John Birch Society

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The John Birch Society ( JBS ) is a right-wing organization in the United States that advocates anti-communist , anti-globalist and New World Order conspiracy theories . It was founded on December 9, 1958 in Indianapolis with the aim of combating supposedly increasing threats to the American constitution , which in particular meant an infiltration by communists . Leading the way among the twelve founding members was Robert Welch, Jr. (1899–1985), a former confectionary businessman. The organization is currently based in Appleton, Wisconsin . The JBS was named after John Birch , an American secret service worker who was murdered by Chinese communists and who acted as a missionary, and whom the JBS describes as the first American victim in the Cold War .

Alignment

The John Birch Society is considered to be far right or radical right. A central feature of their political thinking are conspiracy theories . One of their first public activities was the Get US out! of 1959 - meant membership in the United Nations , which was understood as a conspiracy to establish a "New World Order" and as an undermining of the national sovereignty of the United States. The Soviet Union and international communism have long been the focus of their conspiracy thinking. JBS founder Welch wrote in 1959:

“Communism, as it is clearly presented today, is on the whole a conspiracy , a gigantic conspiracy to enslave humanity; an increasingly successful conspiracy, controlled by determined, cunning and extremely unscrupulous criminals who are entitled to any means to achieve their goal. "

The JBS even accused such staunch anti-communists as Harry S. Truman , Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles of being tools of a communist conspiracy. In January 1961, Welch claimed that almost all of the American government was controlled by communists. Other examples of conspiratorial thinking include Welch's thesis that Republican Senator Robert A. Taft's death from cancer in 1953 can be traced back to a tube of radium that was inserted into the cushion of his seat, or the assertion, made in 1963, that there were 35,000 Chinese soldiers in Mexico stationed preparing to attack San Diego .

In the mid-1960s, Welch expanded the front line of the JBS by constructing a longer line of tradition in which the communists allegedly stood: Now the Illuminati , a Bavarian secret society that existed from 1776 to 1785, were suspected . Welch claimed that it continued to exist in secret and that its elite, the "insiders", were the main conspirators behind all evil, from the French Revolution in 1789 to the Communist Manifesto in 1848, the October Revolution in 1917 to the outbreak of World War II in 1939: The unsuspecting Hitler was was incited to attack Poland by the communists, who had firmly planned the subsequent destruction of Europe as a prerequisite for conquering large parts of the continent. As evidence, the John Birch Society website cites the fact that the Illuminati Order was established on May 1st, which was declared International Working Class Day in 1889 , and that the Beltane Festival of the pre-Christian Celts falls on the same date as further evidence of the unchristian character of the communist-illuminatian secret society. The JBS publications rely heavily on the work of Nesta Webster , an anti-Semitic conspirator who belongs to the British Union of Fascists . Welch has called the members of the conspiracy, who secretly control both the communist movement and large parts of the free world, the insiders since 1966: These were formed in the 19th century by Cecil Rhodes and other heads of European high finance and are today via the Council on Foreign Relations , an informal think tank, exerted massive influence over the decisions of national governments.

These conspiracy theories suggest that international communism and international finance capital are basically identical, a conceptual proximity to those of the National Socialists . The extent to which the JBS also represented anti-Semitic positions is controversial. The American political scientist Daniel Pipes denies this. According to him, there were individual anti-Semitic voices within the JBS in the 1960s, but Robert Welch again explained these in an interview to be conspiracy theory, namely as the work of agents provocateurs who sought to subvert and expose the JBS on behalf of their enemies. In some of the JBS's writings, anti-Semitism as a whole is portrayed as a conspiracy and diversionary maneuver with which the secret societies, which are actually responsible for all the evils in the world, wanted to divert suspicion from themselves. The American historian Richard E. Frankel, on the other hand, refers to suspicions against the Anti-Defamation League , which in the mid-1960s was portrayed in the JBS bulletin as the cause of anti-Semitism in the USA, which may have been the real goal of the communists they were allegedly founded. In addition, prominent anti-Semites such as Eric Butler , Richard Cotten or Merwin Hart were members of the JBS, which also openly distributes anti-Semitic literature such as the works of Nesta Webster.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the John Birch Society warned of “big government”, globalization , supranationalism and moral decline. She had raised these issues again and again since the 1960s: they always appeared to her as parts of the same major conspiracy of which international communism was a part. In this respect, with the end of the threat from international communism, she did not have to change her central narrative, but could interpret it as a mere change of tactics on the way to the allegedly still threatening "one-world tyranny".

Today the JBS concentrates in addition to the continued conspiracy theories on the fight against restrictions on gun ownership and Obamacare as well as for an isolationist foreign policy of the United States .

influence

The JBS was at the height of its influence in the late 1950s to early 1960s. At the time, it is said to have had over 60,000 members (the official membership is kept secret by the organization), and its annual budget was $ 1.5 million. Reading rooms ("American Opinion Libraries") were established throughout the United States , offering a wide variety of conspiracy-theoretical and anti-communist literature. They had a direct influence on American politics through letter campaigns and front organizations. In 1964, she supported the Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater , who polarized the country with his right-wing positions. After Goldwater's defeat, conservative thought leaders such as Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley, Jr. turned away from her, and the American Conservative Union passed an incompatibility resolution. As a result, the JBS became isolated within the conservative camp. Nevertheless, its influence should not be underestimated even today: According to its own statements, it still maintains functioning structures in all 50 states of the USA . In 1995, it was estimated that there were still 55,000 members. Some members were represented in the American House of Representatives. As a grassroots movement , it still manages to send its members to city councils, boards of education and other government and civil society bodies. The publication medium was American Opinion magazine . This has been replaced by the biweekly The New American .

Reception in literature and popular culture

The organization found its way into literature and pop culture. Examples are:

  • In the novel The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon alluded to the well-known conservative JBS. The "Peter Pinguid Society" takes the anti-communism of the JBS to extremes: it fights capitalism, since it inevitably leads to communism in the sense of Karl Marx .
  • The novel Illuminatus! by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson contains numerous parodies of the JBS conspiracy theories.
  • The JBS appears in the comic series Freak Brothers as enemies of the drug addict protagonists.
  • Bob Dylan wrote the song Talkin 'John Birch Paranoid Blues , published on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 .
  • General Jack D. Ripper in the satirical film Dr. Strange or: How I Learned to Love the Bomb is the John Birch Society's theory that the Soviets are poisoning American drinking water.

Leadership members

President

  • Robert W. Welch, Jr. (1958-1983)
  • Larry McDonald (1983)
  • Robert W. Welch, Jr. (1983–1985)
  • Charles R. Armor (1985-1991)
  • John F. McManus (1991-2004, 2005-present)
  • G. Vance Smith (2004-2005)

Chairperson

  • G. Allen Bubolz (1988–1991)
  • G. Vance Smith (1991-2005)
  • Arthur R. Thompson (2005-present)

Known members

literature

  • J. Allen Broyles : The John Birch Society. Anatomy of a Protest. Beacon Press, Boston MA 1964.
  • Fred J. Cook : The right-wing radical powers in the USA and Goldwater (= rororo 733 rororo current ). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1965.
  • Benjamin R. Epstein , Arnold Forster : The Radical Right. Report on the John Birch Society and Its Allies. Vintage Books, New York NY 1966.
  • Gene Grove : Inside the John Birch Society. Fawcett, Greenwich CT 1961.
  • Jean V. Hardisty : Mobilizing Resentment. Conservative Resurgence from the John Birch Society to the Promise Keepers. Beacon, Boston MA 1999, ISBN 0-8070-4322-2 .
  • George Johnson : Architects of Fear. Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics. Tarcher et al., Los Angeles CA et al. 1983, ISBN 0-87477-275-3 .
  • Lester De Koster : The Citizen and the John Birch Society. A Reformed Journal monograph. William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids MI 1967.
  • Daniel Pipes : Conspiracy. The fascination and power of the secret. Gerling Akademie Verlag, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-932425-08-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Seymour Martin Lipset : Three Decades of the Radical Right , in: Daniel Bell and David Plotke (eds.), The Radical Right , Transaction Publ, New York 2001, pp. 421ff and others; Benjamin R. Epstein and Arnold Foster: The Radical Right. Report on the John Birch Society and its Allies . Random House, New York 1967; Richard E. Frankel: John Birch Society . In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus , Vol. 5: Organizations, Institutions, Movements. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin / Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-027878-1 , p. 341 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  2. ^ Robert Welch: The Blue Book of the John Birch Society . Western Islands, Belmont MA 1959, p. 21.
  3. ^ Richard E. Frankel: John Birch Society . In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus , Vol. 5: Organizations, Institutions, Movements. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin / Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-027878-1 , p. 342 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  4. ^ Daniel Pipes : Conspiracy. The fascination and power of the secret. Gerling Akademie Verlag, Munich 1998, pp. 67 and 72.
  5. ^ Benjamin R. Epstein and Arnold Foster: The Radical Right. Report on the John Birch Society and its Allies . Random House, New York 1967, pp. 118 f.
  6. ^ Daniel Pipes: Conspiracy. The fascination and power of the secret. Gerling Akademie Verlag, Munich 1998, p. 205 f.
  7. ^ Richard E. Frankel: John Birch Society . In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus, Vol. 5: Organizations, Institutions, Movements. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin / Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-027878-1 , p. 342 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  8. ^ Charles J. Stewart: The Master Conspiracy of the John Birch Society: From Communism to the New World Order . In: Western Journal of Communication 66, No. 4 (2002), pp. 423-447, citation p. 437 from an article in The New American of January 29, 1990.
  9. ↑ Michael H. Carriere: John Birch Society . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 1, p. 372.
  10. ^ Richard E. Frankel: John Birch Society . In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus, Vol. 5: Organizations, Institutions, Movements. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin / Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-027878-1 , p. 342 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  11. ^ Willam F. Buckley, Jr .: Flying High. Remembering Barry Goldwater. Basic Books, Philadelphia 2010 ISBN 978-0-465-01805-5 pp. 59ff.
  12. ↑ Michael H. Carriere: John Birch Society . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 1, p. 373.
  13. ↑ Michael H. Carriere: John Birch Society . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 1, p. 373.
  14. ↑ LOGAN JENKINS: Fluoride feud hasn't lost its bite . In: The San Diego Union - Tribune , March 27, 1999, p. B.11.