FOX news, angry billionaires, and the Republicans blame President Obama for America’s economic crisis. It’s time for a reality check: the recession of 2007-2009 and our slow recovery are the result of unpaid for wars, huge tax breaks for wealthy Americans, deregulated banks, and unscrupulous Wall Street fat cats. Those are the facts, but here’s how the politicians […]
Radical Right Christians and Their Terrible Plans for America
When you hear a politician or preacher talk about turning the US into a Christian nation, beware. This does NOT mean keeping “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” in our money. Turning America into a Christian nation means fundamentally changing our system of law and governance. The religious right wants America […]
When Poverty Was Healthy and Americans Were Free
Aren’t They All Dead? When I talk about my experiences inside the John Birch Society, people often tell me, quite emphatically, that the Birch Society has absolutely no influence contemporary politics. Republicans, in particular, can be really hostile when I suggest that GOP Senators, Representatives, and Governors sound very John Birch. “No way,” they say, “Birchers are all […]
The Extremist Flag Flies . . . Again
No One Left to Hoist the Flag When my mother died in 2007, I hoped that I’d heard the last of an international conspiracy, the New World Order, and America’s looming collapse. The evidence certainly pointed to that conclusion. The Cold War had been over for twenty years, my parents and their old radical right-wing friends were […]
Hate Came to Dinner
. . . Revilo Oliver–Holocaust Denier and John Birch Society Leader They’re All Dead I was in the first grade when I started walking to St. Timothy’s School, a Catholic grade school in my Chicago neighborhood. The four-block hike from my home on Maplewood took me down Devon Avenue, a busy commercial street lined with […]