Protests planned for controversial convention in Herndon
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2497
Photo: http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3351, American Renaissance organizer won’t back down
By Gregg MacDonald
Fairfax County Times
A controversial convention scheduled to begin Friday at a Herndon hotel will go on as planned despite opposition from various groups, including a protest rally planned for Saturday morning.
David Welliver, General Manager of the Crowne Plaza hotel in Herndon, told The Times that despite extreme http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2638, he has no plans to cancel the event.
The biannual New Century Foundation/American Renaissance convention is organized by Oakton resident Jared Taylor, who calls himself a “http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2375" and publishes American Renaissance magazine, which he has done for nearly 20 years.
“Taylor is a Nazi pig,” Jeff Adler, spokesman for the militant group Jewish Defense Organization, told The Times in November. Upon hearing about the convention, Adler began a campaign, called Operation Nazi-Kicker, to prompt the Crowne Plaza hotel to cancel what he called the “meeting of hate.” He also said a physical protest was not out of the question.
“If [the JDO are looking for Nazis they are barking up the wrong tree,” Taylor said in response. The Southern Law Poverty Center, renowned for tracking and investigating hate-groups, lists Taylor on its Web site as one of “40 to watch” but says while “Taylor projects himself as a courtly presenter of ideas that most would describe as crudely white supremacist,” one thing that separates Taylor from the pack is “his lack of anti-Semitism.”
However, an unflattering report published by Taylor’s New Century Foundation titled “Hispanics, a statistical portrait,” caught the attention of El Pueblo Unido, a Latino empowerment organization.
The organization coordinated its own phone campaign to the Herndon hotel’s management.
“The goal is to drive the supremacists from the hotel they have prepared their conference in,” said Ricardo Cabellos in an email. “Should the phone campaign not work, we will pursue an organized protest with union friends during the event.”
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/news/2008/feb/19/protests-planned-controversial-convention-herndon/