Talk:Marc Lemire
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[edit] Matthew Lauder
I would like to draw the attention of readers to Eric Volmers' article "Down into the darkness; Matt Lauder's inside look at Canada's racist groups wasn't pretty", which was printed on the front page of the Guelph Mercury on 19 March 2005.
Most contributors to this discussion will already know that Matthew Lauder is an anti-racist activist who once infiltrated the Canadian far-right for research purposes. What I did not realize until reading Volmers' article is that his findings have been used by police services across the country:
- Anti-racism advocates and police say the information Lauder gathered has been helpful in studying how the far right operates, offering a glimpse into recruiting techniques, numbers of people involved and connections to racist organizations in the U.S. More importantly, the research -- released as a report in 2002 in conjunction with the Guelph and District Multicultural Centre and Canadian Heritage -- showed that the movement was much more organized than previously thought. "It's been very helpful," said Det. Terry Wilson, who belonged the London, Ont. police force's hate-crime unit for 15 years. "It gave us a view of how the far-right works -- of who's who in the zoo so to speak, and who's pulling the strings. The biggest thing the police are interested in is a group's propensity for violence. With Matt in there, he became a good source."
Given that Lauder is an adviser to the Canadian police on hate issues, I don't think there should be any doubt concerning his status as a Reliable Source for this article.
Accordingly, it should be appropriate to incorporate information from these articles into Lemire's Wikipedia entry:
- Matthew Lauder, "Journey into darkness: Covert research in the Canadian racist underground"
- Matthew Lauder, "The New Generation of Organized Racialism in Canada" (both stored at cancon: articles)
One section of Volmers' article relates directly to Lauder's relationship with Paul Fromm and Marc Lemire:
- Lauder said he was able to infiltrate a group that included people like Paul Fromm -- a former teacher who was fired in the mid-1990s for his alleged involvement with neo-Nazi groups -- and his high-profile supporter Marc Lemire. Since Lauder revealed his true leanings, both Lemire and Fromm have targeted him on various websites. In a essay credited to Lemire on the white supremacist website Stormfront.org, Lauder is accused of suffering from "Dissociative Identity Disorder." Fromm accused Lauder of "snagging tens of thousands of dollars to fund his spying and reporting" on the same site before suggesting he was "prematurely bald" but never considered a skinhead. Both downplay his impact on the movement, saying those involved never truly trusted him. In an interview from his Mississauga home, Fromm said Lauder has been little more than a nuisance in far-right circles. He said it's not a murky underworld that needs to be infiltrated, but a group of people who are open about their political views. "He used to hang around in Toronto," Fromm said. "He would come to meetings and say he was doing a thesis. A lot of us were suspicious of him. It didn't seem very credible." If that was the case, it seems strange that Fromm and Lemire allowed Lauder to "tag along" for a trip to Arlington, Va. in March of 2000, where Fromm was scheduled to speak at a conference that featured ex-Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke as its star presenter. According to Lauder, he was introduced to Duke as an "up-and-coming writer" for the movement and a picture was taken of the pair. The trip was important because it linked Canada's far-right movement -- which was straining to present a more moderate and respectable image to the public -- with some of America's most frightening hate-mongers, Lauder said. Fromm disagrees. "It was never something I was ashamed of, he suggests it was a secret meeting," he said. "I spoke at the meeting. I have done that before and done that since. Representative Duke is a great American." Still, he bristles when asked if the picture taken of Lauder and Duke is an embarrassment for him and others who introduced the pair. "He was a paid spy working in some degree for the Canadian government," Fromm said angrily. ". . . he sold himself as some sort of supporter." Det. Terry Wilson, who transferred to the police force in New Westminster. B.C. two years ago, laughs when told that Fromm and others claim Lauder did not infiltrate Canada's far-right. "Usually when people are truly fooled, after the fact they will totally go into denial," he said. "I believe Paul Fromm and Marc Lemire were truly fooled. It's difficult for them to admit, but they were whizzed in a big way."
The Guelph Mercury is a credible, mainstream newspaper in Guelph, Ontario, where Lauder currently resides. Volmers is a staff writer. Unless someone can give a compelling reason otherwise, I believe this material should also be integrated into the article. CJCurrie 05:00, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] "See comments..."
An editor made some revisions, using the edit summary:
Which comments are those and where can we see them? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Interesting message
A few days ago, I removed the phrase "neo-Nazi" from this article's lede, because the alleged source is not strong enough for such an extreme allegation. (The Nazi slur is hurled at lots of people, but genuine neo-Nazis are quite rare; even White Supremacists are rarely neo-Nazi.)
Now Mark Lemire (or someone claiming to be him) has left an comment at Ezra Levant's blog in which he strongly denies the allegations about neo-Nazism. As blog comments are not Reliable Sources we cannot mention this in the article. If he repeats the claim or links to it on one of his own websites, we should mention it.
(BTW, I'm the "Chris Chittleborough" who made two comments on that post.) Cheers, CWC 13:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Lemire's denial
Lemire has just posted this to one of his blogs, strongly denying that he is a neo-Nazi or even a White Supremacist. In fact, he claims that no-one has ever produced any evidence for these claims. Furthermore, he describes two of the claims in Joe Brean's National Post article, which we cite, as "outright lies"; we arguably should note that in the cite.
I've done a minimalistic edit to reflect his denial. The resulting wording is clunky, so improvements are even more welcome than usual.
Note: many observers, including almost all non-specialist journalists, fail to recognise the differences between neo-Nazis, White Supremacy and White Nationalism/White Separatism. These differences may not seem all that significant to you or me, but people in these movements regard them as very important, so good encyclopedia articles have to reflect these distinctions. (Sigh.) Are there any good sources describing Lemire as a White Nationalist or Separatist? As anti-semitic? Has he ever denied those charges? (He does say in that blog post that he runs "a website critical of immigration", so it would be quite safe to describe him as an "anti-immigration activist".) If we can uncontroversially describe him as a White Nationalist or Separatist or antisemite in the lede, we could move the "some say he's a WS but he denies it" bit out of the lede, which would improve the article IMO. Cheers, CWC 12:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
