The John Birch Society Is Back

[DonViejo]

Bircher ideas, once on the fringe, are increasingly commonplace in today’s GOP and espoused by friends in high places. And the group is ready to make the most of it.

By JOHN SAVAGE July 16, 2017

On an unseasonably warm Saturday in January, Jan Carter, a short, graying, 75-year-old retiree, appears pleased. The Central Texas Chapter of the John Birch Society, which Carter leads, is conducting a workshop titled “The Constitution Is the Solution” in the farming town of Holland—home to 1,200 residents, three churches, one stoplight and an annual corn festival. Carter was unsure if anyone would drive to such a remote area early on a weekend morning to get lectured about the Constitution, but, one by one, people are showing, renewing Carter’s “hope that the country can be saved.”

In the Holland Church of Christ, around the corner from a main street lined with abandoned buildings, Carter sits down to talk. She says that the John Birch Society—a group she was convinced could save the nation from a global conspiracy of leftists and communists more than half a century ago—has come roaring back to life in the nick of time. The more she thinks about the situation, the more she sees parallels to the 1950s and 1960s: evil domestic and international terrorists threatening to undo all that is good and holy in the United States.

These days, to the extent that most people know of the John Birch Society—that far-right group founded in the thick of the Cold War to fight communists and preach small government—it’s purely as a historical relic of a bygone era of sock hops and poodle skirts. But the John Birch Society lives. And though it is not the same robust organization it was in its 1960s heyday—when, by some counts, it had as many as 100,000 dues-paying members around the country and 60 full-time staff—after decades of declining membership and influence, the Birchers insist they are making a comeback. And they point to Texas as the epicenter of their restoration.

“There definitely is an increase in [our] activity, particularly in Texas, because Americans are seeking answers, but they can’t quite put their finger on what some of the real problems are,” says Bill Hahn, the John Birch Society’s vice president of communications, who spoke to Politico Magazine on the phone from the Society’s headquarters in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Carter, the head of the Central Texas Chapter, says that statewide, the group’s membership has doubled over the last three years (she declined to disclose exact numbers, as did Hahn, citing Society policy). “State legislators are joining the group,” she says, citing it as proof that their ideas are gaining salience as “more and more people are ready to fight the liberals who preach globalism and want to take away our freedom, our guns, religious values and our heritage.”

more
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/16/the-john-birch-society-is-alive-and-well-in-the-lone-star-state-215377

[dalton99a]

1. And it wants to stop the Russia investigation

[lunasun]

2. Wait they were anti Russian to the core . The Russian are coming was thier cry

How can they support the current RW when they ignore
Russia?

[Gabi Hayes]

3. Fred Koch started JB society

Read Democracy in Chains


It seems inevitable the phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” will pop into your head while reading Duke University historian Nancy MacLean’s disquieting Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. After all, the phrase made famous by Hillary Clinton in the 1990s popped into MacLean’s head a few times while she researched and wrote her book.

It would seem an apt description, given the covert undermining of American democratic foundations and institutions by the extreme libertarian movement MacLean documents in Democracy in Chains. But as pernicious as the movement is, it “is not a conspiracy,” she said in an interview. “A conspiracy involves illegality, and this movement, while it operates by stealth, is generally careful to stay within the rules that exist.”

She uses “fifth column assault” instead. She acknowledged “fifth column” also is “a phrase with a fraught history.” But the academics, operatives, ideologues, and billionaires of the radical right “have a fundamental hostility to our form of government as it existed over the 20th century,” and seek to vanquish it from within.

Democracy in Chains expands on Jane Mayer’s reporting in Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. Where Mayer follows the radical right’s money trail, MacLean examines its intellectual origins—“the master plan behind it,” as she writes in her book’s introduction. Her findings will leave you deeply concerned for our democracy and civic life.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/nancy-maclean/

[saidsimplesimon]

4. thank you Don

"Carter sits down to talk. She says that the John Birch Society—a group she was convinced could save the nation from a global conspiracy of leftists and communists more than half a century ago—has come roaring back to life in the nick of time. The more she thinks about the situation, the more she sees parallels to the 1950s and 1960s: evil domestic and international terrorists threatening to undo all that is good and holy in the United States."

Obviously another case of dystopian. rumpian alzheimers on display.

[Gothmog]

5. Racism is a part of the GOP mentality and trump's base is full of racists

[struggle4progress]

6. Talkin John Birch Society Blues

[Buns_of_Fire]

9. Look out kid, it's something you did, God knows when, but you're doin' it again...

I know, different song. But it fits.

Hell, I haven't been called a pinko commie in years. It's almost rejuvenating.

[Skidmore]

7. They were back before the 2016

election.

[Solly Mack]

8. I didn't think they were gone - just hiding for a bit.

K/R

[misanthrope]

10. I considered the Tea Party just a modern offshoot

Last edited Sun Jul 16, 2017, 08:08 PM - Edit history (1)

inflamed into existence by the presence of an African-American in the White House.

[trof]

11. Everything old is new again.

sigh

[Leith]

12. Just a Little Song to Help Us Laugh

There's a follow-up song about George Bush.

[Leith]

14. I Can't Leave Y'all Hangin'

So here's the George Bush Society:

[leftyladyfrommo]

15. I loved the Chad Mitchell Trio.

I remember that song well. I lived through all that red Commie stuff. I even did a report on the John Birch Society. People I knew built bomb shelters. People were scared to death of a Russian atomic bomb attack. I had dog tags to wear. We had drills at school. I had nightmares of bombs dropping all around me.

These times are too weird.

[Leith]

16. That Was a Little Before My Time

One of my earliest memories is riding in the car on Coldwater Road and thinking it was named after that guy running for president.

I learned about the Birchers years later from reading and interest in politics. A few years ago, Rachel (in my house, her first name is all we need) did a story on them. She visited some sort of convention where they had a booth set up. The guy in the booth couldn't stop talking about the horrors of fluoride in our water even though the head office claims this is a minor issue for them. Strange people, and a little scary in their weirdness.

[MiddleClass]

13. Where is the modern day William F Buckley?

Crazy Christians on a mission again