Last June, the New York Times took a look at the present-day John Birch Society:
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.
But dressed now in his preferred attire of dark blazer and red tie, he spoke earnestly of wanting to thwart the “insiders,” as he calls them. “It’s a war between good and evil,” he said. “And sometimes it takes a strange twist.”
The society is familiar with strange twists. In late 2005, for example, Mr. Thompson became chief executive after staging a coup with the help of John McManus, the society’s most prominent member, its longtime president and an ultraconservative Roman Catholic. This prompted some ousted Birchers to disseminate recorded snippets of Mr. McManus lecturing to Catholic groups that Judaism became a dead and deadly religion after the establishment of the Catholic Church.
Mr. McManus is also heard to say that militant Jews have influenced the Freemasons, who are “Satan’s agents,” “the enemies of Christ Church” — and, in the view of the John Birch Society, part of the Illuminati conspiracy to cause world upheaval.
The Times‘ Dan Barry could just as easily be describing the world of Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and Orly Taitz. And in fact Mr. Barry is talking about the Tancredos and Palins of the world. Consider Sarah’s obsession with secrecy and security; the Birchers organize in a conscious imitation of classical lefty subversives — small cells of eight or more people.
Barry relates the story of
Mr. Shibler, the shipping and maintenance manager, said he joined the society as a teenager in the 1970s after attending one of its summer camps, where educational sessions were mixed with fun activities like fishing and swimming. Those camps are no more; among other reasons, it became easier to reach young people on the Web.
The wingnutosphere was in development long before the internet, but it has thrived in the age of unfiltered information. Which brings us to Barry’s diverse selection of quotes:
Chris Nowak, 24, a substitute math teacher who said he joined after his father, a longtime Bircher, re-educated him about American history; for example, he now understood that the United Nations was founded by President Harry S. Truman “and other communists.”
“Re-education” is a term used by commies in cultural revolution. But Harry Truman, for whom the doctrine of Soviet containment was named, was a “communist”? Let us hope Mr. Nowak never teaches history.
With Mr. Nowak were Ray Tisch, 37, an electrical engineer, and Matthew Yamakaitis, 49, a warehouse worker, who said they had joined the John Birch Society within the last two years because they shared its concerns about the North American Union, the mainstream media and the conspiracy of elite insiders.
“At the highest levels there are controls in place,” Mr. Tisch said. Mr. Yamakaitis agreed, saying that if the insiders succeed in creating a new world order, “It basically means less power for us.”
“And more for the elite,” said Mr. Tisch.
“The Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Rothschilds,” said Mr. Nowak.
Occam’s Razor never applies in this mindset. Nothing about the JBS has changed. Consider the history:
The Republican party of Eisenhower in 1956 had a platform of environmentalism and anti-trust enforcement. It was pro-labor and based its foreign policy on support of the United Nations and international cooperation. Eisenhower called Americans to civil service and built the nation’s infrastructure to spur economic development. Today, a new president has a platform of environmentalism and anti-trust enforcement, is pro-labor and bases his foreign policy on support of the United Nations and international cooperation. He calls Americans to civil service and builds the nation’s infrastructure to spur economic development.
The Birchers call it “socialism” and “communism” because they always have, no matter who is in charge. The president’s newness and strange name are just icing on the nutcake of paranoid delusion. The original Birchers were inspired by Joe McCarthy, who asked:
How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.
Since its beginnings, the JBS has been a primary propagator of Teh Evil Plan™ — a vast conspiracy to run the world, serve the devil, and take away all our freedoms in the process. It’s a Manichean view of the world; and in fact it comes from Dark Age cosmology. St. Basil in the 4th Century:
Of what importance is it to know whether the Earth is a sphere, a cylinder, a disc or a concave surface? What is important is to know how I should conduct myself towards myself, towards my fellow man and towards God.
Shortly after this, there was no Western empire of Rome anymore. A lot of knowledge disappeared as monks re-used old parchment to make copies of the Bible. During these cold and ignorant centuries, the consensus was that sinister forces held free reign over Earth because humans had fallen from God. That sort of pessimism is natural in a world with marauding vikings.
Which brings us back to
John McManus, the society’s most prominent member, its longtime president and an ultraconservative Roman Catholic.
In a strange twist, a kind of militantly dark-age Catholicism has taken over an organization that is an intellectual descendant of anti-Catholic paranoia from the 19th and early 20th Centuries. History has its ironies; also among the latter is the odd fact that McManus is a character straight out of a Dan Brown plot.
Which brings me to this video of Alex Jones agreeing to disagree with David Icke about whether lizard-people are part of Teh Evil Plan™, too:
I’ve been accused of conspiracy-mongering, but the wingnutosphere isn’t a conspiracy; it isn’t even a coalition. It is a world-view with very old roots that propagates itself through media. I wouldn’t call it so much a “conspiracy” as a neurosis of western civilization. You will find all variety of wingnuts in the wingnutosphere, but they all hold a common set of paranoias.
They reject an empirical, fact-based universe for an imaginary one that is very simple:
THEY ARE OUT TO GET YOU
THEY CONTROL THE WORLD
THEY ARE ALL IN IT TOGETHER
Birds of a feather flock together, or so they say, and these particular neurotics are multiplying via the ‘tubes. They actually come from every religious background, even atheist Objectivists.
And they are actually competing for leadership of an asylum called the Republican Party.
I make no diagnosis here. The bizarre, Rube-Goldberg cosmology of the paranoid universe offers a mystery couched in familiar scare-words. This projector shines brightly on the ceiling of Plato’s cave; the inmates gaze at the shadows, and like dreamers, construct a fable from chaos. Occasionally, they argue about an elephant. Teh Evil Plan™ is not an ancient conspiracy; the paranoid have simply always been with us.
