The John Birch Society

kitemaker_chuck · July 21, 2007, 6:54pm

Hi Everyone!

Is the John Birch Society still in business, and if so, where have their targets shifted to after the fall of the Soviet Union?
China? North Korea? Cuba? Radical Islam??

I remember when I was a kid, we had some “John Birchers” who lived a few houses down the street from our house, and every Halloween they used to hand out political brochures and leaflets (instead of candy) to the kids who were trick-or-treating. They always gave us instructions that we were to give this information to our parents when we got home.

Any other Dopers have any similar experiences with John Birchers (or any similar equivalent organisations in your own nation??)

Johanna · July 21, 2007, 7:30pm

They’ve taken over the White House.

Fear_Itself · July 21, 2007, 7:38pm

From the John Birch Society web site, it appears the major issues to the JBS are:

No Illegal Immigration! No Amnesty! No Guest Workers!
NO North American Union!
Repeal NAFTA!
No Civilian Disarmament! [gun control]
Get US out! of the United Nations [an oldie but a goodie]
STOP the FTAA! [Free Trade Area of the Americas]
Government controlled education undermines the foundations of a free society.

BrainGlutton · July 21, 2007, 11:38pm

Sure that ain’t Free Republic?!

BrainGlutton · July 21, 2007, 11:43pm

According to Wikipedia:

After Welch

By the time of Welch’s death in 1985, the Birch Society’s membership and influence had dramatically declined because partly of the ending of the Cold War, but the UN’s role in the Gulf War and President George H. W. Bush’s call for a ‘New World Order’ appeared to many JBS members to validate their claims about a “One World Government” conspiracy. (See, for example, The New American February 26, pp. 22–23). Growing right-wing populism in the United States helped The John Birch Society position itself for a comeback, and by 1995 its membership had grown somewhat to more than 55,000 though that number is unofficial as the Society does not disclose its membership statistics.

After that time period, the John Birch Society started a campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton for alleged connections with Chinese interests and on charges of treason and bribery. [19] Within months of the Society’s call for impeachment, news of the Monica Lewinsky affair broke, and the Society’s charges were overshadowed by media coverage of Lewinsky and Clinton. The President was eventually indicted on impeachment charges but the charges were different than the Society had hoped to bring. Clinton, however, was not convicted by the Senate because of the tenuous nature of the charges and the lack of necessary votes. Nevertheless, the impeachment campaign’s relative success bolstered the Society and its public knowledge, membership, publication circulation, and finances.

During the 1990s (with a brief pause to work on the Clinton impeachment campaign) and in the first decade of the 21st century, the Society has opposed free-trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and the newly proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). CAFTA won a two-vote victory in the House (217–215), but the Society predicts the FTAA will have an even more difficult time.

In recent years, The John Birch Society has been just as critical of President George W. Bush as it has been of Democratic presidents, accusing the Bush administration of advocating and carrying out acts of torture against suspected terrorist leaders during the War on Terror. In a 2005 online poll, the organization’s membership voted for President Bush’s impeachment, [20] citing issues such as the USA PATRIOT Act, the proposed sell out of U.S. Seaports to Dubai Ports World, [21] and recent allegations against the Bush administration concerning domestic telephone surveillance of suspected terrorists operating within the United States. These were cited as evidence of Bush’s lack of regard for the Constitution.

The JBS continues to press for an end to U.S. membership in the United Nations. As evidence of the effectiveness of JBS efforts, the Society points to the Utah legislature’s resolution calling for U.S. withdrawal, as well as the actions of several other states where the Society’s membership has been active. The Birch Society repeatedly opposed overseas war-making although it is strongly supportive of the American military. It has issued calls to “Bring Our Troops Home” in every conflict since its founding including Vietnam (it wanted a quick win and exit there after the conflict had already started rather than a simple losing pullout). The Society also has a national speakers’ committee, called American Opinion Speakers Bureau (AOSB), and an anti-tax committee called TRIM (Tax Reform Immediately).

Sophistry_and_Illusion · July 21, 2007, 11:50pm

Jesus. I hope you kids crapped on their lawn.

BrainGlutton · July 22, 2007, 1:53am

Classic song by the Chad Mitchell Trio.

Steve_MB · July 22, 2007, 2:14am

From the Credit-Where-Credit-Is-Due Department…

Bryan_Ekers · July 22, 2007, 2:20am

How do they feel about fluoridation?

gonzomax · July 22, 2007, 2:25am

You must have loaded the Libertarian site by mistake.

FriarTed · July 22, 2007, 12:50pm

Nope, that’s the Birch Society- which has always had a libertarian & neo-isolationist streak, and hasn’t been too fond of the Bushes, and only slightly more supportive of Reagan.

~Former Bircher, 1980-82, 1988.
(I found that I’d become a bit more liberal & a big less paranoid than the JBS during my
1988 stint… or more pragmatic & less idealistic… or just slightly saner.)

FriarTed · July 22, 2007, 12:53pm

Not in the Economic or Foreign Policy divisions… see the whole thread so far.

Kalhoun · July 22, 2007, 2:28pm

<snort!>

neutron_star · July 22, 2007, 3:02pm

Good God. I didn’t think anything could be worse than the people who handed out toothpaste instead of candy, but evidently you’ve experienced it.

My condolences.

Johanna · July 22, 2007, 3:12pm

Granted. My biases–domestic issues like worker’s rights, feminism, queer equality–colored my view. I reconsidered after posting that I was thinking more of reactionary elements in the current Republican Party–the Virginia House of Delegates for example–as a better match for the Bircher mentality than the Bush White House, given that Bircher issues correspond with much of what divides the Chimp from the reactionaries outside the Beltway. “White House” just made for a snappier wisecrack.

mikeargo · July 22, 2007, 3:22pm

Yeah, I remeber those clowns. What really put a bug up their ass was that some of the kiddies were trick o’ treating for UNICEF, which to the Birchers was all part of a Commie plot.

Voyager · July 22, 2007, 11:02pm

Or this one by Dylan.

The JBS agenda does sound like Pat Buchanan’s platform, doesn’t it?

FriarTed · July 23, 2007, 1:49am

Pat probably does have something of a Birchite following, though his economic protectionism goes against their libertarian streak. Also, while he’s definitely
anti-internationalist, he doesn’t get all lathered up over the CFR-Trilateral deal.

tdn · July 23, 2007, 3:30pm

Maybe 5 or 6 years ago, there was a letter to the editor of a small local paper. The writer self-identified as a JBSer. His letter explained how Planned Parenthood was originally started as a way to get blacks to not breed so much.

FriarTed · July 23, 2007, 3:54pm

Margaret Sanger did indeed write some things in the 1920s which could be construed that way. She did adopt some of the eugenic theories popular at the time and applied them to the underclasses, which of course contained many minorities.