With John Birch Society, it's the same old drill

Dallas Morning News ^ | 3/22/2006 | Steve Blow

[sinkspur]

Who says time travel isn't possible?

I got a bona fide '60s flashback last week when I attended a meeting of the John Birch Society.

Remember them?

Frankly, I was astonished to learn the Birch Society still exists. Shouldn't it have crumbled along with the Berlin Wall?

For those too young to remember, the Birch Society was one of many groups fighting the global menace of communism.

But of all the patriots standing foursquare against communism, the Birchers were always the ones in tin-foil hats.

Or so it seemed. Bless their hearts, they were sort of the kooky cousins of anti-communism – the folks who never met a conspiracy theory they didn't bite.

And sure enough, last week's meeting had barely started before there was a sneering reference to the Council on Foreign Relations.

I got a nostalgic little shiver. How cute! They still hate the CFR.

You know in the cartoons how the Super Friends always battled the evil Legion of Doom?

Well, for Birchers, the starchy Council on Foreign Relations is the Legion of Doom. It's part of the nefarious "invisible government" that really runs the country.

[cripplecreek]

Years ago our local TV news set out to trash one of the militia groups in Michigan. The called them racist antigovernment types. What they found were a few bi racial families and conservatives who are opposed to big government and believe in preparedness.

Speaking of preparedness, the missing family that was found today say that they survived on Y2K emergency supplies.

[Wallace T.]

Steve Blow is a liberal, and a clever one at that, inasmuch as he uses an "aw, shucks" common man style in his writings, possibly deriving from his East Texas roots, rather than the usual haughty disdain or paranoid rantings that turns many off to the liberal message. The bemusement and mild sarcasm he displays in this article is an effective means of attack.

I believe Blow is correct in guessing that the Birch Society leader invited him because the latter recognized that bad publicity is better than none at all. Despite Blow's allusion to their Council on Foreign Relations based conspiracy theories, the fact is that the Left, and not the conspiratorialist Right, is the major purveyor of conspiracy theories today. In fact, some Leftist conspiracy theorists actually see the Birchers as a Rockefeller/Masonic/Opus Dei/Zionist associated group in the thrall of Anglo-American capitalists who want to rule the world.

The Birchers got much right, including their admiration of the heroic fight of Joseph McCarthy and others against domestic Communists and other subversives. They lost their way when Robert Welch and his associates went beyond fighting Marxists, Fabian socialists, and New Leftists and developed a universal conspiracy theory cleaned up of the anti-Semitism that was characteristic of earlier theories based on the spurious Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. This conspiracy theory became their dogma and they tried to interpret events in light of that dogma.

[TBP]

According to JBS, John Birch was the first American missionary killed by the Communists in China.

One of my intellectual mentors, the late, great Dr. Russell Kirk, once formed (jokingly) an organization "dedicated to the preservation of wooden toilet seats." He called it the Birch John Society.

[penowa]

That is very recent that the Unions have switched sides, mostly since the majority of the union workers are now gov't "workers."

[TBP]

Steve Blow...funny name, and lends itself to all kinds of jokes which may be appropriate for the individual in question but are not appropriate for FR. Great name for a kook lib, however.

[planetpatrol]

I always figured there had to be more than a few Birchers around FR and well what do you know? You gotta remember they had their peak back in the pre-cable, pre-web days, totally different world. They had some points sure but by and large they let the nuts drown out the common sense, sorta like the right wings version of Lyndon LaRouche.

[Verginius Rufus]

Another ex-Bircher was the late Revilo P. Oliver, long-time professor of Classics at the University of Illinois, who was outspokenly racist and anti-Semitic, although I'm not sure if his anti-Semitism was the immediate cause of his being kicked out...he was also known for saying just after JFK's death that it was a matter of the chickens coming home to roost. When Welch was starting the organization he expressed the hope that Jews who shared his views would join.

At one point there were a couple of Congressmen from southern California who were members of the John Birch Society.

Robert Welch expressed his view that Eisenhower was a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy, but I don't know if the society ever took a stand on that question.

[Fiji Hill]

"Eisenhower, he's a Russian spy.
So's Roosevelt, Lincoln, and that Jefferson guy."

Bob Dylan, "Talkin' John Birch Blues," 1963

[SFC Chromey]

Do you know who John Birch was? If you did you wouldn't make such dumb@$$ comment!

Capt John Birch helped Doolittle's men escape through Japanese controlled China after their "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" raid.

After the end of the war he was considered the first KIA in the 'cold war'. He was assassinated by Communist Chinese in 1945.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

"My personal favorite was their claim that General Eisenhower was a Communist agent."

Surprise me by showing me some proof that JBS ever said that!

Your foilish allegation is belied by the warnings in IKes Farewell address, WHICH JBS TOOK SERIOUSLY.

Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation
January 17, 1961

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm

[RadioCirca1970]

Very well put!

[LexBaird]

An updated version of the Illuminati, and just as nutty.

There is no such group as the Illuminati. < Fnord >

[Fiji Hill]

From my YAF dlays:

1961 "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer"

Adlai, the bald-head consymp, had a very shiny head.
And if you ever saw it, you would even say it's red.
All of the other comsymps used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Adlai play in their appeasement games.

Then one dark and stormy night, Nikita came to say:
Adlai, with your head so red, won't you help make America dead?"
Then all the comsymps loved him, and they shouted with one voice:
"Adlai, the bald-head comsymp, you will be our UN choice."

From The YAF Songbook

Note: President John F. Kennedy appointed former Illinois governor Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr. as US Ambassador to the United Nations in 1961.

[Triggerhippie]

Decaf.

[nightdriver]

Since the Russian archives opened up in the last 15 years, we have learned a lot of the names of Americans in our government who were KGB spies.

Joe McCarthy was more right than wrong.

The John Birch Society has gotten paranoid and lost credibility largely because of the resistance and denigration of the subversive socialist media and the general reluctance of their readers to believe anything the JBS says.

[TBP]

I remember that one. We used to sing it even into the 70s. Great song.

As I recall, there were a couple of songs that took somewhat blunted shots at the Birchers, too.

I still ahve my songbook somewhere -- I'll look up a couple more melodies. In hte meantime, any old YAFers here remember the full lyrics to "The First World War"? I believe it was sung to the tune of "The First Noel."

[kalee]

tinfoil hat ping

[Mike Bates]

As I recall, there were a couple of songs that took somewhat blunted shots at the Birchers, too.

Maybe the Chad Mitchell Trio's "John Birch Society":

We're after Rosie Clooney, we've gotten Pinkie Lee
And the day we get Red Skelton won't that be a victory

And then the famous:
If mommie is a commie then you gotta turn her in

[TBP]

sorta like the right wings version of Lyndon LaRouche.

Actrually, I believe that LaRouchistan came along later, so he's a left-wing version of them.

I once told some LaRouchies that "you sound just like the Birchers." Boy, did I get an evil look from them.

Remember when La Rouche was trying to pass himself off as some kind of conservative for a few years? During that period, I rememkber encountering a few of his followers with one of their tables and a sign saying "Feed Jane Fonda to the whales." (Best idea the LaRouchies ever had.)

I walked over and said, "How can you do scuh a terrible thign to a poor, innocent, defenseless whale?"

Now, this was a question for which they were not prepared, so they had to huddle for a few minutes, after which they came up with "The whale volunteered."

"Great," I said. "Let me know if you have any more volunteers, because I have a list -- although Hanoi Jane certainly tops it." And I walked away. I love playing with these folks' heads.

In any case, never trust a guy named Lyndon, at least if he's in political life in any way.

[Clemenza]

And now, a word from Mr. Robert Zimmerman:

Well, I was feelin' sad and feelin' blue,
I didn't know what in the world I was gonna do,
Them Communists they wus comin' around,
They wus in the air,
They wus on the ground.
They wouldn't gimme no peace. . .

So I run down most hurriedly
And joined up with the John Birch Society,
I got me a secret membership card
And started off a-walkin' down the road.
Yee-hoo, I'm a real John Bircher now!
Look out you Commies!

Now we all agree with Hitlers' views,
Although he killed six million Jews.
It don't matter too much that he was a Fascist,
At least you can't say he was a Communist!
That's to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria.

Well, I wus lookin' everywhere for them gol-darned Reds.
I got up in the mornin' 'n' looked under my bed,
Looked in the sink, behind the door,
Looked in the glove compartment of my car.
Couldn't find 'em . . .

I wus lookin' high an' low for them Reds everywhere,
I wus lookin' in the sink an' underneath the chair.
I looked way up my chimney hole,
I even looked deep inside my toilet bowl.
They got away . . .

Well, I wus sittin' home alone an' started to sweat,
Figured they wus in my T.V. set.
Peeked behind the picture frame,
Got a shock from my feet, hittin' right up in the brain.
Them Reds caused it!
I know they did . . . them hard-core ones.

Well, I quit my job so I could work alone,
Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes.
Followed some clues from my detective bag
And discovered they wus red stripes on the American flag!
That ol' Betty Ross . . .

Well, I investigated all the books in the library,
Ninety percent of 'em gotta be burned away.
I investigated all the people that I knowed,
Ninety-eight percent of them gotta go.
The other two percent are fellow Birchers . . . just like me.

Now Eisenhower, he's a Russian spy,
Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy.
To my knowledge there's just one man
That's really a true American: George Lincoln Rockwell.
I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movie Exodus.

Well, I fin'ly started thinkin' straight
When I run outa things to investigate.
Couldn't imagine doin' anything else,
So now I'm sittin' home investigatin' myself!
Hope I don't find out anything . . . hmm, great God!