John Birch Society Sponsoring CPAC

By GottaLaff

Look what Oliver dug up:

The John Birch Society announces it is cosponsoring the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2010, to be held in Washington DC, Feb. 18-20.

JBS will have a double booth with half dedicated to offering educational and promotional materials and the other half housing a TV studio that will stream live video from the booth and broadcast onto JBS LibertyNewsNetwork.tv, a website that will feature archived JBS video and live video streams.

I remember going to the market with my mom when I was teeny tiny, and she wouldn't buy Welch's products (grape jelly!) because of Robert Welch's John Birch Society. I had no idea what she meant, but I understood enough to know that she thought they were the bad guys.

If you are unaware of who they are, here's a hint from Oliver: The John Birch Society is one of America’s original right-wing conspiracy groups.

Here's more:

The society was established in Indianapolis, Indiana on December 9, 1958 by a group of 12 men led by Robert Welch, Jr., a retired candy manufacturer from Belmont, Massachusetts. One founding member was Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries, one of the largest private corporations in America. [...]

The society states that it is anti-totalitarian, particularly anti-socialist and anti-communist, and leans libertarian. It seeks to limit the powers of government and defends what it sees as the original intention of the U.S. Constitution, based on its perception of Judeo-Christian principles. It opposes collectivism, including wealth redistribution, economic interventionism, socialism, communism, and fascism. In a 1983 edition of Crossfire, Congressman Larry McDonald (D-Georgia), then its newly appointed chairman, characterized the society as belonging to the Old Right rather than the New Right.^[7] A few months after this interview, McDonald, a passenger aboard Korean Air Lines Flight 007 would be shot down by the Soviets with its 268 other passengers and crew on Sept. 1. 1983.

The society stated it opposed aspects of the civil rights movement in the 1960s because of concerns that the movement had communists in important positions. It opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, saying it was in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and overstepped the rights of individual states to enact laws regarding civil rights.

The society is against "one world government", and has an immigration reduction view on immigration reform. It opposes the United Nations, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and other free trade agreements. [...]

Society influence on U.S. politics hit its high point in the years around the failed 1964 presidential campaign of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, who lost to incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson. Welch had supported Goldwater over Richard Nixon for the Republican nomination, but the membership split, with two-thirds supporting Goldwater and one-third supporting Nixon. A number of Birch members and their allies were Goldwater supporters in 1964^[22] and some were delegates at the 1964 Republican National Convention. The Goldwater campaign brought together the nucleus of what later became known as the New Right.

In April 1966, a New York Times article on New Jersey and the society stated, in part, a concern for "the increasing tempo of radical right attacks on local government, libraries, school boards, parent-teacher associations, mental health programs, the Republican Party and, most recently, the ecumenical movement."^[23] It then characterized the society as, "by far the most successful and 'respectable' radical right organization in the country. It operates alone or in support of other extremist organizations whose major preoccupation, like that of the Birchers, is the internal Communist conspiracy in the United States." [...]

he sensationalism of Welch's charge that Eisenhower was possibly a Communist dupe led many conservatives and Republicans, most prominently Goldwater and intellectuals of Buckley's circle, to renounce outright or quietly shy away from the group.

They're ba-a-ack.

Sarah Palin and the Birchers

Personally I think this is much ado about nothing, and believe me, if I thought there was any sane way to pin this on Palin I would.

In a picture supplied by Sarah Palin's family to the Associated Press, Palin appears with some rather odd reading matter: The magazine of the ultraconservative John Birch Society.

The picture, dating to 1995, when Palin was a member of the Wasilla City Council, ran beside a profile of Palin in Saturday's New York Times. The magazine, The New American, is sitting on top of her calendar on her desk, unopened.

(snip)

"Any attempt to link her to the John Birch Society would be ridiculous," he said of speculation on the liberal blogs that first noticed the magazine, first noted by the photo site BAGNews.

"This photo from the early to mid 90s shows the Governor having her photo taken in front of a three ring binder of information from local citizens presented regularly to Wasilla council members by the town clerk," said Palin spokesman Michael Goldfarb. "These binders featured material given by members of the public to all council members."

"We sent thousands of copies of that newsletter out to all kinds of people trying to forestall the constitutional convention," McManus recalled. "The plan at that time was for us to send copies of that newsletter to county commissioners, mayors, state legislators, local officials."