# By "popular demand", More Birchier!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 26, 2008, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/by-popular-demand-more-birchier/465267 "2008-09-26T01:47:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/by-popular-demand-more-birchier/465267/21 "2008-10-02T20:23:09Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Also, no Communist or communist or socialist movement has come to power by revolutionary means in decades. Nepal. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/by-popular-demand-more-birchier/465267/22 "2008-10-02T21:01:50Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Nepal. Elections can indicate strong support for revolutionary political positions, but they are not a revolutionary means of taking power. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/by-popular-demand-more-birchier/465267/23 "2008-10-02T21:51:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > In the late 1970s saw a _60 Minutes_ segment, I think it was, on the JBS. The reporter stated the JBS had lately changed its ideology somewhat and had come round to thinking the international Communist conspiracy was only part of a much larger conspiracy “founded by a group of European intellectuals in 1776.” Later on I discovered Wilson & Shea’s [_Illuminatus!_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminatus) trilogy and learned about the [Bavarian Illuminati,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_Illuminati) which was indeed founded that year. > > Anyway, does the JBS still susbscribe to that kind of overarching, all-explanatory, lasting-for-centuries, Jack-Chickish conspiracy theory? Yes, no, kinda. _L_ Actual JBS views do not see a literal 200+ y/o Illuminati behind it all. It’s more like this- the Illuminati set the pattern for semi-occultic socialist revolutionary movements. When it was repressed by the Bavarian gov’t in 1785, it splintered into various similar groups, some of which colluded, some of which competed, some of which had no contact with each other. The Jacobins were among these splinters. The Yale Skull & Bones group may also have been. A 3rd-/4th-gen splinter was the League of Just Men, who had two members write up their program in 1848… Karl Marx & Frederich Engels’ _Communist Manifesto_. The Rothschild banking house & its various subsidiaries, the Rockefellers, J.P. Morgan, Cecil Rhodes’ Round Table group and its Royal Institue of International Affairs, the Fabian Socialist Society, etc. all arose - competing & colluding at various times, gradually gelling into a Euro-Anglo-American corporate socialist establishment which operates through groups like the CFR (originally the US branch of the RIIA), the Trilateral Commission, the Bildeberg Conferences, etc. This establishment, having its fingers in so many pies, might often support several sides in a conflict. Thus, the US allied with Czarist Russia against the Kaiser in WWI, while the banking Warburg brothers ran the Federal Reserve (Paul W IIRC) in the US and the German banking system. The German Warburg (Felix IIRC) financed Lenin’s return to Russia. And in the late 1920s-early1930’s, various banking interests though maybe they might finance a promising upcoming politician in Germany. 😃 Neither project turned out exactly as expected. (A lot of Birchers may argue with me there & say that both went completely according to plan.) Incidentally, the JBS denounced & exposed as frauds Jack Chick’s two “ex-Conspirators”, the “Illuminati Grand Druid” John Todd and “Jesuit agent” Alberto Rivera, both of whom also accused the JBS of being Conspiracy-fronts. So yes, the JBS holds that the modern “Conspiracy” is ideologically a successor of the Illuminati. No, the JBS does not necessarily hold that it’s a direct-succession tightly dynastic in-group. Various JBS members MMV. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/by-popular-demand-more-birchier/465267/24 "2008-10-02T22:40:10Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > That said- early in the JBS’ history, there was one particular person on the national Council & who wrote for AMERICAN OPINION, a professor of classical & romance languages at the University of Illinois, Revilo P. Oliver, who made increasingly outrageous comments about Jews until he & others expressing similar sentiments were ousted. Another one was Westbrook Pegler, who theorized that American Jews of Eastern European heritage were instinctively sympathetic to communism. He also had a habit of calling the Jews “geese”, and he expressed affection for good old fashioned fascism when he advocated for the destruction of the AFL. In the 40’s, he publicly wished for the assassination of FDR, and in the 60’s he updated his taste for political violence by calling for the assassination of RFK. Charming man. _American Opinion_ allowed Pegler to grace its pages for two years. The magazine didn’t kick Pegler off, exactly. He got ticked when it rejected one of his articles, and he quit. He faded into decades of obscurity after his death. Don’t feel bad for Pegler, though. He’s popular again. Didn’t you hear? Sarah Palin quoted him in her convention speech. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2008, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/by-popular-demand-more-birchier/465267/25 "2008-10-02T23:42:52Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Elections can indicate strong support for revolutionary political positions, but they are not a revolutionary means of taking power. Right…but weren’t the elections the result of a 12 year Maoist insurgency in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2008, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/by-popular-demand-more-birchier/465267/26 "2008-10-03T11:34:54Z")
Nope. There were parliamentary elections in Nepal roughly every five years between 1981 and 1999; the king dissolved Parliament in 2002 because he felt they were unable to respond to the Maoist insurgency. In fact, the four main communist parties in Nepal have been participating since at least 1991 (I can’t find any information on the '86 election so I don’t know if parties were officially banned or not). Seven political parties - not all of them Communist, I believe - protested the dissolution of Parliament. These elections were the first in Nepal as a republic rather than a kingdom and I would argue that they were a result of the unpopularity of the monarchy rather than the Maoist insurgency. The CPN (Maoist), in addition, signed cease-fire pacts and formed a pro-democracy alliance with other mainstream parties in order to participate in these elections. Not that I think their previous path was the right one, but abandoning organizing for struggle in favor of solely campaigning for votes is walking away from revolution. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2008, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/by-popular-demand-more-birchier/465267/27 "2008-10-03T14:22:06Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Nope. There were parliamentary elections in Nepal roughly every five years between 1981 and 1999; the king dissolved Parliament in 2002 because he felt they were unable to respond to the Maoist insurgency. In fact, the four main communist parties in Nepal have been participating since at least 1991 (I can’t find any information on the '86 election so I don’t know if parties were officially banned or not). Seven political parties - not all of them Communist, I believe - protested the dissolution of Parliament. > > These elections were the first in Nepal as a republic rather than a kingdom and I would argue that they were a result of the unpopularity of the monarchy rather than the Maoist insurgency. The CPN (Maoist), in addition, signed cease-fire pacts and formed a pro-democracy alliance with other mainstream parties in order to participate in these elections. Not that I think their previous path was the right one, but abandoning organizing for struggle in favor of solely campaigning for votes is walking away from revolution. Yeah, that’s what They **want** you to think! ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2008, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/by-popular-demand-more-birchier/465267/28 "2008-10-03T19:26:14Z")
Would they stay in Afghanistan and look for bin Laden if it meant the federal government necessarily had to pay for it and send troops there and entangle with Karzai and the Pakistani’s? How high does this war rank on their priorities above Iraq? Above Russia? Above China? Is there much 9-11 Conspiracy Theory stuff running among them? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/by-popular-demand-more-birchier/465267.md?page=1)