Alex Constantine - March 21, 2013
John Birch Society
Origin: The John Birch Society, per the late anti-fascist journalist George Seldes, is a spin-off of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), an influential right-wing corporate lobbying and propaganda front. SourceWatch: "The John Birch Society (JBS) is a conservative U.S. organization that was founded in 1958 to fight the threat of Communism. It represents itself as "a membership-based organization dedicated to restoring and preserving freedom under the United States Constitution. JBS advocates the abolition of income tax, and the repeal of civil rights legislation, which it sees as being Communist in inspiration. For this reason, its opponents characterize it as a white citizens' society dedicated to preventing minorities from gaining political power. At one time, the John Birch Society was very powerful and members included prominent residents of California including the Knott family. In their early days, Birchers shared a common ideology and some overlapping membership with Fred Schwarz and his California-based Christian Anti-communism Crusade. ...
"By March of 1961, Welch claimed between 60,000 and 100,000 members--but a more realistic estimate is closer to 10,000. ... According to its profile by Political Research Associates, JBS "pioneered grassroots lobbying, combining educational meetings, petition drives, and letter writing campaigns. One early campaign against the second Summit Conference between the US and the Soviet Union generated over 600,000 postcards and letters.."
"The JBS was viewed by mainstream journalists and politicians as an extremist, wing-nut organization of conspiracy theorists. Much of its early conspiracism, according to Political Research Associates, 'reflects an ultraconservative business nationalist critique of business internationalists networked through groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR is viewed through a conspiracist lens as puppets of the Rockefeller family in a 1952 book by McCarthy fan, Emanuel M. Josephson, Rockefeller, 'Internationalist': The Man Who Misrules the World. In 1962 Dan Smoot's The Invisible Government added several other policy groups to the list of conspirators, including the Committee for Economic Development, the Advertising Council, the Atlantic Council (formerly the Atlantic Union Committee), the Business Advisory Council, and the Trilateral Commission. Smoot had worked at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC before leaving to establish an anticommunist newsletter, the Dan Smoot Report.
"The shift from countersubversion on behalf of the FBI to countersubversion in the private sector was an easy one. The basic thesis was the same. In Smoot's concluding chapter, he wrote, 'Somewhere at the top of the pyramid in the invisible government are a few sinister people who know exactly what they are doing: They want America to become part of a worldwide socialist dictatorship, under the control of the Kremlin.'"
Official JBS Website: http://www.jbs.org/
Founding Date: 1958
Name | Occupation | Birth | Death | Known for |
---|---|---|---|---|
John Birch | 28-May-1918 | 25-Aug-1945 | Missionary to China killed during WW2 | |
Willis Carto | 17-Jul-1926 | Founder of Liberty Lobby, IHR | ||
Joseph Coors, Sr. | 12-Nov-1917 | 15-Mar-2003 | Ultraconservative beer baron | |
Kent H. Courtney | 23-Oct-1918 | 12-Aug-1997 | Ultraconservative activist | |
William J. Grede | 24-Feb-1897 | 5-Jun-1989 | Grede Foundries, Inc. | |
Edgar W. Hiestand | 3-Dec-1888 | 19-Aug-1970 | Congressman from California, 1953-63 | |
H. L. Hunt | 17-Feb-1889 | 29-Nov-1974 | Founder of Hunt Oil | |
Nelson Bunker Hunt | 22-Feb-1926 | Tried to corner the silver market | ||
Fred C. Koch | 23-Sep-1900 | Nov-1967 | Founder, Koch Industries | |
Alfred Kohlberg | 27-Jan-1887 | 7-Apr-1960 | The China Lobby Man | |
Tim LaHaye | 27-Apr-1926 | Left Behind series | ||
Pat Manion | 1896 | 1979 | Manion Forum | |
Robert Mathews | 16-Jan-1953 | 8-Dec-1984 | White supremacist died in shootout with FBI | |
Larry McDonald | 1-Apr-1935 | 1-Sep-1983 | Congressman from Georgia, 1975-83 | |
John F. McManus | 1935 | President, John Birch Society | ||
Evan Mecham | 12-May-1924 | 22-Feb-2008 | Governor of Arizona, 1987-88 | |
Tom Metzger | 9-Apr-1938 | White supremacist | ||
Revilo P. Oliver | 7-Jul-1908 | 10-Aug-1994 | Founding member, John Birch Society | |
Westbrook Pegler | 2-Aug-1894 | 24-Jun-1969 | Ultraconservative newspaper columnist | |
William Pierce | 11-Sep-1933 | 23-Jul-2002 | The Turner Diaries | |
Archie Roosevelt | 9-Apr-1894 | 13-Oct-1979 | Conservative leader against New Deal | |
John H. Rousselot | 1-Nov-1927 | 11-May-2003 | Congressman from California, 1961-63 & 1970-83 | |
John G. Schmitz | 12-Aug-1930 | 10-Jan-2001 | Congressman from California, 1970-73 | |
Eric Show | 19-May-1956 | 16-Mar-1994 | MLB pitcher | |
Cleon Skousen | 20-Jan-1913 | 9-Jan-2006 | The Naked Communist | |
Kevin Strom | 1956 | Founder, National Vanguard | ||
Arthur R. Thompson | 1938 | CEO, John Birch Society | ||
Edwin A. Walker | 10-Nov-1909 | 31-Oct-1993 | Ultraconservative activist | |
Robert Welch | 1-Dec-1899 | 6-Jan-1985 | Founder, John Birch Society |
http://www.nndb.com/org/835/000041712/