http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/12/sharlet(Apologies for the KKK reminders that may seem to trivialize this post - this group is no less evil, but far, far more powerful, well-funded, highly positioned and murderous. It's a bit like referencing the Cub Scouts when writing about CIA Black Ops.)
Most here have already seen a few short interviews with Jeff Sharlet, author of 'The Family,' and become a bit familiar with some of the more tawdry details. You've probably already heard that they put Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Pol Pot at the top of the list of those who used the 'The True Jesus' techniques that their version of Kristianity would follow and implement. If not, do the appropriate search or ask for assistance.
But there is much more that has been going on with this group and their acolytes, which has been gaining invisible power since the first term of FDR. The make the popular image 0f "Commie Subversives"" look like a bunch of generally helpful, well-intended but only partially effective do-gooders (which is an accurate description in my view but not one taught in the US).
Here we hear Jeff Sharlet as being interviewed by Amy Goodman, and she brings out way more than was even hinted at in any interviews you might have heard elsewhere.
If you want one more half-a-clue about how Komplete Korporate Kontrol has been being established in the US. go tpo that link, read the transcript, listen to the audio or watch the video.
A few excerpts, out of order. First, the long history, and knowing what we already know about the pro-Nazi elements in the US like Henry Ford, and on and on, and the rise of the KKK in that period and the Smedley Butler revelations, I wonder what relationships have yet to be uncovered.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk more about the founder, Abraham Vereide.
JEFF SHARLET: Yeah, fascinating, a fascinating character. Vereide was a Norwegian immigrant, came to the United States because he saw it as the land of the Bible unchained. He was an early fundamentalist and sort of rose to influence, even met with FDR in 1932.
And it was at that meeting—it was Vereide, FDR and James Farrell, who was then head of US Steel—that Farrell, he claims, introduces to him this idea that all of America’s economic problems are in direct correspondence to our failure to obey God’s law and that the approach to the Great Depression should not be the New Deal, but through this sort of moral code imposed from on high by God’s chosen men.
He then goes on to have this vision that God actually comes to him one night and says, “Christianity has gotten it wrong for 2,000 years—all this talk about the poor, the suffering, the down and out. I want you to focus on the up and out. I want you to be a missionary to and for the powerful. I will work through a few key men—Senator Ensign, Governor Sanford—and, through them, will help everybody else.” The Family believes that they’re helping the poor through a kind of trickle-down religion.
AMY GOODMAN: And his sympathy, the founder’s sympathy, for European fascism?
JEFF SHARLET: Yeah, they were great admirers of European fascism. They were critical of the ways in which Hitler and Mussolini, in their minds, displaced the centrality of Jesus. But after the war, actually working with the US State Department, Vereide was given a charge to go into the Allied prisons for war criminals and interview men to determine who he felt could be used for the new German government. And really, the main question was, are you willing to switch out the Fuhrer for the Father?
Some of those guys—one, in particular, was a man named Hermann J. Abs, became the vice president of the Family’s German organization, became known as “the wizard of the West German miracle,” until the Simon Wiesenthal Center discovered that before he had been known as Germany’s banker, he had been known as Hitler’s banker, and he was forced to exit public life.]
Their position and allegiance in the cinflict between workers and Korporate overlords was very well defined from the beginning.
JEFF SHARLET: The Family began as this domestic organization way back in the 1930s, a union-busting organization. But by the ’50s, they—
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, union-busting organization?
JEFF SHARLET: Oh, they—it’s part of that invisible hand of the market. They believe that organized labor is ungodly, to put it mildly, perhaps Satanic. It began with this vision in 1935 that the New Deal and organized labor were literally a Satanic conspiracy they had to fight back.
In the 1950s, in the Cold War, they started moving overseas and identifying strongmen, dictators, who they thought were effective in the fight against communism, who they thought were effective in the fight for free markets. And Suharto was one of those men. You know, Suharto, who—even the CIA, which helped him orchestrate his coup, later said it was one of the worst mass killings of the twentieth century.
The Family leaders called it a spiritual revolution and began sending delegations of congressmen, oil executives, over to meet with Suharto. They then hosted Suharto, actually, in the United States Senate for a Senate prayer breakfast with their members, to which they invited the then-Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They have that kind of access. And they were able to arrange that kind of reach for Suharto. And they effectively became his most persuasive champions within the US Congress, as the United States funneled, as we know, just billions of dollars toward his military regime.
Never heard of them until 3 of their operastives got busted for sex offenses? No accident:
AMY GOODMAN: President Bush calling Doug Coe “the quiet diplomat.” In our last thirty seconds, what is most important to understand about Doug Coe and, ultimately, the Family?
JEFF SHARLET: This is a group that is explicitly opposed to democracy, explicitly opposed to doing things in public. They believe “the more invisible you can make your organization, the more influence you can have.” That’s a direct quote from Doug Coe. They’re acting like a lobby; they’re not registering like a lobby. There needs to be a way to hold them accountable, if they want do those—pursue those kinds of basic —
Watch/read it twice. Then get the book from a seller or the library and read other online article articles.
This is what we are seeing today with the absolutely deluded hate-filled brownshirts, the crazies, the nutters, the ignorant and frightened victims of this campaign.
Surprised by Grassley's stoking the fire instead of being the "partner" Obama tried to make him? HGe's also a part of that organization. Read/watch, and then read more.
So - a little about Grassley:
AMY GOODMAN: Talk more about Chuck Grassley, who certainly is in the news now, who, together with Max Baucus, heads the Senate Finance Committee.
JEFF SHARLET: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Baucus, Democrat; Grassley, Republican. Very powerful figure, especially around healthcare right now.
JEFF SHARLET: Indeed. And Grassley has been involved with the organization for quite some time, since the ’80s, when he traveled to Somalia to join Barre, Siad Barre, in prayer to Jesus. And he brought with him a defense contractor named Bill Brehm.
And Barre was a kind of a cynical character, as you might expect for a dictator. He was very clear. He says, “I’m willing to pray to Jesus, and here’s what I want in return.” He says, “I want my defense budget doubled.” He says, “I want meetings for my officials with the Reagan White House. And I want a sort of a hands-off policy while I crack down on some rebels.” Doug Coe, the leader of the group, wrote back, in essence, “Done, done and done.”
And when we look at history, so it was. And Barre used those weapons, supplied to him in part by the US, to wage a war of almost biblical proportion on his own people, from which Somalia has not recovered to this day. The Family doesn’t consider that a failure; they consider that God’s will for Somalia.
AMY GOODMAN: And more about Grassley? And again, we should say, this is not just a Republican organization. Democrats are also a part. In fact, you talk about Hillary Clinton—
JEFF SHARLET: Yeah, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —praying with them.
JEFF SHARLET: I think that’s one of the most important aspects of this. I think, too often, progressives tend to see the Christian right as simply an auxiliary of the Republican Party, whereas the movement, especially through the Family, has recognized that you stay in power not by aligning yourself too closely with one faction, but by having lots of friends. So, Hillary Clinton, Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas, who was, of course, instrumental in fighting against the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have made unionization much, much easier. He explained to me the Family’s approach to Democratic bipartisanship. He said, “Jesus didn’t come to take sides; He came to take over.” That’s a Democrat speaking. So, Republicans and Democrats working together.
Chuck Grassley, a guy who’s been involved for such a long time. Grassley was involved with the Somalia project throughout the 1980s. They recognize that Somalia, of course, is a nation of great strategic importance, right there on the Horn of Africa. So, even as they are pursuing what they say is a religious agenda, it’s also meshing very neatly with a certain kind of agenda of American expansionist power and oil, frankly.
AMY GOODMAN: And rarely is the devastation of the failed state of Somalia talked about in terms of its history, that the US, for decades, supported this dictator, Siad Barre.
JEFF SHARLET: Yeah, yeah, exactly. The story, for most Americans, begins with George Bush very nobly sending over these troops to fight the warlords. It begins with Black Hawk Down. And we don’t recognize that it was really—I mean, Somalia almost—is almost a purest case possible of US support for an absolutely murderous regime.
In the face of all odds, too. I mean, there’s nothing, it seemed, that Barre could do to dissuade the Family that he was worthy of support, even to the point of insulting Doug Coe, the leader of the group, who used a sad case, the death of his son, wrote to Barre and said, “My son has died today. And as he was dying, he was speaking of you and how important you are.” It was a strange, crass move. Barre didn’t play along. He said, “I never knew your son. But keep the money flowing.” And they did.
Another good friend and role model was Suharto, who massacred millions in Indonesia. These are the kinds of very wll funded organizations now driving their teabagger/birther/deather victims/pawns into a blind, ignorant, murderous frenzy.
Look behind the curtain. This is not the only curtain, but it shows a lot about what is behind others and what we see on stage today.
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