John Birch Society thread

[cilla4progress]

I've been wanting to start this and another thread tipped me off.

Through some googling I've got the basic outline - and that Koch bros. father was a founder. Ultra-conservative far right Christian based, racist political advocacy group. Anti-civil rights, anti-immigration, anti-free trade by the way.

I wonder why it struck such fear and hatred into the heart of my dearly departed father, a labor-leaning Jewish son of immigrants who worked on behalf of fair housing and school integration in the 1960s - 70s.

[bemildred]

1. The Jack Acid Society is what Walt Kelly called them.

http://bergetoons.blogspot.com/2012/01/pogo-and-jack-acid-society.html

[ernie1241]

2. Reply to Cilla

1. Fred Koch was a founding member of the JBS and served on its National Council but he ultimately resigned because (according to his wife) he disagreed with view expressed by JBS founder Robert Welch.

2. The JBS is not (as you falsely claim) a "racist political advocacy group" -- which is why, obviously, it attracted hundreds of JBS members who were racial and religious minorities -- including some who (a) became speakers via the JBS Speakers Bureau and (2) served on the governing body of the JBS -- i.e. its National Council.

[Iceberg Louie]

3. No, not racist, just a huge advocate of "state's rights"

Vehemently opposed to the Civil Rights movement and operating on a parallel platform of "anti-communism" with the Ku Klux Klan of that era. Unsurprisingly, the JBS was founded by anarcho-capitalists, bent on abolishing taxation for themselves, dumping loads of soft money into shell groups to create astroturf movements, and using fear, paranoia, obfuscation, and outright disinformation to line up useful idiots behind them.

Sound familiar?

[Blue Idaho]

4. JBS = Teabaggers.

Same as it always was. Isolationist, Racist, Ultra Conservative.

[struggle4progress]

5. After all the good work they've done to warn us about the Illuminati conspiracy, it's so strange

that people still regard them as crackpots!