Back in my Libertarian days, I was interested in what the Birchers had to say. Now I know they were just nuts.
I'm not
Why do you have that negative perception of the Society? Perhaps your tin foil hat thoughts were planted there by the press's portrayal even back then.
The John Birch Society consistently said that the Soviet Union was evil incarnate.
And they were of course right.
WOW....well yeah...the right, and I assume the JBS, need to be on their toes against the kind of socialistic crap spewed forth by our friends there at the Dallas Morning News, who would model our country after, oh lets say the French, the same French who are rioting in the streets because they might not be guaranteed a job for life in their Marxist mecca.
God Bless Tail Gunner Joe Mc Carthy
No doubt I'd probably agree that the Birchers have some ideas that are "over the top" but I really despised the mocking tone that the writer adopts throughout the article. He spends very little time explaining the Bircher positions beyond what it takes to make a cheap joke (e.g., see reference to comic books). I wonder, would he take the same tone with a meeting of say, Code Pink or just about all the programming on Error America or any of the drivel coming out of Cindy Sheehan's mouth? Perhaps, but then, perhaps not.
"the Birch Society was one of many groups fighting the global menace of communism."
While this is true, the main message of JBS going waaaay back to the earliest 1960's was and is "Get U.S. Out of the UN!" As valid a concern today as it was originally!
Read "The Blue Book of The John Birch Society"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CEGK7Q/qid=1143042109/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/104-8822168-1598304?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
News Flash! This just in! The John Birch Society Still Exists!
Can't wait for tomorrows headline to find out what the status of the KKK is.
You know, I once did a fun excercise "proving" by the kind of "logic" that JBS uses that Robert Welch was a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.
John Birch, funny name. Didn't they name a tree after him?
If you had to join one would it be the JBS or the ACLU????
At least the JBS is pro-American!
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.
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.
tinfoil hat ping
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!