Did we mean, "Who is John Galt?" No, however, though we are all familiar with the profound inference surrounding the famous question from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, today we ask instead, who is John Birch?
Before we do, we must first ask, who is Robert Welch? He was the founder of the John Birch Society. Before we introduce you Mr. Welch and the society he founded, we wish to state that like every other political organization, JBS had its flaws and history of gaffs. Just like Congress, the Senate, Republicans, Democrats, the Tea Party, or the Occupy movement, no organization is exempt from flaws and valid criticisms.
Considering the current circumstances the world faces, and despite the flaws inherent within any political organization, one has to credit the John Birch Society as one of the first mainstream groups to identify cogently the existence of shadow government and special moneyed interests, who are in large part responsible for the hollowing out of America.
JBS has illuminated the largely indistinguishable policies of both Democrats and Republicans, and they stress that big money special interest groups have a clearly defined agenda, which threatens America's constitutional sovereignty. They have been meticulously documenting facts supporting their claims since 1958.
In virtual lockstep with Ron Paul, the society upholds an originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, seeks to limit governmental powers, and opposes wealth redistribution, and economic interventionism. It not only opposes the practices it terms collectivism, totalitarianism, and communism, but socialism and fascism as well, which it asserts is infiltrating US governmental administration. In a 1983 edition of Crossfire, Congressman Larry McDonald(D-Georgia), then its newly appointed president, characterized the society as belonging to the Old Right rather than the New Right.
Robert Welch introduced the idea of the John Birch Society at an Indianapolis meeting he convened on December 9, 1958 of 12 "patriotic and public-spirited" men. They founded the first chapter a few months later in February 1959. According to Welch's assertions at the time, both the US and Soviet governments were controlled by the same furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians. If left unexposed, the traitors inside the US government would betray the country's sovereignty to the United Nations for a collectivist new world order managed by a "one-world socialist government."
Who was Robert Welch?
Welch was born in 1899 and worked "in the candy manufacturing business all of his adult life," for many years as the vice president for sales and advertising of the James O. Welch Company, founded by his brother. He was on the board of directors of the National Association of Manufacturers for seven years starting in 1950, and chaired NAM's Educational Advisory Committee for two years.
It was at NAM, during the height of the Red Menace hysteria, that Welch honed his Americanist philosophy. Welch toured the country chairing meetings on the state of American education, and produced a 32-page brochure "This We Believe about Education," that "concluded that in America, parents--and not the State--have the ultimate responsibility for the education of their children." NAM distributed more than 200,000 copies of the brochure.
Who was John Birch?
In 1952, Welch wrote May God Forgive Us, a study alleging "subversive influences" by government officials and their allies to shape "public opinion and governmental policies to favor the Communist advance." The Henry Regnery Company published the book, and in 1954 published Welch's The Life of John Birch, which told the story of a fundamentalist missionary in China who became an intelligence agent for General Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers.
Chinese communist soldiers killed Birch while he was on a mission at the end of WWII. In February of 1956, Welch started publishing a magazine, One Man's Opinion, and in January 1957, he left the candy business to devote his energies to "the anti-Communist cause."
Documenting Conspiracies since 1958
One would assume that the collapse of communism in Europe and the end of the Cold War might have signaled the end of the Birch Society, but the UN role in the Gulf War and President Bush's call for a New World Order unwittingly echoed Birch claims about the goals of the internationalist One World Government conspiracy.
As growing right-wing populism sparked new levels of cynicism regarding politicians, and economic and social fears sparked backlash movements, the Birch Society positioned itself as the group that for decades had its fingers on the pulse of the conspiracy behind the country's decline. Between 1988 and 1995 the Birch Society at least doubled, and perhaps tripled its membership.
An article recently penned on HubPages titled "Welcome to the New World Order," provides a 1979 video documentary produced by JBS titled: "The Insiders, Architects of the New World Order." Incredibly, many of the allegations asserted then, are similar if not identical to many of those presented by numerous factions today.
In addition, the article provides another full-length feature titled "Invisible Empire, The New World Order Defined." In it, the Birch Society gets a modern-day mountain of corroborative 21st Century support from filmmaker Jason Bermas in collaboration with Alex Jones.
Below, albeit a luncheon speech and not a polished documentary, the current President of The John Birch Society, John F. McManus, gives an updated presentation of "who's who" and "who's doing what" in the plan to subvert America into a tyrannical global government.
Is this Conspiracy Theory, Conspiracy Truth, or 50-years of Extremist Propaganda Fiction?
