|
Backgrounder: American Third Position
Leaders of the A3P: William Johnson, Chairman
Posted: July 9, 2010
William Johnson, Chairman
William Johnson is a graduate of Columbia Law School, lives on a ranch in La Canada, California, and reportedly works as an international lawyer.
In a February 20, 2010, interview with host James Edwards on the Political Cesspool, a white supremacist radio show, Johnson describes the A3P as being "neither left nor right, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. It basically takes a third position…We took our positions based upon what we thought was right…" Johnson adds, "We want to show that reasoned and good men can support the positions of identity, sovereignty, and liberty that the American Third Position embraces."
Johnson states that the A3P's goal is to run candidates in all 50 states. Johnson adds that because the law is different in each state, the A3P will have to make adjustments but the party plans on setting up state leaders patterned after the national leadership. He stresses that the A3P's national headquarters will oversee state leaders. Johnson describes a centralized party structure which he claims will be streamlined and more effective.
The first thing the party is going to do, according to Johnson, is "qualify in the states most easily achievable, the states that have the easiest ballot access laws." He mentions Florida as an example and adds that A3P will run candidates for federal offices in the state even if those candidates do not live in Florida.
When Political Cesspool co-host Winston Smith asked Johnson from where he would draw his membership, he replied, "The initial basis of our own upstart organization is the racial nationalist movement. It has been in disarray for the last 20 years so there's not as large a base for us to draw on [as compared to the Tea Party movement.]" Johnson adds that founders of the party chose the American Third Position name because "it doesn't carry any negative baggage with it but is more distinctive than using words like the 'Freedom Party'…." He states, "As the situation becomes more and more dire, the everyday rank and file citizen will look for solutions you can't find in the Republicans, the Democrats or the Tea Party movement and we think we can draw up on them."
At the end of the interview Johnson exclaims, "Now we are on the cusp of change, change that will alter the course of the direction of the nation and the world…We'll start to preserve our people again." This idea is brought home in the videos Johnson has posted to the A3P site, in which he sits under a banner that says "for race and nation."
In the 1980s, Johnson, under the pseudonym "James O. Pace," promoted the "Pace Amendment" to a variety of people, including members of the U.S. Congress and state legislatures. The proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution would have eliminated the Fourteenth Amendment (which grants automatic citizenship to anyone born in the United States) and limited citizenship only to "non-Hispanic whites of the European race, in whom there is no ascertainable trace of Negro Blood, nor more than one-eighth Mongolian, Asian, Asia Minor, Middle Eastern, Semitic, Near Eastern, American Indian, Malay or other non-European or non-white blood." Those who did not fit this category, including Jews, would be repatriated to places deemed their countries of origin. The scheme was originally outlined in a 1985 book authored by Pace and entitled Amendment to the Constitution. Pace also wrote a promotional kit for the amendment, which was published by the short-lived League of Pace Amendment Advocates.
After promoting the Pace Amendment, Johnson turned his attention to running for office. He has repeatedly lost elections to public office, including 1989 and 2006 defeats for congressional seats in Wyoming and Arizona, respectively. In 2008, Johnson also lost an election for judge on Los Angeles Country's Superior Court, garnering 25% of the vote.
During this time period, Johnson maintained a number of ties to the Klan. A Ku Klux Klan organizer was the manager of his 1989 Wyoming campaign and Johnson has repeatedly spoken at meetings of Robb's Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Party.
Johnson's use of the name "William D. Johnson" in connection to A3P also appears to be the end of his longstanding attempts to separate that name from "Daniel" or "Bill" Johnson, names he used in previous political campaigns and white supremacist organizing efforts. Although the Los Angeles Times reported in 1989 that he admitted to being James O. Pace (at the time, he also denied being a racist), his use of different names does appear to have been effective to a certain extent. His racist views, for example, were reportedly not an issue during the 2006 race for an Arizona congressional seat, in which he came in last out of a field of five contenders for the Democratic nomination.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
