Welcome www.ontheborderline.net Posters & HSO Readers
The current editions of the Hudson Star Observer and the New Richmond News carry a letter to the editor by me (see 1 st comment to this post).The Admin at www.ontheborderline.net has posted a response ( see second comment) to my letter and, for some reason, it doesn't appear that the he actually read the letter. OTBL'ers seem to have that habit, concerning my letters to the editor.
I think you can summarize the points of my letter as follows:
1. The chairman of the La Crosse County Republican party, Chris Muller uses John Birch Society (JBS) rhetoric is his public writings. (Comment 3 includes an example of Muller's writing.)
2. There's a meth problem in our community.
3. Sheila Harsdorf and Kitty Rhoades played a major role in a bi-partisan effort to help fight the epidemic.
4. Posters on the OTBL blog site use the same JBS rhetoric and called Hardsdorf and Rhoades RINOs.
5. Apparently to be a Republican these days you have to drink the JBS Kool-aid.
6. If you'd like a more progressive alternative, check out the Democrats.
I never said anybody associated with the OTBL blog is a member of the JBS. I said the rhetoric they used is that of the JBS.
Concerning my alledged use of "lewd and vulgar commenting," I've previously asked the OTBL Admin to forward a copy of those comments to me. He has an extensive archive at that site that goes back months before I stopped there. It should be fairly easy to do. Admin Chris please forward my "lewd and vulgar comments" to onwilber@yahoo.com. I will gladly post them on this site and let the community judge my comments.
Admin Chris includes this comment: "I will also leave you with something that would show your naive if you think that members of the Republican Party would switch to the worse of two evils, 'A bad day of fishing, is still better than a good day at work.'"
Concerning this I like to point out that the Demcratic Party is obviously an alternative to the Republican Party. Another alternative that I am trying to point out to Republicans is there is a part of your party that doesn't want to be part of the community. It is that part that sees no middle ground and says their way is the only way -- Republicans disagreeing will be shunned and down graded.
The OTBL Admin says he has never heard of the John Birch Society. He is either pulling our leg or is very ignorant of US political history. When it comes to political history posted on the OTBL site, it tends to range from fantasy to ignorance and rarely resembles reality...ignorace might just be the reason he doesn't know about the JBS.
Finally, I will always support the OTBL'ers right to express their opinions -- whether I agree with them or not. However, I will not let them go unchallenged and I will do everything I can to make sure that members of this community know what is happening on the border line.
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Summary of background info included in comments:
1. My 9/29/05 letter to the editor
2. OTBL Admin's response to my letter
3. Sample of public writings of La Crosse County Republican chairman, Chris Muller
4. OTBL post comments naming local RINOs
5. Background info and history of John Birch Society
6. List of area signers of the Alliance for the Separation of School & State petition to eliminate government schools. Among the signers of the petition are OTBL'ers Bill Danielson and Admin Chris Kilber. Also a Wisconsin signer is G. Vance Smith, the CEO of the JBS. Kibler has an interesting comment about the purpose of his blog site.
6 comments:
To The Editor:
I recently picked up a copy of The Conservative Republican, a newspaper published in Sparta by Republicans in La Crosse and Monroe counties. In that newspaper was an editorial by Chris Muller, chairperson of the La Crosse County Republican Party. If you thought the right-wing fanatics of the John Birch Society disappeared with the 1964 defeat of Barry Goldwater, guess again. In his editorial, Muller uses the McCarthy-era language so prevalent in the right wing of today’s Republican Party.
Here’s a Muller quote: “I have talked to several liberals who try to destroy the foundation of our traditions by insisting, for example, that the Founding Fathers were slave owners and, therefore, should not be held in high esteem. At the same time, these same liberals will hold in high regard the actions of leaders like Joseph Stalin who ruled with an iron fist in Communist Russia and was responsible for the deaths of millions.”
What Muller says is extremist, redneck baloney. To Muller, “liberal” stands for anybody not a Republican. Far left-wing fruitcakes MIGHT echo Muller’s thoughts, but they are not attending, volunteering or participating in the Democratic Party I’m a part of.
To save on gas, you don’t have to go to La Crosse to find “liberals” slandered as Marxists, communists, socialist, etc. You can read it in letters to the editor in this paper. You can also find it at the local anti-tax, anti-union, anti-public education blog site: www.ontheborderline.net (OTBL). These are the guys wearing duct tape over their mouth at school board meetings
To keep Republican Party peace, the party reactionaries have an acronym for “fellow” Republicans straying from their regressive positions. The acronym is “RINO,” as in “Republican In Name Only.” According to OTBL postings, local Republicans Shelia Harsdorf and Kitty Rhoades are RINOs. Should I assume, “true” Republicans don’t endorse Harsdorf and Roades’ legislation to fight the methamphetamine epidemic? Even Barry Goldwater was a founding member of the Arizona chapter of Planned Parenthood!
To be a Republican today, it appears you must only drink the Kool-Aid endorsed by the John Birch fanatics of the party. If you long to return to a past with an outhouse in every backyard and ignorance and illiteracy determined by income level and/or the color of your skin, today’s Republican Party has a drink for you. If you are looking for progressive alternatives to deal with changing cultural diversity, improving society for everyone, educating to better compete in a changing global economy and protecting the environment for future generations, you might want to check out what the Democrats have to offer.
JPN
Welcome HSO Readers
Welcome HSO Readers once again. Thanks to J. Nelson (aka dratsum) for mentioning www.OnTheborderLine.net again in his HSO editorial. I thought he had rid himself of his compulsive obsession and preoccupation with those of us who frequent here and the stories found here. Jim's facts about this blog are somewhat skewed on many levels. He also is outright wrong on others. He was originally banned from this blog because of his vulgarity and lewd commenting. He had been a welcome contributor up to that point. He did help attract many visitors and I guess, continues to do so today, be it in a round about way.
First of all, I have heard of the John Birch Society but have never even been to their site, been associated with, nor even honestly know exactly what they do. The only society I belong to is the Borderliners. I can't speak for all members of course, but the ones I do talk to and see on a somewhat regular basis, have never mentioned or talked about it either. So one of Mr. Nelsons approaches is to try and associate ill represented connotations with the topic at hand and use phraseology that basically distorts things with those associations.
Also, another item in his bag of tricks used to deceive is the ones similar to Micheal Moore's tactics used in his propaganda movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11" (See Link Below*). He conveniently uses something someone said in reference to a completely different topic or at a completely different time. He also only picks out a phrase or sentence that then completely distorts the true context of the meaning.
On to the matters at hand. This blog generally tilts to the right. Does this mean BorderLiners follow everything the right has to offer. No. Of course not. BorderLiners are equal opportunity critics. There are as many Republicans taken to task as there are Democrats. I would characterize OnTheBorderLine as a blog that is more based on Individual Freedom, Liberty, and the concepts associated with our Founding Fathers. Because of this, BorderLiners occasionally find themselves at odds with the Republican Party. The Founding Fathers never envisioned such a large and obtrusive government who has their hands into everything. To blindly follow would be foolish. BorderLiners will also question subsidies and policies that make government grow. To paraphrase Ronald Regan, "Government is not the solution, it's the problem." I will also leave you with something that would show your naiveté if you think that members of the Republican Party would switch to the worse of two evils, "A bad day of fishing, is still better than a good day at work."
Parts of the concepts and ideas here have always involved taking a look at government institutions. One that effects everyone of us is taxes. You can find out more about taxes in these posts.
CLICK Taxes
Another topic that is near and dear to the BorderLiners is education. There is a lot of material on education here. BorderLiners believe that one of the largest and most inherently wasteful institutions, which is funded by threat of jail or loss of property, is public education. Does that mean we don't think everyone needs an education? Does that mean we hate teachers? Of course it doesn't. Borderliners simply want a say as to where their tax dollars go for school. When we see here in Hudson that kids can be educated for 1/2 the cost of the public schools, you would be an idiot as not to investigate why! True school choice is the only one meaningful true and tried way to infuse competition into the mix. The strong teachers Union (WEAC) and the Wisconsin education industry have a strong grasp on what it allows in the state. The defenders of the high taxation used to pay for education in Hudson and throughout the state are really not doing it for their kids. They are doing it for their salaries, pensions, and healthcare, which I dare say are much better than the general taxpayers who have to pay for them. The ideas you read about here are not found in the mainstream press. You can find out more about education reform here.
CLICK Education
In closing, you will also get an education on Free Markets, Economics, Education, and a host of other issue affecting us all, in addition to humor, sports on occasion, and a plethora of other topics. Have a look around and make up your own mind. If you want to comment feel free to register. You will be sent a password. Here is the disclaimer if you become a memeber:
Keep in mind that any new commenters are put in a moderated status and will be reviewed. If after a brief history everything seems to be in order, you may be then put into an un-moderated status by the admin. However, any comments, posts, or other contributed material becomes property of the blog and any submission or comment may be edited or deleted without question. Profanity will not be tolerated. The owner of this blog also is not responsible for objectionable material and will remove it when found, and suspend the member.
Welcome!
SUNDAY DEBATE: Liberals seek Marxist solutions to problems of society, economics
By CHRIS MULLER Onalaska, Wis.
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Binge drinking among college students and the minimum wage. These are just two of the issues that local officials have been dealing with in our city and town halls.
On top of all the other advice that I'm sure government leaders are receiving, I will offer my own 2 cents on these issues from the perspective of a Christian Conservative Republican.
When looking at how to correct problems with young adults and drinking, I recommend that you treat these young people as adults.
If you treat them like adults by holding them accountable for their actions and punishing them for public intoxication and other offenses when necessary, then they will act like adults, and they will take responsibility for their own actions.
If you continue to treat them like children by creating special rules for them simply because they are students and enabling them to avoid responsibility for their own actions, then several of them will continue to disappoint our society.
The reason I know that treating college students like adults will work is because there are many, many fine young adults out there who are already taking responsibility for their own actions and they make better choices as a result.
Perhaps they come from strong families or maybe they spent some time in the military before attending college. Whatever the reason, these well-adjusted, disciplined young people choose to behave responsibly and they take responsibility for their friends as well.
Increasing the minimum wage should be done at the state level not town by town. The purpose of a minimum wage is simply to set a standard for those who are entering the workforce for the first time. It is intended to ensure a minimum compensation to those with no skills.
It should be updated every few years to adjust for inflation including lowering it when inflation is down similar to how the Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates, but each state should have the ability to take into consideration their specific economies.
It is not, nor should it ever be, considered a livable wage. A livable wage is something that is achieved after working hard to learn skills and gain experience in one's career.
Liberals like to preach to the rest of us about how unfair it is that some people are better off than others. They would like to alleviate this situation by forcing the wealthy to give more to the poor. This is what Karl Marx describes as the re-distribution of wealth and what Joseph Stalin and other communist/socialists practiced.
They pushed the successful down so that everyone was equally miserable.
Instead of pushing the wealthy down why not try to raise the poor up?
We are extremely blessed in this nation to have limitless resources.
There is enough for everyone to be successful if they are willing to invest the time and effort necessary to achieve success. If an adult is earning minimum wage then it must be because of a lack of education and training or a lack of willingness to achieve. Let's do a better job of lifting these people up instead of pushing down the successful.
(Chris Muller is chairman of the La Crosse County Republican Party.)
Below are samples of RINO-related quotes taken off the OTBL web site. These comments might not have been made in referrence to the meth legislation work involving Hardsdorf or Rhoades, but the doesn't matter. If you are calling someone a RINO, you are calling them a RINO -- regardless of the post you are commenting on.
JPN
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9/24/05: Like a big balloon over the St. Croix Valley, local RINO Daryl Standafer was blowing a lot of hot air in this week's Star Obfuscator. His article focused primarily on his unhappiness with Hudson Alderman Paul Radermacher. Personally this taxpayer could care less about the intergovernmental squabble between the two taxing bodies. Both the city and the county tax too much and spend too much. Both are led by big spending liberals who love big government and all the tax money that is flowing into the county.
8/22/05blacklab: I’ve always felt that Sheila has a stong work ethic, and should she lose an election she’d be back on the farm working. To Kitty, this is a paycheck with benefits, she’s a schmoozer.
7/22/05 billd: Did I say RINO's? Sorry about that (such sarcasm drives the self-righteous so-called Republicans here in Wisconsin ballistic).
7/17/05 billd: The fact that real wealth is the accumulation and complete safety of private property is of little consequence to the gang of looters who are merely interested in government's role in confiscating private property in the pursuit of creating jobs, and growing the size and scope of government. It should not be surprising that a by-product of such intervention is the taking of your real wealth to accomplish it, and I would suggest that this is not simply a by-product but rather a desired social outcome for many on the liberal left (as well as the RINO muddled ground).
7/12/05 taxboy: This is the type of hypocrisy that we've come to expect from our representatives in Madison. Both Kitty Rhoades and Sheila Harsdorf are well known within the halls of Madison as being a couple of the biggest RINO's in the state.
6/26/05 luke: I believe Sheila is known in Madison as a RINO. If any of you don't know what that means- Republican In Name Only.
5/21/05 taxboy: In a much-to-common move Rino Tim Pawlenty, who signed a "no new tax" pledge 3 years ago is looking to enact a .75 per pack "fee" on cigarettes (see article).
5/3/05 chris: Tom Sheehan's article in yesterday's Journal Times Online juxtaposition that Representative Frank Lasee's position and demeanor needs to change because he might be hurting the feelings of his Republican colleagues, for what? Telling the truth?
But if he wants TABOR to have legs in the Legislature, he may want to put on a smiley face, at least for his Republican colleagues.
This is the same thing that happened last year when Grothman and Panzer hijacked the bill, bastardized it, and it was never brought to a vote. Since then, Panzer lost her seat by an 80-20% margin. Lasee's version is the only one I want even to be brought to a vote. A watered down TABOR is no good and probably will make things even worse.
So, it appears that Sheehan is playing the ‘divide and conquer’ route. He is pitting the conservative republicans against the RINO’s. Frankly, (pun intended). I want this played out. Wisconsin is getting sick of the taxes it has to pay and does not want to be considered a tax hell. TABOR is not a ‘Got to do it now thing’. People will get fed up sooner than later, will get educated and learn that the sky will not be falling, and will require the government not to live beyond it’s means, just like every citizen of Wisconsin has to.
Below is an overview of the John Birch Society. Pay attention to these words they like to use:
collectivism; socialism; socialist
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John Birch Society
From www.Wikipedia.com, the free encyclopedia.
The John Birch Society (JBS) is a right-wing conservative organization that was founded in 1958 to fight the threat of Communism in the United States.
It describes itself as "a membership-based organization dedicated to restoring and preserving freedom under the United States Constitution." It states that its members come from all walks of life and are active throughout the 50 states as part of local chapters. The Society's mission is to achieve "Less Government, More Responsibility, and – With God's Help – a Better World." Its current headquarters is in Appleton, Wisconsin.
The society was named after John Birch, an American intelligence officer and Baptist missionary in World War II who was killed in 1945 by armed supporters of the Chinese Communist Party and dubbed "the first American victim of the Cold War" by the Society.
It claims to strenuously defend what it sees as the original intention of the U. S. Constitution. The group promotes the idea that America is founded on Christian principles (or, to be more exact, their interpretation of Christian principles) and supports a strong Christian influence in culture and government. It is anti-leftist, particularly anti-socialist and anti-communist. The JBS has a conspiracist view of history. It is also anti-globalization and for immigration reform. JBS advocates the abolition of income tax and the repeal of civil rights legislation, which it sees as being communist in inspiration. For these and other reasons, some opponents characterize it as a racist (and perhaps quasi-fascist) society.
History
The JBS was established in Indianapolis on December 9, 1958 by a group of twelve "patriotic and public-spirited" men led by Robert Welch, Jr., a retired candy manufacturer from Belmont, Massachusetts. A transcript of Welch's two-day presentation at the founding meeting was published as The Blue Book of the John Birch Society and became a cornerstone of its beliefs, with each new JBS member receiving a copy. "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. If left unexposed, the traitors inside the US government would betray the country's sovereignty to the United Nations for a collectivist New World Order managed by a 'one-world socialist government.' The Birch Society incorporated many themes from pre-WWII rightist groups opposed to the New Deal, and had its base in the business nationalist sector..."
Welch saw "collectivism" as the main threat to western civilization, and liberals as "secret communist traitors" who provide the cover for the gradual process of collectivism, with the ultimate goal of replacing the nations of western civilization with one-world socialist government. "There are many stages of welfarism, socialism, and collectivism in general," he wrote, "but communism is the ultimate state of them all, and they all lead inevitably in that direction."
JBS's objective was to fight communism using some of communism's own techniques -- organization of front groups, infiltration of other groups and letter-writing campaigns. One of the first public activities of the JBS was a "Get US out!" (of membership in the UN) campaign, which alleged in 1959 that the "Real nature of [the] UN is to build One World Government (New World Order)." One Man's Opinion, a magazine launched by Welch in 1956, was renamed American Opinion and became the Birch Society's official publication. It has since been replaced by the bi-weekly magazine, The New American.
In 1960, Welch advised JBS members to "join your local PTA at the beginning of the school year, get your conservative friends to do likewise, and go to work to take it over."
By March of 1961, the Society had an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 members and, according to Welch, "a staff of twenty-eight people in the Home Office; about thirty Coordinators (or Major Coordinators) in the field, who are fully-paid as to salary and expenses; and about one hundred Coordinators (or Section Leaders as they are called in some areas), who work on a volunteer basis as to all or part of their salary, or expenses, or both." According to its profile by Political Research Associates, JBS "pioneered grassroots lobbying, combining educational meetings, petition drives, and letter writing campaigns. One early campaign against the second Summit Conference between the US and the Soviet Union generated over 600,000 postcards and letters, according to the Society. A June 1964 Birch campaign to oppose Xerox Corporation sponsorship of TV programs favorable to the UN produced 51,279 letters from 12,785 individuals."[3]
The JBS was (and is) viewed by many mainstream journalists and politicians as an "extremist, wing-nut organization of conspiracy theorists." Much of its early 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). The CFR is viewed through a conspiracist lens as puppets of the Rockefeller family in a 1952 book by McCarthy fan Emanuel M. Josephson, Rockefeller, 'Internationalist': The Man Who Misrules the World. 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. Smoot had worked at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC before leaving to establish an anticommunist newsletter, the Dan Smoot Report. The shift from countersubversion on behalf of the FBI to countersubversion in the private sector was an easy one. The basic thesis was the same. In Smoot's concluding chapter, he wrote, 'Somewhere at the top of the pyramid in the invisible government are a few sinister people who know exactly what they are doing: They want America to become part of a worldwide socialist dictatorship, under the control of the Kremlin.'" Birchers elaborated on an earlier Illuminati Freemason conspiracy theory, imagining "an unbroken ideologically-driven conspiracy linking the Illuminati, the French Revolution, the rise of Marxism and Communism, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the United Nations"[4]. Unlike most advocates of the Illuminati-Freemason conspiracy theory, however, the Birch Society strenuously denies harboring any anti-Semitic ideation, and indeed claims many Jews among its membership.
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 and published by the JBS in 1963, which declared that Eisenhower’s brother Milton was Ike’s superior within the Communist apparatus and alleging that other top government officials were also communist tools, including “ex president Truman and Roosevelt, and the last Sec. Of State John Foster Dulles and former CIA Director Allan W. Dulles.” Conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr., an early friend and admirer of Welch, regarded his accusations against Eisenhower as "paranoid and idiotic libels" and attempted unsuccessfully to purge Welch from the JBS. Welch responded by attempting to take over Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative youth organization founded with assistance from Buckley.
In October 1964, the Idaho Statesman newspaper expressed concern about what it called an “ominous” increase in JBS-led “ultra right” radio and television broadcasts, which it said then numbered 7,000 weekly and cost an estimated $10 million annually. “By virtue of saturation tactics used, radical, reactionary propaganda is producing an impact even on large numbers of people who, themselves, are in no sense extremists or sympathetic to extremists views," declared a Statesman editorial. "When day after day they hear distortions of fact and sinister charges against persons or groups, often emanating from organizations with conspicuously respectable sounding names, it is no wonder that the result is: Confusion on some important public issues; stimulation of latent prejudices; creation of suspicion, fear and mistrust in relation not only to their representatives in government, but even in relation to their neighbors.”
In their early days, the JBS shared a common ideology and some overlapping membership with Fred Schwarz and his California-based Christian Anti-Communism Crusade.
John Birch Society influence on US politics hit its high point in the years around the failed 1964 presidential campaign of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, who lost to incumbent President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Welch had supported Goldwater over Richard Nixon for the Republican nomination, but the membership split, with two-thirds supporting Goldwater and one-third supporting Nixon. A number of Birch members and their allies were Goldwater supporters in 1964 and some were delegates at the 1964 Republican National Convention. The Goldwater campaign in turn brought together the nucleus of what later became known as the New Right, many of whom had been groomed by the Birch Society but whose more pragmatic members realized that the group's conspiracism was an impediment to electoral success.
John Birch Society members and allies also authored several widely-distributed books that promoted conspiracy theories and mobilized support for the Goldwater campaign:
A Choice, Not an Echo by Phyllis Schlafly, which suggested that the Republican Party was secretly controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberger banking conference, and whose policies were designed to usher in global communist conquest. "A Choice, Not an Echo" became one of Goldwater's campaign slogans.
The Gravediggers, co-authored by Schlafly and retired Rear Admiral Chester Ward of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, claimed that U.S. military strategy and tactics were actually designed to pave the way for global communist conquest.
None Dare Call It Treason, by John A. Stormer, sold over seven million copies, making it one of the largest-selling paperback books of the day. It decried "the concurrent decay in America's schools, churches, and press which has conditioned the American people to accept 20 years of retreat in the face of the communist enemy." Mr. Stormer also added, in his 1998 preface to the paperback edition: "Communism, which some believe (or hope) died in the Soviet Union, is alive and on the march in Asia, the Middle East, Central and Southern Africa and through guerrilla groups in Central and South America."
A Texan Looks at Lyndon by J. Evetts Haley, a book containing a number of allegations of political corruption throughout the career of Lyndon Johnson.
In April 1966, the New York Times reported on "the increasing tempo of radical right attacks on local government, libraries, school boards, parent-teachers associations, mental health programs, the Republican Party and, most recently, the ecumenical movement [...] The Birch Society is by far the most successful and 'respectable' radical right organization in the country. It operates alone or in support of other extremist organizations whose major preoccupation, like that of the Birchers, is the internal Communist conspiracy in the United States."
Key Birch Society causes of the 1970s included opposition to OSHA and the establishment of diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China. The organization claimed in 1973 that the regime of Mao Zedong had murdered 64 million Chinese as of that year, and further accused the country of being the primary supplier of illicit heroin into the United States, leading to its designing bumper stickers showing a pair of scissors cutting a hypodermic needle in half, accompanied by the slogan "Cut The Red China Connection". The society was also vehemently opposed to transferring control of the Panama Canal from American to Panamanian sovereignty, resulting in another slogan: "Don't Give Panama Our Canal - Give Them Kissinger Instead."
The Birch Society was organized into local chapters, imitating Welch's understanding of Communist organizing techniques. Ernest Brosang, a New Jersey regional coordinator, contended that it is virtually impossible for opponents of the society to penetrate its policy-making levels. Its activities included distribution of literature attacking proposed civil rights legislation, warning of the influence of the United Nations, and distributing petitions to impeach liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren. To spread their message, Birchers held Sunday showings of documentary films and operated initiatives such as "Let Freedom Ring," a nationwide network of recorded telephone messages. Some Birch members also helped organized the "Minutemen," a paramilitary group training to lead guerrilla warfare in case of a Communist take over.
The second John Birch Society chairman, US Representative Dr. Larry McDonald, was killed in the 1983 KAL-007 shootdown incident. Society members suggested that McDonald had been the principal target of the Soviets in the attack upon the airplane.
By the time of Welch's death in 1985, the Birch Society's membership and influence had dramatically declined, 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. Growing right-wing populism in the United States helped the JBS 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 Birch Society started a campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton for his connections with Chinese interests and on evidense of treason and bribery. Within months of the Society's call for impeachment, news of the Monica Lewinsky affair broke out and the Society's voice was drowned out by a sex-crazed media deluge. Clinton was eventually impeached, however not on the charges the Society had hoped to bring, nor was he convicted or thrown from office. The impeachment campaign's relative success bolstered the Birch Society and its membership, publication circulation, and finances grew further.
During the 1990s (with a brief pause to work on the above mentioned impeachment campaign), and in the first decade of the twenty-first 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 has since edged a narrow victory in the United States, though the Society points to the fact that the FTAA will have an even more difficult time.
The JBS continues to press for an end to United States membership in the United Nations, an idea that has seen more support in recent days, and it points to the Utah legislature's recent resolution calling for the US to take such a step, as well as the actions of several other states where the Society's membership has been active, as evidence of the effectiveness of JBS efforts.
The Birch Society generally opposes warmaking, though it is staunchly in favor of supporting the military. It has issued calls to "Bring Our Troops Home" in every conflict since, and including, Vietnam. The Society also has a national speaker's committee, called American Opinion Speakers Bureau (AOSB), as well as an anti-tax committe called TRIM (Tax Reform IMmediately).
Literary References In his novel, The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon satirized the famously conservative society with his Peter Pinguid Society, an organization so anti-communist that they opposed capitalism because it led inevitably to communism.
Judge for yourself about Kilber comments about being in favor of public education. He may not know what the John Birch Society is, but he is signing "proclamations" with the CEO of the JBS.
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Alliance for the Separation of School & State Proclaimation
Children need Honest Education
Separating School from State Is the Only Way to Get There.
Registry of Signatories from western Wisconsin
Chris Kilber
Hudson, 54016
I run a blog www.ontheborderline.net where we expouse the many reasons of seperation of state and school.
http://blog.ontheborderline.net
William Danielson
Hudson, 54016
G Vance Smith
Appleton, 54912-8040
CEO of John Birch Society
Lorilee Anderson
Baldwin, 54002-8306
Mark Anderson
Baldwin, 54002
Connie Bankston
Hudson, 54016-7638
Homemaker and soon to be student studying Naturopath. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Laura Books
Prescott, 54021-1138
Laurel Hartshorn
Star Prairie, 54026-5522
Homeschooling intelligent mom!
Katy Kern
Hudson, 54016
Nurse
Christopher Koehler
Hager City, 54014
Paul Kolars
River Falls, 54022
Scott Mancuso
Ellsworth, 54011
Sharon Marr
River Falls, 54022-8029
Ben Norquist
Hudson, 54016-7310
Michael Nous
Amery, 54001-2855
Colleen Rivard
Somerset, 54025-7521
Homeschool Mom of 2 children
Bonnie Smith
Baldwin, 54002
Jill Suter
Hager City, 54014
Kathy, Meggan, April & Kendr Tapp
Ellsworth, 54011-7502
Catholic, pro-life homeschooling mo
Scot Thompson
Beldenville, 54003
Rebecca Trotter
Hudson, 54016
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