Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	10/24/2004

SAMPLE John Birch Society Membership Alert:

-----Original Message-----
From: The John Birch Society [mailto:alert@jbs.org]
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 5:43 PM
To: jimcapo@bellsouth.net
Subject: Urgent! Oppose the Intelligence Overhaul Legislation!

Contact your rep. and senators today. Oppose the stampede to pass the dangerous Intelligence Overhaul legislation (S. 2845) based on the 9-11 Commission Report.

Background: A hastily called House-Senate conference committee began hearings on October 20th to reconcile equally hastily passed House and Senate bills. Congressional leaders have sent signals that the full Congress would be called back to Washington for a final vote prior to the November 2nd elections!

Provisions in the original bills would centralize more police power in the executive branch, and create, in effect, a national ID card. Instead of closing the wide-open doors that are allowing terrorists into our country, the new legislation clamps down on the rights of citizens.

Below are some exerpts I pulled from the referenced bill which you can read in full here. (that is in one of the three pending versions anyway.) I for one think this is important enough not to rush through a special last minute before the election session of the Congress. Maybe many others think this is no big deal.

SEC. 101. NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUTHORITY.

(a) INDEPENDENT ESTABLISHMENT- There is hereby established as an independent establishment in the executive branch of government the National Intelligence Authority.

SEC. 126. OFFICER FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES OF THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUTHORITY.

Duties... review, investigate, and assess complaints and other information indicating possible abuses of civil rights or civil liberties, as provided in the Constitution, laws, regulations, and Executive orders of the United States, in the administration of the programs and operations of the Authority, and in the relationships described in paragraph (1), unless, in the determination of the Inspector General of the National Intelligence Authority, the review, investigation, or assessment of a particular complaint or information can better be conducted by the Inspector General;

Comment: If we are not happy with the Officer for Civil Rights and Liberties "review, investigation and assesments" or if the Inspector General determines he himself is the better government Tsar to deal with the complaint, our redress is exactly what?

BTW: Where is our Officer for the Defense of the Constitution or our Officer for the Protection of our unalienable rights? Once our rights become "civil" they are only as good as prescribed by law. This is not the same as unalienable rights.

This is looks suspiciously like the wording of those who seek to grant us our rights as the government finds them to be expedient rather than protect the rights we have been endowed with by a Creator. Oh wait a minute, I forgot. If there is no Creator then the only rights we have come from governments. Silly me.

11:03:44 PM

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The JBS Revealed!

Wikipedia gives us the definitive history of the John Birch Society. I thought I'd run the 5-minute fact checker on their information (this is by no means an exhaustive review.)

Let's start with the very first sentence:

The John Birch Society (JBS) is a conservative organization that was founded in California in 1958 to fight the perceived threat of Communism in the United States.

Actually, no. The Society was clearly founded in Indianapolis, Indiana a very difficult town to confuse with California. Since the Wikipedia entry goes on later to say, "The JBS was established in Indianapolis on December 9, 1958 by a group of 12 "patriotic and public-spirited" men led by Robert Welch, Jr. " I will assume they are confused with the state of incorporation for one of the Society's companies.

Rather than start with quoting something the Society's founder actually said, let's lead off with a quote from one of the Society's socialist opponents so we know we are getting the truth...

According to Welch," writes Political Research Associates in its analysis of the Birchers, "both the US and Soviet governments are controlled by the same furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians.

more from PRA:

The JBS was viewed by many left-of-center journalists and politicians (ed. note: "now working at PRA") as an "extremist, wing-nut organization of conspiracy theorists." Much of its early (sic) conspiracism, according to Political Research Associates, "reflects an ultraconservative business nationalist critique of business internationalists networked through groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

"In 1962 Dan Smoot's The Invisible Government added several other policy groups to the list of conspirators, including the Committee for Economic Development, the Advertising Council, the Atlantic Council (formerly the Atlantic Union Committee), the Business Advisory Council, and the Trilateral Commission."

... a real prophetic feat since the Trilateral Commission was not formed until 1973, which you can easily fact-check by clicking on the Wikipedia supplied link there. And here's more...

"Republican mainstream unhappiness with the Birchers intensified after Welch circulated a letter calling President Dwight D. Eisenhower a �conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy.� Welch went further in a book titled The Politician, written in 1956."

Ok, let's see here: The Birch Society was founded in 1958, but sometime before 1956 Republican unhappiness with the Birchers intensified.

Along with all this the Wikipedia entry, apparently written mostly by PRA, talks about other groups never affiliated with the JBS and slides in a few craftily worded comments on anti-Semitism and racism which are de rigueur for any discussion meant to smear "conservative" groups like the JBS.

Bottom line: You get what you pay for "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."

Go here for more accurate info on the JBS.

3:50:27 PM

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