Gordon Clay here. The John Birch Society has an interesting ideological stance that doesn't get talked about much.

Their review of the movie Invictus that came out last year called Mandela "nothing more than a communist terrorist thug."

In 2007, they introduced the Public Service Edition of the "Overview of America" DVD as a tool to indoctrinate middle-school thru college students with their anti-democracy, anti-historical program. (http://bit.ly/eWH39u) By October, 2008, over 60,000 DVDs had been distributed.

They believe the Illuminati, created in 1776, is still an active conspiracy out to destroy America. (http://bit.ly/gZeBwY) Who are they? The Bush family, Lady Gaga, maybe even the John Birch Society itself? They do believe that it includes many corporate and government officials such as J.F.K., and they called President Eisenhower "a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist Conspiracy".

They were so against the Civil Rights Act they bought billboards calling for the impeachment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren and they didn't much like the League of Women Voters, either. The Constitution didn't give women the right to vote in the first place. That was reserved for elite, white, land-owning men.

And adding fluoride to drinking water was a Communist mind control plot, after all.

They now say they never said many of these things though their own newsletters show differently. (http://bit.ly/9LCxLd) What they haven't said is that they no longer carry these beliefs.

The Republican Party eventually distanced themselves from the John Birch Society because of some of these beliefs but it appears that many TEA Party adherents have taken up the banner. Who's out to brainwash your child?