John Birch Society
 Epic
Fa-La-La-La-Fail Of The Week: ‘Tis The Season To Be A
‘White Separatist’ Here’s a comment, printed verbatim, from “Betsy,” who identified him or herself as an in-law: Mark is my Brother-in-law. He is not a racist! He just loves America and doesn’t like what IS HAPPENING to our nation…bailouts, abortions, tax increases. He helped me form GrandmaGrizzly.ORG, to help elect candidates who will stop socialisms, terrism, and create FREEDOMS.” That site is real, by the way; and besides boasting the kind of design magic not seen since the heyday of Geocities, Grandma Grizzly features bon mots like these: Trained in Voter Fraud-Spotting..so LOOK OUT ACORN, Black Panthers and Homosexuals!! join us! I have my niece coming up from a “Peace Corps” -type trip where she was digging holes for some darkies in some awful mexican hell-hole in Ecuador but I would love to give her a taste of Real America and have her help make phone calls or make copies or something over there in the office with me. She leans left but I’m not done with her yet and Marv ain’t even got started! Seems like you can’t let kids leave the sanctity of the home/church community and go to college and other countries anymore! They come back talking nonsense about “Privatizing gains and socializing risk”. We’ll give her a taste of our Judeo-Christian Reaganomics! Of course, the NPR thread also had someone complaining that “liberals” reporting on this only “made race relations worse,” conveniently ignoring Eliseuson’s history: flying Aryan Nations and SS flags in front of his home (when asked about this in July, he defended his right to do so while adding, “I’d rather not live amongst people who are not of my race and culture”) and handing out bullet casings at Halloween when he ran out of candy. This in a town that isn’t too far from the AN’s old headquarters. Maybe it’s just me, but these are the kinds of folks I think we’re better off keeping an eye on, should they start feeling “nostalgic.” Just saying. UPDATE: Thanks to the readers for correcting me; apparently Granny is a fake. Whew. That said, these comments from the KXLY story on Eliseuson in July appear not to be: I will have to agree with this man’s neighbors. He is entitled to his beliefs, even if others do not agree. I do not agree however, that whites cannot have an equivalent to the United Negro College Fund or any club or organization that excludes others based on their color, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. Even in DC we have the Congressional Black Caucus. The day a white, christian male is treated equally with everyone else in this country, will truly be a day to celebrate. Nothing wrong with sticking -up for your race, the other races do it. I’m sick of ” politically correct ” whites wetting their pants every time someone mentions colored people being offended. What about the 2 black panthers who hovered around a polling place, with clubs ??? If they had come around the polling place I was working at I would have called the Sheriff and the State Police ! There’s worse in
the thread. Way worse. Total
Depravity: Racism in Idaho Racist. But the most
despicable aspect is the noose being held in the
snowman’s hand. I’m really surprised someone
hasn’t destroyed the thing. The chap who made it sounds
like a real prize of a human being. The
Dead Hand of the Junior Mints King–Robert Welch Takes
Over in Texas Back in the late 50s and early 60s a fringe political group called the John Birch Society attracted a lot of media notice. It still exists today, although its fifteen minutes are long over. It was named after John Birch, an American soldier and missionary killed by the Chinese in 1945. The group was founded by Robert Welch, heir to the Welch candy fortune. He published, at his own expense, a book called The Politician, which advanced the thesis that Dwight Eisenhower was either an agent or dupe of the Communist Party. The JBS official agenda included items like getting the US out of the UN and radical reform to the tax code. JBS bumper stickers included “Support Your Local Police,” “Impeach Earl Warren,” and “US out of UN.” When the media first discovered the JBS many mainstream Republicans distanced themselves from it as an extremist organization. Democrats condemned it. Comedians made jokes about it. Welch is, posthumously, having the last laugh. His ideology has taken over a large segment of the Republican Party. Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News pundits are advocating the same sorts of ideas that the US laughed at in the latter days of the Eisenhower administration. I guess I’ve
become fixed in the mind set of my childhood. I still feel
the peculiar mixture of fear and amusement those ideas
elicited from me in 1960. On one hand I’m frightened
that people can take this sort of nonsense seriously and on
the other hand I can’t help seeing its absurdity. Makes
me wonder if time has passed me by. FBI files shed light
on Ezra Taft Benson, Ike and the Birch Society The New Yorker magazine, in its Oct. 18, 2010 issue, included Benson as one of the tea party’s ideological founding fathers — which it called its “confounding fathers” —noting how Benson’s public writing and speeches are quoted and admired by commentator Glenn Beck, an icon of the movement. (It also noted how Beck, who is LDS, actively promotes the works of the late Utah author/activist Cleon Skousen, who denounced communist corruption in the U.S. government while defending the John Birch Society.) Benson would live
another 22 years — enough time to ascend to the
presidency of his church and to see the fall of communism in
Eastern Europe.urging LDS members to constantly read the
Book of Mormon. Benson died at age 94 in 1994. What
were 'communist goals"? Some people have posted a list of 45 "Current Communist Goals" which originally appeared in former FBI Special Agent W. Cleon Skousen's 1958 book entitled, The Naked Communist. This list was inserted
into the Congressional Record in 1963 and this list has been
circulating constantly since that time. Similarly, many
people claim that the United States has adopted 9 of the 10
planks of the Communist Manifesto! Glenn Beck's 2003 memoir entitled "The Enemy Within" reprinted Skousen's "Communist Goals of 1963" and Beck has frequently recommended Skousen's writings. However, what is missing from every account is WHERE did Cleon Skousen obtain his understanding of what he claimed were "Communist goals"? There is a profound difference between what ideas or policy proposals Communists endorsed, for tactical purposes, (i.e. the Communist Party Line), versus what they ACTUALLY believed in and wanted to achieve. The FBI's primary expert on the communist movement (their Chief Inspector who later became an FBI Assistant Director) made speeches around the country during the 1960's in which he gave a list of “Do’s and Don’ts For Anti-Reds”. In those speeches he often quoted comments made by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Here are some of the key "don'ts" “1. Do not speak or act in any manner that would create fear, hysteria, and confusion. These are the ‘ingredients for Communist coups in nations which have fallen under its spell’ says J. Edgar Hoover… 2. Do not make false charges of communism against other citizens or sow seeds of suspicion, distrust, and alarmism. 3. Do not use, unless you are capable of accurately defining such ambiguous and misleading words and expressions as ‘red’, ‘radical’, ‘leftist’. ‘left wing’, ‘left wing supporter’, ‘socialist’, ‘collectivist’, ‘self-styled liberal’, ‘rightist’, ‘right-wing’, ‘right-wing supporter’, ‘radical right’, ‘reactionary’, and ‘fascist’. Such vague and obscure terms having nothing to contribute to a clear, intelligent and objective understanding of difficult and complex social problems. Their use in the past has given rise to much of the current confusion in the field of communism and religion. 4. Do not confuse legitimate dissent with communism. Hoover gives this warning. ‘Knowing what communism really is and how it operates will also help us to avoid the danger of confusing communism with legitimate dissent on controversial issues. Communism feeds on social ferment. On both the local and national levels, the CPUSA is continually exploiting social, economic, and political grievances for its own tactical purposes. For this reason, the ‘party line’ will frequently coincide with the view of many noncommunists on specific issues. We must not, therefore, indiscriminately label as Communists those whose opinions on a particular question may, on occasion, parallel the official party position. We must also guard against the tendency to characterize as Communists those who merely disagree with us or who advocate unorthodox or unpopular beliefs. When anyone is erroneously branded a Communist, it not only constitutes an injustice to the individual, but also helps communism by diffusing the strength of anti-communist forces. Given this as a preface, why does anyone think that Cleon Skousen had a correct understanding of "Communist goals" -- particularly when you factor in the highly derogatory judgments made by senior FBI officials regarding Skousen's post-FBI endeavors?? For example, one FBI memo makes the following observation about Skousen's FBI career: “As you know, we frequently receive inquiries from the public regarding Skousen’s qualifications to speak with authority on the subject of communism. In view of his obvious efforts to capitalize on his former Bureau association, I feel that it would be well for us to take positive measures to clarify the Bureau’s position in regard to Skousen whenever we receive public inquiries concerning him. I feel, for example, that in addition to stating that his views are his own, that we should also add in correspondence concerning him that he was not regarded as any authority on communism while employed with the FBI. That is certainly a true statement and it might serve in some measure to prevent Skousen from using the FBI’s name for his own personal gain.” [HQ 67-69602, #338; 1/2/63 memo from W.C. Sullivan to A.H. Belmont.] Insofar as somebody correctly identifies a "Communist goal" -- what, precisely, is that supposed to mean for Americans? Are we to make all of our decisions based upon what Communists think or propose or favor? For example:
To see actual copies
of several FBI memos which pertain to W. Cleon Skousen, see
ernie1241.googlepages.com/documents |
