TBR News August 4, 2012
The Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C. August 4, 2012: “Yesterday, I watched a most interesting video that I would like to share with my readers. The Department of Defense labs have developed a small robot surveillance device that looks like a large pigeon. The one I watched looked exactly like the bird and actually could flap its wings and fly. It can land, let us say, on a tree in front of your house and the tiny camera inside can watch your every movement. It was designed to be used in large cities where it can perch on a window ledge on some office or apartment high up from the ground. This has been tried out in New York City but my contact with the DoD tells me that their department is also watching rival agencies and governmental offices. This might sound like science fiction but it is science fact. The solution? Keep your blinds down or, if you live in a tolerant neighborhood, blow the mother away with a 12 gage
Las Vegas Sands target of money-laundering investigation – report
Wall Street Journal reports that LA US attorney’s office looking into casino firm controlled by billionaire Sheldon Adelson
August 4, 2012
Reuters
Las Vegas Sands Corp, controlled by billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, is the target of a federal investigation into possible violations of US money-laundering laws, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
The Los Angeles US attorney’s office is looking into the casino company’s handling of the receipt of millions of dollars from a Mexican businessman, later indicted in the United States for drug trafficking, and a former California businessman, later convicted of taking illegal kickbacks, the Journal said, citing lawyers and others involved in the matter.
The transactions date from the mid-2000s.
The Journal said there are no indications that actions by Adelson, who is the company’s chief executive officer and largest shareholder, are being investigated.
The Los Angeles US attorney could not be reached for comment by Reuters on Saturday. A Sands spokesman was not immediately available to comment to Reuters, but spokesman Ron Reese told the Journal: “The company believes it has acted properly and has not committed any wrongdoing.”
Reese said the company was cooperating with federal investigators.
The timing of the investigation could open the Justice Department to criticism that it is politically motivated, the Journal said. Adelson is a major donor to the super PAC supporting presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney against President Barack Obama and plans to spend $100m on Republican candidates in November’s elections.
Adelson, who owns casinos in Las Vegas, Macau and Singapore, began this campaign season as a major donor to Newt Gingrich before Gingrich dropped out of the Republican presidential race. He has since switched his support to Romney and last month was in Jerusalem with the candidate when Romney met Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Adelson also strongly supports.
The Journal said the Las Vegas money-laundering investigation focused on two “whales” – as big-money gamblers are known – and whether Sands officials ignored warning signs and did not alert federal authorities about millions of dollars the gamblers had deposited.
The Journal identified one of the “whales” as Zhenli Ye Gon, a Chinese-born Mexican national who was indicted in 2007 in the United States on charges of dealing in materials used to make methamphetamine.
The drug case was dismissed in 2009 but Ye is still in US custody awaiting extradition to Mexico, where authorities want to try him on drug trafficking and money laundering charges, the Journal said, citing court records.
The Journal said Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, a former executive with the Fry’s Electronics retail chain, also was under scrutiny. Court filings in another case showed Siddiqui sent more than $100m to the Sands. Siddiqui was charged with taking kickbacks from Fry’s vendors, pleaded guilty and is now in prison.
US authorities also are investigating the Sands to see if there were breaches of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which prohibits bribes to foreign officials by US companies, in its Macau operation.
August 1, 2012
Naked Capitalism
If there’s any way for banks to cut the cake to work to their advantage, they do.
One example that has not gotten attention is that servicers will complete all the steps of a foreclosure, sometimes even scheduling the sheriff’s sale, and then not put in a bid. The reason? The home is of so little value that at even a $100 price, the bank deems it to be not worth the trouble.
But keeping houses in limbo is a horrorshow for the old homeowner, who unknown to them, still owns the property (meaning they could have lived in in it and maintained it, preventing neighborhood blight) and is still on the hook for property taxes. And of course, these abandoned homes damage the value of neighboring properties.
And needless to say, because they aren’t on the market, these houses are also not considered to be part of official inventories. Foreclosure experts in Florida have told me they see a lot of houses where the banks take the home up to the final step of foreclosure, then let it languish. This story, from Cleveland.com via April Charney, is confirmation that this is a broader phenomenon. Notice that this is a long standing practice; the article cites examples dating from 2006 and 2007. Key extracts:
Banks are backing away from properties they have foreclosed on creating a new set of issues for neighborhoods..
These so-called “bank walkaways” are another troubling development in the foreclosure crisis, particularly in cities like Cleveland with weaker housing markets, say housing advocates and government officials.
Lenders or mortgage companies decide they don’t want homes they have already foreclosed on, sometimes because the value has plummeted or they believe the homes could become costly liabilities if they are socked with housing code violations.
But without that sale, the property can languish abandoned and ripe for vandalism. As liens and liabilities mount — creating a so-called “toxic title” — it becomes even harder to transfer the property. Neighborhoods and local governments are left to deal with the mess….
Some of the fallout that results when properties languish vacant and abandoned shows up in Cleveland Housing Judge Raymond Pianka’s courtroom.
“I see shocked people every single week,” Pianka said. “They thought the burden was lifted because they filed bankruptcy or because somebody somewhere told them they’re no longer responsible, and then they’re pulled back in facing criminal code violations.”
His court also has worked with such owners on moving the property into the hands of another owner such as a nonprofit agency, the city land bank or the next door neighbor.
But trying to transfer a problem to somebody else can become a thorny and protracted process if the long-gone owner can’t be found or the foreclosed house is saddled with so many financial obligations that it is too expensive to touch.
Notice that there is a remedy, and I hope more states push for it:
State Rep. Dennis Murray of Sandusky is drafting a bill he hopes to introduce in the next two months that would require lenders or mortgage service companies to take foreclosed properties to sheriff sale within a certain time — or see their mortgage lien erased.
Some judges are also taking matters into their own hands:
Separately, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo recently began ordering those granted a foreclosure decree in her courtroom to file the paperwork for a sheriff’s sale in about 30 days — or face being ordered to court for a contempt hearing.
“I think it’s a big problem,” Russo said. “It’s creating more abandoned homes with nobody responsible for taking care of them.”
It’s not clear whether she has the jurisdiction to issue such orders. But Russo — who was not aware of Murray’s initiative when she began hers — believed it was time to start a discussion.
The more straightforward approach is for places like Cleveland to fine servicers. It would help to work with someone who understood how pooling & servicing agreements worked to construct it in such a way that it would be difficult for them to pass it on to investors. Oh wait, what am I thinking? Servicers pass on all sorts of impermissible fees to investors as it is. The more likely point of short-term leverage is for the city to identify which servicers have been the worst actors and to have community groups encourage businesses, churches, and foundations to move their accounts away from the banks that own them. Losing that type of customer has a vastly bigger impact on banks than individuals moving their money.
UC Davis pepper-spray officer fired despite being cleared by internal panel
University police chief rejects internal affairs findings and fires John Pike, 39, for ignoring orders to use minimum force
August 2, 2012
by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles
The campus police officer who pepper-sprayed students during an Occupy protest at the University of California, Davis, has been fired despite being cleared of wrongdoing by an internal affairs investigation.
The university dismissed Lt John Pike on Tuesday, it has emerged, eight months after video footage of his use of the spray on seated students triggered worldwide indignation.
The incident on November 18, in which Pike appeared to casually use the spray on students who posed little or no threat, was viewed millions of times on the internet and put huge pressure on the university.
Authorities put the officer on paid leave pending investigations into his conduct and this week terminated his $110,000-a-year contract.
“The needs of the department do not justify your continued employment,” UC Davis police chief Matthew Carmichael said in a leaked letter.
But in an unexpected development the Sacramento Bee reported that an internal affairs investigation concluded Pike, 39, who served on the campus force for 11 years, had acted reasonably. The 76-page report by a Sacramento law firm and private investigator hired by UC Davis interviewed at least 27 police officers, including Pike, plus chancellor Linda PB Katehi and other university leaders.
“For reasons detailed in this report, we conclude that Lieutenant Pike’s use of pepper spray was reasonable under the circumstances,” it states. “The visual of Lieutenant Pike spraying the seated protesters is indeed disturbing. However, it also fails to tell other important parts of the story.”
The report, dated March 1, said Pike repeatedly warned students who had gathered on the quad to protest against rising tuition costs that they would be sprayed if they did not disperse, and that “the police officers were fully encircled by protesters who had locked arms and would not let the officers exit”.
It concluded that Pike voiced serious concerns about plans to remove the protesters and wanted the operation called off.
Asked by investigators about perceptions of his “nonchalant demeanor” as he sprayed the students, Pike replied: “I take my job very seriously. Any, any … any application of force … umm … for me it’s not a … it’s not a thrill ride … it’s not ‘woo hoo, this is gonna be fun, I get to hurt somebody.’ That’s not it.”
His goal was “to gain compliance, so that I can get my troops out of there, my suspects out of there, and get a job done,” he told investigators.
“So, if that’s a critique, that I did my job in a manner-so-factly that I looked relaxed, well, then, maybe let’s say that I’m relaxed because I’m professional.”
Spraying was “appropriate” and “prevented further escalation” of the incident, he said. “Grappling [with students] would have escalated the force, whereas pepper spray took ‘the fight out of them.”
Other officers endorsed the view that they were under threat. Students have disputed that, saying the protest was peaceful.
A review of the report by a separate panel comprising a UC Davis police captain and the campus chief compliance officer was more critical of Pike.
In recommendations issued on April 2 it found some of Pike’s actions “were not reasonable and prudent”, that he lost “perspective on the operation as a whole” and showed “serious errors of judgment and deficiencies of leadership”. It urged an “exonerated finding” and punishment ranging from demotion to a suspension of at least two weeks.
However, Carmichael, who took over the campus police earlier this year, rejected both reports. In a letter dated April 27, according to the Sacramento Bee, he accused Pike of ignoring orders to use minimum force and said he would be fired.
List: CIA Proprietary Agencies & Agents Worldwide
Table of Contents
I Organizations
2 Aircraft companies, aircraft, departure-arrivals
3 Domestic Media
4. Foreign subagents
1 Organizations
A
AALC, see Afro-American Labor Center
Acrus Technology
ADEP, see Popular Democratic Action
Advertising Center, Inc.
Aero Service Corp. of Philadelphia
Aero Systems, Inc.
Aero Systems Pvt. Ltd
AFME, see American Friends of the Middle East
“African Report”
African-American Institute
Afro-American Labor Center (AALC) of
Agencia Orbe Latinoamericano
Agency for International Development (AID)
Agribusiness Development, Inc.
AIFLD, see American Institute for Free Labor Development
Air America
Air Asia Co., Ltd.
Air Proprietary Company
All Ceylon Youth Council Movement
Alliance for Anti-totalitarian Education
America Fore Insurance Group
American Association of the Middle East
American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism, Inc.
American Committee for the Liberation of the People of Russia
American Committee for the International Commission of Jurists
American Economic Foundation
American Federation for Fundemental Research
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
American Foundation for the Middle East
American Friends of the Middle East
American Friends of the Russian Freedom
American Friends Service Committee
American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees
American Fund For Free Jurists
American Historical Society
American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD)
American Machine & Foundry
American Mutual Insurance Company
American Newspaper Guild
Association American Oriental Society
American Political Science Association
American Research Center in Egypt, Inc.
American Society of African Culture
American Institute of Cairo
American University – Special Operations Research Office
Ames Research Center
M.D. Anderson Foundation
ANSA (Italian Wire Service)
Antell, Wright & Nagel
Anti-Communist Christian Front
Anti-Communist Liberation Movement
Anti-Totalitarian Board of Solidarity with the People of Vietnam
Anti-Totalitarian Youth movement
Appalachian Fund
Arabian-American Oil Company
Area Tourist Association
Arrow Air
Ashland Oil and Refining Company
Asia Foundation
Association of American Geographers
Association of Computing Machinery
Association of Friends of Venezuela
Association of Preparatory Students
Assoziation ungarischer Studenten in Nordamerika
Atomics, Physics & Science Fund, Inc.
Atwater Research Program in North Africa
B
Bank of Lisle
Bankers Trust Company
Basic Resources
Beacon Fund
Berliner Verein
Berliner Verein zur Forderung der Bildungshilfe in Entwicklungslandern
Berliner Verein zur Forderung der Publizistik in Entwicklungslandern
Berico Technologies.
Blackwater
Blythe & Company, Inc.
Boni, Watkins, Jason & Company
Brazilian Institute for Democratic Action (IBAD)
Broad and High Foundation
J. Frederick Brown Foundation
Burgerkomitee für AuBenpolitik
Bulgarisches Nationales Zentrum
Burndy Corporation
Butte Pipe Line Company
C
Cahill, Gordon, Reindel & Ohl
Cahill & Wilinski
CALANAIS
California Shipbuilding Corporation
Caribean Marine Area Corporation
(Caramar) James Carlisle Trust
Caspian Pipeline Consortium
Catherwood Foundation
CBS Television Network
(CRESS) Center for Strategic Studies
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Center of Studies and Social Action
(CEAS) CEOSL, see Ecuadorean Confederation of Free Trade Union Organizations
Chesapeake Foundation
Cipher Exchange Corporation
Civil Air Transport (CAT)
Clothing and Textiles Workers Union COG, see Guayana Workers Confederation
CloudShield
Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Company
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)
Columbian Financial Development Company
Combate
“EL Commercio” Com. Suisse d’Aide aux Patrgrols
Committee for Free Albania
Committee for Liberty of Peoples
Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Confederation for an Independent Poland
Conference of the Atlantic
Community Congress for Cultural Freedom
Continental Press
Continental Shelf Explorations, Inc.,
Cooperative League of America
Coordinating Committee of Free Trade Unionists of Ecuador
Coordinating Secretariat of National Unions of Students (cosec), see International Student Conference (ISC)
Cosden Petroleum Corporation
Combat Military Ordinances Ltd.
Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs, Inc.
Cox, Langford, Stoddard & Cutler
CRC, see Cuban Revolutionary Council
CROCLE, see Regional Confederation of Ecuadorian
Coastal Trade Unions Cross, Murphy and Smith
Crossroads of Africa
Crusade for Freedom
CSU, see Uruguayan Labor Conference
CTM, see Mexican Worker Confederation
Cuban Portland Cement Company
Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC, Cuban Exile)
Cummings and Seller
Curtis Publishing Company
CUT, see Uruguayan Confederation of Workers
D
Daddario & Burns
Dane Aviation Supply
Danet
Debevoise, Plimpton, Lyons & Gates (West)
Deutscher Kunstlerbund
Dominion Rubber Company
Double Chek Corporation
DRE, see Revolutionary Student Directorate in Exile
E
Eagleton Institute of Politics – Princeton University East Asian Institute
Eagan, McAllister Associates, Inc
EAI Corporation
East-West Center
Ecuadorean Anti-Communist Action
Ecuadorean Anti-Communist Front
Ecuadorean Confederation of Free Trade Union Organizations (CEOSL)
Ecuadorean Federation of Telecommunications Workers (FENETEL)
Editors Press Service
Edsel Fund
Electric Storage Battery Company
El Gheden Mining Corporation
End Kadhmir Dispute Committee
Ensayos
ERC International, Inc.
Enstnischer Nationalrat
Enstnischer Weltzentralrat
Estrella Company
Europe Assembly of Captive Nations
Exeter Banking Company
F
Farfield Foundation, Inc.
Federal League for Ruralist Action (Ruralistas)
Federation for a Democratic Germany in Free Europe
Fed. Inte. des Journalistes de Tourisme
FENETEL, see Ecuadorean Federation of Telecommunications Workers
First Florida Resource Corporation
Food, Drink and Plantation Workers Union
Ford Foundation
Foreign News Service
Foreign Press Association B.C.
Forest Products, Ltd.
Fortune
“Forum” (Wein)
Foundation for International and Social Behavior
Foundation for Student Affairs
Franklin Broadcasting Company
Free Africa Organization of Colored People
Free Europe Committee, Inc.
Free Europe Exile Relations
Free Europe Press Division
Freie Universitat (FU)
Frente Departmental de Compensinos de Puno
FSS International
Fund for International, Social and Economic Development
G
Gambia National Youth Council
Geological Society of America
Georgia Council on Human Relations
Gibraltar Steamship Corporation
Global International Airways
Glore, Forgan & Company
Goldstein, Judd & Gurfein
Gotham Foundation
Government Affairs Institute
W.R. Grace and Company
Granary Fund
Grey Advertising Agency
Guyana Workers Confederation (COG)
Gulf Oil Corporation
H
Andrew Hamilton Fund
HBGary
Heights Fund
Joshua Hendy Iron Works
Hicks & Associates
Hierax
Hill and Knowlton
Himalayan Convention
Histadrut – The Federation of Labor in Israel
Hiwar
Hoblitzelle Foundation
Hodson Corporation
Hogan & Hartson Holmes Foundation, Inc.
Hoover Institute on War, Revolution and Peace
Hutchins Advertising Company of Canada
Huyck Corporation
I
IBAD, see Brazilian Institute for Democratic Action
Independence Foundation
Independent Research Service
Industrial Research Service
Information Security International Inc.
Institut zur Erforschung der USSR e.V.
Institute Battelle Memorial
Institute of Historical Review
Institute of International Education
Institute of International Labor Research Education
Institute of Political Education
Institute of Public Administration
International-American Center of Economic and Social Studies
International-American Federation of Journalists
International-American Federation of Working Newspapermen (IFWN)
International-American Labor College
International-American Police Academy, see International Police Academy
International-American Regional Labor Organization (ORIT)
Intercontinental Finance Corporation
Intercontinental Research Corporation
Intermountain Aviation
International Armament Corporation (INTERARMCO) International Air Tours of Nigeria
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (IFCTU)
International Cooperation Administration (ICA)
International Development Foundation, Inc.
International Fact Finding Institute
International Federation of Christian Trade Unions IFCTU, see World Confederation of Labor
International Federation of Journalists
International Federation of Petroleum and Chemical Workers (IFPCW)
International Federation of Plantation, Agriculture and Allied Workers (IFPAAW)
International Federation of Women Lawyers (IFWL)
International Geographical Union
International Journalists Conference
International Labor Research Institute
International Police Services School
International Press Institute
International Rescue Committee
International Secretatiate of the Pax Romana
International Student Conference (ISC)
International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT)
International Trade Services
International Trade Secretariats
International Trading and Investment Guaranty Corp., Ltd.,
International Transport Workers Federation (ITF)
International Union Officials Trade Organizations
International Union of Young Christian Democrats
International Youth Center
Internationale Federation der Mittel- und Osteuropas
Internationale Organization zur Erforschung kommunistischer Nethoden
Internationaler Bund freier Journalisten
Internationales Hilfskomitee
J
Japan Cultural Forum
K
KAMI
Kentfield Fund J.M.
Kaplan Fund, Inc.
Kennedy & Sinclaire, Inc.
Kenya Federation of Labour
Khmer Airlines
Kimberly-Clark Corporation
Komittee fur internationale Beziehungen
Komittee fur Selbstbestimmung
Komittee fur die Unabhangigkeit des Kaukasus
Korean C.I.A.
Korean Freedom and Cultural Foundation, Inc.
L
Labor Committee for Democratic Action
Lawyer’s Constitutional Defense Committee
League for Industrial Democracy
League for International Social and Cooperative Development
Ligue de la Liberte
Litton Industrial Company
London American
M
Manhattan Coffee Company
Marconi Telegraph-Cable Company
Maritime Support Unit
Martin Marietta Company
Marshall Foundation Center for International Studies (MIT-CIS)
Mathieson Chemical Corporation
McCann-Erikson, Inc.
Megadyne Electronics
Charles E. Merrill Trust
Merex
Mexican Workers Confederation (CTM)
Miner & Associates
Mineral Carriers, Ltd.
Mobil Oil Company
Molden-Verlag
Monroe Fund
Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc.
Moral Majority
Moral Rearmament
Movement
Mount Pleasant Trust
Movement for Integrated University Action
Robert Mullen Company
N
Narodno Trudouoj Sojus (NTS)
National Academy of Sciences
National Capitol Historical Sales
National Research Council
National Board for Defense of Sovereignty and Continental Solidarity
National Council of Churches
National Defense Front
National Educational Films, Inc.
National Education Association
National Federation of Petroleum and Chemical Workers of Ecuador
National Feminist Movement for the Defense of Uruguay
National Research Council
National Student Press Council of India
National Students Association (NSA)
National Union of Journalists of Ecuador
Newsweek
New York Times
Norman Fund
North American Rockwell Corporation
North American Uranium, Inc.
Norwich Pharmaceutical Company
O
Oceanic Cargo
Oil Workers International Union
Operations and Policy Research, Inc.
Organix. Ukrainischer Nationalisten (OUN)
ORIT, see International-American Regional Labor Organization
Overseas New Agency
P
Pacifica Foundation
Pacific Life Insurance
Paderewski Foundation
Pan-American Foundation
Pan Aviation
Pappas Charitable Trust
Parvus
Jere Patterson & Associates
Pax Romana
Peace and Freedom
Penobscot Land & Investment Company
Plant Protection, Inc.
Plenary of Democratic Civil Organizations of Uruguay
Pope & Ballard
Popular Democratic Action (ADEP)
Press Institute of India
Price Fund
Public Service International (PSI)
Publisher’s Council
R
Rabb Charitable Foundation
Radio Free Asia Radio
Free Europe
Radio Liberation
Radio Liberty Committee, Inc.
Radio Swan
Rand Corporation
Regional Confederation of Ecuadorean Coastal Trade Unions (CROCLE)
Research Foundation for Foreign Affairs
Retail Clerk’s International Association
Reveal
Revolutionary Democratic Front (RFD, Cuban exile)
Reynolds Metal Company
Rubicon Foundation
Rumanisches Nationalkomitee
Russian and East European Institute
Russian Institute
Russian Research Center
S
Safir
Science Applications International Corporation
St. Lucia Airways
Saman
San Jacinto Foundation
San Miguel Fund
SBONR
Sentinels of Liberty
Sith & Company
Social Christian Movement of Ecuador
Sociedade Anomima de Radio Retransmissao (RARETSA)
Society for Defense of Freedom in Asia
SODECO (Sakhalin Oil Development Cooperation Co)
SODIMAC Southern Air Transport
Standard Electronics, Inc.
Standish Ayer & McKay, Inc.
Sterling Chemical Co.
Strauss Fund
Student Movement for Democratic Action
Sur International
Sylvania Electric Products, Inc.
Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Outside of Russia
Systems Development Corporation
T
Tarantel Press
Tetra Tech International
Thai-Pacific Services Company
Tibet Convention
Tower Fund
Transmaritania
Twentieth Century Fund
U
Unabhangiger Forschugsdienst
Ungarischer Nationalrat
U.S. News and World Report
United States Youth Council
U.S.-Russian Commercial Energy Working Group
United Ukrainian American Relief Committee
Universal Service Corporation
Untersuchungsausschub freiheitlicher Juristen (UfJ)
Uruguayan Committee for Free Detention of Peoples
Uruguayan Confederation of Workers (CUT)
Uruguayan Labor Confederation (CSU)
V
Vangard Service Company
Varec
Varicon, Inc
W
Wainwright and Matthews Joseph Walter & Sons
Warden Trust
Erwim Wasey, Ruthrauff & Ryan, Inc.
Wexton Advertising Agency
Whitten Trust
Williford-Telford Corporation
World Assembly of Youth (WAY)
World Confederation of Labor
Wynnewood Fund
Y
York Research Corporation
Z
Zenith Technical Enterprises, Ltd
Zenith Technical Enterprises University
Zen Nihon Gakusei Jichikai Sorengo (Zangakuren)
Zentrale for Studien und Dokumentation
Zweites deutschen Fernsehen (ZDF)
Racism in Action: The Neo-Confederate Movement in American Politics
by Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr.
“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African American….And that racism inclination still exists. And I think it’s bubbled up to the surface because of the belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country.” President Jimmy Carter and former Governor of Georgia.
The neo-Confederate doctrine that Congressman Ron Paul is associated with believes in the re-establishment of the Confederacy as a Bible-based republic opposed to all laws, rights, or behaviors that cannot be justified according to the Bible. Its leading theologians have written justifications of slavery as Biblically-based and have described it as a benign social institution. On theological grounds, neo-Confederates believe the Civil War was a struggle between orthodox Christianity and a heretical Union. In the mid-twentieth century, many Christian nationalists became politically involved because they opposed the desegregation of white schools and attempts by the federal government to remove their tax exempt status from white private school created to escape the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision to desegregate white-only schools. The subsequent development of the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and the moral pressure this movement exerted on federal, state and local governments, as well as the reign of terror unleashed by the Ku Klux Klan with the implicit support of Southern governors, legislatures, congressmen, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, juries, white clergy, and public opinion all played a role in the development of the neo-Confederate movement.
In September 1957, President Eisenhower ordered federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas to protect nine black children attempting to desegregate a white public school. In September 1962, President Kennedy ordered federal marshals, Army, and National Guard troops to protect James Meredith as he attempted to enroll in the University of Mississippi.
Indicative of the Southern rage underlying the reign of terror, in May 1964, Sam Bowers, Imperial Wizard of the Mississippi White Knights, declared: “‘The events which will occur in Mississippi this summer may well determine the fate of Christian civilization for centuries to come.’” This Ku Klux Klan statement is no different than statements from the League of the South that was founded in 1994. Opposition to the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s was not limited to Kirk and the neo-Confederate movement and the John Birch Society. William F. Buckley and the National Review defended the white supremacists
In 1980, right after the Republican Party’s national convention, Ronald Reagan spoke at the fairgrounds to an audience of over thirty thousand, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, “‘I believe in states’ rights.’” Reagan was following in the footsteps of Barry Goldwater in 1964 who carried only his home state of Arizona and five states in the Deep South. As Zeskind noted, it “was a portent of white voting patterns to come.” A portent that was assisted by George Wallace’s 1968 presidential campaign as the American Independent Party candidate; former Klan leader David Duke’s multiple campaigns as a Democrat, Republican, and Populist; and, Patrick Buchanan’s presidential run in 1992 in the Republican primaries that expropriated Duke’s issues. Indeed, Paul Krugman showed that between 1954 and 2004 the Republican gains in the House of Representatives was a reversal of the dominance the Democrats had in 1954. The Democrats had net gains outside the South, but “more than all of the Democratic net loss to the Republicans came from the Southern switch.” In other words, Krugman argued, “Race, then, was essential to the ability of conservatives to win elections in spite of economic policies that favored a minority over the majority.” It is important to remember that the “New Right” movement that brought Reagan to victory had been deeply involved in opposition to civil rights. Max Blumenthal reported that after the 1954 Supreme Court decision the late Jerry Falwell “posited segregation as a biblical mandate” and worked with the FBI to try and smear Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. as a “communist subversive,” the same charge raised by the John Birch Society. In 1966, Falwell started the Lynchburg Christian Academy, “‘a private school for white students.’” As Blumenthal noted, “For Falwell and the…leadership of the Christian Right, race was the issue that galvanized their political activism.”27 And, as Michelle Goldberg noted, “what spurred them [the Christian Right] into action was the IRS’s attempt to revoke the tax-exempt status of whites-only Christian schools, schools that had been created specifically to evade desegregation.”
Steven Wilkins, co-founder of the racist, secessionist League of the South, is “arguably the most prominent member of the neo-Confederate clergy,” and a “resident instructor at the R.L. Dabney Center for Theological Studies” and “writes for almost all the religious publications and groups that advance neo-Confederate and Christian nationalist ideas. Another follower of Dabney is theologian Douglas Wilson. For more than 30 years Wilson has run a mini-Christian Reconstructionist empire in Idaho that includes the New Saint Andrews College; Logos School, a private Christian academy; the Association of Classical and Christian Schools that certifies such private academies; Canon Press; the journal Credenda/Agenda; and, the Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals. Both Wilkins and Wilson, writing separately or jointly, are major proponents of the theological war thesis and defend “slavery as Biblically justified.”
Writing in 2002, Sebesta and Hague reported that the “Sons of Confederate Veterans heritage organization, Christian Reconstructionist bodies such as the Chalcedon Foundation, and the League of the South now generally accept the theological war thesis….Collaboration between the Christian Reconstructionist movement and the League of the South has also increased, evidencing a growing overlap in the historical, political and theological perspectives of participants in both organizations. This indicates a conflation of conservative, neo-Confederate and Christian nationalisms into a potent reinterpretation of American history.”
The practical effect of this conflation of nationalisms is an opposition to the following, according to Michael Hill, co-founder of the League of the South: loss of American sovereignty to foreign institutions; “‘radical egalitarianism; feminism; sodomite rights; Third World immigration; gun control; hate crime legislation (almost meant to be used against whites); judicial tyranny; burdensome taxation; multiculturalism and diversity (code words for anti-white, anti-Christian bigotry); the universal rights of man; and other manifestations of a new brand of politically-correct totalitarianism.’”
The other major neo-Confederate organization of interest here is the radical libertarian Ludwig von Meises Institute headed by Lew Rockwell, a long-time friend and political-business partner of Ron Paul. In 2003, the Institute and the associated LewRockwell.com spearheaded a protest against the erection of a President Abraham Lincoln statue in Richmond, Virginia, while holding a “Lincoln Reconsidered” conference. LewRockwell.com also hosts a “King Lincoln” archive of articles by leading neo-Confederate writers. The Institute also serves as an adjunct home to neo-Confederate professors Thomas D. Lorenzo, Donald Livingston, and Clyde Wilson. Lorenzo, a professor of economics, has written that the Civil War was fought to end the right of secession, not to end slavery. He was the star of the “Lincoln Reconsidered” conference. Livingston, a professor of philosophy who specializes on David Hume, he was the first director of the League of the South’s Institute for the Study of Southern Culture and History. Livingston’s writings have strongly defended the right of the pre-Civil War South to secede and has written that Lincoln started the Civil War in order to establish a centralized state. He also was present at the “Lincoln Reconsidered” conference. Lastly, Clyde Wilson is the “biggest intellectual heavyweight associated with the neo-Confederate scene.” Wilson specializes in the writings of John C. Calhoun, “the preeminent states’ rights theorists before the Civil War.” Wilson was also a founding member of the League of the South.
” Libertarianism—Born Racist
To sort through these conflicting claims on the centrality of race to the Tea Party movement it is necessary to cover the following salient issues raised by some of the writers. Is it true, as Sara Robinson asserts, that the conservative movement has largely gotten over the issue of race? Is it true, as Sara Robinson asserts, that the Tea Party movement is driving the political center-right of conservatives toward the ultra-right? To what degree has Ron Paul adopted the Southern Strategy of abandoning the N-word racism and adopting the abstract and race-neutral code words and public policies that still amount to a defense of states’ rights and a defense of white supremacy or white nationalism? To what degree is libertarian economic philosophy inherently racist? And, finally, is this inherent racism the reason why libertarian writers such as but not limited to David Weigel and Glenn Greenwald still blandly refer to Ron Paul as a “libertarian” and a champion of “individual liberty” but prefer not to discuss his support for a white Christian nationalist agenda?
To begin, we start with the conclusion that twentieth century libertarianism was born racist and is inherently racist.
That conclusion rests on the authority of none other than the late Murray N. Rothbard, co-founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute along with Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul. The Institute is not only one of the main neo-Confederate think tanks—one of the key components of the Ron Paul network—but also the primary institution supporting Ron Paul and his Tea Party movement. The Institute is also the home of the Christian Reconstruction economic libertarian Gary North, who is also the informal strategic adviser to Ron Paul.
In 1994 Rothbard published an article, “Life in the Old Right.” Rothbard argued that the heyday of the “Old Right” spanned from 1933 to 1955 and was the original opposition to the New Deal. According to Rothbard, this coalition of opposition consisted of “libertarian and individualist writers and intellectuals;” “conservative states’ rights Democrats of the nineteenth century, largely from the South, whose views were almost as libertarian as the first group;” “conservative Republicans…who largely came from the Midwest;” and, “former progressives and statists” led by “former President Herbert Hoover who…denounced the New Deal for going too far into ‘fascism.’”
According to Rothbard, this libertarian coalition was hard-core regressive: “A few libertarian extremists wanted to go all the way back to the Articles of Confederation, but the great bulk of the right was committed to the United States Constitution—but a Constitution construed so ‘strictly’ as to outlaw much twentieth-century legislation, certainly on the federal level” (emphasis in original).
Rothbard admitted in the article that he “embraced the new states’ rights or ‘Dixiecrat’ ticket of Strom Thurmond for president and Fielding Wright of Mississippi for vice president.” As a student at Columbia University, Rothbard “founded a Students for Thurmond group.” Rothbard’s hope was that the “States’ Rights Party would continue to become a major party and destroy what was then a one-party Democratic monopoly in the South. In that way, an Old Right, Midwestern Republican coalition with States’ Rights Democrats could become the majority party!”
Although Rothbard did not mention the John Birch Society, he gave a plausible reason why Robert Welch, a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Manufactures (NAM) since 1950, founded the Society in 1958. Starting in 1946, according to Rothbard, the NAM had “sold out” and accepted the New Deal.
According to Chip Berlet, “early Birch conspiracism reflects an ultraconservative business nationalist critique of business internationalists.”27 The Society was instrumental in pushing the “‘constitutionalist’” and “‘producerism’” conspiracy theories. According to Berlet, the “JBS simultaneously discouraged overt forms of racism [and anti-Semitism], while it promoted policies that had the effect of racist oppression by its opposition to the Civil Rights movement.”
According to Rothbard’s retrospective, the Old Right was crushed in 1955 by the National Review which “proceeded to purge all rightwing factions that had previously lived and worked in harmony but now proved too isolationist or too unrespectable.”
Edward Sebesta, in an early article on “The Neo-Confederate Movement,” established that Russell Kirk, “perhaps the most prominent conservative of the 20th century,” “promoted the values of southern conservatism and ultimately the neo-Confederates.” Kirk was an early supporter of the Southern Partisan, a leading neo-Confederate journal that attracted conservative writers from across the country, not just the South. Kirk’s considerable prestige, prodigious writings, and intellectual support ensured that “the values of southern conservatism and admiration for the Confederacy, became accepted and not peripheral, not sectional for conservatism.” Sebesta noted that in 1958, at the start of the Civil Rights movement, Kirk “dedicated an entire issue of Modern Age to defending the South as it was.”.
William Voegeli in article on “Civil Rights & the Conservative Movement” noted that Buckley in 1957 wrote an article “Why the South Must Prevail” in which Buckley asked “‘whether the White community in the South is entitled to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas where it does not predominate numerically?….The sobering answer is Yes—the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.’”
Nancy MacLean reported that Buckley and Frank Meyer, his founding co-editor and “leading conservative movement builder in the formative years…forged an alliance with the intellectual architect of ‘massive resistance’ James Jackson Kilpatrick.” Moreover, the National Review “traded mailing lists with this [White Citizens Councils] avid white supremacist organization in 1958, assuring its leader that ‘Our position on states’ rights is the same as your own.’”
Voegeli noted that Buckley “regularly” expressed “the asymmetry of his sympathies—genuine concern for Southern whites beset by integrationists, but more often than not, perfunctory concern for Southern blacks beset by bigots.” Buckley’s views resembled “that of the ‘Southern Manifesto’ signed in 1956 by nearly every senator and representative from the South” which accused the Brown v. Board decision of ‘destroying the amicable relations between white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding.’”33
The Southern Manifesto was more than a manifesto. Part of the white supremacist reaction was a reign of terror against civil rights workers and any African American who could be made an example of for disturbing the apartheid system. The other reaction was the use of Tenth Amendment (states’ rights) to nullify the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. For example, the Florida and Georgia legislatures passed laws that with slightly different wording stated, “‘decisions and orders of the Supreme Court of the United States denying the individual sovereign States the power to enact laws relating to the separation of the races in public institutions of a state are null, void and of no force or effect.’”
Conservative opposition to all civil rights legislation continued with Goldwater’s argument derived from legal advice given by his legal advisers William Rehnquist and Robert Bork that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was “‘a grave threat’ to a constitutional republic in which fifty sovereign states have reserved to themselves and to the people those powers not specifically granted to the central or Federal government.’” With all due respect to Rehnquist and Bork, the Ninth Amendment gave all unenumerated rights to the people and none of these unenumerated rights to the states.
Conservative and Republican opposition to all civil rights legislation and the defense of states’ rights continued under the GOP’s Southern Strategy—a strategy the Republicans have never repudiated and continue to follow. According to the late Lee Atwater, the essence of the strategy was to conceptually shift the focus away from overt and explicit expressions of racism (the N-word) to “say[ing] stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.” When candidate Reagan went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, and said “‘I believe in states’ rights’” that Reagan “was elbow deep in the same race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nixon.” As Bob Herbert noted, “When Democrats revolted against racism, the G.O.P. rallied to its banner.”
In January 1992, Murray Rothbard, who co-founded the Ludwig von Mises Institute with Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul—the three of whom would eagerly join Patrick Buchanan’s 1992 presidential campaign—authored an article on incorporating David Duke’s libertarian economic platform into a paleo-libertarian/paleo-conservative coalition. Essentially the same as the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy, Rothbard wrote, “there was nothing in Duke’s current program or campaign that could not also be embraced by paleo-conservatives or paleo-libertarians; lower taxes, dismantling the bureaucracy, slashing the welfare system, attacking affirmative action and racial set-asides, calling for equal rights for all Americans, including whites: what was wrong with any of that?”
Rothbard’s plan for a coalition was couched in the John Birch Society’s producer populism theory: “to tap the masses directly, to short circuit the dominant media and intellectual elites, to rouse the masses of people against the elites that are looting them, and confusing them, and oppressing them, both socially and economically.” Furthermore, the ruling elites are an “unholy alliance of ‘corporate liberal’ Big Business and media elites, who, through big government, have privileged and caused to rise up a parasitic Underclass, who among them all, are looting and oppressing the bulk of the middle and working classes in America.”
In Rothbard’s formulation (and by extension Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell), to attract social conservatives and their opposition to “pornography, prostitution, or abortion” the “pro-legalization and pro-choice libertarians” should use states’ rights to “end the tyranny of the federal courts, and to leave these problems up to states, and better yet, localities and neighborhoods.” As I demonstrated in Parts IV-D and –E, Ron Paul has consistently followed this strategy in pushing opposition to civil rights, the establishment of religion, same-sex rights, and reproductive rights.
Voegile noted that in 2004 Buckley barely was able to support passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Wrote Buckley in an email exchange with Michael Kinsley, “‘I’d vote with trepidation, however, for the obvious reason that successful results cannot necessarily legitimize the means by which they were brought about.’” As Voegile put it, “Buckley never retracted his limited government arguments against the civil rights agenda.”
In other words, taking Buckley’s final position, the continued efficacy of the Southern Strategy, Rothbard’s Duke-inspired economic libertarianism as strategy for a paleo-libertarian and paleo-conservative alliance, and Ron Paul’s consistent positions there is no evidence that conservatives are, in Sara Robinson’s term “past racism.” This is especially true at the ideological and institutional levels of analyses.
But the problem is both deeper and broader than the paragraph above suggests if one does not take into account—as all the analyses in the preceding section do not—the ideology, values, and organizational basis of the neo-Confederate movement, of which Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty and the Ludwig von Mises Institute are a part.
I have previously noted that Russell Kirk used his enormous influence and prestige to bring conservative Southern ideas into the mainstream of conservative thought and he defended the white supremacist South in 1958.
Emil Prague in 1996 wrote that the neo-Confederate movement was already a national movement. Neo-Confederate writers had a broad revisionist view of American history going back to the American Revolution and the Civil War and that the movement represented a regressive “alienation to modernity.” Steve Wilkins, one of the co-founders of the League of the South, was a Christian Reconstructionist theologian who promoted the idea of the Civil War as a “theological conflict.” Prague argued that the neo-Confederate view underscored how much of the “Religious Right is underpinned by historical interpretation.” The neo-Confederate movement and the Christian Right were opposed to civil rights for minorities and women and gays, opposition to immigration, and for a “Christian nation.” According to Prague, “the neo-Confederacy is the historical ground which is tilled by these activists to grow a viewpoint, a consciousness, a political ideology, for a Confederate vision of America.”
Edward Sebesta also wrote that neo-Confederate ideas for conservatives are a “core binding element of their political beliefs.” Sebesta summarized the neo-Confederate view of American history which has informed conservatives: “Essentially neo-Confederates believe that with the Civil War, Lincoln was able to expand the power of the federal government beyond constitutional limits, and that with the defeat of the Confederacy the ideals of states’ rights were defeated. They believe that the 14th Amendment was illegally adopted. To them this has resulted in the growth of federal government into a Leviathan, a very large monstrous beast in the bible….In this historical view big government, integration and Brown vs. Brown, gay rights, civil rights, feminism, minorities, taxes, FDR, and other issues can be viewed as the result of the American Republic jumping the tracks during the Civil War and being out of control.”
Like the Southern Manifesto which claimed that relations between the races during the Jim Crow era were “amicable” and based on “friendship and understanding,” the neo-Confederate movement sought to portrays racial relations under slavery as highly favorable to the slaves and a burden to the slave masters. A book written in the 1950s claimed, “‘No, the Southern planter’s work was civilizing the poor, deluded Negro—the greatest missionary work known to history….The institution of slavery as it was in the South, so far from degrading the Negro was fast elevating him above his nature and his race.”
A survey of the slave conspiracy literature in 1993 noted that many of these studies had the “‘felt necessity of refuting the notion that American slaves were contented in their bondage.’”
Steven Wilkins and Douglas Wilson co-authored a 1996 book, Southern Slavery: As It Was, which claimed that “‘Slavery as it existed in the South…was a relationship based upon mutual affection and harmony….There has never been a multiracial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world.’”
Sebesta asked two pertinent questions which underlie the “happy slave” narrative of the neo-Confederate movement: “Can a being that would be content to be a slave really be considered fully human? Can a person who would be content to be a slave really be thought to have a soul, spirit, an intellectual capacity?” The answers are obvious.
What is not so obvious is that this narrative, while it is not the same, it is a lesser form of Holocaust denial. While Holocaust deniers deny that the Holocaust took place, the neo-Confederates acknowledge that slavery took place but the slaves loved their masters, there was mutual affection, harmony, and mutual intimacy.
Is it really any wonder why conservatives and libertarians continue to work against implementing civil rights legislation?
Sebesta provided the key organizations of the neo-Confederate. The League of the South had as two of its “founding and charter members” Lew Rockwell, co-founder with Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and Jeffrey Tucker, director of research at the Mises Institute.45
In addition to the Ludwig von Mises Institute, other leading neo-Confederate organizations include the Council of Conservative Citizens, Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the Rockford Institute in Illinois. There are many others.
In 2002, Sebesta reported that the League of the South, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the Christian Reconstructionist Chalcedon Foundation accept the Civil War theological thesis that the war “was a theological war over the future of American religiosity fought between devout Confederate and heretical Union states” and that the Confederate “battle flag and other Confederate icons are Christian symbols and the assertion that opposition to them equates to a rejection of Christianity
Central to the concept of “banal white nationalism” is the much larger concept of the neo-Confederacy which has as its basic principles, among others: states’ rights, local control of schooling, Christian traditions, Confederate symbols, Southerners are persecuted as racists, a natural social hierarchy, white men being dominant in a social hierarchy stratified by race and gender, a disdain for gays and lesbians, and an opposition to modern democracy. Much of this is no longer unique to neo-Confederates, but extends to Christian nationalists, variants of libertarianism, and other white nationalists. Moreover, there are institutional linkages across domains such as Christian nationalist and libertarian organizations and white nationalist organizations.
It should therefore come as no surprise that there are two main flags associated with the Tea Party movement—the Confederate flag symbolizing slavery and treason (the neo-Confederates would prefer secession) and the Gadsden flag symbolizing patriotic revolution. Sebesta provides a more rounded understanding of the Confederate flag’s symbolism: “It is the very Confederate flag which represents a view that the holder’s interests are ultimately their white skin and a privileged position in society as a white man versus gays, minorities, feminists, immigrants, and others. The Confederate tradition is the anti-democratic tradition and short circuits the politics of class.” The anti-immigration movement used the Confederate flag as well as the Nazi flag—symbolizing the Holocaust and treason. No Republican leadership objected.
That no Republican or Tea Party movement leaderships vociferously opposed the presence of the Confederate flag, or Nazi symbols or references, is indicative of just how pervasive this neo-Confederate mindset, banal white nationalism, and anti-Semitism are in the larger conservative movement.
The proliferation of Nazi symbolism and rhetoric associated with the Tea Party movement. David Harris, president of the NJDC, pointed out “roughly 50 instances in the past few months where either a media personality or a politician manufactured a Nazi analogy or Holocaust reference to push a point.” Stein noted that the fifth-ranking Republican in the House, Cathy McMorris Rogers, offered this mild criticism: “I think the purpose of the town halls is for people to be able to express their views in an orderly and respectful manner, and that needs to take place on both sides.” In other words, both Democrats and Republicans were equally guilty. Eric Cantor’s response to proliferation of Nazi symbols and analogies was to deem them “not, I think, very helpful.”
Sebesta differentiated “explicit white nationalism” from “banal white nationalism.” In Sebesta’s view, “Explicit white nationalism is the activation of banal white nationalism.” Explicit white nationalists apparently perceive that “there is a great majority of white people out there to support their agenda, that this majority is there to be activated.” Banal white nationalism are “words, actions, symbols, [and] objects” that are “widely diffused in the general white population” and work in “subtle, indirect, and unrecognized ways.” In Sebesta’s view, this “form of white nationalism is fairly extensive” and “more widely diffused in the general white population.” Part of this, by way of example, is how whites accommodate, often unthinkingly, words, phrases, or historical narratives that further the pursuit of the neo-Confederate agenda. For example, neo-Confederates refer to their nation-state as “the South.” It infuriates them that anyone would refer to that region of the United States as “Southeastern.” Another example is Senator Kerry praising Strom Thurmond for his service to the Senate while omitting any reference that Thurmond used the Confederacy’s states’ rights theory of the Civil War to oppose civil rights legislation.
The Neo-Confederate Movement
In their study of the development of the neo-Confederate movement Edward Sebesta and Euan Hague identified Robert Lewis Dabney, a rather marginal 19th century theologian, when judged against his contemporaries, as “arguably the most significant early advocate of a theological perspective of the Civil War.” Dabney served during the Civil War as the chaplain to General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson. After the war, Dabney argued in books and lectures, based on scripture, that slavery was justified by the Bible and that “slavery was a necessary good for what he called the ‘depraved’ classes.” Sebesta and Hague wrote, “Dabney believed that the Bible legitimated slavery, and thus opposition to slavery was tantamount to rejecting Christianity.” Based on their readings of this nineteenth century body of Southern Presbyterian Church literature and League of the South’s internet postings, Sebesta and Hague identified a “theological war thesis, an assessment that interprets the nineteenth century CSA [Confederate States of America] to be an orthodox Christian nation and understands the 1861-1865 US Civil War to have been a theological war over the future American religiosity fought between devout Christian and heretical Union states.”
Dabney’s post-Civil War writings established the theological cornerstone from which future Christian Reconstructionists and neo-Confederate theologians and strategists would expand their theological ideology and programmatic endeavors. Sebesta and Hague identified several themes in Dabney’s writings: “governments were legitimate only if they derived from the will of God;” “condemned human equality and women’s rights… [and] opposed public schooling…justifying all his positions by Biblical interpretation;” “that modern science and development of the theory of evolution were ‘anti-theological’ and that amongst future generations this would result in a ‘nascent contempt for their father’s Bibles and irreparably damage the South’s ‘Christian households.’”
Three key theologians and theoreticians trace their own intellectual lineage back to Dabney—the late Rousas J. Rushdoony, founder of Christian Reconstructionism at the Chalcedon Foundation; Steven Wilkins, co-founder (with history professor Michael Hill) of the racist, secessionist League of the South; and Douglas Wilson, who heads the Association of Classical and Christian Schools, the Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals, Credenda/Agenda, Canon Press, and New Saint Andrews College—all of them located in Moscow, Idaho.
The Christian Reconstructionist Component of the Neo-Confederate Movement
Frederick Clarkson, in his 1997 book Eternal Hostility—The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy—identified the key theological ideas of Christian Reconstructionism developed by Rushdoony: “the Bible is to be the governing text for all areas of life—such as government, education and law;” “Reconstructionists have formulated a ‘Biblical worldview’ and ‘Biblical principles’ to govern and inform their lives and politics;” “Reconstructionists…set a course of world conquest or ‘dominion,’ claiming a biblically prophesied ‘inevitable victory;’” “Epitomizing the Reconstructionist idea of biblical ‘warfare’ is the centrality of capital punishment…for apostasy (abandonment of the faith), heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, ‘sodomy or homosexuality,’ incest, striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and in the case of women, ‘unchastity before marriage’…[and] women who have had abortions should be publicly executed.” Clarkson noted that Christian Reconstructionism is “arguably the driving ideology of the Christian Right today.”
That is not to imply that Christian Reconstructionism did not have variants or that the Christian Right adopted wholesale the Christian Reconstructionist theology, or did not have other theological influences. The Christian Right, for example, has conveniently ignored or softened its approach to the death penalty for the wide variety of “crimes” demanded for by Rushdoony. But, it has largely adopted its agenda. Clarkson noted that the Christian nationalist’s Council for National Policy’s secular and theological agendas range “from the dismantling of the public schools, to the criminalization of abortion and homosexuality, the radical deregulation of every major consumer and environmental protection initiative of the federal government, and the weakening, if not elimination of civil rights laws protecting the interests of women and minorities.”
A decade later Michelle Goldberg in her 2007 book, Kingdom Coming—The Rise of Christian Nationalism, observed its totalitarian “elements.” Goldberg wrote that Christian nationalism was a “totalistic political ideology” based “on the conviction that true Christianity must govern every aspect of public and private life, and that all—government, science, history, culture, and relationships—must be understood according to the dictates of scripture. There are biblically correct positions on every issue, from gay marriage to income tax rates, and only those with the right worldview can discern them.”
the historical revisionist interpretation of America being founded as a “Christian nation” is the “war on the courts.” Goldberg noted that the “Christian nationalists view the courts as the last intolerable obstacle to their palingenetic dream. Believing America to be a Christian nation, they see any ruling that contradicts their theology as de facto unconstitutional, and its enforcement tyrannical. They’re convinced that they must destroy the judiciary’s power to liberate themselves.” Moreover, the Christian nationalist effort to strip the U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts from hearing cases related to the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause “could let state governments criminalize abortion and gay sex [read vociferous advocacy of states’ rights under the Tenth Amendment]. It could sanction the reinstitution of school prayer and the teaching of creationism and permit the ever greater Christianization of the country’s social services…It could intrude into the most intimate corners of Americans’ private lives.”
Goldberg described one event (among several) in which Republican congressional staffers came together with neo-Confederates, Christian Reconstructionists, and others who had subconsciously absorbed Rushdoony’s dominionist message.
At a mid-2005 Confronting the Judicial War on Faith rally key speakers included Michael Peroutka, a prominent militia supporter, member of the League of the South, and former presidential candidate of the Constitution Party; Howard Phillips, founder and head of the Constitution Party; and, Herb Titus, the party’s former vice presidential candidate in 1996, and the founder and former dean of Oral Roberts’ Regent University Law School. David Gibbs, a lawyer trained at the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, subconsciously echoed the Christian revisionism of Rushdoony and David Barton, founder of the Texas-based Wallbuilders and leading pseudo-historian promoting the myth that America was founded as a “Christian nation.” Gibbs told the crowd, “‘How many here understand we were founded as one nation under God?…That’s why the Ten Commandments are so important. They were the original source of American law. The Bible was understood to be authoritative. When the founding fathers said, ‘One Nation under God,’ they made the decision that they would submit to what God had put forward in his law.’”
The purpose of the Judicial War on Faith rally was to express support for the Constitution Restoration Act authored by former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was impeached over his refusal to remove a nearly three-ton monument of the Ten Commandments from the capitol’s judicial building, and Herb Titus. The Constitution Restoration Act was introduced in 2004 into the Senate by Senators Sam Brownback and Richard Shelby, and, the House by Representatives by James Sensenbrenner. Blumenthal reported that the Act “authorized Congress to impeach judges who failed to abide by ‘the standard of good behavior’ supposedly required by the Constitution. Refusal to acknowledge ‘God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government,’ or reliance in any way on international law in their rulings would also trigger impeachment.”
Goldberg reported that the totalitarian elements and a desire for the physical destruction (death) to judges came from both religious and secular speakers. Reverend Rick Scarborough, founder of Vision America for “‘patriot pastors,’” prayed for the death of Judge George Greer who had decided the Schiavo case: “‘Father, we echo the words of the apostle Paul, because we know Judge Greer claims to be a Christian. So the apostle Paul said in his First Corinthians 5…deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may saved in the day of our Lord Jesus.’” The constitutional lawyer Edwin Vieira in criticizing Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in the Lawrence v. Texas case (in a defeat for states’ rights, it struck down Texas’ sodomy law), admiringly borrowed a truncated phrase from Joseph Stalin as a solution to the “‘personnel problem,’” “‘No man, no problem.’” Goldberg gave Stalin’s full quote: “‘Death solves all problems: no man, no problem.’” Goldberg’s account is fully corroborated by Max Blumenthal who attended the Judicial War on Faith rally.
Chris Hedges in his 2006 book, American Fascists—The Christian Right and the War on America—reported on the “racist and brutal intolerance of the intellectual godfathers of today’s Christian Reconstructionism.” Based on his reading of Rushdoony’s The Institutes of Biblical Law, Hedges observed that “The Jews, who neglected to fulfill God’s commands in the Hebrew scriptures, have, in this belief system, forfeited their place as God’s chosen people and have been replaced by Christians….Rushdoony dismissed the widely accepted estimate of 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust as an inflated figure, and his theories on race often echo those found in Nazi eugenics, in which there are higher and lower forms of human beings. Those considered by the Christian state to be immoral and incapable of reform are to be exterminated.”
The other key development in movement towards an American theocracy is the influence of the John Birch Society upon R.J. Rushdoony and the Christian nationalists’ Council for National Policy.
Clarkson noted that Rushdoony admired the cellular structure of the John Birch Society as having a ‘strong resemblance to the early church.’” Furthermore, Christian “Reconstructionist literature can be found in JBS affiliated American Opinion bookstores. Indeed, the conspiracist views of Reconstructionist writers (focusing on the United Nations and the Council on Foreign Relations, among others) are consistent with those of the John Birch Society.” While the Christian Reconstructionists placed their primary emphasis on orthodox Christianity rather than politics, Clarkson noted that in the “1990s the JBS worldview is more persuasive to more people when packaged as a Biblical worldview.”14 In other words, there is market segmentation where the same conspiracy theory can be presented to two different, even mutually exclusive target audiences, in two different narratives, one orthodox Christian and the other secular. But, Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons in their analysis of the John Birch Society noted that the influence could also run in the opposite direction. They reported that the “influence of fundamentalist Christian beliefs on Birch doctrine are often obscured by the group’s ostensible secular orientation. As Welch [founded the JBS in 1958] put it, “‘This is a world-wide battle, between lightness and darkness; between freedom and slavery; between the spirit of Christianity and spirit of [sic] anti-Christ for the souls and bodies of men.’”
Clarkson quoted investigative journalist Russ Ballant that the Council for National Policy “‘was inspired by business and political leaders who were also leaders of the John Birch Society.’”16 Nelson Bunker Hunt, a member of the John Birch Society’s national council, assisted Tim LaHaye, a former JBS trainer and later co-author of the very successful Left Behind series of fictiona ‘Rapture’ novels, in founding the Council for National Policy.
Other Neo-Confederate Associations
the radical anti-tax group, The Patriot Network. They characterized him as “very sympathetic to the patriot’s cause.” On the website, Ron Paul makes this statement: “If we stuck to the Constitution as written, we would have no federal meddling in our schools; no Federal Reserve; no U.S. membership in the UN; no gun control; and no foreign aid. We would have no welfare for big corporations; or the ‘poor;’ …no arrogant federal judges usurping states’ rights; no attacks on private property; no income tax. We could get rid of most of the cabinet departments, most of the agencies, and most of the budget.” This is a mixture of Christian Reconstructionism and Posse Comitatus ideology. There should be no surprise that the founder of The Patriot Network is also the founder of the South Carolina Constitution Party and the state’s Libertarian Party.