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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJohn Birch Society (R): America's Third Major Political Party Holds a Plurality in the 2015 House
We see fractures in both the Democratic and Republican parties. This diary addresses the observed breakage of the Republican Party into two pieces. The Hard Right piece might as well call themselves "The Birch Society."
Some apply the "Tea Party" tag. But when it comes to voting this is anything but the populist, working class "Tea Party" that offered a conservative/libertarian alternative in 2009.
Republican seats in the House of Representatives have been taken over by ultraconservatives through a well-funded infiltration that goes back to 1980. These election campaigns have been supported by the same family and the sources of money that financed the John Birch Society all the way to back its founding in 1959.
. . .
One touchstone of the approved Bircher world view remains the notion that they are fighting against an evil "collectivist" plot to create a New World Order.
THE REST:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/20/1358555/-John-Birch-Society-R-America-s-Third-Major-Political-Party-Holds-a-Plurality-in-the-2015-House#
PumpkinAle
(1,210 posts)stinking bawstards that they are.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)PumpkinAle
(1,210 posts)there is no wonder his offspring are so screwed up and full of illogical ideas about America.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)The challenge currently facing Democrats will likely be mirrored on the GOP side in 2016, when the Republicans have 24 Senate seats up, to only 10 for the Democrats. Seven of those 24 GOP seats are in states that President Obama won in 2012, and five are in states that he won by 5 points or more.
former9thward
(32,025 posts)The Senate may be play but not the House.
Fla Dem
(23,691 posts)to win back the majority in the House of Representatives. That's why local politics are so critical. We have to start winning back state houses and state legislatures.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Fla Dem
(23,691 posts)tabbycat31
(6,336 posts)In addition this means that we have to run Dems who can WIN in their state/district even if they're not perfect.
Unfortunately in this era of hyper partisanship, a serial killer would win with an R next to his name. We need to find a way to overcome that at the local level (which elections are not always partisan).
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)have healthy, yeah early, discussions on Democratic candidates.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)We need to canvass our Gen Xers and start getting them into Congress and the Presidency.
Triana
(22,666 posts)They were abusive and mean as hell. The stories she tells about their extremism and abuse are shocking.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)One of the few who were brave enough to call them what they were in the 1930s and 1940s was pioneering investigative journalist, George Seldes. Wiki:
In Fact immediately attracted the attention of government authorities. . . Articles claiming that the FBI was infiltrating unions and monitoring union activities resulted in FBI surveillance of Seldes and his publication. J. Edgar Hoover sent Seldes a 15-page letter denying such FBI activities.[27] The FBI subsequently questioned In Fact subscribers, particularly servicemen and -women, and had US postal officials reporting to the FBI on Seldes' mail correspondence. In Fact lost many of its subscribers in the late 1940s. Seldes later claimed that his critical coverage of Yugoslavia got the publication banned from Communist Party bookstores. The political climate discouraged subscriptions on the part of less ideologically committed readers as well.[27] In Fact ceased publication in 1950. I. F. Stone's Weekly, which started publication in 1953, took In Fact as its model.[8]
In addition to writing his newsletter, Seldes continued to publish books. These included Facts and Fascism (1943) and One Thousand Americans (1947), an account of the people who controlled America. Time called One Thousand Americans "a collection of truths, half-truths and untruths about the U.S. press and industry."[28] One Thousand Americans introduced a wide audience to the Business Plot, a supposed plan of America's corporate elite to overthrow the U.S. government in the early 1930s.[29]
Seldes published The People Don't Know on the origins of the Cold War in 1949.
starroute
(12,977 posts)My father only mentioned this to me not long before he died a few years back. But I know that my parents and all their friends were badly spooked by McCarthyism. They didn't let on much about it to the kids, but even when I was five I could pick up on the general sense of paranoia.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)When I was a kid I was treated to heroic tales of Fidel and Che by a friend of my parents who had just returned from Cuba - this was the late 1960s, when that trip actually earned you an FBI file. But, my Dad also had William Rusher over for drinks, and he bought me copies off the Grand Central Station newsstand of both Ramparts and The National Review.
I guess if you associate with both extremes, it makes it more difficult for the profilers and gum shoes. They may (wrongly) assume that this makes one a centrist.
pampango
(24,692 posts)The organization claims to identify with a particular type of Christian principles, seeks to limit governmental powers, and opposes wealth redistribution, and economic interventionism. It opposes collectivism, totalitarianism, and communism. It opposes socialism as well, which it asserts is infiltrating U.S. governmental administration. In a 1983 edition of Crossfire, Congressman Larry McDonald (D-Georgia), then its newly appointed president, characterized the society as belonging to the Old Right rather than the New Right.
The society opposed the 1960s civil rights movement and claimed the movement had communists in important positions. In the latter half of 1965, the JBS produced a flyer titled "What's Wrong With Civil Rights?", which was used as a newspaper advertisement. In the piece, one of the answers was: "For the civil rights movement in the United States, with all of its growing agitation and riots and bitterness, and insidious steps towards the appearance of a civil war, has not been infiltrated by the Communists, as you now frequently hear. It has been deliberately and almost wholly created by the Communists patiently building up to this present stage for more than forty years." The society opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, claiming it violated the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and overstepped individual states' rights to enact laws regarding civil rights. The society opposes "one world government", and it 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. They argue the U.S. Constitution has been devalued in favor of political and economic globalization, and that this alleged trend is not accidental. It cited the existence of the former Security and Prosperity Partnership as evidence of a push towards a North American Union.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society
mountain grammy
(26,624 posts)This is how the Nazis came to power, they won elections.. Yes indeed, these boys know what they're doing. Reagan was a Bircher and voters bought into every lie. Want to know what the hell is wrong with Kansas? The Koch's and the John Birch Society. In fact that's what's wrong with America.
The John Birch Society is the Ku Klux Klan, and they have a majority in Congress. We are in a precarious position.
Triana
(22,666 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)libdem4life
(13,877 posts)I remember around 8 years old going with my Dad to our little Nebraska town's local puddlejumper airport where we were given binoculars to watch the sky for incoming communist planes. They had people sign up for 30 minutes of sky-scanning duty. It was serious business. McCarthy was kind of the face of the movement.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)I suspect someone would have noticed them commie planes before they got all the way to Nebraska.
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)Also the thought crossed my mind, uh, exactly what would we do? But at that age, ours is not to question why, (especially the Birchers) yada yada
Back atcha
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)But I doubt the real reasons had fuck all to do with commie planes.
The absurdity of a plane making it to Nebraska prevented me from considering what would happen then.
Kinda like my childhood memories of the local rural Pa national guard doing riot training in the 60's. Somehow they got the high school to agree to allow the students to play the rioters. They were ready for the hippie scourge to arrive and by gawd knew how to handle them. But Nebraska commie plane watch has that beat by a mile.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)They kinda resonate on some things.
onenote
(42,714 posts)The Democrats have 188 members, which wouldn't fit the "Birchers have a plurality" argument so the Democrats get broken into two groups, "regular" Democrats and "Business" Democrats. The repubs are also broken into two groups, but its not "regular" and "business", its "Bircher" and "Business."
But I'd argue that ninety-plus percent of the "bircher" Repubs are also "Business" Repubs. THe basis for the distinctions drawn in the article are far from clear and the label assigned to individual members isn't given so its impossible to judge how the distinctions are being made and how valid they are or aren't.
On the Democratic side, on most of the votes taken thus far this Congress, over 170 Democrats have voted as a bloc, including on bills like the Homeland Security Approps bill (181 D's no/2 yes), at the National Pipeline Permitting Act (169 D's no/14 yes), the Save American Workers Act (172 D's voting no/12 yes), a bill to restrict the regulatory process (175 D's no/8 yes). Several, if not all of these bills were supported by most or all of the "business republicans". The two bills on which fewer than 169 Democrats stuck together were the Keystone final passage and a "Jobs creation/small business reform" bill. And on each of those, the Democrats unanimously supported efforts to prevent the bill from coming to a vote (albeit unsuccessfully). On the other side of the coin, its hard to see any basis for distinguishing between the "business" republicans and the "Bircher" republicans. On issues of concern to corporate entities and social issues like abortion, the repubs largely vote as a block.
My point isn't that RWers aren't in control. They clearly are. They have a majority. The Democrats have the minority. Trying to create lines within these two groups to find a "plurality" is inherently arbitrary and result oriented.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)madfloridian
(88,117 posts)Claire Conner's book is a must-read too!