James Ives. He is the head of the Greater Fort Bend County Tea Party. According to the Texas Tribune, a non-profit, non-partisan journalistic enterprise, he also used to be the Director of Propaganda of the American Fascist Party.
Ouch. There is no real way to soften that title is there? It immediately conjures up images of the late and unlamented Herr Joseph Goebbels.
Ives is, of course, outraged at this revelation. He claims that his record is open and quite public and that he joined the American Fascist Party in order to do research for a book. In his words, "I wanted to learn the left wing's opposing view point and understand why they felt the way they did." He also referred to his former organization as, "a defunct left wing fascist group." I suppose this does give us some idea of James Ives' political world view. He actually considers fascists as members of the left wing.
He does admit that he wrote six posts on the AFP's Yahoo message board in 2003, although he failed to mention that in one of them he admiringly cited Benito Mussolini. He also contends that "I never attended any meetings, never attended a single event, and never physically met anyone associated with the group."
When the Tribune pointed out they had a picture of him sitting in front of what appeared to be the logo of the party wearing a black uniform with yellow shoulder patches, he began to babble a tad. He claimed the uniform was photo shopped on him and the picture was used without his permission.
He asserts he became Director of Propaganda because no one else wanted the job. However the head of the outfit, one Seth Tryssen seemed enthralled not only with Ive's qualifications, but his talent. In one of his Yahoo posts he wrote, "Party Comrades its obvious that James is a serious thinker, not just an armchair fascist that looks at his computer screen once in a while. See his postings on the American Fascist Movement's Forum for more of his thoughts--they are worth reading."
Hey, a lot of people fuck up. Just ask the ghost of Robert Byrd. However when confronted with the awful truth at least Byrd fessed up about his past membership in the Ku Klux Klan and apologized for it.
Ives is doing the absolute denial two step. It was only to write a book. I never met any of them. No one else wanted the job. It was a left wing organization.
Right.
The book was never written. The photograph is out there. Party head, Seth Tryssen thought he was a serious thinker and told followers to read what he'd written on yet a second fascist site. And finally the American Fascist Party described itself as, "a political party who wants a strong military government to take control of the United States and put down the protesters, greeners, and ultra liberals."
To paraphrase, wild Bill Shakespeare, the man doth protest too much, methinks.
Brother Ives, confession is good for the soul. You might want to consider it.
sic vita est
3-20-13
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