DEFEND COLORADO NOW PRESIDENT FRED ELBEL

 The President of Defend Colorado Now, Fred Elbel, is the principle force behind several organizations closely linked to the extreme end of the “population control” wing of the anti-immigrant movement, and is the webmaster for a number of anti-immigrant websites.

Elbel & SUSPS

Fred Elbel is a leader and spokesperson in SUSPS (formerly known as “Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization”), a network of anti-immigration Sierra Club activists who have attempted to take over the national environmental group. SUSPS remains an unincorporated organization that has refused to divulge either its leadership or its funding, in spite of repeated requests from Sierra Club members. SUSPS is led by Elbel and Brenda Walker, each of whom has been instrumental as a bridge to outside anti-immigration groups.

In 2004, SUSPS ran a slate of anti-immigration candidates, including DCN leader Richard Lamm, to take over the Sierra Club board of directors. [5] They were resoundingly defeated. In the aftermath of the failed takeover attempt, when confronted over his statements blaming poor people of color for environmental problems, Elbel wrote:

Damned right. I hate 'em all - negroes, wasps, spics, eskimos, jews, honkies, krauts, ruskies, ethopans, pakis, hunkies, pollocks and marxists; there are way too many of them. I'm all for trout, elephants, bacteria, whales, wolves, birds, parrot fish, deciduous foliage and mollusks. Time to rebalance the planet, bleeding heart liberals be damned. [sic]  [6]

Through SUSPS, Elbel has worked closely with avowed white nationalists, such as Brenda Walker. Elbel maintains the SUSPS website and sends out email reminders to Sierra Club members to vote for anti-immigrant candidates, while Walker is in charge of the Berkley, California P.O. Box mailing address.

Walker is involved in a number of web-based anti-immigrant efforts including www.limitstogrowth.org and www.immigrationshumancost.org, as well as a regular contributor to The Social Contract journal and the VDARE nativist/white nationalist website.

Walker’s record suggests a strong affinity for an extreme variety of nativism and xenophobia. For example, she has stated that Hmongs in America are “drug-addicted polygamists.” [7]

In an article in The Social Contract, Walker makes the statement that “The belief that all cultures are equal—the central tenet of multicultural society—does not bear even the most cursory examination.” [8] In another piece (a book review) she denigrates the efforts by some media outlets to make the news more inclusive. She writes, “Hint: average Americans are not represented in those newly favored demographics.” [9]

On her own website, www.limitstogrowth.org, she has written, “Our country appears to have lapsed into one of its occasional periods of hysteria over a stubborn social problem. The residue of racism has created some unfortunate reaction in very inappropriate directions. Those of us who have been involved in immigration reduction have grown accustomed to shrieks of ‘racist’ from excitable people convinced that they are on the side of virtue—or from professional ethnics who play the race card like a drum.” [10]

Despite such overtly racist statements, Elbel has repeatedly defended Brenda Walker. 

Under the leadership of Elbel and Walker, SUSPS acts as a crucial bridge from the venerable environmental organization to the new-style nativists and white nationalists, as well as the hard edge of the population control movement.

Carl Pope, head of the Sierra Club, noted, “while SUSPS has on its web site an announcement that it doesn't support hate, its leaders spew hate, in the case of Brenda Walker, condone hate, in the case of Fred Elbel , and disseminate hate, in the case of the email forwarded by Director Zuckerman.” [11]