There is no “projection” involved on my part. I am responding to YOUR thought pattern. What you seem to be missing (IMHO) is that regardless of your or my personal opinion, FBI investigative files reveal the attitudes and beliefs of senior Communist Party officials (at HQ in New York City and in various states).
My previous point is very simple: YOU may have a personal OPINION about the nature of our society and what has developed from the 1950’s forward. But, if you review FBI investigative files, you will discover that your OPINIONS are falsified by data in FBI files.
In the context of our debate, you can believe whatever you want about the purported “accuracy” of what the Birch Society believed and disseminated but the bottom-line is very clear: The FBI falsified virtually every major predicate of JBS ideology — whether it be about the leaders of our civil rights movement, or about JBS allegations regarding our clergy and religious institutions, or about JBS defamatory accusations regarding the loyalty and patriotism of numerous prominent Americans, or about the overall status of our nation’s internal security.
If I had to present a single statement which illustrates the irreconcilable differences between the JBS interpretation of our postwar history and the conclusions reached by the FBI it would be this:
In the early 1960’s, Robert Welch told his membership that the United States was 50-70% under “Communist influence and control”.
BY CONTRAST, the conclusion reached by our FBI was stated by J. Edgar Hoover as follows:
“The Communist Party in this country has attempted to infiltrate and subvert every segment of our society, but its continuing efforts have not achieved success of any substance. Too many self-styled experts on communism, without valid credentials and without any access whatsoever to classified factual data regarding the inner workings of the conspiracy, have engaged in rumor-mongering and hurling false and wholly unsubstantiated allegations against persons whose views differ from their own. This is dangerous business. It is divisive and unintelligent, and makes more difficult the task of the professional investigator.” [Hoover statement in February 5, 1962 letter to Mrs. W.R. Brown of Bountiful Utah; also published as letter-to-editor in Tri-Cities Daily newspaper of Sheffield, Alabama on Sunday March 31, 1963. Copy of Hoover letter in FBI HQ file 94-1-369, serial #1676]
The reason that this conclusion is particularly significant is because both Robert Welch and the JBS went on record numerous times to effusively praise the competence, knowledge and patriotism of both Hoover and the FBI under his direction-—(as did virtually every major postwar conservative figure in our country-—including JBS endorsers like former FBI Special Agents W. Cleon Skousen and Dan Smoot; and JBS members who had been informants for the FBI inside the CPUSA such as Lola Belle Holmes and Julia Brown.
So you are left with a major dilemma.
On the one hand, the JBS instructed its membership to believe that Hoover’s FBI was our nation’s most knowledgeable, reliable, and authoritative source of factual information about the communist movement (and what constituted effective anti-communism) BUT on the other hand, the FBI falsified virtually every predicate which the JBS disseminated regarding our internal security status.
Obviously, the JBS could only SPECULATE about internal security matters based upon their OPINIONS and ASSUMPTIONS.
BY CONTRAST, the FBI had available to it the full scope of knowledge from its investigations, its hundreds of informants inside legitimate and subversive organizations, and from information it received from SCORES of outside independent sources — including, for example, our military intelligence agencies (G-2, ONI, OSI), the CIA, plus our city, county, state law enforcement agencies (Police Chiefs, Police Department “red squads”, County Sheriffs, State Police, etc.) and from legislative or other investigative entities (such as House Committee on Un-American Activities and Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and Loyalty Review Board and Subversive Activities Control Board——plus many state un-American Activities committees just to name a few sources.
By contrast, the JBS had the personal opinions of its retired candy company executive.
The Communists didn't need to infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement, just influence it. So tell the then residents of Newark, NJ, Cambridge MD, or even Washington D.C. but don't bullsh*t those of us whose tender High School years were not "American Graffiti" but race riots. We know who wanted what then, we knew they'd adapted Socialist (Recall, "Socialism exists to bring about Communism"--Lenin) idealogies, and we knew they didn't need (or want) anyone who wasn't a 'brotha' in on it.
It wasn't about a slice of the pie, it was about the pie, period.
Sure, they weren't going to let the Communists take over the movement. Instead of being the Communists useful idiots, they picked their brains and pushed them out.
So, if you are so bright, read the list at this link. http://www.communistgoals.com/goals/goals.htm
How many of those have come about at least partly because the Civil Rights movement was hijacked?
27, 30, 40, 41, and 42 might ring a bell.
Wittingly or otherwise, the movement (not the shiny faces in front of the microphone in the clip on Huntley and Brinkley, but the seamier aspects behind the facade) helped the Communists accomplish what they wanted, and often to the detriment of not just the Black community, but us all.
But from first hand experience I can tell you that assumption is not true. There were and are many dedicated leftists, who were and are fully committed to a Marxist society who were or are not members of the CPUSA. In fact there are many competing socialist groups, and many individuals who while communists, are not aligned with CPUSA. Some of those groups appeared, when I was familiar with their day to day activities, to accept input from the Soviet Union, and perhaps were even under their control.
I don't have any particular position on what the JBS may have said over time, but your contention that just because CPUSA wasn't involved, someone, or some group is not communist is just wrong.