John Birch Society

For the last few weeks, Religious Right groups have been pressuring CPAC organizers to drop the gay conservative group GOProud for the list of event co-sponsors and threatening to boycott next year's conference if GOP was allowed to participate.

The pressure prompted the American Conservative Union, which organizes CPAC, to put the issue before board members for a vote ... and CPAC has decided to allow both GOProud and the John Birch Society to participate:

Several socially conservative organizations have threatened to boycott one of the largest gatherings of conservative activists of the year if a group of gay Republicans is allowed to serve as a participating organization at the event.

Social conservatives, including the National Organization for Marriage among others, staged a walk-out at a meeting of board members of the Conservative Political Action Conference, according to multiple board members, to protest CPAC's decision to allow GOProud to join the event as more than just a vendor organization.

Those groups put enough pressure on the American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC, that officials put GOProud's fate, along with that of the ultra-conservative John Birch Society, up for a vote. Results made available to board members on Wednesday showed the board voted to allow both groups to continue their affiliation with CPAC.

That could send socially conservative groups packing and cause a rift in the CPAC board. GOProud has its enemies on the board of directors. Board member Cleta Mitchell is stridently opposed to allowing the gay group to participate and has led the charge to kick them out of the event, according to other board members.

This move will undoubtedly anger the many Religious Right groups who regularly participate in CPAC ... but that doesn't seem to particularly concern organizers:

CPAC organizers strongly suggest that this is overplayed. NOM, for example, is neither a board member -- there are only three of those, David Keene, Millie Hallow, and Cleta Mitchell -- or a participating organization of CPAC. "2010 was the first and only year they participated in CPAC," said CPAC director Lisa De Pasquale. "They have not registered for 2011 and have not attended any planning meetings." Participating organizations do not actually get votes on speakers, and while NOM has looked for help from the American Conservative Union's board, it's got only one like-minded GOProud critic -- Mitchell -- on the CPAC board.

 In less than two years, the Tea Party movement emerged with an angry shout, became a major player in the national debate over health care reform, toppled incumbent senators and defeated candidates backed by the GOP establishment, and pushed radically right-wing views about the role of government into public debate. And they’re about to see a number of their candidates elected to Congress.

• From Rosenthal’s opening remarks, a comparison of the role Fox News has played in the Tea Party’s rise with the role of Berlusconi’s media empire in his rise to political power in Italy.
• From the keynote address by author Rick Perlstein, a reminder that angry reaction to liberal political ascendancy is a regular part of our history, and that the lack of a robust left-wing populism opens the door to the dangers that are particular to right-wing extremism.   
• Several scholars reporting that one-or-the-other descriptions of the movement (grassroots or Astroturf?) are usually too simplistic; at this point the movement is a fluid mixture not easily categorized.
• Professor Christopher Parker from the University of Washington presented polling data showing that supporters of the Tea Party movement are more likely to harbor negative attitudes toward Blacks, Latinos, and gay people.
• Professor Martin Cohen from James Madison University presented a fascinating look at another movement that built power within the GOP: he analyzed the effectiveness and impact of the Religious Right’s “first wave” – think Falwell and Moral Majority – and its “second wave” – think Ralph Reed and the Christian Coalition. He suggested that the Tea Party movement currently sounds more like the first wave in the level of public anger and hostility to compromise, and argues that the movement would have a bigger impact if it takes some lessons from the second wave. (Lessons, by the way, that Reed himself is happily imparting through his new Faith and Freedom Coalition)
• Professor Alan Abromowitz from Emory University presented evidence that the increasing partisanship of recent decades set the stage for the kind of no-compromise politics of the Tea Party crowd.  Since the 1970s, Republicans have had steadily smaller regard for Democratic presidential candidates, with the biggest fall among the most active.
• Charles Postrel, San Francisco State University historian and award-winning author, challenged the use of the term “populism” in connection with a movement that is drawing inspiration from the likes of the John Birch Society and right-wing author Cleon Skousen, who is being heavily promoted by Glenn Beck.
• Chip Berlet, who analyzes right-wing movements for Political Research Associates, discussed ways that right-wing populists use demonization, scapegoating, and conspiracy theories to justify "apocalyptic aggression."
• Lisa Disch, a University of Michigan professor of political science and women’s studies, gave a fascinating “contrarian” analysis that described the Tea Party and the racial resentments evident in the movement as an outgrowth of the New Deal rather than a rejection of it.
• Devin Burghart, Vice President for the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, discussed the group’s recent report, Tea Party Nationalism, and its findings about the infiltration of local Tea Party groups by racist and anti-immigrant activists.

Every time I write a post about something Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid as written (which seems to be happening quite frequently lately) I marvel at his consistency.  While most of the people we write about frequently occasionally write uninteresting or irrelevant things that don't really warrant any sort of coverage, Kincaid seems able to produce pieces so chock-full of craziness that they are impossible to ignore.

Case in point is his latest column, which is built around refuting this Politico article by Kenneth Vogel claiming that the conservative establishment is finally trying to distance itself from the "movement’s extremist elements."

Now, I don't buy Vogel's claims for a minute ... and neither does Kincaid, but for completely different reasons.  For instance, Vogel cites as evidence of his premise the fact that Ryan Sorba was jeered at CPAC for attacking GOProud from the stage, but Kincaid sees it differently, claiming that it was those who were booing Sorba who are extremists who don't represent the conservative movement:

What he ignores is the evidence that the "jeering" came mostly from non-conservatives, many of them libertarians, and that the "anti-gay activist," Ryan Sorba of Young Americans for Freedom, was rebutting a pro-gay speaker, a leader of a group who told me he wasn't a conservative in the first place.

To clear things up for Kenneth Vogel and others in the media, let us make it clear that a true conservative like Howard Phillips, who has been a leader in the conservative movement for several decades, understands that conservatism means traditional moral and religious values, a strong national defense, and economic freedom. There is nothing complicated or confusing about it. The homosexual movement, founded by a member of the Communist Party by the name of Harry Hay, simply doesn't qualify for admission, no matter how many libertarians in the CPAC audience may applaud for GOProud or jeer Ryan Sorba.

In order to purge the conservative movement of its extremists, CPAC will have to remove its own organizers who let them in.

The story ignores the real problem of how the "conservative establishment"-in the form of the CPAC organizers--picked actual and real extremists to co-sponsor their event. And those were the self-described "gay conservatives" who reject the social conservatism that has been an essential part of the conservative movement. The well-established and well-known Family Research Council pulled out of CPAC because CPAC organizer David Keene decided to allow GOProud, a relatively new organization that works for the election of "centrist" and liberal Republicans, into the event. But this mistake is overlooked by Vogel.

[Does anybody have any idea what Kincaid is talking about when he says that the Family Research Council pulled out of CPAC?  I know the Liberty University Law School did so, but I don't recall FRC ever following suit.]

Kincaid then goes on to dispute Vogel's claim that some conservatives were uneasy about the fact that the John Birch Society was allowed to co-host CPAC ... and does so by defending the John Birch Society:

Communism was and is a conspiracy. Without commenting on every charge made by the JBS or its leaders over the years, its central claim--that U.S. leaders are working with the communists and others to lay the groundwork for world government--cannot be dismissed out of hand. Objectively speaking, one has to admit that talk of global taxes and world government is frequently in the news and cannot be said to be the fantasies of the "black helicopter" crowd. Even the Pope has stated his belief in a "World Political Authority." His own Vatican newspaper published a favorable review of Marxist theory.

At this late date, no one can seriously doubt that a "New World Order" of some kind is coming into being. The real questions are to what extent it is being deliberately designed to subvert America's standing in the world and the American way of life, and what role President Obama is playing in it.

Critics of the JBS have to concede the organization has been on the right track about an emerging world government.

Kincaid finally wraps up his piece by defending the Birthers and attacking the "so-called 'conservatives'" who spoke to Vogel for his Politico piece, accusing them of giving the conservative movement a bad name.

I can hardly wait for Part II of Kincaid's piece, which he promises will focus on the conservative movement's relationship with "Alex Jones, Russian Television, and the Oath Keepers."

Yesterday Jon Henke over at The Next Right wrote a post blasting the sort of nonsense spewed by WorldNetDaily as well as those organizations and individuals who "choose to support WND through advertising and email list rental or other collaboration":

In the 1960's, William F. Buckley denounced the John Birch Society leadership for being "so far removed from common sense" and later said "We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner."

The Birthers are the Birchers of our time, and WorldNetDaily is their pamphlet. The Right has mostly ignored these embarrassing people and organizations, but some people and organizations inexplicably choose to support WND through advertising and email list rental or other collaboration. For instance, I have been told that F.I.R.E (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) - an otherwise respectable group that does important work - uses the WND email list. They should stop.

No respectable organization should support the kind of fringe idiocy that WND peddles. Those who do are not respectable.

As Terry Krepel of Media Matters quickly pointed out, one of the organizations that has rented WND's mailing list is the Republican National Committee.

I'd like to add a few more: what about Mike Huckabee and Representatives Michele Bachmann, Tom Price, and Steve King who will all be appearing at the upcoming How To Take Back America Conference, which features WND among its sponsors and has WND founder, editor and CEO Joseph Farah serving on it host committee?

Or what about the 2007 Values Voter Debate featuring GOP presidential hopefuls like Huckabee, Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, and Ron Paul, where Farah served as a moderator?

Or, for that matter, what about CPAC, where Farah has been a speaker and panel participant?

Henke is threatening to "boycott any of those organizations that will not renounce any further support for WorldNetDaily" ... but if he did that, he'd literally have to boycott the entire right-wing political movement.

I grew up in Appleton, WI and when I was seeking employment after I graduated from college, I diligently searched through the local newspaper for possible positions.  One day, I saw a listing for an organization needing a political researcher and immediately submitted my resume.  A few days later, I received a call asking me to come in for an interview with a local organization whose name I had heard before but didn’t know much about, so I headed to the library to do a bit of research about them and quickly realized that I was probably not what they were looking for but I still went to the interview nonetheless, open-minded and hopeful.

Needless to say, it did not go well and degenerated into a bit of a shouting match, after which I was escorted from the building.  Today, that same newspaper where I first saw the job listing, The Post Crescent, has profiled that very organization and you can probably understand why I didn’t get the job:

The young couple sipped chocolate milkshakes in a front-window booth at Culver's, unaware that the low-slung brown office building across the street was command central in the war to save America from a godless conspiracy.

By summer, the leafy lower branches of a maple tree will obscure some of the building's silver letters, but on this spring evening the sign was clearly visible.

"The John Birch Society," it read.

…

20 years ago this spring, when the John Birch Society moved its headquarters to the current location west of Appleton, home of then-chief executive officer G. Allen Bubolz, the group was hard to overlook — its unassuming small-town base notwithstanding.

In Grand Chute, the society's new headquarters shared a hometown with one of its best-known heroes, U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Like McCarthy, the Birchers achieved notoriety for an obsession with exposing communist infiltrators during the Cold War.

The organization is named for John Birch, a missionary and Army Air Force surveillance officer killed by communists in China 10 days after the end of World War II, making him the first American casualty of the Cold War.

During the Cold War, the John Birch Society branded President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, as a "dedicated, conscious agent of the communist conspiracy."

Years later, the group derided President Ronald Reagan, also a Republican, as a "lackey" of the perceived communist conspiracy.

Communist agents infiltrated or manipulated every level of the American government, John Birch Society founder Robert Welch claimed.

Art Thompson, the organization's 70-year-old chief executive officer, believes the John Birch Society saved America.

Eventually I moved to Washington DC and ended up here at People For the American Way.  So now, instead of helping the Birchers save America from a “godless conspiracy,” I became part of that very godless conspiracy that is, to hear them tell it, resolutely seeking to destroy this great country.

Go figure.

Every once in a while I run across things that are just so bizarre that there is nothing I could possibly add.  This article by Ben Fenwick from the OK Gazette about Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern’s appearance at the John Birch Society’s recent “Clouds Over America” conference is one of those things:

The crowd in the banquet hall at the Character Conference Center, housed in an old Holiday Inn in downtown Oklahoma City, sat packed, rapt with attention as Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, told them she’d found it: the gay agenda.

Kern said the agenda is in a book called “After the Ball,” by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, a book named after a musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan.” She recounted the bullet points of a secret public relations campaign to have gays accepted by the general public — step by step — with the final goal being not just acceptance of gays by heterosexuals, but eventual triumph of homosexuality as a superior lifestyle.

Among the items in the agenda, Kern said, was getting the public to view homosexuality as a matter of taste, like a preference for strawberry or vanilla ice cream. She quoted the text: “The masses should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself.”

“You know,” Kern said. “I’ve done a lot of reading on this. I wish I could describe to you their behavior. I will not because I would be redder than this suit. It’s their behavior that we oppose.

“This theme of equality and freedom is the approach that the homosexuals are using today — totally perverting the true intention of what our Constitution meant. … The homosexuals get it — it’s a struggle between our religious freedoms and their right to do what they want to do.”

Around the banquet hall, Kern’s speech met with applause and calls of “Amen!” from a crowd stoked in a crucible of conspiracy and intrigue. For the whole day, the “Clouds Over America” conference, run and organized by the John Birch Society, held lecture after lecture Jan. 23 and 24 dedicated to explaining their various conspiracy-laden tenets. Here’s one — that a godless secret society, the Illuminati, has been battling against the founding of the United States of America and decent citizens to live in peaceful, worshipful freedom.

Kern called for a new “Great Awakening,” referring to a period of religious revivals from the 18th century considered precursor to the American Revolution.

“The solution is another Great Awakening, folks,” Kern said. “We need a spiritual revival, and that will only come if God’s people, especially you pastors, will stand in your pulpits and vocally preach the word of God and thus declare the Lord this sin, and preach it in love, only then does our nation have a chance of overcoming the scourge of AIDS, HIV and the devastating destruction that the homosexual lifestyle is bringing on your children and our grandchildren.”

Be sure to read the whole thing, because it just gets crazier from there, with speakers explaining that America is not really at war with Islamic fundamentalists, but rather a vast Communist conspiracy that includes the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Trade Organization, the Federal Reserve, the United Nations, and every US Secretary of State.