Bircher Republicans are now Americas 3rd Party (and the Tea Party is dead)

[miles]

I didn't get past The Daily Kos.

 

[unregistered]

 

[mercury14]

The article is fabrication. Absolute lie.

FWIW I also think the Birch thing is inaccurate and unfair. The bit about the group's belief system and slogans though is perfectly fair since they would openly admit it.

 

[mercury14]

I didn't get past The Daily Kos.

This board sees probably 250 right wing blogs for every left wing one. But once in a while when a left wing one is floated you have a hissy fit because the source doesn't meet your high standards of objectivity.

 

[hogjack]

I like big butts and I can not lie
You other brothers can't deny
That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist
And a round thing in your face
You get sprung.

 

[unregistered]

 

[1sickbastard]

Show me where they say that in their Blue Book.

Do you have a copy of their 'Blue Book'? It's not to be found on their website.
http://www.jbs.org/

 

[mercury14]

Show me where they say that in their Blue Book.

Accurate or not accurate?


· Honor the Constitution

· Reduce the size and intrusiveness of the government

· Stop raising taxes

· No more bailouts or crony capitalism

· Repeal Obamacare

· Cease out-of-control spending

· Reduce the national debt

· Bring back American prosperity and jobs; and as noted by spud1,

· Restore traditional American values

 

[KingOrfeo]

Do you have a copy of their 'Blue Book'? It's not to be found on their website.
http://www.jbs.org/

Here it is.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Your post is full of shit. The John Birch Society was founded by Robert Welch. It was first and foremost an anti-Communist organization.

Was. But then, and long before the Cold War ended, they morphed into something . . . a whole lot stranger and fouler.

The John Birch Society was founded by candy manufacturer Robert Welch in 1958 to fight the Communist menace to the United States. An early book by Welch, The Politician, became controversial after it became widely known that an early manuscript included the accusation that President Dwight Eisenhower was a "conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist conspiracy." Oil baron Fred C. Koch was also among the original members.

Who is John Birch?

The society was named after a missionary named John Birch. According to the society, John Birch, a missionary in China who joined the United States military during World War II, was the first victim of the Cold War. Despite helping the Chinese by fighting the Japanese there, after the war he was supposedly killed by the Communists[2], but the US government kept it quiet until Robert Welch discovered the truth and exploited the poor son-of-a-bitch's name for his own political agenda.

In the post-WWII world

In their early days the JBS was a somewhat respected institution. However, things soon moved in a more conspiracist and radical direction. For example the JBS at one point claimed that then President Dwight Eisenhower was a member of the American Communist Party (simply for talking to the Soviet Union as opposed to starting World War III). "Birchers", as they were known, wrote a lot of letters during their early years on various scare issues, such as opposition to summits between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and keeping fluoride out of water supply, from which it could enter our precious bodily fluids and corrupt our purity of essence[3]. The Birchers were frequent promoters of moral panics on everything from the Panama Canal treaties to the nuclear disarmanent movement, all claimed to be part of the Communist movement to undermine American security, and shared cross-membership and tactics with early religious right groups like Billy James Hargis' "Christian Crusade".

Their tactics quickly alienated the mainstream American conservatives; years later, William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote an article on how he, Barry Goldwater, Russell Kirk, and a bunch of P.R. people did some very delicate maneuvering so that the Goldwater campaign could denounce the John Birch Society without losing the votes of the society's members, with Goldwater eventually stating that "We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner."[4] Nevertheless, they were out campaigning on Goldwater's behalf; during the 1964 campaign, Birchers mastered the tactic of mass distribution of cheap paperbacks, and three in particular: None Dare Call It Treason by John Stormer, A Texan Looks At Lyndon by J. Evetts Haley, and A Choice, Not An Echo by Phyllis Schlafly. You can find multiple copies of all three at your local thrift store, most of them still unread.

They did the same thing in 1972 with a little book called None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen, which posited the conspiracy theory that the environmental movement, the peace movement, women's libbers, the mainstream media, international Soviet Communism, the United Nations, and the Book of the Month Club (no mention of water fluoridation though, surprisingly) were all in cahoots with the Rockefellers who sought to control the world through the Council on Foreign Relations. Somewhere around this point the Birchers morphed from being mostly concerned with militant anti-Communism into a group more concerned with exposing The Conspiracy. While keeping known anti-Semites out of their organization and refraining from explicit mention of the imagined "Illuminati" in favor of more prescient concerns about the Trilateral Commission, they did republish John Robinson's 1798 book about the Illuminati, Proofs of a Conspiracy, as part of their "Americanist Library" series. The Birchers' favored term for the "conspiracy" was the New World Order. Not surprisingly, their rapidly falling membership in the 70s and 80s turned around after 1990 when George H.W. Bush in an act of ill-advised stupidity used that very phrase in a speech. This gave the Birchers a new lease on life during the 90s. After the New World Order conspiracy theories took outlandish and bizarre directions during the 1990s ranging from tales of black helicopters to shape-shifting reptilians, the Birchers staked out a position of relative moderation among the lunatic fringe and warned against acceptance of these more outlandish theories while promoting the New World Order theory as laid out in Gary Allen's 1972 book as being a liberal-secularist conspiracy led by the Rockefellers and other high financiers to bring about a socialist world government.

Today

Their current whereabouts, alas, are unknown.[5] File them in the "where are they now" pile next to Spinal Tap and The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo.

The John Birch Society does still exist. Today, they are most worried about threats to US sovereignty, most particularly the (never actually proposed) union between the US, Canada and Mexico. They are also adamantly opposed to free trade, immigration, and the United Nations.

Recently, they have morphed into/been aligning themselves with the Tea Party movement, and are even co-sponsoring CPAC,[6] the largest conservative conference in the US.

Cue the Chad Mitchell Trio!

This Robert Welch, BTW, was the maker of Sugar Daddies, Sugar Babies, Junior Mints and Pom Poms.

 

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

The JBS was founded primarily as the preeminent American Anti-Communist organization by Robert Welch of candy fame. Many notable Americans have served in it's hierarchy.

Other than Fred Koch ("notable" in the sense of "notorious" -- the Koch Brothers are his legitimate-bastard sons), who?

 

[KingOrfeo]

I didn't get past The Daily Kos.

Someday, miles. Keep trying, and practice with your Weekly Reader every week. *pat*pat

 

[KingOrfeo]

The article is fabrication. Absolute lie.

Which part?

This is the Birch Society, not the populist Tea Party from 2009.

or

Birchers are anti-government, anti-immigration, anti-compromise, and opposed to taxes in all forms and appearances. The Bircher billionaires' agenda is not the mainstream Republican businessmen's agenda.

The first is perhaps debatable, but not the second, if you substitute "Tea Partiers" for Birchers.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Merciful fuck,I thought the damned Birtchers were gone by the mid-eighties!Just what we need,our own home grown National Socialist party.

Oh, the Birchers are still around . . . but they're not "our own home grown National Socialist party," not at all.

This is.

Also this and this.

And this and this and this too, if you kinda squint.

 

[renard_ruse]

I didn't get past The Daily Kos.

I'm wasn't familiar with it before. Obviously, I wasn't missing much.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I'm wasn't familiar with it before. Obviously, I wasn't missing much.

Well, it's just a blog. You want to read stuff that's both worthwhile and edited, try The Nation.