Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues
The New York Times says that, in the era of Barack Obama, Glenn Beck, and Lou Dobbs, the anti-communist John Birch Society is seeing something that resembles a popular resurgence. No membership figures are provided, though readers are helpfully pointed to the "handsome" (and completely insane) Birch website and provided with the typical quotes of nutball members accusing Harry Truman of being a Red agent. A snippet:
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.
Title reference explained in the video below:
