Why No Republican Rebuke?

Representative Allen West (Republican from Florida) publically stated recently that 76 Congressional Democrats (perhaps as many as 81) are actual members of the Communist Party.
by Charlie Leck

It was extraordinarily dumb of Representative West to say it, but he did. Amazingly, he said it with a straight face and then reiterated that he meant it. Though we’ve come to expect our members of Congress to say utterly stupid things from time to time, there is a difference here. Here's what it is: the Republican Party of America has not stood up to rebuke the Congressman and to declare that he misspoke – or spoke stupidly – or lied – or didn’t know what he was talking about.

Marxists in the Congress?
When the question was asked of Representative West, some in the crowd guffawed, but West shook the naysayers off and assured the audience that “…it’s a good question.”

He told his audience that there were members of the Democratic Party who were also members of the Communist Party. He said he was talking about the Congressional Progressive Caucus (76 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives).

This is all laughable, I suppose – unless, of course, Representative West was talking about you. I’m sure those members of Congress didn’t think it was funny.

It took me back to times in America when we were talking about the Radical Right. Remember the John Birch Society? It still exists, by the way, and you can read about some of their fear mongering here – at the John Birch Society web site.

The point I want to make – as strongly as I possibly can – is about the silence of the Republican Party following Representative West’s utterly obnoxious statement. The Tea Party is dragging us back to the time when the John Birch Society actually had a significant following. Both build their strength through fear and untruths.

It is only right that such ugliness and lies should be rebuked – we’re not talking about distortions here – or debatable facts – or foggy interpretations. We are talking about out-and-out lies and the Grand Old Party should speak up and out about such attacks.

We’ve returned to a time when a political party is willing to build upon fear rather than upon truth. Oh, my! Oh, my!

You can read the Washington Post story about Mr. West here (you can also view a video of his statement).

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John Birch! Really!

My god, the John Birch Society is still around and that just knocks me out!
by Charlie Leck

The Tea Party is active in Minnesota – very active! And, what’s really interesting is that the Republican Party is trying to rope them in as a wing of what used to be a very distinguished political organization. I wonder how the old boys of Ripon would feel about this.

The GOP is so fond of claiming Abe Lincoln as one of their own; yet, Lincoln had no time for rabble rousers, shouters and haters in his time. He was totally incensed by them and often made it clear in many of his public speeches.

"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners and catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance.”

It appears that our Governor, who really wants to be our President, has recognized the sizeable presence of the Tea Party in current American politics and he is going to position himself in a manner that these goons will not find unattractive. Congratulations Governor!

Now it appears that the John Birch Society is back on the scene. Seems crazy to me! I thought they had been driven off the front pages and the political scene back in the 60s. I guess not. It appears that the Tea Party activities have breathed new life into the old Birchers, and “here we go again!”

Those of you too young to remember the activities of the crazy John Birch Society of five and six decades ago, may want to do some reading about them again – just to remind yourselves (or learn) about how crazy and dangerous the organization really is. The NY Times published an intriguing story about the John Birch Society this past summer, indicating the organization is headquartered in Grand Chute, Wisconsin. The article by Dan Barry is well done and worth reading. [Click here to read the Dan Barry article.]

Seems our Governor is going to be speaking at a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. The conference will be co-sponsored by the John Birch Society. That’s it, Gov, be sure to secure all those far right – radical right – votes, my boy, and leave the wide, moderate, rational center to the Democrats. To be fair, I’ll admit here that the above conference also has several dozen other sponsors. It still rattles me to see the John Birch name hanging around, however. Like the Tea Party, the Birchers were always associated with rabble rousing, fear mongering and anger. In the early 60s we put them in a group of crazies we called “the radical right.”

Abe would not have liked the John Birch Society. As a matter of fact he would have thought they stunk. The Republican Party of the late 1850s and all of the 1860s would have hated the politics of the John Birch Society as well.

For those of you who don’t have time to read the entire NY Times story about what the John Birch Society is all about, I’ll leave you with this short clip from it.

“Yet for others, the John Birch Society is urgently relevant to the matters of today, in its support of secure borders and limited government, its distrust of the Federal Reserve and the United Nations, and its belief in a conspiracy to merge Mexico, Canada and the United States.

“This so-called North American Union, it asserts, is part of a larger plot by an amorphous, amoral group of powerful elite — including but not limited to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Rockefellers — to take over planet Earth. Call it the New World Order.

“Some of these theories may sound like cable television chatter, or the synopsis of a Dan Brown bestseller. But Birch leaders say this plot is real, with roots going back more than 200 years to a secret, insidious brotherhood called the Illuminati, and with most American presidents among its many dupes and abettors.

“'We’ve always referred to it as a Satanic conspiracy,' said Arthur Thompson, the society’s chief executive, sitting beside an American flag.”

And, as the Chad Mitchell Trio used to sing back then, when I was a young man:

You cannot trust your neighbor
or even your next of kin

If mommy is a commie
then you gotta turn her in.

O, we’re the John birch society,
the John Birch Society
Fighting for the right to fight the right fight for the Right

Join the John Birch Society as we’re marching on
And we’ll all be glad to see you
when we’re meeting in the John.

Good night! And, good luck!