Jeffrey Kuhner and Michael Savage: Birds of a Feather

I was flipping through radio stations today and tuned into Michael Savage's radio program. For those of you not familiar with Savage and his radio show, the guy is a complete loon. I wrote a review blog of his book Savage Nation that gives some examples of Savage's lunacy and racism (I also have a more recent post on my main blog about Savage and racism). What is scary about Savage is the fact that he has a radio audience of 8 million people.

Today when I was listening, I discovered that Washington Times operative Jeffrey T. Kuhner provides a weekly "special report" for Savage's radio program. Kuhner, when he wrote for Moon's Insight magazine, started the rumor that Barack Obama was a Muslim who went to school in a madrassa. I transcribed a radio conversation of Kuhner with Sean Hannity in which Kuhner makes a veiled call for Obama to be assassinated by Muslim extremists (I have another post that mentions Kuhner). True to form on Savage's program, Kuhner had a special message to members of the American military. Kuhner told the troops: "You have a commander-in-chief who no longer believes in you." This from a drone who gets his paycheck from a megalomaniac who believes America is "Satan's harvest."

UPDATE I: I almost forgot: before Kuhner was on, Savage's guest was right-wing activist Daniel Flynn. A few years ago, when Flynn was on a radio program in LA, I confronted him about Sun Myung Moon.

UPDATE II: On April 14, 2009, Kuhner appeared on Savage's radio program and called President Obama "a traitor."

The Washington Times Caught Re-writing the GOP Script on Stimulus Bill

No big surprise. Media Matters for America has the scoop.

Søren Kierkegaard, Sun Myung Moon, and Liberation

One of my favorite philosophers is Søren Kierkegaard who, along with one of my other favorite philosophers Albert Camus, developed the theory of philosophical absurdism--the belief that "the efforts of humanity to find meaning in the universe ultimately fail (and, hence, are absurd) because no such meaning exists, at least in relation to humanity." I'm not an orthodox absurdist but one of the things that leads me to give credence to the tenets of absurdism is the fact that a complete nutjob like Moon has become a power player in the capital of the most powerful nation in the world and how the Washington media has relinquished its role of watchdog regarding Moon (apparently, if you are good enough of a thief to be able to buy a printing press and subsidize it for a quarter of a century from the proceeds of a scam that wiped out the life savings of many bereaved widows, then somehow in the logic of many DC journalists, then you're one of the gang.

Martin Herbst, a former head of the Moonies in Slovenia, who according to this rough translation of a Danish journal, decided to leave Moon's sphere of influence after he read Kierkegaard. Perhaps I can send some of Kierkegaard's writings to members of the Washington press corps.

Coincidence? Don't count on it

I addressed sun Myung Moon's role in the fascistic World Anti-Communist League (WACL) in my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult" as well as in this post. Richard Bartholomew reports that a conference co-sponsored by Moonie front groups such as the Women's Federation for World Peace and the Universal Peace Federation took place at the same location as a WACL conference held earlier this year.

Will George W. Bush Pardon Sun Myung Moon?

I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me.

1/23/09 UPDATE: Bush is out of office and no pardon for Moon.

Who is the Real Knave?

The Moonie Times has its list of Nobles and Knaves of the year 2008. Not surprisingly, the political people list of knaves includes only Democrats or people left-of-center (Hillary Clinton, ACORN, Sandra Bernhard, Harry Reid) while the political poeple listed as nobles are Republicans or right-of-center (Governor Bobby "The Exorcist" Jindal and the late Tony Snow). I found it more than a bit interesting that a list of knaves would be concocted by an alleged newspaper whose only reason for existence is due to the grandiose vision of a predatory megalomaniac whose goal is to gain power in the nation's capital and who paid over $3 billion to operate this rag through cleaning out Japanese widows of their life savings.

UPDATE: On the subject of knaves, also in today's Times is an op-ed by Jeffrey Kuhner, the Moonie operative who started the Obama-is-a-Muslim rumor and appeared on Sean Hannity's radio program and all but called for radical Muslims to assassinate Obama for being "an apostate." Kuhner calls 2008 a year of infamy because it was the year that Obama was elected. Kuhner blames the US news media:

An honest and serious media would have exposed all of these issues - and the dangerous pitfalls of an Obama presidency. Instead, the 2008 campaign represented the final culmination of a low, dishonest decade. A sycophantic press corps suppressed damaging information about Mr. Obama and effectively carried him into the White House. They have thus carried America's Neville Chamberlain on their shoulders, in a massive delusion that the problem was George W. Bush when, in fact, the problem we face are the evil forces aligned against us.

Kuhner doesn't mention the supposedly damaging information that the media suppressed. Was he referring the rumor that Kuhner started about Obama being a closet Muslim?

Danny Davis Does the Right Thing (at long last)

Readers of this blog know that I'm no fan of U.S. Representative Danny Davis (D-IL) for his part in the deranged Moon coronation ceremony and his pathetic apologia for his participation (according to Davis, Moon declaring himself the Messiah "was similar to a baseball team owner telling team members that 'we are the greatest team on earth'" prior to a baseball game).

Davis is the right thing by turning down disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich's offer to appoint him to Barack Obama's seat in the U.S. Senate.

Have a happy 2009!

My Fitzmas: The Indictment of Danny Davis

Of course, only if Davis did something illegal in his lobbying for Barack Obama's Senate seat. I am hoping and praying that Davis did something illegal and gets caught up in the Blagojevich investigation. We already know that Davis has no soul: this is the guy who presented the crown to Moon and his wife at the demented coronation ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in 2004 and gave a completely lame excuse when pressed about it. I just hope he did something illegal and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald finds a smoking gun.

Remembering Gary Webb

On the forth anniversary of the tragic suicide death of journalist Gary Webb, Robert Parry wrote a great article in Consortium News on how Webb, who uncovered the contra-cocaine connection, was hounded out of the journalistic profession and notes how the lion's share of the credit goes to operatives for Reverend Moon's Washington Times.

The Hell with Danny Davis--He doesn't Deserve Obama's Senate Seat

(Updated below)
Appointing a clown like Representative Danny Davis to serve out Barack Obama's term in the U.S. Senate would be a slap in the face to those victims of Sun Myung Moon's predatory reign as head of the Unification Church. Moon is a criminal and sexual predator who has used billions stolen from Japanese widows and others to buy legitimacy in Washington. This led to the bizarre 2004 coronation ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in which Representative Davis presented a crown to the demented would-be Messiah. More on this is on Crooks and Liars and Firedoglake.

UPDATE I:Another Moon-related item: in Moon's Washington Times, rightly called the Bush administration's "house organ" by Paul Krugman, I just read the following words, written without irony, in an editorial by Alan Nathan:

What chance do arguments have to rise and fall on their merits if they're framed by a seemingly party-owned press? And once that party comes to power, won't its lackey journalists constitute a type of state-owned press? In other words (after Inauguration Day), how can the blushing news media keep from sharing President-elect Barack Obama's political bed - given they have already serviced his electoral needs?

The news reporting world must recognize that responsible journalism requires universal standards of neutrality, and that this can only occur when facts are presented in their self-evident form. When they're not, the public naturally becomes more propagandized than informed. Punditry from all political perspectives is wonderfully helpful and perfectly legitimate - until it masquerades as news.

For information on how the Washington Times is a force of reaction and racial bigotry, check out my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult."


UPDATE II: Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune thinks that Davis should gives some answers about his participation in the Moon Coronation.

Three Cheers for the Solomon Islands Clergy

(via The Moon Tribune)an article in the Solomon Times newspaper: "Boycott "Moonie" Festival: Church Leaders":

Christian ministries and organizations are unanimous in their call for a boycott of the Global Peace Festival and their description of Reverend Moon as the "Devil and the Anti-Christ, the end time figure spoken off in the Book of Revelation" . . . The Church leader stated that the Reverend Moon Movement has succeeded in brain washing such young Christians, and Moon is now using them to fill up his own pockets, "he has also been making a mockery of the institution of marriage as part of his strategy to win followers" . . .
The Church leader said that Mr. and Mrs. Moon have been using words and ideas that are familiar, attractive including their constant talking about family; "but it is not God' family that Mr. and Mrs. Moon are talking about, it is all about unity under the leadership of Reverend Moon."

Sun Myung Moon and the Right's Media Apparatus

Robert Parry on the media's asymmetry:

Despite Barack Obama’s election victory, this media asymmetry will not go away. Indeed, it is almost certain to limit his ability to bring about significant change and could tilt the country back in the direction of the Republicans in the not-too-distant future.

It is a pattern I have seen often since 1977 when I arrived in Washington as a reporter for the Associated Press.

During that time, while the American Left has been largely absent from the national media landscape, wealthy right-wingers (from foundations like Olin and Scaife to media moguls like Sun Myung Moon and Rupert Murdoch) have poured tens of billions of dollars into media.

Over those years, the Right built a towering – and vertically integrated – media structure reaching from newspapers, magazines and books to talk radio, cable TV and the Internet, an apparatus concentrated in the power centers of New York and Washington.

The Right also invested money in attack groups to go after mainstream journalists who dared dig up information that put right-wing policies or politicians in a negative light. Offending journalists were accused of “liberal bias” and often found themselves hounded from the national press corps.

Over time, this imbalance had a spillover effect. Many right-wing and neoconservative pundits landed prime spots on mainstream TV news shows and the Op-Ed pages of leading newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Even the most dangerous of right-wing ideas – such as free-market absolutism at home and neoconservative imperialism abroad – got respectful if not reverential treatment across the mainstream-to-right-wing media spectrum, the news outlets that most Americans read, heard and watched.

Obama Campaign Boots Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times from its Press Plane

(Updated below)
Last night I heard about the Obama campaign's to get expel the "reporter" for the Washington Times (as well as reporters from the New York Post and the Dallas Morning News). Why did it take so long? Just because a Messiah wannabe buys a printing press doesn't mean that what is produced is a legitimate journalistic entity. In fact, the Moonie Times has a long history of engaging in political dirty tricks against Democratic presidential candidates (e.g., see my video "The World's Most Powerful Cult" for more information).

It's interesting how the right's media is spinning it. To no surprise, Fox News is suggesting that the reason was that all three of the papers endorsed McCain. The Times' editor-in-chief John Solomon appeared on right-wing talk radio show hosted by Mark Levin, a former Reagan Justice Department official and former (?) recipient of wing-nut welfare from Richard Mellon Scaife. Solomon (whom Levin described as a good friend) and said pretty much what he said to the Washington Post. Here is today's Times story on the expulsion.

UPDATE: Fox News Democrat Kirsten Powers is slightly less critical than her Fox News colleagues:

All three papers endorsed McCain - was the Obama move retaliation? It seems unlikely. More likely, the campaign wanted to make room for fawning coverage - and who better to get rid of than papers that cover you critically?

The GOP's "FBI-Is-Investigating" Smear and Moon's Washington Times

Robert Parry has written about the the Times' role in the Clinton passport scandal of the 1992 election before. In his latest article, Parry puts in in context with the current FBI investigation of ACORN.

John McCain, The U.S. Council for World Freedom, the World Anti-Communist League, and Sun Myung Moon

This morning on Meet the Press, when the topic of the discussion was the attempts by the McCain campaign and the right's media to link Barack Obama to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, Democratic strategist Paul Begala noted that McCain has his own problem with consorting with extremists considering his membership of the board of the U.S. Council for World Freedom, an affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Begala noted that the Anti=Defamation League has documented how the WACL (now known as the World League for Freedom and Democracy) “has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites.”

That's putting it lightly. I did some research on the WACL for my Sun Myung Moon blog when I heard that Moon had been a major financial supporter of the League in the 1970's and 1980's. The definitive book on the League is Scott and Jon Lee Anderson's Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League (I used information culled from the book for my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult"). What the book documents is shocking. The League has served as a resource for neo-Nazis (former chairman of the WACL was expelled when it was discovered that he been in various neo-Nazi organizations). The League did what it could to prop up undemocratic regimes and aided Salvadorian terrorist death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson whose nickname "Blowtorch Bob" was coined because of his favorite instrument of torture (quick aside: D'Aubuisson had also received support from figures beloved by "values voters": Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwell).

The big difference between Obama and McCain: Obama did some educational reform projects with William Ayers decades after his Weather Underground activities. McCain was affiliated with the WACL at the time in which it was a nest of neo-Nazis and was openly supporting terrorist like D'Aubuisson. How come I didn't know about McCain's affiliation with the group until today?

The Washington Media Establishment and Sun Myung Moon

Today I spoke with NPR's Juan Williams after he gave a talk at the 3rd Annual San Diego City College International Book Fair. I asked him about Moon and his media apparatus. While Williams was familiar with the Times and Insightmag.com, he confessed that he knew little about the massive amounts of money that the Moon was sinking into the Times and his other media projects to keep them afloat. More important, Williams didn't know about the schemes that Moon and his operatives have used to fund these white elephants.

Sadly, Williams is typical of the DC journalistic community. Moon and his operation warrant scrutiny from Washington journalists. I'm an optimist but I'm not holding my breath.

The Media Landscape 2008

Washington Times' Tony Blankley Excoriates Media for Not Swiftboating Obama
Read Blankley's column here. Blankley was a promoter of the Swift Boat lies during the 2004 campaign.

Blankley's two columns are revealing. During the 2004 campaign, the Kerry campaign was run by vacillating people like Bob Shrum who didn't want to take on these operatives head on--their lack of action was an unmitigated disaster. Also, Media Matters for America had just been established. The mainstream media took a he-said-she-said approach to the lies put forth by the Swift Boat operatives.

Although the hard right's media apparatus is still dominant, the media landscape has changed significantly in the last four years. Media Matters has gained a significant audience. Keith Olbermann is on the air and holding the media's feet to the fire. The Huffington Post is providing stiff competition for Drudge. Fox News is rightfully becoming marginalized by increasing numbers of Americans.

A good example of these changes are the way that the media have responded to fringe writer Jerome Corsi, the co-author of the Swift Boat book, Unfit for Command, and who in 2008, wrote an anti-Obama book. This year, Corsi has received the scrutiny he deserved and his lies were not allowed to be recycled through Fox News to the mainstream media.

There's a lot of work to be done but we've come a long way in four years.

The Moonie Media, Sean Hannity, Fox News, and the "Obama is a Muslim" Meme

Last weekend in Reverend Moon's Washington Times, Jeffrey Kuhner expressed concern that "[t]he liberal media are determined to tarnish the reputation of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin." Kuhner was the one who started the rumor that Barack Obama was a closet Muslim. In January 2007 edition Kuhner made the claim in the online Moonie publication, InsightMag.com, that the Clinton campaign was spreading the rumor that Obama was a closet Muslim and had attended a madrassa (here's a brief overview of Kuhner's debunked claims). As I reported in my personal blog, Kuhner went on Sean Hannity's radio program and made inflammatory statements about Obama and Islam that included a veiled call for Muslim extremists to assassinate Obama (Hannity, of course, ate it up). Last week, Sean Hannity--against all evidence--claimed that nobody on Fox News claimed that Obama is a Muslim.

My thoughts: It's ironic that Obama's Americanism would be challenged by publications owned by an America-hating theocratic criminal (though this is hardly unique: some of the voices on the right that accuse the left of hating America have a soft spot of the old Confederacy). This is an illustration of how fringe Moonie publications can lead to a disinformation campaign that reaches tens of millions (I previously explained how this media food chain operated--though for more info, check out David Brock's book The Republican Noise Machine).

Final Thought: The "Obama is a Muslim" Spam E-mails"
The fact that dirty tricks operatives use spam e-mails to spread the Obama/Muslim rumor is proof that a small but significant number of Americans are morons. I have had e-mail for the last 14 years and the only thing in my spam folder have been solicitations for prescription drugs, Nigerian 419 scams, skanks wanting me to check out their webcams, people selling Rolex watch knock-offs, and people selling concoctions to enlarge penises. For fuck's sake, why would anyone read an anonymous spam e-mail and believe it, especially when a quick Google search will find that the rumor in question is false?

Bad Education: Moon's University of Bridgeport Named "Worst College in America"

Radar magazine has the scoop.

Previously, Radar listed the Univeristy of Bridgeport and another insititution with financial ties to Moon, the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty Univerity on its annual list of worst colleges.

Quick note: Radar featured me in its article on crashing the Oscars.

The Daily Snark

Wes Pruden of the Washington Times fans the phony controversy about whether Barack Obama has a valid U.S. birth certificate. This from a guy who wishes his own birth certificate was from The Confederate States of America.

The U.S. Justice Department Apparently Likes My Blogs

I have noticed that someone from the U.S. Justice Department has been lurking on my main blog and my anti-Amway blog for the past several months (see the addendum for info from my Statcounter page on the Amway blog).

Quick note to Justice Department lurker(s): if you really want to do your job, do something about illegal activity, do something about the illegal "tools" pyramid created by some top Amway distributors which have netted them hundreds of millions of dollars--if not billions of dollars. Also, you could refer to the INS the charges made by Nansook Hong about how the Reverend Sun Myung Moon engaged in immigration fraud to bring an underage girl to the United States to become the unlawful bride of his adult son.

Initially I was amused that the Justice Department reads my blog; however, this morning I listened to Sam Seder's interview of journalist Scott Horton.

Addendum: Info from my Statcounter page for my anti-Amway blog:
Host Name wdcsun27.usdoj.gov
IP Address 149.101.1.127 [Label IP Address]
Country United States
Region District Of Columbia
City Washington
ISP Us Dept Of Justice
Returning Visits 10
Visit Length 54 seconds
VISITOR SYSTEM SPECS
Browser MSIE 6.0
Operating System Windows XP
Resolution 1280x1024
Javascript Enabled

When?

With all the talk about Obama as the Messiah, when is someone from the Washington establishment going to mention Sun Myung Moon, a power player who really thinks that God ordained him as humanity's savior. I'm not holding my breath.

Regnery Publishing's War on American Democracy

Regnery Publishing just released The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate by David Freddoso. I have not read the book so I can’t comment on the specifics of the book. However, I can cite some reports about that raise serious questions: 1) There has been some pre-release information about the book that show that there are some serious problems with the truthfulness of the book. The media watchdog Media Matters for America uncovered some falsehoods in the introduction and the first few pages which were released by Regnery prior to publication. Media Matters has been doing an excellent job of documenting misinformation in the anti-Obama book by Jerome Corsi (who co-authored the wildly inaccurate Regnery 2004 hit book on John Kerry, Unfit for Command).

However, what is particularly revealing is that the publisher of the book, Regnery Publishing has a pattern of publishing books that denigrate true American heroes, such as John Kerry, as well as books that elevate sociopaths--namely the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

Regnery's History of Elevating Sun Myung Moon and Unification Thought

Regnery has been the publisher of five books that have served the purposes of Sun Myung Moon, who is 1) a sexual predator who committed immigration fraud in order to bring an underage girl to the United States to be the illegal bride for his violent and drug-addicted son; 2) a thief who has stolen hundreds of millions, possibly billions, from vulnerable Japanese widows in what is known as the spiritual sales scam; 3) A megalomaniac who believes that he is the Messiah and the world’s savior; 4) A would-be tyrant who believes that American democracy—-which he views as “Satan’s harvest”—-should be overthrown and replaced with a theocratic rule. In a word, the guy is a nutjob (my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult" gives a succinct overview of Moon and a more comprehensive look at Moon can be found in John Gorenfeld's recent book Bad Moon Rising as well as my blog devoted to Moon).

Regnery has published not one but five books promoting Moon’s pathological philosophy. Two of those books specifically defend Moon’s criminality and anti-democratic worldview and attribute criticism of Moon’s predation to racism and bigotry. I will discuss each of these Regnery books, starting with the two books that specifically defend Moon's indefensible behavior and outlook.

1) To Bigotry, No Sanction: Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church by Mose Durst. Then-president of the Unification Church Mose Durst wrote this apologia of Moon and the Unification movement and blamed Moon's unpopularity with Americans to racism and bigotry. These charges of racism and xenophobia are not only an example of blaming America first but they are particularly ironic since Moon's Washington Times has been a repository for white supremist and neo-Confederate thought.

Quick aside: It's revealing that Regnery's anti-Obama author David Freddroso is a contributor to William F. Buckley's National Review. The back of the dust jacket of Durst's book has an endorsement by William Rusher, then-publisher of National Review (as I noted, the popular narrative about Buckley and NR marginalizing crackpots and extremists from the American conservative movement is a crock).

2) Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon by Carlton Sherwood. When Moon was sent to prison for tax fraud and conspiracy, Sherwood served as Moon's primary literary apologist. The main premise of Sherwood's book was that Moon was railroaded because of racial and religious bigotry. Sherwood claimed that he wrote the book independent of Moon or the Unification Church but a PBS Frontline documentary found that unification Church officials reviewed and edited Sherwood's manuscript (Quick note: I confronted Fox News Democrat Tammy Bruce about Sherwood's dishonesty on her radio show--friends have told me that the transcript is priceless).

It should be no surprise that during the 2004 election, Sherwood produced the anti-Kerry film Stolen Honor--a film that contained many misrepresentations and libels.

3) At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election by Bill Sammon.
Sammon, an operative for Moon's Washington Times, wrote this apologia for the Bush campaign. This is hardly surprising since the Bush and Moon families are very close and there has been a history of Moon's Times doing dirty work for the Bush family. Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler uncovered blatant examples of journalistic misconduct by Sammon (I addressed this in an article for American Politics Journal).

4) Icons of Evolution and 5) The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design both by Jonathan Wells.
Wells, a well-known proponent of the form of creationism known as intelligent design, is one of Moon's most fanatical member of Moon's shock troops. Wells' motivation for his embrace of creationist pseudo-science is his devotion to his "father," the Reverend Moon (note the warlike language):

Father’s words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.

Regnery Publishing's Bizarro World
In Regnery Publishing's bizarro world, true patriots like Kerry and Obama are deserving of denigration while a deranged megalomaniac like Moon is praised. This should be a news story but isn't

Sun Myung Moon Underestimated Once Again

I got a chance to check out Allan J. Lichtman's new book White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement. Overall, it is a very solid book and I recommend it. There is one significant flaw: Lichtman underestimated Sun Myung Moon's influence. Here's Lichtman's take on Moon:

From 1971 through the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Unification Church built by far the most expansive and expensive anticommunist network in he history of the Cold War. The church likely spent more than a billion dollars on its political and related enterprises during those years. The decline of the red menace in the 1990's, however, diminished the appeal of Moon's political activities in the United States.

Actually, Moon most likely spent a lot more than a billion dollars during that period on various political activities. However, the most glaring flaw in the passage is that Moon's influence and appeal was in decline after the end of the Cold War. If anything, Moon has been amping things up since the late 1980's--as this blog and other sources have documented. Nevertheless, overall Lichtman's book is a good read and I reccommend it.

Addendum: Lichtman defends the book against critics on the right.

Moon-backed Global Peace Festival in Washington

Here's the flyer for the Moon-backed gathering. The festival has gospel music; the featured artist is Yolanda Adams.

Two Moon-related Deaths

Tony Snow and Patricia Buckley Bozell, two operatives who had close ties with Sun Myung Moon and his media operation have recently died. Snow, who was recently press secretary for George W. Bush, was the editorial page editor of Moon's Washington Times from 1987 to 1991. Bozell had been an editor at Regnery Publishing. She was had an instrumental in the publication of Regnery's apologia for Moon, Inquisition (authored by Carlton Sherwood). She was the mother of L. Brent Bozell, the head of the Media Research Center. I wrote a long post on the Bozell family.

Moonies Censor Bush/Holy Wine YouTube Video

In March, I posted a video on YouTube of Unification Church president Michael Jenkins explaining to church members how he got former president Bush to participate in the church's creepy "Holy Wine" ceremony. As I explained in the post for the video:

The meaning of the Holy Wine Ceremony: According to Moon's theology, those who participate in this ceremony become part of Moon's "blessed family," giving the recipient what Moonies believe is a pure, untainted "lineage." In Unification theology, "lineage" is a central concept. Moon believes that Adam and Eve were perfected beings whose lineage was corrupted by Eve's sexual seduction by Lucifer. Since the Fall, humanity's blood line has been corrupted. Moon believes that Jesus emerged to save humanity but failed because he was crucified before he could fulfill his mission to marry and produce perfect children. Moon believes that he is the second Messiah who will restore humanity to its uncorrupted state and create the kingdom of heaven on earth. Drinking the church-sanctioned wine is part of the process of becoming, in Jenkin's words, "engrafted into the lineage of Heaven" by separating from Satan's lineage and becoming one of Moon's "blessed families"--the "chosen people" that Jenkins mentions near the end of the video. As Moon himself claims, as a consequence of participating in the Holy Wine Ceremony, "[y]ou are going to be in ultimate infinite faith to God, to True Parents [Rev. Moon and his wife], grateful to them and obedient to their will."

When I checked my e-mail this morning, I received an e-mail from YouTube with the subject heading, "Video Removed: Copyright Infringement." When I opened the email, I received the following message:

Dear Member:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity claiming that this material is infringing:

George Bush and the Moonie Cult's "Holy Wine" Ceremony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkq44UTt5pI

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to prevent this from happening, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

If you elect to send us a counter notice, please go to our Help Center to access the instructions.

Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification may be subject to liability.

Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.

The location where the video used to be informs people that "[t]he video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity."

When I posted the video, I did not edit it for the following reasons:
1) At that time, I didn't have easy access to editing equipment.
2) I wanted to include the entirety of the video I had so that viewers could draw their own conclusions.

In the near future, I will take portions of the videos and edit them with an explanation of the holy wine ceremony. If the Unification Church attempts to take the video down due to an alleged copyright infringement, I believe I have a strong case for fair use of video excerpts.

The video in question was not intended to be viewed by non-Moonies. Because I and others posted it, the video has been an embarrassment to Moon, the Unification movement, and especially to former president Bush. One way to counter the Unifications movement's actions is to publicize the deleting of the video and create the "Streisand Effect."

Addendum: It is revealing that since I quoted Moon's words regarding how participating in the holy wine ceremony makes a person "obedient to [the] will" of the True Parents, the Unification Church removed the sermon from their web site containing the quote. When I clicked the original link to the sermon on the church's web site, I discovered that it is now a dead link.

The Moonies Removed My YouTube Video!

More later today.

The Case Against Deprogramming

I just finished watching the 1999 film Holy Smoke. It is a flawed but thought-provoking film in which a young Australian woman played by Kate Blanchett falls under the spell of a quasi-Hindu religious leader while traveling in India. Her family in Australia has her abducted and held by an American "exit counselor" played by Harvey Keitel. Sun Myung Moon and his wife Hak Ja Han make cameo appearences in the film; Keitel's character shows the family a video about destructive religious groups--the video shows a montage of footage of the Manson family, Marshall Applewhite and Heaven's Gate, Jim Jones' Peoples' Temple, and the Branch Davidians; it also shows footage of Moon and his wife at a mass marriage ceremony.

People ask me what I think about deprogramming. I am strongly opposed to the practice. Abducting people is a serious felony and it is also morally wrong. While I feel for people trapped in Moon's destructive religion, I also believe that adults have the right to be wrong. While I disagree with aspects of the book, Bromley and Shupe's Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare has an informative chapter on the deprogramming controversy which was particularly salient in the 1970's. Prosecution against reprogrammers have put many of them out of business or have made them resort to legal tactics.

What should people do when a loved one joins a destructive group. One legal, ethical, and effective tactic was used by the family of Cathryn Mazer, a NYU student who was lured into Moon's cult in the early 1990's. The family went to the media and staged vigils outside of apartment in which Cathryn was living with other Unification Church members. The footage was used on NBC's Today Show. this led to a lot of bad publicity for Moon's group and it put enough pressure on the Unification Church that it allowed Cathyn's family to speak with her and persuade her to leave the church. For more on this story, check out the BBC video Emperor of the Universe.

5000 Plays

My YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult" has just reached the 5000 mark. That's not out of the stratosphere but it's not bad.

Help to spread the video in any way you can whther it's watching it, e-mailing it to a friend or member of the media, or by mentioning it on an Internet forum. Thanks in advance.

Video: The World's Most Powerful Cult

I'm traveling right now and posting will be light for a while. In the meantime, check out my video "The World's Most Powerful Cult":

Who's the Miserable Creature? A Tale of Two Latter-day Political Conversions

In the wake of the too-little-too-late regrets by Scott McClellan over the Bush administration's pervasive mendacity, former senator Bob Dole ripped the Bush's former press secretary calling him a "miserable" creature. Dole blasted McClellan for his political conversion, accusing McClellan of betraying his ideals for a quick buck:

"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues. No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique."

Projection, anyone? There are a valid criticism of McClellan's change of heart about the Bush administration (e.g., why did he wait so long). Betraying his ideals is not one of them. When McClellan was a mouthpiece for Bush, Rove, and company, he had no ideals: he was a soulless hack. McClellan's confessions, years after the fact, are far from heroic, but at least he is coming clean about his past.

The same can't be said about another political conversion--that of Bob Dole regarding Sun Myung Moon. In the mid-1970's, Dole was an ambitious member of the U.S. Senate who had eyes on the White House. He held informal congressional hearings in 1976 and 1979 on the subject of new religious movements. New religious movements were a hot topic in the 1970's because a small but significant number of mostly college-aged middle class Americans were joining groups such as ISKCON, the Children of God, Eckankar and, of course, Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. The focus of the Dole's hearings was Sun Myung Moon and Dole was not a fan of the self-proclaimed Messiah. Dole used every opportunity in the hearing to slam Moon and allowed many of Moon's victims to speak out about their victimization. Carleton Sherwood, a Moon defender and harsh critic of the hearings, lagely credits Dole for being responsible for the later investigations of Moon that led to his conviction and imprisonment for tax fraud and conspiracy.

It doesn't take a cynic to suspect that Dole didn't give a flying fuck about Moon's victims. It didn't take a lot of political courage to stand against Moon. It wasn't as if there were a lot of Americans who supported the Unification movement. The findings of 1977 Gallup poll found that Moon "elicited one of the most overwhelmingly negative responses ever reported by a major poll."

Dole's recent thawing of hostility toward his former enemy also raises questions. Since Moon has become a major funder of Republican and reactionary causes, Dole hasn't said a word against Moon. Dole has even attended at least one Moon-sponsored event, a Washington prayer breakfast. Dole is the last one to scold anyone about cashing in on a political change of heart.

The Houston Chronicle Addresses Bush the Elder and "Holy Wine"

Rick Casey "Did Bush sip Moon's 'holy wine'?" Here's the video I posted on YouTube showing top Moon operative Michael Jenkins crow about the Bush/Wine coup:

The Reverend Sun Myung Moon's MySpace Page

Check it out before it gets shut down.

Shadow Elites And Religion: Sun Myung Moon

Paul Rosenberg of Open Left has a long post on Moon.

George H. W. Bush Appears at Recent Moonie Summit

Lou of Talk To Action has the details about Bush's appearance at the Americas Summit held from April 28 to May 2 in Washington:

Sun Myung Moon's end time political front, the Universal Peace Federation had a summit from April 28 to May 2 in Washington DC. The participants took a tour of the Moon owned Washington Times and chartered a plane to go visit George H. W. Bush's library. Once again, George 41 gave a keynote address in support of Moon's efforts.

John Solomon, the new executive editor of the Washington Times who told C-span viewers recently that the paper does not push Moon's agenda, made an appearance at one function apparently hosted by the paper. (see slide show link below)

Brent Scowcroft and former congressman Earl Hillard also showed up to help Moon subdue the planet.

The Universal Peace Federation (UPF) is the Unification Church as Moon intended it to be. The reason his was a "religion" was for tax and First Amendment purposes it appears to me.

Here's how Steve Hassan described it:

In the 70s [Moon] was saying that democracy was evil, Americans were lazy, the Koreans are the master race. [In] fact he believes that when he takes over the world, which is his espoused goal, there'll be a theocracy which will rule with himself and other leaders. All other religions will be abolished. The only language spoken will be Korean. I mean this man is a demagogue who doesn't believe in pro family values, that's just a hoax. What he believes is he is the True Parents of mankind and his group and the people who have been - quote "blessed" unquote - by him are now "the family." Everyone else is in Satan's world. [Steve Hassan - Greater Boston - WGBH Boston - Dec. 1, 1997 ]

Moon's plan has always been to create a world wide political front made up of people who take their direction from his organization. The UPF is the culmination of Moon's grand plan to control the direction of world events.

IT IS WORKING!

Yes, Moon is on schedule to be the last to laugh.

You may not understand why this is important; you may still be under the illusion that Moon is a clown. But I ask you to look and keep looking until you see.

From the UPF webpage: (photo of Bush at link)

In his keynote address, the 41st President agreed. "This is not the time for America to be turning inward," he said. "The United States needs to stand up and work for peace in the world, especially in the neighborhood of nations near to home. It is a matter of conscience, not just a concept. The challenges are more complex and more compelling than they were in the past, but they are so important we cannot afford to get them wrong. We need better solutions for issues like poverty and immigration and make sure that the successes of the past in the fight against drugs are not lost."

"However, too many citizens these days are becoming disengaged at a time when we need more involvement, more debate, and more foreign exchanges," he said. "That's why the work of the Universal Peace Federation and The Washington Times is so important, and I thank Rev. Moon and salute all of you for coming here to address these urgent issues."

From Moon's address:

"We are entering into a new and hopeful time," said Rev. Moon in his remarks, "And all of us are being called - whether we know it or not - to bring our best efforts to bear on creating a new culture of peace, centered on the ideal of one family under God." He went on to describe a vision of a future world where some of the weaknesses of democracy, and in particular the wasted efforts of extreme partisanship, [partisanship in America helped along by Moon's media] can be relieved by the involvement of elder statesmen as senior advisers. [Read: Moon's Ambassadors for Peace who study Moon's ideology. Moon preacher Michael Jenkins said the Ambassadors for Peace were created "to be True Parent's representatives to govern the world."]

"We believe that groups of political, religious and community leaders such as these working together in new partnerships hold the key to lasting peace," said Dr. Thomas Walsh, the UPF Secretary General. [and long time Moon follower]

Read the entire post.

New Blog Featuring Videos About Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Movement

I wanted to create a website that serves as a one-stop hub for informative and critical videos about Sun Myung Moon and the Unification movement. I created this video blog for this purpose. I will add new videos soon.

Must Read: Robert Parry on The Right's America-Hating Preacher, Sun Myung Moon

Every American should read Parry's latest article on the American right's love affair with Reverend Moon:

The Right's America-Hating Preacher
One of the advantages that the American Right has achieved from investing tens of billions of dollars in media – from talk radio and cable TV, to print and the Internet – is the ability to define what is and what isn’t a "scandal," a powerful factor in determining who wins national elections.

By comparison, American progressives have short-changed their own investments in media. The disparity leads to the spectacle of Democratic presidential candidates submitting to questioning on Fox News while no one would expect a Republican leader to undergo interrogation from, say, the Daily Kos.

On another level, this media imbalance has propelled the rantings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into the category of big news, effectively altering the course of Campaign 2008 by associating Barack Obama with his ex-pastor’s harsh – and at times over-the-top – criticism of the U.S. government.

However, it’s not news that a viciously anti-American religious figure has invested billions of dollars in financing the U.S. conservative movement and put fat wads of cash into the pockets of many prominent Republicans, including members of President George W. Bush’s own family.

While Sen. Obama has to explain what he knew and when he knew it about Wright’s angry sermons, the Bush Family floats above its financial and political associations with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a South Korean theocrat who had denounced the United States as “Satan’s harvest” and likened American women to “prostitutes.”

In his angry sermons, Moon has gone further than saying “God-damn America” – as Wright did – to vowing to sweep aside American democracy and individualism as he builds a one-world state.

Read the rest of Parry's article

Anti-Catholic Preacher John Hagee Praises Pope In Washington Times

John Hagee--whom I have written about previously (click here, and here)--is an anti-Catholic and apocalyptic fundamentalist preacher from San Antonio. When John McCain sought and received Hagee's endorsement in February, bloggers noted Hagee's inflammatory End Times theology, his anti-Catholic rhetoric, his blaming Hurricane Katrina on gays, and his controversial views about Jews.

In tomorrow morning's Washington Times, Hagee has a column praising Pop Benedict for his recent visit to the United States.

Life in The Unification Theological Seminary (UTS)

In the March issues of First Things, K. Gordon Neufeld, former Unification Church member and author of In Heartbreak and Rage: Ten Years Under Sun Myung Moon, a Cult Survivor's Memoir, discusses his experiences at Moon's Unification Theological Seminary.

Poisoning Young Minds: Miami University of Ohio Honors Discredited Former Moon Operative

(Updated below)
In 2007, the student leadership program for my alma mater, Miami University hosted a lecture given by Bill Sammon, who had worked for Sun Myung Moon as an operative for The Washington Times (currently Sammon is employed by The Washington Examiner).

When Sammon was at the Moon's Times, he covered the 2000 presidential contest. It was during this campaign that Bob Somerby of media blog The Daily Howler uncovered two egregious cases of journalistic misconduct. First, Somerby uncovered Sammon's attempt to manufacture an Al Gore scandal that he dubbed "floodgate" (Eric Boehlert gave a succinct explanation of the phony scandal in Rolling Stone). After the election, Sammon wrote a book chronicling the Florida ballot controversy titled At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election. Somerby caught Sammon red-handed systematically distorting a Washington Post article in order to libel Gore (I summarized Sammon's libel and discussed its larger implications for the American Politics Journal).

I addressed the Washington Times in a broader context in my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult." Sammon and the Washington Times represents a mutant strain of pseudo-journalism that constitutes an assault on genuine journalism. Why was Sammon invited? My American Politics article and two of Somerby's articles detailing Sammon's misconduct (click here and here) turn up in the top ten sites for a A Google search of "Bill Sammon." Miami University students were ill-served by having someone of Sammon's ilk lecture them about leadership.

UPDATE: Miami University's has a friendly rivalry with another state university in Ohio: Ohio University (I also viewed it as the snobs (Miami) versus the slobs (Ohio University). As luck would have it, i just found out that Ohio University is rededicating the student radio and TV newsroom in honor of Fox News' chief operative Roger Ailes. As a poster on Democratic Underground noted, "What is next: the Leni Riefenstahl school of film?"

An Open Letter to the Members of the Anti-Scientology Movement Known as Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

I applaud your efforts to counter the Church of Scientology. I share your view that Scientology is a pseudo-scientific rip-off and a dangerous cult that exploits its members and discourages people with mental health problems from seeking proper medical care. I would like to compliment members how members of your movement have creatively used your abilities to oppose this pernicious movement.

I am involved in the fight against another destructive group that ruins lives: Sun Myung Moon's Unification Movement. In case you are not familiar with Moon and his organization, my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult" succinctly shows what anti-Unification activists are fighting (you will probably notice that the video is styled after the video "The Un-Funny Truth about Scientology").

I don't think it would be constructive for me to make the argument that Moon's cult is worse than Scientology because both are predatory organizations that destroy lives. However, there are a couple of important distinctions between Scientology and the Unification movement:

• Although there are some highly publicized attempts by the Church of Scientology to use the power of the government for its purposes (namely Operation Snow White), the Unification movement has spent billions to influence the U.S. government to influence the U.S. government to achieve its dominionist and reactionary political agenda. Moon's activities in the political sphere affect us all.


• While the fight against Scientology is being undertaken by many people, the opposition to the Unification movement, though dedicated and scrappy, is relatively small and it has few resources.

That why I am asking that some of you devote some of your time and energy to fight the Unification movement. Any help you can provide--whether it is in the form of suggestions, web sites, YouTube videos, or publicity--would be welcome. Thank you.

Sincerely,

S

Regime Change in the Unification Movement: Hyung Jin Moon Replaces Sun Myung Moon as Leader of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification

(Updated below)
The French global news agency, Agence France-Presse reports that there has been a change in leadership in the Unification movement: Hyung Jin Moon, the 28 year-old son of Sun Myung Moon has taken over as the Chairman of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU). The official announcement from the FFWPU web page confirms the news report:

During Hoondokhwae on April 16 at Cheon Jeong Gung, True Parents appointed Rev. Hyung Jin Moon as International President of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU). Regional presidents, national leaders and other leaders should do their best in working together with the new international president in substantially completing the settlement of Cheon Il Guk.

I think this is an unusual development. I, like many people, thought that Hyun Jin "Preston" Moon would be taking over the family business. According to Wikipedia, Hyung Jin Moon "shaved his head and wore the gray robes of a monk." He is the author of A Bald Head and a Strawberry (click here to view the book's web site--it's freaky).

UPDATE: I spoke with a trusted confidante who assured me that even though Hyung Jin Moon is the head of the FFFWPU, that doesn't mean that Sun Myung Moon won't still be calling the shots or that Preston Moon is not in line to take over the political arm of the Unification movement. One thing I know about the Unification movement is that outward appearances can be deceiving.

Birds of a Feather: Warren Jeffs and Sun Myung Moon

With all of the news coverage of the raids conducted at the compound of Warren Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I thought it would be good to remind people of the similarities between Jeffs and Sun Myung Moon. Here's a post I wrote after Jeffs' capture.

Sun Myung Moon in the Media

Listen to John Gorenfeld discuss his new book Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created The Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom on "The Spirit of Things" with Rachel Kohn.

Also, here is a YouTube video of a segment of the Canadian television program Test of Faith with Valerie Pringle. The subject of the program is new religious movements. The Reverend Phillip Schanker is on the panel representing the Unification Church. Stephen Kent, a sociology professor at the University of Alberta, discusses how Sun Myung Moon has been less than a "perfect" parent and has enriched himself at the expense of his followers. Schanker's retort compares Moon to Mahatma Gandhi and he extols Moon's "sacrificial and committed life." Schanker also discusses his own marriage that was arranged by Moon.

Another Under-The-Radar Attempt to Gain Credibility

Ed Brayton of the Michigan Messenger has the details.

Moonie Cola?

Sun Myung Moon has his fingers in a lot of pies. One of Moon's business fronts is the McCol Beverage Factory, the maker of the popular South Korean barley-based soft drink McCol. According to a blogger at the Daily Kimchi, McCol tastes "like Coke/Pepsi, but less [sweet] and with a taste of barley as the finisher."

Hmmm. . .

I noticed on my Statcounter stats page today that someone from the U.S. State Department spent almost a half hour on my post on the heir apparent to the Unification empire, Hyun Jin "Preston" Moon after he/she did a Google search of "Preston Moon."

Chung Hwan Kwak and George W. Bush

One of the top leaders of the Unification movement who has not been given enough attention on this blog is Sun Myung Moon's right hand man, Chung Hwan Kwak. John Gorenfeld has a revealing post on the ruthless Svengeli. Like Moon, Kwak is an unrepentant anti-Semite whose theodicy of the Holocaust holds that the victims had nobody to blame but themselves. The post also gives the details of how Kwak dealt with Moon's previous top aide Bo Hi Pak: Kwak set up Pak for a brutal ritual beating from "the Black Heung Jin Nim," a Zimbabwean named Cleophas whom Moonies claimed to be the channel for the spirit of Moon's deceased son.

Members of the Bush family have assiduously avoided being photographed with the politically radioactive Moon but they have allowed themselves to be photographed with Moon's closest surrogates. The post includes a photo of Kwak with Bush, Cheney and their wives. Will the mainstream media report on this? Don't hold your breath.

Thanks

Since I let people know about my new YouTube video on Sun Myung Moon last Wednesday, about 1000 people have viewed the video. Moon has billions of dollars of ill-gotten money to line the pockets of politicians and members of the mainstream media. Critics of the Unification movement have considerably fewer financial resources than Moon (to say the least). However, we have the truth so it's a fair fight.

You can help out by doing one of the following things:
1. E-mail the video to friends, associates, and people whom you think might be interested in the content. You can either use your email account to send people the URL of the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAAgzAL7QBw) or you can go to the video and use YouTube's "Share" function A(right below the video screen).
2. Counter the Unification Church's YouTube ratings manipulation by getting a free YouTube account and giving the video a good rating(I broke the story on the Unification Church's efforts to game the YouTube ratings system). What this does is to push this video closer to the top of a keyword search for information on the Unification Church on YouTube.
3. If you have a web site or blog, please link to it.
4. Place the URL on a bulletin board or discussion group

Thanks in advance.

Reverend Moon and the GOP

DarkSyde at The Daily Kos writes about Sun Myung Moon's connections with the Republican Party and the conservative movement, including mention of John McCain's senior adviser Charlie Black, one of the organizers of the infamous 2004 Moon coronation at the Dirksen Senate Office Building. More on Black here.

UPDATE: Desert Beacon has more.

More on "The World's Most Powerful Cult"

Over the next few days, I will provide full references for my new YouTube video on Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church.

The World's Most Powerful Cult

Hillary Clinton's Campaign and Sun Myung Moon's Media Apparatus

I have a long post on my personal blog that addresses how the Hillary Clinton's campaign has made a deal with the devil by according legitimacy to fringe media outlets, including Moon's organizations.

The Washington Times and the Clinton "Black Love Child" Rumor

I was doing some research for a post on my personal blog and came across a Daily Howler post about Washington Times emeritus editor Wesley Pruden's role in the spreading of the rumor that Bill Clinton had a black love child.

The Pure Love Studies Major at Sun Moon University

The role of colleges and universities is to encourage intellectual growth as well as teaching job skills and academic disciplines. Total ideologies, because they are closed systems of thought, impede creativity and seek to create and maintain followers. Thus, the goals of true institutions of higher learning are at extreme odds with authoritarian groups. This is why colleges and universities run by absolutists are viewed with disdain by serious scholars (e.g., to no surprise, Pat Robertson's Regent University law school is viewed as "tier four").

I have written about Moon's financial support for the University of Bridgeport and Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. I knew a little bit about Moon's colleges in South Korea. It was only today that I learned that the Unification-owned Sun Moon University in South Korea has two campuses "catering to more than 8,500 undergraduate students and 500 postgraduate students."

I'm not familiar with Sun Moon University's reputation as an institution of higher learning but one thing I learned is that one can major in "Pure Love Studies." In Unification theology, "pure love" between men and women is a necessary precondition for the establishment of an uncorrupted lineage of Moon couples who will become the vanguard of a forthcoming Perfect World. To become a student in the Department of Pure Love (yes, that's what they call it), one has to be admitted to the university and pay between $7500 and $10000 in tuition A Unificatonist explains the process of being a Pure Love major:

In 1999, he established the first Pure Love Studies Major at Sun Moon University. It is not only to educate the youth about the values of purity, but to help them actualize a culture of pure love, so they can make a world where people can live a life of pure love. The students are also nurtured to become leaders who can spread these values and messages and to help educate and guide world leaders in this endeavor.

In order to do this, it first guides the students to substantiate these values by helping them realize the importance of a life of purity. They also receive training and practice throughout their 4 years of study. After graduating, they will go overseas and become Pure Love Missionaries for 4 years, educating and spreading its message and also assist Peace Ambassadors to help realize a world of peace where true love can be actualized.

In a world where self-individualism is becoming rampant, the message of purity hasn't always been received with great fanfare. Mishuku Nikkuni, a senior in pure love studies, admitted, "Sometimes it's hard because not everyone agrees with our thought. Of course there are those that oppose us like lesbians and extreme feminists."

Addendum: Moon originally had grand plans for higher education in the United States. In the Fraser Committee's report, Moon is quoted as saying, "Once we can control two or three universities, then we will be on the way to controlling the certification for the major professions in the United States."

Reverend Moon and America

Ishmael Reed in CounterPunch:

And if that weren't enough, On Saturday, C-Span's guest was Donald Lambro, The Washington Times' chief political correspondence who joined in the media's running loop devoted to criticizing Obama's relationship with his pastor [Jeremiah Wright]. The Friday before, Diana West, a reporter for the same paper, appearing on the Lou Dobbs show, criticized Michelle Obama and Rev. Wright for their "anti-Americanism," and quoted Victor Davis Hanson a far right columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. Their boss is Rev. Sun Myung Moon who warns Korean widows that their husbands will go to hell if they don't give him money. If, for them, Obama should disown Rev. Wright, why are they still working for a religious shakedown artist? Why don't they step away from Rev. Moon's anti-Americanism reported by Robert Parry of consortiumnews: Moon's jingle of deep-pocket cash also has caused conservatives to turn a deaf ear toward Moon's recent anti-American diatribes. With growing virulence, Moon has denounced the United States and its democratic principles, often referring to America as "Satanic." But these statements have gone virtually unreported, even though the texts of his sermons are carried on the Internet and their timing has coincided with Bush's warm endorsements of Moon.

"America has become the kingdom of individualism, and its people are individualists," Moon preached in Tarrytown, N. Y., on March 5, 1995. "You must realize that America has become the kingdom of Satan."

In similar remarks to followers on Aug. 4, 1996, Moon vowed that the church's eventual dominance over the United States would be followed by the liquidation of American individualism."Americans who continue to maintain their privacy and extreme individualism are foolish people," Moon declared."The world will reject Americans who continue to be so foolish. Once you have this great power of love, which is big enough to swallow entire America, there may be some individuals who complain inside your stomach. However, they will be digested."

During the same sermon, Moon decried assertive American women."American women have the tendency to consider that women are in the subject position," he said. "However, woman's shape is like that of a receptacle. The concave shape is a receiving shape. Whereas, the convex shape symbolizes giving. . . . Since man contains the seed of life, he should plant it in the deepest place.

"Does woman contain the seed of life? ["No."] Absolutely not. Then if you desire to receive the seed of life, you have to become an absolute object. In order to qualify as an absolute object, you need to demonstrate absolute faith, love and obedience to your subject. Absolute obedience means that you have to negate yourself 100 percent."

Diana West and Donald Lambro are applying a double standard for their boss and for Rev. Wright.

John Gorenfeld's The King of America Video

Check it out here. It's great.

Must Read

John Gorenfeld on Jeremiah Wright Versus Sun Myung Moon

The Washington Times and the 1992 Passport Scandal

In light of the recent unauthorized accessing of Senator Barack Obama's passport files, Robert Parry reminds us of another passport files scandal that arose during the 1992 presidential campaign. Operatives for then-president George H. W. Bush illegally examined Democratic candidate Bill Clinton's passport file and ham-handedly tried to red-bait Clinton with the innuendo that he had been a "KGB agent of influence." To no surprise, Moon's Washington Times did what it could to turn these baseless accusations into a campaign issue. What I found incredible about the whole episode was the Kafkaesque line of reasoning used by Moon's Times and the Bush campaign: that the lack of anything incriminating in Clinton's passport file was itself proof that a Clinton supporter had removed incriminating evidence. This time, the dirty trick backfired (though fortunately for the Bush administration, Joseph diGenova was named special prosecutor to investigate any possible wrongdoing by the Bush administration; diGenova's wife Victoria Toensing did the current Bush administration's bidding in the congressional hearings that looked into the outing of Valerie Plame).

Addendum--Dirty Tricks by the Washington Times During Presidential Campaigns: In 1988, Times' editor-in-chief Wes Pruden used the paper to spread the unfounded rumor that Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis has received psychiatric treatment (then-president Reagan remarked soon after the story appeared that he wasn't going "to pick on an invalid" . . . During the 2000 campaign, Times reporter Bill Sammon concocted the phony "Floodgate" charges against candidate Al Gore (In his book on the election, Sammon doctored newspaper reports to intentionally misrepresent Gore's actions during the Florida recount) . . . The Washington Times' sister publication Insight first spread the rumor that Barack Obama is a Muslim who was schooled in a madrassa . . . It's a minor synchronicity that Parry wrote the article. I did the YouTube video that is currently being edited that addresses the Times' McCarthyite tactics. I hope to have the video online soon.

Opposing Racial and Religious Bigotry

On my personal blog, I have a post that deals with the problem of racial and religious bigotry. The post addresses the irony that many of those who fight against the bigotry of the sectarian right are themselves accused of being bigots. The post also touches upon the Unification movement.

The leadership of the Unification Church has been at the forefront of tarring opponents as religious bigots and racists--this strategy was employed when Moon was brought up on charges of income tax fraud and conspiracy. The theme of then-Unification Church president Mose Durst's 1984 book To Bigotry, No Sanction: Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church was that the United States prosecuted Moon because of its legacy of racism and religious intolerance.

The Web Vs. Cults: The Cults are Losing

A while ago, I did a post on why the Internet is the bane of totalistic movements. I gave examples of three destructive organizations (Scientology, Amway Global, and the Unification movement) that have had a difficult time adjusting to a populace that free access to information at the click of a mouse. John Cook of Radar magazine has a article on the anti-Scientology group Anonymous and their use of conventional protests along with computer-based tactics to put the Church of Scientology on the defensive.

Addendum: Radar magazine interviewed me for its 2007 article on Oscars crashers (I'm mentioned on the second and third pages of the article).