FROGUE, STEVE. (a.k.a. "Weird Steve," “Uncle Steve”)
(From The Dissenter’s Dictionary, 1999)
Those who insist that Frogue's reputation as a Holocaust denier and racist is undeserved are obliged to explain the following facts:
(1) about a dozen former students of Frogue's (he's a high school teacher) of various ages, and with no connection to each other or to a common organization, swear (in signed affidavits) that, in class, Mr. Frogue denied the Holocaust or made racist (and anti-Mormon) remarks;
(2) during an interview that appeared in the 3/23/95 IVC Voice, Mr. Frogue praised the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), the nation's foremost Holocaust denial organization (founded by the nation's foremost anti-Semite, Willis Carto), saying, "There's somebody that wants to engage in the debate about the Holocaust";
(3) in a 4/20/95 Voice article, Frogue is quoted as saying that "...there are too many questions about the Holocaust for it to be judged a certainty in all aspects"; and, finally,
(4) Frogue has consistently failed to clearly and strongly repudiate the support he receives from explicit Holocaust deniers and racists, such as those who spoke at board meetings in January and June of ’98. One supporter--James Scott of Tustin--proclaimed: "I found out that history was basically written by the winners. And there never was a Holocaust. It's nothing but six million lies. It's become a racket. Everywhere you go, every time you pick up the paper, turn on the radio, the TV, here's some Jew screaming about this and that and everything else...Keep up the good work, Dr. Frogue [sic]! There never was a Holocaust!" (January '98). During and after Scott's rant, Frogue smiled and said nothing. (See Times, 1/21/98)
Frogue's numerous 1995-6 board meeting diatribes against the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) are indistinguishable from equally polite fulminations against that organization found in The Spotlight--the nation's most notorious anti-Semitic publication and the employer of Frogue's acknowledged friend, conpiracy-theorist Michael Collins Piper. During the January '95 board meeting, Frogue accused the ADL of employing a "massive espionage apparatus against thousands of law-abiding American citizens" and asserted that the organization has been "violating the rights of Americans, working in conjunction illegally with various police departments and police agencies, federal, state, and local" (Voice, 2/23/95). At that time, Frogue also questioned an IVC course on the Holocaust, "saying he is 'distressed' that [the instructor] 'is a Holocaust scholar and heavily involved in the ADL’s…Holocaust Project" (Voice, 2/23/95). In 1996, Frogue told the Times that "[the ADL is a] group of spies that actively keeps files on people...people like me." "I believe," he added, "Lee Harvey Oswald worked for the ADL...That's right...I believe the ADL was behind [the JFK assassination]" (11/25/96).
Frogue, who clearly craves attention, achieved national notoriety when, in August of '97, he requested $5,000 in honoraria for four speakers for his Fall '97 "Warren Report" forum--a non-credit "Community Education" offering. Among the scheduled speakers were talk show host Dave Emory, who, according to the Times, "contends that renegade members of Adolf Hitler's elite Nazi echelon" had a role in the JFK assassination, and Piper, who feels that the assassination "was a joint enterprise conducted on the highest levels of the American CIA in collaboration with organized crime--and...with direct and profound involvement by the Israeli intelligence service..." (8/21/97).
Commenting in the Times on Frogue's proposed forum speakers, Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, asserted that "You couldn't find...more embarassing conspiracists in America. Even among conspiracy theorists, these people represent the outer limits." Author and Pulitzer prize finalist Gerald Posner, hitting the nail squarely on the head, opined that, "The harm [of the forum] is setting this in an educational environment, where it has an official stamp of approval."
Frogue himself often claims to detect conspiracies here in the SOCCCD. Early in 1994, he charged that the election of the IVC Academic Senate president was "seriously flawed" and that there had been ballot tampering, though he provided no evidence. In response to Frogue's repeated unfounded and unsupported accusations and his reckless and uninformed remarks regarding the Holocaust course, the IVC senate passed a resolution according to which "Trustee...Frogue...has sought to intrude upon the affairs of the faculty and has repeatedly accused the academic senate of presumed actions or inactions contrary to fact." Frogue responded by calling the resolution an "intellectual drive-by shooting" by an "intellectual spur posse."
During the May 19, 1997, board meeting, after the announcement of a 73% IVC faculty vote of "no confidence" in the board conducted by the academic senate, Frogue carped that "I don't think we have much confidence in [the academic senates]." He went on to accuse faculty of lying: "We have the same type of problem here that we've had over the last three years...And we've seen it in this last week here, where lies get printed in the newspapers...It's called 'blowback.' It's the oldest game in the book. You plant something in the newspaper that's false--I've suffered this type of stuff personally from people in this very room: repeating lies...People (can be) inventive, conscientious, and creative liars...." Evidently, Frogue was referring to articles by, among others, Dan Froomkin (1995) and Kimberly Kindy (1997) of the Register, Ked Francis of the Voice (1995), Michael Granberry of the Times (1997), as well as editorials, by other writers, in the Times and Irvine World News. Why so many unrelated writers would conspire to repeat "lies" about Mr. Frogue is left unexplained, a Frogueian hallmark.
Later in the evening, Frogue added: "I've seen rigged elections...votes of no confidence--I've seen rigged elections in one of the colleges...And so when...people talk about--you know--votes of this or votes of that, I just think you have to take it with a grain of salt."
During the December 13, 1999, board meeting, Frogue offered to report to the Chancellor and the newer trustees concerning the senates' alleged history of deception, saying, "I could never get answers [from the senates] to certain questions about certain operations, certain reports that were being made, replete with false information that was being passed off as fact..." Again, he cited no specifics and no evidence.
In 1997-8, after the "seminar" flap, citizens—assisted by the California Republican Party--attempted to recall Mr. Frogue. Though the effort failed, it was nonetheless uncommonly successful, managing to gather valid signatures from 32,322 registered South Countians. According to Suzanne Slupsky of the county registrar's office, since 1991, only the Frogue recall group, of 36 groups, managed to turn in signatures for validation. (Register, 11/13/98; Times, 11/29/98)
(From The Dissenter’s Dictionary, 1999)
(1) about a dozen former students of Frogue's (he's a high school teacher) of various ages, and with no connection to each other or to a common organization, swear (in signed affidavits) that, in class, Mr. Frogue denied the Holocaust or made racist (and anti-Mormon) remarks;
(2) during an interview that appeared in the 3/23/95 IVC Voice, Mr. Frogue praised the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), the nation's foremost Holocaust denial organization (founded by the nation's foremost anti-Semite, Willis Carto), saying, "There's somebody that wants to engage in the debate about the Holocaust";
(3) in a 4/20/95 Voice article, Frogue is quoted as saying that "...there are too many questions about the Holocaust for it to be judged a certainty in all aspects"; and, finally,
(4) Frogue has consistently failed to clearly and strongly repudiate the support he receives from explicit Holocaust deniers and racists, such as those who spoke at board meetings in January and June of ’98. One supporter--James Scott of Tustin--proclaimed: "I found out that history was basically written by the winners. And there never was a Holocaust. It's nothing but six million lies. It's become a racket. Everywhere you go, every time you pick up the paper, turn on the radio, the TV, here's some Jew screaming about this and that and everything else...Keep up the good work, Dr. Frogue [sic]! There never was a Holocaust!" (January '98). During and after Scott's rant, Frogue smiled and said nothing. (See Times, 1/21/98)
Frogue's numerous 1995-6 board meeting diatribes against the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) are indistinguishable from equally polite fulminations against that organization found in The Spotlight--the nation's most notorious anti-Semitic publication and the employer of Frogue's acknowledged friend, conpiracy-theorist Michael Collins Piper. During the January '95 board meeting, Frogue accused the ADL of employing a "massive espionage apparatus against thousands of law-abiding American citizens" and asserted that the organization has been "violating the rights of Americans, working in conjunction illegally with various police departments and police agencies, federal, state, and local" (Voice, 2/23/95). At that time, Frogue also questioned an IVC course on the Holocaust, "saying he is 'distressed' that [the instructor] 'is a Holocaust scholar and heavily involved in the ADL’s…Holocaust Project" (Voice, 2/23/95). In 1996, Frogue told the Times that "[the ADL is a] group of spies that actively keeps files on people...people like me." "I believe," he added, "Lee Harvey Oswald worked for the ADL...That's right...I believe the ADL was behind [the JFK assassination]" (11/25/96).
Frogue, who clearly craves attention, achieved national notoriety when, in August of '97, he requested $5,000 in honoraria for four speakers for his Fall '97 "Warren Report" forum--a non-credit "Community Education" offering. Among the scheduled speakers were talk show host Dave Emory, who, according to the Times, "contends that renegade members of Adolf Hitler's elite Nazi echelon" had a role in the JFK assassination, and Piper, who feels that the assassination "was a joint enterprise conducted on the highest levels of the American CIA in collaboration with organized crime--and...with direct and profound involvement by the Israeli intelligence service..." (8/21/97).
Commenting in the Times on Frogue's proposed forum speakers, Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, asserted that "You couldn't find...more embarassing conspiracists in America. Even among conspiracy theorists, these people represent the outer limits." Author and Pulitzer prize finalist Gerald Posner, hitting the nail squarely on the head, opined that, "The harm [of the forum] is setting this in an educational environment, where it has an official stamp of approval."
Frogue himself often claims to detect conspiracies here in the SOCCCD. Early in 1994, he charged that the election of the IVC Academic Senate president was "seriously flawed" and that there had been ballot tampering, though he provided no evidence. In response to Frogue's repeated unfounded and unsupported accusations and his reckless and uninformed remarks regarding the Holocaust course, the IVC senate passed a resolution according to which "Trustee...Frogue...has sought to intrude upon the affairs of the faculty and has repeatedly accused the academic senate of presumed actions or inactions contrary to fact." Frogue responded by calling the resolution an "intellectual drive-by shooting" by an "intellectual spur posse."
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| Steve's fave: Holocaust denial literature |
Later in the evening, Frogue added: "I've seen rigged elections...votes of no confidence--I've seen rigged elections in one of the colleges...And so when...people talk about--you know--votes of this or votes of that, I just think you have to take it with a grain of salt."
During the December 13, 1999, board meeting, Frogue offered to report to the Chancellor and the newer trustees concerning the senates' alleged history of deception, saying, "I could never get answers [from the senates] to certain questions about certain operations, certain reports that were being made, replete with false information that was being passed off as fact..." Again, he cited no specifics and no evidence.
In 1997-8, after the "seminar" flap, citizens—assisted by the California Republican Party--attempted to recall Mr. Frogue. Though the effort failed, it was nonetheless uncommonly successful, managing to gather valid signatures from 32,322 registered South Countians. According to Suzanne Slupsky of the county registrar's office, since 1991, only the Frogue recall group, of 36 groups, managed to turn in signatures for validation. (Register, 11/13/98; Times, 11/29/98)
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