On a cloudy, frigid day in December 1958, a small group of wealthy businessmen met in Indianapolis and formed a new organization. They called it the John Birch Society. Their mission was to educate the American people about the communist conspiracy that they believed was infiltrating the United States.
"The founder, Robert Welch, conveyed a deep sense of grievance and anger," says Matthew Dallek, professor of political management at George Washington University and author of
Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right. "The message was very powerful: you're losing your country to traitors, and they're not just any traitors, they're actually traitors within."
… convinced that the United Nations was a threat to U.S. sovereignty and in 1960, he joined the John Birch Society.
The sisters were taught that both Martin Luther King Jr. and Fred Rogers were communists. "Our father had a kind of paranoia," Meehan said. "He had this feeling that there are a lot of enemies out there."
Society meetings covered a wide range of topics. They argued that fluoridation of water was ushering in socialized medicine; that the Civil Rights Movement was a plot directed by the Kremlin; and that Chief Justice Earl Warren should be impeached.
The society lambasted many of the Warren court's decisions: protecting First Amendment rights for communists; banning school prayer in public schools; and paving the way for desegregation with its ruling in
Brown v. Board of Education.”
Same shit now, just more organized and with bigger guns.
apnews.com
