Hurray for Dan F, just hope wherever he lands appreciates him.

WRT 133 C Street article: how cute that they managed to scrape up 2 Dem residents! (and isn’t Mike Doyle a new name?)

Another jarring note — what’s with this Richard Carver disavowing any knowledge of the registered owner of the property? and then sorta-kinda saying ’somebody’ told him ‘no comment’? He’s the Pres of the Fellowship Foundation, which he said is “affiliated” with the house, and he’s got nothing on the org that legally owns it?

According to Ackerman, release of the IG report on torture has now been delayed until Jul 1st. (Apologies if already linked.)

http://washingtonindependent.c…..ayed-again

several posts back, mad dog pointed me to an article about “the family” in harpers by jeff sharlet.

i read the article.

i can’t say the group sounds all that alarming in terms of their specific political agenda.

but in terms of their uses and ends of spirituality, the current head, doug coe, with his emphasis on all personalities merging into one, sounds a lot like another jim jones, another david koresh, another religious despot…, just less charismatic, more low key.

i learned that the original founder of the group (in the 1930’s) had a strong affinity for hitler and that “the family” has maintained a fondness for a number of despots around the globe – very international don’t you know.

i’d rate the federalist society and the chamber of commerce, as greater current threats to our particular brand of democracy. oh, and media corporations who will not do persistent, serious reporting.

Watching the pathetic attempts by republicans and conservatives to spin out of the ever widening revelation of their holier than thou hypocrisy and watching the ever quickening swirl of their entire philosophy and world view down the toilet of history is extremely gratifying to me. In fact it is the best thing to happen in American politics since LBJ enacted civil rights legislation. Maybe even since Lincoln freed the slaves.

Don’t analyze the Sanford-King David thing too closely.

What Sanford is saying is genuine, top shelf, Family-speak.

Look back to 2003’s “Meet The Family” article and interview with Jeff Sharlet
http://www.alternet.org/story/16167?page=4

Sharlett: But at the upper levels (of the Family) there is this weird emphasis on the Old Testament. It’s in the story, they talk about King David, who in some ways was a really bad guy. They are really interested in the biblical concept that whether you are good or bad it doesn’t matter, what matters is whether you are chosen. That’s part of the Hitler Concept. It doesn’t matter whether Hitler was good or bad, Hitler was chosen for leadership. That was part of God’s plan. Nothing happens that isn’t part of God’s plan.

Just out of curiosity, is “C Street” “The Cedars” or another place?

At the heart of The Family’s American branch is a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe and Rick Santorum. They get to use The Family’s spacious estate on the Potomac, The Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by The Family’s young women’s group.

same link as in my earlier comment.

Yes, anyone wanting to get to the heart of “The Family” needs to get a copy of Jeff Sharlet, and settle down for a careful read.

I’ve known about this outfit since I was a kid — a small piece of the story was the “cause” behind something my youthful father did back in the 1930’s, when he organized a loud and provocative demonstration against Frank Buchman at the Mayflower Hotel in Akron Ohio about 1935. Sharlet covers Buchman and the Oxford Movement’s relationships back to that date with the groups that became “The Family” or “The Fellowship” — they have changed their name nearly every decade. Understanding the groups in the 1930’s requires one comprehend the fights to organize Labor during the depression, particularly the CIO. The Buchman Oxford Movement, The Family and the Fellowship — all of it is part of the “set” of anti-labor activity, is now and always has been. The money comes from Industralists who wish to deprive labor of the rights to organize — and as Sharlet points out in his book — much of the money for the organization is “off the books.”

My Daddy and his buddies in Akron in the 30’s, got together and broke up the public prayer meetings at the Mayflower Hotel that were organized by the Buchmanites, for the purpose of listening to the public confessions of Alcoholism by Harvey Firestone Jr — son of the founder of Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, (best friends with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford). This was at the same time (same week) that John L. Lewis was holding huge labor meetings every night — thousands in the Armory, thousands more in the street, supporting the workers who were conducting the first Sit-down Strike of that 30’s era. The Armory was about two short blocks from the Mayflower — so on one side of High Street you had thousands of very hungry and angry rubber workers suffering from 50% unemployment, wage cuts of about 40% over a year or two, and frequently less than ten hours work per week if they got any — and of course the speed-up. The workers were in thread-bare overalls, patched shoes — many didn’t have a winter coat.

The “prayer meetings” featured the “management” of the five Rubber Companies, and much of the rest of official Akron, the lawyers, the bankers, the department store owners and all — all dressed in Tux and evening dresses as if they were attending the opera and an afterparty, instead packing the Mayflower Ballroom, fixed up with flowers, flags, and a few odd pieces of classic plaster sculpture — all gathered to pray with Harvey Junior for the cause of getting off the bottle. The whole idea was to put forward the notion that what ailed the economy was poor Harvey’s alcoholism, and if he could be saved through public confession of his sins and weaknesses, the world would right itself.

Anyhow, my Daddy and his friends would go to those meetings — dressed appropriately, find places in the balcony, and at the proper moment in that sawdust trail upscale event, they would shout out. Sometimes they shouted bible verses that were appropriate (rich men going through the eye of a needle was an old standard) but they also had some good John L. Lewis lines too. They did it call and response, just like one might find in a good down home revival meeting. Then they would leave singing Labor Songs, and march up the hill to the Labor Rally. Since the Akron Newspapers were only covering the Buchman event, and did not send reporters to cover the thousands listening to John L. Lewis — it was a way of getting at least a mention in the news. You know, “about 50 well dressed young men questioned the authenticty of the Harvey Firstone’s conversion experience, raising the spiritual temperature, and then departed for a Labor Event.” It was colorful, and it caught on in some other cities when Buchman was brought in to try to defuse Union Talk.

By the way — after about a week of this, the upper crust finally decided to hold their spiritual events privately in their West Hill Mansions — and when Buchman left town, the same group was the seed of what became Alcoholics Anonymous. The Doctor, Bill W. who “founded” AA was part of the spiritual group around the Firestones. There are many common threads, particularly the notion of public confession. And oh yea, eventually old Harvey Firestone had to sign a Union Contract with Lewis’s CIO. His buddy Ford needed the tires for his cars — and for decades the default rubber on a Ford was a set of five Firestones. But that doesn’t mean they ever internalized the belief that Labor has a right to organize. Same types, now 75 years later, still fighting the good fight with their house prayer meetings on Capitol Hill not all that far from the AFL-CIO building in DC where the strategizing as to how to pass card-check is going on. Some things never change. I wish as I write this, that some creative folk would hold an alternative prayer meeting in the street at the C-Street House, shout out some of those old social gospel bible verses, sing the appropriate hymns that go with them, and maybe throw in a Solidarity Forever as the Benediction.

While the personalities fascinate in this — the real issue is about POWER. That is what the Family is all about. They are very much a branch of the evangelical movements interested in Theocracy put in service of business, industrial and financial interests.

Just an added little note. I noticed that Maria, Sanford’s beloved down in Argentina, worked for bunge y born. I have no idea what she did, but that company is one of about six International Grain Trading companies that dominate the world grain and other food-stuffs trade. They are all privately held, all very secretive, all vast International mega corporations. One of the books I’ve read on this is Dan Morgan’s “Merchants of Grain.” It was first published in 79, later released in Penguin Paperback — I suspect it is out of print, but if you can find it used — strong recommendation. Just as we need to comprehend the world Oil Markets, we also need to understand grain. I have no idea whether Sanford’s choice of beloved’s has anything to do with the company she works for — but just reviewing the stuff in Morgan’s book on bunge y born got my imagination all juiced up. “The Family” goes for relationships with companies like bunge y born, just as they go for relationships with blood soaked dictatorships. As I say, it really isn’t all that much about religion or personalities, it is about POWER.

An interesting irony here is that this building used to be owned by Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen outfit. I can remember going to a tax reform meeting here in the late 70’s — it definitely did not have people like Tom Coburn or John Ensign in it.

sara @70 –

another fascinating comment and so informative.

i really needed this perspective. after reading sharlett’s harper’s piece and his comments to scott horton, i simply did not come away with a feel that the power part was anything to worry about. my impression was that the the vague religiosity, political schmoozing, and casual organizing seemed harmless when it came to political specifics.

i would ask this question of you, sara:

i read about the power-loving nature of this group and about their fondness for dictators and a “theology” where all merge into one and the one rules, but i don’t note any specific political accomplishments they have had a hand in.

at this point i can’t decide if they are just slightly goofy political hangers-on being treated like a boogey-man by sharlett, et al

or

if, from time to time, they have made specific things happen not so good for the people or the nation.