John Birch Society

I don't belong to this but I got this link in a newsletter and have been exploring the site.
I have seen some things that JBS promoted, some DVD's and things but I never really looked into the organisation itself before. I knew that they had a strong anti UN program but they have a much larger agenda than that. Interesting.


"One of the reasons the Birch Society has grown so rapidly over the
past year and a half and continues to grow today is the integrity and
reliability of information made available by the Society over the past
50 years. If folks are intellectually honest and willing to search for
the truth, no matter where it leads and what truth may present itself
as, they will be amazed at how accurate the Society has been in
predicting what is happening in America today. For more information on
the John Birch Society log on to www.jbs.org."

 

How so? Don't remember seeing anything "racist" in their literature.

 

I admittedly don't know a whole lot about JBS but I had never heard that accusation. So I did some checking online. The following pretty well sums it up. It is a long read. I copied only parts of it to get the gist. The entire article is here http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur56.htm
There are several articles but this one was the most exhaustive.



"The John Birch Society! Isn't that some sort of radical group?"

<FONT face=Arial>"Doesn't it have something to do with racism and anti-Semitism?"

"Aren't those people like the Nazis and the Klan?"<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comThese characterizations of the John Birch Society are completely baseless. But, mention the John Birch Society's name to some Americans and be prepared for a response similar to what you've just read. And, strange as it may seem, there isn't any malicious intent on the part of most who utter such defamatory nonsense. Decent and honorable men and women have been led to believe something that is totally false.

Press for a reason why condemnation of the John Birch Society might be expressed and you'll likely find that those who give it have never read anything published by the Society, seen any of its films or video programs, or heard any of its spokesmen give a speech or air the organization's views on radio or television.

In other words, there are many Americans whose opinions about the John Birch Society are not based on what the organization has said or done but on what others have said of it. And, usually, these are individuals who insist that they always make up their own minds and are not influenced by the mass media or anyone else.

On the other hand, should mention of the Society's name elicit a positive response, you can be virtually certain who ever gave it has read John Birch literature or had some direct contact with the organization.

You may also encounter other Americans, of course, who readily admit that they know nothing about the Society, and maybe have never even heard of it. If that' s the case, you're likely talking to someone 35 years of age or younger who was not influenced by the withering smear campaign directed at the Society in the early 1960s.

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In late 1960, Communist Party leaders from over 80 nations were summoned to an important meeting in Moscow. Out of that huge gathering came a mandate to all communists everywhere to wage a "resolute struggle against anti-Communism." Six months later, the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) conducted hearings about this significant directive. One of its most important witnesses was Edward Hunter, a renowned student of communist strategy and tactics. It was he who had coined the term "brainwashing" after studying the tactics used by the communists against American POWs in Korea.

So far as the American Communists were concerned, this was an order_plain and incontrovertible. It was not lightly printed. It was an implementation of orders from the highest source of the world Communist movement, and it was therefore imperative that the Party here do everything in its power to render the Birch Society, the anti-Communist schools, and all of the other rising anti-Communist organizations ineffective....

So, on February 25, 1961, People's World, the official newspaper of the Communist Party on the West Coast, followed the orders given by Moscow and published its first attack under the headline, "Enter (from stage right) the John Birch Society." A typical piece of communist innuendo and falsehood, it alerted all communists to the Society's existence and to the need to blacken its name. Had the errors and distortions in that article remained only with Communist Party members, the Society would never have suffered the intense vilification it was soon to experience.

Time Magazine Follows the Lead

A little more than one week later, however, Time magazine published its own broadside about the Society in an article entitled "The Americanists." Where People 's World had labeled the Society's local chapters "cells," so did Time.

Where the communist press had taken Robert Welch's disapproval of "democracy" completely out of context. Time also made it appear that the Birch Society's founder was condemning America. (Robert Welch had always taken great pains to explain that our nation was established as a republic, not a democracy, and he cited the very strong opinions about this distinction given by many of America's Founding Fathers.)

With Time taking the lead, virtually all organs of America' s mass media immediately joined in the attack on the infant John Birch Society. From being charged with secrecy and being condemned for operating like the communists, the Society was now being accused of racism, anti-Semitism, fascism, Nazism, and the whole roster of well-known smears. Members were called extremists, radicals, super-patriots, ultras, subversives, lunatics, and fanatics. It seemed as though no stone was left unturned in tar-brushing a few thousand Americans and the organization they had joined to learn more about their country and to work together to protect it from
its enemies.
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Had all of the charges aimed at the Society come merely from the communist press, they would have amounted to little more than a petty annoyance. But they were coming from the nation's mass media_from newspapers, magazines, and radio and television programming that most Americans respected. Yet, the tactic being used against the Society was standard communist fare, obviously being carried out by individuals who were not party members but were following someone else's lead.
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After having tried unsuccessfully to have the Society examined by federal agencies. Robert Welch, on March 22, 1961, formally requested the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on un-American Activities to conduct its own investigation. Senator Hugh M. Burns, its chairman, responded in the affirmative, and the only investigation of the John Birch Society ever conducted by an official body was launched.

The subcommittee read through all of the Society' s literature, sent trained investigators to interview supporters and detractors, took testimony from scores of persons, examined all of the press accounts about the Society, even obtained reports from agents sent covertly to Society chapter meetings. Its work consumed two full years.

On June 12, 1963, the subcommittee filed its 62-page report and released copies to the press. Opponents of the Society were shocked to discover that what they hoped would destroy the Society once and for all turned out, instead, to be a wholesale exoneration of the many charges against it. About charges of secrecy and fascism, the subcommittee's report stated:

"We have not found the Society to be either a secret or a fascist organization, nor have we found the great majority of its members in California to be mentally unstable, crackpots, or hysterical about the threat of Communist subversion." (Page 61)

Regarding charges of anti-Semitism and racism, the report offered: "Our investigations have disclosed no evidence of anti-Semitism on the partof anyone connected with the John Birch Society in California, and muchevidence to the effect that it opposes racism in all forms." (Page 39)

In its concluding paragraph, the report stated: "Our investigation and study was requested by the Society, which had been publicly charged withbeing a secret, fascist, subversive, un-American, anti-Semiticorganization. We have not found any of these accusations to be supportedby the evidence." (Pages 61-62)

The report pointed out that the all-out attack on the Society had beenlaunched by the Communist Party "with an article in the People's World,California Communist newspaper, in February 1961." (Page 25)






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I got this in a newsletter from one of the PAC's I belong to. The founder is a Bircher. I thought it was a pretty good read.





++ RACHEL MADDOW, THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY AND GLEN BECK

About a month ago it was announced that the John Birch Society would
be one of the sponsoring organizations for the C-PAC convention to be
held in Washington, a few weeks from now. The announcement caused the
lesbian talk show host Rachael Maddow to get her panties in such a
tight wad, I thought her eyes were going to pop out. She went on a
tirade which lasted around 12 minutes, suggesting there was such a
thing as a right wing fringe, and then there was the Birch Society
which was to the right of the fringe.

Maddow really lacks the intellectual capacity to properly understand
the positioning of groups on a political scale. Truth is, The Birch
Society would fall into the category of Constitutional moderates, or
in the same position as our founding fathers. To the far right are
found the anarchists, or those who believe in no government or the
absence of such. Of course on the far left are the Communists,
socialists, fascists, progressives and yes the Nazis, though Maddow
probably believes the Nazis (national socialists) would fall on the
far right.

To help her try and add some "gravitas" to her little temper tantrum,
she had a writer from the Wall Street Journal on her program also
talking about the Birch Society. He was explaining that the Society
has seen evidences of "conspiratorial" influences upon our society and
government. Part of his evidence was that we spoke of the
"International Communist Conspiracy" to rule the world. I believe he
would have preferred to refer to it as the "C" word rather than have
to say the full word Communism.

Then he said something which was really interesting. He suggested we
were having an influence upon Glen Beck. Though he was quick to say,
Beck was cautious not to use some of the same language Birchers use
such as the "conspiracy" word, none the less Beck was making reference
to many of the same things the Birchers refer to. He suggested Beck
was saying things like, until recently I would have never believed
there was a "plan" or perhaps an "organized effort" dating back many
years behind the policies we have today in the Obama administration
today or perhaps in the Bush administration which proceeded the
Democrat rule of today.

Several weeks ago, I mentioned that I had become a fan of Beck’s TV
show, though I don’t care for his radio program. I try to watch as
many of his programs as possible using my DVR to reduce the time
needed to view the program. Let me say, after watching close to 60 of
his programs now, without a doubt in my mind, Beck is producing the
finest information on TV of which I am aware. It is just outstanding.

This past Thursday evening, he had one of his bombastic programs, full
of humor and body gesticulations as he presented the information he
wanted conveyed. However, Friday evening he interviewed 3 men on his
program and in one hour did the best job I have ever seen of putting
together the big picture of the evil influences and players over the
past century which have shaped America into its current statist
condition.

His guests were R.J. Pestritto, author of American Progressivism, and
Burton Folsom Jr. author of New Deal - Raw Deal. Both of these men are
professors at Hillsdale College, one of only a few colleges in
American which refuse to take a dime in government aid, they won’t
even take scholarship money from students if it comes from the
government. Hillsdale is also the home of the IMPRIMIS publication. In
addition, he had Mr. Larry Schweikart in studio, author of the book, A
Patriots History of the United States. He also played a few minutes of
an interview with Thomas Sowell, an economist from the Hoover
Institute at Stanford University and one of America’s leading
conservative intellects, a man who also happens to be a black.

Between the five of these men, and with the skilled use of sound bites
and pertinent quotes from leftist progressives from the past until the
present, they exposed their evil and un-American agenda with skill and
beauty. As an interviewer, Beck was at his best. His extensive study
over the past 2 or 3 years has opened his eyes to the strategy and
tactics of America’s enemies and he shows their influences upon both
the Republican and Democrat parties. A great interviewer must know the
subject matter well to know what questions to ask to draw out the
pertinent information from the experts. The interviewer must also know
when to emphasize or clarify a point if one of the experts speak above
the heads of we common folk.
Beck was a master and I can’t stress the importance of watching his
programs if at all possible. He even began to get down to
understanding the powerful influences of the Council On Foreign
Relations upon our nation, something Hanity, Limbaugh and most others
won’t touch. Which is why they will always fall a little short of
getting to the crux of the matter.

Beck closed the program by asking each guest to suggest one book to
read other than their own to have our eyes opened. The books suggested
were, A Conflict of Visions, by Thomas Sowell, Liberal Fascism, by
Jonah Goldberg and the Federalist Papers, by Madison, Hamilton and
Jay.

Perhaps the reason I have become such a fan of Beck is that he is ever
more presenting the important information the Birch Society has been
making available for the past 51 years. Stay with is Glen, you are
really beginning to make a difference. I am going to try to get that
program transferred to a DVD and show it at a _ _PAC meeting sometime
in the future.